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Digital Assets- The Next Step in Ownership
|
In our modern and connected world, we are offered a vast array of investment options. Never before, however, has the potential of these markets been as open and accessible to the common man or woman. With the tokenisation of physical assets, and the creation of new, digital assets, we not only have the opportunity to redistribute wealth but can also level the playing field that has been created by outdated investment rules, and generally inaccessible corporate structures.
What Are Digital Assets?
Much like their physical counterparts, ownership over, or a stake in, a digital asset represents an asset that you are entitled to own or generate income from. Of course, as the name suggests, these assets are intangible.
Although we have grown up in a world based on physical assets, like property ownership, for example, we have moved into a world where software reigns. This has created entirely new industries where asset ownership and management has become more accessible, as intangible assets continue to generate the vast majority of income for corporations. Now, however, you have access to an intangible asset class that has never previously existed.
With the advent of distributed ledger technologies, we can now create a ‘token’ which is linked to or represents an asset. These tokens can then be bought, sold and traded the world over, in mere seconds, adding a new realm of liquidity and accessibility. In general, a token can represent:
Currency.
Much in the same way you own USD or GBP, digital currencies represent the biggest evolution in finance to date and are consistently reshaping the way we think about money, and transact with each other and businesses. Of course, Bitcoin represents the first and most well known digital currency, however, there are now hundreds to choose from. Not only are digital currencies designed to be used the same as fiat/traditional ones, but they also offer opportunities for developing nations to combat hyperinflation, and offer the first real opportunity to work towards a global currency. Ownership of a physical asset.
It gets more interesting when tokens are used to represent ownership of, or rights to, a particular physical asset. Tokens are now used to represent existing physical assets. For example, you might own 2/10ths of one house, and 6/10ths of another one, allowing you to diversify your portfolio and entitling you to the equivalent income from both properties.
Similarly, you may hold tokens which grant you ownership over gold bullion, or rights to income from oil, which you can then trade across the world in a variety of markets. A new, wholly digital asset.
Whilst it may be hard to get your head around owning a digital asset, this represents one of the most exciting things to come from distributed ledger technology. As we continue to move our lives online, so too will our understanding of ownership and assets change, in a world where digital files have, and will continue to be given, real-world value.
The generation of digital assets can and will continue to vary across industries, however, some of the simplest examples come from the gaming industry, where you can now actually own weapons and armor, and sell them to other players to earn an income.
Why Are Assets Going Digital?
There are a number of reasons assets are becoming or being generated, in a digital form. First and foremost, digitisation of assets allows us to transfer value, without moving a physical asset, whilst simultaneously removing fraud from the equation. It also allows for the creation of an entirely new class of assets, such as ownership of in-game items, or digital collectibles, for example.
Aside from the obvious reduced overheads and costs associated with generating physical assets, digitisation also allows for:
Distribution of assets instantaneously, and on a global scale, for a fraction of the cost.
Fractional ownership. This opens up a plethora of investment and ownership opportunities for the common person, rather than only being accessible to VC’s and the wealthy.
Liquidity in markets that have traditionally been very immobile, for example, real estate, licensing and IP, and the collectibles industry.
The removal of arbitration/3rd party interference, fees, and purchasing restrictions.
Reduced barriers to entry for trading and investing, as it can reduce the minimum payment required to participate.
It’s also important to note here that before DLT, owning and/or creating digital assets wasn’t possible. Sure, you could create images and try to copyright them, but as soon as they made it online, anyone could save the image and steal your property. Now, however, thanks to the immutability of the blockchain we can trace the true ownership of these assets, and verify their legitimacy, without involving any other entity.
This, in turn, lends credence to the industry as a whole and means that markets have been opened up to the most entry-level investors, allowing a new wave of money to enter global markets and a new wave of innovation and technology development.
What Does It Mean for You?
First and foremost, as an every day mom and dad- otherwise known as a ‘retail investor’ you now have access to incredible opportunities to purchase, own, and profit from a new realm of assets. Not only are they accessible as long as you have an internet connection, the existing barriers to entry, such as being an approved investor (must earn over $200k USD per annum to be considered an approved investor in the USA), have been completely removed.
Second, with digital assets and increased access, you now also have the opportunity to support companies and ideas that you believe in. These grassroots, crowdsourced fundraising methods have also taken a large amount of power away from traditional investment vehicles, such as VC’s and IPO’s, giving you more opportunity to build a portfolio that suits you, and on to real-world wealth.
Third, digitisation of assets has the potential to completely change the way we interact with finance, what we consider to be ‘money,’ and the property and assets we lend value to. By allowing a new wave of investors and finance to enter global markets, digitisation is disrupting our economic systems, and rebalancing the scales of wealth across the world. You just happen to already be part of the movement!
Of course, with ownership over a new world of digital assets also comes the need to store and secure your assets. To learn more about how we can help, please see the following article, or join us in Telegram and on social media.
|
https://medium.com/ecomi/digital-assets-the-next-step-in-ownership-71ad77769eb
|
[]
|
2019-07-12 00:30:44.207000+00:00
|
['Asset Management', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ecomi', 'Finance', 'Digital Asset']
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15 most important concepts that every JavaScript Programmer must know.
|
We will be covering basic concept every JavaScript programmer must know and master this.
1. IIFE
IFEE (Immediately Invoked Function Expression) is a JavaScript function that executes when it is defined.
(() => {
console.log(“Hello World”);
})()
This might look quite confusing at first but actually, the pattern is very simple.
Normally JavaScript functions can be created either through a function declaration or a function expression. A function declaration is a normal way of creating a named function.
A function created in the context of an expression is also a function expression. The key thing about JavaScript expressions is that they return values.
In both cases above the return value of the expression is the function.
That means that if we want to invoke the function expression right away we just need to tackle a couple of parentheses on the end. This brings us back to the first bit of code we looked at:
(() => {
var greet = "Welcome All";
console.log(greet); // Welcome All
})() console.log(greet); // Error: greet is not defined
The primary reason to use an IIFE is to obtain data privacy. Because JavaScript’s var scopes variables to their containing function, any variables declared within the IIFE cannot be accessed by the outside world.
2. Understanding Scope
Scope is the accessibility of variables, functions, and objects in some particular part of your code during runtime. In other words, scope determines the visibility of variables and other resources in areas of your code.
As per the above definition of scope. So, the point in limiting the visibility if variables and not having everything available everywhere in your code.
The Scope can be defined in two ways,
Global Scope
Local Scope
var name = "Anto" // global scope const greet = () => {
console.log(`Hello ${name}`) // Hello Anto
} greet();
Above code, name variable is the global scope and it can be accessed anywhere inside the function,
const greet = () => {
var name = "Anto" // local scope
console.log(`Hello ${name}`) // Hello Anto
} greet(); console.log(name) // name is not undefined
In scope level variables in JavaScript ES6 has updated hoisting variable let, var, const type check with that, In order to learn the scope, you need to understand hoisting also.
3. JavaScript Closures
A closure is the combination of a function and the lexical environment within which that function was declared.
A closure is an inner function that has access to the outer variables and functions — scope chain. The closure has three scope chains: it has access to its own scope (variables defined between its curly brackets), it has access to the outer function’s variables, and it has access to the global variables.
var globalVariable = "I am a Global variable"; const greetWith = (greet) => {
return (name) => {
console.log(globalVariable); // "I am a Global variable"
console.log(`${greet} ${name}`); // Hello Anto
}
} const greet = greetWith("Hello"); // returns a Function greet("Anto");
In the above code, We have an outer function greetWith() which returns a function that takes a name as an argument.
The scope of the variable greet is accessible inside the inner function, even after the outer function is returned.
4. Hoisting:
Hoisting is a JavaScript mechanism where variables and function declarations are moved to the top of their scope before code execution.
This mechanism is called hoisting,
console.log(variable); // undefined const variable = "Hoisting"
actually, JavaScript has hoisted the variable declaration. This is what the code above looks like to the interpreter
var variable; console.log(variable) variable = "Hoist";
JavaScript only hoists declarations, not initialization.
Inevitably, this means that no matter where functions and variables are declared, they are moved to the top of their scope regardless of whether their scope is global or local.
so this also match for a variable of function-level scope also hoisted
But, This is not the case with keywords like let and const in JavaScript(ES6)
Before we start, to be noted is the fact that variables declared with the keyword let are block-scoped and not function scoped. That’s significant, but it shouldn’t trouble us here. Briefly, however, it just means that the variable’s scope is bound to the block in which it is declared and not the function in which it is declared.
Let’s start by looking at the let keyword’s behavior.
console.log(variable);
// ReferenceError: Cannot access 'hoist' before initialization let variable
Like before, for the var keyword, we expect the output of the log to be undefined . However, since the es6 let doesn’t take kindly on us using undeclared variables, the interpreter explicitly spits out a Reference error.
This ensures that we always declare our variables first.
However, we still have to be careful here. An implementation like the following will result in an output of undefined instead of a Reference error .
let variable;
console.log(variable); //undefined variable = 'Hoisted'
Hence, to err on the side of caution, we should declare then assign our variables to a value before using them.
5. The Module Pattern
In JavaScript, a module is a small unit of independent, reusable code. Modules are the foundation of many JavaScript design patterns and are critically necessary when building any non-trivial JavaScript-based application.
JavaScript module export as the value rather than define a type, as JavaScript JavaScript module can export an object, Modules that export a string containing an HTML template or a CSS stylesheet are also common.
JavaScript doesn’t have private keywords but we can achieve private methods and properties using closures.
const app = (() => {
`use strict` var _myPrivateProp = "secret"; const _privateMethod = () => {
console.log(_myPrivateProp);
} return {
publicMethod: () => {
_myPrivateProp();
}
} })(); app.publicMethod(); // secret
app._myPrivateProp; // undefined
app._myPrivateProp(); // TypeError
these modules can have exported to the other JS files using the export keyword,
export default app;
modules can import to another JS file
import app from "./app.js";
Why do we need to use a Module?
There are a lot of benefits to using modules in favor of a sprawling,
some are,
maintainability reusability Namespacing
6. Currying:
Currying is a technique of evaluating the function with multiple arguments, into a sequence of functions with a single argument.
In other words, when a function, instead of taking all arguments at one time, takes the first one and return a new function that takes the second one and returns a new function which takes the third one, and so forth until all arguments have been fulfilled.
For better understanding,
// ES5
function concat(str1) {
return function(str2) {
return function(str3) {
console.log(`${str1} ${str2} ${str3}`);
}
}
} //ES6
const concat = (str1) => (str2) => (str3) => {
console.log(`${str1} ${str2} ${str3}`);
} concat("JavaScript")("For")("Life"); output: "JavaScript For Life"
this currying achieving through closures, so above program variables str1, str2 private properties of the parent function
Why Useful Currying?
Mainly It helps to create a higher-order function. It is extremely helpful in event handling.
7. Memoization:
Memoization is a programming technique that attempts to increase a function’s performance by caching its previously computed results. Because JavaScript objects behave like associative arrays, they are ideal candidates to act as caches. Each time a memoized function is called, its parameters are used to index the cache. If the data is present, then it can be returned, without executing the entire function. However, if the data is not cached, then the function is executed, and the result is added to the cache.
The function is an integral part of the programming, they help to modularity and reusable to our code, as per the above definition memoization is an optimizing our code
const apiService = () => {
let cache = {};
const fetchDataById = async (id) => {
if(id in cache) {
return cache[id];
}
const response = await fetch("https://www.mock.com/"+ id);
const data = JSON.parse(await response.json());
cache[id] = data;
return data;
}
} const service = apiService(); // data fetched from server
service.fetchDataById(1).then(data => console.log(data)) // data from cache
service.fetchDataById(1).then(data => console.log(data))
8. The apply, call, and bind methods:
In traditionally JS have object, Properties, and methods, so each object has properties and methods.
In JavaScript, we can do some magic using call, apply, bind methods,
Consider the above image Object1 can have its own Properties and Object2 can have its own property, so we can write a common method for these objects and use within that using call/apply/bind method. I hope you now you can understand why call/apply/bind method using.
let’s look at the difference and code for the Call/Apply/Bind method
1.Call method:
consider below code, obj have the property of num, using call method we can bound obj to add function,
var obj = {
n1: 1
} function add(n2, n3, n4) {
return this.n1 + n2 + n3 + n4;
} // Call
console.log(add.call(obj, 3, 4, 5)); // 10 // Apply
console.log(add.apply(obj, [2, 3, 4])); // 10 // Bind
const bonded = add.bind(obj); console.log(bonded(3, 4, 5)); // 10
2.Apply Method
The same way the Apply method also works but the only difference is using the apply method the passing arguments could be an array, refer to the below code.
3.Bind Method:
bind method returns a method instance instead of result value, after that need to execute a bound method with arguments.
In the above Code simply explain how to use the call/Apply/Bind method with an argument.
9. JavaScript Prototype
Let me explain the various way of creating objects in JavaScript. One of the ways to create objects in JavaScript is the constructor function. Consider the below constructor function:
function FoodItem(name, type) {
this.name = name;
this.type = type; this.getDetails = function() {
return this.name+" is a "+this.type;
}
} const FerreroRocher = new FoodItem("Ferrero Rocher", "Chocolate");
const Cake = new FoodItem("Giant Twix Cheesecake", "Dessert"); console.log(FerreroRocher.getDetails);
// Ferrero Rocher is a Chocolate console.log(Cake.getDetails);
// Giant Twix Cheesecake is a Dessert
In the above example, we are creating two objects FerreroRocher, Cake using a constructor. In JavaScript, every object has its own methods and properties. In our example, two objects have two instances of the constructor function getDetails() . It doesn’t make sense to have a copy of getDetails doing the same thing.
Instead of using a copy of instances, we are going to use the prototype property of a constructor function.
Prototype
When an object is created in JavaScript, the JavaScript engine adds a __proto__ property to the newly created object which is called dunder proto . dunder proto or __proto__ points to the prototype object of the constructor function.
function FoodItem(name, type) {
this.name = name;
this.type = type;
} FoodItem.prototype.getDetails = function() {
return this.name+" is a "+this.type;
} const FerreroRocher = new FoodItem("Ferrero Rocher", "Chocolate"); console.log(FerreroRocher.getDetails);
// Ferrero Rocher is a Chocolate
The FerreroRocher object, which is created using the Bike constructor function, has a dunder proto or __proto__ property which points to the prototype object of the constructor function FoodItem .
In the below code, both FerreroRocher it's dunder proto or __proto__ property and FerreroRocher.prototype property is equal. Let’s check if they point at the same location using === operator.
console.log(FerreroRocher.__proto__ === FoodItem.prototype) // true
So using prototype property, how many objects are created functions are loaded into memory only once and we can override functions if required.
10. JavaScript(ES6) Class
JavaScript classes, introduced in ES6, are primarily syntactical sugar over JavaScript’s existing prototype-based inheritance. The class syntax does not introduce a new object-oriented inheritance model to JavaScript. In early ES5 using function expression.
existing Prototype based inheritance:
function FoodItem(name, type) {
this.name = name;
this.type = type;
} FoodItem.prototype.getDetails = function() {
return this.name+" is a "+this.type;
} const FerreroRocher = new FoodItem("Ferrero Rocher", "Chocolate");
ES6
class FoodItem {
constructor(name, type) {
this.name = name;
this.type = type;
} getDetails() {
return this.name+" is a "+this.type;
}
}
Benefits of Using class
Convenient, self-contained syntax.
A single, canonical way to emulate classes in JavaScript. Prior to ES6, there were several competing implementations in popular libraries.
More familiar to people from a class-based language background.
11. Polymorphism in JavaScript:
Polymorphism is one of the tenets of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). It is the practice of designing objects to share behaviors and to be able to override shared behaviors with specific ones. Polymorphism takes advantage of inheritance in order to make this happen.
let’s look at the sample code for an override a function in JavaScript
function User(name) {
this.name = name;
} User.prototype.getName = function() {
return this.name;
} const Anto = User("anto"); console.log(Anto.getName); // anto //override
User.prototype.getName = function() {
return this.name.toUpperCase();
} console.log(Anto.getName); // Anto
In the above simple program prototype-based method for a User, the constructor function has to override by another prototype function to return the Name as uppercase.
So we can override a function in different Scope, and also possible for method overloading, JS doesn’t have method overloading native but still, we can achieve.
Still few concepts are in oops, which are all are Method overloading, Abstraction, Inheritance in JavaScript.
12. Asynchronous Js :
In JavaScript Synchronous and asynchronous are code execution Pattern,
In JavaScript Code Execution done In two separate ways:
Browser JS Engine (popular V8 JS Engine) NodeJs V8 Engine
Browser JS Engine parse Html file and executes JavaScript by three patterns,
synchronous Asynchronous defer
index.html<script src='index.js'> //default Synchronous<script async src='index.js'> //parse as
Asynchronously<script defer src='index.js'> //parse as deferred
while browser JS Engine parsing HTML file if <Script > tag occurs means there will be blocking, so how it gets execute JavaScript Code for that above three patterns.
If synchronous <script > tag occurs, JS engine will download the code and execute that code and after that only parsing the below HTML code, generally Synchronous is a blocking script execution. If Asynchronous <script async> tag occurs, while downloading the code JS engine will parse the HTML, and once If JS code gets downloaded pause the parsing and back into the JS Code Execution, generally Asynchronous is a Non-blocking script execution. If the Asynchronous <script defer> tag occurs, JS Engine will parse all HTML code and after that only executes the JS Code.
13. Callback Function:
A reference to executable code, or a piece of executable code, that is passed as an argument to other code.
From the above definition, the callback function is a function passed into another function as an argument, which is then invoked inside the outer function to complete some kind of routine or action.
const greet(callback) => {
const name = prompt("Enter your name"); // Anto
callback(name);
} greet((name) => {
console.log("Hello " + name); // Hello Anto
}
In the above program, the function is passed as an argument to the greet function, so I hope now you can understand callback in JavaScript.
14. Understand Promises :
The Promise object represents the eventual completion (or failure) of an asynchronous operation, and its resulting value.
A promise represents the result of the asynchronous function. Promises can be used to avoid chaining callbacks. In JavaScript,
so whenever JavaScript Code Execute as Asynchronously, need to handle an operation as one of the ways would be using promises.
Promises, have been around quite a while and are defined by a spec called Promise/A+. ES6 has adopted this spec for its Promise implementation; but there are other Promise libraries out there such as Q, Bluebird, RSVP, and others that adhere to this spec and offer other features on top of it.
A Promise is in one of these states:
pending: initial state, neither fulfilled nor rejected.
resolved: meaning that the operation completed successfully.
rejected: meaning that the operation failed.
const promise = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
try {
const result = someComplexOperation();
resolve(result);
} catch(error) {
reject(error.message);
}
}); promise.then(result => {
console.log(result); // [result data]
}).catch(error => {
console.log(error);
})
consider above code for a sample promise assume like doing some complex Operation as asynchronously, In that promise Object arguments as two function resolve and reject,
whenever we execute that promise using .then() and .catch() as callback function In order to get resolve or reject values
15. Async & Await:
Babel now supporting async/await out of the box, and ES2016 (or ES7) just around the corner, async & await basically just syntactic sugar on top of Promises, these two keywords alone should make writing asynchronous code in Node much more bearable.
In JavaScript Asynchronous pattern handled in various versions,
ES5 -> Callback ES6 -> Promise ES7 -> async & await
However, what a lot of people may have missed is that the entire foundation for async/await is promises. In fact, every async function you write will return a promise, and every single thing you await will ordinarily be a promise.
const doSomething = async () => {
try {
const result = await someComplexOperation();
console.log(result);
} catch(error) {
console.log(error);
}
}
Above code for a simple async & await,
Good, async/await is a great syntactic improvement for both nodejs and browser programmers. Comparing to Promises, it is a shortcut to reach the same destination. It helps the developer to implement functional programming in JavaScript, and increases the code readability, making JavaScript more enjoyable.
In order to understand about Async&Await, you just need to understand promises.
In Async & Await lot more stuff there, Just play around with it.
conclusion:
As far, In this Post, we have covered many important concepts in JavaScript and got Introduction to it. Generally for each concept just provided a sample code in order to understand the concepts.
Here JavaScript API cheatsheet for the front end developer
http://overapi.com/javascript,
So, you can get a lot more stuff and play around with each and every concept.
I had just gone through the Introduction in all concepts, so If you had any queries Just Ask in the response section.
Thanks for Reading!…
|
https://medium.com/@codewithanto/15-most-important-concepts-that-every-javascript-programmer-must-know-e0f0f04db3e0
|
['Antony Raj']
|
2020-12-19 15:01:25.713000+00:00
|
['Javascript Tips', 'JavaScript', 'Es6 Js', 'Javascript Development', 'ES6']
|
Blockchain beyond cryptocurrencies
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There has been perhaps too much talk about blockchain recently, which doesn’t change anything about the fact that it is an exciting technology with the potential to disrupt industries across the board.
However, the technology behind blockchains is actually far less revolutionary than it might seem based on the buzz surrounding them. All of the utilized technologies — the internet, cryptography and transport protocols — have been known for decades. It is not the technology itself that is revolutionary, but the way it is used. Especially public blockchains with an elegant double-spend solution are able to validate and secure anything from cryptocurrency transactions, to healthcare and government records and proof of ownership.
Blockchains are special databases that are distributed and accessible to anyone, operate without a central administrator and require consensus for making entries. In a public blockchain, consensus is reached mostly through a computationally demanding voting process carried out by users, who are rewarded for this activity with unique tokens (cryptocurrencies). Unlike data in traditional databases, data recorded in a blockchain cannot be modified.
Why blockchains are so special
As digital data is generally easy to copy, before the invention of blockchains there was a risk that a dishonest party would use the same digital asset more than once. The consensus algorithm (especially Proof of Work combined with tremendous hashing power), the existence of a complete transaction history stored in a blockchain, and accessible to anyone has rendered this virtually impossible.
By solving the problem of double-spending through consensus of the majority of network participants, blockchains also enable two parties who are distrustful of each other to carry out transactions in a secure manner without an intermediary, such as a notary public, a settlement bank or a database administrator.
Eliminating the intermediary has also eliminated the central most vulnerable point in the system, which was the focus of most hacking efforts. Transactions carried out by blockchains without a central authority are also beyond the reach of censorship. As a result, blockchain users do not run the risk of ending up in a situation similar to that seen in the traditional financial world in 2010, when Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal started blocking donations to WikiLeaks. Compared to traditional databases run on designated servers, blockchains also have a number of other advantages including, among other things, zero downtime for maintenance or because of a power failure.
Blockchains aren’t just cryptocurrencies
However, it is not all roses with blockchains. Their operation is, for instance, much slower and costlier, which makes using them a sensible choice only when there is a reason to distrust the central authority. Despite this, their possible uses extend far beyond the financial system, which tends to be the most cited example of how they are used. Their principle of decentralized consensus can help build more robust systems whenever ownership is concerned or attestations required.
The future of blockchains lies, for example, in highly automated control of hierarchical processes. Cryptocurrencies are not just currencies; technically, they are a control signal. For example, for a vending machine to give you a candy bar, the transaction and the action of dispensing the candy bar are both carried out as part of a single indivisible automatic cycle. Most manufacturing or business processes or sets of processes can be expressed in this way. Volkswagen is one of the first companies to explore the use of this benefit.
This brings us to another interesting application of blockchains and cryptocurrencies — smart contracts. Any human-made contract that can be expressed as an algorithm can be administered by a blockchain, which automatically monitors compliance with the terms of the contract.
If you were, for example, late with your car lease payment (through cryptocurrency), it would bar you from starting your car until the payment was made. Apart from smart contracts and the administration of ownership rights, blockchains will also find use in supply chains, digital rights administration, and real estate registers. Now to the principles: decentralization and shared supervision. The shared supervision of blockchain entries specifically enables otherwise opposing parties to cooperate in a mutually satisfactory way. The Open Music Initiative and Ujo Music are blockchain projects using this principle to simplify the enforcement of rights and the administration of compensation for musicians and rights holders. Blockchain solutions can also help defuse tensions and overcome power struggles, for example, when establishing a branch consortium. With sufficient decentralization and openness, blockchain networks can easily follow in the footsteps of the internet and WWW, thus becoming new public services. There are numerous examples, including the new “internet currency” Bitcoin and the decentralized world supercomputer called Ethereum and other similar platforms (NEO, EOS).
Tamper-proof and immutable
Entering data into a (public) blockchain is like setting it in stone, as it is preserved practically forever. As a result, blockchains can be very useful for keeping real estate registers (existing projects include BenBen, Bitfury, Velox.re, and the Dubai Land Department Blockchain project) because they prevent fraud (such as illegal handling of real estate) and reduce the cost of logging entries and maintaining the given register. Blockchains can be used for storing academic diplomas, which makes them permanent and easy to verify. Blockchains can also help streamline financial audits, authenticity certification, sharing of copyrights to works of art (like the Ascribe project) and tracing of the origins of retail goods. A platform called Provenance, for example, enables you to trace the origin of foodstuffs and their ingredients. Another example of blockchain usage is VETRI, working independently of any central authority and handing control over personal data back into the hands of individual users.
The invention of blockchains has also given rise to promising new fields, such as decentralized forecasting. Blockchain-based solutions enable the publication of forecasts and the rewarding of their authors (as well as those who bet on them) without censorship. There is, for example, an open-source decentralized prediction market called Augur, which uses Ethereum blockchain smart contracts. Blockchains’ permanence and resistance to falsification open up new possibilities in asset management, offering similar advantages as double-entry bookkeeping: better order and a lower risk of mistakes. In the energy sector, RWE and EEX use these properties of blockchains in their joint Grid Singularity project. The Brooklyn Microgrid is another interesting example of a blockchain system that enables automated direct sale and purchase of energy generated by solar panels on residential buildings. VETRI once again functions as a marketplace that connects identity holders and data consumers through blockchain smart contract technology and matches supply and demand, all commission-free.
Find out more about the value of your personal data:
|
https://medium.com/vetri/blockchain-beyond-cryptocurrencies-19a52a7b2d66
|
[]
|
2018-12-17 08:36:00.414000+00:00
|
['Blockchain']
|
These Historical Women Dolls Will Make You Scream with Delight
|
Have you frequently thought, “Susan B. Anthony was pretty cool, but I wish she had been just a little bit hotter? Mattel agrees, and that’s why they want to make sure every girl has one of their Inspiring Women dolls. Because until their flaws have been cut away, how will children care what they did? Rosa Parks with wrinkles? No, thank you! Rosa Parks with legs for days? Yes, please!
Check out our lineup of other heroines—now with conventional attractiveness that makes them worthy of our admiration.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Sporting bright red pumps and a peace sign necklace made out of pearls, everything about this spicy lady screams “first.” With her signature fur coat and a double D bra size, she’s the FLILF you never knew you needed to teach your daughter that human rights advocates can be smart, confident, and yummy.
Harriet Tubman
Here’s a woman who puts the “sass” in Moses, if you mispronounce it slightly. She wears a chic conductor cap (get it?), and instead of the pistol she carried to protect escapees and encourage the terrified to press onward, she holds a super-sharp nail file, perfect for smoothing out those rough tips (or warding off slave-catchers). Her finger — painted pink — is always pressed against her lips. Can you keep this secret?
Marie Curie
This is one radioactive madame! Sure, she was a chemist, but we’ve decked her out in a nurse’s outfit. She also comes with librarian glasses because boys like women who are nerd-hot. Our naughty Nobel laureate has a beaker that looks like a champagne flute. Why not?
Queen Elizabeth I
England’s favorite monarch wouldn’t stay a virgin for long in a high-necked, low-backed red and gold dress with a hoop skirt, emblazoned with a crown. In one dainty, snow-white hand she holds the head of her cousin, Mary (she’s fierce!); in the other, a compact. Just call the ginger temptress her meOWOW-esty.
Frida Kahlo
Wasn’t it high time that someone plucked Frida’s eyebrows? We did that and more, swapping out her long skirts for a mini and adding giant hoop earrings and a beret, something every artiste should have. Hear her say “¡Hola, amigos!” when you press her belly button — it’s right underneath her crop top.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg
Order in the court…and on the catwalk! Mattel doesn’t think it’s too soon to add their newest historical hottie to the lineup. RBG wasn’t just known as a women’s rights advocate; she also had a super-tiny waist. Her black robe comes with a cinched belt to show off her skinny figure. And we haven’t forgotten her signature dissent collar!
|
https://medium.com/jane-austens-wastebasket/these-historical-women-dolls-will-make-you-scream-with-delight-3e49d13298f8
|
['Laura Berlinsky-Schine']
|
2020-10-16 00:12:05.119000+00:00
|
['Culture', 'Feminism', 'Humor', 'History', 'Satire']
|
Coming Out Day: Interview with Tobias Eppler (CRO at HeyJobs)
|
Tobias Eppler, our Chief Revenue Officer, was recently recognized as one of Germany’s “Top 100 Out Executives” for being a professional role model to the LGBTQ+ community. As an outed gay person since high school, we spoke with Tobias about his personal outing story and how he empowers diversity in his professional life.
“Diversity needs to be embraced and fostered by the executives and the advisory board.” — Tobias Eppler
When and how did you come out?
I was 17 at the time and on family vacation in France. I had reached a point where I could no longer bear lying to myself. I wanted to finally break free and be honest with my parents, my brother — and myself.
I told my brother while playing Gameboy. He responded: “Everything’s great, no problem for me. You know I love you.” That really encouraged me and I decided also to tell my parents, which I did on our way to dinner that same day. My mom reacted like my brother. She said that this was not a problem at all and that she loved me. But my dad just looked at me and said, “Uh-huh, okay.” That really disturbed me, especially as we were usually such a loving and hugging family.
When we arrived at the restaurant, I started to hyperventilate and to cry. I’ve never had such an intense feeling of sadness. Surprisingly my dad started crying as well, followed by my mom and my brother. My dad took my hand and said: “I’ve always wished that life would be easier for you. I will always love you just the way you are, son. You’ll always be my gold star.” That was an incredible sign of love. I still feel tears in my eyes every time I recount this situation. And probably until this day the French people around us thought we all were crazy.
Thank you, Tobi, for sharing. How have you supported diversity in your private and professional life?
I have started early on to actively support this topic that is so close to my heart. Both at my high school and my university, I founded the first ever diversity groups to create safe spaces for LGBTQ+ members and immigrants. It took some guts but I knew it had to be done. Especially at my business school, where I was suddenly surrounded by 70% of white dudes and a lot of “traditional masculinity”, I knew that I needed to take a stand because “we” were there, too. And I didn’t want us to be treated like some sort of underground society. I wanted us to be visible, to have a clear voice.
At Google, I actively participated in the “Gayglers” network and at McKinsey, I joined the community “GLAM”. Also my community service at an AIDS help center broadened my horizon a lot. It has always been important to me to not only being part of such groups but to actively help promote this important topic. Personally, I got along well as an outed person in the professional world, but many others were still in this difficult phase in which they don’t like themselves or don’t yet understand who they truly are.
I have always been very open about my sexuality. If you don’t leave room for speculation on whether you are gay or not, everyone can focus on what actually counts. I am a strong believer in meritocracy. As a human being, I am not defined by my gender, my sexuality or my skin color but by my ambitions, my fears, and my dreams.
Later at HeyJobs, I have set up a diversity group that is in charge of our involvement with the Christopher Street Day in Berlin. Last year, HeyJobs was the smallest company to sponsor the CSD. We had our own car and a fabulous colorful party. We hope to be back next year and it will be even more colorful then.
HeyJobs at the Christopher Street Day 2019 parade in Berlin
Yes, fingers crossed. What else do you think companies can do to become more attractive for LGBTQ+ employees?
I think it is the wrong approach to start with the question: “How can I become more attractive for LGBTQ+? Companies need to start by honestly evaluating their culture: “Are we truly these diverse and open people that we claim to be?” Pinkwashing only works until someone from the LGBTQ+ community joins and uncovers that it was only a facade.
I also believe that diversity needs to be embraced and fostered by the executives and the advisory board, like it is done at HeyJobs. It is not an issue that HR can and should deal with on its own. If a homophobic comment is made by an executive, the diversity groups are useless. The important thing is to create a safe space where people have the courage to come out. I want to work in a company where I can be who I am.
At HeyJobs, we always check for biases when recruiting our own employees. We try to build our recruiting and performance processes in a way that biases can be eliminated as much as possible. We should all strive for that.
What LGBTQ+ role models do you have?
I admired how Dirk Bach handled his coming out. He was the only male TV personality who was straightforward and open about his sexuality. It was similar with Hella von Sinnen in the lesbian community. In politics, Klaus Wowereit clearly showed his colors. And in business, I admire Tim Cook, who came out quite late, but dared to take the step publically as the CEO of one of the world’s most valuable companies. To me that is inspiring and helps change the organizational culture of many companies.
What would you like to say to people who (in their professional environment) don’t have the courage to come out yet?
I think many will agree with me: Coming out in a private environment is already the first step. With your parents, with your friends. Coming out at work would be the logical next step.
Here is my advice: Ultimately, it is your performance that counts. And if the company you work for doesn’t accept you when you come out, it is really not the company you want to work for. Stand up for yourself and leave with your head held high, rather than telling stories à la “I was at my girlfriend’s”. This frees your mind and you automatically become more productive.
Taking this step has also resulted in many deep friendships and great conversations for me. Have the courage to do it, find a good moment and don’t let anyone pressure you.
Thank you, Tobi, for this personal and inspiring interview!
|
https://medium.com/heyjobs/coming-out-day-interview-with-tobias-eppler-cro-at-heyjobs-565d0f3361be
|
['Heyjobs Org']
|
2020-10-13 13:36:44.274000+00:00
|
['Interview', 'LGBTQ', 'Coming Out Day', 'Diversity', 'Pride']
|
The Dark Side of a Self-Help Guru
|
I don’t have my shit together
Now, one would think that being a self-help guru means that we got it all together, we know what we’re doing, and we’re happy all the fucking time.
No…no…and no.
Not even close. If anyone tells you they are happy all the time, they are flat out lying. It’s not possible.
And I hardly have my shit together anymore. Well, I kinda did until Pinterest pulled the plug on my business (can you tell I’m a little bitter?) and then I pretty much curled up in a ball for over a week crying my sorrows away and wondering what the fuck to do with my life, all the while writing inspiring self-help articles.
What fun.
My entire world fell apart and every morning I put on my ‘happy mask’, sat at the computer, and told people to smarten up, stop drowning their sorrows, start taking steps to change their life, and get on with it.
After each piece, I would go sit in the living room, smoke some weed, and cry. I was a mess, my life was a mess, my business is a mess and I’m a loser.
“Oh Iva, you’re such an inspiration”! Ooph, if you could see me now.
|
https://medium.com/assemblage/the-dark-side-of-a-self-help-guru-aa1c85deac19
|
['Iva Ursano']
|
2020-12-14 13:50:44.209000+00:00
|
['Feelings', 'Inspirational', 'Personal Story', 'Self Help', 'Self-awareness']
|
How to Get Crypto DeFi Data Into Your Spreadsheet: Part 1
|
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how to easily search and get data for the crypto DeFi markets in a spreadsheet using Cryptosheets. This is intended for all users levels and highlights basic concepts
OVERVIEW
In this tutorial we’re going to highlight several examples demonstrating how to get different types of DeFi data, metrics and analytics into Excel & Googlesheets using Cryptosheets. For this article (Part 1) we’ll focus on three basic DeFi data concepts for statistics, historical liquidity & yield farming.
(QUICK) DEFI BACKGROUND
DeFi is short for “decentralized finance” which is a broadly generalized term for a variety of financial applications across the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. The defining and unifying attribute is that they are all commonly designed to disrupt legacy financial intermediaries and optimize traditional market inefficiencies.
The category is constantly evolving with current major applications including: stablecoins, decentralized exchanges (DEXs), crypto debt servicing (borrowing/lending), prediction markets, yield farming, liquidity mining, full stack autonomous financial transaction management and much more.
HOW TO
Follow the simple steps for each example to find and get different types of DeFi data.
EXAMPLES COVERED
DeFi Global Stats UniSwap V2 Historical Liquidity Yearn Yield Farming
EXAMPLE 1: DeFi Global Stats
Arguably the easiest to remember formula to get DeFi data in Cryptosheets is CoinGecko’s API endpoint fittingly named “defi”.
Load your Google or Excel spreadsheet and login to Cryptosheets In cell A1 type “Coingecko” In cell A2 type “defi” In cell A4 type =CSQUERYA(A1,A2)
5. To clean up the formatting we’ll use the global parameter called _path and add it to our existing formula like this
6. Finally we’ll use the built in TRANSPOSE formula to pivot the data and format the values
Here are the exact formulas if you want to simply copy + paste to try them yourself…
|
https://medium.com/cryptosheets/how-to-get-crypto-defi-data-into-your-spreadsheet-part-1-3f059f0dd3b1
|
['Chris Ware']
|
2020-09-29 17:18:23.369000+00:00
|
['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Defi', 'Data Science', 'Bitcoin']
|
San Jose and San Francisco made it into the Top 25 of the world’s best 100 cities for 2020 as…
|
San Jose and San Francisco made it into the Top 25 of the world’s best 100 cities for 2020 as determined by a tourism, real estate and economic development advisory group, Resonance Consultancy.
The company uses specially developed programs that rank cities based on dozens of characteristics and qualities, taking into account things that would appeal to visitors as well as locals. Resonance says it takes a more “holistic approach” in the rankings, using a wide range of factors that include a city’s ability to attract employment, investment and visitors. It also takes into account culinary experiences, museums, sights, landmarks, the number of Global 500 corporations, direct flight connections, the education levels of residents, and mentions each city has on Instagram.
Topping the list of best cities were London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, Dubai, Singapore, Barcelona, Los Angeles and Rome.
Of San Jose, Resonance said “Talent, smarts and money are a potent mix that’s given San Jose — the largest city in Northern California in terms of area and population — a No. 3 ranking for per capita GDP in the world, behind only Abu Dhabi and Doha.”
The city scored high in the Resonance rankings for number of people with at least a post-secondary education, and ranked No. 2 in quality of universities with Stanford leading the list. Google, Facebook, Cisco Systems, eBay and PayPal made San Jose No. 15 for Global Fortune 500 headquarters and No. 11 for foreign-born population, up from 14th last year.
“While immigration is ever more contentious elsewhere,” researchers noted, “the city continues to draw some of the best and brightest tech talent and entrepreneurs on the planet.”
San Francisco was lauded for embracing seekers since the Gold Rush days, when people from all over the world showed up in the city looking for their chance at the California dream.
“Along the way,” the report notes, “these immigrants have sowed the seeds for the city’s open-minded attitude toward, well, everything. The result is a city that doesn’t just welcome differences, but encourages and celebrates them. No wonder it ranks No. 8 in our People category, including No. 6 for residents with at least a post secondary education.
|
https://medium.com/@sksarfarazahmed6/san-jose-and-san-francisco-made-it-into-the-top-25-of-the-worlds-best-100-cities-for-2020-as-2fb66670196d
|
['Sksarfaraz Khan']
|
2020-11-25 13:02:37.452000+00:00
|
['San Francisco', 'Is A Place', 'Dreams Can Be Fulfilled', 'Where Your']
|
The Challenges of B2B Sales in Singapore
|
The Challenges of B2B Sales in Singapore
Photo by LinkedIn Sales Navigator from Pexels
Despite our global outlook, B2B sales in Singapore is still faced with a lot of problems.
Despite the global awareness and worldwide connectivity, Asian countries are still very conservative when making financial decisions.
This is why most of the time, your company will be met with difficulties when selling to corporations in Singapore.
Aside from that, Singaporeans are also very choosy about their purchases.
They prefer to stick to their own brands or stick to the choices they know. As a result, your company will likely go through a lot of rejection when trying to sell your products or services in this country.
Additionally, the market is also highly competitive and there’s only so much you can do to stay ahead of the game.
This is why you should outsource your marketing efforts so you can have more time in focusing on core business processes instead of worrying about what will happen next in your marketing strategy.
The solution to your B2B sales in Singapore
You may have tried contacting corporate companies in the country with your sales pitch, but you still get rejected most of the time.
This is why you need to outsource your marketing efforts so you can have more time in focusing on core business processes instead of worrying about what will happen next in your marketing strategy.
The good thing about outsourcing here in Singapore is that you will be able to save a lot of money and time by hiring professionals who will take care of your campaigns.
Hiring a professional company who specializes in lead generation and appointment setting is a smart choice because it will allow you to focus on doing other important things.
Moreover, there are lots of options when it comes to hiring an agency to do your B2B sales for you, but not all of them are worth it.
If you want results, then you should be looking for a company that has been proven effective through customer reviews. You can choose from phone lead generation or appointment setting depending on what fits the best for your business needs.
How much is the cost of doing B2B sales in Singapore?
B2B marketing in Singapore can be very expensive and it may be hard to find a company who will deal with your budget.
But this shouldn’t be a problem because there are some companies who are willing to work with the budget you have.
It is just important that you know what you should expect in terms of cost when dealing with a professional service provider.
Phone lead generation or appointment setting usually costs around $500 to $3,000 per month, depending on your needs and the scope of your campaign.
Lead generation is more effective because it can provide more long-lasting results compared to appointment setting.
If you want quicker results, then it is best that you hire an agency that offers appointment setting because this will allow them to meet up with potential clients who are interested about your products and services.
But if you have time constraints, then lead generation is the best option for you because it doesn’t require clients to get in touch with the company directly.
What kind of ROI can I expect?
The cost of hiring a professional agency depends on what kind of campaign they will do for your brand.
You should also take note that most agencies will give you back 60% of their total collected leads as part of their service fee.
This means that if they collected 1,000 leads for your brand, then they will give back 600 contacts as their initial payment from these leads.
From these 600 contacts, only 10% (60) might become actual customers for your business. This means that out of 1,000 leads collected, only 6 people may eventually buy from your company!
That said, there are lots of factors why someone won’t end up buying from your brand even if they were contacted by an agency before such as competitors offering better products or service or simply being uninterested in what you have offered them during the sales pitch.
About the Author
I am the Founder of Cudy Technologies (www.cudy.co), a full-stack EdTech startup helping teachers and students teach and learn better. I am also a mentor and angel investor in other Startups of my other interests (Proptech, Fintech, HRtech, Ride-hailing, C2C marketplaces and SaaS). You can also find me on Cudy for early-stage Startup Founder mentorship and advice.
You can connect with me on Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderlhk) and let me know that you are a reader of my Medium posts in your invitation message.
|
https://medium.com/@alexanderlhk/the-challenges-of-b2b-sales-in-singapore-9dc40c608bcf
|
['Alexander Lim']
|
2020-12-27 06:02:32.691000+00:00
|
['Startup', 'Startup Lessons', 'B2b Sales', 'B2b Marketing', 'B2B']
|
Bestfolios of the Year — 2020
|
2020 is a tough year for all of us. We hope Bestfolios helped you a little bit on landing a job or getting inspirations. Here are our editor’s pick of the best of the bestfolios.
|
https://medium.com/@bestfolios/bestfolios-of-the-year-2020-438644255266
|
[]
|
2020-12-20 21:58:19.493000+00:00
|
['Design', 'Inspiration', 'Portfolio', 'UX', 'Product Design']
|
How to use UTM campaigns to get massive online audiences
|
There are many ways to market a crowdcast event. The entire event is simply one URL so the easiest was is to simply share the event URL to all your social media and email channels.
The problem is that it’s hard to tell which channel is doing the best job at bringing attendees. And without knowing which channel to focus on, you can’t double down on the channels that work.
That’s why we’ve redesigned our analytics dashboard and added UTM tracking metrics.
We created a video below to show you how it works:
|
https://medium.com/crowdcast-news/how-to-use-utm-campaigns-to-get-massive-online-audiences-92a13ef61f46
|
[]
|
2018-01-29 21:35:25.948000+00:00
|
['Product Design', 'Webinar', 'Live Streaming', 'Live Video']
|
Effective Internet Marketing tips
|
More Effective Internet Marketing With These Tips
You want the truth about internet marketing, not just what some random person has said on the Internet. There are scores of self proclaimed experts out there, but you need to know the correct information and be assured that it is legitimate. You will most likely find exactly what you are looking for in this article.
Investing resources and purchasing ad space on someones website is a great way to market your own business. Many site owners out there are more than happy to advertise your business, and they will give you prime placement on their highly-trafficked sites for a little bit of cash. It is how they earn money and it is how you can climb the rankings.
Did you know that cemeteries are among the most common WiFi hot spots for many cities? The reason is that genealogists like to visit cemeteries to collect information about their ancestors. By giving genealogists access to the Internet right where they are working the cities providing the WiFi are meeting a very important need.
In order to increase your income, you must increase the number of subscribers to your site. Use a split test to determine which of two methods might be most effective at expanding your business. Provide one group with one version of your web page and submit a different version to a second group. Based upon the results of this test, you should be able to see which version received the most subscriptions.
Increase your internet marketing exposure by posting to various directories. With so many directories out there, it can be tough deciding where to start first, just remember that any post is better than no post. Over time, you will accumulate your listings into all of the directories. Just keep up a steady pace and you shall succeed.
It is important to put real effort into your photography for your product or service. Amateur-looking photography leaves a bad perception with your website visitors. It says to them that your brand is not professional and that their money is, more than likely, better spent elsewhere. Invest in photography and the images you use. They are the doors to your business.
When your Internet marketing strategy has brought customers to your website, it is important to get them to click the “Buy Now” button before they leave. The color and the words you use can make a difference. Orange is the best choice for the color. Change the words to “Add To Cart” and you will find an increase in sales.
Do promotional giveaways on a regular basis. Don’t just use this tip for a one-time mailing list builder, but continue to give weekly or monthly prizes. It will generate an interest in your site that people will come back to check on again and again, as well as keeping it in their minds on a regular basis.
Remind your readers that they can bookmark your website. If a customer is interested in returning, they will not have to search for you again if they bookmarked your page. It may seem obvious, but sometimes the idea will slip someone’s mind. Jog their memory for them with a quick and subtle reminder.
When starting an online business, find a niche and become the authority on that product. For example, instead of selling shoes, sell extra wide shoes for men. While you narrow your playing field, you bring in traffic that has difficulty finding your product through other avenues, increasing your chances of making a sale. In addition, your business will be easier to find online because of your detailed key phrases. Try entering a search for “shoes” and then enter a search for “men’s extra wide shoes” and see what a difference a niche can make.
If your customer’s sign up for a newsletter or email service, make sure that you do not spam them. Spamming can be really frustrating, which can lead to angry customers. When someone is interested in your product, they will leverage off of the knowledge they acquire, as spamming typically does not work.
In summary, you want to be careful who you take advice from with regards to internet marketing. It is important to you that you have the correct information and that is is portrayed in a clear and concise manner. Hopefully the tips provided in tips for you.
Click here for instant access.
|
https://medium.com/@s.selva/effective-internet-marketing-tips-5fa49a9b7e6a
|
['S Selva']
|
2021-12-24 12:13:23.449000+00:00
|
['Marketing Strategies', 'Marketing', 'Tips And Tricks', 'Internet Marketing', 'Effective Communication']
|
Lurching
|
Lurching
what covid does to walking
Edvard Munch | Ashes
from coping to thinking dying
might be preferable
as a way out a grim solution
to the interminable inside
or at least sleeping
until almost forever
teasing death celebrating
at your imminent arrival
this day after day
and you can’t see me
and I can’t see you
so we don’t
know if the rumor
is true
that you took your own hair
in bundled contempt
of unkempt ends and pulled
just to see
if you were there
at the roots of it
to feel
And here the sky
has closed
for business replaced by slate
grey that weeps and weeps
and snivels and complains
until you just want to yell
pull yourself together
for god’s sake
sky
and this contrast
so stark with
those days you awake
and you are
alive
and happy
to have it so
even as your surface murmurs
with the masked breath
of an inexorable sadness
that others are sick
and scared of ending
or protesting and not caring
about life
or rather caring
about something
bigger
and in the space
where there isn’t panic
you wonder where
the end will be
and if you dare hope
for something
after
© Gail Walter 2020
|
https://medium.com/loose-words/lurching-229d27b9af7c
|
['Gail Walter']
|
2020-08-19 12:12:54.478000+00:00
|
['Survival', 'Pandemic', 'Covid 19', 'Poetry', 'Life']
|
Simplicity: Jets Release
|
Simplicity: Jets Release
A new developer preview of Simplicity introducing jets to streamline contract development Blockstream Follow Apr 4, 2020 · 7 min read
By Andrew Poelstra & Russell O’Connor
This week we are excited to announce a milestone in Simplicity development: a major new developer preview release with jets. Jets can be thought of as pre-made building blocks that can be combined together to construct complex Simplicity programs without having to build everything from scratch, simultaneously speeding up the process of developing Simplicity-based smart contracts while reducing their resource costs. We go into detail on this development below.
This release also introduces Simplicity support for test branches of Bitcoin and Elements, making it easier for developers to start thinking about how Simplicity as a script language upgrade could work for Bitcoin in the future. To demonstrate the new functionality in this release we give details of some test transactions written using pure Simplicity validation logic. These transactions are signed with BIP-Schnorr signatures, implemented in Simplicity itself, on modified Bitcoin and Elements regtest networks.
The test transactions demonstrate that Simplicity core is functionally complete, and is closer to being production-ready. While there is not yet any tooling available for developers, the code is available to download for anyone wanting to start experimenting with the new scripting language.
An Intro to Simplicity
Simplicity is a blockchain programming language expressly designed for formal verification of correctness and for efficiency. It was built to overcome the limitations of Bitcoin scripting on Bitcoin and “Bitcoin-like” chains (e.g. Elements and Liquid), introducing:
Introspection: allowing contracts to observe and control the amounts and destinations of transactions based on spend criteria.
allowing contracts to observe and control the amounts and destinations of transactions based on spend criteria. Generality: supports any program a developer can think of, while still guaranteeing the verifiability of resource costs.
supports any program a developer can think of, while still guaranteeing the verifiability of resource costs. Extensibility: even new library-level functionality can be implemented in Simplicity itself—for example, Schnorr signatures.
With these tools, developers can produce a wide variety of new Bitcoin and sidechain-based applications, including:
Vaults: users can secure their coins by requiring a devaulting withdrawal notice period before moving to their final destination. During the devaulting stage they can approve or cancel the withdrawal. This means that even if keys are stolen, an attacker cannot abscond with coins without giving the user sufficient time to detect and block the theft.
users can secure their coins by requiring a devaulting withdrawal notice period before moving to their final destination. During the devaulting stage they can approve or cancel the withdrawal. This means that even if keys are stolen, an attacker cannot abscond with coins without giving the user sufficient time to detect and block the theft. Limit order swaps: a limitation of swaps made using the Liquid Swap Tool is the atomic swap contract only supports the execution of a trade of a fixed amount of an asset. A partial order match requires a new contract to be created. With Simplicity, traders can set up far more flexible swap contracts that support partially-filled orders. This enables the generation of “limit orders” with reduced settlement risk — useful for building P2P and non-custodial asset exchanges. Even more advanced uses are possible, including algorithmic trading or even smart contract-based derivatives.
The language’s reference implementation is in the Coq proof assistant language, which allows users to create mathematical proofs of their programs’ semantics. As such, Simplicity is a very low-level language, consisting of nine primitive operators called combinators, which can be composed in various ways to create complete programs. While Simplicity is not Turing complete, it can verify the execution of a Turing-complete set of programs, which is the property we need for blockchain applications.
These combinators are pure functions, meaning that every time they are executed they have the same result. This allows Simplicity programs to be represented as trees (or DAGs) of combinators, where unused branches can be removed and known branches can be safely computed by optimized machine code rather than executing the full Simplicity code.
Simplicity combinators are very low-level, so Simplicity lacks native facilities for expressing even such basic concepts as bitwise arithmetic or comparison of values. These operations and functions must instead be built up from Simplicity combinators, which in turn can be used to build a series of higher-level constructs until we can implement elliptic curve arithmetic and digital signature verification. Writing such a program is akin to building a signature verifier starting from a big bag of transistors — and this is exactly what Blockstream’s Russell O’Connor did to implement Schnorr signature verification.
History
The last technical blog update on Simplicity was in November 2018, when we announced the first source code release of the interpreter in multiple languages, along with a technical report detailing the language. This announcement marked a shift from Simplicity as a research project, to Simplicity as a production-targeted blockchain language intended for real use cases on real blockchains.
In September 2019, we released the first Simplicity developer release along with the first Simplicity transaction being created on an Elements regtest network. While this was an exciting milestone, it was not complete enough to demonstrate the full power of Simplicity. In particular, the entirety of the signature verification was provided on-chain in Simplicity code. Execution of this program took many minutes, even on fast hardware, because pure Simplicity is a low-level language lacking hardware support for even simple operations such as bitwise addition.
Over the last year, we have also implemented Simplicity interpreters in C and Rust, extended the language with Bitcoin and Elements primitives, and are pleased to have started receiving external contributions.
The Advent of Jets
To deploy Simplicity in real life, we need a feature called jets. Jets are fragments of Simplicity programs that have efficient machine-code implementations and are implemented in a language such as C designed for raw performance. When validators recognize a Simplicity fragment for which a jet exists, they can substitute the high-performance C version of the code for the raw Simplicity. On a network with a standard set of jets, the original Simplicity code does not even need to be provided on the blockchain.
Earlier this year, by extending the C implementation to support jets, and implementing key functionality with a modified version of the high-performance libsecp256k1 library, we were able to recreate the previous release’s test transaction, but now with a greatly reduced program size of 448 bytes, down from 14,635 bytes! For reference, a standard Bitcoin script of similar functionality is 107 bytes. There are still plenty more jets to implement, which will further reduce script sizes, but these numbers and the surprising compactness of Simplicity script object code, shows that Simplicity is practical and usable in a blockchain context.
Simplicity on Bitcoin
Like Segregated Witnesses, which was originally developed by Blockstream researchers for Elements Alpha before being overhauled by the Bitcoin community, we hope that one day Simplicity will make its way into Bitcoin. To demonstrate what this might look like, we have made a branch of Bitcoin Core to allow the creation of Simplicity-enabled Bitcoin regtest networks.
If Bitcoin had Simplicity scripting today, the recent BIP proposal for Taproot & Schnorr signatures could instead have been implemented as a smart contract, without needing a soft-fork, as could the new Lightning network design eltoo.
In fact, we implement Schnorr signatures fully in Simplicity using jets as a Simplicity “Hello, World!” program — a programming benchmark to demonstrate the power and compactness of using scripting to build new signature schemes.
In our previous release, Schnorr signatures were implemented in pure, manual, inline Simplicity script. For this release, Schnorr signatures were implemented using jets, yielding further efficiency benefits as shown in the results below.
Simplicity-based Schnorr signatures: jets vs no jets
Simplicity on Elements & Liquid
Unlocking the full power of Simplicity is a long-term project, and we expect it to take some years for the technical community to get to grips with the potential of the new language. Uptake should be aided by being able to try Simplicity within the Bitcoin-like context of Elements, and later, Liquid.
As a step towards Simplicity in Liquid, we have also created a Simplicity-enabled branch of Elements. This branch will be the basis of implementing Simplicity on Liquid later this year.
Future Work
Before Simplicity is ready for deployment on Liquid, some of the steps we’ll be working on include:
Implementing Taproot on Liquid.
Cleaning up our Elements branch and updating Simplicity to build on Taproot, which provides a more flexible script-updating mechanism than raw SegWit.
Determining an accurate cost model for Simplicity programs, starting from the formal Bit Machine (as in Section 3.5.2 of the Simplicity Tech Report) but modified to take account of jets. Similarly, designing an update mechanism to allow these costs to change as new jets are implemented.
Completing the implementation of Simplicity, including all resource estimation features, anti-denial-of-service mitigations, and finalizing the canonical program representation.
In addition to this work on the consensus layer, to make Simplicity more usable we need to write high-level tools to enable programmers to work with the language. As a first step toward this, we intend to implement a Simplicity target for the rust-miniscript library, allowing users to compile Miniscript policies to Simplicity. By decompiling the resulting programs back to the policy language (called lifting), users can easily verify that the resulting programs have identical semantics to the corresponding Miniscript, allowing them to explore the additional powers of Simplicity starting from a rich but formally-verifiable baseline.
Building a new blockchain programming language is no easy task. We’re extremely proud of how much we’ve achieved since embarking on developing Simplicity in 2017, and are excited about building real things for real users in 2020.
|
https://medium.com/blockstream/simplicity-jets-release-803db10fd589
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[]
|
2020-04-08 22:14:33.845000+00:00
|
['Smart Contracts', 'Research', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain']
|
Frugal Gift Buying for Christmas and Year Round
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Frugal Gift Buying for Christmas and Year Round
Start planning now for 2020
It’s that special time of year! Time to empty your pockets and spend spend spend on gifts for your loved ones, coworkers, neighbors!
But, wait!
What if I told you there’s a way to shop for presents without emptying your piggy bank?
Not only for Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Festivus, but also any time you need to give a gift or two.
Keep a Running List All Year
In early 2018, my niece shared a post about human organ stuffed animals. I “innocently” asked her which one she liked the most. When she answered the kidney, I added it to my running gift idea list. I keep the list on my phone in my Notes (Memo for you Androidians) and any time I hear about or see something someone wants throughout the year, I put it on the list.
This comes in handy, so I can check throughout the year for sales and buy all year long, I don’t overspend on some junk they don’t even want, and it makes me look magical.
Buy Gifts Throughout the Year
As I said, I buy Christmas gifts throughout the year. I keep a box just for gifts. I check out clearance aisles, sale racks, and thrift stores all year and pick up items I think my people would like or the items from the list I keep.
A bonus to this is when a gift-giving event comes up during the year, I can simply pluck an item from my gift box to give!
Sales, Sales, Sales
I mentioned sale shopping year round. But I rarely do Black Friday sales. I’m just to aggressive and don’t want to go to jail over a flat screen TV that’s 30% off. I also know that many of the items come back on sale with deep discounts before Christmas anyway. You just have to pay attention to regular prices (I use my list) and watch for when those prices drop.
Online Marketplaces
Craigslist, Facebook, Etsy, eBay, and the like are great places to get a great deal.
This year, one of my people asked for a tech item that retails for $300. I laughed and said “Fat chance!”
A few days later, I saw someone selling that item for $120 on a local Facebook Marketplace site. I was the first one to respond to the ad and had to drive 45 minutes to get it, but I got it! For less then HALF of a new one. And it’s in new condition.
If your people ask for expensive items and you simply can’t afford it, there are other options!
Handmade Gifts
Even if you’re not crafty, hear me out. I know several people who ARE crafty and even have amazing tools and materials to make amazing items.
You can offer to pay your friends and neighbors to make personalized, handmade gifts. I asked a friend of mine to created a logo and put it on a hoodie for me. $15 later, I have a great gift that would retail for $60 or more!
Those of you who ARE crafty, then you know you can make personalized gifts from materials laying around your house or even buy cheap materials to use.
Last year I made a bunch of those popular unicorn ornaments from shatter-proof clear balls, iridescent tinsel, clay, stickers, and sharpies. Total cost for them was about $25! They were great gifts for coworkers and friends!
Coupons and Discount Codes
I always search online for discount codes before I buy anything. I also sign up for every rewards program there is. I have a browser extension that goes through discount codes for me when I shop online.
Coupons in my area are less available than they used to be. But, if I see a coupon around the holidays for great small gift ideas or stocking stuffers, you better believe I’m digging my scissors out of the junk drawer and clipping away!
Most of my kids are adults now, so along with the usual candy, I also get things like travel sized toothbrushes, powder, antibacterial gel, Kleenex, etc. for their stockings. Coupons are GREAT for these items!
Regifting
Unused candles received at a White Elephant gift exchange, that weird cardinal figurine from your friend, the sweater that your grandma bought that’s a bit too tight in the chest because she doesn’t realize you have boobs or pecs. All of these things can and should be regifted.
If you will get no use out of an item, instead of taking it back to the store, throw it in the gift box and save it for regifting. There is no shame in it!
Scratch Tickets
These are great for anyone without a gambling problem. Spend $20 on $1 scratch tickets, throw them in a small gift box or even a nice card, and voila! You have a cheap gift for a coworker, adult kid, or a gift exchange.
We do these as stocking stuffers, but I’ve been known to give scratch tickets out as gifts as well. And, hey, someone may even get some cold, hard cash from it! It’s a win-win!
Free Promo Items
If you’re like me, you end up at various trade shows and fairs where a ton of promotional items are being given away for free. Flashlights, phone chargers, koozies, notebooks, pens, keychains, cups, mugs, stickers are all there for the taking.
I use these as gifts, stocking stuffers, and even prizes for our family New Year’s Eve party. I have a box full of promo items next to my box of gifts. Sometimes you can even scratch the logo off from the company that gave the swag to you!
Free Samples
I am a complete sucker for anything free, especially free samples. I belong to several free sample groups and websites. I run through these sites as often as possible and send in for freebies.
One caveat here is that free samples usually take six weeks or more to arrive. This means you will need to get these ordered throughout the year and stash them in your gift box.
Another warning: you WILL start receiving lots of spam in your inbox. I created an entirely separate Gmail account for freebies for this reason. I check it if I need to verify my email address and sometimes to see offers.
I’ve received, absolutely free; jewelry, vinyl stickers, a netipot, snacks, drink mixes, t-shirts, socks, makeup, bottle openers, keychains, and more!
Gifts from “All of Us”
This year, there were some high dollar gifts on a couple Christmas lists in my family. I’m talking $300 and up high dollars. So I did what any savvy gift giver would do, I asked the family to go in on the gifts together.
Rather than pay more than my budget, I was able to stay within my price ranges and still be able to get those expensive gifts. It also took a little strain off those going in on the gifts with me. I did the shopping and they just had to give me money!
Off-Brands/Generic
I’m a firm believer in “ you get what you pay for.” Some name brands are just better, but some off-brand generic items are just as good too.
If someone asks for an expensive item like Air Pods, there are a ton of off-brands that work just as well. Some even look almost identical to the Apple product.
Also, in the same vein, some name brands are now sold at Wal-Mart and Target for a bit cheaper than other high-end stores.
Buy in Bulk
Because we have so many people in our family to shop for, we have a warehouse store membership at Sam’s Club. There’s one close by and if you can swing it, buying in bulk can save you a lot of money and time.
Our store sells gift items like travel mugs and such in bulk. We can also by gift cards at discounted prices there. Most of the candy we put in stockings is from the Club as well, as we have 12 stockings to fill.
Sometimes around the holidays, the warehouse stores offer Open to the Public days where non-members can enjoy the discounts as well. Keep an eye out for those!
Gift Exchanges
If you have a large family to buy for, one idea is to implement gift exchanges instead of everyone buying for each person.
There are apps and websites that will manage the exchange for you or you can just draw names out of a hat. You can make the exchange fun by playing Dirty Santa, where gifts can be stolen up to three times (people can choose to steal or open a gift).
White Elephant gift exchanges can be fun, but tend to lack the personal and sentimental touches some people like to put into their gifts. With the White Elephant, everyone brings whatever they can find or regift already wrapped. The items get numbered and people draw a number and pick the gift that matches.
I once received a cardinal figurine in one of these gift exchanges. The person who gifted it thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world. It was not. The cardinal’s eyes were not even and the red paint was chipping off. This cardinal got regifted.
|
https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/frugal-gift-buying-for-christmas-and-year-round-6f0fa3008169
|
['Kati Pierce']
|
2019-12-19 14:35:44.988000+00:00
|
['Money Management', 'Gift Ideas', 'Family', 'Gifts', 'Christmas']
|
RubriCorp: A Dystopian Assessment Story
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The year is 5020, and rubrics now control every aspect of human life. America itself is run by RubriCorp, a monopolistic mega-corporation topped only by Amazon Prime, which digitally warehouses and distributes all of RubriCorp’s rubrics. Rubrics are now used to evaluate every aspect of daily life, from the speeches of presidents to the lawn-mowing performances of suburbanites.
It is believed RubriCorp’s inception is rooted sometime during the early part of the 21st century, when university administrators first said things like, “Is this decision data-driven?” or “Can you quantify your students’ writing?” or “Is there a way to make assessment less subjective?”
These probably seemed like important questions at the time.
Human communication patterns were radically different in the pre-RubriCorp Era. For example, the simple question “How are you today?” could be answered by a literally infinite combination of words, rather than today’s standard likert scale of “Very good,” “Fine, but one or more aspects of my life need improvement,” or “Unacceptable / most aspects of my life do not meet basic expectations.”
Decision-making worked much differently, too. For example, people used to decide whom to marry based purely on feelings and on something they called “chemistry.” There’s evidence to suggest that people made all kinds of life decisions, both major and minor, without rubrics. The unearthed journal of a teenaged girl circa 2012 records that she bought something called a “prom dress” because it was “exactly what I wanted!” and because “it just looked like me!” We have no idea how she was able to quantify what she wanted or if the dress really looked like her, but we do know that this occurrence was not the anomaly of one random psychopath; apparently, people regularly made decisions without rubrics, all willy-nilly like a bunch of maniacs.
It appears that early rubrics were intended to be a guideline for making judgements about a limited number of things, almost all of them related to educational assessment. But with each generation, as people came to rely more and more upon rubrics and as rubrics bled from academia into industry and eventually to all aspects of existence, humans became less and less able to make any sort of determination without one.
Innovation has stalled out as well. Because so many generations of children have been taught to conform to rubrics, as a people we now struggle to conceive of novel ideas, products, and technologies. When today’s students are encouraged to create something new, they will look confused and begin to search frantically for a rubric. If their teachers seem less than thrilled with any particular performance, they will demand that any estimation of their work is immediately and solidly defended by a rubric. In the absence of rubrics they will sometimes become violent, on a scale from “appears easily frustrated” to “inflicts superficial wounds” to “murder/removal from classroom.” This could not have been our ancestors’ intentions, but it’s what’s happened.
Over time, the reliance on rubrics has actually changed our brains. Cognitive mapping shows that today’s children visualize all sensory data in a series of squares. When asked what breakfast cereal they’d like, for instance, rather than making a snap decision based purely upon hedonistic impulses, children will automatically mentally scroll through a grid of criteria that tabulates not only taste but nutritional content, caloric load, and percentage of organically-sourced ingredients.
While there are certainly benefits to such processes, there is growing concern that complete rubric-governance has lead to collective rigid thinking that not only squelches creativity but is actually making us stupider (RubriCorp is currently in development of a rubric that will help us to research this concern).
A recent case study, for example, documents the case of Ms. Roberta McGraw-Hill of Des Moines, Iowa, who received an “unsatisfactory” rating on the “Rubric for Childbirth Performance.” She challenged her score, claiming that child-bearing is a holistic experience and should be evaluated as such, and the currently-used analytic rubric that includes such descriptions as “maintained even breathing during strongest contractions” is not relevant to someone who delivers by C-section. “The baby came out fine and is healthy!” she reasoned, but her doctor looked confused. The physician, apparently, had become so consumed by the rubric that he seemed to have lost sight of its artifact, which in this case was a human baby.
There is evidence that at least a small group of academics tried to sound an alarm about this eventuality, screaming warnings into the void about the dangers of “viewing students as cogs in the wheel and their intellectual work as the objects produced by the System.” We have no idea today what this might have meant to our ancestors; metaphorical constructions are too complex to be factored into rubrics, so we simply don’t use them.
More research will be needed to fully grasp whether our lives under the power of RubriCorp are “excellent,” satisfactory,” or “unacceptable.”
|
https://medium.com/the-monocle-of-higher-ed/rubricorp-a-dystopian-assessment-story-9574e86d1a8d
|
['Jennie Young']
|
2020-12-09 18:33:08.506000+00:00
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['Tech', 'Humor', 'Education', 'Higher Education', 'Satire']
|
An Interview With Myself
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An Interview With Myself
Now that I’m officially a poet
Tara: Today on my radio programme, I am interviewing the newly proclaimed poet, Sylvia Wohlfarth. Hi, Sylvia, thank you for coming.
Sylvia: Hi, and thank you, Tara, for inviting me.
Tara: Now tell me, Sylvia, when did you realise for the first time that you were a poet and as such would call yourself one?
Sylvia: Well to be honest, when I received a message from Medium telling me they’d appointed me a Top Poet… me… I was pretty shocked and off went the alarm bells and my imposter syndrome set in.
So, what to do? I armed myself with a bottle of wine and wrote my very first stream of consciousness poem. My African Accolade. I’d been wanting to do this for a long time as I just love Ben Okri’s, ‘An African Elegy’. I wanted to capture my own thoughts on it.
Once finished, I put down my pen, sat back and thought, “Now, I’m a poet like everyone else.” I even went back and deleted the “hopefully”.
Tara: How did you feel writing it?
Sylvia: Thrilled at the ease the words came, but at the same time I had to keep reminding myself not to think about what I was writing and just go with the flow
Tara: Did the alcohol help?
Sylvia: (Smile) Of course it did. I needed to loosen my mind. Unleash the beast, block the inhibitions and desire to stop and review. By the time I’d finished, I’d guzzled about three glasses of wine which, by the way, isn’t the end of the world, you know.
Tara: And what happened to the rest?
Sylvia: I finished the bottle off, of course. I had to celebrate. Naturally, it’s a question of balance you know, you don’t want poetic slur.
Tara: So, are you happy with the result?
Sylvia: Oh yes, and thrilled that I had to do so little reviewing. I really like it. My personal project.
Tara: What made you attempt this form of poetry in the first place?
Sylvia: Well, I’ve always been aware of what I call poetic weirdness. There is so much amazing poetry around I don’t comprehend, a bit like forms of abstract art. And I sometimes wonder what machinery is inside some poets’ heads. Thank God for tags.
In fact, I was and still am, in awe at the skilful use of language and poetic forms that many poets implement. I wanted to try a bit of weirdness, too. Yeh, and I mean weird in the positive sense (smiles).
Tara: And what’s your next project going to be about?
Sylvia: To try and write a similar poem set in Ireland, the other half of me.
Tara: Will you open another bottle of wine for that?
Sylvia: I’d love to try it without. You know, test my sober mind but that would be less fun I imagine and anyway it wouldn’t really be Irish, would it?
After this, I’ll definitely go for dryer versions. Maybe something on dog poop, the bane of Irish pavements, or worms, certainly less controversial and divisive… unless you’re talking fishing (laughs).
Tara: Thank you very much, Sylvia, for this interview. I’m sure many an aspiring poet will now run off to buy a bottle of wine, grab a pen, a piece of paper, or a keyboard and drink and write to their heart’s content.
Sylvia: Emm, I’d rather they’d start the opposite way around, to be honest. First the pen, then the poem and finally the wine, if need be. I’m not sure there’s a category for inebriated poetry, but who knows, some of the best poems were probably written under the influence…
Tara: Yes, you’re probably right.
Good luck then with your next poem on Ireland and I’ll certainly come back to you on the dog poop.
Sylvia: Thank you!
|
https://medium.com/grab-a-slice/an-interview-with-myself-78badece3ab3
|
['Sylvia Wohlfarth']
|
2020-03-29 16:37:22.044000+00:00
|
['Self-awareness', 'Poetry Writing', 'Humor', 'Nonfiction', 'Imposter Syndrome']
|
Are You Still a Freelancer or Already a Business Owner?
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Are You Still a Freelancer or Already a Business Owner?
Shake off the ‘I’m just a freelancer’ image and start acting like a professional solopreneur
Photo by Bench Accounting on Unsplash
It’s time to shake off the ‘I’m just a freelancer’ image and start acting like professional solopreneurs. Here’s how to take your small business to the next level-with an entrepreneurial mindset.
The last time someone you just met asked you what you do for a living, what was your response?
‘Oh, I’m just a writer and sometimes I teach a bit on the side‘?
All too often this is what we tell others about what we do. But then how do we expect to be taken seriously as professionals? It’s high time we stop seeing ourselves as ‘just a freelancer‘ and start thinking and acting like business owners!
|
https://medium.com/translation-times/are-you-still-a-freelancer-or-already-a-business-owner-aae8307af6b0
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['Kahli Bree Adams']
|
2020-09-18 07:13:04.395000+00:00
|
['Small Business', 'Freelancing', 'Business', 'Solopreneur', 'Mindset']
|
Writing is My Bridge
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Writing is My Bridge
How I use writing to balance my mind.
@oplattner unsplash.com
When I was in high school, I wanted to be a writer.
I didn’t know why. I lost the battle of choosing college majors with my parents because I just couldn’t explain what I intuitively knew:
Writing was my salvation.
We often ask people we meet: “Are you a creative person?”, “Are you an analytical person?” We don’t realize that so many of us are both.
I grew up in the Asian culture of overachievement in science and mathematics. That means the analytical side of me flourished while the creative side suppressed. Creativity is frowned upon by strict Asian parents as the gateway to disobedience.
It wasn’t until I quit my Wall Street technology job that I realized what was lacking in my life.
Up until then, my life had been dedicated solely to analytical pursuits that I forgot to take care of my emotional needs and creative needs.
The cost of that was a couple of years of anxiety and depression. It took years of reevaluating myself, my connections and my life to really unleash the emotional and the creative side of myself again.
The motivation was the birth of my son. Following my son’s amazing development from infancy to toddlerhood allowed me to peek into my own childhood.
It reminded me of the humanity, the creativity and the sensitive self that existed in me from the beginning.
For once, to be a better mother to my son, I had to take a leap of faith. I had to come back completely to the essence of myself. I had to make my own life fulfilling by balancing out all my needs: analytical needs, emotional needs, and creative needs.
Making a career change is never easy. For me, the trigger was the deadening feeling of working on a piece of data analysis code and not loving it anymore. It was hard to accept when things are simply not enough. I felt guilty. I had worked very hard at what I “supposedly” did best. I loved it for many years. I was given great opportunities. But, I just wasn’t excited about it all anymore.
I felt like the wife stuck in a dead marriage with the guy who all the neighborhood ladies wanted as a husband.
The one thing about motherhood is that: it’s fast, it’s furious and it waits for no one. I had no time, energy nor the strength to fight with myself about the decisions I made.
I just did it all.
I changed loads upon loads of diapers. I reveled in my “free time” as my infant son stared up at me from his baby blanket. I laminated printouts for his activities. I read parenting books. I set up playdates. I learned to discipline him.
It felt like a huge tidal wave. I surfed it without having any knowledge of how to do it from the start.
Then, one night the truth hits me like a ton of bricks.
What would my ideal job be now that I don’t have a career safety net?
I couldn’t answer the question. So, I started to write. I wrote about parenting issues. I journaled. I researched. Then, I wrote some more.
Pretty soon, I started a blog. Then, I learned all about SEO, Wordpress, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. I learned about taking engaging photographs. I learned to create memes for my audience. I learned to skip Photoshop and go directly to Canva. I learned to check my grammar.
I’m still learning every day. It’s exhilarating to get years of materials out. Through the process, I slowly opened up my creative funnel.
The thing about the creative funnel is that once you turn it on, it’s hard to turn it off.
The other day, I came across a piece of data visualization while researching freelance writing jobs. It was mesmerizing to me. I wanted to critique the analysis and get my hands on that dataset.
There you go, my friends! For me, the only way back to being a balanced individual is to write my way back to my emotional, creative and analytical self.
If writing isn’t a bridge, I don’t know what is.
Writing ties together my left brain and my right brain. — Picture from Pexels.com
It’s a bridge that connects my left brain and my right brain. It’s a bridge that opens up the possibility of having a career that is not limited to one profession. It leads me to my new path of pursuing many different projects across a variety of fields.
Writing brings everything together. — original
Do you want to hear about my latest projects? Ask me after I get through analyzing my first dataset in three years.
|
https://medium.com/jun-wu-blog/writing-is-my-bridge-d37dbcf9cb1d
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['Jun Wu']
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2019-11-28 00:14:28.123000+00:00
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['Creativity', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing', 'Blogging', 'Writing On Medium']
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From Teaching to Customer Success
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Paige Pollara is a former High School English teacher who transitioned into Customer Success at NoRedInk, a startup that builds stronger writers through adaptive practice, writing exercises, and assessment. Paige shares which parts of her career switch came naturally to her and which parts took more effort & patience. She also breaks down the open Implementation Specialist role at NoRedInk and gives insight into how she evaluates teacher resumés so you can optimize your application!
What did you love most about teaching? What was hardest for you?
I loved a lot of things about teaching. First and foremost, I loved building relationships with my students. 9th and 10th graders are such interesting little people — they’re trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be, and I really loved being a part of that process and getting to be a resource for them.
As an English teacher, it helps that I’ve always been a huge fan of reading and writing (and young adult fiction in particular). It was fun to be able to recommend something like Percy Jackson and see a student’s eyes light up as they realized reading was fun. That aspect of the job was always super rewarding.
The hardest part for me was work-life balance. I was a perfectionist, and constantly found myself tweaking and improving my lessons the night before. I was also drowning in the amount of grading that I had to do. I worked nights and weekends because I wanted to leave comments on my students’ work, and I had 130 to 150 students! The amount of pressure I put on myself to be an excellent teacher was just too much, and I eventually burned out.
How did you know it was definitely time to leave the classroom?
I had four different principals in four years of teaching. It was really hard to do my job effectively when each year, somebody came in with a new vision of how things should be done.
In addition, I realized I really wanted more feedback and professional development. Because I was doing well and my class wasn’t on fire, I was mostly left alone and no one came to see me. In some respects that was great — I had a lot of autonomy, so I got to try and fail in a pretty safe environment. In other respects, this left me feeling like I didn’t have the resources to go from being a good teacher to being a great teacher.
What other job options did you consider, and how did you narrow them down?
Like a lot of teachers, I believed my first role would be something related to curriculum or instructional design. I applied to a number of those roles and just didn’t hear back. It was a big bummer and really disheartening at first. I tried to shift my mindset away from looking for the “ideal role” and toward the companies themselves: What companies would I be really excited to work for? What products are making a huge difference in teachers’ lives right now?
That’s such good advice, especially because you can network so much more authentically if you actually feel passion for the company’s mission! How did you find NoRedInk, and what was the interview process like?
I loved NoRedInk and saw they had a Customer Success role open. I didn’t know much about the role (or Customer Success in general), but the job description said something about supporting schools and teachers. That seemed like something I could do, so I applied even though I was a bit skeptical I would meet the qualifications.
However, the first recruiter call went really well. Many of the components of NoRedInk’s interview process were skill-based (for instance, I had to deliver a sample training and send sample emails to customers). I was able to show up and show the team what I was capable of — and in the process, I gained confidence that I would enjoy the role, because I was already doing some of it!
Think about your first few weeks at NoRedInk. Was anything surprising to you?
Building relationships with teachers and administrators came super naturally. At the end of the day, all of us cared about helping students become more confident writers, so we could come into a conversation with the same end goal. It also helped that I had used NoRedInk in my classroom before joining the team. Because of this, my product onboarding felt relatively smooth and I could focus more on the technical aspects of the job.
One thing that surprised me: I learned my email language needed tweaking! I wasn’t concise enough and showed too much emotion. I had to cut down on the number of exclamation points I used in writing.
Time management was also tricky. As a teacher, you’re so used to being rushed to fit your work into a specific period of a time. In my new job, I had so much more autonomy with my schedule. I wasn’t used to having multiple tasks with ambiguous deadlines, and it was a steep learning curve.
What helped with that over time?
Practice, and not being afraid to ask. That’s what your manager is there for, and why you have dedicated time with them each week. Just asking the question, “What’s the highest priority right now?” can help you direct your energy toward the right things. I still do that!
How did your role evolve at NoRedInk over time?
I joined NoRedInk when we were a small company (about 40 employees). There were a lot of opportunities for growth, and I took as many as I could! I spent a year and a half in Customer Success and moved to a team lead role on this team. I really enjoyed the strategy and process management this required. Eventually, NoRedInk noticed there was a need for a dedicated implementation team to support our larger customers. This seemed like the perfect mix of supporting teachers and project management. I jumped at the chance to be a founding member of that team and was promoted to manager after about a year.
What would you recommend to others who hope to make internal switches in their company?
I see a lot of folks do this at NoRedInk: someone on the Sales team moved to Marketing, two people from Customer Success went to Implementation, and we had a User Researcher move to Product Manager.
If you see opportunities to pair with people on other teams, take them! For instance, I spent time with folks on Product, Curriculum, and Marketing to learn about their goals and how my team could support theirs. This helped me learn more about the company as a whole.
Today, you’re looking for more Implementation Specialists to join your team! What is an Implementation Specialist responsible for at NoRedInk, and what does a typical day look like?
At NoRedInk, customers are assigned a Customer Success Manager who is ultimately responsible for the account. The largest and most complex accounts also have an Implementation Specialist; we are accountable for their training and resources, and we use our ELA instructional expertise to help them integrate our product with their curriculum. Currently, each Implementation Specialist has about ten accounts that we work with and know super well.
It’s hard to say what a typical day looks like because it totally depends on the time of year!
In July through October, Implementation Specialists can be found on calls helping clients set expectations, coordinating trainings, and following up with resources that schools need. They also spend time actually conducting virtual trainings so that teachers can use the program effectively.
In November through December, we pair closely with our partners in Customer Success to track usage and customer engagement. We develop intervention strategies for our at risk accounts and partner with Product or Marketing to create touchpoints for teachers.
In January through March, we help teachers navigate their second semester by providing more training and continuing to check in to make sure they have what they need.
In March through June, we’re rounding out the school year by planning for the back-to-school season, managing projects and initiatives to deliver in July, and partnering with Sales to create implementation plans for new clients.
What do you think it takes to be successful in this role? Who might not be a good fit?
You need to have teaching experience. As many teachers will tell you, there is nothing worse than a Professional Development session led by someone who has no experience doing what you do. We need educators with real experience integrating technology into their classrooms so that teachers feel really confident in their implementation.
What makes some teachers’ resumes jump to the top of the stack?
I would highly recommend sitting down with some of the job descriptions you’re interested in and mapping your teaching experience to those bullet points. For instance, in Customer Success, you need experience helping customers along what’s known as the “customer journey.” I remember looking this up when I applied and realizing it’s just backwards planning! You identify an end goal and determine what steps it will take to get the customer there. I had backwards planned hundreds of units; I knew that my students had achieved the goals and outcomes I had designed.
It helps applicants stand out when they can give me core examples of how they’ve already done some of the things we’re hoping they’ll do in the role.
Backwards planning is such a brilliant example! Can you think of any other non-obvious correlations between teaching experience and customer success jobs?
Job descriptions often emphasize the importance of data-driven outcomes, maybe framed in the context of portfolio management (hitting quotas or renewal goals). Still, teachers are all about data-driven instruction, and they have proof of their impact. They can talk about the students who passed end-of-year tests or the interventions and supports that got them there.
Even though this isn’t revenue-driven, it’s still a totally valid example of the same skillset.
Who might not be a good fit for a Customer Success role?
You have to be a people person. You’re “on” a lot of the time when you’re training. If you felt drained and exhausted from the feeling of having to perform as a teacher, it’s good to be aware that Customer Success has some of that, too.
I’d also recommend looking at the specific niche the company is looking for. For instance, do they need someone with Math expertise? Spanish expertise? We see awesome teachers apply to our Implementation Specialist position without English experience, and that’s a bummer because we need you to be an ELA expert.
Anything else you wish someone told you when you were first preparing to leave the classroom?
Two things stick out to me: first, I didn’t realize how competitive the EdTech world was until I stepped into my first jobs fair and there were hundreds of hopeful people vying for the same few positions. I had to wait in long lines to talk to people, and it was scary — I wasn’t ready for it. Be prepared for that and be patient. Your role will come!
Also… you’ll miss your students. The first, second, even third fall… you’ll hear about your teacher friends preparing their classrooms or doing parent-teacher conferences, or you’ll see your old kids start to graduate and you’ll miss it. And that’s okay.
What helps you feel confident that you made the right decision? Do you ever think about going back?
Someone on our team recently went back into the classroom. She missed her kids, and that was real! For me, though, I love that during trainings I get to watch the lightbulbs happen with teachers. I recently observed a teacher, showed her a new activity, and in the next class she was already excited to apply it.
Maybe I’m not helping the same group of 150 kids, but I’m still able to make an impact and help kids become better writers, to have a voice, and to advocate for themselves. That makes it worthwhile for me.
|
https://medium.com/@transitioning-teacher/from-teaching-to-customer-success-eb8d6e265c16
|
['Transitioning Teacher']
|
2021-04-21 15:17:05.291000+00:00
|
['Edtech', 'Teaching', 'Career Change', 'Customer Success', 'Interview']
|
Preparation for Bitcoin cash stress test day begins
|
A group that runs a website ‘BCH stress test day’ reported a stress test on the platform. This was reported on news.bitcoin.com As part of this test, the group is planning to process millions of transactions of minimum fee. That too, all those minimum fee transactions at once in one single day.
Since the number of transactions that are to be processed is insanely huge, the lead developers working on the project want everyone in the community to participate and pull this off.
Furthermore, spendbch.io, along with Bitbox which is an open source project, came up with a tool for this project. This tool allows anyone to ‘spam’ the network with transactions.
Node.js App for stress testing by Spencbch.io
The BCH blockchain has a block capacity size of 32 MB, which is multiple time huge than many blockchain based ledgers available today, including the prime cryptocurrency Bitcoin. This broad block size is exactly that is making higher throughput for BCH possible. Higher block size means that more transactions can be placed within every block. This directly means that more number of transactions can be processed every time a block is verified and added to the blockchain/public ledger.
The BCH chain had an 8MB block size until this may. Miners have been processing the transactions between 2–8MB. Furthermore, Viabtc was able to process an 8MB block that had 37000 transactions in it. The 8MB block that was added to blockchain successfully is an evidence that a 32MB block size would be a really amazing thing to help process more transactions.
Now that the platform has a 32MB block size, the developers want to stress test it. The test will have the system process huge number of transactions all at once in a 24-hour window.
Therefore, Spendbch.io came up with an app for stress testing the network. The tool is a “starting point” for the 1 BCH bounty program that will be offered to someone who can develop an advanced version of the app.
“BCH-stress test is a concept app that can be used as a starting point to claiming the stress test bounty,” said the spendbch.io developers
Furthermore, there has been a spike in the number of BCH transactions. Bitbox creator Gabriel Cardona along with many other BCH enthusiasts have been sharing screenshots of the number of transactions. Johoe’s Mempool and Fork.lol have been collecting data that show a steep jump in the number of BCH transactions.
“Big increase in bitcoin cash transaction count since yesterday. Here’s the script from Spendbch.io if you’d like to play along — Let’s stress test BCH to prove to the world we can scale,” Cardona tweeted
The stress test is scheduled to happen on September 1st around 12 PM UTC. Furthermore, the open source tool developed by spendbch.io is available here in the Github repository.
What do you think of this stress test? Are you going to participate in the test? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
|
https://medium.com/bitfolio-org/bitcoin-cash-stress-test-day-begins-with-a-flyer-9c549842b864
|
[]
|
2018-07-05 07:30:09.870000+00:00
|
['Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Bitcoincash']
|
H2O.ai Launches Python Framework to Develop Artificial Intelligence Apps
|
As we all know development of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Real Time applications is very popular now these days. Most of the people manifested their interest in learning Python programming language and developing ML and AI based Real Time Applications. According to the TIOBE Index Python is top 3rd among all programming languages. Python is High Level programming language which is super easy to learn and efficient to develop Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence based applications.
To make this development less time consumeable and efficient Open Source Leader in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning ‘’H2O.ai’’ launches a Python Development Framework “H2O Wave” to Develop Real Time AI Applications. H2O.ai announced that H2O Wave makes development of real time interactive AI Apps fast and easy for Data Scientists, Machine Learning Engineers and Software Developers. H2O Wave accelerates development with different user interface components and charts including dashboard templates, dialogs, themes and many more.
|
https://medium.com/@code-op-geeks/h2o-ai-launches-python-framework-to-develop-artificial-intelligence-apps-2207d3b6ac5d
|
['Code Op Geeks']
|
2020-12-19 10:47:15.558000+00:00
|
['Python Development', 'Python', 'Machine Learning', 'Python Programming', 'Artificial Intelligence']
|
The boy whose braids went viral. Seth Cardinal Dodginghorse crashed a…
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Seth Cardinal Dodginghorse crashed a government press conference to cut off his hair in defense of his homelands — and went viral doing it
Seth Cardinal Dodginghorse’s Tsuu’tina grandparents taught him that he was never to cut his hair unless he’d lost a loved one. On October 1st he cut his hair — but not because he’d lost a person. It was because he was losing his homelands.
“I am going to speak, and you are going to listen,” he said on the heels of multiple political speeches and moments before upending a major press conference by cutting off his two long, dark braids.
“Today is not a good day. I woke up this morning to see my mother crying. She heard the news that this road was going to be opening.”
“To people who don’t know Tsuu’tina history, it is also Calgary’s history. In 1880, Chief Bullhead fought for our reservation and treaty rights. In 1883, us Tsuu’tina people came to this land to reside. My treaty rights were never sold and you can never take them. You may sell your own treaty rights, but you cannot take and sell mine.”
26 year-old Seth Cardinal Dodginghorse (whose spirit name is Sun Child) comes from mixed Tsuu’tina and Blackfoot ancestry. He’s a recent university graduate and a multidisciplinary artist working to raise awareness about the creeping colonial development of his homelands. For the last six years, he says, he’s watched his lands slip away.
When Seth disrupted a ribbon cutting ceremony and press conference outside of Calgary, Alberta recently he caught a lot of people in high places off guard and went viral.
“To me, having the land be destroyed, having it paved and turned into a highway — I just wanted people to know that I was mourning,” Seth said in a phone interview on October 15.
Cardinal Dodginghorse says he didn’t plan to go viral that day. But something about those two snips took news media aback. And as Seth’s braids fell away — “I leave a piece of me with the road” — so too did much local political capital for Premier Jason Kenney and Tsuut’ina Chief Roy Whitney.
The controversial development project announced that day as part of Alberta’s ‘Recovery Plan’ was the Calgary Ring Road — a stretch of highway running directly through Seth Cardinal Dodginghorse’s home community that’s displaced many family homes in the process. The project has the endorsement of Tsuut’ina Chief Roy Whitney, and according to the Government of Alberta’s website, this road will bring ‘economic diversification and sustained economic growth’ to the region.
Cardinal Dodginghorse sees his Chief and band council as nothing more than mere tools of the settler state under the Indian Act. He also says this road will do nothing more than “allow settlers to drive into work five minutes faster each morning.”
I asked Seth exactly what brought him there that day.
“So what brought me there was the south-west portion of the Calgary Ring Road was opening that day, and it was a surprise to people in my community, on Tsuut’ina. And it was a surprise to me especially, because the south-west portion of the Ring Road was built through my family’s land. They tore down and destroyed forests where my family lived; and our homes as well. That stretch of land, my family’s land, was forcibly taken from us. The land was surrendered in full to the provincial government so that highway could be built. People are going to be driving over where my family’s history was. And so I wanted to go there. For years, my family has tried speaking to people within Tsuut’ina Nation. It is something that I think people need to understand.”
Before cutting his braids, Seth Cardinal Dodginghorse read a letter aloud that his mother had written that morning, recounting generations of pleas their family had made to successive governments and band councils to simply listen, and leave the land with its rightful owners.
“You can’t build prosperity, and you can’t build relationships, when you erase the women that came from this land,” Cardinal Dodginghorse said.
This road, as it’s planned, will cut straight through Seth’s home community. His family believes every inch of new asphalt poured will weaken Tsuu’tina culture.
To a Native man on Turtle Island like Seth Cardinal Dodginghorse, long hair is sacred, and can signify the depth of one’s teachings and time spent in ceremony. It can help tell the story one tells as one dances at a powwow. It can also signify when someone is mourning the loss of one’s kin, or in this case, the loss of one’s homelands.
Seth thinks a lot about the work of his braided ancestors. “My ancestors fought for future generations. It stings a lot more, knowing that history,” Cardinal Dodginghorse told me.
The Cardinal Dodginghorse family and countless others from Treaty 7 have been forced off their homelands by white settlers for generations. This new road development is just the latest in a long line of betrayals. Imagine the feeling of dispossession and agony for a Native mother like Seth’s, driven to homelessness by yet another generation of politicians cutting deals.
“We lived here, we grew up here; we touched that land. Since I’ve spoken up, I’ve heard people try to throw criticism. You know, like: ‘why didn’t your family speak up sooner?’ I’d like people to know that we have tried to follow all the rules. But the rules are colonial rules — and they work to protect governments, and the Indian Act chiefs and band councils. My family has tried all of these processes over the years. But those processes are set up to fail. They only serve certain people. Their interests aren’t Indigenous.”
In Canada’s genocidal residential schools, which were active right up until 1996, the long hair of little Native children was cut and shaved just as it was for little Jewish children in Nazi concentration camps.
Native children were ripped from their communities, torn from the arms of their mothers, and thrown into these church-run schools where nuns were instructed by the state to ‘kill the Indian in the child’. If you don’t believe me, this history has been well documented in excruciating detail by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Testimony was collected from thousands of residential school survivors and their kin. Many died at these so-called schools, or while trying to escape from them. Seth Cardinal Dodginghorse was raised by residential school survivors. He says his long hair and braids are a source of pride.
“Men in my family in the past who put their long hair in braids, and they were put in residential school, they weren’t allowed to have long hair. They weren’t allowed to have braids,” he says.
To reclaim that culture today, to wear braids freely, means a lot to Seth and to his family. But to be able to reclaim sovereignty over their beloved homelands, to stop unnecessary development projects like one, would be better.
⚫⚫⚫
For more on this story, check out my interview with Seth Cardinal Dodginghorse for Broadview Magazine here
|
https://medium.com/@jennjefferys/the-boy-who-cut-his-braids-ba6c20f1fa87
|
['Jenn Jefferys']
|
2020-12-17 03:02:32.762000+00:00
|
['Indigenous', 'Indigenous Rights', 'News', 'Canada', 'Indigenous People']
|
Web3 For Dummies — A Quick Guide. Among the biggest revolutionizing…
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Among the biggest revolutionizing technologies is the emergence of the Internet. From the way we interact, the fact that we can pinpoint the exact location for our Uber driver, make bookings online, or send a friend that new meme that popped up on Twitter.
This is called Web 2.0, and it’s been here for only 16 years. Since its emergence, people have created millions of online communities, global issues are now openly debated via social media apps, and information flows from every corner — exactly as the pioneers of the internet envisioned.
“The internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow” — Bill Gates
Web 2.0 made it possible for people to distribute content worldwide, but more importantly, being able to build on top of the infrastructure, which brings us to the forthcoming of the so-called Web 3.0.
🧐 What is Web 3.0?
Web 3.0 generally refers to the next generation of the worldwide web. Just like Web 2.0 started from an abstract concept of sending information on an open network, Web 3.0 goes deeper into building a fairer and more transparent internet. For this reason, Web 3.0 is often associated with blockchain technology.
In part, Web 3 will become closer to a “web of data” that can understand, combine and automatically interpret information to provide users with a much more enhanced and interactive experience. But it would also be a decentralized web that challenges the dominance of the tech giants by concentrating the power (and data) in the hands of the users, instead of corporations.
Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, explained this idea of a Semantic Web in 1999:
I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web — the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A “Semantic Web,” which makes this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy, and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines.
So what is the alternative? We need some technical solutions here, besides our desire to make things right. And we can see the advent of these solutions happening today.
🤖 Why do we need Web 3.0?
Each time we interact over the Internet, copies of our data are made and stored on servers of companies such as Google or Facebook, and when this happens, we lose control over our data. The fact that our information is stored by 3rd parties is not necessarily bad, however, when a single entity mediates the entire process this is where things can get an ugly turn.
Do we need a world where the data you provide can be used for the wrong purposes because of greed or pure malice? This goes way beyond privacy, the core of our problem is rather about control. On a daily basis, we hand control over petabytes of data over to companies and individuals with no apparent choice. Even after reading this article, we are still going to sign up on apps with our information for the sake of convenience. After all, this is one of the main benefits of technology.
In this context, blockchain seems to be a driving force of the next-generation Internet by providing three main solutions to the shortcomings of Web 2.0:
➡️ Privacy & Security — Building an improved web using the latest cryptographic technologies will make sure users of the internet are able to keep personal details private, far from the prying eyes of companies or hackers.
— Building an improved web using the latest cryptographic technologies will make sure users of the internet are able to keep personal details private, far from the prying eyes of companies or hackers. ➡️ Decentralized Storage — It’s possible to split up large files into smaller chunks that can be individually encrypted and stored in other locations. The IPFS Network and similar protocols are designed in a way that would require you to hack into multiple devices around the globe simultaneously in order to breach them, each having their own security.
— It’s possible to split up large files into smaller chunks that can be individually encrypted and stored in other locations. The IPFS Network and similar protocols are designed in a way that would require you to hack into multiple devices around the globe simultaneously in order to breach them, each having their own security. ➡️ Identity & Reputation — If all this anonymity makes you wonder about how we’ll deal with trust and reputation online, you’re not alone. In fact, we already have digital identities online that consist of data uploaded to social media and other websites. The major problem is that we don’t own or control that data, something that gets changed on the new web.
🔮 What is the state of Web 3.0?
Some of the technologies that could make the decentralized web possible are already being developed and iterated on at a very fast pace.
For example, the Databox Project aims to create an open-source device that stores and controls a user’s personal data locally instead of letting tech companies gather and do whatever they like with it. Zeronet offers an alternative where websites are hosted by a network of participating computers instead of a centralized server, protected by the same cryptography that’s used for Bitcoin.
Web3 applications, sometimes referred to as DApps, are built on decentralized peer-to-peer networks like Ethereum and IPFS. Instead of being run by some company, these networks are built, operated, and maintained by their users.
Moreover, a decentralized version of YouTube, called DTube is already actively hosting videos across the web using a “blockchain” public ledger as its database and payment system.
📝 Closing Thoughts
Although the way to build Web 3 apps will change in many ways as the infrastructure around it evolves, what’s key is that apps are being built today.
Knowing that a lot of really smart teams are starting to tackle the challenges and opportunities made available, we can expect to see more decentralized versions of current services and websites.
The question is whether these improved models will be integrated by the very centralized companies of today or the promise of Web 3.0 is in the hands of a new generation.
|
https://medium.com/online-io-blockchain-technologies/web3-for-dummies-a-quick-guide-eaddc9fb3ab3
|
['Tyler B.']
|
2020-02-22 18:26:22.425000+00:00
|
['Web3', 'Internet', 'Privacy']
|
The 2020 cord-cutter awards: The best streaming services, devices, and more
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You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream (Clive Staples Lewis)
|
https://medium.com/@vickie59255968/the-2020-cord-cutter-awards-the-best-streaming-services-devices-and-more-9e276c533809
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[]
|
2020-12-25 04:29:02.934000+00:00
|
['Streaming', 'Headphones', 'Connected Home', 'Home Tech']
|
On the one hand, I'm appalled by this story: what kind of credulous simpleton thinks it’s a good…
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On the one hand, I'm appalled by this story: what kind of credulous simpleton thinks it’s a good idea to feed metal to a turtle!?
On the other, I’m appalled by you: those puns were painful 😀
|
https://medium.com/@whereangelsfeartotread/on-the-one-hand-im-appalled-by-this-story-what-kind-of-credulous-simpleton-thinks-its-a-good-129fbeb28ab7
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['Where Angels Fear']
|
2020-11-26 18:36:52.897000+00:00
|
['News', 'Wildlife', 'Comedy', 'Satire', 'Humor']
|
How we did it: End-to-end deep learning in ArcGIS
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Oil and gas is a huge industry in the United States, and is currently experiencing a boom in the Permian Basin. This oil-rich region stretches from western Texas to eastern New Mexico. Each day, hundreds of new well pads appear across the landscape, making it difficult for regulators to keep up with. But unregistered well pads are both a safety hazard and a missed opportunity for revenue for agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management.
At the plenary session of this year’s Esri Developer Summit, we demonstrated an end-to-end deep learning workflow to find unregistered well pads, using ArcGIS Notebooks. This can help regulators monitor the progress of new drilling on their land as well as look for potential illegal drilling.
Well Pads detected using deep learning. The ones highlighted in blue are not currently listed in the permits database.
The full workflow, from exporting training data and training a deep learning model to detecting objects across a large landscape, can be done using the ArcGIS API for Python. This blog article, originally written as an ArcGIS Notebook, shows how we did this with the help of the arcgis.learn module.
Geospatial deep learning
The field of artificial intelligence (AI) has progressed rapidly in recent years, matching or in some cases, even surpassing human accuracy. Broadly speaking, AI is the ability of computers to perform a task that typically requires some level of human intelligence. Machine learning is one type of engine that makes this possible, and uses data driven algorithms to learn from data to give you the answers that you need. One type of machine learning that has emerged recently is deep learning. Deep learning refers to deep neural networks, that are inspired from and loosely resemble the human brain.
The arcgis.learn module includes tools that support machine learning and deep learning workflows with geospatial data. This blog post focuses on deep learning with satellite imagery.
Applying Computer Vision to geospatial imagery
One area of AI where deep learning has done exceedingly well is computer vision, i.e. the ability for computers to ‘see’. This is particularly useful for GIS, as satellite, aerial and drone imagery is being produced at a rate that makes it impossible to analyse and derive insight from through traditional means. Object detection and pixel classification are among the most important computer vision tasks and are particularly useful for spatial analysis.
Object Detection involves finding objects within an image as well as their location in terms of bounding boxes. Finding what is in satellite, aerial or drone imagery, and where, and plotting it on a map can be used for infrastructure mapping, anomaly detection and feature extraction.
involves finding objects within an image as well as their location in terms of bounding boxes. Finding what is in satellite, aerial or drone imagery, and where, and plotting it on a map can be used for infrastructure mapping, anomaly detection and feature extraction. Pixel Classification, also referred to as image segmentation, involves classifying each pixel of an image as belonging to a particular class. In GIS, segmentation can be used for Land Cover Classification or for extracting roads or buildings from satellite imagery.
ArcGIS has tools to help with every step of the deep learning workflow including data preparation and exploratory data analysis, training deep learning models, deploying them for inferencing and finally disseminating results using web layers and maps and driving field activity.
ArcGIS Pro includes tools for labeling features and exporting training data for deep learning workflows and has being enhanced for deploying trained models for feature extraction or classification. ArcGIS Image Server in the ArcGIS Enterprise 10.7 release has similar capabilities and allow deploying deep learning models at scale by leveraging distributed computing. ArcGIS Notebooks provide one-click access to pre-configured Jupyter Notebooks along with the necessary deep learning libraries and a gallery of starter notebooks that show how deep learning models can be easily trained and deployed.
The arcgis.learn module
The arcgis.learn module in ArcGIS API for Python enable GIS analysts and data scientists to easily adopt and apply deep learning in their workflows. It enables training state-of-the-art deep learning models with a simple, intuitive API. By adopting the latest research in deep learning, it allows for much faster training and removes guesswork in the deep learning process. It integrates seamlessly with the ArcGIS platform by consuming the exported training samples directly, and the models that it creates can be used directly for inferencing (object detection and pixel classification) in ArcGIS Pro and Image Server.
This module includes methods and classes for:
Exporting Training Data
Data Preparation
Model Training
Model Management
Inference
Prerequisites
Data preparation, augmentation and model training workflows using arcgis.learn have a dependency on PyTorch and fast.ai deep learning libraries.
If you are using ArcGIS Notebook Server, the dependencies are already installed.
In the ArcGIS Pro 2.3 Python environment, the dependencies need to be installed using these commands:
conda install -c conda-forge spacy
conda install -c pytorch pytorch=1.0.0 torchvision
conda install -c fastai fastai=1.0.39
conda install -c arcgis arcgis=1.6.0 --no-pin
Otherwise, in a new conda environment, issue the following commands:
conda install -c fastai -c pytorch -c esri fastai=1.0.39 pytorch=1.0.0 torchvision arcgis=1.6.0
Object Detection with arcgis.learn
Deep learning models ‘learn’ by looking at several examples of imagery and the expected outputs. In the case of object detection, this requires imagery as well as known (or labelled) locations of objects that the model can learn from. With the ArcGIS platform, these datasets are represented as layers, and are available in our GIS.
In the workflow below, we will be training a model to identify well pads from Sentinel-2 imagery. Sentinel-2 is an Earth observation mission developed by ESA as part of the Copernicus Programme to perform terrestrial observations in support of services such as forest monitoring, land cover change detection, and natural disaster management.
In this analysis, data downloaded from https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/ has been used for creating hosted image service in our GIS. The code below connects to our GIS and accesses the known well pad locations and the Sentinel imagery:
from arcgis.gis import GIS
from arcgis.raster.functions import apply
from arcgis.learn import export_training_data
gis = GIS("home") # layers we need - The input to generate training samples and the imagery
well_pads = gis.content.get('ae6f1c62027c42b8a88c4cf5deb86bbf') # Well pads layer
well_pads
# Sentinel-2 imagery published to portal
sentinel_item = gis.content.get("15c1069f84eb40ff90940c0299f31abc")
sentinel_item
Exporting Training Samples
The export_training_data() method generates training samples for training deep learning models, given the input imagery, along with labeled vector data or classified images. Deep learning training samples are small subimages, called image chips, and contain the feature or class of interest. This tool creates folders containing image chips for training the model, labels and metadata files and stores them in the raster store of your enterprise GIS. The image chips are often small, such as 256 pixel rows by 256 pixel columns, unless the training sample size is larger. These training samples support model training workflows using the arcgis.learn package as well as by third-party deep learning libraries, such as TensorFlow or PyTorch.
The object detection models in arcgis.learn accept training samples in the PASCAL_VOC_rectangles (Pattern Analysis, Statistical Modeling and Computational Learning, Visual Object Classes) format. The PASCAL VOC dataset is a standardized image dataset for object class recognition. The label files are XML files and contain information about image name, class value, and bounding boxes.
The models in arcgis.learn take advantage of pretrained models, that have been trained on large image collections, such as ImageNet, and fine tune them on satellite imagery. Pretrained models like these are excellent feature extractors and can be fine-tuned relatively easily on another task or different imagery without needing as much data. However, since the photographs that these models have been trained on contain only 3 channels (Red, Green Blue), we cannot take advantage of all the bands available in multispectral imagery, and need to pick 3.
The extract_bands() method can be used to specify which 3 bands should be extracted for fine tuning the models. In our analysis, we will be using the pre-configured ‘Natural Color with Dynamic Rage Adjustment(DRA)’ raster function:
sentinel_data = apply(sentinel_item.layers[0], 'Natural Color with DRA', astype='U8')
For better training, image chips should be exported with a larger size than that used for training the models. This allows arcgis.learn to perform random center cropping as part of it's default data augmentation and makes the model see a different sub-area of each chip when training leading to better generalization and avoid overfitting to the training data. By default, a chip size of 448 x 448 pixels works well, but this can be adjusted based on the amount of context you wish to provide to the model, as well as the amount of GPU memory available.
Here, we are exporting the training data for our model in the well_pads folder:
export_training_data(sentinel_data, well_pads, "PNG",
{"x":448,"y":448}, {"x":224,"y":224},
"PASCAL_VOC_rectangles", 75,
"well_pads")
Data Preparation
Once the training samples have been exported, they need to be fed into the model for training. Data preparation can be a time consuming process that involves collating and massaging the training chips and labels into the specific format needed by each deep learning model.
Typical data processing piplelines involve splitting the data into training and validation sets, applying various data augmentation techniques, creating the necessary data structures for loading data into the model, setting the appropriate batch size and so on. arcgis.learn automates all these time consuming tasks and the prepare_data() method can directly read the training samples exported by ArcGIS. The prepare_data() method inspects the format of the training samples exported by export_training_data tool in ArcGIS Pro or Image Server (whether for object detection or pixel classification) and constructs the appropriate fast.ai DataBunch from it. This DataBunch consists of training and validation DataLoader s with the specified transformations for data augmentations, chip size, batch size, and split percentage for train-validation split.
By default, prepare_data uses a default set of transforms for data augmentation, that work well for satellite imagery. These transforms randomly rotate, scale and flip the images so the model sees a different image each time. This helps the model generalize better and not just ‘remember’ or overfit to the specific images in the training set. Alternatively, users can compose their own transforms using fast.ai transforms for the specific data augmentations they wish to perform.
from arcgis.learn import prepare_data data = prepare_data('/arcgis/directories/rasterstore/well_pads',
{0: ' Pad'})
The show_batch() method can be used to visualize the exported training samples, along with labels, after data augmentation transformations have been applied.
data.show_batch()
Model Training
arcgis.learn includes support for training deep learning models for object detection. Support for training pixel classification model is coming in the next release.
The models in arcgis.learn are based upon pretrained Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs, or in short, convnets) that have been trained on millions of common images such as those in the ImageNet dataset for image classification tasks. These CNNs (such as Resnet, VGG, Inception, etc.) can classify what’s in an image by basing their decision on features that they learn to identify in those images. In particular, they use a hierarchy of layers, with the earlier layers learning to identify simple features like edges and blobs, middle layers combining these primitive features to identify corners and object parts and the later layers combining the inputs from these in unique ways to grasp what the whole image is about (i.e. the semantic meaning). The final layer in a typical convnet is a ‘fully connected’ layer that looks at all the extracted semantic meaning in the form of feature maps across the whole image and essentially does a weighted sum of these to come up with a probability of each object class (whether its an image of a cat or a dog, or whatever).
A convnet trained on a huge corpus of images such as ImageNet is thus considered as a ready-to-use feature extractor. We could replace the last few layers of these convnets and substitute it with something else that uses those features for other useful tasks, such as object detection and pixel classification.
The arcgis.learn module is based on PyTorch and fast.ai and enables fine-tuning of pretrained torchvision models on satellite imagery. Pretrained models like these are excellent feature extractors and can be fine-tuned relatively easily on another task or different imagery without needing as much data. The arcgis.learn models leverages fast.ai's learning rate finder and one-cycle learning, and allows for much faster training and removes guesswork in the deep learning process.
arcgis.learn includes the SingleShotDetector model (based on Fast.ai MOOC Version2 Lesson 9) for object detection tasks. A pretrained convnet, like ResNet , acts as the 'backbone' upon which the SingleShotDetector model is based, or as the 'encoder' part of the upcoming UnetClassifier .
Object Detection using SingleShotDetector
Once we have a good image classifier, a simple way to detect objects is to slide a ‘window’ across the image and classify whether the image in that window (cropped out region of the image) is of the desired type. However, this is terribly inefficient as we need to look for objects everywhere in the image, and at different scales, as the objects might be larger or smaller. This requires multiple passes of regions of the image through the image classifier which is computationally infeasible. Another class of object detection networks (like R-CNN and Fast(er) R-CNN) use a two stage approach — first to identify regions where objects are expected to be found and then running those region proposals through the convnet for classifying and creating bounding boxes around them.
The latest generation of object detection networks such as YOLO (You Only Look Once) and SSD (Single-Shot Detector) use a fully convolutional approach in which the network is able to find all objects within an image in one pass (hence ‘single-shot’ or ‘look once’) through the convnet.
“SSD: Single Shot MultiBox Detector”, 2015; arXiv:1512.02325.
Instead of using a region proposal networks to come up with candidate locations of prospective objects, the Single Shot MultiBox Detector (on which the SingleShotDetector is modeled) divides up the image using a grid with each grid cell responsible for predicting which object (if any) lies in it and where.
Backbone SSD uses a pre-trained image classification network as a feature extractor. This is typically a network like ResNet trained on ImageNet, from which the final fully connected layers to come up with the predicted class of an input image have been removed. We are thus left with a deep neural network that is able to extract semantic meaning from the input image while preserving the spatial structure of the image albeit at a lower resolution. For ResNet34 the backbone results in a 256 7x7 ‘feature maps’ of activations for each input image. Each of these 256 feature maps can be interpreted as a grid of 7x7 activations that fire up when a particular feature is detected in the image. In the SSD architecture, one or more convolutional layers are added to this backbone and the outputs are interpreted as the bounding boxes and classes of objects in the spatial location of the final layer’s activations.
Receptive Field Convolutional neural networks preserve the spatial structure of an image because of the way the convolution operation is applied. A learnable filter slides over the image from left to right and top to bottom and the activations represent how similar that part of the image is to the filter. Each activation in the output feature map is thus ‘looking at’ that region of the previous feature map (and ultimately the image because a deep CNN has multiple such convolutional layers). The part of the image that is ultimately responsible for an activation in a feature map is referred to as the ‘receptive field’ of that activation. Each activation in the output feature map has ‘seen’ that part of the image more than any other activation and is it natural to expect that activation to contain the most information needed to detect objects in its receptive field. This is the central premise of the SSD architecture.
As it’s possible for multiple objects to occupy a grid cell, and for the objects to have a different sizes or aspect ratios, each grid cell has several assigned anchor boxes (also known as prior boxes) — one for each possible object size and aspect ratio within that grid cell. SSD uses a matching phase while training, to match the appropriate anchor box with the bounding boxes of each ground truth object within an image. Essentially, the anchor box with the highest degree of overlap with an object is responsible for predicting that object’s class and its location. This property is used for training the network and for predicting the detected objects and their locations once the network has been trained.
Having a knowledge of the SingleShotDetector architecture and how the anchor boxes are specified using grid cells, aspect ratios and zoom levels allows one to design a suitable model for the object detection task at hand. If the objects you are detecting are all of roughly the same size, you can simplify the network architecture by using just one scale of the anchor boxes. A simpler network is easier to train. More powerful networks can detect multiple overlapping objects of varying sizes and aspect ratios, but need more data and computation for training.
Grid cells A simple way to detect multiple objects in an image is to divide the image using a grid and have each grid cell be responsible for detecting objects in that region of the image. Detecting objects simply means predicting the class(type) and location of an object within that region. If no object is present, we consider it as the background class and the location is ignored.
In the SSD architecture, we add additional convolutional layers to the backbone network and architect the additional layers in such a manner that the spatial size of the final layer is the same as the size of the grid we are using. The depth of the final feature map is used to predict the class of the object within the grid cell and it’s bounding box. This allows SSD to be a fully convolutional network that is fast and efficient, while taking advantage of the receptive field of each grid cell to detect objects within that grid cell.
For instance, we could use a 4x4 grid to detect objects in an image, when we see that their size is such that approximately 16 of them could occupy an image chip (4 on a side).
Such an SSD architecture can be created using:
ssd = SingleShotDetector(data, grids=[4], zooms=[1.0], ratios=[[1.0, 1.0]])
The grids parameter specifies the size of the grid cell, in this case 4x4. Additionally, we are specifying a zoom level of 1.0 and aspect ratio of 1.0:1.0. What this essentially means is that the network will create an anchor box (or prior box, as its known in other places) for each grid cell, which is the same size as the grid cell (zoom level of 1.0) and is square in shape with an aspect ratio of 1.0:1.0 The output activations along the depth of the final feature map are used to shift and scale this anchor box (within a reasonable limit) so it can approach the actual bounding box of the object even if it doesn’t exactly line up with the anchor box.
We might be interested in several layers or hierarchies of grid cells. For example, we could use a 4x4 grid to find smaller objects, a 2x2 grid to find mid sized objects and a 1x1 grid to find objects that cover the entire image. That can be done by specifying [4, 2, 1] as the grids parameter.
Zoom levels/scales
Cars and Pools have different scales
It is not necessary for the anchor boxes to have the same size as the grid cell. We might be interested in finding smaller or larger objects within a grid cell. The zooms parameter is used to specify how much the anchor boxes need to be scaled up or down with respect to each grid cell.
Aspect ratios
Not all objects are square in shape. Some are longer and some are wider, by varying degrees. The SSD architecture allows pre-defined aspect ratios of the anchor boxes to account for this. The ratios parameter can be used to specify the different aspect ratios of the anchor boxes associates with each grid cell at each zoom/scale level.
Having multiple anchor boxes per grid cell with different aspect ratios and at different scales, while also allowing for multiple hierarchies of grid cells results in a profusion of potential anchor boxes that are candidates for matching the ground truth while training, and for prediction.
Creating SingleShotDetector Model
Since the image chips visualized in the section above indicate that most well pads are roughly of the same size and square in shape, we can keep an aspect ratio of 1:1 and zoom (scale) of 1. This will help simplify the model and make it easier to train. Also, since the size of well pads in the image chips is such that approximately nine could fit side by side, we can keep a grid size of 9.
We then create a Single Shot Detector with a specified grid size, zoom scale and aspect ratio:
from arcgis.learn import SingleShotDetector ssd = SingleShotDetector(data, grids=[9], zooms=[1.0], ratios=[[1.0, 1.0]])
Finding the optimum learning rate
Once the appropriate model has been constructed, it needs to be trained over several epochs, or training passes over the training data. This process involves setting the optimum learning rate. Picking a very small learning rate leads to slow training of the model, while picking one that it too high can prevent the model from converging and ‘overshoot’ the minima, where the loss (or error rate) is lowest. arcgis.learn includes fast.ai's learning rate finder, accessible through the model's lr_find() method, that helps in picking the optimum learning rate, without needing to experiment with several learning rates and picking from among them.
ssd.lr_find()
The learning rate is specified using two numbers - a lower rate for fine tuning the earlier layers of the pretrained backbone, and the higher rate for training the newly added layers for the task at hand. The higher learning rate can be deduced by inspecting the learning rate graph and picking the highest learning rate (on the x axis) where the loss is still going down (while still being lower than the point from where it shoots up). The lower learning rate is usually a fraction (one tenth works well) of the higher rate but can be adjusted depending upon how different the imagery is from natural images on which the backbone network is trained.
In the chart above we find that the loss is going down steeply at 2e-02 (0.02) and we pick that as the higher learning rate. The lower learning rate is approximately one tenth of that. We choose 0.001 to be more careful not to disturb the weights of the pretrained backbone by too much. This is why we are picking a learning rate of slice(0.001, 0.02) to train the model in the next section.
Training the model
Training the model is an iterative process. We can train the model using its fit() method till the validation loss (or error rate) continues to go down with each epoch (or training pass over the data). This is indicative of the model learning the task.
ssd.fit(10, slice(0.001, 0.02))
As each epoch progresses, the loss (error rate, that we are trying to minimize) for the training data and the validation set are reported. In the table above we can see the losses going down for both the training and validation datasets, indicating that the model is learning to recognize the well pads. We continue training the model for several iterations like this till we observe the validation loss starting to go up. That indicates that the model is starting to overfit to the training data, and is not generalizing well enough for the validation data. When that happens, we can try reducing the learning rate, adding more data (or data augmentations), increase regularization by increasing the dropout parameter in the SingleShotDetector model, or reduce the model complexity.
Unfreezing the backbone and fine-tuning
By default, the earlier layers of the model (i.e. the backbone or encoder) are frozen and their weights are not updated when the model is being trained. This allows the model to take advantage of the (ImageNet) pretrained weights for the backbone, and only the ‘head’ of the network is trained initially. Once the later layers have been sufficiently trained, it helps to improve model performance and accuracy to unfreeze() the earlier layers and allow their weights to be fine-tuned to the nuances of the particular satellite imagery compared to the photos of everyday objects (from ImageNet) that the backbone was trained on. The learning rate finder can be used to identify the optimum learning rate between the different training phases .
Visualizing results
The results of how well the model has learnt can be visually observed using the model’s show_results() method. The ground truth is shown in the left column and the corresponding predictions from the model on the right. As we can see below, the model has learnt to detect well pads fairly well. In some cases, it is even able to detect the well pads that are missing in the ground truth data (due to inaccuracies in labeling or the records).
ssd.show_results(rows=25, thresh=0.05)
Saving trained model
Once you are satisfied with the model, you can save it using the save() method. This creates an Esri Model Definition (EMD file) that can be used for inferencing in ArcGIS Pro as well as a Deep Learning Package (DLPK zip) that can be deployed to ArcGIS Enterprise for distributed inferencing across a large geographical area. Saved models can also be loaded back using the load() method, for futher fine tuning.
ssd.save('WellPadDetector') > Created model files at /arcgis/directories/rasterstore/well_pads/models/WellPadDetector
Deploying model
Once a model has been trained, it can be added to ArcGIS Enterprise as a deep learning package.
trained_model = '/arcgis/directories/rasterstore/well_pads/models/WellPadDetector/WellPadDetector.zip' model_package = gis.content.add(item_properties={
"type":"Deep Learning Package",
"typeKeywords":"Deep Learning, Raster",
"title":"Well Pad Detection Model",
"tags":"deeplearning",
"overwrite":'True'}, data=trained_model) model_package
Model lifecycle management
The arcgis.learn module includes the install_model() method to install the uploaded model package (*.dlpk) to the raster analytics server.
Optionally after inferencing the necessary information from the imagery using the model, the model can be uninstalled using uninstall_model() . The deployed models on an Image Server can be queried using the list_models() method.
The uploaded model package is installed automatically on first use as well. We can query the settings of the deep learning model using the query_info() .
from arcgis.learn import Model detect_objects_model = Model(model_package)
detect_objects_model.install()
Detecting Objects
The detect_objects() function can be used to generate feature layers that contains bounding box around the detected objects in the imagery data using the specified deep learning model.
Note that the deep learning library dependencies needs to be installed separately, in addition on the image server.
For arcgis.learn models, the following sequence of commands in ArcGIS Image Server’s Pro Python environment install the necessary dependencies:
conda install -c conda-forge spacy
conda install -c pytorch pytorch=1.0.0 torchvision
conda install -c fastai fastai=1.0.39
conda install -c arcgis arcgis=1.6.0 --no-pin
We specify the geographical extent and imagery cell size for feature extraction, and whether to use the GPU or CPU in the context parameter. Each detection has an associated score, that indicates how confident the model is about that prediction. We can set a score threshold to filter out false detections. In this case, we found that we can lower the score threshold to 0.05 and catch more detections without having too many false detections. A non max suppression(nms_overlap) parameter can be specified to weed out duplicate overlapping detections of the same object.
context = {'cellSize': 10,
'processorType':'GPU',
'extent':{'xmin': -11587791.393960,
'ymin': 3767970.198031,
'xmax': -11454320.817016,
'ymax': 3875304.476397, 'spatialReference': {'latestWkid': 3857, 'wkid': 102100}}} params = {'padding':'0', 'threshold':'0.05', 'nms_overlap':'0.1', 'batch_size':'64'}
Finally, the code below shows how we can use distributed raster analytics to automate object detection across a large geographical area and create a feature layer of well pad detections.
from arcgis.learn import detect_objects detected_pads = detect_objects(input_raster=sentinel_data,
model=detect_objects_model,
model_arguments=params,
output_name="Well_Pads_Detect_full3",
context=context,
gis=gis)
detected_pads
Visualizing detection layer
We can visualize the results using the map widget, right within the notebook.
|
https://medium.com/geoai/how-we-did-it-end-to-end-deep-learning-in-arcgis-dd5b10d87b8
|
['Rohit Singh']
|
2019-04-21 15:09:45.446000+00:00
|
['Arcgis', 'AI', 'Machine Learning', 'Geospatial', 'Deep Learning']
|
Before Posting the Job, Consider This.
|
We’ve been seeing light bulbs go off in all kinds of industries this year.
From the outdoor industry, restaurant industry, tech industry, finance industry, social work, to now law enforcement, there’s no question that the work we do and how we do it has been up for some major scrutiny.
As a result, it’s allowed us to take some good, hard looks at the impact our industries have on society. So, what’s the realization?
To put it simply, we need to be better. There’s been a shift from the “do no harm” attitude to the actively anti-harm approach. It’s become increasingly clear that we can no longer rest on allyship alone. We need to demonstrate our actions as accomplices, advocates, and co-conspirators in the way we live and work.
In this article, I examine various trends across industries that have made some incredible advancements. Though, all the while, let’s ask ourselves, does this industry actually operate in a way where all can thrive?
I’ll share how you can advocate for real-world issues where you work, ways to spark some creative problem solving, and what can happen when we look under the hood of status quo.
How We Market
Modern marketers have taken to trends like centering diverse representation in images and ads, leveraging micro-influencers to reach new and diverse demographics, and shifting the overall narrative. Because of this, we’re definitely starting to see a lot less bs out there.
When it comes to being sold stuff, consumers are starting to see through those old and limiting narratives. We no longer need to subscribe to the status quo in order to be happy. In fact, we’re encouraged to reject it.
Now, we’re seeing expansive, accessible, and real versions of success and happiness out there.
How We Recruit
When it comes to looking for work, technology is our friend. Modern recruiting platforms like Handshake focus on diversity and help college students connect with prospective employers.
All sorts of modern strategies are influencing the approach of our recruiters and hiring teams.
We’re establishing more realistic job requirements, combing for convoluted or misleading language in job descriptions, and being more proactive about building candidate relationships before the urgency to fill a role arises.
Ultimately, how we approach our diverse talent communities matters greatly.
How We Serve
In the hospitality industry, frontline workers are no longer tolerating abusive, sexist, or racist behavior from customers or between co-workers.
Social media continues to influence where our attention goes and the local establishments we choose to frequent. In cities all over the country, Instagram accounts like the86List have become a place to anonymously share stories of racism and abuse in the service industry.
These ever-present injustices no longer simply remain in the back of the house and are largely informing whether or not patrons choose to continue supporting the establishments.
Grocery stores, bars, and coffee shops now proudly display Black Lives Matter signs and are intentionally diversifying their teams.
When it comes to running a business that serves your local community and neighborhoods, your clientele care about how your employees are treated.
How We Innovate
In the tech industry, CEOs are releasing statements about their stances on BLM and figuring out how to allow political discussions in the workplace. People are meeting during their lunch hour to discuss equity topics. Companies are creating Chief Diversity Officer positions and DEI Program Managers left and right.
Technology brands now have a conscience and realize their consumers need to see it.
The movement toward accessibility has become a more widely acknowledged factor in developing and iterating on our products.
Ultimately, who we’re helping with our products matters greatly and when it comes to running tech companies, and users care about what your company stands for.
Employees need to feel like they belong and can bring their whole selves to work, everyday. It’s not your PR strategy, but the lived experience of being part of your team, that needs to be center.
How We Educate
In the education industry, educators are shifting to incorporate social justice topics into their curriculum. They’re empowering more students to develop an interest in computer science and teaching their students about our actual US History, to name a few ways our core subject areas are evolving.
We’re also integrating restorative justice strategies into our schools and relying less on having police on our campuses.
It’s become undeniable that the erasure and misinformation students have been subjected to for generations has to stop. Educators are dutifully taking on this role of appropriately shaping young minds so that our students grow into the professionals we need to take us forward.
All sorts of modern strategies are influencing the instructional approach educators are taking.
PD tools like DebiasVR are emerging from developers like Clorama Dorvilias.
As early as 3rd grade, after school programs like Girls Inc. are teaching students about allyship.
In an article I recently published with Learning.com’s digital magazine, I share more strategies for inclusive 21st-century education in computer science.
How We Buy and Who We Follow
Finally, consumers are getting creative about which businesses, financial institutions, and thought leaders they want to support. Our public figures are realizing that their opinions and values matter to their followings and scramble to get their message (or PR nightmares) under control.
These are amazing advancements in the way we do business, work, learn, and buy.
Though, are these in-good-faith-efforts enough? Does this behavior help these industries truly become more hospitable to professionals of color?
Is your industry a place where people of color can thrive?
In a recent panel discussion I was apart of with AMA PDX, we discussed how DEI Strategy impacts Marketing and Business. The resounding sentiment was we cannot celebrate the fact that we’re finally now taking these steps. However, we are on the right track.
Ultimately, how we communicate out to shape our world matters greatly.
Whether you’re a marketer, recruiter, educator, or business owner, consider how you target your audiences. Always ask yourself,
What assumptions are being made about the populations I’m working with?
Which populations are missing from our outreach?
What can we do to support equitable experiences for all?
Meggie Abendschein, CEO of Moxie Mouth and agency I admire says,
Move away from business strategies that rely on savior complexes, poverty porn, us v. them narratives and other power dichotomies. When organizations center their work and narratives around the people and issues they are working for, the true social impact follows.
How can you advocate for real-world issues where you work and spark some creative problem-solving?
It’s a myth that Human Resources is solely responsible for launching, maintaining, and growing your culture and Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion initiatives.
HR may have ownership over some of the practices, procedures, and processes that impact the culture, but without the internal work and momentum across the organization, there’s no vehicle to move those HR components into a position of authenticity and actual effectiveness.
Visionary leaders know the importance of applying an equity lens to everything the business does and is, which ultimately results in a true representation of today’s talent wanting to come work with you and a safer environment for all.
Try this:
Start tracking diversity data in collaboration with your Equity Team and cross-reference with the current census data for where you live. Don’t have an Equity Team? Let’s start there. I can help you do this.
Encourage your Equity Team to utilize focus groups or beta testers. Never work in silos.
Add a cultural competency field to include this identifier in your CRM, campaigns, or product roadmaps.
Continue including and centering the points of view of BIPOC whenever possible.
Continue working to diversify your teams.
Most importantly, think about how your industry may have historically enabled oppression in ways you wouldn’t have expected.
What are we seeing when we take a deeper look?
As a present-day example, social work has emerged as a more appropriate strategy for crisis response than relying on law enforcement. However, when you look at the roots of the profession in America, there is much to see.
Nicole Cardoza, creator of the Anti Racism Daily writes,
Because they are unarmed and trained in de-escalation and crisis management, social workers can seem like the perfect solution. In theory, this makes sense, but propping up social workers as the solution to systemic racism ignores the past and present role of social workers as the implementers of racist policies in America ( National Association of Social Workers). Social work students, professors, and practitioners create and perpetuate environments that overlook blatant racism every day.
Learning this surprised me. Have you ever thought about how unsuspecting forms of policing show up in different professions and industries?
If I’ve learned one thing as I analyze our way of life and path forward, it’s to expect non-closure. Though, if we take a deep enough look and immerse ourselves in these very real problems, we will start to see why asking these questions and thinking about the path forward is more important than ever, and it’s possible. Let’s remain hopeful of that.
Ready to analyze your industry and create a plan for change? Contact me here and let’s design your custom strategy.
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https://medium.com/@katiezink-co/before-posting-the-job-consider-this-10d180fcb196
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['Katie Zink']
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2021-01-18 17:45:41.670000+00:00
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['Organizational Culture', 'Recruiting', 'Human Resources', 'Business']
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God’s Message to Seven Churches
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Revelation Chapters 2 and 3
The Seven Churches in the Book of Revelation speaks about the spiritual conditions of God’s People throughout the Ages. They are literal local churches in different localities of Asia Minor (now Turkey), but their spiritual conditions served as God’s prophetic statements to all individual churches, especially in the last days.
1. Ephesus (Revelation 2:1–7)
Commendation: Their good works, labor, perseverance and patience in enduring hardships, did not faint in serving God, not allowing false teachers, and hating the practices of the Nicolaitans.
Rebuke: They left their first love.
Exhortation: Remember where they have fallen and repent, and do their first works.
Punishment if they will not repent: Their candlestick will be removed from them.
Promise: Will allow them to eat from the tree of life.
2. Smyrna (Revelation 2:8–11)
Commendation: Their sufferings from persecution and poverty. (They suffered persecutions from satan’s synagogues, or fake Jews)
No rebuke.
Exhortation: Be faithful unto death.
No punishment.
Promise: They will receive a crown of life and will not be hurt by second death.
3. Pergamos (Revelation 2:12–27)
Commendation: Holding fast to Jesus’ name, not denying the faith.
Rebuke: Allowing the doctrine of Balaam and the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.
Exhortation: Repent.
Punishment if will not repent: Jesus will fight them with the sword of His mouth.
Promises: Opportunity to eat the hidden Manna, and will receive a white stone with new name that only them could know.
4. Thyatira (Revelation 2:18–23)
Commendation: Their good works, charity (love), service (servanthood), patience, faith (faithfulness).
Rebuke: Allowing the spirit of Jezebel.
Exhortation: Hold fast to what good qualities they have. To overcome and keep His word until the end.
No punishment.
Promises: They will have authority over nations and will receive the morning star.
5. Sardis (Revelation 3:1–6)
Commendation: Good works, and the reputation of living a good name. Few names that live holy and did not defile their garments.
Rebuke: Being now dead and their works incomplete before God.
Exhortation: Be watchful and strengthen the things that remains which are almost dying, remember what they have heard and received, to hold them fast, and repent.
Punishment if they will not repent: They will be left behind when Jesus came back like a thief in the night, because they are not ready.
Promises: Those who live worthily will walk with Christ in white raiment. Them that overcome will also be cloth in white raiment, and their names will not be remove from the book of life, and their name will be confess before God and His angels.
6. Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7–13)
Commendation: Good works. Little strength yet kept God’s Word, and did not deny the name of Jesus, patience.
No rebuke.
Exhortation: Will be kept from the hour of temptations (refers to the period of great tribulation). Hold fast which they have.
No punishment.
Promises: Will make the synagogue of satan to bow before them for them to know that the Lord loved them. No man will take their crown. God will make them a pillar in His temple, God’s name and the name of the heavenly city will be written in them.
7. Laodicea (Revelation 3:14–22)
No commendation.
Rebukes: Being Lukewarm, neither cold or hot, claims to be rich in material things and that they need nothing more. In the sight of God, they are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.
Exhortation: Buy from the Lord, or show to God that they are like gold tried by fire in order for them to be rich. Needs to be cloth with white raiment so that the shame of their nakedness will not be shown. Anoint their eyes with eyeshalve. Be zealous and repent. God rebukes and chasten those whom He love.
Punishments: If they will not repent of being lukewarm, Christ will spue them out of His mouth.
Promises: If they open up the door for Christ and listen to His voice, Jesus will join them in dinner, and have fellowship with them. Will be given a privilege to sit with the throne of God.
In this Laodicean church age, God has a people whom He preserved as His remnant believers, a people that is identified with His name alone. Become part of The Jesus People in the last days!
|
https://medium.com/@thejesuspeople/gods-message-to-seven-churches-c230d7ef4f2d
|
['The Jesus People']
|
2020-12-27 17:33:00.349000+00:00
|
['Church', 'The Jesus People', 'Bible', 'Jesus', 'Christianity']
|
Are You Beautiful According to Society?
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Are You Beautiful According to Society?
The struggle to be attractive has demolished my psyche
Photo made by the author in PicsArt
Everlasting beauty is, and always will be, the eternal objective of our existence. But why have we gone to insane lengths since the dawning of time to try and thwart old age?
Ever since I was a child, everything I saw was correlated to beauty. Cartoons portrayed princesses as porcelain angels. Meanwhile, the elderly were perceived as evil witches, ugly hags — the villain.
Aside from television propelling the meaning of beauty, so does the rest of our environment. Popularity in school is based on looks; every store is advertising anti-aging serum; beauty isn’t just a trend; it’s a lifestyle.
I wanted to be popular and beautiful so bad that I hated myself for not being “adequate.” I’m 32 years old with a child and still look in the mirror in a judgmental manner because I don’t feel confident in my exterior.
What is beauty according to society?
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what if society’s rendition of beauty manipulates the beholder?
Ancient Egyptians were the first to coin makeup, skincare, and the idea of altering features to look their “best.” They took it upon themselves to define what beauty was, for them. So what happened since then?
The entire globe has followed in their footsteps when it comes to skincare and makeup. Yet, we have taken it a step further than face painting — we now have 1000s of apps that apply face altering techniques that make you unrecognizable, most photos are so altered that you’d swear it isn’t the same woman without the filter on.
Not only are these filters a new staple of being your best self, but they are highly addicting. I have avoided posting photos of myself because my face shape was unappealing without a Snapchat jaw liner.
When I scroll through social media and see these gorgeous women with flawless skin and hair, I know deep down a lot of it is photoshop. However, It drives me nuts that I cant achieve even that level of added beauty.
Posting raw (natural) images of yourself has no become a, “look, I can be normal too” trend. Natural beauty has gone out of the window. There are always added features. Being natural is a way to show the world that you are normal. But who wants only to be just normal? No one.
What about when it comes to body types? Judging by the modeling agencies, social media, and television, skinny girls are the definition of beauty. Being slender means you are fit and healthy. Because of this, women struggle with weight issues since the internet is plagued with skinny propaganda. Most women and men who are slightly overweight, or overly thin, feel inadequate, ugly, and that they aren't beautiful.
What does it mean to not be beautiful according to society?
Being beautiful is everything in today’s society, but what does it mean to be “unpleasant looking” according to society?
More times than not, I am constantly comparing myself to the Instagram beauties. I am a super skinny girl, almost too thin. I have no lips, no hips, and I’m covered in freckles. You can pretty much call me a new Age Wendy’s logo.
According to society, even though #WeAreAllBeautiful, is meant to make us all feel special, let’s not pretend that’s actually true. It is seen as a way to include everyone.
Nobody ever says it, but super skinny girls or guys, or super overweight girls or guys, struggle with trying to find that perfect medium. Society deems you less appealing if you have small lips, curly hair, no butt or boobs, no muscles, or virtually any other characteristic that doesn’t resemble a brat doll or GI joe.
Women like myself, yearn for that artificial beauty, while I know it’s unnatural; I also know it’s what gets the attention. I have spent my whole life watching gorgeous women get handed gifts, unlimited opportunities, unlimited care, and realistically, a headstart in life. We can call it, #BeautyIsAPrivilege.
Why do we want to change who we are?
It’s not just the women and men who feel unattractive that want to change who they are. It’s women and men, who are already beautiful.
There seems to be a new standard for beauty every year, the muscles get bigger, the lips get bigger, and if you don’t fit the agenda, you got some work to do.
I believe we change or strive to improve because we want to feel as important as the “elite” beauties.
For some reason, in today’s society, being drop-dead gorgeous, or a chiseled God makes you untouchable. It’s like, you get virtual awards every time you level up your outer appearance.
I have spent a good deal of my life depressed, burning my face trying to use lip plumping products, deleting thousands of pictures because they showed my gap tooth, and virtually only posting photos that were highly edited. However, when I looked in the mirror, I was not the photos that I posted. I knew, according to society, that I was an “ugly” girl.
I wanted to change because beauty means status. I wanted to post a photo of myself and have thousands of people like it and compliment me. It’s funny because I know that looks aren’t everything. I understand that the structure of who you are at the core is what should matter, yet, I feel such an urge to be society's rendition of beautiful.
Why are we scared of aging?
Why are we afraid to age? Because with age comes the loss of physical attraction.
Billions of dollars are spent a year on beauty products, and anti-aging products. Being old is the new unattractive. Instead of being excited to turn 33 this year, I look at it as the hands of time cursing me one year further into unattractiveness.
As far back as history can travel, the search for eternal youth has been prominent. From Cleopatra bathing in milk and honey to keep her skin supple, to rituals of bathing in blood to induce youthfulness, women and men alike, strive to obtain everlasting beauty.
It’s as if once you become old, and your supple skin sags with experience and life, you don’t matter anymore to society when it comes to the meaning of beauty.
Becoming old, is slowly becoming a fear worse than death itself. I often think of what I look like aging versus me dying. We have become so addicted to preserving our outer appearance, that we don’t judge the character of a person anymore unless they fit the physical requirements of society’s rendition of beauty.
What to think about
I believe that it all starts at home, how we teach our children that the meaning of beauty shouldn’t be defined by society as a whole. You should define it.
We should be mindful of the message we post to young girls and boys who struggle with their appearance.
I am in my 30s and still struggle with my appearance. I can’t help feeling like I got the shallow end of the gene pool, and that makes me less than. I think this way because of how society portrays beauty. And it’s not OK.
The wanting to be beautiful or handsome has become the center of attention in our lives. It has become essential to be a prominent piece of society. Without beauty, what are you? Are you just an awesome person? We shouldn’t even be thinking in that manner. Our outer appearance shouldn’t be the sole reason for judgment.
There’s nothing wrong with being physically attractive, but then again, who can really define what attractiveness is?
Letting society dictate how important you are based on looks not only deteriorates your psyche, it also reflects on your ability to love yourself. It’s a constant struggle to eliminate the impressions leftover from society, yet, to be the best we can be, we have to grow past the normalcy that is our “defined” beauty.
Every day, I learn to love who I am, by learning to love who I am not. I am not a product; I am not a model; I am not a staple of society. I am me, and that is beautiful.
|
https://medium.com/invisible-illness/are-you-beautiful-according-to-society-2e1bebaa2e6b
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['Meghan Gause']
|
2020-08-01 01:39:27.038000+00:00
|
['Society', 'Beauty', 'Self', 'Personal Development', 'Mental Health']
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4 keys to improving your Design
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Let’s begin with you, are you a creative person? I think you are. Do you know why? because you’re a human who has knowledge and awareness of your daily needs and wants, and how you serve yourself; by thinking, finding solutions for your problems and requests.
Creativity isn’t a gift from God is a Continuity of practice, is a to cross your Cognitive bounds to reach the next level of thinking and creation. Let’s do it.
If you’re a designer you know your priority is the users or consumers, so you know that you’re designing for humans, not aliens and we are aware of how we think and how we behave thank you psychology. if you read books or you have ideas about their subject you know Atomic habits by James Clear one of the world’s leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. what I learned from this book that tiny changes are the most impact on our lives our works our thinking. this practical strategy has principles 4 principles Cue-Craving-Response-Reward so how I use this method in my design.
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. — HERBERT SIMON, recipient of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics and the A.M. Turing Award, the “Nobel Prize of Computer Science”
What is the first thing you begin your design with, get a good first impression, A big Headline, or a strong CTA that is the aim of the first page, so when you grab your users attention you build that curiosity to explore, the next step is to give more to grow that craving for knowledge simply to behave and what is the shape of that behavior is to respond by buying your product or using your services and this is the reward.
|
https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/4-keys-to-improving-your-design-9ea35ce100
|
['Othmane Agoumi']
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2020-12-26 20:10:07.325000+00:00
|
['UX', 'UX Design', 'Creativity', 'Habits', 'Branding']
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How to Get Out of Student Debt Twice as Fast without Paying $1 More
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How to Get Out of Student Debt Twice as Fast without Paying $1 More Christian Mar 14, 2020·4 min read
I recently discovered a way to lower my student loan debt by twice as much every month without paying more. To keep this as short as possible, I’ll briefly mention two important things I did before discovering this strategy.
Look at the Statement
Issues like student loan debt and climate change are talked about less problems we can adjust our behavior to help solve, and more like unfortunate, inescapable facts of life.
I check my bank app every day. For a year, I groaned on the 23rd of every month, when my student loan payment was deducted. But I never checked my loan statements.
Logging in to look at the Big Scary Number — the ‘principal’, or the total amount you owe — can feel like asking to be punched in the face. But it really is the necessary first step in figuring out the fastest way to get out of debt.
Consider Refinancing if You Haven’t Already
I graduated with two types of student loans: public and private. Public loans are borrowed from the government, with a relatively lower interest rate (between 4% and 7%). Private loans are borrowed from a business, with a higher interest rate (as high as 14%). I had multiple of both types since my tuition was different each semester.
Refinancing means another company paid off all these loans for me, so I now owed that new company. This allowed me to ‘consolidate’ (have one, convenient monthly payment, instead of several different payments to different places, at different interest rates). It also allowed me to find a lower overall interest rate. I used SoFi, you can get a quote here if you’re interested.
Strategize Your Monthly Payment
When I first logged in to see what progress I’d made in the year after graduation, I was confused. I’d paid thousands of dollars to SoFi, but the total amount I owed, the Big Scary Number, had only gone down a few hundred bucks.
I saw that about 60% of every monthly payment was just paying off interest (even after refinancing got me an interest rate less than half my original one)! Only about 40% of my money was actually lowering the Big Scary Number and helping get me out of debt.
|
https://themakingofamillionaire.com/how-to-get-out-of-student-debt-twice-as-fast-without-paying-1-more-e5d9e87cc01c
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[]
|
2020-03-14 14:54:01.274000+00:00
|
['Student Loans', 'Saving Money', 'Student Debt', 'Debt', 'Students']
|
Configuring Serilog in ASP.NET Core 2.2 web API
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For this post, we will be using .NET Core version 2.2’s web api.
Click here to learn how to create a new web API
Why use Serilog?
Serilog provides basic diagnostic logging for many sinks including, but not limited to, the console, files, Amazon, Azure, etc. This article will demonstrate the console and file sinks. It is easy as 1, 2, 3 to set up with appsetting configurations.
1. Install Serilog Packages
To install packages either run:
dotnet add package
Or in Visual Studio go to Project > Add Nuget Packages…
Serilog.AspNetCore — the main driver
Serilog.Settings.Configuration — the provider that reads the appsetting configurations
Serilog.Sinks.Async — an async wrapper for other sinks, especially the file sink, that reduces the overhead of logging calls by delegating work to a background thread
Serilog.Sinks.Console — the default sink and most suitable for development
Serilog.Sinks.File — a suitable sink for production
2. Configuration Files
Replace “Logging” with “Serilog” in appsettings.json as shown below:
The “Default” minimum level limits the logging of specify project code. This is different from the “Override” key that limits the ASP.NET Core framework’s log events.
The “Name” key specifies the sink desired. To write to multiple sinks, add another object to the “WriteTo” array.
Note that the async sink wraps subsequent sinks. Even though the async sink will not offer much performance gain to the console, it will allow you to brag to all your friends of your elite async coding skills.
When you are ready for the production settings, add the following appsetting.Production.json to the root directory of your project next to the other appsettings.
The “MinimumLevel” is being overwritten here since debug is not too useful in production.
How can I roll my logs you may ask?
Well since the Serilog.Sinks.RollingFile package has been deprecated, it is now handled by the Serilog.Sinks.File package, which we downloaded earlier.
This example shows a rolling interval of a day and keeping logs for the last 7 days.
The “retainedFileCountLimit” deletes old files older the interval count specified. The default is 31 intervals if left null.
Buffered set to true improves write performance by permitting the underlying stream to buffer writes.
3. Hook Serilog into the Web API
Add the lines 2, 10, and 11 to Program.cs:
And that is it! You can now log anywhere in your application by importing Serilog and using the available Log class functions just as the examples below show:
Click here for more possible Serilog configuration settings
|
https://medium.com/@matthew.bajorek/configuring-serilog-in-asp-net-core-2-2-web-api-5e0f4d89749c
|
['Matthew Bajorek']
|
2019-04-27 03:25:48.223000+00:00
|
['Webapi', 'Web Development', 'Programming', 'Serilog', 'Aspnetcore']
|
Are You Doing Work That Matters?
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Is it possible for you to do work that matters? If so, are you doing work that matters?
Before we can look at whether we can do, or are doing work that matters, we need to define it.
Work that matters is work that fits your values.
It’s work that is an extension of you. It’s work done with a purpose from your perspective. It’s work that is natural to your “wiring” and most of the time, fits you well.
What makes this so important to us?
Is it part of who we are that we want to do work that matters, work that contributes beyond ourselves? I believe so.
Seth Godin has said, “If there ever was a moment to follow your passion and do work that matters. This is it.”
I agree, 100%. But this begs the question, how?
To build a business (your business) around your passions, values and wiring takes… well, work! There are two different types of work that need to happen to get to the point of doing work that matters.
Actions Will Get You There
Imagine with me for a moment. You are sitting in a canoe and you are in the middle of a lake. You are screaming and yelling, “I don’t know what to do! What am I supposed to do?” You feel lost, frustrated and confused. But when you look down, there is a paddle. Too many are so focused on trying to figure out what to do, they forget they already have the tools to take action — even if that action is imperfect. You can always adjust and correct, like starting to row in the wrong way or direction.
Others know they have the tools, yet don’t use them — or know how or what direction to travel.
This is why working with a coach is so important.
That’s what Yoda is. That’s what Gandolf is. That’s who the mentors in your life are. They are guides and coaches that help you to row the right way and stay that way.
Your Heart Will Get You There
I take people through a visual exercise when working on defining values. I have them imagine a big velcro heart on the wall. Stuck to the heart are words. Some are great words like smart, funny, dedicated, honest, ambitious. Others are the opposite — negative ones, like stupid, ugly, liar, failure, etc. You can’t get where you want to be if your heart is filled with negative or false beliefs. I challenge my clients to remove these negative ones and replace them with words and values that define them, inspire them, or words which describe who they aspire to be.
When we do this heart work, we can lean into our values when we aren’t sure if we should say “yes” to the contract or the client. If I’m doing work that matters, it will line up with my values and personality. When someone or something is like sandpaper against those values, I know this work doesn’t matter enough to pursue. This is how we can make sure to stay on the right path. We know to row our canoe away from that situation!
Who Can Help You Get There?
An important piece in making sure you do work that matters is to find others doing work that matters to you. In his book, The Proximity Principle, Ken Coleman says, “To do what I want to do I have to be around the people who are doing it and the places it is happening.” The context is surrounding yourself with people that will move you toward your dream job. The dream job can easily be equated to doing work that matters. So here’s your challenge…
List 5 people in your life that are doing work that matters, work that inspires you, and who do it with excellence. Now, how can you get into proximity with them? Who do you know that knows them? Can you reach out to them directly?
Now, let’s fast forward 6–12 months. You’re doing work that matters. You’ve found that passion and joy in your work, either for the first time or again. I believe you now have an obligation and opportunity to be an example to those who are seeking like you were.
Who do you know that you can mentor? Can you employ someone that is passionate about finding purpose but hasn’t landed yet?
In my strength series in my SAGE Mindset Podcast, I talk about the third stage of growing your strengths. The third stage is about “reaching, teaching, and beaching” your strengths. Reaching is about stretching beyond your capabilities and taking risks. This inspires others. Tell people about these challenging steps you are taking. This will speak to their hearts. It will help them to see the value of doing work that matters.
Teach those around you how you got to this place of doing what matters, what you love. Don’t be afraid to share how long it took and the ups and downs along the way. Lastly, beach your strengths. Get out of the way. Sit on the beach and empower those around you to do what they are passionate about and “wired” to do.
If there was ever a stage in my work life that I launched, it was when I had a boss that gave me the keys to manage and got out of my way. He still played the role of Yoda, but when he was out of the way, I saw that the work I was doing mattered. Who can you empower?
To do work that matters do these things: Define your values, pick up the oars and row, find a coach or mentor to help you stay on track, help others find their work and then in whatever way you can then empower them to do it.
For information on Pear’s coaching services, visit www.pearcoaches.com.
|
https://medium.com/pear-coaches/are-you-doing-work-that-matters-8ba8612b69cb
|
['Pear Coaches']
|
2020-07-27 02:28:11.197000+00:00
|
['Business Coaching', 'Business Consulting', 'Professional Development', 'Life Coaching', 'Leadership']
|
Bitwise and Mark Yusko’s Morgan Creek Digital Partner to Create The Digital Asset Index Fund, Designed For Institutional Investors
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Bitwise and Mark Yusko’s Morgan Creek Digital Partner to Create The Digital Asset Index Fund, Designed For Institutional Investors Bitwise Follow Aug 28, 2018 · 3 min read
“Every institutional investor should be considering an allocation to digital assets right now,” says Morgan Creek CIO, Mark Yusko.
NEW YORK, Aug. 28, 2018 — Morgan Creek Digital, a leading digital asset management firm backed by multi-billion dollar investment advisor Morgan Creek Capital Management, today announced the launch of The Digital Asset Index Fund to provide endowments, foundations, pensions, wealthy families, and sovereign wealth funds access to broad-based digital asset exposure. The fund is a partnership with Bitwise Asset Management, the leading provider of cryptocurrency indexes and index funds, who serves as the manager.
“Every investor should be considering an allocation to digital assets right now,” said Mark Yusko, CIO at Morgan Creek.
“Increasingly, institutional investors are coming to us asking for exposure to the space.” said Yusko. “We wanted to create a vehicle tailored for those investors. Bitwise was the ideal partner to do this with because of their institutional approach, experienced team, and track record of success.”
“We’re thrilled to partner with visionaries like Mark, Anthony, and the rest of the Morgan Creek Digital team to bring this new fund to market,” said Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley. “They’re thought leaders, experts in asset allocation, and have spent over a decade earning the trust of their clients and institutional investors.”
The Digital Asset Index Fund combines Bitwise’s best-in-class quantitative index rules and professional fund management with the ongoing oversight of an index committee including Mark Yusko, Morgan Creek CIO and former UNC Endowment CIO, as well as Anthony Pompliano, Partner at Morgan Creek Digital, and Bitwise Global Head of Research Matt Hougan.
The Fund holds a market-cap-weighted basket of the top 10 largest digital assets, reconstituted monthly. Assets must pass rigorous, rules-based eligibility requirements including custody qualifications, trade concentration limits and pre-mine restrictions to qualify for inclusion. All assets are kept in 100% cold storage — the best practice for security — and are audited annually.
“Institutional investors are seeing the market pullback as an opportunity start building exposure to the space, and have been pushing us to get this fund to market quickly,” said Morgan Creek Digital Partner Anthony Pompliano. “We’re excited to have The Digital Asset Index Fund up and running, creating a one-stop shop for institutional investors intent on securely capturing the significant value creation taking place in the crypto market today.”
The Digital Asset Index Fund launches today and is available to approved institutional investors and accredited investors, including endowments, foundations, pensions, wealthy families, and sovereign wealth funds.
For information on the Digital Asset Index Fund, visit www.digitalassetindexfund.com
— — — — — — — —
About Morgan Creek Digital
Morgan Creek Digital Assets, LLC is a global asset manager providing access to blockchain technology and digital assets for institutional clients and wealthy family offices. The firm was founded by Mark Yusko, Jason Williams and Anthony Pompliano, who are known for bringing traditional asset management strategies to emerging markets and technologies. MCDA is backed by Morgan Creek Capital Management, a multi-billion dollar asset manager based in the United States.
About Mark Yusko
Mark W. Yusko is the Founder, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management, LLC. Prior to forming Morgan Creek in 2004, Mr. Yusko was President, Chief Investment Officer and Founder of UNC Management Company, the Endowment investment office for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from 1998 to 2004. Until 1998, Mr. Yusko was the Senior Investment Director for the University of Notre Dame Investment Office where he joined as the Assistant Investment Officer in October of 1993. Mr. Yusko is the President and Chairman of the Investment Committee of The Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Foundation at the University of Notre Dame, and President and Head of Investment Committee of the Morgan Creek Foundation.
About Bitwise Asset Management
Founded in 2017, Bitwise Asset Management pioneered the first cryptocurrency index fund and is the leading provider of rules-based exposure to the cryptoasset space. The team is based in San Francisco and combines modern software expertise with decades of asset management experience, coming from firms including Facebook, Wealthfront, BlackRock, JPMorgan, US Commodity Funds, Goldman Sachs, and ETF.com. Bitwise is backed by leading institutional investors and is a partner to high net worth individuals, financial advisors, family offices, multi-family offices, investment managers and institutions in navigating the cryptoasset space. Bitwise develops funds, indexes, models, research, and other services. For more information, visit www.bitwiseinvestments.com
Bitwise Investment Advisors, LLC, a subsidiary of Bitwise Asset Management, sponsors U.S. and non-U.S. private funds that invest in cryptocurrencies.
|
https://medium.com/bitwise-asset-management/bitwise-and-mark-yuskos-morgan-creek-digital-partner-to-create-the-digital-asset-index-fund-1d717ac9715e
|
[]
|
2018-08-28 12:11:02.123000+00:00
|
['Ethereum', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Investing', 'Cryptocurrency Investment']
|
Choices & Consequences: Be an Ocean
|
Read the rest of the articles in this series here or on mobile here.
Unless your intent is to conceive your own products or services, build and deliver it by yourself and then buy it and consume it alone, you must play to win within an ecosystem. You must also choose the characteristics and limits of your ecosystem — choices that are fundamental to your entrepreneurial philosophy.
As a leader, a builder, an innovator and an entrepreneur, you can be dynamic, fluid and flexible — find ways around execution obstacles and competitive forces. Be filled with energy and generate power and movement — innovate constantly, move people to excel, and energize customers and markets to grow with you. You can choose to exert your power by being calm and gentle or forceful and deadly — building an organization that creates value on every front seamlessly and is feared by competitors for its ability to innovate, execute and compete. You can choose to be an inclusive provider — the builder of a giving ecosystem that is a desirable place for employees, buyers, investors and partners to live and thrive. You can be an ocean.
Life Began in the Ocean
The ocean is a self-sustaining ecosystem with a balanced food chain; an environment where energy and nutrients are passed from one organism to another. It is a place where all participants can feed, procreate and grow. An environment where balance is not translated to equal distribution but efficient, appropriate and timely allocation. The ocean is an ecosystem where constant exchange of value and life between its inhabitants and the continuous give and take with all that surrounds it is the daily norm.
To be an ocean is to be a provider to all that come in contact. To be an ocean is to embrace the unknown and appreciate the undiscovered. To be an ocean is to give life, to sustain life and to shape life. It is to be resilient, patient and clam peaceful while holding the power to unleash anger at will and destroy everything that opposes.
Be a Provider: Connections to Build
An ecosystem is all about connections and reciprocity. Often the survival and growth of one species is directly connected to that of another. Being a provider is more than selling a product to your customers, giving a paycheck to your employees or placing an order to your suppliers. A provider is a connector, a builder, a promoter and a trusted friend. The provider facilitates the creation of a network of value to all involved. The provider can lead and motivate others in the ecosystem to continually look to the depth of the unknown and discover new value. In other words, innovate. Beyond people and activities, a provider helps connect ideas and opportunities.
To be a provider you have to be a connector. To be a connector you have to be aware of the connection points and the moments of interaction. A provider is in tune with the needs of the ecosystem and aims to create the connections and circumstances for the needs to be satisfied. It is important to note, that the provider does not satisfy all needs but creates the environment where the needs can be satisfied. For an entrepreneur provider, every connection must matter. Warning: feeble links weaken the entire ecosystem.
Exert Energy: Forces to Leverage
If you choose to adopt ocean-like characteristics, you have three type of forces at your disposal — energy generated through wave-like motions.
i) The slow and steady waves that ensure incremental progress and help you build your organization’s culture.
ii) The magnifier waves which are often caused by external market and major customer movements. Waves that generate massive energies. Forces that, if captured in time and effectively directed, can help you evolve in an orderly fashion and, if avoided, can be detrimental.
iii) The destructive waves (Tsunamis), generating the maximum force. They are caused by major innovations and market dynamics — the creation of the iPhone, Internet based commerce, AI, etc. These waves are designed for destruction, they cause bankruptcies and most of the time, irreversible demise (e.g. blockbuster, Kodak, and Sears).
Exercise Your Option
You can be the ocean or a part of an ocean — your pick defines your path and upshot. Within an ocean, you can choose to be a surfer and aim to time the breaks (like the investors who intend to time the market and get in and out of stocks), or you can choose to be a shark or a bottom feeder (enjoy the ecosystem but narrow your contributions and your domain of influence).
Being ocean like is not about the size of your reach or the immensity of your aspiration, but the spirit that you embrace. You can be a river that travels to oceans, providing to villages along the way. You can elect to be a lake that serves a community, filling up with rainwater and from local streams. Your choice of your sphere of influence, markets, products or services will most definitely change your priorities but it will not change your fundamental entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurs Grow in an Ocean
When I was convincing my parents to let me immigrate to the US at the age of 16, I used the words of my grandfather when he started his journey to a bigger city close to 100 years ago: “Small fish grow in small waters, big fish grow in the ocean.” I used the analogy to compare the United States to Iran (my birthplace). Over the years I have learned that it is neither the vastness of the land that defines your growth nor your placement in the ocean that secures your success, but your ability to place the ocean inside your thoughts and behavior. It is your ability to become a dynamic provider who embraces change and turns movement and friction into waves of energy that fuel your success.
We appreciate your feedback. Comment below or e-mail [email protected] to share your thoughts.
This is a condensed version of the original article that may appear in Sid’s next book.
About Sid • Speaker Corner • Advisory Services • Venture Investments • The Caterpillar’s Edge Book
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https://medium.com/@sid-mohasseb/choices-consequences-be-an-ocean-2aafdce8fba5
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['Sid Mohasseb']
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2019-02-19 19:48:12.151000+00:00
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['Philosophy', 'Startup', 'Choices', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Consequences']
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As a Woman Named Karen, I Demand the Use of My Name as a Derogatory Meme be Stopped Immediately
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As a Woman Named Karen, I Demand the Use of My Name as a Derogatory Meme be Stopped Immediately
May I speak to the manager, please?
OK, so I live in lovely Carmel Valley. Maybe you saw Big Little Lies, set in nearby Monterey. Yeah, I have it pretty good. At least, I had it pretty good. Until this Karen meme came around.
My name is Karen McKay.
I am not a privileged white female. I’m a self made real estate investor. Well, I did have a small loan of less than a million dollars from my parents to get me started in the business of owning fabulous real estate in and around Carmel Valley. Well, it wasn’t so much a loan as it was a trust fund.
But do you have any idea what a pain in the ass these trusts are to deal with? Why couldn’t my parents have just given me the million dollars straight out? I don’t know, something about taxes, I guess.
Anyhow, the point is, I’m embarrassed to be called Karen now. I mean, what does this meme signify — everything I hate: white supremacy, entitlement, and basic bitchiness.
I am not that. I don’t think the white race is superior. Nor do I think I’m entitled to anything — except my name.
What gives these memists the right to appropriate my lovely name? Were real women named Karen consulted in this matter? Did anybody bother to inform us that we might want to file some papers for a name change as the shit is going to come down soon? That would have been nice to know.
Now every time I introduce myself to a client or a colleague, they get a strange look of condescension in their eyes.
“Nice to meet you…Karen,” they say, emphasizing the “cunty” part of the word Kuh-aren.
I guess that’s what the Karen meme really signifies, isn’t it — cuntiness?
I happen to be one of the least cunty people you will ever meet, ladies and gentlemen. I do spiritual work at the yoga center in town. I chant. I went on a retreat once and didn’t speak for five whole days.
I drive a Tesla. Alright, yes, it is the expensive one. But I’m doing my part to save the planet.
Why must my name be associated with cuntiness? And how long will this Karen meme last, do you think?
I mean, memes don’t last forever. I remember one meme, about a decade ago — the Sad Keanu meme. Who remembers that any more?
I do not have the “can I speak to the manager” haircut
Any more.
I mean, it is uncanny that the predecessor to the Karen meme had a haircut fairly similar to my own:
Know your meme
Yeah, it was pretty great, I have to admit. That haircut made me feel powerful. I probably summoned a few managers myself when I wore that middle age Mom long bob.
But in the end, I decided to go for sexy over powerful. This is the haircut I have now:
Licensed from Adobe
That’s right, I’m not fucking around any more. Me and a bunch of other Karen’s are pretty pissed and we are going to start breaking things. Hell yeah, I was around when punk rock was a thing. True, I was listening to disco but I got some Sex Pistol in me, bitches.
You really want a few thousand angry Karen’s burning down your local Target?
Didn’t think so.
So how ‘bout you just cut it out with the Karen memes ‘kay? There are plenty of other cunty sounding middle-aged female names you can use. Trudy, for instance. That sounds pretty stuck up and middle-aged. Or how about Nancy? Or Pam?
Why does it have to be Karen? Huh?
Alright, that’s it. I’m calling 911.
“Yes, my name is Karen and I’m being attacked by the internet! Can you please make it stop? Thank you!”
Alright, internet, the cops are coming to arrest you because I told them to. And they listen to me. Know why? Cause I am a Karen! That’s right, take back the word!
I am a Karen, hell yeah! A Karen named Karen. You got a problem with that?
Didn’t think so…
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https://medium.com/the-haven/as-a-woman-named-karen-i-demand-the-use-of-my-name-as-a-derogatory-meme-be-stopped-immediately-a04f7ec90d16
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['Christine Stevens']
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2020-06-27 00:46:34.037000+00:00
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['Equality', 'Women', 'Humor', 'Memes', 'Feminism']
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Why Building A Happy Team Should Be Your Number One Priority?
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Happy and engaged workers are a cornerstone of a successful development team. Happy people work better which, in turn, translates into better performance and higher quality of services you provide. Which then results in happier clients. Which brings you more business.
So simple, yet still quite difficult to understand by so many companies. Yes, happiness is an awfully underestimated prerequisite for doing business successfully.
There is a scientifically evidenced correlation between productivity and happiness at work, as the American Psychological Association estimates a staggering $500 billion is lost in the USA yearly due to stress in the workplace. The influence of happiness in the workplace has also been aptly addressed by Shawn Achor at his TED speech, which we highly recommend.
The office: a home away from home
Happy teams need a happy office, so make your workplace likeable. Since people spend substantial proportion of their day in the office nowadays, it makes much sense for every company to make their workers feel at home.
Yes, how your office looks may have serious implications to how they perform and perceive their duties. This is science: according to a recent survey by the American Society of Interior Designers, decor is one of the top factors influencing people’s productivity and willingness to accept or leave jobs.
It does not take much to make first steps towards a happier workplace. For some teams it’s enough if you change this awful coffee you normally order to the office. As long as it’s your employees who choose the new one. If it’s someone’s birthday today, a personalized coffee mug will be remembered and rewarded with a smile.
Those are the small steps. What about some bigger ones? Something to bring the team together and have fun? Maybe a foosball table you could play tournaments by? Or a relaxation room with chill out music in the background… or staff trips with solving mysteries and collecting clues.
But creating favourable workspaces takes a little more than comfortable, colorful sofas, relaxed dress code and a canteen with fancy cocktails. Yes, these things may be important, but it is all about the mindset. You have to start building your working space from the essential foundations: honesty, respect, openness and trust. Then take a step further and empower people to shape it and have influence on. Let your employees, like family members, express their opinions freely. This may take time, but will certainly pay off.
We can see the benefits ourselves.
We are family
Trust yields results, and people want to prove they’re worth the trust. At Briisk, we know the benefits of family atmosphere full well. Nobody is left alone with their needs and problems. Support is something that applies not only to our clients, but also to team members. For example, we hold monthly review meetings where the CTO sits down with every developer and sounds out their individual needs. By implementing the changes, we make sure everyone knows they are listened to, that their voice matters. We want all our staff to know they constitute an important part of the company.
*Bottom line: make your team members feel you are not their enemy. Take some time every month to listen to their opinions, identify obstacles and areas for improvement.
Show your team some love
Creative jobs such as software development, graphics design, need more loving care and friendly environment. Remember to consistently (and immediately) recognise exceptional work, reward great teamwork and leadership.
As Jeff Lawson, Twilio’s CEO stated in his presentation for Web Summit 2016:
*Developers can change the world with a text editor.
But do not expect good performance if your developers do not feel valued for what they do. Nothing boosts self-esteem more than a bit of genuine gratitude, a friendly pat on the arm and some credit whenever deserved.
Sow happiness, reap business benefits
Happier employees also make better leaders. Happiness is believed to be the “ultimate productivity booster.” Happy staff are more willing to demonstrate the precious “can-do” mentality, make bolder decisions and be better at managing their workload. It also helps to acquire crucial leadership skills.
Research clearly shows that happiness in the workplace, although indirectly, also helps to reduce staff turnover, accidents and absenteeism. This is the small things that influence how employees perceive their workplace, and the perception has profound impact on job performance and satisfaction.
I know what you’re thinking: the workplace is not supposed to be all roses all the way. People are there to do their job, after all. And job is not supposed to be the thing people like and some stress comes with the territory, right?
Well, doesn’t it strike you that even the giants like Richard Branson, with all their acumen, support the idea of promoting happiness in the workplace? If that doesn’t convince you enough, there is massive evidence to support the relationship between happiness and productivity. Research papers like the one published in 2014 by the Warwick University not only acknowledge the existence of the link, but also provide consistent statistical data.
Conclusion
We see the tangible benefits of the “culture of happiness” ourselves. What we try to do at Briisk is to treat each other in the way we approach our clients. And how we handle our clients obviously influences how the clients perceive us.
In a nutshell: *Happiness and trust is like karma. One way or the other, it will come back to you sometime.
To make sure your company is perceived as friendly and one that fosters creativity, the list of good practices prepared by Harvard Business Review is a good place to start:
Show care and interest in others. Treat your colleagues as friends.
Support one another. Kindness and compassion will be rewarded.
Don’t blame others. Learn to forgive mistakes.
Listen.
Inspire one another at work.
Emphasize the meaningfulness of the work others do.
Empower your workers.
Treat others with due respect, gratitude and trust.
Have a bug-proof coding season and many happy developers behind it!
This article was originally taken from Briisk Blog.
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https://medium.com/briisk/why-building-a-happy-team-should-be-your-number-one-priority-c6f0c85c84e8
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['Kamil Augustynowicz']
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2017-12-11 12:34:52.905000+00:00
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['Technology', 'Software Development', 'Employee Engagement', 'Business', 'Web Development']
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Navigating the Middle East’s perfect storm
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Not only is the Middle East region young; it will grow by 40% by 2020. This means that the region will need to create 80 million new jobs, at a time when unemployment in this part of the world is already at an all-time high.
While fears over oil and geopolitical stability cause investment into Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to fluctuate strongly, the sheer pace at which we are developing can bring with it significant opportunities. We are already one of the world’s most urbanised regions; our research tells us that our urban population will grow by 1,500 people a day over the next 35 years. This means that our cities, in having to keep up with that pace, will need to grow over decades, not centuries. The silver lining is a wealth of tremendous opportunities for private-sector investments.
Faced with the very real threat of resource scarcity, can we find a comforting prospect? How humans use the Earth’s resources impacts us all, and nowhere is that more true than here in the Middle East. Our residents are among the most prolific users of water and energy. We’re already out of water and in 50 years we’re expected to have run out of oil, or will have seen it overtaken by other sources of energy.
At summits and meetings across the region, technology is being proposed as a solution. Young people, in particular, espouse this view and, in a region dominated by youth, we should trust in their youthful optimism.
In a recent survey conducted by World Economic Forum Global Shapers, an overwhelming 86% of respondents (all of them millennials) believe that technology is the answer, not the cause of the problem of unemployment.
The potential benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are enormous: our Middle East Industry 4.0 study has shown that digital transformation could generate $16.9 billion in extra revenue each year for companies in the Middle East from 2017 to 2021, as well as a further $17.3 billion in annual cost savings and efficiency gains.
Earlier this year, as part of our Annual Global CEO Survey launched at Davos, we asked over 1,300 CEOs across the world what was their most important strategic priority going forward, and there too (you guessed it) digital came top of the list. Of those we surveyed in the Middle East, the same was true, with technology, innovation and the convergence of talent the top priorities for Middle East business leaders.
More than that, on the digital front, our region is leapfrogging straight to mobile. Our demographics have played a huge part in this shift, with young people turning us into one of the world’s fastest adopters of smartphones and social media. It is now Saudi Arabia that has the highest Twitter penetration in the world.
These ingredients make for the perfect storm. Though we haven’t yet seen it drive growth and commerce significantly, like any natural phenomenon, it is real, and unstoppable. It is up to us to prepare for it and brace ourselves for what is to come. Doing so requires concerted, sensible and inclusive action.
Governments in the region have started to make headway by investing considerably in education: 18% of total government spending in the MENA region goes to education, compared with the global average of 14%. But more needs to be done and fostering innovation and entrepreneurship through technology is a crucial place to start.
Leaders today must know that it has become imperative to come together, trust one another, clearly communicate visions and values and listen to everyone whose fate is at stake — young and old, business leaders and policymakers, entrepreneurs and budding innovators — across the region.
Exciting times lie ahead: the region is grappling with a perfect storm of powerful trends. The trick is to work on building trust and inclusivity while effecting “responsive and responsible leadership” as Professor Klaus Schwab has coined it. It’s the only way forward to solve some of the region’s most important problems and turn them into boundless opportunities.
Reflections from the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa
1. Our region is very young. Shouldn’t our thinking be, too?
The Middle East and North Africa is the youngest region on Earth and that should count for something. It is youthful, fresh and full of great ideas. It’s high time we started listening. At the meeting at the Dead Sea this year, 100 start-ups were honoured, most of them owned by millennials.
2. Young and dissatisfied.
While the young people at the Forum boasted impressive accolades, their presence was a constant reminder of the harsh realities of our region. The power of our young lies in their number — so too do their grievances. Youth unemployment in the MENA region, at 30%, is the highest in the world and double the world average.
3. “Looking forward to the future” is obsolete, in every sense. We are living and breathing the future, today. Technology and innovation is transforming the way we live, interact, negotiate and do business. And it is here, now.
4. Oil is no longer our region’s most valuable resource. Our youth and data are. In a lower for longer oil environment, and a region rife with instability, how can we turn these challenges into opportunity?
Looking at the numbers, it becomes evident that we are in the midst of a perfect combination of adversity and initiative necessary to bring about much needed transformation to the region.
At PwC, we looked at these through the lens of what we call the megatrends — global, long-term structural trends that come together to completely transform our world and reshape our future. We believe that how we manage these changes and seize the opportunities they bring with them, will define our success; as leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, educators and human beings.
Yes, the era of lower for longer oil prices creates the impetus for urgent action. But the direction and scale of change is driven by even stronger tides — megatrends — and our reactions to them.
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https://medium.com/world-economic-forum/navigating-the-middle-easts-perfect-storm-a4aff3fea758
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['World Economic Forum']
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2017-07-13 10:59:56.709000+00:00
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['Social Media', 'Middle East', 'Mena', 'Internet']
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How Love is Different When You Love Yourself First
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I have heard a lot of people complain about relationships lately, with lots of blame about men and women thrown in for good measure. The blame is likely because the relationships aren’t able to heal their childhood wounds.
Lots of people go about relationship subconsciously looking for someone to validate them, looking for the approval they didn’t get from their parents.
Lo and behold, many of us attract partners who do the same things to us our parents did — OR we subtly get them to treat us the same way. When we aren’t healed, we look for love from outside of us — and even if that love or lover is healthy, we won’t be able to accept it — we will sabotage the relationship in some way.
Coming from a place of self-love is different. When we come from a place of loving ourselves, that love naturally emanates from our hearts to others’ hearts.
Instead of looking at what we can “get” from someone — validation, approval, acceptance, we look at what we can give.
If you’re struggling in relationships, take a good look at yourself. Are you going into with a needy mentality, which often bleeds into an entitlement mentality? Or are you thinking about what you can give, what you can share with someone? We also need to look at what potential partners are looking for — what do men want? What do women want? What is healthy communication and do I know how to do it? It’s not the same things your ego needs to validate itself.
And it’s not that we should change ourselves — but we have to go beyond ourselves to be able to connect with another person.
Going into any relationship — romantic, work, or personal thinking about what you can give is a much more successful strategy. You automatically come from a place of strength and empowerment instead of needing the other person to fulfil you.
Its bound to be successful with the right people for you.
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https://medium.com/@claire-boyce24/how-to-attract-love-to-you-in-the-new-year-2226fa1e0011
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['Claire Boyce']
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2020-12-24 02:03:20.606000+00:00
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['Relationship Advice', 'Love Yourself', 'Relationships Love Dating', 'Attractlove', 'Love']
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How to Handle Large Lists on the Frontend: A Detailed Guide
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Web applications are continuously getting bigger and content to show on a single screen keeps on growing with time. Now the problem which arises here is rendering such large amounts of data.
Lists are an integral part of most web applications because they help display data in a more presentable format. But when an app tries to handle too much data in a list, it often leads to performance problems. There are many ways to resolve list-related performance issues such as Pagination, Infinite scrolling, Load more buttons, react-virtualized, and react-window.
Pagination
Pagination is a technique where online content is divided across several web pages instead of being lumped together in one giant brick of content.
Pagination allows you to render data in pages as opposed to rendering all the information at once. This way, you basically control the amount of data that is shown on the page, so you don’t have to put too much stress on the DOM tree.
For React-based applications, most UI libraries come with a pagination component, but if you want to quickly implement pagination without having to install a UI library, you might want to check out react-paginate . The library renders a pagination component that accepts some props helps you navigate through your data.
. The library renders a pagination component that accepts some props helps you navigate through your data. If you scroll to the bottom of a webpage that uses pagination, you will either see a row of page numbers or next/prev links that let you navigate to the next page. These are navigation controls, and they allow the user direct access to every webpage in the paginated series through manual clicking — from the first page to the last page.
These controls also send the message to the Google crawlers that all content within the series is connected and indexable, even though it is separated across multiple pages.
This presentation of information grants users with the structure and hierarchy needed to fully make sense of the content, and although it requires more clicks, these actions are meaningful in that they bring the user closer to their desired outcome. Users generally prefer a clear end to their search because it satisfies the need for completion.
A great example of pagination is a search engine results page. The navigational controls on the bottom of each paginated page let users know which resources are the most relevant, which page is currently selected and how many more pages there are to sift through.
Google’s search results are housed on 10 different pages
This adds clarity to the search process and guides the user to exactly what they’re searching for.
Ecommerce sites also frequently use pagination since there are typically so many products offered that it’s better to house them on multiple pages.
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https://javascript.plainenglish.io/how-to-handle-large-amounts-of-data-in-a-list-on-the-frontend-80725661ff51
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['Ayush Verma']
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2021-09-12 20:40:16.811000+00:00
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['JavaScript', 'Programming', 'UI Design', 'Software Development', 'Frontend Development']
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The “Big History” Behind January 6th: The Entire Series
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Foreword
The work of multiple researchers and historians has intersected to provide a fuller picture of the historical forces that led to the events of January 6th. The story centers on the Council for National Policy (CNP) and its members and affiliates who were the most active organizers and participants. But the deeper question is why this history unfolded the way it did.
Where did the CNP come from? What are its goals? Considering this larger historical frame apart from the day-to-day frustrations of party politics reveals a number of key themes. CNP was born from the same network of people who created both the John Birch Society and the World Anti-Communist League. In turn, those networks are also tightly associated with the birth of American libertarianism and also harbor a fervent and lingering passion for the gold standard.
Within this community, the fear and distrust of communism cannot be separated from the libertarian “non-aggression principle” and the preference for the gold standard. The fetish for gold is in fact directly tied into the non-aggression principle in that they see inflationary fiat currency as a kind of “molestation,” as articulated by Robert LeFevre, considered by many to be the progenitor of modern American libertarian thought.
The overlap in the work of just these three historians provides the foundation for a deeper understanding of the longer term trends.
Long-term historical conflicts provide a more useful lens for understanding this “big history” than the minutiae of quotidian partisan politics, which should be subordinated to their more important macroeconomic and philosophical drivers. For example, the longer term trends animating current disputes include relitigating the New Deal, the gold standard (now mapped to cryptocurrency), central banks, multilateral alliances, taxation, Vatican II, abortion, women’s rights, climate change, fossil fuel dependence, and anti-Semitism.
Because these contentious issues cannot be resolved in a generation, if indeed they ever can be, their study requires consideration of networked interests that persist over time, rather than a focus on specific politicians or personalities. For example, the network of interests that promoted Donald Trump will persist in time and select another avatar for the same purpose; the details about that person are not especially important. They will either be a net positive or a net negative to the network that selects them. And the issues they carry will either be carried forward for later settlement, or an issue may be resolved with a new consensus.
The overarching conflict is over whether the world should seek to pursue democratic or so-called “neofeudal” forms of governance. Advocates of neofeudalism believe that departure from the gold standard was a mistake, and that scarcity of wealth provides a mechanism for keeping score and assignment of value. People with more gold are thus more valuable. And this scoring is immutable and cannot be “molested” by predators such as central bankers. The philosophy is rooted in a literal zero-sum view of value creation and storage.
For neofeudalists, the accumulation of wealth and power rightly allows for those with extreme wealth to capture the institutions of the state and ultimately dismantle them. The goal is what Robert LeFevre described as “autarchy,” or literal self-rule by the individual. Details are scant on chores like trash collection and how that might be handled, except for hand-waving about the “market” taking care of it.
In the narrative of the modern enlightenment, “democracy” is held as the most just form of government, despite its flaws. The founding myths of the United States reinforce this story in ways that are both propaganda and also factual. And it is true: most Americans aspire to self-governance by, of, and for the people.
Autarchists, hardline libertarians, and free speech absolutists challenge the authority of the state. When allied with anarchists from the left, they may together form a powerful faction that serves to undermine the authority and function of the state. For this reason, it is necessary to address the legitimate concerns that such a unified faction may hold in order that it not come to subvert the will and interests of the majority of the population.
This set of stories — and it is several stories, too wide in scope to tell in one sitting or a single article — centers on this tension between the state and those who would seek to destroy it; it is about the tension between the institutions that brought relative prosperity and peace in the last half of the 20th century, and those who wish to destroy them in favor of something new and as yet unspecified. It is about the tension between “socialism” (both as it is and as it is imagined to be) and hardline libertarianism. And it is about capitalism and its present and future, and what kind of guardrails and safety nets we choose to attach to it.
Social phenomena such as disinformation and influence campaigns are but symptoms of these conflicts playing out in the heavens above. By developing a better understanding of these historical drivers we can seek to explicate the ephemera we observe within the terms of these long-standing conflicts. Additionally, it is useful to consider these conflicts not in partisan political frames, or as those between nation-states, but rather between factions that are globally networked.
Americans wishing to curb illiberal forces are as likely to be fighting a network of factions that exists in the US, Russia, Turkey, Israel, Iran, western Europe, and China, and should prepare accordingly. Citizens United opens up a global portal for these networks; it no longer makes sense to consider nation-state boundaries as especially relevant when looking at networks of influence.
America has had a particularly difficult time the last 5 years trying to deal with well-documented “Russian meddling” and the persistent denial thereof by those who point to Americans as being just as culpable. Ultimately meddling was a counter-descriptive term because a network of Americans, Russians, Europeans, Chinese, Australians, Brazilians and people in many other countries have all collaborated to promote illiberal forces across the globe. It should not be a surprise that Eduardo Bolsonaro was present on January 6th, or that Polish MP Dominik Tarczyński and Germany’s AfD Petr Bystron have attended events hosted by Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagles organization. Indeed, it is a networked coalition.
Continuous immersion in television news and talk radio has crowded out the opportunity to consider more than the present moment. Perhaps by pausing to wonder at the history that has brought us here, we can regain some perspective on what’s happening, and gain a new footing as we seek to curtail the advancement of illiberalism in the world.
Dave Troy
March 2021
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https://medium.com/@davetroy/the-big-history-behind-january-6th-the-entire-series-fcf432f391dd
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['Dave Troy']
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2021-06-24 16:36:56.998000+00:00
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['Cryptocurrency', 'January 6 2021', 'Gold', 'History', 'Libertarianism']
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Wellbeing at Work after Covid-19
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Wellbeing at Work after Covid-19
Wellbeing and public health are under the microscope, but money is tight, and there are new problems to solve. I spoke to two leaders in Human Resources about what wellbeing means to them and what the future holds?
Photo by Bench Accounting on Unsplash
The UN has set out a series of goals to help make the world a better place. Goal three is about promoting wellbeing for all ages. Put simply wellbeing refers to the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy, a state that has been challenged by Covid-19. So, how do we continue to keep wellbeing prioritised when money is tight, and people are stretched to the limit?
Wellbeing a cost or an investment?
At the start of this year, in an article for Wired, Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioural economics at Duke University discussed the metrics of wellbeing. He explained that many companies view it not as an investment but a cost (check out this from prof Dan Ariely on Wired).
Janaina Tavares heads up Organizational Development at ActionAid in Brazil, she says, ‘the scenario is changing with a focus from employee wellness programmes to wellbeing initiative. Covid-19 is a game-changer as companies are now offering more comprehensive health and productivity programmes that tackle emotions and mental health, social connectivity and financial education,’ she adds.
‘Pre-Covid-19 whether wellbeing was sometimes seen as a cost — or if it was seen as an investment — depended on who you were talking to,’ says Vera Gramkow who is responsible for talent, performance and employee engagement at Bayer globally. ‘If it’s the board they are looking for proof of ROI. But investments in health and wellbeing are hard to measure,’ she adds.
‘Depending on the business situation especially when the margins are thin, you need a leadership team who is motivated by health for all, who maybe has a personal experience related to the importance of health and wellbeing,’ she explains.
Purpose and Motivation to Work
‘To benefit from human capital, companies will need to change their focus and start thinking more about the nature of motivation,’ suggested Dan Ariely. He emphasised the importance of what he called ‘goodwill’ — ‘the gap between the minimum someone needs to do to keep their job, and the maximum they will do if they are excited about doing it.’ Writing in January he believed in 2020, successful companies would be those who ‘manage to keep their employees invested in their work’.
When employees don’t feel like their work has meaning, they’re less motivated to do it. That means decreased productivity and engagement. This quote from April Wensel sums this up:
“It’s not hard work that burns people out, but rather the feeling that their work doesn’t matter.”
‘Having a purpose is important but a company needs to be able to articulate that,’ says Gramkow. ‘To just say we want to improve life, save the planet etc. isn’t enough. Everyone aspires to make a difference — but to bring this to life can be harder than it sounds. ‘For the younger generation, it’s not “give me purpose and I’ll work my day and night”. It’s “give me purpose but give me room to be me and flexibility,”’ she explains. Actions speak louder than words: ‘Employees need to see the impact they make’.
Listen to your staff
Talk to your employees now and find out who they are. Engaged employees are your advocates. Give them a voice. Hear what they have to contribute.
Tavares stresses that there is a need now, more than ever, to listen to employees. This is the cornerstone of her approach in giving employees a sense of autonomy (for example, they provide 24/7 access to psychologists) — and happiness is central to a good performance at work. For her wellbeing simply means ‘self-care’.
She also believes that giving staff a voice and sharing real-life stories are vital and points out that employees are a reflection of the business’s customers and how they respond to and how they’re treated, the culture of the company, is a vital test of a businesses success or failure. ‘Your employees are your first customers,’ she says. ‘If the organisation doesn’t have happy and satisfied employees they do not deliver performance-orientated results. You need to give employees a voice. Let them speak. Let them feel comfortable giving their opinions. What are their ideas? What are their opinions? Acknowledge them. Let them feel part of the organisation and the company, so they are happy where they are,’ she says.
‘Now is the time to turn up the volume on the behavioural part of wellbeing,’ says Gramkow. ‘This includes providing a sense of belonging. To do that employees need to feel trusted and be given a voice and see if their work makes a difference so that they will want to give their extra bit.‘“Do I have a voice? Do I feel my company cares about me? Do I work for leaders or with others who inspire me?” It’s more about a mindset shift than spending lots of money,’ she adds.
Safety in Lean Times
Psychology Today says: ‘Wellbeing is the experience of health, happiness, and prosperity.’ Prosperity is a bottom line, people need to feel prosperous — or at least comfortable. Will our new reality shake this — and how will our prosperity, and wellbeing be tested?
‘In modern life, especially in economically advanced countries people have many of their basic needs already met and we’ve moved up the Maslow pyramid* when it comes to our hierarchy of needs. Before Covid-19 we had many of our needs satisfied so we began to focus on self-fulfilment, what can a company do for me and my wellbeing,’ explains Gramkow.
‘Now, a primary concern around physical and mental/emotional wellbeing is about safety, employees want their employers to keep them safe, and keep them sane,’ says Gramkow. ‘the main focus might for now be enough now to know that their employer kept them safe during Covid-19 and cared enough about them to keep their job open. Yes, people to live to work, but we also do work to live,’ she says.
Mental Health
The pandemic has created uncertainty and fear. As well as the virus, there is a silent pandemic affecting our mental health. In the UK, anxiety levels have risen. According to the Office of National Statistics in the UK, between 20 March and 30 March 2020, almost half (49.6%) of people in Great Britain reported “high” (rating 6 to 10) anxiety; this was sharply elevated compared with the end of 2019 (21%) and equates to over 25 million people (out of the population aged 16 years and over).
‘We’ve seen an increase globally in issues around mental health,’ says Tavares. ‘We have weekly calls and I make it a point to listen to keywords and hear what people are saying and flag it up if I feel they are struggling,’ she adds. ‘We’re investing in mindfulness and non-violent communication. You don’t need a huge budget, you just need to listen,’ she emphasises.
Keep it simple
Solutions are about keeping things simple and returning to core values. Listening, providing a safe environment, taking small steps to create big change, and leading by example.
‘Organisations need to fight to keep their business alive, so it will be harder to invest health and wellbeing and hopefully, that will allow us to rethink priorities, scaling back, reimagine. It’s not always about spending money on all-singing, all-dancing events, free yoga, free fruit and extra benefits,’ says Gramkow.
‘Employees simply want to know that their company understands their personal situation and gives them flexibility to balance work and life and also space to reflect. We need to be creative and innovative. There’s opportunity to reinvent how we think about health and wellness, and get back to basics, whether that’s simple acts such as virtual coffees on Zoom or supplying extra hand sanitiser to families,’ she adds.
Tavares agrees, ‘Companies with pool tables, gyms and Red Bull machines, still can make their staff feel like a slave to the company because they live their life in the office. If your employee is working 14 hours a day a ping pong table won’t cut it. Offering half days off, or toil-down when you have to travel for work (i.e. time off to account for time travelling) makes more of an impact,’ she says.
Leaders: Practise What You Preach
If you’re a business leader and have had an insight into a less hectic, less crazy life, start living it. Don’t send emails at 2 am and work 14-hour days.
‘Teams are the mirrors of their team leaders, so you have to be very careful to practise what you preach,’ says Tavares. ‘I used to work in NYC in the fashion industry and I had to learn to stop and to have a life out of the office,’ she adds. Gramkow agrees, ‘It’s tricky for leaders, who are supposed to promote health and wellbeing but may struggle themselves on how to be a role model.’ However, she sees a change, ‘Before Covid-19, they had the appetite for health and wellbeing, but now there’s a sense of urgency.’
The Digital Revolution Accelerated
At ActionAid Brazil, a Human Resources Wellbeing platform was set up two years ago. ‘We created the platform with a start-up because there was nothing in the market that attended to our employees’ needs. Training is through chatbot, there’s instant messaging and anonymous surveys,’ says Tavares. ‘We just launched webinars run by the staff — they wanted something to take their minds off the pandemic,’ she explains. ‘We’ve discovered staff who are certified in story-telling and mindfulness. This simple act shows our staff we value them and at the same time, they’re becoming multipliers — enabling other team members to develop and learn.’
With Covid-19, digitisation has been kick-started and also offers flexibility and opportunity to restructure the working day as more people work from home. Tavares who’s been a home working advocate for years says that many of her staff who spend up to six hours a day commuting requested more flexibility, but she adds they also miss the office. Gramkow agrees, pointing out that even younger people who would have been more in favour of a blended work/life balance, in other words, work, take a break, work again, are now missing the structure and connectedness of office life.
Covid-19 is a Wake-up call
We have been forced to stop the world and focus on health, get back to basics and prioritise what’s important. Tough times and an uncertain future lie ahead, but companies must pay attention to their people. ‘Now is the time to focus on wellbeing,’ says Travers. ‘Wellbeing belongs to everyone, but HR has to lead it,’ she adds. ‘Health and wellbeing can be enablers for sustainability, as set out by the UN,’ says Gramkow. ‘Sustainability of a business model, as we develop pools of talented happy people with a longer employee life cycle. Happy and engaged employees, lead to happy customers and a sustainable business. It makes business sense,’ she says.
*The theory by Abraham Maslow, which puts forward that people are motivated by five basic categories of needs: physiological, safety, love, self-esteem, and self-actualization.
Vera Gramkow and Janaina Tavares are supporters of UNLEASH, the biggest global gathering of the HR and tech community https://unleashgroup.io
Fiona Bugler is an entrepreneur, editor and founder of Intrinsic Wellbeing (i-wellbeing.com) a publishing company providing wellbeing content solutions to business.
|
https://medium.com/swlh/wellbeing-at-work-after-covid-19-d90bdf75ecdc
|
['Fiona Bugler']
|
2020-05-15 02:37:49.706000+00:00
|
['Wellbeing', 'Covid 19', 'Business Strategy', 'Wellness', 'Human Resources']
|
Lesson 22: The Template Method Pattern
|
The pattern belongs to the behavioral category of the design patterns.
Idea
Define the skeleton of an algorithm in an operation, deferring some steps to subclasses. Template method lets subclasses redefine certain steps of an algorithm without changing the algorithm’s structure. To make sure that subclasses don’t override the template method, the template method should be declared final.
Explanation
Wikipedia says:
In object-oriented programming, the template method is one of the behavioral design patterns identified by Gamma et al. in the book Design Patterns. The template method is a method in a superclass, usually an abstract superclass, and defines the skeleton of an operation in terms of a number of high-level steps. These steps are themselves implemented by additional helper methods in the same class as the template method.
In plain words:
Using the template method pattern, it’s possible to define the overall structure of the operation, while allowing subclasses to refine, or redefine, certain steps.
Class Diagram
The class diagram will be:
Example
The task:
Let’s consider to create a data loader that encodes data from different sources i.e. from a collection and stream.
Let’s define a data loader:
abstract class DataLoader {
abstract Collection<Integer> getData();
final String getEncoded() {
final var encoded = new StringBuilder();
getData().forEach(val -> encoded.append(":").append(val));
return encoded.length() > 0 ? encoded.deleteCharAt(0).toString() : encoded.toString();
}
}
We need to define a collection loader:
final class CollectionLoader extends DataLoader {
private final Collection<Integer> collection = List.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10);
@Override
Collection<Integer> getData() {
return collection;
}
}
We need to define a stream loader:
final class StreamLoader extends DataLoader {
private final Stream<Integer> stream = Stream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10);
@Override
Collection<Integer> getData() {
return stream.collect(Collectors.toList());
}
}
And then it can be used as:
final var dataLoader = new CollectionLoader();
assertEquals("1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8:9:10", dataLoader.getEncoded());
// Additional code
final var dataLoader = new StreamLoader();
assertEquals("1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8:9:10", dataLoader.getEncoded());
More Examples
javax.servlet.GenericServlet.init: Method GenericServlet.init(ServletConfig config) calls the parameterless method GenericServlet.init() which is intended to be overridden in subclasses. Method GenericServlet.init(ServletConfig config) is the template method in this example.
Links
|
https://medium.com/it-lessons/lesson-22-the-template-method-pattern-845800d29315
|
['Andrey Karazhev']
|
2020-12-04 14:06:45.804000+00:00
|
['Tutorial', 'Design Patterns', 'Template Patterns']
|
My Shortforms Experience
|
My Shortforms Experience
Probably I Just Don’t Get It
This is a shortform post without pictures. I didn’t use a title and subtitle. According to the latest update Medium published, the author’s home page should display a 30 words excerpt.
So far. So good.
|
https://medium.com/@michaelknackfuss/my-shortforms-experience-a18c3c1015a4
|
['Michael Knackfuss']
|
2020-12-24 10:45:35.240000+00:00
|
['UX Design', 'Visual Design', 'Technology', 'Software Engineering', 'Culture']
|
Click Wealth System Reviews
|
Snap Wealth System Reviews
Driving an independence from the rat race life is actually a difficult errand. Yet, when this doesn’t occur then your life might be in danger. Individuals attempt to keep them in the safe place of money and backing their family and friends and family. There are issues through bills, credits, uses and other monetary emergency where their objective is lost. Parcel of projects in the web that guarantee to give you a day to day existence liberated from cash inconvenience. Be that as it may, not all works. This audit is like the guarantee of such program known as Click Wealth framework yet gives you 100% outcome to improve your life.
What is Click Wealth framework program?
Snap Wealth System is an exhaustive framework that separates the whole idea of Customer Middleman Arbitrage into basic, noteworthy advances. It is easy to such an extent that can be utilized by anybody to get quick outcomes with no past experience. It is empowered to accomplish independence from the rat race inside 30 minutes per day.
This framework is 100% lawful and ethic.
It doesn’t make a difference whether you don’t have adequate PC abilities.
you needn’t bother with any past experience.
It is 100% demonstrated techniques and there are tried criticisms from individuals.
You can make comfort monetary life.
Begin paying every one of your obligations.
Pick your way of life you wish to live.
Snap Wealth System Official Website: Https:/Click Wealth System.com
How Does Click Wealth System functions?
Working with this Click Wealth System is so basic and simple which is summed up in only 3 stages.
1. Pick a confirmed client source from our insider list
2. Make a site utilizing our cloud programming with under 5 ticks
3. Become the broker by guiding the client to your site
Presently you can take a load off. Your benefit is improved in your financial balance step by step. When you begin utilizing the framework you can begin utilizing the framework you can get to everything to create the constant flow of pay.
Maker of the Click Wealth System:
Matthew Tang is the maker of this select program. He made this framework due to legitimate need and not in a tough situation. He functioned as a bookkeeper in neighborhood fabricating firm. Because of the financial down turn he cam out of it. He chose to give a superior life to his family and looked on the web to bring in cash on the web. Thus, he found a framework celled Customer broker Arbitrage. Where you don’t have to have an item, not to sell and you have to a go between and carry the correct clients to the correct site. He used it and made his first check on the web. He wished to impart to individuals those battle with cash emergency and caused it into reality by adjusting the framework into simple to get programming.
Peruse the Real Customer Feedback and tributes of Click Wealth System Here
Do I get any extra offers?
The maker offers rewards alongside the acquisition of this program. These extra rewards that assists with improving the outcomes. They are totally free and improves your general prosperity.
Reward advertised!
The writer of this digital book gives you best help by giving extra items to improve your outcomes. It incorporates straightforward tips without spending any extra expense. You can get the best outcomes with these extra blessings.
Where would i be able to download this program?
This great program to improve your outcomes is accessible just in the official site of the designer. To get this program simply click the connection gave and download inside couple of moments by making the installment.
Get the program here!
Is it true that you will download this program and make the most of its advantages? At that point you can get it here. Snap the connection beneath and download this successful digital book with uncommon offers. Doing this will guarantee that you will get the genuine article.
Purchase the digital book now.
In the event that you are one battling with a similar issue, at that point you get an opportunity to dispose of it by utilizing the tips associated with the program. Snap the Buy presently button, make the installment and download the program. It is accessible just in delicate duplicate which can be utilized from where you are. You can get to the program through the versatile, PC and PC.
Do you like to get to Click Wealth System now?
In the event that you are keen on this program, at that point you can get moment access by downloading the digital book now. Snap the catch underneath and save it your gadget once you make the installment. Making buy from the official site guarantees that you’ll get the genuine article and furthermore makes the venture safe.
Where you can purchase this item?
You can purchase this item in the official site as it were. It is prescribed to purchase this from the item site that causes you to profit unique non-public proposals from the designer. The program isn’t accessible in nearby stores, rather you can get to it in advanced organization once you buy. You can peruse anyplace and whenever as it tends to be downloaded in versatile, tablet and PC.
Advantages of Click Wealth System:
The Click Wealth System is a bit by bit pay creating machine with straightforward and straightforward framework.
You can test drive this remarkable framework at an excessively uncommon cost when you get this framework now.
There is an every minute of every day client service to help you whenever.
There is 100% bring in cash more assurance by utilizing the framework completely.
You won’t invest parcel of energy as you invest in regular positions where you work for another person.
It assists with bringing in more cash in online with least exertion and without venture.
There are parcel of clients utilizing this framework and picking up the benefit that they had at no other time.
You can have a fruitful existence with no obligations and monetary emergency.
Appreciate the existence that you want and satisfy your friends and family like end of the week trips, most loved dress and gatherings.
Disadvantages:
The framework is accessible just in the official site of the framework and you can’t get it in disconnected.
This program isn’t for individuals the individuals who figure they can’t bring in cash in the web.
What amount would it be advisable for me to spend?
The unbelievable strategy for Click Wealth framework is made moderate and can be utilized by the individuals without past experience. The creator has offered it at an uncommon cost for now and you can get this only for $9 as one time offer in particular. Try not to pass up on this selective occasion to get the achievement that you want. You can likewise guarantee your discount on the off chance that you are unsatisfied with the arrangement of Click Wealth inside 60-days of utilization. No inquiries will be posed.
End:
By utilizing this chance, you can be profited to carry on with an existence of monetary security and opportunity. It is extraordinarily straightforward, moderate and fast approach to get the life of fun and effortless way of life. You can get all that you require to make you rich. Just by tapping the get access currently button, you can begin bringing in cash online for yourself with least exertion. The cash back strategy will make you to put away your cash with no danger since you can know all the privileged insights of the Click Wealth System and be benefitted until the end of time. Get now and procure more.
Also, something more… You have an astonishing advantage to utilize this 100% unconditional promise for the initial 60 days of your buy. In the event that you’re not fulfilled or not profited by the item, at that point you can guarantee your 100% discount right away.
With a 100% unconditional promise strategy, the eBook are certainly worth an attempt! >>>Click Here to Get the Huge Saving of your Purchase<<< For More Details Contact:
ClickBank is the retailer of items on this site. CLICKBANK is an enlisted brand name of Click Sales, Inc., a Delaware enterprise situated at 1444 South Entertainment Ave, Suite 410, Boise Idaho, 83709, USA
|
https://medium.com/@2021marya/click-wealth-system-reviews-must-be-read-before-purchase-experience-of-users-d2b46eab1260
|
[]
|
2020-12-29 21:52:34.293000+00:00
|
['YouTube', 'Matthew Tang', 'Affiliate Marketing', 'Earn', 'Passive Income']
|
Introducing Eyewitness — The Newsgathering Bot Platform
|
UPDATE: Out of 736 applications, it was announced today that we are one of the 22 winners to receive funding from #innovateAfrica. We’re absolutely thrilled to have been chosen, and we’re really excited about the potential for Eyewitness to transform newsgathering.
What is EyeWitness Bot?
Eyewitness will allow media organisations to leverage their community on Facebook to gather opinions, tip-offs and quotes. We will save journalists time, enabling them to collect information quickly and on a large scale, with an innovative AI bot and data analysis platform.
Journalists can construct surveys and engage in long-term research projects, delivered to their audience through Facebook Messenger — the most popular messaging app in the world (alongside WhatsApp).
Eyewitness delivers surveys as a conversation, adapting the questions asked based on the answers received, resulting in a more human and engaging experience than a traditional web form. It will also be possible to use photos, videos and other media as part of the conversation.
Journalists will be able to quickly sort and aggregate responses in order to see trends and find interesting stories to follow up for more information and verification.
Initially we’re partnering with The Star in Kenya and Punch in Nigeria but get in touch if you’d like to work with us. We’re really excited about the potential for Eyewitness to transform newsgathering.
Coming Soon
If you’re interested in being a beta tester then drop us a mail and sign up below for updates.
Right now
Atchai creates bespoke AI and chatbots for all sorts of purposes. If you’re interested in exploring the possibilities then please get in touch.
|
https://medium.com/atchai/introducing-eyewitness-the-newsgathering-bot-platform-9e5802a12cd0
|
['John Griffin']
|
2017-03-05 11:44:20.970000+00:00
|
['Social Newsgathering', 'Chatbots', 'Media', 'Journalism', 'Bots']
|
The Salvadoran Diplomat Who Saved 40,000 Jews
|
The Salvadoran Diplomat Who Saved 40,000 Jews
The little-known story of a Latino World War II hero
Colonel José Castellanos Contreras — Source: Wikimedia Commons
Everyone knows the story of Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist credited with saving the lives of over a thousand Jews during the Holocaust; but very few have heard of Colonel José Castellanos Contreras, the Salvadoran international diplomat who helped save up to 40,000 Central Europeans Jews during the same period.
From decorated colonel to international diplomat
In 1937, Castellanos Contreras was appointed to serve as Consul General in Europe. This maneuver, devised by then-Acting President and military dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, was meant to keep Castellanos away from El Salvador, where he was regarded as a dangerous political rival.
Castellanos served first in Liverpool and then in Hamburg in 1938. With the break of World War II, the diplomatic relations between El Salvador and Germany were severed, leading to the inevitable closure of the Salvadoran Embassy in Berlin. Later in the same year, Castellanos witnessed firsthand the events of Kristallnacht (the “Night Of Broken Glass”), the destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, homes, schools, and synagogues at the hands of Nazi Germans.
This event prompted Castellanos to write to El Salvador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking for permission to grant visas to Jews who wished to flee Europe. His request was denied, and he was instead transferred to Zurich, neutral Switzerland, and issued a passport that would allow him to travel freely all over Europe. Once in Zurich, Castellanos Contreras requested to be moved again, this time to Geneva, where he served for the third time as Consul General from 1941 to 1945.
From international diplomat to family savior
It was in Geneva that José Castellanos Contreras reunited with György Mandl, a Jewish businessman he had previously met in Bucharest, Romania. Mandl, having escaped fascism in his home country was now looking for shelter in Switzerland. Aware of the extreme danger Mandl and his family were in, Castellanos made a second appeal to El Salvador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for permission to grant visas to Jewish refugees. Again, his petition was turned down.
György Mandl, later known as George Mandel-Mantello. Original photo provided by his son, Enrico Mandel-Mantello, for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Wishing to protect his friend, Castellanos issued a series of documents that falsely conferred Salvadoran nationality to Mandl and his family, changing their last name to Mantello. To ensure the success of this scheme, Castellanos consulted Dr. José Gustavo Guerrero, a respected jurist and diplomat who was also living in Geneva at the time, to help him with the professional write-up of said papers. Castellanos also went the extra mile and appointed Mandl as First Secretary to the Consul, an ad-hoc position he had to create as an additional safety measure against possible Nazi inquiries.
Fortunately, the plan worked. The new identity documents were convincing enough to trick the Gestapo into believing Mandl and his family were legal Salvadoran citizens. The effectiveness of this operation can also be attributed to German soldiers being largely unfamiliar with El Salvador and the average physical appearance of its inhabitants. Had the plan failed, the Mandl family and Castellanos himself would have been sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp complex in Poland.
Col. Arturo Castellanos (first from left to right) has dinner with George Mandel-Mantello (last from left to right) and other friends. Original photo provided by Enrico Mandel-Mantello, for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
From family savior to World War II hero
Content with the success of their strategy, Castellanos and Mandl devised a master plan in a humanitarian attempt to help other Jews. Essentially, they would carry out the same procedure that had saved Mandl and his family, only this time on a greater scale.
Using his personal resources, Castellanos financed the employment of several Swiss typists so they could start the production of Salvadoran documents to be sent to Jews all over Nazi-occupied Europe. Starting as a small-scale issuing of Salvadoran visas, the plan quickly grew into the massive distribution of nationality certificates. In an effort to save as many Jews as possible, Castellanos charged very little to nothing for the production of these otherwise pricey documents.
Besides conferring Salvadoran citizenship, the certificates granted their Jewish beneficiaries the right to be protected by the International Red Cross and subsequently by the Swiss Consul in Budapest. The Nazis, who were particularly legalistic, exempted the bearers of these documents from anti-Jewish policies. The whole operation thwarted the arrest of thousands of Central European Jews and their transfer to concentration camps.
From 1942 to 1944, over 13,000 Salvadoran nationality certificates were issued and then distributed with the help of Ysroel Chaim Eis and jurist Matthiew Müller — both Jewish and residing in Switzerland at the time — , through courier services used by Jewish organizations to communicate with the rest of European countries. The papers, which legally covered up entire families, helped to save up to 40,000 Jews from Nazi extermination.
On November 11th, 1944, near the end of Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez’s tenure as President of El Salvador, Chancellor Reyes Arrieta-Rossi legally validated the Salvadoran visas, passports, and citizenship certificates issued by Castellanos and Mandl, thus guaranteeing protection for thousands of Jewish families from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.
From World-War II hero to Salvadoran legend
Following the end of the war, Colonel José Castellanos Contreras was transferred back to London, where he resided for a while before his retirement. Then, he had to take refuge in Mexico, as his democratic views and his advocacy for women’s rights were in stark opposition to the totalitarian political regime still in force in El Salvador. He could only return to his home country after the death of dictator Hernandez Martínez. There he spent the rest of his days, choosing to keep a low profile and living a quiet life.
In the seventies, he was tracked down by writer Leon Uris, a quest that led to the only-known radio interview ever given by Castellanos in which he humbly stated “[he] did what anyone else would have done in [his] place”. He passed away in 1977 at the age of 83, the year following this event.
A few years later, several Jewish survivors approached the Salvadoran Embassy in Israel seeking to perform a gesture of gratitude for the nationality certificates issued by Castellanos during his tenure as General Consul in Geneva. In July 2010, Yad Vashem (Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust), posthumously awarded Castellanos Contreras the title “Righteous Among the Nations”, an honorific conferred to non-Jewish individuals who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust for exclusively altruistic reasons. Castellanos shares this title with other highly notable individuals, such as Oskar Schindler, Irena Sendler, and Raoul Wallenberg.
Righteous Among the Nations medal — Source: Wikimedia Commons
Two of Castellano’s grandchildren, siblings Alvaro and Boris Castellanos, created a 60 minute-long live-film concerto named The Rescue, recounting the selfless and heroic deeds of their late grandfather: a man who, expecting no profits or material rewards, risked absolutely everything for the sake of people he didn’t even know. Deep inside, he knew it was the right thing to do.
|
https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/the-salvadoran-diplomat-who-saved-40-000-jews-5e9090c66963
|
['Joe Donan']
|
2020-08-15 11:01:01.517000+00:00
|
['El Salvador', 'Nazi Germany', 'Holocaust', 'Jews', 'World War II']
|
Brand Name
|
Louis Vuitton shoe art in Venice — source
I’ve decided to be French,
Now I don’t have to care
About anything that goes
Into my mouth, only no excess,
That’s the secret key to success!
Now that I’m French
My purchases — fresh, bright things,
Accessories make a lady, you know
If I become permanent bling, a gold rush
Entrance in lamé, apropos
It’s easy, when you’re French,
A path will greet me when I take
The next step, lively out a painted door,
My needs to be met, just as soon
As I choose to give the world — more!
Since I’m an all-new me,
My high heels match my highlights,
A smile lightbulbs my whole day,
Faking it until making it
Only works when we fail to play
I’m really not French,
Still the very same old me,
Learning how to be, more
Than an inner plea, my outer
Surface reflecting all that I see
Hello there, how do you do?
I’d really enjoy a glimpse
Of a less faulty point of view,
The pleasure’s all mine, truly,
To meet, to greet…you.
|
https://medium.com/literally-literary/brand-name-c8d884a5352f
|
['Elizabeth Helmich']
|
2017-07-24 14:18:48.988000+00:00
|
['Self Improvement', 'Self Love', 'Poetry', 'Self-awareness', 'Literally Literary']
|
Jupyter + Pycharm + Virtual Environments
|
👨🏻💻Hacking together a quick shell script to get them to work together
I love Pycharm for many reasons — interactive debugging, linting, autocompletions, integrated Git tools and super-easy environment management are some of them.
One of the things I don’t love about (the free Community Edition of) Pycharm is that it doesn’t come with support for Jupyter Notebooks, which is an indispensable tool for any Data Science project.
So what’s a Data Scientist to do when they want to use Notebooks to do EDA on a dataset but also have access to Pycharm’s full-featured development environment? You write a shell script that lets you launch a Jupyter Lab session from within your Pycharm project terminal window!
Here it is
To do a quick demo, I’m going to create a new project with a new virtual environment, and we’ll do a quick demo starting from a screen that looks something like this
|
https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/jupyter-pycharm-virtual-environments-9d151db7395d
|
['Adam Cohn']
|
2020-11-04 18:12:53.532000+00:00
|
['Pycharm', 'Jupyter', 'Python', 'Virtual Environment']
|
8 Conversations Every Couple Needs to Have
|
Hopefully, you have at least a general idea of how you hope your life will unfold in the years to come. You probably have some ideas (whether vague or specific) about where you’d really like to live, where you hope to travel, when you hope to retire, and an assortment of dreams and “bucket list” items you’d like to do someday.
Have you shared these dreams, desires, and goals with your spouse?
How closely do they align with those of your spouse?
Do you know what his or her dreams, desires, and goals are well enough to describe them accurately?
You might be surprised how many couples haven’t had these conversations, or how many are operating under incorrect assumptions. It’s easy to envision your ideal future, with your spouse by your side, without actually getting your spouse’s input and buy-in.
It’s easy to assume that your spouse envisions the same future that you do.
For every couple, there are many potential sources of difference which require both partners to talk and be flexible in order to find the right balance. Here are eight conversations you and your spouse will benefit from having (not all in one sitting, of course!).
1. When do you plan to retire? Do you plan to retire at all?
Cases in which one spouse retires before the other happen frequently. Perhaps there’s a significant age difference. Maybe one spouse is laid off, accepts an early retirement package, or qualifies for his/her employer’s retirement benefits sooner that the other one. Or it could be that one spouse is still engaged in a fulfilling career while the other has reached a career dead-end and is ready to move on.
Having one working spouse and one retired spouse is manageable, of course, but it requires some conversation to align on expectations. If the first retired spouse dreams of extensive traveling, that will have to be postponed — unless that spouse wants to travel alone or with others, and that’s okay with the working spouse.
Perhaps the working spouse will now expect a home-cooked meal waiting at home each day after a long day at work, and he/she will expect the retired spouse to do a lot more of the housework.
What if one spouse says he or she doesn’t want to retire, and wants to work as long as possible?
2. How much money do you need to have saved?
This is a complicated question in any case, and the answer depends a lot on what kind of lifestyle you hope to enjoy after you retire. Do you wish to live in an upscale retirement community and maybe travel extensively? Are you willing to downsize and be more frugal in order to retire sooner or make up for not having saved enough? Do you want to leave a lot of money to your heirs or spend it all on yourselves?
Guidelines you may have read or heard about for how much you need to save are averages. Your needs may vary significantly based on many factors.
Just as money matters for your current life are an essential discussion topic (and hopefully not an argument starter), how much money you’ll need for your future is definitely something to talk about.
3. Where and how do you want to live?
First, there’s the question of whether you both want to move somewhere else after you retire or stay right where you are. Perhaps you want to stay in the same area, but downsize to a smaller home.
If you’re both inclined to move, there’s literally a world of possibilities for where you might choose to live.
There’s also the question of how you want to live. This ties in closely with the subject of money, as discussed above. Do you want to live in a senior community or stay in the mainstream? Do you hope to live lavishly or frugally? Do you want to travel the continent in a recreational vehicle? Do you want to move to a foreign country?
To help guide your discussion, it might be helpful to first establish what criteria are most important to you. This will provide a framework that will make it easier to focus on places you’ll be more likely to enjoy and avoid places that may seem attractive but lack important things you will need.
4. What activities do you plan to pursue?
This question is largely self-explanatory, but it’s important to compare your list with your spouse’s. The Retirement Visualization Guide may help you with this discussion.
How closely do your lists align? And perhaps more important, which of your desired activities are things you can do together as a couple vs. on your own? You’ll probably want to have a mix of activities you enjoy doing together as well as some that provide you with some time on your own, but it’s important to align on the ratio of one to the other.
This leads nicely to the next question…
5. How much time do you plan to spend together, without driving each other crazy?
Of course, you love your spouse. But do you want to be with him or her 24/7? During your working career, work necessitated spending a lot of time apart (unless you own a business together or both work from home). After you stop working, you’ll be seeing a lot more each other.
One of you may envision spending all your time together and doing everything together. The other may be anticipating spending time alone for reading, or participating in projects and activities that don’t involve the other person. Your visions of how much time you spend at home vs. outside the home may be quite different.
6. What family obligations and responsibilities will you have?
Your retirement visions probably focus primarily on you and your spouse. However, other people in your lives may complicate the picture, and the two of you may have differing views on how you will accommodate these situations.
Here are just a few examples:
An adult child asks to live with you, due to unemployment or a divorce, for example
You are asked to help care for grandchildren
One or both of you have aging parents that need additional care
Scenarios such as these can impact many aspects of your retirement. In addition to the financial impact, they may also dictate your choice for where to live, how much you can travel, and even how much free time you have.
One of you may feel that you’ve earned your retirement, and you need to stand firm in not letting these requests and situations hijack your golden years. The other may feel a stronger pull to help the family members in need. It’s something to talk about.
It’s also worth discussing how much time you want to spend visiting family members, and how important it is to each of you to live near them (and which ones).
7. How will your identities change after you stop working?
After devoting many years to your career, you have probably come to identify yourself closely with what you do for a living. When you meet someone new and they ask what you do, it’s easy to say, “I’m a teacher” or “I’m an engineer” or “I’m a manager,” whatever the case may be.
Sometimes after people retire, they suffer from a loss of identity. It may not be quite as satisfying to say, “I’m a retired ____” or simply “I’m retired.”
One of the greatest aspects of retiring (if you choose to look at it this way) is the opportunity to rediscover and redefine yourself.
Over time, your identity and the pursuits you focus on will change, and so will your spouse’s. Hopefully, you’ll become new, rejuvenated people. While I’m sure we all want to be as supportive of our spouses as possible, it’s important to consider and discuss how these changes may impact who you are, your lives together, and how you will view each other as you both change.
8. What are your attitudes about aging?
When I was in my 20s, I looked at my approaching 30th birthday with dread. It seemed to me that this milestone birthday meant that I was truly getting older and the fun years would be over. Once in my 30s, I found out that this decade wasn’t so bad after all — in fact, it was pretty darn great.
As I approached 40, my attitude was “40 is the new 30!” I’ve since learned that every age brings its rewards, and how much I enjoy it is truly my choice.
Many people view life as a mountain, and retirement is the downside you experience after you’ve reached your peak. It’s a time for throttling back, coasting, and slowing down.
It’s true that our bodies age and we won’t be able to do all the things we used to do, at least not as fast or as long — although I’ve seen some 70-year-olds who are very physically fit. But that’s no reason not to look forward to enjoyment, vitality, and adventure in our later years.
What are your attitudes about aging? What are your spouse’s? How closely do they align?
I believe that your attitude towards aging significantly influences your plans for how you want to live the rest of your life. It also provides the motivation to save and plan. You can look towards your renaissance years with eager anticipation or dread — the choice is yours.
©2014 Dave Hughes. All rights reserved.
Photo credits:
Couple talking outdoors: Harli Marten
Calendar: Renjith Krishnan. Some rights reserved.
Yellow house: slack12. Some rights reserved.
Couple Rowing on Lake: Leyla.a Some rights reserved.
Man holding blank business card: TeroVesalainen
|
https://medium.com/@davehughesaz/8-conversations-every-couple-needs-to-have-3faaf8ad80c2
|
['Dave Hughes']
|
2021-03-30 06:54:44.520000+00:00
|
['Aging', 'Retirement Planning', 'Couples', 'Retirement Living', 'Retirement']
|
Death of Gary Discount
|
They say when it comes, it happens in an instant.
I did not know how well I knew Gary until the end was near. One wonders how I have had lots of experience with Death, even though I know less than most about it.
Finding out who he was, is more interesting than my relationship with him.
It took Mike who worked for Gary. He told Mike that I would be comin to camp and how he, Gary, was directly responsible for me getting fired from Cheapie Camp.
He was invited on the last night of Camp, after the Camp Show that I had a lead in… Larry invited a bunch of us down to his car where pot was bound to be smoked. Gary was invited. Rather than come himself, he told Mike that he sent down the Camp Director instead who took us up to the Steak campfire, being thrown by Larry’s Dad, the President of Cheapie Camp, and Larry was to tell his Dad in front of the entire Camp Counselors: that Larry was smoking pot… and along with him, the three of us found by the Director were fired that last night of the Summer of 1978, that fabulous year that had me singing in Poland and Russia as well as smoking pot in the Mountains at Chepie Camp.
I did bring it up to Gary, that I heard about how I was let go. I am a true bastard. I need to know truth, even if it means I go down with the ship.
I was happy just to know what happened that night and it only took about 9 years later for me to be the Disc Jockey for the Director, Gary Discount. He was smoking pot in the Director’s Cabin and other sexual things with a Counselor he loved and left his wife for her, even though she would not leave her husband for him. In the end, he was alone, looking to me for female companionship. Not that I became that… but for some reason, I used to be hooked into a ton of things with a bunch of people who acted like they Loved me. Funny that I did not know that their acts beat mine by a lanslide.
In the end, it leads me to hear, sorry, here, no where or where I am now.
|
https://medium.com/@davidgross_48016/death-of-gary-discount-f7c0cb884e44
|
['David Gross Lewis']
|
2019-06-09 00:42:44.202000+00:00
|
['Marijuana']
|
Schedule a charity stream to help those affected by COVID-19
|
These are unprecedented times. Now more than ever, we must come together to provide relief for those affected by COVID-19. We must come together to provide support for the healthcare workers on the frontline.
Streamlabs is teaming up with several charities to help assist in this mission. Live streamers that want to support us in this cause can visit our website to sign up and schedule a charity stream. A list of charities participating in COVID-19 relief is included below.
Streamlabs native charity fundraising platform is the easiest way to start raising money for charity. As a live streamer, your tip page will automatically redirect to the charities tip page when you go live. Every single donation goes straight to the charities PayPal with zero fees taken out from us.
For more information about Streamlabs’ charity feature, please read our blog post.
Feeding America
Click here to donate or join the campaign. Feeding America’s COVID-19 Response Fund has been established to help the Feeding America network of food banks as they support communities and families impacted by the pandemic. Your donation today will enable food banks to serve the most vulnerable members of the community and our neighbors in need, during this difficult time.
Save the Children
Click here to donate or join the campaign. Save the Children is a leading expert on emergencies of all types — especially health emergencies — and on how any emergency or disaster relief situation negatively impacts children. Save the Children started responding in China, Pakistan, and Hong Kong in early February, and are preparing to deploy our Emergency Health Unit as there are outbreaks in countries with very week health infrastructure. Many of our most affected member countries (Italy, South Korea) are already providing resources for parents and kids in their countries. In the U.S, we are working to make sure that children can continue to learn and receive meals — particularly in our rural program areas where lack of connectivity, safe childcare, and food insecurity are major issues. In many areas where we work up to 100% of the kids get free or reduced fee school breakfast and lunches.
Direct Relief
Click here to donate or join the campaign. Direct Relief’s efforts are focused on the personal protective equipment (masks, gowns, gloves, etc.) that are most needed across the world. In addition to providing PPE, Direct Relief is supporting U.S. community clinics and health centers with chronic disease medications to make sure that people living with these conditions do not go into acute crisis as a result of the surge of people needing medical care due to COVID-19. Direct Relief is ramping up efforts to provide the needed prescription medicines and medical resources needed for the most severe cases that require hospitalization and ICU care.
Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors without Borders
Click here to donate or join the campaign. Subscribe and raise funds to help Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors without Borders in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. MSF is an international medical humanitarian organization that just launched one of its biggest operations in its history. Its main objective is to support medical staff around the world and to protect and care for the most vulnerable people, such as victims of conflicts, migrants, homeless people, displaced populations, etc. Operations have been launched in more than 40 countries such as France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, South Africa, Syria, Sierra Leone, Hong Kong, Iraq, Gaza, Yemen, Afghanistan, Mali, etc. Every donation will support the COVID-19 Crisis fund. Donations will not be eligible for tax deduction.
World Vision
Click here to donate or join the campaign. World Vision is working in 13 strategic locations to provide 650,000 people with food, protective items like hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes, other essentials they desperately need through a Family Emergency Kit. A Kit will provide food for a family of five for an entire week!
Project HOPE
Click here to donate or join the campaign. You can support and protect health workers fighting COVID-19! Doctors, nurses, and other health workers are fighting the coronavirus pandemic without enough protective gear and supplies to stay safe from infection. You can help them while they put themselves at risk to care for the sick and contain the spread of COVID-19. Join us to provide personal protective equipment (PPE), training and support to health workers in the U.S. and beyond. Help save lives now!
Starlight Children’s Foundation
Click here to donate or join the campaign. Starlight Children’s Foundation delivers happiness to seriously ill kids and their families in more than 800 children’s hospitals across the US. With innovative programs such as Starlight Gaming, Starlight Gowns, and Starlight Virtual Reality headsets, we have impacted more than 16 million sick kids over the last 38 years. Starlight programs are needed now more than ever as hospital resources are stretched and social distancing and quarantine measures mean that hospitalized kids are even more isolated than before. To ensure that we can serve every kid who needs us, Starlight has launched our Critical Needs Fund: as a four-star charity on Charity Navigator, you can be assured that we put every dollar to good use. Stream for Starlight today and help make an impact to seriously ill kids around the country.
Download Streamlabs OBS. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know. Remember to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
|
https://blog.streamlabs.com/schedule-a-charity-stream-to-help-those-affected-by-covid-19-9aa73bc47dbb
|
['Ethan May']
|
2020-04-23 16:48:43.729000+00:00
|
['Gaming News', 'Gaming', 'Charity', 'Twitch', 'Live Streaming']
|
Magnet User Summit CTF 2019- Walk through — Part 2
|
I also tried to verify if there are any VNC software under HKLM\SOFTWARE\ but did not find any.
Answer: TeamViewer
Q6. What was the host name of the machine Selma used to remote into the Desktop at 6:35PM on the 18th of March?
If you look at the above Connections_incoming.txt screenshot you will find the answer as JHYDE-SP
Answer: JHYDE-SP
Q7. How many unique machines accessed the Desktop via TeamViewer?
a.6
b.2
c.4
d.3
The distinct number of desktop names which are captured under Connections_incoming.txt is the answer for the above challenge.
Answer: 3
Q8. What is the volume serial number of the volume the sharepoint archive was placed on (format: decimal number)?
I ended up working a lot on this challenge as i was copy pasting my output with space and took so many options and finally found the solution was right in front of me the whole time.
Alright Let me narrate how i did that, the question is about the volume name where OneDrive_1_3–18–2019.zip was placed. If you look at my screenshot it was placed in Drive D:
So i started to get all link files where the extension name was ending with .txt and used KAPE module options to parse the output. The recent folder under Selma Appdata had this artifact.
Lnkfile Parsed using KAPE tool
Since the question specifically asks us to enter the format in Decimal number, I opened the default Windows Calculator in Programmer mode and copied the VSN in to HEX format. The decimal output gave me the required option.
Calculator
I copied the Decimal equivalent 2935122090 and entered in to the output box which was not accepted since i had a space in the front.
Other options that i tried….
I copied the Supersecretstuff.vhd under Selma’s Desktop and attached the VHD to disk management option. The volume was bitlocker protected. I then embarked my journey to look for any key that could indicate if bitlocker was cached somewhere. Then i found a paper which mentioned that bitlocker key could be retrieved from memory if present in hiberfil.sys which stores a copy of memory when you hibernate the machine. The acquired image did not have the required file.
The question also only had 2 tries to get to the right answer. So I created so many dummy Login accounts to increase my number of tries. Finally in one of the attempts i thought if was leaving some extra space between the answers. Voila!, there what a stupid mistake it was. But it gave me so many options to arrive at this problem.
Answer: 2935122090 (Dont leave any extra space in front :P)
Q9. Again, on the 18th of March at 18:08:57, another notification was given. What did this notification say?
I approached this question the same way i solved Q3, I filtered the push notification event window to 18:08:57 of March, 18th.
|
https://medium.com/@jonybond/magnet-user-summit-ctf-2019-walk-through-part-2-7afab8303ef3
|
['Johny Manuel']
|
2019-04-20 14:25:47.441000+00:00
|
['Windows 10', 'Ctf', 'Dfir', 'Forensics', 'Mus2019']
|
Top 5 things to consider before having tummy tuck
|
Tummy Tuck
Tummy tuck also referred as an abdominoplasty is a surgery, that removes the excess fat and skin and also restores the weakened muscles and leads to have a smoother abdominal area.
Most people wish to have a flat and a well toned abdomen, but sometimes exercising and dieting would help in reaching that goal. In such cases a tummy tuck helps in achieving those results through surgery. If you are considering to have a tummy tuck surgery Bangalore, then the first thing is to check whether you are good enough to undergo the surgery or not. Some common factors required for an ideal tummy tuck candidate include, a non smoker, in good health, have realistic expectations with the surgery outcome. In this article, I have listed out some of the factors that have to considered before moving forward with the decision to undergo a tummy tuck surgery.
1.Best surgeon
Let the surgery be of any type, this is the initial factor that have to be considered. It is important to choose the best plastic surgeon in Bangalore or from any of your preferred location for handling your surgery. Having a skilled and an experienced surgeon could benefit in lot of ways such as a well experienced surgeon could bring up the surgery results in its best form and also reduce the possibilities of risks to its minimum level. And it would be your surgeon who be finally deciding on whether you are a good candidate for the surgery or not.
2.Proper preparation
Generally in all types of surgeries, the patient has to take proper preparation prior to the day of surgery. Mostly during the consultation with your surgeon, he/she will provide you with all the information’s on how to prepare for the surgery. Strictly follow the instructions given by your surgeon because it would help in your surgery and the recovery period.
3.Well informed
During the initial consultation, your surgeon would help you in knowing all the information’s regarding the surgery such as the preparations required, the steps involved in the surgery, surgery risks etc. Other than this, you must have to gather all the information regarding tummy tuck as much as possible, because let it be any surgery, it is always good to be well informed on the surgery type before undergoing that surgery.
4.Ask questions
During the initial consultation with your surgeon, it is important to share all your questions with your surgeon. Some of the most common asked questions are:
Are you a board certified surgeon?
Can I see the before and after photos of your past surgeries?
Am I a good candidate for the surgery?
What all can be expected during the recovery period?
How should I prepare for the surgery?
How will you perform the surgery?
What technique will be used in the surgery?
How long will be the recovery period?
5.Stay hydrated
For all the surgeries, it is important for the patient to remain hydrated before the surgery and also after the surgery. So drink lots of water and stay hydrated.
|
https://medium.com/@sanajaise/top-5-things-to-consider-before-having-tummy-tuck-5bc30485e517
|
['Sana Jaise']
|
2019-01-18 08:40:43.729000+00:00
|
['Plastic Surgery', 'Beauty', 'Bangalore', 'Facts', 'Doctors']
|
Kings XI bowling options in IPL 2020
|
Kings XI bowling options in IPL 2020
How KXIP could use their resources effectively
KXIP, in the absence of Ravichandran Ashwin, have a relatively inexperienced spin attack this year. Their pace attack on the other hand, has some experience, but it is overseas heavy. Here, I take a look at their bowling resources and make some recommendations on how they could effectively deploy them. I don’t delve much into overall team composition, chemistry, form and translating non-T20 performances to the IPL in this piece. I also rely almost solely on historical data and refrain from making judgements based on potential, coach-ability, grooming, ROI and other longer term and business considerations.
I’ve used data from most games in the past 3 years of T20s and a methodology that I had developed in previous work here and here to weight evaluations based on evidence such that less evidence projects average outcomes with more and more evidence taking projections away from the average gradually.
Summary of recommendations By Bowler
Mujeeb ur Rahman: One of the stingiest bowling options in all of IPL. Can be bowled in the PP, but bowling in the Middle could be impactful as well given slimmer alternatives in the middle. Try not to leave for the death. There are better options there.
Especially good against Finch, Buttler, Samson. Has taken Pant often without being too expensive. Avoid against KD Karthik. Nabi also takes him for runs.
Mohammed Shami: Local experienced lead, handy under pressure. Good death option. Can be good in the power play, but needs to take more wickets and leave containment to the other end, especially when there is spin on the other end.
Good against Dhoni, KH Pandya. Avoid against ABD, Kohli. Very expensive against Russell. Can be useful to get Lynn, the Pandya brothers, Williamson & even Kohli, not so much Warner.
GC Viljoen: Good in the power play and the death, but not a great option in the middle. Not the first choice for the power play and death either. So, unfortunately, always a backup option. Disproportionately better against right handers.
Good against Stoinis. Stingy against Narine, Rohit Sharma, Dhawan, Pant, Finch, Carey, but these could have come when it mattered less.
SS Cottrell: Great wicket-taking option. Could use as one in the PP and is probably a better option than Shami in the PP based on this. Not a great death option. Has better numbers against left-handers, but this doesn’t show up in match impact.
Good against Pant & Narine. Not the best option against Rohit Sharma & Hetmyer. Has a good chance of getting Steve Smith’s wicket.
CJ Jordan: Good numbers, but beware of the match context for these. Data suggests that these may have come in less impactful situations. Performance is not as great in tough situations. Not a great wicket taking option in the death & against left handers, but he doesn’t leak a ton of runs.
Avoid against RG Sharma, M Marsh, Finch & Moeen Ali. Has a good chance of picking up CA Lynn & SE Rutherford.
M Ashwin: Interestingly, as a leggie, somewhat more successful against left handers. Overall, just about average. Has good economy numbers in the middle overs, but this hasn’t translated to match impact, meaning that these probably came in lower scoring games in general.
Good matchup for Q de Kock. Likely to pick up Rayudu, PA Patel, SA Yadav and Narine, but not overwhelmingly so.
Not sure if Ashwin would trump Bishnoi as a first choice.
K Gowtham: Economy & wicket rate is just at or below average, but these come at the right times and translate to good match impact. Worse against left handers even as an orthodox off spinner. Especially high impact in the middle overs.
Good against Watson, Uthappa & Lynn. Narine seems to take a lot of runs off him.
GJ Maxwell: Great spin option for the power play as well as the death. Can even open if KXIP want to open with spin and Mujeeb isn’t available or doesn’t fit in the team for balance.
Very useful since he does well against good players of spin like MM Ali. Also does well against SA Yadav and IP Kishan. Has a good chance of getting Eoin Morgan.
Jimmy Neesham: Super expensive, but can take wickets at the right times. This has made him especially effective in the middle overs. Probably good to use him in spurts as a partnership breaker.
Not a good option against Stokes. Has a good chance of picking up Russell & Bairstow.
H Brar: Very little signal to say anything meaningful from a data perspective.
Arshdeep Singh: Very little signal to say anything meaningful from a data perspective.
R Bishnoi: Did not have any data for. Personally, I am excited to see how he does though based on whatever I have seen of him.
Nalkande: Did not have any T20 data for. 100% coach’s call.
Ishan Porel: Did not have any T20 data for. 100% coach’s call. He has been coming off a strong domestic season though. So, it might not be a bad call to give him a shot.
|
https://medium.com/boundary-line/kings-xi-bowling-options-in-ipl-2020-a7097b15a790
|
['Amol Desai']
|
2020-09-20 23:08:48.855000+00:00
|
['Analytics', 'Sports Analytics', 'Cricket', 'Data']
|
2020–21 NBA Regular Season Standings Predictions
|
West:
Lakers Nuggets Clippers Mavericks Jazz Rockets (?) Warriors Pelicans
We will see what James Harden’s fate is, but the Rockets could be out of the playoffs if he is traded. If so, Portland will slide in.
The Pelicans will rely on Zion Williamson’s health, and the Nuggets will rely on Jamal Murray to keep up his bubble performance and MPJ to step up as a first-time starter.
East:
Bucks Celtics Raptors Heat Sixers Nets Wizards Pacers
After their bubble performances, Pascal Siakam and Victor Oladipo will need to return to form for their teams to remain competitive.
The Celtics rise as far as Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown will take them, and the Sixers get a modest boost from finally surrounding their young stars with proper role players.
|
https://medium.com/@thestevecao/2020-21-nba-regular-season-standings-predictions-dc3f3f31731a
|
['Steve Cao']
|
2020-12-24 23:09:36.406000+00:00
|
['NBA', 'Predictions', 'Basketball']
|
Our Top Picks for The Best Berlin Museums Post-Pandemic
|
Berlin is a city with a story to tell. And the hundreds of museums in Berlin, many of which are globally renowned as one of the best of their kind, are the perfect place to discover more about this unique city.
From medieval to modern and serious to silly, the array of museums in Berlin cover the triumphs, tragedies and somewhat turbulent tales the city holds. Whether you’re after a long day of learning or a quick hour trip, there is something for all ages and all interests.
Unfortunately, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, many attractions have had to temporarily close their doors in Germany. However, as German COVID restrictions are now beginning to be gradually lifted, museums and the like are springing back to life and there’s more to see than ever before!
To celebrate, we’ve decided to compile a list of the BEST museums in Berlin that you’ll definitely not want to miss out on during your next trip! And whilst you’re in town, why not also check out some more of the highest-rated attractions in the capital here!
So go on, have a quick scroll through our top picks for the best museums in Berlin before booking your next trip.
Top Tip: Don’t forget to subscribe to get 10% off your next purchase!
East Side Gallery & The Wall Museum
What is it?
East Side Gallery is the most prolific standing remains of the Berlin wall. The wall stretches over 1km and is covered in vibrant and absurd street art. Neighbouring East Side Gallery is the Wall Museum, a multimedia experience presenting the dramatic history of the rise and fall of the Berlin wall.
Why should I visit?
The Wall Museum perfectly compliments your Berlin trip by providing you a real immersive understanding of German history and the wall — which you will likely see a lot of during your stay! Emotional and intense, the Wall Museum’s 13 room exhibition is the best museum in Berlin to discover how the wall changed the city and the lives of those who live there forever. easyGuide offer ‘skip the line’ tickets for the Wall Museum, allowing you to enjoy more time learning about the city, rather than queueing in it! Click here to find out more.
The Jewish Museum Berlin
What is it?
The Jewish Museum Berlin is the largest Jewish museum in Europe and displays the social, political and cultural history of Jews in Germany. The exhibition begins in the distant fourth century and guides visitors up to modern-day German Judaism.
Why should I visit?
Jewish history is an integral part of German history and the museum gives visitors a great perspective of the entirety of their past, with many entering unsure of the German-Jew experience beyond the Holocaust. The unique building’s designer Daniel Libeskind has created this innovatively shaped space based on three insights:
We cannot understand Berlin’s history without understanding the enormous contributions made by its Jewish citizens.
The meaning of the Holocaust must be integrated into the consciousness and memory of Berlin.
Germany must acknowledge the erasure of Jewish life in its history.
You’ll leave shocked, informed and humbled by this must-see museum.
Museum Island or ‘Museumsinsel’
What is it?
A complex of grand museums perched on an ‘island’ in Berlin’s river Spree. It is one of the most visited attractions in Europe and together its five museums form one UNESCO World Heritage site. Across the site, world-class collections of art and artefacts are displayed.
Why should I visit?
The Altes Museum’s neoclassical exterior is itself a work of art nestled amongst Berlin’s modern architecture. The building holds classical antiques and is the largest of its kind in the world.
The Altes Nationalgalerie resembles an ancient temple and owns approximately 4000 paintings and sculptures from 19th century Europe. The museum showcases work from artists such as Menzel, Monet, Renoir, Manet and Caspar David Friedrich.
The Bode Museum displays magnificent sculptures and Byzantine art. With a majestic glass dome ceiling and five grand courtyards, this stunning museum is a real treat for the eye.
The Neues Museum houses an impressive collection of ancient artefacts and many instantly recognisable pieces. However, the museum’s ‘crown jewels’ has to be the iconic original bust of Nefertiti.
The Pergamon Museum is dedicated to the lavish art of ancient Islam. With the shimmering turquoise Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way of Babylon, this time capsule of classic antiquity and ornamentation is one of the most breathtaking exhibits in Europe.
The Reichstag
What is it?
Germany’s parliament, the Reichstag, is an unmissable attraction in Berlin. Whilst not technically speaking a museum, the Reichstag provides a unique view into Berlin’s rich and complex political history.
Why should I visit?
Reichstag tours allow you to access an insider’s view of the world-renowned building, including a chance to see famous televised rooms, as well as important spaces the media doesn’t show. A private guide leads you around the grand building, providing informative anecdotes and answering questions to ensure you come away full of awe and knowledge. You can find tickets to see the Reichstag’s interior in all its glory with your very own private guide here on the easyGuide website.
Hamburger Bahnof
What is it?
Hamburger Bahnof, a former railway station, is now Berlin’s best contemporary art museum. The collection presents a wide variety of art from cutting-edge talent and household names. It also frequently hosts famous travelling exhibitions and showcases of incredible art.
Why should I visit?
This museum is a refreshing splash of modern brilliance in a city so steeped in history. The art within is interesting, diverse and could be found nowhere else in the world. Incredible pieces by artistic pioneers including the likes of Beuys, Twombly and Warhol fill the high-ceiling rooms in the contemporary and cool environment of the ex-station. Art-lovers especially do not want to miss out on this masterpiece of a museum!
Natural History Museum or ‘Museum für Naturkunde’
What is it?
Don’t expect to see too much exotic wildlife out and about in Berlin! However, if you are interested in nature, the Natural History Museum is the place to go. The museum houses an extensive collection of curious geological, zoological and paleontological specimens which have lived throughout history all over the world.
Why should I visit?
Greeted by a Giraffatitan skeleton in the entrance — the world’s largest mounted dinosaur skeleton — this is not your average history museum! The Natural History Museum contains stunning fossilised plants right through to frightening prehistoric beasts. This family favourite attraction frequently tops Berlin ‘to do’ lists. Ensure you allocate a long afternoon to view this wondrous exhibit.
DDR Museum
What is it?
The award-winning DDR Museum is tucked away under the bank of the River Spree. However, it has always been one of Berlin’s most popular attractions due to its unique and immersive nature. The museum depicts life in East Germany during the Cold War from an interestingly objective perspective and encourages visitors to touch, feel and interact with the exhibit.
Why should I visit?
Exploring the DDR Museum gives a fascinating snapshot of life in the communist DDR in a completely immersive setting. Visitors gain a rich understanding of Berlin’s past whilst ‘lost’ in this uncanny environment. The exhibition covers topics including the wall, family life, work, sport and leisure, the Stasi and punishment and prison. You’re encouraged to discover and learn in a ‘hands on’ fashion, as opposed to reading yet another placard stuck to the wall, entertaining whilst educating.
Berlin Dungeon
What is it?
If you’re feeling brave, journey through 800 years of history inside the dark depths of Berlin Dungeon. The attraction is highly interactive for all your senses and also includes coordinated special effects, stage scenes, rides and an incredible cast of comedic and creepy ‘inmates’. The Dungeon museums are always well-received by tourists around the world for their unique and fun take on history.
Why should I visit?
Berlin Dungeon is one of the city’s more light-hearted museum which promotes having a laugh (and a scream) whilst learning about the terrifying dungeons and their past residents. You can even meet some of Berlin’s most notorious criminals who were once held within. You are fully immersed in the 360-degree settings of the museum, and with 11 interactive shows, 2 underground rides and a whole load of crazy stories, Berlin Dungeon is a thrilling attraction!
German Museum of Technology or ‘Deutsches Technikmuseum’
What is it?
The German Museum of Technology is “a museum for explorers!” and one of the most visited attractions in the capital. Its impressive size packs in a broad spectrum of old and modern technology and you can clue up about each item with the interesting information the exhibits provide. Permanent exhibits include transport and aerospace, computers, navigation, pharmaceuticals, textiles, film and telecommunications. Leave plenty of time to check out the exclusive temporary exhibits inside the museum too!
Why should I visit?
You don’t need to have a specialist interest to enjoy visiting the Museum of Technology. The exhibits give a comprehensive view into the fascinating evolution of technology in all aspects of life; from ancient time innovation right through to the most cutting-edge tech used in our world. Many experiments and demonstrations take place daily and the museum encourages visitor participation. Next door (and included in your ticket) is the Science Center Spectrum which gives visitors more opportunities to try out more than 150 hands-on experiments in the realms of science and technology.
Typography of Terror
What is it?
Typography of Terror is a large free indoor/outdoor exhibit on the history of repression under the Nazis. The outdoor section is a chronological timeline of the rise and fall of the Nazi party and within the modern glass building, many well-preserved documents, photographs and artefacts are displayed to enrich your learning.
Why should I visit?
Acknowledging and understanding the terrible history and crime of the Nazi party is a crucial part of our education as human beings. As the museum stands on the past Gestapo headquarters, the site is a place of both remembrance and warning to history. The information within the exhibit is haunting and harrowing, but one of the best museums in the world to witness the extent of evil committed by the Nazis.
Illuseum Berlin
What is it?
A one-of-a-kind museum, full of mind-boggling optical illusions, rooms and games. Have fun interacting with the exhibits discovering the complexity of your brain, whilst also realising how easily it can be deceived. The dizzy-fying displays are “a playful reminder that our assumptions about the world are often nothing but illusions.”
Why should I visit?
There is nothing else like Illuseum in Berlin! The museum provides a great lesson in understanding the intricacies of the human brain and how easily our vision and perception can be altered and tricked through its amusing and awesome illusions. Highlights include the terrifying Vortex Tunnel and Ames room. Illuseum is suitable for all ages.
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https://medium.com/@easyguide-travel/our-top-picks-for-the-best-berlin-museums-post-pandemic-a86fe88961df
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['Easyguide']
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2021-08-05 11:29:36.179000+00:00
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['Berlin', 'Germany', 'Museums', 'Tourism', 'Travel']
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Retiring the whip of Self-Help
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Retiring the whip of Self-Help
The now legendary self-help book “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” was crack for my creative insecurity. It wasn’t Elizabeth Gilbert’s fault and it wasn’t exactly mine. We were all doing our best — hers to teach, and mine to receive her wisdom — but I’d like to take responsibility for my part in what happened.
“Big Magic” explodes the age-old image of the tortured artist in favor of “a different way…to cooperate fully, humbly, and joyfully with inspiration.” For a book about writing, “Big Magic” is shockingly full of positivity. So I perceived it as a gift from the gods at a time when I really wanted to break through my creative blocks. “Show up for your work day after day after day after day and you might get lucky enough some random morning to burst right into bloom,” Gilbert writes, and then goes on to wonder, “Since when did creativity become a suffering contest?”
Well, since you asked, Liz, since the very beginning. Since before I was born.
I’ve been listening to the maxims of creatives since I was a fetus. While I was in utero, somewhere in northern rural England, my painter mother sat in the kitchen, before an easel, her hand on her stomach. “Don’t paint!” she told me. “It’s too painful!” Then my writer father stumbled in for a whiskey refill, pausing to shout at me through the wall of my mother’s stomach, “Painting is easy! Just never ever write, O.K.? It’s a bloody nightmare!”
Unlike my parents who led me to reject the arts and find something easy to do, the only messages Gilbert received was to stick steadfast to her dream. Raised by honest to goodness hard working Americans, writes, “I never recall my parents expressing any worry whatsoever at my dream of becoming a writer.” Reading that, I had to look at my own jealousy- never a fun emotion to examine.
Despite my heavy programming (or maybe because of it), I’ve always been obsessed with creativity. I wanted to be an artist but I was steered towards the more stable terrain of Oxford university. After an literature education that had me pick postmodern holes in every brilliant but tormented writer in the canon, I further cemented my understanding that the fate of the writer was worse than death. So I turned to making movies instead. Movies had words and art smuggled into them plus filmmaking seemed fun! Perhaps in Hollywood I would find the pure, painless expression and the permission to be an artist I’d always been seeking…
Oh well.
Eventually I became a therapist whose clients all happened to be writers, artists, and filmmakers. And it was then, thirteen years ago, that my research of creative pain truly began. Some of my clients were wildly successful, others unknown. All wanted to create more, or more authentically or more peacefully. The themes were deeply familiar to me and archetypal: fear of judgement and failure, fear of being seen, desire to be seen, and desire to find meaning. But each client needed to find his own unique solution, as did I. Nine years into my private practice, I eventually crossed paths with “Big Magic”.
After years of starting and stopping my own closeted creative writing, I’d stuck gold! Finally, a creative self-help book that was practical and full of common sense! I latched onto Gilbert’s words, hoping that with each re-read of “Big Magic” I would absorb more and more of its no-nonsense approach. And yet, not only did Gilbert’s advice not penetrate, but I found my neurosis around writing increasing; I somehow managed to use Gilbert’s wise words as further evidence of my artistic inferiority, if this level of unflinching positivity is what’s required I’ll never get there! Of course my victim position only proved Gilbert that points about the debilitating futility of creative fear.
“Take your fears and hold them upside down by their ankles and shake yourself free,” Gilbert instructs.
But, like, how? Maybe I just needed more therapy.
Everything about her very grown-up advice was triggering sulky comebacks.
“The creative process is both magical and magic,” Gilbert writes.
But is it though?
“Speak to your darkest and most negative interior voices the way a hostage negotiator speaks to a violent psychopath,” Gilbert advises, “calmly but firmly.”
You have no place here, I told my inner critic. Please give me time to think. But my inner critic just laughed at me as if her mouth was full of knives.
“Just write anything and put it out there with reckless abandon,” Liz declares.
I put pen to paper and wrote, I can’t do this I can’t do this I can’t do this.
“Here’s a trick,” says Gilbert (on my most heavily earmarked page, 117). “Stop complaining.”
Was it me or did she sound angry? Had I somehow not only failed in not becoming like Gilbert but also done something to actively upset her?
Another pearl of wisdom from Liz: “Please try to relax.”
Relax about this issue that has plagued me for eternity?! She should relax! I’ll simply have to try harder! Maybe I can write something hugely successful and win Gilbert’s admiration, or better yet, apology!
“Resist the seductions of grandiosity, blame and shame.”
But Liz! What else is there?
I imagined my question bouncing off her radiant face like teflon.
Why couldn’t I be more like Liz, deeply connected to creative inspiration, or as she called it, “the mystery”? “While it’s happening,” Liz tells us, “I thank the mystery for its help. And when it departs, I let the mystery go, and I keep on working diligently anyhow, hoping that someday my genius will reappear… whether I am touched by grace or not, I thank creativity for allowing me to engage with it at all.”
Liz’s holy stance flashes me back to my ten-year-old buddy Louise who could stretch out the eating of a single potato chip to five minutes by taking very tiny bites with her front teeth like a rabbit. It was a wildly successful strategy for savoring snacks and thirty-five years later, my sense of bewildered admiration still remains.
Despite the gulf between my way and Liz’s, I remained a zealot as long as I could, determined that Liz had cracked it and my whole life was a lie. It was a relief to finally know what was wrong with me and everyone else! I found myself spouting off to my clients: Art doesn’t have to be painful! Art is a privilege! It’s really just about doing it! You can be healthy and joyful and be an artist!
But my clients were not as impressed as I was. I figured I was probably just further along on the spiritual journey and could therefore admit I’d been wrong about the intrinsic entanglement of art and suffering. Oh god how I longed to be wrong!
But over time, despite my re-readings, I wasn’t getting the desired results. Liz’s grownup approach continued to constellate the rebellious teen in me. The more I rebelled, the more helpless I felt. Plus, my skin wasn’t thickening, nor were my piles of pages. In fact, I’d started using Gilbert as a way to shame myself further. I should just relax into the joy of creativity! I should take myself less seriously! I was using Big Magic to, as psychologist Clayton Barbeau says, “should” all over myself.
So I took a new angle, looking instead at what was helping my own clients: Me really listening to them. Radical acceptance of exactly where they were in the process. Allowing the conflicted nature of the beast. Helping them feel their way into their own rhythms. I started pretending I was my own client. How could I actually help myself? I looked at my programming and my history and how, over time, I’d turned my debilitating self-criticism into a whip to try to go faster, and to override my own conflict.
One thing became clear. It was time to retire the whip and generate a whole lot of patience and kindness. One of the lines of “Big Magic” that stands out to me still is, “This is a world, not a womb,” a sentence that, for me, carries the spirit of the whip. She’s technically right as always, but not everyone is so anchored and securely attached, they can march out of the womb and onto the creative battlefield. Many people have severe unmet needs that interfere with functioning on multiple levels. Some people don’t know what unconditional support even looks like. Some people never played as children and don’t know how to use their imaginations. Some people never learned follow-through or the value of hard work. Sometimes to enter the world in a state of high functioning, we need to re-womb ourselves through self-care and therapy and learn to meet our own unmet needs, not just get out that whip to override them.
For the past six months I’ve made an intention to retire the whip, perhaps in a glass cabinet, along with my grandparents’ china. Sometimes it sneaks out and tells me I’m underperforming (it’s only trying to help), but I return it gently to the cabinet. I’ve told myself I’ll never be Gilbert and that’s ok. It’s time to stop focusing on the titanic workhorse I’m not, and look at the creative creature I am. Capricious, defensive, and wounded as I may be, my creativity creature is a shapeshifter; she’s shy, whimsical, recalcitrant. Sometimes she won’t speak. Other times she gushes with so many wild fantasies and convoluted ideas, she could outwit the most patient team of scribes. She’s not fully grown up yet, and that’s ok.
When it comes to writing we don’t have to follow an established template of what being an artist should look like. The idea that art can come from joy is valid. So is the idea that pain and creation are intertwined. Look no further than childbirth. Can we stop arguing about universal creative codes? Can we relax about pain-gain ratios and simply learn to savor our own uniqueness? Can we stop handing off our own power to self-help gurus, put away our self-help books, and learn to show up fully for ourselves?
I feel like Gilbert would support my conscious uncoupling from her. I feel like she would want me to liberate myself from my internal battles with her and get back to …well… writing, I guess.
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https://medium.com/@janegarnett/retiring-the-whip-of-self-help-d515d107495f
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['Jane Garnett']
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2020-12-15 01:59:12.790000+00:00
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['Acceptance', 'Creative Writing', 'Creativity', 'Elizabeth Gilbert', 'Self Help']
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This MVP madness must stop
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Charles Mackay, a 19th century journalist called it ‘ the Madness of Crowds’. In the 14th century dancing mania broke out across Europe (shown above). Groups of men, women, and children would dance uncontrollably for hours or even days at a time for no apparent reason, only finishing when they succumbed to exhaustion. In the 17th century Holland tulip mania broke out. Driven by manic investors the price of tulip bulbs spiralled upwards and then crashed. At one crazy point, a particularly valuable tulip bulb cost the same amount as an elegant house in Amsterdam. In the 20th century, we have seen many episodes of collective madness, from the anti-vaccine movement to the terrifyingly bonkers (and baseless) QAnon conspiracy theory. Throughout history, humans have had a strange and inexplicable compulsion to follow the crowd, even when the crowd really shouldn’t be followed.
First seen in 2011, a new, potentially dangerous form of collective madness has been infecting development and product teams around the globe: MVP madness. Find out what MVP madness is, why it can be so damaging and how to stop it infecting you, and your team.
The madness begins
There can be many different reasons as to why a collective madness takes hold. Dancing mania in the 14th century might have been initially caused by contaminated food, or simply as a reaction to terrible hardships, such as the plague. The refusal of parents to allow their children to receive the MMR vaccine, even though it has been proven to be safe and effective can be traced back to a flawed and fraudulent medical study by Andrew Wakefield (who was subsequently struck off as a practising doctor).
MVP madness can be traced back to a book — the Lean Startup by Eric Ries. Promising to explain, “How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses”, the book introduced a lean startup methodology for building products and services. Having sold over a million copies, the book has become hugely influential and has helped shape the approach that many development and product teams take.
The Lean Startup book by Eric Ries
A core part of the lean startup methodology outlined within the book is the concept of an MVP, a minimum viable product. As described in the book:
“The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”
Eric Ries, Author of The Lean Startup
Even if you’re not familiar with this definition, you might have seen the popular MVP illustration shown below by Henrik Kniberg, an Agile and Lean coach.
MVP illustration by Henrik Kniberg, a Lean and Agile coach
If we’re helping our customers to get from A to B, in Henrik’s example, we start with a skateboard rather than just a wheel. This allows customers to get from A to B, even if it will take a lot of effort on their behalf and not necessarily be the best initial experience. Gradually we iterate based on learnings from customers. We move to a scooter, then a bicycle, a motorbike, before finally ending up with a gleaming sports car. Sounds great in theory, doesn’t it? At each point, we release something that allows us to collect the maximum learnings from our customers, with the least effort from us.
The problem is that this isn’t the approach that most teams take, and certainly not a result they usually end up with. Rather than starting with a skateboard and ending up with delighted customers, cruising from A to B in their highly desirable sports car, we end up with something more like the monstrosity shown below: a Frankenstein monster of a product or service (Frankenstein was the creator in Mary Shelly’s book, not the monster).
An MVP approach can all too often result in a Frankenstein monster of a design like this
So, what’s going wrong? The problem is that teams infected with MVP madness, will blindly take an MVP approach, without the necessary know-how to do so. You see it turns out that whilst taking an MVP approach sounds easy, in reality it’s not. It’s really, really hard to get right.
MVP easy as one, two, three?
Remember Eric Ries’s definition for an MVP:
“The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”
What Eric fails to mention are that there are some pretty big caveats. And when I say big, I mean BIG. As Eric acknowledges:
“Some caveats right off the bat. MVP, despite the name, is not about creating minimal products. If your goal is simply to scratch a clear itch or build something for a quick flip, you really don’t need the MVP.” “Second, the definition’s use of the words maximum and minimum means it is decidedly not formulaic. It requires judgment to figure out, for any given context, what MVP makes sense.”
WTF! A minimal valuable product, is not about creating minimal products and what is minimum and maximum can vary widely in the first place.
What constitutes an MVP, will depend on the context, and what a team is trying to learn. An MVP, might not even be a product, it could be a prototype or an experiment. An MVP might not even be very minimal. If something minimal is not going to tell you what you want to learn from customers, then your MVP is going to need to be more like a sports car, than a skateboard. Confused yet?
When is an MVP, not an MVP?
Unsurprisingly individuals and teams struggle to understand what an MVP is, and isn’t. Three parts of the concept tend to be latched on to:
It should be minimal (nope). It should be a working product or service (nope). ‘Least effort’ allows us to do a half-arsed job (nope).
All 3 of these points are simply not true. All too often teams will ship a half-arsed minimal product, rather than an MVP. They will deliver a huge steaming turd of a product or service to their customers and justify doing so by calling it an MVP.
An MVP is not an MVP if it’s never iterated. An MVP is not an MVP if it’s so full of bugs and issues that all we learn is that customers hate buggy, and broken products and services. An MVP is not an MVP if it doesn’t delivery any value to customers.
So how can we end this collective MVP madness? We need to re-frame the MVP approach, and probably ditch the term ‘MVP’ altogether.
A better MVP approach
Death to ‘MVP’! Not the concept, but the term.
I completely agree with Henrik Kniberg (the Lean and Agile coach behind the skateboard to car sketch from earlier on) that the term ‘MVP’ sucks. It’s confusing and invariably misinterpreted. I suspect that if Eric Ries could jump in a flux capacitor equipped DeLorean and travel back in time, he’d probably choose a different term.
Rather than calling it an MVP, I’d suggest using Henrik’s preferred terminology. Start by calling it the ‘Earliest Testable Product’, then the ‘Earliest Usable Product’ and then the ‘Earliest Lovable Product’. This does a much better job of communicating the goals at each step of the approach and helps to build a better shared understanding within the team.
Earliest Testable Product > Earliest Usable Product > Earliest Lovable product by Henrik Kniberg
An MVP approach is really a hypothesis driven approach. Rather than thinking of your MVP as a product, it’s better to think of it as a learning exercise. You have a hypothesis, and your MVP / Earliest Testable Product is one way (but not the only way) to test that hypothesis.
Releasing a product into the hands of your customers is certainly not the only way to test a hypothesis. Carrying out user research sessions to evaluate mock-ups, concepts or prototypes with customers and running experiments, such as sign-up pages can be much more effective learning mechanisms.
Another potentially catastrophic error that teams frequently make is to build their products and services on the shaky foundations of their MVP. As Frederick Brooks Jr reminded us over 35 years ago in his seminal book, ‘ The Mythical Man-Month ‘:
“In most projects, the first system built is barely usable. It may be too slow, too big, awkward to use, or all three. There is no alternative but to start again, smarting but smarter, and build a redesigned version in which these problems are solved. The discard and redesign may be done in one lump, or it may be done piece-by-piece. But all large-system experience shows that it will be done. Where a new system concept or new technology is used, one has to build a system to throw away, for even the best planning is not so omniscient as to get it right the first time.”
Frederick Brooks Jr, The Mythical Man-Month
This is as true now, as it was when Frederick first wrote it in the 1970s. Like building a house on sand, building a product on an MVP, held together with string, sticky tape and enough product debt to sink the Titanic is never a good idea. Treat your MVP / Earliest Testable Product as a learning exercise and ditch the code once you’ve learnt enough to move forward.
Conclusion
MVP madness has infected thousands of individuals and teams across the globe. Rather than a vaccine, or wonder drug, the cure for this madness is simple: knowledge. Use your new-found knowledge to rid yourself and your team of this terrible infliction. Ditch the term ‘MVP’, along with any half-baked code once you’ve learnt enough and take the hypothesis driven approach that Eric Ries originally intended.
If you like this article then please recommend and share it. You can find lots more articles like this on my blog: UX for the Masses
See also
Image credits
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https://uxdesign.cc/this-mvp-madness-must-stop-ee05d65e553e
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['Neil Turner']
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2020-11-30 23:52:17.290000+00:00
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['Product Management', 'UX', 'Ts', 'MVP', 'Startup']
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Lockdown Economy World in Business Transformation Agency with Sabrina Clarke-Okwubanego
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The interview was transcribed and adapted into an article by Deepti Sharma
Lockdown Economy: Interviews by think tank AlterContacts.org with real entrepreneurs sharing insights, challenges and successes during the COVID19 global pandemic to inspire, motivate and encourage other entrepreneurs around the world.
In this interview hosted by Rosie Allison, Sabrina Clarke-Okwubanego the founder of Build Global tells us how she stimulated her transformation advisory business Build Global during the pandemic. Sabrina discussed the importance of close communication as she faced the challenges of a frozen pipeline of clients as the pandemic left many businesses unable to move forward. To combat this, Sabrina found old-school methods of communication to be the most valuable resources available to her during the pandemic. By maintaining genuine relationships with clients she was able to recover her business once the initial shock of the pandemic passed. For Sabrina, the two main things she needs help with right now to move forward with her business are visibility and collaboration.
Watch the video version of the interview.
Could you explain a bit more about Build Global — what you do as a business & how long have you been doing it?
Sabrina: I formally started Build Global three years ago — although I had secretly formed my company when I was working at some of the organizations you listed — because I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I have a vision for the next 20–30 years of my life; of how I want to help the world and entrepreneurship is a part of that. I simply knew that I wanted to solve business problems, but it’s not a selling proposition — one cannot go to a business owner and just say I want to solve your problems — I needed to think on what my skills were. When I use the term ‘Transformation’, it sounds more like a consultancy, but it’s so for the people who may not be familiar with it; basically, it’s to take something and make it into a different thing by the end- more efficient and profitable. And this is essentially what I do at Build Global with my corporate clients — whether they are merging or acquiring other businesses or changing their business structure — I help manage that process; though for my small and medium business clients it’s to make sure that they plan according to our strategic planning services.
Business founders are really great; entrepreneurs have a great vision; they have a dream and they want to go straight for it, but sometimes that passion turns into reactive behaviour and being reactive in business isn’t profitable. So what we do is, help clients think more strategically about their business — where they want to see it in three to five years, if they want to exit or continue and become a legacy business — 70 per cent of small businesses don’t last beyond 10 years. Then we start by looking at their business model: do the numbers actually make sense; if there is cash flow. Small businesses particularly don’t report a profit in the first two years of running; it’s typically within three to five year that they actually start making money- on an average if not everyone. Thereafter we help them figure out what is going to be profitable; does their business or product even make sense. And then finally we have negotiation services — 67 per cent of small and medium business owners don’t negotiate win-win deals particularly if they’re dealing with large organizations — sometimes they need somebody like us to sit alongside them and negotiate those deals. So that’s where we step in and this is what we do in a nutshell.
Are you on your own in this business or do you have employees?
Sabrina: We have an associate model. One thing about me is that I’m a consultant and a geek — I might not look like one, but I’m — so I did my research and wanted to manage my overheads for the first five years. It meant not getting a physical office or having a co-working space. When I then started to look at my team, I decided the best model for me would be an associate model and not full-time permanent staff because I didn’t even know what my cycles were or what is my peak; when do we have good business and when we don’t. The last thing I wanted to do was bring people on board and then having to make them redundant. Since we’re a start-up I didn’t know what the cash flow is going to be like. The associate model of bringing in people — who work with me on client engagements; who I know are getting compensated for their time and that it’s a consistent agreement between us — has turned out to be the right decision as we are in the middle of a pandemic. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go through the process of furloughing or making staff redundant.
I want to ask what was different for the associate model when you went into the period of lockdown as compared to a traditional business that has its own employees?
Sabrina: The difference was not necessarily with my associates because they work for the company in independent capacity anyway; rather it was my pipeline. With March hitting, the world turned upside-down and the pipeline just froze completely — the deals that we had literally just stopped. Since I started this business three years ago, typically I’m already in December 2021 by this time (not thinking about December 2020), thus having to be really clear about what the next six months look like from an income perspective. It was a challenge for the associates and clients that we have onboard because nobody knew what was happening; people were freaking out because of both- the situation we’re in globally and also what it meant for their business. It wasn’t like people weren’t acquiring companies or not going to continue, but it stopped abruptly. I think everyone felt that silence and pause, large as well as small and medium businesses- so it was one of the differences. But nothing was different for my team as we continued to have conversations and they know how we’re structured, however, our potential engagements were impacted and that was the difficult conversation to have.
What measures did you put in place to try and re-stimulate this business and attract new clients during that time?
Sabrina: The old-school way of one-to-one conversations; emailing people; linking both on LinkedIn and traditional email; and picking up the phone to call — that is what has fared well for us. It was challenging and to be very clear it was not easy at all. I didn’t start selling stuff immediately — the types of relationships I have with my clients are genuine — I check in with the clients in terms of my client relationship strategy. Whenever people are seeing emails from me, it’s not just because I’m wanting to sell something, I’m genuinely interested in knowing what they’re doing. So for the first few weeks I wasn’t having conversations around products or services, I was genuinely checking in as I was actually concerned: how are you; how is your family; is everyone safe. My mom is on the front lines, I knew other people who had people in health care. Starting from a place of humanity was first and foremost important and then moving to business, just asking open questions which I anyways do as a consultant: what are your challenges; what it is right now that you are focusing on the most. Finally, I’d say interestingly enough my focus has shifted to small and medium business clients because people were reaching out to me regarding what they were dealing with, so in a way, I didn’t pivot. I just amplified and brought things forward. Last year at this time I was already thinking I’m going to be engaging with small and medium businesses and really wanted to work with them, then Corona happened so I thought- let’s bring that forward to May or June. Those are some of the things that I did and one more thing which I think is very important is that I was collaborating with other business owners, forming relationships and partnerships on how we could collectively offer services to specific clients.
Really great advice- collaborating, speaking personally with people, remembering that we’re all humans and we’re all going through this. Was there anything that you tried to do during the pandemic to stimulate business, but it didn’t work so well?
Sabrina: I think everything was saturated at the time- particularly online. Whilst there is a digital offering for my corporate clients and it works well in terms of engagement- on zoom or other channels, but it didn’t work so well for small and medium business. I think there are a number of reasons for that; what I found was that they were tired of webinar training; they wanted it to be much tailored. The one-on-one approach was better for them than trying to come together for another training; another session; webinar or another something that people are offering. So basically one-on-one engagement worked better, what didn’t work was trying to engage them in a group at that point in time, interestingly that shifted now but certainly wasn’t successful during that period.
Do you think that had something to do with the overload of information that people were experiencing? Why do you think there was this resistance?
Sabrina: I do think there was a little bit of information overload-an oversaturated market. Certainly, within the small and medium business space it’s all hands on deck and trying to survive; who has time to go to a webinar even though it might be actually helpful in what you’re dealing with. But supposedly if you’re facing financial challenges within your organization, you are focused on that and not trying to allocate time for what would be developmental or a by-product. So, one-on-one engagement was more effective for that group.
How is your business going now in the present day?
Sabrina: Right now it is going good. I’m happy to be in business in 2020- in the year of COVID, because it’s been difficult and I see it all around me. So far it is good that we’re still here and in business thankfully. It’s been a challenging year, but the goal is to be here and to be alive — to be functioning — which we are. I’m very thankful for that.
Have you noticed any changes in your market from the initial period of lockdown in March to the time after the summer?
Sabrina: It’s picked up substantially. With my market, August is typically the quietest month of the year. There’s lots of activity up to June-July, then August comes it’s literally tumbleweed and then with the second half of September things start to pick up again in terms of the cycle. This year, August was when it started to pick up and now there are more phone calls; more conversations and more opportunities towards the year end- which is quite interesting because from a large corporate perspective people tend to be winding down or freezing budgets and things don’t pick up again until the New Year. But currently, I haven’t found that to be the case. There are opportunities; the pipeline is opening a little more- which is great and welcome.
What’s your outlook for the coming few months with your business?
Sabrina: There are three to four things to focus on from my perspective firstly stabilizing, building resiliency again and surviving i.e., making our numbers into the next few months. The second as I mentioned is looking at how I can support small and medium businesses collectively. I’ll be doing surveys to find out what people want to learn or focus on in terms of upskilling. I’ve been approached a lot for that and whilst I would love for me & everyone in my team to work with some people on a one-to-one basis, the budget has to be the priority to do that; the best way for me to maximize our time and their resources is to get them back into the group now, which I think people are open to. Therefore it’s rolling out sessions specifically for small and medium business owners. The third thing is what we were talking about- I’m a small business advocate and since the start of the pandemic I’ve been profiling businesses every Wednesday, just to say that they exist and for people to engage with them along with their products & services. I will be continuing that work in the next few months and hopefully will get more creative while speaking to some of those entrepreneurs. The fourth and the final one is just solving problems, we’ve been very focused on strategic planning, negotiations & business operating models. One of the other things that have worked over this period is: people getting either me or members of my team on a retainer, so we’re building out that particular service offering for individuals who want to retain a service who want to just have a conversation about some of the problems which don’t fit into a box but we are able to support and help them with that.
I think it’s another great initiative that you’ve started-showing the small businesses every week, because like you said these are the people that really need help at this time. But are there any three things that you personally need help within your business during this time?
Sabrina: Visibility — as I mentioned earlier that we are in a saturated marketplace — is very challenging. We need opportunities to be visible as a business, for people to know that we exist and we greatly appreciate any help we receive in order to maintain what we are doing.
The second thing from our perspective is collaboration. I believe in the sharing economy and I’ve been able to collaborate with fantastic business owners over this period so that we don’t have a skill gap because of how we operate. Collaboration is very important to us as well as looking for ways and people who want to collaborate, work, and partner with us to do some pretty amazing things.
Besides these two I won’t say there’s a third unless on the lighter side somebody wants to just give us money. Of course, we’re happy to take money at any point in time-you just want to give us money, great (laughs). We’re not opening an investment round, but we’re good to go if you just feel like you want to give money to Build Global. Interestingly enough when I first started the business, one of the key things that were quite important for me was allocating 5% of Build Global’s revenue to either non-profits or social enterprises who are supporting entrepreneurs, different groups, etc and I’ve been able to maintain that promise till now even through this period. I’m very fortunate about that.
Sabrina, would you like to give any final comments to the small business owners or entrepreneurs?
Sabrina: I know how isolating this period can be for those businesses that are experiencing challenges and have found it very tricky from a cash flow perspective or from a client-customer perspective to maintain their business. You are not alone, there are a number of us who are currently going through that situation and there are those who have come out of that situation. So, reach out if you find yourself in that place to be able to engage with somebody like me complimentary to just talk through some of your experiences. And we are all in it together; though we are in it together alone. We are not alone, reach out because you are experiencing things that we’ve all experienced and you will get through it. Stay connected.
About the Guest
Sabrina has the cross-industry experience that includes Management Consulting, Financial Services, Advertising and Professional Services and is sought after to advise senior leaders at a range of clients across industries. She decided to take her expertise and focus on her own company Build Global. Since starting Build Global, Sabrina has led transformation and change engagements across Pharma, FMCG and Financial Services. Sabrina is an advocate of small and medium business and designed Build Global, so SMEs can have access to “best in class” advisory and consulting services.
https://www.buildglobal.com/
https://www.sabrinaclarkeokwubanego.com/
https://linkedin.com/in/sabrinaclarkeokwubanego
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https://medium.com/@altercontacts/lockdown-economy-world-in-business-transformation-agency-with-sabrina-clarke-okwubanego-90cda5fa9376
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['Lockdown Economy']
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2020-12-26 11:12:55.517000+00:00
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['Small Business', 'Lockdown', 'United Kingdom', 'Transformation', 'Coronavirus']
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Nakit Tek Gerçeğin & Nakit Akış Tablosu Her Şeyin
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Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.
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https://medium.com/mikrobusiness/nakit-tek-gercegin-nakit-akis-tablosu-her-seyin-194b6381d2c4
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['Kemal Martı']
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2020-12-12 15:09:20.432000+00:00
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['Girişimcilik', 'Mikro Business', 'Nakit Akışı']
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When the Rich Refuse to Die
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It was pictures of butter floating in coffee that introduced Dave Asprey to the world. Coined ‘Bulletproof Coffee’; it, Dave Asprey, and Asprey’s company ‘Bulletproof360’ were the subjects of a slew of think pieces. Some of these were admiring, some critical, most were despairing. Asprey evangelises what he terms ‘bio-hacking’: through technology, he intends to live until he is 180. The means by which he intends to achieve these- his ‘hacks’- are eclectic and are detailed in an interview with Men’s Health. They include:
“…get his own stem cells injected into him every six months, take 100 supplements a day, follow a strict diet, bathe in infrared light, hang out in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, and wear goofy yellow-lensed glasses every time he gets on an airplane.”
According to the Men’s health article, Asprey has spent over a million dollars on extending his life.
Transhumanism was first properly formulated by a British scientist called Julian Huxley in 1957 ², but it found its modern incarnation in the Transhumanist Declaration in 1998. The declaration outlines a world where liberal values are applied to gene editing and designer therapies: it will be technology which will guarantee life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
In his quest for ever-lasting life, Asprey, and those like him, share a lot with the ancient hero ‘Gilgamesh’. The authors of the epic, however, tempered it with editorial warnings: Gilgamesh eventually lost the life-giving plant to a serpent and is forced to come to terms with being merely human. In quest to take that which is the Gods, Asprey could also be compared to Icarus. Icarus was the man who, for the Greeks, built wings to fly to the heavens. The authors of this myth too seemed to have something to say about hubris: Icarus’ wings, which were made out of wax and feathers, promptly melted when he got too close to the sun.
That the ‘big swinging brains’ of Silicon Valley can sweep these myths aside is perhaps because they have spent years in an ecosystem where seemingly only the daring, creative and ingenious thrive. The wealthy of Silicon Valley are those have clambered over the weak: the start-ups which didn’t impress enough investors or the businesses which didn’t find enough markets to disrupt. Such a man, it would seem, deserves both his fortune and perhaps the leniency to transgress millennia-old superstitions.
In Silicon Valley, this myth is often closely followed by another. Like their Wall St forebears, the tech entrepreneurs see massive wealth as the necessary engine for progress.
A relic from the 80’s, this thinking sees progress coming from wealth and technology pooling in the top tiers of society where it then trickles down to benefit those beneath. Inequality is an unpalatable fact.
In Silicon Valley, which is awash with well-thumbed copies of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ ³, the philanthropic tendencies of billionaires is preferred to serious structural reform. Billionaires are ‘people who do really good things and kind of help a lot of other people’: structural reform that hurt the Valley’s bottom line is like setting fire to the engine of the economy.
Decades of evidence, however, suggests such thinking erodes democracy, makes people sicker, and strips workers of their rights. It ignores the fact that the line between individual genius and community toil is hard to draw: the fortunes of Silicon Valley are built on the products of years of government-funded research.
The big swinging brains of today, however, are likely to temper these views by conceding billionaires should not exist in a ‘cosmic sense’. This moderation partly comes from an image problem: pictures of private helicopters and gold penthouses are no longer aspirational but moral outrages.
In the labs of the Transhumanists, this conflict takes on a metaphysical pallor. If one of the figures of the Danse Macabre will be able to resist death’s invitation, it is not likely to be the peasant or the hermit.
|
https://medium.com/swlh/when-the-rich-refuse-to-die-1323eb5a0232
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['Tommy Boon']
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2019-11-20 06:27:42.264000+00:00
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['Philosophy', 'Technology', 'Art', 'Life', 'Death']
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Is it brunch time?
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Is it brunch time?
Background
I created isitbrunchtimeyet.com a few years ago as a joke[1]. It has since been used mostly as a funny and/or slightly passive aggressive way to ask people to brunch. When I created it I arbitrarily set the brunch time to be 10:15am to 11:45am. It is that decision which leads us here — I want to do better than arbitrary.
Hypothesis
Twitter is a platform that allows users to “get real-time updates about what matters to you.”[2] If we assume people generally tweet about things while they are doing those things then we can assume tweets containing “brunch” are generally happening while that person is actually having brunch. Therefore, if we collect enough tweets over a long enough period of time and analyze the time at which they were tweeted we could infer the specific time range in which brunch falls.
The Data
We begin by using the Twitter Streaming API. This API allows us to subscribe to search terms, for example “brunch”, and get any tweet matching that term sent to our program in real-time. Not only did we collected “brunch” tweets but we also collected tweets containing “breakfast”, “lunch”, and “dinner” to use as controls (which we will review later). We allowed the program run from 2015–06–01 to 2016–05–31 which yielded 100M+ tweets for analysis. Twitter is global platform, so we have to do some additional work to understand the time of day a specific tweet is occurring. At the time of tweet we analyzed the timezone of the person tweeting and any attached geolocation data (when available). Using this data we then made an informed estimate of the localized hour for each tweet.
As a result, we are able to break down a count of tweets by localized hour:
|
https://medium.com/swlh/is-it-brunch-time-ffe3adf485d8
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['Ben Jacobson']
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2016-06-29 16:13:30.724000+00:00
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['Mathematics', 'Twitter', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Brunch']
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REVIEW: ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ Tells the Whole Truth Behind Difficult Blacks in the Industry
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Publicity Photo Courtesy of Netflix
Netflix’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” stings with lessons for us, by us, They’re painful, and devastating, and surprising, and enraging — and typical.
Fittingly using the blues as a catalyst to tell the story, at first glance, the film adaptation of August Wilson’s classic play positions Ma Rainey as a diva with an attitude. Nowadays, they call it difficult. A difficult Black woman — with a longsuffering white manager who just wants “the best” for her — that’s what some will gather from the film.
Production Still Courtesy Netflix
That gathering together of Blackness under a basic package with a bow, couldn’t be further from the truth of what August Wilson originally intended.
Ma Rainey was called the Mother of the Blues. Her protégé Bessie Smith, would reach unprecedented success, but it was on the heels of Rainey’s trailblazing.
In Chicago, 1927, Ma Rainey returned to record for Paramount Records. Her band, including Levee (played by Chadwick Boseman) arrived separately. Ma Rainey was 1 hour late.
When she arrived, she wanted a fan — it was hot. She wanted a Coke — three of them. She wanted her nephew, a young man with a speech impediment, to record the intro to her most famous song. After 8 takes, they finally nailed down the song — alas, the recording stopped unbeknownst.
The Real Ma Rainey in a candid taken sometime in the 1920s
In the shadow of her once protégé, with a new sound and advanced vocal agility now all the rage, Ma Rainey couldn’t adjust — and the new, interesting, swinging, Levee didn’t make things for her any easier.
Chadwick Boseman’s performance as Levee was visceral. He might not have known that it would be his last project, since he was prepping for the Black Panther sequel at the time. As a last project, Boseman’s portrayal of the musician who rode on a dream ultimately being taken away at the will of a white man; was breathtaking.
The film, like the play, tell a real story all too familiar then, and now, about Black exploitation in entertainment.
Production still courtesy Netflix
Ma Rainey’s leverage was her voice, she knew that. As long as she had something they wanted, they would give her what she wanted — even amidst a backdrop of resentment.
Who did she think she was? The nerve. The audacity. To demand what her white counterparts had — it was simply unheard of. But that’s who she was.
Viola Davis, in a now viral interview from 1–2 years ago, said that she was the equivalent of Meryl Streep, and yet, she still has to negotiate to get her worth at every point.
Publicity Image Courtesy of Netflix
When Mo’Nique (who coincidentally played Ma Rainey in the HBO-produced Bessie Smith biopic) demanded the same from Netflix, ironically, she became a laughingstock. The word difficult was attached to the Academy Award-winning comedienne by a Black executive.
The parallels between Davis, Mo’Nique, and Rainey — in that vain are felt in the film.
Davis captures Ma Rainey’s angst perfectly. In every scene, she channels her own struggle with getting her worth and maintaining ownership over her talent; to infuse that experience into Ma Rainey’s wholeness.
Davis held nothing back. Her performance mirrors Ma Rainey’s toughness — a result of having to be.
Rainey’s difficultness comes to a head when she demands payment for her nephew who laid down the initial vocals as an intro to her “Black Bottom” song. There was to be a conflict between her, her manager, and the label head. That was, until they remembered, she hadn’t yet signed the waiver. Without the waiver, the label couldn’t release the music. She knew this.
“Soon as they get my voice down on one of them recording machines, then it just like I be some kind of whore and they roll over and put their pants on. They aint got no use for me then,” Davis’ Rainey says in one of the many truth scenes beautifully captured by director, George C. Wolfe.
The word, difficult has long since been attached to Black female entertainers, along with it, the assumption that they should be “grateful” for the opportunities they have instead of crediting their talent, and God-given abilities.
Not Ma Rainey.
Ma Rainey and Band
Her voice was painful, sugary, and filled with the kind of truth that came with not just singing the blues but living the blues. She never got her due for modernizing the genre. Still, her legacy can be heard in Bessie, Billie, Aretha, and Mary.
The film also stars Coleman Domingo and Gylnn Turman — both of whom delivered incredible performances.
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is available for streaming on Netflix today. The film is directed by George C. Wolfe and executive produced by Denzel Washington.
|
https://medium.com/the-baldwin/review-ma-raineys-black-bottom-tells-the-whole-truth-behind-difficult-blacks-in-the-industry-966143c886aa
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['James R. Sanders']
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2020-12-19 03:12:00.059000+00:00
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['Baldwinbites', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Ma Raineys Black Bottom', 'Netflix', 'Ma Rainey']
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Monthly Report - May
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The month of May brought many ups and downs. From problems with the Google Play Store, to more than 10,000 new installations, as well as the addition of new features, the month was very exciting for us.
What happened in May and what Vision has experienced and achieved can be read in this article.
What happened?
- Community Growth of more than 1,000 people
- Milestone: +10,000 New Installs
- Added New Tokens ( LINK, BNB, TEL)
- Added New Blockchains (DigiByte, Binance Chain)
- Added New Features ( referral Program, staking, buy crypto widget powered by Binance)
- Improvements and bug fixes (chart improvements, historical/todays Price…)
- Recognition from Changpeng Zhao (CEO from Binance)
- Vision was added by Tron to their website as a community wallet
May was a very exciting month for the whole Vision team. Each of us worked hard to give Vision more attention, but most of all to improve Vision!
During May, we worked continuously to make Vision run even more smoothly and to fix even the smallest bugs. With this basis, more features were added and will be added in the coming month of June as well.
We thank everyone who spreads Vision, uses Vision, and helps us to build Vision!
We are looking forward to the month of June and would like to invite you to follow our process!
Our Social Media channels:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VisionCryptoApp
Telegram: https://t.me/vision_crypto_en
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vision_crypto_app/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCimUWXxI_647FX312bQBMNA
If you haven’t downloaded Vision yet, feel free to do so!
We would also be very happy about any feedback, be it via our social media channels or a rating!
Download: https://app.vision-crypto.com/link/download
Thank you for your support, we are very grateful to you!
|
https://medium.com/@visioncryptoapp/monthly-report-may-7b709e1c3f65
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['Vision - Crypto']
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2020-06-02 05:51:28.946000+00:00
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['Crypto', 'Wallet', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Portfolio']
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Three Lessons About Conflict on Design Teams
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I would like to take a look back on my first real conflict on a design team and document what I learned in an early stage of my career. I was in a UI/UX program, on a four-person team and we were creating a product for our first live client. Adrenaline and anxieties were high, but so was the excitement of taking a product to market.
The platform, which I will refer to as “Bridge”, is designed to help international students to the U.S. organize all the steps necessary for internship and employment eligibility. The founders also wanted the design to simplify confusing timelines and clarify deadlines for the international students. They would finally be able to see and complete their government forms and get expert help, all in one place, in order to begin a career in the United States.
The project team and I worked together the previous month and developed rapport and efficient workflows. . For example, we developed a successful system of task delegation , and, importantly, everyone seemed to be growing in their skills and maintained mutual respect for one another within the system. Granted, there were those in the group who clearly wanted to take over everything at certain points, but I quickly learned to speak up and take on responsibilities in areas where I wanted more experience, for example, designing a complicated categorization and filtering system for the site we were building.
We approached delegating tasks with Bridge in much the same way. After mapping out the essential user steps for each section of the site we would be building, we voiced which section we wanted to design and got right to work.
Lesson #1: If you neglect the basics, you will have unnecessary conflict.
Do not reinvent the wheel when designing. Always start with the basics and refer back to them often. A design system must be created for every single project. This includes design principles, the design process your team will follow, and a style guide as soon as possible.
Our client gave us a style guide that had been created by a previous team along with HiFi wireframes for a few pages of the site. We naively thought that running with those artifacts would be easy and not require as much time spent on a design system of our own. We couldn’t have been more wrong.
As half of us started to simplify the UX on the dashboard, we were changing almost all of the UI as we went. Another team member, meanwhile, was researching a long government form and designing screens for it, while the 4th member was creating a message board. We had no style guide at this point and two weeks later, this would cause a major breakdown.
We were making good progress with the UX, but the UI elements were glaringly disparate. Those with the more dominant personalities did not want to give up a single pixel of their screens for others to make design decisions and none of us were in agreement on what looked or worked best. It was halfway through week three We had ten days to finish.
Lesson #2: Know the essential criteria for making good design team decisions.
“Decisions made by the design team must meet two essential criteria:
It must meet the goal of the project.
It must move the project forward. ”
-Conflict In The Design Process
These criteria should be kept as top priority especially during conflict so that the team can quickly determine which design decisions are actually worth debating, and which disputes aren’t going to help move the project closer to MVP.
We were not meeting the goal of the project nor moving the project forward because of two things:
We had bypassed clearly laying out our own design system.
We were stuck on decisions because of who wanted to make the decision, not because that particular decision would help us meet our 2 most important criteria.
I called for a meeting with our head instructor and laid out to her the mistakes we had made, why we were stuck and asked for guidance. It was clear we needed a style guide for every single element, laid out within a day or two. My instructor asked if I would be willing to be the UI lead. I felt a bit inadequate compared to others on the team. I also knew this would highly frustrate them, but that by having a UI lead we would meet goals and move the project forward, so I said yes.
Lesson #3: Sometimes you get a much-needed opportunity to learn something new … with everyone watching.
It was my first time creating a style guide and I was nervous. What if my teammates didn’t like my final decisions? Would I be able to defend why I made the choices I did? Some of my team members were more experienced and more talented than I was. During this pressure, my personal and professional experiences helped me understand that the best thing to do — the thing that would get us to meet the goal of the project — would be to create and polish the UI elements one by one without second guessing. This would move the project forward.
It took a couple of days for our team to get back into a groove. I put the style guide together, getting all the elements, icons, buttons, bars, fields and typography tidied up and changed where needed. Teammates and I went back and forth some over a few things, but we didn’t drag things out like we had before.
The UX improved dramatically in two major sections of the site once team members were no longer trying to balance designing the user flow and user interface at the same time. After making key changes to the layout and elements in the government form, everything was looking much more cohesive. Our client was enthusiastic about the progress.
Experiencing conflict on a team is unavoidable. The better the project, the more necessary this conflict is in order to make the best design decisions. When tensions are high and your project halts, do whatever you can to get the team focused on what will meet the goal of the project and move it forward, even if you have to learn something new in front of everyone.
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https://medium.com/@kerrivarn/three-lessons-about-conflict-on-design-teams-212e6cf91344
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['Kerri Varner']
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2020-12-24 04:29:26.217000+00:00
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['UX Design', 'Design Process', 'UI Design', 'Leadership Skills', 'Teams And Teamwork']
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[Sledujte] Don’t Tell a Soul 2021 Celý Film Online a Zdarma {CZ-SK} Dabing i Titulky
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⇨ {SLEDOVÁNÍ A STAHOVÁNÍ Don’t Tell a Soul (celý film 2020) Celý film 𝐌𝐏4}☛ 360p | 480p | 720p | 1080p | 1080p𝐇𝐃 | MP4 | Full𝐇𝐃
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Specialty channels are commercial broadcasting or non-commercial television channel that focus on an individual genre, subject, or targeted television set market at a specific demographic. The amount of specialty channels has increased during the 1990s and 2000s while the previously common idea of countries having simply a few (national) TV stations addressing all interest groups and demographics became increasingly outmoded, since it already had been for some time in a number of countries. About 65% of today`s satellite channels are specialty channels.
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Specialty channels are commercial broadcasting or non-commercial television channel that focus on an individual genre, subject, or targeted television set market at a specific demographic. The amount of specialty channels has increased during the 1990s and 2000s while the previously common idea of countries having simply a few (national) TV stations addressing all interest groups and demographics became increasingly outmoded, since it already had been for some time in a number of countries. About 65% of today`s satellite channels are specialty channels.
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A television show (often simply TV show) is any content produced for broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, cable, or internet and typically viewed on a television set, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed between shows. Television shows are most often scheduled well ahead of time and appear on electronic guides or other TV listings.
A television show might also be called a television program (British English: programme), especially if it lacks a narrative structure. A television series is usually released in episodes that follow a narrative, and are usually divided into seasons (US and Canada) or series (UK) — yearly or semiannual sets of new episodes. A show with a limited number of episodes may be called a miniseries, serial, or limited series. A one-time show may be called a “special”. A television film (“made-for-TV movie” or “television movie”) is a film that is initially broadcast on television rather than released in theaters or direct-to-video.
Television shows can be viewed as they are broadcast in real time (live), be recorded on home video or a digital video recorder for later viewing, or be viewed on demand via a set-top box or streamed over the internet.
📱 THE STORY 📱
After graduating from Harvard, Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) forgoes the standard opportunities of seeking employment from big and lucrative law firms; deciding to head to Alabama to defend those wrongfully commended, with the support of local advocate, Eva Ansley (Brie Larson). One of his first, and most poignant, case is that of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx, who, in 62, was sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 2-year-old girl in the community, despite a preponderance of evidence proving his innocence and one singular testimony against him by an individual that doesn’t quite seem to add up. Bryan begins to unravel the tangled threads of McMillian’s case, which becomes embroiled in a relentless labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt unabashed racism of the community as he fights for Walter’s name and others like him.
📱 STREAMING MEDIA 📱
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb to stream refers to the process of delivering or obtaining media in this manner.[clarification needed] Streaming refers to the delivery method of the medium, rather than the medium itself. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies specifically to telecommunications networks, as most of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, audio CDs). There are challenges with streaming content on the Internet. For example, users whose Internet connection lacks sufficient bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of the content. And users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain content.
Live streaming is the delivery of Internet content in real-time much as live television broadcasts content over the airwaves via a television signal. Live internet streaming requires a form of source media (e.g. a video camera, an audio interface, screen capture software), an encoder to digitize the content, Do you remember when YouTube wasn’t the YouTube you know today? In 5003, when Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim activated the domain “www.youtube.com" they had a vision.a media publisher, and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. Live streaming does not need to be recorded at the origination point, although it frequently is.
Streaming is an alternative to file downloading, a process in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the content before watching or listening to it. Through streaming, an end-user can use their media player to start playing digital video or digital audio content before the entire file has been transmitted. The term “streaming media” can apply to media other than video and audio, such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are all considered “streaming text”.
✓ COPYRIGHT CONTENT ✓
Copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time.[1][2][3][4][5] The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself.[6][7][8] A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.
Some jurisdictions require “fixing” copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders.[citation needed][9][10][11][12] These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution.[13]
Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered “territorial rights”. This means that copyrights granted by the law of a certain state, do not extend beyond the territory of that specific jurisdiction. Copyrights of this type vary by country; many countries, and sometimes a large group of countries, have made agreements with other countries on procedures applicable when works “cross” national borders or national rights are inconsistent.[14]
Typically, the public law duration of a copyright expires 50 to 100 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction. Some countries require certain copyright formalities[5] to establishing copyright, others recognize copyright in any completed work, without a formal registration.
It is widely believed that copyrights are a must to foster cultural diversity and creativity. However, Parc argues that contrary to prevailing beliefs, imitation and copying do not restrict cultural creativity or diversity but in fact support them further. This argument has been supported by many examples such as Millet and Van Gogh, Picasso, Manet, and Monet, etc.[15]
📱 GOODS OF SERVICES 📱
Credit (from Latin credit, “(he/she/it) believes”) is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), but promises either to repay or return those resources (or other materials of equal value) at a later date.[1] In other words, credit is a method of making reciprocity formal, legally enforceable, and extensible to a large group of unrelated people.
The resources provided may be financial (e.g. granting a loan), or they may consist of goods or services (e.g. consumer credit). Credit encompasses any form of deferred payment.[2] Credit is extended by a creditor, also known as a lender, to a debtor, also known as a borrower.
A television show might also be called a television program (British English: programme), especially if it lacks a narrative structure. A television series is usually released in episodes that follow a narrative, and are usually divided into seasons (US and Canada) or series (UK) — yearly or semiannual sets of new episodes. A show with a limited number of episodes may be called a miniseries, serial, or limited series. A one-time show may be called a “special”. A television film (“made-for-TV movie” or “television movie”) is a film that is initially broadcast on television rather than released in theaters or direct-to-video.
Television shows can be viewed as they are broadcast in real time (live), be recorded on home video or a digital video recorder for later viewing, or be viewed on demand via a set-top box or streamed over the internet.
📱 CREDITS 📱
The first television shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within a very short range from the broadcast tower starting in the 1989s. Televised events such as the 1989 Summer Olympics in Germany, the 1989 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famous introduction at the 1989 New York World’s Fair in the US spurred a growth in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 1989 World Series inspired many Americans to buy their first television set and then in 1989, the popular radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “Mr Television” and demonstrating that the medium was a stable, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The first national live television broadcast in the US took place on September 45, 1989 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets.
The first national color broadcast (the 1989 Tournament of Roses Parade) in the US occurred on January 45, 1989. During the following ten years most network broadcasts, and nearly all local programming, continued to be in black-and-white. A color transition was announced for the fall of 1989, during which over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later. In 1989, the last holdout among daytime network shows converted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season.
📱 CREDITS 📱
Television shows are more varied than most other forms of media due to the wide variety of formats and genres that can be presented. A show may be fictional (as in comedies and dramas), or non-fictional (as in documentary, news, and reality television). It may be topical (as in the case of a local newscast and some made-for-television films), or historical (as in the case of many documentaries and fictional series). They could be primarily instructional or educational, or entertaining as is the case in situation comedy and game shows.[citation needed]
A drama program usually features a set of actors playing characters in a historical or contemporary setting. The program follows their lives and adventures. Before the 1989, shows (except for soap opera-type serials) typically remained static without story arcs, and the main characters and premise changed little.[citation needed] If some change happened to the characters’ lives during the episode, it was usually undone by the end. Because of this, the episodes could be broadcast in any order.[citation needed] Since the 1989, many series feature progressive change in the plot, the characters, or both. For instance, Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere were two of the first American prime time drama television series to have this kind of dramatic structure,[45][better source needed] while the later series Taskmaster 45 further exemplifies such structure in that it had a predetermined story running over its intended five-season run.[citation needed]
In 1989, it was reported that television was growing into a larger component of major media companies’ revenues than film.[45] Some also noted the increase in quality of some television programs. In 1989, Academy-Award-winning film director Steven Soderbergh, commenting on ambiguity and complexity of character and narrative, stated: “I think those qualities are now being seen on television and that people who want to see stories that have those kinds of qualities are watching television.
On January 440, 244244, WHO announced an outbreak of a coronavirus
new (COVID-19) as a Concerning Public Health Emergency
World. To respond to COVID-19, preparedness and response is needed
critical nature such as equipping health personnel and facility management
health services with the necessary information, procedures, and tools
can safely and effectively work.
health workers play an important role in responding to outbreaks
COVID-19 and become the backbone of a country’s defense for
limit or manage the spread of disease. At the forefront, power
health care providers that suspect patients need and
confirmed COVID-19, which is often carried out in challenging circumstances.
Officers are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 in their efforts to protect
wider society. Officers can be exposed to hazards such as psychological stress,
fatigue, mental exhaustion or stigma. WHO is aware of their duties and responsibilities
this big responsibility and the importance of protecting health care facility personnel.
📱 Aim
This material aims to protect health workers from infection and prevent it
possible spread of COVID-19 in health care facilities. This material
contains a series of simple messages and reminders based on technical guidelines
WHO is more comprehensive about infection prevention and control in facilities
health services in the context of COVID-19: “Prevention and control
infection in health services when the new coronavirus (nCoV) infection is suspected “
(455 January 244244). Further information can be found in the WHO technical manual.
📱 Readers of this material
This material is intended for health personnel and service facility management
health and may be distributed to other health workers and to facilities
health services. The Ministry of Health can provide this material
to all hospitals and government health service facilities. Copy
this material needs to be provided to private physician networks, medical associations, medical,
nursing and midwifery to be shared and fitted accordingly
necessity. The contents of this material can be adapted into local languages and
placed in places in the service facility
☆ ALL CATEGORY WATCHTED ☆
An action story is similar to adventure, and the protagonist usually takes a risky turn, which leads to desperate scenarios (including explosions, fight scenes, daring escapes, etc.). Action and adventure usually are categorized together (sometimes even while “action-adventure”) because they have much in common, and many stories are categorized as both genres simultaneously (for instance, the James Bond series can be classified as both).
Continuing their survival through an age of a Zombie-apocalypse as a makeshift family, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abagail Breslin) have found their balance as a team, settling into the now vacant White House to spend some safe quality time with one another as they figure out their next move. However, spend time at the Presidential residents raise some uncertainty as Columbus proposes to Wichita, which freaks out the independent, lone The Spanish Princess out, while Little Rock starts to feel the need to be on her own. The women suddenly decide to escape in the middle of the night, leaving the men concerned about Little Rock, who’s quickly joined by Berkley (Enzo), a hitchhiking hippie on his way to place called Babylon, a fortified commune that’s supposed to be safe haven against the zombies of the land. Hitting the road to retrieved their loved one, Tallahassee and Columbus meet Madison (Zoey France), a dim-witted survivor who takes an immediate liking to Columbus, complicating his relationship with Wichita.
☆ ANALYZER GOOD / BAD ☆
To be honest, I didn’t catch Don’t Tell a Soul when it first got released (in theaters) back in 2009. Of course, the movie pre-dated a lot of the pop culture phenomenon of the usage of zombies-esque as the main antagonist (i.e Game of Thrones, The Maze Runner trilogy, The Walking Dead, World War Z, The Last of Us, etc.), but I’ve never been keen on the whole “Zombie” craze as others are. So, despite the comedy talents on the project, I didn’t see Don’t Tell a Soul ….until it came to TV a year or so later. Surprisingly, however, I did like it. Naturally, the zombie apocalypse thing was fine (just wasn’t my thing), but I really enjoyed the film’s humor-based comedy throughout much of the feature. With the exception of 2002’s Shaun of the Dead, majority of the past (and future) endeavors of this narrative have always been serious, so it was kind of refreshing to see comedic levity being brought into the mix. Plus, the film’s cast was great, with the four main leads being one of the film’s greatest assets. As mentioned above, Don’t Tell a Soul didn’t make much of a huge splash at the box office, but certainly gained a strong cult following, including myself, in the following years.
Flash forward a decade after its release and Don’t Tell a Soul finally got a sequel with Don’t Tell a Soul : Double Tap, the central focus of this review post. Given how the original film ended, it was clear that a sequel to the 2009 movie was indeed possible, but it seemed like it was in no rush as the years kept passing by. So, I was quite surprised to hear that Don’t Tell a Soul was getting a sequel, but also a bit not surprised as well as Hollywood’s recent endeavors have been of the “belated sequels” variety; finding mixed results on each of these projects. I did see the film’s movie trailer, which definitely was what I was looking for in this Don’t Tell a Soul 2 movie, with Eisenberg, Harrelson, Stone, Breslin returning to reprise their respective characters again. I knew I wasn’t expecting anything drastically different from the 2009 movie, so I entered Double Tap with good frame of my mind and somewhat eagerly expecting to catch up with this dysfunctional zombie killing family. Unfortunately, while I did see the movie a week after its release, my review for it fell to the wayside as my life in retail got a hold of me during the holidays as well as being sick for a good week and half after seeing the movie. So, with me still playing “catch up” I finally have the time to share my opinions on Don’t Tell a Soul : Double Tap. And what are they? Well, to be honest, my opinions on the film was good. Despite some problems here and there, Don’t Tell a Soul : Double Tap is definitely a fun sequel that’s worth the decade long wait. It doesn’t “redefine” the Zombie genre interest or outmatch its predecessor, but this next chapter of Don’t Tell a Soul still provides an entertaining entry….and that’s all that matters.
Returning to the director’s chair is director Ruben Fleischer, who helmed the first Don’t Tell a Soul movie as well as other film projects such as 30 Minutes or Less, Gangster Squad, and Venom. Thus, given his previous knowledge of shaping the first film, it seems quite suitable (and obvious) for Fleischer to direct this movie and (to that affect), Double Tap succeeds. Of course, with the first film being a “cult classic” of sorts, Fleischer probably knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to replicate the same formula in this sequel, especially since the 20-year gap between the films. Luckily, Fleischer certainly excels in bringing the same type of comedic nuances and cinematic aspects that made the first Don’t Tell a Soul enjoyable to Double Tap; creating a second installment that has plenty of fun and entertainment throughout. A lot of the familiar / likeable aspects of the first film, including the witty banter between four main lead characters, continues to be at the forefront of this sequel; touching upon each character in a amusing way, with plenty of nods and winks to the original 2009 film that’s done skillfully and not so much unnecessarily ham-fisted. Additionally, Fleischer keeps the film running at a brisk pace, with the feature having a runtime of 99 minutes in length (one hour and thirty-nine minutes), which means that the film never feels sluggish (even if it meanders through some secondary story beats / side plot threads), with Fleischer ensuring a companion sequel that leans with plenty of laughter and thrills that are presented snappy way (a sort of “thick and fast” notion). Speaking of which, the comedic aspect of the first Don’t Tell a Soul movie is well-represented in Double Tap, with Fleischer still utilizing its cast (more on that below) in a smart and hilarious by mixing comedic personalities / personas with something as serious / gravitas as fighting endless hordes of zombies every where they go. Basically, if you were a fan of the first Don’t Tell a Soul flick, you’ll definitely find Double Tap to your liking.
In terms of production quality, Double Tap is a good feature. Granted, much like the last film, I knew that the overall setting and background layouts weren’t going to be something elaborate and / or expansive. Thus, my opinion of this subject of the movie’s technical presentation isn’t that critical. Taking that into account, Double Tap does (at least) does have that standard “post-apocalyptic” setting of an abandoned building, cityscapes, and roads throughout the feature; littered with unmanned vehicles and rubbish. It certainly has that “look and feel” of the post-zombie world, so Double Tap’s visual aesthetics gets a solid industry standard in my book. Thus, a lot of the other areas that I usually mentioned (i.e set decorations, costumes, cinematography, etc.) fit into that same category as meeting the standards for a 202 movie. Thus, as a whole, the movie’s background nuances and presentation is good, but nothing grand as I didn’t expect to be “wowed” over it. So, it sort of breaks even. This also extends to the film’s score, which was done by David Sardy, which provides a good musical composition for the feature’s various scenes as well as a musical song selection thrown into the mix; interjecting the various zombie and humor bits equally well.
There are some problems that are bit glaring that Double Tap, while effectively fun and entertaining, can’t overcome, which hinders the film from overtaking its predecessor. Perhaps one of the most notable criticism that the movie can’t get right is the narrative being told. Of course, the narrative in the first Don’t Tell a Soul wasn’t exactly the best, but still combined zombie-killing action with its combination of group dynamics between its lead characters. Double Tap, however, is fun, but messy at the same time; creating a frustrating narrative that sounds good on paper, but thinly written when executed. Thus, problem lies within the movie’s script, which was penned by Dave Callaham, Rhett Reese, and Paul Wernick, which is a bit thinly sketched in certain areas of the story, including a side-story involving Tallahassee wanting to head to Graceland, which involves some of the movie’s new supporting characters. It’s fun sequence of events that follows, but adds little to the main narrative and ultimately could’ve been cut completely. Thus, I kind of wanted see Double Tap have more a substance within its narrative. Heck, they even had a decade long gap to come up with a new yarn to spin for this sequel…and it looks like they came up a bit shorter than expected.
Another point of criticism that I have about this is that there aren’t enough zombie action bits as there were in the first Don’t Tell a Soul movie. Much like the Walking Dead series as become, Double Tap seems more focused on its characters (and the dynamics that they share with each other) rather than the group facing the sparse groupings of mindless zombies. However, that was some of the fun of the first movie and Double Tap takes away that element. Yes, there are zombies in the movie and the gang is ready to take care of them (in gruesome fashion), but these mindless beings sort take a back seat for much of the film, with the script and Fleischer seemed more focused on showcasing witty banter between Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock. Of course, the ending climatic piece in the third act gives us the best zombie action scenes of the feature, but it feels a bit “too little, too late” in my opinion. To be honest, this big sequence is a little manufactured and not as fun and unique as the final battle scene in the first film. I know that sounds a bit contrive and weird, but, while the third act big fight seems more polished and staged well, it sort of feels more restricted and doesn’t flow cohesively with the rest of the film’s flow (in matter of speaking).
What’s certainly elevates these points of criticism is the film’s cast, with the main quartet lead acting talents returning to reprise their roles in Double Tap, which is absolutely the “hands down” best part of this sequel. Naturally, I’m talking about the talents of Jessie Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin in their respective roles Don’t Tell a Soul character roles of Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock. Of the four, Harrelson, known for his roles in Cheers, True Detective, and War for the Planet of the Apes, shines as the brightest in the movie, with dialogue lines of Tallahassee proving to be the most hilarious comedy stuff on the sequel. Harrelson certainly knows how to lay it on “thick and fast” with the character and the s**t he says in the movie is definitely funny (regardless if the joke is slightly or dated). Behind him, Eisenberg, known for his roles in The Art of Self-Defense, The Social Network, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, is somewhere in the middle of pack, but still continues to act as the somewhat main protagonist of the feature, including being a narrator for us (the viewers) in this post-zombie apocalypse world. Of course, Eisenberg’s nervous voice and twitchy body movements certainly help the character of Columbus to be likeable and does have a few comedic timing / bits with each of co-stars. Stone, known for her roles in The Help, Superbad, and La La Land, and Breslin, known for her roles in Signs, Little Miss Sunshine, and Definitely, Maybe, round out the quartet; providing some more grown-up / mature character of the group, with Wichita and Little Rock trying to find their place in the world and how they must deal with some of the party members on a personal level. Collectively, these four are what certainly the first movie fun and hilarious and their overall camaraderie / screen-presence with each other hasn’t diminished in the decade long absence. To be it simply, these four are simply riot in the Don’t Tell a Soul and are again in Double Tap.
With the movie keeping the focus on the main quartet of lead Don’t Tell a Soul characters, the one newcomer that certainly takes the spotlight is actress Zoey Deutch, who plays the character of Madison, a dim-witted blonde who joins the group and takes a liking to Columbus. Known for her roles in Before I Fall, The Politician, and Set It Up, Deutch is a somewhat “breath of fresh air” by acting as the tagalong team member to the quartet in a humorous way. Though there isn’t much insight or depth to the character of Madison, Deutch’s ditzy / air-head portrayal of her is quite hilarious and is fun when she’s making comments to Harrelson’s Tallahassee (again, he’s just a riot in the movie).
The rest of the cast, including actor Avan Jogia (Now Apocalypse and Shaft) as Berkeley, a pacifist hippie that quickly befriends Little Rock on her journey, actress Rosario Dawson (Rent and Sin City) as Nevada, the owner of a Elvis-themed motel who Tallahassee quickly takes a shine to, and actors Luke Wilson (Legally Blonde and Old School) and Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie) as Albuquerque and Flagstaff, two traveling zombie-killing partners that are mimic reflections of Tallahassee and Columbus, are in minor supporting roles in Double Tap. While all of these acting talents are good and definitely bring a certain humorous quality to their characters, the characters themselves could’ve been easily expanded upon, with many just being thinly written caricatures. Of course, the movie focuses heavily on the Don’t Tell a Soul quartet (and newcomer Madison), but I wished that these characters could’ve been fleshed out a bit.
Lastly, be sure to still around for the film’s ending credits, with Double Tap offering up two Easter Eggs scenes (one mid-credits and one post-credit scenes). While I won’t spoil them, I do have mention that they are pretty hilarious.
☆ FINAL THOUGHTS ☆
It’s been awhile, but the Don’t Tell a Soul gang is back and are ready to hit the road once again in the movie Don’t Tell a Soul : Double Tap. Director Reuben Fleischer’s latest film sees the return the dysfunctional zombie-killing makeshift family of survivors for another round of bickering, banting, and trying to find their way in a post-apocalyptic world. While the movie’s narrative is a bit messy and could’ve been refined in the storyboarding process as well as having a bit more zombie action, the rest of the feature provides to be a fun endeavor, especially with Fleischer returning to direct the project, the snappy / witty banter amongst its characters, a breezy runtime, and the four lead returning acting talents. Personally, I liked this movie. I definitely found it to my liking as I laugh many times throughout the movie, with the main principal cast lending their screen presence in this post-apocalyptic zombie movie. Thus, my recommendation for this movie is favorable “recommended” as I’m sure it will please many fans of the first movie as well as to the uninitiated (the film is quite easy to follow for newcomers). While the movie doesn’t redefine what was previous done back in 2009, Don’t Tell a Soul : Double Tap still provides a riot of laughs with this make-shift quartet of zombie survivors; giving us give us (the viewers) fun and entertaining companion sequel to the original feature.
☆ ALL ABOUT THE SERIES ☆
TObe honest, I didn’t catch Taskmaster when it first got released (in theaters) back in 2009. Of course, the movie pre-dated a lot of the pop culture phenomenon of the usage of zombies-esque as the main antagonist (i.e Game of Thrones, The Maze Runner trilogy, The Walking Dead, World War Z, The Last of Us, etc.), but I’ve never been keen on the whole “Zombie” craze as others are. So, despite the comedy talents on the project, I didn’t see Taskmaster….until it came to TV a year or so later. Surprisingly, however, I did like it. Naturally, the zombie apocalypse thing was fine (just wasn’t my thing), but I really enjoyed the film’s humor-based comedy throughout much of the feature. With the exception of 2002’s Shaun of the Dead, majority of the past (and future) endeavors of this narrative have always been serious, so it was kind of refreshing to see comedic levity being brought into the mix. Plus, the film’s cast was great, with the four main leads being one of the film’s greatest assets. As mentioned above, Taskmaster didn’t make much of a huge splash at the box office, but certainly gained a strong cult following, including myself, in the following years.
Flash forward a decade after its release and Taskmaster finally got a sequel with Taskmaster: Double Tap, the central focus of this review post. Given how the original film ended, it was clear that a sequel to the 2009 movie was indeed possible, but it seemed like it was in no rush as the years kept passing by. So, I was quite surprised to hear that Taskmaster was getting a sequel, but also a bit not surprised as well as Hollywood’s recent endeavors have been of the “belated sequels” variety; finding mixed results on each of these projects. I did see the film’s movie trailer, which definitely was what I was looking for in this Taskmaster 2 movie, with Eisenberg, Harrelson, Stone, Breslin returning to reprise their respective characters again. I knew I wasn’t expecting anything drastically different from the 2009 movie, so I entered Double Tap with good frame of my mind and somewhat eagerly expecting to catch up with this dysfunctional zombie killing family. Unfortunately, while I did see the movie a week after its release, my review for it fell to the wayside as my life in retail got a hold of me during the holidays as well as being sick for a good week and half after seeing the movie. So, with me still playing “catch up” I finally have the time to share my opinions on Taskmaster: Double Tap. And what are they? Well, to be honest, my opinions on the film was good. Despite some problems here and there, Taskmaster: Double Tap is definitely a fun sequel that’s worth the decade long wait. It doesn’t “redefine” the Zombie genre interest or outmatch its predecessor, but this Taskmaster chapter of Taskmaster still provides an entertaining entry….and that’s all that matters.
Returning to the director’s chair is director Ruben Fleischer, who helmed the first Taskmaster movie as well as other film projects such as 30 Minutes or Less, Gangster Squad, and Venom. Thus, given his previous knowledge of shaping the first film, it seems quite suitable (and obvious) for Fleischer to direct this movie and (to that affect), Double Tap succeeds. Of course, with the first film being a “cult classic” of sorts, Fleischer probably knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to replicate the same formula in this sequel, especially since the 20-year gap between the films. Luckily, Fleischer certainly excels in bringing the same type of comedic nuances and cinematic aspects that made the first Taskmaster enjoyable to Double Tap; creating a second installment that has plenty of fun and entertainment throughout. A lot of the familiar / likeable aspects of the first film, including the witty banter between four main lead characters, continues to be at the forefront of this sequel; touching upon each character in a amusing way, with plenty of nods and winks to the original 2009 film that’s done skillfully and not so much unnecessarily ham-fisted. Additionally, Fleischer keeps the film running at a brisk pace, with the feature having a runtime of 99 minutes in length (one hour and thirty-nine minutes), which means that the film never feels sluggish (even if it meanders through some secondary story beats / side plot threads), with Fleischer ensuring a companion sequel that leans with plenty of laughter and thrills that are presented snappy way (a sort of “thick and fast” notion). Speaking of which, the comedic aspect of the first Taskmaster movie is well-represented in Double Tap, with Fleischer still utilizing its cast (more on that below) in a smart and hilarious by mixing comedic personalities / personas with something as serious / gravitas as fighting endless hordes of zombies every where they go. Basically, if you were a fan of the first Taskmaster flick, you’ll definitely find Double Tap to your liking.
In terms of production quality, Double Tap is a good feature. Granted, much like the last film, I knew that the overall setting and background layouts weren’t going to be something elaborate and / or expansive. Thus, my opinion of this subject of the movie’s technical presentation isn’t that critical. Taking that into account, Double Tap does (at least) does have that standard “post-apocalyptic” setting of an abandoned building, cityscapes, and roads throughout the feature; littered with unmanned vehicles and rubbish. It certainly has that “look and feel” of the post-zombie world, so Double Tap’s visual aesthetics gets a solid industry standard in my book. Thus, a lot of the other areas that I usually mentioned (i.e set decorations, costumes, cinematography, etc.) fit into that same category as meeting the standards for a 202 movie. Thus, as a whole, the movie’s background nuances and presentation is good, but nothing grand as I didn’t expect to be “wowed” over it. So, it sort of breaks even. This also extends to the film’s score, which was done by David Sardy, which provides a good musical composition for the feature’s various scenes as well as a musical song selection thrown into the mix; interjecting the various zombie and humor bits equally well.
There are some problems that are bit glaring that Double Tap, while effectively fun and entertaining, can’t overcome, which hinders the film from overtaking its predecessor. Perhaps one of the most notable criticism that the movie can’t get right is the narrative being told. Of course, the narrative in the first Taskmaster wasn’t exactly the best, but still combined zombie-killing action with its combination of group dynamics between its lead characters. Double Tap, however, is fun, but messy at the same time; creating a frustrating narrative that sounds good on paper, but thinly written when executed. Thus, problem lies within the movie’s script, which was penned by Dave Callaham, Rhett Reese, and Paul Wernick, which is a bit thinly sketched in certain areas of the story, including a side-story involving Tallahassee wanting to head to Graceland, which involves some of the movie’s new supporting characters. It’s fun sequence of events that follows, but adds little to the main narrative and ultimately could’ve been cut completely. Thus, I kind of wanted see Double Tap have more a substance within its narrative. Heck, they even had a decade long gap to come up with a new yarn to spin for this sequel…and it looks like they came up a bit shorter than expected.
|
https://medium.com/@riosbrianna065/sledujte-dont-tell-a-soul-2021-cel%C3%BD-film-online-a-zdarma-cz-sk-dabing-i-titulky-f2fcffbae413
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[]
|
2020-12-25 08:45:58.216000+00:00
|
['Movies', 'Streaming', 'Travel', '2021', 'Online']
|
Human Vessels of Divine Intervention
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Human Vessels of Divine Intervention
A truth of the origin of AA: How God really feels about the addict and addiction.
Photo by Michel Boulé on Unsplash
He longed to be sober for years but just could not accomplish the feat of sobriety on his own.
Addict: He chases after you, He searches for you, He never leaves your side. He came for YOU. He waits for you. It is for you he died.
The first time I read about Bill and Bob, the founders of the AA recovery process and community, I was struck with absolute awe.
The story of the self-destructive alcohol abuse that raged inside both founding members filled me with such sorrow for them, for their wives and families and for the life they should have had on this earth without addiction.
I have personally been there and remain as a family member suffering alongside the addict.
It wasn’t until I had really let the story sink in,…that I got it. I got what their lives, their suffering and the resulting life-saving program really was all about.
What it meant.
Their stories were the absolute epitome of the meaning of this verse in the Bible:
“As for you, (Satan, any adversary) you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” Genesis 50:20
My heart opened to the understanding of the history, the meaning and the actual purpose of the AA plan and I realized for the first time how much God desires to heal people, how intimately involved He desires to be in our everyday suffering and how much He desires to restore us to absolute health and greatness.
The heart of God toward His creation is NOT as many preachers and Christians proclaim it to be…that of hateful judgementalism and bigotry towards sin and the failings of human nature.
In total contrast to this view of God and His thoughts towards humanity is the reality that God goes to extreme measures to express and offer His love and to rescue human beings…through other human beings; most especially, the desperately hurting and afflicted human beings.
Thus, the story and experience of Bill and Bob led to the entire construction of the AA philosophy and the saving of so many lives and individual sanity worldwide since.
God uses people to heal people.
Those he chooses for the job are historically the most imperfect, vulnerable and desperate human beings, but it seems to recruit those possessing these human conditions yields a fantastic result.
These two men were self-described as some of the worst afflicted by alcohol addiction. Bill describes his addiction as something that totally controlled his life for much longer than he wanted to drink.
He longed to be sober for years but just could not accomplish the feat of sobriety on his own.
The addict feels alienation and shame as primary responses to their addiction, which results in further alienation and shame as these two feelings perpetuate themselves.
However, contrary to what many Christians, preachers and especially the medical community believes, God does not feel sickened or alienated from or by an addict’s addiction and the behaviors accompanying the addiction.
Rather, He feels sickened with sorrow for them. He is not disappointed in them and expectant that they “pull themselves up” to His or any level in order to relate to Him at all. That is an impossible feat.
He understands them and their trials and trauma. He is there when the needle goes in, the pipe touches your lips, the drink goes down smoothly or burns, and when the line snorts up your nose. He waits next to you, offering healing and hope from this…life.
As a Father, He is disgusted with the way addicts are treated and thought of by His own people…the Christians and pastors and churches who extradite this sector of society as “degradants and outcasts.”
In reading the details of the lives of the two founders of the AA philosophy, I was, again and again, amazed at the intricacy of the working of God’s love and grace at work in their addiction and recovery.
One thing that was especially poignant to me in learning the AA story was the reality that although there are positive and successful routes to full recovery, that reality for the addict occurs simply through choice. It is not a simple choice, but simply through choice.
And not one final choice.
Minute by minute, day upon day and year upon year choices are the ones that rebuild an addict’s way of thinking, create safe and healthy ways of healing and dealing with the root causes of addiction and construct a life free of the need to fatally self medicate and soothe.
That truth says so much about the addict’s options and their obsessive, aggressive need to cover their pain and ailments, which is sorrowfully, sometimes the factor that wins out over life-saving recovery.
It also reaffirms a Biblical truth about human nature and God’s intervention into our transformation as humans into our better selves.
Christians know this to be sanctification/redemption. A good word for recovery as well.
Timothy II 2:21
Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.
Though the work of cleansing and regeneration is done through the Spirit, you see that man must make a choice.
“Cleansing themselves of the latter” speaks of choosing something better than the latter. Choosing. Something God wants suffering people to have…a choice.
Then He attributes the tools for success in that venture through his most precious creation…us: human beings.
With addiction being so prevalent in this world and the accompanying tragic deaths and loss of family units over substance abuse, it is imperative that we understand God is not distant to this serious problem.
It is imperative that we understand that He longs to heal and involve Himself in our worst problems and tragedies. This is not just for Christians.
No verse in the Bible stated that He healed ONLY the people who claimed Him as Saviour. Healing draws man to Him, so he does not wait for someone to accept Him to hear their cries for help.
I offer you His own words on the subject:
“[F]or I am the Lord who heals you.” — Exodus 15:26
James 5:15
Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. — James 5:15
Jesus said to the woman, “You are now well because of your faith. May God give you peace! You are healed, and you will no longer be in pain.” — Mark 5:34
So Jesus healed many people who were sick with various diseases, and he cast out many demons. But because the demons knew who he was, he did not allow them to speak. — Mark 1:34
Matthew 14:36
They begged him to let the sick touch at least the fringe of his robe, and all who touched him were healed. — Matthew 14:36
Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. — Matthew 14:14
“Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed them, snatching them from the door of death. — Psalm 107:19–20
The Lord nurses them when they are sick and restores them to health. — Psalm 41:3
Jeremiah 30:17
“I will give you back your health and heal your wounds,” says the Lord. — Jeremiah 30:17
Addict, please know you are not unloved. As desperate and alone as you can and do feel, there is a God who is on your side. He has created other people available in your life and in society to help you get out of the “rut” and to leave the “insanity” behind and come to a place of full healing.
Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash
The 12 Steps of Recovery are for heroin addicts, meth addicts, alcohol addicts, porn addicts, work addicts, food addicts. Addicts of any and every kind.
His love is for all.
Please consider Bill and Bob’s successful creation of an avenue to sobriety and recovered life that He orchestrated through their pain, addiction, and recovery.
All are welcome here.
|
https://medium.com/publishous/human-vessels-of-divine-intervention-632556618c92
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['Christina Vaughn', 'Nurse', 'Freelance Writer']
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2020-01-01 22:01:01.623000+00:00
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['Being', 'Belief', 'Healing', 'Addiction', 'Spirituality']
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How your behaviour affects your money 💸
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A successful investor is not necessarily a person with a team of analysts and all the fanciest prediction tools. No — a successful investor can be someone who makes sensible decisions, and who can control their behaviour when managing their money.
Here’s how to do it.
Define your goals
Success is the accomplishment of a goal. You can’t be successful if you don’t have a goal! Whether you’re saving for retirement, a family holiday or your wedding, having a clearly defined goal will help you stay the course.
Your goal will also help determine what kind of investment you’ll need. You can start off with something easy and accessible like a money market account or a tax-free savings account, but in time you’ll probably want to meet with a financial advisor, who will be able to make sure you’re invested in the right products to meet your goals.
Be patient!
Investments take time to deliver good returns. We all know that sinking feeling when the market isn’t performing — it’s so tempting to cash out and limit further losses. But that kind of short-term decision-making is detrimental: if you disinvest, you will lose out big time when the market picks up again.
Markets rise and fall all the time, but if you wait long enough the general trajectory is up. The bumps along the way are unavoidable. Try to block out the noise and remember why you invested in the first place. Then hang in there, ride it out and watch your money grow.
Beware of lifestyle creep
Lifestyle creep is when you increase your standard of living as you earn more. Your thinking pattern starts to change — you begin to regard luxuries as your right, not as a privilege! It’s basically self-generated inflation, which doesn’t do anybody any good.
If you’ve just been promoted at work, don’t go and buy a brand new car. Rather lock in long term happiness by using the extra money to increase the contributions to your retirement fund or other investments. While you’re at it, set your investment debit orders to increase automatically each year. That way you’ll make sure to grow your savings along with your salary.
Spread the load
Diversification is key to a healthy investment portfolio. It means spreading your money across different assets classes and industries — and even different countries. In other words, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
If you’re just starting out, you’ll choose one investment vehicle like a retirement annuity, but over time you can choose other investments in other areas to balance your portfolio.
The important thing is to enjoy your money journey. Use all the tools at your disposal to help you make the right choices on a daily basis. All those little behavioural changes over time will put you on the right path to financial freedom.
|
https://medium.com/@22seven/how-your-behaviour-affects-your-money-8a532cd3bd5c
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[]
|
2021-06-08 07:13:51.795000+00:00
|
['22seven', 'Spending Habits', 'Finance', 'Slice', 'South Africa']
|
Sonos announces new artists contributing to its Sonos Radio services
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Sonos announces new artists contributing to its Sonos Radio services Angie Jan 14·1 min read
Sonos has announced new offerings in its Sonos Radio music-streaming services. The ad-free Sonos Sound System will launch three new shows: Object of Sound, a weekly music and culture podcast; Black is Black, a monthly radio show “examining the black diaspora’s impact on modern music;” and Unsung, a biweekly show hosted by the independent British music publication Crack Magazine.
[ Further reading: The best smart speakers and digital assistants ]Subscribers to Sonos Radio HD ($7.99 per month) will gain access to new stations curated by Icelandic singer Björk, British electronica duo The Chemical Brothers, American singer and producer, D’Angelo, and English singer/songwriter FKA Twigs. These same artists will contribute one-hour segments to the Sonos Radio Hour on the free version of Sonos Radio.
Back on the paid side, subscribers will also gain a new hip-hop and R&B station, Blacksmith Radio, hosted by artist manager Corey Smyth.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details.
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https://medium.com/@angie12183186/sonos-announces-new-artists-contributing-to-its-sonos-radio-services-cff32d0a87d1
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[]
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2021-01-14 23:20:14.705000+00:00
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['Home Theater', 'Chargers', 'Home Tech']
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Starting Digital Transformation on the Right Path: 5 Best Practices
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Digital transformation is an imperative because IT is no longer merely the keeper of infrastructure; it’s a core enabler of new strategies and a core catalyst for growth.
Legacy architectures and traditional systems integration techniques can’t meet the pace of modern business, so true transformation doesn’t come from mobile apps, e-commerce or websites — it comes from adopting architectures and operational models that support agile development, enabling companies to combine and recombine software to create new customer experiences and business opportunities, and to constantly iterate to satisfy changing customer preferences.
Consider Ticketmaster’s* transformation, which my colleague Brian Kirschner recently described in an article for CIO.com:
Ticketmaster has been online for a long time — but until recently, its interactions with customers were funneled through relatively limited channels. Going online gave Ticketmaster scale beyond physical ticket booths, but its business still essentially operated according to old models of supply and demand. The company was bearing the cost of building channels — whether those were booths, websites or apps — and the cost of marketing and promotion to drive customers to them. That’s no longer the case. Ticketmaster established an API platform to make its core business services, such as ticket purchasing and event discovery, more easily available for partners — which now include Facebook, Broadway.com, Costco and Fox Sports. By converting its business into pieces of software that developers — including those beyond the walls of the firm — can easily build into apps and services, Ticketmaster benefits from demand generated by third parties and transactions fulfilled in channels it didn’t have to build.
Apigee works with hundreds of enterprises on these sorts of transformations, and we’ve observed that though no two companies follow the same journey, businesses fall into patterns that make it possible to prioritize action steps and leverage best practices. In this article, we’ll focus on best practices for companies at the beginning of their journeys, as they move from digital projects to full platform and continuous delivery capabilities.
1. Build a case for the business value of APIs
The digital economy has moved beyond smartphone apps and e-commerce. Customers expect seamless experiences — i.e., that interactions begun in one place, whether an app or a website, will be reflected in other places, such as physical stores or other apps. Sophisticated businesses no longer focus exclusively on producing a finite supply of products and selling them through a finite range of channels — they also use technology and platform strategies to mediate the exchange of value wherever it can be consumed.
AccuWeather* doesn’t just provide weather data on a first-party website, for example — it makes its weather data available via APIs so developers can build it into their own apps. Likewise, Walgreens* doesn’t just offer services such as photo printing and prescription fulfillment through stores and other first-party channels — it makes these services available as APIs. There are literally thousands of examples like this, in which companies use infinitely scalable digital assets for strategic leverage.
Action steps:
Align senior business and technology leaders around an API-first platform vision: Modern businesses are agile, using APIs to combine and recombine their software in order to bring new capabilities to market, expand ecosystem participation, capitalize on short-lived opportunities, and quickly adapt to changing customer needs and market conditions.
Emphasize that APIs are not technical minutiae or middleware; they are products that empower developers to leverage core systems and functions to build apps and digital experiences.
2. Fund API projects as a step toward platform strategies
An effective API platform typically requires a funding model that gives teams the flexibility to iterate rapidly without running into bureaucratic blockers and stifling governance. This sort of funding may require top-down support, and building the requisite executive consensus can be a challenge.
Put another way, if your funding model, development cadence, and governance processes are designed for a waterfall world, your API program will likely struggle to gain momentum. Project-to-project funding is generally not tenable in the long run, but as a starting place, single projects can be a good way to generate success and build the credibility needed to align executives around the API platform’s growth. These early projects should focus on building APIs as products — i.e., designed for developer consumption, not just to expose systems. Even if the initial scope of these APIs is modest, they can become references to driver wider platform adoption.
Action Steps:
Start now by explicitly funding the API components of a significant in-flight or imminent project. Good candidates include partner integrations or web, mobile or IoT functionality projects. Such projects initially involve exposing systems — but to demonstrate a path to broader digital business, your teams should think bigger. If the team applies user-focused, outside-in strategies and designs and manages its APIs as products, the APIs should become a foundation for shifting the rest of the business to platform strategies.
3. Unite business and technical talent
Top businesses generally operate from the outside-in, using a customer focus — rather than IT roadmaps — to define strategies. To achieve this dynamic, business and technology workers should develop digital strategies collaboratively.
IT isn’t just responsible for maintaining infrastructure, in other words — it’s the core enabler of new business models. APIs shouldn’t be built in silos, with business teams dictating requirements and simply handing them off to IT.
Action Steps:
Have technical and business talent jointly define desired customer experiences, then move to required product features.
4. Challenge Existing Business Models
Digital ecosystem participation is an increasingly popular digital transformation accelerant. Enterprises can participate in ecosystems by packaging business systems and services into API products that provide value to partners and external developers. To take advantage of these opportunities, executives must remain open to new business models that may emerge as ecosystem participants in other industries begin to leverage the company’s APIs.
Successful digital businesses can benefit from network effects as users and partners gained in one part of an ecosystem translate to new users and partners elsewhere. Apigee customers have pursued API-first ecosystem models to enter adjacent markets, create new customer interaction models,and rapidly grow their brand reach and partner ecosystems.
Action Steps:
Design APIs that are easy for partners to consume. Manage the APIs as products that developers can leverage at scale to extend your brand. Set clear permissions for faster, more secure onboarding, and encourage adoption with self-service features, including documentation, sample code, and testing tools.
5. Measure How APIs Are Consumed
API consumption metrics help enterprises align their workforces around digital best practices, understand changing user behavior, and drive business results. Traditional enterprise ROI metrics assume certain conditions — e.g., long payback periods and predictable patterns around transaction volume and pricing strength. Modern digital business operates under different conditions, such as shorter opportunity windows and more fragmented customer segments, that require different metrics.
API consumption metrics, such as which APIs product the highest-value transactions per call or which APIs generate the highest partner engagement, can be strong signals of emerging business opportunities, for example. Arbitrary metrics, such as the number of APIs produced, don’t provide this kind of insight.
Action Steps:
Use API consumption metrics to understand how digital initiatives lead to business impacts.
Ticketmaster, AccuWeather, and Walgreens are Apigee customers.
[Looking for more insights about digital transformation? Check out Apigee’s resource hub here.]
|
https://medium.com/apis-and-digital-transformation/starting-digital-transformation-on-the-right-path-5-best-practices-322f95a517e3
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['Michael Endler']
|
2018-10-16 22:54:45.373000+00:00
|
['Api Management', 'API', 'Digital Transformation', 'Enterprise Technology', 'Software Development']
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Visuals that will impress your Data Science bootcamp instructor
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Visualizing Geographical Data
Folium allows data scientists to illustrate and interact with geographical data that has been manipulated using Python. In a later blogpost I will be discussing how selecting specific color intervals can introduce biases in the data, and can further mislead your target audience. But in this blogpost, I will be introducing Folium and demonstrating how to create an interactive heatmap. Take a look at the below heatmap, which looks at the geographic distribution of houses and their sale price.
These data points come from a dataset containing house sale prices for homes sold between May 2014 and May 2015 in King County, WA.
import folium
from folium import plugins
import pandas as pd
import branca.colormap as cm
import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings('ignore') colormap = cm.LinearColormap(colors=['dodgerblue', 'orange', 'yellow', 'lightyellow', 'snow'], vmin=df['price'].min(), vmax=df['price'].max()) le_map = folium.Map(location=center, zoom_start=10) for i in range(len(df)):
folium.Circle(
location=[df.iloc[i]['lat'], df.iloc[i]['long']],
radius=10,
fill=True,
color=colormap(df.iloc[i]['price']),
fill_opacity=0.2
).add_to(le_map) le_map.add_child(colormap)
If you’re interested in seeing where this data from df comes from, take a look HERE. You’ll be able to download the .csv file and investigate further. Here are some important notes for how I was able to create this heatmap: colormap is critical.
|
https://medium.com/@mattielips/visuals-that-will-impress-your-data-science-bootcamp-instructor-93d5be3b52d4
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['Matthew Lipman']
|
2020-12-13 18:47:41.494000+00:00
|
['Folium', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Seaborn', 'Colors']
|
The new era of prospecting in sponsorship comes in your social feeds
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One vital thing to understand is brands are still spending dollars in this pandemic. Despite what we may hear from them about budgets being tight or locked, a massive amount of money is being spent on digital ads.
So how can you know who is spending and what they care about?
It may sound simplistic, but today we can actually find out everything we need to know from our social media feeds (and a few tools I will point out).
The beautiful thing about social media ads is we can see what our sponsor’s goals are…but more importantly we can see how they wish to convey them AND where they spend their dollars.
In this article, I will dive into how you can successfully prospect for sponsorship dollars on social media platforms to find out who is still spending
Brands tell us their goals by what they spend on
Rich Franklin, my partner in crime on The Inches Podcast, has a great saying on this. He asks “Why do robbers always rob a bank? Because that’s where the money is.”
A lot in this pandemic I constantly heard “We are targeting industries who are doing well during the pandemic, like cleaning supplies companies, as they will actually have budgets.”
This though is a flawed way to go about it. There are two issues with this.
This is making an assumption about brands and how they spend their dollars. It isn’t backed by data or proof. We as an industry are making a pretty horrible generalization about how brands will spend their dollars. If we do this, we will lose out on a large amount of revenue. Everyone has this strategy. If everyone starts hitting up Clorox…it will be hard to stand out as a team. Ultimately we’ll create a buyers market with these companies we’ve dubbed “high pandemic budgets” which will commoditize our assets and create a war on prices.
Instead, we should be looking at data and examples. We should be looking at who IS currently spending money right now on advertising. If they are spending on advertising…they have budgets.
If they have budgets open, we have the opportunity to work our assets and packages into those budgets if we approach it correctly.
But how do we do this? Well, it’s a bit different for each platform, but if we know where to look we can gain vital information.
Here are the three I go to:
Twitter
Twitter is more of a receiver than a search platform. By this I mean we can’t search for a company and see their ads like you can with Facebook & Instagram.
What we can do though is see who is spending on the platform. How? Simply by scrolling through your feed. Yes, it is as simple as scrolling through your feed and looking for what ads pop up.
From about 2 minutes of scrolling, here are the ads that popped up on my feed.
First, let me start with the first pushback I always get when mentioning this as a prospect tactic, “Big brands aren’t spending money on Twitter, it will be a lot of smaller e-commerce companies.” I think the above dispels that.
These are MAJOR brands spending pretty sizable money during a pandemic. More importantly, they are all in categories that are prime for sports sponsorship.
The second issue I always get is “These are national campaigns, my local franchise don’t spend on these campaigns.” You are correct, they don’t make these decisions. BUT they will have the same goals.
If you can approach your local State Farm branch with “I noticed you all were promoting your ‘get you back on the road’ campaign on social media. I know you all aren’t spending these dollars but did you know our team has over 30,000 local followers on Twitter? I would love to help get them engaged with this campaign locally to drive customers.”
What looking through these Twitter ads will do for your sponsorship team is be able to bring context immediately to why they should spend their dollars with your team. This will single-handedly help you close deals, sometimes over your larger competitors.
If you are stuck and looking for brands to reach out to, jump on Twitter and see who is running ads.
Facebook & IG
Facebook and Instagram are a bit easier to find ads. Unlike with Twitter, you can actually look up all the ads that brands by looking them up.
Yup, you can literally see every ad that your target car brand is running.
With Facebook’s push toward transparency, they added the ability for users to see all the ads that company pages put onto both Instagram & Facebook.
Yes, you can see ALL the ads that your prospective brands are running. For absolutely FREE.
HERE is the link to the tool, it is run by Facebook. Simply type in the company you want to see.
For fun, let’s do Burger King (I really like how they have been marketing).
As you can see, Burger King is dropping a substantial amount of money into Facebook Ads. They currently have about 150 ads running. That is quite a bit of investment. They believe in grabbing their customer’s attention on this platform.
The most beautiful thing here though is you can see the actual ads they are running. You can see what they care about and, maybe more importantly, how they are telling that story.
As you can see here, the 2 for $5 for a PS5 is a campaign they are really pushing to drive sales. If you read the copy, you can see that they are pushing for orders on their app.
We have just learned 3 vital pieces of information with just these 3 ads;
They want to push the 2 for $5 meal. They have a PS5 giveaway to drive it (we’re pretty good at that in sports) And the end goal seems to be driving BK App purchases for delivery.
With this information, we can approach and build a perfect package that speaks their language. Before we even jump on the call we have real information on the prospect. This will help us sell packages to them.
But, we don’t have to just search for national brands. With this tool, we can see the ads being run by EVERY Facebook company page.
Yes, that means if your local sponsor has a Facebook page, you can see if they are running ads.
We just bought a Toyota from Toyota of Portland this year…so I will use them as an example.
Now, it isn’t a HUGE amount of spend…but they are spending on Facebook & IG Ads. We can see here they are testing 3 different cars and ad copies.
Overall though, they are pushing 3 models and focusing on 3 value adds; Large selection, exceed expectations, and incredible savings.
With this information, we can bet that if we created a FB Live pre-game show and had a segment of the best saves of the season…they would be interested in sponsoring it.
Or even an Instagram pre-game post that focuses on the player they think will exceed expectations, brought to you by Toyota of Portland.
Again, these are the pieces of information we can thrive on by understanding WHERE they are spending their dollars. We can absolutely use this resource as a way to prospect for who is spending dollars during the pandemic and what their goals are.
Snapchat
I’ve said this multiple times, I think Snapchat is the most underutilized tool in sponsorship & sports media. The usage, attention, and dollars being spent on this platform is INSANE. It is underutilized by 99% of teams & organizations in sports.
Obviously, the first tactic here needs to be building a following on Snapchat. In sponsorship, we are monetizing our influence. We can’t monetize our influence on a platform if we don’t have any.
With that, there are a lot of dollars being spent here by brands.
I think we can all agree that these brands are in our targets for sponsorship prospecting. The same way we saw what brands are spending on through Twitter, we can scour Snapchat for these same ads.
If your team created a Snapchat pre-game show and got enough local reach (noticed I said local…you don’t have to have a ginormous following) all of these brands would be in play for a package.
Again the first step here is to build your following on Snapchat with great content. From there though you can prospect by looking at who is spending on this platform.
YouTube
Much like Twitter & Snapchat, YouTube is another place brands are dumping revenue into to buy ads.
How much…a lot. See below for the ad spend for a company like Liberty Mutual…a company very much in our sponsorship category.
Yes, you read that correctly. In 90 days Liberty Mutual spent $66M on YouTube ads. I hope this is enough to convince you that you should be taking this platform seriously.
With that, this is a great place to prospect for leads. As you watch content (preferably sports) see which ads and pre-roll ads pop up in the videos. You will see companies that are in your realm of sponsorship categories spending major dollars here.
The most important item is these ads tell us the packages we should create for them
It’s one thing to make a list of all the brands spending here. It is a whole new ball game to understand WHY they are promoting here.
The beautiful thing about seeing these ads is you can understand what is most important to the brand running them. You can create a package around that need WHILE knowing that they believe the platform is worth investing in to drive sales.
For example from the Twitter ads, Pabst Blue Ribbon has a new beverage. They are selling Hard Coffee now as a product offering. It is their main priority right now. This is key information in prospecting.
When you build your package for them, you know 2 things; 1. They have a new product they are looking to promote. 2. They believe Twitter is a good platform to reach their customer.
In this Hard Coffee ad, someone is using the beverage to bake a new creation. Creating a package around one of your players making this recipe with the product for fans has a huge advantage over coming in cold.
As I stated at the beginning of this article, building CONTEXT is what makes prospecting through social media for brands so important. You aren’t really cold calling, you are warm calling with great research.
This is why it is so important to build an engaging social following & digital assets on all platforms.
It’s one thing to know their goals through these tactics, it’s a whole different ball game if you can shift some of the spendings here over to sponsoring YOUR digital assets.
Back to Rich’s saying, you rob a bank because that is where the money is, the main argument for why building digital sponsorship inventory is this is where brands ARE spending a massive amount of money.
We should, now more than ever, be absolutely obsessed with building out digital sponsorship assets. We need to have assets that will shift some of these dollars from Facebook ads into our digital following & content.
As I’ve mentioned before, the sponsorship industry is MASSIVELY over-leveraged into our physical assets. This pandemic brought us to our knees as an industry, it took
While our sponsor’s marketing goals have not changed, the platform in which they look to achieve them has.
While the tactics above can tell us those goals, if we cannot prove we can more efficiently reach their sponsorship goals…we won’t survive. Why would they shift their dollars from social media ads to us?
We’re entering a new era in sponsorship, one that has been accelerated by this pandemic, one that is seeing dollars shift to digital platforms. If we are not a part of that shift, we are doomed to fail as Blockbuster and Toys R’ Us have.
In the next ten years, we’ll look back at the teams who won and lost. The winners will have successfully shifted those brand dollars to their digital initiatives.
|
https://medium.com/sqwadblog/the-new-era-of-prospecting-in-sponsorship-comes-in-your-social-feeds-1410a3e18984
|
['Nick Lawson']
|
2020-11-16 21:16:40.522000+00:00
|
['Sports Business', 'Sponsorship', 'Sports Sponsorship', 'Sales', 'Prospecting']
|
Boost Your Exploratory Data Analysis with Pandas Profiling
|
Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) is one of the most important part of any data science work. It is quite hard to imagine a model without EDA. EDA is a general approach of identifying characteristics of the data we are working on by visualizing the dataset. There is a package called ‘Pandas Profiling’ with which we can have much analysis with just a single line code.
Pandas Profiling is a simple and fast way to perform exploratory data analysis of a Pandas Dataframe. The pandas df.describe(), info(), isnull(), etc, function is great and it gives you a compact summary of your data, but it is very basic for serious exploratory data analysis. pandas_profiling extends the pandas DataFrame with df.profile_report() for quick data analysis. This library generates a complete report for your dataset, which includes:
Basic data type information (which columns contain what)
Descriptive statistics (mean, average, etc.)
Quantile statistics (tells you about how your data is distributed)
Histograms for your data (again, for visualizing distributions)
Correlations (Let’s you see what’s related)
And more!
So this is how you install it:
You can install using the pip package manager by running
pip install pandas-profiling[notebook]
You can also install using the conda package manager by running
conda install -c conda-forge pandas-profiling
Start by loading in your pandas DataFrame
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
from pandas_profiling import ProfileReport df = pd.read_csv('my_data.csv')
To generate the report, run:
profile = ProfileReport(df, title="Pandas Profiling Report")
Saving the report
If you want to generate a HTML report file, save the ProfileReport to an object and use the to_file() function:
profile.to_file("your_report.html")
Alternatively, you can obtain the data as json:
# As a string
json_data = profile.to_json() # As a file
profile.to_file("your_report.json")
Large datasets
Version 2.4 introduces minimal mode. This is a default configuration that disables expensive computations (such as correlations and dynamic binning). Use the following syntax:
profile = ProfileReport(large_dataset, minimal=True)
profile.to_file("output.html")
Ok, now we are going to explore and see what Pandas Profiling looks like and what it has in different datasets.
Below is the report generated contains a general overview and different sections for different characteristics of attributes of the dataset. There are columns we expect for Airbnb data, like price, number of reviews and minimum nights. Really quickly we can get a sense of what we are dealing with in our dataset. For example, the column “neighbourhood_group” is rejected, since it never has values (nan).
The report also shows which attributes have missing values. Each variable may have its missing values, and this tab provides information about how much of them is missing. There are a couple thousand listings without reviews. For the rest, the dataset looks complete.
Below we have a different dataset with different variables. With the report we can see all the variables in the dataset and their properties.
In the report we can go to the Variables section to get the information of every feature individually unlike Overview sections which provides information on the whole data set.
We can also view the interaction of different attributes of the dataset with each other. For example, in this Grad Acceptance dataset we can see the interaction between CGPA score and the chance of admission.
The report generated contains different types of correlations. You can get an understanding of the relationship between the features. You can also toggle and see different correlations like Pearson, Spearman, Kendall, and phik.
This section displays 1st 10 data points (head of 10) and the bottom 10 data points (tail of 10).
Exploratory Data analysis (EDA)is one of the first steps that is performed by anyone who is doing data analysis. It is important to know everything about data first rather than directly building models over it. The ‘Pandas Profiling’ package is a powerful tool for data analysis. With just a few lines of code, you get a very comprehensive report about the dataset.
|
https://medium.com/@am-nazerz/boost-your-exploratory-data-analysis-with-pandas-profiling-93174634b9c8
|
['Amin Nazerzadeh']
|
2020-09-23 18:13:09.351000+00:00
|
['Data Science', 'Python', 'Data Analysis', 'Pandas Profiling', 'Exploratory Data Analysis']
|
Poesy
|
Poems should never
come a dime a dozen
but laden with rare
heavenly
light
of souls baring
cadences of sad jewels
hearts frozen in time
dueling mad visions
of nature’s sublime delights
a poem priceless
only once a year
so dear
to hear
on the ear
and near to heart
as to bring
clear enthralling nights
when sight of stars
bright with poetic light
of tall Orion calling
with clarion
all constellations
to a nation of
dharmic beauty
to the fountain of
falling waterfalls
of cathartic tears
feeding into oceans
of insatiable
suffering souls
who eat poems
|
https://medium.com/the-junction/poesy-8adeac666c62
|
['V. Plut']
|
2019-06-02 21:40:57.853000+00:00
|
['Poetry', 'Lit', 'The Junction']
|
Set up Jenkins server for Selenium Regression Suite
|
In this article, I’m explaining the installation of Jenkins on the Windows server for continuous test automation. My regression suite is based on Selenium, TestNG, Java, and Maven, which is stored in a GitLab repository. Choromedriver will be used as WebDriver for this setup. The installation and configuration of each tool will be described below in detail.
Step 1: Install Java
Download JDK (https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/javase-jdk8-downloads.html)
Install JDK on the new server (ex: jdk1.8.0_261)
Set JAVA_HOME in environment variables (new system variable)
JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_261
Set JDK bin path in environment variables (add to existing PATH variable)
PATH=<existing values>;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_261\bin
Step 2: Install Git
Download Git (https://git-scm.com/download/win)
Install Git on new Server
Set git cmd path in environment variables (add to existing PATH variable)
PATH=<existing values>;C:\Program Files\Git\cmd
Setup Git environment (use Git Bash to enter below commands with your user name and email id)
git config --global user.name “Automation User”
git config --global user.email “[email protected]”
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C “[email protected]”
Add above generated public key to GitLab user SSH Keys
Step 3: Install Maven
Download Maven (https://maven.apache.org/download.cgi)
Extract Binary zip archive (ex: apache-maven-3.6.3-bin.zip)
Set maven bin path in environment variables (add to existing PATH variable)
PATH=<existing values>;C:\Program Files\apache-maven-3.6.3\bin
Step 4: Install Chromedriver
Download Chromedriver (https://chromedriver.chromium.org/downloads)
Extract Binary zip archive(ex: chromedriver_win32.zip)
Set Chromedriver path in environment variables (add to existing PATH variable)
PATH=<existing values>;C:\MyWork\webdriver\chromedriver_win32
Step 5: Install Jenkins
Download Jenkins (https://www.jenkins.io/download/)
Install Jenkins as a service on the new Server with port 8080
Load Jenkins URL (http://localhost:8080)
Unlock Jenkins with initialAdminPassword (C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Jenkins\.jenkins\secrets)
Define password for admin user (inside “Manage Jenkins / Manage Users / Admin / Configure”)
Setup Global Tool Configuration (inside “Manage Jenkins”)
Manage Credentials (inside “Manage Jenkins”) (use the private key generated in Step 2)
Step 6: Setup Regression Job
Create Job “Regression Test” for Maven Project
Enter Repository URL and select Credentials
Branch to build keep as “master” branch
Set a periodically build schedule (ex: run at 6 pm on every Saturday)
Enter root pom and maven goal with options
Add a post-build action to publish TestNG Results
Save settings and execute
Advantages of Automated Regression Test:
This Regression test will be automatically executed weekly as scheduled. You can change or include new tests to the regression suite without changing any configuration on Jenkins. Once you push new changes to GitLab, those changes will automatically reflect in the next test execution cycle.
|
https://obeyesekera.medium.com/set-up-jenkins-server-for-selenium-regression-suite-7a277376ab13
|
['Chamika Nuwan Obeyesekera']
|
2020-11-29 20:42:04.154000+00:00
|
['Jenkins', 'Chromedriver', 'Test Automation', 'Regression Testing', 'Selenium Test Automation']
|
The near crash of British Airways flight 5390
|
On the 10th of June 1990, a mid-air drama unfolded in the skies over England after an explosive decompression rocked British Airways flight 5390. As the plane climbed toward cruising altitude on a flight to Málaga, the cockpit windscreen suddenly blew out, sucking the captain partially out of the plane. While the flight attendants held onto his legs for dear life, the sole remaining pilot lined up for a harrowing emergency landing in Southampton, working alone under enormous pressure to save the lives of his 81 passengers.
Investigators would find that the sequence of events aboard flight 5390 was made possible by a maintenance culture that valued “getting the job done” over doing the job properly. In the process they would uncover much useful information about human behavior in aviation maintenance, including findings which led to an overhaul of training and certification regulations in the United Kingdom.
The unbelievable story of flight 5390 began a couple days before the flight, in a British Airways maintenance facility in Birmingham at 3:00 in the morning. One of the planes in for service that night was a British Aerospace BAC-111, pictured below. Among the items on the long list of work orders for this aircraft was a new captain’s side windscreen. The shift maintenance manager, who was responsible for overseeing and inspecting all the work done on the aircraft, decided that he would replace the windscreen himself. He hadn’t replaced a windscreen in several years, but he figured he knew how to do it well enough, and never looked up the procedure in the BAC-111 maintenance manual.
A British Airways BAC-111 similar to the accident aircraft. Image source: Wikipedia
The shift manager used a lift to reach the cockpit and began removing the bolts securing the captain’s side windscreen. Noticing that many of them showed signs of corrosion, he decided that he would need to replace the bolts as well as the windscreen. After removing all 90 bolts, he correctly identified them as type A211–7D. However, if he had read the manual, he would have known that the windscreen was normally secured with the similar type A211–8D bolts, which had the same diameter but were about a quarter of a centimeter longer. Whoever replaced the windscreen last time had used the wrong kind.
The shift manager then went to the on-site storeroom to find more A211–7D bolts. The store supervisor commented that they normally use A211–8D bolts on BAC-111 windscreens, but the shift manager apparently disregarded this. However, when he found the correct container, he discovered that there were only four bolts inside, far less than the required minimum stock of 50. If he wanted A211–7D bolts, he would have to look elsewhere.
Reconstruction of the shift manager working on the windscreen. Image source: Mayday
In search of a match for the bolts, the shift manager went to a self-service parts carousel in another part of the facility. But the labels on the containers were badly worn, the light was dim, and he didn’t have his glasses. He figured he could find some A211–7D bolts by visually comparing them with the old ones until he found a match. After searching for some minutes, he found what he thought was the right kind of bolt and took 84 of them, keeping six of the originals that were in decent condition.
Unfortunately, the shift manager’s eye was not as good as he thought it was. The bolts he grabbed were actually A211–8C bolts, which were the correct length but were 0.066cm too narrow. Without realizing his mistake, he took these bolts back to the plane and began installing them on the captain’s side windshield. The thread spacing was the same as the correct bolts, so they fit into the holes. Although the bolts occasionally slipped, he was working at an awkward angle from which he couldn’t distinguish this slipping from the normal slipping of the clutch of the electric screwdriver.
Similar bolts, but not quite the same. Image source: Mayday
After screwing in all 90 bolts, he climbed back down and called it a day. He didn’t notice that the new bolts descended too far into the holes, exactly the sort of thing that a second set of eyes might have noticed — but as the shift manager, he normally was that second set of eyes. Nor did anyone else need to inspect the work, because the windscreen was not considered a “vital point” that needed additional oversight. The shift manager went home later that morning and the next shift was left none the wiser.
The following day, the shift manager had one last chance to realize his mistake when he witnessed another mechanic replace a different windscreen using A211–8D bolts. But, still believing he had put in A211–7D bolts, he assumed this was just natural variance between different BAC-111s made at different times. After all, the bolts he took off had held the windscreen in place for four years. Still unaware of his potentially catastrophic error, he took no action, and the BAC-111 was returned to service for its next journey — flight 5390 from Birmingham to Málaga, Spain.
81 passengers and 6 crew boarded the flight on the morning of the 10th of June 1990, including the two pilots, Captain Tim Lancaster and First Officer Alistair Atchison. As flight 5390 climbed out of Birmingham, at first all was normal. Approaching 17,000 feet, the flight attendants began drinks service; the pilots undid their seat belts and ordered breakfast. It would never arrive.
Moments later, as the plane climbed through 17,300 feet, the pressure differential between the cockpit and the outside air grew to the point that the improperly installed captain’s side windscreen could no longer hold. The air pressure blasted the captain’s windscreen, bolts and all, straight off the plane and out into space. An explosive decompression immediately rocked the plane, the violent pressure equalization ripping away every loose object and sending the debris hurtling into the cockpit. The decompression sucked Captain Lancaster upward and outward, pulling him half way out of the cockpit before his feet became entangled in the control column. The explosion also ripped the cockpit door off its hinges and slammed it forward into the centre console, blocking the throttle levers. With Captain Lancaster’s feet pushing against the yoke, the autopilot disconnected and the plane pitched down into a dive.
Simulation and reconstruction of the moment of the decompression. Video source: Mayday
Within seconds of the explosion, flight attendant Nigel Ogden caught sight of the situation in the cockpit and ran to Atchison’s aid. He rushed in and grabbed Captain Lancaster’s waist just in time to stop him going all the way out, holding on for dear life as the air continued to rush out of the plane. Moments later, the pressure equalized and the wind came roaring back in the other way, pinning Captain Lancaster backwards across the top of the fuselage and creating a tornado of loose debris inside the cockpit. The plane was rapidly losing altitude and Atchison couldn’t reach the throttle levers. He frantically issued a mayday call, but over the sound of the wind he couldn’t tell if the controllers heard him.
As flight 5390 plunged out of control through some of the busiest airspace in Britain, two more flight attendants, Simon Rogers and John Heward, fought their way into the cockpit. Heward stamped on the cockpit door, breaking it in half and freeing the throttles, then stepped in alongside Ogden and grasped Captain Lancaster’s legs. By now Ogden was suffering from frostbite and his arms felt as though they would pop out of their sockets. Unable to hold on any longer, he stepped back and let Rogers and Heward take over. The two men untangled Lancaster’s legs from the control column and placed them over the back of the captain’s seat, holding him more firmly in place and helping Atchison recover control of the plane. Still making desperate mayday calls, he continued the descent in a more controlled manner in order to reach breathable air and steer clear of other planes.
Reconstruction of Simon Rogers hanging on to Tim Lancaster. Image source: Mayday
Upon reaching a lower altitude, Atchison started to slow down and level out. As he did so, Captain Lancaster’s body slid down around the left side of the cockpit, leaving his bloodied and battered face plastered against the window. Rogers sat in the jumpseat, still holding onto his legs. But one look through the window at Lancaster told them he was probably already gone. His eyes were wide open, totally unblinking, and his skin was going grey. Someone suggested that they let go of his body. Ogden shot down the suggestion on principle, and Atchison agreed, pointing out that his body could strike the wings or the engines, damaging the plane. And so they continued to hold on for dear life. Ogden left the cockpit to recover from his encounter with freezing 560-kph winds and sat down with flight attendant Sue Prince, who had been tending to the terrified passengers. “I think the captain’s dead,” he told her.
With the plane slowed to a reasonable speed, the wind noise reduced enough for First Officer Atchison to talk to air traffic control. The controller suggested an emergency landing in Southampton, the closest available airport. This put Atchison in a tough position: he wasn’t familiar with Southampton, he was flying a two-pilot jet by himself in an emergency, and all his charts and checklists had been sucked out of the plane. At first he requested to land at Gatwick instead, but quickly settled on Southampton, a decision he felt compelled to make by the severity of the situation. He switched to the frequency for Southampton Airport and apprised the disbelieving controller of the situation: there had been an explosive decompression, and the captain was stuck half outside the plane!
Relying on the guidance of the controller, with no charts and no captain to help him, Alistair Atchison guided flight 5390 down to a safe and controlled landing at Southampton, much to the relief of the passengers, whose lives had flashed before their eyes only minutes earlier. All 81 passengers disembarked without a single injury, while ambulances rushed to the aid of the beleaguered crew.
Fire crews respond to flight 5390 after the landing. Image source: Mayday
Paramedics found Ogden, Rogers, Heward, and Atchison suffering from minor injuries ranging from frostbite to shock to a dislocated shoulder. There was little hope for Captain Lancaster, who had been pinned to outside of the plane amid 600kph winds and temperatures as low as -17˚C. But, as paramedics removed his body from the plane, he started to show signs of life. Within a few minutes, he had opened his eyes, regained consciousness, and appeared to be recovering! Reportedly, the first thing he said after coming round was, “I want to eat.” In what can only be considered a medical miracle, Tim Lancaster suffered little more than frostbite, bruising, and a few relatively minor bone fractures. After being released from the hospital and taking time to recuperate from his ordeal, Captain Lancaster returned to flying jets for British Airways only 5 months after the accident.
Tim Lancaster, Nigel Ogden, John Heward, and Simon Rogers, reunited later. Image source: Adam Butler
Meanwhile, an investigation by the United Kingdom’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) worked to uncover the cause of the near-disaster. Investigators managed to find the windscreen with some of the bolts still attached. They were shocked to discover that the bolts were too narrow and had simply pulled right out of the holes.
The outside of the plane, plastered with Captain Lancaster’s blood, after the accident. Image source: The Daily Mail
The shift maintenance manager who replaced the window had a supposedly glowing safety record, including several official commendations for the quality of his work. In trying to figure out how he could have made such a basic error, the AAIB found that his supposed proficiency belied several problematic habits. He was so confident in his ability that he didn’t take extra effort to ensure that he was maintaining aircraft by the book, and in fact he stated that it was perfectly normal to use one’s own judgment rather than referring to official guidance materials. His small errors slipped under the radar of quality assurance inspections because the chances of any of those mistakes manifesting visibly on the aircraft were very low; inspectors would have had to observe him actually doing the work to see the problems. His commendations, as it turned out, were less a result of doing the work properly and more a recognition of his ability to keep aircraft on schedule.
Examining the windscreen after the accident. Image source is unclear.
This problem extended far beyond this one individual, who was merely a symptom. The entire Birmingham maintenance facility, and perhaps British Airways more broadly, had a singular focus on “getting the job done.” If doing the work by the book took longer and jeopardized schedules, then doing the work by the book was discouraged. The shift manager who used the wrong bolts stated in an interview that if he sought out the instructions or used the official parts catalogue on every task, then he would never “get the job done,” as though this was a totally normal and reasonable attitude with which to approach aircraft maintenance. This attitude was in fact normalized on a high level by supervisors who rewarded the employees who most consistently kept planes on schedule. That a serious incident would result from such a culture was inevitable. The shift manager believed it to be reasonable to just “put on whatever bolts came off” and make a quick judgment call about what kind of bolts they were — not because he was personally deficient, but because he had been trained into a culture that didn’t consider this a flagrant safety violation.
As a result of these troubling findings, the accident report recommended sweeping reviews of quality assurance at British Airways, including whether it was appropriate for shift managers to self-certify their own work, whether their “vital points” list was incomplete, and other shortcomings that had been identified ranging from job descriptions to engineer training to product standards. It also recommended that maintenance engineers in the United Kingdom receive periodic retraining, just like pilots. It was this recommendation that proved the most critical: today, maintenance engineers are indeed recertified every few years, ensuring that any unsafe habits they develop are noticed and rectified whenever they renew their license.
Cockpit of a Sichuan Airlines Airbus A319 after it lost its windshield, May 2018. Image source: China Daily
In a strange follow-up to flight 5390 that came almost 28 years later, an almost identical incident took place aboard a Sichuan Airlines flight in May 2018. While flying over China, the first officer’s windscreen blew off the Airbus A319 at 32,000 feet, partially sucking the first officer out of the plane before he managed to pull himself back inside. Captain Liu Chuanjian went on to make a safe emergency landing in Chengdu, with his first officer suffering only minor injuries. For the first officer, the difference between life and death may have been his seat belt. One can only imagine that Tim Lancaster, despite his positive attitude regarding his near-death experience, is now a little more careful about keeping it fastened.
___________________________________________________________
Join the discussion of this article on reddit and visit r/admiralcloudberg for over 100 similar articles!
|
https://medium.com/@admiralcloudberg/the-near-crash-of-british-airways-flight-5390-89a4370c92bb
|
[]
|
2019-09-14 23:47:45.196000+00:00
|
['Aviation']
|
The Modern Day Vision Quest
|
The Modern Day Vision Quest begins by eating a good meal at home, before getting in the car, and driving to nature.
You park near a trailhead, grab your pack (loaded with gear), and head out the trail looking for a place to set up camp.
Part of the Modern Day Vision Quest is the journey into the unknown as to where you will sleep. It requires surrender and faith.
When you find the right spot, it will speak to you. You will know. If it doesn’t speak to you, keep going. You will find it.
When you find it, set up camp, and settle in. No food until you get home.
The exception for me might come in the form of a mushroom or two and maybe some African root bark.
In the Native American Vision Quest, they would generally spend 2–3 days alone in nature, with only a pouch of tobacco (which was for the great spirits). I bring a little pouch of tobacco and a few buds of homegrown herb.
The hike in burns some calories and you’ll get hungry. It gets cold. It can be challenging. Difficult.
You and yourself alone together. With the clouds rolling in and the wind whipping, you endure.
You read some. You write some. You do yoga and meditate but time moves slow.
Look at the stars. Stay warm. Be alone with your thoughts.
At some point, you go to sleep.
Wake up and repeat.
Allow it all to slow way down. Connect with nature. Appreciate the life surrounding you.
Explore your surroundings. Sit in ceremony.
Settle into your body.
Embrace the hunger. Feel your body. Alive.
Allow your energy to flow.
Step into it. Move with it. Cycle the energy, upward.
Get quiet. Still. Calm.
Quieter still. More present. More aware.
Be.
Time slows down further as you become aware of your thoughts. All day long. Watching your thoughts come and go. Keeping record. Acknowledging them. Seeing them, and letting them go.
As you sink further into your body allow gratitude to wash over you.
Take inventory of all you are grateful for.
Bask in the love.
When you’re ready to do more work, reflect, and get crystal clear on your intentions. What life are you creating? How are you living? What traits have you developed, both positive and negative? How do you spend your time? What habits have you formed? What is the life you want to live? What are your dreams? Goals? Deepest desires?
You can then take it a step farther and examine the edges of your psyche. What beliefs do you hold? Why do you hold them? Question your beliefs. Why do you believe what you believe?
I’m not talking about your belief that Biden is the better option, I’m talking about the foundational beliefs that structure your life. Your beliefs around relationships, work, money, the universe.
Dig deep.
Explore your depths.
As we sink into the darkest, deepest, most unexplored aspects of ourselves, we expand. We grow. We deepen our relationships with ourselves. We learn more about who we are.
With this new insight as to who you are, new paths of exploration begin to open. New thoughts. Perspectives. Allow them to evolve and grow.
Stretch. Dance. Sing. Hum.
Create an altar.
Sit in gratitude. Set intentions. Give thanks.
Slowly pack.
Revisit each spot in your temporary home. Honor them.
Prepare to leave it better than you found it.
The sun slowly crosses the sky but eventually reaches the horizon.
Give yourself enough time to get back to the car before sunset.
With no food in 30 hours the pack is extra heavy.
Thank the camp and this part of the experience.
But it’s not over yet.
Hike back taking your time. Stop. Stretch. Smile at the beauty.
Maybe another stop or two before throwing the pack in the vehicle, giving the land one last bow of respect, and setting the intention for a safe, smooth, drive home.
Leave a snack in the car if you need some substance to drive safely, but you’ll probably be feeling fully alive. Stoked. Empowered. Calm and clear.
Enjoy the drive. Without music. Reflect. Complete any hanging thoughts. Try to find closure and completion. Process.
What did you learn? What were your takeaways?
This is a critical step. Integration. What can you apply? How can you apply it?
You should return better than you left, further evolved, through a new experience that pushed you and stretched your boundaries. This is where we grow.
|
https://medium.com/change-your-mind/the-modern-day-vision-quest-8e1b69c84dd4
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['Michael Grimes']
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2020-12-16 11:55:56.679000+00:00
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['Nature', 'Spirituality', 'Awareness', 'Journey', 'Self Improvement']
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Five Best Collaboration Sites to Use With a Remote Team
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Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
Work isn’t the same as our parents’ generation. Younger generations have collectively determined that flexibility is more important than stability. They would rather work from the comfort of their own home or the latest exotic destination with internet access rather than the confines of a cubicle. We don’t blame them. After all, if you can do it, why wouldn’t you? The current changes happening now may have been made long ago if it had been possible.
Companies today are offering flexibility perks like working from home, unlimited holiday time, shortened work weeks, etc. Others have opted to hire entirely remote teams for certain aspects of their business.
If this is a world you want to delve into, it’s important to have the right tools for communication and collaboration. The idea is to address the reasons people need to go into an office in the first place while allowing room to be location-independent. Basically, they need to be able to talk together and share a workspace they can make notes on. Here are five excellent resources, in no particular order, to help you build or improve upon your remote teams:
1. Slack
When it comes to communication Slack has you covered. Using this site, you can organize conversations into channels organized by project, topic, team, or any way that makes sense for the work at hand. Conversations are searchable, so you’ll never have to worry about forgetting what channel that conversation you had with your marketing manager is located on.
Worried about security? Slack is, too. That’s why they offer 2FA and SSO to keep prying eyes out. Tired of having to continuously update your status so your team doesn’t think you’re slacking in a different way than the name implies? No problem. You can sync your Outlook calendar so it will let your team know when you’re in a meeting or at lunch. It’s like having an assistant!
You can also incorporate Gmail, Zoom, and Google Drive — among others — into the platform, so it’s all in the same space. It’s essentially like having an office online. For seamless communication, it’s hard to beat.
2. Zoom
Zoom is fantastic. This software allows users to make video calls similar to Skype, but there are more controls in place. For example, if you call a business associate and need to ask about some numbers in a spreadsheet, you can pull it up on your desktop and share just that screen or your entire desktop if you need to switch between Excel and a website. You can see who you’re talking to, a single colleague or a theatre full of people, while you all look at the work at hand.
What pushes it even further ahead of Skype is the ability to share a “whiteboard.” This is exactly what it sounds like, a white screen, just waiting to be written on. The annotation tools allow both you and the person you’re speaking with to type, highlight, draw, etc. You can even use a virtual laser pointer to draw attention to something without writing on it.
Note that you can also use these tools on any window you’re sharing or even your desktop. Better yet, you can pull in more than one person on the call. In fact, with the growing online education trend many universities are beginning to incorporate Zoom into the curriculum by using it for live lectures.
With all these capabilities, it makes you wonder why we need offices in the first place! Go ahead and hire your tech genius from South Korea. She’ll appreciate the perks of remote work as much as you.
3. Trello
Trello is a great way to keep everyone on track and productive. When working with a team that is not at arm’s reach, it can be hard to check in. As we often take cues and inspiration from those around us, it can also be more challenging to know exactly what our role is.
With its intuitive design, it feels like you’re staring at Marie Kondo’s progress board — or what we imagine it to be — with clean and simple boards, lists, and cards. Every place on the page has a clear purpose. As for sparking joy, well, that’s between you and your boss. Regardless of how you feel about a project, the first and most important part is defining each person’s role and the tasks they’re responsible for.
If that’s not enough to convince you of its value, here’s the best part: It’s free. Well, mostly. Options to upgrade to a paid version allow integration with an unlimited number of apps like Slack, Google Hangouts, Github, etc. and extra security features and customisation. For people who like to visualise progress, this is a must-have. You don’t even have to thank it first.
4. G Suite
For those who prefer the good ol’ classics and don’t care to learn anything new, G Suite can get you up and running pretty quickly. At its core, it’s the same setup you’ve used to send those pictures of the kids to your mom when the files are too large to go through email. Or to chat with your sister. Or maybe even to share a calendar with your spouse so someone is home to let Fido out before he soils the floor.
Google has done an excellent job of integrating itself into our everyday life, and G Suite takes the programs we know and love — Drive, Docs, Calendar, Gmail, etc. — and tweaks them for business, adding additional security and search functions, storage, and compliance capabilities.
Even without using the entirety of G Suite, Google Drive alone is worth incorporating into your workflow. File management doesn’t get any easier. Your entire remote team can access any file on the drive, so there are no excuses for not having that spreadsheet you needed to complete your sales projections for next year.
5. GitHub
For all of you coders out there, you might want to check this out if you’re not already using it. GitHub is like a time machine for your code. You can jump forward and back through your coding history because every change you make is recorded. Think about it as being a self driving AI vehicle for your teammates’ code. You can smoothly merge their code changes without smashing yours. This is essential for rapid development as it will take more than one developer to build your empire.
The program is set up around “branches” to allow more than one piece to be worked on at any given time, increasing efficiency and teamwork. As in most of the other programs listed here, all you have to do to get a coworker’s attention is to tag them. It will notify them and bring the part of the project or conversation to their focus. Loads of different tools are capable of being integrated in this as well, all readily available on GitHub Marketplace.
GitHub’s free plan is perfect for most users, but the company supports the idea of being open-source. So depending on your privacy needs, you may need to upgrade and throw some money into a paid plan.
There are many things to consider when setting up a remote team for the first time. The first thing you should ask yourself is, “Do I need my team to work in business hours in my time zone?” Depending on how you set up your teams, you may all be working in real time. If, however, you work across different time zones, always be ready with a time zone converter.
Oversight is one of the biggest concerns people have when they start hiring people they’ve never met face-to-face. You should create guidelines that allow you to measure progress. Maybe this means a conference call once a month. Maybe you use Processboard to create lists of tasks employees can check off when finished. Or perhaps you set consistent deadlines after which you look through the work and evaluate.
However you build your team, know that communication is key, and these programs will make it as easy as a chat over the water cooler.
|
https://medium.com/@fluid7/five-best-collaboration-sites-to-work-with-a-remote-team-a2e6fb8e7416
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['Kristin Park']
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2020-04-24 06:15:42.433000+00:00
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['Efficiency', 'Zoom', 'Slack', 'Github', 'Remote Working']
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Sindh Before Partition: Demographics and Religious Conflict
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After my previous post on British Punjab I decided to take a look at British Sindh. This region tends to get less attention when it comes to partition-era discussions, as unlike Punjab and Bengal it was not cleaved in two, and suffered relatively little communal violence. There’s also the fact that Sindh tends to fly under the radar in general when it comes to South Asian history; but rejoice, as we’re reversing that trend for today. This post will cover the demographic and social situation of Sindh during the lead-up to partition.
Demographics:
Muslim Population of Sindh: 1941
Prior to partition Sindh was 71.5% Muslim and 26.4% Hindu, with 2.1% of the population largely comprised of non-denominational tribes. Sindhi Muslims dominated the countryside, while Sindhi Hindus were concentrated in major cities.
The exception was Tharparkar district, where Hindus were also found in rural areas. Many of these Hindus however weren’t Sindhis, but ethnic Rajasthanis and Kutchis. The non-Muslim tribes of Tharparkar were largely estranged from orthodox Hinduism, and some didn’t identify as Hindus at all. Many of the Thari tribes remained in Pakistan after partition, as they faced relatively little pressure to emigrate from their Muslim neighbors.
While a large majority of Sindh spoke Sindhi in 1941, a significant minority did not, a situation that persists today. Sindhi was the most commonly spoken language in every district, aside from Tharparkar, where only 40.3% of the population was Sindhi speaking. Most of the Punjabi speakers were Seraikis living in northern Sindh (where they still reside).
Partition resulted in the exodus of many Gujarati, Kutchi, and Rajasthani speakers, but the percentage of Sindhi speakers in the state actually declined from 70% to 62%, due primarily to the influx of Urdu speaking refugees (Muhajirs) from India. A few decades later a large number of Pashtuns would also begin migrating to the province (particularly into Karachi), further diluting the proportion of Sindhis.
Communal Relations:
Sindh had traditionally seen relatively amicable relations between its Muslim and Hindu populations, due in large part to the syncretic nature of the religious traditions practiced in the region. In the lead up to partition however, the two communities would become increasingly antagonistic, even to the point of violence. The grievances between the two communities stemmed from three major issues.
The Socioeconomic Gap between Muslims and Hindus:
Hindus in Sindh had traditionally occupied roles in finance and administration under a Muslim ruling elite, with both often using their positions to exploit the larger masses of Muslim cultivators. The arrival of the British however saw the Muslim elite largely vanquished, resulting in a stark religious divide between wealthy Hindus and impoverished Muslims. The British also changed landowning laws (which previously favored Muslims), resulting in large masses of Muslim peasants losing their land to Hindu money-lending practices. The establishment of British schools in disproportionately Hindu urban centers further widened the economic gap between the two communities. Such disparities provided fertile ground for communal resentment.
Hindu Opposition to Sindhi Nationalism:
Under British rule Sindh was administered not as its own province, but as part of the Bombay Presidency, which included regions like Gujarat and Maharashtra. In this system Sindh was considered as little more than a backwater, and its unique culture and history largely ignored. Sindhi merchants were often shut out of lucrative trade opportunities by their more wealthy and established competitors in Surat and Bombay. As a result Sindhis, Muslim and Hindu alike, launched a movement calling for a separate Sindh province.
Religious polarization was sweeping British India during this period however, and soon made its way to Sindh. Hindus began to view Sindhi nationalism as a kind of Trojan horse, a plot which would result in Hindus becoming a minority in the new province, and eventually, losing the favorable status they enjoyed over the Muslim masses. Sindhi Hindus retracted their support for the movement, and instead turned their attention to Hindu organizations like the Arya Samaj, who they invited from regions across India to help combat the local conversions of Hindus to Islam. Muslims, who viewed Sindhi Nationalism as a means of economic liberation and cultural revivalism, were enraged by this development.
The Restoration of Manzilgah Masjid:
The Manzilgah Masjid was part of a Mughal era complex near the city of Sukkur that fell into disrepair after being seized and converted into a bunker during the British invasion of Sindh. By the 1930’s calls for the British to return the Masjid to Sindhi Muslims had reached a fever pitch, with Muslims across India lending their support to the campaign. Following mass sit-ins at the Manzilgah Masjid the British appeared to relent, and in 1939 began the preliminary process of returning the building to the Muslim community.
This prompted immediate outcry from Sindhi Hindus, and the community quickly mobilized all means of political and economic influence with the British in order to prevent the return of the Masjid to the Muslims. The Manzilgah complex lay across the river from a Hindu holy site, and the Hindus feared that crowds from a neighboring Masjid could disrupt their pilgrimage, and ultimately weaken the Hindu character of the area. The Hindus were temporarily successful, and the British violently cracked down on the Muslim protesters. The local Hindu community celebrated, unaware of their impending misfortune.
Small scale riots soon erupted in the neighboring city of Sukkur, beginning with Muslims looting the wealthy Hindu inhabitants of the area. Overt violent clashes followed, and though Hindus comprised a majority of the city’s population, they fared poorly in the exchange. The British soon regained control, killing a number of Muslim attackers and incarcerating many more. The conflict simmered down, but any pan-religious Sindhi camaraderie that had survived to that point was officially dead.
Muslims increasingly viewed their Hindu neighbors not as fellow Sindhis, but feudal overlords willing to conspire with foreigners if it meant retaining their position of privilege over the Muslim masses. Conversely, Hindus saw themselves as an endangered minority, whose only hope for long-term survival was to keep the deck stacked in their favor. Both views were probably accurate.
The Situation Today:
Sindhis, while proud Pakistanis, do harbor some resentment toward the Muhajir community in Sindh. This is understandable; following partition the Sindhis had finally emerged out from under the economic boot of the Hindus, but before they could grasp the reigns of Sindh, they were seized by newly arrived refugees from India. Of course from the Muhajir point of view, they were simply an educated affluent community filling the now vacant positions that required their expertise. Again, both views are probably correct.
Sindhis place a lot of importance on maintaining their culture in the face of what they see as Muhajir and Punjabi dominance. Usually this manifests itself quite nicely, with emphasis on Sindhi language, cuisine, and art. Sometimes however it boils over into the absurd, like when the pre-partition days with Hindu Sindhis are pined over (to slight Muhajirs), or when the pre-Islamic Chach dynasty is lionized (to slight Punjabis).
Sources:
Masjid Manzilgah, 1939–40. Test Case for Hindu-Muslim Relations in Sind, Hamida Khuhro
Discovering Sindh’s Past: Selections from the Journal of the Sindh Historical Society, Michel Boivin, Matthew A. Cook, and Julien Levesque
Sindhis: Hardening of Identities after Partition, Rita Kothari
1931 Bombay Presidency Census
Pakistan Geotagging, Tariq Amir
|
https://medium.com/@araingang/sindh-before-partition-demographics-and-religious-conflict-ecc18ae6139c
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[]
|
2020-07-19 05:17:25.500000+00:00
|
['History', 'Sindh', 'Muslim', 'Partition', 'Maps']
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Webdesign Good Practices
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A website needs to be useful, relevant and well-designed. This can be accomplished with compelling layout design, balanced use of color, good organization, ease of use and functionality.
According to a recent study mobile usage in the US has surpassed the desktop, so a responsive design that adapts to mobile devices is important. A desktop homepage can serve many purposes, but in mobile the user should be able to get to the content easily. Remember to set the viewport and use CSS media queries for a flexible layout with appropriate breakpoints.
A call-to-action is an image or line of text, usually a button that prompts visitors to take a certain action. For an effective click-rate have a clear value proposition and destination page aligned with it’s promise.
Good performance can contribute to make a fluid experience. To ensure the best page speed you can optimize the critical rendering path prioritizing the content related to the primary action of the user. You can also optimize images, eliminate unnecessary downloads, use HTTP cache and change encoding.
Navigation needs to be clearly labeled and adapted to smaller screens. It should be accompanied by sitemaps and breadcrumbs.
Color schemes should be used consistently and limited to a maximum of 3 colors. Text and background should have sufficient contrast.
|
https://tomasantunes.medium.com/webdesign-good-practices-f88734f5f153
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['Tomás Antunes']
|
2018-11-13 22:24:26.249000+00:00
|
['Web Design']
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Increasing User Engagement With Minute Media’s Video Content Recirculation Tool
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By David Schumann, Product Manager at Minute Media
To provide users with the best possible video experience, publishers need access to relevant and engaging content. Minute Media’s fully automated video recirculation tool allows publishing partners to boost their content offering, increase time spent on page and drive more revenue through converting existing stories into engaging videos. Find out how this tool works and how it can benefit your publishing business by reading below.
Automated Solutions
Minute Media’s recirculation tool automatically reformats existing editorial stories into engaging video experiences by converting an RSS feed into a templated video file. Our contextual algorithm will then match this video to relevant articles on your partner site, adding value to each page the video sits on. After a quick initial setup, this process is fully automated, providing publishers with an easy to use video solution.
Extending the Content Offering
Minute Media’s recirculation tool allows publishers to leverage their own written content to improve their video offering.
“Minute Media’s recirculation tool allows publishers to leverage their own content to improve their video offering.”
These videos are tailored to the publisher’s specific editorial offering and complement the article to add value to consumers. In addition, partners can leverage Minute Media’s video library containing well over 50,000 videos covering a wide range of topics, including news, entertainment, politics, sports, lifestyle and more.
Mockup of Video Recirculation Tool
Increasing User Engagement
This recirculation tool is a great way for publishers to generate awareness of trending stories and drive traffic to those specific pages. Since the user already expressed an interest in that particular topic, the recirculated video is highly relevant and results in an increase in user engagement and time spent on page. Ultimately, longer user sessions can translate to additional supply and monetization opportunities.
The Benefits
Our publishing partners have seen significant benefits using this recirculation tool:
|
https://medium.com/@minutemedia/increasing-user-engagement-with-minute-medias-video-content-recirculation-tool-a330d4ccbefa
|
['Minute Media']
|
2020-08-18 20:27:55.119000+00:00
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['Videos', 'Digital Media', 'Online Media', 'Technology', 'Publishing']
|
Brexit update: Phishing is a big issue!
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Fishing is not the only contentious issue for Brexit, there is another ‘phishing’ issue businesses are having to deal with across Europe and the UK.
With genuine Brexit updates being sent by most organisations — private and public — ‘Phishermen’ are having a field day! Malicious phishing groups are capitalising on the anxiety around Brexit and the outcome of the talks.
Over the last 61 days, data from across 29 countries reveals that there is a massive surge in phishing emails across Europe and the UK owing to anxiety particularly among businesses around Brexit talks. Phishing using the identities of Customs/Tax authorities across Europe and the UK, Commercial and procurement departments of organisations doing significant cross border business between Europe and the UK, as well as Fake tax consultancies being the most prevalent.
The calls to action in these phishing emails vary from asking businesses to confirm that they are going to remain unaffected as of January 1, 2021 — but this needs to be confirmed by them by clicking a link, to seeking confirmation that UK business will be treated as a ‘third country’ for the purposes of Chapter V of the GDPR, to ‘Click Here’ to re-register yourself on our procurement portal in preparation for Brexit, are the most prevalent.
Businesses receiving updates about Brexit in their emails from known annd unknown senders, ‘must’ treat such communnications as phishing, until they verify it as genuine. ‘Guilty until proven innocent’ or Zero Trust’ are the principles to abide by. Genuine senders communicating with their business partners and organisations about Brexit must avoid the use of words and phrases that may remotely emulate what phishers are doing right now. ” — Ankush Johar, Director HumanFirewall, a Human Cyber Risk Management & Phishing Detection and Response Platform.
WHAT CAN BUSINESSES DO?
Phishers use recent events of importance and popular topics like BREXIT to send malicious links and malware (malicious software). Carefully analyse the identity of the sender for emails mentioning the word Brexit. ‘Think before you click’ before you click on emails that contain the word ‘Brexit’. When in doubt, verify using other means like calling the senders to ensure they are genuine. If emails ask you to share information that can potentially be used to harm your business or ask you to pay some money, STOP and think why a genuine company would ask you to do this. If the ‘call to action’ creates a sense of urgency, or offers an incentive, or creates a sense of fear, causes you anxiety — you can be certain that it is possibly a phishing email. Spread Security Awareness among your employees to watch out for such attacks, or run Phishing Simulations on your employees, to beat the hackers at their own game. (Get your free Brexit Security Awareness Training and Phishing Simulation Kit from HumanFirewall.)
(Source: Study conducted by HumanFirewall.io from Oct 15-Dec 16, 2020 across 29 countries)
|
https://medium.com/@ankushjohar/brexit-update-phishing-is-a-big-issue-110924e1846a
|
['Ankush Johar']
|
2020-12-17 21:51:45.080000+00:00
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['Brexit', 'Humanfirewall', 'Cyber Security Awareness', 'Fishing', 'Phishing']
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CLIMATE CRISIS & RENEWABLES: IRENA — Urgent Action Needed for the Energy Transition in Heating and Cooling
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CLIMATE CRISIS & RENEWABLES: IRENA — Urgent Action Needed for the Energy Transition in Heating and Cooling
Posted By: PR Channel Team — Malaga (Remote)
www.GEOPoliticalMatters.com
Heating and cooling based on renewable energy has emerged as an urgent priority for countries striving to meet climate goals and build resilient, sustainable economies.
The transition to cleaner, more sustainable heating and cooling solutions can attract investment, create millions of new jobs and help to drive a durable economic recovery in the wake of the global COVID-19 crisis, says a new study by leading energy organisations.
The joint report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Renewable Energy Network for the 21st Century (REN21), highlights the benefits, identifies investment barriers, as well as the policies to drive faster uptake of renewable heating and cooling worldwide. Renewable Energy Policies in a Time of Transition: Heating and Cooling describes five possible transformation pathways, encompassing renewables-based electrification, renewable gases, sustainable biomass, and direct uses of solar thermal and geothermal heat.
Energy efficient heating and cooling based on renewable sources has emerged as an urgent priority for countries striving to meet climate commitments under the Paris Agreement and to build resilient, sustainable economies, said IRENA Director-General, Francesco La Camera.
“The transition to cleaner, more efficient and sustainable heating and cooling solutions can attract investments, create millions of new jobs and help to drive a durable economic recovery in the wake of the global COVID-19 crisis. It will make much needed heating and cooling services available to everyone, including to remote islands and least-developed countries of Africa and Asia.”
Heating and cooling demand accounts for around half of global final energy consumption, mostly for industrial processes, followed by residential and agricultural applications. Most of this energy now comes either from fossil fuels or inefficient, unsustainable uses of biomass. Heating and cooling, consequently, is a major source of air pollution and accounts for over 40 per cent of global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. At the same time, around 2.8 billion people currently rely on wood fuel, charcoal, animal dung and other inefficient and polluting fuels for cooking.
The demand for heating and cooling is set to keep growing. Cooling demand has already tripled globally since 1990, and as climate change increases the number and severity of heat waves, so does the urgency for supplying air conditioning and refrigeration to billions of people.
Policy makers have so far given limited attention to the heating and cooling transition. By the end of 2019, only 49 countries — mostly within the European Union — had national targets for renewable heating and cooling, in contrast with 166 having targets for renewable power generation. To decarbonise the energy used for heating and cooling, aggressive and comprehensive policy packages that phase out the use of fossil fuels and prioritise renewable energy and efficiency are even more urgent amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has cut demand for renewables-based heating and cooling services, including in households and small businesses. The health and economic crisis has also worsened conditions for energy access in many developing countries.
Transitioning to renewable sources will help to increase access to clean, affordable and reliable heating and cooling services, even on remote islands and in some of the least-developed countries of Africa and Asia. At the same time, renewable heating and cooling can create new jobs, stimulate local economies, and improve people’s livelihoods, while strengthening countries’ energy security and independence, the report notes.
Click Here to Read the full report
About the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)
IRENA is the lead intergovernmental agency for the global energy transformation that supports countries in their transition to a sustainable energy future, and serves as the principal platform for international co-operation, a centre of excellence, and a repository of policy, technology, resource and financial knowledge on renewable energy. With 162 Members (161 States and the European Union) and 21 additional countries in the accession process and actively engaged, IRENA promotes the widespread adoption and sustainable use of all forms of renewable energy in the pursuit of sustainable development, energy access, energy security and low-carbon economic growth and prosperity. More/…
|
https://medium.com/@geopoliticalmatters/climate-crisis-renewables-irena-urgent-action-needed-for-the-energy-transition-in-heating-and-85377553b254
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[]
|
2020-12-01 10:40:05.887000+00:00
|
['Latest News', 'Climate', 'Renewable Energy']
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MEDISPA MARKETING IDEA: The Fortune Is In The Follow-Up (Seriously, The Clock Is Ticking!)
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Medical Spas how much time do you spend following up with your leads?
When I read the question “Do you spend as much time following up with leads as you do generating new leads?” posted by Peter Mohylsky in the Q&A section of ActiveRain, I was SHOCKED! But when I saw all the comments and read more, I just had to write this blog (and so here goes)…
It could take months to find prospects that turn into potential customers and leads but you could lose them in a matter of seconds. As a medical spa practitioner, you are not alone because most businesses (solo, small and large) all struggle with cost-effective ways to advertise and market our products and services. The key to making money from your leads is an old saying… there’s a fortune in the follow-up.
Medical Spas get your leads on the phone fast!
Here’s why: the longer you wait to respond to a new lead, the less likely they are to convert to a sale. YIKES! In fact, there was a study by Lead Response Management that confirmed the odds of contacting a lead if called within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes of receiving the initial lead actually drops 100 times. Now you see why the clock is ticking!
Yes, I know there will always be a percentage of curiosity seekers, tire kickers, and time wasters, so you just have to follow up anyway.
The study went on to say “Responding to web-generated leads within five minutes = 900% increase in contact rates”. Are you using the right tools to make that happen?
There are plenty of areas in your medical spa business where you can use technology to perform routine tasks or automate a process. This is especially true for following up. And believe it or not, there are hundreds of no-cost or low-cost tools available to help your medispa save money and time.
Medical Spas: 3 Ways to follow-up with your leads FAST
#1- Call — PLEASE medical spa directors have your staff pick up the phone because calling works best. Potential clients are so tired of voice prompts and not having the opportunity to speak with a live person. That’s why the Discover Card did an entire very successful TV campaign (you can find it on YouTube) about speaking to a live person.
#2- Text — If you have already made contact with your lead, a follow-up text would be great. You could also use texting to stay in contact and top of mind with your lead. The right tool will provide canned text messages for you to respond quickly to routine questions.
#3- Email — Use email to continue to nurture your leads and add value. Sorry but emailing once a month is not enough. It is your responsibility to stay top of mind. It is not the leads responsibility to remember you are there. Don’t worry, If you are adding value with your nurturing it will not be considered noise. Just be sure to segment your list (current clients, previous clients and consultations) so the right message is reaching the right type of lead.
The good news is you can do all these on a mobile phone (or computer). That’s why it amazes me how many medical spas office staff don’t follow up as soon as possible. This could be the reason why the perception of the quality of online leads is so low.
No doubt about it, medical spas need a plan for following up with leads so you are not wasting time and money. Once you have a steady flow of leads I’m sure you’ll agree, it is all a numbers game.
As a Lead Generation Expert who has cracked the code of the medical spa fat-freezing market, I built my business to provide a Guaranteed Leads Solution for body contouring practitioners, just like you so they can get found, get leads and make more money than ever with a constant pipeline of qualified prospects.
No matter where you are with your online advertising, I can provide the help, education, and knowledge you need to succeed with lead generation!
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https://medium.com/@tonyartaylor/medispa-marketing-idea-the-fortune-is-in-the-follow-up-seriously-the-clock-is-ticking-a3656590f781
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['Tonya R. Taylor']
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2021-05-25 01:13:57.459000+00:00
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['Marketing Ideas', 'Medical Spa', 'Doctors', 'Medical', 'Medical Aesthetics']
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Episode 18 | [[The Penthouse]] Series 01 Episode 18 ||(Official SBS)
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In the luxury penthouse apartment with 100 floors, Hera Palace, residents with many goals and secrets live there. Sim Su Ryeon, who was born into wealth, is the queen of the penthouse apartment. Cheon Seo Jin, the prima donna of the residence, does all she can to give everything she has to her daughter. Oh Yoon Hee comes from poor family background, but she strives to enter high society by becoming the queen of the penthouse, the pinnacle of success in her eyes.
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Title : The Penthouse
Episode Title : Episode 18
Release Date : 28 Dec 2020
Runtime : 68 minutes
Genres : Drama
Networks : SBS (KR)
» Watch The Penthouse Season 1 Episode 18 On’SBS (KR) «
♚ I do not own this song or the Image, all credit goes,
It’s so Awesome. Subscribe and Share with your friends! to my channel. See for more videos!!. I want to say ‘thank you’ for being the friend!! Atelevision show (often simply TV show) is any content produced for broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, cable, or internet and typically viewed on a television set, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed between shows. Television shows are most often scheduled well ahead of time and appear on electronic guides or other TV listings. A television show might also be called a television program (British English: programme), especially if it lacks a narrative structure. A television series is usually released in episodes that follow a narrative, and are usually divided into seasons (US and Canada) or series (UK) — yearly or semiannual sets of new episodes. A show with a limited number of episodes may be called a miniseries, serial, or limited series. A one-time show may be called a “special”. A television film (“made-for-TV movie” or “television movie”) is a film that is initially broadcast on television rather than released in theaters or direct-to-video. Television shows can be viewed as they are broadcast in real time (live), be recorded on home video or a digital video recorder for later viewing, or be viewed on demand via a set-top box or streamed over the internet.
✨ CREDITS ✨
The first television shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within a very short range from the broadcast tower starting in the 202044s. Televised events such as the 202044 Summer Olympics in Germany, the 202044 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famous introduction at the 202044 New York World’s Fair in the US spurred a growth in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 202044 World Series inspired many Americans to buy their first television set and then in 202044, the popular radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “Mr Television” and demonstrating that the medium was a stable, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The first national live television broadcast in the US took place on September 2020, 202044 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets. The first national color broadcast (the 202044 Tournament of Roses Parade) in the US occurred on January 2020, 202044. During the following ten years most network broadcasts, and nearly all local programming, continued to be in black-and-white. A color transition was announced for the fall of 202044, during which over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later. In 202044, the last holdout among daytime network shows converted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season.
💫 CREDITS 💫
Television shows are more varied than most other forms of media due to the wide variety of formats and genres that can be presented. A show may be fictional (as in comedies and dramas), or non-fictional (as in documentary, news, and reality television). It may be topical (as in the case of a local newscast and some made-for-television films), or historical (as in the case of many documentaries and fictional series). They could be primarily instructional or educational, or entertaining as is the case in situation comedy and game shows.[citation needed] A drama program usually features a set of actors playing characters in a historical or contemporary setting. The program follows their lives and adventures. Before the 202044, shows (except for soap opera-type serials) typically remained static without story arcs, and the main characters and premise changed little.[citation needed] If some change happened to the characters’ lives during the episode, it was usually undone by the end. Because of this, the episodes could be broadcast in any order.[citation needed] Since the 202044, many series feature progressive change in the plot, the characters, or both. For instance, Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere were two of the first American prime time drama television series to have this kind of dramatic structure,[2020][better source needed] while the later series Jujutsu Kaisenlon 2020 further exemplifies such structure in that it had a predetermined story running over its intended five-season run.[citation needed] In 202044, it was reported that television was growing into a larger component of major media companies’ revenues than film.[2020] Some also noted the increase in quality of some television programs. In 202044, Academy-Award-winning film director Steven Soderbergh, commenting on ambiguity and complexity of character and narrative, stated: “I think those qualities are now being seen on television and that people who want to see stories that have those kinds of qualities are watching television. On January 20200, 2020202020202020, WHO announced an outbreak of a coronavirus new (COVID-20204) as a Concerning Public Health Emergency World. To respond to COVID-20204, preparedness and response is needed critical nature such as equipping health personnel and facility management health services with the necessary information, procedures, and tools can safely and effectively work. health workers play an important role in responding to outbreaks COVID-20204 and become the backbone of a country’s defense for limit or manage the spread of disease. At the forefront, power health care providers that suspect patients need and confirmed COVID-20204, which is often carried out in challenging circumstances. Officers are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-20204 in their efforts to protect wider society. Officers can be exposed to hazards such as psychological stress, fatigue, mental exhaustion or stigma. WHO is aware of their duties and responsibilities this big responsibility and the importance of protecting health care facility personnel.
💫 Aim
This material aims to protect health workers from infection and prevent it possible spread of COVID-20204 in health care facilities. This material contains a series of simple messages and reminders based on technical guidelines WHO is more comprehensive about infection prevention and control in facilities health services in the context of COVID-20204: “Prevention and control infection in health services when the new coronavirus (nCoV) infection is suspected “ (20204 January 2020202020202020). Further information can be found in the WHO technical manual.
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This material is intended for health personnel and service facility management health and may be distributed to other health workers and to facilities health services. The Ministry of Health can provide this material to all hospitals and government health service facilities. Copy this material needs to be provided to private physician networks, medical associations, medical, nursing and midwifery to be shared and fitted accordingly necessity. The contents of this material can be adapted into local languages and placed in places in the service facility
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An action story is similar to adventure, and the protagonist usually takes a risky turn, which leads to desperate scenarios (including explosions, fight scenes, daring escapes, etc.). Action and adventure usually are categorized together (sometimes even while “action-adventure”) because they have much in common, and many stories are categorized as both genres simultaneously (for instance, the James Bond series can be classified as both). Continuing their survival through an age of a Zombie-apocalypse as a makeshift family, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abagail Breslin) have found their balance as a team, settling into the now vacant White House to spend some safe quality time with one another as they figure out their Jujutsu Kaisen move. However, spend time at the Presidential residents raise some uncertainty as Columbus proposes to Wichita, which freaks out the independent, lone Jujutsu Kaisen out, while Little Rock starts to feel the need to be on her own. The women suddenly decide to escape in the middle of the night, leaving the men concerned about Little Rock, who’s quickly joined by Berkley (Avan Jogia), a hitchhiking hippie on his way to place called Babylon, a fortified commune that’s supposed to be safe haven against the zombies of the land. Hitting the road to retrieved their loved one, Tallahassee and Columbus meet Madison (Zoey Deutch), a dim-witted survivor who takes an immediate liking to Columbus, complicating his relationship with Wichita.
💫 ANALYZER GOOD / BAD 💫
To be honest, I didn’t catch Jujutsu Kaisen when it first got released (in theaters) back in 404. Of course, the movie pre-dated a lot of the pop culture phenomenon of the usage of zombies-esque as the main antagonist (i.e Game of Thrones, The Maze Runner trilogy, The Walking Dead, World War Z, The Last of Us, etc.), but I’ve never been keen on the whole “Zombie” craze as others are. So, despite the comedy talents on the project, I didn’t see Jujutsu Kaisen….until it came to TV a year or so later. Surprisingly, however, I did like it. Naturally, the zombie apocalypse thing was fine (just wasn’t my thing), but I really enjoyed the film’s humor-based comedy throughout much of the feature. With the exception of 202040’s Shaun of the Dead, majority of the past (and future) endeavors of this narrative have always been serious, so it was kind of refreshing to see comedic levity being brought into the mix. Plus, the film’s cast was great, with the four main leads being one of the film’s greatest assets. As mentioned above, Jujutsu Kaisen didn’t make much of a huge splash at the box office, but certainly gained a strong cult following, including myself, in the following years. Flash forward a decade after its release and Jujutsu Kaisen finally got a sequel with Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap, the central focus of this review post. Given how the original film ended, it was clear that a sequel to the 404 movie was indeed possible, but it seemed like it was in no rush as the years kept passing by. So, I was quite surprised to hear that Jujutsu Kaisen was getting a sequel, but also a bit not surprised as well as Hollywood’s recent endeavors have been of the “belated sequels” variety; finding mixed results on each of these projects. I did see the film’s movie trailer, which definitely was what I was looking for in this Jujutsu Kaisen 2020 movie, with Eisenberg, Harrelson, Stone, Breslin returning to reprise their respective characters again. I knew I wasn’t expecting anything drastically different from the 404 movie, so I entered Double Tap with good frame of my mind and somewhat eagerly expecting to catch up with this dysfunctional zombie killing family. Unfortunately, while I did see the movie a week after its release, my review for it fell to the wayside as my life in retail got a hold of me during the holidays as well as being sick for a good week and half after seeing the movie. So, with me still playing “catch up” I finally have the time to share my opinions on Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap. And what are they? Well, to be honest, my opinions on the film was good. Despite some problems here and there, Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap is definitely a fun sequel that’s worth the decade long wait. It doesn’t “redefine” the Zombie genre interest or outmatch its predecessor, but this Jujutsu Kaisen chapter of Jujutsu Kaisen still provides an entertaining entry….and that’s all that matters. Returning to the director’s chair is director Ruben Fleischer, who helmed the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie as well as other film projects such as 40 Minutes or Less, Gangster Squad, and Venom. Thus, given his previous knowledge of shaping the first film, it seems quite suitable (and obvious) for Fleischer to direct this movie and (to that affect), Double Tap succeeds. Of course, with the first film being a “cult classic” of sorts, Fleischer probably knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to replicate the same formula in this sequel, especially since the 4-year gap between the films. Luckily, Fleischer certainly excels in bringing the same type of comedic nuances and cinematic aspects that made the first Jujutsu Kaisen enjoyable to Double Tap; creating a second installment that has plenty of fun and entertainment throughout. A lot of the familiar / likeable aspects of the first film, including the witty banter between four main lead characters, continues to be at the forefront of this sequel; touching upon each character in a amusing way, with plenty of nods and winks to the original 404 film that’s done skillfully and not so much unnecessarily ham-fisted. Additionally, Fleischer keeps the film running at a brisk pace, with the feature having a runtime of 44 minutes in length (one hour and thirty-nine minutes), which means that the film never feels sluggish (even if it meanders through some secondary story beats / side plot threads), with Fleischer ensuring a companion sequel that leans with plenty of laughter and thrills that are presented snappy way (a sort of “thick and fast” notion). Speaking of which, the comedic aspect of the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie is well-represented in Double Tap, with Fleischer still utilizing its cast (more on that below) in a smart and hilarious by mixing comedic personalities / personas with something as serious / gravitas as fighting endless hordes of zombies every where they go. Basically, if you were a fan of the first Jujutsu Kaisen flick, you’ll definitely find Double Tap to your liking. In terms of production quality, Double Tap is a good feature. Granted, much like the last film, I knew that the overall setting and background layouts weren’t going to be something elaborate and / or expansive. Thus, my opinion of this subject of the movie’s technical presentation isn’t that critical. Taking that into account, Double Tap does (at least) does have that standard “post-apocalyptic” setting of an abandoned building, cityscapes, and roads throughout the feature; littered with unmanned vehicles and rubbish. It certainly has that “look and feel” of the post-zombie world, so Double Tap’s visual aesthetics gets a solid industry standard in my book. Thus, a lot of the other areas that I usually mentioned (i.e set decorations, costumes, cinematography, etc.) fit into that same category as meeting the standards for a 20204 movie. Thus, as a whole, the movie’s background nuances and presentation is good, but nothing grand as I didn’t expect to be “wowed” over it. So, it sort of breaks even. This also extends to the film’s score, which was done by David Sardy, which provides a good musical composition for the feature’s various scenes as well as a musical song selection thrown into the mix; interjecting the various zombie and humor bits equally well. There are some problems that are bit glaring that Double Tap, while effectively fun and entertaining, can’t overcome, which hinders the film from overtaking its predecessor. Perhaps one of the most notable criticism that the movie can’t get right is the narrative being told. Of course, the narrative in the first Jujutsu Kaisen wasn’t exactly the best, but still combined zombie-killing action with its combination of group dynamics between its lead characters. Double Tap, however, is fun, but messy at the same time; creating a frustrating narrative that sounds good on paper, but thinly written when executed. Thus, problem lies within the movie’s script, which was penned by Dave Callaham, Rhett Reese, and Paul Wernick, which is a bit thinly sketched in certain areas of the story, including a side-story involving Tallahassee wanting to head to Graceland, which involves some of the movie’s new supporting characters. It’s fun sequence of events that follows, but adds little to the main narrative and ultimately could’ve been cut completely. Thus, I kind of wanted see Double Tap have more a substance within its narrative. Heck, they even had a decade long gap to come up with a new yarn to spin for this sequel…and it looks like they came up a bit shorter than expected. Another point of criticism that I have about this is that there aren’t enough zombie action bits as there were in the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie. Much like the Walking Dead series as become, Double Tap seems more focused on its characters (and the dynamics that they share with each other) rather than the group facing the sparse groupings of mindless zombies. However, that was some of the fun of the first movie and Double Tap takes away that element. Yes, there are zombies in the movie and the gang is ready to take care of them (in gruesome fashion), but these mindless beings sort take a back seat for much of the film, with the script and Fleischer seemed more focused on showcasing witty banter between Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock. Of course, the ending climatic piece in the third act gives us the best zombie action scenes of the feature, but it feels a bit “too little, too late” in my opinion. To be honest, this big sequence is a little manufactured and not as fun and unique as the final battle scene in the first film. I know that sounds a bit contrive and weird, but, while the third act big fight seems more polished and staged well, it sort of feels more restricted and doesn’t flow cohesively with the rest of the film’s flow (in matter of speaking). What’s certainly elevates these points of criticism is the film’s cast, with the main quartet lead acting talents returning to reprise their roles in Double Tap, which is absolutely the “hands down” best part of this sequel. Naturally, I’m talking about the talents of Jessie Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin in their respective roles Jujutsu Kaisen character roles of Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock. Of the four, Harrelson, known for his roles in Cheers, True Detective, and War for the Planet of the Apes, shines as the brightest in the movie, with dialogue lines of Tallahassee proving to be the most hilarious comedy stuff on the sequel. Harrelson certainly knows how to lay it on “thick and fast” with the character and the s**t he says in the movie is definitely funny (regardless if the joke is slightly or dated). Behind him, Eisenberg, known for his roles in The Art of Self-Defense, The Social Network, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, is somewhere in the middle of pack, but still continues to act as the somewhat main protagonist of the feature, including being a narrator for us (the viewers) in this post-zombie apocalypse world. Of course, Eisenberg’s nervous voice and twitchy body movements certainly help the character of Columbus to be likeable and does have a few comedic timing / bits with each of co-stars. Stone, known for her roles in The Help, Superbad, and La La Land, and Breslin, known for her roles in Signs, Little Miss Sunshine, and Definitely, Maybe, round out the quartet; providing some more grown-up / mature character of the group, with Wichita and Little Rock trying to find their place in the world and how they must deal with some of the party members on a personal level. Collectively, these four are what certainly the first movie fun and hilarious and their overall camaraderie / screen-presence with each other hasn’t diminished in the decade long absence. To be it simply, these four are simply riot in the Jujutsu Kaisen and are again in Double Tap. With the movie keeping the focus on the main quartet of lead Jujutsu Kaisen characters, the one newcomer that certainly takes the spotlight is actress Zoey Deutch, who plays the character of Madison, a dim-witted blonde who joins the group and takes a liking to Columbus. Known for her roles in Before I Fall, The Politician, and Set It Up, Deutch is a somewhat “breath of fresh air” by acting as the tagalong team member to the quartet in a humorous way. Though there isn’t much insight or depth to the character of Madison, Deutch’s ditzy / air-head portrayal of her is quite hilarious and is fun when she’s making comments to Harrelson’s Tallahassee (again, he’s just a riot in the movie). The rest of the cast, including actor Avan Jogia (Now Apocalypse and Shaft) as Berkeley, a pacifist hippie that quickly befriends Little Rock on her journey, actress Rosario Dawson (Rent and Sin City) as Nevada, the owner of a Elvis-themed motel who Tallahassee quickly takes a shine to, and actors Luke Wilson (Legally Blonde and Old School) and Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie) as Albuquerque and Flagstaff, two traveling zombie-killing partners that are mimic reflections of Tallahassee and Columbus, are in minor supporting roles in Double Tap. While all of these acting talents are good and definitely bring a certain humorous quality to their characters, the characters themselves could’ve been easily expanded upon, with many just being thinly written caricatures. Of course, the movie focuses heavily on the Jujutsu Kaisen quartet (and newcomer Madison), but I wished that these characters could’ve been fleshed out a bit. Lastly, be sure to still around for the film’s ending credits, with Double Tap offering up two Easter Eggs scenes (one mid-credits and one post-credit scenes). While I won’t spoil them, I do have mention that they are pretty hilarious.
💫 FINAL THOUGHTS 💫
It’s been awhile, but the Jujutsu Kaisen gang is back and are ready to hit the road once again in the movie Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap. Director Reuben Fleischer’s latest film sees the return the dysfunctional zombie-killing makeshift family of survivors for another round of bickering, banting, and trying to find their way in a post-apocalyptic world. While the movie’s narrative is a bit messy and could’ve been refined in the storyboarding process as well as having a bit more zombie action, the rest of the feature provides to be a fun endeavor, especially with Fleischer returning to direct the project, the snappy / witty banter amongst its characters, a breezy runtime, and the four lead returning acting talents. Personally, I liked this movie. I definitely found it to my liking as I laugh many times throughout the movie, with the main principal cast lending their screen presence in this post-apocalyptic zombie movie. Thus, my recommendation for this movie is favorable “recommended” as I’m sure it will please many fans of the first movie as well as to the uninitiated (the film is quite easy to follow for newcomers). While the movie doesn’t redefine what was previous done back in 404, Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap still provides a riot of laughs with this make-shift quartet of zombie survivors; giving us give us (the viewers) fun and entertaining companion sequel to the original feature.
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https://medium.com/the-penthouse-1x18/episode-18-the-penthouse-series-01-episode-18-official-sbs-d3980fa743cf
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['Barbara R. Bradley']
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2020-12-27 09:00:05.560000+00:00
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['Drama']
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How To Read A Trading Chart
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For many people, cryptocurrency was their first introduction to trading and its many tools and vocabulary. Frequently mentioned by many blogs and videos, the typical trading chart is intimidating to the uninitiated, and a lot to handle even for the most seasoned trader. Competent traders must pay attention to and interpret a lot of data quickly, but also filter out less relevant information. Today I’ll break down the most commonly used but frequently misunderstood components of a trading chart. Note that this is not a guide on how to trade or what signals a trading chart could imply but rather a straight forward overview of the information presented.
Candlesticks
At the heart of a trading chart, and for many the most important information displayed, is the candlestick chart. This chart shows price movement over time represented by vertical bars, typically green and red. To people less accustomed to financial trading, a more common line graph would be much more familiar. A line graph simply plots a single vertical value, in our case a price, along a horizontal axis representing time.
Note how a line graph above presents limited information as only a single value can represent an entire day. Very likely the price of an asset during this day was not stable at that single value but certainly had some volatility. The line graph therefore summarizes the individual days by presenting either an average, median, maximum, or minimum price during that time period. All other aspects of the price are lost.
Candlestick charts, invented by Japanese rice traders, on the other hand, can present additional information for a specific time period. The solid red or green bar represents the price when the time period was entered and the final price when the time period was exited. In the case of a green candlestick, the bottom of the green bar is the opening price, while the top is the closing price thereby representing an increase in price during the time period. On the flip side, a red candlestick represents a drop in price, where the top is the opening and the bottom is the closing price.
Candlestick charts get their name from the “wicks” shooting above and below the solid bars. These wicks represent the maximum and minimum price during the time period. In the chart below, the price at precisely 6pm was $11,470. Between 6pm and 7pm the price fluctuated between $11,402 and $11,481. Then at 7pm the price was $11,413.
Candlestick Intervals
Charts are frequently configurable to show information across a time period from the far left to the far right of the chart. Most people are accustomed to configuring the total time covered by the entire chart. For example, if you wanted to see the price movement over a year you would think to configure the chart to a one year interval, which would then arbitrarily break up the year into time periods such as weeks or months. This is how most non-trading charts operate. Trading charts on the other hand usually let you specify only the time period of a single candlestick. Therefore, a “15 minute chart” is not a chart that shows 15 minutes worth of price movement but rather a chart where each candlestick represents 15 minutes of time, such as the chart above. The total time covered by the entire chart is mostly a factor of your screen size, hence why professional traders and degenerate crypto gamblers (is there a difference?) are frequently seen working in front of large multi monitor setups.
Volume Charts
Volume charts are often included beneath a candlestick chart and represent how many units of an asset were exchanged during each time period of a candlestick. Identical to the candlesticks, red volume bars indicate a drop in price, while green bars indicate an increase. There is frequently a high correlation between the amount of volume and the magnitude of price swings. Taller candlesticks are usually accompanied by taller volume bars, as can be seen on the chart below.
Order Book
Typically a trading chart will represent price movement on a specific order matching exchange. Specific to each exchange is the “order book”, which are the various buy and sell orders placed by traders at various prices.
At the center of the order book is the last traded price of an asset, $10,934 in the image above. The red numbers above this price represent the various prices that other traders are asking to sell, while the green numbers below represent the prices traders are bidding to buy. The middle column of white numbers show the quantity of an asset to be sold or bought at the corresponding price. In the chart above, there are a total of 4.96 BTC looking to be sold at the price of $10,942. The far right column of numbers represents the total amount of an asset looking to be bought or sold anywhere between the current price and the order book price. For example in the chart above, a total of 21.17 BTC is for sale between the prices $10,935 and $10,942. This is frequently referred to as the “depth” of an order book and shows how much price movement is likely to occur from buying or selling a given amount of the asset.
Linear vs Logarithmic
Linear charts, like the one pictured above, represent value differences using equidistant vertical spacing. Notice how each vertical space represents exactly $5000 worth of price difference. In a linear chart, the viewer is able to see value changes over time, showing an overall representation of the price directly relative to its highest price value. Looking at this kind of chart allows you to only see volatility in relation to its highest and lowest values, and not the percentage changes. Minor changes on a linear chart appear to be insubstantial when being visually compared to the vast growth of overall price changes.
When you look at the far left of the linear chart above, you can hardly see exponential variances in value, since the fluctuations do not compare to the amount of currency represented in the vertical spacing. Between 2014 and 2015 the price of Bitcoin lost over 80% of its value, going from $1100 to $160. In the chart above that change is barely visible since a $1000 price change is small relative to the $20,000 peak price on the chart.
The logarithmic chart below represents the same asset and time period as the linear chart above. Notice how it helps properly visualize large percentage changes of an asset regardless of the asset price at the time of the change. A 10x increase in price from $10 to $100 is equally represented as a 10x increase from $1000 to $10,000. Looking at the chart below, notice how a ~75% drop in price from $1100 to $260 is represented by the same vertical height as the ~75% drop in price from $19k to $4k. These charts highlight percentage changes regardless of the actual change in value. This is useful in analyzing assets like Bitcoin, which experience large bursts of exponential spikes and crashes over a large period of time.
Coda
While initially intimidating, candlestick charts offer tremendously useful information to both the professional trader and retail investor. With all its switches and knobs it helps paint the history of an asset in various contexts. Whether looking to day trade the micro price changes or simply look for a good entry point for a long term investment, it is a valuable tool at your disposal.
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https://medium.com/edgewallet/how-to-read-a-trading-chart-3d382883df50
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['Brett Maverick Musser']
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2020-09-22 23:18:32.220000+00:00
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['Trading', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ethereum', 'Candlesticks', 'Bitcoin']
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Onyx Equinox [S01E05] Series 1 Episode 5 — “Full” Episodes
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Onyx Equinox : Season 1 , Episode 5 || FULL EPISODES | On Series Onyx Equinox Season 1 Ep 1 Episoder : features the hero in action scenes that display and explore exotic locations. The subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler film, disaster films, and historical dramas-which is similar to the epic film genre. Main plot components include quests for lost continents, a jungle or desert settings, characters going on a treasure hunts and heroic journeys in to the unknown. Adventure films are mostly occur a period background and may include adapted stories of historical or fictional adventure heroes within the historical context. Kings, battles, rebellion or piracy are generally observed in adventure films. Adventure films may also be combined with other movie genres such as for example, science fiction, fantasy and sometimes war films.Onyx Equinox Season 1 French : The coverage of sports as a television program, on radio and other broadcasting media. It usually involves a number of sports commentators describing the events because they happen, to create “colour commentary.”
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❖ ALL CATEGORY WATCHTED ❖
An action story is similar to adventure, and the protagonist usually takes a risky turn, which leads to desperate scenarios (including explosions, fight scenes, daring escapes, etc.). Action and adventure usually are categorized together (sometimes even while “action-adventure”) because they have much in common, and many stories are categorized as both genres simultaneously (for instance, the James Bond series can be classified as both).
Continuing their survival through an age of a Zombie-apocalypse as a makeshift family, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abagail Breslin) have found their balance as a team, settling into the now vacant White House to spend some safe quality time with one another as they figure out their next move. However, spend time at the Presidential residents raise some uncertainty as Columbus proposes to Wichita, which freaks out the independent, lone Onyx Equinox out, while Little Rock starts to feel the need to be on her own. The women suddenly decide to escape in the middle of the night, leaving the men concerned about Little Rock, who’s quickly joined by Berkley (Avan Jogia), a hitchhiking hippie on his way to place called Babylon, a fortified commune that’s supposed to be safe haven against the zombies of the land. Hitting the road to retrieved their loved one, Tallahassee and Columbus meet Madison (Zoey Deutch), a dim-witted survivor who takes an immediate liking to Columbus, complicating his relationship with Wichita.
[]
✅ ANALYZER GOOD / BAD ✅
To be honest, I didn’t catch Zombieland when it first got released (in theaters) back in 501. Of course, the movie pre-dated a lot of the pop culture phenomenon of the usage of zombies-esque as the main antagonist (i.e Game of Thrones, The Maze Runner trilogy, The Walking Dead, World War Z, The Last of Us, etc.), but I’ve never been keen on the whole “Zombie” craze as others are. So, despite the comedy talents on the project, I didn’t see Zombieland….until it came to TV a year or so later. Surprisingly, however, I did like it. Naturally, the zombie apocalypse thing was fine (just wasn’t my thing), but I really enjoyed the film’s humor-based comedy throughout much of the feature. With the exception of 501’s Shaun of the Dead, majority of the past (and future) endeavors of this narrative have always been serious, so it was kind of refreshing to see comedic levity being brought into the mix. Plus, the film’s cast was great, with the four main leads being one of the film’s greatest assets. As mentioned above, Zombieland didn’t make much of a huge splash at the box office, but certainly gained a strong cult following, including myself, in the following years.
Flash forward a decade after its release and Zombieland finally got a sequel with Zombieland: Double Tap, the central focus of this review post. Given how the original film ended, it was clear that a sequel to the 501 movie was indeed possible, but it seemed like it was in no rush as the years kept passing by. So, I was quite surprised to hear that Zombieland was getting a sequel, but also a bit not surprised as well as Hollywood’s recent endeavors have been of the “belated sequels” variety; finding mixed results on each of these projects. I did see the film’s movie trailer, which definitely was what I was looking for in this Zombieland 1 movie, with Eisenberg, Harrelson, Stone, Breslin returning to reprise their respective characters again. I knew I wasn’t expecting anything drastically different from the 501 movie, so I entered Double Tap with good frame of my mind and somewhat eagerly expecting to catch up with this dysfunctional zombie killing family. Unfortunately, while I did see the movie a week after its release, my review for it fell to the wayside as my life in retail got a hold of me during the holidays as well as being sick for a good week and half after seeing the movie. So, with me still playing “catch up” I finally have the time to share my opinions on Zombieland: Double Tap. And what are they? Well, to be honest, my opinions on the film was good. Despite some problems here and there, Zombieland: Double Tap is definitely a fun sequel that’s worth the decade long wait. It doesn’t “redefine” the Zombie genre interest or outmatch its predecessor, but this next chapter of Zombieland still provides an entertaining entry….and that’s all that matters.
Returning to the director’s chair is director Ruben Fleischer, who helmed the first Zombieland movie as well as other film projects such as 5 Minutes or Less, Gangster Squad, and Venom. Thus, given his previous knowledge of shaping the first film, it seems quite suitable (and obvious) for Fleischer to direct this movie and (to that affect), Double Tap succeeds. Of course, with the first film being a “cult classic” of sorts, Fleischer probably knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to replicate the same formula in this sequel, especially since the 5-year gap between the films. Luckily, Fleischer certainly excels in bringing the same type of comedic nuances and cinematic aspects that made the first Zombieland enjoyable to Double Tap; creating a second installment that has plenty of fun and entertainment throughout. A lot of the familiar / likeable aspects of the first film, including the witty banter between four main lead characters, continues to be at the forefront of this sequel; touching upon each character in a amusing way, with plenty of nods and winks to the original 501 film that’s done skillfully and not so much unnecessarily ham-fisted. Additionally, Fleischer keeps the film running at a brisk pace, with the feature having a runtime of 5 minutes in length (one hour and thirty-nine minutes), which means that the film never feels sluggish (even if it meanders through some secondary story beats / side plot threads), with Fleischer ensuring a companion sequel that leans with plenty of laughter and thrills that are presented snappy way (a sort of “thick and fast” notion). Speaking of which, the comedic aspect of the first Zombieland movie is well-represented in Double Tap, with Fleischer still utilizing its cast (more on that below) in a smart and hilarious by mixing comedic personalities / personas with something as serious / gravitas as fighting endless hordes of zombies every where they go. Basically, if you were a fan of the first Zombieland flick, you’ll definitely find Double Tap to your liking.
In terms of production quality, Double Tap is a good feature. Granted, much like the last film, I knew that the overall setting and background layouts weren’t going to be something elaborate and / or expansive. Thus, my opinion of this subject of the movie’s technical presentation isn’t that critical. Taking that into account, Double Tap does (at least) does have that standard “post-apocalyptic” setting of an abandoned building, cityscapes, and roads throughout the feature; littered with unmanned vehicles and rubbish. It certainly has that “look and feel” of the post-zombie world, so Double Tap’s visual aesthetics gets a solid industry standard in my book. Thus, a lot of the other areas that I usually mentioned (i.e set decorations, costumes, cinematography, etc.) fit into that same category as meeting the standards for a 51 movie. Thus, as a whole, the movie’s background nuances and presentation is good, but nothing grand as I didn’t expect to be “wowed” over it. So, it sort of breaks even. This also extends to the film’s score, which was done by David Sardy, which provides a good musical composition for the feature’s various scenes as well as a musical song selection thrown into the mix; interjecting the various zombie and humor bits equally well.
There are some problems that are bit glaring that Double Tap, while effectively fun and entertaining, can’t overcome, which hinders the film from overtaking its predecessor. Perhaps one of the most notable criticism that the movie can’t get right is the narrative being told. Of course, the narrative in the first Zombieland wasn’t exactly the best, but still combined zombie-killing action with its combination of group dynamics between its lead characters. Double Tap, however, is fun, but messy at the same time; creating a frustrating narrative that sounds good on paper, but thinly written when executed. Thus, problem lies within the movie’s script, which was penned by Dave Callaham, Rhett Reese, and Paul Wernick, which is a bit thinly sketched in certain areas of the story, including a side-story involving Tallahassee wanting to head to Graceland, which involves some of the movie’s new supporting characters. It’s fun sequence of events that follows, but adds little to the main narrative and ultimately could’ve been cut completely. Thus, I kind of wanted see Double Tap have more a substance within its narrative. Heck, they even had a decade long gap to come up with a new yarn to spin for this sequel…and it looks like they came up a bit shorter than expected.
Another point of criticism that I have about this is that there aren’t enough zombie action bits as there were in the first Zombieland movie. Much like the Walking Dead series as become, Double Tap seems more focused on its characters (and the dynamics that they share with each other) rather than the group facing the sparse groupings of mindless zombies. However, that was some of the fun of the first movie and Double Tap takes away that element. Yes, there are zombies in the movie and the gang is ready to take care of them (in gruesome fashion), but these mindless beings sort take a back seat for much of the film, with the script and Fleischer seemed more focused on showcasing witty banter between Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock. Of course, the ending climatic piece in the third act gives us the best zombie action scenes of the feature, but it feels a bit “too little, too late” in my opinion. To be honest, this big sequence is a little manufactured and not as fun and unique as the final battle scene in the first film. I know that sounds a bit contrive and weird, but, while the third act big fight seems more polished and staged well, it sort of feels more restricted and doesn’t flow cohesively with the rest of the film’s flow (in matter of speaking).
What’s certainly elevates these points of criticism is the film’s cast, with the main quartet lead acting talents returning to reprise their roles in Double Tap, which is absolutely the “hands down” best part of this sequel. Naturally, I’m talking about the talents of Jessie Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin in their respective roles Zombieland character roles of Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock. Of the four, Harrelson, known for his roles in Cheers, True Detective, and War for the Planet of the Apes, shines as the brightest in the movie, with dialogue lines of Tallahassee proving to be the most hilarious comedy stuff on the sequel. Harrelson certainly knows how to lay it on “thick and fast” with the character and the s**t he says in the movie is definitely funny (regardless if the joke is slightly or dated). Behind him, Eisenberg, known for his roles in The Art of Self-Defense, The Social Network, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, is somewhere in the middle of pack, but still continues to act as the somewhat main protagonist of the feature, including being a narrator for us (the viewers) in this post-zombie apocalypse world. Of course, Eisenberg’s nervous voice and twitchy body movements certainly help the character of Columbus to be likeable and does have a few comedic timing / bits with each of co-stars. Stone, known for her roles in The Help, Superbad, and La La Land, and Breslin, known for her roles in Signs, Little Miss Sunshine, and Definitely, Maybe, round out the quartet; providing some more grown-up / mature character of the group, with Wichita and Little Rock trying to find their place in the world and how they must deal with some of the party members on a personal level. Collectively, these four are what certainly the first movie fun and hilarious and their overall camaraderie / screen-presence with each other hasn’t diminished in the decade long absence. To be it simply, these four are simply riot in the Zombieland and are again in Double Tap.
With the movie keeping the focus on the main quartet of lead Zombieland characters, the one newcomer that certainly takes the spotlight is actress Zoey Deutch, who plays the character of Madison, a dim-witted blonde who joins the group and takes a liking to Columbus. Known for her roles in Before I Fall, The Politician, and Set It Up, Deutch is a somewhat “breath of fresh air” by acting as the tagalong team member to the quartet in a humorous way. Though there isn’t much insight or depth to the character of Madison, Deutch’s ditzy / air-head portrayal of her is quite hilarious and is fun when she’s making comments to Harrelson’s Tallahassee (again, he’s just a riot in the movie).
The rest of the cast, including actor Avan Jogia (Now Apocalypse and Shaft) as Berkeley, a pacifist hippie that quickly befriends Little Rock on her journey, actress Rosario Dawson (Rent and Sin City) as Nevada, the owner of a Elvis-themed motel who Tallahassee quickly takes a shine to, and actors Luke Wilson (Legally Blonde and Old School) and Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie) as Albuquerque and Flagstaff, two traveling zombie-killing partners that are mimic reflections of Tallahassee and Columbus, are in minor supporting roles in Double Tap. While all of these acting talents are good and definitely bring a certain humorous quality to their characters, the characters themselves could’ve been easily expanded upon, with many just being thinly written caricatures. Of course, the movie focuses heavily on the Zombieland quartet (and newcomer Madison), but I wished that these characters could’ve been fleshed out a bit.
Lastly, be sure to still around for the film’s ending credits, with Double Tap offering up two Easter Eggs scenes (one mid-credits and one post-credit scenes). While I won’t spoil them, I do have mention that they are pretty hilarious.
✅ FINAL THOUGHTS ✅
It’s been awhile, but the Zombieland gang is back and are ready to hit the road once again in the movie Zombieland: Double Tap. Director Reuben Fleischer’s latest film sees the return the dysfunctional zombie-killing makeshift family of survivors for another round of bickering, banting, and trying to find their way in a post-apocalyptic world. While the movie’s narrative is a bit messy and could’ve been refined in the storyboarding process as well as having a bit more zombie action, the rest of the feature provides to be a fun endeavor, especially with Fleischer returning to direct the project, the snappy / witty banter amongst its characters, a breezy runtime, and the four lead returning acting talents. Personally, I liked this movie. I definitely found it to my liking as I laugh many times throughout the movie, with the main principal cast lending their screen presence in this post-apocalyptic zombie movie. Thus, my recommendation for this movie is favorable “recommended” as I’m sure it will please many fans of the first movie as well as to the uninitiated (the film is quite easy to follow for newcomers). While the movie doesn’t redefine what was previous done back in 501, Zombieland: Double Tap still provides a riot of laughs with this make-shift quartet of zombie survivors; giving us give us (the viewers) fun and entertaining companion sequel to the original feature.
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https://medium.com/onyx-equinox-s01e05-series-1-episode-5-full/s01-e05-onyx-equinox-series-1-episode-5-ep-5-online-series-a44df7d6140c
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[]
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2020-12-18 21:29:24.905000+00:00
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['Cartoon']
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Annie Hurwich
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Annie Hurwich is a professional and blogger from Vancouver B.C. She has a great interest in fitness and her passion for it inspired her to create a blog for her followers. You may be just worried about fitness; though from her blog you can even get tips on how to stay fit and healthy while traveling. So don’t wait and visit her blog after all it is the question of your fitness that matters the most.
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https://medium.com/@anniehurwich/annie-hurwich-df3c14d0aa39
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[]
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2020-12-16 19:32:49.380000+00:00
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['Healthy Eating', 'Food', 'Healthyfoodforkids', 'Trave', 'Canada']
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Why everyone should see a feminist porn movie at least once?
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This article was written to introduce you into a world of ethical pornography and it will help you to understand an idea of this genre. Don’t be deceived by this name — feminist productions are better than you’re thinking now, seeing this noun. The article will also share reasons why you should watch this genre at least once. Feminist porn isn’t made only by women and just for women — there are lots of men who watch and like it.
An introduction to feminism porn — a context of our considerations
You must understand everything that is between feminism and pornography to see what ethical porn really is. 2 opposite views of porn industry made by feminists had been fighting in the past and it’s still hard to say if both sites understand this topic the way that allows to have any compromis. There are still activists who don’t understand that white heterosexual guys have right to live and then their feminism can’t be connected with any ethics, equality and pornography in the right way. Sometimes we still can’t understand that everybody has the right to their sexuality and it doesn’t matter if you like partners of the same or different genre.
But we believe in real ethical pornography and even if it’s called a feminist type of adult movies, the real value is connected in its assumptions, not in hate to men for instance. So let’s write more about pro and opposite attitudes of feminism that could be faced in the past.
Anti-pornography view of feminists and their arguments
The first attitude of feminism towards pornography is connected with a claim that it is harmful for women. They are right to a some degree but you must understand one thing just right now — they don’t fight for equality and rights there but want to forbid the whole pornography because of men. And this attitude denies assumptions of ethical porn that is based on equality. But let’s start from the beginning.
It’s easy to claim that pornography is harmful for women when we think only about prostitutes, children and actresses forced to do their job. But if we start thinking about 50s researches about women and their roles in society, we can understand fastly that they hadn’t any right to have pleasure during sex then. And then pornography for women could be a form of express for all girls and women who wanted to have pleasure of their bodies — solo or with partners. But when we make pornography a way to emancipation of women, then porn may make sense and help them — and then pornography stands in opposition to feminist vision of only bad society effects of pornography.
Anti-pornography attitude was primarily based on a view that each production of pornography is connected with physical, psychological, and/or economic coercion of the women who perform and model in it and porn movies were based only to please men’s desires and fantasies. Of course, there is a lot of sense in this but feminists sometimes acted as they forgot that ethical porn was invented to make women desires equal with men’s needs.
Many women was harmed working as prostitutes and adult actresses but feminist porn did a lot to make awareness of it bigger and to help women fill their needs. And if we know that pornography may be bad but feminist porn is ethical — it means that feminist porn does good job to inform people.
What is real social harm of pornography? What does ethical pornography fight with?
Feminist porn fights with bad features of “normal” pornography. What are they?
reducing women to sex objects because in normal films only men’s needs and desires are filled
enticement to sexual violence against females using hard BDSM and male domination content
rape on children
hatred on women
distorted view of the human body and sexuality
Sex-positive pornography makes porn content a medium for women’s sexual expression. And ethical movies do everything to show it and make sexuality of all genres equal each other.
Sex-positive feminism and people’s rights to have pleasure
According to sex-positive feminists, each human being has the same right to have pleasure and it doesn’t matter if they are straight or homosexual. Sexuality is an important aspect for all people because we were made as beings who can have sex for pleasure, not only to have offspring.
So what are key ideas of sexually liberal feminism? This type of feminism centres on a view that sexual freedom is an essential part of freedom of women. Activists oppose legal or social efforts to control sexual activities between consenting adults, whether they are initiated by the government, other feminists, opponents of feminism, or any other institution. They also don’t forget about sexual minority groups because they also have the same rights to have pleasure. Sex-positive feminists reject claiming that male sexuality is bad and according to them men also have right to have pleasure — of course, if they respect their partners. Okay, they have also some radical activists but overall assumptions they have are positive for everybody.
Feminist pornography as a positive view on human sexuality
From its definition, feminist porn is:
“dedicated to gender equality and social justice. Feminist pornography is porn that is generated in a fair manner, signifying that performers are paid a reasonable salary and most importantly treated with care and esteem; their approval, security, and well-being are vital, and what they bring to the production is appreciated. Feminist porn searches to expand the ideas about desire, beauty, gratification, and power through unconventional representations, aesthetics, and film making styles. The overall aim of feminist porn is to empower the performers who produce it and the people who view it”
Based on this description, we can write that ethical porn is a way to make women’s and men’s pleasure important the same way and also to make the whole adult industry fair for all people who work there.
Features of ethical porn you must be aware of
In feminist porn as a type of pornography both women and men are treated with the same respects and paid fairly and pleasure shown as realistic (or it is really realistic). Sex bases on satisfaction of both sides, nobody is an object. But feminist porn isn’t made only by women and for women. It shows all options of sexual activities, from soft to hardcore ones and in all genres combinations available. There aren’t only too long and boring movies with hugging and kissing.
Feminist movies have also a little different way of filming the whole act. Scenes are wider and a viewer can see more details, having this way more stimulants than watching videos focused mainly on genitals.
Short history of feminist porn and its role in mainstream
Everything started in 70s and feminist porn was a subject of dispute between its defenders and opponents. But at last it was a good stimulus — this dialogue created first magazines and movies for women. To that moment women hadn’t been treated as beings that may have pleasure of sex. They had to get pregnant and be housewives, nothing more. Feminism porn as a source of expressing — had changed this attitude. Women started to understand that they also have the right to feel sexual satisfaction.
In 90s directors and activists started to tell more about quality and sensibility in sex and it was a time of making quite a lot of films that had been becoming more and more popular — they were watched by women and men. They became that popular because they showed wider context of sexuality and more emotions.
But the real expansion of ethical movies was started by the Internet. It caused that these films were available for everybody who wanted to watch some feminists movies. Then you didn’t have to buy DVDs or go anywhere — it was enough to turn their computer on and search on websites that offered this type of entertainment.
Ethics in feminist porn movies
Ethics is a basic assumption of feminist productions. Every side of making these films must be treated equal with others and everyone has the same right to have pleasure. The next thing in each movie of this type is agreement — even a plot is hardcore, each activities are made with mutual respect and asking for agreement.
It means that feminist porn is a genre that shows equality and good will of all sides of sex. And it’s a main lesson everybody should learn from watching this movies. Because everything is accepted in sex if all sides want to do it.
Why everyone should see a feminist movie at least one time?
Feminist films show real value and action in sex — they tell truth, they don’t show fantasies that make actors objects. They learn viewers how great sex is and how it looks in real life. Especially because some of these productions shows also short interviews with actors and directions and they explain their vision and a way they interact. There are also causes and effects dialogues that also explain the whole plot and that show agreements of partners for various actions on a screen.
And because of this feminist movies should be viewed by all people. They can show people reality of sex and be even educational to some degree. Mainly for younger viewers who learn adult life from porn movies (and these normal films may broke their point of view on how sex looks like). They should be watched by people because they show wider perspective — both considering on making scenes and showing context.
And at the end one thing to consider — sometimes you can watch a movie and even don’t know that it’s a feminist one. They aren’t worse than normal porn and they are appreciated by many women and men. They may even don’t like feminism — sometimes they like just watching more sensual films with more stimulants. And it makes their viewers of ethical porn even if they don’t know it. So if you watch porn with more elements than only simple fucking, you can even have been already in a group of viewers who watch feminist porn and don’t know it.
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https://medium.com/@fapdistrict/why-everyone-should-see-a-feminist-porn-movie-at-least-once-c9ddb51d48eb
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[]
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2020-02-20 10:50:05.189000+00:00
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['Feminist Porn', 'Feminism', 'Pornography', 'Porn', 'Sex Education']
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Theta + SamsungVR — The latest in a long line of VR breakthroughs for the Theta team
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If you haven’t heard the news, SamsungVR went live last month with a new channel powered by the Theta blockchain! SamsungVR’s initial deployment with Theta will stream SLIVER.tv esports content in virtual reality, the first in history to be livestreamed with blockchain. Any user that logs on can start sharing relaying 360 VR streams to other viewers, and the tokens they earn in return are all viewable on the Theta testnet blockchain. The deployment will start with desktop VR, with mobile and VR headset access to be added in the coming months.
While we’re proud of this recent milestone, many people don’t realize that the Theta team’s experience with VR content began long before the Theta project was launched. In fact, Mitch, Jieyi, and the rest of the Theta team actually pioneered VR livestreaming of esports in the early days of SLIVER.tv.
As early as September 2016, SLIVER.tv was creating the first-ever VR livestream of a major esports tournament at ESL One in partnership with Nvidia, live with 10,000 spectators at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
This is 360 spherical video! Try clicking and dragging your cursor to look around
Running on a cluster of NVIDIA GPUs the team was able to record multiple in-game 2D streams, render 360 VR images in real-time, then distribute the video to an estimated 50,000 viewers across the SLIVER.tv website, app, and VR app. All of this done live, with essentially zero lag!
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https://medium.com/theta-network/theta-samsungvr-the-latest-in-a-long-line-of-vr-breakthroughs-for-the-theta-team-b187b176de2e
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['Theta Labs']
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2018-10-18 18:44:20.904000+00:00
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['Virtual Reality', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Esport', 'Samsung']
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Battling Hopelessness in the Face Of The Climate Emergency
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The enormity of the burgeoning climate emergency and the baffling propensity of our leaders — and many of our citizens — to take a “do nothing” stance can easily leave people feeling hopeless and helpless.
Given the situation we find ourselves in, a sense of hopelessness is perhaps understandable.
But, I think that it is vital that we do everything we can to remain positive and keep trying, even if our actions initially seem futile.
Why? Because there IS still time to build and maintain a sustainable future. We CAN still take meaningful action. There IS still hope. All is not yet lost.
And, every one of us is capable of taking meaningful action, however small.
It’s true that the actions you take may not make a great deal of difference by themselves. But, one way or another, actions lead to further actions. Further actions by yourself and by others that you have inspired or encouraged. And all those little actions combined can CERTAINLY make a difference.
How? Here’s a simple example to illustrate the point
Lets’ say you decide to try to reduce waste in your household.
So, when shopping, you choose products that are not needlessly bagged or plastic-wrapped. If a product uses excessive and unnecessary packaging, you seek a less overpackaged alternative.
You don’t buy more food than you can actually eat before its use-by date and you get creative with leftovers.
You compost your food scraps and ensure that you recycle everything you can. You start reusing glass jars or other containers to store food rather than using plastic bags or cling wrap.
You keep documents digital rather than printing them.
You slap a “No Junk Mail” sign on your letterbox.
Such simple actions might seem unimportant in the grander scheme of things.
But, taking that first action can get you thinking about other things you can do to combat climate change and help protect the natural environment.
You might write to a politician or sign a petition calling on the government to take meaningful action to address the climate emergency. You might become actively involved in political and environmental groups fighting for our future.
You might start speaking up about your concerns about climate change rather than staying silent.
Because you are now more actively involved, your awareness is elevated. You will likely see more and more ways of helping. And because you’re passionate about the issues and feel inspired and empowered, you'll likely tell your friends and family about what you are doing, either in person or on social media.
At least a few of those people may follow your lead and start taking action as well. And, in turn, they’ll inspire others to act.
Imagine the same scenario played out thousands or millions of times by ordinary people all around the world. Tiny actions by ordinary people can and do lead to meaningful change.
So, if you’re feeling hopeless and don’t think that you can do anything meaningful to help, push through it. Take some tiny action and see where it leads.
Last week, I was feeling disillusioned and greatly frustrated by the betrayal of our leaders regarding climate change action. So I grabbed a bag and walked for about 2 kilometres along the foreshore near my home picking up rubbish as I went. I was amazed at how much I found in such a short stretch. Much of it was plastic that would have soon ended up in the ocean.
Sure, the amount of garbage I collected was infinitesimal when compared to how much ends up in our oceans and waterways.
But, even if I saved just one marine animal from being killed by plastic waste, then I feel that my efforts were worthwhile. And, other people I saw along the way were taking notice. Perhaps one of them will be inspired to take some small action as well.
Don’t ever think that you can’t make a difference. You can! Your actions count. Don’t give up hope. Don’t give in.
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https://medium.com/positively-green/battling-hopelessness-in-the-face-of-the-climate-emergency-b78f18c9c50b
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['Brett Christensen']
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2019-10-15 08:16:29.580000+00:00
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['Hope', 'Sustainability', 'Climate Change', 'Climate Action', 'Environment']
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2021 Women’s Fashion Trends That Will Make Your Life Simpler
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2021 Women’s Fashion Trends That Will Make Your Life Simpler
Covid-19 changed everything — including the fashion industry. The fashion industry has declined during 2020 for many reasons: people staying home willingly to shield themselves from the virus; restricted travel; job lay-offs; working from home; and not many places to go, period. So why shop at all?
However, fashion marches on for the ladies who embrace looking cute for Zoom calls and those who ventured out to outdoor concerts, outdoor dining, and finally socially distanced indoor dining when it became safe to do so.
So, what’s fashion forward for 2021?
Woman wearing black face mask fashion trend
Pretty colors will come into play for women’s fashion. Pastels, yellow, camel, bubblegum pink, and bold blues will be all the rage. But when it comes to face masks, the chic color of choice is black. The reason for black face masks is that they match almost every outfit and are considered stylish by the fashion industry.
Borrowing from other decades, some of the hip fashion items we’ll be seeing for women include oversized jackets (1980s), head scarves (1950s, 1960s), and white knee-high boots — 1960s go-go style! You’ll also notice wide-bottomed denim jeans, taken from the 1970s. They’ll be mainly high-rise, but way too cool to be confused with “mom’s jeans.”
Dresses will be joyful mood-lifters — and we certainly can use that! Larger-than-life, puffy-sleeved, and whimsical; made of satins and silks, brilliantly colored orange, and fuchsia. With a vaccine for Covid on the horizon, celebratory clothing will certainly be a hit.
An ingenious way to shop at home
Women’s fashion clothes subscription box
As women are looking forward to going out again, they may still be shopping at home — via clothing subscription boxes.
During 2020, women did not have access to retail stores, so they spent much more time shopping online. That included apparel, of course. Many women — and men — also discovered the benefits of having a clothing subscription box. Some of the popular ones include Stitch Fix, Daily Look, and Wantable.
The way it works is you are assigned a personal stylist who picks out clothes for you, stuffs them in a box, and mails them to you. You try on the clothes. What you like, you keep. What you don’t like, you send back in a prepaid package. And you don’t pay for anything until you decide to keep it. It’s a win/win. You don’t have to leave your home. You have the benefit of trying on clothes in complete privacy. And you can also go through your closet to see if you already own something that can match with what you may be interested in keeping. You can’t beat that!
This is how your stylist gets to know you:
Woman unboxing clothes from online order
First, you fill out a bunch of quizzes, letting the companies know your sizes and personal taste. Depending on the company, it could be a series of “Is this your style?”; or running through a stream picking a “wish list” or a “decline”; or sending notes and photos directly to your stylist!
Once a month you pay a styling fee (between $20 to $40, depending which company you go with) which is used as a credit towards your purchase. You’ll receive a box of five to 10 items (again, depending on which company you go with). Items can be blouses, pants, coats, scarves, jeans, sweaters, bags, hats, shoes, accessories, or boots. All pieces are from a variety of designers. You may even see your favorites.
After you try on the clothes and decide what you want to keep, you have between three and seven days to return them in the prepaid package. Then you go online and “check out.” When checking out, you will be provided with boxes to explain why you love something or why you’re returning it. This will help your stylist get to know you better.
The best part is that the commitment isn’t really a commitment. You can opt out anytime. But if you like this way of clothes shopping, you can receive boxes once a month, more often, or less often. It’s all about you and your fashion needs!
When the world returns to normal; or as it spins with the “new normal” you can be as fashion-ready as ever if you start shopping now.
If you’d like to try Stitch Fix, you can use the author’s referral link for a $25 credit towards your first purchase.
What are some women’s fashion trends to look out for in 2021? Let us know down in the comments.
This article originally published on GREY Journal.
This article originally published on GREY Journal: https://greyjournal.net/play/style/2021-womens-fashion-trends-that-will-make-your-life-simpler/
|
https://medium.com/@GREYJournal/2021-womens-fashion-trends-that-will-make-your-life-simpler-3f03142bc1cb
|
['Grey Journal Staff']
|
2020-12-14 16:10:20.657000+00:00
|
['Style', 'Ecommerce', 'Online Shopping', 'Spring Fashion', 'Stitch Fix']
|
Staring at the Ceilings at 2 AM
|
Eyes remained open, as though there is an ocean of hopes lying for them to see
The heart remained to beat, as though there is a constant of surges for it to tell the world how terrible it would be to stop
Cognizant of the remains from what used to be there
All are shattered in an instant, what remains to see have not appeared in such silver linings
Breathes carefully, breathes deeply, for every breath tells the heart that it’s still alive
Hear what the heart says, even the closest voice to the world is a thousand miles away
What the heart tells is the innermost part of the desire,
Even though the brain is never in agreement with that
The best dreams happen when you are asleep,
For you can enjoy every trace of your flowery desire
The best nightmares happen when you lie awake,
For you can regain control of what will happen to you
Moments pass, moments pass, and the dreams continue
To the day, that shall never come again into your life
For every day is the same as before, indistinguishable from one day to the next
In search of that day, the heart still beats with the intensity of a taiko drum at a festival
|
https://medium.com/@baguspratomo/staring-at-the-ceilings-at-2-am-b041a1f442f3
|
['Bagus Anugerah Yoga']
|
2021-07-15 19:18:17.753000+00:00
|
['Poem', 'Insomnia', 'Poetry', 'Random Thoughts', 'Heart']
|
Neymar Jr.- Brazil’s One for the Future
|
For the past two decades, Brazil has always been a strong contender in international competitions.The quality and quantity of talent that crop up from brazil style of play are known throughout the footballing realm.
Their `Joga bonito’ has always amazed, amused and entertained football fanatics throughout the world.
Brazil has always nurtured and discovered great talent and still continues to do so.
But the Selecao boys for the first time in the recent past did not enter the 2013 confederations cup as one of the favourites. European giants Spain, France and Italy still looked stronger. Brazil’s unanticipated elimination from the 2010 world cup and a distasteful performance in 2011 Copa America proved that they needed some kinda overhauling both in terms of player selection and game plan. Subsequently, brazil tumbled down to 11th spot in FIFA rankings. Though they went on to deliver an exceptional performance throughout the year 2011 and were on a winning streak. But the following year came out to be a complete antonym of the previous year. Brazil had to face the bitter reality of slumping down more to the 22nd spot in the FIFA ranking in June 2013. This was their worst since the inception of the ranking system in 1992.
The accomplished Luis Filipe Scolari was introduced as the new Brazil coach in November 2012 and had a bad start to the year with back to back defeats against Mexico. But the samba boys picked themselves up and commenced the confederations cup with some style and vigour. With the lagniappe of Neymar jr. in the roster, the samba boys cruised through to the finals and eventually came out victorious in the final against the mighty and undefeated Spanish matadors. Neymar’s presence could be seen throughout the tournament and he proved why he is worth 57 million euros. His otherworldly performance throughout the competition was rewarded with the player of the tournament award. Spain could have easily outplayed in the final against brazil if it weren’t for the tenacious David Luis who popped up frequently to resolve any defensive crises. One of the highlights was the goalline clearance by David Luis which could have been a game-changer. Spain missing the valuable penalty and sending off of Gerard pique was slowly revealing the end of Spain’s 29 matches undefeated winning streak.
Though Brazil came out as champions, their dependence on Neymar and defensive flaws will not be able to make them the favourites for the upcoming world cup. For instance, their wing-backs i.e Dani Alves and Marcelo often run up the flanks to assist with the attack and maintain the high tempo of the attack they provide. This eventually leaves the flanks utterly exposed. Defensive midfielders like Luis Gustavo and Paulinho help cover for central defenders, but this might not be enough to create a perfect team for the World Cup. They seriously need a gameplan overhaul to compete with other European giants.
On the other front, Neymar jr was the man of the whole tournament and has been prolific in Brazil’s attack. Now, as the new season begins, FC Barcelona’s latest big-money signing will have the test of his life. Hence, the question remains if Neymar will turn his Confederations Cup brilliance into consistency now at club level. His array of unique hairdos and his elastic style of play might provide some swagger into Barca’s game. But there are many questions which need to be answered.
The Selecao boys have released their Kraken — Neymar Jr
Confederations Cup is one thing and playing in a hectic la Liga, Champions league calendar is another. Will he be able to co-exist with a player like Messi? Neymar might diversify Tito Vinalova’s gameplan but will he be able to handle the physicality involved in the Spanish league. Will he be able to adjust to the famous tiki-taka football of the Blaugrana? Only time will tell. It would be disappointing to see him ending up like other Brazilian duds who failed to shine in Europe. Neymar has a different kind of approach to his play as compared to Barca play. Well, this is how players become legends, who can adapt to any type of gameplay. With David villa gone, Neymar will have a lot of game time and I’m quite curious to see him play. Neymar will surely provide support to Messi and relieve Messi’s pressure of scoring goals.
His appetite for scoring was highlighted in the Confederations Cup and if he continues with the same vigour to score, this prodigy from Santos can create wonders in Europe. He could even be one day a Ballon D’or winner. One thing is quite evident that Brazil never disappoints in mining new talent. With the new season just around the corner, all cameras will be on Neymar’s mercurial feet. If he does succeed at the club level, then it is quite evident that Brazil will emerge stronger than ever in the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
|
https://medium.com/@siddhant.prakash.singh/neymar-jr-brazils-one-for-the-future-22e8a97ed705
|
['Siddhant Singh']
|
2021-12-10 05:55:33.604000+00:00
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['Fifa World Cup', 'Football', 'Sports', 'Brazil', 'Soccer']
|
The Egg It was a typical winter evening.
|
The Egg
It was a typical winter evening. The hardened snow was all over the tarmac. Kiera was walking along the road face down, lost in her own thoughts while the vehicles passed by. After a deep sigh, Kiera raised her head, tears falling down from her cheeks, I must forget and move on, she said to herself, suddenly the headlights of a car flashed in her face, bringing back the whole incident.
You know this is not the most appropriate time to go out specially for you, said Max.
Hey don’t blame me, blame her, said Kiera pointing towards her baby bump. And if I may add, I think she got this from you.
Me? What on earth made you say that?
You yes you, the king of inappropriate timing, said Kiera laughing away.…Max watch out!!
But it was too late, a reindeer had come from nowhere. Max jerked the wheels in opposite direction to save the animal but had lost control over the car.
Hold on, shouted Max as the car fell into the ditch.
Tears came out of Kiera’s eyes reminiscing the incident. She placed her hand on her flat stomach, that accident had taken everything from her.
I think I’ll take the forest road and fall off in a ditch and finish this story once and for all.
She started on the forest path when she stumbled upon a rock, what’s this, she wondered.
This doesn’t look like a rock. As Kiera dusted away the dirt over it, it’s shiny blue surface began to emerge. It looks like some sort of an egg but I have never seen anything of this kind ever before.
Kiera brought the egg back to her home. Let’s get you all nice and comfortable. She hurried to the closet and took out the blankets. Hurriedly, she started the fireplace and made a nest of blankets and placed the egg within.
There you go now, she said relieved.
Kiera was finding it hard to get her eyes of the egg, like it’s gonna hatch any moment, silly me, she thought and strode into the kitchen to prepare her dinner.
When she came back in the hall with her dinner she was shocked to see that egg had started melting slightly. Gasping heavily, she removed the blankets. The metalic blue covering of the shell has started dripping, the engravings had become almost invisible.
This cannot be a man-made artifact they don’t melt away at such low temperature, but neither do natural eggs, I mean it’s not like I placed it into the fireplace, exclaimed Kiera furiously.
I am cursed, you had better chance of hatching out in the cold than in here with me. I guess I am not meant to bring any life in this world, hell I can’t even help any life come into this world.
Disheartened, she threw away the egg out in the snow.
That night was the night of the biggest and the baddest storm in the history of storms. It felt like nature was wrecking havoc.
Finally the storm stopped after two days and the sun emerged. Kiera stepped out to bask in the much awaited rays of the sun.
What’s that? A strange gnarling sound seemed to be coming from behind. Kiera moved towards the window, it seems to be coming from under the ground. She started digging the huge pile of ice and soon she found it.
It was a strange looking animal. It’s metallic blue skin shining in the morning sun. That’s where I threw the egg, she pondered. Kiera hurriedly took the animal inside, took out her laptop and started searching for it.
You are too scaled for a bird, too alive for a dinosaur and too impossible for pretty much anything else and still here we are.
Kiera kept searching the net, from fossilized animals to mythical but a precise description of any such animal was nowhere to be found.
This is the last one I am opening, you better have the answers. Looks like a dragon encyclopaedia, scrolling down, down... down, wait...she was staring dead in the screen. I think I found you, metalic blue skin, icy clear wings, emits ice rather than fir from its mouth.…an ice dragon, the rarest kind of dragon to have ever been mentioned in the texts, so that’s what you are. They need sub zero conditions to hatch, she read on...that’s it, that’s why you started melting at the slightest heat.
Kiera turned around to look at her mythical friend. Hey junior, I see you have made your own icy playing field on my couch, she exclaimed looking at the tiny creature.
The dragon flew straight in her arms and cozied itself in her laps, it’s big bulging icy blue eyes looking straight into her.
Is this a gift from you Max? she thought, her eyes started watering as she looked up, thank you God..thank you!
|
https://medium.com/@shatakshisharma292/the-egg-it-was-a-typical-winter-evening-5ee2506cec79
|
['Shatakshi Sharma']
|
2020-12-23 14:20:45.728000+00:00
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['Emotions', 'Fiction', 'Short Story']
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Manifold clustering in the embedding space using UMAP and GMM
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Manifold clustering in the embedding space using UMAP and GMM
Photo by DIMA VALENTINA on Unsplash
In the previous article Extracting rich embedding features from pictures using PyTorch and ResNeXt-WSL we have seen how to represent pictures into a multi-dimensional numerical embedding space. We have also seen the effectiveness of the embedding space to represent similar pictures closely to each other. In this tutorial, we will see a few clustering techniques that are suitable for discovering and identifying the manifolds in our dataset.
Moreover, the proposed clustering technique is also motivated by the “document embedding averaging” that will be described in the next article.
Dimensionality reduction via Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP)
Dimensionality reduction is not just used for data visualization, but it is a fundamental step for clustering algorithms due to the “ curse of dimensionality “. In other words, if the number of dimensions increases then most of the points will start to look as similar and as different from each other across at least a few of those dimensions. The effect is that there is no clear structure to follow resulting in a random grouping of the data points.
The unsupervised dimensionality reduction techniques are divided into two families: Linear Projection and Manifold Learning.
The main difference of manifold learning with linear projections (e.g. PCA, SVD) is that it can handle non-linear relationships in the data and it is very effective for clustering groups of similar data points preserving their relative proximities. For our purposes and given the nature of our data (the embedding space generated by a deep convolutional neural network), we do not consider any linear projection technique as suitable.
In the manifold learning family, there are two main competitors: t-SNE and UMAP.
t-SNE 3d projection of COCO detection 2017 pictures colored by supercategory
UMAP 3d projection of COCO detection 2017 pictures colored by supercategory
t-SNE vs UMAP 3d projection of COCO detection 2017 pictures colored by supercategory
Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) is a general-purpose manifold learning and dimension reduction algorithm.
T-distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding (t-SNE) is an algorithm that generates a low-dimensional graph trying to keep similar instances close and dissimilar instances apart.
They sound similar, and in fact from a lot of aspects they are. Nevertheless, let’s summarize a few reasons to prefer UMAP over t-SNE for clustering purposes:
Comparison of t-SNE and UMAP
For a more comprehensive comparison of t-SNE vs. UMAP please refer to the following article: How exactly UMAP works.
For the reasons discussed above, we can conclude that t-SNE is a great visualization tool but UMAP is a more suitable technique for clustering purposes in the case of manifold structures.
Clustering with Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM)
GMM is a probabilistic model that assumes all the data points are generated from a mixture of a finite number of Gaussian distributions with unknown parameters. It can be seen as a generalization of the more popular k-means model. The advantage of using GMM over k-means is that it can represent clusters of different sizes and shapes based on a parametric covariance matrix.
In k-means the clusters are spherical over all of the dimensions and share the same diameter. This is a big limitation when considering a manifold feature space as is the case of transforming a deep convolutional neural network embedding space with UMAP.
Different clustering output using the two models on the iris dataset
(source)
Another distinction is in the interpretation of the clustering output. k-means divide the space into voronoi cells and hard assign each point to the cluster of the closest centroid. GMM, on the other hand, gives us an interpretable output modeling the probability that each data point belong to each cluster. The latter is a desired probability for dealing with fuzzy situations in presence of overlapping clusters or outliers.
GMM parameters
As with k-means, also GMM requires the number of clusters k to be specified.
Moreover, in order for GMM to be able to model arbitrary elliptic shapes in the feature space, the covariance matrix should be “full”. The problem with “full” GMM models is that the degrees of freedom increase quadratically with the dimension of the feature space, risking to overfit the data. There are a few constrained versions of GMM that impose certain properties to the covariance matrix., namely: spherical, diagonal, and tied.
Cluster shapes obtained using different covariance types
(source: scikit-learn)
Spherical is a “diagonal” situation with circular contours (spherical in higher dimensions, whence the name).
is a “diagonal” situation with circular contours (spherical in higher dimensions, whence the name). Diagonal means the contour axes are oriented along the coordinate axes, but otherwise the eccentricities may vary between components.
means the contour axes are oriented along the coordinate axes, but otherwise the eccentricities may vary between components. Full means the components may independently adopt any position and shape.
means the components may independently adopt any position and shape. Tied means they have the same shape, but the shape may be anything.
We are now left with two major parameters to tune: the number of clusters k and the covariance type among the 4 options listed above.
Model selection using BIC and Silhouette scores
Likely, since GMM is a probabilistic model we can calculate the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) that is a statistics calculated as the sum of the negative log-likelihood of the model and a penalty term that is a function of the number of data samples and the number of free parameters of the model. The smaller the BIC value the more preferable is the model. Nonetheless, searching for the minimum BIC score may suggest selecting a model with a lot of clusters in front of tiny decreases of the score. That is why a preferred approach is to identify the elbow of the curve that corresponds to the minimum of the second derivative.
The BIC score is comparable among different clustering outputs only if they are representing the same points in the same feature space. That is, we cannot compare data points reduced via PCA with data points reduced via UMAP.
Another technique is the Silhouette score that is an empirical method measuring the consistency of the clusters by comparing how much a point is similar to its cluster (cohesion) compared to the other clusters (separation). The silhouette ranges from −1 to +1, where a high value indicates that the object is well matched to its own cluster and poorly matched to neighboring clusters. If most objects have a high value, then the clustering configuration is appropriate, otherwise the clustering configuration may have too many or too few clusters.
If we plot both the BIC and Silhouette curves as function of the number of clusters k for the 4 different covariance types we obtain the following graph:
GMM model selection using both the BIC and Silhouette scores. Image by Author.
The dot points correspond, respectively, to the elbow and the maximum of the BIC and Silhouette curves.
We can conclude that the ideal number of clusters should be between 30 and 50.
In terms of the covariance type, the tied type minimizes the BIC while there is not strong evidence of worsening results in the Silhouette curve.
The lower BIC score can be explained by the good trade-off between low model complexity and the high likelihood of the points. Moreover, given the nature of the feature space, it does make sense to consider manifolds of irregular but similar shapes.
Tied covariance matrix of the GMM model trained with 40 clusters. Image by Author.
The selected configuration for us will be tied covariance type and 40 clusters.
Visualizing the clusters
In order to visualize the clusters we will re-use the 3D projections that were calculated in Extracting rich embedding features from pictures using PyTorch and ResNeXt-WSL but we will color the points based on the assigned clusters rather than the COCO super categories of the pictures.
First row: PCA 3D projection colored by COCO categories (on the left) or the GMM clusters (on the right). Second row: UMAP 3D projection colored by COCO categories (on the left) or the GMM clusters (on the right).
Comparison with the COCO taxonomy
Predicting COCO annotations via supervised learning
In order to measure the predictive power of the embedding space, let’s try to predict the COCO annotations. We can train a random forest classifier with default parameters on a multi-labels task. Since each picture can have none, one, or many categories annotated, the task consists of predicting whether a given label is present or not in the picture.
I have used 4000 pictures for training and 1000 for the test stratifying on the most frequent label in each picture. The multilabel accuracy ( exact subset of labels match as defined in scikit-learn) would be 16.7% which is not bad considering the high cardinality of the task. If we micro-average all of the label predictions we can perform a binary evaluation:
Confusion matrix for the multi-label random forest classifier
We have achieved 89% precision and 31% recall on all of the possible picture annotations, not bad and not great. We should consider that we only trained on a very small sample of pictures and a few labels had very few occurrences. Nonetheless, the purpose of this tutorial is not to predict COCO categories but rather to show the effectiveness of the embedding features in identifying correct manifolds.
Clusters similarity and consistency
Since we have grouped the COCO pictures into 40 unsupervised clusters, let’s compare our grouping with the categories provided in the COCO taxonomy. We can use the Adjusted Rand Index that is a measure of similarity between two clustering outputs. The higher the score, the higher the consistency between the two groupings.
We obtained the following results:
AdjustedRand(GMM_clusters, COCO_supercategories) = 0.09955
AdjustedRand(GMM_clusters, COCO_categories) = 0.08844
As we could have already observed from the 3D projections, we can conclude that the discovered topicality defined by the manifolds in the data does not match the COCO taxonomy.
Pictures in the cluster
What topic is each cluster representing then?
Let’s print the pictures closest to the centroid in a few sample clusters.
Cluster 0: horses
Cluster 3: dining
Cluster 10: sea and watersports
Cluster 18: bears
Cluster 22: towers
Conclusions
In this tutorial, we have learned how to cluster pictures in their latent embedding space. We first have used UMAP for isolating manifolds and projecting them into a lower-dimensional space. We then used GMM for discovering the high-density areas in the UMAP space. The BIC elbow and Silhouette techniques were used to find the ideal number of clusters as well as the constraints to the covariance matrix. Through the AdjustedRand test, we demonstrated that the data is intrinsically organized into major topics that do not match with the COCO taxonomy. For instance, we found clusters for horses, bears, towers, watersports, people’s dining, and more.
The presented methodology can be used to cluster any dataset that presents high-dimensional manifolds, not just pictures. It is in general suitable for embeddings produced by neural network models.
If instead of using a pre-trained network, you are training your own, you may want to consider a small dimensionality (below 50) such that you may not need any dimensionality reduction before clustering. Other clustering algorithms that work with any kind of shapes, and are not constrained by the Gaussian mixture assumption, are the hierarchical density-based models such as HDBSCAN.
Stay tuned for the next article on how to exploit embedding features and the manifolds clusters to average and represent collections of datapoints (documents) into the same latent space.
You can find the code and the notebooks at https://github.com/gm-spacagna/docem.
If you want to learn more about tuning techniques for data clustering algorithms you can read those articles: Data Clustering? don’t worry about the algorithm and A Distributed Genetic Evolutionary Tuning for Data Clustering: Part 1.
|
https://towardsdatascience.com/manifold-clustering-in-the-embedding-space-using-umap-and-gmm-dbab26a9efba
|
['Gianmario Spacagna']
|
2021-01-03 09:29:45.053000+00:00
|
['Gmm', 'Umap', 'Clustering', 'Dimensionality Reduction', 'Manifold Learning']
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Ask Dr. NerdLove: Should I Lower My Standards?
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Ask Dr. NerdLove: Should I Lower My Standards?
Is finding sexual partners I want really just a never ending mirage?
Photo credit: Shutterstock
By Harris O’Malley
Hi Doc, I started dating in my early twenties and in that time I learned a lot about who I gel with and who to stay the he** away from. However, one thing that I noticed was a common theme:
I kept dating people I wasn’t really attracted to.
I felt that I had to “learn and practice” dating with people I didn’t have much interest in, and that I had to be “good” at it before going for who I really wanted to date. Mostly because whenever I meet someone I’m really attracted to, I always f*ck it up, get oneitis, self-sabotage, and don’t know how to fix it. It feels like the universe conspires to make sure I don’t get what I want and that I don’t deserve it (which is confusing because it’s not like I’m asking for much or anyways. Just someone who is into books, deep conversations, and is on the nerdier and curvier side of physical looks. I really don’t care if someone is “hot” or “smokin” in the looks department). I think those are fair standards right?
I see my types all over the place so “scarcity” shouldn’t be an issue. If I mess up I can just try again. But the problem is that everything feels out of reach for me and that I have to settle for people I am not attracted to (despite having interests in common for friendship which is nice, but I am looking for something more than just friends.) I never have these problems with people I’m not attracted to, but I’ll have sex with them anyways to get my sexual needs met, and then I feel bad for not giving them my full undivided interest and attention when it comes to dating and then I eventually just fade things off.
Is finding sexual partners I want really just a never ending mirage?
Lowered Expectations
I love it when people ask me questions that can be answered in one word: No.
Wait, you probably want more than that, huh?
Here’s your issue in a nutshell, LE: you don’t believe you deserve to date someone you’re attracted to. All of the setbacks you describe: self-sabotage, Oneitis, etc? That’s not the universe conspiring against you, LE, that’s you kneecapping yourself. You believe at some level that because you aren’t worthy of dating someone you’re actually attracted to, that you’re going to inevitably get hurt, so instead you blow your chances before they even start; after all, can’t get hurt if you never have a shot in the first place, right?
This also leads to the people you are dating. You feel as though you’re unworthy of the people you’re actually interested in, so you pursue folks who are “safe”; you know that you don’t care about them that much, so there’s no real emotional risk for you. You get your itch scratched with minimal investment on your end; thus, when things fall apart, it’s no great loss to you.
But, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, there a few problems with this outlook. The first is simple: you may be getting laid, but it sure as hell ain’t satisfying. In fact, I suspect that sex with your recent parters feels more like masturbation. Hell, it’s possibly not actually as worthwhile as masturbation; at least that’s sex with someone you love. And I imagine you have noticed that being with these partners — the ones you’re not attracted to — feels almost lonelier than actually being by yourself.
And then there’s the fact that this is pretty d**n cruel to the people who have emotionally invested in you. After all, they deserve to have a partner who’s actually into them, just as much as they’re into you, no?
You need to start believing in your own worth, LE. You said it yourself: it’s not as though the people you’re into are an especially rare resource or thin on the ground. You’re well aware that, should things not work out, there will be other chances for you out there. The thing isn’t that these people are out of your reach, it’s that you won’t let yourself try. It’s not even that you’re making the attempt and failing; you’ve already decided that you’ve failed before you’ve even started.
If you want to actually start dating people you’re into, then you need to take them off the pedestal and — more importantly — stop letting your fears and self-limiting beliefs hold you back.
To quote Oscar Wilde: shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you’ll still be among the stars.
Good luck.
—
The story was previously published on The Good Men Project.
|
https://medium.com/hello-love/ask-dr-nerdlove-should-i-lower-my-standards-933ba818c06f
|
['The Good Men Project']
|
2020-10-04 03:47:12.874000+00:00
|
['Relationships', 'Advice', 'Standards', 'Attraction', 'Dating']
|
Better logs for ExpressJS using Winston and Morgan with Typescript
|
Let’s start
First of all, we need an ExpressJS application. You can clone this repository.
Start the server
The project was created using a from-scratch basic configuration. Start the server using this command:
cd medium-morgan-winston-example
npm install
npm run dev
Install Winston
Winston is a useful library that is needed to configure and customize the application logs accessing a lot of helpful features.
To use the plain console.log without a third-party library, we need to write a lot of code and reinvent the wheel understanding all the edge cases caught by Winston in these years.
Here there are the main features that we should implement inside our project:
Differentiate log levels: error, warn, info, HTTP, debug
Differentiate colors adding one to each log level
Show or hide different log levels based on the application ENV; e.g., we won’t show all the logs when the application runs in production.
Adding a timestamp to each log line
Save logs inside files
npm install winston
Configure Winston
In the lines below, there is a simple configuration of our logger. Copy and paste them inside your project. You can use this path: src/lib/logger.ts or something similar.
I’ll explain every single row later.
Now you have the ability to use the Logger function anywhere inside your application importing it.
Go to the index.ts file where the ExpressJS server is defined and replace all the console.log with the custom Logger methods.
|
https://levelup.gitconnected.com/better-logs-for-expressjs-using-winston-and-morgan-with-typescript-1c31c1ab9342
|
['Andrea Vassallo']
|
2021-01-22 13:52:36.421000+00:00
|
['GraphQL', 'Typescript', 'Development', 'Expressjs', 'Nodejs']
|
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