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What the hell is a Bloom Filter?
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[For this and more posts, check my website https://diogodanielsoaresferreira.github.io]
Hi there!
In this post I will describe what is a Bloom Filter, its purpose and scenarios where it can be useful to use one. I will also implement a Bloom Filter from scratch in Python, for an easier understanding of its internals.
Goal of a Bloom Filter
A Bloom Filter is a data structure with the goal of checking if an element is NOT in a set in a fast way (for those who know Big O notation, the complexity of inserting and checking if an element belongs to a set using a Bloom Filter is O(1)). It can be very useful to prevent a computation-intensive task to be done often, simply by verifying if the element is definitely not in a set. It is important to understand that the Bloom Filter is a probabilistic data structure: it can tell you that an element is not in the dataset with 100% probability, but it cannot tell you that an element is in the set with 100% probability (false positives are possible). Let’s talk about scenarios where a Bloom Filter can be used, and later on you will understand why the Bloom Filter has these characteristics, with a detailed explanation of its internals and an implementation in Python!
A bloom filter is usually used before a search in a set with slower access. The number of searches in the set can be reduced, so as the overall search time.
Scenarios
Let’s think of some scenarios where such data structure can be useful to speed up the computation of some tasks. We can start by thinking in a router of a core network (those that you don’t have in your house :) ). It can be required for those routers to have an uplink speed of over 100 Gbit/s. The administrator can add a blacklist of IPs to block their access in the network. That means that everytime that the router receives a packet, at over 100 Gbit/s, it must look at his memory and perform, at best, a logarithmic search (O(log(n))) to check if the IP is blocked, knowing that most IPs are not blocked and that the search will not return any results for most packets. In this case, a Bloom Filter can be placed before the access to memory, to make sure that most packets do not need to wait the time of a search of an IP to be sent to the network.
Another scenario is the database example. When a database has millions of accesses per second, and most of the accesses are searches by a key that is not in the database, it can be important to reduce the impact of the calls on the database, for two reasons: if the number of searches is reduced, the database engine will reply faster to other accesses; if it is possible for a client to not wait for a search on the database and have the result (e.g. not in memory) without needing to access the database, the achieved speedup can be significant.
Finally, to speed up the search for a file in a folder with many files, the Bloom Filter can be used to check if the file is definitely not in the folder.
More typical scenarios of usage of a Bloom Filter can be found here.
What is a bloom filter?
Let’s use the first scenario to exemplify the construction of a Bloom Filter. Imagine that you blacklist 100 IP’s. The easiest way to mark if an IP was blacklisted or not is to create a list with 100 bits, each bit is one IP. If an IP is blacklisted, we mark the position of the IP as ‘1’, otherwise is ‘0’.
In this Bloom Filter, the IP number 4 is blacklisted and all other IP’s are not.
How many IP’s there are?
This implementation works… if only 100 IP’s are used. In reality, each IPv4 address has 32 bits, which means that there are 4 294 967 296 (2³²) possible addresses (some of them are reserved for private networks, broadcast, multicast and other special networks, but it is still a huge number)! And the number of blacklisted IPs will probably not exceed the hundreds, at maximum. We cannot afford to construct a list so large to use only a reduced number of entries. We have to find a mapping between an IP and an entry of a list. And that’s where hash functions come in!
Hash Function
A hash function is a function that transforms an input of arbitrary length into a fixed-size value. In that way, we can create an array with fixed size and calculate the output of a hash function given an IP, and it will always generate a number smaller or equal to the size of the array. The hash function is not random, which means that for the same input, the output will always be the same.
A hash function receives an input that can be any string (in this case, an IP) and calculates a numerical representation. In this case, the numerical representation will be the position of the Bloom Filter corresponding to the input.
But wait… Something is not right. Let’s go back to our scenario. Imagine that we blacklist 100 IP’s. How does the hash function maps our 100 IP’s from a possible 2³² IP’s to 100 different values without storing any information from them? The truth is that it doesn’t. There will be collisions. The hash function guarantees that each IP will have a unique mapping to a number, but since there can be 4 294 967 296 (2³²) possible IP’s, it’s impossible to map them all to 100 different values. All the hash function can guarantee is that it scrambles the bits of the input such that the output follows a uniform distribution. This means that if you change the input of the hash function from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.2, the output will probably be totally different, seemingly random (but not truly random, since each input will always map to the same output).
Example of a collision. Two different IP’s have the same hash, which means that their index in the Bloom Filter will be the same.
Alright, now from the beginning: we blacklist 100 IP’s. Each IP will go through the hash function, and the result of the hash function will return a number smaller or equal to the size of the array. That number will be the index of the array that marks if the IP was blacklisted or not. But there will be collisions, so how do we handle that?
Let’s suppose that the IP’s 178.23.12.63 and 112.64.90.12 have the same hash. The first IP was blacklisted, the second was not. When we check if the hash of the second IP is in the Bloom Filter, it is, even though the IP was never blacklisted. Does this mean we have a bug?
Remember that in the beginning I said that the Bloom Filter has the goal of checking if an element is NOT in a set. If the position of an element in the Bloom Filter is 0, that element is definitely NOT in the set. However, if the position of an element in the Bloom Filter is 1, that element may be in the set, or it may be just a collision. All we can do is to reduce the probability of a collision, to reduce the number of times that the a memory access is needed to check if the IP is really blacklisted.
Reducing the collision probability
There are two main ways of reducing the probability of a collision, both at a cost. One possibility is to increase the size of the array. If we increase the size of the array (and consequently make the hash function return a number smaller or the same size as the new array size), the possibility of collisions decreases. Specifically, the probability of a false positive (the Bloom Filter return 1 when the element is not in the set) is (1-e⁽ᵐ/ⁿ⁾), where m is the number of elements expected to insert in the filter and n is the size of the filter.
Other way to reduce the probability of a collision is to increase the number of hash functions. This means that in our scenario, for one IP, various hash functions will be used to encode that IP, and various locations in the array will be marked with 1. If we use k hash functions, the probability of a false positive is now (1-eᵐᵏ/ⁿ)ᵏ, which means that the optimal number of hash functions is (n/m)*ln(2) (more details about the equations here).
Example of a bloom filter with two hash functions. There is a collision in one of the hashes of the IP’s, but it is possible to check that the IP 112.64.90.12 is not in the set, because one of its Bloom Filter positions is not 1.
Let’s implement a Bloom Filter in Python in just around 50 lines of code and see the result!
In the next snippet of code, let’s start by creating a BloomFilter class. The constructor receives the size of the Bloom Filter and, optionally, the number of expected elements that the bloom filter will store. We will use the bitarray library to create an array of bits, and we set them all to zero. Finally, we set the number of hash functions to the equation that returns the optimal number of hash function, given the size of the bloom filter and the number of expected elements.
Now let’s define a hash function for the Bloom Filter. The implementation used (from [here](https://gist.github.com/mengzhuo/180cd6be8ba9e2743753)) implements the DJB2 algorithm. Let’s use it as a black box, since the explanation of the algorithm is beyond the scope of this post.
Now we have on hash function, but how do we create K hash functions? We can perform a simple trick that works. Instead of creating different hash functions, we will just append a number for each input in the hash function. The number will represent the hash function number that is being called. Because any small difference in the input of a hash function will result in a totally different hash, the result can be seen as a different hash function. Cool, right?
Now let’s create a function to add an element to the Bloom Filter. For that, let’s iterate through all of the hash functions, calculate the hash for the item and finally put a 1 (or True) in the index of the hash.
The only thing that’s left is to create a function that checks if the element is NOT in the Bloom Filter. For that, let’s iterate again through all the hash functions. If any of the Bloom Filter positions has 0, we can say that the element is definitely not in the set. Otherwise, if all positions have 1, we cannot say that the element is not in the set.
And that’s it! We have implemented our Bloom Filter. Let’s try it out!
Let’s create a simple test to check if it is working. Let’s create a Bloom Filter with 1 million entries, and then set the expected number of elements to 100 000. We are going to add the element “192.168.1.1” to our Bloom Filter as the blocked IP.
To test it, we will iterate from 1 to 100 000, and check if the IP 192.168.1.i is in the Bloom Filter (there are no IP’s when i>254, e.g. 192.168.289, but in this case we are just performing a test). We will print the elements that we don’t know if they are in the set; all other elements that will not be printed are definitely not in the set.
> 192.168.1.1
Wow! Our Bloom Filter says that, from 100 000 IP’s, the only element that could be blocked is really our blocked IP! It did not produce any False Positive!
Here is the full code for our Bloom Filter:
And that’s it for Bloom Filters! I hope that you have learned what a Bloom Filter is in detail and how to implement it.
Thanks for sticking by!
[For this and more posts, check my website https://diogodanielsoaresferreira.github.io]
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https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/what-the-hell-is-a-bloom-filter-8c654cb1ee60
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['Diogo Ferreira']
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2019-12-09 06:36:34.513000+00:00
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['Bloom Filter', 'Algorithms', 'Data Structures', 'Big Data']
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The Beginners Guide to Small Business Video Marketing — 10 Steps to Get Started
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10 Steps to Getting Started with Video Marketing for Your Small Business
Fifteen years ago, making even a simple marketing video was a somewhat complicated project.
To make a video, you needed a video camera that could shoot high-quality footage and had to use expensive, complex video editing software. Sharing the video with others was also difficult, usually requiring you to burn the file to a DVD (if you’re under 30, you have no idea what I’m even talking about 😂).
Then, two amazing things happened that changed everything.
First, YouTube was started. Suddenly, a platform existed that made it very easy to share videos with the world. And instead of relying on DVDs or hard drives, you could easily upload a video to YouTube and just share the link with the world.
The next amazing thing, the smartphone, was invented. Within the span of just a few short years, almost everyone was carrying around a somewhat high-quality camera in their pocket.
Now, anyone can easily create and share a video in minutes. And now more than ever, people are consuming huge amounts of video every day.
Consider these staggering statistics:
● People today watch more than 500 million hours of video on YouTube every single day.
● YouTube has more than one billion users.
● 45% of people consume more than one hour of video per day on Facebook and YouTube.
● 85% of internet users in the United States watch videos online.
● One-third of the total online activity is watching videos.
Are you starting to get the picture? Video is everywhere. Everyone is watching it.
This explosion of video content represents an amazing for business owners. Consider these stats:
● Over 50% of marketers say that video is the type of content with the highest ROI.
● Businesses using video increase their revenue 49% faster than those that don’t.
● 64% of consumers will buy something after watching branded social videos.
● Video results in 12+ times more shares than text and images combined.
● Videos posted directly to Facebook have ten times greater organic reach than just posting YouTube links.
● Blog posts that include a video get 3x more inbound links than those that don’t.
● People will retain 95% of a message when they consume it by video as opposed to just 10% when they read the message in text form.
Simply put, the businesses that use video marketing will achieve greater results than those that don’t. If you want to connect with more of your customers, grow your brand, and ultimately generate even more revenue, you need to be using video marketing.
But for many of us, the thought of video marketing is intimidating. You have no idea where to start or what the best practices are. You’re worried or uncomfortable about getting in front of the camera. And so, you never even get started with video marketing.
You don’t take advantage of the enormous opportunity that video presents you.
That’s where I come in.
After years of coaching clients with their video marketing, I decided I would FINALLY get serious about making videos for my business. I fought it for a long time. And now, hundreds of videos later, over 100k views, 1700+ YouTube subscribers, and countless opportunities later I’m telling you NOW is the time.
You just have to make that first (awkward) step. 😳
And if I can do it, you can do it too.
In this article, you’ll discover the simple, easy-to-follow video marketing steps to get started. The goal is to make video marketing easy for you.
Video marketing no longer needs to be complicated. You do not need a big budget, tons of expensive equipment, or a fancy filming studio. You can literally just use your phone. Really all you need to be successful with video marketing is a little creativity and some determination.
So, are you ready to get started?
Let’s dive into the beginner’s guide to video marketing!
Step #1: Pick Your Primary Platform
First, figure out where do you want to share most of your videos? YouTube? Instagram?LinkedIn? Facebook?
Start with one to get started.
It’s fine to share your videos on multiple platforms. In fact, you probably should for the best exposure. But video marketing is actually more than just publishing new videos. And if you really want to succeed, it’s important to also engage with fans who watch your videos.
When you create a compelling video, people will comment on it. In turn, you will need to respond to the comments and create conversations between you and your viewers.
The more comments and views the video gets, the more organic exposure it will get because the social media platforms give preference to content that gets a lot of engagement.
If you post everywhere and spread yourself too thin over multiple platforms, it may be difficult for you to engage with everyone. Your video will end up with far less exposure than it would if you had dedicated yourself to one or two platforms.
So, how do you pick the best platform?
It’s really about learning where your audience spends most of their time. In other words, what platform does your audience use the most?
If you’re in the B2B market and looking to connect with other business professionals, you may want to focus more on LinkedIn.
If you’re selling mostly to Millennials, Instagram and YouTube are probably your best options.
If your audience is over 40, Facebook is probably your best bet.
If you’re not sure which platform your audience prefers, it’s best to just go with Facebook. It’s the largest social platform in the world, and you can be sure that your customers are there.
Tip #2: Start Simple
One of the most common reasons people fail to get started with video marketing is that they make it overly complicated. They think they need a fancy script, expensive, professional lighting, and an ultra-high-quality camera. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Some of the most popular YouTube channels showcase a person in their bedroom just talking into their phone or computer. They don’t use any special effects or fancy editing techniques. The lighting isn’t even particularly good. And yet, these videos still get millions of views and thousands of comments.
The reality is that these days, people don’t expect every video to be very polished or even professionally produced.
To get started in video marketing, you need to start simple. Just use your smartphone or computer. At best, try to make sure you have good light, but don’t stress about it.
The key is to start making and sharing videos. Avoid trying to be perfect.
If it helps, think of your video marketing more like having a conversation than giving a presentation to someone. You wouldn’t obsess about having a conversation with a friend. You just talk about what’s on your mind.
Sharing your videos online is kind of like having a conversation with a group of friends. It doesn’t have to be very formal or even nicely wrapped. Just talk to your camera like you would talk to someone.
If you want to create a simple, small video setup, you can easily do it. You can get some lights on Amazon for as little as twenty bucks, and a simple mic, and there are plenty of simple video editing tools that make it easy to splice video clips. Or you can even hire someone from Fiverr to edit for you.
You may want to consider using:
To Record: Your Phone To Edit: iMovie, InShot, Camtasia, Screenflow Video Makers: Canva, Adobe Spark, Animoto, Vidnami
The main point is that you really just need to get started.
Yes, you can make some inexpensive purchases to enhance the quality of your videos, but don’t let this be a sticking point.
It’s better to just start simple and continue to improve the quality of your videos as you go instead of trying to get it perfect from the start.
Many people ask how long should your videos be?
There’s no hard-set rule. Really, it should be determined by your subject. Make the videos as long as they need to be and no longer.
If you can communicate your points in just a few minutes, then only make your video just a few minutes long. Avoid the temptation to add some filler just to draw out the length.
Tip #3: Deliver Authentic Value
The main key to video marketing is delivering authentic value to your audience.
You want to always be authentic in your videos. Don’t try to put on a fake front or try to be someone you’re not.
So if you really want to stand out in the crowded marketplace, just be yourself. You have something special to offer the world, and you have experiences and insights that no one else has.
Gary Vaynerchuk is a great example of creating videos with real authenticity. He’s not especially polished or a refined-sounding guy. His videos even have a fair amount of profanity in them. He talks like he’s chatting there with a good friend. Everything feels very real and down-to-earth.
And millions of people watch Gary’s videos because he always delivers a ton of authentic value every time.
So, be yourself when you record videos. If you’re funny, include some jokes. If you’re passionate about a subject, let that show through. If something upsets you, make it evident.
However, authenticity isn’t enough. It’s also important to deliver a high amount of value in your videos.
You need to educate or entertain (or both) through the videos you produce. How can you be sure you’re delivering value?
● Answer some commonly asked questions.
● Address your audience’s pain points.
● Teach them how to do something.
● Give some expert advice or insight.
● Provide your “aha” moments.
Your goal is not to make more sales at this point. Your goal is to give value to the people who watch your videos — to help them achieve their goals.
The more authentic value you can bring to your audience, the more you’ll become known as an expert in your market.
Others will look to you for help and solve their problems.
Your brand will start to grow, and you’ll attract those you are best positioned to help. All of these things will ultimately lead to increased sales and revenue.
The goal of delivering authentic value will drive the content of your videos. Many people constantly struggle with knowing exactly what to talk about in their videos. But really, it doesn’t need to be complicated at all. Start by asking yourself these questions:
● What does my audience struggle with?
● What do they need to know?
● What important questions do they ask?
● What problems do they want to solve?
● What single thing would make a difference in their life?
Your videos don’t need to be very long or complex. Answer just one question, solve just one problem or teach the audience just one thing. The more you can narrow down your focus when choosing your topic, the easier it will be to make your video.
If you’re still struggling with exactly what topics to cover, consider the past content you’ve created that resonated well with your audience.
Have you written any blog posts that received a lot of traffic or maybe posted something on social media that received a lot of comments?
All of these things are indicators of what subjects resonate most with your audience.
The good news is the more you make videos, the more you’ll understand what is important to your audience. This will then guide you as you create future videos.
Tip #4: Create a Simple Script
Before you start to film, it’s beneficial to create a simple script for yourself. This script shouldn’t be word for word, detailing exactly what you will say, although you can do that if you want to. A simple alternative is to use a short outline or some bullet points to cover the main points of what you want to say.
Why do you need an outlined script? Because it ensures your video is clear, concise, to the point, and makes sure you don’t miss anything you want to say. If you don’t use some form of script or outline, there’s a good chance you’ll start to ramble, which can bore your audience and cause them to tune out and not finish your video.
A simple script keeps your video on point and prevents it from being longer than it needs to be. It also makes sure that the points you’re making are clear, thought out, and follow a logical order.
To give you an example here is the simple outlined script I used to make a video review for Quickbooks — and the video below.
When creating your script, think of it like you’re preparing a simple speech. In a speech, you have an introduction, your main points, and then your conclusion. Ideally, your script should follow this same pattern.
Be sure to keep your script conversational.
Remember, you will be talking into the camera, and you want to speak naturally in a way that resonates with your viewers.
Think about your audience’s taste.
What kinds of topics would they like to see and hear about?
What do they think is funny and interesting?
What do they want to learn how to do?
Try to incorporate these things into your outline.
After you create your script, run through it a couple of times before you begin to film. This gives you the chance to hear how things sound and to get the content firmly fixed in your mind.
If something sounds off, awkward, or out of place, this is your chance to make changes to fix it.
If you’re like most people (and like me), you’re probably tempted to skip this step and just get right to hitting record.
Avoid making this mistake.
Creating an online is a crucial part of the process and will keep your video on track.
So, write your script, practice it a couple of times, and then record the video when you feel comfortable with what you’ve written.
Tip #5: Draw your Viewer In
Now let’s get into some more practical tips. When creating your videos, try to draw the viewer in quickly, right from the start.
Remember, people have very short attention spans, so you’ll want to grab their attention as quickly as possible. Get to the point fast. Don’t go on and on with a long intro. Start with what they’re going to learn and why they should keep watching.
What are some good ways to get people’s attention?
Try opening your video with a:
● Personal story
● Controversial comment
● Surprising statistic
● “What if?” scenario
● Powerful quote
● Humorous crack
● Thought-provoking question
Your goal is to get people to actively engage with your video right from the very start. To have them thinking, laughing, pondering, or maybe even disagreeing with what you say. The more you can draw them in at the start, the more likely they’ll watch the entire video.
If your beginning is too long or boring, people will quickly tune it out. They’ll go to watching something else or scroll further down in their feed. And most importantly, they won’t be interested in any future videos that you create because they think the content that you produce is boring.
So, take the time to craft an engaging, interesting, captivating introduction to your video. Think about those things that interest you and keep you watching. Implement those things in your own videos.
Step #6: Experiment with Different Types of Videos
One of the cool things about video marketing is that there are so many different formats you can work with.
Some of these are:
How-To Videos
In how-to videos, you show your viewers how to do a certain task or solve a particular problem. For example, you could show them how to perform an exercise or how to use an online tool you like. Google recently reported that 93% of Millennials go to YouTube to learn how to do everyday things.
How-to videos are a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise in a particular area and help your audience solve basic problems that they face.
These types of videos also tend to produce a good amount of comments and questions, which generates interaction between you and your viewers.
Expert Interviews
Expert interview videos are where you talk to someone who is an expert in their field. You ask them questions that are related to your audience.
By speaking to thought leaders and experts, you build trust between you and your viewers. You show that you’re connected to individuals who can help them overcome their problems.
Demo Videos
In demo videos, you show your viewers how one of your products works. For example, let’s say you sell an online program. You could record a video in which you walk your viewers through each module of the course, describing what they’ll learn.
These types of videos are useful for overcoming purchasing objections and showing all the things your program can do.
Event Videos
If your business is hosting an event, videos are a great way to promote it. You could quickly record a short video in which you tell your audience why you’re excited about the event, what will happen there, and why they should come.
These types of videos sway your audience to attend your event and serve to promote your brand further.
Explainer Videos
Explainer videos are a way to assist your customers to better understand their own problems as well as why you’re the best person to help them. In an explainer video, you walk the viewers through a problem or concept that they deal with.
For example, if you’re a fitness coach. You could make a video about why many people deal with lower back pain and some exercises they can do to help it.
By explaining things to your viewers in simple, clear, and interesting ways, you demonstrate your knowledge and show them that you have both the expertise and skill to solve their problems.
Testimonial / Case Study Videos
Testimonials and case studies are great ways to show your viewers that you get actual results for your customers and clients.
They show your prospective customers that what you offer actually works. Show them that you can solve their problems and even change their lives.
An easy way to get some video testimonies and case studies is to interview some of your happy customers via Skype or Zoom (or any other online video program).
You can ask them these questions:
● What were things like before we worked together?
● What problems were you struggling with?
● What things did you try that didn’t work?
● What results did you get after we worked together?
● What actions did we implement?
● What was your overall experience like?
Live Videos
Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube all let you do live stream videos directly to your followers. In these videos, you can interact with your audience in real-time, answering questions, taking them behind the scenes, or showing them what a regular day looks like for you.
There are advantages to doing live videos:
The first advantage is engagement.
Live videos can get a lot of engagement (views, likes, and comments). It has been reported that people will watch live videos up to eight times longer than prerecorded ones.
And the more engagement your videos get, the higher they’ll be in the newsfeed.
Second, you can have a conversation directly with your audience. They can ask you questions and make comments, and you can immediately respond to them.
Customized Videos
Most people don’t think of this, but one unique way for you to do video marketing is to make them custom and personalized.
For example, say that you have a meeting with a potential client who would be a great fit for your business. After your meeting, you can send them a short video in which you thank them, recap your discussion, and then lay out any next steps.
This approach allows you to be much more detailed and personal than you could via email.
Mix It Up
When doing your video marketing, try to create some (or even all) of the different types of video. Mix things up to keep your followers interested. Try a live video one day, then take people behind the scenes another day, and share a customer testimonial on another day.
The more you can shake things up, the more interested your viewers will be and the more likely they will engage with your videos.
Step #7: Repurpose Your Content
Many people struggle to know what to talk about on video. They have no problem creating a video once they get an idea, but they struggle to come up with a good idea to get them started.
If you’re struggling to come up with the topics for your videos, consider repurposing some other content you’ve already created.
Almost any type of content can be repurposed into a video like:
● Blog posts
● Emails
● Presentations
● Podcasts
● Ebooks
For example, let’s say you wrote a great blog post that went over well with your followers. You can easily turn your blog post content into the talking points in your video. Or you can make a separate video on each individual point.
You can use the same approach with your chapters from an eBook, the points you’ve made in a podcast, and more.
For example, we create our podcast SMART AF, that we also turn into a video that we post to YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. And we make it into a blog post.
Are you worried about saying the exact same thing more than once? Don’t be. The reality is different segments of your audience prefer to consume your content on different platforms and in different forms.
Some people want to read your emails and blog posts.
Others would rather watch your video. Still, others would prefer to listen to your podcast.
When you create videos, you connect with different segments of your audience that you might not otherwise. And that is a big win.
Step #8: Use Attractive Video Thumbnails, Titles, and Captions
This practical tip can give you huge results.
Thumbnails
A thumbnail is the image that people see before they click on your video and start watching it. If you use an attractive, captivating thumbnail, your viewers are much more likely to click through to your videos and watch them.
So what makes for a good thumbnail? Ideally, it should have:
● An engaging image that stands out. Don’t use a full black and white image. Use one that pops and will grab people’s attention. Think about adding contrast.
● Text overlaying the picture so it will draw people in. The text should capture the main idea of the video and let people know what they’ll get if they watch.
The good news is that it’s really simple to make thumbnails with your smartphone. Canva makes it incredibly easy with templates where you can just find a great photo and customize your own captivating text on the template.
Titles
You also want to create a great title. The title is the text that sits at the bottom of the video when people see it in their feed. Like your video thumbnail, you want the title to grab people’s attention when they see it.
You want your title to stand out as people scroll through their feeds.
How can you know if your title is good? There’s a great tool for that. Type your current title into the Coschedule Headline Analyzer, and it will analyze your title word by word. It will then give you specific suggestions on how to improve it.
It will tell you what words to add to make it more interesting and more likely to attract more people.
Captions
Finally, it’s good to add captions to your videos. Why? Because many people watch videos without the sound turned on. This is especially true on Facebook, where videos will automatically play when you hover over them.
If you don’t have captions to grab their attention, many people won’t stay around to watch them.
There are easy ways to add captions to your videos. Some platforms, like YouTube and Facebook, use AI to create captions automatically. However, the transcription isn’t perfect, and you’ll need to manually go through it and make any corrections. This can be done pretty quickly.
Another option is to use a paid transcription service, such as Rev or Otter.ai, to create the transcriptions of your videos and then upload them to each platform. The cost of using these services is dependent on the length of your video.
While this method is more expensive than using tools provided by each platform, but it’s more accurate and can save you time if you want high accuracy for your transcripts.
Step #9: Use a Call-To-Action in Your Videos
At some point in every video, you need to include a call to action.
You don’t want your audience to passively watch the videos you create. You want them to actually engage with your videos. To take action. To do something specific after they watch the video.
The more engaged your audience is with your video content, the more views your videos will get. As your videos rack up the views, they’ll be shown to even more people, which will then increase your audience, and so on. It’s a beautiful cycle.
To get your audience to take action, you need to actually ask them to do it.
What sorts of things can you ask your audience to do? Think in terms of engagement. Yes, you do want them to watch your video. But you also want them to subscribe to your channel and follow you. You also want them to like your video and comment on it.
A simple way to get them to take these actions is to ask your audience to do them. You don’t have to make it too long or drawn out. Simply ask them to like, subscribe, and to leave a comment. This is a very common practice on YouTube and is the way many big channels build their audiences and increase the views on their videos.
So, where should you put your call to action?
You have a few options:
• You can put it at the beginning of your video so that it gets people’s attention. However, logically, this doesn’t really make much sense. In the beginning, you haven’t given them any value to the audience yet. You haven’t really given people a reason to like, subscribe, and comment.
• A much better strategy is to put your call-to-action near the middle or at the end of the video. This way, people will see how valuable your videos are and will be more likely to want to engage with them. They will also want to subscribe to your channel or comment on your video once they’ve watched it.
Prove how good you are. Then you can ask people to take action.
Step #10: Collaborate with Others
One of the best ways to really grow your audience online is to collaborate with others.
Collaboration allows you to do several things at once:
Collaboration allows you to reach new audiences.
When you collaborate, you share your audiences. You introduce them to your audience, and they introduce you to theirs. They post the collaboration content to their social media channels, and you do the same.
It’s kind of like you’re sharing the stage with them, which opens up opportunities you wouldn’t have had otherwise.
You begin to establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Those who watch your interview see that you’re connected to other influential people. You also demonstrate that people want to work with you, which then creates more trust with your audience.
Collaborating gets you connected to other like-minded, influential people.
When you collaborate with someone, amazingly, you also get access to their contacts. You even can ask them to recommend other people that you should collaborate with in the future. They can, in turn, connect you with those people, which is a really big step.
People are more likely to work with you if you have a shared contact.
You may be wondering, what types of videos should you make when you collaborate with someone?
There are several possibilities:
● Joint webinar
● Review each other’s products
● Expert interview
● Live, in-person
● And more
You’re only limited by your imagination.
The only collaboration requirement is that the video brings authentic value to both of your audiences. This means you should only collaborate with people that you know you trust. You don’t want to begin a collaboration project, only to discover halfway through that they’re not the best fit for your audience.
Focus on collaborating with those who will offer something truly unique and helpful to your audience.
Your Audience is Waiting
We’ve covered a lot of ground! In this article, you’ve learned about:
● How to pick your primary platform
● Why you need to start simple
● How to Deliver authentic value
● Why create a simple script
● How to draw the viewer from the start
● Different types of video to experiment with
● How to repurpose your content
● Why use attractive thumbnails, titles, and captions
● How to use calls-to-action
● How to collaborate with others
When it comes to video marketing, you need to be patient with yourself. Unless you happen to create a viral video, you probably won’t see explosive growth.
But, if you keep at it, consistently delivering insights and value in your videos, you will grow. People will start to share your videos with others, which will lead to even more exposure, and ultimately the explosive growth of your channel.
No matter what, don’t overthink your video marketing efforts. When it comes to video creation, many people experience paralysis by analysis. They feel intimidated since they don’t know how to do everything perfectly from the start.
But the reality is that that smartphone in your hand and your social media accounts have made it incredibly easy for YOU to do video marketing.
The barrier to getting started is incredibly low. It has never been easier to get your message and business in front of thousands of people for free.
So, don’t wait around any longer when it comes to your video marketing. Your audience is waiting for you.
So go out there and get started!
Do you want to learn more about how to get started with video marketing? Be sure to sign up for my weekly email with actionable ways you can market your business smarter without wasting time or money!
Here’s to working SMART.
|
https://medium.com/@toriemathis/the-beginners-guide-to-small-business-video-marketing-10-steps-to-get-started-ffb391e243aa
|
['Torie Mathis']
|
2021-12-21 21:50:42.416000+00:00
|
['Digital Marketing Tips', 'Digital Marketing', 'Small Business Marketing', 'Video Marketing', 'Solopreneur']
|
My second portfolio project: a React single-page application from scratch
|
Challenges: CSS
I opted out of using stylesheets because I wanted become more familiar with the CSS Grid Layout, which seemed quite challenging and counter-intuitive at first.
Solution: I found the step-by-step CSS Grid Layout Crash Course by Traversy Media, which is freely available on Youtube, particularly helpful and educational. It’s quite straightforward and easy to follow with great visual presentation and clear, concise explanations. I would definitely recommend this tutorial to anyone new to writing CSS and struggling with containers, margins, tables, frames or floats.
Challenges: API
While building the weather feature in the Home component and fetching data from the OpenWheather API, I encountered a “429” error, after which I wasn’t able to make any more API calls for a couple of hours.
“Error 429” seems to be sent as a response to users after they have exhausted the maximum number of API calls. According the OpenWeather’s FAQ:
Some online research revealed that it is a common issue for APIs to throw error messages for exceeding rate-limits when using unpaid subscriptions. API services can be limited by hour, day or month and may ask you to pay for API access after exceeding these limits rather than using free ones, as paid versions allow users to make a larger number of calls over as specific period of time.
This is obviously very inconvenient when trying to build applications. Thankfully I was able to successfully make API calls again after a couple of hours, but this is definitely something I will keep in mind when searching for APIs in the future.
Zendesk Developers have published some practices for avoiding rate limiting and Vinod Chandru published an article on how to handle API rate limits on TechBeacon explaining why rate limits are necessary and how they work.
|
https://medium.com/@katie-loesch/my-second-portfolio-project-a-react-single-page-application-from-scratch-2a025dcde26c
|
['Katie Loesch']
|
2021-08-23 15:12:13.847000+00:00
|
['Flatiron School', 'Productivity', 'React', 'Single Page Applications', 'Bootcamp Experience']
|
Catch 404 Urls in your Next.js app using Firebase in two easy setups
|
Requirements
Firebase Setup
Custom 404 page in Next.js
#1 Firebase
Firebase Setup with Web App
Get Started with Firebase here
- First, you need to add a project
- Then, add a Web App inside that Project
- After that, you can find your web app’s Firebase configuration something like this :
var firebaseConfig = {
apiKey: “XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX”,
authDomain: “test-XXXX.firebaseapp.com”,
databaseURL: “https://test-XXXX-default-rtdb.firebaseio.com",
projectId: “test-XXXX”,
storageBucket: “test-XXX.appspot.com”,
messagingSenderId: “00000000000”,
appId: “1:00000000:web:XXXXX00000XXXXXXX”
};
- you need to edit rules in Rules section like this:
{“rules”: {
“.read”: false,
“.write”: true
}}
#2 Next.js
Custom 404 React component with useEffect and firebase package
To create a custom 404 page you can create a pages/404.js file. This file is statically generated at build time.
pages/404.js
import { useEffect } from "react";
import firebase from "firebase"; export default function Custom404() {
useEffect(() => { const firebaseConfig = {
apiKey: “XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX”,
authDomain: “test-XXXX.firebaseapp.com”,
databaseURL: “https://test-XXXX-default-rtdb.firebaseio.com",
projectId: “test-XXXX”,
storageBucket: “test-XXX.appspot.com”,
messagingSenderId: “00000000000”,
appId: “1:00000000:web:XXXXX00000XXXXXXX”
} firebase.initializeApp(firebaseConfig).database().ref().child("404s").push(window.location.href);}, []); return <h1>404 - Page Not Found</h1>
}
Congratulations! You now have an access to catch all 404 Url and able to see all 404 Url at the Realtime Database section in Firebase
|
https://medium.com/@inpiyushsinha/catch-404-url-in-next-js-using-firebase-in-two-easy-setup-43ce45f18878
|
['Piyush Sinha']
|
2020-12-19 17:06:35.851000+00:00
|
['Catch', '404', 'Url', 'Firebase', 'Nextjs']
|
vscode extensions that made me fall in love with dotnet
|
Visual studio code has an healthy extension ecosystem which bridges the gap between Visual Studio and this hackable editor. I want to share the extensions that allowed me to completely switch to vscode for dotnet development.
Without extensions
OmniSharp
vscode ships with c# Intellisense using omnisharp.
OmniSharp is a set of tooling, editor integrations and libraries that together create an ecosystem that allows you to have a great programming experience no matter what your editor and operating system of choice may be.
http://www.omnisharp.net/
Roslynator
Adds resharper like behaviour and displays warnings when code can be improved. This is my favourite c# extension because it adds insights and helps me to write better code.
C# Extensions
Enhance the context menu by adding options to create a class or interface. It also allows creation of parameters via the constructor or create a constructor based on the parameters. While this extension is not in activate development anymore. I’m still able to use it without any issues.
.NET Core Test Explorer
Adds a menu item which displays all tests in the solution and adds a button to run all tests.
With testing explorer
C# XML Documentation Comments
Generates XML documentation when the user types ///
Live share
During the pandemic I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to work from home. Live share enables remote pair programming using your own editor configuration. I love this extension because it enables me to use vim and my own environment in an interactive pair programming session.
Settings Sync
Using Github’s gists to synchronise vscode’s configuration across machines.
Vim
I love vim bindings and this extension makes my wrists happier.
Conclusion
There are many extensions that enhance the vscode experience making this editor equal to any other major IDE out there. Do you use vscode for dotnet development? Please share the extensions you are excited about.
|
https://medium.com/@thomasfarla/vscode-extensions-that-made-me-fall-in-love-with-dotnet-443270ba1273
|
['Thomas Farla']
|
2020-10-26 06:47:20.387000+00:00
|
['Developer Experience', 'Vscode Extension', 'Vscode', 'Dotnet', 'Dotnet Core']
|
Health Care Innovation
|
Health is one of the determinants for poverty.
In 2017, when I started working with Japan International Cooperation Agency, as operation manager in charge of one of the intervention, Automatic Appointment Reminder and Defaulter Tracing System.
It was part of my duties to visit, supervise, troubleshoot, engage, analyze data from 100 Primary Health Centers (PHCs) in Lagos State.
At that point, I realized most of those PHCs were not mapped and see this as a problem not just for me but as for many people who are willing to access health care services. This was even one of our project deliverables, ensuring access to health care for all.
I signed up with Google local guide and at every of my visit to any of the PHCs, I ensured the hospital is mapped so that whenever anyone try to locate a PHCs near them or far away from them you can easily find the hospital.
Today, over 50,000 people have viewed those PHCs, and I am so excited about sharing this for I know definitely, at home point in time in the last four years, it would have been helpful for someone and save a life.
Lagos State currently have over 300 Primary Health Centers which I still feel it is not enough for us to really achieve Universal Health Care Coverage. Some of those PHCs however, needs infrastructural development and human resources to operate efficiently, just to mention a few of the challenges in the health system, not just in Lagos but across the entire country.
P.S: I believe in innovation and collaboration for health system strengthening, together we can do more to reduce to inequity in our health system and give access quality care to everyone, everywhere.
|
https://medium.com/@gbadamosi-olalekan42/health-care-innovation-b8d9a54c5a08
|
['Sheriff Gbadamosi']
|
2021-08-17 08:36:02.616000+00:00
|
['Public Health', 'Healthcare', 'Sdgs', 'Health System Performance', 'Uhc2030']
|
A Travel Bottle Warmer for Any Outdoor Occasion — Cherub Baby Australia
|
A travel bottle warmer is a handy tool for any mum on-the-go, but first, let’s talk about heating breast milk or formula.
How do I warm my baby’s bottle?
While it’s not absolutely necessary to warm your baby’s bottle, fresh breast milk is always served at body temperature (or close to 37 degrees Celsius). While some babies don’t mind cold milk or milk served at room temperature it makes sense to warm it up.
Investing in a travel bottle warmer is probably the easiest option, but what did we do before we had access to these gadgets?
Before you go putting on that kettle, or boiling water on the stove, think about it. Does your baby’s bottle need to be piping hot? The answer is a definite NO! Your baby’s bottle needs to be warm, not hot. Whether you are heating breast milk or formula the method should be the same. Place your bottle in a container of warm water for no more than 15 minutes. Longer and bacteria can develop. The water temperature should be hot enough to warm the bottle, but cool enough to handle. You can even use water from the hot water tap. There’s no need to hover over a stove in the middle of the night.
Once you think your baby’s bottle is warm enough give it a quick shake to disperse the heat evenly. Always test the temperature of the milk or formula before giving it to your baby. A baby’s digestive system is very sensitive and you don’t want to risk an accidental burn. Test the temperature by squirting a few drops onto your inner wrist. The skin here is thin and very sensitive. The milk should feel warm and not hot.
This traditional method is safe and reliable, but not very mobile, so what do you do when you don’t have access to bowls and warm water? Here at Cherub Baby, we have a couple of products to help make your life easier, especially for mum’s on-the-go.
Click n Go Travel Bottle Warmer
The Click and Go Travel Bottle Warmer is the perfect baby bottle heater that is portable, re-usable and heats instantly. This travel bottle warmer is cordless and doesn’t need a power point, nor is it battery powered. In fact, this portable bottle warmer needs no power at all. Simply click the disc inside the gel pack to heat your formula or breast milk on-the-go with the click activated heating system. It heats and keeps warm baby bottles, breast milk bags and baby food pouches.
Car Bottle and Baby Food Warmer
The Cherub Baby Car Bottle and Food Warmer will fit most jars and bottles due to the adjustable heat wrap. Now you never have to worry about finding somewhere with power or a baby milk warmer, simply use the power adapter in your car for heating formula, breast milk and food on the go. This portable milk warmer is light and compact, designed to travel with you anywhere and everywhere.
And the best thing about our travel bottle warmers is that you never have to worry about your bottle getting too hot!
Skip the microwave!
Never heat up your baby’s bottle in the microwave! Microwaves don’t heat up food evenly and can cause hot spots. Have you ever heated up your dinner in the microwave? You think it’s piping hot only to find that most of your meal is still cold. Well, the reverse is possible with your baby’s bottle; it feels warm but there could be hot spots that can burn your baby’s mouth. Plus the intense heat of a microwave can destroy nutrients in the milk, or cause chemicals from plastic bottles, like BPA, to leak into your baby’s food,
IMPORTANT
Whether you feed your baby breast milk or formula, bottle feeding is a great way to bond with your baby and to start the initial process to self-feeding. A travel bottle warmer can make the process of heating your baby’s bottle simpler, easier and safe. Enjoy!
Hopefully, this has helped to shed some light on how to warm your baby food in a easy and safe way.
Read more about our NEW Click n Go Travel Bottle & Pouch Warmer and find out how easy it is to warm your baby’s breastmilk, formula or purees. You can also find out more about our Practical Car Bottle Warmer here. 🙂
Need some more info about introducing solids to bub? Check out our guide here!
Any questions or comments? sound off below 🙂
Find out more about all the features of our Travel Bottle Warmer!
|
https://medium.com/@cherubbaby/a-travel-bottle-warmer-for-any-outdoor-occasion-cherub-baby-australia-cherub-baby-2e86396321e4
|
['Cherub Baby']
|
2019-08-27 06:30:12.540000+00:00
|
['Travelbottlewarmer', 'Baby Care Products', 'Parenting', 'Baby Health', 'Baby Care']
|
Crypto Airdrops Oct 9
|
Crypto Airdrops Oct 9
One new giveaway ✌️
Via ATNET Airdrops.
🌶️ Chiliz Twitter Giveaway
Pool of USD 2,500 in $CHZ
Chiliz is promoting the downloads of their new app with a draw of 10 winners by 250 USD in $CHZ tokens. You need to follow a few accounts and post a screenshot of the downloaded app.
🚀 tweet with info
Staking without KYC on WhiteBit
New!
WhiteBit opened 17 different staking plans with 9 different currencies to choose from. 40% APR, available to the users without KYC. (Be mindful of risks)
🚀 sign up
Also read:
|
https://medium.com/cryptolounge/crypto-airdrops-oct-9-40f8dddf2a24
|
['Atnet', 'Airdrops', 'Trading']
|
2020-10-09 01:37:57.943000+00:00
|
['Chiliz', 'Airdrop', 'Socios']
|
How to use Pipenv with Jupyter and VSCode
|
Currently, I study Artificial Intelligence at the JKU university and for some exercises, we need to use jupyter notebooks. Having worked a little bit with Python the package manager pipenv proofed to be valuable. Now, I encountered some problems using it with Jupyter notebooks and within VSCode. Therefore, a short guide on how I solved it.
Table of Contents
The Issue
As I described in my last article Working with Jupyter and VSCode I use pyenv and pipenv for managing all packages in my python development. I also referenced some articles why this way is helpful and easy to use. Now, it is necessary to dive a little more into it. There are two ways you would want to develop with jupyter notebook. Either you work with it directly in the browser or inside VSCode. In both use cases, there can emerge problems.
Developing with Jupyter Notebook in the browser
Jupyter Notebook in the browser
Let’s say you already have the proper python environment on your system and now you want to create a specific one for a project.
First, create a Pipenv environment. Make sure to navigate into the correct directory. Use pipenv install <packages> to install all your packages. Then use pipenv shell to activate your shell. Then use pipenv install jupyter and afterward pipenv run jupyter notebook .
Now the jupyter server is started and your notebook will have access to the correct environment.
Activating the right environment for Jupyter notebook in the browser
Develop with Jupyter Notebook in VSCode
|
https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-use-pipenv-with-jupyter-and-vscode-ae0e970df486
|
['Daniel Deutsch']
|
2020-09-28 09:32:46.481000+00:00
|
['Python', 'Vscode', 'Jupyter Notebook', 'Pipenv', 'Pyenv']
|
Tacos & Churros & Mezcal, Oh My!
|
Every taco mentioned hereafter is built upon two corn tortillas, features no guacamole or sour cream, and is the size of a human palm, unless otherwise mentioned. Great, I’m glad we got that housekeeping out of the way.
My trip to Mexico City was planned for two days as a brief stopover between a week in Oaxaca and two weeks in Cuba. Five hours into day one, I called the airline and pushed my flight to Cuba back one week. I was instantly smitten, enticed by the wafting aromas of trompos on each corner, by the large stand displays with fruits of every color palette, the sacks of cracked concha breads on the backs of motorcycles, the hustle of a city always on the move with limits that stretched beyond the mountains that bordered the valley it resided in.
The trip to Mexico had started in Oaxaca with family, my parents and sister acting as travel companions. This was our first family trip together in almost five years, and my mom had, with much excitement, planned out the entire vacation. Every day in Oaxaca was arranged with different tours, a visit to an archeological site followed by a specific museum, then a cooking class or mescal distillery visit. The trip had been pleasant, if not a touch stressful and frustrating as any family trip normally is. But much of it felt forced. The visits to pottery makers and wood carvers felt set up for tourists, busloads at a time being brought in. The ruins were so trodden over and pillaged by previous visitors that they had been re-ruined. One moment did stand out though. A particularly special afternoon spent two hours outside of Oaxaca, meeting a Zapotec family for lunch.
Our black SUV, the air conditioning blazing, pulled in front of a compound with no sign or number. We were in a small village in the mountains, sandy roads in every direction, with long stretches of desert in every direction. Only the occasional agave plant or cactus popped up on the horizon. The gates opened up into a large courtyard. A clothesline hanging large tapestries ran down the center of the space, large weaving looms were tucked under an outdoor roof to the right side. To the left was a stairwell that led up to an outdoor kitchen that overlooked the compound, covered in just a few pieces of sheet metal for protection from nature. A short woman welcomed us and introduced herself as Ludavina. She was just barely five feet tall with a dark complexion and dressed wrapped in a colorful tapestry, her long gray and black hair tied neatly in a bun.
Ludavina and her metate
We followed Ludavina to the upstairs kitchen, where she would be teaching us how to make two traditional Zapotec dishes. The Zapotec are one of the largest indigenous groups from the Oaxaca region, still residing in communities that dominantly speak their native language. The kitchen was sparse and entirely built up by cinder blocks. Along the far wall was a wood fired stove with four burners, each burner covered with a clay flat top known as a comal. Scattered around the kitchen were numerous metates, a flat mortar and pestle that uses a stone roller to crush ingredients into a paste with repeated wrist motions. Ludavina had four metates, one for making mole sauces, one for mashing chocolate, one for grinding up peppers, and one for grinding masa. The stones are naturally porous, hence the importance of having different ones for different aromatic tasks. They also evolve over time to the grinding motion of the owner, giving each a unique curvature.
Another of Ludavina’s metates
The first priority was to make a mole amarillo for Zapotec tamales. Ludavina started by showing us how to soak a mix of gaujillo and arbol peppers to make them easier to grind, as well as to help remove the seeds and stems. Each wrinkled and warped rehydrated pepper was taken out one at a time and ground on the metate, scraped between the stone roller and stone base, shredding first into fibers and then those fibers breaking down into pulp, a new pepper added only after the previous had been completely desiccated. We hand blended nine peppers this way over thirty minutes. Well, Ludavina did; we mostly stood aside and watched her skilled metate usage.
Ludavina called over to her daughter, twelve years old and standing nearby, who was starting to prepare herbs for a soup we would have later on. She asked for a handful of hoja santa leaves. Our guide and translator Carlos admitted that he could not understand their conversation, as it was spoken in Zapotec and not in Spanish. The daughter brought over the heart shaped leaves. We moved our pepper paste to the mole designated metate, and worked in four of the leaves, which have a flavor somewhere between tarragon and anise. Ludavina asked if I’d like to try my hand at the metate. Sure, how hard could it be?
Embarrassing myself
I grabbed the sides of the stone warped into the shape of a rolling pin and began to crush, sending the pepper and herb mix pouring over the sides, not crushing so much as sliding around. Ludavina had made it look simple, the flick of the wrist on each roll, keeping everything compactly centered in the metate as she smashed. I disgracefully handed back the roller, my head down in shame, my family loudly laughing and mocking.
She added about a pound of freshly ground masa, purchased from someone in the village who took the time to cook the corn with limestone and then grind it to different levels of fineness. She used the smoothest grind, mashing it into the mole mix. The masa would bring both flavor and the thickening agent. This mole was relatively simple, very different from the thirty to fifty ingredient sauces I’d thought of as mole before the trip. Those moles do exist in the Oaxacan culture. Every wet market features stalls hawking pre-ground pastes rich with mixed nuts, dried fruits, and dark chocolate.
But many moles, I learned, are a simple affair, homemade sauces of just five to ten ingredients with more focus and designated purpose for serving with specific types of meat or vegetable. This mole amarillo would have just four ingredients: peppers, hoja santa, masa, and chicken stock, seasoned with heavy amounts of salt. When the masa was incorporated the paste looked like a crimson-red polenta. The polenta was taken over to the stove and poured into a ceramic pot that fit perfectly into one of the stovetop holes, directly over heavily flaming wood. We added chicken stock to create a very thin broth, and then I stirred. At this point my family had checked out, eager only to eat, leaving me behind to assist in the cooking.
Over the course of twenty minutes the mixture started to change, from a thin broth, not completely emulsified, into a cauldron of velvety smooth sauce with the texture of melted chocolate. From time to time Ludavina would come over and stick a finger in to taste, adding a bit more salt or chicken stock. The mole had a glossy shine now, bubbling away, each bubble splattering my apron and the sides of the pot.
Mole bubbling away
“Si. Done.” Ludavina pulled the pot from the stove and brought it over to the worktable. Now was time to assemble the tamales. Tamales normally involve taking a soaked corn leaf, spreading a thick and sticky masa/lard mixture on it with a spoon, putting a small line of filling in the center, and then rolling up the leaf and tying with a string for steaming. Zapotec tamales, normally only prepared in the height of summer for celebrations or weddings, are a more delicate affair. A piece of masa is torn off the larger block and smashed in a tortilla press. The thin round of masa is then delicately draped over a slightly concave palm up left hand. Using the right hand, a large spoonful of the mole is added to the center, filling the palm cavity that the tortilla has sunk into. Shredded chicken (from the making of the broth) is added on top, and then the sides of the masa are folded over so that they just meet in the center, leaving a bulging rectangular tamale, with slightly curved ends on each side, the mole and chicken fully exposed on the long uncovered ends. The folded tamale was now very delicately flipped from the left hand onto the base of a long unsoaked corn husk, which is gently rolled up (careful not to push out the filling), and then wrapped around itself and tucked into the previous folds, to create a self binding wrapper. These are then steamed for thirty minutes. The process was time consuming due to the gossamer masa layer requiring a delicate touch. Many of the thin wrappers tore at the introduction of the mole, or seeped out of their corn husk wraps. Ludavina will make 500 for a celebration. Today we made twenty.
The set up for tamale assembly
Next, we worked on a soup to open our meal. A simpler affair, we simmered zucchini, maize, squash, zucchini flowers, and epazote, an herb that’s also called “rabbit herb” and is traditionally added to black beans with an aroma similar to wild and untamed oregano. As this simmered away together and our tamales steamed, we headed downstairs to learn about the household’s other source of income, tapestry making.
The Zapotec people are beautiful weavers, each member of the family having their own loom and style of design. The father made the largest rugs, while the son and daughter made smaller pieces with simpler designs. He showed how all the colored dying of the wool (which was also cleaned and spun in house) was imprinted with local ingredients. The vibrant reds came from the cochineal beetle that grows on the cactus that we could see in the desert across from the house, shades of yellow from marigold, blues from the indigo flower, and green from foraged mosses. Add different ground rocks or fruit juices for an acidic or basic pH addition, straight out of nature’s chemistry class, and the reaction would then turn each of these color infusions into a completely different color dye that could be used as well.
Ludavina came down to let us know that it was time to eat. We entered a small chapel decorated with figurines and pictures of Jesus. One wall was covered with flowers and paintings to make a shrine. The rest of the room had pictures of the ancestors of the family, old tattered photographs of parents and grandparents weaving and cooking in the same compound that we now sat in. Ludavina and her husband joined us for lunch. The table was set with glasses, cutlery, and a bowl filled with small deep-fried grasshoppers, the local equivalent of salted peanuts, crispy little salty bits that tasted of the meadow. Unlike peanuts, these snacks occasionally lead to a crooked leg stuck in between the teeth.
First came the soup, pungent with a pervasive herbaceous presence, the zucchini flowers tender and delicate, all floating in a sweet broth made from the cobs of the maize, thicker and starchier than the corn breeds back in the United States. Mezcal was poured from crumpled and unlabeled plastic water bottles, the distillate picked up from a brew house that morning.
The tamales came still steaming, the room suddenly brimming with the aroma of sweet and smoky pepper. We carefully unwrapped the tamales from their cornhusks. The thin masa layer was almost painted on, holding in a cauldron of steaming hot mole and chicken, saucing itself with each spoonful. They were absolutely delightful, filling and enriching, so simple and yet so complex, just barely set together like a wobbly crème brulee. They tasted of corn ground just around the corner, of peppers picked and dried in this home, of a chicken raised in the hills and slaughtered for the purpose of this meal.
Ludavina, her husband, and their two kids, lived a difficult life. They were workers, dedicated to keeping alive the crafts of their ancestral people, and passing on knowledge. This type of knowledge often has never been properly written down or compiled, but instead lives in the minds of those who met those who met those who met those who passed it down. They seemed a happy family, satiated by their own deference to tradition.
________________________________________________________
In Mexico City I was alone, my family having returned home.
The first person I met was Hugo, a 20-something Brazilian with curly, golden hair, goofy, dark rimmed glasses with frames that dwarfed his face, and a chubby prepubescent look about him. He had a jolly laugh and easy smile, and talked English like he had learned it from Hollywood movies about skaters and surfing, which was how he had. He claimed to be a hit with the ladies, although for next nine days I would only see him get politely rejected again and again. His confidence never wavered.
“How about churros?” I pitched to Hugo as we sat around, escaping the harsh afternoon heat.
“Yeah, dude, absolutely man.”
We were staying around the corner from the original location of El Moro, the most famous churros and hot chocolate shop in Mexico City. Originally opened in 1935, El Moro now has locations in every nook of the city.
The whole shop reeked of the pervasive smell of oil bubbling up from the fryer that lined an entire wall of the kitchen, at least three feet by ten feet. The menu was simple. The churros were available in amounts of three, six, or a dozen, each the thickness of a ballpark hotdog, rolled in cinnamon sugar, and cut with scissors off a fried coil to about a foot long length. To accompany the churros, El Moro offers numerous hot chocolate options. The big decision is between Spanish style and Mexican style. Spanish hot chocolate is essentially warm chocolate pudding, thick and barely sippable, a mug of which is a meal unto itself. Spanish style is perfect for dipping the churros. The Mexican version is a watered down Spanish blend, a frothy beverage that is easily drinkable, more for soaking churros than dipping.
El Moro
We both ordered a platter of six churros and hot chocolate. Hugo ordered the Mexican version, and I ordered the dense Spanish variety. Our order arrived less than two minutes later, the waitress (and from what I could tell they were all waitresses) decked in an all white and blue striped outfit, dropping off our plates and mugs and walking away to serve another table. The café seemed a relentless beast, constantly full with a line out the door. The churros cracked and broke open with a thick and crunchy shell, but with an inside resembling an undercooked cake donut. We could see the kitchen from our seats, watching as viscous dough was put into an extruder and then piped into coils the width of the fryer, starting in the middle and slowly wrapping around to the outer edge. One man’s only job seemed to be using thin metal wires to deftly flip the churros coils and move them farther down the fryer so another batch could be extruded.
Over the next couple days Hugo and I would pair up with some new arrivals. Yael the gorgeous Australian, skinny as a stick but sassy and highly fashionable, who had just had her phone and wallet stolen and was now traveling technologically blind and broke on the way to her sister’s wedding in Tijuana. And Aaron, a hyper-sexualized pansexual Californian jock with all-American good looks and well-kept long brown hair, working on a PhD in Agricultural Sciences. Aaron was infatuated with Yael, and she knew it. Together we saw lucha libre wrestling, drunkenly cheering on masked men as they pretended to assault each other, we visited the pyramids of Teotihuacan, the anthropological museum, and the Casa Azul museum that was the lifelong home of artist Frida Kahlo. These journeys were interesting enough. But I was not eating enough. My days were filled with commutes around the city and jovial drinking and laughing with my new found crew of goofy outcasts, watching Aaron metaphorically chase after Yael with his tongue, each attempted-flirt ending with her promptly putting his tail back between his legs.
I wanted tacos. The desire became an over-encompassing aspect of my daily Mexico City thought process. I’d had eaten a couple so far, on street corners and in small restaurants, each so different, so exciting, so unique, so freaking delicious.
I put together a taco walking tour, an entire day of nothing but walking and eating. I pitched the tour to the crew. Yael was uninterested in participation (as a lifelong vegetarian, it did not appeal), which by default meant Aaron backed out as well. Hugo had already made plans to tour the famous canals.
So I set off alone on a taco trek for the ages. I started at Los Cocuyos, a literal hole in the wall. On a side street in the historical center is a space maybe three feet by three feet built into the side of an apartment building. Two men stood inside shoulder to shoulder, surrounded by a constant crowd of customers. One man spent the whole time on a griddle, toasting tortillas. The other stood in front of a large wooden cutting board and a simmering vat of pork parts. I started with an order of one pig snout and one surtido, an assorted mix of pork shoulder and offal chopped together. Here the tacos were garnished with raw white onion, cilantro, and two bowls with mild and spicy salsas were on offer. The snout filling was a pinguid mix of more fat than meat and bits of soft cartilage that crunched as I chewed. The surtido was dripping and sticky with the gelatinous broth from the vat, an intoxicating taco full of flavorful swine.
I move on to El Huequito, a shop that has been around since 1959, and makes Cocuyos look like a special palace. Essentially a renovated broom closet, the spaces fit one person, a trompo of skewered pork meat roasted on a spit, and two juice machines. I ordered two of their tacos sencillo. The meat skewer was unlike the tacos al pastor trompos I had seen around the rest of the city. This meat was not heavily marinated nor was it a vibrant red with spices; it looked like caramelized pork, crispy brown with dark spots where the flames of the spit licked up from fat drips. The meat was cut off the spit with a long serrated knife, and mixed with diced caramelized onion that sat below the skewer and wallowed in the rendering fat. The tacos were rolled into tight bundles and then served on an orange plastic plate. There was one salsa on offer, which I declined to use. I took one bite and ordered a third taco so it would be ready by the time I finished my second. I knew I had a long way to go in the day, but this was a consequential moment, a notable gastrological masterpiece. The taco was just lightly spiced, with tastes of rendered pork fat and crusty bits of roasted and caramelized meat, the onions adding just enough sweetness to keep it from getting boring and repetitive. The tortillas were more mellow than other shops, less vibrant with corn flavor but still tender and pillowy, allowing the meat to shine as the emphasis. I wanted to stay here for hours, calling off the selfish tour, but I knew I must move on.
El Hueqito
The rolled taco at El Hueqito
Next up was Taqueria Orinoco, by far the largest operation I’d seen, a narrow restaurant filled with tables, three trompos of al pastor in the kitchen. The menu had three options, the pork al pastor, thinly sliced beef, or chicharon (pork skin), any of which could be put on a griddle with cheese to be turned into an open face quesadilla of sorts. I ordered one of each taco, with the beef covered in cheese.
Each taco arrived on one tortilla, not two, providing a less structurally sound dining experience. Maybe they offered one tortilla because the tacos were a touch bigger. Or maybe it was because this operation had gotten too big for its bridges, as my dad would say, and had enough acclaim where it could get away with taco blasphemy.
Tacos Al Pastor is a signature taco of Mexico City, heavily influenced by the Lebanese immigrants that came over in the 19th century. Al pastor is Mexican shawarma, pork layered with an adobo sauce made from achiote mixed with a house spice blend. The meat is sliced very thin before marinating and then is punctured onto a skewer, built up and out, often with a pineapple skewered on top. The meat is sliced off and served with a piece of the roasted pineapple as well as onions and cilantro.
The al pastor taco at Orinoco was light on pepper and heat, and garnished with a fresh unroasted piece of pineapple. The taco was flavorful, but the weakest of the three ordered. The chicharon was braised until soft and had fried skin crumbled on top. This taco was a beautiful creation, savory and glutinous, topped with a thick sliced pickled salsa of red onion and jalapeno. The beef was topped with the golden brown and crispy cheese and topped with cilantro and white onion like the al pastor. The cheese strung along with each bite into long gooey strands, breaking out from underneath the crispy-griddled surface that had formed into a salty cheese cracker. The luscious last taco was possibly a mistake this early in the tour. I could feel the cheese sit in my stomach.
An example of an al pastor trompo
I needed a pick me up, a midday drink, something to help keep my hunger up as I was barely half-way through the crawl. I walked into a bar across from Orinoco, a place where the hipsters of Mexico City would hang out, dark lighting and black bar fixtures. I checked the drink list and noticed Macurichos mezcal, a brewery I had visited just a week before with my Dad outside of Oaxaca. I ordered a glass.
The mezcal tour was to be father and son bonding time. Leaving mom and sister behind, the men embarking on a day of raucous drinking at the distilleries out beyond the border of Oaxaca.
Let’s start with a quick note on mezcal. Mezcal is booze, hooch, the devil’s liquid. If Tequila is Champagne, then mezcal is wine. Mezcal is the mother distillate. Made from one of any number of agave plant varietals, it is a double distilled beverage that is the clear liquor of choice in Mexico (and more recently of hipster bars world-over). Agave can be small (soccer ball with spiky leaves) and huge (truncated palm tree), and every size in between. The plant can be wild, chopped down from the mountains and carted to a local brewery, or farmed on large plots of land directly next to a brewery. Some varietals do not take well to domestic life and must be grown wild. The plants take anywhere from seven to twenty-five years to mature to a point where they are ripe for harvest, and can only be harvested once, as the base of the plant is used to make the wart. The slow maturation rate and inability to reuse a plant makes agave a hot commodity. Most reputable producers have made a vow to plant three agave plants for every one that they cut down, ensuring prosperity for the future of the industry.
The process for artisanal mezcal is relatively constant regardless of agave varietal. The plant is cut out of the ground and the outer spiky leaves are trimmed off and left behind. The hearts of the plant, the massive bulb that sits in the center of the leaves and is ripe with sugars, is chopped into manageable chunks and cooked in an outdoor kiln for seven to ten days, layered with hot coals on the bottom, agave in the middle, and then covered in rocks on top for insulation. The result is a piece of plump smoked fruit, dense with filaments, that smells of roasted sugar cane.
The cooked agave heart is taken to a stone basin for smashing. A horse-drawn stone wheel on a pivot is used for the task. The horse walks in a circle, the stone wheel rotating around and breaking down the thick remaining fibers. The smashed plant is then mixed with water in large open wooden barrels, and fermented for another seven to ten days, depending on the weather. The fermented mash is then double distilled in either wood fired copper stills or clay pot stills. The clay pot stills are a more rarely used process where clay jugs with a spout are set on top of the fire, and a basin of cold water is placed on top to act as a condenser, the alcohol pouring out of the spout. The clay pot method is less commonly used because the pots can only produce in smaller production batches, and the clay has a tendency to break from the temperature differentials that occur during distillation, oftentimes shattering in the middle of a run and ruining an entire batch.
Clay Pot Distillation
The mezcal is either aged in oak barrels or, more commonly, bottled straight from distillation. It is very rare to see Oaxacans drink aged mezcal. Every agave varietal has its own distinct flavors and aromas, and like wine grapes, they are appreciated for their nuanced differences. To age the mezcal or poorly cook it in the kiln can give the beverage too much smokiness, which overshadows the distinct qualities and terroir of the agave being used. Artisanal mezcal, as it was described on my first day in Oaxaca, is like great natural wine, a testament and ode to the craftsmanship of the brewer and the land around them. Every bottle has a batch and bottle number on it, as well as the name of the brewer, as no batch will ever truly taste alike.
My father and I were taken to two distilleries, but found that they both were closed or doing the bare minimum due to our timing just after the New Years holiday. We were driving back through Matatlan, a regional hotbed of mezcal brewing activity, when our driver saw smoke drifting out of the chimney of a compound on the side of the road. We pulled over. The location was not an idyllic romantic factory out in the mountains. We were on a busy street lined with poorly stocked grocery and liquor stores, acting as a main pit stop drag along an important highway leading to Oaxaca. There was a large wall that hid the entire property from the road with a buzzer on the door that read ‘Macurichos’. We buzzed and waited. A small lady cracked open the gate. Our guide Felix asked if we could have a tasting. She closed the gate. We heard voices behind the door. The gates glided open.
The compound was not large, but was tightly organized. Along the right side sat a long wooden table for hosting tastings. Past the table was the kiln dug deep into the earth and filled with recently uncovered roasted agave hearts, their caramelized aroma filling the air. On the left were six fermentation barrels, a row of four clay pot stills, and four copper pot stills. Between the stills and the barrels was a smashing area with a horse attached by harness but not currently walking. The operation was in full swing, five men moved around tasting from the stills and adjusting fire wood temperatures beneath them, shoveling smashed agave into barrels, and shooing the pet peacock away from the sweet treat in the kiln.
The lady went into the attached house to find Gonzalo, the head of the family who operates Macurichos (which was started by his father). We wandered around as we waited. A worker handed us a piece of the just kilned agave heart, explaining the variety to be tobala, one of the smallest wild varieties. The agave tasted of a mix between roasted pineapple and sugarcane, tasting little of smoke and more of complex caramelized sugars that seeped out over our hands as a warm sticky thick syrup. The smoke flavor resided on the surface, not penetrating the tough fibers that made up the plant itself. We chewed until the flavor had dissipated and then spit out the fibers into one of the fires beneath the stills.
Mezcal fermentation tank
Next we walked over to the fermentation tanks, filled with a mix of the smashed kilned fruit and water. Each tank had been filled the day before and was already bubbling away like soda water, the yeast eating at the sugars, smelling of sourdough bread and dark rum. We walked over to the copper stills, flowing heavily with a clear liquid. Felix explained that this was a second distillation, the final distillation, and was roughly 70% alcohol before being cut for bottling. We were handed a hollowed out and dried gourd and told to sip some. We held the gourds beneath the trickling stream and took a couple of tablespoons each. Seventy percent mezcal is a shock to the senses. Spicy like a pepper, my tongue was censored anesthetized, but the aromas that drifted through the back of my palate and up into my nostrils were of burnt citrus and the perfume of a grassy field on fire. A man approached behind us and introduced himself as Gonzalo. He showed us to a table and pulled down a series of bottles for tasting.
“We produce only 1,200 bottles a month. We are a tiny operation.” Gonzalo’s English was practiced, but understandable. He dressed like a cowboy, in a dark purple button down, tight black jeans, and tall black boots, his jet-black hair slicked to one side. “We are the only distillery in Matatlan who still use the clay pots.”
He sets three bottles in front of us, three different agave varieties, each distilled twice in the clay pots, and then cut down to 48% alcohol. “We are on the menu at Pujol and El Cellar de Can Roca,” Gonzalo bragged, talking of two of the most renowned restaurants in the world. He is a proud man, turning a small operation from his father into an established brand in the high end sector of mezcal, every bottle labeled “Ancestrale,” a legal designation only put on bottles that followed strict rules that range from the source of the agave to the minimal use of modern equipment or tools for a mezcal’s production.
Each of the three samples was strikingly different. The first was tobala, the same variety that we just tried from the kiln, a small wild plant that takes over twenty years to be ready for harvest. There’s no way of getting around the fact that mezcal is almost 50% alcohol, there is always going to be a touch of gasoline burn to the aroma and taste. These mezcals though were bounteous with flavor associations. The tobala smelled of grass and black liquorices, and had a quickly dissipating finish on the palate. The madre cuish, a massive plant that takes far less time to mature, had more notes of corn and pepper, like a distilled elote. The last cup was of a variety called tepextate, a fifteen-year maturation plant that sits in size between the other two. This abundant flavor profile was ripe with grilled stone fruit and limestone, rich in minerals, perfect for sipping chilled on the porch during a blazing summer day.
We purchased a couple of bottles and prepared to head back to the car. Gonzalo stopped us near the door and asked to show us one more thing. He walked us to a shed next to the house and unlocked the door. Inside were hundreds of ten gallon plastic barrels, each filled with mezcal and labeled with an agave variety, month and year, style of distillation, and how many liters were produced.
“These are my babies. Every batch I’ve produced since taking over, so I can come and sample and remember. Maybe one day I’ll even bottle and sell all of this.” To Gonzalo this was a shed full of memories of errors and tampering and hard earned knowledge. He was showing us the private collection in an attempt to make it clear that though the mezcal making process before us had seemed simple, there was nothing easy about the years of tinkering and testing that Gonzalo had undergone in his struggle to make Macurichos renowned. We thanked him and departed, our heads full of distilled fog, ready to nap on the long car ride back.
Gonzalo’s private collection
Back on my taco tour I finished sipping a glass of tobala at the hipster bar and I headed to the next taco shop. Tacos Don Juan is a corner shop in the elitist Condesa neighborhood. The shop is dressed up like a crummy Spanish tapas bar, with a tacky faded tile bar wrapping around the wall and no seats. Men and women eating tacos spilled onto the street, each holding a plate and minding their own business, trying not to drip juice on their business clothes before returning back to work. Don Juan is a famous spot in the Mexico City taco scene, not known for their specialization so much as their jack of all trades capabilities, built into what used to be a small butcher shop owned by the father (Juan) of the current chef/owner (Gerardo). They are featured in numerous guidebooks and food tour recommendations, which made it a hesitant must-stop.
The menu was written on a whiteboard, a daily rotation, which at my count had forty-three taco options the day of my visit. I ordered one steak and one chicharron taco, seeking to compare to Orinoco. The steak came in a thick brown sauce while the chicharon was braised until soft and flabby and served straight up. They both were topped with speckled orange rice. I added some pickled white onions out of a bowl next to the cashier to the chicharon. Don Juan was the only stop of the day where I did not finish the tacos. They were both soggy and wet, the meat cooked in too much sauce, and the rice tasting like it had been microwaved in a packet. Maybe I ordered wrong or maybe it was an off day. I want to give Don Juan the benefit of the doubt.
Two al pastor stops were lined up next, starting at Los Parados established in 1965. The trompo sat outside so anyone passing by could grab a quick taco. The pork was crusty and golden over the subtle red hue, the pineapple warm and juicy from the roasting, covered in a heavy handed pinch of cilantro. Here was another superlative taco, one that I would return for at a moment’s notice. Every component of the taco could be tasted in each bite. Each mouthful walked the fine line of equally representing the gentle adobo seasoning, the tender and explosive pineapple, and a tortilla that emitted the wafting aroma of recently ground corn. I sipped a large horchata on the side. The frothy spiced rice milk helped to settle all that I had consumed so far. Again, I reluctantly moved on.
Next was El Kalifa, a chain famous for their al pastor that came recommended by numerous friends in Mexico City. Unlike Los Parados and its one-foot tall trompo operated by one man, El Kalifa has two towering trompos operated by a small army in a Ford style assembly line. At El Kalifa there was no color on the meat from cooking. The meat was neon orange, heavily marinated and teeming with pepper. The taco was dressed with three thin slices of raw pineapple, the meat glued together into a mosaic of orange and white by the thick slathering of marinade. The taco was juicy and flavorful, with more heat and kick, but also more sweetness and less of the meaty savoriness that the great joints had satisfied in their contributions. El Khalifa would be late night post-bar satisfactory, but was late afternoon mediocre compared to other available options.
I had one more planned stop, at this point unsure if I could eat, or even stare down, one more taco. I would finish at La Casa de Los Lechonitos al Horno, a spot renowned for their roasted suckling pig. After entering the shop, overwhelmed by the smell of pork fat wafting off a massive puffed chicharon sitting under a heat lamb in the window, seeing the shredded and chopped pork sitting on a wooden cutting board like at an American BBQ restaurant, only then was it that I admitted defeat. I ordered a torta to go, a sandwich on a white roll topped with a heavy handful of both shredded meat and crumbled puffed skin, plus lettuce and two types of salsa. I would eat it for dinner that night.
Two hours later, I unwrapped the bag and found white butcher paper soaked through with fat and drippings. The sandwich bread was steeped in a blend of juices and salsa. I used a fork and knife to shred it into a bread and meat salad, each bite a piece of luxury, tender little nuggets of pork doused in a ripping hot green salsa that had my lips numb and swelling and my forehead glazed in beads of sweat.
After eating the torta I headed to the upstairs bar and ran into Hugo, Yael, and Aaron. They looked sunburned and exhausted from a boat trip on the canal. “How was the tour?” they asked together.
“I never need to eat a taco again.” I laughed.
At that moment a platter of tacos arrived from the bar kitchen and was set down on our table, ordered just before I arrived.
“Oh. So you don’t want one?” asked Yael.
“Alright, just one more won’t hurt.”
|
https://medium.com/@jake.potashnick/tacos-churros-mezcal-oh-my-8e7b8f00121e
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['Jake Potashnick']
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2021-09-06 10:24:15.539000+00:00
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['Food', 'Tacos', 'Mexico', 'Travel', 'Restaurant']
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The Perils Of Being Moderately Famous by Soha Ali Khan
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*A book that inspires you to get comfortable with who you are, wherever you are!*
Soha might consider herself "moderately" famous, but this book is "outrageously" fascinating. A story of a brutally honest woman born in a family of Nawabs, poets, and overachievers, Soha takes us on a journey from India to England—where she pursued her graduation from Oxford—ultimately halting at the Bollywood station. In between, she shares some geographical, historical, and contextual facts.
She dedicates this book to her daughter, Inaaya, and talks about Sharmila Tagore as her mother and idol. Her excursions with her dear friend Tom are most endearing. She does not shy away from acknowledging her privilege, which makes the reader connect with her more authentically. Soha is beautiful, witty, and unpretentious.
Her writing is easy to read, and the title of every chapter gives you a flavor of what you can expect in the chapter. All the never-seen-before photographs of her childhood with her father make the book even more real. It is a quick read that you can cherish on a cold winter with your favorite cup of coffee/tea.
Pick it up if you like:
Memoirs
Wit
Bollywood
Self-deprecating humor
Penguin Random House
|
https://medium.com/@hunkydorkyy/the-perils-of-being-moderately-famous-by-soha-ali-khan-263d278b40cf
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[]
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2021-12-29 17:56:17.955000+00:00
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['Memoir', 'Bollywood', 'Books', 'Review', 'Humour']
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GREA (Jason Toncic) v. Glen Rock BOE
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In a precedent-setting ruling in defense of teachers’ rights, New Jersey arbitrator Susan Wood Osborn decided against a public school district’s claims that it could deny a teacher salary guide movement for graduate-level coursework if those courses were related to pedagogy rather than a specific subject matter.
The claimant, Jason Toncic, argued that his Ph.D. courses in a field of education had been capriciously and unfairly denied approval by the Glen Rock School District. NJEA UniServ representative Roselouise Holz presented the teacher’s case to the state-appointed arbitrator in February 2020.
Jason Toncic had taken courses in Montclair State University’s Teacher Education and Teacher Development Ph.D. program. Toncic had eight graduate-level courses approved by Glen Rock School District, but former Interim Superintendent Bruce Watson and current Superintendent Brett Charleston unexpectedly began to deny his coursework.
Glen Rock Superintendent Brett Charleston argued to the arbitrator that he was not permitted to provide salary guide movement for courses related to “teaching.” The arbitrator dismissed this argument as “not persuasive” in a sweeping 45-page ruling.
This award is an important recognition of teaching as a profession in New Jersey and sets a new standard by which districts should judge requests for horizontal guide movement. The state arbitrator made clear in the binding decision that pedagogy was clearly related to claimant Jason Toncic’s current or future job description. The Glen Rock School District’s argument that they could deny any graduate courses not directly related to content area was rejected.
The State arbitrator further clarified that coursework approvals and denials, in this case, were not preempted N.J.S.A.: 18A:6–8.5 and should be judged based on the district’s contract, noting that there were no substantial differences between the two. As a consequence, school district employees should look to their contract language when appealing for coursework to be approved or denied.
In all, the arbitrator found the five courses that had been denied approval by the Glen Rock School District were unfairly denied. She awarded the claimant Jason Toncic retroactive pay and appropriate salary guide movement.
|
https://medium.com/@njdecisions/grea-jason-toncic-v-glen-rock-boe-cc867a68cb6f
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['Nj Decisions']
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2020-08-08 16:14:30.336000+00:00
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['New Jersey', 'Teachers', 'Glen Rock', 'Jason Toncic', 'Salary Guide']
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Gentle Start to Deep Learning implementing Linear Neurons using NumPy
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When starting with Machine Learning and Deep Learning, the number of new vocabularies and concepts can be overwhelming. In this story, we tackle this problem by implementing a linear neuron using just NumPy.
A linear neuron highly relates to the problem of linear regression. The problem we try to solve is equal: We are applying gradient descent on our regression problem to find good weights w.
In this post, we look at the loss function, gradient descent, and training of our model.
Steps to Train a Model
The steps to train a model can be divided into:
Loading the data and preparing our datasets Define the model Training and evaluating the model
For this project and the projects to come, I propose the following directory architecture:
datasets — holding all different datasets we use in our projects
models — containing the various models we use
trainers — having the trainers — the trainer links the models and the datasets together and takes care of the evaluation
main.py — as a starting point for our training and setting the used hyperparameters, this file is being extended as we proceed
Loading the data and preparing our datasets
In this step, we load the data from a file into a format that can be processed (for example, an array). We also need to split our data into different datasets: train and test set. We require both datasets to test that our model doesn’t just fit the training data but generalizes.
Fig. 1 shows two lines: a linear model (blue) and a degree 12 polynomial (red). The polynomial fits the training points perfectly. But if we sample new points, the prediction of the polynomial is very far off. This is called overfitting, and a result of the model being too expressive.
Fig. 1: The black dots are the training samples, and the samples marked with a plus sign are from the test set.
To prevent the model from overfitting, we divide our data into a train and test dataset. With the training dataset, we are training our model to fit the data, and with the test dataset, we check that we don’t overfit the data.
Glimpse into the dataset
In this first attempt, we use a small dataset for regression. This dataset consists of the result of three exams and the final exam score. We want to train our linear neuron to predict the final exam score as close as possible.
A short excerpt of the training data:
Can we predict the final exam score by just knowing the scores of the first three exams?
Code to load the dataset
We add a new file in our datasets folder and name it regression_dataset.py and read the file's data. After that, we split the data into a train and test dataset:
Define the Model
Since we have the data at hand, it is time to think about our linear neuron.
In a linear neuron, every input is multiplied by a weight. The output of the neuron is the sum of all products:
The expressive power of linear neurons is minimal. To learn complex relationships, we need to introduce multiple layers and need neurons that employ some nonlinearity.
A model in TensorFlow 2.x or PyTorch always has the following functions:
Let’s dive into each function individually:
Model Init
Our model consists of one single neuron. We need to generate the weights first. Since we have three inputs, for each exam one, we are also generating three weights:
We hold the values of our weights in a NumPy array and also store the learning rate.
Model Forward
In the forward pass, we calculate our linear neuron's outputs for every row in our dataset. We are doing this by applying the dot product of the input data and our weights.
Matrix X holds our dataset. The first row equals the results of the three exams. We calculate the dot product of X and vector w, holding our weights. If we calculate y1 by hand, we can see that this matches the calculation we want to apply.
Using NumPy, the calculation described above is just one single line of code:
Model Get Loss
We want our linear neuron to output a right prediction of the final exam score. Therefore we need to adapt the weights accordingly. To know if we need to shift the weights, we need to measure our current prediction quality. If the loss is near zero, we don’t need to train our model anymore.
The measurement we are using in the case of regression is Mean Squared Error (MSE).
For each sample i, we calculate the difference between the real outcome y and the predicted outcome y_pred. We square the difference, so higher absolute differences are taken into account more.
To calculate the loss, we first run a forward pass through our model and get a prediction using our current weights. We then use the correct values given in our train dataset and calculate the loss.
Model Fit
We now want to fit our model on our training data. This is done by applying gradient descent. Gradient descent consists of looking at the error the model using the current weights gives us. We are using the derivative of the loss function to find the gradient and then changing the weights gently in the opposite direction. The gradient gives us the slope of the loss function at the point of our current weights. Since the gradient points up the slope, we need to move in the opposite direction to decrease the loss.
We need to calculate the derivative for each dimension of w
We can calculate the gradient using matrices:
The sum of the gradient is higher if the weight has an elevated part of the error.
We then apply the gradient on the weights. To limit the gradient descent step's size, we multiply the gradient with the learning rate beforehand.
Thanks to NumPy, this is just a few lines of code:
Training and evaluating the Model
Training a model consists of a consecutive number of training steps. In each step, we calculate the gradient and apply the data on the model. The weights shift successively in the right direction and will converge to a (local) minimum.
We need to apply several steps on our model weights to find a minimum. Image: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/600/1*iNPHcCxIvcm7RwkRaMTx1g.jpeg
We run a loop over the model fit function and log the loss generated using the test and train dataset. If the train dataset's loss increases, we need to stop training, as we are starting to overfit the data.
Generate a new folder trainers and add the file trainer_linear.py.
The trainer loads the dataset and the model and links everything together.
The starting point for our training
The starting point for our training is file main.py. We set up the trainer here and feed all the necessary hyperparameters. The parameters can also be parameters set by calling the file from the console.
In future articles, we will extend the parameters.
What is missing?
Two things are missing and could be implemented on your own watch:
normalize the data of the datasets first add a bias term to our matrices
Consult this page for further information.
What have we learned?
|
https://medium.com/@janbolle87/gentle-start-to-deep-learning-implementing-linear-neurons-using-numpy-30dfc3f2a64d
|
['Jan Bollenbacher']
|
2020-11-05 16:11:25.792000+00:00
|
['Python', 'Tutorial', 'Gradient Descent', 'Deep Learning', 'Numpy']
|
8 Reusable Functions To Make Your Angular App Accessible
|
8 Reusable Functions To Make Your Angular App Accessible
Accessibility plays a vital role in any Single Page Applications. As Angular growing by leaps and bounds, supporting the accessibility in Angular Application becomes quite complex until we know all accessibility concepts.
Here I am coming with the different guidelines to implement accessibility in Angular Applications.
Before starting the implementation techniques, Let’s check common rules to follow while implementing accessibility.
If you would like to learn about how to implement skip to main content in your application please check out this article.
Let’s Start our main discussion
Today we are planning to create a reusable directive that helps to maintain the accessibility in Angular Applications.
We will create eight different reusable components to support the accessibility in our application.
1. Assigning an ID to the controls
The id the attribute specifies a unique id for an HTML element. The value of the id attribute must be unique within the HTML document.
We can create the function to add the id to the form controls automatically based on the form controls.
Let’s check the function.
this.renderer.setAttribute(
this.hostElement.nativeElement,
'id',
this.control.name,
);
What are renderer and hostElement here?
Let’s understand in brief.
renderer: renderer is defined from the Renderer2 which allows manipulating the DOM elements without having the whole DOM access. We can create an element from Renderer2 and can change or add the property with the Renderer2. Here we have used renderer to add the id to the controls.
hostElement: hostElement is defined from the ElementRef which is the wrapper around the native DOM element. It contains nativeElement property which holds the reference of the DOM Object. To manipulate DOM we can use nativeElement property.
2.Setting aria-labelledby tag to the controls
The aria-labelledby attribute establishes relationships between objects and their label(s), and its value should be one or more element IDs, which refer to elements that have the text needed for labeling. List multiple-element IDs in a space-delimited fashion.
Let’s take a small example.
<div id="signup">Create User</div>
<div>
<div id="name">Name</div>
<input type="text" aria-labelledby="signup name"/>
</div>
<div>
<div id="address">Address</div>
<input type="text" aria-labelledby="signup address"/>
</div>
Here the aria-labelledby will take multiple IDs to provide the reference to the child elements. This is very useful when the screen reader is announcing the label with the parent form name.
Let’s check the function to add the aria-labelledby tag dynamically.
this.renderer.setAttribute(
this.hostElement.nativeElement,
'aria-labelledby',
`${this.control.name}-label`,
);
3. Setting For Label to the controls
To understand this, Let’s check one of the answers given in the stack overflow by Darin Dimitrov.
The for the attribute is used in labels. It refers to the id of the element this label is associated with.
For example:
<label for="username">Username</label>
<input type="text" id="username" name="username" />
Now when the user clicks with the mouse on the username text the browser will automatically put the focus on the corresponding input field. This also works with other input elements such as <textbox> and <select> .
Let’s create a function to add for label with the id dynamically in the application.
const closestPrevSiblingLabel = $(this.hostElement.nativeElement)
.prevAll('label:first')
.get(0); if (closestPrevSiblingLabel) {
if (typeof this.control.name === 'string') {
this.renderer.setAttribute(
closestPrevSiblingLabel,
'for',
this.control.name,
);
}
this.renderer.setAttribute(
closestPrevSiblingLabel,
'id',
`${this.control.name}-label`,
);
}
What is closestPrevSiblingLabel doing?
We are using the prevAll() method which returns all previous sibling elements of the selected element and we are selecting the first element label using get(0)
4.Setting aria-required or aria-invalid tag to the controls
Let’s understand what is this aria-required and aria-invalid.
aria-required: The aria-required the attribute is used to indicate that user input is required on an element before a form can be submitted. This attribute can be used with any typical HTML form element; it is not limited to elements that have an ARIA role assigned.
aria-invalid: The aria-invalid the attribute is used to indicate that the value entered into an input field does not conform to the format expected by the application. This may include formats such as email addresses or telephone numbers. aria-invalid can also be used to indicate that a required field has not been filled in. The attribute should be programmatically set as a result of a validation process.
Let’s create a function which checks the control has the required field or not? If it has we will set the aria-required field as true. Same if the control is invalid then we will add the aria-invalid as true.
ValidatorUtils.hasRequiredField(this.control.control as AbstractControl) ?
this.renderer.setAttribute(
this.hostElement.nativeElement,
'aria-required',
`true`,
) :
this.renderer.removeAttribute(
this.hostElement.nativeElement,
'aria-required',
); // Set `aria-invalid` for screen reader.
if (this.control.touched) {
this.control.invalid ?
this.renderer.setAttribute(
this.hostElement.nativeElement,
'aria-invalid',
`true`,
) :
this.renderer.removeAttribute(
this.hostElement.nativeElement,
'aria-invalid',
);
}
Here we have added one utility function to check that control has the required field or not?
if (abstractControl.validator) {
const validator = abstractControl.validator({}
as AbstractControl);
if (validator && validator.required) {
return true;
}
}
//
// tslint:disable-next-line:no-string-literal
if (abstractControl['controls']) {
//
// tslint:disable-next-line:no-string-literal
for (const controlName in abstractControl['controls']) {
//
if (abstractControl['controls'][controlName]) {
//
if (
ValidatorUtils.hasRequiredField(
//
abstractControl['controls'][controlName],
)
) {
return true;
}
}
}
}
return false;
} static hasRequiredField(abstractControl: AbstractControl): boolean {if (abstractControl.validator) {const validator = abstractControl.validator({}as AbstractControl);if (validator && validator.required) {return true;// @ts -ignore// tslint:disable-next-line:no-string-literalif (abstractControl['controls']) {// @ts -ignore// tslint:disable-next-line:no-string-literalfor (const controlName in abstractControl['controls']) {// @ts -ignoreif (abstractControl['controls'][controlName]) {// @ts -ignoreif (ValidatorUtils.hasRequiredField(// @ts -ignoreabstractControl['controls'][controlName],) {return true;return false;
5. Setting the aria-expanded tag to the dropdowns
Let’s understand what is an aria-expanded tag.
aria-expanded: Indicates whether the element or another grouping element it controls, is currently expanded or collapsed.
Let’s create a function to add the aria-expanded tag to the controls.
this.renderer.setAttribute(
this.hostElement.nativeElement,
'aria-expanded',
`${this.hostNgSelect.isOpen}`,
);
What is the hostNgSelect here?
hostNgSelect is the property of the NgSelectComponent which provides all the properties of the ng-select. Here we have used to set the aria-expanded tag in the control.
6. Supporting other dropdown features for accessibility
Let’s understand some of the tags before jumping to the functions.
role: The role the attribute describes the role of an element in programs that can make use of it, such as screen readers or magnifiers.
combobox: Combobox is used for building forms in HTML. In which users are able to select an option from the drop-down list as per their selections.
aria-autocomplete: Indicates whether inputting text could trigger the display of one or more predictions of the user’s intended value for input and specifies how predictions would be presented if they are made.
tabindex: The tabindex the global attribute indicates that its elements can be focused, and where it participates in sequential keyboard navigation (usually with the Tab key, hence the name).
Let’s create the functions to add these tags dynamically.
this.renderer.setAttribute(
this.hostElement.nativeElement,
'role',
'combobox',
);
this.renderer.setAttribute(
this.hostElement.nativeElement,
'tabindex',
'0',
);
this.renderer.setAttribute(
this.hostElement.nativeElement,
'aria-autocomplete',
'none',
);
7. Trim and ignore whitespace in the controls.
Unnecessary whitespace sometimes causes issues when we are sending data to backend services. We can remove the whitespace from the controls directly using the function.
if (
!this.ignoreWhitespaceTrim &&
this.isTruthy(this.control.value) &&
this.isString(this.control.value)
) {
this.control.control?.setValue((this.control.value as string).trim(), {
emitEvent: false,
});
}
8. Disable password Managers
data-lpignore used to ignore the password managers for the input.
Let’s create a function to add this attribute.
this.renderer.setAttribute(
this.hostElement.nativeElement,
'data-lpignore',
'true',
);
Yeah! we have completed all the functions. Let’s add them together to create reusable components to support the accessibility in the angular application.
References:
Are you preparing for interviews? Here are frequently asked interview questions in Angular. It covers the Latest interview questions for Angular and Frontend development. Let’s check how many of these questions you can answer?
|
https://javascript.plainenglish.io/8-reusable-functions-to-make-your-angular-app-accessible-61a870026538
|
[]
|
2021-01-18 14:49:23.173000+00:00
|
['JavaScript', 'Angular', 'Front End Development', 'Accessibility', 'Web Development']
|
True self
|
True self
It’s in the moments of darkness,
The uncontrollable feelings of helplessness
And dismay that we find the strength to create light,
and bear it through the cold nights.
When we feel like there is nothing left, when we think we’ve taken our last breaths
that we amass the strength to let go, create, and blossom.
Healing is painful, traumatic and exhausting.
However it is the presence, the love, the growth that are the prizes we truly covet when we heal.
And from those painful moments we become our true selves,
and give life to the world
|
https://medium.com/@adonisric/true-self-1a9043007d72
|
['Adonis Richards']
|
2020-12-26 17:09:26.115000+00:00
|
['Poetry Writing', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poetry']
|
An Idiot’s Guide to Eating the Vegetables You Buy Instead of Letting Them Rot
|
Happy 2016! It’s a new year, and that means it’s time to lie to ourselves about our futures and our deeply ingrained bad habits. Just kidding, just kidding, it’s time to attempt meaningful steps toward a better life. Or at least towards just replacing your sponges more often.
My resolution style has always been pretty grounded and granular. The sorts of sweeping self-betterment resolutions I hear others make (“Lose 20 pounds!” “Meet my future spouse!” “Stop being so angry all the time, you know? *sips Pinot Grigio*”) just make me break out in pressure-hives. I try to aim for small, achievable resolutions. Like a puppy being trained to pee outdoors, I need to be set up to win.
So this year, one of my bite-sized resolutions is to eat more vegetables. Like, actually eat them. Not just buy them, tuck them away, then toss them in the garbage when they’ve grown arms or started to resemble something more hamster-like than leafy green.
My usual routine goes a little like this: I buy a lot of produce in a delusional fit of self-betterment, then allow it to rot in the fridge while I order pineapple fried rice in defeat. It’s a double waste of money and I’ve decided that 2016 is the year when the madness stops.
So here are the strategies I’ve been using and so far, so good.
1. Put all your vegetables in a flat row on the top shelf of the fridge.
I don’t know about you, but the crisper is where I get into trouble. What goes on in that crisper? Certainly not crisping, in my experience. It’s got some dastardly, wrinkle-oriented agenda that causes my eggplants to age and my lemons to grow textured Justin Vernon-esque beards. But even if there’s no sinister plot afoot in there, at the very least it simply hides away my food. And anything my idiot brain doesn’t see immediately upon flinging open the fridge door may as well not exist.
2. Admit it when you don’t like to cook something.
You know what I never want to prepare for myself? Peppers. I don’t know why! I appreciate the way they taste, I enjoy eating them in restaurants, I like to gaze upon elegant oil paintings of their likenesses. But when it comes to my own cooking, they’re just not in the mix. Society pressures me to buy them, with visions of fresh Greek salads I’ll never make dancing in my head. I don’t eat hummus; I’m never dipping peppers in it. I know this now. So I’ve stopped buying them and you know what, Oprah Magazine, I don’t feel badly about it.
3. Stop being fooled by “value packs” at the bodega.
You know they’re positioning the tomatoes under the cellophane to specifically hide the rotting parts. Just accept it. Pay the extra 20 cents and pick the produce yourself.
4. Go to the grocery store more often than once a month.
The store is like three blocks away, you lazy moron. Stop thinking of it as a big horrible chore, during which you stock up on dumb crap like some sort of camo-clad apocalypse prepper. Instead, you could be like one of those glorious, silk-scarf-clad Parisian women who stops by the “market” every damn day for the freshest of fresh ingredients. Just start going more, and buying less each time. That seems to be how the science of “not having produce go bad” works. Just trust me here. After all, I did come in third place in my grammar school science fair because my non-functioning robot prototype elicited the pity vote.
5. Not into recipes? Just do whatever the hell you want instead.
Listen, I live alone. I can do all the weird behavior I want, and that extends to cooking. I used to get overwhelmed by preparing my own meals because I’d get wrapped up in recipes. Lemon-rubbed tilapia, pasta carbonara… you know, like, salads… it was all too much. So now I’m trying this recipe I invented myself, which goes “cut up vegetables, sauté in pan, consume while warm.” That’s all I really need, turns out. Bonus: Eat your dish out of a mug because your plates are all dirty! Baby steps, ya know; 2017 can be the year I develop a more effective dish-washing system.
If I’m eating vegetables every day of 2016, so can you. You’re so much smarter than me! Go forth and eat fresh! Whoops that’s a Subway slogan!
|
https://medium.com/the-billfold/an-idiot-s-guide-to-eating-the-vegetables-you-buy-instead-of-letting-them-rot-41bf35b5eb16
|
['Jess Keefe']
|
2016-01-15 14:51:01.766000+00:00
|
['Resolutions', 'Cooking', 'Food']
|
Python Key Packages for Data Science
|
Python Key Packages for Data Science
Hi! Young Data Science enthusiast, Let’s understand key packages for Data Science implementation. This is really very simple to understand and apply on your data set.
Especially Python libraries for Data Science, Machine Learning models are very interesting, easy to understand and absolutely you can apply straight away and you can feel the insight of the data and realize/visualize the nature of the data set.
Even the complex algorithms can be implemented in two or three lines of code, all major mathematical concepts are embedded inside of the packages for the implementation point of view.
Of Course, this is something different and interesting than other programming libraries I have seen so far, that is the main reason Python playing a vital role in the AI space with this simplicity and robustness! I believe, Yes! I realized, understood thoroughly and enjoyed it.
Let’s Discuss in short and sweet way! (For detail you can refer my YouTube Channel)
What is package in Python? A package is a collection of Python modules and assembled in single pack. Once you import in your note book cells, you can start using class, methods, attributes and etc., But before that you should necessity and usage of the package and import into your file/package.
Package
Let’s discuss key packages in Python for Data Science and Machine Learning.
1.Pandas
2.Numpy
3.Scikit Learn
4.Matplotlib
5.Seaborn
Pandas
Mainly used for structured data operations and manipulations. Pandas offers powerful data processing capabilities, I ever seen such a wonderful features in my IT journey. It provides high-performance, easy-to-use and applied on data structures and to analysis the data.
import pandas as pd
Then, your Note Book is ready to extract all features in-side the pandas.
Pandas has below capabilities
Pandas Can Do!
Will explain detail Pandas Story and interesting demos in my YouTube Channel !
Numpy
import numpy as np
Numpy is considered as one of the most popular machine learning library in Python, The best and the most important feature of Numpy is Array interface and manipulations.
Are you scared about mathematics while implementing your Data Science/ML model ? No worries, Numpy makes complex mathematical implementations very simple functions. But remember understand the requirements and use the pack accordingly.
Numpy Can Do!
If you have started play with data using Numpy…. Certainly you need more and more time…to understand the concepts, all are extremely organized in this package. believe me!
Scikit Learn
Scikit Learn library is one of the richest library in Python family, it contains huge number of machine learning algorithms and other key performance related libraries. Python Scikit-learn allows users to perform various Machine Learning specific tasks. To perform, it needs to work along with SciPy and NumPy libraries, this is something internal matters, Anyway keep it in your mind.
Regression
Classification
Clustering
Model Selection
Dimensionality Reduction
Step -1 and 2 Libraries
ML Libraries
from sklearn.linear_model import LinearRegression
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
Visualization Packages from Python
Matplotlib & Seaborn Libraries
Matplotlib & Seaborn
Python providing 2D graphics features with Matplotlib library. this is very simple and easy to understand. you can accomplish by 1 or 2 lines. Even 3D visualization also there.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
Hope you have worked on multiple charts in excel worksheet and other BI tools. But in Python in-house visualization packages are providing extremely high quality graphs and charts.
Matplotlib is one of the major and basic visualization package, which provides Histograms (Frequency Level), Bar charts (Univariate and Bivariate Plotting), Scatter Plots(Clustering) and etc.,
Few Glimpse from Matplotlib
Rich and Luxury data visualization library from Seaborn. It provides a high-level interface for drawing attractive and informative statistical graphics. Box Plots (Data Distribution with different quartiles),Violin Plots (Data Distribution and Probability density),Bar Plots (Comparisons among categorical features),Heat map (Correlation of features in terms of Matrix representation), Word Cloud (Visual representation of Text Data)
Few Glimpse from Seaborn
Few more ………….. from Seaborn
So, All these libraries are helping us to build nice model and playing with Data! But remember always, before the usage of the induvial packages, you should understand the necessity and requirements of the package and then import into your file/package. Hope now you got the feel and certain level of details on Python packages. Will see more in depth concepts in up coming days! and in my YouTube channel as well.
Until then bye for now — Cheers ! From — Shanthababu!
|
https://medium.com/the-innovation/python-key-packages-for-data-science-54057689ab2
|
['Shanthababu Pandian']
|
2020-11-20 16:10:18.678000+00:00
|
['Machine Learning', 'Data Science']
|
Crispy Salmon Recipe With Lemon Butter Sauce — Cafe Delites
|
Today we are going to make Crispy Salmon Recipe With Lemon Butter Sauce. This recipe is very delicious. The way we are going to make this recipe, we should try to make this recipe in the same way. All your family will love it. cafe delites salmon
First of all, you have to wash the salmon fish with nice clean water and then you have to remove the skill with the help of a knife and you want to cut the 6 pieces of salmon fish into 1 inch thin slices because you want to make your salmon recipe crispy.
Now put Salt, Turmeric Powder, Black Pepper on Salmon Pieces and start Gas Flame Medium and put Pan on it and add Butter Pieces (45 gm). And Butter Melt. Now add Salmon Fish Pieces.
Fry Salmon Pieces on one side for 5 minutes and on the other side for 5 minutes. You can fry Extra for 2–3 more minutes. So that the Pieces will be crispy and delicious to eat. Remove Fry Salmon Pieces.
Now make Gas Flame Medium and put Pan on it and add Butter Pieces, White Wine, Lemon Juice, Cream, Chopped Cilantro, Salt And boil the sauce for 5 minutes. Now your Recipe is ready. cafe delites salmon
Crispy Salmon Recipe With Lemon Butter Sauce Literature
|
https://medium.com/@cafedelites/crispy-salmon-recipe-with-lemon-butter-sauce-cafe-delites-449d37cc050d
|
[]
|
2020-12-29 11:33:00.055000+00:00
|
['Recipe', 'Foodies', 'Food', 'Food And Drink']
|
The Anatomy of Creation: The way I see it.
|
Is the coming of man into this world a deliberate thought out plan? What about a divine protocol, or maybe merely an accident?
Wow, nature!
If not by accident, why is it that all semen doesn’t result in creating a fetus? Or see the day’s light, not to talk of materializing and becoming a living being? And if creation does not follow a calculated and divine sequence, why is it that all the fetuses don’t develop to maturity?
According to my observation, the divine protocol is crucial in creating man as seen in Genesis 1:26: “Let’s make man in our image. …” this protocol regulates human’s existence and consists of two parts: The physical (earthly) and the spiritual (heavenly), which in turn are based on four fundamental pillars among other things, include Born into the world, Grow, Procreate, and Die.
A protocol that not even scientists can change, therefore, constituting the “Anatomy of Creation” package. When we go through the first three phases of the life cycle (Born, Grow, and Procreate), we do so in the flesh, the skin, or the body. When we die, however, we take the final step. The inner man is now clothed with the spiritual energy body — Zachariah 3:4 (the “filthy” clothes are replaced by the “fine” garments).
The beauty of nature.
If not by accident, why is it that all semen doesn’t result in creating a fetus? Or see the day’s light, not to talk of materializing and becoming a living being? And if creation does not follow a calculated and divine sequence, why is it that all the fetuses don’t develop to maturity?
According to my observation, the divine protocol is crucial in creating man as seen in Genesis 1:26: “Let’s make man in our image. …” this protocol regulates human’s existence and consists of two parts: The physical (earthly) and the spiritual (heavenly), which in turn are based on four fundamental pillars among other things, include Born into the world, Grow, Procreate, and Die.
A protocol that not even scientists can change, therefore, constituting the “Anatomy of Creation” package. When we go through the first three phases of the life cycle (Born, Grow, and Procreate), we do so in the flesh, the skin, or the body. When we die, however, we take the final step. The inner man is now clothed with the spiritual energy body — Zachariah 3:4 (the “filthy” clothes are replaced by the “fine” garments).
Beauty, the beauty of nature!
Our Sojourning on Earth
Our life pilgrimage or sojourning on this Earth will again depend on the divine protocol’s benevolence, or destiny, enabling us to live well over the three scores or a minimum of seventy years as planned for us.
The Divine Calendar
Then comes another chapter entirely new but already marked by the invisible hand as stipulated by the divine calendar protocol when we have to abandon and leave, yet, not with our consent as we have no say in it. It goes a long way to confirm man’s life on Earth can be compared to that of robots made to fulfill their maker’s objectives. Once complete, they are no longer useful, and they become obsolete after accomplishing their assignments. Or what do you say?
Your comment is very welcome!
|
https://medium.com/@pedroodubayothompson/the-anatomy-of-creation-the-way-i-see-it-dcc904b96956
|
['Pedro Odubayo Thompson', 'Wordsinthecloud.Com']
|
2020-12-10 02:25:40.258000+00:00
|
['Man', 'Divine', 'Life', 'Earth', 'Protocol']
|
Analysis of Augur (REP)
|
A decentralized prediction market platform.
Augur attempts to decentralize the prediction market by allowing users, rather than a centralized figure, to confirm the outcomes of events. First an event is created, it could be the outcome of a binary event (Lakers vs. Celtics) or it could be a non-binary event (How many inches of snowfall were there in January). Then the event happens, but how can we trust that the reported outcome of the event is correct? The users on the network announce the outcome of this event and gain reputation (REP) if they told the truth, and lose REP if they lied. A user is considered to be lying if the majority of the other users disagree with their reporting.
This platform allows users to bet Bitcoin on certain events while also gaining REP (reputation) by validating the outcome of events. This plan effectively eliminates the requirement for a totally honest oracle to validate the outcomes (ie. Las Vegas betting firms).
The basic of the Network is as follows:
Event Created -> Event added to the market -> Users bet on the event Event happens -> Users vote on the outcome Users lose and gain REP for reporting correctly Users gain or lose Bitcoin for predicting the event correctly
Currently Augur is waiting on their smart contracts to be audited and tested by CoinSpect, a reputable smart contract code auditor. Back in July of 2017 there was a serious security bug found in one of the smart contracts during an audit, here is a link to more information: http://bit.ly/2v5C71w. They are now going through the second and third round of contract audits to make sure that they are usable and safe. They also recently released a new version of their white paper because the product has changed in the past few years since the ICO.
My Thoughts:
I have a problem with the platform taking over three years to be released. I checked out the beta version of the platform and it was really hard to use and needs a lot of work. I understand that it takes a lot of work to develop a platform of this scale, but Augur was launched in 2015; I think they should have something significant to show for it by now. I do not think the price is justified and it would take a lot of new developments for me to invest.
I would need to see these things at the bare minimum:
A mainnet release of the prediction market that is highly functional, and has a large amount of users.
The platform is well developed and works smoothly. They have spent years on this so it should be pretty good when they actually release it.
If Augur can’t get these things done in the next 6 months, I don’t think Augur can live up to the hype from the past three years.
Additional Resources:
Please note: all opinions I have expressed are my own.
|
https://medium.com/wolverineblockchain/analysis-of-augur-rep-ec3eb97d89be
|
['Izak Fritz']
|
2018-03-16 19:59:12.434000+00:00
|
['Augur', 'Smart Contracts', 'Blockchain', 'Prediction Markets', 'Bitcoin']
|
The Most Important Vice Presidency Selection Ever
|
The 1944 running mate for FDR
Photo by Louis Velazquez on Unsplash
But, with the help of Greenfield, let’s take a look back at history to see a time when being the vice presidential candidate mattered most. And we can argue that the VP of the winner of the 2020 presidential election will have drastic implications because of the age of the two candidates — Donald Trump is 74, and Joe Biden is 77. Either one will be the oldest President in American history to be inaugurated by at least four years — so whoever is Vice President has a better shot than previous ones to assume office in the case of death.
Some have said that the strength of the Vice President is that he or she helps deliver the home state for the President in an election — but the running mate almost never actually delivers their home state. Vice Presidents tend, then, to usually be non-factors in Presidential races — but one choice of VP candidate changed the course of history — the running mate for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1944 Democratic convention.
At the time, no one doubted that FDR would be the President in 1944. Despite facing serious opposition in 1940 when he ran for a third term, there was little desire for ousting the commander in chief in a time of global war. The GOP had a formidable ticket with Thomas Dewey, a liberal reformer, and Ohio Governor John Bricker as his running mate.
FDR was the only Democratic candidate who stood a chance at beating them.
However, there was deep division over who Roosevelt would choose as his running mate. Every person who saw Roosevelt in person knew a very sad truth, one that put all political arguments aside — FDR was dying. Even though the public never knew about Roosevelt’s health because no one talked about it with the press, medical professionals and politicians alike knew that he was dying.
Leaders of the Democratic Party knew that FDR’s running mate would likely become President
In March of 1944, Dr. Howard Bruenn described that FDR was “a drawn, gray, and exhausted individual, who became short of breath on the very slightest exertion,” who suffered from a heart attack and high blood pressure. Other doctors agreed with Bruenn, and a couple of weeks before the Democratic National Convention, Dr. Frank Lahey wrote a memo to FDR’s primary physician saying the following:
“I did not believe that if Mr. Roosevelt were elected president again, he had the physical capacity to complete a term. … It was my opinion that over the four years of another term with its burdens, he would again have heart failure and be unable to complete it.”
Established members of the Democratic Party shared the view of the medical professionals. Robert Hannegan, the DNC Chairman at the time, was so appalled by FDR’s health that he and his wife spend hours crying and talking about it. Democratic insiders knew that, in Greenfield’s words, “in selecting Roosevelt’s running mate, they were almost certainly choosing the next president of the United States.”
However, many would argue that it shouldn’t have been a choice — Henry Wallace was pursued aggressively by FDR himself to be the running mate in 1940. Adamant opposition arose when Wallace was selected for the running mate, since he was too committed to civil rights and too liberal for southern and conservative Democrats. He was a hero to organized labor and African-American communities in American cities.
When opposition arose, FDR squashed it by publicly threatening that he’d decline the nomination if Wallace wasn’t selected. But opposition to Wallace was much stronger in 1944 than in 1940. He was incredibly unpopular in the South for his vociferous opposition to segregation. His progressive stances and very radical speeches made him seen as too unstable, undisciplined, and unreliable for DNC insiders like Hannegan, Treasurer Ed Pauley, and Chicago Mayor, Ed Kelly. He was someone too unpredictable and too unable to influence and control in a time of instability.
Another consideration for VP was a staunch segregationist
At some point, the best alternative to Wallace was James Byrnes, who was picked by Roosevelt to head the Office of War Stabilization, giving him much power. Roosevelt would call Byrnes an “assistant president,” but Byrnes did not sit right with the DNC leadership either — he was not popular with labor for his opposition to labor and anti-lynching legislation.
As a legislator and judge from South Carolina, he once said, horrifically, that lynching was necessary “in order to hold in check the Negro in the South.” Byrd was also a Catholic who changed his faith when he married an Episcopalian, and Democratic insiders worried that his conversion to Episcopalianism would anger many Catholics in the North.
James Byrd — From the Library of Congress
Even by 1944 standards, Byrnes was a figure too controversial and bigoted to be Roosevelt’s running mate and possibly the next President of the United States.
Unfortunately, Roosevelt and Democratic insiders would not be very clear to the candidates either. They assured Byrnes that he was surely the choice for a running mate, despite his views, and FDR told Wallace that he was the favored running mate for 1944. However, his endorsement of Wallace in a letter was written so unenthusiastically that it would be called Wallace’s “kiss of death”.
Roosevelt and the Democratic leadership would consider Byrnes more than Wallace, but a visit from Sidney Hillman, a labor leader, who fiercely opposed Byrnes, would make sure that Byrnes was not the candidate. Hillman was so influential a leader in American politics that Republicans would say that to push a policy measure through, they had to “clear it with Sidney” first.
At a loss, FDR and Democratic leadership decided on a compromise choice: Harry Truman, a senator from Missouri.
Despite Roosevelt’s preference for Truman, Wallace still had the support of 65 percent of Democrats, while Truman only earned 2 percent support in a Gallup poll. On the second night of the Democratic National Convention, liberal members of Congress overwhelmingly supported and demonstrated in favor of Wallace, and one senator tried to fight his way to the podium to put Wallace’s name to the nomination. However, the chair of the convention would adjourn the vote for the next day to avoid the senator from getting to the microphone.
Although Wallace led the first ballot with 429.5 votes to Truman’s 319.5, Democratic insiders worked all night to convince delegates that Truman was the best candidate, and Truman won on the second ballot overwhelmingly.
The outcome
Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash
Harry Truman would become the running mate, and the Roosevelt-Truman ticket would win the election.
In April 1945, three months after FDR began his fourth term, he died. Harry Truman became the President. Truman would pick Byrnes to become the Secretary of State, while Wallace would become the Secretary of Commerce.
However, Wallace disagreed so vociferously with Truman’s Cold War policies that Truman fired him. The bad beef between Truman and Wallace, as well as the Democratic leadership and Wallace, would lead to Wallace forming a third party in 1948 in the Progressive Party, which came under more and more control of the Communist Party. Wallace would receive 2.5 percent of the vote in 1948, and would later write an essay in 1952 titled Where I Went Wrong, where he acknowledged being naive about the crimes of Stalin and the Soviet Union.
What if Wallace was President? What if the senator got to the convention microphone? Would the atomic bombs have dropped on Japan? Would we have gotten into the Cold War? Would Stalin and the Soviet Union have grown uncontrollably powerful because Wallace decided to appease them?
No one knows, but Greenfield himself is more cynical to the historical “what if” of a Wallace Presidency — that we would have faced “a continent dominated by Moscow all the way to the English Channel.” In another vein, what if Byrnes was President? What would it have meant for a segregationist who was still favorable to lynching laws be the President? What would that have meant for the future of civil rights and the tension between the liberal North and the segregationist South?
In 1948, Truman decided to desegregate the Armed Forces — and history shows that Byrnes would not have. In fact, Truman’s strong stance on civil rates and desegregation alienated many southern Democrats already, to the extent that four southern states didn’t even vote Democrat and voted for Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, a South Carolina segregationist that broke away from the party.
What if either Wallace or Byrnes was selected?
In terms of party politics, the 1944 Democratic National Convention and the selection for the VP candidate between Wallace, Byrnes, and Truman had drastic implications. The South would break away from the Democratic Party when Richard Nixon pursued his Southern strategy in 1968, but Wallace would not have garnered the support of the South in the 1948 election. Byrnes would have alienated not only minority voters, but organized labor, and made Republicans emerge as the party for minority and organized labor voters.
Neither of these candidates would have united a party that saw winning based on its unorthodox coalition of different groups. Today, Joe Biden’s choice of a running mate also has big implications — we know what we’re getting with a Trump/Pence ticket, but given Biden’s age, his choice of running mate is more than just symbolic. His choice could very well be the next President.
But even at 77, Biden’s health is robust in comparison to FDR in 1944. The 1944 Democratic selection for a running mate will remain, to this day, the most impactful and important Vice President candidate ever.
|
https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/the-most-important-vice-presidency-selection-ever-11fd9251828f
|
['Ryan Fan']
|
2020-06-24 14:53:38.356000+00:00
|
['Society', 'Equality', 'Politcs', 'History', 'Election 2020']
|
Google Cloud Pub/Sub Ordered Delivery
|
The Google Cloud Pub/Sub team is happy to announce that ordered delivery is now generally available. This new feature allows subscribers to receive messages in the order they were published without sacrificing scale. This article discusses the details of how the feature works and talks about some common gotchas when trying to process messages in order in distributed systems.
Ordering Basics
Ordering in Cloud Pub/Sub consists of two properties. The first is the ordering key set on a message when publishing. This string — which can be up to 1KB — represents the entity for which messages should be ordered. For example, it could be a user ID or the primary key of a row in a database. The second property is the enable_message_ordering property on a subscription. When this property is true, subscribers receive messages for an ordering key in the order in which they were received by the service.
These two properties allow publishers and subscribers to decide independently if messages are ordered. If the publisher does not specify ordering keys with messages or the subscriber does not enable ordered delivery, then message delivery is not in order and behaves just like Cloud Pub/Sub without the ordered delivery feature. Not all subscriptions on a topic need to have the same setting for enable_message_ordering. Therefore, different use cases that receive the same messages can determine if they need ordered delivery without impacting each other.
The number of ordering keys is limited only by what can be represented by the 1KB string. The publish throughput on each ordering key is limited to 1MB/s. The throughput across all ordering keys on a topic is limited to the quota available in a publish region. This limit can be increased to many GBs/s.
All the Cloud Pub/Sub client libraries have rich support for ordered delivery. They are the best way to take advantage of this feature, as they take care of a lot of the details necessary to ensure that messages are processed in order. Ordered delivery works with all three types of subscribers: streaming pull, pull, and push.
Ordering Properties
Ordered delivery has three main properties:
Order: When a subscription has message ordering enabled, subscribers receive messages published in the same region with the same ordering key in the order in which they were received by the service. Consistent redelivery: If a message is redelivered, then all messages received after that message for the same ordering key will also be redelivered, whether or not they were already acknowledged. Affinity: If there are messages with an ordering key outstanding to a streaming pull subscriber, then additional messages that are delivered are sent to that same subscriber. If no messages are currently outstanding for an ordering key, the service delivers messages to the last subscriber to receive messages for that key on a best-effort basis.
Let’s examine what these properties mean with an example. Imagine we have two ordering keys, A and B. For key A, we publish the messages 1, 2, and 3, in that order. For key B, we publish the messages 4, 5, and 6, in that order. With the ordering property, we guarantee that 1 is delivered before 2 and 2 is delivered before 3. We also guarantee that 4 is delivered before 5, which is delivered before 6. Note that there are no guarantees about the order of messages across different ordering keys. For example, message 1 could arrive before or after message 4.
The second property explains what happens when messages are redelivered. In general, Cloud Pub/Sub offers at-least-once delivery. That means messages may be sent to subscribers multiple times, even if those messages have been acknowledged. With the consistent redelivery guarantee, when a message is redelivered, the entire sequence of subsequent messages for the same ordering key that were received after the redelivered message will also be redelivered. In the above example, imagine a subscriber receives messages 1, 2, and 3. If message 2 is redelivered (because the ack deadline expired or because the best-effort ack was not persisted in Cloud Pub/Sub), then message 3 is guaranteed to be redelivered as well.
The last property defines where messages for the same ordering key are delivered. It applies only to streaming pull subscribers, since they are the only ones that have a long-standing connection that can be used for affinity. This property has two parts. First, when messages are outstanding to a streaming pull subscriber — meaning the ack deadline has not yet passed and the messages have not been acknowledged — then if there are more messages to deliver for the ordering key, they go to that same subscriber.
The second part pertains to what happens when no messages are outstanding. Ideally, one wants the same subscribers to handle all of the messages for an ordering key. Cloud Pub/Sub tries to do this, but there are cases where it cannot guarantee that it will continue to deliver messages to the same subscriber. In other words, the affinity of a key could change over time. Usually this is done for load-balancing purposes. For example, if there is only one subscriber, all messages must be delivered to it. If another subscriber starts, one would generally want it to start to receive half of the load. Therefore, the affinity of some of the ordering keys must move from the first subscriber to this new subscriber. Cloud Pub/Sub waits until there are no more messages outstanding on an ordering key before changing the affinity of the key.
Ordered Delivery at Scale
One of the most difficult problems with ordered delivery is doing it at scale. It usually requires an understanding of the scaling characteristics of the topic in advance. When a topic extends beyond that scale, maintaining order becomes extremely difficult. Cloud Pub/Sub’s ordered delivery is designed to scale with usage without the user having to think about it.
The most common way to do ordering at scale is with partitions. A topic can be made up of many partitions, where each stores a subset of the messages published to the topic. When a message gets published, a partition is chosen for that message, either explicitly or by hashing the message’s key or value to a partition. The “key” in this case is what Cloud Pub/Sub calls the ordering key.
Subscribers connect to one or more partitions and receive messages from those partitions. Much like the publish side, subscribers can choose partitions explicitly or rely on the messaging service to assign subscribers to partitions. Partition-based messaging services guarantee that messages within the same partition are delivered in order.
A typical partition setup would look like this:
The green boxes represent the partitions that store messages. They would be owned by the messaging servers (often called “brokers”), but we have omitted those servers for simplicity. The circles represent messages, with the color indicating the message key and the number indicating the relative order for the messages of that color.
One usually has a lot fewer partitions than there are keys. In the example above, there are four message colors but only three partitions, so the second partition contains both blue and red messages. There are two subscribers, one that consumes from the first partition and one that consumes from the second and third partitions.
There are three major issues a user may have to deal with when using partitions: subscriber scaling limitations, hot shards, and head-of-line blocking. Let’s look at each in detail.
Subscriber Scaling Limitations
Within a set of subscribers across which delivery of messages is load balanced (often called a “consumer group”), only one subscriber can be assigned to a partition at any time. Therefore, the maximum amount of parallel processing that can occur is min(# of partitions, # of subscribers). In the example above, we could load balance across no more than three subscribers:
If processing messages suddenly became more expensive or — more likely — a new consumer group was added to receive messages in a new pipeline that requires longer processing of the messages, it may not be possible to gain enough parallelism to process all the published messages. One solution would be to have a subscriber whose job is to republish the messages on a topic with more shards, which the original subscribers could consume instead:
The downside is that now both of these topics must be maintained or a careful migration must be done to change the original publisher to publish to the new topic. If both topics are maintained, then messages are stored twice. It might be possible to delete the messages from the first topic once they are published to the second topic, but this would require the migration of any subscribers receiving messages from the original topic to the new topic.
Hot Shards
The next issue is a hot shard — the overloading of a single partition. Ideally, traffic patterns across partitions are relatively similar. However, it is possible that there are a lot more messages or much larger messages hashing to one partition in comparison to messages hashing to other partitions. As a result, a single partition can become overloaded:
What can be done to deal with this hot shard? Typically, the solution is to add partitions. However, maintaining order during a repartitioning can be very difficult. For example, if we add a new partition in the case above, it could result in related messages going to completely different partitions:
With this new set of partitions, purple messages now publish to the first partition, blue messages to the third partition, and yellow and red messages to the fourth partition. This repartitioning causes several problems. First of all, the fourth partition now contains messages for keys that were previously split among the two subscribers. That means the affinity of keys to subscribers must change.
Even more difficult is the fact that if subscribers want all messages in order, they must carefully coordinate from which partitions they receive messages when. The subscribers would have to be aware of the last offset in each partition that was for a message before adding more partitions. Then, they need to consume messages up to those offsets. After they have processed messages up to the offsets in all the partitions, then the subscribers can start to consume messages beyond that last offset.
Head-of-Line Blocking
The last difficult issue is head-of-line blocking, or the inability to process messages due to the slow processing of messages that must be consumed first. Let’s go back to the original scenario:
Imagine that the red messages require a lot more time to process than the blue ones. When reading messages from the second partition, the processing of the blue message 2 could be needlessly delayed due to the slow processing of red message 1. Since the unit of ordering is a partition, there is no way to process the blue messages without processing the red messages. One could try to solve this by repartitioning in the hopes that the red and blue messages end up in different partitions. However, the processing of the red messages will block the processing of others in whichever partition they end up. The repartitioning also results in the same issues discussed in the Hot Shards section.
Alternatively, the publisher could explicitly assign the red messages to their own partition, but it breaks the decoupling of publishers and subscribers if the publisher has to make decisions based on the way subscribers process messages. It may also be that the extra processing time for the red messages is temporary and doesn’t warrant large-scale changes to the system. The user has to decide if the delayed processing of some messages or the arduous process of changing the partitions is better.
Automatic Scaling With Ordering
Cloud Pub/Sub’s ordered delivery implementation is designed so users do not need to be subject to such limitations. It can scale to billions of keys without subscriber scaling limitations, hot shards or head-of-line blocking. As one may expect with a high-throughput pub/sub system, messages are split up into underlying partitions in Cloud Pub/Sub. However, there are two main properties of the service that allow it to overcome the issues commonly associated with ordered delivery:
Partitions are not exposed to users. Subscribers acknowledge messages individually instead of advancing a partition cursor.
By taking advantage of these properties, Cloud Pub/Sub brokers have three useful behaviors:
They assign subscribers to groups of ordering keys that are more fine-grained than a partition. They track publishing rates per key and scale to the appropriate number of partitions as needed, maintaining proper ordered delivery across repartitioning. They store the order of messages on a per-ordering-key basis so delivery is not blocked by messages for other keys in the same partition that have not yet been processed.
These behaviors allow Cloud Pub/Sub to avoid all three major issues with ordered delivery at scale!
Ordered delivery doesn’t come for free, of course. Compared with unordered delivery, the ordered delivery of messages may slightly decrease publish availability and increase end-to-end message delivery latency. Unlike the unordered case, where delivery can fail over to any broker without any delay, failover in the ordered case requires coordination across brokers to ensure the messages are written to and read from the correct partitions.
Using Ordered Delivery Effectively
Even with Cloud Pub/Sub’s ability to deliver messages in order at scale, there are still subtleties that exist when relying on ordered delivery. This section details the things to keep in mind when building an ordered pipeline. Some of these things apply when using other messaging systems with ordered delivery, too. In order to provide a good example of how to use ordering keys effectively, the Cloud Pub/Sub team has released an open-source version of its ordering keys prober. This prober is almost identical to the one run by the team continuously to verify the correct behavior of this new feature.
Publishing in Order
On the surface, publishing in order seems like it should be very easy: Just call publish for each message. If we could guarantee that publishes never fail, then it would be that simple. However, transient or permanent failures can happen with publish at any time, and a publisher must understand the implications of those failures.
Let’s take the simple example of trying to publish three messages for the same ordering keys A: 1, 2, and 3. The Java code to publish these messages could be the following:
String[] messages = {"1", "2", "3"};
for (String msg : messages) {
PubsubMessage message = PubsubMessage.newBuilder()
.setData(ByteString.copyFromUtf8(msg))
.setOrderingKey("A")
.build();
ApiFuture<String> publishFuture = publisher.publish(message);
publishFuture.addListener(() -> {
try {
String messageId = publishFuture.get();
System.out.println("Successfully published " + messageId);
} catch (Exception e) {
System.err.println("Could not publish message "+ msg);
}
}, executor);
}
If there were no failures, then each publish call would succeed and the message ID would be returned in the future. We’d expect the subscriber to receive messages 1, 2, and 3 in that order. However, there are a lot of things that could happen. If a publish fails, it likely needs to be attempted again. The Cloud Pub/Sub client library internally retries requests on retriable errors. Errors such as deadline exceeded do not indicate whether or not the publish actually succeeded. It is possible that the publish did succeed, but the publish response wasn’t received by the client in time for the deadline, in which case the client may have attempted the publish again. In such cases, the sequence of messages could have repeats, e.g., 1, 1, 2, 3. Each published message would have its own message ID, so from the subscriber’s perspective, it would look like four messages were published, with the first two having identical content.
Retrying publish requests is complicated even more by batching. The client library may batch messages together when it sends them to the server for more efficient publishing. This is particularly important for high-throughput topics. In the case above, it could be that messages 1 and 2 are batched together and sent to the server as a single request. If the server fails to return a response in time, the client will retry this batch of two messages. Therefore, it is possible the subscriber could see the sequence of messages 1, 2, 1, 2, 3. If one wants to avoid these batched republishes, it is best to set the batch settings to allow only a single message in each batch.
There is one additional case with publishing that could cause issues. Imagine that in running the above code, the following sequence of events happens:
Publish is called with message 1. Publish is called with message 2. Publish for message 1 transiently fails. Publish is called with message 3.
The result could be that messages 2 and/or 3 are successfully published and sent to subscribers without 1 having been sent, which would result in out-of-order delivery. A simple solution may be to make the calls to publish synchronous:
String[] messages = {"1", "2", "3"};
for (String msg : messages) {
PubsubMessage message = PubsubMessage.newBuilder()
.setData(ByteString.copyFromUtf8("1"))
.setOrderingKey(msg)
.build();
boolean successfulPublish = false;
while (!successfulPublish) {
ApiFuture<String> publishFuture = publisher.publish(message);
try {
String messageId = publishFuture.get();
System.out.println("Successfully published "+ messageId);
successfulPublish = true;
} catch (Exception e) {
System.err.println("Could not publish message "+ msg);
}
}
}
While this change would guarantee that messages are published in order, it would make it much more difficult to publish at scale, as every publish operation would block a thread. The Cloud Pub/Sub client libraries overcome this problem in two ways. First, if a publish fails and there are other messages for the same ordering key queued up in the library’s message buffer, it fails the publishes for all those messages as well. Secondly, the library immediately fails any subsequent publish calls made for messages with the same ordering key.
How does one get back to a state of being able to publish on an ordering key when this happens? The client library exposes a method, resumePublish(String orderingKey). A publisher should call resumePublish when it has handled the failed publishes, determined what it wants to do, and is ready to publish messages for the ordering key again. The publisher may decide to republish all the failed messages in order, publish a subset of the messages, or publish an entirely new set of messages. No matter how the publisher wants to handle this edge case, the client library provides resumePublish as a means to do so without losing the scaling advantages of asynchronous publishing. Take a look at the ordering key prober’s publish error logic for an example of how to use resumePublish.
All of the above issues deal with publishing from a single publisher. However, there is also the question of how to publish messages for the same ordering key from different publishers. Cloud Pub/Sub allows this and guarantees that for publishes in the same region, the order of messages that subscribers see is consistent with the order in which the publishes were received by the broker. As an example, let’s say that both publishers X and Y publish a message for ordering key A. If X’s message is received by Cloud Pub/Sub before Y’s, then all subscribers will see the messages in that order. However, publishers do not have a way to know in which order the messages were received by the service. If the order of messages across different publishers must be maintained, then the publishers need to use some other mechanism to coordinate their publishes, e.g., some kind of locking service to maintain ownership of an ordering key while publishing.
It is important to remember that ordering guarantees are only for messages published in the same region. Therefore, it is highly recommended that all publishers use regional service endpoints to ensure they publish messages to the same region for the same ordering key. This is particularly important for publishers hosted outside of GCP; if requests are routed to GCP from another place, it is always possible that the routing could change if using the global endpoint, which could disrupt the order of messages.
Receiving Messages in Order
Subscribers receive messages in the order they were published. What it means to “receive messages in order” varies based on the type of subscriber. Cloud Pub/Sub supports three ways of receiving messages: streaming pull, pull, and push. The client libraries use streaming pull (with the exception of PHP), and we talk about receiving messages via streaming pull in terms of using the client library. No matter what method is used for receiving messages, it is important to remember that Cloud Pub/Sub offers at-least-once delivery. That means subscribers must be resilient to receiving sequences of messages again, as discussed in the Ordering Properties section. Let’s look at what receiving messages in order means for each type of subscriber.
Streaming Pull (Via the Client Libraries)
When using the client libraries, one specifies a user callback that should be run whenever a message is received. The client libraries guarantee that for any given ordering key, the callback is run to completion on messages in the correct order. If the messages are acked within that callback, then it means all computation on a message occurs in order. However, if the user callback schedules other asynchronous work on messages, the subscriber must ensure that the asynchronous work is done in order. One option is to add messages to a local work queue that is processed in order.
It is worth noting that because of asynchronous processing in a subscriber like this, ordered delivery in Cloud Pub/Sub does not work with Cloud Dataflow at this time. The nature of Dataflow’s parallelized execution means it does not maintain the order of messages after they are received. Therefore, a user’s pipeline would not be able to rely on messages being delivered in order. To ensure that one does not use Pub/Sub in Dataflow and expect ordered delivery, Dataflow pipelines that use a subscription with ordering keys enabled fail on startup.
Pull
For subscribers that use the pull method directly, Cloud Pub/Sub makes two guarantees:
All messages for an ordering key in the PullResponse’s received_messages list are in the proper order in that list. There is one outstanding list of messages per ordering key at a time.
The requirement that only one batch of messages can be outstanding at a time is necessary to maintain ordered delivery. The Cloud Pub/Sub service can’t guarantee the success or latency of the response it sends for a subscriber’s pull request. If a response fails and a subsequent pull request is fulfilled with a response containing subsequent messages for the same ordering key, it is possible those subsequent messages could arrive to the subscriber before the messages in the failed response. It also can’t guarantee that the subsequent pull request comes from the same subscriber.
Push
The restrictions on push are even tighter than those on pull. For a push subscription, Cloud Pub/Sub allows only one message to be outstanding per ordering key at a time. Since each message is sent to a push subscriber via its own request, sending such requests out in parallel would have the same issue as delivering multiple batches of messages for the same ordering key to pull subscribers simultaneously. Therefore, push subscribers may not be a good choice for topics where messages are frequently published with the same ordering key or latency is extremely important, as the restrictions could prevent the subscriber from keeping up with the published messages.
In summary, ordered delivery at scale usually requires one to be very careful with the capacity and setup of their messaging system. When that capacity is exceeded or message processing characteristics change, adding capacity while maintaining order is a time-consuming and difficult process. With the introduction of ordered delivery into Cloud Pub/Sub, users can rely on order in ways they are accustomed to in a system that still automatically scales with their usage.
|
https://medium.com/google-cloud/google-cloud-pub-sub-ordered-delivery-1e4181f60bc8
|
['Kamal Aboul-Hosn']
|
2020-10-19 14:48:55.184000+00:00
|
['Pub Sub', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Distributed Systems', 'Google Pubsub', 'Data Analytics']
|
Ver Promising Young Woman Full la película (2020) Español Latino
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THE STORY
After graduating from Harvard, Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) forgoes the standard opportunities of seeking employment from big and lucrative law firms; deciding to head to Alabama to defend those wrongfully commended, with the support of local advocate, Eva Ansley (Brie Larson). One of his first, and most poignant, case is that of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx, who, in 62, was sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 2-year-old girl in the community, despite a preponderance of evidence proving his innocence and one singular testimony against him by an individual that doesn’t quite seem to add up. Bryan begins to unravel the tangled threads of McMillian’s case, which becomes embroiled in a relentless labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt unabashed racism of the community as he fights for Walter’s name and others like him.
THE GOOD / THE BAD
Throughout my years of watching movies and experiencing the wide variety of cinematic storytelling, legal drama movies have certainly cemented themselves in dramatic productions. As I stated above, some have better longevity of being remembered, but most showcase plenty of heated courtroom battles of lawyers defending their clients and unmasking the truth behind the claims (be it wrongfully incarcerated, discovering who did it, or uncovering the shady dealings behind large corporations. Perhaps my first one legal drama was 624’s The Client (I was little young to get all the legality in the movie, but was still managed to get the gist of it all). My second one, which I loved, was probably Primal Fear, with Norton delivering my favorite character role. Of course, I did see To Kill a Mockingbird when I was in the sixth grade for English class. Definitely quite a powerful film. And, of course, let’s not forget Philadelphia and want it meant / stand for. Plus, Hanks and Washington were great in the film. All in all, while not the most popular genre out there, legal drama films still provide a plethora of dramatic storytelling to capture the attention of moviegoers of truth and lies within a dubious justice.
Just Mercy is the latest legal crime drama feature and the whole purpose of this movie review. To be honest, I really didn’t much “buzz” about this movie when it was first announced (circa 206) when Broad Green Productions hired the film’s director (Cretton) and actor Michael B. Jordan in the lead role. It was then eventually bought by Warner Bros (the films rights) when Broad Green Productions went Bankrupt. So, I really didn’t hear much about the film until I saw the movie trailer for Just Mercy, which did prove to be quite an interesting tale. Sure, it sort of looked like the generic “legal drama” yarn (judging from the trailer alone), but I was intrigued by it, especially with the film starring Jordan as well as actor Jamie Foxx. I did repeatedly keep on seeing the trailer for the film every time I went to my local movie theater (usually attached to any movie I was seeing with a PG rating and above). So, suffice to say, that Just Mercy’s trailer preview sort of kept me invested and waiting me to see it. Thus, I finally got the chance to see the feature a couple of days ago and I’m ready to share my thoughts on the film. And what are they? Well, good ones….to say the least. While the movie does struggle within the standard framework of similar projects, Just Mercy is a solid legal drama that has plenty of fine cinematic nuances and great performances from its leads. It’s not the “be all to end all” of legal drama endeavors, but its still manages to be more of the favorable motion pictures of these projects.
Just Mercy is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, whose previous directorial works includes such movies like Short Term 6, I Am Not a Hipster, and Glass Castle. Given his past projects (consisting of shorts, documentaries, and a few theatrical motion pictures), Cretton makes Just Mercy is most ambitious endeavor, with the director getting the chance to flex his directorial muscles on a legal drama film, which (like I said above) can manage to evoke plenty of human emotions within its undertaking. Thankfully, Cretton is up to the task and never feels overwhelmed with the movie; approaching (and shaping) the film with respect and a touch of sincerity by speaking to the humanity within its characters, especially within lead characters of Stevenson and McMillian. Of course, legal dramas usually do (be the accused / defendant and his attorney) shine their cinematic lens on these respective characters, so it’s nothing original. However, Cretton does make for a compelling drama within the feature; speaking to some great character drama within its two main lead characters; staging plenty of moments of these twos individuals that ultimately work, including some of the heated courtroom sequences.
Like other recent movies (i.e. Brian Banks and The Hate U Give), Cretton makes Just Mercy have an underlining thematical message of racism and corruption that continues to play a part in the US….to this day (incredibly sad, but true). So, of course, the correlation and overall relatively between the movie’s narrative and today’s world is quite crystal-clear right from the get-go, but Cretton never gets overzealous / preachy within its context; allowing the feature to present the subject matter in a timely manner and doesn’t feel like unnecessary or intentionally a “sign of the times” motif. Additionally, the movie also highlights the frustration (almost harsh) injustice of the underprivileged face on a regular basis (most notable those looking to overturn their cases on death row due to negligence and wrongfully accused). Naturally, as somewhat expected (yet still palpable), Just Mercy is a movie about seeking the truth and uncovering corruption in the face of a broken system and ignorant prejudice, with Cretton never shying away from some of the ugly truths that Stevenson faced during the film’s story.
Plus, as a side-note, it’s quite admirable for what Bryan Stevenson (the real-life individual) did for his career, with him as well as others that have supported him (and the Equal Justice Initiative) over the years and how he fought for and freed many wrongfully incarcerated individuals that our justice system has failed (again, the poignancy behind the film’s themes / message). It’s great to see humanity being shined and showcased to seek the rights of the wronged and to dispel a flawed system. Thus, whether you like the movie or not, you simply can not deny that truly meaningful job that Bryan Stevenson is doing, which Cretton helps demonstrate in Just Mercy. From the bottom of my heart…. thank you, Mr. Stevenson.
In terms of presentation, Just Mercy is a solidly made feature film. Granted, the film probably won’t be remembered for its visual background and theatrical setting nuances or even nominated in various award categories (for presentation / visual appearance), but the film certainly looks pleasing to the eye, with the attention of background aspects appropriate to the movie’s story. Thus, all the usual areas that I mention in this section (i.e. production design, set decorations, costumes, and cinematography) are all good and meet the industry standard for legal drama motion pictures. That being said, the film’s score, which was done by Joel P. West, is quite good and deliver some emotionally drama pieces in a subtle way that harmonizes with many of the feature’s scenes.
There are a few problems that I noticed with Just Mercy that, while not completely derailing, just seem to hold the feature back from reaching its full creative cinematic potential. Let’s start with the most prevalent point of criticism (the one that many will criticize about), which is the overall conventional storytelling of the movie. What do I mean? Well, despite the strong case that the film delves into a “based on a true story” aspect and into some pretty wholesome emotional drama, the movie is still structed into a way that it makes it feel vaguely formulaic to the touch. That’s not to say that Just Mercy is a generic tale to be told as the film’s narrative is still quite engaging (with some great acting), but the story being told follows quite a predictable path from start to finish. Granted, I never really read Stevenson’s memoir nor read anything about McMillian’s case, but then I still could easily figure out how the movie was presumably gonna end…. even if the there were narrative problems / setbacks along the way. Basically, if you’ve seeing any legal drama endeavor out there, you’ll get that same formulaic touch with this movie. I kind of wanted see something a little bit different from the film’s structure, but the movie just ends up following the standard narrative beats (and progressions) of the genre. That being said, I still think that this movie is definitely probably one of the better legal dramas out there.
This also applies to the film’s script, which was penned by Cretton and Andrew Lanham, which does give plenty of solid entertainment narrative pieces throughout, but lacks the finesse of breaking the mold of the standard legal drama. There are also a couple parts of the movie’s script handling where you can tell that what was true and what fictional. Of course, this is somewhat a customary point of criticism with cinematic tales taking a certain “poetic license” when adapting a “based on a true story” narrative, so it’s not super heavily critical point with me as I expect this to happen. However, there were a few times I could certainly tell what actually happen and what was a tad bit fabricated for the movie. Plus, they were certain parts of the narrative that could’ve easily fleshed out, including what Morrison’s parents felt (and actually show them) during this whole process. Again, not a big deal-breaker, but it did take me out of the movie a few times. Lastly, the film’s script also focuses its light on a supporting character in the movie and, while this made with well-intention to flesh out the character, the camera spotlight on this character sort of goes off on a slight tangent during the feature’s second act. Basically, this storyline could’ve been removed from Just Mercy and still achieve the same palpability in the emotional department. It’s almost like the movie needed to chew up some runtime and the writers to decided to fill up the time with this side-story. Again, it’s good, but a bit slightly unnecessary.
What does help overlook (and elevate) some of these criticisms is the film’s cast, which are really good and definitely helps bring these various characters to life in a theatrical /dramatic way. Leading the charge in Just Mercy is actor Michael B. Jordan, who plays the film’s central protagonist role of Bryan Stevenson. Known for his roles in Creed, Fruitvale Station, and Black Panther, Jordan has certain prove himself to be quite a capable actor, with the actor rising to stardom over the past few years. This is most apparent in this movie, with Jordan making a strong characteristically portrayal as Bryan; showcasing plenty of underlining determination and compelling humanity in his character as he (as Bryan Stevenson) fights for the injustice of those who’s voices have been silenced or dismissed because of the circumstances. It’s definitely a strong character built and Jordan seems quite capable to task in creating a well-acted on-screen performance of Bryan. Behind Jordan is actor Jamie Foxx, who plays the other main lead in the role, Walter McMillian. Foxx, known for his roles in Baby Driver, Django Unchained, and Ray, has certainly been recognized as a talented actor, with plenty of credible roles under his belt. His participation in Just Mercy is another well-acted performance that deserve much praise as its getting (even receiving an Oscar nod for it), with Foxx portraying Walter with enough remorseful grit and humility that makes the character quite compelling to watch. Plus, seeing him and Jordan together in a scene is quite palpable and a joy to watch.
The last of the three marquee main leads of the movie is the character of Eva Ansley, the director of operations for EJI (i.e. Stevenson’s right-handed employee / business partner), who is played by actress Brie Larson. Up against the characters of Stevenson and McMillian, Ansley is the weaker of the three main lead; presented as supporting player in the movie, which is perfectly fine as the characters gets the job done (sort of speak) throughout the film’s narrative. However, Larson, known for her roles in Room, 6 Jump Street, and Captain Marvel, makes less of an impact in the role. Her acting is fine and everything works in her portrayal of Eva, but nothing really stands in her performance (again, considering Jordan and Foxx’s performances) and really could’ve been played by another actress and achieved the same goal.
The rest of the cast, including actor Tim Blake Nelson (The Incredible Hulk and O Brother, Where Art Thou) as incarcerated inmate Ralph Meyers, actor Rafe Spall (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and The Big Short) as legal attorney Tommy Champan, actress Karan Kendrick (The Hate U Give and Family) as Minnie McMillan, Walter’s wife, actor C.J. LeBlanc (Arsenal and School Spirts) as Walter’s son, John McMillian, actor Rob Morgan (Stranger Things and Mudbound) as death role inmate Herbert Richardson, actor O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Long Shot and Straight Outta Compton) as death role inmate Anthony “Ray” Hinton, actor Michael Harding (Triple 2 and The Young and the Restless) as Sheriff Tate, and actor Hayes Mercure (The Red Road and Mercy Street) as a prison guard named Jeremy, are in the small supporting cast variety. Of course, some have bigger roles than others, but all of these players, which are all acted well, bolster the film’s story within the performances and involvement in Just Mercy’s narrative.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It’s never too late to fight for justice as Bryan Stevenson fights for the injustice of Walter McMillian’s cast against a legal system that is flawed in the movie Just Mercy. Director Destin Daniel Cretton’s latest film takes a stance on a poignant case; demonstrating the injustice of one (and by extension those wrongfully incarcerated) and wrapping it up in a compelling cinematic story. While the movie does struggle within its standard structure framework (a sort of usual problem with “based on a true story” narrations) as well as some formulaic beats, the movie still manages to rise above those challenges (for the most part), especially thanks to Cretton’s direction (shaping and storytelling) and some great performances all around (most notable in Jordan and Foxx). Personally, I liked this movie. Sure, it definitely had its problem, but those didn’t distract me much from thoroughly enjoying this legal drama feature. Thus, my recommendation for the film is a solid “recommended”, especially those who liked the cast and poignant narratives of legality struggles and the injustice of a failed system / racism. In the end, while the movie isn’t the quintessential legal drama motion picture and doesn’t push the envelope in cinematic innovation, Just Mercy still is able to manage to be a compelling drama that’s powerful in its story, meaningful in its journey, and strong within its statement. Just like Bryan Stevenson says in the movie….” If we could look at ourselves closely…. we can change this world for the better”. Amen to that!
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https://medium.com/@mariella-lyn/ver-promising-young-woman-full-la-pel%C3%ADcula-2020-espa%C3%B1ol-latino-b21b276fd3d5
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['Mariella Lyn']
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2020-12-22 07:31:15.579000+00:00
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['Drama', 'Crime', 'Movies', 'Comedy', 'Thriller']
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Why Your Body Sometimes Jerks As You Fall Asleep
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Why Your Body Sometimes Jerks As You Fall Asleep
Images by the author (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Ahh… sleep. How nice. You turn off the lights. You close your weary eyes. You sigh. You relax. Your breathing slows down. Your mind begins to wander off, fading into the nightly oblivion.
Then…
You stumble, trip, fall. Your body jolts. Your leg kicks. Your heart pounds. Huh? What happened? Did you mistakenly fall asleep on a trapdoor?
Nope. You simply experienced a hypnic jerk.
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A hypnic jerk, or sleep start, is a phenomenon that occurs when your body transitions from wakefulness to sleep. It involves a sudden involuntary muscle twitch and is frequently accompanied by a falling or tripping sensation. It’s that strange muscle spasm that happens when you’re lying in bed, trying to sleep, and are suddenly jolted awake because you feel like you stumbled over something.
Hypnic jerks are common and benign.
But what causes them? Well, no one really knows. It’s still a mystery. However, researchers have come up with several hypotheses that may explain them, with the following two being the most popular.
Hypothesis 1: Your body twitches as daytime motor control is overridden by sleep paralysis
How is it that a bedfellow of yours doesn’t wake up pummeled and bruised if you have a dream about a boxing match? Is it because they’re having a complementary dream where they’re blocking all your jabs, hooks, and other punches?
Nope. The person sharing the bed with you doesn’t get pummeled because when you’re asleep, your body is paralyzed. This is due to something called REM sleep atonia, which prevents you from acting out your dreams.
REM atonia works by inhibiting your motor neurons. It does so by raising the bar on the amount of electricity the brain must send down a motor neuron to trigger a movement. So, for instance, the little bit of electricity that your brain sends to your finger to make it move when you’re awake is no longer enough when you’re under REM atonia.
When you’re asleep, your body is paralyzed. This is due to something called REM sleep atonia, which prevents you from acting out your dreams.
Now, the thing is that there is no single on/off switch in your body that inhibits all your motor neurons at once. Instead, the subsystems of your brain that handle sleep need to wrestle control from the subsystems that handle wakefulness. And sometimes, during this wrestling match, some motor neurons are fired randomly, causing your body to twitch.
Hypothesis 2: Your brain thinks you’re a monkey falling off a tree
Image modified by the author. Illustration source: Alessandro D’Antonio/Unsplash
Imagine you’re a monkey and the last rays of sunlight have just disappeared behind the green forest canopy. It’s getting dark, and you say to yourself: time for sleep. Your brain begins to ooze some melatonin into your bloodstream and you yawn. Drowsy, you settle down on a comfortable tree branch.
Your eyelids become heavy and your breathing slows. The outside world begins to fade. Sounds become distant.
At this point, the subconscious part of your brain takes over. “Perfect,” it says, “time to boot up the dream images.” Your brain initiates the dream procedure, and just when you’re about to nod off completely, it notices that all your muscles have suddenly and unexpectedly relaxed. “Holy Banana!” your brain screams panic-stricken, “Mayday! Mayday! We’re in freefall! Dammit! Wake up! Wake up! Shit, crap! Brace for impaaaact!”
As you’re probably aware, we humans descend from primates who lived and slept on trees. This means that we’ve inherited some monkey brain routines that no longer serve any purpose. Among them, according to the monkey-fall hypothesis, is a reflex that jolts you awake when you’re falling from a tree.
You see, when a monkey is unexpectedly soaring through the air, its muscles no longer have to prop it up and so they go limp. Confusingly, however, your muscles also go limp when you’re sleeping.
So, when you drift off into sleep and your muscles relax a little too fast, your groggy brain sometimes misinterprets this for falling off a tree. As a result, your brain freaks out and triggers a reflex that startles you awake in an attempt to prepare for an imminent crash onto the forest floor. Little does your brain know, in its sleepy state — and that you no longer live in trees.
What’s clear either way
Hypnic jerks are involuntary muscle contractions that occur during the transition from wakefulness to sleep. They’re most likely to occur if you’ve been gulping down too much coffee, have been stressed or sleep-deprived, or did some vigorous exercise before going to bed. About 70% of people have experienced them. Even so, they are not well understood.
Either way, hypnic jerks are benign and nothing to worry about. The worst that can happen is probably an occasional kick against the shin of whoever is sharing the bed with you.
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https://medium.com/@aktertaniye/why-your-body-sometimes-jerks-as-you-fall-asleep-a6bc0fed2e07
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[]
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2020-12-26 22:43:19.823000+00:00
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['Neuroscience', 'Health', 'Sleep', 'Biology', 'Science']
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TV Review: “The Crown: 48:1” (S4, Ep. 8)
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One of the through-lines of the fourth season of The Crown has been the intense conflict between Elizabeth and Margaret Thatcher. While Elizabeth tries, with her signature determination, to remain above the political fray, she can’t help but be more than a little discomfited about the ways in which Thatcher is running the country. This comes to a head in this episode when the Prime Minister steadfastly refuses to take strong action against South Africa in response to its brutal system of apartheid, which gravely affronts Elizabeth’s sense of duty, honor, and rightness. The growing rift threatens to ignite a constitutional crisis, and so the palace staff decide to scapegoat one of their own in order to give the Queen an escape hatch.
Of course, the emotional and narrative center of the episode is the seething conflict between Thatcher and Elizabeth. It’s been clear from the beginning of this season that the two are opposites, not only in terms of their personal demeanors and upbringings but in their political upbringings, and this has been reflected in their performances, with Anderson’s teeth-gritting and hoarseness conveying Thatcher’s iron determination and Colman’s crisp, clear, and somewhat light delivery continuing to suggest Elizabeth’s desire to be both mother to her country and yet above the political fray. In this episode, however, all of that threatens to be thrown out the window, since she cannot just stand by while Thatcher continues to create ill-will among the other members of the Commonwealth. It’s quite fun, of course, to see Anderson and Colman sparring with one another, lighting up the screen with the electric potency of their conflict, but it’s also quite serious, since their disagreement threatens to spill out into the public realm and disrupt the stability of the entire country.
Unfortunately for Elizabeth, she doesn’t exist in a vacuum. More than ever before, she has to play to the gallery, since the public — particularly the press — feels much more entitled to express their opinions about her and her actions, which she learns when revelations about her true feelings about Thatcher create a conflagration (which, in turn, detracts from the forthcoming wedding of her son, Andrew). While the country, and an outraged Charles, ding her for breaking the long-standing code of silence that has governed her relationship between herself and her prime ministers since she first took the throne, the episode makes it quite clear that in this instance Elizabeth is in the right. She may not be a radical advocate for racial justice but, as she has made clear time and time again, she does genuinely care about the people that comprise the Commonwealth. She knows far more about the nations and customs of many African nations, to take just one example, than Thatcher does and, unlike the Iron Lady, she tends to see the humanity in others rather than just their positions as assets in a political game. It’s to Colman’s credit that she is able to bring out this aspect of Elizabeth’s personality, allowing us to see, for once, some of her true feelings about her role and her people.
This episode also focuses on and develops one of the themes that has motivated this show from the very beginning, and that is the relationship between the monarchy and the media. After all, the episode begins with a very special cameo from Claire Foy, in which a much-younger Elizabeth delivers a radio address from Cape Town speaking eloquently and sincerely about how she views her role as the leader of the Commonwealth. As she speaks, the camera cuts to people living in all parts of the world that fall under her rule, all of them brought together, for that brief time at least, by the medium of the radio and by the woman who is using it to broadcast her regnal authority. Foy’s voice, as it did when she was in the role in the first two seasons, throbs with intensity, even as we can still detect just the faintest quaver, the faintest indication that this is still a very young woman attempting to figure out her exact role as the monarch. Since this is likely the only access that the vast majority of her subjects will ever have to her, it’s a moment full of significance.
Given all of this, it’s not surprising that this episode would pay so much attention to mediation of monarchy, from the recreated photo of Elizabeth with the other gathered members of the Commonwealth of Nations to the scapegoating of Michael Shea for leaking the Queen’s true feelings to the press. It’s rather striking that Elizabeth, of all people, has to re-learn a lesson that, before now, she seemed to have absorbed quite well: that it is not for the modern monarch to express any sort of opinion, let alone a feeling or an emotion on the matters convulsing the moment. As she put it to Fagan, her job is to float above it all, to use her perspective as part of a venerable, centuries-old institution to see how even the worst problems are temporary. In this instance, however, that belief buts up against her equally strong commitment to the Commonwealth and its well-being.
Personally, I found this one of the better episodes of an already-strong season, especially since it gave Elizabeth time to do something important, rather than simply hovering in the background (which has been what her role has mostly entailed this season). More to the point, it also allowed her to be the hero for once, rather than the out-of-touch villain that she’s largely been (particularly when it comes to her children and their truly tragic love lives). At the same time, it also allows us to see the ways in which Thatcher has become increasingly cynical as she continues to serve in the position of prime minister. It seems pretty clear that her relationship with Elizabeth has been irreparably damaged, with who knows what results.
Stay tuned for my review of the next episode, in which Charles’ and Diana’s relationship continues to crumble around them.
|
https://medium.com/cliophilia/tv-review-the-crown-48-1-s4-ep-8-a78faac2cd85
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['Dr. Thomas J. West Iii']
|
2020-12-22 16:06:33.247000+00:00
|
['Culture', 'Tv Reviews', 'Television', 'TV Series', 'The Crown']
|
React-Native Navigation Giriş
|
React Navigation | React Navigation
Routing and navigation for your React Native apps
|
https://medium.com/@onermehmet/react-native-navigation-giri%C5%9F-9213717be044
|
['Mehmet Öner']
|
2020-12-28 11:08:39.121000+00:00
|
['React Native', 'Javascript Frameworks', 'React Native Navigation', 'Mobile App Development', 'React']
|
The Outcome Bias: If you don’t meet an accident the first time, you are very likely to drink & drive again.
|
Rajeev runs a product company. He recently had to fire his CMO. He feels this is his worst decision in the last couple of years. This has hurt his company the most.
“Since we fired him, the search for a replacement has been awful. We haven’t had anybody come in who actually turns out to be as good as he was. Sales are falling. Employee motivation is record low,” he laments.
That clearly sounds like a disastrous result, but it would be good to understand how he went about making the decision. Other than that it didn’t work out, what else was wrong with it?
“We looked at our direct competitors and comparable companies, and concluded we weren’t performing up to their level. We thought it was probably a leadership issue. We could definitely perform and grow at that level if we had better leadership.”
“We started working with our CMO to identify his skill gaps. We even hired an executive coach to work with him on improving his leadership skills, and get his major weaknesses identified.”
“But it still failed to produce improved performance. We debated splitting his responsibilities and have him focus on his strengths, and moving other responsibilities to a different executive.”
“But this idea was rejected, concluding that the CMO’s morale would suffer, employees would likely perceive it as a vote of no confidence, and it would put extra financial pressure on the company to split a position we believe one person could fill.”
It sounded like Rajeev had a reasonable basis for believing they would find someone better. The company had gone through a thoughtful process and made a decision that was reasonable given what they knew at the time.
It sounded like a bad result, not a bad decision. The imperfect relationship between results and decision quality devastated Rajeev and adversely affected his subsequent decisions regarding the company.
Rajeev had identified the decision as a mistake solely because it didn’t work out. He obviously felt a lot of anguish and regret because of the decision. He stated very clearly that he thought he should have known that the decision to fire the president would turn out badly.
He was not only resulting but also succumbing to its companion — Hindsight Bias. Hindsight bias is the tendency — after an outcome is known — to see the outcome as having been inevitable. When you say, “I should have known that this would happen,” or, “I should have seen it coming,” you are succumbing to hindsight bias.
I’m yet to come across a founder who acknowledges a bad decision where she got lucky with the result, or identifies a well-reasoned decision that didn’t pan out. You generally link results with decisions even though it is easy to point out indisputable examples where the relationship between decisions and results isn’t so perfectly correlated.
|
https://medium.com/@coffeeandjunk/cognitive-bias-outcome-bias-738ab4dc8f20
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['Abhishek Chakraborty']
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2019-05-15 09:13:49.604000+00:00
|
['Business', 'Human Behavior', 'Behavioral Economics', 'Psychology', 'Cognitive Bias']
|
Introduction To ERC-20 Testing On Ethereum
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taken from blockgeeks.com
The most important phase of creating your own cryptocurrency.
Creating a token on ethereum is no easy job. But testing one is generally a hassle. Especially when it comes to functionality and security. Here, I’ll outline how the ERC20 token can be tested.
Prerequisites
A coding editor of your choice
If you start developing on ethereum, any coding editor of your choice can suffice if it supports solidity. But if you develop on different programming languages, highly streamlined and powerful text editors like VS Code definitely work even better. Especially if you have to use multiple blockchain platforms for developing an application. But don’t forget the
Full ethereum development environment
Ensure that you’ve installed all the development tools needed to create smart contracts on ethereum. The environment includes nodeJS, truffle, web3js, ganache, brew, and homebrew. If you checked with their appropriate codes, it’ll let you know its version if downloaded. You can upgrade the software if needed. But some of the tools can be directly downloaded like ganache. But if it doesn’t give you the version, you have to download them with instruction guides written on their website. You can download more dependencies if needed.
JavaScript knowledge
Before starting on being a blockchain developer, basic JavaScript knowledge is necessary to develop in ethereum and hyperledger. But, testing on ethereum requires purely JavaScript to ensure the functionality and security of the program. If all the testing is completed, then you can launch your token on the web. If not, you have to work on your code before launching on the web and test it again until all the test cases passed.
Other dependencies (if needed)
You might need to download other ethereum development packages depending on what you develop. And it can change if you’re building a Dapp, a token, or any different application built on an ethereum environment. So, testing can also require other packages to be downloaded on various grounds. But, the general ethereum development environment would suffice in most other settings.
Have you ever tested your ERC20 token? If you did, share your experiences in the comments section below.
|
https://medium.com/dev-genius/introduction-to-erc-20-testing-on-ethereum-e73250825520
|
['Ata Tekeli']
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2020-11-22 17:51:40.001000+00:00
|
['Solidity', 'Software Development', 'Ethereum', 'Software Testing', 'Blockchain']
|
The realities of twin parenting
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Pregnancy is scary.
Twin pregnancies are higher risk than singleton (one baby) pregnancies. Mothers are 2–5 times more likely to develop preeclampsia (high blood pressure) which can be deadly if not treated quickly. There’s higher risk of iron deficiency, gestational diabetes, birth defects and miscarriage (and you may not even know you’ve miscarried!). These statistics are scary. I had about twice as many check-ups as other pregnant mums — around one every month — but I was always a bit on edge. Near the end of the pregnancy I’d gained 20kg in babies and accessories (like placenta and amniotic fluid). I didn’t realise at the time, but the ‘me’ part of me had actually lost 5kg by the end of the pregnancy. 20kgs is a lot to carry around. I couldn’t walk. My mental health suffered because of my physical limitations. I could even read a book. All I did was lie in the bath and desperately hope I’d make it to 37 weeks. Which brings me to…
Birth? Also scary.
More than 60 percent of twins are born premature. Babies born at 37 weeks don’t have fully developed bodies and organs. The lungs and liver are the last parts of the body to develop. It’s common for twins to have a low birth weight and need time in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to help them breath, eat and fight infection. About two thirds of twin births are by caesarean — doctors are reluctant to allow a vaginal birth when babies’ positions aren’t ideal or where they share a placenta. Even if you get the option of a vaginal birth, you’re required to have an epidural, so pain relief is already established if there are complications. No one asks if you want a spa or a TENS machine for labour, let alone what flavour of scented candle. There’s also a higher chance of needing intervention during birth — like an episiotomy, forceps or suction.
My twins were born at 37 weeks. I was induced for a vaginal birth with an epidural. 12 or so hours into labour, I developed HELLP syndrome (Hemolysis, Elevated Liver enzymes, Low Platelets) which meant the babies needed to be removed quickly. Platelets are needed to clot the blood, so having low levels meant I haemorrhaged an estimated 1500ml. While my babies were taken to NICU, I was taken to theatre to get an inter-uterine balloon inserted to stop the bleeding. This acts like a pressure bandage on the internal wounds, and I was given whole blood and platelet transfusions. The balloon needs to be in place for 24hrs, and I had blood tests and other checks every hour. Meanwhile I couldn’t see my babies, but expressed colostrum which my partner took to NICU. I needed a wheelchair to leave the birthing suite and I finally held my babies about 36 hours after they were born.
Source: Author’s own
Breastfeeding is hard.
I was told it’s possible to breastfeed twins if you’re ‘committed’. Oh good. I’m committed, patient and good at problem solving, this should be easy!
No mother can produce a double-quantity of milk, so twins are expected to survive on a little less. My boys were not strong enough to feed breast-only. When I tried, my smaller twin actually lost weight despite spending up to 4 hrs a day on the boob. Expressing and bottle-feeding was the only other option given to me. This means spending 20 mins (each baby) breastfeeding, 20 mins (each baby) bottle-feeding and 30 mins expressing — every 3 hours. If you have even one unsettled baby at any point in the day, that routine becomes extremely difficult.
You can multitask some of it. I found tandem feeding ok when they were new-borns, but once they got too big for that position, it never felt right to have them tucked behind me. Some mums swear all you need is 12 pillows placed correctly (and a system for getting both babies safely on and off the tower of pillows). But it got too hard for me, so I gave one baby the boob while the other got a bottle of formula and swapped for the next feed. So, breastfeeding became the same as for a single baby — minus one hand, plus 8 bottles to prepare and clean each day.
Twins: Because baby wrestling should have weight divisions.
You only have two hands.
In theory you can carry two babies (in the event of a truck hurtling towards you, house fire, rabid dog etc), but the reality involves one in a carrier strapped to your front and the other wedged next to them on your hip. It’s really heavy. You get tired after about 5 mins. They wriggle and feel like they’re slipping. You cannot wipe their nose or the dribble from their chin. You cannot reach or lean forward.
So your options are either: pick one up, move them somewhere, put them down, then go back for the other baby, or take a pram everywhere. The pram is the far better option. They have a safe spot where they can’t roll/crawl, find anything to put in their mouths, and you can always see them. But, the pram has its issues too…
The pram doesn’t fit.
There was a period when I despised singleton mums. I was so jealous of their lives — I couldn’t bear to look at them walking down the street and see what I was missing. Have you ever tried to take a shopping trolley into a cafe? That’s what having a twin pram is like. There were friend’s houses and favourite shops that I had to abandon because they had steps, or the aisles were too narrow.
Twins: Because toddler mischief is more effective with a distraction.
There’s no time for that.
All new parents have it tough — a baby is a 24hr-a-day job — but twin parents somehow have to find a way of fitting two 24hr-a-day jobs into each day. Basically, you cut corners. Sometimes you can combine things, like feeding both solids, or breastfeeding one while bottle-feeding the other. But things like nappy changes are just going to take twice as long.
You have to multitask to the extreme. Like, being attached to a breast pump, while rocking two bouncers with your feet, while eating lunch, while ordering groceries on your phone. I thought about my days in 10-minute increments. Where will I fit a shower, or a load of washing? ‘Dinner’ was pasta with a can of tuna. I gave up on vacuuming. Cutting my toenails was a luxury that would sometimes take 6 months to get to. Date night!? Ha! Hahaha.
There wasn’t enough time even for the necessities of life like sustenance, basic hygiene and sleep. Every day was a cruel experiment where you could only choose two — I usually chose sustenance and hygiene over sleep. At its worst, blinking felt like a trap. My eyelids would stick and I’d have the sensation of a micro-sleep. It certainly would have been unsafe for me to operate heavy machinery. Instead, I had responsibility for two helpless lives.
There isn’t even time for your kids.
But the hardest bit? I didn’t have enough time to enjoy being with my babies. I couldn’t cuddle them while they slept, I couldn’t carry them around while I did chores. Even playing with them one-on-one was a rare luxury that only happened if one slept longer than the other (and I’d have to wake them after 20 mins to keep them in sync). I was always dividing my attention and they didn’t get the share they deserved. The thing keeping me from spending quality time with my beloved baby, was another beloved baby. It was a profound catch 22.
|
https://medium.com/counterarts/the-realities-of-twin-parenting-e151a733473b
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[]
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2021-08-25 22:45:17.549000+00:00
|
['Trauma', 'Twins', 'Life', 'Parenting', 'Baby']
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Uber M3 is an Open Source, Large-Scale Time Series Metrics Platform
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Uber M3 is an Open Source, Large-Scale Time Series Metrics Platform
The platform is powering time series metrics workflows across different mission critical applications at Uber.
I recently started a new newsletter focus on AI education. TheSequence is a no-BS( meaning no hype, no news etc) AI-focused newsletter that takes 5 minutes to read. The goal is to keep you up to date with machine learning projects, research papers and concepts. Please give it a try by subscribing below:
Time series storage and analysis is one of the most common scenarios in machine learning and one that very often requires a specialized type of storage. From time-series forecasting to all sorts of predictions, time-series data is essential to train and validate many machine learning models. Together with social networks or internet of things(IOT) scenarios, machine learning use cases are among the top contributors to the evolution of time series databases and frameworks. That market has seen an incredible level of innovation in the last few years but is still struggling to adapt to massive scale scenarios. The importance of time series analysis have influenced the release of open source stacks such as Graphite or Prometheus. However, many of the top internet have regularly outgrown those stacks and pursued the path of building their own time series infrastructure. Uber is one of the companies that have contributed the most to the time series data infrastructure space. Over a year ago, Uber open source one of the most innovative time series analysis stacks in the market: M3.
Time is a core element of the Uber experience across its different apps. As a result, time series analysis seems to be a multiple more relevant than on other types of large scale businesses. Initially, Uber relied on traditional time series stacks such as Graphite, Nagios, StatsD and Prometheus to power their time series metrics. While that technology stack worked for a while, it was not able to keep up with Uber’s stratospheric growth and, by 2015, the company was in need of a proprietary time series infrastructure. That was the origin of M3 which was designed with five key guiding principles:
Improved reliability and scalability: to ensure we can continue to scale the business without worrying about loss of availability or accuracy of alerting and observability.
to ensure we can continue to scale the business without worrying about loss of availability or accuracy of alerting and observability. Capability for queries to return cross-data center results: to seamlessly enable global visibility of services and infrastructure across regions.
to seamlessly enable global visibility of services and infrastructure across regions. Low latency service level agreement: to make sure that dashboards and alerting provide a reliable query latency that is interactive and responsive.
to make sure that dashboards and alerting provide a reliable query latency that is interactive and responsive. First-class dimensional “tagged” metrics: to offer the flexible, tagged data model that Prometheus’ labels and other systems made popular.
to offer the flexible, tagged data model that Prometheus’ labels and other systems made popular. Backwards compatibility: to guarantee that hundreds of legacy services emitting StatsD and Graphite metrics continue to function without interruption.
M3
High scalability and low latency are key principles of the M3 architecture. Any given second, M3 processes 500 million metrics and persists another 20 million aggregated metrics. Extrapolating those numbers to a 24-hour cycle indicate that M3 processes around 45 TRILLION metrics per day which is far beyond the performance of any conventional time series infrastructure. To handle that throughput, M3 relied on an architecture based on the following components:
· M3DB: M3DB is a distributed time series database that provides scalable storage and a reverse index of time series. It is optimized as a cost effective and reliable real-time and long term retention metrics store and index.
· M3Query: M3 Query is a service that houses a distributed query engine for querying both real-time and historical metrics, supporting several different query languages. It is designed to support both low latency real-time queries and queries that can take longer to execute, aggregating over much larger datasets, for analytical use cases.
· M3 Aggregator: M3 Aggregator is a service that runs as a dedicated metrics aggregator and provides stream based down sampling, based on dynamic rules stored in etcd.
· M3 Coordinator: M3 Coordinator is a service that coordinates reads and writes between upstream systems, such as Prometheus, and M3DB.
· M3QL: A query language optimized for time series data.
The relationship between the core M3 components is shown in the following figure:
Let’s explore some of the previous architecture building blocks in more details.
M3DB
M3DB is the core storage model in the M3 infrastructure. The stack was built in Go and designed for large-scale time series analysis from the ground up. The storage model is both distributed and strongly consistent which facilitates scalabilities while maintaining robust write dynamics. M3DB uses both in-memory and disk storage models depending on whether the records are frequently accessed or just used for long-term calculations respectively. From the management standpoint, M3DB is highly configurable and supported on a wide range of runtime environments.
One of the main contributions of M3DB is its clever storage model. Most transformations within a specific query are applied across different series for each time interval. For that reason, M3DB stores data in a columnar format facilitating the memory locality of the data. Additionally, data is split across time into blocks, enabling most transformations to work in parallel on different blocks, thereby increasing our computation speed.
M3QL
Since the early days, M3 supported Prometheus Query Language(PromQL) and Graphite’s path navigation language. To extend the data access capabilities of M3, Uber decided to build M3QL a pipe-based language that complements the capabilities of path navigation with richer data access routines. Just like other pipe-based languages, M3QL allows users to read queries from left to right offering a rich syntax as shown in the following figure.
M3 Query Engine
Just like other M3 components, the query engine was written in Go from the ground up and optimize for high throughput. Recent metrics from Uber are benchmarking 2500 queries per second being processed by M3’s query engine. The query engine workflow is structured into three main phases: parsing, execution and data retrieval. The query parsing and execution components work together as part of a common query service, and retrieval is done through a thin wrapper over the storage nodes. To support multiple query languages such as M3QL or PromQL, M3 introduces an intermediate representation based on a directed acyclic graph(DAG) which abstracts the query that needs to be executed. The current implementation of the query engine is tied to M3DB but the design can support other time series databases.
M3 Coordinator
M3 is a very complete platform but also enables the integration with mainstream time series analysis systems such as Prometheus. M3Coordinator is a service which provides APIs for reading/writing to M3DB at a global and placement specific level. It also acts as a bridge between Prometheus and M3DB. Using this bridge, M3DB acts as a long term storage for Prometheus using the remote read/write endpoints.
Getting started with M3 is relatively easy as the entire platform is packaged as Docker containers. The infrastructure has been tested on major cloud platforms such as Google Cloud and the entire source code is available in their GitHub repository.
M3 is certainly one of the most advanced infrastructures for time series analysis in the current market. While M3 might lack the support of commercial alternatives, it comes with the robustness developed during years of supporting Uber’s time series analysis processes. Doesn’t get much better than that.
|
https://medium.com/dataseries/uber-m3-is-an-open-source-large-scaltime-series-metrics-platform-d583aef37b07
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['Jesus Rodriguez']
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2020-09-01 14:03:46.937000+00:00
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['Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Thesequence', 'Data Science']
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Teaching in Hostile Times
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Teaching in Hostile Times
Our classrooms are not bubbles, our schools and colleges are not bubbles, and our ethical duties include a recognition that nothing is merely academic, that nothing is politically neutral.
Photo by Karlis Reimanis on Unsplash
There is a long-time joke at my university that has far more than a grain of truth in it — the campus and the university environment captured in a metaphor, the bubble. Referring to the bubble elicits smiles and even laughter, until the bubble bursts.
Over three M-W-F morning courses this fall, I teach 40 students — 39 are first-year students, and 39 are white. Most, as is typical of my university are women, and most are significantly privileged in a number of ways.
During fall break this year, vandalism and theft invaded the bubble, including Swastikas and sexually hostile language written on young women’s dormitory doors and marker boards.
So far the university response has been a mostly silent investigation and one official email from the Chief Diversity Officer and University Chaplain. When I engaged one class in a conversation about the incident, I heard the following concerns from students, which I shared with the President, Provost, Academic Dean, and CDO:
Students are concerned with a lack of information, and that only one email from two FU admins has been sent [1]. Some mentioned that email was in their spam folder.
Students expressed concern that almost no professors have addressed these events in class.
Students openly wondered if this is being “swept under the rug,” and fear that if/when people responsible are discovered, what the consequences will be.
More broadly, students expressed some trepidation about the open-campus nature, and seemed unsure how to alert and who to alert with specific concerns.
The second point stands out to me because a couple students directly noted that in one class the discussion planned for a class session was about how things used to be bad at the university — highlighting offensive pictures in old year books and such — yet the professor left the discussion there, failing to use that moment to link to the current evidence that things are still bad at the university.
Of the 15 students in that class, only one had been in a class that addressed the hostile vandalism; that class is taught by Melinda Menzer, professor of English, who has been quoted by media extensively on the incident:
“We are in a time where, nationally and internationally, white supremacists and their rhetoric have become more visible and more violent,” Menzer said. “We’ve seen Nazis and neo-Nazis marching on our streets, and they feel empowered in a way they have not felt empowered in decades.” Menzer is a member of Temple of Israel in Greenville. Her grandfather immigrated to the United States from Lithuania in 1925 — the rest of his family was murdered in the Holocaust. “None of this is abstract to me or my family, and I also think it shouldn’t be seen in isolation,” Menzer said. “They (white supremacists) don’t just hate Jews — they hate Muslims, they hate African Americans, they have strong anti-immigrant rhetoric. Those things are tied together in their manifestos. It is a matter for all good people to speak up against this hatred, now.” Menzer said for her and others on campus, the graffiti is not something that can be brushed off as a joke. “It is easy to say, ‘They’re just trying to scare people,’ or, ‘This is a joke,’” Menzer said. “It’s not that they are trying to scare people — it’s that they are scaring people. They are creating a negative environment, and that is why we all must speak out.” Menzer said she does not feel that Furman is unique or more dangerous than other campuses because of the incident, but that the graffiti is a reflection of the rise in white supremacy worldwide. “It is more important than ever before for a group of people to speak up and to name hate when they see it and to denounce it,” Menzer said. “All of us who have a voice need to send a clear message — this is hate, and we denounce it,” Menzer said.
Her careful and direct analysis and call for action, however, as my students have witnessed, have fallen mostly on deaf ears among faculty.
Faculty chair, Christopher Hutton, offered his own call to action to faculty in the first faculty meeting after the vandalism, in part concluding:
In the meantime, it is easy to feel powerless. What can we do as faculty? Well? We can teach [emphasis in original]. The messages we convey to students can be powerful. We can use this incident as a reminder that we must condemn acts of hatred and intolerance. We can be present [emphasis in original], taking an active part in the multiple efforts that are already underway across campus such as FaithZone, SafeZone, the recently announced anti-racism workshop coming up in a few weeks, CLP events, and other opportunities for inclusive dialogue. We can keep an eye out for those who might be most affected by the incident and provide support. What we can not do is to let the abhorrent behavior of a few individuals overshadow the good work that all of you are doing with students every day. We can, indeed we must [emphasis in original] continue to strive towards an inclusive environment in which the academic mission of the university can thrive. I stand here today to say that I plan to take part in that process and that I trust that you will also.
These calls both focus on the role of professors to teach in times of hostility.
As I have allowed and encouraged conversations in my classes, I have discovered that my students were uninformed about important concepts — gaslighting, the male gaze, the sexist origins of “hysterical,” and the traditional resistance in academia toward professors being political, either being public intellectuals or bringing so-called politics into their teaching.
Despite these conversations being grounded in horrible events, and despite these conversations being off-topic in that they were not in my original lesson plans and were only tangentially related to the content of the courses, the lessons were powerful and deeply academic, firmly grounded in the very essence of liberal arts and formal education in the pursuit of an ethical democracy.
These were examinations of personal autonomy, breeches of consent, and the rise of emboldened hatred — even as we all anticipate the perpetrators claiming it was all a joke.
The absence of addressing these events in classrooms is not surprising to me since the traditional view of teaching — K-12 and college — includes somehow requiring that teachers and professors remain dispassionate and politically neutral. At my university, the norm is clearly that professors should just teach their classes, that professors can and must be politically neutral.
Professor of political science and author of Comrade, Jodi Dean has recently weighed in on that tension with an argument for The Comradely Professor:
Etymologically, comrade derives from camera [emphasis in original], the Latin word for room, chamber, and vault. The generic function of a vault is producing a space and holding it open. This lets us hone in on the meaning of comrade: Sharing a room, sharing a space generates a closeness, an intensity of feeling and expectation of solidarity that differentiates those on one side from those on the other. Politically, comradeship is a relation of supported cover, that is, the expectation of solidarity that those on the same side have of each other. Comrade, then, is a mode of address, figure of political belonging, and carrier of expectations for action. When we call ourselves comrades, we are saying that we are on the same side, united around a common political purpose.
And the problem with comradely professors?:
The comradely scholar is committed, fierce, and resolutely partisan. That means that she is more likely to be hated than loved in the academy. Her commitments are political, not disciplinary or professional commitments, which of course does not mean that she is undisciplined or unprofessional.
Like Dean, I argue and practice the ideology, critical pedagogy, that scholarship and teaching are inextricable from each other and both can only be political — even taking the neutral pose is political.
The professors at my university not discussing the hostile vandalism as part of class are making political choices and political stances, yet only those of us addressing these events directly in class will be framed as being the political ones. Comments online with the news article have born that out.
Most of my students are young women and some are Jewish; as Menzer noted, it doesn’t matter the claimed intent of the hostile vandalism because those acts have intimidated people, they have incited fear.
Teaching in hostile times requires a great deal of teachers, even more than in so-called normal times.
Our classrooms are not bubbles, our schools and colleges are not bubbles, and our ethical duties include a recognition that nothing is merely academic, that nothing is politically neutral.
Teaching in hostile times means teaching students’ lived lives, it means inviting their entire experiences into the classroom so that we as teachers and professors can listen, learn, and fully teach.
|
https://plthomasedd.medium.com/teaching-in-hostile-times-936b5f1fb57f
|
['Paul Thomas']
|
2019-10-24 15:03:11.651000+00:00
|
['College', 'Critical Pedagogy', 'Politics', 'Racism', 'Teaching']
|
Be a good person for yourself.
|
be a good person for yourself
|
https://medium.com/@yogapriambudi/be-a-good-person-for-yourself-390b0bcd22b9
|
['Yoga Priambudi']
|
2020-12-13 22:34:19.749000+00:00
|
['Creative Writing', 'Mindset', 'Mindfulness', 'Coffee', 'Love']
|
Nobody Wants a Substitute
|
What alternative proteins can teach us about selling earth-friendly choices
Block tofu, at its most alluring (image: https://garlicdelight.com/regular-brick-tofu/)
Photo by Alexander Dinamarca on Unsplash
It’s been a long day. You put your feet up on the coffee table and rub your eyes but an image of your email inbox seems to be burned into the back of your brain. I come over and put a sympathetic hand on your shoulder, give it a little squeeze. “You’ve been working hard honey, let me go the fridge and bring you a substitute beer.”
All those Good Husband Points I was about to earn just evaporated. Because even though you don’t know what a substitute beer is, you know you’d much rather just have the real thing.
This is what I’ve been struggling with about the plant-based protein industry for so long. If you offer me a meat substitute, no matter how tantalizing, it just mostly makes me want the meat. Even the industry’s soi-disant title, “alternative proteins”, makes you plainly aware that you’re out of option A’s and only choosing option B’s now.
From a marketing perspective alone, this is a tough place to be if your job is to sell tofu. But the problem is actually much bigger. We need to figure out how to eat less meat, because after switching to mass transit eating less meat is the best thing we can do at a personal level to reduce our impact on the planet. But people still need protein to be generally healthy and to grow attractive muscles, so we’ve got to get them interested in other nutritional sources besides cows.
Let’s continue looking at this as a marketing problem. While vegetarians and vegans make up about 5% of the US population, a recent study shows about 45% of the US to be “flexitarian”, meaning not interested in going off meat or animal products entirely but still looking to eat less meat overall. This underscores another weakness in terminology around alternative proteins. Because while meat substitution is an appealing proposition to the 5% segment, the larger 45% segment is much less likely to be inspired by tofurkey.
Indeed, in studies about what stops people from trying protein alternatives, taste ranks #1. The problem? 73% of people sampled say that alternative proteins should taste like meat. But this is a trap that the industry has set for itself! No one says they don’t like falafel because it doesn’t taste like meatballs. The more that marketers try to sell alternative protein as a substitute to actual meat, the more that our persuadable 45% of Americans who want to eat less meat will point out that these tempeh squares do not in any way resemble spare ribs and so they’ll just stick to the real thing this time thank you very much.
But we still have to sell this stuff. So how? Don’t name your products around what people are giving up. Make it about the great stuff they’re about to get. It shouldn’t be surprising, but a comprehensive look at what product names make people buy more alternative proteins highlights four things: flavor, texture, color, and provenance.
Don’t name your products around what people are giving up. Make it about the great stuff they’re about to get.
If those sounds familiar it’s because those are the cues that have been used to sell food as long as we’ve been buying it. Tangy barbecue. Golden beets. Florida Orange Juice. Crunchwrap Supreme. These are all naming conventions that make your tummy perk up and pay attention. And when we’re trying to get you to make a food decision, we should be speaking the language of the gut.
What didn’t work, when trying to get food buyers to choose plant-based proteins over animal proteins? Names that served as absence cues. Stuff that told you what you weren’t getting (and reminded you of how good it would have been). Non-fat veggie sausage. Meat-free pot pie. Mock duck salad. These names only appeal to those for whom meat is unappealing. The rest of us see names like that on the menu and start dreaming of a porterhouse for two.
It’s not to say that there’s no room at all in the world of alternative proteins to talk about earth impact. In fact I think that’s a really important conversation that many more companies should be having with their consumers. But rather than attach that type of thinking to the products themselves, ideas like sustainability and renewal should be connected to the brand. Use the brand to paint a picture of how the world can be better when people make choices like eating less meat, and then let your tasty products speak tummy language with words around flavor, texture, color, and provenance.
Use the brand to paint a picture of how the world can be better when people make choices like eating less meat.
One more important thing to note: if we’re going to accomplish our mission of getting people to eat less meat: we need to stay away from “fancy.” There are already too many structural and economic barriers standing between the average American and good food choices. The last thing we want to do is wrap up alternative protein in a veneer of elitism and exclusivity. The rich 1% occasionally buying an Impossible Burger over champagne brunch is not going to be what makes a meaningful dent in our country’s meat consumption.
Photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash
So imagine your friend asking you to meet at Blue Sky Burrito Box for lunch. The restaurant’s decor and imagery evokes clean air and abundant plant life. When it’s your turn to order you choose a regional flavor profile (a Smokey Santa Fe Burrito) and then you’re asked to choose between Hearty, Crunchy, or Crumbly (tempeh, chickpeas, or tofu). Think of all the positive cues you’re getting. You’re feeling healthy without any sense of punishing yourself. You’re feeling more connected to nature without needing to pass a Green Party purity test. And you’re excited about what you’re eating, without being reminded that you passed up having a seared flank steak.
To back out from alternative proteins for a second, what do I hope we take away from this discussion? When I see a lot of earth-friendly products and services being offered, it feels like they’re making a lot of the same mistakes. I find myself wishing they’d be guided by a few basic points:
Talk about the great stuff you’re offering, not what you’re replacing Speak the language of the decision that is being made Remind me of the better world I’m helping to create with this choice Make it something everyone can join in on
And I guess, consider having something else tasty instead of animal protein for your next meal. There are so many good options out there now — go find something you like, even if maybe its name isn’t the most exciting part about it.
If you want to read more about the world of alternative proteins, McKinsey wrote a fascinating report that I’d highly recommend you check out. They stack up production realities for a number of different protein sources (plant, insect, myco, synthesized) against actual nutritional output and weigh general familiarity and affinity for these sources to give you a really comprehensive view of the space.
|
https://medium.com/swlh/nobody-wants-a-substitute-9f36a7d32ea
|
['Topher Burns']
|
2020-10-12 15:08:36.977000+00:00
|
['Marketing', 'Future', 'Food', 'Advertising', 'Sustainability']
|
The Hunt for Fifteen
|
With a deadline of ASAP, we have set out on a mission to determine who will be among the chosen 15. This is a crucial step and one that we are giving great care. We are not just choosing individual children at this point but their families as well. Everyone involved needs to be highly motivated, committed, and persevering. This is the time to evaluate risk and determine potential problems before they arise. The last thing we want is for a student to drop out due to reasons beyond our control. We have expanded our selection pool to include another school affiliated with our volunteer program. There is so much potential here that will never be realized without our combined intervention and donations.
At only 8 years old, Rahul shows incredible maturity and a strong desire to learn
Madhu, age 10, with her parents and four siblings, whom she cares for
Although we have a few set criteria, we are taking into account a myriad of factors and learning as we go.
Gudiya, Golu, and Ajit
First, we are looking for students primarily in the 6–8 year-old range. Some are older, some are younger, but 6–8 is our target. The older the students are, especially for female students, the higher risk they face of marrying before completing 10th standard. Gudiya, for instance, is 9 years old. She will be 19 when she graduates from 10th standard and 21 when she graduates from 12th standard. If she doesn’t go to school now, she never will. We determined that her potential for greatness outweighed the risk that she will marry early. Our hope is that she, Neha, and their family will learn to understand the benefits of education and chose to put off marriage or labor until their educations are complete.
Kashak, age 6, is incredibly bright, optimistic, and well-mannered
Second, we are looking for students who are intelligent, outgoing, and industrious. I have been keeping records of each student’s reading, writing, and math capabilities as well as notes on their demeanor, attitude, leadership, participation, and eagerness to learn. We don’t just want intelligence, drive, or personality, we want the whole package.
Kashak with her mother, Gudiya, who never went to school and is illiterate
Third, we are trying to evaluate the educational risk faced by each student. In other words, what are a student’s chances of never going to school? What are his or her chances of going to a public school, low-end private school, or high-end private school? These questions are best answered in interviews with the families, especially through histories of elder siblings. Now that I think of it, the interviews we conduct are very similar to medical histories and evaluations.
Soni is 16 and never went to school. Without intervention, neither will her siblings
We begin the parental interviews by saying how proud we are of their child’s work in school, that we recognize exceptional potential, and that we want to make sure that their child receives the best education possible. We then introduce ourselves and gather names, number of children, ages of children, etc. If there are older siblings, I like to find out if they attend or have ever attended school. If they have, I like to find out where they go or went.
Next, I figure out who works in the family, where they work, approximately how much they earn per month (this is, apparently, not an offensive question), their expenses, their highest levels of education, and their educational goals for their children. My motive, through all of these questions, it to find out what will happen to these students without our intervention.
Over the past 11 days, I have comprehensively evaluated approximately 80 students and interviewed 37 families at their homes. It has been an exhausting and emotionally draining process even though I try to stay as impartial as possible. The entire process reminds me of serving as jury foreman signing verdicts before I left home. We have the power now to radically alter or essentially neglect the lives and futures of these children. Needless to say, this is an enormous amount of responsibility.
Our interviews and evaluations have taken us through narrow alleys, up ladders to rooftops, and far down the canal. Wherever we go, we command enormous attention. While interviewing Rani and Rekha’s parents in their tiny rooftop enclosure, dozens of children and adults watched from the surrounding buildings even as far away as 75 meters. Even if we aren’t directly impacting many of the children here, our presence and message about the importance of education are indirectly affecting many.
Left to right: Rani, Rekha, and Manisha
The highlight of my day was going to interview a beautiful, proper, and respectful 8-year-old girl named Manisha. Before visiting her home, I had found out that she was one of five children. She has two illiterate sisters who are married and two brothers who live with her grandparents in a different sector. Her parents, Moni and Ramesh, are also illiterate.
Manisha led us from Rani and Rekha’s rooftop, down the ladder, and around the corner to her tiny, dark, poorly-ventilated home. Although it was 6 pm, both of her parents were still in the factory. Manisha immediately went to work moving around items in her bare feet on the dirt floor of her home.
The flash from my camera was the only light source in the room. All of her family’s possessions were strung up to the walls or ceiling, leaving just enough room on the floor for the three of them to sleep or cook.
After a few moments of wondering what Manisha was doing, she began to light a small portable burner in the corner of the room. It became apparent that she was trying to make us chai tea. It was probably one of the most adorable and humbling events I have ever watched. I shook my head in sheer amazement of her maturity and generosity at only 8 years old.
As the sun began to set today, we walked out of the slum incredibly excited by the changes and opportunities we are bringing. I am receiving great feedback from readers and some donations are already starting to flow. I will acknowledge these generous contributions properly in later posts. To everyone who has donated or considered it, thank you. Please stay tuned.
Prianka, age 8
|
https://medium.com/squalor-to-scholar/the-hunt-for-fifteen-de3658fab6ef
|
['John Schupbach']
|
2017-06-29 00:57:29.794000+00:00
|
['Squalor To Scholar', 'Education', 'India']
|
Brief Intro To Netopology in .NET Core
|
Somehow someway you’ve ended up at this rudimentary blog but it most likely went in the following ways. You started googling along the lines of “SqlGeography .NET Core”, “SqlGeogphraphy functions and types .NET Core ”, “Why won’t SQL geography work in my .NET Core app?” and from there started going down some disappointing rabbit holes to find that SQL geography isn’t supported yet in .NET Core. Now you’re stressed and contemplating how you’re going to port dinosaur code that has a million SQL geography types and functions splattered everywhere over to this wonderful world of .net core (and probably Linux)… times may start to seem bleak….
BUT rest assured! Where there’s a framework problem there’s a Stack Overflow thread with the answer somewhere. This brings us NetopologySuite.
In this blog, I’m mostly going to be talking about some basics that I have found useful. I will be using the 2.0.0 release of the Netopology Suite for the code snippets and will also try to post links to some useful sites that have helped me understand the massive iceberg that is NTS (an abbreviation I’ll use throughout the article.)
Geometries are the bread and butter of dealing with data in the GIS world (useful link on shapes and jargon.) So let’s take a second to talk about creating geometries and playing around with them. The different types of geometries talked about later inherit the base class of geometry. One of the most commonly used geometries is a linestring:
Another commonly used geometry type is polygons as they can be used to represent top-down representations of buildings for example. They are just as easy to create:
One can make a range of different types of polygons and don’t have to be simple enclosed shapes. For example, a donut can be created by passing not just a shell but also an array of coordinates that represent the smaller inner circle as the second parameter when creating the polygon.
Next, let’s take a second to talk about Multi-polygons and Multi-linestrings.
And MultiPolygons:
You might ask “Aizeem, why do I wanna create arrays of geometries”? Well for a few reasons it allows you bundle similar types of geometries that you know will be of a certain type but it also allows you to run functional methods on the class without looping through everything!
However, this is not exclusive meaning its a list of coordinates in both geometries. Therefore, the loop might be necessary for tasks that require special logic and is good to know about. This can be between any two geometries which help on answering questions like “Does my line string(a route) touch this polygon (a house)?”.
Now that brings me to how can you read in SQL geography from the DB easily. Entity Framework provides a pretty simple way to specify the use of NTS to read and write. Take this example:
Now let’s talk about some common functions and uses as well as their limitations. Comparing two coordinates. Sometimes coordinates don’t match up perfectly down to every decimal but are “close enough” — well you can use:
Maybe I want to do distance calculations between two coordinates or two geometries:
“Aizeem I want to create some simple shapes and don’t feel like putting in every coordinate like a chimp”. Simple, use geometric shape factory to create geometries.
The geometric shape factory allows the creation of other geometries as well including rectangles, arcs and the best of them all a squircle.
The above examples are quick ways of creating simple geometries but say you are working with different projected coordinate systems. That requires you to do some math to go from one system to another system. Therefore, might want to create geometries with the right coordinate values (obviously.) This is where one might want to create a common class that handles the transform function which if using dependency injection (useful article) can be injected into components that are interacting with geometries. First, let's create the coordinate system representations.
You can also create coordinate systems with code (link) or well-known text representations (link). Now we can simply use the code given to us on the documentation site to create a filter function from the math transform provided above:
Used:
You might find yourself often comparing geometries with each other and I wanted to take a second and look at some of those comparisons and how they behave. There are a lot of handheld function
GeoJson
If you’re still reading this you probably are interested in knowing how NTS interacts with incoming or outgoing data that is GeoJson. You can easily convert from any geometry to geoJson with:
If we write a quick test like the following:
We’ll see that indeed what we put in is what we get out (life motto as well.)
This is useful as you can pass data in a standard format back to your frontend to be consumed and not have to do a lot of conversions (everything is awesome). Personally, I do like visualizing my geometries if I do not know what a function is doing or if the geometry I am trying to create is close to what I am picture. If you’re gifted at reading a sequence of coordinates and knowing the exact shape of geometry in your MatLab of a brain, well good for you. However, If you can’t auto plot in your head then you can take the output from the above function a paste it into a visualizer like geojson.io
That brings me to the conclusion of the article. There is a lot under the umbrella of netopology suite and it can be daunting to get started. The goal of this “short” intro was to provide a starting point for using netopology suite in your application. Hopefully, this blog helped do exactly that so thanks for reading!
Note: If you find a better way to do something or I got something entirely wrong feel free to comment as it helps everyone! I will update the post accordingly.
|
https://medium.com/trimble-maps-engineering-blog/brief-intro-to-nettopology-in-net-core-51a944ec566b
|
['Aizeem Paroya']
|
2020-02-18 22:48:33.264000+00:00
|
['Dotnet Core', 'Web Development', 'Dotnet', 'Geospatial']
|
Enable Multiple Apps Access to the same Google Cloud Services
|
Understanding Mobile Development
Enable Multiple Apps Access to the same Google Cloud Services
Google Cloud Services can be shared
Photo by Alex Machado on Unsplash
It has been some time since I worked on GoogleMap. The key is there, and everything is working fine. There’s no need to access to Google Cloud Console.
Lately, I work on introducing App Bundle and uses a different Key to Upload the App.
For internal testing, I sign with the upload key. All works fine until I notice that the Google Map is no longer working!!
Forgotten how enabling the map work, I wonder if I need a new key, a new certificate, etc? Try google around, and nothing speaks of this question I have.
Google Cloud Services
After quick hunting around, Google Map is part of Google Cloud Services. To enable any services, do check out the formal guide by Google.
The entire setup can be summarized by the diagram below
Setup the Billings (you can have more than 1 if you like) Create a project and attached to which one you like to be billed In the Project, you then select what API you would like to enable (e.g. Google Map, Place API) Lastly, create the API Keys, and decide if the Keys should access to all API or restrict it to some of it.
If my App is signed differently, do I need a new API Key?
Now, the problem I faced is, given I’m using the App Bundle, and it is signed differently before uploading. For internal testing, we have a local APK that is signed with the uploading Keystore.
So how can I get it to have access to all the same access as the main App to be upload to the store?
Option 1: Create a different key for the internal App.
To enable this to work, other than create the new key, I need to
Change my build Gradle to have different Key Access for my internal testing app vs the production version Need to set all the API Key restrictions the original key has. Any future changes need to be catered to as well.
The pro of this approach though is, you can have separate control of which API services to be access by Internal and Production.
Option 2: Sign the APK with the same original Keystore
This is back to square one, where the internal App Keystore signature is the same as production. No changes to Gradle, nor need to introduce a new API Key.
The drawback is the benefit App Bundle, where we no longer need to have the original Keystore has been discarded.
Option 3: Use the same API Key, but support for different Keystore signature.
Wow, actually this is possible.
To do so, you can go to menu →APIs & Services →Credentials
From there you’ll get a list of API Keys. Select the one that you’re currently using
|
https://medium.com/mobile-app-development-publication/enable-multiple-app-access-to-same-google-cloud-services-cbb13e410ba4
|
[]
|
2020-11-24 08:44:40.344000+00:00
|
['Mobile App Development', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Google', 'Android', 'Android App Development']
|
3 Powerful Easy-To-Apply Insights For Courage In The Face Of Uncertainty
|
“I try not to fall into a lowest point.
‘My responsibility [as a scientist and a public health official in charge of the institute responsible for most of the science and the vaccine development, and the development of therapies] is to always keep myself in an energetic and a positive mood. Even though sometimes things are dire. I could name several times when things looked bleak (…). That’s a very difficult thing to accept, but it’s the truth, and you have to deal with it.
“I have a passionate commitment to my responsibilities.
‘The enormity of the problem is such that you’ve got to be able to garner your energy and keep going. Because the responsibility is great.
“When you put the effort in, you can get good results.
‘And that’s what drives me. That’s what keeps me energized, despite all of the issues that surround me that sometimes seem insurmountable’.
So I’m going to keep going until I reach a point where I felt I’m no longer able to make a contribution.”
|
https://medium.com/@sitarawrites/3-powerful-insights-for-staying-positive-in-challenging-times-3cc202cdbb54
|
['Sitara Morgenster']
|
2021-01-05 05:29:32.655000+00:00
|
['Positive Thinking', 'Coronavirus', 'Anthony Fauci', 'Life Lessons', 'Wisdom']
|
Mi Mayor Añoranza/My Greatest Longing
|
English
It’s sad to know we don’t speak the same language.
that the kisses that I long for, you hate.
That the affection I give you, you file away,
and the love you feel for me, you disfavor it.
I know that your expressions of love are different
and that inside your heart, you adore me.
I take comfort in the thought that you have me in your mind,
even if you spend long hours inside it.
Because I would give anything to hear and understand you,
to feel the way you feel, even if it’s only for a minute,
to travel to the place where you have fun.
That way, I will reach you while I transmute.
|
https://medium.com/polyglot-poetry/mi-mayor-a%C3%B1oranza-my-greatest-longing-ebba93ed487
|
['María Cristina Aponte']
|
2020-06-27 03:08:27.492000+00:00
|
['Polyglot Poetry', 'Poesia', 'Family', 'Poetry', 'Love']
|
Could India’s rising population be turned into an asset?
|
India is the world’s largest democracy in the world housing approximately 1.3 billion people, of which 365 million comprise the youth of the nation. It boasts the highest percentage of youth population which comprise the innovation talent pool and as such is taken as an indicator for national development. However, India with its massive population is supported only by a landmass of 3.2 million square kilometers.
The disproportionate population density compared to the rest of the world has led to over-exploitation of its resources which has led to India topping the charts on land use statistics with 57% cultivation of available land. This leads to problems such as encroachment of forests for cultivation leading to loss of habitat for the wildlife. It directly contributes to the creation of an imbalance in the ecosystem wherein the resources are leached away to sustain this huge population. Also, the reduction of greenery along with the fact that almost all middle-class household in India has atleast an operating vehicle contributes to an increase in air pollution and conversely to global warming. It needs not to be mentioned the other innumerable adverse effects on the ecosystem as a result of such a huge population.
However, India’s massive population could be coming to a close as the population growth rate has been declining steadily over the past few years. India is still a developing country and needs to bank on its youth to grow in economy. India has a huge talent pool that needs to be educated and cultivated properly so that their innovations take shape in the form of startups and small scale businesses. Moreover, since the 90’s India has been seen by the west as an investment playground wherein big players like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Dell have invested not only directly but set up offices which have led to an increase in employment and revenue in the form of infrastructure. However, to rid the misnomer of India as an outsourcing capital of the world, it needs to place its bets on new startups with increased funding. India has a hoard of untapped potential which could be realized despite the negative effects of such a huge population
|
https://medium.com/@tamoghnamaitra/could-indias-rising-population-be-turned-into-an-asset-c4938dc897d6
|
['Tamoghna Maitra']
|
2020-12-21 11:48:06.801000+00:00
|
['Opportunity', 'India', 'Population', 'Nature', 'Employment']
|
Dueling Lunch Notes
|
The parents are the winners in this battle
The lunch notes began a few years ago, when my now 6 year old, Elliot, started preschool. They weren’t a big deal, just little 5-minute doodles of characters he liked telling him to eat his lunch. I don’t think they did much to get him to finish his sandwich, but they made him laugh and that was a good enough reason for me to keep doing them.
vintage lunch note circa 2015-ish
Today, the lunch note thing has gotten a little out of control.
I currently find myself at the end of a very intense an all-out Lunch Note Duel. My competition? Ross. Dad of my son Elliot’s BFF, Max. When he started drawing his own lunch notes earlier this year, the kids began to check in with each other in the cafeteria, bickering and bantering about who got the cooler note each day.
We’re both pretty competitive (um, really competitive), so we decided to play off that a little and battle it out.
We’ve been letting the kids pick a prompt for us each day, and while there has been a lot of vetoing of “poop”, “poopheads” and “people eating poop,” they’ve actually given us some pretty good words to work with too: “goldfish”, “death star”, “LEGO”, “video game”, “friends”, “pants”.
“Death Star”
“Video game”
We’ve got a hashtag, we’ve got a Facebook page, we’ve got daily polls going to help us determine who wins. And we’ve got a big prize at stake: losing parent must hand-deliver whatever the kids want for lunch (Happy Meals, donuts, Happy Meals and donuts?) to the school cafeteria at the end of the duel.
But here’s the thing: there are no losers here. Everyone is winning in this silly competition, especially us parents.
“Alley”
There’s this idea that being a parent gets in the way of us doing the things we love. You often hear people say things like, “Oh I used to paint, but then I had kids and you know how that goes,” or “Back before kids I played guitar, but no time for that now!” And it’s true — kids take up a lot of our time and focus (as they should), but one thing I am learning, is that kids are also sort of the ultimate tool for bringing those things out of us.
Before I had kids, before I started doing these silly lunch notes, I had no reason to draw. I’ve always enjoyed art. I was pretty good at it as a kid and even through high school, but after that, I mean, what was I going to draw?
I had a lot of creativity inside me but nowhere to get it out. Until kids. I finally have a platform, an outlet to do this thing that I love, and it feels really good.
“Joke” (Max had the setup, Elliot had the punchline)
It also feels really good to see this rubbing off on my kid. Elliot has started infiltrating my Sharpie stash and drawing his own “lunch notes” for his friends, his sister, for me. It makes my heart happy to not only see him develop his drawing skills and explore his artistic side a little more, but also experience how much fun it is to make someone smile with something you’ve created.
In this “paperless” age, there’s something extra special about anything handmade, even if it’s just ink on well, paper.
Of the many lessons I’ve learned from this whole thing maybe the most important one for me is this: don’t make your kids an excuse for not doing the things you love; make them your reason.
Get out those paints, dust off that guitar. Draw the lunch note. Kids don’t care if you’re “good” at it or not. They’ll feel (and want to spread) the love, you’ll feel a little more fulfilled. It’s a win-win.
That said, I’m still totally going to kick Ross’s butt in our duel (kidding…kind of).
“Goldfish”
“King Pin”
“Friend”
“Chocolate”
“LEGO”
Want to get in on the lunch note revolution? Join our growing community of lunch noters on Instagram!
|
https://medium.com/@kristincook_92541/dueling-lunch-notes-6b22a91f08af
|
['Kristin Cook']
|
2019-01-07 22:53:48.657000+00:00
|
['Life Lessons', 'Drawing', 'Art', 'Parenting', 'Moms']
|
The Voting Playbook by Yahoo Sports
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Due to the pandemic, more people considered voting by mail. Questions arose about how to register and vote by mail per state, and how to track a ballot after it had been dropped in the post. People had voiced concern about whether or not the U.S. Postal Service could be trusted to service the election, as well as uncertainty about what information could actually be believed.
When asked how Yahoo Sports responded, producer for Yahoo Sports social Kyndall Freer explains, “What happened was we didn’t have sports, so we had to figure out how to pivot. I was watching all of the Black Lives Matter protests, all of the athletes getting involved, and I felt like I wanted to be more involved and do something more. So I reached out to Jackie Pepper, who I knew was very involved in grassroots in voter registration in the LA area. And I asked if she wanted to take on this massive project with me.”
With so many urgent issues 2020 needed to see an increase in participation over 2016. So Yahoo enlisted celebrities to use their platform and drive folks to the polls. Put simply, the Voting Playbook sought to funnel folks fandom from stadiums to ballot boxes.
Sourcing talent for this production required a considered approach. The team’s intention remained clear.
When asked what she hopes to achieve, Yahoo Sports Producer Jackie Pepper responds, “The most important part about getting talent attached to the Voting Playbook was to make sure this was something they were really passionate about.”
Equally important was equal access and representation.
Pepper continues, “Being inclusive of everybody, that’s part of voting and part of democracy. So we really cared that we had equal representation. We wanted to reflect the population of the United States within our video hosts.”
And they represented, indeed. The majority of talent involved posted the social toolkits to their personal social media accounts multiple times and engaged with Yahoo accounts’ posts of Voting Playbook.
It wasn’t just a one and done with them, the majority of the participants were actively involved with it pretty much up until Nov. 3.
Yahoo Sports product manager Tosin Adeniji adds, “What was super important for me was just to make sure that it was accessible for all. We have various different types of users that come to Yahoo Sports. And we just wanted to make sure with Amber and Mika and some others in the team that worked on this, that it was accessible.”
Sports and politics are inextricably connected. Yet some fans are divided on athletes’ roles. Given the overall goal of getting out the vote some may question the approach through the lens of sport.
“It’s really important that the conversation that was being reflected on the court, on the field, in the boardrooms was also reflected in our product.” says Adeniji. “We take a lens of not just showcasing scores and utility, but also like the whole context of sports.”
“Sport is a microcosm of society,” declares Jackie Pepper. “There are some people in our society who say shut up and dribble, who think that athletes should just be one-dimensional human beings and that we should just use them for our own entertainment, but athletes, they have always been trendsetters. We wanted to use the platform that they have, the voice that they have on their own social media platforms, and give them an extra boost, give them an extra place to spread the good word about voting. And based on some of the numbers that we’ve seen coming back from Voting Playbook, we see a lot of engagement.”
It’s clear the voting playbook filled an important role.
When asked how the Voting Playbook delivered on Yahoo’s promise to amplify what matters most to people, Sr. Product Marketing Manager Marcus Taylor says, “There’s been a lot of uncertainty around this election in terms of how do I vote, where do I go vote, will my vote count. Like there’s so much misinformation out there. There is a need and a hunger for information to come from credible sources, like the Yahoo brand.”
Taylor clarifies, “Didn’t matter who you planned on voting for. That part was irrelevant. Just making sure that your vote counted was the main purpose of the Voting Playbook.”
So how did the team approach marketing this whole project?
Creative Director Jeff White explains the creative strategy and messaging this way, “When we jumped in and started doing creative around it, the most important thing was to keep it in the sports vernacular and keep that humanness to it, that athletes are just like your friends or neighbors.”
White goes on, “They’re not the talking heads of the political role. They speak in the language that you speak down on the street or in the corner with your friends. Overall, I’d say the creative strategy is that we kept it human and we kept it sports and fun.”
Marcus Taylor adds, “I think what we were hoping to communicate is that same sense of responsibility that you have to cheer for your team. We were hoping that that would carry over and you would feel that same sense of responsibility to kind of cheer for the country.”
Inspired. The Yahoo brand did a very Yahoo thing in a very Yahoo way.
Antony Ndiege, Yahoo Brand Manager sums up his feelings, “One of the things that was very exciting is that this project was able to highlight the values of this brand that makes Yahoo very unique to our customers.”
“In this case, we were able to meet cultural moment by being upfront about what we care about and what our customers have shown us that they care about.” affirms Ndiege. “And this leads into all our values of providing access. And we also continue to build trust by providing clear and credible information that our customers can look and be able to use in order to guide their decisions.”
Yahoo definitely showed up as a leader on this crucial cultural issue.
Strategy director Jeff Clift agrees, “As we look at the landscape today, brands that lead are ahead of culture, they don’t follow culture. I think this is a great case where we took our fandom of our sports fans and our understanding from our newsgroups and voting and brought those together to create something very meaningful and relevant.”
“And it just felt natural to Yahoo.” remarks Clift. “It wasn’t something that they forced and manufactured. And I think that’s the key. When the strategy can live in that context where the products and content and culture are all supporting a bigger idea, that leads to something greater.”
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https://medium.com/verizon-media-design/the-voting-playbook-by-yahoo-sports-6a5d9778d253
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['Christopher Clarke']
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2020-12-17 18:14:19.015000+00:00
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['Collaboration', 'Voting', 'Design', 'Sports', 'Diversity']
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How Home Videos Reminded Me of My Journey as a Film Artist
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“I cannot believe that I was doing all this stuff way back then,” I said to my mother after we had watched several of the family movie tapes. “It’s exactly what I’m doing right now with my work. It’s so validating to me to see that, but also so frustrating. Why didn’t I just follow my art?”
I have struggled with this question a lot in the past five years. Something happened to me the moment I turned 18 — I think I felt the pressure of the world push in on me. People kept telling me I would never make it as a novelist and I’d have to live in Hollywood to be a director (and having just left that region five years before, I wasn’t in a hurry to return).
Things were very different in the mid-90s. It was the days of dial-up internet, long before the gig economy was even a twinkle in the Muses’ eyes. The odds really were against you if you wanted to be an artist of any kind. There were only a few, very specific paths you could take, in very specific locations, and even then, you’d have to be the best of the best to have a chance to gain entrance into these exclusive careers.
It took me almost ten years to get my bachelor’s degree because I kept waffling between getting a practical degree in teaching or following my dreams and pursuing an MFA in writing or going to film school. I can’t even begin to tally up how much money I wasted during that time of indecision — especially if you add on the $25,000 MAT I eventually earned for that “practical” teaching career that I did not enjoy and had to leave by the age of 38.
Oh, if only I had followed Young Yael’s dreams. I look at her now, in those videos (well, I can’t see her from behind the camera, but I can look at her through her work), and I see the woman I am today. I see that same creative spirit. I see the same person who is looking to capture the little moments in life, the little details, and make people take notice of them. Make people realize that all those tiny things that we think are so insignificant are the things that really matter. The way the light falls. The little wildflower growing through the crack in the sidewalk. The song of a robin.
I wonder where I’d be now if I hadn’t taken the practical route, if I had skipped over the $25,000+ journey into teaching and followed my artist’s heart, instead.
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe all roads would have led to this point.
Maybe the bigger point is just that I’ve always been this person. I’ve always been a storyteller. And just knowing that, having evidence of that, is such a comfort to me.
I am who I have always been.
© Yael Wolfe 2020
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https://medium.com/wilder-with-yael-wolfe/how-home-videos-reminded-me-of-my-journey-as-a-film-artist-544d3d62a75f
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['Yael Wolfe']
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2020-05-16 18:39:38.397000+00:00
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['This Happened To Me', 'Filmmaking', 'Artist', 'Creativity', 'Photography']
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4 Ways to Skyrocket Your Fitness
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Do you want to take a forward step to get in the shape you want and feel great in 2022? Many people are tired of the body shape they got from eating junk food and watching TV all day and not exercising regularly.
It isn’t an easy task to get to the gym regularly. But these tips can help you stay active and healthy, whatever your circumstances are. After a thorough read of this informative article, you will get to know 4 Ways to Skyrocket Your Fitness.
1. Get enough sleep
Getting regular quality sleep isn’t about total hours of sleep. But it means sleeping for 7–8 hours on a healthy routine every night. It makes you feel recharged and prepare you for the day. If you have trouble to sleep, or feel tired after sleep, go and visit your doctor.
Sleep plays an important role in your physical health, and sleep is involved in the healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Lack of sleep is a common problem in the U.S. At least 40 million Americans suffer from chronic, long-term sleep disorders each year.
If you don’t sleep enough, you could have a risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke. So have a proper sleep and don’t risk your life for anything.
2. Take protein instead of fats
Drinking more water, and eating the food of protein after each workout will make you more fit. Eggs, fish, and mutton contain a decent amount of protein. Keep in mind that protein will help keep your muscles rebuild.
If you’re looking to shed a few pounds fast, do a higher-level intensity. It will boost your mood up. You can go on a stroll for an hour or, you can jog and set certain intervals to sprint during that hour.
3. Portion Your Each Meal
Make portions of your meal. Don’t overeat and eat a low-carb diet 5 to 6 times a day instead of 3 heavier meals. When you avoid heavy meals, your digestive system and your stomach feel relaxed.
When you are getting into shape, fruits and vegetables are the best things to eat. Eat green vegetables and fruits. Make a portion of your every meal and add fruits and vegetables to it. It helps to keep the digestive system clean and running. Apples will make your stomach feel full for up to 3 to 4 hours.
4. Stay motivated
Stay positive. Notice how the air feels, how beautiful trees and flowers are, how the sun or the wind moves as you move. Unleash your creativity by bringing your attention to these things.
It will give your conscious mind a break from your worries. You may find new ideas and solutions coming to you when you walk in a new way. Go and look for hills, try to do some step-ups on the curb at each corner. Take a break and breathe deeply, or even jump up and down.
Conclusion
When it’s about staying healthy and fit, never compromise on it. Stay fit by getting enough sleep, taking protein in your meals, portioning your meal throughout the day, and staying motivated.
People who take care of their fitness live longer. Never lose hope and stay motivated. Being fit is a piece of cake so never force yourself by thinking that you can’t live a fit life.
Let us know if you want us to share more about health and fitness. We love to hear back from you.
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https://medium.com/@areejmalik/4-ways-to-skyrocket-your-fitness-1350b88e302f
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['Areej Malik']
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2021-12-28 10:33:39.613000+00:00
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['Ways To Stay Healthy', 'How To Stay Fit', 'Stay Fit', 'Fitness Tips', 'Skyrocket Your Fitness']
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This Era of Music (thus far into the 21st Century)
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There has never been more musical diversity than right now. We have enormous amounts of genres and sub-genres, and the combinations of those have no limit. Genre fluid bands and genre bending artists are becoming more and more expected in our music scenes. We are seeing what I consider to be the most interesting era of music history to date.
Music, as a creative endeavor and an industry, has never seen so much change in a relatively short amount of time. This generation of young music makers (the cusp of Millennials and Gen Z) are the first to grow up with democratized systems of global music distribution, an accessibility to music technology that is astounding compared to 30 years ago and the internet’s power of globalization has had profound effects on music genres and how any artist can achieve a career through music.
This is just the beginning of how advancements in digital technology and the development of new technologies (artificial intelligence, virtual reality, quantum computing, blockchain, etc…) will affect the creation process of music and new forms of music that will emerge in the near future.
Technological Accessibility
The advancement of technology has always pushed music, and the arts, forward in all eras of history. The inventions of keyboard instruments (harpsichord, piano, etc…), string instruments, concert halls, phonographs, radio, electronic instruments, the internet & DAWs — new technology placed in an artists hands will inevitably bring change to their medium.
This is no surprise to anyone but what we are seeing, within the past three decades, is technology, already developed, that allows just about anyone to write, produce, mix, distribute & market their music. Nowadays anyone with a laptop, that has some base level of sufficient software, can make a record and put it out for anyone to listen. While this is something that isn’t new to music professionals as it has been a point of discussion for over two decades, this phenomenon has never happened before and never to such an astronomical scale as we see today.
The accessibility of music software along with the development of online music distribution (CD Baby, Distrokid, Symphonic, etc…) has led to an overload of music being released today. So much music, in fact, that streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer have to go through tens of thousands of music submissions a day. This is a complete democratization of the process to produce and release music that was once controlled by record labels & publishers through the barriers of high production costs and their sole ability to execute world-wide marketing and distribution.
There are pros and cons to having just about anyone to have the ability to make and distribute music. The documentary, “PressPausePlay”, dives into the possible pros and cons of technological accessibility, from a 2010’s perspective within the music & film industry (at the cusp of when streaming is going to make a profound influence in the industry).
One benefit is equal opportunity. Now, this isn’t an example of pure equal opportunity where we are all gifted a computer (or musical talent) with music software to produce music. What is real is that the financial threshold to make music today is exponentially lower than it was even 20 years ago. Apple laptops come with Garageband, you can get basic versions of Logic, Cubase & Ableton for relatively low costs. This low entry point allows more and more people to have the technological capacity to create music. Does that mean everyone is going to make amazing music? Of course not. What this does do is give talented individuals who will make amazing music an easier time to start creating at an early age. You are now seeing more and more young artists who had their start producing music within a DAW before they were even teenagers. Any aspiring artist, now, in their late teens have grown up with all this technology available to them. This means that any kid can begin the process of learning music production and developing their craft decades ahead compared to anyone who grew up in the 80's.
“When I was 7 years old I got musical piece of software called Cubase.” — Jacob Collier, 27 year old, 4 time Grammy Award Winning Multi-Instrumentalist, Composer & Producer.
The Internet and Globalization
With the development of the internet and creation of platforms like Youtube, iTunes, Spotify & Pandora; a new generation of artists, that also grew up with the development of accessible music technology, have also had the access to learn and be influenced by music and culture from any part of the world.
In my teenage years, when my music journey began, I would use Youtube to fulfill my obsession with music discovery. Where else could I find a live recording of Nina Simone from the 70’s, a taiko ensemble from Japan, Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto or a Led Zeppelin concert? You can argue that this was all accessible with TV and records stores or even iTunes and CDs — but the flexibility, both with the convenience of time and money, the internet provided has given people the power and liberty to discover as much music as their hearts desired. This has a profound effect in the upbringing of musical minds who want to create their own music.
The globalization power of the internet has brought up a breed of music creators that have been naturally influenced by music & cultures from different parts of the world. We have already seen the first generation of music producers influenced by the internet, and musical diversity has thrived in the 2010s because of it. The internet has also allowed these same musicians to grow an audience from anywhere. Especially artists within genres and styles that, 20–30 years ago, would have little chance at having a music career. Now, it almost doesn’t matter where you are as long as you make music, and a artist brand, that can captivate an audience.
A boy from England can be influenced by jazz harmony, RnB, African rhythms, pop music & choral music at a young age (Jacob Collier). A band that merges RnB, jazz, soul, hip hop, rock and indigenous rhythms can come from Melbourne, Australia (Hiatus Kaiyote). A band that fuses together folk, indie, rock and electronic music can become a sensation (Bon Iver). Some of the most compelling and modern, electronically infused, jazz music is coming out of London right now with the melting pot of cultures building that scene (Space Jazz Playlist). Genre fluidity is normal now and the examples are endless!
This globalization has resulted in a sort of “kaleidoscope” of musical styles to emerge in which multiple genres are directly influencing the sound of one artist. There are more styles of music being produced right now than ever before and the combinations of genres & cultures will only continue to expand. New intersectional cultures will also be created through the creation of new genres and styles. As someone who loves discovering music, this genre fluidity is a renaissance of musical creativity and an exciting time to be a musician.
Forward to the World of Tomorrow
This article may seem like a retrospective on “old news” but remember that everything mentioned so far has only happened in the past 20 years! The music industry, an industry that’s not even 100 years old, has changed faster than anyone could’ve anticipate. With the introduction of the internet, smart phones, social media & streaming this industry has seen a massive transformation since the early 2000’s. Partially due to the fact that computer technology has been developing at an exponential rate unlike any other industry in human history. There are not many industries where you can have a product’s efficiency, computing power, increase by 100% every few years. Yet, here we are with USB sticks that can hold 1 terabit of data when, over 20 years ago, I was inserting 1.44 megabit floppy disks at my elementary schools computer.
Now, with the development of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, blockchain technology & quantum computing we will most likely see the rate of progress and change keep growing. This technology will have profound effects on business infrastructures, consumption of media and arts, the way we create art and even how we will define work itself in the future. We are at the intersection of transferring into a “Digital Exponential” age, where the internet has long established itself as a normal aspect of everyday life (already is) and we will find new identity in a hybrid world of machine intelligence aiding our human limitations.
“One thing is for certain, though, in the Digital Exponential world: Any technology must be inextricably linked with human purpose — with a great story that uplifts the entire user experience — or it will be doomed to fast obsolescence.” — David Sable
How will music be consumed in 2050? What kind of new music will be created as a result of the integration of new technologies? How will we value the arts and the humans that make it?
If the our access to music technologies and the internet has brought about all the artistic creativity & diversity we are currently seeing now. How will all this new technology influence the trajectory of music within the rest of this century?
This is why, I believe, we are currently in the most interesting era of music history and it’s just getting started.
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https://medium.com/@andrecorea/this-era-of-music-thus-far-into-the-21st-century-e2e2f58de268
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['Andre Corea']
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2021-09-14 20:20:58.419000+00:00
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['Music Business', 'Technology', 'Music Technology', 'Music', 'Creative']
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It’s Not Your Fault
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We forget, I think.
We forget that the intention of Spiritual Midwifery, and the movement that followed it, and that continues today — was never, and still is not, intended to ensure that every woman has a “natural” birth.
What the hell is a “natural” birth any way?
We have, in our cultural worldview, coined this phrase and embued it with shame.
A lot of shame.
And we don’t even know what the hell we mean when we say it.
What do you mean when you say “natural” birth?
The intention, I believe, of Ina May Gaskin and those beautiful hippies who chose to give birth with her — was to give us a choice.
Choice.
Not shame.
Choice.
The point of these brave, pioneering women was to protect us from twilight sleep.
To enable us to labor with whoever the fuck we choose to have in the room.
The point was not to give us yet another reason to feel that we are not enough.
Preventing an “unnecessary intervention”, so importantly propogated by the Business of Being Born, is NOT intended to leave you feeling ashamed of a C-section that saved your baby’s life.
Preventing an unnecessary intervention is NOT intended to leave you feeling weak for choosing a God Damn epidural after you have been laboring your ass off for 40 hours, or one.
We have completely lost center here.
To offer some perspective, what would you say to a litte girl in rural Afghanistan who watched her mother die after suffering a prolonged, and obstructed labor.
Taken by the author while walking the Kabul City Wall in the Spring of 2007
Would you say, “Well, at least she didn’t have to go to the hospital.”
No, you wouldn’t.
What would you say to a laboring woman who finally made it to the hospital after being carried by her family for 12 hours over a mountain pass?
Would you say, “Are you sure you want the epidural?”
No, of course you wouldn’t.
You would offer her anything you could to comfort her, and to save her life.
You would.
So why the hell are we feeling ashamed. Feeling like failures. Feeling like our bodies have failed us.
Because labor is hard enough.
And so is life — and motherhood.
And these bodies are fallible.
Some of us get cancer.
And some of us don’t.
Some of us have blue eyes.
And some have green.
Some of us get preeclampsia.
And some of us don’t.
However your labor goes — you made a God Damn human.
And thanks to the brave women who came before us, you get to choose how, where, and with whom you bring that angel into this world.
And that is the point.
****
****
I am a professional coach and co-founder of the Seattle Coaching Collective. If you are interested in learning more, drop us a love note here.
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https://medium.com/ask-me-about-my-uterus/its-not-your-fault-eabaf2ac3eb9
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['Meghann Mcniff']
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2020-12-23 23:06:05.511000+00:00
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['Pregnancy', 'Parenting', 'Inspiration', 'Life Lessons', 'Birth']
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Building an Internet-Connected Phone with PeerJS
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Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash
Since the start of 2020, video calling has taken over many of our lives. While we’re crushed under the weight of Zoom & Google Meet invite links, this boom has brought many internet based video and audio apps to the forefront. If you read my last post you’ll know that I’ve been fiddling around with WebRTC. WebRTC is a group of API endpoints and protocols that make it possible to send data (in the form of audio, video or anything else really) from one peer/device to another without the need of a traditional server. The issue is, WebRTC is pretty complicated to use and develop with in and of itself, handling the signalling service and knowing when to call the right endpoint can get confusing. But I come bearing good news; PeerJS is a WebRTC framework that abstracts all of the ice and signalling logic so that you can focus on the functionality of your application. There are two parts to PeerJS, the client-side framework and the server, we’ll be using both but most of our work will be handling the client-side code.
Let’s Build A Phone Since We’re All Fed Up of Video
Before we get started, this is an intermediate level tutorial so you should already be comfortable with:
Vanilla JavaScript
Node
Express
HTML
I’ll be focussing solely on the JavaScript side of things, so you can copy the HTML & CSS files directly, we won’t be fiddling with them too much. Before we get started, you’ll want to make sure you’ve installed node and your favourite package manager, I’ll be using Yarn but you can use npm or any manager you’re comfortable with.
If you learn better by looking at code and following step by step code, I’ve also written this tutorial in code, which you can use instead.
Setup
So let’s set things up. First you’ll need to run mkdir audio_app
and then cd audio_app & finally you’ll want to create a new app by running yarn init . Follow the prompts, give a name, version, description, etc to your project. Next install the dependencies:
Express: yarn add express
PeerJS: yarn add peerjs
Peer: yarn add peer
Peer will be used for the peer server and PeerJS will be used to access the PeerJS API and framework. Your package.json should look like this when you’ve finished installing the dependencies:
To finish up the setup, you’ll want to copy the HTML & CSS files I mentioned before, into your project folder.
Building the Server
The server file will look like a regular Express server file with one difference, the Peer server.
You’ll need to require the peer server at the top of the file const {ExpressPeerServer} = require('peer') , this will ensure that we have access to the peer server.
You then need to actually create the peer server:
const peerServer = ExpressPeerServer(server, {
proxied: true,
debug: true,
path: '/myapp',
ssl: {}
});
We use the ExpressPeerServer object created earlier to create the peer server and pass it some options. The peer server is what will handle the signalling required for WebRTC so we don’t have to worry about STUN/TURN servers or other protocols as this abstracts that logic for us.
Finally, you’ll need to tell your app to use the peerServer by calling app.use(peerServer) . Your finished server.js should include the other necessary dependencies as you’d include in a server file, as well as serving the index.html file to the root path so, it should look like this when finished:
You should be able to connect to your app via local host, in my server.js I’m using port 8000(defined on line 7) but you may be using another port number. Run node . in your terminal and visit localhost:8000 in your browser and you should see a page that looks like this
The home page
The Good Part
This is the part you’ve been waiting for, actually creating the peer connection and call logic. This is going to be an involved process so strap in. First up, create a script.js file, this is where all your logic will live.
We need to create a peer object with an ID. The ID will be used to connect two peers together and if you don’t create one, one will be assigned to the peer.
const peer = new Peer(''+Math.floor(Math.random()*2**18).toString(36).padStart(4,0), {
host: location.hostname,
debug: 1,
path: '/myapp'
});
You’ll then need to attach the peer to the window so that it’s accessible
window.peer = peer;
In another tab in your terminal, start the peer server by running:
peerjs --port 443 --key peerjs --path /myapp
After you’ve created the peer, you’ll want to get the browser’s permission to access the microphone. We’ll be using the getUserMedia function on the navigator.MediaDevices object, which is part of the Media Devices Web interface. The getUserMedia endpoint takes a constraints object which specifies which permissions are needed. getUserMedia is a promise which when successfully resolved returns a MediaStream object. In this case this is going to be the audio from our stream. If the promise isn’t successfully resolved, you’ll want to catch and display the error.
function getLocalStream() {
navigator.mediaDevices.getUserMedia({video: false, audio: true}).then( stream => {
window.localStream = stream; // A
window.localAudio.srcObject = stream; // B
window.localAudio.autoplay = true; // C
}).catch( err => {
console.log("u got an error:" + err)
});
}
A. window.localStream = stream : here we’re attaching the MediaStream object (which we have assigned to stream on the previous line) to the window as the localStream .
B. window.localAudio.srcObject = stream : in our HTML, we have an audio element with the ID localAudio , we’re setting that element’s src attribute to be the MediaStream returned by the promise.
C. window.localAudio.autoplay = true : we’re setting the autoplay attribute for the audio element to auto play.
When you call your getLocalStream function and refresh your browser, you should see the following permission pop up:
The permission pop up
Use headphones before you allow so that when you unmute yourself later, you don’t get any feedback. If you don’t see this, open the inspector and see if you have any errors. Make sure your javascript file is correctly linked to your index.html too.
This what it should all look like together
Alright, so you’ve got the permissions, now you’ll want to make sure each user knows what their peer ID is so that they can make connections. The peerJS framework gives us a bunch of event listeners we can call on the peer we created earlier on. So when the peer is open, display the peer’s ID:
peer.on('open', function () {
window.caststatus.textContent = `Your device ID is: ${peer.id}`;
});
Here you’re replacing the text in the HTML element with the ID caststatus so instead of connecting... , you should see Your device ID is: <peer ID>
A screen shot with the peer ID
While you’re here, you may as well create the functions to display and hide various content, which you’ll use later. There are two functions you should create, showCallContent and showConnectedContent . These functions will be responsible for showing the call button and showing the hang up button and audio elements.
const audioContainer = document.querySelector('.call-container'); /**
* Displays the call button and peer ID
* @returns{void}
*/
function showCallContent() {
window.caststatus.textContent = `Your device ID is: ${peer.id}`;
callBtn.hidden = false;
audioContainer.hidden = true;
}
/**
* Displays the audio controls and correct copy
* @returns{void}
*/
function showConnectedContent() {
window.caststatus.textContent = `You're connected`;
callBtn.hidden = true;
audioContainer.hidden = false;
}
Next, you want to ensure your users have a way of connecting their peers. In order to connect two peers, you’ll need the peer ID for one of them. You can create a variable with let then assign it in a function to be called later.
let code;
function getStreamCode() {
code = window.prompt('Please enter the sharing code');
}
A convenient way of getting the relevant peer ID is by using a window prompt, you can use this when you want to collect the peerID needed to create the connection.
Using the peerJS framework, you’ll want to connect the localPeer to the remotePeer . PeerJS gives us the connect function which takes in a peer ID to create the connection.
function connectPeers() {
peer.connect(code)
}
When a connection is created, using the PeerJS framework’s on(‘connection') you should set the remote peer’s ID and the open connection. The function for this listener accepts a connection object which is an instance of the DataConnection object (which is a wrapper around WebRTC’s DataChannel ), so within this function you’ll want to assign it to a variable. Again you’ll want to create the variable outside of the function so that you can assign it later.
let conn;
peer.on('connection', function(connection){
conn = connection;
});
Now you’ll want to give your users the ability to create calls. First get the call button that’s defined in the HTML:
const callBtn = document.querySelector(‘.call-btn’);`
When a caller clicks “call” you’ll want to ask them for peer ID of the peer they want to call (which we store in code in getStreamCode ) and then you’ll want to create a connection with that code.
callBtn.addEventListener('click', function(){
getStreamCode();
connectPeers();
const call = peer.call(code, window.localStream); // A
call.on('stream', function(stream) { // B
window.remoteAudio.srcObject = stream; // C
window.remoteAudio.autoplay = true; // D
window.peerStream = stream; //E
showConnectedContent(); //F });
})
A. const call = peer.call(code, window.localStream) : this will create a call with the code and window.localStream we’ve previously assigned. Note: the localStream will be the user’s localStream. So for caller A it’ll be their stream & for B their own stream.
B. call.on('stream', function(stream) { : peerJS gives us a stream event which you can use on the call that you’ve created. When a call starts streaming, you need to ensure that the remote stream coming from the call is assigned to the correct HTML elements and window, this is where you’ll need to do that.
C. This takes anonymous function takes a MediaStream object as an argument which you then have to set to your window’s HTML like you’ve done before. So you get your remote audio element and assign the src attribute to be the stream passed to the function.
D. Ensure the element’s autoplay attribute is also set to true.
E. Ensure that the window’s peerStream is set to the stream passed to the function.
F. Finally you want to show the correct content, so call your showConnectedContent function that was created earlier.
To test things open two browser windows and click call. You should see this
Two browsers side by side, one with a prompt asking for the code
If you submit the other peer’s ID, the call will be connected but we need to give the other browser the chance to answer or decline the call.
The peerJS framework makes the .on('call') event available to use so let’s use it here.
peer.on('call', function(call) {
const answerCall = confirm("Do you want to answer?") // A
if(answerCall){
call.answer(window.localStream) // B
showConnectedContent(); // C
call.on('stream', function(stream) { // D
window.remoteAudio.srcObject = stream;
window.remoteAudio.autoplay = true;
window.peerStream = stream;
});
} else {
console.log("call denied"); // E
}
});
A browser prompt asking if the user would like to answer the call
A. const answerCall = confirm("Do you want to answer") : First, let’s prompt the user to answer with a confirm prompt. This will show a window on the screen (as shown in the image) which the user can select “ok” or “cancel”, which maps to a boolean value which is returned.
B. call.answer(window.localStream) : if the answerCall is true, then you want to call peerJS’s answer function on the call to create an answer, passing it the local stream.
C. showCallContent : similarly to what you did in the call button event listener, you want to ensure the person being called sees the correct HTML content.
D. Everything in the call.on('stream', function(){...} block is exactly the same as it is in call button’s event listener. The reason you need to add it here too is so that the browser is also updated for the person answering the call.
E. If the person denies the call, we’re just going to log a message to the console.
We’re almost at the finish line. The code you have now is enough for you to create a call and answer it. Refresh your browsers and test it out. You’ll want to make sure that both browsers have the console open or else you won’t get the prompt to answer the call. Click call, submit the peer ID for the other browser and then answer the call. The final page should look like this:
Two browsers side by side, both connected on the call
The last thing you want to do, is ensure your callers have a way of ending the call. The most graceful way of doing this is closing the connection using the close , which you can do in an event listener for the hang up button.
const hangUpBtn = document.querySelector('.hangup-btn');
hangUpBtn.addEventListener('click', function (){
conn.close();
showCallContent();
})
When the connection has been close, you also want to display the correct HTML content, so you can just call your showCallContent function. Within the call event, you also want to ensure the remote browser is also updated so you can add another event listener within the peer.on('call', function(stream){...} event listener, within the conditional block.
conn.on('close', function (){
showCallContent();
})
If the person who initiated the call clicks ‘hang up’ first, then both browsers will be updated.
And voila, you’ve got yourself an internet connected phone. 📞
Next Steps
Deployment
The easiest place to deploy this app would be Glitch, since you don’t have to fiddle with configuring the port for the peer server.
Making this a PWA
At Samsung Internet, we’re big on progressive web apps so the next phase of this will be to add a manifest.json and serviceworker.js to make this a PWA.
Gotchas
If you’ve done some sleuthing online, you may have come across navigator.getUserMedia and assumed you can use that instead of navigator.MediaDevices.getUserMedia . You’d be wrong. The former is a deprecated method which requires callbacks as well as constraints as arguments. The latter uses a promise so you don’t need to use callbacks.
and assumed you can use that instead of . You’d be wrong. The former is a deprecated method which requires callbacks as well as constraints as arguments. The latter uses a promise so you don’t need to use callbacks. Since we’re using a confirm prompt to ask the user if they want to answer the call, it’s important that the browser and tab that’s being called be “active” that means the window shouldn’t be minimised and the tab should be on screen and have the mouse’s focus somewhere in the tab. Ideally, you’d create your own modal in HTML which wouldn’t have these limitations.
prompt to ask the user if they want to answer the call, it’s important that the browser and tab that’s being called be “active” that means the window shouldn’t be minimised and the tab should be on screen and have the mouse’s focus somewhere in the tab. Ideally, you’d create your own modal in HTML which wouldn’t have these limitations. The way we’ve currently coded things means that when a connection is closed, both browsers will be updated only if the person who started the call presses ‘hang up’ first. If the person who answered the call clicks ‘hang up’ first, the other caller will also have to click ‘hang up’ to see the correct HTML.
if the person who started the call presses ‘hang up’ first. If the person who answered the call clicks ‘hang up’ first, the other caller will also have to click ‘hang up’ to see the correct HTML. The on('close') event that is called on the conn variable isn’t available in Firefox yet, this just means in Firefox each caller will have to hang up individually.
Further Reading
|
https://medium.com/samsung-internet-dev/building-an-internet-connected-phone-with-peerjs-775bd6ffebec
|
['Lola Odelola']
|
2020-10-20 12:48:38.632000+00:00
|
['Webapi', 'Web Development', 'WebRTC', 'Peerjs']
|
Why Would Pete Buttigieg Want to Be Transportation Secretary?
|
Why Would Pete Buttigieg Want to Be Transportation Secretary?
President-Elect Joe Biden nominated Pete Buttigieg to serve a the Secretary of Transportation, an unlikely role for someone with political ambitions.
Joe Biden named mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, to be the next Secretary of Transportation. Pete Buttigieg, an early front-runner in the 2020 democratic presidential primary and later key surrogate to the Biden campaign, has had his name swung around different circles for a wide variety of positions from Ambassador to the United Nations, Secretary of Veteran Affairs, Ambassador to China, to Secretary of Commerce.
His eligibility for a wide array of positions speaks to Mayor Pete’s, as he is affectionately called, diversity of talents and strengths. He is a gay, multi-lingual man who grew up in South Bend, Indiana, graduated from Harvard, became a Rhodes Scholar, a veteran, former McKinsey consultant, former local official, and winner of the 2020 Iowa democratic caucuses. He also gained further notoriety throughout the Biden-Harris presidential campaign for being able to politely and conversationally “tell it like it is” on conservative networks like Fox.
Mayor Pete’s knowledge, experience, and loyalty to the Biden campaign made him a shoo-in for a Cabinet position, but why transportation? The Department of Transportation has historically not been one of the more widely admired positions. I suspect most people could not name the current Secretary. (Secretary Elaine Chao, who is also married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell)
During his acceptance speech for the nomination, Mayor Pete speaks to a personal love of the transportation industry from traveling home from college on Amtrak, spending a spring break trip on a cargo ship, and even proposing to his husband, Chasten Buttigieg in the Chicago O’Hare airport.
Alone, certainly none of these experiences would qualify a person to be Secretary of Transportation. But Mayor Pete also spoke about his support for the Obama-Biden administration’s plan to rescue the auto industry and his involvement in developing infrastructure as mayor of a city recovering from the 2008 recession.
Aside the Pete’s affection for transportation, his political ambitions will not be dulled in this role. The Secretary of Transportation will be responsible for implementing Biden’s monumental infrastructure project. Implementation of the project will include expertise in climate and economic policy, Covid-relief, environmental justice and working closely with Congress and the states.
Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan ensures that — coming out of this profound public health and economic crisis, and facing the persistent climate crisis — we are never caught flat-footed again. He will launch a national effort aimed at creating the jobs we need to build a modern, sustainable infrastructure now and deliver an equitable clean energy future.
Pulling this off would gain Pete a huge amount of political capital. Issues like infrastructure development poll incredibly well with voters across the political aisle and a win here could be a campaign platform down the line. It would also give Pete the ability to flex his capacity to work with Republicans at both the state and federal level in passing and executing this project.
He is also incredibly smart, a great communicator, an experienced manager, and an overall political wonk. His limited experienced in transportation at the federal level could very well be overcome through effective leadership. It is also likely that the Biden team will not let him dwindle in the background. As one of the known great communicators in Biden’s cabinet with a huge policy platform to fulfill, we may be hearing much more from Transportation Secretary than in previous administrations.
Notably, Biden had previously attacked Buttigieg for his inexperience while the two were campaigning against one another for the Democratic primary presidential nomination. However, their days as competitors are long behind them. Buttigieg dropped out of the 2020 primary race just before Super Tuesday and was quick to announce his backing of now President-Elect Joe Biden. Since then he has served the Biden-Harris administration well, repeatedly appearing on otherwise hostile networks as a “likable but lethal” surrogate.
While on its face, a Transportation Secretary nomination may seem like a way to quell Mayor Pete into the backdrop, it may actually be an attempt to propel him forward for a future run for office.
|
https://medium.com/discourse/why-would-pete-buttigieg-want-to-be-transportation-secretary-d86f8d54b3c
|
['Liz Vincento']
|
2020-12-17 03:24:41.816000+00:00
|
['Politics', 'Biden Administration', 'Pete Buttigieg', 'Perspective', 'United States']
|
Amazon’s new Fire TV Sticks get faster and cheaper
|
Amazon is updating its $40 Fire TV Stick streaming player for the first time since 2016, giving it a much faster processor and HDR video support. The company is also launching a cheaper option called the Fire TV Stick Lite, which will sell for $30.
To go along with the new hardware, Amazon’s overhauling its Fire TV software, with fewer confusing submenus, new features for Alexa, and a bigger emphasis on user profiles.
Updated December 9, 2020 to report that Amazon has begun to roll out its new Fire TV software. The updates, however, will initially be made available only on these new devices; owners of Amazon’s higher-end streamers will likely need to wait until early 2021 to get the new user interface and other features.
[ Further reading: The best media streaming devices ]Both of the new Fire TV Sticks are shipping next week, and pre-orders are starting today. Here’s what you need to know about the new lineup:
New Fire TV Stick Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote (2020) See it The third-generation Fire TV Stick (pictured above) looks identical to the previous version, but Amazon says it’s 50-percent faster. Elias Saba of AFTVNews reports that it’s using a MediaTek MT8695D quad-core processor, which is similar to what powers Amazon’s existing Fire TV Stick 4K. Speed had been a major sticking point for the old Fire TV Stick, but the new one should feel much snappier if it can match the speed of the 4K version.
The new Fire TV Stick also supports HDR video and Dolby Atmos audio decoding, just like the 4K model. The difference is that the new Fire TV Stick doesn’t support 4K video or Dolby Vision HDR. (HDR support is instead limited to HDR10 and HLG.) For those features, you’ll need either the $50 Fire TV Stick 4K or the $120 Fire TV Cube.
Fire TV Stick Lite Mentioned in this article Roku Express (2017) Read TechHive's reviewMSRP $29.99See it At $30, the Fire TV Stick Lite is Amazon’s answer to the Roku Express, which sells for $29. And like Roku’s budget streamer, the Amazon’s version makes a major compromise to hit that lower price: There are no volume or power buttons on the remote, so you’ll need a second remote to operate those functions on your TV.
Amazon The Fire TV Stick Lite ditches TV volume and power buttons for a lower sticker price.
Intriguingly, though, the Fire TV Stick Lite also includes a new remote button with a TV icon, which Amazon’s pricier streamers lack. This button takes you straight to the Fire TV’s Channel Guide, which can aggregate multiple live TV sources into one grid. Without the dedicated button, you’ll need to navigate to the guide through Amazon’s software menus.
The Fire TV Stick Lite otherwise has the same processor, HDR support, and Wi-Fi 5 support as the Fire TV Stick; both devices support Alexa voice commands through a microphone button on their remotes.
New Fire TV softwareAs for the new software, it looks like Amazon has recognized the chaos in its current interface and is taking steps to streamline it. Several submenus have been stripped away (including Your Videos, Movies, TV Shows, and Apps) in favor of a single “Find” submenu, where you can discover new things to watch. Meanwhile, your favorite apps will appear in a single strip on the menu bar, and they’ll stay persistently visible even as you scroll to other submenus.
Amazon The Fire TV menu system will look a lot different later this year.
The software will also support up to six user profiles, and if you say “Alexa, go to my profile,” you can set the device to recognize your voice and switch accordingly. Alexa itself will also be less intrusive, occupying just a part of the screen in response to voice commands, and Amazon says it will add a “hub” where you can learn what voice commands Alexa supports.
Amazon’s adding support for video calls as well, so you’ll be able to plug in a Logitech webcam for Alexa video calls. (Amazon says it will add support for other video chat services such as Zoom “over time.”)
The new software will debut on the 2020 Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite, and Amazon plans to roll it out to other devices later this year.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details.
|
https://medium.com/@shannon81007558/amazons-new-fire-tv-sticks-get-faster-and-cheaper-98cb4ed9165d
|
[]
|
2020-12-10 22:45:59.009000+00:00
|
['Chargers', 'Mobile Accessories', 'Cutting', 'Electronics']
|
Checknote 5: The Whirlwind Cup
|
Let’s Discover Together. I write on all manner of things that come to mind. World is full of life still. https://evvyword.com/ Be your best self.
|
https://medium.com/@everythingcj/checknote-5-the-whirlwind-cup-8d860f879d30
|
['Everything Cj']
|
2021-02-08 09:20:12.192000+00:00
|
['Thoughts', 'Thinking', 'Read', 'Notes', 'Writing']
|
Why Are Tesla Cars Not Selling in Mexico?
|
Roberto Valdes Sanchez Navarro
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there. “ — Theodore Roosevelt
Obstacles
Price Point:
Currently, the cheapest car in the Mexican Automobile Industry is the Renault Kwid with a starting price of $ 164,900.00 MXN ($ 7,690.52 USD), making it 84.29% cheaper than a Tesla Model 3 which has a starting price of $ 1,049,900.00 MXN ($ 48,964.71 USD). The Nissan Sentra and March are within the top 10 best-selling cars in Mexico. A consumer can purchase insurance for these cars for a cost close to $ 9,000.00 MXN ($ 420.00 USD) a year, whereas Tesla insurance is about 47% more expensive at $ 17,000 MXN ($ 793.33 USD) a year.
Low insurance Penetration:
Given the starting price of the lowest Tesla model, low insurance penetration also affects adoption.
Mexicans do not follow a culture of prevention, data shows. They prefer to pay for the consequences, rather than paying to prevent. Seven out of 10 Mexican cars do not have insurance according to CONDUSEF; 42% consider it awfully expensive, while 20% do not know where to purchase it.
Lack of financing:
When Tesla taps into the European automobile industry, it finds it financially mature, specifically on car leasing schemes. This with other financial services, amplified the opportunity of owning a Tesla in Europe. On the other hand, Mexico is still at the early stages of developing a leasing market, and most Mexicans see leasing schemes, debt, and financing as the opposite of something beneficial. Because of the exploitation of financial rates in the country, and the lack of a mature financial culture, most Mexicans are fearful of leasing cars.
Marketing:
Tesla falls into the category in which it can be compared with a BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, etc. These types of car brands have developed an aspirational type of marketing. People throughout their lives aspire to own a car from one of these brands. It depicts a status of success. This is particularly important for people in Mexico. Therefore, in Mexico, more than technological innovation, people seek social admiration.
Security:
Since Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obredor (AMLO) began his six-year presidential term, Mexican car purchasers have had a car profile reduction. The main reason for this change to more austere cars comes because of the current increase of violence in the country. Mexicans that have the money to buy a Tesla, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, or other luxury vehicle. They just do not want to call attention to themselves, to try to reduce the risk of assault, kidnapping, etc. The average person who pays for bulletproof glass upgrades, to reduce violent risks in Mexico spends about 1 to 1.5 million pesos (USD equivalent here) in total (car price included) when their kids are in the ages of 16–20. This increases to a range of 2 to 5 million pesos (USD equivalent here) spent on a car when the person pays for their own car from the age of 35 to 50. If a Tesla Model 3 has a starting price of $ 1,049,900.00 MXN (USD equivalent here), and the average cost of bulletproofing a car in Mexico is 560,000 to 700,000 pesos (USD equivalent here) depending on the car, this gives almost no wiggle room on the price averages for the 16 to 20 kid age group to implement the bulletproof upgrades and increase Tesla sales in that market segment.
Opportunities
Manufacturing:
Mexico’s strategic geographical position makes it the bridge between the US and Canada and the rest of Latin America. It’s proximity to the US means it can deliver any cargo to any location in the continental US in less than 48 hours. Mexico is the tenth most populous country in the world with 126.2 million inhabitants resulting in more than 1/3 of the US population.
The Mexican Automobile Industry attracts USD $2 billion per year in foreign direct investment. Mexico is a trading partner with more than 50 countries, with agreements that reduce barriers to trade, including tariffs and import quotas and a strong cooperation in the exchange of goods and services. Mexico has a zero-rate value-added on exports (even when physically exported to a third party), and no local or state income taxes on corporate earnings. It also has value-added tax refunds for IMMEX certified manufacturers, among other benefits. The newly negotiated USMCA gives Tesla a USA, Mexico, and Canada all-around access of building a Gigafactory. By building a factory in Mexico, and with Mexico’s trade agreements with Central and South America, Tesla would have tariff-free access to several large growing markets.
The automotive industry in Mexico is listed in the top 10 exporters in the world. It is also the largest vehicle manufacturing country in Latin America. On average there are close to 1 million passenger cars sold in Mexico every year. When manufacturing in Mexico, the average line assembler hourly rate in Baja California is $2.60 USD an hour; that is a 64.13% decrease in nominal wage compared to the minimum wage in the US being $7.25 USD an hour. With immigration restrictions in the US preventing many talented engineers from working in the US, Tesla could tap into Mexico’s engineering talent pool with over 130,000 engineering graduates a year.
Commercial:
The Federal Law on New Automobiles Taxation exempts vehicles propelled by electric rechargeable batteries from fees concerning their sale or import. The CFE which is the largest electricity supply company in Mexico, promotes EVs through the installation of an independent light meter. This light meter prevents the applicable electricity tariff range from increasing, keeping the EV-user’s fee the domestic standard spectrum instead of the high consumption rate. On average there are 1,000 charging stations around the country mostly located in shopping centers, hotels, gas stations, and office buildings. In Mexico City (Metro area population: 22 million) local regulation promotes EVs: they are excluded from vehicle verification proceedings, they can circulate daily without limits (unlike other urban vehicles), public and private parking lots are required to provide exclusive parking spots for electric and hybrid vehicles, and public and private operators of public transportation electric or hybrid vehicles are exempt from the requirement of renewing their fleet every ten years.
Solutions
Price Point:
Mexico needs an ultra-priced product with all features included to appeal to the mass Mexican market, but the main target for Tesla shouldn’t be the mass Mexican market. Tesla should tap into the market of clients that buy a BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, etc. This is the market that is going to pay $ 1,049,900.00 MXN ($ 48,964.71 USD) or more for a Tesla.
Low insurance Penetration:
Mexicans do not follow a culture of prevention, data shows, they prefer to pay for the consequences, rather than paying to prevent them. Tesla needs to focus on price reduction more than insurance services, to appeal to the market of clients that buy a BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, etc.
Lack of financing:
Tesla must improve the interest rates of leases, and the schemes that are offered; that way making the car more accessible to the middle-class Mexican population.
Marketing:
In the late 90s Audi arrived to Mexico, and their integration is worth mentioning. Audi’s managing partners in Mexico started by setting up a series of breakfast meetings with Mexico’s most renowned businessmen. They would talk to them about the brand, its imbedded technology, and sold cars to them. By selling cars to Mexico’s most renowned businessmen, the car brand started to position itself as a car owned by Mexico’s high class, and employees of this businessmen started to notice and, as a result, most Mexicans started to aspire to own an Audi.
To successfully tap into the Mexican market Tesla must inspire the Mexican people. It must portray a sense of success, and it can use Elon Musk’s story to depict that image. The integration model applied by Audi to change the cultural view on their brand, to an aspirational car, can be applied to Tesla cars.
Influencers inspire people. In this case, you need influencers driving Teslas, with a target fan base of young Mexicans, with the economic possibility of buying a Tesla, BMW, or Audi.
Another way to market Tesla in Mexico could be by giving top hotels in Mexico Teslas. Hotels like The Four Seasons or The Ritz-Carlton can therefore use these cars to transport their guests. Tesla gets more exposure of their product, and an improvement in the Mexican cultural view, to transition to aspiration to own the car themselves.
Security:
To charge their Tesla, most Mexicans, for safety reasons, will prefer to charge their car at home. It is recommended that this service be offered more cheaply, and that advertising be increased.
To solve the bulletproof security upgrade dilemma, Tesla should offer the option to the Mexican consumer, of purchasing and implementing on any of teslas models, something similar to the cybertruck’s unique armored glass. This will improve safety concerns and increase sales.
Go electric!!
“For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate. “- Margaret Heffernan
|
https://medium.com/@robertovaldes-99096/why-are-tesla-cars-not-selling-in-mexico-d8afa4c2d2fb
|
['Roberto Valdes Sanchez Navarro']
|
2021-01-06 17:54:42.453000+00:00
|
['Tesla', 'Electric Vehicles', 'Technology', 'Automation', 'Elon Musk']
|
Basic Introduction to Spring WebFlux
|
Annotated Spring WebFlux RestController
Here is an example of an annotated Spring WebFlux Controller:
Spring WebFlux Controller Example
@RestController
@RequestMapping("api /v1/room/reservation/ ")
public class ReservationResource { @GetMapping(path = "/{roomId}")
public Mono<Reservation> getReservationById(@PathVariable Mono< String> roomId) { return //Call your service layer here
}
}
View the source code for this Controller in the context of a Full Reactive application with Spring WebFlux and Angular
As you can see this code is very similar to Spring MVC with the exception of the return type being a Reactive Publisher, in this case a Mono that emits a Reservation object(A DTO from this sample project).
Mono: a Reactive Publisher that emits 1 or zero elements than terminates.
In other words, a Mono is like an async, promise or a future that will emit an element.
From the Spring JavaDocs for the Mono type:
A Reactive Streams Publisher with basic rx operators that emits at most one item via the onNext signal then terminates with an onComplete signal (successful Mono, with or without value), or only emits a single onError signal (failed Mono).
Mono in Action
Spring Reactive Publisher Mono in Action
Subscribers to the Mono will receive a single emitted element(Or an error signal) and then a completion signal.
Using a Spring Data Reactive Repository
Now that you have a Reactive Controller, you will then want to hook into a Service layer that leverages a Spring Data Reactive Repository.
Spring Reactive Repository Example
public interface ReactiveReservationRepository
extends ReactiveCrudRepository<Reservation, String> {
Mono<Reservation> findById(Mono<String> roomId);
}
Checkout this article for more details on how to configure Spring Reactive Data: https://spring.io/blog/2016/11/28/going-reactive-with-spring-data
Calling a Reactive Repository from a WebFlux Controller
@RestController
@RequestMapping("api /v1/room/reservation/ ")
public class ReservationResource { ... @GetMapping(path = "/{roomId}")
public Mono<Reservation> getReservationById(@PathVariable Mono<String> roomId) { // It is implied this @Bean is @Autowired into this class
return reactiveReservationRepository.findById(roomId);
} ... }
If you use a service layer, be sure to make the return type of your service methods a Reactive Publisher like Mono or Flux.
Sample Project
Check out this Github repo for a full example of a Reactive Application.
Full-stack Spring Boot and Angular App
|
https://medium.com/javarevisited/basic-introduction-to-spring-webflux-eb155f501b17
|
['Christopher Anatalio']
|
2020-12-11 08:04:58.127000+00:00
|
['Java', 'Spring Framework', 'Spring Webflux', 'Reactive Programming', 'Spring Boot']
|
Canceling Police Is the Worst Way to Prevent Violence
|
Canceling Police Is the Worst Way to Prevent Violence
There Are More Productive Alternatives to Consider
A new development from the nationwide protests and riots surrounding the murder of George Floyd is the increased popularity of the call to ‘defund the police.’ Black Lives Matter, an organization connected with many of the protests, has adopted this slogan as well:
We call for a national defunding of police. We demand investment in our communities and the resources to ensure Black people not only survive, but thrive.
But the way BLM portrays this line actually communicates the two different interpretations of ‘defund the police,’ each of which has its own set of supporters.
The first way is to see the “national defunding of police” as literally cutting all money going to law enforcement, thus ending the current public law enforcement system. The Minneapolis City Council has decided to go this route, announcing that “This council is going to dismantle this police department.”
The second interpretation is as a more specific defunding that would keep police departments intact but just reduce their job responsibilities and reallocate money to “investment in our communities.” BLM co-founder Alicia Garza puts it like this:
So much of policing right now is generated and directed towards quality-of-life issues, homelessness, drug addiction, domestic violence,” Garza said. “What we do need is increased funding for housing, we need increased funding for education, we need increased funding for quality of life of communities who are over-policed and over-surveilled.
In this essay, I will tackle the terrible irresponsibility of the first policy and examine the potential merits of the second, but first I must express the premises I am using.
There is no evidence that the policing institution is systematically racist or that police officers kill black people disproportionately to other races, so those claims can’t be used as an excuse to defund anybody. It is clear that there are some instances of police officers being racist, and more instances of police officers being brutal without the racist motivation, but both of these situations are the exception, not the rule.
That being said, any injustice is too much injustice. Most people are in favor of looking into policing policies and trying out reforms, and I agree with many proposals such as required body-cams and increased reviews of officers’ conduct, but dismantling police departments isn’t reform, it’s a dangerous experiment that is guaranteed to make everything worse.
What’s so odd about the timing of this policy proposal is that it comes right in the middle of the best example of itself we could hope for. The riots America just experienced were complete lawlessness; people were destroying property, stealing, setting buildings on fire, assaulting others, and there were a number of murders as well. The reason the national guard and military were called into some states was that police couldn’t or weren’t allowed to control the violence.
There isn’t much direct evidence of what would happen without any police, probably because people are generally smart enough to know how dumb that idea is, but I did find one article from 1969:
Montrealers discovered last week what it is like to live in a city without police and firemen. The lesson was costly: six banks were robbed, more than 100 shops were looted, and there were twelve fires. Property damage came close to $3,000,000; at least 40 carloads of glass will be needed to replace shattered storefronts. Two men were shot dead. At that, Montreal was probably lucky to escape as lightly as it did.
I don’t have a TIME subscription so this is as much as I can read (someone let me know if the article goes on to say ‘it all turned out fine in the end’), but this sounds a lot like the riots that just happened.
Roland Fryer, a Harvard economist, also talked in an interview about an upcoming paper he and co-author Tanaya Devi are writing that concludes:
When police were investigated following incidents of deadly force that had gone viral, police activity declined and violent crime spiked. In Chicago, there was a 90% drop in police-civilian contacts immediately after the announcement of an investigation, and “Baltimore literally went to zero” after a probe was announced there, he said. In cities where these contacts fell the most, homicides increased the most.
This illustrates the fact that less policing will result in more lawlessness, and crime is already a major problem in black communities, a much larger problem than police brutality. Despite only being about 13% of the population, in 2018 black people made up 43% of all violent crime offenders and 33% of all victims. The solution here is clearly not to do away with the only institution that combats crime. Thankfully, roughly 65% of Americans already know that.
Now to examine the second policy, focusing the job of policing more on fighting crime and outsourcing “quality-of-life issues” to other institutions. I think this is a good idea; it would improve police departments’ efficiency and effectiveness and increase community development funding and engagement.
There are specific reasons for the disproportionate amount of crime in black communities that have nothing to do with racism, and I think more investment in all “quality-of-life” institutions such as education, housing, and jobs could lower those numbers.
Another change that would lower those numbers is better and smarter policing; maybe it isn’t the best use of police departments’ crime-fighting abilities to break up homeless encampments or to keep hunting down the same drug-users instead of rehabilitating them.
In summary, the ‘defund the police’ slogan would be more accurate as ‘improve the police.’ Ending policing all together is unjustifiable madness, but strategic reorganization of police’s role in their community as solely a crime-fighting entity and increased investment in that community to lower the propensity for crime are both good proposals.
|
https://medium.com/electric-thoughts/canceling-police-is-the-worst-way-to-prevent-violence-93abebee2353
|
['Tyler Piteo-Tarpy']
|
2020-06-08 17:01:03.115000+00:00
|
['Justice', 'Racism', 'Politics', 'Society', 'Police']
|
An Ode to 2020
|
An Ode to 2020
Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash
What an absolute shithole.
What a vomitous promenade,
a hangover headache made manifest
as calendar of paper cut days.
If ever a year was a suicide watch,
or a self-tying knot
of processional puppet string
strangling light from the eyes,
it was you, year of bad juju,
blood cells like black Cadillacs
colliding calm heartbeats
into car crash heart attacks.
The universe is exhausted,
never a December more exalted,
to see a revolution conclude
and come out clean
as a worker for the meat plant,
the one who holds the bolt gun,
refusing to ever eat
another hamburger or steak,
we are all vegan cannibals now.
The sunrises keep screaming
like the cattle in our dreams,
and I’m finding more and more
blood in my teeth,
just chewing the foamy air
of my survival instincts,
every breath a new vaccine
against tomorrow’s news
and whatever fear the daylight brings.
|
https://medium.com/resistance-poetry/an-ode-to-2020-3d515c4c90b8
|
['Jay Sizemore']
|
2020-12-09 11:25:25.259000+00:00
|
['Resistance Poetry', '2020', 'New Year', 'Remembering', 'Poetry']
|
The first programming language you should learn… A debate…
|
Set the Stage
Both JavaScript and Python offer a wide range of features and have extensive, amazing communities behind them. We are going to delve into the technical and professional aspects of both languages while avoiding some of lower-level technical details. In doing so, I hope to paint a picture of which language you should choose based on your preferences and personality. We will compare these languages on only two key aspects: learning curve and utility/use-cases.
1. Learning Curve
JS and Python both have low learning curves and are quite easy to pick up on. Both are dynamically typed which helps beginners tremendously. Python is currently embracing type hints, but these are not enforced and runtime. Similarly, JS has a language subset called TypeScript which enforces types on all objects but JS itself does not. Speaking of, both languages follow OOP principles which is another plus for learning since objects are a great way to relate abstract coding structures to real-life structures.
One downside to Python is that it requires installation and Python versions change relatively frequently. Managing Python versions is a known headache for any Python dev, but there are many packages out there to help combat this issue including conda, poetry, and virtualenv. In order to run Python scripts you either need to utilize Jupyter Notebooks (which require installation) or utilize a terminal and code editor to write code (yes these could be the same via vim/nano). The Anaconda installation does install VS Code, Jupyter Notebook, Python all at once for users and is available on all platforms.
JS, on the other hand, can be written directly in your browser simply by navigating to the Chrome Developer Tools. This makes it very user friendly since you can actually just code in your browser and see the changes directly happen on a web page. No installation required. This principle does break down once you start installing node packages and using frontend frameworks, but for Vanilla JS, it couldn’t be easier to get started.
As far as syntax goes, both languages are simple to understand and get used to and any code editor provides great support for both. Arguments could be made for Python over JS on the syntax front, but I think they are simply different and that, with editor support, neither would provide a large hinderance to getting starting. On second thought, I would select Python here due to ignoring curly braces and no semi-colons despite its whitespace issues. Especially considering that advanced frontend frameworks like the popular React library or Angular utilize ES6 syntax which can be quite confusing at times.
2. Utility / Use Cases
The use cases for these languages are where they really differ. This also bleads into job prospects. Python is excellent for data analysis, data engineering, data science, one-off scripts, automation, machine learning, and backend web development. Javascript is excellent at nearly everything on the web from frontend styling and animation to backend frameworks and interacting with databases.
The simplest way I can explain the difference here is this: Python works many places, JS works on the web only. If you want to build on the web only, the choice is easy: JS. If you want to build small games, desktop apps, software, or do data related tasks, choose Python.
Interestingly, Python can do some of the things JS can do regarding web development backend. In fact, Python’s two most popular web frameworks Django and Flask run many popular web backends. JS has its own backend frameworks including Express.
|
https://medium.com/the-innovation/the-first-programming-language-you-should-learn-a-debate-93611b06acd2
|
['Nick Anthony']
|
2020-11-05 18:00:19.059000+00:00
|
['Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Web Development']
|
An Open Letter to Love
|
Dear Love,
I have been meaning to talk to you for a while. But you just exist in so many places and so many things that I couldn’t figure out which version of you should I talk to until I realized maybe you’re the same, it’s my perception of you which changes.
You have made me laugh and you have made me cry and you have had your moments where you have also said goodbyes. You have been kind, patient and sometimes you have made me reckless. You have been there in the form of family, friends and boys but most importantly you reminded me that I need some of you for myself.
You have taught me that you can mean different things to people, for some you are a person, for some you are their work and for some you are food! But over the years I have been trying to find what you are to me. Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?
I think when I was a toddler I only see love from my parents. Love then meant “someone who got you what you wanted”. My parents looked after me and they took care of me, I never ever saw the bigger picture, the sacrifices or the commitments they made, and that’s okay. As long as, I saw them and I got all my favorite toys, I was happy.
When I became a teenager, things became a little more complicated. You created delusions. I thought you were “something I never felt before”. I fell into your trap, but now I know you were only teaching me how to grow up and how to be more mature. I didn’t know this back then. So I spent years trying to change everything for that one boy who would never appreciate me. I was almost the smartest in my class but I always thought I had to be more skinny, more fairer and more outgoing to deserve you. And the worst part is, even thought you made me see the worst in me, I didn’t want to let you go. But that wasn’t you was it? You were only trying to teach me what you weren’t and I so naive, I didn’t learn that lesson.
I came to college, you put me through ups and downs again. You taught me someone who only sees the best of me isn’t you. You taught me someone who loves only my tangible parts isn’t you.
That’s when it dawned on me. You aren’t all of you until I am all of me. And from that day on, I started being all of me. It wasn’t easy, I am flawed. Not easy to love. Quite damaged. But I tried. I tried until I finally found the slightest presence of you, within me. And you whispered, “you only let the ones in, who know the real you”. Thank you.
You played until I think I finally met you. The you, who loves all of me. I am still trying. But I accepted me and that’s how you knew that I was ready for you, the real you.
And then I met you. The you, who loves the good and the bad, the kind and the sad. I treated you bad, but he always came back. You didn’t stop me and neither did he and that’s when I knew it was really you. My quirks didn’t bother you. You appreciate them. Thank you.
However, I am glad that you completed me. You taught me how to grow, not with just other people but with me. It’s been a journey from not wanting to look in the mirror to looking at myself and being proud of who I am. You also taught me that you will always be constant in some ways, not always. For me, that has been my parents, of course and writing. Writing, at first I thought was an escape but now it feels more of a way to connect, to you and to me. It’s one of the ways I express I love myself. Thank you.
Over the years, you have taught me lessons. Some painful but most of them happy. You have shown me what it means to truly let go. Sometimes you have tested me. I have let you change me. Sometimes for the better and sometimes I have become someone else who isn’t really me. And that has been the most important lesson, that I shouldn’t be becoming someone else for you. I will only see the true you if I can be me, honestly.
You have taught me that to earn you, I will sometimes have to compromise. But you have also taught me that the love I have for myself should define the compromises I am willing to make and the risks I am willing to take. And I took my time to learn that.
I think you wanted me to learn from my mistakes rather than handing me the best the first time. And for that I am thankful, because not only you taught me to love everyone else but first you taught me love myself. Thank you.
Regards,
Always your keeper.
|
https://medium.com/@thoughtslippers/an-open-letter-to-love-d092eb0e1964
|
['Soumya Tiwari']
|
2020-01-14 04:45:46.344000+00:00
|
['Open Letter', 'Emotions', 'Self Love', 'Love', 'Growing Up']
|
AYS Daily Digest 09/04/2021 — Young Man Drowned Off the Coast of Melilla
|
New rescue vessel coming to the Mediterranean//New integration scheme in Greece//The Balkan route during the pandemic
Are You Syrious?
Apr 10 · 10 min read
FEATURE
Another young person drowns off the coast of Melilla
In the past month and a half, seven people have drowned off the coast of Melilla. Tragically, the most recent victim was barely 18. He had recently been expelled from the reception centre upon his 18th birthday.
MS came to Melilla from Morocco when he was still a child. Like many other minors, he started out in a reception centre, then slept in the Plaza de Toros after he was kicked out. His friends and companions are grieving his death even as they themselves face many dangers sleeping rough in Melilla. Those who knew him describe him as a quiet young man who even earned a letter of good conduct from the juvenile centre he stayed at. Although some speculate he died stowing away on a ferry to the mainland, which he had been trying to reach for a long time, others doubt this story.
There is a strong possibility that his body cannot even be returned to his mother in Morocco due to border closures.
The legal limbo that many people, including minors, who come to Melilla get stuck in push many to try desperate methods such as stowing away on a ferry to the mainland. The Immigration Relations authorities often delay processing residency permits for months and even years. Other desperate people try to swim to the fortified enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla from Morocco. The crossing is short but deceptively dangerous thanks to a strong current.
The death of M not only exposes the dangerous routes to and from Melilla but the overall dangers of Spanish sea crossings. Another frequent route, the crossing to the Canary Islands, is also dangerous. Last month, people were shocked to learn about a two-year-old Malian girl who died in a hospital after the crossing. Authorities have since learned that nine others from that same group died on the crossing, including three children. Authorities are investigating the “bosses” from this crossing. In an unrelated operation, authorities detained fifteen people accused of smuggling.
Even though the Canary Islands are safer than the sea, the situation on the archipelago is still bad for people on the move. The Spanish government is effectively using the islands to implement a containment policy, similar to the Aegean islands. People are suffering from racism and a lack of institutional support.
|
https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-09-04-2021-young-man-drowned-off-the-coast-of-melilla-a58e2bffc984
|
['Are You Syrious']
|
2021-04-10 15:22:56.433000+00:00
|
['Digest', 'Melilla', 'Spain', 'Migrants', 'Refugees']
|
GoogleTagManager — Review of a Drupal Module
|
Grzegorz Pietrzak
Website statistical data is required knowledge if one wants to effectively manage the website, and thus — determine the directions for its further development. Thanks to numerous Drupal modules, you can make the necessary improvements also via integrations with Google Analytics. In this article, you will find information about the GoogleTagManager (google_tag) module, thanks to which you can conduct an effective and structured analysis of your website.
The need to put external scripts on websites dates back to the 90s, when webmasters got a taste for counters and guest books. Over the past three decades, simple external services have evolved into advanced and powerful solutions such as: Salesforce, Hotjar or Mautic, the implementation of which we provide at Droptica. Modern websites use dozens of tools to research user behaviour, collect the data on visits and for A/B testing. Today it is difficult to imagine effective marketing without them.
Dates
The Google Tag Manager service was launched in October 2012, and the Drupal module to support it was released in February 2014. A stable version of the module for Drupal 8 was released only at the beginning of 2018. The development was quite slow, however google_tag was very stable from the beginning.
The module’s popularity
It must be said that the module has won over a large group of users. According to official statistics, it is used by over 51 thousand websites while more than half of this number are websites based on Drupal 8/9.
Module’s creators
Jim Berry from Boombatower is responsible for the maintenance of the module. He is a developer who has made a huge contribution to the Drupal community. He is the author of over 1500 commits in dozens of projects.
What is the module used for?
The google_tag module is used for advanced integration with Google Tag Manager, reaching much further than simply pasting the GTM script into the website code. Here you have access to user roles and exclusion lists, among others. I will present all these functionalities later in the article.
Unboxing
You can download the module at https://www.drupal.org/project/google_tag. After the installation, add a new container and enter its ID obtained in the Google Tag Manager panel. You can find the module settings in the Configuration — System — Google Tag Manager menu.
Module’s use
The google_tag module has a default configuration that will work for the vast majority of applications. However, it is worth looking into the advanced settings, which give more control over the included scripts.
Containers list
A novice user will certainly ponder what the list of containers available in the configuration panel actually is. Well, the latest versions of the module allow you to handle more than one GTM container (in other words: various unique identifiers assigned by Google). Such a solution works perfectly when you have a page farm for which you can separate common scripts stored in a shared container.
When adding a new container, you will see a form with the default settings filled out. If you do not want to waste time customising each of the containers, you can specify the default settings in the “Settings” tab.
Adding a container
The form for adding a container mainly contains its unique identifier (Container ID) obtained from Google and a label that will be used to recognise individual containers within the Drupal administration panel.
In the “Advanced” tab you can find three interesting settings:
Ability to rename a data layer. In most cases, the standard dataLayer is enough, but it is worth keeping this option in mind in case of a conflict. To clarify: a data layer is an array (more precisely — an object) in JavaScript that is used to transfer data from a website to a GTM container.
Support for allowlist and blacklist options, described in more detail in GTM help. This is a rarely used, but useful functionality that allows for additional blocking of some tags in the production environment before they are ready for implementation, among other things.
Configuration of the current environment which enables switching between the production and development set of tags.
A bit further down you will find the exclusion settings. The GTM script can be activated and deactivated based on:
The current path in the URL (by default, tags are not launched on admin pages).
User Roles (A common case of use is disabling analytical scripts for the administrator role).
HTTP status code (e.g. 404).
Content type.
Module configuration
In the settings tab there is a configuration common to all containers. There are several options to improve the performance of your website and make debugging easier.
The first four settings are for the optimisation of the JS script delivery that supports Google Tag Manager. I recommend leaving the recommended values here, and at the same time I would like to warn you against possible errors returned in the website log. During projects in our Drupal agency, we often encountered a situation where the GTM script file was not generated due to the lack of directory permissions.
Hooks and integrations
The google_tag module provides the following hooks:
hook_google_tag_insert_alter () — unlocks or blocks a given container if you want to make its operation dependent on factors other than the standard ones (i.e. role, path, content type and HTTP code).
— unlocks or blocks a given container if you want to make its operation dependent on factors other than the standard ones (i.e. role, path, content type and HTTP code). hook_google_tag_snippets_alter () — changes the default JS code that supports GTM.
In addition, it is possible to implement plugins providing Conditions for placing the Google Tag Manager script on the website.
Summary
In a previous article I discussed in detail the integration of Drupal with Google Analytics. I am sure that use of the above, together with the google_tag module described in this text, will make website analysis even more effective and orderly. The google_tag module has almost become an industry standard over the past few years. I recommend using it and exploring the possibilities that the world of Drupal tags and data layers opens up for us.
|
https://medium.com/@droptica/googletagmanager-review-of-a-drupal-module-ee99fb09eb5d
|
[]
|
2021-01-21 12:09:22.290000+00:00
|
['Google Analytics', 'Website', 'SEO', 'Drupal']
|
What’s New in ES2021?
|
WeakRefs
WeakRef stands for Weak References. The main use of weak references is to implement caches.
Since JavaScript is a garbage collected language, if a variable is no longer reachable, the GC automatically removes it. As a good practice, we would not want to keep a lot in memory for a long time. We can allow the memory to be garbage collected and later if we need it again, we can generate a fresh cache.
Example:
// callback function
const callback = () => {
const obj = {
name: "Harsha"
};
console.log(obj);
} // IIFE function to print the object after 3 secs
(async function(){
await new Promise((resolve) => {
setTimeout(() => {
callback(); // {name: "Harsha"}
resolve();
}, 3000);
});
})();
The above example might seem complicated. But, it is actually simple. The code basically calls a callback function after 3 seconds, where the function prints an object. Whenever we call the callback function, the obj is still present in the memory. To manage cache efficiently we can use WeakRef .
// callback function
const callback = () => {
const obj = new WeakRef({
name: "Harsha"
});
console.log(obj.deref().name);
} // IIFE function to print the object after 2 and 5 secs
(async function(){
await new Promise((resolve) => {
setTimeout(() => {
callback(); // Guaranteed to print "Harsha"
resolve();
}, 2000);
});
await new Promise((resolve) => {
setTimeout(() => {
callback(); // No Gaurantee that "Harsha" is printed
resolve();
}, 5000);
});
})();
|
https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/whats-new-in-es2021-99921c01f220
|
['Harsha Vardhan']
|
2020-11-21 06:43:25.265000+00:00
|
['Programming', 'Coding', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Web Development']
|
My Top 10 Favourite Albums of All Time — A List Article
|
Today I indulge in a cheap exercise that has proven in the past five years to be one of the most popular forms of articles on the internet. Today I write the first list article for Radio Friendly. I’ve said it before, I don’t like list articles, they are an excuse for writers to litter the page with GIFs and shit tweets they find that are remotely relevant to the topic. Thanks, Buzzfeed. But list articles are enjoyable to make, and enjoyable to read if written with half a brain and basic understanding of the English language.
There’s a trend hitting Facebook where you list your ten favourite albums, one a day for ten days, and tag your friends so you see their favourite albums. I was tagged in a post by my mate Heath. Thanks Heath. And since I already bother my Facebook friends with my dribble once or twice a week, I thought I better not flood my profile with more music related posts. So, I’ve put it all together in one article. The first list article for Radio Friendly: Nick Devin’s Ten Favourite Albums, in particular order.
Note: These are my favourite albums, not necessarily the best album in the band’s discography. All these albums hold a special place in my heart.
10. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds— Push the Sky Away
Nick Cave’s Push the Sky Away came out in 2013 and was the first Nick Cave album to hook me. I had listened to Murder Ballads a few years before, but it was the soft, seductive melodies of Push the Sky Away that reeled me into the dark and gloomy Cave world. The album begins with the pulsating We No Who U R, Cave’s melodic croon a stark contrast from his early work. The instrumentation is mystical in the opening track and continues throughout the album. Jubilee Street follows a hypnotic guitar melody, eventually crescendoing after six minutes into a lavish string section and angelic choir refrain. It’s one of my favourite Cave tracks, as well as second last track Higgs Boson Blues. Here, Cave once again showcases his devilish lyrical wit as he poetically spins a yarn about a post-apocalyptic world, beautiful female harmonies elevating Cave’s vocals. I was addicted to this album when it came out, and it is the reason for my deep love of Nick Cave’s lyrics and his discography.
9. The Middle East — Recordings of the Middle East
Recordings of the Middle East is an EP, but I’m still adding it to my favourite albums list. Released in 2009, the band’s first and only EP consists of five stellar tracks, including their infamous single Blood. The band would go on to release one album before dismantling, but it’s the EP that shows the band’s brilliance. The EP came out the same year as Mumford and Son’s first album, a time where indie folk was at it’s all-time high, but instead of mimicking the booming choruses of Mumford, the Middle East took a subtler approach. Jordan Ireland’s delicate, breathy vocals showcase a vulnerability to the band’s music. Paired with the gentle female harmonies in opening track The Darkest Side, the band might sound like nothing more than a folk duo with an acoustic guitar. But as the second track, Lonely, begins, the band show that they are much more. Alternating rhythms, complex harmonies and beautiful instrumentation reach a peak towards the end of the track, the music swells into a folk breakdown led by crashing drum cymbals and bending guitar lines. It’s my favourite song on the EP. But then there’s Blood. The song that changed my life. It’s easily taken for granted now, but nothing sounded like Blood back in 2009. At least, not as good as Blood. It’s a perfect song; the whistling melody, the childlike glockenspiel, and the echoing crescendo at the end. I love this EP more than I love most albums. And that’s why it’s on my list.
8. Pixies — Doolittle
I don’t know how I got into Pixies. Everyone who wasn’t born in the 80s would have first heard Where is My Mind at the end of Fight Club, but even their most famous song isn’t on their 1989 album, Doolittle. I got into them during that time where downloading music off YouTube videos was cool. I had a bunch of Pixies music on my iPod Touch back in high school. Yes, the quintessential hipster. It wasn’t until a few years after that I realised all my favourite tracks came from the same album. Debaser, Here Comes Your Man, Monkey Gone to Heaven, Hey, Gouge Away; all sit snuggly on Doolittle. I felt like an idiot that I didn’t realise sooner. So of course, I downloaded the entire album. The band sound like shit to the average music listener, especially in ’89 when Cher, Milli Vanilli and Madonna were all the rage. That’s a trait vocalist Frank Black embraces as he screams on the second track Tame, against the infamously dissonant guitar licks from Joey Santiago. Pixies embody the phrase ‘beautifully dissonant’, being one of the only bands to reach mainstream success by not sticking to the conventions of popular melodies. And I think that’s why I like them. This album blends punk, post-punk, garage rock and other-worldly weird shit to create Pixies’ signature sound. A sound that would go onto influence 90s grunge and garage rock. There’ll never be another Pixies, or another Doolittle.
7. Talking Heads — Remain in Light
This is a relatively new addition to my favourite albums, I only started listening to it about two years ago. But it soon became an album I turn to when I don’t really know what to listen to. 1980s Remain in Light is Talking Heads’ fourth album and was their definitive shift from post-punk into abstract new wave, incorporating electronics, funk, African, and world music. Opening track Burn Under Punches is one of my favourite Talking Heads tracks, it’s glitchy guitar lines and polyrhythmic electronic beats sounds chaotic, but David Byrne’s wailing refrain keeps the instrumentation at bay. The album moves from track to track with rapid pace, Crosseyed and Painless sounds like the track to a car chase in a classic 80s movie. Soaring guitars imitate sirens against fast paced, almost tribal, percussion. The album has very little downtime, Once In a Lifetime allows the audience to breathe after a hectic opening three tracks, and The Overload is where the band showcase their darker side with an almost Joy Division inspired track. Remain in Light is a chaotic but brilliant album. I count on its hypnotic rhythms and mesmerising instrumentation to pick me up when I’m in a music rut.
6. The Dave Brubeck Quartet — Time Out
This is the album that kickstarted my love with jazz. It’s not the best jazz album of all time, if anything it’s the perfect album for beginners; Jazz For Dummies if you will. The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s 1959 album Time Out is a cruisy, laid back cool jazz album that doesn’t need much concentration to enjoy. It’s the perfect album to chuck on on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I usually have this playing when I’m cooking dinner. But there’s more to Time Out if you choose to look, in this case listen. Dave Brubeck incorporates unusual time signatures into this jazz album, 9/8, 6/4, and 5/4 Wikipedia tells me. But you can hear the unusual time signatures in opening piece, Blue Rondo à la Turk; it changes from 9/8 time into it’s main theme at 4/4 time. It’s a jarring transition, but Brubeck’s delicate choice of instrumentation makes it an easy listen. Same can be said for the album’s hit, Take Five, a composition Brubeck popularised but never wrote. It’s the classic school jazz band song, the song everyone quotes as their favourite jazz piece when they don’t want to say anything by Miles Davis. I’m proud to admit it’s on of my favourites. It’s catchy and cool as hell. Time Out’s brilliance lies in its performance; every musician understands the tone and feel of the piece they are playing, and though they individually solo in every song, they all work harmoniously as to not outdo one another. It’s a classic jazz album and my favourite.
5. Joy Division — Unknown Pleasures
This is the pick that’s even snobbier than having Pixies and a jazz album in your top ten list. And before you ask, yes, I do have a piece of clothing with Unknown Pleasures’ album art on it. It was a present. And I enjoyed it. You’ll probably find this album in the top ten favourites list of some angsty teenager who is too cool to listen to emo music. Or by some toffy nosed music critic who claims nothing can be a perfect 10/10, but Unknown Pleasures sure does come close. I like to think I’m in the middle. Joy Division’s 1979 album is not only the best post-punk album, it helped define the genre. The conception of the album, as well as the band, is legendary. Born from the inspirations of a Sex Pistols gig, Joy Division would go on to take punk’s angsty attitude and mix it with personal and heartbreaking lyrics thanks to front man Ian Curtis. And it’s showcased perfectly on Unknown Pleasures. From gut wrenching and hypnotic bass lines of Peter Hook on Shadowplay, to Stephen Morris’ robotic drumbeat on She’s Lost Control, to Bernard Sumners dreary guitar licks on Day of the Lords; this album is bleak and depressing, yet utterly addictive. And at the heart of Joy Division is Curtis’ passionate, yet destructive lyrics of love, alienation and desolation. It’s not an album for the feint hearted, but it’s brilliant.
4. Kendrick Lamar — To Pimp a Butterfly
Speaking of brilliance. I can’t do this album justice in a short recap. I still find new things every time I listen to To Pimp a Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar’s 2013 magnum opus. Whenever I do a deep dive in hip-hop’s history, and then return to TPAB, I find new things to appreciate. To Pimp a Butterfly is a love letter to hip-hop from the G-Funk inspired Wesley’s Theory that opens the album, the album incorporates jazz, funk, soul, and old school hip-hop with Lamar’s trademark lyricism and impeccable flow; any other rapper would struggle to rap over the polyrhythmic jazz on For Free. Lamar’s lyrics are full of stories of social and racial inequalities, depression, discrimination and family love; all tied together with a spoken word poem that continues throughout the album. Dr Dre’s The Chronic was the quintessential album of West Coast hip-hop, and TPAB took what made that album great and elevated it for a new generation. Though it’s severely under looked because of its lack of ‘bangers’, To Pimp a Butterfly is Kendrick Lamar’s best album. And it’s the album that allowed me to fall in love with hip-hop.
3. The Beatles — Rubber Soul
The Beatles One would ring through the speakers in the lounge room when I was growing up. You know, the red album with the big number-one on it. Their singles, Yellow Submarine, Let It Be, Hey Jude, Eleanor Rigby, I Want To Hold Your Hand, would stay in my mind for hours. I knew all their greatest hits because of that CD. And it wasn’t until I was catching the train to uni every day and needed new music that I downloaded most of The Beatles discography. I listened to Rubber Soul, not knowing any of the tracks because none of them were their number one singles. I didn’t expect much. I remember looking out the window of the train, I was about half way through the album, completely mesmerised with what I was listening to. Even though none of Rubber Soul’s singles went to number one on the charts, it is the most cohesive Beatles album. I don’t think it’s the best, that would go to The White Album, but Rubber Soul is my favourite. It marks the start of The Beatles flirtation with psychedelic music, perfectly shown on second track Norwegian Wood; a simple acoustic guitar rings through against the tinnie strum of a sitar. Rubber Soul showcases The Beatles’ unmatched knack for song-writing. Each song has a strong hook, fantastic backing melodies and harmonies, and intricate instrumentation for what was considered to be just pop music. It’s what you’d expect from The Beatles. I don’t know why I ever doubted them.
2. Radiohead — In Rainbows
My favourite band comes in at number two on the list. Radiohead’s In Rainbows is not often looked at as their best. Critics and fans herald Kid A or OK Computer as the band’s best albums, and so they should. Both of those albums not only shifted the tone of the band for albums to come, but also influenced hundreds of other bands. But it’s their 2007 album In Rainbows that is my favourite. The album moves at the pace of a well scripted film, beginning with the glitchy electronic intro of 15 Step and ending with sombre complex and off-beat piano ballad Videotape. In Rainbows isn’t the band’s most technical album, but in terms of song writing, it is the band’s most consistent. Each of the ten tracks are memorable, vocalist Thom York is at the height of his hook writing ability, and his vocals powerful one moment and delicately fragile the next. Some of Radiohead’s underrated hits lie on In Rainbows, specifically Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, Reckoner, and Jigsaw Falling Into Place. They just so happen to be my favourite Radiohead tracks, specifically Reckoner. The band strip back the lush guitar sounds and focus on various percussion instruments. There’s an alluring syncopation to Reckoner, as York finger picks a simple melody on the guitar against the clatter of cymbals, the clatter of an egg shaker and the glisten of the tambourine. In Rainbows is the band’s most accessible album and their most melodic; it all makes for an off-beat charmer and an album that mixes all the best parts of Radiohead into one.
Arctic Monkeys — Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
Arctic Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not has been my favourite album since I was thirteen years old. I’ve said it many times before, but Arctic Monkeys debut album is a ferocious, punky indie rock album with charming and intelligent lyrics, fast drum beats and duelling guitar lines. Tracks rarely go past three minutes; there are short, sharp and punchy. They leave no room for mistakes, but enough time for lead Monkey, Alex Turner, to succinctly spit a tale on life, love and partying as a young twenty-something-year-old in Sheffield.
There’s innocence in this Whatever People Say, but at the same time Arctic Monkeys crafted a solid set of songs that flow impeccably. The cleverly funny I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor is the band’s classic, but tracks like You Probably Couldn’t See for the Lights But You Were Staring Straight at Me, Take You Home and From the Ritz to the Rubble, show a level of song writing that is still not seen in indie rock. And pair that with the punk attitude, you’ve got not only a classic album, but one of the best debut albums of all time. Yes, the lyrical content is all about going out on the town, hitting on chicks and drinking at pubs, but Turner’s ability to take the ordinary and make it into a charming, funny and entertaining tale is incredible. Turner isn’t writing with a posh attitude or big words, he’s writing his lyrics as he speaks, and that adds to the charm of his storytelling. There’s a reason why Arctic Monkeys have die hard fans who punch on with people who like their newer music better. It’s because of this album. They aren’t as bad as football hooligans, but you get the picture. Ever since I heard the opening line to When the Sun Goes Down when I was thirteen on V-Hits or whatever the show was called, I was in love with this album.
There they are. It’s a fucking long article for a simple list. If you made it to the end, thank you. If you just scrolled through the list looking at the titles like lazy tech enthused teens, go and have a listen to these albums then come back and read and argue with me.
|
https://medium.com/radio-friendly/my-top-10-favourite-albums-of-all-time-a-list-article-aa3c97964267
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['Nick Devin']
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2018-05-16 06:30:12.240000+00:00
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['Radio Friendly', 'Music', 'Album Review', 'Indie', 'Best Albums']
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Obama beats Trump as Gallup’s most admired man in 2017, Hillary Clinton still top woman
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By Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS
Source: Wikipedia Commons
Although the sitting president is usually the Gallup poll’s most admired for the year, this year is it is not the case. Former President Barack Obama beat out President Donald Trump as the most admired man in the 2017 edition, while 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton remains the country’s most admired woman. Gallup Poll released on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017, their annual list of most admired men and women for the year with almost predictable results. For the tenth straight year, former President Obama has topped the list of most admired men, with Hillary Clinton topping the list of most admired women for a record-breaking time. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump came in a close second but missed the honor most sitting presidents experience.
President Obama won the distinction of most admired with 17 percent of the vote, down from 22 percent last year, and his “narrowest” margin to date. He has appeared on the top 10, 13 times since 2006 and has been in the top spot for the last ten years. President Obama has the second overall most admired titles besting former Presidents Bill Clinton (1993–2001) and Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) but behind Dwight Eisenhower (1953–1961). Obama becomes the only the second former president besides Eisenhower in 1967 and 1968 to win the year’s most admired. President Trump came in a rather close second with 14 percent; the third time Trump has ranked second in the poll. This year is the president’s seventh appearance in the top 10, in 1988 to 1990 and then again in 2011. Vice President Mike Pence sees his second appearance on the list coming in again at the bottom of the list.
Even as a sitting president Trump cannot eclipse Obama as the most admired man in the country an honor most sitting presidents have enjoyed. It is a tradition for the sitting president always to be named the most admired and has been the case for 70 years since the poll originated in 1946. Now only 13 times did a sitting president lose out on the most-admired honor and usually only happens if the president has a low approval rating. President Trump has the lowest approval rating of any president in his first year of office with only a 37 percent approval rating on his 338th day in office. The last time a sitting president missed the honor was in 2008 when then President-elect Obama edged out President George W. Bush who was seeing extremely low approval ratings at the end of his tenure.
In Gallup’s 71 years issuing the most admired list, sitting presidents have topped it 58 times. Gallup indicates, “Previous incumbent presidents who did not finish first include Harry Truman in 1946–1947 and 1950–1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1967–1968, Richard Nixon in 1973, Gerald Ford in 1974–1975, Jimmy Carter in 1980, and George W. Bush in 2008. All but Truman in 1947 and Ford in 1974 had job approval ratings well below 50%, like Trump.”
Gallup Polls Most Admired Men 2017 Top 10:
1. Barack Obama 17
2. Donald Trump 14
3. Pope Francis 3
4. Rev. Billy Graham 2
5. John McCain 2
6. Elon Musk 2
7. Bernie Sanders 1
8. Bill Gates 1
9. Benjamin Netanyahu 1
10. The Dalai Lama 1
11. Mike Pence 1
Despite losing the election Trump last year, former first lady, New York Senator, 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, former Secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton tops the list of the most admired women for the 22nd time and 16th year in a row more than anyone ever on the list. Clinton has her lowest showing; however, winning only 9 percent of the vote, last year she had 12 percent for the top spot. Clinton only lost the number one spot in 1995 and 1996 to Mother Theresa and 2001 when First Lady Laura Bush took the position. Clinton has appeared on the list 26 times. Former First Lady Michelle Obama is in second place, but with 7 percent. Current First Lady Melania Trump sees her first showing on the list coming in at number 8 but with only one percent of the vote.
Gallup Polls Most Admired Women 2017 Top 10:
1. Hillary Clinton 9
2. Michelle Obama 7
3. Oprah Winfrey 4
4. Elizabeth Warren 3
5. Angela Merkel 2
6. Queen Elizabeth 2
7. Condoleezza Rice 1
8. Melania Trump 1
9. Nikki Haley 1
10. Duchess Kate Middleton 1
11. Beyonce Knowles 1
This year’s list is seeing some record number of appearances for both the most admired men and women. For the men, Rev. Billy Graham has his 60th top 10 finish having been in the top 10 every year since 1955, except for 1962 and 1976. This is the first year former Bill Clinton has dropped out of the top 10; he appeared on the top 10 for 25 years and remained on top of the list throughout his entire presidency from 1993 to 2001. On the women’s side, Hillary Clinton has the most top honors on the list with former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt second with 13 top honors. Queen Elizabeth has the most top 10 appearances of all women with 49, while Oprah Winfrey moved up to the second most of all time with her 30 showings. Gallup does not believe however, Obama and Clinton will hold on to the top spot in future years and believe Trump could attain the position next year.
Bonnie K. Goodman BA, MLIS (McGill University), is a journalist, librarian, historian & editor. She is a former Features Editor at the History News Network & reporter at Examiner.com where she covered politics, universities, religion and news. She has a dozen years experience in education & political journalism.
|
https://medium.com/@bonniekgoodman/obama-beats-trump-as-gallups-most-admired-man-in-2017-hillary-clinton-still-top-woman-5f47284fdd8
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['Bonnie K. Goodman']
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2017-12-27 20:43:19.565000+00:00
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['Bill Clinton', 'Gallup', 'Hillary Clinton', 'Barack Obama', 'Donald Trump']
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Hey! We’re Missing the Point on How Bad This Shutdown Thing Really Is
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It is good to see politicians and journalists bringing attention to the terrible injustice of not paying federal employees during the record-breaking government shutdown. But I wish they were paying more attention to the far worse consequences of Americans being denied essential services. The President’s supporters have minimized the impact of the shutdown. Ann Coulter says that the wall on the southern border is worth more “than the Yosemite gift shop being open,” California Republican Party spokesperson Jen Kerns says Americans don’t have much sympathy for “paper-pushers,” and the President’s economic advisor tops Marie Antoinette by claiming that federal employees should be grateful for the time off without having to use vacation days.
The paper that bureaucrats push includes Social Security checks, and assures the safety of food, workplaces, consumer products, and medications. When the government shuts down, economic and demographic data our businesses and financial markets rely on is not available. The data we use for sensitive negotiations on trade and national security is missing and so are the people who negotiate. The people who monitor and prevent cyber attacks are furloughed. Magnificent trees that have been cherished for centuries have been attacked by vandals, destroying irreplaceable treasures.
Government employees arrest, prosecute, and try those who violate the law. They conduct critical international negotiations and help American citizens abroad. Government inspectors make sure that nuclear facilities are operated safely and nuclear waste does not turn our cities into horror movie scenarios.
How did we go from President Kennedy’s “ask not what our country could do for you, but what you can do for our country” to Ronald Reagan’s “Government does not solve problems; government is the problem?”
My father was one who answered President Kennedy’s call as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He went on to work on projects for Presidents of both parties on a wide range of issues. When I graduated from law school I worked at the Environmental Protection Agency under President Jimmy Carter and the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan and I remain very proud of my time in government. The people I worked with were dedicated professionals of the highest integrity. They understood that both parties shared the same goals of a safe, strong country and that the only disagreement was the best way of achieving them.
The bogus, completely unproven idea of a “deep state” of bureaucrats pursuing goals other than the policies of the administration and Congress is particularly pernicious. In The Fifth Risk, the indispensable book about the Trump administration, Michael Lewis describes the unread briefing books dedicated government employees prepared for incoming appointees. Loyal, non-political, hardworking government staff were there to implement whatever priorities the new administration had. In many cases, there were none or the policies were turned over to lobbyists and corporate insiders.
Of course dealing with government can be cumbersome and frustrating. That is because there is so much potential for corruption and abuse. No industry is more regulated than the government itself. My father arrived at the FCC just after the broadcasters and the Commission itself had been involved in embarrassing scandals. He worked hard to make sure that would not happen again. We are now seeing what happens when administration officials ignore government ethics rules.
And government is vast and complicated. Toxic chemicals, for example, are covered by different offices, depending on whether they are being manufactured, transported, or disposed of. It takes time for the agencies involved to coordinate with each other and with the industries involved to make sure that they have all the information they need. And government employees are human, like any other working people. Were the heightened but relatable characters in “The Office” any better than the ones on “Parks and Recreation?”
Government is not perfect and government action is too often distorted by dark money. But we must all recognize that it is an honorable and vital profession and show our thanks by letting them have what they want most — a chance to do their jobs. What we could use right now is an accurate assessment of what the shutdown is costing us. Unfortunately, the people who have the access to the data necessary to produce that information are currently prohibited from doing their jobs because of the shutdown.
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https://cranberries.medium.com/hey-were-missing-the-point-on-how-bad-this-shutdown-thing-really-is-65cfedc94c95
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['Nell Minow']
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2019-01-18 04:01:35.787000+00:00
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['Washington DC', 'Government', 'Politics', 'Donald Trump', 'Shutdown']
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What is Agile and its Benefits?
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Agile methodology in software development implements collaboration between self organizing cross functional teams. Agile methods encourages teamwork, accountability, and flexibility which allows for fast delivery for end users.
The Manifesto for Agile Software Development is based on twelve principles.
Customer satisfaction by early and continuous delivery of valuable software. Welcome changing requirements, even in late development. Deliver working software frequently (typically in weeks). Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers. Projects are built around motivated, trusted individuals. Face to face conversation is the best form of communication. Working software is the primary measure of progress. Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design. Simplicity is essential. Best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing items. Regularly, the team reflects on how to become more effective and adjusts accordingly.
There are also subsets of Agile. The most popular process framework is called Scrum. Scrum is used to manage intricate program development using iterative and incremental practices. It aims to increase productivity and save time. The overall advantages Scrum offers to the company are: increasing quality of deliverables, planning for changes, more accurate estimated deadlines, and more control of project schedule.
The table below demonstrates the benefits of Scrum.
from cprime.com
While there is no substantial empirical evidence that agile methods are advantageous but there are numerous accounts of anecdotal evidence from companies and software engineers.
One example of a successful agile transformation is Capital One Europe. Six years after moving away from legacy processes and implementing agile methodologies, their software engineering team grew 100%, from 30 to 300 engineers. The tech team can deliver quicker results to customers while keeping costs low.
Additionally, in uncertain times where companies had to make changes to their workflow and shift to work at home, the agile approach helped companies thrive under unexpected challenges.
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https://medium.com/@jennifer-yoo/what-is-agile-and-its-benefits-2ebbdf97fb95
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['Jennifer Yoo']
|
2020-12-27 23:47:43.754000+00:00
|
['Scrum', 'Software Development', 'Software Engineering', 'Agile', 'Agile Methodology']
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Justice Thomas and the First Fake News Statute
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Early State Courts Rejected Scandalum Magnatum
Another issue with scandalum magnatum: they were wholly foreign to the republican form of government created by the Founders. In that government, unlike that in which scandalum magnatum first became law, it was the People who were sovereign, not a king. Scandalum magnatum, after all, was adopted to protect the sovereign Crown from its subjects. It was meant to quash republican sentiment. Scandalum magnatum “had all the crudities of that savage era of monarchical autocracy in which it had its birth, still clinging to it.”
In the United States, however, the People were sovereign and titles of nobility forbidden altogether. Scandalum magnatum and, specifically, protecting the political class over other citizens, made no sense in this form of government. Politicians were agents of the People, and the republican government established by the Founders depended on the People being able to assess, criticize, and replace their agents in government. To enforce scandalum magnatum would destroy this kind of a government rather than protect it. As one commentator explained, the statutes’ “significance was in their anti-democratic tendencies.”
Unsurprisingly then, they were abandoned in early America. As one 1811 work noted, the “antient statutes . . . of scandalum magnatum” did not “extend[] to the province” of Maryland. And in Virginia, a leading commentator in the 1830’s wrote, “[T]his offense is not recognized by our laws.” As mentioned in Part I of this series, several early state courts showed open contempt for scandalum magnatum. The North Carolina Supreme Court, for example, left little doubt: “[I]n this day and country there is no such thing as ‘Scandalum Magnatum.’”
Consistent with this, even the treatises on which Thomas relies — Starkie and Newell — made clear that scandalum magnatum was repudiated in the States. As noted in Starkie, “In this country no distinction as to persons is recognized, and in practice, a person holding a high office is regarded as a target at whom any person may let fly his poisonous words.” A “[h]igh official,” he warned, “instead of afford[ed] immunity from slanderous and libelous charges, seems rather to be regarded as making his character free plunder for any one who desires to create a sensation by attacking it.” Newell was in agreement.
Later accounts are also in accord. Scandalum magnatum had no place on this side of the Atlantic. As one early twentieth century note in a law journal explained:
And in England as well as in this country this old rule [of scandalum magnatum] has now given place to the rule . . . that there can be no libel of the government or of government officials as such. It is therefore no greater offense to libel Theodore Roosevelt as president than it is to libel Theodore Roosevelt, the private citizen . . . . It is no greater wrong to falsely criticize the government than it is to speak evil of a private citizen. Anglo-Saxon barbarism affirmed the contrary and the old Tower of London witnessed the suffering of men who dared to raise their voices against the king.
So as to not fall victim to a Thomas-onian originalism, a few disclaimers of the above is worth outlining. Thomas’ best retort to all of this? Well, he could say that while scandalum magnatum was originally the product of statute, common law judges did build on the statutes’ original criminal law confines. They extended the statutes to civil cases. And, further, Lord Coke in the case of De Libellis Famosis, also argued for the creation a scandalum magnatum-type cause of action — libel of magistrates — that reached those officials not covered by the statutes. (It is more accurate to say that libel of magistrates was recognized based “partly upon . . . scandalum magnatum and partly on plain political expediency.”)
Still, scandalum magnatum’s relevance to the here-and-now, and those common law outgrowths of it, is not their adoption in medieval England or the seventeenth century in the Star Chamber. Rather, as discussed below, their importance is in their slow death as anti-republican doctrines in an increasingly republican world. Scandalum magnatum’s rejection by the time of the Founding must be more important to our understanding of the First Amendment than its adoption centuries earlier in feudal England, right?
The Originalist Problem With Scandalum Magnatum
The history of scandalum magnatum demonstrates that by the time of the Founding, there was broad agreement that the law relating to harmful speech should not favor persons of power over others. But that is just the history. The proposed battle plan requires us to attack Thomas’ interpretative method too. And, indeed, there are interpretative problems with his reliance on scandalum magnatum. Namely, reliance on the adoption of the scandalum magnatum to discern early American views on freedom of the press hundreds of years later makes no sense under Thomas’ approach.
We can use Thomas’ language from a recent Second Amendment case, to demonstrate that Thomas strayed from his own interpretative method in his reliance on scandalum magnatum. In fact, we can sub out the medieval open carry statute for scandalum magnatum seamlessly to prove our point.
“From the beginning, the scope of the [scandalum magnatum] was unclear.” And, “[w]hatever the initial breadth of the statute, it is clear that it was not strictly enforced in the ensuing centuries.” Moreover, “The religious and political turmoil in England during the 17th century thrust the scope of [scandalum magnatum] to the forefront.” “James II . . . sought to revive [scandalum magnatum] as a weapon to disarm his Protestant opponents.” And, his opponents were “ultimately acquitted.” In the end, “[Scandalum magnatum] remained in force following the codification of the English Bill of Rights,” but it fell into disuse.
As Thomas went on to explain (with some more cheeky tweaks on my end 😉), “In short, although England may have limited [the right of speech concerning public officials in] 14th century, by the time of the founding, the English right was [not so limited]. And for purposes of discerning the original meaning of the [First] Amendment, it is this founding era understanding that is most pertinent.” Applying this rule ☝ to libel, scandalum magnatum becomes entirely irrelevant save for one fact: it was dead letter by 1791. And, not only was it dead letter, it died specifically because the public and the law decided, over time, that it made no sense to treat public officials with white gloves.
Not to be deterred, casting aside his own method, Thomas simply focuses on the adoption of scandalum magnatum centuries before the Founding to the exclusion of its death by the Founding. Either the Founding era is most pertinent to an originalist understanding or fourteenth century England is. Thomas can’t have it both ways depending on whether it’s speech or guns.
There’s more too. Remarkably, Thomas purported to rely on scandalum magnatum to divine the original meaning of the First Amendment in 1791. Yet, he maintained that opposition to the Sedition Act, which outlawed criticism of the Adams Administration as of 1798, was irrelevant to that inquiry. In other words, he preferenced a hundreds-year-old statute over a then-contemporary one. As Thomas put it, “[C]onstitutional opposition to the Sedition Act — a federal law directly criminalizing criticism of the Government — does not necessarily support a constitutional actual-malice rule in all civil libel actions brought by public figures.”
But opposition to the Sedition Act, within a decade of the ratification of the First Amendment, is some of the best evidence of what the Founders meant when they spoke of freedom of the press and its relationship to the criticism of public officials — not some dusty statutory scheme from medieval England! As the Supreme Court correctly found in Sullivan, the opposition to the Sedition Act “first crystallized a national awareness of the central meaning of the First Amendment.”
John Adams — Not the poster child for free speech
Moreover, the Sedition Act does, indeed, dispel the notion that public officials should have special protection from harmful utterances even in the context of libel. The Act was, ostensibly, a modern day version of scandalum magnatum. It sought to punish and, therefore, muzzle citizens in their criticism of their governors.
On the floor of Congress, for example, Virginia Representative John Nicholas contested at length the constitutionality of the Sedition Act. Speaking of the law of libel of magistrates, that is, the law of libel relating to public officials or those in positions of power as recognized by Coke (one of those common law outgrowths of scandalum magnatum), he said to his fellow representatives, “At the Revolution, the State laws were either the law of England, or were built on it, and, of course, they would contain the monarchical doctrine respecting libels [of magistrates].” But he continued, “[T]o prove that the States have considered the law of libels consistent with the freedom of the press, gentlemen [who supported the Sedition Act] should show that this law has been practised on since the Revolution, and that the attention of the States had been called to it by its execution, and that it still remains in force.” Concluding, he said, “I believe this cannot be done. So far as I know, it has been a dead letter.”
Nicholas then did not consider the Sedition Act as just some other statute. He considered it to be contrary to the common law of libel as then developed with regard to public officials. And, he disavowed, as antithetical to the First Amendment, a state-sanctioned law that preferenced the ruling class, like that ancient law of England, finding it wholly undemocratic. Thus, contrary to Thomas’ attempt to dismiss the Sedition Act as unrelated to the common law of libel, accounts from the time show that they were seen as implicating the same interests.
Now, let’s not oversell the case. Nicholas goes on to argue on the floor that Congress — not the States — should get out of the business of futzing with free speech. That’s what the First Amendment says Congress cannot do, after all. As he puts it, “I think it inconsistent with the nature of our Government, that its administration should have power to restrain animadversions on public measures.” But, he added, “[F]or protection from private injury from defamation, the States are fully competent. It is to them our officers must look for protection of persons, estates, and every other personal right.”
“Aha!” Thomas exclaims from the wing, thinking that the historical record is turning in his favor. But not so fast. There’s a lot to unpack there too . . . but that’s a story for another part in this series.
|
https://matthewschafer.medium.com/part-ii-justice-thomas-the-first-fake-news-statute-4370961803f3
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['Matthew Schafer']
|
2020-12-15 18:20:18.509000+00:00
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['History', 'Defamation', 'Clarence Thomas', 'Supreme Court']
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D.N.R.
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When she next opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the gigantic fireplace. The irony hit her so hard that she began laughing hysterically, on and on until she thought she would faint. The laughing became screaming, and the screaming weeping. She sobbed uncontrollably for her loss and the unfairness of it all. When the tears finally slowed, she toppled over on the sofa and slept again.
The ringing of a telephone finally woke her. It took her a moment to figure out what the harsh burring was. She’d had a cell for over 15 years, and what used to be a most common sound was now disorienting. She stumbled from the sofa to where the phone sat on the end table by the recliner, and murmured a slurry “hello?” into the receiver. It was the hospital. Was she coming in today? Decisions had to be made.
“I need some time,” Bethany mumbled. “I can’t come today, and probably not tomorrow. Keep him on the respirator until I can think things through.” After she hung up, Bethany walked through the house. The master bedroom was at the end of the hall. It smelled like old man, whiskey, and the faintest whiff of stale perfume. On the nightstand on her mother’s side of the bed, Bethany found a half-empty bottle of Red Door. Growing up, Arpège had been Mom’s favorite, but she had mostly stopped wearing it by the time Bethany left the house for good.
She picked up her mother’s pillow and sniffed it; it smelled strongly of Red Door. Tears sprang to her eyes: Dad had been spraying Mom’s pillow at night when he went to bed. The unfamiliar scent offered Bethany no comfort, and she set the pillow down again.
In the master closet, all of her mother’s clothing still hung, massively askew. Bethany rolled herself in the clothes still on their hangars, and immediately understood why everything was all jumbled up.
She left the master and opened the door to her old room. To her surprise, nothing looked familiar. The bed was still under the window, but there was new bedding and someone else’s clothes in the closet. Books were piled next to the unmade bed. So, this was where The Whore had been living.
In the kitchen, Bethany made coffee, discovered there was no milk, and drank it black with extra sugar. The weather was too cold to sit out on the deck, so she threw the curtains in the living room open wide and sat at the nearby dining room table. Several weeks’ worth of junk mail and assorted bills were piled up, and she realized that she was now accountable for getting those paid. She felt her anger flare, and then immediately fizzle as the weight of responsibility crushed her. Estate. I have to settle my father’s — my parents’ — estate.
Clearly, Dad had done nothing with any of Mom’s things. The house wasn’t a total wreck, but it was grimy and in need of a good cleaning. Thoughts started bombarding her: I need to see the lawyer this place is dirty I need to get milk I wonder where the checkbook is what am I going to do with Mom’s clothes I should go to the hospital am I hungry? She slapped her hands on the dining room table and the tumult stopped. She needed to think, but it was too hard. She needed a distraction from thinking.
She started in the kitchen. Dishes, scrub countertops and cabinets, clean out the fridge, mop the floor, dust, vacuum, remove cobwebs, scrub the bathtub, the sinks, the toilet, move to the master bath, scrub shower, sink, toilet, dust, vacuum, make bed, spray air freshener. Keep moving, begin wiping down baseboards, walls, move furniture, kill dust bunnies, empty trash, empty buckets, clean kitchen sink again, clean coffee maker (had it ever been cleaned?).
The sun was going down when she came in from the second trash run. She felt physically drained but more clear-headed than she had since Mom died. She was looking in the fridge for something edible when the phone rang again. A high-pitched feminine voice asked,
“Is this Bethany?”
“Who’s calling?” Bethany replied, suspicious.
“This is Suzanne, Suzanne Forkes. I’m the nursing student who’s been staying at your Dad’s?” The Whore, Bethany thought, but God she sounded so young!
“What do you want?” Bethany asked dully.
“I’m really sorry about your Dad,” the timid voice began, “I wouldn’t bother you, but…but I need my things.”
“Things?”
“My stuff. My clothes, my books.” There was a pause, then in a rush, “Look, I know the timing is terrible and I hate to intrude, but I have to go to my classes, and I need my clothes — ”
“When are you coming?” Bethany cut her off.
“I was hoping tonight?”
“Come as soon as you can.” Bethany hung up abruptly.
In less than half an hour, the doorbell rang. Bethany opened the door to a short blonde girl (child!) and a lanky boy with several folded boxes under his arm.
“Hi, I’m Suzanne,” the girl said, “and this is Ryan, my boyfriend.” Bethany stepped aside and let them in. “I’m so sorry about your dad — ” the girl began, but Bethany turned and waved them off.
“Just get your stuff and get out.”
The two young people disappeared into Bethany’s old room, and for the next hour she heard the sound of a tape gun. A little while later, the two of them made a couple of trips out with boxes, presumably to their car. There wasn’t much stuff.
At last, Ryan left with one more box and Suzanne stood before Bethany in the kitchen.
“About your dad,” Suzanne tried again, “I did the best I could, but I’m still just a student. I tried — ”
“It’s not your fault,” Bethany said sharply, not looking at the girl. “I don’t blame you. He’s the stupid drunk who fell down the stairs.” Suzanne’s brow furrowed.
“Look, it’s not my business — ”
“No, it’s not.”
“It’s not my business,” the girl persisted, “but it was hard for him after your mother died.”
“It was fucking hard for me, too!” Bethany shouted in the girl’s face. “You didn’t know him! You don’t know anything about us!”
“I know what he told me. We talked when I made him dinner.”
“You cooked for him?” Bethany scoffed.
“Sometimes. He wouldn’t eat much unless I made him. I wasn’t his nurse or housekeeper, more like…like a friend.” Bethany glared at her and Suzanne rushed on. “All I wanted to say was he was nice to me, and what happened to him was terrible. I’m sorry.” She slapped a key on the counter and turned and left, pulling the front door closed behind her.
Bethany screamed and raged at the door. She opened the kitchen cabinet and pulled every glass she could reach from it, hurling each one against the wall beside the doorway. She continued screaming and stomping her feet until her voice literally broke and she could only emit a whispering gargle. She collapsed and remained in a heap on the kitchen floor until morning.
|
https://medium.com/storymaker/d-n-r-a2e11ecb895b
|
[]
|
2020-08-16 20:45:40.207000+00:00
|
['Storytelling', 'Fiction', 'Family', 'Fathers', 'Short Story']
|
How to Use Traefik as Ingress Router on AWS
|
Today’s world, microservices are everywhere including cloud environments and on premises. This brings the application ingress routing challenge in the infrastructure includes lots of docker container.
CHALLENGE
Before using Traefik, incoming traffic was routing to containers living in AWS EC2’s via AWS Elastic Load Balancer. For each application, we needed to manually define listener rule (for ex, example.com/foo), healthcheck, traffic port etc. Moreover, we needed to create target group for each application with associated backend server.
These steps become unmanageable and tedious after number of your application, environment(dev,test,staging,prod) and workload grows.
Before Traefik, Our application routing structure was looking like following:
SOLUTION
We decided to deploy reliable, high performer, secure ingress router behind AWS Load Balancer in order to handle application routing challenge. Traefik was the answer for us. Traefik is open-source, fast and reliable edge router written in golang. It is cloud native, easy to adapt, and they have a great community support!
Traefik routes your incoming request to responsible container by using docker container labels.
by using docker container labels. Traefik communicates docker engine via listening docker socket. In this way, traefik automatically discovers routes of your containers even if you add, remove or scale them :) (no manual configuration or restart needed!)
With using Traefik as Ingress proxy, now the structure looks like this:
Traefik routes the incoming traffic to responsible container
Overview
|
https://medium.com/@enginaltay/how-to-use-traefik-as-ingress-router-on-aws-fc559f87f4d8
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[]
|
2020-12-26 14:44:37.758000+00:00
|
['Sre', 'Cloud', 'Ingress', 'DevOps']
|
The great conjunction of 2020 astrology predictions- Saturn conjunct Jupiter
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In this video I discuss The great conjunction of 2020 astrology predictions. On December 21, while we will be stepping into winter via the winter solstice, we will also have a powerful Saturn Jupiter Conjunction in the sign of Aquarius ushering in some powerful and new energy that I feel is fresh and optimistic.
Learn more now by watching the video!
There are not many times in life where you get the opportunity to move in flow with energy that is going to help you close the doors from the past that keep you emotionally. You may try to get ahead and find that there are challenges and barriers that get in the way and to try to get over them requires a great amount of your energy. You also may learn, that this whole time, you are the one that has been getting in the way from you having the success, and relationships, and life that you really want. Well there is a huge opportunity for you to realize what you need to do to finally move forward, especially in relation to those emotional ties or deep seated issues that keep you from realizing success.
If you are on the right path, you can expect to keep experiencing more favor and reap the rewards of all the hard work you have been doing thus far. Your actions and your conviction to do the hard things no matter what will be rewarded. Congrats!
This energy is also favored for those of you that will finally break free from the limited views that keep you back and help you realize that if you need help, healing and freedom is available to you, but it may require the help and support of another to move ahead. It’s the perfect time to consider working with a coach and if you are ready to move forward, the right time is not Jan 1st or some arbitrary date in the future. When you are conscious that you are stuck and need help, that is the time to act.
Check out https://www.yashicasintuition.com/coaching if you are interested in working with me privately.
|
https://medium.com/@yashicasintuition/the-great-conjunction-of-2020-astrology-predictions-saturn-conjunct-jupiter-fed585228e1a
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["Yashica'S Intuition"]
|
2020-12-20 22:07:49.710000+00:00
|
['Astronomy', 'Spirituality', 'The Great Conjunction', 'Astrology', 'Horoscopes']
|
Futures Brawl Wheel of Fortune and ETH Coin-Margined Contract
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Activity One: Futures Brawl!
Wheel of Fortune! Start drawing prizes and win an iPhone12 Pro and 1 BTC now!
Activity Two: ETH Trading Competition!
Catch the rising trend and trade the ETH-Margined contract to share 20,000 USDT!
More information here: https://www.kucoin.com/news/en-activities-for-the-kucoin-futures-1212-super-week
|
https://medium.com/@tajimakaito8/futures-brawl-wheel-of-fortune-and-eth-coin-margined-contract-2b3209b134b3
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['Tajima Kaito']
|
2020-12-14 07:03:52.133000+00:00
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['Futures Brawl', 'iPhone', 'Kucoin', 'Btc', 'Ethereum']
|
Knowing Malaysia | Attracting Capital and Investment in a Malaysian Way
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Establishing a successful startup has never been an easy feat. It takes time and effort to understand consumers, build quality products and consolidate the market. Sustaining a startup’s momentum and transforming it into a billion-dollar unicorn that transcends geographical border, culture and its core business is even more challenging, if not insurmountable given the competitive landscape.
First started as a ride-hailing service provider in 2012 and later evolving into a regional super-app offering services ranging from food delivery to financial services, Grab has defied all odds and established its dominance in Southeast Asia. Grab currently operates in 11 countries and 235 cities, and its green logo has been one of the most recognizable in this region.
First land in Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia and you come across green billboards welcoming you to Grab your way around during your travel. Go into the streets and you see Grab-food deliverers with ubiquitous Grab jackets and Grab helmets zigzagging their way to deliver food to customers. Grab wallet, one of the three main e-wallet providers approved by Malaysia’s government under the e-Tunai scheme, a cashless payment program is also widely used in performing daily transactions. A life in Malaysia is indeed a life that revolves around Grab as epitomized in Grab’s ambitious slogan, “ Your EVERYDAY and EVERYTHING APP”.
Many have known Grab as the first unicorn from Southeast Asia and based in Singapore, but little do they realize that Grab was initially a Malaysian idea, cultivated and brought to life by two aspiring Malaysians, Anthony Tan and Tan Hooi Ling. Grab left Malaysia and moved its base entirely to Singapore in 2014 due to the regulatory constraints in Malaysia concerning capital raising and greater subsidies and funding opportunities provided by Singapore. It is perhaps the greatest missed opportunity for Malaysia and a bittersweet moment in Malaysia’s startup history.
While Malaysia has missed the first start-up wave in Southeast Asia as all unicorns either originate from Singapore or Indonesia, it certainly has the ingredients necessary to become the next cradle of amazing startups in Southeast Asia.
A regional digital hub in the making
Having gone through the soul-searching in the aftermath of losing Grab to Singapore, Malaysia’s government enacted policies that support technology startups and optimize digitalization by establishing a robust infrastructure and technology ecosystem.
Under the Eleventh Plan, Malaysia outlines its aspiration to drive and promote technology and its integration in key industries including commerce, logistics and artificial intelligence to prepare for the fourth industrial revolution. National eCommerce Council (NeCC) was founded in anticipation of the skyrocketing e-commerce business and to better coordinate policy making among different private and public stakeholders.
The creation of the Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ), a brainchild of Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, China’s Alibaba and Electronic World Trade Platform serves to drive seamless cross-border trade and streamline relevant regulations. DFTZ removes critical barriers to e-commerce growth by enhancing Malaysia’s cross border logistics capability and international payment system. Companies including Pos Malaysia, GDEX and Malaysia Airport Holding Berhad play an instrumental role in building up the warehouse facility and regional logistics hub to smoothen the flow of goods. Besides, local banks such as Maybank and CIMB have participated in Alipay’s initiatives to expand its cashless payment service to merchants in Malaysia, thus easing cross-border trade between Malaysia and China. Coupled with its strategic location within KL Aeropolis, Malaysia’s DFTZ became a logistics center capable of handling $65 billion worth of goods annually, a startup and talent hub that powers e-commerce and supports tech-savvy entrepreneurs.
The efforts go beyond a new-generation free trade zone and instead focus on establishing a wide-ranging digital ecosystem. To propel Malaysia’s digital economy, the government, through the National Fiberization and Connectivity Plan channeled more than $50 billion investment into upgrading its broadband infrastructure to ensure fast and expansive connectivity, a pre-requisite to digitalization, automation and robot application in manufacturing, data transmission and analytics. In 2020, Maxis, the largest telco-operator in Malaysia signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei to jointly promote the deployment of 5G operation and its business application.
Malaysia has been one of China’s most reliable partners in the world as demonstrated in its advocation for the One-Belt-One-Road initiative. To date, both countries have signed a five-year economic cooperation plan, RMB Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor program and free-trade agreement. Subsequently, Malaysia-China’s close relationship enables the flow of capital and technology exchange with relative ease. The participation of Alibaba in the e-commerce sector and Huawei in telecommunication field has been well-received. Coupled with Malaysia’s ambition to tap the potential of technology and transform its economy into a tech-driven one, it is expected that Malaysia will be the next regional digital hub in Southeast Asia.
A nation of solar energy
E-commerce aside, Malaysia is also one of the top oil and natural gas producers with Petronas, a state-owned integrated oil firm being ranked 186th in the 2020 Fortune Global 500 list. Its headquarter — Petronas Twin Towers, Malaysia’s most iconic landmark symbolizes national pride and an abundance of oil resources. While the past economic prosperity is propelled by fossil fuel, Malaysia has been gearing full-speed towards a decarbonized future by positioning itself as an important renewable energy (RE) player.
Malaysia experiences hot weather and a high level of solar radiation throughout the year, hence creating the perfect context for harnessing and commercializing solar energy. Since 2008, policies have been in place to strengthen the nascent local solar energy sector. In 2014, Malaysia became the third largest photovoltaic panel producer in the world and aims to be the second largest behind China by 2020. With solar energy officially becoming the cheapest source of electricity after years of investments and technology breakthroughs as the cost of electricity tumbled from $300 to $35 per megawatt-hour within a decade, Malaysia’s solar energy is poised for exponential growth and more innovative startups are expected to join the RE bandwagon.
The government instituted several policies to encourage the uptake of RE on both the consumer and producer fronts with the aspiration to expand the RE output by five times to 2080 MW by 2020. The installation of solar PV panels by households on their rooftops to capture sunlight and generate electricity has been strongly encouraged. Net Energy Metering (NEW) scheme was established in 2018 to allow excess solar PV generated energy to be exported back to the grid, and each electricity unit produced will be offset against 1 electricity unit consumed, a great incentive for consumers to switch to the more environmental friendly and sustainable solar energy.
Besides, new forms of solar financing have been introduced to spur producer participation in the sector. Solar purchase power agreements (PPA) allow third-party entities to fund the development of the solar plants, mainly by supplying technical know-how and design expertise, and in return they sell electricity to investors or consumers at a pre-determined rate. The act of democratizing solar energy production has provided a level playing field for both traditional utility firms and innovative technology startups to offer cost-competitive products and deploy technologically advanced solar components in their production.
Subsequent to the friendly policies and subsidies offered, many international firms and local companies have partnered through PPAs to engage in producing and supplying solar energy to households in Malaysia. Companies and startups have consistently innovated their energy production and transmission methods to achieve cost-efficiency and mass commercialization. Some utility firms opted to construct a large solar field to capture sunlight, generate electricity and export it to the end consumers through the grid; rising startups, on the other end specialize in perfecting the solar panels that will be installed on consumers’ rooftops to maximize the efficiency in converting solar radiation into electricity.
A buzzing scene where innovation happens certainly attracts capital, investments and international players to partner with aspiring local firms. In July 2020, Petronas invested in SOLS Energy, a local Kuala-Lumpur based solar rooftop startup. In the same year, Canadian Solar Inc collaborated with Antah Solar Sdn. Bhd. to construct one of the largest commercial and industrial rooftop solar projects spanning an area of over 26,000 m2 in Penang, an island state in Malaysia. Malaysia’s solar energy industry hit a milestone when Singapore signed an agreement with Malaysia to import 100 megawatts of green electricity over a trial period of two years.
Look at the government’s direction, then discover potential startups
Grab’s story might be an unfortunate one to begin in the chapter of introducing Malaysia to the world as people ponder the reason behind the consistent loss of talent and companies from Malaysia to its more competitive neighbor. However, the government has been determined to catch up in offering the most conducive environment for startups to thrive and new technology to be tested and adopted through a series of effective policies. It is expected to transform into a regional digital and technology-driven logistics hub in near term, a collaborative effort between Malaysia’s and China’s innovative technology companies. Besides, with frameworks that guide the development of solar energy sector, Malaysia will continue to pull in massive capital and investment for its efforts to commercialize renewable energy. For both investors and entrepreneurs, in this small Southeast Asian nation, look at the government’s direction, then invest! They have a track record of spotting the right future trends, and they might continue to be so.
|
https://medium.com/megaone-global-institute/knowing-malaysia-attracting-capital-and-investment-in-a-malaysian-way-f105c7fcd6bd
|
['Megaone Ventures']
|
2020-12-09 16:03:43.680000+00:00
|
['Southeast Asia', 'Enterpreneurship', 'Malaysia Startup', 'Venture Capital', 'Solar Energy']
|
Australia’s Official Representation in Latin America — Should we do More?
|
With Australia’s Asia centric international trade relations, where does Latin America fit into the fold? Two very different regions make for a complicated trading relationship, hence a lack of official Australian representation in the Latin American region. With basic things like language and proximity acting as a barrier to trade, Australia needs to take it’s focus away from Asia and Europe and focus on a market that’s growing at a rapid rate and that has huge potential.
Granted, Latin America has a chequered past with a historically volatile political landscape, often being overlooked by more established stable nations. But it’s an everchanging and evolving landscape that has been developing in leaps and bounds over the last century. Containing some of the fastest growing and largest economies globally like Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Colombia and Peru, Latin America is developing into a hugely attractive market for foreign investors.
From a Latin American point of view, countries within the region need to search for new opportunities. Whilst a lot of them are seeking to renew relations with one of the region’s biggest trading partners, the USA, its current administration is taking a more protectionist approach to trade and foreign investment. Latin America should look to Australia for trade opportunities. According to Austrade, Australia is one of the safest places in the world to invest and do business. Despite being a country that is home to only 0.32% of the world’s population, it’s the 13th largest economy in the world with a GDP of around AUD$1.9 trillion. With high productivity levels, a highly skilled and educated workforce and political and economic stability, it would make sense for Latin American countries to develop ties with Australia.
With drastically different economic and cultural landscapes comes challenges in doing business. The complexities of trading in Latin America can be seen as a barrier for international investment. Australian investors are guaranteed to face challenges like language barriers, differences in business culture and best practices, different legal and financial requirements, a lack of knowledge about the local markets and corruption. Countries like Colombia and Mexico are still trying to sever ties with their in-country problems of drug-trafficking and violence, and Argentina is only just recovering from former protectionism policies that have hindered foreign investment.
But it’s not all bad news, trade between the regions has been steadily increasing over the past few years, regardless of the lack of official Australian representation in the Latin American region. Governments all around the region have been changing policies and frameworks to make international investment easier, encouraging international trade through bi-lateral agreements. And the Australian government is working hard to promote trade with Latin America. Between 2015 and 2016, Australia’s total trade value with Latin America was a staggering AUS$11.2 billion. While the economies continue to expand, foreign investment opportunities for Australian investors keep growing in the region.
Improved diplomatic relations are encouraging trade between the two regions; Australia is increasingly identifying the need for greater official representation in the region. The recent upgrading of the Bogotá Consulate to an embassy is Australia’s sixth overseas post in the region, showing promise for stronger ties. The Australian Government has acknowledged that the establishment of the Australian Embassy in Bogotá, is part of the single largest expansion of its diplomatic network in nearly half a century. With 14,000 Australian visitors to Colombia annually, the embassy will significantly enhance Australia’s presence in the region. Not to forget that Colombia is the fourth largest economy in Latin America that has recently stabilised politically; Colombia’s total annual trade with Australia is worth AU$500 million, with Australia’s investment into the country totalling AU$3 billion. The new stability is creating opportunities in industries where Australia is a global leader, like mining, hydrocarbons, education, agribusiness and insurance.
Colombia is a member of the Pacific Alliance, along with Chile, Peru and Mexico, Latin America’s strongest supporter of trade liberalisation, economic amalgamation and engagement with the Indo-Pacific. A new Free Trade Agreement, that was only passed last year, allows for trade between Peru and Australia.
With staggering figures like 17,000 enrolments by Colombian students into Australian educational institutions in 2016, demonstrates the strengthening connection between the regions. Many Australian universities relying on foreign student fees to deliver effective education to Australian citizens, as well as pay for their services. Australian universities are gradually turning more and more towards Latin America, attracting students from all over the region. With huge revenue streams coming from this market, due to a rapidly growing middle-class and a greater ability for Latin American students to travel, it’s a no brainer that Australian universities are wanting to attract Latin American students.
The region as a whole has seen significant improvements over the years; economic growth has decreased poverty levels, the formation of economic alliances has encouraged trade relations and a shift away from the acceptance of corruption has improved investor confidence. Luckily for Australian investors, the presence of local companies that can assist with security checks, due diligence reports, risk mitigation etc. gives greater confidence to those wanting to invest.
Latin America is not without its problems; however, it makes total economic sense for Australia to continually build trade relations with Latin America and increase their official presence in the region. Governments all around the region have seen the benefits of international trade so they’re doing everything in their power to encourage international investment by making the process as easy as possible.
The continual growth of the region opens up opportunities for Australian investors in a variety of sectors, from mining to infrastructure and agriculture. A lot of these sectors are primary industries within Australia and Latin America, giving Australia a competitive edge. Australia has so much to offer to the region in terms of knowledge and skills, and vice versa.
If Australia continues to value the importance of this region, and continues to understand how important it is to have official representation, then there is a bright future for trade between Australia and Latin America; the current mutually beneficial relationship will only strengthen over time.
|
https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/australias-official-representation-in-latin-america-should-we-do-more-2430a1cb5ffe
|
['Craig Dempsey']
|
2019-02-15 13:56:07.502000+00:00
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['Trade', 'Australia', 'International Relations', 'Foreign Policy', 'Business']
|
Why We Ignore Climate Change
|
Why We Ignore Climate Change
And how to change the way we think
Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash
We’re constantly being told that we’re living in the end of days, that we have until 2030 to reverse our emissions trajectory before shit really hits the fan. But, we still react with the relaxed ‘we’ll worry about that later’ attitude.
Why do we choose to ignore it?
It’s Too Heavy
We have a problem with talking about negative things. We hate it. It’s why we avoid confrontations in relationships, ignore depressing news headlines and try to remove ourselves from mood-killing conversations, even when they’re important. Instead, we withdraw to thinking about topics that make us feel happier — our comfort zone.
We’re afflicted with probability biases. Our inability to think rationally about the likelihood of negative events happening — such as the consequences of extreme weather — leads us to be grossly underprepared when they do.
We see it all too often. People on the news that lose their homes in flooding or wildfires and can’t rebuild because they don’t have insurance.
“We never thought it would happen to us.” And then it does.
These people aren’t alone in their thinking. A UCLA psychologist — Per Espen Stoknes — found that as the depth and accuracy of climate science increased, the level of concern in rich Western democracies fell.
He identified five common barriers that hinder climate action: distance, doom, dissonance, denial and identity. I’ll focus on two — distance and dissonance.
Distance — in both proximity and time — is vital to how we view climate change. Most of us live a long way away from the melting glaciers we hear about. Sure, we all want to save the penguins but they don’t impact our everyday life. Climate models also predict a long way into the future, often with estimates for 2050 or 2100. In 2100, I’ll be 106 years old — or, in other words, dead. It’s difficult to feel connected to something so far away.
We must change this narrative. Climate change isn’t a thing of the future, it’s happening now.
Dissonance is the disparity between doing what we know we should do and the reality of our every day actions. It’s the feeling of hypocrisy we get when we’re discussing the sea level rising over some burgers. This can feed into despair, doom or denial.
Nonetheless, these five barriers are avoidable.
Changing How We Think
To successfully influence our behavioral approach to climate change we need to alter how it is communicated. Science is boring to most people. It’s vital in understanding the threats but unless you’re an expert or researcher, it’s unengaging.
Psychologist George Marshall — author of Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change — says that humans are more inclined to believe information presented in a narratively satisfying way. It appeals to our ‘emotional brain’ and engages us to think about climate change in a more personal and relatable way.
We need to cultivate positive emotions associated with climate actions rather than negative emotions coming from climate impacts.
Feelings of fear intertwined with guilt are not conducive to active engagement. That’s the reason aggressive veganism has hindered progress to influence environmental impact.
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but people don’t like to have their lifestyle criticised by strangers on the internet.
Instead, explaining the environmental benefits of eating less meat and the positive health impacts of fruit and vegetables gets a better response. People feel as though they’re choosing something in their own best interest rather than feeling forced to change to do you a favor.
Incentives fuel the motivation required to change behavior and it’s essential we get the incentives right.
Research found that different messaging yielded varied results in energy consumption over a year. Some people were sent messages that gave insights into how much money could be saved, others were sent messages about the impact of energy usage on the environment and children’s health.
Those that received messages about money consumed the same amount of energy. Meanwhile, households that got messages about how the pollutants from energy consumption could lead to respiratory illness in kids reduced their consumption by 8% and even up to 19% for households with kids.
Another approach was to publicly post the energy consumption of individual apartments within a building and rank them. Natural competitiveness along with the idea that rank reflects social standing resulted in significant reductions.
Messaging is key. Photo — The Guardian
If we make people feel personally attached to climate change, we will see a rapid shift in attitude. Ditching the scientific narrative and making it engaging — which is a lot easier said than done — will empower people to take action.
It’s possible, and it’s going to have to be done. The penguins can’t save themselves.
|
https://marcusarcanjo.medium.com/why-we-ignore-climate-change-ed8f3c400e3a
|
['Marcus Arcanjo']
|
2019-01-20 19:00:21.166000+00:00
|
['Self Improvement', 'Education', 'Psychology', 'Climate Change', 'Environment']
|
Measuring caste in India
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(Pew Research Center illustration)
India’s caste system is an ancient social hierarchy based on occupation and economic status, with roots in historical Hindu writings. People in India are born into a particular caste and tend to keep many aspects of their social life within its boundaries, including whom they marry and whom they choose to count as their close friends.
Despite the caste system’s significance in Indian society, there is no consensus on exactly what proportion of Indians belong to each caste category. One commonly cited source for this information is the nation’s 2011 census, but its methods for determining caste have been criticized for anomalies and errors. Surveys have also tried to measure caste in India, but they tend to use a different methodology and generally produce different estimates from those produced by the census.
This post explains why caste distribution in India is consequential to policymaking and politics. It also explores the methodological differences between the country’s census and national surveys — including a new Pew Research Center survey — when it comes to measuring caste in India.
Background
Most Indians say they belong to a lower caste category — specifically, Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) or Other Backward Class (OBC), according to the Center’s new survey, which was fielded in 17 languages among nearly 30,000 Indian adults between Nov. 17, 2019, and March 23, 2020.
Notably, even though not all religions in India theologically recognize a caste system, nearly all Indians (98%) identify as a member of a caste, regardless of their religious background. For example, 33% of Christians in India identify as SC, even though Christianity does not traditionally have a caste system.
Members of India’s lower castes historically have formed the lower social and economic rungs of society and have faced discrimination and unequal economic opportunities. The Indian Constitution bans “untouchability,” a practice that has been used to ostracize members of SC (often referred to as Dalits). And there have been government policies put in place to provide economic support for members of historically disadvantaged castes. Today, this includes an affirmative action system that reserves spots at universities and some portion of government jobs for members of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. The size and scope of many of these programs, known collectively as “reservation,” is politically controversial.
While there may be a social stigma associated with identifying as a member of a lower caste, there may also be incentives associated with doing so. To the extent that there are biases associated with identifying as lower caste in the census or a survey, the direction of the bias remains unclear.
Caste in India’s 2011 census
In India’s 2011 census, only Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists — who form over 80% of the nation’s population, according to the census — could be classified as Scheduled Castes. Muslims, Christians and members of other religions may have been excluded because these religions, at least in principle, do not have a caste system. However, members of all religions could be classified as Scheduled Tribes, as tribal communities often have many different religious backgrounds.
India’s 2011 census enumerators made an effort to independently verify whether respondents were correctly classifying themselves as Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe. This was no easy feat: Indians who said they were part of a Scheduled Caste or Tribe were then asked to name which caste or tribe they were from. Enumerators had to match the group name to a pre-approved list of more than 1,000 castes and tribes that differed by state. If a respondent identified as a member of a Scheduled Caste or Tribe, but the name they gave was not on the list, they were not counted as SC or ST in the census.
Using this methodology, the 2011 census reported 17% of Indians as members of Scheduled Castes and 9% as members of Scheduled Tribes.
OBC, an additional lower caste category with yet another set of parameters than SC and ST, was not measured as part of the 2011 census. This category came to the forefront in 1990 when the government of then-Prime Minister V.P. Singh tried to implement an additional 27% reservation for members of OBC in the country’s government jobs, with the reasoning that there were other socioeconomically disadvantaged people in India besides SC or ST. The decision to implement the quota was based on an earlier report by the government-appointed Mandal Commission on social backwardness in India. With additional reservation for OBC communities, the total caste-based reservation would increase considerably to about 50% or higher in some states. The government’s decision to implement the reservation policies was widely seen as a political ploy and led to protests around the country, including a series of self-immolations by university students.
Despite the high political salience of the OBC category, no official estimates of the group are currently available. The Mandal Commission was heavily criticized for basing its recommendations on a pre-independence census. A second census fielded in 2011 focused on caste with the aim of obtaining more accurate numbers on lower castes in India, including OBCs, but this data has not been released due to data quality concerns.
Survey estimates
Pew Research Center’s new survey about religion in India asked about caste in a different way than the 2011 Indian census. All respondents, regardless of religion, were asked this question: Are you from a General Category, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe or Other Backward Class? (Note: General Category includes castes and sub-castes that don’t fall into a lower caste category.)
Using this methodology, 25% of Indians self-identify as Scheduled Caste and 9% say they are from a Scheduled Tribe. The SC estimate is considerably higher than the 2011 census estimate of 17%, although the ST estimate is identical (9%). An additional 35% of Indians identify as OBC in the Center’s survey.
The difference between the census and the survey estimate of SC may in part be a result of who was asked the question. The Center’s survey asked everyone, while the census asked only Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. Also, the survey asked people to self-identify into these categories and did not include a checking procedure as the 2011 census did.
In the Center’s survey, the Hindu caste distribution generally resembles that of the total population, but minority groups differ widely in their caste composition. For example, a large majority of Buddhists (89%) identify as SC, but just 3% of Jains fall into this category. Among Muslims, a small share (4%) identify as SC, but many (43%) identify as OBC.
How do these caste estimates compare with those produced by other national, probability-based surveys in India? Survey results differ based on several factors, including sampling, weighting methodology and question wording. But even when taking these differences into account, surveys often report a higher share of Scheduled Caste members than the 2011 census. For instance, the India Human Development Survey and previous Pew Research Center surveys report caste distributions that are generally aligned with the results of the latest Center survey.
These surveys differ in question wording, but they ask all respondents their caste, and they do not independently verify caste names. Further, these surveys do not use caste in the sampling design — either in how they distribute the interviews nationally or in how they weight the data.
Surveys that incorporate caste in the sampling design
Another comparison point is the National Family Health Survey (NFHS). NFHS is one of the largest government surveys in India, and it is considered a national benchmark for several measures. In a survey conducted in 2015–2016, NFHS asked all respondents their caste. But according to the survey’s documentation, NFHS used the 2011 census caste distributions in its stratification at the sample design stage. This means that the compiled list of all Census Enumeration Blocks in urban areas and villages in rural areas were divided into subgroups based on the percentage of the population belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as determined by the census data.
This design decision increased the likelihood that the caste distribution of those sampled would be similar to what the census reported as the national caste distribution. Even with these design choices, the 2015–2016 NFHS reported a higher share of Scheduled Castes than the census — 21% vs. 17%. (For reference, Pew Research Center’s latest survey study finds 25% of Indians belonging to Scheduled Castes.)
The National Election Studies (NES), performed by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, are some of the largest pre- and post-election public polls in India, and they weight to the national census for caste. This strategy aligns the survey’s caste estimates to approximately those of the census.
Whether or not researchers decide to stratify or weight a survey to census caste numbers can depend on the goals of the survey. With surveys that aim to report on issues such as voting behavior or socioeconomic status, like the NFHS or the NES, including caste in the design could better meet the survey’s goals. However, because these surveys include caste in the design of the study, their caste estimates can be closer to those of the census and not directly comparable with Pew Research Center surveys or other surveys that do not include caste in the design.
Caste remains a complicated and integral aspect of life in India, as well as a political flashpoint. Measuring caste in India is highly consequential for understanding social dynamics in Indian society as well as for policymaking. But so far there is no consensus on how to measure caste identity in India, or even who should be asked the question (all Indians or members of particular religious groups). These differences in methodology can result in national sample surveys yielding different estimates than the 2011 Indian census.
This post was written by Kelsey Jo Starr and Neha Sahgal of Pew Research Center. Kelsey Jo Starr is a research analyst focusing on religion. Neha Sahgal is an associate director of religion research.
|
https://medium.com/pew-research-center-decoded/measuring-caste-in-india-ba27c46d905b
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['Kelsey Jo Starr']
|
2021-07-01 18:02:41.153000+00:00
|
['Surveys', 'India', 'Hinduism', 'Caste', 'Islam']
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Recreating The Gear Icon Animation from iOS in SwiftUI
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The spikes of the cog are created with a replicator layer. The replicator layer repeats the instance layer a specified number of times. The instance layer is filled with a simple shape that looks like a spike on the gear. With a rotation in proportion to the number of spikes, the replicator layer rotates each spike correctly.
In order to use CAReplicatorLayer in SwiftUI, we must wrap our SpikeCircleView in a UIViewRepresentable View.
|
https://medium.com/@patmalt/recreating-the-gear-icon-animation-from-ios-in-swiftui-fd617dae18b0
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['Patrick Maltagliati']
|
2020-11-26 16:40:33.956000+00:00
|
['Swiftui', 'iOS App Development', 'Swift']
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How To Drive Free WhatsApp Traffic To Your Website in 23 Seconds.
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How To Drive Free WhatsApp Traffic To Your Website in 23 Seconds.
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https://medium.com/@anthonymike/how-to-drive-free-whatsapp-traffic-to-your-website-in-23-seconds-fd6259ef13fb
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['Anthony Michael']
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2021-04-25 12:07:13.045000+00:00
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['Traffic', 'WhatsApp', 'Whatsapp Traffic']
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The importance of Body Positivity and Body Image
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Everyone deserves to be happy in their body and their mind. We spend our whole life working for that goal. But this does not imply that it is an easy path to take, especially in today’s society, where the pursuit of a healthier lifestyle is shaped by societal standards of appearance and acceptability. So how on earth are we supposed to do that? There’s no short magic answer, to be honest. However, there may be a way to make the journey easier.
Photo by Gantas Vaičiulėnas on Unsplash
So what is Body Positivity?
Body Positivity means accepting your body, the way it is, as well as accepting the changes that it may have in the future, depending on size, shape, age, nature, genetics, personal choices, regardless of how society and popular culture view ideal shape, size, and appearance. Embracing body positivity is a radical act of self-care and self-love.
Body Positivity aims at challenging how society views the body and promoting the acceptance of all bodies.
Body image refers to a person’s subjective perception of their own body, which may be different from how their body actually appears. Feelings, thoughts, and behaviors related to body image can have a major impact on your mental health and how you treat yourself.
For instance, depression, low self-esteem and eating disorders are problems that can emerge from poor body image.
I am someone who struggled with body image issues, and still do from time to time. To be honest, there has been a moment in my life when I couldn’t bear looking in the mirror for several days because I would have burst into tears if I had.
One of the main objectives of Body Positivity is to look at how the body image affects mental health and well-being. People’s feelings about their appearance and even how they judge their self-worth are influenced by their body image.
Okay, let’s talk about something a little more controversial. It is common knowledge that society has appearance and acceptability expectations, and its perceptions of individuals are shaped not only by their physical size and form, but also by their race, gender, sexuality, and disability. When you understand that happiness requires a sense of self-worth and a general sense of contentment with life, it becomes clear which societal expectations are healthy and which are not.
How does society and social media influence people’s body image?
I could talk about a number of unique ways in which society and social media influences the perception I have of myself, yet it all comes down to one thing: social media shapes one’s body image, often making you despise your own in the process.
For instance, we didn’t care if we were chubby or tiny when we were babies. We didn’t give a damn about how our hair or how our skin looked that day. When we are young, we’re more concerned with living life to the fullest rather than worrying about how our jeans fit or whether we’re wearing enough makeup.
One of the reasons we became distracted from living and enjoying life to the fullest is because every day, our minds are bombarded with messages telling us that we are not suitable unless and until we meet a certain standard.
Over the years, there has been a lot of discussions about how the mainstream media portrays unrealistic beauty ideals. With influencers filling up our social media feeds, it’s safe to believe that social media isn’t always helping our body image in a positive way.
Furthermore, the influencers’ feeds aren’t the only ones that can negatively affect our body image. The posts of distant peers or acquaintances have the same effect on body image issues as celebrities’ feeds, according to a survey on 227 female university students.
If you think about it, people show a one-sided version of their lives online. When you know someone well, you’ll notice that they’re just showing the highlights, but if you only know them casually, you won’t be able to tell.
The truth, though, is much more nuanced than we expect. It would be unreasonable to criticize all aspects of social media. Actually, social media can be a great platform for promoting body positivity, and creating a safe community. There might be ways to organize your Instagram feed to help you feel better in your own body, or at the very least, to prevent you from feeling worse.
Of course, as I previously said, the use of social media does seem to be linked to body image issues, which is particularly problematic when it comes to negative body image thoughts. However, if you use social media correctly, it may be a rocket launcher of positive body image and healthy thoughts.
You have to build the world in which you are evolving wisely, rather than accepting the stereotypical and unrealistic universe society and social media have put you in. There is some content out there that is actually beneficial to body image that you can follow.
Is it easy to adopt a body-positive mindset?
Certainly not. Simply telling people to embrace themselves and to be resilient in the face of images that promote the thin, slim waisted, curved, and nice skin ideal can be harmful.
Telling people to ignore the dominant beauty ideal isn’t realistic.
Popular culture tells us that we are flawed, but we are somehow expected to have a positive attitude about it. Feeling positive about your body can be misinterpreted and turned into an obligation or a simple trend you should follow, whereas not feeling positive about your body can lead to shame and guilt. Just because a lot of people in your life act or think in a certain way doesn’t mean it’s normal or healthy, or that they know how to be happy and successful.
I’m not saying that you should not say nice things to yourself and think positively about yourself, but that simply masking negative thoughts with positive messages is not the right path to a healthier mindset.
Working on replacing negative thought patterns with more realistic ones would be a better approach. You have to let go of those expectations and habits that give you constant feelings of insecurity and embrace the ones that bring you inner peace and self-acceptance. It means acknowledging that strict ways of judging yourself must be abandoned in favor of sensible and realistic approaches to health and appearance in terms of body size, weight, and eating.
It’s okay to admit that you don’t love each aspect of your body. It’s ok to feel neutral or even indifferent about your body. Body image does play a part in self-concept, but it isn’t everything.
You know, none of these things are easy. The truth is that it takes time and a lot of effort to develop a positive-body attitude. (I’m personally still struggling and figuring this out.)
It takes continual effort and, in most cases, it’s not something you can perfectly achieve. There will be times when you feel vulnerable, dislike certain aspects of yourself, or compare yourself to others. The key is to keep trying to come up with new ways to avoid the negative thought patterns that lead to negative body image.
Self-care is described as a deliberate action taken to improve one’s physical, mental, and emotional health. Self-care can take many forms. It could be ensuring you get enough sleep every night, or taking a sip of a hot cup of tea while reading your favorite book, or stepping outside for a few minutes for some fresh air.
Self-care may be misinterpreted as a way of modifying or controlling your appearance, but it should instead focus on behaviors that make you feel comfortable in your current body, whether it is mentally, emotionally or physically.
It’s important to remember that the body and mind are tightly connected. You’ll think and feel better if you take care of your body. Show respect for your body. Eat healthy meals because it fuels your mind and body, not because you want to lose weight. Exercise because it helps you feel strong and energized, not because you’re trying to change or control your body. Your body’s size and shape may change in the future, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to look and feel good about yourself right now. Try following accounts that embrace all body sizes, shapes, colors, genders, and abilities. Set your own healthy standards for weight and eating.
Look for things that make you feel comfortable and confident in your body and your mind. Allowing society to dictate what is acceptable to you if it means sacrificing your self-worth, happiness, or quality of life is not an option.
SOURCES
Oakes, Kelly. « The Complicated Truth about Social Media and Body Image. », Future BBC
Rodriguez, Lavinia. « Don’t Let Society Set Standards for Your Health, Happiness ». Tampa Bay Times
Cherry, Kandra. « Why Body Positivity Is Important ». Verywell Mind
Scott, Elizabeth. « 5 Self-Care Practices for Every Area of Your Life ». Verywell Mind
|
https://medium.com/@louise-rogers/the-importance-of-body-positivity-and-body-image-d256c467cb67
|
['Louise Rogers']
|
2021-04-26 17:02:03.041000+00:00
|
['Self Care', 'Happiness In Life', 'Body', 'Body Positive', 'Self Love']
|
In Which the Elite Network Comes Through for Me At Last
|
My mother’s father was a wealthy lawyer in Manhattan, and he lived in a penthouse on the 20th floor of an Upper East Side apartment building.
According to a story I was told several times as a child, it was during a family visit to the Statue of Liberty, in the shadow of our greatest symbol of American opportunity, that my grandfather took his son-in-law, my father, aside, and magnanimously declared that he would not have to worry about affording college for myself or my brother.
Meanwhile, my grandmother, a long-time employee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a rainmaker in her own right, was not to be outdone by her ex-husband: when I’d completed the college review process and identified Elite Liberal Arts School A as my top choice, my grandmother informed me that she was friends with the oldest living alumnus of that institution, and she would be able to convince him — even though we had never met — to write a letter of recommendation on my behalf.
Would I have gotten into Elite Liberal Arts School A — much less had the confidence to apply — without these two factors working in my favor? A person can drive themselves crazy wondering.
Still, if you’re picturing a frat boy drinking his way through college, pressuring women to have sex and using his family’s charitable giving as a bludgeon to receive better grades, you couldn’t be further from the truth. I didn’t have sex with anyone in college; I could barely bring myself to hold a girl’s hand. And there was drinking and a sense of rather carefree enjoyment, but great anxieties and confusion surged within me throughout much of the experience. I felt disconnected, overwhelmed. I spent the first semester of college drawing Dungeons and Dragons maps in my dorm room while my roommate was out partying with his soccer friends, and I didn’t once try to use some kind of connection or influence to get a better grade; I wouldn’t have even known how.
And then there’s this: for someone who went to an elite liberal arts college, I sure had a difficult time finding a job after graduation.
Whereas many of my classmates spent their college career complaining about “the man” or “the patriarchy” only to pick up some investment banking job or theater gig through their parents’ network after graduation, my parents were totally useless. The trials and disillusionment I experienced during my post-graduation period could fill a separate essay entirely, and maybe one day I will write it. The bottom line is that, although I was raised within spitting distance of Elite White Male Privilege, for various reasons I was unable or unwilling to fit the mold of what we all imagine it looks like.
Eventually, after teaching at a summer camp, traveling across the country, and working in data entry, I badgered my way into an internship in Washington, DC. I was not really qualified for this opportunity, but it was two months after September 11, 2001, and nobody wanted to live in Washington; as I found out later, the people who were more qualified than me for the job had either turned it down or failed to return the calls of the hiring manager.
Having an interesting white-collar job with decent pay at last, after so many disappointments, felt thrilling. And I could do the job well even though my resume wasn’t the greatest fit.
At the time I got the offer, I was waking up every morning in the cold attic of a D.C. row house owned by a family-friend-of-a-friend. Soon I could afford my own apartment and I was looking for a way to keep working past the expiration of my internship.
This is when my Elite White Male Privilege, expressed in its rawest and most essential form — the pedigree of the college — finally came through for me in old-fashioned style.
Keep this in mind for the below explanation: I didn’t take a single public health class at Elite Liberal Arts College A.
Indeed, the only class I took in the sciences was Geology 101, and I had managed to acceptably squeak by with a B-. I majored in English as an undergraduate. My senior thesis was a screenplay.
Nevertheless, I applied for two salaried jobs with the title “Health Analyst” within my company.
In both cases, I made it to the personal interview stage because my potential future supervisors saw on my resume that I had gone to Elite Liberal Arts College A.
In the case of the first position, in the legislative affairs arm of the company where I was interning, one of my interviewers had taken a semester at my alma mater in the 1960s, and it had apparently been among the greatest experiences of his life. I can only guess at what would have happened then, and I do not recall where he had gone for the rest of his college career. Regardless, the echoes of that long-ago experience were evidentially drifting through his mind as he interviewed me and developed, I suppose, a favorable impression.
With the other job, deep in the policy-analysis bowels of the company, my potential future supervisor — a graduate of my alma mater — led me to understand that the work of a public health analyst in his office was not glamorous, but that he would enjoy having a fellow alum working for him. He was a nice guy named Tim, a hippie in a business suit with piercing blue eyes, and from him I learned a secret about the professional work world — that because many employers may want to hire but do not have the time to go through the selection process, it’s sometimes easiest to find the person that you want to hire and then write the job announcement, and post the job, specifically for them.
I still remember how much I laughed when I looked at the job announcement Tim emailed me with a nod and a wink.
Among the suitable degrees for the “Health Analyst” position were listed Public Health, Epidemiology, Health Administration, Environmental & Occupational Health… and at the end, hastily added to the list with an extra space after the serial comma: English.
I was too embarrassed to save the job announcement, but today I wish that I had so that I could frame it — Elite White Male Privilege, Exhibit A.
Perhaps because of this too-obvious case of nepotism, I ended up politely declining Tim’s job and accepted the other job.
Weirdly, the guy in the legislative affairs office who had waxed so poetically about his semester at my alma mater had already retired by the time I showed up. This was a relief, because I was worried that he would have expected me to know some secret elite handshake that I had never been shown or sing the praises of a college that I in fact felt, and to this day still feel, ambivalent about.
Although my life would not have ended had I failed to get accepted at Elite Liberal Arts College A, I would have certainly led a very different life than I do today.
Would it have been better? Probably not.
Indeed, the evidence suggests that my privilege allowed me to achieve a degree of professional and personal success despite my incomplete imprinting with the Elite White Male Privilege template.
This troubles me.
And it probably will for the rest of my life.
If there are still amends to be made, some penance to be paid, I can only hope that one day I will understand what my atonement looks like.
|
https://medium.com/@everythinghereistrue/in-which-the-elite-network-comes-through-for-me-at-last-f6397de02141
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['Jack Luna']
|
2020-12-07 13:21:10.315000+00:00
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['Personal Essay', 'College', 'Education', 'Networking', 'Advice']
|
Life is unpredictable soo live today
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How many times it happens to you that you were all set, all planned, for something you decided then suddenly an unexpected event occurs and your whole plan seems a waste, worthless, or no longer meant anything and you start questioning yourself why this happened to me? , what will I do? and hell a lot more why’s. But for a moment think about what that unexpected turn brings into your life. If it’s favorable, jump in the excitement and enjoy this unexpected event brought to your life.
When good things happen try to enjoy them. We have to enjoy good things and give them the time they deserve. Don’t just ruin them with overthinking, Celebrate them.
When bad things happen, do the best you can like said when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and enjoys. Face whatever challenge put in front of you with courage. You are strong enough to deal with anything. Never lose hope and have a positive attitude towards everything.
In life, you can’t plan everything neither everything goes according to your plan. So whatever situation you find yourself in, believe that it shall pass too. Understand that life is unpredictable and you won’t have control over a few things. Enjoy the happy times and don’t take them for granted.
Find purpose in life and build yourself each day.
|
https://medium.com/@aayushijindal03/life-is-unpredictable-soo-live-today-67b7baab5b01
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['Aayushi Jindal']
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2020-12-27 17:14:23.973000+00:00
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['Hope', 'Moments', 'Faith', 'Life', 'Unpredictable']
|
May-Flower
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Pink, small, and punctual,
Aromatic, low,
Covert in April,
Candid in May,
Dear to the moss,
Known by the knoll,
Next to the robin
In every human soul.
Bold little beauty,
Bedecked with thee,
Nature forswears
Antiquity.
|
https://medium.com/@poetic-curation/may-flower-cee8944d6cfc
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[]
|
2020-12-11 22:04:19.645000+00:00
|
['Poetry', 'Flowers', 'Spring', 'Poem', 'Poetry On Medium']
|
Doonesbury’s Charlie Hebdo Problem
|
Sign up for Taking Stock of COVID: New comics from The Nib
By The Nib
New comics from Matt Lubchansky, Keith Knight, and Niccolo Pizarro. Plus How Seniors Are Living With COVID-19. Take a look
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https://medium.com/the-nib/doonesbury-s-charlie-hebdo-problem-5b6b5f23f94c
|
['Ruben Bolling']
|
2015-05-07 11:38:47.688000+00:00
|
['Garry Trudeau', 'Charlie Hebdo', 'Free Speech']
|
How Our COO Ryan Sturgis Figures it All Out
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How Our COO Ryan Sturgis Figures it All Out
It was a moment of location-based kismet that led Ryan Sturgis, 34, on his righteous Dude path, courtesy of his parents. When the Sturgis family decided to sell their house but stay in the same Fort Lauderdale neighborhood, it was none other than the Koss family who purchased their old home. Shortly after, both couples got pregnant, setting the Dude wheels in motion with a baby Koss and baby Sturgis on the way. Koss and Sturgis have been friends, “or more like brothers” ever since, making Delivery Dudes a family since day one.
When they started the company in 2009, Sturgis kicked off a grassroots marketing campaign by skateboarding around town with friends handing out flyers. While they were both excited about the possibility of starting a company and being their own bosses, working together at this stage provided some creative differences, which took them on different paths. Both Sturgis and Koss took time off to pursue other goals but decided to give the partnership another go in 2012 when Koss recruited Sturgis back to the Dude cause. For Sturgis, it felt good to trade in a suit and tie for shorts and flip flops again, even though it was no easy ride “bootstrapping it from the ground up.
“Jayson has always been the idea guy, and I’ve largely been the detail and execution part of the equation,” Sturgis said. “We started building our little empire one delivery at a time. Delray was the original and the epicenter. The business was so small at that time that it couldn’t support many people financially, so we spread out over multiple markets to encourage faster growth. We started recruiting our friends and teaching them what we knew about our ‘systems’ of the time, which were comprised largely of duct tape, spit, and bubble gum.”
While that system proved to be successful, and they experienced phenomenal triple-digit growth, they were still learning how to run a franchise business as well as managing multiple markets. “It took everything I had just to keep up with the business,” said Sturgis, who worked non-stop for three and a half years.
With their eye on the prize, they restructured the business in 2015 as a commonly owned entity instead of an extremely segmented one. While this presented a whole new set of management challenges, it provided their early team members a chance to transition into more of an upper management style role. They learned and grew from each challenge and opportunity, and day by day, with one foot in front of the other, they started to figure it out.
“In fact, it’s been such a pervasive theme, we tweaked it into one of our core values: ‘It’s all good dude, we’ll figure it out,’” Sturgis said. “It’s taken a couple of years to really elevate our team, myself included, and we’re finally getting into a pretty stable flow.”
While occasionally being called upon to department hop, he’s mostly responsible for company operations, sales, and legal. Concerning longer-range focus, he champions vital projects that require multiple departments to work together. And of course, always ensuring that Delivery Dudes is still a great company to work with and for.
“For us, it’s all about having the best service and selection. We’re entrenched in our markets, and we have all of the best restaurants in the cities and towns we service. When something goes wrong, as it inevitably will, just let us know, and we guarantee you’ll be satisfied with the outcome,” Sturgis said. “Lastly, when it comes to our Delivery Dudes, we’re very selective with whom we will work with to bring you your order, this is crucial to order accuracy, an order being transported with care, and your interaction with Dudes & Dudettes both at the door and out in restaurants.
In the beginning, the goal was simple. Create happy customers by delivering the food people want from the places they love. Today, however, it has become significantly apparent that we can make a more significant impact on our customers, community, and the planet. We have the power to make life better.
Sturgis’ passions include creative projects and being one with the ocean. In the coming years, he hopes to continue to work on ways to soften the Dudes’ environmental footprint through deeper partnerships with their restaurants. The Dudes teamed up with 4Ocean earlier this year to help eliminate plastic cutlery from their orders. While this partnership was a small step, it was a small step in the right direction. Sturgis is confident they’ll have more ideas coming down the environmental pipeline that will better the Earth’s pipeline.
When this doer of all things Dude isn’t Dude-ing, he’s surfing, spearfishing, mountain biking, building things, traveling, and skiing. Or, you’ll find him indulging in healthy and delicious fare from Myapapaya in Fort Lauderdale, where he still lives in the neighborhood where it all began.
He’s been a part of the serious growth, serious thinking, and serious fun of the Dude empire, and the anti-norm rollercoaster isn’t slowing down.
|
https://medium.com/@deliverydudes/how-our-coo-ryan-sturgis-figures-it-all-out-6e37588a1290
|
['Delivery Dudes']
|
2019-10-17 13:46:59.971000+00:00
|
['Small Business', 'Delivery', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Food Delivery', 'Restaurant']
|
When Do Babies Cut Teeth?
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Photo by The Honest Company on Unsplash
The birth of a child is a miracle of nature. What’s more miraculous are the stages of development of humans from an infant to an adult. Regardless of the race, religion or ethnicity all children broadly follow similar phases of development. The development cycle consists of milestones which mark an end to one phase of growth and the beginning of the next.
One such milestone is teething. As parents of a newborn child, a lot of questions surround young couples.
· When do babies start turning sides on their own?
· When Do Babies Cut Teeth?
· When do babies start sitting?
These questions though very basic can cause a lot of paranoia among parents as the answers to these questions may vary from child to child.
Baby teeth usually cut through anytime between 3–12 months. The entire process of the 20 baby teeth erupting can last until 2 years of age. Although the process is calling teething or cutting teeth, the teeth do not actually cut through the gums. On the contrary, the gums separate thereby allowing the teeth to emerge. Babies usually have noticeable symptoms a month or two prior to cutting teeth like chewing on toys or fingers, restless sleep at night, drooling, etc.
Babies can go through a lot of discomforts before and during the process of cutting teeth. It is a difficult period for both the baby and the parents as babies tend to get irritable, cranky and can also have trouble settling at night. Gently massaging the baby’s gums with a clean finger usually helps soothe the irritation and pain, if any. This period of discomfort, fortunately, does not last long.
Babies cut teeth in a fairly predictable order. The process normally starts off with the lower central incisors (front two teeth on the lower gums) cutting through. This is followed by upper central incisors (front two teeth on the upper gums), upper lateral incisors, lower lateral incisors, first set of molars, canines and second set of molars. The onset of the teething phase may vary but the order usually remains the same. Female infants usually cut teeth sooner than their male counterparts.
However, heredity plays an important role in the process of teething. Babies may start cutting teeth early or follow a different order of teeth eruption due to heredity. Hence the question — when do babies cut teeth? — can provide a generic response not taking into consideration the heredity factors.
Every baby has a different way of reaching the development cycle milestones. Some babies can tolerate pain and discomfort more than others. Hence it is important to keep an eye of the little activities that a baby does on a daily basis to be able to identify the symptoms of cutting teeth correctly. The pain and discomfort experienced by a baby while the teeth are cutting through usually do not last for more than two days.
Mild fever or mild diarrhea is also experienced by some babies. These symptoms may denote teething or some other health discomfort. Hence it is important to observe these symptoms closely and consult a pediatrician if the symptoms persist to avoid delays in treatment.
There are a lot of activities a baby does on a daily basis which may include biting fingers, pulling ears, creating coughing sounds, drooling, difficulty sleeping at night, etc. These activities, as innocuous as they may sound can indicate that the baby is entering the teething phase.
A sudden increase in such activities should induce the parents to check the gums for swelling, redness or any signs of teeth cutting through. Although when babies cut teeth has an approximate time frame of 3–12 months, there have been many instances when teeth have cut through at the age of 15 months. The cycle of development of an infant is a process and there can be variations in the process.
Cutting teeth early is by no means an indicator of a healthy child (which used to be a belief in ancient times). It is a milestone in the development phase and comes to some babies sooner than the others.
There are a lot of medicines available which claim to make the process of teething easier and pain-free for the baby. These are usually child-safe pain relief medicines. These medicines, if used should be given to the baby only after consultation with the pediatrician.
When babies cut teeth, it will be discomforting for the baby and parents both. While in some cases the pain can be overwhelming for the baby, usually it is more of discomfort that keeps the baby irritated. Under any circumstances, over the counter medicines (OTC’s) should be avoided and only taken post consultation.
There are a huge variety of soothing toys for infants cutting teeth. These are usually called teethers or teething rings. These are often filled with some sort of a fluid or gel than can be frozen or refrigerated. A frozen or cold teether can soothe the teething pain that babies experience when their teeth cut through. These products can usually withstand tough bites to ensure the fluid stays inside. However, teethers need to be cleaned regularly with warm water to avoid any infections.
Historically, teethers date way back to the 17th century thereby making them the oldest tried and tested companions for babies in the teething phase. Teethers come with rings or rattlers to keep the baby occupied and get distracted from the irritation or pain caused by the cutting teeth.
As parents watching the miracle of nature unfold in the form of the development cycle of their baby, questions such as “When do babies cut teeth?” are expected. But, a good understanding of the baby’s daily activities, consultation with a pediatrician, teethers and warm loving parental care can make the experience more enjoyable than worrisome.
It is important to remember that the age for a baby cutting teeth can vary and so can the symptoms. There are no fixed time frames; it is a process that unfolds itself.
|
https://medium.com/@amyandrose/when-do-babies-cut-teeth-7c516b510fde
|
['Amy Rose']
|
2019-09-15 02:59:48.533000+00:00
|
['Teething', 'Health', 'Parents', 'Parenting', 'Baby']
|
Ladies, Don’t Let Religion Stop You From Dating People You Like!
|
Ladies, Don’t Let Religion Stop You From Dating People You Like!
Why so many ladies back-pedal when they hear I’m religious?
“Hey Oren, I decided to be brave and send you a message when I saw your post.”
That message appeared in my message requests on Facebook today. I published I’m looking for my other half in a group on Facebook where they allow dating threads every Friday.
I answered the message, and we started chatting. Then the woman wrote the following:
“Yeah, I realized you’re religious right after I sent the message…”
This encounter is not the first time religion seems to stand between attractive girls and me. I’m Jewish and Orthodox, and I guess some women don’t like the idea of keeping Shabbat. I wrote about the many benefits of keeping Shabbat non-religiously before.
Also, I live in Tel Aviv, Israel. It’s not like I’m dating somewhere where Jewish people are scarce. This country is a Jewish country! Where else am I supposed to look?
What’s funny to me is that some women saw my picture and sent a message without reading much of the text. I wrote I’m religious in the second line of the post.
Last night I also talked with another woman who then said that my being religious doesn’t work for her.
Earlier this week, I took a woman to dinner where she talked about how her brother is getting married on November to a religious woman, and he started putting on a Kipa and keeping Shabbat because of her.
By the way, some people keep religious tenets without putting on a Kipa. Some may even be more religious than I am — and I do wear a Kipa.
When I told her I do it too, she said she is not like her brother. Their family is traditionally religious meaning they are not keeping Shabbat or holiday but do eat Kosher and do some of the religious tenets.
We ended the date with a question mark. Both she and I had to decide if we want to give this a chance.
The next morning I decided we could try and see what happens. The long-curly-haired young woman decided religion was a deal-breaker for her.
I don’t know what makes so many women reject the idea of a religious man. Here are three points I want to make that will help you deal with the idea of a religious man in your lives.
|
https://medium.com/a-geeks-blog/ladies-dont-let-religion-stop-you-from-dating-people-you-like-37e6c25cf05f
|
['Oren Cohen']
|
2020-05-20 12:28:04.174000+00:00
|
['Self-awareness', 'Religion', 'Relationships', 'Life Lessons', 'Judaism']
|
Writing About the Self in the Age of Narcissism
|
But how does she do it? What allows her to disappear into herself? Most artists I’ve known or have studied are exquisitely sensitive and needy creatures, craving acceptance and love to an abnormal degree. They swing wildly between the two poles of grandiosity — “I’m the greatest” and “I’m the worst” and they still have a child-like desire for approval. Okay, maybe I’m just describing myself. But I don’t think I’m alone! Try to name a classic rock band or rapper who didn’t start making music as a way to get love or get laid. On the higher brow end of the spectrum, David Foster Wallace crudely said of writing Infinite Jest, his 1,100 page masterpiece, that it was a way to impress a woman he was crushed out on: “It was a means to her end.” But the motivating force behind any great work doesn’t really matter. Whatever spurs an artist to enter that deep space where creations materialize is fair game. When I recently started a Facebook thread on this subject, my writer friend Mela Heestand commented,
“The deeper you go into the particular self, the closer you get to the universal. I absolutely want any work of art to go as far as the artist is willing to go into the self. It’s generous, even if the artist is also looking for adulation.”
Whew, that’s good to hear and I know it to be true. Of course, once an artist becomes a celebrity, what started out as productive self-absorption often becomes a true psychological disorder: malignant narcissism.
My parents had a bit of this more malignant strain, whereas I suffer from narcissistic injury, according to my Jungian therapist who specializes in this kind of thing. My injury really has two main symptoms. First, it frequently presents as an angry voice in my head, which, when observed from the proper angle, is actually hilarious. Pompous, humorless, demanding, insulting, aggrieved, this voice is the personification of a non-stop tantrum, raging at the injustice of being “put upon” by the world in all its disappointing reality: “How dare that person drive so slow in front of me! Why is that guy standing on the sidewalk so close to where I’m locking my bike? I shouldn’t have to fold my pile of laundry — I have pressing ideas to get down on paper!” Progress for me is exposing these kinds of thoughts to the people around me so we can all laugh at them together.
The other symptom rears its ugly head whenever I’m tasked with listening. If anyone talks to me for more than three minutes, I start to check out. My eyes get heavy, my mind wanders, I fight to stay engaged. It’s sometimes physically painful to have to sit there and keep listening. I love my wife and children and my closest friends and I’m committed to giving them what they need from me, so I keep trying. But the task is Herculean! “I’m bored. I’m hungry. Did he always have that mole on his neck? Why is she telling me all of this? I listened to my relatives talking at me for most of my life. When will it be my turn to talk?”
The malignant narcissists out there are probably beyond hope. They lack the self-awareness and empathy needed for therapy (think: Tony Soprano, Trump). It’s probably best to just steer clear of them. But I believe their children have a fighting chance (think: AJ, Meadow, and dare I say Barron?). I think of myself as a recovering narcissist; my narcissism is latent. Because of various factors in my childhood, my tendency to think and act like an asshole is something to which I’m predisposed. But with the right tools I’m able to live close to an asymptomatic life, with a minimum of assholery. In the past, I’ve had streaks of full-blown narcissistic mania and my behavior was ugly and shameful (see my new book Qualification for a blow-by-blow account). But, paradoxically, having the thing I have makes it possible for me to go deeper into myself than most. And my intention is to share what I find so that it actually helps others. We’re traumatized into being artists and it’s a curse and a gift.
|
https://medium.com/swlh/writing-about-the-self-in-the-age-of-narcissism-e244b0e4382d
|
['David Heatley']
|
2019-12-19 21:41:48.426000+00:00
|
['Trump', 'Creativity', 'Autobiography', 'Memoir', 'Narcissism']
|
George Nakashima’s Home Is a Timeless Modernist Relic
|
Versatile American designer and craftsman George Nakashima connected masterful carpentry, a sculptural sensibility, and spirituality in his exceptional designs. His New Hope studio, still open to the public today, embodies this work.
Interior of the Minguren Museum, the last structure completed on the property in 1967. (Photo: Adam Štěch, Inside Utopia)
For more than half a century George Nakashima created unique sculptural furniture. With great respect for the natural qualities of wood, he crafted his designs from his large estate in New Hope, Pennsylvania. To this day, his remarkable legacy lives on through his family, who produces fine artisan furniture under his trademarked name. It is a name that has come to be one of the most respected in the history of modern American decorative arts.
The Minguren Museum was used by Nakashima and his collaborators for family celebrations and special events. (Photo: Adam Štěch, Inside Utopia)
Nakashima was born in 1905 in Spokane, Washington, and decided early on that he would study architecture. He attended the University of Washington and in 1931 received a Master’s degree from M.I.T. He went overseas to explore the world and learn different architectural styles and methodologies. Traveling alone, he spent time in various places from Paris to Pondicherry in India.
Nakashima dedicated his entire life to designing and producing a limited release of custom furniture, individual pieces of art that earned him a place at the forefront of the studio furniture movement
He then settled in Japan and joined the Tokyo studio of famous architect Antonin Raymond. During the war, Nakashima returned to the United States but was then forced into a Japanese internment camp. After being interrogated back into society, he made headlines for his Conoid Studio with its signature semicircular roof in 1956. Inside, he designed a series of furniture solitaires named Conoid. The series included a cantilevered chair that later became one of his most famous and best-selling pieces.
In 1967, Nakashima completed one of the last buildings on this extensive property. The Minguren Museum, an arts building, was the culmination of all his ambitions as an architect. The exterior of the building is decorated with an abstract mosaic painting by Ben Shahn.
The Studio is furnished with cozy seating areas, such as this one with a built-in sofa and Nakashima-designed carpet. (Photo: Adam Štěch, Inside Utopia)
Currently, the property of George Nakashima is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and still plays a key role in the production of his eponymous company. The house is a combination of modern international styles with traditional craft pieces from Japan. The interior of the reception house, which serves as a guesthouse, includes more luxurious materials from handmade rice paper screens to Japanese plaster walls.
Constructed between 1954–1975, the exterior and interior are odes to the modernist visions that swept postwar nations. A style that was underappreciated by the Western public of that era, Nakashima House serves as a homage to mid-century modernism adored by architects, designers, and craftsmen of all trade.
Radical visions coupled with poetic design, Inside Utopia showcases an era of futuristic homes that transformed the public’s imagination.
|
https://medium.com/gestalten/george-nakashimas-home-is-a-timeless-modernist-relic-249763dd8f
|
[]
|
2020-07-09 09:03:35.425000+00:00
|
['Architecture', 'Modernism', 'Interior Design', 'Design', 'George Nakashima']
|
Lifting a Ban on Safety
|
Terry H. Schwadron
March 18, 2020
When the Keystone XL Pipeline project popped up, the prime justification for building a 1,300-mile pipeline to move Canadian oil to Gulf ports was safety for transporting oil long distances.
Indeed, it was only because the Obama administration challenged the notion, accepting the popular insistence and protests that such a pipeline would inevitably start leaking crude oil into the soil across a number of states and tribal areas that the project got delayed — until the Trump administration took over.
The project was summarily approved and the Trump assault on the nation’s environmental regulations was on.
Indeed, various pipelines have leaked. Still, on the whole, word among environmentalists was that the pipelines, flawed as they are, prove much safer than the idea of transporting fuels through populated areas by trains.
So, it should surprise no one that the Trump administration is now moving to allow railroads nationwide to ship liquefied natural gas as part of a push to increase energy exports. That practice has remained banned because of uncertain hazards.
This time, the change involves the Transportation Department which has proposed a rule allowing liquefied natural gas, or LNG, shipments and imposing no additional safety regulations. It could go into effect in early May — eight months before results are expected from a Federal Railroad Administration study of tank car safety.
There has been criticism from local elected officials, attorneys general from 15 states and the District of Columbia, firefighter organizations, unions that represent railroad employees, environmentalists and the National Transportation Safety Board.
*
The Washington Post recently outlined the proposals, the politics and the chances for accidents, noting that trains of tank cars would run through populated areas in South Florida and through Philadelphia, where it should share tracks with passenger trains. The Associated Press has published a list of the most dramatic oil tank-car accidents.
The Transportation Department also proposed the rule without consulting Native American tribes, violating the treaties between the Puyallups and the federal government, as well as executive orders governing relations with Native Americans signed by presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Already, small amounts of LNG have been transported by rail on a trial basis in Alaska and Florida.
If the new rule is adopted, trains of 100 or more tank cars, each with a capacity of 30,000 gallons, could start carrying LNG, primarily from shale fields to saltwater ports, where it would be loaded onto ships for export. Those routes cross hundreds of different jurisdictions across the country, some that rely on volunteer firefighters as first responders, as well as major population centers.
The rule apparently did not get much notice. The time for public comment has closed.
Those pushing for a rule change have included energy companies and railroads who want to take advantage of a glut in natural gas to export it, earning better prices than the domestic market will support. Donald Trump ordered the change last year, with a shortened review period.
*
Curiously, one of the bigger objections came from the government itself, in the form of the National Transportation Safety Board. It wrote, “The risks of catastrophic LNG releases in accidents is too great not to have operational controls in place before large blocks of tank cars and unit trains proliferate.”
But that’s just about public safety, not about promoting fossil fuel companies, a more central agenda for this White House. For the sake of realizing energy products from the United States and efficiency, Trump wrote that the country has to “reduce regulatory uncertainties.”
In support of the rule change, the Association of American Railroads said trains have fewer accidents than trucks and still can reach areas that pipelines cannot.
Local officials, including Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, and firefighters noted that there have been numerous accidents and explosions over the years and called for more study.
While noting that liquid natural gas is less flammable than crude oil, The Post noted several accidents. In 2013, in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, 47 people were killed when a runaway train exploded. Six months later, an oil train rammed into the derailed cars of a grain-carrying train in Casselton, N.D., unleashing exploding fireballs and forcing the evacuation of more than 1,400. The crews of the two trains were on different radio frequencies. On Feb. 6, a Canadian Pacific train carrying crude oil derailed and burst into flames outside Guernsey, Saskatchewan. A CSX train carrying ethanol ignited after it derailed in eastern Kentucky on Feb. 13.
Escaping vapor clouds can ignite and burn at extreme temperatures; the standard response is to let such fires to burn out because they are not extinguishable. LNG also can leak if extremely cold temperatures are not maintained inside the cars. The proposal includes designs for tank cars that are 50 years old.
The Post noted that one company given special permission to run a small trial program set specifics like speed limits and safety requirements that are not included in the expanded proposals. The NTSB also argued for a regulation requiring the placement of five cars without hazardous materials between the locomotive and LNG cars, for the safety of the train crews — though there apparently are only 67 tank cars that could carry LNG under the rule in the entire country. Results of a Federal Railroad Administration safety test of those cars is not expected until a year from now.
In Washington State, a project to supply natural gas to ships traveling from Puget Sound to Alaska, has drawn protest from the urban Puyallup Tribe in Tacoma because it runs up against their reservation. The tribe argues that there has not been negotiation about LNG or toxic byproducts — required consultation.
It is bad enough that this White House runs roughshod over rules. It could at least acknowledge that public safety is involved.
##
.
www.terryschwadron.wordpress.com
|
https://medium.com/@terryschwadron/lifting-a-ban-on-safety-db61e5cfa060
|
['Terry Schwadron']
|
2020-03-18 11:04:47.754000+00:00
|
['Transport', 'Gas', 'Trump Administration', 'Trains', 'Safety']
|
Solid Copper Raspberry Pi 4 Case Costs $250
|
The 785 gram case looks fantastic and keeps the Pi cool even when overclocked to 2.1GHz.
By Matthew Humphries
The Raspberry Pi offers a very cheap way to get a desktop computer—unless, of course, you decide to place it inside this gorgeous solid-copper case.
As Tom’s Hardware reports, the Solid Copper Maker Block Case for Raspberry Pi 4 from Desalvo Systems costs an eye-watering $249.95. In return, your case can not only look amazing, but it can also keep your Pi running cool even at the highest of overclocks.
|
https://medium.com/pcmag-access/solid-copper-raspberry-pi-4-case-costs-250-5086ca4ccf7f
|
[]
|
2020-11-27 21:20:35.453000+00:00
|
['Raspberry Pi', 'Technology', 'Computing', 'DIY', 'Gadgets']
|
Error Handling in Python
|
As a programmer, one of the things you will encounter a lot in your career is errors. These errors, if not handled very well might cause problems from applications crashing to companies losing revenues as a result. Many programming languages have built-in methods to properly handle errors, and in this short article, we will be looking at different ways of handling errors in Python programming language.
CoinCentral
Errors are issues that occur during the execution of a program. This will make the program or function to terminate abruptly. Syntax errors and exceptions are the two major types of errors. Syntax errors are the ones you are most likely to encounter due to some errors you introduce and would likely make your program not to run until you fix it. It can be something as minute as a missing semi-colon or a wrong indentation in python. Exceptions on the other mean your program is correct syntactically but is liable to encounter errors during execution.
Many times, we focus on functionalities in our code that we omit important things such as handling errors, which can find their way to the production environment and prove to be very costly. Users of your program or a QA engineer can enter a wrong input into your program, and if not handled properly, will crash your program.
Creating a bug-free application is impossible, and even large tech companies with some of the best engineers in the world fix bugs on their major products now and then. However, It is important to handle as many as possible errors that could crash your program before you release your application to the end-users.
We should learn to handle our program error gracefully so that we return a reasonable and human-readable message to the user, or simply log the error. We will be exploring the try-except — else — finally keywords in python. This is similar to try-catch-finally in many programming languages.
Let’s consider the following examples:
We create a simple function to add two numbers together.
def addNumbers(num1, num2):
result = num1+num2
print(f"Sum of num1 and num2 is : {result}") addNumbers(5,5)
out: Sum of num1 and num2 is : 10
Testing addNumber function with a string as num2.
addNumbers(5,'5')
out:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "main.py", line 5, in <module>
addNumbers(5,'5')
File "main.py", line 2, in addNumbers
result = num1+num2
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'int' and 'str'
As seen in the above function, it will return the right result for a valid number but return a TypeError for the second test with string input. TypeError is one of the many types of builtin Errors in python, you can check python’s documentation to learn more Python Errors. To prevent the above function from crashing our application and return a meaningful response, we will need to introduce the try-except keyword.
def addNumbers(num1, num2):
try:
result = num1+num2
print(f"Sum of num1 and num2 is : {result}")
except:
print("Please enter a number.") addNumbers(5, '5')
out: Please enter a number.
Once an exception is detected during execution, the program jumps to the except block and executes the codes within the block. We can also add the else clause, which simply executes when no exceptions in the try block are raised.
def addNumbers(num1, num2):
try:
result = num1+num2
print(f"Sum of num1 and num2 is : {result}")
except:
print("Please enter a number.")
else:
print("All is well") addNumbers(5, 5)
out: Sum of num1 and num2 is : 10
All is well
Another way to handle an exception is to be specific about the exception type in the except section of the code or adding multiple exceptions with a single except clause. If we create a method to divide two numbers and we divide a number by zero, it will return a ZeroDivisionError. We can add multiple except clauses in our try…except statement.
def divideNumbers(num1, num2):
try:
result = num1/num2
print(f"Output is : {result}")
except TypeError:
print("Please enter a valid number.")
except ZeroDivisionError:
print("Cannot divide by zero.") divideNumbers(10, 2) divideNumbers(10, 0) out: Output is : 5.0
Cannot divide by zero. # Catching multiple exception with an except clause
# except TypeError | ZeroDivisionError: or
# except TypeError |ZeroDivisionError as err:
Error handling in python is much more than what we’ve covered so far, and I believe that you should check out the official python documentation to learn about other ways of handling exceptions/errors in python.
Happy learning!
|
https://medium.com/@adewagold/error-handling-in-python-7b772f5bfbbe
|
['Adewale Adeleye']
|
2020-12-15 16:30:02.256000+00:00
|
['Developer', 'Python', 'Exception', 'Beginner', 'Error Handling']
|
The Principle of Improvement
|
This episode completes our introduction to the three ways of DevOps. The previous two episodes introduced flow and feedback. Flow, the first way, establishes fast left to right flow from development to production. Feedback, the second way of DevOps, establishes right to left feedback from production to development, so using the state of production informs development decisions. The Third Way of DevOps, establishes a culture of experimentation and learning around improving flow and feedback.
Let’s frame this discussion using the four metrics from Accelerate: lead time, deployment frequency, MTTR, and change failure rate. Lead time and deployment frequency measure flow. MTTR measures feedback. Change failure rate measures experimentation and learning. Trends in these four metrics also reflect experimentation and learning.
Consider this scenario. There’s a severe 6 hour production outage. As a result the business has lost money and received angry emails from customers. This long outage window impacts the team’s MTTR. This bug — undetected by the deployment pipeline — caused an outage which increases the change failure rate. The team meets as soon as possible after restoring production operations. What do they do? If they apply the third way of DevOPs, then they would conduct a blameless post-mortem. The post-mortem would identify the root cause of how this bug entered production and what regressions tests to prevent it in the future. Hopefully they also discuss why it took six hours to restore operations and how they can be quicker next time around.
Here’s another scenario. A team ships new features on a regular basis but they don’t see the expected business results. They thought these features would deliver results but can’t figure out why they are not. What can be done? First, the team needs to step back and check their assumptions. Instead of going all in on big features, they can test their assumptions with tiny experiments released to a small segment of their users. If the results are positive, then the team should continue iterating. If not, then the team tries a new idea. Over time the team sees that they spend more time delivering on proven business ideas instead of ideas they assumed would just work. This approach is known as A/B testing or hypothesis-driven deployment from the lean IT school.
Both scenarios demonstrate a focus on improvement through experimentation and learning. However this only possible in a high trust culture. It’s not possible to conduct a blameless post mortem if people are afraid to say what they did to cause an outage. It’s not possible to conduct A/B tests if the organization does not see the value in validating business ideas through experiments. This is why leadership must promote these idea. I’m going to read one of my favorite passages from the DevOps Handbook. There are many wonderful passages in this book, but this is top tier without a doubt. The passage is great example of leadership’s role:
Internally, we described our goal as creating “buoys, not boundaries.” Instead of drawing hard boundaries that everyone has to stay within, we put buoys that indicate deep areas of the channel where you’re safe and supported. You can go past the buoys as long as you follow the organizational principles. After all, how are we ever going to see the next innovation that helps us win if we’re not exploring and testing at the edges?
I just love that quote — there’s just so much good stuff there. It describes a high trust culture guided by safety and aligned through principles. The four metrics (lead time, deployment frequency, MTTR, and change failure rate) are SLI’s. DevOps is a set principles that guide organizations to move those SLIs in the right direction, and when done right the results are outstanding. You just need to ask how can we improve? If you can stick to that then you’ll uncover that improvement of daily work is the daily work.
Alright, that’s it for principle of experimentation and learning. These three ideas will come back all the time on the podcast, but hey you always come back to these episodes if you need a refresh. Head over to the podcast website smallbatches.dev for links and free ebook on putting continuous improvement into practice.
Until the next one, good look out there and happy shipping!
|
https://medium.com/small-batches/the-principle-of-improvement-97d7261fcffd
|
['Adam Hawkins']
|
2020-04-07 00:55:04.805000+00:00
|
['DevOps', 'Software Development', 'Software Engineering', 'Sre']
|
Docker — export vs save. Sharing images while developing with…
|
Sharing images while developing with docker becomes common. Here is an article about sharing images without any registry.
export
docker export is used to export the container’s file system into a tar file. it doesn’t export any volumes associated with it.
Let’s pull the ubuntu latest image from the docker hub and export it into a tar file.
// pull the image
docker pull ubuntu // list images
docker images // run the container of the image
docker run -it ubuntu //open another terminal while running the container // list containers
docker ps // export it to a tar file
docker export <containerid> ubuntulatest.tar docker export --output="ubuntulat.tar" <containerid>
Now, we can import or load this tar file where ever you need.
save
docker save is used to save one or more images into a tar file. Let’s pull the busybox as well and save both images into a tar file.
// pull the busybox
docker pull busybox //list the images
docker images // save both images into tar file
docker save buysbox ubuntu > twoimages.tar
Conclusion
save and export are both used for sharing tar files. But, save is used for images and can save multiple images into a tar file with all the layers and history. export is used for containers without any history or layers.
docker import is used with tarballs which are exported and docker load is used with tarballs which are saved with save command. Please check the below article
if you found this article helpful. clap it :)
|
https://medium.com/bb-tutorials-and-thoughts/docker-export-vs-save-7053504546e5
|
['Bhargav Bachina']
|
2019-05-15 00:26:45.265000+00:00
|
['Docker Image', 'Containerization', 'Docker', 'Dockerfiles']
|
Time allocation for practice leaders in professional services firms
|
Photo by Arlington Research on Unsplash
Professional services firms offer highly customized, knowledge-based services that require a lot of face-to-face interactions. They sell the skills of their employees based on the number of hours spent on the project, the so called “billable hours”. In that sense, time is one of the key resources of professional services firms. The role of the practice leader is to make sure that all the resources of the practice are used efficiently and in a way that maximizes profitability. The drivers of profitability are margins, productivity and leverage. Consequently, the work of the practice leader is to make sure that:
• Margins are sufficiently high (not too high and not too low);
• The productivity level of the practice is excellent;
• The adequate level of leverage is maintained in accordance with the strategy of the practice.
In order to manage these priorities, the practice leader has to carefully manage his time and how he allocates it among different activities. Time is always a very scarce resource for managers and practice leaders are also concerned by that challenge. The figure below presents what we consider to be the best time allocation a Practice Leader should adopt. We think that 45% of his time should be allocate to “dealing with senior professionals”, 25% to client relations, 15% to “new business development and selling”, 10% to “doing professional work and being personally billable and 5% to “administrative and financial matters”.
Figure 1: Time Allocation of a Practice Leader
The most important assets of professional services firms are the knowledge and skills of staff. In that respect practice leaders must make sure the staff is always motivated, trained and rewarded. That’s why the best practice leaders spend 45% of their time dealing with senior professionals. If the senior staff is motivated and properly trained and rewarded, they can cascade the motivation down to the lowest levels of the practice. Depending on the leverage of the practice, senior staff have high power on the motivation spiral that should take place.
The practice leader spends most of his time with senior staff because he acts as a motivation maintainer. Among others, he must provide clear goals, provide prompt feedback, reward performance and hold professional accountable for their results. Dealing with senior professional is mostly about balancing the “hygiene” (short term) and “health” (long term) goals of the practice. The key issues are related to day to day management: increasing volumes and lowering overhead costs. Here the objective is to keep the level of margins and productivity high. In that respect, it’s important to be creative on pricing, to invest in skills development, to monitor key productivity KPI and to promote staff mobility and flexibility.
Practice leaders should allocate 25% of their time to client relations. They must concentrate on activities that yields the highest ROI (Return on Investment). In that respect, super-pleasing and nurturing existing clients must be the priority. Super-pleasing involves seeking delight and not only mere satisfaction. Since satisfaction is linked to expectations and perception, it is important to keep expectations low and deliver a work that is perceived as excellent and beyond expectations. The practice leader must make sure that client’s industries are always carefully studied to adapt to eventual issues. This also goes through organizing market research, conferences, and feedback systems to better understand current clients. It also helps in keeping existing clients engaged. It’s important to avoid the syndrome “bad customers drive out good customers”.
The third activity that should mobilize the time and attention of practice leaders is selling and new business development. It should account for about 15% of their time. In fact, for the future growth of the practice, leaders must not only keep existing clients but also manage to acquire new ones. This can be done through courting and broadcasting. Courting involves writing a proposal or showing to the prospective client that we can handle his problem. Broadcasting is the less effective method and involves seminars and newsletters that show that the practice is knowledgeable and following the trends of its industry or field of expertise. This has a lot of impact on the “health” of the practice because it is about the long-term objectives and growth of the practice.
The fourth activity that should mobilize the time and attention of practice leaders is doing professional work and being personally billable. It should account for 10% of their time. This is a good thing for the practice because the fees of practice leaders are very high and thus bring a lot of income to the company. The involvement of the practice leader may be needed in some sensitive and complex projects. It can also be a way to attract new customers by showing close management and implication. This is only possible when dealing with “brains projects” or just to define the scope of the project, the approach and key deliverables. In fact, these types of project require a high degree of creativity and deep industry knowledge.
Finally, the best practice leaders spend 5% of their time dealing with administrative and financial matters. Here the practice leader must care about the internal processes of the company and how to improve them. He also must think about recruitment. Depending on the level of leverage needed in the practice, the leader must decide on the number of junior professionals that need to be hired. Financial matters are very important because the practice must be profitable. The staffing must be perfectly deployed to minimize non-billable hours for “grinders” and “minders”.
|
https://medium.com/the-new-thinker/time-allocation-for-practice-leaders-in-professional-services-firms-fc28e1161fff
|
[]
|
2020-12-07 01:58:58.224000+00:00
|
['Time', 'Professional Services', 'Consulting', 'Workplace', 'Lawyers']
|
Как рассказать историю при помощи интерактивной карты
|
В KnightLab полагают, что современная журналистика оказалась под контролем «технократов», которые ничего не смыслят в профессии:
What problem are we solving?
We care deeply about journalism. […] But in 2013, journalism is still struggling with its digitally-focused future. Technologists are winning at media technology innovation, but they do not understand “journalism”. Worse, many journalists barely understand how the Internet works, let alone how to get the most out of storytelling on the web.
|
https://medium.com/%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C-%D1%87%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C-%D1%87%D1%82%D0%BE-%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C-%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%B0/%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BA-%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C-%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8E-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8-%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%89%D0%B8-%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82%D1%8B-edfaae5500e6
|
['We Shall Burn Bright']
|
2015-06-17 21:22:51.387000+00:00
|
['Storytelling', 'Visualization', 'Journalism']
|
Exploring chromatic storytelling in movies with R: the ChromaR package
|
1. Setting everything up
Installing ChromaR
The ChromaR package is hosted on GitHub and must be therefore installed through Devtools:
If you want to check the source code, here is the ChromaR Git repository:
The data
As mentioned in the first part, retrieving the tensorial components of a video source is a bit tricky in R and must be therefore implemented in other ways.
However, ChromaR exposes two ready-to-go databases you can use for practice purposes.
R G B lum duration RGB title frameId
1 95.43 84.02 76.22 86.58 7020 #5F544C Nausicaa o... 1
2 70.16 72.72 70.92 71.76 7470 #464846 Laputa Cas... 2
3 75.58 82.22 74.08 79.34 5185 #4B524A My Neighbo... 3
4 85.45 93.22 88.66 90.39 5595 #555D58 Porco Rosso 4
5 58.40 65.24 61.49 62.77 7995 #3A413D Princess M... 5
6 77.02 87.91 91.37 85.03 6180 #4D575B Kiki's Del... 6
If you already have your own csv RGB file, you can import it via getFrames().
Hayao Miyazaki and (some of) his colorful creations [© Reel Anarchy]
2. Getting our first frameline
Sticking with the miyazaki dataset, let’s retrieve a frameline for Nausicaa, the first entry of our movie list. Framelines are generated by merging groups of consecutive frames (i.e. array of averaged RGB channels).
The frames are grouped together using the groupFrames function and specifying the width of the time window. Depending on this parameter, the resulting frameline could be sharp or blurred. A 5-seconds window is usually fine for most of the movies, but you can visually tune it using the plotTimeWindows function.
The algorithm suggests two different cutoffs: a soft one (sharp frameline, most of the color information is preserved) and a hard one (blurred frameline, defined by the time constant of the exponential decay)
…or you can simply pick up your favorite window size by visual inspection
Everything between 3 and 20 seconds seems pretty much ok, so let’s pick the first suggested window size. The plotFrameline function will take care of the rendering.
If you want to render multiple movies within the same plot, you can apply the groupframe function to each movie of the list and feed the whole collection to the plotFrameline function.
3. Summary Tiles
A chromatic study on entire seasons or movie franchises can be focused on many different features. Let’s consider now that little piece of gold which goes under the name of Love, Death & Robots, from Netflix.
“Three Robots”, one of the most loved episodes of Love, Death & Robots by Blow Studio (© Netflix)
Each episode of the critically acclaimed new Netflix series is designed, directed, and animated by different artists and studios. This heterogeneity is clearly reflected in the episodes’ chromatic choices, which can be summarized and compared using the plotSummaryTiles function.
We could compare, for instance, the brightness of each episode in order to guess which one is the “darkest”.
In order to do so, we must get the summaries first. Summaries can be retrieved using the getSummary function. These summaries must be fed into the plotSummaryTiles function specifying which feature we’re interested in.
Average Brightness value for each episode
Results indicate “Helping Hand” as the darkest episode of the series. This shouldn’t surprise you, as the plot is entirely set in space. The silver medal goes to “Beyond the Aquila Rift”, which doesn’t need any further explanation if you’ve already watched it. The brightest episodes (by far) are instead “Alternate Histories” and “When the Yogurt Took Over”: world domination on the light side for once!
“Helping Hand” vs “When the Yogurt Took Over” (© Netflix)
The same process can be repeated with saturation and hues, simply by switching the mode parameter from lum to h or s.
Average Hue and Saturation values for each episode
Unsurprisingly, “Zima Blue” seems to be the coldest episode. In the next chapter, we’ll dig deeper into it with a more specific set of functions.
This frame from “Zima Blue” basically encapsulates the color palette of the whole episode (© Netflix)
4. Temperatures, Channels, and Circles
As a simple story with a big meaning, this brilliant episode exhibits a very tiny palette compared with the others, without losing a single bit of chromatic power. The palette of the whole episode can be retrieved simply by applying a wide time window (15 s) when grouping the frames.
“Zima Blue” palette and keyframes (© Netflix)
As expected, blue tints dominate the scene here. We can clearly see this trend by inspecting hues through the temperature function, which measures the distance of the hue of each frame from pure red. Besides two sections, the whole episode is biased towards blue/cyan.
Temperature comparison between “Zima Blue” (top) and “When the Yogurt Took Over” (bottom)
Similar conclusions may be drawn inspecting the hue channel trend through the plotChannel function, which returns the derivative trend in addition to the channel plot. Compared with other episodes, the derivative of “Zima Blue” is pretty much zero for a considerable part of the story, which means that no significant chromatic changes happen within the same scene (and that’s why we have such a small color palette).
Hue channel trend and its derivative
It is indeed out of question that the blue/cyan tints are the main protagonists of “Zima Blue”. What about the other episodes then? Is blue really overrepresented? Let’s compare it, for instance, with the fifth episode of the series, “Sucker of Souls”, using the colorCircle function. This function generates a chord diagram, a graphical method of displaying the inter-relationships between data. Each frame is arranged radially around a circle, with the color transitions between frames drawn as arcs connecting the source with the endpoint.
Chord diagram of “Zima Blue” (left) and “Sucker of Souls” (right)
Here we can clearly see how different the cyan/azure and orange percentages are between the two episodes. These two hues are diametrically opposed on the color wheel and their representation is therefore decisive to convey warmness or coldness.
We can generate these fancy plots running the following script.
|
https://towardsdatascience.com/the-chromar-package-892b716ee2c9
|
['Tommaso Buonocore']
|
2020-09-22 07:57:55.036000+00:00
|
['Cinema', 'R', 'Data Visualization', 'Colors', 'Data Science']
|
The Mess:
|
Photo from Kira Dawn
Why are you in such denial? I have tried to get through without so much as a numeric dial. You are a Gorgeous Mess of Chaos and that better change. If the Chaos inside collides with your soul, you are doomed to be estranged. Estranged from the beam of light that pours from inside. Banishment to the evil lurking beneath makes people change like the shifting of the tides. You know all to well that Lucifer hides among the shadows. Yet you choose to live your life in a way that brings you to your lowest of lows. You are falling for the tarnished trapped snare. The maze awaits through the prickly gates. It’s too late you are locked in the Devil’s lair.
I wake up from this wickedness. A cold sweat just above my lips. Jesus take this Chaos away. I promise to do whatever you say. I surrender my will over to you. I know this nightmare was my cue. I am safe now. Please show me how, to get back to The Gorgeous Mess.
He looked at me with no detest an said, “The Gorgeous Mess is Blessed.”
I thank you Lord, My God, “You rid the Chaos from My Eyes.”
Thy Will Be Done,
Kira Dawn a.k.a. The Gorgeous Mess a.k.a. Clyde or Bonnie(simply depends on the day)
Kira Dawn a.k.a. The Gorgeous Mess*December 2020.
|
https://medium.com/the-intoxicating-unhinged-mind/the-mess-4225e0a447cb
|
['Kira Dawn']
|
2020-12-21 19:39:50.554000+00:00
|
['Evil', 'Spiritual Growth', 'God', 'Spirituality']
|
Cherish Perrywinkle: Will Her Killer Get A New Trial?
|
On the night of June 21, 2013 Rayne Perrywinkle and her 3 daughters Cherish 8, Destiny 5, and Nevaeh 3, were shopping inside of a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida. According to court testimony, They had already been to the Family Dollar where Rayne had bought some household items. Rayne’s boyfriend had given her $100 before she left to go to the store. The $100 was supposed to buy some things for the house and for the girls and Rayne needed to make sure there was enough left over to pay for a ride to the airport the next day. 8 year old Cherish was booked on a flight the next morning to California to visit her dad, Billy Jarreau.
While in the Dollar General, Rayne asked about the price of a dress that she wanted to purchase for Cherish. She didn’t buy the dress because she didn’t think she would have enough money for everything. As Rayne walked out of the store with her daughters, she was approached by an older male who introduced himself as Don. He began chatting with Rayne and told her that he wanted to purchase the dress for Cherish and some clothing for the 3 girls. He said his “wife” would be meeting him there shortly with a gift card and he would use it to buy the clothing. Rayne was struggling financially and her daughters really needed some new clothes, so she decided to wait with him for his wife to arrive.
After waiting for about 30 minutes, Don’s wife still hadn’t showed up, so he offered to take Rayne and the girls to the Walmart on Lem Turner Road and said his wife would meet them there. Although she would later say she had a strange feeling about Don, Rayne agreed and loaded her 3 little girls into Don’s white van, putting Nevaeh’s stroller into the space where some of the seats had been removed from the van.
When they got to Walmart they waited in the van, with Rayne apparently believing that Don’s wife was still on her way. After waiting for about 20 minutes, she still wasn’t there, so Don, Rayne and the girls entered Walmart. They shopped around the store and continued to chat, with Rayne telling Don, a man she met about an hour earlier, a lot of personal information about herself and her daughters. Rayne would later say that she noticed Don paying too much attention to Cherish and “maybe he was grooming her” but she allowed Don to take Cherish to the dressing room twice while Rayne looked at shoes. She said she hoped Cherish was okay, but she didn’t want Don to think she was overly protective of Cherish so she let him take her into the dressing room alone.
By this time, they had been in Walmart for almost 2 hours and Rayne and the girls hadn’t had dinner yet, so the girls started asking for food and getting cranky. Don volunteered to buy the kids burgers from the McDonald’s inside of the Walmart. He took Cherish with him and when they didn’t come back, Rayne went to see what was taking so long. That’s when she realized that the in store McDonald’s was closed and Don and Cherish were gone.
Surveillance footage would show the 2 walk out of the Walmart and then Don’s white van is seen leaving the parking area and driving past security officers. Rayne called 911 at 11:18pm from Walmart and the search for Cherish began. By 3:30am, Don was identified as Donald J. Smith, a registered sex offender with a long criminal history with numerous offenses against children, who had gotten out of prison just 3 weeks earlier. It was also determined that his mother was the owner of a white Dodge van. Law enforcement put out an Amber alert for Cherish and also held a press conference.
At around 8:30 in the morning a woman called the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and told them that she saw a suspicious vehicle matching the one on TV at approximately 7am at the Highlands Baptist Church on Rutgers Rd but the vehicle was not there anymore. At 8:57am, a patrol officer was at the scene of a car accident and she happened to see the van drive by. She called it in and at 9:07am, Donald Smith was taken into custody but Cherish was not in the van with him. The K-9 team was sent to the Highlands Baptist Church where Smith’s van was seen earlier that morning and at 9:20am Cherish’s body was found. Cherish had been viciously raped and brutally beaten and murdered by a monster.
Shortly after, Cherish’s 2 other daughters, Destiny and Nevaeh were removed from her custody by child protective services and have since been adopted by an aunt in Australia. It also came out in the media that Rayne was born in Australia and her birth name was Kimberly. She had a daughter in Australia and abandoned her when she was just 5 years old. She came to America, changed her name and never looked back. In interviews, her family in Australia said that she was not a good mother and they always worried about her children.
Donald Smith’s trial was in February 2018 and when the autopsy photos of Cherish were shown, the medical examiner and several jurors cried in the courtroom. In May 2018, after just 14 minutes of deliberation by the jury, Smith was found guilty of first-degree murder and sexual battery and was sentenced to death.
On Monday, our friend Leigh Egan from CrimeOnline.com reported that the Florida Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments this week about whether Donald Smith should receive a new trial. His lawyers are arguing that his trial should not have been held in Duval County due to the case’s high publicity and media interest and that the autopsy photos which showed severe injuries to Cherish’s private parts and trachea should not have been shown in court.
Yesterday, the Florida Supreme Court heard the arguments from Smith’s attorneys and news4jax.com reported that the justices will consider the arguments made during the appeal and will rule at a later date.
There has always been a mixed bag of opinions on this case. Some blame Rayne Perrywinkle 100% for Cherish’s death and have nothing kind to say about her. There was even speculation online that she sold her daughter to Smith and that he was supposed to bring her back but the plan went awry. Others have more sympathy for her and see her as the victim of a predator who saw a mother in need and targeted her family.
My personal opinion is that yes, Donald Smith is a predator and a human monster but it was Rayne’s job to protect her children. Based off of her own words in the 911 call, which you can listen to here, Rayne Perrywinkle failed to protect her daughters, especially Cherish. Every decision she made that night was bad and irresponsible. Cherish’s abduction and murder were 100% preventable, but her mother failed her, essentially handing her to a pedophile on a silver platter.
For more true crime served one dish at a time, check out our YouTube channel, Murder By Design and our podcasts, The Good Wives Guide To True Crime and Gone Cold with The Good Wives and Todd Matthews.
|
https://medium.com/murder-by-design/cherish-perrywinkle-will-her-killer-get-a-new-trial-b9e31df203bb
|
['Christina Aliperti']
|
2020-12-16 20:21:17.898000+00:00
|
['Pedophilia', 'True Crime', 'Rape', 'Murder', 'Kidnappings']
|
200 iPads 👮♂️
|
To serve and protect. A mantra for police officers and Apple employee’s alike. On Monday, Apple’s chief security officer was issued an indictment accusing him of offering bribes to secure concealed carry permits for Apple employees.
Thomas Moyer (Apple’s Chief Security Officer) allegedly promised to “donate” 200 iPads to the Sheriff’s Office in exchange for four concealed weapon permits. Based on the rules and regulations on how these permits are given out, it makes sense that the Sheriff’s office would be the recipient of the bribe because the Sheriff’s office has the last say in regards to whether or not you can get a permit, regardless of any formal testing.
According to Moyer’s lawyer, “Ultimately, this case is about a long, bitter and very public dispute between the Santa Clara County Sheriff and the District Attorney, and Tom is collateral damage to that dispute.” His lawyer is maintaining Thomas’s innocence and is shifting the attention on a much bigger case: The solicitation of bribes in exchange for an easier approval of concealed carry permits in the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.
An investigation from NBC Bay Area found this year that donors to the Santa Clara Sheriff’s political campaigns were about 14 times more likely to get a concealed carry weapons permit than those who didn’t donate. As Moyer’s lawyer said, it looks like there is something much bigger going on here. With this, Apple is standing behind their staff and feel certain that “he will be acquitted at trial.”
I am not a financial advisor and my comments should never be taken as financial advice. Investments come with risk, so always do your research and analysis beforehand.
|
https://medium.com/invstr/200-ipads-%EF%B8%8F-4fb605571887
|
[]
|
2020-11-24 10:36:03.229000+00:00
|
['Security', 'Business', 'Apple', 'Legal', 'Guns']
|
Stakenet Facts and Giveaways
|
We will be commencing active efforts to promote facts about Stakenet to the public. As we near the launch of the Stakenet Wallet (a unique Lightning Network non-custodial multi-currency light wallet), and the first Stakenet decentralized application integrated on it (XSN DEX) we will be committed to educating the public on our underlying technology, features, and understanding of broader blockchain concepts. You can view our first published fact here:
https://twitter.com/XSNofficial/status/1226562212883582977.
We will also be increasing our Monthly Promo Prize to 5000 XSN. To be in with a chance just interact with any of our posts throughout the month to be entered. See below for further details of how to take part.
To those with any questions about our project, community or technology we always welcome discussion and feedback on all channels.
Also, note a development update will be released in the coming days so stay tuned for that announcement.
How to enter:
To enter our giveaway and be in with a chance of winning you just have to interact with our various social channels throughout the month, each interaction is an entry to the prize draw at the end of the month.
Twitter — https://twitter.com/XSNofficial
To enter on Twitter just follow us and Comment, Like and Retweet our posts throughout the month. Each interaction you complete is an entry into the prize draw so every post we make gives you 3 possible chances to enter and win.
FaceBook — https://www.facebook.com/StakenetOfficial
To enter on FaceBook just follow our page and Comment, Like and Share our posts throughout the month. Each interaction you complete is an entry into the prize draw so every post we make gives you 3 possible chances to enter and win.
Medium — https://medium.com/stakenet
To enter on Medium just follow our page and add Claps on articles. Each Clap is an interaction and you can clap up to 50 times per article.
How do we pick a winner:
At the end of the month we randomly select one of our social channels, so either Twitter, Facebook or Medium. From that we randomly select a post made during the month. If the social channel is Twitter or Facebook we randomly select a type of interaction from Comment, Like, Share/Retweet. Finally from that interaction type we randomly choose a winner.
If you want to maximise your chances of winning make sure you complete every type of interaction possible during the month across all three social platforms.
We will also be searching through social media platforms for any discussion raised about Stakenet and may share/retweet it, these will also be included as posts where a potential winner could come from so make sure to include them in your interactions.
If you want to join in the daily discussion on our other channels be sure to join our Discord and Telegram channels too.
|
https://medium.com/stakenet/stakenet-facts-and-giveaways-89debd0cf152
|
['Stakenet Team']
|
2020-05-01 08:44:47.346000+00:00
|
['Lightning Network', 'Masternodes', 'Bitcoin', 'Xsn Articles', 'Cryptocurrency']
|
Male cat rescued from moving garbage belt in Russia
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The rescued cat at the office of environment ministry in Ulyanovsk, Russia, photo: Ulyanovsk Region’s Ministry of Environment / Reuters
A cat was saved from a moving garbage belt in the town of Ulyanovsk in Russia. Worker Mikhail Tukash picked up a white plastic bag from the belt and when he opened it, he saw two eyes looking at him. There was a black and white cat staring at him.
“It (finding the cat) happened by accident. We must slash every bag to see if there is metal inside. We collect metal. So, it happened by accident,” Tukash said.
Since the cat’s rescue on Monday, he quickly became a local celebrity, which led to him being adopted by the Ulyanovsk region’s environment ministry.
“The cat was on the brink of death,” the ministry said on Wednesday. “A little more, and he would have ended up in the trash separator.” The cat was all healthy after a veterinary exam.
Pictures from the ministry showed the cat napping in a chair at the office of environment minister Gulnara Rakhmatulina and exploring his new environment. The ministry has announced a nationwide contest to choose a name for the male cat.
“I want to appeal to pet owners: remember that you are responsible for those you have tamed,” Rakhmatulina said. “If you can’t keep your pet at home, you can always leave it in good hands or at a shelter.”
|
https://medium.com/@theanimalreader/male-cat-rescued-from-moving-garbage-belt-in-russia-733654b33219
|
['The Animal Reader']
|
2020-12-24 21:45:13.208000+00:00
|
['Animal Rights', 'News Articles', 'Animal Welfare', 'Cats', 'Cat Rescue']
|
Vite Bi-weekly Report
|
Project Updates
Vite App
On September 25, Vite iOS APP released version 3.8.0, mainly focusing on the re-org of asset views.
Features and enhancements:
Introducing the new DEX Assets page. The Wallet page is now used only for deposits and withdrawals, exchange asset transfers are completed on DEX Assets page.
Exchange functions have been completely separated from wallet functions. The Homepage now displays only wallet assets, users can go to DEX Assets page to view exchange assets and transfer assets for trading.
My [Account] has been moved to the upper left corner of the Home page, click to enter Account Settings.
Due to the massive changes, the Android App will be released later.
ViteX Exchange
On September 29, the ViteX Java SDK was officially released. This is a lightweight SDK based on ViteX API, which facilitates the community to integrate the functions of ViteX exchange in Java projects.
Download link: https://github.com/vitelabs/vitex-java-sdk
ViteX-Hummingbot integration is done. The source code will be opened shortly. https://github.com/CoinAlpha/hummingbot
Recent Milestones
Vite Insights Series
On Sep 17, we published the 4th article of the Vite Insights Series, which outlined characteristics of projects that ViteX gateways often look for when selecting coins for listings. Submit a listing recommendation if a project meets the standards!
Read here: https://medium.com/vitelabs/vite-insights-4-what-types-of-coins-are-vitexs-gateways-looking-for-c24e9a52cb48
Vite Techie Club
On Sep 22, Vite Techie Club held the first online discussion centered around Decentralization of ViteX gateways. Our Vite Techies had active conversations with Vite core developers, putting forward questions and new ideas.
Vite Techie Club will continue to host regular tech discussions. We look forward to chatting with more Techies in the future!
Session Recap: https://forum.vite.net/topic/4194/vite-techie-club-1?_=1601363645141
Binance Enabled Isolated Margin Trading for Vite Trading Pairs
Starting Sep 22, trading pairs VITE/BTC & VITE/USDT are enabled with Isolated Margin trading on Binance. Users were able to borrow VITE with 0 interest for trading.
Details:https://www.binancezh.com/en/support/announcement/8b56bdc50b154385acec2af652b4ad10
Vite Mainnet One-Year Coin Giveaway Campaign
It’s been one year since Vite Mainnet went live on Sep 25, 2020. In celebration of the anniversary, we are rewarding $100 Vite total to 5 winners with the most retweets of our achievements on Twitter!
View Details: https://twitter.com/vitelabs/status/1311337618785759232?s=20
ViteX Exchange
ViteX Listing Permission (ASK)
On Sep 24, ViteX Operator VGATE listed Permission (ASK) and opened trading pair ASK/BTC.
Permission.io is the leading provider of permission advertising for eCommerce. The Permission Coin (ASK) was created to give individuals back ownership of their time and data. Powered by the Permission blockchain, ASK is a payment coin that enables individuals (“Members”) to securely grant permission and monetize their time and personal data across global e-commerce platforms and myriad advertising verticals.
On Sep 27, the Permission team conducted an AMA in ViteX Telegram and rewarded $500 ASK to participants.
ViteX Listing Hathor (HTR)
On Sep 29, ViteX Operator VGATE listed Hathor (HTR) and opened trading pair HTR/BTC.
Hathor(HTR) is a transactional consensus platform comprised of an entirely novel architecture, based on concepts from both Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) and blockchain technologies combined.
Data on ViteX
Activities
Vite Labs COO Richard has planned a new episode of ”The Blockchain Debate Podcast“ where he invited British author David Gerard (Attack of the 50-foot Blockchain) on the show. The topic is, “Motion: Libra is not too different from Paypal.”
Libra is one of Facebook’s most heavy-weight announcements in recent years, and is a fitting strategic prerogative for a company with 2B+ install base. Libra inspired discussions of central bank digital currencies at various countries, some of which already began rollout of the new money system. Criticism of Libra has been on its overly centralized design and regulatory hurdles across many jurisdictions. This episode will focus on whether Libra can overcome these challenges in reaching its original goal.
This show is a window to export Vite Labs’ thoughts on the industry. It is also a way for the Vite team to build relationships with other movers and shakers in the space.
All episodes are available here: https://blockdebate.buzzsprout.com
You are welcome to follow Richard and the podcast here: Twitter.com/gentso09 / Twitter.com/blockdebate
Vite Labs COO also participated in a “Virtual Conversation on Emerging Technologies” hosted by former US Presidential candidate Andrew Yang. The talk focused on how advanced tech can upgrade public sector services, such as improving their transparency, timeliness and immutability (e.g., via tech such as distributed ledger).
|
https://medium.com/vitelabs/vite-bi-weekly-report-1766748d3f07
|
['Christy Li']
|
2020-10-01 01:05:35.775000+00:00
|
['Project Updates', 'Blockchain', 'Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Vite']
|
Francoise Speaks
|
Francoise Speaks
Pablo Picasso (Gelatin silver print by Andre Villers, the Art Institute of Chicago, 1957)
Some ask,
“How could you have
stayed with such a beast?”
Others remark, with awe,
“How could you have
left such a genius?”
And neither understands
the true nature of our relationship
and the life we shared.
At first, it was a game,
a challenge, nothing that I
took too serious. I enjoyed
the give and take, the sparring like
a matador and the bull.
Each seeing the world
through his eyes, his demons.
He kissed me once,
sudden, unexpected, hard,
his lips biting into mine,
the pressure of his member,
aroused, passionate, like his
paintbrushes, bristling yet supple.
Then he pretended to be shocked
when I did not slap him,
when I did not yell for help.
Instead, I offered myself,
a sacrifice on the altar,
a muffin to be consumed.
And he ran like
a child with his hand
in the cookie jar,
afraid of being too close,
afraid of losing himself in my fire.
What you, and all the others,
don’t understand is that
he was spring
to my winter,
he was chaos
to my structure.
My father raised me to
be a boy, to follow in
his footsteps, to love
the practical, the mundane.
I rebelled. Pablo offered
what my father could not give—
freedom, the joy of childhood,
anarchy and the fun of living.
I bathed in the craziness,
the spontaneity, the wild
reckless rush towards insanity.
Another time he seduced
me into lying naked
beside him and then
he refused to touch me.
Claimed that all he wanted
was to discover if my body
was as beautiful as
the one in his imagination.
And when I asked whether it was,
he only laughed, that deep
rumbling, belly-shattering laugh
that made me mad.
I yelled at him and kicked
him. I aimed for his groin,
but missed when he stepped aside,
my foot glancing off his thigh.
I think that one of the things
that made our relationship
last as long as it did
was my independence and defiance.
I kept surprising him.
He never knew what to expect.
I kept him on his toes;
I was not the submissive little wife—
who waited patiently for
her drunken bum of a husband
to return home and beat her.
I stood up to him from day one.
My father, though, until he died
believed that Pablo had ruined me—
that he had seduced an innocent
child, brainwashed me. But
I was more my father’s child
then my father knew.
I applied what he taught me
to a different arena,
a different form of warfare.
I controlled Pablo as much
if not more than he did me.
From the very beginning,
I knew what the game was,
what the risks were, and I
believe that I was strong enough
to win. My father had taught
me to understand the subtleties
of the game and how sometimes
you win by appearing to lose.
What I did not understand
in the beginning—what has
taken me years to realize
was that Pablo was my father
in a different disguise. What I took
for spontaneity and anarchy
was only the rigidness
of my father turned inside out.
They were opposite sides
of the same coin—cut from
the same cloth. Men who
in the end, behaved like tyrants
and if I did not obey they threw
me out. Sure, they enjoyed my
independence, and that I was
not meek and mild, but only so
far—as long as I did not reject
them—as long as I eventually
gave in, conceded to their wishes,
they would tolerate my free spirit—
my thinking for myself. They
would brag about my intelligence
to others. But I had to let them
win the final battle—to believe
that they had conquered.
I had escaped one prison,
one set of bars, only to find
myself firmly entrenched behind
the walls of another. So, again,
I had to break free, to find
my own way, to seek my own path.
Yes, I survived living
with the great Picasso,
and am a stronger woman
for having faced the darkness
of my fears, for having wrestled
with the angel of creativity, for
having been consumed by the fires
of passion. What does not destroy
us can only make us stronger.
So when they ask,
“How could you leave
such a genius,”
I only smile and say,
“It was an honor
to have known him.”
|
https://medium.com/loose-words/francoise-speaks-da2dd9349ac5
|
['Harley King']
|
2020-12-14 15:52:50.776000+00:00
|
['Passion', 'Art', 'Poetry', 'Relationships', 'Pablo Picasso']
|
Thirteen levels of losing at the poker table
|
Poker players forget most of the pots they’ve won, but the big hands they lose leave scars. I’ve won thousands of poker hands; probably tens of thousands. And yet most of those winning hands fade from memory, blurring together in one warm, happy glow of satisfaction. Meanwhile, a bunch of horrible, how-did-that-happen hands from the past still haunt me. Most players, I suspect, have the same selective memory.
Most poker players understand that, fundamentally, losing is part of the game, and you try to teach yourself to handle losses calmly. But some losses sting more than others. Some leave you numb. Some knock you back in your chair and make you want to cover your eyes. Some rip your spine out, tie it in knots, then cram it into the garbage disposal. Emerson wrote that we should “win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.” Something tells me Emerson never had his aces cracked by a one-outer on the river.
ESPN’s Bill “The Sports Guy” Simmons has a classic list of the 16 Levels of Losing in sports, which describes 16 types of losses from disappointing to moderately traumatic to soul-crushing. Poker has the same multitude of ways to suffer. In that spirit, and with a tip of the hat to the Sports Guy, here’s my breakdown of the thirteen levels of losing at the poker table.
Level 13: The Ice Storm
You sit down at the poker table and don’t get dealt any playable cards for hours. The dealer and the Poker Gods seem to have a vendetta against you. Every once in a while you get decent cards, but the flop never helps and your draws never improve. The ice storm is most common at limit hold’em tables or in tournaments. You sit down with a stack of chips and wait and wait and wait… Hours later, without playing almost any memorable or interesting hands, your stack has dwindled away, and everyone thinks you’re the tightest, most gutless player at the table. Maybe, despite the bad cards, you try to mix it up and bluff a few times, but you get re-raised and have to fold your junk hands. You spend hours, losing, slowly, and you haven’t even been entertained for the effort.
It’s like Chinese water torture — no one thing hurts a lot, but the repetitive, drip-drip-drip of losing slowly pushes you over the edge. A lot of people start in Ice Storm, but slowly lose their minds, then do something reckless or stupid that sinks them deeper.
Level 12. The Head-Shaker (“I would have won?”)
You have a mediocre hand, say, middle-pair or top-pair with a terrible kicker. At some point you fold. After you’ve mucked your cards, there are bets and raises between remaining players, and when it all comes down to showdown, two junky hands are turned over. Someone wins the pot with third-pair or a high card. A few hands like this can unhinge a player and provoke them into getting impatient and reckless, which usually leads them to losing much bigger pots with hands like, say, middle-pair or top pair with a terrible kicker.
Level 11. The Head-Slapper (“I would have won BIG?”)
Similar to The Head Shaker, but worse. You’re involved in a big, multi-way hand. Lots of action. At some point, you consider making a tough call, often with a pocket pair or a draw to a straight or a flush. Finally, you reluctantly muck your cards. Of course, the next card dealt is the one you wanted, a card that would have given you a monster hand or the nuts. Worse than that, this card sparks enthusiastic betting and raising, and suddenly everyone is shoving in their stacks. You stare bitterly at the mountain of chips you would have won if only you’d felt lucky and gambled.
Painful personal example: A year or so ago, I was playing an all-night home game with friends. It was late, so with countless re-buys, there was a lot of money in play. I’d done well, building up a pretty big stack, maybe three or four buy-ins. I was on the button with two black 8's. I raise to $3. Someone re-raises to $6, and another player makes it $12. I think for a bit — after all, all three of us have big stacks, and I might get paid off if I luck out and hit my set — but I finally decide to fold, figuring I’m up against two bigger hands. The flop comes Q-8–4 rainbow. The first player bets $20. The second player makes it $40. All of a sudden, they’re both all-in and there is close to $400 on the table. I sit stoically, but in my mind, I slap my head, repeatedly. When the dust settles, player one flips over aces; player two shows 44 for the bottom set. My set of eights would have taken it all. That extra nine dollars would have most likely won me about $400. As we often say at my home game: “Poker is a funny game, just not a ‘ha-ha’ funny game.”
Added-pain postscript: Naturally, the next dozen times you’re in the same situation and make the big call, the card you need never comes and you lose a lot of money. Eventually, you resolve to tighten up and stop ignoring pot odds, so you fold in a big, multi-way hand, and like clockwork, here comes your money card. You slap your head in disgust and the cycle repeats once more…
Level 10: The thing you thought you saw
In the movies, players have visible “tells” that reveal the strength of their hands. They sit one way when they have a big hand. Or maybe they lean back when they are bluffing. Or perhaps they eat their Oreos a certain way when they have a monster hand. Savvy poker players are supposed to be able to pick up on these subtle tells and use them to win bundles of cash. You can read Caro’s Books of Tells or Navarro’s Read ‘em and Reap and try to educate yourself on how to spot them.
In real life, you occasionally can spot a tell on a player. But most of the time? Not so much. You stare at an opponent who goes all in and try go decide if you have him beat. Finally, you think you see some tell that reveals the truth. He rubs his forehead, or scratches his neck, or wiggles his leg and you try to decipher it. “Aha!” you decide, remembering something you read or heard about what that gesture means. “That’s it! He’s bluffing!” So you call his bet and he turns over quads. You watch a massive pile of your chips go to the other guy and want to throw up. You lost it all because of a twitchy eyebrow or squinty eyes and feel like the dumbest person who has ever sat down at a poker table.
Level 9. A knife to a gunfight
You’ve been patient. You’ve waited to pick your spot with a strong hand. And here you are! You flop two pair or three-of-a-kind and pretty much think you’ve got the hand won. But then you bet, get raised, or re-raised, by more than one player. And you can’t be happier! Everyone is practically handing money over to you. Ultimately, everyone is all-in, and at showdown, you realize you were never in good shape. You were behind all along. Someone else had flopped a straight, and the turn gave someone else a full house. You had a good hand and went crashing headlong into one or two great hands. You brought a knife to a gunfight, with predictable results.
One thing I’ve learned over the years, painfully, is that if you find yourself battling over a big pot with more than two players, and you’re holding just a big pair or two pair, all you’ve got is a knife.
Level 8. The Leon Lett
Leon Lett’s immortal moment of failure
Remember Leon Lett? During Superbowl XXVII, the Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman recovered a Buffalo Bills fumble and was running free for a touchdown. As he got close to the end zone, he slowed down to showboat, stretching out his arm with the football. Inches before he would have scored, the Bills’ Don Beebe caught up to him and stripped the ball away, knocking it into the end zone. Instead of a touchdown, it was a turnover, and the Bills got the ball back. Fifteen years later, most people don’t remember much about Lett, other than that play, and how getting cute and slowing down allowed an opponent to take the ball away.
Sometimes you’re holding a monster hand and just know you’re way ahead of anyone. Instead of raising preflop with Aces or Kings, you get tricky and check. Or maybe you flop a set, but check it to try and tempt someone to bluff with a weaker hand. You’re so excited about your big hand that you ignore the threat of a flush or a straight on the board. From time-to-time, a tricky, deceptive play pays off well, especially against loose, aggressive opponents. But often, slowing down and trying to trick opponents backfires. You check, they check, and the free card you give them kills you. You still love your big hand so much, you refuse to believe the possibility that your opponent hit a big draw, so you bet big or go all-in. The next thing you know, you’re Leon Lett, stunned and befuddled, wondering how someone snuck up behind you and stripped away your chance to win.
Level 7: The one-sided coin
Inevitably in poker, especially in tournaments, you get into “race” situations: you and your opponent get all the money in the middle, usually before the flop, and when the cards are revealed, it’s roughly 50/50 who will win — a mathematical coin flip. Good players try to avoid these situations, but sooner or later, everyone faces their share of coin-flips. Most times you win a tournament or a have a big night at a cash game, you need to win a couple coin-flips. Skill and experience matter, but luck helps. Sometimes, however, despite the 50/50 odds, luck seems stacked against you. It’s as if you keep calling heads and someone is flipping a coin with tails on both sides. You have JJ and lose to AK. An hour later, you have AK and lose to JJ. An hour after that, your AQ loses to a pair of tens. Not long after that, you shove with a pair of tens, and it loses a race against AQ.
This is a maddening way to lose: you finish down big, when you could have easily been up big, or at least even. After a while, a sick, numb feeling takes over and you resign yourself to the fact that you will lose every race; you expect the doom card; and then your defeatism is validated when, yet again, the guy across the table spikes an ace against your queens and giggles as he rakes in a huge pot. People who run into the one-sided coin online often become convinced that Internet poker is rigged and wind up writing long rants about their conspiracy theories, or just type ANGRY COMMENTS ALL CAPS in the chat box, neither of which helps.
Level 6. Drowned in the kiddie pool
As you get more experienced and skilled at poker, you start to have an edge on beginners and newcomers to the game. At least that’s the theory. You can sit down at a poker table in a Las Vegas or Atlantic City casino and realize you’re up against people who barely understand the game. These players often need instruction on how and when they can bet. Some are too drunk to handle their chips or pick up their cards without falling halfway out of their chair. Others, sober but clueless, get to showdown and say “Uh, I just have a pair,” and then the dealer corrects them that, in fact, they have the nut flush. Usually, at this kind of table, you’re in heaven. You can bluff people off hands, or bet big hands and get paid off. But every once in a while, you get crushed by a table of clueless drunks, newbies, and idiots. You’re playing thoughtful, sound poker, and they’re gambling, raising with nothing, calling with junk, and yet somehow, they keep hitting perfect cards on the turn and the river to beat you. They make horrible, low-percentage decisions and keep being rewarded. Nothing seems to make sense. Your chips are vanishing, but the mopes to your left and right are winning hand after hand by playing the worst poker possible. You start to wonder if you’re being filmed for some reality show or being “punked.” There’s almost nothing more frustrating and demoralizing than getting beaten, repeatedly, by confused, semi-conscious, lucky players.
I once watched a drunk, half-asleep 20-something Reese Witherspoon look-alike sit down at a $3/$6 limit table at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City with $100 in chips. She never folded a hand. She just sat there, sipping a pina colada and mumbling to herself, winning pot after pot. If she needed a six to catch a gut-shot draw on the river, she got it. If she had a weak ace against players with KK or QQ, she hit her ace on the river. One time she had 4–6 offsuit in a big pot with three other players, including me, with my aces. On the flop, she had nothing, but still called four bets. On the turn, she got a six, and on the river, another six. Within an hour and a half, she cashed out for more than $600. I looked down at the $23 in white chips left in my $100 rack, and wondered whether golf might be a better hobby.
Level 5. The horror movie
I love horror movies, especially zombie films. What’s scary about a good zombie movie is that the monsters are relentless. Just when the heroes run into some horrible group of flesh-eating undead, and manage to escape — just barely — then another bunch of zombies come out of nowhere and attack. At the poker table, I don’t find this quite as entertaining. The “horror movie” is when you lose with a good hand that runs into something better, again and again. Unlike the “ice storm,” you’re actually getting good cards; just not good enough. And unlike the “one-sided coin,” you’re never 50/50. The one thing that you’re scared of is always what your opponent is holding. You have kings, but your opponent has aces. You have aces, but your opponent flops two pair. You flop two pair, but your opponent flops a set. You flop a set, but run into a flopped straight. You river a full house; the bad guy has quads.
And here’s the clincher: horror movies usually don’t have happy endings. By the end, the hero is outnumbered, exhausted, and running out of options. Despite everything, the hero winds up yanked into the darkness, dragged screaming into the ground, or chomped into pieces by a pack of shrieking, crazed zombies. Then everything goes black.
Yeah, some nights, poker is pretty much like that.
Level 4. The One-Second Miracle
Poker can be a cruel tease. You can get into a huge hand with a big draw; maybe its an all-in situation with big stacks of chips piled up in in the middle of the table. On the turn, you hit your draw and become the favorite in the hand. Right as you lean forward to rake in all the chips, the next card comes: a lucky card that gives your opponent something even stronger. For about one second, you had won a huge pot, and then you blinked and it was gone.
A great example of this was at a tournament I played years ago. Down to two tables, two deep-stacked players got it all-in after the flop. The first guy had JJ. The second had AQ. The flop was AQJ. The turn brought a third ace, giving player two aces full of jacks. He howled and yelled “ship it!” The guy with the set of jacks slumped and shook his head in disgust. But then the dealer burned and put out the river card: the case jack. Suddenly, the guy with jacks throws his arms in the air and the aces-full guy curses and storms away from the table. He would have been the chip leader and a commanding favorite to win the tournament; instead, a one in 44 long-shot gave his opponent a winner. Meanwhile, he returned to the table and squandered his remaining chips within five minutes.
Level 3. The Nightmare Suck Out
The nightmare suck out is similar to the “one-second miracle,” but worse. First, you were ahead the whole way and didn’t need to hit any draw. From the start of the hand, you were crushing your opponent, and after the flop, you had an almost unbeatable hand. You did everything right: built a pot, manipulated your opponent, and got him or her to commit their entire stack as a huge underdog. Only one or two of those cards can beat you. You’re an overwhelming favorite to win the hand… and then the nightmare card lands on the table. If you don’t like the player who sucks out on you, it’s ten times as bad. You feel robbed. It’s like losing a football game on a 80-yard Hail Mary or a basketball game on a 75-foot desperation heave. These are the hands that you carry around bitterly for years and save as your “bad beat story.”
Speaking of, here’s my nightmare suck out bad beat story: I’m playing low-stakes cash game on Party Poker, doing well, and have about two or three buy-ins in front of me. I get dealt aces. I raise to 4 big blinds. A loose player in the big blind with the biggest stack at the table raises me back. I re-raise him, and he instantly goes all in. I call, of course. He turns over a pair of sixes. I smile at the bold bluff attempt. The flop makes me smile even more. A-K-9 rainbow. I lean back in my chair, excited about doubling up and having my best night online in months. A six comes on the turn, which doesn’t really bother me. He only wins if the last six of the appears on my screen for the river, and there is only a 2% chance of that. And then I see it: the six of spades. I watch in horror as the screen animates a big pile of virtual chips sliding over to Mr. “Let’s-Go-All-In-With-a-Pair-of-Sixes”… I don’t remember what happened next, other than the fact that I bounced my mouse against the wall and it never worked again.
Level 2. Voluntary Grave Digging
Suck outs sting. It hurts to be way ahead and lose to a crazy, mathematically unlikely final card. But at least you can take solace in knowing you got your money in with the best hand. You played well, but got unlucky. That’s poker. It’s one thing when chance deals you a bad beat; but it’s another when you create your own disaster. When you dig your own ditch and lie down in it, you have no one to blame for yourself.
Here’s a fine example of digging your own grave: One time at my weekly home game, I was having a good night, having built up a decent stack of chips. I decided to raise on the button with 3–4 offsuit. As I recall, because I had 34, Walter Payton’s jersey number, I felt lucky and courageous. A pretty good player to my right re-raised me to $8, and called, figuring I couldn’t back down now. Second mistake. So now the flop comes, and I’m already ankle-deep in the ground. It misses me completely: A-K-10 rainbow. My opponent checks, so I figure I should bluff again, since I had acted like I had a big hand preflop. I bet $12. He calls. That was the third mistake. Now I’m waist-deep. The turn, a 6, looks like a blank. Again, the guy to my right checks. The pot is pretty big now, and I figure one more big bet ought to scare him away. He must be chasing a straight, I tell myself. The turn missed him. I ask him how many chips he has left, then bet about three-quarters of the pot. Fourth mistake. Dirt is starting to spill onto my shoulders. My opponent thinks for a bit, then calls. The river is a 2. Suddenly, I notice that I’ve only got about $20 left in my stack, maybe enough for a cab ride home. The pot is huge, and I’ve already dumped most off my stack into the middle of the table with four-high. Again, the guy to my right checks. Maybe he missed his draw, I think. Maybe my last $20 will be enough to convince him, finally, that he’s beat. So I go all-in. He calls right away and turns over AK. It’s not bad luck or a bad beat, it’s just me giving away chips for no reason with one of the worst hands in poker. Everything I did was wrong; everything he did was right. As I lie down in my grave, I try to decide when, exactly, I became the worst poker player in the world.
Level 1. The Ron Burgundy
In climactic scene of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, the title character jumps into a grizzly bear habitat at the zoo to try and rescue his girlfriend, Veronica Corningstone. When Ron suddenly realizes he’s stuck in a pit with several angry, violent bears, he shouts, “I immediately regret this decision!”
Sooner or later, most poker players leap into the bear pit themselves with a similar instant sense of regret. Instead of taking your time and thinking through a decision, weighing odds and considering what your opponents may have, you act on impulse. You go all-in or make a loose call for all your chips before slowing down and considering how likely you are to win. Bad players who watch too much poker on television pull Ron Burgundy moves all the time, going all-in with a bluff, hoping that naked aggression alone will win a hand. Sometimes, it just takes one too many drinks to lead to an otherwise sensible player pulling a Ron Burgundy.
And the scary thing about no-limit poker is that you can play a night of nearly perfect poker, then one rash, reckless decision can erase everything you’ve won during that time. Eight seconds of bad thinking can erase eight hours of strong play.
One of the most memorable Ron Burgundy plays I’ve witnessed was at a late-night, weekend home game a few years ago. One guy — let’s call him “Moe” — normally, a sound, tight-aggressive player, was having a legendary evening. He had a mountain of chips in front of him and had been playing great, smart poker all night long. He was up so big, he was promising to buy everyone drinks later on if we all went out to a bar. But a few hours and shots of bourbon later, he got into a classic Ron Burgundy hand. Moe bets preflop. The guy on the other side of the table, a strong, shrewd player with the second-largest stack at the table, raises. Moe calls. The flop came down 10–4–2. Moe bets about half the pot. His opponent raises. Moe thinks for about two seconds, then declares “I’m all in!” This wild over-bet is more than five times the size of the pot. His opponent calls right away and flips over 4–4 to show three-of-a-kind.
Moe turns pale, as it it never occurred to him that that the other player might call. He turns over his cards and shows a pair of eights. The turn and the river doesn’t bring help, and two-thirds of his monstrous fortune of chips slide across the table. He reaches out and shakes his opponents hand — a sad, and rather gentlemanly gesture — then staggers away from the table, unable to speak to anyone for about ten minutes. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was fatigue, but for whatever reason, he made a bizarre, costly, and inexplicable decision that he immediately regretted… and still does today.
When a poker hand like this leaves you dazed, wobbly, and speechless, you’ve hit the lowest level of losing at the poker table. Eventually, the pain will pass. Besides, there’s always next time, right?
What could go wrong?
|
https://medium.com/@mattpusateri/thirteen-levels-of-losing-at-the-poker-table-b98f8b06c1fd
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['Matt Pusateri']
|
2017-05-28 14:11:53.749000+00:00
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['Poker', 'Gambling', 'Losing']
|
Family Announcement: I Am Free to Make My Own Mistakes
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Family Announcement: I Am Free to Make My Own Mistakes
When the empath of the family retires.
“Hello, everyone. Before we delve into this delicious roast that Aunt Sylvia spitefully made, because half of us don’t eat meat and the other half have heart conditions and shouldn’t, but, you know, we have to eat meat or the ‘liberals win’…I just wanted to make an announcement — ”
“Pregnant?”
“Sick?”
“Alternative lifestyle?”
“No, no, and…maybe. As much as you all love to gossip, my announcement is far less scandalous. At first, it will feel like nothing has changed at all. But gradually, you will notice that I am no longer available at 2 a.m. Gradually, you will notice that I am not as agreeable as I once was. Gradually, you will find that I do not want to hold space for your secrets. I will not laugh at your shitty jokes, nor will I spend hours and hours trying to get you to see things from another person’s point of view.
“I am retiring as the family empath. The free therapist. The glue. For years you have belittled my gentle, kind nature, all while taking advantage of it. You have not paid for or compensated me for my labor, and then called me ‘sensitive’ when I expressed my own needs. You assumed…and correctly…that I would put my own needs aside to help you with your goals. I have spent countless hours trying to get older relatives to be less racist and to reconcile with their gay children. I have helped you with your job applications, school paperwork, and filing appeals when…let’s be honest…you actually were at fault.
“And what have I been doing, since I have adopted all of your dramas? I have been hiding. I’m not even sure if I’m gay or not. I’m not sure if I want to get married, have kids. Career. School. I’m not sure what I want. All I have known is what you gossip about, what you judge, what you consider wrong. And I’ve been living in terror because I felt like everything I did would be wrong. I was worried about being another character in this drama. I wanted to hide. I didn’t want to be gossiped about. Made fun of. Spoken about like I was a lost cause.
“So, I’m telling you this before we all pretend to eat this roast that no one actually wants: I am free to make my own mistakes. And you are free to talk about them. But I will no longer be the ghost-therapist. I will no longer laugh at jokes I don’t find funny to preserve the peace. I will not respond to your digs. I will not constantly feel like I need to defend my right to exist. I will just…exist.
“I’m cleaning out the space I once held for your dreams and drama and filling that space with my own. Maybe I’ll go back to school. Maybe I’ll have a baby with a dude with a face tattoo. Maybe I’ll travel for three years, solo. Who knows.
“I am free to make my own mistakes. And also? Just because someone makes a mistake does not mean their whole life is lost. Life is not just a spiral downward, where everyone is doomed and every time someone does something you don’t like, it’s a catastrophe. You all really need to get over yourselves and your opinions on everyone else. Have you ever asked yourself why you care if other people make decisions you approve of?
“Anyway, I’m very excited to live my own life. I’m excited to try things and fail. I’m excited for relationships that don’t work out with people you don’t approve of. I’m excited to be more open to possibilities…both good and bad, instead of hiding because I’m afraid how changes in my life will impact all of you. I’m no longer your employee, your perpetual child, your cheerleader.
“I am retiring as the empath of the family. If you’d like my advice, submit a question to my blog. I make money by giving advice now. Something you all told me was impossible.
“Now, let’s carve up this roast and pretend like Aunt Sylvia hasn’t said something cruel about each and every one of us. Cheers!”
|
https://medium.com/are-you-okay/family-announcement-i-am-free-to-make-my-own-mistakes-1f943e3987ab
|
['Lisa Martens']
|
2019-12-25 17:18:11.823000+00:00
|
['Holidays', 'Humor', 'Life Lessons', 'Family', 'Relationships']
|
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