title
stringlengths 1
200
⌀ | text
stringlengths 10
100k
| url
stringlengths 32
829
| authors
stringlengths 2
392
| timestamp
stringlengths 19
32
| tags
stringlengths 6
263
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
With Tourette Syndrome, One Size Does Not Fit All | Camden Alexander
By Camden Alexander, Tourette Association of America Youth Ambassador
I have been playing the electric guitar since I was nine. I love Green Day, The Offspring, Led Zeppelin and Blink 182. Now I’m in seventh grade, play in a local rock band and feel lucky. I feel lucky because I’ve had the chance to discover how playing instruments helps me be creative and have fun — but it also helps me with my Tourette Syndrome, which I was diagnosed with at age 4.
Playing musical instruments helps me feel in the moment and relaxed. My tics temporarily fade away when I play guitar. I’ve come to love performing and even like to act. I’ve been in You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, Wiley and the Hairy Man and Hamlet. As I get to know more and more kids with Tourette, I learn that so many of us love to rock out, excel at instruments and perform — who would have thought?
I’ve been getting to know a lot of other kids with Tourette, because this past March, I went to Washington D.C. and was trained to be a Tourette Association of America Youth Ambassador. I went to Capitol Hill, met with elected officials and advocated for increased research funds and awareness for Tourette. The more I learned, the more I realized how interesting and unique kids with Tourette really are. May 15 — June 15 is National Tourette Syndrome Awareness Month, the perfect time for everyone to understand what Tourette Syndrome is, and the people who have it.
We are creative, we play sports, we act, we play instruments and we advocate! I’m excited to now have the knowledge base to present and teach the facts related to Tourette. The big issue with this neurological condition is that it’s misunderstood. Movies and pop culture references often focus on Tourette as simply a disorder which involves saying inappropriate things. While some people do have that piece, it’s a minority of those with Tourette. Tourette Syndrome is not a one-size-fits-all condition. It affects everyone differently and it has zero impact on intelligence.
Tourette is marked by experiencing involuntary movements and sounds (tics) that vary in type and severity. However, there are lots of Tourette symptoms that are less obvious than tics, and these other symptoms generally are not understood by teachers, adults or other kids. That’s why the Tourette Association website is set up so people can learn more about Tourette. Tourette is much more than tics.
When I was in kindergarten and early elementary school my teachers did not understand my symptoms and it led to a lot of problems. By second grade though, with the help of my parents, I got an Individualized Education Program (IEP) and I then started to receive the support I needed. Teachers, principals, and special educators were supportive. I think in this sense I was very lucky as well, because I constantly hear how difficult it is for other kids to get this kind of support.
I remember when a Youth Ambassador presented at my school. I admired him for sharing his story and I knew that I could do the same. I’m thrilled to begin my work as an Ambassador to raise awareness and educate my peers about Tourette. I want everyone to have access to the support system that I have and #Rally4Tourette!
Camden Alexander, age 13, is a student in Marblehead, Massachusetts. He is a trained Tourette Association of America Youth Ambassador. | https://medium.com/generation-youthradio/with-tourette-syndrome-one-size-does-not-fit-all-9570959532 | [] | 2016-05-25 00:47:58.352000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Music'] |
Merry Christmas. | “It’s Christmas Eve.” Suddenly though I when I took out the keys and opened the door of my office.
The astronaut key ring wobbled, making tiny crispy noise with all the other keys — the keys for my bike and for my room of the apartment.
I bought this metal key ring when I visited the Science Museum in London. Actually, I bought “them.” A pair. They were the best souvenir I have gotten in London since they don’t have any significant logos or labels with obvious British icons.
They are souvenirs you won’t remember where it was from, but I could remember clearly that I gave the other astronaut key ring to LS on the next day of Valentine’s Day, as the first (and sadly the last) Valentine’s gift.
We met in Brussels. First, I hung my key ring on the zipper of my travel bag and kept telling him how cute the astronaut is. But secretly, I already put the other one in the little fancy box of chocolate which I had gotten from Paris a few days ago. The overly-exquisite box made the gift look like something else. Something serious. Like a ring.
I meant to cause his nervousness.
Later, LS opened the box of chocolate and put the astronaut along with the key for his car. | https://medium.com/miss-rumo/merry-christmas-75c3125bce22 | ['如末 Miss.Rumo'] | 2020-12-25 06:29:56.719000+00:00 | ['Prose', 'Rumoshuo', 'Weihnachten', 'Christmas'] |
🧬 Monsters Breeding Explained | From previous article you learned which levels monsters can be and that you can breed them. Let’s have a quick recap.
Monsters will be used in Battle Game to share GEN pool prizes
Maximum available level — 7 (8th level coming soon)
Each level represents trait — 1-body, 2-face, 3-legs, 4-ear, 5-horn, 6-tail and 7-wings
Maximum level you can get from an Egg is 5
You can breed monster 2 times. If monster breeds for the 2nd time — he dies
To get your monster new trait (in other words to upgrade his level) you need to participate in the Battle Game several times to get enough Evo points for that.
Now let’s take a closer look at breeding rules.
Child’s level will be within the boundaries of parents levels. For example if you breed level 2 with level 4 then child can be level 2, 3 and 4 equally random
Child’s trait level will vary within the boundaries of the parents trait’s level. See figure with levels of each trait below.
So if you breed level 1 with level one which have different bodies, for example body level 5 with 45 health and level 1 with 35 health then child will be a level 1 monster with body of level from 1 to 5.
If you breed two monsters with the same body level then child will have the same body as both parents.
Different levels of trait can apply different benefits. Let’s take a look at Face trait: | https://medium.com/@evolution-bsc/monsters-breeding-explained-9508d1d88da5 | [] | 2021-05-08 10:39:11.939000+00:00 | ['Nft', 'Bsc', 'Binance Smart Chain', 'Yield Farming'] |
Learning how to be together apart | Illustration by Nicolau
Three years ago, Janina was backpacking through Central America and ended up falling in love with Costa Rica. “I went to Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua. I’ve never really felt 100% at home in Germany, so I was always traveling. So I was just in Costa Rica and I didn’t want to go back home.”
She did go back to Germany, but only to sell all her stuff, quit her job, and get all the papers she needed to move to Costa Rica. She’s been there for a year now, working as a certified life coach, mindfulness trainer, and as an editor for Unbabel.
At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, just like many digital nomads suddenly stuck halfway through their travels, Janina faced a tough choice: “A few people were writing to me, saying they’d bet I’d be coming home now.” But she didn’t even consider leaving, least of all because the virus was widespread in Germany at the time while it hadn’t yet reached Costa Rica: “The thing is, I live here now. I feel home here.”
A few weeks ago, our Director of Community, Camila Pohlmann and I sat down to have a chat with a few members of our community to hear how they’re dealing with the pandemic, how they’re staying healthy in both mind and body, and what they’re looking forward to. Since our community of editors is spread all over the world, we talked to people in different stages of this pandemic, to try and capture a snapshot of what life was like in these strange, uncertain times. While Janina was finding a home in Costa Rica, with the coronavirus as a looming threat that was rolling closer every day, Chiara, from Rome, had been in lockdown for over a month in one of the most affected countries globally.
Changing routines
“I don’t even know what I’m worried about at this point. I’m worried about everything.“
Chiara is a member of our editor Community. She lives in Rome, Italy, one of the countries that were most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, Chiara describes her life in one of Rome’s residential neighborhoods as “very picturesque,” truly one of those places that would be the backdrop of a movie filled with colorful characters. Before the pandemic, when Chiara would take breaks she’d go to a café downstairs, or to the local market, but now the streets are empty and the stores she used to walk to are all closed.
The situation in Rome closely resembles what Harvey, an Unbabel editor from China, had just seen reflected all over his own country. When Chiara was still going through a strict quarantine, lockdown in Harvey’s province had just been lifted after a month with no new cases. Talking to Harvey, I couldn’t help but think that he was almost talking from a future where restrictions were already lifting, while in Europe, we were still in the thick of it.
“Before the pandemic, in fact, my day was the same as most ordinary Chinese people, nothing special.” Harvey, who lives in a province 800 km from Wuhan, says that the speed and reach of the virus came as a surprise. Like me, Chiara, and Janina, when he started hearing about the virus and Wuhan went into lockdown, he still thought it would never come to affect his life.
Life, remote
Although things are changing impossibly quickly, even a few weeks ago it was already clear that remote work was here to stay. “Some people who are working remotely now will keep on working remotely,” was one of Chiara’s predictions. Since Chiara has been working online for 14 years, any disruption to her work was minor, but for the rest of us, the move to working remotely took some getting used to.
Janina, who was working as a Reiki and massage therapist, lockdown measures meant that most of her work had to move quickly online. With that, she says, her “entire routine shifted”. Editing tasks for Unbabel used to be a small part of her income, but now she says she stays awake until 3:00 AM to make the most out of available work. She has also shifted some of her business online, doing Reiki consultations remotely, for example.
“We are blessed with the internet, but it can be exhausting sometimes.” Janina voiced what I had thought a thousand times since Portugal went into lockdown: yes, I’m extremely privileged to have a job I can do from home, but how do I focus and do that job in the middle of a pandemic with the whole internet at my fingertips?
For Chiara, who works as a full-time freelancer and already worked from home before all this, it’s all about sticking to a routine, even when you feel like being in your pajamas. Dressing up for work every day can help you shift gears into work mode. Another one of her tips is to write down a list of everything you need to do every morning, although she admits that most times she forgets about her list halfway throughout the day. Most importantly, “it’s finding the thing that works for you that makes you feel more productive and stick to it. It’s your lifeline at this point.”
For the last few months, Harvey has been working from home with his young daughter, and that was the hardest routine to adjust to. For many parents, childcare has taken over their entire lives when they’re quarantined with the little ones and still having to work full time. Harvey’s advice is very practical: have self-discipline, make a schedule for work and leisure time, and then follow through with it. However, he admits his daughter is still “driving me crazy several times a day.”
Dealing with the mind noise
Harvey is not the only one feeling the pressure. Since the start of this pandemic, studies have shown that 70% of the population of the US met criteria for moderate to serious mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety. And these numbers are strikingly similar all around the world, with the World Health Organization (WHO) providing new guidelines on how to stay informed and healthy from the virus, without damaging our mental health.
And it’s not just Covid making us feel worse. Anxiety around unemployment, social unrest, and fear is affecting the way our brains work. So, what can we do?
Since Janina also coaches people on mindfulness techniques, I was desperate for some advice. The first and most important thing to realize is that “my mind noise, it’s not necessarily true”. But during a global pandemic, when your fears are perfectly rational, how do you get your “mind noise” to shut up then? Well, according to Janina, you don’t. It’s all about finding ways to accept the place your mind is at, as “there is no stability outside right now so that we can have stability inside of us.”
As someone who used to describe herself as a “chill Virgo,” but in the last few months has devolved into all the worst traits of the sign, I need some guidance on how to find that stability. Turns out, there’s no quick fix. Janina recommends trying online yoga classes, meditating, and looking for activities that distract and educate you. Now is the time to watch those films or read those books that have been lingering in your lists, or to finish an online course. The most important thing is to be mindful of where you’re at, and what you need in each moment, whether that’s to exercise or to find a moment of quiet and focus.
Looking for the new normal
As we watch 2020 go down in history as one of the strangest and most difficult years in a while, the vision of returning to normal seems increasingly naive. So, what is the “new normal” going to look like?
Harvey may be the best person to tell us because, in a sense, he’s talking to us from the future. Since China was the first country to deal with the new coronavirus and acted decisively fast putting in place effective lockdown, things now are “basically back to normal”. Sure, mask use is now widespread and Harvey tells us that people are still vigilant about the virus, but there’s a sense that the worst has now blown over. “People can go wherever they want, we are back to socializing again, people can go out to work, all public places are open to the public now,” although schools and daycares are still closed. For Harvey, that’s a big part of the new normal. Since both he and his wife work from home, there’s no office to return to, and childcare can still be challenging.
Back in Rome, the lockdown is just now being lifted. But when I spoke to Chiara that was still a distant reality. Instead of talking about reopening, her concern was for the way of life, and the people we lost to the virus. “Soon enough, we won’t have any witnesses to a big chunk of our history,” Chiara told us. Even though we know that Italy lost over 33,415 people to the coronavirus, we still haven’t had the time to take stock of the deep cultural and historical patrimony that is now gone. In Italy, the older generation is the glue that holds families together, and it may in fact have been the tradition of having multiple generations under one roof that may have led to Italy’s death rate. This devastation is measured not only in lives, it’s “basically wiping out the best part of this country, the people who really do community life.”
How can you even start to rebuild those things? Even though one is in China and the other one in Italy, perhaps because those are two of the most affected countries, Harvey and Chiara answered very similarly. “You don’t need to be selfish,” Chiara said, and in my mind, I heard Harvey complete: “everyone on this planet has the responsibility to contribute their own efforts to fight against the virus.” In a way, it’s about building new communities. Turns out, we’re all really in this together, and our actions can have consequences on a massive scale.
When it comes to looking forward, Chiara told me she’s looking forward to “the small things,” like gardening, seeing her nephews and nieces, and even smaller things like talking to people on Telegram or Whatsapp. Just because these things are part of our life in quarantine, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth looking forward to. In a way, that was a common refrain everyone I spoke to repeated, in one way or another: that this is a time to learn how to slow down and learn to live with less. As Janina told me, “there’s no positive effect,” but these are still lessons worth learning. This is a chance to ask ourselves what kind of new normal we want to build, what kind of routines have we developed that will stay around, and what have we learned that we can live without. | https://medium.com/unbabel-community/learning-how-to-be-together-apart-fe86cb44eb5d | ['Raquel Henriques'] | 2020-06-03 20:38:21.394000+00:00 | ['Digital Nomads', 'Freelance', 'Community', 'China', 'Coronavirus'] |
How to Build Confidence and Prevent Bullying | How to Build Confidence and Prevent Bullying
Work to keep it from happening in the first place
Image courtesy of health.clevelandclinic.org
It seemed like I was always the new kid in school. At age seven, I switched again to begin the second grade.
The morning was cool and a small group of us were waiting under a large maple tree at the bus stop. Two much larger kids that I didn’t recognize approached me with mean looks on their faces.
“What are you doing here?” the taller one asked.
“Just waiting for the bus,” I replied.
“It’s our bus,” the shorter, slightly stout kid chirped in. He was obviously the sidekick of the taller boy. “Why don’t your parents drive you? You’re rich.”
My family had owned a business for several years in our small town, and there was always the misconception that because of this, we had money. We didn’t.
“What’s in the bag?” They were asking about my small brown paper lunch bag.
“Just my lunch.”
“Oh, yeah, give it here. I bet you have some good stuff.”
“No way, get out of here,” I shot back. I loved my PB&J sandwiches and wasn’t about to give one up to anybody.
Out of nowhere, the larger kid with the shaggy hair and overalls pushed me hard to the ground, and the smaller kid swiped my lunch bag. They had done this before.
“Ours now, they laughed,” opening it up to see what was inside.
Something like this had never happened to me before. I was a mixture of stunned, hurt, and surprised. Even though I only lost a sandwich and an apple, it felt awful.
I didn’t know it at the time, but it made a big dent in my self-esteem. Up until then, I was relatively non-confrontational. I never wanted to feel frightened and insecure again. I felt I had no way to defend myself.
That day after school, I told my parents what had happened. To put it mildly, they were not pleased. I told my dad I would handle it, and I wanted to start wrestling lessons at the local YMCA. He agreed, and before the week was out, I was learning how to do takedowns and armbars.
My confidence grew. I want to say that no one ever tried to bully me again, but that’s not true. The difference was, those times, I stood my ground. I pushed back. No one ever stole my lunch again. | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/how-to-build-confidence-to-prevent-bullying-250f93695fb8 | ['Guy D. Mccardle'] | 2020-10-04 19:03:08.340000+00:00 | ['Schools', 'Psychology', 'Children', 'Confidence', 'Bullying'] |
When to become an entrepreneur? | Photo credit: The Echo
There are people that spend their entire life working for others and there are also people that immediately start their own businesses as soon as they graduate. And that is one of the reasons why the majority of the startups fail — not knowing the right time.
If you start too early, you may make mistakes until you become professionally mature. Now those mistakes don’t come cheap — they come at a very high price. They may lead to the bankruptcy of your startup. Similarly, if you start too late, there is no point of your existence. It is either already done by this time or not a necessity anymore which may also lead to the bankruptcy of your startup. But when is the right time?
Three components
The right time depends on how soon you develop the three necessary components that are an absolute imperative for the success of your business. The three components are; Money, Network, and Knowledge. If you are a recent graduate, you may say you have the knowledge and perhaps money as well but by knowledge here I mean hands-on experience which you do not have. Therefore, it is very important to consider the three before becoming an entrepreneur and risking everything you have.
How do you gain these three? Well, one way is through employment. But, you should not work in a restaurant and then open a software company. Similarly, you should not work in a software company and then open a restaurant — unless you have a family background or some prior experience in the restaurant business.
Necessary length of employment
The length of your employment may depend on how quickly you absorb things and as well as your position in the company. If you join a place as an intern, you may have to work for as long as three years to get to a senior level position and to be able to earn enough, meet enough executives, and as well as gain enough hands-on experience. But, if you join a company as a director or as a manager then as short as one year may be sufficient for you to move on and take the decision.
But, there is an exemption
There are startups that need the right time to be successful besides money, network and knowledge. And in this case, the right time is way more important than the other three components. For instance, you want to build the first social media network and it may be too late for you to do it if you spend all your time developing the other three components. So, what should you do in this case?
In this case, you should find alternatives to all three. For instance, find an investor to give you money (money element), hire a good team to lead the development (knowledge element), and get a partner to help you run the business (network element).
That is all, I hope you enjoyed reading this article. Thank you and feel free to share your opinion in the comment. | https://medium.com/@shershahrahim/when-to-become-an-entrepreneur-27eb8bf440fd | ['Sher Shah Rahim'] | 2019-02-07 12:10:07.364000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Work', 'Business', 'Network'] |
The Truth About Santa Claus | One of the cruelest things we humans do to young children is to tell them that Santa Claus is not real. By inflicting this ‘adult truth’ on them we are destroying their natural ability to manifest as well as their innate ability to hope. We are domesticating them into the prevailing societal gestalt of lack and hopelessness.
But those young wee ones who have not yet had their belief in Santa Claus beaten out of them have a natural knowingness without doubt that Santa Claus is real. To them, Santa makes perfect sense.
Little Kathy wanted a bicycle more than anything in the world. She prayed for it and wrote a letter to Santa asking for it. Every day she would close her eyes and picture in her mind the bike she wanted. It would be blue because that was her favorite color. It would have streamers coming out of the handlebars and a wicker basket attached in front of the handlebars in which she could put her favorite teddy bear so that she could take him for rides. It had training wheels so that she would not fall and get hurt. And it was very, very shiny.
With her eyes still closed, Little Kathy felt what it would be like to ride that new bicycle. She could feel her legs pumping the pedals as she gripped tightly the handlebars. She could feel the wind blowing through that part of her long hair that was below her shiny blue bicycle helmet. She could feel the thrill of the motion, the speed, and the freedom. Several times a day she would close her eyes and feel the profound joy of riding the new bike that she was sure to get for Christmas.
Lo and behold, on Christmas morning there was a shiny new bike parked next to the Christmas tree. Little Kathy was happier than she had ever been in her short life. She was exploding with joy and gratitude. Without bothering to open any of her other presents she insisted on immediately going outside and riding her new bike. Still in her pajamas, she rode her bike back and forth on the sidewalk of her block. She kept riding until her Mommy and Daddy pleaded with her to come back inside.
There was, however, one small glitch involving her new bike. It was pink, not blue! (Santa Claus, after all, is a man and a man apparently who was conditioned by the prevailing societal gestalt of assigning certain colors to certain genders.) But this one small glitch was easily overlooked by Little Kathy. She was just too happy to let it matter.
From that day forward she rode her bike every day, every chance she got. Her teddy bear was the luckiest teddy bear in the whole world and Little Kathy was the happiest girl in the whole world. It was not long before her Daddy took off the training wheels.
It was the following year that she overheard her Mommy and Daddy talking. They were talking about how Little Kathy was getting too old to still believe in Santa Claus. They would soon have to break the news to her that Santa was not real.
Santa not real?! Little Kathy was devastated. She fell into a state of confusion, hopelessness, and depression. If Santa was not real then what is?
That year she never bothered to write a letter to Santa and she never even bothered to wish for anything. For Christmas that year all she got was clothes.
Thirty years later Kathy was married and pregnant. She and her husband could barely make ends meet. They were poor and what made matters worse is that her old jalopy of a car was always in the shop constantly running up repair bills. She desperately wanted a new car.
Then a friend of Kathy’s gave her a self-help philosophy book written by some new age know-it-all guru. After reading the book she decided to start believing in Santa Claus again.
Not only did she write and mail a letter to Santa at the North Pole but every day she would close her eyes and meditate. In her mind she would see her new car. It would be brand new and shiny. It would be a hybrid so that she could save on gas. It would come with a child’s safety seat. And, most importantly, it would be blue!
While seeing the car in her mind she would feel what it would be like driving it. She felt the joy of driving the car out in the country with her windows down and wind pouring into the car and through her long hair. She felt the joy and freedom of driving a car that she could depend on. She focused on how having the new car would make her feel.
Lo and behold, on Christmas morning she looked outside and sitting in her driveway was a brand new shiny hybrid car. Although it had a huge pink bow taped to the hood, the car was blue! Not since she got her first bike so long ago had she felt such intense pure joy and elation. The baby in her belly certainly felt her joy.
That afternoon Kathy went for a drive in the country in her new car. (Just for fun.) She was so happy that she decided to make a promise to the Universe. She promised the Universe and herself that she would never, ever, ever tell her forthcoming child that Santa Claus is not real.
That baby would be the luckiest and happiest baby in the whole world. | https://medium.com/grab-a-slice/the-truth-about-santa-claus-5e15b105a9dc | ['White Feather'] | 2020-12-15 23:35:03.015000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Spirituality', 'Short Story', 'Christmas', 'Fiction'] |
How Jane Fonda’s 1972 trip to North Vietnam earned her the nickname ‘Hanoi Jane’ | From Hollywood starlet to liberal activist
During the Vietnam War, famous Hollywood actress Jane Fonda rebranded herself as a political crusader against the war.
Fonda’s transformation from actress to activist began early on.
She was active in the Black Panthers.
She marched for the rights of American Indians, soldiers and working mothers.
She and actor Donald Sutherland started an “anti-USO” troupe to counter Bob Hope’s famous shows for the troops. They called it FTA, which they said stood for Free the Army, but it was also a not-so-subtle nod to the expression “f — the Army.”
This weekend, filmmaker Ken Burns’s 10-part documentary on the Vietnam War began airing on PBS. Burns said the project is an attempt to heal old resentments. Although he didn’t interview Fonda, the film looks at her controversial 1972 visit to Hanoi.
Jane Fonda arrives at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on July 27, 1972, after her “fact-finding” trip to Hanoi. (Marty Lederhandler/AP)
Trip to North Vietnam
By July 1972, when Fonda accepted an invitation to visit North Vietnam, America had been at war overseas and with itself for years.
She went to tour the country’s dike system, which was rumored to have been intentionally bombed by American forces — something the U.S. government to this day forcefully denies.
During her two-week stay, Fonda concluded that America was unjustly bombing farmland and areas far flung from military targets.
North Vietnamese press reported — and Fonda later confirmed — that she made several radio announcements over the Voice of Vietnam radio to implore U.S. pilots to stop the bombings.
“I appealed to them to please consider what you are doing. I don’t think they know,” Fonda said in a news conference when she returned home. “The people who are speaking out against the war are the patriots.”
Jane Fonda sits on an antiaircraft gun during a 1972 trip to North Vietnam. (Nihon Denpa News/AP)
‘Hanoi Jane’
In Hanoi, Fonda also met with seven American POWs and later said they asked her to tell their friends and family to support presidential candidate George McGovern; they feared they’d never be freed during a Richard Nixon administration. Rumors spread and still persist that she betrayed them by accepting secret notes and then turning them over to the North Vietnamese. The POWs who were there have denied that this ever occurred.
But the action that still enrages veterans most was that photograph of her with North Vietnamese troops on an antiaircraft gun that would have been used to shoot down American planes. This, probably more than anything, earned her the nickname “Hanoi Jane.”
Jane’s critics
Some lawmakers called her actions treason. Congress held hearings. The Veterans of Foreign Wars passed a resolution calling for her to be prosecuted as a traitor.
Perhaps most dramatically, in March 1973, the Maryland state legislature held a hearing to have Fonda and her films barred from the state. Del. William Burkhead, a Democrat from Anne Arundel, said, “I wouldn’t want to kill her, but I wouldn’t mind if you cut her tongue off,” according to a Post story.
Fonda wasn’t deterred. She continued openly to question the accounts of the U.S. government and American POWs, who told devastating stories of the torture they endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese.
“These men were bombing and strafing and napalming the country,” she said, according to an Associated Press report in April 1973, which quoted an interview she gave to KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. “If a prisoner tried to escape, it is quite understandable that he would probably be beaten and tortured.”
Jane Fonda gestures during a news conference in 1972. (Marty Lederhandler/AP)
Apology
Over the years, as Fonda reinvented herself as a fitness maven and again a movie star, she apologized many times for the antiaircraft gun photo. But she maintains she was not a traitor by speaking out against the war or trying to turn soldiers against it, because she still believes the U.S. government was lying to them.
In her 2005 memoir, “My Life So Far,” Fonda wrote of the infamous photo this way:
Here is my best, honest recollection of what took place. Someone (I don’t remember who) leads me toward the gun, and I sit down, still laughing, still applauding. It all has nothing to do with where I am sitting. I hardly even think about where I am sitting. The cameras flash. I get up, and as I start to walk back to the car with the translator, the implication of what has just happened hits me. Oh, my God. It’s going to look like I was trying to shoot down U.S. planes! I plead with him, You have to be sure those photographs are not published. Please, you can’t let them be published. I am assured it will be taken care of. I don’t know what else to do. It is possible that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know. If they did, can I really blame them? The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen. It was my mistake, and I have paid and continue to pay a heavy price for it.
Still, for some veterans, no apology from Fonda will ever change their views of her as an adversary of America and the troops during wartime. In 2015, about 50 veterans stood outside the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick, Md., to protest Fonda’s appearance there. They held signs that read “Forgive? Maybe. Forget? Never.” and booed people attending the event, according to the Frederick News-Post.
Fonda told the audience that their protests saddened her. | https://medium.com/the-lily/how-jane-fondas-1972-trip-to-north-vietnam-earned-her-the-nickname-hanoi-jane-a9253b816187 | ['The Lily News'] | 2017-09-20 21:23:57.708000+00:00 | ['WIB History', 'Discover', 'War', 'Hollywood', 'Vietnam'] |
Divi Transaction Fees Explained | Most other cryptocurrencies, including our predecessor blockchains (Bitcoin, Dash, and Pivx) have higher fees, based on the size of the transaction, usually measured in something like “Satoshis per Kilobyte”. Divi’s formula is different, based primarily on the transaction amount, with the size as a second multiplier. This keeps our fees cheap and makes DIVI work for micropayments such as if you were to pay for song views.
Our Fee Algorithm is as Follows
Fee = TV * TVM * TS / TSM
TV = Transaction Value
TS = Transaction Size
TVM = Transaction Value Multiplier
TSM = Transaction Size Multiplier
Other Details
Maximum Fee is 100 DIVI.
Minimum Fee is 10,000 Satoshis/KB. (0.0001 DIVI/KB)
Divi’s transaction fees are burned, not given to miners/minters.
DVS For Fees
Upon launch, we have DVS (Dynamic Value Sporks) set up for several fee algorithm variables, with the following initial settings:
TVM (Transaction Value Multiplier) = 0.0001
TSM (Transaction Size Multiplier) = 300
Maximum Fee = 100 DIVI
Minimum Fee = 0.0001 DIVI/KB
If we find that the fee structure doesn’t work, or the network is under attack, we can use DVS to nearly instantly change these values across all the nodes.
How We Picked Initial Values
TVM: We wanted to make sure our transactions were very cheap so they could be used for micropayments. So with this value, a simple transaction of around $1000 would still only cost 10 cents to send.
TSM: 300 bytes is around the average size of a transaction. Depending on how many UTXOs are used, it can grow larger. With multisig transactions and other opcodes starting to play a role in the future, the average transaction size will grow. More complicated transactions will cost more, but will still be relatively cheap. Also, notice that the way the algorithm works, a transaction that’s double the size is also exactly double the fee.
Maximum Fee: With the DIVX price at around US$1.00 at the time of this writing, and we having no idea what it will be after launch, we decided to set this to 100 DIVI so that the max fee would be approximately US$1. That means that if you send US$10,000 worth of DIVX to someone, it will probably cost around US$1. Larger transactions won’t cost more. Our intention is to keep the maximum fee at around US$1. However, if inflation becomes an issue for DIVI in the future, this is one way that it can be controlled.
Keep in mind that the Divi network is really a beta. We have a lot of technology to add in the coming months after launching our mainnet. There are many factors and tradeoffs that may bring up challenges, so expect that we may make changes. During the beta phase, which will last several months at least, the DVS values will be under centralized control by the Divi team. Once we have a stable ecosystem, we’ll be able to give control to the community by votes within governance. | https://medium.com/diviproject/divi-transaction-fees-explained-8d962f6422ed | ['Geoff Mccabe'] | 2018-09-26 14:42:16.132000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Ethereum', 'Masternodes', 'Diviproject'] |
“A definitive gaming champion,” AGA issues explanation on passing of Senator Harry Reid | “A definitive gaming champion,” AGA issues explanation on passing of Senator Harry Reid
Charge Miller, President and CEO of the American Gaming Association (AGA), has given an assertion on the death of Senator Harry Reid.
For the benefit of the AGA, Miller sent sympathies to Reid’s better half, loved ones.
He said: “From his days as Chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission to residency as Majority Leader, Senator Reid’s effect on Nevada and the gaming business is unrivaled. He was a definitive gaming champion.
“I’m appreciative for having known the Senator all through my profession in Washington DC. Without a sad remnant of an uncertainty, Senator Reid was one of the most keen, best political personalities to at any point enter the field.”
The previous US Senate Majority Leader passed on at 82, subsequent to being determined to have pancreatic disease in mid 2018. He has been thought of “a power” in Democratic legislative issues for over 40 years and assembled himself a standing for his “mild-mannered mercilessness.”
President Joe Biden, remarking on his death, said he was “a dear companion and a goliath of the US history.”
Previous US President Barack Obama said Reid’s better half Landra had asked him and a few other of his companions to compose letters preceding his destruction.
The letter from Obama read: “You were an incredible forerunner in the Senate, and almost immediately you were more liberal to me than I reserved any privilege to anticipate.
“I wouldn’t have been President had it not been for your consolation and backing, and I wouldn’t have gotten the vast majority of what I finished without your ability and assurance. In particular, you’ve been an old buddy.”
Internet betting pattern in Atlantic City makes land-based difficulties for 2022
Atlantic City club have seen huge changes in business during the Covid-19 pandemic. These progressions keep on introducing difficulties to the city’s nine gambling 벳무브 clubs as 2022 methodologies.
Seven club showed decays during November in how much in-person cash won from card sharks, contrasted with 2019. A huge piece of that is because of an ascent in web based betting and sports wagering.
Last year’s 107-day conclusion constrained numerous club to go to web gaming. The pattern proceeded in 2021 as card sharks took to their cellphones, workstations and tablets to play.
Regardless of there being a plenitude of collaborations between omni-channel contributions, there must be the right equilibrium between showcasing and innovation to stay away from internet tearing apart land-based wagering.
“The pandemic keeps on adversely affecting our business, with land-based gambling club win down 5.5% for the year through November, and keeping in mind that web based gaming income keeps on seeing huge development with outsider administrators gaining quite a bit of that portion of the overall industry, it has given another available income source to the city and state,” said Joe Lupo, President of the Casino Association of New Jersey, who additionally fills in as President of Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Atlantic City.
The general achievement of the web and sports wagering additionally accompanies a few disadvantages, said Tony Marino, a previous Atlantic City Expressway leader who presently composes a pamphlet examining the city’s travel industry and club patterns.
“In any case, the incongruity is that internet gaming undermines face to face movement by smothering generally guest volume to the retreat which, thus, adversely influences physical gaming, city and gambling club cafés, retail foundations and diversion scenes,” Marino said.
“The test in 2022 is for the business to keep up with public initiative in advanced gaming while at the same time showcasing Atlantic City as a hotel with numerous elite attractions deserving of face to face visits.”
On the potential gain, the drop in land-based gaming income added to state administrators endorsing a change to a club installment in lieu of duty arrangement.
Active state Senate President Steve Sweeney said that without the understanding four of the city’s club would have shut. The Casino Association of New Jersey said in an assertion the progressions to the arrangement “will secure a great many positions and give sureness and strength to the market,” while assisting with further developing Atlantic City’s foundation and further develop wellbeing in the retreat.
Club Dress Codes Spotlighted After Model Stopped at Australian Gaming Floor
OnlyFans 텐벳 model Mikaela Testa was kept for this present month from entering an Australian gambling club, purportedly in light of her shocking outfit. Subsequent to making some speedy changes, she was permitted onto the gaming floor.
However, generally, clothing standards at gaming properties as of late are getting endlessly, as indicated by Robert Jarvis, a law teacher at Florida’s Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard College of Law, as told to Casino.org.
With more individuals dressing all the more nonchalantly, are they able to remove an expanding section of benefactors by demanding a severe clothing regulation?” Jarvis addressed. “The response, resoundingly, has been to drop norms to keep benefactors getting through the entryways.”
He says this is valid even in Monte Carlo club. “James Bond might in any case wear a tux when playing in them, however no other person does,” Jarvis added.
Later the episode, Testa, 21, posted remarks on TikTok. She uncovered the outfit was depicted by safety crew as “improper.” The episode probably occurred at The Star Sydney, as indicated by the Daily Mail Australia.
“We went to the gambling club to play some roulette and I got halted at the section saying that my outfit’s improper so I needed to tie my f***ing skirt up with a pin,” she said on the online media website. “It looked so rodent s*** however whatever.”
When gotten some information about the new episode, Jarvis said that by and large, club can set and uphold clothing regulations. In this way, guests should discover prior to entering what is and isn’t permitted and dress appropriately, Jarvis adds.
“Ms. Testa might have saved herself a lot of melancholy in the event that she had essentially called ahead,” Jarvis proceeded. “Obviously, … Ms. Testa has a background marked by causing occurrences by wearing provocative attire, and uses such episodes to build the quantity of supporters she has via online media.” She has north of 1 million devotees on Instagram.
Law Explained
Jarvis additionally gave some common principles to gambling clubs similar to clothing regulations. Gambling clubs should obviously state and prominently post clothing regulations. They can be on signs in the gambling club and on sites.
Likewise, clothing regulations in the US should not separate based on race, religion, public beginning, sex, or sexual direction, Jarvis clarified. All gambling clubs should prepare staff how to authorize clothing regulations, as well.
Under US law, a personal business can implement a clothing standard in the event that it isn’t applied in an unfair manner, Jarvis said. For example, seven Hasidic-Jewish-claimed organizations in Brooklyn, N.Y. were sued in 2013 in the wake of keeping affirmed shamelessly dressed ladies from entering the scenes. The organizations later posted signs saying, “Humble dress appreciated.” Store proprietors later consented to give everybody access regardless of how they dressed.
Las Vegas Casinos Not Likely to Enforce Dress Codes
Explicitly on club, the Rev. Richard McGowan, a money teacher at Boston College and authority on betting patterns, let Casino.org know that club are “attempting to sell themselves as real amusement.
They additionally might want to be alluring to a more extensive section of the populace,” McGowan said. “Thus, I envision that the individual with the suggestive outfit would upset the picture that the club administrator was attempting to pass on.”
He expects some local club in the US may attempt to uphold a clothing standard. Yet, the equivalent may not occur in Las Vegas.
“It is difficult to envision a Las Vegas gambling club attempting to authorize [dress codes], given the different types of diversion that they support,” McGowan said. | https://medium.com/@burnsishblel/a-definitive-gaming-champion-aga-issues-explanation-on-passing-of-senator-harry-reid-5d2d88aef849 | [] | 2021-12-30 03:07:36.121000+00:00 | ['Onlyfans', 'Casino Games', 'Gambling', 'Gambler', 'Casino'] |
Best Friend or Boyfriend? | If I am being honest I do not know where I should start. But I think that i will tell you the first time that I noticed, that my Best Friend was in love with me. Sometimes I noticed small zhings. He touched my by chance. He told me a lot about himself and was interested in my opinion. But I told myself, that we are just friends, that we have a great relationship, that the group of us three (+ one friend of us) was perfect, the thing in my life I have always missed. Was I wrong? I can not tell. After some time that went by, he told me that he liked me. I could not believe it and to be honest… I was shocked!!! Maybe it is important to mention, that at this point, I dated this one guy since 9Months. He was literally my everything and everyday when he texted me good morning and good night… he made my day a little bit better. After some time I decided, that it was not possible to keep this relationship going (not only because of my Best Friend but thats another story). I broke up and now i am feeling empty. What I have to do and what will happen next? I can not answer this questions, but I thought that writing my thoughts down and telling people my story (people I do not know and who do not know me) seemed to be a pretty good idea. So if you want to follow me on this really difficult journey and support me so i dont have to be alone… You are always welcome here! | https://medium.com/@marieschuetze/best-friend-or-boyfriend-d49d9621cd1c | [] | 2020-12-18 23:50:12.427000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Pain', 'Boyfriend', 'Complicated', 'Best Friend'] |
You only need an income, Excel, and ambition! 12 small steps are included! | Here are the detailed steps:
1.) Decide how much money you need to save.
2.) Set a deadline.
3.) Count the working days that remained until your deadline.
Don’t include days without an income.
4.) Split in two the number of days used for savings and the total desired amount.
My plan
I need to save 280$, so 50% of the amount should be 140$.
By the deadline, there are 22 working days left, so the first half of my table will have 11 rows.
5.) Set a small value for the first day.
For my example, I have chosen 4$.
6.) Increase the amount by a constant value daily.
For the last date, you will have your peak value. I use the Excel formula =A1+2 for the A2 cell.
A1 is the cell for the initial value.
is the cell for the initial value. 2 is the value with which I increase my savings daily.
Hold and drag the fill handle down the column, over the cells A3:A11, where you want to copy the formula. I use the A11 cell because that’s the last one for my first half.
For example, you can go until A30 if you need 60 working days, and your first half has 30 days (rows).
7.) Calculate the total amount for your progressive half.
Formula example: =sum(A1:A11).
A1 is the cell of the initial value.
is the cell of the initial value. A11 is the last cell in the first half of the savings period.
8.) Adjust the progressive half.
Ask yourself:
Is the total amount the one I desire for my first half?
The total amount for your first half should be a little bit higher than the half of your total desired amount.
Is my peak value affordable?
If not, try to change the initial value and see how this change affects the total amount. If this does not produce the results you need, go to the A2 cell, and change the value with which you increase your savings. Then, you have to hold and drag the fill handle again.
9.) Build the regressive half.
I leave the B column for comments about the values entered in the A column. I use the C column for the second half.
For the C1 cell, I use the formula =A11–2.
A11 is the peak value for my first half.
is the peak value for my first half. 2 is the amount I selected for each increase and decrease. It has to be the same value.
For the C2 cell, I use the formula =C1–2.
Hold and drag the fill handle down the column over the cells where you want to apply the formula. In my case, the cells are C3:C11.
10.) Calculate the total amount for your regressive half.
Formula example: =sum(C1:C11).
In the formula, you have to insert the first and the last cell you want to add.
11.) Calculate the final amount
Add the total amount of the progressive half to the total amount of the regressive half.
Formula =sum(A13;C13).
A13 is the cell for the total amount of my first half.
is the cell for the total amount of my first half. C13 is the cell for the total amount of my regressive half.
12.) When saving money, write the date next to the value saved.
This way, you will make sure you don’t skip a day.
On some days, you will save more than you need. Add a note next to the cell with the peak value, remembering to reduce its value by this exceeded value.
My table after three days of savings | https://themakingofamillionaire.com/the-progressive-regressive-saving-system-b2ec29b7ea34 | ['Alexandru Vasai'] | 2020-12-16 07:39:36.904000+00:00 | ['Personal Finance', 'Savings Plan', 'Financial Planning', 'Money', 'Savings Tips'] |
Hello | Hello
Well, welcome to my profile. It’s my first time writing something after years, despite writing essays for school. I found Medium on social media, thought it was pretty cool and gave it a shot. I love writing, it somehow distracts me and leads me to another dimension (if you understand what I’m trying to say), furthermore I really really want to study something with media or journalism later on. In my opinion it’s an interesting and cool major, although I think it can be pretty hard and stressful too.
It’s kind of funny: I’m really not that into public speaking, not even speaking in class, but I’m in love with the idea of becoming a news reporter or something like that. Idk, but I should better improve my writing skills to become a great writer. I can work on speaking out loud, practice it to talk more fluently or become even more confident, I’d love that.
I’m from Germany, took english classes since kindergarten. I’ve always loved English, it amazed me ever since. So one of my biggest aims is to speak fluently and live somewhere abroad. The UK really has my heart, especially London. It’s crazy, I’ve been there three times and it always felt like coming back home, even though my parents and me only stayed there for a few days back then. Every time we arrived at Heathrow airport my anxiety and concerns dwindled, happiness filled me and I felt safe.
Traveling is one thing, I could do forever and I really hope to be able to visit the States, like California, Colorado and New York, but also Canada. Having the opportunity to get informed and see beautiful nature in each kinds all over the world fascinates me, thank to social media.
I guess that’s enough for my first time writing on here, it’s already 1.21 am in Germany and maybe I should slowly get ready for bed. I’m sure I’m going to write something on here again pretty soon and I’m really excited if anyone even reads my tiny article. Let’s see what the future brings, see you then!
Goodnight :) | https://medium.com/@isa-k/hello-4055dc45f557 | ['Isa K'] | 2020-12-21 00:24:59.550000+00:00 | ['Welcome', 'Beginner', 'Introduction', 'Writer'] |
I am an innovator | Routine could be monotonous, but hackerspaces weren’t. Academic and career structures strangled the life out of me, but hackerspaces allowed my mind to roam and renewed the easily dissipating belief that I live in an interesting world. Academia and jobs were sterile, performance-based, angry, ruthless severe hard places where I’d have to assume a false identity to reflect the organization in the way it demands to be represented. If I had somehow failed to conform to a job or school’s standards, I am ostracized. Hackerpsaces were a place to breathe and let go of that false image of being industrial and “put together”, and just free to explore science and innovation without rigid social constraints. I could come in with ordinarily unacceptable tattoos and wear red ribbons on my hair in these spaces, at hackerspaces I’d be judged by my work rather than the social image and pedigreed. Being intellectually curious and image-consious, you’d assume that the world I belong to is in Academia, but I was never as free to let my mind roam and discover as I did in SF Hackerspaces. The best innovators do not come from academia, they come from space where there is no pressure to conform.
I belong to a group of innovators. I am lofty, and I doubt I will succeed but I have always been drawn to people who broke the status quo. Hackerspaces were the world of Aaron Tarwick, a biohacker and transhumanist who injected an HIV virus into himself to prove that his HIV-treatment will solve the unsolvable virus . The world of Aaron Swartz, who while is scorn of academia, made tremendous contributions to the accessibility of research papers.Those accessible research papers, while punished severely under intellectual property laws, were used by Jack Andraka, 15 year old who made considerably more cost efficient cancer diagnosis tools than the other famous and well-funded biotech company Theranos. Or the internet pirate queen, Alexandra Elbakya who made news headlines by establishing Scihub for research papers. While condemned for the legalities of these actions, she is toasted by innovators world wide for her contribution to the accessibility of research journals. All of these people believed in the accessibility of information, because of its role to push technology and medicine to new limits if given the opportunity. While it is important to keep my works legal, I would be beyond delighted to join their ranks as an aspiring science communicator. Joining their ranks breathes life into me in a way that the acceptable pursuit of prestige and respect does not.
There are internet white hats, transhumanist, and longevity activist. An incredibly interesting underground world that, in a short word can be described as unconventional. While the movement may consist of intellectually driven people, it does not have the same rigidity and absurd acceptance hurdle academia has. Simply contributing and participating in activities, qualified someone to gain acceptance. People would teach coding, share mathematical absurdities like the “hairy ball theorem”, and just crack jokes. Be casual. Unlike a well respected academia setting, unconventional underground spaces allowed you to “be yourself”. There is no penalty for cursing, or legal worries about much of anything. The best part is being part of the community does require someone to go to a prestigious school, or have a number of respectable statuses put in place. You could be unemployed, or flunking out of school, suffering from terminal, immunal, or chronic illness, and so long as you are intellectually driven and a contributor, you were a hacker. What other structured academic organization could offer the same? I think that is why some people like me may feel more as a part of unconventional groups like this than a more structured organization. Our sense of belonging isn’t as conditional as it is in universities or companies where you are only accepted based on performance.
Being in an academic environment, there was a sense of feeling disposable. When an institute’s funding is based on the amount of research it could produce, it could feel like a more competitive environment than a collaborative one. There is always going to be another bright-eyed student to replace someone more brilliant, productive, industrious, and conscientious. In addition, it was hard to feel as though anything done had a lasting impact, given that the friends and colleagues made would simply leave the moment their time at a university is finished. Any unfinished project is just doomed to stay unfinished. But spaces where there isn’t a structure, or that one was replaceable. Acquiring knowledge, tinkering with electronics and code, was somehow more enjoyable when it did not have to produce economic or academic results. It is like a forgotten feeling of pursuing knowledge, and being part of a community because it was enjoyable and spontaneous. People at hackerspaces did not have to manage
Innovative people are attracted to hackerspaces. At hackerspaces a person’s worth is not based on social status or forgettable pedigrees, it is based on what a person could reasonably contribute to a community. The spaces do not accept members based on performance or economic status, rather their ability to innovate and tinker. And spaces are not afraid to challenge the status quo, and to believe in accessibility of information. If academia seeks to attract the movers and shakers of the upcoming technological and medical revolution, it may be missing key qualities hackerspaces have and academia doesn’t: acceptance and collaboration among the intellectually driven. | https://medium.com/@bedcloud/i-am-an-innovator-90a20edbd676 | [] | 2020-12-21 07:55:59.752000+00:00 | ['Academia', 'Innovation', 'Schools', 'Hackerspaces', 'Education'] |
Can the Mainstream Media See Elizabeth Warren Clearly? | On August 27th, Senator Bernie Sanders put forth a plan to reform the media, protect independent journalism, and safeguard the free press. This is very much in line with his critique of media concentration going back to his time as mayor of Burlington, Vermont in the 1980s. He was also one of only 16 House members who opposed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which helped to rapidly increase media consolidation.
The presentation of this plan to save journalism followed a back-and-forth between his campaign and journalists at several mainstream media outlets over his suggestion that the viewpoints and interests of the owner of The Washington Post (and those of the owners of other mainstream media outlets) might affect their coverage of his campaign. The executive editor of The Washington Post called Sanders’ suggestion a conspiracy theory. Sanders responded by clarifying that he wasn’t saying that Bezos directly controlled every editorial decision at the Post, just that writers and editors are influenced by the owner of the newspaper in what they cover, and especially in what they don’t.
An illustration of a key absence in media, for instance, is that while every major newspaper has a business section, none have a labor section. In essence, Sanders made the same critique that Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky made in their 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent. In that seminal work, they propose that the media in the U.S.:
“are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion.”
Writing for Salon, Jeff Cohen, founder of media watch organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, wrote of his working experience:
“I worked in and around mainstream TV news for years, including at corporate centrist outlets CNN and MSNBC. Unlike at Fox News (where I’d also been a paid contributor), there’s almost never a memo or direct order from top management to cover or not cover certain stories or viewpoints… It happens because of groupthink. It happens because top editors and producers know — without being told — which issues and sources are off limits. No orders need be given, for example, for rank-and-file journalists to understand that the business of the corporate boss or top advertisers is off-limits, short of criminal indictments.”
In response to the criticism that he was pushing a conspiracy theory, instead of clarifying what he meant, Sanders could have simply pointed to a 2015 Bloomberg article, which explained that:
“Every two weeks, Jeff Bezos holds an hour-long conference call with executives at the Washington Post. Twice a year, the managers fly to Seattle for day-long strategy sessions with the Amazon.com Inc. founder. And every so often, they find a reader complaint in their inbox forwarded without comment from [email protected].”
He also could have mentioned such glaring examples of executive editorial control as retaliation against a Washington Post journalist over a Bezos op-ed, 16 stories in 16 hours, limitations placed on Post employees, Phil Donohue, Ed Shultz, Rupert Murdoch, or even Citizen Kane. The idea that a billionaire would buy a newspaper in the nation’s capital to influence the editorial direction for their own financial interests is hardly controversial.
But, really, arguing over what constitutes concrete evidence of editorial coercion is relatively uninteresting.
However, looking in good faith at the pushback on Sanders from some mainstream journalists does yield worthwhile insights about their mindset and their understanding of what constitutes progressivism. Dave Weigel, Washington Post reporter, is one of the journalists who’s been pushing back on the notion that media ownership might impact some coverage of the Sanders campaign. The reasoning behind his incredulity provides a lens into his understanding of another presidential candidate, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Weigel said on Twitter:
“the argument about corporate media suppressing left-wing ideas doesn’t scan with the positive coverage Warren’s been getting.”
Essentially, his premise seems to be that Warren and Sanders are so similar that if their coverage is different, it must be for reasons unrelated to their politics. Previously, I had been thinking that the conflation of their politics by people in the media was conscious and deliberate, but now I’m beginning to see it as a more unconscious form of manufactured consent, a la Herman and Chomsky.
Krystal Ball, of the Hill’s The Rising, recently quoted Naomi Klein, who called mainstream journalists view of Warren identity politics for journalists. She conceives of Warren as a political mirror who reflects the aspirations and self-conceptions of journalists, academics, and the rest of the professional managerial class. They take her at her word about what her politics are because they see themselves in her.
Even as Weigel walks to the edge of credulity regarding slanted coverage of Sanders, he’s unable to consider that perhaps Warren is not exactly who she portrays herself to be. In this light, Warren’s rise as a critic of corporate power — Amazon in particular — makes the “Bezos is trying to suppress a political threat” stuff confusing, unless you go all-in and insist that Warren doesn’t mean and/or wouldn’t implement the agenda.” Essentially, Weigel never engages that possibility in relation to facts that contradict her self-portrayal.
The only interview in which I’ve seen Elizabeth Warren receive any follow-up questions regarding publicized aspects of her biography was on hip-hop morning show, The Breakfast Club. The hosts asked Warren both about her lengthy history as a Republican and the 20 years during which she claimed to be Native American. During the questioning, she is visibly uncomfortable, folds her arms against her chest while unconsciously shaking her head, no. These topics are the most obvious ‘difficult areas’ for Warren’s candidacy.
In response to Trump’s relentless trolling over her claims to be Native American, Warren took a DNA test to prove her heritage. This, despite having no lived cultural experience to justify claiming to be Cherokee. One would expect her to have strong answers that put these questions to rest, but her answers beg further questions.
For instance, she points to a Boston Globe article which she says proves that she didn’t receive any professional benefit from declaring herself a minority in the period of Affirmative Action. I’d suggest that it doesn’t prove that at all. The article she highlights doesn’t mention the designation on her Texas bar registration as American Indian and, while the piece does talk about Harvard using her to represent racial diversity in the Law School, her peers are less than convincing when they declare that her claimed heritage had nothing to do with her hiring and that the only relevant thing was her gender.
Much of the mainstream media now act as if her explanations have put to rest all questions about her heritage. The degree to which those explanations matter seems to decrease in proportion to how much one identifies with Warren. Conversely, powerful elements within the Native American community are not nearly as satisfied.
The same is true of how dubious one finds her explanations for leaving the Republican party. This is complicated by her offering more than one reason for her change in party registration.
On the Breakfast Club, she declares that she just wasn’t political while registered as a Republican. This explanation contradicts her advocacy for deregulation in speeches she delivered before conservative groups like the Federalist Society. It also presents questions, largely unasked, about what she voted for prior to her party change in 1996. Her usual explanation for that change is that her research into bankruptcy helped make clear that the Democrats had become better stewards of the market.
I guess she missed larger issues such as Reagan’s negligence of the AIDS epidemic, the racist Republican response to the crack epidemic, the war crimes of Iran Contra, and responsibility for Central American death squads. No, it was her understanding of bankruptcy that moved her to change party. What does that suggest about her predictive ability — that policies she advocated for turned out to be so damaging that she was forced to switch to the party ostensibly advocating the opposite?
The only explanation for her switch that doesn’t prompt further questions is that she changed parties after the Democrats under Clinton became the other party of deregulation, as well as passing the conservative Crime bill and “welfare reform”, which reflected her politics at the time.
One could theorize that Warren’s rise in the polls shows a degree of apathy on the part of Democratic voters about Warren’s claims to be a racial minority and her former Republican registration. I’d suggest, rather, that it reflects apathy on the part of the specific demographic offering her the strongest support, well-off white college grads, which just so happens to be the demographic most represented by our media.
To go even further, one aspect of this that has received little inspection is the degree to which Warren’s rise in the polls may be completely dependent on the media acting as PR for her campaign. “I have a plan for that,” her campaign’s marketing pitch, has been breathlessly shared by a media that never seems to investigate whether all these plans will work.
For instance, looking at Warren’s approach to maternal mortality suggests a deep cynicism in her attempt to avoid centering universal healthcare as a solution. Her fixation on bad individual actors and means-tested policy in response to the issue, single-point prescriptions which she oddly calls systemic and universal, indicates that she may not understand the concepts. And even a cursory look at her plan to offer monetary rewards or exact penalties from hospitals for the wide-ranging complications that result in deaths in a mere .000225% of births, makes it clear that her policy will have no direct impact on maternal mortality — systemically. The media doesn’t even begin to consider the obvious disconnect.
For Warren, it would seem that offering workable plans are less the point than presenting the idea that she’s actively engaged in all of these topics (for which she never advocated prior to running for president or bothered to support by co-sponsoring related legislation proposed by her colleagues). For example, Warren is now offering plans to end for-profit prisons and decrease incarceration, but she never co-sponsored similar legislation offered by Sanders in the Senate. In fact, a video recently surfaced of Warren meeting with criminal justice activists. When asked how she would deal with decarceration, Warren offered nothing on criminal justice reform, but rather her housing ideas! Interestingly, she released her criminal justice plan three days after that meeting.
These red flags point to yet another example of the ways in which people in the media may identify so completely with Warren that they become inordinately credulous about her stated politics. It seems as if many journalists are incapable of viewing her with even slight skepticism. As when, at Jacobin, Meagan Day writes:
“A capitalist respects the superior wisdom of capitalist markets and tries to restore them to optimal functionality, which can help explain why Warren is so frustratingly noncommittal on Medicare for All.”
In this observation, Day seems reticent to go further and point out that Warren’s lack of commitment to Medicare for All — a bill she co-sponsored in the Senate — is only frustrating if one fails to see that she doesn’t actually support it.
There’s a “what-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg” quality to Warren’s coverage in the press. However, one Twitter thread looking at coverage, which repeatedly declared a surge in support for her despite a lack of corresponding data, makes a strong case for her numbers hatching from the support of journalists. If that’s true, it suggests that potentially dangerous information and questions are more likely to rise when they will have a more damaging effect on her campaign.
Although conservative outlets like The National Review don’t play much of a role in the Democratic primary, media sources become somewhat less segregated along partisan lines during the general. Issues which seem to have been put to rest by a Democratic partisan media may suddenly flare up again. (see Comey announcement) From conservative coverage of Warren, it’s clear that her explanations for claiming to be a racial minority have not put their questions to rest.
Right-wing media can drive stories into the mainstream during the general that “the left” press has already dismissed during the primary. It also suggests that when mainstream Democratic Party-centric journalists say that Warren and Sanders are similar or want the same things, they are unconsciously projecting how they’d like to portray their own politics, rather than reflecting reality.
It’s not clear how Sanders, a lifetime socialist, and Warren, a self-described “capitalist to her bones” who was a Republican until she was 46 years old, can be considered similar. When journalists say that Warren and Sanders basically agree on everything, they’re implying that they share similar goals, which is inaccurate. While they may both focus on reducing the unequal concentration of wealth and power in the U.S., they attribute the reason for that unequal concentration to vastly different causes, and thus offer very different solutions.
If Warren wavering on her commitment to Sander’s Medicare for All bill were not enough to make one skeptical of the idea that she and Sanders are similar, the fact that he’s consistently fought for the same economic policies over decades, a period during which Warren was advocating for the current economic order (which she only now finds problematic) demands greater examination of the premise.
Aimee Terese, co-host of the What’s Left podcast, has consistently made the case since December that there is an un-bridged ideological gulf between Warren and Sanders. Their political projects are intrinsically different. Terese has repeatedly argued that the role of the Warren campaign is to undercut Sanders and his political project. On her Twitter account, Terese has detailed the corporations that have donated to Warren’s senate campaign, and which have provided the initial funding for her presidential campaign, despite her pledge to avoid corporate and PAC money.
These donations offer a possible explanation for Warren’s wavering support for Medicare for All and cast doubt on how progressive her goals actually are. In essence, Terese has looked at Warren’s history to offer a deeper explanation of what it means to be a capitalist to your bones that the mainstream media seems completely uninterested in exploring. In a recent episode of What’s Left, she explained what she finds wholly objectionable in the idea that Warren and Sanders are similar:
“Throughout her history in public life, Liz Warren has been one step ahead of her peers absorbing the popular zeitgeist, and then spitting back out a cheap replica for consumer consumption to her own benefit. She was issuing free market Chicago school papers in the 80s, she was a Republican during the Republican revolution, she was a Third-Way Democrat, Native American-exploiting Affirmative Action at Harvard during the 90s. She was a lawyer advising corporations in the peak of class action lawsuits. She was a consumer advocate regarding bankruptcy, but only after the reforms she’d cheered on began ruining lives…She was a finance guru on Dr. Phil in the peak of neoliberal self-help TV shows. She was yelling at bankers in the Senate following the financial crash; and that financial crash was the result of neoliberal restructuring and deregulation which she championed her entire public life; the very neoliberal brutality that allowed the role of a consumer advocate like her to seem like anything other than a legitimation of the status quo. And she’s now spitting out a counterfeit Bernie campaign in response to the desperate need for change she saw him ignite in 2016…This isn’t indicative of any left agenda, as per her entire history, she’s just reading the moment and leveraging it to her advantage, which is the internal logic of capitalism. Warren sees the opportunity for capital accumulation, this is what it means to be a capitalist to your bones, exploiting market demand and profiting from it.”
The Warren campaign has yet to address any of this history, and only journalists for conservative outlets seem to care. When her work helping Dow Chemical lower its liability for faulty breast implants came to light, her defenders argued that Warren did nothing wrong by being paid a high hourly rate. All this to avoid discussing the problem of her working for a corporation to the detriment of consumers. It seems that the strategy among her supporters, including journalists, for dealing with potentially damaging information is to either ignore it or parse it away. Where Warren’s history or objectives contradict her progressive portrayal, they simply expand the concept of what progressivism is in order to more fully contain her within it.
Ultimately, the problem here is less how Warren portrays herself (all politicians employ marketing, after all) than the media insistence that, no matter what, she is indeed a rose. The fourth estate carries an incredible responsibility for capturing the sleights of hand people in power use to distract the populace. It’s unfortunate that, in this case, they seem captivated by their own image in the Elizabeth Warren mirror. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they are incapable of seeing her as anything other than a progressive.
And this means they are incapable of seeing the danger in having yet another progressive-in-name-only ascend to be the Democratic nominee for president.
originally published in Ghion Journal | https://brotherbeat.medium.com/can-the-mainstream-media-see-elizabeth-warren-clearly-fc9591f07d5 | [] | 2019-10-30 04:51:20.242000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Journalists', 'Identity Politics', 'Journalism', 'Elizabeth Warren'] |
My Coming Out Story. | My Coming Out Story.
Not all Stories are Negative.
I would love to go back and tell the young Kevin to accept who you are, it will be hard for you to accept but ultimately it will be the best thing that you ever do.
Rainbow heart. Photo by @jiroe
I was talking to a friend at work about the articles I have written and he said something along the lines of ‘yeah I’ve read them, homophobia, homophobia and the straights hate the gays’. That got me thinking about my articles and he’s right, the majority of the articles I have written are directly or indirectly about homophobia. I have written that word so much that when I type the word ‘homo’ it automatically wants to finish the word with ‘phobia’. So here is the thing, I have been out for over ten years now and I haven’t suffered any homophobic abuse. I thought in this article I could write my own experience, a positive experience of what happened when I came out and what happened since.
After hiding my sexuality to myself, and to everyone else since I was around 11, at 22 years old (relatively late but I got there) I came out. It was a Sunday afternoon when I knew everyone would be at home and I asked everyone to come into the living room as I had something that I wanted to talk about. I was so nervous and the speech I had planned went out of the window but I told them I was in a relationship with a guy, probably not what they had expected. I said I was bi, I think it made it easier for me to handle. I understand how this can be bad for people who identify as bisexual, people don’t believe that you can like both sexes but I genuinely thought I did at that time.
My parents were shocked which was understandable but they said that they loved me no matter what. I think my dad found it hard to get his head around, he was from the building trade, he used to go to the pub most nights, smoked cigarettes most of his life, he was a mans man but I was his son and even though it was a world he didn’t know he never said anything bad about my sexuality. My Mum was accepting from the start, but I know it took time for her to get over the shock but she never let it on to me. My brother right from the start was awesome, it must have bothered him that he didn’t guess when he was the closest person to me but he accepted it straight away.
Friends Drinking at the Pub. Photo by @elevatebeer
I had told my immediate family but I wasn’t quite sure about the rest of my family yet so I kept my sexuality hidden from them but I did tell my friends. I was a little bit sneaky how I went about this, I changed my status on Facebook to ‘in a relationship’, I knew this would get questions, my friend Vicki was one of the first to respond asking who this mystery girl was that I was now in a relationship with. I then told her that it wasn’t a girl. I knew that telling her would mean that the next night out would force me to tell everyone. So on a traditional Friday night gathering, sat together at the pub I came out to them. I couldn’t get my words out so I think my brother told everyone, that detail is a little hazy. They were awesome right from the start, I then went about telling my friends who weren’t in that friendship circle and again they were perfect and accepting.
A couple of weeks after I came out one of my friends also did, I think that he saw the reaction I got and it encouraged him, he saw that everyone was ok with me and that he would get the same. The relationship I came out for didn’t last long (if you can call it a relationship) but I’m thankful for it, it forced me to come out and encouraged someone else to do the same. Nine months after I came out I met Stu, we had spoken online for a while but he lived near Birmingham (the one in the UK) he moved nearer to me so we finally met up. Five days later we were ‘official’, 6 weeks later we were travelling around the world together, quick but it felt right.
My extended family eventually worked out that Stu and I were a couple and he wasn’t just “my friend from school”, maybe it was the Brummie accent that gave it away. To be honest I have no idea why I didn’t tell them before, once again they accepted my sexuality and treated our relationship just like any other. I absolutely love the relationship my mum and Stu have, he even stayed with my mum the night before we got married. It really shows how far things have come from her initial shock to being friends with my other half.
Stu and I have been together now for ten years and just over two years ago we got married. The day was awesome and we shared it with our friends and family, it was the best day ever! There was only one family member who didn’t agree with our marriage, who didn’t come to the wedding but as it was someone I’m not that close to. I was and still am annoyed but it wasn’t the end of the world. The people I really care about were there and made the day special.
Friends and family at our wedding!
I was so worried about people’s reaction to my sexuality that I buried it so deep that I wouldn’t let myself accept it. I found myself looking at boys and hating myself for it, I tried to force myself to look at girls and find them attractive. It doesn’t work and it only makes it harder to accept, you know you can’t change it but you want to. It wasn’t until Stu and I had been together for a while that I accpeted I was gay and not bi.
After coming out I realised I wasted over ten years of my life worrying and battling but it was pointless. I would love to go back and tell the young Kevin to accept who you are, it will be hard for you to accept but ultimately it will be the best thing that you ever do. Having said that if I came out earlier I might not have met Stu and have the life I have now and I love my life.
I have tried to make this a positive piece, I have admitted the difficulties in coming out but I wanted to show that being gay isn’t all homophobia, homophobia and some more homophobia. I haven’t suffered any abuse at all. I know I’m a white boy from the south of England so in that respect it is relatively easy for me. There is every chance that my family and friends wouldn’t accept me and that could happen in any place and for any race. For me the grass was definitely greener on the other side and if you are thinking of coming out, it could be for you too. | https://medium.com/lgbtgaze/my-coming-out-story-41962b44fde4 | ['Kevin Laurie'] | 2018-10-04 19:19:37.345000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Sexuality', 'Lifestyle', 'Coming Out', 'Love'] |
Creating Multiple I2C Ports on a Raspberry PI | What about multiple devices?
In many cases, it is not just one peripheral that we want to add to the raspberry pi. For this example, I also need to also add an OLED display to show various sensor readings. To do this we have to define an additional I2C channel using the other available GPIO pins.
Possible I2C Ports
We start by selecting which ports are convenient for both position and availability. As I am already using the I2C-4 ports for an Optical Particle Counter, I select the I2C-6 for my OPC. These are also conveniently located next to a power and ground pin.
Possible I2C combinations — diagram source unknown (sorry)
Adding the port
If we were to try and query any additional ports, we will be met with an error message of the format
Error: Could not open file `/dev/i2c-X' or `/dev/i2c/X': No such file or directory
This is because we have not specified that we wish to use those specific GPIO pins for the use with I2C communication. There are two ways of achieving this.
Definition on Boot
sudo nano /boot/config.txt
If we open this file and scroll to the bottom we may find the remnants of the precious peripheral (if it was added here previously)
dtoverlay=i2c-rtc,pcf8523,wakeup-source #RTC
We now need to add an additional device under a new bus — e.g. bus 2. We do this by adding an additional line with the following content.
dtoverlay=i2c-gpio,bus=2,i2c_gpio_sda=22,i2c_gpio_scl=23
And saving the file. Don’t forget to restart (this script only runs on boot).
Manual (runtime) definition
Alternatively, if we do not want to change any files we can tell our raspberry pi to load the port through a shell script with the following command. This method is easier for optional loads or prototyping. The dtoverlay the command is similar to that of the config.txt file.
dtoverlay i2c-gpio bus=2 i2c_gpio_sda=22 i2c_gpio_scl=23
If we test the port now we should hopefully get a response.
sudo i2cdetect -y 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f
00: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
10: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
20: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
30: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 3c -- -- --
40: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
50: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
60: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
70: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Here we see our OLED is accessible on bus to at 0x3c
Finally
To conclude, although it is possible to have multiple devices using the same I2C port we have found it much simpler to create an additional one using available GPIO pins. We are able to repeat this process several times, appending each new bus to the /boot/config.txt file or simply supplying additional dtoverlay commands in the terminal. Either way, we can now use additional pins to connect multiple I2C devices.
Useful libraries for software I2C port usage (use this instead of busio) | https://medium.com/cemac/creating-multiple-i2c-ports-on-a-raspberry-pi-e31ce72a3eb2 | ['Daniel Ellis'] | 2020-12-16 20:08:40.958000+00:00 | ['Raspberry Pi', 'Devices', 'Sensors', 'Ports', 'I2c'] |
Is My Skin Dry or Dehydrated? | Important Difference Between Dry Skin and Dehydrated Skin…and why you need to pay attention!
We often use the words “dry skin” and “dehydrated skin” interchangeably, but there is a big difference. Dry skin is a skin type that lacks oil and dehydrated skin is a skin condition that lacks water. Dehydrated skin is a condition that affects all skin types. Knowing the difference can target the treatment for better skin care.
DRY SKIN
Dry skin is a skin type that you were born with and it is characterized by a lack of oil in the skin. Skin needs oil to retain moisture and to build a strong barrier, without it, skin often feels rough, irritated and can be flaky. The lack of oil can cause an abnormal skin barrier function and leave you with red, inflamed and very itchy skin. Dry skin is noticed more in the areas near the eyebrows and around the corners of the nose and mouth.
If you have dry skin, avoid taking a hot shower. While a hot shower may feel good, it can break down the skin barriers that keep moisture in. Click here to learn how to wash your face the correct way. Don’t forget to apply moisturizer immediately after every shower or face wash as it traps existing moisture in your skin.
DEHYDRATED SKIN
Dehydration is a skin condition that anyone can experience regardless of skin type. Dehydrated skin means that the top layer of skin doesn’t hold enough water. It is caused by a number of factors, but the most common are weather, environment, diet, and caffeine consumption. Dehydrated skin often feels tight, looks dull in the mirror, and you may notice more exaggerated wrinkles.
You can also have an oily AND dehydrated skin. When skin is dehydrated, it creates more oil to make up for the missing water. This can cause breakouts, irritation, and dry patches.
A great way to tell if your skin is dehydrated is the pinch test. Pinch a small amount of skin on your cheek, hold for a few seconds. If it’s wrinkling with gentle pressure instead of snapping back, your skin is desperate for water.
Do I need Moisturization or Hydration?
Both! If you want your skin to look and feel its best, you need to both hydrate and moisturize.
Hydrating ingredients will add water to the skin while moisturizing ingredients build up a skin barrier to keep moisture in. If you’re hydrating and moisturizing, use a hydrating product first and then take the steps necessary to seal that moisture in.
When you choose your skincare product, here are the ingredients to look for.
Both Hydrating and Moisturizing
Hyaluronic acid
Ceramide
Hydrating for dehydrating skin
Glycerin
Cucumber
Aloe
Honey
Moisturizing for dry skin
Nut or seed oil
Shea butter
Plant oil, rose hip or tea tree
Last but not least, drink enough water! Keeping your body hydrated with lots of water is always a good place to start when dealing with both dry and dehydrated skin.
Resources: | https://medium.com/@mistia/is-my-skin-dry-or-dehydrated-adf8b643874b | ['Kristine Oh'] | 2021-04-25 02:34:48.409000+00:00 | ['Hydrating', 'Skincare Tips', 'Enhances Skin Hydration', 'Skincare'] |
What Zoom Teaches Us About The Connected Economy | An article published in the Harvard Business Review in August of 2009 posed a question that many airline and travel industry CEOs are pondering 11 years later: Will videoconferencing kill business travel?
The answer in 2009 was, probably not. The answer in 2021 is far less clear.
Eleven years ago, video conferencing tech was in a very different place, even though the technology itself had come a long way from the commercial launch of Bell Lab’s Picturephone in 1964.
It was expensive — an investment that only big companies could afford to make, and mostly did so to make it easier for far-flung internal teams and corporate boards to meet without always getting on a plane.
It had the “fax” problem: The only way people could see each other was if the party on the other end had access to the same technology.
And it was location-dependent. Given its hefty price tag and IT requirements, the technology was installed in conference or board rooms and not individual offices. To use it, people had to gather in one of those rooms.
The quality was poor: Latency issues and sub-par picture resolution made it a less-than-ideal “face-to-face” experience — particularly when those without access to the tech had to join by phone or not at all.
In 2009, and over the decade that followed, the limitations of the tech meant that the most efficient way to do business was to hop on a plane to meet clients, get deals done and visit trade shows.
Even in the throes of the Great Recession in 2009, executives still traveled, even if their budgets were somewhat clipped. According to analysts, business travel spend dipped by only about 7 percent that year. By the end of 2019, business travel hospitality globally was a $1.4 trillion sector.
2021 is a whole different story.
Eleven years and a global pandemic later, the future of business travel is unclear.
Zoom put the power of a face-to-face meeting, using high-quality video tech, into the hands of anyone who had a connected device and needed to meet a client, prospect or team member face-to-face without having to be there in person.
After the initial shock and awe of the pandemic and lockdown of the physical economy in March of 2020, it was this technology that helped keep businesses moving and remote workforces productive. Business execs discovered that they didn’t have to get on a plane to move projects forward with clients, fill the sales funnel, close business or keep client relationships intact.
Even the court system shifted to Zoom for much of its work.
The friction associated with coordinating a place and time for busy people with conflicting travel schedules to meet in the same physical location was eliminated. Zoom made it possible for executives to be more accessible.
And since everyone was in the same boat — not being able to travel but with the same urgency to connect and do business — there was a mutual incentive to the tech, as well as the meetings it supported, effective.
Predictably, the segment was decimated in 2020 as government restrictions on travel, travel quarantine requirements, and executive concerns over health and safety put the vast majority of business travel on ice. In December of 2020, analysts predicted that the global market for business travel in 2020 would decline by 54 percent.
Sure, the outlook for 2021 and beyond is uncertain, but it is certainly grim. Although Zoom and similar tech platforms may not kill business travel entirely, they will hobble it materially — and those firms that depend on travelers to keep their own businesses alive.
According to a 2020 study of corporate travel managers conducted by the Institute of Travel Management, 38 percent report that business travel spending will decrease by 25 to 50 percent in 2021, while 36 percent say that it will be even more severe, with a 50 to 70 percent reduction. Eighty-eight percent cite the use of video conferencing tech as their top priority, while 80 percent cite a focus on travelers’ well-being.
Chief Financial Officers likely cite the well-being of their own bottom lines, as many have seen margins helped by reduced travel costs, often without the corresponding hit to their top lines, macro business conditions notwithstanding.
Firms have pivoted their business and marketing practices to reflect the new status quo — using digital tools and tech to fill the funnel, shorten the sales cycle and close business.
Online marketplaces that were once places for buyers and suppliers to discover each other — and then do business offline — will become payment-enabled, if they aren’t already. B2B eCommerce will ignite as digital tools, payments and credit offerings streamline those flows and suppliers commerce-enable their websites. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology will allow buyers to digitally kick the tires. Trade shows will not only go online, but will become vertical marketplaces — pop-up shops online, if you will — for businesses to see the latest products and then order and pay for them. Payments will make all of these B2B commerce encounters easy, efficient and secure.
In fact, it’s something that the PGA has already done. More than 400 golf brands and manufacturers convened online last week to see — and buy, using B2B payments tech — the latest and greatest golf goodies for their clubs and retail stores.
Some say it will take until 2024 for business travel to snap back to 2019 levels. Airline CEOs see the vaccine rollout as the elixir for their industry and are bullish on the future of business travel, which is said to account for 12 percent of butts in seats, but 75 percent of airline profits.
But that optimism ignores the handwriting on the wall.
Their competition is no longer the other guy’s airline — nor the temporary hit to their business caused by a global pandemic. It’s the longer-term, secular shift to digital, led by the democratized access to a software called Zoom that has made their product less valuable.
Now, it’s not that business executives won’t ever hit the road again, but the friction associated with doing so will have to be worth the business outcome. And it must be good enough to persuade CFOs that the juice is worth the squeeze.
It’s just one example of the connected economy in action, showing how the power of technology, software and payments to forever change how people and businesses connect.
The Power Of Connections — And The Connected Economy
Even before the pandemic made it essential to shift to digital, what we do and how we do it was already becoming increasingly dependent on using digital platforms that make it easier for people, businesses or workers to connect — and without friction.
Every part of our lives is changing this way: how we eat, shop, pay, travel, bank, work, communicate, have fun, live at home and stay well. These 10 pillars of the connected economy fall into roughly three groups — even though the dividing lines between them are hardly sharp.
There are four essential services that people rely on to get much of the other stuff done: they have to pay, bank, communicate and travel.
There are another five that people use to operate a household, and to sustain and enjoy themselves. How they live is about managing their homes and daily lives. Then there’s how they eat and shop. And how they work, which most people need to do in order to do everything else.
Finally, people want to stay well and live longer, healthier lives.
Each of these pillars rests on a rapidly improving foundation of technology and businesses we call enablers: the cellular carriers, payment networks, cloud companies, software platforms and equipment makers that power other platforms.
Gradually, we will cease distinguishing between the digital and physical worlds, as almost everything physical will be connected and powered to digital to varying degrees. The marriage of digital and physical will lie at the heart of the transformations we’ll see in every aspect of our lives — and are already living through in real time.
The Connected Economy’s Fast Track
The connected economy got a jolt in early 2020.
It was already booming following years of slow, steady growth. Then the pandemic struck. Much of the physical world shut down. And most people and businesses were forced online. This resulted in a break in the trend line, which made a big jump upward — the jump discontinuity that I wrote about last spring.
That jump wasn’t just about going digital — it was about a break with the old ways that people and businesses used to connect, leading to something entirely new. As a result, many established digital platforms, including some with shaky futures, saw explosive growth. The duration of the pandemic, which now looks to be through most of 2021, will accelerate the shift to digital even faster. The convergence of the physical and online worlds will happen sooner.
The Connected Economy’s Matchmakers And Enablers
There are four main characters, shaped by economics and strategy, that will define and drive the future of the connected economy.
Matchmakers are the businesses that forge connections. They operate platforms, such as Instacart, that enable different types of participants, such as shoppers and grocery stores and consumers, to find each other and engage in a mutually beneficial exchange, such as getting their groceries picked, packed and delivered. The physical world, from ancient to recent times, was replete with them, from the medieval bazaar to speed dating. The connected economy mainly relies on digital ones.
Time is our most precious asset. We will only get so much of it. Many of us flock to any innovator who can save our time, for better things; give us more time, by expanding what we can pack into it; or give us something in return for our time, like money or entertainment. Digital matchmakers in the connected economy often help us make the most of our scarce time. Just think of the time you’ve saved by asking Alexa or Google to order paper towels while doing the dishes in the evening.
Dynamic competition is what always happens in the face of rapid technological change and disruptive innovation. It is all about companies, entrepreneurs and innovators figuring out what’s next and what others are up to, and making sure they come out on top and don’t get destroyed. Dynamic competition is what leads to the rapid creation of new products, and ways of doing things in the connected economy.
Tech ecosystems are multifaceted businesses, often consisting of one or more platforms, possibly interconnected, that engage in dynamic competition with each other and with challengers. They are often anchored in one area where their innovations put them on top, and then use their leverage to leap into new areas and compete with other tech ecosystems.
Big Tech — Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft — are increasingly challenging each other in their existing businesses, but more importantly, are trying to win the races for many entirely new ones.
The connected economy would not have been possible without three key enablers whose rapid improvements have accelerated its rapid spread through the nooks and crannies of commerce, work and living.
The oldest enabler is digital payments.
Putting the card credentials people were accustomed to using in the physical world in their mobile apps made it possible for ridesharing companies to provide the magical experience where they don’t have to pay at the end of a ride, but just open the door and leave. The pandemic has accelerated the shift to digital, even for emerging countries where cash remains the dominant payment method, while giving businesses the incentive to finally bring the “Uber experience” to consumer and business payments.
Then there are software platforms that provide common services to applications and a standard environment for the applications and users. Some of these are familiar names, such as Android, but others, such as Apache, labor in obscurity in the guts of the connected economy.
The gradual convergence of the physical and digital worlds began with the deployment of 3G cellular networks, and then, importantly, the 4G network, which enabled people to access fast, reliable internet service pretty much anywhere, anytime with a smartphone. With the 5G networks that are rolling out, almost every place in the physical world will have high-speed internet connections, where apps and other software will be able to provide digital services everywhere, anytime.
These enablers do not provide a traditional foundation that is permanent and longstanding. Each is going through disruptive innovation, which is making them better. If history is any indication, new enablers will likely emerge, as Android did in 2008. The enablers provide a foundation that improves, shifts shapes and propels innovation on top of it.
The Journey
Our journey into the connected economy began in earnest in late 2009. The introduction of the iPhone in 2007 — and the birth of the apps ecosystem a year later in 2008 — inspired an entirely new class of innovator that started the decade of the 2010s with a brand-new toolkit. Armed with new tech, mobile devices data and the cloud, they fast-tracked the shift from what was then still a largely analog world to the app-based economy that is our reality today.
That combination of smartphones and apps has changed how people and businesses interact within and across each of the 10 pillars of the connected economy.
The connected economy will be the result of the full force of the Internet of Things (IoT) in action.
Just about every device will be connected to the internet and capable of enabling a transaction — between machines, people, businesses and every possible permutation in between. In this new connected economy, we will find ourselves living in a world in which new networks, intermediaries and enablers will emerge — and change what we used to call the payments and commerce status quo.
In many ways, the last 11 years was the warmup act for the transformation that we have seen accelerate over the last 11 months — the transition from an app-based economy to one in which connected ecosystems aggregate commerce experiences and enable transactions across channels, devices and environments.
Payments is powering many of those shifts — and the new business models that have emerged.
According to the latest PYMNTS survey of U.S. consumers, 115 million adult consumers — 45.4 percent of the U.S. adult population — have shifted to digital. They are doing less in the physical world and more in the digital world for the same activity since March of 2020, including buying retail and grocery products and food from restaurants. And 80 percent of them — 92 million — say they’ll stick with those digital-first habits. Not only have they broken with the status quo, they don’t want to return to it. Digital payments, alternative payments and credit methods have made it easier for businesses, even those on Main Street, to transact with a consumer who wants their products, but may not want to go to the physical store to get or pay for them.
The Connected Economy Roadmap
In the first year of the decade of the 2020s, all of us were collectively left to navigate our way in a world for which there was no playbook. Times remain tough for many.
Yet, experience teaches us that opportunities will emerge for innovators to devise more and better ways of doing things in the connected economy, especially as technologies improve. They will be able to tap into the 115 million U.S. consumers — and hundreds of millions more the world over — who have become increasingly acclimated to online life, using platforms and connected devices that save them time, keep their interactions safe and secure, and deliver a far better experience.
Just take Zoom, where I started.
Yes, this is how business colleagues are working with each other, each sitting in their spare rooms, usually dressed down, sometimes in hoodies — but getting the job done, regardless of the dress code.
But it is also how doctors are visiting their patients. Zoom, along with other video platforms, is part of what’s driving health tech and the move to telemedicine. Payments innovators are integrating flexible payment arrangements into those experiences.
It’s how teachers and students engage and learn.
Video platforms are how retail sales associates stay connected with their clients and show them new things to buy.
And how judges hear cases and conduct pre-trial hearings and lawyers take depositions.
It’s how real estate agents show houses and buyers buy them, sometimes even without ever stepping foot on the property until they buy it, and from anywhere in the world.
Video platforms are how bankers are engaging with their customers, and how interior decorators are helping clients feather the nests where they now spend nearly all of their time living and working.
And how orchestras perform for their virtual audiences without leaving their homes.
The connected economy, through innovation and the inspiring labors and ingenuity of entrepreneurs, will, in the end, make the world a better place — and will make the ’20s the roaring decade that we imagined just a year ago.
It’s those stories, and the connected economy framework, that will define that path. | https://medium.com/@karenmpd/what-zoom-teaches-us-about-the-connected-economy-4808497913d5 | ['Karen Webster'] | 2021-02-01 19:59:32.189000+00:00 | ['Big Tech', 'Connected Home', 'Zoom', 'IoT', 'Payments'] |
Your Guide to Building a Campaign Inventory Strategy | In the world of programmatic advertising, navigating through the different types of inventory can be overwhelming. The digital advertisers and marketers that use an inventory strategy are better able to deliver their ads to inform, persuade or remind their targeted audience. According to eMarketer, programmatic ad spending will account for 86.5% of all digital ad dollars in 2021. Understanding the different inventory strategies available and considering its use cases will not only help you plan for a scalable campaign, but it can also help ensure ads are running on premium, brand-safe inventory.
So, what is ad inventory? Advertising inventory is the number of ad placements available to be transacted on a publisher’s website. Ad inventory can be segmented in many ways, whether it is by the supply partners where the inventory can be bought from, the type of device the ad can be displayed on, or the specific geography to reach an audience. Just like planning a campaign, developing an inventory strategy, and how you will leverage the different domains and ad placements available will have an impact on how effectively you can reach your campaign goals.
With so much inventory available, and so many factors that influence what makes an ideal inventory strategy, we’ve compiled some questions to consider before you actually start building your campaigns:
What is the targeted geography? The level of inventory available at the city level is limited compared to country targeting.
Is there a specific device (desktop, mobile web, mobile-app, connected TV (CTV), etc.) you are targeting? The inventory available for device types varies depending on when users are on their devices. Besides inventory, this is also important to consider for your ads because you need to ensure the creative sizes used are aligned with the device the ads will be served on.
Is there a set time period or event when it is most ideal to reach your audience? Inventory can vary at different times of the day, or days of the week. It will also change depending on what tentpole or sporting events are occurring, such as the Super Bowl.
How do you want to reach your audience? Is it by targeting contextually via websites, or by targeting an audience segment? Some advertisers may use a contextual approach by targeting only finance sites with no additional audiences layered on. Whereas, others will want to target a specific audience segment like accountants, regardless of what they are reading online. A hyper-targeted approach is to leverage both targeting options in tandem.
A well-thought-out campaign targeting strategy will not necessarily generate adequate results without proper understanding and assessment of the inventory used. That is why having an inventory strategy in mind is so important. Now that you have an idea of what factors go into building that strategy, it’s time to get started on actually building it!
The majority of the publishers in the programmatic ecosystem use four selling strategies for the different types of inventories available: open exchange, private auction, preferred deal, and programmatic guaranteed. For the open exchange and private auction, bidding will occur either with a first-price auction or second-price auction. In a first-price auction, the highest bidder wins the auction, and will pay the exact amount they bid. In a second-price auction, the highest bidder wins, however, only pays $0.01 above the second highest bid.
Let’s define and discover the opportunities when to best utilize each in your strategy!
Open Exchange
This is the most common and familiar strategy for digital marketers. Also known as the open market, the open exchange is the place where the majority of online ad inventory is transacted, usually through some form of real-time bidding (RTB). Depending on the publisher’s strategy, the open exchange can either make up the bulk of a publisher’s inventory, or it can be made up of remnant inventory on the publisher’s site that was not sold in a private auction, as a preferred deal, or in a programmatic guaranteed environment. The publishers will set a floor price, and advertisers will bid for the available inventory in a first- or second-price auction.
When to consider using an Open Exchange Strategy?
Running a campaign through the open exchange is the most cost-effective way to buy media on a wide scale because there is a larger amount of inventory available. Leveraging the open exchange as part of your inventory strategy provides the opportunity to be creative with your targeting parameters, and allows flexibility to address any modifications needed to ensure an effective campaign.
A common tactic used in many inventory strategies is a domain inclusion list, while running on the open exchange. This provides scale from accessing all available exchange partners, while allowing control over which publishers the ads are able to bid on. Keep in mind that having a healthy list of domains to include or target, is essential for this to work.
Private Auction
The concept of a private auction is very similar to the open exchange, with one main difference — as the name suggests, it is a private, invitation-only strategy. RTB in a private auction is commonly known as a Private Marketplace or PMP for short. Similar to the open exchange, there can be multiple buyers competing in a private auction environment, where the publisher will provide a deal ID to all buyers participating and have the freedom to set a floor price.
When to consider using a Private Auction Strategy?
The optimal scenario to run a campaign through a private auction is when you want to access higher-tier placements that are not available on the open exchange or purchase inventory of a specific channel or format. For example, you may want to use a publisher’s 1st-party data which can be done through a deal, or want priority and greater control when it comes to purchasing in-app inventory or premium CTV placements in an auction.
Some DSPs have the capability of allowing their advertisers to buy inventory through a hybrid model. This allows the campaign to bid on inventory in the open market normally but utilize a private deal ID as well. Providing the campaign with an extra boost of inventory will increase the number of requests the campaign is eligible to bid on.
Preferred Deal
Unlike a private deal, which is still up for RTB in a private auction, a preferred deal is a non-auction-based transaction, where a publisher will set a fixed CPM for the premium inventory the advertiser will likely purchase. It is a one-to-one deal made between the publisher and the advertiser with no guaranteed volume of inventory. An advertiser will typically approach a publisher with specific needs and after a price is negotiated a deal ID is provided.
When to consider using a Preferred Deal Strategy?
Because of its non-auction-based nature and generally higher pre-negotiated fixed CPM, you may want to consider this strategy for very similar reasons to a private auction approach. The main difference is the priority level set by the publisher is usually higher for a preferred deal.
Programmatic Guaranteed
Programmatic guaranteed, also known as PG for short, is similar to a preferred deal strategy in the sense that it is a one-to-one deal made between the publisher and the advertiser. The advertiser pays a flat negotiated CPM for the inventory that they are purchasing. In return for purchasing all of the impressions fulfilling the criteria set, the publisher will set aside or reserve inventory for the advertiser.
When to consider using a Programmatic Guaranteed Strategy?
This strategy is best used when you have a set allocated budget you can commit to buying all relevant impressions, negotiated at a flat CPM with a publisher within a set date range. Programmatic guaranteed can help lock in rates against an audience that is hard to find, or it can help guarantee delivery on campaigns — especially during periods of high competition, such as election time.
Choosing an Inventory Strategy
Many advertisers struggle when trying to determine which inventory strategy to choose. Below is a mini cheat-sheet to help you figure it out:
Programmatic advertising will only continue to grow as advertisers and performance agencies are adopting a more multi-channel approach to their marketing strategies. Having a solid understanding of the four fundamental types of programmatic ad inventory will not only help you reach your bottom line but will also provide you with the tools to buy and plan smarter.
The Partnerships Team at StackAdapt is actively discovering and unlocking new inventory opportunities to help advertisers achieve optimal results, on an ongoing basis. | https://medium.com/stackadapt/your-guide-to-building-a-campaign-inventory-strategy-f4950562e046 | ['Christiana Marouchos'] | 2020-09-09 14:04:21.168000+00:00 | ['Programmatic Advertising', 'Campaign Tips', 'Stackadapt', 'Private Marketplace', 'Inventory'] |
To Salvation | To Salvation
The Writing Cooperative and Chalkboard Magnet Poetry Prompt
Photo by Thư Anh on Unsplash
There he was
Intoxicating her mind.
His words:
One moment sweet,
His touch:
Both light and strong,
His sight:
Beyond the borders
She had always known —
No one else could know,
For no reason but one.
He leads the immigration.
They go hand in hand,
Against the bitter winds,
To salvation.
Poems Used
Immigration (Book Spine Poetry) by Tim Monreal
Poetry and Wine by Rachel B. Baxter.
Poetry. Ugh. by Nate McCowan | https://medium.com/chalkboard/the-writing-cooperative-and-chalkboard-magnet-poetry-prompt-6a2ec37d4fdd | ['Christine S.'] | 2019-05-28 18:54:16.177000+00:00 | ['Magnet Poetry', 'Poetry', 'Writing Challenge', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Creativity'] |
How to Complete the Qur’ān in 7 Days | How to Complete the Qur’ān in 7 Days
Ahmad and Abu Dawud narrated from Aws b. Hudhayfa, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: ‘We came to the Messenger of Allah, prayers and peace be upon him, as part of the delegation of Thaqif.’
He said: ‘The Messenger of Allah, prayers and peace be upon him, would come to us every night after ‘isha and speak to us.’
He said: ‘One night he was late from (coming to see us at) the time he would come to us.’
We said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, you have come to us late tonight.’
He said: ‘I had my portion of the Qur’an to read and I did not want to come until I had finished it.’
Aws said: ‘I asked the companions of the Messsenger of Allah, prayers and peace be upon him, about how he divided up his reading of the Qur’an.’
They said: ‘Three, five, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen and the Mufassal.’
Thus, the Prophet, prayers and peace be upon him, would complete the Qur’an weekly. His reading would be as follows:
Day 1: Fatiha to Al-‘Imran (three suras)
Day 2: Al-Nisa to Al-Anfal (five suras)
Day 3: Al-Tawba to Al-Hijr (seven suras)
Day 4: Al-Nahl to Al-Nur (nine suras)
Day 5: Al-Furqan to Al-Fatir (eleven suras)
Day 6: Ya Sin to Al-Fath (thirteen suras)
Day 7: Al-Hujurat to Al-Nas (Mufassal)
So, here’s a suggestion for those able to read the Qur’an fluently. With one week (or two) left to Ramadan, who is up for following a Prophetic sunnah. Who is up for the challenge of finishing the Qur’an in a week as the Messenger of Allah, prayers and peace be upon him, would do regularly and then who will continue that and do four readings of the Qur’an in Ramadan? Who is up for it?
—
By Shaykh Haroon Hanif
P.S. If you liked this post, you might enjoy the newsletter. Receive each new post delivered right to your inbox! Sign up here | https://medium.com/how-to-memorise-the-quran/how-to-complete-the-qur-%C4%81n-in-7-days-d9e66b8072c2 | ['Qāri Mubashir Anwar'] | 2015-06-14 16:47:29.293000+00:00 | ['Islam'] |
Mid-Market’s New Slice of Spain Has All the Art Deco Vibes | The seductive space is one of the key factors separating La Bande from other tapas/wine/aperitivo bars. Designed by Kelly Wearstler, the triangular corner spot is lofty yet intimate, given extended tables under a long sidewalk tent, glowing with lights and heat lamps. The 1908 Beaux-Arts flatiron building is an 1800s architectural style, though the feel is more 1920s Art Deco, recalling the best of New York, SF, LA and Chicago in that era. Wearstler’s eye makes it feel fresh yet respects its history with green marble and tiles, brass, black and white stripes, dim lighting and Iberico ham on the counter when available (it’s tough to source right now, like so many things). Sherry, Madeira, Spanish wines and vermouth line shelving above and behind the bar/kitchen counter. This space feels oh-so Spain yet truly SF and U.S. It’s one sultry combination.
Warm and cold tapas, pinxtos (bites), plancha-grilled dishes, house bread, Galician conservas (tinned seafood), charcuterie and cheeses: it’s all here, with necessary Spanish imports alongside locally-farmed and foraged vegetables. Whether salt cod croquettes, cold, comforting potato tortilla (aka Spanish omelette) or the simple, garlic-laced perfection of pan con tomate (tomato toasts), this is Spain-worthy eats. From silky mortadella to Rioja chorizo or rabbit terrine, the charcuterie is on point. Ditto the cheeses, from lush Andazul goat’s milk blue cheese to smoked Etxegarai sheep’s milk cheese.
La Bande’s blood sausage and chickpeas. (Photo: Courtesy of Virginia Miller)
California/modern touches come in mini-smoked salmon avocado toasts or roasted pumpkin and sunchokes. Grilled a la plancha dishes include squid or mini-truffled ham and cheese sandwiches (ideal drinking food). While white beans and pork shoulder is a heartier shared plate, my number one dish over multiple visits was the similarly heftier spinach, chickpeas, and blood sausage bowl. This dish nailed sweet-savory contrast with spiced-sweet, crumbled blood sausage intermingling with savory and vegetal. All three desserts win, especially Spanish almond cake, balancing sweetness and nuttiness.
As with other Proper SF restaurants, Josh Harris’ BVHospitality created the cocktails and drink list. When it comes to cocktails, it’s straightforward, whether a Nitro Negroni or Fiero Spritz. There are two versions each — white and red — of a classic Negroni, Americano or Sbagliato (sparkling Negroni). While there’s Gin & Tonic Service for 4–6 people, complete with garnishes and pricey German Monkey 47 gin, the single Gin & Tonic on the menu was just a basic G&T in a tall glass vs. Spain’s ubiquitous goblet/stemware and garnishes style. Drinks pair well with the food and though common, are made well. Rather than offering Spanish vermut (an exciting world on its own), the vermouth list is just four offerings, all from Italy or France, but served as in Spain: on the rocks with an olive and a citrus twist.
I’m more into the wine list (there are also seven European and local beers on draft), particularly with Spanish pours like a 2019 Viñátigo Tenerife Islas Canarias Listan Blanco from one of my favorite wine regions in Spain, the Canary Islands. The acidic, chalky ease of a 2020 Ameztoi Getariako Txakolina sings with seafood dishes, while a longtime go-to Spanish cidre (cider) of mine, crisp-punchy Isastegi Sagardo Naturala pairs nicely with many a dish (there are also two French ciders on offer).
La Bande’s charcuterie. (Photo: Courtesy of Virginia Miller)
The real drink highlight was vintage Madeira from D’Oliveira with La Bande’s collection dating back to the 1930s. Granted, Madeira is from Portugal/the island of Madeira. But as a close neighbor to Spain, the fortified wine pairs with the food beautifully (as does Spanish sherry). Post-dinner, we sampled Madeiras from 1994, 1989, 1987 and 1973, covering the gamut from nutty complexity to raisin-y lushness. Each wowed (especially the ’73 with its welcome mustiness and age), further warming a chilly night already warmed by kind service, heartwarming tapas, conversation and drink.
Savoring the aged Madeira tied together the unique history of the building with its new inhabitant. In its striking but snug space, La Bande marries Spain with San Francisco, as it unites New and Old World, traditional Spanish tapas and bites with modern freshness and ease. If we were going to have another Spanish restaurant, I’m grateful it’s one that brings something original to the equation in a space as beautiful as this. ¡Mola!
// 1100 Market St., www.properhotel.com/san-francisco/restaurants-bars/la-bande | https://thebolditalic.com/mid-markets-new-slice-of-spain-has-all-the-art-deco-vibes-67260fa8d2bf | ['Virginia Miller'] | 2021-12-10 22:24:06.986000+00:00 | ['Wine Bar', 'Spanish', 'Restaurant', 'Food', 'Foodies'] |
Visualize Your Kong API Gateway Clusters With KongMap | Visualize Your Kong API Gateway Clusters With KongMap yes!nteractive Follow Oct 21 · 5 min read
Browser-based tool allows for visual mapping and declarative management of Kong Open Source and Enterprise API Gateway Clusters
KongMap provides a view of your Kong Cluster configuration in a single pane
A picture is worth a thousand… configurations.
KongMap is a new free Docker based tool that allows you to quickly see your whole Kong API Gateway configuration in an interactive map through a web browser. No more combing through yaml based declarative config files or making API calls or stringing together Admin GUI clicks to make a mental map of your current gateway configuration. CLI’s are great, but sometimes it is just nice to be able visually see your gateway configuration relationships. KongMap offers an alternative way to view and manage your Kong Gateways.
KongMap provides a single pane view of your Kong Cluster showing all of your gateway API Endpoints (Routes) and the upstream proxied targets (Services) they are connected with. Polices (Plugins) such as authentication, rate limiting, caching and more can be toggled in and out of view. Hovering over or clicking into any node in the map will bring up details for that node, whether it be a route, service, plugin, or workspace (workspaces are only shown when connected to a Kong Enterprise cluster). When connected to a Kong Enterprise Cluster, every node has a direct link to view itself in Kong Manager (The Kong Enterprise Edition Admin GUI). KongMap is a good compliment to what is available and not-available in the Kong Enterprise UI, Kong Manager and Open Source UI alternatives such as Konga. KongMap provides the ability to toggle between multiple Kong clusters, whether they be Kong Open Source, Kong Enterprise, DB or DB-less cluster configurations, or Kong for Kubernetes (Kong’s Ingress Controller for Kubernetes).
Endpoint Analyzer
A really helpful feature beyond the map view is the Endpoint Analyzer. Clicking on an endpoint node will reveal the ‘Analyze Endpoint’ button.
The Analyzer will walk you through the details of any particular endpoint including detailed configuration of the Kong Route, the order of execution and details of plugins/policies as well as the full details of the attached/proxied Service. If connected to a Kong Enterprise Cluster, then a direct link to the element on Kong Manager is provided.
Endpoint Analyzer showing the details of the dad_jokes service attached to /jokes2 endpoint.
Declarative Configuration Interface
A powerful feature of KongMap is its ability to view, export, and manage Kong Gateway configurations in a declarative manner, rather than managing configurations via API calls or DB driven Admin GUI’s. More and more frequently, Kong admins are moving towards declarative operational management of Kong Gateways for a variety of reasons:
reduced number of dependencies : no need to manage or rely on a database installation for operations
: no need to manage or rely on a database installation for operations makes a good fit for automation in CI/CD scenarios : configuration for entities can be kept in a single source of truth managed via a Git repository and are highly transportable
: configuration for entities can be kept in a single source of truth managed via a Git repository and are highly transportable flexibility: it enables more deployment options for Kong and operational option when considering things like high availability, version control, life cycle management, etc.
Under the hood, KongMap utilizes Kong’s declarative CLI tool decK (https://github.com/Kong/deck) to pull and push new declarative configurations to Kong. The button to launch the declarative configuration interface is displayed when the Kong Cluster node (for Kong Open Source) or the Kong workspace node (Kong Enterprise) is clicked upon.
Once launched, the declarative UI displays the current gateway configuration in YAML format. Here you can view, edit, export, copy and paste your Kong declarative configurations. This feature is helpful when you want to move Kong configurations from one cluster to another (such as moving a Kong DB-less configuration to a Kong Enterprise Workspace for example).
Configurations can be made read-only by KongMap configuration during startup for a particular cluster. Saving declarative configurations is supported whether your Kong cluster is DB-based or DB-less and supports both Kong Open Source and Kong Enterprise. While helpful to view the configuration, it is recommended to only view Kong for Kubernetes / Kong Ingress Controller instances in Read-Only Mode as configurations should provided by the Ingress Controller within Kubernetes itself.
Give It A Try
Installing and running KongMap in Docker takes seconds. Installation instructions can be found here:
https://github.com/yesinteractive/kong-map
Only thing you require is a running Kong Cluster to connect to. If this is your first time venturing down the declarative configuration management options within Kong, here is a sample Kong declarative file you can try with KongMap that uses the DadJokes.Online JSON service and creates a ‘/jokes’ route and employs a rate limit policy: dadjokes.yaml
Even if you are not planning on managing your Kong Clusters declaratively, the ability to quickly get a visual confirmation of the current configuration of your Kong Gateway in one view or jump in and see all the working parts of an API endpoint is rather useful.
Helpful Resources
KongMap GitHub to learn more, ask questions or provide feedback: https://github.com/yesinteractive/kong-map
Kong Declarative Configuration Reference: https://docs.konghq.com/2.1.x/db-less-and-declarative-config/
Kong API Gateway Installation:
https://konghq.com/get-started/#install
Dadjokes.Online Microservice:
https://github.com/yesinteractive/dad-jokes_microservice | https://medium.com/swlh/visualize-your-kong-api-gateway-clusters-with-kongmap-47b7697490cc | ['Yes Nteractive'] | 2020-10-22 21:34:53.822000+00:00 | ['API', 'DevOps', 'Docker', 'Kong', 'Microservices'] |
How to Stay Relevant in Tech? | I had the opportunity recently to be part of the speakers' team in Job Stack 2020 which is a tech that attracts many software engineers in the field.
My talk was mainly around how to stay relevant in tech, this was mainly inspired by many requests I received from people, especially those who already in the field for a few years as a software engineer and wondering how to catch up with all that is going on in Tech, also quiet few requests came from people in their early career as well. You can find the presentation in this link, below are some highlights:
First and foremost, as someone working in the IT field, you might need to revisit your perspective on certain things, these are listed on the slide below:
Now, let’s get to the list (Full list is in the presentation itself)
These are the quick highlights, have a look at the presentation in full and let me know your comments. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/how-to-stay-relevant-in-tech-cb71169c81c3 | ['Amr Ali'] | 2020-12-22 21:53:24.524000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Cloud Computing', 'Azure', 'Software Engineering', 'AWS'] |
The Zhuangzi: A Therapeutic Text for the Ages | Photo by Richard Dorran on Unsplash
When a drunken man falls from a cart, he may be hurt but he will not be killed. His bones and joints are no different from those of other men, but the degree of harm done by the fall differs radically, for the spiritual in him forms one intact whole. Having been unaware that he was riding, he is now unaware that he is falling.
For every inspirational speech I’ve heard, every pithy Instagram caption I’ve stumbled upon and every grandiose solution to the meaning of life I’ve come across, nothing quite hits me like the quote above.
For one, when else have you ever heard of drunkenness being framed as a virtue? Who else has pulled off measuring a person’s character by how well they can unintentionally fall out of a moving cart?
And yet eccentricities aside, there’s something more going on here. Might we see ourselves as neurotic foils to the drunken hero of this story; hot messes that are so constantly afraid of “falling” in our respective lives that we create more problems for ourselves than if we just took things in stride?
The passage in question comes from the Ancient Chinese philosophical text the Zhuangzi and is in many ways a taste of what’s to come if you read it: stories of misfits who are portrayed as role models, mysterious open-endedness, a sprinkle of humour. But most of all this passage exemplifies the Zhuangzi’s ability to seek out a taken for granted belief you may have about the world and turn it on its head.
Now reading something that incessantly forces you to question everything you believe in without really providing you with anything straightforward to replace it with might not sound very appealing and is certainly a far cry from the platitudes and cookie-cutter solutions we typically see churned out by the modern self-help industry. Yet it is for this very reason, I would argue, that the Zhuangzi is so uniquely therapeutic.
And in the midst of such stressful times (so much so that it feels almost cliche to say it by now), what more can we really ask for than some unconventional wisdom that can take the edge off a little bit? With that said, I should probably stop talking now and let the text speak for itself: here are a few of my favourite quotes from the Zhuangzi, a therapeutic text for the ages. | https://medium.com/curious/the-zhuangzi-a-therapeutic-text-for-the-ages-b8f48c4ee60b | ['Dylan Skurka'] | 2020-12-15 21:43:47.089000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Chinese Philosophy'] |
What to get on the plane when traveling to Canada | There are certain substances and items that are prohibited for those passengers who fly to Canada. Therefore, you must have knowledge of what they are and avoid taking them on the plane, either in hand luggage or in your own person. On the other hand, there are many products or objects that you can take with you to the cabin of the plane.
If you are not sure if some of your items are allowed or not, check it in advance with the airline with which you are going to make your trip to Canada. Below, we show you a general list of what can and cannot be taken on the plane to Canada. Pay close attention and don’t forget to comply with cabin restrictions.
SEE ALSO: J1 Visa: What is it and how to apply for it?
Liquids, aerosols and gels
You can carry liquids, aerosols, or gels in your hand luggage in containers of 100 ml/100g or less. This includes your unsound food and personal items. All containers should fit in a single transparent plastic bag with a closure containing 1 liter or less. Breast milk is allowed in quantities greater than 100 ml, along with packages of gel or ice to keep it fresh, regardless of whether or not you travel with your child.
Personal care items
Personal care items are allowed in carry-on baggage if they comply with the restrictions on liquids, aerosols, and gels mentioned above.
Hair curlers
You can bring a hair curler that contains hydrocarbon gas, as long as the safety cover is well adjusted over the heating element, but you cannot carry gas recharges for the curling iron in the cabin. You should also not use the curling iron on the plane.
SEE ALSO: H2 Temporary Work Visa in the United States
Portable electronic devices
Some airline operators allow the use of approved portable electronic devices, such as cameras, tablets, game consoles, laptops, e-books, camcorders on board the aircraft, even during takeoff and landing (provided they are in flight mode). However, other devices are strictly prohibited from using them at any time because they can interfere with the navigation and communication systems of the aircraft. The restrictions on use apply to devices such as laptops, which must be stored or secured during takeoff and landing. If you are not sure whether or not you can travel with your electronic device, please check with your airline.
Alcoholic beverages
It can transport by air up to a maximum of 5 liters of alcoholic beverages containing between 24 and 70 percent alcohol by volume in retail packaging. There are no restrictions for alcoholic beverages containing 24 percent alcohol or less.
Electronic cigarettes
You can bring e-cigarettes for your personal use in your hand luggage but you cannot use them on board the plane. Replacement batteries must be protected so that they do not suffer any short circuits.
SEE ALSO: Study in Australia, everything you need to know
Lighters or lighters
Disposable lighters (for example, non-rechargeable Bic type) and torchless lighters (for example, Zippo type) are allowed in hand luggage. Lighters must be intended for personal and never commercial use.
Dry ice
With airline approval, you can bring up to 2.5 kg of dry ice in your carry-on baggage when used to pack perishable products that are not articles or substances called dangerous goods. Check with your airline for any additional conditions.
Wheelchairs or other battery-powered mobility aids
Contact your airline in advance to transport your wheelchair or other battery mobility aid. See also the specifications of the batteries and any additional conditions.
Cardiac pacemaker or other medical devices
If you have had a radioisotopic cardiac pacemaker or other medical devices (e.g., an insulin pump) or adjusted externally as a result of medical treatment, you are allowed to fly.
SEE ALSO: Super Visa Canada: what it is and who can apply for it
Continuous positive airway pressure device (CPAP)
CPAP devices are allowed on an airplane. The distilled water used for the CPAP device is exempt from liquid restrictions. For a CPAP device to be checked, passengers can choose between:
Bring a transparent plastic bag to place the breathing device for the exam.
Leave the accessories (tubes and mask) inside the box and place the main electronic unit alone in a container.
Important: you must bring supporting documentation, in the form of a doctor’s note, that clearly indicates the medical requirements for the distilled water of your CPAP.
Medical or clinical thermometers
You can bring a small medical or clinical thermometer containing mercury, in its protective case, for personal use.
Non-radioactive medicinal articles
It can transport non-radioactive medicinal articles, but the net quantity of each article must not exceed 0.5 kg or 0.5 L. It can carry a combined maximum of 2 kg or 2 L of non-radioactive medicinal articles.
SEE ALSO: 20 jobs to work and travel the world
Radiopharmaceuticals
If the radiopharmaceuticals are contained within your body as a result of medical treatment, you are allowed to fly.
Gas cylinders
With the approval of your airline, you can bring small gaseous oxygen or air cylinders for medical use. Check with your airline for the specifications of the gas cylinders.
Guide or emotional support animals
Guide or emotional support animals are allowed in airplanes with 30 or more passenger seats. They can stay in the cabin as long as they have been trained to help a person by a professional service animal institution. If you have doubts about it, contact your airline.
Rescue backpack for avalanches
With the approval of the airline, you can carry an avalanche rescue backpack equipped with a pyrotechnic firing mechanism and a compressed gas cylinder. The backpack must be packaged so that it cannot be activated accidentally.
SEE ALSO: Top 10 Scholarships to Study in Canada
Work tools
Work tools that could be used to cause serious injury or threaten the safety of the aircraft (for example, levers, saws, or nail guns) are prohibited.
Guns, firearms and other similar devices
Guns, firearms, and other devices designed to cause serious injury when throwing harmful objects (for example, bows) or objects that could be confused with that device (for example, toy guns) are prohibited.
Cartridges in box
With airline approval, you can carry up to 5 kg of non-explosive or non-inflammatory cartridges in a safe box inside your hand luggage. Check with your airline for any additional conditions.
SEE ALSO: Working in Canada: Everything you need to know
Small gas cartridges
With the approval of your airline, you can transport up to four small cartridges containing carbon dioxide or other suitable gas. The water capacity of each cartridge should not exceed 50 ml. Check with your airline for the specifications of the gas cartridges.
Self-inflating personal security devices
With the approval of your airline, you can carry a self-inflating personal safety device, such as a lifeguard equipped with two small cartridges containing carbon dioxide or other suitable gas, in addition to up to two spare cartridges. In the previous section, you will find more information about gas cartridges.
Strong objects
Prohibited items include specific blunt objects that are illegal under the Criminal Code of Canada. You are not allowed to have these items in your possession, regardless of whether they have gone through a security check or not.
SEE ALSO: Teaching Jobs in Canada | Work in Canada
Objects with sharp tips or edges
Objects with sharp tips or edges (e.g., axes, cutters, swords) that could be used to cause serious injuries are prohibited.
Dangerous goods
Dangerous goods and articles are completely prohibited on the aircraft (e.g., acids or compressed gases).
Devices designed to stun or immobilize
Devices designed to stun or immobilize (e.g., tasers, stunners, or tear gas) are prohibited.
SEE ALSO: 2.2 GPA Colleges: All you need to know
Explosive or incendiary substances
Explosive or incendiary substances (for example, b) or devices that could be used to cause serious injury or threaten the safety of the aircraft are prohibited.
In addition to complying with all restrictions on substances and objects when flying by plane to Canadian territory, it is important to have prior permission to enter the country. For this reason, don’t forget to apply for and have a visa or an eTA in Canada before boarding your flight. Otherwise, you could not only have problems making your plane trip but also entering the country. The Canadian eTA is an electronic travel permit that is processed through a simple online form. With this authorization, you can travel to Canada for tourism or business for a limited period of time. | https://medium.com/@firstarisimg/what-to-get-on-the-plane-when-traveling-to-canada-71adc68ce063 | ['First Aris'] | 2021-08-25 13:56:03.373000+00:00 | ['Canada Immigration', 'Travel', 'Canada', 'Traveling Tips', 'Traveling'] |
Your Questions, Our Answers. | Your Questions, Our Answers.
Beyond Protocol CEO Jonathan Manzi linked up with BTS Labs for our first official AMA — here’s the transcript: Beyond Protocol Jun 7·4 min read
BTS Labs: Hello Jonathan, welcome to the BTS Labs community! It’s nice to meet you. Could you briefly introduce yourself and Beyond Protocol for us?
Jonathan: Hello, everyone. I’m Jonathan, Co-Founder and CEO of Beyond Protocol. Beyond Protocol is a stealth-mode distributed ledger technology project based in Silicon Valley. The project was started in 2018 by Stanford engineers and technology executives to provide a platform for device security, coordination, and communication — a new internet for devices.
BTS Labs: Why do you want to enter China’s blockchain market?
Jonathan: Beyond Protocol has developed [IoT blockchain] technology, which makes devices probabilistically impossible to hack. With security as a given, Beyond Protocol allows us to feel comfortable opening up our devices for collaboration. Using them like threads of yarn, the dreamers among us can weave together inventions we would have not otherwise thought to conceive.
From the smart phone — a camera, a touch screen, GPS, an internet connection — applications were built which revolutionized entire industries. Uber and Instagram being two well-known examples of this form of innovation. From Beyond Protocol, mega applications can be engineered on top of any combination of IoT devices — from smart pills to satellites. Imagine a smart smoke alarm paying a drone to put out a fire, and the drone making micropayments to weather towers along the way to determine the best route. Beyond Protocol sets out to be the ethical language of machines.
China is a world leader in frontier technology. From R&D to manufacturing, from innovation to capital, China plays an integral role in Beyond Protocol’s vision to create a universal language for node-to-node communication and value transfer.
BTS Labs: There are many blockchain projects working on combining IoT and blockchain technology — why should we choose Beyond Protocol?
Jonathan: After over a year of R&D, in early 2019, the Beyond Protocol team put forth the first iterations of its novel technology to a handful of partners. The technology allows its partners, with one line of code, to 1. enable secure message brokering between devices through hardware signatures, and 2. equip devices with a cryptocurrency-based payment gateway. At present, there are no out-of-box solutions for either capability.
Beyond seeks to build real, practical solutions for device security and payments from consumers to devices, and soon, within an economy of devices. We envision a future where good triumphs over evil, and technology can work for us to create an exponentially safer and more beautiful world.
BTS Labs: Are you planning an ICO? How can I buy Beyond tokens?
Jonathan: To fund our project, and to seed our cryptocurrency, Beyond will sell its native token from time-to-time ahead of a public listing. To date, Beyond has sold 4.96% of its token supply to project backers and allocated 6.07% to advisers. At out most recent Private Sale pricing, the Beyond Protocol market capitalization is currently $100,000,000.
We have sold tokens to-date in a private presale to parties who we believe can help advance our project as partners. For inquiries related to this, please fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSei_goC3QPQonFt8i5IZe_dK7DY2u4zXGTsue8X93NAV-DX_Q/viewform
BTS Labs: When will you launch publicly?
Jonathan: Beyond is mostly in “stealth-mode” for the time being. We plan to unveil key partnerships in Q3 2021 ahead of a token generation event (TGE).
BTS Labs: Who are your key advisors?
Jonathan: Some of our advisors include:
- Anoop Nannra (Global Blockchain Practice Leader at Amazon; Formerly Global Head of Blockchain, Cisco)
- Stephen DiFranco (Former SVP/GM of IoT, Broadcom)
- Brian Forde (Sr. White House Advisor to President Obama; Co-Founder of Digital Media Initiative, MIT Media Lab)
- Greg Silverman (Co-Founder/CEO of Stampede Ventures; Formerly President, Warner Bros.)
- Brian Weinstein (President/COO, Bad Robot)
- Peter Boni (Managing Principal, Kedgeway)
Community Q&A:
BTS Labs Community: What is the consensus mechanism of Beyond Protocol?
Jonathan: Beyond Protocol utilizes a case-dependent, heterogeneous, multi-chain framework.
This is a novel approach to distributed ledger technology, which involves connecting a hierarchy of secondary chains on top of the Beyond Protocol core consensus. This allows for a unique consensus methodology per use case.
Our Technical Overview presentation can be found here: https://docsend.com/view/gpx7jnn
BTS Labs Community: What is Beyond Protocol’s long-term vision, and what benefits can your company goals bring to end-users?
Jonathan: Beyond seeks to build real, practical solutions for device security and payments from consumers to devices — and soon, within an economy of devices. Beyond envisions a future where good triumphs over evil, and technology can work to create an exponentially more safe and more beautiful world.
BTS Labs Community: What are the biggest obstacles you’re facing at this moment? How will you overcome them?
Jonathan: Not enough time for sleep, and coffee! [laughs] | https://medium.com/@beyondprotocol/your-questions-our-answers-2f4f21fff46a | ['Beyond Protocol'] | 2021-06-09 20:23:37.812000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Distributed Ledgers', 'Internet of Things', 'IoT', 'Innovation'] |
[PC Guide] Audio and video out of Sync | Hey， everyone！
This is Editor X with the global live streaming app, PRISM Live Studio.
Have you ever encountered the problem of audio and video out of sync in the live streaming?
And do you know what caused this problem??
Today I want to explain you with the issue.
Is there some people think that ‘Is it related to the multi streaming of PRISM?’
Actually not! ! !
When you live streaming to multi platforms through PRISM,
it is not sent directly to each platform.
First, the streaming data is transmitted to the PRISM server, and then transmitted to each platform through the PRISM server.
And it operates with the same logic regardless of multi live streaming or single live streaming.
Multi live streaming will not increase the consumption of resources on the computer compared to single live streaming.
Therefore, the problem of the sync does not fit is not related to multi-stream.
The exact cause is as follows:
1) It is often caused by insufficient computer specifications compared to data processing and transmission capacity.
-> 1. When setting the transmission, please set it according to the recommended settings.
You can refer to the Prism Help page for recommended settings.
PRISM Live Studio Help page
2. There are two simple ways to determine if your computer’s specifications are sufficient.
a. Judge by using beauty effects.
-> If the sync does not match when using the beauty effects, turning off the beauty effect features may help to improve the problem.
b. Judge graphics card performance.
-> The recommended graphics card for normal live streaming is NVIDIA GTX 1060 or the same level of graphics card.
When you live streaming with games, we recommend the NVIDIA RTX 2070 or NVIDIA GTX 1080 or higher graphics card.
If your graphics card is at an NVIDIA GTX 960 or lower level, it may affect the live streaming.
(If you don’t know what level your graphic card is, you can search for ‘graphic card ranking’ on the internet and compare with it.)
2) When an external device is added, data transmission speed between devices may be different.
-> From version v2.0.0, it can be adjusted through the ‘Sync Offset’ features.
Sink offset usage:
1. Click the Settings button on the audio mixer.
2. Adjust the sync offset value of the audio device where the delay occurs.
For reference, the unit used in synk offset is ‘ms’. (1000ms = 1s)
3) Program priority may affect synk.
-> You can improve the sync problem by adjusting the PRISM priority.
How to adjust the program priority:
1. First, press ‘Ctrl + Alt + Delete’ to enter the Task Manager.
2. In the ‘Details’ tab, find PRISM Live Studio and right click on it.
3. Click ‘Set Priority’ and select ‘Real Time’.
4) This can happen when network conditions are poor.
-> We recommend using a wired network rather than a wireless (WI FI) network.
The above method seems to improve the general sync offset phenomenon ^^
If the above solution does not work,
Please send your User ID to our representative email .([email protected])
We will check for more detailed causes and provide solutions.
Thank you!! | https://medium.com/prismlivestudio/pc-guide-audio-and-video-out-of-sync-307b426185cc | ['Prism Live Studio. Official'] | 2020-04-27 03:42:36.991000+00:00 | ['Live', 'Multicast', 'Prism', 'Live Streaming', 'Prismlivestudio'] |
PART 2 — Cost of sales, and selling and general & admin expenses in running a Trucking Business in the Philippines | PART 2 — Cost of sales, and selling and general & admin expenses in running a Trucking Business in the Philippines Jan J. Go Feb 2, 2020·4 min read
In our previous article (PART 1 — Variables and Fixed Costs in running a Trucking Business in the Philippines), we discussed about what are variable and fixed costs, and we have learned that major difference between these two is that for variable costs, it moves when volume moves but it does the opposite for fixed costs. In this article, we will now learn the other perspective of applying costs and expenses in computing trucking rates.
As a start, we need to learn what are cost of sales, or could also be called as cost of production (cost of good sold if the business is in merchandising), overhead expenses, or also called as general selling and administrative expenses, and how all of these are related to variable and fixed.
What are cost of sales? In the simplest definition, cost of sales are costs directly related to the production of service, in this case, the trucking service per se. When we create value for our customer (like performing the trucking service), we also spend money that are associated in creating that value because after all, nothing is free, right? Normally, the perspective of cost of sales is often used in reading financial statements and reports such as profit and loss statements (P&L) / income statement, but, I also prefer to look at them in profitability at a transactional level (per trip). This should allow us to determine how desirable a transaction is even before the application of overhead in the computation of trucking rates.
When we create value for our customer (like performing the trucking service), we also spend money that are associated in creating that value
We now understand that cost of sales are simply costs that are directly related or associated in the production of service or performance of the trucking service. How now is this different from variable and fixed costs? are they directly related?
The answer could be best understood by determining some notable examples as shown below:
Cost of sales that are variable (that moves based on volume):
Salary of truck driver and helper paid on a per trip basis
Fuel costs
Toll fees
Rental expenses for truck parking paid on a per use basis
Permits and passes paid on a per entry basis
Cost of sales that are fixed (that usually remain the same even with or without volume):
Salary of truck driver and helper paid on a per day basis
Staff employed as part of operations
Rental expenses for truck parking, or for warehouse
Permits and passes paid on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual basis
Maintenance expenses
Utilities that are directly used for operations
You will notice here that these are (may be) all directly related to value creation or the performance of trucking service for the customer.
If the cost of sales are costs directly related in the performance of the trucking services, what now are general selling and administrative expenses or also called as overhead expenses? In the simplest definition, these are costs that are supporting to the production of service, they contribute to the overall operations of the company and cannot be related back in producing the service for the customer.
Overhead expenses that are fixed:
Staff employed as part of backend office such as finance, sales, human resource, customer service, and etc.
Rental expenses for office and other facilities that may not be directly related to operations
Statutory / Government permits and passes paid on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual basis
Office utilities
Here comes the tricky part as often overhead expenses are related to backend operations (Finance, Customer Service, Sales, HR and Admin, IT, Purchasing and others). This means that there is little to no variable costs for overhead expenses. In computing for trucking rates in the Philippines, there is a need to translate overhead expenses on a per trip basis if the agreement between the trucking company and customer is on a transactional basis — meaning per trip. To do this, we need to use some data and art. We will work on computing Trucking Rates in the succeeding posts and articles.
In these last articles, we have discussed about variable, fixed costs, cost of sales, and overhead expenses (general admin, and selling expenses). These comprise mostly of the cost component in calculating trucking rates in trucking business in the Philippines. In the next article, we will now proceed to the revenue side – computing the markup. So please stay tuned and keep reading these learning materials to guide you in computing trucking rates. At the end of these learning materials, we will hand our a free trucking calculator. So please send your information HERE.
NEXT: PART 3 – What is markup, and how do we say that our markup is just right. | https://medium.com/@jjaogo/part-2-cost-of-sales-and-selling-and-general-admin-expenses-in-running-a-trucking-business-in-8d127dc6a3f9 | ['Jan J. Go'] | 2021-04-03 02:55:04.753000+00:00 | ['Philippines', 'Trucking', 'Rates', 'Costs', 'Expenses'] |
Tree House | 29th December | Welcome To The Tree House:
Welcome to the 2nd edition of our community newsletter where you can have all the latest updates on the JungleDAO. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and are slowing down and enjoying this festive time as we enter the new year!
Community Updates:
Participate in JungleDAO Voting
Our Gitbook was created to have more structure within JungleDAO as we continue to evolve the Pride Leaders Program. Note: Project team are general members of DAO but operate separately. Check it out here.
Trivia Nights Continues
Last weeks DAO event was hosted to the public in the form of a 2 hour trivia night with over 15 sol of prizes!! 20 questions both general knowledge or NFT based had the cats fighting out for the Big Brain role to be in with the chance of winning 1 of 12 prizes from the trivia wallet!!
Congratulations to our winners of the top prizes @spartan, @bonytosh & @Zethi who won 1x Lion Jungle Cat NFT (x2) & 1x Lioness Jungle Cat NFT!
Thank you to all that has participated.
Meme Competition Week
Are you a creative? Join us this week and enter our meme competition which will end on the 31st December. We want our community to put their creative skills to the test, you can find out more Information by heading to our Discord.
NFT Market & News:
Bored Apes gets cast in a TV series. The first The Red Ape Family (TRAF) is a new animated comedy series centered on Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs. The plot is about a family of Bored Apes that escape Earth to live on Mars. Mini Royale NFT: Nations, a web-based first-person shooter, became the first live multiplayer game to run on Solana after existing as a blockchain-integration-free game for months. Following the launch of its first in-game NFT items, the number of active players has doubled. Solana’s First Hold-to-Earn Utility NFT. AGE of SAM (AOS) is a multi-project hold-to-earn NFT platform built on the Solana blockchain with extended utility for 12 partner Solana projects. Find out more information here.
JungleCats Team:
Bounty Website Is Live
Like any growing ecosystem, Solana and its projects have both immediate needs and wants. Committed to helping Solana grow, the JungleDAO regularly finds and collects bounties submitted by the greater Solana community. Submissions are curated and priced by the JungleCats team and our partners; claimable by anyone.
How it works:
Bounty Programs are a necessary and fun part to any open-source environment. It enables projects and thought leaders to rapidly grow by outsourcing tasks to the community, and incentivizing developers, creators, and builders to go out and solve them.
Interested? Get in involved today.
Lionesses are released!
The queen has arrived and she’s making noise #GROAR! JungleCats Team has been so excited to release the lioness to all their holders within the community.
How do I get a lioness?
In order to be airdropped a Lioness, you must hold a Jungle Cat in your wallet. There are ~5500 Lions and ~3500 airdropped Lionesses. With about 870 current listings that would put you at ~75% chance to receive a Lioness per Lion.
What can my lioness do?
If you hold one Lion and one Lioness you can breed a cub. Lions will be able to breed once, and Lionesses will be able to breed twice overall.
Final Thoughts:
As we draw this year to a close and reflect on the growth of JungleCats and being one of the strongest NFT communities out their. We are humbled and grateful to every single member and we know that 2022, we will only be making more noise as a community and keep providing our holders more value. We have great things planned ahead and can’t wait to start revealing more with you soon. In the meantime we hope that you enjoy this festive time reconnecting with your friends and family. We are all in this journey together, we always encourage members to share their highs and lows with the community ~ let the pride support each other.
We can’t wait to celebrate 2022 with you all. 🦁
#GROAR | https://medium.com/@jungelcats/the-tree-house-newsletter-29th-december-2dceff541893 | ['Pride Leader'] | 2021-12-29 20:06:55.413000+00:00 | ['Nft Collectibles', 'Solana Nft Marketplace', 'Solana Network', 'Nft'] |
In Someone Else’s Shoes | Inspired by Dewi’s One-Line “Courage” Prompt
It takes courage to face a gun, fall in love, and oftentimes just to disagree;
And yet for some others it is tough enough to simply be. | https://medium.com/chalkboard/in-someone-elses-shoes-644784bd62d0 | ['Sherry Kappel'] | 2017-09-19 20:43:35.188000+00:00 | ['One Line', 'Courage', 'Empathy', 'Poetry', 'Chalkboard'] |
The Man Who Eats Hate Crimes for Breakfast, Lunch, And Dinner | Since my childhood, I’ve always been easily fascinated by … well, almost anything really. The rhythmic, tapping sound of light rain as it patter on the window. A beautiful smile on the face of a charming kid. The humming sound a busy city makes every day as each night descends into our life.
Even unique experiences like the clatter of my keyboard as I rush to share my ideas with the world, or the funny vibrations my phone makes in the morning in its attempt to wake me up. Poor thing, haha.
You can imagine my excitement then when, a few weeks earlier, I came across the name Corey Fleischer for the first time in my life. This man founded a campaign that targets, locates, and eliminates hate speech graffiti everywhere in the world, and for free.
Corey Fleischer | Photo by Brock University
What Happened?
Over a decade ago, the Montrealer Corey Fleischer, tall, thick with muscle, and has a bald head, drove past a bus graffitied with a hateful symbol on his way to work. An hour and a half later, he felt compelled to return and erase the symbol.
“I took my truck and barricaded him in,” he later recounted the incident with the bus driver. “I wasn’t happy about it. I said ‘Now you’re going nowhere.’”
He then explained to the driver that what he was about to do was free of charge, and a few minutes later, the graffiti is gone.
Fleischer since then made it his life mission to help clean up similar racist and hateful graffiti anywhere in the world. He hasn’t stopped. And that is how “Erasing Hate” came to be.
This campaign, titled #ErasingHate, went from Montreal to global in a few years after Fleischer kickstarted it in 2014.
Before 2014, removing graffiti was more of a secret hobby for him. Fleisher has been working in the dark and refusing to share this adventure with the world in fear of the public’s judgment. After this particular episode, however, everything changed.
Dedicated, fierce, with determined eyes, Fleischer will set out to erase hate from the face of the earth in any way he could. “I’m getting up in the morning and I’m eating hate crimes for breakfast. I’m eating them for lunch. I eat hate crimes for dinner,” he told The Toronto Star, a Canadian broadsheet daily newspaper.
He loves it. He revels in it!
“It was an epiphany,” he said in 2018 to the Canadian human rights commission (CHRC). Watching the “colors bleed off that concrete slab” gave him a surge of satisfaction, unlike anything he had ever felt before. He wanted to feel that way again. And again.
CBC News showing Corey Fleischer removing hate graffiti
What is also interesting about Fleischer’s venture to erase hate is that it inspired others, throughout Canada and beyond, to do the same. “I had no idea that by posting pictures and videos of me removing hate, I would inspire others…” he said.
On his Instagram page of over 139k followers, Fleischer shares plenty of videos and pictures sent to him by these people, inspired by his actions, and erasing hate in their communities too. | https://medium.com/@alamiinsi/the-man-who-eats-hate-crimes-for-breakfast-lunch-and-dinner-b449372459af | ['Alamiin Si'] | 2020-12-16 12:17:13.463000+00:00 | ['Hate Speech', 'Hate Crimes', 'Personal Values', 'Marketing', 'Social Change'] |
Ham & bean soup with a mess of veggies. | After a great couple of days with the family, it was nice to enjoy a quiet lazy day yesterday. We had a ham for Christmas and I brought the bone home with the intention of making a soup. If you don’t have ham, a few smoked turkey wings will work beautifully in this soup. You can use almost any type of canned bean and vegetable. That’s the beauty of a soup like this, you don’t need exact measurements, and most vegetables will work beautifully.
Saute 1/2 onion, 3 chopped carrots, 4 stalks chopped celery, a couple diced cloves of garlic and the diced ham and bone. Add a pinch of salt and pepper. When veggies begin to turn translucent add 8 C. chicken stock, 4 C.frozen chopped spinach, 2 cans cannellini beans, 2 C. frozen riced cauliflower, 2 bay leaves, a sprig of thyme and rosemary, a hearty pinch of Italian seasoning and 1/2 C. white wine. The exact quantities are really not that important, I promise the soup will still be delicious. Adding the riced cauliflower adds a nice thickness to the soup. Cover and cook on medium heat for at least an hour. Taste and add more salt and pepper as needed. You can also use celery salt instead of salt which is what I used. I added a handful of uncooked roughly chopped haricot vert (small green beans) and the juice from 1/2 lemon about an hour after cooking.
Ladle into a bowl and garnish with a pinch of grated Pecorino before serving. | https://medium.com/@cookingforthenewnest/ham-bean-soup-with-a-mess-of-veggies-cba82eb7c733 | ['Nicole Straight'] | 2020-12-27 23:30:54.007000+00:00 | ['Soup', 'Ham And Bean Soup', 'Bean Soup', 'Cooking', 'Soup Recipe'] |
แชร์ไอเดีย ซื้อของขวัญปีใหม่ ให้เพื่อนร่วมงาน (สายกิน) | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/thipwriteblog/%E0%B9%81%E0%B8%8A%E0%B8%A3%E0%B9%8C%E0%B9%84%E0%B8%AD%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%94%E0%B8%B5%E0%B8%A2-%E0%B8%8B%E0%B8%B7%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%82%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%87%E0%B8%82%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%8D%E0%B8%9B%E0%B8%B5%E0%B9%83%E0%B8%AB%E0%B8%A1%E0%B9%88-%E0%B9%83%E0%B8%AB%E0%B9%89%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%9E%E0%B8%B7%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%A3%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%87%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%99-%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A2%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%B4%E0%B8%99-127b9b62af39 | [] | 2020-12-29 05:50:30.098000+00:00 | ['New Year', 'Christmas Gifts', 'Snacks', 'Gift Ideas', 'Gifts'] |
We’re hiring a data scientist. | Come help us build products at the intersection of technology, journalism and revenue to help sustain local news.
Photo by Henri Mathieu-Saint-Laurent from Pexels
We are a small but mighty team and we’re thrilled to announce we are hiring a Data Scientist for a 3-month contract with potential to extend. The posting is below (and you can apply via this link), but first, a little more about us.
As 2020 comes to a close, it’s important to recognize the vital work that local newsrooms have been doing, keeping us informed and safe through the COVID-19 pandemic and all the other major — and minor — news events of the year. At the Brown Institute’s Local News Lab, we have been working hard developing partnerships and technology to support these organizations. Our mission is to provide them with insights and products to optimize audience engagement and drive subscriptions (or donations or memberships) that ultimately help ensure their sustainability and survival.
Position Summary
The Local News Lab is a team of engineers, designers, data scientists, and journalists, working to build AI-powered, open-source products to help support local newsrooms and their businesses. We are located within the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at the Columbia Journalism School.
The Local News Lab is committed to developing and building solutions that center local newsrooms. Our team has over two decades of combined experience working in media, helping attune us to the ethical sensitivities in journalism. An Advisory Board of roughly a dozen representatives from both large and small newsrooms ensures we have input from a range of perspectives, as we move from experimentation to prototyping and production. Finally, we have a Partnerships Lead who is dedicated to the task of nurturing our newsroom relationships, so we can engage in ongoing dialogue and avoid an extractive, parachuting approach to our work.
As the first of a number of anticipated projects, we are developing an open-source smart paywall that deploys Machine Learning (ML) to go beyond one-size-fits-all solutions to audience engagement. We explicitly extend the idea of a paywall to include a variety of actions that a publisher can take to engage their readers and encourage subscription or donation. Currently, our team is exploring three avenues of data science work — paywalling likely subscribers, selecting premium content, and personalizing reader recommendations. We are looking for a data scientist to begin work on novel approaches, in addition to deepening this existing research. The end goal of this work is to deploy equitable and explainable models that help local newsrooms sustain their businesses.
Our team strives not only to produce equitable technology, but to work in as equitable a manner as possible. We make a concerted effort to distribute the administrative and emotional labor that often falls too heavily on those who are not cis men. We try our best to be inclusive of all genders and to make space for our POC and femme teammates during meetings and in decision-making processes. We don’t always get it right, but we hope to create an environment where everyone is comfortable sharing their feedback when we don’t.
Responsibilities
Develop pipelines that extract insights from news text and clickstream data in order to:
Enable newsroom strategists to make more informed decisions
Facilitate automatic decision-making, including, but not limited to, paywalling likely subscribers, selecting premium content, or personalizing reader recommendations
The successful candidate will be primarily responsible for the statistical components of the system and will serve as an authority on the topic among the development team members. Under the supervision of the Project Lead, the Data Scientist, together with the full development team, will hone the project’s formal specifications, and set technical milestones.
This is an externally funded position, contingent on performance and the continued availability of funding.
Qualifications
The ideal candidate has experience in one or more of the following domains:
NLP: entity extraction, resolution, and linking. Linguistic pattern analysis, such as LIWC, readability, sentiment. Topic modeling, such as LDA, text clustering
Network analysis: community detection, influence analysis
Experiment design: crowdsourcing, conducting and evaluating A/B tests
Reader analytics: experience optimizing metrics like impressions, CPM, conversions
Data science ethics: statistical fairness, model explainability, auditing for bias
Experience with software for newsrooms and the news industry is desirable but not required.
Feel free to contact our Project Lead, Al Johri if you have any questions about the role.
Click here to apply. | https://medium.com/localatbrown/were-hiring-a-data-scientist-4017088ef71d | ['Local News Lab', 'Brown Institute'] | 2020-12-22 18:17:25.004000+00:00 | ['Jobs', 'Data Science', 'Journalism', 'Hiring', 'Machine Learning'] |
Deployment-time Adaptation of RL agents without any reward | Deployment-time Adaptation of RL agents without any reward
Overview of the paper “Self-Supervised Policy Adaptation during Deployment” by N Hansen et al.
One big limitation of image-based reinforcement learning agents is that their performance drops a lot if significant visual changes are made to the input from training time to deployment time, even if the core task remains the same. This is not something us humans struggle with so much. For example, if you learn very well how to play one particular game, you can very easily play another game of the same genre even if you are playing it for the first time.
So today, I want to share a paper that tries to tackle this problem and introduce adaptability to RL agents so they too can play multiple games with different graphics just like humans. It is titled “Self-Supervised Policy Adaptation during Deployment” and it introduces a method to adapt our RL agent to deployment environments that happen to be different from our training environment. This promises to make it much easier to train RL game agents on a specific environment and then port them over to different games that belong to the same genre.
Let’s take a look at how this method adds deployment-time adaptation where there are no reward signals available to fine-tune the RL agent’s learned policy. | https://medium.com/deepgamingai/deployment-time-adaptation-of-rl-agents-without-any-reward-49730933eee0 | ['Chintan Trivedi'] | 2020-08-08 04:52:21.595000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Reinforcement Learning', 'Computer Vision', 'Game Futurology'] |
The Idea of God Has One Major Flaw | But in the scientific community I have confronted time and again the unsavory truth that if a multiverse can never be falsified then it has no place in science. We must test the fabric of the theory (and I do believe we will be able to do this in the future) in ways where the results will either point us to a multiverse or disprove the theory altogether. Throughout all this the important fact remains: theories must have a way to be tested and proven. Otherwise you have nothing.
“It is hard to write theories that survive the proof of reality. Few survive. By means of this filter, we have been able to develop modern science, a technological society, to cure illness, to feed billions. All this works thanks to a simple idea: do not trust your fancies. Keep only the ideas that can be tested. If we stop doing so, we go back to the style of thinking of the Middle Ages.” — theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli.
This stretches to religion as well. I do not mind the idea of a Christian God, a Hindu God, an Islamic God. In fact, if these religions help people cope with life and if they inspire their followers to be gentler and kinder to one another then they are in some ways beneficial to mankind. What I mind is that these religions have no way out of them. They seem to me like traps. Pray for change and if it happens, it was God’s blessing upon you. Pray for change and if nothing happens, it was not in God’s design. What we know of the world is because God allowed us to know it. What we don’t yet know of the world is because God declared that we needn’t know it. Everything in life can be traced back to God and explained through him; everything in life serves only to strengthen a follower’s faith in him.
There is something terribly wrong with this. No system that is so self-assuring can claim to seek the truth. What religion needs is doubt. It is so often taught that one’s faith must remain strong in God even in times of great suffering. Yet it seems to me that the opposite is true in science — doubt is encouraged. It is only through doubt and through constant stressing of our scientific beliefs that we can arrive at an ultimate truth.
And perhaps the multiverse and God are alike in another way.
I hold onto the idea of the multiverse because it is a dramatic display of fantasy. Every possibility manifests itself on some foreign version of this wet and flowery Earth. These many lives I am leading overwhelm me in the best sense of the word — I can spend hours imagining how the many versions of me are choosing to spend their time, somewhere out in that incandescent cosmic ocean. It is a better story, I believe, than the story that there is only one universe and this is the only life I get to lead.
And so it goes with religion that there is an omniscient, nurturing God in the heavens and he beckons for his followers with open arms. In this story we are protected and guided, our suffering has purpose, our biggest questions needn’t be answered because some things are meant always to remain a mystery. In this story a beautiful paradise awaits many of us after death. In a non-religious view of the world nothing awaits us after death and no one is watching over us as a protector or parental figure. In both instances we live out our full and unpredictable lives, navigating its rough earthy terrain as best we can. In both instances we approach death unsure of what to expect on the other side but hoping that it will bring us peace.
Which is the better story? That’s the one we will tell ourselves, and that is the one we will choose to believe. | https://ella-alderson.medium.com/the-idea-of-god-has-one-major-flaw-ab7de18fab88 | ['Ella Alderson'] | 2020-12-24 18:09:42.465000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Religion', 'Faith', 'Science', 'Christianity'] |
Predictions for AI Developments in 2018 | Entering the new year, we are wondering what to expect from the new AI technologies and which directions to look at.
In this brief review, we offer some predictions for AI developments in 2018.
Since all indicators show the likely increase in investment into the development of AI and, particularly, machine learning, technologies, the world is expecting a new wave of AI applications. Most importantly, these applications are finally reaching beyond computers learning to beat humans at chess and TV game shows. In 2018, machine learning and neural network technologies will continue to refine themselves and take on more routine tasks — in all aspects of our lives.
Robotics
Yes, robots. In the Blade Runner universe, people have already mastered replicants manufacturing by 2019. On the verge of 2018, we are still far from that, but our coexistence with robots is already taking place.
2017 was all about toy robots, programmable robots and other kinds of educational robots for kids. In 2018, we’ll see programmable robot platforms, designed for adults, which are more sophisticated in their capabilities and offer more interesting and versatile robotics functionality. Additionally, more consumer robots will enter our lives as home helpers to remove friction from our daily routine.
Healthcare
Advancements in big data analysis and AI will play a major role in healthcare.
Maybe, the present-day encroachment of AI is still almost invisible to patients. Yet, new technologies will push the industry forwards, changing the way it operates and treats patients by optimizing workflows both within in-patient and out-patient scenarios. Behind the scenes of health examination, image recognition algorithms are already being used in pilot projects to spot warning signs buried in medical images and to decipher hand-written doctors’ notes. With these pilots being quite successful, we are likely to expect a boost of similar projects in the coming year.
Another important, and definitely more visible, development in healthcare is a greater involvement of robots in looking after the health and well-being of patients. Caregivers and companion robots are expected to gain popularity and could begin to become an everyday reality in 2018.
Communication
The next year is likely to change our interaction with machines, and conversational interfaces will become common when it comes to interacting with technology in a business environment. This year’s estimates are that in 2018 about 20% of firms will look to add voice enabled interfaces to their existing point-and-click dashboards and systems.
Natural language generation and natural language processing algorithms are constantly learning to become more tuned to understanding us, and talking to us in a way we understand. In 2018 they will continue to improve and we should get used to robots which we can converse with in a more human-like manner.
In the nearest future, we are likely to see an increased focus on bot sensitivity training, which will allow humans to offload even more work on chatbot shoulders both in business and in the everyday life: while a new virtual assistant by X.ai called “Amy” can respond to messages regarding meetings, meals, and calls, Amazon’s Alexa recently began syncing with Outlook and Google to help families keep up with their schedules.
Data-Driven Machines
Big data may sound less exciting android creation, but it’s what will be the focus of most companies’ work next year. Pushed by the steady growth of data produced by the Internet of Things, businesses will turn to machine learning to process, trend, and analyze the received information. In 2018, machine learning will become an absolute must-have for companies wishing to make sense of structured or unstructured data. With humans unable to process this overwhelming data flow, the key strategy will be to call AI with large-scale analytics into play.
Processing of big data will change the way businesses are run, simultaneously improving the security monitoring by anomaly detection and prediction of stock-exchange and market trends. Enabling more precise clustering of customer groups, and developing smart cross-sale by tracking the sales vs. ranks for all products in various categories, machine learning will boost the sales and proclaim a new era for commerce.
Whatever changes in our lives we’ll see in the coming months, 2018 will definitely be an exciting year to live! | https://medium.com/sciforce/predictions-for-ai-developments-in-2018-d06193c905db | [] | 2018-01-17 09:06:28.257000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Health', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Robotics', 'Virtual Assistant'] |
Can People with Diabetes Eat Pizza? | You might have probably heard that you should avoid or lower your intake of certain foods and drinks, including sugary beverages, refined grains, and candies if you have diabetes. But it does not mean that people with diabetes should not enjoy these foods. It is okay to enjoy foods like pizza that are categorized as “unhealthy” once in a while. Read further as we explain how individuals with diabetes can safely consume pizza and deliver tips for healthy eating practices for those with diabetes.
Why is pizza defined as unhealthy?
Pizza can be very high in sodium and saturated fat, and hence it is said to be unhealthy, especially for those with diabetes.
For example, two slices of Pizza Hut cheese pizza contains more than 50% of the recommended daily sodium limit of 2,300 mg and 10 grams of saturated fat. The sodium content in the pizza due to high salt intake can trigger high blood pressure in type 2 diabetes patients. A high saturated fat diet can also aggravate diabetes by contributing to insulin resistance, which disturbs blood sugar management.
But it doesn’t mean that you can never have pizza in your life once you are diabetes. It just means you should moderately consume foods like pizza, rich in refined carbohydrates, as it can worsen your diabetes if you consume it regularly.
Best types of pizza for people with diabetes?
To be evident, a diabetic person can safely have any pizza they want on occasion, even if it is not the most nutritious one available or if you want to satisfy your cravings.
But the best sources of carbs are the nutrient-dense ones, which includes whole grains, such as oats, brown rice, buckwheat, fruits, and non-starchy vegetables.
If you can customize your pizza, then why not opt for healthy topping like the ones given below so that you can have a guilty free pizza time:
For fiber : grilled veggies, including zucchini, peppers, olives, artichokes, and sun-dried tomatoes
: grilled veggies, including zucchini, peppers, olives, artichokes, and sun-dried tomatoes For protein : roasted chicken, fresh mozzarella
For healthy fats : olives, pine nuts
At Dasman Clinic , the best , we have the best diabetes clinic in Kuwait , who can help you choose the right lifestyle choices to lead a healthy life. diabetes doctor in Kuwait | https://medium.com/@ivynoah91/can-people-with-diabetes-eat-pizza-6ca95a4db70e | ['Ivy Noah'] | 2021-12-18 08:05:01.825000+00:00 | ['Pizza', 'Diabetes Health Care', 'Diabetes Wellness', 'Dasmanclinic', 'Diabetes'] |
Why Babies Are More Resilient Against Covid-19 | Why Babies Are More Resilient Against Covid-19
Understanding infants’ peculiar response to the virus may be a key to finding new treatments Mimi Rani Nov 25, 2020·10 min read
Photo: Sirapat Saeyang/EyeEm/Getty Images
Babies make up a tiny percentage of all diagnosed cases of Covid-19. In the United States, where 1.2% of the population are children under one year of age, they account for only 0.27% of the positive tests, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report. It’s not clear if babies are getting infected at a lower rate compared with other age groups or if they are just not being tested as much. But what is evident is that the ones who are diagnosed have, in general, significantly milder illness compared with adults.
The reason behind babies’ apparent resilience to Covid-19 is being intensely investigated by scientists. Getting to the bottom of that mystery could inspire the development of new treatments, potentially benefiting people of all ages.
What’s known so far about the outcomes of babies infected with SARS-CoV-2 comes from reports such as the one published in this month’s edition of The Journal of Pediatrics by physicians at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. The study, which included 18 previously healthy children under 90 days old who tested positive for Covid-19, showed that none had severe symptoms. Nasal congestion was seen in 28%, cough in 44%, and vomiting or diarrhea in 22%. The study sample is very small (again, the number of infants who test positive is a low figure overall), but the researchers say the early findings provide some potentially important insights.
“It’s notable that a large percentage of them had fever as maybe even the only symptom,” says lead author Leena B. Mithal, MD, a pediatric infectious diseases expert from Lurie Children’s and assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “None of the babies required any oxygen or any respiratory support at all,” she adds. “This is a small series, but what we saw during that period has remained true moving forward in the cases of previously healthy infants.”
Scientists have a few theories that could help explain why the novel coronavirus is mostly harmless to healthy babies. One of them has to do with the receptor that SARS-CoV-2 uses to enter human cells. The expression of this receptor, called ACE2, varies with age and is less present in babies and children compared with adults. The hypothesis is that, in the youngest people, the virus finds fewer keyholes it can unlock to get inside the cells and replicate.
“An additional hypothesis proposed for the mild infection in young children is their strong ability to mount primary immune responses mediated by T-cells,” says pediatrician Petter Brodin, MD, PhD, a researcher at the department of women’s and children’s health at Karolinska Institute in Sweden. T-cells, along with antibodies, are part of our adaptive immune system, whose function is to target pathogens like SARS-CoV-2. The fact that babies have a large repertoire of naive T-cells, which are able to recognize new invaders and develop into mature killer cells, is probably important to explain their effective response to the virus, Brodin says.
Brodin also notes that, at least until puberty, children’s immune systems are calibrated differently from those of adults, and this could protect them from the sequence of events that usually leads to severe disease, including a poor initial response by interferons (proteins that act as “first responders” against viruses), a poor response of the adaptive immune system with T-cell exhaustion, and hyperinflammation driven by massive tissue damage.
Another theory is that young children, including infants, might have more recent exposure to common cold coronaviruses, which could potentially modulate their immune response to SAR-CoV-2 infection. “Although adults have likely been exposed to those coronaviruses as well, it’s common to get many colds in the first decade of life and there may be some cross-protection,” says Mithal. It’s not clear, though, if babies are currently as exposed to these other coronaviruses as they normally would, given the social isolation measures in place.
Although these theories are yet to be proven, at this stage of the pandemic there is enough epidemiological data to confidently state that infants are in general protected from severe illness. So much so that the American Academy of Pediatrics has updated its recommendations regarding newborns and mothers with symptomatic Covid-19 at the time of delivery. AAP now does not recommend universally separating babies from Covid-19-positive mothers, as long as they are well enough to take care of the baby and take the necessary precautions to decrease transmission.
“Over time, it seems that babies who went home with moms infected with SARS-CoV-2 at the time of delivery did not do significantly differently or have worse outcomes than babies who were separated from their mothers in the initial postpartum period,” says Mithal. “This speaks to the fact that, of these babies at risk of exposure and infection in the household, only a small subset may have symptomatic infection and further problems.”
Observing how children and infants respond to the virus may lead to new therapies for Covid-19.
This doesn’t mean that babies cannot get severe symptoms. Alvaro Coronado Munoz, MD, a doctor specialized in pediatric critical care and an assistant professor at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston, learned that lesson when he and his colleagues treated a three-week-old boy who was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit in with low blood pressure, tachycardia, rapid breathing, and hypothermia. He had presented nasal congestion for two days and had an X-ray consistent with Covid-19 infection. A nasal swab confirmed the diagnosis.
https://shawee.io/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-105.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-106.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-107.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-108.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-109.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-00.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-01.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-02.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-03.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-04.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-105.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-106.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-107.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-108.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-109.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-00.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-01.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-02.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-03.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-04.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-105.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-106.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-107.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-108.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-109.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-00.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-01.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-02.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-03.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-04.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-105.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-106.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-107.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-108.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-109.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-00.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-01.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-02.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-03.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-04.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-105.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-106.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-107.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-108.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-109.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-00.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-06.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-07.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-08.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-09.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-105.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-106.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-107.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-108.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Manush-vs-Olym-liv-tv-on-109.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-00.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-01.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-02.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-03.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Monc-vs-Donetsk-liv-ontv-04.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q00.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q01.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q02.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q03.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q04.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q05.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q00.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q01.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q02.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q03.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q04.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q05.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q00.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q01.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q02.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q03.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q04.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q05.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q00.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q01.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q02.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q03.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q04.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q05.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q00.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q01.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q02.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q03.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q04.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q05.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q00.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q01.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q02.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q03.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q04.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/Mvc-Ma-v-Ol-Q05.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-0.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-1.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-2.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-3.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-4.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-5.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-0.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-1.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-2.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-3.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-4.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-5.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/ORG-a-v-g-0.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/ORG-a-v-g-1.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/ORG-a-v-g-2.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/ORG-a-v-g-3.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/ORG-a-v-g-4.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/ORG-a-v-g-5.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-0.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-1.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-2.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-3.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-4.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-5.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-0.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-1.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-2.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-3.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-4.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-5.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-0.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-1.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-2.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-3.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-4.html
https://leeuwinestate.com.au/mcola/ORG-a-v-g-5.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-01.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-02.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-03.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-04.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-05.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-06.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-07.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/mon-v-don-i01.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/mon-v-don-i02.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/mon-v-don-i03.html
https://shawee.io/mcola/mon-v-don-i04.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-01.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-02.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-03.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-04.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-05.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-06.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-07.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/mon-v-don-i01.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/mon-v-don-i02.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/mon-v-don-i03.html
https://ptpi.org/mcola/mon-v-don-i04.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-01.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-02.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-03.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-04.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-05.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-06.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-07.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/mon-v-don-i01.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/mon-v-don-i02.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/mon-v-don-i03.html
https://parisfc.fr/mcola/ludu/mon-v-don-i04.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-01.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-02.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-03.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-04.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-05.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-06.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-07.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/mon-v-don-i01.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/mon-v-don-i02.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/mon-v-don-i03.html
https://sensinglab.engr.uga.edu/mcola/mon-v-don-i04.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-01.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-02.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-03.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-04.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-05.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-06.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/man-v-oly-liv-h-d-tv-07.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/mon-v-don-i01.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/mon-v-don-i02.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/mon-v-don-i03.html
https://www.slechtitelka.cz/mcola/mon-v-don-i04.html
“It was one of the first cases reported in the U.S. of critical care admission of a pediatric patient with Covid-19. It was very early in the pandemic and there was all this information regarding the fact that pediatric patients were less affected, so it was a little bit of a surprise,” says Munoz. The boy had to receive mechanical ventilation for five days and survived after intensive care. “This case was very important to recognize that an infant can become as sick as adult patients. So, don’t just assume that it’s something else.”
Observing how children and infants respond to the virus may lead to new therapies for Covid-19. One of the treatment strategies that is being explored is how to combat a harmful type of inflammation sometimes seen in the acute phase of the infection. “We hope to learn from ongoing studies that certain inflammatory pathways are differentially activated in children with mild infection compared to adults with severe disease. Maybe then we can develop more targeted immunomodulating therapy that we can apply to those with more severe illness, including adults,” says Mithal.
Another avenue of research is looking at the strong initial interferon response, which is probably critical for early antiviral defense and is a system that the SARS-CoV-2 directly interferes with, according to Brodin. This is most likely a mechanism that protects babies and children and it is possible that triggering the same response in adults could help protect them as well. | https://medium.com/@mimirani55442/why-babies-are-more-resilient-against-covid-19-f30a5cbccd97 | ['Mimi Rani'] | 2020-11-25 18:20:02.468000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Health', 'Science', 'Babies', 'Coronavirus'] |
My Year in Review: 2019 | It’s that time of the year again when people reflect on their goals for the past 12 months and on what they have accomplished. And this year, I feel like writing about it.
Last Christmas I set myself with two goals for 2019:
Swimming from Alcatraz to San Francisco
Writing a book
How did I do? Let’s get it out of the way: One more year, I did not write a book.
On the bright side, after 8 years living in the Bay Area and wanting to do this, I finally did it, I swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco. That’s me in the tiny green swim cap:
Every time I think about it I feel so fulfilled and accomplished that I don’t even know how to describe it. 2019 is not over yet and I’ve already committed to do it again in 2020. Yay!
This achievement made me reconnect with my inner self. Not with my being-a-mom self or my being-a-partner self, but with my-real-me self. It made me feel amazing about me again. Looking back, I think that was exactly what I needed to gain enough confidence and jump into a new professional adventure.
So I did not write a book but I did something better, I gained back my confidence.
A new professional adventure
Ignacio and I started Tesletter just one week before our second daughter was born, so about a year before I swam the Alcatraz race and started thinking about making a professional change. In 12 months, the newsletter had grown up to almost a thousand subscribers without us investing a tone of time on it. It was good, but it wasn’t great.
On the other hand, you could argue the amount of time we were investing in Tesletter was quite a bit, taking into account we both had full time jobs and a house of four to manage. At some point, we started talking about either stop sending the newsletter- the reward wasn’t worth the effort- or investing more on it to make it better: better in terms of content, in terms of growth, and in terms of it becoming a new revenue stream for our family.
The idea started growing on me. If you know me, you’ll know I’m a very practical and efficient person. Because of that, one thing that was driving me crazy at my previous job was spending so much time in meetings when I had lots of other things I wanted to do both at work and outside work. I also dreamt with being able to see more immediate results coming from my and my teams work, something that really makes me thrive and that I was missing from my startup days. After a few months, I made the decision.
At the end of August, I quit my job of 7 years to start working full time on Tesletter.com.
First few months working full time on Tesletter
I couldn’t be happier with the change. Since I’ve started working full time on Tesletter:
The letter has more than doubled its number of subscribers, with an average of 1,000 new subscribers per month
The website’s traffic has increased by 20x
We have started generating revenue
Of course, I haven’t achieved all of these by myself, Ignacio and I make a great team! I just now have the time to execute on things we previously weren’t able to. There are a bunch of things I could be working on, but I only have two hands. A good friend of mine always says that what defines you is what you don’t do more than what you actually do. I’ve made the mistake of trying to do too many things and losing the perspective before, so this time I’m at least not repeating that mistake: it’s all about the newsletter. I’m planning on working on whatever is necessary to make the letter great and successful, but without losing focus.
And on top of all of this, I got to attend a Tesla vehicle unveiling event. What else can you ask for?
Oh yes, I feel less anxiety about not spending enough time with my daughters, with my partner, or not having time for chores. I am super motivated and almost never feel the urge to disconnect from work, because I am really excited about what I’m working on at Tesletter. And I get to feel like that, all-the-time.
Thanks for reading and cheers to a great 2020! | https://medium.com/@vramos/my-year-in-review-2019-87d3fe0cc634 | ['Vanessa Ramos'] | 2019-12-17 22:10:30.667000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Year In Review'] |
Air dan Kehidupan | A girl who loves to listen and write. Don’t worry, my life is big and full of surprises 🌃 #BersyukurSekarangAja | https://medium.com/@intankholisa/air-dan-kehidup-48fa84a5910e | ['Kholisa Intan Rokhmana'] | 2020-12-23 15:19:21.237000+00:00 | ['Calm', 'Phylosophy', 'Water'] |
Element AI makes its BAyesian Active Learning library open source | Element AI’s BAyesian Active Learning library (BaaL library) is now open source and available on GitHub. In this article, we briefly describe active learning, its potential use with deep networks and the specific capabilities of our BaaL library.
What is Active Learning?
Machine learning applications generally require a huge amount of data, and in many cases, this data cannot be easily acquired. What’s more, even when data is readily available, it often is not possible to label it efficiently. Active learning aims at reducing the amount of labelled data needed to train machine learning models.
How it works is actually pretty simple: we allow the model to actively “query” examples to be labelled. This way, we’re able to label only the most effective samples for training the model, rather than labelling a random selection.
Active Learning for Deep Learning
Common active learning techniques such as Gaussian processes or kernel methods fall short when used on high-dimensional data. Recent advances in deep learning, however, propose training a deep neural network so that it is able to learn from a small amount of data and actively query the next sample on its own.
To select the next sample, the uncertainty of the model needs to be estimated. By identifying the data points about which the model is the least certain, we aim to label the points which are also the most useful for the model. Estimating uncertainty is a hard problem in deep learning. Most recent methods propose estimating the posterior distribution of the model, allowing for the selection of the most uncertain sample-which would have the highest predictive variance.
Using MCDropout (Gal et al. 2015) and BALD (Houlsby et al. 2011), we present our results on CIFAR100 using a VGG16. By using active learning, we get the same performance with half of the samples.
Comparison between active learning and random selection on CIFAR100
Next, we present the t-SNE representation of a custom version of CIFAR10 where we only keep the classes “airplane”, “cat” and “truck”. This allows us to compare active learning versus standard random labelling.
Difference in results using active learning (left) versus standard random labelling (right)
We can clearly see that active learning selects samples where the decision is less certain, thus making it more efficient compared to random selection.
BaaL at Element AI
While active learning is itself an active area of research, we found that a lack of good libraries was slowing down both our own research and the use of active learning in enterprise software. For this reason, we at Element AI created an opinionated library that tries to solve both of these issues.
Today, we’re making that library free and open to the community. Our BaaL library proposes a unified API that is easy to use by AI practitioners and researchers alike. Check it out and let us know what you think!
Authors: Parmida Atighehchian, Frédéric Branchaud-Charron, Jan Freyberg, and Lorne Schell
Sources | https://medium.com/pytorch/element-ai-makes-its-bayesian-active-learning-library-open-source-a5ed43f053ac | ['Frederic Branchaud Charron'] | 2020-04-15 12:23:18.399000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Open Source', 'Active Learning', 'Bayesian Machine Learning', 'Pytorch'] |
The World is On Fire. Data Can Help | This blog by Andrew J. Zahuranec was originally published through the Open Data Policy Lab, an initiative from The GovLab supported by Microsoft.
An orange sky over San Francisco following historic wildfires across the US West Coast. Photo by Christopher Michel is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Right now, huge swathes of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest are burning. In the Arctic, ice has melted to near-record lows while communities across California, Oregon, and Washington are still recovering from wildfires so severe they stained the sky orange and left people unable to breathe. Though each of these events are the result of various local and global factors, one common element is clear: climate change. The failure to limit greenhouse emissions makes us more susceptible to disasters.
Data is key to achieving serious reductions in carbon emissions and blunting climate change’s ongoing impact. Through improved situational awareness, a better understanding of cause and effect, enhanced predictive capabilities, or real-time impact assessments — all possible by leveraging data in new ways — we can develop the policies and interventions needed for this crisis. Organizations such as the International Open Data Charter and the World Resources Institute have already published guides showing how open data assets can be used to pursue these values for climate action.
Yet, as Geoff Mulgan, Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation at University College London, argues, there are far more data assets that could be useful in guiding action. The problem is that these assets are rarely standardized and are not easily accessible. Much of it is proprietary and hidden. Climate activists will need to identify and prioritize the most pressing and useful questions for spurring climate action and find ways to access the datasets that can help answer them.
Achieving this goal will not be easy, but progress has already been made in a variety of areas. At the Open Data Policy Lab, an initiative from The GovLab supported by Microsoft, we have worked on sourcing questions; identifying data assets, and establishing data collaboratives through the following initiatives and actions:
The 100 Questions Initiative
Sourcing priority questions on air quality that can be answered by data: As part of The 100 Questions Initiative, we have partnered with the World Resources Institute to establish a cohort of bilinguals — experts with data science and domain expertise — to define the most pressing air quality questions that can serve as an agenda for future data collaboration and reuse.
The Open Data Demand Assessment and Segmentation Methodology
Identifying open data sources and use cases that can advance climate action. With the Inter-American Development Bank and key officials within the Viceministerio de la Presidencia Costa Rica we developed a Open Data Demand Assessment and Segmentation Methodology to guide officials on identifying, segmenting, and engaging those interested in data use. We developed and tested the methodology in Costa Rica to align the supply and demand for data on climate change.
Aclímate Colombia Open Data Impact Case Study
Learning from best practices on how data can be used for climate action through detailed case studies. Our Open Data Impact project documents how the use of open data can improve people’s lives through 37 case studies. For instance, the Aclímate Colombia case study details how, in Colombia, organizations used open data to mitigate the consequences of climate change on farmers and others. The case study informed our Periodic Table of Open Data Elements, detailing the conditions that determine the impact of open data initiatives. Similarly, our Case Study on the Global Fishing Watch, a part of our Data Stewards Network efforts, documents the value of data collaboration, a collaboration beyond the public–private partnership model in which participants from different sectors exchange data to create public value, for environmental ends.
The Data Collaboratives Explorer
Mapping and analyzing the field of data for climate action. Our Data Collaborative Explorer collects over 200 data collaborative projects around the world, the largest such repository. It includes links, brief descriptions, a list of participants, and an explanation of the data used in 38 environmental projects, including an effort by California water utilities to better manage resources and a project by the mobile operator Telefónica to identify people displaced by climate. | https://medium.com/data-stewards-network/the-world-is-on-fire-data-can-help-1be11333e5d | ['The Govlab'] | 2020-09-28 14:24:15.062000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Climate Action', 'Climate Change', 'Data'] |
NEST.JS for your NEXT PROJECT | Hi, I am Nandika Jeevantha. Currently, I am working as a trainee software Engineer in Virtusa (Pvt) Ltd. From years of experience in full-stack development I identified that NestJS is great stuff when you are about to develop backends.
Most in the past I used NodeJS with express for my backend development. But the main problem that I faced is not having a proper structure especially a folder structure in those technologies. when you are working in a large enterprise application this problem will bring headaches of course. Especially if you are an angular guy you will recognize of using the CLI greatly and great stuff of typescript. Nest is same as that. that’s why I really love this framework in building backends.
Here is the quote that I found in the NestJS documentation.
“Nest (NestJS) is a framework for building efficient, scalable Node.js server-side applications. It uses progressive JavaScript, is built with and fully supports TypeScript (yet still enables developers to code in pure JavaScript) and combines elements of OOP (Object Oriented Programming), FP (Functional Programming), and FRP (Functional Reactive Programming).”
And of course, it is “YES”. With no more explanations let’s forward
Let’s forward to the technical stuff.
First of all, you have to use nest CLI to start your project, run your project, and to do many things. You can easily install it using the following command in your cmd.
>npm i -g @nestjs/cli
After the installation you can start a new project using the following command.
nest new project-name
for the project-name you can use a name as you wish.
Ahh. I forgot something to mention. When creating a project, it prompts us which project manager would you like to use. Just choose npm.
Here is the folder structure of the brand-new project. I usually use WebStorm as my default IDE.
You might be familiar with nodemon. Every change that we do to the files nodemon starts again and again. Same as that we can start the NestJS project in watch mode. Simply use this command in your terminal.
npm run start: dev
or else you can use just npm run start
as a small discussion if we take a closer look at src/ directory several core files can be seen. Let’s talk about them one by one
app.controller.ts
here it is a basic controller sample with a single route
app.module.ts
this is the root module of the application
main.ts
this is the entry file of the application which uses the core function NestFactory to create a Nest application instance
well using nest.js is very easy and super cool.
Nest.JS returns
TypeScript Support: NestJS supports TypeScript, which makes me very comfortable as I have been using TypeScript for a long time while working with Angular. You have the option to select JavaScript again.
Code sharing: NestJS supports library creation and use using CLI. It’s really easy to share code and then it’s a good choice for business applications.
Monorepo support: Angular support monorepo, and starting at 6, NestJS comes with monorepo support.
How to learn: Another thing I love about NestJS when you come from .Net or a Java domain and have an idea for creating APIs, NestJS is easy to learn. Also, if you are an Angular developer, you will feel at home because it follows the same path.
Conclusion
NestJS is very easy to get started with, and once you have used .Net, Java, or ExpressJS, many concepts are the same.
It provides CLI, and with it, we use it, we can easily switch our app and focus more on our code. With a business application, it is really easy to split code into all multiple modules using NestJS modules.
This article is actually a basic forward step to Nest.I hope to continue with a detailed technical stuff as a continuation regarding to this.Connect with the future stories too about nest.
Stay Home.Stay Safe!!!! | https://medium.com/@jeevanthanandika/nest-js-for-your-next-project-b3631e4efd3 | ['Nandika Jeevantha'] | 2020-08-20 05:22:55.230000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Angular', 'Nestjs', 'Backend Development', 'Javascript Frameworks'] |
Flying into the future: How drones are getting the job done during the pandemic | From contactless medicine delivery to helping kids learn STEAM principles that will guide their future careers, drones are a sustainable tool in the fight against the novel coronavirus.
Drones have been whirring into the civilian space at a breakneck pace.
Both recreational and industrial applications of drones have the exciting potential to make certain jobs easier, particularly those that would have previously required a costly helicopter trip — like aerial photography.
While these applications have been around the corner for several years, one new trend is the advantage gained by using drones in the middle of a contagious health pandemic. Because they can be operated remotely, drones can make certain trips obsolete and aid with social distancing — all while still nonetheless enabling functional collaboration. Best of all, as low-impact monitoring devices, drones are actively conserving energy and contributing to more sustainable practices.
READ MORE DRONE COVERAGE12 Examples of Rescue Robots You Should Know
Fighting the virus while preparing for the future
From archaeology to construction, potential drone applications run the gamut. One use case that skyrocketed during the pandemic is the airborne delivery of groceries. A number of pilots are currently run, such as Walmart in the United States and Tesco in Ireland. Drone delivery relieves people from the need to shop in-store, which is especially useful for protecting people who might be quarantining due to their status in high-risk groups. We’ve also seen successful medicine deliveries to remote locations.
Though COVID-19 accelerated development in this area, the delivery of essential items by drones will continue to evolve long after this all over. The technology is a practical way for those with impaired mobility to get food and other products, and I’m forecasting that drone-based deliveries will be the driving factor in scaling up online grocery retail. It is only through the use of drones, once mature, that unmanned delivery of groceries can be achieved at scale.
With grocery delivery, there are challenges that go beyond the drone’s software, management and steering capabilities. Some residents have objected, citing noise complaints. Others are worried about safety issues or feel that they are being spied on by unmanned aerial devices. For commercial delivery by drone to really take off, improvements both to the hardware and to informing the public will be necessary.
On the hardware front, the technology must be completely safe — regardless of weather, the weight of the load and potential obstacles in the airspace. Further, noise emissions from air flowing over the blades needs to be addressed. Commercial drones have taken major strides toward mitigating this issue, as their higher-quality aerodynamic blades help reduce the flow of air through the propellers and minimize vibration and sound.
These technological advancements aside, the widespread commercial application of drones such as for the delivery of groceries will only succeed if the public is informed and supportive. Residents need to feel confident that the technology is safe and silent — and that their privacy isn’t being compromised during delivery.
How kids are using drones to unlock career paths
Although they’re stuck inside, kids are still hungry for real-world experiences that keep them engaged. There is no better time than the present to empower youngsters with the skills they need to comply with the rules of the sky by encouraging responsible play and learning with purpose.
There are a number of educational kits on the market that teach kids to build, code and configure their own drone. Most of them follow a STEAM approach to learning, which brings science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics into the real world. Such kits help build curiosity, dialogue and critical thinking, ultimately teaching children to take thoughtful risks, engage in experiential learning, persist in problem solving, embrace collaboration and work through the creative process. All of these skills set kids up to succeed in various areas of their future lives — and hopefully to solve some of the most pressing issues of our time.
As drone laws evolve, however, it is increasingly important to know when it’s OK to capture that cool beach shot while on vacation or what the rules are when flying over crowds at that travel baseball tournament or local festival. The fear of being watched can deter people from public participation and regulations often vary by jurisdiction.
Affordable, speedy and convenient surveying
Even uses that are not directly affected by the pandemic profit from drones’ inherent feature of being controlled remotely. They contribute to fewer trips having to be made, and enable collaborative work despite social distancing.
One of drone technology’s major benefits is the ability to survey huge swaths of land in very little time, which was previously only possible at a prohibitive cost. This feature is used in many different industries, from agriculture and construction to the protection of the environment.
City planners are using drones to evaluate potential building sites and monitor the use of urban spaces, while forestry and agricultural applications range from soil analyses to the detection of plant diseases to aerial spraying and seeding.
For these purposes, excellent flying capabilities and sufficient image quality alone are not enough; depending on the exact use case, drones will only fulfill their potential if the hardware is combined with other technologies such as GPS and artificial intelligence. While GPS is already being used to steer the devices and to match data with precise locations, there is still immense opportunity for artificial intelligence.
By leveraging AI in analyzing image and video data from the drones, users can detect anomalies such as leaks in water pipes or faulty power supplies. These kinds of AI-powered visual analytics can prevent shortages and outages and significantly reduce repair time. Images and videos can be live-streamed to multiple stakeholders’ devices, enabling smooth collaboration between individuals working from different places — a major asset in times of social distancing.
There’s also a lot of potential for automated image analysis in agricultural and environmental industries. By layering images taken at different times users can detect changes in soil quality, vegetation or large land features much earlier. Farmers can rely on these insights to take action on plant diseases, while environmentalists can map developments in natural habitats.
Innovators have long recognized the immense potential that drones offer, particularly when combined with additional technologies. But recent months have inspired and accelerated the development of even more use cases. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the delivery of groceries, medicine and items of daily use by drones is more than a matter of convenience — it can ensure the safety of individuals and entire societies. | https://medium.com/@thomas-falk/flying-into-the-future-how-drones-are-getting-the-job-done-during-the-pandemic-de562a5fa9cc | ['Thomas Falk'] | 2020-11-18 16:49:28.416000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Drones', 'Drones Technology', 'Sustainability'] |
The Darkroom | The darkroom the most peaceful room in the school. The lights are off leaving a red glow to illuminate everything. The soft hum of the extractor fan, the light rush of water from the tap. The friendly scent of developer chemicals. Usually it’s just me and the darkroom so therapeutic.
But today it’s different today I’m not alone. I sit there in the complete darkness. I haven’t been scared of the dark since I was seven, yet my heart was beating out of my chest. His hand comes up to my face, I hold my breath and he pushes a curl of hair behind my ear. “I want to se your face.” The irony is so strong. He wants to see my face yet here we are in the pitch dark. Click. Click. Click. The musical noise fills the room hardly being able to reach my ears through the thick layer of nerves. “I’m going to take the pictures with my phone.”
“No, don’t please.” Him using a camera is fine but if he uses his phone he can keep the pictures. Now don’t get me wrong I’m fully clothed and I am in a pitch dark room. This photoshoot is for his photography coursework and nothing else. But still I don’t want him to use his phone.
“Why are you being so nervous?” He asks his voice low he comes closer to me our faces inches apart.
Turning away I go through the usual motions of being in the darkroom. I turn on the extractor fan, the red light, the tap, pull of the photo paper, pour out the chemicals. Just like if I was alone but I’m not. “You should probably go to print out those pictures. Do some work you know your book is basically empty. I’m gonna be here for a while.” I say it and instantly scold myself. It sounds weak and childish, like a question. Not like a strong statement like it should.
“Its fine. I will stay, I wanna watch you work.” He pulls out a chair in front of me and sits down. “Why won’t you leave. I need to breathe.” I smile and nod okay. No matter how much I want him to leave I don’t say anything. And I don’t know why.
This room is too small no matter how far away I go from him he’s still there. Right next to me. But I close my eyes and take. Breath, I have so much work to do so I can’t get distraced so I just start developing.
In my hands are the final pictures freshly exposed, undeveloped. A hand reaches out and grabs me. Dropping my picture I jump slightly. He’s been so quiet that I completely forgot he was here, he picks up my picture and holds it towards me. “I feel sick.” He whispers “I think I’m going to pass out.” I take the picture but he doesn’t let go, I look at him confused and he pulls me towards him. I think nothing of it, he’s going to pass out he needs me to keep him up.
Standing in front of him my body against him, I ask if he’s okay. Nodding he stands up, I never notice how short I am until somebody stands up right in front of me. “You should go, I only have one picture left and it’s probably the chemicals that are making you dizzy.” He shakes his head and I realise how close I’m standing to him. I step back and take the picture that is still in his hand.
I walk around the sink so I’m opposite him. Dropping my picture in the developer I begin to agitate it. The chemical washes over the blnk paper, shapes and shadows start to come through. Soft hands wrap themselves around me. I hold my breath, suddenly terrified. His lips tickle my neck as he speaks. “Is this okay?”
“No, let go of me. Don’t touch me like that let go!” I say nothing and he pulls away. I can breathe again and I’m softly trembling “Am I making you uncomfortable?” He asks his voice low, his voice worried. I shake my head but don’t speak since I don’t trust my voice. If I open my mouth what comes out may be a scream, instead of a whisper.
I turn around again to put my newly developed picture into the stop chemical. And he returns behind me. His soft touch traces circles of the back of my hand. I look at him crying smiling and go back to my work pulling away from him my breathing rapid. He brings me back hands resting on my waist thumbs rubbing my sides pulling me to his body whispering “You okay with this.” I shake my head so vigorously that my curls find themselves in his eye. Ripping through his cornea, blinding him. I nod and his lips come down to mine. I pull away again. ‘What am I doing’ I ask myself “Stop please. Please leave me alone. Don’t kiss me these lips aren’t for you.”
I try to continue with my work but his presence is distracting and I want the earth to swallow me whole right now. Better yet swallow him, because the darkroom is my sanctuary and he is ruining it. I want to be in his arms.
I rest on the opposite side of the sink and at look into his eyes terrified deeply. Slowly he walks around the sink and stands behind me. So close I can feel every inch of him, I blink back tears but then urge myslef to relax. It doesn’t work. His hands are now on my shirt buttons playing with them, stop I’m breathing quick now, but I need to stop. “Listen.” I tell myself. “This is normal. This is what they expect you to, your ex-boyfriend made you do so much more and you loved him. So suck it up, people expect you to be a slut. So stop crying about it and do what your supposed to.”
. I turn to face him I finger his buttons too. Then one comes off them two then three and my hand is on his stomach his lips on mine his hand on my waist and suddenly I hate him. Hate him more than I’ve ever hated anybody in my entire life yet I know I shouldn’t because if I told him to stop he would. So don’t play the victim, you’re not being assaulted. You’re being loved. I clear my head and just do what I need to do, lips moving, hands exploring and I am in hell. I am in heaven.
He pulls back and looks into my eyes, he sees it then. The fear, the panic, the hatred. The tears I am trying so hard to supress. “I’m so sorry. But I asked, you should’ve…” He’s speaking fast now, worried that I’ll tell someone something I shouldn’t. And I hate him so much, I’ve never hated anyone more than him. But I know I shouldn’t. If I said stop he would’ve. So I have no right to hate him. His panic is interrupted by knocking. Once, again, and again. I don’t say anything because I still don’t trust my voice. I may still scream. The knocking continues. “We’re coming.” He shouts while buttoning up his shirt.
I take the picture and start scrubbing it. I look down at the picture there stands two people. My models, the boy in the picture has arm around a beautiful girl they smile and it’s real. Not forged, not forced, not pained. He looks straight at me and I hate him too. I rush to turn off the light -careless with my wet fingers — and we’re momentarily returned to darkness, I turn off the rush of water from the tap. Off goes the soft hum of the extractor fan. On comes the lights blinding is with reality because I can’t hide myself now I don’t look at him. I pull open the door and rush out the darkroom past the girl standing in front of me. You will tell no body what happened in there because it wasn’t his fault it was yours. | https://medium.com/@txrera/the-darkroom-75826fe90843 | [] | 2020-12-19 20:09:18.795000+00:00 | ['Pain', 'Love', 'Metoo', 'Fiction Writing', 'Schools'] |
Remote Test Execution with Selenium and Sauce Labs | Remote Test Execution with Selenium and Sauce Labs
Remote test execution speeds up the testing process and ensures consistent coverage and maintenance of your tests. Sauce Labs is one of the solutions that stands out when it comes to the execution of Selenium scripts in remotely placed endpoints. Ranorex Webtestit Follow May 27, 2019 · 6 min read
Remote test execution means using remote machines to run tests simultaneously and execute them across different test environments, i.e. different operating systems, browsers, system configurations, etc.
In contrast to running tests on a local machine, remote test execution — as its name suggests — requires a remote execution environment.
The principal advantage of this approach is the ability to perform execution of test automation on multiple remote machines as well as multiple browsers at the same time. This is particularly useful in a distributed environment when you have to execute hundreds or even thousands of tests on a regular basis.
Executing tests on multiple machines and browsers doesn’t only save time but ensures better coverage as well.
Running tests on local machines, however, shouldn’t be completely tossed out because of all of the advantages of remote test execution. Some types of tests benefit more from being run on a local machine, allowing testers to have a look at the SUT and debug tests at the time of testing, rather than having to guess what went wrong based on screenshots or videos. Also, some testers don’t have projects big enough to justify the need for the remote test execution on multiple machines. However, if the scope of a project expands, executing all test cases using one system could become more difficult.
For example, what would happen if you need to check things on multiple browser and OS combinations?
This is where remote test execution comes into play. Rather than set up a costly test infrastructure that you need to run and maintain on your own, you can easily outsource things to someone else’s grid, preferably to one located in the cloud.
One of the most popular tools/solutions among developers and testers who need to execute multiple tests across different browsers and operating systems is Sauce Labs.
What is Sauce Labs?
Sauce Labs is a cloud-based platform for manual and automated testing of web and mobile applications. Sauce Labs allows users to run automated and manual tests in the cloud on hundreds of different browser, operating system, and device combinations, using several testing frameworks.
There are various reasons why testers choose Sauce Labs for manual and automated testing:
Speed — Speed is the most important reason to move the testing to the cloud. Cloud-based software tests, such as those in Sauce Labs reduce overall testing time because of the possibility to run tests in parallel
— Speed is the most important reason to move the testing to the cloud. Cloud-based software tests, such as those in Sauce Labs reduce overall testing time because of the possibility to run tests in parallel Better coverage — Sauce Labs improves the quality of testing with better browser coverage and compatibility
— Sauce Labs improves the quality of testing with better browser coverage and compatibility Better maintenance — Sauce Labs could-based solution also resolves some of the maintenance issues present with other solutions, such as Selenium Grid
Imagine finding yourself in the familiar scenario in which you need to test all your test cases in various versions of browsers, as well as various platforms. You’ll agree that one cannot simply install all that stuff in their local box/environment.
Now, this is where Sauce Labs comes in handy, allowing you to focus on testing rather than be worried about maintaining a bunch of environments against which your tests need to run.
Sauce Labs supports running automated tests with Selenium WebDriver (for web applications) and Appium (for native and mobile web applications). In this article, we will focus on using Sauce Labs as your remote execution provider.
Integrating Sauce Labs and Selenium
To start integrating your Selenium test scripts with Sauce Labs, you need to have a Sauce Labs account. You can sign up for a free 14-day trial.
The username you’ve chosen when you created your Sauce Labs account will be used in your test scripts, as well as your access key. To find your access key, do the following:
Click your name in the Account Profile menu in the upper-right corner Click User Settings Scroll down to Access Key
Note: You may need to enter your Sauce Labs password to view the access key
Finally, click the Copy icon.
You’ll find both username and access key in your code, looking like this:
SAUCE_USERNAME and SAUCE_ACCESS_KEY
You’ll need to replace these with your actual credentials.
Next, you should have a Selenium environment with the Java bindings set up on a local machine where you’re running your tests. From now on, the integration is quite simple, as the only piece of code you have to update is the one allowing you to fetch the Selenium driver.
Here’s what it would look like in Java:
WebDriver driver = new RemoteWebDriver(new URL(“http://YOUR_USERNAME:[email protected]:80/wd/hub");
You’ve probably noticed that this piece of code invokes no browser. For someone who is accustomed to using WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(); command in order to invoke a browser in Selenium, this may be a surprise.
In Sauce Labs, we call the RemoteWebDriver class to connect a remote driver pointed at ondemand.saucelabs.com specifying your Sauce Labs account credentials and desired browser configuration.
Here’s an example of how the Selenium Java test would look like when integrated with Sauce Labs:
As you may see, integrating SauceLabs into your current testing process is pretty straightforward. Sauce Labs is simply used as a remote driver for Selenium, which does not have much impact on the way you currently automate your tests.
Now to seriously simplify that test execution
While using Sauce Labs simplifies the test execution, it still requires developers and testers to set up some things manually, such as adding your authentication credentials, specifying the path to the Sauce Labs cloud, configuring the desired capabilities for your test, enabling reporting to your Sauce Labs dashboard, etc. This can be a hassle if you need to execute multiple endpoints in a short timeframe.
Ranorex Webtestit reduces these repetitive actions and speeds up the remote test execution thanks to the integration with Sauce Labs. Ranorex Webtestit allows the users to set the endpoint configuration by choosing from local endpoints, custom endpoints like BrowserStack, or remote endpoints such as Selenium Grid and Sauce Labs.
Pointing to the Sauce Labs cloud infrastructure will invoke the browser remotely, however, the remaining execution and result workflows remain the same. You’ll continue to manage the test execution from within Ranorex Webtestit.
To add Sauce Labs as a remote endpoint in Ranorex Webtestit, first, choose the ‘Remote endpoint’ tab. Sauce Labs is selected by default.
To use your credentials, fill out the Username and AccessKey fields associated with your Sauce Labs account. Click on the ‘Fetch available capabilities’ button. Then, select your preferred capabilities, including operating system, browser, and browser version. Finally, click the ‘Save endpoint’ button and you’re good to go.
Your Sauce Labs credentials (username and access key) will be inserted in the test code automatically, allowing you to remotely execute your tests from Ranorex Webtestit in an instant.
After this, simply run your test cases in Ranorex Webtestit. Simultaneously, your tests will run in your Sauce Labs dashboard.
When the test is over, you’ll be able to view a regular report in Ranorex Webtestit.
You will also be able to view a Sauce Labs report that will provide a video showing all the actions performed in the test, as well as other important details, including commands, view logs, and metadata.
Conclusion
Using a third-party cloud provider such as Sauce Labs is probably the most convenient way to coordinate your tests across multiple browser, operating system, and device combinations, and ensure better test coverage and maintenance. With Ranorex Webtestit you can speed up this process, even more, thanks to seamless integration with Sauce Labs cloud.
You can download Ranorex Webtestit free 30-day trial here and see for yourself how well it works with Sauce Labs | https://medium.com/ranorex-webtestit/remote-test-execution-with-selenium-and-sauce-labs-bffc3bef64f1 | ['Ranorex Webtestit'] | 2019-12-25 13:32:10.737000+00:00 | ['Selenium', 'Webtestit', 'Testing', 'Test Automation', 'Sauce Labs'] |
Senate sets rules for President Trump’s impeachment trial; Republicans block all 11 Democratic amendments | Senate sets rules for President Trump’s impeachment trial; Republicans block all 11 Democratic amendments
This appeared in The Millennial Source
The United States Senate began the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on Tuesday with a 13-hour session that set rules for the trial. The Republican-led Senate blocked much of the Democrats’ agenda for the trial, including allowing additional evidence and testimony.
The highly partisan atmosphere around the trial has left many to assume Trump’s acquittal is unlikely. However, each side will have three days to present their case that the president abused his power and obstructed justice.
McConnell’s original rules for the trial
With Chief Justice John Roberts presiding over the Senate trial, Tuesday was devoted entirely to setting the rules for the trial. Prior to Tuesday’s proceedings, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a member of Trump’s Republican Party, released his rules for the trial. The rules were designed to expedite the trial process.
In McConnell’s original rules, both the Democratic prosecution and Republican defense would be given two days to provide their case. Each side is afforded 24 hours to present their opening arguments, so a two-day window would require two 12-hour days, with the arguments lasting past midnight each day. This is a change from the three days allowed in the Clinton impeachment trial.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said McConnell’s purpose for this shortened timespan was “making it much more difficult to get witnesses and documents and … rushing the trial through.” It would have the result, Schumer said, of hiding “evidence from the American people.”
Democrats had previously pushed back against McConnell’s stated desire to prevent witness testimony at the trial. They have also voiced concern over McConnell’s promise to coordinate with White House counsel for the trial and his December 2019 public statement that he was not an impartial juror.
Thursday, Senators swore an oath to provide “impartial justice.”
The Democrats’ 11 failed amendments
Early in the Tuesday proceedings, Democrats won a concession from McConnell to extend the opening hearing to three days. According to The Hill, Some Republicans, including Sen. Susan Collins, pushed back on the two-day limit, which is why McConnell allowed the change. Another concession was the admittance of the House impeachment record into the trial record.
Those would prove to be the Democrats’ only victories for the day. The Democrats proposed 11 amendments to McConnell’s rules, most of them focused on allowing additional witnesses and evidence that hadn’t been presented during the original House inquiry. All but one of the amendments were voted down along party lines, 53–47.
Collins was the one Republican defector on the 10 thproposed amendment, which would have provided extra time for each side to respond to motions from the other side. Despite Collins’ support, the amendment failed.
The rules are now set
A little after 2 am on Wednesday morning, the final rules for the trial were voted on and set. Each side will have three days to present a 24-hour opening argument. The prosecution’s presentation was set to start on Wednesday at 1 p.m. and continue through Thursday and Friday. That will be followed by a rebuttal by the President’s defense team.
Senators will be given 16 hours to write questions for each team, which will be read by Roberts. With additional witnesses and evidence rejected on Tuesday, that will allow a vote on the two articles of impeachment to follow shortly after. That could mean that the trial is over by the end of next week, prior to Trump’s February 4 State of the Union address, as the president had hoped.
For the president to be removed from office, two-thirds of the senators — 67 of the 100 — would have to vote for at least one of the articles of impeachment. That is unlikely to happen.
What will be missing from the trial
The House inquiry included the testimony of many important figures in the scandal surrounding Trump’s alleged effort to force the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential rival in the 2020 election. However, the White House blocked many firsthand witnesses from testifying.
One crucial figure in the scandal is former White House national security advisor John Bolton. After not having testified in the original House impeachment inquiry, Bolton said in early January that he would testify in the Senate trial if subpoenaed. That will not happen now Republicans have blocked that the Democrats’ efforts to include subpoenas and additional testimony.
Additionally, on January 21, while the Senate was debating the trial rules, American Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog organization, obtained a trove of documents related to Trump freezing military aid to Ukraine. The 192 pages were released by the Office of Management and Budget. The documents are said to include emails between key figures in the scandal.
However, the Senate voted not to include additional evidence, so these new details won’t be part of the record in the trial. | https://themillennialsource.medium.com/senate-sets-rules-for-president-trumps-impeachment-trial-republicans-block-all-11-democratic-a52526f7fdeb | ['The Millennial Source'] | 2020-01-23 12:21:30.551000+00:00 | ['Trump', 'Government', 'World', 'News', 'America'] |
Depression in Teens | Suicide is mentioned in this post.
Like most teens these days, I find myself spending hours a day on TikTok, a social media platform where users can create videos to different sounds or use their own voice. And as I scroll down my For You page I find more and more videos about teens struggling with their mental health. We can all agree that COVID-19 certainly hasn’t done much to help teens with depression, but just how many teens are now struggling with depression?
Depression is a serious mental health problem that can cause a multitude of symptoms like, persistent sadness or loss of interest in activities. It’s a mental illness that can be caused by a series of things, such as brain chemistry, hormones, inherited traits, early childhood trauma, or learned patterns of pessimistic thinking. Teens with a home disruption, like a divorce or the death of a parent also increase the chances of developing depression.
Nowadays, teens are able to communicate with anyone 24 hours a day, including both their friends and strangers. Teens know when they are being left out because their friends post their time
together on their private Snapchat story. Teens know their friend was talking bad about them after seeing a text on their phone about it. This causes feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, frustration, anger, sadness, emptiness, irritability, relationship problems, exaggerated self-blame, sensitivity to failure, thinking life is grim, or even frequent thoughts of death or dying. In addition to this, Instagram influencers and celebrities post photoshopped photos of themselves, giving teens unrealistic beauty standards. This can cause low self-esteem, self-hatred, or eating disorders.
Stress also plays a big role in teen depression. School is a constant stress for students. On the American College Health Association survey in 2015, 30% of students identified that stress was negatively affecting their academic performance and 14% for depression. There is constant pressure put on students by parents and schools to get good grades to go to a good college. In addition to this, there are sometimes multiple tests a day, each one having a huge impact on our grade in the class. COVID-19 has certainly made this worse. The entire learning environment is completely different from what everyone is used to. Teaching and planning out lessons is harder for teachers, and learning is harder for students. Tests and quizzes stress both me and many of my friends out more than before, especially when it’s so hard to learn the proper material. Poor school performance can be a symptom of depression as well.
Behavioral changes or symptoms are also very common. Tiredness, loss of energy, insomnia, sleeping too much, changes in appetite, use of alcohol or drugs, restlessness, agitation, slowed thinking, speaking, or body movements, complaints of unexplained body pains, less attention to hygiene or appearance, angry outbursts, disruptive behavior, self-harm, or making a suicide attempt or plan can all be signs that someone is suffering from depression.
COVID-19 has made it nearly impossible to see anyone outside your own household for months on end. Proms, sports seasons, clubs, events, college move-ins, and exciting events were canceled, leaving kids rightfully disappointed. One thing after the other was canceled. People got their hopes up, and one by one they were left saddened. It was extremely hard to be optimistic or happy when everything you were looking forward to was ripped out of your grasp, and you couldn’t even see your friends in person to talk about it. Dr. Jennifer Wojciechowski, a clinical psychologist at Sharp Mesa Vista Hospital shares, “The increased isolation and stress related to COVID-19 may also lead to higher rates of teen depression, anxiety and even suicide, especially in teens who were struggling with mental health challenges prior to the pandemic.”
Many teens believe that they are alone in their depression. In reality, 3.2% of children aged 3–17 years (approximately 1.9 million) have been diagnosed with depression. And about 20 percent of all teens experience depression before they reach adulthood. The depression rates rose rapidly among children ages 12–17. In the U.S. it increased from 8.7% in 2005 to 12.7% in 2015. Depression is a lot more common than most people think, which is extremely sad. What’s even worse is how only 30% of depressed teens are being treated for it.
So how can you help someone that seems to be suffering from depression? Health care professionals say that reaching out to them and starting a conversation about it is a good place to start. Telling the person you are worried about how you feel and why you want to talk to them. Some conversation starters could be:
- “I have been feeling really worried about you lately.”
- “I’ve noticed a change in you recently, so I wanted to check up on you.”
- “You’ve seemed pretty down lately, is everything okay?”
Once the conversation is started, ask the person questions about their feelings of sadness:
“When did you start feeling like this?”
“Did something happen that made you feel this way?”
“Have you thought about getting help?”
“What can I do to help?”
If you think you have depression, there are ways to help yourself too:
Call your mental health professional.
Get help from your primary care doctor or other health care professional.
Reach out to a close friend or loved one
Contact someone in your faith community (priest, minister, rabbi, etc.)
Every 100 minutes, a teen takes their own life. Suicide is the third-leading cause of death for people between ages 15–24. A sign that someone might be thinking about taking their own life is self-harm. This includes cutting, burning, or excessive piercing or tattooing. If a loved one or friend is talking about suicide or has attempted suicide make sure someone stays with that person, call 911 or your local emergency number, or if safe take them to the emergency room.
If you yourself are thinking about death, dying, suicide, or are depressed please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1–800–273-TALK (1–800–273–8255) or use its webchat on suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat (in U.S.)
Depression is a sad and dark mental health problem that needs to be talked about more. It affects thousands of teenagers in the United States, and yet many of those suffering do not know that there is a name for their constant sadness. Everyone should check up on their friends and loved ones, especially during these hard times. Remember, you are not alone. It does get better.
Donate to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America to help the prevention, treatment, and cure of depression, anxiety, and many other mental health disorders and illnesses.
Works Cited
“Checking In on Your Teenager’s Mood During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” NYU Langone News, nyulangone.org/news/checking-your-teenagers-mood-during-covid-19-pandemic.
“Consequences of Student Mental Health Issues.” Consequences of Student Mental Health Issues | Suicide Prevention Resource Center, www.sprc.org/colleges-universities/consequences.
“Data and Statistics on Children’s Mental Health.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 15 June 2020, www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/data.html.
“Depression Is on the Rise in the U.S., Especially Among Young Teens.” Search the Website, 30 Oct. 2017, www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/depression-rise-us-especially-among-young-teens.
“Teen Depression.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 16 Nov. 2018, www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/teen-depression/symptoms-causes/syc-20350985.
“Teen Isolation and Suicide Prevention during a Pandemic.” Is Coronavirus Isolation Making My Teenager Depressed? — San Diego –, 10 Sept. 2020, www.sharp.com/health-news/teen-isolation-and-suicide-prevention-during-a-pandemic.cfm.
“Why Today’s Teens Are More Depressed Than Ever.” Discovery Mood & Anxiety Program, 8 May 2019, discoverymood.com/blog/todays-teens-depressed-ever/. | https://medium.com/@elliepotischman/depression-in-teens-f7d7411dc961 | ['Ellie Potischman'] | 2020-12-27 20:41:48.880000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Mental Illness', 'Depression', 'Mental Health', 'Sad'] |
Digitalisation of the Private Market | Key Market Enablers
We’re confident that blockchain-based electronic instruments represent a future pillar of the private market financial sector; offering massive operational efficiencies and enabling investment features in ways that are difficult or impossible to achieve in conventional paper-based instruments.
Our analysis found that there are still a number of blockers preventing this new asset class from fulfilling its potential. To achieve our mission of enabling a decentralized economy, we’ve built a platform that addresses these critical obstacles to market acceptance.
Autonomous Investor Rights Enforcement
Our most important and powerful innovation is our solution for enforcement of investor rights — a central challenge to the market adoption of blockchain and smart contract based instruments. We understood that we had little ability to hasten the adoption of legal code that would solve the uncertainty around smart contracts and the handling of investor rights, so instead we looked at how we could bring the real world onto the blockchain.
Through the use of our patent-pending decentralized Sentinel System™, our platform allows issuers of investment instruments to make business-model specific commitments (covenants) to investors, pre-plan and pre-authorize remedies in the case of non-compliance. Our smart contract technology autonomously verifies that issuer commitments are being met and, if they aren’t, executes the remedies that have already been described to investors. It provides investor rights enforcement with previously unimaginable speed, clarity and predictability.
We believe our system doesn’t just match the types of enforcement options available in traditional asset classes, but represents an improvement over them. Faster, cheaper, predictable enforcement of investor rights that are business-model specific.
Regulatory Compliance — Ad Infinitum
Ongoing, long-term regulatory compliance has been costly and operationally challenging, especially if a company has issued investment instruments under a securities registration exemption that has specific limitations.
Even companies like Google and Facebook have experienced organization-altering regulatory challenges. In both cases, Google and Facebook conducted public offerings in the year in which their shareholder bases increased beyond 500 investors due to secondary trading outside of the companies’ control (which breached their regulatory category and required them to start reporting to the SEC similarly to a public company). In both cases, the inability to maintain compliance with their SEC registration exemptions was cited as a primary driver.
With smart contract based compliance rules, an investment is able to assure that any defined compliance requirements are respected indefinitely. In the above example, the investment instrument itself would have prevented any transactions that would have created a 501st shareholder. If an investment instrument is issued with specific rules about investor accreditation or geographic location, smart contract based compliance (and investor identity management) is able to assure ongoing compliance in a dispersed secondary market.
As smart contract based compliance has visibility into its full token holder base, generating mandatory corporate reporting can be fully automated. This brings valuable relief for issuers and their financial service providers from the dual obligations of maintaining control over its regulatory categorization and maintenance of its regulatory reporting.
Investor Identity
Knowing Your Customer (KYC) is mission-critical in a regulated but non-centralized private market. Our approach is to represent an identity (individual or corporation) via a decentralized system where the investor has full control over their personal data — existing in a permissioned distributed ledger (blockchain) outside the control of any centralized party.
Using a decentralized platform for identity management allows for qualified investors to take part in these offerings via a wide ecosystem financial service providers without the need to continually reestablish their identity. This is an important feature of today’s centralized financial model.
This approach also allows for fully decentralized secondary trading, as smart contract based compliance systems can verify that regulatory requirements are being met when instruments are being traded between investors. These systems are further able to generate automated regulatory reporting and distribute investor payments (dividends, royalties, interest coupons). Without decentralized identify management, secondary trading and ongoing token program management are limited to exchanges where buyer and seller identity can be verified from the same database, which negates many of the potential benefits of a decentralized economic model.
Hunit works with external partners, combined with in house technology, to provide investors and issuers with portable identity management under their control. | https://medium.com/@hunit/digitalisation-of-the-private-market-b8f676ef9e17 | [] | 2020-04-20 09:49:10.858000+00:00 | ['Smart Contracts', 'Compliance', 'Blockchain', 'Hyperledger', 'Tokenization'] |
Best Hair Wax to Buy Online in India 2019 | For every males hair styling is among the most crucial and item that is important for their daily life. Whether or not you’re going out there for a party or maybe office greatest hair wax is a single thing you are able to implement on the hairs of yours. Additionally there’s nothing wrong in styling the hairs of yours as it plays significant role in the way a males look. Well even if there are various hair types styling products offered in the market as hair gel etc.
But all these items aren’t perfect for you hairs since they contain chemical substances in them. Thanks to which you are going to experience hair fall, dullness within the colour of the hairs of yours as well as your hairs will turn gray. So in exchange for this you are able to make use of hair wax for styling the hairs of yours. Since hair wax are comprised of healthy wax due to which they’re purely chemicals free and great for the hairs of yours too.
Furthermore, hair wax is essentially a hair styling crucial which you can really use for styling the hairs of yours. As it not just really holds the hairs of yours for the whole day. But also provide finish that is ideal for you hair style that you’ve opted for. Like you can try styles that are different for the different type of yours of looks.
Moreover, you will find variety of hair wax available within the market because of which it really gets hard for individuals to determine which is perfect locks wax for them. Therefore only as a way help you here’s a guide for you as below we’ve developed the customer’s ratings, ratings, structure etc that will help you in purchasing.
Best Hair Wax In order to Buy Online in India 2019
Urban Gabru Zero to Infinity Hair Wax for Strong Volume and Hold — 100 g
Effortless all day outfit, locks wax has a strong formulation created to provide you with the hairstyle you want fast and ensuring it sticks around every day.
Short to medium hair types while this hair styling wax is effective on smaller to medium length hair Whether one you are searching for is timeless, vintage, contemporary, disorganized or maybe dapper, this particular wax causes it to be easy
Minimal to matte structure and finish and very easy to wash UrbanGabru’s hair wax actually leaves behind a traditional matte finish in virtually any design without leaving behind excess oil, very easily washes off with regular water.
1. BEARDO Hair Wax, , Strong Hold 75g
Ingredient — aqua acrylates copolymer carbomer glycerin pvk 30 peg40 hydrogenated castor oil cetearth polysobate 20 peg 8 bees wax aloveera extract dmdh Best for — ideal for males hair styling that delivers separation, hold and humidity resistance, it’s a moderate weight wax for workable hold and style How you can use — use as a finishing merchandise to dry out hair.
2. Ustraa Hair Wax for hair styling, 100g
Hair hair styling wax for matte look Formulated with Natural ingredients.Safe for locks.
China clay: Helps in Hair Styling.It aids in keeping organic oil of hair
Orange essential oil: It is great as an antiseptic and antibacterial, and aids in keeping hair hygiene Paraben and SLS free. Absolutely no damaging chemicals
3. Gatsby Styling Wax, Mat as well as Hard, 75g
Re-styling ability
Can make specific hairstyles to match individual personality
Very long lasting effect
4. Brylcreem Bold Hold Hair Wax, eighty gm
Daring Hold
Matte Texture
Accuracy Styling
No Added Paraben
Goodness of three specific Oils — Almond Oil, Coconut, Aloe Vera Oil
5. Ustraa Hair Wax Wet Search for Hair Styling, 100g
Very long lasting hair styling for shiny and wet look
Formulated with Natural ingredients Baobab Fruit Extract: Moisturises as well as repairs dry damaged locks. Also functions as a pure conditioner for hair
Hazelnut oil: Stregthens and nourishes locks. Reduces friziness as well as repairs dry damaged hair.
Bees Wax: Helps in styling of locks. Protects Hair from dangerous UV radiations
6. True Derma Essentials Studio Lite Shine Hair Wax — 5X Hold (Paraben & Sulfate Free) 75 g
Studio Lite Shine Wax Hair Styler
It’s a favorite for Short to Medium length Styles Adding Hold, Control, Shine, and Texture.
Damaged Hair is going to benefit Slight Aesthetically if the Hair requires Shine.
7. Beardo Creme Power Hair Styling Wax For males (75Gm)
Hair style Styling
Harsh Hold
Simple to Apply
Clean and neat Look
Gives Textures and Thikness to Hair
Find More Information: Best Hair Wax In India | https://medium.com/@donaldmgustafsons/best-hair-wax-to-buy-online-in-india-2019-61e74f9dd52e | [] | 2019-10-16 10:00:15.123000+00:00 | ['Hair'] |
What Software Engineers Can Learn From Studying Philosophy | Formal Logic Proofs are at the Core of Functional Programming
There is currently a significant paradigm shift happening in the field of software engineering. Many developers are starting to notice that functional programming (FP) is taking over in the software world. Polymorphism and object-oriented programing (OOP) were for a time considered to be superior. However, as more developers recognize the benefits of composition over inheritance, these seemingly outdated patterns in the OOP world begin to fall short. FP languages such as Haskell, Elixir, Elm, Scala, and F# are increasingly becoming the new norm in modern software development.
Now that we have some understanding of what functional programming is, we can better appreciate why formal logic is relevant. While learning functional programming, I noticed that many formal logic rules of replacement are used. Take, for example, the rule of associativity. One of the main benefits of functional programming is that you can create several small functions and compose them together to make entire programs and applications. These little functions are used as small, reusable components, almost like lego blocks. The reason why engineers can quickly “snap” together these functions is because of their associative nature. One with a philosophy background will intuitively recognize how to use composition from doing proofs using the same replacement rules on whiteboards.
Church proved that all computation could be accomplished through mathematical functions. Simply put, each of these functions can be viewed as a system that determinately returns the same output given the same input. Church’s famous discovery is referred to as the Lambda Calculus.
With Functional Programming rising in popularity, philosophy becomes even more relevant to software engineering. Many believe that Functional Programming is such a significant paradigm shift that it is also causing Senior Developers to feel like newbies all over again. | https://medium.com/swlh/what-software-engineers-can-learn-from-studying-philosophy-b746cf7126d1 | ['Derek Johnson'] | 2020-06-08 21:39:56.917000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'Philosophy', 'Software Development', 'Coding', 'Software Engineering'] |
Defining the grid of today and tomorrow | Defining the grid of today and tomorrow
In the past two months, like the rest of the economy the energy sector was upended. Oil prices went negative for the first time leading Rystad Energy to project $1T in revenue losses for exploration and production companies. Meanwhile the S&P 500 Energy Industry Group lost 61% of its market cap between January 1, 2020 and its trough on March 18, 2020. Yet this massive volatility has been driven largely by demand shocks and trade disruptions in fossil fuel markets, not alternative energies. For the first time, major energy companies have seen their renewable portfolios outperform their fossil fuel portfolios, with the US Energy Information Administration recently reporting that renewables were the only form of energy to see growth in Q1 2020.
As distributed and variable generation resources proliferate, grid infrastructure will continue to adapt and become increasingly reliant on energy resources such as demand response and energy storage to provide grid services like frequency response, spinning reserves and excess energy to meet demand. It is for these reasons that, despite the inclement economic environment, we at Silicon Valley Bank have great hope for the future of innovative companies’ providing solutions in the energy and resource innovation space. While immediate headwinds exist, technological advances and innovative companies enabling an efficient, sustainable and resilient grid will continue to grow and prosper.
Yesterday’s vision, today’s reality: The rise of lithium-ion technology
We are at an inflection point. Five years ago, what kept energy storage from going mainstream was the technology and cost; today, the technology portfolio is more robust and economies of scale have driven prices down, making storage cost competitive with other energy resources. The discussion around storage has moved from feasibility to adoption and deployment — and deployment is booming. In 2019, roughly 4 gigawatts of energy storage were deployed globally. SVB alone has had the opportunity to finance battery storage projects ranging from utility, small commercial and industrial, to residential-scale units amounting to more than 200 megawatts of capacity.
Global energy storage deployment (in gigawatts)
Source: US Energy Information Administration, Wood Mackenzie.
The rise of storage deployment is thanks to the innumerable battery OEMs that have brought new ideas and economies of scale to market. Major automakers like Nissan and Tesla, tech companies like LG and Panasonic and startups are all innovating on novel battery designs — growing the diversity of lithium-ion battery options for energy storage.
Notable energy storage companies
1) “Total raised to date” does not include grant funding. Source: Pitchbook
Thin margins in the highly competitive utility-scale solar space have driven interest in the retail market, which has become a focus of many storage companies that are leveraging established solar companies as channel partners to deploy storage. Companies that pioneered widespread adoption of solar, such as Sunrun, have expanded product offerings to include storage. The long-term outlook for residential storage looks good, but with rapidly declining consumer sentiment and most of the world sheltering in place, retail energy storage may see a near-term decline. Yet as the economy recovers, consumers will return and retail storage will continue its significant expansion.
While total electricity demand has declined ~5% globally and peak load has flattened during the pandemic, large utilities are betting on storage both to help meet sustainability goals and to improve system reliability as more variable generation enters the grid. NextEra just announced a plan to spend $1B on storage projects in 2021. Critics point out that falling fossil fuel prices offer a substitute in the form of natural gas, but as oil prices fall fewer wells will be active in the Permian Basin. The resulting drop in natural gas production will bolster prices. Furthermore, with a decline in electric vehicle sales projected for 2020, a surplus of batteries will make both utility and residential storage cheaper. Couple this with utilities’ ability to access low-cost capital in Federal Reserve–bolstered bond markets, the future of utility-scale storage looks bright. NextEra and Duke Energy recently sold $1B in bonds with a 30-year coupon rate of 3.95%. Finally, while utilities will undoubtedly experience significant coronavirus-related costs, many are already seeking to rate base these costs, ensuring plenty of capital in the future to invest in infrastructure improvements. It’s hard to imagine state utility commissions balking.
The new frontier of energy storage
As innovation continues to find new solutions, the question becomes what is next for the energy storage space. Lithium-ion technology appears poised to maintain its lead, yet flow batteries and other promising energy storage technologies may fuel the economy of tomorrow, particularly in applications where lithium-ion-based batteries are less well-suited. On the frontier of energy storage sit myriad solutions: Hydrogenics uses excess generation to produce hydrogen that can later be converted back to electricity, Energy Vault uses robots to lift weights and store gravitational potential energy and Form Energy just promised a groundbreaking aqueous air battery that will provide 150 hours of storage within three years, which could transform the long-duration storage market.
In addition to the potential gains from alternative storage technologies, many promising software-enabled companies are working in the energy optimization and demand response space. Building on current technology, many of these companies rely on artificial intelligence, telematics, the Internet of Things and other technologies to predict and control demand; this allows both consumers and system operators to shift demand from peak times to periods of low demand, thus matching demand and supply curves and preventing costly capacity expansions and grid infrastructure updates. Companies such as Leap and OhmConnect have solved these inefficiencies by acting as brokers among grid operators who pay energy users to reduce demand at peak times. While there are many hurdles for these companies, from regulatory approvals to privacy concerns related to controlling behind-the-meter load, the substantial cost savings and system resilience they provide positions them to be major players in the energy future.
Notable building energy management, demand response and storage companies
It may seem strange to tout the benefits of energy storage and energy optimization companies amid a global slowdown in electricity demand, but we project that as we begin to resume our normal lives, electricity consumption will continue to grow, as trends toward increased electrification persist.
SVB’s Energy and Resource Innovation practice recognizes the opportunity for innovative companies to ride the next wave of economic growth while transitioning our energy system to a sustainable, resilient and profitable future. We have more than three decades of experience supporting high-growth companies and structuring project finance deals to meet the needs of your business. We welcome conversations with founders, investors and developers seeking to perpetuate the transition to a clean energy economy. | https://medium.com/svb-inside-innovation/defining-the-grid-of-today-and-tomorrow-d2e5388caaca | ['Troy Ault'] | 2020-05-26 17:13:48.155000+00:00 | ['Cleantech', 'Consumer Electronics', 'Demand Response', 'Energy Storage', 'Renewable Energy'] |
Implementing Semantic Monitoring | 👉 This article has moved and is now available here. | https://medium.com/production-ready/implementing-semantic-monitoring-534f16e18247 | ['Mathias Lafeldt'] | 2019-04-20 13:01:39.301000+00:00 | ['Continuous Integration', 'Testing', 'Monitoring', 'Microservices', 'Prometheus'] |
Daily Blog #232: Starting a blog series about writing. | Greetings and Salutations, Blog Readers!
As I ramp up my efforts with Flake City, barreling towards publication time, I realized it may be good for me to include more blogs about my writing and editing process to document my journey a little bit.
When making my brainstorming sheet on topics I could discuss on the blog, I noted that I could make a whole series on writing stuff, and maybe help others, but definitely document my journey.
Of course, as I finish Flake City and enter into edit phase one of my (thus far) favorite project, I am learning all sorts of lessons, and all of that seems worth documenting too.
So, I think I will be blogging more often about the writing and editing process, to document my journey, and also to maybe help other writers in their own journey.
At the moment, I am in the middle of massive rewrite, reorganizing and rewriting and entire characters back story. I don’t mind making changes, these things happen, hell, Flake City started out as a short story, but, I do mind because it means one of the images, the scene, I had for this character, a scene that came to me fully formed and ready to go, would no longer be used, or even needed.
Sure, this scene largely ISN’T needed, which is why it won’t be needed in the rewrites either. The scene isn’t about the character, but the scene I am cutting had less to do with the characterization, and more to do with the time-line, so the scene is very much not needed, even if the characterization wasn’t changing, which is already has.
I love this scene, and while I know I can use it later for something else, a dream sequence, probably, I have been avoiding it like crazy. I also know it means changing so much work I have done, little conversations, quips, stories, sentences…beautiful work done in one very long chapter eleven, all of which is going to be changed. I could, and probably would have, in the past, deleted it, and started over, but this time, I took a more practical approach. I first read it through and color coordinated it with the digital highlighter into different categories, like things that would have to be deleted, things that could stay just as they were, but had to be moved, things that had to be reworked, things that could stay if they were reworked, but likely wouldn’t be needed, things that were perfect little gems…and when I was happy with the organization of all of these words, these beautiful little sentences, I slept on the changes I would be making, looked over the notes and brainstorming I was doing about the chapter, the changes, and began to grieve the loss of one of my favorite scenes.
Once I realized I could use it elsewhere, I was okay, and I anticipate I will likely copy chapter eleven into a different file, rework it, and make sure I am totally happy with the changes, before I remove the original stuff, the original scenes, back stories, and conversations, and put the new, correct one, in it’s place. Once I am sure it is good for me to do so, and I am sure I will be happy in doing so, because I know the change has to happen. If I don’t want to delete it, I will simply substitute the new chapter in, but I suspect I will have no problem deleting my old work once I have the new work in front of you.
Because that’s how it is sometimes, you don’t want to delete your hard work.
That’s fine, as long as you do the hard work you still have left, like rewriting chapter eleven, in my case. I can keep the old chapter. I can keep the old story line, the old back stories, the precious scene I love so much, but it may exist somewhere else, either in the story or only on my computer.
It is more important that Flake City, in it’s best form, survive and make it to publication, than some scene, no matter how much i love it, or some writing I don’t want to delete.
The work I did may be good, but it isn’t right. I need to write the new chapter. To process this, I have a strategy, and in researching what to do for this process, I saw many writers having this problem, the trepidation in deleting their beautiful, precious words and sentences, so…I realized that all that thinking about starting a blog series about my writing process was actually pretty damn needed, because here I was finding more writers with the same problems I was having…
If I manage to solve the problems, as I was setting about, and have set about, to do, and I don’t share that information and process…I am a giant asshole, and not a quirky, quippy, edgy asshole you kinda love, either. No, the asshole artist who doesn’t help other artists be their best selves and reach their own goals.
And fuck that right to hell.
So, try color coordinating the passages, and then slowly rewrite them, and then substitute your new writing in. You can make a special file on your desktop just for the original, in my case, the original Chapter Eleven.
I hope this has been helpful to you, and that it enables you to make better use of your time writing and editing, but most of all to your peace of mind when having to rework your past efforts.
This is a hard time, it isn’t easy to change your beautiful work, more so if the work you have done is in fact, working beautifully, and only doesn’t “work” because of the story you are now telling. Instead of losing this work, feel free to save it.
You may need it in another chapter, another book, or a dream sequence….or just for yourself when you are having a rough day, you can read your great chapter you had to delete, or you can keep the files on hand to show the growth you have made as a writer.
Or maybe you can publish it on your blog a year after you publish your art?
Maybe I’ll do that? Either way, I hope you get to creating!
Thanks for reading!
❤
Abbi | https://medium.com/@abbigrasso/daily-blog-232-starting-a-blog-series-about-writing-dad067850dc0 | ['Abbi Grasso'] | 2020-05-10 09:25:53.592000+00:00 | ['Writer', 'Daily Blog', 'Writing', 'Blog', 'Writers Life'] |
Data privacy of connected cars: Which data are stored and how to protect your self? | The future of the automotive industry is digital; Vehicles are becoming computers with advanced and smart capabilities that will pave the way to the creation of a fully autonomous vehicles (AVs). To reach this higher level we need to connect, gather and process data of every actor in our ecosystem. And here comes the topic of data privacy.
Our ecosystem includes physical and no-physical parties, starting from car owners, Automakers, Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), Telematics (e.g. telecommunication operators, satellites), Assurance companies until Service Providers, IoT and Cloud-Based Software Solutions.
The vehicle needs to be connected and communicates different type of data and information. This network connection is intended to facilitate the operation of vehicles by their owners and to ameliorate the driving experience through the provision of In-Vehicle Infotainment system (IVI), while intelligent driver assistance systems like Night Vision , Lane Departure Warning, Blind-Spot Detection etc.. are intended to improve safety levels.
At this point, it is important to distinguish between essential data to the functioning of the car and data being gathered for other purposes like Data analysis, commercial reasons or even for malicious use and spying. This rise the need to implement much higher standards in data privacy.
Many security researchers have been calling to pay attention to these problems for several years, but there are also some considerable privacy problems that come with driving a modern smart vehicle. The privacy implications of modern/connected vehicles collecting and storing different kind of data have not been exposed much publicly. Much of the concern around these amazing vehicles has been centered on safety as it is vulnerable to potential remote attacks, especially long-range attacks and neglected somehow about physical access attacks. However, all data downloaded to your car would be available to any attacker who decided to dig for it.
Through a personal experience using cars from a famous Car-Sharing service. Where I was about to synch my phone via Bluetooth to play my songs list. I have found names of previous users in the old synched devices on the infotainment displayer and this prove that even after disconnecting the phone, where many confidential information are being stored persistently on the infotainment unit. Any attacker could later retrieve this data using the USB ports.
Actually, this has already been done by two researchers, where they developed a script that can be loaded into an USB stick and then connected it to the car’s USB port. They were able to retrieve data of the synced devices and even able to send the car’s current location to a remote machine.
The data that stays even after you disconnect your phone are call history, contacts, text messages, email messages, and even directory listings. We could also mention that the smart connected vehicles could store and collect much more data about you, such as driving mode, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), driving profile, number of passenger, the music you listen to… This is too much confidential information.
The situation on which we need to take caution about this kind of attack is; either while renting a car or using a car from a shared-ride service. And because data stays there even after you disconnect the phone, and an attacker could easily gather important data from each device that was synced to the car, you need to delete carfelly and immediately all your data after using those services. Sooner or later, there will be a need to control physical unsupervised access and untrusted parties to the vehicle.
I tried to cover one vulnerability within the car which is USB access but still a dozen of risks could violate your privacy and security like for exemple having your data stored in a centralized database. | https://medium.com/@aagargoura/data-privacy-of-connected-cars-which-data-are-stored-and-how-to-protect-your-self-86583154a742 | ['Ahmed Amine Gargoura'] | 2021-01-07 20:29:12.374000+00:00 | ['Data Storage', 'Security', 'Automotive', 'Privacy', 'Connected Cars'] |
What An 8-Month-Old Baby Taught Me About This Election | I write journal style to my 8-month-old daughter on a daily basis, okay weekly, okay… whenever I can find the time. Today is is the biggest election of our lifetime, well Edie’s lifetime for sure because she has been on this planet for 1-hand-plus-3-fingers months.
Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020
Well, Edie, today is the day. It is the biggest election of my life so far and definitely the biggest one of your lifetime! :) #momjokes I guess you could say we are all a bit anxious and hopeful and, by we, I mean the people who are voting for America, the ones who are voting for others, for kindness again (or perhaps, the first truthful kind of kindness that we all know and long for), the ones who understand that there is more at stake in this election than REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT, the ones who know it’s more about living, breathing human beings. Your Mum and I are voting for them. For us. FOR YOU. You deserve better than what America has been living through the last 4 years, or 40 years, or 244 years…we all deserve better. Someday you will ask me about this moment in our history. I know you will because you are already so curious, about yourself and others around you. You are interested in learning new things, meeting new people, and having different experiences, and as your Mom, I will always do my best to encourage this kind of behavior. When your Mum fell in love with me, well before she fell in love with me, she told me she had made a list of all the qualities she wanted in her future partner. She said the word empathetic, and when asked why she chose that word, she said because, “if you are empathetic, you will be curious and when you are curious, you are interested in others.”
Mum and I have a lot of the same values and outlooks on life. One main belief is that empathy is our superpower. When a fire engine goes by, we no longer say “OMG, why are they so loud!?” Instead we say, “Oh, I hope everyone is okay!” See the difference? One is all about you and what you are experiencing, in this inconvenient moment of your day, and the other is about knowing that this moment could affect someone’s entire life story and possibly so many other lives as well. (But really the sirens are a bit too loud!)
Anywho, regardless of what happens in our country over the next few weeks, we will be okay. We will continue to have strong values and will continue to help create change that makes our world, our nation, our neighborhood be the best they can be. One where we all come together again and again and hold the hands of others who are different from us in one way or another. You are going to meet so many amazing people in your life and others will cross your path where you really wished they hadn’t, but they will and they will somehow help you move and grow throughout your story. So we hope you learn to say a gratitude that you experience that person or event, you learn from it, and you make a better choice after that moment by having it.
Wow, I am really getting into it with you today, huh? It is all so wild, Edie. I look at you and all I want is for you to be you. Whatever the next moment is, I will ride it with you. I really believe when you can be your truest self, you can help others more and have a more fulfilled life. I really respect how you truly feel moments and then move on. WHEN you want Sophie, the chewy giraffe, YOU WANNNNT IT! Then you move on. When you try to run before mastering walking and fall, YOU FEEEEEEL IT! And then you move on. When you are hungry, you can get HANGGGGRY. And then eat, make a mess, and you move on.
You are my role model.
After today, we will feel it. I mean, WE WILL FEEEEEEL it and then we will move on and forward. We will keep trying to make “being” better and brighter for you and your future. You have my word.
(Now I need my 47th snack of the day and a drink…because it’s gonna be a long night or week or month.). | https://medium.com/@kassiethornton/what-an-8-month-old-baby-taught-me-about-this-election-3522c526389b | ['Kassie Thornton'] | 2020-11-03 22:57:32.057000+00:00 | ['Elections', 'Baby', 'Moms', 'Growth', 'Vote'] |
Music Discoveries | Last night Movies!, channel 5–2 on over the air antennas in NYC, ran The Phenix City Story (1955), a crime drama set in a small Alabama town. Early on, a big breasted woman performs Phenix City Blues in a smoky gambling den. I was enthralled and made a note to research her on the web. Born in 1934, still among the living, Meg Myles’ career spanned 1951-’95. Although she has only 21 titles listed under her name at IMDb, four are soaps on which she had at least a ten-episode run. She was the star of Satan in High Heels (1962). She was also a popular men’s magazine model and pinup girl in the ’50s, and recorded two albums: At the Living Room, liner notes by Johnny Carson; and Just Meg and Me with jazzman Jimmie Rowles, liner notes by Steve Allen. She also did a post-apocalyptic 45, 13 Men, in which she is the only female survivor. Here’s a quote attributed to her: “How many actresses with a 40-inch bust have ever won an Oscar?” Sounds like she was the life of the party, as this magazine cover will further attest:
And here’s the aforementioned clip from the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ELJRjfQMEA
I learned a little more music trivia today. Babyboomers know Suspicion, written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shumanand, recorded by Terry Stafford, a vocal that sounds eerily similar to Elvis Presley. It peaked at #3 on the Billboard chart in 1964, squeezing in amongst Beatles’ songs. Elvis had recorded it and, strangely, it peaked at only #103. It’s B side, Kiss Me Quick was preferred by his fans, although it paled in comparison to his biggest hits, rising to only #34. I thought that was Stafford’s only moment in the sun. Wrong. In 1973 he wrote and recorded Amarillo by Morning, which went to #31 on the country chart but did not make it to the pop chart. It was a big hit for country legend George Strait in 1983, rising to #4, a huge boost for his career. It is ranked #12 on a youtube list of the all-time greatest country songs. Tragically, Stafford died of liver failure at 54 in 1996.
There comes a time when the consumer must decide if a product is worth its price. It’s been decades since I attended a pro sporting event. Hundreds of dollars for a ticket — I don’t think so. True, I paid only for cheap seats in the past, sat in better ones only when someone treated me. At this stage of my life, I don’t even watch more than a few minutes of games on TV. I’ll go to a Broadway play only if friends are in town. When pizza recently went to three bucks a slice, I shifted to the frozen variety. I buy whichever brand is on sale, choosing the supreme, the toppings making up for the lack of genuineness. Sadly, yesterday the price of the NY Post jumped to two bucks, a mark up of 100%. I’ve done without it the past two mornings, using its website and that of other news outlets. So far so good, although I don’t like spending even more time online. It will be interesting to see if its circulation drops.
The scaffold enabled the floating book shop to operate for a couple of hours before the rain became too intense. Business was slow, but a books donation from Shelley via Robert, a local porter, made the session well worth it. My thanks to both, and to the woman who bought a book in Russian in only fair condition.
My Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Vic-Fortezza/e/B002M4NLJE
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Vic-Fortezza-Author-118397641564801/?fref=ts
Read Vic’s Stories, free: http://fictionaut.com/users/vic-fortezza | https://medium.com/@vicf1950/music-discoveries-359a64a80b57 | ['Vic Fortezza'] | 2019-06-10 20:54:13.403000+00:00 | ['Meg Myles', 'Value', 'Books', 'Terry Stafford'] |
On Average, You’re Using the Wrong Average: Geometric & Harmonic Means in Data Analysis | In this case, our geometric mean very much resembles the middle value of our dataset. In fact, it is equivalent to the median.
Note: the geometric mean will not always equal the median, only in cases where there is an exact consistent multiplicative relationship between all numbers (e.g. multiplying each previous number by 3, as we did). Real world datasets rarely contain such exact relationships, but for those that approximate this sort of multiplicative relationship, the geometric mean will give a closer ‘middle number’ than the arithmetic mean.
Real World Applications of the Geometric Mean
It turns out that there are many practical uses for the geometric mean, as multiplicative-ish relationships abound in the real world.
One canonical example is:
Compound Interest
Assume we have $100,000 that accrues a varying rate of interest each year for 5 years :
annual interest rates: 1%, 9%, 6%, 2%, 15%
We’d like to take a shortcut to find our average annual interest rate, & thus our total amount of money after 5 years, so we try to “average” these rates:
(.01 + .09 + .06 + .02 + .15) ÷ 5 = .066 = 6.6%
Then we insert this average % into a compound interest formula:
Total interest earned = $100,000 * (1.066⁵ - 1) = $37,653.11
Interest + principal = $37,653.11 + 100,000 = $137,653.11
Final total = $137,653.11
Just to be sure we’re not fooling ourselves, let’s do this the long way & compare results:
Year 1: 100,000 + (100,000 * .01) = 100,000 * 1.01 = $101,000
Year 2: 101,000 * 1.09 = $110,090
Year 3: 110,090 * 1.06 = $116,695.40
Year 4: 116,695.40 * 1.02 = $119,029.31
Year 5: 119,029.31 * 1.15 = $136,883.70
Actual final total = $136,883.70
What happened? Our shortcut overestimated our actual earnings by nearly $1,000.
We made a common error: We applied an additive operation to a multiplicative process, & got an inaccurate result.
Now let’s try again with the geometric mean:
1.01 * 1.09 * 1.06 * 1.02 * 1.15 = 1.368837042
5th root of 1.368837042 = 1.064805657
Geometric mean = 1.064805657
(Technical Note: we have to use 1 + interest rate as inputs in the geometric mean calculation because those are the actual factors that are multiplied with the principal values to produce the amount of interest accrued at each period, and we need to find the average of these factors. This has the added benefit of avoiding negative numbers even when there is a negative rate, which the geometric mean equation can’t handle [it also can’t handle 0s ]. The arithmetic mean doesn’t have this issue. It’s the same whether we use the interest rates themselves or 1 + interest rate as input [then subtract 1 from the result], because it is additive rather than multiplicative. But the geometric mean will be different, and wrong, if we don’t add 1 .)
Plugging the geometric mean of the interest rates into our compound interest formula:
Total interest earned = $100,000 * (1.0648⁵ - 1) = $36,883.70
Interest + principal = $36,883.70 + 100,000 = $136,883.70
Final total = $136,883.70 exactly the same as the long method above
That’s more like it.
We used the right mean for the right job & got the right result.
What else is the geometric mean good for?
Different Scales or Units
A fancy feature of the geometric mean is that you can actually average across numbers on completely different scales.
For instance, we want to compare online ratings for two coffeeshops using two different sources. The problem is that source 1 uses a 5-star scale & source 2 uses a 100-point scale:
Coffeeshop A
source 1 rating: 4.5
source 2 rating: 68 Coffeeshop B
source 1 rating: 3
source 2 rating: 75
If we naively take the arithmetic mean of raw ratings for each coffeeshop:
Coffeeshop A = (4.5 + 68) ÷ 2 = 36.25
Coffeeshop B = (3 + 75) ÷ 2 = 39
We’d conclude that Coffeeshop B was the winner.
If we were a bit more number-savvy, we’d know that we have to normalize our values onto the same scale before averaging them with the arithmetic mean, to get an accurate result. So we multiply the source 1 ratings by 20 to bring them from a 5-star scale to the 100-point scale of source 2 :
Coffeeshop A
4.5 * 20 = 90
(90 + 68) ÷ 2 = 79 Coffeeshop B
3 * 20 = 60
(60 + 75) ÷ 2 = 67.5
So we find that Coffeeshop A is the true winner, contrary to the naive application of arithmetic mean above.
The geometric mean, however, allows us to reach the same conclusion without having to fuss over the scale or units of measure:
Coffeeshop A = square root of (4.5 * 68) = 17.5
Coffeeshop B = square root of (3 * 75) = 15
Et voilà!
The arithmetic mean is dominated by numbers on the larger scale, which makes us think Coffeeshop B is the higher rated shop. This is because the arithmetic mean expects an additive relationship between numbers & doesn’t account for scales & proportions. Hence the need to bring numbers onto the same scale before applying the arithmetic mean.
The geometric mean, on the other hand, can handle varying proportions with ease, due to it’s multiplicative nature. This is a tremendously useful property, but notice what we lose: We no longer have any interpretable scale at all. The geometric mean is effectively unitless in such situations.
I.e. the geometric means above are not 17.5 'out of' 100 points nor 15 'out of' 5 stars . They are just unitless numbers, in relative proportion to each other. (Technically, their scale is the geometric mean of the original scales, 5 & 100 , which is 22.361 ). This can be a problem if we actually want to interpret the results relative to some scale that is meaningful to us, such as the original 5 or 100-point systems. But if we just want to know the relationship between ratings of the two coffeeshops, we’re good to go.
UPDATE 7/14/18: As pointed out by Mladen Fernežir, there is no guarantee that the geometric mean will always preserve the ordering of the arithmetic mean on scaled or normalized values, much less be proportionate to it, as I originally indicated. Rather, it is simply a different way to summarize the relationship between different sets of numbers (albeit one that will often produce more ‘credible’ summaries of values on different scales). So again, care & critical thought are necessary to its application.
Geometric Mean Recap
To tl;dr:
The geometric mean multiplies rather than sums values, then takes the nth root rather than dividing by n
multiplies rather than sums values, then takes the rather than dividing by It essentially says: if every number in our dataset was the same number , what would that number have to be in order to have the same multiplicative product as our actual dataset?
, what would that number have to be as our actual dataset? This makes it well-suited for describing multiplicative relationships, such as rates & ratios , even if those ratios are on different scales (i.e. do not have the same denominator ). (For this reason, it is often used to compute financial & other indexes / indices. )
relationships, such as & , even if those ratios are on (i.e. do not have the same ). (For this reason, it is often used to compute financial & other indexes / indices. ) There are downsides: meaningful scales & units can be lost when applying the geometric mean, and its insensitivity to outliers can obscure large values that may be consequential. Further, it can produce results at odds with the arithmetic mean on values transformed to a single scale.
As with most things in life, there are few ironclad rules for applying the geometric mean (outside of compound interest & such things). There are some heuristics & rules of thumb, but ultimately judgement & scientific skepticism are required, as ever, for sound empiricism.
More on this in the conclusion below, but for now let’s introduce our final Pythagorean mean…
The Harmonic Mean
The 3rd & final Pythagorean mean.
This section will be shorter than the last as the harmonic mean is yet more esoteric than the geometric mean, but still worth understanding.
Whereas the arithmetic mean requires addition & the geometric mean employs multiplication, the harmonic mean utilizes reciprocals.
As you may remember, the reciprocal of a number n is simply 1 / n . (e.g. the reciprocal of 5 is 1/5 ). For numbers that are already fractions, this means that you can simply “flip” the numerator & denominator: reciprocal of 4/5 = 5/4 . This is true because 1 divided by a fraction yields that fraction’s reciprocal , e.g. 1 ÷ (4/5) = 5/4 .
Another way to think about reciprocals is: two numbers that equal 1 when multiplied together. So when finding the reciprocal of a number n , we are simply asking: what number must we multiply with n in order to get 1 . (This is why the reciprocal is also sometimes called the multiplicative inverse.)
So then, the harmonic mean can be described in words as: the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of the reciprocals of the dataset.
Thats a lot of reciprocal flips there, but it’s actually just a few simple steps:
1. Take the reciprocal of all numbers in the dataset
2. Find the arithmetic mean of those reciprocals
3. Take the reciprocal of that number
In math notation, this looks like:
A simple example from wikipedia: the harmonic mean of 1 , 4 , and 4 is 2 :
note: the notation “n-¹” is one way of symbolizing “the reciprocal of n”
Notice, what we are saying here is: if the reciprocal of every number in our dataset was the same number, what number would it have to be in order to have the same reciprocal sum as our actual dataset?
(Note: due to the fact that 0 has no reciprocal (nothing can be multiplied by 0 to = 1 ), the harmonic mean also cannot handle datasets containing 0 ’s, similar to the geometric mean.)
So that’s how the plumbing works. But what is it good for?
Real World Applications of the Harmonic Mean
To answer this, we have to answer: what are reciprocals good for?
Since reciprocals, like all division, are just multiplication in disguise (which is just addition in disguise), we realize: reciprocals help us more easily divide by fractions.
For instance, what is 5 ÷ 3/7 ? If you remember elementary school maths, you’ll probably just multiply 5 by 7/3 (the reciprocal of 3/7 ) to solve this:
5 ÷ 3/7 = 5/1 * 7/3 = 35/3 = 11 2/3 = 11.66667
But an equivalent method would be to scale the numbers 5 & 3/7 to a common denominator, then divide in the normal way:
5/1 ÷ 3/7 = 35/7 ÷ 3/7 = 35 ÷ 3 = 11 2/3 = 11.66667
So again, similar to using the geometric mean as a shortcut to finding the relationship between additive arithmetic means of scores on different scales without normalizing to a common denominator (see above) , the harmonic mean helps us find multiplicative / divisory relationships between fractions without worrying over common denominators.
As such, the harmonic mean naturally accommodates another layer of multiplication / division over the geometric mean. Thus it is helpful when dealing with datasets of rates or ratios (i.e. fractions) over different lengths or periods.
SIDEBAR: (You might be thinking: “wait, I thought the geometric mean was used for averaging interest rates & ratios on different scales!” And you would be correct. You also wouldn’t be the first to be confused by this. I myself set out to write this piece to clarify my own thinking & understanding here. So bear with me, I hope to make this clearer with the following example & recap all these differences in the conclusion of this article below.)
Average Rate of Travel
The canonical example of using harmonic means in the real world involves traveling over physical space at different rates, i.e. speeds:
Consider a trip to the grocery store & back:
On the way there you drove 30 mph the entire way
you drove the entire way On the way back traffic was crawling, & you drove 10 mph the entire way
traffic was crawling, & you drove the entire way You took the same route, & covered the same amount of ground ( 5 miles ) each way.
What was your average speed across this entire trip’s duration?
Again, we might naively apply the arithmetic mean to 30 mph & 10 mph , and proudly declare “ 20 mph !”
But consider again: because you travelled faster in one direction, you covered those 5 miles quicker & spent less time overall traveling at that speed, so your average rate of travel across your entire trip’s duration is not the middle point between 30 mph & 10 mph , it should be closer to 10 mph because you spent longer traveling at that speed.
In order to apply the arithmetic mean correctly here, we’d have to determine the amount of time spent traveling at each rate, then weight our arithmetic mean calculation appropriately:
Trip There: (at 30 mph)
30 miles per 60 mins = 1 mile every 2 minutes = 1/2 mile every minute
5 miles at 1/2 mile per minute = 5 ÷ 1/2 = 10 minutes
"Trip There" time = 10 minutes
Trip Back: (at 10 mph)
10 miles per 60 mins = 1 mile every 6 minutes = 1/6 miles every minute
5 miles at 1/6 mile per minute = 5 ÷ 1/6 = 30 minutes
"Trip Back" time = 30 minutes
Total trip time = 10 + 30 = 40 minutes
“Trip There” % of total trip = 10 / 40 minutes = .25 = 25%
“Trip Back” % of total trip = 30 / 40 minutes = .75 = 75%
Weighted Arithmetic Mean = (30mph * .25)+(10mph * .75) = 7.5 + 7.5 = 15
Average rate of travel = 15 mph
So we see that our true average rate of travel was 15 mph , which is 5 mph (or 25% ) lower than our naive declaration of 20 mph using an unweighted arithmetic mean.
You can probably guess where this is headed…
Let’s try it again using the harmonic mean.
Harmonic mean of 30 and 10 = ...
Arithmetic mean of reciprocals = 1/30 + 1/10 = 4/30 ÷ 2 = 4/60 = 1/15
Reciprocal of arithmetic mean = 1 ÷ 1/15 = 15/1 = 15
Et voilà!²
Our true average rate of travel, automagically adjusted for time spent traveling in each direction = 15 mph! | https://towardsdatascience.com/on-average-youre-using-the-wrong-average-geometric-harmonic-means-in-data-analysis-2a703e21ea0 | ['Daniel Mcnichol'] | 2018-09-24 01:59:05.685000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Data Analysis', 'Towards Data Science', 'Mathematics', 'Statistics'] |
Workplace Wellbeing: A Transformational Leadership Perspective | Transformational leadership is needed when it comes to enabling our employees to thrive within a mentally healthy workplace
With more time, money, and energy being invested into our employees’ mental health than ever before, we may well be on the cusp of a workplace wellbeing revolution. Nonetheless, for us to truly ensure employee wellbeing becomes a staple of our organisational strategy (as opposed to a corporate check box we feel inclined to pay lip service to) it’s imperative we explore what, or more specifically who, may prove pivotal in guiding the success of our wellbeing-based initiatives.
The Leader’s Role
The link between effective leadership and employee wellbeing is undeniable. However, when it comes to creating the conditions required for our employees to thrive within their place of work, it could be argued that not all leadership styles are created equal. In fact, in response to the increasing appetite for knowledge in relation to what it takes to create and sustain a mentally healthy workplace, the focus is very much shifting toward the role of the transformational leader.
The transformational leader is characterised by their capacity to motivate, inspire, and positively guide their followers toward the achievement of an organisation’s mission, vision, and objectives. Those adopting a transformational style are often regarded as charismatic and visionary and have even been described as the personification of organisational excellence. However, when it comes to promoting workplace and employee wellbeing how can these transformational capabilities best be harnessed?
The 4I Perspective
To better understand and appreciate the transformational leader’s role in helping to create and sustain a culture of positive wellbeing, let’s draw our attention toward the 4Is (Idealised influence, Inspirational motivation, Individual consideration, and Intellectual stimulation) that have come to be synonymous with this style of leadership:
Idealised influence: the transformational leader serves as a role model and exemplifies positive behaviours that their followers feel inspired to emulate. In the context of workplace wellbeing, the transformational leader should engage in ethical reasoning to identify the behaviours they feel will be most beneficial in creating a mentally healthy workplace culture. These behaviours may extend to using their influence to initiate discussions about mental health (and in so doing help reduce stigma), demonstrating genuine concern and empathy toward those who may be struggling with work-related stresses, or ensuring they practice what they preach when it comes to looking after their physical health and maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
Inspirational motivation: the transformational leader has the capacity to inspire others toward the attainment of a company’s vision, mission, and objectives. Additionally, this aptitude for inspiration further extends to helping followers find an enduring sense of meaning and purpose in their own professional practices. Whilst fostering a strong sense of purpose is in itself an advantageous avenue toward enhancing wellbeing, the transformational leader must also ensure that employee wellbeing is regarded as a central metric for organisational success: one which is engrained within the company’s broader vision, mission, and values. To help ensure wellbeing remains an important part of the organisational conversation, the transformational leader should stimulate conversations about what constitutes a “mentally healthy workplace” and formulate a clear strategy that will inspire others to work in service of this vision. Should they be met with reluctance, it’s important the transformational leader is able to draw attention to the numerous financial, performance, and reputational benefits that have come to be increasingly associated with investing time in wellbeing.
Individualised consideration: the transformational leader should seek to understand and fulfil the needs of their followers. It’s important to remember that wellbeing can mean different things to different people. As such, the transformational leader must endeavour to understand the wellbeing-related needs of each of their employees. It is worth noting that transformational leaders have been evidenced to be highly effective in helping their employees achieve balance between workplace demands and resources. As such, they should take time to understand the demands placed upon their followers (particularly those that incur unwanted psychological costs, such as stress) and provide the specific resources required to reduce the negative impact of these demands, whilst also stimulating learning and personal growth. On the subject of growth, the transformational leader should also work with their employees to sculpt their professional roles in a manner that is more closely aligned with their embedded values and life interests.
Intellectual stimulation: the transformational leader challenges their employees to look toward new ways of thinking. By stimulating their workforce on an intellectual level, transformational leaders can promote feelings of confidence and self-efficacy amongst members of their working teams, which in turn enables them to feel more safe and secure in their working practices. In addition, promoting intellectual pursuits can enhance task clarity and reduce feelings of ambiguity and uncertainty (two key drivers of work-related stress). In the continued pursuit of a positive workplace wellbeing agenda, transformational leaders should also challenge their followers to find the answers to important questions such as “How might we identify that one of our colleagues is struggling with their mental health?” or “What can we do to best support our own wellbeing in the workplace?”
The Future
Irrespective of whether your own leadership style aligns to the 4I philosophy of transformational leadership, it’s becoming ever more apparent that our capacity to create and support an environment that champions employee wellbeing and mental health should be regarded as a highly desirable leadership competency. With that in mind, don’t delay. Take the opportunity to reflect upon how you can become a champion for workplace wellbeing within your own working team, and while you’re at it, think about how you can convince your company to do the same.
Sources
Arnold, K. A. (2017). Transformational leadership and employee psychological well-being: A review and directions for future research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 22(3), 381.
Don, Y. (2004). Leading well: Transformational leadership and well-being. Positive psychology in practice, 241.
Erskine, J. A. K., & Georgiou, G. (2018). Leadership Styles: Employee Stress, Well-being, Productivity, Turnover and Absenteeism. Underst. Stress Work, 28–40.
Liu, J., Siu, O. L., & Shi, K. (2010). Transformational leadership and employee well‐being: The mediating role of trust in the leader and self‐efficacy. Applied Psychology, 59(3), 454–479.
Miao, R., & Cao, Y. (2019). High-performance work system, work well-being, and employee creativity: Cross-level moderating role of transformational leadership. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(9), 1640. | https://medium.com/@knowledgebrief/workplace-wellbeing-a-transformational-leadership-perspective-66de2ef0e8fa | [] | 2021-06-08 19:18:00.396000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Leadership Skills', 'Management Skills'] |
On Trust | What is trust?
Trust (noun): firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.
When you expect someone to behave in a certain way, that’s trust. When you believe that they’ll act in a certain way, that’s trust. Give them money to keep, they’ll keep it for you. Tell them to save you a seat, it’ll be ready for when you’re there. Ask them to help you, and they’ll be there when you need them.
Trust is expectation. It is a belief in someone’s set of behaviors, that they will not do anything unpredictable, and will only do things within that set of behaviors.
But enough with the boring definitions.
Let’s talk about breaking trust.
When people break your trust, they act unpredictably. You ask them to bring you something and it comes in shatters. You ask them to hold money and they spend it on a game. You ask them to help and they say no.
To be honest, one way or another, people will always break your trust. Whether it be your work colleagues or your close friends, there will be times where trust is broken.
And that’s just simply because people don’t always act the way you want them to.
Like it or not, the world does not revolve around what you want. Everyone is moving at their own pace, everyone is just trying to live their best life — and sadly, you’ll get the bad end of the stick sometimes.
When someone breaks your trust, it hurts. And it doesn’t hurt for everyone involved in the friendship/relationship — it usually only hurts just for you.
Betrayed, backstabbed, double-crossed, blindsided — whatever you call it, it is not a fun experience.
So when someone you trust breaks that trust — what do you do? | https://medium.com/journal-kita/on-trust-912a89756e11 | ['Haikal Satria'] | 2021-05-14 05:09:03.378000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Journal Kita', 'Personal Development', 'Writing', 'Musings'] |
Veteran SNCC Activists Praise Today’s Young Social Justice Leaders on Participation in 2020 Presidential Election | “Black people did not vote to save American democracy. They voted to save their lives and the lives of their children.”
– Junebug Jabbo Jones, Nov. 4, 2020
The Black community voted in record numbers in the 2020 presidential election. It can be reasonably argued that their votes made the critical difference in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Many of the votes in the Black community came from today’s activists who became involved because of the murders of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and . . . . . far too many others.
It is perplexing to us, therefore, to hear prominent voices accusing today’s young activists of using terms that harm the Movement and democratic political advancement. Most recently, some have pointed to the phrase “defund the police” to make this attack. This is both wrong-headed and ahistorical. It is as if our singing “We Shall Overcome” (the anthem of the 1960s Movement) were being blamed for white supremacist opposition to civil rights legislation.
Today’s activists should be praised and thanked for their extraordinary participation in this election. These young people not only voted, but they organized others to vote — some for the first time — through voter registration campaigns, texts, non-contact canvassing, voter mobilization and education through social media, and peer-to-peer discussions. Their organizations included the larger Movement 4 Black Lives (M4BL) such as Dream Defenders, BYP 100 and Southerners on New Ground (SONG), as well as non-M4BL organizations like Woke Vote, New Georgia Project and others. Members of these organizations will continue on a lifelong journey to ensure that the political and economic interests of the Black community are realized.
As veterans of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) we began what must be recognized as a marathon, starting with the founding of SNCC at Shaw University in April 1960. Many of us were still teenagers and in our early twenties, and we were confronted with a white supremacist American society that had built a political consensus that excluded the Black community. Our only option for progress was to disrupt the status quo. As the late Congressman John Lewis — a onetime SNCC chair — used to say, “get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”
Let’s remember: SNCC conducted its “disruptive” activities with the support of only a minority of people in the white community, who were often viewed by the larger white community as communists and hatefully called n****r lovers. With its sit-ins; voter registration drives that focused on sharecroppers not formally educated to assume leadership positions; opposition to literacy tests; and insistence on one person, one vote, we sought to upend the established political order. Both Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson thought our “trouble-making” interfered with their political agendas and they used the instruments of government to sabotage us. What was in motion, however, stayed in motion.
Indeed, the political minority of the 1960s has proven to be the political majority in 2020. This multiracial, multiethnic majority represents a bright future for America. This majority that received over 78 million votes, is now opposed by the former majority, which received approximately 73 million votes. The question going forward is: Whose interest will prevail?
The road ahead will be long and difficult for all of us. We will need to have many discussions as to the way forward. We will undertake many successful campaigns that will be necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, and at times we will have to endure undeserved hostility, even from those inside the Black community. Nevertheless, fueled by the strength and creativity of today’s activists, we’re moving forward on a path to make lives better for the Black community and this will consequentially benefit the majority of people in the United States. We applaud and praise this rising generation of leaders, activists and this movement. | https://medium.com/@thecrisismag/veteran-sncc-activists-praise-todays-young-social-justice-leaders-on-participation-in-2020-f9c8418253e6 | ['The Crisis Magazine'] | 2020-11-20 03:12:49.272000+00:00 | ['BlackLivesMatter', 'Race', 'Social Justice', 'Civil Rights', 'Election 2020'] |
When is an employer liable for other people’s discrimination against its employees? | When is an employer liable for other people’s discrimination against its employees?
A long form article to help advisers identify whether discrimination at work is unlawful
Advisers might have to consider whether an employer is responsible when a client has been discriminated against by:
a colleague or
an outside party, like a customer of the business
‘Vicarious liability’ is the name given to the employer’s responsibility for other people’s actions.
Vicarious liability in the Equality Act 2010
Section 109 of the Equality Act 2010:
(1) Anything done by a person (A) in the course of A’s employment must be treated as also done by the employer.
(2) ……….
(3) It does not matter whether that thing is done with the employer’s or principal’s knowledge or approval.
(4) In proceedings against A’s employer (B) in respect of anything alleged to have been done by A in the course of A’s employment it is a defence for B to show that B took all reasonable steps to prevent A —
(a) from doing that thing, or
(b) from doing anything of that description.
So, if an employee sexually harasses a colleague the employer is vicariously liable for that harassment, provided the harasser was ‘acting in the course of his employment’.
Section 110 makes the employee who carries out the discrimination personally liable for their actions, meaning they can be sued as well as the employer.
Employers can also be liable if they engage an ‘agent’ who commits harassment. An agent is someone appointed by the employer to act on its behalf in dealings with employees or other parties. For example an external consultant engaged to help carry out redundancies or union representatives carrying out the union’s work with its members.
Although the rules are often relied upon in harassment claims they apply to all types of discrimination.
‘In the course of employment’
The test is a wide one, meaning tribunals can take a very broad approach to whether the person was acting in the course of their employment. It doesn’t mean that the discrimination has to happen at work.
It extends to any situation where there is a sufficient connection to work, or to the workplace. So for example an employer may be vicariously liable where
an employee discriminates against a colleague at a work party. or in a hotel where colleagues are staying for a conference
discriminatory comments are posted on social media sites, if people are only connected because of work and the comments are posted on work computers or during working hours, or it’s likely they will be seen by other colleagues.
The employer’s defence
The employer is vicariously liable even if they were unaware of the comments being made. They can only avoid vicarious liability by showing they took all reasonable steps to prevent the employee doing the act in question.
Usually this will mean the employer arguing that:-
they have good anti-discrimination policies and procedures,
these are put into practice rather than remaining ‘paper only’ measures,
they demonstrate that they take allegations of discrimination seriously
they give all of their staff, or at least their managers, training in how to prevent and deal with discrimination
It’s not enough for an employer to simply say they took all reasonable steps. Tribunals will examine their defence carefully. Advisers can help clients challenge the employer by looking for facts and evidence to prove that the employer did not take all reasonable steps. This could include asking for managers’ training records or identifying other steps the employer could have taken.
Surprisingly, where the discrimination is committed by an agent the employer has no defence that it took all reasonable steps to prevent it.
What if the discrimination is by third parties such as customers or clients of the business?
When the Equality Act 2010 came into force it said that an employer would be liable for harassment by third parties if:
it had occurred at least three times
the employer was aware it had happened on at least two occasions and
had not taken reasonably practicable steps to prevent it.
This part of the Equality Act 2010 was later repealed. This means workers who are harassed at work by customers or clients don’t have a clear claim against their employers.
Unite the Union v Nailard: an attempt to make employers liable for failing to prevent third party harassment
In Unite the Union v Nailard [2018] a full time official employed by a union was sexually harassed by 2 lay officials employed at Heathrow Airport. The harassers were therefore not employed by her employer. The claimant won her case on the ground that the lay representatives were ‘agents’ of the Union. However, she also argued that the union’s failure to protect her from the harassment, and instead relocate her, was an act of harassment by them.
Before the third party harassment rules were introduced this was only arguable when an employer’s failure to protect the employee was ‘because of’ the employee’s protected characteristic. The Court of Appeal had to consider whether this had changed as a result of the wider wording in the Equality Act (which says that conducted ‘related to’ a protected characteristic is discriminatory).
The Court ruled that the law had not been affected by the change in wording. The fact that the lay officials had done an act capable of being discrimination was not enough. The employer’s failure to deal with it had to be ‘related to sex’. The Court did not rule out the possibility that there might be cases where liability could arise, if the employer’s failure to protect the employee is consciously or unconsciously related to their sex (or other protected characteristic).
It’s likely there will be few cases in which the employer can be said to be motivated by the protected characteristic. The infamous example of the President’s Club event might be such a case. Female hostesses were sexually harassed by guests at a male-only charity event. The organisers included an advert forbidding harassment of staff in the event programme. However they also required the women to wear revealing clothes and encouraged them to drink alcohol with guests. It’s certainly arguable that the failure to do more to prevent the harassment was related to sex, given the other actions of the organiser.
Conclusion
Employees harassed by someone other than a fellow employee or agent of their employer are unlikely to have a claim under the Equality Act.
In July 2019 the government published a consultation on reintroducing employer liability for third party harassment so advisers should watch out for developments in this area.
Tracey Moss is a Senior Employment Expert in the Expert Advice Team at Citizens Advice.
Please tell us what you think of this page. | https://medium.com/adviser/when-is-an-employer-liable-for-other-peoples-discrimination-against-its-employees-72e5650e8373 | ['Tracey Moss'] | 2019-07-30 14:11:07.249000+00:00 | ['Employment', 'Law', 'Employment Law', 'Employment Online'] |
Visualizing multidimensional data with Circle trees | Visualizing multidimensional data with Circle trees
Using real-estate data as a test case for how and why to use Circle trees
Data visualization may be an effective decision-making with many applications. In particular, it can help you to present multidimensional data in a way that is understandable. In this piece, I want to talk about one specific problem in the real estate world that practitioners encounter, and a solution which seems to be very interesting and promising: Circle trees!
Real estate developers, especially those involved in residential real estate on a relatively large scale, need to monitor sales of the dwelling stock they create very closely in order to adjust prices immediately — upwards for those properties that appear to be “washed out” (selling better) faster than others and downwards/freeze for those that are less attractive to potential buyers.
The lots that make up a residential building can be distinguished by a variety of features. Some of them are absolutely straightforward, like total area or living area in square meters, the number of rooms, and the floor on which it’s located. Others are more tricky to be assigned on a lot-by-lot basis on a massive scale and be converted into digital form, like view characteristics. There are some natural assumptions that you can make as to group all of the lots in a given residential building and to project which lots will “wash out” faster than others, but eventually you need to take into account your customers’ opinion on that (who vote with their bucks). This is where you come up with a problem of a compact visual representation of the lots in a given building based on their intrinsic features and also pricing and exposure period data and deals closed. Arc- of circle-shaped tree-like structures come as a natural choice here. Every level of such a tree represents a certain feature of the lots. Adding a new level, i.e. taking into consideration one more feature, or dimension of your data, expands the tree uniformly in all directions, so it stays rather compact (but more information-dense).
The deals in real estate are comparable to what airlines do in terms of tickets. As you know, some seats are better than others, and adjusting prices promptly so that an opportunity to buy a good seat is charged in fair respect to its demand, but still all of the seats are sold. This game is played all the time. The question revolves around money and companies — airlines or real-estate agencies want to “see” the market. So how do we represent real-estate lots in an overview while fitting the dynamics of demand?
Residential real estate developers seek various ways to visually represent value and demand dynamics of the lots in exposition to make its decisions on price adjustment as fact-based and shareable within its management team as possible. During my tenure as a head of project valuation group with a local developer in Moscow, one of the tasks of my group in respect to ongoing projects of the company was to regularly revalue its lots in exposition. This revaluation was generally very thoroughly discussed in a format of investment committee.
Limitations of current real-estate solutions
There was a solution that the company stuck to for a while. Each separate building within a given project was represented by an MS Excel table-like with its cells arranged in a way to mimic the building it represents (in respect to the number of floors and entrances), and each cell being highly loaded with numeric and color-based information on lots.
This solution may seem a bit obvious or simplistic, but it is absolutely practicable and your idea can be worked out to the smallest detail. To depict as much information as possible we used Excel plots that could be embedded in cells (sparklines) and conditional gradient fill patterns. I report below an example solution to give you a sense of how it all looks like. | https://medium.com/nightingale/visualizing-multidimensional-data-with-circle-trees-f38b67456cf1 | ['Alexander Skorniakov'] | 2020-05-01 15:51:08.004000+00:00 | ['Real Estate', 'Data Visualization', 'Trees'] |
Bacteria producing energy… also from your guts | Now let’s move to the ecosystem in our guts. Guts are fascinating human structures with incredible connections to the nervous system, and with relevant roles for the immune system. Unfortunately, we probably don’t have butterflies as the common knowledge suggests, but we have certainly “electrifying things”. Shewanella have been found in the intestine of some animals but not specifically in humans. Nevertheless, other exoelectrogenic bacteria — like the Listeria monocytogenes — have been found in humans.
To be fully clear, L. monocytogenens are not part of the natural gut ecosystem in humans. They can be introduced during the eating process, and can cause food poisoning. Indeed, we call this infection listeriosis.
The mechanism of electricity generation from bacteria is similar to our breathing process, in the sense that they do it to remove electrons produced during metabolism and support the production of energy. This might be particularly pronounced in the gut, as this electricity-generating process is probably a “back-up system” used in low-oxygen conditions (the gut). It appears that our guts might provide sufficient scaffolding to them, likewise the synthetic ones described above.
It is unlikely that we will harness electrical power from the gut of human beings, unless we imagine a distopian future Matrix-style. Nevertheless, those bacteria allow us to study their genes and therefore to understand better which protein is responsible of the exoeletrogenesis. Opening up new way to future technologies.
We can design bacteria-based energy-generating technologies, or organic battery cells where those live, resolving the waste of toxic materials from currently used batteries. Lastly, it is fascinating to imagine that we literally have an entire ecosystem producing energy in our belly. | https://medium.com/illumination/bacteria-producing-energy-also-from-your-guts-4759625fa9d | ['Dr. Alessandro Crimi'] | 2020-11-18 11:32:45.210000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Energy', 'Biology', 'Electricity', 'Science'] |
How Tech Tools Helped Taiwanese Activists Turn a Social Movement Into Real Policy Change | This summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, capped by the March on Washington on Aug. 28, have inspired a massive shift in public opinion. Support for the movement has increased over 30 percent since 2017, now shared by as much as two-thirds of the American public. But heightened national sympathy and scrutiny have not protected unarmed Black people from police shootings — just last month, a policeman fired seven shots into Jacob Blake’s back. In order to reduce systemic inequalities and racially biased police violence, protesters must not only shift attitudes on race but also spur substantive policy change.
Despite the movement’s early policy victories, such as the D.C. City Council’s passage of emergency policing reform and $100 million budget cuts to the L.A. Police Department announced by Mayor Eric Garcetti, proposals to bring more accountability to policing and redirect resources to community-based social programs have stalled — both in the U.S. Senate and in progressive strongholds like California. The disconnect between shifting opinions and rigid legislatures highlights an opportunity for progressives to demand new governing systems that are more responsive to citizens. Digital tools can help citizens organize online and pressure politicians to negotiate and break gridlock on important issues. These civic participation platforms could empower citizens with greater agency in the policymaking process and enhance traditional forms of civic activism.
Taiwan’s grassroots Sunflower Movement provides a useful example of how civic movements can champion digital technology to accomplish their objectives. In 2014, Taiwanese students occupied the national legislature to protest a lack of government accountability that resulted in an unpopular free trade deal with Beijing. Activists argued that the allotted seven-day public comment period left no time for substantive public debate on such an important topic, and public frustration catalyzed a reform movement that advocated for greater transparency and citizen agency in the policymaking process. Near-constant livestreaming of the protests earned broad popular support for the movement, and the opposition Democratic Progressive Party incorporated government transparency and the use of digital civic participation tools into its campaign platform. After the DPP won elections in 2016, the party enacted a slew of initiatives and created Cabinet ministry positions to mandate online civic participation as a phase of the policymaking process.
One community of civic-oriented programmers active in the Sunflower Movement named g0v (pronounced “gov-zero”) assembled a collection of open source programs to build vTaiwan, a hybrid online and in-person deliberation process. VTaiwan has a broad set of features that help citizens, government agencies, and civil society reach agreements on contentious issues. The process allows users to transparently propose policies and crowdsource facts, facilitate public discussion, deliberate with key stakeholders, and draft suggested changes.
VTaiwan’s public discussion phase uses a program called Pol.is to accelerate negotiation and consensus-building between disparate factions. Pol.is enables users to comment on posted topics and either upvote or downvote other comments while preventing replies to existing comments. These features disincentivize trolling on the platform and encourage participants to find consensus viewpoints that earn the highest number of upvotes. Pol.is also uses machine learning and statistical inferences to map how comments appeal to distinct clusters of users. Data visualizations can identify areas of agreement to help participants make progress on seemingly intractable differences.
Digital civic participation has increased Taiwanese political engagement and facilitated rational online debate on divisive policy issues. Pol.is allowed local taxi drivers, UberX drivers, and the broader public to overcome a contentious dispute about Uber’s entry into Taiwan’s taxi industry. The platform uncovered common ground between these opposing camps and led to the ratification of the Diversified Taxi Plan in 2016. A similar process brokered a solution to a six-year debate about online liquor sales in less than six months. Just five years since its inception, vTaiwan has helped negotiate a total of 26 legislative proposals, and has since become an indispensable tool for integrating citizens directly into the policymaking process.
Inspired by the success of vTaiwan, public officials created a government-managed platform called Join, which hosts debates from nearly 5 million Taiwanese on a range of critical issues crowdsourced by citizens. One of the most consequential aspects of Join is its institutional mandate. Join requires public officials from relevant ministries to deliver on-record, public responses to proposals that receive 5,000 signatures. By ensuring that popular petitions receive a documented response, Join’s mandate bridges the gap between civil society and the legislative process. Join gives citizens an opportunity to translate good ideas into real policy proposals and transforms what might otherwise be a civic-oriented discussion board into a vehicle for direct democracy.
In 2011, the Obama administration implemented a similar petition-response system with a minimum threshold of 100,000 signatures. The system, WeThePeople, pressured the Obama White House to clarify its stance on police body cameras and a range of other issues.
WeThePeople also drove legislation to alleviate copyright restrictions that prevented individuals from accessing their phone’s firmware. However, because the Obama administration created WeThePeople as a discretionary policy, successive administrations are not required to maintain the platform. The Trump administration provided only seven halfhearted petition responses before it stopped engaging with the public through WeThePeople altogether.
Today, in Taiwan, both political parties support Join and vTaiwan as valued democratic institutions. The Black Lives Matter Movement shares a host of similarities with the Sunflower Movement, including grassroots youth leadership, broad popular support, and a focus on forging new roles for marginalized voices in the policymaking process. Black Lives Matter activists now have an opportunity to create comparable momentum for online civic participation by using their platforms to broadcast the importance of citizen-led governance and the promise of civic participation software.
Absent a landslide victory for the Democratic Party in 2020, civic participation platforms may not soon be feasible at the federal level, but Black Lives Matter organizers should consider pushing cities and states to institute these systems. There are a number of advantages to this approach. Police budgets are largely determined at the local level, making them critical targets for activists seeking to reallocate policing resources toward more inclusive, productive programs. Many municipal governments are also progressive strongholds composed of politicians seeking to rebuild trust with Black communities that have been historically excluded from the policymaking process. These politicians could champion accountable governance as a key tenet of a new political agenda and leverage public pressure generated by online civic engagement to drive overhauls to policing. Beginning at the local level would also allow laboratories of democracy to demonstrate the organizing power that civic participation platforms provide and generate a broad-based coalition of citizens that demands more responsive institutions at all levels of government.
Though civic participation platforms are not new innovations, the current swell of activism in the U.S. makes the current moment opportune for online civic engagement. If leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement seize this opportunity successfully, protesters may have a better chance of seeing the policies they are demanding on the street enacted into law. In the long run, digital civic participation could underpin a new relationship between citizens and their elected representatives and establish a new, accountable democratic process fit for the 21st century. | https://medium.com/@bengregori/how-tech-tools-helped-taiwanese-activists-turn-a-social-movement-into-real-policy-change-a60dcf0b4458 | ['Ben Gregori'] | 2020-09-21 18:14:38.353000+00:00 | ['BlackLivesMatter', 'Civictech', 'Taiwan', 'Open Source', 'Democracy'] |
The Abandonment of Belief | Society as a whole has been conditioned to blindly accept prevailing social visions, looking only for confirmatory evidence to support their already chosen position. This begins with the educating of young minds, and it is further perpetuated by culture and the media.
First, it will be useful to provide grounds for what this piece is not. So that you, the reader, do not project your bias or preconceived notions onto it. Above all, this is not an attack on culture, the education system, or the media. Education is vital, and one of the strongest correlates with success in the world today. The tension here is not with the education system rather how “education” is conducted and what it yields. Others have already detailed the toxicity and decisiveness of current American News and Media outlets. Here we will not discuss news or political media but instead focus on entertainment media, specifically heroic narratives. This is not a left versus right or black versus white. It’s a call for skepticism, empirically grounded positions, and abandonment of belief.
Culture instills many ideals without proper justification. Examples of ideals promoted by culture are religious teachings and political dogmas. Unique to American culture is the notion of American Exceptionalism. America is often described as unique because it was founded on a set of ideals rather than cultural heritage or royal lineage. However true that may have been in the past, the reasoning today has become more circular. Following statements like, America is the greatest country in the world because it is America. Commonly cited are many freedoms such as speech, religion, press, etc.. However, these freedoms are often compared to the Communist Dictatorships of today and regimes of the past. These easy comparisons only provide facts that supported a preconceived idea — confirmation bias. The point is not whether America is exceptional or not; it is merely there must be solid facts and evidence to support such claims. Comparisons must be rigorous and well researched. If citizens believe they are exceptional simply because they are American, the only thing they may excel at is being unexceptional.
In grade school, students are taught to memorize facts and follow mathematical algorithms in the form of a checklist. Often little to no intuition is instilled as to what these facts are useful for beyond the classroom exam. Repetitive exposure to this process stifles creativity and produces compliant rule-following students, who are taught not to question why but to blindly accept and follow. Blind acceptance of mathematical, historical, or scientific facts without understanding the underlying mechanisms is, in fact, no better than a belief. If anything, it is more dangerous because it disguises itself as intellectual knowledge.
A different type of media that follows the aforementioned faux pas is that of entertainment media, specifically heroic dramas. These immersive tales capture our imaginations and have us rooting for protagonistic characters simply because they are presented as such. The Wizard of Oz outright labels the villain in her name, as the “Wicked Witch” of the West. However, she was after Dorthy for landing her house on her sister — murder — and taking her shoes — theft. Captain Hook, in the fairy tale of Peter Pan, goes after a boy who refuses to grow up — denial of responsibility. President Snow, in The Hunger Games, never demolished district 13 — they forced him into a treatise at nuclear weapon-gun point — and came to power when the games were already in place. The Principal in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is the antagonist for wanting Ferris to be in school — his job as a principal. While it may appear silly to question the narratives of movies and children’s tales, there is a common underlying substrate that must be acknowledged — the requirement of belief. This necessity yields a group of individuals willing to believe one side is evil and must be stopped at all costs. Sound familiar to our political climate today?
The problem is not a result of culture, education systems, or the media. These are abstract notions and institutions which cannot be held responsible. Only individual humans can be held accountable for these issues. The burden falls on every one of us to resist “leaps of faith” and “belief” in the absence of empirical evidence and solid understanding. In culture, education, and media, the solution is the same. An abandonment of belief, faith, trust, or any acceptance grounded synonym.
In culture, this means a reexamination of group practices. Continuing a tradition because it has always been that way is a form of blind belief. In education, we must encourage young minds to be skeptical and to take the burden of proof on themselves. This responsibility will allow them to go deeper into the material and gain extraordinary insights into problems. In the media, we can be skeptical of stories while still enjoying the entertainment they provide. Empirical evidence must be the grounds for all guiding principles. Nothing should be believed or doubted simply on its own. | https://medium.com/@jordanott/the-abandonment-of-belief-bd411fdfab15 | ['Jordan Ott'] | 2020-02-20 18:07:12.454000+00:00 | ['Belief', 'Culture', 'Entertainment', 'Media'] |
One Year of Learning React in One Article: 5 Tips for Beginners | React
For the past year, I focused on learning React for my PWA’s. This was 12 months ago — today, I’m teaching you five tips I learned in the last 12 months that helped supercharge my React Development.
1. Use Typescript!
My first dabble into React was using JS. While JS has come miles from where it started, the dynamic typed nature of it brings many problems that can never be fixed by cool ES features. Time and time again, I was passing in a prop or a variable that was undefined and getting runtime property access errors — it’s just not possible to expect a human to find every single time a variable might be undefined.
The switch to Typescript made me 10x as productive as before — no longer did I spend hours debugging in a programming session. Typescript compiler would catch most of my runtime errors that would have reared their ugly head in JS at compile time. For those of you just starting learning React, skip the month-and-a-half of hair-pulling debugging and console.log('is' + var + ' undefined?') 's - go straight to the type-checked heaven that is Typescript.
There are those that argue that Typescript is just slower to prototype. That typing variables takes longer than writing a simple let t = MyObj() . I find that after an incredibly short learning curve that is learning Typescript, you actually prototype faster than using JS - this is because you can be confident that you have the properties you need on your objects and that they're actually there when you need them, instead of being undefined or tied to the prototype of the object.
If you were to listen to one tip on this list, writing TypeScript would be that one that puts you 10 steps ahead.
2. Use Functional Components for Efficient, Readable Code
Coming from Flutter, class components were a much quicker learning curve than functional. At first, I avoided functional components — hooks were hard to learn, passing arguments into functional components was confusing and having setState variables for each state variable was confusing.
I do spend some time on Reddit, though, and 100% of r/React were sold on functional components. I decided to bite the bullet and write my next component as a functional one due to the unanimous love for them.
I never wrote a class component again.
Take the following component, for instance:
IMyComponentProps {
prop1: string
prop2: string
prop3: string
}
interface IMyComponentState {
state1: number
state2: number
state3: number
}
export class MyComponent<IMyComponentState, IMyComponentProps> {
this.timer: NodeJs.Interval
componentDidMount() {
this.timer = setInterval(() => this.onRefresh, 200)
fetchApi().then((data) => this.setState({ state3: data }))
}
componentDidUnmount() {
clearInterval(this.timer)
}
onRefresh = () => {
fetchApi().then((data) => this.setState({ state3: data }))
}
build(): JSX.Element {
return <OtherComponent onClick={this.onRefresh.bind(this)} />
}
}
Let’s take a look at what’s wrong here:
That’s a lot of code to make an API call every 30 seconds.
The .bind() calls are ugly, but are necessary for the code to function properly.
calls are ugly, but are necessary for the code to function properly. Around 30 lines of code for a simple class component.
a lot of this , which is notoriously confusing in TS/JS. (although TS will save you from some difficulties of this )
A functional component can make all that better:
IMyComponentProps {
prop1: string
prop2: string
prop3: string
}
export const MyComponent = ({ prop1, prop2, prop3 }: IMyComponentProps): JSX.Element => {
const [state1, setState1] = useState(0)
const [state2, setState3] = useState(0)
const [state2, setState3] = useState(0)
let timer: NodeJS.Interval
const onRefresh = () => fetchApi().then(setState3)
useEffect(() => {
timer = setInterval(onRefresh, 200)
return () => clearInterval(timer)
})
return <OtherComponent onClick={onRefresh} />
}
one third the code
easier to follow
can fit in more succuient ES6 features
no worrying about this
All around a better deal, and honestly, not that high of a learning curve either. Perhaps more advaced hooks will require more learning, like useRef , but those are not necessary and only helpful - and don't have class component equivalents.
Learn functional components ASAP — it’ll make you a better developer.
3. The Best State Management Solution: Unstated-Next
This point is one of the more controversial ones. If you don’t know what a state management solution is, here’s my one sentence intro: Sometimes, you need to share state between components (for instance, the username of a logged in user or if they’re logged in or not) and it’s not practical to pass around a username to hundreds of components — instead, you have some sort of higher-scope store to store the data so many components can access it.
I’ve met many, many Redux fans — they love the rigidity, and if that’s you, that’s fine! But I’m a fan of making a change in one place and having it just work. With Redux, I find myself stuffing a bunch of state variables in a single Redux Store, so that I don’t have to rewrite all that boilerplate.
Unstated Next is by far the simplest state management solution. I’m not going to write a full Unstated Next tutorial, but there wouldn’t be much of a tutorial. The readme is all you need to read, and you know everything you need to know.
Unstated Next is the simplest state management solution of all time, and does everything redux does.
4. Snowpack > Create React App
Create React App isn’t bad by any means — it’s actually great at what it does. But I do think there are other great-er options out there. For instance, the one I have been using lately is Create Snowpack App. Create Snowpack App has blazingly fast compilation speed. Create React App, on larger projects, takes a little bit of time to compile. Create Snowpack app has O(n) compilation time because it only recompiles the file that you changed. This means that a huge project will have the same compilation speed of a smaller project - something that CRA can't promise you. After feeling the pains of CRA on larger projects, CSA was the no-brainer alternative. I haven’t looked back.
CSA is a huge change that will turbo boost your next project.
I built my own CRA boilerplate — it has my favorite eslint configuration and a few tsconfig changes I like to work with. You’re free to run this command for the boilerplate :)
git clone https://github.com/antholeole/snowpack-boiler.git
5. Just Build!
The best tip I have is to maximize your coding time. While all these tips will supercharge your development, you have to learn your methodologies. The only way to do that is to develop on your own, without a tutorial working on a project that inspires you.
For instance, one of the personal changes I made is that my eslint config doesn’t allow semicolons. If you like semicolons, that’s perfect and don’t be afraid to carve your own path.
Here are some things you’ll have to decide in your front end journey: | https://levelup.gitconnected.com/five-tips-from-one-year-of-learning-react-3e2d4c9c5379 | ['Anthony Oleinik'] | 2020-11-23 04:17:43.981000+00:00 | ['Beginners Website Design', 'Typescript', 'React', 'Frontend'] |
Op-Ed Criticizing Jill Biden’s Use of the Title “Doctor” Draws Outrage | Reactions to Epstein’s Article Are Strong
Epstein and the Wall Street Journal were immediately called out for article, particularly by women. Many women called Epstein out for misogyny. Still, others felt that the article reeked of an elitism that is all too familiar to women in academia.
“Madame First Lady — Mrs. Biden — Jill — kiddo: a bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant matter. Any chance you might drop the “Dr.” before your name? “Dr. Jill Biden” sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic. Your degree is, I believe, an Ed.D., a doctor of education, earned at the University of Delaware through a dissertation with the unpromising title “Student Retention at the Community College Level: Meeting Students’ Needs.”
Defenders of Epstein noted that his language is partly a reflection of his age — the essayist is 83 and comes from a time when it was more acceptable to call a woman or someone younger by the title “kiddo.” Dr. Biden is 69.
Others thought that Epstein’s argument, no matter how poorly delivered, had some merit. Paul A. Gigot, the editor of the Wall Street Journal’s “Opinion” section defended Epstein saying, “There’s nothing like playing the race or gender card to stifle criticism.”
Gigot went on to accuse Democrats of using the piece for their own political purposes, saying that as she moved into a leading role in education policy, Dr. Biden was now subject to commentary.
Northwestern University, where Epstein taught for thirty years, promptly distanced itself from him. In response to the controversy, Northwestern issued a statement pointing out that Epstein had not been affiliated with the University since 2003 and that they disagreed with “the misogynist views” expressed by Epstein in the article. | https://medium.com/write-like-a-girl/op-ed-criticizing-jill-bidens-use-of-the-title-doctor-draws-outrage-46f97adc158b | ['Rose Bak'] | 2020-12-16 18:38:23.744000+00:00 | ['Doctors', 'Women', 'Politics', 'Education', 'Social Media'] |
Audeze LCD-1 planar-magnetic headphone review: The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth | Audeze LCD-1 planar-magnetic headphone review: The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth Kayleigh Jan 16·9 min read
Audeze is one of the only headphone makers devoted exclusively to using planar-magnetic (PM) drivers in its products. The company offers a wide range of models, from reference over-ear designs to gaming-specific cans to in-ear monitors, all of which are based on PM technology.
I have little experience with planar-magnetic headphones. Many years ago, I reviewed the Stax SR-007 MK2 electrostatic headphones, which use a somewhat similar technology, but they require a special amplifier and are extremely expensive. But I’ve never spent any quality time with PM headphones. So, when I got the opportunity to review the Audeze LCD-1, I jumped at the chance—and now that I’ve given them a good listen, I’m very glad I did.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best headphones, where you’ll find reviews of the competition’s offerings, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.Planar-magnetic technologyMost headphones use dynamic drivers to generate sound waves. In these drivers, an electrical audio signal is sent through a coil of wire—the voice coil—which creates a magnetic field around the coil that oscillates according to the waveform in the signal. The oscillating magnetic field interacts with the static field of a permanent magnet mounted nearby, which pushes and pulls on the voice coil, causing it to vibrate in response. The voice coil is attached to a diaphragm, which vibrates along with it, sending sound waves into the listener’s ear.
Vendor-provided art. Audeze wraps the headband and earcups of its LCD-1 planar-magnetic headphones in super soft lambskin.
Planar-magnetic drivers are similar in principle but different in implementation. Instead of a voice coil, the diaphragm in a PM driver is directly embedded with a flat conductor that snakes back and forth across its entire surface (see Fig. 1). That conductor carries the audio signal, and the oscillating magnetic field interacts with the static field of permanent magnets mounted very close to the diaphragm. That causes the diaphragm to vibrate according to the audio signal, generating sound waves that enter the listener’s ear.
Vendor-provided art. In this rendering, you can see the “voice coil” (labeled “circuit trace pattern”) on the ultra-thin substrate of the diaphragm. You can also see a magnet and Fazor on both sides of the diaphragm, but the LCD-1 has a magnet and Fazor only on the inner side of the diaphragm.
In this “exploded” rendering of an Audeze earcup, you can see the circuit-trace pattern (aka, “voice coil”) on the diaphragm. You can also see the magnet and Fazor structures, which are discussed in the next section.
Mentioned in this article iFi Audio hip-dac Read TechHive's reviewSee it The main difference is that a PM driver has no separate voice coil per se; the “voice coil” and diaphragm are a single component. As a result, the entire diaphragm vibrates more uniformly than a dynamic diaphragm, which is pushed and pulled at its center by the voice coil.
Also, the magnets in a PM driver are generally larger than those used in dynamic drivers, because they must be roughly the same size as the diaphragm. That makes planar-magnetic headphones generally larger and heavier than dynamic designs.
So, what are the advantages of PM headphones over dynamic cans? Generally speaking, planar-magnetic headphones tend to have tighter, more accurate bass response. And because the entire diaphragm moves uniformly, the planar soundwave creates a better soundstage with a more immersive quality, and there tends to be less distortion at high levels. For these reasons, PM headphones are often preferred by critical listeners such as recording engineers and audiophiles.
Audeze Audeze planar-magnetic headphones are well known among recording engineers for their neutral, revealing sound quality, a legacy that the LCD-1 easily upholds.
Audeze LCD-1 featuresThe LCD-1 is an open-back, circumaural (over-ear) headphone. It’s more compact than many PM headphones and weighs just 8.8 ounces. It sports memory-foam earpads and headband covered in lambskin leather and comes with a nice carrying case into which the headphones fold. The included premium braided cable terminates with a 3.5mm connector, and a 1/4-inch adapter is included.
[ Further reading: The best high-res digital audio players ]Interestingly, the plugs for each earcup are TRS (tip-ring-sleeve), which I thought might mean that the drivers are wired for balanced operation. But I was informed that they are not balanced; instead, the three-conductor connectors are used to automatically determine which signal is left and right, so it doesn’t matter which one is connected to each earcup. Clever!
Audeze An ingenious design means you can plug either cable into each earcup, and the left signal will be played by the left earcup and vice versa.
With an impedance of 16 ohms, sensitivity of 99 dB/mW (calculated at the eardrum), and a power-handling capacity of 5W RMS, the maximum sound output is rated over 120dB SPL with THD less than 0.1% at 100dB SPL. The frequency response is specified from 10Hz to 50kHz (no tolerance given).
Audeze designs and builds its headphones in the United States and touts several enhancements it has made to planar-magnetic technology. One of them is its ultra-thin Uniforce diaphragms, which are very lightweight, presenting very little resistance to movement for improved transient response. And its large size of 90mm in diameter facilitates deep bass reproduction.
The company makes all its drivers in its Southern California facility, using a vacuum-deposition process to coat the diaphragm film with conductive metal that is then etched to form the “voice coil” on the surface. To achieve a uniform magnetic force across the entire surface area of the diaphragm, Audeze actually varies the width of the voice-coil tracing depending on the strength of the magnetic field at different locations.
Vendor-provided art. The LCD-1 earcups fold so the headphone fits in a small, hard-shell travel case.
According to the company’s website, “Audeze uses ‘a genetic algorithm-based heuristic optimization technique together with magnetic simulations to optimize trace widths to achieve Uniforce.’ For those of us who don’t speak Martian: we use advanced computing techniques to get the most uniform distribution of force possible on the diaphragm.”
Another Audeze innovation is its Fluxor magnets. The description on the company’s website gets pretty technical, which I won’t go into here; if you want to dig deeper, click here. Suffice to say that Fluxor neodymium magnets increase the magnetic field strength at the diaphragm without adding more weight to the assembly.
In the company’s flagship headphones, each diaphragm is suspended between two Fluxor magnet structures, as seen in Fig. 1. But in the LCD-1, there is only one magnet in each earcup, located between the ear and the diaphragm. This is less efficient than a double-sided design, requiring more amp power, but it allows the headphones to be lighter. And the Fluxor magnet is more efficient than a conventional magnet, focusing more of the magnetic field toward the diaphragm.
Why place the magnet between the ear and diaphragm rather than the other way around? Two reasons—to protect the diaphragm and to allow damping material to be placed on the other side.
In most planar-magnetic headphones, including those from Audeze, the magnet is a slotted structure that allows sound to pass through the slots. As you might recall from basic physics, when waves pass through parallel slots, they cause interference patterns (see Fig. 2), which can degrade the sound quality. Audeze solves this problem with its Fazor waveguide attached to the magnet structure. According to the company, this eliminates the interference patterns, corrects the phase response, and improves the acoustic impedance. For more on Fazor technology, click here.
Audeze As the diaphragm vibrates, it sends sound waves through the slots of the magnet structure, causing interference patterns as they emerge. Audeze’s Fazor waveguides eliminate this interference. In this generic diagram, there are magnets and Fazors on both sides of the diaphragm, but in the LCD-1, they are on only one side of the diaphragm.
Without the Fazor waveguides, sound waves emerge from the slots and interfere with each other, degrading the sound quality. The Fazor waveguides eliminate this interference. In this diagram, there are magnets and Fazors on both sides of the diaphragm, but in the LCD-1, they are only on one side.
PerformanceThe LCD-1 is quite lightweight, and the earpads are very comfortable; my ears fit nicely in them, and they are super-soft. The earcups provide a surprising sense of isolation, despite being their open-back design. My only complaint here is that the headphone feels a bit flimsy.
As usual, I played high-res audio files from the Tidal Master library on my iPhone XS, using the iFi hip-dac (reviewed here) as the DAC/amplifier. First up was “In Too Deep” by Jacob Collier from his most recent album Djesse Vol. 3. The vocals are accompanied mostly by synths with some super-low bass, all of which was rendered beautifully by the LCD-1—clean and clear with an open soundstage and natural, present vocals. The deep bass was exceptionally well represented without bloat or congestion, and it balanced the rest of the spectrum perfectly.
I haven’t seen Pixar’s latest movie Soul yet, but the soundtrack album is now streaming from the Tidal Master library. I listened to “Collard Greens and Cornbread Strut,” a very short but hard-bopping piece played by a jazz combo of piano, bass, drums, and horns, including a smokin’ tuba. It sounded clean and open on the LCD-1; I could hear each instrument clearly within a unified whole.
This year, composer Max Richter wrote and recorded a haunting musical backdrop entitled All Human Beings meant to accompany the reading of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On his album Voices, the piece begins with Eleanor Roosevelt reading the Preamble in a 1949 recording, after which many other modern voices continue reading the Declaration in a wide variety of languages. It’s a lovely tribute to basic human rights that are all too often ignored in today’s world.
In addition to Voices, Richter also released a related album called All Human Beings, which includes a six-minute version of the piece played five times. Each one starts with the Eleanor Roosevelt recording that morphs into a modern voice reading Article 1 in one of five different languages—English, Spanish, German, French, and Dutch. (I wish he had included some languages from places other than western Europe.) I listened to the English version on the LCD-1, which sounded gorgeous, with a wide soundstage for the orchestra and choir, and the voiceover sounded completely natural and present.
Vendor-provided art. The Audeze LCD-1 planar magnetic headphones are quite transparent in their audio reproduction.
Next up was “Starlight” by guitar legend Lee Ritenour from his album Dreamcatcher. Most of the album is simple solo guitar—in this case, an acoustic guitar tuned quite a bit lower than normal. The folky, fingerpicked piece sounded clean, open, and well-balanced on the LCD-1, with a wonderful low end and no hint of congestion.
For some throwback fun, I listened to “Money For Nothing” from Dire Straits’ 1985 album Brothers in Arms, which was just released in MQA format. The LCD-1 presented a big, open soundstage in which the stereo drums really bounced around. Once again, the sound was clean, and I could hear each instrument and voice clearly, including Sting’s unmistakable guest vocals.
Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of The Manhattan Transfer, one of my favorite vocal groups, so I cued up “Cantaloop (Flip Out!)” from The Junction. The music is based on the classic Herbie Hancock tune “Cantaloupe Island” with lyrics by Us3. It’s a richly produced track and a wonderful mix with deep bass and an infectious groove. As I had come to expect, the LCD-1 did it full justice with a clean, open sound. The deep bass was perfectly balanced with the rest of the ensemble without becoming overbearing.
I always include some classical music in my review listening. This time, I started with the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for String Orchestra in C Major, Op. 48, from the album Serenades by the Zürcher Kammerorchester under the direction of Daniel Hope. Once again, the sound of the LCD-1 was clean, open, and well-balanced. The strings sounded vibrant, and I could clearly delineate each section within a cohesive whole.
Finally, I listened to the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, as recorded by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Lahav Shani. The LCD-1 had a nice, open, wide sound with excellent balance.
Vendor-provided art. Most people will use the 3.5mm cable, but Audeze provides a 1/4-inch adapter in the box as well. | https://medium.com/@kayleig24712454/audeze-lcd-1-planar-magnetic-headphone-review-the-truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-1cf94fc03965 | [] | 2021-01-16 03:26:08.327000+00:00 | ['Consumer Electronics', 'Cutting', 'Music', 'Mobile'] |
Is the UK getting the maximum benefit from face masks? | On the brink of a second national lockdown in the UK, I think we should re-examine all the tools that can help us fight covid19. This article focuses on one such tool — face masks.
On YouGov, you can find a survey result titled “Personal measures taken to avoid COVID-19”. One of the questions is on mask-wearing. The chart is interactive and you can compare countries/territories of your choosing. If you select only the UK and Hong Kong, you would see a chart like that in Figure 1.
Figure 1: An YouGov survey showing seemingly similar levels of face masking in the UK and Hong Kong, but this chart is misleading
At the same time, the UK and Hong Kong are having very different outcomes in their covid-19 handling. The daily new cases in the UK are exceeding ten thousand for many days (as of today the 16th of October, 2020), while those in Hong Kong are mostly in single or lower double digits. The population size of the UK is about nine times that of Hong Kong. So Hong Kong has been doing at least two orders of magnitude better than the UK.
Now, if people look at the chart in Figure 1 and the covid-19 outcomes, they may draw this conclusion:
See! Both places are heavily masked (by late September both are more than 76% masked), yet covid-19 is spreading more severely in the UK than in Hong Kong. This chart demonstrates that face masking is not effective in fighting covid-19.
This conclusion is wrong, however. And that is good news for the UK — for the fight going forward (more on this later).
I live in the UK, but I grew up in Hong Kong. With these backgrounds, I can attest that the concepts of mask-wearing are very different in the two places.
In Hong Kong, mask-wearing means the following:
People always wear a mask in any settings outside of their home. These include offices (Figure 2a), schools (Figure 2b), any official settings (for example, government press conferences and Legislative Council meetings — the equivalent of British Parliament meetings) (Figure 2c), as well as any outdoor settings (Figure 2d). Every day, they start wearing their mask the moment they leave their home, and they would avoid touching it during the day. They would not take the mask off except for drinking and eating. They understand that the outer surface of a face mask is potentially contaminated. So if for some reason they do have to touch their masks, they would wash or sanitise their hands immediately after that. If they need to take off the mask for a prolonged time (for example, during meal time), to prevent the outer surface of the face masks from contaminating their pockets, they would use a “mask holder” to fully enclose the contaminated surfaces of the masks. Alternatively, some restaurants would give their patrons a (single-use) paper envelop for keeping the face masks. Only upon returning to their home would they take off their face masks.
Figure 2 — How Hong Kong people are masked up 100% throughout the day. From the upper left: (a) in an office; (b) in a school; (c) in a government press conference; (d) in an outdoor setting. Source of images (all screen captures from Hong Kong TV): (a) Viu TV; (b) Now TV; (c) Apple Daily; (d) Now TV.
In the UK, people think they are already using face masks, but I have observed quite a few caveats.
People wear a mask only when they are required to (e.g. in a supermarket). And they would take it off immediately when they are not (e.g. upon walking out of a supermarket). As they frequently put off and then on their face masks, people touch the outside of their face masks often and may have contaminated their hands. Politicians (and MPs) often do not wear face masks, even in a closed space such as the Parliament or in a press conference (Figure 3). By not wearing face masks in public, the British political leaders fuel the unwarranted scepticism towards face masks. This makes the British people even more reluctant to wear face masks (see also a critique here). Office workers typically do not wear face masks in their offices. Students do not wear masks in the classrooms (Sometimes they are even prohibited from doing so). They also do not wear masks in the hallways.
Figure 3: No one wears a face mask in the British Parliament. Source of image: A screen capture from Sky News
Why is it important to point out the difference? Well, this is a message of hope.
Forget about the mistakes that we have made in the past. The above observation highlights that in the UK we still have a powerful tool yet to be fully exploited.
Face masks are cheap, and they do not cause economic hardship. Many countries and territories have shown that they could use face masks to curb covid-19 (see two interactive charts here and here). Going forward, the UK can achieve the same with face masks — we just need to use them correctly. | https://medium.com/@leeyuiwah/is-the-uk-getting-the-maximum-benefit-from-face-masks-63362448029b | ['Yui-Wah Lee'] | 2020-10-16 16:31:19.076000+00:00 | ['Masks4all', 'UK', 'UK Politics', 'Covid 19', 'Coronavirus'] |
What Happened When I Stopped Chasing Perfection | From the first day we step into this world we are inspired to chase perfection. It is only in the later stages of life we come to the realization that there is no such thing as ‘Perfect’ in this world.
I wasted quite a lot of years in my life chasing that perfect job, and the perfect career. The only thing I realized after years of chase was that there is not such thing as a perfect job or a perfect career.
“Gift your team the perfect tool to stay productive. Start using ProofHub.”
Perfection is a relevant term. What might sound perfect to you, might be completely nonsensical to someone else.
This is the reason I say — Stop Chasing Perfection, Start Pursuing Excellence Instead.
I employed this philosophy in life the day I stepped into entrepreneurship. And, it helped me reach greater heights of success. Here’s what happened when I stopped chasing perfection -
I started feeling more in control
The chase to perfection is never ending. It is like a whirlpool in which you get stuck forever and end up drowning.
There’s no end to perfection, and the chase continues forever. You are never in control of things because no matter how hard you try you will miss out on one thing or the other.
I started feeling happier and grateful
The chase to perfection leaves you powerless. You are never satisfied with what you have achieved. Rather you are always running from one stage to the other, without even enjoying what you have in hand right now.
This throws the feeling of being happy and content out of the window. You are never satisfied with what you have, rather you are always jumping from one definition of perfect to the next and so on.
By not chasing perfection, you are giving yourself time to enjoy what you have achieved, and embrace the feeling of being happy and grateful in life!
I started feeling more positive
Positivity comes in life when you acknowledge what you have achieved. Someone who keeps chasing perfection is never happy, as clearly indicated in the last post.
When you are happy, your mindset changes. You tend to look everything as an achievement, and hence positivity pours in your life. Contrary to this, when you are always running after perfection, you will always find faults in your achievement and hence there is a lot of negativity around.
I started achieving more
Perfection hurts because sometimes in life you set the benchmarks too high to achieve. There is no point in chasing benchmarks that are unachievable. You ought to create goals that are realistic, and hence can be achieved.
When you stop chasing the fallacy called perfection, you actually step into the real world with real expectations, which can be achieved.
I started living my life fully
Perfectionism holds you hostage, and you are bound within the limitations of what you have designated as perfect. However, the one step to break the bondages of perfectionism opens an entirely new world.
You are no longer confined to those metrics which you deemed as perfect. You can now experiment, adapt and change your efforts to come up with something which seems the best fit within the present resources and circumstance.
Strive for continuous improvement, instead of perfection
It is better to pursue excellence and achieve it, rather than chasing perfectionism forever. What would you choose? A journey that’s never ending, or a destination which brings with it the feeling of contentment?
I chose the later one, and it helped me achieve success and happiness in life. In fact, it is this feeling of contentment that drives me every day to work collaboratively with my team at ProofHub, and deliver excellence!
Want to become happier at work? Stop relying on emails and switch to ProofHub!
Originally Published on Linkedin
*******
Are you in a sincere desire to start over? Watch this!
*******
Sandeep Kashyap is the Founder of ProofHub — a leading project management and collaboration software. A passionate leader, Sandeep is always on the lookout for innovative ideas about filling the communication gap between groups, teams and companies.
*********
If you liked reading this post, you are surely going to love this as well- | https://medium.com/thrive-global/what-happened-when-i-stopped-chasing-perfection-1a1dfe21d21 | ['Sandeep Kashyap'] | 2018-04-05 19:57:10.577000+00:00 | ['Project Management', 'Work', 'Productivity', 'Leadership'] |
My Internship at Aviatrix | In kindergarten, I would cry every time I got sick because that meant I had to stay home from school. I’ve been an avid learner for as long as I can remember, and the most impactful educational opportunity I’ve undertaken was pursuing an internship at a tech start-up called Aviatrix.
My new classroom was filled with teachers of all varieties of backgrounds and roles, but with one thing in common: to make this start-up a success, one day at a time. Compared to high school, where the classrooms were filled with grades-oriented, competitive students, and real-world applications were pushed aside, this internship taught me the value of teamwork and the exchange of knowledge between teammates, not competitors.
I was learning something every single day, and being in such an intellectually stimulating environment propelled me to become an Aviatrix Certified Engineer Associate to test my skills and contribute to my team.
My internship at Aviatrix allowed me to witness the combination of management, entrepreneurship, and technology firsthand. Aviatrix’s growth amid a pandemic was attributed to the company culture, as the constructive team interactions were reflected in those with the customers. Moments where I could observe different management styles and the weekly company-wide meetings with the CEO, Steve Mullaney, taught me about the necessary skills to lead a company with consistent progress and a trend-setting and innovating mindset. It was like I was in kindergarten again, empowered, and eager to learn everything I possibly could.
The most valuable takeaway from my internship was being able to learn from the most prominent people in the industry, John Jendricks, the COO of Aviatrix, and Sherry Wei, the founder. From these interactions, I learned about the operations of a 0 to 1 company, characterized by the concept of creating the market and being a trendsetter, and the value behind an omni-channel approach.
This 0 to 1 company atmosphere empowered me to branch out of the role of a Solutions Engineer Intern and learn about marketing. I began to create marketing plans that I would present to the team, which demonstrated how my passion for computer science and public speaking could be combined in marketing. By applying Mr. Jendricks’ and Mrs. Wei’s wisdom, I learned how to sell a story and experience.
This opportunity allowed me to pinpoint what I want to do career-wise, a chance that I’m happy I was able to take advantage of. I’m ready to work towards my future in “first grade”, with university being my first step, and Aviatrix being the first of many more internships and real-life learning opportunities. | https://medium.com/@nabeehaali/my-internship-at-aviatrix-7ebf5cbda452 | ['Nabeeha Ali'] | 2020-12-23 06:22:47.654000+00:00 | ['Women in STEM', 'Internships', 'Public Cloud', 'Aviatrix', 'Start Up Companies'] |
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner 6 full practice tests 2021 | AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner 6 full practice tests 2021 https://interntojob.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/AWS-Certified-Cloud-Practitioner-6-full-practice-tests-2021.jpg
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner 6 full practice tests 2021
Requirements
no
Description
****************************************************************
Discount For Limited Time coupon : HAPPY_NEW_YEAR
****************************************************************
The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner examination is intended for individuals who have the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively demonstrate an overall understanding of the AWS Cloud, independent of specific technical roles addressed by other AWS Certifications. The exam can be taken at a testing center or from the comfort and convenience of a home or office location as an online proctored exam.
Becoming an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner is a recommended, optional step toward achieving an Associate-level or Specialty certification.
Abilities Validated by the Certification
Define what the AWS Cloud is and the basic global infrastructure
Describe basic AWS Cloud architectural principles
Describe the AWS Cloud value proposition
Describe key services on the AWS platform and their common use cases (for example, compute and analytics)
Describe basic security and compliance aspects of the AWS platform and the shared security model
Define the billing, account management, and pricing models
Identify sources of documentation or technical assistance (for example, whitepapers or support tickets)
Describe basic/core characteristics of deploying and operating in the AWS Cloud
Recommended Knowledge and Experience
We recommend candidates have at least six months of experience with the AWS Cloud in any role, including technical, managerial, sales, purchasing, or financial
Candidates should have a basic understanding of IT services and their uses in the AWS Cloud platform
Prepare for Your Exam
There is no better preparation than hands-on experience. There are many relevant AWS Training courses and other resources to assist you with acquiring additional knowledge and skills to prepare for certification. Please review the exam guide for information about the competencies assessed on the certification exam.
Who this course is for:
AWS juniors
New Cloud Candidates
Enroll Now
Originally Posted: https://interntojob.com/index.php/aws-certified-cloud-practitioner-6-full-practice-tests-2021-course/3906/?feed_id=49&_unique_id=5fe8738008c9f | https://medium.com/interntojob/aws-certified-cloud-practitioner-6-full-practice-tests-2021-e367e62c5e8e | ['Shashank Gupta'] | 2020-12-27 11:44:00.730000+00:00 | ['Full', 'AWS', 'Interntojob', 'Cloud', 'Certified'] |
Delighted by a Magician’s Mistake | Delighted by a Magician’s Mistake
2020 Yule frogs’ visit brings laughter and cheer
© December 22, 2020, Aikya Param. Original in colored pencil, pen and marker.
Hooray! It’s time for Yule Frogs
(Created by a magician’s mistake
In the magic word for yule logs).
Our favorite amphibians make us laugh
As they smooch beneath the mistletoe
And crack Santa’s cookies all in half,
Stuffing one half in their hats to go.
They visit the Browns and go for a walk
With Mr. Brown again this year
All the way to his bank job, people gawk.
They hide in Billy’s lunchbox and scare
The school cafeteria’s new cashier.
Children at school can’t help but talk
When Yule frogs jump and teachers balk.
But Billy puts them in his lunchbox fast
When he sees the principal walking past.
Grandma wonders how they got in
With everything closed as storms appear.
They caused so much fun and joy again,
She hopes they come again next year. | https://medium.com/middle-pause/delighted-by-a-magicians-mistake-985db7597a74 | ['Aikya Param'] | 2020-12-23 01:53:57.897000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Humor', 'Creativity', 'Life', 'Inspiration'] |
Reverse Geocode a Street Address in Python | For programs and applications that rely on location services, reverse geocoding can provide accurate information using GPS data. Reverse geocoding is the act of taking the latitude and longitude of a location and returning the normalized street address information for the input. The following API will perform this task instantly, to provide you with the information you need to serve your users.
Run this command to install the SDK:
pip install cloudmersive-validate-api-client
Then, you can call the function:
from __future__ import print_function
import time
import cloudmersive_validate_api_client
from cloudmersive_validate_api_client.rest import ApiException
from pprint import pprint # Configure API key authorization: Apikey
configuration = cloudmersive_validate_api_client.Configuration()
configuration.api_key['Apikey'] = 'YOUR_API_KEY' # create an instance of the API class
api_instance = cloudmersive_validate_api_client.AddressApi(cloudmersive_validate_api_client.ApiClient(configuration))
input = cloudmersive_validate_api_client.ReverseGeocodeAddressRequest() # ReverseGeocodeAddressRequest | Input reverse geocoding request try:
# Reverse geocode a lattitude and longitude into an address
api_response = api_instance.address_reverse_geocode_address(input)
pprint(api_response)
except ApiException as e:
print("Exception when calling AddressApi->address_reverse_geocode_address: %s
" % e)
This will return whether the function was successful, as well as the street address, city, state or province, postal code, and country name and code for the location. You can retrieve the API Key from the Cloudmersive website at no cost and with no commitment. This will provide you with 800 monthly calls across our library of APIs. | https://medium.com/@cloudmersive/reverse-geocode-a-street-address-in-python-c62bdd32e445 | [] | 2020-12-23 22:31:54.774000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Reverse Geocoding', 'Tutorial', 'Python Programming', 'API'] |
15 design and development tools and resources you should be using ASAP | Are you a freelancing professional web designer or a member of a web design team? Perhaps, you are in charge of a digital design agency? Either way, you’re always looking for better ways to do things. You’re always working toward the goal of increasing your productivity. At the same time, you are trying to improve the quality of your products.
There’s no shortage of web design tools to help you meet your goal. New ones appear on the market nearly every day. If anything, it’s an embarrassment of riches.
The problem is this. It can take an excessive amount of time to find the tools you really need.
Which is where we come in with this selection of tools and resources. It can help you work more efficiently and produce higher quality products. You can also learn new things about your craft. This includes the latest trends in digital design and technology.
Elementor is the ideal WordPress page and website builder for designers and agencies looking to improve and speed up their workflow. While the features and functionalities Elementor brings to the table are more than impressive, the complete absence of the types of limitations and constraints evident in many website builders makes this tool a genuine productivity booster.
Elementor’s powerful and intuitive drag and drop builder enables you to turn out one page after another, and one website after another without ever having to code. With respect to design capability and flexibility, Elementor works with any theme and any plugin, and does so without affecting the performance or speed of your site.
You can pick and choose from a large assortment of super useful widgets if you decide to build a website from scratch, or get a head start by selecting from hundreds of pre-designed Elementor templates to insert into your pages as you proceed.
The package also includes several really neat new features like the Pop-Up builder, Advanced Forms, hover and scroll animations, and MailChimp and HubSpot integrations.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to refer to Be Theme as an epitome of productivity with respect to building a complex, high-performance website the quickest way possible. All the tools needed will be found among this WordPress theme’s 40+ core features. The secret to the outstanding productivity you can achieve lies in its library of 400+ pre-built websites.
These pre-built websites incorporate the latest design trends, and they also incorporate the features and functionality that go into producing an exceptional UX.
These pre-built websites cover all the major industry sectors, a wide range of business niches, and all the common website types; blog, portfolio, one-pagers etc.
The Muffin Builder editor, shortcode generator, shortcode library and other design aids and elements guarantee you won’t ever have to produce a line of code.
Even with the aid of a good table-building tool, creating a chart or table can easily become complicated if huge amounts of complex data are involved or you want an informative, responsive, front-end editable, and easily customizable table in seconds.
The wpDataTables plugin is an all-in-one solution for producing interactive tables and charts whether the amount of data is small, large, or consists of millions of rows. 4 eye-candy skins (with more to come) and conditional highlighting based on values of cell, rows, or columns enable you to produce colorful and informative tables and charts every time.
This plugin offers the only solution that fully supports MySQL, MS SQL, PostgreSQL databases and allows data from DB queries to be displayed in attractive tables.
The authors of this best-in-class plugin invite you to take advantage of a time-limited (mid-July) 30% discount (use coupon code WPDTJUN8413).
Amelia can save businesses a ton of money while at the same time delighting customers by fully automating the appointment booking, management, and online payment process.
This award-winning business solution (4.8+ user rating) lets clients and customers make appointments 24/7. It integrates with other business systems including Google Calendar, PayPal, and Stripe.
Amelia can be yours at a 30% discount through mid-July. Just use coupon code AMELIAJUN5235.
Just ask the pros who use Uncode and they’ll tell you how to get an award-winning portfolio up and running in no time at all. Better yet, visit the website and browse Uncode’s showcase of user-created websites. You’ll be impressed and most likely inspired as well.
The showcase also provides ample evidence as to why this is one of ThemeForest’s top all-time best sellers with 50,000+ sales to its credit.
Nutcache is an all-in-one productivity tool design teams and freelancers can use for their task and time tracking, collaboration, and budget monitoring needs. Nutcache easily adjusts to fit and streamline your workflow to make it easier for you to complete tasks on time and within budget, and improve your individual or project team’s overall performance.
goodiewebsite is a platform that allows web designers, design agencies, and business owners to connect directly with web developers. 12 years of experience guarantees high-quality services, and you’ll find these services to be cost effective, competitive, and ideal for businesses that rely on 1–10 page websites for their online presence.
Dr. Link Check tracks down a big problem that can detract from your website’s performance; broken and malicious links. You can schedule automatic website checks on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, drill down the report you’ll receive via email, and fix URL issues, SSL certificate validation, error codes from servers, and potential blacklisting because of malicious content.
Avoid problems like these that can become all too common when websites are not periodically monitored.
Houzez does much more for realtors and real estate agencies than help them advertise their services or list their properties. It helps them with their day to day business transactions as well; both in the office and when giving showings.
Houzez combines multi-option property listings with property search and management functions, and schedules showings for luxury homes and other high priority properties.
Mobirise offers everything you can expect from an offline builder, and more. This intuitive drag and drop website builder does not tie you down to any platform, giving you total control over your site.
Google AMP or Bootstrap 4 guarantees your sites will be lightning-fast and mobile friendly, and you’re provided with a wealth of themes, templates, website blocks and design elements to work with. Better yet, Mobirise is free for both personal and commercial uses.
You have to try this brand-new, futuristic website builder to fully appreciate its capabilities, and since it’s currently free there’s no reason not to. With 8b you can build your websites on your desktop or on a mobile device, it features a super-simple UI, and offers 250+ website sections and 16 slick templates to get your project started.
Download your completed site and host it anywhere you want.
Stockfresh is probably the only resource for stock and vector photos you’ll ever need. It has millions of them, all hand-picked, and all at very competitive and reasonable prices.
Since all the images are royalty-free, you only have to pay for one once, after which you can use it as often as you wish. Images are offered on a “what you see is what you get” basis. Stockfresh watermarks are removed from downloaded files.
Savah App is an advanced prototyping tool for web and mobile app designers. It features a built-in design workflow and visual approval system that promotes team collaboration.
Savah App will serve you well for everything from creating design concept prototypes through rapid prototyping to creating high-fidelity interactive prototypes for user testing. Several monthly paid plans are offered, together with a 30% discount on annual plans.
Having the right SEO tool at your fingertips can work wonders with your website’s search engine performance and ranking, and with Rank Math SEO you have the Swiss Army knife of WordPress SEO tools.
Features include a host of snippets and analysis tools and a built-in Content Analysis tool that will help you produce SEO friendly content.
With WP Review Pro you can incorporate any of several review and rating features in your website; a sure winner for anyone doing business through an online store.
WP Review Pro is naturally WooCommerce compatible, Facebook reviews can be integrated, you can include product comparison tables, and much more.
Conclusion
One of these items can make a world of difference in a website’s appeal and performance. Imagine what you could accomplish with several.
You might be in the market for an all-in-one website building solution or a specialty plugin. It can also be for a huge library of images, or a tool to boost the performance of an existing website. Either way, there’s something here for you
Some items offer discounts, and several can be yours at no cost at all. Happy shopping! | https://medium.com/@web-design-articles/15-design-and-development-tools-and-resources-you-should-be-using-asap-562bd041b3e | ['Web Design Articles'] | 2019-06-13 08:40:03.881000+00:00 | ['Design Resources', 'Web Design Resources', 'Design', 'Resources', 'Web Design'] |
Getting Started With Running | If you had told me a year ago that I would run an entire Tough Mudder in a year, I probably would have made fun of you. Well, to be honest, I didn’t even know about the existence of obstacle course races (OCR) of this kind at the time. If that were the case, I would certainly have been able to motivate myself quickly.
Briefly to my prehistory: I am in my early 20s and have tried various sports since my childhood. Athletics, rowing, climbing, mountain biking, snowboarding, baseball, squash — again and again I tried different things that seemed interesting. Some of them I still do today, but in October 2017 I decided to take up a new challenge.
During my school time I had to face — like all my friends — long distance races. However, long distance is actually already exaggerated. We could choose between a 12-minute and a 30-minute variant, the distance reached was graded. I always liked sports, but I hated endurance running. And until the end of last year, nothing changed in this regard.
Last year I was then looking for a challenge. So what could be more obvious than to face the enemy of my youth? I came across a video of the NYC marathon on YouTube and decided for myself: I want to run this race for once. And the goal was set. Thanks Casey.
In my article today I show you my way last year, how I pursue my goal and what has happened since then. And who knows, maybe the article will help you with your goals.
The First Two Months — C25K
I repeatedly tried to enjoy running. And yes, I always failed miserably. My problems were consistency on the one hand, but on the other hand the lack of an overall goal.
So I started by looking for introductions and guides on how best to start. At some point I came across the C25K training plan. The idea behind it is to build stamina over an eight-week program, which is intended for absolute beginners. The goal of the program after 8 weeks is to run a distance of 5 kilometers in 30 minutes completely (without walking). The individual runs alternate between walking and running intervals, whereby the running intervals are constantly increased.
With this concept I have completed the two months and finished the program in December 2017. At this point I would also like to thank the C25K Subreddit. The community is very supportive and enthusiastic. If you lack motivation or have any other problem — they build up and motivate each other.
There is a follow-up plan that continues the concept and has a target distance of 10 kilometers in 60 minutes. I started this plan, but I stopped it quite early. I noticed that my second big problem — the lack of consistency — solved itself and I decided to continue running without any help.
After the two months I was at a point where running was fun for me. So I didn’t have to torture myself out of the house anymore, but looked forward to the training sessions. The first milestone was thus reached.
My first 10K & Discovering OCR
January and February 2018 didn’t go as planned, to be honest. Due to a quite intense cold I had to take a longer break and had a hard time getting back into my routine. However, I had already told my uncle, who also runs, about my goal, who now wanted to run with me. In order to put pressure on myself, I registered for my first 10 KM run in the neighbouring town at the beginning of March. And I quickly regretted the registration.
But giving up is not an option, so I started training again. There was enough time until the run in May, but I rarely managed to really train longer than 5 KM. When the run was just around the corner, my personal record was a distance of 8 KM at a time and I really thought that the registration was a terrible idea. But with the large group of runners I was able to get myself to run through the two laps of 5 KM each without a break and finish my first competition with a time of 56:22.
By chance I came across the obstacle courses at some point and saw that there was one in the surrounding area. I decided to sign up for it and have been highly motivated ever since. The additional challenge felt just right and the short distance of 8 KM seemed quite feasible. In July 2018 the time had come and I finished the Mudiator in Ulm together with my cousin with a time of 1:01:41.
The run itself was great, but I was a little disappointed by the obstacles. For me these were simply not really challenging. But it was fun anyway and we started looking for more runs.
In the meantime I was able to convince a former fellow student to try the C25K program (check out his blogpost here!). He started with the same attitude to running as I did and I needed some persuasion to get him to start. At this point a lot changed again. I have decided to run together with him. Although I had already completed the program, I found running together helpful for both of us.
And the difference was immense: Until then (apart from the competitions) I always ran alone. But now I had a training partner and had to really keep to the training sessions. Excuses not to run on an agreed day were unacceptable. We got each other to keep on running and running longer and further than the training plan provided. It was certainly helpful here to have a goal in mind: At the beginning of the program we signed up for the Tough Mudder Half — from now on my buddy had two months to prepare for the 8 km course.
The 8 weeks flew by and one week before the race the track was published. We originally assumed that the Tough Mudder Full (16 KM) would simply consist of two laps. But now we saw that many of the obstacles we were looking forward to wouldn’t be on the short track at all. This is especially the case for Funky Monkey and Arctic Enema. I spontaneously suggested to update our tickets to the full distance. However, the idea was rejected, as 16 kilometres seemed to be far too long.
On the day of the race we then threw all rationally made decisions regarding the track overboard and decided on the full distance. At this point, for those of you who don’t know the Tough Mudder, I’d like to briefly mention that the event is not a classic race. There is no time keeping and the focus is on teamwork and the collective mastering of the course. Accordingly, it was no problem to wait at some obstacles for a short time, because time doesn’t really play a role. Due to the resulting breaks, the 16 KM were really doable. And in retrospect I would have been really disappointed if we had only run the short distance.
Beside the Tough Mudder there is meanwhile a large selection of similar events, and the run was certainly not our last. My next milestone is a half marathon in December and hopefully a complete one in May 2019.
Conclusion
If you plan to go running after school or work, put your clothes aside in the morning and start running as soon as you get home. Don’t give yourself a break when you get home, that makes it a lot harder to get your ass up again.
Go running after work and you will have new energy for the rest of the day. Search for routes in nature and enjoy the time to clear your head.
Find yourself a running partner. It certainly makes sense to start alone to find your own pace. Nevertheless, it is so much easier to motivate yourself to run when you know that others rely on you.
Screw your pace. Try to run as long as possible and increase this distance. Your speed will improve all by itself.
If running seems too boring to you, look around for obstacle course races in your area.
All beginnings are difficult. If you decide to train with the C25K program, be prepared to have some self-discipline for the first two weeks. Nevertheless, it was the case with me afterwards that you integrated it into your daily routine in such a way that you want to continue on your own. | https://jurtzmarcel.medium.com/getting-started-with-running-ef7ad3273f7f | ['Marcel Jurtz'] | 2018-09-23 18:42:13.005000+00:00 | ['C25k', 'Challenge', 'Running', 'Toughmudder', 'Obstacle Course Racing'] |
Why Teach A Fish To Climb A Tree? | Education is a right and a privilege. The whole purpose of education is to nurture a child to be knowledgeable and discerning. But this doesn’t mean that today’s education system is perfect. Rather, it is in a desperate need of calibration; particularly in the area of teaching approach.
Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash
The challenge is the modern education system is formed on a generalized teaching approach. Every classroom is following the same curriculum which is taught in a monotonous rhythm that isn’t always suitable for everyone. If a student cannot conform to this method, he/she will be left behind. This is a fundamental flaw in the current education system.
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
To visualize this, imagine being the only kinesthetic learner, in a class full of auditory learners. You find out that your class’ learning method isn’t compatible with your own, and this difference could become a hindrance to your progress. The issue is evident, the modern learning approach isn’t suitable for every learner. And this incompatibility is causing children to lose interest in learning. The solution is, we should allow a learner to develop and practice their own learning methodology, instead of imposing them to adapt to a mismatched one. This is important, because a school shouldn’t be a mass-production factory of likeminded-humans, rather it should be a place where children’s diversified talents are transpired.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
By giving children the opportunity to apply/practice their preferred learning styles in class, we can increase their productivity and cultivate their potential. We must encourage children to detach themselves from a conformed method while motivating them to introspect. Because, why teach a fish to climb a tree, when it can explore the limitless oceans? | https://medium.com/@shreyasangani/why-teach-a-fish-to-climb-a-tree-ca8fd9f2701 | ['Shreya Sangani'] | 2020-12-25 20:55:37.974000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'Ideas', 'Students', 'Change', 'Education'] |
Before Breonna Taylor, there was Alberta Odell Jones | In 2007, Congress authorized the United States Department of Justice Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, funneling more than $10 million to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the DOJ Civil Rights Division to investigate and prosecute racially motivated, unsolved murders that occurred prior to the 1970s. The legislation was reauthorized in 2016, extending the time frame prior to the 1980s.
According to the DOJ’s most recent report to Congress regarding investigations pursuant to the Act, the DOJ has opened 132 cases involving 151 people. Of these 132 cases, 116 have been prosecuted, referred, or closed. This data is not of much use because it does not note how many prosecutions translated to convictions, and witness testimony in these cases may not be viewed reliable because so much time has transpired. The death of a witness or officer assigned to the original case presents more challenges to securing a conviction.
‘Heaven and hell’
Black women have never held higher positions than a White woman in the racial hierarchy, regardless of political prowess. White women have long represented sanctity and purity in the American consciousness. Lynch mobs routinely murdered Black men accused (usually wrongfully) of sexually assaulting them, violating this understanding and code of conduct that White women were off limits.
Flora Shanklin, Jones’ younger sister who still lives in Louisville, is convinced the state’s disposing of Black women is why the murderer has never been brought to justice.
Shortly after the River Bank mural of her sister was revealed in 2017, she told the Washington Post, “Because things were still so segregated then, I believe, if she had been a White woman, they would have turned over heaven and hell to solve this.”
Jones, left, at her graduation from Howard University School of Law in 1959. (Photo Credit: WHAS11)
Shanklin’s concerns are not without merit: police departments have long histories of aiding and abetting racial terror against Blacks, particularly in the South. It was not uncommon for police officers, judges, attorneys, or even doctors to double as members of domestic terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirms white supremacists have invaded police departments to aid racist agendas in a 2006 report, released unredacted two months ago.
Lee Remington, a professor at Bellarmine University in Louisville, also believed law enforcement was nonchalant. In 2013, Remington, a White woman, was conducting research for a book about Jones’ life when she discovered overlooked clues.
Local and federal law enforcement had already collected extensive evidence. Blood samples were collected from her car, found several miles from where her body was found. A fingerprint was found in the car belonging to a man who was seventeen years old at the time, but a lie detector test performed decades later proved dismal, and the man was let go without charges. Three years later, her purse, with all of its contents, was found hung from the Sherman Minton Bridge.
Remington later developed a relationship with Shanklin and other family members. In 2016, after Jones’ cousin filed a public records request, Remington reviewed the case files and told the Post she found several discrepancies.
“[…] they said all the detectives who worked on the case were dead, which is not true.”
Double trouble
Both a trailblazer and political threat, not much has changed since Alberta Odell Jones was one of the first Black women to pass the bar exam in Kentucky. According to the Reflective Democracy Campaign, a national think tank that conducts political and policy research and data analysis with a focus on race and gender, White people represent 95% of all U.S. prosecutors. Women of color, specifically, represent between 1% — 2%. The percentage of Black women prosecutors is probably even more slim.
Jones would come to represent another Louisville native: Cassius Clay, better known as Muhammad Ali. Jones far predicted the issue of financial mismanagement in sports. To prevent Ali from squandering his funds, she and the Louisville Sponsoring Group set up a trust fund Ali could not access until age 35. The LSG’s contract provided Ali with financial assistance, covered training expenses, and assisted in finding a manager.
Jones was an unsung leader in the fight for voting rights and racial justice.
In 1965, the Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld an ordinance banning racial discrimination in public accommodations in Commonwealth v. Beasy, which was one of the earliest ordinances in the nation to do so. Simultaneously, national efforts sought to outlaw structural barriers to voting access for Blacks.
Jones founded the Independent Voters Association of Louisville, because political freedom, she believed, required that Black people divest from both the Democrat and Republican parties. Both parties would need to fight for the support of one of the most crucial voting blocs in America today. Using rented voting machines, the organization helped more than 6,000 Blacks register to vote.
In early September of this year, local activists announced the creation of the Alberta Odell Jones Independent Voters Association. The organization aims to help non-incarcerated and formerly incarcerated persons with voter registration. (Photo Credit: the National Urban League)
One can reasonably deduce that her murder was both racially and politically motivated. States largely relied upon voter registration rolls to determine jury duty eligibility ⏤ and they still do. All White juries were notorious for their erroneous convictions of Blacks. If the racial makeup of a jury pool could shift from all White to mixed-race, court outcomes might shift in favor of Blacks. Jones also spent several months charging White men accused of physically beating their wives.
Jones’ efforts matter now more than ever. In 2013, the Supreme Court decision of Shelby County v. Holder struck down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which outlined pre-clearance requirements. States such as Arizona and Georgia needed to receive federal approval to change voting procedures, such as moving polling places or redistricting. In the time since, courts have found some states like North Carolina purposely used voter identification laws to suppress the Black vote.
Unfortunately, she would not see the Act pass: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill into law August 6, 1965, the day after Jones’ death.
On the work ahead
The Movement for Black Lives has done an excellent job of interrogating and rejecting the “perfect victim” narrative. Be them the first Black woman prosecutor, an EMT, or the drug-addicted mother struggling to feed her children, all Black women are deserving and worthy of visibility without condition. Black women are not only as valuable as their labor, but it is striking that a groundbreaking bearer of justice could not receive it in death while they fought for it in life.
The DOJ admits that investigating and prosecuting cold cases is an uphill battle. The Louisville Metropolitan Police Department and federal government did exhaust many resources to Jones’ case, and one could argue that these efforts undermine the idea that she was ever forgotten. That the federal government ⏤ which is itself guilty of orchestrating highly sophisticated efforts to undermine civil rights work ⏤ even invested funds into these efforts, is proof that America is trying to bend the proverbial moral arc in favor of Black women.
The #SayHerName demand, however, did not arise out of thin air. It is a politic, a direct response to government, both inter- and intra-racial conflict, and individual actors who are responsible for the disposal of Black women. Post-election coverage and coronavirus surges dominate the news cycle. Taylor’s story is a distant memory with each day that passes.
One day, what happened to Breonna Taylor could be as distant a memory as to what happened to Alberta Odell Jones. We must demand a shift in the role the media plays in telling the stories of Black women. As we move forward, let us say the names of Breonna Taylor, Alberta Odell Jones, and countless other Black women whose lives must be affirmed in lift just as much in death. | https://medium.com/@psanctity-official/before-breonna-taylor-there-was-alberta-odell-jones-d06b44c9f14c | ['Prophesier Sanctity'] | 2020-11-20 18:29:30.258000+00:00 | ['Racial Justice', 'Criminal Justice', 'Louisville', 'Breonna Taylor', 'Black Women'] |
Yeni Google Pay | I don't like the new Google Pay, but it could be Google's next killer app
If there's one thing that Google's proven to be consistent at over the years, it's the company's need to constantly… | https://medium.com/@mustafa-aktas/yeni-google-pay-d248ceadef44 | ['Mustafa Aktaş'] | 2020-12-16 20:08:44.673000+00:00 | ['Payments', 'Google', 'Fintech', 'Troy', 'Google Pay'] |
This 450-Year Old Painting Contains Over 100 Hidden Proverbs We Still Use Today | The Netherlandish Proverbs is an oil-on-oak painting that was created by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1559. This masterpiece encapsulates approximately 112 proverbs and idioms that are identified in the English language and some of them are still in popular use.
The Netherlanders were fond of proverbs and used them in their language; 100 years before Bruegel’s painting. Desiderius Erasmus, the Dutch philosopher, and scholar were the first to publish Adagia which is a wide collection of rich proverbs and idioms.
Bruegel painted several art pieces portraying hidden proverbs and idioms but this was one of his most notable works and praised for his ordered portrayal and integrated scene. | https://medium.com/the-collector/this-450-year-old-painting-contains-over-100-hidden-proverbs-we-still-use-today-cf5813f3915f | ['Kamna Kabir'] | 2020-12-14 20:18:05.530000+00:00 | ['History', 'Painting', 'Literature', 'Art', 'Culture'] |
Shakespeare in Song, Categorized by Play | by Jane Hu
During a scene in Hamlet 2, Dana Marschz, played by Steve Coogan, laments to his cat, “Oh my God, writing is so hard!” It sure is, when you’re writing a sequel to Hamlet 1! It’s easier to borrow. These following artists took a page out of Shakespeare’s own script and wrote songs borrowing from the Bard himself.
King Lear
“I am the Walrus” [1967. The Beatles, from the album Magical Mystery Tour]
The only Shakespearean reference in The Beatles’ entire recorded repertoire. When compiling the sound collage for the song’s ending, they used the radio as a source for found elements. Coincidentally, King Lear was being broadcast: beginning at around 3:56 in the song, you can hear the lines from Oswald’s death (4.6.246–55).
King John
“You’ve Got Everything Now” [1984. The Smiths, from the album The Smiths]
The first line from The Smiths’ debut record is “As merry as the days were long,” a phrase Shakespeare liked so much that he used it twice in his plays. The first reference is in King John, when Arthur notes that Hubert looks “sad” (read: “serious”). As per Shakespeare, Morrissey is concerned with bondage: he doesn’t “want to be a lover,” he just wants “to be tied to the back of your car.”
The Comedy of Errors
“Miss Misery” [1997. Elliott Smith, from the album Good Will Hunting]
Toward the end, Smith sings, “It’s a comedy of errors…It’s about taking a fall.” In Comedy of Errors, love triumphs, but only after a series of false starts, mistaken identities, and near misses. If “taking a fall” is necessary to eventual success…the singer of “Miss Misery” seems to think so too.
Henry VI, Part II
“Get Over It” [1994. The Eagles, from the album Hell Freezes Over]
Listen to Don Henley make fun of 1990s confession culture and its consequent discourse of victimization. In the second verse he quotes Dick the Butcher, who speaks the most famous line from the Henry VI plays: “old Billy was right, / Let’s kill all the lawyers-kill ‘em tonight.”
Hamlet
“Cracked Actor” [1973. David Bowie, on tour for the album Aladdin Sane]
In live performances of this song, Bowie often sings while holding a skull. Thaaat might be where the similarities end.
“To Be or Not To Be” [1994. Composed by Marky Mark and Marvyn Warren, from the movie Renaissance Man]
An unemployed adman (Danny DeVito) gets a job teaching academic subjects to underachieving army recruits. Shakespeare soon becomes the main focus of the class and the students put together a rap music based on Hamlet. Example lyric: “The shit’s iller than Cape Fear, the Shakespeare saga. Started with this Prince kid, his moms and his father.” Sold.
“What a Piece of Work is Man” [1968. From the musical Hair, lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, music by Galt MacDermot]
In Hair, the Tribe sings this song in reaction to the horror of the Vietnam War; as in Shakespeare’s play, their words are both hopeful and ironic (see man’s “noble reason” and “infinite faculties”). Hair lyrically contains a play within a play! Knowing Shakespeare’s habit of keeping things meta, I think he’d approve.
Macbeth
“The Milkman of Human Kindness” [1983. Billy Bragg, from the EP album Life’s a Riot with Spy vs. Spy]
Whereas Lady Macbeth worries that her husband’s nature may be “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness” (1.5.17), Bragg’s song kind of follows through on Shakespeare’s metaphor: if there is such a thing as a “milk of human kindness,” shouldn’t there be a “milkman” of human kindness” too?
The Merchant of Venice
“Stairway to Heaven” [1971. Led Zeppelin, from the album IV]
Robert Plant is better known for adapting J.R.R. Tolkein, but this song beings, “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold.” An inversion of the message written on the scroll that Portia’s unsuccessful suitor, Morocco, finds in the golden casket: “All that glisters is not gold, / Often have you heard that told” (2.7.65–66).
Twelfth Night
“Highway 61 Revisited” [1965. Bob Dylan, from the album Highway 61 Revisited]
Dylan demonstrates his cultural literacy by filling this song with irreverent cultural references that range from the Bible to French history to Shakespeare. His allusion to “Mack the finger” points both to Macbeth and Weill and Brecht’s “Mack the Knife.” The most overt Shakespearean moment comes in the next stanza: “The fifth daughter on the twelfth night told the first father that things weren’t right.”
There are, undoubtedly, several hundred more that we’ve missed in this simple survey. | https://medium.com/the-awl/shakespeare-in-song-categorized-by-play-176acd0e8f1c | ['The Awl'] | 2016-05-13 05:57:28.097000+00:00 | ['Citations', 'Random Lists Of Things', 'Music'] |
United States Citizens accuse Qatar of funding terrorism. | U.S. victims of extremist violence in Israel allege that three of Qatar’s leading financial institutions have secretly funneled millions of dollars to Palestinian groups responsible for killing Americans, accusing a key U.S. ally in the Middle East of duplicity.
In U.S. lawsuits, victims and their families claim that the government and royal family members of the wealthy Persian Gulf nation have spearheaded “a terrorism financing conspiracy” that has channeled tens of millions of dollars to support Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), both U.S.-designated terrorist groups.
The initial two complaints, filed in federal court in June and on Tuesday in Brooklyn, assert that payments made under the guise of Qatari charitable donations have moved through the U.S. banking system since 2014 and landed in dozens of accounts that are maintained by Qatar National Bank and used by Hamas leaders and militants and their relatives. The funds allegedly assisted seven strikes, including stabbings, car-rammings and rocket attacks, that killed several U.S. citizens.
The suits identified accounts purportedly used by Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, a Jordanian woman who is on the FBI’s list of most-wanted terrorists for assisting a 2001 suicide bombing at a Jerusalem pizzeria that killed 15 people and wounded 130 others; a spokesperson and former leader of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank; a member of its ruling political bureau who was convicted in Israel of operating a terrorist cell; and a 94-year-old spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood close to Qatar’s emir who chairs the Union of Good, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization sanctioned for funding Hamas’s terrorist activities.
Families of American victims have won court judgments totaling billions of dollars against countries that the U.S. government has specially designated as state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran, Yemen and, until it was delisted Monday, Sudan. Congress also passed a law allowing American victims to sue Saudi Arabia for the 9/11 attacks. However, other foreign countries such as Qatar and their officials are normally immune from civil lawsuits in the United States.
The new lawsuits take a different tack, targeting financial institutions close to the Qatari state, whose leaders are drawn from the royal family but that are legally distinct.
Suing under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows victims to seek triple damages from private entities, the cases name three defendants: Qatar Charity, whose chairman is a member of the royal family, Hamad bin Nasser al-Thani; Masraf Al Rayan Bank, which the suit asserts is controlled by the government and family members on its board; and Qatar National Bank, in which Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund purportedly holds a 50 percent interest.
The suits claim that the charity solicited donations worldwide and used both banks to access the U.S. financial system and dollars. Funds were distributed by Qatar Charity to its affiliates in Palestinian-controlled territories, including at least $28 million between March and September 2015, according to the lawsuit. It says money went to support Hamas and PIJ, including “martyr payments” to the families of convicted or killed militants.
The complaints do not disclose the sources of information but include details such as account numbers, account opening dates, holders’ birth dates and addresses, and other identifying information.
“By allowing Qatar Charity to use accounts at the banks to funnel money to Hamas and PIJ, the banks were joining a conspiracy intended to commit acts of international terrorism, including the kidnapping and murder of Americans in Israel,” states the lawsuit filed Tuesday by the family of Pinches Przewozman, an American who was among those killed in rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip on May 5, 2019.
“No family should have to endure the loss we have experienced,” said Stuart and Robbi Force, the lead plaintiffs of the initial suit and parents of Taylor Force, a U.S. military veteran who was fatally stabbed near Tel Aviv in 2016. Force’s death prompted Congress to enact a law in his name in 2018 to cut some U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority until it ends its financial support to convicted terrorists and their families.
“In addition to holding the banks and illegitimate ‘charities’ who enable terrorism accountable, our fervent hope is that this lawsuit serves as a deterrent to those who might engage in similar actions,” the Forces said in a statement released by a spokesman for 57 plaintiffs and 11 victims of attacks since 2014. “We believe that the best way to honor our son’s memory is to help prevent future attacks.”
A spokesman for the Qatari government did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did information offices of the banks and Qatar Charity. The defendants have not yet formally responded to the June case.
President Trump in 2017 criticized what he said was Qatar’s support for terrorist organizations, including the millions of dollars annually it provides to the Hamas government of the Gaza Strip. In recent years, however, Trump has praised Qatari Emir Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani as “a highly respected man, a real leader.” At a bilateral security meeting in September, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo thanked Qatar for its “invaluable role in helping stabilize Gaza” and efforts to lower tensions in Syria and Lebanon.
The legal actions come at a delicate time in U.S.-Middle East diplomacy. President-elect Joe Biden has vowed to rejoin a nuclear deal with Iran if the latter meets conditions, while the departing Trump administration has won diplomatic recognition of Israel from four nations since August: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
Qatar has keen interests in both developments. Host of the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, U.S. Central Command’s forward headquarters and just 300,000 citizens, the tiny peninsular state is the world’s richest country per capita and a major U.S. ally. It maintains cordial relations with Iran, and the two nations share the world’s largest natural gas field, from which Qatar derives most of its wealth.
Still, Qatar has faced accusations from Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies of supporting Islamic extremism, a criticism often also levied against its accusers.
Qatar rejects allegations of double dealing. It says it has played a positive role in the region, cooperating with Israel in providing crucial aid to the Gaza Strip, backing the Arab Spring movement and running Al Jazeera, the most popular media outlet in the Middle East, which has aired critics of other Arab governments.
Some analysts say the timing of the allegations is tied to the U.S. election and the defeat of Trump, who boosted the Saudi side in a three-year-old diplomatic and political cold war with Qatar.
“This is Qatar’s Arab enemies — led by the U.A.E., including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, with the support of Egypt — trying to smear Qatar as a terrorist patron,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project. “They want to make it as difficult as possible for the Qataris in advance of a Biden administration.”
All three major players — the Saudis, Qataris and Emiratis — have heavily bankrolled lobbying and influence campaigns against one another in recent years, with lawsuits against each other’s top officials emerging as the newest battlefield, legal observers note.
No foreign government has provided any assistance to the lawsuit, said lawyers Josh and Steven Perles of the Perles Law Firm of Washington, which represents plaintiffs along with Fleischman Bonner & Rocco of White Plains, N.Y., and Allen L. Rothenberg of Yardley, Pa. Robert J. Tolchin of the Berkman Law Office of Brooklyn represents plaintiffs in the June lawsuit.
Instead, they point out Qatar’s plans to host the World Cup in 2022 and the Trump administration’s formal notice to Congress last month that it plans to sell up to 50 F-35 fighter jets, the most advanced combat aircraft in the U.S. arsenal, to the United Arab Emirates as part of a $23 billion arms sale in exchange for its historic recognition of Israel.
The arms deal prompted Qatar to make its own F-35 request, adding to concerns in Washington and in Israel over how to maintain the latter’s regional military edge.
“How can the U.S. government sell F-35s to a putative ally where you have the most senior officials . . . cooperating with U.S.-designated terror financing entities?” Steven Perles asked.
“If Qatar is going to earn its way back into the good graces of its Gulf [neighbors] and, more broadly, Western countries and the United States, it needs to make some type of public accounting and apology, frankly, for this pattern of actions rather than try to deny or obstruct it.” | https://medium.com/@deserttalks/united-states-citizens-accuse-qatar-of-funding-terrorism-c2ffde6bdcba | ['Desert Talks'] | 2020-12-17 15:40:06.799000+00:00 | ['United States', 'Israel', 'America', 'Qatar', 'Palestine'] |
tionsToxic Relationships … Signs that tell you it’s Time to Leave | The beginnings are always more beautiful, with the outburst of feelings, the passion for the beloved, the butterflies fluttering in the stomach as the English expression says, and all that makes us see the world through the “pink love” telescope that makes the world clear without problems. Feelings that overwhelm us to the extent that they blind us to those little things that poison the relationship and make it in itself a source of abuse. Relationships develop with the passage of time, mature and change as a result of the development and change of personalities of their parties, and as a result of the convergence between them over time, and qualities appear that he may not have noticed in the beginning, which may sometimes lead to the erosion of the relationship, poisoning it, so it is eaten from the inside while it looks perfect from the outside. And from the outside only.
Healthy human relationships are based on foundations of mutual respect and admiration, shared care, and the ability to share decisions. In short, they are a common desire for happiness. It is a safe relationship in which we can be ourselves without fear, feel comfortable and safe, while toxic relationships are characterized by insecurity, self-centeredness, and attempts to control and dominate one side over the other. (1) While you can clearly distinguish signs of physical, emotional or verbal abuse. Where you can distinguish lying, betrayal, and emotional deprivation, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish a toxic relationship.
What is the toxic relationship and how does it start?
Toxic relationships are characterized by a repetitive and harmful pattern of behavior between the two parties. This pattern may include fatal jealousy or exploitation, the desire for dominance, selfishness, and rejection. While a healthy relationship plays an effective role in supporting the individual’s self-confidence and enhancing his emotional energy, toxic relationships on the contrary destroy the individual’s self-confidence and absorb his energy. (2) While any relationship includes a struggle for control, especially in the beginnings of the engagement, we all make mistakes and quarrel, where There is no relationship that can be described as “idealism”. In this context, and for more precise detail, the toxic relationship can be known and characterized by repetition and continuity, so that the toxic behavior of the relationship becomes a prevailing pattern, not an exception. Toxic relationships are also characterized by the presence of one party seeking to impose its absolute control, control that is manifested through clear methods at times, or by unclear symbolic formulas for the second party. (3)
Low self-confidence is one of the main pillars that produce multiple forms of toxic relationships, and the matter here is not limited to one party without the other, as we often think of an assumption based on the fact that the party that seeks control is the narcissistic and has confidence, but this narcissism in fact has It conceals a deeper level of vibration of confidence and insecurity, which may lead many to try to compensate for this lack of control over the partner. (4) The important thing here, and which needs much consideration, is that a number of individuals are attracted by themselves to possessing or entering into such a pattern of relationships Toxicity, especially if they grew up in a toxic environment full of harm, violence and negative feelings, This deprives them of the ability to distinguish violence and abuse, and to unconsciously turn into individuals who engage in patterns of toxic behaviors that they are accustomed to and did not know about. (5)
Why don’t we easily leave toxic relationships?
In such relationships arises what psychology professor Robert Firestone called the “imaginary bond” to describe the illusion of communication between two people, which helps alleviate their individual fears by forming a false sense of attachment. This kind of connection turns into a completely toxic state, where the feeling of love and support is replaced by the desire to merge and fuse identities, and the loss of a sense of independence, as each of them seeks security in the illusion of integration, or one of the two parties exercises the role of the father or mother in the relationship through the illusion of providing protection And care. The ability of individuals in this type of relationship to deceive themselves enables them to retain the illusion of closeness and intimacy, thus closing their eyes from the fact that the relationship lacks true emotional commitment and true companionship. (6)
The most common toxic relationship patterns
The following are some of the more prevalent patterns of toxic behavior, bearing in mind that the existence of one does not preclude the existence of the other, as these patterns often overlap and contiguous:
1- Mocking, belittling and belittling the other party:
In this pattern, one of the parties deliberately mocks the other party, belittles him and his opinions and ideas, demeans him and embarrasses him in front of others. If you ask him to stop, he will probably tell you that he is joking and accuse you of not having a sense of humor. If this behavior continues for a long time, a sense of mistrust in your decisions and opinions may start to seep into you, until you believe what he says (7), (8)
2- Rapid anger, irritation, and unexpected reactions
Some people cannot predict what might ignite their anger, you feel with them that you are walking over an eggshell, where you cannot be yourself, and passing everything you say or do becomes surrounded by strict control for fear that the other party will anger, which affects your emotional health And physical and makes you avoid expressing your feelings and thoughts for fear of his anger and his emotions. And if you blame him for his emotions, then he will most likely accuse you of being the cause of his anger and his excitement, and this nervous and quick-tempered face rarely appears to the outside world, so this person often appears in front of others with a pleasant appearance and manners that everyone loves.
3- Transmitting a feeling of guilt
This person works to control the decisions of the other party by notifying him of guilt and negligence, despite his apparent false support for these decisions. For example, the wife decides to return to work, so that the husband ostensibly supports her and encourages her to return to her work, but he does not cease to shed signals about her negligence in her duties towards him or towards the house and children. This person is good at a game of catching mistakes, we all make mistakes, but what poisones the relationship is that one of the parties traps the mistakes of the other party and exploits them to make him feel guilty, so you feel with him that you are walking in a forest full of traps that trap your mistakes and weave a spiderweb around you and besieging you.
4- Exaggeration in reactions and / or opposite blame
They are two overlapping patterns. The first type exaggerates his reactions when blaming him and sinks into anger or sadness and frustration, so the other party finds himself calming him instead of discussing the main problem. As for the second pattern, it will turn the table and turn the papers, so if you confront him with a problem or something that anger you, you will find that he has turned things around to end up trying to reconcile with him and apologize to him. Either style does not allow you to express yourself, and you may even end up feeling wrong about the other person, and the main problem you wanted to discuss in the first place definitely gets lost.
5- Accrediting partner
If one of the parties in the relationship relies on the other party to make all the decisions, this may be one of the hidden means of control, because this type of partner holds you responsible for all decisions, starting with the restaurant where you will eat dinner and ending with all fateful decisions. On the other hand, he will deal with aggression if you make a “wrong” decision from his point of view or that does not suit him. Such relationships create a constant feeling of anxiety and tension as a result of your anxiety about making the wrong decisions in addition to a feeling of drainage and exhaustion because you have taken all the measures.
6- Independent (non-compliant)
Independence is certainly not a negative quality, but this person always raises his independence as an excuse for non-commitment, and he is a person whose actions you cannot predict, promises you and does not fulfill his obligations or promises, and when his reproach he will raise the slogan “I will not allow you to control my life, I am a free and independent person.” This type of relationship makes the other party in a permanent state of insecurity and stability, due to his inability to predict the partner’s actions or the extent of his emotional commitment to him. This will have a strong impact on your mental, emotional, and even physical health.
7- Scalper
This person is nice as long as he takes what he wants from you, and the relationship with him is a one-way relationship, in which one party spends time, effort, and money sometimes, while noticing that what he is giving is not enough. If this person did something for you, then he will most likely use it against you later on if you refused to do something he asked for in order to make you feel guilty. (11)
8- possessive / suspicious
This partner encircles the other party with crazy jealousy. Some people may enjoy the feeling of jealousy and consider it as evidence of love, but natural jealousy has limits that if you cross it, it will poison your life. This person grants himself the right to besiege you and search your personal things and your electronic accounts, besiege you with doubts and questions, and works to isolate you from friends and some family members. It dictates what you do and does not do, which destroys balance in the relationship and deprives it of mutual respect. (12)
9- Lying and betrayal
Lies and betrayals have the ability to melt trust, lies accumulate one lie after another, and every lie that strikes you against the wall of trust that protects the relationship, and time after time you are surprised by the shattering of the wall and its collapse, be careful when this moment comes that the wall does not collapse on your head. (13)
And what? Is there a hope?
Recognizing the signs of a toxic relationship is a vital and essential step, whether you decide to leave and get rid of the relationship or it is difficult and you cannot get rid of it, but just being aware of its existence will help you deal with it and not drain your energy. It must be noted that some of these signs may appear in all relationships from time to time, but this does not make the relationship toxic, what makes it toxic is the continuity, consistency, intensity, and harm that occur. Any healthy relationship includes effort, discipline, motivation, intention, and desire. If the relationship has experienced a healthy climate before, it may be possible to fix it with some effort. There are a number of questions you should ask yourself:
Will you bear the harm and negativity involved in the relationship? Can you handle the anxiety, tension, stress, and problems that engulf a relationship? What do you gain from this relationship? How can you restore a healthy and happy relationship? What would you have to sacrifice? Will you have to sacrifice your safety and security? How does this affect those around you, your children, your partner, or others around you? Are you willing to put in the time, effort, and patience necessary to fix the relationship? Is your partner willing to give in return?
It is worth noting that if the relationship was toxic from the beginning and did not witness any healthy climate, then unfortunately the chance of its success may be very small. You will have to learn to let go of the other party and survive by yourself without feeling guilty or sad. (14) Perhaps you cannot change your partner, but you can change the way you deal with his behavior, and your reactions to it, you can confront the partner with the toxic behavior that annoys you And to ask him to stop him and declare that this behavior is no longer acceptable to you. It is important to realize within yourself that you deserve respect, love and trust, that you deserve a healthy relationship, and that you are not a victim but that you can survive. | https://medium.com/@talebayoub/toxic-relationships-signs-that-tell-you-its-time-to-leave-5c3d454022b7 | [] | 2020-12-19 23:12:28.469000+00:00 | ['Toxic Relationships', 'Relationship Advice', 'Relationships', 'Relationships Love Dating', 'Relationship Building'] |
Dealing with the Inappropriate | “This is Olga. She’s the Paris Hilton of law.”
That was how I was once introduced to a female elected government official at a function. Maybe some people would consider that a compliment, but I sure wouldn’t. At the time I was general counsel of a pre-IPO, Series C start-up of around 500 people. My badge prominently displayed this, and I had a track record that backed it up. Paris Hilton was stereotyped as an exaggerated, larger than life celebrity who was “famous for being famous”. While there is obviously a lot more depth to Hilton — when people think of Paris Hilton, they think of her reality show, The Simple Life, and her “that’s hot” catchphrase.
There’s a bigger discussion to be had about how to deal with inappropriate behavior in the workplace. In my situation, I left a very long, awkward pause — giving the person time to think about what he just said. I then began a somewhat dramatic conversation about the weather, but not before slipping in a slight eye roll.
My immediate reaction was that his comment was inappropriate, but according to a colleague of his, he actually held me in high regard and meant it as a compliment. Which leaves us with two issues.
Making unprofessional comments in a professional environment, and A poor understanding as to the nature and execution of compliments
The latter is more of a non-issue and is just a matter of knowledge, clarity, and practice. For example, if he had said that I was to the law profession what Paris Hilton was to the influencer industry, then it would have been more evident what he was trying to communicate.
But the lack of professionalism in ostensibly professional environments is shocking. Some studies have shown that more than 50% of women have experienced harassment in the workplace. This is not about the #metoo movement. This is how anyone can and should respond to an inappropriate comment.
I posted my Paris Hilton story on my LinkedIn page and had some interesting suggestions as to how I should have responded. Someone even suggested that I should have responded with Hilton’s catchphrase: “that’s hot.” While it may have pointed out how childish he was being, I could have come across as childish as well. Added to that, “that’s hot” has flirty connotations which was the last thing I wanted to communicate at the moment!
Heavy sarcasm could have avoided that, but that creates a bad first impression and to an extent minimizes the issue.
So, what would I propose as a solution in retrospect?
I think there are several good approaches to take. The most important thing, however, is that you make sure you call them out on it and make them think about what they said. Don’t let them derive any kind of pleasure or attention from it.
I took the silence route at that moment because it felt like the less awkward option — highlighting their mistake and forcing them to dwell on it would have felt uncomfortable for me. But I also could have asked what he meant. If people use an innuendo, then they are cornered into either looking like a fool or explaining what they were insinuating.
At the end of the day, the crux of the matter is that both they and others must be made aware of the unprofessional behavior, but you don’t have to stoop to their level.
How would you handle this comment? Please let me know. I would like to hear from you. | https://medium.com/@olgavmack/dealing-with-the-inappropriate-5623ef7ee8ef | ['Olga V. Mack'] | 2020-12-08 16:07:28.452000+00:00 | ['Lawyers', 'Metoo', 'Law', 'Careers', 'Women'] |
Baby-Sitters Club Books as Classic Novels | Baby-Sitters Club Books as Classic Novels
The appropriate way to view Ann M. Martin’s contributions to literature
Now that a new generation is experiencing the wonder and majesty of the Baby-Sitters Club thanks to the glorious new Netflix show, it’s time we appreciated these iconic novels for what they are: Classics of American literature.
In fact, there will be no justice in the world until Kristy’s Great Idea is seen as a worthy rival to The Great Gatsby. Until Super Special #4: Baby-Sitters Island Adventure takes its rightful place next to Moby Dick and The Old Man and the Sea. Until Super Special #14: BSC in the USA is elevated to the status of On the Road and The U.S.A. Trilogy. Until Mystery #20: Mary Anne and the Zoo Mystery is taught alongside … um … other great American zoo mystery books!
Anyway, you get the point. Here’s what some of them might look like! (Apologies in advance if it’s still too soon to think about Claudia and the Sad Goodbye.) | https://medium.com/sharks-and-spades/baby-sitters-club-books-as-classic-novels-a99b0fca9dc1 | ['Jack Shepherd'] | 2020-12-14 13:54:39.558000+00:00 | ['Literature', 'Books', 'Humor', 'Art', 'Television'] |
“There, I’ve got their attention. Now you go and win their hearts.” | Some years back, as I was working at home one evening on a new business pitch to a nationally known university, my then eight-year-old son came to me and asked to watch a movie with me. The DVD he was holding was a movie we had watched probably 50 times prior (not exaggerating). It would’ve been very easy for me to say, “No, I have work to do. Maybe tomorrow, OK, bud?” Or, I could have just put it on for him and got back to work.
But I did neither. Spending time with this little guy was something I never had to think twice about.
The movie was “A Knight’s Tale,” starring the late Heath Ledger. If you’ve never seen it, make some time to watch it. It’s awesome. And if you have a son, watch it with him. Just be prepared for multiple viewings. (Just be aware of a couple soft sexual situations, though.)
Even though I had watched the movie many times and thought I knew it by heart, this particular time I picked up on something I hadn’t heard before in all the times we’d watched it — and it just might be the greatest marketing “aha moment” for me ever. And really, it wasn’t even that original of a thought. The most impactful concepts are the ones that have been hiding right in front of our faces for who knows how long. | https://bettermarketing.pub/there-ive-got-their-attention-now-you-go-and-win-their-hearts-80145f477539 | ['Ed Macko'] | 2020-12-04 13:33:04.565000+00:00 | ['Journey', 'Partnerships', 'Creative Process', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Branding Strategy'] |
How To Find Work During The Coronavirus Epidemic | There is no reason for Coronavirus to stop the job search. However, there are a few simple things that will not only reduce the likelihood of getting sick to a minimum, but also help you quickly find a highly paid job.
1. Mark “I’ll with coronavirus”
If you have already defeated the insidious COVID-19, tell the potential employer that you have an advantage. You just need to click on the checkmark in the resume on Local Job Search or online platform such as Indeed, LinkedIn or the other platforms, next to the words “I have already been, I’ll with Coronavirus”.
2. Upgrade your resume
Obviously, if the story with the Coronavirus continues to develop, employers will try to reduce the number of people invited for an interview, more conclusions will be made on the resume — so your resume should be perfect. Upgrade your resume yourself according to the instructions.
3. Indicate the address — to look for work near the house.
Less distance — more health and you keep yourself away from Coronavirus. And actually save more money too. Just go to your LinkedIn profile and enter the address of the place where you live. Employers who are near you will see your resume marked that you live nearby and will invite you for an interview.
4. To clarify as much as possible by phone or chat all the things that are important to you before the interview.
Chat with representatives of employers via chat or by phone — this will also save your health from Coronavirus and money on the road! You can even write in a cover letter: “Ready (a) to explain via Skype / phone / chat” (just do not forget to specify these contacts).
Finding work during coronavirus
5. Check before the interview whether all documents have been taken
Going for an interview, check the list of documents that must be with you. Be careful not to have to travel to the human resources department twice.
CORONAVIRUS IS SO DANGEROUS!
6. Do not stop searching for jobs!
The period of the epidemic, whether it is flu or the newly emerged Coronavirus, is not a reason to reduce activity in finding a job. Many will do just that, which means that competition in the labor market will be lower. Do not try to dump! Take your foot and your market value as a specialist and add 10–15% so that there is a “field for maneuver.”
WHO recognized Coronavirus a pandemic. Coronavirus, striding the planet, has already affected the organization of labor in many countries. Global companies have begun to quarantine their units. Microsoft and Expedia sent more than 80% of employees to work from home (known as Freelance). A little less — from 34% to 76% of workers work remotely with giants such as Amazon, Uber, Facebook and Google. Twitter has also virtually shut down employee offices, and Apple has sent 12,000 California headquarters employees to telecommuting.
IT giants Google and Microsoft have already announced the provision of free versions of collaboration services G Suite and Microsoft Teams. Thus, users of any tariff packages can organize free-of-charge teleconferences for up to 250 people. Coronavirus triggered a 10–12% increase in Zoom (Application), a video conferencing company. And the traffic of Webex web-conferencing service has already grown by 22 times due to the Coronavirus.
More than a third of the employers of the Gulf countries — Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Saudi Arabia — close offices for their employees. And 12% of enterprises will not feel the changes, because they already worked in remote access mode before the COVID-19 flash. Even the Pentagon and NASA switched to the remote mode of operation; representatives of the US Congress will soon follow suit. As the initiators specify, the preparation for such an option began “in connection with unique and unusual circumstances.”
Apple Closes All Its Stores Outside China Over Coronavirus
Independent staff
In the near future, domestic employers will also have to demonstrate their flexibility.
Are organizations ready to respond quickly to challenges? For the most part — no. However, if you do not take action promptly, the companies will face unrest in the team, someone will decide to play it safe and quarantine themselves, others will come to the office, wearing scarce masks, but will look askance at a sneezing colleague. Sooner or later, the team itself will begin to ask for a request to get some help. According to the Blind employer anonymous feedback app (over 2,000 managers of technology companies around the world have been interviewed), 70% of respondents have already wondered if they should go to work tomorrow and it so scary for them.
Most executives ask themselves: will work from home be effective? They tried to find the answer to this question at Stanford University. They measured the performance of the employees of the Chinese call center Ctrip. Productivity at home increased by 13%. Employees took fewer breaks and were in more comfortable conditions. Microsoft came to the same conclusions, where, recall, 80% of workers work from home. Coronavirus will help test this theory on a larger scale, but it is now clear that the effectiveness of remote work depends on the corporate culture. If the company promotes the independence of employees, then they show efficiency both a week after the start of the remote work, and a year later.
Remote working
Take a closer look at Freelancing
Coronavirus gave us the opportunity to conduct the most ambitious experiment concerning the labor market. And many companies are already testing the remote work model. And the global trend aimed at freelance, which is actively promoting the generation of millennial, only strengthens the chances of success. On the other hand, employers themselves are beginning to look more and more at freelancers. This means that if, until recent events, some employers planned to hire a marketer or SMM specialist, now they are turning to freelancers.
After Coronavirus corporate culture will not be the same. Some of the companies will remain distant after the global epidemic. Firstly, the employees themselves, having felt the benefits of homework, will not want to return to offices. And secondly, business owners, having measured the KPI of employees and savings on rental premises and utilities, can leave only the most necessary employees in the office. | https://medium.com/@Esmaeli/how-to-find-work-during-the-coronavirus-epidemic-2305923df805 | ['Esmael Esmaeli'] | 2020-07-19 03:56:39.334000+00:00 | ['Job Hunting', 'Finding Yourself', 'Covid 19', 'Corona', 'Coronavirus'] |
IMPACTS OF A SECOND | Chapter 26 | The scientific definition of a SECOND is the period required for 9,192,631,770 transitions of radiation of the Cesium 133 atom. Did that help? No, then let’s explore further.
1 SECOND — duration of a heartbeat. Also, the minimum amount of time it takes to decide “NO” and break someone’s heart — or to become infatuated with a new love.
20 SECONDS — often the time required to do the first 80 SECONDS of a 100 SECONDS task. So, 80 SECONDS is then required to do the last 20 SECONDS of the task. [This is the 80/20 Rule — you get 80% of the result from the first 20% of the effort.]
60 SECONDS (or one minute) — time for 18 regular breaths. Also about as long as I can hold my breath.
The average human life span is 2,650,000,000 (2.6 billion) SECONDS. About 900 million of those will pass while we are sleeping. Of course, our brain is never fully asleep. It is still signaling for heartbeats, breaths, dreaming, etc. How many of the remaining 1.7 billion SECONDS of wake time do I spend unaware, drifting, paying for war?
SECONDS:
1,000–17 minutes
1,000,000–278 hours
1,000,000,000–11,574 days
1,000,000,000,000–31,710 years, How might we make use of this calculation?
The U.S. has spent over $2 trillion dollars (some think it $4 billion) for wars in the Middle East in the past 20 years. At the rate of $1 (one dollar) per SECOND, it would take around 64,000 years to pay that debt, and more when the interest on required borrowing is added.
Now add another $2 trillion (or more) for the “war on COVID”. The annual revenue of our government is only about $2.5 trillion ($31 million per SECOND). The lockdown of the population and the shutdown of the economy will significantly lower the government’s revenues. So, can we afford these wars?
Have we not heard of the Pyrrhic Victory — a triumph that ruins the winner? Debt from wars collapsed both Greek and Roman empires. “Those who don’t know history will inevitably repeat it.” Don’t you think it’s time we should take a SECOND, and reconsider wars? | https://medium.com/tigers-in-tea-cups/impacts-of-a-second-chapter-26-8d5f9bed471a | ['Larry', 'Bubbananda'] | 2020-09-04 19:44:16.747000+00:00 | ['Covid', 'Tigers In Teacups', 'Second', 'Bubbananda', 'Larry Andrews'] |
The best moments from our exclusive online gala 🐝 (Hive Highlights Dec. 2020) | The best moments from our exclusive online gala 🐝 (Hive Highlights Dec. 2020)
Spelling Bee of Canada’s virtual gala was invite-only, but we figured you deserve to see it too. Without further ado, see our highlights of the event! Spelling Bee of Canada ·Dec 20, 2020
Our gala kicked off with a bilingual version of our national anthem, sung beautifully by Keriana Hodson.
We took a super-cute Zoom selfie, experts at it by now.
Why is it important to talk to someone when you’re feeling sad? Four kids said it best: Anthony Malinas, Shravani Maski, Ali Syed Hussain Razvi & Umaiza Raza. Each was proud of their work and happy to be celebrated!
We enjoyed a performance from Benita, a singer hailing from Toronto. Her intimate rendition of Rihanna’s “Stay” proved moving. Her Instagram is @sheisbenita and her music is on all platforms.
We heard from Nate Behar, a pro player in the Canadian Football League. Interestingly, spelling was his favorite activity in school. He shared some heartfelt comments about his Unsung Hero; his mom, is a nurse on the front line throughout this pandemic. Then, we heard from our students about who their unsung heroes are.
Lorenzo Nowotny, 6, picked his “babcia” (a Polish word for grandmother) for being supportive. She can speak four languages and is teaching Polish to Lorenzo. She immigrated to Canada ahead of her family and worked hard to bring the rest of them over. Nowadays, she enjoys spending time with her family.
Aadit Banerjee chose his dad for all the time and effort spent on their family’s safety and success. His dad works at a company that makes airplanes, but still makes time for the small stuff like playing tennis with his kids.
Kalli-Ann Sevaptsidis chose her grandmother for supporting her in academics. Anneta immigrated to Canada at 19 and was a seamstress by day, student by night. Nowadays, she cheerfully volunteers at various charities and even Kalli-Ann’s school!
Gabrielle Neapetung chose her best friend, Raquel, for being a true comfort during the toughest of times and for pushing Gabrielle to become a better person. Gabrielle professed her loyalty and gratitude for the inspiring impact of her bestie Raquel.
We did some getting to know each other via Kahoot questions — then ramped it up with trivia. The top three leaderboard spots went to Muskan, Areeb Munir, & Anthony + Nick.
Our SBOC yoga instructor, Tarik El Assal, gave us a guided meditation on the theme of gratitude.
To close it out, we chatted with our 2020 spelling bee champions. They each did an amazing job in a tough competition with unfamiliar circumstances — here are more details about how our champions powered through.
🐝 Thanks! You just read Hive Highlights, where Spelling Bee of Canada recaps developments in our community. For fun language arts reads and videos, subscribe to Buzz News!
This post was written by Fran Mbadiwe, an editor who runs SBOC’s Buzz News. Apart from that, he’s probably journaling. | https://medium.com/@spellingbeeofcanada/the-best-moments-from-our-exclusive-online-gala-hive-highlights-dec-2020-5ed4b96b49ae | ['Spelling Bee Of Canada'] | 2021-01-31 21:04:43.034000+00:00 | ['Teaching', 'Parenting', 'Life Lessons', 'Education', 'English'] |
World’s Most Famous Graphic Designers as Number #1 | Nortonis Designer (Best graphic designer) | Are you interested to Order your design’s? Make order or contact Nortonis through his social media platform instagram.com/nortonis_design
As a visual fashioner, I can reveal to you something on the spot, a first thing without flickering… .the visual computerization measure is an undeniable irritation. From the visual originator’s perspective, this is what it would appear that.
Customer meets the visual creator to examine expand plans to showcase, publicize, or advance their items. Possibly, quite possibly’s the customer (needs) the visual architect to ‘redo’ the entire picture and character of the customer organization. The customer gets all advertised up about the potential mullah that will fold into their financial balance. Visual Designer hyperventilates and salivates at the envisioned sum on the receipt
Visual Designer proposes a few ideas and thoughts. The customer says that it’s not EXACTLY what they had at the top of the priority list and requests that the visual planner thinks of more thoughts. For the visual architect, this resembles being given a truly gigantic automatic rifle to simply fire around in obscurity, wanting to hit the objective straightaway, you get what I mean?
The cycle gets delayed. Visual originator gets disappointed in light of the fact that customer can’t administer of his thought since he doesn’t Have the foggiest idea what he needs yet knows it just when he sees it.
Customer counsels others in the organization and an entire bundle of individuals gets tossed into the image with their own thoughts and proposition.
Visual fashioner and customer plunk down in a limp store of snared tissue, not realizing what to do now since months have been squandered trying a lot. Presently, we start from the very beginning once more…
Are you interested to Order your design’s? Make order or contact Nortonis through his social media platform instagram.com/nortonis_design
Understanding what you need directly from the beginning is significant. On the off chance that you have no clue about what it is that you need to accomplish with your new showcasing stuff, plunk down with your staff BEFORE you get the visual architect to accomplish any work. Presently, this is a significant point, thus, allowed me to state it once more….CONSULT WITH YOUR PEOPLE BEFORE YOU GET YOUR GRAPHIC DESIGNER TO DO ANY WORK!
Next, get everything down on paper. Regardless of whether you have no aim of passing that bit of archive to the visual originator, in any event, you have a more clear vision of what you need. At that point address your visual originator to investigate thoughts and potential changes to your unique thought.
When the visual communication measure has started, single out the individuals you talk with care. An excessive number of cooks DO ruin the stock! Just individuals who can and SHOULD settle on or help settle on the choice should be counseled at this very point as expected.
Notwithstanding, as any customer will let you know, the visual fashioner has an immense and significant part in guaranteeing that they comprehend the customer’s guidelines, steps up to the plate, and investigate and investigate different thoughts. At the point when the customer mentions to the visual architect what he/she needs from their new promoting stuff, it’s not unchangeable. The visual architect SHOULD introduce his/her own thoughts as another option. If not, what’s the utilization of the visual architect? Why not simply get an administrative or the secretary to simply figure out how to utilize the proper projects/virtual products and concoct something that the customer needs?
Being a visual planner is a genuine annoyance… .and working with a visual architect is additionally a cut in the backside yet by the day’s end… when you see that your work and every one of those dissatisfactions brings about a crushing success free Articles, you can kick back and appreciate your (and your customer’s craftsmanship) over a cup of cappuccino.
Is it accurate to say that you are prepared to enlist somebody to plan your logo, securities, or craftsmanship for your site? Indeed, here’s the data you need to get the best outcomes from recruiting your first (or your first fruitful) visual architect. To guarantee that we start on the same wavelength, a visual originator plans your showcasing materials — the print-and web-prepared craftsmanship which is then gone over to a printer or coded for the web for the ultimate result.
To guarantee that we start on the same wavelength, a visual planner plans your promoting materials — the print-and web-prepared craftsmanship which is then gone over to a printer or coded for the web for the ultimate result. A portion of their vocabularies can be unfamiliar to you, and their cycles may not be recognizable by the same token. We’ll address that and more with these strategies.
This exhortation gives you the fundamentals for employing the ideal individual for this basic undertaking. The more qualified the architect, and the better the match between you and your originator will prompt all the more engaging last plans. the more expert you and your business will look.
Are you interested to Order your design’s? Make order or contact Nortonis through his social media platform instagram.com/nortonis_design
1. Take a gander at their work tests. Numerous fashioners offer an arrangement of tests either on their site, by email as a PDF, or in a printed copy design. At the point when you survey these, search for an overall plan style that you like, not really whether they have heaps of involvement inside your specific industry. Indeed, the profound experience inside the industry isn’t really the best thing when you need a planner to put a new visual turn on your business and your issues.
2. Ensure they’ve really accomplished the work in their portfolio. This is particularly evident in case you’re assessing configuration organizations or firms. Ensure that the planners who are as yet on staff made the work that you truly respect.
Where this can become possibly the most important factor with solo originators is if the portfolio isn’t clear about their association in the advancement of all the plan components. For instance, in the event that they’re demonstrating a pamphlet plan or a site in their portfolio, yet you love the logo; ensure that they made the logo prior to recruiting them.
What’s more, ask what the customer’s contribution in the plan of that logo is-if the customer went to the planner with a sketch of the logo previously made, at that point, the logo may not be reproducible by the originator or firm alone.
3. Converse with the architect. Having a real discussion with them can truly help for two reasons:
To ensure you can discuss well with one another. In the event that you each have fundamentally the same styles of correspondence, levels of energy, or eagerness about the task, at that point the venture will in all likelihood run easily (or has an incredible potential for progress). Additionally, ensure that you each comprehend what the other is stating having comparative definitions for ideas is incredibly useful. At the point when you don’t get something, pose inquiries! To check whether you two “gel” together. You’ll be working intently, so ensure that you get along! On the off chance that you don’t care for their characters or the other way around, at that point, the relationship will doubtlessly get stressed and troublesome. 4. Audit their abilities. This turns out to be particularly significant in case you’re employing a website specialist to ensure the architect is able to furnish you with all the specialized segments you’ll require. For instance, web coding, structures coding, HTML bulletin incorporation, and Search Engine Optimization are altogether fairly specialized fields that not everything architects can convey. Ensure you’ll have the option to get what you need.
5. Check their references. In the event that you truly like a specific task in their portfolio, check whether you can get that customer’s contact data. In any case, if the originator can’t deliver it, that is not really the most noticeably awful sign-perhaps the customer inclines toward that their contact data be kept hidden. Or then again they’ve moved, and haven’t advised the fashioner how to connect with them. Be available to reasons why they will be unable to outfit a specific reference.
6. Find out about their cycles. Discover how they intend to execute the work that you’d prefer to have done. Ask what the creator needs you to do, what you’ll be approached to audit and support, how choices are made, and how they’re made last. Ensure your creator can direct you through the planning cycle, giving all the data you’ll require en route.
7. Check their pivot time for answering to messages, sending cites, and bringing calls back. Ensure that it’s in accordance with the pivot time that you expect all through the undertaking. Pivot time here can likewise demonstrate the fashioner’s degree of energy about your task. In any case, if it’s somewhat moderate, ensure they weren’t out of their office at gatherings for the afternoon or tied up in another cutoff time comprehend that they’re an independent venture also, and the way that they’re occupied is presumably an indication of how powerful they are for their customers!
8. Survey the rights that they’re offering to you. Ensure that you have the copyright and propagation rights that you need. Think as far into the future as conceivable you need to ensure that you’ll have what you need as your business develops. You would prefer not to need to return to your planner and re-arrange your privileges in a couple of years!
9. You might be enticed to request some example plans for your particular venture. This is known as work on “spec” (theory) — having a fashioner accomplish work without an assurance of getting the venture. While architects can comprehend your feelings of dread imagine a scenario where you don’t care for the logo we create, consider the possibility that we don’t “get” what you need, imagine a scenario where.
Requesting that a planner chip away at spec isn’t exceptionally reasonable. The first round of plans on any undertaking is the most tedious to make it regularly comprises of exploring your organization and your rivals, conceptualizing on the innovative side, and producing first thoughts. You wouldn’t request that a specialist analyze you prior to paying for his time, and afterward offer to pay him on the off chance that you like the finding it’s not any more reason to do as such with an originator.
10. Ensure that you’ll get the expectations you anticipate. A few planners don’t plan to remember last records for their expectations to you-in the event that you need to have the first documents conveyed to you alongside printed guarantee or the last documents transferred to your web worker, ensure the architect realizes that in advance. It might change the estimating.
In the event that you need to have the option to alter the last documents, ensure that the planner can convey the records to you such that you can alter them. Understand that, contingent upon the product that you have, this may either restrict the plan or be incomprehensible, yet you most likely won’t get the documents in the particular organization you need except if you inquire!
What’s more, in the event that you imagine having your last documents in a specific organization, for example, having your letterhead in Microsoft Word-make certain to request that. Numerous planners don’t consider Word records to be essential for a standard arrangement of expectations.
11. Have a sensible timetable and check the fashioner’s turnaround time. Distribute enough an ideal opportunity for your task to be finished surge occupations never end up being on a par with they could be if enough time were designated. A normal logo venture takes weeks, not days!
Additionally, be certain that they have the time accessible in their timetable to finish your venture on your course of events. Check for impending excursions, and whether they work nights and ends of the week if your course of events requires that.
12. Ensure that you’re both clear about amendments. Numerous fashioners remember a set number of corrections for their venture bundles. Ensure that you comprehend what comprises an update, the number of you’ll get, and what happens once they’re totally spent.
13. Get it recorded as a hard copy. An agreement can help to spread out desires for the task on both your end and the designers. When you have an agreement from your architect, make a point to peruse it cautiously it will regularly state precisely the thing you will escape the task, how you’re required to pay for plans, what you’re paying for, and how to escape the agreement (in the event that you need to drop the undertaking in any capacity whatsoever). Also, on the off chance that it doesn’t make things understood, approach the originator to expound for you.
Following these means gives you all of the foundation data you require for ideal outcomes while employing a planner. Use them as a kind of perspective when you survey planner’s sites, meet with wellbeing Fitness Articles, or meeting your expected architect. Understanding the cycle and expected result does ponder for a smooth change from thoughts to the real world.
tags: Become a Graphic Designer, Graphic Design Courses, Graphic Design, Learn Graphic Design, Designer, Nortonis designer
Nortonis is a freelance with all types of graphic design's, a designer who works from home. He designs apparel and premium items at linktr.ee/nortonisdesign
Contact Nortonis through his social media platform for your design’s done for you instagram.com/nortonis_design
Published: kennmoore | https://medium.com/@kenn4moore/worlds-most-famous-graphic-designers-as-number-1-nortonis-designer-best-graphic-designer-e24e08b06ebb | [] | 2020-12-17 12:38:51.761000+00:00 | ['Logo Design', 'Designer', 'Nortonis', 'Graphic Design', 'Best Graphic Design'] |
Performance Reviews: A Step-By-Step Process for Conducting them Meaningfully and Effectively | One of the most critical areas of employee relationships and one of the biggest challenges management faces today-is conducting effective performance appraisals and determining appropriate merit increases. Learn to give performance appraisals that help motivate employees to achieve goals and increase their value to the organization.
Performance Reviews: A Step-By-Step Process for Conducting them Meaningfully and Effectively
Why Should You Attend
By attending, you will understand how to even more effectively:
» Would you like to conduct more effective performance reviews?
» Would you like to know how to give people “bad news” in a way which will not hurt but in fact improve your working relationships?
» Would you like to be able to suggest improvement in a way which encourages rather than discourages?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then come laugh, listen and learn as Chris DeVany leads us all through those important topics, key questions and answers we all need to be able to address effectively to improve our team members’ and team’s performance!
Objectives of the Presentation
» How to conduct motivational and directional performance appraisal reviews
» Planning the review
» Managing the review process
» Subtle ways to keep sensitive employees from having their feelings hurt
» How to suggest improvement to an employee’s performance in a way that boosts an employee’s spirits
» Why employees sometimes fear reviews
» Ways to increase standards of performance
Areas Covered in the Session
» State of the Art Practices in Performance Reviews
1. Why annual reviews are not adequate
2. Staff involvement and ownership through self-appraisal and dialogue
» Traps to Avoid in the Performance Appraisal Process
» Developing Performance Measures
1. Using behavioral terms
2. Defining levels of performance
1. Why annual reviews are not adequate
» Collecting Information About Performance
1. Establishing a record-keeping system
2. Making observations
3. Encouraging staff to monitor themselves
» Communicating the Appraisal
1. Setting the tone for a two-way discussion
2. Evaluating and maximizing strengths
3. Communicating about problem areas without creating defensiveness
4. Setting mutual goals for maintaining and improving performance
5. Using the review as an opportunity for career planning
6. Handling resistance
7. What to do if you reach a stalemate
» Following up on the review
1. Monitoring performance
» Making informal appraisal an ongoing occurrence
Who Will Benefit
» CEO
» Senior Vice President
» Vice President
» Executive Director
» Managing Director
» Regional Vice President
» Area Supervisor
» Manager
To Register (or) for more details please click on this below link:
https://bit.ly/3zajbx1
Email: [email protected]
Toll Free No:1–844–511–8858
Tel: +1–913–871–1466 | https://medium.com/@abideedict/performance-reviews-a-step-by-step-process-for-conducting-them-meaningfully-and-effectively-1fcd3a98e923 | ['Abide Edict'] | 2021-06-08 06:49:59.033000+00:00 | ['Effective Performance', 'Performance Reviews', 'Employee Performance', 'Motivational'] |
2 — What am I building?. Here’s the beautiful design I shared in… | BeatConnect’s first design
Here’s the beautiful design I shared in my last post, the first tangible element of what would become BeatConnect. Excitedly and proudly I show this to my buddies and Alex. “Guys look! It’s awesome right?! We can see each other and send music!!” I was greeted with the deafening sound of silence and polite “oh that’s nice”, like my grandma used to say when I was 4 years old and scribbled something incomprehensible with red crayon on construction paper.
Still there was something there… It had the parts I was looking for, but my vision for how this would turn out was still a bit muddy in my mind, if that wasn’t obvious by looking at the design. I figured I might as well just get my hands dirty and see if I could actually build it.
Now back in my heyday I used to really enjoy coding; I got into it because I was into gaming, did a few projects, even worked professionally for a few years before getting lured into management for the promise of paychecks without actually needing to produce any work other than telling people that they’re doing a good job and frowning if they’re late. I’m a little / very rusty but used to be decent enough and I figured this was a worthwhile project to try and dust off my skills. I just needed to decide on an approach of how I wanted to build it and how it would actually work.
One particular thing to note with beat makers and producers is that we are very religious about our software, even though we don’t really understand how to use it. It’s almost a defining characteristic, like looking at t-shirts on a metalhead before a concert. Ableton, Reason, Pro Tools, etc. we are brand fanboys until we die and nothing will make us change our minds. Now there is a reason for this: music is complicated, music technology especially so. I remember the first time I opened up Reason and I just stared at all the knobs and buttons and digital cables flying all over the place. It’s almost unreal.
I actually love Reason but yeah you get the point..
So you can imagine that after a ridiculous amount of time and hair-loss once we eventually figure out what button will make a pleasing sound come out of our speakers we never let that button go; it becomes our safe space, our haven. We feel at peace with this button. But that other software? Sure, it may be cool and have pretty colours… but it’s not the same button. It’s a DIFFERENT button. Now I need to do the whole mating ritual all over again! And then… it doesn’t sound the same :(
It’s an important topic because I knew if I was going to build something no matter how good it was there was no point in trying to get anyone to switch their DAW (Digital audio workstation, the music software). So I decided to try and make this work as a plugin. One of the fun parts of music production is that you can always add a new piece of gear to expand your repertoire that will add new sounds or modify your sounds with crazy effects; it’s like an artist getting to choose from new colours except there seems to be a never-ending cascade of new colours to choose from.
Back in the day you would have to go to the music store and shell out your life savings for a fancy new piece of equipment or new guitar. These days though you can hop online and just download some virtual instruments (VSTs). The beauty of these is that they are plug-ins and you can slap them into any DAW and then voila! New sounds!
So that was the angle and strategy: If I could make a VST that could connect to other DAWs, then I’m able to make music remotely and I’ve solved the issue of producers being scared of new software! | https://medium.com/@nicholas-laroche/2-what-am-i-building-69aea84c4713 | ['Nicholas Laroche'] | 2020-12-27 15:57:54.886000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Music Production', 'Design Process', 'Remote Collaboration'] |
PlatON Lectures: Online Open Class on PlatON Smart Contract (I) | On May 26, 2020, PlatON launched its first open class on smart contract. PlatON CTO James Qu shared the latest development on PlatON, deep interpretation of smart contract and the practice training of smart contract compiling and deployment, with core smart contract developers.
Deep Interpretation of Smart Contract — Compiling
Smart Contract (Head file)
Smart contract class is the key component of smart contract, and the method to call the smart contract should be the member function of a class.
A class should be decorated by CONTRACT, must publicly inherit platon::Contract base class, and has init member function which will be called in deployment once.
Smart contract method must be decorated by ACTION or CONST. This kind of member function can’t reload. When the function is decorated by ACTION, the on-chain data will be modified; when the member function is decorated by CONST, only attribute search is called and the on-chain data is kept.
If the parameters and returned values of smart contract method are customization, then they need to add PLATON_SERIALIZE macro declaration serialization function in it’s definition; for other types, they need to add PLATON_SERIALIZE_DERIVED macro declaration serialization function.
Smart Contract (Implementation file)
The implementation of smart contract method should add ACTION or CONST the same as the head file, and apply the PLATON_DISPATCH macro declaration smart contract class and method.
The member variables of platon::StorageType can be stored persistently. There should be a n added in front of the first parameter of platon:StorageType template. The second parameter is the specific type of the true storage. The member functions need to get the specific samples from self() function to modify the member variables, and then call the related sample functions.
The second parameter of platon:StorageType is a customization type, PLATON_SERIALIZE macro declaration serialization function should be added in such kind of definition type. If this kind of type inherits other types, PLATON_SERIALIZE_DERIVED macro declaration serialization function should be added.
Smart contract supports the initialization of class’s static data such as static variables, global variables, etc.
Smart Contract Permissions
Developers are recommended to set the permissions for contract call, burning, migration upgrade of smart contract, and other sensitive actions.
When calling the general smart contract, platon-caller is the trading initiator’s address; when calling the cross contract call, platon-caller is the called smart contract’s address.
Whether calling the general smart contract or the cross smart contract, platon_origin is the trading initiator’s address.
When calling the general smart contract or the cross smart contract, platon_address is the called smart contract’s address; when calling the agent cross smart contract, platon_address is the address that call the smart contract.
When deploying smart contract, if there is an address introduced, then set the smart contract owner as this address. Otherwise, set the smart contract as the trading initiator’s address.
When burning smart contract, check whether if the trading initiator is the smart contract owner. If yes, burn it, if no, exit the burning process.
When migrating smart contract, check whether if the trading initiator is the smart contract owner. If yes, migrate it, if no, exit the migrating process.
PlatON team provides a suite of authentication functions to simplify the difficulty of development
Apply set_owner to set the owner of smart contract. If the parameter is null, then set the smart contract initiator’s address as the owner. Apply “init” method for contract call, and “owner” menthod to get the owner of smart contract.
The is_owner can check whether the introduced address is the owner of smart contact. If the parameter is null, then we will know whether the original trading initiator is the owner of smart contract.
The WhiteList class enables developer to add, delete and check whether if it’s in a white list.
A smart contract can support multiple white lists, and provides “SysWhitelist”, the system white list class, at the same time. Usually, SysWhitelist is OK to the great extent.
Smart Contract Creation
The smart contract will be initialized when being created. The initialization will be finished with init function which will be called when being creating once. The init function can’t be reloaded, but can set the number and type of function parameters accordingly.
Smart Contract Burning
Smart contract can be self-destructed. Developers can realize the smart contract burning according to the embedded platon_destroy function PlatON provides. An address parameter of the smart contract will be necessary for transferring the balance of smart contract to this address. Keep in mind that smart contract burning is a high-risk action, please be cautious and set reasonable permissions of burning, and call the embedded plaon-destroy smart contract burning after the permission verification gets approved.
Smart Contract Upgrade/Migration
The embedded function platon_migrate_contract will migrate the data in the previous smart contract to the new one, and upgrade the code logic. Notice that, smart contract migration is a high-risk action, please be cautious and set reasonable permissions of migration, and call the embedded platon_migrate_contract to migarate the previous smart contract after the permission verification gets approved.
The return_address parameter is included in the new smart contract address, and the init-arg should be: magic number + RLP (code, RLP(hash(“init”), init_paras…)).
The transfer_value refers to the transferred amount in the new smart contract address, gas_value refers to the estimated gas fee. | https://medium.com/@platon-network/platon-lectures-online-open-class-on-platon-smart-contract-i-c905a9628381 | ['Platon Network'] | 2020-06-06 18:47:40.741000+00:00 | ['Platon Network', 'Cryptography', 'Smart Contracts', 'Deployment', 'Blockchain'] |
Live FREE to Air South Africa Springboks vs Canada Rugby World Cup Streaming TV | How to Watch South Africa Springboks vs Canada LIVE: Rugby World Cup 2019 TV Channel. Canada v South Africa live streaming tv guide — Kobe Misaki Stadium. Springboks vs Canada: How The Two NFL 2019 Match Up.
The Rugby World Cup will kick off on September 20, is probably going to be the biggest sporting event of the year with host nation Japan taking on Russia. The final will take place on November 2 at the Nissan Stadium in Yokohama. The highlight of the competition had originally been he National Olympic Stadium, which will be the main stage for the 2020 Summer Olympics, before being changed. We’re starting early and showing you how to watch rugby world cup 2019 from all around the World.
The fans, along with the teams, are super excited about the very first match that will begin on September 20. As far as the news for Fans goes, we have got each and everything for you. Ranging from online TV channels to VPN Services, you will get to know every single way to watch Rugby 2019 matches, anytime and anywhere.
Well, if you too are fanatics of this fantastic Rugby World Cup, make sure to book tickets if you want to watch matches from the stadium. Or else, you can continue reading this excellent article that will bring you some good ways to watch every single Rugby match. Still, for watching, you got to have a good speed internet connection and a compatible device that can support the entire stream.
Talking something about the Rugby World cup, it’s an event where the world-class teams will compete with each other. The teams are divided into group stages ranging from Pool A to Pool D. Every single team is looking good on paper, but as we know, the actual real story is far different from the paper formation. Indeed, New Zealand is one of the finest teams in the Rugby world; other teams are not left far behind. In short, every team is practicing hard and are aiming for the gorgeous Rugby Trophy, altogether.
Rugby World Cup 2019 Live Streaming Telecast Channels
There are a lot of options and channels available to watch and stream the 2019 Rugby World Cup from any parts of this World. We will guide you with each and everything related to the Rugby World Cup channels below. If there is no official channel in your Country, follow any VPN network and change the Country to USA, Uk or Canada.
Not everyone has time and resources for watching the match live from the stadium. We know that Rugby fans are spread all across the world, and not all can reach the venue. For them, we have compiled a list of tv channels which they can use to watch the matches from their home countries. We hope the below mentioned TV channels along with the countries would help our readers become better informed about the options. | https://medium.com/@foxtvstream/live-free-to-air-south-africa-springboks-vs-canada-rugby-world-cup-streaming-tv-3f9dce0702d6 | ['Free To Air'] | 2019-10-08 04:06:42.450000+00:00 | ['South Africa', 'Canada', 'Rugby', 'Live'] |
How slow deploy is killing your productivity | How slow deploy is killing your productivity Andrey Follow Jun 26 · 5 min read
This is just a story of my day. It was an incredibly boring day. Why do I write about it? I analyzed why it was so dull and uncovered a great insight. What is the most critical factor in software engineering productivity? I think it is the time it takes to deploy your app.
Beautiful start of the day
I woke up at around 10 am. Not too bad, given that I’ve stayed late the night before — I have been trying to solve an engineering problem at work. The problem was adding a new feature to the gigantic project with a not so scalable architecture. The project was born out of the hackathon, so it’s nobody’s fault… Anyway, the engineering problem. It wasn’t even that hard because as soon as I woke up, I had it all figured out in my head. I just needed my morning coffee first.
I started coding right after my first sip. Something really happened in my head during sleep, because it felt so easy to write code. The solution was pretty obvious, and it did not introduce any unneeded complexity to an already chaotic code base. It looked good, so I ran the code locally. Oh, yes, I forgot to import the module here. Oops, this variable is NULL now, let’s fix that. Okay, it seems to work now. So I committed changes to my branch and created a PR. It’s 11 am on the clock. Pretty sweet as a start of the day, ha? Now what? Even if I solved the problem, it’s not going to do much good without getting into production. Now it’s time to get my code to the finish line.
My open PR had automatically triggered tests. We have all kinds of tests: unit, integration, code style, you name it. I knew I had some time because this process is not usually fast. However, I didn’t have enough time to shift my focus to another task or fully relax. So I kept on checking my messengers, social apps, and news feed. Then a message arrived in Slack. “Lint-check failed.” Oh, I hate those! I thought I had everything right! Okay, it looks like I forgot to remove this import, and it’s not used anymore. I removed one line from the code and committed my changes. 5 minutes wait, again. What’s going on on Twitter?
We all hate waiting
I did not notice how 15 minutes passed. Then I got another slack message — integration tests failed. At least my code style is right. So, I spent another 5 minutes fixing the issue (integration test actually did an excellent job catching a tricky bug, so I’m not mad at it). Then I committed my changes and played the waiting game again.
I understand the importance of tests, but 20 minutes, come on! Of course, I could’ve made some progress on another task, meanwhile. No, not really. I don’t know about you, but I hate switching focus. It takes so much time to get into a really focused state. So I’ve checked all my apps on the phone a couple times and found the bottom of the twitter feed before I saw a Slack notification about the successful deployment of my code.
Just to be safe, I need to test the app on production to see if the new feature works. From first glance, it did, but there was a small glitch. I had to update the code in the UI of a web application, nothing fancy, just changing a string. This turned out to be a header on the page, and I added redundant whitespace at the beginning, so now it looks weird. Okay, here we go again.
Now all tests passed, but the deployment took forever. I’m not sure what kind of computation is involved in moving a folder with files around 10 megabytes from my laptop to the server, but it sure feels like it could’ve trained a conscious AI by now. I don’t remember how much time it took for me to refresh the page and finally see the whitespace disappear, but it definitely took another cup of coffee. I managed to check my emails during this time, so I was productive, I guess. Anyway, it’s 2 pm, and it’s time for lunch.
How much time we waste
As you may have noticed, I’m complaining. That day I really spent around 1 hour actually solving an engineering problem, including bug-fixing time. But it took me 4 hours until I saw my changes in production. There are many days like this, so time adds up. I feel righteous anger because this thing is common in the industry, and many people experience the same thing.
So, what’s the solution? Not writing tests? Of course, not, tests are freaking great. The issue is more generic — it’s all those inefficiencies that are easy to introduce to the deploy time (I bundle tests and all CI/CD stuff in the deploy time). It’s easy to write an inefficient CI/CD job. Its intent could be positive, and at the time, it may seem like a great idea. But a little delay is multiplied by the number of people working on the project and frequency of changes they make. Because deploy time affects EVERY contributor and EVERY code change.
Slow deploy means slow feedback loops. Imagine you’re an artist. Now imagine each time you move your brush on the canvas, you need to wait 5 minutes before the paint appears. That would be the most annoying thing ever.
The feedback loop (deploy) has to be fast
I believe that each developer who likes to solve creative problems needs to have a fast feedback loop. You change the code — “snap” — it’s updated on the server — “snap” — you see the result.
Please think about this next time you want to add something to the deploy time. And also, think about improving deployment speed next time you work on technical debts. If you cut just 1 minute for a project with 5 contributors, each of them contributing once a day (only on workdays), it saves more than 100 hours a year. And I don’t know how to count improved productivity because of not having to switch the focus, but for me, it would multiply this time by 2 at least. To create better software, we need to improve how we write software.
PS. There is a great talk that inspired me https://vimeo.com/36579366. You should check it out, it’s mind-blowing.
You can read more of our blog here. | https://medium.com/seamless-cloud/how-slow-deploy-is-killing-your-productivity-df818d6c486c | [] | 2020-06-26 08:38:10.250000+00:00 | ['Deployment', 'Software Development'] |
CBD Men’s Lifestyle — The Benefits and Basics of Vaping CBD | When it comes to vaping cannabidiol, the products available seem endless. The oils, cartridges, vape pens, and batteries can easily overwhelm you when you aren’t fully aware of what they are. In this article, we will dive into the world of vaping CBD so that you understand what it is, the benefits and precisely what you’re buying.
What is CBD?
Cannabidiol, also known as CBD, is the non-psychoactive cannabinoid found in cannabis. CBD is usually found in the form of oil, which is produced by extracting the cannabinoids from hemp plants. Although the true effectiveness of CBD has not yet been approved by the FDA, its therapeutic properties have been revealed through numerous anedoctal evidence showing that it can help a vast range of symptoms.
CBD is commonly used to help with chronic aches and pains, inflammation in the body, anxiety, seizures and many other conditions. Due to an overarching use case, CBD has become widely available throughout the world as an over-the-counter alternative aid.
Read Related Post: What is CBD? A Primer for Men
What is Vaping?
Vaping is the act of inhaling and exhaling the aerosol, often referred to as vapor, which is produced by an electronic device such as a vape pen or vaporizer. The vaporizer device normally contains a liquid or “e-juice” that contains either propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin-based liquid combined with CBD and other flavorings.
The Benefits of Vaping CBD Oil
Vaping is just one way of using CBD but it has become incredibly popular because of simplicity and instant effects. Unlike other ways of delivering cannabidiol to the body, such as by taking a capsule or ingesting an edible containing it, inhaled CBD enters directly into the bloodstream through the lungs and is not processed anywhere else in the body. This allows for a higher percentage of CBD to be quickly absorbed into the bloodstream and interact with the cannabinoid receptors that are part of the body’s endocannabinoid system. This means that you can enjoy the beneficial effects of CBD faster by vaping when compared to other methods.
Read Related Post: Different Ways To Consume CBD
Another benefit of vaping CBD is its convenience and discreetness. Vape pens are often small and can be taken along anywhere and used when needed. Additionally, there is no discernible smell or lingering odor from vaping CBD .
Lastly, there is a wide range of flavored vapeable oils and juices on the market to satsify just about anyone’s palate. Some people dislike the taste of CBD oil when taken orally and vapeable CBD juices offer an alternative for a more enjoyable experience.
How Do You Vape CBD?
The way that you vape CBD is dependent on the style of the vaporizer. Not all vaporizers are created equal — let’s take a look at how you can vape CBD.
Pen Style Vaporizers
Probably the most popular style of vaping CBD is through disposable, one-time-use CBD cartridges or pens. These pens come pre-filled with a liquid CBD juice and can be used right out of their package.
Luckily, pen-style manufacturers are moving away from one-time-use products, since they produce an unnecessary amount of waste. Gaining traction are refillable cartridges, which allow you to refill a cartridge with your CBD oil of choice continuously.
These cartridges are then connected to a small battery pack that has an internal heating element. Once screwed on, you simply press a button and inhale. The heating element is triggered and begins to heat the CBD vape juice. Everything occurs rapidly with these hand-held products, and you’ll have a mouthful of vapor in no time.
Convection or Conduction Vaporizers
You can commonly find CBD oils that are in the form of wax. These are called CBD concentrates, and they’re generally made from CO2 extraction. It’s essential that you find a lab tested concentrate that verifies that the product in question is void of any residual chemicals.
With these malleable CBD products, it’s best to place them into a vaporizer that contains a chamber. Two types of vaporizers fit this bill: convection or conduction.
A convection vaporizer works by heating the overall chamber to a specific temperature. This heat engulfs the entire CBD product and vaporizes it.
A conduction vaporizer works by direct contact. This means that there’s a heating element within the conduction chamber that heats the CBD product directly.
Both of these vaporizer styles allow you the flexibility of placing any CBD product into the chamber for vaporization. Whether your CBD products are flowers, oils, or wax; each can be adequately vaporized within a conduction or convection-style vaporizer.
Another significant benefit of convection or conduction vaporizers is that they typically allow you to customize your temperature. The one-time-use vaporizers don’t recognize this option generally, which limits the range of what you can taste when enjoying your CBD products.
Also, by being able to choose your temperature, you can easily find a setting that produces the smoothest and most flavorful vapor. This customizability leads to a much more enjoyable time while indulging in the many CBD products that are available.
Desktop Vaporizers
Desktop vaporizers are the outliers of the vaporization field. These large devices are meant to stay at home due to their size. These are intricate devices that allow a wide field of temperatures to choose from.
Overall, these devices function in a similar way to the convection or conduction vaporizers but don’t require a recharge since they are directly plugged into an electrical source.
How Does Vaping CBD Effect Your Body?
As we mentioned, the effects of vaping CBD products are instantaneous. Depending on the percentage of your CBD, you’ll feel the onset quickly. Since CBD isn’t like THC, you’ll feel a sense of calm, rather than a high feeling.
If you have pains, they will begin to drift away, and the pain will be less localized. If you’re battling stress or anxiety, your body and mind may relax thus improving your overall mood.
It’s typical that the effects of CBD through vaporization last between 2–4 hours. This number can increase or decrease depending on the individual, so it’s important that you start slowly and gradually adjust your dose as you see fit.
The Best CBD Products For Vaping
With so many options, the choice is up to you. If you prefer to vaporize CBD-rich flowers, then these are available. If you enjoy the flexibility of CBD oil and wax, then the horizon is limitless. Everything boils down to your own preference and your needs, but it’s essential that you review each product to ensure that it’s safe to consume.
Always shop with a reputable company and check a CBD product for its lab results. This should include the CBD percentage, residual chemical analysis, and terpene profile — along with many others. After these critical factors have been verified, you can begin shopping the many varieties available, such as:
Now that you understand how you can vaporize CBD products, you’ll feel far more confident when making a purchase. Vaping CBD products is at the forefront of alternative medicine, and it’s becoming widely acceptable as CBD legalization flourishes in the United States.
RELATED: Looking for high quality vape juice? Learn more about AVIDA vape juice products in our comprehensive AVIDA CBD Products Review. | https://medium.com/@cbdmenslifestyle/cbd-mens-lifestyle-the-benefits-and-basics-of-vaping-cbd-4c65401f88f2 | ['Cbd Men S Lifestyle'] | 2019-10-01 00:49:56.559000+00:00 | ['Vape Pen', 'Vape Juice', 'Vaping', 'Cbd Vape Oil', 'Cbd'] |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.