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Renewable Energy and Your Health | J. Joseph Marr, MD
Energy Usage and Sources
We no longer can continue to pollute our atmosphere nor ignore the very noticeable changes in our climate. It is certain that we are well into the Anthropocene era. We are the first species to evolve that has the capacity to damage or even destroy the planet on which we live. Yet we are addicted to inexpensive energy and, like most addicts, cannot kick the habit.
Part of the difficulty is that we approach renewable energy as a zero-sum game to be played out in the short run. The reality is that a changeover will require years and the development of new technology to bring about a conversion. The bloviating of arbitrarily timed goals for political purposes solves nothing. If the economics are not there, the change will not occur. The most recent example of this is the use of coal: it was the availability of inexpensive natural gas that allowed the use of coal to diminish. All the political promises and legislation would have done nothing if there had been no alternative power source. When the inexpensive alternative appeared, the collapse of the coal industry was rapid and will prove to be permanent. To live on earth requires more than just a nod to pragmatism.
The conversion to sustainable energy will indeed be a zero-sum game, but one played out over several years — and that makes all the difference. The petroleum companies will play a role in this. They have the size and funds to initiate new ventures and decades of knowledge about energy development and use. They already have entered into alternative energy ventures individually and as consortia and will put their vast experience to use. When one considers the array of possibilities for energy generation, such as: wave movement and warm currents in the oceans; solar power in its varied forms; geothermal sources; nuclear fission; the burning of hydrogen instead of methane; new battery technology that will boost the efficiency and longevity of stored electricity, can one imagine that petroleum companies will not morph into energy companies?
Pushing this change are the alternative energy companies, large and small. The unavoidable example is Tesla which has become so large and influential that it now is a member of the S&P 500 stock index. Just the fact of its existence makes clear that monumental change is coming. Solar power companies now operate in a global market when not even a decade ago there was doubt that the business was viable. One has only to mention Iceland to evoke all the possibilities of geothermal power. France has used nuclear power for decades.
The changeover is happening. We are in the midst of it. It will play out over time and it will not be an abrupt change. Rather, the gradual introduction of a new technologies or economic gains that were not there before. Consider the example of the mRNA vaccines for COVID-19. These were theoretically possible until the pandemic caused the federal government to focus a research and development program on them and provided the funding to sustain it. These vaccines will revolutionize vaccine science and therapeutics and probably chancer therapy as well. Similarly, unsuspected advances will wean us from petroleum in the not too distant future.
Public Health Consequences
In the meantime, we continue to poison ourselves while it is clear that help is on the way. The trick is to maintain the planet and the human race until the cavalry arrives. This requires that we all pay attention to environmental destruction and societal health. This is a significant public health issue right now. The pandemic fills the headlines, but fracking wells continue to poison us quietly in the background.
With respect to fracking, these are difficult times in Colorado and elsewhere. Many or most have chosen sides and the remainder is barraged with information and misinformation in an attempt to sway it one way or the other. Money is pouring in to persuade voters and legislators that more fracking is the only way to prevent statewide poverty and economic collapse. The grass roots push back with mothers and children as shock troops wondering aloud just how much air, ground, and water pollution we can sustain before the earth just crumbles in a series of earthquakes and toxic fumes. Earlier efforts to restrict fracking finally resulted in SB-181 that put restrictions on oil and gas companies with respect to residential fracking. Colorado recently passed a proposal to restrict residential fracking to a radius of 2000 ft. from human habitation. Most research says 2500 ft, but one takes what one can get in these disputes.
Maryland, New York, and Vermont do not permit fracking because it is unsafe for the public health. Five countries have enacted bans and six have called for a moratorium. There now are more than 700 studies on the impacts of fracking and more than 80% document risks or actual harm. The real and potential health consequences of fracking are enormous. Fracking releases volatile toxic compounds at every stage of development. All of these are deleterious and at least one of these, benzene, is carcinogenic. The EPA has stated that the cancer risk from benzene occurs at any level of exposure and the World Health Organization has stated that there is no safe exposure level for benzene. It well known to cause acute myelogenous leukemia and is statistically associated with other cancers of the bone marrow — acute and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. This has been known since the 1960s from studies on oil and gas workers and other populations exposed to benzene vapor. There is no doubt about it. Among the other noxious compounds released during fracking are toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene. All four of these, including benzene, can affect the nervous system and are known to cause birth defects, and damage the liver, kidneys, and lungs. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment showed an increased risk of neurological problems, and eye, nose, and throat symptoms when the levels of the multiple air pollutants from oil and gas wells were combined.
Epidemiological studies show a significant association of mild to severe asthma in persons living close to active racking operations. Other studies in Pennsylvania showed an increase in cardiac and neurological hospitalizations in two counties with active fracking operations compared with a neighboring county that had banned these operations. A study in rural Colorado between 1996–2009 showed that mothers who lived in the highest density of and greatest proximity to fracked wells were twice as likely to have babies born with neural tube defects and were 30% more likely to have babies born with congenital heart defects compared to those with no wells within 10 miles. A recent study found that children and young adults diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia were as much as four and a half times more likely to live in areas with the highest density or proximity to wells as compared to those not living within a 16-kilometer (10 mile) radius. In addition, the Colorado School of Public Health in 2012 showed that persons living less than a half-mile (2680 feet) from a fracking site were at greater risk for neurological and respiratory diseases and congenital birth defects in babies than persons living farther away. These cancer and other risks increase with time of exposure. Children are at higher risk if they grow and develop near fracking wells. All of the this has been documented thoroughly in the scientific and medical literature.
So, there are two issues: the immediate need to reduce or eliminate the public health risks of fracking and the longer-term need to change from petroleum to renewable energy. They obviously are linked but can be dealt with separately. We are addressing the former with legislation and public pressure now, and with slow but increasing success. We must not relax this effort. The latter will require scientific and commercial research and a demonstrable economic benefit if alternative energy is to replace petroleum. The example of coal is relevant.
The pressures of science and public opinion are making themselves felt on the oil and gas industry. Petroleum stocks are falling in price and employees are being laid off. The former is not too important, but the latter is. We must shift these people to new work on realistic, renewable energy. If many jobs are lost, the transition will be very slow; if jobs simply are changed, then acceptance will be much easier. Renewable energy will require some combinations of nuclear, solar, wind, battery, and geothermal power. There will be many job opportunities as these industries develop and usurp the markets now dominated by petroleum.
Commercial interests already recognize this but many resist by rushing to frack areas before legislation can be passed to prevent it. This is disastrous for the public health and must be countered vigorously. There also must be accommodation by environmentalists as well, and not just a loud “No!” whenever alternatives are discussed. This will take time and shouting for it to be changed immediately will accomplish nothing. If we all do not accommodate, using the data that science and medicine give us, then we are doomed to fractious encounters that produce little of value. As a physician, I believe good preventive medicine, good public health, and good pediatric health demand this change. An expeditious, yet feasible, conversion to non-polluting energy sources is in the best interest of everyone. We all must continue to work in some grim-faced harmony toward that goal.
For more on this and related issues, follow me on www.bienestar.academy | https://medium.com/@estarbien68/public-health-and-energy-usage-fb040fcfeeba | ['Joseph Marr'] | 2021-02-03 17:14:13.215000+00:00 | ['Renewable Energy', 'Toxic Effects Of Fracking', 'Fracking', 'Health Risks Of Fracking'] |
Bhavya Lal gets big responsibility in NASA | Indian-American Bhavya Lal gets big responsibility at NASA, made executive head. Indian-origin Bhavya Lal has been entrusted with a huge responsibility by President Joe Biden. Bhavya has been appointed acting head of the US space agency NASA. Bhavya Lal is overseeing the changes in the agency under the US President Joe Biden administration.
NASA said in one of its statements that Bhavya Lal has vast experience in engineering and space technology. She has been an active member of research at the Institute for Defense Analysis Science and Technology Policy Institute from 2005 to 2020. The statement said that he has been nominated to the post in view of his contributions to the space sector. Bhavya Lal gets big responsibility in NASA.
Let us know that Bhavya Lal has a degree in Science and a Master of Science in Nuclear Engineering. Along with this, he received a Master of Science degree in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Earned a doctorate in public policy and public administration from George Washington University.
Read More… | https://medium.com/@samirmalik8805/bhavya-lal-gets-big-responsibility-in-nasa-db3369912b09 | [] | 2021-02-02 06:43:31.404000+00:00 | ['NASA', 'America', 'Space', 'Responsibility', 'India'] |
Riches in the Niches of the Wake | A path to exploiting unserved niche markets around big industries.
Wake is a low-pressure region immediately behind a solid moving body. It makes it easier for followers to move forward with a lot less energy. You can see wakes in a flock of geese flying in a V-shape pattern; one goose is front and center, leading all the others. Bicyclists riding behind others in a high-speed race conserve energy with the same strategy, as does a car using the slipstream created by the lead car in motor racing.
Image: Twin City Magazine
In cycling, the bicyclist riding behind conserves energy, especially at higher speeds. In Motor Racing, along a long straight stretch, a car following close behind another uses the lead car's slipstream to close the gap between them.
As they plow through a large industry, established businesses leave many smaller niches unserved in their wake. This provides lucrative opportunities for an observant entrepreneur — with market knowledge but fewer resources — to serve and dominate. It is akin to having created a business with no competition.
Entrepreneurs, opportunities need not be restricted to doing something new and building a nascent industry! Often there are niches in the wake of existing large and established industries for you to make your mark.
Electrical power is a big business, and one of the most basic human needs. The challenge is to move away from an almost complete reliance upon fossil fuels. Several opportunities to generate renewable energy have opened up. Since sunlight is a perpetual resource, solar power is a leading renewable.
Solar power is generated by photovoltaic conversion, where electricity is converted directly using solar cells or by concentrating the solar energy to generate heat stored. On-demand, it drives a steam turbine to generate electricity. Hurdles include availability when the sun is not shining, economical storage, and generation at a competitive price.
One promising approach to storing heat is to melt and then freeze (phase change) an inorganic mixture of salts. Researchers tried to do this for over 40 years, but because inorganic salts expand when they melt and need a large area for effective heat transfer, they failed. The U.S. Department of Energy set up a challenge to solve this very problem.
Terrafore Technologies of Minneapolis, founded by Anoop Mathur, chronicles one journey of riding the wake in a large established sector of the economy. He won a $2.5 million grant from the DOE to make a major technology breakthrough that had been elusive.
Mathur has over 35 years of industrial experience developing and directing advanced technologies at Honeywell with a team of over 80 technologists in the U.S., India, China, and Romania. With over 25 patents and several awards, including Honeywell’s highest award for technology and business excellence, he had managed large programs for government agencies and Fortune 500s. He was well-versed in current and emerging technologies.
He spent five years researching utilizing expertise and facilities at top-tier institutions such as Southwest Research Institute, Jet Propulsion Lab, Rocketdyne, and the University of California.
The longstanding limitation of inorganic salt expansion was overcome by ingenious 10mm or 15mm capsules with open space inside.
The open space allows the salt to expand and provides a large area for heat transfer. Efficient heat transfer requires very high temperatures. These capsules work at up to 850 degrees Celsius.
Since other phase-change approaches had failed competitive tests, Mathur has become the go-to for this specific niche. He wrote a chapter on thermocline thermal energy storage for a book published by Elsevier and has filed for three and received two international patents on thermocline thermal energy storage.
With a further $250K grant from STTR, Mathur set out to evaluate the commercial potential of his method of thermal energy storage. They found the Capsules:
enable a 33 percent cost reduction compared with other storage practices.
Make it economically feasible to run small-scale power systems with mini-towers or a solar dish.
They are light and can be factory-installed in the mini-tower, with very little site work.
Capture thermal energy waste at existing utilities and other industrial plants.
Terrafore also looked for other inexpensive materials for storing thermal energy. A solid reject from the mining of ores, called ‘Cobber Rejects,’ was a promising candidate because of its high capacity, high density, and meager cost.
The trends in the marketplace have also moved in a favorable direction.
Photovoltaics are at a point where they are more economical than concentrating Solar Power.
All power grids are experiencing rapid changes in their load because of the increase in renewable energy. Several 40GW+ large coal plants have been decommissioned and replaced by smaller, more responsive power plants.
Terrafore received a $250K grant from STTR to evaluate thermal energy storage integration in the next-generation power plants to make them responsive to these load ramps.
Some states consider mandating newer natural gas water heaters in a new construction with thermal energy storage built-in.
MN DEED partially funded the development of such a system.
Anoop Mathur, with all the research-based test results, is looking for investment to scale-up and
make the capsules in large quantities,
retrofit the system within the existing power generation and consumption approach, and
fit them in process industries and new power plants.
Jeff Bezos said that the important question is, “‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?’ . . .because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.” A high-probability route to success is finding a niche in the wake of existing industries satisfying the most basic human needs.
Anoop Mathur has found a niche of thermal storage in the wake of the gigantic power industry that will continue for a long time as it satisfies the most basic human needs.
A version of this article first appeared in Twin City Business Magazine.
To see other opinion columns go to medium.com/@rajivtandon.
Dr. Rajiv Tandon is executive director of the Institute for Innovators and Entrepreneurs and an advocate for the future of entrepreneurship in Minnesota. He is an adviser to fast growth Minnesota CEOs. He can be reached at [email protected]. | https://medium.com/@rajivtandon/riches-in-the-niches-of-the-wake-381154f8071d | ['Dr. Rajiv Tandon'] | 2020-12-27 23:31:22.840000+00:00 | ['Wake', 'Niche', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Entrepreneur'] |
Is Hollywood poisoning the world? | Is Hollywood poisoning the world?
A Call for More Movies that Matter.
‘Man who stare at Goats’, great fun movie, but the deeper call for change of the real world people portrayed in the movie, wasn’t shown.
Great movies tell great stories. At best such movies make us feel human and help us gain insights about what we couldn’t see before. At worst these movies seem to be great popcorn distraction. Yet the question is, is that true? Might it be worse than that? Might it be, many movies (and the new television series too) weaken our resolve to make a difference? Distract us from real world issues, like Global Warming or State Corruption? Many great Hollywood actors are outspoken social activists. Yet somehow the Hollywood movies they’re in, aren’t.
The USA seems to have a political elite that seems to consciously weaken education, weaken social connections, reduce incomes so people have no space but to work, fear it’s population about immigrants, gives more and more power to the superrich. If that is true, how might they operate on the level of moviemaking? How might we be impacted by watching the mayor genres?
Awesome movie showing feminine leadership!
Disclaimer: I know many moviemakers try to make great movies, may not see implications on these impacts on a deeper level, or even seek to make movies that counter the effects of what I’ll pose down below.
(re-edit 2017) Also many actors have their heart in the right place. This speech by Meryl Streep touched me very much. So I had to include it in this post. There’s more sides to everything. And it’s good to think, that humanity is humans doing their best. It’s systems, dominant mindsets and beliefs and a few conscious manipulators that can make many contribute to a wrong. Hope you consider your own point on this.
I just want to question why there are so little art film movies with their story lines made for the bigger audience? Before you think conspiracy theory, (though if you google CIA influence on Hollywood there’s a little bit too much to stay comfortable) I wonder, is it just money, just popular success formula’s, just money, or is there more to it? For now, let’s look how the mayor Hollywood genre’s may impact audiences..
Can you believe you’re a super hero too?
Super Hero Movies: Bigger than life heroes, who can do everything.
In the super hero genre normal people are sheep to be either threatened by mayor evil dudes and then saved by bigger than life heroes. They just run around squealing for help. The question is: is this subconsciously disempowering people? The dangers are always mighty evil people with evil plans. No super hero fights Global Warming, fights political corruption at the highest levels, or confronts the lack of morality in the super rich elite? Nor do they solve dangers like the lead poisoning in Flint and many other American towns, let alone world hunger. Why aren’t these issues addressed by real world heroes? Why don’t Hollywood movies educate us to help make the difference in these issues? What purpose has all that distraction?
If one of these people just maybe might be a terrorist, should we dehumanize all the others?
Terrorist Action movies: There’s evil out to get us.
Well if you hear this former CIA agent talk (beautifully) about dealing with terrorists, you become aware there is very, very few bad guys. Why do we in terrorist movies never see the thousands of non violent refugees as well? We are mostly people trying to the right thing in our own eyes, do what we can or feel has to be done, like fleeing an impossible situation. Might it be that the real bad people, are those that instigate reasons for war, attacks and control over others? People who wear suits and ties and speak in rational tone of reasons for inhuman actions? And how can we ever think that killing the bad guy(s) resolves the real issues? Why is it never about the system being broken, among all levels?
Are these people gangsters out of evil, or because of poverty and lack of opportunity?
Action Movies: The good guys may use every force necessary.
Once again listen to the former CIA agent. There’s small groups fighting mayor powers (USA Empire, Western Corporations) taking away rights, safety, resources from smaller nations and peoples across the world. And this while the action movies keep telling the Western audiences: to get the evil guys (those small groups of rebels now called terrorists or aliens) all violence is acceptable. So often we see heroes act where normal people stick to the rules. So may it be, that these movies make violence against perceived enemies acceptable and normal?
Vaclav Havel, on the anxiety paradox.
Comedies: Anxiety makes you look bad.
Another way to disempower yourself is watching comedies, from students seeking first sex to romantic comedies. All of these films are fun of anxious people making all the wrong choices, right up until the end, when they live their moment of truth and get rewarded. Could it be that seeing people being anxious whole movies long, makes you dare less to act rather than more? Should we not live less fearful of other peoples opinion? And though that seems the moral of all these movies, might it be that the hourlong impregnation of people acting silly that makes you seek to avoid such embarrassment?
No much has really changed. What a commie this guy must have been. ;)
Scoundrel Movies: Small crooks getting away with it.
Yes, sometimes heist criminals get away with it. Lovely small unexpected ragtag bands of simple heroes succeed at stealing from the banks, or other crooks. Might it be, that this is just releasing pressure and steam of the deeper tension? We are being screwed by banks & an elite. Yet, these films never address the real issue, just speak to the sentiments for a brief moment. Might it be we need more movies that show scoundrels exposing corruption and ending careers of real world crooks in politics? Or really make a difference for everyone. Wasn’t Hollywood into bigger is better? Here’s your opportunity.
Perhaps we need more romance about love for life and how to live it. (pic: ‘As it is in Heaven’)
Romantic Comedies: Finding the one is what’s it all about.
Whatever you do in and for the world, the final reward is ‘the one’ saying ‘yes’ to your advances and everything falls together. Research already established romantic comedies make people think relationships are easy after the ‘yes’. I know movies need a nice resolve at the end, and I love good endings also better. But making all other things in life trivial compared to this one moment, what is doing that to us? Do they diminish causes people stand up for, to the success moments needed to get the one?
This is real world horror, yet heroes like this woman aren’t seen. Protesters, who’d want to identify with them?
Horror: Be glad nobody is coming for you!
Once you believe there’s evil out there out to get you, you should be happy it isn’t directed at you. Now why would these movies then be so popular and so many being made? Could it be that people live to safe and feel to little? That these movies on the one hand, give them emotional impacts they so miss in dreary lives and jobs? And on the other make them on a deeper level avoid danger? If never heard horror made you braver, smarter, care deeper for the world. At best it’s distraction, at worst it stops you from caring.
And hey, killing Zombies/Monsters/Evil Killers is okay, because they’re not human anyway. Dehumanizing other people is the first step propaganda takes to make killing such others acceptable; that’s how the Nazi’s developed their whole anti Jew rhetorics.
Real confrontations between new ideas and damaging system are being avoided.
The Call for More Movies That Matter!
Where are nuanced stories like ‘One flew over the Cuckoos nest’ that show how repressive systems, even with good intentions can be? Where are movies like ‘Apocalypse Now’, that show the complex madness behind wars on all sides? Where are stories like ‘Erin Brockovich’ showing how normal people can make a difference? Where’s stories where people really change the whole system? ‘Twelve years a slave’ may show how bad slavery was, deeper movies tell about the long fight on so many levels that took to end it. Where’s way more movies like ‘Gandhi’ telling us humble men can change a country? I know they are there, but I really think we need much more of those! Hollywood take action.
Check this earlier post ‘A New Story’ that talks about the same theme, yet offers some very alternative stories concepts that haven’t been shown (enough) in the movies yet.
Just thinking.
Oh, and Hollywood, if you look for a story consultant, well, this would be my start. | https://medium.com/the-gentle-revolution/is-hollywood-poisoning-the-world-c3966b6602fe | ['Floris Koot'] | 2019-11-06 11:43:16.909000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Movies', 'Empowerment', 'Hollywood', 'Social Change'] |
Guide To Developing An NFT Marketplace Like Rarible | NFT Marketplace Like Rarible
Today’s technology-driven world sees several platforms vying for attention and trying to stand out from the rest. NFT marketplaces, in particular, face stiff competition as every day, we see more platforms launching. These platforms aim to copy or emulate one of the originals and achieve their success.
One of the earliest marketplaces in the industry is Rarible. Rarible is one of the more popular NFT marketplaces where digital content creators can mint NFTs and establish their ownership of their digital artwork. Rarible is a decentralized platform built on the Ethereum blockchain. A decentralized platform has no third-party involvement, and all transactions occur in a trustless manner.
Rarible was launched in 2013 by two people who took inspiration from the CryptoKittens NFT. RARI is the native token found on Rarible, and the site equally allocates the tokens to the users.
Develop an NFT marketplace like Rarible
Any business looking to create an NFT marketplace like Rarible is making an informed decision. This platform enables artists and investors to buy, trade, auction, and mint unique NFTs. These NFTs represent ownership of digital artwork using blockchain technology as the basis. Developing this platform means you, too, will take advantage of the NFT craze with a lucrative solution.
At present, it is easy to engage in Rarible like NFT marketplace development. Several companies and industries specialize in this work. They can provide you with a product you can customize with all the tools you want.
But, before we get into developing an NFT platform like Rarible, let’s first look at the many benefits this marketplace provides.
Benefits to developing an NFT marketplace
Benefits to developing an NFT marketplace like Rarible
Access to various incredible assets
Artists and content creators on an NFT marketplace like Rarible can list out and sell their NFTs on a site and appeal to a broad audience. Investors can view this content, search for the one they like, and purchase it. There is no limit to what you can turn into an NFT. Digital assets like artwork, video clips, songs, memes, autographs, posters, code, captions, social media posts, etc., can become an NFT.
Investors can utilize the stellar filter and sort feature and narrow down their options. That way, the buyers can find what they want based on the most popular, recently minted, most expensive, and cheapest item.
User-friendly design
User-friendly design, fast transactions, and live auctions
An NFT platform like Rarible will display the deadline for live auctions and the time remaining for investors to submit their bids. Investors can make one or two bids for an NFT, and the one with the highest bid amount wins.
Another notable benefit to this product is the sleek user interface. Everyone knows that a good UI can determine a site’s success or failure. A good UI provides the required information to the user without seeming too cluttered. Here, the user can view the featured NFTs, remaining auction time, and most popular NFTs. The user can find additional information like FAQs at the bottom of the page.
Liquidity mining approach
Rarible uses a specialized approach to distribute the RARI tokens among the users on the platform. Termed the ‘Liquidity Mining Approach’, this concept is where crypto tokens are sent to the user’s Ethereum digital wallet.
Typically, buyers and sellers earn an equal share of RARI tokens from the site. The users earn additional tokens by regularly participating in the online market. Users can use RARI tokens to view artwork, participate in marketplace moderation, vote on proposals and submit ideas to improve the site. Additionally, the user can sell their tokens on other cryptocurrency exchanges.
The best approach to develop an NFT marketplace like Rarible
Creating a top-notch NFT marketplace like Rarible requires a clear idea and a robust plan in place. The best way to develop this site is to partner with an NFT marketplace development company. These companies specialize in Rarible like NFT marketplace development. They can create a perfectly suited solution to your needs and requirements.
Before you partner with a development company, consider the following steps. These steps help you develop the right mindset to craft a thriving NFT marketplace.
Identify the asset
Identify the asset
Always remember that anything physical or digital can become an NFT. There is no limit to the scope or type of content you can turn into NFTs. However, you could also consider developing an NFT marketplace that provides niche content. Take NBA Topshots, for example; the site deals in buying and selling basketball-related content and nothing else. This approach enabled the company to amass a fortune and move from strength to strength.
Hence, consider the type of marketplace you want to develop and the target audience.
Outline the budget
Developing an NFT marketplace like Rarible takes time and significant investment. The exact amount required to launch this platform varies due to several factors. These factors include the company, their experience, the team size, location, features in the site, tech stack, etc. Hence, there is no way to definitively know how much it will cost.
Of course, it is possible to get an estimate. That way, you get a rough idea of the investment required. Here, you can connect with various NFT marketplace development companies, and they will give you the answers you need.
Conclusion
Rarible raised more than fourteen million USD in funds in the middle of June. This investment enabled the site to open primary and secondary trading platforms on the Flow blockchain network. This move is to cope with Ethereum’s extreme congestion and costly gas prices.
The platform intends to accept credit card payments from investors in the future. This move opens the site to a broader audience looking to cash in on the NFT trend and not invest in cryptocurrencies. The platform is slowly becoming the preferred location for collectibles like memes, music, trading cards, relics, and caricatures.
As a result, now is the ideal time to develop an NFT platform like Rarible. That way, you can get into the burgeoning world of NFTs and cash in on this incredible trend. An NFT marketplace like Rarible lets you accept bids, start auctions, store assets in digital wallets, and process payments. This platform’s revenue is incredible, and any business can benefit from developing this NFT marketplace. | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/guide-to-developing-an-nft-marketplace-like-rarible-86fb37844ba6 | [] | 2021-12-31 08:57:39.824000+00:00 | ['Marketplace Like Rarible', 'Nft', 'Nft Marketplace', 'Marketplace Development', 'Non Fungible Tokens'] |
THE ART OF THE FLESH | Tattooing Through Time and How It Has Evolved
If I asked you to name a type of visual art that is deep rooted in the ancient times, full of symbolism and expression of one’s faith — what would come to mind? Paintings? — Yes! Sculpture? — Of course! But what about …tattoos?
Ancient cultures, like Polynesian, were practicing tattooing over 2000 years ago. The skin drawings conveyed deep symbolic meanings to the tribes, identifying people with their clan, tattoos were cherished and worn with pride. According to “Polynesian Tattoo: History, Meanings and Traditional Design”
(https://www.zealandtattoo.co.nz/tattoo-styles/polynesian-tattoo-history-meanings-traditional-designs/), the application of tattoos was an extremely painful process that often resulted in serious infections; healing could take a year, and death was not an uncommon outcome of the procedure.
Thousands of years later, tattooing still has a very strong presence in our lives. In the 1700s the tattoos were brought to Europe by French sailors who adopted the practice from the Polynesians. In the Americas the tattooing was also worn by sailors in the mid-1800s (pbs.org/skinstories). It is interesting to observe that tattooing was reborn into the modern world in prison facilities by inmates. As described in the short film, Prison Tattoos | Full Documentary (https://youtu.be/v4TPhD1xh0M) the trend of prison tattooing started in the 1970s; prison tattoos were still packed with symbolism but mostly with the symbols of crime and gang loyalty. Millenia apart, tribal and prison tattoos had a lot in common: they both were manifestations of belonging to a clan, stating the wearer’s allegiance to it in the most explicit and permanent form. Another unfortunate similarity is that both prison and tribal tattoos were unsafe and often accompanied by infection; needles were often reused, and conditions were far from sanitary.
It is interesting to trace the evolution of tattoo from ancient tribes to prisons to the modern time. During the 1990s the art of tattoo started appearing mainstream, blossoming into wide popularity by the 2010s. Today, it is not unusual to find tattoo studios in any urban downtown area. Most of these studios are clean and safe and are equipped with the state-of-the art tools. The technology has evolved dramatically, taking tattooing to different levels. The modern tattoo machines are sophisticated and precise, which allows the tattooer to create beautiful compositions, something that was not achievable before. This brings me to the question I have been pondering for a long time: is tattooing a form of art or a service?
Really, can drawing on one’s body be considered art, or is it just a trend that will pass? People may argue this either way. Some will say that there is no art in drawing a basic shape or someone’s name on one’s body, it’s primitive and even kitschy and is just “marking up” the body. However, others would disagree with this statement and claim tattooing to be art. To me, art is a beautiful and creative composition that requires skill, precision and emotion, something that one would enjoy looking at. After I have done my research, I am fully convinced that some of the modern tattoos are works of art, and tattooing is art. Oxford Dictionary is in agreement with me defining art as “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power”.
The backpiece to the left was tattooed by Chis Blinston; Chris spent thirty-six hours tattooing this piece, the amount of details and color saturation of the picture are remarkable. Would you agree that a composition like this is to be considered art? Drawing on human skin is very different from traditional art of drawing or painting, after all, the artist is using a machine injecting ink into a human body, a canvas that may not stay still and could be in pain!
I have been fascinated with tattoos, and that prompted the research that has resulted in The Evolving Tattoo Theory. Tattoos began as a symbol of protection and good luck to the ancient tribes of Polynesia. To me, those early tattoos were form of art- they were meaningful and creative, made with the utmost precision- given the tools of that era- and I believe, people enjoyed looking at them. The evolution of technology opened new horizons and allowed to create beautiful artwork in different styles and designs. I believe that tattooing will reach new heights over the next decades- the trend is undeniably strong. The art of tattooing has been around for millennia, and it is here to stay. | https://medium.com/@skiracer-nick/the-art-of-the-flesh-6123aae030bb | ['Nicholas Bauer'] | 2020-12-11 04:08:30.199000+00:00 | ['Drawing', 'Art', 'Tattooing', 'Flesh', 'Ink'] |
Data Science vs Machine Learning: What’s The Difference | Data Science vs Machine Learning:
Machine Learning and Data Science are the most significant domains in today’s world. All the sci-fi stuff that you see happening in the world is a contribution from fields like Data Science, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning. In this blog on Data Science vs Machine Learning, we’ll discuss the importance and the distinction between Machine Learning and Data Science.
I’ll be covering the following topics in this Data Science vs Machine learning blog:
What Is Data Science? What Is Machine Learning? Fields Of Data Science Use Case
What Is Data Science?
Before we get into the details of Data Science, let’s understand how data science came into existence. Do you guys remember when most of the data was stored in Excel sheets? They were simpler times because we generated lesser data and the data was structured. Back then simple Business Intelligence (BI) tools were used to analyze and process the data.
But times have changed. Over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is created every single day, and this number is only going to grow. By 2020, it’s estimated that 1.7MB of data will be created every second for every person on earth. Can you imagine how much data that is? How are we going to process this much data?
What Is Data Science — Data Science vs Machine Learning — Edureka
Not only that, the data generated these days is mostly unstructured or semi-structured and simple BI tools cannot do the work anymore. We need more complex and effective algorithms to process and extract useful insights from the data. This is where Data science comes in.
For example, surely you have binged watched on Netflix. Netflix data mines movie viewing patterns of its users to understand what drives user interest and uses that to make decisions on which Netflix series to produce.
Similarly, Target identifies each customer’s shopping behavior by drawing out patterns from their database, this helps them make better marketing decisions.
Now that you know why Data Science is important, let’s move ahead and discuss what Machine Learning is.
What Is Machine Learning?
The idea behind Machine Learning is that you teach machines by feeding them data and letting them learn on their own, without any human intervention. To understand Machine Learning, let’s consider a small scenario.
Let’s say that you’ve enrolled for skating classes and you have no prior experience of skating. Initially, you’d be pretty bad at it because you have no idea about how to skate. But as you observe and pick up more information, you get better. Observing is just another way of collecting data.
Just like how we humans learn from our observations and experience, machines are also capable of learning on their own when they’re fed a good amount of data. This is exactly how Machine Learning works.
Machine Learning begins with reading and observing the training data to find useful insights and patterns in order to build a model that predicts the correct outcome. The performance of the model is then evaluated by using the testing data set. This process is carried out until, the machine automatically learns and maps the input to the correct output, without any human intervention.
I hope you have an idea about what Machine Learning is if you wish to learn more about Machine Learning, check out this video by our Machine Learning experts.
Fields Of Data Science
Data Science covers a wide spectrum of domains, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, and Deep Learning. Data Science uses various AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning methodologies in order to analyze data and extract useful insights from it. To make things clearer, let me define these terms for you:
Artificial Intelligence: Artificial Intelligence is a subset of Data Science that enables machines to simulate human-like behavior.
Artificial Intelligence is a subset of Data Science that enables machines to simulate human-like behavior. Machine Learning: Machine learning is a sub-field of Artificial Intelligence which provides machines the ability to learn automatically & improve from experience without being explicitly programmed.
Machine learning is a sub-field of Artificial Intelligence which provides machines the ability to learn automatically & improve from experience without being explicitly programmed. Deep Learning: Deep Learning is a part of Machine learning that uses various computational measures and algorithms inspired by the structure and function of the brain called artificial neural networks.
To conclude, Data Science involves the extraction of knowledge from data. In order to do so, it uses a bunch of different methods from various disciplines, like Machine Learning, AI, and Deep Learning. A point to note here is that Data Science is a wider field and does not exclusively rely on these techniques.
Now that you have a clear distinction between AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning, let’s discuss a use case wherein we’ll see how Data Science and Machine Learning is used in the working of recommendation engines.
Use Case: Recommendation Engine:
Before we discuss how Machine learning and Data Science are implemented in a Recommendation system, let’s see what exactly a Recommendation engine is.
What Is A Recommendation Engine?
Surely, you all have used Amazon for online shopping. Have you noticed that when you look for a particular item on Amazon, you get recommendations for similar products? Well, how does Amazon know this?
The reason why companies like Amazon, Walmart, Netflix, etc are doing so well is because of how they handle user-generated data.
Each user is given a personalized view of the eCommerce website based on his/her profile and this allows them to select relevant products. For example, if you’re looking for a new laptop on Amazon, you might also want to buy a laptop bag. Based on such associations, Amazon will recommend more products to you.
Moving ahead, let’s discuss how Data Science and Machine learning are used in a Recommendation engine.
A Data Science workflow has six well-defined stages:
Business Requirements Data Acquisition Data Wrangling Data Exploration Data Modelling Deployment & Optimization
Step 1: Business Requirements
A Data Science project always starts with defining the business requirements. It is important that you understand the problem you are trying to solve. The main focus of this stage is to identify the different goals of your project.
In our case, the objective is to build a recommendation engine that will suggest relevant items to each customer based on the data generated by them.
Step 2: Data Acquisition
Now that you’ve defined the objectives of your project, it’s time to start collecting the data. Data can be gathered from different sources, such as explicit sources and implicit sources:
Explicit Data: This includes data entered by users such as ratings and comments on products
This includes data entered by users such as ratings and comments on products Implicit Data: The purchase history, cart details, search history, etc come under this category
Collecting such data is easy because the users don’t have to do any extra work because they’re already using the application.
Since each user is bound to have a different opinion about a product, their data sets will be distinct.
The research was conducted, where a couple of Data Scientists were interviewed about their experience. The majority of them agreed that 50 to 80 percent of their time was spent on cleaning the data. Data cleaning is considered to be one of the most time-consuming tasks in Data Science.
Data cleaning is the process of removing unrelated and inconsistent data. At this stage, you must convert your data into the desired format so that your Machine learning model can interpret it. It is necessary to get rid of any inconsistencies as they might result in inaccurate outcomes.
For example, filtering the significant logs from the less significant ones, identifying fake reviews, removing unnecessary comments, missing values, etc. Such issues are dealt with in this stage.
Step 4: Data Exploration
Data Exploration involves understanding the patterns in the data and retrieving useful insights from it. At this stage, each customer’s shopping pattern is evaluated so that relevant products can be suggested to them.
For example, if you’re looking to buy the Harry Potter Book series on Amazon, there is a possibility that you might also want to buy The Lord of the Rings or similar books that fall into the same genre. Therefore, Amazon recommends similar books to you.
Henceforth, as you provide the engine more data, it gets better with its recommendations.
Step 5: Data Modelling
As mentioned earlier, Machine Learning is a part of Data Science and at this stage in our data cycle, Machine Learning is implemented. Machine Learning can also be a part of Data exploration or visualization if needed, but this stage is specifically for building a Machine learning model.
In order to understand Data modeling, let's break down the process of Machine learning.
Machine Learning is carried out in 5 distinctive stages:
Importing Data Data Cleaning Creating a Model Model Training Model Testing Improve the accuracy of the model
Importing Data: At this stage, the data that was gathered is imported for the machine learning process. The data must be in a readable format, such as a CSV file or a table.
Data Cleaning: Data can have multiple duplicate values, missing values or N/A values. Such inconsistencies in the data can cause wrongful predictions and must be dealt with in this stage.
Creating a Model: This stage involves splitting the data set into 2 sets, one for training and the other for testing. After which you must build the model by using the training dataset. The models are built using Machine Learning algorithms like Logistic Regression, Linear Regression, Random Forest, Support Vector Machine, and so on.
Machine Learning Process — Data Science vs Machine Learning — Edureka
Model training: At this stage, the machine learning model is trained on the training data set. A large portion of the data set is used for training so that the model can learn to map the input to the output, on a set of varied values.
Model Testing: After the model is trained, it is then evaluated by using the testing data set. At this stage, the model is fed new data points and it must predict the outcome by running the new data points on the Machine learning model that was built earlier.
Improve the Model: After the model is evaluated using the testing data, its accuracy is calculated. There is n number of ways in which the model’s efficiency can be improved. Methods such as cross-validation are used to make the model more accurate.
So, that was all about the Machine Learning process. Coming to the last stage of the data life cycle.
Step 6: Deployment & Optimization
The goal of this stage is to deploy the final model onto a production environment for final user acceptance. At this stage, users must validate the performance of the models and if there are any issues with the model then they must be fixed in this stage.
Machine Learning aids Data Science by providing a set of algorithms for data exploration, data modeling, decision making, etc. On the other hand, Data Science binds together, a set of Machine Learning algorithms to predict the outcome.
Before I end this blog, I want to conclude that Data Science and Machine Learning are interconnected fields and since Machine Learning is a part of Data Science, there isn’t much comparison between them.
With this, we come to the end of this blog on Data Science vs Machine Learning. With this, we come to the end of this article. If you have any queries regarding this topic, please leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you. If you wish to check out more articles on the market’s most trending technologies like Python, DevOps, Ethical Hacking, then you can refer to Edureka’s official site.
Do look out for other articles in this series that will explain the various other aspects of Data Science. | https://medium.com/edureka/data-science-vs-machine-learning-578a652876a3 | ['Sahiti Kappagantula'] | 2020-11-27 13:11:49.964000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Differentiation', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Data'] |
Time to shape your own financial universe | Bitcoin is laying the foundation of a whole new world right as we speak. A world with no intermediaries or centralized institutions where information and value will be free of all restraints and limitations. 10 years of BTC history slowly but surely turned it in digital “gold” — an unstoppable force heading straight up.
Nowadays, value is dictated either by demand or consensus. Demand gives value to things like food and housing while consensus offers it to non-essential resources such as gold, diamonds, oil or even fiat. The latter’s actual value stands in its recognition by the masses.
And the issuers of these resources dictate their increase in popularity using several means including governmental and military forces. This is also the case for Bitcoin. The more people and institutions recognize and concede on its value, the more it rises.
Other crypto currencies follow this same pattern. However, coins being a valid payment method for let’s say gas, could further create and increase their tangible value due to demand.
The problem arises when we consider where this demand comes from.
Mandatory need for payments? Making transactions?
How about concluding smart contracts?
Smart contracts have remained until recently, unexplored in terms of potential and intrinsic business value. Their sole usage was related to miscellaneous app development.
But DeFi brought smart contracts into the spotlight and uncovered their amazing business value.
Just think about the fact that all loan operations could be implemented and carried out through code. A simple, transparent and efficient way to manage the entire loan process would be available to anyone, while keeping an exceptionally low cost compared to current bank fees.
Taking a closer look at the ICO smart contract developed by Fusion (website here) reveals a coded automated finance service very similar to IPO. With over 13000 users and 72 mil USD worth of ETH over the hard cap automatically returned to participants; not one single server was run and human resources were a fraction of what traditional institutions employ. And still, we managed to carry out the IPO style ICO by simply deploying a smart contract. The total cost of the whole operation added up to a mere 5 ETH for gas.
This was made possible by decentralized, coded, and automated finance applied through smart contracts.
We are confident any type of financial service can be coded and automated. Thus, the entire financial system will run smoothly, with no boundaries or middlemen involved.
Fusion is especially designed to serve as the infrastructure behind it all. And Chainge will be the exclusive medium that empowers mass users so they can enjoy the whole range of benefits that come with digital, coded and automated finance.
With Chainge, anyone can be an independent digital/crypto bank-like entity, serving a worldwide network of users. | https://medium.com/@chainge-finance/time-to-shape-your-own-financial-universe-c3e2278e7492 | ['Chainge Finance'] | 2020-12-15 11:09:59.536000+00:00 | ['Defi', 'Decentralized Finance', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Smart Contracts'] |
10 Best Fashion Blogs in India: Top Fashion Bloggers | “You can have anything you want in life if you dress for it.” — Edith Head
Being normal is always boring.
Enjoying fashion is art. When we wear new clothes every day and do a new fashion with a new age, then we feel a new energy in us.
There are two ways to become more stylish: hire a professional fashion designer or do it yourself.
In this post, I am making simple ways to become fashionable.
In this post, I am giving information about 10 fashion bloggers, who are also successful fashion bloggers and are earning good money from blogging.
You can also become good fashion bloggers by looking at their blogs.
They not only help you learn the best ways to wear what you have or that helps you look more confident with your dress or lifestyle.
So let’s start…
10 Best Indian Fashion Blogs from top Fashion Bloggers
1. Akanksha Redhu: Fashion & Lifestyle Blogger
Akanksha Redhu is the owner of this blog. She launched it in 2010 sharing lifestyle and fashion tips.
2. Fashion Oomph
Tanya Mahendra is the owner of Fashion Oomph. It’s one of the best fashion and lifestyle-related blogs in India. She follows the latest fashion trends and gives you tutorials on fashion and lifestyle.
3. Vanity No Apologies: Beauty and Makeup Blog
Anshita Juneja is the owner of this blog. This was launched in 2010. This blog has over 25,000 social media followers.
4. Purushu
Purushu is the owner of this blog. He starts this blog in 2009.
5. Guilty Bytes
Devina Malhotra, the owner of this blog that discusses mostly the latest fashion trends. This is a trendsetter blog in the Indian fashion industry with whooping 60K+ followers on Facebook.
6. Gia Says That
Gia Kashyap is the founder of this blog. She was launched in 2010. She’s a fashion enthusiast from her childhood, started her own t-shirt business when she was 18.
7. Let’s Expresso
Tanya Virmani is the owner of this blog. She was launched in 2011. It is one of the top blogs in India that’s partnered up with some of the biggest fashion brands like Dove, Lakme, Veet, Kaya, etc.
8. Shalini Mehta
Shalini Mehta, a Mumbai based fashion stylist the owner of this blog. She was graduated from the National Institute of Design. She has a wide range of expertise in fashion, styling, Cinema, TV, etc.
9. Beauty n Best
Shreya is the owner of this blog. She mostly talks about all your style and beauty needs. Her blog is popular for most people where they search for beauty, fashion, and skincare related advice.
10. India Fashion Blogger
Kajal Mishra is the owner of this blog. She has collaborated with top Indian brands like Alberto Torresi, Asus Zenfone, Celebrity Face, CouponDunia, Fgali, Goa Tourism, Gionee, IML Jeans, Jabong, Rena Love and so on.
Kajal spent the last 5 years in banking with the IDBI bank. She started her blogging career in 2012 initially as a hobbyist blogger later to become a full-time blogger from India. | https://medium.com/@harpreetsingh_42437/10-best-fashion-blogs-in-india-top-fashion-bloggers-9b1a9c3afcb0 | ['Harpreet Singh'] | 2019-08-22 16:28:59.172000+00:00 | ['Bloggingtips', 'Blogging', 'Bloggingideas'] |
How Email Marketing works for Coaches? | If you are a coach and want to grow your business then you should use email marketing.
It will help you bring new coaching clients, earn more from your existing clients and to make your clients more loyal and raving fans.
How does email marketing work for your coaching business?
4 stages of email marketing:
1 Build Email list
2 Nurture/Educate your Email list
3 Convert your email list to customers
4 Make them loyal and advocates
So let’s discuss each part.
1 Build email list
To build an email list you have to use the landing/opt-in page where the potential client will enter their email and other details.
Generally, we use a lead magnet to bribe our lead.
We give them a free strategy session, free pdf guide or anything that is valuable in exchange for their email address.
2 Nurture/Educate your Email list
In the next phase, we’ll send emails to our potential clients.
Mostly you should start with awareness emails, where you give them information about yourself, your personality, your mission and vision statement etc.
Then you educate them by sending valuable content over emails.
Then you will send emails which will be entertaining.
The whole point of this stage is to make them aware of you, your coaching business and the way you live your life and do business.
At the end of this stage, they will know you, like you and trust you.
3 Convert your email list to customers
In this stage, we will start sending promotional emails to them.
The point is now they trust you, like you so it’s your time to introduce your coaching services to them.
Start with low ticket offers and then approach with you high ticket offers.
Let them know that you have services that can help them achieve the desired result.
4 Make them loyal and advocates
After you put your coaching services in front of them some will buy to try you out.
And if you provide them with amazing results, which you have to do.
Then they will become fans of yours and loyal to you.
They will become your advocates and refer you to their friend and family.
That’s how each stage of email marketing works for your coaching business.
If you want to know more about email marketing then click here to read. | https://medium.com/@iambjpatel/how-email-marketing-works-for-coaches-dd762a8f90ac | ['Bhavesh Patel'] | 2020-11-20 17:33:43.048000+00:00 | ['Coaching And Consulting', 'Digital Marketing Tips', 'Email Marketing', 'Coaching', 'Email Marketing Tips'] |
Review: Leicester City vs Manchester United — expectation, group news, Live Streaming Premier League | Source: sprotsmole.co.uk
by Matt Law, Football Editor
Second will tackle third in the Premier League on Saturday afternoon as Leicester City prepare to welcome a revitalised Manchester United to the King Power Stadium.
Leicester have picked up 27 points from their 14 league games this season to sit second in the table, one point ahead of third-placed United, who have a game in hand over the Foxes and indeed leaders Liverpool.
============================
Match Preview
No team in the top half of the Premier League table has lost more matches than Leicester (five) this season, but the Foxes have recorded the joint-most wins with Liverpool (nine). As a result, a total of 27 points has left them second in the table, which represents an excellent opening to the 2020–21 campaign.
Brendan Rodgers’s side had a slight wobble between November 22 and December 3 as they lost three of their four matches in all competitions, but the former English champions have won four of their last five.
Leicester bounced back from a 2–0 home defeat to Everton on December 16 by winning 2–0 at Tottenham Hotspur last weekend, but the team’s home form has been slightly concerning, winning three and losing four of their seven top-flight fixtures at the King Power Stadium.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s position as United boss has been called into question on a number of occasions already this season, and the Red Devils did not manage to advance to the last-16 stage of the Champions League, which was a huge disappointment considering their start to the group stage of the competition.
United’s Premier League form has been excellent, though, winning six of their last seven, remaining unbeaten in the process; a record of eight wins, two draws and three defeats from 13 matches has brought them 26 points, which is enough for third spot in the table with a game in hand.
The Red Devils are only five points behind leaders Liverpool and have recently been mentioned as possible title contenders, which is incredible considering their struggles in the early stages of the campaign.
The visitors will enter Saturday’s clash off the back of an impressive 2–0 win at Everton in the EFL Cup on Wednesday night, which allowed them to book their spot in the semi-finals of the competition.
Solskjaer’s side thumped Leeds United 6–2 in the league last weekend, meanwhile, and have now won each of their last 10 top-flight fixtures on the road. Incredibly, another victory here would equal a Premier League record of 11 straight away successes, which is currently held by Chelsea and Manchester City.
Leicester City Premier League form: LLWWLW
Leicester City form (all competitions): LWWWLW
Manchester United Premier League form: WWWDWW
Manchester United form (all competitions): WLDWWW
Live Streaming
Where to watch the Premier League boxing day live broadcast of the Premier League this weekend?
The following is the link for the Premier League Live Stream :
Live Streaming Leicester City VS Manchester United — Click Here to Watch
Live Streaming Aston Villa VS Crystal Palace — Click Here to Watch
Live Streaming Fulham VS Southampton — Click here to Watch
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leicester city vs manchester united 2020 | https://medium.com/@ishailifad/review-leicester-city-vs-manchester-united-expectation-group-news-live-streaming-premier-9239de4f366a | ['Dita Ishailifa'] | 2020-12-25 07:08:47.552000+00:00 | ['Live Streaming', 'Football', 'Sports', 'Premier League', 'Soccer'] |
我能為你禱告嗎？ | in In Bitcoin We Trust | https://medium.com/@peggylee0319/%E6%88%91%E8%83%BD%E7%82%BA%E4%BD%A0%E7%A6%B1%E5%91%8A%E5%97%8E-64295660e821 | ['Peihua Lee'] | 2020-12-06 20:01:21.480000+00:00 | ['Prayer'] |
#018 — Drones in Mining with Emmanuel de Maistre | Redbird, a French drone software company, was recently purchased by Airware, an American drone software company. A few weeks before the sale was made public, Ian and Emmanuel, Redbird’s then-CEO (now VP of AEC at Airware), recorded this podcast episode. Emmanuel and Ian discuss how large mining and construction companies use drones and why they’re important to them. Get a glimpse inside of Redbird as the negotiations for the sale of the company were likely well underway.
Listen to the podcast on the website by clicking here. | https://medium.com/commercial-drones/018-drones-in-mining-with-emmanuel-de-maistre-6f136d21b567 | ['Ian Smith'] | 2016-12-08 05:20:38.226000+00:00 | ['Commercial Drones', 'Mining', 'Drones', 'Photogrammetry', 'Podcast'] |
Introduction to Neural Networks | When to use the Neural Network?
Let’s assume we want to solve a problem where you are given some set of images and you have to build an automated system that can categories each of those images to its correct label.
The problem looks simple but how do we come with some logic using raw pixel values and target labels. We can try comparing pixels and edges but we won’t be able to come with some idea which can do this task effectively or say the accuracy of 90% or more.
When we have this kind of problem where we have high dimensional data like Images and we don’t know the relationship between Input(Images) and the Output(Labels), In this kind of scenario we should use Neural Networks.
What is the Neural network?
Artificial neural networks, usually simply called neural networks, are computing systems vaguely inspired by the biological neural networks that constitute animal brains. An ANN is based on a collection of connected units or nodes called artificial neurons, which loosely model the neurons in a biological brain
A neural network is a set of neurons stacked in a way one after the other such that the neural network learns the relationship between the input and the output variable. It can solve all kinds of problems like classification, regression, or generative problems like next word prediction and Image captioning.
We already have a lot of algorithms in machine learning like SVM, logistic regression, linear regression…so many more which also do the same thing i.e they also try to learn the relationship between input and output variable, so why neural networks?
Why are Neural Networks used over Traditional Machine learning?
Traditional ML algorithms are good and they are not computed intensive But they do not work well on high dimensional data unstructured data such as images, audio, or text.
Traditional algorithms are still the building blocks of neural networks but they do not capture the relationship as good as neural networks. The neural network can learn any complex relationship given enough data and proper compute power.
Now that we know when to use a neural network, We can start exploring the components and how these things work.
What are the components of a Neural Network?
A Neural network has some basic components which are:
Neurons or layers Loss function Optimizer
What is a Neuron?
A Neuron is the building block of neural networks. A neuron has weights and bias for input that is fed to it.
Let’s assume we have a problem statement where we have a classification problem where we a set of features like Weight, height, BMI, Medical history, Age, and based on that we have to classify if a person is likely to have a heart problem or not.
Now, We want to give our neural network this data and want it to learn the mapping between these features and output( heart disease or not).
Let me introduce us to one of the functions used in neural networks. This function is a Sigmoid or Logistic function.
Sigmoid Function
Traditional Algorithms like logistic regression uses the same function which is First it will take up all the inputs or features and then assign each feature a weight W, In the end, it will pass it through a sigmoid function which spits out the probabilities.
Artificial Neuron
Let’s assume we have 4 features X1, X2, X3, and X4, and based on that we want to classify if the person is likely to have heart disease or not. We can assume that the two classes are 1 and 0.
Weight matrix will look something like this: [W1*X1 +W2*X2+ W3*X3+W4*X4] +bias→ One value
We will pass this value to the sigmoid function which is
Sigmoid function
Here X represents the value of [W1*X1 +W2*X2+ W3*X3+W4*X4] +bias
Suppose we have a value of X = 0 then e to the power→0 will give us 1 and then the whole expression will generate a value of 1/2. This means if the features and weights are zero we will get a probability of 0.5.
Here we only have two classes so the probability of 0.5 means the model is not sure about the predicted class i.e Both the classes have an equal chance when all of the computation is Zero.
If the value is high then the sigmoid will generate a value closer to 1 which means the chances of class 1 is higher.
2. If the value is low then the sigmoid will generate a value closer to 0 which means the chances of class 0 is higher.
These scores are dependent on the features and weights of the model i.e W’s and X’s that we used Since we can’t change the features we have to update the weight in such a way that the output is the expected output.
We also have one more term known as a bias that just shifts the sigmoid towards the right or left. This is just used to fit the data better.
The updating of the weights is the job for the optimizer which will be discussed later.
The idea is simply we have some features/inputs which are mapped to each weight and that dot product weight with the features are fed to the activation function known as sigmoid which generates a score.
This function is used in logistic regression and is heavily used in neural networks but in the case of the neural networks, it is used in the form of layers. One neuron in the layer is just a sigmoid function with some weights and bias.
Layers
The whole idea of neural networks is based on Universal Approximation Theorem.
The intuition behind this theorem is if we have a very complex function between the input and output. We can learn the approximation function by dividing that function into smaller chunks and each chunk is learned by one neuron or a part of the neural network.
Thus by stacking up layers of neurons, we can learn complex functions. If we want to learn more about that click here.
Now that we know about sigmoid and Universal Approximate Theorem. We can stack up neurons and form a layer.
This is how a neural network looks like.
This is a very basic neural network that has 3 neurons in the input layer which means it can take in 3 features as input.
It has 4 neurons in the hidden layer which represents 4 sigmoid functions. Each of them is learning a part of the complex function between input and output.
Finally, We have 2 neurons in the output which represents two categories.
Now that we have created an architecture we want the network to learn, We need some more components like loss function and Optimizer.
Loss Function
The loss function is just a mathematical expression that tells the network how good it is performing. We have different loss functions for different problem statements. Loss function defines what kind of relationship is the network trying to learn.
Regression Loss functions
If we want the network to predict something like the Air Quality index or rating of a restaurant that means we don’t want the network to predict classes or probabilities instead we want it to predict numbers in some range.
In that case, we would like to use mean square error or, root mean square error which will compare the value generated by the network with the Ground Truth or actual value, and Based on the difference of the two it will give loss value.
If the difference between the two values i.e. Predicted and True Value is high then the loss will be high else low.
Classification Loss functions
If we want the network to predict something like a person is likely to have heart disease or not, Music genre detection or Classify between the image of dogs and cats.
In that case, we will like to go for Binary cross-entropy or categorical cross-entropy which will take the predicted probabilities from the network and compare them with the actual probability distribution, based on the difference it will give a loss value.
We can also define our custom loss function if you want to solve some new problems.
Optimizer
The role of neurons and layers is to generate scores and the role of the loss function is to tell how far is the predicted score from the Ground truth or target.
The Optimizer comes into the picture after the loss is calculated, The optimizer just tries to find the relationship between the loss and weights and biases of the network. The goal of the optimizer is to bring the loss as low as possible so that the predictions that the model is making are closer to the target.
The optimizer will try to capture the relationship between each weight and bias in the network with the loss function.
Loss function = Some function of (weights and bias )
The derivative of any function w.r.t to some variable X tells us the relationship between that function with X. It gives us information about how much a function is going to change if the value of x changes and in which direction is it going to change. The change in one weight = Loss function/ derivative(some Weight W)
Since the loss function is a function of multiple weights and biases the change is a partial derivative of that loss function with respect to one weight. This change is also known as Gradient
Now we know the relationship between loss function and weights. We can update the weights in such a way that the loss function is minimum. This process is run in parallel for each weight in the network and they are updated every time we calculate a loss function.
The Gradient is the positive change of loss function with respect to the weight which means if we update the weights with respect to Gradient then we will be increasing the loss instead of decreasing it so to avoid that situation we don’t add the gradient instead we Subtract the gradient every time we update the weight which results in decreasing of the loss function.
Updated Weight = Previous Weight- Gradient
Various Optimizers can be used such as Stochastic Gradient Descent, Mini Batch Gradient Descent, or Adam. Some ideas are used such as learning rate, momentum but the basic idea is gradient. This Algorithm is known as Gradient Descent
I will be writing some more on Neural networks where I will try to cover maths as well as the idea behind the maths. | https://medium.com/swlh/introduction-to-neural-networks-d0ff7e9a647b | ['Shivam Batra'] | 2020-08-23 13:32:42.855000+00:00 | ['Gradient Descent', 'Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Neural Networks', 'Artificial Neural Network'] |
How to improve your campus social life. | It’s not uncommon to feel lonely or bored as a freshman for the first couple of weeks at school. Interacting with complete strangers can be difficult or unsettling to most. I myself found it difficult as well, but it can be done with the right amount of motivation and charisma.
Social Events
Kennesaw State and many other universities have a social media account were they post all types of up in coming events. Personally more than a few of them look boring, and seem like a waste of time: however, they provide great opportunities . Many people are also looking to make friends or have a good time. The events encourage friendly interactions, making them quite easy if you’re willing to indulge yourself.
Making Conversation
Talking to people comes natural to some and can be strenuous to others. When beginning a conversation make sure to make eye contact, it helps display interest and confidence. You should look the other person in their eyes but not to the point to where it becomes staring. Body language is another important factor when speaking to someone, slouching shoulders and fidgeting can all be seen as signs of lack of interest. One way to make people feel more comfortable when talking to them is to maintain open body language, for example don’t cross your arms or turn your back on someone.
Exiting Your Comfort Zone
Arguably the most important way to improve your social life is to sacrifice a bit of your personal life. It took me a while to realize this. I am an introvert, I prefer the comfort of my own home and rarely go out. When I do go out, I hate being alone or being by myself. It feels weird and I’m sure many other people can relate. One way I would combat being alone is that whenever I saw someone interesting I would tell myself I have to talk to them now or I’ll never see them again. A college campus can be a big place, especially Kennesaw (student population of 38,000+). There is a very real chance you can meet a dozen new people on campus every day, or never see the same person more than once.
Planning Ahead
Once you make friends the struggle is not over. Everyone has their own individual schedule and plans so it can be hard to find a time where everyone is free. Communication is key, exchange schedules with your friends so you both can find optimal times to hang out.
Get Active
Joining a club/organization, or playing a sport is a great way to meet new people. Being a part of team builds camaraderie and can strengthen friendships. Playing sports can be a good icebreaker, and playing together builds trust. When you have to rely on someone else you strengthen your connection to them. Similar to the team dynamic of sports; clubs/organizations require team work to function at full capacity. Clubs and Sports in general provide ample time for small talk and personal interactions.
Your social anxiety may seem insurmountable; however, once you overcome that barrier you can cultivate true, meaningful, relationships. | https://medium.com/year-one-ksu/how-to-improve-your-campus-social-life-9dc9f8aee293 | [] | 2019-09-12 03:18:23.033000+00:00 | ['Networking', 'Learning', 'Belonging'] |
HyperX Cloud Alpha S 7.1 Gaming Headset Review | Launching today, the HyperX Cloud Alpha S is more than just an iteration on one of the best-sounding gaming headsets ever made.
Indeed, it firmly takes its place as the “flagship” of HyperX’s mainstream wired headset offerings.
It combines the stellar audio performance, design, and comfort of the Cloud Alpha with a features package that outdoes the venerable Cloud II.
If you’re looking for the best headset that HyperX offers below $150, this is it.
OVERVIEW
The HyperX Cloud Alpha S is a closed-back, wired gaming headset with a robust features package. It sells for $129.99, and it’s available in a nice new blue color.
That’s right, it’s a break from the standard red-and-black color scheme that has long been the company’s trademark.
At a first glance, this looks just like the Cloud Alpha. But a number of smart build and feature changes have been made in exchange for your extra $30.
The ear pads are thicker and more comfortable. If you’re not a fan of leatherette, you can switch to the newly-included sports fabric ear pads. The headband materials have been tweaked for a softer fit. The headset now features adjustable bass levels thanks to bass port sliders.
And as the cherry on top, the Cloud Alpha S includes a new 7.1 USB audio card. Unlike some previous “7.1” offerings from HyperX, this is a true 7.1 audio device which registers as such in Windows 10.
Not only that, but HyperX offers multiple firmware updates for users to choose from with different EQ profiles and virtual speaker positions.
In many ways, this feels like the Alpha’s final form.
It’s a powerful competitor for the recently-released Logitech G Pro X, and seems perfectly-designed for folks like me who were frustrated that Cooler Master omitted the Takstar Pro 82’s bass sliders from the MH752 when they licensed it as a gaming product.
If you’re a PC gamer, this is one of the most robust options at this price point.
And if you’re on consoles, the improved comfort and bass sliders may still be worth the $30 premium to you.
SOUND QUALITY
Since the Cloud Alpha S shares its ear cup design with the original Cloud Alpha, it has a small row of bass ports along the top of the cups in addition to the bass sliders near the bottom.
Thus, I was expecting that with the sliders fully closed, the Cloud Alpha S would sound just like the original Cloud Alpha, and that it would add more and more bass in the two open positions.
I was wrong.
HyperX shipped my evaluation pair with the sliders in the middle of three positions, and in that position these sound just like the original Cloud Alpha.
The bass is warm and accurate, and the much-hyped Dual Chamber Design really works to keep it separate from the mids and highs, which are as reasonably clean and accurate as they’ve ever been.
I’ve long-recommended the Cloud Alpha as a great just-warm-of-neutral headset at this price, and that’s not changed with the S model.
You can hear the Dual Chambers in action if you play around with the sliders while they’re on your head. Opening them all the way boosts the bass region by several dB, providing a fun slam to the low end.
I’ve used this headset for the last four days, and spent most of my time with the sliders fully open. It’s easily my favorite of the three positions.
It gives the headset a bassy thick sound, but without screwing up the rest of the range or thickening up the mids. It’s impressive, and while it’s not in the same league of bass response as HyperX’s exceptional Cloud Orbit, or as refined as the Arctis Pro Wireless, it’s darn close…which is all you can ask at this lower price.
Closing the sliders cuts almost all of the low end out, sort of like the closed position on the old Custom One Pro.
The bass ports on the tops of the cups that I mentioned earlier have been blocked off with some type of foam sound damping material, which is why you have to use the middle position to mimic the original Alpha.
With the ports closed, the sound takes on a slightly anemic, slightly thin quality that I don’t love. You’ll hear bass energy trying to happen and then it’ll immediately cut itself off.
On the plus side, closing the ports increases the isolation slightly and allows you to focus on the mids and highs. If you’re a footsteps fiend, or want to do some listening for hiss in a recording, or just need the most isolation possible, then it’s a good option.
But I’d wager most people will want to use the middle or the fully open positions. Even with the ports open, you’ll still get enough isolation to use these in a loud coffee shop without blasting your audio.
During my testing, I played several hours of Borderlands 3, GreedFall, and Resident Evil 5…a classic that I know the sound of very well.
I personally like a little extra bass energy when I’m gaming, and the open position is great for that while still maintaining all the detail and clarity the Cloud Alpha is famous for.
These are technically the most bass-heavy headset HyperX produces outside the Warm EQ mode on the Orbit, so if you’re a bass fan, this is the HyperX product for you.
It’s also an exceptional headset for most genres of music, and a little kinder to badly-compressed pop music than a more critical “audiophile” headphone will be.
The Logitech G Pro X offers a slightly more bright, more neutral sound…but it’s not as “fun” out of the box.
Fortunately for HyperX, their virutal surround implementation totally destroys Logitech’s.
VIRTUAL SURROUND DONGLE
I was delighted when I plugged in the dongle and it showed up as a 7.1 device on my PC. This joins the Cloud Revolver S’s Dolby Headphone dongle as the second HyperX device to properly support 7.1 game and movie audio for PC users.
Unlike the Revolver’s sound card, HyperX has taken a stab at crafting their own custom virtual surround system here. The results are quite interesting!
On the firmware update page for the dongle, HyperX offers two choices of EQ profile. The “FPS” profile offers a slightly larger emphasis on bass for gunshots and explosions, and the “Sound Widening” profile is more neutral, with sharper highs.
Unlike the abysmal Logitech G Pro X surround sound, neither of these profiles ruins the audio with too much bass.
The new dongle has a white LED instead of the red one featured in the old models. That, and proper support for surround source audio.
The EQ is a little tweaked over the standard stereo listening mode, but feels tuned to bring out the best the headset’s default sound signature has to offer.
Neither available profile has too much fake room echo, and both offer a bit of a volume boost for those of you who want things louder.
The “Sound Widening” profile offers a standard virtual 7.1 speaker setup with the channels emanating from the directions you’d expect.
The “FPS” profile shakes this up, and sees HyperX going for it with their own custom virtual speaker placements that are unlike any other virtual surround system I’ve ever heard.
The front left and right channels get pushed out to the sides, and the standard surround channels are closer in and seem to have a bit of a height component.
It’s…interesting and different, and while I personally prefer the sound of the “Widening” profile, I think it’s awesome that HyperX tried something new with a truly custom virtual surround tuning that’s not just marketing hype.
Installing a different firmware is a painless one-click process, and while it may not be as adjustable as the Cloud Orbit, it’s still nice to have this option. I look forward to seeing if they release any additional profiles in the future.
Instead of the standard mic volume buttons other HyperX dongles offer, here there’s a game/chat balance feature. That’s probably a more practical inclusion, since I’d wager most users will set their mic volume once then never touch it again. | https://medium.com/@xander51/hyperx-cloud-alpha-s-7-1-gaming-headset-review-5b282977d67 | ['Alex Rowe'] | 2019-09-24 17:58:55.535000+00:00 | ['Gaming', 'Music', 'Headphones', 'Technology', 'Audio'] |
Want More Money in 2021, Get to Know Your Finances | The most tiresome relationship you ever have will be with your money. And like me, you will tire of never having enough money to pay bills. So this is what I did to change it.
Analogy:
You are on holiday. There are two ways to get to a restaurant for dinner. Walk down a dark alley lined with vipers and pitfalls or stick to the main sidewalk where it is bright, safe and, you can see what is up ahead. Some people may very well choose to venture down the alley because they like the rush of not seeing what is in front of them. Most others will stick to the sidewalk and end up having a wonderful dining experience.
It is what you dreamt about when you planned your holidays.
Yet, when it comes to finances, many people choose to walk through that dark alley. Alone.
You don’t know which steps to take to become solvent. There are a lot of ways to alleviate the dread involved with a dismal financial situation. Many of those ways do not cost money and may even keep more dollars in your pocket.
There are small steps you can take to cut down on expenditures.
You need to know exactly what you owe. Then make a plan — if one does not exist — to pay it back. Get a dedicated notebook from a dollar store and write everything out you owe. Cut expenditures like your cable bill. Cable service is expensive, often costing more than a couple of hundred dollars per month. When you break up a bundle for cable-internet-phone, your internet price may increase. . I pay less than $35/month for a couple of streaming companies. If you have a cell phone, do you need a landline as well? Again, I cut my landline when I cut my cable. That bill was $60/month. Pay your utilities on time. When you pay your bills on time, you do not pay late fees. Can you trim your utilities? Turn the thermostat down a degree or two — get a programmable thermostat. Utility companies have incentives to install these to cut down on hydro during peak hours. If it is too much for one pay, split your month in half(before the due date). Pay your minimum payment on your credit card by the due date. Do not neglect the due date. And do not miss payments. Since the credit card company reports your payments once a month, it is far better to break that payment into two before the due date. It means you will hit the mark as a payment made within the same month as it is due. Treat your cell phone bill the same as you would a credit card bill. If you are late or miss a payment, it is equivalent to failing to pay on a credit card and will affect your credit rate. Bundle your insurances. Can you get a deal if you bundle your car insurance, house/apartment insurance, and mortgage insurance? A lot of insurance companies will compete for your business. This one act can reduce your rates. Check your credit on creditkarma.com or creditkarma.ca. This site has a lot of information about your credit rating. When you check your credit rate, it shows up as a soft hit and does not affect your credit rate. A hard hit is when a financial institution inquires about your credit rate for a loan. Transunion drives Creditkarma.com. You are entitled to a free credit report of your credit history once a year. Should you find a discrepancy, you can let them know. Know your credit score. You want a credit rating above 700. It works this way: the higher your credit rating is, it is easier to borrow money. When you apply for credit and, your credit rating is high, you can negotiate a lower lending rate. BUDGET. The most important piece of advice I can ever give you! When you know where your money is going, you can re-direct it. If there is a leak in your finances, you can repair it. Go to a dollar store and pick up a notebook. Write down all your monthly bills and their due dates. Then rearrange them into two segments. Typically your expenditures are heavier on one pay than the next. What you want is to achieve is a balance between your pay-dates. The first segment includes every bill from the 1st to the 15th. And the second segment, every bill due from the 16th until the end of the month.
Setting up your budget. Your pays will work as follows:
Your pays will work as follows: First pay of the month will cover all bills that come due from the 16th until the end of the month.
will cover all bills that come due from the 16th until the end of the month. Second pay of the month will cover everything from the 1st to the 15th of the following month. Once you are doing this, you will find that it will shift your mindset. You will discover you are no longer living paycheck-to-paycheck.
will cover everything from the 1st to the 15th of the month. Once you are doing this, you will find that it will shift your mindset. You will discover you are no longer living paycheck-to-paycheck. There are plenty of online services that offer free budget templates to help you. And plenty give you a free 30-day trial. I use YouNeedaBudget.com, which took some time for me to wrap my head around. Now I love it.
My Budgeting Guidelines:
On payday, assign a monetary value to each item until every single dollar has a job. Itemize all your expenditures. Your headlines can be immediate obligations and savings goals. An example of those items can be as follows. Loans, rent/mortgage, food, education, loans, gifts, taxes, insurances, utilities, phone, cable, internet, water, transportation, and, etcetera. Keep going until you have every obligation compiled in your list. Put money aside every payday. Even if all you have is five dollars per pay, leave it in your bank. As it accumulates, it will be available to pay for those new tires you need. Or maybe the oil, lube, and filter. A vacation. It is easier to save all year for a rainy day than to be stuck or have to come up with emergency funds all at once. Rainy days do happen. It is best to prepare for your future. Talk to a financial adviser in your bank. There is no cost to you to sit down and discuss your finances with them. They can direct you as well. And read every article you can find on budgeting, saving money, and learn how to make your money work for you.
Now I may not be rich, but I know the location of every dollar. When I buy something, my debit card does not get declined. Since I have money in my bank account, I can gas up the day before payday. My credit rating has improved by over 200 points. I do not pay late fees. And I no longer dodge calls from utilities because I am behind on the bills.
These steps have helped me rest easy when it comes to the depression caused by being in the middle of a financial crisis. I no longer feel the tightening in my throat and the propensity to hide when my phone rings. I am not destitute. I sleep much better at night because I no longer worry about my uncontrolled finances. And I even have a savings.
When I became solvent, companies quit calling. It was almost as if I lost a bunch of friends.
I still stress over money because I remember the days (not so long ago) when I mismanaged my money. Those dark days when I had no idea how much money my ignorant practices were costing me. The difference now is that I understand money. And I know how to budget.
If you believe for one moment that I do not go over budget, think again. I am human. The idea here is you immediately know you went off-budget. When you are aware of that, you can take steps to recover and get back on budget.
If you think you cannot turn your finances around, here is a tiny part of my story.
Along with everything I owed, I had a personal debt of $6150. Once I began to budget, I treated the personal debt like it was from an institution. I made arrangements to pay it back in equal installments. And I pay it every payday, without fail. I began on October 4, 2019. As of December 26, 2020, I owe $1200. I will clear that debt in full by April 15, 2021.
I am not a financial professional. I am not affiliated with any services mentioned below. What I am is an experienced human who used to have financial problems, until I changed my ways.
Resources:
https://www.cnbc.com/select/what-is-a-good-credit-score/#:~:text=What%20is%20a%20good%20credit%20score%3F%201%20Very,661%20to%20780%205%20Excellent%3A%20781%20to%2085
What is a good credit score? | Credit Karma
Advertiser Disclosure They may be used to determine some of the most important financial factors in your life, such as…www.creditkarma.ca
Two decades into the new millennium in statements noted by Olivia Mellan and Karina Piskaldo in their 1999 article on ‘Men, Women, and Money’ from Psychology Today are as valid now as they were then. Most people relate to money much as they relate to a person — in an ongoing and complex way that taps deep-seated emotions. Money is still a taboo topic. Often, the silence is a shield for the shame, guilt and anxiety people feel about their ways with money. I, for one, would not want to tell a date that I’m an overspender. Many individuals have a troubled relationship with money.
Men, Women, and Money Money is such an emotionally loaded topic that few couples discuss it directly. Yet it is, more than sex, what drives…www.psychologytoday.com
If you want to understand how you are spending your money, achieve your saving goals, and improve your personal finances, one of the most effective things you can do is to start budgeting.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/202001/can-budgeting-help-us-improve-our-personal-finances | https://medium.com/@ev-maren/want-more-money-in-2021-get-to-know-your-finances-f2dca5170a5f | ['Evelyn Marentette'] | 2020-12-27 16:35:55.252000+00:00 | ['Credit Repair', 'Budgeting Finance Tips', 'Money Management', 'Budgeting', 'Self Help'] |
Can smart contracts end the fraud tradition of recent Turkish history? | You can always find news in Turkey about fraud. The method, the channel or the size may differ from case to case but the concept has been continuing for decades. The history of this tradition has three outstanding examples. First one is Osman Ziya Sülün (1923–1984). He is a pioneer of swindle in the region and a shining example of this tradition. His strategy was simple: offer goods that he does not own to his target, collect money then vanish.
Galata Tower which is located in Istanbul and built by Genoese is one of the properties sold by Sülün Osman. It has been using as a museum since the late 1960s. Photo by Selim Çetin
The second example is Fadıl Akgündüz who is the founder of Jetpa Holding. He is called “Jet Fadıl” after his company. He had been active in several areas including tourism, football, real estate and politics. During this time, there are several examples of his “unsatisfied premises” however, the last one is the most highlighting one. He pledged an island in Maldives exclusive for Muslims and started a marketing campaign in 2014. He collected approximately 170 million USD from 60 thousand people. Unfortunately, the people neither could take back their money nor enjoyed the island since there was no existed investment in the Maldives.
“Fadıl victims” who could not get their real estate which they already paid for, is going to the court to follow the case against Mr. Akgündüz.
The third and most recent example is Çiftlik Bank (Farm Bank). The founder of the platform, Mehmet Aydın provides an online farming game to the users. In this game, users would buy farm stuff with real money, Mr. Aydın was supposed to use this money for real farming investments and delivering back to the users. Eventually, he fled away from Turkey with millions of Turkish Lira collected from the players in 2018, therefore, users could not get back their money.
In brief, although all of these three examples are at different times or using different sectors, they have three characteristics in common.
The promisor does not build his premise on facts.
For instance, Sülün Osman was not the owner of the Galata Tower, at all. Britannica defines fraud as “the deliberate misrepresentation of fact for the purpose of depriving someone of a valuable possession.”. This case has full compliance with this description. The contract was not transparent all the time, sometimes it is not even formal.
So, the victim could not prove that he has paid for the Galata Tower since this agreement cannot be proven from another subject. The contract, formally or verbally, is centralized.
It means that if something happens to the center, the contract is gone. For instance, if Fadıl Akgündüz or Mehmet Aydın suddenly shuts down the operations, the users would not have control over it and lose all of their investments. And that is the exact case already happened.
Here is the point that we dive into the smart contracts. | https://medium.com/@sburak_a/can-smart-contracts-end-the-fraud-tradition-of-recent-turkish-history-6fe5b6de0561 | ['Burak Akın'] | 2021-07-25 21:38:00.046000+00:00 | ['Çiftlik Bank', 'Security', 'Blockchain', 'Fraud', 'Smart Contract'] |
AI Training Dataset Market Worth $4.8 Billion By 2027 | The global AI training dataset market size is expected to reach USD 4.8 billion by 2027, expanding at a CAGR of 22.5%, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. The artificial intelligence technology is proliferating. As organizations are transitioning towards automation, the demand for technology is rising. The technology has provided unprecedented advances across various industry verticals, including marketing, healthcare, logistics, transportation, and many others. The benefits of integrating the technology across various operations of the organizations have outweighed its costs, thereby driving adoption.
Due to the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence technology, the need for training sets is rising exponentially. To make the technology more versatile and accurate with its predictions, a wide number of companies are entering the market space by releasing various datasets operating across various use cases to train the machine learning algorithm. Such factors are substantially contributing to market growth.
Factors such as cultivation of new high-quality datasets to speed up the development of AI technology and deliver accurate results are driving the market. For instance, in January 2019, IBM Corporation, a technology company, announced the release of a new dataset that comprises of 1.0 million images of faces. This dataset was released with an aim to help developers to train their face recognition systems supported by artificial intelligence technology with diverse dataset. In addition, it will help developers to increase the accuracy of face identification.
Click the link below:
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/ai-training-dataset-market
Further key findings from the study suggest: | https://medium.com/@marketnewsreports/ai-training-dataset-market-1907f180f354 | ['Gaurav Shah'] | 2020-12-18 10:27:55.265000+00:00 | ['Vidéo', 'Audio', 'Image', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
How Neural Networks Work | How Neural Networks Work
Understand what’s happening inside a neural network
Image by the author
This article is part of a series that explains neural networks without the math. The first part is here. The next part is here. You can also get the whole series as a book.
The basic structure of a simulated neuron
In the first part of this introduction, we talked about what an artificial neuron is. Artificial neurons are inspired by biological nerve cells, and transmit a signal from their “input side” (dendrites) to their “output side” (the axon):
Image by the author
The axon at the end divides into terminal branches, which connect to other dendrites (of many other such neurons), creating a network of billions of connected neurons. What makes an artificial neuron more than just a connecting cable is the ability of the neuron to decide whether it should actually propagate a signal down its axon or not.
In artificial neurons, the “cell body” (usually just a function in a programming language) will first weigh and then add up its inputs and, if they add up to more than a set threshold value, fire a signal down its axon. If the sum of the weighted inputs doesn’t exceed the threshold value, the neuron will stay silent and not fire a signal to the neurons that are connected at its terminal branches:
Image by the author
By connecting many such units in multiple layers with each other, we get an artificial neural network:
Image by the author
The weights between the inputs and the summing function can change, and represent the actual “learned” content of the network. All the information that the network has is stored in these weights. We will see in a moment how this works in detail. Read on!
A neuron for a logical ‘or’
Let us have a look at a few very simple neural networks so that we can see what happens inside them. These networks don’t do anything overly exciting, but they are easy to understand, and they do demonstrate the basic principles behind neural networks.
First, we want to have a look at a neuron that works as a logical or. The logical or operation has two inputs, A and B, and one output.
Consider a sentence like “If it is Saturday or very hot, I will go to the beach.” The two inputs are “it is Saturday” and “it is very hot”. The output is “I will go to the beach”. Each of the two input conditions can be true or false independently of the other. So it might be Saturday and very hot, or Saturday and not very hot, or not Saturday and not very hot. All in all, we have four possible combinations of input patterns, and for each, we have one desired output.
If it is not Saturday and not very hot, I will not go to the beach. If it is not Saturday but very hot, I will go to the beach. If it is Saturday but not very hot, I will go to the beach. If is Saturday and very hot, I will go to the beach.
So in three of the four cases, I will go to the beach (so my output will be true). In one of the four, namely, if both conditions are false, then I will not go to the beach. We can express the truth of the conditions either with the symbols T and F (for “true” and “false”) or just with 1 (true) and 0 (false).
To summarise: if either A or B is true, then the output of this logical operation should also be true. The output will also be true if only one of A and B is true. The output will only be false if both A and B are false. The following table shows what we want to achieve.
Input A Input B Output
------- ------- ------
0 0 0
0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 1
----------------------
In order to build this as a neural network, we will need just one neuron. This one neuron has two inputs: one for the value of A and one for the value of B. Remember that between each input and the neuron is also a synaptic weight, which is shown in the diagram below as a little red circle with a number in it. This number is the factor by which the synapse will multiply its input before it passes it on to the neuron.
The neuron itself will add up its two inputs, and it will fire if the sum of the inputs is equal to or greater than 1. We say that the neuron has a threshold of 1.0. You can see this on the right side of the neuron below, right under the arrow that represents the neuron’s “axon”.
Now, the question is: how can we set the values of the synaptic weights so that this neuron fulfils the function of a logical or as just described?
Image by the author
Obviously, if each synaptic weight has a value that is equal to or greater than 1, then each one of the inputs A and B will be able to make the neuron fire. Let’s say A is logically true, which we will express as an input of 1. B is false, which means that the input is 0. Now we have to multiply A (which is 1, because A is true) with the synaptic weight 1.1:
1 × 1.1 = 1.1
We have to multiply B (which is false, i.e. 0) with its synaptic weight (1.1) too, but because B is 0, the result of the operation will be 0. Now the neuron gets one input with the value 1.1, and one input with the value 0. Its threshold is 1; therefore, since one of the inputs is already greater than 1, the neuron will fire and will set its output to 1.
This behaviour is exactly what we wanted! This neuron behaves like a logical or. You can check the other combinations of input values yourself to verify that this neuron would indeed work correctly in all four cases.
By the way, the scary Greek ‘Σ’ letter (pronounced “sigma”) inside the neuron’s body just means “sum”. So the neuron is summing up its inputs at this point and checking whether the sum is greater than the threshold value or not.
Calculating a logical ‘and’
Now let us consider another logical operation, the and. Take an example sentence like “If it is Saturday and very hot, then I will go to the beach.” This is different from before because now both conditions need to be fulfilled at the same time in order for me to go to the beach.
Here is a truth table for an and:
Input A Input B Output
------- ------- ------
0 0 0
0 1 0
1 0 0
1 1 1
----------------------
How do I have to set the synaptic weights so that our neuron now behaves as a logical and?
Clearly, I will need to set the weights so that each one by itself is unable to make the neuron fire. That is, each synaptic weight should be less than the threshold; but the two synaptic weights, when added together, should give us a greater value than the threshold value 1. This means that I can take any value between 0.5 and 0.9 for the synaptic weights. I get the following diagram:
Image by the author
You can easily verify that this will behave like a logical and.
Exclusive or not?
Things become slightly more complicated if I want to create a neuron that encodes a logical exclusive or, or xor. An exclusive or is true only if either A or B is true, but not both. Here is a truth table for the xor operation:
Input A Input B Output
------- ------- ------
0 0 0
0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 0
----------------------
If you think about it for a moment, you will see that we cannot possibly achieve this result with a single neuron, because the weights would have to be greater than 1 so that each input can trigger the neuron alone and make it behave like an or. But if this was the case, then we could not get the right result for the last line where both inputs are 1, but the result is supposed to be 0.
So here we really need three neurons. One will act as an or and will fire if either one of its inputs is true. The second neuron will only have the job of stopping the output from becoming 1 in the case that both inputs are true. Therefore, one neuron needs to have both synapses set to 1 or 1.1, so that it will fire like an or. The second neuron is actually encoding an and, and if it fires, it will produce a negative output of −2. In this way, in the last line of the truth table, the sum of these two outputs will be less than 1. So we need a third neuron, which will be the output neuron, and this will fire only if the sum of its inputs is greater or equal to 1:
Image by the author
You can imagine that we can make the processing that happens between input and output as complex as we like by adding more and more neurons. Each new layer of neurons enables us to model more complex mappings between input and output.
Thanks for reading! In the next part, we will simulate neurons inside a spreadsheet, to see how exactly they work. Stay tuned. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/how-neural-networks-work-c34298a292df | ['Moral Robots'] | 2020-10-11 02:30:44.185000+00:00 | ['Neural Networks', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Computer Science', 'Programming'] |
The Story Behind What’s on Our Plates — How Food Production is Harming the Planet | Profit over forest — a lesson from Brazil
“When a forest is lost, it is gone forever. Recovery may occur but never 100% recovery,” -Dr Michelle Kalamandeen, Amazon rainforest tropical ecologist
The consumption of red meat, milk, coffee, and sugar costs us more than the price we pay to purchase these items. Brazil learned about this the hard way. As the world’s largest commercial cattle, largest exporter of coffee, and biggest producer of soybean, along with other outstanding predicates in the food industry, Brazil experienced first hand the great impact that agriculture can have on the environment. With President Jair Bolsonaro securing the land-opening permission for farming, logging, and even mining, the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is extremely high. According to analysis of satellite data provided by Amazon rainforest ecologist, more than 13,000sq km of the Brazilian Amazon was burned, just in the first seven months of 2020. This is more than eight times the size of London. This high rate of deforestation has strong correlation with the occurrence of forest fire since in tropical rainforest. Human activities such as agriculture and ranching constitute the direct underlying causes of fires (Butler, 2012).
Aside from the fire caused by deforestation, another major problem that countries with large agricultural industries have been going through was drought, which increases fire incidences in forests. This is directly related to the declining Northern Hemisphere aerosol production caused by global warming which tends to result in anomalous variation of sea surface temperature. The change in sea surface temperature is driving large-scale swings in precipitation over Amazon, making it more prone to wildfire. This is proven correct, looking at the large number of forest fire cases in Brazil. Back in 2019, the Amazon rainforest wildfires gained international attention and concern as the forest actually acts as the world’s largest terrestrial carbon dioxide sink. Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) estimated that over 906 thousand hectares of forest within the Amazon biome has been lost to fires in 2019. The fuss over the Amazon forest fire may have petered out, but the reality now is even more startling. INPE reported that in the first half of 2020, deforestation was up 25%, compared to the same period last year. It is hard to imagine that the food on most of our plates is what causes this huge destruction. | https://medium.com/@economixfebui/the-story-behind-whats-on-our-plates-how-food-production-is-harming-the-planet-e2a487e14a72 | ['Economix Feb Ui'] | 2020-11-26 13:32:33.789000+00:00 | ['Food Waste', 'Climate Action', 'Environmental Issues', 'Environment', 'Climate Change'] |
Investment Management And Factors | Investment Management And Factors
Understand How To Invest Your Money Wisely
There are not many articles explaining investment management and its factors on medium, despite it being one of the most important fields in finance.
As a consequence, I have decided to write an article that focuses on investment management, its concepts along with the key factors which we should be familiar with so that the wider community can benefit from it. I will be aiming to explain everything from the basics.
Investment management can help us understand how to earn highest return from our investment by taking the least amount of risk
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
Article Aim
This article will provide a thorough overview of the following topics:
Explaining The Investment Problem Assets, Portfolio, Alpha, Beta & Benchmark What Is Factor Theory? Overview of CAPM and multifactor models Understanding what factors are
Please read FinTechExplained disclaimer. Always seek advice of a professional financial advisor before investing your money.
1. Let’s Understand The Investment Problem First
Let’s consider you have $10'000 of cash available and you are interested in investing it. Your aim is to invest the money for a year. Like any rational investor, you expect the final amount in a years time to be higher than the $10'000 amount you want to invest. The last thing you want is to lose the $10'000 you started your investment with.
So far, so good!
Now the research journey begins. You probably lookout for a number of investment opportunities which can earn you your highest return.
Let’s Invest The Money
The most obvious investment option might be to invest in a fixed-term savings account of an AAA-rated bank.
The concept is simple. You invest x amount now and get x + interest in a year’s time. You might choose this option because of the fact that the investment option is easy to understand, it is simple and it’s, well, pretty-much risk-free because you are guaranteed to get your return back.
To elaborate, let’s assume that a bank named National Bank, is an extremely safe government bank and it is willing to give you a 2% return on your investment if you deposit the money for a year. Let’s refer to this rate as the risk-free rate for now as you will get a 2% return without taking any risk.
Therefore you will receive 10'200 = $10'000 x (100+2)% after a year.
Usually, the rate offered on the Treasury Bills is the risk-free rate as it is the safest form of investment.
Let me now introduce the concept of risk-return trade-off
There are a couple of investment options, in potentially increasing order of risk, such as:
Treasury Bills Government Bonds Bank Savings Account Investments In Developed Country Investments In Emerging Countries Equities & Company Shares In Stable Companies Equities & Company Shares In New Companies And so on
The hypothetical chart above is indicating that the return you receive on your investment increases as you take more risk.
Some of these investments are riskier than the others and these returns can help us gain higher returns. Hence, the point to note is that there exists a risk-return trade-off. As an investor, our sole aim might be to invest in the least risky investment option that yields the highest return. Let me explain this in a bit more depth!
What’s important to realise is that there is a tradeoff between risk and return. If an investor is expecting to invest in a riskier investment option than the risk-free rate then he/she is expecting to earn more in return. This is to compensate for the risk that the investor is taking. So far, it all makes sense! An investor is willing to take more risk because he/she wants to earn more in return.
It is important to note that higher risk does not produce higher returns. Sometimes, investments with the lowest risk produced the highest returns as seen in 2011–2016 from iShares Edge MSCI Minimum Volatility USA ETF performance.
2. This Brings Us To The Concept Of Assets, Portfolio, Alpha, Beta & Benchmark
Up till now, we have realised that there is a risk-free rate. If we want to earn money above the offered risk-free rate that then we will have to take more risks.
What Are Assets & Portfolio?
We might start our investment journey by buying equities of different companies, commodities, derivatives, and/or bonds etc. Let me refer to these transactions as assets from now on. A portfolio groups/holds the assets together. Every time we change our portfolio by buying/selling an asset, we have to pay a transaction cost which could be a percentage of the transaction amount.
There is also a theoretical market portfolio which holds every single asset that is available in the market.
As we start to add assets in our portfolio, we start realising that some of these assets are somewhat correlated with each other. The risk of an asset can be computed using a number of risk measures. One of these measures is the standard deviation which can inform us on how the price of an asset deviates from its mean. As an instance, some of the assets might be negatively correlated with each other, implying that as the value of the first asset moves down, the value of the negatively correlated asset increases. This shows us that the risk of a portfolio is not a simple sum of the risks of the individual assets.
Let’s understand it with an example
Consider an asset A. Its price fluctuates a lot. If we plot its daily price change, we can see that the asset is extremely volatile.
Consider another asset B which exhibits similar behaviour as asset A. If we plot its daily returns, we can see that it also is highly volatile:
One might assume that buying both of these assets will not ba wise decision. However the opposite might be true. If I plot the daily returns of both of the assets, we can notice that the assets are perfectly negatively correlated with each other:
As a result, we end up diversifying the risk and thus the risk isn’t the sum of the risk of the individual assets anymore. Hence, we need to compute the comovement (covariance) of all of the assets with each other and then use it to compute the risk. This means that an investor can reduce the total risk and increase the return by choosing different assets with different proportions in a portfolio.
When we want to invest in a company, we need to understand its net worth per share to determine the value of a company share.
Book Value Per Share
The net worth per share of a company is known as its book value per share. It is calculated as:
We also need to consider the price of the stocks into account to understand whether the share is a value or growth-share. Value shares are those shares that have a high book to market ratio and growth shares have a low book to market ratio. History informs us that the value stocks are positively correlated with each other and thus perform like each other.
We can start preparing a unique mixture of a large number of portfolios. An investor has his/her target return and risk profiles. Some of these portfolios will be more efficient than others. If we plot the risk-return of the portfolios on a scatter-chart then we will see a curve which will look like the image below.
This is the set of efficient portfolios which yield the highest return for the lowest risk. I will explain in another article.
Note For Future: I am planning to demonstrate how we can compute the investment management theory by creating optimum and efficient portfolios using Python. This will then put the theory into practical action. I will also attempt to use advanced machine learning and data science concepts such as neural networks. So stay tuned and let me know if you are interested in the tool and the articles!
Alpha, Beta & The Benchmark
We understood that there is a risk-free rate investment which can give us a return on our portfolio without letting us take any risk. Before I explain Alpha, I need to quickly provide an overview of the benchmark index.
Benchmark
Have you come across the famous indexes such as S&P 500, Russell 1000, FTSE 100, Nasdaq 100 indexes and so on? These indexes essentially provide us a way to measure the performance of the market as a whole. It is very difficult to assess the performance of every single company to understand how the market is behaving. As a result, these indexes provide a good overview. Essentially these are stock market indexes which represent the performance of top companies. This makes it simpler for investors to understand how the market is behaving. The concept is that a number of top companies are selected. As an example, Russell 1000 is an index of nearly 1000 largest companies in US equity market and S&P 500 is computed by considering 500 largest corporations by market cap that are listed on New York Stock Exchange. These indexes are highly diversified because some of the assets will be correlated with each other.
An investor can create his/her own portfolio and take the index as the benchmark which he/she has to beat!
Having said that, occasionally the risk-free rate is considered to be the benchmark. A large number of studies and methodologies have been implemented that select the appropriate benchmark for the investor.
For the sake of simplicity, we can think of these indexes as the average performance of the top companies in the market
Ok, so now we are pretty much there to understand what alpha is.
Alpha
The index can be considered as a benchmark for the investor. And, the return that the investor earns in excess of a benchmark is known as the alpha!
Therefore, to carry on the risk-free rate example expressed above, if the risk-free rate is taken as the benchmark and an investor earns 5% return after investing in a large number of equities then in the simplest case, the alpha is 3% (5%-2%).
For the sake of avoiding confusion, I will explain and compute the risk-adjusted part of Alpha (Jensens Alpha) later on.
To be precise, alpha is the average performance of an investor in excess of the benchmark.
Beta
Beta, on the other hand, helps us understand how risky an asset is by taking historical volatility into account. It measures how the asset moves when compared to a benchmark.
A beta is usually a Real number. As an instance, when an asset’s beta is -1 then it means that there is a true negative correlation between the asset and the benchmark index. As a result, it shows us that both the asset and the benchmark move in the opposite direction to each other.
The higher the beta, the riskier the asset.
To calculate the beta, we need to take the correlation of the asset with the benchmark along with their volatilities into account. The volatility is represented by the standard deviation of the asset prices.
Let’s Combine Benchmark, Alpha & Beta Together
Let’s assume we invested $10'000 by buying gold. Let’s also consider our benchmark is the 2% savings account. The beta of gold with the benchmark is 1.75 which is calculated by taking the volatility of gold and the benchmark into account. This means that the volatility of gold is 75% greater than the volatility of the benchmark.
After a year, let’s consider that the price of gold turned out to be $10'300. Therefore we have earned a return of 3%
If we invested $10'000 in a savings account, we would have earned $10'200. Therefore in the simplest case, our alpha is 1% (3%–2%).
Now we have built a strong foundation for us and I am sure we are realising how investment can be managed accurately.
Once we start to learn about investment management, we will come across various buzzwords such as the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and multifactor models. These models are built on top of a theory that is widely known as the Factor Theory.
Let’s start by understanding what factor theory is.
3. Factor Theory
Consider a scenario that you want to buy some assets such as government bonds or equities (company shares). How will the assets behave if the economy slows down, or if the inflation increases, or if a war occurs or if a cure for a disease is found or whether the shares will increase in their value if a higher number of younger investors attempted to buy them all at once or how the assets will behave due to the introduction of a new monetary policy?
All of these questions are captured in factor theory
Assets As Factor Risks
These assets in a portfolio are merely a group of factor risks. To understand it better, know that the behavior of the assets is dependent on the factors. Therefore, as an investor, it is crucial to map assets to the factors and then perform a thorough analysis of the factors.
Good And Bad Times
We can think of good times as when we are gaining high returns, the economic outlook is positive, there is liquidity in the market, the inflation rate is low and there is a good balance of supply and demand in the market. The opposite can be considered as bad times.
Photo by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash
There are many inefficiencies in the market. The most crucial analysis that an investor needs to perform is to determine whether an asset is valuable to hold in the current times. There is a cost associated with buying/selling an asset. As an instance, an investor might have to pay a transaction, agency, financing cost. Some researchers claim that an investor can beat the market by saving on transaction costs.
Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash
This brings us to the first key point:
Factor theory is about performing the analysis of the risks which are associated with the factors.
Understanding Factor Risks
The price of an asset is changing on a timely basis. We can take the asset prices overtime to calculate their volatility (risk) and returns. An investor needs to be aware of the unexpected changes in the factors and needs to understand how they can impact the risk premiums and asset returns.
Some of these factors are at the macro level, whereas the other factors are at the micro-level. As an instance, factors such as the growth of the economy and the inflation rate are macro-factors. There could be other macro factors too, such as the market, interest rates and so on.
There are not our company level statistical measures such as revenue, P/E ratios, EBIDTA, profit margin, return on assets, income, earnings, cash flows, dividends, payout ratio, beta, moving averages, share volume, credit quality and so on.
Each factor exposes us to some form of risk but we might still invest in the asset due to the excessive premium it pays over the return of a safe riskless investment such as in treasury bill.
Investors usually assume that past growth rates will continue in the future. This behavior is known as overextrapolation.
This brings us to the second key point:
Factor risks are those risks which an investor is exposed to during bad times. These extra risks are rewarded with risk premium.
3 Principles Of Factor Theory
The theory is based on the three key principles:
Don’t be concerned with what your exposure to an asset is. Rather concentrate on the exposure to the underlying factor. Group the assets into factors. This implies that your portfolio can contain 100s of assets but dependent on the asset types, the assets can be grouped into a handful of factors. Now the key to note is that some of the assets themselves are the factors such as equities, whereas some of the assets can contain multiple factors such as a corporate bond asset can contain interest rate to counterparty default risk factors. Not all investors have the same risk exposure profile and each investor can have different optimal exposures to the risk factors.
This brings us to the next topic of the article: CAPM and Multifactor Models
4. CAPM and Multifactor Models
A number of models have been implemented. This part of the article will briefly provide an overview of the concepts. I am avoiding going in too much depth at the moment because I will be implementing a portfolio management tool which will explain everything with practical uses.
Let’s quickly review CAPM.
CAPM stands for Capital Asset Pricing Model. The model is essentially a mathematical formula that considers market portfolio to be the only risk factor. Therefore it is a single-factor model.
CAPM essentially states that the more risk you take, the more you can expect to earn.
It is based on a theory that the prices of the assets are dependent on the market and with each other. Therefore, we need to consider the covariance (comovement) of the asset with the market portfolio.
The covariance of the asset to the market portfolio is known as the beta of an asset.
As a result, the theory states that the assets with high beta yield high return.
The return over the theoretical return of the CAPM return and the risk free rate is known as the alpha
There are a number of limitations of CAPM. As an instance, it is not realistic as it does not represent the true picture of the investment world. CAPM model does not work in inefficient markets where the same information is not available to all of the investors. As a consequence, multifactor models have been implemented.
Let’s review Multifactor Models
There are a number of multifactor models. These models consider more than one factors into consideration. An example of such models is the arbitrage pricing theory (APT).
APT
This model is very similar to CAPM because it describes the expected returns as a linear function of exposures to common risk factors. The issue with APT is that the expected returns might not be a linear function of exposures to common risk factors. As a result, to incorporate nonlinearity in the model, a number of superior multifactor models have been introduced which use a random stochastic discount factor (SDF) and it is represented as “m”. This random variable captures all bad times and the risk is measured by factor betas.
Therefore, in the multifactor model, a number of betas are computed, where each beta represents a factor. As an instance, we could have beta1 for inflation, beta2 for the investment strategy factor and so on.
One of the most famous models is the Fama-French model.
Fama French Model
It is a three-factor model as it takes three dynamic factors into account. These factors are the market risk factor, the size factor and the value/growth effect factor. Each factor has its own beta coefficient. These explanatory factors can help us predict the alpha of an asset accurately. The size factor essentially captures the difference between the returns on small versus big stocks. Big stocks are those stocks with large market capitalisation. Furthermore, the value/growth factor captures the difference of returns between stocks that have a high book to market and low book to market values.
History has informed us that small stocks tend to outperform the large stocks once the beta for the firm is adjusted.
There are also other models such as dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model which take agents behavior along with technological changes into account. There are also overlapping generation models which take demographic factor into account. These models have helped us understand that we need to diversify the risks by investing in different factors.
5. Let’s Understand The Factors
So far, we have understood that the factors derive the risk premiums and the returns. Some of the factors are macro-level factors such as inflation, economic growth, and volatility. These factors can impact the risk premium and asset returns.
Macroeconomic factors
There are a number of macroeconomic factors such as political risk to economic growth to inflation to demographic risk. Let’s understand the three most important macroeconomic factors
1. Economic Growth
Economic growth is measured by taking the GDP growth into account. The economic growth is a variable which usually performs stronger for a longer time.
It is vital to analyse the economic factor and invest accordingly. As an instance, some of the assets are riskier than others. History shows us that the riskier assets are not a wise choice to invest in during bad economic growth. To elaborate, equities are riskier than government bonds. During slow economic growth, riskier assets perform poorly when compared to the less risky assets. However, the returns are usually higher for riskier assets if an investor wants to invest for long-term.
We cannot easily hedge economic growth risk. Investors usually like gains more than they dislike losses. This behavioral theory is known as loss aversion and mental accounting.
Inflation
The inflation rate is the rate at which the price of goods and products have increased in a country. It is measured periodically. The inflation rate is calculated by pricing a large number of common goods and services in a country and then taking the weighted average of them.
Government issues bonds to investors to raise its reserves. When inflation is high, interest rate increases and the value of the bonds decreases. As a result, the inflation rate can impact GDP Per Capita On PPP, foreign reserves and debts of a country. Additionally, when the price of goods is expensive, people tend to spend less on recreational activities. As a consequence, the overall well-being of a country decreases.
History teaches us that high inflation is bad for investors because both equities and bonds perform badly. Not only the risk increases, but the returns are also lowered. It is difficult to hedge against inflation risk.
Volatility
VIX is a volatility index which represents the equity market volatility. When the volatility is high, the stocks perform badly and as a result, the market value of the equities fall. This is known as the leverage effect.
We can reduce the exposure to the volatility factor and hedge the volatility risk by investing in less risky assets such as bonds, or even better, consider investing in out of the money put options. These assets pay off during high volatility.
Summary
Investment management is one of the most important fields in finance yet not many articles explain it in greater detail. In this article, I have attempted to explain the following key points:
Explaining The Investment Problem Assets, Portfolio, Alpha, Beta & Benchmark What Is Factor Theory? Overview of CAPM and multifactor models Understanding what factors are
I am planning to demonstrate how we can compute the investment management theory by creating optimum and efficient portfolios using Python. This will then put the theory into practical action. I will also attempt to use advanced machine learning and data science concepts such as neural networks. So stay tuned and let me know if you are interested in the tool and the articles! | https://medium.com/fintechexplained/investment-management-and-factors-ee9eb5aa0a24 | ['Farhad Malik'] | 2019-08-16 22:06:44.332000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Economics', 'Finance', 'Investing', 'Fintech'] |
Guide to the POMprompts | Welcome to the official guide for POMprompts.
Here we’ll cover what POMprompts are, how to participate, and a keep a running list of the POMprompts so you can come here for POMprompt ideas anytime you wish. There is no time frame on any of the POMprompts.
If you want to know more about The POM publication and Christina M. Ward who writes and hosts the POMprompts you can check out these links:
What is a POMprompt?
A POMprompt is a poetry prompt created by the EIC of The POM publication. At first these her idea of inspiring and generating group participation, promoting creativity, and inserting mini-poetry lessons. The prompts were later opened up for anyone to participate, not just the POMpoets.
The prompts generate creative thought, inspire new works of poetry (or even other creative writing genres or essays published outside the POM), and to press poets to exercise unfamiliar areas of expertise, and try new things with their work. The prompts usually begin with a bit of story and then explain the writing prompt. Writers and poets can read the POMpromts and then decide if they’d like to participate. Again, there are no time constraints on any of the POMprompts. It is not a competition but a prod toward creative expression.
How do I participate? What are the rules?
It’s simple and yes there are TWO rules:
Read the prompt. Write your poem or piece. Submit your work, adhering to the following two rules:
RULES
Use the tag POMprompt ad one of your 5 available tags on your submission
Put a link to the prompt at the bottom of your post to give credit.
Where can I publish my POMprompt response?
Publish your piece wherever you choose. (The POM only accepts poetry and poetry-related articles so if you write a flash fiction or other response, publish in another pub or self-publish.)
If you choose to post in The POM: MUST have the link for the POMprompt somewhere in the post and use the correct tag (POMprompt) so that your post will appear in the POMprompt tab. Otherwise, your post will appear only on the front page until other new posts take their spots on the front page and push your post out of view. Using the correct tag will ensure more eyes on your work. #POMprompt
POMprompts List
POMprompt #1: Reveal
POMprompt #2: Tell Me About Why you Write
POMprompt #3: Inanimate Object
POMprompt #4: Intrusions
POMprompt #5: It’s All in the Pictures
POMprompt #6: Evolution
POMprompt #7: Bring on the Nostalgic Winter
POMprompt #8: Symbiotic Relationship
POMprompt #9: Big and Small
POMprompt #10: Beneath the Surface
POMprompt #11: Abstract Art
POMprompt #12: Pandemic
POMprompt #13: Um, Cheese
POMprompt #14: Tricky Combinations — Poetry Mashup
POMprompt #15: What Day is It???
POMprompt #16: What is the ‘Song of You’
POMprompt #17: A Trip Down Poetry Lane
POMprompt #18: I don’t belong here
POMprompt #19: Things that go ‘bump’ in the night
More POMprompts coming soon… | https://medium.com/the-pom/guide-to-the-pomprompts-eeb218614d91 | ['Christina M. Ward'] | 2020-10-20 00:14:20.343000+00:00 | ['Pomprompt', 'Creativity', 'The Pom', 'Prompt', 'Poetry'] |
Georgia and the European Union | About the author: Justin Tomczyk ’20 is an FSI Global Policy Intern with the Economic Policy Research Center. He is currently an a Master’s student in Russian, East European, Eurasian Studies, at Stanford University.
A major component of Georgian foreign policy is the ongoing process of Euro-Atlantic integration. In an effort to distance itself from the Russian Federation, Tbilisi has fostered closer ties with the major pillars of the Euro-Atlantic community. One of the most noteworthy examples of this partnership is Georgia’s relationship with NATO and the United States. Outside of the areas of security and defense, the European Union remains one of Georgia’s largest partners on economic and political matters. While this relationship is largely based on a mutual interest in extending the rules-based order of the European Union to the Caucasus, there is also the potential that European integration and a healthy relationship with the EU may be used as a counterweight against Russian aggression in the region. To many in the South Caucasus, the EU and its associated forms of governance represent a departure from the corruption, oligarchy, and general mismanagement seen since the collapse of the USSR. While naturally Georgia will continue to trade extensively with other countries in the post-Soviet space (due to geography and preexisting supply chains), integrating with the EU and its associated single market would be one of the most viable ways to develop an innovative economy and efficient governance while moving beyond the economic malaise seen in much the post-Soviet space.
Georgia’s main form of engagement with the EU is through the framework of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) — an initiative designed to foster closer ties between the EU and six former Soviet Republics in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. As a part of the Eastern Partnership, Georgia regularly participates in a variety of summits and conferences with not only representatives of the EU but also other members of the EaP. In addition to maintaining diplomatic relations with virtually every member of the EU, Georgia also maintains diplomatic representation with the union’s super-state structures through its embassy in Brussels and the EU delegation in Tbilisi. With regards to economic and political integration, two treaties serve as the bedrock for EU-Georgia relations. The first is the EU-Georgia Association Agreement, which is a bilateral treaty designed to approximate legal standards, regulations, and other elements of legislation between the EU and Georgia. The purpose of this is to enable a greater sense of political alignment between both parties. An example of the impact of this association agreement is the alignment of standards for biometric passports alongside entry and exit protocols, leading to the mutual removal of entry visas for citizens of Georgia and the EU. The second major treaty is the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA), which is designed to remove as many barriers to trade as possible between Georgia and the EU. While the agreement does not contain provisions for the establishment of a customs union, the DCFTA has partially integrated Georgia into the Single Common Market while allowing Tbilisi to still hold and pursue FTAs with third parties.
Although Georgia has been officially elevated to the status of an “associate” of the European Union, Brussels’ often provides ambiguous posturing towards the prospects of future Georgian membership in the EU. The largest obstacle in Georgia’s EU aspirations is the unresolved status of territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. These two territories are de jure part of Georgia but under the de facto control of Russian-backed separatist authorities. The unresolved nature of these conflicts and occasional outbreaks in fighting raise the question of Georgia’s ability to maintain its own territorial integrity. Additionally, the notion of “expansion fatigue” has struck some parts of Western Europe following the 2004 eastern expansion of the EU. This is compounded by the perspective held by some in Brussels that eastward expansion of the EU serves to antagonize Russia. Regardless of these challenges, Georgia has shown itself to be a committed partner of the European Union and will likely remain the EU’s main partner in the South Caucasus. | https://medium.com/freeman-spogli-institute-for-international-studies/georgia-and-the-european-union-96bf16c7249b | ['Fsi Student Programs'] | 2020-09-10 15:20:08.402000+00:00 | ['Georgia', 'Internships', 'Fsi Students', 'Stanford'] |
5 Reasons for FEW Appointments and HOW to Book Your Calendar Choking Full? | Real Estate is pretty much an appointment-driven business.The vast majority of real estate transactions still happen in pre-booked appointments.
Therefore appointments, once closed, make property agents money.
That is seemingly simple and very straightforward.But still, there are many property agents out there who do not have enough appointments.
And there are 5 major reasons for not having enough appointments:
Not enough leads Not following up quickly enough Not using a script when calling Not overcoming prospect’s objections against appointments Having ‘No Shows’
I’m going to explain each one in detail with easy solutions to help you get more appointments quickly.
Why Having Few Leads is a Problem?
Leads are the lifeblood of your business.Because no leads = no appointments…
Qualified Leads represent prospects willing to speak to you and who can agree to come down for a face-to-face appointment.
But getting few inquiries is a serious problem.It’s a problem because if you’re not getting any inquiries, there is no way you can get in front of someone in order to sell and make a commission.
So you need to get a lead before you can even sell them something.
The good news, it’s quite an easy problem to fix.
How to Solve the Problem of Not Enough Leads
For this to work, you need will more prospects to reach out to you first, without you ‘begging’ them for business.
This means you need to stop doing all Old School Prospecting methods that require an investment of your time like:
cold calling,
door knocking,
networking
manually throwing flyers
commenting online
personal messaging (PM)
etc.
This is critical, because, if you do not free up your time from these types of outdated prospecting, you’ll run out of time to serve existing customers.You’ll always have no more to give.
In order to free up your time, you will need to do effective Direct Response Marketing.This means prospects are compelled to reach out to you first.
This is the only way where you can get a flood of qualified prospects, that you can pick and choose to meet the ones who represent an immediate opportunity.
The good news is that I compiled an entire ‘Marketing Library SWIPE FILE’ of all of my winning ads that I wrote for my team over the past 10 years.
You can get it over at PropertyAgentUniversity.com.Simply use the correct ad for the correct marketing channel, and you’re good to go.
If you do this right, now, you should be getting many leads.
The next step is simply to call them up.And that’s why follow up is so important.
Why Follow Up is EVERYTHING?
I’m not going to mince my words here.
If you do not call up your leads, you would have wasted ALL of your marketing dollars.And you won’t be getting a single appointment.No appointment = no money.
Pretty wasteful right?But this is happening daily.
And this is a big problem in our industry.
Studies show that 80% of all appointments are booked within the FIRST MINUTE of getting a lead.As time goes by, your chances of securing an appointment goes down to ZERO.And the same study proved that just as agents are giving up, prospects are just getting started!
And that’s not a coincidence.Prospects are more impatient than ever before.You need to talk to them while they’re still ‘hot’.Letting them cool off by calling them in an hour, in 12 hours or the next day, or worse, not even calling is a horrible thing to do.
But it can be easily fixed too.
How to Permanently Resolve Slow (or No) Follow Up?
You just need to pick up your phone in the very first minute.
I know, it can be a challenge, especially if you’re already in an appointment or busy with other commitments.
How do you prevent the lead slipping away from your fingers and going to your competitors instead?
It’s simple; you use automation.Technology is advancing so fast that instant follow up is no longer a fantasy.It’s already happening nowadays.
It doesn’t need to be complicated or too ‘techie’.That’s why we built our own Follow Up Platform to make is super easy for Property Agents to automatically and instantly do all of their follow up.All without getting a degree in IT or hiring expensive developers or spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on building it from scratch.
You can simply create a FREE TRIAL at AgentLEADS.
So once you’re doing follow up and prospects are answering your phone calls, what do you do next?
You will need to follow a proven sequence of questions to get them agree to meet you.In other words, use a script.
Why Using a Script is Mission Critical?
If you don’t use a script when calling back your leads and inquiries, 2 horrible things happen:
prospects waste your Time or prospects waste your Energy (and Money, another form of energy)
Here’s why that’s very bad for you.
Prospects already use their own script, whether or not they (or even you) realise that.
You’re not the first property agent they’ve come across.They have already been talking to many agents.And they’ve learnt how to fish for information while pretending to be very interested in meeting you (when in truth, they’re not).
Nowhere does it say in their script that you win.Only THEY win.
I call their scripts Appointment-Destroying Scripts.And it’s their best weapon for 2 reasons:
They play games with you to get you to tell them what you know (which is pretty valuable). They do it because it’s their defence against salesmen like you.
And property agents have been getting stumped by such scripts for years.Not realising that prospects are even more sophisticated than agents themselves!
Appointment-Destroying Scripts used by prospects sound like
“Just curious…”
“Just browsing…”
“Accidentally clicked!”
“What else do you have?!”
Prospects tell you they’re not interested, when in fact, interest can be generated under better circumstances.Prospects say they want to meet up with you when in fact, they don’t, and they’ll meet someone else behind your back.
Only using my Proven Scripts will save you from the above appointment-destroying prospects scripts.
Here’s another tip for you; using a proven script always wins.Even when the other party is using a weaker script.
So the one using a stronger, proven script will win somebody with a weaker script, or better, no script at all.
Where to Get a PROVEN Script (And How to Use it Without Sounding Like a Robot)?
You can use many of my own proven scripts that I developed, tested and perfected over the last 12 years.
My agents have been telling me that all of these scripts work.The only time these scripts don’t work is when the agent does not use it as intended.
So, head over to PropertyAgentUniversity.com and download my Winning Scripts.
But hang on…
There’s still one issue that prevents agents from using any script.And that has to do with the fear of sounding like a robot when reading a script.This fear is bad, because it gets in the way of closing.
The good news is, no, using a script does not mean you must sound like a robot.(Actors do it all the time. They sound totally natural.)
The bad news is, it takes practice. There is no shortcut.(Just like anything else worth pursuing in life.)
It only gets easier when you’re using a script consistently.
So, after you get leads and you quickly call them up using a proven follow up script, some agents still stumble with objections.
Why Objections Are an Agent’s Hidden Best Friend?
Disinterest is your real enemy, and objections are your hidden best friend.
Here’s why.
People in general only have ‘issues’ with a product when they’re in the process of buying it.They don’t have any issues with something that they do not intend to buy.
Would you have any issues with the price, quality, colour, model or attributes of a Rubbish Truck that you will never ever buy in your life?No right?(Unless of course, you start a new business collecting rubbish!)
Similarly, prospects who are serious about buying something find issues with price because they’re fully ready to discuss price.And what they say to you about that price (or whatever attribute) comes across as an objection.
And many prospects definitely have objections to even meet up with you in a meeting.
The trick is to resolve all their concerns so that meeting up with you is a no-brainer decision.Here’s how to do that.
How to Quickly Overcome ANY Objection About Appointments?
Getting an appointment is a relatively simple task that should not require too much time or effort on your part.Meaning, you don’t need to spend hours just to convince the prospect to meet up with you.(Wait, if you’re spending hours convincing prospects to meet you, then you’re obviously doing something wrong!)
Here’s why they have objections:
Prospects generally have objections regarding the date/time of the appointment you’re trying to set up (schedule clash) or
they do not see the value in going out of their way to make time to see you (too risky) or
they may not even be serious about buying or selling a house right now (unqualified)
Maybe their perceived risk is too high, but given the opportunity, you could totally remove all of their perceived risks.
The point is, you don’t really know.
You need to quickly find out and then address all of these issues on the very first phone call (provided you use the Proven Scripts I provide).
By following my Proven phone call Script, you simply need to understand two simple things about the prospect:
When are they planning to make a move? How motivated are they in their intent to buy/sell/invest?
That’s it.You’re not trying to sell them a house over the phone.The time for that is not right now.
Keep things simple at this stage.
(That’s another way you can rapidly accelerate your ability to successfully handle all kinds of objections. Read on below about my Mastery Coaching Program for more details.)
So assuming you’ve been quickly calling back your leads with a proven script and booking appointments with them, there’s still one more hurdle.
And that’s last-minute Cancellations, or even worse, not showing up (aka No Shows).
Why Cancellations and No Shows Are 100% Avoidable Problems?
Prospects who do not turn up, do not respond to your messages or do not pick up your phone calls can be a real nuisance.Last-minute, informed cancellations are no consolation either.
More objectively, the time wasted by a No Show could have been better invested with a more qualified prospect.Now, it’s just a Sunk Cost. In other words, every no show is a real opportunity cost for you.Even a ‘No’ is better than a no show, because, even a ‘No’ gets you closer to a ‘Yes’!
But fortunately, you can take steps to minimise such instances in future.
How to Minimise Cancellations and Prevent No Shows Using This New Strategy
NEVER SCOLD PROSPECTS!Do not break bridges by scolding them or shouting at them.
Don’t make the mistake of getting emotional.You can’t get angry or personal at them.
The real problem, at this point, is not them.It’s YOU.Or more accurately, your skill of qualifying and influencing might not be up to par.
You cannot solve this problem by screenshotting your prospect’s messages, pictures or Identity Card details on Facebook or WhatsApp groups to ‘warn’ other agents.(That’s doxxing and it’s illegal.)
Badmouthing prospects does NOTHING against them!Or for you…
In fact, you’re worse off because you’ve now engaged in wasting precious time on trivial stuff.And worse, you start to attract more of such prospects in your life!
You’ve got to think and act like a real Professional.Real Professionals like Doctors or Lawyers do not go around throwing public tantrums or cursing clients or screenshotting no shows…
And neither should you.
The only way to drastically reduce no shows or cancellations is to get better at making Upfront Agreements with your prospects.This skill takes GUTS and requires you to be PROACTIVE before it becomes a problem.
Here’s how you do this the right way:
Tell them upfront about any schedule clashes. Ask them what alternatives do they propose. Tell them you’ll stick to your agreed-upon time and that you expect the same courtesy of them. Do not hang up until you hear them verbally repeat this agreement back to you.
After you put down the phone, your work is not over yet:
Confirm appointments 24 hours beforehand (and get a response from them). Then reconfirm again 1 hour beforehand (and get a response from them). If no response in either case, DO NOT WAIT. Call immediately and clarify. Or postpone.
The point is, you’re not leaving things to chance.This is not 100% foolproof, but it’s way better than doing nothing except cursing people angrily.
Is this the only way? No.There’s another new strategy that you can use.It requires you doing role plays with me or my agents in our weekly Role Play Clinics.This builds LONG TERM skills and professionalism in you.
This is by far the best way to practise my scripts, handle any objection and dramatically improve your follow up skills.You can simply try this out for $7 for 7 Days Mastery Coaching at my Mastery Coaching Program.
If you practice enough, you will see a dramatic reduction in no shows and cancellations.You’ll also make money and have greater peace of mind.
So if you follow the above strategies, you should be able to book more appointments than you can handle!
Get more exclusive real estate agent training here 👉 https://www.yasserkhan.sg/👈
Learn How To Get More Real Estate Leads, More Listings, More Sales, with Less Resistance AND still have a LIFE!
Yasser Khan is a real estate coach, speaker, and trainer at YasserKhan.SG who teaches Realtors how to make more Money, have more Time and enjoy more Freedom without all the B.S.
Originally published at https://www.yasserkhan.sg on December 28, 2020. | https://medium.com/@yasser.khan/5-reasons-for-few-appointments-and-how-to-book-your-calendar-choking-full-d70eded41bbe | ['Yasser Khan'] | 2020-12-27 23:01:16.295000+00:00 | ['Realtor', 'Property', 'Real Estate Career', 'Property Agent', 'Real Estate'] |
Tips For Taking Care Of Your Diet While Travelling | As a healthy diet and travel enthusiast, I love to eat well and enjoy my food anywhere I travel. Nobody wants to come from a vacation or journey with a sickness that could have been avoided. Especially if you traveled to a place or country with a culture and food different from what you are used to.
I remember one time a friend came home from an emergency trip feeling badly constipated. He didn’t have time to buy healthy food and had to make do with food not agree with his stomach.
As a registered dietitian who is passionate about healthy nutrition for a sound body and mind, I would like to share my knowledge. This prompted me to post on my blog this article titled “Darren Ainsworth tips for a healthy diet while travelling.”
In case of emergency trips that leave little room for preparation, opt for food rich in nutrients to stay on a healthy track. I will give you tips on how to eat healthily on your trips without gaining extra weight.
Buy your healthy food and snacks
I make it a point to buy food at grocery stores in my hometown. They are relatively cheaper than shopping at gas stations. The quantities of food I buy depending on my mode of transportation. I limit my food carriage if I’m going to fly but carry as much as I want when I travel by road.
When you bring your food along, you will be able to resist the temptations of unhealthy snacks. If you are not allergic to these foods, here are some examples of healthy food; yogurt, hummus containers, fruits, granola bars, boiled eggs, beef jerky, sandwiches, unsalted almonds, cottage cheese, whole-grain crackers, skimmed milk, apples, vegetables, bread, and so on. If you are going by plane there are restrictions on fresh food you can bring so keep that in mind. Also, avoid greasy and salty food at the airport.
Workout on the go
A quick stretch or cardio session goes a long way in keeping you fit. You can also go on YouTube and search for quick workouts to do. Any excess weight or fat you might have unknowingly gained would be burned away.
As a nutritionist and dietitian, I recommend any traveler to avoid food from vending machines and high in sugar if possible. Go for food rich in fiber to aid your digestive system, vitamin B, poly and monounsaturated fats, vitamin A, and protein.
Research local restaurants and food beforehand
A person who is on a very strict diet needs to make a food plan. I would advise you to go to Google and search for local food and restaurants in the local listings. Browse through their menus and look for the food that suits you. If you are on a low-sugar or low-carb diet, look for restaurants or food markets where you can buy these foods. This will also guarantee that you eat on time and prevent you from having ulcers or low blood sugar.
Don’t overindulge
Eat a balanced diet that contains all six classes of food. Don’t indulge in every snack and food you eat. If you are presented with a food that is not healthy for you, learn to politely decline it. You can use a salad size plate instead of a normal plate if you want to discipline your food intake.
Stay Hydrated
This is the most important and basic means of survival for human beings. Always bring along at least two bottles of water because anything can happen while on a journey. You might be stranded on a deserted road without food or water with no grocery store nearby. Drink enough water to keep your body hydrated. Dehydration depletes your energy levels, gives false signals of hunger to your brain.
Travelling is a way of learning new things, people’s way of life and cultures. I would enjoin you to enjoy your trips but be mindful of your health. | https://medium.com/@darrenainsworth/diet-while-travelling-c63ebaea423c | ['Darren Ainsworth'] | 2021-07-06 10:34:44.819000+00:00 | ['Health Foods', 'Healthy Tips', 'Traveling Tips', 'Darren Ainsworth Sunshine', 'Darren Ainsworth'] |
Resumo do Product Camp 2020 — parte 1 | 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/bzz-prdct/resumo-do-product-camp-2020-parte-1-70128080f2d1 | ['Caio Rocha'] | 2020-12-16 21:20:21.889000+00:00 | ['Growth', 'Product Camp', 'Product Development', 'Design', 'Product Management'] |
Does your child have depression or anxiety? It’s easier to help than you think | Does your child have depression or anxiety? It’s easier to help than you think
You may have noticed something unusual recently in the news and among your friends and family. Anxiety and depression, especially among teenagers, is rising drastically.
One survey given in all three Utah County school districts suggests that it’s rising as much as 3 to 5 percent every year. That means that in 2011, about 13% of kids were depressed, and in 2019 it rose to 28%.
At EveryDay Strong, we get a lot of questions about this trend. It’s scary, and it’s easy to feel helpless. One of the most common questions people ask us is, “What’s causing this, and what can I do about it?”
We’ve learned something from talking to dozens of therapists, counselors, and psychiatrists. When it comes to identifying what causes anxiety and depression, it’s just complicated. We all want to put mental health into a category, but sometimes it’s not helpful.
If somebody tells you they’re having an asthma attack, you don’t respond by saying, “How did you get that?” Instead, you ask, “How can I help? What do you need?”
Here’s an example — when you’re facing someone you care about who’s in the middle of an asthma attack, a heart attack, or cancer treatment, how helpful is it to question the “cause”?
When somebody tells you they’re having an asthma attack, you don’t respond by saying, “How did you get that?” Instead, you ask, “How can I help? What do you need to stabilize your breathing?”
Similarly, if somebody says, “I have a cold,” do you wonder, “Now, where did that come from? Were you around this or that person? Were you out in the rain?” Or, do you hand them a tissue and bring them soup?
Being helpful and compassionate to someone anxious, depressed, or mentally unwell is a lot more about identifying needs than identifying causes.
To do that, there’s a helpful framework we like to use called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. You might remember it from your high school or college Psych 101 class. It’s a brilliant and underappreciated little bit of psychology, and it basically summarizes, to this day, the best way to approach and think about the people around you.
Maslow’s Hierarchy lays out the idea that someone can’t focus on certain aspects of life, until their underlying needs are met.
In addition to physical needs, we all have 3 emotional needs for Safety, Connection, and Confidence.
Here’s what that looks like:
Basic physical needs (like food, sleep, and shelter) have to be met before you can worry about feeling emotionally safe. Next, you have to feel safe before you can have meaningful friendships and relationships. Then, you have to feel loved and connected before you can focus on accomplishment, good performance, and self-esteem.
We all know that if you’re dying of hunger, it’s pretty difficult to think about making straight As. But it goes beyond that.
For instance, if your 10-year-old doesn’t feel safe to tell you crucial information about himself, do you think you’ll be able to have a real connection with him? Or what if your teenager knows that if she gets good grades, then her peers will make fun of her?
Which need will your kids likely try to meet, if they feel forced to choose?
The key to answering that question is that the closer a need is to the base of the pyramid, the more “foundational” it is as a “prerequisite” to the others. Asking our kids to prioritize grades over friendships (confidence over connection) — or to confide in us when they don’t feel like can without repercussions (connection over safety) — ignores the inherent “progression” of their needs.
What a person needs to be “happy” and “self-motivated” is the same as what they need to be “resilient.” That need is wellness — having one’s physical and emotional needs met.
In a similar vein, a lot of parents believe they’re responsible for “training” their kids. They use carrots and sticks, rewards and consequences to help “motivate” them to behave a certain way, with the intent to “shape” the child into a better version of themselves.
“If she would just try harder or just put her heart into it,” they think, “if I could just help motivate them more, then everything will work out.”
But getting along with others, doing well in school, and even finding and holding a job are not simply matters of “motivation.” Self-motivation, after all, is a confidence-level skill — one that breaks down, or becomes much more difficult to apply, when kids don’t have their other, more foundational needs met.
Maslow’s pyramid tells us that just like a child can’t think about becoming a classic pianist until they get some food and stable shelter, a child can’t thrive and be on their best behavior until they feel safe, connected, and confident.
What our kids (and peers) need to be “happy” and “self-motivated” is the same as what they need to be “resilient.” That need is wellness.
And wellness — having one’s physical and emotional needs for safety, connection, and confidence met — is the beginning of overcoming anxiety, depression, and many of the other difficulties so many of our children are going through.
We hope you will spend some time this week thinking about that little pyramid.
If we could magically wish for one thing, we would wish that all parents and caring adults, on a daily or weekly basis, would look at their kids and ask themselves, “What can I personally do this week to help meet this child’s physical and emotional needs? How can I contribute to their sense of emotional safety, their connections with others, and their sense of confidence and competence?”
Because that’s how you can help kids find wellness, resilience, and success, no matter what they face. ※
United Way of Utah County’s EveryDay Strong is on a mission to help every child in our community feel safe, connected, and confident. Want more mental health and resiliency resources? Check out our website, sign up for our email list, or follow us on Facebook and Instagram. | https://medium.com/everyday-strong/does-your-child-have-depression-or-anxiety-its-easier-to-help-than-you-think-82cc923c85ec | ['United Way Of Utah County'] | 2020-12-18 16:47:26.794000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Depression', 'Mental Health', 'Children', 'Teens'] |
Musk surmises to convert Tesla Billions to Bitcoins | Tesla and Bitcoin have been a blessing in disguise in the year 2020. Both the stocks have been burgeoning, giving about 650% and 224% returns to its investors respectively.
Well just imagine if Tesla shares were traded in Bitcoins instead of dollars !! This would break the internet right?
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has sparked speculation that his electric car company could add bitcoin to its balance sheet during a public exchange on Twitter. To understand the severity of the situation lets add some numbers and data to our knowledge.
BTC/ TSLA/ S&P 500 Price Performance
From the above graph, we can culminate that both the stock have a correlation between them and, the duo has been skyrocketing in the recent past. Both the assets have earned a fortune amount of dividends to their stockholders.
Correlation of BTC, TSLA & S&P 500
Thus, Tesla and Bitcoin exhibited a strong correlation of 0.615 over the last six months, significantly higher than both of their correlations with the S&P 500. One explanation for this high correlation may be that the investor base is similar for both assets. Advocates of Tesla and Bitcoin share a common set of values. Beyond technophiles who believe technology can solve many of society’s pressing problems, Bitcoin and Tesla holders are optimists who believe in narratives of a sustainable future powered by alternative energy and sound money. Proponents of both believe in the ethos of open-source technology. Bitcoin is an open source protocol anyone with an internet connection can access. Similarly, in 2014, Elon Musk famously released all of Tesla’s patents to the public “in the spirit of the open-source movement.”
I hope this helped you to imagine the implausible statement said by Tesla’s chief executive.
Remigrating back to the topic
On the 20th of December 2020 Elon Musk while free-associating on Twitter, tweeted some tweets on Bitcoin.
“Bitcoin is my safe word,” but then followed up by saying, “Just kidding, who needs a safe word anyway!?”
Following he posted a meme that gathered much attention of the users on Twitter.
Musk’s bitcoin meme attracted Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor to comment a few hours later. Saylor has become an avid bitcoin proponent after making the cryptocurrency his billion-dollar company’s primary Treasury reserve asset.
The Microstrategy CEO told Musk: “If you want to do your shareholders a $100 billion favor, convert the $TSLA balance sheet from USD to BTC. Other firms on the S&P 500 would follow your lead & in time it would grow to become a $1 trillion favor.” Musk responded to Saylor:
Are such large transactions even possible?
Saylor answered: “Yes. I have purchased over $1.3 billion in BTC in past months & would be happy to share my playbook with you offline — from one rocket scientist to another.” A number of others chimed in to answer Musk’s question, including Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who recommended his own exchange to Musk. “Probably not a good idea to do it in one transaction, but can definitely be done,” he noted.
Following the Saylor conversation, Musk tweeted: “Bitcoin is almost as bs as fiat money,” and then suggested to his followers he’s a fan of Dogecoin, a parody cryptocurrency.
The Tesla CEO’s Twitter ramblings took another turn when he began to praise Dogecoin. The dog-themed cryptocurrency has been around since 2013 but is essentially worthless beyond its novelty value since, unlike Bitcoin, it is designed to be inflationary — spitting out 10,000 new coins every few minutes. Despite the inherent silliness of Dogecoin, its price shot up 40% from $0.003 to $0.005 after Musk tweeted the following:
Well-known gold bug Peter Schiff, who is one of Bitcoins harshest critics, did not appreciate Saylor’s offer of help/advice one bit:
However, Binance Co-Founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (aka “CZ”) feels that it is only a matter of time before Tesla buys crypto:
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on Twitter late Sunday, if any company wanted to hold cryptocurrency on its balance sheet, Coinbase could help. It seems like more and more companies are starting to hold crypto on balance the sheet, as a hedge against inflation.
Does this speculate Spacex CEO might soon buy a large amount of bitcoin, possibly through his company Tesla ?
Although in past, Musk has expressed interest in Bitcoin (and crypto in general) in podcast interviews and on Twitter, due to the huge amount of scrutiny Tesla is always under, it seems unlikely that Musk will consider following Saylor’s example in the short term even though MicroStrategy already has made a huge (unrealized) profit on its Bitcoin investments. Gold bug Peter Schiff, for example, opined: “It seems like Elon Musk was only joking about exposing Tesla shareholders to bitcoin. So I don’t need to convince the board not to turn Tesla into a double bubble.” | https://medium.com/@harshshpr/musk-surmises-to-convert-tesla-billions-to-bitcoins-ba7f4e840e8d | ['Harsh Agrawal'] | 2020-12-23 07:49:04.620000+00:00 | ['Elon Musk', 'Portfolio', 'Bitcoin', 'Sp500', 'Tesla'] |
Understanding smart contract. | Understanding smart contract.
Smart contracts are one the hottest thing in the blockchain sphere right but it can be a little bit difficult to fully comprehend what they are. Djegnene Penyel Dec 26, 2020·5 min read
Imagine that you had the possibility of renewing your rent without needing a third party?
No seriously imagine that any contract or agreement that you have made at this point in your life could execute itself without the need of third parties. Imagine how much easier it would be to create and implement a contract or agreement.
What if I tell you that a new technology called blockchain could allow you to do exactly that.
You might still be skeptical, but I guarantee you that it is true. Blockchain allow the implementation of smart contracts which are contracts that can execute without the need of any third party, and giving the fact that they are built on top of the blockchain they are extremely secure and no one can change them.
This article will explain what is a smart contract. It will also explain Ethereum and its virtual machine.
But what is a smart contract.
Smart contracts are one the hottest thing in the blockchain sphere right now. But it can be a little bit difficult to fully comprehend what they are.
To make it simple, a smart contract is technically the same thing as a regular contract. The only difference is that a smart contract is made of a collection of code (i.e function) and data (i.e state) instead of ink and paper. The other difference is that a smart contract executes, control, and document relevant events according to the rule of a given contract or agreement without the need of third parties. | https://medium.com/@penyel-djegnene/understanding-smart-contract-daad348387a4 | ['Djegnene Penyel'] | 2020-12-26 03:49:02.615000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Smart Contract Blockchain', 'Smart Contracts'] |
My Case for Bernie | May 26th, 2015, the day America’s Dad, Bernie Sanders first announced his intent to run for president gave new life to an ongoing political revolution that continues on today. His entire political career has been largely based on the same message since at least 1972 when he penned an opinion piece months before Roe v Wade in support of women’s choice. Although one could argue it started the day he was arrested protesting segregated housing in Chicago in 1963. Bernie has continued to speak truth to power for over forty year without missing a beat. Add in his constant reminders for regular folks to run for political office from dog catcher to Congress because he knows no president can make substantive change alone. That’s integrity in action.
In his 40-plus years serving the American people as mayor, as the “amendment king” of the House, and now as Senator that until 2015 Bernie had been largely ignored by the media, portrayed by his detractors as being too far to the left, a communist, a socialist, a radical whose entire platform was rainbows and unicorns. Yet here we are today and magically, pun very much intended, every Democrat running for the nomination has grabbed a hold of portions of Bernie’s platform, a platform most of whom were calling fantasy barely two years ago. None, save Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) were interested in making their voices heard back then on the importance and need of Bernie’s most notable platform issues; Medicare for all, tuition free college, $15 minimum wage, criminal justice reforms, and combating global climate change are today trying to make the case they are worthy of your vote.
Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is at best 70% Bernie, at worst 75% HRC (unlike Tulsi Gabbard who bravely resigned as 3rd vice-chair of the DNC in protest of their treatment of Sanders in 2016 who then strongly endorsed Bernie for president) refused to endorse Senator Sanders at a time when her voice was so desperately needed back in 2016. Now she wants you to believe she’s a good progressive despite not being willing to thumb her nose at the very status quo that made Trump even possible in the way Mrs. Gabbard was and still is willing to do. Today, the very same establishment that laughed at Bernie’s platform is now “warming up” to Mrs. Warren as an alternative to Bernie. I wonder why?
With that said, I am nonetheless one hundred percent convinced Senator Warren to be an unapologetically strong advocate for the economic rights of the people. That short of her gaining the Democratic Party nomination, I absolutely believe she should become the Chairwoman of the Senate Banking and Finance Committee. Banking and finances are without a doubt Senator Warren’s strongest suit and she deserves to be there as she is the only Senate Democrat who has the guts and willingness, maybe even more so than Bernie to take on and stare down the “too big, to fail” Wall Street banksters that nearly took down the entire global economy in 2008 due to their collective insatiable greed and recklessness and not blink.
As for Bernie Sanders, does his recent mild heart attack and subsequent stent procedure mean he’s unhealthy or should drop out of the race? Of course not! The procedure is common even among 20 year olds. In my mind, there should be a money bomb sent to Bernie for every article, thread, poll, or news segment that attempts to attack Bernie’s overall health and age. And just recently AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib announced their endorsement of Bernie, and it turned out AOC had called Bernie while he was resting in the hospital to tell him the news. (As of this posting Ayanna Pressley, the fourth member of the Squad has not endorsed any Democratic candidate)
It is a tossup whether Elizabeth Warren could defeat Trump if she were to become the nominee. How she ultimately runs her campaign would determine the end result. Of the remaining candidates there is little hope of any of them, save Tulsi Gabbard exciting the base or receiving much crossover votes to defeat Trump. In my mind there is little doubt that Bernie is the only Democratic candidate who can defeat Donald Trump’s faux right-wing populism and hurtful and hateful rhetoric with relative ease. Because Bernie is the only presidential candidate with which no article could be honestly written that calls out flip flopping, hemming, hawing, or lying by Bernie. He consistently gets 25% of Republican votes in Vermont and there is little reason to believe that won’t be the case across the nation next November.
For more information on Sen. Bernie Sanders, please go to berniesanders.com. I now leave you with this truth bomb; for every bad decision our government has made these past forty years, you’ll probably find a YouTube video, newspaper column, or magazine article of or from Bernie warning us of dangers ahead, that’s integrity in action. | https://medium.com/@davids-il/my-case-for-bernie-889f7c96d77f | ['David Soll'] | 2019-10-17 17:59:23.545000+00:00 | ['Medicare For All', 'Rise Up', 'Bernie Sanders'] |
The Fallible Gospels, Part 103: Perspectives: What about the Meaning of Life? | We are human beings and we have the power of reason. It has brought us a long way, e.g. to democracy from tyranny and to evidence-based medicine from witch-doctors, from brutal societies to ones that have rules against torture and capital punishment. Yes, we can make mistakes, but we do not any longer have to surrender our abilities to fear and dogma and superstition, or we shall go backwards instead of forwards.
Conventionally religious people usually have no sense of perspective about the scale of their universe, and do not confront any of the associated implications. At the time it was originally decided that the God of the Hebrews, even before he was regarded as the One God and the Creator of all things, had “chosen” the Jews, one primitive desert tribe a few thousand years back, these pre-scientific people believed that the Earth was probably seventy or eighty per cent of all creation. The stars and planets were just little lights in the sky, mostly embedded in a dome over their heads. Of course man was important in the overall scheme of things.
The true scale of the universe does not really connect with the humble level of concepts that we can cope with. People do not honestly appreciate a number as big as a million. If you had been born at the same time as Jesus, and you had spent one dollar a day, every day through the centuries of the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, the Crusades, the colonizing of North and South America by European invaders, World War II, the invention of the internet and the smartphone — you would not yet have spent even three quarters of one million dollars. But if you had a craft that could travel through space at a million miles an hour, it would take you nearly three thousand years to reach even the nearest star (to the Sun, a star itself of course, another thing which the ancients did not know). It would take you thirty thousand years to visit one hundred-billionth of all the stars in one single galaxy. And there are billions of galaxies.
The universe contains at least a billion trillion stars. Our Sun is actually a fairly average star. We have now observed, with some difficulty at these distances, that many stars have planetary systems. It might be the case that it is extremely difficult for life to get going anywhere. Suppose only one per cent of planets were suitable for living organisms of some kind (perhaps the right distance from their star, possibly needing water). That would still mean there could easily be a billion billion planets with life.
Suppose that on 99% of those worlds, life remains at the level of bacteria, or never develops intelligence. We are being fairly hard on life here, considering what we know of the persistence and flexibility of life-forms in harsh environments and so on. Let’s not get lost in counting zeros here. This would still leave us with billions of planets with life. So many billions that this universe could contain billions of species developed enough to have religions, all claiming to be true. In this universe the ebb and flow of the existence of intelligent species, of whole civilizations, could be like the flow of waves on a beach. It is not just that the human race itself, with all its dignified pretensions, is less than a speck of dust. Our entire galaxy could disappear in some cosmic cataclysm and the universe would not even be disturbed. It would be a drop of rain falling on the Atlantic Ocean.
And the creator and sustainer of all this used to find his responsibilities a bit much, so he would take the odd coffee break to chat with Moses and Isaiah and Paul. Are we still expected to be such children?
At this stage, it could be objected,
(a) There is, at the moment, zero evidence for my reasoning here about billions of planets with life and religions. I agree. It might be disproven, even within my lifetime. It might not; life could be so rare that it only appears once in every ten or a hundred galaxies, so far away from each other they would possibly never even know about any of the others.
(b) If we have no life elsewhere, in fact, then surely this makes the appearance of life on Earth a “miracle”. Well, it sure makes it unusual. That doesn’t mean it could never happen, given the laws of physics and chemistry. We’re not that far away from putting it together in laboratories — and not because we had instructions in any Holy Books, but because, in the face of Church opposition, we developed science. It also is the most staggering leap of imagination from this “miracle” to having anything to do with the alleged inspiration, of primitive credulous people, in making their claims and writing their Holy Books, none of which give us the slightest indication of the true scale of the universe or start to say that it is our responsibility to exploit these off-planet resources as well as destroying our own environment way before we’re even technologically ready to “emigrate” to other worlds. It would be a gigantic leap to say that because we can’t detect life elsewhere in the universe, there was a Creator who incarnated himself in the body of a human being two thousand years ago, rather than, say, waiting until he could have a TV channel, a YouTube channel, and a Facebook page, using which he could explain himself much more clearly than through hysterical “prophets” having visions under a desert sun.
© Surely if we are the only world in all this vastness with intelligent life, and it was “just” some chemical accident and we could be wiped out in the cosmic virtual blink of an eye, then our entire existences are completely meaningless. No, it’s just the opposite. Instead of finding meaning “out there” in the world, we have this fantastic — I won’t call it a gift, that makes it sound like somebody did it deliberately — this fantastic wonder of consciousness and intelligence; and unless and until we prove it can be found elsewhere, this gives us a gigantic responsibility. It means that we give meaning to the world, and even to the universe, instead of taking it or finding it. It is, at the moment, only us that can save our environment and spread civilized values, and then can take life itself — all that consciousness and intelligence — out into that otherwise fabulous, but mentally oblivious, universe, so that it becomes more and more aware. And I’m not really talking about spreading reality television and Coca Cola, although that will probably go along for the ride. And, imperfect as democracy is, I’d prefer it to be that rather than tyranny that is spread to other planets.
You give meaning to life, with who you are and what you do and what you create and what you leave behind. (I just wish somebody could explain that to the current leaders of China, Russia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and one or two other places.)
I appreciate that myths are not “lies”, they are meant to communicate profound meanings. They arise from the desire, the burning need, of consciousness to impose pattern and order on the randomness of the universe. The universe is so indifferent to man that it can seem vicious, and to be both scientifically ignorant and at the mercy of natural catastrophe would have been unbearable without anything to hold on to in the way of myth or “explanation”. Events, in their chaos and indifference, had to be part of the meaning of existence, the interaction between man and supernatural forces. Apart from getting enough food and the other problems of sheer survival, the peoples of the ancient world were completely absorbed in trying to understand and placate these forces. It is easy to imagine early people cowering in caves or tents before the fury of lightning or the terror of an earthquake, or a strange and powerful dream. They had no concept of electron discharges or meteorological cycles, or of tectonic plates, or of the subconscious mind. It “had to be” the actions of angry gods, so they had to “reason” about why the gods were angry. Okay, we understand. We just don’t have to think like them any longer.
It is all very well to intellectualize about the place of myth. To give it too much respect, from our perspective, can also lead to a failure to confront the implications of what you say. It is also so easy for the less intelligent or educated to be excessively impressed by the articulate obscurity of theologians. This is from “On Being a Christian” by Hans Kung:
“It must be remembered that truth is… not equivalent to historical truth… there are different forms of truth… a newspaper report of a traveller attacked on the way from Jerusalem to Jericho would perhaps leave us quite cold… On the other hand, the invented story of the Good Samaritan on the same road stirs us immediately, since it contains more truth… a truth significant for me, a relevant (‘existential’) truth for me… The question of what is historically true or false is inadequate, without interest. The poem, the parable or the legend has its own rationality. It underlines, stresses, brings out, gives concrete shape: the truth announced can be more relevant than that which is contained in a historical account. The Bible is interested primarily not in historical truth, but in truth relevant for our well-being, for our salvation, in the ‘truth of salvation’.”
Well, it’s a good job that people who test antibiotics and the safety of vehicles don’t think like that. Let me rephrase it, in an admittedly cynical way. “It doesn’t matter what rubbish it is objectively as long as it really means something to you subjectively.” You could use the same justification and be talking about a biography of your favourite pop singer, or explaining the significance of the Star Wars movies. These thinking processes have no sustainable intellectual connection with the nature of the universe or the existence of God, or of life after death, or whether singing hymns of worship to Jesus makes more objective sense than talking to the spirit of Amy Winehouse through a local medium.
The problem in the modern world is that millions of people still think that these myths are literally and historically true, that given a time machine and a camcorder they could go back and tape pictures of thousands of people being fed with a handful of loaves and fishes, or of Pilate washing his hands, or of Noah, collecting and being able to feed and preserve two each of all those species of animals, and then re-establishing the entire human race after God had, rather petulantly, and spitefully I think, drowned the entire planet (rather than just upsetting Mesopotamia with a local flood while leaving still unknown continents untouched).
Next, in Part 104: Perspectives: Irrationality and Persistence | https://medium.com/@grahamlawrence/the-fallible-gospels-part-103-perspectives-what-about-the-meaning-of-life-2edf17e90558 | ['Graham Lawrence'] | 2020-04-23 05:18:14.900000+00:00 | ['Christianity', 'Bible', 'Atheism', 'Culture', 'History'] |
A Generational Curse? | For my first post on this platform, I thought I would share something personal. My mind hasn’t been “settled” in what feels like forever. The professionals I’ve spoken to about my sources of anxiety have all suggested journaling, but I don’t know. I’ve always felt that it was pointless or that I didn’t know what to write or how to write. This method feels like I’m getting my thoughts *out there* but to no one in particular. I like it. I’ve been wondering about generational curses recently. When I googled the meaning, the first thing I saw was a biblical explanation that said “a generational curse describes the cumulative effect on a person of things that their ancestors did, believed, or practiced in the past, and a consequence of an ancestor’s actions, beliefs, and sins being passed down.”
…interesting.
Honestly, 2020 has been straight up garbage for almost everybody on this planet. Some have had a trashier year than others. I thought I was doing ok, given the situation we all find ourselves in during this pandemic. Of course, Covid has cancelled many plans throughout the year, but I’m still employed and I have a roof over my head. Grateful to the universe for that!
But then my aunt got diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in October. What. The. F*ck.
A bit of back story…
I kinda grew up in a house with three women. When I was 8 years old (in 2001) my maternal grandmother passed away at 50 years old from breast cancer that had eventually spread to the lungs. Being so young at the time, few memories of my time with her truly stand out in my mind. She was a gentle soul who could sew very well and made her two children plus one grandchild anything they needed to wear. Graduation outfits, work clothes, a little romper for me to wear to the movies with our next door neighbour on the same day. Anything.
After that, my mom had taken an amazing opportunity to pursue a modelling career (at age 32, I know) and she settled in London. I saw her whenever she got the chance to come home. When I was 14 years old (in 2008) I went to spend the summer with her in London. She had stopped modelling by then. In August, when I had less than a month left there, she told me she just found out that she had “the same thing as grandma” but she said she’ll get the treatment she needs there and that she’d be ok. By the following year, she had done reconstructive surgery, chemotherapy, everything. I heard about it all over the phone. She was ok. At the end of January 2010, she came home to stay permanently. Then after a couple weeks, her health deteriorated rapidly. By March 8th, she had passed away. The cancer had come back and had spread to her brain. She was 40, I was 16.
Now in the last 18 months or so, I have been plagued with paranoia about cancer. I kept thinking it was coming for me next. I would normally let my GP do my breast checks, but she says 27 is still too young for mammograms. When my body started changing due to stress, hormones, food, whatever, I kept trying to understand how I could go back to “normal”. I was having issues with acid reflux, digestion, weight and other things. I made appointments with so many doctors, trying to get to the bottom of my health problems. I couldn’t get a headache without thinking something was wrong. I was tense. I was stressed about being stressed. Covid-19 did not help at all. I thought about doing a test to find out if I have the gene that would make me predisposed to getting breast cancer, but in the end I decided to hold off on that for just a little while because if it came back positive, the prevention procedures seemed so daunting at my age. I started using marijuana/CBD vapes and oils more because it really helped me relax. I had been drinking so much chamomile and other herbal teas hoping to cure whatever was happening. Talking to my boyfriend about it helped a lot. I felt I could be freely emotional with him. I’m also grateful to my close friends who listened to me complain in the group chat. After all that I decided to take a breather and come back to this topic next year.
This situation just came out of nowhere. All this time I was so worried about my own health. My aunt just turned 49 in October and she has always been there for me. She raised me alone when my mom was living abroad and continued to do so after she passed. Now I must be there for her. She can’t think of anyone older than my grandmother who had died from any kind of cancer. So, where did this come from? What did my grandmother do to deserve this? Her ancestors? What did her children do to deserve this? Nobody deserves this.
Curse or no curse, it’s hard to keep positive right now. All I want to do is believe that she will be ok. She’s in really good spirits, so I need to be too. | https://medium.com/@howtobewhitty/a-generational-curse-849b4690d5a9 | ['Victoria Whitt'] | 2020-11-20 01:38:08.748000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Breast Cancer', 'Stress', 'Cbd', 'Paranoia'] |
Self-Discipline | Q: In your opinion, is self-discipline a trait or a skill? Why?
A: Trait: genetically determined characteristic. Sounds a bit cynical, would you not agree? If we were to leave self-discipline at that, it would be similar to pushing ourselves into the quicksands of helplessness, as the inability to change our character into something better is hopeless. We are marvelous beings and we have all the potential in the world to break old thought and action patterns with new, stronger, healthier, lucrative and beneficial habits.
Buddhist Monk Running Eight Steps On Wall. Credits to Getty Images ©
Self-discipline is not only a skill, it’s a habit. In itself, it’s a habit resulting from the continuous application and dedication towards effective habits. It is something we learn along our journey of experiences, shortcomings, failures, conversations, setbacks and adversities. The amount we learn from success is, dare I say, negligible compared to that provided through defeat. We accumulate the lessons and turn them into keys for success.
If change was not possible, there wouldn’t be any awe inspiring success stories of our modern world: people with tremendously turbulent histories of alcohol and drug abuse, poor homes, broken families, failures in education, physical limitations who have grown beyond these stigmas and taught themselves the art of self-mastery.
So, how does one walk towards the light of self-discipline? With baby steps, of course. You can’t expect yourself to break chains of paradigms you have been mesmerized by your entire life: it’s simple, but not easy. Here are, in my opinion, the steps leading there:
Awareness: a conscious decision of wanting to change and become more disciplined by knowing the amazing benefits of this way of life. You will become a better person if you first decide to, and second, believe you can too. Research: knowledge truly is a powerful tool. You’ll need plenty of it, from books, tutorials, podcasts, videos, seminars, advice, anything really you could get your hands on. You’ll study the mind and its behavior. So it’s really the mind studying itself. Application: ideas never built fortresses. Only working hands have. If you never implement the knowledge you have spent hours and days to amass into the library of your brain, you can’t really blame anyone or anything on your shortcoming in your constructions of the fortress of self-discipline. Practicality over anything. Keep it simple, sleek, elegant and start applying it. Time management tips, waking up early, sleeping early, working out, eating healthier, getting sun and fresh air, eliminating toxic friends from your inner circle, avoiding unfruitful series, movies, and music, keeping a journal or diary of the upcoming day and designing it in the morning. Consistency: to start is one thing, but to pursue is wholly different. Always start working when you least feel like it and stop right at your peak before you burn out the candles at both ends. Remember your why (it’s important to have a strong why driving you), focus on the journey and the process of becoming a better person rather than throwing in entitled expectations as to how things should be for you and the results you’ll reap. Keep your goals and plans simple and organized enough to sustain them. Roller-coaster: we are a beautiful, harmonious agglomeration of endless atoms and entities glued together with the power of a matter made by the universal stardust itself: the soul. It is okay to not be okay on some days, to fail, to take a day off, to feel too tired, to have a faux-pas, to have missed a bullet point on your to-do list. The important matter, like in meditation, when you are distracted and come back to the breath, is to not beat yourself up but rather to realize this is part of the process and soon return to your rhythm and harmony.
As you can see the paragraphs involving implementation and action-taking are the longest for a reason. Respect the grind. I believe us all to be wonderful beings who have yet to discover the true powers of our minds and souls. Never throw away your chance of becoming a better You even in the darkest, hardest, most dastardly and arduous days. The idea is to struggle on, not to suffer in. Struggle, don’t suffer. Discipline requires pain. Best of Work! (not luck. F that.) | https://medium.com/faquora/self-discipline-54fdd6314f2c | ['Tony Soulage'] | 2019-10-16 17:26:01.775000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Self Improvement', 'Habit Building', 'Self Discovery', 'Discipline'] |
The Absolute Limit! | “(because what limits must be different from that which is limited by it)” ~Immanuel Kant
I am obsessed these days with the idea of Limit. If infinity is limitless, if eternity has no beginning nor end, the Limit is precisely the opposite: limits are the quintessence of limitation, of definition, of circumscription. They are what make our world actual and not simply pure potential. They are the strengths and weaknesses of our animal bodies. In a moral sense, they are the parameters that determine how we animal souls coincide with each other, how we consent or not to overlapping, and how we draw lines between us.
“De-Center is De-Limit” by Joshua Fesi
Kant discusses Limit as one of the essential structures of experience. He derives it from the synthesis of sensations of any particular object with the eventual cessation of those sensations. From this contrast of sensations over time is derived the concept of Limit, where surface unity meets negative space. The Limit thus reflects our boundedness within the particulars of our given spacetime, as well as our present tense relations to other bounded souls and bounded things. If that sounds too abstract, remember that the limit demarcates the boundedness of our fleshy, feeling bodies as well. Much of morality stems from the inescapable fact that our bodies are fragile, mortal, and exquisitely sensitive to the other bodies around us.
The Limit is physically grounded and morally weighty, but I don’t want to simply dismiss its abstractions out of hand. Our ability to categorize is premised on our predisposition to carve up the world, to delineate and define it according to concepts abstracted from the past. As such, the Limit, as conceptual boundary, is necessary for explaining the disjunctive binaries that so often organize our attempts to categorize the world (“it’s EITHER this OR that, with no in-between”). As such, it is also central to our understanding of non-disjunctive alternatives (e.g. “non-binary” gender identity, conceptual spectra, BOTH-AND multiplicity, etc). When we encounter a limiting case, we encounter a case at the extremes that defies our existing categories. If the Limit is a necessary feature of our world, it is negotiated and renegotiated perpetually.
This world is not perfect nor infinite as God, but perhaps it is not fallen, in the Christian sense, perhaps it is merely being bounded and limited again and again, as we move through our various and mutual coincidings indefinitely! | https://medium.com/@joshuafesi/the-absolute-limit-4dfa644fd9a6 | ['Joshua Fesi'] | 2019-07-11 00:02:40.051000+00:00 | ['Morality', 'LGBTQ', 'Kant', 'Limits', 'Nonbinary'] |
Being Strong Has Nothing to Do With Who Lives or Dies Covid-19 | I’m furious right now.
Ana, age 15, eight months before her death — Photo by author
By the time my daughter turned fifteen, she knew she was dying. She’d already been sick for four years. She’d undergone chemotherapy, a liver transplant, radiation, multiple surgeries to remove recurring tumors, and a nonstop cocktail of oral chemotherapy, anti-rejection drugs, steroids, and opioids for her pain.
Ana didn’t die because she wasn’t strong. She died because sometimes children get sick and there’s not a damn thing we can do to save them.
By the time Ana was terminal, she was done with platitudes. She didn’t want to hear how strong or brave she was. She had no patience for those who urged her to stay positive. In the last year of her life, her expectations for a miracle treatment had evaporated. She simply wanted to live for as long as she could.
She was still making plans with her friends during the final week of her life, still texting, still dragging her pain-wracked body out of bed not because the cancer wasn’t dominating her life — it was. She did this because she was determined to live her life until the moment she couldn’t.
Ana was scared of dying, but she faced illness and death anyway. This is what made Ana brave.
https://www.ccab.org/sites/default/files/webform/jp-tv-npb-award.pdf
https://www.ccab.org/sites/default/files/webform/jp-tv-npb-award1.pdf
https://www.ccab.org/sites/default/files/webform/boat-race-jp-tv.pdf
https://www.ccab.org/sites/default/files/webform/boat-race-jp-tv1.pdf
https://www.ccab.org/sites/default/files/webform/boat-race-jp-tv2.pdf
https://www.ccab.org/sites/default/files/webform/npb-awards-jp-tv.pdf
https://www.ccab.org/sites/default/files/webform/npb-awards-jp-tv1.pdf
https://www.ccab.org/sites/default/files/webform/npb-awards-jp-tv2.pdf
https://fa.oregonstate.edu/system/files/webform/fobc/jp-tv-npb-award.pdf
https://fa.oregonstate.edu/system/files/webform/fobc/jp-tv-npb-award1.pdf
https://fa.oregonstate.edu/system/files/webform/fobc/boat-race-jp-tv.pdf
https://fa.oregonstate.edu/system/files/webform/fobc/boat-race-jp-tv1.pdf
https://fa.oregonstate.edu/system/files/webform/fobc/boat-race-jp-tv2.pdf
https://fa.oregonstate.edu/system/files/webform/fobc/npb-awards-jp-tv.pdf
https://fa.oregonstate.edu/system/files/webform/fobc/npb-awards-jp-tv1.pdf
https://fa.oregonstate.edu/system/files/webform/fobc/npb-awards-jp-tv2.pdf
https://cogimon.eu/sites/default/files/webform/pubs/jp-tv-npb-award.pdf
https://cogimon.eu/sites/default/files/webform/pubs/jp-tv-npb-award1.pdf
https://cogimon.eu/sites/default/files/webform/pubs/boat-race-jp-tv.pdf
https://cogimon.eu/sites/default/files/webform/pubs/boat-race-jp-tv1.pdf
https://cogimon.eu/sites/default/files/webform/pubs/boat-race-jp-tv2.pdf
https://cogimon.eu/sites/default/files/webform/pubs/npb-awards-jp-tv.pdf
https://cogimon.eu/sites/default/files/webform/pubs/npb-awards-jp-tv1.pdf
https://cogimon.eu/sites/default/files/webform/pubs/npb-awards-jp-tv2.pdf
https://novaxqf.medium.com/covid-19-vaccine-trials-report-cases-of-brief-facial-paralysis-e4a5a342da0f
https://bidenupdatenews.medium.com/dont-worry-president-trump-knows-he-s-lost-f27ed3d941cb
https://helpingus.medium.com/teachers-should-be-prioritized-for-vaccine-ation-against-covid-19-unicef-3b8f54fc5443
There is a pervasive belief in the U.S. that if we remain positive and happy, we can overcome anything — even death itself. This obsession is like a doctrine, making happiness and health each individual’s responsibility.
It’s a philosophy that turns sickness, sadness, and death into character flaws, because it implies we have control over the inevitable. If only we eat healthy enough, stay positive enough, remain strong enough, we can overcome any obstacle.
Try telling that to the parents of a 2-year-old who is dying from leukemia. I dare you.
In his 2011 essay titled, “Condemned to Joy,” author Pascal Bruckner writes:
“ Sadness is the disease of a society of obligatory well-being that penalizes those who do not attain it. Happiness is no longer a matter of chance or a heavenly gift, an amazing grace that blesses our monotonous days. We now owe it to ourselves to be happy, and we are expected to display our happiness far and wide.”
Bruckner goes on to make the connection between health and happiness as follows:
“This belief in our ability to will ourselves happy also lies behind the contemporary obsession with health. What is health, correctly understood, but a kind of permission we receive to live in peace with our bodies and to let ourselves be carefree? These days, though, we are required to resist our mortality as far as possible.”
When confronted with catastrophe, as in the case with childhood cancer, it’s impossible to deny mortality, much less maintain the illusion of happiness.
My daughter understood this before she hit puberty. The President apparently never learned it.
When Trump tweeted, “Don’t be afraid of Covid,” and “Don’t let it dominate your life,” his message was clear: It is your fault if you die from COVID-19.
Trump was perpetuating the cultish belief that we can stave off a virus not by heeding the danger, but by ignoring the reality of an illness that currently has no cure. In doing so, he likely condemned many more people to die.
He also failed to mention his unique position of privilege — money, power, access to the best medical care and to treatments not yet approved for public consumption. If Trump and his team of 20 first-class infectious disease physicians, his access to state-of-the-art medical care (and medication), and his fully equipped at-home hospital can beat the virus, so can we!
Maybe he really thinks he understands what it’s like to get sick. Maybe it’s all bluster, an attempt to appear strong and instill confidence to Americans.
It doesn’t matter what his motives are because the message is the same — Don’t let it beat you. Be strong, like me, and you can overcome illness itself. If you die, it’s your own fault.
To that I say: go fuck yourself, Mr. President.
I know parents who have flown from one end of a continent to the other in search of a cure for their dying child, parents who begged insurance companies to approve drugs under compassionate use, parents who sought out every single expert they could find, every opinion, every treatment to try to save their baby.
I know a mother whose beautiful 5-year-old daughter died less than a week after she learned about the tumor that grew on her daughter’s brain stem.
I know families who have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund research to find a cure for the specific cancer that killed their child, so they could spare another family from experiencing the horror they went through.
I knew a girl who insisted she be allowed to die at home even though the tumors that grew in her lungs would eventually stop her heart from beating. She was 15-years-old and she brooked no bullshit.
I would never expect any of these people to remain strong, whatever the hell that means, in the face of such devastation.
Denying reality has consequences, after all.
Covid-19 is not cancer. There are ways to make it less lethal, but only if we face the truth of the virus — how it spreads, how sick it makes people, and its frightening mortality rate (much higher, by the way, than the flu).
We need the government to stop denying the reality of this thing, so we can actually prevent people from getting sick and save more people when they get infected.
That is the kind of logic that eludes the president. On Monday, Trump stood on a balcony at the White House, still obviously sick, and declared victory over the virus. He removed his mask, putting everyone around him at risk.
No one stopped him.
If you expected empathy or humility to emerge as a consequence of Trump’s firsthand experience with getting sick, then you were likely disappointed. If anything, Trump’s is less empathetic. Getting sick and subsequently getting better simply provided him with an opportunity to double down on his existing strategy of denial, obfuscation, and outright lies.
When our time comes, most of us don’t get to choose whether we live or die. Even Trump, beneath all the bluster and orange makeup, is forced to rely on medical science to keep the virus at bay.
Standing on a balcony, flashing a double thumbs-up and insisting he’s fine, may temporarily pull a veil over Trump’s mortality, but this is an illusion. The virus doesn’t care if he doesn’t believe in it.
If Trump survives this thing, it doesn’t make him strong — it makes him lucky. My terminally ill teenager would likely have pointed this out, if she’d had the chance. Facing reality is what made her brave and strong. Ignoring it is what makes Trump cowardly and weak. | https://medium.com/@indexhelp/being-strong-has-nothing-to-do-with-who-lives-or-dies-covid-19-b5c179ebc062 | [] | 2020-12-17 00:48:00.252000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Updates', 'News', 'Health', 'Life'] |
Using Data to Figure Out Why Game of Thrones 8.3 Was So Bad | I added a few columns to make my life easier, then scraped all deaths from the wonderful website https://deathtimeline.com/ plus added season 7 deaths to produce the starting data table. I was off to the races 🐴
The Episode column indicates if a character appears in that Episode. The above graph is fine, but let’s only look at only dead people, since that’s what we’re exploring. For dead people, I added a Death Episode column for which episode they died in, and MinPerEp, which is how much screen time they had over all the episodes they were in.
Image by author
At first I charted simply total screen time of all characters killed in an episode:
Image by author
It’s great to see major plot points + deaths can be captured this way. We can also see how absolutely insane the season 6 finale was — killing off a huge swath of major characters. It was WAY beyond the scope of other major death episodes, which all hover around 130–180.
** (One might argue that this score demonstrates that there were too many deaths in this episode, and at this point in the series this crazy death episode was just used to tie up loose ends and sUbVerT eXpeCtaTioNs…. but I digress) **
But there are few things that simply don’t satisfy me about deciding episode quality by screen time of deaths:
Ned + Viserys dying in the first season was arguably the most pivotal moment in the series. Here it is less important than the Wildling invasion, which I personally disagree with. Using raw screen time as a metric overvalues deaths that occur late in the show. Even if you are a middling character, if you survive until the end your death can be as significant as Robb Stark at the Red Wedding
So what if we viewed significance not as total absolute screen time, but the amount of screen time per episode? It would stand to reason that an important character would have extended screen time across the entire show. A character dying with 100min of total screen time in episode 10 should be much more significant than a character with 100min of total screen time dying in episode 50. Minutes per Episode could capture this relationship. That chart looks like this:
Image by author
This has the opposite effect — early deaths are heavily favored, making a significant later death much harder to achieve. You can almost see the exponential decay line of death value in the above chart.
You can tell this is a comedically unfair representation of Game of Thrones since Ned & Viserys are worth more than everyone who died in seasons 4,5,6 and 7 combined…
Clearly, there needs to be a smarter way to calculate Death Value.
From within my Min/Ep formula, I added a survivorship bonus parameter — essentially maintaining the value of Min/Ep but boosting later series deaths by softening the decay. Every character received 2min screen time bonus per episode survived. While this at first feels hand crafted and less objective, I would argue this can also be viewed as adding weight to deaths as characters progressed through both their own arcs and the stories arcs: even if their screen time does not increase, their extended involvement should naturally increase their significance. Below is my Survivorship Death Value Formula:
Which produces the following chart:
Switching up the color to keep you readers interested!! Image by author
This looks awesome — Ned’s Execution and the Tyrells sit as the most significant deaths of the show’s run, followed by the Red Wedding. It devalues Littlefinger’s Trial, which I would argue is a good thing since a singular semi-decent character’s death is way less of a pivotal moment then the others.
We are getting closer, but aren’t quite there yet:
The Red Wedding is undervalued. There is not way it is only as pivotal as the Wilding Invasion, and is dwarfed by Ned’s Execution, which many would argue should be close together The Will Dilemma
The Will Dilemma
To understand The Will Dilemma, take a look at the Dead List, sorted by DeathValue:
Image by author
First, we have Ned Stark — one of the most unexpected and major deaths in all of cinematic history. It triggered all the events of Game of Thrones, and converted millions to GoT fans — certainly deserving of the top spot. Next we have Catelyn Stark, the female lead for most of the early season taken at the Red Wedding, and then Robert Baratheon, the brash king whose death started the Game of Thrones.
Then, there’s Will.
He doesn’t even have a last name.
Here is his Fandom Page: https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/Will
He appeared in the first 6 minutes of 1.1, and then was killed by a white walker.
Despite this tiny role in one scene, he ranks higher Stannis, the Tyrells, and even Robb Stark. Clearly something needs to be fixed.
In short, the Will Dilemma is our model’s tendency to overvalue unpopular characters. Yes, even Game of Thrones is a popularity contest.
But how do you measure popularity? Obviously I can’t go in and rank how important each character is, that wouldn’t be objective.
Instead, we can use the number of links to a character’s wiki page on the Game of Thrones Wiki as a yardstick for popularity. The more links and relationships a character has with others, the more popular + important they are. When we count the links and normalize them (scale them between 0 and 1), we get something like the chart linked. Anything above Anything over 0.34 is considered popular.
Game of Thrones Popularity Chart. Image by author
So important people like Walder Frey and Viserys Targaryen? Popular. No, names like Sylva Santagar have practically no popularity.
We can now rewrite our Death Value function as:
Or if you want this to look like a formula to pretend this is mathematically rigorous exercise:
Using this modified Death Value, we get:
Image by author
This looks really promising. Ned/Viserys reigns supreme as the most powerful episode, following shortly behind the Tyrell massacre. The Red Wedding, while still being somewhat undervalued, is clearly in a league of its own compared to Stannis and the Wildling Invasion.
Side Note: I used the character pages from the book characters rather than the show to calculate popularity. If you’re worried about this biasing the data, or creating improper value, I would argue that the book wiki captures the true internal popularity of the characters within Westeros rather than the external popularity within HBO. The richness of each character backstory and the sheer number of named characters in the book ensured that important characters were hardly affected by the popularity amplifier, and no ones were heavily punished.
Side Note 2: The above dataset does not include John Snow’s first death, because he didn’t actually die. No fake deaths allowed in my death calculations!
Intangibles in Death
There are several concepts to address that we simply could not account for using our Death Value:
The Hodor Effect: A minor character who has a powerful, meaningful death. Hodor, while playing a relatively minor role in the grand scheme of Game of Thrones, had an absolutely stunning death sequence that certainly is worth more than his measly 0.621 score. However ranking how “great” a death sequence was is far too subjective for this analysis.
A minor character who has a powerful, meaningful death. Hodor, while playing a relatively minor role in the grand scheme of Game of Thrones, had an absolutely stunning death sequence that certainly is worth more than his measly 0.621 score. However ranking how “great” a death sequence was is far too subjective for this analysis. The Littlefinger Quandary : A major character has a terrible or out-of-character death that ends their narrative arc. This is the opposite of the Hodor effect, and thus represents a need to reduce a character’s death score. Also too subjective for our analysis.
: A major character has a terrible or out-of-character death that ends their narrative arc. This is the opposite of the Hodor effect, and thus represents a need to reduce a character’s death score. Also too subjective for our analysis. Ygritte Hypothesis: A mid-season character who joins the team yet does not deserve to be devalued. Obviously Ygritte only appears to season 2, but should her death score start there? She technically was alive and simply did not have any screen-time during the first season, yet she receives a survivorship bonus for those episodes. I choose to consider all characters as starting at episode one but also receiving the survivorship bonus.
A mid-season character who joins the team yet does not deserve to be devalued. Obviously Ygritte only appears to season 2, but should her death score start there? She technically was alive and simply did not have any screen-time during the first season, yet she receives a survivorship bonus for those episodes. I choose to consider all characters as starting at episode one but also receiving the survivorship bonus. Master of Whispers (Offscreen) Bonus: Raw screen-time isn’t necessarily reflective of story impact. Sauron from Lord of the Rings only has 4 minutes of actual screen time through all 3 movies, but his influence derived from all references to him through the story. Perhaps next steps would be to count length of scenes in which a character is mentioned as screen-time as well.
Now, Let’s use this to talk about 8.3. | https://towardsdatascience.com/why-game-of-thrones-8-3-was-objectively-bad-6f558d4d63e7 | ['Adam Brownell'] | 2021-02-03 23:29:40.211000+00:00 | ['Game of Thrones', 'Data Science', 'Movies', 'Statistics', 'Analytics'] |
Is It Really Impossible To Control Your FEAR Without Doing This? | A young ambitious 23 year old recently asked me, “What’s the secret to overcoming your stutter?” I said to him, “ Once you realize that the secret starts within you, there isn’t a secret anymore.” Although he asked me this question, I’ve realized that most people are thinking the same thing too.
I started the journey of overcoming my stutter during my teenage years and focused on every aspect of my communication. I was driven, ambitious, persistent, eager and had tenacity because I knew that learning how to effectively communicate would transform my life. You see, everybody has these sets of intangible skills (even you) but some are holding themselves back from unleashing their fullest potential. If you really think about it though, it seems like F.E.A.R is the biggest factor.
F.E.A.R= False Evidence Appearing Real
There is a statistic that states that 77% of the population is afraid to speak in public. Because of these sets of fears: Fear of judgement, Fear of embarrassment, Fear of failure, etc. Although these fears tend to empower many, you have the ability to control these fears.
William Wrigley said, “A man’s doubts and fears are his worst enemies.”
Everybody in this world has been possessed by fear in their lives but many have realized how to control their fears. In other words, they learned how to rewire their mindset by infusing fear into action. By executing what you fear the most, you are slowly dominating your fears. If you aren’t allowing yourself to break away from these fears, it will dictate your future and how you perceive yourself. Simply put, your mindset is the key to your overall success. That is why I teach my clients how to transform their mindsets so they can speak with absolute confidence. If you want to learn more about this, pick a time to speak with us.
Excited to hear from you,
Daniel | https://medium.com/@ceodanielfrancis/is-it-really-impossible-to-control-your-fear-without-doing-this-c97d634c20af | ['Daniel Francis'] | 2021-12-15 17:45:32.780000+00:00 | ['Public Speaking', 'Leadership', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Confidence'] |
Leading the change in security communications | How limited WFP seed funding grew the Telecommunications Security Standards (TESS) project into a powerful inter-agency service
By Emma Wadland
On a sun-baked hill overlooking Kigali, Rwanda, workers from dozens of humanitarian agencies set up telecommunications repeaters side by side, dotting the drumlin with equipment. It was 1994 and the country was embroiled in genocide.
Despite the heightened security risks, there were no defined security communications standards or procedures keeping humanitarians safe.
In fact, it was typical to see United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations show up to emergencies, as they did in Rwanda, with their own equipment and protocols, working in parallel.
“Without guidelines and uniform standards, all the technology is useless,” says Peter Casier, Telecommunications Security Standards (TESS) Senior Programme Manager for the World Food Programme. He was also on that hill in Kigali.
Checking to make sure security communication is up to TESS standards in the Central African Republic, 2020. Photo: WFP/ETC
The TESS project arrived on the scene in 2018, fuelled by seed funding from the World Food Programme (WFP) and a belief that clear procedures and standards can stop the humanitarian sector from repeating security communications mistakes and duplicating efforts at enormous cost.
Mobile phones, for example, are used more and more in field operations but there were no criteria for employing them as a security communications tool.
UN radio rooms, now known as Security Operations Centres (SOCs), never had clear guidelines for what is expected from them even though they provide a critical security service, managing complex data, systems, and applications.
“These people are core to operations: but it was never clear what we expect from them?” Peter says.
Starting with missions in Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal in 2018, TESS demonstrated that proposed upgrades to VHF radio networks were unnecessary and wouldn’t improve efficiencies. And just in these three countries, this observation led to savings of about US$ 1.2 million.
Beyond savings, TESS became synonymous with “inter-agency collaboration” tackling complex technical and procedural issues in technology and security.
In a whirlwind over the next two years, the TESS project –supported by WFP’s Fast IT Telecommunications Emergency and Support Team (FITTEST) and in close collaboration with the WFP Technology Division and the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) — standardized security communications infrastructure designed for humanitarians in an astonishing 62 countries, saving the common UN system a tenfold of the annual TESS costs.
Burkina Faso is one of these countries. When terrorist insurgencies increased there in 2019, the UN system opened five new field offices, where under the guidance and support of TESS, the interagency team coordinated by WFP put the new TESS standards to work.
Each of these field offices would have their local Security Operations Centers run from Ouagadougou, the capital city, rather than in field locations. This not only saved the common UN system about US$ 35,000 per month, but also improved efficiency and reduced the number of required field staff.
A watershed moment in June 2020 saw the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) and the Interagency Security Management Network (IASMN) asking TESS to lead an interagency working group that eventually, in less than a year, defined all the UN’s security communications procedures, guidance and standard operating procedure (SOPs). Suddenly, TESS went from a purely technologist service provider role into a position to contribute a critical part of UN security policies.
In another first, TESS and its interagency partners were one of the initial parties to conduct satellite testing of the new Starlink network with SpaceX, well before this service became publicly available. Equally, TESS partnered with other key security telecommunications providers, to help design and test prototype equipment and services, keeping abreast of all newer technologies.
Cargo planes, technicians, logistics and time are all needed to set up communications connectivity in an emergency. This new technology, which TESS is testing, will “dramatically change how we will provide connectivity to operations, and drastically reduce the costs of communications,” Peter says.
Imagine, for instance, being able to pack a satellite the size of a pizza in your suitcase and set up the self-configured solution in a matter of minutes?
While for the first two years, TESS was financed by WFP seed funding, as of January 2020, TESS services have been fully covered by interagency security funds, managed by UNDSS.
Based on TESS’ success, UNDSS and the IASMN requested to convert the project into a permanent service called {TESS+}, which started in January 2021, keeping one eye on field security and the other on innovation and agility.
In addition to being the definitive source on interagency compliance with UN security communications standards, {TESS+} saves WFP US$ 1.76 million per year on investment.
The priceless bottom line, though, are the humanitarian lives protected in operations all over the world by smart security protocols and standardized equipment. As {TESS+} has proven, a little bit of seed funding can go a long way.
To learn more about TESS, go here. | https://medium.com/@wfpinnovation/leading-the-change-in-security-communications-af3a373810e | ['Wfp Innovation Accelerator'] | 2021-07-02 08:25:37.897000+00:00 | ['Security', 'Technology', 'Telecommunications', 'Humanitarian', 'Wfp'] |
Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) solution to Kaggle caravan insurance challenge on R | Photo by Kevin Schmid on Unsplash
The Caravan Insurance Challenge was posted on Kaggle with the aim in helping the marketing team of the insurance company to develop a more effective marketing strategy. The dataset consists of 5822 records of customer data collected by the insurance company on 85 different socio-demographic and product-ownership data features.
Machine learning (ML) algorithms is the solution to help identify those customers who are most likely to purchase caravan policies especially since we are given 5822 training data and 238 testing data, but the purpose of writing this article, is to tackle the problem using just Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) without the complicated ML models.
Overall data statistics
After obtaining the datasets from the Kaggle link, we can read the training data ticdata2000.txt into R. I did mine using Jupyter Notebook with the R kernel installed as I find Jupyter Notebook more user-friendly and effective for me to debug any errors. You can find the link to install R kernel onto Jupyter Notebook with this link.
After reading in the data, we can get a sense of how each data attribute looks like and as mentioned, each record has 86 features represented by V1 — V86. It was further mentioned all attributes have been discretised and attribute 1–43 are assigned based on the zip code the customers stay in.
Using the summary command, we can get the statistics of each attribute and get a general sense of each attribute better.
Using the describe command, more detailed statistics can be displayed.
Missing values is one of the most problematic in every data analysis or data science project especially if we need to decide to discard these entries or try to fill in the empty values using methods like mean, max or even regression. Thankfully in this training data, there were no missing values for any of the 86 attributes.
Summarising from the overall statistics, there are 86 attributes (columns) in which attributes 1–43 contains socio-demographic data and attributes 44–86 contains product ownership, with attribute 86: Number of mobile home policies being the target variable. Attributes consist of mainly categorical with subtype nominal or ordinal, as well as numerical with discrete subtype.
The biggest challenge
The reason why this was a posted as a Kaggle challenge was the fact that though there were 5822 customer records, there were only a small percentage of customers who bought caravan insurance, making any data analysis or machine learning harder as this dataset is greatly imbalanced. In fact, only 348 (6%) of the customers bought them.
Correlation between variables
We proceed to explore possible correlation between variables in our EDA using the cor command. A correlation coefficient near to 1 or -1 means both attributes are highly correlated (i.e. a rise in variable A will give a rise in variable B if correlation coefficient is near to 1).
But yes, it’s hard to read especially since we have 86 attributes and the cor command trying to provide us with correlation coefficients of each attribute against the remaining 85. Let’s try to visualise it using a graphical representation, level plot. Note that you will need the library lattice to run the levelplot command together with cor.
Hmm, it doesn’t seem very helpful but it certainly shows there’s some attributes being correlated to others. We make use of a loop to identify those variables that have high correlation between them, by filtering the correlation coefficient to be <-0.5 or >0.5.
Note that the clear light blue diagonal line in the middle is expected as each variable is positively correlated to itself.
We see that it’s easier to know which attributes each attribute is correlated to and we can easily observe the following:
Customer Sub Type (V1) and Customer Main Type (V5) are highly correlated.
and are highly correlated. Average Household Size (V3) increases as Household with Children (V15) increases.
increases as increases. Average Household Size (V3) decreases as Singles (V13) increases.
decreases as increases. Singles (V13) are more probable to own no car (V34) .
are more probable to own . High level education (V16) , High Status (V19) , Social Class A (V25) are more likely to purchase Private health insurance (V36) .
, , are more likely to purchase . Lower level education (V18) , Social Class C (V28) are more likely to purchase National Health Service (V35) .
, are more likely to purchase . Contribution of a certain policy is highly correlated to the number of that policy. For instance, V44 - Contribution private third party insurance is highly correlated to Number of private third party insurance . This is consistent from V44 - V64 against V65 - V85 . The higher the number of a particular policy you have, the higher your contribution towards that policy.
is highly correlated to . This is consistent from against . The higher the number of a particular policy you have, the higher your contribution towards that policy. There is greater fire policies (V80) insured under third party insurance (V65) .
insured under . There is greater tractor policies (V73) insured under third party agriculture insurance (V67).
We explore the relationship between Customer Main Type (V1) and Customer Sub Type (V5) since the correlation coefficient between them is really high (0.993). We will use the ggplot command which is a common visualisation command in R under ggplot2 library, and plot a coloured bar chart.
Looking at the plot, we can conclude that:
Customer Main Type 1 is represented by Customer Sub-Type 1–5
is represented by Customer Main Type 2 is represented by Customer Sub-Type 6–8
is represented by Customer Main Type 3 is represented by Customer Sub-Type 9–13
is represented by Customer Main Type 4 is represented by Customer Sub-Type 15–19
is represented by Customer Main Type 5 is represented by Customer Sub-Type 20–24
is represented by Customer Main Type 6 is represented by Customer Sub-Type 25–28
is represented by Customer Main Type 7 is represented by Customer Sub-Type 29–32
is represented by Customer Main Type 8 is represented by Customer Sub-Type 33–37
is represented by Customer Main Type 9 is represented by Customer Sub-Type 38–39
is represented by Customer Main Type 10 is represented by Customer Sub-Type 40–41
is represented by There is no Customer Sub Type 14 (Junior cosmopolitan) in this training dataset
(Junior cosmopolitan) in this training dataset The most common belongs to Customer Main Type 8 (Family with Grown Ups) with Customer Subtype 33 (Lower class large families)
Distribution of attributes against the target variable (V86)
What we would like to know is whether there are any variables that exhibit certain patterns/trends towards our target variable V86, as the observations can be particularly useful when we are trying to predict and identify potential mobile home customers. Hence, we explore the distribution of attributes against V86.
We first explore V5 — Customer Main Type using ggplot and plotting the bar chart similar to before. Note that we use grid.arrange to plot two charts in one console output in Jupyter Notebook.
We see that the number of caravan policies is most common in customer main type 8 (Family with grown ups) followed by customer main type 2 (Driven Growers). Note that customer main type 4 (Career Loners) has 0 mobile home policies for all of them.
We do the same to customer subtypes.
We see that the number of mobile home policies is most common in customer sub type 8 (Middle class families) and type 33 (Lower class large families).
Also note that the following customer sub type has 0 mobile home policies:
Customer Sub Type 14 (Junior cosmopolitan)
Customer Sub Type 15 (Senior cosmopolitans)
Customer Sub Type 16 (Students in apartments)
Customer Sub Type 17 (Fresh masters in the city)
Customer Sub Type 18 (Single youth)
Customer Sub Type 19 (Suburban youth)
Customer Sub Type 21 (Young urban have-nots)
Customer Sub Type 28 (Residential elderly)
Customer Sub Type 40 (Large family farms)
We then explore if there are any noticeable trend or pattern in attribute V2 (Number of houses), V3(Avg size household) and V4(Avg age) with the target variable V86.
Looking at the plots, we can observe the following:
For V2 — Number of houses,
Mobile home policy buyers owns 1 or 2 houses
There are 0 buyers from those who owns 3 to 10 houses
For V3 — Avg size household,
The most common is of size 3 that purchased mobile home policy
There are 0 buyers from those whose average household size is 6
For V4 — Avg age,
The highest group of mobile home policy buyers belong to group 3 (40–50 years old)
The least common groups are group 1 (20–30 years old) and group 6 (70–80 years old)
Next, we would like to know if religion plays a part in affecting the purchase of mobile home policies. We can plot histogram using hist command for each of V6 — V9 which represents different religion groups, against our target variable V86. Note that par(mfrow) can be used to plot multiple plots in a single console output.
From the 4 histograms plot for the attributes relating to religion (V6 — V9), it seems to suggest V6 — Roman Catholic are least likely to buy mobile home policies, while frequency of V7 — Protestant and V9 — No Religion of buying is higher.
Next, we explore the marital status (V10 — V13) as well as presence of children (V14 — V15). Since from V1, we have identified the main buyers of mobile home policies belong to Middle class families as well as lower class families, we will expect a higher percentage of V10 — Married to own mobile home policies.
As expected, those who owns mobile home policies are most common in marital status of V10 — Married. There seems to be a fair distribution between household without children and household with children.
In the correlation coefficient matrix, we discovered that singles are more likely to have no car. Since we know that the majority of the mobile home policies buyers are not single, we will also expect those without any car to not have purchased the mobile home policies logically.
We plot the number of cars (V32 — V34) to explore this.
From the plots, we see majority of mobile home policies owners to have 1 car. What’s interesting is there are some who have no car and purchased mobile home policies. Hence, we can conclude the term cars in this dataset does not include mobile home caravan.
V16 — V18 carries information about the education level and from the correlation coefficient/matrix we have observed earlier on, education level seems to be highly correlated to social class status (V25 — V29). Let’s see if we can observe any noticeable pattern in any particular group with respect to buying mobile home policy. Note that plot() is another inbuilt R command to build bar chart.
Mobile Home policies seem to be less common in high level education and more common with medium and low education. This also corresponds to mobile home policies being less common in social class A and more common in social class B1, B2 and C. It is also notable that it is not common for social class D.
From the observations from education level and social class, it should be expected that mobile home policies will be more popular with those drawing average income. Let’s plot the income attributes V37 — V42 as well as the purchasing power V43.
As seen in the plots, mobile home policies are more popular with customers drawing average income of $30000 -$75000, and those with medium to high purchasing power.
Now, let’s explore V19 — V24 which are attributes pertaining to the occupation of the customers. From earlier plots, we know mobile home policies are more common in customers from social class B1, B2 and C, and those drawing average income of $30000-$75000. Furthermore in the correlation coefficient matrix, we know different occupations are correlated to different social class.
Looking at the plots, it seems to suggest that the occupations of mobile home policies buyers are diverse, in which there is not really a particular occupation who is most likely to purchase the policy. The only observation that can be observed is if there is a high percentage of farmers in the household, that particular household is least likely to purchase mobile home policies.
Let’s see if V30 — rented house and V31 — home owners has any observable pattern towards purchasing of mobile home policies.
Since there is a high correlation between this 2 attributes (i.e. if the customer is not owning the house, they will definitely be renting the house). What’s observable is home owners are more likely to purchase mobile home policies compared to customers who are renting their houses.
In our correlation matrix above, we noted that customers with high level education, high status and belonging to social class A are more likely to purchase private health insurance. Whereas for customers with lower level education and belonging to social class C, they are more likely to purchase National Health Service. Furthermore, we have also observed that customers of low education level and lower social class are more likely to purchase the mobile home policies. Let’s explore this by plotting V35 — National Health Service and V36 — Private health insurance against our target variable V86.
Even though lower level education and lower social class are more likely to purchase mobile home policies, and they are also more likely to purchase national health service insurance, the relationship of customers who bought national health service insurance and purchase of mobile home policies is not distinctly distinguishable as suggested by the plots. Both group of customers in the plot above are equally likely to purchase mobile home policies.
Attributes V44 to V85 are related to insurance products ownership and in the correlation matrix earlier on, we noted that contribution to each policy is highly correlated to number of that policy. What we would like to find out is are there any particular policies which is highly correlated to mobile home policies as well, meaning what other policies will the customer buy when they purchased the mobile home policy or vice versa.
We first plot all the contributions towards each insurance type from V44 to V85 as a bar chart and the their respective numbers as a pie chart using pie command for comparison.
Plotting all insurance type from V44 to V85 for those customers who bought caravan policies, we can get the following summary from the product ownership attributes:
From these observations, we can conclude that mobile home policies will not buy lorry and agricultural machine policies. On the other hand, they are also likely to purchase car policy and contribute $1000 to $4999, fire policy and contribute $200 — $499, and maybe private third party insurance with contribution at $100 — $199.
To get a better representation on the exact numbers of other policies bought by caravan policy customers, we can do a simple aggregation.
It is observed that for the 348 customers who bought mobile home policies:
276 (79%) of them also bought car policies (V68)
239 (69%) of them also bought fire policies (V80)
201 (58%) of them also bought private 3rd party insurance (V65)
0 of them bought lorry policies (V71), agricultural machine policies (V74)
Overall summary
Summarising our findings from the distributions of other attributes against the target variable, a high percentages of them out of the 348 customers who bought caravan policies came from the following:
comes from Middle class families & lower class families
are family with grown ups or drivern growers
possesses 1 or 2 houses
average household size is 3
belongs to 40–50 years old
Protestant & No religion dominates
Married
received medium and low education level
social class B1, B2, C
possess 1 car
average income is around $30000 to $75000
owns car policy and contribute $1000 to $4999
owns fire policy and contribute $200 — $499
owns private third party insurance and contribute $100 — $199
Intuition from these observations tell us customers of mobile home policies are middle-sized families with average income, in which they own property and car, resulting in them owning car and fire policy as well. Possible explanation is if a family is drawing average income, they are at higher chance to purchase a caravan as it is relatively cheaper to go on a holiday with a caravan in their home country compared to taking the plane overseas for holiday. Also, caravan are normally towed by car which explains why there are high number of mobile home policies customers owning car and car policy as well. These customers owns property and will have the tendency to purchase fire policy for their property/car unassumingly.
Looking at the other side of the spectrum, these 348 customers did not come from:
career loners
Junior cosmopolitan, Senior cosmopolitans, Students in apartments, Fresh masters in the city, Single youth, Suburban youth, Young urban have-nots, Residential elderly, Large family farms
who owns 3 to 10 houses
whose average household size 6
who owns lorry policy
who owns agricultural machine policy
Looking at these observations, it is highly unlikely for customer who is alone and young, or customer with large families who either are elderly or stay in farms to purchase caravan. Logically speaking, this makes sense as if you are young, your priority would not be to buy a caravan as you will not have the income to do so, and if you are alone, buying a car is more enticing than buying a caravan. Similarly, if you are elderly, you will not have the energy to go on a holiday with a caravan as it’s considered more adventurous. Buying agricultural machine/lorry will also be more meaningful if you are staying in the farm.
As such, the possible factors that we have identified through EDA that can help the marketing team of the insurance company to develop a more effective marketing strategy are as follows:
Before we dive into using techniques subset selection or shrinkage method, based on the exploratory data analysis, we expect the following attributes to be significant in helping us predict if a customer will purchase a mobile home policy:
V1 — Customer Subtype
2) V2 — Number of houses
3) V3 — Avg size household
4) V4 — Avg age
5) V5 — Customer main type
6) V10 — Married
7) V17 — Medium level education
8) V18 — Lower level education
9) V26 — Social class B1
10) V27 — Social class B2
11) V28 — Social class C
12) V32–1 Car
13) V38 — Income 30–45.000
14) V44 — Contribution private third party insurance
15) V47 — Contribution car policies
16) V50 — Contribution lorry policies
17) V53 — Contribution agricultural machines policies
18) V59 — Contribution fire policies
19) V65 — Number of private third party insurance
20) V68 — Number of car policies
21) V71 — Number of lorry policies
22) V74 — Number of agricultural machines policies
23) V80 — Number of fire policies
Thank you for reading, and in my next post, I will continue the machine learning portion to this particular challenge which utilises features selection methods and ML algorithms like Logistic Regression, Linear Discriminant Analysis and Quadratic Discriminant Analysis to identify possible attributes for the marketing team to consider looking into. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/exploratory-data-analysis-eda-solution-to-kaggles-caravan-insurance-challenge-on-r-4592577d9abb | ['Kieran Tan Kah Wang'] | 2020-09-28 12:25:31.878000+00:00 | ['Kaggle', 'Data Analytics', 'Caravan', 'R Programming', 'Exploratory Data Analysis'] |
How Should We Define “Systemic Racism?” | Leave the Past in the Past?
But what effect does all that history have on the life of a typical Jew today? What does any of it have to do with me? The isolated outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence are hideous and deeply disturbing. But they are isolated. Most Western Jews go about their lives feeling secure and comfortable with their place in the modern world.
Nevertheless, remembering the exodus remains of paramount importance. Because if we don’t learn the lessons of the past, we won’t find our way from the present into the future.
This is a mindset deeply embedded in Jewish tradition. It is part of the prophecy revealed to Abraham, the first Jew, and revisited by generations of prophets across the centuries:
Your descendants will be small in number, scattered to the four corners of the world, despised and persecuted among the nations.
In other words, it was foretold from the earliest times that the Jews would suffer at the hands of systemic anti-Semitism. Which has led countless observers, historians, and social scientists to ask:
How have the Jews survived for over 3000 years?
It’s not by dwelling on the persecution of the past. It’s by retaining a knowledge and understanding of history that produces an awareness of identity, an awareness that has empowered Jews throughout the generations with a sense of purpose and mission. We only look backward so that we can find our way forward.
Except when we don’t.
During his run for president, Senator Bernie Sanders was asked what his Jewish identity meant to him. He answered with one word — the Holocaust. And the sad irony is that there’s a term for exactly that: Holocaust Jew.
It’s not a compliment. It means a Jew who has forgotten everything about who he is except the most recent episode in a seemingly endless history of attempted genocides. It means a Jew who has accepted upon himself the status of victim. And that’s exactly the opposite of the outlook Judaism teaches.
What is freedom? Freedom means empowerment and responsibility. It calls on us to reject slave mentality and victim mentality. Yes, the Almighty saved us from oppressors. But now it is our job to save ourselves. It’s a job we have to face every day of our lives. And If we continue to think of ourselves as victims, we will never succeed in our pursuit of a higher calling. | https://medium.com/the-apeiron-blog/how-should-we-define-systemic-racism-4199f671f40d | ['Yonason Goldson'] | 2020-11-16 11:53:31.880000+00:00 | ['Religion', 'Theology', 'Racism', 'Life', 'Philosophy'] |
A Moment of Change — podcast Episode Five | Episode Five — Social Inequalities and Our Environment: Changing attitudes to food
The COVID crisis has further exposed social inequalities and environmental concerns. It has highlighted the demand on food banks, the reliance of many families on school meals and the fragility of our food systems. On the flip side, more people are talking about climate change, food waste and the benefits of growing food at home. In this episode we talk to Carly Trisk-Grove: restaurateur, B Leader and co-creator of a new restaurant concept focused on serving tasty, nourishing food at an accessible price and inspiring a generation of change-makers to level-up their own communities.
From a young age Carly had a joint obsession with good food and using business as a force for good. Together with her husband, Carly ran a community cafe for 14 years. Carly believes it is now time for restaurants to rethink their purpose. Having seen first-hand the many issues that face the industry, Carly has recently moved to Devon to launch her new restaurant concept — OPOP — One Plate, One Price.
“I hope that the pause Covid has generated has allowed lots of people to rethink their relationship to food and perhaps spend more time and money shopping locally, and to really value the people who bring food to our table…we need to appreciate how important it is in our lives, and therefore value the people who help us enjoy it.” | https://medium.com/on-purpose-stories/a-moment-of-change-podcast-episode-five-5b68df54402f | ['On Purpose London - Podcast'] | 2020-11-26 11:02:47.770000+00:00 | ['Community', 'Sustainability', 'Covid 19', 'Food', 'Environmental Issues'] |
用 Bref 1.0 讓 Laravel 8 serverless 起來 | 引用額外的 PHP Extension
Bref 1.0 的釋出文件上有提到，為了讓 runtime 更瘦，所以移除了一些不常用的 PHP extensions，想要用這些 extensions 的可以參照 brefphp/extra-php-extensions 這個 github repo，以下我們也會以 Redis 來做個測試。
我這邊做的試驗是讓我的 Laravel 專案可以存取 Redis，其步驟如下：
在 Laravel 專案中增加 Todo 管理功能，我是從 Vue 的範例中複製下來改的，原本範例中是存在 localstorage 中，稍微改寫一下，用 axios 從後端讀取 Todo 列表，並且在更改後回存。當然，Laravel 專案這邊也需要提供兩個 API 好用來讀、寫資料，因為這不是本文的重點，就不多贅述了。 在專案中安裝 extra-php-extensions 這個 package:
$ composer require bref/extra-php-extensions
3. 在 serverless.yml 中加入以下設定：
除了要引用 PHP redis extension layer 外，為了要讓 Lambda 可以連到 ElastiCache，必須要把這個 Lambda function 設置在 VPC 內，因此還多了 VPC 區段的設定。
（完整版的 serverless.yml 放在文末。）
...
plugins:
- ./vendor/bref/bref
# for redis extension
- ./vendor/bref/extra-php-extensions
...
functions:
web:
handler: public/index.php
description: ''
timeout: 28
layers:
- ${bref:layer.php-74-fpm}
# for redis extension
- ${bref:extra.redis-php-74}
events:
- httpApi: '*'
vpc: # for connect to ElastiCache
securityGroupIds:
- YOUR_SECURITY_GROUP_ID
subnetIds:
- YOUR_SUBNET_ID
4. 引用 PHP redis extensions
在 Laravel 專案中建立檔案夾 php/conf.d ，並且在裡面建立一個名為 redis.ini 檔案：
其內容如下：
;php/conf.d/redis.ini
; Loading the Redis extension.
extension=/opt/bref-extra/redis.so
5. 建立 ElastiCache Redis 並且修改 .env
從 AWS Console 建立一個 ElastiCache Redis，並且把 .env 中的 REDIS_HOST 修改為 AWS ElastiCache Redis 的 Endpoint:
# 修改 REDIS_HOST 為 ElastiCache 的 endppoint
REDIS_HOST=bref.xxxx.0001.apne1.cache.amazonaws.com
6. (option) 既然已經設置了 redis，所以我後來也把 .env 中的 SESSION_DRIVER 也改成用 redis。
以上動作都完成後，再重新部署一次: serverless deploy ，完成後打開網址，就成功地看到了 Todo 畫面了，而且因為有存在 ElastiCache 中，所以每次重新開啟或是換瀏覽器，資料都會在。
到 Lambda 的控制台去確認一下，果然可以看到我們的 Lambda function 引用了兩個 Layer：
Lambda Layers
看起來很順利，不過有個小問題是通常我們不止需要 PHP redis 這一個 extension，而 Lambda 有一個最多只能引用 5 個 layers 的限制，如果我們需要的 extension 超過這個限制的話，就會需要我們自己建立自己的 Lambda layer 了。
移除部署的服務 | https://medium.com/@azole/%E7%94%A8-bref-1-0-%E8%AE%93-laravel-8-serverless-%E8%B5%B7%E4%BE%86-6f2b5416c372 | [] | 2020-11-28 17:07:20.058000+00:00 | ['AWS Lambda', 'Bref', 'Serverless', 'Laravel'] |
[Part 2] Application Example of REMIIT RSC : Connecting Funding and Remittance using the Blockchain Ledger Technology | by Logan Hong (CTO)
In the previous post, we looked at the implications and limitations of the separation of funding and remittances, including pre-funding. In this post, we will explore details on how the REMIIT team is using the blockchain ledger technology to overcome the limitations of the remittance methods currently used by the MTOs.
As we saw in the previous post, in the situation where funding and remittance are separated, each country’s regulatory authority experiences difficulty to check the transactions after the problems of MTO remittance transaction occurs. The bank only reports to the regulatory authority the transaction made by the bank which is the funding detail from MTO to MTO which abides by the rules of the International Bank Transfer Association to the regulatory authority while the MTO only reports to the regulatory authority the details of the individual customer transactions. Thus the authorities are required to go through the process of examining each transaction one by one. In addition, if the record is manipulated or mistakenly missed, the difficulty becomes greater. The blockchain ledger technology is not forgeable nor manipulatable as it is known, and once the chain is created it can not be modified. Therefore, you can resolve the above-mentioned problems by recording information related to remittances (ie, the relationship between the deposit record and the actual remittance), and providing the records on request of the banks and the regulatory authorities if necessary. The diagram of the ecosystem structure is shown below.
Looking at this diagram, the contract between the MTOs is first recorded as a smart contract on the blockchain. All the transaction history between the two partners are recorded in the smart contract by consensus (sign) between the partners. However, the other intermediaries (e.g. Banks) involved in the process will be signed by the particular participants where necessary within the process. Of course, the process may be simplified for convenience and speed of transfer in situations where the commercial services are in place.
If funds are transferred for pre-funding, the funding details with the signature of the participating bank is recorded in the smart contract. Whenever an individual remittance transaction occurs using the pre-funded money, the remittance history with the signature of the sender and the recipient is recorded in the smart contract and deducts the pre-funded amount based on this.
If a problem arises in the future, it is easy for any regulatory authority to connect the remittance transaction and which funding transaction it came from. Furthermore, as it is uploaded on the blockchain, this record can be trusted.
With this technology, most of the banks described in the previous post can resolve the difficult problem of providing funding MTOs, and based on this, MTOs can use the existing method in a safer environment.
The diagram below illustrates the flow of recording the funding and remittance described above in detail.
The MTO on the sending side proposes a remittance contract to the MTO on the receiving side. If both the MTOs agree to the contract, the sending MTO will complete the contract with the details of the transfer and post it on the blockchain ledger. The receiving MTO approves the contract on the blockchain ledger, which is recorded on the public blockchain. In the case of pre-funding, the sending MTO, which uses the SWIFT network from the bank, sends the contract and amount to the receiving MTO, and the money transferring company records funding information and details on the blockchain ledger. The sending MTO will approve this contract, which is then recorded on the blockchain ledger. The sending and receiving banks involved in the remittance process may also sign and authorize this agreement if necessary. A customer who wants to send money will go to a sending MTO and request a remittance. In this process, the customer undergoes KYC/AML verification. The sending MTO requests to the receiving MTO through the message channel, and the MTO that receives the request gives the amount to the recipient. In this process, the recipient undergoes KYC/AML verification. After the money is sent, the MTOs record the relevant details, readjust the balance, and upload it on the blockchain ledger. If necessary, sending and receiving customers can also confirm their transactions and participate in the approvals. This process prevents errors and ensures the authenticity of the ledger record. The contract is terminated when the contract term ends or the deposit amount is exhausted. In this case, if the balance remains, it is carried over to the next contract.
The following diagram specifically shows the process of auditing the transaction details.
Viewing funding details connected to the specific remittance transaction :
Problems (such as money laundering or terrorist financing) can occur in one or more transactions in remittance within the pre-funded funds. In this case, the regulatory authority can request details about the funding history linked to the specific remittance transaction and confirm it with the blockchain ledger. In this case, the procedure is as follows: The regulatory authority recognizes the occurrence of the problem; Requests a detail query to the REMIIT system; The REMIIT provides the corresponding transfer details and contracts requested; The regulatory authority that provided this information could use this information to verify the details of the problem. Viewing specific remittance transaction details connected with funding :
There may be a case where the details of the remittance transaction is unknown, but a problem exists at the funding stage. In this case, the regulatory authority may request to see the transaction details linked to the specific funding transaction, and the procedure is as follows: The regulatory authority recognizes that there is a problem with the specific funding itself; sends information and remittance details related to the funding to the REMIIT system; Request to view the transaction history; REMIIT submits the relevant funding contract information and remittance list; The regulatory authorities that receive contract information and remittance lists can use this information to confirm specific details.
It is difficult to use cryptocurrency directly for remittances due to government regulations. The REMIIT Team is trying various ways to benefit from the cost and performance by using existing remittance methods however using the blockchain ledger technology. In particular, it is an area where we can try to overcome the limitations that exist in the supervision of remittance, especially by using the blockchain technology. REMIIT wanted to prove this through the RSC MVP and is in the process of applying it to the commercial systems through the application of related sandboxes and patents.
In the final post, I want to wrap up this series, dealing with some issues that arise during the implementation.
REMIIT RSC
Link: https://rscmvp.remiit.io | https://medium.com/remiit/part-2-application-example-of-remiit-rsc-connecting-funding-and-remittance-using-the-4608efd1dc7b | ['Team Remiit'] | 2019-07-12 03:01:19.004000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Remittance', 'Remiit', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Bitcoin Futures: the Potential and the Risk | Bitcoin Futures: the Potential and the Risk
What Bitcoin futures could mean for the crypto economy
Bitcoin Gains Legitimacy
Bitcoin continues to captivate the interest of the financially-minded as well as curious and often skeptical bystanders. Bitcoin is well on its way to becoming more than just a hot topic.
The cryptocurrency’s legitimacy, along with its price, is on the rise. This month, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced that Bitcoin futures have been self-certified by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). This announcement was a significant milestone for Bitcoin because these two institutions are trusted pillars within the financial industry.
What is a Futures Contract?
Futures are contracts that receive their value based on an overall performance of an asset. That asset can be anything from oil to corn. Futures contracts are simply agreements to sell or buy an asset at a price that has already been agreed upon, at some time in the future. Futures contracts are often used for security or speculation.
In the case of Bitcoin futures, if an investor believes the price of Bitcoin will be elevated to a certain price in the future, that investor can use this prediction to their advantage. The investor can sign a futures contract for Bitcoin at a lower price than their prediction, then when the price is higher than their futures contract price agreement, they can profit from the price difference.
Futures are appealing to investors for their leverage, meaning investors can trade on multiple Bitcoins while only actually paying for a portion of them. While leverage is a benefit, it can also be dire if played wrong. In the same way that you can amplify your profit potential betting on futures, you can lose a large amount very quickly. | https://medium.com/ico-alert/bitcoin-futures-the-potential-and-the-risk-174b0b596b11 | ['Brynn Johnson'] | 2018-03-27 23:00:13.628000+00:00 | ['Blog', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'News'] |
Whose Voice Do You Hear? | Then, of course, as you matured, there she was, this amazing creature that made your face flush and palms sweat as you stammered about something so stupid even you didn’t understand it. How you won her affections, you had no idea. And when she tossed you out like the leftovers forgotten overnight in a car, you still had no idea what happened. All you knew is that your heart no longer sang. In fact, the silence was deafening until a little voice popped up to save your sanity by offering up reasons that were self-deprecating, at best. “If I weren’t such a loser she’d still like me.”
Where did that come from? How can there be such a difference between your inner child and your inner man? Maybe by the time we develop self-talk the messages we’re getting from the outside aren’t as soothing and inspiring, as they were when we were babies. Whatever the reason is, though, for most of us, it’s just the way it is. That is until you decide to change it. Although, at times it may seem like the disembodied voice of logical explanation, the truth about your inner dialogue is, you control it.
It honestly doesn’t matter whose voice it was in the beginning. It may have been language that was meant to protect you or educate you. But the message wasn’t about you not being good enough; it was about the worry and insecurity of your caregiver, most likely, doing the best they knew how. It wasn’t intended to operate as your guidance system throughout your lifespan. Geesh, if they had thought that, they wouldn’t be so bewildered when later, sometime in your twenties, it comes up as blame and shame-on-them for everything wrong in your world.
That’s the rub, isn’t it? Now you’re the grown up, and what your deep manly voice says to others doesn’t always match up with your inside voice, the one no one else hears. Are you telling the world how wonderful you are, how you deserve that raise, and how you’ll take care of your family forever? All the while, on the inside, you’re hearing, “Who are you kidding? You can’t do this.” You want to believe what you say out loud, and a part of you does. But another part of you is still hearing that worry and insecurity you heard as a child as if it’s a recording going off automatically.
The great news is; you can fix this. First, be forgiving of yourself, and repeat, “You’ll be okay,” because you will. Begin to talk to yourself with the same care and love that you give to others. Remember, if it’s good enough for your mom, your wife, or your child, then it’s good enough for you. If you aren’t sure about the words you should choose, ask yourself this, would I ever say this to my best friend? | https://medium.com/modernidentities/whose-voice-do-you-hear-73aab0ea3438 | ['Agents Of Change'] | 2020-12-20 21:48:12.753000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Personal Development', 'Identity', 'Self-awareness', 'Men'] |
LG unwraps the ultra-compact Éclair soundbar with Dolby Atmos and upfiring drivers | LG unwraps the ultra-compact Éclair soundbar with Dolby Atmos and upfiring drivers Kevin Jan 27·3 min read
While we’ve been seeing more and more soundbars with super-compact form factors (think close to the size of an egg carton), none of them have managed to pack in a pair of upfiring drivers for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X height cues—or at least, none until now.
Related product LG SN8YG Read TechHive's reviewMSRP $799.99See it Slated to arrive in late June or early July, the LG QP5 “Éclair” is the first super-small soundbar we’ve encountered with 3.1.2-channel audio, complete with upfiring drivers for bouncing height cues off the ceiling.
Measuring a mere 11.7 inches wide and two inches high, the Éclair comes encased in a handsome white shell with rounded corners (LG is “considering” a black version).
[ Further reading: The best smart speakers and digital assistants ]Inside the 320-watt Éclair are five drivers: one for the center channel, two for the left and right channels (which are positioned at 45-degree angles to widen the soundstage), and—most importantly—two upfiring drivers for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X height effects.
In addition to the main soundbar unit, the Éclair also comes with a wireless subwoofer for low-frequency effects. The “small space-friendly” subwoofer comes equipped with bi-directional drivers that are designed to deliver solid but not “teeth-rattling” bass, making it suitable for smaller rooms, an LG spokesperson said.
LG The Éclair’s “small space-friendly” subwoofer (left) is designed to deliver deep but not “teeth-rattling” bass.
The Éclair isn’t the first soundbar we’ve seen with a pint-sized form factor. Last fall, I reviewed the Panasonic SoundSlayer, a 17-inch, gaming-centric soundbar with a built-in subwoofer, while my colleague Michael Brown recently checked out Roku’s budget-priced, 14 inch-long Streambar.
But while the $300, 2.1-channel SoundSlayer supports both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, it must do so via virtualization given that it lacks upfiring drivers. Meanwhile, the $130 Streambar doesn’t offer any 3D modes at all. (No word yet on pricing for the Éclair, by the way.)
The Éclair isn’t the only soundbar LG has planned for 2021. Also on its slate are “premium” 7.1.4, 5.1.2, and 3.1.2 soundbars, each of which boastsd support for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X audio, along with LG’s Meridian sound technology.cesces
LG’s higher-end soundbars will also be adding Alexa and AirPlay 2 support this year, along with the built-in Google Assistant support that LG’s pricier soundbars have enjoyed for the past couple of years. That means LG soundbar users will be able to stream audio from other devices via either Chromecast or AirPlay, and they’ll be able to add the soundbar to Chromecast and AirPlay speaker groups.
Meanwhile, LG’s new mid-range and entry-level soundbars include 5.1- and 2.1-channel modes with a “home decor” focus, including housings wrapped in “stylish eco-friendly fabric.”
Finally, LG announced a new “TV Sound Mode Share” feature that allows newer LG TVs to “share” their own sound modes with supported LG soundbars when they’re connected via ARC. While LG TVs are typically designed to send unprocessed audio to a soundbar, TV Sound Share Mode sends the audio after it’s been processed, thus taking advantage of the TV’s “much more powerful” AI sound chip.
LG reps stressed that TV Sound Mode Share will only work on LG soundbars, adding that they’ve yet to nail down which LG soundbars will be compatible with the mode.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@kevin31965960/lg-unwraps-the-ultra-compact-%C3%A9clair-soundbar-with-dolby-atmos-and-upfiring-drivers-c125fd9ed5da | [] | 2021-01-27 14:49:57.152000+00:00 | ['Home Theater', 'Deals', 'Audio', 'Lighting'] |
How to Find Books You'll Love | Even if you read 100 books in a year—and you can!—that’s still only a tiny fraction of what’s being published. And if you’ve been in a reading rut, it can be hard to know where to start. I know a bit about recommending books — I host a literary podcast called The Maris Review, and I used to be the editorial director for Book of the Month, so I have a front-and-center seat to preview what’s up and coming in the book world. But you don’t need to be an industry professional to find great books, I promise.
The key is to find the right book for you—the book with that unquantifiable factor that in some way excites you, whether it’s a smart new hardcover by a favorite reporter or a dog-eared copy of a Jacqueline Susann novel you found on the sidewalk. Really, the point is to stay in love with books — that’s what will keep you reading in the post–book report era of your life.
Get on Goodreads
The design may be old and clunky, and I wish the site were better moderated, but Goodreads is the most useful book app available right now. I use its list functionality as a kind of diary to keep track of all the books I’ve read and the ones I want to read. You can note which books you want to read and are currently reading and rate the books you’ve already read.
But more importantly, Goodreads has a social function. I can use it to keep track of what my friends are reading and how they rated the books they’ve read. (See my list of books I’m excited about for 2020.) My friend Tobias reads more widely and rapidly than anyone else I know, so I look at his feed when I want to see which indie press gems I may have missed. My friend Emily specializes in fantasy and horror, so I’ll go to her page if I’m in the mood for something scary.
Don’t worry if you don’t have many Goodreads friends or if they’re not into the same things as you are. You can also follow users informally, without being “friends.” Follow an author you admire — anyone from Laurie Halse Anderson to Celeste Ng — and see what they’re reading. One of my favorite Goodreads users is writer and editor Roxane Gay, who somehow finds the time to write thoughtful reviews of just about everything she reads despite seemingly being the busiest woman on the planet. And yes, you can also follow librarians on Goodreads.
Have an IRL conversation at your local bookstore or library
If you haven’t visited your local public library since you were trying to win a grade school reading challenge, it’s time to get a new library card. At the risk of stating the obvious: These are buildings full of free books for you to take whenever you want. The shelves of new books at your local library are a great place to start if you’re stumped, and librarians usually love the chance to recommend books. (The New York Public Library even offers personalized book recommendations via Twitter every Friday.)
The same goes for bookstore clerks, who will be thrilled to recommend books to you based specifically on your tastes. Tell them what you’ve recently read and liked (and didn’t like), and let them suggest a few titles. Talking to other patrons is also helpful, especially in the interest of building a community with mutual interests. Don’t forget about used bookstores, which will have idiosyncratic and sometimes thoughtfully curated selections — including out-of-print gems you won’t find anywhere else.
You may not have been in a brick-and-mortar bookstore in a while, but here’s why you should: I always look at the staff picks section; even in a Barnes & Noble, I always look for the Discover Great New Writers shelf. I also read shelf talkers—those little cards on the shelves that the employees use to recommend their favorites—to find books that might have slipped under my radar. For me, a passionate endorsement from an employee is the most convincing sales tool. It was from a glowing shelf talker at Powell’s during a 2016 trip to Portland, Oregon, that I discovered the transgressive voice of Jen Beagin—I highly recommend both of her novels.
Follow a book club virtually
Of course, there’s always the old-fashioned IRL book group — but you and your friends might have this same issue about picking what to read next unless you agree on a solid theme (or have some really opinionated members). That’s where virtual book clubs can be a big help.
Everyone knows about the influential book clubs of Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon, but they’re far from the only clubs in town. If you’re looking for a well-curated selection of books that’s more specifically tailored, try Belletrist, the book club run by Emma Roberts. She tends to focus on literary fiction with a feminist bent. I also love Well-Read Black Girl, a club run by Glory Edim that features new books by black authors every month. BuzzFeed Book Club has fun, accessible monthly literary selections. And the newest club that’s blowing up is Noname’s Book Club, an eponymous effort by the rapper and poet that features her monthly pick by a writer of color, as well as one from artists like Earl Sweatshirt and Kehlani.
Follow a particular (small) publisher
Corporate publishers are often too generalist to have distinct voices and points of view. Smaller presses are likely to have lists that share a cohesive sensibility, perhaps because they publish only a small number of books per year. For instance, I know I’ll love anything published by Graywolf, Tin House, Coffee House Press, or Catapult, because they’re able to take risks that major publishers won’t, so they break new ground in storytelling quite often. This strategy also works well for publishers that have specific imprints for genre fiction, like sci-fi and romance.
Scour the backlist
One of the best feelings is to read a book by an author you’re unfamiliar with and then realize they have an entire back catalog to get lost in. A few years ago, my friend Maud told me that her favorite novel of all time is The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, whom I’d always meant to read. I loved that book so much that I’m working my way through the rest of her novels.
This leads me to an important point: You don’t have to read the latest, newest, hottest thing. Any book you haven’t read is new to you. There’s no reason to be concerned about what everyone else is talking about — with any luck, you’re too busy reading to care anyway. | https://forge.medium.com/how-to-pick-what-to-read-next-4078664c8371 | ['Maris Kreizman'] | 2020-01-22 21:35:09.518000+00:00 | ['Reading', 'Live', 'Forge Guide To Reading', 'Self', 'Books'] |
Difference between Copy Writing and Content Writing | These days, the most successful products are storytellers. They appeal to human marketing excellence through storytelling and empathy. They gain our trust, encourage action and make us believe in their mission.
However, storytelling is part of an ongoing relationship with customers — and it is a roadblock. Before you can sell anything, you will need to establish trust. Customers need to know that what matters most to your number is not selling them, but rather helping them.
Copy compared to content writing is not the same. It’s not really the difference between apples and oranges — very similar to oranges and tangerines — but close enough. For young job seekers, it is incredibly important to know the difference between the two; each introduces different challenges and skills for excellence. Here, we point out the major differences between writing and copying content.
Content writing is the creation of content that serves a specific purpose. Content means many different things to many people. But in the context of business-to-business marketing, it usually focuses on work that helps and informs students. Examples of content include videos, podcasts, webinars, guidelines, web pages and blogs.
Copywriting for advertising and marketing purposes. Copy continues with many things — radio commercials, bond printing, trade shows, journals… the list is endless.
Copywriting has a long and rich tradition. It has been around for a long time as businesses have been trying to get people to buy things.
Top 5 significant differences, according to Experts
1) Purpose
The biggest difference between writing and writing content lies in its purpose. Copywriting sells your personas to your product; writing content tells them cunningly about it while delivering important content.
Writing is the art of selling people by idea, symbol, or idea. Excellent copying combines products and product ideas together to create a brand. Copywriting is an environmental advertisement as its purpose is to entice customers to use products and / or product resources.
Content writing is the art of content creation. It needs to inform, educate or entertain; it needs to have a clear purpose and / or reason behind the piece; needs to represent the brand voice; it needs to be read carefully. Excellent content writing focuses on editorial quality, whether from a product or publisher. For brands (as well as data-driven publishers), content writing is in line with business objectives and marketing purposes to attract potential audiences and customers.
2) What makes a good copywriter or content writer?
A very good copywriter will understand what a specific target market needs to hear and combine clever and persuasive language to force readers to take action. Leading copywriters:
• Understand the needs of the target audience and use language to promote confidence in the product.
• Use the product name “voice” appropriate to connect with readers.
• Research the business and understand its marketing objectives.
• Write a clear, unambiguous and non-judgmental copy.
• Explain complex ideas clearly.
• Know how to use the news story to arouse the reader’s feelings.
• Understand SEO.
• Know how to create a compact and concise form.
• Stick to short-term and customer-set deadlines.
• Work with the client until they are happy with the copy.
When the best content writers will do this:
• Use relevant keywords to increase search engine visibility.
• Experience in producing long, compelling content.
• Know how to edit content to make it easier to read and scan.
• Have a firm understanding of English grammar and grammar rules.
• Carefully evaluate and organize content.
• Know how to use language to keep the learner interested.
• Use research to increase the reliability of content.
• Have experience writing for various industries.
• Ability to come up with ideas for new content.
• Stick to short-term and customer-set deadlines.
• Work with the client until they are happy with the copy.
3) PURPOSE.
The purpose of content writing is, in a very simple way, to convince someone of your argument. When I write a blog, my goal is not to sell a company product. No one wants to read content for sale. What I’m going to do is sell the idea that a student needs the kind of product or service I’m talking about.
Copywriting, in contrast, sells. It’s about convincing the reader that they need your product, and then getting them to click that button, now. The author’s job is to copy the reader to the conclusion. When we do our jobs well, they enjoy every moment of it.
4) Copywriters create a sense of urgency and stimulate emotional responses
Copywriters want people to act quickly. For example, they will want students to download something, subscribe to a newsletter, or purchase a product.
On the other hand, content writers want to build an engaged audience. As mentioned above, they want to establish trust and brand as a reliable source of information.
5) Work
Copywriters write copy and content writers write content. If you are confused about what this means, then you should know that everything will be explained. Another difference between writing and copying content is in the job description.
A professional copywriter whose work is dedicated to producing a copy. This can happen in many ways (see below), but the general idea is that a copywriter writes marketing materials for a living. It’s their work of art, art, skill — whatever you want to call it.
Now, the content writer can be anyone. It is not professional writers, but content producers. Because of online democracy, anyone can write now, including professionals, administrators, writers, bloggers, software engineers, CEOs, brands, etc. their trade. | https://medium.com/@stsdigitalsolutions/difference-between-copy-writing-and-content-writing-ac6ce5c7900c | ['Sts Digital Solutions'] | 2020-12-08 17:12:32.408000+00:00 | ['Content Marketing', 'Content Writing Services', 'Content Writing'] |
What’s new in Microsoft .NET 6 (Հայերեն) | 2. System.Linq enhancements
Enumerable-ը այժմ support է անում Index և Range պարամետրներ։
Enumerable.Range(1, 10).ElementAt(^2); // returns 9
source.Take(..3) փոխարեն source.Take(3)
փոխարեն source.Take(3..) փոխարեն source.Skip(3)
փոխարեն source.Take(2..7) փոխարեն source.Take(7).Skip(2)
փոխարեն source.Take(^3..) փոխարեն source.TakeLast(3)
փոխարեն source.Take(..^3) փոխարեն source.SkipLast(3)
փոխարեն source.Take(^7..^3) փոխարեն source.TakeLast(7).SkipLast(3) .
DistinctBy/UnionBy/IntersectBy/ExceptBy
Ավելացվել է key selector function-ների միջոցով հավասարություն ստուգելու հնարավորություն։
Enumerable.Range(1, 20).DistinctBy(x => x % 3); // {1, 2, 3}
var first = new (string Name, int Age)[] { ("Francis", 20), ("Lindsey", 30), ("Ashley", 40) }; var second = new (string Name, int Age)[] { ("Claire", 30), ("Pat", 30), ("Drew", 33) }; first.UnionBy(second, person => person.Age); // { ("Francis", 20), ("Lindsey", 30), ("Ashley", 40), ("Drew", 33) }
MaxBy/MinBy
MaxBy և MinBy մեթոդները թույլ են տալիս գտնել մաքսիմում և մինիմում արժեքները օգտագործելով key selector-ներ։
var people = new (string Name, int Age)[] { ("Francis", 20), ("Lindsey", 30), ("Ashley", 40) };
people.MaxBy(person => person.Age); // ("Ashley", 40)
Chunk
Chunk-ը բաժանում է մասիվը ըստ նշված չափի։
IEnumerable<int[]> chunks = Enumerable.Range(0, 10).Chunk(size: 3); // { {0,1,2}, {3,4,5}, {6,7,8}, {9} }
3. Enhanced Date and Time support
Այս բաժնում ավելացել է 2 նոր տիպ (struct) DateOnly և TimeOnly: DateOnly struct-ը նախատեսված է միայն date-երի հետ աշխատելու համար, այլ կերպ ասած իր մեջ պարունակում է տարի, ամիս և օր։
DateOnly type
// Construction and properties
DateOnly d1 = new DateOnly(2021, 5, 31);
Console.WriteLine(d1.Year); // 2021
Console.WriteLine(d1.Month); // 5
Console.WriteLine(d1.Day); // 31
Console.WriteLine(d1.DayOfWeek); // Monday
// Manipulation
DateOnly d2 = d1.AddMonths(1); // You can add days, months, or years. Use negative values to subtract.
Console.WriteLine(d2); // "6/30/2021" notice no time
// You can use the DayNumber property to find out how many days are between two dates
int days = d2.DayNumber - d1.DayNumber;
Console.WriteLine($"There are {days} days between {d1} and {d2}");
// The usual parsing and string formatting tokens all work as expected
DateOnly d3 = DateOnly.ParseExact("31 Dec 1980", "dd MMM yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); // Custom format
Console.WriteLine(d3.ToString("o", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)); // "1980-12-31" (ISO 8601 format)
// You can combine with a TimeOnly to get a DateTime
DateTime dt = d3.ToDateTime(new TimeOnly(0, 0));
Console.WriteLine(dt); // "12/31/1980 12:00:00 AM"
// If you want the current date (in the local time zone)
DateOnly today = DateOnly.FromDateTime(DateTime.Today);
DateOnly տիպը համապատասխանում է SQL Server-ի date տիպին և կարող է ընդունել 0001–01–01-ից մինչև 9999–12–31 արժեք ինչպես DateTime-ը։
TimeOnly type
// Construction and properties
TimeOnly t1 = new TimeOnly(16, 30);
Console.WriteLine(t1.Hour); // 16
Console.WriteLine(t1.Minute); // 30
Console.WriteLine(t1.Second); // 0
// You can add hours, minutes, or a TimeSpan (using negative values to subtract).
TimeOnly t2 = t1.AddHours(10);
Console.WriteLine(t2); // "2:30 AM" notice no date, and we crossed midnight
// If desired, we can tell how many days were "wrapped" as the clock passed over midnight.
TimeOnly t3 = t2.AddMinutes(5000, out int wrappedDays);
Console.WriteLine($"{t3}, {wrappedDays} days later"); // "1:50 PM, 3 days later"
// You can subtract to find out how much time has elapsed between two times.
// Use "end time - start time". The order matters, as this is a circular clock. For example:
TimeOnly t4 = new TimeOnly(2, 0); // 2:00 (2:00 AM)
TimeOnly t5 = new TimeOnly(21, 0); // 21:00 (9:00 PM)
TimeSpan x = t5 - t4;
TimeSpan y = t4 - t5;
Console.WriteLine($"There are {x.TotalHours} hours between {t4} and {t5}"); // 19 hours
Console.WriteLine($"There are {y.TotalHours} hours between {t5} and {t4}"); // 5 hours
// The usual parsing and string formatting tokens all work as expected
TimeOnly t6 = TimeOnly.ParseExact("5:00 pm", "h:mm tt", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); // Custom format
Console.WriteLine(t6.ToString("T", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)); // "17:00:00" (long time format)
// You can get an equivalent TimeSpan for use with previous APIs
TimeSpan ts = t6.ToTimeSpan();
Console.WriteLine(ts); // "17:00:00"
// Or, you can combine with a DateOnly to get a DateTime
DateTime dt = new DateOnly(1970, 1, 1).ToDateTime(t6);
Console.WriteLine(dt); // "1/1/1970 5:00:00 PM"
// If you want the current time (in the local time zone)
TimeOnly now = TimeOnly.FromDateTime(DateTime.Now);
// You can easily tell if a time is between two other times
if (now.IsBetween(t1, t2))
Console.WriteLine($"{now} is between {t1} and {t2}.");
else
Console.WriteLine($"{now} is NOT between {t1} and {t2}.");
Այս տիպը իդեալական է երբ գործ ունենք օրվա ժամերի հետ, քանի որ TimeOnly-ն չի պարունակում ուրիշ ոչ մի ավելորդ ինֆորմացիա (օր, ամիս, տարի)։ TimeOnly ստրուկտուրան կարող է ընդունել 00:00:00.0000000-ից մինչև 23:59:59.9999999 արժեքներ։ | https://medium.com/@vanikhakobyan/whats-new-in-microsoft-net-6-%D5%B0%D5%A1%D5%B5%D5%A5%D6%80%D5%A5%D5%B6-5e69274c9615 | ['Vanik Hakobyan'] | 2021-07-07 11:36:53.425000+00:00 | ['Csharp', 'Armenia', 'Dotnet', 'Microsoft', 'Json'] |
Taking a Break | So I have finally decided to take a break from my professional life. Many around me questioned my whim of taking a break at this early stage in my career, since it’s been only two and half years, since I started working. Well, it’s kinda hard to explain. I am feeling little burnt out even though my work has been really interesting till now.
This briefly describes my life so far:
After studying hard in high school, I was able to secure a seat in one of the premier technical institutes of India. I slacked off a bit for the first two years of my college life. I was reading and learning stuff but without any focus. I had squandered a ton of hours on Greek and modern philosophy, on video games and so on. I was interested int math. So for the last two years of my college education, I indulged a bit on math and decided to pursue Masters in math. I also got sidetracked towards the MBA dream a little bit. One could easily notice the lack of focus here. A weakness of my trait was that I found (and still do) so many things interesting, I got lost in them without any goal or focus. I took up a job to save some money for higher studies. Life took a turn there. I had then started to develop an interest for Coding and Machine Learning while working on my job. Well the Buzz surrounding “Data Science” also helped a bit. I left my idea of pursuing masters. In fact I started to resent academics for some reason.
For compensating my unproductive college years, I learnt and worked a lot in the past one and half years. It was too productive and satisfying for me. I never knew that I could learn so many things in such a short time (simultaneously cursing the past me). I have done a lot of very interesting prototypes, some of which went to production and the rest sitting on my laptop without a ray of hope.
After this….
That productivity came at a cost. It’s been one year since I read any book other than technical books. I didn’t watch any good movies. Travelled a lot less than I would have loved to. I developed a keen interest in distributed systems theory and I almost never got time to work on that since it’s far off from my typical field. There were a bunch of other personal problems too. All of these finally pushed me to take a break. I don’t know how long it will last. Until I feel replenished mentally, I am planning to continue with this break. I am also contemplating to improve my writing skills in the meantime. | https://medium.com/@rajasekar3eg/taking-a-break-1abab14b620f | ['Raja Sekar'] | 2019-03-09 20:19:23.506000+00:00 | ['Rustlang', 'Programming', 'Rust'] |
If I Was Granted One Wish | If I was granted one wish, I would ask to enter a simulation where I can hover around the globe and see the history of life on earth unfold in front of me. I would have a perfect 360 degree vision, and an instant travel option where I can locate myself anywhere I want from any distance. Biologists date the emergence of organisms (life) to approximately 3.8 billion years ago, which makes it the ideal starting point of this journey. The timespan would stretch from that till the present, with a fast forward option so I can move at any pace I like.
In the scientific realm, I do not think there exist an idea that can trigger one’s mind and fill it with imagination and wonder like evolution. Perhaps I do not know what I am talking about and this is my bias speaking, but it is undeniable that large scale events and processes tend to intrigue us in a way that make us lost for words. It makes absolute sense. Why would we have the vocabulary to express emotions our naked senses cannot capture? Technology allowed us to extend our five senses and go beyond the limitations of our bodies, and with that, we manipulated nature and conquered the world. Our intuitions and instincts, nonetheless, are still as primitive as they can get. No matter how advanced and sophisticated we get in our understanding of the world, the way we perceive it is still the same. A good example of this would be global warming, another large-scale process. Our bodies did not evolve to detect such phenomenon, let alone be wary of it. Using evidence and logic, we can totally be convinced global warming is a real threat and act upon this understanding. However, as long as altering human psyche is out of reach, good luck trying to change the way we “feel” about it. We will continue to act “as if” the threat is nonexistent as far as its consequences remain gradual and remote.
Perhaps that thought was a bit irrelevant, but it provides a similar outlook on the way we perceive large scale structures and the difficulty to place ourselves within them. The idea of evolution gives off a similar sentiment. To some, it might provide the most rational and convincing argument for nihilism. To others, it might bring salvation. Whether we feel positively or negatively about it, one cannot escape the great feeling of insignificance associated with it.
I love to think about fundamentals. This is why I have always been fascinated by evolution as a general concept. It can be used to reduce complex structures to their origins, and is found in everyday life: food recipes, music, sports, economics, politics, language, and living beings. I relate evolution to fundamental thinking because everything in front of us had a staring point, with adaptation and/or process of trials and errors it reached its current form. To think about an idea on a fundamental level, is to view it as a set of primary entities playing a game with some given rules¹, gradually making their way up to complex levels. Think about any complex structure, the more complex the better: say, the cosmos, or even better, a human being. To think how these structures came to be, we need to assume the existence of:
A system within which entities can operate (a reality)
A starting point
Simple rules that we take as given (e.g. laws of nature)
Entities will act independently under these simple rules, and evolution will be the result of the arbitrary interaction between them, resulting in more complex rules, under which they interact again, and the cycle repeats until both rules and entities become infinitely sophisticated and interactions are no longer arbitrary, or until the game comes to an end (A finishing point). The reason we need to make these assumptions is no matter how much we try to reduce the universe, we will eventually hit one of these three walls, and there is no moving backward from there.
My curiosity initially developed when I was first introduced to the basic tenets of evolutionary biology, and still mostly affected by it. This began to change recently, exactly when I started to question the nature of reality. Or the study of phenomenology, as far as philosophers are concerned. Phenomenologists erase the line separating the subjective from the objective, and redefine what we call “reality” to the subjective experience of that reality. This includes different feelings and perceptions, like emotion and pain. It also includes personal experience like dreams and imagination. Following this logic, dreams become nothing but an expansion of the domain of consciousness. To put their basic premise as: “everything we experience is real” might be a bit confusing. More accurate wording would be: reality is everything we experience. Taking this assumption seriously opens doors to endless possibilities of ways we can experience reality. In this case, instead of “illusions” or “hallucinations”, dreams and imagination can be viewed as a portal to a different realm of reality.
An interesting proposition is that a great understanding of psychedelic substances must have preceded (and gave rise to) the emergence of religion², as they are (psychedelics) till this day the most powerful known doorway to higher states of consciousness. The fact that people from all around the world, with completely different backgrounds, see similar geometrical patterns and meet similar entities during their trips speaks volumes on the universality of human experience (serpents are most commonly reported)³. | https://medium.com/@kuwari/if-i-was-granted-one-wish-bba4ae8c683f | [] | 2021-07-17 19:51:19.799000+00:00 | ['Psychedelics', 'Evolution', 'Religion'] |
Interview — Acetmesis — Community Leader of Stratis | Hey Acetmesis, could you please introduce yourself?
I go as Acetmesis in and around the crypto space, a mashup of my initials (ACE) and tmesis, which is a linguistic construct whereby you stick a word inside another, compounded, word, e.g. crypto-bloody-currency. Don’t ask me why I chose this name: I don’t have a good answer to that question.
Besides my passion for the world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, I have worked with a small film production company making low-budget horror movies and spend all my spare time on another passion of mine, woodworking.
How did you first learn about Bitcoin and the crypto space?
I don’t remember the exact first time heard about Bitcoin, but it was quite some time ago. I do remember the first proper conversation I had about it: with my dad after he had watched a Max Keiser bit on Bitcoin in 2012/13. He asked my opinion and I’m sure I had nothing valuable to say at the time.
My first real foray into the Bitcoin world was while I was at university, studying Physics and Philosophy. Bitcoin came up in one of the Phil tutorials, not as part of the curriculum, just in a general discussion about money. This was 2014. I fell for crypto pretty hard after that; not quite a victim of the FOMO of 2013, but certainly a victim of its fallout in the year that followed.
I invested some money, subsequently lost all of it and retired from the crypto game for a year, picking it back up again at the tail end of 2015. This time, I sat down and made the effort to gain a better understanding of the technology and the value proposition: the interplay between the mechanics of a cryptocurrency and the markets it trades in. I haven’t looked back since.
Which aspects of Bitcoin and the crypto space made you choose to explore it more?
The first reason I was driven to learn more is probably shared by most cryptocurrency investors: money. I believe that the “killer app” for Bitcoin and the world of cryptocurrencies was (and possibly still is) speculation. This won’t be true forever. However, it was certainly true back then. People were making money and I wanted in on the action.
Volatility (hence, speculation) are an excellent way of bootstrapping an asset. Cryptocurrencies derive efficacy from participation. What better way to get people participating than to give them the idea that they might make some money?
This interest borne of greed developed into a passion, nurtured not by the promise of money, but by a deeper understanding of the technology. I’m very much the autodidact, so my first port of call was the Bitcoin Core repository (https://github.com/bitcoin), reading through the docs, opening code at random and trying to work out how it all fitted together using the comments.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t go anywhere using this method. So, not to be discouraged, I moved to the Princeton Bitcoin Book (https://lopp.net/pdf/princeton_bitcoin_book.pdf). It looked pretty daunting at first but it’s a really accessible primer on cryptocurrencies. I came away from it feeling like I could tackle the cryptocurrency space with a little more direction than I had first entered it with.
How did you learn about Stratis?
Pretty unpoetically, I’m afraid: on one of the various “Upcoming ICOs” websites. I’d browse them from time to time looking for promising new projects. The ICO craze was kicking in again and I am not immune to FOMO. I hopped onto the Bitcointalk topic and kept an eye on what was going on.
Chris and Krushang talked the talk (and, of course, have since been walking the walk). At the time, I was very into the exciting new idea of sidechains (exciting and new to me, anyway) and I felt that Stratis’ enterprise-facing concept had really good prospects, even in those early days. The more time I spent within the burgeoning community, the more confident I was in the project.
By the end of the ICO I had convinced my Dad and a friend of mine to participate as well. The first and only time I’ve gone out of my way to get people to invest in something.
What made you decide to join the Stratis Community?
I am an unapologetic fan of Bitcoin. Stratis’ relationship with its big brother kept me coming back for more, in the early days. What made me stay long term was the people who made up the community. Within the Stratis community, I have met some of the smartest, funniest, kindest and most generous (in spirit, time and more tangible terms) people I’ve ever had the fortune to know in my life.
At some point, I realised that I was spending more time with these people online than I did with the people in my day-to-day life. Having great conversations, learning so much from them or just generally talking rubbish. I am happy to count members of this community amongst the best friends I have.
The Stratis community is supportive, patient and passionate. The community’s culture is a joy to me and it is made healthy by each and every person who donates their time, their energy and their positivity.
Could you tell us a little bit more about your Stratis journey so far and what it is that you do and have done in the past?
My first goal was to learn. Learn about Stratis, suss out the architecture of the platform and understand the value proposition of Strat. The Stratis community is well populated with individuals who know their stuff. Fortunately for me, they are happy to give their time to people who want to learn. Bit by bit, the Stratis picture was painted for me. There’s still so much I don’t understand. Learning is the fun bit anyway.
I think that you can’t help but help other people to learn when you are learning yourself. I found that I was writing longer and longer posts about Stratis, just as a way of getting my own ideas or my own new understandings down. Fortunately, rather than be annoyed by my piecing things together publicly, people would join in, or even thank me for helping them to understand.
My own journey to understand these things became useful to other people. I realised that this was how I could start to give back to the community which had given me so much: write content to help people gain a better understanding of Stratis and be active on the various forums to talk one on one with people — answer their questions when I could or point them to the someone who could when I couldn’t and give them the resources they needed.
What would you consider as the greatest joys in running and being part of the Stratis Community?
Definitely the personal interactions with Stratis community members. What can I say, I’m a softie. I love getting to know the people who spend time in the community. So many different backgrounds, so many different walks of life. Each and every one has a story to tell and I am genuinely interested to hear it.
On a level with this is when someone says thank you for something I’ve done. Be it help them with some basic support, an article or some other piece of content. I couldn’t be happier to give my time to Stratis in whatever way I can. Having someone say thank you for doing so is a wonderful feeling. I’m only human, after all.
What’s the moment that made you most proud so far at being one of the community leaders of Stratis?
Tough question. Once upon a time I would have said the Stratis FAQ (https://stratisfaq.com/). However, it is now out of date. I hope to revamp it and give it a new lease of life. I will do so in such a way that it can accept contributions from anyone within the community. This way, I hope it can become a valuable resource once again.
I get a big sense of pride when I see the Stratis community talked of with praise elsewhere in the cryptocurrency space. I’ve seen it used as an example of a solid crypto community. I’ve seen people say things like “you should check out the Stratis Discord/Slack/Telegram, that’s how a community should be set up”. That makes me feel pride, not for myself, but for the community.
In your own words how would you describe Stratis?
Distributed/Decentralised/Peer-to-Peer Network Lego. Stratis is the underlying cryptocurrency to a suite of services that allow a user to create applications which require the participation of mutually untrusting parties. It is a familiar, flexible and comprehensive blockchain development kit. Familiar given its positioning within the Microsoft tech stack (C#/.NET), flexible given the modular nature of the platform (plug in only those components such as you see fit for your application) and comprehensive given its modular nature: new innovations can be incorporated readily.
In your own words how would you describe the Stratis Community?
Stratis.
Stratis is not the company, it is not even the code: it is the network of computers participating in the cryptocurrency. Stratis is every person who holds Strat, sends Strat, trades Strat, runs nodes etc. There is no Stratis without the Stratis community.
Perhaps it’s a little maladroit to give “Stratis” as an answer to this question. Nonetheless, I believe that the above point is very important. A cryptocurrency neglects its community at its peril. Cryptos live and die by the health of their community.
Do you see any room for improvements in Bitcoin and crypto?
Yes and yes. I believe that there is huge room for improvement for bitcoin, on all fronts: at the protocol level, scalability (not of throughput or latency or any of that rubbish, but of the future accessibility to operating your own fully validating node — i.e. keeping the blockchain size and initial download time to minimum), non-first layer technologies, user experience, adoption, social scalability and so the list continues. Development on all of these fronts is progressing at a huge speed and the improvements on Bitcoin are coming thick and fast.
As for crypto more generally, I think that it is harder to pinpoint specific areas for improvement, yet I am loathe to simply say “everything”. Bitcoin is the best truly peer-to-peer shot we have at hard money. Every altcoin chooses to accept some level of compromise, hopefully in the name of some improvement. For example, PoS accepts a compromise in true peer-to-peer consensus compared with PoW. However, the trade off is deemed worthwhile for cryptocurrencies which are geared more towards the development of decentralised applications (such as Stratis, with Ethereum also jumping on the bandwagon once they achieve the switch to PoS). I think that the crypto space needs to determine which compromises work best. This will happen naturally. Survival of the fittest. The process favours those which are best equipped to adapt and Stratis is very well equipped to adapt…
Do you see any room for improvements for Stratis?
Yes, definitely. It would be a worry if I couldn’t see room for improvement. Engaging a broader community of developers is the key area, in my mind. People talk about the network effect like some kind of crypto panacea. Determining its value for cryptocurrencies is hard enough, but identifying how best to achieve it is even harder. For me, the next step is broadening the number of developers working on top of the platform. I don’t know off hand how many teams are working with the code, 10? 12? More? Whatever the number is, it can can always be bigger.
There’s nothing worse than someone who points out areas in need of improvement but who offers up no thoughts on how to bring it about. So, off the top of my head, I would suggest Stratis host hackathons, continue to provide excellent documentation (delving now into lower-level detail) and entertain the possibility of incubator funds. There will be other ways of cultivating a developer community and we need to find the best ones.
Do you see any room for improvements for the Stratis Community?
The community is already perfect! Perhaps the only improvement would be to have more people and form an even bigger community.
I do think that the community can be better served and better utilised. It is full of smart and talented people. There are writers, designers, traders, construction workers, students, producers, musicians, fishermen, teachers — you name it. We, as a community, need to find more ways of unlocking the potential that is there.
I think that we need to take the ideas which are put forward by the community and follow them up. If someone suggests we go onto Twitter and start conversations about Stratis? Don’t wait for someone else to do it, do it yourself, if you have the time. Think we need some graphics to help explain some aspect of the platform? See if someone in the community is willing to work with you to get your ideas out there.
A lot of people would call you crazy for helping out Stratis voluntarily for such a long and consequent time, what makes you do this anyways?
I receive more in value from my time and energy given to helping Stratis than is incurred as a cost of giving time and energy. I really enjoy helping out where I can. I believe that Stratis has the potential to be at the top of this game. I want Stratis to achieve the greatest success that it can and I will give what I can to help make this happen. I see no reason for this to change and I will continue to spend as much of my time within the community as I can.
What is the thing that drives and motivates you to voluntarily help out Stratis every single day?
The individuals who make up the Stratis team and the individuals who make up the Stratis community. I do also enjoy writing and communicating ideas, but it is the people who are involved which keep me going. I don’t need any more motivation than that.
What’s your future vision for Stratis, what is the thing you hope to achieve in the long-term for Stratis and what is your role to play in all of this?
I envision Stratis as first being a blockchain playground, with multiple sidechains forming a broad ecosystem for developers to play around in. Then I believe it will solidify into a number of established applications built in fewer, best-established sidechains, with new applications being built to be a part of the larger ecosystem. The Stratis mainchain itself will become a foundation for the sidechains, used only for larger, high value transactions: the central nervous system of the Stratis ecosystem.
I am happy to do whatever I can to help bring this vision to a reality. I don’t see myself changing up where I fit in all that much. I don’t have any ambitions besides continue to help people understand and continue to grow my own understanding in turn.
When will Stratis have succeeded in your opinion?
The easy answer of course is “never”. The landscape will continue to change and there will never be a static definition of success. For me, personally, there are steps in the staircase to success which Stratis can take, which I will view as going in the right direction. As I mentioned above, building a developer community is one of those steps. A major milestone would be when the number of contributions by outside developers to the Stratis codebase outnumbers the number of contributions by the internal Stratis team.
And I would like to end with giving an opportunity to say anything you still want to say to the community or in general
There’s nothing I can say here that I wouldn’t be able to say in person to each and every individual, but: thank you for being such a great group of people to spend time with. Thank you for every conversation, every minute given to helping out myself and one another and every show of support for what Stratis is doing.
We’re just getting started.
Thanks a lot, Acetmesis for taking the time to answer all of the questions and sharing all of this information. Follow Acetmesis on Twitter here.
You can find all of my interviews here: https://medium.com/khilone/interviews/home
Khilone
Follow me on Twitter to get all the news right away: https://twitter.com/Khil0ne
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Other things to keep your eyes on: | https://medium.com/khilone/interview-acetmesis-community-leader-of-stratis-a7dbb6c1b8af | [] | 2019-04-17 15:30:04.516000+00:00 | ['Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Stratis', 'Bitcoin', 'Interview'] |
Top Hive Commands with Examples in HQL | Hive Commands — Edureka
What is Hive?
Apache Hive is a Data warehouse system which is built to work on Hadoop. It is used to querying and managing large datasets residing in distributed storage. Before becoming an open source project of Apache Hadoop, Hive was originated in Facebook. It provides a mechanism to project structure onto the data in Hadoop and to query that data using a SQL-like language called HiveQL (HQL).
Hive is used because the tables in Hive are similar to tables in a relational database. If you are familiar with SQL, it’s a cakewalk. Many users can simultaneously query the data using Hive-QL.
What is HQL?
Hive defines a simple SQL-like query language to querying and managing large datasets called Hive-QL ( HQL ). It’s easy to use if you’re familiar with SQL Language. Hive allows programmers who are familiar with the language to write the custom MapReduce framework to perform more sophisticated analysis.
Uses of Hive:
1. The Apache Hive distributed storage.
2. Hive provides tools to enable easy data extract/transform/load (ETL)
3. It provides the structure on a variety of data formats.
4. By using Hive, we can access files stored in Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS is used to querying and managing large datasets residing in) or in other data storage systems such as Apache HBase.
Limitations of Hive:
* Hive is not designed for Online transaction processing (OLTP ), it is only used for the Online Analytical Processing.
* Hive supports overwriting or apprehending data, but not updates and deletes.
* In Hive, sub queries are not supported.
Why Hive is used inspite of Pig?
The following are the reasons why Hive is used in spite of Pig’s availability:
Hive-QL is a declarative language line SQL, PigLatin is a data flow language.
Pig: a data-flow language and environment for exploring very large datasets.
Hive: a distributed data warehouse.
Components of Hive:
Metastore:
Hive stores the schema of the Hive tables in a Hive Metastore. Metastore is used to hold all the information about the tables and partitions that are in the warehouse. By default, the metastore is run in the same process as the Hive service and the default Metastore is DerBy Database.
SerDe :
Serializer, Deserializer gives instructions to hive on how to process a record.
Hive Commands :
Data Definition Language (DDL )
DDL statements are used to build and modify the tables and other objects in the database.
CREATE, DROP, TRUNCATE, ALTER, SHOW, DESCRIBE Statements.
Go to Hive shell by giving the command sudo hive and enter the command ‘create database<data base name>’ to create the new database in the Hive.
To list out the databases in Hive warehouse, enter the command ‘ show databases’.
The database creates in a default location of the Hive warehouse. In Cloudera, Hive database store in a /user/hive/warehouse.
The command to use the database is USE <data base name>
Copy the input data to HDFS from local by using the copy From Local command.
When we create a table in hive, it creates in the default location of the hive warehouse. — “/user/hive/warehouse”, after creation of the table we can move the data from HDFS to hive table.
The following command creates a table with in location of “/user/hive/warehouse/retail.db”
Note : retail.db is the database created in the Hive warehouse.
Describe provides information about the schema of the table.
Data Manipulation Language (DML )
DML statements are used to retrieve, store, modify, delete, insert and update data in the database.
Example :
LOAD, INSERT Statements.
Syntax :
LOAD data <LOCAL> inpath <file path> into table [tablename]
The Load operation is used to move the data into corresponding Hive table. If the keyword local is specified, then in the load command will give the local file system path. If the keyword local is not specified we have to use the HDFS path of the file.
Here are some examples for the LOAD data LOCAL command.
After loading the data into the Hive table we can apply the Data Manipulation Statements or aggregate functions retrieve the data.
Example to count number of records:
Count aggregate function is used count the total number of the records in a table.
‘create external’ Table :
The create external keyword is used to create a table and provides a location where the table will create, so that Hive does not use a default location for this table. An EXTERNAL table points to any HDFS location for its storage, rather than default storage.
Insert Command:
The insert command is used to load the data Hive table. Inserts can be done to a table or a partition.
INSERT OVERWRITE is used to overwrite the existing data in the table or partition.
INSERT INTO is used to append the data into existing data in a table. (Note: INSERT INTO syntax is work from the version 0.8)
Example for ‘Partitioned By’ and ‘Clustered By’ Command :
‘Partitioned by’ is used to divided the table into the Partition and can be divided in to buckets by using the ‘ Clustered By ‘ command.
When we insert the data Hive throwing errors, the dynamic partition mode is strict and dynamic partition not enabled (by Jeff at dresshead website ). So we need to set the following parameters in Hive shell.
set hive.exec.dynamic.partition=true;
To enable dynamic partitions, by default, it’s false
set hive.exec.dynamic.partition.mode=nonstrict;
Partition is done by the category and can be divided in to buckets by using the ‘Clustered By’ command.
The ‘Drop Table’ statement deletes the data and metadata for a table. In the case of external tables, only the metadata is deleted.
The ‘Drop Table’ statement deletes the data and metadata for a table. In the case of external tables, only the metadata is deleted.
Load data local inpath ‘aru.txt’ into table tablename and then we check employee1 table by using Select * from table name command
To count the number of records in table by using Select count(*) from txnrecords;
Aggregation :
Select count (DISTINCT category) from tablename;
This command will count the different category of ‘cate’ table. Here there are 3 different categories.
Suppose there is another table cate where f1 is field name of category.
Grouping :
Group command is used to group the result-set by one or more columns.
Select category, sum( amount) from txt records group by category
It calculates the amount of same category.
The result one table is stored in to another table.
Create table newtablename as select * from oldtablename;
Join Command :
Here one more table is created in the name ‘mailid’
Join Operation:
A Join operation is performed to combining fields from two tables by using values common to each.
Left Outer Join:
The result of a left outer join (or simply left join) for tables A and B always contains all records of the “left” table (A), even if the join-condition does not find any matching record in the “right” table (B).
Right Outer Join:
A right outer join (or right join) closely resembles a left outer join, except with the treatment of the tables reversed. Every row from the “right” table (B) will appear in the joined table at least once.
Full Join:
The joined table will contain all records from both tables, and fill in NULLs for missing matches on either side.
Once done with hive we can use quit command to exit from the hive shell.
With this, we come to an end to this article. I hope you found this article informative.
If you wish to check out more articles on the market’s most trending technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Python, Ethical Hacking, then you can refer to Edureka’s official site.
Do look out for other articles in this series which will explain the various other aspects of Big data. | https://medium.com/edureka/hive-commands-b70045a5693a | ['Shubham Sinha'] | 2020-05-08 07:53:53.897000+00:00 | ['Hql', 'Hive Commands', 'Big Data', 'Hive', 'Big Data Analytics'] |
The best Infrastructure as Code tools for 2021 | Customer: Can we exchange our systems?
System Admin: Why do you want to exchange your system?
Customer: Because the application behaves well on your system but throws tantrums on my system.
Sounds funny?! This is what millions of customers have been experiencing over the years. This blog talks about how infrastructure as code tools are bridging this gap.
The advent of cloud computing has revolutionized every IT segment. IT infrastructure is not excluded. Gone are the days when administrators had to manually provision resources and manage the data in large excel sheets. With today’s dynamically changing network requirements, the very thought of manual maintenance of IT infrastructure is terrifying. This is where Infrastructure as Code tools come to the rescue.
Simply put, IaC is about infrastructure automation using code. In an IaC environment, administrators write and deploy config files that are machine-readable for automatically provisioning IT infrastructure and maintaining the infrastructure always at the desired state. Using IaC config files, you can automate deployments of networks, virtual machines, servers, databases, etc.
1. The need for Infrastructure as Code
Initially, IT administrators manually placed servers, configured and deployed applications on those servers. The configuration details were manually stored and managed by the network teams. This process was repetitive and time-consuming. Moreover, it required multiple people to manage this task. The biggest challenge was scalability as administrators struggle to set up new servers to match the speed and scale of changing business processes.
Managing the network team was an additional overhead. The cost to hire and manage this team was a costly affair as well. Another important concern was network visibility. Managing the ever-changing infrastructure from a central pane and identifying pain points was a challenge.
With multi-cloud and hybrid cloud deployments, organizations were able to overcome some of these challenges. However, the discrepancies that arose when multiple people handled the infrastructure management services were hard to manage. While they were able to automate certain tasks using scripts, managing the infrastructure at the desired state always was a challenge. With infrastructure as code tools, administrators are now able to write predefined configurations for each IT resource in the source code and automate IT infrastructure management.
2. Benefits and reasons to implement IaC
Organizations that implement IaC gain significant benefits. An increase in operational efficiencies is one of the key benefits among them. As config files are used as a single source of truth, resources are deployed with the same configurations every time. So, it eliminates human errors or discrepancies arising from multiple configurations from multiple people.
Secondly, deploying code-based cloud infrastructure automation massively increases the speed of business operations. It allows you to scale higher and at your own pace. Right from development to testing and production, the entire product lifecycle can be automated, making it efficient and cost-effective.
Most importantly, IaC tools ensure that the infrastructure is always maintained at the desired state. Any deviations from the desired state are instantly notified to the concerned persons. As the entire operations are stored in config files, tracing and auditing processes are easy, resulting in compliance.
IaC allows developers to instantly deploy test environments to check out new features of apps while testers can run scripts on replicas of production environments. By eliminating administration, provisioning, and management tasks, organizations save a lot of money.
3. Infrastructure as Code security
IaC is a part of the DevOps environment wherein security is also implemented across the CI/CD pipeline. However, as IaC environments operate on a single source of truth, a lack of powerful security controls can open up network vulnerabilities. For instance, an unpatched vulnerability or a misconfigured IaC template can enable hackers to gain access to sensitive resources.
IaC Templates
IaC templates are definition files that are machine-readable and hold the key to provisioning and managing agile deployments using code. When IaC templates use OS images from external sources, they unintentionally execute untrusted code, opening a way to hackers. Unsecure default configurations are another vulnerability with IaC templates that can be extended to cloud infrastructure on public networks. As such, you should check templates for these unsecured configurations and vulnerabilities in the initial phase.
Secret Storage
IaC code comprises sensitive information such as storage and configuration details of deploying infrastructure in the form of Secure Shell Keys (SSH), authentication tokens, passwords, etc. When this information is stored in a doc or text files or in the source code management systems, it can be accessed by hackers. So, storing secrets inside vaults and adding references to them within the configuration files is recommended.
Communication Channel vulnerabilities
When IaC uses a master-node architecture, a single master manages and deploys configuration to all nodes. As such, a vulnerability in that master can affect the entire deployment infrastructure. So, securing the communication channel is the key.
Access Controls
When deployments are automated using IaC files, the code can make deployments without requiring root privileges on the target environment. It can be scary when the code is compromised. Ensuring that the least privilege principle is implemented is recommended.
4. Principles and best practices of Infrastructure as code
To fully leverage IaC benefits, organizations should ensure that IaC best practices are designed and implemented across the infrastructure.
Version Control System to Manage Code as a Single Source of Truth
To efficiently manage the infrastructure using code, you should treat infrastructure code equivalent to the application code. So, add all your configuration code into the config files and make them as a single source of truth by storing them into a version control system. It means you can seamlessly deploy code without signing into the server or documenting the procedures. The code handles everything. Moreover, every change is tracked and audited. Everyone across the pipeline can seamlessly collaborate wherever required.
Integrate IaC into the CI/CD Pipeline
Once the infrastructure configuration turns into code, the same application code procedures apply to the infrastructure code too. So, integrate infrastructure as code tools into the CI/CD pipeline. In the test automation environment, when a change is made to the infrastructure, it will automatically trigger automated tests. With continuous testing, continuous monitoring, you can ensure that changes are automated and error-free.
Immutable infrastructure is the key
Immutable infrastructure is a type of infrastructure management wherein IT resources such as servers, virtual machines, etc. cannot be modified after deployment. When an update is required, the existing instance will be replaced by a new instance. To fully leverage Docker containerization solutions, implement immutable infrastructure wherever possible. You can instantly create and deploy code and then kill those containers when you want to update or change the configuration and work with new ones. It brings consistency and security across the infrastructure.
Microservices architecture best suits IaC
Similar to application code that leverages microservices, your IaC should also be broken into smaller, independent modular bits so that you can independently manage different parts of the infrastructure with customized and role-based access controls while comprehensively automating the entire infrastructure.
5. Infrastructure as code tools
As organizations are aggressively embracing the IaC revolution, the market is getting flooded with infrastructure as code tools. So, choosing the right cloud infrastructure automation tool for your organization is the key.
Terraform
Terraform is a popular open-source tool for infrastructure as code orchestration offered by Hashicorp. It was written by Mitchell Hashimoto in Go language and supports Windows, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, Solaris, and OpenBSD platforms. With a consistent CLI workflow, it enables you to manage various cloud services using declarative configuration files from cloud APIs.
Introduced in 2014, Terraform primarily focused on AWS but has evolved to support multi-service providers. The tool uses Hashicorp Configuration Language (HCL) that balances machine-readable code and human-friendly scripts. It also supports JSON.
Terraform offers an extensive set of built-in functions and string interpolations making it easier to code complex logic scenarios without needing another language. Modules can be reused again and can be stored and versioned in Git or Terraform Module Registry, allowing for seamless collaboration across teams.
The infrastructure state is written to a file and stored in S3, disk, or the source control. This means that you can play around with resources without tearing down the infrastructure. Configuration management is easy as well, using terraform plan wherein you can retrieve the actual state of the infrastructure every time you run that plan and compare it with the desired one and revert manual changes.
CloudFormation
CloudFormation is a popular cloud infrastructure automation tool coming from the IaaS giant AWS. It enables organizations to easily create, deploy and manage the AWS resource stack using a template or a text file that acts as a single source of truth.
CloudFormation uses YAML or JSON. As it runs on the AWS infrastructure, you don’t have to worry about how it stores the infrastructure configuration. Templates are used to customize AWS stack, replicate and deploy apps in multiple environments.
Change Sets is an important feature that enables you to check what changes before instantiating a template. Nested Stacks is another important feature that enables you to easily manage complex stacks by encapsulating functional logic, groups, databases, etc. in the template. It means you don’t have to compare and check old and new templates before making any change.
Coming from Amazon AWS, CloudFormation enjoys certain benefits. AWS keeps updating its features and services and CloudFormation gets these updates as well. Moreover, AWS keeps improving CloudFormation which means users will get the latest features and best services.
Ansible
Ansible is a configuration management tool that lets you automate the provisioning of infrastructure. In the early days of network infrastructure, Linux servers dominated the network landscape. Ansible began providing infrastructure automation solutions to Linux environments but now has evolved to support Windows, IBM Oss, virtualization platforms, containers, etc.
Ansible uses Python-based YAML syntax. It uses procedural style language to manage the infrastructure wherein step-by-step procedures for the desired state are coded. The tool stores the desired state configuration by mapping corresponding tasks with the defined group of hosts and stores them in ‘Play’. A list of ‘play’ is called a Playbook.
Ansible uses push mode to deliver change instructions to nodes in the network and deployments are instantly done. The agentless master architecture makes it simple to install and use. Ansible started with a CLI and now offers a UI. However, the UI can still be improved. When compared with Puppet and other CM tools, the Ansible community is smaller but offers good support. It best suits short-lived environments.
Puppet
Puppet is an enterprise-ready configuration management tool that enables administrators to define the desired state of the infrastructure via code. It is more robust and popular among CM tools with powerful interfaces, modules, and available actions. It is written in Ruby. Puppet uses a Domain Specific Language (DSL) to manage code via a declarative programming method and manages Linux and Windows environments.
Puppet uses a Client-server model wherein the server software is installed on the server while each managed machine contains the node software installation. It is a model-driven architecture. Compared with Ansible, puppet installation takes some time and involves complex configuration settings. It offers high scalability and availability by replicated data of the master to another server that again involves complex settings. The tool uses Puppet Forge which stores around 6000 modules. It uses a pull deployment model where the agents initiate the pull mode and regularly check for updates from the master.
Puppet GUI is highly intuitive and enables users to seamlessly monitor and manage the entire infrastructure from a central pane in real-time. It offers customizable reporting tools. The tool enjoys a large and mature community that is supportive. Puppet offers dedicated support and extensive Kbs on its website. Puppet is offered in two versions; Open-source edition and Puppet Enterprise edition.
Pulumi
Pulumi is a new multi-language and multi-cloud development platform founded in 2017 and is quickly evolving to become one of the best Infrastructure as Code tools. Pulumi is more or less similar to Terraform, allowing you to create and deploy infrastructure as code to every type of cloud environment. It is open-source and free to use and is available on Github.
To express the desired state, you can use general-purpose languages such as Go, JavaScript, C#, TypeScript, Python, etc. As such, you don’t have to create new modules but simply use existing ones. It is quickly getting popular because it allows you to write applications in your desired language and manage the infrastructure implementing DevOps best practices.
Pulumi supports all cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, GCP as well as other cloud services and is highly flexible. The tool supports Windows, Linux, and OS X environments and comes with a powerful and feature-rich CLI. It uses a cloud-objective model delivering a unified programming model. To manage the state and concurrency of the infrastructure, Pulumi offers its app.pulumi.com service. However, it is not easy to use but has a short learning curve. It offers deep support for Kubernetes. With reusable components and stacks, it makes your infrastructure management job simpler.
Docker
Docker is a popular name that no developer can ignore. Docker is not an IaC tool. It is a popular containerization tool that enables developers to create applications with all libraries, dependencies as a package and deploy them in any environment. The Docker platform was introduced in 2011 by Solomon Hykes and Sebastian Pahl as a Linux container runtime and became popular in 2013 as a standard containerization tool across the globe. RedHat collaborated with Docker in 2013 followed by Microsoft, IBM, AWS, etc. in the following year. Docker support for non-Linux platforms was released in 2016. Microsoft Hyper-V came with Docker native support in the same year.
Docker enables developers to package an application along with its dependencies and libraries into a virtual container and deploy them on any target environment. It allows a single host to run multiple containers.
It contains 3 core components
Daemon to build and run containers API to facilitate communication between the daemon and users CLI to manage the tool
Docker allows developers to focus on quality code without worrying about the target environment. Similarly, administrators enjoy the low overhead and smaller footprint of docker. So, organizations can focus on the product rather than the maintenance of the infrastructure.
Docker significantly improves the infrastructure as Code DevOps environments. You can spin up a container for every step in the CI/CD pipeline and kill the stateless container once the job is done. That way, you can manage an immutable infrastructure for security and consistency. With continuous testing and continuous monitoring, you can ensure that every change made to the infrastructure doesn’t affect the environment.
Docker ensures that apps deliver consistent and reliable performance regardless of the platform, OS, or services it works on. The ability to deploy faster facilitates faster time to market while reducing costs. Along with high availability, flexibility, and scalability, Docker brings mobility solutions, enabling you to run apps everywhere. With isolated app environments, maintenance is reduced. Repeatable automation makes infrastructure management easier. It is easy to roll back as well. Docker comes with huge community support.
6. Infrastructure as Code Use Cases
Automate Deployments
IaC tools facilitate automatic provisioning of scalable infrastructure enabling organizations to automate deployments and reduce deployment cycles. Consider for instance an organization that requires infrastructure orchestration for multiple cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, and GCP. The company operates multiple environments such as QA, Staging, production, etc. the infrastructure should be quickly set up while including database setups.
Using the cloud-agnostic Terraform tool, the organization can automate the provisioning of infrastructure using code. Similarly, when the infrastructure is killed, it automatically triggers data backup. By integrating the application deployment via a version control system such as Git or Bitbucket, you can automate app deployments as well. When manual configurations are automated, it increases efficiencies, speed while reducing human errors.
Multi-cloud deployments
Cloud computing has greatly evolved in recent times. Today, a single cloud is not enough to manage an organization’s changing business needs. As such, organizations are aggressively embracing multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments. When you implement a hybrid cloud, you place certain resources on-premise, additional resources in a public cloud, and some are managed in private clouds. Configuring settings for different cloud deployments is time-consuming and challenging.
With IaC tools, you can write code in JSON or YAML and manage infrastructure using config files. So, with a single resource template or configuration file, you can manage multiple cloud deployments. Using repeatable configurations, you can automate deployments to Azure or AWS and efficiently manage them with ease.
Disposable environments
When an organization works with multiple cloud environments for production, staging, QA, etc., managing and updating the infrastructure for all these tasks can be challenging. For instance, testing scripts presents the risk of damaging the underlying infrastructure if something goes wrong
To overcome this challenge, organizations can use a CI server along with Docker containerization solutions to instantly create QA, Dev, UAT environments and automatically test scripts. When the test scripts pass all tests, you can successfully deploy them to production environments and tear down the test environments. By doing so, you can eliminate configuration drifts while ensuring that new employers are not damaging something.
Moreover, provisioning Virtual Cloud servers have become easy and cost-effective. As such, organizations can now afford to scale up environments while paying for the resources used.
Immutable infrastructure
Immutable infrastructure can be defined as one that cannot be changed once deployed. Implementing immutable infrastructure is especially beneficial for enterprises that manage infrastructure at scale. As the organizations run applications in real-time, they can’t afford to pause them. The organization will simply codify the provisioning infrastructure and deploy it. When an update is required, you simply kill the old server, build a new one from the common image, and provision it while automatically documenting the timestamp, version, etc. The good thing is that you can roll back old servers if you require time.
Immutable infrastructure enables organizations to seamlessly replace problematic servers without disturbing the apps running on them. Moreover, the infrastructure is consistent and does not show configurationally drift. With consistent deployment and auto-scaling across the organizations, infrastructure management becomes easy and effective.
The new 12-factor methodology that offers 12 best practices to develop apps as a service also mentions immutable infrastructure as one of them. Application processes should not be disrupted when a server is shut down intentionally or by error.
Security automation
Security automation is another key requirement in the DevOps Infrastructure as Code environment. Similar to integrating security into the CI/CD pipeline via DevSecOps, security policies and controls of the IaC are also integrated into the CI/CD pipeline. As such, every change made to the infrastructure goes through security testing, allowing organizations to check how the environment responds to every change.
When the infrastructure is managed as code, the code should be able to access app resources to build, test, and run them. Whether these secrets are in the source code of the app, configuration files, text files, or scripts, they should be secretly stored in a secure vault. Otherwise, hackers can gain access to this sensitive information.
Disaster Recovery and Backups
Disaster recovery and backup hold the key to managing any type of IT infrastructure. There are multiple 3rd party tools that can help you to easily recover from a disaster. However, recovering a virtual machine is not just enough. You need to provide a base infrastructure for the virtual machines to ensure that the applications are rightly recovered. The time to recover all the other areas of DR workflows is the key. This is where IaC tools such as Terraform come to the rescue.
Terraform leverages IaC, allowing you to automate all areas of disaster recovery workflows such as provisioning VPCs, Subnet, EC2 instances, security policies, etc. so that application recovery is automated and instant. In addition, Terraform also performs clean-ups so that DR failover costs are minimal.
Create fully automated multi-tenant environments
In today’s highly competitive business world, software providers are finding it challenging to cost-effectively deliver software solutions to multiple customers. Firstly, you need to create a separate application environment for each customer that will increase your AWS/Azure infrastructure costs. Managing multiple app environments will increase overhead as well as time to market. Another challenge is using multiple code repositories for each customer. A multi-tenant architecture will solve all these challenges.
By creating a multi-tenant architecture, you can use a single app environment for multiple customers. One codebase will serve as a single source of truth. It will deliver faster time to market and reduce development costs.
Infrastructure as code tools such as Terraform, CloudFormation, or Pulumi allows you to seamlessly create multi-tenant environments.
Blue/green deployments
Continuous delivery is a key requirement in today’s software development landscape. In order to achieve faster time to market, organizations are quickly building and deploying products to customers. However, a buggy release can result in downtime. So, it is important for developers to match the speed and scale of current software delivery while ensuring that deployments are safe. Blue/green Deployments is a popular method for achieving this.
In this method, two identical production environments (Blue and Green) are used wherein one environment will be live while the other one will serve as a staging one. Initially, the blue application will run on the blue environment and version 2 of the same application will be routed to the green environment. If it works fine, then the green environment will go live and the traffic from the blue environment will be routed to the green environment. In case of any discrepancy, the previous version can be rolled back. So, organizations can seamlessly deploy applications without downtime.
There are different steps involved in this process. You need to swap the application, route the DNS, update the DNS, clone stack, update orchestration services, etc. Infrastructure as Code tools enables organizations to efficiently manage blue/green deployments. For instance, Pulumi uses a create-before-release approach to blue/green deployments, eliminating the guesswork of updates.
Original post on: https://www.clickittech.com/devops/infrastructure-as-code-tools/ | https://faun.pub/the-best-infrastructure-as-code-tools-for-2021-b37c323e89f0 | ['Alfonso Valdes Carrales'] | 2021-06-29 13:49:21.021000+00:00 | ['DevOps', 'Infrastructure As Code'] |
Kineticex Exchange and its Virtues | There are many exchanges out there, but there are only a few exchanges that offer security even when they run on a centralized platform. The major complaints associated with Centralized exchanges are
Easy Hacks
Liquidity
Missing USP
Kineticex exchange uses the cryptocurrency conversion based on a single aggregated exchange rate. It is fully automated and in control of purchase or sale of cryptocurrencies. Merchants can initiate trade requests and exchange through the unlimited number of crypto instruments along with new ICO tokens.
Liquidity Aspect
Every trade request needs to be met, and this results in the exponential rise of altcoins. Kineticex exchange is fully equipped to meet the trade requests. The Kineticex platform can handle millions for transactions simultaneously.
Lowest Transaction Fees
It has been the curse associated with centralized exchanges that they charge an obscene amount of fee for each transaction. Centralized exchanges charge exorbitant transaction fees, however small the transaction may be. Kineticex is a centralized exchange that doesn’t charge exorbitantly for the transactions. There is a nominal transaction fee, and merchants can put up trade requests for any altcoin they desire.
A word about the upcoming ICO
Customers and merchants can get their hands on KRC tokens and start using Kineticex ecosystem as an alternative for payment processing solution that is both reliable and secure for any volume of trading.
Kineticex offers something unique
Margin trading is something that has been brought in by Kineticex to enhance the overall process of exchange. Margin trading is a method of trading that involves borrowing funds. It allows you to trade more than you’d be able to trade using your funds. Kineticex.com currently offers margin trading with 1:5 leverages on BTC/USD, BTC/EUR, ETH/BTC and ETH/USD pairs and many added then.
With such virtues presented by Kineticex exchange, there is no denying that Kineticex is easily the best exchange with lesser transaction fee and faster process management.
Know more:
Exchange: https://kineticex.com/
Follow us in Twitter: https://twitter.com/KineticexE
Like and share: https://www.facebook.com/kineticex.io/
Join us Telegram: https://t.me/kineticexexchange
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kineticex-revolution-ltd/ | https://medium.com/kineticexexchange/kineticex-exchange-and-its-virtues-1ed10aa268bf | ['Kineticex Support'] | 2018-07-30 09:04:36.808000+00:00 | ['ICO', 'Smart Tokens', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Exchange'] |
Why the ‘Bourne’ Director Can’t Stop Thinking About Terrorism | Why the ‘Bourne’ Director Can’t Stop Thinking About Terrorism
From ‘United 93’ to ‘Captain Phillips’ to his new Netflix film ’22 July,’ Paul Greengrass has attempted to reconsider the way he views 9/11—and everything that’s followed
In the 21st century, terrorism is an inescapable reality. Vigilance, too, is futile. No matter the precautions we take, we simply cannot stop all those who want to inflict harm upon us. And so, all we can really do in the end is adjust our expectations accordingly and hold onto our sense of who we are as a society.
Yet that sort of passive, measured response flies in the face of how people normally react — someone hits us, we want to hit back even harder. We want revenge. And if we can’t get it in real life, at least we can at the movies. Since 9/11, numerous films and TV series (from 24 to Zero Dark Thirty) have wrestled with the legacy of those attacks and served as a way of processing the feeling of helplessness that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda instilled in Americans. Only one filmmaker, though, has consistently returned to the theme of modern-day terrorism, his attitude maturing and growing more nuanced with each new movie, which, in turn, has helped show the rest of us how our thinking needs to evolve, too.
Some might complain that Paul Greengrass is repeating himself with his latest film, the Netflix drama 22 July. It’s about the 2011 Norway attacks that killed 77 people, and harkens back to United 93 and Captain Phillips, his previous true-life terrorism dramas. But it would be more accurate to describe these three films as a thoughtful progression as Greengrass comes to understand what’s required in this new reality. Where other movies might fetishize tragedy or glamorize retribution, 22 July is a sober accounting of how Norway reclaimed its soul after a massacre. As the final film in a loosely connected trilogy, it also demonstrates how we can move on from 9/11 — a national scar that still haunts us.
Of course, Greengrass is best known for his Jason Bourne films — 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy, 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum and 2016’s Jason Bourne — which mix blockbuster action with worried commentary about America’s growing surveillance state. In those movies — and, to a lesser extent, 2010’s underwhelming Iraq thriller Green Zone — the English director confronts post-9/11 life in a mainstream, popcorn way. United 93, Captain Phillips and 22 July, however, draw on his docudrama roots — specifically, his low-budget 2002 drama Bloody Sunday, which chronicled the 1972 shooting of Irish protestors by the British military — to depict real stories about violence’s cruel consequences. In this trilogy, Greengrass, perhaps unconsciously, mirrors Americans’ own complicated feelings about terrorism, landing in a place where open-minded viewers may find their assumptions challenged and their worldview broadened.
Never once, though, does it feel like Greengrass is lecturing us: I suspect he’s going through this same spiritual evolution in real time alongside the rest of us.
When Greengrass set about to make 2006’s United 93, there had been no major films released about the 9/11 attacks, although horror movies such as Cloverfield and War of the Worlds evoked images from that terrible day. (Oliver Stone’s more overt World Trade Center came out four months after Greengrass’ movie.) Written by Greengrass, United 93 pays tribute to the brave passengers of United Airlines Flight 93, the one hijacked plane that failed to complete its deadly mission. Incorporating the same jittery-camera-and-jagged-editing techniques he’d wielded so successfully in The Bourne Supremacy, Greengrass succeeded in draining the proceedings of any adrenaline-soaked excitement, instead offering a chilly, absorbing procedural of how the terrorists gained control of the plane and how FAA officials dealt with the emergency as it unfolded.
When United 93 came out, some questioned why anyone would want to be reminded about such a terrible day in the country’s history. “I’ve made a few films over the years about terrorism and political violence,” Greengrass explained at the time, “and after the 9/11 Commission finished their report, and the families of the survivors unanimously said they wanted this film to happen, it felt like it was time to tell this story,” later adding, “This is not a Bruckheimer movie.”
To add authenticity and gravitas, Greengrass hired several real-life people, including air-traffic controllers and other officials, to play themselves — even individuals who were working on 9/11. As a result, United 93 was a grueling, harrowing experience, capturing the horror and resourcefulness of a handful of people working together to keep the terrorists from doing any more damage.
And yet, as sober and compelling as United 93 was, the film couldn’t help but feel a bit reactionary: Look what those people did to us. Five years after 9/11, we probably still weren’t entirely ready to process what had happened, and Greengrass’ stripped-down style was probably the best option among several far-less-appealing ones. But in that same interview, Greengrass seemed to understand the inherently limited perspective his film provided: “Wherever you sit politically, we are all in that same stage of being wounded and trying to figure what to do next,” he said. “Those people on United 93 had the courage to confront what we’re all dealing with. The question is, do we?”
Seven years later with Captain Phillips, Greengrass made room not just for the victims, but for the aggressors, too. The film recounted the traumatic 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama by Somali pirates, who took the ship’s captain, an American named Richard Phillips, hostage. But unlike United 93, which didn’t concern itself with dramatizing its terrorist characters, Captain Phillips spent much of its early stretches showing us the pirates’ circumstances as they lived in poverty and resorted to crime to survive.
And although Phillips was played by the beloved Tom Hanks, the movie revolved around Abduwali Muse, the Somali leader, played by then-newcomer Barkhad Abdi, who was born in Somalia and moved to America as a teenager. Captain Phillips had the same steely procedural tone as United 93, but there was also an element of curiosity and sympathy regarding Muse and his men. Yes, they might be threatening the lives of Phillips and his crew, but the film recognized the clash of cultures going on — as well as the almost obscene disparity between Phillips’ life in the U.S. and Muse’s in Somalia. Within the context of a thriller, Greengrass asked audiences to examine the reasons why some terrorism occurs — what economic, social and political factors come into play.
“I wanted this film to look at a broader conflict in our world — the conflict between the haves and the have-nots,” Greengrass said in the film’s production notes. “The confrontation between Phillips, who is part of the stream of the global economy, and the pirates, who are not, felt fresh and new and forward-looking to me.” Captain Phillips didn’t condone the pirates’ actions, but it gave us a new perspective on movies about terrorist attacks. If those at the top of the food chain don’t recognize what drives those at the bottom to do desperate things, the film argued, we’ll never solve these international conflicts — or frankly, the conflicts within our own borders.
This sober truth is at the heart of 22 July, which relates how one white man, a right-wing extremist named Anders Behring Breivik (Anders Danielsen Lie), successfully carried out two terrorist strikes on the same day — the first in downtown Oslo with a car bomb, and the second at a nearby summer camp where he gunned down teachers and students with cold-blooded efficiency.
If 22 July had been United 93, Greengrass might have focused on the attacks and the process by which Breivik was apprehended, memorializing the carnage but also offering some sort of resolution. Greengrass doesn’t do that. Instead, the attacks, although depicted in terrifying detail, only makes up the first half-hour — the next two hours are given over to what happens next as families grieve for their murdered children and a reluctant attorney (Jon Øigarden) takes up Breivik’s defense in court.
That might make 22 July seem less electric than Greengrass’ previous films in this so-called trilogy. But rather than being a slow courtroom drama, the movie grapples with the by-now familiar aftershocks of a terrorist attack. The setting may be Norway, but nothing that happens in 22 July will seem out of place to American viewers: Characters scream for violent retribution; the foundations of law and order are threatened in the name of “justice”; survivors try to pick up the pieces; and an angry, racist, anti-immigration zealot seeks to tear apart the fabric of a society with his toxic views.
If Greengrass sacrifices some of the high-stakes tension of his earlier films, it’s almost intentional, making the point in 22 July that the hard work of preserving democracy won’t be conducted in the explosive style of a 24 (or even a Jason Bourne film). It will take smart, clearheaded individuals remembering that (to pull out a well-worn GWOT cliché) we let the terrorists win if we give in to their extremism. 22 July is about the rigmarole of judicial procedure — testimony, hearings, due process, the rule of law — because, ultimately, that’s what makes for a free society. Democracy requires not succumbing to anger — it requires holding onto reason.
In a sense, Greengrass is revising the lessons learned from United 93 and Captain Phillips in this absorbing, thought-provoking film, which he talked about in a Film Comment interview this week:
93 was essentially about the eyes being opened to Islamist terror, and when I started this, I felt very much that we needed to wake up to the counter force — this extreme right-wing terror threat which is rising unbelievably fast. They’re feeding off each other, and both are a response to globalization. [22 July] was very much a response to United 93 film-wise, 11 or 12 years on. It’s a different world where it’s a different narrative — I wanted the attacks to only be a small part of it. I wanted it to be very restrained. But ultimately I wanted the film to be about the fight for democracy, how Norway fought for her democracy. How those characters fought for her democracy and in particular how those young people who survived could keep their ideals intact and get through it. All that happened in Norway in 2011 was a story for today and tomorrow across the West.
Norway’s problem is America’s problem, which is everyone’s problem. We live in a new age where old hatreds and familiar evils have become far more lethal, ubiquitous and frightening. The progression in Greengrass’ three films seems vital for all of us to absorb; they show us how to move beyond shock and anger toward understanding and a reaffirmation of what matters to us as a society. And while 22 July offers no definitive answers, it’s because in the ongoing war on terror, it’s up to us to decide on the ideal ending.
Tim Grierson is a contributing editor at MEL. He last wrote about how it’s glorious to watch Tom Hardy go full “serious actor” in the awful Venom.
More Tim: | https://medium.com/mel-magazine/why-the-bourne-director-can-t-stop-thinking-about-terrorism-8867bee770b6 | ['Tim Grierson'] | 2018-10-09 12:01:03.620000+00:00 | ['Terrorism', 'Movies', 'Netflix', 'National Security', 'Film'] |
Is There Going To Be A Gas Crisis? | Is There Going To Be A Gas Crisis?
Even with the weekend drone attack on a major oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, we weren’t too worried until Trump Tweeted this:
Which had been preceded by just a few minutes by this:
So now it all may come down to what Trump means by “locked and loaded”, and who exactly he’s threatening. (And also a general — and we think fair — characterization that when Trump says everything’s great IN ALL CAPS, it probably isn’t). Also, since when does the U.S. wait until “the Kingdom” tells us “under what terms we would proceed”? Can the Saudis not do a counter-strike on their own, if that’s what they want to do? They’ve got all this military equipment the U.S. sold them.
Houthi rebels in Yemen took credit for the weekend drone attack, which effectively knocked out 6% of the world’s oil supply. Iran supports those rebels in Yemen, although the Iranian government denied any direct involvement in the attack. Saudi TV says no workers were killed in the attack.
The attack also deeply embarrassed the Saudis who are currently trying to sell shares in their giant national oil company to global investors. We think this part of the story is being significantly under-reported, especially since just a couple of days ago, Saudi Arabia replaced its oil minister and Chairman of the Saudi national oil company, Aramco, with the half-brother, and a close friend of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, respectively. In order to pull off the public offering of stock, Aramco has also been looking for ways to get oil in the $60–70 barrel range, instead of $50–60, where it’s been for a while.
So this is a real test for Trump, especially since the President has proven himself to be very sensitive to changes in the price of gas at the pump, often giving himself credit for low gas prices. And sudden military action (or even the threat of it), certainly isn’t going to help with that. It’s something that really has to be handled pretty delicately, and even if you feel Trump has some strengths on the world stage, you’ve got to agree he doesn’t do “delicate”.
Still, he was unusually coy in his Tweet; not directly naming a culprit, even though his own Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo called out Iran by name almost immediately following the attack. (Also, the last time we remember the President Tweeting the phrase “locked and loaded”, it was aimed at North Korea and Kim Jong-un, which ended in a cordial relationship. But the players are different here, with very different objectives).
Since the attacks took place over the weekend, oil markets hadn’t really had a chance to react until this morning. At time of publication of this newsletter, global crude oil prices are way up and swinging wildly. The price of a barrel of the most commonly traded type of oil soaring close to 20%, the biggest one day surge ever, putting a barrel of oil well above $70 at one point, before settling for a bit to a gain of 10%, on absence of additional news. But on any “normal” day, that’d be huge in itself. Although U.S. markets haven’t opened yet, West Texas Crude is up about 10%.
According to the AAA, the nationwide average for a gallon of regular gas right now is $2.56. So even though crude and unleaded gas prices don’t always run exactly in parallel, and there are a lot of other factors that go into pricing, let’s do our own unscientific guesstimate: tack on 10% or maybe a little more, and you’re perhaps looking at something close to $3.00 a gallon in the near future.
The President Tweeted that he’d tap into the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve if needed to lessen any impact. But mostly that just sounds good. That reserve would only last for about a month without replenishment or severe rationing (neither of which we expect). So as we said, that’s mainly just for show for now.
Saudis say they will have the attacked plant up and running again by today at 1/3 to 1/2 capacity, and will mitigate the impact by filling orders with supplies they already have sitting around elsewhere, which they will then slowly replenish, thus reducing the possibility of shortages, at least not right away. Officials promise an announcement sometime tomorrow on their progress. That could make all the difference to financial markets, and gas prices.
Beyond the immediate impact, and imminent consequences, there are quite a few decisive factors that will determine how much all this will mean to the everyday lives of Americans.
Things that could make everyday-life-in-the-U.S.-impact not-so-bad:
Things that could make everyday-life-in-the-U.S. impact a lot worse:
If oil prices start going up a lot, it could slow the U.S. economy. Because one of the first things managers often do when faced with higher and unpredictable energy costs, is scale back expansion, and hiring.
More attacks on Saudi oil facilities, tankers, U.S. forces in the Mideast, etc. Bloomberg points out that the weekend attacks knocked out more in terms of barrels of oil than either Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 or the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
Any type of retaliatory military action that might lead to war. Uncertainty and rising tensions never lead to stable prices.
When you buy a gallon of gas, you’re not always just buying a gallon of gas; in times of turmoil, you’re also paying for the uncertainty of future supplies. So if it looks like these drone attacks weren’t just a one time thing, or somebody’s headed to war with someone, prices absolutely could spike. Not so much because there’s a threat of a shortage immediately, but due to a lack of visibility about the future.
So by all means, fill up that tank today, and take public transportation or carpool to work for a few days if you can, until we all get a better read on where this is headed. Why not? Gas prices are definitely going to go up. There’s no question about that. How much and for how long, and at what cost (and we don’t just mean money), won’t be clear for a while. | https://medium.com/swlh/is-there-going-to-be-a-gas-crisis-c3241fa03cb1 | ['Eric J Scholl'] | 2019-09-16 15:56:37.012000+00:00 | ['Energy', 'Economy', 'Donald Trump', 'Saudi Arabia', 'Iran'] |
Hosting Events To Bring Customers Together: What Works For Color Outside Founder Nailah Blades Wylie | The Nitty Gritty
Why moving to Salt Lake City from San Diego inspired Nailah to start Color Outside — and how the free meetup transformed into the company it is today
How Nailah budgets, markets, and plans retreats — and why she hosts them in places that you wouldn’t normally take a vacation
How she uses private Facebook groups to connect with her people right away, plus her approach to sharing and posting content within it
What’s included in every retreat–including renting out an entire home, hiring a private chef and a photographer, offering unique activities, and more–plus, the pricing strategy Nailah uses to calculate costs–including profit
As a new mom and a newcomer to Salt Lake City by way of San Diego, Nailah Blades sought community and adventure to reconnect with herself. That’s why she founded Color Outside, a meetup-turned-travel company for women of color who are ready to create unapologetic, joy-filled lives through outdoor adventure.
In today’s conversation, Nailah shares how she budgets, markets, and plans the retreats and what’s so important about getting out into the wild. If you’ve ever considered running retreats or live events as the core offering of your business model, this is an episode not to miss.
We release new episodes of What Works every week. Subscribe on iTunes so you never miss an episode.
The evolution of Color Outside from a free meetup to an adventure company
“I realized that hiking, exploring, kayaking and being out in the wild helped me to really reconnect with that part of myself that I was missing. My mind stopped racing. I was able to think through things more. I got a broader perspective on what was going on in my life… and I thought: other women need this.” — Nailah Blades Wylie
As a new mom and a new resident of Salt Lake City, Utah, Nailah felt disconnected from herself — and from a community. She craved getting into nature and she needed to be around other women going through the same thing.
Initially, Color Outside started as a free meetup group. She organized hikes for women of color to come together and explore this new place she called home. As Nailah continued to host meetups out in the wild, she realized just how much she enjoyed it.
With a background in life and business coaching, she easily connected with other women on a deep level. In this episode, Nailah talks about a hike that confirmed this for her. As she and another woman powered through the woods, the woman shared that she was in a job she hated — and that she wanted to be a writer instead.
For the remainder of their time together, they mapped out a plan for her to start exploring this new life path as a writer… and by the end of the day, the woman felt so much better because she had a plan to research and implement.
That’s when Nailah knew that Color Outside could be so much more than a meetup group. It could be an opportunity for life and business transformation — and a place where women of color could feel — and experience — unapologetic joy, one of Nailah’s biggest values for Color Outside.
Prioritizing and infusing unapologetic joy into everything
“Expressing our joy and being unapologetic about it is revolutionary, especially for women of color. It’s something that’s not a given for us. We have to fight against the stereotype of the angry Black woman or the spicy Latina. Just showing up and taking up that space is huge: it ripples throughout our community and the entire world.” — Nailah Blades Wylie
Unapologetic joy: even thinking about the idea feels liberating. And that’s exactly why Nailah celebrates and infuses it into everything Color Outside. For her, that unapologetic joy is something that she embraces in her own life.
“I don’t make apologies for who I am,” she says. “I don’t hide my political or business building beliefs. I try to be an open book and say: this is who I am, no apologies. It’s helped me build a strong community because I’m able to connect with my audience that much faster and that much more authentically.”
Nailah’s ability to live unapologetically joyful in her own life makes it compelling for her ideal audience to connect with that energy and say: I want some of that, too. Think about your personal values. Is there a way for you to infuse them into your business model, like Nailah?
Planning and marketing Color Outside retreats
“Burnout and boredom are the two things that we’re trying to combat. Many of the women are in that space. They’re like: I feel kind of bored and listless with my life. I’m doing all these things for other people, I don’t have time to take out for myself or I don’t feel like I have time, and I don’t remember my hobbies or the fun things I used to do. It’s about how to hop off that cycle of boredom and burnout and inject more joy into your life.” — Nailah Blades Wylie
Nailah knows her ideal customer inside and out — and how they’d be served by attending one of her retreats. She knows their desires, their fears, and their objections. And, those same objections are exactly what she uses to invite them to a retreat, which is a clear path to living a more adventurous life. “It’s pretty easy to sell a retreat from there,” Nailah says, “because it’s the solution to all their problems.”
Every retreat takes between 4–6 months to plan. As part of the planning process, Nailah uses webinars and Facebook ads as well as the private Facebook group to sell spots into them. She also collaborates with other brands with similar missions to share her message with more women of color. And she’s still running her free meetup group for those local to Salt Lake City.
Hear more from Nailah Blades Wylie on hosting retreats as the center of your business model, how personal values impact your company values, and how she plans and markets retreats. | https://medium.com/help-yourself/hosting-events-to-bring-customers-together-what-works-for-color-outside-founder-nailah-blades-4e3eac17c1bb | ['Tara Mcmullin'] | 2018-08-08 18:46:40.001000+00:00 | ['Events', 'Salt Lake City', 'Podcast', 'Small Business', 'Coaching'] |
日本28日起鎖國禁外國人入境 | A columnist in political development in Greater China region, technology and gadgets, media industry, parenting and other interesting topics. | https://medium.com/@frederickyeung-59743/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC28%E6%97%A5%E8%B5%B7%E9%8E%96%E5%9C%8B%E7%A6%81%E5%A4%96%E5%9C%8B%E4%BA%BA%E5%85%A5%E5%A2%83-1289465c6593 | ['C Y S'] | 2020-12-26 13:31:21.062000+00:00 | ['Japan'] |
The Ultimate Guide to Web Scraping with Node.js | JavaScript is the most famous web programming language and its famous js packages include NodeJs, AngularJs, ReactJs, and etc. Nodes is a widely use javaScript package and also as a compiler for JavaScript in command lines. We are going to use Node.js for doing the web scraping. Why web scraping is important and why we need that. Web scraping is basically used to scrap web page data. The website holds a lot of data daily, take an example of a bbc.com news site. That had news information update every minute and suppose we want to get the news in text form. Well doing manually scraping is not a solution, in that case, the web scraping tools come into action. Not only JavaScript can scrap webpage you can use any programming language and use an HTTP requests module to scrap.Getting started with web scraping can be broken down into two simple steps.
1:Requesting the web page source code using any Http requests module
2:Parsing the required data from the web page source code
This guide will walk you through the complete scraping process using the famous node.js library CheerioJs and request_process. Working through the example that is shown in this article will make you a pro in gathering data from websites. First thing first: If you don’t have NodeJs installed in your system, download the latest version from the official NodeJs site, after installing NodeJs successfully, install the required libraries using the following commands.Our target website is showing below in the image.
npm i cheerio
The first step in our coding is we need to fetch the HTML source code of the page, well by using the Axios module in node.js we can fetch the page and pass it to cheerio for parsing and extraction of the data. Check the following command to install the Axios with npm and Create a Js file, I’m making a js file with the name scrape.js.
npm i axios
In the first line of the code, we are loading the Axios module using the require(“axios”) function into a const variable. Next, we made a function name fetchHTML holding the code for fetching any website page. As you noticed inside the function, we had axios.get() function. That’s the main part of the fetch process. The get() method sends a request to the webpage for their source code and in response, the webpage returns an HTML source code that holds all the information that is currently present on the page. The next part is Grabbing all the data of the games present on the current page. Use the google chrome inspect mode to get a look at the source code of the webpage. For that just press the F12 from the keyboard.
As you saw each game data is inside a <a> tag element so for parsing this we will use the cheerio module that had a function for parsing and extracting the data we need.
If you had look at the code above, On the first line we are importing the cheerio module in our scrape.js and next we made a function name scrapSteam that will hold all the fetching part.
const searchResults = selector(“body”).find(“#search_result_container > #search_resultsRows > a”);
In that line, we are telling cheerio that the “<a>” collection is inside a div with id ‘search_resultsRows’ and this div is inside other with id ‘search_result_container’. So,’searchResults’ is an array of cheerio objects with “<a>” elements. Our next challenge is getting the title of every game, for this look for the Html code in inspect mode.
Well, now it's time to make our new function extractTitle in scraper.js check the code below.
Using the same method we can grab the release date of every game, use the inspect mode of google chrome and find the right element of date.
Our target data is inside the div tag with the class responsive_search_name_combined we had again used the find() function to find the div element with that specific class and after we find that class, we noticed that data is inside in another div so we again perform the same method and select the div with class=col search_released responsive_secondrow next, we used the text() and trim() method to grab the text form of the data. Below is a simple guide on how we grab the data inside the div element.
div[class=responsive_search_name_combined] → div[class=’col search_released responsive_secondrow’]→ Date Data
Now its time to grab the Prices of each game, Take a look at the inspect mode again and look for the element of the price of any game.
Well, the discount price and Original price is in the same div tags so that a new challenge for us lets think for a moment about how we handle that case. Let code a custom selector for the price div tag check the extended code below.
As we saw the price element is inside the two div tags, again we using the selector.find() method to select tag by tag, but now we need to get the original price and discount price separately.
Original price data is in the span tag so we just use the find() method to find that specific span tag and extract the price data. And finally, we will get the discounted price property. But notice that this value isn’t inside a specific HTML tag, so we have some different ways to get this value, but I will use a regular expression. Check the code below
First I’ll get the HTML from the cheerio object on line 1, After I’ll get the groups that match with this Regex, Then I’ll get the last group’s value. In the final, we scrap our required data from the steam website. Here is the full code below.
So this is the guide for web scraping using cheeio.js and node.js but the things do not end here. There is more we need to discover in the Data extraction world. I hope this article will help you someday. Feel free to share your opinion. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/ultimate-guide-to-web-scraping-with-node-js-8311f6f6cd49 | ['Haider Imtiaz'] | 2020-11-09 17:29:10.668000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Data', 'JavaScript', 'Web Scraping', 'Programming'] |
Hard Forks for Dummies | Hard Forks for Dummies
Plus — A Blockbuster Summer hard fork
In the vast glossary of the blockchain industry, there’s one word widely used and yet unknown to the average enthusiast — “hard fork”
Fret-not!
What sounds like a very technical term, is actully a pretty simple concept pertaining to a coin’s underlying blockchain.
A Hard Fork is more of a developmental action.
To fully understand the concept — and appreciate the act of a “hard fork”, imagine a developer team working remotely, on a particular coin, say XCoin.
The team promises military grade security, instantaneous transactions, and multiple exchange support.
However, somewhere down the line, the team abjectly fails on various fronts, and ends up creating a product that takes 5 minutes to transfer, is not as secure as promised, as doesn’t feature on more than 2 crypto-exchanges.
A classic case of overpromised, under-delivered !
One fine day, an unrelated team of developers — or some disillusioned members of the aforementioned coin — decide to fix the flaws, and create a coin (on the same blockchain) that actually delivers what’s promised.
And because the fundamental concept of a blockchain is decentralized, open source software, practically any apt, experienced developer team can come together and create a better offering — without ANY permission or consensus of the previous developers !
What more — after the hack on ETH’s DAO, the Ethereum community almost unanimously voted in favor of a hard fork in order to roll back transactions that siphoned off tens of millions of dollars worth of digital currency by an anonymous hacker. The hard fork also allowed DAO token holders to get their ether funds returned to them.
And then, XCoin is “hard forked”, giving birth to the superior — let’s call it — Anonymous XCoin.
Here’s how the hard fork occurs –
In technical terms, the hard fork is “a radical change to the protocol that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid (or vice-versa).”
Put differently, a hard fork is a permanent divergence from the previous version of the blockchain, and nodes running previous versions will no longer be accepted by the newest version.
Hence — all running nodes of the XCoin blockchain, are required to update, or migrate to Anonymous XCoin’s blockchain. And with strong fundamentals, there’s would be little reason for miners to not support the upgraded coin.
Essentially, a fork is created in the XCoin blockchain: one path following previous nodes, transactions, and blockchain, and the other with a new, improved blockchain.
To make things more clear — let’s move to a real example of a hard fork, and one that deals with improvement on all fronts.
On 29 April, 2018, a developer team from Florida annouced the hard fork of Zclassic and Bitcoin — to create Anonymous Bitcoin.
As per the annoucement, the hard fork swiftly aims to merge bitcoin’s transaction prowess, with the secure features of Zclassic.
The Dev team of Anonymous Bitcoin has it clear — correct crucial security risks found in BTC and ZCL, and add new, improved functions.
In short — to create a BETTER, more trustworthy, consumer-centric cryptocurrency.
To make this possible, the Anonymous bitcoin team would split the path of ZCL’s, and BTC’s blockchain by invalidating transactions confirmed by nodes that have not been upgraded to the new version of the protocol software.
Unlike the ethereum DAO, this hard fork would not unwind the network’s transaction history.
Some features of the Anonymous Bitcoin include –
Real Decentralization — Anonymous Bitcoin uses equihash, a Proof-of-Work algorithm.
True Anonymity — Uses MIT’s tested zkSNARK’s, the most secure privacy protocol to date.
Community Drive — Social channels allow ideas crafted by the community to be taken into consideration.
Masternodes — We provide the ability to stake coins, incentivizing long term hodlers and allowing for dividend style returns over time.
Transparency — Although your spending habits should be kept private, the forking process should not. The team will be providing video updates and regular Q&A sessions, we are prepared to show the world what a legitimate fork entails.
Exchange Support — Through our elaborate network, Anonymous Bitcoin is in discussions with top volume exchanges.
In my next post, I shall explore the coin in a much detailed, deeper manner, dissecting the site, team members, and coin tech — in order to more effectively study and provide technical advice for all cryptocurrency enthusiasts, about summer’s most awaited bitcoin fork. | https://medium.com/anonymous-bitcoin/hard-forks-for-dummies-8ff75011c3c6 | ['Shaurya Malwa'] | 2018-05-03 17:42:18.222000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Technology', 'Fintech'] |
Race and the Outdoors | For my final project, I wanted to put together a shareable visual report introducing race-related issues of access to nature and outdoor recreation within the U.S. This visualization was related to my research project for another class, which required a process of literature review, research design, and data collection through a survey and by conducting interviews.
My interest in this topic stems from observations, conversations, and written accounts that allude to ongoing cultural barriers for People of Color (POC) and the predominance of whiteness in outdoor recreation. This includes hiking and camping, as well as other activities that require gear and a level of skill such as climbing and rowing.
I was also interested in how much of this goes back to the philosophical foundations of environmental land conservation and government-regulated parks in the US, which further instills the Western framework of pure, pristine nature as separate from polluting, exploitative human activity. This of course involved and still involves dispossession of land from the First Nations, and also involved the historical legacy of segregation.
Underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minority groups visiting National Parks in the United States is well-documented and established in data and corresponding research conducted by the National Parks Service (NPS) and related entities. Despite National Parks being branded as ‘America’s Best Idea’ (Duncan and Burns, 2009), upholding democratic values as sites of wilderness to be enjoyed by everyone, the numbers prevail exhibiting that people of color visit national parks far less than whites.
Methodology:
I initially thought I would present my findings and results from the survey and interviews I conducted, however, my sample was small and skewed towards a specific demographic that did not fit the purpose of my visualization. I decided to stick with various sources of information from the literature I found on the topic, emphasizing numbers, or statistical findings which I thought to be compelling in putting together my narrative. (See references)
Design:
Besides writing and summarizing information through written text, I primarily focused on the aesthetic feel and flow.
My design inspiration was this interactive infographic on systemic racism by designer Alexandra Davis. I found her satirical twist on the Game of Life compelling and clever in presenting a body of statistical research.
For my visual encoding, I also sought to make my board an interactive read, where the flow of information follows a red hiking trail as indicated on the title page. For the text, I chose two primary fonts. One for titles and to present the headline statistic, and another simple serif font for the paragraphs.
The choices of color and text, along with the film grain effect on the title page, gave my visualization a retro or vintage feel, evoking American road trip or travel nostalgia.
Implementation:
I used Adobe Illustrator to create my board and presented it to the class on Miro, to allow for zooming and navigability. I was interested in whether I would be able to animate the movement from one section to another but ultimately decided against it. I encountered some issues with exporting the document to the clearest and highest resolution.
Discussion:
My visual design and encoding were quite simple and one-dimensional, as I did not include any accompanying graphics or pictures to visualize the contents of the text.
Throughout project development and the prototyping phase, I received positive feedback on the topic I chose, and how I envisioned it as being similar to my design inspiration. However, there were points of confusion in exactly what my sources of data would be as I was trying to incorporate my own original research.
All in all, I was happy with the visual concept I shared. Although for the data itself, This work could definitely be further extended to truly incorporate some more complex graphical elements and dimensions. | https://medium.com/@mscscerr/race-and-the-outdoors-29fce750240c | ['Charisse Serrano'] | 2020-12-17 03:36:24.560000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Outdoors', 'Infographic Design', 'Anti Racism'] |
You are Not Powerless. | You are Not Powerless.
Build a brighter tomorrow, one act of kindness at a time.
Photo by Emery Meyer on Unsplash
Today’s politics are emblematic of today’s problems.
Modern American leaders exhibit incompetence straight out of a Mike Judge movie. But instead of coming together, we shrug. We point fingers.
It will never end — or so the Orwellian media/big tech billionaires lead us to believe.
It’s easy to give in right now. The world is on fire. Things feel hopeless. What can anyone do?
As it happens, a lot. We are each more powerful than we know.
Each of us is more than an individual. We are nodes in a global network, connected to a thousand others — each of them connected to another thousand. So on. So forth.
Think about that for a second.
Two degrees off from each of us is a million people. Three degrees? One billion people.
Marginally change one person, & you fundamentally alter thousands of lives. Eventually, millions.
Your actions change the course of time. One way, or the other. The beauty and terror of it is that you’ll never know what you’ve done. Not really.
So, own every day. | https://medium.com/halcyonpub/you-are-not-powerless-7d83ddc418e3 | ['C. C. Francis'] | 2020-07-10 16:16:41.085000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Philosophy', 'Personal Development', 'Personal Growth', 'Politics'] |
Why CEOs Should Outsource Thought Leadership Content | Why CEOs Should Outsource Thought Leadership Content
Thought leadership is a key component of your company’s content marketing strategy.
Photo by Vlada Karpovich from Pexels
It’s fair to say that business leaders need to have vision. Without a distinctive take on the dynamics of the business landscape and a target market’s pain points, CEOs can’t lead thriving businesses for very long. But it’s also fair to say that executives often struggle to share their vision with the general public in a way that’s optimized to help achieve business goals. This has a knock-on effect on the company’s marketing abilities.
Many simply don’t prioritize creating and distributing media assets that express vision and insight in the form of thought leadership. This deserves to be a key component in any company’s content marketing strategy, but it all too often falls by the wayside, making for a major missed sales enablement opportunity.
One of the most interesting aspects of thought leadership is the disparity between how vendors versus buyers view it. While the majority of decision-makers say that reading well-produced, well-thought-out content about a company’s thoughts, ideas, and products makes them think more highly of a company, only about 23% of content creators are able to demonstrate sales lift as a result of thought leadership activity with their analytics reports, according to the most recent annual Edelman-LinkedIn study on the topic.
The fact is, many CEOs simply don’t enjoy the vital task of creating thought leadership, which often puts their companies in a precarious position compared to the ones that do enjoy creating it, and enjoy creating it well. Well-produced content demonstrates vision, passion and direction. It lets your customers know who you are, what you do, and why you do it.
A lot of CEOs simply get hung up on what thought leadership actually looks like.
While it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that thought leadership content has to be bold, controversial and different from everything else out there, the fact is, it just has to answer the questions your audience is asking.
Michael Brenner, CEO and Founder of Marketing Insider Group, explains it well in his blog post on what thought leadership is: “Your audience isn’t looking for your content to be differentiated all of the time. They are just looking for the best answers to the questions.”
The best CEOs know that it’s important to share their thoughts with the world. But they also know how tough it is to find time to do it in an impactful and meaningful way all by themselves.
Why Thought Leadership Is Vital For Your Company
It’s not just about brand awareness — the purpose of thought leadership content is to establish your brand as a player in your industry, yes, but also to foment a deeper and more meaningful relationship between your company and your potential buyers.
The Edelman study mentioned above found that more than half of decision-makers believe that the thought leadership content a brand puts out is the best way to evaluate their abilities and capacities as a company — more than marketing materials and product sheets. The content your audience consume coming directly from your brand is often the first stepping stone in beginning a relationship.
Theoretically, anyone can produce thought leadership content, but when it comes from you, the CEO, it gives your audience the bird’s eye view of the issues your product solves, and the position you occupy in the market from a more holistic perspective. As CEO, only you have the experience and knowledge necessary to create meaningful and thoughtful content.
Denise Brosseau, CEO of Thought Leadership Lab, puts it nicely in her article on who a thought leader is: “Thought leadership takes time (sometimes years); knowledge and expertise in a particular niche; a certain level of commitment and a willingness to buck the status quo or the way things have always been done.”
What’s more, it humanizes your brand. Thought leadership content demonstrates you’re not just a faceless organization out to make money. You have actual people at the helm, who have higher goals, passion and vision. You care about your company and your customers.
So why don’t more CEOs prioritize creating thought leadership content?
Why Thought Leadership Falls by the Wayside
The primary reason is that many CEOs simply don’t believe in the power of thought leadership. Even if they respect its potential, they have trouble seeing how it can impact their relationships with an audience — or they do see how, but don’t feel it powerfully enough to make it a strategic priority.
As a result, you have decision-makers eager to read high-quality thought leadership, using it as a measure of your product’s potential value, but these people don’t find the content your company publishes to be consistently valuable.
The second main reason is time. CEOs typically are exceedingly busy running a business, after all. Do you think you’d find an hour or two a week, regularly, that you could dedicate to a new, and very important task, especially when the risks of doing it poorly are as bad as the risks of not doing it at all?
Another key reason is preconceived notions about what thought leadership content should look like. Traditionally, it’s true that it took the form of long-form article writing. But today? It can be anything — a simple LinkedIn post, an ebook, a thought-provoking podcast interview slot, a presentation at a conference, or just influencing the overall flavor of all messaging a brand produces. Anything that explains why your brand does things in the way that it does things can be thought leadership.
Even with all this flexibility, however, most CEOs eschew the opportunity for social media-based, thought leadership-focused personal branding. In one informal poll by Privy CMO Dave Gerhardt, only 39% of respondents said their CEOs actively present themselves well on LinkedIn, and nearly half said their CEOs are totally inactive.
While not producing any thought leadership isn’t great, creating poorly-written content is just as bad, if not worse. Therefore, it’s paramount to commit to a successful content strategy — not just writing a single hastily-written blog post and then giving up on the whole endeavor when you run out of time.
Should CEOs feel shame over this state of affairs? Hardly. It’s the reality of running a business. The challenge comes when executives do understand that thought leadership is critical, they want to do it well, and they simply can’t figure out how to make it happen at scale.
Collaborative Thought Leadership in Balance
The ideal situation would be if you created the thought leadership content yourself. You’ve got the vision, the experience and the insider’s view of the entire business. But for a lot of CEOs, this just isn’t feasible, due to numerous other responsibilities. Instead, as we’ve seen, too many choose to simply not do it.
At this point, you should understand the benefits of thought leadership, and why it’s most compelling coming from you. But instead of trying to find a 25th hour in the day to actually sit down and get it done — or worse, doing it haphazardly — consider the somewhat counter-intuitive solution of outsourcing.
Sitting down with a professional who can understand your vision and create content in a way that transmits your passion, be it in blog, social post, podcast, or even cartoon format, will help your company establish their messaging and position in a compelling, humanized way.
The best outsourced executive ghostwriting is a long-term collaboration. You won’t be able to give three bullet points to your ghostwriter on day one and receive a perfect piece of your own mind on day two. To do this well and sustainably, you want someone on board who understands enough of your vision to iterate on it, who can absorb a concept you provide and run with it, ultimately creating something with your flavor, personality and passion.
The more natural the extension is, the better the content will be, and the better off your brand will perform. Spend time ensuring that you and your ghostwriter are both clear on objectives, tone, schedule and even type of content you want to create. Remember, this thought leadership represents you and your brand — it’s going to be a close relationship.
Spending the extra time and care to ensure your ghostwriter can act like an extension of your brain and writing voice is worth it.
Elise Bauer, founder of Simply Recipes, says in her timeless 2003 blog post on the subject that a distinguishing characteristic of a thought leader is “the recognition from the outside world that the company deeply understands its business, the needs of its customers, and the broader marketplace in which it operates.” To get your ghostwriter to that level, it’s going to take a good amount of investment and even some trial and error.
When it comes to keeping the content pipeline in motion, there are several different strategies, any of which might be best for you and your ghostwriter’s relationship. You can have a running email thread that you drop ideas into; you can start a Trello board that tracks ideas from suggestions to full-blown content; monthly audio braindumps that get turned into drafts; weekly batches of curated content from the industry that provoke executive reactions.
The main idea here is simply to ensure your ghostwriter has a channel to get ideas from you, suggest thoughts to you in turn, and exchange feedback and critiques.
It’s something that takes trust and time. But the benefits — increased selling power, deepened relationship with both prospective and current customers, and a greater sense of who you are as a company — are worth building that relationship.
Thought Leadership Has to Be Done Right
Thought leadership matters to your audience. Most potential buyers look to thought leadership to help them decide whether to begin a relationship with a company or not. Right now, there’s a scarcity of quality thought leadership because many CEOs simply don’t see the worth or can’t find the time — yet. The natural solution is to invest in working with a trusted collaborator.
The benefits of outsourcing thought leadership are that you can dedicate your time to growing your company, but you’ll still be able to share your vision with your audience of potential customers. A good outsourced relationship means your brand’s content can be produced on a very authentic basis, on a regular schedule, and you can guarantee it will be high quality.
There are plenty of factors that might stop you from investing your own time in this endeavor, but just because it’s hard to do well doesn’t mean you’re better off skipping it. | https://medium.com/startup-grind/why-ceos-should-outsource-thought-leadership-content-d3037865aa81 | ['Kiara Williams'] | 2020-11-18 18:01:54.970000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Marketing', 'Thought Leadership', 'Content Marketing', 'Digital Marketing'] |
About A Poet | I’m getting washed away on a tsunami
Of lost potential recovered
Something about the sea and me
Is unfinished and needs to be released
I let it pour through me
Waves of words
Melodies of verse
Rhyming tides
And the endless universe
Flow out and in
And through my pen
Somehow something will be made right
And all my losses wins
Somehow someday when… | https://medium.com/poets-unlimited/about-a-poet-82d7ac4ec115 | ['John Horan'] | 2017-09-03 22:22:33.525000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Literature', 'Writing', 'Poetry', 'Poem'] |
Benefits of Reexamining Sin In A Positive Light | The Literary History Of The Word ‘Sin’
“Harmartia arose from the Greek verb hamartanein, meaning “to miss the mark” or “to err.” Aristotle introduced the term in the Poetics to describe the error of judgment which ultimately brings about the tragic hero’s downfall. As you can imagine, the word is most often found in literary criticism. However, news writers occasionally employ the word when discussing the unexplainable misfortune or missteps of übercelebrities regarded as immortal gods and goddesses before being felled by their own shortcomings.” — Merriam-Webster.com
I tend to let YouTube play in the background sometimes when I do other things. One of these times, it happened to come upon a random Jordan Peterson lecture. He mentioned that the original definition of sin was as an archery term that meant to “miss the mark”.
I found that surprising. So much so, that I checked it out myself. The early versions of the Bible were originally written in Greek and they did use the word harmartia to refer to sin. The word’s base hamartanein, can be used loosely to mean “miss the mark”.
Of course, in translation of ancient linguistics, there can be contention. Words can have many meaning, even in present times. When you add ancient terms into the mix, it can make word meanings even more nebulous.
As for it being an archery term, that’s a bit sketchier. If you browse Google, you’ll find a number who mention it applied to archery. However, they tend to mix archery into their religious teachings. The straight archery sites don’t really appear to use that terminology.
Despite the arguments over the origins of ancient words, I found this idea of “missing the mark” very appealing. Especially since we’re all flawed and regularly fail. Instead of seeing these failings as stains and punishing ourselves for our mistakes, why not see ‘sins’ as things we can improve on?
Imaging each act we perform as an arrow being shot at a target gives us something to build upon. We may fire wide left or wide right, but we can slowly and progressively move towards the center of the target as we improve. | https://medium.com/publishous/benefits-of-reexamining-sin-in-a-positive-light-6af602c7bdf6 | ['Erik Brown'] | 2019-09-02 22:01:01.121000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Philosophy', 'Ethics', 'Inspiration', 'Religion'] |
On expressions of grief in the Age of Social Media | This past Sunday in the wake of the news about Kobe Bryant, I had a lot of thoughts. Among them, I was wondering whether or not I should post something on Instagram, and if I did, what would I say?
In the midst of my questions, there flickered an idea. It was one that I’d had before: “If you don’t post, people might not think that you care…” Deep down, I know that this isn’t true. And in the past, I’ve been silent regarding certain events.
But honestly. Those words capture the kind of world we live in. For some reason, a small part of me didn’t want to seem like I was some sort of unfeeling soul.
For a moment, I mulled over the idea that perhaps this presumed need for statements from people — including regular folks like me — is a reality I need to accept. I shared two posts about what happened on Sunday. And although I certainly don’t feel like I was forced, I know that nothing I say will ever be enough.
But earlier today, I opened my Instagram feed, and saw this:
In an instant, I was captivated and comforted by Demetria’s honesty. I agreed with her fully and completely. I began to stop feeling bad about not knowing what to say about Kobe.
A moment later, I learned that people have been upset with another celebrity for not commenting on the tragedy via social media. My curiosity was piqued, so I ventured over to said famous person’s account. (For now, I’ll call the person I’m referring to “J”. Although I didn’t know it until today, J is a friend of the Bryants. )
In the comments section under their latest post, J made their perspective clear. [I’m purposely not going to quote this person. I feel gossipy enough as it is, writing about this incident.] To J, social media is a business tool. Hence, they’ll post about their particular branch of the entertainment industry, and their work in it. But they believe that none of their personal life — including their response to the loss of people who meant a lot to them — is ANY of the public’s business.
The more I saw J graciously dealing with trolls, the more a wave of relief seeped through my soul.
Since late last year, I’ve been reevaluating my relationship with social media. An obvious part of that equation is my “WHY?”. Literally.
Why am I posting something? Is it out of a genuine desire to share, or am I being performative? Or, as some might feel in the shadow of a tragedy, is a post being composed out of a sense of obligation?
Here, I’ll offer a caveat. If you feel the need to memorialize someone, I don’t mind. I think a well-worded tribute can be beautiful. But if you don’t want to share your thoughts on a loved one who has passed away, please know that that’s absolutely, perfectly ok.
As I think of a years-old personal loss that I still haven’t publicly discussed in detail, something about J’s comments set me free, and I hope they do the same for you.
Firstly, I decided to release myself. It’s important to keep things in perspective. Going forward, if something terrible happens, and I don’t feel like commenting on it via social media, I won’t. (And I won’t feel guilty about it, either.) I don’t have to, and my not commenting does not mean that I don’t care.
When words fail us, in this era of free communication, we deserve the freedom to say nothing at all.
Secondly, it does’t matter to me how famous or non-famous you are. Our phones have us literally living in each other’s back pockets. And sometimes, that proximity is a bit too close. Please remember: whether you’re feeling overjoyed, or absolutely horrible — you do not automatically owe strangers pieces of your life. We are not entitled to your intimate details, whether whole, or in fragments.
There was a bit of a presumptuous tone in some of the comments directed at J, and the audacity of them threw me off. If nothing else, I hope that certain people will evolve beyond using folks’ status as “public figures” as an excuse to invade their privacy. “Public figures” are still people, who, like the rest of us, bear the weight of their own humanity. And this burden can be especially overbearing when the unthinkable happens.
In Jesus’ name, have some compassion. | https://medium.com/swlh/on-expressions-of-grief-in-the-age-of-social-media-2bf1bea401f1 | ['Claire Francis'] | 2020-02-03 19:17:45.625000+00:00 | ['Grief', 'Kobe Bryant', 'Social Media'] |
Five Significant Qualities Shared By Balzac, Picasso and Dylan | Observations based on my 2014 lecture at the Tweed Museum of Art
Much of my spare time during summer of 2014 was spent preparing a Tweevenings lecture on the theme Picasso, Storytelling and The Unknown Masterpiece. Like most teachers and writers, I get as invigorated by the process of researching as I do in sharing them with others. Lectures or article assignments become a catalyst, legitimizing our time investment here.
Research is a bit like mining. Usually we dig up way more information than there is space or time to transmit it. Once collected, we must choose which gems to present and which to set aside for future polishing. One evening in July I had an “Aha!” moment. I’d become aware of many parallels between the 19th century author Honore de Balzac’s life and the 20th century artist Pablo Picasso and as I lay them side-by-side I noted that Bob Dylan’s career has revealed similar characteristics and attributes. Here are five that especially stand out.
Ambition
Each left home at age 19 to live in the cultural arts center of the world. And within a relatively short time frame each caught the attention of people who had connections and the power to advance their careers. Picasso arrived in Paris at the turn of the century, having honed his skills as a painter and draftsman in Spain left his home country to be part of the art center of the world. Dylan similarly left Minnesota for the New York, which had now become the world’s arts and culture power center as a result of Europe’s WW2 talent drain when many leading authors and artists fled the Nazis and the Continent. Balzac’s real situation was just a tad bit different, though similar. His family moved to Paris when he was in his mid-teens. Paris was the bustling center of culture and arts at the time. When he was 19 his family moved away from Paris to a smaller town outside the city. Balzac’s ambition to become an author led him to remain in Paris, leaving home as his family moved away. Interestingly, all three men changed their names. Balzac added stature to his name by adding the “de” between his first and last names; Honore de Balzac. Robert Zimmerman became Bob Dylan. Pablo Ruiz y Picasso was actually baptized Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito. Shortening to Picasso, however, reflects more practicality than ambition.
Innovation
Balzac, Picasso and Dylan were all innovators. Balzac re-shaped literary fiction by bringing attention to detail to every aspect of life in every aspect of society. Picasso was on the forefront of many avant garde movements, most famously cubism, but also collage, the incorporation of African influences, surrealism and others, ever exploring and redefining classical and cutting edge methods with his own keen sensibilities. Likewise Dylan took the music scene in new directions
Lee Marshall, in his book Bob Dylan: The Never Ending Star, explains. “Dylan is the foundational figure in rock culture. Dylan’s shift to electric music brought to the mainstream the political authority and communal links of his folk past while his song-writing skills offered the exemplar of what could be achieved artistically within the new form.”
Prolific
Balzac, who died at age 51, wrote 90 novels, novellas and major stories. His masterwork The Human Comedy filled 26 volumes. Picasso was similarly prolific, producing 50,000 works of art in his lifetime, including 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics; 18,095 engravings; 6,112 lithographs; and approximately 12,000 drawings, as well as numerous linocuts, tapestries, and rugs, not to mention his letters, poetry and plays. Dylan’s output has been equally ceaseless, having recorded more than 600 original songs, 40 albums, plus paintings, drawings and sculpture. His performances have been an art form in themselves with more than 100 original concerts a year for more than 25 years.
Influential
Balzac’s influence was extensive. Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Eça de Queirós, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gustave Flaubert, Benito Pérez Galdós, Marie Corelli, Henry James, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Italo Calvino, and philosophers such as Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx all cite Balzac’s influence. His simple story The Unknown Masterpiece influenced avant garde artists decades later, including Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso, who at one point lived in the house that is the setting for part one of the book, the very studio where Le Guernica was painted, his own masterwork.
Picasso’s influence is too pervasive to cite. All modern artists acknowledge a debt to him. A recent retrospective by the Metropolitan Museum of Art reveals the magnitude of Picasso’s influence.
Comparing Dylan to Gutenberg as I did in a recent blog entry may have been overstating the case, but there’s no denying that Dylan has been an significant force in contemporary culture these past fifty-plus years.
The Role of Muses
Balzac, Picasso and Dylan drew inspiration from their relationships with women. The Muse appears to have been most actively engaged when each was in an enlivening relationship. During his early career Balzac’s relationships with society women enabled him to gain a deep understanding of the interior landscape of women, knowledge which was not wasted on the aspiring author. The stories of Picasso’s muses are all part of the Picasso legend, woven into modern art history. Much of Dylan’s music details the same relational longings and anguish over estranged relationship. Though he’s gone to great lengths to keep his private life out of the public eye, he is a high profile person in an intensely media-driven world.
* * *
A sixth characteristic of the three men is the manner in which their names stand alone, revealing their signatory power. Balzac. Picasso. Dylan.
Much more could be said, but the five notions are out there… How about you? Which of these qualities do you share? As Balzac once wrote, “It is easy to sit up and take notice. What is difficult is getting up and taking action.” | https://ennyman.medium.com/five-significant-qualities-shared-by-balzac-picasso-and-dylan-9aa591863710 | ['Ed Newman'] | 2018-07-22 13:57:27.989000+00:00 | ['Art', 'Achievement', 'Dylan', 'Innovation', 'Picasso'] |
Robots are now widely used in factories to perform jobs that require high precision. | Robotics can define as the design, construction, and use of machines (robots) to perform tasks that are traditionally done by human beings. It is a branch of engineering and science which includes electronics engineering, mechanical engineering and computer science and so on.
The term robotics refers to the branch of technology, research, and development that deals with the designing, building, and operating of robots.
Robots are mostly using in situations that would be dangerous for humans. Such as cleaning toxic wastes or defusing bombs.
The combination of artificial intelligence with advance robotic is the main reason for many current developments happening in both fields. The application of technologies like computer vision and natural language processing allows for large advancements. Everything from self-driving vehicles to human-like androids.
A robotics engineer is responsible for developing robots and robotic systems that are able to perform works that are unable to perform by humans. Thus, a robotics engineer helps to make jobs safer, easier, and more efficient, especially in the manufacturing industry.
There is a huge scope in robotics. Therefore, if you are thinking about doing an internship in this field, this is the perfect time.
Pantech eLearning Chennai has a highly specialized robotics internship and is one of the best robotics internships. We are offering Internship in Robotics. This will help you to learn techniques and skills necessary to build a successful career in this technology. The internship is provided by Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE). After the successful completion of the internship you will be provided with the IETE Certification. You can join this program in a discount price of Rs.1750.The total internship duration will be 30 hours and you will get a lifetime access when you join us. Also, you will be guided by of our experienced trainers.
Robotics field has very large scope in upcoming years. This technology is adopting all over the world. Starting a career in IT with Robotics has definitely great success ahead.
This industry is still relatively young. But has already made amazing achievements. From the deepness of our oceans to the vastness of outer space, we can found robots performing tasks that humans couldn’t dream of achieving.
Robotics is quickly moving out of the factory floor and is coming into the real world. When looking at the developments in this field, we can find that we’re just a matter of years away. There will be an increasing presence of robotic devices and automatic semi-intelligent machines in our workplaces, on our streets, and even in our homes.
Robotics technology influences us in many ways in our daily life. Also it has the ability to positively transform lives and work practices, increase efficiency and safety levels and provide enhance level of service. | https://medium.com/@pantechelearning/robots-are-now-widely-used-in-factories-to-perform-jobs-that-require-high-precision-ead1c89a5d59 | ['Pantech Elearning'] | 2020-12-15 07:09:22.491000+00:00 | ['Robotics Training', 'Robotics', 'Robotics Technology', 'Robotics Automation', 'Robotics Process'] |
Helena Walks Boogie | Brand NEW pub! My essays, fiction & humor can be found in several Medium publications. But, if you can’t find them THERE, you will find them HERE! All organized and stuff. follow my main page: https://medium.com/@anniewoodinhollywood
Follow | https://medium.com/cool-awesome-groovy/helena-walks-boogie-1664fd360825 | [] | 2020-10-15 21:11:23.436000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Art', 'Creativity', 'Coronavirus', 'Comedy'] |
Blogger Hacked to Death | Behind the Headlines
Current affairs that goes beyond the mainstream | https://medium.com/behind-the-headlines/blogger-hacked-to-death-6fcbcdd4befa | ['News Feather'] | 2015-05-13 15:43:42.998000+00:00 | ['Murder', 'Islam', 'News'] |
Teaching Your Baby the Skill of Rolling From Tummy to Back | Rolling from tummy to back is an essential skill that your baby must learn in his first months of life. Here are 5 techniques to help him master the maneuver.
Has your baby begun rolling over in his crib? Are you feeling worried that he might fall asleep on his tummy and become trapped in a position where his breathing is compromised?
While some babies will learn to roll over when they’re 3 or 4 months old, most of them will have mastered the skill of rolling over by 6 or 7 months. Generally, babies first learn to roll from belly to back. They pick up rolling from back to stomach about a month later as this requires more coordination and muscular strength.
If you’re anxious about your baby rolling over to sleep on his stomach, you can always teach him how to roll over. There are some techniques you can try that’ll help him master not only the skill of rolling from tummy to back but also the reverse back-to-stomach maneuver.
Here’s how:
Technique #1: Lay him down on his back or side with one arm extended
Putting your baby to sleep on his side can prevent him from flipping entirely onto his stomach. And with one arm extended, the risk of his breathing getting compromised is close to null.
Here’s how it works: Try laying your little one down in his crib on his back or side with one arm extended. By doing so, he’ll have his arm out in front of his chest when he tries to roll over to his tummy during his sleep. He’ll be less likely to flip entirely onto his belly as the arm will be tucked underneath him.
Technique #2: Roll him while you’re picking him up
You can start practicing this technique as soon as your baby is born. Don’t hesitate to do it every time you have to pick him up to change his diaper or put him down to sleep.
Here’s how it works: Instead of just picking him straight up, help him roll his weight to his side. You can also do this when he’s sitting on his bottom. Simply roll him over to the side, and he’ll automatically try to keep his head from falling out of line with his body, which is a reflex they are born with. This exercise will help him strengthen the muscles on the sides of his neck. The move also allows him to practice pushing against the floor with the arm on the way down. Make sure you practice this on both sides of his body.
Technique #3: Encourage tummy time
Practicing tummy time is an amazing technique to help your little one develop the muscles necessary to lift his head. In fact, The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that babies start practicing tummy time the same day they come home from the hospital.
You should encourage your baby to practice lifting his head for at least 15 minutes every day. You can also split those 15 minutes into three sessions that will last three to five minutes. Avoid leaving your baby unsupervised.
Here’s how it works: Get on a flat playmat with some of his favorite toys. Keep the toys out of his reach to encourage him to try and move to reach them. Over time, he’ll start pushing himself off the floor or even rock his body from side to side, preparing to roll. In no time, he’ll master the skill of rolling from tummy to back.
Technique #4: Use visual and auditory motivators
When it comes to teaching your baby the skill of rolling from tummy to back, remember that where his head goes, his body will follow. Meaning, you can easily try using visual and auditory motivators to entice him to lift his head and move.
Here’s how it works: Put your baby on his belly. Grab a toy that is interesting to him and place it above his shoulder and eye level on the side you want him to turn. Once your baby notices the toy, his head will slowly rotate, and then his entire body will rotate over to be in alignment with the head. If he gets stuck lying on his side, you can even give him a little push to help him get on his back.
Technique #5: Provide support at your child’s hips
As I’ve mentioned previously, sometimes your baby can get stuck in a side position while trying to rotate from his tummy to his back. He may get stuck in that position and can’t seem to figure out shifting his weight side to side. When this happens, try giving him a little push.
Here’s how it works: Give him a slight push on his hip to help him shift his weight to the side so that he can finish the roll himself.
To sum up
The five techniques I mentioned in the text are excellent strategies to teach your baby the skill of rolling from tummy to back. It’s up to you to decide whether you’ll use them separately or all together. And once your little one masters the skill of rolling over, you’ll finally be able to sleep through the night, with a peace of mind that your little one is fine all by himself.
And if you find yourself needing help teaching your baby how to sleep independently, ask for professional help from a certified sleep trainer. When you have a sleep trainer working alongside you, you’ll get a personalized plan that fits your child’s temperament and personality. A sleep trainer can ensure you’re on the right track and offer unlimited support throughout the process. In no time, you’ll manage to turn those bedtime battles into regular and restful sleep patterns. | https://medium.com/@neha-74611/teaching-your-baby-the-skill-of-rolling-from-tummy-to-back-a2fa70f338eb | ['The Sleepy Cub Blog'] | 2020-12-11 10:35:17.926000+00:00 | ['Parenting', 'Baby', 'Baby Sleep', 'Baby Care', 'Parenthood'] |
You Belong | You Belong
Poems From the Porch
photo by Richard Burlton on Unsplash.com
The day is grey and cold, but the lake is no less beautiful than when the sun illuminates it.
There is a bell clanging in the distance and intermittent waterfowl sounds.
Some of the ducks are playing tag, skimming over the surface, then gliding in to float again.
The waves are dancing patterns on the water, which is flowing in a different direction than usual.
I want to stay outside because it is my last morning here, but the chill has become uncomfortable.
Two flocks of ducks are tightly grouped together in separate pods. I wonder if they are cold, too.
It seems that they stick together when times get tough.
It reminds me of how we banded together after the hurricanes this year, and all the years before.
Now the two ducky flocks have joined one another and are swimming in a huddle.
There is room for you, too,
and for me,
in our own human huddle.
We are not alone.
We belong. | https://medium.com/a-love-centered-life/you-belong-a66d9032e30b | ['Ani Vidrine'] | 2020-10-17 15:37:21.255000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Personal Growth', 'Spirituality', 'Life', 'Poetry'] |
The different ways to please your boss | Photo by Nicola Styles on Unsplash
In your office, the relationship between you and your boss is very much important. The reason is that it will make your office life smoother as well. In most cases, you will see that the relationship with the office boss could not make a good rapport over time. Actually, the main problem lies in the understanding between you and your boss. If you understand your boss well and your boss understands you well, then the honeymoon will be forever. Nevertheless, one thing is sure that once you are able to show your love and respect to your boss, then your employment is sealed forever.
Loyal
It is a great virtue for you when you are under your boss. The reason is that it will help you to build a better relationship with your boss. You should know that in the office, the boss is the supreme authority. Then, if you like to make your stay in your office comfortable, then you should show your loyalty to your boss as well. Actually, loyalty will make you more acceptable in every office segment and it will shine through your performance as well.
Appreciation
Every human wants appreciation for his or her work. Therefore, it is also applicable to your boss as well. If you appreciate some good moves by your boss in front of your colleagues, then it will increase your chance of getting respect from your boss as well.
Sharing burden
Sometimes, we are all can be loaded with so much burden. Therefore, if we get someone like to relieve our burden little, then it will come as a boon to us. Therefore, in this connection, you can help your boss to relieve some burden from his or her shoulder. You may attend the important meeting instead of him or her as well. So that it will relieve some burden when he or she is engaged in the other commitment. If you do not like to do any kind of job which is outside your job boundary. If you get away yourself a little from it, then you will be able to win over your boss as well. The reason is that it will your boss some relieve from the extra burden.
Saving time
It is a kind of positive gesture from you for your boss. Moreover, this kind of approach will land you in the most favourable situation in the later stage as well. The reason is that if you can save your boss time, then he or she will definitely reciprocate to you at the right time. Suppose, you see that your boss is standing in the queues at the side of a road as his or her car breaks down and then at that time, you are passing with your bike and you see your boss standing on the road. Immediately, you just offer your boss for the lift and ask your boss to ride on your bike alone. After that, you arrange for repairing your boss car. This gesture will give you the dividends later as well.
Entertainer
If you are a good cook, then you can invite your boss to your home for dinner. As this kind of gesture will make your boss very happy. Moreover, you will definitely get a positive response from him or her. Even, your boss is not in your favour, and then you can throw an open offer to attend a dinner at your home. Once your boss in your home, then you are in full control to manipulate your boss in your own style as well.
Mistake acceptance
If you do a mistake, then immediately accept it. The reason is that it will help you when you are in great trouble and your boss will come to rescue you in your need. One thing that always keeps in your mind that you should be in a positive mood as well. It is observed that every beast has little emotion left, so you can get an advantage from it if you wisely feel it.
Little caring
If you know that your boss has high blood sugar, then you can request him or her to take the less sugar-based food at the party where both of yours are attending. It will bring a little smile to your boss lip and it is enough for you.
Therefore, you should convey to your boss your love and respect through your positive gesture as well. | https://medium.com/the-writing-pool/the-different-ways-to-please-your-boss-b7d852a3349 | ['Manik Roy'] | 2021-03-02 11:51:10.254000+00:00 | ['Office', 'Jobs', 'Office Culture', 'Business', 'Boss'] |
Using Query Tile Pro to boost your Azure DevOps Dashboard | Dashboards ❤
Metrics should be easy to find, easy to understand and easy to keep an eye on. When collecting Agile metrics such as Lead Time or Cycle Time, most of boards/dashboards systems have automatic widgets or reports and Azure DevOps board is one of them. And if you don’t find a “native” solution, you can download one of the many widgets at Extension Gallery. Here I’m going to talk about my favorite widget to get more complex metrics, the ones that involve aggregation and math operations with more than one query result set.
Query result tiles are an easy solution if you have to keep track of the total number of work items, for example, how many bugs or the sum of Story Points you have in an Iteration. But if you want the number of tasks instead, the default Query Tile won’t work. And this is where Query Tile Pro comes in.
As its publisher Mattias Sköld wrote, you can summarize field values, calculate min and max values on all fields, including text & date fields and much more. Here I’ll show you how you can include the widget in your dashboard and understand basic and advanced configuration modes.
Adding the widget
Before adding Query Tile Pro to your dashboard, you need to add it to your organization. On a dashboard, click on Edit, and on Add Widget, click on the link “Extension Gallery”.
Let’s explore the Extension Gallery
Query Tile Pro is the first result:
After clicking on it, it will open the main page of the product. Now click on Get it free, select your organization and click on Install. When it’s installed, it will show you this page, and you’re ready to go!
To add to a dashboard, open the desired dashboard, click on Edit and after clicking on Add Widget, it should appear in the list as the rest of the widgets. Just drag and drop or click on “Add”.
Configuring Basic Mode
What to do when we want to count the children of a User Story? It’s pretty easy using Query Tile Pro. Let’s calculate how many Bugs we have inside new User Stories.
First of all, you need a query that returns all Bugs inside new User Stories.
See that “2 linked” in the count results? That’s what we want.
Although Query Tile Pro doesn’t force you to save queries in Shared Queries as Query Tile does, I recommend it if you are going to use in a dashboard that other people than you have access.
Now, add the widget to a dashboard and open the Basic mode. In Query, select the query you created. As we want the count of the children, select Children for filter and Count for aggregation. Hit enter to update the result in the tile:
Now finish your tile adding a Title and a Subtitle!
Now save and enjoy your new tile :)
Configuring Advanced Mode
In Advanced Mode we can create variables, therefore, make math operations! Let’s calculate the User Story percentage in our backlog.
First, you need a query that returns all User Stories and one that returns everything.
All User Stories in backlog
All in the backlog
Again, I recommend saving the query in Shared Queries if you are going to use the tile in a dashboard that other people than you have access.
Now, add the widget to a dashboard and open the Advanced mode.
To set up your first variable, select the query that returns all User Stories, and give this result a name. This name can’t have spaces. Also, in this case, select All for filter and Count for aggregations, as we want the number of all User Stories.
Now, click on Add query. Yes, I know it doesn’t look like a link or a button. And it doesn’t show the “hand icon” that shows something is clickable, but it is. Please believe me ;) When clicked, it shows another group of configurations fields(name, query, filter, and aggregation).
Now, complete selecting the query that returns everything and giving this variable a different name. Select All for filter and Count for aggregation again.
Now, having all the count results we need, we have to input the Result expression. Let’s start simple: allUserStories/allInBacklog. After adding the expression, press Enter to make it update the result in your tile.
I had 2 User Stories and 2 Bugs in my backlog (4 items in total), so the result is 0,5
But we want to show as a percentage, so we need to multiply it by 100, and now the Result expression is (allUserStories/allInBacklog)*100. Hitting Enter again we will see 50 as a result.
Tip: as result expressions can get more and more complicated, I strongly suggest to use parenthesis when making calculations. It’s easier to see what’s been computed first.
Now that we have the right result, let’s finish the configuration. Set up a Title and a Subtitle:
And let’s set that when this number is below 80%, it should turn red.
Conditional formatting is pretty simple when comparing values. But what if I need something more complex? What if my problem is having less than 80 US, but only when we’re on the second half of the month? In this case, we should use “Expression” instead of “Value”.
We need some JavaScript for this one, and our expression is:
(@value < 80) && (new Date().getDate() > 15)
“(@value < 80)” is what we already had, when the result is less than 80.
“(new Date().getDate() > 15)” is getting the day of today and comparing to 15 (the half of the month). Here we have some examples of date manipulation in JavaScript (ps: I have not tested all these options yet).
And between the two expressions, “&&” is a logical operator, and it means that both expressions must be true to color the tile. Your widget config should look like this:
And that’s it!
Be happy!
These examples were just the tip of the iceberg we can do with Query Tile Pro. I hope I helped you to set it and now your life is easier and your dashboards are more complete. If you have already done even more complex uses of Query Tile Pro, please let me know so I can include here and help more people! | https://medium.com/@crismotinha/using-query-tile-pro-to-boost-your-azure-devops-dashboard-105e79dffd45 | ['Cris Motinha'] | 2019-05-17 17:14:14.707000+00:00 | ['Azure Devops', 'Metrics', 'Dashboard', 'Agile', 'Query Tile Pro'] |
Joe Rogan is the 21st Century’s Plato | Joe Rogan is the 21st Century’s Plato
Reflections on writing in the podcast era.
Fresh off signing a $100m contract granting Spotify exclusive rights to stream “The Joe Rogan Experience,” the eponymous Joe Rogan appears to be at the peak of his worldly powers. Bari Weiss of The New York Times went so far as to proclaim him “the New Mainstream Media” in an article that affords us the rare privilege of hearing from Rogan qua interviewee. Throughout the interview, Rogan’s responses center on the idea of “free-balling,” which he identifies as the essence of podcasting. The free-balling approach, he says, is “the opposite of polished. And because of that, it resonates.”
The implication here is that polish corresponds to conceit and dissimulation — as indeed it does to a great many Americans in a time of open war between the President and the implied “old” mainstream media. Polish is the hallmark of erudite, paywalled, left-leaning publications like the Times, The Atlantic and The New Yorker, which today find themselves in an uphill battle against decentralized platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Spotify in the endless scrimmage for our attention.
Where these newer platforms accommodate everyone (as Rogan notes, some argue social media are now public utilities), polished publications cater to a highly-educated, readerly audience, one that now appears increasingly niche. While The Atlantic can still afford to publish articles that take upwards of a half-hour to read, it can do so only because it has spent decades amassing a base of readers armed with long attention spans. Alas, long attention spans are precisely what today’s broader public lacks — particularly where the Internet is concerned (i.e. virtually everywhere). Per Rogan, digital content today has to compete with “YouTube videos of the craziest things ever — babies landing on cats and animal attacks and naked people.” Writing, the erstwhile king of print formats, is today just another subspecies of the aforementioned “digital content” — and it must scratch, claw, and perhaps most significantly, contract in order to claim our attention.
Rogan’s podcasts aren’t exactly concise (they run anywhere from an hour-half to over five hours in length), but they are hands-free and perfectly immersive — at least in the sense that immersion in a podcast “doesn’t require that much thinking at all.” Immersion occurs automatically, as Rogan explains: “You get captivated by the conversation. One of the things about this medium in general is that it’s really easy to listen to while you do other stuff.”
I recall reading somewhere that the trademark of the 21st century knowledge worker is a proclivity for multitasking — the ability to perform multiple tasks poorly instead of one task well. Multitasking fits podcasting hand-in-glove, and this may well explain why listening to a podcast, though in truth far more passive an activity than reading, can nonetheless feel more active.
Podcasts automate the legwork of attention. Where readers must pan their eyes back and forth across the page over and over again, podcasts exact no such toll on our physical energies (this panning motion is evidently so exhausting that we have no choice but to disrupt it, whether by converting to audio or by streaming the entire text through a single point onscreen, as this speed-reading company aims to do). This automation provides an invaluable assist to the average consumer of information in our hyper-saturated, multi-mediated world. People today are simply busier than they were in the past. We have a lot on our plates, and even more on our minds. We don’t have time for dithering, purple prose, or tap-dancing around thorny issues. We need real talk, and we need it to come in easily-digestible formats.
In the past, life was slower. We had time to sit down and read long-form writings, and no reason to doubt the value inherent in doing so. As Rogan puts it, “Nobody ever thought: We need to gear our entertainment, our media, to people who cook, who jog, who hike, people who drive.” By “nobody,” Rogan really means: nobody in the recent past. Extend the timeline a few millennia, and you come across multiple examples of other thinkers fixating on the transmissibility of information as the ultimate stamp of quality.
One such thinker: Plato.
Plato was famously suspicious of the written word, which he considered an inadequate tool for transmitting real knowledge. Indeed, he went so far as to suggest that writing actually interfered with learning: “If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.” These so-called “external marks” (written words) do not offer true wisdom, “but only the semblance of wisdom, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much while for the most part they know nothing. And as men filled not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom they will be a burden to their fellows.”
There is no reason to believe Rogan is as hostile to the written word as Plato purportedly was, and some of Plato’s arguments against writing could apply just as easily to podcasting. In one famous passage, Plato remarks, “You know, Phaedrus, that is the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly correspond to painting. The painter’s products stand before us as though they were alive. But if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words. They seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say from a desire to be instructed they go on telling just the same thing forever.”
Like long-form writings, podcast episodes are mastered works which, once published, do not change. But contrast the written work’s “majestic silence” to the majestic loudness of a Joe Rogan Experience. Rogan’s dialogues are pure movement, rarely stalling or equivocating. “I’m interested in things that make me scared, that make me nervous,” says Rogan — and in Weiss’s view, it is precisely “that unpredictability, that willingness to take risks with topics” that distinguishes the Joe Rogan Experience from the mainstream media. Whereas long-form writings are in the control of their authors and editors, Rogan’s interviews are liable to veer off into uncharted territory at any moment.
Like Rogan, Plato preferred less polished, more free-balling modes of discourse. Hence why he structured his own oeuvre in the form of dialogues between imaginary interlocutors. Plato was following the lead of his mentor Socrates, who himself neglected to write anything down, and whose ideas were preserved for posterity only because his students (like Plato) had the foresight to record them. This is one of the great ironies of Socrates’s work, corresponding to a great irony of Plato’s: Plato’s dialogues are not actually interactive, but merely present the appearance of interaction within a closed system. The same is true of Rogan’s podcasts. That this irony fails to register is likely due to the fact that Rogan never assumes the role of instructor or sage himself, but instead acts as a surrogate for the audience. He self-presents as a “dumb” person who doesn’t know the truth but is eager to learn. Rogan is to whomsoever he happens to be hosting as Plato’s Socrates is to his various counterparts.
Rogan is a canny interviewer with a Socratic knack for coaxing ideas out of his guests. Whether smoking out Elon Musk or humoring Alex Jones while he rants about psychic vampires and AI-powered hive minds, Rogan reveals his guests as people — living, breathing people, in the same room as him (and by extension his listeners) — as opposed to Twitter accounts, or soundbites, or mere “external marks.” Rogan seems to believe that in doing so he is revealing something fundamental about these people. By chatting up Alex Jones for almost five hours, Rogan wants to prove to us that Jones is not, in fact, scum of the earth, a one-in-a-trillion imbecile, an embodiment of pure evil. Jones is just a dude up on his soapbox, spewing weird opinions, playing his part in the evolution of ideas. And it’s worth hearing him out, if only because “anything that wants to limit discussion is dangerous to the evolution of ideas.”
Plato was even more indiscriminate in choosing his interlocutors. Socrates (as Plato’s favorite puppet) interrogates men from all walks of life, albeit not always with the most sympathetic of intentions. While Rogan doesn’t scoop interviewees off the streets, he is very careful to avoid ideological pigeonholing, and attracts listeners across political and socioeconomic barriers. Rogan observes a sort of “Roganic Method” founded in a pair of refusals. On the one hand, he refuses to take offense or let his ego enter into the conversation; on the other hand, he refuses to steer his guests into the weeds of abstract concepts.
Like Plato, Rogan could justly be accused of putting excessive stock in the power of dialogue — or at least of putting too much stock in the power of his own dialogues. But the two men’s failings in this regard are opposite: where Plato is guilty of couching his own monologues in dialogue format, Rogan is deferential to a fault. By refusing to “limit discussion” or enforce boundaries of any kind, Rogan becomes a sieve through which his guests‘ opinions flow largely unhindered. No topic is so heated that it can’t be laughed off, and Rogan sometimes seems more concerned with being liked than being right.
Rogan himself might find this comparison to Plato unbecoming. After all, Plato was a proponent of aristocracy and philosopher-kings, whereas Rogan presents himself as anti-elitist, a man of the people, plugging the gaps left by the mainstream media. The podcast’s logo depicts a grinning Rogan with a third eye beaming out of his forehead, and indeed its DMT-enthusiastic host is decidedly Eastern in his tastes. Perhaps he would prefer that, in seeking his philosophical lookalike, we venture even further back in time — to Vedic India, whose “philosopher-kings,” the Brahmins, were even more convinced of the supremacy of oral transmission than Plato.
The holy Sanskrit texts that are the precursors to Hinduism and Buddhism alike were written primarily in verse, with the express intention of maximizing transmissibility from teachers to pupils. The word Upanishads translates to “sit down beside me,” and mastering the meditative practice at the core of the Vedic religion required apprenticing with a guru. Theoretical knowledge was meant to supplement this practice, without which initiates had no hope of ever reaching the unitive state and escaping the karmic cycle of reincarnation.
Today, meditation apps enable us to engage in practice without foraging around in search of a willing guru. But the apps (with the exception of Waking Up) are rather light on theory, and podcasts like Rogan’s don’t offer much help. The issue with listening to podcasts is that it isn’t actually more immersive than reading; it’s just a lot easier. Passive listening demands far less of our critical faculties. We can outsource the questioning to Rogan, while we focus on driving or getting our reps in.
Ultimately, good, polished writing is still indispensable (and irreplaceable) as a means of transmitting truly challenging ideas. We live in a time when Plato’s fears have been realized: we rely on external marks to learn things (and re-learn them, and remind ourselves of what we’ve learned); nobody goes around memorizing intricate philosophical verses that can be found via Google search, or purchased on Kindle for under ten dollars.
But that’s okay. Reading enables us to sit down beside teachers of diverse backgrounds, traditions, and dispositions — teachers who are intent on delving deeply into ideas, rather than just skimming over the surface. I for one tend to tire of Rogan for the same reason I tend to tire of Plato: for me, the broadcast dialogue is the conceit, and not the polished writing. The former offers only the outline of ideas, while the latter offers sustained immersion in a single sensibility at a time — a real face-to-face encounter, and not an encounter mediated by a third party, one who not only picks up my slack, but slyly creates it. | https://medium.com/il-macchiato/joe-rogan-is-the-21st-centurys-plato-ec08a9b0ed70 | ['Nico Deluca'] | 2020-05-28 18:42:00.101000+00:00 | ['Opinion', 'Writing', 'Podcasting', 'Plato', 'Joe Rogan'] |
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Lab # 1 — Create your Amazon Connect instance | Navigate to AWS console and login using your AWS account
2. Ensure that your selected region is “US East (N. Virginia)” by clicking on your region in the upper right-hand corner of the AWS console and selecting the region.
3. Select Amazon Connect either from the Customer Engagement section, or by entering “Amazon Connect” in the search bar
4.If this is your first time navigating to Amazon Connect, click Get Started. Otherwise, you will see a list of instances that have already been built with an Add an Instance button. Click either Add an Instance or Get Started. | https://medium.com/@durgeshgurnani/lab-1-create-your-amazon-connect-instance-947f5877ebbb | ['Durgesh Gurnani'] | 2020-12-24 09:26:25.688000+00:00 | ['Amazon Lex', 'Customer Experience', 'Contact Center', 'Customer Service', 'Amazon Connect'] |
7 things to consider when using a performance improvement plan (PIP) | It’s always easier to be a good manager when things are going well. But when an employee is struggling — especially someone who shows a lot of promise — what do you do?
The first step is to figure out if the employee knows they’re underperforming (I discuss this at length here.) Then, it’s time to coach an underperforming employee (hopefully) to success. You need a plan of action.
One way to help an employee improve their performance is through what’s classically known as a performance improvement plan — or PIP, for short. Some companies have a formal PIP process in place, with templates and predefined steps, while other companies and managers forgo having any type of PIP at all.
What works best depends on the employee’s particular situation and the company’s cultural environment. For instance: Has this poor performance been chronic, or something more recent? Does your company generally view process as a means to reduce complexity, or are they process-averse?
To get a better sense of if a formal performance improvement plan would work for you and your team, we asked our 1,000+ managers in our online community, The Watercooler, in Know Your Team about their experiences.
Based on their responses, here’s what you should consider when coaching an underperforming employee and using PIPs:
Is it a lever, or a crutch?
Netflix vocally eschews all performance improvement plans. They’ve observed how other companies use it as a crutch to flag poor performance, rather than as a lever to improve performance. Managers will put an employee on a PIP as “proof” to HR that they tried to help someone. Or in more nefarious situations, a manager will use a PIP to usher someone out of the company. Like any process in an organization, performance plans only work if the intention matches the outcome (whether that outcome is intentional or not.) If the ultimate outcome of PIPs is that they’re a convenient “out” for managers — rather than a genuine path for employees to improve — performance plans will be toxic for your company. Empty relics serve no one.
Never make the PIP a surprise.
Any low performance should have been discussed in a previous one-on-one meeting already. Your direct report should not be caught off guard that you’re suggesting a performance plan to them. In larger companies, this is also something that should have surfaced in feedback to HR (be it ad hoc or via your monthly feedback cycle, depending on what your cadence is.)
Let the employee know a PIP is a possibility.
Folks can turn the ship around, before needing a performance improvement plan. Knowing that a PIP might be on the horizon can be a powerful motivator for some. However, given this, be conscious to not frame the possibility as an ultimatum. Instilling fear is not productive in the long-run. Rather, be transparent as possible about the person’s level of performance is and what the potential next steps might be. For instance, during a one-on-one meeting, you could say, “We need your performance to be at [X tangible level], and I want to work with you to improve. I don’t think we’re at the point where we both need a performance improvement plan in place yet. But, I do want to share that could be a potential next step down the line if we don’t improve, together. Right now, I do want to support you to figure out how to make things better. Would you be open to discussing that?”
Consider having others in addition to the employee present for the conversation.
Watercooler members who are part of larger companies recommended the meeting about the PIP involve the employee, the manager, and HR. This is to make sure all relevant parties are on the same page. If you do choose to involve HR, be wary that some find it distracting (if not a bit ominous) to have HR in the room when the PIP is being discussed. At the same time, others prefer to have HR present from the beginning because it helps establish continuity of information. You’ll want to weigh these trade-offs, for your own team, when evaluating whether or not others should be a part of the PIP conversation.
Have an overall consistent flow for the PIP.
Based on what Watercooler members shared, here’s a general outline for how you could set up a PIP in your company:
Meet with the employee to discuss the performance plan. Make it clear ahead of time that this is the purpose of the meeting, so the employee can plan accordingly in advance, themselves. Use Know Your Team’s One-on-One Meeting Tool to outline the conversation, and give the employee adequate time to prepare for it. Clearly define, together, what “success” tangibly looks like, and when it should be achieved by (typically 4–6 weeks out). Discuss why this marker of success is important to the team, and how it helps move the team forward. Get on the same page for how a successful outcome will be measured. Agree on the method of measurement. Develop a plan during the meeting for how to reach success. What might daily or weekly activities look like? Does either of you have suggestions for what should be done differently so success is attainable? Set up 4–6 weekly checkpoints. Talk about what “success” for each weekly checkpoint might look like. What will the measurable output be? During each weekly checkpoint, discuss the progress made to date, based on the metrics you previously agreed to. What’s been going well and not well? How can either of you do things differently to make better progress? How well is the employee tracking toward “success,” as was previously defined? During the last weekly checkpoint, declare success — or decide it is time to part ways. Obviously, one of these conversations is much harder to have than the other. If the employee has fallen short of meeting the successful outcome, have this discussion as directly and respectfully as possible. Here are some tips on letting someone go with grace and dignity.
Draft the plan always with the employee’s input.
This is paramount. An effective performance improvement plan is “we can improve together” and not just “I’m telling you what to change.” Every step of the way, from having the initial discussion about poor performance to defining the weekly check-points, you should be co-creating the PIP, and working together to figure out how to get to the outcome you both want to achieve.
Understand the cultural implications of a PIP.
For some Watercooler members, PIPs work incredibly well for their team because their team thrives on having clear processes and structures in place. However, another Watercooler shared how, because 80% — 90% of employees who were put on a PIP left the company during the PIP period, it culturally made the PIP “a herald of doom.”
Regardless of whether you decide to move forward with a formal performance improvement plan or something more informal — the important piece is that you’re purely focused on helping your employee improve. That’s your purpose as a manager, after all: To create an environment for your team to do their best work. It doesn’t matter if you call it by a three-letter acronym (“PIP”) or not. The outcomes are what matter. | https://medium.com/know-your-team-blog/7-things-to-consider-when-using-a-performance-improvement-plan-pip-e63d5cd953d2 | ['Claire Lew'] | 2020-03-11 17:46:16.569000+00:00 | ['Management', 'Performance', 'Leadership', 'Startup Lessons', 'Leadership Development'] |
UNEMPLOYMENT ISLAND | Unemployment is thankless work. People who have looked for a job for any significant period can attest to the energy and effort that it takes. It is almost like having a job, except absent the usual intrinsic rewards.
Photo by Martin Widenka on Unsplash
Even worse than a mere time bandit, involuntary joblessness can wreak financial and emotional havoc. When bills pile up, money worries can become stifling. For many people, their work, identity, or self esteem are intricately linked. Not working can lead to social isolation especially if most of your social circle is employed. This later state is one that the COVID-19 pandemic is now exacerbating. All combined, weathering unemployment starts to look like a bad reality show where contestants try to escape from a deserted island — or in this case — escape from Unemployment Island.
Career coaches, job recruiters, outplacement specialists, counselors, family members, friends, and sometimes even well-meaning strangers offer advice to people who are unemployed. Much of the counsel involves practical job search tips: improving resumes, tapping into social media, navigating electronic applications, and honing interview finesse. These are essential skills, especially for those who have not job hunted in recent years, but weathering unemployment can be as much about psychological strategy as it is tactical activity.
I am not a recruiter but in my marketing role with a professional recruiting firm, I often speak with people who are unemployed. Some time ago, I started asking reemployed people about their insights gleaned while they were out of work.[1] As with other difficult situations, people who have traveled similar paths bring a unique perspective. I wondered what advice they might offer to those in a kindred situation.
One businessman I spoke with was jolted by joblessness when he was 49 years old. His wife worked, but they had two young children and they needed his income to help pay the bills. As his unemployment stretched onto a year, his worry magnified. He recalled, “The most unappreciated piece of advice I received was, ‘You’ll get through this, this will end’.” He explained that a couple of other people had told him essentially the same thing, but when the words came from someone who had endured a similar hardship, they resonated. “That was extremely useful, but because it came from someone who had been through the gauntlet,” he added.
This two-part series is a composite of the central themes of collective insights and advice shared with me by people from their time of being unemployed and after they had found new work[2], coupled with tips from some career pros.
I began this process before the onset of COVID-19. Just last year, the U.S. unemployment rates were the lowest since 1969, yet for those people who were out of work, the statistics offered little comfort. Now, the upward trajectory of unemployment will undoubtedly create more challenging circumstances for many job seekers. I have tried to note where the current health crisis may affect the recommendations, but I suspect the general wisdom is more imperative than ever.
A Resiliency Mindset
“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.” — Walter Elliot
How intensely anyone feels the effect of being without a job depends on multiple individual factors: their financial cushion, emotional support, transferrable skills, job mobility, their area’s labor and economic markets, age, and compounding circumstances, like other losses or life milestones, which may be simultaneously unfolding.
Some fortunate people find new work easily, or it finds them. For others, searching for a job is a Sisyphean task. Being in a state of perpetual limbo makes it difficult to plan, and that uncertainty can fester into angst. One senior physician executive shared with me, “I don’t think I ever truly appreciated how difficult, frustrating and disheartening this process can be.” Another customer service executive said, “Unemployment affects everything you do, every decision you make.”
Those I interviewed said that their worries intensified[3] as the jobless months dragged on, especially as they neared the one-year point. It is no surprise that studies have found that the longer people are unemployed, the more likely they are to become depressed.
Emotional resiliency is a key to remaining positive and mentally preparing for what may turn out to be a long haul. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Resilience won’t make your problems go away — but resilience can give you the ability to see past them, find enjoyment in life and better handle stress. If you are not as resilient as you’d like to be, you can develop skills to become more resilient.”
Despite differences in their individual demographics, these unemployment survivors expressed empathy for others in similar situations. Much of their insights centered on how they maintained mental fortitude and positive coping skills and advice for how others might do the same. They said:
· Take a breath. Mourn the loss of your old job.
· Own it. Don’t be embarrassed. Tell everyone you know, early on.
· Remember, it’s a situation, not an identity.
· It’s very easy to get discouraged. Don’t get into the doldrums. Shake it off.
· Keep a daily journal. Capture interesting things that people do or say. It lowers your stress level. It helps you process your emotions. It’s your story.
· Find someone, who is not your spouse, to help validate your experience and worth — not just idle encouragement but someone who can be honest and help remind you of your value.
· Make notes to yourself of what’s working and what’s not. Record your emotions.
· Don’t forget your worth, your value. If you are not valuable to one company, it doesn’t mean you won’t be valuable to another.
· You need to separate your self-worth from your job.
· If you are having a bad day, you are having a bad day. Roll with the punches.
While these statements are straight-forward and appear to be deceptively simple, they are resiliency-focused and action-oriented. These should not be confused with well-meaning platitudes like, “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll find something soon,” or “You’re so talented that you won’t have any trouble finding something new,” which interviewees felt were baseless and dismissive of their concerns.
The advice-givers counseled that staying on the top of their game took more than just cybersurfing job boards and submitting electronic applications. One woman with an insider’s experience in human resources said, “It is a yeoman’s job looking for a job” then cautioned, “You can get caught in a black hole of oblivion. You have to take a break.”
The group found it helped them to stay active, learn, and engage in other activities. I sensed a common sentiment that the process was more akin to a marathon than a sprint. Some sought free or low-cost ways to remain active, including getting outside of the house.
· Get outdoors. Go for a walk.
· Get up early and go to the gym.
· I used the time when I wasn’t working to get both of my bad knees replaced. Having the surgery then helped me to get physically ready for my new job that requires a lot of stamina.
· It’s important to have something outside of the [job] search to keep you occupied and motivated.
· Keep your feet on the [figurative] treadmill and keep moving.
· Use the time to learn new skills. It doesn’t have to be about your job, but could be anything that will help you, like improving your computer skills or learning a new language, or public speaking.
· I got more engaged with organizations where I had let my membership lapse. Now I had the time to get involved in things that I hadn’t had time for and got reinvigorated and met new people.
· Stay abreast of what is happening in your industry; connect with one person a day and read industry news.
· Find some challenging things that are difficult and learn them.
Although the pandemic has limited some of these options in certain locales, like gym access, there are significant ways to be engaged from home, including an abundance of virtual sessions in which to learn or interact, and online college courses, some which are free or nominally priced.
Networking is among the more vital ways to stay engaged and effectively find new work or as one mid-forties sales executive said, “Everything is done through your network.” But networking can have a different context when you are employed and seeking to advance your career than it does when you are jobless.
The Networking Conundrum
Network. It’s a verb, it’s a noun, and it’s the advice that virtually every jobseeker hears. There is power in a personal referral.
Some of the strongest emotions among the interviewees came when they talked about networking. Some shared how they felt isolated while not working; others felt forgotten by their employed friends and former colleagues. One middle-aged female executive summed it up with, “Some people act like unemployment is contagious.”
Despite this, several people found help from unexpected sources:
· Part of your network will be inspiring and other people will let you down. The people you think are least likely [to help] in your network will often be the ones to help you.
· I had people help me who barely knew me. I never would have expected it.
· Don’t be discouraged when somebody you thought you could count on disappears. Focus on the people who are helping you. I told myself, ‘people want to help me, so let them do that’.
In his best-selling book “Give and Take,” Wharton professor Adam Grant writes about the value of our connections. We tend to focus on our active connections, that’s where our comfort zone is. As important as our active connections are, Grant emphasizes the value of reconnecting with weak and dormant connections or ties. Dormant ties are those people we once were closer to or saw frequently, but who have fallen off our radar, whereas weak ties are acquaintances or those casual connections in our lives.
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
According to “Give and Take,” both dormant and weak ties have value. Grant wrote, “The older we get, the more dormant ties we have, and the more valuable they become.” He described a survey in which almost 28 percent of people heard about a job from a weak tie. “Weak ties serve as bridges: they provide more efficient access to new information. Our strong ties tend to travel in the same social circles and know about the same opportunities as we do. Weak ties are more likely to open up access to a different network, facilitating the discovery of original leads.”
The pandemic means that more people are working from home and this may make them more accessible. Unfortunately, it also means that some face-to-face chances to reconnect may be more limited, but there are more venues for online networking. Reaching out with a sincere inquiry about the wellbeing of a colleague can be a great way to rekindle weak or dormant ties.
A recent New York Times article “How to Network From Home” offered ideas on how to use this time to network productively, even if differently from the norm. Since social distancing restrictions will vary and evolve over time and by place, the novel ways that people shared to maintain connections, avoid isolation, and enlarge their network remain valuable:
· Since I had time, I would offer to help friends with house projects, walk their dog, wait for deliveries or the cable guy while they were at work, or pick up their kids from school.
· I offered to do things that didn’t require much money, like meet friends for coffee or go for a walk.
· Find a positive way to say what you are looking for. You never know who that person will know. I found a role [that wasn’t advertised] through a friend of a friend.
· I tried to reach out in a way that was about helping them.
· Make a plan for how many contacts you will make that day and make them.
· There were some people who I didn’t reach out to as much as I could have. Don’t be shy about continuing to interact with people you have always interacted with.
· Meet anyone who is doing anything interesting. Each one can lead to more hubs and spokes within a network.
· Tell people how they can help you. Be as specific as possible.
· Seek advice from your contacts, not necessarily for a job offer but for leads, perspective, insight.
· Everybody knows somebody. I went to a networking event and met someone. I didn’t get that particular job but a year later, something else came up with the same company.
· What goes around comes around and by opening doors for someone else, you can ultimately help yourself. It’s all about karma.
Remember, networking isn’t necessarily about meeting someone who can offer or refer you to a job on the spot; it is to gain information, perspective, advice, introductions that can help you navigate, make informed decisions, and open doors.
“Those that win in networking give first, give generously, and give often.” — Anonymous
Ted Pizzo, Founder and President of Northeast Executive Advisory Group (NEAG), a professional networking group of 16 years, spoke about the importance of asking for specific help. Pizzo said, “People want to help but don’t always know how to at that moment.” He explained that when you are specific in your ask, you help them pinpoint opportunities that can help you, whether with an introduction to a certain company, an individual, a particular role, a geographic location, or type of opportunity.
Several of those I spoke with said that a great way to view networking is through a lens of helping someone else. In “Give and Take,” Grant quotes Reid Hoffman, the founder of the widely used professional networking platform, LinkedIn, “If you set out to help others, you will rapidly reinforce your own reputation and expand your universe of possibilities.”
In a Washington Post article, Jamil Zaki makes an excellent case for how “by serving others, we help ourselves.” Since it’s hard to know how long unemployment will last, some people hesitate to commit to a new cause, but this can be an ideal chance to explore or research new opportunities of personal interest. For those who already volunteer, this time can offer the opportunity to increase that activity.
The interviewees cited support groups, volunteer work, church, or community gatherings as ways where they met new people:
· I redoubled my efforts in community efforts that were always important to me. Those gave me a chance to connect even more with friends and neighbors and to contribute to something that was bigger than myself.
· You need to get out of the house and meet with others in similar situations. I found a support group that met weekly and went to that and networked. It offers perspective. It showed me that I was not alone.
· Volunteer and don’t let the rest of your life suffer — keep it as normal as possible.
· Have a project or initiative, business or personal, that can give you a story to tell and will also help keep you sane.
· Stay active as a volunteer.
· Keep busy doing things. I felt value as a volunteer.
· Do things in the community. Find joy in things. Engage in life.
Networking, whether formal or informal, in a group or with an individual, can pave the way for introductions into new job opportunities, project work, or food-for-thought about career transitions. But not all career opportunities are created equal, which brings up questions that many people ask themselves during this time: do I stay the course, or do I pivot?
Coming Next: When to Pivot
Footnotes:
[1] Along with numerous informal discussions I have had, I formally interviewed 22 individuals for this story. These men and women were white collar workers in their 40–60’s when they were unemployed. They had worked at various levels in their organizations, including some in C-suite positions.
[2] The interviewees’ length of unemployment ranged from six months to four years.
[3] I asked each person to rate how concerned they had been while unemployed using a scale of 1 to 10, “where 1 was not-worried-at-all and 10 was waking-up-at-night-worried.” They reported their anxiety ranged from 3 to 10 and generally increased the longer they were out of work. | https://medium.com/@sherriedulworth/unemployment-island-24efefeed83b | ['Sherrie Dulworth'] | 2020-11-16 17:03:09.389000+00:00 | ['Networking', 'Unemployment', 'Resiliency', 'Covid 19 Pandemic', 'Job Hunting'] |
Nudging Your Teen Towards Greater Independence (Part 2 of 3) | Nudging Your Teen Towards Greater Independence (Part 2 of 3)
In my last post, I started the discussion of fostering independence by highlighting the fact that every teen will be in a different place on their developmental timeline, and that family context matters. Meaning that I can’t, in good conscience, give you easy(-looking), cookie-cutter instructions.
So I’m giving you the more nuanced, gonna-have-to-work-at-it solution. (Trust me, with the parenting day I’ve been having – and it’s only 10:00am – I really wish that we could have easy, surefire parenting “hacks.” Le sigh.)
The process that I’m walking you through is meant to help you step back and examine your family’s default mode, and use that as a starting point for making meaningful and sustainable changes towards greater independence for your teen. We’re on the second step in this 3-step process:
Observe like a scientist Strategize like a coach Tweak like an inventor
Show me the data!
(That’s my favourite thing to say when people make sciencey claims.)
If you’ve been following along, then you might have a few days worth of observations recorded. You can go straight to Step 2 without doing Step 1, but I encourage you to record your observations for at least a week before you start devising your strategies. With your kids’ activities, your activities, various jobs, volunteering, etc., not every day is going to look the same so getting a week’s worth of notes will give you a more complete picture.
I know it seems like a lot to ask, and it seems like a pain in the butt (at least, that’s how I’d feel). Your observations are important because they will help you make decisions about the best way to move forward. Knowing – or rather, understanding – the status quo means that your strategies for change are much more likely to be successful.
I learned this the hard way, when I was an inexperienced teaching assistant (TA) during my Master’s program. I was responsible for grading research reports for a lab course, which required APA Style formatting. (Briefly, APA Style defines nearly everything about how a research report should be written: margins, font, citations… even when to spell out a number and when to use the numeral.)
The first time that I TA’ed that course, I fell prey to the expert blind spot, and I was arrogantly appalled at the quality of some assignments. I graded ruthlessly. No one came to my office hours (open-door help sessions), and I figured that it was a sign of their lack of engagement.
I found out that some of the students were calling me the “APA Nazi.” Setting aside the fact that the nickname was, arguably, an inappropriate attempt at humour, it explained a lot about why students weren’t coming to my office hours. I hadn’t made myself approachable.
But the biggest moment of reckoning came after the course was over. You see, I had assumed that, as Psychology majors, the students would all have had some introduction and practice with APA Style. I was complaining to someone about how terrible some of the assignments were (did I mention that I was a tad arrogant, at the time?). They explained that, not only was there no real teaching of APA in the Intro Psych course, but the course I’d TA’ed was open to students from 2nd through 4th years – a huge range of academic experience and development.
I was mortified. Humbled. Contrite. I had failed those students as a TA because I tried to steer their academic development when didn’t have a good understanding of the status quo.
The next time that I TA’ed that same course, I met with the instructor ahead of time and asked for some time in the lab sessions to teach mini-lessons on APA Style. Guess what? Students produced better assignments and they came to my office hours for support
What I want to illustrate with this story is that a good understanding of how things actually are is crucial to figuring out where the starting point needs to be. By taking observations, you may notice things about your teen’s behaviour that hadn’t before. Plus, meeting people where they are, setting reasonable expectations, and remembering that we’ve forgotten what it was like to not know that thing (e.g., doing laundry), makes people feel safe to make mistakes and ask for help. I can only imagine how badly it would go if you used my first approach to TA’ing with your teen! Asking a teenager to learn mundane household tasks and take on some more responsibility, without just-right instructions and supportive guidance, is bound to end with yelling or tears (or both).
So, now that you have your observation notes ready, let’s talk about how you can use that information to figure out the best way to nudge your teen towards greater independence.
Strategize like a coach
There are two key aspects to strategically nudging your teen towards greater independence. The first is looking at your data, and there are two ways that you can use your observations for making changes in your family: Look for patterns, and look for opportunities.
In many cases, you will see that the patterns are opportunities. Going back to the laundry example, maybe you see a pattern that, when your teen arrives home from school, they drop their bag, grab a snack, and relax with their phone or a video game for a while. You can piggyback on that sequence by suggesting that before grabbing a snack and settling into some downtime, they could put a load of laundry in the washer; then, after some downtime, that load of laundry will be ready to get moved over to the dryer.
This is a good example of when there’s a particular task or skill that you want your teen to learn, so you find a way to fit it in. Other times, you might see opportunities to nudge your teen in the direction of a skill that you hadn’t considered before. For example, by taking a step back and looking at your observation notes, you might see that on Tuesdays, when you’re at work later for the weekly team meeting, getting supper on the table before heading out to evening activities is always a stressful rush. This is a perfect opportunity for your teen to help out with meal prep and/or cooking!
After you’ve identified the patterns and opportunities that you can build upon, the second part of strategizing is to figure out what is the next step towards change. Then the step after that, and the step after that. If your teen has never taken on any cooking before, you’re not going to ask for duck à l’orange and leave them to it. (But, if you do, please share footage of the attempt!)
After that first time I TA’ed the lab course, I had to get strategic. There were certain skills that I wanted students to demonstrate by the end of the course, but I had to start with where they were. I reflected on my experience, on the patterns in the assignments, and on the feedback I’d received. Those data gave me the starting point, and I mapped out a strategy to help students build up the skills they needed.
For the first assignment, I taught the basics: document formatting and expected information to include in an APA Style report. For each following assignment, I taught another aspect of APA Style so that, by the end of the course, students had practised and built up their APA Style skills. By guiding students in increments, they didn’t get overwhelmed.
Photo by Jeffrey F Lin on Unsplash
I call this step “Strategize like a coach” because a coach – whether you’re talking about an athletic coach or a life/success coach – stewards other people’s development, but can’t do the work for them. The coach tells the player/client what they see or hear, then brings awareness around how the status quo is different from the desired outcome, and guides the process or behavioural change that will lead to that desired outcome.
In my last post, I warned you against telling your teen that you were recording observations, because that would likely change their behaviour. Now that you want to change their behaviour, it’s time to include them in the process:
Ask for their input about what tasks or responsibilities they’d like to take on.
Ask what would make them feel more independent.
Explain why you’re making changes – whether it’s to prepare them for adulthood, to give you a break from household responsibilities, etc.
It’s not easy, but it’s worth it
Part of encouraging independence – no matter what the task or skill – is communicating that you believe they can do it. I’m not talking about the fluffy, feel-good stuff of the self-esteem movement. Rather, like the lessons my parents taught me, you’re making sure that your teen knows that you expect them to make mistakes and hit roadblocks, but that you know they can work it out when it gets hard.
You will likely get the opportunity to model the process of working through mistakes and roadblocks. Just like so many other aspects of parenting, there’s some figuring out as you go along.
You might get resistance to some of the changes you’re asking for, and you can be ready to parent through that. Remind your teen (and yourself) why you’re making changes. Think about how you can tap into what motivates them. Want to play on the school basketball team? Awesome! You’ll have to take the city bus home after practice, because I need to take your little brother to dance class.
Or, your teen might get really frustrated with a particular task, and you can provide support without taking it out of their hands. Maybe they need you in the kitchen with them while they’re following a recipe, even if you’re not directly involved and they never even ask a question. Maybe they need the steps for a task to be written out, so they can refer back to them.
Making changes to family dynamics can be unsettling for everyone, including other kids in the family. So, as I said in my last post, this process is going to look a bit different for each family. There’s no right starting point, no right path, no right speed.
It takes some observation of the process, and some adjustments along the way – that’s Step 3: Tweak like an inventor.
I’d love to hear from you about how your nudging process is going! Fill me in and let me know what your questions are by sending an email or connecting with me on social media. My Facebook community is a place to discuss and troubleshoot, so I hope we can chat about your experiences there! | https://medium.com/@EFDcoach/nudging-your-teen-towards-greater-independence-part-2-of-3-5fec0895bdc3 | ['Elizabeth Flynn-Dastoor'] | 2019-11-18 14:38:45.710000+00:00 | ['Growing Up', 'Teens', 'Parenting', 'Growth Mindset', 'Development And Growth'] |
Atomic Poetry(35) | Poet and sharing a few other things | https://medium.com/@uday-neutron/atomic-poetry-35-e3ca2557f438 | [] | 2020-12-22 13:33:17.923000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Poems On Medium', 'Poetry Writing', 'Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium'] |
Day 22 of ‘A Photo A Day For 30 Days Challenge’ | I took this photo along that road I was talking about in my last post. You know, the path I cycled on that led up to the clubhouse where I said “I Do” fifteen years ago.
I stopped pedaling halfway up the road that day, planted both my feet on the ground, and took a big swig of water from my hydration pack.
I looked to my left and saw this majestic site staring back at me.
I took a few deep breaths, smiled, and started pedaling again. | https://medium.com/creative-humans/day-22-of-a-photo-a-day-for-30-days-challenge-1533ef05438e | ['Divina Grey'] | 2020-07-27 07:16:52.704000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Relationships', 'Life', 'Photography'] |
Mountains in a Moment | Faith, I feel like I am always faking
But I find it quite breathtaking
How mother earth is always shaking
I find the thought of moving mountains
Exhausting yet exhilarating
It happens both on land and sea
Quite beautifully and naturally
And the sky’s musical eclipses
Controlling rhythm with magical ellipses…
There are such tragical events
Sometimes in an single instant
Shifting land to mountains and cliffs
When an earthquake, he hits,
And all her plates shift,
Glass crumbling on the ground,
I worked hard to stop the sound
So that it wasn’t so loud
Blood drips on the ground
I can’t believe a moment sticks around
And follows me down, spiraling down
Like a tidal wave wiping out a town
My mind doesn’t leave the moment
Never knew my opponent
Wasn’t actually a glorious saint
Because, in that moment, I truly had faith
And when I bring myself back to the room
I’m lost in the smoke and perfumes
And the faith fades to something like gloom
Grey clouds are a sign of doom, doom, doom
And moments slide past and stop at one
Sending smoke signals when faith fades to none
Thought my guarded heart
Would shade me from the boom
Bombs going off in one room
Three days in a tomb
Then I rise with the sun
And flowers resume to bloom, bloom, bloom
Such is life, I presume | https://medium.com/@bibiannehazel/mountains-in-a-mome-e2b5ba38c2a1 | ['Bibi Anne Hazel'] | 2021-04-12 22:27:01.031000+00:00 | ['Trauma', 'Faith', 'Mountains', 'PTSD'] |
55 tips, tools and articles that will super-charge your Public Relations knowledge in 2018 | This is just one of the amazing tips from the Queen of metrics Katie Paine in this interview on PR News. We are big fans of Katie here at CoverageBook. She always explains clearly how to demonstrate organisational impact from your PR work. Check out this interview to begin to improve your measurement today.
We are passionate about exploring ways to demonstrate PR success, especially at an article-level because it’s not easy. So when Gary discovered the research of Frederic Filloux, a journalist and an entrepreneur in editorial and business-side news, we were intrigued. Could there be a future standard for article strength? What do you guys think?
2018 plans are underway and creatives are about to be brought to life. Just before you tie down the exact detail for content take a look at this research from content share experts BuzzSumo. The 20 most engaging types of content. Pow! Thanks BuzzSumo :)
Do you or one of your team members have their first client meeting coming up? It’s a daunting first task in PR.. but it doesn’t have to be. Here ex-PR consultant and CoverageBook team member Laura Joint shares her best tips in how to ace your first meeting.
Last month 3500 digital marketers arrived in Brighton for the UK’s biggest Search marketing conference. One of the attendees was Edelman London’s Tech PR Account Manager, Peter McIntyre. Here he outlines a talk from Yext’s Duane Forrester on what a future SEO job description. Elements of the role may look familiar to you…
Orin Puniello, part Ketchum Global Research & Analytics team shares why some PR measurement models will never tell you the whole truth. But inspired by preeminent statistician, George Box, Orin also outlines why asking the correct questions in measurement and evaluation is key.
It’s the season for reviewing the year’s PR activity and setting next year’s KPIs so metrics and models are hot topics. Should you introduce new evaluation strategies or stick with AVE? Before you do anything review evaluation expert Steph Bridgman’s A-Z of reporting. It’s gold-dust.
Does your PR coverage include links to owned content? Those links could be the key to prove customer engagement and sales. Yes, they can help you add a financial value to your reporting. Check out my post to find out how.
The way people ask questions online is the key to finding out how your target audience think and what they want to view online. It’s amazing how you can uncover nuggets of insight from real queries. But where are those questions? This post and a new feature on insight tool BuzzSumo holds a lot of the answers!
AnswerThePublic.com, our tool that demonstrates the way people ask questions on Google has had a refresh! We’ve added a new set of “comparison” terms into the mix to help develop data into insights that can help develop your ideas. We’ve also speeded thing ups so you can access results faster than ever. It’s free, why not give it a go now?
This post from Joe Pulizzi totally resonated with me. When I left comms agency work for PR technology I felt I had to unlearn many of the techniques I’d built up over 13 years. It’s easy to produce similar campaigns each year and a challenge to find time to learn. But could these habits be holding us back?
Oh wait…Content sharing and analysis heavyweights LinkedIn and BuzzSumo have just delivered it! Step forward one of the most useful papers you’ll read this year ‘The DNA behind the world’s most successful content’. A useful review and step by step guide on how to develop content that your audience wants and will read.
Gini Dietrich from Spin Sucks explores the notion of not having a universal financial value in PR and how a stack of tools can get to a valuable ROI. If you have paid, earned, shared and owned elements to your campaign check this guide out!
In the last few years the amount of tech I use to free up time has increased massively. I also feel I’m happier now more than ever. Is there is a link? YES! This article proves that more time is the key to happiness. Do you agree?
Search tools, insight and data can be confusing. But if you want your content to be found online then this kind of insight is essential. That’s why I was so happy to spot this easy to follow guide on MOZ last week. Keyword research step by step. If you’re creating content in PR take note of hacks one and two especially.
Google analytics users will now be able to obtain information about web traffic more easily and quickly with natural language. This update is ideal for people like us (busy people in PR!). It will take some time to work out the best questions but it still be quicker. And we’re fans of anything helping to automate long-winded tasks.
As a tech business we’re drowning in metrics from all of the tools that we use. We have access to a lot of data! But what does it all tell us? Measurement should be about learning & drawing insights, but that’s not possible if you switch between multiple metrics. Could just one metric be the answer?
Site analytics shows where site visitors came from. That means it’s possible to see how many people your coverage directed to your client’s content. Great. But the big problem is accessing the data. Here Gary shares a guide and email template to the people that hold the key…
Google has just announced one the biggest changes to the search engine in recent years. Search results and news on Google is about to be personalised to the user. This is big news in how your coverage is found, viewed and consumed online. Get up to date here.
Integrating social content is key to most campaigns but often we’re challenged by getting content built and on site. That’s why new tool WayIn is so exciting. Brand social activity into site content in real-time.
Ever wondered how digital businesses track and measure their marketing? Do they use AVE, erm NO they don’t! Let’s not sit and wonder let’s take a look! Avinash Kaushik,author and Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google takes us through 15 businesses marketing metrics. All from a variety of sectors too. Perfect.
If you’re using one of the big industry monitoring services you probably receive your online coverage clippings as a list of hyperlinks. That’s fine but what if you need to use or share the links? Hours are spent daily individually converting them…Until now. We just made a free tool to convert for you.
Our clever friends over at Buzzsumo reviewed over 100m Facebook posts recently. Not surprisingly posts with images were shared the most but it was a particular type of picture-led style that really grabbed their attention. Here Buzzsumo founder Steve Rayson shares what a picture list post is and how to nail it in your campaign.
Using a lovely ice cream analogy Jay Acunzo, founder of Unthinkable explains the behaviours that are helping the best in content marketing succeed. Including how they wouldn’t look at other experts as they’re just too busy innovating…
It’s no secret that I used to work in SEO and PR, so you may have heard me speak about Search insights before. This article, about the increased traffic going to The Sun site caught my eye. It’s a case study of how SEO hugely increased traffic to the publication and how content strategy led this. Is it time to include search insights into your campaign?
We interviewed Smoking Gun PR’s Managing Director Rick Guttridge to find out why they have been refusing to offer AVE’s in their PR measurement. Here he tells us how their strong stance led to two global AMEC awards and some very happy clients.
A great post from our friends at Mention on why “All-in-one” reporting tools don’t always demonstrate true PR impact . They also share 14 alternative tools you should have in your measurement armoury.
In my 15 years in communications I’ve worked in traditional PR agencies, digital marketing teams and a Search marketing agency. All of which are often competing for the same budget. Here I share three lessons in how to compete and eventually grow your PR budget.
We know that content is important in PR now but can we explain why? Here Gini Dietrich from SpinSucks delves into the Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned content model to explain why creating owned content is probably one of the most important areas in modern PR success.
New tool tip alert! I just tested True Social Metrics for a couple of campaigns and loved it. Easy to use, great insights and all of my social metrics in one place.
Read Gary’s tale of woe that motivated the team to release our latest free tool logowall.co
The communications landscape has changed. New breed competitors including content marketing, influencer outreach and SEO link-building agencies are now pitching and winning PR budgets. I hosted a PRSA webinar back in July providing actionable steps to take. Watch the recording now.
We’ve teamed up with PR evaluation expert and founder of Experienced Media Analysts, Steph Bridgeman to launch a new eBook; #PRMeasurent : How to take it to the next level. Steph delves into her years of media evaluation experience and shares a step by step guide in quantifying PR success. Don’t miss out download now.
Content marketing experts Velocity have done it again. This new Slide-share will stop you in your tracks and make you consider how to achieve cut through with your next campaign. If content is part of your next plan click the link and take note!
PR agency founder and author Rich Leigh releases his brilliant book ‘Myths of PR: All Publicity is Good Publicity and Other Popular Misconceptions’. It takes down some popular misconceptions about the public relations business. It has shot to the top of Amazon bestseller lists this week and I believe it’s a PR must-read.
Threepipe became the first UK PR agency to acquire an SEO firm last year. Its founder Jim Hawker believes it was the only way they could develop their digital skills to answer the SEO demands of their clients. But is this the case for the whole industry? Read Jim’s insights and my response on Paul Sutton’s PR blog. We don’t agree on all points — fight!
Kristina Libby, a professor at the University of Florida and co-founder of influencer marketing platform SoCu guest posts on PR News and explores keeping a social audience engaged. Kristina shares three considerations to keep in mind for your next customer community strategy.
The PR industry has worked hard to lose its reputation of bending the truth and inflating statistics but how honest are we prepared in campaigns? Here, content marketing experts Velocity Partners share six examples of when brands have been insanely honest and share why it worked.
It has been said by many (including me) that we lose our target audience’s attention in 8 seconds. Less than a goldfish. However, new research suggests that might not be the case. I guess if you’re still reading this we’ve just debunked the myth! But if you want the real proof and find out how it relates to your client’s content read on.
We discovered Right Relevance last week and we love it. Connect your client’s Twitter profile to analyse social influence and audience engagement. It’s also a great tool to help build out your target media lists for campaigns. And did we mention it’s free?
If you’re in b2b PR then listen up. Social content insight experts BuzzSumo have dug into their data and worked out the components to create LinkedIn posts that will engage and be shared. A free cheat-sheet and guide will help you create your most successful content yet.
If your agency is running paid ads on behalf of your clients you need to read this article. Online advertising has changed. Gone are the days when you paid for an ad and knew exactly where it would be and when. Now it’s in the hands of of the programmatic platforms. The results? Greater reach but also a potential reputation issue. Be aware.
If you’re not familiar with the bots it’s time to meet them. Pawan Deshpande, founder of Curata, joined SpinSucks this week. Here he explains what artificial intelligence is and how to introduce it into your content marketing strategy.
Still on the subject of content, Scott Guthrie posted a great article reminding all marketers to hop of the brand content production train and remember to stop, answer questions, solve problems and build relationships.
Richard Bagnall chair of the Association of Media and Evaluation Companies (AMEC) met with Stephen Waddington Partner and Chief Engagement Officer at Ketchum to discuss why 20% of organisations worldwide still use Advertising Equivalent Value (AVE). Here Stephen shares their discussion and asks if monitoring and measurement suppliers could be to blame?
AMEC chairman Richard Bagnall positions the argument against the metric here on Ragan. My favourite is no.13. Are you convinced?
Sometimes we just need to see how measurement has been done well, right? This deck does exactly that. Check out these great case studies from a past AMEC event. Successful measurement and not a rate card in sight.
Reach is an important part of measurement but you need to ensure you have the right figures to demonstrate awareness. Manchester-based PR agency Smoking Gun reveals how they measure PR success and why you need to be cautious with ‘reach’ data.
You get the coverage. Now it’s time to prove how it made your audience aware. But what next? Last week I spoke at a UK CIPR event about exactly that. Check out my slides where I share how to be realistic with your numbers and then prove the audience took action beyond awareness.
Ultimately AVE has been in reports as a way to get to a financial figure but as it’s not a great measure of success, what’s the alternative? The C-Suite wants to hear business impact and sales and analytics is the way to prove it. Read on if you like the sound of that.
Step inside the MVF PR team and find out how their data-led PR campaigns are driving traffic and winning awards.
Media lists, writing, monitoring, coverage reports, brainstorms.. Do you have a to-do list as long as your arm like me? Then read this great article on prioritisation on the Harvard Business Review. You’ll be feeling stress-free in no time.
Queen of measurement Katie Paine highlights that with fewer than 1 in 3 Americans trusting the media right now why are so many PR pros still mainly media focused? Only true outcome measurement will tell us if media placement works so ensure to measure right!
In order to improve PR performance this year and smash our KPIs we have to understand what we’ve achieved. Ensure you know how to analyse your results this year and not just report on them. Download our ebook PRetrospective now.
If you stay in the office late in your PR role then please look out for new book ‘Calm Company’ from Jason Fried, founder & CEO at Basecamp. Set for release later this year Jason promises to reveal how the employees at Basecamp are the most productive and successful than ever but also haven’t said “It’s crazy at work” for years. Inspiring.
All tips and articles were taken from the PR Resolution newsletter over the last 12months. If you would like to join the Resolution and receive the monthly newsletter from me in your inbox please sign up here.
Finally…
We’re working on something new. The never-ending cycle of coverage update emails can make you feel like you’re stuck on a hamster wheel.
Our next product might help.
Request early access http://hamster.coveragebook.com | https://medium.com/the-resolution/55-tips-tools-and-articles-that-will-super-charge-your-public-relations-knowledge-in-2018-45c0081eadca | ['Stella Bayles'] | 2018-01-15 10:30:39.121000+00:00 | ['Pr', 'Marketing', 'Pr Tools', 'Public Relations', 'Pr Resolution'] |
Google Data Studio. It’s Free But Is It Any Good? | Google Data Studio. It’s Free But Is It Any Good?
A product review based on my 6 major differentiators of BI tools
I’ll be evaluating Data Studio based on 6 different criteria. They are, for me, the 6 major differentiators of BI tools. They are:
Connectors Data management Calculations Data visualisation Interactivity Publishing
1. Connectors
Photo by fabio on Unsplash
So, connectors are the data sources that the tool will let you ‘connect’ to. With Data Studio, these are separated out into 2 different groups. Google provided connectors and those created by 3rd party developers that are offered via the Data Studio platform.
Let’s start with the Google connectors. The majority of them are for products and services within the Google ecosystem, so things like Google Analytics, Ads, Sheets, Search Console and Youtube. In addition to these you also have connectors for MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. And then you have a connector for uploading csv (comma separated value) files.
All of the Google provided data connectors are 100% free to use whereas the 3rd party developed, partner, ones you’ll need to pay for. I say that but I haven’t actually been through all of the 302 connectors available, at the time of writing, to check. But it’s a pretty good guess to say that you’re either paying to use the connector or you’re already paying to use the service that the connector is for.
Anyway, having over 300 partner connectors at your disposal with more being added all the time is pretty amazing. And considering that Data Studio itself is free to use, it means that you’re only really paying for connectors that you actually need and not a bunch of ones that you never will.
I won’t go into all of the partner connectors but some of the ones I use are Mailchimp, Amazon Seller Central and Facebook (both Insights and Ads). There are a few partners, like Power My Analytics and Supermetrics, who offer a whole range of different connectors. The benefit of this being that you’re not subscribing to lots of different services to get all of your data into Data Studio. Ok so we’ve looked at the available connectors, now let’s talk about Data Management.
2. Data Management
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Data management relates to things like how tools store data and the functionalities available for joining data sources together.
This is perhaps one area where you’ll find Data Studio to be fairly limited. So what can it do?
Well, when it comes to the Google data sources, Sheets, Analytics, Ads etc, Data Studio doesn’t store any of the source data by default. The data sources are queried where they are via their APIs. The only data that Data Studio does store are the results of queries. This functionality is called Data Freshness and you can set it for each data source you create. The way it works is that when you execute a query, Data Studio stores the result. If the same query is executed again during the Data Freshness interval you set, Data Studio won’t go back to the original data source to ask for the same results, it will simply go and retrieve them from the results cache. At the end of the data Freshness interval, the cache empties itself and starts collecting results again. Basically, it’s a simple way of speeding up the delivery of query results.
One way that Data Studio does store data is via one of its native connectors called Extract Data. Basically, once you’ve created a data source you can then use this connector to upload a snapshot of it to Google’s servers. This snapshot can then be auto-updated either daily, weekly or monthly. So it’s not that flexible. Also, it does have limits. You can only extract up to 100mb of data for each data source. On the plus side, you can upload data from sources like Google Analytics which then gives you access to row-level data that you don’t get when querying via the Analytics API.
When it comes to joining different data sources together, Data Studio does have a data blending functionality that can be very useful for basic use cases. However, it is quite limited. Firstly, you can only join data sources together using a LEFT OUTER JOIN. If you’re not familiar with what this is then don’t worry, just know that it’s only one of 4 different possible join types. More advanced BI tools will allow you to choose between the different join types. Secondly, and even more limiting for me, is that you can’t do calculations across blended data sources. So you can’t, say, take one metric from one data source and multiply it by a metric from another with blended data. This brings us on nicely to point number 3.
3. Calculations
Photo by Clayton Robbins on Unsplash
When it comes to calculations in Data Studio, you can create new calculated fields using various functions. The syntax is based on SQL so if you’re already familiar with SQL you should find writing formulas fairly easy. If you’re not then there will be the obligatory learning curve before you become proficient. Apart from being able to duplicate existing fields and modifying their properties, all new fields are created by writing formulas, there’s no easy-to-use graphical interface to make life easier when, for example, you’d like to create groups of values from fields.
For most simple formulas and calculations, the vast majority, Data Studio is perfectly fine and will be able to handle what you need it to. However, there are certain limitations that you may come up against that you would expect to be possible but that aren’t. I’m thinking specifically about things like not being able to compare one metric or dimension to another to test conditions in formulas. So, for example, you can’t create a formula that says if metric1 is greater than metric2 then do this else do that. And you can’t use calculations like, if metric1 multiplied by metric2 is greater than a specific number then do this else do that. There is a workaround for that but still, for me, it should be possible out of the box.
What this means in practical terms is that you might need to do some of the calculations in the original data source before connecting it to Data Studio. Which is fine if you’re working with Google sheets but not if you don’t have access to the underlying source data. So, my verdict is that if you’re just starting out with BI tools or if your reporting needs aren’t too advanced, you’ll find Data Studio does everything you need it to. If you’re looking for more advanced calculation functionalities then you might be a little disappointed.
Having said that, Google is adding more functionalities all the time to improve the tool. In fact, just recently, they released an update that allows you to create things called Parameters that you can use in basic predictive analysis situations. They allow you to set variable number or text values that can be referenced in, and impact, other calculations.
4. Data Visualisation
Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash
Next up, data visualisation. This relates not only to the different visualisation types available but also how they’re built within the interface.
When it comes to visualisations, there are currently 33 variations on 13 different visualisation types to choose from. Everything from basic tables and scorecards through to bullets and treemaps. In fact there are all the most common types and everything you’ll need for most of your visualisation needs. But that’s not all that’s available. There are also what are called Community Visualisations. Ones that have been built by 3rd parties and that are also available to use for free in reports and dashboards. So you have things like candlestick and waterfall charts that can be useful for stocks and financial data.
The way you build each of these different visualisations is made as simple as possible by Google in the Data Studio Interface.
Basically, for each chart, graph, table etc only the elements necessary for building each specific type are displayed. This is great, if you’re a beginner to BI tools, because it eliminates almost entirely the chance that you’ll add something somewhere you shouldn’t.
For each visualisation, you have a data tab and a style tab. The data tab is where you add dimensions and metrics to build and configure the query to set date periods and add filters. And the style tab is where you can configure the look and feel of the visualisation. Colours, fonts, axes, etc.
For the most part you’ll build all your visualisations in Data Studio’s report builder. There is a functionality called Data Explorer which allows you to more easily analyse and discover your data outside of the report builder. But Data Studio’s workflow seems to emphasise going straight from connecting your data to building reports. Which is absolutely fine but I think I’d prefer more separation and distinction between data discovery and building dashboards.
You can actually build some really good-looking and interactive dashboards with Data Studio. There are lots of different themes available or you can create your own customised theme. However you can’t actually save your custom themes, you can only duplicate an existing report that has your custom theme to use again, which isn’t great.
Other than the visualisations themselves you can also add things like text boxes, shapes and images. And you can embed content from external sources like Google docs or YouTube. Overall pretty good AND very easy to use. It’s kind of like building interactive powerpoint slides.
Talking of interactivity.
5. Interactivity
Photo by Daniel Norris on Unsplash
When it comes to interactivity, you can break this down into 2 categories. First you have visualisation-level interactivity and second you have report-level interactivity. As you can imagine, the first is added to visualisations and the second is added to reports as a whole.
For individual visualisations you have different options depending on the type of chart but for most of them you can apply drill down functionality to be able to go from one level of data down to another. You have what are called optional metrics which let you change the metric contained in a chart of a report. Metric sliders to be able to change the range of values contained in a chart and the Apply Filter functionality that allows you to click on elements within charts and use them as filters that can be applied to all other charts from the same data source. It’s something that I like a lot and find very useful.
In terms of report-level interactivity, you can add things Data Studio calls Controls. Basically filters. Data range filters as well as standard data filters. And there are different ways of displaying these filters in a report. You have things like drop down lists, fixed size lists, input boxes and sliders. You really do have all the tools you need to make some really good-looking and interactive dashboards.
6. Publishing
Photo by Stephen Dawson on Unsplash
Publishing reports in Data Studio is very similar to sharing in Google as a whole, with Docs and Sheets etc. You can add people to your report via their email address or name if they’re in your organisation, and you can set what permissions they have. Either Editor, Viewer or both.
Then you have the less secure link-sharing options. These are, anyone within your organisation can edit or view, anyone with the link and then anyone on the internet. Though quite why you’d want anyone on the internet to edit your reports is a complete mystery to me.
Another great feature when it comes to reports is the ability to embed them into webpages, blog posts etc.
But it’s not just reports that you can share. Data Studio is a collaborative tool so you can work on building dashboards with other people by also allowing them access to data sources within the account.
Conclusion
Overall Google Data Studio is a fantastic tool for anyone who wants to get started in BI or who simply wants to go beyond excel and produce automated interactive reports. The interface is very easy to navigate around and the workflow is kept as simple as possible. What’s more, it is completely free to use so you can’t get better than that! As with any tool there is a learning curve to becoming proficient, especially when it comes to writing formulas for calculated fields and getting to grips with some of the more advanced functionalities but, like with any tool, the more you use it the more you’ll get to grips with it. | https://towardsdatascience.com/google-data-studio-its-free-but-is-it-any-good-debf5d11bbbd | ['Adam Finer'] | 2020-11-27 08:58:03.207000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Business Intelligence', 'Product Reviews', 'Google Data Studio'] |
What is Equity in Startups? | Suppose 2 people started a company, initially they would need to create some number of shares for the company. for example, they choose to create 1000 shares for their company.
Now after some discussion, they agreed to have 500–500 shares each. that means they both will own 50% of the company. Equity represents how much stake does own by an individual in the company.
And based on some calculations it finalized that company valuation (worth) is 1000$, which means each share worth 1$.
Let’s say they got an investor to invest 100$ in their company, that means the investor will get 100 shares of the company. Now, none of the founders will reduce their share count but instead, the company will issue 100 new shares (Share ownership rarely changes, when there is a need to have a new partnership, the company always issues new shares).
Initially, we had 1000 shares with a valuation of 1000$. After the investment, the company created 100 new shares. Now if we do the math, there are now 1100 shares for the company. and the valuation of the company now became 1100$.
Let’s see how much equity each of them has in the company. Founder 1 & 2 will have 500 shares each which now represents around 45.45% of the company and investor has around 9.09% of the company. | https://medium.com/@manojahirwar11/what-is-equity-e5eefea1ce10 | ['Manoj Ahirwar'] | 2020-11-28 15:49:59.453000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Equity', 'Startup', 'Funding', 'Startup Lessons'] |
How to get into cryptocurrency in under 7 minutes. | “When I first learned that you pay anyone anonymously across the internet with no fees, I was searching the pants off of google for a working link.” — SWIM
Fig 1. Source
In 2005, this is what it looked like to set up a blockchain wallet.
So you want to crypto, eh? Well you must frist understand that your “wallet,” yup, your digital “wallet,” is your passport to the cryptoverse. Lose that, and you’re screwed.
Your wallet’s private key cryptographically signs everything you do on the blockchain. It’s like your signature. You become the only one who can act on your behalf.
Day 1: Private key hygiene
Baby turtles going out to the ocean. Source
I found a sweet app called Trust for iPhone and for Android that lets your keep your private keys secure on your phone. On the computer, I use Metamask for Chrome and you can download the official Ethereum wallet. Make absolutely sure to back up your private key in multiple safe locations.
You can also buy hardware wallets that keep youtr private key safe behind yet anotjher layer of cryptography. Trezor, Ledger and Yubico onto some really cool stuff. Yubico is the cheapest option.
Step 2: Moving $$$ into your wallet
Once you have a wallet, Coinbase is the easiest way to get crypto currency. Download it on the App Store or Google Play. But you don’t need Ethereum OR Bitcoin to play on the new internet…
If you’re interested in trading on cryptocurrency exchanges and markets, chack out Radar Relay, a project by a good friend of mine.
Step 2.5: Decentralized apps.
The most interesting part about blockchain (in my opinion) is the opportunity to decentralize networks, location services, social media, chat, impact investment, organizations, and communities. The decentralized internet puts its users in control of their private data, their content, and their currency. It usurps the power weilded by mega-corporations and tech giants that monetize your data and attention.
Cryptography isn’t all business though. Cryptokitties is a game where you breed and trade cryptographically unique kitties.
You can keep up to date with new ÐApps on State of the ÐApps and DApp News . And of course, never stop searching!
Step 3: Get a job
Websites like Steemit and DTube allow users to get paid for their own content. You can follow me on Steemit here. Gitcoin pays you to contribute to open-source.
Links
This week, I’m ommiting links and instead pointing you towards the Facebook page which is where I’ll be sharing all kinds of interesting news and developments from the emerging tech world! | https://medium.com/the-resilient-review/how-to-get-into-cryptocurrency-in-under-7-minutes-b412c25cb21d | ['Nick Place'] | 2018-03-20 15:48:24.215000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'How To', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Emerging Technology'] |
Making the Band: Building Exceptional Design Teams at Spotify | Although we offer two avenues for growth, I won’t focus on the expert journey in this post. Instead, I want to discuss the difficult choice that is to leave the expert path for management. Among my senior individual contributors and many of the designers I interview, I’ve started to see the same pattern when I ask them what path they want to go down: they’re uncertain.
And who can blame them? One side leads to running teams and projects, to managing people and creating impact through others. The other continues along the expert journey to the mastery of the craft, leadership without the need to manage, and — above all else — shipping great work. Any well-informed designer who’s spent time thinking about this won’t take the decision lightly, which could be a good sign they’re ready for managing others; they most likely realize how big of a change this will be and how important it is to go into the role with their eyes open.
Get them ready to sign the deal
Once leaders and designers have an idea of who’s up for pursuing management, it’s time to audition. To do so, bear in mind that:
“What got you here won’t get you there”: Many leaders have gone through this evolution themselves, so they know this old adage is true. What made you successful as a designer usually has little bearing on your success as a manager.
Many leaders have gone through this evolution themselves, so they know this old adage is true. What made you successful as a designer usually has little bearing on your success as a manager. Great designer ≠ great manager: Everybody has seen great designers become bad managers. A lot of us have had terrible managers, and we know what it feels like when you have to figure it all out on our own. I’ve learned firsthand that it’s not necessarily the designer’s fault, but actually, their manager’s. As leaders, it’s our responsibility to help designers decide if management’s right for them, and then put them on a path to success.
Here are three important questions that would-be managers should consider when thinking about their future. If you’re coaching someone, or struggling yourself through the decision process about which path to take, it might be helpful to use these as a starting point.
1. Are you willing to give up control of the day-to-day details of the work?
This is like asking someone to set aside everything they’ve been trained to do for most of their career. It’s impossible to have control over all the details once you’re managing a team, and this can create some fear for designers as they move away from laser focus on craft and they’re no longer responsible for the day-to-day design output.
But remind your designers that a manager’s life is full of problems to be solved with design: you just design different things. Managers are designing and redesigning processes, designing a team, and designing how individuals can work effectively together to create the best possible output — these are all great ways to use your tools and creativity to solve problems.
2. Are you OK not receiving credit for good work and taking the heat when things go wrong?
As a manager, you’re no longer directly responsible for most of the product design work, but you are accountable for it. This means you’ll probably start receiving less direct feedback on the great work you’re doing and this can be difficult when you’ve spent your career as an individual contributor getting your value at work from direct impact on the product.
However, I’ll bet you will find that the praise your designers will receive is more than enough to keep you energized and full of pride at work. It’s definitely the case for myself, and I’m sure every manager can recall many moments where they’ve felt this glow of team accomplishment.
3. Do you have a leadership style that is focused more on people rather than tasks?
Lastly, managers have to deliver better results by enabling people, rather than by focusing on tasks and doing it all themselves.
Your goal as a manager is to optimize the people around you by empowering them to do their best work. Managers-to-be should focus on that outcome, and learn how to delegate, instead of trying to solve every single problem on their own.
These questions are just the start of the process for any designer making the mental shift to manager. And that mental shift is really hard. Yet again, it’s kind of like being in a band. It’s not easy to go from the front to the back of the stage, but your role behind the scenes matters. And it matters a lot.
From garage gigs to stadium tours
When everyone’s finally singing the same tune, the band is ready to go from the small letters at the bottom of the poster to headlining the show. Now it’s time to think about other aspects of your band. Here are three lessons I’ve personally learned:
1. Building the culture of your band
As you guide your team to success, a critical part of the journey will be building your team’s culture. Every manager knows how critical this is, and yet they also know how easy it is to have personality clashes tear apart a great team. The good news? Some steps can be taken to protect a team’s culture and prevent the band from breaking up:
Hire the right people
For a manager, getting the right people for a team takes precedence over everything else they do. That’s the most important part of the job, and no matter how effective their recruitment partners are, a lot of this work still falls on their shoulders. Some of us are lucky enough to have great talent acquisition partners. But no matter your situation, here’s the advice I follow: “When in doubt, don’t hire, keep looking.”
This advice from the book Good to Great, by Jim Collins, seems pretty basic yet it’s critical to remember. When you’re understaffed and the team is spread thin, it can be super tempting to hire someone who seems “good enough.” But a bad hire is definitely not worth the fallout. Managers have to consciously design their teams because they’re not just hiring an individual, they’re hiring someone who could dramatically shift the culture of the entire group.
Additionally, managers need to hire diverse thinkers if they want their team to make good decisions together, and this takes time and planning. A team won’t be balanced if the members are a bunch of lead singers — the right mix of talent, skills, and perspectives is what makes a team sing in harmony.
Welcome to the band
Once you’ve poured your heart and soul into finding the best possible people for your team, you have to onboard them properly. Research (Jobvite) shows that 29% of turnover happens during the first 90 days of employment. With a structured onboarding program, you can increase retention by up to 82% (Glassdoor). | https://medium.com/spotify-design/making-the-band-building-exceptional-design-teams-at-spotify-d5b491cb07f6 | ['Spotify Design'] | 2020-07-09 15:09:13.950000+00:00 | ['Spotify', 'Design Management', 'Design', 'Design Teams'] |
“Behind the Scenes” AR Filter | “Behind the Scenes” AR Filter
This realtime face-tracked filter enumerates a wide range of computational photography techniques that work behind the scenes to make face-tracked filters like this even possible. Computational photography is the object of analysis in this piece, through which I hope to illuminate how images are becoming increasingly processed by computers and further entwined with complex information systems.
“Behind the Scenes”, 2020. SOOC Instagram Filter, made with Spark AR Studio.
The types of computational photography techniques listed range from simple image stacking, to AI-generating, 3D rendering, and image compressing, as well as techniques that utilize special hardware for multispectral capture, microscopic capture (such as protein imaging) and telescopic capture (such as deep astronomical imaging).
The font used to scribe each technique is Windsor, the title font used in the Whole Earth Catalog, a publication first distributed late 60’s. The Catalog was a zeitgeist work at the center of the then counter cultural movement and was used as a veritable Bible of all things environmental and technological. It became a groundwork text for the later dominant cyberculture, as historian Fred Turner argues, for it was widely read by early technologists in California’s Bay Area. The font’s use here represents the manufactured convergence of the environmental and technological landscapes, of which the genre of computational photography is a product of.
Inspired by the work of Zhang Huan and Kerr Cirilo, artists who warped textual artifacts within an image to remediate the text’s original meeting, I hope to remediate the text that is computational photography. By using the labels of the techniques I simultaneously refer to the textual code underlying such techniques as well as refer to the idea of label itself, which is a key feature to computational photography that has been programmed to detect objects and faces within an image frame.
This filter is made accessible on Instagram, owned by Facebook, which is one of the largest aggregators of image-label pairings. It is common knowledge that Facebook sells these pairings en masse for targeted hypergrowth marketing and uses these pairings as a raw dataset to train machine learning algorithms. What is less well known are the particular industry terms, concepts, and techniques that are the intellectual engines to these programs. In a conscious effort of sousveillance it is worth making these terms publicly visible.
To try this filter for yourself you must use a mobile device. Open @tywensnotes in the Instagram app and find the “Behind the Scenes” filter in the filter gallery. The filter tab is indicated by a smiley face on the profile. | https://medium.com/@tywenkelly/behind-the-scenes-ar-filter-8a7913917157 | ['Tywen Kelly'] | 2020-12-03 22:48:43.600000+00:00 | ['Filters', 'AR'] |
Cancel The Holidays As If Your Child’s Life Depended On It | My daughter Ana in Dec 2016, her last Christmas
There is real grief associated with missing out on the traditions and rituals we’re accustomed to enjoying this time of year. I truly get it. My older daughter was diagnosed with cancer in the fall of 2012, when she was 11. That first holiday season post-cancer was hard. She’d undergone six weeks of chemotherapy, lost her hair, and ended up needing a liver transplant.
That year, the tumor in her belly grew so large that she looked pregnant. We waited on eggshells for a call from her doctors saying they had a viable liver donor. We planned for Thanksgiving and Christmas, hearts in our throats, knowing that she could easily spend both holidays in the hospital.
After that first harrowing year, we would have four more holiday seasons with Ana. There was never any certainty that she would be home — or alive — for the holidays. Each and every Thanksgiving and Christmas was dominated by the cancer that evaded every treatment and protocol her doctors threw at it. The very last Christmas was by far the hardest. The tumors had spread throughout her abdomen and lungs, growing so large in her lungs that they impacted blood flow and breathing.
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Which brings me to the 2020 holiday season. I have some words of advice for those of you that may be on the fence about seeing family this year. Should you risk it? How can you possibly cancel Thanksgiving or Christmas? What will the holidays look like if you can’t be with your family? I’m kind of an expert at this. I had to wing the holidays for five years, and then reinvent them after I lost my child. Here are some things to keep in mind that may help make the choice easier.
Lower your expectations
There’s no getting around the fact that canceling the holidays will suck. There will be exactly three people in my house celebrating Thanksgiving this year, including me. We’re not even getting a full turkey. My husband’s roasting turkey breast and we’ll do a few side dishes. I’ve already let go of my expectations for a more robust feast with family, the kind of celebration that helps me weather my grief during the dark winter months. I urge you to do the same. I know it’s hard, but the life you save could be your own, or your parent’s, or someone else’s medically fragile child (and, yes, I am thinking about how my older daughter was immunosuppressed after her liver transplant in 2013.)
Hang on to some traditions this year, but create new ones too
This approach has been life (and sanity) saving for me throughout many uncertain holidays. So, you’ve decided to stay home or cancel your extended family Thanksgiving. Good for you! But that doesn’t mean you have to dispense with all of the things you love about the holiday. I still plan to bake the cookies I bake every year and serve to the 9 or 10 people that we have over for the holiday (more for me!) But I also plan to take a morning walk on Thanksgiving (weather permitting), something that I’ve never done because I’m usually frantically cleaning the house before guests arrive.
Reach out to family however you can
There have been some holidays when my parents missed Thanksgiving because of their health. In those instances, I reached out by phone or (more recently) text, sent cards, and just checked in frequently with them on and around the holiday. No, it’s not the same as seeing them there at the table, but it does help take the sting out of missing them. This year, many of us have Zoom and other video conferencing apps that let us check in. Yes, it can be awkward and feel empty to talk over Zoom, but see my advice on lowering your expectations. The holiday season of 2020 is about surviving as best we can. Hopefully we won’t have to make this choice again next year.
Make plans as if your child has cancer
I realize this is a difficult ask. You don’t want to think about your child having cancer, much less plan a holiday around the possibility. But bear with me for just a minute. When Ana was sick, we had to adjust our lives around her illness. We became germaphobes. We removed all the towels from the bathroom and replaced them with paper towel dispensers because she was susceptible to mold and bacteria. We asked people not to reach into food dishes to taste things with their hands (again, because of the risk germs posed to her). We made sure no one was sick before we had people over and that meant we had to skip a holiday or two. If she’d gotten an infection, she would’ve ended up in the hospital. That was the best case scenario. Even a cold could’ve killed her within the first year after her transplant.
With this in mind, it’s hard for me to understand how skipping the holidays is even a choice. I mean, the virus is everywhere. I could be walking around with it and not know it. I could give it to my mother or my sister-in-law or my nieces.
They could all just as easily give it to me. That’s a terrifying thought. I have a deep understanding of loss — the kind of loss that shatters your entire worldview, leaving you bereft. I don’t think the same way that I once did — believing in luck, hoping for the best, and taking risks as if really bad things couldn’t happen to me. They can happen to me. They did happen to me. And they can happen to you too.
The choice you’re facing right now about whether or not to cancel the holidays isn’t really a choice. You should stay home and stay away from everyone but your immediate family. That’s the best way to remain safe and to keep your loved ones safe. Think of it as a lesson in resilience. If you can get through this holiday season with your life (and holiday spirit) intact, then you can weather anything. You’re trading one Thanksgiving for ten, twenty, or forty more.
I know nothing is certain and you want to live your life, but the stakes are higher this year. If you gather, then this could be your last Thanksgiving. That’s not hyperbole — it’s a blunt assessment of what’s at stake from someone who will never sit down to a Thanksgiving meal with her older daughter again. Death is forever and forever is a really long time. Please plan this year’s holidays accordingly. | https://medium.com/@caplarome/cancel-the-holidays-as-if-your-childs-life-depended-on-it-2140a61d30f8 | [] | 2020-12-20 07:52:18.411000+00:00 | ['Babies', 'Health', 'Humor', 'Life', 'Coronavirus'] |
Operation Night Watch | An Unparalleled Restoration
“The Operation Night Watch research team use the very latest technologies and continually push the boundaries of what was thought possible.” — Museum Director Taco Dibbits
The research phase of Operation Night Watch kicked off in 2019 with the construction of an ultra-transparent glass chamber, designed by French architect Jean Michel Wilmotte. Once the painting was secure inside the chamber, its frame was removed, and advanced imaging techniques were administered to learn what secrets were contained within.
Using macro X-ray fluorescence scanning and hyperspectral imaging, The Night Watch was scanned millimeter-by-millimeter to analyze chemical elements in the paint and pigments used. A total of 56 scans were performed — each requiring 24 hours to complete — in order to cover the entire surface of the painting. This type of equipment is crucial to a project like this because in being able to break down the elemental composition within the paint, the museum can determine the best way to preserve the painting.
The macro-XRF scans also yielded important details within the painting. It was determined that the chemical elements present are lead, iron, and calcium. The iron scan also uncovered feathers on a helmet of one of the background characters that Rembrandt painted out that cannot be seen by the naked eye, nor were they visible in the X-radiographs that were taken in the 1970’s. It was also discovered that Rembrandt used an arsenic-based pigment for some areas, such as gold embroidery on the clothing, that at the time was mainly used for paintings of still life, such as fruit and flowers.
Using a macro X-ray Powder Diffraction scanning process, the museum was able to break down pigment composition within the elements to an even further degree than the maco-XRF scans. By deflecting and reflecting radiation as it detects a pigment, the macro-XRPD identifies different crystalline structures of pigments at an atomic level, and makes it possible for Operation Night Watch to map the degradation conditions within the layers of paint.
In order to see the buildup of paint layers and to determine how the paint has changed over time, the researchers chose very specific areas to extract samples measuring around 200-micrometers, (1 micrometer is 0.000001 meters) too small to be seen by the naked eye. Once extracted, the sample is embedded in a small block of resin, then polished and photographed to be examined using microscopic techniques.
Probably the most incredible part for the followers of Operation Night Watch (so far) occurred in May, when the Rijksmuseum published a massive, 44.8 gigapixel image of The Night Watch, comprised of 528 different still photos. According to the museum, “The 24 rows of 22 pictures were stitched together digitally with the aid of neural networks.” The photo is so enormous, that zooming in allows the viewer to see individual brushstrokes and flecks of paint.
Currently, researchers are using a robotic camera to take more than 8,400 photos at a resolution of 5-micrometers. To put that in perspective, Rijksmuseum Senior Scientist Robert Erdmann explains, “A human red blood cell is 8-micrometers wide, so it would take a 2.2 array of our pixels to hold one human red blood cell.”
Once all the photos have been taken, they will be digitally assembled to form a single image, allowing researchers to view individual pigment particles and aid in preservation.
While COVID-19 has slowed Operation Night Watch to the point that the restoration phase, which was originally to begin shortly following summer 2020 has been pushed back to early 2021, the study of the painting has continued both virtually as well as in-person, albeit with greater social distance. Aided by advanced technology, as well as a remarkable team of experts, the Rijksmuseum has taken monumental strides that will not only guide them through the process of restoring and preserving The Night Watch for generations, but will also assist them in learning more than ever before about Rembrandt’s magnum opus. | https://medium.com/art-direct/operation-night-watch-d00882e032c2 | ['Josh Burleson'] | 2020-08-19 09:13:22.922000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Innovation', 'History', 'Art', 'Museums'] |
Human Brain — Reverse Engineering | The previous post addressed the foundations of the human brain and it’s Bayesian nature and left us with the question — how does the average calculation error over time actually matter to a brain that constantly needs to deal with acute mistakes at any given moment?
The answer lies in the free energy principle.
Any of the potential states of your body are death and dysfunction, according to the second law of thermodynamics. You are grateful to be alive and able to read this. Sooner or later, for each one of us, entropy will catch up and we will reach the physiologically unexpected but biologically possible and imminent state of death. Yet this is just what we have developed to discourage! We were “designed” by Nature to struggle for life, to fight anarchy, to escape entropy. The human body has adapted to sustain itself within planned, easily predictable states.
We accomplish such maintenance, according to the free energy principle, by suppressing our free energy, the information-theoretical equivalent of the overall (long-term average) prediction error. All we do (and all that every living being does) is done to minimise free energy on average and over time, which correlates to the role of the brain to mitigate predictive error.
And all this in order to remain inside the predicted, comparatively stable states… Why? Since only within a certain set of physiological states can we survive. Too hot and we’re dead, too cold and we’re going to die, too much oxygen and we’re going to die, too little oxygen and we’re going to die, et cetera. We would be destroyed by too much or too little of something, thus the simple biochemical concept of homeostasis.
To make a long story short, the following concepts, while working at varying stages of detail, are hypothesised to be equivalent:
cognitive level: minimise prediction error, maximise model fit
information-theoretic level: suppress free energy, reduce surprisal
physiological level: maintain homeostasis
physical level: resist entropy
biological level: survive
The result here is that predictive processing captures what the brain applies to the evolutionary fitness of the body. Both structural and functional aspects of the brain, including its anatomy, integration, neural physiology, electrophysiology, and psychophysiology, are also explained by the free energy theory. I must admit, however, that there’s still much about free energy I don’t understand, and so much math I haven’t gone through yet, that it would be preposterous for me to keep writing as if I can actually explain everything through this short post.
However, there are several objections to this principle. The major of these objections are as follows -
Sensory Deprivation
Shouldn’t the winning tactic be to inspire us to lock ourselves up in a quiet, silent space, if all our brains want is ‘low prediction errors’? What better way than depriving the body of sensory stimuli to make good decisions about anticipated sensory input? We can’t get high estimation errors in absolute darkness when we expect to see — black, black, and black.
However, while this technique can be successful (and relaxing) in the short term, it is not possible to escape the pressures of the universe and our bodies for long. No matter the degree of exteroceptive deprivation, the brain, being a body organ, never fails to produce interoceptive prediction cascades. We would soon feel bored, starving and motivated to leave the room again, bringing our bodies in increasingly unexpected situations. Locked for a long time in a quiet, silent space, we can’t preserve homeostasis. We have a hyperprior in Bayesian terms that occupying the same state for too long would raise the error in long-term prediction. It is typically more successful to engage with a stimulus-rich atmosphere to maintain within a spectrum of predicted states at all times (except, of course, when we need to sleep).
Human rationality
People are notoriously poor at probabilistic reasoning, at speaking of probability rationally. So if mental processes can barely handle Bayesian inference, how can we assume that the brain, which produces the mind, is Bayesian?
Any homunculus doing complex math does not occupy the Bayesian cortex. Its probabilistic inferences are not explicit, but implicit. Brain cells fire in a way that “naturally” approximates the Bayes laws, much as ants run in a way that “naturally” approximates the distributions of Gaussian and Pareto without the need for a chief ant strategist who determines his colony’s optimum course. Here, what does “naturally” mean? In the case of ants: pheromone secretion. In the case of neurons: Bayesian sampling.
The Bayesian brain is a sampler and not a calculator: it samples probability data from a local landscape (its environment). Through time, behavior and interpretation, related to a nearly infinite number of predictions, produce an essentially infinite number of samples from the unimaginably complex distributions of probability that constitute reality. This immense volume of data makes the brain (asymptotically) adhere to the rules of probability, thus mechanistically understanding the Bayes theorem. Of course, all such samples are not processed by the brain; it just uses them to refine its internal world model until it draws new samples from the actual local environment.
The human mind, by comparison, would rely on cognitive shortcuts (heuristics) to produce predictions from only a finite number of samples. Although this has proved to be evolutionarily adaptive, now it causes them to be cognitively biased and irrational statistically. Explain how sampling generates different reasoning biases in the Bayesian Brain without Probabilities. Note though, that laboratory studies on cognitive biases are conducted in extremely scarce environments. When people make everyday cognitive judgments in rich, familiar, realistic contexts, their reasoning can be much closer to Bayes optimality than with random judgments in a lab context where sampling is radically limited.
In addition, note how the confirmation bias (our propensity to rely on evidence supporting our preconceptions) immediately follows from the theory of the Bayesian brain. After all, for the internal construct our brain uses to make predictions, preconceptions are vital. Our preconceptions, what we notice and rely on, are strongly determined by what we already know. And since predictive processing lets us look for whatever is more probable to validate our predictions, as a technique to mitigate predictive error, it would usually prefer confirmatory proof, rather than shocking evidence.
Offline Cognition
The brain does so much more than perceive the world and command motor actions. Not everything we do is directly linked to perception and action. We plan vacations, make financial decisions, learn about political claims, and ruminate about incidents that occurred years ago. Such cognitive activities happen “offline,” i.e., without immediate real-world interaction. How can predictive processing account for that?
Offline cognition is just a type of high-level computation that does not actually spread forecasts all the way down to the lowest levels of the hierarchical cascade (or suppresses low-level model updates by dramatically decreasing the respective precision weights) — although it might at some point, in which case the timescales are simply much larger than those of “online” cognition, i.e., cognition concerned with immediate sensorimotor interactions in the present environment.
Phenomenology
The universe does not look like a confusing collection of entangled distributions of probability density. It looks vibrant and vivid and unambiguous in general, always breathtaking. So how can we assume that nothing but predictive processing is cognition? Isn’t this overly reductive?
Predictive processing is a hypothesis of how information about the environment is encoded by the brain, not how people perceive it. Phenomenology is simply on a higher level of description than cognitive science, similar to how physics could (on an even lower level and to little avail) describe cognitive processes in terms of molecules, atoms, and electrons. How much psychology can be simplified to predictive processing would be a more fascinating issue.
Falsifiability
If everything about the brain and mind can be clarified by predictive processing, does this not reveal its triviality? Moreover, researchers may retroactively tweak their previous conclusions to make any experimental result fit a Bayesian interpretation post hoc. This will suggest that little is clarified adequately by the hypothesis. What prevents the theory of the Bayesian brain from being trivial and unfalsifiable?
Evolution, too, is an incredibly optimistic theory which, with just a few simple tools, attempts to explain everything about life and biological systems. Of course, this calls for a lot of post-hoc theorizing, especially in the field of evolutionary psychology, where tales are frequently separated from alternate explanations. Yet this doesn’t invalidate the theory immediately. What it suggests is that we have to think deeper to come up with plausible alternate theories and stipulate independent evidence-based priors. “There is independent proof, for instance, that we anticipate light to arrive more or less from above, that things move fairly slowly, and that we expect others to look at us.” Neuroscientific studies should integrate such types of evidence.
It is possible to falsify predictive processing and the free energy theory. This will falsify the hypothesis if descending prediction signals were found not to bear predicted accuracies. Or it may turn out that, in terms of prediction error signalling, certain brain regions are not better represented. Finally, a wholesale falsification, though extremely doubtful, would be the finding of an organism that does not at all function to remain within planned states (to preserve homeostasis).
So in conclusion, predictive modelling provides a paradigm at the computational level to explain all fields of neuroscience and cognitive science. While the Bayesian brain hypothesis is still in its infant stage, from a wide variety of diverse areas, confirmatory data floods in on a weekly basis. And while it gives a widely inclusive and optimistic description of the brain and the cognition of people, it leaves something unknown. We must also interact with the paradigms of evolution for specification (as cognition has an evolutionary history), embodied embeddedness (as cognition is embedded in physical environments), and socio-cultural circumstances (as cognition is situated in social and cultural contexts). And if all layers of research are covered and integrated can we fully understand how humans function. | https://medium.com/@millennial-talks/human-brain-reverse-engineering-5d15e4b6f713 | ['Millennial Talks'] | 2020-12-26 19:57:09.708000+00:00 | ['Cognitive Bias', 'Predictions', 'Brain', 'Statistics', 'Engineering'] |
DasherDirect- A Financial Platform Designed for Dashers | New Business Prepaid Visa Card and mobile banking app offers no-fee daily direct deposits, cash-back rewards, and convenient banking functionality
By: Brandon Silverman, Strategy & Operations; Emma Glazer, Dasher Marketing; Kate Cona, Strategic Partnerships
At DoorDash, we strive to build the best platform for Dashers to access flexible, independent earning opportunities. We know that the most effective way to make positive change is to listen to Dashers and learn about what they need to be most successful on the platform. Over the past few months, we’ve fielded surveys and conducted interviews with Dashers about the types of financial services they’d like to see. What we heard loud and clear was this: Dashers want faster and more flexible access to their earnings, and they want cash back on key business expenses — most notably, rewards on fuel.
With Dashers’ needs top of mind, we’re excited to launch DasherDirect — DoorDash’s first financial platform for Dashers, featuring a Business Prepaid Visa Card and mobile banking app. With no-fee daily deposits, convenient mobile banking functionality, and cash-back rewards, the DasherDirect platform empowers Dashers with more flexibility and control over their earnings.
DasherDirect is powered by our partners at Payfare and issued by Stride Bank. Through the DasherDirect app, Dashers can check their account balance, pay bills, transfer money, set savings goals and find no fee ATMs on the go — without worrying about overdraft fees or minimum account balance requirements. At launch, the Business Prepaid Visa Card will allow Dashers to earn 2% cash back on fuel at any station when they use their card, with more benefits coming in 2021.
Through DasherDirect, we’ll be able to serve the underbanked and unbanked population in the U.S., opening doors for Dashers to access earnings in new ways. Many banks carry fees, making them prohibitive and burdensome, and providing a financial option for Dashers that not only unlocks their earnings faster and sooner, but also without additional fees, was an important step forward in serving the needs of our growing Dasher community.
“Over seven million households in the U.S. are without a checking or savings account*, and with the support of our partners we’re proud to provide financial resources to more Americans looking for flexible earnings opportunities,” said Tony Xu, CEO and Cofounder of DoorDash. “This is a major step forward in introducing new tools to empower Dashers who count on DoorDash for reliable, independent and flexible work.”
“This is one of the best ideas DoorDash has had,” said Dasher Roland Pelletier. “The biggest thing I like is that there’s no fee for daily direct deposits, and with the DasherDirect program I have total control of the app and my experience with it so I know what’s in the bank. As a Dasher the gas savings are huge, and I plan to use the card for my daily expenses. At the end of the year, it’s going to be a lot easier to itemize my spending as a Dasher.”
The DasherDirect launch is part of DoorDash’s Main Street Strong Pledge to empower local communities, which includes enabling Dashers to achieve greater financial empowerment and meet their professional goals. Flexible work opportunities with low barriers to entry are more crucial than ever, which is why DoorDash also launched a multi-year partnership with the National Urban League to create a first-of-its-kind program designed for underserved communities to help them attain new job skills and entrepreneurial success through financial literacy training, educational funding, job programs, and more. As part of the Pledge, DoorDash also announced a $12 million Dasher rewards program that will run through May 2021, and which will highlight and recognize the commitment of many dedicated Dashers across the globe.
“Economic empowerment requires a thorough understanding of financial transactions, credit building and savings,” National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial said. “There is a critical need within the African-American community for pre-paid debit cards like the DasherDirect Prepaid Visa that eliminates onerous access fees for users to view their balance and access convenient ATMs. It’s a breath of fresh air when companies like DoorDash make a sincere effort to provide equal access to technology and financial empowerment.”
The DasherDirect app is available for iOS and Android mobile users on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in select regions across the East Coast, with a full nationwide rollout planned for early 2021. DoorDash will continue to add exclusive new rewards to DasherDirect in the months to come as the program is rolled out nationwide. We’ll also continue seeking valuable feedback from the Dasher community to ensure this product meets their needs and exceeds their expectations.
For more information and to see if DasherDirect is available in your city, visit https://get.doordash.com/dasherdirect.
* FDIC Survey of Household Use of Banking and Financial Services, 2019 | https://blog.doordash.com/dasherdirect-a-financial-platform-designed-for-dashers-9d90a955301d | [] | 2021-02-16 21:43:12.206000+00:00 | ['Gig Economy', 'Logistics', 'Financial Freedom', 'Financial Inclusion', 'DoorDash'] |
cfgmgmtcamp 2020: Kapitan presentation by Ricardo Amaro | #father #kapitan #devops. Head of SRE at Synthace. Ex DeepMind. Ex Google. Opinions are my own
Follow | https://medium.com/kapitan-blog/cfgmgmtcamp-2020-kapitan-presentation-by-ricardo-amaro-80888c893916 | ['Alessandro De Maria'] | 2020-02-05 08:24:38.225000+00:00 | ['Kubernetes', 'Cfgmgmtcamp', 'Kapitan', 'Helm'] |
The Morning After Your Trauma Resurfaces | For a moment, last night was absolutely lovely. The fire was roaring in the backyard of the house my partner and I recently moved into. I was amongst great company and you would think that everything would have been fine.
However, the last few weeks have been mentally and physically exhausting. Combine the stress of moving and juggling work with some family drama and the suicide of my ex-boyfriend plus a random song that triggered me, and I was toast.
Out of nowhere, I found myself crying on my bathroom floor barely able to breathe with the pain so horrendous it felt like it was consuming me. Even several hours later when my partner came to bed I was still sobbing.
I never managed to fall asleep. There is no worse feeling in my opinion than starting your day just wishing you were waking up tomorrow and could push the fast forward button.
I have an old coffee cup that I bought as a joke that reads “It is what it is” which seems fitting for this morning. | https://medium.com/fearless-she-wrote/the-morning-after-your-trauma-resurfaces-b8283d8789ed | ['Carrie Wynn'] | 2020-09-22 18:47:56.329000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'This Happened To Me', 'Self', 'Healing', 'Women'] |
The last day I saw my little brother alive was 12 years and three days ago. | The last day I saw my little brother alive was 12 years and three days ago.
He kindly agreed to drive me to the airport, which, being at Midway Airport on the south side of Chicago, was near his pickup spot. He bought McDonald’s for us, and we sat in the car in silence for most of the trip, listening to Wu-Tang Clan and Eminem as we drove. When we got to Midway, he said, “I love you.” That was it. We hugged for about a minute, and before I walked away, I took one long look at his face and said, “Make good choices. You matter.” I walked out, and little did I know, I’d never see him alive again. Just a few days later, on the 15th, he was gone.
A week prior, he visited my apartment to wait for me to come home from work. He was hanging out with my friends. When he left, one of them came into my room and said, “Chelsea, Alex doesn’t look good. Some of the ways his face looks reminded me of my brother when he was using heroin — his eyes, his skin tone.” It blindsided me. I knew this friend’s brother had been in recovery and struggled, and I knew Alex was not mentally or physically doing well. I expressed concerns with no proof or solutions. It was a gut feeling I had, a sibling bond response. I knew when things are off, and there were many, many signs that he was struggling, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I knew it was drugs in my heart, and I tried to let my parents know this a few times before leaving for California to visit my friends on the 11th. Before I left, I handed my mom a piece of paper with three treatment centers that I found online — Gateway, Nicasa, and the Lake County Health Department. I asked her to take Alex for an assessment. The urgency I felt was piercing.
Alex was supposed to pick me up from the airport on December 15. Throughout the morning and early afternoon on that day, I prepared to travel back from CA, I called Alex several times, and it went right to voicemail. I thought it was strange. Before I got onto my flight, my dad called me, explaining that he would pick me up. I asked, “Where is Alex?” He said, “He’s fine. We will talk when you get here.” I knew that Alex was dead at that moment, but my soul was not telling my brain that, and thankfully my parents spared me a horrific trip knowing that he was gone. I had prophecies/dreams about Alex dying, and I shared my fears with my parents many times. The cosmic connection Alex and I had told me that he was gone, and texts throughout the evening started coming in that confused me as people in our close circle found out. My 11-year-old sister texted me at 10:30 PM, “Hi, how are you?” That was weird. The plane ride home was empty and dark. Besides me, there was only one person on the plane. He sat across the row from me. He puzzled me. He was wearing a red clown nose and was tall, about Alex’s age. At one point during the flight, he leaned over and struck up a conversation. I asked him what was up with the clown nose. He said, “I am headed home to Chicago after six months at clown school. Oh, by the way, my name is Alex. What’s your name?” There was Alex through this other Alex, looking over me as I took the journey to find out his fate. He was protecting me as I tried to defend him.
After a debacle with lost luggage, my dad, looking white as a ghost, walked into the exit terminal to get me when I got to the airport. I knew, but I didn’t want to hear the words. He took my bag and my hand and walked me to my step-mom’s truck. When I got in, the first person I saw was my mom, who, too, was in a state of shock. I said, “Where’s Alex? Who’s going to tell me what happened?” Then the words came out that he had died from a suspected heroin overdose. I must have blacked out because I don’t remember what happened between the car ride and the next day other than my house’s lifeless energy. I floated around for a month or so as we got through the funeral and as the dust settled. I don’t know the word to describe how it felt. Loss. Betrayal. Rage. Trauma. Shock. The feeling was galactic, otherworldly. I couldn’t sleep without a light on. I withdrew from people except for my mom and a couple of close friends.
Before I was this version of me, I was a lonely, scared, lost person. I was furious at the world and my parents for years before I forced myself into intensive therapy to address it and decided to take an active role in Live4Lali, including going back to school to get my Masters in Social Work. I stopped talking to my parents for a couple of years to deal with the shame and disappointment about the blame I placed on them. It took me a couple of years to humble myself enough to realize that they were only doing what they knew how to do based on their experiences and conditioning.
The one person I could never get angry at was Alex. I felt his pain. I understood the lack of control, guilt, shame, disappointment, despair, fury, and contempt for traumas he had endured. While we were completely different people, we shared a battle for emotional survival. We both used substances, people, food, work/school for temporary relief.
Our journeys matter. I am a believer that one thing leads to another. The last 12 years are hard to fathom because the urgency was always “just keep going; keep surviving.” Live4Lali, the nonprofit I started with my parents to support anyone impacted by substance use, has been my vehicle to surviving this heartache, and I am eternally grateful that those sharing in our mission are proud to attach my brother’s name to theirs every day.
When we have been through hell and back, we can do hard things because nothing will ever be that awful again.
When we have science, we can do better; something meaningful and useful.
When we have felt love and compassion, we can freely give that to other people.
When we choose fear, we accept the status quo.
When we seek justice, we end oppression and adversity little by little with every move.
Keep going, keep fighting, keep being.
You can get through hard things, and if the stars align well enough, help ignite a revolution. | https://medium.com/@chelsealaliberte/the-last-day-i-saw-my-little-brother-alive-was-december-11-2008-a42b23ef6950 | ['Chelsea Laliberte Barnes'] | 2020-12-15 18:55:34.180000+00:00 | ['Addiction', 'Grief And Loss', 'Mental Health', 'Overdose', 'Drugs'] |
Three reasons why you need a Log Aggregation Architecture today | Three reasons why you need a Log Aggregation Architecture today
Log Aggregation are not more a commodity but a critical component in container-based platforms
Photo by Olav Ahrens Røtne on Unsplash
Log Management doesn’t seem like a very fantastic topic. It is not the topic that you see and says: “Oh! Amazing! This is what I was dreaming about my whole life”. No, I’m aware that this is not to fancy, but that doesn’t make it less critical than other capabilities that you’re architecture needs to have.
Since the start of time, we’ve been used log files as the single trustable data source when it was related to troubleshoot your applications or know what was failed in your deployment or any other actions regarding a computer.
The procedure was easy:
Launch “something”
“something” failed.
Check the logs
Change something
Repeat
And we’ve been doing it that way for a long, long time. Even with other more robust error handling and management approaches like Audit System, we also go back to logs when we need to get the fine-grained detail about the error. Look for a stack trace there, more detail about the error that was inserted into the Audit System or more data than just the error code and description thas was provided by a REST API.
Systems starting to grow, architecture became more complicated, but even with that, we end with the same method over and over. You’re aware of log aggregation architectures like the ELK stack or commercial solutions like Splunk or even SaaS offerings like Loggly, but you just think they’re not just for you.
They’re expensive to buy or expensive to set, and you know very well your ecosystem, and it’s easier to just jump into a machine and tail the log file. Probably you also have your toolbox of scripts to do this as quickly as anyone can open Kibana and try to search for something instance ID there to see the error for a specific transaction.
Ok, I need to tell you something: It’s time to change, and I’m going to explain to you why.
Things are changing, and IT and all the new paradigms are based on some common grounds:
You’re going to have more components that are going to run isolated with its log files and data.
Deployments will be more regular in your production environment, and that means that things are going to be wrong more usual (on a controlled way, but more usual)
Technologies are going to coexist, so logs are going to be very different in terms of patterns and layouts, and you need to be ready for that.
So, let’s discuss these three arguments that I hope make you think in a different way about Log Management architectures and approaches.
1.- Your approach just doesn’t scale
Your approach is excellent for traditional systems. How many machines do you manage? 30? 50? 100? And you’re able to do it quite fine. Imagine now a container-base platform for a typical enterprise. I think an average number could be around 1000 containers just for business purposes, not talking about architecture or basic services. Are you able to be ready to go container by container to check 1000 logs streams to know the error?
Even if that’s possible, are you going to be the bottleneck for the growth of your company? How many container logs do you can keep a trace on? 2000? As I was saying at the beginning, that just not scale.
2.- Logs are not there forever
And now, you read the first topic and probably are you just saying to the screen you’re using to read is. Come on! I already know that logs are not there, they’re getting rotated, they got lost, and so on.
Yeah, that’s true, this is even more important in cloud-native approach. With container-based platforms, logs are ephemeral, and also, if we follow the 12-factor app manifesto there is no file with the log. All log traces should be printed to the standard output, and that’s it.
And where the logs are deleted? When the container fails.. and which records are the ones that you need more? The ones that have been failed.
So, if you don’t do anything, the log traces that you need the most are the ones that you’re going to lose.
3.- You need to be able to predict when things are going to fail
But logs are not only valid when something goes wrong are adequate to detect when something is going to be wrong but to predict when things are going to fail. And you need to be able to aggregate that data to be able to generate information and insights from it. To be able to run ML models to detect if something is going as expected or something different is happening that could lead to some issue before it happens.
Summary
I hope these arguments have made you think that even for your small size company or even for your system, you need to be able to set up a Log Aggregation technique now and not wait for another moment when it will probably be too late. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/three-reasons-why-you-need-a-log-aggregation-architecture-today-e285d18bb1ef | ['Alex Vazquez'] | 2020-07-02 15:53:34.675000+00:00 | ['Cloud Computing', 'Programming', 'Software Engineering', 'Software Development'] |
The evolution of consumer behavior in the digital age | “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” -Bill Gates
One of the best examples of how we both overestimate and underestimate changes in the future is the evolution of consumer behavior throughout this century.
Take a minute and imagine the world we were in 10 years ago (it’s hard to believe 2007 was 10 years ago). Facebook was still competing with MySpace for traffic, Amazon was primarily known for selling books, and the iPhone was just released.
Back in those days, the way we shopped for products was drastically different from the way we shop today. Most of us still trusted brick-and-mortar stores, we didn’t have price comparison services, and we were at the mercy of large corporations for discounts.
Remember a time before Netflix and iTunes, when we used to rent VHR tapes from Blockbusters? Good times. Video via The Onion.
How did we go from that “primitive” world of shopping to the consumer experience we have today in the digital age? More importantly, where are we going?
That will be the topic of this article.
Today, we will examine three primary paradigm shifts in the marketing world in the last 10 years due to the emergence of digital technologies and platforms such as Facebook, Amazon, and smartphones.
More specifically, we will talk about how, in just 10 years, we went from a linear, retail-focused model (the “first moment of truth”), to today’s iterative, digital-centric model of customer behavior (the “accelerated customer decision journey”).
But the goal of this article is not merely to explore the history of marketing frameworks. It’s also to project the future of marketing and consumer behavior. Based on the three paradigm shifts I mentioned, we will take a glimpse into the next decade to see how we, as business owners, can adapt to this new and ever-shifting world.
Paradigm 1: First Moment of Truth
Imagine yourself as a customer in the year 2005. You just walked into a grocery store to buy a bottle of shampoo.
You look down the aisle and see over 10 shampoos of different brands and types, and you need to make a decision on which one to purchase.
You may consider several factors when making this decision — the design of the label, the position of that shampoo on the shelf, and the detailed explanation on the label.
The decision process you are going through right now is what marketers at P&G call the “First Moment of Truth.”
Coined in 2005, the “Moment of Truth” model is one of the most celebrated marketing frameworks because it so accurately captures the customer’s decision process when buying a product (First Moment), experiencing a product (Second Moment of Truth), and eventually becoming loyal to the brand.
You can see an overview of these “moments” in this graphic:
As the shampoo story illustrates, the original “Moment of Truth” model does not incorporate digital technologies or the internet into customers’ shopping behavior.
For the purpose of this article, it serves as a starting point.
Now let’s add digital to the mix.
Paradigm 2: Zero Moment of Truth + Customer Decision Journey
Let’s go back to the shampoo story again, but in the year 2011.
Now, as a customer, you have sufficient access to smartphones and the internet to go beyond the shelf when evaluating the product.
In fact, you might not be at the physical store at all since ecommerce stores like Amazon and Walmart.com have also become significantly more popular, serving as viable alternatives to the physical retail store.
Therefore, when you need something like a shampoo, you are unlikely to go directly to the store to purchase, but rather go online to search something like “the best shampoo in the world” — and that’s the Zero Moment of Truth.
Coined by Google in 2011 (the entire ebook is linked below), the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) describes how digital channels such as social media and search influence the customer decision journey.
The significance of ZMOT is that it is perhaps the first marketing framework that emphasized the importance of digital channels as a critical part of the customer decision journey. This encouraged companies to start considering “buzzwords” such as SEO and SEM (search engine marketing).
Whereas ZMOT signaled a turning point of the digital age in marketing, a new model popularized by McKinsey in 2009 gave marketers an even more up-to-date way to think about the new, iterative customer journey created by new technologies.
Under the traditional marketing mindset, customers behave in a funnel. They start by becoming aware of the product and brand. Then, they eventually go through several steps to purchase a product and become loyal customers.
In each of the stages, customers may “drop off” in the funnel. The marketer’s job here is to prevent these drop-offs by optimizing their messaging in each step of the funnel.
However, with an enormous amount of decision power and information unlocked by smartphones and the internet, customers no longer interact with companies in the linear manner described above.
Instead, the modern customer’s decision process is much more iterative. Customers today hop between different stages of the funnel between multiple companies, thanks to the power granted by the internet. Their decision journey looks closer to something like this:
From trigger, to initial consideration set, to active evaulation, to moment of purchase. Then we do it all again in the ongoing postpurchase experience and loyalty loop. Image via McKinsey.
The significance of this new McKinsey model is that it no longer views the customer’s journey as their interaction with one individual company.
Instead, it introduced the idea of a “consideration set”: a basket of products that customers are considering that may meet their needs.
This “consideration set” model showed companies the importance of providing their customers with enough information for them to make the purchase decision, instead of “plugging the funnels.”
This framework, combined with ZMOT, is the most popular marketing framework of this decade. It has been evangelized by countless online courses, and used by businesses ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small ecommerce stores.
However, even these two models are being challenged by digital acceleration.
Paradigm 3: The Accelerated Loyalty Journey
One of the biggest problems of the two previous frameworks is that they are too slow.
Nowadays, customers are bombarded with thousands of pieces of information every single day over the internet, and their attention span has deteriorated rapidly.
What this means to marketers is that a customer’s evaluation cycle is significantly crunched from a stage of multiple days or hours to a matter of minutes or seconds. If your product does not convince customers to buy right now, you have lost that customer’s attention forever, and they will probably not come back no matter how much you bombard them with ads.
This simple fact led McKinsey to update their customer decision journey to an updated model, illustrated below:
From classic customer decision journey to the new “accelerated loyalty journey.” Image via McKinsey.
The significance of this new “accelerated loyalty journey” is that it doesn’t just focus on providing information to help customers evaluate the company’s products.
It also emphasizes the importance of delivering that information in the shortest amount of time to the most targeted customer segments. This allows marketers to get these customers to take immediate action and convert.
In other words, having the information is not enough. You need to push that information aggressively in front of the customers at the exact moment their needs are generated.
Enabled by advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, more and more companies have started to conduct this type of “hyper-speed targeting” to their audience. This marks a new age of marketing automation and acceleration.
Where are we going?
Now that we have examined the three shifts in marketing paradigms in the last 10 years, it’s time to talk about where we are going next, and what we can do as modern marketers to stay ahead of these trends.
While these shifts in marketing may seem very different, the underlying theme is the same: customers are becoming more powerful in making their own purchasing decisions.
Gone is the time when we could say, “advertise it and they will come.” Now is the time when we have to make products WITH and FOR a specific customer audience in order for them to become a loyal customer.
As the information available to customers proliferate, this trend will only accelerate in the next decade, making “customer-centric” marketing even more important for companies to succeed.
So as marketers, here are some key steps we should take to prevail in this new digital age:
Co-create our brand and product with customers: it’s time to talk to our customers face-to-face to understand what they need, what drives them, and how we can best serve them. It is time to stop hiding behind the facade of digital ads. We must develop genuine conversations and relationships with these people that we truly care about. Invest in employees that really care about your cause: the key to modern marketing is to be authentic and genuine. You cannot achieve true authenticity until everyone in your company deeply cares about what you build and believe in your values. Only by hiring these people who are aligned with your identity can you build deep connections with your customers. Invest in technology to accurately target your audiences: the only way to make sure you send the right message to the right audience at the right time is using technology. Machine learning and artificial intelligence platforms are getting cheaper and easier to use every day for non-technical marketers. Take advantage of these technologies and elevate your marketing to the next level. Experiment constantly: the great thing about digital platforms is that they are inexpensive and easy-to-use. This opens up opportunities for a large volume of testing and experimentation in your company. So leverage these new testing opportunities to figure out the best way to reach the people you want to reach.
Do you have any other ideas on what else we can do to stay ahead of the upcoming paradigm shifts in marketing? Comment below! | https://medium.com/analytics-for-humans/the-evolution-of-consumer-behavior-in-the-digital-age-917a93c15888 | ['Bill Su'] | 2018-06-08 19:24:15.029000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Marketing', 'Digital Marketing', 'Startup', 'Critical Thinking'] |
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