title
stringlengths 1
200
⌀ | text
stringlengths 10
100k
| url
stringlengths 32
829
| authors
stringlengths 2
392
| timestamp
stringlengths 19
32
| tags
stringlengths 6
263
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Wrong Way to Describe a “Nice Guy” | [Disclaimer: I don’t necessarily consider myself “A Nice Guy.” I just get called one enough to have some opinions on the phenomenon].
The Wrong Way to Describe a “Nice Guy” is an Exclusionary List. For example:
A “Nice Guy” Is Not: Abusive, Insensitive, Judgemental, manipulative, power-hungry, incapable of admitting he’s wrong, etc.
This is because a “Nice Guy” is MORE than just a welcome change from our past failed or “toxic” relationship.
-A “Nice Guy” is Someone with a unique personality and views on love that embraces you in a way that ultimately helps you become a better person. Any Romantic Partner or successful relationship allows both parties to support each other and sustain a level of contentment or build upon it over time.
— However, a BIG Problem I find is that many people Use the “Nice Guy” label as a Method of Control: And in doing so, it is often a Method of Self-Sabotage.
Following this issue from the beginning, You Might Think: “Well, let’s just Change the ‘Exclusionary List’ to One that Includes What Nice Guys Actually DO. So the list might go as follows:
A “Nice Guy” Is Nurturing, Sensitive, Open Minded, Respects a unique personality, and freedom to make one’s own choices. Finally, a Nice Guy can admit when he’s wrong: but These Words are Followed By Actions to Change Behaviors that he’s admitted Are Wrong.
— Well, YOU MIGHT THINK: NICE, WE’VE GOT IT NOW…But Nope. We Don’t Have Anything Yet.
What else could be missing? Well, as I said, a BIG problem I find is in the IMPLEMENTATION and even ENFORCEMENT of Even the Best “Nice Guy” outlooks. And Before you ask: YES, I have Seen it Over and Over Again; Many have an idea of a “Nice Guy” in their Heads And figuratively Beat Their Partners (Or Potential Partners) Over the Head with it.
In the beginning, I mentioned how an Exclusionary List is one of the worst ways to describe a Nice Guy. And I also mentioned how Past Failed or “toxic” Relationships are often the cause of these outlooks. Through Our Fears or Expectations, conditional demands are created that can damage relationships.
A “Nice Guy” would: open the door for me, make me coffee, get the newspaper, visit my mom, tip the waiter better, smile more in pictures, agree with me more often, tell me that I’m beautiful, be able to cook, remember the day we met, carry heavy things, support my business ventures, be friends with all of my best friends, always be available on Friday Night, prioritize my phone calls over everyone else and he should make a move on me when I think it’s the best time for him to do it.
This List Starts to Leave “Nice Guy” territory, in my opinion. I stopped the list because I thought it was long enough, but it could probably Go On For Much Longer. None of these Conditions are Necessarily “Bad,” but when we Pile them UP, we’re Sabatoging ourselves.
To Give a Better Explanation, I’ll Add Some Personal Examples:
Let’s start with “always be available on Friday Night, prioritize my phone calls over everyone else, and he should make a move when I think it’s the best time for him to do it.” These are all conditions that have been either outright or indirectly placed upon me.
I told a friend I was romantically interested in that Friday was “Writing Day.” At the time, I was Available Every Day Except this one. I could Answer the phone, but my answer would come slower, or it would have to wait until the next day. I chose Friday for Writing Day because, As a spiritual Nerd and someone who Doesn’t Like to Drink or Go to parties that revolve around alcohol, I Was Alone on Most Fridays for the Past 16 Years. I decided the Quiet I used to feel So Lonely About would be the Perfect Time to Create Chapters of my Fantasy web-novel to Entertain other people and allow them to feel less lonely.
— I’m pretty sure you could guess what happened. The friend I’m romantically interested in wants to talk on Friday, and She’s actually not the only one. My closest friend is a Repeat offender in this category, and in addition, I had told my Mom I’d call her back, as she wanted to talk with me about “paint swatches.”
I’m Not Sure if there is a “Right” Thing to Do, but these were my choices:
Since my closest friend was a repeat offender, I sent him an audio message telling him so, as diplomatically as I could. He had requested I do several things for him ON That Day, so it wasn’t just “hi, how are you doing,” type of stuff.
My Mom had called first, and I’d Already Told her that I’d call her back later that night. So when my romantic interest left me a message, I explained to her that, though I wasn’t happy about it, I still had to listen to my mom talk about interior decorating before I could think of contacting her.
And…when I finally contacted my romantic interest: there was no response. I found myself exhausted weekly, trying to be what she wanted while still standing up for who I wanted to be. I finally realized that I’d encountered many women with unrealistic expectations in MOST of my life who don’t even consider my unique point of view. And GET THIS: ALL OF THEM INITIALLY SAID I WAS “A NICE GUY.” YOU Might Find this an Unimpressive Detail, But it’s More about the Way “Nice Guy” WAS used as a Method of Control.
That Brings Us to “he should make a move when I think it’s the best time for him to do it.” I received a message on Okaycupid when I was in my mid-20’s, and my profile stated that I want to be friends first before moving towards a romantic relationship. Yet, after we met for dinner, she continually got mad when I didn’t “make a move” on her in a stereotypical way. Her words were that I was “trying to be a nice guy.”
At this point, I was very annoyed. Who’s trying to be What-now? First of All, I Often Tell People I’m NOT always a “Nice Guy,” in fact, I Dislike the Label and Often Find it More Restricting Than it’s Worth. Many men are “trying to be a nice guy,” and Frankly, I find them Very cute, in a platonic way. They Will and Do make better Parters than Me because they Make a Herculean effort to be what their partners want them to be. But the Problem with These Relationships is that They eventually Suck the Life out of us. Our individuality diminishes, and our self-expression is replaced by someone else’s version of what a “Nice Guy” should be.
So, in conclusion: please temper your expectations of what a “Nice Guy” should be. I know we can’t say, “I’m looking for a man to bend to my will,” because that’s creepy, but it’s basically what some women want when they say “Nice Guy.” It’s also part of why I’m not too fond of this label, among many others. | https://medium.com/@danjcuzzo/the-wrong-way-to-describe-a-nice-guy-d9a87155850 | ['Dan Cuzzo'] | 2021-07-07 11:16:47.828000+00:00 | ['Relationships Love Dating', 'Relationship Advice', 'Expectations', 'Relationships', 'Nice Guys'] |
The Impact of the Political Paintings of Faith Ringgold | It was 1967, the year I was born. Martin Luther King Jr had already delivered his famous, ‘I have a dream’ speech, and Faith Ringgold was painting pictures about the condition of American society. Her paintings were not the images that Dr King was dreaming about, but rather, the emotionally charged paintings of race riots and inequality.
Faith Ringgold, born in 1930, had grown up in the blocks around her neighbourhood in Harlem. This was not an easy time for people of colour in America, but Faith’s childhood had been happy and creativity had been an active part of her family life. Ringgold’s mother was a fashion designer, and her father an avid storyteller. These creative folks encouraged Faith’s pursuits throughout her life, as she became a teacher, artist, professor and activist.
American People Series #1: Between Friends & #3: Neighbours, Faith Ringgold, 1963, (Faith Ringgold: Die, Anne Monahan, photo by writer)
Ringgold began creating her American People Series in 1963. The earlier paintings were more subtle in their statements of inequality. #1: Between Friends, expresses the underlying hostility between the races, where pretence and performance mask racism and inequality. #3: Neighbours, explores the cold reception of the white neighbours when a black person moves in next door. This she achieved through her use of cool blue tones and blank facial expressions.
Ringgold’s art was not just political statements. She painted her experiences, the emotions she felt from the events and people in her life.
Die, however, was not a subtle painting or one that could be easily dismissed. Reaching the length of 365cm or 12 feet, this two-panelled artwork stood to make a statement. Consisting of ten almost life-sized, both black and white, well-dressed adults. They fight, flee or die, as two interracial children cover unnoticed beneath them. Blood is splattered across Ringgold’s canvas, resembling a crime scene, and mindful of Jackson Pollock’s mural scale drip paintings.
The artwork was exhibited at Ringgold’s first solo exhibition at the Spectrum Gallery and put on display at the entrance, where it definitely made an impact.
“I was just trying to read the times, and to me everyone was falling down. If it upsets people that’s because I want them to be upset.”
Ringgold’s political painting caused outrage when it was exhibited. It was all the blood and visual horror. Unlike the current race riots, which have been streamed daily around the world, at that time, the extent of the police brutality and random violence was not being shown on the news. There was so much unrest going on, but unless you were physically at the spot when it happened, you didn’t know what was taking place. Faith wanted people to see the tragedy of the events that were happening around them. | https://medium.com/george-st-gallery/the-impact-of-the-political-paintings-of-faith-ringgold-5e6774d6e948 | ['Froyle Davies'] | 2020-09-06 22:04:00.369000+00:00 | ['Art', 'Artist', 'Life', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Social Justice'] |
Roadmap to Uber-Like Taxi App Development | People living in Alpha cities like New York, Dubai, London, or Mumbai have two biggest vows: busy traffic and lack of parking space.
They are less likely to buy cars and rather rely on ride hailing apps like Uber and Lyft. The advantages are many.
They don’t have to worry about car repairs, a permanent parking space, and driving themselves in busy traffic.
For investors seeking a fresh investment opportunity, investing in an app-based taxi booking service is a great idea if they are not investing building an Uber-clone of their own.
Even with dominant players like Uber and Lyft in the market, private-hire car business is still a thriving one as long as you stick to a staunch roadmap and learn from your competitors’ mistakes.
Staying relevant by bringing changes
What sets apart Microsoft and Google is the latter’s tendency to stay relevant to changes. The same goes with Uber and most of the modern-day startups. Like Uber, they don’t make many mistakes.
Despite being on the top of private-hire car business for many years now, Uber keeps reviving its brand identity. Did you notice Uber changed its logo thrice since its inception?
Booking apps are mushrooming everywhere. Mobile technology has made it pretty easy and possible to run a business through just an app.
But, the problem with mobile startups is such that there are plenty of good ideas already in the market. What is missing in the business is the uniqueness of idea.
Orignal Sorce : Uber-Like Taxi App Development | https://medium.com/@shaikh-82084/roadmap-to-uber-like-taxi-app-development-f609e25b6679 | ['Shaikh N'] | 2019-06-17 06:42:56.450000+00:00 | ['Buildanapplikeuber', 'Ride Hailing Apps', 'Uber', 'Uberliketaxiapp', 'Taxiappdevelopers'] |
What is a PPC Campaign? | Whenever you run a query on Google or a search engine, the first results that come on top are those labeled with “Ad.” Those are pay-per-click ads. Pay-per-click or PPC advertising is a well-known digital and internet marketing tool. When trying to attract traffic to a site, businesses can do so either with organic traffic or paid ads.
To set up your search results listing or product listing, you must bid for ad placement. Even though you are paying, there are still competitors vying for the same keywords you target. The good news is that you need only pay when common clicks your ad. In the grand scheme of things, taking the quality of your site and what you offer visitors, your sales would be well-worth the costs of the PPC ad.
Setting up PPC is not as simple as signing up with the platform on which you hope to advertise. To navigate it in a way that maximizes the traffic you can garner takes a strategist campaign plan. How successful a PPC campaign depends upon the relevance and quality of keywords, the level of quality of content on your landing page, and the combination of various metrics that search engines like Google condense into the Quality Score.
Your PPC ad’s quality score is based on your relevance, how many visitors find your site useful and compelling, and other key performance indicators.
Research is key to a good keyword strategy. For a successful ad, keywords must be specific, relevant to the subject, product, or service you offer, and tailored to the target buyer. Go about keyword research by creating a massive list of all possible main and long-tail keywords. A keyword strategy should be an ongoing process that you can continually improve after assessing your metrics.
Regularly revise your PPC campaign. Doing so means always researching for better keywords, using negative keywords to target the right search intent, and maintaining an optimized landing page. Ensure that your content, brand image, and call-to-actions are working with the ad campaign to target the right visitors who would benefit from your product or service. | https://medium.com/itc-uk-digital-marketing-entrepreneurship/what-is-a-ppc-campaign-54c850cd7c0 | ['Stuart Ferster'] | 2020-12-21 15:59:02.561000+00:00 | ['Digital Marketing', 'PPC', 'Ppc Campaign', 'PPC Marketing', 'Stuart Ferster'] |
The Trauma in Trusting a Flawed System Part 1 | I called my own OB/GYN the next day and was informed that the medication was never approved and that I wasn’t to take it due to its dosage being far too high. When I went into the office for an examination, my OB/GYN told me that my vagina was still red and visibly irritated from Dr. Kmetzsch’s examination. It was also ruled out that I had no yeast infection. When I reached out to patient affairs at Richmond University Medical Center, I was told that they’d reach out to me in the early weeks of October. They never did. I contacted them again and was told that they’d follow up on the investigation. The follow up consisted of a typical my word against his response and well wishes and apologies that felt more like an insult than anything. I was irate. I called patient affairs back and was told that I could speak directly to the head of the Resident OB/GYNs department. To no surprise, he was a man. A man who felt it was necessary to tell me that he’s known Kmetzsch for eighteen months and was surprised to hear my story and how when he spoke to Kmetzsch, he too was floored. Imagine how I felt knowing Kmetzsch all but ten minutes and having to lay down for an examination that felt more like imposed foreplay from a silent predator who had to get off before he was seen as suspicious. I was told that they are both sorry that I feel the way that I do and that my experience was a learning experience for the residents doctors. Richmond University Medical Center is a teaching hospital, however, how do you teach a resident doctor how to do his job without misdiagnosing a patient and leaving them feeling violated? | https://medium.com/@charmaine.russell707/im-a-new-mom-6d1d9e34a3f5 | ['Meena Ali'] | 2020-12-25 06:22:10.692000+00:00 | ['Trauma', 'Parenting', 'Metoo', 'Medical', 'Black Women'] |
flask相關建設主題 | flask相關建設主題
使用Security Helpers的兩個方法
generate_oasswird_hash
check_password_hash
python command
%python
from werkzeug.security import generate_password_hash, check_password_hash
generate_password_hash(‘admin’) ‘加密
每次hash都不會一樣
b=generate_password_hash(‘admin’)
check_password_hash(b, ‘admin’) ‘核對密碼 返回true/false
command python檢查(完整的啟動python command)
python>>>
>>> from twittor import db, create_app
>>> from twittor.models import User
>>> app = create_app() ‘實體化
>>> app.app_context().push() ‘push方法
>>> u = User(username=’admin’, email=’[email protected]’) ‘一個實例
>>> u.set_password(‘admin’) ’設定hash密碼
>>> u
id=None, username=admin, [email protected],password, password_hashpbkdf2:sha256:150000$A1X5TSLh$bbcae5a7b0321afc7df1a524cb909a57dd664350f0685ac21a6199a9520f63f1
>>> db.session.add(u)
>>> db.session.commit() ‘新增入資料庫
>>> User.query.all() ‘有資料
[id=1, username=admin, [email protected],password, password_hashpbkdf2:sha256:150000$A1X5TSLh$bbcae5a7b0321afc7df1a524cb909a57dd664350f0685ac21a6199a9520f63f1]
>>> User.query.filter_by(username=’admin’) ’有東西
<flask_sqlalchemy.BaseQuery object at 0x10c45a2b0>
>>> User.query.filter_by(username=’admin’).first() ‘first()方法
id=1, username=admin, [email protected],password, password_hashpbkdf2:sha256:150000$A1X5TSLh$bbcae5a7b0321afc7df1a524cb909a57dd664350f0685ac21a6199a9520f63f1
>>> User.query.filter_by(username=’adminn’).first() ‘沒有adminn返回None
移除csrf警吿
FlaskWTFDeprecationWarning: “csrf_enabled” is deprecated and will be removed in 1.0. Pass meta={‘csrf’: False} instead.
移除csrf_enabled=False
新增class Meta
forms.py / class Meta
Flask_Login用於用戶session的管理
已經登錄過 要被記起來
頁面只允許login的用戶去訪問
pip install flask_login
LoginManager
from flask_login import LoginManager '引入flask_login LoginManager 類
別
login_manager = LoginManager() ‘定義login為LoginManager的一個實例login_manager.init_app(app) 'login與app進行關聯 初始化
UserMixin提供用戶session的幾個基本方法
is_activate
is_authenticated
is_anonymous
get_id
改造Models / User 將 UserMixin當作父類提供給User繼承，這樣User就會有Mixin的以上方法
models放置user_loader callback回調函數
This callback is used to reload the user object from the user ID stored in the session（要讓app login方法根據id找到用戶）
login_manager內user_loader方法裝飾def load_user
＠login_manager.user_loader
def load_user(id)
(session存儲的類型是string要改成int)
login_user
>就可以開始在route.py使用login_user方法，使用login_user(user) (flask_login)的方法去紀錄當前已經通過驗證的用戶
設定config.py/SECERT KEY
current_user
current_user 當前的用戶flask_login的current_user方法
is_authenticated 被認證過
如果被認證過，就不需要再登入
redirect(url_for(‘index’))
logout 登出
route.py/from flask_login import logout_user
route.py
def logout()
logout_user()
templates folder/base.html
base.html
{% if current_user.is_anonymous %}
UserMixin內有is_anonymous方法 是否匿名，沒login就是匿名
強制用戶登錄 沒有登錄不給看＠login_required
from flask_login import login_required
未登錄則進入此畫面
以下修改__init__.py，引導頁面到login輸入帳密
跳出登錄頁面輸入正確後，回到原本要進入的頁面next
觀察login?next=OOOXXX，登錄後就會回到原本要進入的頁面（就是OOOXXX）
取出next所帶參數
from flask import request
next_page = request.args.get(‘next’)
轉入
if next_page:
return redirect(next_page) | https://medium.com/@ka666wang/flask%E7%9B%B8%E9%97%9C%E5%BB%BA%E8%A8%AD%E4%B8%BB%E9%A1%8C-ca86107ea201 | ['Steven Wang'] | 2020-11-09 15:56:10.553000+00:00 | ['Flask'] |
A Cut Above: How Developers Can Add Value To Dubai’s Real Estate Landscape : Business Big News | You’re reading Entrepreneur Middle East, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Real estate has been known to be a key component in boosting an economy, as it provides business and social infrastructure that allows for an advanced economy to operate. Be it residential or commercial, each sector in real estate contributes in its own way to the economy as a whole.
As an investment, real estate can make up a large part of an individual’s wealth. As the economy fluctuates, real estate can be seen as a marker for spending habits. When the economy is low or in recession, there is less of a demand to buy property due to lower disposable income; alternatively, as the economy grows, so does disposable income and a willingness to invest. This is a benefit to every business and resident as it attracts skilled labour, with the real estate sector itself needing more than just engineers, architects and contractors. It also employs legal advisors, financial analysts, surveyors, facilities managers and specialized suppliers, contributing positively to the overall economy .
The boom and recession cycle between 2005 and 2008 was a learning experience for the UAE’s leaders, to say the least. Not only did it reinforce the strength and popularity of Dubai as a global city, but it also resulted in the creation of legislation to support the buyers’ interest and make real estate investments a safe bet for international investors. Between 2011 and 2020, further rules and regulations have been put in place, more so for developers, to encourage completion, long-term thinking, and better cash flow management. During this time the market has also moved from an investor-focused product market that dominated five years ago, to an end-user market. This along with mortgage rates being at an all-time low, and supply at an all-time high, has encouraged Dubai residents to invest in their homes .
In terms of the UAE, the real estate sector has seen a boom in recent years, and what Dubai has done since freehold property investments launched is tremendous, with real estate contributing to 7.2% of Dubai’s GDP in 2019. Government-backed developers have taken the initiative to create iconic projects that have helped increase the city’s brand value and global recognition. No longer just a transient country where expats come for a few years, the average couple or family are now looking to reside in Dubai for the long term. Furthermore, the way Dubai and the UAE handled the COVID-19 pandemic is second to none. Most people residing in the country realized how lucky they are, and see the benefits of a city with strong healthcare, infrastructure, and agile decision-making.
Related: 10 Tips To Help You Succeed As An Entrepreneur In Dubai’s Real Estate Sector
The government has also put in place a few key initiatives over the last year- these include making healthcare, R&D, and manufacturing a key driver for growth and the Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan, to make the city more green and connected. All these and other such initiatives will start making a difference over the next three to five years contributing to population growth and its knock-on effects as it relates to real estate demand. Moving forward, the industrial and manufacturing sectors will play a pivotal role over the next five to ten years. A focus from the government on supporting local manufacturing and exports will aim to move Dubai, in particular, from a leading trading hub to a production and export hub, which will help secure the Emirate. Not only will this add value in terms of GDP but will also require a higher workforce, which leads to more spending, more needs for housing, transport, and retail development, to name a few, all of which will continue the growth of the real estate sector.
The future for private developers who want to thrive in a maturing real estate market is to create a more wholesome or holistic living environment, aligned with the Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan and its pillars. At the same time, the coronavirus pandemic has forced us to rethink how and where we live. Our home is now also our office, classroom, and space to unwind. This new norm has forced developers to adapt, and smaller private developers need to be flexible enough to move away from the standard cookie-cutter developments.
It can no longer be about just building and selling to make a profit but has to be about how people want to live. This could be in the way of better facilities, more livable space, or even better-connected communities.
At my company, ZāZEN Properties, we realized this type of philosophy was missing, especially for the mid-market consumer. The COVID-19 crisis made buyers look for more space, connectivity, better quality, and more facilities, but at ZāZEN Properties, this has been our core concept from inception in 2018. Our first residential project, ZāZEN One in Dubai’s Jumeirah Village Triangle neighborhood, set to hand over in January 2022, is a testament to that. As a brand, we aimed to achieve “a community within a building,” where people can live, play and work without really having to leave. Larger living spaces with fitted kitchens, clean designs with lots of natural light, green building certification, and solar power are all important elements of our design aesthetic. On top of this, the location within the JVT community means better connectivity, with the Al Khail road highway easily accessible, two schools, parks, play areas, sports court, and a new community mall all within JVT. ZāZEN One also boasts world-class amenities such as a temperature-controlled pool, 350-meter jogging track, residents lounge, a private study area with Wi-Fi, a rooftop BBQ, and an entertainment deck, to name a few.
With a stable government, almost negligible tax, and its status as a leading international trade and tourism hub, investing in the UAE is an inviting proposition to maximize opportunities and returns for global funds and investors alike. As an attractive asset class for private and larger institutional investors, the inflow of money into the economy allows for the UAE to remain on the cutting edge of urbanization projects such as with the Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan. As Dubai and the UAE continue to find unique opportunities to grow the economy through such projects, smaller private developers are able to create niche developments and focus on providing something unique on a smaller scale in line with these initiatives. Through innovation and the ability to manage cash flows more effectively versus larger government-backed developers, smaller developers always have the capability and responsibility to add value to Dubai’s real estate landscape for future generations.
Related: Five Reasons Why Dubai Is A Hub For Entrepreneurs Looking For Business Growth Post The COVID-19 Crisis | https://medium.com/@kalpak.webmarketing/a-cut-above-how-developers-can-add-value-to-dubais-real-estate-landscape-business-big-news-47f4cd435ff | ['Kalpak Savaliya'] | 2021-12-22 04:18:13.267000+00:00 | ['Middle East', 'Growth Strategies', 'Dubai', 'Real Estate', 'Entrepreneur Middle East'] |
Diving into Symfony’s DependencyInjection — Part 3: Advanced uses | Logging with monolog
Autoconfiguration through interfaces
I like to log what happens in my application to ease my debugging process. That’s why I want to add a logger in my voters. We are going to use the Monolog library.
composer require monolog/monolog
Since we require monolog alone, there is no logger service yet. We have to register it manually. Let’s create a config/monolog.php file, and load it after the config.php
According to monolog documentation, the Logger needs a channel, which is a string, and a handler. We are going to use a StreamHandler to log messages in the var/app.log file.
config/monolog.php
Don’t forget to load it in public/index.php
$loader->load('config.php');
$loader->load('monolog.php');
We could inject it with autowiring in our voters (through a LoggerInterface hinted constructor), but we are going to make something way better. We'll use the Psr\Log\LoggerAwareInterface : each class that implements this interface will see the logger injected with a setLogger method. To do this, we can use the ContainerBuilder::registerForAutoconfiguration() method
So let’s modify the config/monolog.php file:
config/monolog.php
Simply implement the LoggerAwareInterface in the PostVoter class. You can use the LoggerAwareTrait to do the implementation for you.
// ...
class PostVoter implements VoterInterface, LoggerAwareInterface
{
use LoggerAwareTrait;
// ...
}
And that’s it, each class that will implement this interface will see the logger injected through the setLogger method. Let's try it :
public function vote(string $attribute, $subject, User $user): bool
{
$this->logger->debug(self::class . ' executed.');
// ...
}
A var/app.log file is created :
[2018-06-27 08:29:31] voter.DEBUG: App\Authorization\Voter\PostVoter executed. [] []
[2018-06-27 08:29:31] voter.DEBUG: App\Authorization\Voter\PostVoter executed. [] []
[2018-06-27 08:29:31] voter.DEBUG: App\Authorization\Voter\PostVoter executed. [] []
[2018-06-27 08:29:31] voter.DEBUG: App\Authorization\Voter\PostVoter executed. [] []
There are 4 lines, because in the PostController, we call the AccessManager::decide() function 4 times.
Handling parameters
During the logger configuration, we use some scalar values that can be used as application parameter, such as :
the logger channel for the voters
the path to the log file
The DI component allows us to set parameters, and use/inject them in our app. Let’s improve our configuration: we will create a config/parameters.php file that is loaded before all configuration files. It will handle all our scalar parameters.
config/parameters.php
Dont forget to load this new file
public/index.php
We declare 3 parameters:
root_dir , which is a helper to access the root dir of our application
, which is a helper to access the root dir of our application app.logger.voter_channel , which is the logger channel used by our voters
, which is the logger channel used by our voters app.logger.file_path , the path where we are going to save our logs.
We can see the %foo% notation. It is a placeholder for a parameter. Here, we’re telling the container "Use the root_dir parameter here".
Let’s dump the container before and after the compilation to understand what happens:
// Before compilation
#parameters: array:3 [
"root_dir" => "/Users/alex.m/www/di/config/.."
"app.logger.voter_channel" => "voter"
"app.logger.file_path" => "%root_dir%/var/app.log"
]
#resolved: false // After compilation
#parameters: array:3 [
"root_dir" => "/Users/alex.m/www/di/config/.."
"app.logger.voter_channel" => "voter"
"app.logger.file_path" => "/Users/alex.m/www/di/config/../var/app.log"
]
#resolved: true
So there must be a CompilerPass that resolves our parameters. It is the ResolveParameterPlaceHoldersPass .
Now, let’s use those freshly created parameters in the monolog.php config file!
config/monolog.php
The result is the same, but we now have a well designed configuration:
application parameters are stored in parameters.php
application configuration is handled in config.php
third party libraries configuration is handled in their own file
Service decoration
We’ve worked hard to achieve this result 💪🏼. Let’s have fun and decorate our logger with a FancyLoggerDecorator . This decorator will add some fancy emojis depending on the log level.
⚠️ This decorator is for educational purpose only. Please, do not reproduce at work.
The FancyLoggerDecorator will take as argument the decorated logger and implement the LoggerInterface . For each method, we'll prepend an emoji to the message to log.
src/Logger/FancyLoggerDecorator.php
Now, we need to register the FancyLoggerDecorator as a decorator for the LoggerInterface , and inject the original (decorated) logger into the decorator. The original id is automatically changed to decorator id + '.inner' by the DecoratorServicePass
config/monolog.php
Let’s try our new fancy logger:
$this->logger->debug('debug');
$this->logger->info('info');
$this->logger->notice('notice');
$this->logger->warning('warning');
$this->logger->error('error');
$this->logger->critical('critical');
$this->logger->alert('alert');
$this->logger->emergency('emergency');
And here is our output:
[2018-06-27 09:22:17] voter.DEBUG: 🤖 debug [] []
[2018-06-27 09:22:17] voter.INFO: ℹ️ info [] []
[2018-06-27 09:22:17] voter.NOTICE: 📝 notice [] []
[2018-06-27 09:22:17] voter.WARNING: ⚠️ warning [] []
[2018-06-27 09:22:17] voter.ERROR: ❌ error [] []
[2018-06-27 09:22:17] voter.CRITICAL: 🛑 critical [] []
[2018-06-27 09:22:17] voter.ALERT: 🚨 alert [] []
[2018-06-27 09:22:17] voter.EMERGENCY: 🆘 emergency [] []
Woah such a fancy logger! | https://medium.com/manomano-tech/diving-into-symfonys-dependencyinjection-part-3-advanced-uses-55e5a945dd54 | ['Alex Makdessi'] | 2018-10-14 21:47:45.649000+00:00 | ['Backend', 'PHP', 'Web Development', 'Symfony', 'Dependency Injection'] |
Canada | Canada
Canada
Imagine a country where life feels like a beautiful dream, where immigration isn’t a big problem, and where you are valued as an immigrant, that is Canada.
An immigrant-friendly country, Canada, is one of the safest countries that support immigrants which no other country does.
Canada has supported immigrants in numerous ways and types of immigrants and is great at providing them security, employment, and a high standard lifestyle.
Canada is one the richest countries in the world having the lowest unemployment level which is a major sign of the highest standard of living.
Furthermore, many laws benefit immigrants like protection laws, sponsoring their close family members, etc.
Universal healthcare is another reason to migrate to Canada because it provides free health care services.
Studying in this country has been made easy by many laws, acts, and programs for students which makes Canada a great choice for all types of immigrants.
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometers, making it the world’s second-largest country by total area.
By: Usama Shaikh | https://medium.com/@wanttono/canada-8df97596c7f3 | [] | 2021-07-06 19:46:31.922000+00:00 | ['Usamashaikh', 'Canada', 'Immigration', 'Immigrants'] |
Fucking My Best Friend’s Dad, Part 2 | I didn’t wait for him to answer. I continued walking toward him, toward his desk, and around it. I could see the screen now. It was on pause. A guy was fucking a cheerleader from behind. Pompoms were on the bed, and her skirt was still on. His hands were on her hips; he was halfway inside her. Poor guy, he was on pause. It made me laugh, as if that could happen in real life. The blonde locks of the girl streamed down, covering any part of her side boob that would be visible. I’m sure her hair swayed back and forth with each thrust, allowing for a nice view of her incredible body. I bet her nipples were perfectly erect, and oh-so-suckable. She was hot, and so was he!
I looked at Mr. Thompson and gave him a smile. I reached for the mouse and clicked play. The sounds continued. The moaning was hotter than ever. Mr. Thompson didn’t say a word. I straddled him, in his chair, blocking his view of the monitor. He no longer needed to see that. I began to rub his cock through his boxers. He was so big. “These jeans are in the way,” I said with a devilish tone. I got on my knees and slid them down. Still on my knees, I reached up and stroked him through the pale blue fabric, almost the same color as the lace under my cheer skirt. He moaned a little and never tried to resist. He wanted me. He had wanted me for a while. Probably since my 15-year old body teased him in my first bikini.
His cock was begging to be released from its cotton prison. I obliged and slid his boxers down just low enough to expose him. I leaned over and wrapped my lips around the head of his cock. I was giving head to my best friend’s dad. That’s the thought that raced through my mind at that very moment. Just thinking of it now is getting my wet. At the time, my panties were soaked. His girth filled my mouth, but like a good little cheerleader, I took it. I opened wider and slid him farther inside my mouth. I kissed him, all the way down, swirling my tongue around every inch of his cock. The sounds he made were hotter than those coming from his iMac. I continued to suck. He got bigger and bigger. I stopped and pulled his boxers all the way down. He was able to untangle his pants with his feet and free himself from both the denim and the boxers. I reached up and felt him with my hand. I took his balls in my hand, caressing them, and then began to stroke his shaft. I leaned back in and traced my tongue from the base of his cock all the way to the tip, making out with the head when I arrived. That drove him wild! And it made me wetter than ever.
I got off my knees, walked over to the mahogany leather sofa, and laid on my back. I moved my hips toward my body, extending my legs straight up. I reached down and removed my panties from under my skirt. I tossed them to Mr. Thompson and giggled. He came over immediately, taking his shirt off along the way. He was completely naked and got on top of me. His right hand took my left and put it above my head, and he leaned down, and kissed me. I kissed him back. His smell, his taste, oh so familiar. And so fucking sexy. His tongue slid into my mouth, our lips locked, and he gave my tits a violent squeeze. “Oh my God,” I exclaimed. “It was you! You are the Big Bad Wolf.”
His tongue exited my mouth, looked into my eyes, and smiled. “Yes I am. I wanted you so badly, but you were just 17. I had to stop. But now, fuck, I am so glad you are here.”
“I wanted you too, and I want you now,” I whispered. We kissed again, this time his body fell onto mine. His cock teasing my tight little teen entrance as our tongues played with each other. His hands pressed against my tits, squeezing them through my top. “Get this off me,” I exclaimed and tried to sit up. He helped me out of my cheer top and stared at my chest. “You are so fucking sexy,” he said, and began kissing my tits around the edge of my bra cups. I arched my back and let him play. His mouth felt so fucking good on my skin. He licked as far as the fabric would allow. The bra was like a fortress, guarding my milky white teenage breasts and succulent pink nipples. I inverted my shoulders, reached around and unhooked the lock to his treasure. He quickly helped me out of my lacy harness, and wasted no time wrapping his lips around my pink areola. Both my nipples got harder than ever.
He sucked, softly at first, and gentle. Then a little harder. The harder he sucked, the louder I moaned. His lips finally released my nipple and he kissed down my body. He complimented how sexy I was, how he loved my skin, and how incredible I tasted as he kissed lower and lower. He teased my navel. I was ticklish and he could tell. He moved lower, to the edge of my skirt. Instead of sliding it off, he skipped over it. He was now kissing my inner thigh and went higher. His head made its way up, and so did the frill of my skirt. A few seconds later he was making out with my pussy. Holy fuck that felt good. Only one other time had someone gone down on me. Amanda’s dad was WAY better. He licked in all the right places. It didn’t take long until my body began to shake. My hands moved to this head and I am quite sure I was suffocating him with my pussy. I didn’t care. His tongue felt amazing. I came. And he knew it.
“You taste so incredibly good,” he said, “so sweet.” He came up and kissed me. I was still soaking wet and wanted more. We made out a little, I could taste myself off his tongue, and I didn’t mind. His hands squeezed my bare breasts and he slid his body farther up. His cock pressed against my entrance. “Fuck me,” I whispered. “I want you inside me.”
His cock was rock hard as it slowly penetrated my teenage flower. My lips parted, taking him in. He was so fucking big. It hurt, a little, but certainly not in a bad way. He wasn’t all the way in, he was going super slow. He was deliberate and delicate with me; like I was a fragile work of Venetian glass. He split me a little wider, and then, we both froze. We heard the front door open and chatter coming from the foyer. It was Amanda and her mom. “Holy fuck,” I said in a loud whisper. His cock flew out of me, he grabbed my hand, and…click here to see what happened next! | https://medium.com/sexual-compass/fucking-my-best-friends-dad-part-2-26b9621154ee | ['Avery Montgomery'] | 2021-09-10 16:55:24.410000+00:00 | ['Erotica', 'Cheating', 'Erotica Series', 'Age Gap Love', 'Sex'] |
Disappointing Myself | It happens every day.
Image by Sergey Safronov
I know where I want to be.
I know who I want to be.
I know who I am.
I hear the word potential and cringe.
I look back and see everyone who has dropped off on my journey and cheer.
The closer I get, the harder it feels. The closer I get, the more I feel like it will never happen.
Days and weeks and months go by. Nothing. Till I realize that those days and weeks and months are something on their own.
Disappointing myself means not appreciating my gift.
Disappointing myself means not transforming.
Disappointing myself means giving up.
CRY | https://medium.com/cry-mag/disappointing-myself-b31897153ec6 | ['Kern Carter'] | 2019-10-25 11:06:01.465000+00:00 | ['Anxiety', 'Self Love', 'Poetry', 'Creativity', 'Creative Writing'] |
Investing Lessons from Professional Investors | Thanks to Zerodha and many other fintech, low-cost brokerages, investing in stocks has never been easier. Further, social media frenzy millennials are grabbing the opportunity of investing in stocks with both hands. Why not, quite a few of our known peers or family members have made lots of money on stock markets over the last year.
Over the last few months, I had quite a few such conversations with friends considering to go full-time traders or investing money for overnight gains. I can empathize with such thoughts as I have considered doing the same thing during the major bull run of 2007. I made quite a few mistakes as a novice investor those days. During bull markets, I suppose we all get carried away with our success, attributing it to our superior qualities when, in reality, it’s just the market cycle.
Fortunately, I also got the opportunity to work for a professional fund management firm, where I gained insight into how professional private investors think about investing. I attempted to describe my important takeaways in the hopes of assisting novice investors.
Repeatability
Investing is a game of odds. The outcome of the investment can also be driven by sheer luck. However, sheer luck cannot be replicated again and again. Therefore, such investment successes are often short-lived. The success of investment professionals is driven by the ability of the team to replicate and execute successful strategies, again and again, to keep delivering superior returns to the investors over the long term.
Stick to your area of competence
Investment opportunities are abundant, virtually every day, we receive a new stock tip persuading us that this is a fantastic opportunity. Sometimes opportunities are tempting too, especially when an industry is hot and every other fellow investor is making a killing with their investment in the sector. Fear of missing out creeps into most investors at some point.
Moving out of our area of competence is a recipe for disaster. Most of us as individual investors have limited ability and bandwidth to research and develop expertise on each sector/business model, therefore, we do better if we stick to our area of expertise to invest for superior returns. Even professional private market investors typically stick to their core area of expertise, which increases their chances of success.
Always stick to your Investment Strategy at all times
An investing strategy is a set of rules, behaviours, or procedures that a person uses to help them choose an investment portfolio.
In the stock market, there are many distinct types of investors with various investment goals. Such each investor should have a plan to achieve the objectives. Some invest for overnight gains, few who flip stocks every few weeks/months and on the other end of the spectrum some investors stay invested for decades.
There is no such thing as a right or bad approach; each group of investors has its own style of working and producing money.
The goal of the Investment Strategy is to help you stay on top of your game and play to your strengths in order to improve your results. While such methods may evolve over time, recognizing and sticking to your approach is crucial to reaching your investment goals.
Diversify your bets
Legendary investors have made and lost money in the markets on numerous occasions throughout history. I would advise all new investors to read Michael Batnick’s book “Big Mistakes,” which chronicles renowned investors’ spectacular mistakes.
Many famous investors have been unable to forecast stock market fluctuations. We’re being naive if we think we can do better.
Diversification is the only certain approach to limit unknown risks in investing. Diversification can be done by allocating money to several asset classes and multiple assets within each asset class. Your asset allocation should include a mix of fixed income, equity, and alternative assets to reduce risk while increasing total returns on your portfolio.
We are in uncharted territory, with low-interest rates, rapid inflation, stock markets at all-time highs, and government debt at all-time highs (lowest ability to support in case of any new economic disasters). This is the time to boost your allocation to alternative investments to maximize your return.
Stay the course, don’t get distracted
Investors in the public markets are constantly presented with new opportunities to invest, as well as temptations to replace recently underperforming companies with hot ones. Investors are sometimes tempted to flip fundamentally sound stocks in pursuit of short-term returns. Which has the potential to be value-destructive.
Private market investors, on the other hand, generally do not have the option of flipping their investment and are not tracked by markets on a monthly relative performance basis. This allows the fund’s investment manager to focus on the fund’s long-term investment strategy rather than short-term performance. Private investors have been able to beat public market investors on a gross level as a result of this, while net returns after fees may or may not justify allocation to private investors. However, the ability to keep on track without being distracted helps to produce superior long-term results.
If you find the information presented above to be helpful in enhancing your investment skills, do like or comment to assist other inexperienced investors. | https://medium.com/@v.ravinder34/investing-lessons-from-professional-investors-a759cc023cbe | ['Ravinder Voomidisingh'] | 2021-08-27 08:33:56.145000+00:00 | ['Wealth Creation', 'Investing', 'Investing Tips', 'Money', 'Investors'] |
Growth, promotion & management | How should we see the managers responsibility towards employee growth and promotion?
Should everyone grow?
Some people are ambitious, alway looking for opportunities to increase their impact. And some are not. The ones that are, will push their manager to help them grow. But the ones that are not, should there be growth for them? Maybe they are perfectly happy in their role. They like their colleagues, their projects, they get by fine on the money they make.
It’s hard to stand still, even in a place you like. Our work environment changes quickly. The place where someone was thriving will evolve and expose them to new demands. This continuous change of our work environment makes continuous personal development necessary.
Setting goals, moving towards them, failing, learning; these are things we need to stay engaged, regardless if they lead to promotion. Most people are eager to learn and develop themselves. Having a manager that supports them with their development increases their trust in that manager and improves their sense of belonging to the company.
We should respect people’s choice if they are happy where they are. But we should still help them find growth opportunities. Even if it is just to help them stay where they are.
Growth and Objectives
At the start of their career people tend to focus on what they aim to work on, rather than on what results they want to achieve. It’s easy to be busy. Work finds people, especially the high performers. For them the problem quickly becomes what to focus on. Ideally those priorities are at the intersection of business and personal goals.
Formulating objectives in terms of goals to achieve, rather than activities to do, helps development by triggering self reflection. Consider the difference between these statements: I will help the team optimize service A. Versus: I will reduce the latency of service A by 20%. The second objective will feel uncomfortable to commit to. How do you know beforehand what improvement you can achieve? What if the team’s priorities change? But the second objective also allows you to look back at the end of the period and reflect, while the first one does not. What was the result of your effort? Were you ambitious enough? What options did you explore to get to a result?
This personal cycle of planning, doing and reflecting is similar to the mechanism that drives continuous improvement in Agile teams.
Promotion as a goal
When asked about their goals many employees automatically identify promotion as their first objective. That’s fine. It’s a good starting point for a conversation about growth.
A promotion has value because of what it represents to the employee. This will differ per person: it can mean more money, recognition, new challenges, the chance to brag to their connections on LinkedIn, just to name a few.
It may take some prodding to get to this root, because culturally many people are reluctant to admit that, for example, money or status are important to them. As managers we need to respect the goals of our reports, but we’ll need to figure out what those goals are first.
Regardless if someone is ready to be promoted it is worth it to figure out why they want the promotion in the first place. What are they hoping to get out of it? Is it realistic? And is the role they are after the best way to achieve it?
Promotion and self reflection
A key problem with promotion is that it is hard to assess your own readiness for the next role. Why is this so though? We work with very intelligent people. And the ones considering promotion are usually the high performers. I think the main difficulty is in finding the right perspective.
If self reflection is a mirror it is one that by default shows you in your current position. From that perspective it may be clear that you have started to outgrow your current role, but that does not always mean that you are ready for the next one.
To get a view of that, the perspective needs to be changed, which is hard to do.
In a similar way our view of the next role tends to be based on the perspective of our current role. You may know the aspects of the next career level that touch your own, but miss those that do not. Just to give an example: if you are a first line manager you probably know that your manager is your support channel, but are you aware of the stakeholder management they do behind the scenes?
To acquire a new perspective takes effort. Reviewing the job description. Looking for feedback. Talking to people that do the next job. Getting a mentor. Taking on some tasks that belong to the next career level. As the new perspective is gradually acquired it becomes easier for the employee to assess their readiness.
Managers need to be aware of this problem; the expectations of their high performers have to be managed early on. If there is a mismatch in the managers and the employees assessment of promotion readiness this needs to be addressed early.
The managers responsibility
So what is the manager’s responsibility in all this? Is it their job to get their reports promoted?
To stay engaged and in touch with the work environment continuous growth is necessary. The manager can support this growth by coaching the employee to find and work towards meaningful objectives. This should be seen broadly and not just in the narrow framework of promotion. The goal is growth and engagement and promotion may be a side effect.
If it is established that promotion is the right goal, it is the manager’s responsibility to help the employees understand where they are with regards to the competencies that are required and by coaching them on those. What can be achieved is up to the employee.
Promotion bugs
From what I have seen I think these are the most common reasons for misalignment on promotion expectations.
The employee feels they are ready for promotion because they perform at the next career level on some aspects of their role (typically craft), but they do not perform at that next level on other aspects.
Help them understand the full requirement for the next role. Coach them to reflect on the aspects where they are not ready.
The employee expects to be nominated for promotion because they exceed expectations in their current position, but they do not yet perform at the required level for the next one.
Help them understand the full requirement for the next role. Delegate some tasks that expose them to responsibilities of the next career level.
The employee has identified promotion as their goal but seems uninterested in the problem space of the next career level.
Have a further conversation about personal goals. Try to find what is at the root of the desire to be promoted. Are there other ways these goals can be achieved?
The employee feels they cannot get promoted because their manager does not believe in them.
If someone is not convinced of their manager’s objectivity and good intentions it will be a serious hindrance for coaching. Besides working on the trust relation the manager should help find a mentor that their report trusts that can give their opinion on promotion readiness.
The employee wants to be promoted but does not put in the effort to understand the requirements for the next role.
As long as someone thinks promotion is something they will receive and do not understand it is something that they need to achieve it will be hard for them to make progress. Coach them to understand that promotion is not just a reward for good performance. They are in charge of their own growth path. The manager is there to help them forward, but not to push them there.
In Summary
It is key that the employee starts to understand their own readiness towards promotion, in the long run this contributes much more to their growth than their manager’s opinion. | https://medium.com/@svanrappard/growth-promotion-management-5b02fb49f0fb | ['Steven Van Rappard'] | 2021-09-08 14:15:40.030000+00:00 | ['Performance Management', 'Management', 'Engineering Mangement', 'Career Advancement', 'Promotion'] |
Creating Purchase Contract with Ethers.js Using Angular NgRx v8 | Having Fun with Material Snackbar
When we are dealing with DApps, it often involves some time for a transaction to return from the state-changing operations on the Ethereum blockchain. From the user experience point of view, we should give some visible indication of the result of these operations. In Part I, we already implemented the loading and error states, a part of the NgRx global store. In this section, we are going to look at how to add the snackbar notification state also.
We start by defining a custom snackbar component that could receive the notification data.
The snackbar state is managed by dispatching the following action to the store:
export const open = createAction('[SnackBar] Open', props<{ payload: SnackBarInterface }>());
This action is being handled by Effect:
The immediate advantage of managing the snackbar state globally is that we can trigger the snackbar notification both from a component or directly from a side effect. For example, in case of the error effect:
The result may look like this: | https://medium.com/better-programming/escrow-dapp-with-ethers-js-using-angular-ngrx-v8-creating-purchase-contract-b26228a22ca7 | ['Alex Yevseyevich'] | 2020-03-15 01:19:42.885000+00:00 | ['Angular', 'Smart Contracts', 'Ngrx', 'Ethereum', 'Dapps'] |
Capernaum — A modern day Oliver Twist & much more | Every few years or if you are as addicted to Tv and movies as me, there comes a movie that has a truly cerebral effect on you. Now I know that this movie has been around for a while and nothing that I write about it is going to be match the hundred of fancy movie critics that you might meet a movie festival loitering on a beach.
Therefore I have chosen to write about the movie in terms of the experiences that I had as an addict. Now if you have been on binge watch before you know that while flipping through shows or movies there comes a point where you think a break might be good. This movie will not let you take one, PERIOD!
The script and acting especially by our protagonist “Zain” while move you between wanting to punch everyone in the world that would let such a thing happen to a kid and still make you root for this unlikely hero to do things that no kid in should ever be asked to do. While watching movies especially with child actors I often find myself thinking — Is it safe for this kid to exposed to this sort of toxicity even in the name of good cinema? But then I am reminded that goal is not to show the story of one child but the thousands and millions of “Zain”, “Sahar” and “Yonas” in the world — whose stories are all too important to not be told
While the movie will start you with the feeling of an Oliver Twist re-enactment, it will leave you with the emotions that you may experience watching/reading “The Kite Runner” or anything else that leaves you thinking that we don’t deserve this beautiful world
If you haven’t already watched this movie — I recommend you do, you may require subtitles which Netflix should happily provide but they don’t take away much from the emotional roller coaster that is this movie | https://medium.com/@therecoveringreviewer/capernaum-a-modern-day-oliver-twist-and-much-64d21d6604a1 | ['The Recovering Reviewer'] | 2020-12-25 18:35:11.920000+00:00 | ['Netflix', 'Movies', 'Capernaum', 'Movie Review'] |
Unseen Forces Govern Your Country | Unseen Forces Govern Your Country
Regarding two books of political science from 1955 and 1976 covering structural realities widely disregarded by those discussing politics
Despite what the media relays of American government, most policy decisions are made without much relation to elections, party, or justice. Consider the bills actually passed by the US Congress last session.
The real acts of congress do not get much media attention. And, more importantly, most of these bills are simply commands for federal agencies to create and enforce some new rule. For example, the “FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018” extends funding for the FAA and calls for many new bureaucratic actions such as a privacy review of drones, creation and distribution of an “Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights,” clearer policies about checking strollers as luggage, and the establishment of a new “Department of Homeland Security Traveler Redress Inquiry Program”.
So the real labor of government is done at some remove from what they emote about in the news. In gross terms, agencies create about 20 rules for each law coming out of congress. (Amusingly, the link I just gave is to an anti-government group that thinks this is too much!)
Congress commits to some idea by passing a law, and then agencies have to throw together regulations to fulfill on the promise. Though I won’t cover it here, the same thing happens at the state level with the legislative body making new regulative work for state agencies, and the agencies scurrying to fulfill on it roughly on time.
From this point of view, elected officials appear as a small part of the puzzle of American government. Most of the real work happens in mandarin subsystems I know very little about. Arguably the elected people have greater leverage than the others, but they are vastly outnumbered and unable to really understand and contribute meaningfully to the work of government.
I found two books in my mom’s house describing these mandarin subsystems and she clarified that both books were written by old friends! So I read them.
J. Leiper Freeman’s book The Political Process: Executive Bureau-Legislative Committee Relations is an extension of his dissertation work on the Bureau of Indian Affairs (the BIA). His central claim is that committees are the epicenter of policy for particular groups (e.g. Indian affairs) and that there are quite obvious and distinct ways that players can relate to each other in these subsystems. The author would have been 33 years old when the book was published (1955), but only 30 when the main research was completed during a rather short PhD program (3 years). Freeman had already taught a year as a professor on a Bachelor’s degree (standards were so different then!) and is not, in this book, a wizened old sage ruminating on the vicissitudes of bureaucracy. The theoretical claims are, rather, made in order to satisfy a desire for some theory to govern the topic and for that theory to secure Freeman tenure at Vanderbilt. This was never a very important book. It is also a bit of a chore to read.
Gary L. Wamsley and Mayer N. Zald authored The Political Economy of Public Organizations: A Critique and Approach to the Student of Public Administration as an outgrowth of a journal article with the same gist published three years earlier, in 1973. Both authors focused on the sociology of politics, with Wamsley doing the beautiful work of applying Erving Goffman to budgeting processes and Zald writing prolifically on social movement organizations. This is basically an important book written twenty years after Freeman’s. It was very easy to read.
To be clear, neither book echoes my (Foucaultian) position that power is primarily capillary; both books assume real power is held on high and the subsystems are just funny details of enforcement. But Wamsley and Zald do give a very weak metaphor: the political process is often imagined as a game of chess, but maybe the pieces are moving for their own internal reasons! Anyway, I have added the slant that “centralized power is not that powerful because local proxies do the real work and are quite unlike the center.”
Context of Bureaucracies
The federal bureaucracies do the actual work of administration that politicians like to fight about but are rarely interested in actually doing. Freeman insists that parties in the American context are just organizations to help politicians get elected (16–17). Because of this, parties need to avoid controversial, overly-specific, or complicated stances of the kind that are basically inevitable in the work of administering government. Should we increase bridge tolls to finance transit infrastructure improvements? Should we set caps on incomes of dialysis centers? Should we guarantee maximum class sizes for teachers? It usually doesn’t help the party to commit to either side of these.
Where parties appear involved in specific policy issues, particular party-supported politicians tend to drag the party along by taking specific policy positions that they phrase as essential expressions of party ideology. Because the party is so closely associated with the politician, their stance is seen as (or explicitly adopted as) party creed.
But the “chief, enduring partisan concern” is not to make one specific policy or another; it is “to capture the government” (31).
The Realm of Bureaucracy
Bureaucracies are thus left with the actual administrative work of handling the many and diverse requests brought to government to make things work in whatever context. Freeman makes the rather fantastic point that,
If there is any creeping socialism in American government, it has come and is coming largely as an accompaniment of what might be called “creeping pluralism,” that is, the gradual growth of political groups especially concerned with the protection and promotion of particular interests. (5)
Wamsley and Zald add much more depth to the context of bureaucracies, rephrasing them as economic actors who offer a “well-received product to an efficacious clientele.” Their basic contribution is to use political economy to show how agencies are not simply extensions of centralized federal power, but instead act as organisms of their own, trying to secure their long term value proposition (against random political noise) and ensure their mission and work can continue into the future.
Internal Economy
Indeed, Wamsley and Zald go so far as to ask if there really are any differences between a federal agency and a regular business! Businesses, they explain, are more sensitive to “the price system” while agencies:
• are more controlled by superiors than the price system
• depend mostly on funding rather than revenue, and this funding depends on previous experience and perceptions of supervisors
• tend to have many vague goals
• may not see much benefit from reducing costs and may be able to shift costs to other agencies
• generally lack objective tests of efficacy (5–6)
Market Stability
Going further, Wamsley and Zald claim that agencies tend to do one of three kinds of jobs, which more or less determine how politically tumultuous their work will be. Distributive work simply means providing benefits to specific audiences and tends to be calm. Regulatory work means punishing some and helping others (eg FDA, FCC, FTC), so it tends to be contentious until the regulator has been fully captured by those it regulates and (as a puppet) becomes a stable participant in an industry or similar. Redistributive work moves resources around from some people to others and tends therefore to be very contentious and, in response, extremely bureaucratic with more red tape than others. Treasury, Medicaid, Social Security, and the IRS are examples.
Grooming a Bureau Elite
If the bureau is defending precarious values or needs a high degree of cohesion in its highest-ranking people (but struggles to get it), then grooming can help. Forestry, for example, does a lot of work to make sure its elite has very similar training and worldview. The bureau elite mostly matter for getting the work done of the bureau itself, but they may also represent the agency to other potential political allies. This concept is quite appealing to me and can also be characterized as a facet of the “deep state.” Wamsley and Zald just bring it up as part of the political economy of public administration.
Winning Autonomy
Wamsley and Zald pitch a very alluring set of factors to explain varying levels of autonomy between agencies. Why are some so freewheeling and some constrained completely?
Having a clear mission tends to limit the agency’s autonomy. Having a zany, weird, multi-part fuzzy mission is way easier! If supervisors (e.g. congress) understands the agency’s goal, it can confidently make its own decision about how the agency should operate to meet the goal. It’s too easy for others to understand the agency (as it is thus framed) and so it is too easy for others to futz with.
Being totally inscrutably complicated, like California’s UC system, is great for autonomy because no one is sure what the hell you do or how you operate or what you are responding to or how it needs to go in the next ten years. This reminds me of a beautiful story about the growth in research commitment to computing at the cost of funding for social science: the congressman could figure out how to make fun of the social science but had no idea what was happening with the computer mumbo jumbo. So the agency slashed budget for social science and redirected it into computers. Thanks, hicks!
Providing a service that is seen as fundamental wins an agency a lot of autonomy. What is fundamental and what is not? That is a matter of perception, but given the perception that, say, Veterans Affairs must exist, then the agency can more easily set its own agenda.
Developing product-market fit with efficacious clientele can increase support for an agency and thus its autonomy. The US Census made a move like this when it introduced local census surveys for the benefit of those focused on specific localities.
Having the right supporters. There are different ways to play it, but Figure 2–2 (reproduced here!) is great fun and gets you thinking. The U.S. Tea Tasting Board is widely regarded with neutrality, but a very small number of the right people think it’s just great. The secret police of the USSR were not at all popular, but Stalin liked them and that was enough!
Then they run this amazing chart o page 31.
The Relevant Legislative Committees
Gosh these guys come off as a real drain (this topic gets more attention from Freeman). The legislature has to approve funding for the agencies and, really, the agency must exist to fulfill promises made by legislative actions (bills passed into law). Furthermore, the agencies exist to do fair, balanced federal work but the members of congress exist to represent the local people federal regulations are usually designed to keep in line. So the committee and agency are both intertwined and working at cross purposes.
In practice, the committees control money and resources. Their primary stake in policy contests within the agencies is going to be to help out political patrons advance their agenda in the committee, and thus with the agency who is doing the actual administrative work. Or, in loftier terms, the elected representatives will represent the interests of their constituents and determine if the agency is really serving their needs or just wasting tax payer dollars! Or, maybe I’m supposed to say, the members of the committee will represent their locality thereby counterposing two levels of representation to reach ongoing, workable compromises between federal and local needs. These days I just assume most working professionals are corrupt and incompetent sticking with the work purely for self-serving reasons based in their own decaying mental health.
Committees can’t control agencies directly, they have to work with purse strings, the media, and other resources to get an agency to play ball. The chair of a committee has a nice role. The person selected for this job is traditionally chosen by seniority. At the same time, committee assignments within congress are typically a political reward, potentially distributed by the parties almost directly. The chair of a committee can control the subject, duration, and evidence accepted in hearings so is well-positioned to influence the administrative work done by agencies.
Naturally, committee members tend to be arrogant and treat members of the agencies as if they do not know their subject area that well. But this is just positioning so the congress member looks like the big ape and can save face when they later decide to ignore sound technocratic reasoning for obviously stupid political reasons.
The committee members value a bureau representative who
knows what s/he is talking about
plays it straight
cooperates
There’s a good lesson in government!
Interest Group Leader
A final powerful character in a policy subsystem is the interest group leader. These leaders do not have any formal power, of course. They aren’t employed by the government. They must be well-informed, well-heard, vocal, organized, cohesive, clever, knowledgeable and persistent. (That list is in Wamsley and Zald.) Presumably the interest group they represent has a pile of money that can be contributed to whatever political causes their contacts in congress request. And, in exchange, they will say some stuff that sounds sensible and try to get things moving in the right direction. They can try to make inroads directly with the agency, but that is often much harder.
Fun story: the FDA in America (and parallel bodies in many countries) now receives most of its annual funding from the companies it regulates (pharmaceutical companies paying to have their drugs tested, for example). This lets us cut out the middle manager role of congress and let interest groups directly capture bureau-level regulations, which is a different way to do it.
Policy Subsystems Control Quotidian American Government
These books put together a great set of ideas about the role of agencies in the administrative work of government. Little is said about the onbverse: contributions of the agencies to politics; but that seems ok. We also don’t get a very empirical perspective on how important these microcosmic forces are relative to others in driving social outcomes. And these books don’t cover the states.
But that’s ok with me. They’re just two books. | https://chuk.medium.com/unseen-forces-govern-your-country-ff2bae32f8ea | ['Chuk Moran'] | 2019-04-03 20:56:45.659000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Bureaucracy', 'Congress', 'American Government', 'Committee'] |
A human gene was implanted in plants and the combination proved successful | A human gene was implanted in plants and the combination proved successful Szilard Szabo Aug 23·3 min read
Researchers experimented with the unusual method, but instead of the expected catastrophic effect, they succeeded in doubling the yield implanting human FTO protein responsible for obesity into plants.
A study published in Nature Biotechnology in July reports an unusual experiment: Chinese and American researchers who have been studying the effects of the human FTO gene and the protein it encodes. For years they have tested what happens when the gene is planted in plants, and the results show that the combination has been successful. The role of FTO (fat mass and obesity-associated protein, also known as alpha-ketoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase enzyme) in obesity was only recently demonstrated in 2007. This protein is not the direct cause of obesity, it is only related to the process. The protein encoded by the FTO gene affects RNA function and plays a kind of regulatory role in the growth of living things by removing chemical markers from RNAs that read DNA information.
Zhuang Ho, a professor at the University of Chicago, and Kiufang Jia, a researcher at Peking University, wanted to know if the protein had such a special effect on the human and animal body, and the same would apply to plants that do not otherwise have FTO. with. However, there was a chance that the plants, because they did not recognize the protein, would react negatively to the foreign substance and become ill or die.
The result, in turn, refuted the ideas and brought surprising success: the plants, instead of being damaged, yielded twice as much fruit as before. The researchers said this was possible precisely because their bodies did not recognize the protein and therefore could not keep it under the usual strict control, so the FTO was free to exert its effects.
The outcome of the study was unexpected for the participants as well, further observations are needed to find out exactly how the reaction takes place at the molecular level, but one thing is for sure: each crop type tested for this type of modification yielded much more than their normal versions. The rice, which was tested under laboratory conditions, yielded three times the yield, and the plants grown in the open also doubled in weight and yield. Potatoes also became more robust and similar changes were observed for all other varieties.
According to the researchers, in the future, the modification may contribute to the development of very beneficial properties, as not only increased yield but also root length, treated subjects were more photosynthesized, and more tolerant of water scarcity stress. All this is a feature that may be much needed in regions with less ideal climates, especially the fact that more and more people have to support agricultural areas due to population growth, and the expected extreme weather events and more frequent droughts can have a detrimental effect on planted crops. However, interfering with the functioning of a living organism, especially if carried out in such an unusual way, can also cause problems, so it is necessary to repeat the experiments after the promising beginnings.
The researchers believe the FTO achieves the effect by controlling the m6A process, as deleting m6A suppresses signals that would warn the plant to slow growth. This, according to Ho, is fundamentally different from genetic modification methods or CRISPR technology, in this case, in the early developmental stage of the plant, they simply ‘switch a switch’, leading to the production of more crops, but since the plant already has this regulatory mechanism, it is not endowed with a completely new ability, only connected to the existing one. In the future, the main focus will be on how this change can be achieved by involving plants’ own genetic components without the use of the human gene.
(source: Qiong Yu et.al.) | https://medium.com/@szilardszabo_40166/a-human-gene-was-implanted-in-plants-and-the-combination-proved-successful-4a1d076ca0fd | ['Szilard Szabo'] | 2021-08-23 19:23:41.983000+00:00 | ['Fto', 'Protein', 'Genetics', 'Plants', 'Genetic Engineering'] |
“Mars Express”: a 2D sci-fi/detective animation film project in development | Mars Express is a 2D sci-fi/detective animation film project set in a Mars colony. Jérémie Périn and Laurent Sarfati, the core creators of Lastman (2016)* are reunited for this film project.
During Cartoon Movie 2019*, I could have the opportunity to hear the story behind the exciting film project Mars Express from the director Jérémie Périn and the scriptwriter Laurent Sarfati.
*: Lastman (2016) is a French animated series for adults based on a popular comic series of the same name.
*:Cartoon Movie is a pitch event for European animated film projects and recognized as the most prominent and efficient meeting place among producers, investors, and distributors of feature-length animated films to create synergy since its start in 1999.
Interview with Jérémie Périn and Laurent Sarfati
Hideki Nagaishi (HN): Could you please let our audience know about the idea of the story, in brief?
Jérémie Périn: It’s a sci-fi movie, as well as a private-eye movie. We are following two characters, Aline Ruby and Carlos Rivera. Aline is a drunk who struggles with alcoholism.
Laurent Sarfati: At the beginning, she is a tough person and doesn’t smile. She is all about her job. But as soon as she drinks a drop, she becomes a sweet, nice, funny and tender person. As the story is getting more and more complex and the problems are piling up, her alcoholism problem will reappear. So, the drunk Aline is going to be an important character.
Jérémie Périn: Her associate is Carlos. He is a robot. In fact, he is a dead human who was subscribed to an insurance to be reborn as a robot. For him, he is a human because he kept his memories from the time when he was human. But for everybody else, he is a robot. So, he also struggles with the fact that no one recognizes him as human.
Laurent Sarfati: They are both detectives. The story is very classical: Aline and Carlos are hired by worried parents, because their teenage daughter disappeared and the police is after her, as she was suspected for piracy and hacking. It turns out that hitmen were also after her, so Aline and Carlos rush to find the girl before the police and the hitmen.
Jérémie Périn: In fact, they find her really soon in the movie, but she’s killed instantly. It’s at the beginning of the movie. So, both mission accomplished and mission failed. They are really disappointed and the movie could end there.
Laurent Sarfati: Then Aline started to drink again. She wakes up after a really huge party and she realizes that it is not the parents of the teenage girl who hired Aline and Carlos. It is, in fact, the killers, and they used them to find the target. They used some future technology to change their face, so they could look like the parents. When they go to the funeral of the girl, they see the real parents. They see that the faces are the same, but the bodies are totally different.
That makes them super angry and they do what detectives and private-eyes do when they are drunk and angry: They start to look where they shouldn’t look and ask the wrong questions to the wrong people. The real story unfolds.
Jérémie Périn: The real story is more about the robot and AI uprising. It is something that’s been inside the movie from the beginning, but it was almost muted. It’s really a background story that later in the movie becomes the main story.
Laurent Sarfati: What we hope is that the audience watching the movie will get very used to seeing these nice robotic slaves all the time: being very polite, holding a glass of water, doing everything. However, we want the audience, after that, to realize that it is a situation of apartheid. We wanted the audience thinks it’s completely normal, and after a while, they conclude: “But, they are sentient, yet treated like objects!”
Actually, what’s very important in the movie are the directives that are exactly like Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics”, meaning that all the AI have “locks” in their programming that forbid them to harm any human. But it is also like a prison of their mind. Their mind is in jail, they cannot think about some things, because they are forbidden to think about harming a human. That’s the background that becomes the main story at the end.
Jérémie Périn: Of course, the story of the disappearance of Jun, the daughter at the beginning, was linked to the main story. It was not like the movie changed the story, for whatever random reason. She has been killed because she knew too much.
HN: How did this film project start?
Jérémie Périn: It was because Laurent and I always wanted to make a Sci-Fi movie since long ago. We knew it would be a private-eye story on Mars that we wanted to write, but the story changed many times.
Meanwhile, we met Didier Creste, who is the producer of the movie, but at that time, he proposed me to direct an animated series which was an adaptation of a French comic Lastman. So, I decided to do it, and we worked together on it, with many other people of course.
After that, Didier wanted us to make a Lastman movie. I was really happy to make Lastman, but also a little bit bored of it, because I spent three years of my life on it, I wanted to do something else.
Laurent Sarfati: I pitched this film project to Didier and he says, “OK, you are paid to write that.” And Jérémie and I spent nine months in paradise. It was amazing to wake up and think, “OK, I am going to meet my friend and we are going to dream about the movie that’s happening in Mars, with robots.” We loved writing that.
HN: How are you developing the characters and the story?
Laurent Sarfati: It’s a very long process, actually. Writing is rewriting, you don’t say “OK, that’s it, my movie is done” after writing the first draft. When you write a movie, it’s layers and layers of rewriting. There was a lot of back-and-forth between the story we want to tell and what kind of characters are efficient with that story to show every aspect of it. It’s difficult to explain the process completely but it’s half technical, and half organic.
Jérémie Périn: Characters in a script have many functions. They are like vehicles for the story that the audience are inside of, to see the character’s point of view. The choice of the characteristics for the characters are super important, and there are two main characters that change a lot during the process of writing the story.
Actually, we were surprised at the point when we realized: “Oh, Aline, our main character, is not very funny. She’s super serious, she’s tough.” And that was not the character at the beginning that we were writing. Then we had that thing where she was struggling with alcohol, that we removed sometimes, and after removing it, we realized, “Ah, no! She’s too flat!” She needs a malfunction.
It’s subtle, but that subtle change really transformed the ending of the movie. The experience for the audience will be slightly different, but more efficient.
Laurent Sarfati: It’s also a secret thing in the movie. Each character has an addiction to something and struggles with it. So, we had to have something for Aline, and because she’s a private-eye, she has to deal with alcohol.
Carlos appeared in the process also, because at first we wanted him to be a robot. Then we had the idea that he’s a dead guy who has his memories in a robot. And that completely changed the movie.
Jérémie Périn: In the movie, we talk about humans and robots, and he’s the perfect character to symbolize both in the same person. He’s half-robot, half-human. He has to choose, in a way, what he is. So, the movie questions some ideas like that.
Laurent Sarfati: It’s one of the main themes of the movie. It’s in the future, where the blurry limits between reality and fiction are important and upcoming now in our world. Between what is intelligent and what is an object. Between what is alive and dead. We are blurring every aspect of life.
In the movie, there is another technology that is going to replace the robots, and we call it the “organics”. They are artificial life, but they got blood and organs and plugged into computers. Even between life and inanimate objects, the lines are completely blurred.
HN: What gives you creative inspiration for developing the story?
Jérémie Périn: When we work together, we never self-censor ourselves. We are using all the ideas, even the stupidest ones. And most of the time, it’s stupid, but it’s okay because you have to remove all inhibitions in the process.
Sometimes, we have some ideas that we see too much in movies, so we don’t use them. Sometimes, we’re okay with ideas that sounds not so new, because it’s good for the movie. In the end, what is the most efficient for the movie and its purpose is the right idea.
Laurent Sarfati: An effect that can happen is that we misunderstand each other, and from that misunderstanding, a new idea can emerge. That happens quite often.
Jérémie Périn: Of course, my inspiration for the movie I wanted to avoid is Blade Runner (1982), because it’s such a big reference for sci-fi movies. I wanted to quit that, and try to propose something else. That’s why, in the beginning, it could look like Blade Runner with those buildings, the dying Earth, and right after that, we are going to Mars, and Mars does not look at all like Blade Runner. It’s the opposite: It’s really horizontal, shiny and beautiful, but it’s totally artificial because when you’re out of the city, it’s just the Martian desert.
HN: I would like to hear about the visuals. How are you developing the visual design of the film’s universe?
Jérémie Périn: Ideally, I prefer not to think about the design during the writing process, because I know the script can change a lot at any moment. I prefer to preserve the virginity of my vision, and have all the ideas when I know the story is really completed and done.
After that, I think about the design in a pragmatic way. I’m like “Okay, what is the technology used for that robot. Is that robot old or new? How can I show the difference visually that this one is older than that one?”
We also look at science articles to prospect some ideas of new technologies in the future that we could expend and exaggerate for our movies, like how the transportation between Paris and Mars won’t be with rockets, as in other sci-fi movies; we found something else.
Laurent Sarfati: At the very beginning of the writing, we were constantly questioning ourselves about the scientific realism of our story. We ended up meeting with two Martian planetologists, and we asked: “What would the first Martian colony with two million people look like?” They were staring at each other. They studied Mars their whole lives, and they never thought about what a Martian colony would look like.
Jérémie Périn: We asked them where on the planet would be the best place to start a colony, so they had to think about that.
Laurent Sarfati: They opened a program, and they visited Mars on the program, and they say, “Oh yeah, I would put my colony here, there’s water and you can hide yourself in caves to be sheltered from the radiation.” It was fascinating for us and we did exactly that.
HN: What kind of experience or message do you want to deliver via this film to the audience?
Jérémie Périn: I don’t really enjoy movies with messages. I’m more into movies that asks questions to the audience to try to let them think about subjects that they may usually avoid. This movie asks some questions about free will. Do we really have free will? For some of our characters who are robots, they are programmed to think in one way and not another. They have this possibility at some point to crack that code that prohibits them from thinking about absolutely everything. We are questioning: do humans have something like that in their minds?
There are also many other questions asked by the movie, or a subject we are pointing to, like inequality through our society, and people who are used by powerful people.
Laurent Sarfati: There is a political aspect, but it’s really in the background. We don’t want to make a big thing about it. It’s just a background, but it’s important. The world where the story happens is like Elon Musk’s paradise. Mars is like a backup of Earth, which is completely polluted and dying. Now there is this beautiful place on Mars, where everyone is beautiful, rich and young. The truth is, that kind of system doesn’t work. They never work.
HN: So, you are showing one possibility of human society on Earth and Mars. There are of course some social issues the same as what we have now.
Jérémie Périn: We’re talking about our actual world, but exaggerate it and put it in the distant future, as a way of magnifying some aspects of it. Also, you would not be aggressing the audience or the people responsible for that situation by putting it in some virtual, imaginative world. It’s a way for people to step back and have a larger view of the topic. It’s really the subject of the movie, but it’s what we love in science fiction.
It is like with RoboCop. It is an action movie, but if you are scratching the surface, you’ll find some deep questions. Like what is alive, what is dead, what is the soul, who are we… But if you just want to watch an action movie, RoboCop can just be an action movie.
Laurent Sarfati: It’s really important, because even if you don’t pay any attention to its philosophical/political background, that’s what in fact supports all the action. Without that, everything becomes completely hollow. | https://medium.com/animationweek/mars-express-4d2328684e3d | ['H. Nagaishi'] | 2019-09-14 08:38:46.604000+00:00 | ['Science Fiction', 'Film', 'Animation', 'Art'] |
Latin Words That DON’T Mean That | Latin Words That DON’T Mean That
Coma, not a coma: Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty. (source: Wikimedia Commons)
Everyone gets put in the position at some point of having to translate things on the spot. If you don’t know exactly what the passage means, you’ll be tempted to offer a translation that represents the “general idea” as you see it, based on the meanings of some key words. But watch out: there are some Latin words that don’t mean what they appear. Some diverge wildly from their English meanings. And if you don’t know these words, your translation can go pretty spectacularly wrong. We’ve got a list of some of the worst offenders.
Placenta.
Augustine talks about loving placentas. Seneca says that thinking about your friends being well is like having a placenta with honey on top. Jerome says it’s not a top-notch feast unless you can smell the placentas (non sunt suaves epulae quae non et placentam redoleant). What is going on here? Well placenta is the Latin word for any flour-based cake. It’s related to the verb placere, to please: it’s a baker-produced crowd pleaser. It has nothing to do with childbirth except that at some point someone (much later, apparently) thought a human placenta had a cakelike shape. The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae lists no instances where the Latin word placenta means placenta.
Coma.
Morrissey wrote a song about his girlfriend’s coma, and Ovid did too. But in Latin coma means hair. Horace talking about a longa coma does not mean that anyone is in the hospital. The stuff about medical states of unresponsiveness all comes from Greek.
Larva.
Prudentius says you can propitiate larvae with blood. Gregory of Tyre says that after an exorcism a larva came out of a human body. Venantius Fortunatus says that larvae will go away at the mere name of St. Martin. This has nothing to do with bugs! A larva is a ghost or spirit. It was some scientists who thought the pale forms of adolescent insects looked ghostly, though I think it’s a comedown for what was originally a terrifying word. In old Latin by the way it’s lar-u-a, three syllables.
Urīnor.
When I die and go to the Elysian fields I’ll ask Varro what in the world happened with this word. Urina in Latin means urine. Makes sense. But the verb form of it, urinor, means “to dive into water.” Don’t ask me why. Legendary Latinist Reginald Foster went to a pool in Rome used by priests, who all had at least some Latin. He knew his Latin dictionary well, while some of the others did not. After going for a swim, he sat by the side of the pool while others continued to frolic in the water. When a friend asked him how his swim was, the Pope’s Latinist replied, “Optime! Urinatus sum in piscinam ter!” Which means he dove into the pool three times, but you can imagine the reaction he got.
Offendo.
Okay, this word can mean “to offend.” The problem is it usually doesn’t. It means to bump into something. Ovid talks about how a ship in scopulis offendit, scraped against or ran aground on some reefs. It can also mean to bump into people, or meet them. Very different from offending them! Or bump into something and find it. But of course sometimes you do bump into people and sometimes they are offended: hence the English (and sometimes Latin) meaning.
Rectum.
The Roman Stoics go on and on about how important the rectum is. Ovid says that the Golden Age cultivated faith and the rectum (“fidem rectumque colebat”). To quote Lewis and Short, this is the Latin word for all “that is right, good, virtuous; uprightness, rectitude, virtue (very frequent).” It also means “straight.” The modern anatomical meaning is an abbreviation of the phrase intestinum rectum, the straight intestine. After coiling around for quite a while the last stage of the colon straightens out, hence the English term.
Anus.
While we’re on the topic, we may as well distinguish between the Latin word ānus, āni m. (meaning “anus”) and anus, anūs, f., meaning “an old female,” and applied mostly to people but also to animals (cerva anus says Ovid, an old doe), plants (Pliny mentiones anus fici, old fig-trees), and even the Earth (terra anus is in Pliny). This is far and away the more common Latin word. In general, if you see the word anus in Latin it has nothing to do with anuses. | https://medium.com/in-medias-res/latin-words-that-dont-mean-that-490591bf21dc | ['John Byron Kuhner'] | 2021-08-27 11:52:42.857000+00:00 | ['Hack Your Latin', 'Vocabulary', 'Latin', 'Teaching And Learning', 'False Friends'] |
Team Zero Weekly Newsletter | In terms of exchanges, firstly, we have been awarded 4 out of 5 stars on the Cryptopia Exchange thanks to the latest round of deliverables we are finalising at the moment in the Android Mobile Wallet, and also Web Wallet.
Secondly, another bit of great news is that we have also been listed this week on DigitalPrice Exchange, which is really positive. We are also in the running for listing on the CoinPulse and Shardax exchanges, but will need to rally the votes in order to be successful in these voting campaigns.
We’ve shared the links further down the page, so if you have the time, please do head on over and cast a vote to help us along the way.
This brings our exchange listings now to:
Cryptopia
Trade Satoshi
Barterdex
QIEX
Crex 24
DigitalPrice
And voting underway for:
CoinPulse
Shardax
Please remember that our aim as the development team is to deliver a transparent project that can be recognised as mainstay contender in the privacy coin realm and in the overall crypto space.
As always, thank you all for your continued support on Zero’s path to steady, organic growth and we hope you enjoy the products being delivered that can attest to Zero’s current and future status in this realm.
For anyone interested in investing — please do your own research prior to committing to any project, and we ask you to please not blindly commit to a project because someone else told you to.
Let’s get into the details of what has been happening per section / discipline this week:
Wallets
Web Wallet, Mobile Wallet, and Arizen Wallet:
Welcome Screen — Android Mobile Wallet
TX Screen — Android Mobile Wallet
Send TX Screen — Android Mobile Wallet
Colour Scheme of the Web Wallet / Testing of Web Wallet
The Android beta testing has been going extremely well, with 25 people assisting us with the testing of the app. There were a couple of tweaks to the interface in terms of colour scheme and also some minor UI tweaks.
We are in the process of submitting the Android app now through the Google Play Store to make it nice and official, so please feel free to leave some reviews if you like it, or if you do have issues, please do let us know first so we can action prior to leaving a negative review.
The IOS version is being compiled at the moment, as Cryptoforge managed to emulate the app onto a Mac.
We will let you know when the beta testing opens for this version of the app, and we look forward to letting you test it out and help us identify any issues at all. | https://medium.com/zerocurrency/team-zero-weekly-newsletter-a5701352d2bd | ['Zero Currency'] | 2018-06-28 11:17:09.645000+00:00 | ['Internet', 'Technology', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Computer Science'] |
Charting a flightpath for humanitarian drones: WFP Technical Working Groups shape protocols even before takeoff | By Masa Sabbah, Information Management Officer, WFP Drones
Drones are a powerful technology for humanitarians because they save time when it is needed most. Work that once took days, like search and rescue and damage assessment after disasters, are reduced to hours with drones.
After a decade of experience, the benefits of drones in emergency response are clear, but humanitarians are still pushing to do more to define what it means to deploy them safely, ethically, responsibly and in a coordinated way.
“We should shape technology to serve humanitarian objectives rather than letting technology shape humanitarianism. This is an important distinction.” — Denise Soesilo, Co-founder of Outsight International, a non-governmental organization.
WFP started building drone capacity in 2017. In 2019, following Cyclone Idai in Mozambique, it deployed drones for the first time in an emergency response to conduct rapid post-disaster assessments as well as coordinate with national officials and partners on the ground. Photo: WFP/Patrick McKay (Mozambique, 2020)
The WFP Drones team has started molding these much-needed drone protocols with Technical Working Groups drawing over 50 experts from government, air safety, non-governmental organizations, academic institutes, private sector, and UN agencies.
The working groups, which are made possible with funding from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), span the critical areas of Regulations and Operation, Imagery, Ethics and Connectivity.
From the ground up
Drones must be operated safely and be aligned with national and international aviation standards — this is the basic groundwork that needs to be laid before a drone can take off.
Through the working group on Regulations and Operations, WFP Aviation Safety is developing capacity building activities and remote pilot training standards to ensure drone pilots have the right skills before they fly.
After an earthquake, cyclone or flood, drones give an incredibly detailed, crystal-clear birds eye view of risks and destruction. When used in tandem with machine learning applications, they can help humanitarians locate people and assess damage in record time.
“Being able to see the affected area from above increases the safety of everyone involved and can aid in the search and rescue of victims trapped in collapsed buildings.” — Jowett Wong, Emergency Program Officer at Global Medic, who is part of the working group on imagery.
However, the way drone images are processed and shared is just as important as the way they speed up operations. In other words, drones cannot compromise the wellbeing and privacy of the communities they are trying to help.
Launching a drone during a WFP training in Mozambique, December 2020. Photo: WFP/Matthias Boyen
“Do no digital harm” is a guiding principle for using technology in humanitarianism and is essential to maintaining accountability to affected populations. The working group on ethics will amplify these values by defining best practices in responsible data storage, analysis, and sharing.
WFP has over two decades of experience setting up communications connectivity during humanitarian emergencies in some of the world’s most difficult environments. WFP FITTEST (Fast IT and Telecommunications and Emergency Support Team) and the WFP-led Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) are already expert players in this area and drones may take connectivity services to new levels.
Attach a connectivity access point to a drone, fly it up to 90 meters high (depending on the equipment) and up to 12 kilometers squared will have a blanket of coverage. This solution, called a flying COW (Connectivity On Wings) is being discussed by the working group on connectivity which will identify the best way to leverage drones in field operations.
Checks and balances before flying
Technology often develops faster than our ability to grasp all its implications — a sentiment shared by several experts involved in the technical working groups. As Jowett Wong puts it: “[drones] are developing at a very quick pace, so we need to be able to define how to best use the technology and evolve our practices by learning from each other.”
Drones are tipped to play an increasing role in efficient and effective humanitarian response. “I see the working groups as an essential part of the process to authoritatively define standard operating procedures and barriers, as well as important follow-up work for the deployments,” says Denise Soesilo.
The inclusive conversation started by the WFP Drones team has come at exactly the right time. | https://medium.com/@wfpinnovation/charting-a-flightpath-for-humanitarian-drones-wfp-technical-working-groups-shape-protocols-even-8452cb2518e | ['Wfp Innovation Accelerator'] | 2021-01-07 09:00:32.385000+00:00 | ['Innovation', 'Technology', 'Drones', 'Food Security', 'Wfp'] |
Friday Five: Beaten by the bots on Black Friday | Zone’s Ross Basham handpicks and shares the five best new stories on digital trends, experiences and technologies…
1. Bots snapping up the stock on Black Friday
Happy Black Friday! But whether that phrase gets your pulse racing or just elicits a big sigh, there’s no doubt we’re shopping online more this year. And with in-demand items like the PlayStation 5 just released, that’s thrown the problem of bots — which can automatically buy a product the second it goes on sale — into the spotlight.
That’s why out-of-stock PS5s are available on eBay for hundreds of pounds more than the RRP. But it’s not just big-ticket electronics — everything from cuddly toys to film collectibles are seeing bots snap up the stock, while the most advanced bots were originally developed for the highly lucrative limited-edition trainer market.
2. Time to embrace a life of digital minimalism?
Should we radically simplify our digital and online lives? That was the theme explored by Professor Cal Newport in the latest edition of The Book Club, hosted by Zone and Campaign in partnership with Penguin Business. Newport is the author of Digital Minimalism, in which he explains how to take back control from our devices.
According to Newport, “a digital minimalist starts with what they care about and then asks themselves how they can best support or amplify those things using technology”. In this Campaign article Newport discusses how this concept can apply to the world of marketing, while you can catch up on The Book Club here.
3. Twitter asks users: are you sure you like this?
In the latest move to curb the spread of misinformation, Twitter will now issue warnings when users attempt to like content that has been flagged as “misleading information”. Twitter had already introduced the same warning for attempted retweets, and claims those prompts had decreased quote tweets by 29%.
It has also introduced a prompt when users try to retweet a post containing a link to an article they haven’t actually read. Will any of this actually stop Trump supporters jumping on the bandwagon when the outgoing president goes on one of his late-night rants? Probably not, but at least Twitter is making an effort.
4. Lift-off for Stannah’s ‘revolutionary’ platform
Zone has helped leading stairlift and chairlift manufacturer Stannah launch an innovative digital platform in the UK that allows customers to buy its life-changing products online. The platform distils the process of buying a new stairlift into a simple 20-minute interaction on a laptop, tablet or mobile phone.
Customers are able to find and buy a stairlift tailored to meet their needs by submitting specific information about their home, including type of staircase and number of turns, and choose from two packages. Sam Stannah, head of the Strategic Projects team, said: “This is a revolutionary move in the stairlift industry.”
5. Romantic robot pens very modern love story
As anyone who’s ever tried will attest, writing romantic fiction is harder than it looks. So when the New York Times challenged an AI language system to write for its popular ‘Modern Love’ column, you’d expect the worst, right? Well, author GPT-3 surprised many with its tender, unexpectedly romantic offering.
GPT-3’s story has everything: the meet-cute, the shared interests, the chemistry, even a casual bit of infidelity (bad AI!). OK, so it ends in an endless stream of drinks and dinner but that’s at the heart of many successful relationships, isn’t it? And it’s still a cut above 50 Shades of Grey. | https://medium.com/@thisiszone/zones-ross-basham-handpicks-and-shares-the-five-best-new-stories-on-digital-trends-experiences-4bfa54497282 | [] | 2020-12-03 13:18:00.969000+00:00 | ['Twitter', 'Technology News', 'Black Friday', 'Bot', 'AI'] |
Elie Saab Jr. Wedding | The perfect wedding. The perfect location. The perfect husband. The perfect dress….
Now imagine that perfect dress being two perfect dresses…and now imagine those two perfect dresses being made by Mr. Elie Saab himself. Now imagine that perfect husband being Elie Saab Jr.
This was Christina Mourad’s reality this past summer, and luckily enough I was in Beirut at the same time. Even though I didn't attend the wedding I felt like I did just being in the same city as them.
With a Myriad of festivities in Lebanon throughout the entire weekend, Elie Saab wanted to bring all of the wedding guests to Lebanon for his sons iconic day. With houses throughout the world they could have chosen anywhere (maybe somewhere a little easier to get to) for their wedding, but the couple proudly chose where they were from to hold the ceremonies. The families of Elie Saab Elie Saab Jr and Christina Mourad thought big, having invited 1,200 people to the grand affair. The guests included the likes of Bianca Brandolini d’Adda, Karolina Kurkova, Sara Sampaio, Dita Von Teese, Toni Garrn, and Chantal Thomass. I was in the hotel where a handful of them were staying and got to see them walking out all dressed up in beautiful gowns. I mean they were attending the son of Elie Saab’s wedding so everyone had to dress to impress.
There were a handful of celebrities and even royals who flew to Lebanon to attend this unbelievable ceremony. Truly Elie Saab found a way to bring the people to Lebanon.
The bride had two wedding dresses designed by Elie Saab that she wore on the wedding day, one at the ceremony and one at the reception. Along with two other dresses for the pre party evening and the after party.
Lets just say that any girl would love to be Christina Mourad and be able to wear those dresses on their wedding day. | https://medium.com/@bjuan/elie-saab-jr-wedding-f1b37e6b7879 | ['Breslin Juan'] | 2019-10-17 18:10:17.603000+00:00 | ['Weddings'] |
How Coronavirus is Affecting Domestic Violence Victims | The coronavirus’ mandatory isolation requirements have left many victims of domestic violence locked in with their abusers, isolated from people and resources that could help them.
Domestic violence is a widespread issue, affecting men and women all over the globe. Some important facts to consider about domestic violence are:
• 1 out of 3 women in the world experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes
• Men do experience domestic violence, though women make up the majority of victims
• LGBTQ+ individuals also face high rates of domestic violence
• During a crisis, the risk of violence escalates
• In February, during China’s COVID-19 lockdown, the number of domestic violence cases reported to the local police tripled.
During the current crisis, victims of domestic violence are finding it extremely hard to seek out the help they need. Medical facilities are busier than ever, making it difficult for victims to get appointments with therapists or receive necessary medical care. The fear of contracting the virus has also prevented many victims from leaving the house to seek out appropriate care after being abused.
In a normal situation, many victims seek refuge at their parents’ house, however, during this crisis, many feel that they can’t find safety at their parents’ houses due to fears of exposing them to harmful contagion. Travel restrictions also create a new barrier between victims and places of refuge. Additionally, Women’s shelters might be too crowded or have been forced to close their doors in order to comply with social distancing regulations.
Financial tensions also tend to be a catalyst for domestic violence situations and as the pandemic takes a toll on families financially, it becomes even harder for spouses to leave their abusive partner. Recently UN Women, a United Nations entity, called on governments to provide packages for paid sick leave and unpaid care work, providing women facing domestic violence to receive an outlet for financial independence from their abusers. However, at this time, no such measures have been officially taken to help victims of domestic violence.
Certain essential services like the National Domestic Violence hotline are still available during this crisis. Consider calling their hotline at 1–800–799-SAFE (7233) if needed or visit their website for more resources.
If you are a victim of domestic violence and want to pursue legal action, Shah & Kishore can help. We will be your advocate every step of the way, fighting for your safety and wellbeing. Our phone lines are open 24/7 and we also offer video conferencing options to help you through these challenging times.
To learn more about how we can help you with your particular situation, please email or call us today at (301) 715–3838 to set up your FREE consultation. | https://medium.com/@marylandlawoffice/how-coronavirus-is-affecting-domestic-violence-victims-b2b7e14da426 | ['Rahul Kishore'] | 2020-12-02 17:38:32.476000+00:00 | ['Domestic Violence Lawyer', 'Domestic Violence', 'Maryland Divorce Lawyers'] |
Stock Exchange | “Market where company shares are bought and sold, among other financial products.” In the 14th century, merchants from Bruges (Flanders) met for their business in a building owned by a noble family called Van Der Büerse, whose coat of arms consisted of three leather bags. By extension, the places where commercial transactions were carried out began to be called Stock Exchange throughout the region. Thus, in the following years several “bags” were born in cities such as Antwerp and Ghent.
The first where shares were put up for sale was the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (which is therefore usually considered the oldest), when in 1602 the Dutch East India Company, the first public limited company in history, began to offer stakes in your businesses to finance your business expansion.
In this way, it was possible to raise large sums of money through small investments of the savings of a large number of people and in exchange for a participation (the shares) in the results of that business.
This function of financing by a company and investment by an individual, born from the needs of the colonialist mercantile companies of the time, as were the British or Swedish, continues to be the main one of the current Stock Exchanges.
The institution of the Stock Exchange finished its development in the following centuries, coinciding, of course, with the expansion of capitalism and private enterprise.
Thus arose that of London (1570), that of New York (1792), that of Paris (1794) and that of Madrid (1831). In all of them, the shares of the main companies in each country are bought and sold.
In this way, the Stock Exchange is an organization that provides a market where companies can offer their shares and investors, usually through intermediaries called stock brokers, can buy them.
In other words, it is where companies offer their shares (participation of other new partners in their companies) for money, to finance their expansion projects, so as not to resort to bank financing.
This market establishes rules and demands requirements that allow it to operate with certain guarantees of transparency.
Among the most important Stock Exchanges in the world are: the New York or NYSE (New York Stock Exchange), the main stock market in the world, located on Wall Street (New York) and where indicators such as the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq; the Tokyo Stock Exchange or TSE, which hosts the Nikkei 225, where the 225 most liquid companies in the Japanese economy are listed; the London Stock Exchange, the British market, where the FTSE-100 index is traded; or the Madrid Stock Exchange, which hosts the Ibex 35, made up of the quotes of the 35 most important companies in the country.
As a curiosity, it should be said that the images of the “trading floors” of the stock exchanges full of operators running to all sides and shouting everywhere have gone down in history, with few exceptions such as New York. Today, most operations are carried out remotely using computers. | https://medium.com/auricoin/stock-exchange-4fd54ebcf966 | [] | 2020-11-23 03:45:02.278000+00:00 | ['Stocks', 'Exchange', 'Banks', 'Industry'] |
Angular: Why and when to create a feature component and feature module | Designing Data Model
Create the product interface, check below code for the product.ts file.
export interface Product{ id: number | null; productName: string; productCode: string; productDescription?: string; }
Define a product module which is a feature module for the application. Import CommonModules for the common module used in the feature module.
import { NgModule } from ‘@angular/core’; import { CommonModule } from ‘@angular/common’; import { FormsModule } from ‘@angular/forms’; @NgModule({ imports: [ CommonModule, FormsModule, ], declarations: [ //Define feature component here later ], exports: [ //Define feature component here later ] }) export class ProductModule { }
Import ProductModule in the root module. In our case the root module is the default app module.
import { NgModule } from ‘@angular/core’; import { BrowserModule } from ‘@angular/platform-browser’; import { FormsModule } from ‘@angular/forms’; import { AppComponent } from ‘./app.component’; import {ProductModule} from ‘./products/products.module’; @NgModule({ imports: [ BrowserModule, FormsModule, ProductModule //<=== Feature Module ], declarations: [ AppComponent ], bootstrap: [ AppComponent ] }) export class AppModule { }
Creating Feature Components
Once our feature module is ready we can create two feature components. So why we are creating two-component instead of one. We can display both product form and product list in the same component. However keeping all functionality in one component as the application grows will become less maintainable. So split the product list and product form component. Once the feature component is created import to the product module. Yes you heard right do not need to import to root component anymore. Imagine this in large application. What will happen when we have tons of feature component. Our root component is clean and all feature components will be imported to the feature module.
import { NgModule } from ‘@angular/core’; import { CommonModule } from ‘@angular/common’; import { ProductListComponent } from ‘../products/product-list/product-list.component’; import {ProductFormComponent} from ‘../products/product-form/product-form.component’; import { FormsModule } from ‘@angular/forms’; @NgModule({ imports: [ CommonModule, FormsModule, ], declarations: [ ProductFormComponent, ProductListComponent ], exports: [ ProductFormComponent, ProductListComponent ] }) export class ProductModule { }
Below is the product-form component and template file. The product form consists of a simple product name, code, and description form. On submit event emit the form data to the list component.
Product list components file and template file. Once product added in the product form component and emitted to the list component. We are displaying the product list with iterating the list using a simple table.
Summary
Creating feature module and feature component leverage application scalability. We have seen how beneficial is the feature module in terms of application code maintainability. We have also discussed the benefits in terms of application architecture. We have created feature modules and added them to the root module. We have also created the feature component and added them to the feature module. We have also discussed the feature module types based on the functionality. | https://medium.com/coding-in-depth/angular-why-and-when-to-create-a-feature-component-and-feature-module-622351b5d136 | ['Coding In Depth'] | 2020-05-25 23:36:07.813000+00:00 | ['Web App Development', 'Modules', 'Components', 'Architectural Design', 'Angular'] |
SKORCH: PyTorch Models Trained with a Scikit-Learn Wrapper | SKORCH: PyTorch Models Trained with a Scikit-Learn Wrapper
Photo by Kenneth Berrios Alvarez on Unsplash
Have you ever wondered if there is a tool to train and evaluate a PyTorch model in a simple and easy way? Well, that tool exists and it is SKORCH, a scikit-learn wrapper for training PyTorch models.
In this blog, we are going to talk about what SKORCH is, its components and how easy it is to wrap a PyTorch model to train and evaluate it. The blog will be divided into the following sections:
What is SKORCH?
PyTorch model
Training with SKORCH
Let’s get started!
What is SKORCH?
SKORCH is the union of scikit-learn and PyTorch, in other words, SKORCH is a wrapper for training, tuning and optimizing PyTorch models. SKORCH is an open-source library launched in 2017 [1], SKORCH arises to combine and enhance the great virtues of the PyTorch and SciKit-learn frameworks together.
Figure 1. PyTorch + SciKit-Learn = SKORCH | Image by Author | Logos taken from original sources
PyTorch is one of the most used frameworks for the development of neural network models, however, some phases take development time and sometimes it becomes a somewhat impractical part. SKORCH tries to simplify and streamline various processes in the training phase of a PyTorch model. It is common for the training module of a PyTorch model to be developed in one or more functions, however, when it is necessary to evaluate the model or optimize to find the optimal parameters, additional functions need to be developed. All this process is simplified by SKORCH, since it is a wrap based on scikit-learn, hence extends the functions that already carry out these processes.
SKORCH professes the philosophy [2] : “Be a scikit-learn API, hackable, do not hide PyTorch, do not reinvent the wheel”
In figure 2 we can see the capabilities of PyTorch and scikit-learn that compound SKORCH. As we can see, from the PyTorch side, the capabilities to prototype a model and handle datasets are used. On the other hand, we observe that scikit-learn already known functions are extended to be able to train, evaluate, tune and optimize machine learning models, this combination makes SKORCH a powerful tool.
Figure 2. Benefits from PyTorch and scikit-learn into SKORCH | Image by Author | Logos taken from original sources
On the other hand, we can see SKORCH as the “equivalent” to the Keras API, which extends from Tensorflow to accelerate, simplify and speed up the prototyping of neural network models. In this case, SKORCH would serve as the prototype tool for the training, tuning and optimization phase of PyTorch models.
Great, so far we already know what SKORCH is, what are its components and the advantages of using it, it is time to see an example to better understand how it works, let’s go for it!
PyTorch Model
In order to know how SKORCH works when training a PyTorch model, we are going to create a neural network to predict the well-known wines dataset. So, first we are going to create a simple model for the classification of wines with respect to the aforementioned dataset, then we have:
If you want to access the full implementation, take a look at: https://github.com/FernandoLpz/SKORCH-PyTorch-Wrapper
Code snippet 1. PyTorch Model
As we can see, some values are fixed. For practical terms, I would like to highlight only lines 9 and 12. In line 9 we define 13 input features, this because the wine dataset contains 13 features. On the other hand, in line 12 we define an output of size 3, this because the classes that we are going to classify are 3 (that is, 3 types of wines).
Perfect, the PyTorch model is ready, it’s time to see how we train this model with SKORCH, let’s go to the next section!
Training with SKORCH
1. Basic Training
Training through SKORCH can be as simple or as elaborate as we need, for practical examples we will go gradually. So, a basic and simple way to train the model defined in the previous section would be as simple as the following lines of code:
Code snippet 2. Simple Training
We will analyze line by line. In line 2 we are importing the PyTorch model (which was defined in the previous section). In line 4 we are importing the class that will serve as a wrapper for our PyTorch model. This class receives a series of important parameters (line 7) which are: the PyTorch model, the number of epochs, learning rate, batch size and optimizer. Obviously, they are not the only parameters we can define in this class, however for practicality, we will only show those already mentioned in this example. Finally, on line 9 we execute the “fit” method, which will be in charge of performing the entire training phase.
You may be wondering, “what about the split into train and validation?”, well the NeuralNetClassifier class takes care of this as well. By default, this class implements StratifiedKFold split in the data with a ratio of 80% for training and 20% for validation. Well, once the above mentioned, this would be the output:
epoch train_loss valid_acc valid_loss dur
------- ------------ ----------- ------------ ------
1 9.6552 0.4167 9.2997 0.0124
2 9.6552 0.4167 9.2997 0.0109
3 9.6552 0.4167 9.2997 0.0107
4 9.6552 0.4167 9.2997 0.0109
5 9.6552 0.4167 9.2997 0.0116
6 9.6552 0.4167 9.2997 0.0119
7 9.6552 0.4167 9.2997 0.0114
8 9.6552 0.4167 9.2997 0.0113
9 9.6552 0.4167 9.2997 0.0115
10 9.6552 0.4167 9.2997 0.0115
The structure of the output is as shown in the previous snippet. As we can see, by default it shows us information regarding loss in training and validation sets, as well as accuracy in validation and execution time. Since we have not tuned the model, the results are extremely poor, however, we will fix this in the next examples.
2. Pipeline: Scaler + Training
In the previous point, we saw how to train the model with SKORCH in a basic way. However, data processing is a very important phase which is always carried out prior to the training phase. In this case, we are going to carry out a very simple preprocessing, we are only going to scale the data and then we will carry out the training, for this, we are going to make use of the scikit-learn Pipeline module, so we would have the following:
Code snippet 3. Pipeline which involves scaling and training
In lines 5 and 6 we import the Pipeline and StandardScaler modules from scikit-learn. In line 12 we can see that we initialize the wrapper exactly the same as in the previous point (with fixed values), the interesting thing comes in lines 14 and 15 where the Pipeline is initialized, which contains the StandarScaler() module as well as the wrap of the PyTorch model. Running this we get:
epoch train_loss valid_acc valid_loss dur
------- ------------ ----------- ------------ ------
1 0.4663 0.8889 0.3528 0.0124
2 0.0729 0.8889 0.6507 0.0111
3 0.0420 0.9167 0.4564 0.0118
4 0.0101 0.9167 0.3142 0.0116
5 0.0041 0.9167 0.3321 0.0119
6 0.0028 0.9167 0.3374 0.0129
7 0.0022 0.9167 0.3376 0.0111
8 0.0017 0.9167 0.3384 0.0122
9 0.0014 0.9167 0.3373 0.0135
10 0.0012 0.9167 0.3378 0.0118
It is important to highlight that the results improved notably, this due to the scaling of the data prior to the training phase.
So far we have seen how to train a PyTorch model (with fixed parameters) within an execution Pipeline as a scikit-learn module, however, how we could add other evaluation metrics such as accuracy or balanced accuracy to the SKORCH module, well this is where we make use of of the callbacks.
3. Pipeline: Scaler + Training + Callbacks
Callbacks are an extension of SKORCH that allows us to add other functions to the NeuralNetClassifier wrapper, for example, if we want the optimization metric to be balanced_accuracy or ROC or any another classification metric, this can be done through callbacks. So, introducing a callback to calculate the accuracy and balanced accuracy of the model within the pipeline would be as follows:
Code snippet 4. Pipeline which involves scaling, training and callbacks
So, as we can see in line 9 we import the EpochScoring callback. To make use of the callback, we only have to initialize it by passing the name of the metric we want to use as arguments, in this case, we initialize “balanced_accuracy” and “accuracy” for the metrics. Also, we have to set the parameter “lower_is_better” as “False” because our problem seeks the maximization of the metrics, not the minimization.
So the result of executing the previous snippet would something like:
epoch accuracy balanced_accuracy train_loss valid_acc
------- ---------- ------------------- ------------ -----------
1 0.9722 0.9762 0.4780 0.9722
2 1.0000 1.0000 0.0597 1.0000
3 1.0000 1.0000 0.0430 1.0000
4 1.0000 1.0000 0.0144 1.0000
5 1.0000 1.0000 0.0110 1.0000
6 1.0000 1.0000 0.0083 1.0000
7 1.0000 1.0000 0.0067 1.0000
8 1.0000 1.0000 0.0058 1.0000
9 1.0000 1.0000 0.0047 1.0000
10 1.0000 1.0000 0.0039 1.0000
Finally what remains to be seen is how to perform a Grid Search using the scikit-learn modules, let’s go for it!
4. GridSearch: Pipeline + Scaler + Training + Callbacks
To perform a Grid Search we only need to import the scikit-learn module. Performing the Grid Search is exactly the same as with the classic models of machine learning from scikit-learn, the only different point is in the definition of the parameters for the grid.
Code snippet 5. Grid Search definition
As we can see, the parameters have a particular aspect. We are adding the prefix “nn__” and “nn__module__”. These prefixes will help the wrapper to know if the parameter belongs to the definition of the PyTorch model or to the training phase. As we can see, we only use the prefix “nn__” when we refer to parameters of the training phase and “nn__module__” when we refer to parameters of the PyTorch model. It is important that the name “nn” refers to the instantiation of the wrapper (line 19).
So if we want to know what the best parameters were, we can do it easily:
[1] print(gs.best_params_)
{'nn__lr': 0.1, 'nn__max_epochs': 10, 'nn__module__dropout': 0.1, 'nn__module__num_units': 10, 'nn__optimizer': <class 'torch.optim.adam.Adam'>}
If you want to access the full implementation, take a look at: https://github.com/FernandoLpz/SKORCH-PyTorch-Wrapper
Conclusion
In this blog we have seen what SKORCH is and what its components are. We have also seen how to implement the NeuralNetClassifier wrapper to train a PyTorch model in a very simple way.
In my opinion, SKORCH is here to stay. Sometimes it is required to quickly and flexibly prototype PyTorch models, SKORCH does this wonderfully.
References
[1] https://skorch.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbu_DCBjVEk | https://towardsdatascience.com/skorch-pytorch-models-trained-with-a-scikit-learn-wrapper-62b9a154623e | ['Fernando López'] | 2020-11-10 04:22:03.805000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Scikit Learn', 'Skorch', 'Pytorch', 'Wrapper'] |
How Expensive Is Your Dream?. The dream is free but the hustle is… | The dream is free but the hustle is sold separately. George “GK” Koufalis.
Since I was 16, I started to learn things fast, curiosity was blowing my mind. But before 16 I always used to look forward to easy ways or shortcuts, which ended up useless in terms of everything. I used to try to cheat on exams, I used to find any kind of shortcuts in games, cheat codes, and stuff like this. And I thought that life also likes this, I will get rich immediately, but didn’t think about how etc.
So let’s just analyze, there are aimless people around us, they dig deep into your mind and start to make you also an aimless piece of shit, sorry tho, right now I am talking about teenagers. Hey, guys if you don’t have any aim in life, how you live? How do you want to achieve those small “want” things? Ask your parents? Santa will give you for free?
Life fucks everyone, sorry tho, you are no exception!
Do you have dreams?
Every one of us dream about perfect life before we fall asleep, some people have pets, some people have children in their imaginary life. Agree with you guys yeah it feels great before falling asleep and the next day is waiting for you and you will forget about it once you wake up. How does it work? Huh, because you don’t want it to be GOAL, you afraid to not accomplish it, you afraid of mistakes, you are perfectionists when it comes to you “before sleep dream life” it has to be as you want, as perfect as possible.
Have you ever thought about converting them into real life? I call it not just a dream but a GOAL. Converted already and working on it, yeah talking is easy but hustling is not easy. You see our mind is looking for shortcuts, how the get that we think but our brain gives up. Actually can configure our brain, we can do pretty much anything to achieve those goals, but here is the problem that we usually face, TIME. It’s almost like time complexity, we have certain tasks but we don’t want to accomplish them, work hard towards it because there is an easy way, just dream before falling asleep, as you see “SHORTCUTS”.
You are afraid of…
You are afraid of anything that you dream of. The things that you remember, does not come in overnight, nothing comes just overnight. For example let’s imagine you have a big house, a beautiful wife, children. Of course, if you are a realistic dreamer, not just fantastic shit. Let’s say you want to live your best life, what is needed for that?
Kill that fucking FEAR that stays as an obstacle in your way!
Work hardassoff…
Yes, if you want it, just get it, but the payback is HUSTLE. If you have goals that you want to achieve, try to set deadlines, split them into daily tasks try everything that comes to your mind, and learn new ways. Maybe it will help you at least start to change your life into the “THE REAL BEST LIFE THAT I WANT TO LIVE”.
Is it hard so hard?
hmm let me think, depends on how lazy you are, it is not hard, because nowadays you can learn pretty much any skill that you want, if you are good at it, you will be paid well after some time. As you see everything sticks to the TIME, not money, minor times it sticks to the MONEY. If you learn a skill if you sharpen it, and if you start to improve and sharpen your skills daily, someone will need your help and that help will be paid well because you invested your time!
You can buy money but you cannot buy Time.
Money is temporary, time that you invest into bullshit will return you bullshit, if you invest in a good way, you will get what you want. It is not always money, you will have a lot of opportunities, just be kind, better person than yesterday, healthy and let’s help each other. Let’s make World the best place to live, before changing the world, we have to admit our mistakes and try to fix them. Just live…
I don’t want to teach someone how to live…
Writing a blog is just as a hobby for me, I love writing at night, I have some certain goals that connects me with writing a blog, but it does not mean that I am doing useless thing and not earning money. I am earning joy, that is why people sometimes advise to find a good hobby. Lucky me I have two hobbies and I love them, they are not my main job and I don’t see those hobbies as a FUTURE. It just gives me a joy, through this way I am buying a joy by investing time.
Just analyze…
Be careful, look with whom you are surrounding yourself, check your environment, analyze everything whether CONS and PROS. What are you getting by investing your time? That’s also important that, if you surround yourself with wrong people, growing will be really hard for you and soon or late you give up. Negative will bring negative, positive will bring positive. I am realist, I look to everything without purple glasses, that is why almost everything is clear and I can analyze stuff.
I really love to talk with PRO people or people who improve themselves DAILY, because it really matter for me as a self-improve person. In terms of everything, writing blogs, programming or photography. Love the fact that you will always learn something while you talk with those people, joy, invested time…
Connections are everywhere, almost anything could connect you with a person, music, hobby, movies, profession and etc. Because we are human beings, love same interests, if you girlfriend understands the code that you wrote and she says that “pretty shit code”, you will be happiest person on the planet Earth. Because you like it, again the same interests.
Conclusion…
Just try to live in a different way, if you nothing works for you, just go back to your previous live, at least you have tried… | https://medium.com/@safarslife/how-expensive-if-your-dream-b3eb874f1c5c | ['Safar Safarov'] | 2020-12-27 07:24:58.351000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Motivation', 'Life Lessons', 'Experience', 'Hustler'] |
are we all equal? | ARE WE ALL EQUAL?
Are we all equal? a question we all should ask ourselves, are we all being treated equally no matter our gender? the sad fact is we are not in many ways. we still live in a world where if someone is black they are thought to be gangsters, if someone is Muslim they are thought to be killers, if someone was to be part of the lgbt+ they are thought to be sick and in need of desperate help. where if a woman is seen doing something non has done men see this as a threat causing them to control, be abusive. this is the sad fact we live in right now.
women, without them there is no society, there is no love and no respect. without them, men cant live but yet men control, shame, and abuse women all over the world. even putting standards on them, a price, making them hurt themselves to become something men would take. I went on all my social media’s asking friends and strangers questions about women and their rights and here are the results.
Do you think women get harassed or raped due to what they wear?
some people to this day still think women get harassed due to what she wears. while this is very false, even if a woman was to cover her full body men would still harass women making them very uncomfortable and scared for their life while being in public alone or with friends or family. This is all caused by how normalized it has become in today’s time, how men treat women differently and in a very inhuman way. women in today’s time are treated like toys where a man would cheat on his wife for sex, where a boss would manipulate his female worker to do things to get a raise. where men would make fun of a women’s body when she’s on her period and how they control her body when it comes to hygiene and controlling if she can abort or have a baby even in the case of rape. it has become a world where men control everything, even if it’s a woman’s body. And I think we can all agree that the reason all this is happening is that men fear women, they fear to be controlled by the people they controlled all those years. they fear losing to another gender.
so in the end, no it’s not what women wear that drives men crazy, a woman can wear modest clothes and still be harassed by men, all this because it is normalized. they always say “protect your girls” but what should be really said is “educated your sons” for the better future of our world. we are all equal yet we are not treated equally, we treat women as toys that can be used and consumed when in fact without them we are nothing.
when I went and asked what would women do if men disappeared for a day, the answers were shocking and very understanding. some said they would take a walk at night while listening to music, while others said they would feel free from the abuse they would get from home and others said they would wear anything and feel safe and not harassed or raped by any man. seeing these comments really shows how far we are from equality, this shows we still have a lot to fix as “we” humans and until then we are still living in a misogynistic world, where women have no freedom and are controlled by every aspect. | https://medium.com/@sameerakrab2000/are-we-all-equal-79aab4de7478 | [] | 2020-12-20 14:34:10.804000+00:00 | ['Freedom', 'Equality', 'Womens Rights'] |
The Core Failing of ‘Loki’ | The Core Failing of ‘Loki’
‘Loki’ is a show stuffed to the brim with everything I like, a unique and well executed retro-future aesthetic, across the board solid performances, time travel shenanigans, surprisingly epic consequences on the overall Marvel universe, and yet…
Following ‘Wandavision’s’ lead, ‘Loki’ is a creative and unique side story in the MCU, not necessary but enjoyable, a deep dive into a fan favorite character that desperately needed the screen time and consequential depth… or so it should have been.
‘Loki’s’ primary failing is it’s own understanding of the titular character. As set up in Avengers: Endgame, the Loki featured is not the one we watched grow and mature over a decade of cinema, slowly drifting toward the ‘friend’ end of ‘frenemy’, but the young, naive Asgardian that just failed to attack New York. To make up for this, the show tries to incorporate significant character traits previously limited to comic!Loki but fumbles so significantly that it not only hinders Loki the character, but ‘Loki’ the show as well.
I’m going to specifically be focusing on ‘variant’ Lokis and Loki’s genderfluidity as I believe that to be where the core of the issue lies.
For those not in the know, Loki’s genderfluidity is an established trait that goes back to Norse mythology, where Loki would take on various forms and various genders as needed for whatever mischief is at hand. This has carried over to the comic books as well, however, outside of the only good scene in Thor: The Dark World, Loki shapeshifting at all, let alone across gender lines is, practically non-existent. “That is”, ‘Loki’ promised, “until now.”
The internet seemed to explode at the confirmation of Loki’s fluid sex, done shortly before the premiere aired (this is perhaps biased by my very gay™ Twitter and TikTok timelines). However, said fluidity is completely lacking outside of the show’s main gimmick: the variants (a feature not unique to Loki).
Yes, we see Loki in many different forms throughout ‘Loki’, an old man, a black man, a president, a kid, an alligator, and (most shockingly according to the show) a woman. But while Loki gets the most varied, uh, variants, we are told this is because “Lokis’ survive”, rather than Loki’s inherently variability.
In fact, ‘Loki’ goes out of it’s way to flatten the core of what a Loki is, into just a backstabbing trickster, hungry for power and eager to cause mischief (see the double-cross turned triple-cross turned quadruple-cross etc. seen in ep 5). This works to directly contradict the show’s core thesis on free will.
The entire premise of ‘Loki’ hinges on the idea that the enforcement of the so-called ‘sacred timeline’ inherently destroys free will. Those that deviate from their approved role get ‘pruned’ and dumped into the void. The show seems to state that the only reason Loki is “the god of Mischief” is because that’s the role the Timekeepers have forced him to play. As soon as Loki begins to grow or look beyond that, they’re ‘pruned’.
And yet, the majority of the Lokis we see (as listed above) embody the opposite. These are all variants ‘pruned’ because they failed to play their role, old man Loki got lonely, kid Loki went from ‘mischief’ to ‘ruthless’, alligator Loki… well, nevermind. These should be the Lokis that went beyond the “god of mischief” role, but the show goes out of it’s way to show main!Loki that all these Lokis are all the same.
All the same, except for our core duo of Lokis. You probably have noticed I’ve gone this whole time without even mentioning the most important Loki in ‘Loki’, Sylvie.
Sylvie is a stark exception to this rule. Featuring a completely different personality shaped by her drastically different life experiences, and somehow being the only female version, Sylvie is Loki in name only (except not even then).
We have no real explanation as to *why* Sylvie is so different, more specifically why she was ‘pruned’. It can’t be because of her differing personality because her defining trait, her inability to trust, comes from being on the run. It can’t be because she’s a girl because she was ‘pruned’ at the age of 8–10, well after she was assigned female at birth.
The only reason we have available to us is the meta-reasoning that the less Loki Sylvie is, the less weird it feels when she and main!Loki kiss.
Sylvie is not a prime example of how “people can change” but a random exception with no explanation or exploration.
All in all, ‘Loki’ set out to deepen our understanding of Loki while telling a story about how people can change and free will is important, while failing to do either, even directly contradicting itself, in order to prop up a flat incestuous ‘romance’ and to tell borderline Boomer-esque jokes about how “women are scary”.
I had other issues with ‘Loki’, how the plot feels like a string of poorly connected moments, or the shallow ‘representation’ that fits nicely alongside Disney’s lesbian cop and therapy gay, but the core issue was the hollow theme and shoddy character work. | https://medium.com/@corbangj-64017/the-core-failing-of-loki-dc623035534b | ['Gj'] | 2021-07-15 21:43:21.704000+00:00 | ['Marvel', 'Mcu', 'Loki', 'TV'] |
Why I built a Slack app to say cheers to your peers? | Build cheerful teams
I wanted to make appreciation a little fun. While this year has been a little demanding and all of us pushed to remote work. I believe for most of the teams this is going to continue where remote work will be everything. Having said that, it often becomes a little boring while working from home (alone). I thought of building a slack app that helps to share in some cheers with your peers and spread joy! You should share in some cheers with your peers because it makes the recipient feel good about themselves and this can help to boost their performance. Cheersly provides the kind of positive experience or uplift that can increase people’s morale, motivation, engagement and renew their commitment to their organization.
By implementing gratitude into company culture, employees are more willing to spread their positive feelings with others, whether it’s helping out with a project or taking time to notice and recognizing those that have gone the extra mile.
Showing gratitude can increase a person’s wellness, increase better sleep habits, increase metabolism and lessen stress. This directly impacts work results and employee interaction. With employee appreciation, you’re not only boosting performance and engagement, but the employee’s well-being and health.
The greatest psychological effect of appreciation and gratitude is the happiness and other emotions immediately felt whether we’re giving or benefiting from. Gratitude creates good feelings, cheerful memories, better self-esteem, feeling more relaxed and more optimistic. All of these emotions creates a pay it forward and “we’re in this together” mentality in the workplace, which in turn, makes your organization more successful. Plus, the dopamine effect will encourage a continuous cycle of recognition if everyone participates. All of these emotions, plus many more, are what most employers want out of their staff to again, create unity.
Why I chose Slack?
Slack is the most popular collaboration platform and has about 12 million monthly active users. A lot of teams dispersed across the globe rely on Slack for collaboration. Slack platform offers an app directory where developers can build using the Slack API and publish apps which teams can install to their workspace and start using. They have a beautiful API guide, by far the best API that I have ever integrated. I would highly recommend to check it out once, https://api.slack.com/
Within Slack, you can use slash commands (“/cheers” ) to interact with apps. With Cheersly, you can say cheers to someone when they help you with something, shared something you like or if you would like to appreciate someone’s efforts. | https://medium.com/@nihal-was-here/why-i-built-a-slack-app-to-say-cheers-to-your-peers-bcc5d8b0c12f | [] | 2021-03-08 05:55:07.651000+00:00 | ['Social', 'Fun', 'Wellness', 'Slack'] |
20 Little Things I’m Grateful For That Made 2020 Better For Me Than 2019 | I don’t need to say again that 2020 was a shit year for the vast majority of people. It was a year that not only exacerbated the brokenness of the system but also exposed what has been previously wrong with it for decades.
But still, I hope you are encouraged to make a list of things that went right for you just to keep yourself going in the midst of oppressive opposition and draining negativity from all forces around you. It may sound silly or superficial for you, but I find it more conducive to my personal growth when I am not 100% negative or putting myself down all the time — ya know?
I am aware that fall into the privileged but not privileged category. I am fortunate to be living with family during this time while others don’t have the privilege and are being evicted from their apartments. I am still employed and able to work from home. I don’t face blatant racial discrimination. I live in a relatively safe area. I don’t have to work on the front lines during this pandemic.
However, even though I benefit from middle-class privilege, the future statistically is bleak for me. I don’t earn enough to live on my own. I have pondered whether or not I am chronically ill due to my persistent fatigue that makes me work half as much as a normal healthy, able-bodied person and leaves me bedridden for 2/5 of the day (excluding nighttime sleeping hours). I haven’t seen the doctor for four years. I am not in a position of power or influence and I’m pretty sure elites controlling certain industries would hate my guts if they knew my personal views on certain things that I am unwilling to compromise on.
In the grand scheme of things, I am pretty much powerless (what offends me the most is not Asian jokes but when people assume I’m like a “rich white girl blogger” and I’m not even white or rich and an influencer’s outfit on Instagram is worth more than what I earn a month — but that’s beside the point). But I am also aware that I am fortunate that I am able to have things that many others don’t, including safety, food, shelter, and some time to think of my dreams (even if it is not as much as I’d like).
It’s easy to stew in negativity. It’s easy to think about ways you are falling behind in life due to things beyond your control. My limited level of privilege may give me a slight advantage, but I still feel like I am falling behind other people who are richer, more successful, more productive, more charismatic, more well-connected, and more powerful than me. There will always be many people in society who are above me — financially, socially, and mentally — and there is nothing I can do to catch up to them, even if I double down my effort to be like them (but over time, I realize that the only person that is worth being is a better version of myself, nothing unrealistic).
My mental health has been down the toilet for the vast majority of the year and I’ve been in far too many creative ruts to count and admittedly couldn’t control how much I felt frustrated about it.
However, as much as I skew heavily to believing in the most pessimistic things and hate toxic positivity along with forcing myself to feel happy when I’m clearly not, showing gratitude from time to time is a genuine way to help me get out of an overly negative rut that drains me and keeps me in a self-destructive cycle of hopelessness, paralyzing self-doubt that prevents me from reaching the point where I’d like to be — flourishing creatively and authentically, and analysis-paralysis that stifles me and makes keeping the creative momentum harder to maintain.
There is a time for releasing repressed emotions and a time for acknowledging what went right to give yourself hope because in times like these, hope may be all you have to hold onto and to remind yourself that you are not a disaster-in-the-making, a lost cause, or worthless compared to people who seem to have it all together.
If anything, I’ve learned that it is far more productive to remind myself of how far I’ve come, compared to when I first started to make real changes in my life, instead of beating myself down to the ground so hard that I feel like I can’t ever get back up.
Without further ado, here are 20 little things that went right for me this year: | https://medium.com/song-of-the-lark/20-little-things-that-went-right-for-me-in-2020-82c6317d3cb | ['Lark Morrigan'] | 2020-12-22 19:41:02.741000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Self', 'Mental Health', '2020'] |
Can Southwest Airlines Survive? — Market Mad House | The Southwest Airlines Co (NYSE: LUV) is having a run of bad luck. Just as air travel was recovering from COVID-19 computer outages forced Southwest to cancel and delay hundreds of flights.
Southwest (LUV) canceled 500 flights and delayed almost 1,300 flights on 15 June 2021, the Associated Press reports. Moreover, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) held all Southwest flights for 45 minutes because of a computer problem.
June 15 was the second day of computer problems at Southwest. The airline delayed 1,500 flights on 14 Monday 2021, Travel + Leisure estimates. They blamed the delays on “technology-related issues” and Southwest’s weather data provider.
Will Computer Problems Kill Southwest Airlines?
The delays led to long lines in airports, angry crowds, and demands for refunds. Such delays can be costly, in 2016, Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) lost $150 million because of a data center outage.
The delays led to long lines in airports, angry crowds, and demands for refunds. Such delays can be costly, in 2016, Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) lost $150 million because of a data center outage.
The outages could have started at Akamai Technologies content delivery network services provider in Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Washington Post speculates.
Is Southwest Airlines Making Money?
The internet outages come at a terrible time for Southwest Airlines (LUV). Southwest’s quarterly revenues fell from $4.234 billion on 31 March 2020 to $2.052 billion a year later.
Notably, Southwest reported a negative quarterly gross profit of -$770 million on 31 March 2021. The quarterly gross profit fell from $610 million on 31 March 2020. In contrast, Southwest’s quarterly operating income rose from -$110 million on 31 March 2020 to $199 million on 31 March 2021.
Incredibly, Stockrow estimates Southwest’s revenue growth fell by -51.54% in the quarter that ended on 31 March 2021. The revenue growth fell by -17.17% in the quarter ending on 31 March 2020 and an astounding -82.94% in the quarter ending on 30 June 2020.
Southwest suffers Catastrophic Revenue Collapse
Southwest is suffering from a catastrophic revenue collapse. However, Southwest generates some cash. It reported a quarterly operating cash flow of $645 million on 31 March 2021. The quarterly operating cash flow rose from -$377 million on 31 March 2020.
Conversely, Southwest’s quarterly ending cash flow rose from $3.94 billion on 31 March 2020 to $11.971 billion on 31 March 2021. Thus, Southwest can still generate enormous amounts of cash.
Southwest has borrowed enormous amounts of money. It reported quarterly financing cash flows of $1.1774 billion on 31 March 2020 and $7.182 billion on 31 March 2021.
Predictably, Southwest’s Total Debt grew from $6.349 billion on 31 March 2020 to $12.785 billion on 31 March 2021. Thus, Southwest’s total debt more than doubled in a year.
What Values Does Southwest Airlines have?
Southwest Airlines (LUV) added value over the past year. Notably, Southwest’s cash and short-term investments grew from $5.45 billion on 31 March 2020 to $14.348 billion on 31 March 2021.
Similarly, Southwest’s total assets grew from $26.885 billion on 31 March 2020 to $35.493 billion on 31 March 2021. Hence, Southwest has added value and Mr. Market has noticed.
Mr. Market paid $34.36 for LUV on 22 June 2020 and $55.75 for Southwest on 21 June 2021. Thus, Southwest is experiencing some growth. Moreover, the company retains enormous amounts of cash.
Is Air Travel Recovering?
I think Southwest’s revenues could start growing again soon because there is evidence air travel is recovering.
For example, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) estimates the number of people passing through its airport checkpoints rose from 587,908 on 18 June 2020 to 2.081 million on 18 June 2021. That number is still below the 2.273 million passengers the TSA counted on 18 June 2019.
Thus, passengers are returning to airports which could help Southwest make money again. Unfortunately, computer problems and ransomware could disrupt Southwest’s operations and throttle fresh growth. Importantly, CBS reports that there is no indication Southwest’s problems were caused by malicious actors.
In the final analysis, I consider Southwest (LUV) too risky to buy. In addition, I think Mr. Market overvalued Southwest at $55.75 on 21 June 2021. My advice for investors is to avoid Southwest and airlines because it will take a long time for this sector to recover. I think airlines will keep losing money and their stocks could crash. | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/can-southwest-airlines-survive-market-mad-house-fa223886cfc9 | ['Daniel G. Jennings'] | 2021-06-23 01:20:30.188000+00:00 | ['Travel Writing', 'Travel', 'Tourism', 'Economics', 'Airlines'] |
The One I.T. Mistake Nearly Every Small Business Makes | Over the past five years, I have had the opportunity to work with a variety of clientele, including small businesses in many different industries. I have also worked with non-profit organizations, municipal governments, and school districts. The requirements of each entity vary widely, with some only requiring a dozen computers, while a school district might have a one-to-one device policy encompassing thousands of devices.
And yet, there seems to be one thing that school districts and governments know that many, MANY small businesses neglect:
IT Equipment Is A Recurring Expense That Must Be Included In Budgeting Processes
Let me say that again: computers, laptops, servers, storage drives, monitors, peripherals, printers, and any other electronic hardware you can think of, are items that will eventually need to be replaced. These are not one-time items that will last forever, especially if cheaper, slower computers are purchased initially.
Let’s work with a hypothetical company:
XYZ LLC is a brand new company with 12 employees working in an office. 9 employees have desktop computers with 2 monitors each. The CEO and 2 managers each have a desktop computer with 2 monitors, along with a laptop.
So far, we are up to 12 desktops, 24 monitors, and 3 laptops in the first year of business.
In year two, XYZ hires 12 more people, 3 of which are managers. In year three, XYZ hires six more people, 2 of which are managers.
By the end of year three, XYZ has 30 employees with 30 desktops, 60 monitors, and 8 laptops. But some of people the computers are beginning to experience issues with failing disks, dim displays, and general slowness. At the same time, the company has plans to hire an additional 10 employees over the next year.
This scenario also assumes that no computers have been damaged beyond repair over the past three years, or if they have, any expenses were covered under warranty. It also assumes that no mice or keyboards have failed either (an assumption which I can promise you is incredibly unlikely). As more machines begin to fail, the money that would be used for equipment for new employees will need to be diverted to replacing old equipment.
What should be done?
Information technology equipment is not a one-time expense, but is something that needs to be actively planned for on a schedule, and in a budget. If the lifecycle of the computer is assumed to be three years, then the cost of the items replacement needs to be budgeted for over the same period of time.
XYZ should be budgeting to replace one-third of their computers each year, in addition to any equipment for new employees. Whether or not it is absolutely necessary to replace the equipment is another discussion, and of course there are always tax considerations like depreciation (which should be discussed with a tax professional, of course).
We have also assumed that XYZ has no onsite servers, printers, etc.
If the goal of a business is to continually increase profits and growth to provide value to shareholders, information technology is an expense that small businesses cannot afford to ignore. | https://medium.com/@chrislavoie/the-one-i-t-mistake-nearly-every-small-business-makes-97c24c962ffe | ['Chris Lavoie'] | 2020-12-01 18:46:38.393000+00:00 | ['Purchasinng', 'Budget', 'Small Business', 'It', 'Technology'] |
Fuel for Creativity | If I bade them,
“bring the fattened calf,”
a baby cow would have
laid before us, chopped
to perfection — marinade
wafting across the table,
meeting our conversation
in the middle.
The cold air shifting outside,
still sitting in our bones,
filling our blood with
its intensity.
biscuits pop up out of
nowhere begging for
butter and organic jam.
Spoons clank, forks chirp
and whistle, the sound of
coffee being slurped by
a dozen lips—
peace in the midst of turmoil
turns into art.
We sit back,
our proverbial burdens
laid down, jumping from one
shoulder to the next,
crooning about what Writers need
when all we needed at that
moment was fuel
for creativity. | https://medium.com/a-cornered-gurl/fuel-for-creativity-af9df32f25bd | ['Tre L. Loadholt'] | 2018-02-04 15:26:10.005000+00:00 | ['Conversations', 'Poetry', 'Food', 'North Carolina', 'A Cornered Gurl'] |
Bragging Rights | Trying to explain this internship is weird.
I’m proud of the work that I do here, and I’m proud of the work I’ve put in for my coursework, personal growth, and general contributions to society. I am, however, horrible at talking myself up.
I suck at getting compliments — I’ve said it so many times. I might be fresh off stage with flowers in my hands or in the back of the classroom putting my hand down. It doesn’t matter — if I’m given a compliment my response is the same. I downplay, distract, or barely acknowledge. “Great job, Sam! You’re such a natural on camera!” “I’m a theater kid, I’ll just talk at just about anyone!”
I’m awkward, to put it mildly. So, in the last day or two, as I rounded out finals week, I started to analyze my response to praise. I’d like to be able to accept a compliment instead of smiling and nodding while thinking I definitely spent 50% of the time on this project Googling how to do it!
Below, I analyze a few of my responses to praise. Yours may be similar or different, but I hope that my thought process helps you.!
I feel like I don’t deserve the compliment in full.
This is the most common. Even if I agree with 99.5% of what you’re saying I factually accomplished, if I think .5% of what you said is too much, I won’t accept the compliment at all.
I know the process I used to achieve the work isn’t “normal” and, therefore, shouldn’t be complimented like it was.
I’m a very holistic thinker. I complete things out of linear order, I “life hack” a lot of tasks, and I do everything while fighting against brain chemistry that would rather I slept all day. I hold myself to a psycho-normative pattern I simply don’t conform to, and when I receive praise, I assume that you think I reached end-game the same way you do. This makes my accomplishment null and void to me.
I’m not good at giving compliments, either.
Call it what you want, anxiety or… anxiety, I have this idea that if I give someone a compliment, it’ll be perceived as ingenuine or worse, needy. This stops me from giving people compliments at all, something I’m really trying to get better at. Giving someone a compliment that’s genuine is not as big of a deal as my anxiety makes it out to be.
I’m not good at complimenting myself.
When was the last time I praised myself (privately) for work I’d done? When did I take 5 minutes to give myself a pep-talk and take a minute to feel great about something? I can count on one hand. I don’t have enough appendages, though, to count how many times I’ve beat myself up for anything less than what I consider perfect.
With all of these thoughts, I’ve come up with two things I want to start doing in the next year. They’re simple enough, but since I’m not known for making anything simple, I’ve decided they’re going to take some Sam-sanctioned time to work on:
Giving real compliments to first myself, and then others.
I don’t expect this to be easy for me, but I do expect there to be some really, really good benefits. Practically, it’s going to mean looking for reasons to give others compliments. Virtual interactions make it harder to appreciate some aspects of the other person, but things like character traits and personality are still on the table! I plan to make time in my day to send a compliment — through text, over the phone, in a card. I also plan to process my daily accomplishments before bedtime every night. Winding down and being proud of myself means I’ll wake up ready to accomplish even more the next day!
Hopefully, my thoughts will inspire you to take a look at something you’d like to work on. You read this whole post! Good for you!
And I wrote it, so good for me, too. | https://medium.com/skillsoft-marketing-interns/bragging-rights-f03d7c6701ca | ['Samantha Searles'] | 2020-12-22 19:29:33.073000+00:00 | ['Intern', 'Growth', 'Internships', 'Compliments', 'Acceptance'] |
Launching Web-Server on AWS-EFS using Terraform | Task to perform
Create one VPC and subnets to connect your EFS to EC2. Create a Security group that allows the port 80 and also enable NFS port. Launch EC2 instance and in this EC2 instance use the existing key or provided key and security group which we have created in step 2. Launch one Volume using the EFS service and attach it in the same VPC we create in step 1, then mount that volume into /var/www/html. Developer has uploaded the code into GitHub repo having some images. Copy the GitHub repo code into /var/www/html. Create S3 bucket, and copy/deploy the images from GitHub repo into the s3 bucket and change the permission to public readable. Create a Cloudfront using s3 bucket(which contains images) and use the Cloudfront URL to update in code in /var/www/html.
Step 1: Create key-pair
provider "aws" {
region = "ap-south-1"
}
resource "tls_private_key" "task2_key" {
algorithm = "RSA"
}
module "key_pair" {
source = "terraform-aws-modules/key-pair/aws"
key_name = "task2_key"
public_key = tls_private_key.task2_key.public_key_openssh
}
Step 2: Create VPC , Subnet and Internet Gateway
resource "aws_vpc" "myvpc" {
cidr_block = "10.5.0.0/16"
enable_dns_hostnames = true
tags = {
Name = "task2"
}
} resource "aws_subnet" "mysubnet" {
vpc_id = "${aws_vpc.myvpc.id}"
availability_zone = "ap-south-1a"
cidr_block = "10.5.1.0/24"
map_public_ip_on_launch = true
tags = {
Name = "task2-1a"
}
}
resource "aws_internet_gateway" "mygateway" {
vpc_id = "${aws_vpc.myvpc.id}"
tags = {
Name = "task2-1a"
}
}
resource "aws_route_table" "mytable" {
vpc_id = "${aws_vpc.myvpc.id}"
route {
cidr_block = "0.0.0.0/0"
gateway_id = "${aws_internet_gateway.mygateway.id}"
}
tags = {
Name = "task2-1a"
}
}
resource "aws_route_table_association" "myassociation" {
subnet_id = aws_subnet.mysubnet.id
route_table_id = aws_route_table.mytable.id
}
resource "aws_subnet" "alpha-1a" {
vpc_id = "${aws_vpc.myvpc.id}"
availability_zone = "ap-south-1a"
cidr_block = "10.5.1.0/24"
map_public_ip_on_launch = true
tags = {
Name = "main-1a"
}
}
resource "aws_internet_gateway" "gw" {
vpc_id = "${aws_vpc.myvpc.id}"
tags = {
Name = "main-1a"
}
}
resource "aws_route_table" "rtable" {
vpc_id = "${aws_vpc.myvpc.id}"
route {
cidr_block = "0.0.0.0/0"
gateway_id = "${aws_internet_gateway.gw.id}"
}
tags = {
Name = "main-1a"
}
}
resource "aws_route_table_association" "a" {
subnet_id = aws_subnet.alpha-1a.id
route_table_id = aws_route_table.rtable.id
}
Step 3: Create a Security group that allows http, ssh and NFS connections
resource "aws_security_group" "allow_http" {
name = "allow_http"
description = "Allow HTTP inbound traffic"
vpc_id = "${aws_vpc.myvpc.id}"
ingress {
description = "Http from VPC"
from_port = 80
to_port = 80
protocol = "tcp"
cidr_blocks = [ "0.0.0.0/0" ]
}
ingress {
description = "SSH from VPC"
from_port = 22
to_port = 22
protocol = "tcp"
cidr_blocks = [ "0.0.0.0/0" ]
}
ingress {
description = "NFS"
from_port = 2049
to_port = 2049
protocol = "tcp"
cidr_blocks = [ "0.0.0.0/0" ]
}
egress {
from_port = 0
to_port = 0
protocol = "-1"
cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"]
}
tags = {
Name = "task2securitygroup"
}
}
Step 4: Create EFS file system
resource "aws_efs_file_system" "mypd" {
creation_token = "my-secure-pd"
tags = {
Name = "MyPersonalFileSystem"
}
}
resource "aws_efs_file_system_policy" "policy" {
file_system_id = "${aws_efs_file_system.mypd.id}"
policy = <<POLICY
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Id": "efs-policy-wizard-c45981c9-af16-441d-aa48-0fbd69ffaf79",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "efs-statement-20e4323c-ca0e-418d-8490-3c3880f60788",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Principal": {
"AWS": "*"
},
"Resource": "${aws_efs_file_system.mypd.arn}",
"Action": [
"elasticfilesystem:ClientMount",
"elasticfilesystem:ClientWrite",
"elasticfilesystem:ClientRootAccess"
],
"Condition": {
"Bool": {
"aws:SecureTransport": "true"
}
}
}
]
}
POLICY
}
resource "aws_efs_mount_target" "mytarget" {
file_system_id = "${aws_efs_file_system.mypd.id}"
subnet_id = "${aws_subnet.mysubnet.id}"
security_groups = [ "${aws_security_group.allow_http.id}" ]
}
Step 5: Launch EC2 instance and mount EFS file storage
ami = "ami-00b494a3f139ba61f"
instance_type = "t2.micro"
key_name = "task2_key"
availability_zone = "ap-south-1a"
subnet_id = "${aws_subnet.mysubnet.id}"
security_groups = [ "${aws_security_group.allow_http.id}" ]
tags = {
Name = "MyWebServer"
}
}
resource "null_resource" "myattach" {
depends_on = [
aws_efs_mount_target.mytarget,
]
connection {
type = "ssh"
user = "ec2-user"
private_key = tls_private_key.task2_key.private_key_pem
host = aws_instance.task2web.public_ip
}
provisioner "remote-exec" {
inline = [
"sleep 30",
"sudo yum install -y httpd git php amazon-efs-utils nfs-utils",
"sudo systemctl start httpd",
"sudo systemctl enable httpd",
"sudo chmod ugo+rw /etc/fstab",
"sudo echo '${aws_efs_file_system.mypd.id}:/ /var/www/html efs tls,_netdev' >> /etc/fstab",
"sudo mount -a -t efs,nfs4 defaults",
"sudo rm -rf /var/www/html/*",
"sudo git clone
]
}
} resource "aws_instance" "task2web" {ami = "ami-00b494a3f139ba61f"instance_type = "t2.micro"key_name = "task2_key"availability_zone = "ap-south-1a"subnet_id = "${aws_subnet.mysubnet.id}"security_groups = [ "${aws_security_group.allow_http.id}" ]tags = {Name = "MyWebServer"resource "null_resource" "myattach" {depends_on = [aws_efs_mount_target.mytarget,connection {type = "ssh"user = "ec2-user"private_key = tls_private_key.task2_key.private_key_pemhost = aws_instance.task2web.public_ipprovisioner "remote-exec" {inline = ["sleep 30","sudo yum install -y httpd git php amazon-efs-utils nfs-utils","sudo systemctl start httpd","sudo systemctl enable httpd","sudo chmod ugo+rw /etc/fstab","sudo echo '${aws_efs_file_system.mypd.id}:/ /var/www/html efs tls,_netdev' >> /etc/fstab","sudo mount -a -t efs,nfs4 defaults","sudo rm -rf /var/www/html/*","sudo git clone https://github.com/gyaneshsharma/cloud_task2.git /var/www/html/"
Step 6: Create S3 bucket, and copy the images in it
resource "aws_s3_bucket" "task2-bucket" {
bucket = "task2-bucket"
acl = "public-read"
force_destroy = true
cors_rule {
allowed_headers = ["*"]
allowed_methods = ["PUT", "POST"]
allowed_origins = ["https://task2-bucket"]
expose_headers = ["ETag"]
max_age_seconds = 3000
}
depends_on = [
null_resource.myattach,
]
}
resource "aws_s3_bucket_object" "task2obj" {
key = "test.png"
bucket = aws_s3_bucket.task2-bucket.id
source = "test.png"
acl="public-read"
}
Step 7: Create a Cloudfront
resource "aws_cloudfront_distribution" "distribution" {
origin {
domain_name = "${aws_s3_bucket.task2-bucket.bucket_regional_domain_name}"
origin_id = "S3-${aws_s3_bucket.task2-bucket.bucket}"
custom_origin_config {
http_port = 80
https_port = 443
origin_protocol_policy = "match-viewer"
origin_ssl_protocols = ["TLSv1", "TLSv1.1", "TLSv1.2"]
}
}
default_root_object = "test.png"
enabled = true
custom_error_response {
error_caching_min_ttl = 3000
error_code = 404
response_code = 200
response_page_path = "/test.png"
}
default_cache_behavior {
allowed_methods = ["DELETE", "GET", "HEAD", "OPTIONS", "PATCH", "POST", "PUT"]
cached_methods = ["GET", "HEAD"]
target_origin_id = "S3-${aws_s3_bucket.task2-bucket.bucket}"
#Not Forward all query strings, cookies and headers
forwarded_values {
query_string = false
cookies {
forward = "none"
}
}
viewer_protocol_policy = "redirect-to-https"
min_ttl = 0
default_ttl = 3600
max_ttl = 86400
}
restrictions {
geo_restriction {
# type of restriction, blacklist, whitelist or none
restriction_type = "none"
}
}
viewer_certificate {
cloudfront_default_certificate = true
}
}
resource "null_resource" "mypic" {
depends_on = [
null_resource.myattach,
aws_cloudfront_distribution.distribution,
]
connection {
type = "ssh"
user = "ec2-user"
private_key = tls_private_key.task2_key.private_key_pem
host = aws_instance.task2web.public_ip
}
provisioner "remote-exec" {
inline = [
"sudo chmod ugo+rw /var/www/html/index.php",
"sudo echo '<img src=http://${aws_cloudfront_distribution.distribution.domain_name}/test.png alt='ANSHUL' width='500' height='600'</a>' >> /var/www/html/index.php"
]
}
}
output "cloudfront_ip_addr" {
value = aws_cloudfront_distribution.distribution.domain_name
}
After performing above steps, run the following commands:
terraform init
terraform validate
terraform apply
After completion of task we can destroy the environment using command. | https://medium.com/@gyaneshsharma4/launching-web-server-on-aws-efs-using-terraform-7b29d0332005 | ['Gyanesh Sharma'] | 2020-12-20 16:16:04.498000+00:00 | ['Cloud Infrastructure', 'AWS', 'Terraform'] |
Manage Application Configuration Using Spring Cloud Config | centralize service configuration with Spring Cloud Config Server without restarts
Overview:
Crafting Microservices now become an industry standard for any new API development, and almost all the organizations are promoting it. Spring cloud provides excellent tools to build these microservice on top of the Spring boot framework.
We will discuss a feature called Config Server. Config server is where all configurable parameters of all microservices are stored and maintained.It is more like externalizing properties/resource file out of project codebase to an external service altogether so that any changes to any given property does not necessitate the re-deployment of service which is using that property. All such property changes will be reflected without redeploying the microservice. Below given fig (a) describes how Spring Cloud Config Server works.
Fig(a) Centralized Configuration Management
Creating the Cloud Config Service:
Dependencies:
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-cloud-config-server</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-cloud-starter-config</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
Adding @EnableConfigServer annotation:
Open the Spring Application Class that spring already has provided and add the @EnableConfigServer annotation before the class and build the project once again. With this annotation, this artifact will act like a spring config server.
After adding this annotation, the class will look like below :
SpringCloudConfigServerApplication.java
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableConfigServer
public class SpringCloudConfigServerApplication {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SpringApplication.run(SpringCloudConfigServerApplication.class, args);
}
}
Now we need to add the configuration like server port which our SpringBoot server listen into a configuration file and push that file into a git repo. This git repository acts as a configuration storage. We can keep adding the configuration on-fly and push the changes into repository. And we can see the changes reflected on server side.
application.yml
spring:
banner:
location: banner.txt
server.port: 8080
Once we have the configuration file pushed into a git repository. Place the git url inside the configuration file as shown below.
application.yml
spring:
cloud:
config:
server:
git:
uri: https://github:com/ARUN/springcloud-props/
Once we have this configuration file in-place under class path of our SpringBoot application. Just start the server, we can see the SpringBoot application starting in port 8080.
Conclusion:
Now we are able to create a configuration server to provide a set of configuration files from a Git repository to client applications. We can make use of this config server to provide an environment-dependent configuration.
References:
https://cloud.spring.io/spring-cloud-config/multi/multi__spring_cloud_config_server.html | https://medium.com/walmartglobaltech/manage-application-configuration-using-spring-cloud-config-80b27ecb34b7 | ['Arun Mannuru'] | 2020-11-17 15:24:04.249000+00:00 | ['Git', 'Spring Boot', 'Spring Cloud Config', 'Configuration Management', 'Github'] |
Pope Decrees Cats Must Be Added To Christmas Nativity Scenes Joining Sheep, Oxen, And Donkey | Pope Decrees Cats Must Be Added To Christmas Nativity Scenes Joining Sheep, Oxen, And Donkey
Cats may finally receive the Christmas recognition they deserve after a new translation of the Bible suggests that Mary’s beloved cat, Snuffles, was present at the birth of Jesus.
“These findings help explain a phenomenon which many cat owners have observed for years,” said Felicia Banks, President of The Cat Fanciers Association. “That cats will climb into nativity scenes and curl up in the straw with a familiarity and comfort that belies reason. Now we know why…a cat was there when the Savior came into the world!”
Ms. Banks said that feline historians have suspected for decades that a cat was present at the birth of the Lord. Pope Pius XII lent credibility to the theory when he made this offhand remark during his Christmas Eve mass in 1948: “… and let us always remember the little lion who’s gentle purring soothed Mary during her long and difficult night.”When asked afterward what he meant by the “little lion” allusion, the Pope hurried away, never to mention it again.
According to Matthew 2:11, we also know that one of the Three Kings, Melchoir, was carrying not only frankincense when he arrived to worship the baby Jesus, but also kibble.Apparently he was aware that Mary had brought Snuffles with her to Bethlehem.
A final clue that a cat was lying next to Mary as she bore the Holy Child is a persistent piece of oral history that mentions the other animals traditionally included in creche recreations — a sheep, an oxen, and the Holy Family’s burden donkey.
The spoken account tells of the mighty oxen getting spooked by a mouse that was scurrying under the manger hay. The oxen’s sudden movements frightened the sheep who leaped into the hind quarters of the donkey.
As the story unfolds, Snuffles immediately intervenes to capture the mouse and calm the other animals, ensuring that peace is restored to the sacred manger just moments before Mary brings the Messiah into the world.
The confluence of new cat evidence is apparently good enough for Fontanini of Italy, the venerated nativity figurine manufacturer. The company announced that it will be adding an heirloom Snuffles the Cat statue, available in all sizes, to its nativity collection next year.
****
See more of my daily satirical posts here.
Don’t sing these Christmas Carols. Seriously. | https://extranewsfeed.com/pope-decrees-that-cats-must-join-sheep-oxen-and-donkey-in-christmas-nativity-scenes-2c015cd38a73 | ['Allan Ishac'] | 2020-12-24 14:16:02.743000+00:00 | ['Cats', 'Satire', 'Christmas', 'Humor', 'Funny'] |
How To Block Restricted Calls On Android And iPhone | Most cell phone owners receive incoming restricted calls, sometimes to the point of harassment. Whether you have an iPhone or Android smartphone, there are ways to prevent them from calling you in the future. Below, we describe what restricted calls are and how to block restricted calls on Android and iPhone.
What Is A Restricted Call?
A restricted call is when someone who doesn’t want to be traced calls another person. These type of calls will often appear on a cell phone as “Restricted” when the call is incoming. It’s typically difficult to find out the actual number of the restricted call, but likely, you’ll just want to block the number.
How To Block A Number On iPhone
There are multiple methods of how to block a number on iPhone devices. Before following the steps below, make sure your iPhone is updated.
Option 1: Via Your Call History
Step 1: Go to your Phone icon/app.
Go to your Phone icon/app. Step 2: Click on the blue ? symbol next to the restricted call.
Click on the blue ? symbol next to the restricted call. Step 3: Choose Block this caller to block the specific restricted call.
Option 2: Use Do Not Disturb
Step 1: Go to Settings → Do Not Disturb.
Go to Settings → Do Not Disturb. Step 2: Scroll down to Allow Call From and click on that.
Scroll down to Allow Call From and click on that. Step 3: Choose who you want to accept calls from, such as your Favorites or All Contacts.
Choose who you want to accept calls from, such as your Favorites or All Contacts. Step 4: On the Do Not Disturb page, make sure your other settings are set the way you want them.
On the Do Not Disturb page, make sure your other settings are set the way you want them. Step 5: Turn on the Do Not Disturb button at the top of the page.
How To Block A Number On Android
Step 1: Go to your Phone icon.
Go to your Phone icon. Step 2: Click on the restricted call and then the ? symbol (may also say Details).
Click on the restricted call and then the ? symbol (may also say Details). Step 3: Choose Block Number at the bottom of your screen.
Call Blocking Apps You Can Use
Now that you know how to block restricted calls on iPhone and Android, we wanted to inform you about third-party apps you can use to block a number.
This is one of the most popular iPhone and Android block caller ID apps today. With this app, you can see who just called you, and block spam and restricted calls. It’s very simple to use and has over 10 million downloads to date.
Calls Blacklist is only available on Android devices. However, the app makes it really easy to block calls and SMS messages. While in the app, you can easily retrieve the restricted call(s) from your call log.
Just like Calls Blacklist, this application can only be used on Android devices and has similar capabilities. It can retrieve the restricted call number from your call log and add it to your block calls list. On Google Play, it currently has more than 10 million downloads.
Well, that’s how to block restricted calls on any smartphone! If you want to learn more about whom a phone number belongs to, you can do a reverse phone number lookup online. | https://medium.com/safeguarde/how-to-block-restricted-calls-on-android-and-iphone-4c0058b4f0b9 | ['Holly Zink'] | 2020-12-09 14:58:42.793000+00:00 | ['How To', 'iPhone', 'Restricted Calls', 'Cell Phones', 'Phone Call'] |
Have You Read the Latest Double Feature? | Last Friday, FNC officially returned with not one, but two stories at the same time! We featured crimes from Ohio (the Cleveland Strangler) and Louisiana (the Dunbar disappearance).
This week will feature Hoosiers and murderous caretakers. Stay tuned!
Read the latest story here:
https://bit.ly/308lPEb | https://medium.com/friday-night-crimes/have-you-read-the-latest-double-feature-31e32cac83a6 | ['Brianna Bennett'] | 2020-06-05 00:51:12.722000+00:00 | ['True Crime', 'Newsletter', 'Friday Night Crimes', 'Culture', 'Crime'] |
Let Your Words Rise: Why Patience is King in Writing | Let Your Words Rise: Why Patience is King in Writing
How I learned that instant gratification isn’t everything
Photo by Bookblock on Unsplash
Three years ago, my husband and I were in the process of opening a bakery. I had no idea how to bake. Friends of mine had gone as far as to say that I was the worst cook they had ever known.
This sentiment is not ideal when opening a bakery.
Luckily my husband is a red seal chef, and he was willing to take on the task of teaching me. My first lesson was in baking bread. The ingredients were easy. As long as you have flour, water, yeast, and sugar you’re set. It’s the process that’s important when it comes to crafting artisan loaves.
Proofing the dough is key.
This is the practice of allowing the dough to rise, then once doubled in size to punch it down and let it rise again. I couldn’t understand why I had to wait for a second rise. It seemed so tedious, and I was anxious to get to the good part — eating my delicious creation.
So every time, I would skip the second rise and get the right to shaping and cooking the loaves.
And, every single time, my bread would fall in the oven and become a flattened mess of a dense bread-brick.
“You don’t have enough patience for this!” My husband Jamie would tease me.
And it was true. I didn’t have any patience. Not for bread and not in my writing career either.
There have been countless times I’ve submitted articles to literary magazines only to get a reply a month later that said, “Not a completed draft. Make sure you send your most polished work, please.”
Incredulous, I’d look back on the article to find incomplete thoughts and sloppy run-on sentences. My impatience had gotten the better of me once again.
The problem is that I like instant gratification.
Also, I probably have higher expectations of myself than I should. I think that whipping up an article in half an hour and tossing it to a publisher is a sure thing. This is due to the one or two times in my career where this strategy has worked. Sometimes good luck can be your worst enemy when it comes to crafting quality stuff.
I’ve had good luck over the past few years with blogging and Facebook, which is why, for the longest time, I chose not to stray from these platforms. I’ve grown a nice following and revel in the instant gratification I get from sharing my writing on my social media channels.
Why the instant gratification of social media is so rewarding:
1) We feel that we have achieved something. Despite the quality of our project, if someone “likes or positively comments” on our work, even when we know it isn’t our best, it feels as though we’ve accomplished something.
2) Someone is reading our work. Sometimes when submitting to literary journals, our article will sit in a desktop file for months on end. We want eyes on our writing, and it’s painful to know it’s sitting idle in some editor’s TBR pile.
3) The rush of viral. Nowadays, the dream is to go viral. To write an article that makes the internet rounds is the ultimate win.
For a long time, I wrote for likes.
I wanted the satisfaction of seeing those little blue thumbs-up twinkling on my computer screen. Was the work I was putting out quality? Nope. Did it add value to my readers? Maybe marginally with a few laughs here and there, but it certainly wasn’t my best. It didn’t provide anything more profound than a baseline story that was void of insight.
It wasn’t until recently that I decided to move out of my comfort zone and join networks like Medium, where I can connect with fellow writers. I am grateful that I took the leap to pursue a broader education in this field of work.
Merely reading and talking shop with fellow writers has made a world of difference in my prose. Why hadn’t I done this sooner?
Now, I can look back on my previous writing, not with shame, but with an understanding of how a bit of added value, humour, and insight could have made these articles much better. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/let-your-words-rise-why-patience-is-king-in-writing-108f48c9672d | ['Lindsay Brown'] | 2020-09-11 14:16:19.791000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Life Lessons', 'Writer', 'Baking', 'Patience'] |
A Story Max Barry Would Drool Over: Coca-Cola Piercing Tongues, In Latest Marketing Stunt | First of all, Max Barry, marketing god and author demi-god, and pseudo-friend, is always on top the latest marketing moves esp. in the soda-pop industry (he wrote a novel about
it for gosh sakes) — so I am hoping he will chime in on this story. Apparently, now Coca-cola in a Coke-Zero promotional stunt/marketing plan, is basically saying, ‘hey you dumb slut, hoe-bag-in-training, do you want to get your tongue pierced?’ (Do you want to slob-knobs, and drink Coke-Zero in between your slobbing of knobs?). Well, we’ll pierce your skank-tongue, for free! But your stud will have a big coke-zero logo on th end. Ha ha….classic move.
Hey I am down with that and all. That sure is an industrious move…so they’ll probably be doing that too with industrial-bar piercings (sorry that was a corny play on words that I couldn’t resist). Don’t believe me? Here is a pic… and here is a gallery of pictures. Here is a youtube video with an ad with tongues.
Coke Zero’s throwing weight behind tongue-piercing parlors in Brazil. Seriously. Shops in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Salvador are giving free piercings to people that agree to take a picture with a fresh new Coke Zero stud. Coke’s calling the concept advertising.
and here is more info to read.
and here’s max barry’s blog.
ps.
oh, I am thinking of getting a free penis piercing with a BALLPARK FRANKS logo at the end of the stud. At least it would be ‘consistent’ marketing. Well, in MY case.
$ | https://shabooty.com/a-story-max-barry-would-drool-over-coca-cola-piercing-tongues-in-latest-marketing-stunt-b329df540eb8 | ['Shabooty'] | 2016-08-09 01:31:38.835000+00:00 | ['Brazil', 'Coca Cola', 'Marketing'] |
Want to migrate to AWS Africa Region? Read this first! | As I write this, every South African AWS customer has all of their production workloads running on AWS outside of South Africa. That’s not by choice, but because until yesterday morning (22 April 2020), they had no other options. Luckily AWS have announced that the first AWS Region in Africa (Cape Town) is open for business!
We expect mass migration to start as soon as customers and partners are happy that the local AWS Region is stable, performs well and offers the relevant services they require.
To migrate to the new region is easy, click the “Change Region” button and POOOF! Job done! Well… if only it were that easy.
Moving resources between regions involve quite a bit of planning and migration work. Just like we all promised ourselves that we’re going to use this COVID-19 lockdown period to get those elusive to-do items at home done (I still have a week left to tidy up my garage o.k!?), this migration is a golden opportunity to get rid of some technical debt. I mean, all of us have temporary solutions that became permanent...
You’re not playing anymore
The one misstep we see most often with customers is that the account they used to initially sign-up with AWS to play/test, eventually became the account in which all of their services were deployed. I mean, we did this ourselves. If you are a small outfit, you are still just testing or you don’t run too many services in the account, this is fine.
When you grow, and your company starts running multiple development and production workloads in the cloud and you have a team of people spinning up / deleting resources, you should move to a multi-account setup. Best practice for well-architected multi-account environments is to have an empty billing-only root account. A separate set of sub-accounts should be created for workloads using AWS Organizations. However, this is only the start.
Enter the Landing Zone
For those that are not familiar with the concept, the more fully-fledged version of this multi-account setup is referred to as a Landing Zone.
Photo by Pascal Meier on Unsplash
A Landing Zone is a more structured account framework that addresses various governance, compliance and security aspects. The architecture below shows the AWS Reference Design for Landing Zone. It does not show any of the service accounts, only the governance and security accounts.
AWS Landing Zone Reference Architecture (Source: https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/aws-landing-zone/)
If you use the AWS Landing Zone solution, you can get going relatively quickly. The limitation currently is however that you will not be able to link any accounts that were not created from the start using AWS Landing Zone.
An alternative approach is to create your own landing zone and build the required connections between these accounts yourself using CloudFormation or other scripts. We’ve chosen this approach as we required more flexibility in our Landing Zone structure and account onboarding. We chose to build it using our Terraform scripts, as this will eventually allow us to more easily create Landing Zones for multi-cloud environments.
Whichever way you go, the benefits of having good governance, security and compliance built into the foundation of your cloud environment is definitely worth serious consideration.
The Major Benefits of having a Well-Architected Landing Zone
Create Order in the Chaos with Control Policies
You can setup Service Control Policies (SCPs) which act like ground rules for an entire account. What users can do inside an account can be restricted/guided using SCPs. These SCPs can also be configured to apply certain governance/compliance rules.
This has further security and risk benefits by limiting damage from stolen credentials. For example: If an account is compromised, how do you quickly react to prevent unauthorised resource deletion or creation? You can link the accounts to Organisational Units (OUs) which have the required SCPs attached. In the event of compromise, you can merely drag-and-drop the account into the “LockDown” OU, which can apply extremely restrictive SCPs to prevent resource damage while you remediate the situation.
Reducing the Blast Radius with Account Level Isolation
By using Account Level separation of resources and users, you effectively also limit the blast radius of any given event. Be it stolen credentials or accidental resource deletion. By separating Sandbox, Development, QA and Production accounts, and using ever more strict SCPs described above, you could easily see how the effect of mishaps can be limited.
Another common account separation model is splitting by Business Units / Business Area. Separating IT, Engineering, Marketing, HR and Finance for example.
Maintain Visibility with Centralised Logging
As your number of developers and infrastructure engineers grow and you have resources running in multiple accounts, keeping track of everything becomes a challenge. The Landing Zone has a centralised logging account, which aggregates all the logs from your other accounts into a single read-only account from where it can be processed.
Consolidated Billing
With the separation of accounts, AWS still rolls up all the sub-accounts into the master payer account (root account). All benefits that would have accrued to a customer if everything was in a single account are available and shared across the multi-account structure. This includes benefits like Consumption Tier Discounts and Reserved Instances.
But wait, there’s more…
There are too many benefits to discuss each in detail, but some additional important ones include:
Account life cycle management
Seamless Account Security Baselining
Easier Onboarding and Self-Service with Guardrails
We will be running a Webinar on Landing Zones for AWS in the next couple of weeks, if you would like to attend please register your interest here: Webinar Registration
If you are going to move house, you can organise the garage in the process
This is a call to all of you planning to bring your data and workloads home. You will have to do quite a bit of planning and work to move your resources from Europe/US to Cape Town. While you are going through that effort, take the extra step and move it into a well-architected Landing Zone.
If you need some help, give us a shout.
Cheers and Good Luck! | https://medium.com/tangent-solutions/want-to-migrate-to-aws-africa-region-read-this-first-127838152ac2 | ['Niel Malan'] | 2020-04-23 08:20:52.789000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Compliance', 'Landingzone', 'Governance And Tech', 'Cloud Security'] |
Loathe At First Sight: Nothing’s Fair in Video Games | Thanks to Gamergate, many people know that the gaming industry can suck if you’re not a cis-white male that wants to make games. It especially sucks when you are independent or starting out, and Internet trolls decide to gang pile on you to make things worse. Many Gamergate victims can attest to that while predators get off scot-free.
I will always love a novel that talks about double standards within the gaming industry. Loathe At First Sight does a deep dive into sexism, racism, and unfair expectations. There is some romance because it’s a romantic comedy, but I argue that it talks about how gaming as an industry is unjust and how those who are marginalized need to work much harder.
Loathe At First Sight by Suzanne Park
Melody Joo is a new employee at Seventeen Studios, which makes video games. A former copywriter, Melody is also dealing with parents that consider her too old to be single, and a very sexist office. She hates how the entitled head Ian McKenzie is casual about his so-called genius and putting cutouts of busty videogame characters in her workspace. When the board forces him to accept a pitch of her videogame idea — topless strippers fighting in an apocalypse — he promises to make it very hard for her to succeed because she is a woman in a man’s office. It doesn’t help that there is only one other female producer in the office, with another leaving for more promising opportunities. Add in an intern that is good-looking but Ian’s nephew and maid-of-honor duties for someone she doesn’t consider a friend, and Melody’s life becomes booked.
Things go from bad to worse when someone within the office leaks information about her game to the trolls that make it a point to push women out of games. Melody fights to keep producing the game and to survive the social media thunderstorm that comes in the form of hateful messages, dick pics, and harassing phone calls. She also needs to figure out who the leak is before the people making death threats act on them, and to save her game’s launch. The law won’t help, and people at her workplace aren’t good for that either. Their primary focus is to solve a PR crisis.
This is a comedy, mind, and has quite a few amusing moments to go with a serious crisis. Melody’s very traditional Korean parents tell a stalker on the phone that their daughter doesn’t want a boyfriend so to please hang up and go away. Ian orders her to hire strippers to cosplay for her game at a convention, and she has to find last-minute substitutes after blushing her heart out at a strip club during a recruiting session.
I do like that the gaming discussions, as well as talking about token “diversity” and “harassment” events that actually don’t protect marginalized people in a volatile workplace. Melody is not impressed when she’s chosen to roleplay in a sexual harassment seminar or when a “Celebrate Women in Gaming” event turns out to mainly have Lara Croft cosplayers parading on a walkway.
We also get a firsthand look at the workplace itself. It is not that friendly on a daily basis. While many women work in the building, Melody is one of two women producers, and one of the few minorities. She often has to fend off awkward questions and make sure that her coffee mug is protected. Seattle is one of the few hubs for gaming, with a high cost of living, so she needs to get a new car at some point but can’t afford it.
The title Loathe at First Sight doesn’t just apply to how Melody and the new intern interact; it also refers to how trolls first respond to her game Ultimate Apocalypse before it even has any trailers. They decide they dislike it and to flood her social media and email with hate messages, all because a woman has decided to create a game. The best way to fight back isn’t to feed them, but rather to find the people who will support you, including those that will reveal the trolls’ real identities.
Given her stern upbringing and desire to succeed, Melody is stubborn to a fault. She believes that she has to wear everyone’s hats to prove that she is tougher than the tough guys in the office. Thus, she takes no-nonsense and fights back with everything she has, from standing her ground to “gifting” coffee mugs with secret messages on them. That means, however, that it’s hard for her to realize when someone really wants to help her on a project and doesn’t expect her to learn a new skill on the go.
Nolan as a love interest provides believable chemistry and conflict. He and Melody get a bad first impression of each other when he takes the coffee mug she normally uses and smashes it by accident. Melody pegs him as a guy for nepotism and doesn’t think highly of him since he and Ian are related. In time, however, they have to work together on her project and realize their biases are not going to help. Nolan also admits he’s not happy and needs to become a braver person. Even though Melody likes him, however, dating an intern would become an HR nightmare.
We do have a lovely cast to go with Melody’s tough approach to life. Her friends Candace and Jane ask for help with Jane’s wedding, where Melody agrees to be the maid of honor under protest. Coworker Asher is a pill and a pain-in-the-neck, though he does get better when Melody calls him out for his nonsense. Kat, Melody’s coworker, and fellow gamer, is quite cheerful and matter-of-fact about having to balance her work and home life respectively.
And Ian? Ian is just the worst. He’s good as an antagonist that Melody has to bear to keep her job, but also seems to enjoy tossing others under the bus. With his abrasive personality and melon-sized ego, it’s no wonder that Melody thinks that his nephew will be the same way. She hopes that someday a person can take him down a peg.
Loathe at First Sight is a fun read, and an insightful one. I recommend reading it about ten times over to enjoy all of the fun prose. It makes me feel great to see these serious issues talked about, with possible solutions. What’s more, it provides strategies to handle these double standards and biases, while adding room for a personal life, and love.
Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. | https://medium.com/permanent-nerd-network/loathe-at-first-sight-nothings-fair-in-video-games-ee5c5eb51700 | ['Priya Sridhar'] | 2020-10-08 02:11:58.122000+00:00 | ['Games', 'Books', 'Literature', 'Romance', 'Harassment'] |
NUTONOMY : A CASE STUDY. This is a case study of one of the… | This is a case study of one of the recently launched vehicle automation company NUTONOMY.
nuTonomy is a developer of state-of-the-art software for self-driving vehicles, developed by two MIT researchers, and first launched in Singapore in 2016.
nuTonomoy’s technology, nuCore allows for flexible and human-like vehicle handling. nuCore’s powerful planning engine enables human-like maneuvering performance, and nuCore’s patented approach to decision making allows autonomous vehicles to handle even the most complex traffic scenarios.
This was about nuTonomy but lets start with the basics, nuTonomy is an example of automation of vehicles using AI. Automation in vehicles has been a hot topic since a long time because whenever there is talk of the future world ,self-driven vehicles are the first scenario. When it comes to autonomy, it might come as a surprise that there are degrees to which a car is autonomous. The International Authority of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has defined six levels of autonomy for self-driving cars.
Level 0 — No Automation
There is zero automation at this level. Majority of the vehicles on road today is manually controlled. There may be systems in place to help the driver, such as the emergency braking system but it doesn’t technically “drive” the car and so doesn’t qualify as automation.
Level 1 — Driver Assistance
These vehicles provide only one automated system for driver assistance, such as adaptive cruise control. The human driver controls the steering and braking with adaptive cruise control.
Level 2 — Partial Driving Automation
This means the vehicle can control both steering and accelerating/decelerating. The human driver can take control of the car at any time.
Level 3 — Conditional Automation
This is where environmental detection capabilities come into play. The car can make informed decisions, such as overtaking past a slow moving vehicle. However, the driver can override the control of the vehicle if the system is unable to execute a task.
Level 4 — High Automation
These cars are fully automated for most circumstances. However, a human driver can manually override the system. nuTonomy comes in this category as most of the nuTonomy vehicles are taxis.
Level 5 — Full Automation
These cars do not require a human driver and don’t even have steering wheels or acceleration/braking pedals.
HOW nuCore works ?
AI use case:
To better understand the role of AI in self-driving cars, let’s first take a look at the human perspective. A human driver uses sensory functions, such as vision and sound to watch the road, road signs, and other vehicles. The years of experience in driving helps the driver develop a habit to look for little things encountered on the roads — it could be a big bump or a pedestrian crossing.
The goal of the automotive industry is to build Level 5 autonomous cars that can drive like experienced human drivers. This means the vehicles need to have sensory functions, cognitive functions and executing capabilities. The process used to achieve this can be divided into three parts.
Part 1: Collection of data from the vehicles
Multiple sensors, cameras, and communication systems are fitted on the autonomous vehicles to generate data of the surrounding environment. This system collects information about everything the autonomous vehicle sees and hears on the road, such as other vehicles, the speed at which every vehicle around it is travelling, road infrastructure, and every object on/near the road. This data is then processed and used to communicate meaningful information (input) to the AI programs.
Part 2: AI Mastermind
The AI programs are stored in the cloud. When the cloud receives the processed data, it starts applying AI algorithms to add meaning to this enormous amount of data. The AI engine is the brain of this entire system and helps in making the right decisions. It is connected to a database that acts as a memory that stores previous driving experiences.
To handle complex situations, nuTonomy uses formal logic, which is based on a hierarchy of rules similar to Asimov’s famous Three Laws of Robotics. Priority is given to rules like “don’t hit pedestrians,” followed by “don’t hit other vehicles,” and “don’t hit objects.” Less weight is assigned to rules like “maintain speed when safe” and “don’t cross the centerline,” and less still to rules like “give a comfortable ride.”nuTonomy car tries to follow all of the rules all the time, but it breaks the less important ones first: If there’s a car idling at the side of the road and partially blocking the lane, nuTonomy’s car can break the centerline rule in order to maintain its speed, swerving around the stopped car just as any driver would. The car uses a planning algorithm called RRT* — pronounced “r-r-t-star” — to evaluate many potential paths based on data from the cameras and other sensors. (The algorithm is a variant of RRT, or rapidly exploring random tree.) A single piece of decision-making software evaluates each of those paths and selects the path that best conforms to the rule hierarchy.
Part 3: Executing the AI Capabilities
Based on the decisions made by the AI engine, the autonomous vehicle knows what to do when it encounters a situation on road and hence it drives through traffic without any human intervention and reaches the destination safely.
Sensors use case :
VEHICLE INCLUDES:
6 electronically scanning radars (ESR)
4 short-range radars (SRR)
4 short-range LiDARs
5 long-range LiDARs
1 trifocal camera
1 traffic light camera
2 GPS antennas
Dedicated Short Range Communications antenna (DSRC)
2 computer and software stacks for safety,Aptiv Connected Services data communications system
Recently, nuTonomy partnered with Lyft to test out vehicles in Boston’s Seaport District, providing rides to Lyft users and gaining more traction toward transforming the way people get around.
That’s it ! Thank you.
#Task_5
Happy learning. | https://medium.com/@iamhimy/nutonomy-a-case-study-b50cd899bc69 | ['Himanshu Yadav'] | 2020-12-01 03:43:38.309000+00:00 | ['Autonomous Vehicles', 'Self Driving Cars', 'AI', 'Nutonomy'] |
Psychedelics | Written by Rithika S
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions”
Drugs are often portrayed in an exaggerated and hysterical manner. People freaking out, jumping out of buildings, etc.
People have been misjudging them. To date, there is no proper research on how psychedelics work. They are mainly known for the way they change the chemical structure of your brain. It has been compared to heartfulness, but while heartfulness has various papers written on their effect on the brain, psychedelics barely have any. Due to the lack of research and knowledge, they have been deceitfully declared harmful. So what are these substances and are they harmful?
What are psychedelics?
Psychedelics are hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger abnormal states of consciousness. They often profoundly amplify mind processes. They are generally considered psychologically safe and do not lead to addiction.
Then why is widely known as something harmful?
Psychedelics and the law image from vox
Up until the 1970s, psychedelics were legal and were widely used by musicians, artists, and scientists. There was a culture developed around these drugs. People used them regularly. Even though they played a major role in most young American’s life, people were not aware of how they functioned and ended up consuming them in large amounts.
This lack of information led to various accidents until finally in 1971, the government declared many of these drugs illegal. But as we know, every godly thing has its perks. While people widely knew about its disadvantages it was also considered heavenly in few cultures.
Legalization of psychedelics image from desertsun
Substance use in moderation could be a good thing. In some cultures, they are destigmatized. Like the jiujitsu community. These jiujitsu fighters consume marijuana. How can a sport be associated with drugs? These people believe that it’s all about perception and that marijuana enhances jiujitsu because it eliminates the rest of the world when they are rolling.
They believe that jiujitsu is a deep form of meditation in violence. It gives them the ability to focus on themselves and their opponent. This use of psychedelics goes way back. One can only wonder if the gods also condemned this.
Some other beliefs are in certain religions, it is said that these psychedelics like mushrooms were put by God so that humans can change their perspective about the way things happen. Humans will be allowed to explore different levels of their consciousness. There is evidence that texts from the bible when Moses came across an acacia tree which is very rich in dimethyltryptamine which is a very powerful psychedelic substance. He believed that he met God in the form of a burning bush. He believed that he had a conversation with God and this experience changed his entire life. The churches think that a lot of religious doctrines came from psychedelic experiences.
Even Hinduism has a history of psychedelic usage which dates back to the Vedic periods. In the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, it is said that sages consumed substances before rituals.
Psychedelics and religion image from the rolling stones
Much of the music of the early 1960s can be credited to LSD, it was said some of the greatest music was created in this period. It was when everyone was intrigued by these psychedelics and started research on it. But it all came to an end when it was banned by the government in the 1970s.
Most researchers believe that meditation and psychedelics have similar effects on the brain. While meditation is legal, psychedelics are not hence there is very little research on psychedelics. In the early 1970s mindfulness research began with the intention of reducing mental stress. Similarly, today psychedelics research aims to reduce distress for patients. In both these studies, people described experiencing heightened sensitivity and awareness. They said they felt more open, accepting, and grateful.
Psychedelics are dangerous because the user can get addicted. This is a very common misconception. It was once said by a famous doctor that “animals do not like psychedelics so much, if you give a rat in a cage a lever to the drug itself, and you put cocaine in one box, it will keep pressing the lever for more, till it dies. If you put LSD there the rat will press it once and then never again. If we use these drugs every day, they lose their effectiveness too. So, they are anti-addictive if anything. It gives a lot of recovery time.”
It is quite shocking when people hear that cocaine and LSD are quite different. They both have their fair share of risk rate, but the addiction rate in cocaine is very high compared to LSD. When people take cocaine they usually become intoxicated and get a jump on their emotions, they usually expect to reach a euphoric state, while LSD works in a completely different way. LSD makes one hallucinate and delusional although this seems like it could be harmful, most LSD users have spoken about experiencing the nature around them. They say that they feel more at peace and attached to their environment, sometimes they also mention experiences that changed their entire lifestyle.
Psychedelics have been proven to have very effective changes in people who are certain that they would die. For example, a stage four cancer patient probably has a few months to live. This patient like any other human finds it difficult to cope with death. But when the patient was given a dose of psilocybin, a hallucinogen, the patient was more alive than ever. The experience remained with him for months. He said that he had made peace with death and it was one the most euphoric experiences ever.
Psychedelics have helped out soldiers too. Soldiers often have to deal with the trauma of death. But research has shown that soldiers who were given pure MDMA (a hallucinogen) have these beautiful experiences where they completely accept death and all the trauma from wars. They explained that they have had profound benefits. This has even helped people who have extreme PTSD, people who have been suicidal, or people who suffer from severe anxiety.
Image from newscientists
The secret to having a good trip
Some people have a bad trip when they take it for the first time, others probably 50 or 100 times later. These bad trips are instant insanity. One might never be able to recover. People have often compared taking drugs to playing Russian roulette. It is not necessarily true that everyone goes through horrific experiences consuming these. Most researchers believe that there are steps to having a good trip. A good atmosphere with preferably your favorite genre of music. Most people prefer silence, darkness, and solitude.
Should these substances be illegal? Why is the government criminalizing psychedelic usage?
Firstly criminalizing something that we are not completely aware of is absurd. People live with the misconception that these drugs are addictive. Recent studies have shown that the rate at which people get addicted to sugar is higher than that of psychedelic drugs.
Modern medicine could extend lifespan through medications but they don’t provide solutions for the traumatic experiences of having a terminal illness. The acceptance of this trauma has been achieved through mindfulness and psychedelics.
While mindfulness takes years and years of practice, psychedelics take a few minutes in the right setting. Research shows that a single pill of psilocybin helped people get rid of negative thoughts and brought kindness and openness to difficult emotions. This has helped a lot of people in the long run.
Psychedelic retreat image from labnews
While living our day-to-day lives, like slaves to the economy we often define ourselves as what other people perceive us. Our brain accumulates memories, creates impressions, and beliefs based on what we observe. Eventually, these memories and beliefs create who we are and what we have done. Sometimes we fall into our own identity and feel trapped, the beliefs that we have created become the source for our ego.
Most of us spend our lives sleepwalking into daily chores. We tend to isolate ourselves from the real world and let gadgets take over. This type of extreme separation bound us to the walls we have mentally created. Eventually, this leads to depression and anxiety.
Trip of your life image from the guardian
What if there was a way to let go of everything. What if we could see the world with a fresh pair of eyes and allow a new sense to take over. Psychedelics do this to us. It allows us to let go of ourselves and create these new impressions of the world around us. We immerse ourselves in our surroundings. Feel as though everything comes alive and realize that the emotions that once deranged us from our happiness were just a short mental phenomenon. Psychedelics disrupt the network in our brain which activates when we become self-focused.
Self-focus in today’s world is much needed. We can deny as strong as we want that we are driven by materialism around us. But the harsh reality is that everything we do is so we can own something. We need to extend our sense from us to around us. Psychedelics help us to expand our idea of ourselves and bring us to greater harmony with our environment.
“Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego.”
― Terence McKenna
Sources:
· How Psychedelic or Hallucinogenic Drugs Work
· Alcohol and Drug foundation
· Psychedelic psychotherapy clinical trial depression
· Pharmacological reviews
· Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness
· Sam Harris on the virtues of Psychedelics and MDMA | https://medium.com/nerd-for-tech/psychedelics-19eea34a9b39 | [] | 2021-08-25 03:07:14.023000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Psychology', 'Musings', 'Psychedelics', 'Science'] |
Do you know enough about Giraffe? | Africa is home to the world’s largest living land animal, the African elephant, and the tallest living animal, the Giraffe.
Giraffe is a very interesting animal and is very famous for people of all ages. It is also one of the main attractions in zoos across the world.
Read this post to know more interesting facts about the world’s tallest living land animal Giraffe.
Here are some additional facts, which are not present in the above post:
Giraffes only need 5 to 30 minutes of sleep in a 24-hour period.
only need in a 24-hour period. A giraffe’s neck can measure up to 6 feet (1.8 m) long.
can measure up to (1.8 m) A Giraffe’s legs alone are taller than most humans : about 6 feet.
alone are than : about 6 feet. Giraffes’ tongues grow up to 21 inches (53 cm) in length.
For more such interesting facts, please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. | https://medium.com/@akashag1001/do-you-know-enough-about-giraffe-65053c5316f1 | ['Akash Agrawal'] | 2020-12-23 06:43:15.042000+00:00 | ['Animals', 'Giraffe', 'Facts', 'General', 'Knowledge'] |
Time-saving Best Practices for Scalable Product Design | Have you ever found yourself in a heated discussion with your team about how the user’s experience is all wrong halfway into the development process? You are not alone. Whenever a team of designers and developers work together, there must be a shared product vision which is unambiguous and united. Furthermore, each team member must be able to step into the end users’ shoes and build the product to solve the users’ problems together. This has to be done to reduce the inevitable friction that will emerge once development begins.
Looking back at my work experience, I found that a lot of time was wasted when the team did not have a common design and development language. While some cases were unique, I would say that more than half of it was repetitive. It would have been faster if we had established a kind of “design repository” or “design library” (which is the term that is becoming widely recognized in the design field), similar to how developers have their own code repository.
Having this “design repository/library” would also help any newcomers to the team get up to speed very quickly and contribute to product discussions. Everyone will then need to be familiar with these common terms and use cases so that discussions are optimized when everyone is on the same starting page. With this system in place, you will not have a case where someone is talking about something so far off from the product that no one else understands them.
When should you do this? The crucial time to do these things is right after the research and prototyping phase where you will have a good understanding of what you are building and who you are building for, just before you kickstart high-fidelity mockups and development. Before would be too soon and after would be too late.
In this article, I want to share my own approach after going through a bit of the chaotic period before we settled down on some common practices which increased our productivity exponentially. The case that I use here is a web-based access control enterprise software solution which grants digital key access to a consumer’s mobile device which I recently pushed into Beta production.
Here are four key considerations we had:
Terminology
Interactions
PANEs
Realistic Dummy Data
Terminology
Before any development began, our team would sit down and discuss use cases together. We would identify the key stakeholders that we were building the product for and we addressed classes and objects upfront. Then, we would clearly define the different types of users, standard use cases and variables inside each feature set. The Product Owner or Product Manager in charge of the project will be the keeper of this document and also the final decision maker on any feature or design changes, after consulting with the designers and the developers. It is essential that all team members, including developers and designers, use the same terminology once it is established.
A sample of our lexicon:
A sample of base user stories which the whole team would be familiar with. These base user stories describe the fundamental core experience of what we want our product to achieve before adding on sub-flows and other features:
Interaction List
To speed up the design and development process, you should also have a template of frequently used interactions that are standard in most products so that you don’t have to waste time debating what these interactions do or get confused when someone else mis-labels them. In essence, this really is just an extension of what UIUX designers already do when they create their style guides for the usual buttons. From this reference sheet of interactions, you can also create your buttons and button states like mouse-overs and selected buttons.
Here are some of my frequently used interactions:
PANEs
PANEs (Prompts, Alerts, Notifications, Error Messages) are a special type of interactions or user feedback which involve catching a user’s attention (read: POP-UPS) and require them to be informed of something important. Typically, we only think of these issues spontaneously when they crop up. And understandably, the team cannot pre-emptively predict every single issue that will appear.
Therefore, we adopted a “Pareto Principle” where we simply designed what we believed to be the biggest buckets of use cases. Simply create a spreadsheet of PANEs and where you will use them, then design the visual of what it looks like so that you can rapidly create screens when you need to. This will also help your developers build the error handling system much faster.
Realistic Dummy Data
When it comes to dummy data, you typically come up with a random name or random number (some Lorem Ipsums) that you just put as placeholder data spontaneously. But this gets confusing if you are designing for multiple roles and multiple core UX flows. One tip is to be more thoughtful when placing dummy data and actually consider what this data is used for, where it will come from (inputs) and what does it affect (outputs). Once you have this consideration in mind, you will be able to create more situation-specific realistic dummy data which will be much more helpful in your design.
Here are some benefits in creating realistic dummy data:
It is kind of fun — allowing you to play around with your imagination and roleplay a little
Helps you transform your design into a narrative where you can then tell a story to your internal team to help them build the product better
Communicate the core problems you are solving much more clearly to your customers externally
My approach is to generate an index of dummy data filled with personas and dummy company names so that you and your team will be clear minded even as the design and development process becomes more and more complex. Many times, I observe that junior designers work hard in research and creating the user personas but then neglect to use these names and identities inside their prototypes.
And as always, you can never think of all the possibilities at the beginning but the important thing to do is to create that index or directory where you track all of your dummy data so that you can replicate things easily and add on to it to keep optimizing your design.
One caveat to this is to also know when you should stop creating such unique dummy data. There will come a point in time where Lorem Ipsums are indeed sufficient. From my point of view, the most impactful unique dummy data would used when describing the first few instances of a class of objects. For example, if you are creating a list of visitors, you would only need to give unique names to the first 2–3 visitors that you need in order to create a coherent user story. Subsequently, giving the rest of visitors unique names would be an inefficient use of your time.
Ending remarks
With that, I would like to end off this article. I hope that my fellow product managers and designers have learnt something new or at least got reminded of things that they might have missed out on. One question I always ask myself when doing projects is whether the work or assets that I am about to create can be reused later. We should aim to minimize the amount of throwaway work so that less effort is wasted. There are a lot of ways to make your product design work more optimized and scalable so that you can take on bigger and more complex projects so let me know if you have your own recommendations. | https://medium.com/@calebkhoo/time-saving-best-practices-for-scalable-product-design-a7ac600a5a91 | ['Caleb Khoo'] | 2020-05-05 02:49:04.696000+00:00 | ['Product Design', 'Ui Ux', 'Ui Ux Design', 'Design Patterns', 'Product Management'] |
Fake Assanges Drive Far-Right Messages | Three false Twitter accounts which impersonated Wikileaks founder Julian Assange have spent months spreading far-right messaging, in a striking example of how easily fakes can drive online content. A fourth was created on September 4, and immediately began spreading more.
All four accounts — @JuliannAssange, @Julien_Assange, @RealAssange and @JulianAssanged — copied the profile of the genuine Assange (@JulianAssange), occasionally claiming to be a “parody” (or “parity”) account when they were exposed. Their content was not parody, however, but a cocktail of far-right propaganda which achieved the greatest impact when it linked itself with Wikileaks.
Some Twitter users appear to have been fooled by these accounts; others claimed not to have been, but supported their efforts anyway.
Three of the four accounts were created in May. By the time the last of them was suspended on September 4, while under investigation by @DFRLab, it had over 25,000 followers. Minutes after the suspension, a new account was created, using the same techniques.
These four accounts serve as a case study in the power of impersonation — and the worrying tendency of some internet users to spread stories even if they believe the sources to be false.
How the fakes were made
The three early accounts warranted studying to see how they operated, how they survived for so long, and how they gained such a following.
Their survival was based on three factors: the exact copying of the real Assange’s profile; the use of a plausible handle; and the temporary use, when threatened with exposure, of the claim that they were parody accounts (or “parity accounts”).
The genuine Assange’s profile page, from a screenshot on August 17. The salient features remained unchanged as of September 4.
All four fake accounts used the same visuals, including the blue diamond next to the name (this appears to be a reference to the blue check-mark which Twitter itself uses to mark verified accounts). The similarity is most marked in the latest incarnation, @JulianAssanged, as this screenshot demonstrates.
Screenshot of the @JulianAssanged profile page. Note the creation date on September 4. Archived on September 4. Other than the creation date and the number of followers, the profile is identical with the real account.
The earlier incarnations were almost perfect matches, but added the words “parity account” or “parody account” once they were accused of impersonation.
Screenshot of the @Julien_Assange profile page, showing the same visuals, taken on August 17. The words “parity account” were a recent addition; previously, the biographical text had been identical with that of the real Assange. Note that this account had over 14,000 followers. | https://medium.com/dfrlab/fake-assanges-drive-far-right-messages-604a8658bde8 | [] | 2017-09-05 12:43:51.493000+00:00 | ['Twitter', 'Social Media', 'Fake News', 'Digital', 'Journalism'] |
Hollow Words _ III | Day XXIII. Hi, sometimes I don’t feel anything at all. I miss talking to you, but I don’t miss the way I felt the last week we spent together. A black hole in my chest, and salt on my lips. But now, now there’s nothing inside of me. For now.
Day XXIV. Hi, once upon a time, you used to say I was one of a kind. I remember your eyes when your dad would skip his breath. When it stopped… And when only the two of us were left on his grave. I only asked to be a sparkle of life for you.
Day XXV. Hi, how strange life can be.
Day XXVI. Hi, I think I still love you. Maybe I will love you forever somehow. Maybe you’ll never understand what it means. But I love you.
Day XXVII. Hi, maybe for me you’ll always be you. There isn’t another name for me, for you. Is the name I gave you, and mine is the one you gave me. Don’t toss it aside, don’t waste it, it’s ours to cherish. Wherever we are.
Day XXVIII. Hi, I believe you live of nostalgia. You claim to be living day by day, but way too often you live with the volume too low. You fall in love with the present only when it’s already past. So you live of nostalgia.
Day XXIX. Hi, now I know, you will never be able to forget. Perhaps, even with your last breath, you’ll think of me.
Day XXX. Hi, maybe YOU are the one who lost. You, accepting things as they come, whatever life brings. You, never fighting. You let me go. Like you let go of everything.
Day XXXI. Hi, you monster. That’s what you are. Captor and abuser. How long did you relish making a joke out of me? Were you laughing? Were you thinking of me all the time? Stupid little F. You disgust me and I pray no one is to be your victim ever again. You piece of… I don’t care, not anymore. Get married. Throw yourself off the city walls. I don’t care. Today I was dying in my bed, I felt my whole body breaking apart and all I wanted was to scream. But the reality is, today was nothing compared to years of psychological torture and abuse. Remember, you get to have only one extraordinary woman in your life…
Day XXXII. Hi, trampled on the ground without breath. Your words decaying my wounds and swallowing me whole. “Noone forces you to stay here.” “ Noone pays you.” “You’re full of problems you’ll never solve.” “You never let go of us.” “You live in the past.” “I’m not yours I’m free”. “You were the centre of my universe”… Please leave me here where you discarded me. Have mercy and honour my death. I have no more tears or blood to shed. My words are sails of ships adrift, torn by the wind. I can do nothing else but flatten and melt with the ground. I wait for the storm to wash away my illusions and for the thunder to call me from lethe. My bones of stone, my nails as roots and leaves for hair. A sigh that is sealed, a spell that is a dream in this night of midsummer where I am no more.
Day XXXIII. Hi, die. From tonight every fragment, every particle of the magic I’ve given you abandons your life. You, rotted and corrupted to the bone. You who tried to kill my light. I wish you to be happy. I wish she or some others will give you what you want. But I hope you’ll never regret it, or you’ll have found true hell. Nothing hurts like losing love. From tonight you’re slowly dying. | https://medium.com/@federicammicheli/hollow-words-ii-5aba4cbc4f25 | ['Federica M Micheli'] | 2021-04-01 10:15:25.823000+00:00 | ['Love Letters', 'Healing From Trauma', 'Breakups', 'Lost Love', 'Relationships'] |
Is Feminism Trying Too Hard to Please? | Is Feminism Trying Too Hard to Please?
Image by PawinG from Pixabay
I first noticed it on Instagram: the unofficial aesthetic of feminism in 2020 is not unlike the ‘girls’ aisle of a toy store. It’s pink, pastel-colored and sometimes glittery, with retro cursive fonts and pretty flowers all around.
I’ve been spending more time on social media recently and discovered loads of amazing feminist artists whose beautiful illustrations come with an explosive message.
There is Florence Given, best-selling author of Women Don’t Owe You Pretty — with her characteristic wonky cartoon characters, on pink backgrounds with punch-packing slogans written in a curly retro font.
There’s Pink Bits, on a mission to “illustrate the bits and shapes we’re told to hide.” She draws nudes of all sizes and focuses on the small details we’re not supposed to talk about: white discharge on panties, stomach rolls during yoga, in a rounded cartoon style that is simple and gorgeous.
Brazilian artist and activist Camixvx draws women that take up space and voluntarily don’t smile — Strong, assertive, and most often, pink.
There are countless other feminist illustrators — I can’t name them all here although many would deserve to be mentioned.
Let me just first that I am not criticizing these artists: I love them, I follow them, I think they are creating work that is powerful and beautiful and that will carry important messages across the world.
It’s just the omnipresence of traditional ‘girly’ styles that has me wondering whether it’s a trend, or whether it’s a choice, an apology, almost. Consciously or unconsciously, these artists seem to be putting a disclaimer on their message. “We want the end of the patriarchy,” they say. “But don’t worry, we’ll keep things pretty.” Abiding by this traditional girliness is a way of rendering explosive content more palatable.
We shouldn’t have to apologize for, or water down, our feminism. It’s added work and an added restriction on creativity and activism alike. It could also, in the long run, be harmful, by contributing to archaic stereotypes.
We shouldn’t have to beg for our basic human rights
We shouldn’t have to dress up our demands as sweet little requests. We shouldn’t have to be kind when we ask for that which is rightfully ours. Asking nicely gives power to the oppressor — he decides whether or not to grant us our freedom, and how much. Making the oppressed appease their oppressor perpetuates the very power system we are trying to abolish. It makes them think that they are in the right — because niceness should be reserved to those who aren’t killing us or ruining our lives.
The fact is: we’re not asking, we’re taking. Because it’s ours.
Women are taught to be liked, even if it means hurting themselves
A few years ago scientists carried out an experiment on children. They asked them to wait and gave them lemonade to drink while they did — little did the kids know that they weren’t waiting for the experiment, they were already in it, and that the lemonade they were given was voluntarily disgusting. The boys grimaced, complained that it was bad, and chucked it. The girls forced themselves to drink it and told the scientists they liked it, so as not to offend (though one girl’s retching gave her away).
From a very young age, girls are taught to please. They are encouraged to be good little girls, to be nice and sweet. That is what they get praise for, and what they come to aim for. This continues into adulthood — how many times have I or my friends hesitated about asking for a raise we deserved because we didn’t want to put our bosses out? How many times have we started our sentences by apologizing, terrified that our words would cause us to be disliked?
We are taught to put our needs and feelings second to those of others, especially those of men. That’s hard to overcome when you become a feminist — even though the movement inherently demands that women put themselves first.
Playing into the aesthetic associated to girliness on the one hand means reappropriating a style that has been undervalued, but when it’s too widespread, it becomes the norm again, not a protest against the norm.
The anti-feminist backlash is making it harder to be proud of our beliefs
This is even more difficult today, when a backlash against feminism makes us feel even more as though we have to water down or dress up our ideas. I remember a brief point in time when it was easy to be proud of being a feminist — when girls would wear it on their t-shirts and boys would claim the word, too. That was before #metoo took off and made the prospect of change a little too scary to be cool.
Now, it feels more like an Alt-Right devil is sitting on the shoulder of many men and some women, yelling that feminism is going too far and that those bitches are fat ugly lesbians. Now, I’m scared to tell guys I write about feminism, because I know I will be disliked for it. I can’t be bothered to have to justify myself every time, and every time it is demanded. And if I hear “oh, I hope you’re not one of those feminists” one more time than I might actually start cutting testies off.
The backlash has also made watering things down pointless, because whatever you say, on the internet, related to women’s rights, will get you rape threats and random guys telling you that you are ugly, fat and a bitch. It’s not a case of having “gone too far,” clearly, because even the most basic feminist idea is shot down immediately.
There’s only so far you can dilute your feminism and it still have meaning
I genuinely believe feminism will have a positive effect on everyone in our world. Men too. They will be allowed to cry. Their mental health issues will be better addressed. They will get to wear skirts, and benefit from that genital breeze that is so pleasant on a summer’s day. They will not suffer domestic violence or rape in silence. The downsides of being a man will disappear in a post-patriarchal world.
But some advantages of being a man will disappear. Once women and people of color have their proper representation, that does mean fewer spaces for men. That’s the corollary of the fact that men currently hold more space than is proportional. Men will be held accountable for the violence that today goes unchecked — although being able to be violent doesn’t seem like the sort of advantage to fight for, it’s not a major factor towards a happier life.
There’s only so far we can go in making feminism non-scary. Men will have to step aside. Men will lose those privileges that they shouldn’t have had in the first place. As feminists, we shouldn’t be sugar-coating our messages, not reassuring men, but telling them, look, you shouldn’t have had this in the first place. Count yourself lucky to have had so much borrowed time at the expense of women. And give them back what was rightfully their’s. You might miss out on a few things, but the world we gain is worth it.
Like what you read? Sign up here for my free newsletter — feminist news and curated articles from across the globe, delivered to your inbox each week ❤ | https://medium.com/fearless-she-wrote/feminists-being-nice-is-not-your-job-bf558bdfc11b | ['Stark Raving'] | 2020-11-24 13:13:08.916000+00:00 | ['Feminism', 'Women', 'Sexism', 'Activism', 'Self'] |
Eating Disorder Reality. Trigger Warning | Trigger Warning
When I tell people I am in recovery from an eating disorder, most don't believe me. Never in my life have I been technically underweight other than when I was a child. Now as a teen, I am on the smaller side, but I am not underweight by any means. I thought you had to be dyingly thin to have an eating disorder. I looked normal. However, counting calories, tracking calories burned, and staying up until midnight to meal plan, all consumed me. My brain screamed at me to run, to exercise. At the end of the day, I told myself I could have done better. But I couldn't have a problem, right? My bones weren't showing enough.
There is an overwhelming list of thoughts and rituals I went through daily. I would wake up in the morning and the first thing I would do was go over what I would eat for the day. I planned it out so my family could see me eat but consume as few calories as possible. The calculator app was my best friend. When calculating I included everything I had to eat, even a cracker. I would exaggerate the serving amounts and their calories when counting. My brain told me I must have forgotten something I had eaten. This made me add an extra 200 after my calculation. I would get up sometimes at 5:00 am to exercise so no one would know. Running 3 miles a day became a habit. Instead of watching Tik Tok’s, I was watching Super Size vs. Super Skinny. It was through the internet where I learned more tricks to consume less with as little amount of discomfort.
I began to realize this wasn't normal. I was the only person I knew who went through this much pain to change the way I looked. But there was one problem. I wasn't underweight. There were days where I ate 500 calories or less but still managed to gain weight. My friend convinced me to tell my mom. The most difficult conversation I ever had. I told her everything eating disorder thoughts told me to do. My mom told me I was being dramatic and that it was normal. How was this normal? Later that week I told my therapist everything I told my mom and she recommended to look into the Charis Center. The Charis Center is a treatment facility for eating disorders. This broke me, I felt ashamed.
I knew my parents would now watch my every move. Eating disorder gave me new ideas to conceal my actions. My morning runs were now suspicious. To every new problem, eating disorder found a way to make me look as normal as possible. I cried before, during, and after every therapy meeting. There was one point where I had 6 different doctors and therapists working on me. I even lied about how I was feeling in hope it would all go away.
What people don't understand about eating disorders is it's not just eating and exercising habits. You speak about your eating disorder, you watch your eating disorder. It destroys who you are until eating disorder is your only personality. It's an addiction. In order to keep Ed satisfied, you have to give in. Making me a selfish person.
My boyfriend at the time knew I had this problem. But here was the issue, he only made my eating disorder worse. I thought he was helping me, but he ended up amplifying my problem. He would say to me “why are your legs so big?” every now and then. He himself ate very little. This triggered me. I hated knowing he was smaller than me and not in pain. Eating disorder liked it when people felt bad for me. Joseph was what I thought my only “supporter” but it was Ed’s biggest feeder. Eating disorder told me to constantly talk about my darkest thoughts in the hope I would get sympathy. I wasn't me anymore, I didn't speak Piper I spoke Ed. He eventually got annoyed, so he started shutting me down. Telling me not to speak about anything about eating disorder or therapy-related when I needed him. He changed himself and began to plant ideas and thoughts of who I was. He called me stupid and laughed at me behind my back. In the same breath, he told me I was perfect and he was the only one who would ever tolerate me. He said he couldn't live without me. He knew what he was doing from the start. Joseph was not the same person I knew before I came out about my illness. But at the time, I thought this was him trying to help me. He loved me right? This shut down me even more and gave Ed even more power.
How did I begin to recover? I first accepted I had a problem and that I wanted help. After ignoring my therapist's advice I began to listen. I learned that it is possible to change the way you think. I even broke up with Joseph. I got rid of negativity and triggers. All of this though is easier said than done. My therapist guided me to understand what Ed wanted and what I wanted. Understanding this was key to changing the way I thought. Little by little I started making better choices. Ed would get louder when it didn't get its way. I had to choose if I listened to myself or the voice. Even after a year of starting therapy the voice of Ed sneaks in every now and then.
I never thought men liked me because I was ugly and wasn't thin enough. I always felt pressured by my ex to look flawless. I brainwashed myself into thinking every guy was like that. I realize now that isn't true. My freshman year of high school was the first time I realized guys do like me. I realized people do find me attractive. I just never put myself out there for others to notice me. I only wanted to blend in with the crowd.
Most people who feel that everyone is judging them, judge people themselves. I learned to see the beauty of other people which helped me see the beauty in me. I wished someone told me that therapy itself will not fix you. Therapy is a tool and it can take some people years to become stable. Like me, even though you are stable, therapy doesn't completely go away. There is so much more to atypical anorexia and eating disorders than I just shared. There are many different types and subtypes. To anyone out there struggling with an eating disorder know that it's not your fault, but you are responsible for your own recovery. | https://medium.com/@jingjingneal3/my-eating-disorder-as-a-teen-1bde2afff98c | [] | 2020-12-26 00:41:45.980000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Mental Illness', 'Eating Disorders', 'Mental Health', 'Recovery'] |
Honoring the UCA Martyrs: The Costliness of Jesuit Education | Standing in the rose garden at the UCA — the Jesuit University of Central America in El Salvador — last weekend, I was hit by the costliness of Jesuit education. On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, Elba, and her teenage daughter, Celina, were dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and murdered. This barbaric event followed fifteen years of death threats issued against the Jesuit community plus countless letters, phone calls and radio announcements calling for the expulsion or killing of the Jesuits. More than a dozen times, soldiers placed bombs around the UCA campus — in the library, printing press and computer center — to discourage and destabilize the Jesuits’ approach to education.
The Jesuits were prophetic in denouncing the threats, kidnapping, torture and violence that affected countless communities in El Salvador. They lamented the death of 75,000 Salvadorans who were killed in the 1970s and 1980s. They wrote, taught and preached about the inherent dignity and rights of all, and demonstrated a preferential commitment to the poor and excluded. They called to end the twelve-year-long civil war through dialogue and peace-building.
Because they resisted the oppressive policies of the government, the Jesuits were regarded as subversive, disloyal and dangerous. The Jesuits refused to be silenced and paid the price with their lives. Last week, more than 30 faculty, staff and students from several Jesuit colleges and universities traveled to the UCA to honor them.
I have been to El Salvador before, but representing Xavier University last week was an especially powerful experience. We did more than commemorate the lives and deaths of Joaquin Lòpez y Lòpez (age 70), Ignacio Ellacuría (age 59), Segundo Montes (age 56), Juan Ramón Moreno (age 56), Amando Lòpez (age 53), Ignacio Martín-Baró (age 47), Elba (age 42) and Celina (age 15) Ramos (the women who stayed the night in the Jesuit residence because they thought it was safer than venturing home; they were killed following a military directive to “leave no witnesses”). We reflected and prayed with photographs of their bloodied bodies, wincing at the brain matter strewn over the grass, an intentional act to signal the risks of speaking out like these scholars, teachers and pastors. We gathered in silence in the rose garden, appreciating the beautiful blooms, proof that new life and the hope of resurrection triumph over violence and death. I am in awe of what the Jesuits sacrificed in love for the people they taught and served.
The line we kept hearing is that there will never be justice without paying a price. Not justice as vengeance or retribution, but justice as right-relationships and restoration. Healing wounds in and around us takes courage and compassion. Rev. Greg Boyle, S.J. (founder of Homeboy Industries) reminds us, “If we don’t welcome our own wounds, we will be tempted to despise the wounded.”
Even though I was thousands of miles away from home, I spent a lot of time thinking about the wounds that my students and colleagues carry. How can I create the conditions for vulnerability and tenderness so that people are not tempted to run from their wounds?
It was a gift to have this week in El Salvador as a retreat from the busyness and stress of the academic routine, especially as we near the end of the semester. Class preparation, grading and meetings can fill our consciousness, squeezing out bandwidth for concern for the people we encounter on a daily basis. “Stay awake and stay hungry,” we were told. It’s our job to become more aware of reality so that we can take responsibility for transforming it.
Rev. Jon Sobrino, S.J. — the lone survivor of the slaughter of the Jesuit community at the UCA — has reflected that his Jesuit brothers were killed because they challenged the idols of wealth and power and told “ the truth about the situation [of the ordinary Salvadorans, the poor and oppressed], analyzing its causes, and proposing better solutions.”
Sobrino adds, “This is essential work for a university and central to our faith. If I have learned anything during these years in El Salvador, it is that the world in which we live is simultaneously a world of death and a world of lies … These Jesuits wanted to free the truth from the slavery imposed on it by oppressors, cast light on lies, bring justice in the midst of oppression, hope in the midst of discouragement, love in the midst of indifference, repression and hatred. That is why they were killed.”
As a professor at a Jesuit university, I’ve been thinking about how I can better honor the legacy of the UCA martyrs. What are the idols in my cultural context that need to be unmasked and destroyed? What lies keep members of my campus community from defending the dignity and freedom of all? What are the main obstacles to faith, hope and love? In what ways do I focus more on academic rigor or prestige than conversion to the primary objectives of Jesuit education: humanization, reconciliation, and liberation. The Jesuit value of Magis is not about doing or having more, but creating a world that more closely reflects God’s hope for the fullness of life for all, aspiring toward a truly global common good. As the late Rev. Dean Brackley, S.J. proposed, the measure of our success lies in who our students become, evidenced by their “downward mobility” in showing up to the marginalized and excluded, taking responsibility for healing a broken and sinful world.
Today, many people think that college is a commodity, reducing it to preparation for a profession, or focusing on the “return on investment” in the cost of tuition. But the costliness of Jesuit education requires much more. Our core Jesuit values rooted in reflection and discernment, care for the whole person, being women and men for and with others, and living a faith that does justice are much more than charisms that distinguish us from other institutions. They mark a way of proceeding that seeks to be ever more attentive and responsive to God’s presence and power in and around us, so that we can be partners in building a more inclusive and equitable society. The Jesuits provide a vision of partnership so that unilateral doing for is replaced with mutuality and accompaniment, a journeying together. Together, we create the path leading us forward.
The theme for this year’s 30th anniversary commemoration of the UCA martyrs was llenan de luz la historia: “they fill history with light.” So, too, we are called to be a light for others in our time and place. And to reveal the light within others, meant to be shared with all.
This week, when I came back to campus in Cincinnati, I reflected on my experience in El Salvador with my students. I recounted the sobering statistics I learned about rampant deforestation and pollution, domestic violence and sexual assault, extortion and murder. I also talked about the gratitude and generosity of those we met, the cariño (affection) and courage they witness.
I was especially impressed by the UCA students, whose vision for the future and diligent work ethic fills me with hope. On Saturday, the anniversary of the attack on the Jesuit residence, the UCA campus was filled with music, food and fun. We played soccer with Salvadorans in a tournament hosted by the University for the community. We watched as UCA students created beautiful alhombras (colorful salt rugs shown in the three images above) to remember the Jesuits and their companions, to honor the lives lost to fear, hatred and violence, and to shine a light on current social problems like violence against women and children and family members who have disappeared because of gangs or dangerous migration routes.
The culture of student engagement and empowerment evident at the UCA sparks a holy envy in me for what I hope for my own students. It is the reason, I explained, why my students do not sit for a final exam or complete a term paper for their final assignment. Instead, they are tasked with an advocacy project on any topic of their choosing so that they can apply what they’ve learned in the course (in theology and ethics) to make a difference on our campus.
Through this project, my students have to strategize how to overcome ignorance, indifference and inaction. They have to contend with complacency with an unjust status quo. They have to move people from awareness to action. They have to be willing to be uncomfortable, to push past the “I do me, you do you” mentality that shirks personal accountability and social-environmental responsibility. They have to do more than work for justice but, as Jon Sobrino asserted last week, they have to luchar (struggle, fight) for justice. It won’t come without a cost. While I was away from campus, students submitted proposals for these projects, describing their plans to concentrate on issues like mental illness and suicide ideation, intimate partner violence and human trafficking, poverty and environmental sustainability. They won’t solve these problems by the end of the semester, but they will shoulder some responsibility for creating a path that leads us toward hope and healing. Our students fill our campus with light.
In his remarks recounting who his Jesuit brothers were and why they were killed, Sobrino told us last week that they were “the critical conscience in a society of sin.” Sin might be easier to detect in a civil war, but our responsibility to be a conscience and a soul in a social context marked by so much division, distrust and despair is not any less urgent.
Sobrino’s final line in his presentation to those gathered at the UCA called each of the martyrs by name: Joaquin, Ignacio, Segundo, Amando, Ignacio, Elba and Celina. “May they rest in peace,” Sobrino said, before adding: “And may they not let us rest in peace.”
I know that I will do my best to stay awake and stay hungry. I will work hard not to be distracted or discouraged. This is the gift and task of Jesuit education. This is what it means to embrace the costliness of love, a love that excludes no one: a love that fills the past, present, and future with light. | https://medium.com/jesuit-educated/honoring-the-uca-martyrs-the-costliness-of-jesuit-education-b5871334e620 | [] | 2019-11-22 21:02:47.142000+00:00 | ['El Salvador'] |
The Top 3 Online Dating Mistakes That Men Are Making In Communication | Photo by StockSnap on Pixabay.
Based on my own experience as well as the experiences of other women, there are definite mistakes being made in communication from men that are turning women off immediately. Here’s a question that needs to be asked whenever you send a message to a woman online: Would you say this same thing to a woman in real life? If not, you probably should not say it!
Men may want a certain response from women as well as wanting their needs met immediately, but when you don’t know the woman that you’re talking to and you make these top 3 mistakes that I will be getting into in just a little bit, you are at risk of coming off disconnected, creepy and needy! When you come off in this way, you will not be able to keep the interest of the women that you are talking to and end up feeling increasingly lonelier when you are not getting the types of responses that you had originally desired.
When you are communicating in a way that comes off as disconnected, creepy and needy, you will scare off women. You may be standing in your own way if you are sending online dating messages that are included in these top 3 online dating mistakes!
Keeping a calm and level mind when entering into communication with a woman that you desire is always best. A woman is never obligated to respond, but you can increase your chances of a response if you do the right things.
Photo by Serhii Chernetskyi on Pixabay.
Here’s the Top 3 Online Dating Mistakes That Men Are Making In Communication:
Giving A Lot Of Information Too Quickly. Don’t give paragraphs of information that are overwhelming and hard to read. Women are busy, too, and you want to catch her attention instead of giving her a novel to read through. If you don’t know the woman well enough, this comes off as creepy! Sending Repeat Messages. This happens! Whether this is a mistake or not, this is not a good thing to do. It shows a lack of paying attention to detail, a lack of creativity as well as a lack of thought. It also raises the question: How many women has this guy sent the same message to? Sending Extremely Sexual Messages Right Off The Bat. Some messages read off like a love novel with paragraphs of explicit detail. Sometimes the messages can be more simple, but exude strong sexual tones. This comes off as disconnected, creepy and needy! If you have not established any sort of authentic connection with the woman that you are interested in, it will be harder to communicate at this level so do not be surprised if you do not get any response.
If you do not pay attention to the messages that you are sending and make these mistakes, you may sacrifice getting the chance to meet someone really wonderful!
Establish authentic communication. In order to establish an authentic connection with a woman, you need to understand more about the person that you are talking to. Does this woman want the same things that you do? Did you pay attention to her dating profile? Based on her interests or on various aspects of what she has on her profile, you can spark a fun conversation. The woman is under no obligation to respond in any particular way, but if you are respectful, fun and inviting, she most likely will respond.
In understanding what not to do, have fun with what you can do! Learn more about the woman that you are interested in. Stand out by sending short and sweet messages that show that you are paying attention to her. Ask questions and show that you care by asking what she thinks. Become an online dating pro instead of an online dating NO! | https://medium.com/an-idea/the-top-3-online-dating-mistakes-that-men-are-making-in-communication-936363da9971 | ['Sara Knick'] | 2020-12-29 12:05:06.504000+00:00 | ['Dating App', 'Online Dating', 'Dating', 'Men', 'Dating Advice'] |
How to value crypto by cost of production: Introducing P/P | Disclaimer: This article is not meant as investment advice. Use it to supplement your own thoughts and analysis.
This article is a continuation of developing fundamental ways to value crypto, as outlined here and here. The four main ways we have to value crypto right now are from its use as a currency, stock, product, or network. This will address valuation from the product perspective.
Everything costs less to mine than to buy them on the market. We wouldn’t have miners otherwise. What are the implications? Let’s find out. We also introduce a ratio we use at Ledger to think about this.
Introduction
To understand the value behind a digital asset, we need to figure out how we get them in the first place. We can get them in the following ways:
1. On an exchange (with fiat currency or another token)
2. From another person (say, in exchange for a coffee)
3. By producing them ourselves (mining)
Viewing the source of digital assets as #1 or #2 lends to valuing them as a currency or network. #3 is where the production model comes in.
Adam Hayes first introduced this model to try and figure out how valuable this mining process was. For those of you not familiar with mining, it’s essentially a huge computational and energy intensive effort to maintain the integrity of a token’s PoW (Proof-of-Work) consensus algorithm, which is needed to verify the blockchain. I’m not going to get into depth on the process behind mining, but if you want to get more this is a good article. At the very least, viewing the inputs of electricity and energy as tangible monetary value should represent a token’s worth.
If we were miners, we would mine a coin as long as the market value of it is greater than the cost for us to do it. Given a perfectly competitive & efficient market, in theory, the monetary value of said coin should drift to whatever the cost of mining is at that time. Let’s consider this to be the base value of a coin, which can then be given by the following formula:
Fundamental Production Cost Equation
Background
Now that we have our fundamental relationship, let’s dive into the numerator and denominator of the term to better understand where they come from. We will scale the terms of the equation daily to make it easier to compute.
1) The numerator: Energy Cost
The total cost of the energy used, put in terms of daily output, can be expressed as follows:
ϵ = Energy Efficiency (W per Hs) and ρ = Hash Power (H/s)
The Hash Power, ρ, is going to be dependent on the coin we are mining. But we can estimate values for both $/kWh and ϵ, Energy Efficiency. Let’s start by figuring out what a reasonable estimate for the price of electricity, the $/kWh term, would be.
a) Cost of electricity ($/kWh)
It’s not just the cost of electricity that plays into a miner’s decision to choose a location — internet speeds and a low temperature environment to reduce cooling costs are equally as important. Given the specifications for mining and the fact that it occurs in so many different countries with different electricity costs, how do we estimate this? Luckily, a great study conducted in 2017 by Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, among many other things, mapped out mining facilities across the globe. Check it out. | https://medium.com/ledgercapital/how-to-value-crypto-by-cost-of-production-introducing-p-p-30950d184ab4 | ['Vikram Arun'] | 2018-04-11 22:02:56.404000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Blockchain', 'Research', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin'] |
Are You Nidicolous? | Nest-loving Northern Osprey
I emerged from my daughter’s room shaking my head and said “Our daughter is nidicolous”. Without speaking, my wife’s worried brow said “What is that? What to do?” It means she is “nest-loving”. Have you seen that pile of dirty clothes on her bed? It looks sort of like a Magpie nest. My rapid departure and closing her door suggested that I was nidifugous or “nest-fleeing”. In this case the “nidus” refers to nest and “colous” means fleeing. The young of many ground-nesting birds such as waterfowl, grouse, pheasants, and sandpipers flee their nests shortly after birth. For some, the need is to escape the noise, exposure and smells of the nest site which could draw predators. They also need to head over to the best available feeding sites. Unlike the naked pink and helpless nestlings of American Robins, Barn Swallows and Chickadees, nidfugous birds hatch out fully feathered and mobile. They are sometimes called another special word; “precocial” or ready to roll once out of the egg.
I love the language of ecology with its specialized terms drawn from Latin, French or Greek roots. On a more field-based level, next time you are walking in a winter woodland, notice how many bird nests you can see nestled in the leafless winter shrub borders. Saskatoon bushes, young aspens and dense Christmas trees make ideal nesting places. It is even OK for us to scavenge an occasional small cupped nest in mid-winter and bring them home as a natural ornament for our inside Christmas tree. A heavy spray with spray shelac or hair spray will help them stick together too. While some small perching birds will scavenge nest materials from previous year’s nests, it is rare to see a re-occupation. You too can be nidicolous.
Red Squirrels — one of the major northern nest predators
Location, location, location! The selection of nesting location is very important for birds. Nests must be carefully hidden to escape the keen eyed, egg-devouring ravens, magpies and jays. Nor should nests be built on any of the tree-limb travel lanes of red squirrels, weasels or flying squirrels, all of which relish fresh eggs or young birds for a protein-rich meal. Ideally, nests will have good structural properties so they don’t blow down, good thermal properties to gather warmth but not overheat or be exposed to cold rain.
Red-winged Blackbird on wetland fringing willow shrubs
They should be within a well-defended territory where males can alert all and mob predators but also have food within easy shuttle distance too. The cattail and bulrush nests of Red-winged Blackbirds are densest along the line where the water meets the reed bed. This is where big juicy dragonfly larvae haul out on the cattail stems to metamorphose into adults. Dragonfly larvae become the equivalent of a larvae-topped pizza delivery system for the territorial male blackbirds that select and defend territories in these ideal spots. Ultiately, that is where the females will want to be too. Similarly, although Barn Swallows may love porch eaves, barn rafters and bird houses, their site selections have a roof and are always close to hordes of emerging insects, which means wetlands. Barn, Tree, Bank and Cliff swallows all seek out wetland proximity for their on-the-wing foraging of insects dancing above water.
Common Mergansers — some of the largest cavity-nesting waterfowl
But don’t forget the other cavity nesters, including the whole spectrum of woodpeckers from the sparrow-sized Downy to the Crow-sized Pileated Woodpecker. These birds drill their own nest holes that are sometimes later re-used by all sorts of other hole-nesters like flying squirrels, owls, and pine marten among others. Many forest birds like cavities too including chickadees, titmice and nuthatches. Several waterfowl species common in Alberta are also cavity nesters; Bufflehead and Common Goldeneye, Common Mergansers and Hooded Mergansers. The cavity trees must be large enough to support such a cavity and within duckling walking distance of a suitable waterbody which means some older age-class trees need to remain near wetlands for the sake of species diversity.
Ultimately, beaver flooding will kill this birch tree
The sequence goes something like this: trees near water, beaver flooding, tree death, insect colonization, woodpecker excavation, ducks using the abandoned woodpecker cavities. It is a beautifully orchestrated chain of eventes that produces abundant duck broods. This shows one of the many ways that conserving biodiversity benefits species and us whether we are birdwatchers, nature lovers, hunters or all three.
Paraphrasing Aldo Leopold now, we need to “keep all the pieces” if these ecosystems are to continue working well. | https://medium.com/@lfoote-39937/are-you-nidicolous-5cfbb398728d | ['Lee Foote'] | 2020-12-28 22:17:58.768000+00:00 | ['Nests', 'Birds'] |
Java Development with Microsoft SQL Server | Java Development with Microsoft SQL Server
Calling Microsoft SQL Server Stored Procedures from Java Applications Using JDBC
Introduction
Enterprise software solutions often combine multiple technology platforms. Accessing an Oracle database via a Microsoft .NET application and vice-versa, accessing Microsoft SQL Server from a Java-based application is common. In this post, we will explore the use of the JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) API to call stored procedures from a Microsoft SQL Server 2017 database and return data to a Java 11-based console application.
View of the post’s Java project from JetBrains’ IntelliJ IDE
The objectives of this post include:
Demonstrate the differences between using static SQL statements and stored procedures to return data.
Demonstrate three types of JDBC statements to return data: Statement , PreparedStatement , and CallableStatement .
, , and . Demonstrate how to call stored procedures with input and output parameters.
Demonstrate how to return single values and a result set from a database using stored procedures.
Why Stored Procedures?
To access data, many enterprise software organizations require their developers to call stored procedures within their code as opposed to executing static T-SQL (Transact-SQL) statements against the database. There are several reasons stored procedures are preferred:
Optimization: Stored procedures are often written by database administrators (DBAs) or database developers who specialize in database development. They understand the best way to construct queries for optimal performance and minimal load on the database server. Think of it as a developer using an API to interact with the database.
Safety and Security: Stored procedures are considered safer and more secure than static SQL statements. The stored procedure provides tight control over the content of the queries, preventing malicious or unintentionally destructive code from being executed against the database.
Error Handling: Stored procedures can contain logic for handling errors before they bubble up to the application layer and possibly to the end-user.
AdventureWorks 2017 Database
For brevity, I will use an existing and well-known Microsoft SQL Server database, AdventureWorks. The AdventureWorks database was originally published by Microsoft for SQL Server 2008. Although a bit dated architecturally, the database comes prepopulated with plenty of data for demonstration purposes.
The HumanResources schema, one of five schemas within the AdventureWorks database
For the demonstration, I have created an Amazon RDS for SQL Server 2017 Express Edition instance on AWS. You have several options for deploying SQL Server, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, or installed on your local workstation.
There are many methods to deploy the AdventureWorks database to Microsoft SQL Server. For this post’s demonstration, I used the AdventureWorks2017.bak backup file, which I copied to Amazon S3. I then enabled and configured the native backup and restore feature of Amazon RDS for SQL Server to import and install the backup.
DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS AdventureWorks;
GO
EXECUTE msdb.dbo.rds_restore_database
@restore_db_name='AdventureWorks',
@s3_arn_to_restore_from='arn:aws:s3:::my-bucket/AdventureWorks2017.bak',
@type='FULL',
@with_norecovery=0;
-- get task_id from output (e.g. 1)
EXECUTE msdb.dbo.rds_task_status
@db_name='AdventureWorks',
@task_id=1;
Install Stored Procedures
For the demonstration, I have added four stored procedures to the AdventureWorks database to use in this post. To follow along, you will need to install these stored procedures, which are included in the GitHub project.
View of the new stored procedures from JetBrains’ IntelliJ IDE Database tab
Data Sources, Connections, and Properties
Using the latest Microsoft JDBC Driver 8.4 for SQL Server (version 8.4.1.jre11), we create a SQL Server data source, com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDataSource , and database connection, java.sql.Connection . There are several patterns for creating and working with JDBC data sources and connections. This post does not necessarily focus on the best practices for creating or using either. In this example, the application instantiates a connection class, SqlConnection.java , which in turn instantiates the java.sql.Connection and com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDataSource objects. The data source’s properties are supplied from an instance of a singleton class, ProjectProperties.java . This class instantiates the java.util.Properties class, which reads values from a configuration properties file, config.properties . On startup, the application creates the database connection, calls each of the example methods, and then closes the connection.
Examples
For each example, I will show the stored procedure, if applicable, followed by the Java method that calls the procedure or executes the static SQL statement. For brevity, I have left out the data source and connection code in the article. Again, a complete copy of all the code for this article is available on GitHub, including Java source code, SQL statements, helper SQL scripts, and a set of basic JUnit tests. Use the following command to git clone a local copy of the project.
https://github.com/garystafford/mssql-sp-java-jdbc-2020.git git clone --branch master --single-branch --depth 1 --no-tags \
To run the JUnit unit tests, using Gradle, which the project is based on, use the ./gradlew cleanTest test --warning-mode none command.
A successful run of the JUnit tests
To build and run the application, using Gradle, which the project is based on, use the ./gradlew run --warning-mode none command.
The output of the Java console application
Example 1: SQL Statement
Before jumping into stored procedures, we will start with a simple static SQL statement. This example’s method, getAverageProductWeightST , uses the java.sql.Statement class. According to Oracle’s JDBC documentation, the Statement object is used for executing a static SQL statement and returning the results it produces. This SQL statement calculates the average weight of all products in the AdventureWorks database. It returns a solitary double numeric value. This example demonstrates one of the simplest methods for returning data from SQL Server.
/**
* Statement example, no parameters, returns Integer
*
* @return Average weight of all products
*/
public double getAverageProductWeightST() {
double averageWeight = 0;
Statement stmt = null;
ResultSet rs = null; try {
stmt = connection.getConnection().createStatement();
String sql = "WITH Weights_CTE(AverageWeight) AS" +
"(" +
" SELECT [Weight] AS [AverageWeight]" +
" FROM [Production].[Product]" +
" WHERE [Weight] > 0" +
" AND [WeightUnitMeasureCode] = 'LB'" +
" UNION" +
" SELECT [Weight] * 0.00220462262185 AS [AverageWeight]" +
" FROM [Production].[Product]" +
" WHERE [Weight] > 0" +
" AND [WeightUnitMeasureCode] = 'G')" +
"SELECT ROUND(AVG([AverageWeight]), 2)" +
"FROM [Weights_CTE];";
rs = stmt.executeQuery(sql);
if (rs.next()) {
averageWeight = rs.getDouble(1);
}
} catch (Exception ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
} finally {
if (rs != null) {
try {
rs.close();
} catch (SQLException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.WARNING, null, ex);
}
}
if (stmt != null) {
try {
stmt.close();
} catch (SQLException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.WARNING, null, ex);
}
}
}
return averageWeight;
}
Example 2: Prepared Statement
Next, we will execute almost the same static SQL statement as in Example 1. The only change is the addition of the column name, averageWeight . This allows us to parse the results by column name, making the code easier to understand as opposed to using the numeric index of the column as in Example 1.
Also, instead of using the java.sql.Statement class, we use the java.sql.PreparedStatement class. According to Oracle’s documentation, a SQL statement is precompiled and stored in a PreparedStatement object. This object can then be used to execute this statement multiple times efficiently.
/**
* PreparedStatement example, no parameters, returns Integer
*
* @return Average weight of all products
*/
public double getAverageProductWeightPS() {
double averageWeight = 0;
PreparedStatement pstmt = null;
ResultSet rs = null; try {
String sql = "WITH Weights_CTE(averageWeight) AS" +
"(" +
" SELECT [Weight] AS [AverageWeight]" +
" FROM [Production].[Product]" +
" WHERE [Weight] > 0" +
" AND [WeightUnitMeasureCode] = 'LB'" +
" UNION" +
" SELECT [Weight] * 0.00220462262185 AS [AverageWeight]" +
" FROM [Production].[Product]" +
" WHERE [Weight] > 0" +
" AND [WeightUnitMeasureCode] = 'G')" +
"SELECT ROUND(AVG([AverageWeight]), 2) AS [averageWeight]" +
"FROM [Weights_CTE];";
pstmt = connection.getConnection().prepareStatement(sql);
rs = pstmt.executeQuery();
if (rs.next()) {
averageWeight = rs.getDouble("averageWeight");
}
} catch (Exception ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
} finally {
if (rs != null) {
try {
rs.close();
} catch (SQLException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.WARNING, null, ex);
}
}
if (pstmt != null) {
try {
pstmt.close();
} catch (SQLException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.WARNING, null, ex);
}
}
}
return averageWeight;
}
Example 3: Callable Statement
In this example, the average product weight query has been moved into a stored procedure. The procedure is identical in functionality to the static statement in the first two examples. To call the stored procedure, we use the java.sql.CallableStatement class. According to Oracle’s documentation, the CallableStatement extends PreparedStatement . It is the interface used to execute SQL stored procedures. The CallableStatement accepts both input and output parameters; however, this simple example does not use either. Like the previous two examples, the procedure returns a double numeric value.
CREATE OR
ALTER PROCEDURE [Production].[uspGetAverageProductWeight]
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON; WITH
Weights_CTE(AverageWeight)
AS
(
SELECT [Weight] AS [AverageWeight]
FROM [Production].[Product]
WHERE [Weight] > 0
AND [WeightUnitMeasureCode] = 'LB'
UNION
SELECT [Weight] * 0.00220462262185 AS [AverageWeight]
FROM [Production].[Product]
WHERE [Weight] > 0
AND [WeightUnitMeasureCode] = 'G'
)
SELECT ROUND(AVG([AverageWeight]), 2)
FROM [Weights_CTE];
END GO
The calling Java method is shown below.
/**
* CallableStatement, no parameters, returns Integer
*
* @return Average weight of all products
*/
public double getAverageProductWeightCS() {
CallableStatement cstmt = null;
double averageWeight = 0;
ResultSet rs = null;
try {
cstmt = connection.getConnection().prepareCall(
"{call [Production].[uspGetAverageProductWeight]}");
cstmt.execute();
rs = cstmt.getResultSet();
if (rs.next()) {
averageWeight = rs.getDouble(1);
}
} catch (Exception ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
} finally {
if (rs != null) {
try {
rs.close();
} catch (SQLException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
}
}
if (cstmt != null) {
try {
cstmt.close();
} catch (SQLException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.WARNING, null, ex);
}
}
}
return averageWeight;
}
Example 4: Calling a Stored Procedure with an Output Parameter
In this example, we use almost the same stored procedure as in Example 3. The only difference is the inclusion of an output parameter. This time, instead of returning a result set with a value in a single unnamed column, the column has a name, averageWeight . We can now call that column by name when retrieving the value.
The stored procedure patterns found in Examples 3 and 4 are both commonly used. One procedure uses an output parameter, and one not, both return the same values. You can use the CallableStatement to for either type.
CREATE OR
ALTER PROCEDURE [Production].[uspGetAverageProductWeightOUT]
@averageWeight DECIMAL(8, 2) OUT
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON; WITH
Weights_CTE(AverageWeight)
AS
(
SELECT [Weight] AS [AverageWeight]
FROM [Production].[Product]
WHERE [Weight] > 0
AND [WeightUnitMeasureCode] = 'LB'
UNION
SELECT [Weight] * 0.00220462262185 AS [AverageWeight]
FROM [Production].[Product]
WHERE [Weight] > 0
AND [WeightUnitMeasureCode] = 'G'
)
SELECT @averageWeight = ROUND(AVG([AverageWeight]), 2)
FROM [Weights_CTE];
END GO
The calling Java method is shown below.
/**
* CallableStatement example, (1) output parameter, returns Integer
*
* @return Average weight of all products
*/
public double getAverageProductWeightOutCS() {
CallableStatement cstmt = null;
double averageWeight = 0; try {
cstmt = connection.getConnection().prepareCall(
"{call [Production].[uspGetAverageProductWeightOUT](?)}");
cstmt.registerOutParameter("averageWeight", Types.DECIMAL);
cstmt.execute();
averageWeight = cstmt.getDouble("averageWeight");
} catch (Exception ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
} finally {
if (cstmt != null) {
try {
cstmt.close();
} catch (SQLException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.WARNING, null, ex);
}
}
}
return averageWeight;
}
Example 5: Calling a Stored Procedure with an Input Parameter
In this example, the procedure returns a result set of type java.sql.ResultSet , of employees whose last name starts with a particular sequence of characters (e.g., ‘M’ or ‘Sa’). The sequence of characters is passed as an input parameter, lastNameStartsWith , to the stored procedure using the CallableStatement .
The method making the call iterates through the rows of the result set returned by the stored procedure, concatenating multiple columns to form the employee’s full name as a string. Each full name string is then added to an ordered collection of strings, a List<String> object. The List instance is returned by the method. You will notice this procedure takes a little longer to run because of the use of the LIKE operator. The database server has to perform pattern matching on each last name value in the table to determine the result set.
CREATE OR
ALTER PROCEDURE [HumanResources].[uspGetEmployeesByLastName]
@lastNameStartsWith VARCHAR(20) = 'A'
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON; SELECT p.[FirstName], p.[MiddleName], p.[LastName], p.[Suffix], e.[JobTitle], m.[EmailAddress]
FROM [HumanResources].[Employee] AS e
LEFT JOIN [Person].[Person] p ON e.[BusinessEntityID] = p.[BusinessEntityID]
LEFT JOIN [Person].[EmailAddress] m ON e.[BusinessEntityID] = m.[BusinessEntityID]
WHERE e.[CurrentFlag] = 1
AND p.[PersonType] = 'EM'
AND p.[LastName] LIKE @lastNameStartsWith + '%'
ORDER BY p.[LastName], p.[FirstName], p.[MiddleName]
END GO
The calling Java method is shown below.
/**
* CallableStatement example, (1) input parameter, returns ResultSet
*
* @param lastNameStartsWith
* @return List of employee names
*/
public List<String> getEmployeesByLastNameCS(String lastNameStartsWith) { CallableStatement cstmt = null;
ResultSet rs = null;
List<String> employeeFullName = new ArrayList<>(); try {
cstmt = connection.getConnection().prepareCall(
"{call [HumanResources].[uspGetEmployeesByLastName](?)}",
ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_INSENSITIVE,
ResultSet.CONCUR_READ_ONLY); cstmt.setString("lastNameStartsWith", lastNameStartsWith);
boolean results = cstmt.execute();
int rowsAffected = 0; // Protects against lack of SET NOCOUNT in stored procedure
while (results || rowsAffected != -1) {
if (results) {
rs = cstmt.getResultSet();
break;
} else {
rowsAffected = cstmt.getUpdateCount();
}
results = cstmt.getMoreResults();
}
while (rs.next()) {
employeeFullName.add(
rs.getString("LastName") + ", "
+ rs.getString("FirstName") + " "
+ rs.getString("MiddleName"));
}
} catch (Exception ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
} finally {
if (rs != null) {
try {
rs.close();
} catch (SQLException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.WARNING, null, ex);
}
}
if (cstmt != null) {
try {
cstmt.close();
} catch (SQLException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.WARNING, null, ex);
}
}
}
return employeeFullName;
}
Example 6: Converting a Result Set to Ordered Collection of Objects
In this last example, we pass two input parameters, productColor and productSize , to a stored procedure. The stored procedure returns a result set containing several columns of product information. This time, the example’s method iterates through the result set returned by the procedure and constructs an ordered collection of products, List<Product> object. The Product objects in the list are instances of the Product.java POJO class. The method converts each results set’s row-level field value into a Product property (e.g., Product.Size , Product.Model ). Using a collection is a common method for persisting data from a result set in an application.
CREATE OR
ALTER PROCEDURE [Production].[uspGetProductsByColorAndSize]
@productColor VARCHAR(20),
@productSize INTEGER
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON; SELECT p.[ProductNumber], m.[Name] AS [Model], p.[Name] AS [Product], p.[Color], p.[Size]
FROM [Production].[ProductModel] AS m
INNER JOIN
[Production].[Product] AS p ON m.[ProductModelID] = p.[ProductModelID]
WHERE (p.[Color] = @productColor)
AND (p.[Size] = @productSize)
ORDER BY p.[ProductNumber], [Model], [Product]
END GO
The calling Java method is shown below.
/**
* CallableStatement example, (2) input parameters, returns ResultSet
*
* @param color
* @param size
* @return List of Product objects
*/
public List<Product> getProductsByColorAndSizeCS(String color, String size) { CallableStatement cstmt = null;
ResultSet rs = null;
List<Product> productList = new ArrayList<>(); try {
cstmt = connection.getConnection().prepareCall(
"{call [Production].[uspGetProductsByColorAndSize](?, ?)}",
ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_INSENSITIVE,
ResultSet.CONCUR_READ_ONLY); cstmt.setString("productColor", color);
cstmt.setString("productSize", size);
boolean results = cstmt.execute();
int rowsAffected = 0; // Protects against lack of SET NOCOUNT in stored procedure
while (results || rowsAffected != -1) {
if (results) {
rs = cstmt.getResultSet();
break;
} else {
rowsAffected = cstmt.getUpdateCount();
}
results = cstmt.getMoreResults();
} while (rs.next()) {
Product product = new Product(
rs.getString("Product"),
rs.getString("ProductNumber"),
rs.getString("Color"),
rs.getString("Size"),
rs.getString("Model"));
productList.add(product);
}
} catch (Exception ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
} finally {
if (rs != null) {
try {
rs.close();
} catch (SQLException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.WARNING, null, ex);
}
}
if (cstmt != null) {
try {
cstmt.close();
} catch (SQLException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(RunExamples.class.getName()).
log(Level.WARNING, null, ex);
}
}
}
return productList;
}
Proper T-SQL: Schema Reference and Brackets
You will notice in all T-SQL statements, I refer to the schema as well as the table or stored procedure name (e.g., {call [Production].[uspGetAverageProductWeightOUT](?)} ). According to Microsoft, it is always good practice to refer to database objects by a schema name and the object name, separated by a period; that even includes the default schema (e.g., dbo ).
You will also notice I wrap the schema and object names in square brackets (e.g., SELECT [ProductNumber] FROM [Production].[ProductModel] ). The square brackets are to indicate that the name represents an object and not a reserved word (e.g, CURRENT or NATIONAL ). By default, SQL Server adds these to make sure the scripts it generates run correctly.
Running the Examples
The application will display the name of the method being called, a method description, the duration of time it took to retrieve the data, and any results returned by the method.
Below, we see the results.
SQL Statement Performance
This post is certainly not about SQL performance, demonstrated by the fact I am only using Amazon RDS for SQL Server 2017 Express Edition on a single, very underpowered db.t2.micro Amazon RDS instance types. However, I have added a timer feature, ProcessTimer.java class, to capture the duration of time each example takes to return data, measured in milliseconds. The ProcessTimer.java class is part of the project code. Using the timer, you should observe significant differences between the first run and proceeding runs of the application for several of the called methods. The time difference is a result of several factors, primarily pre-compilation of the SQL statements and SQL Server plan caching.
The effects of these two factors are easily demonstrated by clearing the SQL Server plan cache (see SQL script below) using DBCC (Database Console Commands) statements. and then running the application twice in a row. The second time, pre-compilation and plan caching should result in significantly faster times for the prepared statements and callable statements, in Examples 2–6. In the two random runs shown below, we see up to a 5x improvement in query time.
USE AdventureWorks; DBCC FREESYSTEMCACHE('SQL Plans');
GO CHECKPOINT;
GO -- Impossible to run with Amazon RDS for Microsoft SQL Server on AWS
-- DBCC DROPCLEANBUFFERS;
-- GO
The first run results are shown below.
SQL SERVER STATEMENT EXAMPLES
======================================
Method: GetAverageProductWeightST
Description: Statement, no parameters, returns Integer
Duration (ms): 122
Results: Average product weight (lb): 12.43
---
Method: GetAverageProductWeightPS
Description: PreparedStatement, no parameters, returns Integer
Duration (ms): 146
Results: Average product weight (lb): 12.43
---
Method: GetAverageProductWeightCS
Description: CallableStatement, no parameters, returns Integer
Duration (ms): 72
Results: Average product weight (lb): 12.43
---
Method: GetAverageProductWeightOutCS
Description: CallableStatement, (1) output parameter, returns Integer
Duration (ms): 623
Results: Average product weight (lb): 12.43
---
Method: GetEmployeesByLastNameCS
Description: CallableStatement, (1) input parameter, returns ResultSet
Duration (ms): 830
Results: Last names starting with 'Sa': 7
Last employee found: Sandberg, Mikael Q
---
Method: GetProductsByColorAndSizeCS
Description: CallableStatement, (2) input parameter, returns ResultSet
Duration (ms): 427
Results: Products found (color: 'Red', size: '44'): 7
First product: Road-650 Red, 44 (BK-R50R-44)
---
The second run results are shown below.
SQL SERVER STATEMENT EXAMPLES
======================================
Method: GetAverageProductWeightST
Description: Statement, no parameters, returns Integer
Duration (ms): 116
Results: Average product weight (lb): 12.43
---
Method: GetAverageProductWeightPS
Description: PreparedStatement, no parameters, returns Integer
Duration (ms): 89
Results: Average product weight (lb): 12.43
---
Method: GetAverageProductWeightCS
Description: CallableStatement, no parameters, returns Integer
Duration (ms): 80
Results: Average product weight (lb): 12.43
---
Method: GetAverageProductWeightOutCS
Description: CallableStatement, (1) output parameter, returns Integer
Duration (ms): 340
Results: Average product weight (lb): 12.43
---
Method: GetEmployeesByLastNameCS
Description: CallableStatement, (1) input parameter, returns ResultSet
Duration (ms): 139
Results: Last names starting with 'Sa': 7
Last employee found: Sandberg, Mikael Q
---
Method: GetProductsByColorAndSizeCS
Description: CallableStatement, (2) input parameter, returns ResultSet
Duration (ms): 208
Results: Products found (color: 'Red', size: '44'): 7
First product: Road-650 Red, 44 (BK-R50R-44)
---
Conclusion
This post has demonstrated several methods for querying and calling stored procedures from a SQL Server 2017 database using JDBC with the Microsoft JDBC Driver 8.4 for SQL Server. Although the examples are quite simple, the same patterns can be used with more complex stored procedures, with multiple input and output parameters, which not only select, but insert, update, and delete data.
There may be some limitations of the Microsoft JDBC Driver for SQL Server you should be aware of by reading the documentation. However, for most tasks that require database interaction, the Driver provides adequate functionality with SQL Server. | https://towardsdatascience.com/java-development-with-microsoft-sql-server-ee6efd13f799 | ['Gary A. Stafford'] | 2020-12-03 13:51:33.509000+00:00 | ['Microsoft Sql Server', 'Java', 'Development', 'Programming', 'Microsoft'] |
How I Found My First Job in Data Analytics | How I Found My First Job in Data Analytics
Tips, tricks, mindset and more!
Author’s Note: This post was originally posted on the 2nd of July 2018 and has been reposed here after I shut down the domain.
For as long as I can remember, I have always been anxious about whether I would be able to find a job. While many people might not have anxieties as extreme as mine, they are relatively common nonetheless. The process of finding a job has the notorious tendency to invoke feelings of anxiety and depression because of how the process makes applicants feel helpless while they are at mercy of the judgements of strangers.
This feeling was strongly reinforced in myself while trying to find an industrial placement as a chemist during my 3rd year at university. Over the course of several months I received rejection after rejection which left me questioning my own self worth and whether I would ever be able to “make the cut”.
Ever since that time I have done extensive research into ways in which I could improve my application. I read books such as “How to Find a Job in 30 Days or Less” by George Egbuonu, which helped me to develop the right mindsets, priorities and tactics. If anyone reading this is about to set forth on their own job-hunt then please make sure you read this book, I consider it to be essential reading if you haven’t read something similar already.
Over the past two months, I have carried out another job-hunt and I am relieved to say that it has come to a close. I will be starting as a Junior Data Analyst in Hamburg in a month and a half. After all was said and done, I had received a total of 3 job offers as the result of many interviews. I think it is safe to say that at this point I am at least doing something right. Hence, I want to share what I have learned with the rest of the community so that others can use my experiences to help make this process a little more bearable and to help reassure people that there is a light at the end of this dark tunnel.
Please take care to note that these are simply my experiences, your mileage may vary depending on other factors. The tactics outlined here might not be perfect, and may already be slightly out-of-date insofar as I ignored things such dealing with Application Tracking Systems (ATS) as outlined by Siraj Raval in a recent youtube video. What I outline here is simply what worked for me.
Networking in The Social Media Age
Before talking about the application system I want to talk about the power of social media networking and marketing. If you listen to podcasts such as “Superdatascience” or “Becoming a Data Scientist” then you will know that lots and lots of people have gotten job leads from networking on LinkedIn and blogging about their progress. This advice is echoed by social media evangelist Gary Vaynerchuk, who has multiple books on the subject. However, I feel that Gary Vee’s ideas are best consumed through this youtube or his podcast since he’s such a powerful public speaker and conversationalist.
These days, lots of people spend time on social media but almost nobody thinks that it presents any wider opportunities in spite of the boat-loads of time people spend on these platforms. Gary Vee makes a couple of astute points in order to convince people that social media is rife with opportunity:
Word of mouth is so powerful on social media platforms that the CEO of Facebook had be brought in for questioning because of the role they played in the 2016 american elections. There is no middle man, what you have to offer gets placed directly in front of people who you are trying to reach. Even people with niche interests (such as data science) can gain a large following. It’s free.
Hence, if you are looking for a job then the best thing to do is to start posting as much of what you do online for everyone to find. You do not need to do everything at once from the outset, but make sure that you at least do something even if it is terrible. Although Gary Vee shows plenty of people who have had success using social media marketing, others such as Daniel Bourke also makes for a good real-life example of how social media can bring opportunities to you. (His AMA explains a lot of how he did it.)
You should also consider joining meetups within your local area as well. Not only will you be able to meet and network with professionals in your field and gain advice for how to continue growing technically, many recruiters and HR professionals will also frequent these places looking for inspired people such as yourself. The key when going to meetups is to make sure to be curious about other people and to constantly be trying to provide value.
Author’s Note: In retrospect, meetups are a long-term investment. I did not start to benefit from them until long after this blog post.
Furthermore, meetups are also an opportunity for you to provide value to the community by sharing your experiences, projects and learnings in presentations. You can record these, post them on YouTube and then share on LinkedIn or Twitter for maximum reach and maybe even put a link to your talk at the bottom of your CV.
When it comes to networking, always think about what you can give without expectation of returns. It is about building relationships, which will pay off in the long-term but not immediately. Do not expect results over-night, this is not a get-rich-quick tactic and it is going to take some discipline to pull this off. The same thing goes for influence on social media. However, if you are patient and consistent then you will have found a way to maximise your opportunities. The result of taking the time to post what I write on Twitter and LinkedIn meant that I had a lot of people approaching me such as recruiters and new contacts asking for advice. The benefits of social media are real if you have the patience to execute, and can put you well ahead of the curve.
Meeting Specifications: Resumes, Cover Letters
Take Job Descriptions with an Ocean of Salt
It is a well documented phenomenon that a lot of job postings have requirements that are higher than what is realistic for one person to achieve without substantial experience. Job postings created by employers (i.e. HR staff who aren’t involved of the day-to-day operations of the jobs that they need to hire for) can suffer from unrealistic expectations due to various reasons;
Not having a strong grasp on what the job entails/requires. Having a long wish-list of “nice to haves”. Purposefully intimidating those who are grossly under-qualified. Searching for unicorns, people who are highly qualified despite being young and inexpensive to hire. Some of your competitions will actually be somewhat experienced or at least appear to be so, inflating expectations.
In order to combat this, you need to keep this in mind when looking at job descriptions. Whenever you read “excellent skills in X” you should keep it in perspective by reading it as “has used X a couple of times and is willing to google how it works”. It is best that you still remain realistic about what you can and cannot do so do not say you can code in C++ when you have never seen the language before and have not used it for a couple of projects. This is a difficult balance to strike because some skills require more exposure than others for competency, but it this is a judgment you are just going to have to learn to make.
During the interview you should ask about the day-to-day operations and what 20% of skills are used in 80% of the work. This should help to assess not only what your job will look like but it will also help to outline what skills that were mentioned were actually important.
There is one caveat that I want to mention, sometimes employers will be looking for candidates who are unicorns and who can solve all of their problems, meaning that you will invariably fall short of expectations when hired. While almost all job-descriptions are “tall orders” to start with, try and keep out an eye for employers whose expectations are far too high. (This will become apparent during the interview stage.)
Submit a CV that you are proud of
I have often submitted CVs that I was not entirely proud of and that I thought did not do a very good job of communicating who I was as a person and a professional. By this, I am not so much talking about the content so much as how you design your CV. (There are plenty of other people who can help you with content such as Udacity.) A lot of people make CVs that follow the safest template possible that would have appealed to corporations back in the 1980s. I am writing this to give you a little bit more creative freedom in this domain.
It is well known in marketing that a lot of time people will decide what products are superior merely on looks alone and while this likely will not be a deciding factor it can do something to capture attention and to stand out from the crowd. Since we are living in <the current year> and not even corporations really enjoy the corporate aesthetic, I urge you to strongly consider not using a template like the shown here.
What should your CV look like? This is up to you. Here is the thing, if you are going to break the mould then you need to be able to design your CV with things such as visual heirarchy and other principles such as gestalt in order to make sure that the changes you make have purpose. For these skills I tend to direct people towards “Storytelling With Data” by Knaflic. Although the principles in this book are used for data analysis, they translate very well for any kind of visual communication you need to make.
For me, the evolution of my CV started slowly by changing the color from black to dark green, using lighter greens for smaller subheadings. As soon as I did that I was able to get interviews for various PhD positions I was looking for during 2017. This year (2018), I decided that I would write my CV using LaTeX which gave my CV a more distinctive look but it was also very easy to edit it as necessary without having to worry too much about the formatting. (In retrospect, this was likely a huge convenience that I took for granted.) I opted for an aesthetic that was more in keeping with modern design choices that we see on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. (Originally written by Posquit0 and also includes a cover letter template.) You do not need to write your CV in LaTeX, but you should choose a template that makes you excited to present it to an employer. As soon as I set myself apart in this way I started to get a lot more attention for interviews.
Aesthetics aside, when it comes to actual content make sure you read that book that I referenced at the start of this post and make sure that you get feedback on your CV. Building these things is a skill and it takes a lot of practice but if you aren’t getting interviews then what else can you do?,
Tailoring Cover Letters to Specific Companies
Cover Letters are an important part of a job-hunt because it allows you to highlight your experiences that you want to make extra clear for whoever is reviewing your application. The structure of my cover letters have the following structure:
A brief introduction about myself
introduction about myself Why I would be excited to work at the company I am applying for
Two paragraphs of tasks I did that speak to their most important requirements (using the STAR method)
Conclusion wrapping everything together
Note that the paragraphs that I have pre-written are the introduction about myself, the conclusion and a number of paragraphs of my most important skills and projects. I have more paragraphs on my skills written that I include in the cover letter, I choose the most important ones to be added. Hence, the only part I rewrite is the reason why I want to work at the company that I am applying for. Even when, companies within the same industry get very similar reasons. Companies are like people, we all like to think we are unique but there are clear trends in what we find interesting.
Note: This is not an excuse to not do your homework! Always make sure you at least read the company website to see if there is anything about you that you particularly like about them. The more genuine reasons you can put in this one paragraph, the better.
You should be submitting resumes at a rate of maybe 1 or 2 hours a day allowing you time to write one or two applications. You can cover a lot of ground that way over time while still writing applications with high enough equality so that it looks like you are making an effort. I would spend the remaining section of your day working on other things such as online-networking and continuing to build your own skills.
Finally, I have met students who are very set in knowing a company inside and out, knowing all their values and everything else. There is value in knowing a company just like it is value to tailor your CV and cover letters for the ATS, just make sure you do not tunnel-vision and waste time here. For the machine-learning experts among my readers, It’s possible to “over-fit ” to companies and it seems to me that all companies are searching for similar keywords and will have similar values. I think it is ultimately not worth it until you reach the interview stage and even when it still wont be the deciding factor. Employers are first and foremost interested in your skills, so at this stage do just enough to know the company and what they are looking for and focus on what you can do for them instead.
Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Before I round off this section, I should mention that MOOCs are something that people are sceptical about because they are so new. Part of the reason why I created this blog is to document how MOOCs have helped me change careers from chemistry into Data Science. I will make a blog post detailing this further, but the basic verdict is that as long as you have a university degree -the more advanced the degree the better- then people interpret this as someone who is self-motivated. Note that companies are like people and will have different points of view about MOOCs and even between varying platforms.
Author’s Note: Since this article has been published. Mark Meloon has since done a survey about people’s attitudes towards MOOCs and I’d recommend checking that out.
Applying for Jobs
Lower Your Expectations to Increase Opportunity
A lot of people enter a job hunt with a search that is far too constricted. When I was studying chemistry, I would have been searching specifically for a chemical industrial placement lasting a year. Naturally, I did not realise how much this restricted my choices. As I was searching for a data science position a year later, my options widened substantially. This is because Data Analytics/Science can be done in a wide variety of fields! A friend I know wants to find a job in AI, but he narrowed his options by tunnel-visioning on computer vision which limits him quite a bit. Another friend I have is limiting himself by only staying within the city where he already lives. Do not limit yourself like this and make sure to widen your scope as much as you realistically can!
Ofcourse, each person has their own list of constraints and deal-breakers when it comes to searching for a job. However, when searching for a job it is important to keep an open mind as to where your skills can be applied. As an example, instead of laser focusing in on Data Science/Machine Learning, I was also prepared to do Data Engineering, Python Development, Business Intelligence and things such as that. Given that I am European, I also was happy to travel throughout Europe. (My scope was Germany, The UK, The Netherlands and Switzerland, while keeping an open mind towards the nordic countries as well.) All of these things meant that I had a lot of choice when it came to writing applications. This can create the opposite problem where you have too much choice, but I think that is better than being strapped for choice.
Just remember, do not search for unicorns/perfection just as employers should not expect perfection from you.
Oragnise Your Search & Where to Look
You should organise your application process by using software such as Google Docs, Evernote or Trello. This way you can keep track of the applications you have sent and gives you a concrete idea of your response rate, when you have interviews, etc. It is also good as a place to keep track of interesting job posts that you see around and about as well as a wish list for companies that you have yet to apply to.
There are various places to find jobs these days. It is really not as difficult as it once was by needing to check the local newspaper. You can always try looking on individual company websites for job positions that might suit you. Otherwise, here is a short list of platforms that you fan use for finding job posts:
LinkedIn
Indeed
Glass Door (Also good for job reviews)
Monster
Stack Overflow (For those who can code)
Stepstone (German)
Tips for Applying to Companies Multiple Times
It is well known that when a company becomes large, then it has a hard time communicating with itself. (Anyone working at these jobs will know what I mean.) Often, companies that operate within multiple countries have branches that do not talk a lot with each other. This means that if you are applying for a company that is on a larger scale like this, applying to each of the branches separately can help your chances. This strategy actually helped me to secure two interviews at the same company, one in The Netherlands and the other in Germany.
Once again, have common sense then you apply this tactic. I am not telling you to apply at every single position at a company, spamming people is never the answer. However, lots of people who work at Facebook and Google are people who were dead-set on getting a job there and applied multiple times over the course of their careers. You should usually wait 6–12 months before applying again after being passed over in each country so that you give yourself time to grow and become a better candidate.
An interesting thing that happened to me is that some chemical firms would not give me a second glance as a chemist, but once I applied as a data scientist at the same companies then I would suddenly get a call back. Once again, this is why it is important to consider various positions and not to restrict yourself too much. You can be more picky once your career gets going and you have a network to rely upon and such.
Interviews
Pay attention to Verbal and Non-Verbal Ques
If you have made it to the interview stage then in my opinion you’re already 80% of the way to finding your next job. The reason for this is that in order to get an interview in the first place you already need to be on the right track. The deciding factor here is being able to get indirect feedback on where you go wrong. Sometimes the people who are interviewing you will let you know what they are thinking about you but you can also get a good feel for how what you are saying is landing. Doing this can give you an idea of areas for further practice and consideration.
This feedback creates a virtuous cycle that allows you to become a better candidate. The problem with the application phase is that you get very scant feedback meaning that people can get suck for reasons that are not apparent to them. However, sometimes getting feedback so directly can also deflate your ego a bit and help cement a feeling of hopelessness. If you have a particularly bad interview where you come off very poorly by accident (it happens) or you make a mess of answering the questions, then it can feel like you are bashing your head against a wall even if you are doing well. Do not let negative experiences capture the center of your attention, always try to focus on your successes even when human negativity bias makes that incredibly difficult. (This is a weakness that I have as well, it is really easy to knock the wind out of my sails.) Ultimately, the feedback that you get during interviews are what make it the easiest part of the process so play close attention to your interviewers and what they say. You gain experience being interviewed and even about the types of questions frequently get asked and your best responses towards them.
Do your homework and ask questions
This is also the ideal time to get to know the company a little better. Try to look not only at their website, but make sure also to read their Wikipedia page if they have one and to follow them on social media (i.e. Twitter) to see what the company is working on and is proud of.
Once again, in my experience, the time spent on the company is relatively small beyond the basic details. You should use this time to inform yourself of some questions that you want to ask them. While I was interviewing, I had 9 “stock questions” that I could ask while taking notes of questions that came up during conversation. Having 3 additional questions that you have from researching their background should give you more than enough firepower to interrogate them when it is your turn to grill them. My stock questions are as follows:
In what way are you innovating for your customers to keep up with disruption? What projects would you want me to help out with exactly? What does your data strategy (i.e. data quality) look like? (80% of your time as a data scientist is spent on wrangling, good data strategy minimises this.) What sort of technology would I have access to? (Once again, a natural question for someone who does a lot of programming.) Are there opportunities for training or to visit conferences? (I highly value this.) What are the interviewers experiences of the company? What does the “company culture” look like? How does the company expect to grow over the next couple of years? Where are the priorities at the moment? What are the next steps? (Always finish up with this.)
Yes, I have all of these questions in a diary so that I can ask them at every interview. Once again, I find that most interviews do not actually let you ask more than 2 questions due to time constraints, but I find that preparing your questions means that you often start asking them during the flow of conversation, which is why I keep so many handy.
Interview Mindsets to reduce pressure
A lot of people can feel like they are under a lot of pressure when having an interview either in person or over the phone. This is natural because you are being evaluated by a stranger but also because answering questions in a way that makes sense for other people takes a lot of mental energy. This can cause people to cramp up and respond in ways that can sound unnatural and forced.
Being someone who listens to a lot of podcasts such as the ones mentioned towards the top of this blog post, I eventually found that it was easier to think of interviews as podcasts where two people are discussing the interviewees experiences to an audience that is interested in hearing every word helps to take the edge off. There are a lot of rules when it comes to interviews such as the STAR/CAR method which makes the experience robotic and inauthentic. Instead, I prefer to just answer questions as stories with the structure of having a problem, working towards a solution and a resolution. (Once again, see the book “Storytelling with Data”.)
The important thing when interviewing is to remember that having confidence is important. Talking like people do during interviews helps to make that confidence and to engage with your interviewer. Just relax, focus on the present and just answer the questions as they arrive.
There will always be a next interview
Finally and leading on from my last point, if you mess up horribly and you give the wrong impression then there will always be a next interview. Once you have secured your first couple of interviews, then they will just keep coming. (For better or worse, if you get stuck at the interview stage then it is its own kind of purgatory.) It is still possible to tunnel vision and get attached to certain applications but at the end of the day you need to remember that there are a number of positions that you can still apply for. Even in fields where things are more competitive, having what is called an abundance mindset can help to make confidence and to keep calm under pressure. Remember, sticking-points for certain companies will be glossed over by others. Focus on the “macro” instead of obsessing over the “micro” of individual interviews.
Conclusion
The more competitive a field is, the more you need to find ways to set yourself apart. In the past this was done by getting a university degree, now it is considered baseline. So now you need to think of things you can do that supplement that. Right now, very few people are using the techniques I have outlined above. People underestimate social media, try to appeal to corporate aesthetics with their CV, do not think it is worth using MOOCs for fear that it wont get taken seriously, underestimate how much employers value strong skills (technical, social or otherwise), tunnel vision on knowing a single organisation inside and out, do not take ATS into consideration and waste a lot of their potential by constraining their options.
Be different. Allow yourself to break the mould and to become an individual who grows at any cost and is willing to challenge the status quo without being unnecessarily rebellious, that is the kind of person that it seems to me that industry is looking for at the moment. Finally, make sure you give value using social media. It is an investment that is likely going to pay off in the long run if you are diligent and make things that are actually good. Engage, network and do things that are up to date with <the current year> and let go of the advice from decades past.
I hope that this post helped you to open your mind to the possibilities a little bit. Make sure you check the resources that I have cited, they will be invaluable in helping you to understand what I have said. I wish you the best of luck for the future! | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-i-found-my-first-job-in-data-analytics-75a2add92e82 | ['Simon Thornewill Von Essen'] | 2019-06-01 20:53:05.246000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Data Analytics', 'Cv', 'Interview', 'Job Hunting'] |
Albert Boufarah Explains How SAMR is Safely Securing Old Electronics | Albert Boufarah
Data security is often overlooked, but this can produce perilous consequences. Today, illegally accessing the data held on discarded computers can have serious medical, financial, legal, and security repercussions for your company. Businesses and organizations that want to upgrade their equipment must be very careful about how they discard the old machines to prevent bad actors from accessing their sensitive data.
Albert Boufarah of SAMR Inc. is a leader in the field of electronics recycling. His company provides complete data destruction to its clients. Boufarah explains how his company is working with major businesses and organizations like law firms, hospitals, and banks to secure their old equipment with safety and confidentiality well into the future. At SAMR, the focus is on e-waste management “Done the Right Way.”
A Secure Pick-Up Process
When your company decides that it no longer wants to keep its old computers, the first step in safely recycling them is to call SAMR Inc. and arrange for pickup. SAMR has several convenient options for pickup of old items.
If your company is discarding a large number of machines gradually, a drop box may be the right choice. A drop box allows you to place old machines securely in a locked container and have SAMR pick it up when it is full.
Many companies choose to have their electronic equipment picked up by SAMR Inc. in one load. SAMR has a dedicated fleet of secure trucks that can travel to your destination and pick up your items. Every step of the process is secure, and SAMR facility is equipped with state-of-the-art security equipment so that your data will be safe while it is being prepared for destruction. Companies that are close enough to one of SAMR’s facilities can also choose to deliver their old electronics themselves.
Types of Companies that Need Data Destruction
Every company has sensitive and proprietary data on their computer hard drives. Two areas of particular concern are law firms and medical offices. Legal documents need to be kept safe and confidential at all times, or the firm’s clients may experience data breaches or other serious consequences. Medical offices are trusted with the most personal data possible, and in order to protect patient privacy, this data must be completely destroyed while the machines are recycled.
Even small companies have a need to securely destroy their data when they discard old equipment. Customer lists and trade secrets could get out, hampering their ability to compete.
Methods of Data Destruction
SAMR Inc. uses highly advanced data wiping technology which is approved by the United States Department of Defense. Some data wiping methods, even when they seem thorough, leave usable data on hard drives. The Department of Defense requires that all data be completely erased with no potential for retrieval. SAMR uses this military-grade data destruction to make all companies safe from data breaches.
SAMR’s software alerts the company if the data on a hard drive cannot be wiped through basic methods. If a hard drive fails to be wiped completely, SAMR destroys the hard drive. Physical destruction of hard drives and computer components is available on request at a customer’s location or at SAMR’s facility.
SAMR has a state-of-the-art electronics shredder that can take care of even the most stubborn hard drives at the push of a button. When materials are broken down using this shredder, the client can rest assured that their data will never be misused.
The Importance of E-Waste Recycling
While 20 to 50 metric tons of e-waste are discarded worldwide each year, only 12.5 percent of this waste is properly recycled. E-waste contains many precious metals that can be reused, among these being copper, silver, gold, and palladium. Other computer components like screens can also be reused.
E-waste is polluting if it is not recycled properly. When e-waste is placed in a landfill, it can release toxic chemicals that contaminate trees and plants. When these materials are burned in an incinerator, they can cause serious air pollution problems. Plastics, glass, and metals that go into the construction of electronic equipment can produce damaging byproducts that can harm the air, groundwater, and the ocean.
SAMR Inc. responsibly recycles its byproducts, making sure that its discards are safe and that recycling old materials will not lead to environmental damage. The importance of taking care of data security and the environment at the same time cannot be overlooked.
Protecting Data and the Environment
Albert Boufarah understands the importance of properly recycling electronics and destroying all proprietary data. His company makes sure that all of their clients’ machines are completely wiped, using electronic and physical procedures.
Legal, medical, educational, and business clients can all feel safe knowing that their old data is inaccessible. All companies that carry sensitive data should consider treating it with care and ensuring that it is destroyed when old equipment is upgraded.
Improperly recycling electronics is irresponsible, both in terms of data security and environmental safety. SAMR Inc. can help companies feel good about their data destruction and provide for a secure future. | https://medium.com/@SAMR-Inc./albert-boufarah-explains-how-samr-is-safely-securing-old-electronics-41838dda951c | ['Samr Inc.'] | 2021-09-07 13:15:19.859000+00:00 | ['Electronic Waste', 'Recycle', 'Entrepreneur', 'New Jersey', 'E Waste Management'] |
TONCommunity.org Project Update | We base Telegram Blockchain(TON-tech). Welcome to visit http://TONCommunity.org to understand the project history.
You can trade $TON on Uniswap.io、Bithumb Global、Gate.io、Loopring.io
You can check $TON info on CoinMarketCap、CoinGecko、LiveCoinWatch
✅Done Task
1, Network Monitor, for developer review network status.
2, Node Update
Fix some bugs and recompile and upgrade the new C++ client;
3, Governance was started through snapshot.page off-chain.
4, Vote for main network and native token max supply is 400 million.
5, CoinMarketCap supply update
Please check:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tontoken/
6, Cooperate with CCTip.io
CCtip.io is the largest bot encryption platform in the Telegram ecosystem. CCTip has 2 million encrypted world users in the Telegram (as of 10.2020). $TON as an event point, $TON Token can transfer, red package and tip in Telegram group chats. You can log in https://t.me/cctip_bot try.
This cooperation expands the coverage of $TON and the actual usage scenarios;
🔘Next Task
1, Depending on the server configuration, the node has different degrees of memory leaks. The order is delayed, causing memory overload.
Solution: It is being solved.
2, In the process of node synchronization, the transmission data load of the communication module is higher than other blockchain projects
Solution: Improve the server configuration of the validator.
3, The TON-tech consensus protocol is catchain, which restricts one-third of the validator of the network from being disconnected. If the validator does not go online after being disconnected, the ledger will be permanently suspended and stop producing blocks.
Solution: Increase the number of pledged validator.
4, TON Blockchain can not allow network forks. System upgrades may only be upgraded through on-chain governance.
5, More partnership.
ℹ️At present:
1，You can still try to connect Test net of TONCommunity.org：testnet3；
2，Developers please pay attention to the Github library and participate in the announced Tier 0 Program
Looking forward to more people joining our TONCommunity.com project.
Read More:
Try to fight with The Great Wave. | https://medium.com/@TONCommunity/toncommunity-org-project-update-46f78ff3f200 | [] | 2020-12-08 10:37:34.359000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Toncommunity', 'Ton', 'Eth', 'Telegram'] |
Hands-on practice on machine learning | Part 2.Supervised Learning
Supervised learning is the learning of the model with an input variable and an output variable and algorithm map the input to the output.
Supervised learning classified into two categories of algorithms:
Classification : A classification problem is when the output variable is a category, such as “disease” or “No disease”.
: A classification problem is when the output variable is a category, such as “disease” or “No disease”. Regression: A regression problem is when the output variable is a real value, such as “Price”.
2.1 Classification
There is a wide variety of classification applications from Healthcare to Marketing.
Learn how to implement the following classification models:
2.2 Regression
The regression technique varies from Linear Regression to Random Forest. | https://medium.com/@vivek2509/hands-on-practice-on-machine-learning-9782bfc66ce4 | [] | 2020-10-30 10:12:34.761000+00:00 | ['Classification', 'Data Preprocessing', 'Regression', 'Scikit Learn', 'Machine Learning'] |
Mobile fraud: how to get targeted traffic without wasting your budget | Mobile advertising agency Mobisharks (part of Kokoc Group) decided to understand the fraud problem, categorize and figure out how to get rid of it.
Fraud means advertising an offer using prohibited traffic sources. The problem is not new — almost always unscrupulous contractors tried to achieve the promised results by not the most honest methods. And it turned out that the customer, as it were, received the required figures, but in fact, a considerable part of them turned out to be profanity that did not bring any real benefit to his business.
Let’s start with statistics. Colleagues from Fraudscore analyzed the market and came up with very interesting results.
As you can see from the graph, the fraud percentage is simply huge, reaching a peak of 39%!
The situation is even more interesting in mobile traffic.
Here the share of fraud confidently reaches 40%.
Before you understand what to do with all this, let’s understand the nature and types of this problem.
Types of fraud
Motivated traffic
Everything is as simple as possible — users install the application for a certain reward. It seems that this is not so bad — there is a fact of installation, the indicators go up. In fact, in 99% of cases, such a user has zero interest for the advertiser. After the fact of installation, the interaction with the application ends, the client pays money for the actual action, but in reality he has another dead mobile soul in his statistics.
Bots
One of the juiciest and most common fraud categories. Fraudsters use its capabilities to the maximum. Here you will find fake devices, emulators, traffic from data centers and the active use of proxies.
There has even appeared a special term for this type of fraud — bot farming. Unscrupulous contractors have subcontractors with bots for every taste or even their own bot farms, who are ready at any time to reach out fantastic results in numbers that are absolutely useless for any client.
Bots are the simplest ones, launching from a specific service. Difficult — they already use proxies and dynamic IPs. There are also botnets, which are whole groups of bots united into one network.
In fact, bot is a program that performs a specific function in an automated mode. Most often this is the installation of mobile applications. Everything looks as if the action was performed by an ordinary person. In fact another example of draining the client’s budget to nowhere with zero result for the latter.
Fraud using suspicious patterns by device parameters
Fraudsters skillfully play with a number of parameters — IP, OS version and different types of browsers. Several application installations can be made from one device. For the advertiser, as in all other similar cases, the result will be the same — loss of part of the budget for mobile marketing.
Misgeo
Imagine a situation — a client sets the task of attracting users living in a certain area. Fraudsters use geolocation settings, actively catching up, as it were, targeted traffic. In fact, traffic comes from a completely different location from motivated users or even bots.
Attribution fraud
This type of fraud is also known as clickjacking. In our case it would be more correct to call it installjacking. Its essence lies in placing invisible elements on the screen. The user is interested in some content, clicks on it, but in fact activates an invisible element by clicking on a certain link or performing some action — for example, installing an application. It is easy to guess that the only ones who win in this situation are the fraudsters themselves.
Types of client-side approaches against fraud
According to a Forrester report, about a third of marketers believe that about 40% of their mobile budgets are at some level of risk of being fraudulent. Advertisers have developed a number of methods to combat this problem. Here are the most common ones.
Using antifraud systems
Based on the experience of Mobisharks, we can say that this method is one of the most effective. As the old saying goes: “If you want to do something well, do it yourself.” Experience in using a balanced set of solutions to combat fraud traffic with the involvement of third-party technologies gives very good results. For example, some sources manage to detect up to 95% of fraudulent traffic. The ideal technique in this case is the harmonious combination of automatic and manual interlocks.
Validation system
A striking example of this approach is the automatic rejection of traffic from non-targeted geo. Very often, as described above, scammers drive traffic using bots or motivated users from regions that are not directly related to a specific advertising campaign. It is a wise decision to automatically reject such traffic. Let’s say you are running a geo campaign targeting Moscow and its region. Suddenly a suspiciously large amount of traffic from Vietnam starts pouring in. A reason to think about it and filter out such traffic.
Self-analysis of unloading from MMP
In this approach you should pay attention to CTIT (click to install time). This is the so-called time from click to install. Let’s think about how long it takes for a user to see an ad and click to download an app. As practice shows, about 20 seconds — 10–15 minutes. If the CTIT is less than 20 seconds or more than an hour, it is very likely that this is attribution fraud, which in itself is not very good for advertisers’ budgets. A competent CTIT analysis can be an effective tool for identifying and combating fraudulent traffic.
Traffic analysis based on data from the client’s CRM at the level of purchases / orders/deposits
This approach requires the proper level of professionalism, but if you do everything right, you can achieve impressive results. The meaning of such a solution is in the search for anomalies and various kinds of inconsistencies, the names of buyers and email addresses of the same form. For example, all of a sudden, for completely inexplicable reasons, a region may be activated due to geo. And from there a wave of traffic hits you. This phenomenon raises certain suspicions and requires additional verification. It is also worth considering the fact that some especially advanced bots have even learned how to make deposits, imitating the actions of a real user as fully as possible. So attentiveness and analysis are your faithful helpers in the fight against fraudulent traffic.
Disabling individual sources
In some ways this approach has something in common with the previous paragraph. It is somehow connected with the search for anomalies in traffic analysis. If in the statistics you see completely inexplicable surges in activity, then you should pay special attention to them, double-check and, if necessary, disable these sources.
Fraud in CPI and CPA: what is the difference
In CPI fraudulent traffic consists mainly in the appropriation of installations from other channels — organic and/or installation by inanimate users, bots or fakes.
In CPA fraudsters actively use motivational traffic, earning on the difference from the amount received from the advertiser minus the remuneration paid to the clicker — the person who, on their order, performs pseudo-targeted actions. Attribution of installs and making fake orders (incorrect data in the fields of the order form, cancellation of orders, deposits for the minimum amount) are actively spread in CPA.
Whichever system you work with, it is worth remembering one thing — fraudulent traffic will only bring you losses. Be careful, check traffic sources, do not hesitate to take some moments under manual control — it is better to recheck several times than to find out one day about the loss of a considerable part of the mobile budget.
And now the number you’ve all been waiting for. Get ready, it will be a little scary!
How much can you lose on fake traffic?
Up to 50–80% of the budget for traffic channels with high % of fraud!
Methods that work
Based on our experience, we can say that the following tools have proved to be excellent in the fight against fraudulent traffic.
Here they are:
-Using MMP anti-fraud systems
-Analysis of traffic according to data from the client’s CRM
-Comprehensive assessment of various parameters. For example, a low CR in an install is not a 100% indicator that all traffic is fraudulent. From sources such as Unity or DSP (DV360), the conversion to install can be below 1%, but the fraction of fraud is small — 0–1%.
Tips and tricks against fraud | https://medium.com/@kp-97591/mobile-fraud-how-to-get-targeted-traffic-without-wasting-your-budget-8993295989da | [] | 2020-12-16 14:18:56.132000+00:00 | ['Traffic', 'Mobile Apps', 'Fraud', 'Mobile Marketing', 'Digital Marketing'] |
Could a personal website add up to $138,000 to your lifetime earnings? | IN TODAY’S WORLD, DOES HAVING A PERSONAL WEBSITE MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
Yes! In today’s world, a personal website is your electronic billboard. And like a billboard, your personal website makes an impact.
Consider these four statistics:
73% of hiring managers rank a personal website as the most powerful piece of your portfolio. A personal website builds your social capital. Because of that, a personal website can increase your lifetime earnings by 7.7% — which for the average college-educated American, translates to an additional $138,000. Out of 15,000 people surveyed on LinkedIn, just 4% had a personal website. But out of the 4% of people who had a personal website — 86% said that their personal website had generated job offers, raises, or promotions.
If you’d like to create a personal website, what will make it successful? I discussed just that with Josh Neimark, creative director and lead Squarespace designer for Fix8 Media. Josh said that the keys to a powerful personal website are the 5 Ps:
purpose people packaging pitch, and portfolio.
STEP #1: CLARIFY YOUR PURPOSE AND YOUR PEOPLE.
Websites with a clear purpose and a defined audience perform twice as well, as those without.
So before you create your personal website, you should answer 2 questions:
Why are you creating a personal website? (purpose) Who is your audience? (people)
Perhaps you’re currently job-searching. Perhaps you’re happily employed, but you’d like to establish yourself as a thought expert in your field. Perhaps you’ve just entered this industry, and you’d like to grow the breadth & depth of your network. Perhaps you’re a creator. You’re an artist, an actor, a journalist, or a writer, and you’d like to showcase your portfolio. Or perhaps,you’re a consultant or an entrepreneur, and you’d like to spotlight your thoughts, your products, or your services.
Whatever the reason, begin with the end in mind. Why are you creating a personal website? And who is your audience?
STEP #2: PICK YOUR PACKAGING.
The packaging is how you present yourself — and your personal brand — to the world.
Visualize an iconic package, like the Coke can. First, think about the form. The red can with the white script is simple, eye-catching, and visually appealing. Second, think about the function. On the one hand, the Coke can is easy for its maker to create. But more importantly, the Coke can is easy for the end-user to operate.
Let’s translate the Coke-can analogy to your personal website.
Form: You have just 0.05 seconds to capture a user’s attention. If your website is complicated, boring, or ugly, your users will leave within that first 5 hundredths of a second. In consequence, your design must be simple, eye-catching, and visually appealing. (Look at singer/songwriter Katlyn Swanson’s homepage to see how powerful a single image can be.)
Second, function: On the back end, you won’t create & maintain your personal website, unless it’s easy for you to do. But more importantly, on the front end, your personal website must be easy for your end-users or viewers. For instance, 47% of people expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less, and 40% of people will abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. As a result, your personal website must load quickly; it must be easy to navigate; it must be mobile-friendly; and it must work across a variety of browsers & devices.
Whether you choose Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, Shopify, or a different platform, be sure that it combines both form and function. For example, Josh has built 1,000+ websites in Squarespace, because its clean, modern designs are easy to set-up, but even more importantly, they’re easy to use.
STEP #3: DELIVER YOUR PITCH.
Your pitch is the heart of your personal website.
Remember: eye-tracking studies show that people read just 20–28% of the text on any given website. Say someone reads just 20–28% of the text on your personal website. What is the key message that you want that person to take away?
Is it a 1-sentence summary of your career history? Is it 1 topic in which you’re an industry expert? Is it 1 stunning image from your portfolio?
Here’s an example from my website. If you read just the bold headline above-the-fold, the pitch is: “You don’t need a writer. You need a strategist.” Or, let’s consider the iMod website. Once again, the pitch is clear: “We don’t just build classrooms. We empower teachers and students with a brighter future.”
If you distilled your personal pitch into just 1–2 sentences, what would it be?
STEP #4: SHOWCASE YOUR PORTFOLIO.
In other words: Show, don’t tell.
93% of hiring managers will hire the candidate who has an electronic portfolio. Why is that? Because that candidate went above-and-beyond the 96% of applicants, who lack an electronic portfolio.
Your personal website is your chance to showcase your work — so think creatively about how you can show people what makes you special. For example, you might include:
A brief biography that summarizes your career history. (If you’re going this route, include a button so that people can download your resume as a PDF.) A short list of 3–5 of your key accomplishments. (For instance, see how Raymond Sjolseth used a timeline to highlight his important results.) Your coding projects. (For instance, perhaps you include a link to your GitHub code repository.) An image or video gallery. (For example, see how Kerry Schroeder used a grid to organize her portfolio.) A blog or a writing collection. (Wouldn’t you want to hire Graham Flashner to write your next celebrity profile?) Kind words about you. (For example, perhaps you include a testimonial carousel with praise from clients, coworkers, or supervisors.)
WHAT’S NEXT?
If you’d like to create a personal website — but you’re struggling with the words or the design — then contact us. For 20+ years, we’ve helped clients advance their careers through websites that have a clear purpose, a defined audience, an attractive and easy-to-use package, a compelling pitch, and a stunning portfolio. How can we help you? | https://medium.com/@brookewritesit/could-a-personal-website-add-up-to-138-000-to-your-lifetime-earnings-dc08bed0c860 | ['Brooke Kent'] | 2020-12-02 18:17:46.947000+00:00 | ['Personal Branding', 'Career Change', 'Website Design', 'Career Development', 'Job Hunting'] |
How Trying to Stop Hair Loss Affected My Body and What I Did About It | How Trying to Stop Hair Loss Affected My Body and What I Did About It
Disclaimer: The information, including but not limited to text, graphics, images, and other materials contained on this article is used to tell my own personal story and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new health care regimen, and never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this post.
Having bad hair genes truly sucks. I first noticed signs of hair loss at the age of 17 (nothing too extreme). Fast forward ten years and my hairline has only receded more. The truth is that I wouldn’t be so afraid of the idea of becoming bald if I wasn’t so insecure about the size and shape of my head… but I am.
The pandemic only excacerbated the problem; being locked up at home unable to go out and socialize stressed me enough to fall into a deep depression and accelerate my hair loss.
Whether it was the androgenetic alopecia that runs in my family acting on my scalp, telogen effluvium (stress induced hair fall), or a mix of both, this new situation had me panicking like never before. So, like most Web surferers, I started to look for solutions online.
Three products were repeatedly recommended in every forum and blog site I visited; they seemed promising. Their function was not only to stop hair from falling, but to promote new hair to grow as well. Without thinking to much of it, I ordered all three online.
I stayed on this new treatment since early January, 2021, and while it did stop my hair from falling and caused a few strands of it to grow too, I began to experience side effects 10 months later.
Some of the symptoms I experienced were:
Numb face
Aggravated tinnitus
Extreme insomnia
Increased anxiety
Muscle dystrophy
Frequent urination
Mild decrease in libido
Heart palpitations
The worst symptom by far was insomnia.
My sleep quality saw a steady decline since the beginning of October, 2021. I tried ear plugs. Nothing. Then, I went on antihistamines. No improvements either. It was after removing one thing in my life at a time that I found the source of the problem, but by the time this happened, my sleep problems had turned dreadful.
This is my journey to recovery…
1. Managing my expectations
What I first did was ask myself the following questions: do I usually experience side effects from other types of medications, such as antivirals or antibiotics? How do my parents usually respond to medications? How long did it it take for me to experience side effects from this hair loss treatment?
Hm, I sometimes do experience side effects from certain types of drugs and my father always responds negatively to all types of treatments while my mom doesn’t. It also took me more than 9 months to experience any side effects. This led me to believe that I had a 50/50 chance of recovering slowly.
Someone on Reddit suggested that I looked into a website called PropeciaHelp.com. On that website, I was able to find countless other stories from sufferers of this condition and what their road to recovery was like. This helped me understand what to expect and to consider that this may take a very long time; patience was key.
This first part of the journey was important because the severity of many of the symptoms I experienced made me depressed and borderline suicidal; I had to face the reality of the problem in order to adequately change my mindset. I soon after stopped panicking and learned to accept the situation for the time being.
2. Learning to Quit
I’ve suffered from obesity before and, like many know, quitting junk food is hard; the desire I had to enjoy a tasty large burger often outweighted my desire to lose weight. I compared this situation to the desire I had of retaining my hair and having added confidence versus the desire to live a healthy life.
My experience with food, as well as other addictions I’ve suffered from in the past, reminded me of and helped me to take into account one very important thing: rebound.
When I began to experienc side effects, I noticed a sudden increase in hair loss yet again (probably due to stress). Once the side effects diminished, I once again considered retaking the pills, forgetting all about the bad things they had done to my body. The only way I could stop myself from commencing a vicious cycle was to throw the pills away and change my perspective on hair loss. So I did.
Now, I remind myself every day that hair loss is not a condition; it is the natural result of the procreation between two different kinds of ancestors of mine. It’s normal… Although, I would look better with a full set of hair… Damn it, this is hard! Might as well look into a hair transplant.
3. Understanding the Problem
I thought it was important for me to understand the mechanism of these miracle drugs in order to incorporate the right solution for me (something I should’ve probably done before I chugged these pills down my throat for the very first time). Thankfully, I live with a doctor and through her advice together with the information I found online, I was able to make a plan.
One thing I learned was that I should stay away from anything that messes with my hormones; these are involved in an infinite number of processes in our bodies and it is difficult for even the best scientists to keep track of all the undesired outcomes that result from their alteration.
I also learned about the drugs’ half-lives and their effect on our body’s natural detoxification mechanism. It seemed that it would take me at least one month for these drugs to leave my body and for my body to begin recovering. Regardless, I wondered, could there be a way to accelerate the process?
4. Lifestyle Changes and Supplements
I wanted positive results fast (I’m a very impatient guy), so I looked into supplements and lifestyle changes that would help me mitigate some of the side effects I was experiencing.
Insomnia. I set a rigurous sleeping schedule with which I stuck to religiously; I went to bed at 9 pm, sometimes 10 pm, every night because I knew that it would take me anywhere from 6 to 7 hours to fall asleep. Both the time it took me to fall asleep and the time I stayed asleep were persistent issues.
I also started taking melatonin (yes, it’s a hormone, but it was only for a few days), but only when I began to sleep between 3 and 4 hours a day. I also never took it daily and I quit using it after one week because, according to this article,
“If you take melatonin orally, you’re essentially taking away the need for your body making melatonin on its own. This then throws off your natural production of melatonin and might lead to consequences when you forget to take the supplement.”.
I also discovered that this hair loss treatment probably messed with all sorts of neurotransmitters and neurosteroids in my body; basically, it most likely ruined things in my brain and my nervous system.
What I found on the internet is that there’s an important neurosteroid in our brains called allopregnanolone, which helps our bodies to relax. It is synthesized from progesterone by the sequential actions of two enzymes, one of which is called 5α-reductase type I (5α-RI. ). This enzyme’s production is actually inhibited by the drug I was taking.
Why is this important? Well, allopregnanolone acts as a potent neuromodulator for the actions of an amino acid called GABA at GABA(A) receptors, say scientists. In other words, it activates these receptors, and according to an article I read online, GABA(A) receptors are directly involved in our body’s natural sleep process.
I also read that GABA is as much a receptor agonist for GABA(A) as allopregnanolone is (an activator). Thus, my non-scientific logic told me that I needed more GABA while my brain naturally fixed its allopregnanolone production problems. I also came across another article that explained the effectiveness of combining GABA and L-Theanine to decrease sleep latency and improve NREM sleep. Well, this certainly worked for me!
Nevertheless, taking into account that I am not a neuroscientist or a doctor, I decided to quit using these supplements once I felt my body had recovered enough to go on its own.
Finally, I continued to use foam ear plugs and a sleep mask throughout my whole journey to avoid any noise and light source during the night.
Increased Urination and Possible Shrunken Prostate. The need to go pee would wake me up several times a night. I set myself the rule to not drink any liquids after 7 pm.
My increased urination problems resolved on their own and I have no idea what size my prostate is, but I hope it’s regular-sized.
Muscle Dystrophy. I am almost completely positive that this problem was a direct result of the sleeping issues I was having. This is because once I started to rest properly, my muscles stopped shrinking.
I used creatine to lift heavier weights and retain some water to increase the size of my muscles. I avoided taking it at night though, because it gave me a lot of energy. I also continued to consume around ~120 grams of protein every day and I never stopped going to the gym. I had to be careful with the latter however, since having no sleep meant my body wasn’t recovering enough.
Abolished Gut Bacteria. Like many antibiotics, this treatment seemed to have wiped out my gut bacteria, causing me to have bad stool, strange flatulance, and obnoxious stomach aches. This affected my sleep too, since the pain or distraction wouldn’t let me sleep. I restored it by consuming basic lactobacilli every day.
Next time I’ll make sure to spend more money on this to further increase the biodiversity of my stomach’s bacteria, since greater diversity leads to a healthier microbiome (as all things in nature).
Low Libido and ED. I never looked too much into these since these symptoms weren’t as pronounced as the rest. Nevertheless, when I did see weak erections, I tried to improve them by first fixing my sleep and by trying a supplement I found in an online homeopathic store.
What I did notice is that as soon as I started sleeping properly again, my erections went up to 110%.
Low DHT. As I had mentioned previously, 5α-reductase type I (5α-RI. ) is an enzyme inhibited by the hair loss treatment I was taking. This enzyme metabolizes testosterone into something called dihydrotestosterone (or DHT), according to many studies. In addition to that, low DHT can cause breast development in men and weight increase, between other things, says one other study.
When I started taking the drugs responsible for this catastrophe, I was also attempting to counter the effects of creatine, which I’ve always taken to build muscle. Some studies link creatine to an increase in DHT inside our bodies and other studies link DHT to hair loss due to its miniaturization effects on hair follicles, especially those with androgenetic alopecia.
Ironically, once I started experiencing all the side effects of my treatment, I used creatine with the intent to save my body from that same treatment; I took creatine every day to hopefully restore my DHT levels.
Vitamins and Minerals. A few studies have found vitamin d deficiency in patients who took the same pills I did. I therefore started spending more time under the sun (with sunscreen, of course) and took vitamin d supplements. Some other supplements I took were magnesium and omega-3.
Caffeine. I was never a big fan of coffee, but apparently caffeine has therapeutic effects against neurological diseases through neurotrasmitter modulation. Now I’m a huge coffee fan!
5. My Results
I made a slow but steadily recovery. I went from sleeping 1 hour every 2 or 3 days during the first week after suspending my medication, to 2 hours every other day the following week, then 3 hours every day, and so on so forth. Now, I am able to sleep 7 to 8 hours a day without waking up in middle of the night.
Furthermore, the sensitivity on my face’s skin returned, my heart palpitations stopped, my anxiety decreased, and I noticed an overall improvement in my wellbeing. Also, my muscles and joints finally stopped aching and I felt that I was truly getting the rest my body needed after so long.
I will never forget this experience as it was one of the worst ordeals I had ever had to deal with in my life. I’m happy to have gotten out of it.
6. References | https://medium.com/@oangel2133/how-trying-to-stop-hair-loss-affected-my-body-and-what-i-did-about-it-fc5380af5534 | ['Angel Ortiz'] | 2022-01-12 18:48:52.660000+00:00 | ['Hair', 'Health', 'Recovery', 'Hair Loss'] |
8 Haikus About Haikus | I don’t understand
them Haikus. Why are there no
rhymes? Ruined it, damn
Let’s start it again
Trying not to break a thought
Between these short lines
Got it, ok, breath
Think something clever to say
Oops, ended again
A thought in a pill
For those who enjoy eating
Wisdom in pellets
Minimalistic
Oversimplification
To leave you breathless
A lot like drowning
In a sea of emptiness
Throw me a lifeline
No, a proper line
With more than five syllables
Please, I’m begging you
Sonnets are better
But there’s not enough space here
For this conversation | https://medium.com/no-crime-in-rhymin/8-haikus-about-haikus-992953d1b89f | ['Daniele Ihns'] | 2020-11-04 14:26:04.944000+00:00 | ['Satire', 'Poetry', 'Humor', 'Haiku', 'No Crime In Rhymin'] |
Report: Biden To Get Coronavirus Vaccine Early Next Week | Biden plans to get the shot in a public setting to ensure Americans feel getting the shot is safe.
President-elect Joe Biden is expected to receive his first coronavirus vaccination early next week, according to reports. He is planning to get the shot in a public setting to ensure Americans feel getting the shot is safe.
Earlier Wednesday night, Biden told reporters he wants to show Americans it is safe to get the vaccine.
“I don’t want to get ahead of the line, but I want to make sure we demonstrate to the American people that it is safe to take,” he said. “When I do it, I’ll do it publicly, so you can all witness my getting it done.”
Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper earlier this month he would get the coronavirus vaccine once Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said it was safe. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris also said she would get the vaccine.
Biden has said his administration would work to get 100 million vaccine shots in his first 100 days in office. He also pledged to sign a face mask mandate on his first day in office, asking all Americans to wear a face mask in his first 100 days in office.
Fauci said Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that he “strongly recommends” Biden and Harris should be vaccinated “as soon as we possibly can.”
The first doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech coronavirus vaccine were authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use last week and has been delivered to all 50 states and last week the U.K. got their first doses of the shot.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has not yet said when or how President Donald Trump might receive a coronavirus vaccine. The White House released a statement late Wednesday saying Vice President Mike Pence will get the vaccine live on TV Friday.
The news comes as former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have all said they would publicly get the coronavirus vaccine. | https://medium.com/forward-axis-news/report-biden-to-get-coronavirus-vaccine-early-next-week-2d7b18777e45 | ['Stephen Michael'] | 2020-12-17 06:05:20.251000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Joe Biden', 'Coronavirus', 'Covid Vaccine'] |
Failed Predictions for 2020 We Wish Came True | It’s always interesting to wonder how much our ancestors, predecessors, and younger selves knew where they were going. But equally fascinating, in my opinion, are those bold predictions from the past that hit completely wide of the mark. Not only is it a neat insight into the way the minds of the past considered their place in human history, but it serves as a reminder that no matter our achievements, we can never gauge our societal momentum with any real exactness.
2020 has been an eventful and chaotic year, so I figured I would turn my ear back to the voices of the past and delve into a little alternate history. It seems that those voices had a lot of ideas about what 2020 in particular might look like. Prophecies aren’t interesting, so I made sure to stick to considered, thoughtful predictions made by futurologists, writers, engineers, scientists, and other trend forecasters.
These are the unmet expectations, forgotten dreams, and unrequited wishes for the 2020 that never was.
A 26-Hour Work Week
Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash
This one is probably the most disappointing. In 1968, physicist Herman Kahn and futurist Anthony J. Weiner predicted that by 2020 the average American would be working 26 hours per week- about 1370 per year. It was a pretty bold prediction considering the average American worked approximately 37 hours per week in 1968. And it speaks to the optimism of the Post-War period that envisioned a future of linear progress and continuous economic growth. As it stands, the average American now works roughly 35 hours per week according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics- and that figure varies according to factors such as gender, age and marital status (the average for men is 41 hours for instance). It also doesn’t include “side hustles” which many modern Americans increasingly feel the need to support themselves with. The U.S also has a relatively high figure of 11% of its employees that work over 50 hours per week (according to the OECD).
Sadly, the idea of a 26-hour work week seems less realistic now than it did in the 1960s- and not just for Americans. But if any country is going to get close to making it less of a fantasy, it will be a progressive nation like Denmark, Norway, or The Netherlands.
Humans Will Land On Mars
Photo by Nicolas Lobos on Unsplash
Although this prediction is, ultimately, wrong- it’s not far off. The idea that we would send human beings to Mars by 2020 is something I remember growing up with, in fact. Humans setting foot on Mars by the early 21st century was a recurring promise in the books and documentaries I consumed as a kid. In a 1997 issue of WIRED, Peter Leyden and Peter Schwartz gave 2020 as the year we would finally succeed in sending a manned spacecraft to the Red Planet. We’re on our way, having successfully landed several robotic craft (such as probes, rovers, and landers), but current estimates for a manned mission put it a good decade hence.
What’s most interesting about Leyden and Schwartz’s prediction however, is not that we would reach Mars by 2020, but that we would do so as part of a “joint effort supported by virtually all nations on the planet”. They describe four astronauts from a multinational team beaming images of the Martian landscape back to 11 billion people- which is also interesting, as the most recent United Nations estimates for the world population (as of September 2020) sit at 7.8 billion, with 10 billion not expected until 2057.
The beaming of those images are an important part of the prediction though, and tell us that this was as much a prediction about sociology as it was scientific discovery. The images that never were beamed to us this year have an emotional weight to them. Leyden and Schwartz envisioned the 2020 Mars landing as being a turning point in history, a triumph of global cooperation that would put an end to an Earth divided by nations and give rise to a more collective mindset.
“The images from Mars drive home another point: We’re one global society, one human race. The divisions we impose on ourselves look ludicrous from afar. The concept of a planet of warring nations, a state of affairs that defined the previous century, makes no sense.”
It’s poignant to think that this, rather than our technical capabilities, has proven to be the most unrealistic aspect of their prediction. It makes me think of classic science fiction from the Cold War era (think Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek or Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero) in which a future spacefaring Earth always had a single identity. Nation-states were gone, but cultural identities were never lost. Ethnic and religious conflicts were seen as archaic. Although it may seem far away right now, there is hope in the idea that through technology we can achieve social progress.
The Death of Nationalism
Photo by Jørgen Håland on Unsplash
This one ties in quite nicely to the previous prediction. If you think about it, they’re essentially the same: through advances in technology, we can overcome national and ethnic divides, and come together as one. In 1968, political science professor Ithiel de Sola Pool confidently proclaimed that “By the year 2018 nationalism should be a waning force in the world,” due to our enhanced capabilities for translation and communication. While it’s true that the internet has facilitated a more interconnected world, our technical innovations haven’t brought about the greater empathy de Sola Pool hoped for. Quite the opposite, in fact. Trump, Brexit, Bolsonaro, Erdoğan, Orbán, the Front National, and the Alternative für Deutschland were and are driven by a viciously-xenophobic, fervently anti-intellectual brand of populist nationalism.
The question that remains is whether de Sola Pool’s prediction was wrong entirely or whether it was simply premature. If we are to think of human history in terms of Hegelian Dialectics, then the process of nationalism’s erasure could very well be underway. It’s just not a smooth and linear process. Rather, it’s a messy, generational progression of “two steps forward, one step back”. The French Revolution deposed a tyrannical monarchy but led to a little something known as The Terror, and from that chaos emerged a new tyrant in the form of Napoleon- a political opportunist who derailed the very liberty he professed to love. It was a good half-century before the fruits of the Revolution came to bear insofar as individual liberty was concerned. By that same token, the rise of Trump, Brexiteers, and those like them could be the last fightback of populist nationalism as the world moves inexorably to a more interconnected and interdependent future. The more they swing in one direction, the likelier it is that the next generation of policymakers will move to compensate. My point being, we won’t know for definite that de Sola Pool was off the mark until many years hence.
Hyper-Intelligent Apes Will Be Our Personal Slaves
Photo by Margaux Ansel on Unsplash
No, I’m not kidding. During my research for this article, this was the prediction for 2020 that seemed to crop up the most in my internet searches. Probably because people can’t quite believe that this was a serious prediction for the world in which we now live. In 1967 The Futurist published an article that stated “By the year 2020, it may be possible to breed intelligent species of animals, such as apes, that will be capable of performing manual labor.”
According to the writer this included everything from vacuuming the house to pruning the rosebushes, and even driving our cars. These apes, which would be specially-bred and trained as chauffeurs, would supposedly reduce the amount of car crashes. Now I’ve never seen a chimp drive a car outside of a circus, so I can’t attest as to whether or not they would be more adept at spotting potential hazards on the road than we are. But these aren’t just any old apes- the article implies they’re a kind of super-ape, bred for specific purposes in the same manner as dogs. Alas these apes don’t exist, but the basic idea that by 2020 we will use our enhanced technology to find new uses for animals is not incorrect. Scientists and mechanical engineers at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University have recently experimented with the creation of “cyborg insects”, successfully implanting electrodes into the leg-muscles of beetles in order to control how they move. These remote-control bugs- far cheaper than robots of the same size- can theoretically be put to a number of uses- from espionage to search-and-rescue. It’s not as impressive as a baboon trying to scrub dried oatmeal from a breakfast bowl, but it’s in the spirit of things.
Telepathy & Teleportation
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this prediction is not so much that it exists, but that it was made as recently as 2014. Michael J. O’Farrell, founder of The Mobile Institute and veteran of the tech industry, proclaimed in the 2014 book Shift 2020 that both telepathy and teleportation will have been made possible by the current year. This breakthrough was supposed to have been achieved through a process known as “nanomobility”.
O’Farrell writes that “By 2020, I predict people will become incubators for personally controlled and protected Embodied Application Platforms and Body Area Networks, with a primary source-code Physical State and hyper-interactive genetically reproduced Virtual States. All states would host a mass of molecular-sized web-servers; IP domains and AP transport protocols capable of self-sustaining replication, atomically powered quantum computing and persona-patented commerce. I have coined the phrase nanomobility to capture and describe this new uncharted state.”
So what’s the modern reality of telepathy and teleportation?
Well the truth is that they simply don’t exist- at least, not in the way we typically imagine these concepts. The closest we’ve gotten to telepathy is electro-encephalography (EEG), in which a device not dissimilar in shape to a swimming cap is outfitted with large electrodes and placed upon the scalp of the subject. These electrodes record electrical activity which is then interpreted by a computer. Scientists have used this interface to both send signals from the brain and receive electrical pulses in turn. Volunteers have been able to transmit brain activity to each other, to computer software, and even to animals- with one volunteer able to stimulate the motor area of a sedated rat’s brain in order to get it to move its tail.
The closest scientists have come to something resembling teleportation is a process known as quantum teleportation, which is less an act of transportation so much as it is communication. Quantum information has been proven capable of transmitting from one place to another. In 2014, researchers at the Technical University Delft reported having teleported the information of two entangled quantumbits three meters apart. These breakthroughs may not have impacted our everyday lives in the way that the futurists’ hoped, but they are nonetheless extraordinary accomplishments that we can only hope will serve as part of a greater journey of discovery. | https://medium.com/predict/failed-predictions-for-2020-we-wish-came-true-7dba84a76bea | ['Michael J. Vowles'] | 2020-12-11 22:43:19.768000+00:00 | ['History', 'Future', 'Technology', 'Science', '2020'] |
How To Build Your First Serverless API with AWS Lambda and API Gateway | How To Build Your First Serverless API with AWS Lambda and API Gateway
An in-depth tutorial
Hi there. My name’s Andrew and I’m a JavaScript developer based in London.
In this piece I’ll be guiding you through the process of building a Serverless API on AWS.
I have written up a more complex follow up article here that would be an excellent next step once you have read this one. | https://medium.com/avmconsulting-blog/how-to-build-your-first-serverless-api-with-aws-lambda-and-api-gateway-c7149c2e8d23 | ['Andrew Bestbier'] | 2019-10-23 00:12:12.635000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Serverless', 'JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Amazon Web Services'] |
Tom Tom reinvents itself by selling his maps | A little more than a dozen years ago Tom Tom was one of the leading companies in the sale of devices (the famous navigators) that had a built-in map and were connected to the GPS signal to help us drive our car.
Later, mobile phones included the GPS and various applications for driving assistance appeared, which meant that the previous devices were not sold in a very short time. Now everyone uses their mobile.
And consequently Tom Tom was reduced to its minimum expression.
But things have continued to evolve, and new driver assistance systems (which will one day lead to autonomous driving) require accurate and up-to-date maps to function.
And there again Tom Tom is carving out a niche for itself, providing their maps to the companies that supply the new driving aid systems.
Today Tom Tom sells their maps to Apple, Huawei (which is developing a system to be independent from Google), and other companies in the market.
Tom Tom is dedicated to generating their maps, keeping them updated and making them more complete and accurate every day in order to be useful in the case of autonomous driving, and not depend only on the sensors placed in the vehicle.
These driving assistance systems are being used more every day and all the large companies in the automobile industry use them. The take-off in the next ten years is going to be very big and Tom Tom is working with several leaders in that market.
By 2021 the Bosch company will launch a product with Tom Tom’s maps, and something similar is already being done by the PSA group, Fiat-Chrisler, etc …
Tom Tom’s folks have had a rough few years, but the future looks brighter for them.
Time will tell if their expectations are met, but for their persevering work they deserve it. | https://medium.com/@amadorpalacios/tom-tom-reinvents-itself-by-selling-his-maps-d2eeef7af320 | ['Amador Palacios'] | 2020-12-27 07:36:38.854000+00:00 | ['Tomtom', 'Maps'] |
Believe In Love | Believe In Love
Photo by S&B Vonlanthen on Unsplash
A lot of Humans have a hard time transitioning from Believing to Reality — when they sort out who is actually behind the Magik Of Christmas.
I didn’t. And I have to tell you — I was as fierce a Believer as there ever was!
If anything — my heart filled up with gratitude for my parents — my mother mostly — for her Herculean efforts every year to brew The Magik. My first thought was about the year our home burned — and how Santa STILL came. In the years after my mother’s death — honoring the traditions of my childhood was a therapeutic outlet for my grief.
When I had children of my own — I understood on a very personal scale — how much time and energy goes into living up to The Legend of St. Nicholas. I became Christmas Magik on a whole new level. | https://medium.com/afwp/believe-in-love-7f1196cc3e91 | ['Ann Litts'] | 2020-12-08 15:55:46.924000+00:00 | ['Family Traditions', 'Believe', 'Christmas', 'Spirituality', 'Magic'] |
Team Zero Weekly Newsletter | Ingar & Rick will be releasing a marketing competition this week, running for a month or so. There are GIFs, articles, videos, and all sorts to get involved in. We will be needing the help of the community in selecting the entries that bring us some more exposure.
Lolliedieb has appeared from seemingly nowhere this week with another version of the miner that has been producing some really great results. Currently this is an Nvidia version, with the prospect of an AMD miner in the wings as well.
Currently the miner is being tested in the background and the reports are a great deal of hashrate more, but is still early stages yet, so we will keep you in the loop as this product is finalised and comes closer to release.
We look forward to continuing to build the relationship with Lolliedieb, and thank him for his great work to date.
Last week we released the finer details of the finite supply, block halvings, and also developer fund. To recap, here are the details below again in case you missed them: | https://medium.com/zerocurrency/team-zero-weekly-newsletter-241a6f2363d8 | ['Zero Currency'] | 2018-06-16 15:08:09.981000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Internet', 'Computer Science', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
TOW#572 — Positivo. After my last weekly tip “Because I… | After my last weekly tip “Because I can!”, I received lots of positive comments from many readers. They wrote to me that the advice had had a good effect on them and they liked the fact that in all this greyness and negative information, they can and should still think or do positive things. After these reactions, I had a little think! I realised that we all yearn for something beautiful, for a nice word, a nice deed or a nice surprise. Instead, we’re all poisoned, contaminated, tired of negative information, darkness, pressures, fears, stresses and all that, all of which doesn’t allow us to relax, cool our heads and breathe some ‘positive’ air.
We all know that in this negative environment it’s very easy to be negative, critical and to look for flaws in everything and everyone. Therefore, I decided that from now on I’ll try to insert a positive thread in all my weekly tips, or at least write them from a positive perspective. Now, I don’t know whether that’ll change or make this world more beautiful or more positive (actually, I’m sure it won’t), but no matter what I’ll continue to resist gravity and to focus on the positives. And I believe that if we all do one positive thing more than what we normally do, something can and will change in us, the environment or beyond.
Unfortunately, being positive today truly means fighting against gravity. You know what journalists say (and I’ve talked to several) on the topic of positive news? They all say that negative news sells more and that’s why nobody (or I should say very few) bothers to share positive news. I even heard somewhere that one media outlet has a programme called “1 minute of positive news” (which is to be welcomed, but I still find it very sad). In addition, if we take into account the Nikola Tesla quote that “there is no energy in matter other than that received from the environment”, it follows that our environment shapes us, and that’s why it’s so difficult to be or remain positive nowadays.
In this week’s tip, I won’t write about what you need to do in order to be positive — you can Google it and you’ll get a million results. I’d rather explain to you how difficult it is and why it’s so difficult, as well as what challenges you’ll face along the way. Of course, it’s up to you how you’ll proceed. So, being positive means being POSITIVE TOWARDS:
1.YOURSELF: this one is particularly difficult. It means loving ourselves. Or, being ‘selfish’ in the true sense of the word. Because ‘selfish’ doesn’t mean doing things for yourself at the expense of others, but truly respecting and loving yourself, your body, your actions, your situation, your environment, your achievements, and so on. However, looking around we see just how little people love themselves, starting with making cosmetic corrections to their bodies, and it’s easy to conclude that we’re rather far from loving and respecting ourselves.
2. OTHERS: I is EGO, YOU is EMPATHY. We’ve written a lot about this in the past — that thinking about others is very hard, if not impossible these days. We always look at things from our perspective (EGO-I). The idea is that simply by changing the perspective to YOU, we can help ourselves and others a lot. Everyone can and does hurt others, but the greatness of a person is measured in the good and positive things they do for others. When was the last time you did something nice for someone?!
3. THE PLANET: uff, I don’t know what to say here. Like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. If it had a voice, I think the cries of our planet would be heard far and wide across the Universe. On a higher level, I associate this with awareness, while on a lower level with integrity. I read somewhere that ‘integrity’ is when you collect your dog’s faeces in the park even when no one is watching.
In any case, I believe that if we change at least a little bit in any of these three points, we can help ourselves, others and the environment a lot.
To end, here’s the song Penso Positivo by Jiovanotti — to improve your mood a little and get you dancing, laughing and singing along:
bad and good, good is stronger. I think positively because I’m alive, because I’m alive, I think positively, because I’m alive and because I’m alive, nothing and nobody in the world can stop me from thinking…
Lorenzo Jovanotti
Wishing you success with the changes to come,
Petar Lazarov
If you would like to receive these texts by e-mail or you think that some of your colleagues, associates or friends might be interested in them, please get in touch at
[email protected] | https://medium.com/@tow/tow-572-positivo-e2db7454f5f4 | ['Tip Of The Week'] | 2020-12-18 12:56:34.013000+00:00 | ['Positive Thinking', 'Positive', 'Mindset'] |
Creating a React Calendar Component: Part 3 | Section 1: Styling the calendar header using Flexbox
Before we begin, let’s add some CSS to the main BaeCalendar component so we can see it on the browser and normalize some HTML element styles.
.bae-calendar-container {
box-sizing: border-box;
box-shadow: 0 0 3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);
height: 100%;
width: 100%; h1,
h2,
h3,
h4,
h5,
h6,
p {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
line-height: 1;
font-family: 'Varela Round', sans-serif;
}
}
As you can see, elements with a class called bae-calendar-container is given a 100% height and width of its parent element. This allows any users importing the component to wrap it in a different container so they can specify the height and width themselves. For now, it will take on the body element's height and width property so we can see it on the browser.
Aside from this, you’ll notice that we are taking advantage of SASS’s capability of nesting to style the h1, h2, h3... elements to normalize its default styles. Without going into great detail, nesting will translate this into a CSS code that will look like this:
.bae-calendar-container h1, .bae-calendar-container h2 {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
line-height: 1;
font-family: 'Varela Round', sans-serif;
}
// And so on...
Above is the component with no styling that we will transform into the following.
Let’s take a moment to look at the HTML layout of the CalendarHeader component.
<div className="bae-calendar-header">
<div className="left-container">
<h1>{getReadableWeekday(selectDate)}</h1>
<h1>{getReadableMonthDate(selectDate)}</h1>
</div>
<div className="right-container">
<h3>{getYear(selectDate)}</h3>
</div>
</div>
All of the elements we see here are block elements which by definition is an element that starts a new line. So how do we end up with 2 columns? Thankfully, flexbox is a very useful CSS property we can take advantage of.
.bae-calendar-header {
display: flex;
}
The display: flex property defines an element to act like a flex element. A flex element acts differently. Essentially, the outer element is still a block element, but any inner elements take on a more fluid form. Unless display: flex is specified, we're not able to apply any other flex based CSS properties.
Here is an example of the component with display: flex .
Notice how the inner elements are no longer acting as block elements? The container itself wrapping the contents will maintain its block behavior, but this gives us freedom to control the layout of the inner elements. Let's make it so that the readable dates and the years end up on opposite sides by adding justify-content: space-between .
.bae-calendar-header {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
}
Self-explanatory right? When flex is in a row format (e.g. left-container and right-container ), justify-content modifies the horizontal layout. Keep in mind, that if you are working with a flex element in a column format, justify-content will follow the new change and affect the vertical layout. The option we provide space-between does exactly what the name states. It provides an even spacing between all elements, but no spacing on the edges.
We’re making progress, but let’s see if we can provide some space to the edges and a border to show where the CalendarHeader component ends.
.bae-calendar-header {
padding: 15px;
box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3);
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
} | https://medium.com/dev-genius/creating-a-react-calendar-component-part-3-a69740dd8d43 | ['Elbert Bae'] | 2020-07-12 22:09:59.780000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'CSS', 'React', 'Sass'] |
Dong Xuan Market in Hanoi | Dong Xuan Market was officially built between the years 1889 to fill in the To Lich River of Nhi Ha River (Song Hong) to return to the foot of the wall, creating a broad ground tens of hectares, Dong Xuan Market located in the Huyen Thien pagoda near the river, this location is ideal for building a regional market focus.
When the French occupied Ha Noi in the 1880′s, the To Lich River snaked its way from the Cau Giay area west of the Ha Noi Citadel, past the northern perimeter of the citadel, and out through the Old Quarter into the Hong (Red) River. Two day markets, the Bach Ma (White Horse) and the Call Dong, were located along the riverbanks of the To Lich River.
Dong Xuan market was officially built between the years 1889 to fill in the To Lich River of Nhi Ha River (Song Hong) to return to the foot of the wall, creating a broad ground tens of hectares, Dong Xuan Market located in the Huyen Thien pagoda near the river, this location is ideal for building a regional market focus. Of the Dong Xuan market was built by a company bidding on the French — Poinsard Veyret contractors — provides the framework and steel roof is a bid to get other work.
Market designed relatively simple: The frame with iron, classes flow, area of 6500 m2. 5 include the entire sequence and is separated by the front arch book, in part by the road between arch (each arch to the 52m, 19m high steel frame, 25m wide). Area east — north Through the North, the west is Dong Xuan market. Indeed the entire market is only one large supermarkets, but because the east — north is the new trading mainly the food, vegetable agricultural area north of the Red River brought through, so called market Bac Qua.
North Park The area is only a first land, then we do the temporary cover for rainy and dry.
As the convergence factors are convenient for transportation and residential, Dong Xuan become the place “on the bottom of the boat.” Especially since the French construction completed for the Long Bien Dong Xuan market from becoming traders busy not only famous Hanoi that most famous of the North, it quickly attracted the attention of the trade foreign, especially France, Spain, India …. back regularly merchants. Along with the maintenance of street traders and producers of traditional crafts such as Childrens Goods, Paper Goods, Top …
You may also like:
Hoan Kiem Lake The Pearl of Hanoi Capital
West Lake — Famous Landscape in Hanoi
Bat Trang Pottery Village — A Famous Trade Village in Vietnam
Temple of Literature, Hanoi — 12 little things about this world’s treasures
Dong Xuan is where the commercial office of the French, Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese. Due to rich resources, for the winter-spring is not only the distribution and trade of goods but also the central guiding economic activities of the city of Hanoi and North dominates the period.
At Dong Xuan market meets only fair way, a two-day session, but later the needs of economic development business, for the day from morning to evening. Goods sold in the market is rich, diversified from agricultural products, food, vegetables, fabrics to goods, machinery of France, by China, India, (French Kaki, fire Bombay … ).
With the expansion and development of the Dong Xuan market, the trader who, as well as foreigners to work here more. Initially the two markets often old next meeting in Bach Ma temple and the East Bridge, following the move of the booking by Chua Huyen Thien (Cho Huyen Thien), here are also available a small market, after the Dong Xuan market construction is complete all transfer here that the Dong Xuan market today. Trade activities are quite diverse and rich in the goods.
It seems each city are presented to products sold separately from agricultural to pour handicrafts. For all in street trading: Hang Dong Street, Every Street Car, Bat Su Street, North Street Drugs account for a long to 2km. Every city is where the consumption of paper products of the wards as measured along the Buoi, Trich Sai … agricultural products such as rice, maize, potatoes, cassava of suburb farmers is concentrated mainly purchase goods in the Khoai street, Vietnam Rice.
After this the Dong Xuan market was built, the most goods to be sold in the market. Yet the city still around on the trading activities of the family shops. Do the water transport, all of the advantages of trading in Thanh — Nghe on the back by the Red River and down through the provinces by the North that bring all types of goods for air as traders in Dong Xuan increasingly more tp loaded.
However, the prosperity of this new winter-spring bloom is not extended by the guns invaded by the French. History of Dong Xuan entering a new period for the gold specify dislodge the French that highlight the events Hanoi “60 day fire smoke” blocking step enemy.
Air Thang Long regiment should prepare the capital that subdivisions with 101 Dong Xuan honor standing in the image of “Impressions from the country of birth to” it. Combat Dong Xuan Market on 14–02–1947, the hero of the first Hanoi has written to the history of Thang Long a new son, next to the glorious Chuong Duong, Dong Da .
Over the years of war against the United States save the country, building socialism, Dong Xuan market is always the wholesale sector of the North. | https://medium.com/@huyhoaonline/dong-xuan-market-in-hanoi-94653e7e816a | ['Huy Hoa'] | 2020-10-25 08:37:05.902000+00:00 | ['Hanoi', 'Travel', 'Attraction', 'Vietnam', 'Market'] |
Getting started with a Dockerized Selenium Grid in your On-Prem Data Centers | Getting started with a Dockerized Selenium Grid in your On-Prem Data Centers
Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash
Automated UI functional testing on a Selenium Grid is a useful tool for software engineers, but historically it has required a lot of complicated setups. Recently, Expedia Group™ has developed a testing platform (described more fully in Ambighananthan Ragavan’s post, DaKube) that makes use of containerization to make it easy to scale UI functional testing clusters automatically based on demand.
In this article, we show how to set up and use Docker with Selenium Grid container images to implement a simplified version of Expedia’s testing system. We’ve boiled that system down to the basic elements so that you can get familiar with those elements in an unopinionated setting — you can follow these steps on your own on-premises cluster or using cloud-based instances.
Prerequisites
Basic understanding of a Selenium Grid Pre-installed Docker machines. VNC Viewer or a similar tool Basic understanding of docker commands (command references will be linked along with usages)
Introducing “The Containerized Grid”
Standing and maintaining a selenium grid is a considerable effort. Especially, when we work with hundreds of WebDriver nodes for the sake of concurrency. Thanks to containerization, Selenium now offers a robust, hassle-free solution. Introducing the components of a “Containerized Selenium Grid”:
Selenium hub: https://hub.docker.com/r/selenium/hub
Selenium Chrome Node: https://hub.docker.com/r/selenium/node-chrome
Selenium Debug Chrome Node: https://hub.docker.com/r/selenium/node-chrome-debug
Selenium Firefox Node: https://hub.docker.com/r/selenium/node-firefox
Selenium Debug Firefox Node: https://hub.docker.com/r/selenium/node-firefox-debug
Debug Vs Non-Debug Nodes: As the name suggests, “debug” nodes are meant to be the development nodes that would produce verbose logs. You will also be able to view the running tests live on a debug node using a VNC tool.
You can stand the grid on one node or on multiple nodes based on your need. The following will be explained in detail in this article:
1) Standing the grid on a single instance/dev box.
2) Standing a distributed grid.
Standing the grid on a single instance/dev box
Start a docker hub by executing $ docker run -d -p 4446:4444 --name selenium-hub selenium/hub . Note that 4446 is used as the port to stand the hub in the above command. You can view the hub’s console at <host>:<port>/grid/console . Docker Reference: docker run
Fig. 1 Selenium hub without nodes
Attach a Chrome node and a Firefox node to the hub
$ docker run -d --link selenium-hub:hub -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm selenium/node-chrome $ docker run -d --link selenium-hub:hub -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm selenium/node-firefox
Fig. 2 Selenium hub with a Chrome and a Firefox node
Now the hub is ready to take a Chrome test and a Firefox test in parallel*.
You can also increase the number of browsers per container by setting NODE_MAX_INSTANCES
$ docker run -d --link selenium-hub:hub -e NODE_MAX_INSTANCES=5 -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm selenium/node-chrome $ docker run -d --link selenium-hub:hub -e NODE_MAX_INSTANCES=5 -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm selenium/node-firefox
Fig. 3 Selenium hub with multiple browsers
If the hardware is sufficient*, you already have a hub that is capable of running 5 Firefox tests and 5 Chrome tests in parallel.
*Hardware could prove to be a bottleneck for test concurrency. Refer to the “Concurrency Bottleneck” section at the end of the article.
Standing a distributed grid
When we were running the hub and nodes on the same machine, we were able to link the containers using the --link parameter which is now deprecated by docker. This will be good enough for POCs but not for the production load that has to scale and probably run millions of tests every day. Let’s take a look at standing a distributed grid.
What is a distributed grid?
A distributed selenium grid is created by standing the hub and nodes within a cluster of machines that can communicate with one another through IPs or domain names.
Fig. 4 Selenium Grid publisher-subscriber connection. Disclaimer: The function names shown above are just for understanding purposes and are not true.
In such a distributed grid, a selenium node has to perform the following actions.
Correctly identify the Selenium hub Register itself with the hub Provide the hub details on how to communicate back to the connecting node to establish successful communications. Note: Since the nodes are containerized, the IP that the node shares with the hub by default will not be accessible from anywhere outside the instance where the node is running.
A dig at the environment variables
A containerized node image will use the following key environment variables. Understanding them is very important to correctly set the grid up and maintain it over long periods.
HUB_HOST: Indicates the host name of the HUB
HUB_PORT: Indicates the port number of the HUB NODE_HOST: Indicates the host name of the node that the hub could use to communicate back
NODE_PORT: Indicates the port number of the node that the hub could use to communicate back REMOTE_HOST: Indicates http://<NODE_HOST>:<NODE_PORT> which replaces NODE_HOST and NODE_PORT
Distributed setup example
Let’s try to understand this through an imaginary example…
Note: The below example can be performed on any on-prem machines and do not have to be on EC2. I have chosen EC2 for this example.
Bob, a Platform Engineer at Imagination Inc., decides to create a distributed selenium grid for a POC. He wishes to try and stand a grid similar to Fig.3 but in a distributed setup (i.e the hub, the Chrome node, and the Firefox node will all have to run on different machines).
To achieve the distributed cluster, he creates three EC2 instances with the following specs. Specs: t2-micro, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Docker installed, security group configured to allow incoming and outgoing HTTP connections on ports 4444 and 5555 (How to create these EC2 instances is not within the scope of this article). He then decides to set up his hub and adds the following note for his reference.
######## Bob’s Note Starts…. ########
IP addresses of my cluster (all the below IPs are imaginary),
18.236.100.1 (hub) 18.236.100.2 (chrome-node-1) 18.236.100.3 (firefox-node-2)
Starting the hub: SSH into 18.236.107.1 and run the following command
ubuntu@ip-18-236-100-1 $ docker run -d -p 4444:4444 selenium/hub:latest
This will start a hub on the EC2 instance (IP = 18.236.100.1 and Port = 4444).
Chrome-node-1: SSH into 18.236.100.2 and run the following command
ubuntu@ip-18-236-100-2 $ docker run -d -p 5555:5555 -p 5900:5900 -e NODE_MAX_INSTANCES=5 -e REMOTE_HOST="http://18.236.100.2:5555" -e HUB_HOST=18.236.100.1 -e HUB_PORT=4444 selenium/node-chrome:latest
This will start a Chrome node on the EC2 instance (IP = 18.236.100.2 and Port = 5555).
Firefox-node-2: SSH into 18.236.100.3 and run the following command
ubuntu@ip-18-236-100-3 $ docker run -d -p 5555:5555 -p 5900:5900 -e NODE_MAX_INSTANCES=5 -e REMOTE_HOST="http://18.236.100.3:5555" -e HUB_HOST=18.236.100.1 -e HUB_PORT=4444 selenium/node-chrome:latest
This will start a Chrome node on the EC2 instance (IP = 18.236.100.3 and Port = 5555).
Note: $REMOTE_HOST is the environment variable that the node will use to register itself to the hub. If this URL does not correctly self reference the connecting node, the hub will never be able to reach the node back and the connection will not succeed.
Fig. 5 Distributed Grid
######## End of Bob’s Note! ########
Debugging
To debug and view a running test, we should use “debug” docker nodes.
Let’s add a debug Chrome node to the hub from one of the VMs.
$ docker run -d -p 5555:5555 -p 5900:5900 -e NODE_MAX_INSTANCES=5 -e REMOTE_HOST=”http://<node-ip>:<node-port>" -e HUB_HOST=<hub-ip> -e HUB_PORT=<hub-port> selenium/node-chrome-debug:latest
Install VNC Viewer or some other VNC tool and open the same
Fig. 7 VNC Viewer Console
From VNC Viewer, connect to your debug node by <ip>:5900.
Note: VNC Viewer will ask you to key in a password. It will use “secret” as your default password till you change it.
You will then see a console like Fig.7 where the executing selenium tests could be seen.
Note: VNC port by default will be 5900.
A Smoke Test
A simple test like this could be written to smoke test the platform. Note: The following test is written using Node.js using npm. The same could be written with other supported languages too.
Create a folder like the following $ mkdir find-expedia-test
Add the following two files inside the folder
Fig. 6 find-expedia-test
Run the following $ npm install and notice that a node_modules folder gets created after npm install is complete.
and notice that a folder gets created after npm install is complete. Now, run the test by $ node find-expedia-test.js
When we connect to the VNC viewer on the Chrome node debug instance, we will see a running test like the following
Fig. 8 A running test viewed from VNC’s console
Concurrency Bottleneck
Please note that provisioning x nodes do not mean that the execution of the tests will be concurrent by a factor of x . Overprovisioning of nodes will lead to excessive context switching of processes and add unnecessary overhead.
The following formula could be used to find out the number of concurrent browsers to spin on each node for maximum scalability.
100 / CPU Utilization per core * Number of available cores
Advantages
Extremely Scalable . This solution could easily be optimized to run millions of tests every day.
. This solution could easily be optimized to run millions of tests every day. Reusable and cost-efficient. With proper design and implementation, the same set of machines could host Chrome browsers and later switch to Firefox browsers through docker API saving the need to have dedicated hosts for browsers.
Limitations
Unfortunately, we cannot create a hub with IE or Safari browsers due to the non-existence of docker images for these browsers.
due to the non-existence of docker images for these browsers. Maintenance of the grid, especially if we choose to customize the images.
of the grid, especially if we choose to customize the images. Images should be security scanned since they are maintained by the Selenium Community.
Conclusion
The steps mentioned in this article are unopinionated and will be particularly useful when you cannot use any other container orchestration frameworks or cloud service providers. You can follow this article to create a selenium grid on any cluster of VMs including your on-prem machines.
If you choose to build your own docker based selenium grid as the article suggests, I would surely recommend carefully weighing the advantages and limitations that are outlined above. | https://medium.com/expedia-group-tech/getting-started-with-a-dockerized-selenium-grid-on-your-on-prem-data-centers-5b472a2d35a | ['Prasanna R Balasubramani'] | 2020-01-14 15:24:16.586000+00:00 | ['Selenium', 'Testing', 'Docker', 'Selenium Grid', 'Software Engineering'] |
The Beauty Of Letting People In | Isn’t it one of the greatest feelings in the world when someone openly tells you how much you mean to them? It is unfortunate that stuff like that is so rare now. What really happened to being honest, and straightforward with the people close to us? Why is it so hard nowadays to have even one genuine friendship/ relationship?
Seems like we have become so used to being diplomatic and political in our lives — with our colleagues, bosses, relatives, at social functions, on social media that consciously or unconsciously we have started to play games even with the people we care about, the people we supposedly “love”.
It is sad that we aren’t truly ourselves even at home with our family.
As parents, we are pressurising the kids to pursue activities that make us look good in society. We’d rather have our children go for an extra class than sit and spend time, and bond with us. As kids, we are manipulating the parents to get what we want. We have literally started to have two different personalities — one around our parents and another in our social circle. Both of which are, unfortunately, a facade.
Whether we are married, or in a relationship for years, the majority of us are still finding our relationship empty. Still lacking the emotional connection. Inevitably, we end up either trying to find that connect outside or finding meaning in other things.
Interestingly, the latest trend is to in fact show the opposite of what we are truly feeling.
I have a huge crush on this girl. The logical behaviour would be to go and ask her out on a date, right? But no, I wouldn’t even give her subtle hints that I like her. Instead, I would be nonchalant around her, act busy and hard to get. We have become experts in making that poker face; life has in turn become nothing more than a poker game; and the fellow human beings, our opponents.
When, really, was the last time you were truly honest with someone, about your feelings, your insecurities, your dreams, your passions, your worries, and your hopes? When was the last time you had a long chat with someone without diplomacy, without filters, and without any ulterior motive? Just a genuine, sincere, and profound conversation about you, your life, and your future?
The irony is that our expectations from relationships have not shrunk. We still want mature relationships. We want that deep connection, that sense of belonging. But we just don’t have the courage to let our guards down. We don’t have the patience and time to build on that bond. We have become so busy chasing materialistic dreams that we are forgetting that real success is about happiness. It is about having close people around who genuinely care for you. It is about the joy of sharing our dreams, of bonding with another human being on a deeper level, and of loving wholeheartedly.
I read somewhere that we are turning into a scared generation — scared to fall in love, scared to commit, scared to fall, scared to get hurt, scared to get our hearts broken. So much that we don’t allow anyone in, nor do we step out and love anyone unconditionally. We lurk from behind walls we’ve created ourselves, looking for love and running away the moment we really find it. We don’t want to be vulnerable. We don’t want to bare our soul to anyone. We’re too guarded.
Yes, it can get difficult to let people in, into this devious world. It is difficult to trust, to be vulnerable, to show your weaknesses. You can be taken advantage of, you can be betrayed, you may be judged for your flaws. But we have to realize that this fear is making us miss out on the most beautiful range of emotions, and bonds — something that we all are looking for on a deeper level. Try and remember that feeling. We all have felt it sometime in our lives, during our childhood, or with that one close friend. Try and remember how beautiful it was, to just be you — in a complete sense without having to fake any emotions, without having to lie, or hide, or makeup something, to be able to share your hopes and dreams, and passions with another human being. And in return to be able to be that container for another human being, and hear them tell you about a whole new side of them. That feeling is something that no money, fame, popularity can give you.
The good news is that we all know by instinct — the people who will take advantage of us and the ones who will love us even more for trusting them, and for showing them the whole of ourselves! There have been several studies too which have proven that more often than not, our instincts are right. So the probability of getting cheated or betrayed really isn’t that high.
So go tell your crush about your feelings towards her; tell your spouse about the insecurities you’ve been feeling; tell your parents about your real passions, hopes, and dreams. Start letting people in, start telling them what you really feel. You’ll notice that soon they start letting you in too. And you know what, that’s when the magic unfolds.
The truth is, those deep, genuine, unconditional kind of relationships — the kind we see in movies, the kind we read in fairy tales, the kind we’ve always wanted and are looking for, do exist. If only we removed the facades we have added to ourselves.
Written by Charvi Jain | https://medium.com/over-a-cup-of-tea/the-beauty-of-letting-people-in-38669485621 | ['Therapists Over A Cup Of Tea'] | 2020-12-21 09:40:28.087000+00:00 | ['Therapy', 'Mental Health', 'Relationships', 'Acceptance', 'Psychology'] |
The Space Between Nothing | The Space Between Nothing
Musings on eternity
As if the Goddess had thrown a handful of diamonds
upon the open sea,
a river of glass opened up in front of me,
a sprinkling of lightening bugs,
a path melded by mingling currents —
a division, a plane between realms
sliding above and below,
a serpent of light,
the ocean’s might,
a churning of density and depth—
And I wonder?
How is this different, really, than the barrier
between earth and the heavens?
Or the dark blanket of the moonless sky
and the depths of infinity?
Or the mirror of a star dancing on the open waters,
never destined to meet its twin?
Is this what the ancients saw as ether —
the space between nothing,
time without time,
a me without a me? | https://medium.com/literally-literary/the-space-between-nothing-12fc5110c628 | ['Erika Burkhalter'] | 2020-07-08 04:54:34.588000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Travel', 'Photography', 'Philosophy', 'Spirituality'] |
PRE-MARKET NYC APARTMENTS OF THE WEEK: OCTOBER 17, 2019 | If you’ve been through the process of searching for an apartment for sale in NYC before, you probably know that it can be difficult to find one that matches all of your criteria.
What if someone could wave a magic wand and bring you a selection of apartments you’ll love — and better yet — aren’t even on the market yet?
Call us your fairy godmother, because Triplemint’s Pre-Market Platform gives buyers more NYC homes for sale to choose from by allowing sellers to market their properties before publicly listing them.
Plus, you don’t have to wait any longer to view some of these properties, because we’ve curated a list of the top 5 must-see pre-market NYC apartments this week!
Lower East Side Pre-Market — 2 Bed, 2.5 Bath
There’s no better place to watch the NYC sunrise than from this Lower East Side gem. Its floor-to-ceiling windows are stunning and give the condo tons of natural light to enjoy. The sleek modern kitchen is also an absolute showstopper.
Sutton Place Pre-Market — 1 Bed, 1 Bath
The owners of the Sutton Place stunner you see above spared no expense when they completely renovated the apartment. Custom remote-controlled blinds and high-end appliances make the abode a tech-lover’s paradise.
East Harlem Pre-Market — 3 Bed, 3 Bath
You don’t want to miss this stunning apartment featuring high ceilings, oversized windows and sweeping city views. Situated right on Central Park, this home offers a gracious layout including a chef’s kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances and granite countertops.
Tribeca Pre-Market — 2 Bed, 3 Bath
Loft living at its finest. Take the private keyed elevator up to this full-floor home and experience its extraordinary finishes. The in-unit washer/dryer is also a huge added bonus that will make you want to move in ASAP.
Upper West Side Pre-Market — 2 Bed, 2 Bath
With CitiQuiet windows and only one wall shared with the neighbor, this Upper West Side home ensures total tranquility. The roofdeck is also a must-see and features its own irrigation system, so the future owner can enjoy beautiful flowers without the extra maintenance. | https://medium.com/triplemint-nyc/pre-market-nyc-apartments-of-the-week-october-17-2019-60bebd664428 | [] | 2019-10-17 17:07:56.225000+00:00 | ['Real Estate', 'Nyc Real Estate Agents', 'Nyc Real Estate', 'NYC'] |
Abortion In America: The Facts | Abortion In America: The Facts
There is a great deal of opinion on abortion and the recent restrictive Alabama law. My goal here today is to shove these opinions to the side and simply look at the science behind reproduction, consciousness, and what constitutes life. I’m not focusing on religion because religion is subject to interpretation and therefore subjective. I will lay out the facts here. Let’s begin.
First Some Definitions:
Embryo- An unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development, in particular a human offspring during the period from approximately the second to the eighth week after fertilization (after which it is usually termed a fetus).
Fetus: An unborn offspring, from the embryo stage (the end of the eighth week after conception, when the major structures have formed) until birth.
Life- An organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction
Consciousness- The state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought
The Facts On Human Reproduction
These are the essential characteristics of human reproduction according to Brittanica, “ 1)liberation of an ovum, or egg, at a specific time in the reproductive cycle, (2) internal fertilization of the ovum by spermatozoa, or sperm cells, (3) transport of the fertilized ovum to the uterus, or womb, (4) implantation of the blastocyst, the early embryo developed from the fertilized ovum, in the wall of the uterus, (5) formation of a placenta and maintenance of the unborn child during the entire period of gestation, (6) birth of the child and expulsion of the placenta, and (7) suckling and care of the child, with an eventual return of the maternal organs to virtually their original state.”
The female germ cells are located in the ovary. The male germ cells are located in the testes. Gestation occurs in the uterus of the female. During copulation spermatozoa passes the vagina through the uterus to the Fallopian tube to fertilize the ovum.
The human body develops from a single cell produced by the male and female gamete. There are three stages to prenatal development. The pre-embryonic stage lasts for two weeks and involves cell division and cell maturity. The embryonic period lasts from the third to eighth week of development. During the fetal period the maturation of organs and tissues occurs and the body experiences rapid development. | https://medium.com/@darrianbroom/abortion-in-america-the-facts-9b523483267f | ['Darrian Broom'] | 2019-06-03 03:16:48.844000+00:00 | ['Statistics', 'Politics', 'Facts', 'Medical Science', 'Abortion'] |
Black Soil in the Pearl | How I have dared to desire
the heart of someone I could never attain
Sweet summer love
in a meadow untouched, a meadow tranquil
away from prying eyes and heartless music
and under the embrace of a sky unwavering
I want that,
All of it
For only if you saw me, the way I see you
We could love today
and the days that followed
and you could kiss me if you wanted
and touch me unrestrained
show me how it feels
to love, and to be loved back
even water must be sweet, and rain full of colours
like the blessed hand of God
Can I speak to you, once?
not in prayers or poetry
but in the whisperings of the wind
for I just wanted you to know
we could just kiss, for now, and forever
like taking a breath and holding it,
knowing it to be the one true paradise
How I feel awakened when I see you
like we’re the only ones promised this land
how lonely this sensation is,
and how it hurts to look at you
your smile and your words
none for mine to claim, for mine to answer
What have you made of me?
If you won’t love me, tell me how to suffer
If there is more to life than a heart unadorned
How will I bring peace about
and undo this hurt?
that has made love so unmusical a word
Like beauty, with that of sorrow
love must also wane along the years
I might forget your name
in the life that is to follow
But the name God knows me by, calls you still
So, give me a name, that knows not yours
a heart anew to call someone
who will keep their heart a little closer to mine,
knowing it to be black soil in the pearl
Kevin Gurung
The British College
BBA (Level 6) | https://medium.com/@online-78988/black-soil-in-the-pearl-79ab03b9293e | ['The British College'] | 2020-12-23 07:50:26.564000+00:00 | ['Pearl', 'Poem', 'Black', 'Beauty'] |
The Preacher In The Garden of Evil | I had moved in with Grandmama on Bamboo Street when I was about thirteen, after Mama did the thing, and the preacher would drive down the street in the big black car, with the windows rolled up, with the air blowing. Usually he just blew the horn or waved as he drove by, but from time to time, he would stop in front of some church member’s house and roll the windows down, and talk bible with some old man or some young woman.
One summer day, it was hot as hell and Grandmama didn’t have no air, so I was standing out on the porch with my friend Tangy, before they moved, and the preacher stopped. Me and Tangy both had on shorts and t-shirts. I think we might’ve been fifteen then.
“Grandmama!” I called to her through the screen door when I saw the preacher stop. He smiled big, the way Mama used to say he did when he was trying to get you to put your light bill money in the collection basket.
“Y’all alright?”
“Yes sir, Reverend.” Tangy answered. She was smart and cute, long and thin. As hot as it was, she was nervous talking to the preacher and she rubbed the yellow skin of her arms like she had a chill.
“I haven’t seen either of you young ladies in church in a long time. You’ve become lovely young women since the last time the Lord has seen you in his house.”
We each thanked him. Then the preacher looked right at me.
“How is your mother doing?”
“She’s alright.” I looked down at my feet for a second when he asked me about Mama.
“I’ve been meaning to go down there and pray with her, but you know the church just keeps me so busy.”
“Yes sir.”
“Help me remember your names again, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you ladies.” When he rubbed his thick black and gray mustache the gold band on his finger shined in the sunlight.
“I’m Tangy.”
“And I’m Flower.”
“Flower. Flower.” The preacher said my name over and over, and his lips and teeth moved like he was chewing on it.
Grandmama finally came out, round and solid, drying her hands on an old dish towel, smiling and waving at the preacher, throwing “Praise the Lord’s” and “God bless you’s” into the opened window of the big black car, like fresh flowers at a summer wedding.
They talked for a few minutes and the preacher quoted some scripture. When he asked how she was doing Grandmama told him it was tough with the two of us trying to get by on her social security check, and the preacher said he’d pray for us. The preacher offered to ask the congregation to help, but Grandmama was too proud.
When they had finished talking and the tires of the big black car were just barely starting to roll away, the preacher’s last words were, “Such beautiful young ladies, sure does my heart good.” | https://medium.com/illumination/the-preacher-in-the-garden-of-evil-2b441437818a | ['Carl L Lane'] | 2020-09-06 21:00:46.840000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Sexual Assault', 'Womens Rights', 'Race', 'Religion'] |
Customer Journey-Based Segmentation for Marketplaces | Photo by Margarida CSilva on Unsplash
Introduction
It is very likely that you have come across the concept called ‘Know Your Audience’ once in a while. It is a crucial approach used by most businesses to identify different customer groups and their respective needs. The importance of the concept for a business is all about being capable of understanding and reaching customers better. This enables businesses to deliver their contents and messages to customers in a more efficient and personalised way.
This concept gives businesses a chance to move from one-fits-all to more customer-centric strategies.
Customer Segmentation is a commonly used broad term for applying the ‘Know Your Audience’ concept to e-businesses. There are tens of different ways to do it and in this article, we would like to share with you our way of doing Customer Segmentation for the marketplaces in eCG (eBay Classified Group) based on a Customer Journey Analysis.
The rest of the article will follow the outline below:
Problem Definition
What do we try to accomplish?
What’s the main objective?
For which user group is this analysis done?
For which eCG’s marketplace brand the model is developed for?
Data Exploration
An overview of Customer Journey
Short Descriptions Of Viewers’ Features
Short Descriptions Of Repliers’ Features
Determining Time Period for the Analysis
Methodology
Assumptions of K-Means Clustering
Step 1: Outliers Removal
Step 2: Data Rescaling
Step 3: Giving Weights to Dimensions
Step 4: K-Means Clustering
Results
Short Descriptions and Indicators of Viewer Clusters
Short Descriptions and Indicators of Replier Clusters
Clusters In Detail & Transitions between Clusters
Conclusion
Problem Definition
What do we try to accomplish?
In this project, we would like to group our users into smaller cohorts depending on their current stage of customer journey. Therefore, the main question to be answered is that ‘Can we clearly identify meaningful journey stages of a complete user experience on our marketplace platform?’ In this way, we will be able to define some user clusters having different level of engagement with our platforms.
What’s the main objective?
The ultimate goal of this project is being able to target our users differently given their current status on the platforms. Another way to put it: ‘Personalised Targeting’. With the help of this model, we will have a chance to differentiate our customer targeting strategies accordingly to be more effective on our users and increase the number of active users on the platforms.
For which user group is this analysis done?
The question we asked ourselves at this stage is whether we should go for Buyers or Sellers. Buyers are the ones who look for a product on the platform to buy whereas sellers are there to sell their stuff by posting a new listing. Since the number of user actions on a marketplace platform created by buyers such as viewing an item, saving an item or sending a message to a user is way more than sellers, we decided to run this Customer Journey analysis for our buyers only. There is a way of doing the similar analysis for sellers as well but for now, we stick with buyers only for the sake of simplicity and efficiency. Therefore, in the rest of the article, sometimes we will refer to the problem by using the phrase ‘Buyer Journey’.
In a marketplace platform, there are mainly 2 different user types: B2C (Dealers) and C2C (Individuals). Dealers are the main source of ads posted on our platforms and they account for a significant part of our sellers. Therefore, we decided to exclude all dealers from this analysis since it does not make any sense to assign them into one of those buyer journey stages. In order to protect the analysis from misleading effect of the dealers data, we focused and run entire analysis on our C2C users only.
For which eCG’s marketplace brand the model is developed for?
Ebay Classified Group (eCG) is an umbrella company which is currently running 14 different classified platforms from all over the world. There are 2 different platform types under the eCG brand: Horizontal and Vertical Marketplaces. Horizontal marketplace means a platform consisted of many different categories as in the case of our Dutch tenant ‘Marktplaats’. Whereas, vertical in eCG refers to a platform used for a specific product category: Autos.
This project is developed for one of the eCG’s vertical platforms: Kijiji Autos which is the leading marketplace brand in Canada where people can buy or sell cars.
DATA EXPLORATION
An overview of Customer Journey
In an e-commerce platform such as eBay where we know about users’ transactions or purchases, a customer journey mostly starts with signing up and ends with buying a product. For that reason, these journeys are generally called ‘Purchase Funnels’ or ‘Conversion Funnels’ for those businesses. However, in the case of our classified business, things are not that well-defined. Therefore, we need to approach the problem more delicately especially during the first step of the project: Definition of factors — features — that will be used for forming different customer journey stages in the following steps of the project.
During the Exploration Step, we discovered that there are mainly 2 different groups among the C2C users on our marketplace platform: Viewers and Repliers.
Viewers: Users who have not replied to a listing recently but just browsing on our platform.
Repliers: Users who have replied to at least 1 listing recently.
The main reason why we first split all our users into two user sub-groups is that they exhibit different customer behavioural characteristics. For users with no recent reply — Viewers, we can only track their browsing actions on the platform, whereas we prefer focusing more on their past messaging actions rather than browsing for Repliers.
Here is the list of features extracted for Viewers and Repliers separately:
Feature lists for 2 different user groups: Viewers-no reply and Repliers-with reply (Image by Author)
Short Descriptions Of Viewers’ Features
Days since last Ad view: Number of days since the last time user viewed a listing on the platform.
Number of visiting days: Number of different days user visited the platform.
Number of distinct Ad views: Number of different listings viewed by user
Number of Ads favourited: Number of listings saved by user
Interest in a specific Ad: The ratio of number of days the most viewed listing visited by user to number of total visiting days of that user.
Interest in a group of Ads: The ratio of number of distinct listings viewed by user to total number of listings viewed by that user.
Short Descriptions Of Repliers’ Features
Days since last reply: Number of days since the last time user replied to a seller on the platform.
Number of conversations: Number of conversations with different sellers.
Number of replied days: Number of days user replied to sellers on the platform.
Max number of days spent on a particular Ad: Maximum number of days user replied to a seller for a same listing.
Number of Ads favourited: Number of listings saved by a user
Average conversation length: The ratio of number of total replies by a user to number of conversations that user had.
Number of replies in the longest conversation: Number of messages sent to the seller in the longest conversation
Determining Time Period for the Analysis
Before extracting any user behavioural features out of the data, we need to set a time frame for this process. It is because only relatively recent user actions can only have an impact on current customer journey stage of the user. As you can see from the picture above, this time period was 60 days for our case and it was a result of an iterative process as summarised in the figure below.
Iterative Time Period Determination (Image by Author)
The entire process starts with extracting features from the users’ last X days actions on the platform, then we generate clusters accordingly and evaluate the quality of those final clusters during the last step. This iterative process keeps going until we end up with the best historical time period which is 60 days in our case.
METHODOLOGY
Since we do not have any pre-defined user journey stages in our data, we cast our segmentation problem as unsupervised learning: Clustering. We only know about our users past actions on the platform, yet how many meaningful customer journey stages (clusters) there will be is still an open question to be answered by this analysis. Actually, that’s both beauty and challenge of a clustering analysis. You will find something new that may serve useful insights for your business but also you will have to solve a problem with many unknowns in it.
Although most of data scientists might think of a clustering analysis unchallenging but in fact it is really prone to make lots of basic mistakes if you miss several critical points. Regardless of algorithm type you use, there are always some assumptions behind a clustering algorithm you should take into consideration. Since we picked the ‘K-Means’ algorithm to apply on our clustering problem, I will dive into the assumptions of this algorithm specifically and talk about how we dealt with them one by one in the rest of the article.
Before talking about those assumptions and their respective remedies, let’s take a moment to mention the technology stack we have used throughout this project.
Previous Step: Feature Extraction → SparkSQL and Spark’s DataFrame API.
Feature Extraction → SparkSQL and Spark’s DataFrame API. Following Steps → Different H2O’s algorithms running on Spark via Sparkling Water package.
If you haven’t tried using H2O on Spark, you should give it a chance because I believe you will like it once you realised how fast those H2O algorithms are compared to their counterparts in the SparkML package.
Assumptions of K-Means Clustering
Clusters are spatially grouped or ‘spherical’
Clusters are of a similar size
Since K-Means tries to optimise total sum of squares within clusters, it could be so sensitive to outliers. In other words, existence of outliers in the data may deviate cluster centroids and distort cluster formation in the end. Therefore, outliers must be removed before applying k-means algorithm on the data.
Step 1: Outliers Removal
Isolation Forest algorithm has been used for the purpose of removing outliers from the data. Discussing the details of the algorithm is beyond the scope of this article but we would like to briefly mention the logic behind.
An Isolation Forest is basically a Random Forest with random splits rather than selecting the best feature candidate per node split. It is an approach to unsupervised anomaly detection as in our case. It starts with building multiple decision trees such that trees isolate the observations in their leaves. Since outliers have extreme values for some features, isolation of those outliers will be easier and quicker compared to other observations. In other words, their branches in a tree tend to be shorter than others. Therefore, by taking average number of node splits across the trees for each observation, we end up with scores, where the less splits an observation needs, the more likely it is to be anomalous.
Similar to Random Forest, we also have parameters such as number of trees, height of a tree or sampling ratio to be tuned as well. However, we have one extra parameter specific for Isolation Forest indicating the overall ratio of outliers in the data: ‘contamination rate’. This determines the cut-off point for the scores to declare an observation to be anomalous or not.
In the plot below, you will see effect of the outliers removal process on the distribution of observations in our data space. Our data space is multi-dimensional but we apply Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to reduce the number of dimensions into 3 for the sake of visualisation to enable us to show data points in a cartesian coordinate system. Before eliminating those outliers from the data, almost all data points were densely close to each other and therefore not proper for a cluster analysis. However, as you can see from the right-hand side plot, after the process observations lie on the coordinate system more uniformly or less densely.
Outliers Removal: Before — After PCA Plots (Image by Author)
Step 2: Data Rescaling
Since K-Means is a spatial algorithm which uses a distance metric to determine how close 2 observations are to each other, mean normalisation is important to equalise impact of each dimension on the cluster formation.
It is recommended to do data rescaling before outliers removal because any dimension with a much larger scale than other dimensions may dominate and overrule the others if you are applying a linear outlier detection. However, since we use Isolation Forest to catch those anomalies, we don’t have such a restriction in our case. We applied data rescaling just to level the effects of dimensions off and also make it ready for the next step: Giving Weights to Dimensions
Step 3: Giving Weights to Dimensions
When working on any clustering problem, you should always take your business’ assumptions into account while formulating your approach. Things are not always straightforward for a clustering algorithm and you may want to adjust it according to your needs and assumptions down the road.
The K-Means algorithm was designed in a way that all dimensions matter equally while generating clusters but which is not a desired case all the time. In our case, we wanted to give more weights to some dimensions to increase their importance and effect on the cluster formation.
For viewers, we doubled weights for the dimensions listed below:
Days since last Ad view
Number of visiting Days
Number of distinct Ad views
For Repliers, we doubled weights for the dimensions listed below:
Days since last reply
Number of conversations
Number of replies in the longest conversation
In the plot below, you can see the difference between distributions of observations in a 2d coordinate system before and after applying the step of giving different weights to dimensions. It is clear that the cluster formation is highly affected by this step.
Weighted Dimensions: Before — After PCA Plots (Image by Author)
Step 4: K-Means Clustering
After we ended up with weighted dimensions, the next step for us to apply the k-means algorithm on the top of this data. Since we don’t know anything about possible stages of a customer journey yet, this is the point where we should determine the best number of clusters or in other words different journey stages. The way to find the optimum number of clusters is the Elbow Analysis. We will fit the K-Means algorithm for a bunch of different number of clusters and evaluate qualities of those clusters by looking at inter cluster sum of squared distances.
We run this analysis separately for our two main user groups: Viewers and Repliers as shown in the pictures below. In the first plot, we ended up with total of 3 clusters — journey stages for Viewers as the elbow function suggests. Whereas, we have total of 4 clusters as a result of the elbow analysis for Repliers as shown in the plots on the right.
Elbow Analysis and 2D-representation of optimum clusters for both Viewers and Repliers (Image by Author)
Below, you can find a detailed big picture which sums up all the steps taken throughout the project pipeline starting from dividing our user-base into two major user groups till ending up with clusters — customer journey stages. | https://towardsdatascience.com/customer-journey-based-segmentation-for-marketplaces-70e5a56838a7 | ['Burak Özen'] | 2021-02-09 14:36:14.327000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Customer Segmentation', 'Clustering', 'Customer Journey', 'Machine Learning'] |
The Next Covert Operation in Iran | A Dangerous miscalculation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unprecedented visit to Saudi Arabia, facilitated by Secretary of State Pompeo, is all about coordination: a possible covert operation, potentially targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities. For the Saudis, time is running out. Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman will have more to lose from the US rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal, and ending the war in Yemen.
On one hand, while Netanyahu desires a conflict to kill the JCPOA, the cost of a direct strike is too high. Iran-backed groups are positioned in Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon. This encirclement serves as a deterrent against a direct Israeli attack on the Iranian mainland. On the other hand, while Iran hawks in Washington prefer a last-minute conflict to prevent the revival of the deal, a direct American strike will be too costly: translating to political suicide for “America First” Republicans.
According to the New York Times, the White House has so far ruled out an overt American operation. For the Trump team, the only remaining solution seems to be outsourcing the implementation of any covert operation to its allies in the region. In this light, Israeli and US officials are most likely in Riyadh to provide their assurances to MBS, hoping for no Iranian retaliation prior to Jan. 20th. This development helps explain the recent US regional posturing vis-à-vis sending in the B-52s.
Europe is well-aware of these possible miscalculations. European officials have recently met to discuss cooperation with the Biden team on preserving the JCPOA. According to the Guardian, German officials are already considering Europe’s response amid a possible strike against Iran. It remains to be seen if the Biden camp can prevent Israeli and Saudi attempts to derail the next administration’s diplomatic outreach to Iran.
Meanwhile, Iranians have been bracing for impact. Last week, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence released documents that blamed Saudi Arabia for the 2018 Ahvaz military parade terrorist attack. Last night, Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacked Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s main oil facility. The timing is no accident. Iran is conveying a warning: any covert operation in Iran will trigger a quick overt Iran-led retaliation. Tehran will quickly blame one of the US’ regional allies. Against this background, Iran’s leadership will most likely assess that the Saudis are an easier target and are less likely to retaliate. At last, it is imperative to note that while Iran has ordered its allies to stand down, the defeat of Trump has increased its risk tolerance. Will we see yet another dangerous miscalculation in the region? | https://medium.com/@pouyankjan/possible-covert-operation-in-iran-6111fa2768a5 | ['Pouyan K. Jan'] | 2020-11-24 06:47:14.757000+00:00 | ['Biden', 'Iran', 'Trump', 'War', 'Saudi Arabia'] |
Hi, we’re all here for the failure party | Photo by Fabrizio Conti on Unsplash
What’s with certain friends only showing interest when it all goes wrong?
They hear you just had a breakup
or you just lost your job
or you’re about to get evicted
or whatever…
Where’s all the texts when everything’s going just meh…?
Where’s all the attention before you start spiraling out of control?
I guess when things seem okay on the surface, no one bothers.
It’s only when shit hits the fan that all these people start crawling out of the woodwork.
They’re like the rubberneckers of social tragedy.
They just show up at your door, like, hey — we’re here for the failure party. Oh, were we supposed to bring something?
Uh, haven’t seen you in years and now you wanna know what’s goin’ on?
You were awfully quiet when my side of the fence looked better than yours…
Were you just waiting patiently for your chance to play the patronizing comrade?
Oh, I hear you:
You can do better, man
They didn’t pay you enough anyway, man
Know your worth, man
You’ll find something better, man
BETTER?
Listen — unless you’re here to hand deliver me something better, then go home.
You’re too late.
Unless you will take it upon yourself to fucking carry me in your own arms to the summit of Mount Doom, well, then you can walk your ass right back to The Shire with all the other drunk hobbits who I don’t talk to anymore.
Because I got some real shit to deal with here, and talking to you is only making me feel worse. | https://medium.com/scuzzbucket/hi-were-all-here-for-the-failure-party-8de42744a682 | ['Franco Amati'] | 2020-12-17 03:26:03.752000+00:00 | ['Prose', 'Poetry', 'Friends', 'Scuzzbucket', 'Failure'] |
Get Healthy with Capability Maturity Modeling | Get Healthy with Capability Maturity Modeling
Note: This editorial was written for the United States Department of Transportation — Federal Highway Administration (FWHA) published in the August 2018 GIS for Transportation Newsletter.
Figure 1: A Fitness tracker dashboard.
Just enough to gauge health and progress.
How many of you at some point decided to take steps to improve your overall health only to revert to old habits?
I know I have!
Like many of you, I recognize health is important and society does a great job reminding us of this. I’ve tried various methods to kick old habits. I found that if I measure my current health like BMI, use tools to track progress, and plan meals around clean eating, then I’m more apt to stick with it. And, from past experience, I recognized I simply couldn’t go from couch to Ultraman athlete.
My fitness tracker has a shared dashboard and online ecosystem that makes my health open and transparent. It makes me feel accountable knowing others are watching and often cheering progress. More importantly, if my family participates and supports my endeavor, it increases (but doesn’t guarantee) my chance of success. Unfortunately, I frequently find myself in couch mode — that’s my status quo, but I’ll get up and try again.
Your Enterprise GIS health is similar to personal health. You may already be working (or scrambling) to improve your program while sustaining what you already built. Is this your status quo — is your GIS health truly improving as a result of your efforts? Do you have a way to measure and track progress? Do you have a full stack team capable of working at an Enterprise level? What factors are you targeting to move the needle on initiatives and move closer to an Enterprise level of maturity? Can leadership distinguish the difference between traditional GIS for mapping and GIS as a mission critical enterprise business system?
My experience with maturity modeling as a means to measure GIS health grew from academic research and case study where I worked as a civil servant. I was struggling to get core data management efforts off the ground. Senior leadership buy-in wasn’t translating to any relevant business transformations. We had capacity but lacked an enterprise capability. Getting healthy by targeting ‘the Enterprise level’ was more difficult than I had ever imagined.
Figure 2: A section of the Slimgim maturity dashboard.
Just enough to gauge Enterprise GIS health and progress
Networking with peers revealed the issues I was experiencing were common across organizations. And so I dug in and developed the Slimgim Maturity Model and Framework as a tool to assess enterprise GIS health. This tool was purposefully built for enterprise geospatial professionals like yourself. I built it for speed and it needed to be pragmatic. To be useful, it needed to generate an Enterprise GIS Health Report similar to the fitness tracker dashboards I had used to track personal fitness targets and progress.
Recently, a new version of Slimgim CMM for Transportation was announced in the Fall 2017 FHWA GIS-T Newsletter. Through Peer Exchange and collaboration, this group made significant improvements to the base CMM on your behalf. Language has improved, redundant factors removed, and several factors merged. The result is a much cleaner, practical, and effective Slimgim for Federal and State Transportation. With this new tool, you’ll gain a clearer picture of your agency’s enterprise health and provide the information you need to design data-informed improvement initiatives. This, effectively, is your enterprise GIS health tracker!
As the Transportation CMM model rolls out, I encourage you to use the new tool to measure the health of your current GIS program. If you’re new to maturity modeling, I recommend the following schedule to kick off your enterprise health improvement effort:
Week 1: Take 2 hours to complete your first assessment then set it aside.
Week 2: Take 1 hour to fine tune your scores then review and digest the results and summary.
Week 3: Take 2 hours to review the results tab again then design improvement initiatives.*
*Slimgim Tip: Design improvement initiatives by grouping factors that fit within a theme (Awareness, Competency, etc.). Select factors with a high likelihood to improve. Take a copy of your assessment and adjust the numbers to test your improvement scenario. This method will show how you can move the needle on your Enterprise GIS maturity. Adjust then implement your initiative.
With this small investment in time, I guarantee you’ll end up with an accurate picture of your agency’s Enterprise GIS maturity and capability by using the new Transportation CMM. More importantly, you’ll have the evidence needed to recruit others in the organization who will be required to improve your Enterprise GIS health with you, one step at a time.
If you work with GIS at a State DOT and are interested in piloting this new tool, email Mark Sarmiento at [email protected]. For more information regarding Slimgim, or if you would like to know more about me, visit https://www.slimgim.info. | https://medium.com/mass-maturity/get-healthy-with-capability-maturity-modeling-b8ad9ae967eb | ['Slimgim Maturity Models'] | 2019-08-12 13:23:16.934000+00:00 | ['Enterprise', 'Maturity', 'Strategy Execution', 'GIS', 'Maturity Model'] |
Analysis of ELMo and BERT embedding similarity for similar sentences | Analysis of ELMo and BERT embedding similarity for similar sentences
Given similar sentences, how similar are their contextual embeddings? Let’s find out
Photo by Myriam Jessier on Unsplash
Embeddings are a key part of modern NLP, they encode the meaning of words or other linguistic units into vectors of numbers. The embedding of a specific word might seem random, but the idea is that similar words have similar embeddings, and opposite words have opposite embeddings.
For example, imagine this is king’s embedding: [2, 3, 1, 0, 5]. Prince’s embedding might be [1, 3, 1, 0, 4], the difference between the vectors is just 2, which means these 2 words are linguistically very close. Queen’s embedding might be [2, 3, -1, -10, 0] where some similarity is mantained (king and queen are part of the monarchy group of words), but other parts are opposite. In this case the distance between the embeddings is much bigger.
This is the classical way of embeddings, just with words. We can experiment with word embedding algorithms (word2vec, GloVe, FastText) and check how different the embeddings are for synonyms, antonyms and unrelated words.
In this post I go a bit further and explore the same concept but for contextual embeddings. How do embeddings change for similar sentences?
Contextual embeddings
Contextual embeddings also assign embeddings to words, but they take into accout the context, the surrounding words. The word king has a different embedding in these 2 sentences:
The king went into his castle after the deer hunt
Last Halloween I dressed up as a king
There are mainly three types of contextual embeddings. As a short description, this is how each of them form embeddings:
ELMo : released in 2018, was the first type of contextual embeddings, they are obtained by using a bidirectional recurrent neural network and simply concatenates left and right context at the last layer of their model. Sentences are processed sequentially.
: released in 2018, was the first type of contextual embeddings, they are obtained by using a bidirectional recurrent neural network and simply concatenates left and right context at the last layer of their model. Sentences are processed sequentially. Flair : released in 2019, they are trained without any explicit notion of words and thus fundamentally model words as sequences of characters. Sentences are processed sequentially.
: released in 2019, they are trained without any explicit notion of words and thus fundamentally model words as sequences of characters. Sentences are processed sequentially. BERT: released in late 2018, is a newer version of ELMo, they condition on both left and right context in all layers of their Transformer model. Sentences are processed as a bag of words.
To obtain a sentence or document embedding, a kind of average of all the contextual embeddings is done. You can read more about these embeddings and document embeddings in the Flair repo docs.
Experiments
So how do contextual embeddings change for different sentences? If I give two ‘opposite’ sentences, their embeddings should be opposite too, right? But what constitutes an opposite sentence?
I built a website to play around: https://share.streamlit.io/anebz/eu-sim/emb_similarity.py/ feel free to change the language and the sentences. You can find the code for the Python code and Streamlit frontend in the Github repo here. You can star the repository if you want to receive updates about new features.
I set this sentence as the main sentence
The doctor invited the patient for lunch
In the sample sentences I tried to capture different events:
negation (didn’t invite)
Subject and object swap (the patient invited the doctor)
Subject synonym (surgeon instead of doctor)
Object synonym (lunch instead of meal)
Similar action (go out for tea instead of invite for lunch)
Nonsensical permutation of the main sentence words
A random sentence in the same language
A random sentence in another language
Screenshot from the website
I tried the classic word embeddings and the 3 contextual embeddings, and these are the similarities of each similar sentence with the main sentence:
Similarity results for sample sentences
Some interesting conclusions:
In my ignorant opinion, linguistically speaking, someone doing something is opposite to someone not doing something. Meaning wise, it is the opposite. Yet it seems that the embeddings are very very similar, over 90% similarity in all 4 cases. This might be because in all the possible ways we can join words to form a sentence, these 2 sentences are talking about the same specific thing and the contrast is only a small part compared to how similar they are.
The embedding similarity is even higher (over 97%) for subject-object swapping.
Subject and object synonyms also yield very high embedding similarities (over 95%) which is logical.
Index 4 is a similar action but with different words, making the similarity slightly lower, 80% or above.
Indexes 1 and 5 contain the same words as the main sentence but changed in order, with a different meaning. Unsurprisingly, word embeddings are exactly the same as in the main sentence.
Index 5 is nonsensical yet contextual embeddings are very similar to the ones from the main sentence.
For random sentences, the similarities go lower with the lowest similarity being for a random sentence in another language.
Yet BERT yield very high similarity even for random sentences in other languages. The random English sentence has a similarity of 76% while the random Spanish one has 80%. It remains a mystery what kind of sentence can generate a very different BERT embedding.
Open questions
I did this research as part of a university assignment and I asked myself some questions, which now I write here as open questions for the readers. I made some experiments and wrote my findings in the talk slides. I recommend trying out the experiments in the website yourself before looking up my conclusions!
Does word order matter in contextual embeddings?
What is the impact of lexical similarity? (Sentences containing the same words)
What is the impact of synonyms?
What is the impact of out of vocabulary words? (Words that the embeddings don’t recognize: misspellings, foreign words)
The website is free to use, you can do as many experiments as you want and I added many languages, you can check how embeddings change and adapt to different languages. Feel free to check the source code on Github, start the repository and chat with me on Twitter if you have any questions, interesting findings or you just want to connect :)
Thanks for reading! | https://towardsdatascience.com/analysis-of-contextual-embedding-similarity-for-similar-sentences-4801cf9d8283#799a-11b5d844a477 | ['Ane Berasategi'] | 2020-12-22 16:19:59.587000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'NLP', 'Research', 'Embedding'] |
Christmas Commission Bundle Review (15+ Products) and 17+ Bonuses — ALL at 99% OFF | What is the Christmas Commission Bundle?
Massive Savings: 15+ Of Our Best Selling Software Products For The Price Of One INSTANTLY SAVE THOUSANDS WITH 99% OFF SPECIAL CHRISTMAS COMMISSION BUNDLE!
The Biggest Software Bundle Deal of The Year is Here!
+HUGE 99% OFF EVERY PRODUCT
+15+ Automated Software Products
+30+ Training Products
+Market-Proven Top Sellers
+100% Beginner Friendly
+Free Traffic Included
+World Class Support
+Take Advantage Of Low Time Price For The BEST Software Bundle On Earth!
+ 180 Day 100% Money Back Guarantee
Leverage cutting-edge profit apps for multiple income streams in any niche
Christmas Commission bundle by Glynn Kosky, a top 1% vendor at WarriorPlus, is a collection 15+ market-proven hot-selling Traffic & Commission apps. This is the best deal you’re going to get in 2020. Here’s why:
All apps have been handpicked by the Clickbank Platinum Award Winning Vendor himself
Leverage cutting-edge profit apps for multiple income streams in any niche
Hand-selected as the most beginner-friendly solutions on the market
Industry-leading A-Z training for each from start to profit
Market-proven: consumers have voted with their wallets to make these top-sellers in their categories
What Do You Get with the Christmas Commission Bundle?
YOU WON’T FIND VALUE LIKE THIS ANYWHERE ELSE!!!
15 Best Selling Apps For Less than Price Of 1
PURCHASING THESE APPS SEPARATELY COST $344.25
Christmas Commission Bundle Includes Best & Top Rates Following Products:
+Commission Shortcut — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+DigiProduct Lab — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+Commission Funnels — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+DigiFunnel Lab — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+HighTicket Hijack — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+Freebie Commissions — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+AffiliSites — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+Commission Replicator — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+Recurring Profit Machine — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+Giveaway Profits — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+CB Profit Sites — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+TubeSiphon — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+MagickFunnels — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+Triple Traffic Bots — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+Big Ticket Commissions — WARRIORPLUS DEAL OF THE DAY!
+GLYNN’S MEGA TRAFFIC TRAINING SUITE!
You will get a HUGE 99% OFF EVERY PRODUCT. It means You will get –
15+ Automated Software Products
30+ Training Products
Market-Proven Top Sellers
100% Beginner Friendly
Free Traffic Included
World Class Support
Take Advantage Of Low Time Price For The BEST Software Bundle On Earth!
WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH Christmas Commission Bundle?
YOU CAN GET Free Viral Traffic, Monetized Websites, earn Recurring Commissions, Automated all your Profit Funnels, Earn Affiliate Commissions, You can Buyer Traffic, Make High Ticket Sales, Make eCommerce Sites, Automated List Building, Make Online Passive Income, Make Affiliate Review Sites and Video Marketing Profits
The best thing is, it’s all 100% beginner-friendly, so don’t worry if you’re new to this and have never done it!
Get Learn More > The link given in it is of affiliate marketing. | https://medium.com/@nepalimajankari/christmas-commission-bundle-review-15-products-and-17-bonuses-all-at-99-off-594502754a5b | ['Digital Review'] | 2020-12-21 04:21:32.439000+00:00 | ['Affiliate Marketing Tips', 'Learn More', 'Affiliate Marketing Tools', 'Make Money Online', 'Christmas Bundle Review'] |
Go/No Go | Read a revised version of this essay in The Washington Post and follow-up essays by Derek Lowe (In The Pipeline) and John LaMattina (Forbes).
An excerpt from one of the many letters we received at Nivien Therapeutics.
Two years ago, I met a professor at Harvard to discuss his new manuscript.
He’d identified a master regulator of systems in cells that stop several cancer drugs from working. When a scientist in his lab inactivated the regulator, the drugs destroyed pancreatic tumors — in mice.
The regulator — a signaling pathway called Hippo — had never been targeted in humans. With the professor, my co-founder and our advisors, we launched Nivien Therapeutics and filed our first patent on Christmas Eve in 2016 using a Harvard dorm as our business address.
We raised venture capital; recruited scientists; and designed, synthesized and patented the first molecules that potently inhibit a core component of the Hippo pathway. A top journal published the professor’s paper and scientists at UCSD revealed that our strategy may not only enhance treatment, but also act as a novel immunotherapy.
Suddenly backed by funding, patents and publications, I left Harvard one semester before graduation to lead our team at a new lab in SF.
We ran a barrage of experiments with partners on three continents to test our approach. I pitched Nivien to hundreds of scientists and investors at the IndieBio Demo Day. AstraZeneca invited us to join its state-of-the-art BioHub.
Then — after months of rapid chemical development and hard-won progress on the biology — we hit a brick wall of ambiguous and negative data.
Our basic hypothesis proved true. When Hippo is inactivated, the levels of key proteins that break down or export many drugs from cancer cells —rendering the drugs ineffective — are reduced.
But the magnitude of that benefit proved much less than we’d hoped, and our initially-positive results didn’t generalize beyond early proof-of-concept.
What would I say to the patients who had written to us?
As soon as Nivien began to gain traction — and resulting press, first in Harvard PR, then in The Daily Beast, Forbes and my hometown newspapers — the letters started to roll in.
“First of all, thank you for your cutting edge research with cancer treatment,” wrote one woman. “Recently, a dear 45 year old male friend was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. He did have a successful Whipple surgery with clean margins, but there is other involvement.”
Our chief medical advisor is a surgical oncologist at MGH with a PhD focused on pancreatic cancer. He does several Whipple surgeries a week and taught me the paradigm. While 5-year survival for stage four pancreatic cancer has hovered at 5% for decades, I knew just two words meant the writer’s friend would not make it to 50 — that final, fatal qualifier: “other involvement.”
She asked if we were offering any studies he could join.
“He is looking to start treatment ASAP… We who love him are desperate to see he gets a fighting chance at more years… With the wonderful write ups you are getting I’m hoping you are getting fully funded.”
Another note came directly from a patient.
“I am currently going through chemo for pancreatic cancer… As of now the treatment is working but its [sic] having severe side effects on my body. I was very intrigued by the research conducted by you guys.”
Most writers recognized the poor odds. They also saw an opportunity to help pursue a better standard-of-care: each request was matched by two offers of assistance. “I was wondering if I can be any help to the cause,” he concluded.
Other writers were nonplussed by common medical jargon, like “preclinical.”
“I’d like to chat with you about the realities of your potential therapy, and even what opportunities may exist for a preclinical trial evaluation,” wrote a tech executive two years into treatment.
“Preclinical” is prior to human studies, but it’s easy to be misled by how the media, and often biotech companies themselves, describe emerging science. All new discoveries take years to become new medicines, if they work at all, but even in scientific papers it can sound like a cure is just around the corner.
The “realities of [our] potential therapy” were that it was another Hail Mary against one of the most lethal diseases. Rereading an article about Nivien, I saw how easily a person with cancer could misinterpret the headline — and how I, like too many entrepreneurs, had not provided enough caveats when talking about the potential of our work.
It’s easy to accidentally generate the impression of an imminent win. Often, new biotechnologies really are revolutionary. Many companies, however, generate this impression intentionally, even when undeserved.
Raising money, recruiting people and building a movement around your mission almost demands irrational optimism, especially in failure-riddled drug development.
There is an allure and a danger to believing in something like this, giving it your all, and seeking to convince others to do the same while knowing the chances of success are lean. No one wants to commit to a marginal endeavor.
But employees want transparency. Investors want a fair bet. And patients, who know more than anyone, want honesty. They are not one-liners for your PR machines or slides for your pitch decks. Now, reading the latest and greatest biotech PR, I’m furious when I see overstated results and oversold potential.
“Treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.” —Immanuel Kant
I spent hours crafting replies to the letters. How to express reality without savaging hope? I scoured www.clinicaltrials.gov for new studies, of which there are always too few. I replied to each message, sometimes leading to exchanges that were emotional, devastating and inspiring all at once.
I had met several people with pancreatic cancer before launching Nivien, often at clinics in Boston. The father of a boy I hung out with one summer as a kid had set a record for survival in a particular clinical setting, then died when we were in middle school.
But once I left Harvard to work on Nivien, I spent most of my time at our lab and didn’t meet a patient in person for months. The one exception was during a biotech conference at Harvard, where I met a woman who had survived for years with stage four pancreatic cancer after many grueling rounds of chemo.
Then, during a visit home, after it had become clear that our program was unlikely to succeed, my Dad fell off a dock while helping a man tie up a boat.
Dad climbed out, glasses gone, and went inside to dry. The sailor lent me and my girlfriend his snorkeling gear and we went diving (unsuccessfully) to retrieve the glasses in the waning light. After it became impossible to see beneath the water, we returned the gear to the sailor and started to talk.
He was tanned, fit, and a movie producer whose films I’d seen. He was also dying of pancreatic cancer. He had heard about Nivien at a party and wanted to learn more. Shivering, I gathered the courage to tell him that we were in a tough spot. Nowhere near as tough as his, I thought.
He took it well — much better than I had. It was cold, windy and darkening. I asked if he’d like to come home with my family for a hot dinner. He looked at the aftermath of the sunset and told me that he needed to move the boat to the lagoon before full dark, but that he’d call us when he was done. I gave him my number and watched him walk, alone, back to the end of the dock.
He didn’t come over for dinner. When I started this post over Thanksgiving, I didn’t know if he was still alive. But then we saw each other again, months later, last weekend. He’s in a clinical trial now and seems better off than many.
When I email newly-announced trials to people who’d written to me and they don’t reply, is it because they’re too busy, too sick, or already found one? It’s almost never because they got better. Is it because they’re already dead?
After I told our investors that we were done, helped our scientists find new jobs, and returned to Harvard for my final semester, I got one last message.
The writer’s Dad, it turned out, is only a couple years older than mine. | https://nbhorwitz.medium.com/no-go-2f996ef3d17a | ['Nathaniel Brooks Horwitz'] | 2019-04-26 10:55:02.387000+00:00 | ['Harvard', 'Pancreatic Cancer', 'Nathaniel Brooks Horwitz', 'Biotechnology', 'Cancer'] |
How Augmented Reality can change how we navigate a natural disaster | In times of crisis, albeit a natural disaster the likes of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, one of the chief complaints outside of inconvenience, displacement and utter loss, is the lack of guidance and clear communications by local and state authorities. This is something seen time and time again during major storm occurrences. What if that changed? Actually, what if that notion was made completely obsolete thanks to advances in Augmented Reality (AR)? This is our thinking here at MIMIR Blockchain Solutions. Let’s explore.
The way we see it there can be benefits to using secure blockchain supported AR applications by first-responders, government officials and civilians alike. Having the opportunity to see validated virtual objects superimposed into the real world can create an amazing and trusted two-way communication system, one that is desperately needed.
As it stands today, prior to a major storm event or natural disaster, one could (on most days) simply pull out his/her phone and have a GPS application to help them guide them to their destination. But what if that destination no longer existed or became a danger area on the heels of a storm? Wouldn’t you want to know this ahead of time? This opens the door for the creation of an augmented crisis map that could be validated by local authorities and seen via a mobile device, something that can help not only calm civilians in need, but also guide them more safely along “tagged” routes. For example, there may be a flooded area where first-responders use augmented imagery marked as “proceed with caution, down cables wires ahead” — see image below. This augmented marking of places could be an invaluable tool and heads up for people on the move trying to get to safety.
Speaking of safety, it is hard to prepare for Mother Nature but it may be possible to use AR for training purposes in order to help first-responders more effectively prepare how to handle live situations and circumstances that could occur under even the worst storm conditions. By having enhanced training methods for on-site crisis preparedness and implementation via mobile AR
interfaces, agencies such as FEMA could help save more lives during emergency response activities.
In a rewards based society such as ours, just look at the Pokemon Go craze, it may not be unthinkable to consider offering rewards to those being a good citizen. While unfortunately there is sometimes looting post natural disasters, there are often amazing stories of kindness and humanity happening between neighbors and strangers alike. Maybe AR can help that along by earning badges or points of some sort for those willing to donate blood, deliver clean water or offer up some temporary housing solutions.
Since most signage on buildings and along roads are often torn apart by devastating storms, it could make sense for local municipalities and state highway departments to use augmented signage as a modern means to temporary replace damaged signs needed to maintain calm and order, especially since some areas could take months or even years to be rebuilt.
As blockchain enabled AR continues to advance, it will very likely for new applications to help in the actual recovery from natural disasters. Companies like Ikea are already developing apps for consumers to use AR to test how furniture looks in their homes.
Another area to watch for that could use blockchain enabled AR post storms is the insurance sector. The use of AR could help adjusters virtually measure damaged areas through a policyholders phone, something that could dramatically speed up resolution time. Additionally, using AR to visualize what a contractor could do to restore your home seems like a no-brainer — having the contractor validated, rated and ultimately compensated for their services is another opportunity.
One things for sure, there is a lot of upside for blockchain supported AR applications to be a real technology force before, during and after the next big storm. Consider this, if our lives and habitats may be threatened by more severe acts of Mother Nature, something very much taking place this 2017 Hurricane season, the opportunity to tap digital solutions like AR to become better prepared shouldn’t be taken for granted. It should be a no-brainer.
To learn more about how blockchain supported AR solutions can become more mainstream, please visit our website (https://www.mimirblockchain.solutions) or follow us on Twitter
@MimirBlockchain to join the conversation. It’s an important one! | https://medium.com/mimir-blockchain/how-augmented-reality-can-change-how-we-navigate-a-natural-disaster-d7fbde0d735b | ['Nicolas Fierro'] | 2017-09-13 19:30:44.170000+00:00 | ['Augmented Reality', 'Crypto', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Blockchain', 'Decentralization'] |
Express route param regex validation | The punchline here is that the docs actually provide all the information needed but, when you’re glancing for a quick overview in how their API works, it can be very easy to miss (and apparently I’m not the only one who feels that way).
The quick and dirty:
express 4.11
Essentially the following snippet would need to be run prior to leveraging the router.param(fn) method if you're using express <= 4.11 . (you can use app instead of router)
router.param(function(name, fn) {
if (fn instanceof RegExp) {
return function(req, res, next, val) {
var captures;
if (captures = fn.exec(String(val))) {
req.params[name] = captures;
next();
} else {
next('route');
}
}
}
});
This then grants you the ability to validate route params using the following:
// validation rule for id: should be one or more digits
router.param('id', /^\d+$/);
router.get('/user/:id', function(req, res) {
res.send('user ' + req.params.id);
});
express 4.12
If you’re using express >= 4.12 you can accomplish the same without the need of router.param(fn) using the following. In fact, the pre 4.12 example above will pop a deprecation warning.
app.get('/user/:userId([0-9]+)', fn);
While this is stated in the doc, it is quite easy to miss. Hopefully this helps clear things up for those that skim the docs as I did. | https://medium.com/sean3z/express-route-param-regex-validation-de3790d110c3 | ['Sean Wragg'] | 2018-05-30 01:53:42.117000+00:00 | ['Expressjs', 'Nodejs', 'Technology'] |
Solving the Contract Trilemma | Collaboration is as old as human kind. Its complexity ranges from two college students pooling funds together for a car, to the two hundred merchants collaborating as shareholders in the famous East India Company. Collaboration under the structure of a corporation gave us the modern world. As Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia University and Nobel Peace Prize winner said in 1911:
Limited Liability Corporation(LLC) was “the greatest single discovery of modern times”, surpassing steam and electricity, as without which, they would both “be reduced to comparative impotence”.
LLC was a creative legal leap forward. It is formed through a series of contracts and is a prime example of how contracts embody collaboration.
A contract is defined as an enforceable agreement of collaboration between two or more parties. Contracts vary in both formality and complexity — from verbal and written contracts enforced by law, to blockchain smart contracts enforced by code.
Verbal agreements can create legally binding contracts, only if the right contractual elements are present. This often fails as providing proof becomes difficult in the case of he-said she-said.
agreements can create legally binding contracts, only if the right contractual elements are present. This often fails as providing proof becomes difficult in the case of he-said she-said. Written Contracts , are in itself, proof of an agreement of collaboration between its signatories. However, enforcement of them are often open to interpretation and does not provide reproducible results and can be extremely costly.
, are in itself, proof of an agreement of collaboration between its signatories. However, enforcement of them are often open to interpretation and does not provide reproducible results and can be extremely costly. Smart Contracts provide collaborators binding agreements, and are guaranteed to self-enforce as coded. However, most platforms have limited functionality. On Ethereum, complexity has an imposed limit and even when one stays within the bounds, the contract then becomes prohibitively expensive to run.
The current pricing mechanism for Smart Contracts are fundamentally flawed, hindering the possibility of complex collaborations. In addition, the ability of contract drafting no longer belongs to professionals and parties involved, rather it is placed in the hands of software developers. Smart Contracts are a new leap forward, but fails to provide an adequate solution to handle complexity and remains inaccessible to most users.
The above can be summarized by the “Contract Trilemma”
Spanner protocol employs an integrated design of technology and economical model that will change the landscape of Smart Contracts. It empowers any user to draft Complex, Self-Enforceable and Economical Smart Contracts using plug-and-play components and templates. These components along with Spanner economics will incentivize and enable people to assemble around common objectives. Communities will form organically and collaborate to tackle some of the most complex settlement issues.
We are excited to finally share some of our ideas with you. There will be much more to come so stay tuned, follow and share this article!
by Sergei Smirnov | https://medium.com/@spannerprotocol/solving-the-contract-trilemma-33e493f56596 | [] | 2020-12-28 11:44:38.492000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Spannerprotocol', 'Smart Contracts', 'Crypto'] |
Are All Tokens Securities? | Here’s a billion dollar question that has the blockchain community at the edge of their seats: which tokens are securities?
SEC Chairman recently stated that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are not securities, but most ICOs likely are. Here we’ll take a look at what some of the applicable laws are, but note: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The Howey Test
The most direct method that the SEC uses for determining if an ICO token is a security is the Howey test. The Howey test is named after the 1946 Supreme Court case “Securities and Exchange Commission v. W. J. Howey Co. et al.” A Florida farmer had raised capital by selling some of his orange grove to a group of investors. Rather than becoming farmers themselves, the investors provided capital and were acting as speculators on the land value. The investment was not registered with the SEC, and actions were taken against Howey and his investors once their plan was discovered.
The outcome of this case, which worked its way up the court system, was a very tight definition of a security by Justice Frank Murphy. Investment contracts were defined as having these characteristics:
Scheme involves an investment of money In a common enterprise With an expectation of profit Solely from the efforts of others
Applying this to ICOs
There were plenty of ICOs in 2017 that met the definition above. There were also some that met a few, but not all of the above. There’s been a lot of focus by teams on avoiding price discussions, who want to avoid misleading token buyers with an “expectation of profit”. However, it seems that the fourth condition would be the easiest to comply with: take care that token holders must take part in the building, development, and use of a project. This could mean staking (which puts holders’ tokens to work securing the blockchain), regular participation for rewards, or a future token standard that requires use at some periodic interval (preventing or punishing rent seekers who do nothing but hope for passive income).
Early, first generation Ethereum ICOs all require participation for rewards: Digix and Augur require participation and voting, while Maker’s token is required to create and close Collateralized Debt Positions. Each of these tokens seems a strong case against number 4 in the list of characteristics above. They occupy a new territory between passive income and the gig economy, giving token holders rewards for being active in their prospective communities.
It’s utility tokens like these that seem to provide an incentive for the SEC to keep a wait and see philosophy, going after only the most egregious schemes and frauds.
Hedge’s Place in this World
Utility tokens provide new rewards and opportunities for investors, including incentives to be actively involved with their tokens. This level of interaction will require new software that is tailored to allow investors to securely access their tokens, bridging the gap between next generation financial opportunities and retail investors nationwide. This is why Hedge is creating unique custody solutions.
What Hedge Offers
Security:
Hedge leads the industry in providing secure wallets with proprietary best in class distributed cold storage practices. The keys to your funds never touch the internet and cannot be stolen by hackers. There is no single point of failure that can jeopardize your fiduciary.
Applications:
Hedge offers application interface solutions to make your apps work with our apps. Small regional bank looking to compete? Incorporate Hedge’s APIs into your app and give your customers the ability to buy and sell bitcoin through your institution.
Access:
Hedge is the only firm in the industry that gives you 24/7 access to your funds. We net settle transactions in a proprietary process that maintains the safety of keys in cold storage, but with near real time trading.
Let Hedge manage blockchains; you manage your clients.
Subscribe to our newsletter for up to date information on Hedge, etc etc. | https://medium.com/usehedge/are-all-tokens-securities-215cb528dd1a | ['Ryan Loomba'] | 2018-08-31 15:51:01.032000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin'] |
GCP Digest: BigQuery Omni, Confidential VMs, Serverless Load Balancing, Recommendations AI | GCP Digest: BigQuery Omni, Confidential VMs, Serverless Load Balancing, Recommendations AI
GCP Digest Issue 5 (July 27, 2020)
Subscribe at gcpdigest.com to get this in your inbox!
The main highlights coming out of the first week of Next OnAir moves Google Cloud into very strategic enterprise positions albeit with offerings that differ greatly from the approach taken by other clouds (or no equivalent in other clouds).
First, the ability to use BigQuery while keeping your data in other clouds with BigQuery Omni. Second, Confidential VMs that allow your data to remain encrypted in-memory, and only decrypted right before hitting the CPU. Third, Assured Workloads for Government to use public cloud without a dedicated government cloud data center.
Short commentary: We are seeing the continual trend of Google Cloud preferring to govern things via software instead of via traditional physical and network separation. (After all, they have only one huge code repository in Google?) We have already seen this manifest itself via virtual software-defined global networks (so easy for customers). Now GCP takes it a step further with software guarding the use of government cloud without physical data center separation. As a software engineer, I can’t help but feel that using software to govern things is always a risk (however inevitable that is nowadays with SaaS). There is always a chance that a bug in software causes things to go down, or causes huge security issues. We have already witnessed multiple (minor?) GCP outages in the past year which I observed to likely be caused by global network configuration issues, or something centrally managed like Cloud IAM. End of the day, pros and cons still apply to the cloud. The jury is still out on what is the best approach.
On my end, I gave a talk on Cloud Build last week in a DevOps Malaysia meetup! In the talk, I explain in detail how to use Cloud Build, and give a demo deploying Ruby on Rails via Cloud Build in a real world example. Check it out!
Happy reading!
- Jonathan Lin
Multi-cloud analytics with BigQuery Omni
BigQuery Omni is a flexible, multi-cloud analytics solution that lets you cost-effectively access and securely analyze data across Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Azure (coming soon), without leaving the familiar BigQuery user interface (UI). BigQuery Omni runs on Anthos clusters that are fully managed by Google Cloud (read: you do not pay for Anthos), allowing you to securely execute queries on other public clouds. I believe even the egress charges are covered by Google Cloud. You only pay for the familiar $5 per TB charge for BigQuery. BigQuery Omni is currently in private alpha. Check out the blog post.
Confidential Computing with Confidential VMs
As it stands, your data in Google Cloud is always encrypted-at-rest and in-transit, but decrypted in memory for use (e.g. in Compute Engine), which in itself is much better than what other clouds are doing (e.g. AWS allows unencrypted-at-rest storage in S3). Google Cloud goes even further with Confidential Computing, a breakthrough technology which encrypts data in-use — while it is being processed. Confidential Computing environments keep data encrypted in memory and elsewhere outside the central processing unit (CPU). Now in beta, it is the first product in Google Cloud’s Confidential Computing portfolio, which helps customers protect sensitive data, especially in regulated industries. It leverages Asylo, an open-source framework for confidential computing. More in the blog post.
Assured Workloads for Government
When it comes to government workloads, AWS and Azure took the traditional approach of building separate data centers solely for government use, at the cost of slower pace of innovation. But these “government clouds” don’t come with the technology and benefits that a modern commercial cloud provides, and often require users to operate two distinct application and operation supply chains, adding cost, complexity, and risk. (GCP makes it sound like government clouds are lagging behind in features, true or false?) Now in private beta, Assured Workloads for Government, Google Cloud customers can quickly and easily create controlled environments where U.S. data location and personnel access controls are automatically enforced in any of their U.S. cloud regions. See the blog post.
Global HTTP(S) Load Balancing and CDN for serverless compute
Historically, serverless products like App Engine used a different HTTP load balancing system than VM-based products like Compute Engine. With the new External HTTP(S) Load Balancing integration, serverless offerings like App Engine (standard and flex), Cloud Functions and Cloud Run can now use the same fully featured enterprise-grade HTTP(S) load balancing capabilities as the rest of Google Cloud.
With this integration, you can now assign a single global anycast IP address to your service, manage its certificates and TLS configuration, integrate with Cloud CDN, and for Cloud Run and Functions — load balance across regions. And over the coming months, GCP will continue to add features like support for Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) and Cloud Armor.
If you ask me, Cloud Load Balancer is slowly but surely becoming more and more like an API Gateway of sorts; you can mix and match any sort of backend, regardless of whether they are serverless or not, within Google Cloud or without. See the blog post for more.
New traffic control features in External HTTP(S) load balancer
In April, Google Cloud announced two new actions supported by the URL map: redirects and rewrites. Now, the External HTTP(S) load balancer also supports HTTP to HTTPS redirects. Previously, you would need to implement the redirect in your backend, with increased computational costs, configurational complexity, latency and bandwidth consumption. In addition, the load balancer can also signal that the request should be sent to a different host, or to a different URL path. Essentially, you can now redirect and rewrite from HTTP to HTTPS in the load balancer.
A URL redirect is usually a conversation between the user (browser) and the load balancer, but with the new URL rewrite feature, the URL redirect only affects communication between the load balancer and the backend. There is no need to go back all the way to the browser for the redirection (the traditional redirect). Another capability enabled by these new Cloud Load Balancing features is making routing decisions based on HTTP headers and/or query parameters, rather than just the host and path of the URL. Check out the blog post.
Recommendations AI
Recommendations AI is now in beta. Recommendations AI places greater emphasis on each individual customer rather than on an item, thus piecing together the history of a customer’s shopping journey and serving them with personalized product recommendations. Recommendations AI also excels at handling recommendations in scenarios with long-tail products and cold-start users and items. Its “context hungry” deep learning models use item and user metadata to draw insights across millions of items at scale and constantly iterate on those insights in real-time in a way that is impossible for manually curated rules to keep up with. It also delivers a simplified model management experience in a scalable managed service with an intuitive UI. Check out the blog post.
Proxyless gRPC in Traffic Director
Many organizations turn to a service mesh to solve tedious and complicated networking problems, especially when using microservices. However, adopting a service mesh has traditionally meant (1) managing infrastructure (a control plane), and (2) running sidecar proxies (the data plane) that handle networking on behalf of your applications.
To solve the first problem, we already have Traffic Director, a Google Cloud-managed control plane. Google Cloud has also now announced a new approach to solving the second problem, i.e. you shouldn’t need to manage a fleet of sidecar proxies. With Traffic Director support for proxyless gRPC services, you can bring proxyless gRPC applications to your proxy-based service mesh or even have a fully proxyless service mesh.
Proxyless gRPC is built on the simple idea: If Traffic Director can configure sidecar proxies to do load balancing on behalf of a gRPC client, why not have it just configure the gRPC client directly? Check out the blog post for more.
Google Cloud customers unite on C2C
C2C (Customer to Community) is a new, independent community for Google Cloud customers. It brings together IT executives, developers, and other cloud professionals from Google Cloud customers across the globe. It hopes to build a community where Google Cloud customers can learn, connect, and share knowledge, we can harness our collective power to create an even better cloud to address customer needs.
Some benefits of joining C2C:
Opportunities to make connections and learn from other customers, including sharing knowledge and best practices through virtual and in-person events;
Expanded access to Google Cloud experts and content, such as knowledge forums, white papers, and methodologies;
Early and exclusive access to Google Cloud product roadmaps, with opportunities to provide feedback and act as customer-advisors.
It is now open to all customers in North America and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa). Asian folks will have to wait (a bit longer). See the blog post.
Google Cloud ISV/SaaS Centre of Excellence
Frankly, slightly vague about what this is about. The Google Cloud ISV/SaaS Center of Excellence (CoE) is a new resource to help independent software vendors (ISVs), aka software companies. ISV Solution Architects within the CoE bring product, technology and solution architecture expertise across Google Cloud and other Google product areas. There is little detail in the blog post about what exactly a Center of Excellence resource is. Is it a forum? Is it a document? Is it a helpdesk to ask for help regarding solutions architecture?
Meet and Chat, right in Gmail
G Suite now intelligently brings together the people, content, and tasks you need to make the most of your time. Core tools like video, chat, email, files, and tasks will be integrated together (into Gmail), so that you can more easily stay on top of things, from anywhere. Watch the introductory YouTube video.
New G Suite security features
A couple of interesting new G Suite security features:
Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) enables organizations, who authenticate their emails using DMARC, to validate ownership of their corporate logos and securely transmit them to Google.
Google Meet: Increased control for meeting hosts over who can “knock” and join their meetings, as well as advanced safety locks (e.g. hosts can decide which methods of joining require explicit approval, etc.)
Google Chat: When a link is sent to you via Chat, it will be checked against real-time data from Safe Browsing and flagged if it’s found to be malicious. Also, you’ll be able to report and block Chat Rooms if you suspect malicious activity in one.
More in the blog post.
Beta? GA?
The list below is best-effort and not meant to be exhaustive.
Entered GA
Entered Beta
For more product updates, visit Google Cloud release notes
Events
Next OnAir (Weekly for 9 weeks, starting July 14)
More
For way more, check out TWiGCP’s past two issues.
See you next time! | https://medium.com/joncloudgeek/gcp-digest-bigquery-omni-confidential-vms-serverless-load-balancing-recommendations-ai-f41c341d122a | ['Jonathan Es Lin'] | 2020-07-28 13:47:51.579000+00:00 | ['Gcp Digest', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Google Cloud'] |
Results are Found in the Daily Coffee Bean Grind | Courtesy of Pexels
Each Day Literally Starts with a Grind
I start every morning with a cup of coffee. Just like many other people in the world.
It’s a must. Do not talk to me until I have one. The brain doesn’t turn on until it smells that aroma.
Go Whole Bean or Go Home
Throughout the years I’ve become a coffee aficionado, understanding the process of selecting beans, roasting, and the many different ways to brew it.
But one thing has remained the same for several years now. I still grind my own beans.
I buy whole bean coffee…have for years now. The k-cup used to just pop into the Keurig and brew. Not anymore. I’ve stepped my game up.
Simple, easy, takes 2 minutes and i’ve got a cup.
Although it’s quick and simple, it’s also lazy. And I wasn’t trying to start my day off lazy with a cheap cup of coffee.
So I switched to whole bean and started grinding my own beans.
It might seem ridiculous to do this, but starting every day off with the physical labor of hand grinding the beans was a motivator.
The purpose behind it was to mentally prepare me for each day. If I’m not willing to hand grind the beans daily then I’m not going to do the hard work the rest of the day.
And the rest is history. I hand grind my beans daily. I only buy whole bean coffee.
Normcore Hand Grinder
In fact, I just picked up a new hand grinder. You can check it out on Amazon HERE. I highly recommend it.
Finding Results in the Grind
I found a lot of results in the grind. Realizing that I had a process that required me to take 10–15 minutes of my morning to think about a process, do the work, and wait for results.
10–15 minutes of mentally and physically exercising myself.
The results? I got the blood flowing, I woke up, and I started the day off with accomplishing something. And in 2020, that’s an achievement in itself.
Yes, it takes a little longer to brew it and more equipment.
Yes, I have to impatiently wait for all of this to occur before I can take the first sip.
But, it’s taught me lessons in patience, hard work, and dedication.
Every single day is a grind for me, literally starting with the first turn of the hand grinder. | https://medium.com/@jeffclark533/results-are-found-in-the-daily-coffee-bean-grind-a53b53da2b70 | ['Jeff Clark'] | 2020-12-14 14:08:24.321000+00:00 | ['Motivation', 'Coffee', 'Daily Grind'] |
How to use Cryptoverview with Bittrex? | Cryptoverview is our new project to bring more insights into your cryptocurrency portfolio and enhance the trading experience. It will visualize your assets in a donut graph, display your grows in a time graph, list trending currencies, display your individual assets with indicators, show closed and open orders. There are many more features yet to come.
Cryptoverview currently only supports Bittrex. More API connections are planned. In order to connect this service you need to generate an API key pair in your Bittrex account.
Step 1: Login to Bittrex
Log into your Bittrex account and head over to the “Settings” menu
Step 2: Find the API area
Select “API Keys” on the left side menu
Step 3: Create new API Keys
Select “Add New Key” and a “new key” row will appear. Give it “Read Info”, input your Authentificator Code if you use one and press finally “Update Keys”.
The “Key” and “Secret” are needed for the next step.
Cryptoverview only needs the “Read Info” right. Future features may need more rights.
Step 4: Create a Cryptoverview account
Head over to https://cryptoverview.com and press “Create a new account”. Enter a unique username, a secret and strong password and your keys from Step 3.
Step 5: Enjoy
Now you’ve gained access. Your portfolio data will be crunched and displayed in various graphs, lines and tables. Cryptoverview is still in a very early stage. If you run into problems or have something to say feel free to drop us a mail over at [email protected]. | https://medium.com/wertarbyte/how-to-use-cryptoverview-with-bittrex-a3af8ef97b3d | ['Sascha Becker'] | 2018-03-06 18:48:53.379000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bittrex', 'API', 'React'] |
Talking Our Book: The State of Cryptocurrency Trading Infrastructure | By Paul Sacks & Ari Pine
Frequently it is considered crass, especially outside of finance, to be promoting an idea that is self-serving. However, in the investing world, speaking well of an asset for which one has a position is often presumed, and discounted as such — so one may as well. In that spirit, we present to you our current view on where the state of the marketplace for cryptocurrency trading infrastructure. It is true that this perspective will ultimately point out how Digital Gamma is positioned to benefit, but that does not make it any less (or more) accurate. And we can assure you, to an uncomfortable extent, we have skin in this game.
One of the beauties of getting caught up in the excitement of cryptocurrency is the rapidity with which one becomes a veteran in the space. Back in December when we became sucked into the crypto vortex, the fragmentation of the marketplace and the immaturity of the trading technology jumped out at us. So, while our most immediate expertise is trading — with a strong minor in development — providing tools and services to the institutional trading community jumped out as the clear path to take.
Particularly at that time, it was clear that the exchanges ruled the roost. Trading was volatile, and pricing on various exchanges could be very different. It is not that market makers did not exist. They did, but at that time, at least by appearances to the public at large, exchanges were at the center of it. But it was also clear that exchanges as they were, or the system within which they operated, had to change. For the most part, interest and activity far outpaced the infrastructure that it was built to support. This includes both the security and the capacity of the technology.
At that time, savvy investors saw the outsized profits and opportunity in forming an exchange — building exchange infrastructure, especially one that has to account for new types of customers (institutions), uncertain regulations, and new kinds of security needs. It took time to build. Now it is about six to nine months later, and new exchanges are seemingly popping up every other day. Many are describing themselves as being of “institutional quality.” We have named this phenomenon “peak exchange.”
In the seeds of this, the builders looked a step ahead. Exchanges in capital and derivatives markets don’t handle the storing of their assets. In fact, they don’t even deal directly with clients: client facing firms are members of various exchanges and guarantee the trades of their customers. Which, no doubt, led the teams and backers of these exchanges to look ahead a step to handle this need. Institutions are now perceived to be the necessary group to bring cryptocurrency (and its trading) into the mainstream. Institutions, unlike individuals, have rules put in place to ensure their customers (the “other people” of “other people’s money”) are protected. The rules include requirements that a regulated, trusted third party entity has to hold the assets of said institutions: a custodian. So during the building phase for exchanges, the powers that be realized that they needed custody solutions.
We learned, after attending a few conferences, that the state of things was that 1) exchanges are being launched and 2) custody solutions were being built. Even though there are some custody solutions out there (BitGo, ItBit, Xapo, Coinbase, etc.), they are mostly not sufficiently complete for either regulatory reasons or are not yet built out.
The same thing that occurred with the building out of the exchanges is now occurring within the custody world. After putting their heads down to focus on custody and speaking with upcoming clients, there is a realization that storing crypto assets securely is necessary for wide-scale institutional adoption. And of course, those customers want to do something with those assets: invest, trade, earn interest on balances, etc.
Those are precisely the sort of services that prime brokerages provide. Spoiler alert: this is where we are talking our book. While we would like to pat ourselves on the back about our great prescience in planning out both an offering and its timing, the truth is that we are here in the great excitement of it all, too. After 20+ years (each, help us) of trading capital and commodity markets, we’ve seen traders come and go. The brokers (usually) were a more permanent fixture — collecting tolls on each transaction.
But whether it is Digital Gamma or a competitor, prime brokerages are all about providing access to markets. In a marketplace, as fractured as cryptocurrency, this is more urgent than in a world of centralized exchanges. PB is known for more than market access, of course. Securities lending and position financing are essential. Possibly even more important is providing a competent (or even excellent) level of service as a larger scale intermediary with trading partners and venues — or even a magnet for customer opportunities. After all, a prime broker’s customer base represents a large source of order flow or distribution capabilities. This is why it has been at the center of investment banks.
While you look around and see what we call “peak exchange” all around you, consider what is next. The forward-looking people in crypto began building out custody solutions early this year. Now those solutions are beginning to get launched in earnest and seeking appropriate regulatory approval. Figure that “peak custody” is coming soon. The natural step for the smart money is to ask: what’s next?
What’s next? Prime brokerage is next. | https://medium.com/digital-gamma-blog/talking-our-book-the-state-of-cryptocurrency-trading-infrastructure-ad858b56942d | ['Ari Pine'] | 2018-07-27 02:13:22.761000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto Trading', 'Finance'] |
A Tribe’s Fattening Room Culture and How It Affects the Women Involved | A Tribe’s Fattening Room Culture and How It Affects the Women Involved
The fattening practice is prevalent amongst the Efik and Ibibio people of Cross River State, Nigeria. It is otherwise referred to as the 'Mbodi’, an age-old cultural practice that has existed for years.
The practice requires young ladies to be kept and fed for months before they get married. According to this tradition, the lady in question is fed in large amounts before marriage.
“Mbodi is a rite of passage which subjects women of marriageable age to undergo the process of body fattening. In most cases, Mbodi goes with circumcision.” — Ibiene
What is the fattening room process all about?
Before the feeding begins, the girls are put through some rituals such as shaving off their hairs and putting brass rings around their ankles.
On the day the fattening begins, palm oil is rubbed all over the young lady’s body and she is thereafter put in a secluded room where she is to sit on a mat. This room is also known as “the fattening room”; a place where the would-be bride would prepare for marriage, motherhood, and family life.
After some time, she is taught basic etiquette like how to receive visitors and welcome relatives. The process of fattening usually lasts for about a year.
Sylvester Odey, director of the Cultural Center Board has explained that the fattening room is like a kind of school where girls are taught about motherhood.
The daily routine is to sleep, eat, and grow fat.
Asides from eating, fattening also comes with an all-round beauty treatment that involves rubbing the lady’s body with massage oils and native chalk.
During this time, the young woman isn’t allowed to receive any visitors and interaction is also forbidden, except with elderly matrons who teach the would-be brides how to be successful mothers and wives.
As for how much fat is permissible, there is no laid down rule or particular standard. However, the bigger the bride, the better.
With this culture, beauty mostly lies in gaining weight. It doesn’t matter whether the lady is hungry or not. She is constantly fed, not minding if she likes it or not.
The Efik/Ibibio people believe that fattening comes with the following advantages:
It is a sign of privilege and wealth. A lot of lessons are learned during the process. For instance, financial lessons, folklore, and other related traditions are taught during this time. Pampering is also part of the treatment as it is considered to be a good time for relaxation.
Significance of the fattening room culture
In certain parts of Africa, a rotund figure is a sign of good health and wealth. In these places, the general belief is that such body type commands respect and honor from others.
Going to the fattening room is a service that some couples voluntarily opt for before getting married. In most cases, it is done after the bride price has been paid and the would-be husband can also share in the financial burden to pay for the fattening services such as cooking and other related expenses.
While recounting her experience in the fattening room, Happiness Eden, a former visitor to the fattening room said:
"In the morning, you eat ...after eating, you can take a bath. From there you can sleep, you sleep, you wake up, you eat, you sleep."
Concerns about being in the fattening culture
Although this practice places importance on a woman’s rotundity, it is done regardless of health implications such as obesity and other dangerous health conditions.
The ladies involved are usually given heavy food rich in carbohydrates and fat. Some may not find this process easy as they would have no choice but to eat as much as they can, irrespective of their appetite.
As the HubPages website puts it:
“They are usually overfed and must eat even when they don’t have any appetite, the process is grueling, forced and can be mentally and physically tasking.”
While it may be considered a voluntary act, some prospective brides are forced to do it to preserve their tradition. There is the tendency to get mocked by other community members who may feel that a family is financially incapable if their female child(ren) do not go through this rite of passage.
The restriction from the outside world and lack of physical contact also pose to be a problem because, during this time, the ladies are only allowed to sleep, eat, and do nothing more.
Younger girls who are not of marriageable age are also allowed to be involved, but only as a coming-of-age ceremony. It helps prepare them for womanhood. Nursing mothers can also partake if they wish to gain more weight.
Although this practice is gradually becoming extinct due to western influence and its health implications, it is still in practice in some communities. | https://historyofyesterday.com/a-tribes-fattening-room-culture-and-how-it-affects-the-women-involved-1ef4e59ff528 | ['Yewande Adeleke'] | 2021-06-10 11:03:00.165000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'History', 'Writing', 'Africa', 'Tradition'] |
What can be the possible threats in mobile app security? | Smartphones and mobile applications are an essential part of our life. With mobile apps, we can play games, book a flight, socialize, and buy groceries. Recently mobile apps have made inroads into banking and financial sector, where confidential details are exchanged. A security breach in the mobile application can lead to data theft, IP theft, unauthorized access and fraud. From the business perspective imperfect mobile app security, it can lead to dissatisfied customers, revenue loss and eventually tarnished brand image.
1. Device Fragmentation
Mobile application testing needs to cover a multiplicity of mobile devices with different capabilities, features, and limitations. Identification of security vulnerabilities specific to devices makes performance testing a difficult task. The testing team can’t test release as fast as the development team is producing them, so they are becoming a bottleneck in the release process. This also leads to the production of low-quality apps. Most of the apps are made in iOS, Android or Windows environment. But there are different versions of each Operating System (OS) which have a different set of vulnerabilities. Testing of the app on each version is time-consuming and requires application tester to be aware of the loopholes.
2. Tools for Mobile Automation Testing
A reasonable approach to fragmentation requires the use of automation testing. But Traditional testing tools like Selenium or QuickTest Professional (QTP) weren’t designed with cross-platform in mind. So automation tools for mobile app and web application are different. While many test automation and testing tools for mobile have emerged, there is a dearth of full-fledged standard tools that can cater to every step of the security testing. The common mobile automation testing tools are Appium, Robotium, and Ranorex.
3. Weak Encryption
A mobile app can accept data from all kinds of sources. In the absence of sufficient encryption, attackers could modify inputs such as cookies and environment variables. Attackers can bypass the security when decisions on authentication and authorization are made based on the values of these inputs. Recently hackers targeted Starbucks mobile users to siphon money out of their Starbucks mobile app. Starbucks confirmed that its app was storing usernames, email addresses, and passwords in clear text. This allowed anyone with access to the phone to see passwords and usernames just by connecting the phone to a PC.
Mobile encryption
4. Weak Hosting controls
When creating their first mobile applications, businesses often expose server-side systems that were previously inaccessible to outside networks. The servers on which your app is hosted should have security measures to prevent unauthorized users from accessing data. This includes your own servers, and the servers of any third-party systems your app may be accessing. It’s important for the back-end services to be secured against malicious attacks. Thus, all APIs should be verified and proper security methods should be employed ensuring access to authorized personnel only.
5. Insecure Data Storage
In most of the popular apps consumers simply enter their passwords once when activating the payment portion of the app and use it again and again to make unlimited purchases without having to re-input their password or username. In such cases, user data should be secure and usernames, email addresses, and passwords should be encrypted. For example, in 2012 a flaw in Skype data security allowed hackers to open the Skype app and dial arbitrary phone numbers using a simple link in the contents of an email. Design apps in such a way that critical information such as contact details, passwords, and credit card numbers do not reside directly on a device. If they do, they must be stored securely.
Businesses should define standard secure practices during application development. Considering the following concerns, they can ensure security across every aspect of mobility operations:
Data: How does the application fetch and display data?
Network: How does the application access networks?
Device: How vulnerable is the device to loss or theft?
Application: How securely and effectively is the application coded?
Businesses should apply mobile strategy diligently make sure your mobile developers can think through unintended consequences of app design and security. Delivering an easy-to-use app will decrease the brand value if you put customer or enterprise data at risk.
Connect Deeper
If you resonated with this article, please subscribe to our newsletter. You will get a free copy of our Case Study on SMS-Bot Powered by Artificial Intelligence.
The article was originally published at the Maruti Techlabs. | https://medium.com/dayone-a-new-perspective/what-can-be-the-possible-threats-in-mobile-app-security-2a3f26126cf8 | ['Maruti Techlabs'] | 2016-08-12 13:16:12.300000+00:00 | ['Mobile App Development', 'Security', 'Encryption', 'Mobile Apps', 'Webhosting'] |
I go to the beach, and catch my best to feel the wave of emotions, assess my ancient memories into the current. I ache, I desire, I say “yes” to my longing. This is how I control myself. I no longer… | I go to the beach,
and catch my best to feel the wave of emotions, assess my ancient memories
into the current.
I ache, I desire,
I say “yes” to my longing.
This is how I control myself.
I no longer follow all traditions as I was taught in childhood,
but as the zigzag waves splash at times and a new intimacy is uncovered in everything,
perhaps it's that I’m finally learning
to care about my self being.
Vegan Sudesh
📱8452036912
Email: [email protected] | https://medium.com/@vegansudesh/i-go-to-the-beach-and-catch-my-best-to-feel-the-wave-of-emotions-assess-my-ancient-memories-into-e7c011f83904 | ['Vegan Sudesh'] | 2020-12-23 19:47:43.833000+00:00 | ['Vegan Sudesh', 'Vegan Writer', 'Vegan', 'Vegan Story', 'Veganism'] |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.