title
stringlengths 1
200
⌀ | text
stringlengths 10
100k
| url
stringlengths 32
829
| authors
stringlengths 2
392
| timestamp
stringlengths 19
32
| tags
stringlengths 6
263
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants
|
Sexual Reproduction In Flowering plants
show All flowering plants (angiosperms sexual reproduction).
PRE-FERTILISATION : STRUCTURE & EVENTS
-Several hormonal and structural changes are initiated which lead to the differentiation and further development of the floral primordium.
-Inflorescences are formed which bear the floral buds and then the flowers.
Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
STUCTURE OF FLOWER
(for figures see textbook page no.20, 21)
-Flower are morphological & embryological structures and the sites of sexual reproduction.
-In flower, the male (androecium) & female(gynoecium) reproductive structure differentiate and develop.
ANDROECIUM (WHORL OF STAMENS)
Androecium consists of a whorl of stamens. Their number and length are variable in flowers of different species.
A stamen has 2 parts:
a. Filament: The long and slender stalk. Its proximal end is attached to the thalamus or the petal of the flower.
b. Anther: The terminal and typically bilobed structure. Each lobe has 2 thecae, i.e. they are dithecous. Often a longitudinal groove runs lengthwise separating the theca.
Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
TRANSVERSE SECTION OF AN ANTHER:
-The anther is a tetragonal structure consisting of four microsporangia located at the corners, two in each lobe.
-The microsporangia develop further and become pollen sacs. They extend longitudinally all through the length of an anther and are packed with pollen grains.
STRUCTURE OF MICROSPORANGIUM:-
-A typical microsporangium appears near circular in outline.
-It generally surrounded by four wall layers- The epidermis, endothecium, middle layer & tapetum.
-The outer layer perform the function of protection and help indehiscence of anther to release the pollen.
-The tapetum (innermost layer) nourishes the developing pollen grains. Cells of the tapetum possess dense cytoplasm and generally have more than one nucleus.
-When the anther is young, a group of compactly arranged homogenous cells (sporogenous tissue) occupies the center of each microsporangium.
Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
Microsporogenesis:-
(for figures see textbook page no. 22, 23)
-As the anther develops, each cells of sporogenous tissue undergo meiotic divisions to form microspore tetrads. Each one is a potential pollen(microspore mother cell).
-The formation of the microspores from a pollen mother cell (PMC) through meiosis is called Microsporogensis.
-The microspores are arranged in a cluster of four cells (micorspore tetrad).
-As the anther mature and dehydrate, the microspores dissociate from each other and develop into pollen grains.
-Inside each microsporangium thousands of pollen grains are formed that are released with the dehiscence of anther.
Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
Pollen grain(male gametophyte):
-Generally spherical. 25–50 um in diameter. Cytoplasm is surrounded by a plasma membrane.
-A pollen grain has a two-layered wall-exine and intine.
· Exine:- The hard outer layer. Made up of sporopollenin (highly resistant organic materia). It is with stand high temperature and strong acids and alkali. Enzymes cannot degrade sporopollenin.
-Exine has apertures called germ pores where sporopollenin is absent.
-Pollen grains are well preserved as fossils due to the presence of sporopollenin. Exine exhibits a fascinating array of patterns and designs.
· Intine:- The inner layer. It is a thin and continuous layer made up of cellolose and pectin.
-A matured pollen grain contains 2 cells-
· Vegetative cell:- it is bigger, has abundant food reserve and a larger irregularly shaped with dense cytoplasm and a nucleus.
-In over 60%of angiosperms, pollen grains are shed at the 2-celled stage. In others,the generative cell divides mitotically to give rise to the two male gametes before pollen grains are (3-celled stage).
-When once they are shed, pollen grains have to land on the stigma before they loss viability. The period for which pollen grains remain viable is variable and depends on the prevailing temperature and humidity.
-Viability of pollen grains of some cereals (rice, wheat, etc.) is 30 minutes. Some member of Leguminoseae, Rosaceae & Solanaceae have viability for months.
-Pollen grains of some plants(e.g. Parthenium or carrot grass) are allergic for some people. It leads to chronic respiratory disorders- asthma, bronchitis etc.
-Pollen grains are rich in nutrients. Pollen tablets are used as food supplements. Pollen consumption(as tablets & syrups) increase performance of athletes and race horses.
-It is possible to store pollen grains of a large number of species for years in liquid nitrogen (-190oC).such stored pollen can be used as pollen banks, similar to seed banks, in crop breeding programmes. Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
Gynoecium (pistil):-
(for figures see textbook page no. 25)
-It reperesents the female reproductive part of the flower.
-It may consist of a single pistil (monocarpellary) or more than one pistil (multicarpellary).
-When there are more than one, the pisitil may be fused together (syncarpous) or may be free (apocarpous).
-Each pistil has three parts:-
· Stigma:- It has a landing platform for pollen grains.
· Style:- It is elongated slender part beneath the stigma.
· Ovary:- It is the basal bulged part of the pistil. Inside the ovary is the ovarian cavity (locule) in which the placenta is located. Arising from the placenta are the ovules (megasporangia). The number of ovules in an ovary may be one (wheat, paddy, mango etc ). Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
Megasporangium (ovule):-
(for figures see textbook page no. 26)
-It is a small structure attached to the placenta by means of a stalk (funicle). The junction where the body of ovule and funicle fuse is called hilum.
-Each ovule has one or two protective envelopes called integuments. Integuments encircle the ovule except at the tin where a small opening (micropyle) is organized.
-Opposite the microphylar end is the chalaza (basal part of the ovule).
-Enclosed within the integuments, there is a mass of cells called nucellus. Its cells contain reserve food materials.
-Located in the nucellus is the embryo sac female gametophyte). An ovule generally has a single embryo sac formed from a megaspore through meiosis.
Megasporogenesis:-
-The formation of megaspores from the megaspore mother cell (MMC) is called megasporogenesis.
-Ovules generally differentiate a singke megaspore mother cell in the microphylar region of the nucellus. It is a large cell containing dense cytoplasm and a prominent nucleus.
-The MMC undergoes It results in the production of 4 megaspores.
Female gametophyte (embryo sac):
-In a majority of flowering plants, one of the megaspores is functional while the other three degenerate.
-The functional megaspore develops into the female gametophyte. This method of embryo sac formation from a single megaspore is termed monosporic development.Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
Formation of the embryo sac:
-The nucleus of the functional megaspore divides mitotically to form two nuclei which move to the opposite poles, forming the 2-nucleate embryo sac.
-Two more sequential mitotic nuclear divisions result in the formation of the 4-nucleate and later the 8-nucleate stages of the embryo sac.
-These divisions are strictly free nuclear, i.e. nuclear divisions are not followed immediately by cell wall formation.
-After the 8-nucleate stage, cell walls are laid down leading to the organization of the typical female gametophyte or embryo sac.
-6 of the 8 nuclei are surrounded by cell walls and organized into cells. Remaining 2 nuclei (polar nuclei) are situated below the egg apparatus in the large central cell.Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
Distribution of the cells within the embryo sac:-
-3 cells are grouped together at the micropylar end and constitute the egg apparatus. The egg apparatus consists of synergids and one egg cell.
-The synergids have special cellular thickenings at the micropylar tip called filiform apparatus. It helps to guide the pollen tubes into the synergid.
-Three cells are at the chalazal end and are called the antipodals. The large central cell has two polar nuclei. Thus, a typical mature angiosperm embryo sac is 8-nucleate and 7-celled.
Pollination
-It is the transfer of pollen grains from the anther to the stigma of pistil.
-Some external agents help the plants for pollination.
Depending on the source of pollen, pollination is 3 types:
a. Autogamy:
In this, pollen grains transfer from the anther to the stigma of the same flower.
Complete autogamy is rare in flowers with exposed anthers and stigma. Autogamy in such flowers requires synchrony in pollen release and stigma receptivity. Also, the anthers and stigma should lie close to each other to enable self-pollination.
Plants likes Viola(common pansy), Oxalis & Commelina produce 2 types of flowers:
1. Chasmogamous flowers: They are similar to flowers of other species with exposed anthers and stigma.
2. Cleistogamous flowers: They do not open at all anthers and stigma lie close to each other. They are autogamous us there is no chance of cross-pollination. When anthers dehisce in the flower buds, pollen grains come in contact with the stigma for pollination. Cleistogamous flowers produce assured seed set even in the absence of pollinators. Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
b. Geitonogamy:
In the pollen grains transfer from the anther to the stigma of another flower of the same plant. It is functionally cross-pollination involving a pollinating agent. But it is genetically similar to autogamy since the pollen grains come from the same plant.
c. Xenogamy:
In this, pollen grains transfer from anther to the stigma of a different plant. This brings genetically different types of pollen grains to the stigma.
Agents of pollination
1. Abiotic agents (wind & water) of pollination by wind (anemophily):
-More common abiotic agent.
-Ways for effective pollination:
o The flowers produce enormous amount of pollen.
o The pollen grains are light and non-sticky so that they can be transported in wind currents.
o They often possess well-exposed stamens (for easy dispersion of pollens into wind currents).
o Large, feathery stigma to trap air-borne pollen grains.
Wind pollinated flowers often have a single ovule in each ovary and numerous flowers packed into an inflorescence.
-E.g. Corncob –the tassels are the stigma and style which wave in the wind to trap pollen grains. Wind-pollination is quite common in grasses. Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
Pollination by water (hydrophily):
-It is quite rare. It is limited to about 30 genera, mostly monocotyledons.
-E.g. Vallisneria & Hydrilla (fresh water), Zostera (marine sea-grasses) etc.
-As against this, water is a regular mode of transport for the male gametes among the lower plants. It is believed, particularly for some bryophytes & pteridophytes, that their distribution is limited because of the need for water for the transport of male gametes and fertilization.
-In Vallisneria, the female flower reaches the surface of water by the long stalk and the male flower or pollen grains are released on to the surface of water. They are carried by water currents and reach the female flowers.
-In sea grasses, female flowers remain submerged in water. Pollen grains are long and ribbon like. They are carried inside the water and reach the stigma.
-The pollen grains of most of the water-pollinated species have a mucilaginous covering to protect from wetting.
-Not all aquatic plants use hydrophily. In most of aquatic plants (water hyacinth, water lily etc), the flowers emerge above the level of water for entomophily or anemophily.
-Wind and water pollinated flowers are not very colourful and do not produce nectar.
2. Biotic agents (animals) of pollination
-Majority of flowering plants use animals as pollinating agents. E.g. Bees, butterflies, flies, beetles, wasps, ants, moths, birds (sunbirds and humming buds) bats, some primates (lemurs), arboreal (tree-dwelling), rodents, reptiles (gecko lizard & garden lizard) etc.
-Pollination by insects (Entomophily), particularly bees is more common.
-Often flowers of animal pollinated plants are specifically adapted for a particular species of animals.
-Features of insect-pollinated flowers:
· Large, colourful, fragrant and rich in nectar. Nectar & pollen grains are the floral rewards for pollination.
· When the flowers are small, they form inflorescence to make them visible.
· The flowers pollinated by flies and beetles secrete foul odours to attract these animals.
· The pollen grains are generally sticky.
-When the animal come in contact with the anthers and the stigma, its body gets a coating of pollen grains. When it comes in contact with the stigma, it results in pollination.
-Some plants provide safe places as floral reward to lay eggs. E.g. Amorphophadllus (it has the tallest flower of about 6 feet). A species of moth and the plant Yucea cannot complete their life cycle without each other. The moth deposits its eggs in the locule of the ovary and the flower gets pollinated by the moth. The larvae of the moth come out of the eggs as the seeds start developing.
-Many insects consume pollen or nectar without bringing about pollination. They are called pollen/nectar robbers. Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.Outbreeding devices:
Majority of flowering plants produce hermaphrodite flowers can undergo self-pollination. Continued self-pollination results in inbreeding depression.
To avoid self pollination and encourage cross-pollination, there are some devices in plants:
a. Avoiding synchronization: In some species, pollen release and stigma receptivity are not synchronized. Either the pollen is released before the stigma becomes receptive or stigma becomes receptive or stigma becomes receptive before the release of pollen. It prevents autogamy.
b. Arrangement of anther & stigma at different positions: This prevent autogamy.
c. Self-incompatibility: It is a genetic mechanism to prevent self-pollen (form the same flower or other flower of the same plant) from fertilization by inhibiting pollen germination or pollen tube growth in the pistil.
d. Production of unisexual flower: If male & female flower are present on the same plant (i.e., monoecious , e.g. castor & maize), it prevents autogamy but not geitonogamy. In dioecious plants (e.g. papaya), male and female flowers are present on different plants (dioecy). This prevents both autogamy and geitonogamy.
Pollen-pistil interaction:
(for figures see textbook page no. 32)
-It is a dynamic process involving pollen recognition followed by promotion or inhibition of the pollen.
-This interaction takes place through the chemical component produced by them.
-If the pollen is compatible (right type), the pollen accepts it and promotes post-pollination events. The pollen grain germinates on the stigma to produce the pollen tube through one of the germ pores. The contents of the pollen grain move into the pollen tube. Pollen tube through the tissues of the stigma and style and reaches the ovary.
-If the pollen is incompatible (wrong type), the pistil rejects the pollen by preventing pollen germination on the stigma or the pollen by preventing pollen germination on the stigma or the pollen tube growth in the style.
-In some plants, pollen grains are shed at 2-celled condition (a vegetative & a generative cell). In such plants, the generative cell division and forms the two male gametes during the growth of the pollen tube in the stigma.
-In plants which shed pollen in the 3-celled condition, pollen tubes carry 2 male gametes from the beginning. Pollen tube, after reaching the ovary, enters the ovule through the microphyle and then enters one of the synergids through the filiform apparatus. The filiform apparatus present at the micropylar part of the synergids guides the entry of pollen tube.
-A plant breeder can manipulate pollen-pistil interaction, even in incompatible pollinations, to get desired hybrids. Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
Artificial hybridization:
-It is one of the major approaches of crop improvement programmer.
-In this, desired pollen grains are used for pollination. This is achieved by emasculation & bagging techniques.
-Emasculation is the removal of anthers (using forceps) from the bisexual flower bud of female parent before the anther dehisces.
-Emasculation flowers are covered with a suitable bag (made up of butter paper) to prevent contamination of its stigma with unwanted pollen. This is called bagging.
-When the stigma attains receptivity, mature pollen grains collected from anthers of the male parent are dusted on the stigma. Then the flowes are rebagged and allowed to develop the fruits.
-If the female parent produces unisexual flowers, there is no need for emasculation. The female flower buds are bagged before the flowers open. When the stigma becomes receptive, pollination is carried out using the desired pollen and the flower rebagged.
Double fertilisation
(for figures see textbook page no. 34)
-After entering one of the synergids, the pollen tube releases the two male gametes into the cytoplasm of the synergid. One of the male gametes moves towards the egg cell and fuses with its nucleus (syngamy). This forms the zygote (a diploid cell).
-The other male gamete moves towards the two polar nuclei located in the central cell and fuses with them to produce a triploid primary endosperm nucleus (PEN). As this involves the fusion of three haploid nuclei it is called triple fusion.
-Since 2 types of fusions (syngamy & triple fusion) take place in an embryo sac it is called double fertilization. It is an event unique to flowering plants.
-The central cell after triple fusion becomes the primary endosperm cell (PEC) and develops into the endosperm while the zygote develops into an embryo.Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
Post-fertilisation: structures & events
Post-fertilisation events: Endosperm & embryo development, maturation of ovule (s) into seed (s) & ovary into fruit.
Endosperm development:
-The primary endosperm cell divides repeatedly and forms a triploid endosperm tissue.
-Endosperm cells are filled with reserve food materials. They are used for the nutrition of the developing embryo.
-In common endosperm development, the PEN undergoes successive nuclear divisions to give rise to free nuclei. This stage is called free-nuclear endosperm. The number of free nuclei varies greatly.
-Then the endosperm becomes cellular due to the cell well formation. The tender coconut water is a free-nuclear endosperm (male up of thousands of nuclei) and the surrounding white kernel is the cellular endosperm.
Embryo development:
(for figures see textbook page no. 35)
-Embryo develops at the micropylar end of the embryo sac where the zygote is situated.
-Most zygote divide only after the formation of certain amount of endosperm. This is an adaptation to provide nutrition to the developing embryo.
-Through the seeds differ greatly, the embryogeny (early embryonic developments) is similar in monocotyledons & dicotyledons. (for figures see textbook page no. 34)
-The zygote gives rise to the proembryo and subsequently to the globular, heart-shaped and mature embryo.
Dicotyledonous embryo
-It has an embryonal axis and 2 cotyledons. The portion of embryonal axis above the level of cotyledons is the epicotyls, which terminates with the plumule (stem tip) The cylindrical portion below the level of cotyledons is hypocotyls that terminates with the radical (root tip). The root tip is covered with a root cap.
Monocotyledonous embryo
-They possess only one cotyledon.
-In the grass family the cotyledon is called scutellum. It is situated lateral to the embryonal axis. At its lower end, the embryonal axis has the radical and root can enclosed in coleorrhiza (an undifferentiated sheath).
-Portion of embryonal axis above the level of scutellum is the epicotyls. It has a shoot apex and a few leaf primordia enclosed in celeoptile(a hollow foliar structure). Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
Seed:
(for figures see textbook page no. 37)
-Seed is the final production of sexual reproduction. It is the fertilization ovule formed inside fruits.
-It consists of seed coats(s), cotyledons(s) & an embyo axis.
-The cotyledons are simple ,generally thick and swollen due to storage food (as in legumes).
-Mature seeds may be non-albuminous or albuminous.
o Non-albuminous seeds: have no residual endosperm as it is completely consumed during embryo development (e.g., pea, groundnut, beans).
o Albuminous seeds: retain a part of endosperm as it is not completely used up during embryo development (e.g., wheat, maize, barley, castor, coconut, sunflower).
-Occasionally, in some seeds (black pepper, beet etc) remnants of nucellus are also persistent. It is called perisperm.
-Integuments of ovules harden as tough protective seed coats. It has a small pore (micropyle) through which O2 & water enter into the sced during germination.
-As the seed matures, its water content is reduced and seeds become dry (10–15 moisture by mass). The general metabolic activity of the embryo slows down. The embryo may enter a state of inactivity (dormancy). If favourable conditions are available (adequate moisture . oxygen and suitable temperature), they germinate. Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
Fruit:
-The ovary develops into a fruit. Transformation of ovule into seeds and ovary into fruit proceeds simultaneously.
-The wall of ovary develops into pericarp (wall of fruit).
- The fruits may be fleshy (e.g. guava, orange, mango, etc.) or may be dry (e.g. groundnut, mustard, etc).
-Many fruits have mechanisms for dispersal of seeds.
-Fruits are 2 types:
· True fruits: In most plants, the fruit develops only from the ovary and other floral parts degenerate and fall off. They called true fruits.
· False fruits: In this, the thalamus also contributes to fruit formation. E.g. apple, strawberry, cashew etc.
-In some species fruits develop without fertilisation. Such fruits are called parthenocarpic fruits. E.g. Banana.
-Parthenocarpy can be induced through the application of growth hormones and such fruits are seedless.
Advantages of seeds:
· Since pollination and fertilisation are independent of water, seed formation is more dependable.
· Seeds have better adaptive strategies for dispersal to new the habitats and help the species to colonize in other areas.
· They have food reserves. So young seedlings are nourished until they are capable of photosynthesis.
· The hard seed coat protects the young embryo.
· Being products of sexual reproduction, they generate new genetic combinations leading to variations.
· Dehydration and dormancy of mature seeds are crucial for storage of seeds. It can be used as food throughout year and also to raise crop in the next season. Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
Viability of seeds after dispersal:
-In a few species the seeds lose viability within a few months. Seed of many species live for several year.
-Some seeds can remain alive for hundreds of years. The oldest is that of a lupine (Lupinus arcticus) excavated from Arctic Tundra. The seed germinated and flowered after an estimated record of 10,000 years of dormancy.
-2000 years old viable seed is of the date palm (Phoenixdactylifera) discovered during the archeological excavation at King Herod’s palace near the Dead Sea.
APOMIXIS AND POLYEMBRYONY
-Apomixis is the production of seeds without fertilisation. E.g. Some species of Asteraceae and grasses.
- Apomixis is a form of asexual reproduction that mimics sexual reproduction.
-Development of apomictic seeds: In some species, the diploid egg cell is formed without reduction division and develops into the embryo without fertilisation. In many species (e.g. many Citrus & Mango varieties) some of the nucellar cells surrounding the embryo sac divide, protrude into the embryo sac and develop into the embryos. In such species each ovule contains many embryos. Occurrence of more than one embryo in a seed is called polyembryony.
Importance of apomixis in hybrid seed industry
-Hybrid seeds have to be produced every year. If the seeds collected from hybrids are sown, the plants in the progeny will segregate and lose hybrid characters.
-Production of hybrid seeds is costly. Hence the cost of hybrid seeds is also expensive for the farmers.
-If the hybrids are made into apomicts, there is no segregation of characters in the hybrid progeny. Then the farmers can keep on using the hybrid seeds to raise new crop year after year. Chapter 2: Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants Class 12 NCERT NOTES PDF.
|
https://medium.com/@bhartitanuja011/sexual-reproduction-in-flowering-plants-b19819e89bbf
|
[]
|
2021-12-11 17:55:01.570000+00:00
|
['Schools', 'Flowers', 'Science', 'Reproductive Health', 'Stories']
|
Centralized Logging System for Lambda Functions
|
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
AWS customers can have access to service-specific metrics and log files to gain insight into how each AWS service is operating through AWS CloudWatch. This service can be used as a centralized logging platform for smaller and less complex applications but if your environment is complex and big then you will be left with no option than going for a third party solution like Splunk, Datadog or ELK (ElasticSearch, Logstash, Kibana) stack.
At Foxintelligence, we are using the famous ELK stack as our logging platform for our Dockerized Microservices and CloudWatch Logs for AWS managed services (API Gateway, Lambda, Lambda@Edge, etc). However, with the rise of Serverless architecture, we needed a single place where we can troubleshoot and debug our Lambda functions spin up in multiple AWS regions using interactive and dynamic dashboards. Therefore, in this post, I will walk you through the process we followed to deliver near real-time feed of logs from CloudWatch to ELK. The workflow is described in the schema below:
Real-time Lambda Logging with Amazon Kinesis, Amazon CloudWatch and AWS Lambda
We will be using CloudWatch subscriptions to get access to a real-time feed of log events from Lambda functions and have it delivered to Amazon Kinesis Data Streams. From there, an AWS Lambda will be triggered for custom processing, analysis and to apply business logic to our log data (log enrichment) before loading them to Logstash.
To begin subscribing to log events, create the receiving source where the events will be delivered. Before you create the Kinesis stream, calculate the volume of log data (throughput) that will be generated. Be sure to create a Kinesis stream with enough shards to handle this volume. If the stream does not have enough shards, the log stream will be throttled:
Next, create an IAM role that will grant CloudWatch Logs permissions to insert logs into your Kinesis stream:
The IAM role should be configured as shown in the following screenshot:
Issue the command below to create a CloudWatch Logs destination:
To deliver near real-time feed of log events to Kinesis, you must create a CloudWatch Logs subscription filter with the following command:
The subscription filter immediately starts the flow of real-time log data from the chosen log group to your Kinesis stream:
After you set up the subscription filter, CloudWatch Logs forwards all the incoming log events that match the filter pattern to your Kinesis stream. Now you need to deploy your logs consumer.
The consumer is a Node-based Lambda function that will process records in Kinesis data streams:
Hence, you need to assign an execution role with permissions to fetch records from Kinesis, as shown in the following example:
And configure the batch size that will be read from your stream at once:
As as result, AWS Lambda will read the records from the data stream and invokes your function handler synchronously with an event that contains stream records. The following, is an example of events published by Kinesis Data Streams:
The function handler is self-explanatory, it receives Amazon Kinesis event data as an input, decode the data attribute record (The data attribute in the Kinesis record is Base64 encoded and compressed in gzip format) and writes the log to Logstash:
The logs will be sent through UDP protocol which is a good trade-off in terms of performance and reliability:
Shipping some logs
For the purpose of this tutorial, I’ve written a simple Lambda function that calculates the Fibonacci value of a given number.
If all goes well, a new index will be created in ElasticSearch, the pattern of which can now be defined in Kibana.
Hit “Create index pattern”, and you are ready to analyze the logs:
Right now, there won’t be much in there because you are only gathering logs from your Lambda function. You can construct a view, or a dashboard, highlighting important information that helps inform decisions regarding the implementation and functionality of the Lambda functions, so feel free to poke around !
If you already have lots of existing log groups, you can use the following shell script to subscribe to Kinesis destination:
As a result, all your Lambda functions logs will be delivered to Kinesis data streams:
You can take this further and leverage the power of CloudTrail to invoke a Lambda function based on the CreateLogGroup event to auto-subscribe new log groups.
We’re not sharing this just to make noise
We’re sharing this because we’re looking for people that want to help us solve some of these problems. There’s only so much insight we can fit into a job advert so we hope this has given a bit more and whet your appetite. If you’re keeping an open mind about a new role or just want a chat — get in touch or apply — we’d love to hear from you!
|
https://medium.com/foxintelligence-inside/centralized-logging-system-for-lambda-functions-d07d76e1a5b8
|
['Mohamed Labouardy']
|
2019-05-03 08:25:34.381000+00:00
|
['AWS', 'DevOps', 'Serverless', 'Infrastructure', 'Technology']
|
What does your mobile's Green Blinker Indicate?
|
Mobile’s green blinker: Due to innovation, our life has become as easy as it is unsafe.
https://www.spinningknowledge.in.net/2020/12/what-does-your-mobiles-green-blinker.html
|
https://medium.com/@ashramitespaper/what-does-your-mobiles-green-blinker-indicate-89f6844c8bc6
|
[]
|
2020-12-22 14:50:50.695000+00:00
|
['Apple Watch', 'Ledsensor', 'iPhone', 'Apple', 'Sensors']
|
I’m just gonna say it: my brother wrote “Groundhog Day”
|
When the film released on his birthday in 1993, I felt the perfect birthday present would be to take my huge 1980s-VHS camcorder down to the Hollywood Cineramadome, where the film was opening, and interview people coming out of the theater about the experience. I cut it together as best I could and gave it to him as a gift:
Danny’s birthday video, 1993
A few years later, as technology evolved and the web was invented, something else happened: the term “groundhog day” started getting used outside of the reference to the holiday. My roommate in college, Gregory K., used to quip that the real sign of success in life was being the answer to a New York Times crossword puzzle. Danny was crushing it.
My family took endless joy watching the expression get said on TV and online, a constant source of amusement. Of course, the term is actually quite bleak. It’s used to describe an eternal hell. It was bittersweet that term found a home in despair. The Iraq war saw the term get appropriated for the soldiers, and politicians began using it to make their points.
For my brother’s birthday (again) in 2010 I made a new video, aggregating the use of this term when I found it.
I made this as much for our dad as I did for my brother, 2010
I was running out of Groundhog Day gift ideas, feeling like I had pretty much covered my bases here. But when he mentioned that he wanted to write a book answering all the questions everyone had about the story, and have a text he could use to teach screenwriting, I volunteered to help.
I had just converted my book Droidmaker into an eBook, and felt that if he wanted the same, I’d make him a book too. So for his birthday in 2012 I published “How to Write Groundhog Day” — and co-designed a super cool cover. The book contains the original screenplay and he explains how it moved from idea, to script, to movie, with endless hyperlinks and fun facts. I have a favorite fact: after the film released Danny got letters from a range of spiritual leaders around the world, each explaining how they felt the film poignantly described aspects of their belief— Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Existentialists…
|
https://medium.com/@neomodern/im-just-gonna-say-it-my-brother-wrote-groundhog-day-9d44ab99fc5f
|
['M. H. Rubin']
|
2021-01-03 17:31:49.333000+00:00
|
['Words', 'Birthday', 'Movies', 'Family', 'Screenwriting']
|
Niçin Savaşıyoruz?
|
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.
Check your inbox
Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription.
|
https://medium.com/t%C3%BCrkiye/ni%C3%A7in-sava%C5%9F%C4%B1yoruz-e496d48197b
|
['Hüseyin Güzel']
|
2020-10-26 16:33:13.111000+00:00
|
['Dan Pedersen', 'Hayat Gayesi', 'Türkçe', 'Savaşmak', 'Gerçeği Bilmek']
|
【分析長文：有線新聞部大地震裁員40人 「新聞刺針」全組被裁走、「有線中國組」全組總辭】
|
Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
|
https://medium.com/sk-media-blog/%E5%88%86%E6%9E%90%E9%95%B7%E6%96%87-%E6%9C%89%E7%B7%9A%E6%96%B0%E8%81%9E%E9%83%A8%E5%A4%A7%E5%9C%B0%E9%9C%87%E8%A3%81%E5%93%A140%E4%BA%BA-%E6%96%B0%E8%81%9E%E5%88%BA%E9%87%9D-%E5%85%A8%E7%B5%84%E8%A2%AB%E8%A3%81%E8%B5%B0-%E6%9C%89%E7%B7%9A%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E7%B5%84-%E5%85%A8%E7%B5%84%E7%B8%BD%E8%BE%AD-dadfbe839a5c
|
[]
|
2020-12-04 05:45:32.071000+00:00
|
['Media Criticism', 'Hong Kong', 'Cable Tv', 'Television', 'Redundancy']
|
Çocuğunuzu Doğaya Yaklaştıracak Harika Fikirler
|
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.
Check your inbox
Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription.
|
https://medium.com/t%C3%BCrkiye/%C3%A7ocu%C4%9Funuzu-do%C4%9Faya-yakla%C5%9Ft%C4%B1racak-harika-fikirler-bdc93ef5ea58
|
[]
|
2018-10-07 18:40:08.204000+00:00
|
['Hediye', 'Türkçe', 'Doğa', 'Ağaç', 'Sağlıklı Beslenme']
|
Transfer iPhone WhatsApp Conversations via Email
|
WhatsApp is a widely-used and important program for people to connect today. But when we need to switch to a new device, it would be frustrated to lose some important and memorable chats in WhatsApp.
In case of saving the old data, Apple allows users to backup all their phone data in iCloud, then you can restore it when you change to a new iOS device such as the latest iPhone 12. But this costs time, and you may not need to restore all data but just some important WhatsApp conversations. Instead, there are alternative ways to do it. Today, you will get two solutions to transfer WhatsApp chats. Learn them now!
Solution 1. Transfer WhatsApp Chats Using Email
An email is an everyday tool used for communication. Basing on its attribution and the development of its multifunctions, email is used in more daily tasks, and surprisingly, it is an available tool to help transfer WhatsApp chats. This solution will walk you through the process to transfer WhatsApp iPhone to iPhone via email.
STEP 1. Launch WhatsApp and select the WhatsApp chat you’d like to transfer to the new iPhone. When you reach the chase, slide it to the left side, and there will be a “More” button appearing.
STEP 2. After clicking on “More”, select the “Export Chat” > “Email Conversation” option.
STEP 3. There will be a notification popping up and allow you to select if you want to transfer the contained media along with the WhatsApp chats or not.
STEP 4. Finally, when you have selected according to your preferences, move on and you will be required to enter the email address you need to transfer the chats to. After clicking the “Done” icon, the WhatsApp chats can be sent directly.
Solution 2. Alternative to Transfer WhatsApp Chats
Except for the email transferring solution, FonePaw WhatsApp Transfer can bring users with more convenient and direct functions to backup and send WhatsApp chats, without losing any important data. For iOS users, this program is the most ideal choice to ensure the preservation of your WhatsApp chat data.
FonePaw WhatsApp Transfer enables three features to help manage WhatsApp data on iOS devices, including transferring data between iPhones, backup as well as restore WhatsApp, and also export WhatsApp data to PC. This intuitive program is designed with a user-friendly interface and functions, so it will be the best option for everyone to grasp.
Download:
Windows: https://www.fonepaw.com/downloads/whatsapp-transfer.exe
Mac: https://www.fonepaw.com/downloads/whatsapp-transfer.dmg
To transfer WhatsApp chats via FonePaw WhatsApp Transfer, you only need several simple clicks to get it completed.
STEP 1. After installing FonePaw WhatsApp Transfer, launch the program and you need to enter the “Device-to-device Transfer” interface.
STEP 2. In case you need to transfer WhatsApp chats between two iPhones, so please connect both of your iPhones for enabling FonePaw WhatsApp Transfer to locate them. As you connect your iPhones with USB cables to the computer, FonePaw WhatsApp Transfer will automatically locate them and show you on the interface of FonePaw WhatsApp Transfer.
STEP 3. When the devices are connected to FonePaw WhatsApp Transfer, you can move on to the next step. You should select the WhatsApp data on your old iPhone now for transferring it to the new one. The transferable WhatsApp data will be generated in a list for you to select. Just check the options you need to transfer.
STEP 4. Finally, when you have selected the WhatsApp chats you need to send to your new iPhone, simply submit to start transferring the WhatsApp chats between two iPhones. FonePaw WhatsApp Transfer will complete the process for you within a short period. Just wait for the completion of the transferring process patiently, then you can get the important WhatsApp chats transferred to your new iPhone successfully!
The benefits of using email to transfer WhatsApp chats are obvious — safe, cross-platform, and costs no fee. But FonePaw WhatsApp Transfer would be more reliable, especially in transferring data between iPhones. Moreover, its multifunctional features can bring more help to iOS users as well, but email can only transfer the data solely. As a result, FonePaw WhatsApp Transfer would be more ideal for you if you want to preserve WhatsApp data more than simply transferring the chats.
|
https://medium.com/@aboutechnology/transfer-iphone-whatsapp-conversations-via-email-9a92855debc8
|
['Jimmy Smith']
|
2021-03-22 07:21:52.065000+00:00
|
['Email', 'WhatsApp', 'iPhone', 'Transfer', 'Conversations']
|
2020 has been a tough year for everyone worldwide, where many people have lost their livelihood…
|
2020 has been a tough year for everyone worldwide, where many people have lost their livelihood, and they are struggling to make their ends meet.
(https://www.digistore24.com/redir/312455/krys473/)
Times are tough, and such times demand action that can help to overcome all the financial stress and build an income that supports you and your family.
After having such thoughts, the question that kept buzzing in mind: is it possible to create a second source of income utilizing all my spare time?
Fortunately, after doing a lot of research and study, I came to know about affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is a trending business model that has proved beneficial and made hundreds/thousands of dollars worldwide. Due to its increasing popularity, many people have joined the affiliate marketing programs, but more than 95% of people fail!
The main culprit for such failures is the absence of a plan of action because people do not know what affiliate programs to join, how to advertise, choose the right products, etc.
Catering to this, many successful affiliate marketers have curated courses that teach and educate people about affiliate marketing.
Most of the courses provide a basic overview, but they do not disclose secrets, and that’s the truth! So, once you know the basics, you will have to find your way of making money. It made me curious, and I started looking for successful strategies/programs for affiliate marketing. Then I came across a program that had hundreds of positive reviews online.
But, still, I wanted to confirm whether this program works or not! Therefore, I attended the complete 2-hour webinar session, and then I was convinced that this is the program that I was looking for!
So, let me introduce you to the Overnight Millionaire Program.
The program is a brainchild of Wesley Virgin.
(https://www.digistore24.com/redir/312455/krys473/)
Following are the steps that you need to follow to get started with the program:
Sign up with a digistore 24 account, sign up as an affiliate along with a hop link for promoting the program. 2. Buy a domain name for your business. 3. Google Adwords/Facebook Business Manager account. 4. An offer to promote. 5. Create your landing page for your offer along with presale pages. 6. Filter out all your demographics, such as location, age, ethnicity, etc. The most amazing part about this program is that you do not need to have any technical expertise because everything will be guided by Wesley.
He will guide you through all the steps to start your 7 figure online business while sitting at home during this pandemic.
Summing Up
The overnight millionaire program is the best affiliate program available online. Wesley Virgin is an amazing mentor who has the right experience and attitude to teach and guide you to start your own profitable online business. Also, there is a limited-time free training session that you can attend to gain knowledge about the program and start online money making.
|
https://medium.com/@krys473/2020-has-been-a-tough-year-for-everyone-worldwide-where-many-people-have-lost-their-livelihood-6aafcc6fcb8f
|
['Million Dollar Von']
|
2020-12-20 21:14:15.429000+00:00
|
['Make Money Online', 'Passive Income', 'Makemoneywithaffiliation', 'Affiliate Marketing']
|
Algorithms as Policy:
|
Algorithms as Policy:
Michael Zargham & Kelsie Nabben
December 2020
In a digitised society, algorithms are fulfilling the function of policies as they constitute the rules of governance in online platforms, yet, they are not being designed with the adequate considerations for those being governed.
Software ‘code’ is the rules for a computer to follow. Yet, it is increasingly common to also refer to “rules as code”- in the sense that code is defining rules through which humans interact with each other. This development is not merely theoretical, as algorithms make decisions about social media posts, credit ratings, the routes to follow when driving and more.
At first glance, it might seem as simple as humans defining rules for computers and computers defining rules for humans. However, deeper consideration exposes significant inequality between those making rules via code, and those bound by the coded rules. For example, workers whose livelihoods are dictated by platform algorithms are said to be “below the API”.
Thus, it becomes clear that the definition of ‘code’ equates to the traditional function of the law as ‘the rules by which humans interact with one another’. Therefore, it is incumbent upon software engineers to consider algorithm design work with the awareness that should be associated with policy-making related to the burden of responsibility to the ‘public good’.
To formalise this concept of ‘algorithms as policy’, it is useful to approach digital infrastructure as critical, public infrastructure. Through this lens, it is possible to explore the social consequences of algorithmic policy-making, including lack of accountability, subjectivity, bias, and “real-world” consequences. We argue that it is only through the recontextualization of algorithmic design as a modern form of policy-making that we can surface subjective assumptions, enhance accountability, and enable feedback processes required for communities to thrive in the information age.
Coding Reality
We are living in a digital society. Our transactions and interactions are dependent on digital infrastructure. In this society, policy-making has become a duality: with nation-state-based government policy in the physical world operating in parallel to the rules of virtual platforms in cyberspace.
The borders between cyberspace and the physical world have become porous, meaning that online phenomena manifest in society in the physical reality (or ‘meatspace’). Examples include COVID-19 conspiracy protests, government responses to Twitter misinformation warnings, and memetic warfare related to the BLM protests. But who’s reality is this?
Digital infrastructure is comprised of finite sequences of well-defined computer-implementable instructions, known as algorithms. While mathematical models that underpin these algorithms may be highly effective in representing social phenomena they are imperfect reductions of our experienced reality.
What are “Algorithmic Policies”?
Technology platforms provide patterns for human interactions. The experience of the users is extremely sensitive to the algorithms embedded in those platforms, at both a local and systemic level. These algorithms are tantamount to policies. As such, their design and maintenance is functionally equivalent to governance.
The problem with performing governance functions through algorithms in society is that defining the goals of algorithmic sequences of instructions is a subjective practice. If markets are the invisible hand of capitalism, then algorithms are the invisible hand of digital systems.
Algorithms are performative, in that they simultaneously enable and limit actions on the part of a platform’s users, inducing direct effects on the social institutions those platforms intermediate.
Furthermore, proprietary technology platforms and algorithms are opaque in design, function, goals and governance; leading to a perversion of the social institutions they mediate. This phenomena of private governance towards commercial ends is known as ‘platform determinism’.
With little accountability, our ‘algorithmic dependence’ is resulting in the breakdown of democratic institutions, access to information, and trust in society.
It is only through the recontextualization of algorithmic design as a modern form of policy-making, that we can surface subjective assumptions and enhance accountability and feedback to enable communities to thrive in the information age.
Algorithms as Governance
Algorithms in digital platforms must be explicit in the minds of designers and users to emphasize how digital systems design carries the same significance as policy-making and governance processes in shaping societal realities. When algorithms are perceived as governance in digital infrastructures, it is then necessary to acknowledge both the socio-political and the technical elements of system engineering.
Infrastructure is co-produced through an “interplay of epistemic and political processes” between social and technological and social orders. The processes surrounding infrastructure of funding, creation, governance and maintenance are also inherently political.
The concept of ‘governmentality’ looks at how power is exercised through a network of institutions, practices, procedures and techniques. Peeling back components of digital infrastructure to the level of human biology and the political reveals the messy social processes and politics of a socio-technical system. Thus, the outcome can often reveal more about governance theory and practices, which need to be considered, than the algorithm itself.
Approaching the design of technical infrastructure layers as a governance design problem encourages an awareness of the system designers’ goals, as well as a requirement to consider the ‘public good’. This surfaces the need for both engineering and governance mechanisms, including; feedback loops, accountability and recourse mechanisms, the role and responsibilities of participants in the system, and acknowledgement of digital infrastructure as a complex adaptive system.
The design component of digital infrastructure is the relationship between ‘technological infrastructure’ and ‘human agents’. Here, the logic embedded in the code creates an option space for technology-mediated actions for people, and determines the feedback loops between components of the system.
Figure 1: Various components of institutions, constitutions, and their technological augmentation, as well as information flows between them. (Credit: Michael Zargham & Shermin Voshmgir, in Tan, 2020).
Policy-making problems become coding problems
When viewed as policies, the problems with algorithmic subjectivity, lack of accountability, and lack of recourse in algorithmic policies become apparent.
An algorithmic policy is a kind of complete contract, synonymous to policy making in traditional settings. It takes an input and renders a provably deterministic output. Yet, there is no transparency by which to assess faithful execution, or fairness of the policy in relation to the ‘public good’.
Data and algorithms are not objective. As there is no objective guarantee of the relationship between ‘rules’ and outcomes, algorithmic policy-making is intersubjective. Policies enshrined in software have a powerful role in determining what information users are exposed to and what actions those users are able to take — from internet service providers, to online marketplaces, to social networks, search engines, and so on. Meanwhile, the programming decisions that designers make when coding these policies are subject to their cultural, historical and political backgrounds, and the opportunities and constraints of the incentives that drive their work.
This bias is reinforced when problems are framed as coding challenges, with objective solutions, rather than as policy making challenges, which require a socio-technical approach. This blindness to the subjective nature of policy making leads the platform owner to confidently justify their policy decisions, while failing to consider what the objectives of the policy-making are, or to engage with the real consequences their decisions have on the users.
For example, consider the subjectivity of the algorithm which governs how Google search engine data is ranked and presented, PageRank. This algorithm is responsible for the ordering of information and mediation of access to information on the web. PageRank is part of the rules, or computational constitution, of Google, which governs the way that people can interact with the internet.
Figure 2: Exploring Subjectivity in Algorithms. (Zargham, 2020).
Challenges to a functioning digital society emerge in that the entities responsible for this digital-social infrastructure are not legally beholden to the interests of the users, or the ‘public good’. On the contrary, they are often private stakeholders that have a fiduciary duty to shareholders. User attention is routed and their data is harvested.
While any sufficiently new technology may be considered a novelty item, once a technology becomes necessary for participation in society, it is civil infrastructure. Civil infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, the water system, and power grids are all regulated utilities. The physical layer of the internet is currently facing this transition towards accountability via regulation, such as Internet Service Provider (ISP) legislation. But what about accountability for the algorithmic, ‘application’ layer of the internet?
The algorithmic policies embedded in online platforms have serious consequences on our lives but with weak accountability feedback loops regarding their effects. Can one really know how an algorithm influences or discriminates against people? Like any question of policy, it is necessary to distinguish between the policy objective, the policy itself, and the faithful execution of that policy. Yet, without transparent feedback loops, accountability is lacking in algorithmically mediated systems. Even if a user agrees with a stated policy, there are no means to verify its faithful execution in black-box code or take recourse in existing asymmetries between people and platforms.
As social infrastructures, the systemic issues arising from the societal interventions of algorithmic policies through digital platforms causes second order effects. The effects of algorithmic policies also impact existing sense-making institutions. This was seen in the paradoxical manoeuvre to regulate social media platforms in the US, as well as reliance on them for public voice and influence. As with any infrastructure, these effects usually become apparent upon breakdown.
In sum
It is only through the recontextualization of algorithmic design as a modern form of policy-making that we can surface subjective assumptions and enhance accountability and feedback to enable communities to thrive in the information age.
Recontextualizing algorithmic design as a modern form of policy-making allows both designers and users to surface subjective assumptions and enhance accountability.
This allows us to explore algorithmic policy-making in various settings. This includes emerging software development communities, such as decentralised digital infrastructure, to investigate what it can teach us as an experimental grounds for testing the consequences of code. This is an essential exercise to evaluate engineering and governance concepts before attempting to scale machine-human integrated solutions.
Related topics which we intend to explore include: how do we ‘safely’ test algorithmic policies; what alternatives are there to centralised, deterministic platforms; and how do they allow people to participate in ownership, governance and decision-making to switch the role of people in the system from “users” to “participants”?
End.
Cite as: Zargham, M and Nabben, K., “Algorithms as Policy: “How can algorithm design be reconceptualized as policy-making to create safer digital infrastructures?”, 2020, <https://kelsienabben.substack.com/p/algorithms-as-policy>.
About the Authors:
Zargham is a systems engineer specialising in large scale social and economic systems with automated components. He holds a PhD in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. His work is supported by private research and design firm BlockScience and is academically affiliated with WU Vienna.
Kelsie is an ethnographic researcher on the opportunities and implications of decentralised technology infrastructures in society at the RMIT University Blockchain Innovation Hub, and a PhD candidate in the School of Media & Communications. She is particularly interested in privacy, civil society, and socio-technical resilience.
|
https://medium.com/@kelsienabben/algorithms-as-policy-5fa85e2e8ca2
|
['Kelsie Nabben']
|
2020-12-15 22:13:50.903000+00:00
|
['Complex Systems', 'Governance', 'Systems Engineering', 'Algorithms', 'Policy']
|
Guys who could surprise: Part 2. The second part of our series looks at…
|
Zach McKinstry (Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
(Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series on “guys who could surprise” in 2020. The first part focused on young, under-the-radar Dodger players who’ve already made their MLB debuts. The second part is on Dodger prospects on the 40-man roster yet to debut.)
by Rowan Kavner
The tradition of young Dodger players immediately breaking through at the Major League level has continued its yearly cycle without splintering a farm system that replenishes and churns out more talent ready to contribute to one of baseball’s top clubs.
Some of those recent standouts didn’t come out of nowhere. For instance, 2016 Rookie of the Year Corey Seager, 2017 Rookie of the Year Cody Bellinger and Walker Buehler — who finished third in Rookie of the Year voting in 2018 — were all highly-regarded prospects who figured to make a significant impact whenever they got an extended look.
But for each of those future stars came another less-touted difference-maker— a Chris Taylor, who had one home run in three years after bouncing up and down the Mariners system before exploding with 21 homers for the Dodgers in 2017; or a Max Muncy, who was out of baseball early in 2017 before getting his call up to the Dodgers in 2018 and blasting 35 home runs. Last year, from Matt Beaty to Will Smith to Tony Gonsolin, multiple Dodger prospects not necessarily expected to make the jump that quickly to the big leagues immediately contributed and thrived.
In our first part of “guys who could surprise” in 2020, we looked at some of the young Dodger players with intriguing potential who’ve already made their Major League debuts.
In this second part, we go beyond the list of the most recognized Rookie of the Year contenders to provide some names of young Dodgers on the 40-man roster yet to debut who could surprise in 2020.
Zach McKinstry
(Photo by Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
McKinstry wasn’t selected until the 33rd round out of Central Michigan in 2016. Last year, his name wasn’t on MLB.com’s list of top 30 Dodger prospects. This year, he’s moved up to №20.
And yet, the 24-year-old’s name was a hot topic early in camp — so much so that manager Dave Roberts said he wouldn’t be surprised to see the versatile position player up with the Dodgers at some point in 2020.
The Dodgers have demonstrated all they can do with multi-positional athletes such as Taylor and Kiké Hernández, and McKinstry fits that mold. He hit .300/.366/.516/.882 with 19 home runs between Double-A Tulsa and Triple-A Oklahoma City, all while getting time at shortstop (which he calls his favorite position), second base, third base and all three outfield positions.
He said he harps on his defense, even teaching it through individual lessons with high schoolers in the offseason. This offseason, he also worked with a speed coach to improve his quickness and running. His defense at multiple spots, combined with the power surge (he only had seven home runs the previous year), make him an intriguing option going forward.
The attention didn’t seem to bother him, either: He proceeded to go 11-for-27 (.400) with five extra-base hits at the plate this spring.
Victor Gonzalez
(Photo by Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
Like McKinstry, Gonzalez began to make a name for himself with a tremendous jump in 2019.
Like McKinstry, that work caught the eye of Roberts in camp, who started to say he’d be “surprised” if the Dodgers don’t see Gonzalez sometime in 2020 before clarifying: “I’d be disappointed.”
And, like McKinstry, Gonzalez can serve multiple roles — though it’s as a pitcher, not a position player. While Gonzalez could be developed early in 2020 as a starter, his abilities particularly against left-handers — he allowed just three runs in 29 innings (0.93) to lefties in 2019 — could make him a candidate to help out of the bullpen sometime this year.
By the end of the 2018 season, the 24-year-old left-hander from Mexico had yet to pitch at the Double-A level. By the end of 2019, he was thriving at Triple-A Oklahoma City.
Gonzalez vaulted from Single-A Rancho Cucamonga (1.65 ERA, 11.9 K/9 in eight games), to Double-A Tulsa (2.23 ERA, 8.2 K/9 in 15 games), to Triple-A (3.86 ERA, 8.4 K/9 in 15 games). All 15 of his appearances with Oklahoma City came out of the bullpen, but he also made 13 starts between Tulsa and Rancho Cucamonga.
He said this spring he focused on command and learning how and when to throw pitches for strikes and for balls after averaging 3.2 walks per nine innings last year. But the lefty has come a long way since Tommy John surgery in 2017.
D.J. Peters
(Photo by Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
Take a look at Peters, and the intrigue is obvious. Standing 6 feet 6 inches, he literally towers above the competition. And at multiple levels, he’s displayed the power to match — enough so that the Dodgers put the 24-year-old on the 40-man roster.
There are areas Peters will need to continue to patch up, striking out 168 times in 542 plate appearances last year across Double-A Tulsa and Triple-A Oklahoma City, but the tools are too enticing to ignore.
He has blasted 92 home runs over four Minor League seasons, and the jumps in competition level haven’t bothered him. He hit better in 57 games last year with Oklahoma City (.260/.388/.490/.879) than in 68 games with Tulsa (.241/.331/.422/.753). The .879 OPS at Triple-A was his best mark at any level since posting an .886 OPS in 132 games with Single-A Rancho Cucamonga in 2017.
|
https://dodgers.mlblogs.com/guys-who-could-surprise-in-2020-part-2-f70e28e651e3
|
['Rowan Kavner']
|
2020-04-23 20:45:49.306000+00:00
|
['Zach Mckinstry', 'Dodgers', 'Victor Gonzalez', 'MLB', 'Dj Peters']
|
Why the name Decred is awesome
|
Several people have questioned the name “Decred” in the last three years. Their reasoning: investors will only invest in digital currencies with catchy names, and since “de” has a negative connotation they may ignore Decred.
It seems that these people don’t understand what Decred really stands for. Decred is a blend word of “decentralized” and “credits”. But what exactly are “decentralized credits”? And why is it a great name for a digital currency? To find out, let’s dive into the history and future of money!
A brief history of money
It is believed that money, as a store of value and medium of exchange, first emerged from the trade of animals and grain. This was followed by the arrival of commodity money during the Bronze Age, where commodities such as gold, silver, salt or shells were traded.
Every object had two uses: the original purpose for which the object was designed, and secondly as an item to trade or barter. Bartering was a system where items were directly exchanged for other items. Because items exchanged weren’t always an exact match in value, it was common for people to be either left in debt or credit. As a result, some have suggested money was created to replace the need for barter.
Anthropologist David Graeber argued against this suggestion. His research indicated “gift economies” were common during the beginnings of the first agricultural societies, where humans used elaborate credit systems. In this view, money emerged the moment when the obligation “I owe you one” transformed into the quantifiable notion of “I owe you one unit of something”.
Either way, it was proto-money — items made of the precious metals (such as jewelry) — that eventually became most popular as store of value and medium of exchange. Precious metals were more divisible, portable and durable than commodity monies such as shells.
While many people thought that gold and silver had value due to their scarcity and use case in jewelry, not everyone was of this opinion. In pre-revolutionary America, traders quickly learned that gold and silver were of no use to the people who originally lived there. Instead they used beaver pelts as a currency in exchange for items they needed.
It should be clear that during these times there was no need to rely on any third party to store or exchange value. People were all in control of their own money. Money had value because people assigned and asserted it.
Shells were used as commodity money.
Back to reality
Even though proto-money gained most popularity, it wasn’t without issues. Gold and silver weren’t always easily divisible, and it was difficult for the average person to verify the weight and purity. This often led to fraudulent metals being circulated, such as pyrite (fool’s gold).
As a consequence, authorities such as kings, emperors, and governors began minting gold and silver bullion coins, to be used as a medium of exchange and store of value — the dawn of standardized coinage.
Minted coins brought about a number of improvements to money. It meant money could change hands in a more secure manner, with much less frequent need for weighing. Furthermore, although these coins were not always identical — most bearing their own unique imperfections — they did bring about a vast improvement in fungibility compared to proto-money. For this reason, civilizations quickly adopted and became reliant upon minted coins.
Bankers began to hand out notes of credit for gold or silver coins deposited with them. These receipts included the name of the depositor and promised to pay him or her on demand. At some point the words “or bearer” were added after the name of the depositor, which allowed notes to change owner.
The benefit of not having to trust or rely on third parties when exchanging and storing value had to be traded off against the requirement for money that was easy to use. It could now be divided into small, transportable units with a specific authenticated value.
One thing led to another, and here we are, carrying around worthless metallic discs and pieces of paper in our wallet that the authorities control entirely. This type of money is known as fiat money.
Fiat money is a currency that has been established as money, often by government regulation. It only has value because an authority maintains its value.
The future of money
When we consider the future, we often look at science-fiction (Sci-Fi) stories and movies. While comic books and novels do not accurately predict the future, they often offer a surprisingly relevant insight into things to come.
The use of “credits” is common in futuristic Sci-Fi settings. In fact, there is a well know cliché pointed out by the popular futurist and comic book writer Sam Humphries, who said: “In any science-fiction movie, anywhere in the galaxy, currency is referred to as credits”.
The first use of “credits” in Sci-Fi can be traced back to the novel “Galactic Patrol” by Edward E. Smith, first published in 1937. Smith wrote “Bid, one thousand credits per packet of ten. Offered, none at any price”.
The first published explanation of what a “credit” represents was in the science fiction novel “Space Viking” by Henry B Piper, published in 1962. Piper wrote, “Our currency is based on services to our society. Our monetary unit is simply called a credit”.
In the popular Star Wars movies, the concept of “credits” is also used and presented as a form of electronic money.
Back to the future
Today, money has already entered the digital realm: fiat money primarily exists on databases controlled by the banking industry. We use plastic cards with chips to exchange value and we have to trust our banks to carry out these transactions. In its physical form, fiat money is represented by metallic coins and banknotes, also referred to as cash.
Luckily a new phenomenon is emerging: decentralized, digital money based on cryptography. This type of money — sometimes called cryptocurrency — represents something fundamentally different, something more versatile.
The birth of cryptocurrency has eliminated the need to rely on authorities when exchanging value. We no longer need to use commodity money or fiat money to store or exchange value. We now have a choice.
Cryptocurrency evolved from all previous forms of money:
Its units are divisible, durable, portable and fungible.
It is censorship resistant and secured by cryptography.
It has guaranteed scarcity and a transparent rate of supply.
However, a cryptocurrency is only as strong as its protocol and its social layer (a decentralized collective of miners, developers, investors, and users). Just like in the old days, we are again in control of our own money.
Our money has value because we assign and assert it.
In 2009, Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to launch. Early 2016, after identifying three fundamental challenges within the Bitcoin ecosystem and developing several unique features, Decred launched.
Behind the name Decred
Legend says that the early founders and organizers tacotime, _ingsoc and Jake Yocom-Piatt were brainstorming on the topic of “decentralized credits” when they thought of the name Decred.
Decentralized
Decentralization is important for blockchain-based cryptocurrencies such as Decred, Bitcoin or Litecoin. The more decentralized a cryptocurrency is, the more resistant it is to censorship or control from a centralized entity. A decentralized network is more secure since it is harder to attack.
The most valuable projects are those that have decentralized development, decentralized funding, and decentralized decision-making (governance). Decentralization is the missing piece of the puzzle that allows us to eliminate the requirement for a third party when storing and exchanging value.
Credits
Although many people now associate “credit” with credit cards (or the ability to obtain loans), understanding its place in the history and future of money makes it all the more meaningful.
Back when fiat money did not yet exist, credit systems were used to keep track of who owed what to whom. Much later, around the time of the global gold standard, notes of credit were issued as proof of stored value.
Perhaps more interestingly, the concept of “credits” is commonly used to refer to money in futuristic Sci-Fi settings, for example in Star Wars.
Decentralized credits
It seems only natural that the most significant feature of cryptocurrency is brought together with a word that describes money as it once was — before third parties became involved — and as it has been envisioned for the future.
Conclusion
Decred (DCR) stands for decentralized credits. It has taken decentralization to a whole new level — it is money that is developed and governed by us! The Decred treasury ensures we no longer need to rely on authorities to give us a medium of exchange and store of value. We have decentralized credits.
Who knows how far this project will reach? In a distant future, intergalactic travelers might pay for their drinks in DCR! 🚀
|
https://medium.com/decred/why-the-name-decred-is-awesome-9627ae9b4e2
|
[]
|
2019-06-14 10:30:26.448000+00:00
|
['History Of Money', 'Decentralized', 'Decred', 'Bitcoin', 'Decentralization']
|
A Message To My Clients
|
We have walked many paths together. Some joyful, some restless, and some painful, but all with intent. We shared intimate moments so deeply engrained beneath constraints upon constraints of a belief system we had to unlearn together. I remember when we cried together at the many AHA moments we had, the spark of creative realizations when pain turned to joy and bewilderment turned into faith that would be found in the unknowns of tomorrow, yet, that no longer mattered as your heart and your mind were able to rest once again without needing all the answers. I remember the moments when you told me you can sleep again, but not just any kind of sleep, the kind that was reminiscent of your childhood when play was the intended outcome of everyday to then fall in bed exhausted and yet excited to relive another day of ecstatic joy…ya that kind of sleep. I remember the times we argued over some mundane logic as to why you believed that you could not do something, or the reason why you could not changed the things you wanted to change about yourself, or, the best one yet, over the reasoning of why that was the case. I remember when after all that, we had a moment of silence preceding an “oh shit” moment that morphed into amazing breakthroughs. Even I was in tears!
To my therapist client who came to me with exhaustive energy and a defeated will to continue with her practice, your perspective was absolutely right. You intake so much from so many, your training has helped you keep the connection with your clients at bay, and yet, part of your humanness dissolved with that distance. You adjusted your views about this connection and found the right grounding work to allow for a deeper and more authentic gesture of healing with your clients. This allowed you to soar once again with a new sense of hope for your work. I am so proud of you and so appreciative of the time you gave yourself along the way.
To my member of the clergy client who came to me with a sense of affirmations of self in the work he did. I loved your questions about whether what you do is truly the right thing for your congregation. You kept asking what was the defining line between Gods work and your work, not because you didn’t know the answer, but because you wanted to do the best work for those who would seek your guidance. It was that one moment when you realized that your love of self was misplaced in the love for other so much so that the excavation work we did together led you to remember that a healthy you is a happy you, and that led to some of your greatest impacts at work. I am so proud of you and honored to have walked this path with you.
To my CEO client who struggled so deeply with anxiety, on and off again depression, misguided exuberance, family struggles, and personal health issues, you and I spent a lot of time together unraveling your past through the many portals and gateways we created to help excavate your past narratives, only to find that there is a tremendous depth and wisdom in the person that you are, unlearning your past hangups of self, and reimagining a future you want to live in by creating present narratives that truly feed your soul. You were so pained about your family struggles that with a few changes in communication, perspective, and narrative, you found your footing once again. Your struggles are deep becasue much is asked of you, remembering the things that truly matter to you while communicating your boundaries to yourself has put you in a place of awareness more closely associated with your amazing emotional intelligence. This was no easy task but that has changed so much of your life already. I am so proud of you and so glad I could be your right hand along the way.
To my single parent client who came to me with a list so long and a pain so deep that it made me realize after our sessions why I love doing what I do and why our verbal and emotional hugs were the catalyst of change along this journey. It was so easy to self deprecate and to believe that there is not much that can be done with your belief system which was built on false premises spoken to you by a voice so out of touch with reality. The intensity of a giving and caring mother was wrapped in its protective shell to make sure your kids were taken care of everyday. You are superhuman to me and what you continue to do and give is at a level so inspiring that when we had our breakthroughs, mostly in hilarious crying sessions, you remembered your 22 year old self so eager to take on the world with her immense power and grit. This 22 year old queen promised herself to persevere through all kinds of adversity and even though this recent experience was not something she planned, she remembered what it was like to be herself again and with that she broke through these imposed and invisible barriers that were put upon her. You did that! What a day it was! I cannot express the inspiration you gave me that day when we had our first, of many, breakthroughs together. I am so crazily proud of you. Thank you for how you continue to amaze me.
To my coach client that came to me with a loss of voice, a loss of identity, and a loss of direction. You worked so hard to find your footing in a world of healers that you thought that maybe this work was not for you. Your voice, so powerful, so directive, that once you got out of your own way, that voice evolved into something others could finally hear. Your identity was no longer one of a victim of circumstance but a protagonist in a story manifested by you! You got to create a reality by that belief that lingered around you which finally settled deep within your heart. It became your truth, your authenticity, your voice! You were able to support your family in the months to come, with cheerful tears and continued self love. I am so proud of who you’ve become and so grateful and honored to be considered family.
And so many more…
To my clients, there were so many of you, all walks of life, all backgrounds, that I was blessed to cross paths with. I cannot help but struggle when I see you struggle. It is in my nature to feel you and reflect back to you what I see within you. This process is never easy, it is never short, and it will always reflect the best in you. There is something common in all of you. It is found in the moments we feel seen, appreciated, and welcomed. It is when our own thoughts have reduced our own humanness that we find ourselves again from that special someone that took that extra time to show us how much they cared about us, how much they appreciated what we did, told us how we made them feel, and just made us feel seen. They showed us their humanity. This is where I found myself too. That simple act conjured up all the feelings we needed to get back on that saddle and continue our journey home. I could not have done it without you, and that is why I will not leave your side along our way home, not in need of one another, but in appreciation of all that is human between one another. I am so proud of us!
|
https://medium.com/@hanzkurdi/a-message-to-my-clients-4416e5b1838e
|
['Hanz Kurdi']
|
2021-01-01 09:45:05.625000+00:00
|
['Coaching And Consulting', 'Personal Development', 'Life Hacking', 'Learning And Development', 'Gratitude']
|
Failure is a Teacher; Success, a Deceiver
|
Failure is a Teacher; Success, a Deceiver
The erroneously-passing unit tests are perhaps the evilest of all written code.
Photo by Brusk Dede on Unsplash
tldr;
Just because you’ve had one success, do not assume you know the way.
Stay humble. Any time you encounter a new idea, understand it first before you criticize it or promote your way.
Deceitfully Successful Code
The erroneously-passing unit tests are perhaps the evilest of all written code. Albeit once, I did stumble across a test one time that went something like this.
Obviously, this is a child of the Evil One. If you were looking at the test output it looks as if the function is tested. A Q/A, reviewing the report from the CI/CD tool might not notice. However, much more often I see something more like this.
The bug is subtle and takes many forms. This test passes via Jest in its current state. However, if you added a second expect statement of: expect(username).toBe("Mullen"); the test would fail. If you write code TAD fashion (Test After Development) you will someday get as far as the toBeDefined() and call it good. In fact, you've created a lier and it was not good. He will lie to all that he can until finally at some end to end test a Q/A gets cranky.
Side Note: This is why TDD takes such a scientific approach of “Make an assumption, then validate it”. In TDD, your first test is more likely to be expect(username).toBe("Mullen"); rather than expect(username).toBeDefined() . It is not perfect, but it is better.
Second Side Note: the bug is that you need await user.getUsername() to allow the promise to resolve. This is far more common in code that uses the done callback. done may be called when none of the expect() statements ran.
Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash
Deceitfully Successful Experiences
Consider another example in the realm of teams. When I was on a particular project we spent years creating trust with stakeholders and rigor around our dev process. We had made leadership proud on a few occasions and had slowly increased the levels of automation and tooling over a multi-year period. We did design documents, we had checklists for code reviews, and we had lots of automated CI/CD for the project and supporting libraries. In this environment, my role as a leader was fairly uncomplicated and low pressure. I felt accomplished. I took the TAD approach and thought, “Well this seems to be working, I’ll make an assumption that this is the way”.
But success is like a local maximum. Perched on my little hill, through many retrospectives, I had been to both sides of the hill and both led downward. Reinforcing my position that at this little height, at this particular graphical zoom level, I was on The Peak.
One day I found myself on a new project with a number of challenges. I began to operate in the same fashion that had worked well on the previous project expecting to subdue the challenges with the proven strength of my existing ways. The only thing that was proved was what a poor match my methods were for this new environment. The trust was hardly there in the new team and the rigor had to start from 0, not the 100 that I attempted to dive into.
My past success had lied to me. I lasted about 5 weeks on the project before the team and I understood that a different approach would be needed. I split off to do a side project with one of the developers a different lead came in and took the horns taking a fairly different approach, but one that worked rather well.
The Problem of Success
Here is the way I think about this. When we succeed at something, we don’t really know why we actually succeeded. We might have ideas, but it’s not a scientific calculation. In the few business advice books I’ve read they caveat so much of what they say with “you will still need luck”. Luck they say is an essential ingredient. Why? Because if you take the success of one person and duplicate the steps for another person in similar situation you are likely to NOT get a successful outcome. Each individual and each circumstance are just too unique for a detailed formulae of success.
Let’s compare the concrete act of landing a plan with the fluid act of project management. Landing a plan successfully requires thousands of parts and processes to work in sync. We can say the success depends on each part doing its defined and limited function at the right time in the right way. Of the few unpredictable variables, the weather might be the highest risk factor to success since we can’t control it to the degree we can control our own systems designs. A successful project may have a similar definition of success. However, on the project we cannot possibly deconstruct the system to understand the parts — namely, the people. We cannot fully understand how Bob interacts with Alice, or how Alice covers for Bob on a sick day, or how Alice and Bob shared the same background and so never had a communication problem. As a leader, you may have a successful project and you may look at it, like the airplane, and think that you understand the parts and processes that make up the success. But, Success is lying to you. You may have thought it was that peer-review process, but in fact, it was Bob. You may have thought it was Bob, but in fact, it was the peer-review process.
Photo by Dev Asangbam on Unsplash
The Call of Failure
Failure on the other hand demands to be known. He demands the truth. Failure is the rock in your shoe that you cannot ignore until you’ve stopped, taken off your shoe, and shook him out. In the engineering world, we have Root Cause Analysis, we have the 5 Why’s Method, we have weird fishbone charts and test frameworks, we have tools built around tools to address a failure. But we can only address it once it occurs.
So then, we must create a failure in order to pursue it. Unlike success, we can in most cases get to a definitive answer as to why the failure occurred. We can then begin to address it.
Combating Success
Doctors do mock-surgeries, the military does mock-missions (and makes them as real as possible), the trades do basically one long paired programming session until you get the journey-man badge. Developers do… um, we do… TDD. Ok, well we say we do TDD. But only when we have to and someone is watching… Leaders just tend to fail first and then hopefully learn and have the gumption to keep at it and not get demoralized.
They say in some areas of the military, “if you are not failing you are not trying hard enough”. The idea is to create a culture of creative testing and anti-complacency. Failing in a supportive environment is perhaps the quickest way to competence. The quickest way to weed out Success’s lies and learn from Failures truths.
We must find ways to successfully fail. Here, I will avoid talking about failures as they pertain to a person’s character. Let’s stay focused on honest mistakes, naïveté, and skill paths.
We must stay humble and not let our ego (a close friend of success as a liar) tell us that failure is a sign of weakness. We must not let our ego play with our imposter syndrome and tempt us to hide or avoid failures.
There is an old saying that “if you aim at nothing you will hit it every time”. At the other end of the spectrum is aiming at too much and creating catastrophic problems that you cannot recover from. So I suggest a TDD approach to code and to life. Create small assumptions or small experiments. Create small environments to test and measure those assumptions and experiments. At times, if you can do a hackathon and try something completely new and dangerous in a Nevada Test Site — then by all means do it! In fact, take the opportunity to try something opposite of what you normally would do. But do it safely, for the sake of your code and your loved ones.
|
https://medium.com/dev-genius/failure-is-a-teacher-success-a-deceiver-e4d5f1cffb61
|
['Daniel Villa']
|
2020-12-03 09:10:07.672000+00:00
|
['Coding', 'Software Devlopment', 'Software Engineering', 'Career Advice']
|
Search Engines: A Human Perspective
|
At first glance, the design and development of search engines appear to be concerned mainly with computer science — particularly information retrieval, machine learning, and natural language processing.
But search isn’t just a computer science problem. Effective search depends on the interaction between searchers and the search engine. Searchers turn to search engines with an intent in mind, invest effort into the search process, and expect to obtain something useful in return. While computer science plays an essential role in each component of the search process, it’s important to think about search as a whole from a human perspective.
Intent
People generally use search engines to satisfy a particular information-seeking intent. They primarily express their intent through the search query, in some cases refining the query with a sort or filter.
It’s common to evaluate the effectiveness of a search engine using behavioral signals, such as click-through rate, click position, and conversion rate. But all of these measures signal conflate three things: searchers’ effectiveness at expressing their intent, the search engine’s effectiveness at understanding their intent, and the relevance of the search results.
If a search engine can’t understand what searchers are looking for, it’s going to have a hard time delivering relevant results to them. Moreover, if searchers are unable to express their intent, the search engine is going to have a hard time figuring it out from their search queries.
So, if you’re developing a search application, make sure to invest effort not only into query understanding, but also into ensuring that searchers express their intent as well as possible. Look at search logs, and if you can’t figure out what searchers are looking for, then your search engine probably can’t either. Invest in autocomplete and in guidance on the search results page, such as faceted search, to help and encourage searchers express their intent in a way that the search engine can understand.
Effort
Searchers are people. People are lazy. All else equal, searchers tend to invest the minimum effort that a search engine requires of them. They type as little as possible, perhaps taking advantage of autocomplete if they see a suggestion that aligns with their intent. They only look at the first few search results, rarely scanning past the first page presented to them. And most don’t invest effort into learning how to be better searchers.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with searchers’ desire to minimize their effort. Even if there were, it’s unlikely that a search engine can change something so fundamental to human nature. Indeed, powerful search interfaces that require extensive training have mostly given way to simpler interfaces that require as little as possible from searchers.
But the downside of searchers’ laziness — and of search engines’ eagerness to cater to it — is that sometimes it actually ends up costing them more effort and reducing their return on investment. In general, short queries are an ineffective means for searchers to express a clear, specific intent. When search interfaces are too simple, they deprive searchers of the transparency and control to communicate their intent effectively.
The foundation of human-computer information retrieval (HCIR) is that search engines help searchers who help themselves. The best search engines reward searchers’ incremental effort with a higher return on investment.
But searchers have been trained by simple search interfaces, and their laziness is compounded by a skepticism of anything that violates their expectations. In order to earn searcher effort, search engines have to provide simple, incremental, and effective steps that guide searchers — and that teach them through experience that the return justifies the additional effort.
Utility
Search is almost never an end in itself; rather, it’s a means to an end. When we evaluate the effectiveness of a search engine, it’s critical to keep that end in mind. If searchers aren’t able to successfully complete the tasks that motivated them to search in the first place, then all they’ve accomplished is to waste their time and effort.
Search engine developers generally maintain a variety of metrics to measure the search engine’s effectiveness. Sometimes those metrics serve as proxies for searcher utility. Sometimes they are business metrics, intended to measure the contribution of search to the overall bottom line.
It’s important to know the difference, especially if searcher utility and business utility are not completely aligned. More importantly, thinking explicitly about measuring searcher utility forces you to ask tough questions about whether your metrics are adequate proxies for it. For example, does a click on a search result indicate search success, or does it mean that the searcher couldn’t obtain enough information from the search results page?
Without reading people’s minds, it’s impossible to be certain what searchers are trying to achieve — let alone to determine if they’ve achieved it. But we can perform user research, propose models that lead to testable hypotheses, and validate those models with data. Conversely, if we don’t think about what searchers are trying to achieve, we’re unlikely to help them achieve it.
Summary
Search is about searchers, and searchers are human beings. Even as we use computer science to improve each component of a search engine, it’s important to think about search as a whole from a human perspective. Searchers use search engines as a means to satisfy an intent, and search engines serve searchers by delivering utility as a return for the effort they invest into the search process. Framing search in these terms is the first step towards delivering effective and delightful search experiences.
|
https://medium.com/@dtunkelang/search-engines-a-human-perspective-3e3ca9d98b7c
|
['Daniel Tunkelang']
|
2019-03-11 13:01:03.329000+00:00
|
['Search', 'Search Engines', 'User Experience', 'Query Understanding', 'Information Retrieval']
|
A Legendary Read
|
How many books are truly “must read”? It’s frankly a small number. I’m talking about books that you could read each and every year of your life — if you had the time — and always feel fulfilled.
Robert Graves’ Goodbye to a River is one of those, in my opinion.
Musing on how the Texas cowboy had been romanticized and sanitized, John Graves wrote:
Are we going to re-redefine the cowboy? Shall we. . .sniff the bathless sweat of our fellows, and hear their hollers and the screams of red-eyed steers, and whale hell out of a runty ill-tempered mustang under us, and eat beans and biscuits and bacon, bacon and biscuits and beans, till we’re loose with diarrhea or drum-bellied with its opposite, and sleep four or five bug-crawling, dust-coughing hours a night on the ground without being able to get the boots off feet swollen with heat and fungus itch, and ford the rivers and ride the stampedes and worry about the Indians in the Territory and get sloppy-sleepy drunk at last in Wichita or Hunnewell where a pasty whore will stash beneath her mattress our wages earned so pleasantly, and maybe in return will give us a lasting souvenir?. . .
I think not.
In the 1950’s, a series of dams was proposed along the Brazos River in north west-central Texas, a stretch of the Brazos about 200 miles long. John Graves had spent his childhood in the 20’s and 30’s roaming that stretch of the river — fishing, rafting, hunting, and hearing tales from the old ones who still remembered the days of the Comanche, the Kiowas, the Texas Rangers, and the hard life on the northeastern edge of Anglo settlement and the southwestern edge of Comancheria.
So he decided to take a canoe trip down the River from Possum Kingdown Lake at the western end of this stretch and Lake Whitney at the eastern end. He wanted to see the river as he remembered it one more time, to remember the stories and the histories, and say goodbye to a river.
It is a book filled with the gifts of a naturalist’s keen eye, but much more than that. All along the river, at this point and that, Graves retells the stories of each place: the Comanche and Kiowa raids here, the Mitchell-Truitt feud that ended with almost all the adult males killed in each family, the great Comanche chiefs all the way to Peta Nocona and his son Quanah Parker (half white and half Comanche, and the last of the Chiefs), Charles Goodnight and the Goodnight-Loving Trail he made to drive cattle north, and an old fellow known as Old Man Whitley who had lived by himself in a wood shack for as long as anyone could remember.
Quanah Parker, the last Comanche chief
It is a beautifully written book, a book that envelops you within a different time and place. And, like the great fin de siècle novels of Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove and The Last Picture Show), has that bittersweet feel of a yesterday passing.
Graves went on to write 2 more books about this part of Texas, completing what came to be known as his Brazos Trilogy (the other two are: Hard Scabble: Observations on a Patch of Land and From a Limestone Edge), among other books. When he died in 2013, he was hailed as a beloved Texan.
Graves is the epitome of a man who followed his passion, and honed it over many years to become world class.
You might not care a whit about the Brazos river or Texas, but I promise you will care about this book — if you choose to read it.
|
https://medium.com/@tcmoore2012/a-legendary-read-793ca66b22e0
|
['Tim Moore']
|
2020-12-12 19:05:53.393000+00:00
|
['Book Recommendations', 'Books', 'Texas', 'Outdoors', 'Canoeing']
|
Three Different Things: March 31, 2020
|
Three Different Things: March 31, 2020
Fever Maps, Who’s Growing During the Coronavirus Crisis?, and What the Left and the Right Get Wrong About the Crisis
Kinsa’s Fever Map
The company, Kinsa Health, which produces internet-connected thermometers, first created a national map of fever levels on March 22 and was able to spot the trend within a day. Since then, data from the health departments of New York State and Washington State have buttressed the finding, making it clear that social distancing is saving lives.
Take a look at the fever map — it shows atypical fever levels in the US by county. Pretty impressive application — and a reason why health-related IoT will be a winner from this.
2. Who’s Growing During the Coronavirus Crisis? Pizza Chains
(Domino’s) has rejected third-party delivery providers in favor of a fortressing strategy. The brand clusters markets to reduce delivery radiuses and delivery times, improve the wage rate equation for drivers and franchisees, and bolster carryout business and service times.
Will this end up the right strategy? I think about how Uber improved the taxi experience with free water and snacks. A third-party provider could be the catalyst to improve the delivery experience.
3. What both the left and the right get wrong about the coronavirus economic crisis
It’s on the fiscal policy side where I think we are at risk of running in the wrong direction, because the real economic measures that we’re adopting are completely unprecedented. To think about what we need as a kind of wartime mobilization seems to me to miss the point completely. This is a much more peculiar task than that. The job is maintaining the economy on life support during a period of an artificially induced coma while we address the public health challenge.
So maybe the message shouldn’t be so much “go back to work,” but “here’s how we’ll help you to work during this crisis.”
|
https://medium.com/early-hours/three-different-things-march-31-2020-b974e637f164
|
["Sean O'Brien"]
|
2020-03-31 12:06:27.387000+00:00
|
['Economics', 'Business', 'Data Visualization']
|
Astroscale ships its area junk elimination demonstration satellite tv for pc for March 2021 venture
|
Japanese startup Astroscale has shipped its ELSA-d spacecraft to the Baikonur Cosmo drome in Kazahkstan, where it is going to be included with a Soyuz rocket for a launch scheduled for March of next year. This is a critical assignment for Astroscale, since it’ll be the primary in-space demonstration of the enterprise’s technology for de-orbiting space debris, a cornerstone of its proposed area sustainability carrier enterprise.
The ELSA-d undertaking by Astroscale is a small satellite project a good way to reveal two key technologies that permit the enterprise’s imaginative and prescient for orbital debris elimination. First can be a concentrated on component, demonstrating an capability to locate and dock with a bit of space particles, the use of positioning sensors such as GPS and laser finding technologies. That might be used by a so-called ‘servicer’ satellite tv for pc to find and attach to a ‘target’ satellite released on the identical time, with the intention to stand in for a capability piece of particles.
Astroscale intends to dock and launch with the ‘target’ the usage of its ‘servicer’ multiple instances over the path of the assignment, showing that it can become aware of and seize out of control items in area, and that it may manoeuvre them for managed de-orbit. This will essentially prove out the feasibility of the generation underlying its commercial enterprise model, and set it up for future business operations.
In October, Astroscale introduced that it had raised $fifty one million, making its general raised to date $191 million. The company additionally acquired the body of workers and IP of a corporation called Effective Space Solutions in June, which it’s going to use to build out the geostationary servicing arm of its enterprise, further to the LEO operations that ELSA-d will reveal.
Read More…..
|
https://medium.com/@samirmalik8805/astroscale-ships-its-area-junk-elimination-demonstration-satellite-tv-for-pc-for-march-2021-venture-16dd7c510acc
|
[]
|
2020-12-23 07:00:01.310000+00:00
|
['Technology News', 'Satellite Technology', 'Space', 'Technews', 'Technology']
|
Android Machine Learning
|
The picture is provided by Unsplash
As you know, a growing interest to Machine Learning forced the companies to focus and invest on it. Machine Learning (ML) is the major of computational science, which focuses on analyzing and interpreting patterns and structures in data to enable learning, reasoning, and decision making outside of human being interaction. Furthermore, Machine Learning is a programming approach that provides your Android apps the capability to learn and improve automatically from previous experience. As a result, Google has designed and implemented a number of advanced features and tools for Android Machine Learning. This article aims to discuss some main concepts and advanced features that have been recommended for Android developers.
Introduction and Overview
Basically, Machine learning (ML) is a programming approach that provides your Android apps the ability to learn and enhance automatically from experience without being explicitly programmed to do so. Recently, Android has a wide range of Machine Learning tools that are available for everyone: designers, product managers to engineers, mobile developers, and Machine Learning experts. Now, Android is a platform, and one of the ways you, which you can measure the success of a platform is through the great achievements that you build on top of it. Today, Android runs on 2.5 billion devices, and a number of them are already using on-device ML. Also, on-device Machine Learning is no longer a technology of the future because it is accessible for using right now. For example, it has been mentioned that more than 25,000 applications on Android and iOS make use of ML Kit’s features.
In other words, the modern mobile phones have enough capacity to process as much as traditional computers can, and our phones and tablets are powerful enough to run applications, which can learn and interact in real time. Machine Learning(ML) is helping us build smart apps. For instance, the Google Apps prediction for the next apps you are likely to use, and a mobile app, which solves the world’s biggest problem for finding the perfect emoji. Besides, Smart Assistants, Snapchat Filters, Smart Reply, and Google lens are some of the other products of utilizing Machine Learning on devices. A number of SDKs exist on mobile phones that help run Machine Learning on mobile devices. Some of them includes software development kits developed by popular companies such as Amazon, Intel, and Microsoft, and also Google has developed the ML Kit. The following sections of this essay will consider some main concepts and new features that have been recommended by Google for Android development.
The definition of Machine Learning (ML)
In fact, the major of Machine Learning is concerned with the question of how to construct computer programs that improve automatically with experiences. Thus, your answer is in your data. In short, Machine Learning is considered as a subset of AI, which uses statistical methods to enable machines to enhance with experience. It enables a computer system to make decisions to carry out a certain task. These programs or algorithms are designed in such a way that they can learn and enhance over time by observing new data. The main objective of Machine Learning is to derive meaning from data. Therefore, data is the key to unlock Machine Learning. The more qualified data ML has, the more accurate the ML algorithm becomes.
Machine Learning (ML) is the science of computer algorithms that improve automatically through past experiences.
To make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed, Machine Learning algorithms build a model based on examples that is called training data.
Machine Learning is the extraction of knowledge from data.
Additionally, there are some differences between Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The goal of Artificial Intelligence is to create a machine that can mimic a human mind, and it requires learning capabilities as well. However, it is more than just about learning; it is also about knowledge representation, reasoning and abstract thinking. In contrast, Machine Learning is solely focused on writing software, which can learn from past experiences. Besides, Machine Learning is more closely related to Data Mining and Statistics than it is to Artificial Intelligence.
Machine Learning allows us to solve certain kinds of problems in very elegant ways. The important point is that why do we use Machine Learning in practice. For example, you had to write code to detect if someone was walking. Besides, if you had access to his speed, you must write a fairly simple bit of code to specify a metric for speed that shows walking in reality. Extending this situation to running seems straightforward enough. In addition, if we wanted to cover biking, we just need to add another boundary condition to our code. At the moment the question is what about other types of activities, for instance, golfing?
In fact, golfing includes a lot of walking, but there is also carrying and swinging a bunch of clubs. So, how do we explain this condition? This is where Machine Learning can help us effectively. In traditional programming, we express rules in languages, such as Kotlin, Java. Then, we apply those rules to problem of interest. In Machine Learning, the paradigm is somewhat different. Instead of writing a bunch of rules, we take a lot of label data like photos of people engaged in different types of activities with corresponding labels for those activities. Besides, if we feed this data to our Neural Network, it will learn the business rules for us without requiring to define them. In short, Machine Learning has proven to be remarkably effective at solving a number of various kinds of issues like activity detection.
Machine Learning in Android Development
As you noticed, Machine Learning is a programming approach that provides your Android apps the capability to learn and improve automatically from experience without being explicitly programmed to do so. Furthermore, this is well-suited for Android apps that use unstructured data such as images and text, or problems with large number of parameters like predicting the winning sports team. Currently, Android provides a wide variety of machine learning tools and methods: The ML design guides, Google’s turnkey machine learning SDK ML Kit, TF Hub for finding pre-built cutting edge models, TF Lite Model Maker to train an existing model with your own data, and ML Kit custom models and Android Studio for integrating these models into your Android app in an appropriate.
To develop ML apps for Android, you will face four main tasks as follows:
Design: identifying product goals and providing ML design patterns to achieve them. Build and Train: building the ML model, or training pre-trained model from Google. Inference: the process of using a machine learning model, which has already been trained to accomplish a certain task. Deploy: Installing and updating ML models for your Android app.
Guidelines for designing Android apps
Initially, there is no difference compared to other advanced technologies. Your product designers and engineering all combined to decide what kind of problem are we trying to solve with our product. So, it is not a single effort. It is an extremely iterative process when you have a new technology. You want to test the boundary, and you want to collaborate. In addition, you want to observe how the user really use your product. This means Design, Product Management, and Software Engineering play key roles in this process. Google has produced two guides in this field of study as follows:
The People + AI Guidebook : In this guidebook, there are six different sections to help you structure your conversation with your designers and product managers. In overall, it offers best practices to help your team make human-centered AI product decisions.
2. The The Material Design for Machine Learning spec : this guideline includes of following sections:
First, new Material Design guidelines for ML use cases on mobile.
Second, enabling great end-to-end mobile UX powered by ML.
Third, source code available for Object Detection and Tracking and Barcode Scanning.
The key decision in Android development
As a matter of fact, a key decision you should address in Android development is inferencing will run on the device, or use a cloud service that would be accessed remotely. To make this decision accurately, you should consider some parameters as advantages or disadvantages. For instance, for on-device approach you will face some benefits as follows:
Privacy: In many cases, it is more appropriate to just keep everything on device. Therefore, we do not have to worry about how the data is processed in the cloud.
2. Offline: on-device Machine Learning works when there is no connectivity, or when the network is patchy. For example, if you spend any time underground trains, you will know that this could be useful.
3. Low latency: by running our processing on device, we can be able to remove network latency out of the equation altogether. Also, coupling this with the latest advancements in hardware acceleration, we can give users truly real-time experiences across a wide range of Android devices.
ML Kit for app developers
As a matter of fact, ML Kit SDK is a new product from Google, which was presented in 2018. ML Kit is a software development kit that makes it possible for developers to simplify the integration of machine learning models into their mobile apps. In addition, even a junior developer can address this task easily. Another point is that it makes your iOS and Android apps much more engaging, personalized, and useful with solutions that are optimized to run on device. As it was mentioned, more than 25,000 apps on Android and iOS make use of ML Kit’s features.
A new SDK that brings Google’s Machine Learning experience to mobile developers in a powerful, easy-to-use package on Firebase.
ML Kit has some features that can be categorized in three sections:
Vision: Video and image analysis APIs to label images and detect bar-codes, text, faces, and objects. Natural Language: Natural language processing APIs to identify and translate between 58 languages and provide reply suggestions. Custom: Build your own models using AutoML Vision Edge, or bring your own TensorFlow Lite models, run experiments, and deploy them in production with ML Kit.
The picture is provided by Google Documents
Each category has some features. For instance, Vision has some features as Base APIs: Barcode Scanning, Face Detection, Image Labeling, Object Detection, Landmark Detection, and Text Detection.
TensorFlow Lite
Basically, TensorFlow Lite is a set of tools to help programmers run TensorFlow models on mobile, embedded, and IoT devices appropriately. In fact, it provides on-device machine learning inference with low latency and a small binary size. In other words, TensorFlow Lite is designed to make it easy to run Machine Learning on devices, at the edge of the network, instead of sending data back and forth from a server. TensorFlow Lite includes two main components:
The TensorFlow Lite interpreter : it runs (optimized models) on many different hardware types, such as mobile phones and microcontrollers.
2. The TensorFlow Lite converter : it converts TensorFlow models into an productive form for use by the interpreter, and can be able to introduce optimizations to enhance binary size and performance.
Eventually, the steps for using TensorFlow Lite contains of the following steps briefly:
Picking a model Converting the model Deploying to your device Optimizing your model
AutoML Vision Edge
This new feature from Google can build custom image classification models from your own training data. In fact, if you are planning to recognize contents of an image, one option could use ML Kit’s on-device image labeling API. However, if you require a more specialized image labeling model, you can be able to utilize Firebase ML and AutoML Vision Edge to train a model with your own images and categories. For instance, a model to distinguish between species of flowers or types of food. The custom model is trained in Google Cloud, and then it can be used fully on the device.
In conclusion
At a glance, Machine Learning is a programming approach that provides your Android apps the capability to learn and enhance automatically from previous experience. As a result, Google has designed and implemented a number of advanced features and tools for Android development. This article considered some main concepts and advanced features that have been suggested for Android developers by Google.
|
https://medium.com/kayvan-kaseb/android-machine-learning-6ba4d9d599df
|
['Kayvan Kaseb']
|
2020-11-26 21:47:04.461000+00:00
|
['Machine Learning', 'Android App Development', 'Android Development', 'Android', 'Android Machine Learning']
|
Life Map
|
I help Asian Women Expats to step up in career without sacrificing “me time” all the time by strengths discovery. bit.ly/AsianWomenExpats
|
https://medium.com/@shielacancino/life-map-1bfca26bbbc2
|
['Shiela Cancino']
|
2020-12-23 15:11:32.066000+00:00
|
['Bounce Forward', 'Covid 19', 'Shiela Cancino', 'Resilience']
|
makeup-bags Online in UAE, makeup-bags Online in Kuwait, makeup-bags Online in Saudi Arab, makeup-bags Online in Dubai
|
https://eyshopp.com/makeup-bags.html
A toiletry bag “additionally called a toiletry unit, tune bag, drop unit, restroom pack, wipe bag, toilet bag, makeup bag, toilet article pack, body cleanliness unit, travel pack, wash bag, shaving pack, or wet pack” is a versatile compartment normally a pocket with a drawstring or zippered conclusion that holds body cleanliness and toiletry supplies, for example, toothbrush and toothpaste, dental floss, antiperspirant, nail trimmers, tweezers, cleanser, shaving supplies, hair brush, tampons, contact focal points and supplies, and comparative things while voyaging and in different conditions where long-lasting racks and pantries are inaccessible or unrealistic for use. A makeup bag is a bag made for conveying beauty care products. Numerous ladies keep a makeup bag in their satchel to permit them to reapply or finish up their makeup occasionally. Texture makeup bags won’t break, yet they aren’t as simple to keep perfect and corrective spills might smudge the texture. In My Makeup Bag Brushes: I just have a couple of makeup brushes in my weapons store they’re costly and I don’t have the space to have one brush for each item, Palettes, Brow Products and Mascara, CC Cream, Concealer and Setting Powder, Bronzer, Blush and Highlighter, Lips. The toiletry bag can be utilized for its expected use: to store all of your prepping supplies, shaving supplies “for the honorable men”, make-up “for the ladies or hello, the men as well”, toothpaste, antiperspirant, moisturizer, cleanser and some other supplies you may have to have inside arm’s scope while getting ready for the afternoon.
|
https://medium.com/@manorani_27011/makeup-bags-online-in-uae-makeup-bags-online-in-kuwait-makeup-bags-online-in-saudi-arab-6be9ccc2ea6e
|
['Mano Rani']
|
2021-12-28 10:22:09.387000+00:00
|
['Uae', 'Online', 'Kuwait', 'Makeup', 'Bags']
|
¿QUÉ ES BITCOIN?
|
in In Fitness And In Health
|
https://medium.com/antra/qu%C3%A9-es-bitcoin-5a871e12727c
|
['Antra Official']
|
2018-07-31 17:58:39.327000+00:00
|
['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Criptografia']
|
How Online Shopping Is Getting Me Through the Pandemic
|
How Online Shopping Is Getting Me Through the Pandemic
How my world collapsed into home delivery
“This Is Fine” — perhaps the defining comic of our age — is also a commodity
Sometimes I think I have PTSD. Post-traumatic shopping disorder. I shop to distraction. I shop to get away. Not from my life, as my wife is asking what’s wrong with my life. To get away from the news.
When I find myself staring at a blank browser window I can either open a firehouse of outrage or go shopping. Where nothing is wrong and if it is, it can just be returned.
So I shop.
Shopping for nothing
Even before the pandemic I used to shop for nothing. Things I couldn’t afford and could never get delivered (I live in Sri Lanka).
Watches, for example. There is nothing more oblivious than a watch. The best mechanical watches are sublimely out of date — they’re far less accurate than a $20 Casio and obliterated by a phone. And yet they persist, as jewellery men can pretend are tools (I’ll go diving with this, someday). Watches have just completely fucked off from the modern world and continued evolving in obscure, idiosyncratic ways.
They’re also extremely expensive, starting at $5,000 for the good ones, almost none of which are available where I live. And yet I began ‘shopping’ for them after Trump was elected, and cruelty began taking over the news. It was one place I could absolutely get away. As the media descended into a carnival of fuckery, Hodinkee was the one place the madness could never touch.
Shopping for stuff
Today that place is Daraz (our local AliBaba). This is a place I can actually shop. Cables, microphones, lights. Clocks, baking items, Christmas lights(for the fam). Most importantly, spare parts, that particular adapter, that charger. All the extras and erratum of modern life.
There is a deep sense that if I optimize my life enough it will be optimal. That the perfect set of consumer goods will make me a consummate human being. And to a large degree it works. At least better than reading the news does.
My wife’s USB cable organizer brings her joy every time she charges her phone, which is all the time. Every time I find the right power supply I feel as cunning as Odysseus. When my daughter puts her little shoes on the shoe rack I’m thankful.
Storage, electronics these are objects we touch every day and improving them does improve our lives. During the pandemic the world has collapsed into the home, so self-improvement is home improvement.
The world has imploded this far. This is wealth now, this is status. Not conspicious consumption, but the inconspicuous. Bury me in bubble wrap, surrounded by box cutters and terra cotta delivery men.
“The original Dumpster Fire vinyl toy from 100% Soft launched in December of 2019 when the state of the world was only mostly terrible. Clearly, the toy of our times needed an upgrade when 2020 went next level. Enter the Dumpster Fire vinyl figure version 2.0. It features an LED light with a flickering flame!”
The obscenity of it all
It is of course obscene privilege, shopping for wants when so many have needs. Our family gives at least 10% away, but who are we kidding. Charity is how cash launders class. Generosity is a PR exercise, not actual change. Who gives a fuck about expensive podcasting equipment only noticed by people with expensive headphones. We’re literally rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Even acknowledging privilege is a privilege, for the woke living the dream.
Online shopping is obviously not getting everyone through the pandemic. Not the Amazon workers on food stamps, fired if they dare slow down. Not for the community shops the pandemic shutters while Bezos laughs. And not, of course, for the poor, for whom there is no adapter to make ends meet.
This is literally the reality that I shop to get away from. To look away from. To turn from a messy world to a world of packaging. From uncertainty to money-back guarantees. From a basic needs going unmet to every want, potentially, n being satisfied.
I have died and gone to capitalist heaven, while capitalism is turning the Earth to hell. I have Post-Traumatic Shopping Disorder, but some people really have PTSD.
|
https://medium.com/swlh/how-online-shopping-is-getting-me-thru-the-pandemic-d3e9a9d653a1
|
['Indi Samarajiva']
|
2020-12-20 07:36:30.304000+00:00
|
['Coronavirus', 'Self', 'Shopping', 'Ecommerce', 'Retail']
|
inHow to make Your Money Goals Attainable?
|
Everyone has a personal set of objectives while defining their financial plans. These can be things you aspire for or can be potential events you might confront. Either way, it’s certainly painless to fulfil pre-planned and pre-identified goals.
Your money goals may include paying off your debts, saving for retirement, building an emergency fund, buying a home, savings for child education, funding for your startup, financial security, etc.
The most common issue raised from not establishing your money goals in advance is that it would pile up your debts and eventually will lead to a financial crisis. Therefore, you should take concrete steps towards attaining them while leaving room for other expenses too.
A few Facts to Keep in Mind
● Fact #1: Identify Attainable Goals!
To avoid financial discontent, you should set some rational and attainable goals.
● Fact#2: Ensure ‘Timely’ and Accurate Financial Goals
Having a clear picture in mind of what, why, and when makes your goals more effective and easily achievable.
● Fact #3: Don’t Forget Short-term Goals
Also, Appropriate financial, retirement and investment planning starts with goal setting that may include short, intermediate, and long-term goals.
1. Key short-term goals cover setting a budget and starting an emergency fund.
2. Medium-term goals cover key insurances, and
3. Long-term goals need to be focused on retirement.
Try to include them in your budget, and plan out how much time and money you can devote to it. Framing a goal plan is a smart way to start. Precisely, you just need to follow the below-mentioned steps to activate your Goal Plan Action:
Steps to Frame A Goal Plan
➔ Target on one personal financial goal; Make sure it has a timeline and also is specific, quantifiable, action-oriented, and logical.
➔ Examine your goal category — as short-term, mid-term, or long-term and develop a timeline for it. However, this may vary based on your situation.
➔ Make a financial plan to achieve your goal by calculating the money it requires and keep aside that much amount.
➔ Look for various ways such as saving, paring down expenses, supplementary earning, or finding additional resources to reach your goal.
➔ Choose resources to stay on course. Financial firms like Fincart can assist you to manage and attain your money objectives in the best possible way thereby ensuring the safety and attainment of your plans.
Conclusion:
Setting goals is not enough; the aim should be towards setting attainable goals. This would help you take command and feel more confident about your decisions. You just need to prioritise your list and set your financial plans accordingly. Clear goals and attainable financial plans empower you to track progress and keep going.
For successful attainment of your financial goals, you must decide what goals you want to attain, how much funding it needs, resources it requires, how much time would you expect to attain them. Moreover, in case you fall short, you have some healthy money habits with you.
|
https://medium.com/@fincart-financial-planners/inhow-to-make-your-money-goals-attainable-5d329a06570f
|
[]
|
2020-12-18 06:46:10.206000+00:00
|
['Financial Planning', 'Investment', 'Investing', 'Goals', 'Finance']
|
🌻 Plotly.py End of Summer Updates 🌻
|
Static Image Export and a New Lead Maintainer
plotly.py is a free, open source Python graphing library written and maintained by the company Plotly. Under the hood, it’s an interface to the open source plotly.js JavaScript graphing library. Get started or view the source on GitHub.
Just two months ago we announced plotly.py 3.0.0 , our biggest release yet. It included first-class Jupyter widget integration, deep validation and typeahead support, and several performance improvements (read more).
Today we’re excited to announce two new developments in the plotly.py library:
Announcement 1. Jon Mease, the open source contributor behind 3.0.0, is stepping up as the lead maintainer of plotly.py. Jon has been working in technical computing and data science for many years. He started working on plotly.py because he wants it all: a library with high quality SVG graphics, GPU acceleration for large datasets, two-way interactivity in Jupyter, standalone dashboard support, and an extensive range of chart types. With Jon at the helm, plotly.py has never been in a better place. Welcome Jon!
Announcement 2. Programmatic static image export is now widely available in plotly.py 3.2.0. Here “programmatic” means the ability to save figures as images from code, without requiring any manual interaction with a web browser (e.g. no save dialog). This has been the most requested feature by the community and seriously broadens the applicability of the library. Thanks to Jon, our community no longer has to choose between interactive graphing and high quality static image exports; with plotly.py you can have it both ways.
Quickstart
Converting a figure to an image is simple and it’s very similar to matplotlib’s savefig :
plotly.io.write_image(fig, file, format=None,
scale=None, width=None, height=None)
fig is a Figure or a compatible dict . This is the central declarative object that describes every aspect of a plotly graph.
is a or a compatible . This is the central declarative object that describes every aspect of a plotly graph. file may be a string referring to a local filesystem path, or a file-like object to be written to. If file is a string, then the file extension is used to infer the image format if possible.
may be a string referring to a local filesystem path, or a file-like object to be written to. If is a string, then the file extension is used to infer the image format if possible. The format may be used to explicitly specify the format, and it is required if file is not a string with a common extension. Supported formats are png , jpeg (jpg extension supported as well), webp , svg , pdf , and eps (with poppler installed).
may be used to explicitly specify the format, and it is required if is not a string with a common extension. Supported formats are , (jpg extension supported as well), , , , and (with poppler installed). scale , width , and height all work as you would expect.
plotly.io.to_image(fig, format=None,
scale=None, width=None, height=None)
This function may be used to return the binary representation of the image directly (no temp files or messing with io.BytesIO !). This can be used in conjunction with IPython.display.Image to display static images directly in the notebook or QtConsole.
Installation
The main plotly.py library can be installed either through pip or through conda :
$ pip install plotly --upgrade $ conda install -c plotly plotly
Image export requires two additional dependencies: orca and psutil . psutil may be installed using pip or conda from the standard repositories, and there are three ways to install orca :
$ conda install -c plotly plotly-orca $ npm install -g [email protected] orca Download and install the prebuilt binary
Performance
One of the really exciting aspects of our image export functionality is that generating images is really fast. It takes about 2 seconds for the image generating subprocess to start but once it’s started, generating images can be about as fast as matplotlib and somewhat faster than the selenium-based approach used by other JavaScript visualization libraries like bokeh and altair.
Here are the results of some timing comparisons between plotly.py, matplotlib, bokeh, and altair for saving a 1000 point scatter plot to a PNG and SVG image (get the full notebook here).
Update 09/08/2018: The original version of the chart below showed significantly slower bokeh export times. Thanks to Bryan Van de Ven for pointing out that it is possible to substantially improve the export time by reusing a single selenium webdriver instance across multiple export operations. As far as we know, this approach is not currently available in altair (as of version 2.2.2).
|
https://medium.com/plotly/plotly-py-end-of-summer-updates-5422c98b9058
|
[]
|
2018-09-08 10:14:22.707000+00:00
|
['Visualization', 'Plotly', 'Data Science']
|
Recognition (3 diseases) from X-ray (Machine Learning tutorial) with accuracy: 96%. Using TensorFlow
|
So Let’s start :)
In order to get started, we need data. I took the data for this task from here:
- Dataset with Pneumonia and Normal https://www.kaggle.com/paultimothymooney/chest-xray-pneumonia
Dataset with Tuberculosis and Normal
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f64cvlhm0gp80v5/tuberculosis.zip?dl=1 -O tuberculosis.zip or from https://www.kaggle.com/raddar/tuberculosis-chest-xrays-shenzhen
I downloaded these datasets and combined them into one folder to make them look like this:
Then, I used the “Imagedatagenerator” to add the data only for training the neural model (not for validation) as there is not a lot of data.
train_datagen = ImageDataGenerator(rescale=1. / 255,
height_shift_range= 0.02,
width_shift_range=0.02,
rotation_range=0.02,
shear_range = 0.01,
fill_mode='nearest',
zoom_range=0.01) train_generator = train_datagen.flow_from_directory(
train_dir,
target_size=(image_size, image_size),
batch_size=batch_size,
class_mode='categorical') test_datagen = ImageDataGenerator(rescale=1. / 255) test_generator = test_datagen.flow_from_directory(
test_dir,
target_size=(image_size, image_size),
batch_size=batch_size,
class_mode='categorical')
After the data was prepared, I decided to use the pretrained model “Xception”. This model works very well with images and has very high scores when trained on new data. It is also the #1 in models that are available to public and the best rated
The first stage of training is “Transfer learning”. To do this, we download the model, “freeze” the weights from “Imagenet” (since this model was trained on the Imagenet dataset), add our layers to the existing model, and train. Besides, we save only the best results when we are training the model.
pretrained_model = tf.keras.applications.Xception(weights='imagenet', include_top=False) #download Xception model without last layer pretrained_model.trainable = False #"Frozen" all weights pretrained models #Created main layers for end Xception model x = pretrained_model.output
x = GlobalAveragePooling2D()(x)
x = Dense(512)(x)
x = BatchNormalization()(x)
x = Activation('relu')(x)
x = Dropout(0.5)(x)
predictions = Dense(3, activation='softmax')(x)
model = Model(inputs=pretrained_model.input, outputs=predictions) #compile & start train model model.compile(loss='categorical_crossentropy',
optimizer='adam',
metrics=["accuracy"]) filepath="inceptionv3_best.h5"
checkpoint = ModelCheckpoint(filepath, monitor='val_loss', verbose=1,
save_best_only=True, mode='min')
learning_rate_reduction = ReduceLROnPlateau(monitor='val_loss',
patience=10,
verbose=1,
factor=0.5,
min_lr=0.00001)
callbacks_list = [checkpoint, learning_rate_reduction] steps_per_epoch = 32
history = model.fit_generator(
train_generator,
steps_per_epoch=steps_per_epoch,
validation_data=test_generator,
validation_steps=5,
callbacks=callbacks_list,
epochs=50,
verbose=1)
After “Transfer Learning” we have good results::
loss: 0.1679 — accuracy: 0.9336 — val_loss: 0.3329 — val_accuracy: 0.8687
However, we need better results. Therefore, we will do “Fine Tuning”. For this, we will load the best weights that were saved before from “Tranfer learning”, “unfreeze” several layers, and train them on our data.
model.load_weights("inceptionv3_best.h5") #upload best weights #Defrost the last 2 blocks pretrained_model.trainable = False
for layer in model.layers[:290]:
layer.trainable = False
for layer in model.layers[290:]:
layer.trainable = True #compile & start train model model.compile(loss='categorical_crossentropy',
optimizer='adam',
metrics=["accuracy"]) filepath="inceptionv3_fine_tuned.h5"
checkpoint = ModelCheckpoint(filepath, monitor='val_accuracy', verbose=1, save_best_only=True, mode='max')
callbacks_list = [checkpoint, learning_rate_reduction] steps_per_epoch = 32
history = model.fit_generator(
train_generator,
steps_per_epoch=steps_per_epoch,
validation_data=test_generator,
validation_steps=5,
callbacks=callbacks_list,
epochs=40,
verbose=2)
Let’s check our results after applying “Fine Tuning”.
loss: 0.1144 — accuracy: 0.9600 — val_loss: 0.2944 — val_accuracy: 0.9000
Awesome!
Now let’s recognize Pneumonia on the new image that neural network has not seen before.
from tensorflow.keras.applications.inception_v3 import InceptionV3
from tensorflow.keras.preprocessing import image
from tensorflow.keras.models import Model, load_model
from tensorflow.keras.callbacks import ModelCheckpoint, ReduceLROnPlateau
from tensorflow.keras.layers import Dense, GlobalAveragePooling2D, Dropout
from tensorflow.keras.layers import BatchNormalization, Activation
from tensorflow.python.keras.optimizers import Adam, RMSprop
from tensorflow.python.keras.preprocessing.image import ImageDataGenerator
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import tensorflow as tf
from numpy import loadtxt
import tensorflow.keras
from PIL import Image, ImageOps
%matplotlib inline image_size = 256
batch_size = 32
model = tensorflow.keras.models.load_model('inceptionv3_best.h5') img_path = '/content/chest_xray/test/PNEUMONIA/person100_bacteria_475.jpeg'
img = image.load_img(img_path, target_size=(image_size, image_size))
plt.imshow(img)
plt.show() x = image.img_to_array(img)
x /= 255
x = np.expand_dims(x, axis=0)
prediction = model.predict(x)
prediction
classes = np.argmax(prediction, axis = 1)
print(classes)
Result:
Here we are! Our model has just recognized Pneumonia.
I would like to remind you that the completed code is located here.
|
https://medium.com/@oleksandrg/recognition-3-diseases-from-x-ray-machine-learning-tutorial-with-accuracy-96-39253e791f83
|
['Alex G.']
|
2020-12-13 09:21:25.727000+00:00
|
['Colab', 'Image Classification', 'TensorFlow', 'Keras', 'Python']
|
My sensitivity got me teased as a child, and sometimes my sensitivity gets me
|
In a time when we’re experiencing so much turmoil, divisiveness, and lack of empathy, sensitive people are necessary
Illustration: Kate Dehler
I’ll never forget the moment my son received vaccinations as an infant. He held onto me and my eyes welled up with tears as my husband innocently chuckled as he watched my reaction. All I could see was the fear in my baby boy’s eyes as he braced himself for the unknown. It didn’t matter that I knew the vaccine was protecting him. In that moment, I was living vicariously through my adorable little man and I felt his pain.
When the story was retold to others, my husband said, “You know how she gets.”
I hear those words often. Rarely is “how she gets” referred to a good thing. I heard those words when college friends were teasing me for being “feisty.” I’ve heard it when having an exchange with in-laws in regards to parenting my kids. In each situation, I was overwhelmed with emotion and on the brink of tears. And honestly it’s the norm for me.
My sensitivity got me teased as a child, and sometimes my sensitivity gets me taken advantage of. Being sensitive often means that I’m viewed as dramatic, weak, overreacting, and too much to handle. So it should come as no surprise that I spent a majority of my life attempting to hide my emotions. Even when things rightfully bothered me, I tried my best to conceal how I truly felt. I didn’t cry. I didn’t show disdain. I’d just hide the feelings as best I knew how, which didn’t usually go all that well. But I tried.
By what barometer are our sensitivities being measured to determine if they’re too much, and who gets to decide that?
When I explained that I’m too sensitive to my therapist, she stopped me in my tracks.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Being too sensitive is a quality not many people have. It’s your superpower,” she said.
I wasn’t sold right away. Signs of sensitivity are often met with eye rolls and frustration — I’ve experienced them firsthand. There’s still a large percentage of Americans who believe women can’t hold leadership positions because they’re too sensitive and emotional. So why would I accept anything but the belief that being too sensitive is a nuisance?
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/total-sportek-golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-free-18-december--157243654/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/golovkin-vs-szeremeta-free-live-stream-181220-157244132/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/streaming-golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-stream-free-157244133/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/watch-golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-stream-free-reddit-online-tv-157244137/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-stream-how-to-watch-boxing-online-157244140/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/streaminglive-golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-free-18-dec-2020-157244143/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-stream-total-sportek-157244146/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-stream-reddit-boxing-online-free-157244148/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/watch-golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-stream-free--157244153/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/watch-golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-streaming-free-boxing-live-str-157244155/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/redditstreamsgolovkin-vs-szeremeta-stream-reddit-free-157244156/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/redditstreamsszeremeta-vs-golovkin-stream-reddit-free-157244160/
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/Golovkin-Vs-Szeremeta-Live-Stream--a04aec7d25d843d18c650c557aaf4df2
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/Golovkin-Vs-Szeremeta-Live-Stream-Free--590b5640fcab4cc9837159c2adfbb22c
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/Golovkin-Vs-Szeremeta-Live-Stream-Reddit--d70477f1243449ff9f59121685f5c055
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/WATCH-Golovkin-Vs-Szeremeta-live-Stream-free-Reddit-online-TV--33ba551672f4405bb21ca286272d036f
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/Golovkin-Vs-Szeremeta-live-stream-How-to-watch-Boxing-online--b84536ab2da54d5bb39399baa9ee6436
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/Golovkin-Vs-Szeremeta-Live-Stream---TOTAL-SPORTEK--9c16b383e6e24d68aa05d6d9e851092a
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/Watch-Golovkin-Vs-Szeremeta-Live-Streaming-free--Boxing-Live-Stream--986bbc7b67624347a8c972e69ebc04da
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/RedditStreamsSzeremeta-Vs-Golovkin-stream-reddit-free--8ed27fac04cd472ebdafc500c5dd4846
https://www.deviantart.com/nfllivedtream/commission/Reddit-Streams-Golovkin-Vs-Szeremeta-live-stream-reddit-free-Boxing-1426338
https://www.deviantart.com/nfllivedtream/commission/OFFICIAL-FREE-Golovkin-Vs-Szeremeta-Live-Stream-1426341
https://www.deviantart.com/nfllivedtream/commission/Live-Golovkin-Vs-Szeremeta-Live-Stream-Free-Boxing-1426342
https://www.deviantart.com/nfllivedtream/commission/L-I-V-E-Golovkin-Vs-Szeremeta-Live-Stream-Free-1426343
https://www.deviantart.com/nfllivedtream/commission/FREE-Golovkin-Vs-Szeremeta-Live-Stream-Free-2020-1426344
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/livestreamgolovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-free-157254584/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/livegolovkin-vs-szeremeta-livestreamreddit-157254585/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/live-golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-stream-boxing-157254589/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/live-golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-stream-boxing-157254589/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/livestreamgolovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-stream-reddit-157254593/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/watch-golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-stream-reddit-boxing-free-onlin-157254596/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/streaminggolovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-stream-157254597/
https://247sports.com/high-school/mississippi/board/football-102607/contents/watch-golovkin-vs-szeremeta-live-stream-free-reddit-157254599/
https://sites.google.com/view/redditstreams-golovkin-vs-szer/
https://sites.google.com/view/officialfree-golovkin-vs-szere/
https://sites.google.com/view/l-i-v-e-golovkin-vs-szeremeta-/
https://sites.google.com/view/golovkinvsszeremetalivestream/
https://sites.google.com/view/livegolovkinvsszeremetalivestr/
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/«𝓛𝓲𝓿𝓮𝓢𝓽𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓰Golovkin-vs-Szeremeta-Live-LIVE-FREe™--abf0aa50364a4e10846da5741eff57dc
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/LIVESTREAMGolovkin-vs-Szeremeta-Live-Stream-18-Dec-2020--a9027d8f8ab14e06b25dc1dc588c4bb4
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/LIVEGolovkin-vs-Szeremeta-Livestreamreddit--92b820ba75e04fecb0f8179abaf3c557
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/LivE-Golovkin-vs-Szeremeta-Live-Stream-Boxing--2c5d76ee22fc477bb13d3d4bd3b3bb77
https://www.game.tv/tournaments/LiveStreamGolovkin-vs-Szeremeta-Live-FrEE®--ddba61a85bc54e77a71288d8da4de7e9
As my therapist helped me realize, we have to ask ourselves: By what barometer are our sensitivities being measured to determine if they’re too much, and who gets to decide that? Is my view of sensitivity as a fault rooted in my being a Black woman — and the fact that time and again showing any emotion or vulnerability results in my generalization as the “angry Black woman”? Or does it have to do with the fact that I am a mom, a role society deems as akin to a superhero, making it hard to show any real feelings other than the desire to nag about chores? Perhaps it has to do with being born in mid-July, making me a Cancer, and by default overly emotional and a target for all the other zodiac signs. Or maybe those who labeled me as such were doing so to be manipulative as they attempted to silence me. Regardless of the roots of being too sensitive, it has always been made extremely clear to me that it is not a desirable trait.
Because I love hard, I hurt hard and deeply when someone wrongs me. Sometimes it’s frustrating and embarrassing. My therapist explained that it also means I experience joy for myself and others just as deeply. When I toured my good friend’s new house when they became first-time home owners, onlookers would have been convinced I had bought the house with them judging by my free-falling tears.
“Being able to feel positive experiences that strongly and genuinely is truly a gift,” she says.
Because I love hard, I hurt hard and deeply when someone wrongs me.
To my therapist’s point, being highly sensitive isn’t horrible if you recognize it in yourself and learn to manage your emotions in a way that feels healthy. There are many times when my sensitivity is a good thing.
My sensitivity makes it that much easier for me to relate to others when they struggle. Every experience, whether it’s happening to me or not, is decoded by my heart before it’s decoded by my brain. In a time when we’re experiencing so much turmoil, divisiveness, and lack of empathy, my therapist showed me that sensitive people are necessary. Being sensitive doesn’t mean I’m incapable of being rational. During a monumental election, my sensitivity allowed me to vote with my heart just as much as logic as I envisioned myself in the shoes of someone else as their lives were literally dependent on what was on the ballot, even if it didn’t benefit me. Being “too sensitive” has also been an asset in the past, as it allowed me to defuse contentious situations between family members.
Sure, I may take things a bit too personally at times, let strong feelings overwhelm me for days and sometimes cry, but I now know that strength, power, and a genuine heart are behind those tears. I’m choosing to believe that my ability to be sensitive is exactly what we need to make this world a little lighter. I am not too sensitive. I am just right.
|
https://medium.com/@bbylvr-z/in-a-time-when-were-experiencing-so-much-turmoil-divisiveness-and-lack-of-empathy-sensitive-652455837ca7
|
['Bbylvr Z']
|
2020-12-18 20:07:43.890000+00:00
|
['Therapy', 'Psychology', 'Emotions', 'My Therapist Says', 'Brain']
|
Guarda and Coinify Partnership Introduces Two-Way Currency Trading Inside Guarda Wallets
|
Coinify and Guarda announce a new joint effort for extended cryptocurrency services with the EU. Integration of Coinify’s two-way fiat-to-crypto trading services inside all Guarda light wallets adds value to all Guarda’s EU users.
April 26, 2018 (Copenhagen and Tallinn) The new strategic partnership between the trusted global technology gateway for virtual currencies, Coinify, and the company building an ecosystem of blockchain-based products, Guarda — will deliver increased value to the crypto community by offering them the option to buy and sell cryptocurrency in exchange for fiat currencies in Guarda’s non-custodial wallets.
In specific, Guarda wallet users in the EU will be able to enjoy cost-efficient rates for the following cryptocurrency-fiat conversion services:
‘Buy bitcoin with card’ in the first wallet release;
‘Buy bitcoin with bank transfer’ together with ‘Sell bitcoin’ in the following release.
The Coinify-Guarda integration will be accessible for the following currencies: BTC, USD, EUR, GBP and DKK in a multi-currency web-based wallet and all mobile wallets for both Android and iOS.
The exchange processes are implemented inside the wallet interface, maintaining the ease of use; while adhering to the financial transparency. Thus, the user will be always informed about the commission fee charged on conversions.
“It’s a privilege for me to announce our partnership with Coinify” said Andrew Pristinsky, Managing Director of Guarda. “It is an important step for Guarda and for the whole crypto-community, and I believe that this partnership will let us provide the best service to our customers,” he added.
While this is not Coinify’s first implementation of their trading services inside a crypto wallet (see Blockchain partnership), Coinify perceives this partnership as another positive step in the direction of mainstreaming virtual currencies. “With the mindset of making cryptocurrencies more accessible to the broader public, we find the variety of non-custodial wallets by Guarda as a great platform to expand this reach. We are happy to provide them with new features that will further benefit their users,” concluded Rikke Stær, Chief Commercial Officer at Coinify.
About Coinify
Coinify ApS is an established global virtual currency platform actively offering solutions in Europe, Asia and other regions. Coinify offers blockchain currency trading and payment processing services and allows Enterprise solutions via API. Coinify team consists of strong backgrounds in payments, finance, risk, e-commerce, and compliance areas and experience in working with digital currencies since 2010. The company was incorporated in 2014 and is backed by Nordic Eye Venture Capital, SEED Capital Denmark, SEB Venture Capital and Accelerace. Recent industry awards and recognitions include: Best Practices Award for‘Global Blockchain Financial Service Provider 2017’ by Frost & Sullivan; ‘Emerging Star — Fintech 100’ by KPMG & H2 Ventures; ‘Top 100 FinTech Europe’ 2017 & 2016; Nordic Startup Award for‘Best Fintech Startup Denmark 2017’; and ‘#22 in Top 50’Financial IT Pathfinder Ranking. To learn more, please visit coinify.com.
Media Contacts
Christina Mayer, PR & Marketing Manager, [email protected], Telegram @christy_cryp
Lenka Hudakova, Corporate Communications Manager, [email protected], +45 31474959
|
https://medium.com/guarda/guarda-and-coinify-partnership-introduces-two-way-currency-trading-inside-guarda-wallets-e51b4ba05030
|
['Guarda Wallet']
|
2018-04-27 09:34:43.102000+00:00
|
['Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Mobile Wallets', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin Wallet']
|
What Looks Like Talent Or Skill is Often Persistent Practice
|
What Looks Like Talent Or Skill is Often Persistent Practice
Behind every skill, there are hours of constant repetition
Persistence is one of the most underrated skills to become great at what you do. There’s nothing more valuable than persistence, perseverance, and commitment.
The expression “practice makes perfect” sounds very obvious but only a few people can push themselves that far to reap the enormous benefit of practice.
It’s easy to underestimate the value of practice. For a new skill to become automatic or for new knowledge to become long-lasting, sustained and deep practice is necessary.
Pablo Picasso once said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
Some people may be genetically constructed to have a knack for certain things — they don’t have to take the same number of steps as the rest of us to get good.
But when you start to believe that talent is the most essential piece to the puzzle of success, you’ve built up a wall all on your own that will only lead to failure in life.
Calvin Coolidge could not have said it better when he once said, “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
You can be good and even great at something without being naturally talented. When two individuals are equally talented, only effort or practice will make the difference.
There is an old saying that with your hands in your pockets you cannot climb the ladder of success! Talent can do nothing without perseverance!
John Wooden once said, “Judge yourself not by what you have achieved but by what you should have achieved with the talent at your disposal”.
The biggest difference between you and Picasso or Einstein, or the most creative minds of our time is that they embraced the long road to mastery.
They spent more time applying their minds and souls to the one thing they wanted to do. When you make everything a skill instead of a talent, the entire world opens up.
With the right mindset, you’re ready for the other half of the battle. “Deep practice is not simply about struggling; it’s about seeking a particular struggle, which involves a cycle of distinct actions, ” writes Daniel Coyle, in his book The Talent Code.
Behind every skill, there are hours of constant repetition
“The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.”― Thomas A. Edison
The value of persistence comes from a vision of the future that’s so compelling you would trade qaulity time to make it real.Persistence of action comes from persistence of vision.
When you’re super-clear about what you want in such a way that your vision doesn’t change much, you’ll be more consistent — and persistent — in your actions. And that consistency of action will produce consistency of results.
Deep and consistent practice is not an option if you want to become a better writer, athlete, salesperson, artist, developer or entrepreneur.
It’s not simply about hustling, its about seeking a specific struggle, which involves a cycle of distinct actions.
You pick the bigger goal, work backwards to reach it, and keep measuring and refining the reach to become smarter in the process as you get closer.
People give up too soon because they have the wrong expectations of themselves and the outcome. They expect the way to be easy, and they are surprised when they find the reality to be the opposite. Their enthusiasm quickly melts and they lose heart.
Remember, there is no such thing as cheap success. Expect a hard way, not an easy one, and you will be mentally prepared when you encounter the reality.
Practice also makes perfect science. Einstein persisted and stayed with problems longer to make sure he found exactly what he was looking for. He once said “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
Persistence allows you to keep taking action even when you don’t feel motivated to do so, and therefore you keep accumulating results.
On Dec. 10, 1914, a massive explosion erupted in West Orange, New Jersey. Ten buildings in legendary inventor Thomas Edison’s plant, which made up more than half of the site, were engulfed in flames. Machinery worth millions and all the papers pertaining to his lifelong research were burnt to ashes.
Later, at the scene of the blaze, Edison was quoted in The New York Times as saying, “Although I am over 67 years old, I’ll start all over again tomorrow.”
Thomas Edison’s persistence was exemplified in his famous quote, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”
A.H. Wilson, his vice president and general manager, told The Times after the flames died down: “There’s only one thing to do, and that is to jump right in and rebuild.”
Names like Picasso, Mozart, Abraham Lincoln, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Elon Musk should remind you about the importance of persistence. And why it pays to keep on trying.
Dale Carnegie said, “ Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”
To improve your performance in almost any skill, practice frequently, get a lot of feedback that can help you practice correctly, do more of what works and keep enhancing the right things to continue climbing.
|
https://thomas-oppong.medium.com/what-looks-like-talent-or-skill-is-often-persistent-practice-70cc920e0d1a
|
['Thomas Oppong']
|
2020-10-12 12:46:44.098000+00:00
|
['Creativity', 'Artist', 'Self', 'Productivity', 'Success']
|
Obama’s Covid Holiday Gift — ‘Preexisting Conditions’!
|
Obama’s Covid Holiday Gift — ‘Preexisting Conditions’!
Photo by amirreza jambi on Unsplash
It is impossible to comprehend the magnitude of the ACA as the COVID-19 rages. However, one thing is not quite immerging in the never-ending media surge of deaths, infections, and vaccines — namely the costs of hospitalizations from Covid and the more insipid aftermath…insurance coverage.
Covid-19 is going to create havoc financially to households and insurance companies (not that I have much sympathy for insurance companies). Clearly, the medical establishment will have bills going out to the fortunate who survived as well as the families of those infected who have tragically passed away.
No one can quantify the economic impact to either party. Anyone who is guessing is doing just that — guessing. What I know for sure is this — people have lost jobs and that will not end soon and the evictions are coming even if the Senate’s obstructionist-in-chief, Mitch McConnell finally releases funds for the Americans desperately in need. (Talk about waiting until the last minute — tomorrow, December 18th is the deadline.)
So here is the only realistic ‘good news’ in this latest edition of “The Doomsday Diary” is the simple fact that the ACA has withstood the Republican attack (thanks to the thumbs-down of the independent-minded John McCain). Had it been repealed, then people who had Covid, with or without symptoms, would be the victim of a purge by insurance companies who just see them as a long-term financial burden. How so, you ask? Isn’t the vaccine a ‘cure’?
Well, no. It is not a cure, nor do we know just how effective it will be. How long is its impact? How long until the overall population can feel somewhat safe? And more importantly, what of the people who have become what news media calls ‘long haulers’?
Recently, two such long haulers were featured on CBS news programs. One was a marathon runner and the other a nurse. Both were in there 30’s and in excellent shape. Neither of them has recovered significantly. Running? Not a chance. Getting out of bed — yes, but the energy drain on their body’s causes a near collapse. These are not isolated examples. As of this writing, numbers of patients who have recovered and are out of the hospital or not requiring hospitalization are not available, but there is no doubt that the effect of Covid has created havoc in the bodies of its victims. It can be repertory or muscular. And it is not limited to just those bodily functions. The physiological effects are still daunting.
America is far from out of harm’s way.
Obamacare at least gives the patients some legal muscle to at least remain insured. Just imagine if the Republicans had gotten their way! They never offered any substantial, concrete alternative to the ACA — though they claimed for over seven years that they had ‘something in the works’. Not true. Not even an ‘alternative fact’. All they were concerned with was protecting insurance companies and Big Pharma — both major contributors to their coffers.
So thank you President Obama and Vice President Biden and Nancy Pelosi and John McCain for making sure the ACA stays gift wrapped under the American holiday tree. Now if we could just convince everyone to wear masks and believe in science. Is that asking too much?
|
https://medium.com/@robertpacilio/obamas-covid-holiday-gift-preexisting-conditions-e8cccb141dad
|
['Robert Pacilio']
|
2020-12-20 08:49:15.281000+00:00
|
['Coronavirus', 'Covid 19', 'Insurance', 'Politics', 'Elections']
|
The Art of Social Media Marketing: 8 Common Mistakes to Avoid + Free Hashtag Calendar
|
There are undoubtedly a lot of opportunities for an entrepreneur. I know; you’re probably overwhelmed with excitement! But the truth is, if you want to be successful in business, you’ll have to face one reality: social media is one of the most important tools in a modern entrepreneur’s marketing arsenal. Social media marketing has changed the way businesses reach their customers’ hands down.
Social media marketing is the rocket fuel that makes your content go viral. The problem? It can be pretty difficult for many entrepreneurs to strike a balance between engaging consumers and to be focused on their core business. If you’re not careful, though, you can easily transgress the unwritten laws of social media, and that will cost you time and money. If you’re a business owner on social media, then you’ve probably made at least one of these eight common mistakes; that’s if you haven’t made them all.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to use social media marketing to boost your business’ brand and sales. I’m here to teach you the strategies I’ve used successfully with businesses ranging in size from a startup to multi-figures. If you want to take advantage of the power of social media marketing, this is the place to start!
Working Without a Plan
Posting aimlessly. If you’re not careful, you can find yourself spending a LOT of time on social media posting content that no one finds interesting. Instead of letting your schedule fly by like the wind, why not use it to plan out the content you want to put online? You know, all that batched content you knocked out a few weeks ago, use that. 🙂
Assuming Your Audience is Everyone
Just because you have a Facebook page doesn’t mean everyone who likes your page will use your services or buy your product. The more channels you’re on, the higher your chances of getting more fans and followers. But here’s the thing: Fans and followers are no good if they don’t use your services or buy your product. Segment your audience into different groups, and target each group with content that appeals to them. Don’t just think about your brand; think about your customer. If you’re not in their shoes and understand what they need, you’ll have a hard time understanding how to reach them. If you try to reach everyone, you’ll reach no one.
Buying Followers
This is a biggie. If you’ve ever bought followers, you’re not alone. Many people who are starting in social media marketing think that buying followers is the answer to their woes. It seems logical — the more followers you have, the more credible your account will appear. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. If you want your company’s social media accounts to go viral, you need to ensure your content is relevant and engaging. Buying followers will only hurt you because it makes it look like your company has something to hide.
Choosing the Wrong Tone
To reach your audience effectively, you have to choose the right tone of voice for each medium. For example, on Twitter, people are likely to respond well to a direct approach that asks them a question or tries to draw their attention in some way, whereas Facebook posts tend not to do as well when they’re too pushy and sales-oriented. Don’t be afraid to experiment with using language on social media. Quirky, clever, funny — whatever works for you. It’s up to you to figure out what will work for your business. The best way to find out is to explore different tones and then do some A/B testing to determine what works best for your audience.
Using Irrelevant Hashtags
You’ve probably heard the term ‘hashtag’ before, but do you know how to use them correctly? Hashtags can be beneficial for staying on top of important topics and keywords related to your business, but like most things in life, they are only helpful if used correctly. That’s why you should make sure that your hashtags are actually relevant to your audience — otherwise, they’ll end up looking like gibberish, or worse, like an oddity that belongs at the Darwin Museum.
Hashtags are your friend — you just have to choose the right ones.
However, hashtags will not tag themselves. If you want to be successful with hashtags, you’ll have to do some legwork. Hashtags are essential for promoting your content and making it accessible to a broader audience. That being said, I’ve compiled a list of seasonal hashtags — use these, and your holiday content will definitely stand out!
Staying Silent
Social media is a big ol’ conversation. And if you want your voice to be heard, you need to throw yourself in there. The world is talking about you every day. Are you talking back? If someone’s talking about your brand online, there’s no better time than now to chime in! Social media provides marketers with an opportunity to interact directly with customers on their own terms (i.e., when they’re actually thinking about your brand!), which helps build customer loyalty and advocacy better than almost any other marketing tactic out there today.
That’s why staying silent during major socializing is a big mistake that can cost you, clients, and customers. Your social media strategy doesn’t need to be complicated. Yes, it’s true. In fact, the simpler you can get, the better. All you need to do is make yourself available for people to reach out to you at the end of the day. Don’t make what should be a fun and social experience into a chore; nobody would do it if it were.
Deleting Negative Comments
Negative commentary can do a lot of damage to your brand, so it’s important to be prepared to respond sensitively. Don’t fear your critics. Instead, use them to your advantage! If you can ignore negative commentary rather than delete it, you’ll be rewarded with positive comments and a positive brand image.
Always remember to be sensitive when responding to negative comments on social media, or else you may come across as offensive or even desperate. The best way to approach it is by not deleting it at all. Criticism is a valuable asset to your business and shouldn’t be overlooked.
Being Unremarkable & Unbending
Many social media marketers assume that the only way they can make something go viral is if they use controversial topics or images to get attention — but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. People are drawn to content that is interesting, valuable, and relevant to them or just makes them smile. Seriously. Have you ever seen a viral post about a cute dog or funny meme? Exactly. So make sure you are regularly sharing fresh, fun, and new content that your audience will love.
With so many social media sites, it’s tough to know where to post your content. You may have even made some mistakes listed above without realizing it! If you’re ready for a Social Media Audit and want more guidance on how best to use each network, reach out today. We’ll talk through your goals with you and then provide suggestions about what channels are most effective at achieving them based on our expertise in digital marketing strategies that drive sales online.
If you’re just getting started with social media marketing or need a fresh perspective on your efforts, let’s get started now. Ready?
So What Did We Learn?
Working Without a Plan — Instead of letting your schedule fly by like the wind, why not use it to plan out the content you want to put online?ite with your target audience in mind but make it engaging. Assuming Your Audience is Everyone — If you try to reach everyone, you’ll reach no one. Buying Followers — Buying followers will only hurt you because it makes it look like your company has something to hide. Choosing the Wrong Tone — Don’t be afraid to experiment with using language on social media. Quirky, clever, funny — whatever works for you. Using Irrelevant Hashtags — Hashtags can be beneficial for staying on top of important topics and keywords related to your business, but like most things in life, they are only helpful if used correctly. Staying Silent — The world is talking about you every day. Are you talking back? Deleting Negative Comments — Always remember to be sensitive when responding to negative comments on social media, or else you may come across as offensive or even desperate. Being Unremarkable & Unbending — Marketers assume that the only way they can make something go viral is if they use controversial topics or images to get attention — but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
With so many social media sites, it’s tough to know where to post your content. You may have even made some mistakes listed above without realizing it! If you’re ready for a Social Media Audit and want more guidance on how best to use each network, reach out today. We’ll talk through your goals with you and then provide suggestions about what channels are most effective at achieving them based on our expertise in digital marketing strategies that drive sales online.
If you’re just getting started with social media marketing or need a fresh perspective on your efforts, let’s get started now. Ready? Schedule a consultation.
Links for this episode:
Schedule a Consultation
Holiday Hashtag Calendar
Weekly Social Media Checklist
Rate, Review, & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
If you like what you hear on the podcast, please consider rating and reviewing my show! Woo Hoo! Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” I would love to hear what episodes you enjoy the most!
If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to the podcast. I’ll be adding new content weekly, if you’re not subscribed, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. Subscribe now!
|
https://medium.com/@jennielyon/the-art-of-social-media-marketing-8-common-mistakes-to-avoid-free-hashtag-calendar-85029b8fa4b3
|
['Jennie Lyon']
|
2021-12-23 14:11:16.007000+00:00
|
['Social Media Marketing', 'Digital Marketing', 'Virtual Assistant Service', 'Virtual Assistant', 'Digital Marketing Agency']
|
Lost and Found
|
Lost and Found
As I sit on my porch swing and gaze for hours at the night sky filled with stars that have lived forever and yet still twinkle for me to see, I am more sure than ever that love is eternal. It’s a feeling that never dies — although it’s corporal body is fleeting and the ability of two souls connecting seemingly infinite and impossible. But I see the magic of when those lovers fit together like puzzle pieces even in the 1000 different configurations. I have been gifted enough to my find my star dust among a stranger who has became a part of my passion. A privy to my needs and desires. An answer to my question. Can anyone love me? Can passion sustain? Are we worthy of the greatest gift? That baring of my real soul- spilling my secrets- letting them in. I’m proud to say YES! I’ve taken that leap with a stranger. And they have healed and salved my wounded soul. They have inspired and uplifted me. Given their passion, devotion, love and friendship to a stranger.
Because they too seek connection. Mostly in prose, which we translate into flesh, alas alone in different zip codes and time zones. But the intent is as real as taking his head in my hands and making sure it gently reaches the pillow. Looking deep into his eyes where the prose doesn’t follow but the energy clearly communicates that he’s different. He matters. He is deeply loved even from afar where flesh will never mingle. He’s moved me. His hand print is on my heart. That will stay like a love note carved in a tree. Internal and so precious.
I fear this is goodbye. My wings have been clipped. I’ll miss you and thank you for the passion you shared. You are important. You deserve love. Thank you for finding and releasing me.
Teri’s Culinary Erotic Book, Consumed is available at http://www.amazon.com/Consumed-Teri-Bayus-ebook/dp/B016DW85PA
|
https://medium.com/muse-writtings/as-i-sit-on-my-porch-swing-and-gaze-for-hours-at-the-night-sky-filled-with-stars-that-have-lived-80a8a17c2346
|
['Teri Bayus']
|
2016-08-28 18:16:11.892000+00:00
|
['Love Letters', 'Love']
|
An Intro to Python Assert Statements
|
What Are Assertions?
Assertions or assert statements are built into Python and are a tool for debugging. An assert statement, as the name may suggest, tries to assert its authority over the rest of the code when checking for a condition specified by the programmer.
For example, you could tell the assert statement to check if the value of the variable speed is greater than or equal to 0 (since velocity can be negative but not speed). If the condition is true, assert doesn’t do anything and the program runs normally. However, if the condition fails, the assert statement asserts its authority and raises an AssertionError , which stops the execution of the program. The code in Python would something like this:
Example of using Python assertions
If an AssertionError is raised (as in the second call of the get_speed function on line 7), it is easy to spot, which makes debugging easy in a large codebase. The error message may be something like this:
Assertion Error
The benefit of the error message is that you as a developer can go to the exact line number, which in this case is at line 3, where the assert statement was written. Thus, by asserting its authority, the assert statement makes life easier for the developer.
|
https://medium.com/better-programming/an-intro-to-python-assert-statements-bdd45834d303
|
['Raivat Shah']
|
2019-12-07 03:22:08.632000+00:00
|
['Development', 'Debugging', 'Software Engineering', 'Programming', 'Python']
|
How to Create a Top 10 Rated Podcast Without Breaking the Bank
|
How to Create a Top 10 Rated Podcast Without Breaking the Bank
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
On the 4th March 2020, I launched Entrepreneurs Can Party. Just 6 days later, it was featured in the top 10 of the U.K. Apple Podcast charts for entrepreneurship.
I couldn’t be more grateful. It’s given me the opportunity to speak with many dream guests, including Travis Marziani, and I’ve helped other businesses successfully launch their own podcasts. This includes MyProtein’s The Scoop which has already hit over 5,000 downloads in its first week.
Sounds easy, right?
Truth be told, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I had no previous experience, and although I work in SEO, this doesn’t really help.
That’s why I decided to take my own Tim-Ferriss-like MBA. I wanted to learn from some of the world’s most successful podcasters to give Entrepreneurs Can Party the best chance of success.
To this end, I’ve spent £2,260 on one-off costs pre- and post-launch. My ongoing monthly costs are £120. It’s all detailed in this extensive blog post.
As for all the hours spent researching, taking courses, producing episodes, guesting on other podcasts, hiring a virtual assistant, promoting my show — well, I couldn’t tell you. It’s a lot.
Here’s the punchline, though. I didn’t need to spend this much.
Here are 4 lessons I’ve learned over the last 12 months which I want to share with you today so you can skip the learning curve and save yourself a small fortune.
|
https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/how-to-create-a-top-10-apple-rated-podcast-cfd397d8eea4
|
['Scott Stockdale']
|
2021-03-30 07:18:59.534000+00:00
|
['Makers', 'Creativity', 'Work', 'Marketing', 'Podcasts']
|
Deploy in AWS using Terraform. Deploy your dockerized react…
|
Deploy your dockerized react application in AWS using terraform
Before starting let me tell you that this is a part of my series “Making your React app hosting ready”. In the series, I explained how to convert your react app to a progressive web app, implement server-side rendering and dockerize the application and make it ready for hosting it in AWS using Terraform. Do check it out 😉
BTW you need to create an AWS account with your credit or debit card credentials in order to proceed. This is just for account creation I assure you, you won't be charged any money, we will be using only free tiers 🙂
Disclaimer: Don't forget to destroy everything in aws after the work is done or else you will charged.
Now before entering, what is Terraform?
Terraform is a tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently
I nfrastructure as code
Basically, instead of manually handling your AWS services, instances, and all, we write the whole thing as a code which helps us to maintain everything efficiently. Even if there are any updates or version changes we can make sure everything is working fine.
You need to know some things in order to be on the same page:
AWS or at least knowledge on any cloud infrastructure Basics of Terraform (Even though we copy the whole codes from documentation 😂) Install terraform cli. Follow this youtube link to install terraform in windows.
Create a main.tf file and run the below command in the working directory (where you created main.tf file) to initialize terraform:
terraform init
Workflow:
Configure AWS provider Generate AWS key pair for ssh into the instance Create default vpc Create default subnet Create a security group to allow HTTP, HTTPS, ssh traffic (basically making our server available to all users) Create aws instance SSH into instance Install docker Run your Docker image
Configure AWS provider
AWS console -> my security credentials -> access keys
Generate a key pair and save it somewhere locally or else you need to generate a new one if you miss it 🥱.
terraform {
required_providers {
aws = {
source = "hashicorp/aws"
version = "~> 3.0"
}
}
} provider "aws" {
region = "us-east-1"
access_key = "...................."
secret_key = "....................."
}
You don't need to memorize all these 🤓, since the documentation of terraform is top-notch 🤩. You will find all the sample codes, just search in google terraform aws configure, or terraform aws default subnet anything you need is perfectly available. So all you need to do is understand how everything is working and have knowledge of any of the cloud infrastructure.
If you need any kind of help let me know in the comments 🧐
Generate Keypair for instance
Method-1:
You can do it manually since we need it only while initializing. One can find it in aws console -> ec2 -> network and security -> key pairs
Download the key pair in your working directory and leave it as of now, we will get back to it later
Method-2:
resource "tls_private_key" "key" {
algorithm = "RSA"
rsa_bits = "4096"
} resource "aws_key_pair" "generated_key" {
key_name = "main"
public_key = tls_private_key.key.public_key_openssh } resource "local_file" "key_file" {
content = tls_private_key.key.private_key_pem
filename = "main.pem"
file_permission = 0400
}
We generate a tls private key and use it for aws key pair. TLS private key is the standard way to create a public and private key. Later we use local file resource and download it locally in the working directory.
Create default vpc:
resource "aws_default_vpc" "default" {
tags = {
Name = "Default VPC"
}
}
Using aws_default_vpc resource we create a default vpc
Create a default subnet:
resource "aws_default_subnet" "default_az1" {
availability_zone = "us-east-1a"
tags = {
Name = "Default subnet for ap-south-1a"
}
}
Using aws_default_subnet resource we create a default subnet
Create a security group:
resource "aws_security_group" "sg1" {
vpc_id = aws_default_vpc.default.id
name = "allow_ssh_http" lifecycle {
create_before_destroy = true
} ingress {
from_port = 22
to_port = 22
protocol = "tcp"
cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"]
} ingress {
from_port = 80
to_port = 80
protocol = "tcp"
cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"]
}
egress {
from_port = 0
to_port = 0
protocol = "-1"
cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"]
} }
We create a security group to allow HTTP, ssh traffic. The default port for HTTP is 80, ssh is 22 and HTTPS is 443. In ingress, we basically tell which ports we are allowing and the protocol for it.
Know more about TCP protocol here.
In egress protocol = -1 says allowing all protocols.
Create instance
resource "aws_instance" "ui_instance" {
ami = "ami-0be2609ba883822ec"
instance_type = "t2.micro"
availability_zone = "us-east-1a"
key_name = aws_key_pair.generated_key.key_name
subnet_id = aws_default_subnet.default_az1.id
vpc_security_group_ids = [aws_security_group.sg1.id]
connection {
type = "ssh"
user = "ec2-user"
host = aws_instance.ui_instance.public_ip
private_key = tls_private_key.key.private_key_pem
timeout = "10m"
} provisioner "remote-exec" {
inline = [
"sudo yum update -y",
"sudo amazon-linux-extras install docker -y",
"sudo usermod -a -G docker ec2-user",
"sudo service docker start",
"sudo docker pull <username>/<image-name>",
"sudo docker container run -d -p 80:80 <username>/<imagename>"
]
}
tags = {
Name = "production"
}
}
We need an AMI (Amazon machine image), which is basically an id for different operating systems. Here I used amazon Linux 2 of t2.micro type which is free.
We need to mention the vpc id, subnet id, availability zone, and the key name.
Keyname we will get it from the resource aws_key_pair.genrated_key.key_name as mentioned in the docs again 😉.
After launching the ec2 instance, we used a connection block to ssh into our instance.
Terraform provides provisioners for running os specific commands. There are two types of provisioners.
local-exec remote-exec
We use the “local-exec” provisioner to run commands on our localhost. We use “remote-exec” to run commands on our remote host.
In the above code, we used the “remote-exec” provisioner to run commands for installing docker and pulling the image, and running it in a detached state.
You can check the above code for those commands we again you can find in AWS ec2 docker configuration docs or if you're a Linux user you will know it.
Run the below code to see what all are going to be created in your AWS account:
terraform plan
After you are sure with everything run :
terraform apply
This will create all the instances, subnets, vpc, security groups which you can check in your console.
Click on the public IP to visit your website.
Looks like my work is done here. If you have any doubts feel free to comment or reach me here 😃
In my next article I will go deep into terraform-aws how to create :
Virtual Private Cloud Subnets Route Table Internet Gateway Security Groups
Do consider applauding my article and following me for more such awesome content 🤩🤩🤩
|
https://medium.com/@kvssankar/deploy-your-web-app-in-aws-using-terraform-6d20755bd7b2
|
['Kvs Sankar']
|
2020-12-25 08:54:43.746000+00:00
|
['React', 'Mern', 'AWS', 'Docker', 'Terraform']
|
Axino + Electron = Desktop App.
|
Developing, testing, debugging a desktop app the easy way.
How to build a desktop app : the simple, fast, efficient way.
Step 1 : Installing Axino.
1 create a new directory and name it myapp (for instance).
Install Axino :Axino Quickstart
Step 2: Installing Electron.
In the current directory, myapp, install Electron:
In a terminal, in your myapp directory type:
git clone https://github.com/electron/electron-quick-start
This will install a minimalist in myapp, like so:
- myapp/
¦- electron-quick-start/
The app is initialized with the following command (in the directory : electron-quick-start):
npm install
This command triggers the download of Electron and it’s dependencies in the node_modules sub-directory of the current working directory (“electron-quick-start”).
The configuration of the project is now:
- myapp/
¦- electron-quick-start/ index.html, main.js, renderer.js, package.json ... ¦- node_modules/
¦- electron/ (plus dependencies)
¦- axino/
The files index.html, main.js, renderer.js have been downloaded by the git clone command, above and are part of the electron-quick-start demo.
Step 3: Checking the electron-quick-start demo app.
Checking the demo app is done by typing the command:
npm start
in the directory where your package.json file is located.
This will start the following (minimalist) “Hello world” app:
Congratulations : Your “Hello World” demo app is running!
Step 4: Customizing your Hello World app.
How an Electron app works:
The message appearing on the Hello World app is coded in the render.js file:
file: The render.js file is connected to the app via the index.html file.
file is connected to the app via the file. Basically, an Electron app is a JavaScript app running in a minimalist browser, Chromium (think of Chromium as a “mini Chrome”, totally customizable, programmable).
Chromium, Chrome.
Writing your own app using Electron therefore boils down to swapping the index.html file and the renderer.js file with your own app files.
The original “Hello World” index.html file:
The original “Hello World” renderer.js file
Step 4a: Writing your own customized Axino app.
For the sake of simplicity, we will use the simple app we have created in the previous article : Getting Started With Axino, namely, the following Typescript app (app.ts)
and the corresponding customized index.html file file:
This modified index.html file now points to your own app.ts and no longer to the original renderer.js demo file which came with the “Hello World” app.
As explained in the Axino Quick Start Article, compiling and bundling this Typescript code into a JavaScript app, using Parcel, is done by typing in a terminal:
parcel build index.html --no-source-maps --public-url .
(please note: the full stop “.” at the end of the command. It stands for “current directory”). It is not punctuation, it is part of the command. :-)
Running the parcel command, above will create a local “/dist” directory. This directory now contains an app.js file and a local copy of the associated index.htm file, like so:
- myapp/
¦- electron-quick-start/ index.html, main.js, renderer.js, package.json ... ¦- /dist/
¦- index.html app.js ¦- node_modules/
¦- electron/ (plus dependencies)
¦- axino/
Since our app files now reside in the ./dist/ sub-directory and no longer in the “root” directory of our app, we have to modify the main.js app accordingly, since the the main.js file basically configures our app:
Basically, we have changed:
mainWindow.loadFile(‘index.html’) into: mainWindow.loadFile(‘index.html’)
For our default Axino CSS file to play nicely with Electron, it is best to bundle it with the app as follows:
npm install picnic --save
This command creates a local copy of our CSS files in the assets directory of our app (node_modules), along with the Electron files and the Axino files.
This is why our customized index.html points to a local copy of the CSS file (rather than a URL as in the early Quick Start example).
<link rel="stylesheet" href="./node_modules/picnic/picnic.min.css">
Step 5: Running our customized app
In order to run our brand new app, we type:
npm start
Which launches our brand new app:
The tab on the right-hand side of the app’s window is used as a console for debugging the app (console.log() messages and error messages will appear there).
Once your app is full tested and debugged, it is possible to start the app without displaying the debugging console (aka “Dev Tools”).
This is done by commenting out the line in the main.js file which handles the console:
// mainWindow.webContents.openDevTools()
Congratulations! you have completed the coding of your first Desktop app ! The next chapter in these series with deal with the topic: How to bundle your app in order to distribute it.
Stay tuned!
|
https://medium.com/swlh/axino-electron-desktop-app-9bfd8169b661
|
['Serge Hulne']
|
2020-11-03 02:13:57.233000+00:00
|
['Electron', 'Desktop App', 'Typescript', 'JavaScript', 'Apps']
|
A case against form objects
|
Note: The current article is based on Ruby on Rails examples, but the core idea should be applicable to other frameworks/languages.
The first
Let’s start trying to define some concepts:
What’s a form object?
What’s their architectural purpose?
According to the articles linked at the bottom and our own experience working on several Rails codebases using form objects, there’s a variety of definitions and objectives. To enumerate a few:
What are they? what they do?
A plain old ruby object that runs validations on data input
Virtual models that represent the aggregation of other model objects
Replacement for strong parameters (input params whitelist)
A way to refactor model life-cycle callbacks
A form object is an object designed specifically to be passed to form_for
This type of objects is used to make the life of a controller a bit easier and take params processing responsibility out of it. Creating form objects basically means making proper type coercions and introducing simple validations
Encapsulating the aggregation of multiple ActiveRecord models might be updated by a single form submission
The Form Object quacks like an ActiveRecord, so the controller remains familiar
An object that lets you manage complex behaviour easily
Why use them? What’s their main purpose?
Extracting business logic from controller and/or model layers
Providing view-backing helper methods (eg: providing options for complex selects)
Easily implementing Rails conventions on complex forms that do not map directly into a single AR model
Moving responsibilities to the form object reduces decoupling between the controller, model (including multiple models), and the view template.
As you can see a form object is a broad, non-uniform idea. There’s no consensus on what they are, or when to use them or what their responsibilities are.
And this is the first problem: the Form Object concept is communicatively poor. When I need to work on a codebase that uses form objects, I don’t know which of all these ideas I will find behind them, or, more frequently, what mix of them.
As a summary (and keep this idea in mind as we will review it later) we can say that the general idea is that form objects are a good way to refactor code complexity and condensation of responsibilities either in some part of the system (usually the model and/or controller layers).
An example
Most of the Form Objects that I came across with are used like this. And according to the articles linked below, it might be considered the most popular implementation:
class SomethingController < ApplicationController def create @form = MyForm.new(action_params) if @form.valid? @form.save! redirect_to "someplace" else render :new end end
def new @form = MyForm.new end end
This looks like almost every “rails-way” controller (if valid? save & redirect; else: render). Exactly what a rails dev expects to see.
Short & sweet, straight to the point.
This must be OK, right?
The second
Let’s analyze what the form object is in charge of in these few lines, what knowledge it manages only by taking a look at its public API
new(params) => has knowledge of the request’s params. Makes it a good place to house input data transformations to adapt it to model’s needs.
valid? => The form runs validations. This means it has knowledge of the params, its types, and the validation rules, which also mean knowledge of business logic and domain rules.
save! => Object persistence. That means that it also knows how to create them from params and how the persistence layer works.
@form => Variable passed to the view layer. Makes it a potential place to hold view-backing logic (eg: form_forchoices for selects and check/radios, conditional rendering, form_for model, etc)
Deep inside, in a shady corner, our single responsibility principle intuition, lonely cries Yeah… is it perhaps too much?
An object that knows too much does too much. This exerts a gravitational pull of code on the whole system:
I need a few more view backing helpers, where should I put them? => in the form object.
new validations? => form object.
Need to map params to some model attributes/objects => yeap, the form object.
Even worse if you give it as one of the posts says the opportunity to send mail and/or user notifications.
And the worst part is, and here comes the second problem: it does make sense to put those in there.
Changes like these will probably pass code review as there’s no good argument against them.
Our form object is now the new fat controller/model. It holds and attracts the same problems that we were trying to solve when we first introduced them.
The third
There’s yet another other problem and perhaps the more concerning one: you probably already have objects that are in charge of these responsibilities.
persistence : it is a model’s responsibility. Delegate on those classes instead of imitating them. Making the controller look like a “blog-in-10-minutes” controller is not enough as an argument.
: it is a model’s responsibility. Delegate on those classes instead of imitating them. Making the controller look like a “blog-in-10-minutes” controller is not enough as an argument. business logic : to hold business logic use service objects. They are a natural place for complex business logic.
: to hold business logic use service objects. They are a natural place for complex business logic. input validation : use validation objects. There are multiple libraries you can use to implement them (including ActiveRecord::Model, https://github.com/soveran/scrivener, https://github.com/dry-rb/dry-schema)
: use validation objects. There are multiple libraries you can use to implement them (including ActiveRecord::Model, https://github.com/soveran/scrivener, https://github.com/dry-rb/dry-schema) view backing/helper methods: use a view model / presenter object.
If you are shooting for a form object, you probably have a medium sized app and already have some of these in your codebase. Why add yet another architectural concept that has a rather vague definition and overlaps over other component’s responsibilities?
We need to embrace the idea that if the use case is complex, the code will be complex. Brushing the complexity under the carpet doesn’t make it disappear.
A proposal
Using the ideas above, the same controller could look like:
def new @form = SomeFormViewModel.new(defaut_values) end def create validation = SomeValidation.new(action_params) if validation.valid? result = SomeService.new(validation.params).call if result.success? redirect_to “someplace”, info: “everything went ok.” else redirect_to “someplace”, error: “uh oh… something gone oops: # {result.errors}” end else @form = SomeFormViewModel.new render :new end end
pros:
It is not 100% rails-way but the structure is pretty similar and easy to follow
The controller is composing and delegating logic to single-purposed objects.
The limits and purpose of each piece are well defined.
Each piece has a single focus, so they are easier and faster to test (and to maintain those tests)
The code structure and responsibilities distribution are self-replicating. Is easier to build a culture on top of these and it should also be harder for a change that mixes up responsibilities to pass code review.
Conclusion
This is an idea that arose out of an analysis of some of the codebases we inherited or built ourselves in the past and we now need to maintain. This is most likely not the only solution, and it is definitely not a “default recipe” that should be followed blindly.
Form objects are not bad per se. Their intention is good and they are usually better than a bloated model or controller. Perhaps next time you see one or think of adding a new one, some of these ideas come to your mind.
If you find anything useful or that you think it would be good for your codebases, let us know!
Linked articles
|
https://medium.com/sinaptia/a-case-against-form-objects-16aa6ef44b27
|
[]
|
2020-06-24 19:45:44.688000+00:00
|
['Software Development', 'Developer', 'Ruby on Rails', 'English', 'Development']
|
Flutter Quick Tip: Changing the Splash Color of ListTile
|
After seeing a ton of different answers about changing the splash color of different widgets, namely ListTile , here are two quick ways of doing it:
Be sure to check your specific widget, as some (such as RaisedButton and IconButton ) already have splashColor and highlightColor properties you can set without having to modify or add a Theme.
Option 1: Set it in your app’s ThemeData
Caveat: This option will change ALL widgets using splashColor or highlightColor to the colors you set, so if that doesn’t work for you, go for Option 2.
In your main.dart file, add ThemeData to your MaterialApp ‘s theme property (if it isn’t already there). Within ThemeData , add the splashColor and highlightColor properties. The splashColor property is the color that spreads from the tap position. The highlightColor is the color that fills in the ListTile . Change these to your desired colors.
Changing the main theme changes everything
Option 2: Wrap your widget in a Theme widget
This will override the Theme set within MaterialApp and apply it only to its children. If you can’t change the properties of ThemeData in MaterialApp , this method will work better.
Wrap your widget of choice in a Theme widget. The splashColor property is the color that spreads from the tap position. The highlightColor is the color that fills in the ListTile . Change these to your desired colors.
Two themes for two widgets
As you can see above, you can set a whole new theme without altering the main theme set within MaterialApp .
Final note: If your splash effect isn’t looking just right, try adding a level of opacity to the highlightColor :
highlightColor: Colors.blue.withOpacity(.3);
This will accentuate the splash effect better than an opaque color.
That is all — bye now.
Code:
|
https://medium.com/swlh/flutter-quick-tip-changing-the-splash-color-of-listtile-70ea9bacd773
|
['Rob Jones']
|
2020-11-03 02:09:11.837000+00:00
|
['Dart', 'Flutter', 'Programming']
|
Beautiful Season
|
They say people are in your life
For a reason, a season, or a lifetime
Your reason was to teach me
To open my eyes to so much
You’ve expanded my horizons
And made me see the world as a better place
Your lifetime is in my heart
In my mind, and in my soul
The seed of friendship you’ve sown
Will sprout roses for me
And will bring fond memories forever
Your season was a sweet sweet one
Like Summer, it was much too short
But it was full of smiles and sunshine
When I see a dragonfly frolicking in the sun
Or hear the mesmerizing voice of the old Welsh witch
I will think of you, and I will smile a sad sad smile
And I will remember you always
My beautiful season
|
https://medium.com/imperfect-words/beautiful-season-d24f7f29caa4
|
['Edie Tuck']
|
2019-09-05 16:47:07.651000+00:00
|
['Seasons', 'Lessons', 'Friendship', 'Memories', 'Poetry']
|
Photographs-A Souvenir of life
|
On nights when sleep seems like a far fetched reality and my internet connection a never ending loop, I find myself going back to the good old days that are forever etched within the heart, also kept safe aside as Photographs.
Photographs of us showing off all our white teeth, (though mine might be a little bit yellow and awkward ’cause of the braces; you always had better teeth)posing in whichever angle our face looks better and later having the leftover weird photographs in the form of stickers.
Gone are the days when we roamed around the house, sat at doorsteps,went through each other’s Instagram accounts, teased about all those high school romances and digged up all those foolishness we did back at school.
Gone are the days when we cursed each other’s wifi connection while video calling and later laughed our hearts out seeing all those screenshots.
I wonder what we actually had in our minds while posing to those pictures. Did we ever really know that we’d( or rather I’d) come to these kind of days where I get to look at the pictures to smile, than speak our hearts out like how you used to tease me for all the tantrums I throw myself into or how I used to give ears to all of your mini stories inside the actual stories and later wondered where did it actually start from.
All these come to me now in the form of waves tripping me off my feet and leaving me numb for whatever reason I still can’t find.
What have we actually got ourselves into? I don’t know, but for all I know is I’ve waited for a surprise message or an unexpected call. I might have acted like a total jerk at the beginning though you know that wouldn’t have lasted for more than a few minutes.
.
.
.
Or else all this might be in my head and mine only as you say. Who knows?
|
https://medium.com/@bsmegha81/photographs-a-souvenir-of-life-6052bfaca475
|
['Megha B.S']
|
2020-11-24 06:47:17.160000+00:00
|
['Writers Life', 'Writing', 'Writer', 'Writers On Medium', 'Writers Block']
|
Nighttime Diaper Changes: Instagram vs Reality
|
The Sandwich Method — Parenting at its finest: Every 2–3 hours, you wake up crying. Mom grabs you, feeds you on one boob, then gives you to me to change the diaper. I change you, put your swaddle back on, give you back to mom, she feeds you on the other boob, puts you in the crib, and you fall asleep for another 3 hours. I call this the sandwich method — very, very high-end parenting.
Instagram vs Reality: It’s 1:00 A.M., and this is the second time we’ve woken up so far. Our 13-year-old dog is lying in the doorway to the bedroom, his semi-functional bladder dripping pee on the carpet. Your mom woke you up, drained boob #1, hands you to me, and I, eyes half-closed, walk into the next room to change you. I trip on the dog and land in a pee puddle.
In the other room, you’re on the changing table, I take the diaper off and the clock is ticking — changing your diaper enrages you. I imagine the maddest I’ve been in the past 10 years — I think you feel that 10 times a day. You flex your whole body, expelling liquids from all orifices. So quick, diaper comes off, poop is wiped, butthole is dried, diaper rash cream applied, moisture-blocking vaseline applied on top, diaper re-attached, and… well, you know what happens… you peed all over yourself. More rage. My eyes are open.
Your mom bought these weird double zipper outfits, and long-story-short, they zip up when you change a diaper, and down when taking the outfit off. The zipper is already up, and getting the zipper down is a challenge, given your 110% rage-superflexing. So instead of zipping down, I, also now enraged & hulk-superflexed, stretch the neck of the outfit and struggle to get the pajamas over your head. Rage. Nonetheless, we made it, pee-soaked outfit comes off, new outfit comes on… and… well… you know… you spit up chunky human breast-cheese all over yourself.
I almost catch it as you spit-up, so with just a tiny stain on your shirt, I dry it off with a towel, and call this change complete. We head back to the bedroom, I put your swaddle on, give you to your mom, wash my hands, walk downstairs to let the old dog outside to pee, head back upstairs, step again in a dog-pee puddle, lie down, and shut my eyes. Aaahhhhhh. Mmmmmmm. Zzzzzzz.
And somehow, you figure out how to time the moment that more peaceful brain waves emerge, and… well… you poop your pants. 1:30 am, a new cycle begins: wake-up, change diaper, return to crib.
But remember the sandwich method? You’ve exposed a vulnerability in the system. Because every time I change you, you scream your little swollen scrotum off, and wake yourself up. That’s why we use the sandwich method in the first place, 15 minutes of boob calms you down so you can go back to sleep. But now, the boobs are empty, and your 3-week sleep-deprived mom is asleep. Which means it’s just me and you, on a rocking chair, another 30 minutes of togetherness. Two levels of Candy Crush, five minutes of rocking you into an apparent peace-state, putting you in the crib, you waking up grunting, picking you back up, more Candy Crush (yes, I still play Candy Crush in 2021), more rocking, another attempt to put you back in the crib, and eventually, success. I lay my head on the pillow. Aaaaaah. Zzzzzzz.
I dream about my dead father, I have been a lot lately — a beautiful moment where he’s making your 2-year-old brother laugh. He comes to give me advice… 2:30am…
|
https://medium.com/@andrew-steven-neff/nighttime-diaper-changes-instagram-vs-reality-760c92cd778f
|
['Andrew Steven Neff']
|
2021-06-14 14:32:49.020000+00:00
|
['Parenting', 'Baby', 'Newborn', 'Dads', 'Kids']
|
My Ambitious Financing Plan to Buy Bitcoin before Institutional Investments Crowd Arrival
|
Back to my point.
Option 2
Without further delays, I’m cutting right to the chase;
This is my decided option.
Leverage. Why? I figured the 3.5% APR on the Loan, over 5 years just about gets counteracted with Inflation — which is a Lot higher in real terms once we’re done with Stimulus Package Money Printing. It’s a global pandemic And recession, and each and every country is printing themselves out of this.
This becomes a long term risk adjusted take, with opportunity cost met upfront. At sub-£300 per month with a steady income this makes up a small sub 20% stake of my monthly disposable income. Risk is acceptable.
I do have debt, which i’m paying off, and a mortgage. Both are being paid. My pension holds a Bitcoin amongst other diversified ETFs — managed portfolio.
But I do have little to no savings. As far as Net Worth is concerned, Im not doing all that too well. Most of it would be locked in equity I suppose, and we know how much that valuation can fluctuate by. Across the board I have invested about 230% of my actual Net Worth into Bitcoin — non-leveraged Pension and ISA portfolios. All that is long term haul investments.
This particular decision making process, with Option 2 can achieve to grow that “Net worth” exponentially, albeit with employed leverage.
This may not to taste for everyone, and that’s fine with me.
“Do not invest more than you can afford” comes to mind, time again and again. This is where I politely hold a same-but-different take on this view.
This is to say — that does not mean your savings, but exactly that, the mere affordability of risk. If you can afford the risk, then the risk-reward assessment is acceptable.
Affordable leverage is a smart choice and how the larger Investment is realised. Think about your house, your car, your holiday. When was the last time you invested your “cash savings” to buy any of these. Borrow is the norm. Institutions issue debt(borrow), corporations do the same. It’s the name of the game.
Ironically, the irresponsible target-chasing results of leveraging and over-leveraging is what GOT US into this debt spiral. There is a need for a great financial reset, but thats another post.
Where am I now?
Source: my loan app
All this talk and discussions were great but where is my OWN position on this bitcoin investment with leverage?
Well, I borrowed, I bought.
Foolish or not, time will tell now.
I can sit back, keep paying the loan with interest, which adjusted to inflation and annual salary increases — is NET £0 cost at present.
This is 0% lend effectively in real terms
Also I am locking in the multiplier factor ahead of further rises. I can certainly miss ebbs and flows to perhaps buy-in at a cheaper price. That risk is acceptable to me and I believe opportunity cost versus the inflation realisation imminent will be a riskier game to adjust to in the long run.
What about you
How do you hedge against imminent double digit cost-to-capital inflation in real terms? CPI is a narrow defined metric and far from certain or applicable to all your individual circumstances. A student living at home with parents will have a different inflation impact versus a dental professional in the suburbs or a retiree in their 60s-70s.
How do you plan to hedge that? What instruments do you use?
Keen to learn your opinion and learn
Meanwhile, hope you enjoyed reading in on my own mission statement.
See you on the other side.
|
https://medium.com/money-clip/i-now-invested-230-of-my-net-worth-into-bitcoin-8fbf5a41cdff
|
['Jon Frowski']
|
2020-12-30 05:02:24.265000+00:00
|
['Money Management', 'Personal Finance', 'Investing', 'Wealth', 'Investment']
|
Former creative director writes novel during first lockdown
|
All assignments were canceled within a week during the first lockdown, so what do you do? Panic? No, you’re writing your first novel. And of course you use your eventful life as a source of inspiration. It has just not become an autobiography, but a nice book where fiction and non-fiction intertwine. https://www.oudvet.nl
It was the first lockdown that made me decide to write a book. I talked about it with my friends. I often told them the most bizarre stories, to which they sometimes had a good laugh or reacted very surprised. In a month’s time — during the first lockdown — all my marketing assignments were canceled, so I decided to write.
But how do you start? Especially if you have no experience at all. So I did a lot of research on the internet and I have read all the classics, and so on.
And then you just have to start. Define a structure in outline, of course, but don’t let that stop you. Getting started is the most important step. I ended up writing every day for almost a year, rereading everything at least three times a day, and correcting every day. And, of course, looking for co-readers within your circle of acquaintances for the so important ‘input’.
After a year I had my ‘puke version’ ready. Now it was time to find an editor and that was still a ‘thing’. The average quote was 1500 Euros, a large amount for a beginning writer. Finally I managed to find an editor who did it for free. Just searched my network and found it. I couldn’t believe my luck. It took him a month and a lot of gray hair for me, and in that month I aged at least two years. But together we were happy with the end result.
In the year that I was working on my book, I also looked into what was the best solution for me, whether or not to find a publisher. After much research, I decided to self-publish the book. I am very happy with that now. At a later stage I may be able to work with a publisher. But now I find it exciting and extremely educational to do it myself. I also have the promotion in my own hands. I built the website myself, set up the crowdfunding campaign, sent out the press releases and am now working on the follow-up.
The books are already being sold and I am very happy about that. Mobilize my network now. Fortunately, there are also celebrities that I can possibly use for the promotion.
|
https://medium.com/@ronnysimon/former-creative-director-writes-novel-during-first-lockdown-b7b3571550cd
|
['Ronny Simon']
|
2021-06-11 12:28:45.294000+00:00
|
['Writers Life', 'Authors', 'Roman']
|
6 Benefits To Master As Blockchain Developer
|
Blockchain is a new and trending technology that is redefining how does the technology work. It started as an underpinning technology for Bitcoin transactions, but now it assists other technologies like AI, data science, IoT. Many big names in the industry like IBM, Wallmart, Amazon are actively working on Blockchain and have launched various projects that are aided by Blockchain technology. Owing to the fast-pace growth that we are witnessing, Blockchain is also becoming a popular choice amongst individual who is willing to make a career in this field. Blockchain developers were one of the highest-ranking skills in 2019. Besides, Blockchain also holds a lot of opportunities and has a scope of growth. In this blog, we are going to discuss what are some of the key benefits of mastering the Blockchain developer course.
6 benefits of Blockchain developer :
Job security- Before considering any other advantage, one of the key reasons that people are opting for Blockchain developer certification is because it is the technology of the future. Hence, most of people are opting to learn about this technology. Since most of the companies would be investing in Blockchain staying adept with it will always keep your job secured. Good package- The next big thing that one eye for after job security is a good package. Annually a Blockchain engineer or developer can earn a package of $90,000 — $220,000per annum. This package is for beginners; hence, if you are planning to become a Blockchain developer, a good salary package awaits you. Gives weightage to your resume- You have to stand ahead of the competition to excel. One of the ways is to acquire skills that are in-demand and most required. With Blockchain technology, you become adept with the latest developments. Also, it gives you a competitive edge. Better exposure to the latest technologies- It is paramount that one must be adept with the latest technologies to stay ahead and grow professionally. Blockchain is the technology of the future, and knowing about it is going to strike a chord with the latest development and bring the best to the company. Integration with new technologies- One of the notable features of Blockchain is that most of the new technologies are now working in sync with Blockchain, if you are planning to become an AI expert, and you have knowledge about Blockchain, then you hold better prospects of growth. Upskill yourself- After reaching a certain management profile and designation, people often wonder what next? If you too are thinking in the same league, then you must consider learning Blockchain. This is the new-age technology that has the potential for future growth.
With this set of advantages, learning Blockchain should be your next move. To enrol for the best online certificate program in Blockchain development, connect with Blockchain Council today.
|
https://medium.com/the-capital/6-benefits-to-master-as-blockchain-developer-c8741de29132
|
['Sophia Casey']
|
2020-11-12 21:05:48.966000+00:00
|
['Blockchaindevelopcompany', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Blockchain Startup', 'Blockchain Development', 'Blockchain Developer']
|
‘Yo! Bum Rush The Show’: Public Enemy’s No-Holds-Barred Debut Album
|
Ian McCann
Politics! Black issues! Fighting the power! Outwitting The Man! Microphone terrorism! Exposing the media! The Public Enemy you know and love started slightly different, because 1987 was different. What, their debut album opened with a tune about a car? And followed it up with one dissing a woman? The third track tells you what’s going on: ʻMiuzi Weighs A Ton’ takes a traditional hip-hop stance of using lyrics as weapons, and those lyrics are heavy. Public Enemy didn’t start as revolutionaries; the incendiaries they threw were rhymes. They were B-boys first and grew into that second role. You can hear that development taking a grip as Yo! Bum Rush The Show continues. They were coming from the street, heading for polemics; hip-hop came first for them, and, in 1987, this was about as sophisticated, complex and advanced as it got.
Listen to Yo! Bum Rush The Show right now.
That does not happen by accident: they’d had plenty of practice. Public Enemy had risen from Spectrum City, a group that released the single ʻLies’ in 1984 and featured the rapper who’d become known as Chuck D, along with future control-room maestros the Shocklee brothers. Flavor Flav, a rapper and hype man, joined too, bringing a massive stage presence and deeply underrated ability to spit rhymes. Another arrival was Terminator X, the DJ who communicated via his decks. Professor Griff and Eric “Vietnam” Sadler were associates from Spectrum City; in PE, Griff became “Minister Of Information” and handled interactions with the media, and Sadler was part of The Bomb Squad production team along with Chuck (as Carl Ryder) and the Shocklees.
While the group was basically Chuck, Flav and Griff, all had a major part to play in shaping PE’s sound, attitude and politics, as did Def Jam Records’ Bill Stephney, who was searching for a rap act that could deliver a desperately needed dose of reality to an increasingly pressured ghetto audience. The Bomb Squad got busy while PE was getting itself together, creating waves among the hip-hop hardcore with True Mathematics, a talented MC from the Public Enemy heartland of Hempstead, Long Island, and another “Strong Island” group, Kings Of Pressure, among others. So they knew the ropes.
Yo! Bum rush the show
You can still hear echoes of the full crew’s previous work in Yo! Bum Rush The Show. These days some of its tracks sound more old school than you might have expected, but in ’87 this album was heading for revolutionary, though still reflecting the hip-hop heard on the street. The samples and cuts pile up, the beats are chopped and diced and used to add light and shade — and furious heaviness — to a complex and deeply funky attitude to beats that is apparent from the opening ʻYou’re Gonna Get Yours’, in which PE’s Oldsmobile 98 is refuge, symbol and metaphorical weapon.
The raw metallic guitar which drives ʻSophisticated Bitch’ sounds like a sample, though it’s Vernon Reid of Living Colour who’s playing it; there are shades of Run-DMC and Eddie Martinez and Joe Perry here, where rock and 80s rap collide. The song’s lyrics were attacked for misogyny, marking the album’s first controversial moment, as Chuck passes judgement on a black woman who rejected a brother in favour of a “devil” in a suit and tie. Her fate in the final stanza is literally hard hitting.
Chuck said they were observing, not delivering, but the lyrics made for uncomfortable listening, even more so in today’s current social and political climate. It meant that, from the start, PE were under fire, and this sense of being beyond mainstream mores and preset thinking helped them live up to their name. It also put them on a level with potential rivals on the West Coast, which was starting to ascend with Ice-T’s celebrations of outlaw lifestyles, a gangsta groove which would soon explode with NWA’s rapid rise in 1988. PE and the gangstas shocked polite society equally. It was surely no coincidence that NWA star Ice Cube would soon turn to The Bomb Squad to supervise his first solo album.
You’re gonna get yours
The standard form of defence in late 80s hip-hop was attack: rising stars knew they’d get dissed and were ready to come out fighting, and that attitude appears in ʻYou’re Gonna Get Yours’ and ʻTimebomb’, which kicks off with Flav warning that PE faced skepticism, setting up Chuck to let rip with an unarguable statement about why they are the real deal. Flav gets the whole of ʻToo Much Posse’ to explain how PE could not be beaten. ʻPublic Enemy №1’, their debut single, fits the justification tunes as Chuck fights off detractors over little more than a beat and the distinctive buzzing synth lines from Fred Wesley’s ʻBlow Your Head’ — the fashion for Moog lines heard in hip-hop’s entire G-Funk era can be traced back to here. It was a tour de force from Chuck and Flav — but Public Enemy were just starting to roll.
ʻRightstarter (Message To A Black Man)’ is Chuck’s declaration that the revolution has started, and whatever the reaction to his words, he won’t shut up. This wasn’t the first song to (approximately) quote the title of Nation Of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad’s 1965 religious, political and biographical book Message To The Blackman In America, but The Temptations’/Spinners ʻMessage From A Black Man’, first released in 1970, was by no means as hard-hitting as Chuck’s black nationalism. ʻMPE’ drops the tempo, the lyrics floating over the most basic funk backing. The album’s title track is almost as minimal, but the approach is different, bringing the noise behind Chuck D’s story of busting in after being refused entry to a nightclub — and wider society.
ʻRaise The Roof’ starts like a call to a musical event, explains a touch of PE lifestyle, then grows criminal-minded before Chuck declares himself a terrorist and drops the line that would feed PE’s undisputed classic: “it takes a nation of millions to hold me back”. By the end, Chuck is razing crack houses, an attitude explained by ʻMegablast’, a grim tale of falling into a pit of rock cocaine, brilliantly carried off on the mic by Chuck and Flav, who sounds truly desperate when his voice is thrown into reverse gear — showing the confusion this lifestyle brings. (His regrettable problems in this realm were yet to arrive.) The album closes by giving the DJ some with ʻTerminator X Speaks With His Hands’, a glorious exhibition of mixcraft as we knew it then: raw funk.
Released on 10 February 1987, Yo! Bum Rush The Show was a big success despite being considered too rough for airplay; black fans felt it was a necessary development in hip-hop, saying what had to be said; white fans felt how real it was. But it was just the start. Public Enemy would soon hit bigger highs, drawing in a mass audience barely able to believe what they had the guts to say: Politics! Black issues! Fighting the power! Outwitting The Man! Microphone terrorism! Exposing the media! They bum-rushed the show. It began here.
Yo! Bum Rush The Show can be bought here.
Listen to the best of Public Enemy on Apple Music and Spotify.
Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter: @uDiscoverMusic
|
https://medium.com/udiscover-music/yo-bum-rush-the-show-public-enemy-s-no-holds-barred-debut-album-88a77d88c748
|
['Udiscover Music']
|
2019-02-10 12:05:31.275000+00:00
|
['Black History Month', 'Hip Hop', 'Politics', 'Culture Shock', 'Features']
|
Decorate Trees In The Soil
|
Bird house tree by Thomas Dambo, in Denmark. Find the cheerful artist at https://thomasdambo.com/
Holiday decorations look much better on leafless trees than on evergreen trees.
Evergreen trees are already decorated — with their saturated green colours, their needles, their vitality.
I don’t know why that couldn’t be a new trend: decorate trees that have lost their leaves and root in the soil. I just walked through my neighbourhood and saw many colourful decorations made from light recycled objects, small painted bird houses and bird feeders hanging from branches. It was really uplifting to see those little touches of caring that beautify the place.
Most trees like human attention, and thrive from it, so by decorating a tree that is already there and is transitioning into winter mode, you might stimulate it to grow better next year and give you a richer harvest.
1 December 2016
….
Also published on my blog:
|
https://medium.com/@nandajurela/decorate-trees-in-the-soil-3af51868ab6d
|
['Nanda Jurela']
|
2020-12-12 16:22:15.875000+00:00
|
['Christmas', 'Decor', 'Holidays', 'Trees', 'Outdoors']
|
Apple wants to build its own Self-Driving Car in 2024
|
Apple Self-Driving Car: The Company is working on a new type of battery that will give the vehicle more autonomy.
Apple has set itself a goal for 2024 to produce a driverless passenger vehicle that will include its own state-of-the-art battery technology, sources close to the operation, framed within the so-called Titan Project that has been underway well unevenly, since 2014, Reuters says.
This year, the company began designing its own vehicle from scratch. At one point, Apple reevaluated its goals and focused its efforts on software and electronic devices. Doug Field, an Apple veteran who had worked at Tesla, took over the project in 2018 … and laid off 190 people from the team in 2019. Since then, Apple has made enough progress that it now aspires to build a vehicle that can get to market.
These plans contrast with those of rivals such as Waymo, of Alphabet (Google’s parent company) that has built robot-taxis to transport passengers for a driverless transport service. One of the keys to Apple’s strategy lies in a new battery that could “radically” lower the cost and increase the vehicle’s range, according to a third person quoted by Reuters, who has seen Apple’s battery design. The company has declined to comment on its future plans or products.
In this regard, Apple plans to use a unique single-cell design that increases the volume of individual cells in the battery and frees up space within the battery, eliminating the bags and modules that contain the battery materials, one of the employees said. Apple’s design means that more active material can be packed inside the battery, giving the car potentially greater range. Apple is also examining battery chemistry called LFP, or lithium iron phosphate, the person said, which is less likely to overheat and therefore safer than other types of lithium-ion batteries. “It is the next level”, have assured the sources.
Manufacturing a vehicle represents a challenge for the supply chain. Even for Apple, with an immense cash flow with expertise in electronics, but not automotive. To cite one example, it took Tesla 17 years before it finally made a profit from making cars. “If there is a company on the planet that has the resources to do that, it is probably Apple. But at the same time, it is not a mobile phone, “a person who has worked on Project Titan told Reuters.
The pandemic, yes, can interfere with the plans. Two close sources have warned that pandemic-related delays could push the start of production to 2025 or beyond.
|
https://medium.com/@aneesshah47/apple-wants-to-build-its-own-self-driving-car-in-2024-ae228800bd1d
|
['Anees Shah']
|
2020-12-23 10:56:32.584000+00:00
|
['Self Driving Cars', 'Apple Vehicle', 'Apple', 'Electric Car', 'Driverless Cars']
|
Introducing HttpMate
|
Nobody wants to write bad code. Nobody starts the application development with the thought “I’m going to create the most entangled and unreadable code and make sure it’s not extendable and hard to modify or navigate through”. One starts with good intentions, probably even having all the Clean Code and SOLID principals in mind. However, compromises start creeping in fast and multiply, usually based on the number of external dependencies involved.
We, at envimate, for one, did not find any framework that would allow us to develop a web application and claim in good conscience that its business logic does not depend on the underlying HTTP server, persistence layer or (de)serialization mechanism (also referred to as “infrastructure code” in DDD).
If you also feel you no longer develop your application, but rather keep “integrating” and “integrating” the framework, fighting its demons and never having time for the actual business logic. If you are also tired of endless refactoring just because a new version of the framework has been released. If you are not sure which annotation to use anymore, and frankly tired of the invasiveness of the HTTP framework you are using, then HttpMate is for you.
It’s non-invasive, flexible and ultra-extendable. HttpMate offers you 3 modes of handling HTTP requests — UseCase-driven, low-level HTTP and event-driven request handling as well as mixing those modes to get the most out of the feature-rich framework.
Without further adieu, let’s see some code examples.
Low-level HTTP request handling
final HttpMate httpMate = HttpMate.aLowLevelHttpMate()
.get("/api/hello", (httpRequest, httpResponse) -> {
final Optional<String> name = httpRequest.queryParameters().getQueryParameter("name");
httpResponse.setBody("Hello " + name.orElse("World"));
httpResponse.setStatus(OK);
})
.build();
This piece uses the low-level HTTP builder of HttpMate, and it just scratches the surface of possibilities.
You can easily register handlers for any path/http method combination. In the handler lambda you have the request and response objects at your disposal and the handler can get as complicated as you need.
Checkout the examples section of the repository for more information about the low level API.
You’ve probably seen every other HTTP framework providing an easy way of writing little request handlers, and while this is a great way to give an intro to the framework’s syntax and is a great marketing tool, any real-life challenge includes more than “just handling the request with a function call”. The world desperately needs an HTTP framework that would provide a proper abstraction layer between request handling and business logic, and allow you to not compromise on things that matter — clean architecture and extendability.
UseCase example
HttpMate allows you to “just publish your business logic as an HTTP endpoint”. Let’s explore the UseCase of sending an email to demonstrate that.
We don’t know yet how the HTTP endpoint will look like, but we do know we need an Email object representing the details of the email:
Sender
Receiver
Subject
Body
and we would need to return, let’s say a Receipt for every email sent:
TrackingNumber
Date
and we would have a class responsible for sending the email, that would look something like:
public class SendEmailUseCase {
...
public Receipt sendEmail(final Email email) { ...}
...
}
Now you can use the HttpMate builder to publish that Use Case — given that you’ve decided which URL and which HTTP methods are going to be responsible for serving this UseCase to the user:
final HttpMate useCaseDrivenHttpMate = HttpMate.anHttpMateConfiguredAs(UseCaseDrivenBuilder.USE_CASE_DRIVEN)
.post("/api/sendEmail", SendEmailUseCase.class)
.mappingRequestsAndResponsesUsing(
mapMate()
...
)
.build();
The first part is quite self-explanatory: invoke the SendEmailUseCase upon POST to “/api/sendEmail”.
And “How come, the SendEmailUseCase gets a valid instance of Email?” the bright minded reader might ask.
That is a valid question indeed, it’s the most complicated technical detail of this example and where the devil is hiding. To keep this article focused on HttpMate and an easy read, we asked another mate to fight off that devil. We will talk about that brave mate in another post.
By default, HttpMate uses the empty default constructor of the UseCase class to initialize it. That said, HttpMate can be easily configured to use any dependency injection mechanism by adding a call to the builder; the following example demonstrates that using Google Guice:
final HttpMate useCaseDrivenHttpMate = HttpMate.anHttpMateConfiguredAs(UseCaseDrivenBuilder.USE_CASE_DRIVEN)
.post("/api/sendEmail", SendEmailUseCase.class)
.mappingRequestsAndResponsesUsing(
mapMate()
)
.configured(toCreateUseCaseInstancesUsing(INJECTOR::getInstance))
.build();
Checkout this github repo for more elaborate example of the SendEmailUseCase.
Final Words
There are a lot of frameworks out there, providing HTTP endpoint configuration, however, most of the time the nice and shiny demo does not survive the hardships of reality. We wanted to create something that while easy and intuitive to configure can support you in your application development, provide you with the tools to accomplish clean code and architecture and be a good foundation for your Use Cases.
And that’s not all! Remember how I told you this just scratches the surface of possibilities? HttpMate, together with other “mates” we are working on has more to offer: websockets, event-driven approach to HTTP, multipart done right, handling request and response validated serialization and deserialization, etc. Stay tuned for more articles about the Mate family!
We will be happy to hear your feedback and receive your contributions, so checkout out GitHub repo for HttpMate and Happy Coding!
|
https://medium.com/@nisabek/introducing-httpmate-996e03af9d6
|
['Nune Isabekyan']
|
2019-06-10 16:11:18.345000+00:00
|
['Http Request', 'Java', 'Framework', 'Rest', 'Software Development']
|
Sexism and the male majority
|
For the first time in almost a year, I walked through to a marketplace in India. The kind of marketplace I’m talking about is a huge area full of high rises, with thousands of human males bustling about the place, along with a handful of females and about as many dogs. I’m so used to the sexist stares going directly to my chest here in Delhi, that the moment I got out of my car into that marketplace, I felt the air change around me, as though a female had stepped into a crowd full of male hormones. Perhaps that was partly my imagination, and mostly my wariness, but maybe some part of it was objective reality. As I walked through the crowd behind my father, noticing one odd female here and there, my brain went into overdrive. I imagined situations where a man might try to take advantage of the crowdedness, how I would call him out, I imagined my father go berserk, I wondered if the crowd would support me or stay uninvolved.
My brain created situations that didn’t exist, and worked to find solutions to them. And while so far this was all instinctive, when I consciously reconsidered these thoughts, I realized how disappointing humankind is. Because the brain rarely imagines beyond the realm of the possible, and it mostly imagines within the realm of experience.
A ridiculously relatable description I read somewhere was of a term called ‘rape schedule’. The article said that women live by a rape schedule, constantly aware of the time that they are going out, the articles of clothing they adorn, the company they go out with, the crowdedness of the area, potential escape routes, and other things that they consider but never consciously realize. And this schedule, these thoughts are so deeply ingrained in our brains that we don’t think twice about them, they come as naturally to us as erections do to men.
And the ‘rape schedule’, while absolutely accurate and a constant reality, is not the end-all and do-all of sexism. Men, and women, undergo and propagate sexism every single day. When you start thinking about it, there are so many factors to consider that at every point in the thinking process, you might end up realizing how you yourself are propagating sexism. Think about the word rape. Sadly, I have heard this word thrown around in conversations of highly educated, reasonably woke people, used in casual contexts like gaming. When I consider the concept of marital rape, I realize how many people refuse to believe in it. Some conversations end up with one point of view claiming that rapists can be pardoned for they are merely victims of their animalistic sexual desires. While these sort of conversations bring a sour taste to my mouth, and flare up the feminist in me, I realize that at times I have let things slide. And it’s taking me time to have the strength to call out my friends, and it takes me confidence to call out my family, and it will take me courage to call out my boyfriend, or my husband. But the days I let things slide are the days I remember how my loved ones were molested, and how I’ve been stared at, followed, touched.
And yet while these clear cut examples of sexism are pure red flags for me, the lower the intensity gets, the blurrier becomes the line. When I get down to the smallest things, I wonder if chivalry is sexism as well. Chivalry has a positive connotation, it’s good behavior of a man towards women, but if I consider it in a purely objective perspective, isn’t any type of behavior that can be defined as ‘from men towards women’, or the other way round, sexist? Isn’t anything that splits us apart, makes us see each other as different groups, sexist? If I truly believe in removing sexism, should I not also work towards removing those that benefit women in particular? If I encourage parts of sexism that benefit me, am I not directly promoting what I’m fighting against? So the way I try to define feminism is equality. Pure, objective equality. You do for me exactly what and as much as I shall do for you, regardless of your gender or sexual preferences. You are as much human as me, and for that reason we are perfectly equal.
|
https://medium.com/@lostinaruse/sexism-and-the-male-majority-38ec7669626a
|
[]
|
2020-12-02 14:25:09.776000+00:00
|
['Feminism', 'Chivalry', 'Sexism']
|
Dr. Keerthi R
|
Dr. Keerthi R
Key interest areas: Pollution control, Modeling, Technology
Kerala, India
What do you do?
I am a Chemical Engineer with a never-ending appetite for research. I have completed my doctoral degree in Air Quality Modeling. A combined model was used to find the air pollution sources in Kerala, India. I am interested in collaborative works in the field of pollution control which could help in the realization of a sustainable environment. Apart from that, I am also interested in wastewater and solid waste management.
How are you creating an impact in your niche?
I have been working on models that help to find out the air polluting sources in any area, provided their source profiles are known. When the sources are known, the emissions from such sources could be cut down to improve the air quality in that region. I am also experienced in handling courses for undergraduate students in Chemical Engineering.
Where can one find your work?
|
https://medium.com/architectonics/dr-keerthi-r-518f5b8bcf4c
|
['Keerthi R']
|
2020-11-25 09:25:14.842000+00:00
|
['Profile', 'Air Pollution', 'Writer', 'Modeling', 'Collaboration']
|
Living it like an eclipse,
|
Living it like an eclipse,
Shimmering in the darkness and fading away when its golden hour,
She reappears aesthetically,
lustrous enough embolden hearts.
Mastering the art of masquerading,
she sketches herself into a cute Crescent.
Her darkness oblique and overlooked,
she sculpts herself into the pearl of heaven captivating every orb purely.
Heavenly bodies loved every inch.
|
https://medium.com/@mad-thoughts/living-it-like-an-eclipse-fa66c773a533
|
[]
|
2020-12-25 10:12:29.678000+00:00
|
['Poetry', 'Moon', 'Love', 'Poem', 'Friendship']
|
How I Stopped Believing in Tough-Love Social Policy
|
And you can too. Thoughts on the obituary of conservative economist Walter E. Williams.
Photo by Blogging Guide on Unsplash
The obituary of Walter E. Williams was a jarring reminder of what tough-love social policy looks like. Mr. Williams, who passed on December 2, 2020 at the age of 84, was a public intellectual and professor at George Mason University in Virginia for forty years. He supported unimpeded free-market capitalism (a myth, if you read Robert Reich) and didn’t support any kind of government spending, affirmative actions or intervention to help disadvantaged groups or individuals, including minimum wage legislation, believing it is detrimental. While it is out of the ordinary that a Black man who grew up in poverty would hold these views, his obituary sketched the path from his life experiences to his perspectives. There is, of course, a kind of logic and a credibility that comes from being one of the ones who “made it” despite impossible odds that can lead us to wonder: Is he right? Is he, like the unlikely hero of Slumdog Millionaire, someone who managed by virtue of his childhood and early adulthood trials, not to win a gameshow, but to piece together a blueprint for the kind of social contract that can provide the most opportunity to the greatest number people, if only they have the get-up-and-go to seize it?
…a credibility that comes from being one of the ones who “made it” despite impossible odds that can lead us to wonder: Is he right?
Photo by Joseph Chan on Unsplash
There are those instants in our lives that we remember because they have surprised us. For me, one is a sentence, a short description uttered by one of my college professors. As a first-generation college student and a female in a heavily male-dominated field, I was a “no-excuses” kind of student, reluctant to support anything (like affirmative action) that, in my view, put a question mark at the end of my list of qualifications. Likewise, I believed that for those around me, whatever the difficult circumstances of their pasts or presents, success was a matter of hard work, period. I was called out on this mental inflexibility by a marvelous professor, who said to me one day, cheerfully and without accusation, “You think that because you did it, everyone should be able to do the same. That’s what first-generation college students think.”
That’s what first-generation college students think.
Our brains are wonderful organs, allowing us to process what they consume over many years. Imagine the lack of progress we would make over a lifetime if, like our stomachs, they digested for mere hours. A couple of decades of processing “That’s what first-generation college students think” allowed me to realize that people who grow up in a family where college graduation is the norm, not the exception, do not have the expectation that they must get where they are going without assistance. There is an awareness of the many different kinds of obstacles individuals face on their paths to success, and no shame in receiving assistance (private tutors, therapists, having parents foot the bill instead of working through college, what have you).
Imagine the lack of progress we would make over a lifetime if, like our stomachs, our brains digested for mere hours.
Photo by Rochelle Nicole on Unsplash
But for those in the first generation, we seem to feel that we can only take credit if we can claim we’ve received no special help along the way. But of course, it’s never true that someone has made it “on their own.” What’s truer is that the people who have provided that assistance have simply done so without requiring recognition for it. These are mothers and fathers. These are sometimes sisters who worked jobs so brothers could get an education and “make it,” if you can read between the lines of “Hillbilly Elegy.” And if you can’t manage to read between the lines, Anne Cohen spells it out nicely for you. In Mr. William’s paradigm, those who are disadvantaged can indeed rise to the top, but typically only through great sacrifice by others in their lives. It doesn’t need to be this way, and I’m optimistic it will change, if only because in any family there is only one individual who is the first to go to college and therefore most susceptible to this kind of thinking, but countless individuals who are second, third, fourth and fifth…
Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash
Many versions of the following have been said: “When you make it to the top, be sure to extend one hand back down and pull someone up after you.” In Mr. William’s paradigm, sitting atop one’s pile of achievements as a shining example is the extent to which it behooves someone who has “made it” to help pull the next person up. Let us, instead, recognize the factors that have led to real gains for multitudes: civil rights legislation, women’s solidarity, LGBTQIA solidarity, government spending for programs like Head Start that acknowledge hardships and intervene, and, yes, minimum wage laws that help prevent exploitation.
There is a very long list of professors, economists, politicians and sociologists — such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and former NAACP executive director Benjamin Hooks — who have over the past decades publicly disagreed with Mr. William’s recipe for success, which he described in, among many other works, his 2010 autobiography, “Up From the Projects.” Incidentally, Booker T. Washington, who described his emancipation at the age of six in his 1901 autobiography, “Up From Slavery,” lamented that the federal government had no plan at the beginning to help former slaves begin to build lives as free citizens; “Even as a youth, and later in manhood, I had the feeling that it was cruelly wrong in the central government, at the beginning of our freedom, to fail to make some provision for the general education of our people in addition to what the states might do, so that the people would be the better prepared for the duties of citizenship.” It remains “cruelly wrong” to pretend that the government has no role to play in helping all individuals overcome obstacles to living healthy and productive lives, not least because industrious citizens give rise to a strong nation.
|
https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/how-i-stopped-believing-in-tough-love-social-policy-2c92041cf5bd
|
['J Krumrine']
|
2020-12-13 16:14:25.476000+00:00
|
['Inequality', 'Equality', 'Politics', 'Economics', 'Society']
|
Biden Moves EVs and Batteries to the Center of Economic Policy
|
Pete Buttigieg listens as U.S. president-elect Joe Biden announces his nomination as transportation secretary on December 16, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware. Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Pool/Getty Images
Ona coast-to-coast, New York-to-San Francisco trip in 1919, Dwight Eisenhower discovered that you could barely cross the country by car, the roads were so run down. After he became president 40 years later, he decided to fix this by building a first-rate, nationwide highway system. We still drive on the result: some 40,000 miles of highways built for the equivalent of more than $200 billion in today’s dollars.
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-s-v-i00.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-s-v-i01.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-s-v-i02.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-s-v-i03.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-s-v-i04.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-t-v-k00.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-t-v-k01.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-t-v-k02.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-t-v-k03.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-t-v-k04.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-t-v-k05.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/X-video-h-v-d-xx.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/X-video-h-v-d-xx1.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/X-video-h-v-d-xx2.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/X-video-h-v-d-xx3.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/X-video-h-v-d-xx4.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-s-v-i00.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-s-v-i01.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-s-v-i02.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-s-v-i03.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-s-v-i04.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-t-v-k00.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-t-v-k01.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-t-v-k02.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-t-v-k03.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-t-v-k04.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-t-v-k05.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/X-video-h-v-d-xx.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/X-video-h-v-d-xx1.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/X-video-h-v-d-xx2.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/X-video-h-v-d-xx3.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/X-video-h-v-d-xx4.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-s-v-it1.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-s-v-it2.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-s-v-it3.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-s-v-it4.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-s-v-it5.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-s-v-it6.html
https://kegg.tech/wp-content/mxo/video-s-v-it7.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-s-v-it1.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-s-v-it2.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-s-v-it3.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-s-v-it4.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-s-v-it5.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-s-v-it6.html
https://altagamma.it/mmm/peo/video-s-v-it7.html
President-elect Joe Biden’s $2 trillion transportation agenda is the most ambitious since Eisenhower, putting the electric car, the train, and renovated roads and bridges at the center of American economic and jobs policy.
The plan is to expand intercity rail systems, reinvigorate Amtrak, install 500,000 EV charging stations — a must if large numbers of consumers are to take the plunge to electric — and pump more dollars into EV and advanced battery research.
A big question is whether, at a time Republicans have already expressed exhaustion with big spending bills, Biden can get it through Congress. In particular, for the last couple of decades, Republicans have treated EVs, batteries, and rail as partisan Democratic pork barrel. This fly in the ointment could be eliminated if the Democrats win control of the Senate by taking both of Georgia’s seats in next month’s runoff elections. Short of that long-shot bet, Biden will be relying on the selling skills of his nominee for energy secretary, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, a pro-auto industry politician, and as transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
David Sandalow, undersecretary of energy under President Obama and now a fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, told me that Granholm can be extremely persuasive when packaging her policy aims as jobs. As Michigan governor, he said, “she was attentive to manufacturing jobs — how do we restore them and create good jobs for America.” In the case of EVs and batteries, that’s precisely what the outcome would be — tons of new middle-class jobs, which is how Biden is already explicitly talking about the transportation agenda. With Buttigieg, Sandalow said, Biden has someone who “won the Iowa Caucus out of nowhere. That shows his extraordinary political skills.”
Look for the industries themselves — especially the automobile lobby — to push hard for the Biden bill. It will still be hard.
What about using a time-honored call to arms? To Eisenhower, highways were a military imperative, since armies need reliable roads. Though Biden isn’t at this point framing his plans that way, they have the same context: The U.S. is in a technological and economic war with China and Europe to dominate the transformation of personal transportation from combustion to electric. Both China and the European Union have put billions of dollars in state funds behind their EV and battery efforts. Now Biden is saying the U.S. will, too.
The agenda picks up from the Obama administration. The original post-financial crash stimulus bill contained $2.4 billion for battery and EV companies, and $8 billion for high-speed rail. The vision in part materialized — $465 million of the money went to Tesla, which paid back the loan early and has gone on to be by far the biggest EV player in the world. But high-speed rail largely fell away: The country’s sole new rail project is Brightline, a private-built rail line connecting Miami and West Palm Beach, Florida, with an extension currently being added to Orlando at a cost of $2.7 billion. But it is hardly high speed — it goes an average of 79 miles an hour.
Biden is exciting industry players that high-speed rail may be back. Marc Buncher, president of Siemens’ mobility division in the U.S. and Canada, told me that about a dozen U.S. cities have high-speed rail projects on the drawing board. They include one project connecting Dallas and Houston and another from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
“Once the first one happens,” Buncher said, “everyone will see how it works and a bunch will follow.”
The first decade of the new EV age was about ideology. Tesla’s string of vehicles, GM’s Volt and Bolt, and the BMW i3 were all explicitly aimed at the narrow band of motorists seeking to make a green statement. The rest of the era — the one that attempts to bring EVs to the rest of the market — will only work if it’s not appealing to ideology, but to desires like “cool” and “savvy.” It will be the same with Congress. Some members will respond to the clarion call of climate change. For others — and this may be a very large group — there are the appeals of jobs, economic growth, and beating the pants off the Chinese. Biden’s task will be to understand to whom he is speaking.
|
https://medium.com/@stevelevine200/biden-moves-evs-and-batteries-to-the-center-of-economic-policy-7f860fea6e67
|
['Steve Levine']
|
2020-12-19 12:41:17.780000+00:00
|
['Biden', 'Economy', 'Electric Vehicles', 'Politics']
|
Meet Poyo: An Interview with Augur’s Most Controversial Cat
|
Poyo has been called a troll, scammer, scheming mastermind and incompetent fool. There’s probably some truth to all of these labels for the controversial Augur trader and self-christened “sof’ cat of predictions.”
I first stumbled across Poyo in 2016 when I sighted a whiskered avatar in the comment section of PredictIt. The prolific commenter liked to boast about its “sof’ and fluffy fur” when not discharging poorly spelled political predictions. A bit strange, I thought. But then again, the Internet is full of strange.
Harmless kitty cat or international scam artist?
I mostly forgot about the mysterious feline speculator until last summer when I spotted Poyo rolling around the Augur Discord. Poyo has since emerged as the Augur community’s most controversial figure. It appears Poyo has taken advantage of a glitch on Augur v1 to create and profit off of Invalid markets, luring liquidity from unsuspecting traders. Many in the Augur community have criticized Poyo and rightfully so.
But Poyo has also helped put Augur incentives to the test and expose current vulnerabilities. Augur is designed such that the individual actions of self-interested actors should align with the collective utility and security of the platform. With V2 and further improvements, the scheming, self-interested Poyos of the world may increasingly become an asset rather than a liability to Augur traders. They will be incentivized to create legitimate and popular markets rather than misleading ones. (In the meantime, a friendly reminder to always check the details of any Augur market before trading to verify that the expiration dates match up and that the market is otherwise valid).
I was curious to find out more about this eccentric figure, so I sent Poyo some questions via Reddit on his (or her) experience with prediction markets and Augur and thoughts on the 2020 election. What follows is an account of Poyo straight from the horse’s (or kitty cat’s) mouth.
Please take all answers here with a grain of salt, and don’t assume anything is truthful. Oh and forgive the spelling and punctuation errors. Poyo is just a cat!
When and how did Poyo first discover prediction markets?
I first discovered prediction markets when i saw an website ad for PredictIt in summer 2015, and used to have fun small-time betting on candidates during the time of the early primaries debates. In December that year, I realized I could make $50 a day just buying and selling the main runners back and forth. I did not know that was called “market-making” at the time. My fur is fairly fresh.
Do you recall the first trade you ever made?
Probably a “yes” on Trump when he was around 16 cents to win nomination, and some at 11 cents to win the general. Am soft.
What’s the best trade or prediction poyo has ever made?
Hmm, well, market-making-wise is one answer: The Trump Cabinet Markets, Sec of State, Sec Defense, Attorney General, etc, ie Giuliani, Shannon, Kobach, Gowdy, Romney, Bolton, etc.. I made 20K that month, largely because there was a lot of disposable money on Pi in hands of people who had just been made foolishly overconfident by having their longshot bets pay off on Trump winning the general election.
Also, a lot of the Pi vets who used to compete with me were liberal-leaning, had maxed on Clinton 7-fold, and became so disgusted with Trump winning that they apparently left the site, leaving spreads rather open.. Wagering-wise, is another: maybe France election Juppe maxing at 2c, or betting on TCJA by end of 2017 or on the early Pi tweet markets when they were still thick in open offers.
Aside from PredictIt, have you participated in other prediction markets or betting platforms?
looked into betfair until they KYC’d, so the answer is just Augur, and Veil. Back in 2008 i came across iowa electronic markets, and maybe another, but did not do anything with them then.
How did you first come across Augur and do you have any broader interest in in crypto?
i heard about augur from someone i knew from pi comment boards. before augur i had a small amount of bitcoin purchased. had no other interest in crypto other than that before augur. i am not focused on any other crypto matters really unless i hear of something to make income off of, or that is really interesting
Any reflections or lessons learned from the famed midterms market? Are you surprised that it resolved the way it did? Would you have done anything differently in hindsight?
Yes, I wish I had planned it as a scam market from the beginning, i could’ve made thousands, rather than trying to take advantage of it after the fact, once it became apparent that it should resolve as Gop.
Illustration by Sai Li. Originally used here.
As someone who’s deliberately created invalid markets, d’you have any tips for Augur traders in terms of any red flags they should keep an eye out for in a market’s design or fine print?
Fun Fact: I have never specifically tried to make a market invalid. These are old-wives’ tales.
How did you get banned (and unbanned) from the Augur Discord?
I posted too many cat images, i asked for bribes, i insulted people as I was taking leverage of my power in owning the most OI market at the time (House market). I got unbanned by sybiling
On the Augur leaderboard you have one of the highest all time losses while on Veil you have one of the highest all time earnings. What d’you attribute to your success on Veil thus far and your losses on Augur?
On veil there were a fine amount of people wagering on oscars markets, so i was able to be market maker there, placing orders of 1–3 shares about 5 cents away from the runner’s ideal points. Almost all my gains listed in the veil leaderboard come from Oscars markets. On Augur, I don’t think ur stat about my losses is accurate. but I did lose a bunch being over-confident at the beginning, maxing out my own market that turned out invalid (eth sept 3–30).
I know you’re fond of predicting politics. We are now on the brink of perhaps the most crowded primary field in presidential election history and a highly contentious election in general. Any general thoughts headed into 2020?
I am heavily making market on the Dem-Nom race on Pi, and will do so thru the election. Hopefully my fur stays nice and fluffy as it stands currently. It is a tough call.
In your opinion, who’s the most underrated Democratic candidate in terms of odds of being nominated?
Tulsi Gabbard. Just kidding. Kamala Harris.
Most overrated?
Joe Biden.
Who d’you think would have the best shot against Trump in the general?
Maybe Beto. his positivity may be able to encapsulate trump’s negativity. so his odds, relative to odds of being their nominee, might be highest.
Is Poyo a member of the Yang Gang?
Softness.
In 2024, who will be elected president: AOC, Dwayne Johnson or Kanye?
AOC, hopefully.
When not pawing at order books, poyo likes to provide thoughtful commentary
What d’you see as the main advantages of Augur/Veil over PredictIt and vice versa at this point in time?
Depends on what ur role is. Augur offers a whole host of other ways to make money than Pi does. be it on validity swings, a bigger set of naive entry-level traders willing to make very costly bad purchases (such as eth 1–100–1000 march).
How d’you think we can get more folks from centralized PMs like PredictIt to give Augur a try?
Make it more user friendly. Have comment section on each trading page to foster a vibrant communicating community. Like Pi has. Develop a playful culture around the augur community, where people can share their losses and share the times they win out.
What’s something you would like to see improved with Augur?
All the common qualms. Needs more users, people who Wager, not just market-makers out for steady profit.
Any thoughts on how Augur can get more traction for the upcoming election cycle?
get a social community thriving around the platform, with everyone sharing the trades they make, talking about their wins and loses, arguing with each other, right on the trading page, that all the casuals can be a part of.
What do most people not know about poyo or what’s the biggest misconception of poyo?
Poyo is very soft, everyone knows that. Next question.
What’s poyo’s favorite movie?
Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki. Just kidding. Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks.
What does poyo like to do for fun?
I like to go around tempting people to pet my soft tummy. and i do jigsaw puzzles.
What are you planning to do with all your Augur winnings?
Buy a softer pillow and maybe lots of cat food. This is well known.
Thanks for reading. To stay ahead with fresh insights on the future of prediction markets, join my newsletter The Augur Edge.
|
https://medium.com/sunrise-over-the-merkle-trees/meet-poyo-an-interview-with-augurs-most-controversial-cat-a6bccae9ffe7
|
['Ben Davidow']
|
2020-05-07 22:01:28.889000+00:00
|
['Trading', 'Ethereum', 'Prediction Markets', 'Augur', 'Crypto']
|
Pop Culture Mondays/1.18.21
|
Fava beans a nice chianti…
WHAT’S EATING ARMIE HAMMER?
Honestly, I chose this photo because I PERSONALLY think men who wear turtlenecks and blazers are just MOST definitely a serial killer or at least give off major serial killer Patrick Bateman AKA American Psycho vibes. But let me back up. I cannot tell you how many people I have heard from this past week on this whole story. From “Who is Armie Hammer?” to “Wait Armie Hammer is a cannibal?” to “My friend’s ex spent a drug fueled weekend with him where they did nothing but meth and bondage but she said he was too out there..” OK. METH. Which maybe makes sense.
SO, let me explain who Armie Hammer is. He became REALLY well known playing the Winklevoss twins aka The WINKLEVII in the movie “The Social Network”. And he did such an incredible job tbh he was MORE Winklevii than the real ones who by the way are douchebags in real life too. So there you go. Armie is the epitome of WASPY-looking white all American dude who seems MUCH older than his 34 years. 34!!! While he may look the ultra Waspy part, he is half-Jewish and the great grandson of an oil tycoon billionaire, Armand Hammer. ANYWAY, the thing about Armie Hammer is to ME he seemed utterly forgettable…at least until “CALL ME BY YOUR NAME” which is one of those movies that really affected me for MANY reasons…get your mind out of the gutter…ok no you can keep it there, the 🍑 scene is still one of those OMG moments. But Armie seemed to play….himself maybe? Which was a LOT. And it seemed so disturbing because he seemed like a GROWN ass man in a sexual relationship with our Timothee Chalomet who seemed like MAYBE 14 in the movie…he was meant to be 18 but if you have not seen..watch it. Our man Armie gives off weird vibes which for the movie WORKED.
SOOOO…here is the story. Armie Hammer, going thru a contentious divorce and custody battle, apparently has a few fetishes which thanks to social media we now all know about. I started hearing things on TikTok and then it became a thing…when Instagram account DEUX MOI started putting the story on blast. A woman shared what she says are personal messages from Armie via Instagram where he gets really lurid and talks about having a fantasy of eating parts of her and at one point claims he is “100 percent cannibal”.
Look…this is DEF NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN or the very bashful so look away now…for all of you sickos out there here is a “taste” (sorry not sorry) of the ALLEGED messages from him:
LOOK…I am going to be controversial here perhaps…I do not think he is ACTUALLY a cannibal though I would say, being a famous movie star WOULD in fact be an incredible cover for a flesh eating serial killer. BUT I digress. While he may not actually be a cannibal, what is uncovered is his predatory and abusive ways both emotionally and physically with his MASTER/SLAVE domination he seemingly is into. AMONG other things. The guy clearly has a lot of issues.
The socials took off with all the stories and screen grabs and images and even videos. VIDEOS from Armie’s private instagram which…COME ON DUDE. If you put it out there…it will get out. Like him licking meth or coke (lot’s of debate here tbh) off his friend’s hand…which is LOVELY:
Yeah so. Not the brightest move. Also, on the heels of all this cannibal and drug drama, a video is leaked from his private Insta that shows a woman in lingerie on all fours in his bed in a hotel room on the Cayman Islands where he refers to the woman as “Ms. Cayman” which is just FUEL to this ever growing fire that has taken the public’s attention. And NOW the Miss Cayman Islands org have had to release a statement that this is NOT in fact Miss Cayman and now Armie has had to issue an apology to Miss Cayman…
“I would like to clarify that the person in my video, which was stolen from my private Instagram, is not Miss Cayman,” Hammer said in an audio message to the Cayman Compass. “I am genuinely sorry for any confusion my foolish attempt at humor may have caused. My deep sympathies to Miss Cayman, who I don’t know, and to the entire organization, as I had no intentions of implying she was actually Miss Cayman.” — ARMIE HAMMER
SO…needless to say Armie Hammer, already going through a contentious divorce which he proceeds to discuss openly on his “private” Instagram, is having a bad 2021. He lost a movie gig…he claims he pulled out of it…but a big JLO romcom (I KNOW you have seen “MAID IN MANHATTAN” 100 times) which is now going to a “want to be cannibal meth head” which seems like a good thing. So that kids…in a nutshell is what’s happening. And people cannot get enough. IRONIC that he became famous from a movie about Facebook and now is seeing his world unravel because of that VERY same company which owns INSTA. So that kids is the story of ARMIE HAMMER. For more, see alllll the links below:
|
https://medium.com/popculturemondays/pop-culture-mondays-1-18-21-7bb59200fa81
|
['Brooke Hammerling']
|
2021-01-18 20:12:24.401000+00:00
|
['Martin Luther King', 'Newsletter', 'Armie Hammer', 'Kamala Harris', 'Pop Culture']
|
Building a micro-services application with PHP, Kubernetes and Skaffold
|
Writing our Kubernetes manifest
To deploy our application as a service on Kubernetes we will need to write a Kubernetes manifest file, we will create a simple Deployment and Service as described below.
Create the following file at services/hello-world/service.yaml this file will contain both our deployment and service spec.
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: hello-world
spec:
replicas: 2
strategy:
rollingUpdate:
maxSurge: 2
maxUnavailable: 50%
selector:
matchLabels:
app: hello-world-app
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: hello-world-app
spec:
containers:
- name: hello-world
image: hello-world
imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
ports:
- name: http
containerPort: 80
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: hello-world
spec:
type: NodePort
ports:
- name: http
targetPort: 80
selector:
app: hello-world-app
I won’t go into much detail regarding every part of the above 2 manifest specs as it is outside the remit of this guide but for my next guide I will show you how to add resource limits, horizontal pod scaling and more to Kubernetes Deployment specs.
The above is a very simple Deployment followed by a Service that forwards traffic onto port 80.
The image is called hello-world, you may be wondering why it is not a full name and version etc, this is because Skaffold will take care of injecting the image name for us when it builds each image, the name hello-world is just a reference.
Skaffold
Skaffold is a piece of software that handles building, pushing and deploying your application. Head over to https://skaffold.dev/ and download the binary.
Once installed you will need Kubectl too, head over to https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/install-kubectl/ and following the instructions depending on your OS.
Right! Once that’s all done let’s create our Skaffold configuration file, create a new file in the root of our project at ./skaffold.yaml.
apiVersion: skaffold/v2beta7
kind: Config
metadata:
name: php-and-k8s
build:
artifacts:
- image: hello-world
context: services/hello-world
deploy:
kubectl:
manifests:
- services/hello-world/service.yaml
Great, now that’s done we are almost at the stage where we can run the cluster locally and hit our service.
Notice the image name above, hello-world this is the reference I referred to earlier in the Kubernetes deployment spec, if you change it in the deployment spec then you’ll also need to update it in skaffold.yaml.
We need one more thing to create a local cluster for testing purposes, head over to https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/start/ and install Minikube dependant on your OS.
4. Bringing up your Cluster
Sweet! You’ve have made it this far now for the big turn on ;)
Open up a terminal and start a local cluster with minikube, the following command can be used:
minikube start
It may take a minute or two to bring up the cluster, you should see an output similar to the following:
minikube v1.13.1 on Ubuntu 20.04
✨ Automatically selected the docker driver
👍 Starting control plane node minikube in cluster minikube
🔥 Creating docker container (CPUs=2, Memory=3900MB) ...
🐳 Preparing Kubernetes v1.19.2 on Docker 19.03.8 ...
🔎 Verifying Kubernetes components...
🌟 Enabled addons: default-storageclass, storage-provisioner
🏄 Done! kubectl is now configured to use "minikube" by default
Once Minikube has started you can now run the following command in a new terminal window, this will rebuild each service when your files change.
skaffold dev
You should see output similar to the below:
Listing files to watch...
- hello-world
Generating tags...
- hello-world -> hello-world:latest
Some taggers failed. Rerun with -vdebug for errors.
Checking cache...
- hello-world: Not found. Building
Found [minikube] context, using local docker daemon.
Building [hello-world]...
Skaffold will now build each of our services, in our case just the one hello-world.
Once the above has finished you should see some output from Apache, run the following command to see our pods statuses.
kubectl get pods
You should see something similar to the below output:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
hello-world-85fbbb7ffb-88wj5 1/1 Running 0 29s
hello-world-85fbbb7ffb-wk6gw 1/1 Running 0 29s
As you can see we have 2 pods running our hello world service, this is because we specified replicas: 2 in our Deployment spec earlier on.
Sending a request to the service
Now our service is up and running we can send a request to the service by using the kubectl port forward command, this will forward all traffic from our local host to the service running in our cluster.
Run the following command in a new terminal window, replacing hello-world-85fbbb7ffb-88wj5 with whatever one of your pods name is.
kubectl port-forward hello-world-85fbbb7ffb-88wj5 8000:80
Now you can open http://localhost:8000/ in your browser and you should be presented with:
Lumen (8.2.1) (Laravel Components ^8.0)
That’s it
You have now built and deployed successfully a Laravel Lumen application on Kubernetes using Skaffold and Minikube!
I hope you have enjoyed this guide, feel free to ask me any questions/feedback.
This guide only touches on the basic fundamentals but we can expand on this foundation and explore more into:
Adding an Ingress Controller
Adding a router such as Envoy or Traefik.
Setting up a workflow for continuous integration/continuous delivery.
You can find this complete project over at my GitHub, check out the repository https://github.com/mrbenosborne/php-laravel-k8s-skaffold.
Thanks for reading :)
|
https://medium.com/@mrbenosborne/building-a-micro-services-application-with-php-kubernetes-and-skaffold-9764d1894b80
|
['Ben Osborne']
|
2020-12-06 13:18:31.256000+00:00
|
['Skaffold', 'Kubernetes', 'Minikube', 'Laravel', 'PHP']
|
5 part-time work from home options that you should consider
|
5 part-time work from home options that you should consider Charmi.Zaveri101 Follow Feb 22 · 4 min read
Ever since we have been asked to stay home and stay safe, most of us are finding new and fun things to keep us engaged. Whether it means experimenting with cooking, starting DIY projects or for that matter a part-time job from home, we have all found ways to stay busy and use our time productively.
Speaking of using one’s time wisely, there has been an increase in the number of people looking for ways to earn extra income online through part-time jobs. It has become a more convenient way of making money as you can balance your work and family life accordingly. Not only does one save a lot of time and money, but one also spends a lot of time with your family. So, would you like to know more about part-time work from home opportunities? Let’s help!
5 ways to earn extra income through online part-time jobs
Freelance writer
This is a great opportunity for those of you who love to create content and love to write. The best part is that you can work in your free time and whenever you like because it is a flexible job option. As a freelance writer, you can take up assignments based on how much time you can dedicate to it. Whether you’re studying or working, you can always plan out your schedule.
For starters, you can look up sites like Fiverr, Freelancer etc. and build your profile there. Post your latest work, add your pricing list and get ready to find work.
Social media assistant
Almost everyone has a social media account these days. But, how about you learn to manage social media accounts for others? Confused? Well, you can become a social media assistant and help brands up their game.
Knowing the basics of editing, using different features on social media platforms will help a great deal. In fact it is more of an added advantage if you’re familiar with how to make a profile look good. As a social media assistant, you will be in charge of creating campaigns, engaging with your target audience, creating useful content and mainly staying active. It is a well-paying job and you can earn your extra income through this online part-time job with ease.
Surveys
Survey filling is a relatively easier job option for those of you who want to make quick money without much experience. There are several online portals that need surveys to be filled out. This is mainly because they want customer reviews, to get a better understanding of how well the brand is doing. You can join a reputed survey company to start working. Make sure that you do your research before joining. Understand their mode of payment, the payment gateway they are tied up with and what they are willing to pay you.
Usually, companies send out a bunch of surveys, on the completion of which, you get paid! Mostly, they are target based and until you finish the surveys, you don’t get paid! Do try it out if you want to take up a part-time job from home gig.
Online reselling
This has created quite a stir when it comes to finding work from home options. Not only is this option available to anyone and everyone, but it is also a very flexible and profitable option.
Online reselling is nothing but selling products by wholesalers or manufacturers through your online store, for a profit. How can you do this? Well, there are 2 options:
Set up an online store on your own and source products to sell Sign up with an online reselling platform and resell products from their catalog
The second option is great because it doesn’t require any investment from your end. There are many online apps and websites that empower entrepreneurs to create their own store online and one such app is the Shop101 app. It is a very user-friendly app and you can become a successful reseller in just 3 steps. They are- Pick, Share and Earn!
Just pick the products you want to resell, share them with friends, family and on social media and earn your profits. You can find this app in your PlayStore and start your reselling journey now! Definitely makes for a great way to earn money.
Online tutoring
Do you have a flair for teaching? Online tutoring is a good option for you. All you need is a good device to teach from and a stable internet. You can either join a tutoring association or you can create your own channel and start teaching. Mostly, an online tutor gets paid by the hour and based on the reviews.
Spread the word with friends and family and create a professional profile on LinkedIn to find the right audience.
We hope this post was helpful and that you find the right job for yourself.
|
https://medium.com/the101times/5-part-time-work-from-home-options-that-you-should-consider-8b943b456fbe
|
[]
|
2021-02-22 08:14:19.792000+00:00
|
['Part Time Jobs', 'Earn Money Online', 'Marketing', 'Earn Money From Home', 'Work From Home']
|
Volunteers needed for the Domestic Violence Response Team
|
The Voorhees Police are looking for volunteers to join the Domestic Violence Response Team (DVRT). Volunteers will assist victim’s of domestic violence through comfort, counseling, guidance and referral’s within the legal process.
Volunteers will be provided training and are asked to be available during night and weekend hours. A schedule will be done in advance.
Volunteers must be 18 years or older and pass a back ground check. If interested please email [email protected]
|
https://medium.com/the-voorhees-sun/volunteers-needed-for-the-domestic-violence-response-team-c7298c3f3dc
|
[]
|
2016-12-19 14:33:59.688000+00:00
|
['Headlines', 'Domestic Violence', 'Families', 'Volunteers', 'Voorhees']
|
Serving customer experience
|
Last few days I went through two separate incidents reminding me of poor business applications resulting into bad customer experience that can easily be avoided — should customer view point is considered while automating any business process.
1. My elder daughter who is now 17+ was in the process of buying a car. I decided to have her apply for an auto loan where she can be a secondary co-applicant with me — hoping it will start to establish her credit history. We spent multiple hours at one of the major national bank filling out the paper work, etc. only to be reminded after few days that loan can’t be granted with her as a co-applicant given she is a minor. How hard it is to have a simple work flow in the loan application process to error out on the age of a minor while filing the application when certain conditions are not valid? Think about the countless hours wasted of the banker; someone from their lending department and leaving customer with a bad taste who unnecessarily have to go through this long process.
2. A national university suggests we pay bill on-line to get student registered to their college. We all conduct commerce on-line and now assume certain level of service. However, this university only accepts MasterCard as an acceptable form of payment. It does not accept Visa cards or other popular on-line payment forms. Visa and MasterCard are the big gorilla in the credit industry. In fact, hands down Visa is #1 in the industry with 60% of the market share. MasterCard comes second with close to 30% market share. We happen to be fortunate and had few days left before the deadline for us to apply snail mail way posting cheque in mailbox. Why tout on-line when you can only serve a percent of the customers?
Anyway, it brings me to the point — automating business processes are to provide improved customer experience. Making business applications usable and customer connected is important.
We experience similar trend in the enterprise software industry — particularly products that have been around for decades and has accumulated lot of features over time. But if those features are hard to use and don’t provide basic reminders or simple error checks — what is the point as they anyway end up in lost productivity and unsatisfied customers. Just ponder — how few features get used when the product is difficult to navigate and hard to use. Feature rich is good — but product build without customer experience in mind is simply not a recipe for success. Applications has to be usable and not just functional to serve desirable customer experience.
Usability matters and it is much more than just cosmetics.
|
https://medium.com/aloktyagi/serving-customer-experience-89e6d260e867
|
['Alok Tyagi']
|
2017-03-08 21:01:59.781000+00:00
|
['Enterprise', 'Erp', 'Kaizen', 'Software Development', 'Usability']
|
10 Sweet Love Stories About How Presidents Met Their First Ladies
|
We often think of presidents and First Ladies as stodgy old men and women. But they too were once young, and the stories of how these power couples first got together show a human side to the presidency.
Library of Congress
When Georgie Met Martha
In 1758 Martha Dandridge Curtis was 27 and recently widowed, and a very wealthy woman. That year George Washington, also 27 and already a colonel in the Virginia militia (and not at all wealthy) met Martha via the Virginia high-society social scene and proceeded to court her. Courtship was quick, and they were married in January 1759, in what at the time was viewed as a marriage of convenience. They were, however, happily married for 41 years. (Note: The marriage took place at the plantation that Martha owned, in what was called the “White House.”) Check out these other 11 facts about George Washington you never learned in school.
When Johnny Met Louisa
Louisa Catherine Johnson, who was born in London, met John Quincy Adams at her home in Nantes, France, in 1779. She was 4; he was 12. Adams was traveling with his father, John Adams, who was on a diplomatic mission in Europe. The two met again in 1795 in London, when John was a minister to the Netherlands. He courted her, all the while telling her she’d have to improve herself if she was going to live up to his family’s standards (his father was vice president at the time). She married him anyway, in 1797, and his family made it no secret that they disapproved of the “foreigner” in their family. Nevertheless, they were married until John Quincy Adams’s death in 1848. Louisa remains the only foreign-born First Lady in U.S. history.
When Jimmy Met Ann
In the summer of 1819, James Buchanan, 28, became engaged to Ann Coleman, 23, the daughter of a wealthy iron magnate in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He spent very little time with her during the first months of the engagement, being extremely busy at his law office, and rumors swirled that he was seeing other women and was only marrying her for her money. The rumors are believed to be untrue, but Ann took them to heart, and in November, after several distraught weeks, she wrote to him that the engagement was off. On December 9 she died of an overdose of laudanum, possibly in a suicide. Buchanan was devastated, and even more so when her family refused to allow him to see Ann’s body or attend her funeral. He disappeared for some time but eventually returned to his work in Lancaster. After Ann’s death, Buchanan vowed that he would never marry. He didn’t … and remains the only bachelor president in American history. Here are 15 other fascinating facts you never knew about America.
When Gracie Met Calvin
One day in 1903, Grace Anna Goodhue was watering flowers outside the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she taught. At some point, she looked up and saw a man through the open window of a boardinghouse across the street. He was shaving, his face covered with lather, and dressed in his long johns. He was also wearing a hat. Grace burst out laughing, and the man turned to look at her. That was the first meeting of Grace and Calvin Coolidge. They were married two years later.
Library of Congress
When Harry Met Bessie
In 1890, when they were both small children, Harry Truman met Bess Wallace at the Baptist Church in Independence, Missouri. They were both attending Sunday school. He was six; she was five. Truman later wrote of their first meeting: “We made a number of new acquaintances, and I became interested in one in particular. She had golden curls and has, to this day, the most beautiful blue eyes. We went to Sunday school, public school from the fifth grade through high school, graduated in the same class, and marched down life’s road together. For me she still has the blue eyes and golden hair of yesteryear.” Bess and Harry were married in 1919.
When Lyndie Met Lady Bird
Lyndon Baines Johnson met Claudia “Lady Bird” Taylor in 1934, a few weeks after she’d graduated from the University of Texas. Johnson was a 26-year-old aide to Texas congressman Richard Kleberg, and was in Austin, Texas, on business. They went on a single breakfast date, at the end of which Johnson proposed marriage. She said she’d think about it. He returned to Washington, and sent her letters and telegrams every day until he returned to Austin 10 weeks later, when she accepted. “Sometimes,” she later wrote about her husband, “Lyndon simply takes your breath away.” Try your hand at these presidential trivia questions everyone gets wrong.
When Richie Met Pattie
Thelma “Pat” Ryan graduated from the University of Southern California in 1937 at the age of 25. She got a job as a high school teacher in Whittier, a small town not far from Los Angeles, and became a member of the amateur theatrical group the Whittier Community Players. In 1938 Richard Nixon, a 26-year-old lawyer who had just opened a firm in nearby La Habra, joined the theater group, thinking that acquiring acting skills would help him in the courtroom. In their first performance, Nixon was cast opposite Ryan. He asked her out, and asked her to marry him on their first date. They were married three years later.
iStock/mcpix
When Ronnie Met Nancy
Ronald Reagan wrote in his autobiography that he first met Nancy Davis when she came to him for help. He was president of the Screen Actors Guild, and she couldn’t get a job acting in movies because another Nancy Davis’s name had shown up on the Hollywood blacklist of alleged communists. But according to Jon Weiner’s book Professors, Politics, and Pop, SAG records show that Nancy’s blacklist problem occurred in 1953, a year after the Reagans were married. So how did they meet? Reagan biographer Anne Edwards says that in 1949 Nancy, who had just become an MGM contract player, told a friend of Reagan’s that she wanted to meet him. The friend invited the two to a small dinner party, and the rest is history. Check out these rare candid photos of U.S. presidents.
When Georgie Met Laura
Joe and Jan O’Neill lived in Midland, Texas, and were childhood friends of Laura Welch. In 1975 another childhood friend, George W. Bush, came back to Midland after being away for a few years. The O’Neills bugged Laura to go out with George, but she didn’t want to. She later said that the O’Neills were only trying to get them together “because we were the only two people from that era in Midland who were still single.” She finally agreed to meet him at a backyard barbecue in 1977, when she was 30 and he was 31. George was smitten; Laura was, too. They were married three months later.
iStock/EdStock
When Barry Met Michelle
In 1989 Michelle Robinson was working at a Chicago law firm when she was assigned to mentor a summer associate from Harvard with a “strange name”: Barack Obama. Not long after, Barack, 27, asked Michelle, 25, on a date. She later admitted that she was reluctant to date one of the few black men at the large firm because it seemed “tacky.” Robinson finally relented, and after dating for several months, she suggested they get married. He wasn’t interested. One night in 1991, during dinner at a Chicago restaurant, she brought it up again. Again, he said no. But when dessert showed up, there was an engagement ring in a box on one of the plates. They were married in 1992. Next
|
https://medium.com/@agroni20/10-sweet-love-stories-about-how-presidents-met-their-first-ladies-bc1f4ed2555d
|
['Agron Dragaj']
|
2019-02-25 22:35:24.675000+00:00
|
['President', 'Lovestory', 'Love', 'Politics']
|
NativShark: Language learning made simple.
|
The backstory
NativShark’s mission is: Make learning simple.
The founders of the company were frustrated with the current state of language education, in which hopeful learners have to piece together a medley of resources if they have any hope of reaching an advanced level of proficiency.
NativShark’s answer to this problem was to create an education platform that only requires a student to show up every day, click “Study Now,” and make progress toward their goals. In short, it allows students to stop thinking about how to learn a language and instead make progress toward their fluency goals.
|
https://medium.com/nativshark/nativshark-language-learning-made-simple-1973679ceeb0
|
['Nicholas', 'Niko']
|
2020-09-21 18:19:05.541000+00:00
|
['Nativshark', 'Japanese', 'Press Release', 'Language Learning', 'Edtech']
|
Will Therapy Make Me Happy?
|
Will therapy make you happy?? Here’s the unpopular opinion — No.
*Insert gasps and pearl clutch here*
Photo by Jacqueline Munguía on Unsplash
Therapy, by itself, is not enough to make anyone “happy.” Please, bear with me.
First things first, what is “happiness”? Is it a family free of conflict? A job where we feel respected? A child that listens the first time? Therapy cannot make anyone “happy” without first identifying what “happiness” means.
Second, when you enter into the therapeutic space — the reason why you are there… matters. I have had participants enter into a session because their partner, sibling, boss… told them that they had to be there. Suppose you choose to attend therapy because you accept the feedback from any one of those previously mentioned individuals. In that case, that is completely fine — however, if that is the sole reason you are there, you will leave that space feeling dissatisfied more often than not.
Finally, therapy is meant to be used as a tool to help people to reach their goals. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Furthermore, any number of healers facilitate therapy. It is your responsibility to find someone you believe will be best able to assist you on your journey.
So, while I do not believe that therapy will make you “happy…” I think that therapy, when engaged as an active participant, alongside a professional, with clear goals in mind… can make you better. I believe that therapy can make you wiser. I think that therapy can fill you with confidence, and I believe that therapy can help to set you free from whatever it is that binds you.
Wherever you are on your journey, I hope that this post helped you, and I would love it if you let me know more in the comments.
If you are interested in starting your own therapeutic journey, please do not hesitate to reach out to me for a free consultation.
Grace & Peace,
Tia, LCSW
|
https://medium.com/@lotusholistictherapycenter/will-therapy-make-me-happy-32c4b4408ec6
|
['Tia Wheeler']
|
2020-12-20 23:44:40.498000+00:00
|
['Therapy', 'Mental Health Awareness', 'Mental Health', 'Happiness']
|
The Gas Station
|
The 1957 Chevy pulled off the mountain highway into a gas station. The family inside had been traveling across the country; the two parents in the front and the four children in the back. The second oldest child — a boy named Scott — was born the same year as the car, and was now eleven years old. As the four kids scrambled out of the car one of Scott’s younger sisters asked, “Where are we?”
“Colorado,” said Scott as he raced ahead of his siblings and made it to the restrooms first. But Scott could think of nothing else until he had relieved himself. He had not peed since New Mexico. Closing his eyes, he completely emptied his mind.
Coming out of the dark restroom, Scott’s eyes were greeted by a very bright sky. He shielded his eyes with his hand and looked around. There was a man in a uniform putting gas into the car. Scott’s mother was getting something out of the trunk. The rest of the family was in the restrooms or waiting to get in one. Scott then looked around at the tall mountains surrounding the gas station. Though it was summer, there was snow on the summits.
Suddenly, Scott got the urge to walk around to the side of the gas station. At the edge of the gas station property, Scott saw a green meadow with a small stream running through the middle of it. It was incredibly beautiful, but there was something else about it that Scott did not understand. The little meadow had a very strong pull on Scott and it seemed so very familiar, but he had never been there before. Following this feeling, Scott walked out into the meadow, and as he did so, he saw the mountains rising behind the gas station.
After getting out into the middle of the pasture, Scott stopped in his tracks and stared up at the mountains. That same feeling came over him in regards to the mountains. They looked so familiar, but he had never seen them before. The contours of the mountains and even the shape of the snow on them all seemed to correspond with a memory, but how could that be?
It was also the smell of the meadow that overwhelmed Scott. Finally taking his gaze off the mountains, he then looked at the tall grass gently swaying in the breeze. The sound of babbling water coming from the stream seemed to take over his hearing. Scott just stood there in the meadow mesmerized by the feelings that were washing over him. Slowly, he knelt down and touched the tops of the grasses and wildflowers. He did not pull at them, but rather just gently waved his hands over them. The smell of horses suddenly entered his thoughts as the breeze changed. Then, a bluebird began singing from atop a tall pine tree on the other side of the stream.
Scott tried hard to understand the feelings he was experiencing, but they just did not make sense. He sensed that he had been in this exact spot before, but he was a different person when he was there. But something made this spot special to that other him. Scott tried hard to feel what that special-ness was, but he could not identify it. So he just luxuriated in it, imprinting it on his memory. Someday he would be on land that felt like this again. Listening to the babbling stream, Scott felt like he was about to be transported to that time, but then someone shaking his shoulder brought him out of it.
It was his sister, “Where have you been Scott? Mother’s been looking for you. What were you looking at?”
“Nothing!” replied Scott emphatically. He got up and turned around to walk back to the gas station, ignoring his sister’s repeated questions.
Just then, Scott’s mother came around the corner of the gas station and saw Scott and his sister walking back. She immediately began hollering, “Will you get back here right this minute! What on earth do you think you’re doing, Scott? What did I say about wandering off? Will you hurry up!”
Scott and his sister began running. They headed straight to the car. The rest of the family were in their seats ready to resume the trip. Scott’s mother was still blabbering on, but Scott had tuned her out. She was saying something about getting to Wichita by sunset. The fight for the window seat was a quick one, with Scott winning. As the 57 Chevy left the gas station and re-entered the highway, he stared at the meadow and the mountains as they came into view. After they passed the meadow, Scott continued staring at the mountains, enjoying their every feature, until he could see them no more.
|
https://whitefeather9.medium.com/the-gas-station-9603bb60cf78
|
['White Feather']
|
2018-05-23 13:44:09.792000+00:00
|
['Literature', 'Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Childhood', 'Life']
|
“Jesus Was A Liberal”
|
by Paul Craft
Stanford’s Dean for Religious Life, the Reverend Scotty McLennan, has a new book out titled Jesus Was a Liberal. He also recently held a campus talk on the same subject. In both cases he argued the following:
Jesus championed a progressive social vision of the future, rationality, tolerance and freedom from religious authority. In modern terms, Jesus was a liberal. Today, the press frequently talks about a culture war between the religious right and the secular left. In the middle — forgotten or maligned — are liberal Christians. They represent at least 20% of Americans, and perhaps as many as 50%.
Rev. McLennan’s goal, no doubt, is to counter the popular notion that American conservatives are the true followers of Jesus. But in this process, McLennan resorts to the same silly tactics as his conservative rivals.
To project modern political values — a fluid set of principles and policies specific, typically, to a historical context — onto Jesus, an Israelite from over 2000 years ago, is to trivialize his legacy at best and demean it at worst.
|
https://medium.com/stanfordreview/jesus-was-a-liberal-39900d0c45fd
|
[]
|
2016-12-09 07:07:26.828000+00:00
|
['Religion', 'Christianity']
|
The University of Nottingham’s Sexual Misconduct Panel is Letting Rape Victims Down
|
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham’s Sexual Misconduct Panel is Letting Rape Victims Down
Photo by Joanne Adela Low from Pexels
I never thought I would be writing this story, but here I am. 1 in 3 women. You see that statistic and you think: “That is horrible. I hope I don’t become a number.” You protect yourself as best as you can, walking home in pairs, keys clutched in between your fingers, memories of the music in the bar dancing through your mind. And it is still not enough. And when that moment comes, you are always utterly unprepared. Because it was not the monster in the shadows that was the threat all along. In the weeks that come next, you want to believe in a system that is meant to protect you, but that is not always the case.
I am a student at the University of Nottingham, and for the most part, I love my university to bits. Modern, mental health-focused, prestigious and encouraging with a beautiful campus. I have felt supported and looked after while at Nottingham. And when I joined the 1 in 3 women, I was ready for my university to support me the way they had before. Instead, when the Sexual Misconduct panel gave me 2 sentences. From an investigator. On a Microsoft Teams call.
To start with, I wasn’t aware the call was even going to be about the verdict. I got an email from a Conduct and Investigations Manager that simply said
“Hi Luwa do you have time to meet on teams. Regards”.
No mention that the investigation had closed, or that the meeting was important. That was why I got to hear the verdict alone without any support from my loved ones. I woke up sad, but ready to say my piece, ready to give my evidence to the investigator. Instead of a moment where I could have my voice heard, I was told flatly the investigation was over and it was ‘reasonable’ to assume I consented.
Photo by Lucas Pezeta from Pexels
This is my first complaint. Sexual misconduct is a traumatic event, and it helps to be supported afterwards. If I had known what the meeting was about, I would have then asked my friends to be with me to support me, and booked in a therapy session afterwards. A distinct feeling I got throughout the call was that since the panel had made their decision, everyone felt it was job done, time for tea now. It seemed no regards were taken as to how I would be feeling left in the dust while the system moved on to the next. I have no idea why it wouldn’t be policy to keep parties of sexual misconduct investigations informed and updated the whole way through, or at least offer the option. So, I took the call alone and received some pretty awful news, completely and utterly abandoned by the system meant to protect me.
To make matters worse, I had to chase updates throughout the process, making it confusing and stressful. Rather than simply asking me to provide relevant evidence, I was only informed that I could submit evidence, by what seems like a complete accident. After emailing for an update, the uni investigator sent a simple email:
“Hi Luwa I am currently reviewing the content of the mediation recording and seeking guidance from the sexual misconduct panel. I have also gathered social media content. Once I have an update I will contact you. Regards”.
I had to then email back asking what he meant by evidence. His reply came on the 9th of November:
“Hi Luwa if you forward any social media content that you believe would be relevant that would be helpful. Many thanks. Regards”.
I remember staring at the email in confusion for a minute or two, and thinking I was the one who asked for this investigation, why wasn’t I asked to provide my own evidence? Clearly, the other party had provided theirs and that was enough for the investigation. This was super distressing to hear and I decided to take some time to recover and send evidence later after I had finished the uni work I had to do that week.
I was given no deadline or more information than the two lines I quoted in this article. If I had known that two days later on the 11th, I would get an innocuous email about scheduling a call, I would have prioritized sending evidence over my uni work momentarily. Instead, the investigation ended without me knowing. I expected the video call with the investigator to be about the evidence I was planning to submit, instead, the video call was about a verdict received without my formal statement or extra evidence from me. I was told during the call if I wished to submit evidence, I could do so anyway and if it was relevant the investigator ‘would take another look’. I was left with the option of sending evidence after the investigation was closed, and given a couple of sentences of a verdict.
The sexual misconduct panel felt that it ‘may have been reasonable for the other party to think’ I was consenting and ‘they did not feel like that had enough evidence’ to go any further. That is okay. I am not writing this because I want to overturn that. Hearing this verdict was heartbreaking, but expected. The majority of rape cases don’t even see a day in court, let alone a guilty verdict, and that is in the legal system, let alone university investigations. It is hard for a case where things are clear cut, with a ‘perfect victim’, and I am no perfect victim. However, the way that this information was given to me was, in my opinion, inappropriate. There was no written email, or letter explaining further. In fact, there was no physical evidence of how the investigation ended at all. This allowed the other party in the case to start messaging my friends to inform them that I was ‘falsely accusing them’ and ‘spreading lies’ despite the fact I had not been. The investigation did not find out that I consented, or lied. But something in the way the news was delivered to the other party clearly was incorrect and I didn’t have any letter or proof to clear my name.
Photo by Kat Jayne from Pexels
One of the most horrifying parts of being the victim to sexual conduct is the lack of autonomy throughout it, your choices are taken away and you are made to feel powerless. Therefore, investigations to deal with these issues should go out of their way to empower victims and make sure they are comfortable. I feel that all parties in a sexual misconduct investigation should be told when the investigation starts, when statements are being taken, when evidence is being collected, and when it has finished being collected as well as being made aware of any deadlines before the investigation ends. I believe that regardless of what evidence is given in, all parties should be able to make a personal statement or given the option and given more than two days to submit evidence, especially at university where two days could be filled with lectures and work.
I believe that victims of sexual misconduct deserve better, especially from the institutions we trust. And deserve to be respected as human beings. What happened to me was horrible, and no person should have to go through it. I am so blessed to have an amazing support system I could call on during these weeks. I want to thank my friends and family for looking after me. I also want to thank the university staff who did support and encourage me, such as my sexual assault councillor and my personal tutor, who went above and beyond to help make sure this event didn’t ruin my academic year. Finally, I want to thank you! Thank you for reading this and allowing my voice and story to be finally heard.
|
https://aninjusticemag.com/the-university-of-nottinghams-sexual-misconduct-panel-is-letting-rape-victims-down-68a5509f78ea
|
['Luwa Adebanjo']
|
2020-12-31 04:22:28.096000+00:00
|
['Rape', 'Healing From Trauma', 'Students', 'Change', 'University']
|
Google Vacation Rentals
|
What is Google Vacation rentals?
In 2018, Google redesigned its search experience for mobile and desktop hotels and began including vacation rentals in hotel search results. Later in March 2019, Google added a ‘vacation rental’ filter to facilitate the search for holiday rentals. Google began its own “Vacation rentals” alongwith “Trips,” “Things to do,” “Flights” and “Hotels” in 2020.
Google vacation rentals are available both on mobile devices and on desktops. Travelers can choose their destination, date and results by lowest or highest price ratings. In addition, travellers can limit their searches by providing a facilities philtre and users can browse photos, read reviews and see prices and vacation rental availability.
The user experience is quite the same as in all OTAs and when travellers plan to make a reservation and click on “Book now” or To learn more,” travellers are taken to the partner website for completion of the reservation process and payment.
Benefits of listing your vacation rentals on Google
One of the main advantages of Google distributing your rentals is the global scope of the search engine; millions of potential guests who search on Google every day could view your properties. You would also target a highly qualified target audience who plan, compare or book accommodation.
Another important advantage is that their platform will help you increase your direct reservations without any transaction fees because they do not charge anything to send travellers your way.
How to get your website ready for Google vacation rentals
Have one URL for each rental property. All your properties may appear on the same website, but each will require its own URL. This facilitates Google’s identification as different holiday rentals and helps them appear as such in search results.
Confirm for clean URLs. A clean URL is a Web address that can be read, understood and typed easily by people. Dirty URLs contain question marks and other query parameters, on the other hand. .Search engines generally actively ignore or rank these pages lower This is not only very bad for the SEO on your website, but will also spoil your property’s chances of appearing in vacation rental search results.
Create an optimized and verified Google My Business listing. Although the Google My Business guidelines remain unchanged for the moment (i.e. vacation homes are technically considered to be ineligible businesses), a limited number of listings still surface across specific locations.
Have a website certified by SSL. Since early 2017, Google has been penalising non-secured websites (in other words, those which lacked HTTPS and SSL encryption). Making sure the website has these safety certificates now makes it much easier to view Google search results. With HTTPS on your website, guest information is also secured from hackers or cyber attacks. This makes the booking process for everyone much easier and safer.
Conclusion
With more developed Google Vacation rentals and the desire of Google to develop a one-stop shop experience under Google Trips, managers can diversify their marketing and channel strategy. Firstly, your holiday homes should be linked to a channel manager that lists you on Google vacation rentals. On the other side, you can also build a website for booking directly. In this way, you have a comprehensive marketing plan and canals for your holiday rentals, allowing you to easily scale up your business.
To know more about or for any assistance in listing your property to Google Vacation Rentals, please contact us at [email protected]
Read similar articles from Vafion
Follow us on Linkedin
Visit Vafion | Facebook | Twitter
|
https://medium.com/vafion/google-vacation-rentals-1f2ee52e9441
|
['Sneha Ravikumar']
|
2021-06-17 12:26:18.786000+00:00
|
['Vacation Rental', 'Travel', 'Google Vacation Rental', 'Tourism', 'Vr Industry']
|
Selenium 4 — New Features and Enhancements
|
As we all belonging to Testing domain, familiar with Selenium. In April 2019 Simon Stewart — the founder of Selenium released a latest version as Selenium 4. It is still in alpha phase and it’s stable version is yet to be released. Stable release of Selenium till date is Selenium 3.141.59 for Java. The latest alpha version of Selenium 4 is 4.0.0-alpha-7 which is released in November 10, 2020.
\We all know that Selenium WebDriver supports multi-language, multi-browser, multi-OS platform.
In this post we are going to explore the new features and Enhancements added in Selenium. To use Selenium 4 features in your project you need to download Selenium 4 jars and install it.
Enhancements in Selenium 4:
1. Support for Docker
2. Identification of Parent Frame directly improved
3. In Selenium Grid some commands, properties, URL’s have changed and improved.
New Features of Selenium 4:
In Selenium 4, many features have been added till 4.0.0-alpha-7. Some of them are mentioned below:
1. Relative/Friendly Locators
2. Window and Tab Management
3. Element Screenshots
4. Full page screenshots support for Firefox
5. Element Location(Get Height, Width, Dimension, Coordinates)
6. Removes deprecated methods and classes.
WebDriver W3C Standardization- From latest release of selenium, Selenium 4 is WebDriver API standardization as per W3C standards. So WebDriver API will be compatible for implementation across multiple platforms.
The latest alpha release of Selenium4 is Selenium 4.0.0-alpha-7 which is deployed in Maven repository also and selenium website also.
Selenium added some Relative locators in new version as below:
These Relative locators use with only new withTagName() method.
Here for Relative locator, there is no auto import option available in eclipse to import those jars. So below import need to add in code manually.
import static org.openqa.selenium.support.locators.RelativeLocator.withTagName;
1. above(): Element which is located above the specific element.
We need to create a WebElement instead of giving direct path of element.
Syntax: driver.findElement(withTagName(tagname).above(WebElement));
2. below(): Element which is located below the specific element.
Syntax: driver.findElement(withTagName(tagname).below(WebElement));
3. toLeftOf(): Element which is located to the left side of specific element.
Syntax: driver.findElement(withTagName(tagname).toLeftOf(WebElement));
4. toRightOf(): element which is located to the right side of specific element.
Syntax: driver.findElement(withTagName(tagname).toRightOf(WebElement));
5. near(): Element which is at most 50 pixels far away from the specified element. Pixel value is modifiable.
Syntax: driver.findElement(withTagName(tagname).near(WebElement));
These tools idea is inspired by Sahi — an automation tool.
2. Window and Tab Management:
With Selenium 4 new features, we can run two different windows, tab at the same time and navigate between them or new URL’s.
Example for Windows:
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
driver.get(“https://www.youtube.com”);
WebDriver secondWindow = driver.switchTo().newWindow(WindowType.WINDOW);
secondWindow.get(“https://www.facebook.com”);
Example for Tabs:
For tabs there is change for TAB only
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
driver.get(“https://www.youtube.com”);
WebDriver secondWindow = driver.switchTo().newWindow(WindowType.TAB);
secondWindow.get(“https://www.facebook.com”);
3. Element Screenshot:
In Selenium 3, we could able to take screenshot of an entire page, but from Selenium 4 new released, we can take or capture specific element screenshot by using getScreenshotAs() method.
Check below example:
WebElement firstname = driver.findElement(By.cssSelector(“[name=’firstname’]”));
File file= firstname.getScreenshotAs(OutputType.FILE);
FileUtils.copyFile(file, new File(“screenshot.png”));
4. Full page screenshots support for Firefox:
With Selenium 4 new released feature, now we can take full page screenshots with getFullPageScreenshotAs() method in the Firefox. You need to typecast it to FirefoxDriver instance instead of ‘TakesScreenshot’ interface.
File file =((FirefoxDriver)driver).getFullPageScreenshotAs(OutputType.FILE);
5. Element Location(Get Height, Width, Dimension, Coordinates):
Using Selenium 4 new features, we can achieve any specific element’s height, width, Dimension, coordinates by using getRect() method. Selenium 4 added Rectangle class which contains getRect() method to achieve these feature.
Check below code for better understanding:
WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.name(“demo”));
Rectangle rect = element.getRect();
Here, it checks the coordinates from top left corner of element.
System.out.println(“X-coordinate: “+rect.x);
System.out.println(“Y-coordinate: “+rect.y);
System.out.println(name.getRect().getX());//To fetch x axis position
System.out.println(name.getRect().getY()); //To fetch y axis position
System.out.println(“Element Width: “+rect.width);
System.out.println(“Element Height: “+rect.height);
Or you can get it by using this way also,
System.out.println(element.getRect().getDimension().getHeight());
System.out.println(element.getRect().getDimension().getWidth());
So in this post, we have covered some of the features of Selenium4. In any case if you need selenium 4 documentation here. We will update according to changes.
Thanks.
|
https://medium.com/@techieshub9/selenium-4-new-features-and-enhancements-394e756be857
|
[]
|
2021-01-18 08:34:51.631000+00:00
|
['Selenium', 'New Features', 'Selenium Test Automation', 'Selenium 4', 'Selenium Webdriver']
|
Designing Custom Binders\Discover your passion
|
Photo by Roberto Nickson on UnsplashDesigning Custom Binders
Title:
Designing Custom Binders
Summary:
Binders are an office staple. Custom binders offer an alternative to the bland styles of basic binders. They also offer a way to add an extra kick to any marketing plan. A custom binder gives a sense of pride and professionalism to any plain binder and add a kick to a presentation. The advanatges of binders are only amplified by cutsomizing them.
Binders can be bought in bulk them customized to fit any situation. That way binders are bought cheap and the customizing is onl…
Article Body:
Binders are an office staple. Custom binders offer an alternative to the bland styles of basic binders. They also offer a way to add an extra kick to any marketing plan. A custom binder gives a sense of pride and professionalism to any plain binder and add a kick to a presentation. The advanatges of binders are only amplified by cutsomizing them.
Binders can be bought in bulk them customized to fit any situation. That way binders are bought cheap and the customizing is only done to the binders that need it. One set of binders can serve many purposes when used in this manner, from office needs to a special client presentation. No wasted money and a variety in choices of customization.
Custom binders are just one detail that can really shine in a clients eyes. Custom binders show time was spent preparing the information and that thoguht was given to the overall presetnation. They also show the client that they were considered important and deserved a special presentation style. Custom folders make the first impression on a client a good one.
Customizing a binder is not all about adding logos or designs either. Customizing a binder can include all aspects from the cover to the riungs. The covers can be thin polyethylene or more complex vinyl. Vinyl covers offer much flexibility. They are made from cardboard that is covered in a strong, durable vinyl. Pockets and business card slots can be added to vinyl binders. Polyethylebe binders are less expensive and can still have logos or words printed on them. Custom binders can be a variety of sizes with different ring styles, as well. The size of the binder and rings largely depend upon what is to be put in the binder. The styles of rings also are dictated by the use of the binder. For a binder that needs to be easily accessible and allow for a person to flip through the pages easy, the typical ìOî ring would work best. On the other hand binders that are to hold important documents would be best suited with square rings as they do not curve the paper inside.
Custom binders are a great way for a buisness to make a good impression. They put forth a sense of class and reflect well upon the business. The many ways to customize a binder allow for them to be suited exactly to the needs of the business.
Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash
Title:
Discover your passion
Summary:
The bottom line is; passion is motivating. Passion energises and transforms you.
passionate,emotions,turns you on,love,Florence Nightingale,Michael Jordan.
Article Body:
What are you passionate about? We didnít ask if you are passionate. But what are you passionate about? What stirs your emotions? What is it you canít stop talking about whenever someone asks: ìWhat are you passionate about?î Whatís the fire in your belly? What really turns you on? What do you love doing most?
What is it that you love doing so much that you forget time? You forget others. You are so focussed that you donít hear anything. What is it that gets your creative juices going? What is it that you love more than anything else?
Graham is passionate about books. He loves them. He just loves books. They are all placed in their respective homes on the shelves. Each has a neighbour. He fondles them. Cares for them. Places book marks in them, never folds the corner of their page.
A bookshop is like a magnet to him. He will spend hours with his head tilted to one side as he scours the shelves for works that interest him. He loves books that have a different angle on coaching and developing people. He loves reading unusual biographies. He loves books where people have beaten the odds to survive. It doesnít matter whether they are fiction or non fiction. They have to be about improving self.
At least thatís what it appears to the outsider. But, you see, books arenít really his passion. It just looks like it. He loves books yes of course he does. But really the books are a vehicle. A method of giving him what he truly craves forÖ..
And that is learning. Graham has a passion for learning about the human spirit. How to get the most out of it. How to tap into it. How to push it to new heights. How to get to its potential. How to climb out of the feelings of mediocrity. How to, excel at what ever he does.
His Passion is for the human spirit.
Often, that which appears as a passion, at first, is just the vehicle for the real deep down passion that lights you up.
Florence Nightingale is known for her nursing in the Crimean War. And most people know that Nursing was her passion. But it wasnít.
Believe it or not Florence Nightingaleís passion wasÖÖstatistics. Yes good old fashioned Statistics. She was so good at it, in1858 she was the first female elected member of the Statistical Society of the UK and an honorary member of the American Statistical Association.
When you think about it you can see the connection. Because she was passionate about Statistics she was able to see and prove that disease was killing more troops than battle and then do something about it.
What about you? What is the deep down passion that lights your life up. What is it that you love doing and being beyond all else.
Michael Jordanís passion is basketball. But most are unaware that his passion was such that he had written into his contract that he could play ìpickupî games whenever he wanted. (For us non Americans this is playing with whoever is available on public sites) He just wanted to play basketball whenever he felt like it. There is no doubt that it was his passion that made him so brilliant, so extraordinary.
Go onÖ.. you can tell yourself. There is no need to tell others. Just have a go and tell yourself.
What is that love that stirs you up — that love that others may not be interested in but is so important to you. What is it that makes you forget time? What is it that you love doing?
We all have it. We all have at least one thing that we are passionate about.
Whatís yours?
The bottom line is; passion is motivating. Passion is more motivating that money.
Passion energises and transforms you. When you are passionate about something then you enter that ëflowí state where time stands still. You are so focussed. You are really in tune with yourself.
Go on try it.
Good Luck
Graham and Julie
www.desktop-meditation.com
|
https://medium.com/career-realted-article/designing-custom-binders-discover-your-passion-3bccbc79c471
|
['Mohit Chawla']
|
2020-12-27 11:35:56.995000+00:00
|
['Career', 'Mohit Chawla', 'Jobs', 'Money']
|
Editors are kingmakers
|
They are true mentors.
pixel.com
I am a new writer on medium when I arrived here; I came with some dreams and expectations. I had read many stories of well-known writers, and they motivated me. I didn’t know what publication is and how to submit my article to any publication. I wrote my first article; I followed many people; they followed me back.
I didn’t select any publication to submit my article; I created my own publication. But now I realized that was a blunder. I had a few followers at that time. When I regularly published my article, and didn’t get what I was expecting. I changed my strategy. I made requests to many publications, and today I am writing in 5 publications.
When you are writing in publication, when you hit the publish & submit button, on the other side, the editor is waiting for your story. It’s his right to accept or reject your story. When I was new, I didn’t use Grammarly, but editors of different publications supported me by publishing my articles. I am thankful to them.
They have a great job. They decide which story is better than others on the same topic. It’s their job to maintain quality and quantity. Because for a poor article, only the writer is not responsible but Editor too. Because he selects your story to publish for the readers.
Editors of different publications rejected my many articles; sometimes, I got offended, but then I realized those articles weren’t worth publishing. By dismissing my articles, editors tried to tell me something is going wrong with my writings. Something can be topic, grammar, extraordinary claims without supported links. I revised my articles; I had read them repeatedly, not as a writer but as an editor. In this way, I found my mistakes.
If editors are accepting your story, they are giving you a fair platform to publish your work. It depends on our capacity, how good we can do, or how much we can utilize our talents and capabilities.
Editors are not jealous.
Editors are not jealous if your story is going viral, getting incredible views and reading time. They are helpers. They do the scrutiny of your work. They read your story with two eyes, with the sight of a writer and an editor's vision .they decide what we want to offer to readers. If it’s useful and thoughtful and crafted good, they would hit the publish button without hesitation.
Editors are kingmakers
I call them kingmakers because when they hit the publish button to a draft, your story is published; now, it is readers' property. If your story goes viral, credit also goes to an editor because he chooses your story from many other stories.
So, editors sitting behind the publication wall are real kingmakers. They choose better work from good works.
|
https://medium.com/illumination/editors-are-kingmakers-febe3cc1f025
|
['Fahim Chughtai']
|
2020-12-17 16:06:22.479000+00:00
|
['Advice For New Writers', 'Writing', 'Blogs And Blogging', 'Writers On Medium', 'Medium Editor']
|
“JavaScript” for web, mobile, and now, desktop applications too
|
Its been a few days since I came upon a project to build a desktop application. I have worked on web and mobile applications in the past using React and React-Native but this was something new. Long ago, I heard about a framework that allows us to create multi-platform desktop applications in JavaScript and I thought to myself that this should be used for this project. That framework was “Electron”!
Electron applications run on two threads, main and renderer. The main thread uses Electron APIs to communicate with the OS to perform native desktop application operations. The renderer thread is responsible for rendering the DOM on the application window. These two threads communicate with each other using the IPC(Inter-process communication) Electron API.
The Electron homepage clearly states that “It’s easier than you think” and it is true for most of it but the setup was not that easy. I was going to use the React for the project so I started out by using the electron-react-boilerplate which was also mentioned in the Electron documentation. The problem that I faced with this boilerplate was that it was too bulky and there were a lot of modules installed that were irrelevant to the cause. I required a boilerplate that had just the minimal dependencies to create a React-based Electron application. After extensive research, I decided that I should create one for myself 😬.
Bringing in the programming:
I started out a simple starter code I found in the documentation. It creates a window and loads an HTML file inside it, which is pretty simple. Next, loading a React application inside that window. I already had a boilerplate for the React application that I created some time ago. Easy things first, I bundled the React application, tried to load the output HTML file in the window but it did not work. I realized I have to make some changes to the Webpack configuration. I use "/" as the publicPath in the Webpack output because that is required when the application is served from a server. In the case of Electron, the files will be picked from the local system, so I removed it. Next, I removed the hash file names, removed the split chunks optimizations and used a single file name i.e. renderer.js , and removed the polyfill because it is not required. After all these changes, I ran the bundle in the Electron application again and EUREKA! it worked.
Development mode is necessary
To the next challenge, running the application in a development mode with HMR(Hot Module Replacement). For the React web application, I use the webpack-dev-server to serve the files and to use HMR. To use the same in Electron, I came across the BrowserWindow.loadURL function that can load a URL inside the Electron application window. Now, I served the React application using the dev server, passed https://localhost:3000/ inside the loadURL function and my application was now running in a development environment. But soon I realized that the HMR was not working so I started to look for a solution. In the electron-react-boilerplate that was mentioned in the documentation, I noticed that they were using the react-hot-loader package too for HMR. I used the same and made sure it was only used in the development build using environment variables set in the Webpack configuration and everything started working smoothly now.
Thread communication
Next up, using the IPC APIs to communicate between threads. I tried to import the ipcRenderer module in the React application from the electron package but that threw an error. Apparently, electron is a node module and any application using it must be running on a node environment but our renderer.js actually runs in a browser environment. After researching this issue, I found that I can set the nodeIntegration flag, in the BrowserWindow options, to true in order to expose the renderer application with the node environment. With this, I was able to use the ipcRenderer module but I later discovered that the renderer application should not be exposed with the node environment because the node environment exposes the file system to an application and any external injected script might be able to access the file system 🤷🏻♂️.
I found several solutions that did not work. Finally, I went back to the bulky electron-react-boilerplate and I checked how they handled this issue and I found that they passed the bundled React application JS in BrowserWindow options preload. This actually provides two benefits, first, preload scripts have access to the node environment, and second, it makes the React application load a little faster in the application window. And again EUREKA! this works perfectly. I was able to send and receive messages to and from the main and renderer threads. I created a common.js file too where I can store the communication channel names used by both main and renderer threads.
Getting ready for production
While reading more of the documentation, I found out that Webpack provides specific targets to bundle JS code for Electron. For bundling renderer code, electron-renderer and for bundling preload script, electron-preload . I use electron-renderer in development mode because in that case, I do not preload my React application JS and I set nodeIntegration to true for development. For production, I use electron-preload and set nodeIntegration to false and I also make sure to remove the renderer.js file reference in the index.html , which can be done in the Webpack configuration, because it will be preloaded. This is how my main window configuration looks like:
const mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({
show: false,
backgroundColor: "#000000",
width: 1024,
height: 768,
webPreferences: {
nodeIntegration: isDev,
contextIsolation: !isDev,
enableRemoteModule: false,
preload: isDev ? null : path.join(__dirname, "build/renderer.js"),
},
});
I also need to make sure that in development the HTML is loaded from the dev server running on localhost and in production, it should be loaded as a file.
const APP_URL = isDev ? "http://localhost:3000" : `file://${__dirname}/build/index.html`;
mainWindow.loadURL(APP_URL);
Security advisories
“Electron” has a complete page on all the security advisories that we as developers should follow. I spent a lot of time on this document and almost all of the security advisories have been handled in the boilerplate that I created. There are proper checks as to enable and disable some properties based on the environment in which the application is being run. You can read more about these security advisories here: https://www.electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/security.
Packaging and shipping
For packaging and shipping the application, I could not find a simpler tool than the electron-builder. This tool can package the application, for all the platforms, in one simple command. All you need is to create an electron-builder.yml file, specify some parameters, and then run the command electron-builder build -mwl and it will create application installers for MacOS, Windows, and Linux 🙌🏼. Here is the electron-builder.yml file that I use:
productName: "ElectronReact"
appId: "com.electron.ElectronReact"
files:
- "build/"
- "main.js"
- "common.js"
Setting the icon for the application is simple too. You just need a 512px x 512px size PNG image, name it as icon.png and make sure it is included in the files list in the electron-builder.yml file.
Conclusion
Creating this application boilerplate from scratch has not been easy and honestly starting anything new never is easy. I hope it’ll save a lot of time for the people who use this boilerplate to start new projects.
Thank you for reading this!
|
https://medium.com/weekly-webtips/javascript-for-web-mobile-and-now-desktop-applications-too-c34c2cd93497
|
['Surya Kant Bansal']
|
2020-10-09 18:47:11.660000+00:00
|
['Electron', 'JavaScript', 'React Electron', 'Web Development', 'Desktop App']
|
What Counts As Marketing Experience?
|
If you have a marketing degree but no real work experience, you may be wondering what counts as marketing experience. You may have been a salesperson, but the marketing industry is different than sales. Many companies look for people who have already applied for sales jobs, so you need to show your sales background. There are a few ways to show your skills and experience in this area. First, ask recruiters how long you’ve been working in the field.
One way to break this cycle is to volunteer.
Whether through social work or a public service organization, volunteering helps you build your professional network and build pieces for your portfolio. You’ll also message potential employers about your values and commitment to social causes. Besides, you can network with many nonprofits through your volunteering work. While you’re volunteering, remember to keep the experience relevant.
Marketing experience doesn’t have to be related to the job you are applying for. If you are interested in a particular industry, you can volunteer with a nonprofit. In this way, you can build your network and create professional portfolio pieces without spending a dime. And, it also sends a strong message to prospective employers. You’ll get the chance to meet people with similar interests and gain valuable networking opportunities.
You should consider your skills and experience.
Most of these positions require relevant experience. Regardless of your field of choice, you need to have the right mix of education and experience to stand out from the crowd. Suppose you’ve held a lemonade stand or a sales position. You’ll need to have experience with sales to be considered for a marketing job.
If you’ve worked in marketing in the past, you probably have a good understanding of how to market a product. But if you’ve never worked in the industry before, this is an excellent opportunity to learn and grow your skills. Suppose you don’t have any experience, since you can learn the skills necessary to get a great job. However, if you don’t have any experience, it may help you train.
What Counts As Marketing Experience?
If you’re looking for a marketing job, it’s important to have a few different types of experience. While you should have a basic understanding of the industry you’re applying for, you’ll want to highlight the most relevant work experience that you have. Even if you’re just starting, you can have marketing experience in other areas of your life. And if you have no experience at all, you can hire a consultant who has years of experience.
If you’re looking for a marketing job, you’ll need to be prepared to show that you have some experience in the industry. The more relevant the experience, the more likely you’ll be hired. Suppose you’re looking for a marketing position, your varied and relevant experience. In addition to your work history, your experience should also demonstrate your ability to connect with others. If you’re a newbie, volunteering with a nonprofit organization is a great way to build a network.
You’ll need marketing experience to be considered for a marketing job. The most relevant experience demonstrates your ability to communicate with other people. A successful marketing resume should also demonstrate your ability to communicate with the employer effectively. The goal of the marketing resume is to sell the business, so it should focus on the skills that the employer is seeking. The skills you need to sell products should be specific for each job.
The first thing to do is to find a volunteer opportunity. Volunteering with a nonprofit is a great way to get the word out about your skills and personality. In addition to establishing a professional network, you can also build a professional portfolio through volunteering. You may also find networking opportunities. The more volunteers you have, the better. It also means that you’ll be able to earn a living and have fun doing it.
|
https://medium.com/@digital.specialist.co/what-counts-as-marketing-experience-3bb1745bd7
|
['Digital Specialist Co.']
|
2021-12-28 19:59:38.494000+00:00
|
['Digitalmarketingagency', 'Realworkexperience', 'Digitalspecialist']
|
Diary of a Confused Teenager
|
Diary of a Confused Teenager
Last 5 days since the first case in Romania
People are aggressively leaving Italy, especially the ones that have relatives abroad. All means of transport that go outside the country are overcrowded. There’s a huge wave of people at the Romanian border lying about where they come from. Since travelling in the E.U. doesn’t require a visa, no one can really check where they come from, so they have to take their word. Of course, most of them are actually coming from Italy, scared by the virus, and, fearing that they may not be allowed to enter Romania, they state that they are coming from another European country.
On the 26th of February, the first case in Romania is officially confirmed. The one infected is a man who got it from an Italian friend who came to visit him in Romania, as a way to escape from all the things that were happening in his country. The Italian man certainly did not know that he was infected, and he didn’t present any symptoms in the time he stayed and wandered through Romania. He then went back to Italy, where his analyzes for coronavirus suggested that he was positive.
|
https://medium.com/@anamresiga/diary-of-a-confused-teenager-ab01b11e4935
|
['Ana-Maria Resiga']
|
2020-03-17 19:34:11.848000+00:00
|
['Teens', 'Journal', 'Diary', 'Events', 'Romania']
|
Dear citizens, say Hi to MetroGalaxy!
|
MetroGalaxy is a metaverse project that uniquely blends a social platform together with an online virtual game that lets you role-play as anyone you want, do anything you like in an ever-expanding decentralized world.
As NFT and blockchain gaming is gaining traction day by day, thousands of NFT projects are born within the crypto space, presenting various kinds of NFT collection and gaming experience. However, most of the newly released NFT projects lack a long-time goal with a clear direction of what they want to be, resulting in a project that consists of only a token and a game that vaguely uses those tokens as rewards without cohesion.
Moreover, as blockchain adoption increases rapidly across the world, NFT and blockchain gaming has evolved into a new form — Metaverse, where it encompasses not just a simple game or a token, but a decentralized virtual world where people can connect seamlessly in all of their blockchain activities, and everything is possible.
Welcome to MetroGalaxy
What MetroGalaxy wants to bring to the table is a Decentralized Virtual World that combines the best out of a strong development team with blockchain experience, a unique approach to metaverse, and an active community that will eventually help us build MetroGalaxy themselves.
In MetroGalaxy, you are represented by a Metronion (an ERC-721 NFT), that acts as your digital identity in the world. Each Metronion is 100% unique, and here’s the catch — your Metronions can freely change & customize their clothes and accessories (ERC-1155). These accessories (and changes in them) are reflected directly in-game.
While limited in number, new accessories designs are updated constantly with different themes, and the options are limitless.
While it’s very tempting to position our product as an NFT game, MetroGalaxy’s main mission is to connect people inside the crypto space with each other in an engaging, easy to understand, and most importantly, a fun way. So while MetroGalaxy does have a lot of gaming elements, we go beyond that limitation with a metaverse approach.
To elaborate, here are some of the things you’ll be able to do in MetroGalaxy in the future:
Socialize, chat and play together with your friends or make new friends;
Own NFT houses, clothes, etc. which you can freely customize and will be reflected directly in MetroGalaxy;
Live your virtual life inside the cities of Metro with full job systems and personal relations (maybe you can even marry someone in here);
Join grand questlines throughout a variety of maps and explore the MetroGalaxy world;
Showcase your NFTs and advertise;
And many more things to come.
Talking about a bigger picture and a longer vision, we aim to deepen the connection between users and the crypto world by researching and implementing the following features (note that this will require a huge amount of research on our part so don’t expect it to come soon):
Build your world — Create and Earn: Design your own assets, clothes, house decorations, build your own questlines and game maps as NFTs and implement it inside MetroGalaxy using our built-in tool. Take RPG Maker but on the blockchain. Sell your NFT accessories to other Metronions, earn fees the more people use your assets, questlines or maps.
Integrate other crypto services and dapps like Uniswap/PancakeSwap, Opensea, etc. inside the game with our own native interface. This means you’ll be able to trade tokens, NFTs, borrow and lend your crypto assets in-game.
Bringing NFT assets from other metaverse projects or crypto games into MetroGalaxy (so if you have an Axie for example, you might be able to use it inside MetroGalaxy).
One of our early map drafts
So in short, imagine Club Penguin (over 200M registered accounts while it was still running) or Play Together (>10M downloads on Google Play Store) but with NFTs and can fulfill your daily crypto needs in a fun manner. That’s what MetroGalaxy is. That’s what a true metaverse project should strive to achieve.
We do hope you stay with us longer and join us as the first MetroGalaxy citizens!
|
https://medium.com/@metrogalaxy/dear-citizens-say-hi-to-metrogalaxy-5d7c2aabf225
|
[]
|
2021-12-27 15:34:27.783000+00:00
|
['Crypto', 'Features', 'Nft', 'Featured', 'Metaverse']
|
6 Signs He’s Not in It Just for a Hookup
|
6 Signs He’s Not in It Just for a Hookup
Not every man is in it for the wham-bam, thank you ma’am.
Not every man out there is the hookup type. Yes, a lot of guys do want to have sex without getting attached, but the reality is that women aren’t the only ones prone to “catching feelings.”
Shocker. I know.
Ladies, this isn’t to say that having sex is a surefire way to get the guy. It isn’t. Always have sex on your own terms. Do it if you want, hold back if you don’t.
Just be aware that something you thought would be casual might end up earning you more than what you’ve bargained for.
Granted, some people do well with keeping it casual, whether they’re men or women, and can do the hookup thing without further consequences. This isn’t meant to judge either way. You do you.
The mistake some guys make (and some women) is to think they’re the hookup type when they’re not. They’ll present themselves as the hookup type but don’t actually behave accordingly. And behavior tells it all.
Here’s what to watch out for:
1. He doesn’t have a “move”
If you go out for drinks and he seems interested, but you eventually find yourself wondering when — if ever — he’ll make a move, it might be a sign he doesn’t really have a move.
The same goes for when he drops you off and you invite him in. You’d kill for some action at that point, but he just. won’t. make. a. move.
Worse if it’s his apartment. Why? A guy who doesn’t have a well-practiced move in his own territory is clearly not a guy who does hookups very often.
Trust me, if he tries something that seems more endearing than sexy, and not at all rehearsed, that’s when you know. And trust me when I tell you, you will know.
Now, a proper move isn’t aggressive or pushy in any way. A guy’s move usually has stages in which he’ll test the waters to see if and how much you reciprocate. Ladies, if you’re interested, reciprocate. Otherwise your guy will give up on trying — as well he should.
And don’t forget consent. Him asking for consent is not a sign he doesn’t have “a move.” A man should always ask for consent, whether that’s part of his “move” or not.
2. He doesn’t have an exit strategy — or he invites you to stay over
An important skill when it comes to hookups is to have an exit strategy — and stick to it. That’s equally valid for both genders.
Now, if you’ve been drinking, jumping out of bed to go drunk driving is not recommended. Consider getting an Uber.
Any of you are allowed to pass out and save the exit strategy until next morning, but if he’s fine to drive and wide awake but stays over regardless, perhaps with the intention of cuddling, that’s a sign hookups are probably outside his comfort zone.
3. He does the “date” routine — even after you’ve agreed you’re keeping it casual
If it becomes an ongoing thing that you’ve both agreed it’s just casual, there isn’t really a point in keeping up with the dating aspect of it.
Going out for drinks is one thing, but holding hands at the movies, or having long coffee dates in which you end up oversharing about your respective childhoods doesn’t exactly scream “casual.”
It comes down to this: hookup guys want sex, not company. If company is a big part of the equation from the get-go, you know he’s not a hookup kind of guy.
4. He gets in touch with you for non-hooking up purposes
If it’s meant to be casual, that hot-line bling should mean one thing and one thing only.
If he texts or calls just see how your day is going — not to try to figure out if your schedule is free later tonight, but out of genuine interest, then he’s definitely not up to keeping it casual for much longer.
Perhaps he never was.
5. He overdoes it with the pillow talk
And perhaps you’ve been encouraging him.
Pillow talk is a lot of fun. There’s something about lying naked next to another naked person that implies nothing is off limits. No thought is too weird, no question is too personal.
Pillow talk is also a great way to bond. If you’ve been engaging in it, and enjoying it, you have also been growing a lot closer.
There’s nothing wrong with getting closer to someone if that’s what you want. Just be aware that closeness takes down anything that might be casual about the relationship. Be ready to deal with the consequences.
6. He tells his parents about you
Yes, I know.
You’d think most people already keep their family out of their dating lives in general, but you’d be surprised.
It’s very endearing to find out a guy has told anyone about you, but his family? That’s something special. It can be a great step further into a relationship, but that’s the key word: relationship.
Not a hookup, not casual, not a fling.
If your guy tells his family about you, he’s not a hookup kind of guy — and it doesn’t matter if he’s trying to pretend otherwise.
He just needs to get into a relationship. ASAP
Despite their fantasies, not any man can truly keep sex and attachment apart. No wonder. Sex is all about closeness and intimacy, and it can blur the lines between attraction and love.
The guy who behaves like the above is a guy who needs a committed relationship. Deep down, he wants it. Everything points to him being ready.
You need to know if you’re ready as well.
|
https://medium.com/mariposa-magazine/6-signs-hes-not-in-it-just-for-a-hookup-6a969ef23144
|
['Tesia Blake']
|
2020-05-04 09:01:00.894000+00:00
|
['Relationships', 'Love', 'Women', 'Self', 'Sexuality']
|
Scarcity in Sneaker Culture (UX)
|
Solutions
Adidas
Option #1 — Transition So Users Know they Can Pick a Size
I think that an excellent way to remedy the transition from queue to size selection would be a transition — a fade in, a fade out, anything to make it more apparent that you are transitioning from queue to size selection.
Option #2 — Break Uniformity
Mock up of what the new size selection screen can look like
Break the uniformity of the site and change the layout. Move the size selection to the centre of the screen so it’s obvious that this is a different stage of the purchasing process.
Changing the User Flow
Adidas’ current user flow is something like this
Queue -> Size Selection -> Checkout
I would suggest something like the Nike user flow
Size Selection -> Queue -> Checkout
Pros
Reduces user frustration, they don’t have to wait in line for hours to find out their size sold out
Reduces resellers purchasing whatever size is left over, they have to commit to a size
Cons
Could lead to more bots, add to cart bots could select the size and then enter into the queue for the bot user
Nike
Use a Captcha Before You Can Pick a Size
Make users enter a captcha before they can even select a size, add to cart bots will get stopped at the captcha and won’t be able to enter into the queue for the user/reseller.
Put Some Instructions at the Countdown Timer
I think this is pretty self explanatory, put some instructions on the product page if there’s a timer so users don’t have to look through the FAQ page for the waiting in line feature.
Pros
Reduce the number of bots and resellers purchasing
Make the procedure to purchase more streamlined and educate the user
Cons
The captcha before the size selection may break and not allow real users to select a size
Conclusion
Adidas has a high quality product and wants to make sure it gets to the consumer and not resellers. Their queue system is made to combat bots, but a large amount of shoes still get picked up by bots and the user is left frustrated. The adjustments I suggested should help with this and make the user experience much less confusing and frustrating.
Nike has a much more user friendly queue system, but it is much more prone to bots. They would benefit from stopping bots before they can select a size.
Scarcity in sneakers is a double edged sword as it benefits the consumer by allowing them to get a high quality low supply piece of merchandise and it allows the retailer to sell a high volume of product in a short amount of time. The downside is when resellers purchase all of the limited product and flip them at a premium leading to frustrated customers who may give up on buying the item.
Decided to take two things that I’m really interested in, sneakers and UX, and put them together. Constructive criticism is appreciated
-Kyle
|
https://uxdesign.cc/scarcity-in-sneaker-culture-ux-e68ea62bf9d5
|
['Kyle Osborne']
|
2017-03-01 06:39:24.211000+00:00
|
['Fashion', 'Sneakers', 'User Experience', 'Design', 'UX']
|
8 Awesome Designs from Last Week — Week Six
|
This is a weekly series where I share some awesome design work from the seven days. The work you see here wont just be the popular big designers but the small guys as well.
This list is curated by me, Alex Brown, a freelance developer and creator of Snackify and Photo Ipsum.
by Bart Ebbekink
by Aman Singh
by Lukas Svarc for Norde
by Britton Stipetic
by Cody Pearson
by Zhenya Rynzhuk
by McLane Teitel for Squarespace
by David TJ Powell
My Weekly Shot
by Alex Brown
Thanks for reading!
Which one was your favorite?
Props to all of the creators work featured here. You did some awesome work this week! If you liked their work make sure to show them some love.
Do you have a submission for next week? Reach out to me on Instagram!
|
https://medium.com/techtrument/8-awesome-designs-from-last-week-week-six-14dd3ac13d70
|
['Alex Brown']
|
2018-02-08 16:37:11.180000+00:00
|
['App Design', 'UI', 'Web Design', 'Inspiration', 'Design']
|
Decision Trees — Introduction (ID3)
|
Decision Trees — Introduction (ID3)
Have you ever wondered how learning from past experiences might work?
You meet different types of persons throughout your life, after some experience, you get the idea that what kind of person you like, right? I mean after several experiences with many humans, when you meet a new human, most of the time you get the idea if you like them or not. How do you do that? With ‘Experience’! right? But you don’t keep all years of experience at the top of your brain always, rather than that it feels some simple and quick decision mechanism working inside your brain.
So, rather than going deeper into the biology of the brain, let’s try to build a similar mechanism at a simpler level.
Let’s say after your encounter with several people, you don’t want vampires to be your friend in future :P
So you made a list of several people you met, their characteristics and if they turned out to be a vampire or not. ( “?” in shadow attribute is because you met those people only in dark conditions so you couldn’t verify if they cast a shadow or not )
After observing this data, we may come up with a naive model as this tree,
Since with the help of that tree we can make a decision, we call it “Decision Tree”. This tree must satisfy all data in the given dataset, and we hope that it will also satisfy future inputs.
But how could we come up with such a tree? The tree given above is made just by some random observation on data…
Following observations…
All people with pale complexion are not vampires .
. All people who have a ruddy complexion and eats garlic are not vampires and if they don’t eat garlic then they are a vampire .
and if they don’t eat garlic then they . All people who have an average complexion, and they don’t cast a shadow or we don’t know if they cast a shadow or not, then they are a vampire, or else if they cast a shadow then they are not a vampire.
But is that the right way to build a decision tree? Is that tree is the simplest tree we can get from the given dataset?
Such random analysis on a large dataset will not be feasible. We need some systematic approach to attack this problem.
Let’s try to attack this with a greedy approach…
So first, we look at the dataset and decide which attribute should we pick for the root node of the tree…
This is a Boolean classification, so at the end of the decision tree we would have 2 possible results (either they are a vampire or not), so each example input will classify as true (a positive example) and false (a negative example).
Here ‘P’ refers to positive, which means a person is a vampire, and ’N’ refers to negative, which means the person is not a vampire.
We want attribute which divides more data into homogenous sets, which means in such sets where only P or only N exists because if we have that, we can definitely answer about a vampire or not, thus those will be leaf nodes of the tree.
Check for each attribute, and see which one has the highest number of elements in the homogenous set. Here we find that the ‘Shadow’ attribute has the highest count for elements in a homogenous set, so we choose this attribute.
So till now, we got this much of the tree…
For the shadow attribute “yes” and “no”, we can decide if a person is a vampire or not, but in case of “?” we don’t know, we need to decide which attribute divides data well when shadow = ‘?’
So, let’s analyze another attribute while the shadow is unknown…
Here we find that “Garlic?” attribute divides maximum elements, in fact, all elements in homogenous sets.
So, our tree now looks like this,
This tree looks simpler than the one we created by picking random attributes, so we observe that the greedy approach is helping us to get better results.
But, is that the right way to do so?
No, because if the dataset is large, we need not end up with attributes dividing into the homogenous set, we may find for all attributes elements in the homogeneous set are 0.
How should we proceed then?
So now let’s dive into the ID3 algorithm for generating decision trees, which uses the notion of information gain, which is defined in terms of entropy, the fundamental quantity in information theory.
Imagine these 2 divisions of some an attribute…
We observe that that one on left has the equal number of Ps and Ns, so that doesn’t give us any hint about the decision, but one on right has more Ps than Ns, so it may direct us somewhat towards P, so in these 2 we might consider right one.
So, now instead of scoring them 0 right away, let’s go with another way. Let’s say, one where Ps and Ns are equal numbers has the highest entropy (1), and one where there are only Ps or Ns has the lowest entropy (0). We can have something like this, P/(P+N) vs Entropy graph.
So, when P=N, thus P/(P+N) = 0.5 then Entropy = 1,
if P=k(some integer) & N=0 then Entropy = 0.
That feels like a pretty much appropriate graph to achieve what we want, so is there some mathematical way to to get this graph…
Luckily for us, this curve can be achieved by the following equation
Which can be written in P/(P+N) and Entropy form,
by replacing x= P/( P+N ) and y = Entropy,
Where P and N is the count of Ps and Ns of an attribute for which we are finding the attribute,
We want to find information gain from the attribute, which is defined as,
( IG — Information gain from some attribute A is the expected reduction in entropy )
IG(Attribute) = Entropy of attribute — Weighted average of Entropy of each child set
For example,
^ ( Example calculation of IG )
Since now you got the idea about Entropy and Information Gain, let’s build our decision tree again from scratch with this new approach!
We observe here that we get maximum Information Gain from shadow attribute, Choosing this as our root node,
We need to decide another attribute for Shadow = ‘?’
We get maximum Information Gain from Garlic,
So our tree will look like this,
This is exactly the same as the previous approach, because luckily at each step we were able to find some attributes dividing into a homogenous set, but the approach with Information Gain is more robust, which can be applied to make a decision tree from a large dataset.
Reference :
Identification Trees | MIT OCW
|
https://towardsdatascience.com/decision-trees-introduction-id3-8447fd5213e9
|
['Siddharth Maurya']
|
2019-11-04 16:53:44.449000+00:00
|
['Decision Tree', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence']
|
Poison — It’s Just One Little Pill. Part 9.
|
You’ll remember I mentioned Sergey Lazovski, the Russian pharmaceutical engineer who first worked on the idea of genetic retraining. He really was a quite brilliant man. He kept copious notes in his precise copper plate handwriting.
A treasure trove of notebooks had fallen into my hands when I’d taken over the department I now ran, and the unusual and unique ideas within them had largely been overlooked by anyone aware of their existence. These days it’s almost as though, if it’s not on the net it never happened.
Needless to say I spent a good number of hours reading those journals. And even with my knowledge of pharmacy I knew that the contents held within those pages was indeed priceless. As was being proved by my little experiment with Blair.
He had come on beautifully. And the changed had not merely been the shape of his body. His psychological shift was extraordinary.
He had become so excited a few days ago after discovering an adult toy in my bedroom, that he had barely been able to contain himself. He couldn’t take his eyes from the object, and kept shifting uneasily.
I knew the signs, of course. Every cell in his sissy carcass was screaming out to be taken, and his brain — never the most active of organs in Blair — was simply not able to process these strange messages. It wouldn’t be until he encountered sex in the female role that he would recognise what his body was telling him.
It is ironic that on this very bed beside me just yesterday, I had seen almost the same look on his sister’s face. As she kissed my fingers, wet with the evidence of her own wanton excitement, I saw that very same look. It said, ‘Please fuck me. Please use me as you wish.’
And it said it wracked with shame and confused angst. In Blair’s case he didn’t even realise what that feeling consuming him from within was. A yearning so powerful it couldn’t be denied, and yet without direction or any means to satisfy itself.
Sarah was a different story. Her hunger for satisfaction was as confused as Blair’s as she stumbled her way at first reluctantly and then running urgently into the joys of finding herself bisexual. My predatory conquest of Sarah had been like releasing the floodgates, as she now demanded more and immersed herself in the deep waters of her lesbian lust for me.
Last night she’d dropped by on the way home.
‘I happened to be on the way,’ she said, moving uneasily on the sofa upon which a few days earlier I’d sat firmly on her face.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” I said politely as I poured us both a cup of green tea.
That seemed to stop her in her track. She smiled awkwardly and then continued.
“I wanted to talk to you about what happened the other night,” she said quite firmly.
“Oh, yes. You mean about how you practically devoured me like a starving animal?” I replied.
“I just want you to know that it can never happen again. It’s not what I do!” Her voice was protesting, liked a teenager who had been told he was grounded.
“Of course, it’s not what you do,” I said gently.
She looked at me with a softness of a little girl.
“I know you’d never normally do those things that you did. Never.”
I smiled at her and she visibly melted. I tried not to laugh, but kept a straight face. The poor lamb had no idea what was coming.
Taking my place beside her on the sofa, I turned to her and said, “You know, we all slip up sometimes. We do things which are out of character. It doesn’t mean anything, you know.”
Sarah looked relieved. Her shoulders sloped as she let out a sigh.
“Oh God, I was so worried. I didn’t think you’d understand,” she said with relief.
“Of course, I understand.” I moved a little closer to her.
I could feel her breath on my cheek as she said, “Thank god!”
Her breathing was a little faster now.
“Yes, thank God,” she said moving back and stiffening a little. “It’s not like I’m some lesbian or anything.”
“Who could think such a thing,” I mouthed as my hand rested on hers.
She turned to me sharply, opening her mouth to speak, but I pressed my lips to hers before she could utter so much as a syllable. The moan on her lips and her arms flung around me confirmed that she couldn’t help herself any more than her brother could. They were both completely mine.
As my fingers closed around her nipple and squeezed she released a soft moan of delight and pressed her body against my own. Even as she moaned ‘no, no…’ she pulled my body to hers unable to help herself, the fabric of her skirt dulling the need for touch.
In a moment she was on her feet and pulling her clothes off, as I watched surprised at the intensity of her desire. Her eyes burned as she stared back at me, stripping me naked in her mind. I stood up, moving close to her, and waited to see if she would take the initiative.
As we felt the closeness of our bodies Sarah’s hunger seemed to elevate, and she found herself unable to hold back. As I felt her fingers searching my body I knew years of desire were finally finding what they needed to slake that thirst.
And Sarah drank fully and deeply that night.
Jerry.
If you’re enjoying this series be sure to join my Patreon here: http://Patreon.com/fionadobson
|
https://medium.com/red-curtain-erotica/poison-its-just-one-little-pill-part-9-c242a3f61d02
|
['Fiona Dobson']
|
2020-10-02 04:16:55.079000+00:00
|
['Nonbinary', 'Feminization', 'Erotica', 'LGBTQ', 'Crossdressing']
|
DZOFilm Pictor 20–55mm and 50–125mm T2.8 Super35 Zoom Lens Set Review
|
Dampening
The focus, zoom, and iris gears are nicely dampened. The focus gear has 270 degrees of rotation, which is more than enough for fine adjustments. The zoom gear slows down just a touch on the long end, but the resistance there is not enough to alter my confidence in a shot. The iris gear is on the looser end compared to the focus and zoom gears. On multiple occasions, I had bumped the iris to a T3 or T3.5 without realizing. A user error? Yeah, for sure, but the looseness is still a concern given that they could loosen up somewhat over a few years of use. When will they need to be serviced? How can they be serviced?
When writing about the dampening of the gears on the Pictors, my opinion is tempered by my recent experience with the similarly-priced Venus Optics Laowa OOOM 25–100mm T2.9. The dampening on the OOOM is almost non-existent. It is rough, inconsistent, and frustrating to use. The dampening of the Pictor set is butter by comparison, punching above its price.
Gearing Issues
But while the dampening is great, the gearing itself seems to have a problem. When connected to a follow focus, like the manual LanParte I own or the Tilta Nucleus-M I used, the gears do not perfectly line up with the gears of the focus system as if there is an ever-so-slight machining error. This error, if it is one, causes vibrations. When rotating a follow focus, the movement of the two gears as they fight one another shakes the entire lens. That shaking results in an audible rattle.
Worse, in my own tests with the camera locked down on a tripod and focused on a close subject, I found that this rattling of the lens shows up on camera as a bumpy frame movement reminiscent of the subtle bump of a weathered slider.
I held off on reviewing these lenses because I knew I would be remotely pulling focus with a Nucleus-M setup connected to a remote camera operator using an easy rig. I wanted to see if I could notice the bump from far away while staring at a monitor.
Did I notice it when handheld? No. When the lenses are on a handheld camera, the bumpiness when rack focusing is overpowered by the handheld shake. Further, when I was using this remote setup, there were moments when the camera was placed on a tripod. While it was locked down, I racked focus and also did not see any shake. What changed? The operator had firmly attached the supportive base to the rails beneath it.
In order to mitigate the bumpiness caused by the gearing, the lenses must be supported by the rails. This will get rid of the bump, but it will not eliminate the audible rattle of the gearing.
More Threaded Mounting Points
One (petty) thing I would have liked to see is the inclusion of those threaded mounting points on the focus and iris barrels in addition to the zoom barrel. Had there been threading on the focus barrel, I would have taken off the zoom knob and placed it there to aid in manual focusing without a follow focus. My thumbs were pretty beat up from racking with just the gear.
Image Performance
I am split about the performance of the Pictors. I tried writing around this so that I could get to the salient features of the set first, but in the end it is easier to just say what has been on my mind: the optical performance at T2.8 is either intentionally tuned for a vintage look or unintentionally poor with heavy chromatic aberration and strange bokeh. Yes, you could use these lenses at T4 for a reduction in those vintage characteristics, but you, like me, are likely looking at these lenses specifically because they are T2.8.
On the other hand, where the set suffers optically could be seen as reasons to justify it down the road as some kind of cult favorite on forums and at crafty tables. The set has all the character of something from another era, minus the fungus, plus many modern features like parfocal zooming and low breathing. It could be enough to keep those Nikkor primes firmly in a Pelican in your closet (with silica gel, I hope).
Parfocal
By calibrating with the included shims, the Pictors are truly parfocal.
There were many moments while using these lenses when I would zoom in on a subject and realize I did not need to refocus. I began to adapt my shooting style so that I could utilize the parfocality more frequently, such as by shooting a 20mm wide shot and then snap zooming in for a 55mm shot. When editing, I cut out the zooming portion to make the sequence of the two shots look continuous. Getting this kind of continuity on a non-parfocal lens is difficult to achieve because the time it takes to refocus after zooming is enough to make the wide shot and tight shot appear non-sequential when put together.
To hammer this home… Think of a chef chopping an onion. You want to get a wide of the chef starting on the onion and a tight of them partway through. With a parfocal lens, you grab this wide and then snap zoom to get the tight of them cutting. Since you do not need to spend time refocusing, the placement of the knife on the tight is nearly the same as its placement in the wide, lending a more continuous shot.
Low Breathing
These lenses have no noticeable breathing. The lack of a perspective shift when focusing between close and far subjects invites more creative shot opportunities, especially when coming from the nauseating focus shift of the Canon 24–70mm F2.8, which heaves the image in and out by double digit degrees. For those looking for minimal focus breathing, these lenses check that box.
|
https://medium.com/@evanaolson/dzofilm-pictor-20-55mm-and-50-125mm-t2-8-super35-cinema-zoom-lens-set-review-3e57acf936ea
|
['Evan A Olson']
|
2020-12-09 20:39:32.727000+00:00
|
['Filmmaking', 'Review', 'Film', 'Gadgets', 'Photography']
|
The problem with Democrats is the problem with us
|
Youtube Physics video by Veritaslum
Nobody changes their minds about anything, ever.
This is a simple experiment about people’s beliefs about falling balls. Nobody is saying anything physicsy about “freefall”, “under the earth’s gravitational field”. The experimenter holds up two identically sized balls, one is a relatively light red basket ball and the other is a heavier black medicine ball. All he does is ask people, if the two balls are dropped simultaneously from the same height, which one will hit the ground first.
What do you think will happen?
Universally, everybody is very certain the black one will hit first. In some cases, even after the demonstrator tries to instill some doubt in their thinking, they go back, even stronger, to their original “black will hit first” belief.
Now watch the video, but stop after the experiments have been performed, at 1:45.
What do you think happened?
Again, everybody on the video sees that the black one landed first, justifying their original belief. Is this confirmation bias? I think this is self-justification “See, I was right!” bias. They aren’t even crowing about it. They are like, “Of course I was right, no biggie.”
Now continue the video, they watch the experiment in slo-mo. Guess what happens. Now the subjects do concur, with the evidence before their eyes, which seems undeniable, that “both land simultaneously”.
See how hard it is to convince somebody even of what we take to be objective reality? And this is just Physics — it is not as if it is about your core beliefs about human beings, your morals, your racism … nothing. Most people hate Physics and so you would think they don’t care enough about it to be right (or wrong).
Is that the end of it? Nooo! Because now what happens is that people start coming up with squishy stuff, to slime their way out of having to admit they were wrong and thus having to give up their beliefs and possibly change their minds. One person argues that “the balls didn’t fall far enough … to reach their maximum speed”. There is so much wrong with this I won’t even start, but I hope my main point has been made:
People will deny the evidence before their eyes in order to hold on to their beliefs. If reality -the evidence- is too overwhelming to easily deny, they will come up with the most hare-brained of ideas, crackpot thinking, the equivalent of “conspiracy notions”, in order to maintain their grip on their beliefs.
So now, imagine trying to convince someone that vaccines cause autism or that Trump won the election but it was stolen due to fraud or that the Earth is flat or that the government is run by a bunch of Russia loving pedophiles. Not going to happen.
Nobody changes their minds about anything, ever.
Except, mostly, hard scientists. Yeah, I know this is going to piss people off. But in terms of openness to change and the inverse timescales on which they are willing to do so, probably: Mathematicians > Physicists > Chemists > Life Scientists … > the heavily politicized and finally, religious people.
|
https://medium.com/@climber-t8/the-problem-with-democrats-is-the-problem-with-us-55d5688e491b
|
['Ranjeet Tate']
|
2020-12-19 05:23:00.829000+00:00
|
['Belief', 'Physics', 'Faith', 'Crackpot', 'Conspiracy Theories']
|
Principles of Object Oriented Programming — Part Three: Polymorphism
|
Now, polymorphism sounds a little scary but if you look it up in the dictionary, all it means is, “the condition of occuring in several different forms.” In the context of programming, it describes methods that have the same name, but perform difference logic. As with the other posts in this series, I will use Java for my code examples.
In Java, polymorphism can take on two types:
Static
Dynamic
Static Polymorphism
This is where methods in the same class can have the same name but different parameter variations. In Java, static polymorphism is achieved with method overloading. The parameters or input data into the method can vary in 3 ways:
The number of parameters
The data types of parameter
The order that the parameters are declared (not recommended as it can be confusing)
Together the method name and the declared parameters are known as the method signature. Any of the above variations result in a different method signature, which will allow the compiler to wire up the correct method body at compile time. This is known as static or early binding, as it occurs at compile time, before the program runs. As a result, program execution is much faster.
As a side note, any static, final or private methods are always statically bound, as the compiler knows they cannot be overridden at runtime.
Dynamic Polymorphism
Java also supports dynamic polymorphism. It is achieved through method overriding, not to be confused with overloading.
I already covered overriding in my last post on inheritance. But to quickly recap, if a child class and a parent class both have a method with the same name, the child class’s method takes precedence. In this scenario, the polymorphic method exists in multiple classes (child and parent) and has the same signature but different functionality.
The variation of method body called will depend on the type of object instantiated. The compiler will not have this information at compile time, it will be worked out at runtime.
The example above demonstrates how the move() method version called depends on the object being instantiated. As a general rule, unless the method is labelled as static, final or private, the method called will belong the object type (right side of the equals sign) rather than the reference type (left side of the equals sign).
In addition, because method binding occurs at runtime, program execution using dynamic binding will be slower than static binding. The advantage of dynamic binding is the added flexibility it gives you. Below is a typical example of where this flexibility can help you.
We might declare a new ArrayList like below.
We use a reference type of List and an object type of ArrayList. Later, we decide that a LinkedList object is better suited to the task. Because ArrayList and LinkedList both subclass List, we can easily swap out the object type to the LinkedList object without breaking the rest of our code.
Summary
Below is a table summarising the difference between static and dynamic polymorphism.
Method overloading allows methods that perform similar/related functions to share the same name. Overloading can also be applied to class constructors, allowing you to instantiate different but related objects based on what parameters are available at the time. Method overriding allows classes to share generalised behaviour, reducing code duplication. It also allows sub classes to specialise where required.
Subscribe
If you found this article useful I’d love you to become a subscriber to my blog. I will be dropping articles regularly on all things coding. Knowing I have people reading would mean the world.
As always, thanks for reading!
|
https://medium.com/@the-inquisitive-dev/principles-of-object-oriented-programming-part-three-polymorphism-660b6b5db491
|
['The Inquisitive Dev']
|
2020-11-02 21:22:48.066000+00:00
|
['Java', 'Coding', 'Object Oriented']
|
Major Benefits of Tableau Certification You Must Know
|
Growing mainly in the BI industry, Tableau is one of the most successful visualization tools. It follows the pattern of the data sets and gives a visual representation for the same. The principle is that the human brain understands graphic designs better than statistical data or presentations. Hence, tableau Analysts understand data patterns to acquire meaningful insights and statistics to represent the same data.
With zero knowledge of coding or technical skills, it quickly transforms a raw data set into an acceptable format. It is performance, simplicity, and appealing charts have made Tableau a hit in the BI industry.
If you are a Data Analyst who has earlier worked with Microsoft Excel, then getting a Tableau certification will boost your career. Tableau Certification will help you understand and interpret data issues with the aid of programmed software. It is simple to learn, as well as easy to use.
Scope of Tableau Certification in the Future
Data Science is one of the top-most fields using Tableau for data management. So, yes, the scope of Tableau is very high in the upcoming years. With the irresistible evolution level of the existing amount of data and the demanding requirement of accurate decision making in all business domains of business, the Tableau tools increase the scope for data visualization. The time consumed to create and maintain the graphic packages is momentously abridged with the aid of Tableau.
The climbing demand on Tableau for business is not a sudden requirement, and we can see some reasoning behind the need. A few years ago, we did not deal with an immense amount of data, but that is not the case in the current days. Producing a more considerable amount of data and performing a few analyses is not a big deal as we have numerous tools to handle such scenarios.
Also Read: Are You Planning to Take the Tableau Desktop Certified Associate Exam? Here Are the Preparation Tips
Tableau has all the features and characters to fulfill his data analysis process with outstanding visualization, and hence Tableau has gained enormous popularity.
Benefits of Earning Tableau Certification
1. Tableau Experts Are in High Demand:
As opposed to the past nine to ten years, enterprises now generate a notable amount of data, approximately 60 times greater than what was being caused back then. Hence, enterprises worldwide need a tool that is user-friendly and analyzes information by developing functional and actionable insights from it. Different visualization tools are available in the market today. But Tableau is hugely preferred because it does the process faster and is more reliable. Hence, it is the best time to take a certification in Tableau and build a career in Tableau and Data Visualization.
2. Help Your Organization Grow:
With the aid of Tableau certification, non-technical people can now understand data and make data-driven decisions for their organizations’ growth.
3. Higher Pay with Tableau Certification:
Tableau professionals have a fulfilling career as they are very highly paid in the BI industry.
4. Professionals Can Opt for Different Roles:
Technologies such as Business Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Deep Learning, Internet of Things are spreading over to different industries. They are expected to grow even more in the future.
5. Take Opportunities to Work with Top Professional Organizations:
Tableau is now being used in almost all sectors: Education, Finance, Engineering, Healthcare, Insurance, etc. It has now become an essential part of our lives. Numerous enterprises like Facebook, General Motors, Sunguard, Dell, Verizon, KPMG, Bank of America, NetJets, Sony Electronics, etc., are on a frequent lookout for the best Tableau talent for the organization.
6. Tableau Professionals Have a Bright Future:
Tableau aids businesses as they support them to execute projects as well as compete with competitors. Professionals can understand and calculate the increasing trend by studying the market. As a Tableau professional, you can plan strategies by looking at the visual display on the dashboard and helping companies have a bright future.
Job Roles in Tableau
Are you confused about which is the best-suited Tableau job role for you? Well, in Tableau’s career, you get enough options to select as a job role. Here are some options which you might choose as a Tableau job role as per your convenience and skills:
Business Intelligence Developer
Data Analysts
Business Intelligence Manager
Business Intelligence Analysts
Tableau Consultant
Business Analysts
Today Tableau is building the automation of cataloging, mapping, natural language process, cloud, collaboration, and many more. For the performance of the big data, the data engines design its significance. Today small IT companies are often seen suffering from issues in Cloud Computing Trends. Experienced Tableau developers build the solution of data visualization to enhance the business process. Therefore, Tableau Certification is associated with various types of examinations.
Conclusion
Tableau is gradually but steadily becoming one of the most sought out Business Analytics Tools. Big and small scale companies have started to use it predominantly. Thereby having a Tableau certification will only add a feather to your cap. But, be known that it is not a mandate. However, having a Tableau certification comes in handy for you to take up challenging tasks and make them like a professional.
Now that you know the advantages of getting a Tableau certification, what are you waiting for? Get certified and do miracles in your career!
|
https://medium.com/@eronitascott/major-benefits-of-tableau-certification-you-must-know-71e9042c3f16
|
['Eronita Scott']
|
2020-12-25 11:31:39.122000+00:00
|
['Tableau Desktop', 'Tableau', 'Tableau Mock Test', 'Tableau Exam', 'Tableau Certification']
|
When a Relationship Changes and You Realise What You Are Feeling is Grief
|
The last few days I have felt a very deep and profound sadness which I now recognize as grief.
In actual fact, I have been in a state of turmoil for 3 months or so, caused by some issues with my teenage daughter. Her story to tell, not mine, but needless to say it involves the very stressful stretching of what could be considered as usual teenage rebellion.
After a very intense period of about 6 weeks (the worst time of my life, hands down), life has kind of gone back to normal. But not really at the same time.
Her behavior has left scars on all the family and some of her friends. Relationships have been altered, maybe irreparably. Or at least for a very long time. But I can’t bottle it or press it down any longer.
I have tried to be supportive of her during this time. Empathetic. Even though my heart was breaking and the extent of her lies to other people about her family was breathtaking. The deceit. The dishonesty. The sheer stress involved.
Who was this person?
Why would she do these things to herself and to us?
While I battled through the most intense stage of our nightmare, I held it together most of the time. Being strong for everyone else. Trying to stay calm. Trying to rationalize her behavior.
Taking refuge in long walks. Reading fiction. Daily yoga. Trying so hard not to disappear into a bottle of wine — unfortunately something I have done before.
Where was my emotion?
But occasionally I thought to myself: “Why aren’t I crying? Shouldn’t I be a mess?”
Were my anti-depressants numbing me? Was I kidding myself that things weren’t as serious as they really were? Was I taking some sort of false pride in holding it together for everyone else?
I did cry — once. After she sent me a long, rambling, and hurtful email about all my failings, not only as a mother but also simply as a person.
This from a girl who I thought was loving and kind. Who was always joyful and respectful to family members. Who had lots of friends. Who took pride in her school (where she has been since she was 4 years old) and her achievements. Who always seemed happy to have family dinners, to hang out with her Mum, and go on family holidays.
I understand that girls need to make an emotional and mental break from their mothers at some stage. To define their own identity and become their own woman. I did it to my Mum — I don’t think I spoke to her other than grunts for the whole year that I was 14. But we had got passed that age (she turned 18 last week) and so I thought I was one of the lucky ones that hadn’t suffered the nightmare that some of my friends have had with rude, dismissive and disrespectful daughters.
But now it was my turn and boy oh boy, had she saved it all up for one spectacular shit show.
Back to the email — it was amazingly awful. A punch to the heart which caused physical pain. I deleted the email, but not before I had printed it to tuck away in case I ever felt I needed to prove to myself that it had actually existed.
The trouble with crying sometimes? You can’t stop
Once those floodgates opened, I was on the floor sobbing as if my heart would break. Who was I kidding, it did break.
Irretrievably? No, of course not. She is my daughter after all. But definitely in a way that made me realize I couldn’t go to that place of misery. If I didn’t stop myself from crying — from feeling the piercing pain her words caused — then I didn’t know where I might end up, and I was too afraid to find out.
So I sucked it up. I rationalized her actions in sending her cruel, cruel words. She was hurt, she was lashing out, she is having mental health issues. A lot of her comments were projections of many of her behaviors.
Be strong. carry on.
Things have calmed down now, although they are still far from good. She is seeing a psychologist (good) but still lies and disregards our rules (not good).
We are avoiding confrontations because she has only about 6 weeks now until she sits her final school exams, for uni entrance. She is 18 and her school days will be behind her. She has had an early offer to the degree course she is interested in. All she needs is a “pass” in her core subjects.
Our goal is to get her to that point so that if she decides to maintain her behaviors then we can tell her she can no longer live at home. No more putting up with the “I’m 18 now so I can do what I want” that we have had to put up with just a week into her official adulthood.
And as much as I loathe to say those words (because I know she will use them as a weapon to bestow upon herself the ultimate martyrdom) I realise now that if things don’t change I will need to make that call because I can no longer live like this.
Because what I am feeling is such a profound sense of grief for the girl and the relationship I once had.
Who was I kidding? I am not just “sad” or “confused” or “worried”. I am grieving. I have a wailing ball of misery in my heart and I just want to curl up in a fetal position and sleep for days until I can wake up and discover it was all a bad dream.
Acknowledging the grief
Accepting that it is “grief” I feel and not just sadness or worry has been a revelation and also kind of freeing. It is ok to feel this way. It is normal in fact. It is ok to have days when I look at my beautiful girl, or photos from past happy times and lament mistakes we obviously made, or warning signs we failed to see.
I still want to shake her and scream “Who are you? Why are you doing this?” but I don’t think I should and in fact, I won’t because it may push her further away. So we tippy-toe around her,
So, what next? Self-care I suppose. Trying to stay healthy and accept what has happened, while also seeking out every opportunity to try and help and support her — in her positive behaviors at least.
I have two older boys who have also been scarred and need my love and support, and someone to help them deal with their anger.
We will get through this. We can and we must. For her, and for us.
But we need to heal the grief first.
|
https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/when-a-relationship-changes-and-you-realise-what-you-are-feeling-is-grief-7714b1d44d2f
|
['Lizzee Bee']
|
2020-10-12 23:03:00.526000+00:00
|
['Self-awareness', 'Relationships', 'Love', 'Grief', 'Life']
|
Cut the Fat from Your Writing
|
Cut the Fat from Your Writing
Image by magnetme from Pixabay
We want our writing to be our best, so we aim for clarity and accuracy in everything. But there’s another factor that can make our writing better and more impressive. It’s being concise, which is challenging since many of us over-write. Fatty articles dilute the impact of ourwriting, bore readers, and cause them to leave before the end. So, how do we cut the fat? These 5 methods will tighten our writing and ensure that it delivers a solid punch.
1. Eliminate irrelevant information.
A wise, brilliant writer and editor gave me some advice I have always followed: “You must have a reason for everything — graphic elements, color choices, information, quotes. Never do anything because it looks good or sounds good. It must serve a purpose.”
Relevant information has meaning either for our purpose or for our reader. Since it’s easy to become enamored of our voice and point of view, we often lose sight of the overarching purpose of the work and what our reader needs. The easiest way to find and eliminate irrelevance is to focus on our theme for the work and our paragraph structure. Each paragraph must add to our purpose and every sentence in each paragraph must relate to and support the topic sentence. If anything is unnecessary, cut it.
|
https://medium.com/on-being-a-writer/cut-the-fat-from-your-writing-6d4a5364aedd
|
['Patricia Haddock']
|
2020-12-24 01:44:38.477000+00:00
|
['Writing Tips', 'Writing', 'Professional Development', 'Freelancing', 'Editing']
|
UnicusOne NFT Marketplace Goes for Beta Launch with Smart Contract Audit
|
UnicusOne NFT Marketplace Goes for Beta Launch with Smart Contract Audit
Next-gen NFT marketplace Unicus has launched its beta version along with smart contract audit for public testing. The objective of beta testing is to identify security risks by testing the functionality of the smart contract. This will help evaluate the quality of the coding and its efficiency.
Smart contract audits are the first line of defence to safeguard investors’ funds. Quillhash, a leading blockchain code auditing firm, has checked the smart contract code for Unicus.
Launching a product in beta is knowingly releasing it with possible bugs to users. This enables an enterprise to observe how a product is performing when stretched. A beta launch has been a great way to identify the bugs and thereafter work to resolve them. A sub-par performance of a code during the beta phase helps smooth out the friction before the final version is released.
In blockchain-based products, beta launch generally comes after a smart contract audit that helps companies avoid potentially catastrophic vulnerabilities. An audit comprises automatic scans as well as expert reviews. Automatic scans via APIs and manual checking of code gives users peace of mind as they know the code is fortified.
Unicus is a one-of-a-kind marketplace for NFTs, resolving the existing pain-points in the ecosystem such as unauthorized NFTs, lack of value transfer across blockchain, and absence of loans against NFTs among others. On Unicus, traders find a cross-chain marketplace that is simple to work on and secure.
As a one-stop platform facilitating a full range of trading activities, Unicus enables traders play NFTs at their full potential. It has effectively plugged the gaps in the existing NFT marketplace ecosystem. The platform also offers advanced statistical and historical capabilities.
Unicus enables content creators to mint NFTs, add metadata and necessary code to the tokens to attain objectives such as continual payment of royalty to the original creator. Adding metadata is as simple as filling a form.
Native token of the marketplace is U1 with the total supply of 250 million tokens. It is deployed on the Binance Smart Chain followed by Polygon (Matic).
By June 2022, Unicus plans to launch NFTs for business assets as well.
|
https://medium.com/@unicus/unicusone-nft-marketplace-goes-for-beta-launch-with-smart-contract-audit-76545a3a9eeb
|
[]
|
2021-12-28 14:57:07.046000+00:00
|
['Nft Marketplace', 'Nft Collectibles', 'Binance Smart Chain', 'Nft', 'Polygon Matic']
|
How Rich People Absolutely Are Screwing Us and How We Can Fight Back
|
First, I didn’t “minimize” the fact that my Dad has two pensions.
One is small enough to be insignificant. The other is modest but meaningful enough to matter. And I discussed in the above-mentioned article and elsewhere how to mimic a pension simply by using a simple savings account or three.
Okay, I’m done being defensive.
Side note: As a writer, the best thing I have learned over the years is don’t be defensive. I used to respond defensively to comments on the regular. Now I limit myself to like once a quarter. This makes for better writing and a happier life!
Second, here’s the problem with Bruce Suitt’s second paragraph.
It completely ignores time, place, and experience. It ignores context.
It fails to take into account the dynamics that shape other people’s lives and how, even if they’re different and outdated, we can learn from them. We can take the perspective of others and adapt the still-relevant parts of their experience to our present way of living. To how we want to live now.
In combination with some of the other negative responses to the article about my parents, it highlights the toxic situation we’re in, thanks to the handful of super-rich people who — unfortunately — dominate so many of our conversations about money.
When I wrote about exiting the stock market — and subsequently leaving money on the table — a gaggle of readers simply couldn’t begin to comprehend why I would do such a thing. For all intents and purposes, most of their responses focused on getting rich.
The idea that you can forgo greed in favor of cash security amid low expenses simply didn’t resonate. While we can chalk a significant portion of this mindset up to little more than the American experience and view of money, these billionaires and the small number of Reddit warriors who made a lot of cash deserve attention, if not blame.
We’re not being directly screwed because other people have so much. We’re not being directly screwed because a super tiny percentage of the population got lucky and got rich quick.
This inequality doesn’t tend to impact those of us in relatively privileged positions. The impact occurs in a more indirect line.
We’re screwing ourselves by creating this crazy narrative in our heads after being inundated with stories of billionaires getting richer during the pandemic and so-called bandit traders allegedly getting rich quick on meme stocks.
This is not only a crazy narrative, it’s completely false.
This January Medium article from the Marker Editors might have summed it best:
If you park your $600 in the S&P 500, you, too, can be a billionaire… in approximately 223 years. Maybe a few years sooner if those $2,000 checks come through, too.
This is the reality, dude!
Once we embrace this reality and stop trying to be other people, we can continue on with the feasible and righteous business of getting our individual personal financial situations in order.
We all need to do one or more of the following:
Develop — at a basic level — healthier relationships with money.
Take our money situations from relative disarray to some semblance of decent or better.
Improve an already improving — if not already good or solid — relationship with money and personal financial situation.
We’re not gonna get there on any of these points if we look at the lingerie or underwear model in the magazine and attempt to shape our bodies in their likeness.
It’s wholly unrealistic. It’s toxic. It’s a recipe for angst, if not outright depression.
We need better role models for our money.
This is why I brought up Mom and Dad. I didn’t expect the snark and negativity. Granted, it came from a relatively small segment of the reading audience, but it still came.
Yeah, my Dad worked until he was 70. I lived with him for a significant portion of his working years.
You didn’t.
And I can tell you he was happy. Still is.
Even now — when I think I know everything even more than I did when I was a teenager — I would never prescribe a different way of living for him. He was and still is a product of his time.
I worked a couple summers with him at his job at the local housing authority. We had fun at work.
My Dad had this knack of working really hard and getting everything done — and done well — while maintaining this air of us fucking off all the time.
Do I want my Dad’s life or his retirement? Absolutely not.
At the same time, he doesn’t want my life. Not then. Not now. He could not have possibly adapted to the life I lead and the specific where and how I lead it. It would produce an anxiety that would prevent him from being happy.
However, this doesn’t mean we can’t learn from him — and probably your parents as well. It also doesn’t mean he — or they — can’t learn from us.
We must be self-aware and mature enough to look at other people’s lives and place them in the proper context, then take what we can productively carry and leave the rest.
We’re going to get a lot further with our money gleaning from 76–year old men and women than from modern-day billionaires who don’t give a damn about us. We’re gonna get glimpses of what to do from our elders as well as what not to do. Because there sure as hell is a lot about them, we should not emulate.
Even if you have shitty, deadbeat parents, you can learn from them. I take the cue from less-than-desirable old people all of the time.
As they become more cynical, jaded, and bitter over time, sitting in their chairs watching cable news and bitching, I’m like there — that’s exactly what I do not want to and will not become.
You’re not going to become anything worth becoming in life and with money, if you shape yourself in the image of the most extreme cases in society (e.g., billionaires), some of which the media absolutely over-hypes (i.e., day traders and social media warriors).
|
https://themakingofamillionaire.com/how-rich-people-absolutely-are-screwing-us-and-how-we-can-fight-back-65ccbf41ea8b
|
['Rocco Pendola']
|
2021-04-01 14:32:27.624000+00:00
|
['Investing', 'Personal Finance', 'Money', 'Billionaires', 'Parents']
|
Binance Weekly Report | Dec. 3–9, 2018
|
The Binance Weekly Report is a roundup of the latest updates within the Binance ecosystem. We also provide a recap on some of the biggest news in the blockchain world, in the Around the Blockchain Universe segment. See last week’s Binance Weekly Report here.
1. New preview for Binance DEX
This past week, a new preview of the upcoming Binance DEX went live. Binance DEX is made by the blockchain community, for the blockchain community, with support from Binance developers, as part of advancing our mission to spread the freedom of money. Watch the video below for more details.
2. Binance launches sub-accounts feature
With our new sub-account feature, we are moving one step closer to a comprehensive, full-stack offering for institutional clients. For more information on corporate accounts, reach out to us at [email protected], or check out our FAQ to learn more.
3. CZ speaks at Forbes Asia Forum, shows Binance tattoo
During the “Forbes Asia Forum: Decrypting Blockchain For Business” in Singapore, CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao shared his thoughts on several hot topics in the blockchain world, from stable coins and the current market to the upcoming Binance Chain. He even showed his newly-inked tattoo. To watch the full interview, click here.
And to read CZ’s story on how he got the tattoo, as well as the history of Binance’s logo, click here.
4. Catch CZ and more at the upcoming Binance Blockchain Week.
Want to hear more from CZ and other notable industry leaders? Join us at the Binance Blockchain Week in Singapore from 19 to 22 January 2019. The event will highlight two large-scale events over the four days: a two-day hackathon known as the Binance SAFU Hackathon, followed by the Binance Conference. Tickets will go on sale this week.
5. Binance Labs prepares for #BUIDLers Day
Binance Labs is busy preparing for #BUIDLers Day on December 14, where Season 1 incubation program projects will be revealed. But before that, Labs and Garry Tan, managing partner at Initialized Capital, coached the project teams on their pitches.
Meanwhile, Binance Labs Director Ling Zhang was a featured speaker and panelist at laBITconf in Buenos Aires, talking about funding strategies in the crypto space.
|
https://medium.com/binanceexchange/binance-weekly-report-dec-3-9-2018-14805d8c649b
|
[]
|
2018-12-10 09:04:46.246000+00:00
|
['Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Weekly Update', 'Binance', 'Cryptocurrency']
|
Wild Rift/LoL Support (Build Tests 2022 — FWSE Sports)
|
ROUND 4
Page: (inhales sharply) “Riot Games, I lagged out on the Accept screen to start the match, which I could’ve been punished for if your game kept it up like it always does.
When following my duo, I lagged in the jungle and in my lane, on perfect WIFI, for absolutely NO REASON! We were already skimming the surface with the team we were facing, but when I lagged TF out, we lost indefinitely. We had a tanked out team and I was willing to carry as a mage all the way through, but that didn’t happen, did it?
Thanks for cucking my play, then punishing your players when your shitty servers can’t handle my timezones.
But, anyways, teams got harder and I guess I panicked or overthough with building. Only cool thing worth remembering was stealing Baron in the 17 assist match with my ult, clenching a tight win!
Also, played a rare solo match, Lucian is pretty good at, especially against Thresh. There was a hilarious moment where he was low health: I tried to go for a kill, but he dragged me into the towers and merked me…lucky play; overall, my team didn’t do well in their lanes..so…”
|
https://medium.com/@leweitgo74/wild-rift-lol-support-build-tests-2022-fwse-sports-ca829e27f9df
|
[]
|
2021-12-23 20:18:40.614000+00:00
|
['Wild Rift', 'League of Legends', 'Esport']
|
Bitcoin Madenciliği: Nasıl Çalışır? [2.Bölüm]
|
in In Fitness And In Health
|
https://medium.com/kriptotek/bitcoin-madencili%C4%9Fi-nas%C4%B1l-%C3%A7al%C4%B1%C5%9F%C4%B1r-2-b%C3%B6l%C3%BCm-c4d9775183f3
|
['Melih Çöl']
|
2018-03-20 21:03:15.585000+00:00
|
['Bitcoin', 'Bitcoin Madenciliği', 'Bitcoin Mining']
|
Getting Closer to Mega Project at Amal Academy
|
The problem is to remove pollution, keep environment clean and green. Also help needy people through food, education and financial assistance to eradicate poverty.
a. I found garbage on roads, streets and in public places (e.g Parks, Bus stations etc.) when I go outside. And there’s few trees and plants across roads and in public places.
Garbage on roads
Garbage on streets
Garbage inside the public parks
I want to work for environment to keep it clean and green by removing pollution and planting trees and greenery across roads, streets and in public places. As you know Pakistan is badly affected by climate changes. This is very easy and simplest way to make climate better by growing plants and trees.
In Pakistan poverty is one of the major issue due to people are not able to give quality food, quality education. They have not any financial assistance or work to do.
Poor children is picking up garbage
Have not quality food to eat
No quality of education
Also I want to help needy people by providing food, education and financial assistance. For this I would arrange some online seminars or competitions for fundraising.
#GettingCloserToMegaProject
|
https://medium.com/@muhammadbilal1047/getting-closer-to-mega-project-at-amal-academy-96b52a3e6ce8
|
['Muhammad Bilal']
|
2020-12-26 02:28:11.845000+00:00
|
['Amal Academy', 'Amal Fellowship', 'Amal Mega Project']
|
Texas Commissioner’s Facebook Post Suggests “Muslim World” Be Nuked
|
By: editors
The elected Republican official recently shared a Facebook photo of a mushroom cloud, suggesting an atomic bomb to be used on Muslim countries for “peace.”
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, whose Facebook page is usually filled with farm jokes and extremely patriotic quotes, has recently come under fire for a social media post that proposes bombing the “Muslim world” in the name of peace.
The photo, which Miller reposted from another Facebook page Patriots IV Drip 2 — an anti-Obama group known for their Islamophobic rhetoric — looked like it was taken from Nevada nuclear tests in 1957. Accompanied with some hateful hashtags, the photo read: “Japan has been at peace with the U.S. since August 9, 1945. It’s time we made peace with the Muslim world.”
Although the Republican’s campaign Facebook page soon removed the photo, the damage had already been done.
The hateful meme, suggesting the deadly weapon that killed tens of thousands of innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki be used in middle-eastern countries, sparked an outrage among Texas Democrats.
“It is unacceptable for Republican Sid Miller to be promoting such disgusting rhetoric. Sadly, this kind of racist, xenophobic hate speech qualifies you for higher office with Republicans’ Tea Party fringe base,” stated Manny Garcia, Texas Democratic party deputy executive director. “We hope Sid Miller shows some respect for Texans and the responsibility of holding state office and issues an apology.”
Read More: Here’s What The Media Won’t Tell You About Mass Shootings And Muslims
However, Miller’s campaign spokesperson alleges that the commissioner did not share the photo himself as he is currently in China. To make the matters worse, he also made it perfectly clear that Miller will not apologize.
“We’re not going to apologize for the posts that show up on our Facebook page,” said Todd Smith, the Republican’s campaign spokesman. “I don’t know who did it, but I’m not going to start a witch hunt to find out who did.”
He estimated that about 18 people have access to the campaign account.
“I read the post this morning, and we’re at the 60th (sic) anniversary of dropping the atom bomb in order to destroy an insidious enemy that was intent on destroying American lives, and we face a similar enemy who has vowed to destroy American lives, and I think that’s the topic that the American people are focused on,” Smith added.
Whether Miller himself posted the image or someone else did, one thing is for certain. While posting such an outrageous thing on social media is a questionable sentiment for anyone, it’s a particularly bad idea for an elected government official.
Sid Miller served in the Texas House of Representatives for 12 years prior to his election as the state’s agriculture commissioner, and this is not the first time he has made headlines for his anti-Muslim remarks.
Earlier this year, the commissioner told a crowd in Austin that he worries his grandchildren would one day live in an America that was a “Muslim country.”
Recommended: This Campaign Is Fighting Islamophobia By Showing Islam’s Real Message
Carbonated.TV
|
https://medium.com/carbonated-tv/texas-commissioner-s-facebook-post-suggests-muslim-world-be-nuked-d62aed7201a0
|
[]
|
2015-08-18 19:55:21.265000+00:00
|
['Facebook', 'Islam', 'Islamophobia']
|
User guidance: how to provide meaningful feedback to users
|
On part 1 of this series, we talked about adding friction to improve UX. I’d like now to highlight the importance of user feedback in the product.
A big part of the success of this new version of selfie video is the way we handle user guidance.
Recording a video of your face following actions on the screen is not easy. Many of our users have never done anything like it before. It was crucial for us to provide users with tips and feedback to guide them through the process.
The selfie video verification starts with a simple task: “position your face in the oval”. To help users to be correctly positioned, we’ve added face detection to this step. We didn’t overthink it, and the first iteration was straightforward: once a face is detected, the experience moves onto the next step.
Detecting a face is really, really fast for a machine. Fast is great! We were very happy with our face detection performances. Then, we tested it with users. Their feedback was not encouraging:
“What just happened?” “I think there’s a glitch” “Wow, I didn’t have time to look at that screen, what happened?”
We were trying to go too fast, users didn’t have enough time to understand what was going on. We decided to add more visual feedback to this step. We also added a small delay that gives users time to scan the screen and understand what’s happening.
When the face is detected, the next step is for users to turn the head to the side for a few seconds before looking back at the screen.
The main problem we noticed here was that users looked to the side… and stayed that way. They were peeking at the screen with the head facing the side in a very uncomfortable position. We painfully watched videos of people stuck in this position for seconds, waiting for something to happen on their phone.
We partially solved this problem with our revamped introduction screen that shows how to do the head turn correctly.
We also improved the capture experience itself to help users while they are doing the head turn.
When people turn their head, they don’t look at the screen anymore. This is a crucial moment where we can’t rely on visual feedback anymore, because they are not looking at the interface.
We added haptic feedback to the experience. In more common words: we played with phone vibrations.
Talking about vibration patterns on Slack was always straightforward
We ran user testing sessions to test different vibration patterns. It was important for us to understand how people react to different types of haptic feedback.
We finally settled on a different vibration pattern for positive and negative feedback. The goal was to make users noticed something happened when they were not looking, and push them to look back at the screen where they would see a helpful message.
When users are turning their head, we’re detecting their movement to let them know how much they still need to move. This allows us to get a perfect video, ready to be analysed for fraud.
As a final step, we’ve added a playback of the video at the end of the experience.
In the previous version of this feature, users were not able to look back at the video they recorded. We made that decision because we didn’t want people to focus too much on how they look. In the end, this video won’t be public in any way. Its goal was to be a good enough selfie video that can get users verified.
We changed our minds after user research. We want to give more power to our users. They should be able decide what to submit for identity verification.
Replaying the video helped us reduce the number of failed verifications due to low-light settings, or videos where the sound was defective.
|
https://medium.com/onfido-tech/user-guidance-how-to-provide-meaningful-feedback-to-users-212378fefb32
|
['Charlotte Sferruzza']
|
2020-01-25 17:53:43.282000+00:00
|
['UX', 'Feedback', 'User Experience', 'Mobile']
|
Málaga. Life in a Spanish city.
|
When I moved from Germany to Manchester in 1992, I was determined to fully integrate into life in England. No German TV, no German friends, total dedication to learning the language and fitting in. I think I made a very good fist of it and the UK became my home for almost 25 years.
Almost six years ago, my wife and I emigrated to Spain and set out for this to be a similar experience, hoping to learn and adapt as quickly as possible. It has been a different one for several reasons (more about that another time) and things are about to change, as we are moving from the village of Benahavís, just inland from the Costa del Sol, to a very different life in Malaga’s vibrant Centro Histórico.
Benahavís village
Alameda Principal in Málaga
This regular blog will look at many different aspects of life in Spain with the eyes of an immigrant. It will touch on subjects like lifestyle, food, culture, traditions, integration, practical tips, random observations, personal experiences, but also discuss the opportunities and challenges of living in another country. This won’t be a “isn’t it great to live in your holidays” blog (I borrowed that line from the very funny @barcajim3 on Twitter).
I will also be adding my own photos to the blog to give a taste of life in this part of Spain. Photography has become my passion in recent years and I will be sharing some of my favourite images on here.
Churros y chocolate at Casa Aranda. Naughty, but so nice.
In a couple of weeks, we will finally be completing our move to Málaga and then the exciting and nerve-racking bit begins. Settling into the hustle and bustle of life in a Spanish city centre, meeting new neighbours, starting to shop locally, using the many small, independent stores in the Centro Histórico and of course, the thankless task of discovering the sheer endless choice of bars and restaurants. Then the basics (but essentials), like picking the regular Café for breakfast or at which Kiosko to buy the daily newspaper (preferably run by a Malaguista, so I won’t have to discuss Real Madrid first thing in the morning).
Taking on the rather daunting task of exploring the Aladdin’s Cave that is the Mercado de Atarazanas food market, just a few metres from our new home. Which of the many stands sell the best fish and seafood (never mind learning about the dozens of different varieties), meats, locally grown fruit, vegetables, spices and other specialities? And when is the best time to shop?
Málaga’s iconic Mercado de Atarazanas food market
So much choice. What is what and how much to buy? A little intimidating at first.
Taking advantage of the tranquility of the city first thing in the morning, enjoying sunrises and sunsets on the beach (after living in a village that was surrounded by hills), learning to live with the stifling Málaga weather phenomenon Terral, the suddenly appearing el taró fog or the packed streets at weekends and around Christmas.
Málaga, city on the beach.
Enjoy and survive the Málaga Feria in August (post-COVID) and take advantage of the city’s incredible cultural offering. Discover walks and views, villages and towns around Málaga and Andalucía, getting our labrador Chocky to settle into city life and meet new friends at Parque de El Morlaco.
And then there will be that very first walk from home to La Rosaleda, when fans are finally allowed back to watch Málaga CF play at home since March 2020 ( I think there might be a few tears). I watched Málaga for five years without having a beer, as we were living 80 kilometres away from the stadium. No more struggling for a parking space or having to leave just before the end of the game to avoid the traffic.
Stop saying ‘gracias’ too often (a habit that’s difficult to shed as a Western European), being good neighbours, learn some of the Málaga expressions and dare to use them, but most importantly, continue to improve our Spanish, which is absolutely essential for living and integrating in this or any other country (whatever some people might tell you). To be accepted by the locals and for Málaga to become home.
There are so many things to learn, discover and experience. I hope this blog will be an interesting look at this journey and life in a Spanish city. More to come soon.
|
https://medium.com/@ChristianMachowski/m%C3%A1laga-life-in-a-spanish-city-faa4705b8583
|
['Christian Machowski']
|
2021-07-19 14:37:44.024000+00:00
|
['Spain', 'Málaga', 'Andalucia', 'Photography']
|
The Sandpaper People Need You
|
Who are the sandpaper people?
They are the ones who:
say hurtful things to you
do hurtful things to you
take revenge on others
gossip and judge
point fingers
are always negative
Need I go on? The sandpaper people are the broken ones. The lost, sad, hurt, broken and angry. Very fucking angry. And they lash out. Unfortunately, they usually lash out at the people they love.
I used to be a sandpaper person.
You might have been at one time or maybe you still are one. That’s ok. I’m not here to judge and besides, nobody is perfect, amirite?
So the main problem with sandpaper people is that they don’t realize they are broken. They think they and their life is fine. But nothing could be further from the truth.
They are sandpaper people because they haven’t healed their brokenness yet. They still have open wounds. But they don’t see that. Only we can see that.
On the flip side of that, they may know they have deep wounds and demons but just don’t care to heal from them. It makes me sad to think this.
|
https://medium.com/@ivaursano/the-sandpaper-people-need-you-dd9740665f64
|
['Iva Ursano']
|
2020-12-19 20:43:23.485000+00:00
|
['Kindness', 'Healing', 'Toxic People', 'Relationships', 'Awareness']
|
The UK Is Best At Everything, Of Course It Is!
|
That’s cool, it means Boris now has a world-beating Covid strain to go with his world-beating track & trace system, not! The following may offend a few but I hope you can also see the funny side of it in my gallows humour.
I actually thought they had come up with this new strain as a story to put fear into people to stay at home over Xmas. If it’s gonna come let it rip and do it’s darnedest I guess is now the only way forward. Let it be God’s cull of us oldies and the weakest, as a friend of mine said the other day, “at least it’s cheaper than another war.” Even that they’d probably condone right now to make more money for their mates.
If the Tories had funded the NHS better instead of cutting it back and privatising half of it, the NHS might have been able to cope and we wouldn’t have needed a lockdown to kill the economy and make 70% of the businesses and people bankrupt by the end of the year.
It’s nonsensical stuff, is there someone in Downing Street with a joy stick, making up more stupid rules? Are we in a new X-Box game to see who we can make Stand up, Sit Down, wear a Mask, don’t wear a mask? Sit in a coffeehouse all day but don’t sit in a pub and if you do sit on a table on your own, leave early and go to bed, there’s a good boy! I feel like I’m in a Boris led party game. This lot couldn’t run the proverbial orgy in a brothel or piss-up in a brewery. They are more interested in their stupid Brexit game that is going tits-up daily, that one that would be the easiest deal ever, that the EU would be begging us to trade, while lorries queue the full length of the motorway to try to leave the UK, Boris fiddles while the rest of us burn.
Then they put out Hancock’s Half-arsed Hour, sending the hapless Health Secretary around the networks to cry his eyes out because we’re first out with a ‘British’ vaccine, oh yeah that one made and invented by a Swiss Company and manufactured in Belgium. They are typical liars following their boss in his habit.
But it’s ok, he and his mates will be fine as they’ve all had their bungs from the government for supplying crap PPE to the NHS, this corrupt bunch of old Etonian Toffs. This the worst government in living memory still has another few years to go. Let’s see what else they can destroy, perhaps William Hills will start a book on Boris’s next fuck-up! After all, he’s fucked-up every other job he’s ever done, so why couldn’t the people see it coming. I for one was not at all surprised.
All I get from his die-hard supporters are “Corbyn wouldn’t have done any better,” as they grimly support their Waffling Wally PM, while the new Labour Party leader Kier Starmer upstages him weekly in Parliament and makes positive suggestions a week before, gets ridiculed for making them, then Boris takes those ideas up the week after. Have they lost their powers of reason? It makes me want to get the old fancy dress outfits out for New Year’s Eve and dance around as a Waffling Boris look-a-like or Ronald McFuckingDonald, stand in the corner and rub my lips and blow raspberries. I’ll still get pissed as usual on Xmas Eve and see the New Year in with a bottle of champagne, wherever I end up because that’s all there is to do when you can’t control your life for whatever crazy scheme the Tories come up with next. I’m climbing the Tiers that much I’ll be joining Santa on my roof, you couldn’t make it up could you?
The only one who’ll be happy is Priti Ugly Patel the anti-immigration Home Office Minister from an immigrant family because the number of people trying to leave the country is going up daily. But we are all now locked in, perhaps the UK’s history of sending convicts to Australia will be reversed as we’ll be used as a Devil’s or Lepers Island to send their convicts to. We’re living it now, the old Monty Python sketch “Alms for an ex-leper” as he goes “One minute, I’m a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood’s gone! Not so much as a by-your-leave!”
credit to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTJFwwJ7VF8
|
https://medium.com/@bgt00847/the-uk-is-best-at-everything-of-course-it-is-2e7574c3e933
|
['Byron George']
|
2020-12-21 13:11:51.248000+00:00
|
['UK Politics', 'Politics', 'UK', 'Covid 19', 'Boris Johnson']
|
I’m So Glad She Wasn’t Told To ‘Calm Down’
|
One doctor said to my mother, “We think she has a learning disorder. She might need to be put on medication.” ADHD hadn’t been invented yet or they might’ve lumped her in that category which is what many doctors do nowadays.
She sat in the doctors' office while her mother talked to the doctor about what they could do with her.
They also talked about all the problems she was having at school. She was disturbing the other kids, her homework was always late and she was not good at paying attention to the teachers.
After a long discussion about her behavioral issues, the doctor said, “Wait here. Gillian. I need to speak with your mother privately. We won’t be long.”
Her mother and doctor got up to leave the room but before they left, the doctor turned on the radio.
The minute they left the room Gillian was on her feet. She began dancing wildly and happily.
|
https://medium.com/change-your-mind/im-so-glad-she-wasn-t-told-to-calm-down-9fcd424bb9b
|
['Michelle Monet']
|
2019-11-17 17:03:18.014000+00:00
|
['Creativity', 'Short Story', 'Dance', 'Art', 'Mental Health']
|
Leetcode: Sort Colors Python Solution
|
Photo by Hitesh Choudhary on Unsplash
The Question:
Given an array nums with n objects colored red, white, or blue, sort them in-place so that objects of the same color are adjacent, with the colors in the order red, white, and blue.
Here, we will use the integers 0 , 1 , and 2 to represent the color red, white, and blue respectively.
We are given a follow up and told to solve this problem without using the library’s sort function and also whether we can up with a one-pass algorithm using only 0(1) constant space.
Here is an example of how the output should look like once solved
Input: nums = [2,0,2,1,1,0]
Output: [0,0,1,1,2,2]
This is a leetcode medium level question.common during coding interviews as well! See, the obvious or rather straightforward solution here would be using a counting sort whereby, you first iterate the array counting the numbers of zeros,ones, and twos and then overwriting the array with the total number of zeros,ones and followed by twos. However this solution has a space limitation. It’s space complexity is 0(n) which means it will be need more space should the array be bigger. Hence the reason why we are being asked whether we can come up with a one-pass algorithm using only constant-space
The Solution:
The most optimal way of solving this would be to divide the array into three parts and have a left pointer, current pointer, and right pointer.
Then we will iterate the array and check whether the current pointer is equals to zero and if it is equal we get to swap with the left pointer, at the same time incrementing our current and left pointer.
We also check whether the current pointer is equals to two whereby if it is equal we go ahead and swap the current pointer with the right pointer while decrementing the right.
We will keep doing this until the current pointer is less than or equals to the right pointer. After this is done, our array will get sorted.
Here is the solution in Code:
Sort Colors
And there you go! We have solved the problem in constant space using a one pass algorithm. I hope that this article serves to give you a picture of how to approach this problem during coding interviews. For a more detailed description watch how I solve the problem on my channel.
See you on the next coding problem!
|
https://medium.com/@celinesurai/leetcode-sort-colors-python-solution-58ceb53b7c64
|
['Celine Surai']
|
2020-12-16 20:03:58.176000+00:00
|
['Leetcode', 'Python', 'Software Development', 'Software Engineering', 'Coding Interviews']
|
7 Ways to Feng Shui a Cubicle, Desk or Entire Office
|
Want to make your work environment less stressful?
Then consider bring feng shui to your cubicle or office.
Feng shui is an ancient Chinese art still practiced today that relies on spatial arrangement and orientation to channel specific energy (including success and productivity) into a physical environment.
The principals of feng shui can help infuse your work space with balance, focus and productivity.
Take a cue from unicorn entrepreneurs like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates, both of whome incorporate feng shui to increase their productivity.
Discover 7 ways to feng shui your cubicle!
1. Get rid of clutter ASAP.
The first step to bringing feng shui to your cubicle is cutting the clutter.
Clutter does not make for a productive work space.
Not only can documents and to-do lists get lost in piles of irrelevant paperwork, but it can throw off your mindset when sitting down to do work.
Make it a task at the beginning and end of each day to clear your space of trash and clutter so you are free to focus on work.
This will give you more room physically to work on tasks, as well as free up more mental space and wipe away any unnecessary stress.
2. Be mindful when incorporating color.
People don’t typically think of an office cubicle as a creative space — but you can change that!
All you have to do is bring some color into your cubicle to boost innovation.
According to the principles of feng shui, you should be surrounded by colors that drive the space’s energy and vibes.
When you bring feng shui to a cubicle or office, keep in mind that different colors have different energies and bring about different outcomes.
For example:
Green: improves health and balance
Blue: supports career success and growth
Yellow: represents happiness and good times
White: brings creative energy
If you’re looking to destress, you can incorporate earth tones in your office.
Or, if you’re looking to drive up your energy during the day, incorporate vibrant hues like red, orange and happiness-driving yellow.
3. Bring nature into your cubicle.
Even if you can’t face a window or sit outside when working, it’s critical to incorporate nature into your environment.
To do so, just buy a few plants and succulents to place around your desk.
Be sure to choose pieces that add to your space and don’t overwhelm it.
Also, keep in mind how much care you can give to the plants — no one likes to have dead leaves falling on their keyboard!
4. Invest in a good chair.
While it often goes unthought of, your chair is probably the most important part of your cubicle.
It’s where you spend most of your time working and investing in a comfortable chair can have an enormous pay-off.
The first rule to increase positive energy in your cubicle is to ensure that your chair has a high back.
This will leave you feeling more supported within your workspace.
You may also want to consider the color of the chair, as well as its placement.
Ideally, your chair should be facing a bright and airy space.
Also, if possible, avoid sitting directly in front of doorways — this can often pull energy away from your space!
5. Move your desk.
If you can, move your desk so that it faces the entrance of your office.
When you face the entrance, it puts you in a commanding position where you face not the entrance and the world.
This, of course, isn’t necessarily possible if you work in a cubicle — but there’s a workaround.
Hang a mirror above your desk so that you can see your cubicle entrance at all times!
6. Make your office a home.
Feng shui is all about bringing positive energy into your life, so it’s important to surround yourself with things that make you happy.
When deciding how to decorate, be selective of how much you bring into your office.
Hang up pictures with family of friends that spark happy memories or frame inspirational quotes that will motivate you.
By doing this, everything in your cubicle will serve a purpose, whether it’s supposed to spark joy, decrease stress or ignite creativity.
7. Check your personal energy.
Following the rules of feng shui is a great way to re-energize your office, but it isn’t a quick fix for all the obstacles you may face at work.
The only way you can bring positivity into your space and overcome challenges is if you allow it.
It’s essential to check in with yourself everyday and reflect on the energy that you’re bringing into the office.
Take a few minutes at the beginning, middle and end of each day to work through how you’re feeling.
If you find yourself stressed, take a step back and try to reset your energy.
By doing this, you’re truly embracing the practice of feng shui.
Be a Unicorn in a Sea of Donkeys
Get my very best Unicorn marketing & entrepreneurship growth hacks:
2. Sign up for occasional Facebook Messenger Marketing news & tips via Facebook Messenger.
About the Author
Larry Kim is the CEO of MobileMonkey — provider of the World’s Best Facebook Messenger Marketing Platform. He’s also the founder of WordStream.
You can connect with him on Facebook Messenger, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram.
Do you want a Free Facebook Chatbot builder for your Facebook page? Check out MobileMonkey!
Originally posted on Inc.com
|
https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/7-ways-to-feng-shui-a-cubicle-desk-or-entire-office-807f49ff25c8
|
['Larry Kim']
|
2019-09-13 09:51:01.887000+00:00
|
['Marketing', 'Life', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Office Furniture', 'Feng Shui']
|
We Can All Use a Little More Happiness Right Now
|
Hey there, It’s Christine Bradstreet, the founder and editor of Change Your Mind Change Your Life.
Since you get value from the pieces here at the publication, I think you’ll also enjoy a new book.
Launching a new book during a pandemic? Is that a good thing? Who knows, but we don’t believe in limitations here, right?
I’ve published Happy Ever After: The Guide for Lifelong Happiness. It’s a book on growing genuine and lifelong happiness, the type of happiness that can’t be taken away from you no matter what sort of craziness is happening in the world. We can all use more of that right now.
(There’s also an optional companion journal to work through as you read the book.)
You can use the links within the letter above, or use this link to take you to happyeverafter.info.
Thank you for being part of this family. Stay well,
Christine
|
https://medium.com/change-your-mind/we-can-all-use-a-little-more-happiness-right-now-2098a811af70
|
['Dr. Christine Bradstreet']
|
2020-11-16 17:38:19.302000+00:00
|
['Happiness', 'Mindset', 'Self Improvement', 'Personal Growth', 'Spirituality']
|
BSC Development Quick Reference Guide
|
About Binance Smart Chain
Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is a sovereign smart contract blockchain delivering Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible programmability and running parallel with Binance Chain. By introducing the Proof of Stake Authority (PoSA) consensus mechanism, BSC has created an ecosystem that allows nodes, token holders, developers, and users to benefit from the blockchain.
This article is a quick start guide for BSC developers, hoping to provide developers with help.
Get Your BSC Wallet Ready
In the blockchain world, digital wallet is not the actual container for cryptocurrencies. Rather, it stores pairs of encryption keys that represents ownership at certain address. Each pair of keys stored in digital wallets consists of a public key that is needed to initiate transactions and a matching private key for transaction encryptions and decryptions. Therefore, ownership of keypairs confers full control of the cryptocurrencies at the address associated to the keypairs. In development stage, we create randomized keypairs and a piece of address information through our digital wallet, with which we are able to receive from or send to cryptocurrencies to others. And this is why we have to get our wallet ready for development.
We highly recommend to use Browser Plugin Wallet or Wallet App to manage keypairs while developing on Binance Smart Chain.
Browser Plugin Wallet
Browser plugin wallet is the most popular choice in blockchain development. It’s easy to set up, install and access the wallet in the browser. Besides that, since majority of blockchain applications are web-based, browser plugin wallet gives an intuitive access to pretty much all DeFi and NFT apps available on the market.
MetaMask and Tutorial
Please note, Binance Chain Wallet supports both Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain(BSC) and they are two distinctive blockchains that sometimes confuses people.
Wallet App
When a smart contract goes live, most of its users access it through a wallet app of their choice.
|
https://medium.com/@obsidianlabs/bsc-development-quick-reference-guide-a8f88ec3b3a0
|
['Obsidian Labs']
|
2021-06-21 11:15:21.639000+00:00
|
['Binance Smart Chain', 'Dapps', 'Smart Contract Blockchain', 'Developer Tools', 'Blockchain']
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.