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Building Confidence Through Consistent Action: What Works For Shatterboxx Design Founder Jamie…
|
The Nitty-Gritty:
How Jamie Varon decided to embrace an “effortful” attitude and put more intention into her work
Why living and working from France reset her satisfaction meter and helped her find a new level of confidence
Her weekly writing practice and how that habit has impacted her ability to show up and do the work
The results she’s experiencing — personal and professional — from embracing a new working style
I used to find confidence in the fact that lots of things come easily to me.
I taught myself how to play the piano as a small child.
I could pitch a softball at 60mph without much practice.
I got excellent grades without studying.
I was given extra responsibilities at my first jobs.
My default mode was to expect to good at whatever I tried. I expected things to be easy and effortless.
Most of the time, this was good. It meant that I had the confidence to try new things or step up to a new level.
But operating like this also had a serious downside.
The downside of finding confidence in things being easy is that, when I tried something that didn’t feel easy, I ran the other way.
Anything that took effort or practice tore down my confidence and left me feeling like a sad sack.
This month, we’re examining confidence. Specifically, we’re looking at how small business owners find the confidence to take a big step forward.
As you might imagine, lacking confidence in anything that required me to actually work at a thing didn’t serve me well as a business owner.
For years and years, I ran my business in a way that allowed me to avoid hard things.
I hired contractors instead of making a home for employees. I relied on more passive marketing instead of picking up the proverbial phone and closing the deal. I avoided examining my own mindset instead of confronting my biggest fears and weaknesses. I set goals that felt safe instead of taking a long hard look at what I really wanted from my business.
A couple of years ago, I started to get real with myself.
I realized I had been coasting. And, while coasting felt good, it wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing.
This was around the same time I started bouldering.
Imagine a 15ft wall — or, quite literally — a 15ft boulder.
Your job is to start at the very bottom and use your hands and feet to work your way to the top.
Unlike big wall climbing, bouldering doesn’t use ropes. You fall on pads. And, you will fall.
I was terrible at bouldering at first. Like, truly terrible.
Looking back, I’m not sure what even possessed me to sign up for the class. And I’m less sure what made me decide it was a good idea to go back for the second class!
Getting on the wall the first 5, 10, or 15 times, I felt weak. I felt inept. I felt truly terrible at the task set before me.
But I kept getting on the wall. I practiced — and I hadn’t truly practiced anything in my previous 35 years of life.
Eventually, I got better.
Now, I teach bouldering at my gym and other climbers come to me for tips on a regular basis.
Bouldering taught me how to work hard at something.
It taught me the value of effort.
It taught me how to feel immense satisfaction at the smallest improvement.
And, I’ve carried all of those lessons into my business.
I put more effort into my business today than I ever have — not because I believe in hustle porn or even associate hard work with bigger results.
I put this effort into my business because creating something great requires me to be great and that requires my effort.
It’s worth it. My business is worth it. I’m worth it.
My conversation today is with someone exudes effortlessness on social media. Her lifestyle, her writing, her way of showing up… it feels so natural to me. So I was surprised when she told me, right out of the gate, that she’s embraced an “effortful” attitude.
Her name is Jamie Varon. Jamie is the founder of Shatterboxx Design, as well as a writer and teacher under her own personal brand.
Jamie made a big lifestyle change over the last few years and I wanted to know where she found the confidence to do life differently as a small business owner.
We talk about the year she spent living and working in France, how she’s redefined satisfaction for herself, and how she balances setting goals with finding peace in what already is. We also talk about the very real implications these changes have had on her business and professional success.
This candid conversation with Jamie is part of a whole series we’re doing here at What Works on confidence. We want to shed light on how small business owners continue to find confidence, long after they’ve taken the leap to get started.
Over the next month, you’ll hear about finding the confidence to raise your prices, come back after a major loss, experiment & iterate, stick with the plan, and land giant clients. When we’re not posting new conversations here on the podcast, we’re sharing personal essays and reflections from What Works Network members on how they find the confidence to take the next step.
To get the full series delivered to your inbox — and check out what we’ve already released — click here.
Now, let’s find out What Works for Jamie Varon!
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https://medium.com/help-yourself/building-confidence-through-consistent-action-what-works-for-shatterboxx-design-founder-jamie-a08b7434e03
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['Tara Mcmullin']
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2019-08-06 13:27:22.627000+00:00
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['Small Business', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Confidence', 'Business', 'Podcast']
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To think, plan and fail at execution stage — the frustrations of following your dreams.
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No one tells you how heartbreaking it is to think of an idea, set out a plan and fail at execution stage.
— — —
Definition: Execute -/- to put (a plan, order, or course of action) into effect.
2020for me can honestly be described as a struggle with occasional glimmers of light. It has felt like back to back failures, pruning, and insight. It has been hard, but necessary. God has been my anchor, my sustainer and deliverer. I am sure of his plans and his ways. My assurance comes in knowing that trials are only momentary, and joy will come someday. Nonetheless, 2020 has been a hard pill to swallow. Come with me, as I vulnerably share some hard truths.
Career wise, I’m great at executing, and will always deliver work to a high standard and quality. You’d think in some way, this would filter into everything I do with ease, right?…Wrong! Executing my personal endeavours this year has been a bumpy road paved with constant disappointments, and cancellations.
For many years, I have been trying to create fashion and lifestyle content seriously (even before I knew it could be serious). I have always had a natural interest for sharing and was crazily passionate about fashion. At 13, I stumbled upon the world of blogging through Samatha Maria, and her page was all the persuasion I needed to code my own little corner on the internet. It was my creative outlet to freely curate and document my personal style, share my favourite inspirations, fashions shows, designers and history. Although time, life and imposter syndrome always got in the way. I stopped blogging, and found a new love in YouTube and again imposter syndrome reared its ugly head.
I missed creating so much; so late last year, i promised myself to commit wholeheartedly to sharing this hobby of mine with the world. I’m meticulous in character and very much a planner, I drew up a vision-board of exactly what i wanted for myself. Every detail was covered, I researched extensively about equipments, created mood-boards, learnt about the marketing / creation side. EVERYTHING. Your girl was ready. But, nothing could have prepared me for what transpired this year.
I planned so many outfits and concepts to shoot but for one reason or another I was not able to bring it to life. People would cancel on me or the venue I wanted to shoot at would. Time and help became an issue and no matter how hard I tried, it just felt like a struggle. I knew the standard of content I wanted to create, so I was adamant on not accepting less. I’d do shoots, but end up unhappy with the quality. Something was always wrong. In the spirit of making lemonade when life gives you lemons, I did a home shoot — and whew, the amount of times the stand hit my head during that shoot I had to stop otherwise a mild concoction was in my near future.
So i called quits on everything, and almost decided that maybe it was not for me, but as a fashion girl; that’s easier said than done (lol). As my last chance to put out some content before 2020 ends. In early December, I planned a weekend away with friends and the apartment we booked was perfect. I had always wanted to film a question style video inspired by the Vogue series as a way to introduce myself/ interest but all that was missing was the right place. This place we were going to stay was that right place. My creative juices started bubbling again, I planned everything — the fits, the little routine for the reels and even scripts (see image for the mini-script I drafted), and finally i had people willing to help. Then BOOM, Boris did the only thing he knows how to do. Everything got cancelled and well, I sulked for a week straight. I was heartbroken. No one really understood why it was so important but this was just the final straw after so many frustrations this year. I had built up all this excitement and creativity in my head once again and nothing happened. I was stuck in a constant cycle of rolling with the punches, and I was desperate to get out. I just wanted to think, plan and execute. You know, to see the physical result of my brain work.
After all the sulking, I took this week to reflect, and i can definitely say that the journey so far has taught me a lot about myself , both good and not-so-good. I would like to share three lessons from the not-so-good things. I believe these lessons can be applied to various experiences in life.
1.
Not-so-good: I am a perfectionist, and i do not react well to things going wrong.
Resolve : Persistence over perfection — make room for your failures.
Charlotte Seims puts it this way… “Whether we’re expecting perfection from ourselves or our kids or our spouse, it can get ugly. To be persistent, we know we have to last over the long haul so we make allowances. Perfection gets frustrated and discouraged…and quits.”
I often have an idea of what I want in my head and literally will not budge till it comes to fruition. Yes this can be positive, but it is also inflexible when situations are not ideal. I am learning to be persistence with the vision, but pivot when things don’t turn out how I imagined. I choose to no longer wallow in frustrations but instead, I am giving myself room to fail comfortably. Persistence does not neglect my standard for excellence, but accommodates my threshold for failure. I have decided to show up and show out — learn, strategise and go again.
2.
Not-so-good: I felt like a failure because I kept promising content and did not deliver.
Resolve: Be kind to yourself, breath; it’s never as serious as we make it seem — you are not your failures.
As President Obama once said — “You can’t let your failures define you — you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time.”
Though many might not see the scenario described above as failures, in those moments that was the way i viewed it. I had failed myself, and the few people that expected a styling video or whatever I had promised. There’s nothing more I hate than loosing my integrity. My word is my bond, and i try everyday to be a woman of my word. So as you can probably tell from the way I wrote this piece, I attach my failures to my ability to execute well and the frustration is often heightened when my integrity is on the line. The ‘feeling’ can get so overwhelming, that I never stop to take in the many things I have successfully executed on or how Covid-19 affected a lot of my plans. It’s a dangerous cycle of attaching your self-worth or brilliance to a job, skill or ability. It works in practice, but it is self sabotaging in failure. I am learning to look at situations objectively — for what it is not who I am.
3.
Not-so-good: I sometimes have a strong desire to want to be the ‘first’ to do something when i have an idea. This drives the time aspect of how i work, in doing i put an unrealistic and unnecessary pressure on myself to get things done.
Resolve: First mover advantage is great. But I have decided, it is more about doing it well, than doing it first — don’t set yourself up for failure.
As my 2019 self once said, and Didac Lee confirmed in his recent 2020 interview. “It’s not about being the first to do something, but being the first to do it well.”
The desire to be known as a pioneer, originator, ‘it person on an idea or topic’ is something i have had to let go off for my sanity. If it comes organically — great. I was being hard on myself for xyz, and questioning how if i had done this- and- that i would have been the first etc. I was really sweating the small stuff, whereas in the grand scheme of things — it really did not matter and nobody cares. Everyone is inspired by someone else or thing, there is no shame in the game. I am learning to carve a unique path for myself. No one does it the way i do it, and that’s my edge. If there is one thing i am sure of and i can bet on — it is myself. I will always deliver fire, whether it is inspired by or not.
Bonus — I have also learnt not to speak prematurely on things just because i’m excited or want to be perceived a certain way. It is often better to see it through first.
I have grown to value my vulnerability and ability to share my truth as a strength. In writing this, I hope it helps someone of their rut, i hope it shows you, that you are never alone and i pray it inspires you to stop being so hard on yourself. You are not your failure or wrong doing. You are more than capable to deliver. Success is just round the corner.
|
https://medium.com/@moyoaofficial/to-think-plan-and-fail-at-execution-stage-reflecting-on-2020-cffd0b81cf7e
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[]
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2020-12-28 13:15:25.587000+00:00
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['Strategy', 'Pushing Through', 'Self-awareness', 'Adversity', 'Wellbeing']
|
Understanding the Application
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You can pass data to a method using method parameters. The values passed to a method can be used inside of the method to influence the return value.
For example, you may define a method that adds two numbers together. The parameters for the method are two numbers, a and b. The return value of the method is the sum a + b. Each time you call the method in your program, you can pass different numbers to the method to get a different return value.
The Main method has a parameter called args. We’ll talk about args more in the next section.
Sometimes, there is confusion about the terms ‘parameters’ and ‘arguments’. When you define a method, you also define the names and the types of the values that are passed to the method. These are the method’s parameters.
When you call the method in your program, you pass an actual value, called an argument, to the method for each parameter.
WriteLine
Finally, on Line 9 we have a call to the method WriteLine which is part of the Console class.
The method WriteLine accepts a parameter of the data type String. In our application, we pass the argument “Hello Ken!” to the method.
WriteLine takes this argument and prints it to the Command Prompt window.
What’s Next?
In this part of the series, we explored that structure of the Program.cs file. Along the way, we got a brief introduction to concepts like directives and namespaces, classes, and methods.
Don’t worry if those concepts are unclear to you — we’ll go into much more detail as the series progresses. As you work through examples, you will begin to understand each concept better.
In the next part of the series, we’ll learn how to make our application interactive by accepting user input and using that input to modify the output of our application. You can find that part of the series here.
|
https://medium.com/swlh/understanding-the-application-1ee031cc40fa
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['Ken Bourke']
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2020-12-28 18:59:11.971000+00:00
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['Csharp', 'Programming', 'Dotnet', 'Software Engineering', 'Software Development']
|
We Want to Live
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Photo by Svyatoslav Romanov on Unsplash
If you’re not fearful right now,
you’re not paying attention,
but is that the best way to be?
It’s very appealing to me
sometimes to avert my eyes,
to switch the news feed off,
to clean my own house,
to breathe my sweet air,
to swim in my clear water,
to hope the poor decisions
of all the selfish politicians
never come to fruition
and burst my lucky bubble.
I wish, but the problem is
I know hope is not enough
and prayers will never cut it.
Who will stop the insanity
if not you and I?
Although it’s easy to feel
helpless against stupidity,
surely, if we don’t give up,
one day we must be understood;
we don’t want to steal jobs,
we don’t want to control minds,
we don’t want to live in caves,
we only want to stay alive.
|
https://medium.com/resistance-poetry/we-want-to-live-838272bdd2a3
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['Emma Briggs']
|
2020-10-07 11:32:08.212000+00:00
|
['Activism', 'Resistance Poetry', 'Global Warming', 'Climate Change', 'Poem']
|
Lazy Ways to Entertain Your Kids When You Just Can’t
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Climb the Mountain
Throw all your blankets and pillows in a pile somewhere safe. Climb the mountain! Who will be Regent of the Mountain? Don’t fall in a crevasse!
Make a Nest
Throw all your blankets and pillows on the floor, but this time, instead of a pile, you make a cozy ring. Be a baby bird, or a human who just likes to snuggle.
Snuggle Club
Keep your blankets wherever they are. Snuggle Club is now in session. Get books ready before snuggling.
“What’s the only rule of Snuggle Club?”
“Be chill!”
Where’s [parent]?
Hide under a blanket. Stay as long as possible. (This concludes the blanket-focused section.)
Image by Jay Mantri from Pixabay
Building Brick Masters (like the show, but not trademarked)
Kids, you have ten minutes to make… a house for a magical rat!
Set a timer, but feel free to give “bonus” time as needed. Everyone’s a winner.
Help Me with the Laundry
First they help you with the laundry or any other chore, and then if you’re lucky, they’ll try to sneak away, and then you sneak away? Ha HA. Or, the laundry gets done, which is also good.
Wanna Facetime with Nana?
Nana reeeeeeally needs to get up to date with all the new Pokemon from the Kalos region.
Secret Surprise
It’s time to make a secret surprise for anyone in your family who isn’t there. Maybe you could make a short video on your phone? I have no idea if my children and husband are doing this for me. (THEY ARE.)
Oops, the Grownup Turned into a Friendly Monster
Stop replying to questions in your recognized spoken language. Now you’re a friendly monster, and you only reply in very strange noises. Continue as long as no one freaks out.
Dance Party
A classic for a reason. Fulfill all those fantasies of introducing your children to your favorite music. Or, at least, introduce them and brace for them to hate some of it.
If you don’t feel like dancing, try pointing to your beloved child and saying something like, “Entertain me with a dance, or else you shall be banished to the moon!”
Hot or Cold
Hide something in the house. Ask the children to find it. Tell them if they’re getting “hot” or “cold.” You know.
Similarly, you could play hide and seek, but there are way more places to hide a stuffed animal.
Clean under the Couch
Seems boring, then — what’s that? That puzzle piece you haven’t seen for months??? And that missing library book?? And (the list goes on)?????
Baby Otter
Sack out on the couch on your back. Kid sacks out on you, on their back. Now you’re a mama otter and baby otter.
“Swim,” explore around the bay, crack open clams. “Tie” them to some “kelp” so they don’t float away. This game has the advantage of being relaxed AND super cute, but it often just lasts as long as it takes to down a few fat innkeeper worms. (Google it! It’s safe for work, yet almost not.)
Quiet Game
Does this work for you? If so, please send me your tips.
|
https://medium.com/@kelleygard/lazy-ways-to-entertain-your-kids-when-you-just-cant-c35bec43042d
|
['Kelley Gardiner']
|
2020-12-19 00:21:50.281000+00:00
|
['Kids', 'Parenting']
|
Control Freak.
|
Nancy do you fancy giving us a check
No I don’t I’m not a true democrat heck
I’ll let you starve on my guard
Don’t winge and cry about this facade
Control is my game Pelosi my name
I’ll give you nothing that’s my fame
So we’ll die in the streets they don’t care
Forty plus million face evictions unfair
These drugged up fakes must go to bed
We don’t need this like a kick in the head.
|
https://medium.com/politically-speaking/control-freak-1b685dab49ce
|
['Mara Annalitickah']
|
2020-12-07 20:57:22.690000+00:00
|
['Politics', 'Poetry', 'Pelosi']
|
Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train F-U-L-L M-O-V-I-E (2020) HD Stream Online Sub english..!!!
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In 1889, on November 1 in Gotha, Germany Anna Therese Johanne Hoch, who later would be known as Hannah Hoch was born. Being the eldest of five children, the girl was brought up in a comfortable and quiet environment of the small town. Her parents, a supervisor in an insurance company and an amateur painter sent her to Girl’s High school. However, at the age of 15 Hannah had to quit studying for the long six years to take care of her newborn sister. Only in 1912 she continued her education with Harold Bengen in School of Applied Arts, mastering glass design. As the World War I broke up Hannah returned to the native town to work in the Red Cross.
The first years after war the young woman recommenced her studying, getting to know graphic arts. 1915 was highlighted by an acquaintance with an Austrian artist Raoul Hausmann, which grew into the long-lasting romantic relationship and involvement in Berlin Dada movement. For ten years till 1926 Hoch worked in Berlin’s major publisher of newspapers and magazines. Her task was to design embroidering, knitting and crocheting patterns for the booklets.
Being on vacation with her beloved in 1918, Hannah discovered ‘the principle of photomontage in cut-and-paste images that soldiers sent to their families’ (National gallery of Art). This find affected greatly on her artistic production, and she created mass-media photographs comprising the elements of photomontage and handwork patterns, thus combining traditional and modern culture. Her prior preoccupation was to represent the ‘new woman’ of the Weimar Republic with new social role and given freedoms.
Hoch was the only woman in Berlin Dada, who took part in all kinds of events and exhibitions showcasing her socially critical works of art. Till 1931 she participated in exhibitions but with the rise of National Social regime was forbidden to present her creative work. Till her last breath in 1978 Hannah Hoch lived and worked in the outskirts of Berlin-Heiligensee.
The piece of art which is going to be analyzed in this research is ‘The beautiful girl’ designed in 1919–1920. It combines the elements of technology and females. In the middle of the picture one can clearly see a woman dressed in a modern bathing suit with a light bulb on her head which probably serves as a sun umbrella. In the background a large advertisement with a woman’s hair-do on top is presented. Maud Lavin describes strange human as ‘she is part human, part machine, part commodity’ (Lavin). The woman is surrounded by the images of industrialization as tires, gears, signals and BMW logos. A woman’s profile with the cat eyes, untrusting and skeptical, in the upper right corner is eye-catching as well. This unusually large eye symbolizes DADA movement — a monocle, which is present in almost every Hoch’s work. The colour scheme does not offer rich palette of tints, including mostly black, white, orange and red pieces. The photo is surrounded by the BMW circles which add the spots of blue.
An apt description of the piece is given in the book ‘Cut with the Kitchen Knife’ and states that it is ‘a portrait of a modern woman defined by signs of femininity, technology, media and advertising’ (Lavin). In other words Hannah Hoch focused on the woman of the new age, free and keeping up with the fast-moving world. The artist promoted feministic ideas and from her point of view urbanization and modern technologies were meant to give hope to woman to gain equality of genders. With this photomontage she commented on how the woman was expected to combine the role of a wife and mother with the role of a worker in the industrialized world. The light bulb instead of a face shows that women were perceived as unthinking machines which do not question their position and can be turned on or off at any time at man’s will. But at the same time they were to remain attractive to satisfy men’s needs. The watch is viewed as the representation of how quickly women are to adapt to the changes.
In a nutshell, Hoch concentrated on two opposite visions of the modern woman: the one from the television screens — smoking, working, wearing sexy clothes, voting and the real one who remained being a housewife.
The beautiful girl’ is an example of the art within the DADA movement. An artistic and literal current began in 1916 as the reaction to World War I and spread throughout Northern America and Europe. Every single convention was challenged and bourgeois society was scandalized. The Dadaists stated that over-valuing conformity, classism and nationalism among modern cultures led to horrors of the World War I. In other words, they rejected logic and reason and turned to irrationality, chaos and nonsense. The first DADA international Fair was organized in Berlin in 1920 exposing a shocking discontentment with military and German nationalism (Dada. A five minute history).
Hannah Hoch was introduced to the world of DADA by Raoul Hausman who together with Kurt Schwitters, Piet Mondrian and Hans Richter was one of the influential artists in the movement. Hoch became the only German woman who referred to DADA. She managed to follow the general Dadaist aesthetic, but at the same time she surely and steadily incorporated a feminist philosophy. Her aim was to submit female equality within the canvass of other DADA’s conceptions.
Though Hannah Hoch officially was a member of the movement, she never became the true one, because men saw her only as ‘a charming and gifted amateur artist’ (Lavin). Hans Richter, an unofficial spokesperson shared his opinion about the only woman in their community in the following words: ‘the girl who produced sandwiches, beer and coffee on a limited budget’ forgetting that she was among the few members with stable income.
In spite of the gender oppressions, Hannah’s desire to convey her idea was never weakened. Difficulties only strengthened her and made her an outstanding artist. A note with these return words was found among her possessions: ‘None of these men were satisfied with just an ordinary woman. But neither were they included to abandon the (conventional) male/masculine morality toward the woman. Enlightened by Freud, in protest against the older generation. . . they all desired this ‘New Woman’ and her groundbreaking will to freedom. But — they more or less brutally rejected the notion that they, too, had to adopt new attitudes. . . This led to these truly Strinbergian dramas that typified the private lives of these men’ (Maloney).
Hoch’s technique was characterized by fusing male and female parts of the body or bodies of females from different epochs — a ‘traditional’ woman and ‘modern’, liberated and free of sexual stereotypes one. What’s more, combining male and female parts, the female ones were always more distinctive and vibrant, while the male ones took their place in the background. Hannah created unique works of art experimenting with paintings, collages, graphic and photography. Her women were made from bits and pieces from dolls, mannequins of brides or children as these members of the society were not considered as valuable.
Today Hannah Hoch is most associated with her famous photomontage ‘Cut with the kitchen knife DADA through the last Weimer Beer-Belly Cultural epoch of Germany’ (1919–1920). This piece of art highlights social confusion during the era of Weimar Republic, oppositionists and government radicals (Grabner). In spite of never being truly accepted by the rest of her society, this woman with a quiet voice managed to speak out loud her feministic message.
Looking at Hannah Hoch’s art for the first time I found it confusing, because couldn’t comprehend the meaning. It was quite obvious that every single piece and structure is a symbol of the era, its ideas and beliefs. However, after having learned about her life and constant endeavors to declare about female’s right, little by little I started to realize what’s what. As an object for research I chose ‘The beautiful girl’ as, to my mind, its theme and message intersects with the modern tendency: a successful, clever, beautiful and free woman has to become one in no time, cause the world is moving faster and faster. I enjoyed working with this artist as her example is inspiring and is worth following
WRITTEN BY
Its somewhat ironic that a movie about time travel can’t be reviewed properly until your future self rewatches the movie.
It’s bold of Nolan to make such a thoroughly dense blockbuster. He assumes people will actually want to see ~Tenet more than once so they can understand it properly, which some may not. This movie makes the chronology of Inception look as simplistic as tic-tac-toe.
Ergo, it’s hard for me to give an accurate rating, without having seen it twice, as I’m still trying to figure out whether everything does indeed make sense. If it does, this movie is easily a 9 or 10. If it doesn’t, it’s a 6.
It’s further not helped by the fact that the dialogue in the first 15 minutes of the movie is painfully hard to understand / hear. Either they were behind masks; they were practically mumbling; the sound effects were too loud; or all of the above. The exposition scenes are also waayyy too brief for something this complex — a problem also shared with Interstellar actually.
(Interstellar had this minimalist exposition problem explaining Blight, where if you weren’t careful, you’d miss this one sentence / scene in the entire movie explaining that Blight was a viral bacteria:
“Earth’s atmosphere is 80% nitrogen, we don’t even breathe nitrogen. Blight does, and as it thrives, our air gets less and less oxygen”).
I guess it’s a Nolan quirk. Hopefully, a revision of the film audio sorts the sound mixing out. I do like the soundtrack, but it’s too loud initially.
I liked all the actors. You think John Washington can’t act at first, but he can, and he grows on you as the film progresses. And Pattinson is his usual charming self. Elizabeth is a surprise treat. And so on.
Its worth a watch either way. See it with subtitles if you can. And definitely don’t expect to fully understand whats going on the first time around.
Its one hell of a complicated film. It will be very hard for an average viewer to gather all the information provided by this movie at the first watch. But the more you watch it, more hidden elements will come to light. And when you are able to put these hidden elements together. You will realize that this movie is just a “masterpiece” which takes the legacy of Christopher Nolan Forward
If I talk about acting, Then I have to say that Robert Pattinson has really proved himself as a very good actor in these recent years. And I am sure his acting skills will increase with time. His performance is charming and very smooth. Whenever he is on the camera, he steals the focus John David Washington is also fantastic in this movie. His performance is electrifying, I hope to see more from him in the future. Other characters such as Kenneth Branagh, Elizabeth, Himesh Patel, Dimple Kapadia, Clémence Poésy have also done quite well. And I dont think there is a need to talk about Michael Caine
Talking about Music, its awesome. I dont think you will miss Hans Zimmer’s score. Ludwig has done a sufficient job. There is no lack of good score in the movie
Gotta love the editing and post production which has been put into this movie. I think its fair to say this Nolan film has focused more in its post production. The main problem in the movie is the sound mixing. Plot is already complex and some dialogues are very soft due to the high music score. It makes it harder to realize what is going on in the movie. Other Nolan movies had loud BGM too. But Audio and dialogues weren’t a problem
My humble request to everyone is to please let the movie sink in your thoughts. Let your mind grasp all the elements of this movie. I am sure more people will find it better. Even those who think they got the plot. I can bet they are wrong.
~Tenet is the long awaited new movie from Christopher Nolan. The movie that’s set to reboot the multiplexes post-Covid. It’s a manic, extremely loud, extremely baffling sci-fi cum spy rollercoaster that will please a lot of Nolan fan-boys but which left me with very mixed views.
John David Washington (Denzel’s lad) plays “The Protagonist” — a crack-CIA field operative who is an unstoppable one-man army in the style of Hobbs or Shaw. Recruited into an even more shadowy organisation, he’s on the trail of an international arms dealer, Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh in full villain mode). Sator is bullying his estranged wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) over custody of their son (and the film unusually has a BBFC warning about “Domestic Abuse”). Our hero jets the world to try to prevent a very particular kind of Armageddon while also keeping the vulnerable and attractive Kat alive.
This is cinema at its biggest and boldest. Nolan has taken a cinema ‘splurge’ gun, filled it with money, set it on rapid fire, removed the safety and let rip at the screen. Given that Nolan is famous for doing all of his ‘effects’ for real and ‘in camera’, some of what you see performed is almost unbelievable. You thought crashing a train through rush-hour traffic in “Inception” was crazy? You ain’t seen nothing yet with the airport scene! And for lovers of Chinooks (I must admit I am one and rush out of the house to see one if I hear it coming!) there is positively Chinook-p*rn on offer in the film’s ridiculously huge finale.
The ‘inversion’ aspects of the story also lends itself to some fight scenes — one in particular in an airport ‘freeport’ — which are both bizarre to watch and, I imagine, technically extremely challenging to pull off. In this regard John David Washington is an acrobatic and talented stunt performer in his own right, and must have trained for months for this role.
Nolan’s crew also certainly racked up their air miles pre-lockdown, since the locations range far and wide across the world. The locations encompassed Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and United States. Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography is lush in introducing these, especially the beautiful Italian coast scenes. Although I did miss the David Arnold strings that would typically introduce these in a Bond movie: it felt like that was missing.
The ‘timey-wimey’ aspects of the plot are also intriguing and very cleverly done. There are numerous points at which you think “Oh, that’s a sloppy continuity error” or “Shame the production design team missed that cracked wing mirror”. Then later in the movie, you get at least a dozen “Aha!” moments. Some of them (no spoilers) are jaw-droppingly spectacular.
Perhaps the best twist is hidden in the final line of the movie. I only processed it on the way home.
And so to the first of my significant gripes with ~Tenet. The sound mix in the movie is all over the place. I’d go stronger than that… it’s truly awful (expletive deleted)! Nolan often implements Shakespeare’s trick of having characters in the play provide exposition of the plot to aid comprehension. But unfortunately, all of this exposition dialogue was largely incomprehensible. This was due to:
the ear-splitting volume of the sound: 2020 movie audiences are going to be suffering from ‘~Tenetis’! (LOL);
the dialogue is poorly mixed with the thumping music by Ludwig Göransson (Wot? No Hans Zimmer?);
a large proportion of the dialogue was through masks of varying description (#covid-appropriate). Aaron Taylor-Johnson was particularly unintelligible to my ears.
Overall, watching this with subtitles at a special showing might be advisable!
OK, so I only have a PhD in Physics… but at times I was completely lost as to the intricacies of the plot. It made “Inception” look like “The Tiger Who Came to Tea”. There was an obvious ‘McGuffin’ in “Inception” — — (“These ‘dream levels’… how exactly are they architected??”…. “Don’t worry… they’ll never notice”. And we didn’t!) In “~Tenet” there are McGuffins nested in McGuffins. So much of this is casually waved away as “future stuff… you’re not qualified” that it feels vaguely condescending to the audience. At one point Sator says to Kat “You don’t know what’s going on, do you?” and she shakes her head blankly. We’re right with you there luv!
There are also gaps in the storyline that jar. The word “~Tenet”? What does it mean. Is it just a password? I’m none the wiser.
The manic pace of ~Tenet and the constant din means that the movie gallops along like a series of disconnected (albeit brilliant) action set pieces. For me, it has none of the emotional heart of the Cobb’s marriage problems from “Inception” or the father/daughter separation of “Interstellar”. In fact, you barely care for anyone in the movie, perhaps with the exception of Kat.
It’s a talented cast. As mentioned above, John David Washington is muscular and athletic in the role. It’s a big load for the actor to carry in such a tent-pole movie, given his only significant starring role before was in the excellent BlacKkKlansman. But he carries it off well. A worthy successor to Gerard Butler and Jason Statham for action roles in the next 10 years.
This is also a great performance by Robert Pattinson, in his most high-profile film in a long time, playing the vaguely alcoholic and Carré-esque support guy. Pattinson’s Potter co-star Clemence Poésy also pops up — rather more un-glam that usual — as the scientist plot-expositor early in the movie.
Nolan’s regular Michael Caine also pops up. although the 87-year old legend is starting to show his age: His speech was obviously affected at the time of filming (though nice try Mr Nolan in trying to disguise that with a mouth full of food!). But in my book, any amount of Caine in a movie is a plus. He also gets to deliver the best killer line in the film about snobbery!
However, it’s Kenneth Branagh and Elizabeth Debicki that really stand out. They were both fabulous, especially when they were bouncing off each other in their marital battle royale.
So, given this was my most anticipated movie of the year, it’s a bit of a curate’s egg for me. A mixture of being awe-struck at times and slightly disappointed at others. It’s a movie which needs a second watch, so I’m heading back today to give my ear drums another bashing! And this is one where I reserve the right to revisit my rating after that second watch… it’s not likely to go down… but it might go up.
(For the full graphical review, check out One Mann’s Movies on t’interweb and Facebook. Thanks.)
As this will be non-spoiler, I can’t say too much about the story. However, what I can is this: ~Tenet’s story is quite dynamic in the sense that you won’t understand it till it wants you to. So, for the first half, your brain is fighting for hints and pieces to puzzle together the story. It isn’t until halfway through the movie that ~Tenet invites you to the fantastic storytelling by Christopher Nolan.
Acting is beyond phenomenal, and I’d be genuinely surprised if neither Robert Pattinson nor John David Washington doesn’t receive an Oscar nomination for best actor. It’s also hard not to mention how good Elizabeth Debicki and Aaron Johnson both are. All around, great acting, and the dialogue amps up the quality of the movie.
The idea of this movie is damn fascinating, and while there are films that explore time-travelling, there’s never been anything quite like this. It has such a beautiful charm and for the most part, explains everything thoroughly. It feels so much more complex than any form of time-travelling we’ve seen, and no less could’ve been expected from Nolan.
Oh my lord, the score for this film fits so perfectly. Every scene that’s meant to feel intense was amped by a hundred because of how good the score was. Let me just say though, none of them will be found iconic, but they fit the story and scenes so well.
In the end, I walked out, feeling very satisfied. Nevertheless, I do have issues with the film that I cannot really express without spoiling bits of the story. There are definitely little inconsistencies that I found myself uncovering as the story progressed. However, I only had one issue that I found impacted my enjoyment. That issue was understanding some of the dialogue. No, not in the sense that the movie is too complicated, but more that it was hard to make out was being said at times. It felt like the movie required subtitles, but that probably was because, at a time in the film, there was far too much exposition.
Nevertheless, I loved this film, I’ll be watching it at least two more times, and I think most of you in this group will enjoy it. I definitely suggest watching it in theatres if possible, just so you can get that excitement.
(4/5) & (8.5/10) for those that care about number scores.
At first, I want to ask Christopher Nolan one question, HOW THE HELL YOU DID THIS? Seriously I want to have an answer, How did he write such as this masterpiece! How did he get this complicated, fabulous and creative idea? What is going on in his mind? The story is written and directed perfectly, the narration style was absolutely unique. I have no idea how can anyone direct such as this story, that was a huge challenge, and as usual Nolan gave us a masterpiece that we’ll put beside (Memento), (Inception) and (Interstellar) The movie is so fast-paced in a good way, there was no boring moment. The chemistry between John David Washington and Robert Pattinson was great and funny and both of their performance was really good. Elizabeth Debicki performance was the best in the movie because she had the chance to show her acting abilities and she cached up that chance and showed us an A level acting.
The music wasn’t unique and distinct as the music of Interstellar for example and I think this movie needed the touch of Hans Zimmer, I’m not saying that Ludwig Göransson failed but Hans Zimmer in another level.
If there was something I’d say that I didn’t like it in the movie would it be that Nolan discarded any set up or characters backgrounds except Elizabeth Debicki dramatic story but it wasn’t that bad for me, I didn’t care about that, the exciting story didn’t give me the chance to focus on it. But the actual problem was the third act, it was really complicated and I got lost and I convinced myself to discard the questions that were in my head and enjoy the well-made action sequences and Elizabeth Debicki performance.
I think this kind of movie that gets better with a second and third watch.
I honestly don’t quite know where to begin with ~Tenet. I love Christopher Nolan’s work but I have never seen a more complicated film (and I understood Memento). ~After nearly three hours, I came away from ~Tenet not knowing myself, my mind reduced to nothing more than piles of ash.
Was there time travel involved? Hmm, there was definitely something about time inversion. I mean, does Nolan even understand what he wrote? Look, I give credit to the director because he’s one of the few directors left who knows how to create a compelling and intelligent blockbuster. ~Tenet is full of Nolan trademarks — the gratuitous Michael Caine cameo, a loud, really loud score, complete with stunning cinematography and slickly inventive action set-pieces.
This time around however, Nolan has finally managed to ‘out-Nolan’ himself: the palindromic plot, whilst creatively ambitious, is simply far too complicated for its own good. ~Tenet is overlong, overstuffed, pretentious and too exhausting to comprehend in its entirety — it makes Inception and Interstellar look like Peppa Pig by comparison.
I’m aware of the technical wizardry and creative mastery in this film and lord knows I’ll have to watch this again. For those who want a puzzle, ~Tenet at least provides a unique cinematic experience. But to actually enjoy solving it Nolan wants you to work very very hard
|
https://medium.com/@marcelladelaney3/demon-slayer-the-movie-mugen-train-f-u-l-l-m-o-v-i-e-2020-hd-stream-online-sub-english-d232a5aec331
|
['Marcella Delaney']
|
2020-12-24 14:50:06.737000+00:00
|
['Action', 'Fantasy', 'Animation', 'Adventure', 'Family']
|
coRona data #3: automatizace na Google cloud platform
|
Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
|
https://medium.com/etnetera-activate/corona-data-3-automatizace-na-google-cloud-platform-3058d8b5b3db
|
['Jiri Stepan']
|
2020-12-17 07:34:09.972000+00:00
|
['Data Studio', 'Covid 19', 'R', 'Google Cloud Run', 'Google Cloud Platform']
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This Evening Routine Will Dramatically Improve Your Sleep
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This Evening Routine Will Dramatically Improve Your Sleep
First, you need to understand sleep’s importance.
Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash
One morning while in quarantine, my girlfriend rolled over and said: “I was talking to you and you fell asleep mid-conversation.” I found that hilarious.
Usually, it takes a while for me to sleep. Not this time. I’d made some changes. For one, I began to understand the importance of sleep, as I’d often neglect it in the pursuit of productivity. Sleep’s importance cannot be understated. Neurologist and sleep medicine specialist Winnie Pao, MD says:
“How can you be in your best health when one-third of your life is spent in sleep and you cannot do that? It’s like over drafting from your bank account. If you overdraft every day, pretty soon you can’t pay back the interest.”
Sleep expert Matt Walker takes it a step further, saying:
“Human beings are the only species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent reason.”
A lot of people overlook sleep in favour of productivity. A 2018 study found that the average UK resident sleeps for between 5.78 and 6.83 hours per night, with only 6% getting the recommended 8 hours. A mere 16% of surveyed people believed they got enough sleep each night. The researchers went a step further and found that 35% of respondents would be willing to give up a portion of their salary for some more shut-eye. So, it’s clear that we value sleep but don’t get enough of it.
Walker says even if you can’t get to sleep, you shouldn’t lay in longer to make up for it, as it could ruin your body’s sleep schedule in the future. That’s all well and good, but how do you fall asleep quickly? Tossing and turning feels immensely frustrating, and it is easy to get worked up about it. Happily, there are some ways to tweak your routine.
|
https://medium.com/the-ascent/this-evening-routine-will-dramatically-improve-your-sleep-5b9ebe8e7f53
|
['Max Phillips']
|
2020-09-24 23:33:00.485000+00:00
|
['Sleep', 'Lifestyle', 'Self Improvement', 'This Happened To Me', 'Mindfulness']
|
Washing Facilities Support Safe and Nutritious School Meals for Children in Rwanda
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In addition, girls’ rooms were constructed in 33 HGSF-supported schools, providing a private space for female students to shower and change sanitary pads without fear of embarrassment in front of peers during menstruation.
Many teenage girls in Rwanda stay at home one or two days each month during their periods as schools often lack a private and sanitary place. The girls’ rooms represent a broader effort of the HGSF programme to increase regular attendance at school and improve school sanitation measures.
In addition, teachers are trained on how to provide guidance to female students on what to expect from menstruation and how to handle these challenges. “I am very thankful for the girl’s room as it will provide my 15-year-old daughter, Sarah, with a safe and sanitary place during her period. Now she can stay at school and enjoy greater privacy,” said Seraphine Mukanyarwaya, a mother of a student attending Bwama Primary School.
Prior to the recent renovations, 32 percent of supported schools did not have access to running water. Now with the support of the HGSF programme, 20 schools now have direct water pipeline access. This will not only enable better access for students to fresh drinking water but will also support access for the surrounding community, improving overall health and hygiene.
Without access to drinking water, many schools in Rwanda asked students bring water each day for drinking and for the preparation of school meals.
“Some children woke up as early as 5:30 to first walk an hour to fetch water and go back home before spending another 25 minutes walking to school,” said Vanantie Mukahigiro, Head Teacher of Kibirizi Primary School.
The new water pipeline connection at Kibirizi is expected to drastically reduce the time students spend walking to school and to greatly improve attendance and reduce tardiness among students who might have otherwise had longer commutes to fetch water.
Benefits of the new water pipeline facilities are not only felt at school but across the wider community. In Dunhunga Cell, the area surrounding Ruhinga Primary School, more than 4,000 people also benefitted from the connection of the water pipeline to the school.
“The pipeline will bring about an overall improvement in community health as our water used to come from marshlands that were contaminated with worms resulting in frequent illness among community members. We hope to expand the pipeline to the rest of the community” said Evariste Murangira, Executive Secretary of Dunhunga Cell.
To improve nutrition among students at HGSF schools, kitchen gardens were established as a way for children to learn more about good nutrition habits.
Seeds to grow better nutrition
Seeds grown in the Kibirizi Primary School’s kitchen garden are shared with parents to ensure nutritious meals at home as well as in school. Photo: WFP/Vanantie Mukahigiro
Primary schools like Kibirizi share seedlings grown in their new kitchen gardens with parents, allowing them to grow vegetables at home as well.
Seedling sharing with families was particularly welcomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many families in vulnerable areas across Rwanda where the programme is implemented experienced significant economic shocks.
“We were so thankful to receive the seedlings from the school garden as they allowed us to prepare nutritious food at home at a difficult time,” said Anastase Nsanzimana, president of Kibirizi Primary School parent teacher association.
Since the start of the programme in 2016, regular attendance in HGSF-supported schools has risen from 92 to 95 percent and student absenteeism due to illness has reduced from seven percent to less than one percent.
Bwama Primary School has recorded a decline in student dropouts from 10 to 2 percent in the same period. New WASH facilities will further entrench gains made in recent years. With improved water, sanitation and hygiene, HGSF-supported schools can ensure school meals are safe and boost educational outcomes.
|
https://medium.com/@wfp-africa/washing-facilities-support-safe-and-nutritious-school-meals-for-children-in-rwanda-88b56fdd74fa
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[]
|
2020-12-22 11:45:41.590000+00:00
|
['Rwanda', 'Africa', 'Development', 'Nutrition', 'School Feeding']
|
CI/CD Pipeline for a NodeJS Application with Jenkins
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In this article, we are talking about how to Build Node.js and React application on Jenkins with Freestyle Project.
Note: Following this article you can build Node.js and React app with npm
If you don’t have setup Jenkins on your machine please follow this article.
After setting up Jenkins we need to configure NodeJS on Jenkins.
Install NodeJS plugin
Open Jenkins: Manage Jenkins > Plugin Manager > Install NodeJS plugin.
Global Tool Configuration
Open Jenkins: Manage Jenkins > Global Tool Configuration > NodeJS
Set your compatible node version. We can set multiple NodeJS version for multiple application.
1: Build Application with freestyle.
Create a Node application job
Open Jenkins > New Item > Enter any job name> Choose Freestyle Project > Click on Save button.
2. Source Code Management > Check Git and give Repository URL:
Git URL to your repo. Take this URL from Github. It should be the format of [email protected]:{username}/{repo}.git
Credentials: Select the one you created before.
Branches to build: $branch
3. Build Environment > Provide Node & npm bin/ folder to PATH
Select the Nodejs version that is compatible with your application.
NodeJS Installation: It will display all Node version that is added through Manage Jenkins > Global Tool Configuration > NodeJS
4. Build > Execute shell:
#!/bin/bash echo "------> Install node modules <------"
npm install echo "------> Gulp webpack <------"
gulp webpack
Here I’m using webpack for my NodeJS application build tool but you can use Gulp, Grunt, Webpack,Express.js, pm2, Babel Any tool that you want to use.
2: Build Application with Jenkins Pipeline.
you can build an application with the Jenkins Pipeline project.
Create a NodeJS application job
Open Jenkins -> New Item. Enter any job name > Choose Pipeline > Click OK.
Pipeline > There 2 options for Jenkinsfile.
Pipeline Script Pipeline Script From SCM
Pipeline Script:
You can write your Pipeline code directly on Jenkins job.
Pipeline Script From SCM:
Pipeline supports fetching the DSL (Domain Specific Language) script from the SCM. Typically called Jenkinsfile and located in the root of the project.
Select Pipeline script from SCM from the definition.
from the definition. Select Git as SCM
Git URL to your repo. Take this URL from Github. It should be the format of [email protected]:{username}/{repo}.git
Credentials: Select the one you created before.
Branches to build: $branch
For both types of the pipeline, you can use this demo pipeline code.
🎊 🎉🤖🎊 🎉 Our CI/CD Pipeline for a NodeJS Application is successfully configured.
Click on Build Now.
Now, you can watch the progress in Console Output.
You can also integrate your build with slack using the Slack Notifications plugin.
You can create a Slack trigger to run this job So you don’t need to open Jenkins whenever you create the build, Just execute the slack command and your build is up and running.
Thank you for reading, if you have anything to add please send a response or add a note!
|
https://medium.com/appgambit/ci-cd-pipeline-for-a-nodejs-application-with-jenkins-fa3cc7fad13a
|
['Prashant Bhatasana']
|
2020-07-22 08:30:22.772000+00:00
|
['JavaScript', 'Jenkins', 'Automation Testing', 'Nodejs', 'Ci Cd Pipeline']
|
8 Ways To Create Time For Exercise
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Practical advice to avoid distraction and prioritise your daily workout.
We all have the best intentions when it comes to working out, but many of us find it hard to stay motivated and be active, life sometimes gets in the way.
These time-creating life hacks will support you in making physical activity a daily priority.
Pixabay — pexels.com
1. Wake Up, Get Ready
Do you have the best intentions to work out, but time just runs out?
Change into activewear in the morning, so you are ready to work out. Doing this removes the barrier of needing to ‘get ready’ before starting your exercise.
Being in your workout clothes will prepare you psychologically to burn calories and make you more likely to prioritise your exercise earlier in the day.
2. Set Up Your Phone To Stop You Scrolling
A reaction in response to even a moment without stimulus in our digital world is to grab your phone and scroll through numerous social media feeds, trying to find brief entertainment.
Whether you scroll through Instagram over breakfast, read one of those annoying ‘Does anyone know if the supermarket is busy’ post’s on Facebook, or watch another Tiger King Tik Tok the level of entertainment is rarely remarkable and always fleeting.
Social media can be a fantastic way to stay connected with family and friends, but it is often overused. Data shows we spend over two hours per day on various platforms. Imagine the productivity of your workouts if you redirected that time.
Did you know smartphones can track the time you spend on social media? They also allow you to set a daily limit on specific apps, so you can choose when enough is enough.
In your iPhone, for example, just click on Settings > Screen Time > App Limits then choose how long is reasonable for you each day.
Ola Dapo — pexels.com
3. De-clutter Your Digital World
Author of Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport suggests using a phone instrumentally as a tool for problem-solving, not a constant companion.
Basically using our new-fangled technology as only a telephone.
In this video with Daniel Pink, Cal outlines three real-life tips to help you improve the relationship you have with your phone.
Phone addicts, take a deep breath now.
Delete any app where someone makes money from your attention every time you tap it.
Say goodbye to social media apps and any apps with advertisement. Huge step!
Put your phone into ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode by default.
Doing this allows selected incoming calls, from family, for example, while removing unwanted interruptions and enabling you to choose when you interact with your phone.
In your iPhone just click on Settings > Do Not Disturb then your schedule and select which people can disturb you and when.
Top Tip: Limit the people on your list to only those absolutely necessary.
When you’re at home, leave the phone in the foyer (away from you).
The old ‘out of sight, out of mind method’.
Yep, remember when house phones were a thing? They had wires, and you couldn’t wander very far with them. Well, this method attaches those invisible wires to help to try and ensure your phone is a used a little more like a phone and not a 24-hour entertainment/ distraction centre!
Applying any of Cal’s three steps will remove distraction and minimise interruptions, allowing you to work out and stay in your zone.
Ryan Stone — unsplash.com
4. Create A ‘No WiFi Zone’
No, you don’t need to throw away your WiFi router altogether, but if you want to go a step further to avoid distractions, there are ways to limit WiFi access across your devices.
Apps such as WiFi Blocker allow you to block all or specific devices in your home, giving you some dedicated time offline and more time to get a sweat on.
energepic — pexels.com
5. Make a List
Use an app like Google Tasks or notebook and pen. Spend a few minutes over breakfast, writing down five things that you would like to achieve before bedtime.
Is exercise on your list?
If it isn’t, you’re unlikely to prioritise it during the day. To help ensure exercise doesn’t get forgotten, place it on your list consistently and get into the habit of making it part of your daily five.
If you want to be more adventurous, you can set yourself goals for exercise in terms of minutes, repetition or even calories burned (a smartwatch can track this for you). Goal Setting can help spur you on and make your sessions more focused.
cottonbro — pexels.com
6. Prompts For Progress
Seeing improvements is incredibly rewarding, it can help you focus, and it also boosts motivation levels, even on those not-so-good days.
Whether making weekly or monthly goals, pinning up a wall chart creates a fantastic visual support and can allow a little variety and flexibility from one day to the next.
Putting your chart or a reminder in a prominent place such as on the fridge or the door will help to prompt you to get moving!
Sites such as darebee.com has some easy to follow wall charts covering all sorts of physical activity and nutrition challenges. All are super sharp, slick designs that will have you looking forward to ticking off the days as you go.
pixabay — pexels.com
7. Alarm Alert
Simple but effective.
If you sit down to work, set the alarm to remind you when your time is up, and it is time to exercise.
Repeat to prevent binge-watching a Netflix series, playing for hours on computer games or lounging around all day reading your book.
Aim to be more active by walking around for 10 minutes of each hour you are sat down, and this will help clear your head and keep you feeling fresh.
Cliff Booth — pexels.com
8. Workout With Family or Friends
Most of us are missing the social side of exercise — local gym classes or training at your local sports club with teammates.
If you work out with a member of your household or get a friend involved, you can help keep one another accountable.
Supporting each other will create a much-needed social connection and also open up possibilities such as creating weekly competitions against each other or collaborative challenges to work together on. Even just doing workouts at the same time in real-life or via video call can boost motivation and make it all much more fun!
See if one of the eight methods works for you. Whichever way you choose, you will create more time for what matters to you!
Visit www.theinfinitelearners.com to read more from Lewis
Follow Lewis on Twitter: @lewisjkeens
|
https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/8-ways-to-create-time-for-exercise-2bdb58379f65
|
['Lewis Keens']
|
2020-06-15 03:33:52.170000+00:00
|
['Health', 'Workout', 'Fitness', 'Exercise', 'Lifehacks']
|
Hiring the Right Type for the Task
|
by Tim Gouw on Unsplash
Imagine you’re a highly-focused software engineer. Detail-oriented, concerned primarily with getting the job done right. At times, others might be a little frustrated with your cautious approach, but the end product is invariably of high quality. You can’t stand interruptions, noise, and useless chatter.
Then somebody from sales comes over and sits down right next to your cubicle. Not only are they loud, but they don’t know- and apparently don’t seem to care- that their stories are disturbing the entire work group. As the noise and the laughter pierce your brain, you hunker down even more, ignoring the sales guy. It’s nearly impossible to concentrate, and as a result you may make mistakes. For you that’s a major problem.
That’s completely unacceptable. The sales guy doesn’t care. He’s still trying to get you to listen to what happened this past weekend. It’s hilarious!!!
No. It isn’t. It’s invasive, annoying, and affecting your work quality. But you continue to do your level best to concentrate over the guy’s noise. If you have to tolerate this too much more, you’re going to contact your recruiter.
Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash
The sales guy, on the other hand, is going out of his mind. Stuck in a back office with menial, boring, repetitive tasks, he’s dying for interaction. If I have to back there and spend another eight hours on reports, I’m going to quit tomorrow, he thinks. He’s a top performer, but his boss has been handing over maddeningly mindless responsibilities that have nothing to do with sales- at least in his opinion. I’m wasting my time here.
Two offices down along the edge of the building, an employee is having a tiff with one of the senior managers.
“You need to plan the company picnic,” the manager says. “It’s key to morale. I’ll give you last year’s program, and you can use that as a guideline. Make sure you talk to everyone about what kinds of food they want and their favorite activities. We want everyone involved.”
The young man balks. “I have deadlines,” he argues. “I don’t have the time to go around and talk to every single person in the department. I won’t make my goals. That’s going to make me look bad.”
“This is for the entire department,” the manager argues back. “If people aren’t happy, they aren’t going to work hard. You need to think about the larger needs of the company.”
The young man scowls, takes the paperwork and resentfully leaves her office. This ridiculous chore is an incredible waste of time, he thinks. She doesn’t realize how important my work is to the department.
The manager closes the door of her office. I hate this job, she thinks. Two months previously she was promoted out of her job as a team member, which she loved. Surrounded by people she knew well and respected, she now operates solo. She’s four states away from her friends. Isolated in her office all day, she misses the comfort, safety and routine of her team responsibilities. She’s already thinking about putting her resume together.
Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash
Hire Smart and Manage Well=High Productivity
Every day in companies everywhere, people end up angry, or they leave companies because they are placed in the wrong position for their natural gifts. When we hire people, part of our responsibility is to ensure that our employees land where they will bloom. That’s how we get their best work.
The famed psychologist Carl Jung developed what would become the basis for personality archetypes. Those basic archetypes inform the many versions of styles training that we see today: DISC, Social Styles, Myers-Briggs and many others. The London-based training company Speak First (https://www.speak-first.com/)divides those archetypes into animals: Owl, Lion, Monkey and Horse, which makes remembering each style much easier.
Being able to recognize each style, understand their work preferences and place them in conditions that allow them to maximize their best preferences is part of a manager’s job. That begins with hiring appropriately for each position, and understanding the work preferences of each style. A bad fit means poor work, resentment and guaranteed turnover.
Photo by Stefan Steinbauer on Unsplash
For example, in the situations above, our software engineer is an Owl: detail oriented, works best alone where he can concentrate on the minutae, quiet, focused, and superb at ensuring that everything is done right. Loud, talkative people are a bane to his existence.
The salesman, on the other hand, is a Monkey. Energetic, enthusiastic, superb at connecting with people, they are perfect for sales, public relations, marketing. They are the company party, and they have a very high need for applause and recognition. Isolating them in a back room with menial tasks drives them insane.
Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash
Our manager above, is a Horse, concerned with the welfare and happiness of her entire department. Her desire to have a company picnic is part of how she ensures a welcoming and happy atmosphere for her group. A great listener, she’s primarily interested in whether people are happy at work. When she was promoted to manager and moved away from her beloved team, it wasn’t a gift. If anything, she misses her “herd” more every day. She would like her new job a lot better if it were designed in such a way to allow her far more interaction rather than being stuck in her office most of the time.
Photo by Marius Ciocirlan on Unsplash
The young man our manager has assigned the picnic to is a Lion. With a strong ego and need to achieve, he is impatient about other’s needs, when they don’t coincide with his own. Motivated by getting his goals accomplished, the time-consuming process of engaging everyone else can be a burden. He feels out of control of his own destiny when asked to do tasks that he believes sucks time away from achieving his goals. Focused far more on the task at hand, people’s feelings and emotions sometimes get in the way, as far as he’s concerned. He plans to run the whole department one day.
Each of these people has particular likes, dislikes and strong tendencies. When folks like the Owl and Lion get stuck having to deal too much with people and feelings, their work satisfaction can plummet. Horses and Monkeys feed off other’s energy and happiness, but for different reasons.
Understanding what these style archetypes prefer is a huge part of the hiring process. When we develop a job description, the duties will tell us what kind of person will thrive in that position. When we’re interviewing we’re looking for like tendencies. The same thing happens when we move, promote, and place people in their work stations.
A perfect example of a classic promotion mistake is to put a superb salesperson in charge of a sales team. As someone who has trained sales for decades, I see this mistake all the time. A terrific individual contributor, your salesperson loved her job, her achievements, her perks and all the applause she got for nailing the whale clients. Suddenly now she’s a baby sitter for ten salespeople. This is not her primary skill set. As a born storyteller, she isn’t all that interested in their issues, problems and stories. She wants to tell hers around the donut box just like she used to. Now she’s stuck doing administrative duties which she despises, and she’s no longer in the field selling, which is her greatest gift to the company. She loves the title, hates the job.
by Asa Rodger on Unsplash
Archetypes are guidelines. None of us is locked in stone, and one of the demands of good employees is to learn to stretch and adapt. However, if that employee is simply not in the right position, no amount of coaching is going to help them make fundamental changes to who they are. To wit: as someone who is a combination Monkey/Horse, I thrive on audiences and relationships. The Army, in all its wisdom, assigned me to be an administration office shortly after I graduated from Officer’s Candidate School. I was isolated in a small dusty office, and given reams of paper to review and assess. I went out of my mind in a week and failed horribly at the job. I did my level best, but I was miserably mis-assigned. My commanding officer wasn’t pleased, but I got moved to the television studio, where I flourished and succeeded.
If you’ve got people whose performance has just plummeted, or have noticed that your new hire isn’t adjusting, it may well be that they’re not a fit for the position. Or, by promoting someone into a new role, you might have taken them out of the perfect spot and into a new role for which they are neither suited nor do they enjoy. This is how we lose good people.
The best managers take the time to consider personality archetypes when they hire, and they also ensure that the working environment allows each of those styles to maximize their gifts. This way our people feel valued, are able to put their best skills to work, and everyone wins.
|
https://jhubbel.medium.com/hiring-the-right-type-for-the-task-679f7192f2ef
|
['Julia E Hubbel']
|
2018-07-10 13:56:27.268000+00:00
|
['Work', 'Management', 'Employee Engagement', 'Productivity', 'Hiring']
|
#diary_25_December_2020
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Hey friends, Anton here!👋
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💥 SOCIAL FARMING: contribute to the development of the “NOAH`s DeFi ARK” protocol database \ “Q DeFi Rating” scoring algorithms.⚙️
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2. 🔵 If you want to add your ETHereum address into the “approved addresses list” and participate in the next testing stage >> please submit your details in this Google Form:👇
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/16f2kTCKCyzz6OnjFCloeiAPRsKnyvNODbKKSj9tyv-8/edit
Get your New Year’s gift from QDAO DeFi! 💰🎅🎁
We are raising the interest rates from November 24th 2020 to February 21st 2021. 💸 🔝
Safely store your crypto and enjoy awesome earnings with the upcoming Bull market! 💲💲💲
All the details are here: https://bit.ly/3kXx4Gr
Аll my things know that breaking down right at the end of the week is a good idea 👌😂 Now I know what I’m going to do this weekend. 🛠
|
https://medium.com/noahcoin/diary-25-december-2020-eng-841259398836
|
['Noah Coin']
|
2020-12-25 10:32:47.268000+00:00
|
['Blockchain', 'Noah City', 'Noah Project', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Defi']
|
NFL Film Breakdown: Why Jared Goff and the Rams Will Be Just Fine
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NFL Film Breakdown: Why Jared Goff and the Rams Will Be Just Fine Casey Sully Follow Jul 8 · 8 min read
Jared Goff and the Rams’ 2019 season didn’t go as planned. Interception numbers went up, touchdown throws went down, and the Rams missed the playoffs after playing in the Super Bowl in 2018. While the scrutiny has been on Jared Goff after signing his $134 million contract, the Rams’ offensive line went from being ranked 5th in the NFL in 2018 to dropping all the way to 31st in 2019 according to PFF (Linsey, 2019). getting rid of the ball faster and running more play-action in 2019, Goff and the Rams still experienced pressure at a rate of 4% higher than 2018 (Linsey, 2019). While he has some issues locking onto receivers, getting follow through with his back leg, and dipping his shoulders at times, it’s hard to be mad at a guy who’s experiencing pressure by the time he’s at the top of his drop. Throw in the fact that pressure is the absolute worst thing that can happen in a McVay offense with lots of longer developing routes on shallow crosses and deep shots downfield off play-action and you’ve got recipe for a disappointing season.
Note: If you prefer to watch a video breakdown, scroll to the bottom of this article.
That being said, when Goff has a clean pocket, he is rated as the 6th best QB in the league over the last three years and that’s exactly what the film showed. Goff’s mechanics are some of the best in the league. He is incredibly consistent in his base, footwork, and throwing motion. His feet stay wide, he moves with subtly and quickness in the pocket, can stand strong and take hits, and shows good mobility throwing on the run. Part of Goff’s tendency to lock on or struggle was that he just flat out didn’t have time to read anything other than the first thing he saw because pressure was there so fast.
Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
Despite a lackluster 2019, Goff can 100% get the job done and be worth the huge contract he signed. Let’s take a look at what exactly Goff is bringing to the table and what went wrong for the Rams in 2019.
As mentioned before, Goff is one of the best in the league in a clean pocket. He shows excellent mechanics, throws with anticipation, and is worth every penny of $134 million. Here on play-action he keeps a perfect base with his feet just outside of shoulders, throws with anticipation before the receiver is even out of their break, brings his leg all the way through, and delivers a dart 25 yards downfield and on the sideline.
Here again he shows great anticipation and mechanics as he begins his throwing motion before the receiver has cleared the linebacker. He understands where the hole in the zone will be, keeps a good base on his hitch steps and brings his leg through on the throw. The Rams are exploiting the weaknesses of cover 2 here and McVay schemes it up so that the middle linebacker is pulled up on the spot route by Gurley leaving the window open on the second level for Cooper Kupp. The opposite slot is running a post behind it so if that is covered and the safety comes down on Kupp, you now have a ton of field to work with on the flat post behind it.
Goff can dice defenses up out of a clean pocket. His arm talent and ball placement is exceptional when he has nobody is at his feet. You can see him earhole a defender that’s trailing in coverage in the first gif and fit the ball into the window between the corner and safety in the next one.
He moves subtly in the pocket to keep his feet and base underneath him while avoiding pressure, constantly keeps his eyes downfield, and looks like a top tier quarterback.
On play-action and rollouts he shows touch and accuracy — dropping it over linebackers and in front of safeties or driving the ball on crossers. His eyes stay downfield, he’s mobile, and understands the flow and position of defenses.
The issue is that sometimes this pressure is so quick and immediate out of his drop or run fake on play-action, Goff only has time to read one thing. This can lead to some rushed mechanics where he doesn’t follow through, has shoulder lean, or can lead to poor decision making where he doesn’t have time to verify where defenders are — resulting in miscommunication with receivers, bad interceptions, or inaccurate balls.
It can be hard to blame him when his back is turned to the defense on a run fake and when he turns around he has pressure in his face and immediately has to locate and diagnose a defense. This is why McVay’s system is so reliant on an offensive line. It’s not just the building off of outside zone that helps it go, they also need to give extended time to the quarterback on play-action since his back is turned to the defense for the first second of the play. A lot of times Goff simply doesn’t have time to execute the scheme which is why you saw his numbers dip and the success of the Rams go with it.
That being said there are clearly times where he isn’t seeing the field the same way his receivers are even in clean pockets. He can expect a back-shoulder, throw a ball skinny when the receiver is running flat, or throw to a window the receiver isn’t ready for. These aren’t mechanical inaccuracies, they’re conceptual and scheme issues where he and the receiver aren’t on the same page.
Goff’s mechanics are largely clean but he can have issues with shoulder lean when he drives balls. Ideally, when completing the throwing motion, you want your hips and shoulders parallel with the ground. When you tilt or lean it can cause balls to sail on you because you’re now releasing at a higher apex point and you’re less consistent from throw to throw.
The same thing happens when he leaves his leg on the follow through. It prevents full hip rotation and reduces the power of the throw which makes his throws less accurate and in some cases prevents scoring plays. In the play here if this ball is a little further out with more air, it’s a walk-in touchdown. Instead, Goff leaves his back leg and doesn’t complete his follow through on the throwing motion and the ball is short. This issue crops up from time to time and generally just reduces his power and velocity on the throw causing balls to be late or inaccurate and disallowing potential yards after the catch.
Despite the occasional issues with his follow through and shoulder lean, Goff is one of the most mechanically clean quarterbacks that I’ve seen. His base is always solid, he has an efficient throwing motion, generally good hip rotation, can put touch on the ball, and understands defensive vulnerabilities. His mobility in the pocket is also a huge strength of his. Almost any quarterback would struggle with the 31st ranked offensive line in the league and Goff is no exception. The Rams offense is predicated on running the ball and having time to let routes develop on play-action. Without those two things, things are going to be a struggle. It’s clear to me that Goff is not the problem in LA. If that offensive line can just get back to average, the Rams will look like a completely different team. With an NFC West division that is now chock full of talent and elite teams, the Rams will need that line to step up. If they do, there’s no reason that Goff and those skill positions can’t make another run at a Super Bowl.
If you liked this post make sure to subscribe below and let us know what you think. If you feel like donating and want access to some early blog releases and exclusive breakdown content or to help us keep things running, you can visit our Patreon page here. Make sure to follow us on YouTube for video breakdowns and Instagram@weekly_spiral and twitter @weeklyspiral for updates when we post and release our podcasts. You can find the Weekly Spiral podcast on Spotify or anywhere you listen.
References
Linsey, B. (2019, December 31). Ranking all 32 NFL offensive lines following the 2019 regular season. Retrieved from Pro Football Focus: https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-offensive-line-rankings-following-2019-regular-season
|
https://medium.com/the-sports-scientist/nfl-film-breakdown-why-jared-goff-and-the-rams-will-be-just-fine-647d36b7162c
|
['Casey Sully']
|
2020-07-10 21:36:28.733000+00:00
|
['Los Angeles Rams', 'Quarterbacks', 'Sean Mcvay', 'NFL', 'Jared Goff']
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Security Researcher Adds Spy Chip to IT Equipment for Just $200
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by Ryan Whitwam
Credit: Getty Images
Malware scanners can protect your devices from malicious software, but what about malicious hardware? Implanting covert spy chips could give a bad actor unlimited access to your data, which is why Bloomberg Business’ SuperMicro report last year was so worrying. No evidence has surfaced to support those claims, but sneaking spy chips into hardware isn’t impossible, In fact, one security researcher says he’s figured out a way to do it for about $200 in his basement.
In the Bloomberg story, sources claimed that Chinese state-sponsored hackers had secretly added small chips to SuperMicro’s server motherboards. These boards were later used in Apple and Amazon servers. The chips were allegedly tiny, no larger than a grain of rice. So, it was understandable they had snuck in under the radar. However, every company named in the story has denied it, and external reviews of SuperMicro boards found no such chips.
We know intelligence agencies like the NSA routinely insert spy chips into devices during transit, and security researcher Monta Elkins claims to have developed a version of that technique with off-the-shelf hardware. All Elkins needed was a $150 air-soldering tool, a $40 microscope, and some tiny programmable chips used in personal electronics projects.
Elkins approach uses an ATtiny85 chip salvaged from Digispark Arduino boards, each of which costs around $2. The chips have a total surface area of about 5mm, more than small enough to go unnoticed on a circuit board. You can see the chip indicated below, but Elkins says he could have made it even more stealthy if he hadn’t wanted to show the chip placement to fellow hackers.
As a proof of concept, Elkins created code for the chip that allowed him to interface with the administrator settings on a Cisco ASA 5505 firewall. Elkins says he chose that model because it was the cheapest one he could find on eBay, but the attack should work on all similar systems. When the compromised board boots up, the chip triggers the firewall’s password recovery feature and creates a new administrator account. An attacker could use that account to monitor network activity and steal data.
Elkins plans to reveal all the details of his project at the upcoming CS3sthlm security conference, but he’s not trying to prove Bloomberg’s report is accurate. Instead, he wants everyone to realize implanting spy hardware is trivially easy regardless of whether that report was true. It only cost him $200 to devise a strategy to do it, and a state-sponsored hacker with access to chip fabrication could make much more stealthy custom designs for a few thousand dollars.
Now read:
|
https://medium.com/extremetech-access/security-researcher-adds-spy-chip-to-it-equipment-for-just-200-d7c58159b4a3
|
[]
|
2019-10-11 13:41:27.743000+00:00
|
['Privacy', 'Information Technology', 'Security', 'Networking', 'Surveillance']
|
Jameson is Deep Pain & Tender Love
|
We broke up for a week once.
In that week, I booked a trip to Ireland with my closest childhood friend. A spontaneous trip is something I can always get behind, especially when it’s with a dear girlfriend. Little did I know that it would have been in Ireland, or four years from Ireland and in my kitchen, where she’d still be the friend, ready and waiting, to take care of me when he and I inevitably break up for good.
But, just before the trip, one of us ends up making the first attempt at getting back together. It’s raining out and he’s in my front seat. We are catching up, small talk. I tell him about my exciting trip and he says, “You were just going to go to another country without telling me?”
In my head I think to myself, “Do you still tell the people you’re broken up with, where you go, and what you plan to do?”
Regardless, my best friend and I still go to Ireland. We drink Guinness at a dive bar, eat beef stew, see endless rolling green hills, and for the majority of our trip it’s nothing but those gray, drizzly, skies we had heard about. We see the breathtaking Cliffs of Moher, visit stunning cathedrals, drive on the other side of the road in the pouring rain, and visit a castle that traces back to the ancestry on my mother’s side.
The nightlife was very entertaining. We went to nightclubs in Galway and danced. We partied with hilarious women from New York. A drunk Irishman even flashed us his penis in the middle of a dance floor. Out of instinct and pure shock, I punched him in the face. He made a face and his body language basically said, “Alright, yeah. That’s fair.” The DJ gave a thumbs up. I looked at my friend and we shrugged. Ireland, man.
We pour endless wine one night and our truths come pouring out, too. Sex over the years, money, family, health, and our dreams. We laughed over tapas at a random and delicious Spanish restaurant we found. I throw my head back from laughing so hard that I smash my head off the brick wall behind me.
We buy trinkets for our nieces or nephews and visit a museum or two. We do the Guinness and Jameson tours, where I purchase a fancier bottle of Jameson and get his last name printed on the label. When I eventually take it home to him, he makes certain to only take sips on days filled with milestones or for special occasions. The condo he later purchases, his promotions, and old friends visiting from out of town, for example.
On the day we break up, we’ll sip from it, too.
My best friend and I fly home with our beautiful and hilarious memories. Single or not, the trip was everything we thought it would be and more.
The Jameson lasts from November 2015 until it’s final drops in February 2019. Our last night together in that condo was filled with our final attempts on how I could somehow stay. There is endless sobbing, deep embrace, and so much love.
How powerful it was, that through our sorrow and heartbreak, we could still love each other enough to ensure we honor the relationship for all that it was.
A toast to the end of an era.
He reaches for that special bottle of Jameson, that has witnessed first hand, all of his accomplishments from the last four years. As he finishes filling up our shot glasses, the bottle gives one last drop, and then it empties for good. A perfect pour for two. He sits on the bed. The bottle having emptied gives us this undeniable confirmation that it really is time. Our crying is put on hold, and we sit across from each other on the bed, now smiling. It was as if even the Jameson knew it was our time, too. We smile and nod and take a deep breath and we hold up our glasses.
While looking into each other’s eyes, we see the best friends that we are, and the true family that we became. We smile. “Cheers.” “To us.” He says. “And to our healing,” I say.
The shot glasses clang and we hold eye contact until the whiskey hits our tongues and it makes our eyes close. We sip the last of the Jameson, from the trip I planned while broken up, four years ago. We hold each other’s hand and for the first time in awhile, we feel connected again. We kiss and put down the shot glasses. I place both of my hands on his face and we are forehead to forehead. I want to remember this unique feeling: deep pain and tender love.
Somehow, it is the Jameson that has us surrender to one another on this night. No more convincing, just a quiet acceptance, even if temporary. Time feels as though it is fleeting. We don’t want to fall asleep because when tomorrow comes it will mean goodbye. But, we are exhausted from the sorrow that our last week together has brought on. Curled up we look into each other’s eyes before bed one last time. I gently rub his face the way he likes, slowly on his forehead, and then on his scruff which I have always loved. He starts to fade and I am fading too.
I can’t help it, but I say it. “I don’t want to go.” And, I cry. “You can stop this from happening, Hellie.”
I feel sick. It is as if there is a death taking place tomorrow and I have the power to make the last minute decision to save that very life.
“I don’t want to go, but it’s that I have to go.” “I don’t understand, but I’ll keep trying to,” he says.
We let sleep and the subtle taste of Jameson take us into morning.
|
https://medium.com/@withanie/jameson-is-deep-pain-tender-love-e56e957fbcb2
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['Kellie Burley']
|
2020-12-23 03:03:32.515000+00:00
|
['Breakups', 'Life', 'Travel', 'Love', 'Friendship']
|
Did Collective Intelligence predict the coronacrisis?
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Stock markets can make or break a mood. Or do moods perhaps drive the market? The relationship between sentiment and market performance is the subject of a great number of academic papers. At Cindicator, we’re putting this into practice, tracking sentiment through questions sent to thousands of analysts since 2015.
Last November, we added a special new question type dealing with the economy. In this post, we will share how indicators based on these questions changed during the coronavirus crisis and foreshadowed the S&P 500’s local low.
What is Cindicator’s Collective Intelligence platform
If you’re not familiar with Cindicator, here’s how it works. Users register on the Collective Intelligence app for iOS, Android or web. It’s free, and over 140,000 people from 135+ countries have signed up.
Every day, the Cindicator team posts questions about stocks, crypto, commodities, and more. Users make forecasts by answering these questions. They have ‘skin in the game’: if they are right, they win points and climb the rating, based on which the best analysts receive rewards in crypto at the end of the month.
For most questions, Cindicator applies machine learning models to assign weightings to each forecast based on the individual analyst’s track record and other factors. The result is the ‘Hybrid Intelligence’ indicator. For new questions, we start by using the median and then test different models to see how the accuracy reacts. Since 2017, Cindicator’s accuracy has been above 60%.
Economic and political sentiment questions
Starting in late November, we asked a series of new questions every weekend to find out how analysts view the economic and business environment in their countries and what they expect in the future.
We ask about:
Current levels of economic uncertainty;
Current and future levels of unemployment;
The future attractiveness of the business environment;
Current and future political stability.
The analysts give an answer as a percentage between 0% and 100%.
For these experimental sentiment questions, we didn’t apply any ML and instead used the median as the indicator and also calculated the difference between the current and the previous week.
Question examples
What’s the level of economic uncertainty people in the country you live in are currently facing? ( 0–50% = reduced economic uncertainty; 50–100% = increased economic uncertainty)
What is the current employment situation of people in the country you live in? ( 0–50% = negative, difficult to find employment, job losses; 50–100% = positive, easy to find a new job)
How will the employment situation in the country you live in develop over the next 365 days? (0–50% = negative development; 50–100% = positive development)
How will the business environment in the country you live in develop over the next 365 days? (0–50% = negative development for business environment; 50–100% = positive development for business environment)
What is the current level of political uncertainty people in the country you live in are facing? (0–50% = low uncertainty; 50–100% = high uncertainty)
How will the political environment in the country you live in develop over the next 365 days? (0–50% = negative development; 50–100% = positive development)
Now let’s review the results.
Employment sentiment and S&P 500
On the above chart, the blue line is the median answer to the question about the current employment situation in the analyst’s country. The yellow bars show the percentage difference between the indicator for the week in question and the previous week.
We can see that the indicators usually hovered between 40% and 70%. As a reminder, an answer of 0–50% suggests that the situation is “negative, difficult to find employment, job losses”. Meanwhile, an answer of 50–100% indicates “positive, easy to find a new job”.
During the weekend of 14–15 March, we saw the lowest indicator since we started asking these questions: 25%. The following weekend (21–22 March), the indicator was neutral at 53.8%.
The difference between the two responses is the highest we’ve ever seen: (0.538–0.25) / 0.25 = 115%.
The day after this indicator, the S&P 500 index reached its local low of USD 2,191.9.
On the chart below, we can see a similar trend for the question about the employment situation over the next 365 days. The week-on-week differenceis even more pronounced.
Business environment sentiment and S&P 500
The business environment indicator showed a similar trend. From mid-December to early March, this indicator was more stable than the others.
Political environment sentiment and S&P 500
The difference between indicators for political uncertainty peaked the week after the S&P 500 low. This indicator was more volatile than the others, as evidenced by greater differences in previous weeks.
The indicator for the future political environment is more similar to the other indicators.
Economic uncertainty sentiment
The indicator for economic uncertainty showed increasing volatility. While the peak difference came after the S&P 500 low, the previous peak also occurred on the weekend after the S&P 500 reached its all-time high.
Predict the next crisis — get access to private pilot
It appears that a peak in the differences between sentiment indicators predicted the S&P 500 local low.
Of course, more data is needed given the extraordinary events that have taken place: President Trump announced a national emergency and BTC crashed 40% to name a few.
These events, however, are unpredictable and a sentiment indicator can quantify the overall reaction to the barrage of announcements and market moves.
If you want to catch black swans and be among the first to understand how the crisis will develop — whether it’s U-, W-, V-, L-shaped or something else —
NB: Because this is an early pilot study, we can only distribute these indicators to a strictly limited number of subscribers. First come, first served.
|
https://medium.com/cindicator/did-collective-intelligence-predict-the-coronacrisis-fc51b6bbedd9
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[]
|
2020-04-23 11:43:09.982000+00:00
|
['Coronavirus', 'Cnd', 'Stock Market', 'Market', 'Covid 19']
|
Never however have I seen patients as sick as those with COVID-19
|
Asa critical care medicine specialist, I am used to seeing the sickest of the sick. I am used to seeing patients with respiratory failure. I am used to seeing patients in shock. I am used to seeing patients gasping for air, with dangerously low oxygen levels. I am used to seeing patients in kidney failure. Never, however, have I seen patients as sick as those with COVID-19.
Frightening Hypoxemia (low oxygen levels)
https://www.reddit.com/live/167s4jgu8c59s
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https://www.reddit.com/live/167s4vohclem2
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https://www.reddit.com/live/167s5iofustq5
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/nfl-snf-seahawks-vs-rams-crackstreams-live-stream-reddit-watch-157897248/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/reddit-rams-vs-seahawks-live-stream-reddit-online-nfl-free-157897246/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/los-angeles-rams-vs-seattle-seahawks-free-live-stream-122720-157897247/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/stream-rams-vs-seahawks-live-stream-nfl-week16-match-on-tv-157897251/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/nflstreamswatch-seahawks-vs-rams-live-stream-reddit-free-o-157897250/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/seahawks-vs-rams-crackstreams-live-stream-free-on-reddit-nfl-157897252/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/nfl-streams-reddit-watch-rams-vs-seahawks-live-stream-free-157897253/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/seahawks-vs-rams-free-live-stream-122720-nfl-week16-157897256/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/hd-seahawks-vs-rams-live-stream-reddit-free-crackstreams-157897257/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/full-nflseahawks-vs-rams-nfl-live-stream-free-reddit-online-157897259/
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https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/nfl-streams-reddit-watch-rams-vs-seahawks-live-stream-reddit-157897265/
https://www.reddit.com/live/167s7het5b1dj
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https://www.freitag.de/autoren/gedfvsdf/tdyhth-tyh-rt5-h
https://www.era-leader.com/node/57497
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https://www.freitag.de/autoren/bossmkmonir/chargers-vs-broncos-week-16-live
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/mkmonirkhancse/streaming-clippers-vs-mavericks-live-stream
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/mkmonirkhancse/world-juniors-championships-2021-live-stream
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/bossmkmonir/rams-vs-seahawks-live-stream-reddit-online
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/bossmkmonir/seahawks-vs-rams-live-stream-1
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First of all, almost all of these patients present with such frighteningly low oxygen levels. I am also a lung specialist, and I am accustomed to seeing patients with low oxygen levels. Normal oxygen levels are anything above 90%, and I have seen patients come with levels as low as the 70s. Rarely, however, do I see patients presenting to our hospital with oxygen levels in the 50s and even lower. What’s more perplexing, sometimes these patients have oxygen levels that low and have absolutely no symptoms. I have never seen that before in my career as either a lung or critical care specialist.
Frighteningly Quick Deterioration
Secondly, when these patients with COVID-19 crash, they crash very quickly and crash very hard. Each patient is a ticking time-bomb, and they could be doing fine for several hours, and then — suddenly — they are gasping for air with plummeting oxygen levels and a plummeting blood pressure. One patient — a sweet woman in her 60s — was holding her own for several days. She was still very sick, but she was holding her own. All of the sudden, she became severely short of breath and was gasping for air. Despite getting multiple interventions, including going on a ventilator, she suffered cardiac arrest and died. We were all devastated.
As a critical care specialist, I am used to seeing the sickest of the sick. Never, however, have I seen patients as sick as those with COVID-19
What I’ve Learned Taking Care Of These Patients
This disease is unlike anything we have ever seen. COVID-19 has confounded critical care specialists the world over. It has upended decades of critical care gospel, and it has left very smart clinicians, scientists, researchers and regular bedside doctors — like me — scratching their heads. Each patient acts differently to the virus, and we need to treat each patient differently. What works for one, may not work for another, and this is different than what we have been used to. This is ultimately a good thing, and it will make all of us better clinicians in the end.
Not every patient needs a ventilator right away. Early on, clinicians taking care patients with COVID-19 were recommending “early intubation,” which means placing patients on a ventilator if conventional oxygen treatment did not work. They were not wrong. At the same time, we have learned that some patients can avoid going on a ventilator if we can treat them with high amounts of oxygen with high flow rates. We have had great success using this treatment modality in keeping multiple patients from requiring a ventilator. In addition, we have found that, if patients can lie on their stomach themselves, this has helped many of them avoid having to go on a ventilator. A lot of research is being conducted on this treatment, but we have found good success with it in our patients. While a ventilator can be life-saving, and I would not hesitate to use it on any patient who can’t breathe, it can also damage the lungs, and it is important to try everything in our arsenal first before we place someone on a ventilator. Indeed, multiple guidelines have now come out saying the same thing.
We need to aggressively correct any dehydration. It has long been a teaching that the patients with the severe lung disease called ARDS, or Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, need to get as little fluids as possible. This is appropriate, because too much fluid in the body can cause the lungs to fill up with fluids and make the respiratory failure worse. At the same time, patients with COVID-19 typically come into the hospital and ICU very dehydrated. They have had fevers for several days, which causes dehydration itself, and they are not really eating and drinking (because they are sick). So, if we do not give them fluids, we are setting them up for kidney failure. As a result, we have been more liberal with fluids — all while not giving too much — and we have been very successful in preventing kidney failure.
We REALLY need to discuss goals of care with all patients admitted with COVID-19. This disease can kill. It can leave you needing a ventilator for a very long time, if not forever. Do you want this? Yes, of course, we try to “do everything” for all of our patients. The thing is, “doing everything” may not be consistent with someone’s wishes and values. Do you want to live the rest of your days on a ventilator? Do you want to die on a ventilator? Do you want to die with the team pounding on your chest? Whatever the answers are to those important questions need to be communicated to the doctors taking care of patients with COVID, BEFORE they go into respiratory failure. Having me, as a critical care medicine specialist, ask these questions is too late. It needs to be done sooner.
Like I said, I have never seen anything like this before in my career. This pandemic will have long-standing consequences on the medical profession, hospitals, the healthcare system, and society at large. I pray they are not all negative, and that — when this is all over…some day — we will all be better and stronger than we were before.
The opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and they do not reflect those of my employer or the institutions with which I am affiliated.
First of all, almost all of these patients present with such frighteningly low oxygen levels. I am also a lung specialist, and I am accustomed to seeing patients with low oxygen levels. Normal oxygen levels are anything above 90%, and I have seen patients come with levels as low as the 70s. Rarely, however, do I see patients presenting to our hospital with oxygen levels in the 50s and even lower. What’s more perplexing, sometimes these patients have oxygen levels that low and have absolutely no symptoms. I have never seen that before in my career as either a lung or critical care specialist.
Frighteningly Quick Deterioration
Secondly, when these patients with COVID-19 crash, they crash very quickly and crash very hard. Each patient is a ticking time-bomb, and they could be doing fine for several hours, and then — suddenly — they are gasping for air with plummeting oxygen levels and a plummeting blood pressure. One patient — a sweet woman in her 60s — was holding her own for several days. She was still very sick, but she was holding her own. All of the sudden, she became severely short of breath and was gasping for air. Despite getting multiple interventions, including going on a ventilator, she suffered cardiac arrest and died. We were all devastated.
As a critical care specialist, I am used to seeing the sickest of the sick. Never, however, have I seen patients as sick as those with COVID-19
What I’ve Learned Taking Care Of These Patients
This disease is unlike anything we have ever seen. COVID-19 has confounded critical care specialists the world over. It has upended decades of critical care gospel, and it has left very smart clinicians, scientists, researchers and regular bedside doctors — like me — scratching their heads. Each patient acts differently to the virus, and we need to treat each patient differently. What works for one, may not work for another, and this is different than what we have been used to. This is ultimately a good thing, and it will make all of us better clinicians in the end.
Not every patient needs a ventilator right away. Early on, clinicians taking care patients with COVID-19 were recommending “early intubation,” which means placing patients on a ventilator if conventional oxygen treatment did not work. They were not wrong. At the same time, we have learned that some patients can avoid going on a ventilator if we can treat them with high amounts of oxygen with high flow rates. We have had great success using this treatment modality in keeping multiple patients from requiring a ventilator. In addition, we have found that, if patients can lie on their stomach themselves, this has helped many of them avoid having to go on a ventilator. A lot of research is being conducted on this treatment, but we have found good success with it in our patients. While a ventilator can be life-saving, and I would not hesitate to use it on any patient who can’t breathe, it can also damage the lungs, and it is important to try everything in our arsenal first before we place someone on a ventilator. Indeed, multiple guidelines have now come out saying the same thing.
We need to aggressively correct any dehydration. It has long been a teaching that the patients with the severe lung disease called ARDS, or Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, need to get as little fluids as possible. This is appropriate, because too much fluid in the body can cause the lungs to fill up with fluids and make the respiratory failure worse. At the same time, patients with COVID-19 typically come into the hospital and ICU very dehydrated. They have had fevers for several days, which causes dehydration itself, and they are not really eating and drinking (because they are sick). So, if we do not give them fluids, we are setting them up for kidney failure. As a result, we have been more liberal with fluids — all while not giving too much — and we have been very successful in preventing kidney failure.
We REALLY need to discuss goals of care with all patients admitted with COVID-19. This disease can kill. It can leave you needing a ventilator for a very long time, if not forever. Do you want this? Yes, of course, we try to “do everything” for all of our patients. The thing is, “doing everything” may not be consistent with someone’s wishes and values. Do you want to live the rest of your days on a ventilator? Do you want to die on a ventilator? Do you want to die with the team pounding on your chest? Whatever the answers are to those important questions need to be communicated to the doctors taking care of patients with COVID, BEFORE they go into respiratory failure. Having me, as a critical care medicine specialist, ask these questions is too late. It needs to be done sooner.
Like I said, I have never seen anything like this before in my career. This pandemic will have long-standing consequences on the medical profession, hospitals, the healthcare system, and society at large. I pray they are not all negative, and that — when this is all over…some day — we will all be better and stronger than we were before.
The opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and they do not reflect those of my employer or the institutions with which I am affiliated.
|
https://medium.com/@wzendo-snkt/never-however-have-i-seen-patients-as-sick-as-those-with-covid-19-c0180ce1cbc2
|
['Wzendo Snkt']
|
2020-12-27 20:33:02.026000+00:00
|
['News', 'Social Media', 'Sports', 'Covid 19']
|
Improvements and Incentives
|
Back in the day, there was a group of people who thought the world would be better off if people weren’t allowed to do this one thing. In time, that thing became illegal. Did it stop? Of course not, it went ‘underground’. People had a desire for the product. The desire was so strong, they were willing to do what it took to meet their desire, even if it was ‘illegal’. There were people willing to meet that demand. While there was risk to being the supplier, it paid well.
I’m speaking of alcohol prohibition in the United States. This created an incentive for alcohol to be provided to those who wanted it by people willing to take the risk. Those who imbibed received the payoff of a good time and those who supplied got paid. The incentives worked for this situation all because some other group thought it would be a great disincentive for alcohol to be illegal.
I’m not bringing this up to advocate for making more things illegal or for you to do something illegal (at least according to current laws). Think of this more abstractly. People were in a pickle, I think that’s a phrase from that time, since they wanted to drink but they couldn’t do it like they had before.
If you can solve someone’s problem, they can be incentivized to use your solution and your incentive is getting paid for your product or service. At the moment, there is no shortage of problems. I have a few considerations for you in solving those problems.
Inertia and Resistance
They don’t have to come just because you built it. I can tell you this, because, well, I haven’t been the best at promoting what I have been doing. You ought to be seeing more of me in the future but up to this point I have not been providing people a compelling reason to listen, read, or buy my stuff. Once people are aware of me, that still doesn’t mean they will mosey on over and listen, read, and buy what I have created. I think it’s good stuff but if you don’t know that, there’s no incentive to get it.
You won’t do that because of inertia and resistance. In the last article, I spoke on overcoming inertia through small experiments to start making progress on your goals. Getting someone to use your product requires getting past that resistance and getting them moving toward you.
As an example, I’m always on the lookout for where I can put the cash reserves I have so it will earn the highest interest rate without taking on extra risk. There was a bank offering a higher interest rate but after looking at what you had to do to get that I passed. They overcame the inertia of me going to check out their product. They didn’t overcome the resistance because they had too many hoops to jump through to get that higher rate. They weren’t offering something compelling enough to get me to change.
Aligned Incentives
There’s a different financial company advertising they do better when their clients do better. That’s a great place to be operating from. Yes, you can go out and make a quick buck providing a product that meets some needs but isn’t that great. The chance of repeat business is low. In fact, there are business I will never go to again because of how I was treated, or the product being offered. I see it as a misalignment of incentives that led to the outcome.
If you want people to be advocate for you, your product, and your business, you must delight them. You can’t delight them if you’re not also benefiting from the interaction. They won’t be delighted if you’re not providing them with something valuable. If you’re looking to benefit the customer, they receive the benefit, and then you are also benefiting from this, you have alignment.
Improve It
I believe any product or service can be improved. The difficult part is figuring out what change can be made that will offer a better outcome for the customer and the business. There are varying perspectives and trying to bring the data in from the different sides can be a challenge. Yet, it doesn’t need to be that complicated where you start up focus groups and all the other lengths some organizations go to when making the slightest change.
Is there something that frustrates you or someone you know? How could that service or product be changed to change it from frustration to being neutral at a minimum but striving for delight?
There you go. I just gave you the way to proceed so you can start your own business and make bank. (When you do, toss a few bucks my way and we’ll call it even. I’d be delighted 😊. I’m willing to be a part of getting your business going as I enjoy the product development side provided it works for both of us.) The business providing the products and services today are improvements on prior products and services.
You might say something like a virtual reality escape room is new so it’s not an improvement. I use this as I recently did a VR escape room. Let me show you it is. Back in the day, we’d go to a place where they had big boxes with small screens where you would place one game. It was called an arcade. Even that was an improvement on the stick and hoop from even further back in the day. Then there were escape rooms came along, basically a group puzzle solving game. Combine those with advancing technology and you have a VR escape room.
Improvements are being made all the time, like combining peanut butter and chocolate. You just need to know where to look. You might be surprised once you start looking for these opportunities, you’ll see they are all around. Find something that could be done better and do it. Align incentives with those using and those providing the product. The world is waiting for your contribution.
|
https://medium.com/@nickriordan/improvements-and-incentives-9f2a4a800c56
|
['Nick Riordan']
|
2021-04-26 07:02:33.664000+00:00
|
['Incremental', 'Inertia', 'Innovation', 'Incentives', 'Improvement']
|
5 Ways to Not Care What Other People Think
|
1. Speak Up
I was silent for a long time.
I became a self-taught introvert for most of the middle school and high school.
I spoke when I was spoken to. I stayed quiet when the cool kids were around. I talked with my friends and said things to please them. I didn't want to be disliked for my opinions.
Gaining my voice back was terrifying and freeing all at the same time.
I was loud. Definitely loud. But I was happy.
Not everyone is going to like you if you speak up.
Think about the greatest people in history who used their voices to be heard. Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchhill; need I say more?
They didn't care what others thought or who hated them for what they had to say. What I'm saying is not comparable to what these courageous leaders did, but the idea that they weren't afraid to speak up because of judgment from other people is shared.
2. Accept Judgement
I feared hatred and being disliked for a long time.
But it's human nature to judge or critique others. At least most people do.
I'd like to say I don't, but when I see a post of someone on Instagram that looks a little off, I usually think to myself, "why did they post that?"
I guess what I'm trying to say is judgment is going to be there whether you like it or not. I don't like the thought of being judged, but if I fear it, I am losing everything and gaining nothing.
I'm letting people's thinking control my life.
Which is no way to live?
“Be curious, not judgemental.” Walt Whitman
If I'm going to live without fear of judgment, then I will live by not judging others. It is something I practice every day now. Let others live their lives as you live your own.
I accept criticism; it will only make me stronger. And that criticism is usually coming from someone with their own insecurities. They feel the need to push onto you.
3. Push Send
There are countless times I never hit send.
The phrase "full send" is one that I try to implement into my life no matter how ridiculous it sounds.
I cared what the response would be, whether it be me sending a text, a Snapchat, posting a picture on Instagram. The what-if mentally got the best of me, and I feared what the person on the receiving end would think.
But if you never hit send, you will never know what could have happened.
The fear that causes you to not know is worse than knowing. And trust me, I get it. Rejection or no likes or being left on read sucks. But regret, in the long run, sucks more.
Remember that it's just a message. Hit the button and bite the bullet.
Who really cares if it's a flop. Be so confident in yourself that it just doesn't matter.
4. Love Yourself
I didn't love myself for a long time, let alone like myself.
When you love yourself, you care less about what people think. So you do what you want when you want.
I can see why I was always so scared to be myself; it was because I didn't like the version of myself I was presenting. If I had loved myself more, it would have been easier to care less.
Self-love is something that takes time. I don't think we are all naturally in love with ourselves, especially in the world we live in today.
It's easy to see people that are more successful, better looking, and well appraised just by going on our phones.
But if you learn to stop comparing yourself to others and bettering your mind, body, and soul, then you will see just how amazing you are.
5. Be Honest
It's hard to know who you are and not let judgment from others scare you.
But I always remind myself this:
We have one life. One body. One spirit. One soul. One heart.
It's all yours.
There no point in hiding it or pretending to be someone you're not.
Be honest with yourself and everyone around you. It's easier said than done, but I'd rather live my life knowing I was one-hundred percent authentically me.
|
https://medium.com/an-injustice/5-ways-to-not-care-what-other-people-think-4cc5792f2bcf
|
['Taylor Franklin']
|
2020-05-24 04:45:34.119000+00:00
|
['Personal Growth', 'Mental Health', 'Culture', 'Personal Development', 'Self']
|
Design & Lead Your Life Effectively.
|
Whether you’re a director, a manager, or a user researcher (like me), or even as a parent, a partner or a friend, you’re the designer and leader of your own life. How can you do that effectively? That question has been answered in 1989, in the book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” when it was first published. Today, it is branded a timeless bestseller written by Stephen Covey, explaining what habits everyone should incorporate in their life to be — as the title states — highly effective.
We tend to believe that physical liberation precedes the psychological one. The experiences and discoveries of Victor Frankl on the meaning of life while being captured in a Nazi camp proves the opposite by showing that private victories precede public victories. And that’s exactly how anyone can become highly effective: by taking an inside-out approach. Start with yourself, become independent and then focus on nurturing interdependency. That sounds easy, right? Covey explains in the book how you can become independent and achieve private victories by internalising habits 1,2,3 and achieving public victories by applying habits 4,5,6. Habit 7 then is the one that polishes the other habits.
Habit 1 — Be proactive
There are times that things do not go the way you expect or have planned. You get an external stimulus and it’s up to you how you respond. By being proactive, you’re showing that you’re responsible or able to respond. Instead of focusing on the problems and reacting on them as they occur, you try to understand what action you can take: act instead of being acted upon. You can choose your own response. Changing the language you use will help to shift your paradigm, for example from: “if only” to “I will”. When I first got interested in UX Design, I was thinking by myself “if only I had a design background”, my desire triumphed and I took classes to understand design principles and to work on projects to apply what I’ve learned and bring perspectives from my Economics background.
Habit 2 — Begin with the end in mind
Do you have a personal mission statement? If the answer is no, create one! Your personal mission statement gives meaning to your life and is a nice handle to get you on your feet when you’re stuck. What do you want to be, and what do you want to do with your life? Needless to say, it takes some time to get to your inner values to write your mission statement. It is a work in progress piece of document that you should review from time to time. I never had the end in mind, I was focused on short-term achievements, because these are easy to assess. My personal mission statement, even though poorly drafted, is giving me a sense of direction.
Habit 3 — Put first things first
We all have different roles in life, and in a fast-moving life we lose our focus. We tend to work on the urgent stuff as they come our way, and don’t have time for the stuff that will actually help us grow, develop ourselves (Quadrant 2 activities), and also tend to neglect our duties towards important people in our lives. Tackling this problem, means personal management: planning and prioritising.
Based on Covey’s weekly planner, I made a template in Notion that I have incorporated in my life and which you can use as well. (Make sure to duplicate the page).
Habit 4 — Think win-win
This one reminds me of the Prisoner’s Dilemma: if both cooperate, both will be better off. Within teams, between departments, in your personal life, wherever you have clashing interests, do not focus on your own win and the loss of the other. Bitter resentment and loss will follow you in the long term and supersede the short term win. Think in the long term and cooperate, that’s the message.
Habit 5 — Seek to understand then to be understood
Empathy is an important skill and most people believe that they are empathic. As a user researcher I also have to use my empathic skills to understand the users, what they need, what they want. I have to admit that it isn’t easy not to fall into probing, evaluating, giving advice and interpreting. We all have our own pair of glasses that we use to make sense of the world, and as long as we don’t take them off and try to wear the glasses of others, we will not understand them. Rather than preparing a reply, listen and ask questions to truly understand the other person.
Habit 6 — Synergise
How lovely it is when you build up on each others’ ideas. Understanding each other and trying to find an alternative that creates even more value: 1+1>2
Coming from different backgrounds, having different perspectives opens new possibilities. A few weeks ago, I participated in a Hackathon and together with five others coming from different spheres of life, we had fruitful discussions and multiple ideas on how to tackle the issue at hand. No, we didn’t win the Hackathon, and yet it was a nice synergistic exercise. It was acknowledged by the challenge owner, as we were invited to work further on the ideas.
Habit 7 — Sharpen the saw
As Covey also explains, putting the 7 habits into practice is a continuous process. You will never be done with it and you will need to have the endurance and integrity to follow up. That’s why, habit 7 works on all the habits by focusing daily on four key areas: mental, spiritual, physical, social/emotional.
So next time, if someone asks you what event that happened in 1989 changed and continues to change lives to this day, you have another answer to give than the fall of the Berlin Wall :)
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https://medium.com/@bybuketyildiz/design-lead-your-life-effectively-4f09ee05f20f
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['Buket Yildiz']
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2020-12-07 10:25:07.674000+00:00
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['Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Leadership', 'Effectiveness', 'Self Development']
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Style Tiles — “A Savior for Freelance UI UX Designers”
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Outcome of the write-up would be to understand what Style tiles are, How can they help to add more productivity to our work as a Designer, Then I will show you the underlying process of Designing a Style Tile for your upcoming Design Project.
If you are listening the words Style Tile for the 1st time you might be thinking what the Heck is this now. I have read and known about tons of terms like UI, UX, Contrast ratio, bla bla bla. But never heard about this type of tile. Is it a bathroom tile 🤪🤪.
Absolutely not, let me make things simple for you.
If you are a Freelance Designer designing for your client, or a Design Consultant, or a Designer at an agency or a Designer at a Product based company. Where ever you are from the above “You are always asked to present and communicate your Ideas”.
When you here a word present do you get drained off. Does it bring into your mind tons of work, wire framing a new concept, designing new screens for them etc.
That’s a TON of work for sure.
So to save us from this unproductive & draining process of presenting your ideas and also showing the look & feel of your Concept for a new feature or an app or a website you can take the help of Style Tiles.
Let’s get into it.
Its Samantha Warren who is called the Queen of Style Tiles. Its she who started up with this concept of Style Tiles.
“Style tiles are for when a moodboard is too vague and a comp is too literal. Style tiles establish a direct connection with actual interface elements without defining layout.” — Samantha Warren
So you might have understood what Style Tiles are from the above words from the Founder of Style Tiles itself. In my words “Style Tiles are small pieces of art which acts as a blueprint prepared based on the branding and other references Resources provided by the clients just to start off the design process.” These are used just to give more idea to the client and to encourage collaborating on the process further.
So In case of style tiles: [5–10 Hours] Design a tile from the available resources that are provided by the client plus add some of your research to it. Then you would be able to come up with the Style Tile very soon.
Without a style tiles: [Unlimited hours] Inshort “Multiple full comps kill cute things”. Designing tons of screens and options, overwhelming your client, confusing them, getting unwanted feedback and a lot of other undesirable & unproductive stuff going on.
Thanks to Style Tiles!
Now lets get into what goes into the process of designing the Style Tiles:
Who the client was?
The project here was for a client — Platform who sell flight tickets and travel tours [Travel Booking site]
What I was provided with?
I was provided with just the Logo that they had got from a Designer who had designed for them previously.
So at times you might get more material from the client side if they had done some constructive work previously with their Design.
You at times can get the color pallet, typography and other branding as well.
So the logo that you see on the left was what I was provided with.
What Next ?
Let’s start with the Process of getting a Style Tile in place from the above logo.
Main things that we could add in the Style Tiles include:
Branding Typography Color Iconography Forms/UI Imagery Key components (ex. Testimonials UI if they are a Consulting company etc.) Comp Teaser (ex. Some kind of interactions, small show of main components for example the motion of how videos plays when a play button is clicked and other interactions behind this action)
So lets now directly go to what I have designed basing the Logo that I had been given.
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https://medium.com/@balajiraop/style-tiles-a-savior-for-freelance-ui-ux-designers-b111e037f1cd
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['Pathange Balaji Rao']
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2020-05-16 10:18:04.698000+00:00
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['User Experience', 'User Interface', 'Design', 'Designer', 'Freelance Designer']
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Coronavirus IV — Two Worlds. The Plumber and the Electrician
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Two Worlds, by Freya Horsley
The Plumber and the Electrician
My own stats are quite revealing: For every one time you call the electrician, you call the plumber ten!
In almost every country I’ve traveled to, in most hotels, apartments, houses I’ve stayed in and called home for weeks or months, the plumber was the one professional who was needed the most. Blocked pipes, dirty sink water, damp floors, and a myriad of leaking ceilings, toilets, and bathtubs have been the constant “background noise” of my life. Whenever I saw a person in overalls walking in a hotel corridor, whenever I heard banging on a nearby wall or saw a van arriving at a neighbor’s house late in the evening, I knew the plumber had been called for yet another special mission.
Here we are, five thousand years after the Sumerians and Egyptians created the first latrines and copper pipes to distribute water, two thousand years after the Romans created extremely sophisticated indoor plumbing systems, aqueducts, and baths, and we are still struggling with the same problems they did! Thousands of years of engineering and knowhow have not been sufficient to master all the nuisances of running water. Water, behaving as a wild animal, seems to resist all harnessing.
Nothing highlights this “resistance of water” better than the way … electricity behaves. Although the electric current was discovered only two centuries ago and was finally distributed to most houses around the world less than one century ago, we have mastered it so well that we rarely, if ever, have to deal with it. We just plug cords into outlets, switch buttons on and off, and change the occasional light bulb. Nice, simple, clean. But why do we have so many water leaks, but no electrical leaks? And why does the plumber leave a big mess behind, while the electrician is done in a few minutes, leaving all nice and clean in his wake?
An easy answer might be that plumbing is by its nature a messy business, while electricity is just a different animal involving different technology that just happens to be cleaner. Well, as it happens, it ended up being clean, nice and neat, with no dirt and leaks. But it wasn’t so in the beginning. Thousands of people died from “leaked electricity” — electrocution — a century ago. Many more also died from fires that were started by poor wiring or by faulty installations. At the initial stages of the invention, electrical systems were even messier, and of course way more dangerous, than plumbing systems.
So, here’s the crux: When there’s an electric leak, we get electrocuted and die, but not when there’s a water leak. Electricity distribution is too dangerous to fail. Therefore, we had to get it right from the very beginning. As soon as the first accidental deaths and fires started making headlines a century ago, the government stepped in and created strict rules and regulations for handling electric devices. Gradually all governments centralized the distribution of electricity and created the famous electrical grids — the sophisticated interconnected networks of power stations and substations, transmission lines, and customers.
This analogy between the plumber and electrician has been playing in my mind for some time now. Recently, I realized that it is the perfect symbol of what is going on in the world right now. In a sense, it also condenses and simplifies my previous writings about the pandemic. Simply put:
The West has not realized that the handling of the pandemic is too dangerous to fail!
We have treated the virus as if it were water: If there’s a leak, we’ll fix it; if a pipe bursts and floods the room, we’ll break the floor; let’s call the plumber after we return from our holidays. Worse still, we have dealt with the virus as we deal with plumbing problems: with a lightness, procrastination, and hope that the dripping tub will stop on its own. And because of that, the house of the West is now one big plumbing mess: The ceiling is opened to find the leak, but it drips from the sidewall; a hole is plugged in the sewage pipe, but the dirt ends up in the kitchen. So, this house experiences a plumbing catastrophe, but at the same time the flooded electricity supply is about to set everything on fire — so it is in a big electricity disaster too. We have the plumbing mess and the electric shocks of a failed electric installation simultaneously. We have the worst of water and the worst of electricity.
We have misread, miscalculated, mismanaged. For the coronavirus is not water — it is a dangerous electric current. The East knew this from the very beginning. The countries of the Asia-Pacific have shown that aiming for “zerocovid” (#zerocovid) is not only feasible but the best possible policy for curbing the pandemic and returning to normality faster than by all other means. But the West was not paying any attention. Many in the West even mocked the Asians initially … for being so scared of little innocuous “water leaks.” But today, almost a year into the pandemic, we can all see everything much clearer: They had it right and we had it wrong. The Asians understood the handling of the virus was too dangerous to fail.
Society and Freedom
Yet when the East started acting with the utmost responsibility appropriate “to handling electricity” by enforcing strict rules and regulations, creating centralized responses — which in effect was the equivalent of the centralized electrical grid all countries have to distribute and manage their electrical supply — and limiting the freedom of their citizens in order to protect them, many in the West considered these measures excessive and unnecessary. Some attributed them to the East Asian “autocratic mentality” even though many countries that implemented them — Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, etc. — are as democratic as those in the West and a few, such as New Zealand and Australia, although located in the East, are culturally Western and self-identify as Westerners. Because our generation in the West has not lived through a major war or a pandemic, many, especially the young, have found their governments’ actions to be paternalistic, and the minor and temporary curtailment of their freedoms (to gather, party, go to the movies, etc.) unacceptable. Some are even claiming that the West is using the pandemic as an excuse to move towards a “new Orwellian world order.” A number of people and groups in the West consider the full or partial lockdowns as the prelude to such a plan, and dozens of conspiracy theories have popped up.
Yet the truth is that throughout history, governments have always curtailed our freedoms during wars, natural catastrophes, and epidemics. We need not examine here what happened during wars. It is sufficient to see what happened during the 1918–19 Spanish Flu pandemic. Then, like now, many countries in Europe and many states in the US shut down schools, churches, theaters, and prohibited public gatherings. Some measures were even stricter than those today: Not only did many cities around the world make wearing masks mandatory but they also imposed heavy fines and even imprisonment on those who failed to cover their faces. Even the mayor of San Francisco who failed to wear a mask at a boxing match was fined with the then astronomical amount of $50. Sneezing or coughing without a mask was a serious offence. But, then as now, some protested to the wearing of masks (they called them “mask slackers”), and in San Francisco, there was even an Anti-Mask League.
But again, then as now, the cities that curtailed their citizens’ freedoms first, such as St. Louis, did much better than those that delayed, such as Philadelphia. And those cities that hurried to remove those measures suffered second waves, like many countries suffering a similar fate today. Santayana’s famous phrase “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” couldn’t be more pertinent. It is shocking to realize how little we have learned from past pandemics, especially the Spanish Flu, and how we are now repeating the same exact mistakes a century later.
The “curtailing of freedoms,” then and now, is not actually the negative thing some people in the West portray it to be. It is the exact same curtailing of freedoms we experience in our society in normal times by virtue of the fact that we are part of and live in a human society! We are not free to speed at 200 km/hr on the highway, or not stop at a red light, or play drums in the middle of the night in our apartment, and of course we are not free to beat up people when they make us angry, or steal, or kill. Society, through laws and government regulations, curtails our freedoms for the benefit of all. The collective well-being takes precedence over the well-being (or the “freedom” or the whims) of the individual. And when a pandemic rages, governments must act for the welfare of the entire society. Furthermore, as Asian governments have proven, all of last year’s restrictions to freedom only lasted for a short while. As soon as they got rid of the virus, all freedoms were restored. China, Vietnam, New Zealand, and others, which enforced the strictest of lockdowns in the beginning of the pandemic, are back to normal again, while countries like Taiwan and South Korea avoided country-wide lockdowns because their governments reacted promptly by using advanced contact-tracing systems coupled with isolation of the infected — again, measures that invaded privacy and curtailed freedom. But the citizens of these countries welcomed such measures without protest because they knew they were sacrificing some of their rights in the short term for something much more valuable and long-lasting: saving lives and minimizing suffering.
I would dare say that the proper and decisive curtailing of freedoms at a moment of crisis is not an indication of a “totalitarian mentality” but an indication of wise and strong governance. The political systems of such countries as China, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia are incredibly diverse. Yet by acting promptly and decisively to curtail the freedoms of their citizens for a short period of time, they ended up restoring those freedoms faster than did all countries whose governments tried to avoid such curtailment because of ignorance, or indecisiveness, or fear of being unpopular. As the South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han wrote in a recent essay explaining why the East has succeeded while the West has failed, “The paradox of the pandemic is that one ends up having more freedom if one voluntarily imposes restrictions on oneself.”
The brief curtailments of freedom also protected the economies of the East. Contrary to a false narrative in the West that lockdowns and other restrictions destroy the economy, the countries of the East have proven to the world that strict measures for a short time are better than lukewarm measures dragging on for months — which is the strategy most Western countries have employed. As Tomas Pueyo, who has written a series of enlightening articles about the pandemic, has said, “The lockdowns weren’t the cause of the economic downturn. The coronavirus was. They came together, so people mix them. But you can’t go back to the previous economy by reopening businesses and wishing the virus away.” It is interesting that this phenomenon was also observed a century ago: A recent study about the Spanish Flu pandemic has shown that cities that implemented strict measures early in the pandemic produced significantly higher rates of growth in manufacturing output and employment from 1919 to 1923 than did those that delayed or took lighter measures. Unfortunately, most Western countries are still sending hundreds of thousands of their citizens to an early grave, while simultaneously destroying their economies … in an effort to save their economies. Again: the West ended up experiencing the worst of water and the worst of electricity.
But why is the West behaving so foolishly? Why is there so much resistance from governments to implementing strict measures for a short time to curb the pandemic? Or why, after they took some belated strict measures last spring, have governments rushed to return to normality as if the danger were over (or as if the measures were unbearable to their citizens)? And why are there still so many people in the West, especially young people, protesting online and on the streets about wearing masks and similar common sense health measures?
Well, apart from our inability to learn from the past and from the recent success of the East (i.e., our ignorance and arrogance!), there is a deeper reason that may help us answer all of the above questions. It has to do with a defining, ingrained trait of Western culture.
Individualism and Collectivism
There is a marked difference in core cultural values between Western and Eastern cultures: The West is individualistic; the East is collectivist. Individualistic cultures are those that give precedence to the needs of the individual over the needs of society. Collectivist cultures are those that prioritize the greater good of society over the needs of the individual. It is not easy to pinpoint exactly when and how East and West ended up being so different in this respect. In Selfie — How the West Became Self-Obsessed, Will Stor, citing various studies and thinkers, claims that this goes back to the West’s Ancient Greek roots — rationalism, formal logic, hero culture, etc. — and the East’s Confucian foundations — the emphasis on social harmony and mutual respect. As he put it, “For the defendants of Confucius, reality is not a collection of individual objects but a field of interconnected forces.” And quoting Richard Nisbett, a social anthropologist:
It isn’t that Easterners versus Westerners think about the world differently. They’re literally seeing a different world. We’ve found that if you show people pictures for three seconds, the Westerners will look all over its main object and only occasionally make eye movements that drift out to the context. The Chinese are looking constantly back and forth between the objects and the context.
Seeing a different world, they therefore act differently. In the East, wearing a mask means protecting the others with whom you come in contact from catching the virus in case you happen to have it. It means thinking of the general good. The mask tells others that you are thinking about them, so everybody wears one. In the West, for many, wearing a mask has become a symbol of government oppression and the violation of personal freedom. Many consider that the mask tells others that its wearer has succumbed to the demands of authority! Therefore, many choose not to wear it to make a personal statement of freedom and individual assertiveness. In the East, staying at home during a lockdown and avoiding big gatherings means behaving in a socially responsible manner to curb the spread of the virus. In the West, lockdowns have become, for many, an unacceptable expansion of state authority and an unnecessary curtailment of personal freedom.
The pandemic shows us that the West has actually gone beyond individualism: It has become self-absorbed and narcissistic. In The Narcissism Epidemic, psychologists Twenge and Campbell say that the young generations in the US live in an “Age of Entitlement,” which they define as “the pervasive belief that one deserves special treatment, success, and more material things … You live in a fantasy in which the world owes you more than you contribute.” The authors say that there is an overdose of self-esteem and self-admiration, and that one of the chief causes for this is parents who have gone overboard in spoiling their children, making them feel “special” by overpraising them. A perfect example that summarizes this self-absorption in the West is an incident described in the same book: An SUV parked in a no-parking zone facing in the wrong direction and blocking a stop sign. The SUV had a bumper sticker that said “I ♡ ME.”
I think that at the root of this extreme individualism, self-absorption, and narcissism lies something more subtle that starts at a very young age and which guides most people’s lives in the West:
It is our unwillingness to delay gratification.
This simple concept is central to our current situation. The American psychiatrist Scott Peck, in his now classic book The Road Less Traveled, considers the ability to delay gratification a prerequisite to the psychological well-being of a person. We may now extend the principle to include society as a whole. He defines it as follows:
Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.
Ever since the famous Stanford Marshmallow Experiment in 1972, which showed that children who were able to delay gratification (eating two marshmallows later rather than eating one immediately) were more successful later on in life, we know that learning discipline and self-control from a young age is important to a healthy upbringing. Relating this to the current reaction to the pandemic, we can see that Western societies have shown a great reluctance towards “meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with.” Lockdowns, wearing masks, keeping distances, refraining from partying, etc. requires disciplined members of society to delay their gratification. It seems that in most Western countries, our current generations (in the US, the Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Zoomers) that have had it so easy since the end of WWII have all taken a cue from Veruca Salt, a character in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, who wants everything “now!” Such a powerful urge for instant gratification permeates Western societies. Dinner can be ordered and delivered to our home almost immediately. The latest song or movie is downloaded in a flash. Our favorite TV programs are watched in their entirety in binges, rather than half an hour at a time once a week. We want to lose weight by swallowing miracle pills or by having surgery rather than introducing discipline and new, healthier eating habits to our life. We do not just have an attachment to our comforts, we have an overattachment to having them all here and now. So, when the government asks us to show some self-discipline to fight a deadly pandemic, it has proven difficult for many to sacrifice these comforts — even though many of these conveniences ought to have made it easier for people to stay at home! Therefore, many are cloaking their unwillingness to exert self-discipline and delay gratification under the claim of fighting for their personal freedoms. But this is disingenuous, because we now know from what happened in the East that all personal freedoms are restored once coronavirus infections become or approach zero.
The unwillingness to delay gratification or dispense with our small everyday comforts and our pampered way of life lies behind the West’s gargantuan effort to find a vaccine to beat the pandemic. Whereas the East has successfully controlled the virus through social discipline and by foregoing gratification for a bit, in the West, the vaccine has become a kind of “silver bullet,” a panacea that will magically bring an end to the pandemic, without us having … to change our lives! Unfortunately, although some of these new vaccines may decrease the mortality rate and, if we are lucky, may also have some positive result in curbing the spread of the virus, they will definitely not end the pandemic by themselves — at least not anytime soon. As long as the virus is still spreading in the general population, most of the current unpopular curtailments of freedom will remain. The East is not depending on vaccination to curb the pandemic, and it may well avoid it altogether — as it did during the other Asian epidemics in this century.
Believe it or not, it seems that even Nature (or Biology) rewards collectivist societies. Two studies, one in 2008 and a recent one in 2018, which examined the correlation of collectivism-individualism to the historical pathogen burden for 66 countries, have shown that although collectivist countries have more pathogens in their societies, they show decreased pathogen transmission that seems to be the result of their lifestyle functioning as a social defense. Therefore, these countries have experienced fewer disease outbreaks in recent times. As the more recent paper put it, “one possible cost for individualistic cultures may be their higher susceptibility to disease outbreaks.”
Two Worlds
As we enter the second year of the pandemic, a new reality takes shape in the world: There is a palpable split between the East and the West. The East is fast reverting back to complete pre-virus normality. The Asia-Pacific countries that will have successfully gotten rid of the virus will soon open travel between one another by creating travel-bubbles — travel restrictions being the last remaining bastion of defense against the pandemic. But I think that the West will continue to struggle with pandemic resurgences, especially if it prematurely drops its guard due to the onset of vaccinations. In a sense, the rational West will continue its irrational attempts at controlling the pandemic without following the successful methods of the East. In the meantime, the rest of the world will turn East, and especially to China, for guidance and all sorts of help. While the world will continue to be interconnected, the split between East and West will become more pronounced and important.
But the pandemic split is only part of the story. With the return of complete normality in the East, what I wrote in my first piece will become obvious to all: This pandemic is no tsunami or earthquake or hurricane; the death toll, the mayhem and destruction we see in Europe and the US is manmade! Because of this realization and many other factors, the West’s prestige, allure, power, and also its self-anointed superiority and self-confidence (this most precious quality of its individualism!) will wane. Many of the West’s centers of power and influence will either move to the East or be replaced by new centers addressing a new world in which the West will not reign supreme. The announcement that the World Economic Forum — this most prestigious event, a symbol of Western dominance — will take place in Singapore rather than in its homeplace of Davos, Switzerland, in May 2021, is the first sign of such a West-East shift.
I leave you with a series of tweets from December 21st by the academic, political commentator, and author of When China Rules the World, Martin Jacques, which summarize both this new reality as well as some of the ideas I have covered here and in my previous three essays:
Britain is in almost complete lockdown. Nine months since the first. Europe is closing its borders to the British. Across Europe the pandemic is worsening. The US has over 300,000 dead. Far from getting better, the situation in the West is getting worse. The West has failed.
At what point will the West wake up to the fact [that] this is an historic crisis of Western government, society and culture? Without a vaccine, the West has shown that it cannot deal with the virus. It has been forced to admit defeat and live with it. And it is losing the battle.
The West likes to think it is cosmopolitan. Wrong. It is increasingly provincial in its mentality. East Asian societies have conquered Covid-19. We barely even acknowledge the fact. We desperately try to ignore that China has succeeded where we have catastrophically failed.
If the West was cosmopolitan it would seek to learn from East Asia, ask why it is successful. Yet the worse things get, the less curious the West has become about East Asia. This is the story of the West as a failing, self-absorbed, inward-looking culture and civilization.
The success of East Asia, with China at its heart, has many explanations including: 1. Competent and strategic government; 2. Great respect amongst the people for government and authority; 3. A deep commitment to society and social bonds rather than selfish individualism.
One small example. My son was in Seoul for 3 months: He didn’t see a single person not wearing a mask outdoors. Covid has been largely dealt with. That’s social discipline and respect. We lack a culture that believes society rather than the individual is paramount.
It is no use simply putting the West’s plight down to bad luck or an unpredictable disaster. The greatest test of government and societies is their ability to deal with such disasters, be they war or pandemics. It is clear that Western societies fundamentally lack resilience.
Western governments have failed miserably at being single-minded about the priority, eliminating the virus. They have failed to think strategically. They have failed to give leadership. And the people lack the kind of social discipline and social respect that is essential.
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https://medium.com/@nicoshadjicostis/coronavirus-iv-two-worlds-ebf32ea8bdf0
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['Nicos Hadjicostis']
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2021-01-05 15:01:05.094000+00:00
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['Coronavirus', 'China', 'Pandemic', 'Lockdown', 'Asia']
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+40.16% growth: How to Buy Insights Network (INSTAR) — A Step by Step Guide
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What is INSTAR?
Insights Network (INSTAR) is a cryptocurrency . Insights Network has a current supply of 282,692,352.4403 with 196,753,507.9 in circulation. The last known price of Insights Network is 0.04436148 USD and is up 40.16 over the last 24 hours. It is currently trading on 2 active market(s) with $66,148.10 traded over the last 24 hours. More information can be found at https://instars.com/.
Currently, INSTAR is being ranked 591 on Coinmarketcap and has recently surged a hefty 40.16% at the time of writing.
INSTAR has been listed on a number of crypto exchanges, unlike other main cryptocurrencies, it cannot be directly purchased with fiats money. However, You can still easily buy this coin by first buying Bitcoin from any large exchanges and then transfer to the exchange that offers to trade this coin, in this guide article we will walk you through in detail the steps to buy INSTAR.
Step 1: Register on Coinbase
You will have to first buy one of the major cryptocurrencies, usually either Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH). We will use Coinbase here as it is one of the largest crypto exchanges that accept fiat deposits. Use the link below to register at Coinbase and you will receive a free amount of $10 worth of BTC after buying $100 worth of cryptos.
Sign Up Coinbase & get $10!
Type your email and click ‘Get started’. Make sure you provide your real name as Coinbase will need it for account verification. Choose a strong password so that your account isn’t vulnerable to hackers.
You will receive a confirmation email. Open it and click on the link within. You will then be required to provide a valid mobile number to set up two-factor authentication (2FA), it is an extra layer to the security of your account and it is highly recommended that you keep this feature turned on.
Follow the next step to finish your identity verification. These steps are a bit daunting especially when you are waiting to buy an asset but just like any other financial institutions, Coinbase is regulated in most countries such as the US, the UK and the EU. You can take this as a trade-off to using a trusted platform to make your first crypto purchase. Good news is that the whole so-called Know-Your-Customers (KYC) process is now fully automated and it shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes to finish.
Step 2: Buy coins with fiat money
Once you finished the KYC process. You will be asked to add a payment method. Here you can either choose to provide a credit/debit card or use a bank transfer. You will be charged higher fees when using cards but you will also make an instant purchase. While a bank transfer will be cheaper but slower, depending on the country of your residence, some countries will offer instant cash deposit with low fees, such as iDeal in some European countries.
Now you are all set, click the ‘Trade’ button at the top left, choose the coin you want to buy and confirm your transaction…and congrats! You’ve just made your first crypto purchase.
Step 3: Transfer your cryptos to an Altcoin Exchange
But we are not done yet, since INSTAR is an altcoin we need to transfer our coins to an exchange that INSTAR can be traded, here we will use Bittrex as our exchange. Bittrex is a popular exchange to trade altcoins and it has a large number of tradable altcoins pairs. Use the link below to register your new account.
Sign Up on Bittrex
After going through a similar process as we’ve done before with Coinbase, you will be advised to set up 2FA authentication as well, finish it as it adds extra security to your account.
Step 4: Deposit BTC to exchange
Depends on the policies of the exchange you might be required to go through another KYC process, this should usually take you from 30 minutes to possibly a few days maximum. Though the process should be straight-forward and easy to follow. Once you’re done with it you should have full access to your exchange wallet.
If this is your first time making a crypto deposit, the screen here may look a bit scary. But don’t worry, it’s basically simpler than making a bank transfer. At the box on the right, you will see a string of random numbers saying ‘BTC address’, this is a unique public address of your Bitcoin wallet at Bittrex and you can receive Bitcoin by giving this address to the person to send you the funds. Since we are now transferring our previously bought bitcoin on Coinbase to this wallet, click on ‘Copy Address’ or right-click on the full address and click copy to grab this address to your clipboard.
Now head back to Coinbase, go to Portfolio page and click on Bitcoin on your asset list, then click on ‘Send’ on the right.
Under the Recipient field, paste the wallet address in your clipboard, for security consideration you should always check if both address are matching. It is known that there are certain computer malware that would alter the content in your clipboard into another wallet address and you will be essentially sending funds to another person.
Click ‘Send’ to proceed, you should receive a confirmation email instantly, click on the confirmation link in the email and your coins are on the way to Bittrex!
Now go back to Bittrex and head to your exchange wallets, do worry if you haven’t seen your deposit here. It is probably still being verified in the blockchain network and it should take a few minutes for your coins to arrive. Depending on the network traffic condition of the Bitcoin network, during busy times it may take even longer.
You should receive a confirmation notification from Bittrex once your deposit has arrived. And you are now finally ready to purchase INSTAR!
Step 5: Trade INSTAR
Go back to Bittrex, then go to ‘Exchange’. Boom! What a view! The constantly flicking figures might be a bit scary, but relax, let’s get our heads around this.
In the right column there is a search bar, now make sure “BTC” is selected as we are trading BTC to altcoin pair. Click on it and type in “INSTAR”, you should see INSTAR/BTC, select that pair and you should see a price chart of INSTAR/BTC in the middle of the page.
Below there is a box with a green button that says “Buy INSTAR”, inside of the box, choose the “Market” tab here as that is the most straight-forward type of buying orders. You can either type in your amount or choose what portion of your BTC deposit you would like to spend on buying, by clicking on the percentage buttons. When you have confirmed everything, click “Buy INSTAR”. Voila! You have finally bought INSTAR!
Apart from the exchange(s) above, there are a few popular crypto exchanges where they have decent daily trading volumes and a huge user base. This will ensure you will be able to sell your coins at any time and the fees will usually be lower. It is suggested that you also register on these exchanges since once INSTAR gets listed there it will attract a large amount of trading volumes from the users there, that means you will be having some great trading opportunities!
Exchange
Binance
CoinFalcon
Mercatox
Bittrex
Poloniex
Paxful
Last Step: Store INSTAR securely in hardware wallets
Ledger Nano S
Easy to set up and friendly interface
Can be used with smartphone and tablet
Lightweight and Portable with built-in rechargeable battery
Support most blockchains and wide range of (ERC-20) tokens
Multiple languages available
Built by a well-established company found in 2014 with great chip security
Affordable price
Buy Now
Trezor One White
Thousands of tokens/cryptos supported
Rich documentation online available
Affordable
Open-sourced firmware
Buy Now
If you are planning to keep(“hodl” as some may say, basically misspelt “hold” which get popularised over time) your INSTAR for a considerable long time, you may want to explore ways of keeping it safe, although Binance is one of the safest cryptocurrency exchange there had been hacking incidents and funds were lost. Because of the very nature of the wallets in exchanges, they will be always online(“Hot Wallets” as we call them), therefore exposing certain aspects of vulnerabilities. The safest way of storing your coins to date is always putting them into a type of “Cold Wallets”, where the wallet will only have access to the blockchain(or simply “go online”) when you send out funds, reducing the chances of hacking incidents. A paper wallet is a type of free cold wallet, it’s basically an offline-generated pair of public and private address and you will have it written somewhere, and keep it safe. However, it is not durable and is susceptible to various hazards.
Hardware wallet here is definitely a better option of cold wallets. They are usually USB-enabled devices that store the key information of your wallet in a more durable way. They are built with military-level security and their firmware are constantly maintained by their manufacturers and thus extremely safe. Ledger and Trezor and are the most popular options in this category, these wallets cost around $50 to $100 depending on the features they are offering. If you are holding your assets these wallets are a good investment in our opinion.
Other useful tools for trading INSTAR
NordVPN
Because of the very nature of cryptocurrency — decentralised, it means that users are 100% responsible for handling their assets securely. While using hardware wallet allows you to store your cryptos in a safe place, using an encrypted VPN connection while you trade makes it harder for hackers to intercept or eavesdrop your sensitive information. Especially when you are trading on the go or in a public Wifi connection. NordVPN is one of the best paid (note: never use any free VPN services as they may sniff your data in return of free service) VPN services out there and it has been around for almost a decade. It offers military-grade encrypted connection and you can also opt-in to block malicious websites and ads with their CyberSec feature. You can choose to connect to 5000+ servers in 60+ countries base on your current location, which ensures you to always have a smooth and secure connection wherever you are. There is no bandwidth or data limits that means you can also use the service in your everyday routines such as streaming videos or downloading large files. Plus it is among the cheapest VPN services out there (only $3.49 per month).
Get Started on NordVPN
Brave Browser
Brave is a Free and an Open Source Web Browser built by a team of privacy focused, performance oriented pioneers of the web. The Web Page gets loaded quickly. Brave is in general faster than Chrome and Firefox. The Web Page gets loaded quickly. It is designed with privacy in mind so ad-blocking and untrusted cookie blocking are enabled by default, and you get to further customise the level of privacy as you like. Its “incognito” private mode has built-in Tor connection which makes it extremely safe to use. You also get the chance to earn reward (in BAT tokens which can be traded in Coinbase and other exchanges) by opting in to view privacy-respecting ads.
Get Brave Browser Now
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I buy INSTAR with cash?
There is no direct way to buy INSTAR with cash. However, you can use marketplaces such as LocalBitcoins to first purchase Bitcoin, and finish the rest of the steps by transferring your bitcoin to respective AltCoin exchanges.
Buy Bitcoin from local sellers
LocalBitcoins is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange. It is a marketplace where users can buy and sell Bitcoins to and from each other. Users, called traders, create advertisements with the price and the payment method they want to offer. You can choose to buy from sellers from a certain nearby region on the platform. LocalBitcoins is after all a good place to go to buy Bitcoins when you can’t find your desired payment methods anywhere else. But prices are usually higher on this platform and you have to do your due diligence to avoid getting scammed.
Are there any quick ways to buy INSTAR in Europe?
Yes, in fact, Europe is one of the easiest places to buy cryptos in general. There are even online banks which you can simply open an account and transfer money to exchanges such as Coinbase and Coinmama.
Popular online banks in Europe are Bunq, N26 and Revolut.
Are there any alternative platforms to buy INSTAR or Bitcoin with credit cards?
Yes. Changelly is also a very easy to use platform for buying Bitcoin with credit cards. It is an instant cryptocurrency exchange that allows you to exchange crypto fast and buy it with a bank card. Its user interface is very easy to use and the buying steps are pretty self-explanatory.
|
https://medium.com/@cryptobuyingtips/40-16-growth-how-to-buy-insights-network-instar-a-step-by-step-guide-crypto-buying-tips-f4a161e40c66
|
['Crypto Buying Tips']
|
2020-12-22 14:41:00.265000+00:00
|
['Instar', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrencies', 'Insights', 'Network']
|
5 Reasons Why Jobs in the Cannabis Industry Pay More
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According to Glassdoor’s December 2018 Local Pay Report, cannabis jobs pay 11% more than the US median salary. It’s a growing industry that still has not reached its peak. If you’re curious about what roles employees are looking to fill, you can find a list of cannabis jobs at Mary’s List. Whether you’re a freelancer or looking for long term employment, Mary’s List is a platform that shows a variety of cannabis career opportunities for you to choose from. Here are the 5 reasons that will make you want to be part of this high-paying industry:
1. The Cannabis Industry Is New. While cannabis itself has been around for a long time, the legalization of its usage is new. With its legal usage being a completely new industry, it has become a subject of interest for the public, businessmen and even public figures. Education, public forums and information dissemination, are all necessary to let the public know about the proper usage of cannabis, as well as the risks and advantages of using it. Such information is critical in crafting regulation as well as vital for the health of citizens.
2. The Demand For Cannabis Is Increasing. With the usage of cannabis being legalized, it’s no wonder that the demand has skyrocketed — more people who have been using it for quite some time, are now able to use it without breaking any laws and it has already been considered as an option for medical treatment for some time. Even those who have been doubters or skeptical of the effects of cannabis are now curious now that it has been legalized. Another factor contributing to its increase in demand is that more pharmaceutical companies and businessmen are more open to conducting research in expanding the possible usage and product development of cannabis.
3. Investment For Cannabis-Related Business Is Booming. Just like any new technology, new trend and new design, entrepreneurs and investors are more drawn to invest in a cannabis-related business. Mainly because it is cheap and there are fewer competitors in the market. For pharmaceutical companies, now is the best time to invest research into other uses of cannabis as well as to investigate the dosage, risks and advantages of using cannabis for a certain period of time. With the increase in investment, there is a demand for employment not only in scientific research and development but also in the labor industry where different methods of cultivation are
done by laborers.
4. Cannabis Is Still An Ongoing Debate. Because cannabis is not legalized recreationally in the majority of the states in the United States, it has become a certain topic of interest not only for politicians but also for doctors, teachers and ordinary citizens. It has probably been discussed by many members of households as to how it affects them, even doctors have discussed it during their respective medical forums. Its controversy contributes to the interest of all kinds of professionals, thus making it interesting a hot topic within the general population. This leads to people actually reflecting on how they
can take advantage of it, whether it’s through business or employment.
5. The Legalization Of Cannabis Affects Many Other Industries. Along with the legalization of cannabis has come the increased regularization of it. Regulation is required to ensure that the usage of cannabis is not abused and its risks are given proper consideration by doctors and medical practitioners. With regularization, there is an increase in human resources needed — from government workers, lawyers and medical and scientific staff. With the growing availability of cannabis, there are more retail stores that sell it and are accessible to adults, which consequently leads to numerous employment opportunities in the field of human resources, sales, and logistics.
Lastly, not only do jobs open in the retail setting, but also in the agriculture industry — more cannabis farmers are capable of selling within the guidelines of the law and more farmers can invest further in the improvement of cultivation and maintenance of cannabis farms.
|
https://medium.com/@leif_47578/5-reasons-why-jobs-in-the-cannabis-industry-pay-more-f20fc1056e8f
|
['Cannabis News Magazine']
|
2019-07-18 06:12:47.571000+00:00
|
['Marijuana']
|
The X-factor That Every Professional Needs
|
In the new X men movie, Professor Xavier’s ability to read minds, and control people, is acknowledged as the most special ability.
This is not because his abilities are awesome or cool, which they are, but because those abilities allows the Professor to absorb other peoples pain, without suffering under it.
It allows the Professor to bear under peoples deepest pains, and still be full of hope.
The Professor uses this ability to understand people and come up with solutions to help them with their pain.
What the Professor has, and is identified as telepathy, is simply empathy.
I define empathy as the ability to read people, to feel what others feel, and understand their emotions.
This is one of the most important skills in business. Business is about problem solving, and people will always pay more for problems that have emotional weight, and intensity, attached to them.
The most dangerous pains in life are never the physical ones, no matter how excruciating, but internal, emotional and spiritual.
Markets are made up of people, and the desires of human beings change as time goes on.
The most powerful ability an entrepreneur can have is the ability to understand people, human nature, needs and wants, and provide solutions.
Professor Xaviers excellence is rooted in the fact that he can understand truths and insights about people, better than they know their own selves.
This is what Henry Ford did when he decided to give people the commercial automobile instead of faster horses, which they would of probably asked for.
He anticipated and understood the changing wants and needs of the market.
Michael Dell did the same thing when he dared to believe that people would actually buy high end products, such as computers, online without being in a store to touch and feel it.
Steve Jobs did this multiple times, when he decided to make an mp3 with the most basic functions, including just one button.
In order to be a better entrepreneur, or an extraordinary professional, you must be able to:
1) Empaphise with people. Know how to read people, and see things from they eyes of those you want to serve. Learn to know them better than they even know or notice about themselves.
2) You have to be somebody that is proactive and solutions orientated, do not just understand people, but look for solutions.
Some people just acknowledge problems, that is only half of the journey.
3) Anticipate change, this is the only way you can best prepare yourself to deal with pain, failure, challenges, and pressure.
Professor Xavier has to first anticipate and embrace pain in order to bear under the pressure of it.
When you anticipate change, you are in a much better position to stay composed under pressure.
Do not be caught off guard, hope for the best, and prepare for the worse.
Feel free to like this post, and share with others that may benefit from reading this post. You can also give me a shout on twitter, I promise not to bite: @LesliePoku
For more articles feel free to check out www.scribd.com/leslie_poku
|
https://medium.com/life-hacks-for-business/the-x-factor-that-every-professional-needs-13f4ef0d3e37
|
['Og Sweetboii']
|
2015-02-25 20:46:51.576000+00:00
|
['Work', 'Business', 'Entrepreneurship']
|
HARISSA
|
“HARISSA” is a Tunisian hot chili pepper paste and it comes in many types: You can find a Harissa made of red peppers but you can also find sweet harissa with almonds and sugar syrup, which is a dessert prepared in certain Maghreb countries, especially in Tunisia.
The origin of the word comes from the Arabic verb ‘HARS’(هرس) which literally means “crush”, “pound” or “grind”.
“Piment-harissa Tunisie, Nabeul” ©nawaat.org
The Moriscos have contributed since their arrival in Tunisia by creating this paste, at the start of the 17th century, in popularizing and spreading pepper cultivation and even intensifying its production. It became a habit mainly attached to the inhabitants of the tribal region such as Nabeul in northeastern Tunisia, where they settled during the Andalusian migration.
Tunisian Jews also played a major role in the expansion of planting pepper, preparing the paste, and turning it into a food habit coupled with all kinds of diets, whether in the city of Nabeul and the rest of the neighboring cities, or all Tunisian regions. And because pepper and harissa adhered to the eating habits of the inhabitants of Nabeul, they represent a huge part in the history of this region. In northeastern Tunisia, they worked to value this material by organizing an annual pepper feast ‘Al-Harissa’.
©stockfresh.com
The Moriscos settled in Tunisia in several regions, including northeastern Tunisia. Farmers developed and established irrigation methods including dams, canals, and dug wells. Among these actions, pepper cultivation has spread in some new regions like Kairouan and Sidi Bouzid.
The peppers are dried in the sun and then crushed with spices, like cumin, coriander, caraway, and dried tomatoes. In this context, harissa can also be prepared with fresh peppers or steamed and mixed peppers. The harissa is usually sold in tin cans but can also be found in form of tubes. There are regional varieties depending on the type of peppers, taste, and preparation. Thus, the Tunisian harissa is prepared with dried cayenne pepper, garlic, oil, salt, and different spices.
Harissa is generally used as a condiment or as an ingredient. It is often used to season dishes, such as traditional Couscous or Kafteji, and to prepare sandwiches.
©stock.adobe.com
It is considered as “The National Sauce” in Tunisia, where it is an important part of the local cuisine, particularly in the coastal region and Djerba. In rural areas, people make handcrafted harissa which can also be found in other cuisines in North Africa as well as in the Middle East, where it was introduced by Tunisian Jews.
|
https://medium.com/@anti-artanit/harissa-caca76e3d13f
|
[]
|
2021-04-26 00:29:34.698000+00:00
|
['Tunisia', 'Nabeul', 'Tourism', 'Pepper', 'Food And Drink']
|
Depth Over Distance
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Today is my birthday and I will dream if I want to…
This morning I woke up with so much gratitude for my family and everything that they have done for me. For all that they are so that I can become who I am. And this is how it will continue for generations to come…
I am shaped by the experiences, thoughts, actions, memories, history, dreams, desires, and so much more from my ancestors. And it stretches beyond the tree of only my family. We are all deeply connected and I do not allow perceptions of time and space to separate me from others. We are ALL one family!
Our thoughts, dreams, and desires are and have always been, shaped by the collective. I truly believe in the butterfly effect. When I close my eyes, I sense my one-ness with the universe and how my thoughts and feelings vibrate into this field that connects us all.
Separation is an illusion. I have spent the past week or so letting go of other people’s as well as my own opinions, expectations, beliefs, ideas, concepts… everything. When none of these has a hold on me anymore, I can connect my soul to the soul of the universe.
In a popular book by Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, he wrote: “…when Jesus said “Deny thyself”, what he meant was: Negate (and thus undo) the illusion of self. If the self — ego — were truly who I am, it would be absurd to “deny” it.
What remains is the light of consciousness in which perceptions, experiences, thoughts, and feelings come and go. That is Being, that is the deeper, true I. When I know myself as that, whatever happens in my life is no longer of absolute but only of relative importance. I honor it, but it loses its absolute seriousness, its heaviness. The only thing that ultimately matters is this: Can I sense my essential Beingness, the I Am, in the background of my life at all times?” … “Or am I losing myself in what happens, losing myself in the mind, in the world?”
Only when I can detach myself from worldly things and people, can I access my true nature, my true power to create whatever it is that I want. The less control circumstances and people have over me, the more I stay in my power and steer my life towards my destiny. That does not mean I deny or block people and events as they occur; it means exactly the opposite. I am as receptive and open to engaging in as many events and with as many people as possible, but I do not allow any external influence to dictate my final decision over what I feel is best for me and others when acting from my heart.
Taking back my power from the external world allows me to operate purely from my internal reality. This will, ultimately, create my external reality.
What tools do you use to keep yourself connected to your truth?
The words for the title of this article have come from the beautiful song by Ben Howard but I’m going to add the link to my favourite Acro Yoga video here for which this song is the score just because it moves me when I watch it.
|
https://medium.com/@mysticalwildchild/depth-over-distance-b7c0e2c2241c
|
['Kirstin Van As']
|
2020-12-23 04:37:17.138000+00:00
|
['Connection', 'Space', 'Time', 'Emotions', 'Dreams']
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Managing Menopause Symptoms using Acupuncture
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I am a Physiotherapist trained to offer Western Medical Acupuncture and over the years I have had some incredible results, equally for some people this treatment may not yield the benefits hoped for.
Acupuncture: Traditional Wisdom
The first reference to acupuncture is more than two thousand years ago, burial ground excavations have revealed needle-like therapeutic instruments were in use as long ago as 4000 or 6000 years ago. The presentation of the entire field of knowledge about acupuncture reached an initial climax in the 16th and 17th centuries, with the publication of “the great compendium of acupuncture and moxibustion” by Yang jizhou in 1601. In this publication the theory underlying the whole of Chinese medicine, the stimulation of the points and the channels was presented and remains unequalled even to this day.
Source: Pocket Atlas of Acupuncture Carl-Hermann Hempen MD, Velis Wortman Chow MD, 2005, Thieme
Western Medicine
‘Western medicine’ labels the medical theories and practices by its origin. It is commonly used particularly when non-Western medicines such Chinese, Arabic and Ayurvedic medicine are discussed, compared and contrasted.
A key figure in the history of medicine was the physician Hippocrates of Kos (c. 460 — c. 370 BCE), he was considered the “father of modern medicine”. Hippocrates began to categorize illnesses as acute, chronic, endemic and epidemic, and used terms such as, “exacerbation, relapse, resolution, crisis, paroxysm, peak, and convalescence.” Source: Loudon, Irvine (2002). Western Medicine: An Illustrated History.
19th Century: The Rise of Modern Medicine
The practice of medicine changed in the face of rapid advances in science, as well as new approaches by physicians. Hospital doctors began a more systematic analysis of patients’ symptoms in diagnosis and among the new techniques were anaesthesia, and the development of both antiseptic and aseptic operating theatres. Effective cures were developed for certain endemic infectious diseases, however, perhaps the decline in many of the most lethal diseases was due to improvements in public health and nutrition than to advances in medicine.
Source
What Comes Around, Goes Around
Some of the techniques and theories developed by Hippocrates included recognising the importance of taking a complete history which included environmental exposures as well as foods eaten by the patient which might play a role in his or her illness. These principles underpin Integrative Medicine and approaches such Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Chinese medicine is built upon a notion of human beings as a delicate balance of energy forces. The main focus of the Chinese approach is on the observation and recognition of vital functions. The term Qi is always used when one talks of active vital energy that is manifest and It includes emotions, all the common vital functions; such as respiration, digestion, production of physical movement, and all the processes requiring biological energy.
So a TCM acupuncture trained practitioner, will take a detailed history and most likely take a look at the tongue, check the pulses, consider nutritional influences, childhood ailments and our family history. A western medical trained acupuncturist will likely do much the same and there is some evidence that acupuncture can be beneficial for a whole host of menopausal symptoms.
A Holistic Approach to Wellness; Sign me up!
A multisystem problem may well require a multifaceted approach to management, there is no one size fits all solution and remember more often than not you are the expert of your own body.
Recent advances in the gut, oral, vaginal and bladder microbiota illustrate further our uniqueness and may well support treatments which take account of the interconnected complexities of the human condition.
Perhaps monitoring pulses is not so crazy after all. Heart rate variability is increasingly used as a measure for autonomic nervous system imbalances People who have a high HRV may have greater cardiovascular fitness and be more resilient to stress.
Source
Women’s health Research: The Poor Relation?
The drive towards evidence based medicine is laudable, however what if the evidence base is just not there or it is flawed in its design. A BMJ article stated “Over the past 70 years women have become more prominent in BMJ research articles. However, the importance of women-specific health topics has waxed and waned as researchers responded to medical advances, public health programmes, and sociolegal changes. The incidence of articles making any mention of women, gender or sex declined between 1948 and 2005, after 2005 it rose steeply so that by 2018 few papers made no mention of them at all”.
But if we consider the long history of medicine, this is the equivalent to the blink of an eye. So the tide is changing (hallelujah) and not a moment too soon if you ask me!
Source
Listen to my Podcast-Acupuncture for Menopause? Why not!
This week I chatted with Kinesiologist and TCM acupuncturist June Tranmer. June qualified as a Touch for Health instructor (basic Kinesiology) in 1987 and as an acupuncturist from the Northern College of Acupuncture in 1991. We chatted about the many and varied approaches to management of menopause symptoms using methods such as acupuncture,, cupping, acupressure and food energetics (working with balancing your energy with the right foods for your individual needs). There is no one size fits all approach to management of menopause and I hope this conversation reflects that.
LISTEN HERE
|
https://medium.com/@phillipabutler/managing-menopause-symptoms-using-acupuncture-5152c32049d1
|
['Phillipa Butler']
|
2020-12-10 14:25:57.219000+00:00
|
['Acupuncture', 'Womens Health', 'Wellness', 'Physiotherapist', 'Menopause']
|
Past Meets Present: Blockchain’s Impact on Fine Art
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‘White Cube’ as a synonym for ‘Blockchain’?
Being a history of art student as well as a writer focused on blockchain tech doesn’t make sense to many people. The art world preserves a reputation of being traditional, elitist and pretentious, while blockchain technology is still avant-garde enough to deter people from engaging for fear of seeming behind the times.
Ever since Marcel Duchamp’s controversial interventions in the early 20th century, conceptual artists have been addressing the centuries-long problems within the art world including the lack of representation of women and ethnic minorities, the authoritarianism of the gallery and the question of what art actually is. Without exploring messy beds and man-made canyons too much, most seem to agree it’s the ‘idea’ behind the art that really matters.
As the blockchain and crypto industries unfold around us, I’ve come to notice some parallels between the two. Although the intangible aspects of blockchain are obvious in its relation to conceptual art, it holds real potential to solve many persistent problems that have impaired the art industry for centuries.
Redesigning Art Ownership & Provenance
One issue that even the Renaissance giants are not immune to is the notion of provenance. How can we actually say that this piece is by this person at this time? For the older ones it seems we are stuck with determining their origin by the way they drew ears, or x-rays to confirm the approximate age. For conceptual art, which is increasingly intangible, we have an even bigger dilemma as many artists embrace workshops and even rely on community efforts for the piece to materialise.
By implementing blockchain technology, every stage of the artwork’s conception and journey can be recorded on an immutable ledger. We would be able to see who was involved in the creation of the piece and what their exact role was as well as being able to avoid repetition of cases like that of Maria Altmann, who spent a gruelling six years battling the Republic of Austria to retain ownership over a Klimt painting that was rightfully hers.
Initiatives such as Codex are putting the identity of art and collectibles on the blockchain, making tracing provenance and buying and selling items easier, faster and more secure. At Sea Foam we are advising and developing technology for Artified, a Chicago-based company that plans to not only track the provenance of art but offer an interactive mobile app for collectors to engage with one another. Artified will incentivise collectors with token rewards for their knowledge and engagement, further enhancing the art industry and community.
These advancements may not be in the gallerys’ interests however, as disputes persist over artworks and artefacts that were obtained in unsavoury ways, not to mention the shady gallery funding scene and money laundering disguised as cash sales. That being said, as this becomes common knowledge, more institutions want to distance themselves from the alleged “black market” of the art world.
Bringing Transparency to the Dark Side of the Art Market
As we cautiously approach the role of galleries in a contemporary world we must consider the ongoing debate around their authoritarianism and the power collectors and gallery owners have over the market. A good example of this is how Charles Saatchi catapulted the Young British Artists into infamy, very early on in their careers, setting a benchmark for their future value from that moment on.
The mere existence of galleries and museums has relied on the wealth of a few individuals since their genesis. This is mostly beneficial for all parties, but certain cases taint the art industry as a whole, leading to a reputation of money laundering and seedy funding. Hans Haacke often tackles these themes in his work, more often than not targeting galleries directly who are led by unethical characters, or who had obtained their artworks or funding from disreputable sources.
Currently, photographer Nan Goldin is taking on the Sackler family who made a fortune from OxyContin — a painkiller known for its role in the fatal opioid epidemic — despite their name adorning the art galleries of New York and London.
Through blockchain transactions we can guarantee transparency of money and finances for both galleries and collectors, as well as allow artists and artworks to hold their own unique serial number, reinstilling faith in the art industry as a whole by reducing the potential for manipulation of facts. It also creates transparency in areas which are currently opaque, such as how artists are paid, as it’s currently unclear how much of a cut galleries and auction houses take.
Whether institutions embrace blockchain for this reason is still uncertain as increased transparency has the potential to scare away vendors and buyers. However, according to a 2017 Deloitte Art and Finance Report, 75% of art professionals and 64% of collectors want the art market to achieve greater standards of transparency. Blockchain could be the push we need to advance the art market into the 21st century.
Greater Accessibility for Collectors & Enthusiasts
Another pressing theme in the art world is the lack of accessibility for people in non-Western countries. Traditional cultural centers like Paris, London, New York and Tokyo still dominate, despite a movement to embrace art from nations that have, until recently, been excluded from the grander narrative. Other forms of technology, such as Virtual Reality, are also being utilised by galleries to create experiences for art fans around the world, but what about the people who want to collect art and can’t afford the substantial price tag?
The likes of Maecenas make it possible to buy art on the blockchain, allowing people to invest in fractions of artworks to enhance their portfolios in a safe and secure way. Their auctions will be significantly more inclusive for people with humble finances, with the minimum investment amount being equivalent to $5000 in BTC, ETH or ART token. They have partnered with Dadiani Fine Art in London for the world’s first blockchain art auction of Andy Warhol’s ’14 Small Electric Chairs’ (1980) from 25th July 2018.
Exciting New Medium for Artists
Similarly to the backlash against photography in the 1800s, we’re in the midst of a retaliation against the collision of technology and art. If even David Hockney’s iPad drawings can provoke such mixed reactions, how can we expect people to support blockchain artists?
It is difficult to measure or critique digital art in the same way as we did in the 1950s. Blockchain could be the catalyst for pushing art into its next evolution by allowing artists to address complex themes in ways which could excite a 2018 audience in the same ways as Daguerreotypes roused the public in 1839.
The nature of blockchain technology opens doors for artists around the world to not-only address key issues of equality, economy and self-commodification in their work but also provides a solution for the pressing issues all parties are faced with when interacting with the art industry.
|
https://medium.com/sea-foam-media/past-meets-present-with-blockchains-impact-on-fine-art-64646af1f0c4
|
['Chloe Diamond']
|
2018-08-03 22:36:49.636000+00:00
|
['Technology', 'Art', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin']
|
+1–888–256–1911 - How to Activate My Roku Tv
|
How to activate or link your Roku® streaming device
In order to activate your Roku streaming player or Roku TV™, it must be linked to a Roku account.
Your Roku account stores which Roku® streaming devices you own and which channels you have installed, as well as your preferences and settings. It’s important to have a valid email address associated with your Roku account in order to manage your account and to receive important account notifications. Similarly, you should choose a strong, secure password.
Notes :
: There is NEVER a charge to create a Roku account.
Roku does NOT charge for device activation.
Activating your Roku device
Follow the Quick Start Guide that came with your Roku device.
For additional help setting up your Roku device, visit the Setup and Troubleshooting section of the Roku support site.
Complete the on-screen instructions to connect your Roku device to the internet.
Once connected, your Roku device may download new software.
Your Roku device will then display a link code; e.g. “XD12G” Make a note of this link code and go to the website roku.com/link on your computer or mobile device.
Note: When entering roku.com/link into your web browser, type it correctly to avoid fraudulent websites.
On the website, enter the link code and click Submit.
If you see an error or get stuck on a specific step, learn how to resolve issues activating your Roku streaming device.
Important: You must complete ALL of the steps on the website before going back to your Roku device otherwise your Roku device will not be activated.
Follow the instructions on the website to create a Roku account, or login to an existing Roku account. When creating a new Roku account, you will be asked to provide a payment method. The payment method allows you to purchase subscriptions to popular channels, rent or buy movies and TV shows, or make other purchases from the Roku Channel Store. Adding a payment method does not result in any charges to your account. You will only be charged after going through the additional steps required to make a purchase; e.g. when signing-up for a subscription, renting or buying a movie or TV show, or adding a channel from the Roku Channel Store.
Most major credit cards and PayPal are accepted payment methods. Get more help if you are having trouble adding a payment method.
If you wish to prevent unauthorized purchases, learn how to create a PIN for your Roku account.
Once you have completed the activation process your Roku device will be ready to use.
when you activate your Roku for the first time, you need to enter your credit card or PayPal details. But guess what, there is a way to bypass credit card section on Roku and still use it.
Well, before we get started, it should be clear that Roku does not involve any payment for account activation or installation of device. It asks for your billing details, in case you want to see paid channels in the future. The activation is free but entering your billing details is mandatory.
Well, not necessary — here is a workaround to bypass credit card section on Roku.
If you are already using Roku, then reset the device, by going to system > Advanced system settings > and Factory reset. Enter the 4 digits you see on the screen to reset your device.
Or if it’s the first time you plugged in Roku, then you should see the setup page.
So, select a language, and connect to your Wi-Fi network, let it detect the best screen resolution for it.
Once that’s done, it’ll ask you to activate Roku by going to the web browser. Just write down the 4-digit alphanumeric code on a piece of paper because we’ll need this later.
So, to do this, you need to use your computer and, instead of going to the link it showed on the TV, go to the custom link you can see on the screen (you can also find it in the description of the video).
Create a new account by entering your general details like name, email, password etc., just like you did, when you first set up the device.
In the next section, it’ll ask you whether you want a PIN code before making a purchase, I suggest that you set up any 4-digit PIN that you can remember.
And that’s it, your new Roku account is created.
In the account section, you’ll see the option to update your payment method. In the future, if you decide to watch paid channels on Roku, you can update your billing details from here, and then if you go to Roku channel store, you can download the Roku paid channels from there.
For now, let’s skip it and let’s set up your Roku without a credit card.
Do to this, go to roku.com/link and enter the code you can see on your screen.
In the next screen, click on ‘I already have a Roku account’ and sign in the one you just created in the previous step.
In the next step, you might have to refresh the browser if you can’t see anything on the screen.
Next, it’ll ask you to enter your payment details (wait what?)
Well, fortunately, if you scroll down, you should see an option to ‘skip, I’ll add later’
Give a name to your device and you are done.
Now, head over to your television where we have set up your Roku device.
You’ll notice that Roku will update your channels. You can download channels like Netflix and log in.
Now, what about Amazon Prime videos or Hulu?
Well the downside to this method is that you can’t watch US or UK channels on Roku.
In a nutshell, if you just want to use Roku without a credit card, sign up with the special link, but if you want to see geo-restricted content on Roku, you need to enter your credit card or PayPal details.
|
https://medium.com/@guidinginfo/how-to-activate-my-roku-tv-3912644f12ec
|
['Wells Jonathan']
|
2021-03-04 10:36:45.697000+00:00
|
['TV', 'Roku', 'Activate']
|
It is not winter yet
|
Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
|
https://medium.com/snap-shots/it-is-not-winter-yet-fc2ed1987513
|
['Randy Cooper']
|
2020-12-18 04:00:44.622000+00:00
|
['Flowers', 'Macro Photography', 'Spring', 'Snapshots', 'Butterfly']
|
Changing Gears, Switching Careers
|
Photo by Marcelo Leal on UnsplashChanging Gears, Switching Careers
Title:
Changing Gears, Switching Careers
Summary:
Surprisingly, if youíve been considering a career move, youíre not alone. In fact, many people are unsatisfied with their jobs and want to make a change, but it can be scary if you donít know where to start.
Article Body:
Surprisingly, if you’ve been considering a career move, you’re not alone. In fact, many people are unsatisfied with their jobs and want to make a change, but it can be scary if you don’t know where to start.
For some, it may be necessary to return to school. For others, you might be able to achieve a career transition through other means. In both cases, to make the shift as smooth as possible, it will be necessary to plan ahead before deciding whether or not it’s worthwhile to take the plunge.
Every well-planned change of careers begins with self-assessment. Evaluate your likes and dislikes, your goals, values, interests, and skills. You may be able to enter a new field using the same knowledge base you already possess. For instance, a computer programmer might hate working for an oil company, but he/she can quite easily find a computer programming job in another industry.
But even if you need to make a complete change, the process doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Once you’ve identified your core values and goals, you might have to go back to school to upgrade or add to your knowledge base. For people looking to enter an entirely new field of work, education is a must. Your new goals may require a Master’s degree, for example. In this case, night classes at your local college or university are a good option, especially if you plan on continuing your day job in order to pay the bills. Take the time you need to complete the degree so the transition doesn’t have to be overly stressful or painful. Many people who go back to school mid-career often take the time needed to obtain their degree — not rushing may actually save you time in the end.
Going back to school is necessary if you need to learn entirely new skills and earn a degree or certificate that offers you credibility in the field, but for many people, attending school really is too expensive and time-consuming. Luckily, alternatives exist that make it easier to attend school and keep working. You might try an online school because of the flexibility offered by such institutions. Online learning can also be more affordable because of the low overhead costs associated with learning through your own computer. Or consider earning a technical certificate or undergoing other short-term training in lieu of more expensive choices.
Once you’ve updated your education, the next step is to find a job and get a foot in the door of your new career. If you still work in your old position, you might be able to make a change internally, with the same company. A good way to do this is by taking advantage of tasks that no one else wants to do and volunteering to take on the extra workload. A larger workload can be difficult at first, but it does pay off. After identifying opportunities, network with hiring managers and before you know it, you could be promoted to a new position.
If you’re pursuing opportunities outside of your current employment situation, be proactive. Network with people in the industry, and do everything you can to gain work experience in an area related to your chosen career.
Changing careers may seem like a daunting task, but if you seek positive change in your work life, you won’t regret the effort required to make the transition.
Title:
Chef Career: Let’s Get Cooking
Summary:
If you find yourself right at home in the kitchen, perhaps a chef career would be right up your alley. When the thought of a chef career comes to mind, it may project thoughts of slaving over a hot, smelly grill, flipping burgers and hearing endless orders shouted through a loud speaker. While that may be the scenario for some chefs, there are actually many different options for this occupation.
Article Body:
If you find yourself right at home in the kitchen, perhaps a chef career would be right up your alley. When the thought of a chef career comes to mind, it may project thoughts of slaving over a hot, smelly grill, flipping burgers and hearing endless orders shouted through a loud speaker. While that may be the scenario for some chefs, there are actually many different options for this occupation.
Cooks for fast food and restaurant chains are always in demand because quick employee turnover is almost guaranteed. Many high school students take on these less-paying jobs solely as a summer gig. Others use the opportunity to bring in income until a more profitable job is found. However, restaurant, fast food and short order cooks are still categorized within the chef career spectrum and having the skill of producing high quality, tasty food is a talent that not everyone has. Everyone has to begin somewhere, and working for one of these kitchens provides cooking experience, looks good on resumes, and can act as a jumping off point for beginning a chef career.
If baking will be your forte in your chef career, perhaps a job at a cafeteria or nursing home would be a good job selection. While fast-food workers are constantly frying up and scooping out the same food products daily at a lickety-split pace, an institution kitchen is a more relaxed atmosphere where a variety of traditional, slightly more healthy dishes are prepared.
For instance, many cafeteria kitchens designate two or three items in which an employee is responsible for preparing and baking daily, such as a cook who makes bread products, one who creates casseroles, and others who hand-bread and roast chicken. Having a set food prep schedule gives a cook or chef the opportunity to ease into their specialty and, over time, perfect their craft.
After a few years of experience, it may be possible to advance to a head chef position at a prestigious eatery, such as a steak house or hotel restaurant. This chef career is a bit more stressful, as you are not only in charge of a kitchen full of employees; you are also required to insure the food going out to the paying customers is first-rate and superlative. A chef career at this high status will pay a higher income because cooking skills must be paramount and management skills proficient.
Possibly the most sought-after chef career is as a personal or private household chef. To be selected as a personal chef because of your impeccable cooking skills, creative dishes and flawless meal presentations is the height of honor for a chef after years of hard work and practice.
If you are considering a chef career, knowing how to cook is not enough. You must perfect your craft and stand out from all the rest who are your competition. Enrolling in a vocational school which provides cooking instructions or even a specialty college or institution could help mold you into the cooking expert that will send you on your way to the world of chef careers.
|
https://medium.com/@mohitchawlaji/changing-gears-switching-careers-76b7985b9dd8
|
['Mohit Chawla']
|
2020-12-26 16:51:26.162000+00:00
|
['Mohit Chawla', 'Money Be Chef', 'Cooking', 'Cooking Classes', 'Jobs Of Cooking']
|
Is Pewdiepie 2000x better than the average YouTube gamer?
|
Is Pewdiepie 2000x better than the average YouTube gamer?
CreatorSpot challenges the way attention is divided among creators.
All Pewdiepie’s videos get 6.000.000 views in average.
Swedish YouTube phenomenon and gamer, Pewdiepie, is one of the biggest YouTubers in the world. In average, his videos has 2.000 times more views than the average YouTube gamer’s videos.
Does that mean that Pewdiepie is also 2000 times better? 🤨
The algorithm thinks so. In fact, the YouTube algorithm favors all the biggest creators to make sure they always stay on top in your searches and recommendations. No doubt Pewdiepie is good, but there are many other creators out there who produce just as good content without getting nearly the same amount of exposure.
You can be an amazing creator even if nobody sees your content. 🔥
There is something off in the way the attention is divided. People get stuck in the same filter bubbles 🔮, getting the same recommendations over and over again.
This is a huge issue when we have an established culture around creation like never before. Every 1/3 American kid wants to be a digital creator today. But how do you make a splash in the ever expanding ocean of creators, without being a marketing expert or professional growth hacker? 🤔
At CreatorSpot we strive to empower underrated creators. To challenge the established algorithms by enabling a strong creator community to curate the best and most inspiring upcoming creators out there. Every day we feature new, underrated creators on our digital platform. Creators, that we believe deserve more attention.
CreatorSpot features fresh, underrated creators every day.
On creatorspot.co you can:
👀 Explore underrated creators across all platforms.
🔥 Submit yourself as a creator and get discovered.
💎 Add creators you admire and earn karma!
👍 Upvote the best and give them the attention they deserve.
📫 Get a weekly digest of the most upvoted creators!
We hope that you will join our journey and help us empower all the underrated creators out there! 🚀
|
https://medium.com/creatorspot/is-pewdiepie-2000x-better-than-the-average-youtube-gamer-294e12769689
|
[]
|
2019-10-13 16:48:55.379000+00:00
|
['Social Media', 'Creators', 'Content Creation', 'Digital Platforms', 'YouTube']
|
Learning to ignore the mess
|
Learning to ignore the mess
“Life is messy” well, so the ad says before the mum swoops in and wipes the grubby mess with whatever cleaning product it was being showcased, and they all lived happily ever after.
The mum in my house doesn’t work like that. In fact, every time she ( OK, I ) tries to make a concerted effort to clean it’s like pushing grime from one spot to the next in a very pointless dirt displacement experiment. I’ve outsourced that now.
Apparently the role modelling in this area hasn’t been spectacular. HOWEVER, I cannot even begin to conceive what I did to inspire the approach to mess making one of my children has the ability to execute.
Photo by Rick Mason on Unsplash
Mess is not a new skill for said child, oh no. She has been rehearsing this art form from a very young age. A child prodigy if you will. In a recent dream the toy room from hell came back to haunt me.
In my nightmare I was trying to salvage valuable and sentimental things from an overly cluttered toy room, things I could not find in the mess eventually giving up and racing out just in time for it to topple over into a burning chasm. You may think this dream says more about my own subconscious but no. Let me tell you that toy room was something to behold (and be afraid of, very afraid).
This child once told me that she could not possibly possess a tidy room as that would make her seem ‘up herself’ to friends who should drop by (thank you Aussie cultural norm). The child followed by a rendition of what those friends would say upon finding her tidy room; “Well look at you and your clean room, la-de-dah, who do you think you are? the queen?” the child mocked of course with hands on hips.
And it’s a great thing that the child had read and been so inspired by the fable of Hansel and Gretel as she left a trusty trail of crap wherever she would go, just so she could back track should the evil witch (most likely me) jump out.
Eventually social media came along with all of its useful click bait. “messy people are creative” she told me one day after reading a story by some lazy keyboard wielding tosspot (sorry, online guru) she had now chosen as a sage adviser.
God help me if she ever stumbles across the story of the girl who raised funds to tidy her room after accidentally posting a pic of the tip that she calls home — RAT INCLUDED
Over our years together I have tried countless strategies to encourage this child to live a tidier life. Helping, setting boundaries, making rules, time out, taking things away, various storage devices, competitions, star charts, job lists, ignoring the mess, getting cranky, ignoring the mess, getting cranky, getting cranky.. Oh — I’ve been there, and then there’s just outright bribery. Nothing has worked over a long term.
Except on the days that she decides that actually a clean space might be a nice thing right now. And on those days she may just well clean the whole house with gusto only seen on the above mentioned commercials. I sit in disbelief as she purposefully makes every nook and cranny of whatever space she touches sparkle — on those days that is.
In the petri dish I call my family the ratio of outrageously messy to usually messy is 1:3 so I guess I can’t be doing everything wrong. And I do have a very creative child as a bonus.
There is one thing I know for sure. As my kids grow up — and they certainly are doing that quickly I realise that there are some battles that are just not worth waging.
The battle of the mess and this kid is not one I am likely to win.
So, I’ve become better at closing her door and walking away, gently pushing things out of the way with my foot as I walk past and making sure her friends are invited over regularly (she tidies in anticipation of their arrival).
Who knows, some day I may just miss the mess.
|
https://medium.com/@kerrygrace/ignoring-with-the-mess-d235dd5f52b1
|
['Kerry Grace']
|
2019-01-03 01:19:42.957000+00:00
|
['Teens', 'Parenthood', 'Parenting', 'Life Lessons', 'Kids']
|
Lyft Motion Prediction for Autonomous Vehicles: 2020
|
Lyft Motion Prediction for Autonomous Vehicles: 2020
Lyft motion prediction challenge for self-driving cars
Problem Description
The challenge is to predict the movement of traffic agents around the AV, such as cars, cyclists, and pedestrians for 2020. At the same time, the 2019 competition focused on detecting the 3D objects, an important step prior to detecting their movement. Overall this requires quite a unique domain skill comparative to the 2019 problem statement.
The dataset consists of 170,000 scenes capturing the environment around the autonomous vehicle. Each scene encodes the state of the vehicle’s surroundings at a given point in time.
Source: Kaggle EDA Lyft
Source: Kaggle EDA Lyft5
The goal of this competition is to predict other cars/cyclist/pedestrian (called “agent”)’s motion.
The data preprocessing technique called rasterization is a process of creating images from other objects. For example, below is a typical image that we get, with 25 channels, channel by channel view. First, 11 images are rasterizations of other agent's history, the next 11 images are the agent under consideration itself, and the last 3 are semantic map rasterization.
And converting to RGB image using rasterizer includes:
image: (channel, height, width) image of a frame. This is Birds-eye-view (BEV) representation.
target_positions: (n_frames, 2) displacements in meters in world coordinates
target_yaws: (n_frames, 1)
centroid: (2) center position x&y.
world_to_image: (3, 3) 3x3 matrix, used for transform matrix.
Example of L5Kit(Lyft 5 kit) structure for data processing:
Having said that, in this competition, understanding the Rasterizer class and implementing the customized rasterizer class has been a big challenge. Hence here is how to select the two important configuration options. We should carefully consider the
raster_size The rasterized image final size in pixels (e.g.: [300, 300]
The rasterized image final size in pixels (e.g.: [300, 300] pixel_size Raster's spatial resolution [meters per pixel]: the size in real-world one pixel corresponds to.
Raster sizes
pixel_size = [0.5, 0.5]
As you can see in the image, if you increase the raster size (pixel size is constant), the model (ego/agent) will “see” more areas surrounding.
More area behind/ahead
Slower rendering, because of the more information (agents, roads, etc.)
What is a good raster size?
I think it depends on the vehicle’s velocity.
km/h ms/Distance in 5 sec pixels10.281.392.7851.396.9413.89102.7813.8927.78154.1720.8341.67205.5627.7855.56256.9434.7269.44308.3341.6783.33359.7248.6197.224011.1155.56111.115013.8969.44138.896016.6783.33166.67
Let's say If I used it constantly pixel_size = [0.5, 0.5] for these calculations.
The question is, what is the average velocity. In the image below, you can see the average speeds. (I assume that the unit is meter/seconds). I exclude everything with less than 1 m/s. Based on this information, we can select the size of the image.
Pick your maximum speed. For example, 20 m/s
Calculate the maximum distance in 5 seconds. (100 meters)
Divide it by the size of the pixels (100 / 0.5 = 200)
Because the ego is at raster_size * 0.25 pixels from the left side of the image, we have to add some space. The final size is 200/0.75 = 267
Pixel sizes
The other parameter is the size of the pixels. What is one pixel in terms of world-meters? In the default settings, it is 1px = 0.5m
In the image below, you can see the differences between different pixel sizes. (The size of the images is 300x300px). Because, for example, the pedestrians are less the half meter (from the above view), they are not visible in the first 2–3 images. So we have to select a higher resolution (lower pixel_size). Somewhere between 0.1 and 0.25.
If we use a different pixel size, we have to recalculate the image size as well. Recalculate the example above with pixel_size=0.2 :
20 m/s
100 meters in 5 seconds
100/0.2 = 500
final image size: 500/0.75 = 667px
Problems
As we increase the image_size and the resolution (decreasing the pixel size), the rasterizer has to work more. It is already a bottleneck, so we have to balance between the model performance and training time.
Calculating the error in the rasterizer
Each history position, each lane, each other agent has encoded into pixels, and our net is only able to predict the next positions on the map with pixel-level accuracy.
In many notebooks, the raster has a size of 0.50 m per pixel (hyperparameter). Thus, the expected mean error will be 0.50 / 4 for each direction for each predicted position.
Source: Github code From error calculating of rasterization file
Source: Github code From error calculating of rasterization file
Winning architecture for this competition includes Resnet(18,34,50),EDA,calculating error and Efficientnet(b1,b3 & b6) for the code please check this Github repo:
|
https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/lyft-motion-prediction-for-autonomous-vehicles-2020-410e58e703af
|
['Rashmi Margani']
|
2020-11-27 19:39:14.867000+00:00
|
['Self Driving Cars', 'Kaggle', 'Deep Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Computer Vision']
|
You Plan and God Laughs get it together
|
I was literally caught like a deer in headlights on Friday, March 13, 2020. It was one of the worst feelings of my life given that I am a HUGE planner and like to believe that I can control everything that I touch.
Growing up my mother always said to me, “Jaclyn, you PLAN and God laughs.” I am not sure if I should have taken that advice as a gesture of tough love or a harsh wake-up call that my Type A personality needs to simply go with the flow. I like to plan, and I can’t apologize for it.
However, in 2020, I have been reminded that I can’t ALWAYS plan. I started to think about some other times in my life that I simply could not plan and had to just “go with it” and brace myself for the end result in hopes it was a positive one.
1. Thinking that my first love in high school was going to be my forever and one and only for the rest of my life — ya, NO he dumped me post-college and I was heartbroken!
2. Signing on for my first accounting job pre-graduation at Arthur Anderson the year Enron and the accounting firm fell — yep out of my first job before I could even start it.
3. Thinking I would practice accounting as my career and then stumbling on the book “Who Moved my Cheese” and completely changed career paths — Wow did my father not “approve.”
4. Having a perfectly prepared birth plan for my second baby and delivery ending in a post-delivery hemorrhage — this is where I flirted with a near-death experience.
5. And many more…
This reflection has been a good exercise for me in which I encourage anyone to do, especially your Type-A’s and one where I have concluded that yes I may not be able to perfectly PLAN but I can PREPARE to the best of my ability and hope the outcomes are more than desirable.
So what does a Type A personality, passionate, planner like myself do?!?
1. Take a step back and just breathe (I can’t even believe I am writing this but I swear it worked for me).
2. Begin to allow others to help you and stop turning down offers of assistance (Stop creating monsters in your life by just doing things for them because it’s more time-efficient if you did it yourself then stepping back and letting them do it themselves).
3. Find the right tools available to leverage to streamline your life and help prepare for any opportunities or challenges that may come your way (Yes I said OPPORTUNITIES — we always don’t need to approach things as doom and gloom).
4. Be willing to spend money where the benefit of what you are purchasing outweighs the headache of starting from scratch yourself. (Yes, I said it pay to play if it means peace-of-mind and less on your plate and for me, these are SERVICE-related purchases).
I vow to work to not be that deer in headlights again via better preparation as, to be honest, it was not a “cute” site for anyone’s eyes including my own, and certainly not for my two young children.
|
https://medium.com/@mymacromemoir/i-have-heard-it-before-you-plan-and-god-laughs-31e6d1393e60
|
['Jaclyn Strauss']
|
2020-12-24 02:57:34.064000+00:00
|
['Preparation', 'Peace Of Mind', 'Organization', 'Solutions', 'Family Planning']
|
Benebit receives top score on TrackICO
|
Benebit’s upcoming pre-sale scores perfect on TrackICO with a 5 out of 5.
Benebit is a global decentralized ecosystem that enables interaction without borders between brands, companies and consumers and is built on Blockchain technology. Benebit is a disruptive network for the cashback and loyalty market based on blockchain technology. The unbeatable social component of Benebit’s model is professionally designed to meet the highest standards of business/consumer interaction for securely storing and exchanging all kinds of user and brand data for the promotion of discounts, special deals, cashback and loyalty programs. Benebit simplifies and introduces a new way for businesses and consumers to interact, which drives traffic, increases loyalty and trust, and enhances convenience and security.
TrackICO provide reliable information on the top ICO projects for potential token buyers.
By measuring numerous factors, TrackICO gave Benebit 2 out of 2 💚’s for:
In-depth whitepaper Clear goals and milestones Accurate video and project descriptions Well-developed team
Read our ratings on TrackICO here. For more ratings, be sure to check out our post on ICObench.
Join the upcoming Benebit token sale on January 22, 2018.
|
https://medium.com/benebit/benebit-receives-top-score-on-trackico-6d2d6bd67f8a
|
[]
|
2018-01-16 09:13:04.974000+00:00
|
['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Benebit Ico']
|
Building a Future in STEM
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High School Student Discovers There Is More to Coding than a Computer Screen
In 1996, John P. Foley, S.J. had a bold idea to transform secondary education for teens in an economically challenged neighborhood of South Chicago and provide students with the opportunity for a college preparatory–level education. Father Foley introduced a new kind of private high school that combined rigorous academic curricula, religious studies, and a work-study program. For the work-study program, the school partnered with local businesses to place each student in a corporate job throughout the academic year. Not only did the students acquire professional skills and work experience, but the money earned was used to offset the costs of private schooling. The Corporate Work Study Program (CWSP) helped make private high school education affordable.
The first Cristo Rey Jesuit High School opened in Chicago in 1996 with only 100 students. Four years later, the program received a $12 million investment to begin replicating its successful model across the U.S. in historically low-income neighborhoods. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would invest another $9.9 million three years later.
Since then, the Cristo Rey Network has grown to 37 schools across the U.S., including Cristo Rey Boston, founded in 2004. For the past 10 years, 100% of graduates from Cristo Rey Boston have been accepted to four-year colleges and universities. The Corporate Work Study Program now has more than 3,000 corporate partners nationally.
Working Toward a Future in STEM
Based a little less than an hour away from Cristo Rey Boston, MathWorks is in its sixth year participating in the CWSP. When students from Cristo Rey Boston come to MathWorks, they work in departments ranging from finance to facilities, learning about the corporate world while developing career skills and making professional connections.
Over the summer of 2019, Chanelle, then a rising junior at Cristo Rey Boston, developed a fascination with computer coding during an eight-week long program called Girls Who Code. During this summer program, she was introduced to basic coding languages and problem-solving. She loved the challenge.
In the fall of 2019, Chanelle was among a group of students who were selected to work at MathWorks for the CWSP. Each year, MathWorks starts the program with an orientation. The students learn that MathWorks develops software used by engineers and scientists to design products ranging from robots to airplanes and spacecraft. They also discover that it takes many different types of professionals to run a company. They are introduced to people from sales, finance, software development, and operations, to name a few.
After a summer building adventure games in Python and designing HTML and CSS web sites, Chanelle was eager to learn how these same elements were used at MathWorks to wrangle data and solve complex problems. She would become the first high school student to work in a STEM role during her work-study placement at MathWorks.
During the orientation, the students are encouraged to share their interests so that they can be partnered with mentors in the various departments.
“I expressed my interest in engineering because of my coding experience in the summer,” explained Chanelle. “I was hoping to get to work on the technical side of the business.”
Chanelle, student at Cristo Rey High School. Image credit: Chanelle
Luckily, Chanelle’s interests aligned well with the expertise of MathWorks application engineer, Louvere Walker-Hannon. During her more than 20 years in customer-facing engineering roles at the company, Walker-Hannon has been a confident problem solver and leader and a strong advocate for STEM education and for the inclusion of young, underrepresented groups in technology roles. So, when it came time to find a mentor for Chanelle in the company’s engineering side, Walker-Hannon readily volunteered.
“I attended a meeting where the topic was what the students could work on while they were at MathWorks,” says Walker-Hannon. “One of the major themes was trying to do more projects related to programming. That’s how I was able to start working with Chanelle.”
What Walker-Hannon says she initially thought might be one or two info sessions soon bloomed into a full-blown mentorship between them.
Learning the Ropes
Chanelle began to shadow and work with Walker-Hannon on the more technical side of MathWorks. In addition to triumphing in her coding projects, she also learned MATLAB® and how to solve different types of problems. For example, she learned how to manipulate pixels in an image and edit them to change color depth and grayscale.
Chanelle, who is naturally gregarious, says she was immediately excited to learn that being an application engineer meant much more than just sitting at a desk writing code. She learned that an application engineer works directly with customers, guiding them to the best ways to use MATLAB for their projects. Chanelle says she was excited to see how the same coding skills she’d used to build games were also used by companies to develop software for applications such as self-driving cars and medical devices.
Chanelle discovered that the application engineers worked closely with other corporate departments, such as the sales and software development teams.
“I definitely had a narrow-minded view at first of what people in technology jobs did: I thought software development would be sitting in front of a computer, writing code all day,” says Chanelle. “But Louvere showed me how I could have the best of both worlds: working on my own code and using my experience to teach others how to code. I saw how she helps customers use MATLAB, how she sometimes writes the code, and how she presents that code to the customers — that’s something I would want to do.”
While the skill sets used in developing code and communicating it to others may seem unrelated at first glance, Walker-Hannon says that cultivating an approach to problem-solving is really at the heart of the job. Watching Chanelle find satisfaction in improving her problem-solving abilities was a highlight of their time together, says Walker-Hannon.
When Working Turned into Remote Working
Chanelle’s work-study experience was interrupted in March 2020 as MathWorks and Cristo Rey Boston both went remote due to COVID-19, but she says that this change allowed her to connect more deeply with Walker-Hannon’s colleagues across MathWorks.
“I got to meet more of Louvere’s colleagues one-on-one and work with them for a couple of weeks, instead of only meeting them one time,” says Chanelle. “It was cool to learn what they do and get to know them at a deeper level than I did before we went remote.”
Walker-Hannon says that going remote also enabled her and others from MathWorks to present different types of information to the students, including more coding practice and college prep advice. Chanelle met with members of the software development team, the sales team, and other engineers on the application engineering team.
Presentation experience is another professional skill that students in the work-study program at MathWorks develop. To conclude her work experience, Chanelle gave a presentation to MathWorks employees detailing her time and what she had learned.
Walker-Hannon says that her presentation was well received. The team at MathWorks was quite interested to hear about the first engineering work-study experience.
Cristo Rey work-study students from left to right: Brandon, Loukman, Chanelle, Dannya, and Keiana. Image credit: MathWorks
A Future in STEM
Deftly navigating everything from participating in client meetings to cracking code challenges and working remotely during the pandemic, Chanelle says her experience with MathWorks has transformed her idea of what a STEM career offers. Reflecting on her MathWorks experience, Chanelle says she has a few key pieces of wisdom to pass down to those following in her footsteps.
“Try and be open-minded and always be prepared to learn something new,” says Chanelle. “And make connections with all the people that you meet because you never know if you could intern with them during college or after.”
Cristo Rey students studying on campus during the COVID-19 epidemic. Image credit: Cristo Rey High School
Chanelle says she hopes that her experience working on the technical side of MathWorks will open the door for future students to have similar opportunities.
Leading by example is also something that Walker-Hannon says she hopes she could provide Chanelle during her time at MathWorks as a role model of Black success in STEM.
“I think that representation matters,” says Walker-Hannon. “In other experiences that Chanelle might have in other corporate environments, or school or elsewhere, she may not have the opportunity to interact with as many women — let alone women of color in the tech industry. I’m hoping she saw that she could have a role at MathWorks or another tech company one day.”
As for what is next on Chanelle’s agenda, she is just beginning her senior year and still finalizing her college plans. But one thing is certain: she will return to MathWorks for her final year in the CWSP and will make the most of every experience. She says she is also looking forward to what she will study at college.
“This experience has helped narrow down what I want to do and study in college,” says Chanelle. “I’ve been thinking about studying business, applied mathematics, and engineering.”
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https://medium.com/mathworks/building-a-future-in-stem-fe87432425bc
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['Mathworks Editor']
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2020-12-04 16:05:36.829000+00:00
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['Stem Education', 'Science', 'STEM', 'Feature Stories', 'Engineering']
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The Evolution of Construction Technology
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The Evolution of Construction Technology
The construction sector plays catch up as it races to implement the latest technology on the job site.
As Charles Darwin famously observed, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”
Evolutionary pressure has helped fuel the implementation of new technology solutions on the job site. While the construction industry has been slow to change, contractors are now under pressure to address chronic problems, such as finishing jobs late and over-budget.
“The pressure to act is rising,” according to McKinsey. “Demand is soaring. The scale of players and projects is increasing, making a more productive system more viable.” Meanwhile, the price of technology continues to fall, making solutions that can dramatically improve productivity much more accessible. This is leading to a spike in tech adoption as builders race to implement solutions that can help them compete, and catch up with other, more digitized industries.
Digitization is Now Underway
The economic imperative to change has finally reached the tipping point. What’s more, the benefits of embracing new technology are clear. They include increased safety, lower costs, and greater efficiency.
Construction currently ranks among the least digitized industries according to the Harvard Business Review.
The rise of mobile devices, cloud computing, and big data has opened up a new frontier for construction. And today the digitization of the job site is well underway. McKinsey cites three main clusters where digitalization is happening: onsite execution, back office integration, and digital collaboration. But the transformation won’t happen without its challenges. For larger companies, identifying and implementing new technology can’t be done overnight. It takes time to make technology purchases, train workers, and integrate new field solutions with the back office.
The good news? If construction productivity—lead by technology adoption—can match the total economy, the sector could be looking at $1.6 Trillion in added value worldwide. So there’s a pretty good case for companies to make the investment.
Drones are one of the must-have tech tools for monitoring projects of all sizes.
A New Era for Construction
As the race to digitize the built world continues, contractors have begun integrating everything from smartphones and tablets to AI-powered software into their daily workflows.
If you’re on the job site every day, you know how software and devices can help builders connect, collaborate, and make smarter decisions — faster, more efficiently and, yes, more cost-effectively. One of the most promising technologies to hit the construction site may even be flying over your head right now. You guessed it: drones. With the costs of drone hardware bottoming in the last few years, and the advent of easy-to-implement software, many companies see ROI the moment the digital bird completes its first flight.
But it’s not just drones that site managers, surveyors, superintendents, and BIM coordinators now use to jumpstart workflows and eliminate friction. Smartphones and cloud-based apps are also helping transform workforce silos by facilitating better collaboration and efficiency between contractors. These tools also enable teams to move faster, work smarter, and keep clients in the loop every step of the way. And while we’re just beginning to see the results of these technology investments, we expect big things on the horizon for the industry as it sheds its past and emerges in a more productive, digitized form.
Top Technologies Reshaping the Future of Construction
There are a whole host of integrated tech solutions used on construction sites today. But there is still a long way to go. For example, your mobile device can be used to communicate with key stakeholders, access drawings in the cloud, measure the impact of your decisions, and even fly your drone.
As you no doubt have figured out, we think drone technology is mandatory in the modern construction company’s equipment arsenal. But, drones are just one of five important technologies that we think you can’t live without. Read our new eBook, The Connected Job Site, to get a better idea of how technology is reshaping the industry in 2018 and beyond.
Read our eBook to learn the top five technologies reshaping the future of construction.
Staying Competitive in a Changing Environment
Construction companies that want to be competitive in today’s marketplace need to be using technology for everything from real-time site monitoring to mission-critical decision-making. That means you need to be thinking about how technology factors into your business ecosystem.
Remember, it’s all about survival of the fittest. Now is the time to make sure your company is among the fittest in the industry.
Where to Learn More
Interested in learning more about how drones and technology can improve safety and efficiency on construction sites?
Read our recent eBook to get a better idea of the leading technologies and how to implement them.
Or tune into our ongoing construction webinar series:
Ready to bring drones to your job site? Read our guide to starting a drone program.
Get Started with DroneDeploy
Want to learn how DroneDeploy can help your business? Visit www.dronedeploy.com to start your free trial or request a consultation with one of our team members. The DroneDeploy mobile application is available for free download for both iOS and Android devices.
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https://medium.com/aerial-acuity/the-evolution-of-construction-technology-bdf3c120ed71
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[]
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2018-10-31 20:31:19.503000+00:00
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['Technology Trends', 'Construction', 'Drones']
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Top 20 Crypto-Assets by Market Cap
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20. Compound Protocol Balance Token (CDAI)
Market cap: $1.4–1.5 billion
CDAI already fell to rank #22 in market cap by the time this article went public. With the way crypto market capitalizations slosh around, chances are high enough that CDAI will claw its way back. But what is CDAI?
CDAI is an ERC20 token or a Compound token (cToken) representing a lending or supply balance, along with accrued interest, on Compound. DefiPulse wrote a layman’s summary of CDAI. With the introduction of cTokens, assets once locked into the Compound ecosystem can now move freely through the ecosystem, providing much more liquidity and functionality.
Let’s back up. What’s Compound? Here’s the company’s one-liner:
“Compound is an algorithmic, autonomous interest rate protocol built for developers, to unlock a universe of open financial applications.”
Compound’s already made it to CoinMarketCap’s Top 20 list by market cap, in large part thanks to the success of cTokens.
The second piece of this puzzle is DAI (check out the backstory to the name), a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the USD via the Maker (MKR) Dai Stablecoin System. DAI fuels a big chunk of the decentralized app (Dapp) ecosystem. It allows users to collateralize assets via the stability of the Maker protocol.
People use the DAI stablecoin to do various things, such as depositing it into Compound, one of the largest borrow-lend platforms today, and pool CDAI into a liquidity pool via Uniswap. Pooling CDAI earns you interest for holding cTokens while also collecting trading fees via Uniswap. It’s a complicated incentive. Let’s discuss it later. 🏳️
Wow, that’s a lot to comprehend, and we’re not even in the top 20 list if you’re looking at current numbers.
Why is CDAI’s market cap so high?
Compound distributes its native governance token (COMP) based on how much you’re supplying and borrowing from the network. The more you utilize the protocol, the louder your voice becomes at town hall meetings.
In a sense, people are “farming” COMP by depositing and borrowing DAI. Without getting too lost in the weeds, the Compound protocol incentivizes people to use CDAI as the cToken of choice because CDAI’s yield currently beats other cTokens in the marketplace. Therefore you end up with a lot of CDAI. 🏳️
Yield farming is a risky game, as the headlines would suggest:
$100M Liquidated From Compound Following Flash Loan Exploit
When Coinbase’s oracle price for the DAI-dollar peg produced a 34% premium, liquidators benefited from DAI’s under-collateralization. Yield farmers were caught off guard by this liquidation event.
Here’s a thesis: If the market cap of a synthetic (such as cTokens) is higher than the market cap of the underlying protocol (DAI), that’s a sign of over-leverage. The story shared above of how an over-leveraged yield farmer lost millions in USD is quite telling.
I’d love for Su and Hasu to unpack this bit from the podcast:
The problem with earning interest in real-time via something like DAI is that it’s difficult to convert from one token to another accurately. People often opt to deposit assets onto aggregators like the Y-CURV (YFI), re-aggregating into COMP. 🏳️
19. Tezos (XTZ)
Market Cap: $1.72 Billion
Company one-liner:
“Tezos is an open-source platform for assets and applications backed by a global community of validators, researchers, and builders.” Longest-chain rule, like BTC.”
Tezos is a proof-of-stake (PoS) cryptocurrency with a “self-amending blockchain.” It was the first crypto-asset to have complete on-chain governance where people vote directly for changes to the underlying code.
The project grew in the backdrop of Bitcoin’s scaling debate in 2017. Back then, people were more interested in Tezos as a test case for the best governance model that larger projects would ultimately use.
The project’s different approach to all the other “Ethereum killers” generated a lot of buzz in 2017. However, the team’s finding it hard to onboard developers. In contrast, with Ethereum, it’s easy for anyone to start building quickly and access a robust network of support.
What’s feeding Tezos’s market cap?
Tezos initially secured smart, committed investors who contributed to the treasury coffers. Their coin is also more like “money” than other PoS coins (read more about “Baking” Tezos), which may give it a boost by its association with Bitcoin. 🏳️
Tezos may secure another bull run based on the possibility of increased developer traction. Still, it doesn’t currently have robust grassroots participation.
18. NEM (XEM)
Market Cap: $2.62 billion
NEM is popular in Japan and was a top-10 coin by market cap at one point. The guys at Uncommon Core consider NEM a “very ‘2017’ coin” or a “ghost coin.” It was meant to be for inter-bank settlements and adheres to several regulatory requirements of the financial industry. Unfortunately, the project hasn’t seen much adoption.
Newer DeFi applications are likely to break into the top 20 as ghost projects like NEM fall off the map.
17. Tron (TRON)
Market Cap: $2.19 billion
TRON, a ripoff or fork of ETH to some, one of crypto’s most successful scams to others. I found their website deplorable — it’s much easier to find a photo of Justin Sun’s face (the CEO) than to find a one-liner about what TRON does.
Investopedia’s one-liner:
“Tron is a blockchain-based decentralized platform that aims to build a free, global digital content entertainment system with distributed storage technology, and allows easy and cost-effective sharing of digital content.”
The meme power is strong with this one, and everyone recognizes how much TRON copied from Ethereum. First, they endorsed a copy of Metamask (TronLink). Then came $SUN, Justin Sun’s very own DeFi coin.
The thing about TRON is it’s easy to use due to its similarity to Ethereum. When fees get too high on the ETH blockchain, many people use TRON instead, solidifying its “cheaper ETH” use-case, for now.
Also, there’s a great deal of USDT on TRON. However, that capital is likely concentrated among a handful of TRON whales. For that reason, take its market cap and liquidity with a grain of salt. TRON did ok during the 2018–2019 bear market, finding a product-market fit in the burgeoning crypto gambling scene.
The TRON network is powered by a cult of personality, with a hyped following in China and the USA. Its cult-like culture isn’t something to dismiss in 2020. Inside and outside the crypto industry, the whole social zeitgeist is increasingly populist and searching for a pretty face to tell them when a number will go up.
16. Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC)
Market Cap: $2.63 billion
WBTC one-liner:
“Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) is the first ERC-20 token backed 1:1 with Bitcoin.”
WBTC maintains a 1:1 peg with BTC via its custodians, the primary one being BitGo, in collaboration with the Kyber Network (KNC) and Republic Protocol (REN).
Quickly establishing a stronghold with Maker (MKR), Compound (COMP), Aave (AAVE), and Uniswap (UNI), the use-case for WBTC escalated quickly.
WBTC enjoys a powerful network effect due to the high demand for easy transferring between BTC and ERC-20 tokens. It’s a massive win for DeFi; Liquidity is an essential part of the user experience. Users want the ability to get in and out of positions quickly.
WBTC found an early advantage when DeFi was less mature than today (not to say the market has matured compared to its heading).
It’s important to know that WBTC relies on ChainLink’s (LINK) Proof of Reserves via WBTC’s primary custodian, BitGo.
The market is undeterred by the level of trust required to hold custodial coins. Tether (USDT) is also custodial, and it’s a massive force in the crypto market. We’re expecting a more decentralized form of WBTC to climb up the Top 20 chart with time. With virtually nobody aiming to ban Bitcoin anymore, that only increases the chances for WBTC’s (and to a lesser extend, REN’s) success.
15. Monero (XMR)
Market Cap: $2.75 billion
Five of Monero’s seven original developers chose to remain anonymous, and I’ll use CoinMarketCap’s one-liner:
“Monero was launched in 2014, and its goal is simple: to allow transactions to take place privately and with anonymity.”
Monero hides recipients, senders, and transaction amounts via “ring signatures.” It’s arguably the purest privacy coin on the market. Users can’t opt-out of Monero’s privacy.
By its nature, it isn’t easy to know how much Monero has changed hands and by whom or why. Sometimes the headlines reveal large holders, like this 17-year-old politician from Ukraine.
Monero had a surprisingly good performance in 2020, even as the thesis of needing a privacy coin over a privacy solution over an existing coin was falling out of favor.
Privacy coins were prevalent in 2017, an investment class in and of themselves. In Monero’s case, their Proof-of-Work (PoW) system ensures that large miners cannot centralize the network’s control. Still, the flip side of any PoW system is it’s tough for the coin’s price to appreciate due to non-stop miner selling.
Projects like Monero have a hard time getting listed on regulated on-ramps (like Coinbase), implying it wouldn’t benefit from the “money effect.” That sentiment is not wrong, but the Monero network exists to protect privacy. In contrast, it exists as a new feature on Ethereum. Privacy as a second layer to existing projects aims to make the underlying protocol do something it wasn’t originally designed to do. Also, the added privacy feature may be forked.
Monero baked privacy into their social contract, and the community is committed to defending its core values. Monero’s mandatory privacy has the edge over the opt-in privacy of ZCash, as an example. Transacting in XMR doesn’t require that you trust anyone in the network. With ZCash, only a small percentage of transactions are genuinely private.
14. EOSIO (EOS)
Market Cap: $2.87 billion
Company one-liner:
“EOSIO is a next-generation, open-source blockchain protocol with industry-leading transaction speed and flexible utility.”
EOS was the original “ETH killer” and the longest-running ICO on record, launching its mainnet in 2018. The company boasts a vast treasury. At some point, up to 11% of the global ETH supply contributed to it (🏳️ for a fact check).
EOS aimed to be the ultimate delegated proof of stake (DPoS) solution. DPoS is less centralized, much more energy-efficient, and is extremely fast, capable of processing millions of transactions per second. There are also no user fees on the EOS blockchain. Developers were interested in 2018, but ultimately the project lost favor due to some economic incentive issues:
The largest exchanges are often the primary block producers, which is a risk for all PoS coins. Ethereum’s experiencing this issue with ETH2 staking. How do they encourage people to stake on their own? EOS displayed the difficulties with PoS early on). You can find a nerdy analysis of EOS’s pros and cons at Hackernoon. 🏳️
Regardless of the potential flaws, EOS’s team maintains a large capital reserve and may be biding their time until they find the best use-case for the project.
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https://medium.com/the-capital/top-20-crypto-assets-by-market-cap-part-one-as-of-december-11-2020-b7b979cb165a
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['Alpha Trades']
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2020-12-19 04:49:44.362000+00:00
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['Defi', 'Crypto', 'Investing', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain']
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In a carefully managed release of data, QuantumScape announced that its lithium-metal battery…
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In a carefully managed release of data, QuantumScape announced that its lithium-metal battery would take a car 240,000 miles and recharge in 15 minutes. The data show the cells working comparatively well in cold temperatures.
I wrote in The Mobilist yesterday about how the San Jose-based battery company is playing down what it must do next: Scale up from a single-layer cell to 100 layers, make its separator without defects, and do so fast and continuously. But when discussing his own work, Elon Musk says scaling up is 99% of the effort. The prototype is just 1%.
QuantumScape also stopped short of assuring rightful battery skeptics: It has offered up paid expert assessments, rather than an independent, third-party evaluation, like from a Department of Energy (DOE) lab. At these major turns, we see a furtive company rather than one intent on giving outsiders confidence.
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https://marker.medium.com/in-a-carefully-managed-release-of-data-quantumscape-announced-that-its-lithium-metal-battery-a84ebd204a77
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['Steve Levine']
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2020-12-09 18:52:46.129000+00:00
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['Electric Vehicles', 'Quantumscape', 'Tesla', 'Lithium Battery', 'Technology']
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Are You Bicurious?
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Are You Bicurious?
Exploring those feelings during the pandemic can be hard — but not impossible
This was a great time you picked to finally act on your lesbian feelings, just sayin’! But I get it. We’ve had so much time to think and ruminate these last months. We’ve really gotten to know ourselves. And I think a lot of us have decided it’s time to make a change.
Only problem: we’re all stuck at home
The COVID killjoy has gone on and on and on. Maybe we keep putting off dipping our toe in the lesbian waters because we keep waiting for the end of this lockdown condition. “I’ll go out when everything is back to normal,” we might be saying. “In the meantime, I’ll masturbate and fantasize about what it will be like with another girl.”
It’s nothing like the fantasy
That’s the thing. If you are an armchair lesbian, imagining all kinds of porn-y scenarios with supermodels, yeah, that’s not going to happen, sorry. But hey, I’m not saying you shouldn’t continue with this super hot fantasy. “She puts her hand on yours and says, I’d like to undress you. She slowly unbuttons your blouse. You gulp. You can hardly breathe. Your thighs squeeze together. You’re cumming already.”
That’s great and all, but here’s the difference: lesbians are real people. They have real feelings of awkwardness and boredom and irritation and discomfort. That’s what it means to be a human being — you didn’t know that? Yeah, our awkwardness et cetera make us real.
That means instead of hearing, “I’d like to undress you,” you are much more likely to hear an equivocal, “I’m starting to feel a real connection with you, but I don’t like to move too quickly.”
Yeah, that can be annoying — especially if you are a person like me who likes to do it on the first date. You will be surprised at how slowly it goes sometimes. Patience is a virtue. And during the epidemic, I know, you’ve had your patience stretched to your last nerve. Hang in there. I have some stuff to help you out.
How can I be sure I’m bi?
You were drunk and you made out with a girl — and you didn’t hate it. That’s how most of us bi’s got started. With me, it was I was drunk about three times and made out with girls. Finally, a woman said to me, “Hey, I’ve seen you make out with so many girls in this bar. Why don’t you stop kidding around and actually fuck one.” She was right. I had some important decisions to make — was I just a constant cunt-tease, or was I actually going to suck someone’s clit?
Just about every woman has made out with another woman when plastered. But not everybody really has emotional connections to the same gender. I suppose that is a difference.
Me, I’m always getting wicked crushes on women — way more than guys. In fact, I don’t remember any male crush I’ve had being half as strong as the crushes I get on girls. Women are just more magical, sorry dudes.
I knew at 13 that I liked girls. But some people don’t realize it until much later. I love getting a married 40-year-old in bed for the first time, and hearing that she’d never realized until tonight that she was bi. I know, I’m weird. Why should that even mean anything to me? But I admit, sometimes I do think of it as an “accomplishment” to bed a first-timer.
What will the gold-standard lesbians think of me?
There are those “never been with a man and never would” lesbians who can come off as pretty snotty about a woman like you who has “curiosities.” It’s maybe a good thing that the hardcore lesbian bars are closed right now and you don’t have to risk the humiliation that can come with encountering a butch lesbian with attitude about straight girls with fantasies. Yeah, they can be pretty mean.
But maybe that’s the type of woman that attracts you. I understand. Some of the girls I crushed on in my early days were real athletic butch types. I’ll never forget how hot I was for this girl in my high school who was a star basketball player. I even tried out for the cheerleading team in my senior year in some weird hope that she might notice me. I made “alternate.” How pitiful. So I went to all the games but I didn’t always get to cheer. In fact, most games I went out back of the auditorium and got stoned. So I was fucked out of my mind when she finally spoke to me. I couldn’t think of anything to say — me with my big mouth was suddenly incapable of speech. Never mind. I went home and fantasized about how the conversation could have gone. And I was super witty and made her laugh and she squeezed my hand and told me I was “cute.” Oh my god I came so hard just thinking of her squeezing my hand. How innocent we all once were! LOL.
So this basketball girl did grow up to be a hardcore gold standard lesbian and when I met her in a lesbian bar one night years later and confessed what a crush I had on her, she told me that she knew it, but that she didn’t see herself with bi girls like me. She was only attracted to “pure” lesbians. That was the word she used. I get it. I didn’t feel judged, and guess what — she actually squeezed my hand that night and told me how nice it was to run into each other after all those years.
Back to the masturbatorium! I came hard again imagining how that next encounter could have gone. If only she wasn’t prejudiced against femme girls with boyfriends like me.
Never mind, because there are definitely lesbians out there who ARE attracted to femmes who like dick, too. I’m one of them! Yeah, I like the butch women, the femme women, and guys too. I’m greedy I guess! I want it all.
A decision you want to make: are you interested in being with an experienced lesbian or a newbie like yourself?
I would recommend an experienced woman, because let’s face it, you have a lot to learn. So if by some chance you can find a gold-standard lesbian who really knows the ropes, that will be good. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with stumbling along and “earning while you learn” with a fellow newbie. Both are good.
Where can you meet other bi-curious people?
There are a ton of apps that claim to be for bi-curious and bi women. In fact, there so many appearing every week that it’s almost impossible to distinguish the real ones from the scams. That’s why I have this recommendation: stick to Tinder.
They went and added a sexual orientation info thingie, so you can put your sexuality as bi. And you can swipe right on the ladies. It’s true, you might get some guys swiping you but you can deal.
The point is, there are so many more people on Tinder than some “Bilady.net” flyby weird app. And you want to cast as wide a net as possible.
Undress for a woman on FaceTime, Skype or Zoom
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing during the lockdown and it is fucking hot, don’t underestimate it. Because here’s the thing, if you slide your dress down and you aren’t wearing a bra, I’ll reciprocate by pulling my dress up and letting you see my panties.
Yeah, baby.
I know, I know, before you get to this cam sex phase you are going to introduce yourself of course, and see how you feel actually interacting with a female in this romantic kind of context.
You might discover that it’s not for you before your clothes even come off. If you are talking to your first female contact from a web site, and you don’t feel the flame, that doesn’t mean you’re not bi. It just means you’re not feeling it with this one individual. You’re not attracted to every human being with a penis, after all, are you?
So give it a chance, and have a bunch of conversations with cute girls.
Meet for coffee, masks on
That’s about the best we can do these days in LA. They keep changing whether you can even dine outdoors together. But the coffee places still serve coffee at least.
I met a girl in Silver Lake at this awesome Cuban place called Tropical. We got our cafe con leches like normal, but there was nowhere to sit there because of the restrictions. So we walked to this little park nearby, we sat six feet away from each other, and we took our masks off.
Oh man, that was sexy.
Taking your mask off is kind of like sliding your panties down these days.
I got a real tingle when she did that, that’s all I’m saying. And I was totally hot for her.
Bump some elbows and give her a wink
At the end of our little tete a tete I definitely would have gone in for the kiss during normal times, but we just fist-bumped and I did sort of wink at her and she winked back, so I knew she’d probably be down.
Next time we connected online I asked her if she had a webcam. She knew what that was asking.
She wasn’t at all shocked when I asked her to unbutton her shirt when I saw her in her little bedroom on Zoom.
Maybe she was a little shocked when I pulled out my big black dildo and did myself on camera.
“My God, I couldn’t put something that size in me,” she said after.
“No, but I bet I could put it in for you,” I said. “But I’d have to make you cum with my mouth at least five times first, just to get you prepped.”
“Promises, promises,” she said.
But we made it happen.
Get tested, quarantine, then meet up
We both got tested because we were both horny AF to actually do each other. Then we totally sequestered — at least I did. I can only trust that she did too. We waited a week and I went over to her place.
And yes, I brought my black toy. (It fit her just fine!)
Maybe you’re not an exhibitionist
This webcam thing is not for everyone, I get it. So if you don’t feel like having cam sex with each other, the next best thing is old fashioned phone sex. You lie down, and you tell her that you are imagining her lying down next to you. That is really fun, actually. Sometimes more fun than seeing her there on the camera.
Don’t talk about politics or COVID!
Whatever you do, when you finally meet a woman on text or on the phone or at a coffee place, talk about something else, please! We’re just so tired of all this shit. We want a break.
Talk about her. About what she’s wearing. About what she does. And what you’d like to do to her!
We women liked to be talked about, but you know that!
And maybe you’ll get lucky, in person, or on camera, or on the old circular dial landline.
Remember, in a few months after this thing ends, you will actually be able to go to a girl bar and dance the night away with people just like you. The LGBTQ community, while it is slightly biased against bi, is mostly an awesome thing.
Welcome!
|
https://medium.com/sexography/are-you-bicurious-2a4fe2413eb2
|
['Christine Stevens']
|
2020-12-10 14:17:32.143000+00:00
|
['Relationships', 'Humor', 'LGBTQ', 'Sexuality', 'Sex']
|
Helpful Advice on Parenting from Prison
|
Life doesn’t come with a manual on how to parent from prison, let alone provide instructions for the spouse and family left behind. Children, in particular, are hugely affected as their sense of security comes undone in an instant. And, while there’s obviously many obstacles and limitations, there are still many things parents can do to maintain the family unit until this sad time comes to an end.
As an inmate, you need to explore all the resources you have available and make the most of them. I made sure to write my children every week. There’s just something about receiving a letter that can be felt and touched, that’s so much more special than any email or phone call. My three children ranged in ages from 2 to 8 to 15, at the time, so I had to deal with each of them on their own terms and at their own level. The two youngest, for example, had no email and I had to ration my limited phone minutes to mostly serve as support for my wife. The letter was therefore my key lifeline to most of the family. I sent things that were age appropriate, learning how to draw and do origami, in the process. This, of course, evolved with every passing year. I felt more connected each time I sat down to do a project or put words to paper, just as they did in receiving them. I also made sure to include my wife. As an inmate, we must remember that our spouse feels abandoned as well. Sometimes it isn’t easy, especially as time apart puts a strain on the relationship. Writing, however, can serve as a glue to keep you together, or at least help you be solid co-parents going forward.
It’s also important to marshal your email and phone minutes wisely. You may even be fortunate enough to be in a place that allows video calls. They are all valuable assets. You’re best advised to use them to maximize communication with your family. Sure, you can set some time aside for friends, but since calls and emails are limited by both cost and time restrictions, you prioritize keeping in touch with the people most important to you. Your family relationships are invaluable for the rest of your life! Hearing their voices and sharing their daily events will help see you to the other side. Plus, they all still need help from you and solid advice.
Topics of conversation for all types of communication can run from the everyday, mundane things in your life, special thoughts you come across and memories of past events. Your loved ones will especially relish those fond memories. Kids love to hear stories of how they were as a baby and growing up, the ballgames and plays you attended and family trips. It helps with their yearning to have the family back together again, or simply to have you back in their lives. Your spouse wants to remember the good old times too, which is basically what gets us through all this. Never forget a special event. Whether it’s a birthday, anniversary or holiday, they are now more important than ever.
One other thing we need to be mindful of, is to let our spouse do the driving, so to speak. You can no longer expect to run things as you may have before. You need to relinquish all day-to-day authority, for the plain and simple fact that you are not there. It will only make you crazy and drive your loved ones away. Don’t worry, your spouse has it covered, with some soft counsel and guidance from you. It will all work out okay. In fact, your family still desperately needs you more than you know. To be honest, I thought that my predicament would cause me to lose all moral authority as a parent and husband. Why would they listen to me now? You’d be surprised. My wife still needed constant emotional support as did my kids. They even needed to hear the words, “no” and “not now”, on occasion. They accepted them and respected them when raised in a thoughtful manner.
As the spouse of an inmate, you have your hands full, now expected to play the roles of both mommy and daddy. Making ends meet, paying bills, setting up doctors’ appointments, buying clothes and school supplies and getting kids off to special events and play dates, all now fall on your shoulders. Alone. And that’s how you are going to feel more than you like. This whole situation breeds resentment, there’s no two ways about it. You will need to work through that separately, though, and on your own terms, in order to maintain your sanity. In the meanwhile, there’s the kids to think about. Keep pictures of your spouse around the house or at least in the children’s bedrooms. Remind them that daddy (or mommy) loves them and can’t wait to come back into their lives. At each birthday or holiday, sign the card from both mommy and daddy and explain that the gifts are from you both. Lastly, try your best not to speak badly about your spouse in front of the kids. This will undo all of the good will you are putting forth and may even undermine the kids’ feelings for you as well. Remember, the goal is to get our kids through this trying time in the best shape possible.
Visits are vital. Yes, there is no joy in driving hours back and forth to prison for only a few hour visit. The prison environment is demeaning on many levels. Some guards can even make you feel as if you’re inmates yourselves, as they screen and treat you with a bad attitude. Ignore their nonsense, because the hugs, kisses and time together are irreplaceable. I also made sure to buy picture tickets every now and then to mark the time together. We may not get to make the memories we want, but it’s critical to make the most of the ones we get — and cherish them. The bonding that occurs at visits reaches deep into our subconscious, seeding the beautiful relationships that await us on the other side. The visits are huge source of happiness, tinged with sadness, that sustains us all.
There’s no perfect formula for parenting from prison. We must play with the hand we’ve been dealt and make the best of it. Properly managed, though, we can minimize the detrimental impact that the experience has upon us. That all begins and ends with making our children the priority. By doing so, we can set the stage for a bright and loving future in which we more greatly appreciate the simple things like just being together.
Lawrence Hartman is the author of (i) GUILTY TILL PROVEN INNOCENT: A Shocking Inside View Into America’s Failing Justice System, (ii) BLIND GREED: From Ivy League to International Fugitive, and (ii) BLIND JUSTICE: The Consequences of Greed. He has also been featured in articles on Forbes.com, including “The Life of a White-Collar Fugitive Not All That It’s Cracked Up To Be” and “A Voice From Prison Weighs In On Drug Addiction And A Solution.”
|
https://medium.com/@justicefailing/helpful-advice-on-parenting-from-prison-86ec2b850fdd
|
['Failing Justice']
|
2020-10-08 11:45:09.684000+00:00
|
['Indicted', 'Prison', 'Law', 'Arrested', 'Criminal Justice Reform']
|
Explaining Federal Crime Control Policy: Punctuated Equilibrium Theory
|
PET and Federal Crime Control Policy
As stated previously, historically, crime control has been regarded as the responsibility of state and local governments. Federal efforts have rarely been a means of crime control in the United States. The late-1960s saw a dramatic shift in this attitude with passage of the 1968 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. Interestingly, it is often believed that the federal government’s entry into crime control policy was unprecipitated, based only upon the staggering increase in crime experienced in the United States in the 1960s. Indeed, there was marked civil unrest in many cities, along with an alarming escalation in the country’s violent crime rate.
Yet, the political pressures for addressing the public policy problem of crime had been building for some time. Crime in the United States increased every year from the mid-1950s onwards, which attracted commentary in the media. However, the problem was often played down by politicians and crime policy experts. Furthermore, the issue of crime continued to be framed as a ‘local’ problem. Despite this ‘negative feedback,’ several factors finally pushed the issue of crime onto the macropolitical policy agenda. Press coverage of crime stories increased, the proportion of Americans reporting that crime was the most important problem facing the nation increased, and major urban disorders and riots swept across many American cities. Moreover, Richard Nixon began successfully framing the crime problem during his presidential campaign as a ‘war on drugs,’ calling for increased federal intervention. As a result, congressional hearings were held on crime and justice, elevating the subject of crime to the macropolitical agenda. In other words, stasis was the norm for federal crime policy before the 1968 Omnibus Act. This stasis, and the punctuation of the late 1960s federal crime legislation, can clearly be seen when plotting federal bills addressing crime control.
Leading up to the late 1960s there is a clear status quo of little to no proposed federal crime legislation. Following the sociopolitical circumstances described above, there is a clear punctuation in the late 1960s, followed by another lesser punctuation in the early 1970s (largely amendments to the 1968 Omnibus Act). Following the 1970s, while proposed federal crime legislation remains higher than pre-1960s levels, it returns to a fairly stable level.
To further test whether federal crime legislation aligns with PET’s logic, one can examine if the distribution of federal crime legislation is leptokurtic. If PET is a plausible explanation for federal crime legislation, the distribution should reflect limited (or the absence of) occurrences of federal crime legislation, with large-scale legislative efforts lurking in the long tails of the distribution. Whether a distribution is leptokurtic or not is determined by measuring its kurtosis. Kurtosis is the average of the standardized data raised to the fourth power, with a high kurtosis measure indicating a sharper peak and longer, fatter tails (refer back to the leptokurtic distribution generated above).
Typically, a distribution is considered leptokurtic when its kurtosis measure is greater than 3. The federal crime legislation distribution’s kurtosis is 18.39, thus indicating high kurtosis and a leptokurtic distribution (see the inset in the federal crime legislation plot).
A similar punctuated pattern, along with additional punctuations, can be seen in the more-often studied public budgeting arena. The figure below displays the amount of federal funding dispersed to state and local governments for criminal justice assistance. One can observe stasis leading up to the punctuation of the 1968 Omnibus Act. This is followed by a stable incrementalism until the enactment of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. The 1994 crime bill was in response to the staggering level of violent crime in the United States leading up to its passage. Recall that violent crime peaked in the United States in 1991 at nearly 400% of its 1960 level. It appears that criminal justice assistance budgeting was returning to its previous stable incrementalism following the 1994 crime bill until the punctuation of 9/11 occurred, resulting in a large increase in criminal justice assistance funding. Following 9/11, budgeting again appears to be returning to its previous stability until the punctuation of the Great Recession, which prompted the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This Act included billions of dollars in grant funding to state and local law enforcement entities. Budgeting again begins to return to its previous stability until a rise in funding occurs due to the punctuation of Ferguson Missouri in 2014, which resulted in increased funding for police reform. The kurtosis measure for the federal criminal justice assistance funding distribution is 4.44. Thus, while the distribution is not as intensely leptokurtic as the legislative distribution, it is still in line with PET (see the inset in the figure below).
In sum, while incrementalism is the norm for federal crime control policy, punctuating events, although unlikely, do occur and can result in increased macropolitical actions whether legislative or budgetary. PET allows for these unpredictable exogenous events, which can result in ‘lurching’ policy changes.
|
https://medium.com/policy-process-matters/explaining-federal-crime-control-policy-punctuated-equilibrium-theory-158e24ae5803
|
['Scott Mourtgos']
|
2020-12-03 14:50:03.792000+00:00
|
['Policy Process Theory', 'Punctuated Equilibrium', 'Criminal Justice', 'Policy Process Matters', 'Policy']
|
Spark Structured Streaming w/Kafka and Azure Storage
|
Clients are increasing working re-architect data pipelines and ETL/ELT activities away from scheduled batch load types. Instead, the focus is on event driven, near real time architectures that allow companies to take advantage of data moments after it is available. This is crucial in limiting the latency between the arrival of data and availability to downstream consumers (business users, application, data scientist, etc).
Apache Kafka (https://kafka.apache.org/) is an open source distributed streaming platform used to build near “real time” data pipelines. Users can write and consume messages with a consistent, fault-tolerant, and proven framework. For the purposes of this demo, we are going to focus on utilizing the producer/consumer architecture with a local instance of Kafka. Then, we can consume messages by pairing Kafka with Spark Structured Streaming (https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/structured-streaming-programming-guide.html). Developer can use Spark Streaming, but with Spark 2.x, Apache Spark unveiled a DataFrame driven process that proves to be user-friendly. Using spark structured streaming, developers can interact with Kafka streams with DataFrame or DataSet operations. Simply, the spark job will “listen” the prescribed topic and process data accordingly.
The last portion of this example is a cloud based storage destination. In this case, the landing zone is a Microsoft Azure Blob Storage Container however, the concepts displayed here remain true for AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, and IBM Cloud Object Storage. Simply, all object storage options manage data as “objects” rather than a traditional file system. A pro of this type of storage is high availability, low cost, and ability to distinguish between storage tier access levels. Microsoft does allow users to interact is use object storage with Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2, which adds a hierarchal namespace on-top of blob containers. This solution combines capabilities of both Blob Storage and Azure Data Lake Storage Gen1.
Demo: In this example, we will create a Kafka producer and topic using a python script and an openly available API. Next, using a spark-scala script the topic value will be written to Blob Storage. Note that this demo will require an Azure Account, but as the demo only utilizes raw storage it will be minimal to no costs.
Demo Requirements:
This project was constructed off my local computer (MacOS Catalina) with a few additional software requirements. This demo will not take users though installation. If users need assistance please the open source documentation for installation.
Spark: 2.4.4
Kafka: 2.12
Python: 3.7
Scala: 2.12
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Intellj IDEA
Microsoft Azure Account
Setting up the Kafka producer — python:
The script utilizes the openweathermap API (https://openweathermap.org/api) to connect to a public available stream. You can create a free account and utilize the current weather and forecast collection which provides free access to an API. Then, using the cityID function, users can select specific cities as desired. Before executing the script, the Kafka topic needs to be created.
./kafka-topics.sh --create --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --replication-factor 1 --partitions 1 --topic weatherdata
Then the python script can be executed using Visual Studio Code.
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- """ Created to generate a Kafka steaming process """ import os import json import requests import schedule import time from kafka import KafkaProducer from json import dumps def job(): output = '' l =['5391959','4351977','5128581','4699066','5368361','4896861','4560349','5308655','4684888','5809844','4164138','5419384','4930956','4180439','4053671'] for i in l: url3 = 'http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/group?id='+i+'&appid={insert your appID}' json_data = requests.get(url3).json() producer = KafkaProducer(bootstrap_servers=['localhost:9092'], value_serializer=lambda x: dumps(x).encode('utf-8')) producer.send("weatherdata", (json_data)) # Must create topic before this step schedule.every(1).minutes.do(job) while 1: schedule.run_pending() time.sleep(1)
This python script will generate a streaming process in a topic labeled “weatherdata” running on the local computer. As a user, this can be verified in the terminal using the following command.
./kafka-console-consumer.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --topic weatherdata
Building a Storage Container:
Before attacking the spark portion, let’s create the storage container. From the Microsoft Azure Documentation (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/storage/blobs/):
Total cost of block blob storage depends on:
Volume of data stored per month.
Quantity and types of operations performed, along with any data transfer costs.
Data redundancy option selected.
In follow on posts, I will take you through the process of building cloud infrastructure with the HashiCorp product Terraform. However, for the case of this demo I would recommend creating a storage account with a blob container in the portal (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/storage-quickstart-blobs-portal). In the image below, my storage container is illustrated. I would recommend using Microsoft Storage explorer for interacting with the data layer (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/features/storage-explorer/). I would recommend signing in with your Microsoft account credentials.
Spark-Structured Streaming:
Finally, utilizing Spark we can consume the stream and write to a destination location. Yes, in most business applications there is not a need to both create and consume the stream. However, given how this shows the end to end process, we will perform both. Now, spark supports both python and scala variations. However, spark scala proves to both perform better and include new features sooner than pyspark based code. This article will not be a study between scala and pyspark but will acknowledge that either method could be suitable.
Using IntellJ and a SBT project, we can construct a script that reads the spark topic and writes it to Blob Storage.
Then, since the goal of this tutorial is to link spark structured steaming with Azure Blob Storage, we are going to take this step by step. The first step is to establish the maven packages required.
name := "sparkStreamingAzure"
version := "0.1"
scalaVersion := "2.12.0"
// https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.spark/spark-core
libraryDependencies += "org.apache.spark" %% "spark-core" % "2.4.4"
// https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.spark/spark-sql
libraryDependencies += "org.apache.spark" %% "spark-sql" % "2.4.4"
// https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.spark/spark-sql-kafka-0-10
libraryDependencies += "org.apache.spark" %% "spark-sql-kafka-0-10" % "2.4.4"
// https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.hadoop/hadoop-azure
libraryDependencies += "org.apache.hadoop" % "hadoop-azure" % "2.7.7"
// https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.microsoft.azure/azure-storage
libraryDependencies += "com.microsoft.azure" % "azure-storage" % "2.0.0"
Next, we need to build our spark session. You will see we are using the local compute option.
val spark = SparkSession
.builder()
.master("local[*]")
.appName("sparkStreamingAzure")
.getOrCreate() println("Started Spark Session")
Then, we need to configure our connection to our Azure Environment. You will need your access key associate with the storage account.
val yourKey = "{insert your Storage Key}"
spark.sparkContext.hadoopConfiguration.set("fs.azure", "org.apache.hadoop.fs.azure.NativeAzureFileSystem") spark.sparkContext.hadoopConfiguration.set("fs.azure.account.key.accettadev.blob.core.windows.net", yourKey)
The next step is setting up the Kafka configurations. There are a few items to call our during this step. First, notice that we use the same topic name and Kafka brokers as utilized earlier. Then, we set a destination which is our Azure Storage account. Next, we set a checkpoint location on our local computer. The checkpoint can also be set on the cloud storage account. These features allow streams to recover from failure and saves the state of the process when last stopped. Lastly, the select statement extracts only the data value from the message and converts the value from a binary to string. The columns available to operate with and their respective data types is shown below. This information is gathered from the spark-structured-streaming-kafka-integration guide (https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/structured-streaming-programming-guide.html). Our raw data is json and we are storing it in the column that shares the same name.
// The Kafka broker hosts and topic used to write to Kafka
val kafkaBrokers="localhost:9092"
val kafkaTopic="weatherdata" // Stream from Kafka
val kafkaStreamDF = spark.readStream.format("kafka").option("kafka.bootstrap.servers", kafkaBrokers).option("subscribe", "weatherdata").option("failOnDataLoss", false).option("startingOffsets", "latest").load()
val format = "json"
val destination = "wasbs://container>@<storage_account.blob.core.windows.net/<container>/weatherdata"
val streamcheckpoint = "$HOME/Spark-streaming/weatherCheckpoint"
val df = kafkaStreamDF.selectExpr("CAST(value AS STRING) as json")
Our last step is writing the stream to the destination. There are obviously more functionality and capabilities of Spark-structured streaming which is not utilized in this example. The goal is simply to get data to our storage blob. It is worth to note that spark streaming supports a variety of structured and semi-structured data types. Best practices would suggest that users select a Hadoop data type like Avro or parquet. Avro is a row based format that supports schema evolution. Then, parquet is columnar storage option which is favorable when compressing data.
val consoleOutput = df.writeStream
.outputMode("append")
.format(format) // can be "orc", "json", "csv", "console", "parquet", "text"
.option("path",destination)
.option("checkpointLocation", streamcheckpoint)
.option("failOnDataLoss", false)
.start()
consoleOutput.awaitTermination()
Now let’s tie the entire piece of code together!
import org.apache.spark.sql.SparkSession
import org.apache.spark.sql.types._
object sparkStreamingAzure {
def main(args: Array[String]): Unit = {
import org.apache.log4j._
Logger.getLogger("org").setLevel(Level.ERROR)
Logger.getLogger("akka").setLevel(Level.ERROR) val spark = SparkSession
.builder()
.master("local[*]")
.appName("sparkStreamingAzure")
.getOrCreate() println("Started Spark Session") val yourKey = "{insert your Storage Key}"
spark.sparkContext.hadoopConfiguration.set("fs.azure", "org.apache.hadoop.fs.azure.NativeAzureFileSystem") spark.sparkContext.hadoopConfiguration.set("fs.azure.account.key.accettadev.blob.core.windows.net", yourKey) // The Kafka broker hosts and topic used to write to Kafka
val kafkaBrokers="localhost:9092"
val kafkaTopic="weatherdata" // Stream from Kafka
val kafkaStreamDF = spark.readStream.format("kafka").option("kafka.bootstrap.servers", kafkaBrokers).option("subscribe", "weatherdata").option("failOnDataLoss", false).option("startingOffsets", "latest").load()
val format = "json"
val destination = "wasbs://<container>@<storage_account>.blob.core.windows.net/<container>/weatherdata"
val streamcheckpoint = "$HOME/Spark-streaming/weatherCheckpoint"
val df = kafkaStreamDF.selectExpr("CAST(value AS STRING) as json")
// Select data from the stream and write to Blob Storage
val consoleOutput = df.writeStream
.outputMode("append")
.format(format) // can be "orc", "json", "csv", "console", "parquet", "text"
.option("path",destination)
.option("checkpointLocation", streamcheckpoint)
.option("failOnDataLoss", false)
.start()
consoleOutput.awaitTermination()
}
}
This allows a user to write a stream from a Kafka topic to Microsoft Azure Blob Storage. From here, the possibilities are almost endless. In later blog I will explore using Azure Functions, linking to Snowflake Data-Warehouse-as-a-Service, and using server-less ETL.
Sources:
https://databricks.com/blog/2017/04/04/real-time-end-to-end-integration-with-apache-kafka-in-apache-sparks-structured-streaming.html
|
https://medium.com/@waccetta27/spark-structured-streaming-w-kafka-and-azure-storage-967f70899f3
|
['William Accetta']
|
2020-01-23 03:44:53.029000+00:00
|
['Cloud', 'Kafka', 'Spark Streaming', 'Apache Spark', 'Azure']
|
Gina DiStefano of USCHAG: Giving Feedback; How To Be Honest Without Being Hurtful
|
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I grew up in a less than ideal household. From a young age, I knew what it felt like to feel not good enough and isolated. I learned how to fake happiness for myself while trying to make everyone else feel special. Little did I know then, that was preparing me for a lifelong, fulfilling career helping others. I started my career almost 20 years ago in recruiting. I learned people, inside and out. I learned how to talk to people, gain trust, and connect. I am so grateful for the start I was given. I realized early on; we’re all the same. After interviewing thousands of people throughout my career in recruiting and people development, I know everyone wants to feel special, understood, and excited about life. I became obsessed with helping people achieve that in their lives. But first, I had to achieve it in mine. It’s daily work, it’s excruciating at times, but it’s my calling, and I wouldn’t change any of it.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I was happily running my coaching firm for ten years when approached by USCHAG. It was a contract opportunity that soon turned into a full time executive leadership position. USCHAG is special. We are revolutionizing healthcare with advanced technologies like ML and Quantum processing. We are going to change the way the world handles healthcare. I’ve always chased experiences and opportunities over money. I’ve been blessed with money being a side-effect of those choices. The founders of this company lead with passion and heart. Each one of them has a personal, traumatic story linked to the formation of this company. It gives me goosebumps to be a part of it. How we came together was divine timing. I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason; I trust in my instincts and the power of faith.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
I am not a patient person; I believe that is my greatest lesson to master. As I become more seasoned in my career, I see so clearly how all the dots have connected when I look back. They aligned flawlessly through the relationships I’ve built and the experience I’ve created for others. It’s all about building others up. The best opportunities came to me, not my going after them. I don’t believe in coincidence; I believe we are all given an abundance of resources that can make our dreams come true if utilized correctly. I see my dreams coming true as a result of what I’ve put out into the universe. My struggle is with speed. I have an aggressive personality, and when things don’t come to fruition as fast as I’d like, I become discouraged. The most exciting part of my life story is that it always happens even better than I could have imagined. It’s all about trust and patience.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I’ve made plenty of mistakes and continue to do so. I think the funniest thing about the mistakes I’ve made is that I didn’t even realize they were mistakes until much later. Ignorance is bliss. I cringe at approaches I took in the past, and completely inappropriate comments I’ve made, because I can’t help but speak my truth. I’m hoping as I age, I chill out a little, but it’s highly unlikely. If I had to share the funniest mistake I’ve ever made, it would have to be the time I didn’t realize I hit “reply all” to an email…You can imagine.
What advice would you give to other CEOs and business leaders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?
The best advice I can share is, we’re all juggling multiple balls all the time. Some of the balls are glass, and some are plastic. To avoid burnout, always keep that in mind. You’re going to fail, and you’re going to miss things, accept it. Always be mindful of what ball you’re dropping, glass or plastic. The higher up the ladder you climb, the harder it is to decipher, which is glass and which is plastic. Always remain incredibly cognizant. We crash when we think we have to maintain perfection. Once you accept that no one can achieve perfection, it becomes easier to maintain a healthy mental state.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
To me, leadership involves removing mental blocks in others to help them achieve their maximum potential. It means putting your ego aside to help foster an environment where everyone feels they’re important and that they matter. Leadership is often defined with a title or a position of power; it should be determined by how an individual makes others feel in their presence. I know I’m in the presence of remarkable leadership when I feel my authentic self. I work very hard with my team to ensure they always feel comfortable being their authentic selves. It’s in these moments when the synergy is on fire. Permitting people to stand in their power is my addiction. I love to watch people light up when they know they’re having an impact on others.
In my work, I often talk about how to release and relieve stress. As a busy leader, what do you do to prepare your mind and body before a stressful or high stakes meeting, talk, or decision? Can you share a story or some examples?
I am a huge believer in visualization and mental preparation. Before any significant event, whether it be a meeting, termination, negotiation, etc., I play it out in my mind as if it’s already done. I focus on the feeling I will have after. I picture myself in complete control knowing the outcome. Because I’ve already stated the intention and played it out a hundred times in my mind, I know exactly what I’m going to wear, how I’m going to position myself, and the inflection I will use in my voice. Every detail counts. When I’m actually in the situation, I find myself calm, focused, and ready to win. I can achieve maximum mental preparation when my body is aligned. I find walking, music, and baths an opportune time to match my mental frequency to my physical, allowing clarity to come forth in the vision.
Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Can you briefly tell our readers about your experience with managing a team and giving feedback?
The most critical aspect of managing a team is to sit back and observe the natural group dynamics. Before even taking on the “management” piece, is everyone in the right position? Are they happy there? Are their talents being utilized, and do they feel valued? If not, that’s the first thing we need to figure out. It becomes much easier to give feedback, whether positive or negative, because the person BELIEVES you care about what is best for them, not the company’s bottom line. I learned early on in my career; the customer’s experience should not exceed that of the employee. You must keep your people happy; you must make them feel special, understood, and essential, or it will be a living nightmare to attempt to take people with you. Once I’ve gained my team’s trust, I can begin to engage them and attain their buy-in. Managing successful teams is all about collaboration, bring people together by showing them you care.
This might seem intuitive but it will be constructive to spell it out. Can you share with us a few reasons why giving honest and direct feedback is essential to being an effective leader?
It’s always imperative to give honest and direct feedback. It doesn’t have to be as scary and dramatic as we make it out to be. Meet people where they are. Remember where you came from and where you started. If you can take yourself back to that space, you can deliver direct feedback much easier. Don’t come at people from your perspective; go at them from theirs. Be vulnerable, be honest, be human. We often overthink leadership. We set ourselves up for failure, thinking we have to be all-knowing. We don’t. We have to be empathetic and understanding of others’ needs. Remove your ego and level with your people, no one likes to be talked down to. Gain buy-in from trying to understand other points of view first.
One of the trickiest parts of managing a team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. Can you please share with us five suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee? Kindly share a story or example for each.
Five suggestions I would give:
1.) Meet people where they are. Before stating what the issue is, first ask how they think things are going around said situation. An example would be, “Hey Sally, glad you could make the call, I want to talk about XYZ, but first, tell me your thoughts on how the project is going.” By allowing them to speak first, they will not be on defense. It also allows you to see things from their perspective. You might have missed something or gained more clarity, making your job of giving feedback much more natural.
2.) If it has to be a tough conversation, state that from the beginning. People do not appreciate being patronized. An example, “Hi Sally, I’m going to be honest, this isn’t my favorite type of conversation to have, but it’s important. I want to talk to you about…” Be straightforward right from the start. Show humanity and vulnerability. This is critical when having uncomfortable conversations.
3.) Remove all emotion. This is not personal. Stick to the issue, not all the feelings around it. An example would be to lay out the facts and set a plan. If the conversation starts to stray from the intent, you have a foundation to bring it back to. You can say things like, “let’s keep this on topic, so we don’t lose focus on what’s important.”
4.) Be honest and genuine with all the positive things they are contributing. Make the feedback conversational and not forced. Bring an example of a time they overcame a critique you gave them and highlight how well they handled it. This goes back to culture. If your team already trusts you have their best interest at heart, they more open to any feedback you have to give.
5.) Build feedback into everyday interactions. Set up designated times either daily, weekly, or periodically depending on the needs of your people. Tell them in advance, clearly and succinctly, what they can expect in each meeting. If they know ahead of time what each conversation will look like, they come in less anxious and more open-minded.
If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?
I am a huge advocate for transparency. Suppose you’re concerned with an email being to harsh or critical, state just that. Open with, “It’s not my intention for this to sound critical, I know how difficult it is to pick up a tone in an email. Trust this is coming from a place of…” Better yet, if you’re overly concerned about tone, pick up the phone.
In your experience, is there a best time to give feedback or critique? Should it be immediately after an incident? Should it be at a different time? Should it be at set intervals? Can you explain what you mean?
Timing is everything. In my experience, the stronger your relationship is with your team, the easier it is to know when and how to approach them. Typically, it’s better sooner rather than later. However, some individuals might process better if given some time. I like coaching on the spot, so I create a culture around that model. My teams always know I’m going to be giving constant feedback. Because they know me, they trust and understand my intention is only to help them. Build a solid culture around feedback, and it will become much easier.
How would you define what it is to “be a great boss”? Can you share a story?
To be a great boss, I believe one needs to ignite a spark in others that motivates them to give their all. A great boss creates an environment where everyone feels they are vital to the team. When I think of great leaders I’ve supported, I think of how they made me feel. I felt important, I felt heard. Early on, one of my first bosses told me not to be two different people. He told me I was “business” Gina and then “fun” Gina. I thought I had to pick. He told me just to be me. It was a simple statement, but it ignited something in me. He was telling me I was good enough just as I was. I was capable. I felt ignited. I want everyone in my presence to feel that way. To create that, I go after others with insane curiosity. I ask about them. I sincerely engage with them. I believe in people. All people. I’ve found that when I listen and actively participate in the conversation, they light up. They feel something they haven’t in a while. If you want to be a great boss, be a great empathizer, a great listener, and a sincere change agent.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I would inspire a vulnerability movement. A movement where people would be called to stand in their truth without shame or embarrassment. This movement would allow everyone to see how similar we all are. Without fear of competition and failure, people would come together to help one another. I equate 90% of my success to being vulnerable. To me, vulnerability is courage. I take risks, I ask questions. I’m not afraid to be bold, nor am I afraid to be fragile. The world has come to a place where it’s cool to make life look effortless. Life is not effortless; we are all facing intense challenges from one day to the next. Let’s stop pretending it’s easy. This movement would encourage people to see that they are good enough and full of potential.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My favorite quote of all time… “A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”
Tim Ferriss
This quote is relevant in my daily life. We spend so much energy trying to avoid conflict versus stating our truths. Every time I’ve overcome my fear of confrontation and stated my truth, my victory was grander than I could have imagined. The more time we spend dancing around challenging issues, the more time is lost to more important things. Things that could lead us to a more successful, fulfilling life.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
https://www.uschag.com
Thank you for these great insights! We really appreciate the time you spent with this.
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https://medium.com/authority-magazine/gina-distefano-of-usc-the-more-time-we-spend-dancing-around-challenging-issues-the-more-time-is-316e66c8c1c4
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['Alexandra Spirer']
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2020-12-23 13:20:48.721000+00:00
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['Customer Experience', 'Feedback', 'Entrepreneur', 'Coaching']
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6 Ways to Get More Out of Social Media
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Photo by Merakist on Unsplash
Love it or hate it; you can’t ignore social media as a powerful way of reaching your audience. The more connected we are, the more integral social media should be to your marketing strategy, especially when marketing to millennials.
By 2025, millennials will make up 75 per cent of the workforce. So, let’s face it, as the most significant demographic with significant purchasing power, it’s more than likely you’ll be marketing to this tech-savvy generation at some point.
But if your social media campaigns leave you feeling frustrated or unfulfilled, check out six ways to get more out of social media here.
1. Get Genuine Followers
Yes, perhaps it does make you feel better and looks more fashionable, having a high number of followers on Facebook and Twitter. But if you have a low level of engagement, you won’t be fooling anyone.
Facebook’s algorithm punishes companies for buying likes, or rather, for displaying a suspiciously low level of post engagement.
That means that not only will your posts get ignored by your phoney following, but they’ll get shown to fewer people who may be interested in them.
Put great content out there, be patient and make sure that your followers are genuine.
The same goes for relevancy. Buying fans (hopefully) may not have crossed your mind, but it’s equally as much of a waste of time willfully following just anyone.
Or making friends left, right and center that have no relevance or possible connection to your brand. Again, it may help to raise your numbers, but watch as engagement drops like a stone.
If you offer translation services, look for fans who are interested in languages and may find your content of value. If you sell children’s clothes, make sure your followers are parents.
2. Interact with your Fans
Fan interaction, relationship building; whatever you prefer to call it doesn’t really matter as long as you do it! According to Social Media Examiner, your visibility in the newsfeed depends on how much you engage with your fans.
Get a new follower on Twitter or Instagram? Great. But the work doesn’t end there. In fact, it’s only just beginning.
You need to get to know the people you’re connected to. Ask them questions, interact, send them useful links and information from time to time.
Retweet them, shout out to them, give them a reason to care about what you have to say.
Never, ever leave a customer comment or complaint unattended. Not only will you upset the person who wrote it, but your other fans will deduce that you don’t care about customer service.
Negative social media presence is worse than no social media presence at all.
3. Post at the Right Times
You’ve heard this before, but it’s worth reinforcing that you need to post at the right times. As every company is different, there’s no hard and fast rule as to when will work with you, so use your common sense.
See when interaction is highest. If you deal with customers around the globe, try posting at different times for different regions.
If your client base is mostly in the States, try posting at a time when interaction will be highest from East to West.
80% of the US population resides in the eastern and central time zones. So, take this into account if you want your tweets and posts to each the highest audience.
It goes without saying (but I’m going to anyway) that you should never post when your target is likely to be sleeping.
You could compose the most compelling social post on record, but if it flies under the radar because it came out at 3am, you may as well have saved yourself the time.
4. Be Genuine
Social media gives you a chance to get creative, which can be fun and also attract a lot of fans. But don’t get carried away and end up giving them the wrong message about your company.
Your social media campaigns should still be relevant to what you do. Ideally, they’ll generate interest in what you sell. Social media is great for brand awareness, but ideally, you’ll also get converting customers out of it.
Transparency builds trust on social media, so be genuine and transparent. Your followers will spot a phoney from 100 yards away.
5. Give Back
The concept of reciprocity is all-important on social networks. What does that mean? It means you have to return the favour.
If you want to get recommendations on LinkedIn, start writing some yourself. If you want more followers on Twitter, start following other people.
Someone will return the favor. Remember that it’s not all about you. So, don’t fall into the trap of talking too much about yourself or your company.
Make sure that you also share your followers’ content as well. Like and comment where appropriate and build up your social karma.
6. Post Great Content
This may be easier said than done. But don’t just post to fill a certain quota of tweets or entries you’ve set for yourself. Post content that is of value to your followers.
If you have an interesting blog article to share, share it, and make sure you add a suitable description that entices your audience to click.
Don’t just add a link and leave it handing or lazily copy and paste the first paragraph of the article. And if you haven’t got great content of your own to publish, post other people’s great content.
Not only will you be saving yourself from a creative void, but you’ll be spreading the love and giving back.
The many social media platforms that abound can seem a little intimidating at first. But spend more time on the ones that your audience spends more time on.
Don’t try to invest the same amount of time in each platform. Use common sense and be prepared to put in the ground work.
Remember, just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, you won’t become a social sensation overnight. Not without following some ground rules to make the most out of social media.
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https://medium.com/@thomasgreig/6-ways-to-get-more-out-of-social-media-c8a15d3b5e97
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['Thomas Greig']
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2019-12-22 08:02:09.920000+00:00
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['Facebook', 'LinkedIn', 'Pinterest', 'Social Media']
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The First Signs of Alcoholic Liver Damage Are Not in the Liver
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The First Signs of Alcoholic Liver Damage Are Not in the Liver
Myfather died of alcoholic liver cirrhosis four years ago. It came as a surprise to all of us, even though it was clear he had a severe drinking problem for decades. It was especially surprising to me, as a former nurse and a recovering alcoholic. You would think I’d know more about liver problems and alcohol use than the average person. But the truth is, in the months before his death, I had no idea my father’s liver was struggling at all. Most people know about cirrhosis, but few people know how a liver goes from early damage to end-stage liver cirrhosis.
The combination of my father’s death and my personal background lit a fire in me to know more. He was admitted to the hospital on June 24, 2016, and he died on July 18. Only 24 days passed between the first sign there was a problem and his subsequent death.https://altagamma.it/gamm/rox/As-vs-Bu71.html
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https://www4.hcdn.gob.ar/bri/Video-murcia-vs-real-betis-vivo-rs03.html
https://www4.hcdn.gob.ar/bri/Video-murcia-vs-real-betis-vivo-rs04.html
https://www4.hcdn.gob.ar/bri/Video-murcia-vs-real-betis-vivo-rs05.html
https://www4.hcdn.gob.ar/bri/Video-As-v-Bu-liv-uk-00.html
https://www4.hcdn.gob.ar/bri/Video-As-v-Bu-liv-uk-01.html
https://www4.hcdn.gob.ar/bri/Video-As-v-Bu-liv-uk-02.html
https://www4.hcdn.gob.ar/bri/Video-As-v-Bu-liv-uk-03.html
https://www4.hcdn.gob.ar/bri/Video-As-v-Bu-liv-uk-04.html
https://www4.hcdn.gob.ar/bri/Video-As-v-Bu-liv-uk-05.html
Now, hearing that he was in end-stage cirrhosis didn’t surprise me, given his heavy drinking. What did surprise me was that he’d visited several doctors and specialists in the months before his death, and no one knew his liver was struggling either.
So what happened? Does end-stage liver cirrhosis really sneak up that fast? Were there other signs that would have alerted someone to his failing liver?
As for why the doctors and specialists didn’t know what was happening, that mystery resolved reasonably quickly. The plain truth is that alcoholics rarely divulge the amount and frequency of their drinking to their doctors. This was the case for my dad. He had many health issues that he was trying to solve, but he protected his drinking habit fiercely. So he refused to spill the beans, even when it mattered.
The problem is that liver damage has numerous multifaceted symptoms that are confusing and associated with many other illnesses. Unless a doctor knows that the patient is an alcoholic, they may not know how to interpret what’s happening until it’s too late.
As he was dying, my father told me that he didn’t think to tell the doctors how much he was drinking. He said it was as if he blanked out and “forgot” to mention it. As crazy as that sounds, this strange “forgetting” is a common part of the alcoholic mindset. It may also be due to the metabolic and physical changes of cirrhosis itself.
There are many signs of liver problems, but oddly, none seem to point to the liver at first. And in fact, many of the first signs of liver damage occur in other parts of the body. Knowing these signs may help educate alcoholics and their families if they want to understand their risk of developing liver cirrhosis.
Liver damage has numerous multifaceted symptoms that are confusing and associated with many other illnesses. Unless a doctor knows that the patient is an alcoholic, they may not know how to interpret what’s happening until it’s too late.
Digestive signs
The liver plays a huge part in our digestive process. It filters out all toxins from food as well as helping to break down fats and glucose.
When a liver starts to slow down due to significant damage, it will reduce its digestive work. Instead, it will divert its energy toward vital functions like metabolizing medications and filtering toxins.
This means that symptoms like bloating, nausea, vomiting, gas, and diarrhea will start to increase. Over time, eating becomes more challenging. In the later stages of liver cirrhosis, toxins that can’t be filtered out begin to build in the bloodstream, which causes more nausea.
Cognitive signs
Although confusion and brain fog happen in end-stage liver cirrhosis, they can also be early signs.
The liver is responsible for filtering dangerous substances in the blood. It also helps regulate hormones, blood glucose, and vitamin absorption. In the early stages of liver damage, these processes can be interrupted. Inevitably, this affects our brain and nervous system.
This means that early liver problems can make you feel tired, confused, slow, and foggy. You may have some memory issues as well.
Neuromuscular signs
The liver stores vitamins required for the functioning of many organs and systems in the body — one of them is vitamin B1 or thiamine. A deficiency in this particular vitamin has been documented in many alcoholics with or without liver damage.
Unfortunately, alcohol inhibits the absorption of thiamine in the intestine. Over time, as the liver becomes damaged, it can no longer store thiamine in enough quantities. Thiamine deficiency is responsible for many neurological issues in people with alcoholism.
Symptoms of thiamine deficiency range from mild to severe and include things like: confusion, mental fog, lack of balance, pain and numbness in hands and feet, muscle weakness, rapid heart rate, digestive problems, flushing, and involuntary eye movements.
Thiamine deficiency happens in almost every alcoholic who consumes frequent and large amounts of alcohol. And if thiamine deficiency due to alcoholism is discovered, you can be sure the liver is suffering damage at the same time.
Many of the first signs of liver damage occur in other parts of the body.
Vascular signs
All alcohol consumption can lead to blood vessel dilation, causing flushing in the face and hands. Over time, this can cause damage leading to permanent redness in the face. Although many alcoholics have rosacea or spider-like veins on their faces, this is often benign.
However, spider angiomas are different from rosacea or spiderlike veins. They’re circular and have a central point called a spider nevus that is darker than the rest of the lesion. Spider angiomas are a sign of liver disease and can be present in the early stages. They often progress to more extensive and more numerous lesions.
Spider angiomas are caused by increased estrogen levels in the blood. When the liver becomes damaged, it can’t properly metabolize estrogens, which causes them to build up in the body.
Many women who are pregnant or taking birth control pills may have a few spider angiomas. However, in alcoholic liver disease, these lesions are often more frequent and accompanied by red palms and varicose veins in the esophagus.
These are a few of the main signs of alcoholic liver damage that happen outside of the liver. It’s important to know this because most of us have no idea how the liver functions and how it communicates distress.
The liver itself doesn’t show signs like pain or swelling in the early stages of liver damage. This contrasts with other organs like the heart or stomach, where any damage will emit pain or symptoms directly from these organs.
What happens with liver damage is that its many diverse functions become interrupted, causing symptoms in other parts of the body. This may explain why most people never think they have a problem with their liver.
Unfortunately, patients with alcoholism are rarely educated about these issues. This is because they often don’t reveal their drinking, to begin with. And even if they do, the symptoms are widespread and complex, which makes patient education challenging.
My goal in writing articles like this is to help educate regular people about alcoholic liver disease to understand their health and make better decisions.
It’s hard to say if my father would have changed his drinking habits if he knew more about his vague and complicated symptoms. But I think having proper education would have certainly helped him understand his risks and health problems better.
|
https://medium.com/@annacora827277282/the-first-signs-of-alcoholic-liver-damage-are-not-in-the-liver-74de25d954ed
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[]
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2020-12-17 18:03:22.139000+00:00
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['Addiction', 'Health', 'Body', 'Alcohol', 'Mental Health']
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It’s Okay to Cringe Bro
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It’s Okay to Cringe Bro
Why it might be time to embrace the cringe we feel inside of us.
Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash
Watching cringe videos is a pastime that I never expected myself to have. But, it just feels good to watch someone else mess up. In fact, I’m going to go as far as to say that it’s therapeutic. Whenever I have to think of a painful memory from my past, I am slightly comforted by the fact that there is an online archive full of minty videos to cringe to. Even better, if the cringe is too much for me, I can always watch someone else react to a video.
I can still remember one of my earliest cringe moments. And, we all have them, so I don’t feel particularly embarrassed by it anymore. I was in kindergarten and my best friend Matt had betrayed me on the playground. I can’t remember what he did now, but I do remember running up to my teacher — absolutely flustered. “Mom, Matt just did this stupid crazy thing.” I said.
It took milliseconds for me to realize what I had just done. Thankfully, there was no one else in the room. But as soon as I could see my teacher’s grin, I knew I had messed up. I apologized and she laughed it off. The amount of self-awareness I experienced at that moment reached astronomical levels.
I’m reminded of the saying that I read somewhere on the internet that “If you’re cringing at something from the past, that means you’ve grown as a person.” And although that’s a really nice way of tucking the cringe to bed underneath a weighted blanket, it doesn’t scratch the itch entirely for me.
Cringing Reminds You of Absurdity
In an article titled The Unexpected Benefits of Cringing, Melissa Dahl explores the value behind this problematic sensation. After all, if I’m seeking out cringe videos late at night, there must be some reason behind it besides the misfiring of neurons in my sleep-deprived brain. Dahl points out that cringing at something forces ourselves to take the perspective of someone besides ourselves. It makes sure that we can clearly see what we’re doing from an outside perspective.
By cringing, we’re kind of shedding dead skin. We realize, holy shit, that’s not how I or this person should be acting. That’s definitely something valuable for society as a whole if not for ourselves at the very least.
I’ve come to think of cringe as a necessary reminder of the sheer absurdity of being human. If you can learn to appreciate this feeling — if you can learn to laugh at it, and at yourself — you’ll find more joy in your life. I hope I never stop cringing at myself. So far, so good. (M. Dahl)
I sort of agree with Dahl to an extent. It’s important to cringe here and there. It reminds me that I make a much bigger deal over things than I actually have to. It lets me know that I’m not the only one on this planet, and it acknowledges that everything I do has a direct effect on others. It’s a gentle reminder that you aren’t really shit.
Specifically, this talk about cringe also reminds me of Tom Robbins’s Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates. In it, Maestra (the protagonist’s grandmother) gives him a stern talk about the absurdity of self-importance and the value of being able to take everything a bit less seriously.
And that’s why when you’ve exhibited the slightest tendency toward self-importance, I’ve reminded you that you and me — you and I: excuse me — may be every bit as important as the President or the pope or the biggest prime-time icon in Hollywood, but none of us is much more than a pimple on the ass-end of creation, so let’s not get carried away with ourselves. Preventive medicine, boy. It’s preventive medicine.
When people take themselves too seriously, we tend to get some unsavory outcomes. Especially today, with the ability to record anything, no one wants to mess up. And no one certainly wants to be labeled as cringe. But, there is an opportunity to take back the cringe and reassign its purpose. That’s why it’s so important to step back and realize the absurd amount of thought you place into each action sometimes. Cringing can be a valuable tool to do so.
Cringing Makes You More Comfortable With the Uncomfortable
Every inspirational person out there, from David Goggins to Warren Buffett, always has some sort of small piece of advice related to discomfort. They always say something along the lines of “You have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.” And cringe-worthy situations are just that. They are very uncomfortable.
So, by exposing ourselves to more cringe, are we becoming better people? I mean, when I’m watching cringe videos, I’m sort of experiencing a high. In a way, I feel like it’s kind of like watching a scary movie. But as with any scary movie, if you know when the jump scares occur, it takes a bit of the edge off. And after watching enough of them, you kind of know what to look out for. The ghosts and demons don’t seem as scary.
I thinking cringing in and of itself is a healthy activity. Cringing is the realization that something embarrassing or awkward has occurred. It allows us to reflect and consider what was so terrible and why it should NEVER happen again. It’s also a nifty tool for picking out certain people that we probably shouldn’t hang out with anymore.
I remember hanging out with this one guy in high school who liked to drive really loud hondas, smoke cigarettes, and just basically participate in a bunch of degenerate behavior. After meeting a ton of his mutuals at different parties, I realized that I was reflecting on a lot of these gatherings and cringing. These kids were always edgy dirtbags with a general attitude that the world owed them everything. It was cringe and I was over it.
By being able to go through an experience like that, I was able to navigate through social groups a bit better in college. I could pick out the authentic people over the ones who claimed to have everything figured out. It was nice. And I don’t think I could’ve come to understand really good social interactions without having gone through both first-hand and second-hand cringe.
Cringing is an emotional experience primarily. It’s visceral. Sometimes it makes me want to disappear entirely. But, it’s also useful. It can show us that we’ve improved. And it can also show us that we still have a long way to go in becoming our ideal selves. Either way, it’s okay to cringe bro. Just let it out.
|
https://medium.com/casimirmura/its-okay-to-cringe-bro-6ebb52d79e23
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['Casimir Mura']
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2020-10-17 02:41:23.440000+00:00
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['Mental Health', 'Culture', 'Self Improvement', 'Psychology', 'Social Media']
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Small Arduino board can Implement an Industry 4.0 Framework
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Industry 4.0 encapsulates eight primary technological areas for Advanced Manufacturing innovation. The eight technological areas include: The Internet of Things (IoT), Smart Sensors, Advanced Robotics, Big Data Analytics, 3D Printing, Augmented Reality, Cloud Computing, and Location Detection. The main building block that is central to Industry 4.0 is the use of digital technologies. With the microcontroller development cost being low, an embedded electronics platform can be used to explore these technological areas. The embedded electronics platform that can be used for Industry 4.0 experimentation is the Arduino Nano 33 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Sense.
Industry 4.0 Framework: Image source: Medium.com
The Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense
The Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense is the design evolution of the popular Arduino Nano. The Nano 33 BLE Sense is pin compatible with the original Arduino device except for the onboard peripherals. The Nano 33 BLE Sense has eight embedded sensors. The embedded sensors include: an inertial measurement unit (IMU), a digital microphone, a combination gesture, light, proximity sensor, barometric pressure, temperature, and humidity devices. Also, the traditional LED wired to pin 13 of the Nano 33 BLE Sense is provided for quick communication test and setup.
A significant change from the traditional Arduino Uno family of embedded electronics platform devices is the microcontroller. On a standard Arduino Uno or Nano, the Microchip Atmega328 microcontroller provides the computation power of the low-cost development platform. The Atmega328 is an 8bit microcontroller. The Nano 33 BLE Sense uses a 32bit ARM® Cortex™ M4 Central Processing Unit (CPU) for sensing and controls applications. Also, the a 1Megabyte (MB) of flash memory is provided within the Nordic Semiconductors nRF52840 microcontroller. The nRF2840 microcontroller has a 64Megahertz (MHz) clock operating speed. Such a clock operating speed allows data collection sensing applications for machine monitoring. Monitoring machine parameters such as temperature and vibration can be accomplished using the Nano 33 BLE Sense as an advanced electronic sensor.
The Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense development platform. Image source: Arduino.cc
In addition, the nRF52840 microcontroller has 256Kilobytes (KB) of Static RAM (SRAM) for storing data. The slight disadvantage to using SRAM is its volatility. A constant power supply voltage source of 3.3V is required to store the data within SRAM. Therefore, the underside of the PCB has two copper pads for connecting an external 3.3V battery to maintain the data stored in SRAM. Besides memory storage capacity, all the Nano 33 BLE Sense digital and analog I/O pins are 3.3V compliant. Applying voltages higher than 3.3V to these pins will damage the microcontroller.
Applications
With the Industry 4.0 Framework as a conceptual design guide, a variety of applications can be explored with the Nano 33 BLE Sense. Applications like wearable devices, electronic motor drivers, and physical computing controls can be developed with the Nano 33 BLE sense. In addition to sensing and control devices, the Nano 33 BLE Sense can run Edge Computing based AI applications using the Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML) platform. Tensorflow Lite™ is the coding platform for developing TinyML based applications.
Edge Computing AI applications development with the Nano 33 BLE Sense: Image source: Don Wilcher
Another Industry 4.0 framework application concept that can easily be developed is IoT. With an off the shelf STEM educational technology (EdTech) kit, a transistor-controlled relay, and the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense, a basic IoT concept device can easily be prototyped. Electrically wiring the devices, the BLE capabilities of the Arduino platform can be demonstrated.
Block diagram of an IoT device using off the shelf components and the Nano 33 BLE Sense. Image source: Don Wilcher.
The prototype IoT Word Fan Controller: Image source: Don Wilcher.
As with the traditional introduction of bringing a new microcontroller into the world, a slight variation to the output LED has been replaced with a programmable word fan. Additional specification of the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense can be found here. Prototyping project ideas can be found on the Arduino website.
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https://medium.com/@mrdon219/small-arduino-board-can-implement-an-industry-4-0-framework-6c27bbd26a2b
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['Don Wilcher']
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2020-06-11 02:55:24.885000+00:00
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['Industry 4 0', 'Snapcircuits', 'Bluetooth', 'Electronics', 'Arduino']
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Once We Identify the Zero and the One, We’re Done
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Sign up for Rethinking 'Reality'
By The Circular Theory
Conservation of the circle is the core, and, therefore, the only dynamic in Nature. Meaning, pi, in mathematics, is the technical name for, what a human labels, 'mind.' Take a look
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https://medium.com/the-circular-theory/once-we-identify-the-zero-and-the-one-were-done-64e2ecdf52a
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['Ilexa Yardley']
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2017-07-24 12:03:45.867000+00:00
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['Artificial Intelligence', 'Circular Theory', 'Data Science', 'Virtual Reality', 'Eclipse']
|
Monthly update — December 2020. Welcome to the first in a series of our…
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Welcome to the first in a series of our regular monthly updates.
For the month of December we will cover listing, marketing and PR and roadmap for Q1 2021.
Listing on centralised exchanges
Our goal is to make KTLYO token as accessible as possible and to provide alternatives to Uniswap especially considering high gas prices.
On December 23rd KTLYO was successfuly listed on the BigOne exchange. We have provided basic liquidity in the amount of 275.000 KTLYO tokens and we’ll monitor activities and provide additional liquidity if required.
We not stop on this and the plan is to list on more exchanges during the course of Q1 2021.
All news related to new listings will be announced on our communication channels accordingly.
Marketing and PR activities
Together with our partner INBlockchain we have devised a marketing plan for the Asian market with focus on China and South Korea. The plan consists of 2 major parts:
(i) Marketing on BigOne exchange
In order to raise awareness of Katalyo during the month of January 2021 we’ll organize a trading competition which will attract new people to join us on our adventure
(ii) General marketing activities
During the month of January 2021 we’ll launch a series of marketing and PR activities focusing on Asian market:
Announcement on Main Screen China’s Top Blockchain Media Breaking News.
a.Chainnews(链闻), https://www.chainnews.com/
ChainNews is a blockchain media company that uses first-line interviews and a data mining-based recommendation engine. ChainNews analyzes in-depth events that have an impact on blockchain technology and assets, and reveals the ins and outs of events. The authoritative report, data mining and analysis report of international vision has become a must-read financial technology information website for senior managers of blockchain, creating a leading blockchain media brand in the industry.
b. 白话区块链, https://www.hellobtc.com/
The HelloBTC is the leading media for popular science in the blockchain industry, providing knowledge from entry-level to professional-level knowledge. HelloBTC is building a popular blockchain science community, providing easy-to-understand blockchain learning tutorials and blockchain technology application information, and helping users enter the world of blockchain in a scientific way.
c.币乎,https://bihu.com/
Bihu.com is a well-known digital currency social community in China. The community has a blockchain-based identity system based on web3.0 technology. The identity system can protect user property, data and privacy, and guard the digital freedom of each individual, To define the basic digital rights of individuals in the web3.0 environment.
d. 币快报. https://www.beekuaibao.com/
Beekuaibao is a blockchain media community platform based in the Asia-Pacific and facing global users. It is also one of the fastest-growing blockchain media platforms in the Asia-Pacific region. Currently, there are 1.2 million registered users of the Beekuaibao app, covering nearly 5 million blockchain users.
Promotion on Naver.com (Korea’s the biggest Website).
Promotion-related articles and messages of Katalyo will be released in the BigONE Global social media accounts
Publishing news letters for the local media of China
We’re also exploring other marketing and PR options but we’re taking a step by step approach here. Our goal is to run the campaigns, evaluate and measure to understand what delivers the best results. Once we get a clear understanding of what works and what doesn’t we’ll scale up the activities that work best.
We would also like to appologize to less patient members of our community for putting out this post a few weeks later than expected however the execution of marketing activities depended greatly on the listing on BigOne and in the end we decided not to start marketing before the listing is completed to minimise any operational issues we could potentially have with listing. Now that the listing is completed we’ll put our plan into action as fast as possible.
Roadmap for Q1 2021
For Q1 2021 our focus will be split between building the platform and building awareness of Katalyo via PR and marketing activities.
After thourough analysis we have prioritiesed 3 main features we aim to deliver during Q1 2021:
Real estate tokenisation
Asset tokenisation is a major part of Katalyo platform. During Q1 2021 we will release phase 1 of the project covering portfolio overview, pre-signups and signups and investment management
Token management (Fungible and Non Fungible Tokens)
Token economics are the life-blood of blockhain economies. Definition and deployment of tokens (both fungible and non fungible) is one the most important features of the platform.
For Q1 the plan is to develop token management capabilities:
a. Creation of ERC-20 tokens with staking capability
b. Creation of NFTs based on ERC-721/ERC-1155 standards using Katalyo’s dataset managament functionality
Dataset and file immutability
Katalyo provides capabilities for making data and documents immutable and verifiableDuring Q1 2021 the plan is to release features related to storing and verification of arbitrary datasets and documents. This will enable creation of custom workflows that will support data and document immutability.
We work in an agile way which means we’ll continuosly release features as we build them. As everyone working in software development knows setting deadlines is one of the most difficult things so we will not commit to any specific deadlines just yet however we’re confident that first releases will start comming during the month of February 2021.
Communication strategy
Going forward our goal is to keep our community updated on all developments and activities.
We will have regular progress updates like this one on a monthly basis. Of course in case we have some important news we’ll share with our community as soon as possible.
We would like to point that we’re not a typical project where one just simply forks an existing project, changes a few lines of code and that’s it.
Katalyo is an extremelly ambitious project and it’ll take years to build and realise our vision of building the leading no-code blockchain ecosystem. The value we’ll create on a fundamental level will drive all other aspects of the project.
In the end we wish each an everyone of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
The year 2020. presented many challenges that go above and beyond the usual challenges we have faced before. Hopefully 2021. will be the year we can put all this behind us and go back to normal.
Be safe, stay healthy and together with you we are certain we can make 2021. a year to remember.
|
https://medium.com/@katalyo/monthly-update-december-2020-6344e4e85aaf
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[]
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2020-12-27 21:21:22.931000+00:00
|
['Updates', 'Roadmaps', 'Marketing']
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Pozi Picks: November 2019
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Wow, what a month November was! We had some amazing projects exceed all expectations and we also kicked off a few changes around here. We launched our new rebrand and website look, which you can read all about here. We’ve also had some pretty awesome promotions and may even have some more in the works coming up soon. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to receive all the latest news and offers first!
Check out what we thought were the best campaigns from last month here too!
…
Ned’s #PoziPick ~ Sweaty City Magazine
Loved this campaign from the team from Sweaty City—a group of designers and editors from Sydney who decided to create Australia’s first magazine dedicated to climate change and urban ecology. Their unique brand of climate-aware content was aimed to be eye-catching but also carried an important message. They managed to hit their initial target quite quickly thanks to their consistent promotion and went onto smash through their stretch target, enabling them to increase the print quality on their 120-page magazine!
Rizky’s #PoziPick ~ Charm of Finches New Album
These young musicians from Melbourne’s inner-north ran a great campaign to raise funds for their second full-length album, called ‘Your Company.’ They used a lot of different rewards to attract different supporters, including a songwriting lesson and the option to pick a song for the band to cover. Their new album is out now and we have been playing it on repeat here at Pozible HQ!
Alan’s #PoziPick ~ The Melbourne Map Jigsaw
One of our most successful recent projects, the Melbourne Map team ran a hugely successful campaign back in 2017 where they set an initial target of $20k and ended up finishing with over $110k! This time around their new jigsaw product was also widely successful, attracting over 937 unique supporters across the campaign. I’m looking forward to sitting down and put my jigsaw together!
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https://blog.pozible.com/pozi-picks-november-2019-5fec410e5d43
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['Pozible Team']
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2019-12-02 21:26:01.525000+00:00
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['Melbourne', 'Maps', 'Music', 'Publishing', 'Climate Change']
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Create Your Own System Calls (Part 2) — Process Weights
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Create Your Own System Calls (Part 2) — Process Weights
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
In my last article, we went through the process of how to modify and rebuild the kernel while adding a simple system call.
This time, after we got a bit more comfortable, I would like to go a bit deeper and add a more complex functionality.
If you missed the previous article, make sure you read it first unless you are already familiar with the process.
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https://levelup.gitconnected.com/create-your-own-system-calls-part-2-process-weights-97d5e66f56f3
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['Eliran Turgeman']
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2020-12-24 14:51:11.934000+00:00
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['Code', 'Education', 'Kernel', 'Programming', 'Linux']
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Why You Need an E-Reader
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Why should you read books?
Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash
“Books are the most quiet and lasting friends, the easiest to reach, the wisest counselors and the most patient teachers.” Charles W. Eliot
Vocabulary- Reading books is one of the main contributors to building a vast vocabulary. The vocabulary in books is usually high-level and can expose you to different authors’ word choices. Imagination and creativity — after reading a fantasy book, your imagination will erupt. Last year, I read the whole Harry Potter series, causing me to dream about Hogwarts almost every night. Clarity — when you immerse yourself in a book, you forget about your problems, your issues, your troubles. While reading a book, you are like a meteor floating in space — free. Knowledge — many books are the culmination of an author’s life experience, containing valuable insight. By reading books from different authors, you get different points of view and mindsets. For example, a great book that changed my life was The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris. Enjoyment— reading is entertaining! Once you immerse yourself in a book of your liking, you experience the plot on a whole new level. Many people even prefer reading books instead of watching movies.
Overview
The major e-reader players are Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble.
An E-Reader is a small electronic device resembling a small tablet. It’s special because of its unique screen that resembles a piece of paper. E-Readers have one purpose — reading. They are exceptionally comfortable for the eyes and permit long reading periods. The experience is almost identical to reading a physical book.
Photo by Aliis Sinisalu on Unsplash
Advantages
Easy on the eye
E-Readers use electronic ink, which is a popular type of display technology, characterized by a wide viewing angle and low power requirements. This technology enables readers to read in broad daylight outside without having glares on the screen.
Dark mode — inverts the color of the page and the text, which reduces eye strain.
Reduces friction
With e-books, there is no reason not to read. You won’t find yourself waiting in the library or waiting for packages. With E-Readers, you have instant access to millions of books, newspapers, audiobooks, and more.
Enhanced capabilities
E-Readers contain quite a few features to enhance the experience of reading.
How much is left in the chapter — motivates readers to finish chapters before putting the “book” down. Library — organizes all your books without all the physical clutter. Customization — Kindle offers you the ability to change font type, size, padding, etc. Notes — I continuously take notes while reading. This especially helps me when reading professional books.
Comfort
I find it amazing that I can carry my whole library with me wherever I go. I read at the beach, by the pool, on the bus, and anywhere you can imagine. The possibilities are endless.
Photo by Perfecto Capucine on Unsplash
Dictionary
The built-in dictionary had an immense contribution to my vocabulary expansion last year. Every time I found a word that I didn’t recognize, I pressed it, and the definition appeared.
Price range
The prices of kindle devices range from 89$ for the basic kindle and up to 250$ for the kindle oasis.
The prices of Kobo devices range from 120$ to 250$ as well.
Because the average prices of e-books are significantly lower than physical books, the return on investment of buying an e-reader is quite fast (depending on how much you read).
Conclusion
I sincerely hope that people will read more books — it is an excellent source of knowledge — and I believe that buying an e-reader can help. For me, it is undoubtedly one of the best purchases I have ever made.
Thank you for reading!
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https://medium.com/@razgaon/why-you-need-an-e-reader-eaeeb8ad159f
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['Raz Gaon']
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2020-05-23 18:03:52.693000+00:00
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['Writing', 'Self Improvement', 'Books', 'Electronics', 'Reading']
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KNOW MORE ABOUT FLIGHT CANCELLATION COMPENSATION PROVIDED BY ETIHAD AIRLINE
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What comes under Etihad booking cancellation?
As we all know Etihad is the brand airline of UAE, that provides one of the best services in the aviation sector. Airlines give maximum possible flexibility to their passengers for cancellation and modification for booked air ticket reservations. Passengers do not have to worry about the cancellation of air ticket because Etihad airlines provide online as well as offline cancellation method. Here we provide details of what comes under Etihad booking cancellation compensation? with different kinds of situations.
How to claim Etihad airways flight cancellation compensation via online technique?
Etihad Airways is the public Air carrier of the United Arab Emirates. It’s the second-biggest carrier of the UAE and is situated and headquartered in Abu Dhabi.
Etihad airways flight cancellation compensation of canceled flights can be claimed offline and offline. Before going for cancellation passengers have to explore updated cancellation policy.
Important point under Etihad Cancellation Policy within 24 Hours
Etihad Airways enables its passengers to modify or drop the Air ticket reservations within 24 hours of the original purchase of Air ticket, if these conditions are true then there are no Etihad booking cancellation charges applied. Major points to consider before requesting cancellation within 24 hours:-
The policy is applicable for refundable as well as non-refundable tickets.
The refund against Air ticket cancellation will be credited back to the account used at the original booking within 7–10 working days.
Cancel Etihad booking online
Visit the official Etihad Airways website.
Click on the ‘Manage Booking’ section.
Enter the last name of the passenger along with the six-digit booking PNR.
Tap on the ‘Cancel my flight’ option.
Accept related terms and conditions. Click on the ‘Yes I agree on the button to proceed with the cancellation.
Once you agree to the cancellation policy terms and conditions, you will get the cancellation confirmation in your registered email.
Visit our website to know more: Airlinespolicy.com
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https://medium.com/@harsh.callsbridge/what-comes-under-etihad-booking-cancellation-bbfc78941551
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['Airlines Policy']
|
2021-12-14 07:18:56.519000+00:00
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['Etihad', 'Travel', 'Etihad Airlines', 'Airlines']
|
Each cigarette I burnt
|
Photo by Mikael Seegen on Unsplash
Each cigarette I burnt
each an effigy
just thousands of tiny
altars to powerlessness
But rooms expand now
lungs bigger
no longer quite so — crippled
Now I look on
changes in time & wasted moments
try to alter the shape
of the sacrifice
of the expectations of the crowd
Choosing to worship
stark absence of a drink
while the other hand pretends not to notice
the shriveling
the filthy comments in nicotine stains
Every other eye
a scattering birds of flame
(‘you know, that’s a crack pipe lighter…’)
of breath sculptured for brief moments
& so cut off any further elegiac
sensation along the roof of the mouth
conveyed via lips
centered on teeth
…this was all
seen in the photographs of the eternal people
bringing together
everywhere
tearing them apart later
expectations given up when seen again
with other voodoo or smoke
& leaving this morning
of blue.
|
https://medium.com/scrittura/each-cigarette-i-burnt-18fdd6af9e30
|
['J.D. Harms']
|
2019-08-18 12:18:00.768000+00:00
|
['Poetry', 'Quitting Smoking', 'Smoking']
|
Our First COVID-19 Investment and July Updates
|
Matt Gillis, CEO at clean.io
As the world shut down around us and we shifted to working from home, we were forced to reinvent our investment process. Our old investment process, which consisted of a lot of in-person interactions, just isn’t possible anymore. But we still need to invest in promising start-ups…it’s what we do. Post-COVID, a trusted VC partner intro’d us to Matt Gillis and the clean.io team. Chip’s been operating and investing in the martech space for over two decades, so we have a deep understanding of the problem space and the people in the sector, so we dug in. After completing numerous Zooms, phone calls, model reviews, and 2x our typical number of front and back door references, we closed our first COVID investment without ever meeting the team live. And you know what…it all worked just fine. We are pleased to announce that we are leading the Series A in clean.io.
clean.io is a cybersecurity company that protects enterprises from the execution of malicious and untrusted code. A single line of malicious JavaScript on a brand’s website or mobile app can breach data security, create poor user experiences, reduce revenue, and tarnish a brand’s reputation. clean.io stops it. Read More In TechCrunch
|
https://medium.com/tribeca-venture-partners/our-first-covid-19-investment-and-july-updates-b68cb204c3d3
|
['Tribeca Venture Partners']
|
2020-08-27 15:56:20.275000+00:00
|
['Startup', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Malware', 'Venture Capital', 'Digital Marketing']
|
Heineken Emerged as a Savior for Local Bars During Lockdown
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Heineken Emerged as a Savior for Local Bars During Lockdown
Its ‘Shutter Ads’ campaign even won a Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions 2021 Anshu Kumari Jul 5·4 min read
Photo by Thiago Miranda from Pexels
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the whole world.
Many places went on complete lockdown. Nothing other than the bare essentials were available. The governments had shut the shops down. Many lost their jobs. They had to develop other sources of income for their livelihood.
More or less, everyone suffered due to this.
Larger brands had suffered damages too, but they had other sources of income. They digitized their products quickly and cut back some losses. But the small retail-based business survived solely on their stores operating. And they were closed with no information on when they could open again.
But a few bigger brands have lent a helping hand to their smaller counterparts. They have tried to lessen the financial strain for small businesses.
Heineken is one of the leading breweries in the world. It has been in business for more than 150 years. It has over 300 brands available in more than 190 countries. Despite the pandemic, its reported net profit for the first two months of 2021 was €168 million.
It has launched many campaigns during the past year. But its ‘Shutter Ads’ and the ‘Back to Bars’ campaigns have been aimed towards the local bars.
|
https://bettermarketing.pub/heineken-emerged-as-a-savior-for-local-bars-during-lockdown-4aa42b3575de
|
['Anshu Kumari']
|
2021-07-05 17:15:08.705000+00:00
|
['Covid 19', 'Helping Others', 'Local Business', 'Really Good Marketing', 'Marketing']
|
35th Golden Disc Awards 2021 (GDA) Lineup | Live Stream
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Link >> https://tinyurl.com/y7d48rlk
The 35th Golden Disc Award show has announced a number of K-Pop Idol artists who will be performing. This event will be held on January 9 and 10, 2021. The event will be divided into two segments, namely the first day for the Digital Song Division and the second day for the Albums Division.
This will be broadcast via the JTBC channel without an audience and the nominees have been announced via the Instagram account and the official Golden Disc Awards website.
The Golden Disc Awards have announced several artists who will fill in this event, including BTS, GOT7, NCT 127, Stray Kids, TWICE, NU’EST, MONSTA X, SEVENTEEN, and Oh My Girl. All performances will be pre-recorded and held according to the Covid-19 security protocol.
BTS
GOT7
NCT 127
Stray Kids
TWICE
NU’EST
MONSTA X
SEVENTEEN
OH MY GIRL
ENHYPEN
ITZY
TREASURE
Noel
THE BOYZ
LAPOEM
MAMAMOO
Park JiChan
Park JinYoung
Rain
IU
(G)I-DLE
LOONA
Lee SeungGi
Im YoungWoong
Jessi
Changmo
TXT
|
https://medium.com/@indragunawansap/35th-golden-disc-awards-2021-gda-lineup-live-stream-b355ff3ec704
|
[]
|
2021-01-04 03:03:02.765000+00:00
|
['Nct', 'Bts', 'Live', 'Kpop', 'Golden']
|
About Me — Saskia V. “I get knocked down, but I get up…
|
About Me — Saskia V
From left: My BFF, a handsome man, and me
I celebrated my 50th birthday in 2020 — in two separate rooms connected by video because of coronavirus regulations. So, I grew up in England in the 1970s. As observed in the BBC drama Life on Mars, it was a different planet. Everyone smoked everywhere, and we frolicked unrestrained in the backs of cars or on buses.
Schools didn’t have anti-bullying policies, and corporal punishment was allowed. “Spare the rod” attitudes lingered and shaming was thought beneficial. The song “Baggy Trousers” by Madness sums up school life in Britain in the 1980s. I wished I could have gone to Grange Hill, the eponymous school of the TV series, but sadly it was fictitious.
Fiction and music were my great escapes. I’ve also traveled widely, including around the Soviet Union as the sun was setting on it; I studied Russian at university. I’ve always had a talent for learning languages and have worked as a translator and editor, but I’m a writer at heart.
In the Amsterdam Hortus Botanicus, July 2020
My goal is to finish and publish my novels Love from a Zombie and Love in the Lagoon — shifter romances. Here on Medium, I particularly enjoy stories about psychedelic therapy and about mental health. I will write about my own experiences, for example, about what it’s like to have a child with BPD who has often been suicidal.
In connection with the effects of family members’ illnesses, I participated for a time in 12-step programs like Al-Anon and Adult Children of Alcoholics. I found those supportive at first, but after some years, I realized they were not helpful. I will write about the many reasons for this on Medium. More information about the downsides of those programs needs to get out there as it seems hard to find.
Dawn
It was a tremendous relief to move on from all the victim blaming and explore diverse avenues of personal growth. I’m an experienced meditator with a longstanding passion for Buddhism and Eastern philosophy. I’m fascinated by Taoism and stoic wisdom. I’ve learned so much from a vast range of books; I will write about this and various life lessons.
One thing I’ve learned for sure is that there are no silver bullets. You can’t count on calm waters — it’s about riding the waves. It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters, as Epictetus said. Sometimes that’s the only thought I can hold onto when things get rough.
Some of my obstacles come from within. Perimenopause has brought jackhammer migraines. I do try standard preventive techniques, while sharing migraineurs’ frustration with these. I’m thinking about consulting a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner about headaches and the years of change. I will write about my discoveries. I seem to have found an effective remedy for the pain-induced nausea.
As you see, I’m full of ideas, and reject all notions of being over the hill when so much potential remains. Setbacks, I’ve had a few. But so far from being a victim, I live to own my power. I may get knocked down, but I get up again.
|
https://medium.com/about-me-stories/about-me-saskia-v-b650b2abe5b3
|
['Saskia V']
|
2020-12-25 20:59:31.656000+00:00
|
['About Me', '12 Step Program', 'Romance', 'Britain', 'Epictetus']
|
Global Mapper 22.0.1 Full Crack Keygen Download
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Global Mapper 22.0 Crack is the best application alongside the soul for the distance zone figurings. Nonetheless, the program is basic however energizing with the GIS attributes to convey prompt admittance to the spatial datasets. The consolidation of further developed abilities that works as per the client’s desire. Further highlights are added that is useful in all attractions to gives the each required thing like the capacity of the raster mixing, phantom examination, feathering, rise questioning, contrast change, view figurings, and so on
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Worldwide Mapper 22 Crack is the world’s most well known program. It contains colossal spatial information bases of all world. It incorporates the main worldwide information and land maps with greatest precision generally speaking the world. Most of the GIS Experts is utilizing it, and expert mappers utilized this present programming’s capacities. Hence, it contains the topographically spatial enormous information that empowers you and experts to work as per their fulfillment proficiently. It is the best and ideal apparatus for individuals are working with maps this worldwide mapper programming. Worldwide Mapper Crack is the finished bundle in your grasp for your spatial work. Also, It can peruse and examine any information from the immense spatial information bases or a greater amount of this present programming’s capacities.
It keeps up your protection planning and offers 3D execution. It additionally gives a novel interface and the capacity to change LZA records. For vector subtleties on the globe, you may make numerous questions. It gives the drag and drops capacity to free a guide from your desires. At last, with a 3D picture, this great program gives you all the data about any area, area, or building.
Download Link: Global Mapper Crack
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https://medium.com/@benjaminrever420/global-mapper-22-0-1-full-crack-keygen-download-92f715b7b258
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['Benjamin Rever']
|
2020-12-27 14:00:27.537000+00:00
|
['Video Editor', 'Software', 'Graphic Design']
|
How to Manage Election Disaster Risk
|
What risks will you face in your work and life if the US Presidential election results in an election disaster, such as a constitutional crisis and widespread civil unrest?
That question may sound unreal to you. Yet it doesn’t sound so far-fetched to many political leaders and experts observing the run-up to the election. Indeed, major political players are reshaping their strategies and investing substantial time and money to prepare for the likelihood of this scenario.
If you enjoy video, here’s a videocast based on this blog:
And if you like audio, here’s a podcast based on the blog:
Or simply read onward!
The main dynamics that may well bring about such a troubling outcome stem from holding this election in the middle of a pandemic. Perhaps twice as many are voting absentee by mail rather than risk catching COVID by voting in-person.
Mailed ballots take much longer to count than in-person votes. These problems will be exacerbated by: many less volunteers willing to help with the elections due to the pandemic; budget cuts coming from the financial blows resulting from the pandemic-induced recession; and most importantly, legal challenges due to the many more ways voters can make mistakes in absentee ballots compared to in-person voting.
Moreover, many of the most important swing states don’t allow absentee ballot counting until election day. That means it’s quite likely that there won’t be a clear victory for either party on election day.
The most dangerous scenario stems from many more Democrats voting by mail than Republicans. The outcome may be what’s called a “red mirage”: Donald Trump appears to be ahead on election night due to the fast counting of in-person ballots, but his lead starts shrinking as mail-in ballots are slowly counted.
Considering Trump’s criticism of voting by mail as rife with fraud, despite his FBI Director saying there’s no evidence of such fraud, it’s very likely he will call such a turn of events fraudulent. Indeed, he did so in Florida in 2018 when the lead of his allies shrank during post-election day counting.
He’s almost certain to do so if his own lead starts to shrink, which it inevitably will as many more Democrats vote by mail. He’ll likely unilaterally declare victory and call to stop the count.
Civil Strife and Political Chaos
What then? Unfortunately, widespread civil strife is a very serious possibility.
Polling shows a surprising and growing number of Americans on both sides of the political divide — 44 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of Democrats — who feel at least some justification in using violence if their side loses the election. Those numbers grew substantially from June, when they were 35 percent for Republicans and 37 percent for Democrats.
Moreover, in that same survey, those who answered that there is either “a lot” or “a great deal” of justification for violence if the other side wins increased for Democrats from 16 percent in June to 19 percent in September. For Republicans, it grew from 15 percent in June to 20 percent in September. By the election, these numbers will very likely go up even further.
The fact that protests and counter-protests over police violence and pandemic-related shutdowns this summer resulted in a number of deaths already supports this statistical evidence. And mark my words, if prominent political leaders say that the count should be stopped and declare victory, the summer of protests will seem like a pleasant summer rain before a derecho of violence after the elections.
Republicans will come to election offices, city halls, and state capitols to protest the count, especially in swing states but also across the country. It will be a vastly exaggerated repeat of the “Brooks Brothers” riot that happened in November 2000 with the disputed George W. Bush vs. Al Gore Presidential election, which provides a clear precedent.
An even more recent and ominous precedent: this summer’s protestors setting police stations on fire. Why wouldn’t those who want to stop the count take over an election office and burn the uncounted ballots? That way, there really won’t be any way to finish the count fairly and accurately.
Democrats will counter-protest to protect the count. Downtowns will fill with violence.
The Brooks Brothers riot succeeded in stopping the election count and resulted in Bush’s eventual victory. This time the potential violence, ballot destruction, and extensive legal challenges may result in stopping the election count in enough states to prevent either candidate from having a clear majority.
In that case, it would be up to the legislatures, Governors, and Secretaries of State of each state to decide how to distribute the electors from that state; there is already planning for such scenarios by the campaigns in case of disputed, unfinished counts.
Given that many swing states have legislatures controlled by one party, and the governorship by a different party, each would appoint a competing slate of electors. There’s no clarity about how to count such competing electors. If enough swing states face such a scenario, the Electoral College vote, which happens on December 14 and is certified on January 6, would be inconclusive.
In that case, the role of choosing the President goes to the US House of Representatives, with each state delegation having one vote. It’s likely that the Democrats will keep control of the House, but Republicans currently control 26 state delegations.
If the Republicans retain that majority and the vote happens, Trump would win. However, if the Democrats control the House, they could refuse to seat some Republicans for a variety of reasons, such as Democratic lawyers claiming election improprieties for those Republicans. It’s an impasse: we’re in a true constitutional crisis, with no way out.
Of course, while all of this is happening in the halls of power, people are rioting in the streets. The stock market is spiraling downward, as is the economy.
This scenario might seem like a true “Electionpocalypse.” However, it’s not the worst scenario by any stretch of the imagination.
What if a foreign enemy decides to take advantage of this uncertainty to launch a major cyberattack? Or perhaps a major superpower like China might decide on a military takeover of its long-time target of Taiwan, as it has been threatening to do lately following its successful legal takeover of Hong Kong, with the US preoccupied internally and unable to launch a meaningful defense?
What if the US military, tired of the incompetence and deadlock in the political system, decides to step in unilaterally? How about if the current Commander-in-Chief calls for it to step in, as many political leaders and experts fear he might — will they violate their commitment to obey civilian leadership? So many worse scenarios are possible.
I Don’t Believe It
You might have been nodding along while reading all that, agreeing in principle it’s all possible. Yet somehow, you’re not opening a new tab and Googling “how to protect my business and family from civil strife.” Why not?
Perhaps because while your rational, reasonable brain may admit the distinct substantial possibility of an Electionpocalypse, your gut doesn’t buy it. A voice inside your gut whispers that it never happened before, and so it won’t happen now; even if something like this happened on a much smaller scale in the 2000 election, things turned out ok, so this will turn out ok, too. And besides, this is just fear-mongering and idle speculation that can’t impact my life, the voice says.
Do you remember that same voice from reading articles at the beginning of this year about the possibility of COVID-19 turning into a pandemic? Your rational brain acknowledged the possibility; your gut reaction told you everything will be fine and to not worry about it, causing so many businesses, governments, and individuals to fail in preparing and planning for the pandemic, despite numerous warnings by risk management experts like myself.
Our brains have a disastrous tendency to underestimate greatly — essentially ignore — low-probability and high-impact disruptors that never happened before, what you might have heard called “black swans” or “unknown unknowns.” We find it hard to fathom that the country in which we live, the shining beacon of democracy, may now lose one of the fundamental pillars of democracy: an orderly and peaceful transfer of power.
This disastrous tendency comes from dangerous judgment errors that researchers in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics call cognitive biases. These mental blindspots impact all areas of our life, from health to politics and even shopping. They result from a combination of our evolutionary background and specific structural features in how our brains are wired; they lead us to make disastrous gut-based decisions, unless we use effective decision-making techniques to select the best options.
Cognitive Biases and Election Disaster Risk
Three cognitive biases bear the biggest fault for our failure to face the truth that we need to accept and plan for the possibility of an election disaster.
The normalcy bias refers to our brains assuming things will keep going as they have been — normally — and evaluate the near-term future based on our short-term past experience. As a result, we underestimate drastically both the likelihood of a serious disruption occurring and the impact of one if it does occur.
Thus, the black swan of an Electionpocalypse seems to our minds theoretically plausible. Yet, our gut feeling is that it’s so realistically unlikely that we don’t need to do anything to address it. We feel uncomfortable — in our gut — even fully admitting the real likelihood of this scenario, because then we have to treat it as realistic. Doing so feels very anxiety-inducing and depressing, and our mind shies away from this possibility.
That’s where a second powerful cognitive bias comes in, the confirmation bias. This mental blindspot describes our strong preference to look only for information that already supports our pre-existing beliefs and gut feelings. Even when we do find data that goes against our current intuitions, our gut reaction is to feel uncomfortable with and reject such evidence.
Regarding an election disaster, you might be feeling that you should reject the information in this article, even though it makes rational sense and provides extensive citations as evidence. Contemplating such a scenario seriously might cause too much discomfort. Your intuition might be driving you to reject its plausibility out of hand, rather than evaluating the likelihood carefully.
When we make plans, we naturally believe that the future will go according to plan. That wrong-headed mental blindspot, the planning fallacy, results in us not preparing sufficiently for contingencies and problems, and not changing our plans nearly quickly enough when they do come up.
The planning fallacy applies especially to black swan-type low-probability, high-impact events that never happened before, like the potential of an upcoming Electionpocalypse. It feels very counterintuitive to change our well-set plans for something that feels like it’s unreal.
Indeed, it should feel counterintuitive if you’re confronting the planning fallacy. You’re trying to go against your basic, inbuilt intuitions, and doing so isn’t easy at all.
Remember back to how difficult it is to resist eating a second doughnut after you decided to eat just one from the open box of a dozen donuts in the breakroom. Our gut reaction is triggered by sugar, due to our evolutionary background in the ancestral savannah and the need to eat as much sugar as possible to survive and thrive. In our modern world, with the overabundance of sugar, our feelings drive us to want much more sugar than we should have for the sake of our health.
By resisting that impulse, you’re resisting your gut reactions. You’re doing the same when fighting to avoid being overwhelmed by the planning fallacy, the normalcy bias, or the confirmation bias.
What’s the Real Risk of an Election Disaster?
Once we’re confronted with a substantial likelihood of an upcoming low-probability, high-impact negative event, we often make bad decisions about how to assess and mitigate such risks. That’s because our gut reaction to threats is the fight-or-flight response, a binary mindset of yes or no, black or white, attack or flee.
Such reactions helped us survive on the ancestral savannah, but don’t serve us well in response to most threats in the modern world. You can’t fight such low-probability, high-impact events, nor can you flee them. What you can do is look at what’s under your control: how you respond to their possibility by taking prudent steps to prepare and plan for various scenarios.
However, that’s not what usually happens. Mostly, we feel anxious and worried, fretting without doing anything productive.
Indeed, according to a poll I took of my contacts on LinkedIn, about two thirds feel at least somewhat concerned about disruptions to their work due to the possibility of an election disaster; over a third feel seriously or very seriously concerned.
Yet in follow-up interviews, almost no one is taking specific steps to address this possibility for their work and life. A couple are taking concrete steps, such as saving money and developing a side hustle, yet these actions aren’t nearly enough to mitigate the danger. Such failure to take action on claimed beliefs offers a classical example of a disparity between rational belief and gut feeling: we may believe we should lose weight, but we end up eating donuts instead of healthy fruit.
Instead, you need to apply the tool of probabilistic thinking, which allows you to calculate the probabilities of various events and plan out a long-term strategy.
First, assign a probability to various election disaster scenarios. What’s the probability that the mail-in ballots will take a long time to be processed due to legal challenges and civil strife, say stretching at least until the Electoral College vote on December 14? Given the serious preparations by both campaigns and other political leaders, as well as election expert analysis, I’d say no less than 30 percent, and as much as 50. You can assign your own numbers based on your own estimates.
After that, what’s the likelihood that the Electoral College vote will not be decisive? Perhaps only half of that, so being conservative and taking half of 30, we’re at 15 percent.
What about the likelihood of a stalemate in the House in early January, resulting in a full-blown constitutional crisis with no clear way out? This is quite likely if the situation gets there, perhaps two-thirds of all possibilities given the House makeup. So, we take two-thirds of 15 percent and end up at 10 percent.
Mitigating Election Disaster Risk
Now, we’ve turned the “black swan” of an election disaster into what’s called a “grey rhino,” an easily predictable, high-impact threat. How can you mitigate it?
First, imagine what the future for your work and life would look like if the civil strife and legal challenges lasted only through the Electoral College vote. What kind of problems might come up for you and how can you solve them?
For example, if you aren’t working at home and your place of work is near a city center or election office, perhaps it’s wise to transition to working at home for now while making sure to protect your workplace well against looting. If your home is close to such places, stock up on consumables and medicine, and get ready for curfews and other policing measures against civil disorder. Perhaps withdraw some money from your bank, in case it’s hard to get to it during this time.
Importantly, prepare psychologically for the likelihood of this scenario and its traumatic consequences. The experience will be traumatic, and you’ll need to take time for self-care, as well as supporting others you care about.
If you’re in a leadership role, re-evaluate your team and your organization’s business continuity plan. Recall that voice in your gut encouraging you to ignore the possibility of the pandemic: the normalcy bias, confirmation bias, and the planning fallacy led to the vast majority of organizations to not prepare nearly well enough for COVID, and you don’t want to fall into the same trap again. While you might hope that the potential of an election disaster will not disrupt your work, if your staff aren’t working all virtually now, be ready to transition as many as humanly possible to working from home. If you’re in manufacturing or other industries that need some people on site, make sure to hire additional security to protect your office from civil disorders.
Talk to your staff about the potential of an Electionpocalypse, and support them in taking steps, such as those outlined in this piece, to protect their households, work, and well-being. For the latter, highlight whatever mental health resources you provide, for instance an Employee Assistance Program. Get your systems and processes ready for many employees being unable to work at all or in part. Ensure there’s thorough cross-training, particularly for the most significant roles, in case of such disruptions.
If you’re in manufacturing, consider how you can minimize supply chain disruptions. Now might be a good time to order additional supplies, to protect yourself in case there’s supply chain issues. Service providers should describe to their clients what steps they’re taking to prevent service interruptions. If you’re a government entity, take extra steps to secure various public locations, especially election-related ones, and beef up security as needed.
What about potential opportunities and how can you take advantage of them? Perhaps you can foresee that the stock market will mostly crash, so you can buy bonds instead, or short the stock market. Maybe you can take the opportunity to prepare extra supplies in case your friends and family underprepare for this situation; you can also convey this article to them to help them prepare. Professionally, you can spread the word to your clients and peers, helping your network be in the best shape possible for the likelihood of an Electionpocalypse.
If you’re a business that provides services of relevance to potential civil disturbances — security, legal, insurance, risk management, investing, and so on — you might prepare some marketing and sales pitches for this eventuality. You might also consider moving quickly on closing some outstanding contract opportunities, since prospects might be distracted by an election disaster. Likewise, work on finishing up any internal or external projects that you can reasonably complete before the potential Electionpocalypse, and delay taking on new ones for now. Also, explore partnerships with other businesses that enable you to hedge against election disaster risks.
How many resources would you require to address problems and seize opportunities: time, money, social capital, information? Add them up, and multiply them by 30 percent. Then, go on to use those resources to prepare for this possibility.
Next, consider what problems and opportunities you might face, and what resources you might need, if the Electoral College vote is indecisive, and this situation goes into early January. Multiple these resources by 15 percent, or choose your preferred number. Then, use those resources to prepare for this stretch from December 14 to early January.
Finally, evaluate the problems, opportunities, and resources needed if the House voting ends in an impasse and a constitutional crisis. Multiply these by 10 percent or your chosen number, and proceed to prepare for this scenario.
Now, perhaps 10 percent for the worst of all scenarios, the constitutional crisis, doesn’t seem that high to you. Yet what’s the probability of your business or your house burning down any given year? Not very likely, right? Still, you’re not going to give up your fire insurance. In the same way, taking the steps above provides you with election disaster insurance; it would be just as foolish to get rid of your fire insurance as to avoid doing what you need to do to protect your work and life from Electionpocalypse.
Using this approach, you distribute your problem-solving, opportunity-taking, and resources across the different possibilities in accordance with your chosen evaluations. This counterintuitive approach addresses a number of cognitive biases and draws upon the research-based “Defend Your Future” technique, which you can use for all sorts of strategic planning.
Conclusion
Whatever you do, I hope you don’t simply finish reading this article and click complacently through to the next one. Too many made this mistake with my and other people’s articles warning about the serious threat of the low-likelihood, high-impact disaster caused by the pandemic. Don’t let your gut reactions lead you to the same disastrous outcome. Prepare right now for the substantial possibility of an election disaster and help others you care about get ready as well.
Key Takeaway
You can protect your work and life from the significant possibility of an election disaster by treating preparing for this likelihood as insurance…> Click to tweet
Questions to Consider (please share your answers below)
How might your approach to the pandemic inform how you respond to the possibility of an election disaster?
How might cognitive biases impede your ability to acknowledge election disaster risk and prepare for it?
Which next steps will you take based on reading this article?
Image credit: flickr.com/New Jersey National Guard
—
Bio: An internationally-recognized thought leader known as the Disaster Avoidance Expert, Dr. Gleb Tsipursky is on a mission to protect leaders from dangerous judgment errors known as cognitive biases by developing the most effective decision-making strategies. A best-selling author, he is best known for Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters (Career Press, 2019), The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships (New Harbinger, 2020), and Resilience: Adapt and Plan for the New Abnormal of the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic (Changemakers Books, 2020). He published over 550 articles and gave more than 450 interviews to prominent venues such as Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur, CBS News, Time, Business Insider, Government Executive, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Fast Company, and elsewhere. His expertise comes from over 20 years of consulting, coaching, and speaking and training as the CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts. It also stems from over 15 years in academia as a behavioral economist and cognitive neuroscientist. Contact him at Gleb[at]DisasterAvoidanceExperts[dot]com, Twitter @gleb_tsipursky, Instagram @dr_gleb_tsipursky, LinkedIn, and register for his free Wise Decision Maker Course.
Originally Published at Disaster Avoidance Experts
|
https://dr-gleb-tsipursky.medium.com/how-to-manage-election-disaster-risk-292ed1ae21ea
|
['Dr. Gleb Tsipursky']
|
2020-10-27 19:11:26.390000+00:00
|
['Cognitive Bias', 'Democracy', 'Election 2020', 'Risk Management', 'Politics']
|
Writing Character Driven Stories
|
Writing Character Driven Stories
Turning the wheel over to your characters to drive where your novel will go
Photo by Cristofer Jeschke on Unsplash
When you’re writing your story, do you prefer to focus on the characters or on the plot?
Well, it’s not entirely one or the other. Plot drives the story. It gives us tension and drama and a place for our characters to exist.
But characters make us feel. They give us someone to root for (or against). They develop and interact with the plot, molding themselves as they follow the yellow brick road of story direction.
Characters have to interact with the plot, otherwise we’d just have awesome people doing normal stuff. There’d be no conflict, nothing to develop the character. That’s why we throw in plot, obstacles, and consequences to action. Those things help mold the character into who they will be at the end.
The End… the elusive finish to your book. You might have an idea, but maybe you don’t. You might have a plan but it feels like you’re forcing your characters to follow a set path to the right when they really want to go left. Maybe to get there you have to force a character to do things they wouldn’t normally do.
There comes a point where your characters might have a better grasp on their own story than you do. Here are some ways to help you write character driven stories, or better yet, hand over the reigns of writing to your characters and give them power over where things will end up.
Connect with readers through realistic characters
Readers don’t want flawless characters. They would pass through the story without any issues, fighting the bad guy and prevailing on the first try. No, readers want to connect with the characters and become emotionally invested.
How does that happen? Realistic characters that have flaws and display unique personalities. Readers want to see themselves in the character. They want to imagine they are going through the same challenges and finding their own inner strength. They see someone they love and they want to root for the character that displays similar characteristics and emotions.
Interact with the world
There once was a man who was scared of birds. Birds exist only outside his house. Man never leaves house.
Well, that’s a boring story. Character driven novels should force the character into the world you’ve built. Make them do something. They need to interact with the world and be immersed in activities that will help shape them.
Man must go outside to put the trash away or get groceries. He makes it to the store without seeing a single bird (yay), but on his way out, a bird flies overhead. Does he drop the groceries and run? Does he use the food to defend himself? What interactions will he take to either withdraw or grow as a person?
Think of the worst, and then make it happen
What would your character strongly dislike or what do they never want to happen? Well, make that happen.
Consider the story above. The man is terrified that this bird will swoop down and attack him. So, what happens if it does? The bird swoops down, continually taking dives at the man’s head. He’s panicking…
Focus on the inner growth
What is your character’s biggest flaw? How can the character overcome that flaw, or at least use it to their advantage, by the end of the story? Those are the sorts of things that can help you figure out where the plot should be going or what obstacles it should present to your character.
Are there challenges that can help your character overcome their flaws or fears? Put them in. Let your character tell you what they don’t want to happen and then make it happen. Show their inner turmoil to finally gather the strength within themselves to overcome the challenge.
And now we see inner growth. The man above is panicking, terrified, unsure of what to do. There’s a moment of clarity as the bird stands between him and the car. But something changes. Is it a look of curiosity in the bird? There’s a small injury on it’s leg that prevents it from standing still, which is why the bird is constantly flapping and cawing.
The man realizes that the bird is just as terrified as him… because he’s hungry. Our man braves the little bird and offers him a slice of bread, inching closer to his biggest fear. Instead of screaming, the bird lets out a soft coo and accepts the bread without biting the man, flying off to a nearby tree where little birdies are happily waiting for food. Our main character learns that not all birds are bad, and they are only looking out for their survival. Inner growth.
|
https://medium.com/swlh/writing-character-driven-stories-7d6dea88aae9
|
['Laura Winter']
|
2020-11-18 02:55:00.647000+00:00
|
['Writing', 'Character', 'Character Development', 'Writers On Writing', 'Writer']
|
From ₹9500 to ₹120000000
|
A 13,000 TIMES PROFIT
A prime example of the Indian stock market’s potential is Infosys. If you subscribed to 100 shares of Infosys at its 1993 IPO at a price of ₹95 per share, you would own 1,02,400 shares of the company today. At today’s price of ₹1177 per share, that investment would now be worth over ₹12 Crores!
How did this 100 shares grow into 1,02,400 shares?
BONUS SHARES
Bonus shares are shares distributed by the company to the share holder as a bonus which is free of cost. It is given in ratio to the shares held. It can be in any ratio, say if the company announces 1:2 bonus it means the share holder gets 1 free share for every 2 shares held. If it is a 3:5 bonus the share holder gets 3 free shares for every 5 shares held.
STOCK SPLIT
A company announces stock split to reduce the price of shares by increasing the number of shares. It depends on the face value of the company. Say a company has face value of ₹10 and it has announced 2 for 1 split. The the face value goes down to ₹5 and the number of shares is doubled. It is generally announced when the company feels its share is not affordable by the retail investor as many investors tend to buy 100 shares worth ₹10 rather than buying 10 shares worth ₹100.
Infosys announced 8 bonus shares and 1 stock split which increased the number of shares held from 100 to 76800.
On 30–06–1994; 18–06–1997; 25–01–1999 Infosys announced 1:1 bonus which means you would get 1 free share for every share held. So your shares has been doubled 3 time.
Shares bought = 100
Shares after 1st bonus = 200
Shares after 2nd bonus = 400
Shares after 3rd bonus = 800
On 30–11–1999 Infosys announced 2 for 1 stock split which means the value of the shares is reduced to half and the no of shares held is doubled. (there is neither profit nor loss in stock split)
Shares after stock split = 1600
On 13–04–2004 Infosys announced 3:1 bonus which means you would get 3 free share for every share held. So your shares has been quadrupled.
Shares after 4th bonus = 6400
On 14–04–2006; 10–10–2014; 24–04–2015; 13–07–2018 Infosys announced 1:1 bonus again the shares has been doubled 4 times.
Shares after 5th bonus = 12800
Shares after 6th bonus = 25600
Shares after 7th bonus = 51200
Shares after 8th bonus = 102400
You did nothing but to buy 100 shares worth ₹9500 which grew into 102400 shares worth ₹12,05,24,800 which calculates to about 40% compound annual growth rate.
Follow on instagram for most posts 👇
https://www.instagram.com/vijay_7998/
|
https://medium.com/@vj7998/from-9500-to-120000000-22fd7487f4d0
|
[]
|
2020-12-22 04:09:09.818000+00:00
|
['Finance', 'Financial Planning', 'Investment', 'Investing', 'Stock Market']
|
สร้าง Crypto Trading Bot ด้วยภาษา Go — EP2 การใช้ bitkub api
|
สวัสดีครับ ขอโทษด้วยครับที่ห่างหายไปนาน มีบอทเเล้วขี้เกียจไปหน่อย555 ตอนนี้ราคา btc เกิดจุดสูงสุดเก่าไปเเล้ว เลยอยากจะมาฉลองกันหน่อยครับ เดี๋ยววันนี้เราจะเเจก code บางส่วนเลย
ใครยังไม่ได้ดู EP1 ดูได้ตามลิ้งนี้เลยครับ
https://medium.com/kbtg-life/%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%A3%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%87-crypto-trading-bot-%E0%B8%94%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%A2%E0%B8%A0%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A9%E0%B8%B2-go-part-1-%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%87-architect-4b4cf02fcaa
คิดว่าสิ่งที่สำคัญที่สุดในการซื้อขายก็คือการส่ง order ให้ exchange ดังนั้น เราจะมาดูกันนะครับว่าเขียนcodeเยังไง เราจะเน้นไปที่คำสั่งซื้อขายกันวันนี้ มาดู code กันเลย
package main import (
"bytes"
"crypto/hmac"
"crypto/sha256"
"encoding/hex"
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
"io/ioutil"
"net/http"
"time"
) func main() { // place buy order
OrderBitkub(2000, 200)
} type orderBody struct {
Symbol string `json:"sym,omitempty"`
Amount float64 `json:"amt,omitempty"` // for buy is amount of THB spend, for sell is amount of btc
Rate float64 `json:"rat,omitempty"`
Type string `json:"typ,omitempty"`
Ts int64 `json:"ts,omitempty"`
Signature string `json:"sig,omitempty"`
} type response struct {
Error int `json:"error"`
Result orderResponse `json:"result"`
} type orderResponse struct {
Id int `json:"id,omitempty"`
Hash string `json:"hash,omitempty"`
Amount float64 `json:"amt,omitempty"`
Rate float64 `json:"rat,omitempty"`
Type string `json:"typ,omitempty"`
Fee float64 `json:"fee,omitempty"`
Cred float64 `json:"cre,omitempty"`
Receive float64 `json:"rec,omitempty"`
Ts int64 `json:"ts,omitempty"`
} func OrderBitkub(price float64, amount float64) { var resp response
var uri string t := time.Now().Unix()
body := orderBody{
Symbol: "THB_BTC", //ชื่อของproductที่เราจะtrade
Amount: amount, //จำนวนที่เราต้องการ
Rate: price, //ราคาของทรัพย์สิน
Type: "limit", //ประเภทของorder
Ts: t,
}
body.Amount = price * amount //bitkub ต้องการ spending amount หรือ thb ที่เราจะซื้อ uri = " https://api.bitkub.com/api/market/place-bid body.Amount = price * amount //bitkub ต้องการ spending amount หรือ thb ที่เราจะซื้อ //create request body
byteBody, err := json.Marshal(body)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println("marshal error:", err)
return
} // create signature and add it to request
sig := signRequest(byteBody)
body.Signature = sig
signedByteBody, err := json.Marshal(body)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println("Marshal signed order error:", err)
}
// send http post request
err = sendHttpRequestWithBody("POST", uri, signedByteBody, &resp)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println("send request error:", err)
} // check if we have any error if 0 mean no error
// you can check error meaning via bitkub api doc
if resp.Error != 0 {
fmt.Println("error with error code:", resp.Error)
return
}
fmt.Println(resp.Result)
} func signRequest(body []byte) string {
signature := string(body)
h := hmac.New(sha256.New, []byte("your_secret"))
h.Write([]byte(signature))
hmacSigned := h.Sum(nil)
hmacSignedStr := hex.EncodeToString(hmacSigned)
return hmacSignedStr
}
func sendHttpRequestWithBody(method string, uri string, body []byte, result interface{}) error { client := &http.Client{} req, err := http.NewRequest(method, uri, bytes.NewBuffer(body))
if err != nil {
return err
}
req.Header.Set("X-BTK-APIKEY", "your_api_key")
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
req.Header.Set("Accept", "application/json") resp, err := client.Do(req)
if err != nil {
return err
} defer resp.Body.Close()
bytes, err := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
if err != nil {
return err
} return json.Unmarshal(bytes, result)
}
ตัว code ข้างบนจะเป็นตัวอย่างการยิง order เพื่อสั่งซื้อ ผ่าน api ของ bitkub
โดยการสั่งซื้อนั้นเป็น api เส้นสำคัญ เราจึงต้อง signed request ของเรา ซึ่งเราต้องเอา api_secret ของเรา มา signed เเบบ HMAC SHA-256 ซึ่งข้างบนมี function signRequest ทำส่วนนี้ให้
นอกจากนี้ order เราต้องเเปะ timestmap เพื่อยืนยันว่า order ไม่เก่าเกินไปหรือเป็น order จากอนาคต ถ้า timeStamp เราผิด bitkub จะ reject ครับ
ตัวอย่างข้างบนเป็น api เส้นที่ยิงซื้อขายจริงๆ เพราะฉะนั้นเพื่อความปลอดภัยกับเงินในกระเป๋า bitkub สร้างเส้น test ไว้ให้เรา ให้เราเติม “/test” ไปที่ท้าย uri ข้างบน เพื่อเทส
ถ้าหากมีข้อสงสัยเพิ่มเติมสามารถ comment ถามไว้ได้ หรือศึกษาเพิ่มเติมได้จาก bitkub api document ตามลิ้งนี้เลยครับ
วันนี้ขอไปเชียร์ han-ji ต่อก่อน
happy trading ครับ
ขอบคุณครับ
|
https://medium.com/@nsiratanapun/%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%A3%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%87-crypto-trading-bot-%E0%B8%94%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%A2%E0%B8%A0%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A9%E0%B8%B2-go-ep2-%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A3%E0%B9%83%E0%B8%8A%E0%B9%89-bitkub-api-8aae01d91c23
|
['Nuttanon Sira']
|
2020-12-02 04:46:15.883000+00:00
|
['Bitcoin', 'Bots']
|
What It Means to Be Spiritual but Not Religious
|
Practice openness
Our tendency is to judge things by our past experiences. When faced with something new, try to keep an open and non-judgmental mind. New opportunities to learn and expand your perspective are all around you. Attaining a higher sense of spirituality requires being open to the possibilities.
Learn to listen
Few people really listen. Most of us are simply waiting for our turn to talk. But it’s not just about listening with your ears. It’s about listening with your heart to hear what the world is trying to communicate to you.
See the beauty in people, things, and situations
Part of spirituality involves seeing the truth. There’s beauty to be found in nearly everything and recognizing it is part of recognizing the truth. When you see the truth, you come to realize there are very few things to worry about.
Spend some time in nature
There are few things more spiritual than sitting in nature with the sun on your face and the breeze pressing against your back. Experience the trees, grass, flowers, and birds. The Greek physician Hippocrates said it best, “Nature itself is the best physician.”
Look for the bigger picture
The mere act of wondering about the universe and what it all means is an exercise in spirituality. Consider your purpose and true meaning to the world. What is the greatest gift you have to give?
Spirituality is ultimately about self-discovery
It can be considered the art and science of discovering who and what you really are. American novelist and scholar, Ralph Ellison, famously wrote, “When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” Renowned English writer, Lewis Carroll, aptly declared, “Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”
Stay focused on the present
Living in the past or the future isn’t living. Life can only be lived right now. Part of being spiritual is recognizing that living a positive life today leads to good things tomorrow.
Spend time each day focusing only on the moment you’re currently experiencing. By focusing on your thoughts, words, and actions today, you have the ultimate amount of control over your life.
Love yourself
If you don’t love yourself, how will you ever feel comfortable enough to present your true self to the world? We’ve all done things the wrong way and come up short numerous times, but it doesn’t define us. It merely describes us in a certain situation at a certain time.
Allow yourself to be inspired
To fully learn about yourself, it’s important to experience new things. Meet new people and read new books. Only by being exposed to everything that interests you can you learn everything there is to know about yourself.
|
https://georgejziogas.medium.com/what-it-means-to-be-spiritual-but-not-religious-7d565b8ca3e0
|
['George J. Ziogas']
|
2020-06-07 21:31:33.044000+00:00
|
['Religion', 'Self Improvement', 'Personal Development', 'Spirituality', 'Psychology']
|
Everything is (going to be) a game
|
Everything is (going to be) a game
Animal Crossing x Education
Gaming is becoming a part of the everyday lives of billions of people today. It is so habitual and common that 75%+ of Americans have at least one gamer in their household. It is the biggest form of entertainment today (bigger than films and music combined). Gaming is already part of mainstream culture, and it grew even bigger ($175B) at a faster rate (20% YoY) in 2020 when most of the world sheltered in place and looked for ways to entertain, escape, and socialize through games.
The pandemic forced many of the population to connect and live through the interactivity provided by the Internet. I believe the cat’s out of the bag now, and a lot of the habits formed during the pandemic are not going back to the way they were.
The aging demographic of digital natives (Millennials and Gen-Z) and Gen-X will fuel the demand for more interactivity. Consumers who grew up with the Internet, video games, mobile, and social media have expectations for instant feedback, connectivity, and data. This increasingly affluent cohort will demand the same experience in every aspect of life (financial services, health, work, real estate, etc.). The digital adopters who signed up for e-commerce or connected with their family and friends remotely through casual titles like Among Us during the pandemic will also be more open to spending more time with interactive media (in replacement of physical activities).
Source: Ark Invest
The global “virtual world” market (gaming and consumer AR/VR) is projected to reach $400B by 2025. I believe gaming as a powerful form of entertainment is just the start, and that we will see interactive media in other parts of life. We are beginning to see more designers adopt gaming elements in startups to improve user experience and behavior to great effects. Here are some areas that could dramatically change with interactive media:
Wellness
Consumers care about their health and want to feel better, and we’ve backed some great companies in this space — Aktiia, Misfit, Noom, and Supernatural. Exercise and dieting are boring and inconvenient for much of the population. A growing number of consumer wellness ideas have incorporated gaming elements that led to higher virality, engagement, and retention. From Headspace’s running streak and achievements to Peloton’s leaderboard (though I would argue Peloton’s UX and social features have a lot more room for improvement), gaming makes it easier for consumers to stick to a habit. We are barely scratching the surface here. I am excited to see new startups emerge that will fundamentally change how we eat, move, and sleep.
EndeavorRX: the first FDA-approved prescription game
Medicine & treatment
In 2020, the FDA approved the first prescription video game that can be marketed and prescribed as a medicine. It’s a title for 8–12-year-olds with ADHD. There are also previous reports of burn victims who used virtual reality to reduce the perception of pain. Are there other areas that could incorporate interactive media and gamification for the good of humanity? I would love to see more interactive media ideas applied to medicine that could lead to better outcomes.
Neo after learning the fundamentals of martial arts
Education & training
What if you could go through a simulated practice the night before a big event (term sheet negotiation, job interview, surgery, MLB NLCS Finals, Hinge date)? Virtual reality can help us feel like we are facing off with a real-life counterparty. It could transform the way we learn and teach. Interpersonal interactions could also be improved with more empathy through practice with avatars. Are we going to eventually learn martial arts in a virtual dojo like Neo in The Matrix? Maybe…? I hope so!
A virtual happy hour in Spatial.io
Enterprise
The founder of the addicting and powerful email client Superhuman, Rahul Vohra, credits video games as inspiration for his design philosophy for behavior change. It’s got quests (inbox zero), tutorials (onboarding), efficient controls (shortcuts), and pacing (speed). This year, we also saw the YC-backed virtual HQ company Gather raised a $26M Series A led by Sequoia to solve remote work with both gaming UX and behavior. The platform recreates the workplace virtually that reminds one of old Game Boy titles (a Japanese company actually tried to have virtual meetings in Animal Crossing during the pandemic). It also uses spatial audio to increase the sense of presence. We also see this idea realized in immersive 3D, accessible through a platform of your choice. With remote / hybrid work here to stay, the workplace could use video game technologies to keep people together.
Where else are we going to game? If you are an entrepreneur working on something that can be 10x’d with games, please find me.
|
https://blog.translinkcapital.com/everything-is-going-to-be-a-game-59aafa2b1229
|
['Stephen Chou']
|
2021-07-01 20:48:26.392000+00:00
|
['Games', 'Consumer', 'Food', 'Venture Capitalist', 'VR']
|
Move Monday
|
Move Monday
The language train was speeding down the track. Owen figured out how to change his tablet so he could listen to the videos in numerous languages. He was watching the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and changing it between all that was offered. He laughed so hard mimicking all the words coming from his tablet. At first, I wasn’t sure what he was laughing at and then he walked up to me and said, “it’s in English”. I still wasn’t sure what he was referencing. I asked him to show me and there was a list of maybe twenty languages that he was going through to hear each of the characters talk. He was reading the name of the languages as he selected them. So much goodness in all of that. To hear Owen speak in other languages is amazing. I struggle not to overthink the holidays. Owen has gone to see Santa numerous times over the years but this year I haven’t tried to take him with everything going on. I see the anxiety it brings him when I do take him but this is the first year I feel like he is making any kind of connection to it being Christmas time. I asked him if he wanted to see Santa. His response is always “nope” but today as he was watching Christmas videos and I was asking him if he wanted to see Santa he kept running to the window looking for him. He sings Christmas songs all year long like they are another nursery rhyme. I do see the growth this year though. I talk to him about why we celebrate Christmas but I wonder if this confuses him more. He couldn’t settle tonight. It took him hours to fall asleep and he kept trying to squish himself between the mattress and the bedrail. Every time I think I have the bedrail figured out he finds a loophole in it. We’ve been through so many styles but on all of them he loves pushing the rail and the resistance they give him. He finally fell asleep hours after we started getting ready for bed. And here it is almost midnight and I’m up. Most likely he’ll wake a couple of times during the night and then no matter what my eyes generally pop open around five. One day maybe I’ll figure out the right combination of all of the sleep steps. Until then I’ll dream of the hope for tomorrow. His laughter carried me throughout my day and it filled my heart with gladness. Find your joy, share your smile, and know that you can move mountains if you want. Smiles to all and donut daze!
|
https://medium.com/@lynnbrowder/move-monday-2102123ef7e1
|
['Lynn Browder']
|
2020-12-22 04:58:18.307000+00:00
|
['Life', 'Parenting', 'Autism', 'Life Lessons', 'Inspiration']
|
Why Being Cheap Is Expensive And Will Do You More Harm Than Good
|
Image by Unsplash
Knowing the difference between being cheap and frugal will save you headaches and lines on your forehead for life. If we could, none of us would want to be cheap. We wish we could just buy whatever backpack we want, not search around at lower quality stores and try to match it up to our luxury dream bag just to feel satisfied. We are cheap becuase we have to not want to and that distorts the way we manage our money.
If you treat everything all the mundane life work as commands, then it will harm you back. The truth is, you will never feel satisfied if you always compare what you have to something that you cannot afford. Comparison is not only dangerous emotionally it is financially as well. More often than not, those who you think are thriving, could easily be in the bucket with 80% of Americans with debt. We only display what we want others to see.
Wouldn’t you feel better eliminating all debt in your account that is accumulating interest faster than your savings account than a nice bag to store your junk? I for sure wouldn’t care to impress others and not be beholden to pay back the bank any day. There are times when caring about other’s opinions are important. During a presentation to receive constructive feedback or understand why you are treating someone a certain way to be respectful. But when it comes to tangibles you own and what you look like, it has no correlation to what you are worth or how you should act. Wealth is feeling valuable inside after all. Anyone can technically be rich. It just depends on what you prioritize and value. A farmer who saves 90% of his income is richer than an investment banker who splurges it on stuff that he forgets he has. It’s all about how much you keep in the bank and what you don’t pay attention to which is other’s perceptions.
But cheap versus being frugal is something that is hard to pinpoint at first but necessary to address as it can make or break your whole life, not being dramatic.
Image by Unsplash
Definitions
Cheap isn’t caring so much about what others think or feel. It is mainly inheriting an egotistical feeling that you must find the best deal or prize in order to feel a certain way and make your bank account happy even though most of the time after countless searching, bickering, arguing, and wasted time, it leaves you with nothing besides regret.
Being reasonably frugal on the other hand comes with the understanding that regret will always happen. You can never be the perfect size, shape and in financial terms, never go across the world to find a great deal that may risk your financial health becuase you most likely will get yourself in a scam. Life is about enjoying the small moments and you don’t want your finances to get in the way of enjoying life. The more money you have, the less you have to spend becuase it is more tempting. Yes, I preach on here that your finances are everything and will give you a miserable or wonderful life if not prioritized and involve in every aspect of our lives, but if you have a plan to value experiences, building relationships, cautiously finding the best deals without going berserk, you will feel and be 100% financially better.
It’s weird how that works. Being a cheap human will provide you nothing, especially if you treat people that way.
Image by Unsplash
Behind every transaction, is a person. Rapport beats any boring resume after all.
It’s difficult to mark the fine line between being cheap and frugal. I found it through various methods that I hope can help you too.
Frugal habits include:
Not obsessing over what everyone else has
As we’ve discussed earlier, cheapskates are notoriously bad about being grateful. They always focus on the Joneses and cannot comprehend that people only show off what they want others to see. When you see someone with a luxury good, it can mean two things.
1: They obviously want to show off becuase there are millions of other products like that
or
2: They are lazy and believe this product is top quality and nothing like it.
Which one do you think is healthier for your finances? You may think that finding the best bargain and seeing what others have is better, but when it comes down to saving time, energy and prioritizing what you need, taking on approach two is better as I would rather be lazy than never appreciate what I have. There will always be something you don’t have and until you realize that you have what someone else wants, you will start enjoying life.
Enjoying experiences, people, and moments
The more time you spend buying goods, the less time you have educating and investing in yourself to provide infinite gains for the future. It is unfortunate how people value things than memories that define their lives. As a society we tend to spend excessively on material items so we can conclude that buying material goods improves our wellbeing. And we constantly believe that becuase we spend a heck of a lot on junk.
Americans spend more on shoes, jewelry and watches at an estimate $100 billion, with a b than on higher education!
The average American throws away 65 pounds on clothing per year.
What will convince you that spending on time-saving endeavors will increase your overall fulfillment and happiness? Just do it yourself! Trust me, you don’t need that bag after all. Find a less expensive one that is at your nearest store and move on with life. Trust me, in a few years, you won’t remember the bag or the time wasted becuase it’s gone.
Making sure things will last
There is only a certain amount of time you can spend to search for the right deal until you are going overboard. As a frugal minimalist, I’ve become very aware and conscious of my budget and what I need, the 2 key pillars of having a healthy spending relationship. Memories and experiences will last as you will tell stories and share more experiences based off of them later in your life. Forget that Nintendo or $700 shirt. I guarantee you you will get over it in a few months time and spend more time trying to sell it for a discount. To make your money work for you, prioritize your time and people becuase those will reap endless rewards. Investments in education and people will always come back to you. Stop being patient for the long term and impatient in the short term. Building connections never hurts especially when looking for a job down the road and learning Python or Java doesn’t take as much time as you thought. The activities that don’t bring immediate results are usually the most highly regarded qualities to have compared to shopping and food which are impulse decisions that only bring happiness for a hot sec.
Taking time for purchases
Opportunity cost should be a part of every decision in your life and something frugalists measure. Save more money by saving time. I will pay you a lot for you to save my time and learning to say no faster, will save your money as well. No you don’t need to buy 2 and get the extra 1 free or spend $100 and get 50% off the next shirt. Taking time, prioritizing your life and needs through the 72-hour spending rule will put you on the best track to banishing the bad spending habits of impulsivity. To get the best deals, you must put in teh time and effort through research but make sure you know your time is worth it. We tend to have a mixed-up allusion about our time and prefer to do mundane easy chores that life requires during our peak performance hours. Researching the best trends and shopping is 10x easier than working on yourself, but what is more beneficial in the long run? Don’t get working hard and hardly working mixed up.
Every day little purchases not the big ones, once in a while are those that add up
Image by Unsplash
As with a diet, a piece of chocolate cake once a month will not sabotage your weight loss journey. It’s the little daily portion sizes, ingredients, additives, and junk that you secretly disregard that have the biggest impact on your health. With your finances, it can be argued the same. Obviously going on a $7k round trip vacation to Aruba is a bigger expense than mini trips around the country but that doesn’t’ mean you aren’t still spending. Money is money and compounding can work in your favor if you let it. Don’t become nose blind to the deals that you find on a day to day basis becuase they could easily be the ones sabotaging your bank account.
Health and financial stability = happiness in this world
Frugalists believe in experiences and not overly obsessing about something they didn’t get their hands on. You determine how you spend your time and most things aren’t needed. You really don’t need much to be happy and in fact, the less you have, the more you will be due to gratitude and minimalism, a lifestyle I embody that my friends haven’t found out is the secret sauce to my calmness. I don’t care what you study in school or like. Every single human on the planet needs to have their financial and mental/physical health in check to actually live. Money is a part of our daily lives whether or not we spend. By living under a roof, we are stacking bills to be paid at the end of the month and every once in a while alcoholic drink you have for a night out on the town will soon add up to a Aruba vacation. In 2021, I hope you can prioritize the little things in life and put your finances in order. You don’t have to go overboard with graphs and Excel just prove to yourself that everything charged to your acount is worth it.
Beware of trends
The older you get, you start to realize that not only impressing people is a waste of time but trends come and go fast! Can you imagine if you keep tabs on all the trends of the year! You will need a 6 bedroom mansion to fit all those clothes! I always invest in classic minimalistic pieces. I wear the same white shirt in 7 pairs every day and since my shoe size hasn’t changed since puberty, I love my sneakers. One pair and if I need more, I go get it. There is never a shortage of clothes and buying investment-grade pieces that will last for a little more will save you a ton than buying cheap bargains every once in a while.
|
https://medium.com/@miagradelski/why-being-cheap-is-expensive-and-will-do-you-more-harm-than-good-6ca8dd8a88b6
|
['Mia Gradelski']
|
2020-12-25 19:38:30.116000+00:00
|
['Cheap', 'Money', 'Covid 19', 'Lessons', 'Habits']
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Our Take: Running on Karma（大隻佬）. Spoiler Alert! — Film Review and Basic…
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Spoiler Alert! — Film Review and Basic Analysis
Running on Karma as a Buddhist Film
It is said that films about Buddhism can make us think about the ‘big questions in life,’ like why we are here, what the meaning of life is, and how to live. Running on Karma is able to offer Buddhist interpretations of reality and clearly presents philosophical concerns regarding karma throughout the film for the audience to think about.
The Concept of Karma in the Film
The Fruit of Karma
“It is not that I can predict the future, it is that when I see the result, I will see the cause. When I see someone die, or is going to die, then I would know that he is going to die and why.” — Big
Big explains how he is able to see people’s past life and deduce their upcoming death. The visions he sees can be considered as karma, in which the actions in one’s previous life, and the death he foresees is vipāka, the fruit of karma.
“One thought Heaven, One thought Hell”「一念天堂，一念地獄」
As Big helps catch the culprit the CID was pursuing and stops the raging police sergeant when he was about to kill the murderer, he explains the concept of “One thought Heaven, One thought Hell,” which is similar to the theory of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Nyanaponika states that “Greed, hatred and delusion are the roots of unwholesome kamma; unselfishness, amity and wisdom are the roots of wholesome kamma.” In this case, Big tries to prevent the sergeant from unwholesome karma, which was accumulated by his hatred towards the culprit. By doing so, he can prevent bad outcomes produced by karma.
Big Experiencing “The 4 Noble Truths” in Running on Karma
The Four Noble Truths (Cattāri Ariyasaccāni) constitute a huge part when the Buddha was struggling for enlightenment. It is the heart of his teachings which he passed on to his five student monks:
1) Dukkha [The Noble Truth of Suffering]
According to the Buddha, suffering never ends. There are two types of suffering — physical and mental suffering. In Running on Karma, Big experiences both:
Physical Suffering: Big is “tortured” in the police station and experiences physical pain.
Mental Suffering: The movie puts more focus on his mental pain, which involves happiness in life. Buddha states that suffering occurs when one experiences the end of happiness, and it is bound to end. Big experiences separation from the people he loves, like his childhood friend, Siu Chui and later on Lee Fung-yee. He suffers from anger and sadness brought by these events.
2) Samudaya [The arising or origin of dukkha]
There are mainly two causes of Suffering Dukkhas, namely craving (tanhā) and ignorance.
Ignorance: Big goes through this when he chooses to escape from the fact that he could see into people’s past lives.
Craving: He lives a luxurious life that goes against the values of a monk, like, smoking, drinking and being surrounded by girls etc.
3) Nirodha — The cessation of dukkha [THE ENDING OF THE MOVIE]
Big encounters the Third Noble Truth, Nirodha when he finally reaches epiphany at the end of the movie. Nirvana cannot be described; it is only understood truly by a person who has experienced it. Thus, it is only normal that audience are left baffled with the sequence.
This can be shown when Big looks into his future self’s eyes and they come to a mutual understanding and say, “I understand now”.
They start to meditate and Big explains the follows:
“You are the Buddha in my heart. How scary it is to see the evil side of you. Today, Suen Guo killed Lee Fung-yee, tomorrow, you kill Suen Guo again. It is doomed eternally. This is the correspondence between cause and effect. Yesterday’s cause ripens into today’s effect. Nothing can change this. The Buddha only focuses on one thing: our present doings.”
He forgives the murderer of Siu Chui, Suen Guo, and brings him to the police. This may reflect that he has let go of the past and reached enlightenment.
4) Magga — The path leading to the cessation of dukkha
Big comes across the Fourth Noble Truth throughout his 5-year stay in the mountains. Before experiencing The Third Noble Truth, he has been living a luxurious life, with wealth and girls. However, his other self shown on screen is another extreme in which he lives a life with no comfort and filled with hatred towards Suen Guo. After he experiences The Third Noble Truth, he strikes a balance and goes through The Middle Path, in which he lives in the mountains and gets along with Suen Guo with peace and brings him to the police at the end.
What Do the Directors Want us to Think About?
Johnnie To invites us to ponder about whether karma is just. “An action (kamma), once it is performed, is finished so far as its actual performance is concerned. It is also irreversible.” In other words, you cannot get rid of karma. The film effectively contradicts fairness with the inevitability of destroying or compensating good and bad karma from one’s past life.
Big tells Lee Fung-yee, “The Japanese soldier isn’t Lee Fung-yee, Lee Fung-yee isn’t the Japanese soldier. It’s just that the Japanese soldier killed people, so Lee Fung-yee has to die.” Lee becomes frustrated and exclaims, “Do you think this is fair?” and he answers that he knows it is fair, but this is also why he quit being a monk. He does not explain why he thinks it is fair, and leaves the audience hanging.
As spectators, we tend to take Lee’s side, questioning whether the way karma works is fair. The film doesn’t cease the audience’s frustration, but instead tells us to accept this fact. Lee later accepts that “Nothing can be brought away, only the karma that follows (萬般帶不走, 唯有業隨身),” and decides to die a meaningful death.
|
https://medium.com/@thefilmpost/running-on-karma-reviewed-and-explained-d8ab1116c6b
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[]
|
2021-01-13 15:08:36.652000+00:00
|
['Wai Ka Fai', 'Film', 'Karma', 'Buddhism', 'Johnnie To']
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The Wizards Spellonomics
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While the MIM spell has come to life, the next journey we are going on is the decentralization of wizards and their spell income.
In other words the Spellonomics.
In today’s lesson, we are gonna learn how the SPELL token works, how it will be distributed, and what’s in it for us, the wizards!
Simple Spellonomics
Other than our stable coin MIM, 2 other tokens exist:
SPELL : the protocol's token which is used for incentivization.
: the protocol's token which is used for incentivization. sSPELL: obtained by staking SPELL tokens and used for fee-sharing and governance!
Topic 1: The SPELL Token
Let’s start from the beginning! SPELL is an ERC-20 token. You can add it to your wallet using the address 0x090185f2135308BaD17527004364eBcC2D37e5F6.
The total token supply was initially 420B tokens, but it was later cut in half (210B SPELL) after the Magical Burn decided by 0xMerlin, you can find the details and the transaction hash here!
SPELL is distributed as follows:
45% of the total supply is distributed to the stakers of MIM-3LP3CRV, in order to keep deep liquidity in the pool and make sure that Wizards will always be able to swap their MIMs for USDT, DAI, or USDC.
A 10 Year halving model will be followed, which will cut in half the rewards distributed every year.
of the total supply is distributed to the stakers of in order to keep deep liquidity in the pool and make sure that Wizards will always be able to swap their MIMs for USDT, DAI, or USDC. A 10 Year halving model will be followed, which will cut in half the rewards distributed every year. 18% of the total supply is distributed between the stakers of ETH-SPELL Sushiswap LP tokens. 75% of this amount will be distributed in the first year, the rest in the second year.
of the total supply is distributed between the stakers of 75% of this amount will be distributed in the first year, the rest in the second year. 7% of the total supply has been distributed via an IDO, half on Uniswap v3 and half on Sushiswap.
of the total supply has been distributed via an IDO, half on Uniswap v3 and half on Sushiswap. 30% of the total supply is allocated to the team members which is vested as follows:
Topic 2: The sSPELL Token — where the real magic happens!
You can become an even more powerful Wizard by locking and staking your SPELL to get sSPELL using the Wizard Dashboard!
The token address for sSPELL is 0x26fa3fffb6efe8c1e69103acb4044c26b9a106a9.
sSPELL tokens will allow wizards to take part in governance, as well as earn 75% of all the interest fees generated by Abracadabra!
To find out more about how the fees will be split, have a read of our previous medium article here.
Your sSPELL tokens are continuously compounding! When you unstake, you will receive all the originally deposited SPELL tokens plus any additional SPELL earned from the fees. Fees are collected from MIM repayments from all wizards proportional to your share of the stake pool.
We will discuss further Spellonomics mechanisms in the future, but this is it for today’s lesson! Wizards, keep your wands ready, and enjoy your fees!
|
https://medium.com/@abracadabramoney/the-wizards-spellonomics-dfee32cf7baf
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[]
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2021-06-23 14:05:34.783000+00:00
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['Lending', 'Defi', 'Magic']
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How We Got From Wall Street’s Big Swinging Dicks to Silicon Valley’s Big Swinging Brains
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Business was tech, and tech was media. Content was content was content, and coders controlled the sluices through which all content flowed. The Renaissance men of Silicon Valley — and they were, like the Big Swinging Dicks, almost exclusively men — didn’t hesitate to offer their bold opinions on almost every subject. And yet, when it came to basic questions about the future of media, their rhetoric turned fuzzy. Businesses should give customers what they want. Media companies should meet audiences where they are. Journalism should be objective and thorough. These truisms seemed unobjectionable enough until they came into conflict with one another, which happened all the time. What if your customers claimed to want rigorous, dispassionate journalism, but their browsing habits revealed that they actually wanted hot takes and salacious hate-reads? What if, in order to meet customers where they were, you had to bowdlerize your writing, or give up on writing altogether and pivot to video? What if quality and popularity were sometimes correlated negatively, or not at all?
In early 2016, I was invited to an off-the-record lunch discussion in an executive boardroom. At the head of the table, a Big Swinging Brain — one of the Biggest — talked for more than an hour without touching his sandwich. He dilated on a wide array of topics (state health care exchanges, the future of the trucking industry, the panic of 1873), displaying uncanny recall and mental acuity. He acknowledged dilemmas and contradictions in his thinking; he even pointed out awkward conflicts between what he found preferable economically and what might be preferable civically, even morally. I began to wonder whether I’d underestimated the Big Swinging Brains. Maybe I should learn to stop worrying and love my overlords.
Then I asked him a question about the importance of good journalism and good art, the corrosive effects of bad journalism and bad art, and the best way to prevent our online environments from growing ever more ruthlessly Darwinian. It seemed clear — not just to me, but to anyone who was paying attention — that things were drifting in an unnerving direction. How would humanity avoid a clickbait death spiral?
“I don’t think there’s an answer to that,” he said, his tone suddenly turning flinty. Apparently I had revealed myself to be a Luddite. “If I were in the media business, I would focus on making a product that people actually want. Because that’s how business works.”
I couldn’t imagine him being so flippantly fatalistic about any other civilizational hazard that the free market had failed to address. In their free time, he and the other luminaries of Silicon Valley were known for spending an unusual amount of time and money addressing thorny existential problems, such as the achievement gap in American public schools and the excess of carbon in the atmosphere. They even invested millions of dollars in problems that hadn’t come into existence yet, such as hostile A.I. One BSB-funded nonprofit would soon announce its intention to “help cure, prevent, and manage all disease”; several well-capitalized bioengineering startups, including a $1.5 billion initiative at Google, went even further, resolving to cure death.
But somehow the BSBs balked at the problem of addictive, low-quality clickbait. They had taken control of the media industry, then moved fast and broken it; now they claimed no responsibility for fixing it. When the prospect of a clickbait death spiral came up, they tended to affect an odd sanguinity. They didn’t quite deny the existence of the problem — they just did their best to ignore it, or to reframe it as either trivial or inevitable.
At our lunch, the Big Swinging Brain at the head of the table characterized my critique by way of a food analogy. “So you’re saying that people like milkshakes and onion rings, and you want them to eat kale,” he said. “Well, good luck with that.”
I found this strange, given that an ambitious initiative to prevent obesity — to alter various incentives, both governmental and nongovernmental, with the goal of helping people resist the natural self-destructive urge to binge on sugar and fat — seemed like precisely the sort of initiative that a civic-minded Silicon Valley philanthropist like himself might support, unless he happened to own stock in McDonald’s. (Later, through a spokesperson, I offered to let the BSB defend his arguments, either on or off the record, but he declined.)
Our conversation took place in the spring of 2016. Donald Trump, the consummate milkshake-and-onion-rings candidate, was the front-runner in every Republican poll.
|
https://onezero.medium.com/how-we-got-from-wall-streets-big-swinging-dicks-to-silicon-valley-s-big-swinging-brains-593418f82b2f
|
['Andrew Marantz']
|
2019-10-22 05:31:02.095000+00:00
|
['Startups', 'Wall Street', 'Entrepreneur', 'Silicon Valley', 'Industry']
|
StaFi Warriors Program
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Since its inception, StaFi has been committed to building an open, free and self-governing community. We need more people to join us, advocating and generalizing StaFi’s ideas and blockchain knowledge. We need people who understand StaFi’s application scenarios and prospects, and help others understand it. We can work together to deliver our goal. Therefore, we are launching the StaFi Global Ambassador Program, namely “StaFi Warriors Program”, to recruit ambassadors who share the same vision as StaFi and are willing to help the StaFi community grow. StaFi will give them financial support as well as guidance and inspiration. The program aims to bring together the best talents in the community to advance StaFi’s vision of a community-driven, decentralized ecosystem.
StaFi Warriors, let’s convene:Google Forms
As an StaFi Warrior you will get
1. Resource and financial support: StaFi will give you assistance (such as publicity through StaFi’s media channels) and incentives for organizing online and offline Meetups, Workshop talks, and AMAs.
2. Expertise training: StaFi warriors can help the community in what they are interested in or good at, polishing professional knowledge and skills. Some outstanding warriors will also have the opportunity to join the StaFi team as a core member.
3. Access to first-hand information: Before a new product is launched, StaFi warriors will be able to participate in internal team discussions, have priority to try our products, provide their valuable feedback, and get first-hand information.
4. Become a friend with StaFi team members: StaFi warriors will make acquaintance with StaFi team members and be the first one to learn about StaFi’s latest progress, development direction and strategic decisions.
StaFi Warrior Recruitment
StaFi welcomes you no matter where you are from. We would like future StaFi warriors to:
1. Have a strong interest in DeFi, Staking derivatives, PoS, and a deep understanding of the Polkadot ecosystem. We prefer someone who has published articles on the blockchain industry. If you are an influencer, we definitely want you to join us.
2. Be willing to and good at organizing online and offline events, and also know how to attract more people to the event.
3. Have excellent presentation and speaking skills.
4. Have the experience of building a community from scratch, maintain it over time and achieve good results.
5. Love decentralized communities and be willing to make some contributions.
Duties of StaFi Warriors
1. Organize online and offline activities, such as Meetup, Workshop talks, AMAs, etc.
2. Build and operate an online community in any language, such as English, Chinese, etc.
3. Write articles related to topics such as StaFi, Staking derivatives, and DeFi.
4. Actively join in the dialogues in StaFi communities and forums (WeChat, Telegram, StaFi forums).
5. Keep a keen eye out for collaborative opportunities that will promote the StaFi ecosystem.
6. Give advice or recommendations for the development of StaFi.
7. Answer questions for other warriors in the global warrior group.
8. Translate StaFi’s documents, tutorials into your native language and promote them locally.
The responsibilities of a warrior are expounded as follows:
Communication
1. Understand and identify with the core values and concepts of StaFi
2. Generalize the concept of StaFi through different channels, such as forums and social media, to let more people understand StaFi, and promote StaFi’s influence in the crypto community.
3. Help other community members, cooperate with the StaFi team by answering questions, assist community members with nominations and the use of StaFi products, etc.
4. Generate StaFi-related contents, such as articles, charts, Meme, videos, etc. Make your creation interesting and educational, so that other community members can learn something about StaFi from your work.
Community Engagement
1. Actively promote and participate in StaFi events, such as livestreams, seminars and AMAs.
2. Stay active in StaFi’s official channels including Twitter, Telegram, Discord, 4chan, forums and WeChat communities. Constantly share the latest developments of StaFi, start and maintain discussions and attract more voices.
Become a local spokesperson for StaFi
1. StaFi encourages warriors to create and maintain StaFi communities locally.
2. Write in local languages, or localize articles to local languages, and update the latest information of StaFi.
3. Hold online or offline meetings or AMAs.
Prosper StaFi ecosystem
1. Make connections with local media and earn StaFi more exposure.
2. Seek cooperation opportunities that can make the StaFi ecosystem more prosperous.
Interact with StaFi team
1. Provide the latest news and suggestions to the StaFi team.
2. Participate in the testing of StaFi products and give feedback.
3. Collect feedback from members of the StaFi community.
4. Help each other with other warriors.
StaFi warriors can apply for awards once a month. We will assess your rewards by the proof of contributions that you submit. Rewards will be issued in the form of FIS.
The above incentives are set based on the StaFi team’s current knowledge and the development level of StaFi. We may ignore something by mistake, or make some incorrect decisions. If you have better ideas, please let us know in the StaFi forum. As the StaFi project grows, the incentive plan will also be constantly improved to make sure every gain comes with pays. If you have further questions regarding incentives, you can contact @sara8721 in Telegram.
Submission and Timetable
Schedule for submission of applications :
StaFi warriors recruitment: always open
Submit warrior application: Google Forms (this form is always accessible)
StaFi team will give you feedback within one week
After the submission, StaFi will send you an e-mail if you are selected as a warrior .
Schedule for submission of applications for incentives:
Warriors contribution submission method: Google Forms (this form is always accessible)
The application for incentives should be submitted on the first seven days of each month.
The awards will be issued within the 8th-14th of each month.
A project can never be successful without a thriving community, which consists of passionate and enthusiastic warriors, along with their time and energy. The StaFi team will work with the warriors to pool our strength, passions and efforts together and jointly create an open, self-governing StaFi community.
About StaFi Protocol
StaFi is the first DeFi protocol unlocking liquidity of staked assets. Users can stake PoS tokens through StaFi and receive rTokens in return, which are available for trading, while still earning staking rewards. FIS is the native token on StaFi Chain. FIS is required to provide security to the network by staking, pay for transaction fees on the StaFi chain, and mint & redeem rTokens.
Website: www.stafi.io
Twitter:@Stafi_Protocol
Telegram Chat: https://t.me/stafi_protocol
Telegram Announcements: https://t.me/stafi_ann
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/jB77etn
Forum：https://commonwealth.im/stafi
|
https://medium.com/stafi/stafi-warriors-program-79bdc4b6a447
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[]
|
2020-11-03 06:48:16.891000+00:00
|
['Derivatives', 'Defi', 'Proof Of Stake', 'Airdrop', 'Staking']
|
Fastai — Exploring the Training Process — the Pixel Similarity approach
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Fastai — Exploring the Training Process — the Pixel Similarity approach
Photo by Alexandru Acea on Unsplash
In my previous article, I talked about the quickest way to getting started with Fastai by building an image classification model in just a few lines of code and a very limited amount of time. Here, I try to look under the hood a little and start exploring the inner workings of the library by constructing a loss function for the model from scratch.
I’ll be using the same dataset — the Rock, Paper, Scissors dataset from Kaggle, which is a multi-class image classification problem. Since Fastai works with Pytorch, we’ll have quite a few Pytorch specific functions popping up in our journey to construct an appropriate loss function for our task.
If you’d like to jump the gun and view the code all at once, here’s the repo I’ve kept it in: https://github.com/yashprakash13/RockPaperScissorsFastAI
The first approach described by the authors of the library is the Pixel Similarity approach. Essentially, this is the most basic method of determining which two images are the most similar in pixel structure, hence producing a conclusion as to whether the image we’re testing belongs to a particular class or not.
In here, we’re first going to look at this basic method and in the future, I’ll go about building an actual Stochastic Gradient Descent loss function from scratch using some Pytorch functions.
Let’s get on with it then!
What exactly is the Pixel Similarity approach?
Let’s define this particular method first, shall we?
We calculate the average pixel value for all of the rock, paper and scissor images respectively. This will give us somewhat of an ideal pixel value of what an image belonging to that specific class should look like. Then, we’ll move on to testing the images and determining if their pixels look most similar to which of those ideal images.
In the example showed in the fastai book, the authors achieved a hefty 90% accuracy with this naive approach at classifying the images. Naturally, I was curious to see how it’ll perform on a different dataset and with RGB images, so here we are.
Like in the previous article, we import the library and set the dataset path like this:
from fastai.vision.all import *
DATASET_PATH = Path('RockPaperScissors/data')
DATASET_PATH.ls() ''' OUTPUT:
[Path('RockPaperScissors/data/valid'),Path('RockPaperScissors/data/.DS_Store'),Path('RockPaperScissors/data/Rock-Paper-Scissors'),Path('RockPaperScissors/data/train'),Path('RockPaperScissors/data/test2')] '''
We confirm that our train and valid folders are now accessible via the path variable we made.
Now, we define the class specific dataset path for our training folders.
rock_train = (DATASET_PATH/'train'/'rock').ls().sorted()
paper_train = (DATASET_PATH/'train'/'paper').ls().sorted()
scissors_train = (DATASET_PATH/'train'/'scissors').ls().sorted()
The output we get will show us the list of images in our folders. Something like so:
OUTPUT:
((#840) [Path('RockPaperScissors/data/train/rock/rock01-000.png'),Path('RockPaperScissors/data/train/rock/rock01-001.png'),Path('RockPaperScissors/data/train/rock/rock01-002.png'),Path('RockPaperScissors/data/train/rock/rock01-003.png'),Path('RockPaperScissors/data/train/rock/rock01-004.png'),
and so on.
Did you notice the little 840 at the beginning? It’s the number of images we have in the train folders for each class.
Introduction to Pytorch tensors
My first dealings with building and manipulating tensors made me learn quite a few new things about how images are represented in the library when we import them, and I’ll try to document most of it as we move ahead.
Let’s first pick a random image to view:
rock_img = rock_train[3]
img = Image.open(rock_img)
img
rock random image
The same image can now be represented as a Pytorch tensor in memory via a single line of code.
tensor(img)
If you’re following along — which I’ll recommend by the way, — go ahead and print it out!
OUTPUT:
tensor([[[255, 255, 255, 255],
[255, 255, 255, 255],
[255, 255, 255, 255]],
[[254, 254, 254, 255],
[255, 255, 255, 255],
...so on.
…which is a collection of pixel values of the image. An important thing to view here is the shape of the tensor.
tensor(img).shape ''' OUTPUT:
torch.Size([300, 300, 4]) '''
Two of the three dimensions above are easy to recognise, and those are the width and height of the image which is 300x300. Then what does the 4 represent?
I spent quite a while understanding the way image channels work, and it’s a topic very much worth learning if you’re looking towards progressing in building more vision models! I’ll tell you in short though, and link an article at the end that I found most helpful in learning about them.
Basically, image channels are the number used to represent whether the image is a black and white image or a RGB(colour) image, or a mixture of both RGB and Black and white. Here, the number 4 could’ve also been 1 (for a black and white image), 3 (for a proper RGB image). Here in our dataset, we have a mixture of both so Pytorch is intelligent enough to know that 4 channels are needed to properly represent the pixel values of each and every image. So here, 4 is the alpha component added to our image tensors in order to support a wider colour gamut in our image dataset and is used to define areas of a photo, such as to define transparency or to preserve a saved selection ( if you have some experience with using Photoshop, you might know the term already :)) .
Pixels aren’t just limited to defining colour like the RGB channels do. An alpha channel defines which pixels are fully selected, which are partially and which pixels aren’t selected at all in our image.
I know this all sounds very confusing, and I also had a bit of a hard time trying to wrap my mind around this (I still am not sure I get it completely :P). Hopefully, the article I’m linking at the end will make sure you get a better understanding of components of image channels in a little more detail.
Now that we have seen what an image tensor looks like, we can go ahead and convert our whole train+validation data to tensors as well!
Stacks of training and validation Pytorch tensors
#cumulate all the images of three classes as Pytorch tensors rock_tensors = [tensor(Image.open(o)) for o in rock_train]
paper_tensors = [tensor(Image.open(o)) for o in paper_train]
scissors_tensors = [tensor(Image.open(o)) for o in scissors_train] stacked_rock = torch.stack(rock_tensors).float()/255
stacked_paper = torch.stack(paper_tensors).float()/255
stacked_scissors = torch.stack(scissors_tensors).float()/255
stacked_rock.shape, stacked_paper.shape, stacked_scissors.shape ''' OUTPUT:
(torch.Size([840, 300, 300, 4]),
torch.Size([840, 300, 300, 4]),
torch.Size([840, 300, 300, 4])) ''' '''
Do THE SAME FOR VALIDATION FOLDERS
'''
So what do we see here? The last part of the tensor dimensions is pretty much clear, is it not? 300 x 300 x 4 is the dimension of a single image we saw earlier, and now that we have stacked all of our images in the train folder, we have 840 of them for each class, via the stack function.
Now we get to the part of visualising what that ‘mean’ rock, paper and scissor images look like.
Rock mean
rock_mean = stacked_rock.mean(0)
show_image(rock_mean)
rock mean
This is the image we get after averaging all the 840 training rock images.
Go ahead and do the same for the paper as well as scissor training images.
Here are the results:
paper mean
scissor mean
Notice how the images, especially, our scissor and rock mean images look very similar to each other? That’s because they are to this naive approach we’re using!
We’ll also get to see how poor this approach is, as compared to other approaches, other learning approaches as I should say, such as the Stochastic Gradient Descent.
Now we must move on to calculating those pixel similarity distances between images I said earlier.
Two methods of pixel similarities
They are called: the Mean Absolute Error method and the Root Mean Square method. Let’s see both of them in action.
#taking a random rock tensor from our stacked rock tensors
rock_rand = stacked_rock[7]
Now calculate the distance between that random rock image and the rock mean:
mean_abs_rock_rock = (rock_rand - rock_mean).abs().mean()
mean_abs_rock_rock ''' OUTPUT:
tensor(0.0942) '''
Similarly, we can do the RMS error as well:
#doing the same with rms
rms_rock_rock = ((rock_rand - rock_mean) ** 2).mean().sqrt()
rms_rock_rock ''' OUTPUT: tensor(0.1697) '''
For later use, I made a custom function for the same:
def get_pixel_diff(a, b):
return (a-b).abs().mean((-1, -2, -3))
get_pixel_diff(rock_rand, rock_mean)
What’s that mean((-1, -2, -3)) in here? It’s the dimensions upon which we take our mean across the stack of images. Here, we take it across the image channels(4), and the height and width of the image(300, 300).
As expected, we get the same result as before:
OUTPUT:
tensor(0.0942)
The moment of truth — why this naive approach is actually bad and does not work in real life
We have seen that the pixel similarity approach does help us — to our naked eye at least — distinguish between the three classes of images. BUT, does it work with a separate set of images that we test it across?
I define a function that will calculate if an image passed as a parameter to it is an image of the same class or not. For this example, I make the is_rock function:
def is_rock(x):
return (get_pixel_diff(x, rock_mean) < get_pixel_diff(x, paper_mean)) \
& (get_pixel_diff(x, rock_mean) < get_pixel_diff(x, scissors_mean))
If the distances of a passed image from the other two classes is more, meaning is less similar to that of the mean rock image we defined earlier, then we can conclude that the given algorithm is working as expected.
We can now run it through on the whole validation folder and see the results!
valid_rock_dist = get_pixel_diff(rock_mean, stacked_rock_val) accuracy_rock = is_rock(stacked_rock_val).float().mean() '''
OUTPUT tensor(0.1371) '''
13% ?! Such bad accuracy?! This is clearly not feasible in practise!
Let’s do it again with an is_paper function this time:
accuracy_paper = is_paper(stacked_paper).float().mean()
accuracy_paper '''
OUTPUT: tensor(0.5536) '''
This doesn’t seem too bad, does it, when we see and know that we aren’t performing virtually any training at all?
Concluding…
With this experience, perhaps it is time to try a method that does some real learning on the images — that is, one that can automatically modify itself to improve its performance. We need to build an actual training pipeline next, in order to improve how a model will be seeing our images, and learn every time when it predicts both right and wrong.
That particular method then starts with the journey into learning about SGD — stochastic gradient descent algorithm.
|
https://towardsdatascience.com/fastai-exploring-the-training-process-the-pixel-similarity-approach-74bbdb844509
|
['Yash Prakash']
|
2021-01-06 03:54:29.367000+00:00
|
['Neural Networks', 'Image Classification', 'Fastai', 'Convolutional Network', 'Deep Learning']
|
What Product Teams say and What They Really Mean — 10 Tips for Diagnosing Team Issues
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Originally published on Mind The Product October 2018
Team issues can have a negative impact on a project and your people long term. There are a bunch of ways they might manifest themselves — and I’ve written them down as I’ve heard them over a decade of building digital products in cross-functional teams.
I’m not touching on the upfront issues like bad sales process, junk briefs, confused business requirements, that’s for another day. This list is most useful for in-flight project teams, off and sprinting.
Reading these unfiltered issues will surface the symptoms. And in turn, help with diagnosis. All teams and situations are unique, but some pains are universal and understanding the issue is halfway to a solution.
1 — “Our Client is a ☠️ They Don’t Understand What we are Trying to do”
This is bad mojo for a team. In the same way that losing empathy for the customer can easily happen in long projects (good read here about this), it’s easy for a team to start classing the client as a hindrance to getting a project out. This can creep in from the smallest negative comments.
If the team doesn’t take the time to understand who they are working with, an “us and them” mentality can develop. The client is taking great risks, personally and as a business. Building client empathy is important. They might be frustrated or confused, which can result in curt communication…
Tip: Get to know the client, learn to ask the right question and be patient. But most of all don’t be a promoter of negative views in the team.
2 — “Let’s Push Back This Next Check Till we Have More to Show”
This means the team isn’t confident in the direction they are going, and probably doesn’t have the right information. They’ll push the meeting back but go nowhere in the meantime, while the expectation gap between client and team grows and it gets harder to ask the simple questions they didn’t have the answers to in the beginning.
Tip: When you or the team are nervous of meeting with the client or major stakeholder, ask why and then go talk to the client about that thing.
3 — “Wow, I’d Never Seen That Document Before”
Projects will produce a heap of documentation, and that’s normal. This is a challenge worth understanding from day one. Light documentation in favour of delivering is (in my view) always preferable. One consistent issue I see is the grouping of deliverables by phase or sprint. This starts out looking like a good idea, but soon makes it extremely hard to view a continuous thread across the project.
Tip: By taking time to discuss where specific groupings will live, how insights will be surfaced, and an agreement on nomenclature, you will save time and pain later.
4 — “Our Meetings are Long and Have no Outcome”
It’s all-too easy to get into a bad meeting etiquette routine. If meetings feel long, then they are, regardless of their actual duration. Judging the correct length can be hard. The way the working day is broken into hours tends to mean a meeting will fill an hour (at least), irrespective of its content.
Setting a meeting goal or outcome is imperative. That could be to generate ideas, agree on a deadline or assign work. Whether the goal is hard or loose doesn’t matter, but having one is key.
Tip: The simple rules: set a goal, take notes, assign tasks, agree on next steps AND leave the tech out the room.
5 — “What did They go Into a Meeting Room for?”
When things get a bit “interesting” on a project there is a tendency to get secretive and have small groups heading to a meeting room. It could be a bit of client drama, or maybe a team member issue.
But quite often it’s just everyday tasks masquerading as an issue. The point here is that the rest of the team wonders what is going on. It creates team drama, and ripples from it are disruptive.
Tip: Try to be absurdly transparent. Spell it out. Tell the team at standup what’s going on and then say it again later. And where possible don’t hide in a meeting room.
6 — “I Just Don’t get Enough Time at my Desk”
All the meetings, planning, and alignment are hugely valuable activities. But a balance needs to be struck. If your week is peppered with team meetings and check-ins, how can you find time to get deep into work? This crushes flow time, that special mode that gets the best work and helps team members to feel job satisfaction.
Tip: It’s worth evaluating the need for a meeting. If you are a manager, is this meeting more about your peace of mind than anything else? Could that be achieved in another way?
Another issue to watch for is the double workload a team can feel when working on-site with a client. Close collaboration is hugely valuable and something I would always promote. But it’s worth recognising that it comes at a cost to the team. They are always on, staying professional, interpreting comments and filtering needs. Once you have been doing this for a few years you find tactics to manage the load and it can be very enjoyable for most. But for members of the team more used to crafting at a desk with headphones on most the day, it can be a great deal of effort to manage and not feel the most productive.
Tip: Could you mark out safe spots in the week for the work to get done? I have gone as far as a traffic lights system in the past — I even had a traffic light on display. Parts of the week are green, free to chat and collaboration. Parts are red, please don’t disrupt, it’s deep working time. If this is planned in advance it gives the team a firm grounding to build out a week of work and know when they will be able to focus on the deeper thinking.
7 — “We Have a Presentation Today!?”
When people in the team seem confused about where to be and what’s happening this can be an indication of some poor calendars etiquette — things like moving meetings around without updating verbally, dropping them into calendars on the day or, even worse, five minutes before they start. This creates uncertainty, causes confusion, and quickly leads to a behaviour where you don’t start any major task because you have no understanding of how long you will have to work at it — why bother getting into it just to be pulled straight out.
Tip: Make time at the end of the day to plan your following day, confirm the meetings, and make adjustments. On the day, use a short team alignment like a standup meeting to get calendars aligned, and reconfirm all the key activities. Things change, people’s life commitments pop up. That’s all fine so long as the team are aware of where they are supposed to be ahead of time.
8 — “The Sprints Just Feel Relentless”
Sprints can feel quite intense and exhausting — whether it’s because there’s a deadline in mind, or no end in sight. This can be made worse when a team doesn’t have a grasp of the roadmap, or when you haven’t paused long enough to recognise success. One thing I’ve heard in the past which rings true, is ‘sprinting a marathon’.
Tip: One tactic is to have a break — a sprint every X sprints to focus on the little bits that have been sidelined, like process and documentation. This is especially useful for developers to jump on any technical debt.
9 — “Did you Take Notes? No, but it’s Cool, [Insert Firefighter] has it”
Teams that seem to not be taking responsibility are a really common and bad sign. Most likely a key person is taking the heat. Firefighter is a great term for the people who parachute into the troubled projects and save the day. They have a job to do and little time to do it, so their style is to dictate action. It works in the short term. Clients tend to love them.
But remember firefighters love to fight fires. It’s not necessarily on their to-do list to build a strong team. This leads to disengagement — why bother when the firefighter has it covered?
Tip: How you know if you have one one person taking all the weight? Maybe the client said: “Where would we be without [Insert firefighter]. Don’t ever let them leave”. But what if they leave? Use the firefighter to set process, but then plan the day they move off the project with them. Let the team and client know.
10 — “Best not Disturb the Team, They Have a big Mountain to Climb”
I have often heard this said by well-meaning managers. It comes from a good place. The team may have started strongly with retrospectives, but that can drift if not carefully guarded and valued. Not allowing the team the space to address problems weakens its ability self-fix. Resilience becomes low and the general mood can stagnate.
Tip: It’s time to get back to building the space to reflect. Gather input from the team on issues. You’ll probably realise they have a deep understanding of what is going on and that they have some ideas to fix it. Find a forum for discussion as a group. Empower team members to take action from those discussions, and always allow time for them to succeed at the tasks by building time into the plan.
…no time like now
If you have an issue in your team, and maybe one of these sparked that realisation, well good news! — one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that it’s never too late to take a moment, reflect, and start the conversation that could fix things.
As you’ve probably guessed, I don’t have any silver bullets for you — if I did I would have a book out 😀 Good luck 🙏
|
https://medium.com/ideas-by-idean/what-product-teams-say-and-what-they-really-mean-10-tips-for-diagnosing-team-issues-f77625fa72e8
|
['Rob Boyett']
|
2019-03-20 16:24:45.157000+00:00
|
['Product Design', 'Mobile', 'Design', 'Team Management', 'Agile']
|
Trendsday: 3/8/17
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Yoste (pronounced like Lost)
This week’s Trendsday is technically coming to you on Thursday (3/9). I was so deeply enamored by these amazing females and others on International Women’s Day that I ran a bit late, but here is this week’s trending artist!
YOSTE
If you know me (or if you’ve seen any of the art that I own), you know that I am deeply in love with all things Hayao Miyazaki. Yoste (aka Kurt Sines) and I seem to have that in common. Yoste’s songs are named after Miyazaki characters; from Spirited Away’s “Chihiro” to Howl’s Moving Castle’s “Calcifer”, a Yoste single is an homage to an imaginative and fantastical journey. But a song by Yoste is so much more than that. It’s a journey all its own, an ambient adventure that’s equally as imaginative and fantastical.
Take Yoste’s newest single: Umi (aka the protagonist in From Up On Poppy Hill). Sure, there are lyrics. The lyrics read beautifully and Sines sings them beautifully. But when I listen to Umi, I’m not focusing on the lyrics. The song is so immersive that I find myself traveling beyond the words. I’m levels deeper, wandering a gorgeous soundscape, creating my own adventure and finding my own meaning for the song. It’s a kind of listening experience that I haven’t had with any other artist. Kurt Sines is achieving something truly, truly unique.
Get lost in Yoste.
|
https://medium.com/indelicious/trendsday-3-8-17-b2039d762768
|
['Jason Brillon']
|
2017-03-09 15:00:33.749000+00:00
|
['Trendsday', 'Yoste', 'Music', 'Featured Artist', 'Indie']
|
I ranked every Intro to Data Science course on the internet, based on thousands of data points
|
Our goal with this introduction to data science course is to become familiar with the data science process. We don’t want too in-depth coverage of specific aspects of the process, hence the “intro to” portion of the title.
For each aspect, the ideal course explains key concepts within the framework of the process, introduces common tools, and provides a few examples (preferably hands-on).
We’re only looking for an introduction. This guide therefore won’t include full specializations or programs like Johns Hopkins University’s Data Science Specialization on Coursera or Udacity’s Data Analyst Nanodegree. These compilations of courses elude the purpose of this series: to find the best individual courses for each subject to comprise a data science education. The final three guides in this series of articles will cover each aspect of the data science process in detail.
Basic coding, stats, and probability experience required
Several courses listed below require basic programming, statistics, and probability experience. This requirement is understandable given that the new content is reasonably advanced, and that these subjects often have several courses dedicated to them.
This experience can be acquired through our recommendations in the first two articles (programming, statistics) in this Data Science Career Guide.
Our pick for the best intro to data science course is…
Kirill Eremenko’s Data Science A-Z™ on Udemy is the clear winner in terms of breadth and depth of coverage of the data science process of the 20+ courses that qualified. It has a 4.5-star weighted average rating over 3,071 reviews, which places it among the highest rated and most reviewed courses of the ones considered.
It outlines the full process and provides real-life examples. At 21 hours of content, it is a good length. Reviewers love the instructor’s delivery and the organization of the content. The price varies depending on Udemy discounts, which are frequent, so you may be able to purchase access for as little as $10.
Though it doesn’t check our “usage of common data science tools” box, the non-Python/R tool choices (gretl, Tableau, Excel) are used effectively in context. Eremenko mentions the following when explaining the gretl choice (gretl is a statistical software package), though it applies to all of the tools he uses (emphasis mine):
In gretl, we will be able to do the same modeling just like in R and Python but we won’t have to code. That’s the big deal here. Some of you may already know R very well, but some may not know it at all. My goal is to show you how to build a robust model and give you a framework that you can apply in any tool you choose. gretl will help us avoid getting bogged down in our coding.
One prominent reviewer noted the following:
Kirill is the best teacher I’ve found online. He uses real life examples and explains common problems so that you get a deeper understanding of the coursework. He also provides a lot of insight as to what it means to be a data scientist from working with insufficient data all the way to presenting your work to C-class management. I highly recommend this course for beginner students to intermediate data analysts!
The preview video for Data Science A-Z™.
A great Python-focused introduction
Udacity’s Intro to Data Analysis is a relatively new offering that is part of Udacity’s popular Data Analyst Nanodegree. It covers the data science process clearly and cohesively using Python, though it lacks a bit in the modeling aspect. The estimated timeline is 36 hours (six hours per week over six weeks), though it is shorter in my experience. It has a 5-star weighted average rating over two reviews. It is free.
The videos are well-produced and the instructor (Caroline Buckey) is clear and personable. Lots of programming quizzes enforce the concepts learned in the videos. Students will leave the course confident in their new and/or improved NumPy and Pandas skills (these are popular Python libraries). The final project — which is graded and reviewed in the Nanodegree but not in the free individual course — can be a nice add to a portfolio.
Udacity instructor Caroline Buckey outlining the data analysis process (also known as the data science process).
An impressive offering with no review data
Data Science Fundamentals (Big Data University)
Data Science Fundamentals is a four-course series provided by IBM’s Big Data University. It includes courses titled Data Science 101, Data Science Methodology, Data Science Hands-on with Open Source Tools, and R 101.
It covers the full data science process and introduces Python, R, and several other open-source tools. The courses have tremendous production value. 13–18 hours of effort is estimated, depending on if you take the “R 101” course at the end, which isn’t necessary for the purpose of this guide. Unfortunately, it has no review data on the major review sites that we used for this analysis, so we can’t recommend it over the above two options yet. It is free.
A video from the first module of the Big Data University’s Data Science 101 (which is the first course in the Data Science Fundamentals series).
The competition
Our #1 pick had a weighted average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars over 3,068 reviews. Let’s look at the other alternatives, sorted by descending rating. Below you’ll find several R-focused courses, if you are set on an introduction in that language.
|
https://medium.com/free-code-camp/i-ranked-all-the-best-data-science-intro-courses-based-on-thousands-of-data-points-db5dc7e3eb8e
|
['David Venturi']
|
2018-11-14 16:41:17.584000+00:00
|
['Big Data', 'Programming', 'Startup', 'Data Science', 'Tech']
|
Serializing Data Within Large Integers
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Serializing Data Within Large Integers
Ethereum and Dapps uses bitwise operations to serialize and de-serialize multiple integers within a single 256 bit token ID
Shifting bits in a large binary integer to reveal smaller integers (Image courtesy of Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)
Often data-size optimization is overlooked, or readability is preferred over data size. However, when paying for data storage on a blockchain, size does matter. Ethereum smart contract integers occupy 256 bits of space, which is typically larger than needed. A 256 bit integer can represent eight (8) different 32 bit integer values or 32 different 8 bit values. With gas prices dependent upon data size, it is important to utilize all bits of the integers you are paying to store on the blockchain.
Visualizing multiple smaller integers within a single 256-bit integer
To be clear, the additional complexity of serializing smaller integers within a larger integer should be taken on with care. Only logically connected data should be grouped together in this way. During the development of the world's first decentralized software application store, the nonprofit ImmutableSoft found this path to be full of unexpected obstacles. This is their story of why, where, and how this technique was applied.
ERC-721 token IDs are 256 bit integers that must be unique (known as non-fungible in blockchain speak). The Immutable Ecosystem decentralized application (Dapp) created by ImmutableSoft defines their software license activation as an ERC-721 token. To represent a software license, it must store the entity (organization, individual, etc.) and product identifiers. Additionally, activation limitations such as the expiration, version, and languages must be immutably recorded on the blockchain for each activation.
At first it did not appear possible to represent all this information with only 256 bits. And this would be fine since it is easy to extend our ERC-721 token to store additional data for each individual token. However, additional storage increases gas costs and moves immutable data outside the ERC-721 standard. We felt it was important that our tokens represent the entire software activation accurately within the standard token ID so that the token would be understandable even within other ERC-721 exchanges. With plans to draft an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) for Activations finalized, careful design was prudent.
To start with, we first examined all of our activation variables and defined a minimum integer size for each. For example, it was reasonable to assume that 32 bits were enough to identify all registered entities of the Immutable Ecosystem. The same for the product identifier. Even the most prolific reseller would find a 32 bit integer sufficient to identify all of their products. The expiration time could similarly be represented with a 32 bit integer using the common seconds-from-epoch representation (the C standard library time() function).
Representing a version took some soul searching. Our compromise was to use four (4) different 16 bit integers to represent the version. In string dot notation, this would look like 1.2.3.4, with each digit represented as a 16 bit unsigned integer (max value 65,535). The entire version field totaled 64 bits. So far 160 bits of the token ID have been utilized with 96 bits still available for use.
For flexibility and future upgradability, it was clear we needed a flags field to identify what type and features the activation token represents. Based on which flag bits were set (bit value one), the data layout of the 256 bit token ID could change. We did this initially so our ERC-721 token could represent features within the application, beyond or instead of an activation of the executable. For example, unique game items can be easily represented as activations within the ecosystem. Whether game items are purchasable or found in-game only, online games can move their items to the blockchain using the Immutable Ecosystem with no blockchain experience. The Feature flag is defined to identify an application feature. But for the remainder of this discussion, we focus on the Limitation and Expiration flags.
To represent the language limitations, it was important that each be represented with its own bit so that multiple languages could be supported within a single software license activation. After deciding to use 64 bits, each bit to represent a different language, we found ourselves utilizing all of the 256 bits of the token ID. Here is what the bit layout now looked like in our smart contracts. The most significant 128 bits are supported by all Software License Activation tokens, the least significant 128 bits are specific to the defined Flags. In this case, the Limitation flag defines the last bits (or LSBs) to hold the languages and version limitations.
First attempt to define the structure of the Activate Token’s 256 bit token ID
We generally applauded our success and reveled in our ingenuity — prematurely, it turned out.
While auditing and testing, we discovered that this solution was not enforcing the uniqueness (non-fungibility) requirement for ERC-721 tokens. The tokens in our design would be unique for common tests and use cases, but many (unknown) corner cases existed where the generated token ID could be identical to another. For example, if two people were to purchase an activation offer at the same time, then the expiration would be identical, resulting in a transaction failure to mint the new token — a blockchain failure that could cost the software creator revenue. It was also possible for a software creator to specify an offer with no expiration. It was this use case where the problem became very obvious and was detected. After the first purchase with this offer, subsequent purchases would fail at the mint stage as the token ID was not unique. Only the expiration time was providing the tokens with uniqueness.
Back to the drawing board. We reviewed all the data fields to identify how we could introduce uniqueness to each activation. Push came to shove, and the Flags size was reduced to 16 bits to make room for a unique ID. Using 16 bits for a product-specific incrementing counter (nonce) ensured uniqueness. With each new token increasing this value, it can also be used to aid recordkeeping and report generation.
The last piece of our puzzle was the platform type flags for the activation. Does the software license activation support Windows OS, Mac OS, Linux, or some combination of the above? We were so close to fitting everything, we gave this effort one more try, reviewing the Languages and Version fields. With global aspirations, we understood we could, but did not want to, limit the number of possible languages. And the Version appeared impregnable, but was it?
Already optimized and used to identify product releases, the Version field could not change. However, it was argued that the last digit of the Version should never be defined as a limitation of an activation, the reason being that all software should allow new versions to account for bug fixes. As a software distributor, you never want to box yourself into a corner where you must relicense your customer(s) in order to provide a bug fix. So four digits of Version were needed for a release, but the last digit of the Version was now up for grabs in the activation!
But was 16 bits enough to hold all the Platform bits? It turns out that, as currently defined, there were 15 platforms — with one bit left for the future. This was close, too close. With the Flags field still available for upgrades, we became more comfortable with this tight fit and any pivot going forward.
Second revision of the structure of the Activation Token’s 256 bit token ID
Once the structure of the token ID was finalized, we defined constants within the smart contract (Solidity) so that we could extract, or de-serialize, the individual integers from within the whole. By performing a bitwise And followed by bit shifting the Offset to the right, we extract, or de-serialize, the individual integer. To visualize, put your fingers on the lines of the field you want above (the And operation) and then shift the number to the right until it is flush with the end (right-shift the Offset). Here are the defined Offsets and Masks that correspond to the structure in the image above.
// Offset and mask of entity and product identifiers
uint256 constant EntityIdOffset = 224;
uint256 constant EntityIdMask = (0xFFFFFFFF <<
EntityIdOffset);
uint256 constant ProductIdOffset = 192;
uint256 constant ProductIdMask = (0xFFFFFFFF <<
ProductIdOffset); // Bits to help enforce non fungible (unique) token
uint256 constant UniqueIdOffset = 176;
uint256 constant UniqueIdMask = (0xFFFF <<
UniqueIdOffset); // Flags allow different activation types and Value layout
uint256 constant FlagsOffset = 160;
uint256 constant FlagsMask = (0xFFFF << FlagsOffset); // Expiration is last field before final 128 bit Value
uint256 constant ExpirationOffset = 128;
uint256 constant ExpirationMask = (0xFFFFFFFF <<
ExpirationOffset); // If limitation flag set, the Value is entirely utilized // Bits 64 - 127 are for language (as defined above)
uint256 constant LanguageOffset = 64;
uint256 constant LanguageMask = (0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF <<
LanguageOffset); // Final 64 bits is version (4 different 16 bit)
uint256 constant LimitVersionOffset = 0;
uint256 constant LimitVersionMask =(0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF <<
LimitVersionOffset);
To use the Masks and Offsets above, first perform the bitwise And operation to apply the Mask and then shift the result to the right by the Offset number of bits. Here is an example to extract the expiration from the activation token ID.
// token_id is the value of the activation token id uint256 theExpiration;
theExpiration = ((token_id & ExpirationMask) >>
ExpirationOffset);
Once the smart contract was representing all data fields within the token ID, it became necessary for our decentralized application (Dapp) to read (de-serialize) and write (serialize) the individual values to and from the single 256 bit token ID. JavaScript, like most programming languages, does not support large integers or integer constants, so to make things easier, we will perform the bitwise operations in reverse order to the Solidity example above.
Using the bitwise operation, Shift Right before the And operation allows the use of a small local mask defined by the size of the integer to de-serialize. The JavaScript 32 bit integer constant (‘0xFFFFFFFF’), or 16 bit integer constant (0xFFFF) are used to Mask that size integer after shifting. By Shifting Right a number of bits equal to the Offset and then applying the local Mask with the And operation, each smaller integer from within the larger one can be isolated and assigned to a separate variable for use by your program.
For our Dapp we used Node.JS and the big-integer package. To install with npm:
npm install big-integer
And to include in your code:
var bigInt = require("big-integer");
To create a big integer for use by your JavaScript code the bigInt() constructor must be used. Smart contract calls return a large 256 bit integer as a hexadecimal string. To begin to de-serialize this large integer, pass the hex string directly to the bigInt() constructor to create a 256 bit integer of the token ID in JavaScript. Then use the shiftRight() operation, in conjunction with the and() operation, to de-serialize the smaller integers from within the larger 256 bit integer. Each individual integer encoded in the larger 256 bit integer can now be parsed (de-serialized) and presented to the user or otherwise used by the Dapp.
//First create the bigInt() of the token id
// tokenId is the response from the blockchain
var value = bigInt(tokenId); // De-serialize the activation bit flags and nonce
var flags = value.shiftRight(160).and('0xFFFF');
var nonce = value.shiftRight(176).and('0xFFFF'); // De-serialize the expiration
var expiration = value.shiftRight(128).and('0xFFFFFFFF');
Since JavaScript does not support 64 bit integer constants, the Mask for the Languages and Version field required that we first create a bigInt() to use as the bitwise Mask. With this mask in place, we complete the de-serialization of the 256 bit activation token ID.
// JavaScript has no 64 bit constant support, so create
// a bigInt to hold our 64 bit mask of all ones
var all32bits = bigInt('0xFFFFFFFF');
var all64bits = all32bits.or(all32bits.shiftLeft(32)); // Shift 64 bits and get 64 bits for language limitations
var langLimitation = value.shiftRight(64).and(all64bits); // Final 64 bits is the version limitation and platform
var verLimitation = value.and(all64bits); // OS/HW platform is taken from last 16 bits of version
var platformLimitations = verLimitation.and('0xFFFF'); // Shift right to remove platform from the version
verLimitation = verLimitation.shiftRight(16);
To serialize the smaller integers back into the larger 256 bit integer, we do the reverse bitwise operations. Using bitwise Left Shift operations, we create new bigInt() variables of each smaller integer but with the bits shifted to their final position within a 256 bit integer value. Once all the individual integer values are converted to big integers and in their correct bit locations, we perform the bitwise Or operation to put them all together. Here is how we did it.
// entityID, productID, preventResale, duration and
// limitation from user input (not shown) // Product and entity are encoded in offer
var productIdFlag = bigInt(productID).shiftLeft(192);
var entityIdFlag =
bigInt(entityID).shiftLeft(224); // Expiration and limitation flags
var expirationFlag = bigInt(1).shiftLeft(160);
var limitationFlag = bigInt(1).shiftLeft(161); // Check if prevent resale flag is set and valid
var preventResaleFlag = bigInt(0);
if ((preventResale == null) || (preventResale.length == 0))
preventResale = '0';
if (preventResale == '1')
preventResaleFlag = bigInt(1).shiftLeft(162); // Convert the duration into an expiration
var currentDate = new Date();
var expirationInSeconds = currentDate.getTime() / 1000;
expirationInSeconds += duration;
// Initialize the token id value
var value = bigInt(Math.ceil(expirationInSeconds)); value =
value.shiftLeft(128).or(limitation).or(expirationFlag).
or(limitationFlag).or(preventResaleFlag).
or(productIdFlag).or(entityIdFlag);
Well, there you have it, the blueprint for how to serialize and de-serialize multiple smaller integers into and out of a single large 256 bit integer. I hope this walkthrough helps illuminate a path for others with similar problems. With some preparation, it is not that difficult to encode and decode multiple integers within a single 256 bit integer using serialization. Cheers!
|
https://medium.com/better-programming/serializing-data-within-large-integers-433684c8e7cd
|
['Sean Lawless']
|
2020-11-23 22:34:59.116000+00:00
|
['Ethereum', 'Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Solidity']
|
Before Close Friends, There Were Top Friends: The Impact of MySpace
|
The entry for Myspace on the Encyclopaedia Britannica gives a short overview of the social platform service.
Myspace is a free, advertising-supported service that allows users to create Web “profile” pages that feature photographs, express their interests, and, most importantly, link to other people’s profiles. The site can be used to keep in touch with friends, “meet” and become friends with new people, or find potential romantic partners. (Augustyn, 2020, para. 2)
MySpace was an open platform allowing anyone to participate and share thoughts on different topics (Peranzo, 2016), and by August of 2006, it had signed its 100 millionth user. The site also created a competitive advantage in that it allowed and encouraged musical artists to promote themselves through it (Augustyn, 2020). MySpace had instant messaging and the aforementioned customization which was incredibly dynamic for its time and has yet to be mimicked by the big social media platforms, as it allowed users to embed video and music into their profiles and display flashing images and colors, as well as a “comments” section and the famed “Top Friends” section where one would display their closest friends, which, back in my days of using MySpace, caused a lot of drama and fighting amongst friends, similar to losing to your best friend in Mario Kart.
(Cafolla, 2015)
The main aspect of MySpace that really set it apart from its competitors back then and future platforms was the ability to style your profile with HTML and CSS codes, further enhancing the customization and expressiveness of the service. Nevertheless, the core aspects of easy communication and networking where what I believe to be the stepping stones that created a foundation for what was to come in the future for up and coming social network services. We may find ourselves asking what Facebook did to completely change the game and weaken MySpace’s popularity; however, the truth is that it wasn’t one sole factor that caused this but rather a number of both external and internal factors.
|
https://medium.com/@luisxrivas22/before-close-friends-there-were-top-friends-the-impact-of-myspace-cadceed38ba5
|
['Luis X Rivas']
|
2021-01-18 01:20:53.309000+00:00
|
['Social Media', 'Ufcjonline', 'Myspace', 'Facebook', 'Social']
|
Aleph Ambiental. It all started with a third world…
|
It all started with a third world country with open capitalist politics but some socialist like systems, like a beautifull university that gathered people and, in a learning process and took them trough that country, for free.
At last, nothing is perfect, and the sin of that institution was spoiling themselves, the people, syndicates, groups of power, all for money, all brainwashing and showing no hope but to follow some twisted path called life that doesnt make life at all, it takes it, it craves it, for it can never go back to what is was.
Then, there was hope, in the books, in reality, in waching how, even tough institutions and private corporations look only fot themselves, society thrives. And at least, here, in Mexico, there is still something that keeps it, some kind of resilience, of its people, and of its natural resources. At least thats the hope, thats the dream.
We are just begining, we want to use blockchain techology to give value again to our culture, our nature, going to the future, not as a solution, but as an alternative, or better, a node of alternatives.
We love art and try it, for we know ther are many ways, not only technical ones, to help.
Since October 2020 we´ve been helping get knowledge from the people, to the people, from themes like helping in forest fires, to making compost, our local brids, our local resources, trying to multiply and make stronger the interactions that give resilience to our system. This year planning to make virtual debate tables about local problems (maby an NFT for this hehe), and many other little budget proyects (And some big crypto protocols ideas).
We have a lot of work, for every one has something, we´ll give our free time and passion to what we think is worth it. Our home is worth it.
We are now in Texcoco de Mora, México.
Aleph Ambiental.
TW of some:
Aleph Ambiental
@albaconsol
@hoblayerta
@LuisAngelFC6
|
https://medium.com/@alephambiental/aleph-ambiental-an-introduction-dac85a59566a
|
['Aleph Ambiental']
|
2021-03-09 04:03:22.395000+00:00
|
['Ecology', 'Social']
|
Chasing Goodbyes
|
By Arindam Roy | Project: Mechanic of Machine Learning
Employees leaving a firm and the turnover process is perhaps the costliest loss to a lot of industries. An employee can choose to exits a firm due to a multitude of factors, ranging form retirement, poaching, dissatisfaction to the good old getting fired. In this article, I discuss how machine learning can help us predict employee attrition and change the way we leave our jobs.
The Challenge
Predicting why an employee would leave is close to impossible. Often times it is not due to a single factor, but a cumulation of them. Thus, predicting the people who would leave has been anybody's guess until recently. But now, with improving focus on employees and machine learning, we can find trends in the data to search for groups who are more likely to leave. Further, attention to the issues faced by these people can significantly bring down the employee turnover rates. So, the hypothetical business problem I have taken up is: to develop a risk model that forecasts the likelihood of employee attrition in a business based on historic data. In this exercise, I have used data created by IBM (available on Kaggle) as an example. I have done an in depth analysis and solution development of this dataset using logistic regression. You can find the analysis on my GitHub and my notes on logistic regression in the same repository.
List of all features
Hypothesis
The functional idea behind this activity is that an employee’s chance of attrition can be predicted by the feedback and metrics maintained. Further insights might lie in the data of whereabouts of the employee, like the distance from office, married or not, age, rate of travel, et cetera. This is proven when we compare the mean p-value of the group that stayed vs the group that left the firm.
About Logistic Regression
Logistic regression is a way of predicting a binary value feature, by calculating the probability of the feature based on all other feature values and fitting it to a probability curve, trained on historical data (The other features may not be binary in nature and can have any nature). Though this method in theory, can also be used for multi discrete value features as well, it is not usually recommended, as there are better models to do so. (Please see notes on repository for further understanding.)
Roadmap to implement
Now that we have an understanding of logistic regression, allow me to walk you through the implementation process. Firstly we check for any unclean data (Null value, blanks, etcetera | There is none for this case). Then, we do visualizations and draw observations and assumptions. Post this, we split the data into our train and test sets. We fit the data to our train model and predict for our test model values of people going out.
My Observations and Assumptions (Please find in repository)
My fit results (Please find in repository)
Business Solution
By implementing the above model, a firm can predict the employees who are at risk of leaving at an accuracy of 84%. The company can work with these employees on the pain-points and reduce the attrition rate, retaining people, culture, value and lastly, cost. For some, it can be as simple as the distance of commute, for others, it can be a bunch of issues, but striving to keep each employee will surely produce results in the long run. This model gives great opportunity and insight into the workforce for any employer.
An Ugly Truth
I realize that that up till this point, this article is written as if there were no evil in the world, so I would like to discuss the downsides of the model. Any employer can flip the use of this solution and can try to find & fire those at risk, generating revenue and keeping the sure-shot long term employees (This is one of many adverse uses ). But I would like to remind that such cynicism often leads to catastrophe, thus I am optimistic that this model cannot be used in the upside down fashion for sustainable purposes.
Conclusion
Machine learning has and will change the way we do a lot of things. Leaving our jobs seems to be just another one in the bucket. The solution developed looks to be robust for a rather small dataset and can be brought to great use. Implementing it correctly will generate huge amount of value. Implementing it for the wrong reasons will surely be perilous for everyone involved.
About project Mechanic of Machine Learning:
I am a mechanical engineer by education. Now, I want to deep dive in the world of Machine Learning, hence the name, mechanic of ML :D. I have taken up this project to understand the in-depth mathematics involved in regularly used ML algorithms. Under this project, I will be sharing useful material and links as I explore this domain. The objective is to learn and spread the same. Stay tuned to my GitHub for updates!
References:
|
https://medium.com/@arindamroy11235/chasing-goodbyes-91fc5d851922
|
[]
|
2021-01-14 02:07:38.077000+00:00
|
['Logistic Regression', 'Human Resources', 'Machine Learning']
|
Stuck at Home With a Pantry Full of Love and Food
|
“Merry Christmas, and don’t eat too much during the holiday’s family meals!” I said joking with a friend at the office before leaving him for the Christmas holiday break.
“That’s all we have left…eat.” He replied.
I felt sad. I love eating, but that sentence cracked my heart.
While going home, I kept thinking about what he said.
All we have left is work and food, and we are lucky to have both.
Around 70,000 people died to date due to Coronavirus in Italy.
I feel blessed to be healthy and safe at home with my parents. The Italian government has decided to adopt stricter rules to prevent the virus’s spread during the holidays and families meeting.
2020, it’s almost over. It’s time for me to take stock of this year and think about 2021.
Since March, my country has been in and out of the quarantine zone.
We closed everything, shut down companies and schools. We thought we were safe in summer, and many of us went on holidays, even abroad, to enjoy fleeting freedom.
After months, after thousands of deaths, some of us still believe it’s all fake; the military trucks that brought coffins out of towns were just a parade to impress and scare the citizens, Covid-19 doesn’t exist, and the ambulances that run around town with sirens and lights on are empty.
I’m pissed because while someone believes the pandemic is all fake, I see TV programs showing patients and hospital staff’s desperate conditions; they are exhausted and hopeless.
In my little world, made of friends, cats, and work, I feel like my life has been paused since everything started.
Rare meeting with friends, no holiday, no planning because the law might change, and I didn’t want to get stuck far from home.
This pandemic situation made me realize how fortunate I am to have a safe home, a decent hospital close by, and food in my pantry. I’m grateful to have the chance to work from home and to collaborate with a small firm where the risk of getting infected is low.
I’m not mad with 2020; I got to know some fantastic people virtually and had the chance to slow down, to understand better what I want to do with my life, and make a plan for the future.
Today, opening the pantry, I’ve realized there is so much food in it that if I move something, everything else falls. I’m receiving wishes from all over the world, people caring about me who want to know how my family and I are doing.
I hold in my heart the hope of a better 2021 where we can enjoy each other’s company without wearing a mask or keeping safety distances.
With a pantry full of love from my family and friends, I wish everybody lots of sunny days filled with the affection of their beloved ones.
Days where no one has to fear losing the people dear to them or their job due to an unknown virus.
I wish you a pantry like mine, full of food because no one deserves an empty stomach, never.
I hope we will wake up one day with no pandemic going on, with a healthier world for us to enjoy.
Photo by Aman Tyagi on Unsplash
Initially a military communication tool, sky lanterns are today a means to entrust hope messages. According to different countries’ traditions, lanterns are flown for good luck in the coming year or during festivals carrying wishes.
|
https://medium.com/age-of-empathy/stuck-at-home-with-a-pantry-full-of-love-and-food-f2fc35d1c504
|
['Alice Toneatto']
|
2020-12-24 16:42:44.737000+00:00
|
['Reflections', 'Family', 'Life', 'Self', 'Love']
|
An open letter to responsible employers (and the general public) regarding the changes to UK COVID-19 guidance from the 19th of July
|
I apologise in advance for the lengthy letter. This matter is something about which I am exceptionally passionate. I hope you have the time to read it?
My name is Dr Stephen Moss and my background is in the biological and biomedical sciences, though my main focus now is computational and evolutionary genomics. I have a great deal of interest and some experience (across the last ~15 years) in infectious disease epidemiology and global public health, alongside microbiology and infection control. I work part-time as a freelance consultant, in my spare time, with various research institutes and universities, as well as volunteering at my local hospital on weekends in a patient-facing role – in addition to my full-time job working on developing technical solutions to combat climate change. I have been involved with supporting the research (particularly looking at the genomics and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 through time) and working on the front line caring for patients. I have, therefore, seen the impact of this pandemic first hand.
I would like to emphasize that the changes on the 19th of July are an end to mandatory requirements, based on legislation, for current public health measures. These measures are still very necessary, if not more so, especially given the huge increase in positive Delta-variant cases over recent weeks. Just because we can stop doing these things, doesn’t mean we should. We need to be extremely cautious and think of others. I think the government is making the wrong decision here, again, and moving too quickly. We’re only a few months away from being able to achieve success (i.e. a much greater level of vaccine-mediated “herd” immunity) with the vaccination programme, so I can’t understand why this decision is being made in haste.
I think we are going to see a substantial summer wave with many tens of thousands of cases per day and hundreds of daily deaths. With no official measures in place, it is likely to be much larger than the previous two waves in terms of infection and risks the rise of variants of concern that reduce the efficacy of vaccines and protection provided by vaccine-mediated immunity. This is not the time to be stepping back and acting like the pandemic is over. If anything we need to have more resolve and focus more strongly on emphasising the importance of individual responsibility. This is especially important in the workplace, given it is a high-risk environment for transmission due to increased numbers of contacts, closer proximity to others over longer time periods and generally inadequate ventilation.
I work 100% remote (except with my role at the hospital) but shall be continuing with physical distancing, wearing of face coverings, increasing ventilation and more rigorous general personal hygiene measures for some time to come in any higher risk/public settings. In fact, I intend to continue wearing face coverings and engaging in these measures as a matter of course in the face of any infectious disease in the future, including influenza and the common cold, as do our Asian cousins. It is common courtesy and we need to make it part of our culture. It is our moral and ethical duty to ensure that we minimise morbidity and mortality in those that are more vulnerable and understand that our individual actions can have huge ramifications on others.
As with many other responsible employers (Waterstones are a prime example), I would suggest that the corporate guidance remains the same for the foreseeable future. At least until the spring of next year. We have been forced to take on that responsibility from an inept government. This is especially important, given we don’t know who may or may not be more vulnerable and given the risk of morbidity, particularly around Long COVID, in any member of the general population. This is not the time to be acting like things are over, regardless of the irresponsible messaging from the government and the press.
I personally dislike the marketing of this pandemic by the government and the media with the use of words and phrases like “restrictions” and “loss of personal freedoms”. I detest the recent focus on “freedom day”. I think it is likely to stoke the fire and to some extent negate our hard work over these last few months. There are many vulnerable people that are afraid and essentially being forced into exile from everyday society. These “restrictions” should have been proposed as what they are, necessary public health interventions that are required to ensure the good health of as many individuals as possible and something that we should, as caring and compassionate individuals, feel proud to support in reducing the suffering of others. The government should have done much more to support individuals and businesses throughout this time, particularly financially. This is what we get for having ministers interpret the information of scientists from their own biased viewpoints, with an often greater focus on economics. The truth is, a healthy nation is a wealthy nation and investing in public health and pushing towards Zero COVID would have been much better for the country economically.
Then, of course, there is global vaccine equity and the disproportionate suffering of less privileged and poorer individuals, particularly in those people from differing ethnic backgrounds in this country and other nations, but the government has now voted to cut foreign aid — though I digress.
I would recommend that anyone read and watch the following resources to understand why it is so important that we remain steadfast in our resolve against what is a massive threat to global public health.
Mass infection is not an option: we must do more to protect our young https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01589-0/fulltext
Mass infection is not an option: Press conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYTyi2pFXxk
Emergency international summit on UK’s ‘freedom day’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4imfAwdFMQ
Why social solidarity is still needed https://www.independentsage.org/why-social-solidarity-is-still-needed/
“Freedom Day” is on the horizon, and brings with it the risk of mass covid-19 infection https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/07/16/freedom-day-is-on-the-horizon-and-brings-with-it-the-risk-of-mass-covid-19-infection/
Trish Greenhalgh: Freedom Day, but at what cost? https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/07/06/trish-greenhalgh-freedom-day-but-at-what-cost/
General resources promoting the underlying science:
Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies
Independent SAGE https://www.independentsage.org
John Snow Memorandum https://www.johnsnowmemo.com
World Health Organisation https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
I am happy to discuss any of this in more detail with anyone involved in these decisions within businesses in order to give the benefit from my experience, provide input and advice or even do a Q&A discussing any concerns etc. people may have.
I’m as eager as anyone to be able to go about my daily business without needing to worry, as much, about the risk of transmission of disease, which is never going to be zero, especially with our encroachment into the natural habits of disease vectors and natural reservoirs, but I just want us to do it slowly and responsibly, so we don’t risk taking a huge step backwards.
Many thanks for your time.
|
https://medium.com/@gawbul/an-open-letter-to-responsible-employers-and-the-general-public-regarding-the-19th-of-july-9731c056bb66
|
['Steve Moss']
|
2021-07-22 06:05:49.716000+00:00
|
['Open Letter', 'Public Health', 'Covid-19', 'Responsibility', 'Sars Cov2']
|
You Can Help Stop Microfiber Pollution!
|
You Can Help Stop Microfiber Pollution!
Microfiber towells, by pasja1000 on Pixabay
Microfiber gives new meaning to the expression “It all comes out in the wash!”
Did you know that our clothes can be a source of deforestation? On top of that, clothes are a major source of microfiber pollution in our rivers, lakes, oceans and soils. But good news, we don’t need to all become nudists! There are actions we can take to prevent microfiber pollution!
Aside from energy and water use, I didn’t think too much about what happens when I toss my clothes into the washer until recently. Then I heard a Green Dreamer podcast interview with Rachael Miller of the Rozalia Project. You might say it was a watershed moment.
It’s not just dirt and grime that get removed in the wash; our clothes break down too. Thousands of tiny plastic and fiber particles break off and flow out the drain, through the water treatment system, and into our soils, rivers, lakes and oceans. These microparticles can attract and hold onto pollutants, and everything eats them, from plankton to whales. You and I ingest microfibers too when we drink water or beer or eat fish, table salt and many other things.
But short of not dressing or not washing our clothes, what can we do to help stop microfiber pollution? Read on for ways you can take positive action!
11 Tips for choosing and caring for clothes to reduce microfiber pollution:
CHOOSE NATURAL FIBERS WHEN YOU CAN
Polyester, rayon, nylon and acrylic shed plastic fibers that will not biodegrade for millennia. Cotton, hemp, silk and linen can also shed fibers, but at least they’re biodegradable.
2. SLOW DOWN ON FAST FASHION
Cheaply made clothes don’t last. They fall apart fast, wasting money and materials and taking a heavy toll on the planet.
3. WASH CLOTHES ONLY AS OFTEN AS REALLY NEEDED
Although clothes can shed fibers while you’re wearing them, washing them kicks shedding into high gear. Your clothes will last longer and pollute less if you only wash them when they’re really dirty.
4. WAIT TO WASH UNTIL YOU HAVE A FULL LOAD OF LAUNDRY
Filling the washer helps reduce friction between clothes. It’s the friction from clothes rubbing against each other that causes fibers to break off.
5. USE LIQUID DETERGENT OR DISSOLVE POWDERED DETERGENT BEFORE USE
Powdered detergent can be abrasive to clothes, which may be part of the mechanism for removing soils. However, I would not recommend buying detergent in a plastic container. Instead, use laundry pods or dissolve powdered detergent before you add it to the machine.
6. USE A FRONT LOADER
One study found that clothes shed 7x more fibers in top-load washers compared to front loaders.
7. WASH AT LOW TEMPERATURE
Hot water can cause clothes to break down more quickly than cold or warm water.
8. WASH HEAVY & LIGHT CLOTHES SEPARATELY
Mixing heavy & light clothes in the washer leads to more abrasion of the lighter clothes. Minimizing abrasion helps reduce the amount of fibers shed from clothes.
9. CHOOSE SHORTER WASHING CYCLES
Since the problem happens during washing, shortening the wash time reduces the quantity of fibers shed.
10. USE ONE OR MORE OF THE MICROFIBER FILTERS DESCRIBED IN THE COLUMN TO THE RIGHT
These technologies range in price and effectiveness, but all of them help reduce the amount of microfiber that goes down the drain.
11. DISPOSE OF DRYER LINT IN THE TRASH
Don’t wash lint down the drain or sink. It’s also probably not a good idea to put it out with the compost or for the birds, because those microparticles will find their way into the soil or a nearby waterway, where plastic does nobody any good.
[Sources: oceancleanwash.org, plasticpollutioncoalition.org, beachapedia.org]
5 Physical filters you can use when washing clothes:
1. POP YOUR CLOTHES INTO A GUPPYFRIEND WASHING BAG (~$29.75)
Guppyfriend Washing Bags reduce the amount of friction experienced by clothes in the washer, and they reduce microfiber shedding by close to 90%, according to testing done by the Fraunhofer Institute. Microfibers that do get released are trapped inside the bag along the seams. These fibers should be disposed of in the trash, not down a sink. Unlike most other washing bags, the mesh size of the Guppyfriend is tiny (I believe their website says ~15 µm), which is why it’s effective at trapping released fibers.
Guppyfriend Washing Bag
2. TOSS A CORA BALL INTO THE WASHER! (~$30)
Cora Balls were developed by Rachael Miller and the Rozalia Project. They’re made from recycled soft plastic. The coral-shaped ball traps microfibers, which you remove and dispose of in the trash. Cora Balls are supposed to last for years. The same study mentioned above found they remove about 26% of microfibers by count.
Cora Balls
3. IF YOUR WASHER DRAINS INTO A SINK OR UTILITY TUB, TRY A LINT TRAPPER (~$8)
These are made in the USA of “high impact polystyrene” are are supposed to last for years. Simply clean out lint as needed. The Lint Trapper is available at Ace, Home Depot and elsewhere.
Lint Trapper
4. INSTALL A LINT LUV-R Washing Machine Discharge Filter ($140)
This filter gets installed on the discharge line of the washing machine. The kit comes with all parts needed for the install. You clean the stainless-steel filter as needed and dispose of all microfibers in the trash (not down the drain!). The filter is not disposable and the unit has a 5-year warranty. A scientific study found the Lint Luv-R removes 87% of microfibers from washwater.
Lint Luv-R
5. INSTALL A FILTROL 160 LINT FIILTER ($140)
This looks to be similar to the Lint Luv-R. It gets installed on the washer discharge line. One difference is that the Filtrol 160 uses replaceable filter bags. I didn’t write “disposable” because the website says you can clean them a number of times before they wear out. Replacement filters cost about $25 each.
In summary,
Although the problem might seem daunting, we can dramatically reduce the amount we contribute to microfiber pollution by making some small changes. Let’s get in action! Consider buying used, buying natural when possible, and washing smart.
We can help make sure these little ones and other beings don’t face a deadly diet. That sounds like a fashionable idea!
Sea turtle hatchlings. Photo by Skeeze, Pixabay
This article first appeared on the One Earth Body Care blog at www.oneearthbodycare.com.
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https://medium.com/@oneearthbodycare/you-can-help-stop-microfiber-pollution-82af43fc573b
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['Anne Altor']
|
2019-04-04 02:29:48.800000+00:00
|
['Ecology', 'Sustainability', 'Fashion', 'Ocean Conservation', 'Clothing']
|
What is the mark you want to leave on the world?
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Today is Human Rights Day. What a year it has been for us all.
Anyone reading the news will know about the heightened human rights challenges we are facing — ranging from enhanced inequality and vulnerability to entrenched discrimination, and a greater urgency to tackle our climate crisis. Of course, every one of us has faced our own personal challenges this year. 2020 has been a year unlike any other, that has left us, at best, trying to juggle work, family, quarantine, and economic uncertainty or, at worst, losing beloved family members. Beyond the palpable challenges, we have had to face the fear of the unknown, the letting go of what once was, and the grief that goes with that.
On last year’s Human Rights Day, I spoke about the increase in legislation related to business and human rights. This has only intensified this year, with the EU announcing that it will introduce mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation. (You can read more about the ongoing discussions and what the law might include here, here and here.)
This time last year I also spoke about the increase in attacks on individuals — community members, indigenous groups, workers and civil society members — seeking to shine a spotlight on the negative impacts of business. This has only intensified this year — with COVID-19 being used by authorities as a pretext to further silence and crackdown on dissenting voices.
And last but not least, a year ago today, I spoke about the need to see human rights and climate change as inextricably linked. This need has intensified this year, with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) finding that — notwithstanding the many adjustments that have been made to our economies — this year will be one of the three hottest, just behind 2016 and 2019. The WMO finds despite the world coming to a standstill, carbon emissions continued — almost unabated. And the resulting harm on people — from the climate crisis, but also from some of the responses to the climate crisis — continue, also unabated.
On this Human Rights Day, I come to one conclusion: I strongly believe that any of us living today will be judged by posterity.
Just as our predecessors were judged following World War Two in how they responded to the atrocities of the war — leading then to the adoption of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly, which we are celebrating today — we will be judged by how we respond to the climate crisis.
We will be judged by our children, and our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren, on the actions we take today to make the world safer, cleaner and fairer for everyone.
We don’t have the luxury of time. A couple of months ago, a huge ice shelf tore itself apart in northeast Greenland — this summer’s warmth was the final nail in the coffin. Discussions regarding ‘tipping points’ have amplified. This is where a relatively small change in the climate could suddenly trigger an abrupt or irreversible change. In other words, the damage to our planet is not linear: tip over one domino and a whole series of dominoes could follow — with disastrous and irreversible consequences to the planet and all those living on it.
Of course, I recognise the privileged role I can play by virtue of my work as a business and human rights advisor. I have access on a daily basis to decision-makers within organisations, companies and investors with huge impact and potential. I advise on strategies, I influence policies and processes, and I help create culture change. With this privilege comes responsibility, and I take seriously my duty to help educate and empower professionals, and enable creative solutions to tackling the climate crisis in a way that places people at its core.
But we can all play a role — whether as voters, consumers, professionals and parents. We can vote for change, we can reward change, we can push for change and we can educate and inspire. It doesn’t matter how we do it, what matter is that we do. And — to borrow words from anthropologist Margaret Mead — never doubt that your actions, however small, can create change; indeed, it’s the only way that ever has.
Climate activist Al Gore said recently: “it’s a privilege to have work that justifies pouring every ounce of energy you have into it.” I agree. Going further, it’s a privilege to live in a time where our actions, decisions and choices will leave an indelible mark on humanity and the planet for centuries to come. So, on this Human Rights Day, what is the mark you want to leave on the world?
|
https://medium.com/@annatriponel/what-is-the-mark-you-want-to-leave-on-the-world-888351701340
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['Anna Triponel']
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2020-12-10 17:24:24.387000+00:00
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['Human Rights', 'Human Rights Day', 'Climate', 'Business', 'Environment']
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Tidbits: ‘Dual Alleviation’ in Chinese Education
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Grade 10 students at Qingpu Senior High School beaver away on their assignments. Photo by author
Anyone keeping up with recent developments in China has probably come across stories about the ‘dual alleviation’ policy recently introduced by the government.
In this Tidbits article, we’ll take a brief look at the new policy, why it’s being introduced and what it means for the education sector in China.
What is ‘dual alleviation’?
The 双减’政策 , or ‘Dual Alleviation Policy’ (more literally the ‘Double Reduction Policy’), is the title given to the latest wave of reform in the Chinese education sector. It was approved in May of this year.
It aims to achieve two main goals (hence the name):
Reduce the amount of homework that students are burdened with, particularly during the holiday periods. Reduce the amount of extracurricular tuition students receive in the core curricular subjects, such as English, Chinese and Mathematics.
Although the policy has already been approved, some of these changes will not enter effect until the new year. This includes disallowing private training centres to teach the aforementioned subjects.
Why is this policy being introduced now?
There are a number of factors that have influenced this policy. These shall be covered in brief, which means that some details will be skipped.
All work, no play — Chinese students have long been overburdened with homework. Combined with their long school days and extracurricular tuition (which is practically mandatory due to the competitiveness for high school and university placements), students rarely have time for anything other than study.
Population decline — since the introduction of the One-Child Policy, China has experienced lower birth rates, which is leading to a projected population decline before 2050. Although Chinese families have been permitted to have 2 children since 2015, and 3 since May of this year, many are reluctant to do so due to the high cost of supporting just one child. Extracurricular tuition is a major part of this financial burden.
The government thus seeks to encourage families to have more children by curtailing the amount of after-school tuition that parents will pay for.
Socioeconomic advantage — the competitiveness for high school and university placements in China cannot be understated. This is why most children are enrolled for after-school lessons by their parents. Better private tuition is available to those willing, and able, to pay more. Thus, families of a higher social and economic standing are able to essentially buy their children an advantage in schooling.
This issue is a common topic of debate in other countries as well, but it is compounded in China, since social equality is (supposedly) a cornerstone of the Party’s ideology. This policy, and others before it, seek to reduce this gap.
Control over curriculum — the Party has long been attempting to exert control over the material that is taught in private training centres through monitory and imposing restrictions/guidelines upon them.
However, it’s impossible for them to keep track of everything that goes on in these centres. Some of the English teachers are foreigners, and they may well end up discussing topics which are generally regarded as taboo in the mainstream.
By removing the possibility for students to study core subjects outside of the school environment, the Party is able to retain more control and oversight regarding what students are taught.
What are the effects of ‘dual alleviation’?
Firstly, to say that the value of the private education sector in China has ‘plummeted’ would be a gross understatement. Billions of dollars have been put at stake by the introduction of the policy.
Secondly, there’s the impact on people employed by these private education providers. The vast majority of foreigners take on positions with private training centres as English teachers. The new policy means that they will no longer be able to teach outside of public institutions.
As a personal example, a former colleague and good friend of mine from the UK, now in China for over 6 years, has had to give up his job (that he only got at the beginning of this year) and is currently seeking employment with a public school. My former supervisor is likewise looking to change positions, since her company will no longer offer courses in the subjects she specialises in.
If this doesn’t seem like a big deal, it most definitely is. Private tuition in China was a lucrative earner for foreigners and provided very reliable and stable employment (since you were always in demand). The public education sector, although offering some benefits, is largely a downgrade to lower pay and more restrictions on teaching style and curriculum.
Finally, the positive side: students will, hopefully, no longer be expected to spend so much of their time studying! Finally, they can be granted that much-needed time to hang out with friends, engage in other activities and develop hobbies, all of which had been greatly restricted by the burden of schoolwork.
Closing thoughts
How effective the measures of the Dual Alleviation Policy will be in reducing the pressure on students remains to be seen. The Ministry of Education has been attempting to alleviate pressure on school students for quite some time, but this is the most major effort so far.
The changes to the private education sector are concerning when it comes to employment for foreigners and Chinese tutors alike. Sure, there will be places in public institutions that they can apply for and continue with their careers there, but as mention, it means lower earnings and more restrictions on the teaching.
However, if the policy can indeed affect some positive change for students, that would be undeniably helpful. Chinese students really are due a break, and the time for them to be given opportunities for personal development and enjoyment outside of the classroom has long been overdue.
How do you feel about this? Are there any points that I missed here regarding the reasons for and effects of the Dual Alleviation Policy? Feel free to let me know!
|
https://medium.com/@jcaryl1/tidbits-dual-alleviation-in-chinese-education-a1325feb512f
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['James Caryl']
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2021-11-29 14:02:51.223000+00:00
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['Current Events', 'Chinese', 'Education', 'China']
|
Democracy and the Challenge of Affordability: London’s ‘Squeezed Middle’
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Edited by Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor Quinton Mayne, this is the first of three interviews extending a previous eight-part series focused on affordable housing as a challenge to the health of democracy in cities and major urban areas.
For these new posts, we asked Harvard Graduate School of Design doctoral candidate Adam Tanaka to explore the ways in which housing shortages in the expensive global cities of London, Paris, and New York are leading to a redefinition of affordability, both for low- and middle-income residents. All three cities are experiencing population and productivity growth, coupled with increasing income inequality, contributing to a pressure-cooker housing market in which supply is falling far short of demand. As a result, public authorities are finding new ways to partner with private developers to try and meet demand for below-market housing. To learn more about the political and policy implications of these new partnerships, Tanaka sat down with three private developers, each of which is playing an important and telling role in the delivery and management of affordable housing in London, Paris, and New York.
For his first interview, Tanaka travelled to London to learn more about the politics of delivering affordable housing. He met with Russ Edwards of Pocket, a development firm that is pioneering a new model of micro-unit, moderate-income housing. Their discussion ranged from the new architectural and financial approaches needed to drive innovation in affordable housing, to the complicated politics of who benefits — and who loses — from affordable housing policies.
By Adam Tanaka
Like its counterparts across the Atlantic and the Channel, London is facing a severe housing shortage. Boris Johnson, the city’s mayor, set a target of building 42,000 new homes a year to keep pace with demand, but in 2014, the city’s housing stock grew by only 18,000. As a result of many years of failing to meet demand, housing costs have risen dramatically in both the rental and for-sale sectors. Between the second quarter of 2013 and the second quarter of 2014 alone, average home prices rose by over 25%. At the end of last year, the average price of a London home was £465,000–14 times the annual income of the average Londoner.[1]
What is contributing to this increasing disconnect between supply and demand? Some of the shortfall is due to internal shifts within the private housing industry, such as corporate mergers and land-banking strategies that have kept new housing offline as volume home builders wait in anticipation of ever higher per-unit profits.[2] Some of it is due to the London mayor’s relatively limited resources and powers to shape city-wide policy.[3]
But the most dramatic change is the UK central government’s increasing inability — or unwillingness — to build or fund new social housing. In the post-war period, the vast majority of social for-rent (low-income) and intermediate (middle-income) housing was built by local authorities with central government grants. Across the United Kingdom, these local councils were responsible for 50% of new homes completed between 1960 and 1980.[4] In London, this massive public intervention led to a checkerboard pattern of public and private housing investment, much of it linked to the redevelopment of areas bombed during the Second World War.
During the Thatcher years, social housing policy underwent a massive transformation in intent and extent. The adoption of the Right to Buy program, which allowed council tenants to buy their homes at discounted prices, cut into the overall supply of social for-rent housing while also contributing to the “gentrification” of numerous council estates.
Graph courtesy of the Architects’ Journal.
Today, the private sector dominates new development of affordable housing, and local authorities have transferred much of the ownership and management of the existing social housing stock to quasi-private housing associations that operate under fewer legal restrictions, particularly in terms of financing. In central London, local authorities are exploring new ways of leveraging their most valuable remaining assets — their land — to generate new sources of public revenue. This has led to a number of controversial redevelopment schemes, perhaps the most notorious of which is the so-called “regeneration” of the iconic Heygate and Aylesbury Estates in the borough of Southwark. In partnership with Lend Lease, a private developer, the Southwark council is demolishing several of London’s largest housing estates in a move that has been branded “social cleansing” by its critics, particularly as the number of new social for-rent units will be well below the former tally. Meanwhile, the ongoing conversion of social for-rent units into privately-owned properties through the Thatcher-era Right to Buy policy continues to erode the overall supply of affordable rental housing.
Image of Heygate Estate demolition (source).
This picture is complicated by the growing popularity of “affordable housing” as a policy alternative to “social housing.” Where “social rents” are typically capped at 50% of private market rents (and often even lower than that in parts of central London), “affordable rents” — a new benchmark introduced by the UK’s central government in 2010 — typically hover around 80% of comparable private rents. Local councils and housing associations are now required to build to the paradoxically less affordable “affordable rents” in order to qualify for housing grants, and are encouraged to convert social for-rent units to affordable units when they become empty and available for re-let.[5] In 2013, even Westminster council — which, like the Mayor and the Prime Minister, is Conservative — warned that these new rent levels would be out of reach to most of its low-income tenants. Affordable rents would require a three-bedroom household to earn £109,000 a year, while the council estimated that half of its social for-rent households had an annual income of less than £12,000.[6]
To learn more about the ever-changing landscape of social — and affordable — housing in London, the Ash Center spoke to Russ Edwards of Pocket, a private-sector developer pioneering a new model of micro-unit, moderate-income housing. Pocket builds for the “squeezed middle,” a demographic of late-20s and early-30s Londoners who in prior decades would have been known as the “first-time buyer” market, but who today struggle to afford down-payments on the city’s increasingly expensive homes. In the context of London’s inflated property market, Pocket is expanding the definition of who deserves and benefits from below-market housing. Pocket does not build traditional “social housing” for low-income renters, but rather a new form of owner-occupied affordable housing catering to young professionals, including nurses, journalists, teachers and web developers. Pocket describes this constituency as the “city makers,” young professionals “who contribute so much economically, socially and culturally to our city, yet are unable to buy their first home.” Our conversation with Edwards reveals the sheer range of strategies — physical, financial, and above all political — needed to tackle the housing crisis in London.
Adam Tanaka: Can you describe the most common model for affordable housing development in London at the moment?
Russ Edwards: The typical model for providing affordable homes in the UK is that a Registered Social Landlord (RSL) would act as developer. They would typically provide a stand-alone development providing affordable for-rent homes, often cross-subsidized by intermediate tenure or shared ownership homes, which are intended for middle-income brackets. [Note: Shared ownership schemes allow tenants to own a share of their home, between one and three quarters of total value, and pay rent on the remaining share.]
Often this combined development of social for-rent and intermediate homes is included in a much larger development that includes market homes. Government policy in London is that when a developer wants to bring forward a site, a certain percentage of homes have to be affordable, and that percentage is negotiable in a portion of the planning permission known as Section 106. Policy targets for provision of affordable housing within a mixed tenure scheme might be as high as 40%, however the typical provision is about 20–25% of homes, which is then negotiable in terms of whether it’s homes by unit number, by habitable rooms, or by square feet.
All of this is subject to a viability assessment, which has become a hot discussion point in the UK. A viability assessment is a financial appraisal of the development that demonstrates the maximum affordable provision that a developer can provide. There’s a lot of controversy around this process, because the format is open to “tactics,” let’s say. You can effectively use it to demonstrate reduced profitability and therefore lower your affordability provision, and there’s a suggestion that this is happening quite commonly. Nevertheless, it’s really the only way that affordable housing is being provided now in the UK, because the Conservative government has withdrawn the grant funding that used to subsidize social for-rent housing.
What does Pocket bring to the table that is different from the work of other private developers of affordable housing?
Pocket is currently the only private-sector developer in London doing entirely affordable homes. We take small- and medium-sized sites, typically 20–40 units, and we build only intermediate homes on those sites, and only one-bed apartments. That counters policy on two major fronts. One, all housing policy requires a mix of tenures above a certain number of units (typically, ten). Policy also requires a mix of housing types (one, two, and three-bedrooms). We tell local authorities that we are going to give them a mono-tenure, mono-type apartment block, but we’re going to deliver 100% affordable homes on that site, as opposed to 25%. In the bigger picture, that’s quite a compelling offer to local authorities, particularly in the context of housing targets which they’re typically failing to meet.
Our units are all one bed, they’re 38 square meters, which puts them on the absolute lowest end of the space standards. Our homes qualify as affordable by three mechanisms. One, you have to earn below an income threshold set by the London mayor. You have to live or work in the borough in which we’re developing. And it has to be your only home, you can’t be a buy-to-let investor or an owner of another property. Two, we’re typically providing homes at a minimum of 20% discount to market, and often up to 40%. Thirdly, we are also offering homes that are affordable in perpetuity. The price is considerably discounted to the market upon resale.
Russ Edwards points out the location of the next wave of Pocket housing developments (photo credit: Adam Tanaka).
What sorts of public assistance does Pocket rely on to make its homes affordable to individuals of modest income?
We’ve benefited from a very large equity loan from the Greater London Authority — and that’s an investment in the business, rather than project-based financing. About five years ago, Mayor Boris Johnson gained control of the Houses and Communities Association budget for London. Historically, that was the allocation of grant funding for social for-rent housing. Since then, Johnson has launched a number of Housing Covenants as ways of assisting supply of affordable housing in the city. We’ve benefited from about £23 million worth of funding from that. It’s a ten-year, interest-free loan, so at the end of 10 years we hand back £23 million. So it’s not grant funding, it’s a commercial investment. But during that ten years, all the interest on the investment and all our profits on that investment are continually reinvested in the pot. So the pot grows, like a sort of revolving loan fund. It could equate to up to £600 million worth of investment over the cycle. The expectation is that over the 10-year cycle we’ll deliver about 4,000 homes.
Has the mayor given explicit support to Pocket developments, enabling you to over-ride borough-level planning powers?
Well, the fact that the funding has come from the mayor has arguably given us some advantages in terms of negotiations with individual local authorities. Though all of our schemes to date have been determined by the local borough with no intervention from the Mayor; there’s no explicit directive from the GLA that the boroughs must sell their land to us, but it has an obvious influence. If there is skepticism around the model, whether it serves the needs of the borough, we can then rely on GLA support in our lobbying of local authorities.
Can you describe the nature of your resident demographic in a bit more detail?
We’re building for a very specific audience. While social for-rent covers the whole demographic spectrum, we are very much targeting middle-income, first-time buyers. Typical income is about £39,000 per annum, which is still significant, and higher than the average London income. These are people who are ineligible for social for-rent housing, and indeed they often find buying one of our apartments cost-neutral or even more affordable than the private rental sector in a similar area.
They tend to be between late-20s and late-30s, higher educated, more female than male, 80% singles, 20% buying as a couple. They are generally a similar bunch of people. Our research suggests there’s about a million and a half of that demographic in London. Currently only about 180,000 — or 12% — of that population can afford to get on the property ladder, based on typical incomes and typical property prices in London.
Our research suggests that our model could price in another 180,000 people on top of that, thus doubling the potential ownership for that demographic. That’s not going to solve the housing crisis by any stretch, but we think we’re one of what needs to be a whole range of solutions that starts unlocking supply in London.
Learn more about Pocket.
How do you think this group of Londoners has made its needs heard, politically? How would you compare the political organization of this group to other groups of Londoners who are being negatively impacted by high housing costs?
I don’t think this group has made itself heard. The market that I’ve described is traditionally unengaged in politics. They don’t vote, and as a consequence politicians don’t value their housing needs particularly highly. It was only in the most recent General Election that this demographic started to come through in the political debate for the first time. And I don’t think it was the demographic itself that caused that — I think it’s the parents of this demographic, who are really struggling, having to massively subsidize their children’s lifestyle because of the lack of affordable housing. And their parents are voters, and very important voters at that. This apolitical stance is really striking, and it’s one of my common complaints in public speaking events: the market we serve is just not that vocal. If you compare this group to other high-profile media groups complaining about the housing crisis, other groups are far more engaged, far more vocal, far more militant. For example, residents of the Aylesbury Estate, which is currently being redeveloped, have generated a huge amount of publicity and have actually made the architectural profession sit up and think hard about their ethical obligations.
What do you think is driving that difference in political activity regarding housing costs?
Well, you fight a lot harder at the prospect of losing something. If you haven’t had it, it’s a lot more difficult to get engaged about it. There’s a degree of resignation among the historic first-time buyer demographic in London that the gap is too far, the leap to ownership is so large that it’s an abstract equation. So this group is already resigned to renting.
Given the lack of political organization within that demographic, what motivated Pocket to step in? Purely the feeling of an “untapped” market niche, or something more?
One of our founders’ daughters was in exactly the position that I described earlier. Our other founder has a background with the Peabody Trust, the UK’s largest private, affordable landlord. They had undertaken some research around this market and what it might take to increase ownership options, away from shared ownership. When they came together, Pocket was born. Beyond the parental concerns, it was about recognizing that this need had become particularly acute. There had been a lot of rhetoric about “the squeezed middle” in the last couple of General Elections, but very little being done in terms of homeownership. And arguably, recent government policy has all been about stimulating demand, not supply, which is arguably making things worse. So we wanted to look at the supply side of it. The industry knows how much brownfield land there is in London and how the return on this middle-income model could be quite significant.
Has there been any NIMBY (“Not In My Backyard”) neighborhood resistance to Pocket developments?
In London, decision-making power really rests with the local borough. If a borough doesn’t want us, we can’t overcome that. That said, NIMBYism isn’t really a problem for us. There’s always some resistance to change. But then we go into local authority estates and explain that these homes are not for bankers, they’re for your sons and daughters and prioritized for people who live and work in the borough. You have to earn below the mayor’s threshold to qualify. Then it switches and people are suddenly very supportive.
You’ve described Pocket’s approach of targeting middle-income, first-time buyers as “one approach among many” to solving the housing crisis in London. What other strategies do you think need to be adopted to help close the “housing gap” and make life in London less of a cost burden?
The real issue with London is that there is no innovation in terms of how we address the housing shortage. Everyone is just regurgitating numbers about what happened when we last built the number of homes that we needed to keep up with demand. At that point, at the end of World War Two, the country had a completely different economic structure. The overwhelming majority of construction was being undertaken by small and medium-sized developers. Now all the power in house-building resides with two or three developers. Back then, we would have been a big boy. But now 250 units a year is absolutely nothing. The landscape is very different. Back then, local authorities were building a massive amount. That’s just not going to happen anymore. So there needs to be a rethink in how we unlock supply. It has to be design; it has to be politics; it has to be economics. Pocket is one of those ideas, but it’s only one. We need far more lateral ways of thinking about housing, whether it’s about supply or unlocking particular sites, like TFL’s [Transport for London] huge swathes of land. TFL are going to launch feasibility work on 300 or 400 sites in their ownership. They’re looking to joint venture.
Lending is also a massive barrier to innovation. Mortgage lenders are incredibly conservative. We only have four lenders that will work with us. No lender wants to provide more than 25% of the development cost anyway, so literally we are on that tightrope at the moment. We’ve been talking about things like whether we might offer a shell and core apartment to bring the cost right down. 40% of the build cost is in the fit-out, so give that choice to the buyers, much like the generation used to buy a wreck and renovate it while living in it. But we can’t offer that because mortgage lenders won’t lend against it. So people can only buy a white magnolia box with furniture from Ikea; everything Fight Club was railing against is the only offer available!
Everybody needs to become a bit more flexible and think a bit more laterally. Policy needs to unlock a lot of that thinking. Central government needs to play an active role in forcing these industries to meaningfully address what’s going on. I heard recently that building societies, which were founded to financially enable homebuilding, are now treating new residential development as a part of Corporate Social Responsibility. To me it’s shocking that we have to rely on CSR to unlock new housing supply. The government should be more proactive in trying to encourage, if not force some of these institutions to deliver.
Adam Tanaka is a Ph.D. student in urban planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Meyer Fellow at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. His research focuses on housing policy and development in the contemporary United States, drawing from the fields of political science, law, urban planning, and real estate to develop methods for understanding and improving urban housing provision.
Notes
[1] Andrew Adonis, “Introduction,” in City Villages: More Homes, Better Communities, ed. Andrew Adonis and Bill Davies (Institute for Public Policy Research, 2015), 5.
[2] James Pallister, “The Housing Crisis: How Did We Get Here?” The Architect’s Journal, Vol. 241, Double Issue 24–25 (June-July 2015): 11.
[3] Ben Derbyshire, “Building Greater London: An End to the Capital’s Crisis of Affordability,” The London Society, Paper Number 2 (2015): 2.
[4] Adonis, 6.
[5] John Bibby, “Does Affordable Rent really mean the end of social housing?” Shelter Blog, 17 December 2014, accessed 31 August 2015.
[6] Colin Wiles, “Affordable housing does not mean what you think it means,” The Guardian Housing Network, 3 February 2014, accessed 31 August 2015.
|
https://medium.com/challenges-to-democracy/democracy-and-the-challenge-of-affordability-londons-squeezed-middle-32db64cad5d2
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['Harvard Ash Center']
|
2018-07-24 13:39:21.795000+00:00
|
['Health', 'Housing', 'London', 'Challenge']
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REPORTE MENSUAL— Agosto 2018
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Bringing financial inclusion to Latin America by accelerating the digital adoption of blockchain technology.
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https://medium.com/alteum-espa%C3%B1ol/reporte-mensual-agosto-2018-bff6a9c65a85
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[]
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2018-08-31 17:34:38.210000+00:00
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['Fintech', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Ethereum', 'Latin America', 'Bitcoin']
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South China Sea: US announces $280million Taiwan arms sale amid‘daily military threats’
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TAIWAN’s president said the country faces daily military threats from “authoritarian forces” as the US announced its latest $280 million arms sale to the island nation.
President Tsai Ing-wen told a security forum in Taipei the South China Sea has become “increasingly militarised”. The Trump administration has provided 11 arms sale packages in total, the most recent being a Field Information Communications System (FICS).
In a statement on Monday, the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency said the sale is “designed to provide mobile and secure communications” and help Taiwan “modernize its military communication’s capability”.
President Tsai, as reported by Reuters, said: “Authoritarian forces consistently attempt to violate the existing norms-based order.
“Taiwan has been at the receiving end of such military threats on a daily basis.”
The US has agreed around $5billion dollars in arms sales to Taiwan in 2020, repeatedly angering China.
In October, the US approved a $1.8bn (£1.3bn) weapons sale to Taiwan, including rocket launchers, sensors and artillery.
China and Taiwan were divided in the 1940s during a civil war.
Taiwan is claimed by China and Beijing refuses to rule out the use of force to take back the island.
On Tuesday, Cha’s foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a daily briefing: “China will take legitimate and necessary reactions to firmly safeguard national sovereignty and security interests.
“China urges the United States to stay committed to the one-China principle and the three China-U.S. joint communiqués, stop arms sales to and military contacts with the Taiwan region, and immediately cancel its arms sale plans to avoid further damaging China-U.S. relations and cross-Strait peace and stability.”
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Kurt Campbell, a former US diplomat for East Asia under former President Barack Obama, also spoke at the Indo-Pacific forum in Taipei.
He said: “There is a broad group of people across the political aisle that understand the profound strategic significance and our strategic interests in maintaining a strong relationship with Taiwan.”
Taiwan has also started building eight new combat submarines, due to enter service in late-2024.
President Tsai said: “We’re more determined than ever to continue developing our self-defense industries & safeguard our
http://design.uky.edu/kxl/F-h-v-j-01.html
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http://design.uky.edu/kxl/video-hakaluki-v-Nygt-FNv-Tv02.html
Ms Hua made China’s stance on Taiwan clear, adding that it “is not a country”.
She said: “Taiwan authorities now thank the U.S. side for selling it arms and strengthening military ties.
“I hope they will first of all figure it out whether the U.S. side is helping them or hurting them?”
http://design.uky.edu/kxl/fns-v-festvl-6.html
http://design.uky.edu/kxl/fns-v-festvl-5.html
http://design.uky.edu/kxl/fns-v-festvl-4.html
http://design.uky.edu/kxl/fns-v-festvl-3.html
http://design.uky.edu/kxl/fns-v-festvl-2.html
http://design.uky.edu/kxl/fns-v-festvl-1.html
China’s has been angered further in recent months by US officials visiting the island.
Navy Rear Admiral Michael Studeman, the top military intelligence official at US Indo-Pacific command, is said to have visited last month.
Keith Krach, senior US official figure for economic growth, energy and the environment, visited Taiwan in September, as did US health secretary Alex Azar in August.
Robert O’Brien, the US national security adviser, said last month: “I can’t imagine anything that will cause a greater backlash against China from the entire world if they attempted to use military force to coerce Taiwan.”
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https://medium.com/@kamolkumar144podmo/south-china-sea-us-announces-280million-taiwan-arms-sale-amid-daily-military-threats-3d039d995723
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[]
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2020-12-09 08:34:35.162000+00:00
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['Water', 'Military', 'Food', 'Moon', 'Sea']
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2014, Chronicle of Truth
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2014, Chronicle of Truth
The following article was written by Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, and originally published in Spanish on December 11th, 2014 in La Jornada, Mexico City’s leading daily newspaper, considered by many scholars as one of the last remaining independent newspapers in the Americas.
2014 has been one of the most prolific years in terms of advances and achievements made by the National Miners Union, which I am honored to lead. The conditions faced by this great mining trade union, and I as its leader, over the previous nine years of hard work and effort have undergone appreciable change over these past twelve months, albeit change that is not yet definitive and complete. Notably, the sick persecution that we’ve been subjected to has started to subside since the current Mexican government came to power, and this has been the standout change of recent months.
Two events in 2014 stood out above others. The good level of communication established with mining, steel and metalwork companies, the great majority of which maintain positive working relations with the National Miners Union, has been strengthened, and the notion that the right path to follow is one of respect for the interests and rights of workers gained further ground. In return, trade unionists also began to take a more objective view of the problems currently faced by such companies.
On November 7th of this year the third Annual Meeting between the National Miners Union and over 40 companies took place in the city of Vancouver, Canada, which reinforced in every sense what we have jointly come to dub ‘the spirit of Vancouver’. This spirit is based on mutual respect between companies and the union, enabling us to tackle the challenges of productivity, create decent jobs and ensure the greatest efficiency for both parties in the production process, in recognition of the dignity of workers.
This event made it clear to the whole nation and to the government that rather than confrontation, the Miners Union is looking to promote amicable collaboration between both parties, while always taking into account the work and freedom of employees. It was yet another call to the government to move beyond the mining dispute once and for all, a dispute which is based on the unlawful and perverse political, judicial and industrial persecution that we miners have endured over recent years, with dignity and a constructive attitude. This very attitude is behind the fact that the annual increases in revenue from our sector are the highest in the country at 14% overall, compared to other working sectors, where growth is stunted at between 3.5 and 4%.
This allows current members of the government to see that those who are supporting progress in this country are also the ones practicing what I have called 21st century free trade unionism. The message is clear: public authorities should act in a reciprocal way by bringing an end to the mining dispute, which is the reason for my voluntary exile in Canada and which affects working relations and prevents us from properly coordinating efforts between the organised working classes, the government and private companies, and by putting in place the conditions required to bring our life as a trade union back to normal, allowing us to set progressive development targets.
Added to this far from small matter in 2014 was the fact that our legal defence team succeeded in getting the false and unconstitutional charges against me completely revoked in a court of law. These charges had been the foundation of an aggressive campaign waged by several companies, complicit with the PAN (National Action Party) governments of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, in complete breach of the rule of law and a number of existing laws, including the Constitution of the United Mexican States, as well as the 87th Convention of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), since the accusations have now been proven to be fallacious and defamatory.
Added to these key moments in 2014 were the unlawful obstacles put in place by the Mexican government, intended to bring about my extradition. Not only did the Canadian authorities have no truck with the bungled claims behind the extradition, they initially granted me permanent residency, followed this year by Canadian nationality, which in practice rendered those baseless attempts at extradition null and void. This was accompanied by the canceling of the Interpol red notice, which was finally withdrawn by the international police organization this year once and for all, after it was concluded to have been based on an unlawful campaign of political persecution against me.
The first steps were taken on the road to dismissing these false and fictional charges when various foreign governments refused to accept or recognize Mexico’s absurd campaign to criminalize my struggle as the free and democratic trade union leader, elected by national mining and steel workers. It was this that allowed me to attend the meeting of the worldwide National Executive Committee of the IndustriALL Global Union in December 2013, which was held in Geneva, Switzerland. This week, from 8th — 10th December 2014 I was also able to take an active role in the International Executive Council Conference of the United Steelworkers union, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
I spent over two years writing my book The Collapse of Dignity, in which I tell the story of my personal struggle and that of the miners against this unjust political persecution, and I also present my vision and hope for a better future for the working classes, its organizations, and society. With the book’s publication in English in 2013, followed by Spanish in 2014 and finally in French, I’ve been able to give my account of the truth of these events, which has led it being named a bestseller by both the New York Times and USA Today.
The publication of The Collapse of Dignity in these three languages has undoubtedly had a part to play in the easing — albeit insufficient — of the savage persecution against me, which was first unleashed in 2006 after I described the Pasta de Conchos tragedy as industrial homicide, whereby Grupo México left 65 miners who could have been saved to die. The same company exhibited similar negligence in 2014 with the spillage of 400 million litres of toxic residues into the waters of the rivers of Sonora, evidence that Mr. Larrea has learnt precious little from his own failings and mistakes.
Throughout the year the unconditional global solidarity has been steady and has indeed intensified, expressed by 200 million workers across the planet through the most powerful international trade unions. Added to this, in June 2014 I received the prestigious Arthur Svensson Prize from the most important organisations in Norway for fighting to promote trade union rights, which complemented the Meany-Kirkland Prize awarded to me by the American Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO) in November 2011, in recognition of the struggle for human rights and social justice. Then in May 2014, the Independent Publisher Book Awards in New York gave me a Gold Medal for the profound subject of the true story told in my book.
In Mexico, in September of this year, I was also given the Sentimientos de la Nación prize (Sentiments of the Nation) by the Popular Assembly of the People of Guerrero (APPG, by its initials in Spanish), for my struggle to defend the social rights of Mexicans. In November, on Thursday 27th, I received the great recognition of the Emilio Krieger medal which is awarded to those fighting for social justice by the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (ANAD, by its initials in Spanish).
All these events underline the importance that 2014 has had for me personally, and for the National Miners Union as a whole. A year of advances and successes, accompanied by the fact that various mining workers groups have openly and publicly stated their intention to join our trade union, and that others have refused to leave our ranks, despite the attempts of certain companies, or even obsolete social organizations, to crush the struggle and freedom of association of genuine workers.
This month, as we do every year, we’ll be holding general assembly meetings with our colleagues from the various sections of the National Miners Union. The content of this message will help to strengthen and consolidate the fight for the democracy and freedom that historically set us miners apart.
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https://medium.com/@NapoleonGomez/2014-chronicle-of-truth-a3a3762d1d3e
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['Napoleon Gomez']
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2016-02-22 20:21:01.262000+00:00
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['Mexico']
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5 Powerful Hidden Facebook Page Features for Marketers
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Do you manage a Facebook page for your business?
Interested in ways to improve your marketing?
In addition to the Facebook features you use for business every day, there are some handy ones you may have overlooked. In this article you’ll discover five lesser known Facebook Page features for marketers.
Discover five Facebook features page admins need to know about.
#1: Free Images for Ads
When creating a Facebook ad, you can choose from a searchable database of thousands of free stock images from within the Facebook image library. This takes an extra step out of the ad creation process.
You can create Facebook ads quickly by choosing photos from the image library.
This image library is powered by Shutterstock, but there’s one important caveat: Not all of the images meet Facebook’s advertising guidelines. For this reason, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the guidelines and choose your images carefully. You don’t want your ads getting rejected over some minor technicality, like the 20% text rule on ad images.
#2: Ad Relevance Scores
The ad relevance score is basically Facebook’s answer to Google’s quality score for AdWords. The relevance score guides how often your Facebook ad will be displayed and how much you’ll pay for each ad engagement.
Facebook considers a lot of different factors when calculating your relevance score, including positive and negative feedback via video views, clicks, comments, likes and other ad interactions. If people report your ad or tell Facebook they don’t want to see it anymore, those actions count against you.
This score measures how relevant your ad is to your target audience.
Keeping an eye on your ad relevance score can help you determine if your ad needs work. Oddly enough, this setting is unchecked by default.
To enable ad relevance scoring, open the ad or ad set in your Ads Manager and navigate to Customize Columns. From the list of available columns, find and select the Relevance Score check box.
Enabling this option adds a Relevance Score column to your ads reports so you can keep an eye on this metric.
#3: Email Contact Import
A great way to grow your audience is to invite the people in your email address book to like your Facebook business page.
To do that, go to your Facebook business page, click on the ellipsis (…) button (next to the Share button on your cover image) and then select Invite Email Contacts from the drop-down menu.
To build your audience for your Facebook page, invite your email contacts to like your page.
Next, you see a pop-up box that lists all of the different integration options you can use to import your contacts. Identify the contact list you want to import and click the Invite Contacts link to the right.
After you upload your list, a dialog box appears where you can select which contacts to invite. You have the option to select individual contacts or the group as a whole.
After you select your contacts, click Preview Invitation. On the next page,review the invitation, select the check box that you’re authorized to send invitations and click Send.
There are a couple of points to keep in mind when sending invitations. You can upload up to 5,000 contacts per day, so if you have large customer or subscriber lists, you’ll have to send invitations in batches. Remember, your page may already be suggested to your contacts who use Facebook, so you can decide whether to email them as well. If you’re already showing up in their recommended pages, it’s just free advertising for you.
#4: Facebook Post Scheduling
The ability to schedule Facebook posts is pretty handy, especially if you’re using promoted posts.
The good news is that you don’t need Hootsuite or Buffer to do it. You canschedule future posts right in Facebook. You can even backdate posts so that they appear earlier in your timeline.
To access this feature, go the Publishing Tools tab, select Scheduled Postsand click the Create button.
Compose your post and then select Schedule from the Publish drop-down menu.
Select the date and time to schedule your post. When you’re finished,click Schedule.
Scheduling posts can be especially useful for larger teams where you have different people creating and uploading Facebook content and targeting and launching your social PPC campaigns.
#5: Pages to Watch Metrics
At the very bottom of your Facebook Insights page, you’ll find a Pages to Watcharea where you can track other pages, such as your partners, competitors and friends. You can see metrics for the likes, posts and engagement on these pages.
For example, the Pages to Watch metrics below reveals that HubSpot page likes are currently at 813,200, up 40.6% over the previous week. Also, there were five posts to the page, engaging 158 people.
Looking at these metrics is an easy way to track your competitors’ fan growth and look at their engagement numbers. This information can also give you a sense of how many times to post per week.
In a nutshell, you can see how your social media marketing efforts stack up against others using real benchmarks (their actual performance).
Conclusion
Facebook is constantly being redesigned and refreshed, so it can be hard to keep up with all of the options available to you. The five hidden Facebook features covered in this article are somewhat buried in the Ads Manager and Publishing Tools, so you probably wouldn’t stumble upon them. But they can be valuable tools for your Facebook marketing.
About The Author
Larry Kim is the CEO of Mobile Monkey and founder of WordStream. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
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https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/5-powerful-hidden-facebook-page-features-for-marketers-c54f456a2e92
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['Larry Kim']
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2017-04-30 16:26:46.328000+00:00
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['Social Media', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Advertising', 'Marketing', 'Facebook']
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Batch normalization in 3 levels of understanding
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C.3) Why does Batch Normalization work ?
In most cases, Batch Normalization improves the performances of deep learning models. That’s great. But we want to know what’s actually happening inside the black box.
This is where things get a bit hairy.
The problem is : we don’t exactly know what makes Batch Normalization work so well yet. A few hypotheses are often discussed within the DL community: we will explore them step by step.
Before diving into the discussion, here are what we’ll see :
The original paper [1] assumes that BN effectiveness is due to the reduction of what they call the internal covariate shift (ICS). A recent paper [2] refutes this hypothesis. (see C.3.1)
of what they call the (ICS). A recent paper [2] refutes this hypothesis. (see C.3.1) Another hypothesis had replaced the first one with much more caution : BN mitigates the interdependency between layers during training . (see C.3.2)
. (see C.3.2) A recent paper from the MIT [2] stresses the impact of BN on the optimization landscape smoothness, making the training easier. (see C.3.3)
I bet that exploring those hypotheses will help you to build a strong intuition about Batch Normalization.
Let’s go !
C.3.1) Hypothesis n°1 — BN reduces the internal covariance shift (ICS)
Despite its fundamental impact on DNN performances, Batch Normalization is still subject to misunderstanding.
Confusions about BN are mostly due to a wrong hypothesis supported by the original article [1].
Sergey Ioffe & Christian Szegedy introduced BN as follow :
“We refer to the change in the distributions of internal nodes of a deep network, in the course of training, as Internal Covariate Shift. […] We propose a new mechanism, which we call Batch Normalization, that takes a step towards reducing internal covariate shift, and in doing so dramatically accelerates the training of deep neural nets.” — Sergey Ioffe & Christian Szegedy (source : [1])
In other words, BN is efficient because it - partially - tackles the internal Covariate Shift issue.
This statement has been severely challenged by later works [2].
Notation : From now, ICS refers to internal Covariate Shift.
To understand what causes such a confusion, let’s begin by discussing what covariate shift is, and how is it impacted by normalization.
What is covariate shift (distributional stability perspective) ?
[1]’s authors defined it clearly : covariate shift - in the distributional stability prospective - describes the shifting of a model input distribution. By extension, the internal covariate shift describes this phenomenon when it happens in the hidden layers of a deep neural network.
Let’s see why it could be an issue through an example.
Let’s assume we want to train a classifier which could answers the following question : Does this image contain a car ? If we wanted to extract all the car images from a very large unlabeled dataset, such a model would save us a huge amount of time.
We would have an RGB image as input, some convolutional layers, followed by fully connected layers. The output should be a single value, fed into a logistic function to make the final value lies between 0 and 1 - describing the probability for the input image to contain a car.
Diagram 5 : A simple CNN classifier. | Credit : author - Design : Lou HD
To train such a model, we would need a significant amount of labeled images.
Now, assuming we only have “common” cars for training. How would the model react if we ask it to classify a formula 1 car ?
As stated before, the covariate shift can make the network activations diverge (section C.2.4). Even if it doesn’t, it would deteriorate overall performances ! | Credit : Dhiva Krishna (left) and Ferhat Deniz Fors (right) on Unsplash
In this example, there is a shift between the training and testing distribution. More broadly, a different car orientation, lightning, or whether condition would be enough to impact our model performances. Here, our model does not generalize well.
If we had plot the extracted features in the features space, we would have something like this :
Diagram 6.a : Why do we need to normalize the model input value ? Case without normalization. During training, input values are scattered : the approximated function will be very accurate where there’s a high density of points. On the contrary, it will be inaccurate and submitted to randomness where the density of points is low. (For example, the approximated curve could be one of the 3 lines drawn.) | Credit : author - Design : Lou HD
Let’s assume the crosses describe features associated to images which do not contain any car, while rings describe images containing a car. Here, a single function could split the two ensembles. But the function is likely to be less accurate on the top-right part of the diagram : there are not enough points to determine a good function. This might lead the classifier to do many errors during evaluation.
To efficiently train our model, we would require many car images, in any possible context we could imagine. Even if this is still how we train our CNN nowadays, we want to make sure our model will generalize well using as few examples as possible.
The problem could be summarized as follow :
From the model point-of-view, training images are - statistically - too different from testing images.
There is a covariate shift.
We can face this issue using simpler models. It is well known that linear regression models are easier to optimize when the input values are normalized (i.e. making its distribution close to (𝜇 = 0, σ = 1)) : that’s why we usually normalize the input values of a model.
Diagram 6.b : Why do we need to normalize the model input value ? Case with normalization. Normalizing the input signal makes the points closer to each other in the feature space during training : it is now easier to find a well generalizing function. | Credit : author — Design : Lou HD
This solution was already well known before the publication of the BN paper. With BN, [1]’s authors wanted to extend this method to the hidden layers to help training.
Internal covariate shift deteriorates training : the original paper hypothesis
Diagram 7 : Internal covariate shift (ICS) principle in the distributional stability perspective (ICS_distrib). | Credit : author - Design : Lou HD
In our car classifier, we can see hidden layers as units which are activated when they identify some “conceptual” features associated with cars : it could be a wheel, a tire or a door. We can suppose that the previously described effect could happen inside hidden units. A wheel with a certain orientation angle will activate neurons with a specific distribution. Ideally, we want to make some neurons react with a comparable distribution for any wheel orientations, so the model could efficiently conclude on the probability for the input image to contain a car.
If there is a huge covariate shift in the input signal, the optimizer will have trouble generalizing well. On the contrary, if the input signal always follows a standard normal distribution, the optimizer will more easily generalize. With this in mind, [1]’s authors applied the strategy of normalizing the signal in the hidden layers. They assumed that forcing to (𝜇 = 0, σ = 1) the intermediates signal distribution will help the network generalization in the “conceptual” levels of features.
Though, we do not always want standard normal distribution in the hidden units. It would reduce the model representativity :
Diagram 8 : Why don’t we always want a standard normal distribution in the hidden units. Here, the sigmoid function only works in its linear regime. | Credit : author - Design : Lou HD
The original article takes the sigmoid function as an example to show why normalization alone is an issue. If the input signal values lie between 0 and 1, the nonlinear function would only work … in its linear regime. Sounds problematic.
To tackle this issue, they added two trainable parameters 𝛽 and 𝛾, allowing the optimizer to define the optimum mean (using 𝛽) and standard deviation (using 𝛾) for a specific task.
⚠Warning : The following hypothesis is now outdated. A lot of great content about BN still claim it as the reason that makes the method works in practice. Yet, recent works severely challenged it.
For a couple of years after the release of [1], the DL community explained BN effectiveness as follow :
— Hypothesis 1 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — BN ➜ Normalization of the input signal inside hidden units ➜ Adding two trainable parameters to adjust the distribution and get the most out of the nonlinearities ➜ Easier training
Here, normalization to (𝜇 = 0, σ = 1) is what mostly explains BN’s effectiveness. This hypothesis has been challenged (see section C.3.3), replaced by another hypothesis :
— Hypothesis 2 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — BN ➜ Normalization of the input signal inside hidden units ➜ Reduces interdependency between hidden layers (in a distribution stability perspective) ➜ Easier training
There’s is a slight but very important difference. Here, the purpose of normalization is to reduce interdependency between layers (in a distribution stability perspective), so the optimizer could choose the optimum distribution by adjusting only two parameters ! Let’s explore this hypothesis a little bit further.
What’s the link between Batch Normalization and this picture ? | Credit : Danilo Alvesd on Unsplash
C.3.2) Hypothesis n°2 — BN mitigates interdependency between hidden layers during training
About this section : I could not find any solid evidence about the hypothesis discussed in this section. Therefore, I decided to mostly rely on Ian Goodfellow’s explanations on that matter (in particular in this brilliant video).
Consider the following example :
Diagram 9 : A simple DNN, which consists of linear transformations. | Inspired by Ian Goodfellow
Where (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e) are the sequential layers of the network. Here is a very simple example, where all layers are linked by linear transformations. Let’s assume we want to train such model using SGD.
To update the weights of the layer (a), we need to calculate the gradient from the network’s output :
We first consider a network without BN layers. From the above equation, we conclude that if all gradients are large, grad(a) will be very large. On the contrary, if all gradients are small, grad(a) will be almost negligible.
It is pretty easy to see how dependent are layers from each other by looking at the input distribution of hidden units : a modification of (a) weights will modify the input distribution of (b) weights, which will eventually modify the input signal of (d) and (e). This interdependency could be problematic for training stability : if we want to adjust the input distribution of a specific hidden unit, we need to consider the whole sequence of layers.
However, SGD considers 1st order relationships between layers. So they don’t take into account the higher degree relationships mentioned above !
Diagram 10 : Hypothesis n°2 principle. BN layers make the signal regulation easier, by normalizing the signal inside each hidden unit, and allowing distribution adjustment using 𝛽 and 𝛾. BN acts like a valve which makes the flow control easier at some points, without deteriorating the underlying complexity of the network ! | Credit : author - Design : Lou HD
Adding BN layers significantly reduces the interdependence between each layers (in the distribution stability perspective) during training. Batch Normalization acts like a valve which holds back the flow, and allows its regulation using 𝛽 et 𝛾. It is then no longer necessary to take all parameters into account to have clues about distribution inside the hidden units.
Remark : The optimizer can then do larger weights modifications without deteriorating adjusted parameters in other hidden layers. It makes the hyperparameter tuning way easier !
This example puts aside the hypothesis which claims that BN effectiveness is due to the normalization of intermidiates signal distribution to (𝜇 = 0, σ = 1).
Here, BN aims to make the optimizer job easier, allowing it to adjust hidden layer distribution with only two parameters at a time.
⚠ However, keep in mind that this is mostly speculation. Those discussions should be used as insights to build intuition about BN. We still don’t exactly know why BN is efficient in practice !
In 2019, a team of researchers from MIT carried out some interesting experiments about BN [2]. Their results severely challenge the hypothesis n°1 (still shared by many serious blog posts and MOOCS !).
We should have a look on this paper if we want to avoid “local minima hypotheses” about the BN impact on training… ;)
Alright … you better initialize well. | Credit : Tracy Zhang on Unsplash
C.3.3) Hypothesis n°3 — BN makes the optimisation landscape smoother
About this section : I’ve synthesized results from [2] which could help us to build a better intuition about BN. I wasnt able to be exhaustive, this paper is dense, I recommend you to read it thoroughly if you’re interested in those concepts.
Let’s jump straight into the 2nd experiment of [2]. Their goal was to check the correlation between ICS, and the benefits of BN on training performances (hypothesis n°1).
Notation : We’ll now refer to this covariate shift by ICS_distrib.
To do so, the researchers have trained three VGG networks (on CIFAR-10) :
The first one does not have any BN layer ;
The second one does have BN layers ;
The third one is similar to the second one, except from the fact that they have explicitly added some ICS_distrib inside the hidden unit right before the activation (by adding random bias & variance).
They measured the accuracy reached by each model, and the evolution of the distribution values w.r.t iterations. Here is what they got :
Diagram 6 : BN on ICS_distrib | Networks with BN are trained faster than the standard one ; explicitly adding ICS_distrib on a regulated network does not deteriorate BN benefits. | Source : [2]
We can see that the 3rd network has, as expected, a very high ICS. However, the noisy network is still trained faster than the standard one. Its reached performances are comparable to the ones obtained with a standard BN network. This result suggests that the BN effectiveness is not related to ICS_distrib. Oops !
We shouldn’t discard the ICS theory too fast : if the BN effectiveness does not come from ICS_distrib, it might be related to another definition of ICS. After all, the intuition behind the hypothesis n°1 makes sense, doesn’t it ?
The main issue with ICS_distrib is that its definition is related to input distribution of hidden units. So there is no direct link with the optimization problem on its own.
[2]’s authors proposed another definition of ICS :
Let’s consider a fixed input X.
We define the internal covariate shift from an optimization perspective as the difference between the gradient computed on a hidden layer k after backpropagating the error L(X)_it, and the gradient computed on the same layer k from the loss L(X)_it+1 computed after the iteration = it update of weights.
This definition aims to focus on the gradients more than on the hidden layer input distributions, assuming that it could give us better clues on how ICS could have an impact on the underlying optimization problem.
Notation: ICS_opti now refers to the ICS defined from an optimization perspective.
In the next experiment, authors evaluate ICS_opti impact on training performances. To do so, they measure the variation of ICS_opti during training for a DNN with and without BN layers. To quantify the variation of gradient mentioned in the ICS_opti definition, they calculate :
L2 difference : Do the gradients have a close norm before and after the weights update ? Ideally : 0
Do the gradients have a close norm before and after the weights update ? Ideally : 0 Cosine angle : Do the gradients have a close orientation before and after the weights update ? Ideally : 1
Figure 7 : BN impact on ICS_opti | L2 diff and cosine angles suggest that BN does not prevent ICS_opti (it seems to slightly increase it, somehow). | Source [2]
Results are a bit surprising : the network which relies on BN seems to have a higher ICS_opti than the standard network. Remember that the network with BN (blue curve) is trained faster than the standard network (red curve) !
ICS seems definitively not related to training performances…at least for the explored definition of ICS.
Somehow, Batch Normalization have another impact on the network, which makes convergence easier.
Now, let’s study how does BN affects the optimization landscape. We may find clues there.
Here is the last experiment covered in this story :
Figure 11 : Optimization landscape exploration in the gradient’s direction. Experiment carried out in the paper [2] | Inspired by Andrew Ilyas - Design : Lou HD
From a single gradient, we update weights with different optimization steps (which act like a learning rate). Intuitively, we define a direction from a certain point (i.e. a network configuration ω) in the feature space, and then explore the optimization landscape further and further in this direction.
At each step, we measure the gradient and the loss. We can therefore compare different points of the optimization landscape with a starting point. If we measure large variations, the landscape is very unstable and the gradient is incertain : big steps might deteriorate optimization. On the contrary, if the measured variations are small, the landscape is stable and the gradient is trustworthy : we can apply larger steps without compromising optimization. In other words, we can use a larger learning rate, and make the convergence faster (a well known properties of BN).
Let’s have a look on the results :
Figure 8 : BN impact on optimization landscape smoothing | Using BN significantly reduces gradient variations. | Source : [2]
We can clearly see that the optimization landscape is way smoother with BN layers.
We finally have results we can rely on to explain BN effectiveness : BN layer makes somehow the optimization landscape smoother. That makes the optimizer job easier : we can define a larger learning rate without being submitted to gradient vanishing (weights stuck on sudden flat surfaces) or to gradient explosion (weights fallen in an abrupt local minima).
We can know formulate a 3rd hypothesis, proposed by [2] :
— Hypothesis 3 : — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — BN ➜ Normalization of the input signal inside hidden units ➜ Makes the optimization landscape smoother ➜ Faster and more stable training
It raises another question : How does BN make the optimization landscape smoother ?
[2]’s authors also explored those matters from a theoretical point of view. Their work is very instructive, helping to get a better grasp of the smoothing effect of Batch Normalization. In particular, they showed that BN makes the optimization landscape smoother while preserving all of the minima of the normal landscape. In other words, BN reparametrizes the underlying optimization problem, making the training faster and easier !
⚠ In additional studies, [2]’s authors observed that this effect is not unique to BN. They obtained similar training performances with other normalization methods (for example L1 or L2 normalization). Those observations suggest that BN effectiveness is mostly due to serendipity, leveraging on underlying mechanisms that we have not perfectly identified yet.
Now it’s time to set a very high learning rate. | Credit : Finding Dan | Dan Grinwis on Unsplash
To conclude this section, this paper severely challenges the widely admitted idea that BN effectiveness is mostly due to ICS reduction (in a training stability distribution perspective, as well as in an optimization perspective). However, it stresses the impact of BN smoothing effect on the optimization landscape.
While this paper states a hypothesis about BN impact on training speed, it does not answer why BN helps generalization.
They briefly argue that making the optimization landscape smoother could help the model to converge on flat minima, which have better generalizing properties. No more details on that matter, though.
Their main contribution is to challenge the commonly admitted idea of BN effect on ICS — which is already significant !
C.4) Summary : Why does BN work ? What do we know so far
Hypothesis 1 : BN layer mitigates the internal covariate shift (ICS)
❌ Wrong : [2] showed that in practice, there is no correlation between ICS and training performances.
Hypothesis 2 : BN layer makes the optimizer job easier by allowing it to adjust input distribution of hidden units with only 2 parameters.
❓ Maybe : This hypothesis highlights the interdependency between parameters, making the optimization task harder. No solid proof, though.
Hypothesis 3 : BN layer reparametrize the underlying optimization problem, making it smoother and more stable.
❓ Maybe : Their results are quite recent. To my knowledge, they have not been challenged so far. They provide empirical demonstrations and pieces of theoretical justifications, but some fundamental questions remain unanswered (such as “how does BN help generalization ?”).
Discussion : It seems to me that the last two hypotheses are compatible. Intuitively, we could see the hypothesis n°2 as a projection from a problem with many parameters, to many problems with a couple of parameters ; a kind of dimensionality reduction, which would helps generalization. Any ideas about it ?
Many questions remain open, and Batch Normalization is still a topic of research nowadays. Discussing those hypotheses still helps to get a better understanding of this commonly used method, discarding some erroneous statements we had in mind for a couple of years.
Those questions do not prevent us to leverage on the benefits of BN in practice, though !
Conclusion
Batch Normalization (BN) is one of the most important advances in the field of Deep Learning (DL) in recent years. Relying on two successive linear transformations, this method makes Deep Neural network (DNN) training faster and more stable.
The most widely admitted hypothesis about what makes BN efficient in practice is the reduction of interdependence between hidden layers during training. However, the normalization transformation impact of optimization landscape smoothness seems to be an important mechanism of BN effectiveness.
Many commonly used DNN rely on BN nowadays (ex : ResNet [4], EfficientNet [5], …).
If you are interested in Deep Learning, you will for sure have to get familiar with this method !
Opened questions
Even if BN appears to be efficient in practice for years, many questions about its underlying mechanisms remain unanswered.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of opened questions about BN :
How does BN helps generalization ?
? Is BN the best normalization method to make the optimization easier ?
to make the optimization easier ? How do 𝛽 et 𝛾 impact the optimization landscape smoothness ?
impact the optimization landscape smoothness ? Experiments carried out by [2] to explore optimization landscape focus on short-term impact of BN on gradient : they have measured the variation of gradient & loss from a single iteration, for several values of step. How does BN impact gradient on the long run ? Do weights interdependency have other interesting impact on the optimization landscape ?
Acknowledgment
Many thanks to Lou Hacquet-Delepine for all the drawn diagrams, as well as her overall help in proofreading !
References
[1] Ioffe, S., & Szegedy, C. (2015). Batch normalization: Accelerating deep network training by reducing internal covariate shift, arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.03167.
[2] Santurkar, S., Tsipras, D., Ilyas, A., & Madry, A. (2018). How does batch normalization help optimization?, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems
[3] Szegedy, C., Liu, W., Jia, Y., Sermanet, P., Reed, S., Anguelov, D., … & Rabinovich, A. (2015). Going deeper with convolutions, Proceedings of the IEEE conference on computer vision and pattern recognition
[4] He, K., Zhang, X., Ren, S., & Sun, J. (2016). Deep residual learning for image recognition. In Proceedings of the IEEE conference on computer vision and pattern recognition
[5] Tan, M., & Le, Q. V. (2019). Efficientnet: Rethinking model scaling for convolutional neural networks, arXiv preprint arXiv:1905.11946.
[6] Goodfellow, I., Pouget-Abadie, J., Mirza, M., Xu, B., Warde-Farley, D., Ozair, S., Courville, A. Bengio, Y. (2014), Generative adversarial nets, Advances in neural information processing systems
Going further
|
https://towardsdatascience.com/batch-normalization-in-3-levels-of-understanding-14c2da90a338
|
['Johann Huber']
|
2020-11-09 23:43:41.324000+00:00
|
['Data Science', 'Getting Started', 'Deep Learning', 'Neural Networks', 'Batch Normalization']
|
How Fake News Detection Can Be Improved?
|
Assembling representative datasets for all these types of forgeries requires tremendous effort and resources. Furthermore, most of them are evolving from time to time, so a dataset that is 1–2 years old might become outdated fairly quickly. This is an enormous obstacle when trying to build a machine learning detection system.
Expectations for a robust model
If there are no highly accurate models due to the minimal amount of data, false positives are inevitable. However, depending on the use case their effect varies drastically. When we deployed our Defudger Webapp for journalists as a tool for digital forensics, I assumed it was fine having a human in the loop. It is always better to get false alerts than some unnoticed fakes in the database. At least that’s what I thought, but it got revealed that there were higher expectations. People working in the media hoped that such a system will be able to filter content automatically. Most companies who did not have the personnel for fact-checking, could not afford to place a person in charge of taking care of the false positives.
Besides the above mentioned, speed of the inference is also significant. A robust detection model is fast and lightweight. However, we mostly used deep learning models which required a complicated backend architecture with Kubernetes and scalable nodes with GPU support. Working with computationally heavy algorithms results in a significant delay for the end user. This is a huge bottleneck that must be accepted if we are working with complicated models.
Runtime is an essential factor in this field, eventually when building algorithms we must strive for efficiency to make our end-product as user-friendly as possible.
By offering an API for automatic validation for each incoming content, a smoother user experience was achieved. When journalists were looking at the visual content, our results were already ready to be presented. This can be considered as a solution to runtime expectations.
Explainability
To trust a detection system, we need to understand it first. The ideal scenario would be to display the actual factors that contributed to the final result. However, when deep learning models are used, it is very challenging. These models consist of millions of simple calculations, so unless they can be described in a human interpretable way, they will be considered as black boxes. Therefore, Explainable AI in computer vision must be a research priority to make the results of these algorithms interpretable not only for their developers but their users too. Imagine a situation when there is a video used as evidence in a courtroom. It is not comforting enough that an algorithm, that nobody understands how it works, decided upon a person’s life.
For explainability, we implemented a percentage of fakeness and a heatmap as a result of image detection models. Heatmaps provide a better explainability than binary outcomes whether an image is fake or not. However, there must be further effort put into identifying the potential manipulation technique correctly. The user should start the investigation based on the heatmap and categorical understanding of the possible forgery. If I am told to look for cloning in the image, I can start my investigation more effectively.
Infamous Iranian forged rockets, widely known case for cloning
There must be both categorical differentiation between manipulations and localization of the forgery to achieve more eminent explainability.
When it comes to deepfake and video detection, I have not seen many algorithms with heatmap results. Explainability-wise, it is not an appropriate design for an algorithm to only have binary outputs. Therefore, localization methods were implemented for Defudger’s deepfake detection models as well.
Passive detection vs Active detection
The digital forensics field consists of two major areas which are passive and active detection. The major difference is whether there is prior information about the content.
Difference between active and passive media forensics by GeeksforGeeks
Firstly, passive detection uses the image with no prior information for accessing its integrity. By creating algorithms that check for any underlying inconsistencies, it is possible to detect a forged image that has no visual trace of tampering. Thus, even though no physical footprints are seen on an image, there could be deviations within the metadata, quantization, color values, et cetera. Real-life examples of passive detection include on-demand media forensics where the user can upload any media file to verify its validity.
Secondly, active detection relies on a method where an authentication code is embedded in the image at the time of generation. If an image is captured by a camera software on a smartphone, it would be possible to leave traces in the image or hash all the details to a secure database system (e.g.: Blockchain). If this image appears later, it is possible to verify its originality by comparing it to the existing elements in the database.
Examining the two methods, it can be concluded that it is really difficult to choose a superior technique. For passive detection, the proposed system has a really hard time when it is benchmarked against many types of unknown content. The major disadvantage for active detection is the idea to hash or fingerprint all media content on-capture, no matter the device (there are already initiatives to solve this problem with a new standard). They both have benefits, but if the primary goal is accuracy and a trustworthy detection system then active detection should be the way to go.
Adversarial attacks
A rising threat against deep learning-based classifiers are adversarial attacks. A 2020 Neekhara et al. concluded that both white-box and black-box attack scenarios can fool deep learning-based detectors into classifying fake videos as reals. It is well known, that neural nets are vulnerable to such attacks in general and it still has been ignored in all existing deepfake detectors. During their experiments, they managed to fool the then state-of-the-art deepfake detector with a success rate of over 99%. It is inevitable to prepare our algorithms against such threats.
Adversarial example in an animal classifier by Explaining and Harnessing Adversarial Examples, Goodfellow et al, ICLR 2015.
At Defudger, we proposed a state-of-the-art defense system for our detection algorithms in collaboration with researchers. Eventually, our models became robust against white-box and black-box adversarial attacks. All this could be achieved with minimal training data, so as of now our whole visual content detection system is well-armed against this threat.
|
https://medium.com/swlh/how-fake-news-detection-can-be-improved-4ea13b2177d7
|
['Dominik Mate Kovacs']
|
2020-12-22 17:38:07.900000+00:00
|
['Startup', 'AI', 'News', 'Machine Learning', 'Fake News']
|
Intro to pytorch I: Stochastic gradient
|
1. Foundations
Careful with empty arrays, they contain random junk in memory. For true zeros use torch.zeros:
import torch #input
e = torch.empty(2,2)
print(e) #output
tensor([[ 0.0000e+00, -1.0842e-19],
[-5.9247e-01, 3.6902e+19]]) #input
z = torch.zeros(2,2)
print(z) #output
tensor([[0., 0.],
[0., 0.]])
numpy and pytorch play nice with each other:
import numpy as np #input: from numpy to tensor
nump = torch.tensor(np.linspace(0,3,5))
print(nump) #output
tensor([0.0000, 0.7500, 1.5000, 2.2500, 3.0000], dtype=torch.float64) #input: from torch to numpy
nump.numpy() #output
array([0. , 0.75, 1.5 , 2.25, 3. ])
Explicit tensor creation is a cake walk:
#Explicit creation of 2x2x2 tensor:
t3 = torch.tensor([[[1,2],[3,4]],[[5,6],[7,8]]], dtype = torch.int) # this method creates a new tensor "y" that has the same datatype as # the original tensor t3
y = t3.new_ones(2,1) #Cross Product
t3 @ y #output
tensor([[[ 3],
[ 7]],
[[11],
[15]]], dtype=torch.int32)
Dot product:
#input
t3 * t3 #output
tensor([[[ 1, 4],
[ 9, 16]],
[[25, 36],
[49, 64]]], dtype=torch.int32) #The `*_` method works like `inplace=True` in pandas #input
t3.add_(t3) #output
tensor([[[ 2, 4],
[ 6, 8]],
[[10, 12],
[14, 16]]], dtype=torch.int32)
2. Autograd
Autograd allows automatic differentiation for all operations on Tensors.
# Create a tensor and set requires_grade=True
# to track computation with it
x = torch.ones(3,2, requires_grad=True) # Because y was created as a result of an operation,
# it also has a grad_fn method
y = 3*x - 4
print(y) #output
tensor([[-1., -1.],
[-1., -1.],
[-1., -1.]], grad_fn=<SubBackward0>) # We can do more to y (and thus x) and calculate its derivatives
z = 2*y**2
w = z.mean() print("z: {},
w: {}".format(z, w)) #output
z: tensor([[2., 2.],
[2., 2.],
[2., 2.]], grad_fn=<MulBackward0>),
w: 2.0 #Computes the gradient of current tensor
w.backward()
x.grad #output
tensor([[-2., -2.],
[-2., -2.],
[-2., -2.]])
3. LR With Stochastic Gradient Descent
The starting point for much of this notebook is based notes I transcribed from Dr. Alvarez’s excellent ODSC presentation: “Understanding the PyTorch Framework with Applications to Deep Learning.”
Step #1: Basic Definitions of Data Space
n_data = 10_000
X = torch.ones(n_data,2) #populate random points into X
X[:,0].uniform_(-1.15,1.15) actual = torch.tensor([np.random.uniform(-14,14),
np.random.uniform(-14,14)]) y = X @ actual + torch.randn(n_data)/3
Step #2: Train/Test Split
There is no auto-covariance in this toy data dataset, therefore a simple train test split will suffice.
#Train test split
train_size = int(n_data * .75)
test_size = n_data - train_size X_train, X_test = X[0 : train_size, :], X[train_size : n_data, :]
y_train, y_test = y[0 : train_size], y[train_size : n_data] import matplotlib.pyplot as plt plt.scatter(X_train[:,0], y_train, s = .1);
Step #3: Define Scoring Function
def mean_standard_error(y, y_pred):
return ((y - y_pred) ** 2).mean()
Step #4: Start with a arbitrary model to begin training
#A random prediction
model = torch.tensor([np.random.uniform(-14,14),
np.random.uniform(-14,14)]) y_hat = X_train @ model
mean_standard_error(y_hat, y_train) plt.scatter(X_train[:,0],y_train, s = .1)
plt.scatter(X_train[:,0],y_hat, s = .1)
Step #5: Parameterize the model
import torch.nn as nn model = nn.Parameter(model)
model #output
Parameter containing:
tensor([8.6251, 6.5764], requires_grad=True)
Bringing Step 1–5 together
#A glorified stochastic gradient descent machine
def gentle_linear_torch(data, target, learning_rate, iterations):
answer = {}
def mean_standard_error(y_actual, y_pred):
return ((y_actual - y_pred) ** 2).mean()
#Random Initial Model
model = nn.Parameter(torch.tensor([np.random.uniform(-14,14),
np.random.uniform(-14,14)])) y_hat = data @ model
mean_standard_error(y_hat, target) for time in range(iterations):
y_hat = data @ model
loss = mean_standard_error(target, y_hat)
if time > 0 and last_loss == loss:
print("
convergence of SGD at step {}".format(time))
return(model)
break
if time > 0 and time % 5 == 0:
print("step: {:4} MSE: {:5}".format(time,
float(last_loss.data - loss.data)))
plt.scatter(data[:,0], target, s = .1, alpha = .05);
plt.scatter(data[:,0], y_hat.detach().numpy(), s = .1);
loss.backward()
with torch.no_grad():
#These *_ set values like inplace = True
model.sub_(learning_rate * model.grad)
model.grad.zero_()
last_loss = loss
return(model) sgd = gentle_linear_torch( X_train, y_train, .1, 1000)
y_hat = X_test @ sgd
float(mean_standard_error(y_hat, y_test)) #MSE output
0.10991530865430832 plt.scatter(X_test[:,0], y_test, s = .1, alpha = .5);
plt.scatter(X_test[:,0], y_hat.detach().numpy(), s = .1);
Plot on test set
Normal Equation Solution
Calculating the linear regression with Ordinary least squares (OLS) estimator:
theta = (torch.t(X_train) @ X_train).inverse() @ torch.t(X_train) @ y_train
print(theta)
print(sgd) #output
tensor([0.8584, 1.9531])
Parameter containing:
tensor([0.8580, 1.9532], requires_grad=True)
Done!
And there you have it. Let me know if you like these less verbose posts. Check out the next story in this series here.
|
https://medium.com/level-1/intro-to-pytorch-i-stochastic-gradient-d54594c879a2
|
['Michael Ruggiero']
|
2019-06-05 15:39:33.022000+00:00
|
['Linear Regression', 'Matrix', 'Python3', 'Pytorch', 'Tensor']
|
TomoChain: Blockchain Infrastructure For Decentralized Applications, Token Issuance And Integration
|
TomoChain
The Internet of Value
The development of blockchain technology is helping to usher in a new era of the internet, the internet of value. In the 1990’s the rapid development of the web allowed for the instantaneous exchange of ideas and information. By adding a layer of blockchain-enabled services to the internet, the goal is to allow for an equally efficient exchange of assets. There are several technical problems to solve before this becomes a reality however. TomoChain is attempting to address these issues.
Until the development of crypto currencies, all transfers of value had to be done through an intermediary like a bank or an exchange. This market is huge. Cross-border payments alone total over USD 180 trillion globally every year, accumulating costs of USD 1.7 trillion, and that is not even counting the transfer of other assets. The economic value of moving these transactions onto a blockchain solution is immense. The current setup, with each node confirming each transaction, is too slow and cumbersome to handle that many transactions however. In order to solve this problem of scalability, two factors need to be addressed.
The Ethereum blockchain is currently able to handle about 15 transactions per second. If you compare that to Visa, which handles 45,000 transactions per second, it is easy to see the limits of the current infrastructure. Add to that the fact that any changes to the Ethereum blockchain needs to be funded by gas, making micro payments unfeasible. To solve these problems, TomoChain will implement a second layer solution where all transactions are handled off chain before being anchored to the Ethereum blockchain.
TomoChain is designed to be a public permissioned chain pegged to the Ethereum network using ERC-20 compliant smart contracts. The protocol will be open source, supporting a blockchain that can handle billions of transactions per day for zero fees and with instant confirmation. This will induce third party developers to build their apps, and issue tokens, inside the TomoChain ecosystem. The TomoWallet will allow for atomic cross-chain transactions between tokens that are part of the platform, as well as between Ethereum and TomoChain. TomoCoin will be the protocol token that govern and regulate this infrastructure. It will have a fixed supply of 100 million tokens.
Coin Name : TomoCoin (TMC)
Total Supply : — 100,000,000 TMC
Circulating Supply : 55,000,000 TOMO
Market Cap : $96,105,350 USD
Tokens/Money Raised Through ICO : — Token Sale starts 1 MAR $8,500,000
TomoApp
The first consumer application to utilize the TomoChain infrastructure will be a new decentralized social network with a built-in crypto currency. Initially the focus will be on building up a library of questions and answers, sourced from the community, with contributors being rewarded in TomoCoin. These can be used for free and instantaneous micro-transaction within the app itself. Each Tomo application account will come with its own TomoWallet integrated.
A full 40% of the TomoCoins issued will go towards supporting developers and early contributors. As developers use the TomoChain infrastructure to issue their own tokes, these will be integrated into the TomoWallet and available for atomic cross-chain transactions.
Security
Both the TomoApp and the TomoWallet will use a decentralized identity database to allow users to log into all applications using one account. Published APIs will allow third party developers to use the same service.
The TomoWallet will also allow users to handle multiple addresses from different blockchains. These will be encrypted using random passphrases generated by BIP32 and BIP39, with the encryption process staying fully on the client side to ensure privacy.
TomoChain will use a Proof of Authority protocol to manage a high volume of transactions at fast speeds, with the validators chosen based on their collaboration rankings. It uses a masternode and servicenode model, with nodes built in multiple locations in order to secure the immutable state of the database. There is also a node protection algorithm to protect against spamming and 51% attacks.
Competition
The possibilities when moving financial transactions online through a blockchain solution are almost limitless. The efficiency and cost savings are immense for a system that can securely handle a large volume of transactions. Etherum’s planned move from their current Proof of Work system, to one based on Proof of Stake, will alleviate some of the issues. Even this system will run into problems though, when dealing with billions of financial transactions per day.
TomoChain’s protocol, using a Proof of Authority system in a secure off-chain ecosystem secured to the Ethereum blockchain, would be able to handle to required amount of transactions almost for free. There are of course other companies attempting to do the same thing, like Steem, Kin and OmiseGo. They all use slightly different methods to achieve the same goal. Whichever ecosystem becomes the go to platform for online financial transactions will reap enormous benefits, and their coin is likely to appreciate significantly.
Social Media
Facebook
URL : — https://www.facebook.com/tomocoin
Likes : 6893
How Many Posts / Updates In The Last 7 Days : 2 posts
Twitter
URL : — https://twitter.com/TomoCoin_io
Followers :7456 followers
How Many Tweets / Retweets In The Last 7 Days : 3 posts
Telegram
URL : — https://t.me/tomocoin
Users : 16711 members
Discussion
Reddit
URL : — https://www.reddit.com/r/Tomochain/
Readers :485 readers
Youtube
URL : — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXZ2rmjM84qS80RCj6vQ1gw
Subscribers : 145 subscribers
Medium
URL : — https://medium.com/tomocoin
Followers : 379 followers
LinkedIn
URL : https://www.linkedin.com/company/tomochain/
Followers : 41 followers
How Many Updates In The Last 7 Days : 0 post
Steemit
Followers : — followers
How Many Updates In The Last 7 Days : —
GitHub
URL : — https://github.com/TOMOAPP
How Many Updates In The Last 7 Days :5+ post
Staff / Team Info :
Name : Long Vuong
Title : Founder & Project Lead
Bio : — CEO of Tomochain and founder of Tomo app, co-founder and the former project lead of very successful NEM blockchain (New Economy Movement). PhD candidate in economics.
LinkedIn : — https://www.linkedin.com/in/longvuong22
Extra Links : — https://twitter.com/longvuong22
Name : Son Nguyen
Title : CTO
Bio : — Director of Engineering of Tomo app. Son is an experienced and accomplished technical leader, founder of the Blockchain Developer group with more than 800 active members. Master degree in Engineering.
LinkedIn : — https://www.linkedin.com/in/thanhson1085
Extra Links : — https://github.com/thanhson1085
Name : Minh Chu
Title : Blockchain and Cloud Lead
Bio : — Chief Cloud Architect of VCCloud — one of the biggest “AWS like” local cloud service in South East Asia. Minh has a deep technology research expertise and is a security expert.
LinkedIn : — https://www.linkedin.com/in/chu-duc-minh-1773a229/
Extra Links : — https://twitter.com/minhcd
Name : Tung Hoang
Title : PM & Co-founder
Bio : — Co-founder of Tomo app. Product manager, frontend engineer, open-source contributor. Tung is a versatile engineer who get almost everything done in the fastest time possible.
LinkedIn : — https://www.linkedin.com/in/tung-hoang-719b4657/
Extra Links : — https://github.com/tunght91
Name : Androklis Polymenis
Title : Co-founder of CryptXO Investment
Bio : — Co-founder of CryptXO Investment/Trading group, a cryptocurrency veteran involved with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency since 2011. A well-known angel investor and philanthropist in his home country Greece and in Europe.
LinkedIn : — https://www.linkedin.com/in/crypt-xo-androklis-polymenis-6a7137b2/
Name : Min Kim
Title : Head of Biz Development at The Bee Token
Bio : — Founder of Blocultural Studios and Head of BD at The Bee Token. Previously Chief of Staff of Civic, previously worked with Tim Draper on PR and marketing on blockchain initiatives.
LinkedIn : — https://www.linkedin.com/in/minkimd14/
Name : Roger Lim
Title : Director of the Qlink Foundation
Bio : — Director of the Qlink Foundation. Advisor for Bluzelle, SelfKey, The Key, Coinfi, Fortuna Capital, Jet8. An experienced blockchain investor, and a successful entrepreneur who founded and grew WebVision, a cloud hosting company.
LinkedIn : — https://www.linkedin.com/in/limroger/
Name : Chance Du
Title : General partner at Coefficient Ventures
Bio : — General partner at Coefficient Ventures, Investors in Protocol Lab and Atrium LTS, Mentor in Alchemist Accelerator.
LinkedIn : — https://www.linkedin.com/in/chancejdu/
Name : Shekhar Bhusannavar
Title : General manager at Meed Fintech
Bio : — . General manager at Meed Fintech and Biz development director at Timo bank, Shekhar is originally from India and have more than 30 years of experiences in biz development, partnership, marketing and financial technology.
LinkedIn : — https://www.linkedin.com/in/shekharbhusannavar/
Name : Antoine C. Najjarin
Title : Head of strategy and operations at Devery.io
Bio : — Head of strategy and operations at Devery.io, a product verification platform. A lawyer with experience working with the Australian state government, and also studied under the tutelage of renowned smart contracts security expert in the resolution of the DAO hack, Bok Khoo.
LinkedIn : — https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoine-najjarin-904828b5/
Name : Ho Le
Title : Director of Investment Banking
Bio : — A CFA charterholder with 10+ years experience in investment and finance. Former Senior Investment Manager at BVIM. Director of Investment Banking Division at HSC securities company.
LinkedIn : — https://www.linkedin.com/in/le-ho-cfa-55922055/
Name : Hoang Nguyen
Title : Co-founder and VP of R&D at WeTrust.io
Bio : — . VP of R&D at WeTrust.io, a decentralized platform for financial products. Currently leading the engineering team at WeTrust advised by renowned blockchain scientists such as Prof. Emin Gun Sirer, Head of engineering at BitGo, Benedict Chan and Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin.
LinkedIn : — https://www.linkedin.com/in/hoang-nguyen-a493b158/
Company Address :
Tomochain Pte. Ltd.
Singapore Headquarters
10 Anson Road #22–15
International Plaza
Singapore 079903
|
https://medium.com/hackernoon/tomochain-blockchain-infrastructure-for-decentralized-applications-token-issuance-and-integration-d3827a4c18f1
|
['Crypto Research William Thrill']
|
2018-05-21 15:28:51.213000+00:00
|
['ICO', 'Bitcoin', 'Ethereum', 'Investing', 'Blockchain']
|
14 — Logistic Regression. In statistics, the logistic model (or…
|
In statistics, the logistic model (or logit model) is used to model the probability of a certain class or event existing such as pass/fail, win/lose, alive/dead or healthy/sick. This can be extended to model several classes of events such as determining whether an image contains a cat, dog, lion, etc. Each object being detected in the image would be assigned a probability between 0 and 1, with a sum of one.
Logistic regression is a statistical model that in its basic form uses a logistic function to model a binary dependent variable, although many more complex extensions exist. In regression analysis, logistic regression[1] (or logit regression) is estimating the parameters of a logistic model (a form of binary regression). Mathematically, a binary logistic model has a dependent variable with two possible values, such as pass/fail which is represented by an indicator variable, where the two values are labeled “0” and “1”. In the logistic model, the log-odds (the logarithm of the odds) for the value labeled “1” is a linear combination of one or more independent variables (“predictors”); the independent variables can each be a binary variable (two classes, coded by an indicator variable) or a continuous variable (any real value). The corresponding probability of the value labeled “1” can vary between 0 (certainly the value “0”) and 1 (certainly the value “1”), hence the labeling; the function that converts log-odds to probability is the logistic function, hence the name. The unit of measurement for the log-odds scale is called a logit, from logistic unit, hence the alternative names. Analogous models with a different sigmoid function instead of the logistic function can also be used, such as the probit model; the defining characteristic of the logistic model is that increasing one of the independent variables multiplicatively scales the odds of the given outcome at a constant rate, with each independent variable having its own parameter; for a binary dependent variable this generalizes the odds ratio.
|
https://medium.com/@kmeeraj/14-logistic-regression-8df305b5a28e
|
['Meeraj Kanaparthi']
|
2020-11-27 20:23:01.834000+00:00
|
['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Logistic Regression']
|
7 Ways to Improve Remote Team Collaboration
|
7 Ways to Improve Remote Team Collaboration
At these challenging times, more and more people adopt the growing trend of working remotely. But switching to remote work comes both with its own pros and cons. On the one hand, your employees save time on lengthy commutes and have fewer interruptions from work as well as more flexibility. On the other hand, each office creates a highly collaborative environment for its workers. And if people come together and brainstorm new and innovative ideas, it helps your company deliver the best possible results.
Clearly, some businesses will embrace the new lifestyle and continue to operate remotely (at least partially) even after these uncertain events come to an end. However, to foster effective collaboration when working remotely, you need to devise a certain strategy for creating a productive work environment. In this article, we will dive into the tips and tricks of cultivating and maintaining efficient work across distributed teams.
1. Create step-by-step guides
Transition to a new working environment can be a tough and stressful experience for each team member. Help your team to adapt quickly and save your employees’ time by eliminating answering the same questions repeatedly. Create and share a detailed step-by-step guide with your entire team. It should cover all commonly asked questions like when the team should perform daily standups or monthly retrospectives, what tools your colleagues need, where they can access passwords or colleagues’ phone numbers, etc.
Use Google Docs or your built-in knowledge base to organize an easy-to-navigate and effective knowledge directory for your team. Keep it up-to-date, well-organized and review your articles regularly.
2. Determine a work schedule
Many believe that a remote employee is similar to freelancers who determine their own labor hours and work at their own pace. Like remote employees, freelancers can operate from anywhere in the world. But this is exactly where the similarities end. Unlike freelancers, a remote employee must work according to the schedule defined by the company.
Besides, when working remotely, it’s hard to break away from tasks because there are no boundaries between personal life and work. So, the pivotal thing here is to establish rigid work hours for your team so everyone can follow them. If your work timelines are disorganized, it may seem that you’re working round the clock which can eventually lead to a burnout.
3. Assign tasks effectively
Define and allocate tasks clearly, set adequate deadlines and detailed goals to let your teammates know what is expected from them. Use task management software like Flowlu to distribute tasks among employees, discuss work in context and track progress with ease. Keep in mind that there is no need to make calls on each arising issue. Most of the questions can be solved via messenger. We’re all busy, so do not expect an immediate answer. When you need an instant reply from your teammate, show that by using request a response feature instead of the @mention.
4. Select the right tools
Enumerate the tools your team might need when working remotely. There are two main areas these solutions should cover: team’s communication and actual job performance. For effective team’s communication and productive meetings, you need a software for video conferencing (Zoom, Microsoft Teams), a desktop sharing software (TeamViewer), a virtual whiteboard (Miro). Then, depending on your business needs, select tools for task management, sales or project tracking, accounting — everything to help your coworkers reach their goals.
Also, you might want to consider saving money and selecting a software that will include all the tools in one single place especially if you’re a small or medium-sized company. For instance, in Flowlu, your teammates can break down projects into stages, milestones and tasks, and clearly estimate what is expected from them every day. They can easily track time spent and issue invoices for the work performed for each client. It also provides solutions for handy collaborative work such as mind maps or built-in messenger.
5. Devise common activities
Humans are social beings, we need to communicate with each other. Utilizing tech solutions cannot replace an absence of real and emotional communication. Your workers might feel isolated and left out. Ask your HR department to come up with a list of possible team’s activities aimed at cultivating your company culture and team building. Keep it informal and entertaining. For example, arrange virtual lunches, announce photo challenges (best remote workplace), watch online concerts or movies and then discuss them in a separate channel for sharing non-work related information.
6. Show your co-workers you care
As it has already been mentioned, transition to a new working environment might impact your coworkers’ overall productivity and cause anxiety. As you go through your day, remember to ask for your employees’ ideas and feedback, discuss their achieved objectives. Explain to each teammate how their daily work helps the company achieve its goals so that they feel more valued. Keep your team in the loop about how your company’s priorities and goals are changing. You may also send out questionnaires to your coworkers at least once a week to learn about issues that occurred during their work. Continuous communication is a key to successful adaptation.
7. Demonstrate your trust
While working in a traditional office, some managers are accustomed to track working hours in the following way: if an employee is in office, then the work is being performed. When your team is working remotely, you don’t have immediate visibility into what everyone is doing. Check in regularly but do not be too persuasive. Remote work requires a high level of trust. Adapting to remote work can be a struggle; your coworkers need time to adjust to working in a new way. And people are more effective when we trust them. Look at the outcomes and use digital tools to track work progress, the most important point is to establish the core principles for remote workflow and follow them constantly.
|
https://medium.com/@flowlu/7-ways-to-improve-remote-team-collaboration-7ac22f653130
|
[]
|
2020-12-10 08:30:05.656000+00:00
|
['Remote Working', 'Remote Collaboration', 'Remote Tools', 'Remote Work', 'Remote Team']
|
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