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Hedgehog-Burrito Boundaries | The next morning, life proves me so very, very wrong.
I want to meditate in our bedroom. The problem: Ben is sitting, sockless, on the living-room couch. And so I remind him, just like I have every morning for the past month, to take his socks out of the closet before I block his way. He needs a moment. My morning routine slips through my fingers; I twiddle my thumbs indignantly.
Thankfully, I remember that I’m taking a course on boundaries.
“From now on, can you get your socks from the bedroom without reminders?” I proudly request.
“Okay,” he says. I didn’t expect him to sound this taken aback.
As I turn towards the bedroom, a bolt from the blue: “Thank you?”
He wants me to apologize? Hadn’t I just spent a month tending to the warmth of his feet, putting an extra todo in my morning routine and getting only grumbles in return? He knows that I meditate every morning — why would it be such a big deal to just take the socks out the as soon as we get up?
This is all news to Ben. “If reminding me was so hard, why did you keep doing it?”
“For you! What did you think?”
“That you really hate being interrupted while you meditate!”
“No, I just I imagined that you wouldn’t want to interrupt me, and so you’d sit huddled on the couch with your poor cold feet!”
We start giggling as soon as the words come out of my mouth. The only person in this household who gets cold feet (in both senses) is, of course, me. Projection, projection, projection. Ben’s socklessness would have caused him no grief — and if it had, he would have just stridden into the bedroom without a second thought.
I did the “selfless” thing — then both of us got hurt.
Then it sinks in: the buffer isn’t a false set of spikes. It’s a fluffy blanket around my hedgehog. It’s there for both of us. | https://evebigaj.medium.com/hedgehog-burrito-boundaries-55ee6a9f0545 | ['Eve Bigaj'] | 2020-07-28 13:22:46.763000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Life Lessons', 'Psychology', 'Self Improvement', 'Self'] |
How to Forecast Time Series Data Using Deep Learning | How to Forecast Time Series Data Using Deep Learning
Time series (TS) forecasting is notoriously finicky. That is, until now.
Figure 1: DeepAR trained output based on this tutorial. Image by author.
In 2019, Amazon’s research team developed a deep learning method called DeepAR that exhibits a ~15% accuracy boost relative to state-of-the-art TS forecasting models. It’s robust out-of-the-box and can learn from many different time series’, so if you have lots of choppy data, DeepAR could be an effective solution.
From an implementation perspective, DeepAR is more computationally complex than other TS methods. It also requires more data than traditional TS forecasting methods such as ARIMA or Facebook’s prophet.
That being said, if you have lots of complex data and need a very accurate forecast, DeepAR is arguably the most robust solution.
Technical TLDR
In short, DeepAR is an LSTM RNN with some bells and whistles to improve accuracy on complex data. There are 4 main advantages to DeepAR relative to traditional TS forecasting methods…
DeepAR is effective at learning seasonal dependencies with minimal tuning. This out-of-the-box performance makes the model a good jumping-off point for TS forecasting. DeepAR can use covariates with little training history. By leveraging similar observations and weighted resampling techniques, the model can effectively determine how an infrequent covariate would behave. DeepAR makes probabilistic forecasts. These probabilities, in the form of Monte Carlo samples, can be used to develop quantile forecasts. DeepAR supports a wide range of likelihood functions. If your dependent variable takes on a non-normal or non-continuous distribution, you can specify the relevant likelihood function.
The model has received lots of attention and is currently supported in PyTorch. Tutorials and code are linked in the comments.
But, what’s actually going on?
Ok let’s slow down a bit and discuss how Amazon’s DeepAR model actually works…
Traditional Time Series Forecasting
Let’s start at square one.
As noted above, time series forecasting is notoriously difficult for two main reasons. The first is that most time series models require lots of subject matter knowledge. If you’re modeling a stock price with a traditional TS model, it’s important to know what covariates impact price, whether there’s a delay in the impact of those covariates, if price exhibits seasonal trends, etc.
Often engineers lack the subject matter knowledge required to create effective features.
The second reason is that TS modeling is a pretty niche skillset. Prior outputs of a given timestep are the inputs to the next timestep, so we can’t use the usual modeling techniques or evaluation criteria.
So, not only do engineers need in-depth knowledge of the data, they also must have a strong understanding of TS modeling techniques.
Traditional Recurrent Neural Nets (RNNs)
Machine learning can provide alternatives to traditional TS forecasts that are often more accurate and easier to build. The simplest ML algorithm that supports sequential data are recurrent neural nets.
RNNs are essentially a bunch of neural nets stacked on top of each other. The output of the model at h1 feeds into the next model at h2 as shown in figure 2.
Figure 2: graphical representation of a recurrent neural net. Image by author.
Here, x’s in blue are predictor variables, h’s in yellow are hidden layers, and y’s in green are predicted values. This model architecture automatically handles many of the challenges we discussed above.
But even RNNs fall short in certain areas. First, they’re overly simplistic in their assumptions about what should be passed to the next hidden layer. More advanced components of a RNN such as Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) and Gate Recurring Units (GRU) layers provide filters for what information get’s passed down the chain. And they often provide better forecasts than vanilla RNNs, but sadly they can fall short too.
Amazon’s DeepAR model is the most recent iteration on LSTM and solves two of its key shortcomings:
Outliers are fit poorly due to a uniform sampling distribution. One of the strengths of DeepAR is that it aggregates information from many time series’ to develop a prediction for a single unit e.g. a user. If all units have an equal chance of being sampled, outliers are smoothed over and our forecasted values become less extreme (and probably less accurate). RNN’s don’t handle temporal scaling well. Over time, time series data often exhibit overall trends — just think about your favorite (or least favorite) stock during COVID. These temporal trends make fitting our model more difficult because it has to remove this trend when fitting, then add it back to our model output. That’s a lot of unnecessary work.
DeepAR solves both of these problems.
How does DeepAR Work?
Building on RNN architecture, DeepAR uses LSTM cells to fit our predictor variables to our variable of interest. Here’s how…
Sequence to Sequence Encoder-Decoder
First, to make our data more usable we leverage a sequence to sequence encoder-decoder. This method takes a set of n inputs, encodes those inputs with a neural net, then outputs m decoded values.
Fun fact — they’re the backbone of all language translation algorithms, such as Google Translate. So, using figure 3 below, let’s think about this method through the lens of translating english to Spanish.
Figure 3: graphical representation of a sequence to sequence encoder-decoder. Image by author.
Here, each of the x_n values in blue are inputs to our model i.e. english words. They are sequentially fed into an RNN which encodes their information and outputs it as an encoder vector (in yellow). The information the encoder vector is represented as a weight vector for our hidden state. From there, our encoder vector is fed into our decoder, which is a RNN. The final output, labeled y_n in green, are the Spanish words.
Pretty cool, right?
Scale According to our Data
Second, we tackle the two problems that make basic LSTMs inferior to DeepAR: uniform sampling and temporal scaling.
Both of these are handled using a scaling factor. The scaling factor is a user-specified hyperparameter but the recommended value is simply the average value of a given time series:
Figure 4: formula for the default scaling factor used in DeepAR — the average value of an individual time series. Image by author.
To handle the uneven sampling of extreme values, we make the sampling probability proportional to v_i. So, if the average value for a given time series is high, it’s more likely to be sampled and visa versa.
To handle temporal scaling, we divide the inputs at each LSTM cell by v_i. By scaling our values down before inputting them into each cell, our model can focus on the relationships between our predictor and outcome variables instead of fitting the time trend. After the cell has fit our data we multiply its output by v_i to return our data to its original scale.
Less cool but still pretty cool. Just one more section to go…
Fit using a Likelihood Function
Third and finally, with all of our data intricacies handled, we fit by maximizing the conditional probability of our dependent variable given our predictors and model parameters (figure 5). This estimator is called the Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE).
Figure 5: simplified DeepAR likelihood function. Image by author.
The simplified expression above is what we are looking to maximize — we want to find the model parameters (θ) that maximize the probability of our dependent variable (z). We also condition on our covariates (x_t) and the output of our prior node (z_t-1).
So, given our covariates and the predicted value at the prior timestep, we find the parameter values that maximize the likelihood of making the observations given the parameters.
Now the likelihood also includes a data transformation step, but from a comprehension and implementation standpoint, it’s not super important. If you’re curious, check out the paper linked in the comments.
And there you have it — DeepAR in a nutshell. Before you go here are some practical tips on implementing the method…
Implementation Notes | https://towardsdatascience.com/deep-learning-for-time-series-data-ed410da30798 | ['Michael Berk'] | 2021-08-04 13:13:06.349000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Time Series Forecasting', 'Deep Learning', 'Time Series Analysis'] |
House: The Complete Collection (1986–1992) • Blu-ray [Arrow Video] | For instance, Cobb mentions to a realtor that he grew up in his aunt’s home, then flashbacks I presumed were of a young Cobb were actually of his son. So why was he living in his aunt’s house as an adult with his child? And considering his aunt was aware the place was haunted years ago in that same flashback, why does he think it’ll be a great idea to move into the house now? And why did his aunt commit suicide only recently, if she’s supposedly been living with these ghosts for years? Didn’t she grow accustomed to them?
House does a poor job of setting up its simple premise: a horror author suffering post-traumatic stress faces paranormal activity in the home of his late aunt. There are also very random moments that don’t make much sense or suggest intriguing things that are never returned to. I laughed at a moment when a realtor absentmindedly shot a harpoon at Cobb’s head mid-conversation, which embeds itself inches away from his face in a wooden pillar. The realtor’s so nonchalant about almost killing a famous client that it suggests something is very wrong with him, or he’s someone to take note of… but his character’s never seen again! It was just a throwaway gag?
In another moment, Cobb wears army fatigues while arranging a bank of cameras intending to capture a monster lurking in a closet on tape… but when he pulls open the door by tugging on a rope he bolts from the house and runs out into the garden in broad daylight. There was just no need for that reaction. It may sound trivial, but there are too many moments when Cobb does something illogical, so you stop believing in him as a real person. He’s too inconsistent and stupid; a badly written character in an amateurish script that doesn’t know how best to handle a decent premise that marries The Shining to The Evil Dead (1981). | https://medium.com/framerated/house-1986-house-ii-the-second-story-1987-house-iii-the-horror-show-1989-house-iv-aed84e599168 | ['Dan Owen'] | 2020-11-22 18:43:25.742000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Arrow Video', 'Culture', 'Review', 'Film'] |
Things I’ve heard as a Young Black Women, Far Too Many Times | Image: Tattoflex.com
At this point, it’s just ignorance
I live in a quiet state, where if you were to ask the people around if racism existed, they’d simply tell you “no.” But racism does exist. It’s only covert. It’s hidden through expression, calculated movements and speech. I am only seventeen and yet I know that my experience with racism is far from over.
Over the years, I’ve experienced a handful (luckily) of comments that didn’t sit well with me as a black person and especially as a black women. Some make me laugh looking back at it because of the audacity some people had to say these things. I’ve narrowed it down to three things:
“You speak incredibly well for a black person.”
I was in grade 8 when a substitute teacher said that to me. It was one of those comments where in the moment you just know it doesn’t sound right, but you’re not quite sure what’s off about it until you get home and really deep it. I assume the teacher said this because she had taught a couple ‘English as an Additional Language’ classes where a majority of the students where black kids who barely spoke English. And because of this she carried around the assumption that I were like them too.
This wasn’t a one time occurrence. Over the years I’d be told that “I speak white,” or that I “sound like a white girl/person.” And I used to never have a response to the people who would say these things to me. I would say a small “thank you,” or just smile politely because I didn’t want to come across as rude. When I am told that I sound or speak white, what I am understanding is that the way in which I speak exceeds their ingrained perception of the way in which black people speak. And this is often derived through the portrayal or black men and women in the media. The way I speak, to them, exceeds this “expectation” that the media has unconsciously and consciously set— that black people are illiterate, have broken English, or speak with a certain accent or slang to their words. And whilst some of these are true, it cannot be said for all black people. To do such as thing is unfair and belittling.
When I am told by somebody that I “sound white” to me they’re saying that white=intelligence. That being told that you “sound white” is in fact a compliment. But why is that?
My response now to the statement, “You sound like a white person,” is: “How does a white person sound like exactly?” And I sit back and watch them squirm for an answer.
“Can I touch your hair?”
I’ve had this conversation with a couple of my black friends before on how they felt when asked by others if they could touch their hair, and the answer was unanimous: uncomfortable.
Hair is an integral part to being a black women (and black person in general). It is undoubtedly apart of our identity. As black women, having the ability to change our hairstyles as often as we’d like, in any color that we’d please, is indeed a superpower. But this feeling and expressive joy that I have about my hair is only recent.
I cannot tell you the nerves I would feel when I was in primary school and I was walking to school with a new hairstyle. My mind would think: “Would they like it?” “Are they going to laugh?” “Will they recognize me?” It felt like a burden. I hated that I couldn’t just have the same hairstyles all year like everybody else. And the worst part of it was when people would just come up and feel my head.
You know when you’re walking down the street or whatever, and you see a cute dog with it’s owner and you ask the owner, “Can I pet your dog?” And depending on the owner they’ll say yes or no? It was like that for me, except people didn’t give me time to say yes or no and just felt my head.
It’s an almost dehumanizing experience. I understand that some people don’t mind it at all, and in fact like it. But for me it felt like I was a petting zoo or something. People would just straight up pat my hair and feel around. And I was too afraid to say no because I didn’t want to seem mean.
Okay you know what I get it. I get the fascination with black hair and I understand the inquisitive questions, but there is nothing you could ask me that google couldn’t tell you. If you’re really that inquisitive on my hair, and why it is as it is, go on Youtube.
And lastly, “You’re pretty for black girl”
This is the one that makes me laugh when I hear it. I just, it completely baffles me that some people say this and don’t think for a second that it doesn’t sound stupid as hell. I want to clarify to anybody reading this, that this is not a compliment. Let me dissect the comment for a second.
If I had just been told that I was pretty, I wouldn’t have minded it (I mean, whose going to get angry at that). It’s the “for a black girl” part of the comment that doesn’t sit right with me. Never in my life have I said to a guy that he was “cute for (insert his race).” Never. It has always been “you’re cute,” and that’s it and that’s all.
The inclusion of somebodies race in a “compliment” heavily takes away from the “compliment.”
When I am being told that I’m “pretty for a black girl,” what I’m hearing and understanding is that the person saying it doesn’t find black girls attractive, first of all; they are not the type of girls he goes for. But here he is, coming across a black girl that he seems to find some attraction to, so his smart self wants to point it out. What I hear through that supposed “compliment” is that I happen to be one of the few black girls that he didn’t happen to find ugly. Thank you!
These are a few things that I’m sick and tired of hearing and there are far more, but I’m trying to limit how much I write because once the ball starts rolling in my head, there’s no stopping it.
— nkoso | https://medium.com/@jovitta/things-ive-heard-as-a-young-black-women-far-too-many-times-84848ca1115c | ['Jovitta Nkoso'] | 2020-12-25 12:34:51.064000+00:00 | ['Rant', 'Black', 'Black Women', 'Struggles In Life'] |
Vim isn’t That Scary | Unknown things can be frightening and usually cause resistance; Vim is no exception. Still, despite the fact that a Stack Overflow question about how to leave it has been accessed over one million times, Vim is still one of the most-used editors by developers around the world.
Many people who don’t use Vim are accustomed to other editors and think they don’t need to switch. They don’t want to leave their comfort zones. They think Vim takes too much time and effort to learn, and that it doesn’t make that much of a difference.
By taking the time to read this article, you’ve shown that you already have some type of interest in Vim. Before we see some resources that make it easier for you to learn it, let’s see the reasons why should we even consider using a text editor from the 1980s.
Why Should You Learn Vim in the First Place?
“Using Vim is one of the best choices I’ve made in my programming career.” — Lucas Oman
It’s understandable that you may need some reasons why learning Vim is worth the effort. After all, it may affect your entire workflow. Maybe it seems unreasonable to learn something that doesn’t look suitable for you.
Vim is used by almost everybody at thoughtbot, which is one of the most recommended companies in the Bay Area. That might make learning it seem more compelling. There are many other reasons worth mentioning. Let’s begin.
It‘s like playing a game
When you want to start playing a game, you don’t quit because it’s hard. You get more motivated to play it, because it gives you pleasure. Developing with Vim is similar. When you start to see that it’s fast and intuitive, you may start to enjoy the experience. You can get even more hooked on it once you learn some of the more advanced commands that increase your productivity.
No need for a mouse
Vim has many shortcuts to navigate through the code and files, which can help get rid of using your mouse at all. As a result, you don’t need to take your fingers off the keyboard, which speeds up your coding.
In other words, you can code in Vim as fast as you can type. Even the word “vim” means “energy” and “enthusiasm.”
Many powerful commands
The list of commands in Vim is pretty long. You don’t have to learn each one, all you have to do is grasp a few in the beginning and then learn new ones as you go. You may keep learning new and important things in Vim many years after your first lesson.
Highly customizable
There are configurations you can use and change based on your preferences, and hundreds of color schemes you can download. Moreover, there are a large number of plugins that enhance your editor and make it as powerful as modern IDEs.
It’s text-centered
Modern IDEs have a lot of built-in features. They come with a lot of buttons and a rich user interface to make it easier for you to use all of their functionalities. Vim, on the other hand, is generally text-centered. This makes it easier for you to focus only on the code and get rid of other distracting icons and options that aren’t code-related.
It’s in every Linux machine
The vast majority of servers use Linux as their operating system. When you’re familiar with the basics of Vim, you’ll get more comfortable with deployments and server maintenance.
These aren’t the only reasons why Vim deserves your attention, but they are some of the most important. If they resonate with you, give learning Vim a chance.
Five Free Online Resources to Learn Vim
Here are a few resources you can use to help you in your learning journey. Don’t think you’ll learn everything related to Vim at once. There are people who have been using Vim for 20 years, and they’re still learning new things.
VimTutor
If you’re using a Unix-based machine, you can go to your shell and type “vimtutor.” If you’re on Windows, you can see some of the ways to open it here.
This will give you an excellent tutorial that’ll help you learn the basics of Vim in a few minutes. When you’re done, you’ll see why Vim is amazing.
This is an interactive tutorial that you can use to get a solid understanding of the basics. You can also use it to test your existing skills.
If you like learning while playing games, this is a great resource. In this game, you can learn to use Vim commands for navigation, which are essential for you to navigate the maze. You can always type :help for a hint.
Derek Wyatt has prepared an album with 13 videos teaching Vim. These videos have been seen several thousand times and are very valuable resources. If you’re still doubting if you should learn Vim, check out these videos for more reasons.
Print this cheat sheet and leave it next to your desk. From time to time, take a few seconds to look through the list and try to use something from it. This way you can memorize new commands on the go, and also reinforce the ones you already know.
Conclusion
If you’re new to Vim, then it’s better not to try using it immediately in your work projects, because you might get frustrated and never get back to it. You should only start it in your full-time job once you’re pretty comfortable.
So, try using Vim for a few days in a side project and see how it goes. If you enjoy it, you may be a Vim user for life. | https://medium.com/better-programming/vim-isnt-that-scary-here-are-5-free-resources-you-can-use-to-learn-it-5bba109a7422 | ['Fatos Morina'] | 2019-08-20 12:00:23.346000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Software Development', 'Education', 'Productivity', 'Programming'] |
5 STEPS: HOW TO BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT USING DONALD TRUMP’S METHODS OF SUCCESS! #VOTEBRAVE | I have good and bad news for Americans, anyone can run for president as long as they are 35 years of age and a citizen of the United States of America.
After the unbelievable success story of Donald Trump a new generation was inspired to run for president, so you might be wondering how to get started.
We are going to take a deep and insightful look at Donald Trump, so you can become the next president.
This video will help you win guaranteed or this service is free.
STEP 1: Be Divisive:
Work towards dividing the people and play on identity politics. Make it so everyone hates everyone. Split the nation. Not only split the nation in half, split it in a billion pieces. Put everyone against everyone. You want to get them all emotional about who they are as a person and aspire them to hate other people. You want to have religious groups fighting each other and racial groups fighting each other. Well tension builds, play both sides.
STEP 2: Continue to divide the people by using racial slurs and offensive language. ‘
Nothing is off limits. We are all thinking it anyway and many American’s mistake racism for transparency so this is gold. Feel free to say wetback and the N word.
STEP 3: Threaten WW3 on Twitter and other social media platforms.
The smaller the country is, the better it is to threaten to destroy them. This will make you seem real tough and charismatic. Everyone will love to see you through your weight around. Use words like chinks while threatening them. Tell the Philippines is the tsunamis don’t wipe them out, you will.
STEP 4: Act like you never had a golden spoon!
Act like you were born poor and worked very hard for your success, even though you inherited a fortune from your father. Americans love a self made man, but not a self made woman. A lot of the reason people voted for Donald Trump is because of economics. People really thought he was a self made man who was poor and started with nothing. People really thought he was going to line the countries pockets with money and not just his own. Tell people you will buy them a car and Mexico will pay for it after building the WALL.
STEP 5: Have Rappers like Kenya West endorse you!
After you divide the country and say racial slurs the black community is going to be pretty pissed, but you are still going to want their vote. Luckily the black community is easy to influence threw rap music, so after saying a bunch of shit just get a famous rapper to endorse you. | https://medium.com/@lyonbrave/5-steps-how-to-be-the-next-president-using-donald-trumps-methods-of-success-votebrave-e750e274f46c | ['Lyon Amor Brave'] | 2020-12-05 19:11:28.492000+00:00 | ['Presidential Debates', 'President Trump', 'President', 'Presidential Campaign', 'Donald Trump'] |
Amal Academy One Step Closer To the Mega Project | Helping children of my Village and enable them to get an education as well as make their families living better (Just taking 1st step from my own Village)
Pakistan has over 80 million children and is suffering to fulfill their needs. Children in Pakistan are vulnerable to several development challenges impacting their safeguarding including quality of education, prevention of sexual exploitation of children, child trafficking, marriage, and labor.
Only 20.88% of children live in urban areas and have access to fundamental needs. Furthermore, 24% of the entire Pakistani population lives below the poverty line, which mainly affects rural areas. In the country, the state of the global markets is exacerbating an already very difficult economic reality. So, the rest of the children who live in rural areas are usually deprived of various resources such as clean water and food, education, and health services.
The hope for betterment
This week Amal Academy assigned us with this project in which we have to come up with the ideas for our mega project, so I thought about different plans but come up with the most familiar problem in our society, i.e the poor child labor and lake of education.
The children already doing labor have no rights. They got no health security , living style and even do not get the food for two times. I taught about taking some steps to enable these children to gain education as well as progress to developed some own business or little way of livelihood where they will not work under any authority. They will be masters of themselves.
‘’you don’t need a lot of capital to start a small business’’ | https://medium.com/@nasir-ali163/amal-academy-one-step-closer-to-the-mega-project-fbd95873a720 | ['Nasir Ali'] | 2020-12-25 12:58:57.036000+00:00 | ['Amal Fellowship', 'My Village', 'Village Life', 'Amal Academy', 'Mega Project'] |
Spicejet Sees Seats Filling Up on its New Flights | A couple of days ago, India’s number two low-cost air carrier, Spicejet, inducted two Airbus aeroplanes in its fleet on lease. Apparently, for the sake of its business growth, it could not wait any longer for the 737 Max ‘s return.
Also Read: Boeing 737 Max’s Return Unlikely in Near Future
Immediately after that, Spicejet introduced 20 new flights on its domestic routes. Not surprisingly, the ticket sales on these routes picked up fast. The demand, the intensity with which the travellers go after these routes must have surprised even the airline and other airlines like IndiGo, GoAir and Vistara must be contemplating similar moves.
For the first time on its network, Spicejet will start flights on Bengaluru-Jabalpur, Hyderabad-Mangaluru, and Mumbai-Aurangabad routes, all under UDAN. Thus, Spicejet will have 52 flights connecting 12 cities under the RCS. As per SpiceJet, the Mumbai-Bagdogra, Mumbai-Chennai, Hyderabad-Mangaluru and Guwahati-Delhi sectors will have additional frequencies of flights in the summer schedule.
The new Spicejet flight services will operate daily and will use a combination of Bombardier Q400 aircraft and Boeing 737–800.
Though the no-frills carrier, SpiceJet, says its services are under UDAN, the government’s Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), the prices have already surpassed the Rs 5000 mark on the shortest 50-min flight between Patna and Varanasi within less than 24 hours of the announcement.
Seats are filling up fast, prices head north
One city which has become the centre of attraction for the airlines in India is none other than Patna. Because of the potential of carrying out airline business here, most of the carriers are competing for some space here. There could have been even more number of flights here had the airport infrastructure kept pace with the passenger growth.
Spicejet plane at Patna. It sees a great business opportunity here
Also Read: Patna Airport Presents Golden Business Opportunities
Also Read: India’s Air Traffic Grows 3.6% in Oct; Patna Airport Leads the Way
Ganaga at Varanasi. Photo by Ashish Kumar Pandey on Pexels.com
Ganaga at Varanasi. Photo by Rohit Singh on Pexels.com
The Ganges at Patna
The bank at Ganga
The Ganga highway in Patna, when complete, will be an architectural masterpiece
Golden Temple, Amritsar. Photo by Darshak Pandya on Pexels.com
Takht Sri Harmandir SahibPatna has historical connections with Amritsar and Varanasi. While Patna and Varanasi have remained Ganga connected since the beginning of human civilisation, Amritsar and Patna have prestigious Holy shrines in common.
Find the top international flight deals up to 55% off
Book all your Flight tickets Here | https://medium.com/@airwaysnc/spicejet-sees-seats-filling-up-on-its-new-flights-39004c9e4b83 | ['Nc Airways'] | 2020-02-20 00:52:28.951000+00:00 | ['Aviation', 'News', 'Airlines'] |
Practical ML Part 2: NLP on Amazon Alexa Reviews | A project using NLP techniques to evaluate client’s reviews
This is the second post of a series in which I will implement machine learning models to put into practice the knowledge gained by taking Machine Learning courses. You can find the first post of the series here.
The dataset for the study shown in this post can be found on this link. The full notebook for this analysis can be found here.
1 — Getting to know the data
Loading the dataset:
We have 5 variables to consider on 3150 reviews.
The rating gave by the clients on the reviews, which is an integer number from 1 to 5.
gave by the clients on the reviews, which is an integer number from 1 to 5. The date of the review, an object which will further be transformed into datetime.
of the review, an object which will further be transformed into datetime. Variation of the product, which is a characteristic differing the models of the product.
of the product, which is a characteristic differing the models of the product. The full text of the reviews (verified reviews).
Most of the reviews are positive, being:
Statistics for the whole dataset:
Statistics for the positive reviews dataset:
Statistics for the negative reviews dataset:
From this initial analysis we can gather that:
Ratings from 3 to 5 are classified as positive reviews and from 1 to 2 as negative reviews
Amazon Alexa has very good reviews in general, being classified as positive 91,8% (2893 reviews).
There is a prevalence of ratings equal to 5 in the reviews.
2 — Analyzing the text from the reviews
The more the characters more words we will have for our sentiment analysis. Longer reviews are, in general, more accurate as the customer explains in detail the rating he is giving. It is therefore important to check how long the reviews are in our dataset.
Separating the dataset in two — one for positive reviews (feedback=1) and one for negative reviews (feedback = 0) — we get the following statistics, now with the information for the length:
Statistics for the positive reviews dataset:
Statistics for the negative reviews dataset:
We can conclude that:
Most of the reviews have around 300 characters.
The shortest review has 1 character and the longest review has 2851 characters.
On average, reviews are 132 characters long.
The length of the review differs, on average, if the review is positive or negative. Positive reviews are, on average, 124 characters long and negative reviews are, on average, 215 characters long.
We may conclude that, on average, people who are unhappy with the product tend to write longer reviews.
A positive review is easier to write because you can only say ‘this is a great product’ and give a high rating. When writing a negative review, the person may want to explain the reasons why he or she is not happy with the product and this requires a longer text.
Does variation of the product impact the rating given on the review?
There are 16 variations of the product in this dataset:
Plotting the variations against the ratings in a barplot we can check whether the variation of the product impacts on the reviews:
All variations had average ratings higher than 4 so we can conclude that the variation does not impact on the satisfaction of the clients with the product.
3 — Transforming the data and cleaning
Checking the size of the data to be treated
Joining all sentences in the reviews in a separate object we get a resulting object with 419,105 characters.
From these characters:
363,531 characters are in the positive reviews (86,7%)
55,573 characters are in the negative reviews (13,3%)
Wordcloud before cleaning the data
In a wordcloud, the most important words in the dataset (i.e. the words which appear more frequently) are represented in bigger characters, proportional to their frequency in the data. This is a quick visualization technique which should be used carefully. A wordcloud shouldn’t be the only outcome of an NLP study but one way to visualize the information.
Cleaning and transforming the dataset
Our analysis will take into account the words in the reviews and the feedbacks classification (positive — 1 or negative — 0). The other columns will be deleted (date, rating and length of reviews). The resulting data frame is as follows:
The ‘variation’ column must be treated for the machine learning model. Using one hot encoding we have the following numpy array:
X_cat = reviews[['variation']]
onehotencoder = OneHotEncoder()
X_cat = onehotencoder.fit_transform(X_cat).toarray() X_cat.shape (3150, 16)
Therefore, we have an X matrix containing 16 columns (the different variations of the products) and 3150 rows.
Next steps are transforming the X matrix into a data frame and concatenate it with the original data set containing only the verified reviews:
Working on the verified reviews column
To clean and prepare the verified reviews data for a machine learning model, three steps were taken:
Remove punctuation
Remove stop words such as is, are, what…
Tokenization, which means breaking down text content into its parts, which can be words, characters or sub-words.
Removing punctuation is a clear requirement, as the computer understands characters and punctuation is not useful information to perform sentiment analysis.
Stop words are also unnecessary information as they do not express any sentiment. Removing stop words also improves processing time.
Tokenizing is an important step in NLP in which the data is transformed for processing.
To implement the processes described above, some libraries must be imported:
String, for removal of punctuation.
import string
string.punctuation '!"#$%&\'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\\]^_`{|}~'
Scikit-learn’s Count Vectorizer to tokenize the data.
from sklearn.feature_extraction.text import CountVectorizer
NLTK for removing stopwords.
import nltk
from nltk.corpus import stopwords print(stopwords.words('english')) ['i', 'me', 'my', 'myself', 'we', 'our', 'ours', 'ourselves', 'you', "you're", "you've", "you'll", "you'd", 'your', 'yours', 'yourself', 'yourselves', 'he', 'him', 'his', 'himself', 'she', "she's", 'her', 'hers', 'herself', 'it', "it's", 'its', 'itself', 'they', 'them', 'their', 'theirs', 'themselves', 'what', 'which', 'who', 'whom', 'this', 'that', "that'll", 'these', 'those', 'am', 'is', 'are', 'was', 'were', 'be', 'been', 'being', 'have', 'has', 'had', 'having', 'do', 'does', 'did', 'doing', 'a', 'an', 'the', 'and', 'but', 'if', 'or', 'because', 'as', 'until', 'while', 'of', 'at', 'by', 'for', 'with', 'about', 'against', 'between', 'into', 'through', 'during', 'before', 'after', 'above', 'below', 'to', 'from', 'up', 'down', 'in', 'out', 'on', 'off', 'over', 'under', 'again', 'further', 'then', 'once', 'here', 'there', 'when', 'where', 'why', 'how', 'all', 'any', 'both', 'each', 'few', 'more', 'most', 'other', 'some', 'such', 'no', 'nor', 'not', 'only', 'own', 'same', 'so', 'than', 'too', 'very', 's', 't', 'can', 'will', 'just', 'don', "don't", 'should', "should've", 'now', 'd', 'll', 'm', 'o', 're', 've', 'y', 'ain', 'aren', "aren't", 'couldn', "couldn't", 'didn', "didn't", 'doesn', "doesn't", 'hadn', "hadn't", 'hasn', "hasn't", 'haven', "haven't", 'isn', "isn't", 'ma', 'mightn', "mightn't", 'mustn', "mustn't", 'needn', "needn't", 'shan', "shan't", 'shouldn', "shouldn't", 'wasn', "wasn't", 'weren', "weren't", 'won', "won't", 'wouldn', "wouldn't"]
Creating a function to implement the removal of punctuation and stopwords in one batch:
def cleaning(message):
text = [char for char in message if char not in string.punctuation]
text = ''.join(text)
text = [word for word in text.split() if word.lower() not in stopwords.words('english')]
return text reviews_clean = reviews['verified_reviews'].apply(cleaning)
To finish this part of the process, the data will be tokenized:
vectorizer = CountVectorizer(analyzer=cleaning) reviews_countvectorizer = vectorizer.fit_transform(reviews['verified_reviews']) reviews_countvectorizer.shape (3150, 5211)
The reviews_countvectorizer contains the data after tokenization and has the following dimensions: 3150 rows and 5211 columns. Each of these columns is a token extracted from the data.
4 — Preparing the model for Machine Learning
Now, the verified reviews column from the original dataset can be deleted, resulting in a data frame with 3150 rows and 17 columns (the 16 variations of the product and the feedback column):
reviews.drop(['verified_reviews'], axis = 1, inplace=True)
The count_vectorizer object is also transformed into a dataframe, with 3150 rows and 5211 columns
reviews2 = pd.DataFrame(reviews_countvectorizer.toarray())
reviews2
In our model the input (X matrix) will be the tokens (reviews2 dataset) and the output (y matrix , what we want to predict) will be the original dataset containing only the feedback column:
X = reviews2 y = reviews['feedback']
5 — Training and Evaluating the Model
Training the Model
Logistic regression will be used to predict the feedback from the reviews. Before training, we must split the data into test sets and training sets:
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y, test_size = 0.2)
The test size considered in the final attempt was of 20%. The first attempt considered a 15% split but the results were better with 20%.
Now, implementing logistic regression on the training data:
logistic = LogisticRegression()
logistic.fit(X_train, y_train)
Evaluating the model
For the evaluation, some scikit-learn modules were imported:
Classification report, displaying the precision, recall , f1-score and support for the model.
Accuracy score, giving the number of the correct predictions as a ratio of all predictions made by the model.
Confusion matrix to illustrate the accuracy of the model showing the wrong and right predictions for each label.
accuracy_score(y_test, y_pred) 0.946031746031746
The model has an accuracy of almost 95%, which is a good overall result. Now, analyzing the classification report:
print(classification_report(y_test, y_pred)) precision recall f1-score support
0 0.89 0.33 0.48 48
1 0.95 1.00 0.97 582
accuracy 0.95 630
macro avg 0.92 0.66 0.73 630
weighted avg 0.94 0.95 0.93 630
Each of the information presented has the following meaning:
Precision — percentage of the results which are relevant.
— percentage of the results which are relevant. Recall — percentage of total relevant results correctly classified by the model.
— percentage of total relevant results correctly classified by the model. f1-score — weighted average of precision and recall.
— weighted average of precision and recall. Support — the number of observations of that class in the training set
The model is having difficulty in identifying the negative reviews — we can see that from the recall result for class 0: only 33% of the registers are correctly estimated. We must remember that we are dealing with a very unbalanced dataset — most of the reviews are positive reviews.
Further analysis should be considered for this model. Some techniques for dealing with unbalanced datasets could be considered. This will be covered in a future post on this project. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/practical-ml-part-2-nlp-on-amazon-alexa-reviews-4b0b3a15f4bf | ['Mariana Almeida'] | 2020-12-13 16:20:40.821000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Kaggle', 'Data Science', 'NLP'] |
Looking After Your Feet When Working Remotely | The feet tend to be the most neglected part of the body. We spend most of our time caring for the body parts that need to be aesthetically pleasing, like teeth and skin, or the ones which we think do the most important jobs, like the heart. And whilst the pandemic has influenced a lot of us to become more health-conscious, we’re still neglecting our feet. However taking care of our feet is crucial now more than ever, as lockdown has had a serious impact on foot health.
Working from home has been great for many of us. We’ve had more time to relax, achieve a better work-life balance, and we’ve saved money on the daily commute too. But most of us have done a lot more sitting and a lot less moving. This means that our feet have been lying dormant for most of the day, which really isn’t good for them. Fortunately, we can still look after our feet when WFH in a number of simple ways.
Prioritise Nail Care
Toenails are actually one of the most important parts of the foot, and we could all do with spending more time looking after them. If we don’t, we could end up with some nasty infections, or even a dreaded ingrown toenail. Not only are these incredibly painful, but they can be a great expense too. My partner found this out when he had a partial nail avulsion, in which the podiatrist removed a segment of his ingrown nail to stop it from cutting into his skin. And he had to pay almost £300 for the pleasure! So it really does pay to look after your nails.
Make sure to keep your toenails trimmed, since long nails are more likely to attract bacteria and infection. And make sure to use nail clippers rather than nail scissors. Most nail scissors are designed for finger nails rather than toe nails, so you may not achieve the right cut when using them. If you struggle with trimming them, try doing it after a bath or foot soak. This is when they will be at their most soft and therefore easier to cut.
If you do think you have a problem with your toenails, make sure to go to a podiatrist straight away. It won’t go away by itself, and the earlier you get it seen to, the easier it will be to treat it.
Size Matters
Did you know that 3 out of 4 people wear the wrong size shoe? This may sound surprising, but since most adults don’t get their feet measured, it can be difficult for them to guess the right size. As well as being uncomfortable, wearing the wrong size shoe can cause some serious harm to your feet. You may just experience mild foot pain, like blisters. But wearing the wrong size for a long time can lead to more serious damage, such as stress fractures, knee pain and even foot deformities.
So whether you’re working at home wearing your best office wear or just your fluffy slippers, it’s important to make sure the size is right. When measuring your feet, make sure to do it in the afternoon after a bit of walking. This is when the foot expands to its true size. Also, make sure to measure both feet, since no two are exactly the same. If you find one to be significantly bigger than the other, make sure to buy the size that suits the biggest foot. And most importantly, make sure it feels comfortable.
Even if the size is right on the label, it might not feel perfect on your feet. Only you know what feels the best, so make sure to follow your gut. If you’re struggling to measure your feet, this simple step-by-step guide will help you produce the most accurate measurement.
Keep Them Moisturised
As our feet have very few oil glands and they have to carry our entire weight, it’s no surprise that they have the driest skin on our body. Whilst your cracked heels are probably not something that you’d show off, you’ve probably not been losing sleep over them. After all, a bit of dry skin is pretty harmless, right?
Well, you may be surprised to hear that dry foot skin can cause a lot of damage. You may find that it causes you a mild level of discomfort, such as itchiness or tightness. But dry and cracked skin can also lead to infections, so it’s important to get it under control. Make sure to buy the right kind of moisturiser for your feet. It has the toughest skin on your body, so you can’t use just any.
If you don’t know which cream to buy, Good Housekeeping has compiled a great list of the best value foot creams available. Once you’ve found your ideal moisturiser, remember to not use it in between your toes, as this may lead to an infection.
If you’ve been moisturising your feet but you’re still struggling with keeping on top of dry skin, you should make a visit to your GP. Dry and flaking skin can be a symptom of thyroid conditions, so it’s important to rule this out before seeking out any further treatment.
Don’t Stop Moving
This is one of the most effective ways to look after our feet, as well as our general health. It can be hard to get the motivation to get up and move when we don’t have to. Working from home has made it far easier to go an entire day without moving our feet or our bodies. But by sitting down all day, we are more likely to suffer from poor circulation.
Symptoms of poor circulation include cold and numb feet, as well as brittle nails and slow healing wounds. Poor circulation can be extremely dangerous, as it can lead to swelling, blood clots and even immobility.
So to increase circulation, make sure that you move every day. Whether you choose running, cycling or walking, any exercise is beneficial when it comes to improving circulation. To protect your feet even further, take a bit of time to do these simple stretches for strength and flexibility. What’s more, you don’t even need to leave your desk to exercise your feet. Use a tennis ball to roll your feet when working from your desk, or buy a pedal exerciser to make the most of your time sat down.
But make sure you don’t overdo it. As much as your feet need movement, they also need rest. Make sure to give yourself a day off once in a while to relax, pamper yourself, and put your feet up. If you think you need professional foot care, use the College of Podiatry’s website to find your local podiatrist. Alternatively, visit your GP to find out what treatment is right for you.
Written by Siobhan Kelly
WellBe is spearheading the way to a brighter future for corporate wellness. Our innovative portal is scientifically designed and tailored to each individual employee to improve their wellbeing. We specialise in a range of services from coaching and therapists, to meditation and reading materials. Our aim is to reduce workplace stress that costs UK businesses £42 billion per year. Get in touch with us by visiting our site wellbe.global for more information. | https://medium.com/@wellbe-global/looking-after-your-feet-when-working-remotely-f7312db263d2 | [] | 2020-12-23 08:02:14.874000+00:00 | ['Self Care', 'Feet'] |
5 Keys to Effective Mobile Conversion Rate Optimization | As marketers, we’re always seeking new ways to more effectively connect with our audiences. Over time in the marketing trenches of e-commerce, I’ve realized how critical it is to structure campaign messaging to best align with the actual needs and language of our customers. Going inside the minds of our customers often requires empathetic marketers to wear many hats.
Cue the topic of conversion rate optimization (CRO). I’ve noticed the pitfalls and lack of understanding as companies tackle this complex methodology. A CRO and testing practice can be applied to nearly every touchpoint to optimize the customer’s journey. When considering conversion rate optimization, there are nearly limitless conversion-rate-impacting opportunities as marketers. We sometimes have to ask ourselves, “What exactly do we want our customers to do?”
An important data point to be mindful of is that any site change has the potential to influence conversion rate. Simply put, there are a lot of things that you can do to get people to convert, but is the thing you’re testing something that you’re actually comfortable with? During my time formerly as a Product Marketing Manager and now as a Director of Growth at Readers.com, my team and I must often ask ourselves whether a testable hypothesis and potential outcome are right for our brands and channel mix. What may appear to be a “quick win” on the surface can pose long-term brand challenges and risk degradation to the overall ecosystem if only viewed in isolation.
As a marketer, you’ve probably asked how to gain the best results from a mobile conversion rate optimization practice and what that framework may look like. Below, I’ve laid out five essential steps to keep in mind when pursuing mobile CRO, as well as considerations that helped me in my professional testing journey.
1. Ensure You Have Data
To know anything, you need the right data infrastructure. It’s critical that you measure and monitor every action your customers are taking. If you don’t have proper instrumentation and measurement in place to track and measure variances over time, you’re flying blind and you won’t have visibility on how testing changes influence behavior.
Think of it as something akin to having people over to your house. You wouldn’t want company over to visit if your house isn’t in order. It’s the same for data. Your infrastructure must be clean, otherwise you won’t be able to determine whether what you’re testing is successful.
Perhaps the single greatest factor affecting mobile conversion is site speed and performance. Consumers are impatient, and in a world with endless alternatives, you can’t afford any site delays. At Readers.com, we maintain a deep commitment to site speed and load time optimization for this reason. You could have a great looking website, but if it’s not fast…game over.
2. Make it Friendly for the User
It’s nothing new, but your site should cater its experience to the needs of the mobile user. When individuals are shopping on their mobile devices, they exhibit different browsing behavior from desktop users. The intent-to-purchase signals also vary between desktop and mobile shoppers. A high-value feature on desktop may not necessarily translate to the mobile experience. In these instances, auditing usage data to identify “leaks” in the mobile conversion funnel can help distill top mobile conversion rate optimization opportunities.
Finding ways to extend or add value to the conversation in light of the fragmented nature of the mobile journey is also key. Tactics including mobile opt-ins, save-for-later functionality, SMS, and push notifications are great examples of ways to capture and translate initial mobile browsing to a higher value on other devices or channels to continue the conversation. Intentional messaging across multiple touch points can contribute to long-term conversion.
3. Remove Unnecessary Elements
We live in a perpetually distracted society, particularly as it pertains to mobile shopping. With this in mind, it’s essential that every page on your website caters to users’ exact needs at that specific point in their purchase cycle. Are elements structured in such a way as to maximize their chances of taking the single next desired action? If not, rethinking hierarchy and removing unnecessary elements may be worth considering. What may appear to be a negligible change on desktop can translate to dramatic gains on mobile given the limited screen real estate available. Just be mindful you don’t swing the pendulum too far, as this reductive process can also negatively impact other areas such as mobile SEO if the mobile presentation becomes sparse.
4. Reduce Friction Points
Be attentive to how much you’re asking of the customer and at what point in their journey you’re asking it. Context is critical. For example, you wouldn’t ask prospects to provide all of their information up-front while they are still browsing, since it would introduce a friction point that isn’t critical for that stage in the shopping process.
When thinking about mobile CRO, make sure that you’re always minimizing the number of inputs you’re asking for. Every input request, particularly on mobile, is asking customers to do work — and work is the enemy of conversion. Furthermore, when inputs are, in fact, needed, ensure you aren’t asking customers to repeat themselves. Where possible, save all form inputs during their session so that should they reverse the funnel and return to checkout, they are one step closer to completing their purchase.
5. Maximize the Usability
Maximizing mobile usability can take many forms, but exercising as many of these best practices as possible can all contribute to mobile CRO. For example, iterative testing will help inform whether a multi-step or single page checkout resonates most with your customers. Exploring either path and minimizing the number of steps in the checkout process can net huge lower funnel gains. Additionally, consider providing customers a guest checkout option to bypass account creation for those who aren’t quite ready to commit at that level. Lastly, leverage the correct mobile form input types to take advantage of mobile UI keyboards optimized for specific form field inputs. These optimized keyboards are there to use, but failing to define appropriate input types results in customers using the default text keyboard, which can lead to slower form completion rates and, thus, a risk to conversion.
Customers First—Always
With these mobile conversion rate optimization tips in hand, it’s time to engage your own customer base and seek out data that can provide the answers you’ll need for success. Test, test, test — and don’t be afraid to push limits. Remember, though, to put your customers first by knowing what makes them move down the funnel instead of away. Mobile CRO is an ever-evolving practice. As marketers, the onus is on us to grow with it to challenge our assumptions and continually test hypotheses to maximize results. Enjoy the journey!
Jon Corwin leads the Growth team at Readers.com | https://medium.com/element-three/5-keys-to-effective-mobile-conversion-rate-optimization-29ca365208ae | ['Element Three'] | 2018-05-18 13:31:01.771000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Conversion Optimization', 'UX', 'Digital Marketing', 'Mobile'] |
Quick guide to scientific research poster presentations | A scientific research poster (or conference poster) is a tool that researchers use to present information in a structured way.
It may be used instead of a talk and can often prove more effective, particularly in a situation where a researcher doesn’t feel confident presenting in front of large audiences.
One of the key advantages to using a scientific research poster is that it allows the researcher to interact with their audience in a one-on-one or small group setting. This gives the researcher plenty of opportunities to measure the reaction to their findings and listen to important feedback from their audience.
That audience might consist of colleagues within the same field, fellow scientists in a different field, or members of the public who have no background in conducting or analyzing scientific research. It’s crucial that the researcher tailors the information within their poster to suit the intended readers’ level of ability.
While a scientific research poster may be primarily used within a conference setting, where the researcher is on hand to elaborate and discuss their method and findings, the poster should also be able to stand alone. It might be left on display following the event, so it needs to include all the relevant information that a reader could be looking for.
What to include in your scientific research poster
To meet the expectations of your audience and provide them with thorough but concise insight into your work, your scientific research poster should include:
A heading
An introduction
Your research method
The results
Your recommendations/conclusion
Your name
Your contact details
Funding acknowledgements
Institutional affiliation
You should also prepare:
A short verbal explanation of your research
Handouts that accompany the poster
Design tips for your scientific research poster
Now that you have a good understanding of what a scientific research poster is and what it should include, it’s time to look at how to design one that’s appealing and effective.
Your scientific research poster should be a simplified version of your full research paper. But, rather than just cutting and pasting sections of text from your paper, you should carefully consider how best to present the information in a visually appealing way.
Your poster should be attractive and attention-grabbing, but you also need to ensure that it’s easy to read and follow.
Try to focus on just two or three major points, and limit the word count. Leave plenty of white space, and use charts and visuals wherever possible.
Here are our top tips and tricks for designing an effective scientific research poster that stands out:
1. Catch their attention with a big headline
It’s important that you stand out among your rival researchers if you want to arouse interest in your work. To catch the attention of passers-by, use a large, bold font and leave plenty of white space around your heading. Choose a heading that highlights the most interesting aspect of your research.
2. Keep it simple with a plain background
When a document contains too much clutter, it can cause confusion and distract us from where we should be focusing our attention. Use dark type on a light, plain background, and your scientific research poster will be easy to read.
Here’s an example of a poster with dark text on a light background.
3. Use no more than three colors
Too many colors can wreak havoc on our eyes. The rule of three is simple to follow, and it produces stunning results. It’s simple: pick one key color, then pick two other complementary colors. As long as you don’t put three strong colors together, you can’t really go wrong.
4. Choose easy-to-read fonts
Fonts like Georgia, Helvetica, Open Sans and Verdana are all popular choices for print materials. Try running a test print of your poster and looking at it from a few steps away. If you can’t read the text, try a larger size or a simpler, bolder typeface.
5. Use small blocks of text
Your scientific research poster should tell an engaging story, but it’s essential that you keep it brief. Long rambling paragraphs and big clumps of data won’t make anyone happy, especially not when they’re standing in a crowded conference room. Use short sentences and paragraphs, and keep your text blocks small. If you need to, you can go into more detail in the handout and the short verbal explanation you prepare for the event.
Here’s an example of a poster with small blocks of text.
6. Add simple data displays & visuals
Any scientific research poster that’s worth its salt will contain photos, visuals and charts that present the data in an appealing way. Many of us are visual learners, and it is these details — the graphics — that will really help your reader understand and appreciate your work. Ensure all graphics are a high resolution and are captioned with a brief explanation.
Make it simple with Lucidpress
To get started designing your scientific research poster now, sign up for a free account with Lucidpress. Our drag-and-drop editor makes it simple for anyone to customize our free, professionally designed templates or create their very own design from scratch.
As if that wasn’t enough, our cloud-based storage makes collaborating easier than ever before. You can forget the hassle of sending PowerPoint, InDesign or Illustrator files back and forth — with Lucidpress, your team can make updates in real-time and you’ll each have access to the latest version at all times. Once you’re done, you can download your poster in print-ready files or order a glossy print version directly from Lucidpress.
You’ve already worked hard on your research. Let us simplify the design process.
About Sophie Livingston
Sophie Livingston is a freelance copywriter and digital marketing consultant who works with small businesses to improve their presence online. She’s a puppy mamma and self-declared chocolate addict who’s trying her very best to stop buying so many books. | https://medium.com/lucidpress/quick-guide-to-scientific-research-poster-presentations-462229bb7234 | [] | 2018-01-10 21:34:28.055000+00:00 | ['Presentations', 'Design', 'Presentation Design', 'Education', 'Print'] |
If You Failed to Get a Job, You Are Not Alone | If You Failed to Get a Job, You Are Not Alone
How industry titans have contextualized and dealt with failure
When you get rejected from a job, you get the impression that you are a failure, the only person who didn’t manage to get that, that you are doomed.
You beat yourself up.
However, if you look at the data, it is hard to find someone who never failed, or was never rejected.
In this category, we include people who also currently amaze us with the work that they have done. | https://medium.com/better-programming/if-you-failed-to-get-a-job-you-are-not-alone-66c074b211ed | ['Fatos Morina'] | 2020-12-16 15:04:54.705000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Programming', 'Startup', 'Life', 'Technology'] |
How to take advantage of social networks to increase sales of your business? | The Peruvian consumer has changed over the years. Now, new technologies have made it more watery, always looking to be informed before purchasing a new product and compare to the wide range of offers, especially in social networks. Given this scenario, what should companies do to attract customers on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube?
A study by Kantar TNS said that 94% of Peruvian consumers buy a product based on what they find on the Internet and 50% check information on their smartphones only when they are in the store. In addition, 80% of consumers watch online videos before purchase, related to the product offered by the brand, as well as the experience of other users with it.
Given this, Martin Salirrosas, CEO of ReponGO, a marketing-focused startup for SMEs and that is being accelerated by LIQUID Venture Studio, comments that “the Peruvian consumer has become a more demanding one, because they are more informed, those who It makes them open to new products. This complicates companies when retaining them in order to retain them with a brand, since they are no longer surprised by them, becoming more active when claiming for a product. The increase in competition, both national and international, causes the purchase decision to be more dynamic for the consumer. This is reflected in that 73% of entrepreneurs revealed, according to Arellano Marketing, that their customers have changed in the last five years, becoming more prone to new proposals and product offerings”.
The study also revealed that most Peruvians prefer to have a digital assistant to help them buy, view prices and buy food at home. Faced with this, companies must discover those key moments when buyers need help and how to be useful at all stages of the journey until purchase.
If what is sought then is to attract customers and increase sales using technology and the high reach of social networks such as Facebook and Instagram, Julio Talledo, Digital Break Manager recommends the following:
Know your ideal user or client
The customer always has different motivations to generate a purchase. Do we know what you are looking for, at what time and why you should buy us and not the competition? Knowing the user will allow us to act quickly and strategically, providing the value proposition of our product or service, at the right time and attending to the motivation for which you are looking to generate a transaction.
Focus on Instagram
The growth of Instagram is indisputable and is positioned today as the best platform to offer products and services because of the great scope and interaction that it generates between brands and users. Focus should be placed on micro influencers, as they generate engagement with the audience and can help in the purchase decision.
Testimonials
When making a purchase, users often research and search your business on Google or read comments on your Facebook page. Remember to spread the experiences to position positive content about your product or service. What other users say is more credible, look for the most suitable photo or video format to communicate it.
Quick response
It should be remembered that a positive shopping experience can be born from a quick and effective response in social networks. Customer service is key and will depend on the operational capacity of your company and the importance you give to each sales channel. An average user expects their response to be answered within 40 minutes.
Finally, let’s always be clear about the objective pursued in social networks. From here, it sets particular objectives for each social network; The interaction itself may not help you if it does not result in a business or commercial objective. Remember that all channels are different and that audiences behave differently. | https://medium.com/@aleb/how-to-take-advantage-of-social-networks-to-increase-sales-of-your-business-8f1565f4d049 | ['Alejandro Brega'] | 2019-11-15 17:21:49.254000+00:00 | ['Startups', 'Business'] |
Free CPU on EOS: Newdex Creates New Solution For Traders | Over the past two weeks, the EOS community has been struggling with the ability to do transactions on the EOS mainnet, due to a new token mining mechanism.
The new token, EIDOS, is “mined” by transferring EOS tokens to a smart contract which then sends the EOS tokens back, along with EIDOS tokens.
This massive increase in mining EIDOS tokens has created CPU congestion, in which regular transactions now require enormous amounts of EOS to be staked to CPU in order for transactions to go through.
The whole EOS community has been wondering,
“Is there anything we can do right now to alleviate the CPU congestion issue?”
Throughout the CPU congestion issues, and other things that have been happening on EOS lately, Newdex https://newdex.vip/ has been transparently announcing what problem is going on and issues statements that explain what they’re doing to fix it. If you’re in EOS right now, all the focus is on CPU. While there are fixes coming, a few solutions have been cropping up, and Newdex recently created a free CPU solution for traders as outlined below.
Here’s the new solution for free CPU that I successfully tested today:
I used the mobile Token Pocket wallet and went to the “discover” page in Token Pocket. I found Newdex and then clicked the box that says “CPU free pending order”:
Then I clicked on the button ‘Buy’ after filling in my order details. My trade went through even though I have close to zero CPU. Newdex gives everyone 3 free CPU trades per day on mobile, no matter how much CPU you have staked. Newdex VIPs get more free CPU, based on their account levels as shown below:
This is only for mobile right now. I used an account that has close to zero EOS staked to test this free CPU Newdex trades feature. It does work as long as you’re on mobile. Desktop doesn’t work right now for this free CPU solution. Mind you, this free CPU solution is only for those doing trades on Newdex. If you want to do normal transfers, use bloks.io.
More details can be found here: https://newdex.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035789732-Place-Order-with-Free-CPU-for-Newdex-VIP
The CPU congestion is certainly challenging for everyone. As I learn about more solutions to this, I will let you know in future articles. | https://medium.com/@stellabelle/free-cpu-on-eos-newdex-creates-new-solution-for-traders-ef439a3b3a09 | [] | 2019-11-19 18:32:15.415000+00:00 | ['Eos', 'Cpu', 'Decentralized', 'Decentralized Exchange', 'Startup'] |
No quiero likes, ni reacciones, quiero verdades. | 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/impact-hub-san-jose/no-quiero-likes-ni-reacciones-quiero-verdades-fd5feb898c78 | ['Humana Creativa'] | 2020-12-21 15:53:12.080000+00:00 | ['Acnur', 'Impact Hub', 'Refugees', 'Impact', 'Social Impact'] |
1(888) 256 1911 Zoom.us/forgot_password — Reset your Zoom Password | Zoom.us/forgot_password — Reset your Zoom Password
Zoom.us/forgot_password
If you want to download Zoom App Zoom for window, Zoom App Download for pc, mac, Ipad, Android, Ubuntu, Linux, and browser extension for Zoom App Click Here Zoom App download
oh, I forgot My Zoom Password.
What!
Don’t Worry, Read this post
If you forget your Zoom password, you can easily reset it.
Before password reset
Have an activated Zoom account with email and login password
Password requirement
8 characters or more
One or more characters (a, b, c …)
One or more numbers (1, 2, 3 …)
Contain both upper and lower case letters
However, the following passwords can not be registered.
Enter with only one type of character (11111111 or aaaaaaaa)
Enter as consecutive numbers or characters (12345678 or abcdefgh)
Password change method
Move to zoom.us / forgot_password
Enter your email address.
Click Send.
Next Display will be shown like –
You will receive an email with a link to reset your password. Click on the email link.
Enter a new password.
Enter your new password again to confirm.
Click Save .
. Your password will be reset and you will be able to log in to the Zoom web portal. Click [ Go to my meeting ] to go to the web portal.
Note: You will receive an email notifying you that your password has been reset.
Common Zoom password Reset Problem- Should be Known
The case where the password can not be changed
The Zoom account does not exist
If you receive a message stating that your account does not exist when you try to reset your password, this means that the Zoom system has your work email address associated with the email address you entered and your login password is Means no.
Please check the following points again.
Verify that your email address is entered correctly
Try logging in with Google or Facebook
If you have a Business or Education account, try logging in using Single Sign-On (SSO) with your vanity URL (eg zoom.us)
Resetting a New Password
Forgot your password? No worries. The reset password option is a viable solution for your problem if you are the owner of your account. Follow the steps given below to change your password.
Follow the link zoom.us/forgot_password to change your account password.
Type your mail address in the box. Select Send to get an email. | https://medium.com/@elizbeths024/zoom-us-forgot-password-reset-your-zoom-password-45ebe412c58b | ['Elizbeth Smith'] | 2021-03-09 12:52:57.122000+00:00 | ['Zoom', 'Forgot', 'Password'] |
Global OTC Analgesic Market Analysis | The global oral OTC analgesics market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 4.61% during the forecast period, 2019–2028. The growth of the market is attributed to the increasing demand for topical analgesics.
Analgesics are the counter pain drugs which support in regulating a pain until and unless it is completely eliminated. OTC analgesic drugs are used by people without any need of prescription. Analgesics which do not require doctor’s prescription are classified as OTC analgesics. OTC analgesics are available in brand and generic preparations as tablets, capsules, creams, sprays, and patches. These OTC analgesics constitute three active ingredients namely paracetamol, ibuprofen, and aspirin.
Paracetamol is a most commonly used OTC analgesic. Its analgesic property is similar to that of aspirin and ibuprofen. It does not carry any anti-inflammatory effects. Paracetamol prevents prostaglandin synthesis within the central nervous system. It is the first choice of analgesic for pain management. Common side-effects associated with paracetamol are hypersensitivity, rare cases of blood dyscrasias (including thrombocytopenia and agranulocytosis). Aspirin is another common OTC analgesic. It is analgesic, antipyretic, antiplatelet, and anti-inflammatory. The inhibition of cyclooxygenase results in analgesic effect of aspirin. Incompatible effects of aspirin are epigastric pain, gastrointestinal ulceration, nausea and vomiting, hypersensitivity, and gout.
Market Drivers
Increasing demand of topical analgesics, which are available as pain-relieving creams, lotions, rubs, gels, and sprays, has increased the sales of analgesics by 18 percent. According to Kline Non-prescription Drugs US report, increasing geriatric population worldwide, will generate the demand for pain relief products. According to the US Census Bureau, between 2012 and 2050, the United States will experience considerable growth in its older population. Thus, the growth in geriatric population is driving the growth of the global OTC analgesics market.
Additionally, the cost efficiency of OTC analgesics drugs is also responsible for fuelling the growth of the market.
Visit https://insights10.com/ for more healthcare industry insights. | https://medium.com/@insightss10/global-otc-analgesic-market-analysis-4576bcb494ec | [] | 2021-12-29 09:36:49.454000+00:00 | ['Healthcare Industry', 'Otc Analgesic', 'Market Research Reports', 'Market Research', 'Healthcare'] |
Quality of Life Updates, 18 March 2019 | We made a list of smaller improvements and bug fixes last week. Some are tweaks to how tags work in the extension and dashboard to accommodate how you might use the new tag suggestions feature, others are bug fixes and a long overdue domain tweak to password reset.
See the list of quality of life updates below:
Password Reset: password reset page now uses markd.co domain
Password Reset: after a password is reset, the user is re-directed to the login page
Password Reset: fixed a bug that prevents the system from recognising certain email addresses
List: when a new list is created while marks are selected, the selected marks are added to the new list without having to click on the Add button
List: list now prevents accidental new lists being created with empty list names
Tag: pressing the Enter key when a suggested tag is highlighted with the arrow key will now add the suggested tag instead of what’s typed in the tag field
Tag: the last tag that’s typed in the tag field is automatically saved without the user having to press the Enter key when they click away from or tap out of the tag field
Page: page title now updates when navigating between pages to show the current title
Back button: back button should now return you to the marks page if you enter a mark page via the extension
As always, please feel free to leave your feedback and comments below so we can make Markd a personal CRM tool that works best for you! | https://medium.com/@thebrandonwu/quality-of-life-updates-18-march-2019-169507738636 | ['Brandon Wu'] | 2019-03-18 21:39:34.224000+00:00 | ['LinkedIn', 'Personal Crm', 'CRM', 'Social Crm', 'Networking'] |
Building BWN: Blue Whale X KB Financial Group | MOU signing ceremony between Blue Whale Global and KB Financial Group at Korea Fintech Week 2019
Blue Whale Global and KB Financial Group, a top market leader in South Korea’s financial services sector, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the collaborative creation and development of KB Financial Group’s online-to-offline reservation and payment service platform, tentatively titled Liiv Place.
As the exclusive blockchain partner of KB Financial Group, Blue Whale Global will be in charge of developing the overall framework of the online-to-offline reservation and payment service, utilizing CLAYON, KB Financial Group’s existing cloud infrastructure platform under the partnership. It is expected that future phases of the collaboration may include potential development of a new payment solution that will be aligned with KB Financial Group’s current direct payments. Through this partnership, both companies will be in cooperation to jointly develop and promote the fintech service and drive new businesses related to the platform.
KB Financial Group and Blue Whale Global will also be collaborating on the marketing and promotional efforts of the launch of the new fintech service at the Korea Fintech Week 2019, where a demo version of the new Liiv Place platform will be made available at the KB Financial Group’s booth.
Held at Seoul Dongdaemun Design Plaza from 23 to 25 May 2019, Korea Fintech Week 2019 is organised by South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) and is the country’s first global fintech expo, aimed to vitalize the local fintech industry and support financial innovation. In efforts to explore new growth engines and support the development of fintech within the local financial industry, FSC aims to develop the event into an annual, major fintech event in Asia.
The expo covers five key objectives: global networking; fintech revitalisation; fintech investment expansion; employment creation; and public experiential diffusion. Hosted at the expo’s fintech-themed pavilion, participating fintech companies will promote services and conduct experiential programs based on the above-mentioned objectives. Other programs for participants and visitors will also include key personnel speeches; dialogues between different governmental bodies; international seminars; ideation competitions; and introductory events to fintech investments and sandbox models.
“Through this MOU, Blue Whale Global will actively cooperate with KB Financial Group for the successful launch of the Liiv Place platform. In the future, we want to provide tools and systems that enable individuals to create and secure unique market values within their own capabilities via convergence technology solutions and smart city platforms,” said Will Lee, CEO of Blue Whale Global.
Blue Whale Global has recently launched the beta testing phase for an exclusive game evaluation application for Samsung Electronics devices and commenced a partnership with Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority (IFEZ) to build and develop a blockchain collaboration hub at Songdo for research and development purposes. Through these partnerships, Blue Whale intends to provide convergence technology solutions based on blockchain technology to various economic entities, including individual businesses and small and medium enterprises. | https://medium.com/blue-whale-foundation/building-bwn-blue-whale-x-kb-financial-group-110a50b3d006 | [] | 2019-05-24 05:51:43.032000+00:00 | ['Bwx', 'Partnerships', 'Fintech', 'Blockchain', 'Blue Whale Global'] |
Introducing Bitfolio 2 | Version 2 of Bitfolio is here, it’s amazing and it’s already available for download on the App Store. 🙌
It’s not long ago that version 1 was officially released (September) but the quick adoption and the awesome amount of feedback received, gave us only one option: increase the development rate.
So here we are, we packed a lot of new features, most of them requested by you guys (and we love it!), changed almost everything in the app and I’m so happy and proud to be able to announce this new version.
Here is a quick overview of what’s changed, what’s new, and what’s coming next.
More coins 🎉
We heard you! Bitfolio now supports the top 100 coins on CoinMarketCap, and we will be able to add many more in the near future without having to submit a new release.
Redesigned Portfolio 🤩
Adding more coins resulted in having to remove the historic graph in the Portfolio tab 😔 , we couldn’t find a reliable data source for it.
We are hoping to bring it back soon hopefully.
On the other side, we now have a gorgeous pie chart displaying all of your assets, tapping on a slice it’s possible to view more informations about the coin.
New Assets screen 😍
You will love this: all your assets displayed on a beautiful single screen packed with insights and informations.
But there is more, tapping on the asset, will show the asset’ transactions.
And since we were at it, we even added gains for every single transaction and the price of a single coin paid at the time.
New Ticker pairs ✌️
When adding a new ticker, you can now select any pair supported by the exchange.
What’s next 🧐
Many new features are in our backlog including:
Exchange transactions sync
Ticker widget
TouchID / FaceID
Assets location & filtering
More coins, exchanges and language support
And much more.
Contribute 😊
Check out the Bitfolio roadmap and vote / comment on features, your input will be important to decide what next feature should be developed first.
You can also send any feedback and request directly to us via email or twitter.
Thank you ❤️
So much!
Most of this it’s been possible because of your support, please don’t stop sending feedback and feature requests.👏
Please consider sharing Bitfolio with your friends and coworkers, it would help us tremendously.
Stay up to date with crypto currencies news & Bitfolio updates: | https://medium.com/bitfolioapp/introducing-bitfolio-2-eb456718eb41 | ['Francesco Pretelli'] | 2018-01-10 18:51:51.833000+00:00 | ['Apple', 'iOS', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Apps'] |
Doing what you love | Year 2020 has been a complete imagination of things which I never thought will happen. A year of lot of events, defining a new way to live the life, where hanging out with friends is less common but rather an exception, changing work environments, moving to remote working situations, blurring the concept of time for some. But this year has also given the much needed time to reflect on yourself.
Over the last couple of years, I have been constantly finding myself in situations where I will like to leave certain things in between even though they are easy as anything, while not letting go off things which come with a tremendous amount of challenges. This writeup is a self reflection of why I have always found myself in such situations, why I felt like leaving certain things half way, while sticking to the other ones no matter what, and I guess a lot of you might be able to relate to this.
Doing what you love
Every one of us have something which we love. For which we are passionate about, it could be swimming, dancing, cooking, writing, and what not, and when we are doing those things, we don’t want to be disturbed. We can’t stop talking enough about them. That passion just reflects when we do those things. For me, this passion is about solving problems through the help of software’s. It’s about building software’s that solve the problems people face, building products which people want to use.
Start a conversation with me about software engineering, and I can talk hours and hours about it, including what I like, different experiences, how we solved challenges, what I wish can be improved. It just happens naturally.
Being in a position, where building software solutions is my day-to-day job, what can be more awesome than that for me? Yes, I am excited. Is this excitement present every day? Oh, hell yes!
But what you are passionate for demands much more than just being passionate. Following your passion requires a lot of perseverance, an ability to fight back and doing things which are right and not just what you are told to do and to be honest, I do feel frustrated when something I love is sub-par, with no plans for improvements. It just feels deceiving and not genuine enough.
Playing the top game
When you are so much interested in doing something, you naturally try to up the game. Try to deliver to the best of your capacity and at times even exceeding what you thought you can do. For me, I just love it. At times when I am working on things, there are plenty of ideas that keep coming up, even when a feature or a product has shipped, the thoughts about how this can be made more useful, can we add something which will make this easy to use. As someone who is passionate about what I build, I will also want to see the people who use what I built to have a pleasant experience.
This also brings in another aspect, I like to work in an environment where there are challenges. I usually get bored easily when things are just pretty much instructional in nature, do this to achieve this. While building software solutions, I am not just interested in how I can translate a given engineering design into code, I am interested in the whole thing. Maybe I am not yet accustomed to it, but I want to be there, see the process of how that design came into existence, rather than being told, this is what we should do.
For what I love to do, I want to improve upon it and not be done with “I think this should serve the purpose”
Not backing down
Challenges can come up anytime, how we respond to them defines our commitment. When you really want to do something, you don’t see challenges as the end of the road, you see them as an opportunity to level up.
This happens quite frequently with me. Sometimes when working to build something, there have been enough times when we have hit roadblocks. But somehow, they just feel like a steppingstone and not something unachievable. At times, I have found myself just looking there trying to figure out, why this thing is not working or thinking, this doesn’t seem to be something which has happened due to something I did, so it’s not my problem. Oh! I am damn interested in whatever has caused it. Maybe, it will take some time to solve it, but I definitely want to know what went wrong. This just prompts me into hours long debugging sessions, and when they are done, I am not a little bit tired.
There has been times when things are so much screwed up and it feels like, nothing is working, but when you are really interested in them, you don’t back down, rather you come at them with even more energy and curiosity, diving into areas which have never ventured into earlier and eventually solving the problems which you thought were unsolvable. And that feeling of satisfaction is just unimaginable.
So, when you are about to give up, you might just be close enough to the solution to keep continuing on it.
Doing what you love brings a different amount of energy, when you accomplish something which helps you reach those goals, that feeling is just great. Even though things may go wrong, you don’t feel insecure, because you build that confidence that you can turn those lows around, and even though not everything goes as per the plans, they seem like a lesson and not something which is the end of the tunnel. If you are someone trying hard to accomplish what you have been really passionate about, all the best! Things might get tough, but they will surely turn out great. | https://medium.com/@saurabhbadhwar/doing-what-you-love-9908bf492d9e | ['Saurabh Badhwar'] | 2020-12-13 17:28:04.896000+00:00 | ['Lessons', 'Passion', 'Energy', 'Work', 'Not Stepping Down'] |
The Most Important Thing Joe Biden Will Give Back to the United States | The Most Important Thing Joe Biden Will Give Back to the United States
Image: Joe Biden — Reuters
The election of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States is a message of hope sent to all supporters of democracy. Joe Biden’s victory is good news that goes far beyond the Democratic camp.
If the blue wave hoped for by the Democratic Party did not take place, Joe Biden’s victory has gained momentum over the past week. Biden won 306 electoral votes and 78 million votes.
No candidate in the U.S. presidential election had ever received more than 69 million votes. The previous record belonged to Barack Obama in 2008.
Joe Biden has avoided triumphalism because he knows the big challenges that lie ahead
But Biden has avoided triumphalism because he knows that the task ahead of him will be a delicate one.
Indeed, Joe Biden will have to work to reconcile two Americas that appear more divided than ever even though Donald Trump obtained 72 million votes in this presidential election.
This huge figure shows that Trumpism is a trend that will last in American politics. Donald Trump’s ideas will survive his defeat at the hands of Joe Biden.
In 2016 against Hillary Clinton, when he had obtained the same number of electors as Joe Biden this year, Donald Trump spoke of “landslide”. America was entering a phase of exaggeration that Donald Trump would serve his supporters and the media for four years.
Less communication, more action with Joe Biden
With Joe Biden, the style will be radically different. Less communication, and more action.
A more conventional style that will undoubtedly give better results for Joe Biden and the United States. Even though Donald Trump continues to refuse to concede defeat to Joe Biden, Joe Biden’s main problem lies elsewhere today.
Joe Biden realizes that the Senate should remain Republican. This will be decided in the second round of the election in Georgia on January 5, 2021. Two seats will be at stake, but everything seems to indicate that the Senate will remain Republican.
This could seriously handicap Joe Biden’s room for maneuver. The major economic reforms in his program, which were aimed at reducing inequality in the United States, may never be voted on.
With a Donald Trump showing us every day a little more than the race for the 2024 presidential election has already begun, Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, will do everything to make Joe Biden’s presidency as difficult as possible.
Joe Biden’s victory is already a success for American democracy
Despite this, Joe Biden’s victory already represents an incredible success for the United States. Joe Biden will bring back to the highest level of the American state something that had been lacking in the country for the last four years.
This precious thing is a consistent voice at the head of the United States.
It may seem trivial to you, but this simple fact will totally change things. Gone is the unpredictability of Donald Trump making decisions at the last minute after consulting his supporters on Twitter or Facebook, or watching cable TV late at night.
Instead of this erratic policy, the United States will be led by a leader who thinks, listens to his advisors, learns, and plans.
When Joe Biden makes a decision, he will stick to it. The financial markets are already breathing a sigh of relief. Indeed, for the past four years, they have had to suffer the consequences of Donald Trump’s unpredictable tweets. Every day could be the scene of another unexpected decision by Donald Trump.
This was seen on numerous occasions regarding his trade war with Xi Jinping’s China.
The historic allies of the United States will regain confidence in the American voice
Donald Trump kept blowing hot and cold with the historical allies of the United States also during these four years. Sometimes friends, sometimes enemies. The historical allies of the United States, be it Canada or the Europeans, did not know which way to turn.
The United States was increasingly seen as an isolationist and belligerent nation.
It was difficult to cooperate with a country whose president was constantly repeating the “America First” doctrine and constantly changing his mind. The United States clearly no longer had any consistent vision, which was beginning to seriously damage its reputation.
On the climate, the Donald Trump method had also shown this problem of a consistent voice. Donald Trump, who had announced that he would come out of the Paris Agreement, then left the doubt of a possible turnaround after exchanges with French President Emmanuel Macron.
And then, as always, Donald Trump ended up sending out a devastating tweet announcing that the United States would emerge from the Paris climate agreement.
Conclusion
Regardless of the long-term consequences for the United States, Donald Trump showed that he was only interested in its popularity. In the end, his decisions were always guided by a constant concern to remain as popular as possible.
Unfortunately, a political leader must have the courage to make decisions that are unpopular in the short term but prove to be the right ones for his country in the long term.
With Joe Biden, this will be possible. After four years of Trump’s presidency, the United States needed a unifying president. An experienced president who will bring a consistent voice back to the United States by getting the country back on track.
Joe Biden is an opportunity for the United States. Democrats and Republicans should do everything possible to give him their full support because the United States faces extraordinary challenges in the coming years that can only be met with a united country. | https://medium.com/@ssaurel/the-most-important-thing-joe-biden-will-give-back-to-the-united-states-5f697fd9bb08 | ['Sylvain Saurel'] | 2020-11-15 09:13:20.222000+00:00 | ['USA', 'Democratic Party', 'Politics', 'Joe Biden', 'Donald Trump'] |
We’ve been encouraging our writers to create Biographies. Here’s a great one from a member of our Fiction Writers Club, | this site
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https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/rex/video-bea-v-tex-liv-us-nfl301.html
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https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/pux/video-Cowboys-v-Bengals-liv-Gm.Tv1.html
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https://helpdesk.southeast.edu/cite/texans-vs-bears-liv-H01.html
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https://helpdesk.southeast.edu/cite/video-Cowboys-v-Bengals-liv-Gm.Tv1.html
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https://helpdesk.southeast.edu/cite/video-Cowboys-v-Bengals-liv-Gm.Tv5.html
https://helpdesk.southeast.edu/cite/video-Chiefs-v-Dolphins-liv-Tv1.html
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https://helpdesk.southeast.edu/cite/Video-Broncos-v-Panthers-Lv-hq01.html
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https://helpdesk.southeast.edu/cnf/Tit-v-Jag-liv-snf-01.html
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https://helpdesk.southeast.edu/cnf/Brn-v-Pan-cbs-tv-01.html
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https://helpdesk.southeast.edu/cnf/Car-v-Gnt-liv-cbn-01.html
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https://helpdesk.southeast.edu/cnf/Cow-v-Ben-liv-5uc-01.html
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https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vam/video-s-v-n2.html
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https://helpdesk.southeast.edu/uvm/video-s-v-b7.html
Your biography is a powerful tool for success. Tree Langdon | https://medium.com/@distroubles/weve-been-encouraging-our-writers-to-create-biographies-265bd7fb6179 | [] | 2020-12-13 16:43:53.906000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Biography', 'Fiction', 'Writing', 'Business'] |
The Uncovered Head | Following Shoemaker’s suggested markings, I re-approached the head covering passage? And it suddenly became . . . a story.
First of all, the first two verses of the chapter, 11:1–2, are probably wrapping up the previous discussion. The tone shifts from Paul’s kind tone (“Now I praise you, brothers,” etc.) to . . . the other one?
A Jewish convert is writing to Paul, lecturing him — undressing him!
“But I would have you know . . .”
The quoted passage spans 11:3–10. It is a rousing paean to male authority and female subservience, in a traditional Jewish style. It is a rant.
It is not citing or relying on the Jesus teachings. This is a lawyer speaking? He reminds me of the ‘teacher of the law’ that Jesus speaks to in Luke 10:29. He sees categories, hierarchies, definitions.
“A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.”
The Jewish references may be unfamiliar to Christians. As Michael J. Broyde details in “Head Coverings and Jewish Law,” a rabbinic requirement that Jewish women cover their heads in public has remained, in many communities, a requirement to this day.
The lone scriptural foothold is Numbers 5:18, where a woman suspected of cheating on her husband could be put through an ordeal that begins with the priest “uncovering” her head.
There you see!—many rabbis extrapolated. A good Jewish lady keeps her head covered up.
Even among Jews, this was extensively debated. It’s not really a biblical law. Could this ‘covering’ require the context of the Temple?—where the Numbers 5:18 scene occurs, after all.
And, as Broyde notes, this practice would only refer to “the practice of modest Jewish women who are Torah-observant.”
In “Under Cover: Demystification of Women’s Head Covering in Jewish Law,” a feminist critique, Susan Weiss notes the basic assumption: “women as the chattel of their husbands.”
These head coverings, she notes, mark “the institutionalized class distinctions among women on the basis of their sexuality, and the accompanying property rights of men in that sexuality.”
In New Testament teachings, however, the woman is not owned, and neither is the man (cf. Gal 5:1, etc.).
There is to be no effort to follow Jewish law (cf. Heb 8:13; Luke 16:16; Rom 10:4, etc.). And remember: to follow one part means you have to follow it all (cf. James 2:10; Gal 5:3).
To enforce rules about head-coverings, if believing it’s a continuation of Old Testament law, would, for a Christian person, be to enter a very problematic theological state. | https://medium.com/belover/the-uncovered-head-53801bb14138 | ['Jonathan Poletti'] | 2020-05-02 06:28:51.817000+00:00 | ['Bible', 'Sexuality', 'Christianity', 'Feminism', 'Religion'] |
How to grow and monetize communities with Jill Salzman | On this episode Abadesi talks to Jill Salzman, founder of The Founding Moms, a “global collective of offline masterminds and online resources for mom entrepreneurs.” She was formerly the founder of a music management firm and was also the creator of a line of baby jewelry.
In this episode they talk about…
The story of the creation of The Founding Moms and how it’s helping mom entrepreneurs around the globe
“No one wants to say that they’re a mom entrepreneur. They’re an entrepreneur. They don’t like to use the word mom. They don’t want people to know they’re distracted by kids. There are tons of moms who are making things but don’t want to say it because nobody else is.”
Jill tells the story of the businesses she founded prior to this one, including her time managing bands and how it was akin to building communities, although in a very different manner than she does today with The Founding Moms. She says that the community and business grew out of an inauspicious beginning after she created an informal meetup in Chicago for moms with businesses.
She was surprised at the number of people who showed up and also that there were people from outside her city who were requesting a chapter in their own cities. The Founding Moms has since grown to include countries around the world, with chapters in Singapore, Guatemala, and more.
“I posted on Meetup and I said ‘if you’re a woman with a business and a baby, please come have coffee with me and tell me how you’re doing it because I think I’m going to lose my mind.”
How she grew the community and her advice for those who are new to community-building
“I think we need to eradicate the idea of networking being a dirty word.”
Initially, Jill showed up to the meetups without a formal plan or agenda for what should take place. She realized that when she showed up with a piece of paper with handwritten notes, people commented on how organized she was. She then started showing up with a printed piece of paper, and has since created much more structure for the meetups.
She says that in her case and for those new to community-building, it’s best to show up and listen and ask a lot of questions of your community members. If you listen to them, they’ll tell you what they need and lead you to the ways that you need to change to grow the community further.
She explains why you shouldn’t feel the need to include absolutely everyone in your community and why in fact it’s actually best to set yourself a goal to make sure that the wrong types of people are not feeling a part of the community.
She also gives her advice on branding, outreach, and content marketing.
“I know in my heart of hearts ten years in there is nothing that trumps meeting up in real life at all.”
How she approached the decision to charge for access and subsequently increase prices, as well as how she stays productive
“If you learn to lean on the community and become a little more vulnerable than you’re used to, I can’t tell you how exponentially you’re going to grow.”
Jill talks about the thought process that went into deciding whether to charge for access to the community and how she came up with the number that she would charge per month. She started at $10 and has since increased it to $35. She says that everything she does is “literally trial and error” and that she simply Googled what other communities were charging. She explains why you shouldn’t be afraid to charge for your community and how to overcome your fear that your members will leave if you do so.
She also explains how she manages her schedule, why she uses three (!) virtual assistants and the work they each do, as well as how her team of contractors at The Founding Moms works together.
“I have three virtual assistants. I am a huge VA proponent. I think you’re all missing out if you don’t have one because they’re extremely affordable and amazing at getting things done for you.”
She also talks about some of the products she’s loving right now.
We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Big thanks to Headspin for their support.
Companies and Products Mentioned on This Episode
Loom — Seamless screen, mic, and camera recording for Chrome.
Marco Polo — Find your phone by shouting MARCO!
Slack — Be less busy. Real-time messaging, archiving and search. | https://blog.producthunt.com/how-to-grow-and-monetize-communities-with-jill-salzman-af1e107bf770 | ['Product Hunt'] | 2020-03-11 12:18:20.672000+00:00 | ['Bootstrapping', 'Community', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup'] |
Internet Shutdowns: An Evaluation of Women’s Online Expression and Participation in Uganda | Following the earlier contributions to this blog series, which provided an overview of the six GNI-Internews fellows’ research projects, in this collection, fellows document their work over the last few months. These blogs do not represent the viewpoints of GNI or any of its members. Applications for the 2021 emerging voices fellowship with GNI are now open.
Caption: A woman Reading Emails Online Credit: Unwanted Witness Uganda
Navigating the Internet as a woman in Uganda can be stressful and devastating, especially when it is shutdown. While the Internet serves social, economic, and political sectors globally, countries around the world continue to threaten Internet access by blocking or disrupting particular applications, websites, and mobile telecommunications services such as instant messaging and voice over Internet protocol calling.
In Uganda, women are faced with economic hardship, online threats and harassment, surveillance, lack of accessible content online, expensive Internet bundles and taxation, coupled with gender insensitive information and communications technology (ICT), and Internet policies. Acts such as Internet shutdowns tend to worsen women’s online freedom of expression and participation in Uganda and can deny them their right to democratic participation during elections or protests when the Internet is needed the most. There is substantial evidence on how Internet shutdowns affect women’s online participation and how women cope with the effects of Internet disruptions in Uganda. Studies by Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET), World Wide Web Foundation, GSMA, the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) and among others document women’s access and use of the Internet and to some extent, these affect women’s inclusive development as part of the socio-economic impact of shutdowns.
The uptake of strategic litigation against the state’s decision to disrupt the Internet is vital. Despite much documentation on the impact of Internet shutdowns on citizens’ several digital rights such as health care, access to information, privacy, freedom of expression, and even the country’s economy, the government still continues to employ different tactics to ensure the Internet is shutdown. This continues to affect the marginalized and vulnerable groups such as women the more.
Even though there is a lack of general technical understanding of the government’s reasons to shutdown the Internet coupled with the use of the country’s laws such as the Uganda Communications Act 2013 which gives the communication regulator broad powers and functions under Section 5 to shutdown the Internet, it is important to note that shutdowns negatively impact women’s online freedom of expression and participation. While conducting the study on how Internet shutdowns impact women’s online freedom of expression and participation in Uganda, a female interview participant from Kampala said:
“Yes, they are very much affected because if the Internet is a source of employment, then you can only imagine what happens if it is disconnected like for us here in Uganda, social media is what we call the Internet. So, if social media is disrupted, then a woman cannot connect to the next buyer so a woman’s economic power is really affected. Similarly, when it comes to gender roles, women’s movements are limited so if the Internet is shutdown, this affects them socially, economically, and even politically because we have seen women share their views online and express themselves very confidently.”
When women in Uganda are grappling with the online transition swift, studies such as this brings out the hardships women face in the online space with no Internet access. It holds hope that the digital space with time will be favorable for women and girls when there is available literature or references that highlight women’s issues to improve their rights online.
Global Network Initiative (GNI)-Internews Fellowship
In March 2020, Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET)’s Program Manager, Information Sharing and Networking, Sandra Aceng was awarded a six-months fellowship by GNI and Internews to conduct a research on the impact of Internet shutdowns on online freedom of expression and privacy on women in Uganda.
Caption: Focused Group Discussion in Lira District Credit: WOUGNET
The research was conducted in three districts (Kampala, Lira, and Mukono) to ensure representation of urban, rural, and peri-urban areas of Uganda respectively, reaching a total of 79 interview respondents 65.8% female and 34.2% male. These respondents also participated in the focused group discussions, key informant, and semi-structured interviews with a representation of 43.5% male and 56.5% female from Kampala, 29.6% male and 70.4% female from Mukono, and 31% male and 69% female from Lira district.
Caption: Participants filling questionnaire in Mukono district Credit: WOUGNET
The research offered a quantitative and qualitative sample perspective of women’s experience as Internet users in Uganda.
Our Findings
From our study findings, there is no doubt that Internet shutdowns affect both men and women directly. It affects the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms of expression, association, and political participation. Yet, for women, the effects of Internet shutdowns may have far-reaching negative effects as a result of how they use the Internet compared to men. Women regularly access developmental programs, and not having access to the Internet further undermines their role in contributing to national development. For example, across the three districts, 37.70% of men and women reported using the Internet daily to access information with also 23.80% using it for online business and 32.50% using it for socializing. A female focused group discussion respondent from Lira mentioned that “I use the Internet when there is a certain information I want to get. For example, during this COVID-19 with lockdown, I go to find out information on updates that I am supposed to follow on COVID-19.”
Therefore, Internet shutdowns infringe on women’s digital rights, for example, a female focused group discussion respondent from Lira said that “Women perceive that they have been denied their rights especially those who run big businesses because they cannot communicate with their customers when the Internet is shut down.” Another interview participant from Kampala said, “I think it also denies the vulnerable groups access to health emergencies. For instance, there are apps developed to help vulnerable groups. Physically disabled persons who cannot easily go to the health centers use such applications to explain their health complications to the respective health service providers.”
Internet shutdowns were reported in the three districts affecting a spectrum of rights and freedoms. Notably, these include the economic rights of women operating small online business enterprises; political rights of women dependent on social media platforms to organize campaigns, support their candidates of choice, or present their political agenda when contesting for political spaces; and social interactions facilitated by freedoms of expression and association via online groups.
Caption: Youth during Focused Group Discussions in Kampala Credit: WOUGNET
The most experienced form of Internet shutdowns was the social media blackout in 2016 and the subsequent censoring of online media content through the Uganda Communications Commission.
During the study interviews in the three districts, there were diverse understanding and perspectives of “Internet shutdowns.” While some respondents clearly defined what Internet shutdown is, the majority seem to not clearly understand it. For example, a male participant interviewed from Kampala said;
‘In Uganda, an Internet shutdown could occur if they breach a particular law or a regulation. If for example, someone is using the Internet in the commission of a crime. If you are going to use the Internet, for example, you have set up a website to carry out child online exploitation, or publishing content that is against or content that is false or fabricated, then that website may be denied access and as a result, you who consume the content on that website experience a shutdown on that particular website’.
The young people perceived an Internet shutdown as a point when there is no access or when they experience restricted access to the Internet. One participant from Mukono cited, “Internet shut down is when a nation or a country is not able to access some social media platforms may be for a meantime or for a period of time.”
The key informants perceived Internet shutdowns to be partial shutdowns, mostly effected by the local Internet Service Providers. They further contend that it’s almost unimaginable for any government to effect a total shutdown since most if not all online activities dependent on the Internet would be affected. In essence, even a government/institution would have to experience a shutdown the same way. A voice excerpt from one of the key informants in Kampala said, “You cannot shut it down completely because the air traffic system that uses the radar depends on the Internet a lot. The cameras that are installed in cities here also depend on the Internet because they ran over fiber and they communicate on it. So, a total shutdown would be so devastating and would be like a doom’s day and would cause a lot of pandemonium.”
There are also differences in how women experience Internet shutdowns based on whether they are in rural or urban areas. Women in rural communities didn’t seem to feel the burden of Internet shutdowns and in some cases, some of them have limited online access. This contrasts with a majority of women from urban settings who are slowly migrating to online business processes and increasingly engaging in social media activities.
Women respond differently during periods of Internet disruptions. While some choose to protest, the majority silently withstand the situation. For example, a male key informant respondent from Lira said “When the Internet is shut down then there is no way, they just say that my Internet is shutdown and they just keep quiet because they think there is no alternative. Using the Internet is a modern technology and most women are still struggling to catch up with men because they need to have more knowledge on how to use it because with the Internet you keep upgrading your skills.” The study findings indicate the possible high use of virtual private networks (VPNs) during election periods to circumvent blockage of websites and particular applications, although the majority seemed to have used and known it mainly to avoid payment of the Over the Top (OTT) tax imposed by the government of Uganda for use and access of social media platforms.
Caption: Mukono Focused Group Discussion Credit: WOUGNET
In an attempt to continue business operations during Internet shutdowns, women tend to migrate business offline. This makes them incur additional direct costs such as rent, transport, and marketing. Studies have reported increased costs of business as a result of OTT tax and widening of the gender digital divide gap for Uganda’s poorest residents, and in turn, left them with less access to information. The benefits from the use of digital technologies are not evenly distributed because women are less likely to have access to the Internet for political and economic empowerment.
Even though the impact of Internet shutdowns on women’s online rights is devastating, women also mentioned other limiting factors that do not allow them to freely express themselves and participate online. For example, a male participant referred to the lack of technical skills of women to operate new gadgets and access the Internet.
Next Steps
One of the key issues raised by women during the interviews was their limited Internet skills. In response, this study will produce a booklet on circumvention methods for women to access and use the Internet in case of blockage of websites and applications during politically tense periods or crises in Uganda. WOUGNET plans to conduct capacity building on how to use the circumvention tools and methods during Internet shutdowns or censorship, especially in rural areas in Uganda.
The need for a strengthened awareness campaign on the critical role played by the Internet in advancing the realization of women’s rights online and the rights of marginalized groups is still a necessity. | https://medium.com/global-network-initiative-collection/internet-shutdowns-an-evaluation-of-womens-online-expression-and-participation-in-uganda-8a4cac7bc479 | ['Aceng Sandra'] | 2020-12-17 08:47:38.249000+00:00 | ['Freedom of Expression', 'Privacy', 'Womens Rights', 'Fellows 2020', 'Internet Shutdowns'] |
Internship — Week 05. At Intrépide Studio | Internship — Week 05
The week before, I talked to my colleagues and CEOs that, even though I’m learning much in development and that I really enjoy it, I want to do some designing to get as much of both experiences as I can. That would enable me to know exactly what I like the most. So I don’t regret later in my career to have chosen the development path, for instance.
They gladly agree on giving me both works since the last week before the holidays, my supervisor is on leave, and I will have a week of design work waiting for me.
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Still welgaume| 14/12
I’m still in preproduction with Welgaume, and I’m ensuring everything is running correctly. While checking, I noticed that I still have to style the privacy policy page and add the favicon. This was done in the morning, and I also created the main user account for the client with his data. Next, I checked that he has access to all essentials that he needs access to and if the page is still displaying everything as it should.
After lunch, my supervisor explained to me how they do their “e-mailings.” Meaning the HTML is injected in e-mails for the clients, containing links and images to direct users to clients' web pages. They are old fashioned coded HTML containing style in the HTML code and table tags stanked in table tags. This was the solution back then to create so nice looking pages and still be used for emails since not all e-mailing services have evolved.
Similar to these examples;
First Design work| 15/12
Today I got my first web design assignment, but I had to finish the HTML for the E-mail before that. I told you yesterday that it is coded in a very old fashioned, today I got an example to show you what it looks like. | https://medium.com/@pinhodaniel098/internship-week-05-6fb653bebb38 | ['Pinho Daniel'] | 2020-12-18 12:54:36.044000+00:00 | ['Development', 'Web Design', 'Internships', 'Dwm', 'Web Development'] |
[READ]-Barron’s Guide to Law Schools: 16th Edition 2005 | DOWNLOAD>>>>>> http://co.readingbooks.host??book=0764123076
Barron’s Guide to Law Schools: 16th Edition 2005
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Updated with latest facts, figures, and costs, this directory describes more than 180 ABA-approved law schools. Each profile includes admission requirements, tuition and fees, career placement services, and other pertinent details. A multi-page table lists each law school’s median LSAT scores made by incoming students plus a summary of admission requirements. This table will help prospective applicants predict their chances for admission. Profiles of selected non-ABA-approved law schools are also included.
Books are a valuable source of knowledge that affects society in different ways. Whether you are reading a masterpiece by an award-winning author or narrating a bedtime story to children, the significance of books cannot be overemphasized.
Human beings need to learn and stay informed, which are crucial needs that books can fulfill. They are also essential for entertainment and enable individuals to develop wholesome mindsets throughout their lives.
“Millions of books have been published over the years and they continue to be an integral aspect of people’s lives around the globe.
From making it easier to understand different aspects of life to serve as worthwhile companions that take you through challenging times, books have proven to be precious commodities.
Books are essential in a variety of ways that go beyond enriching your mind or entertaining you. They have stood the test of time as reliable references for centuries. They stimulate your senses and promote good mental health. Other benefits include enhancing your vocabulary, allowing you to travel through words, and inspiring positivity through motivational literature.
While the internet and television are useful in their own ways, nothing can compare to a great book. Books ignite your imagination, give you new ideas, challenge your perspectives, provide solutions, and share wisdom. At every stage of your existence, you can find a relevant book that will add value to your personal and professional life.
Books are filled with knowledge and they teach you valuable lessons about life. They give you insight into how to navigate aspects of fear, love, challenges, and virtually every part of life. Books have been in existence since time immemorial and they hold secrets of the past while providing a glimpse of the cultures of previous civilizations.
A book has the power to change or reinforce how you feel about your surroundings. It is a therapeutic resource that can equip you with the tools you need to stay on track and maintain a good attitude. Whether you want to learn a new language or delve into the intrigues of nature, there is a book for every situation.
There are numerous reasons why books are important. Reading books is a popular hobby as people around the world rely on them for relief and entertainment. Books contain records of history and are used to spread vital information. Reading books helps to improve your communication skills and learn new things. It can be useful for easing anxiety among students and professionals.
Other reasons that highlight how important books are in their positive impact on intelligence, writing abilities, and analytical skills. Books give people a great way to escape into another dimension. They are packed with endless possibilities for adventure and experiences that would be difficult to access in reality.
It is essential for people to strive to include books in their daily lives aside from using them for academic or professional purposes. They aid emotional and mental growth, boost confidence, and sharpen your memory. It is natural for people to be curious and want to learn more, which is why books are still significant today.
Books are a valuable source of knowledge that affects society in different ways. Whether you are reading a masterpiece by an award-winning author or narrating a bedtime story to children, the significance of books cannot be overemphasized.
Human beings need to learn and stay informed, which are crucial needs that books can fulfill. They are also essential for entertainment and enable individuals to develop wholesome mindsets throughout their lives.
“ | https://medium.com/@haleyclark_27174/download-http-co-readingbooks-host-book-0764123076-d6c039bc5f94 | [] | 2021-12-13 06:53:46.485000+00:00 | ['Download', 'Reading', 'Book', 'Read', 'eBook'] |
Information Design | Effective data visualization for web applications.
Making information understandable is a large part of any designer’s job, even more so when that information is data. The internet has a lot to say about what makes a bad data visualization, but good advice on information design is harder to come by.
Over the last five years, I’ve spent a great deal of time designing graphs and other visualizations for enterprise web applications. I’ve struggled through a lot of trial and error, sought out education from many sources, and now I’d like to share the results of that work with you.
My biggest source of inspiration has been Edward Tufte, professor emeritus of statistics at Yale. His relentless focus on clarity and simplicity meshes well with my natural minimalism and the very no-nonsense needs of enterprise software. I highly recommend his books…
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Envisioning Information
Visual Explanations
Beautiful Evidence
I’ll also add a heapin’ helpin’ of usability best practices from my twenty years of experience in the field. Together, we’ll learn how to design effective information visualizations for the web.
Objectives of Information Design
Unlike most things you’ll encounter as a design professional, graphs and visualizations aren’t about communicating a brand or value prop. They’re about communicating an insight.
An effective graph should answer questions like…
What’s the relationship between two (or more) variables?
Is a value unusually high or low? Trending up or down?
How has a variable changed over time?
How should I expect it to change in the future?
Pixels spent on anything else aren’t just wasted, they may obscure the key insight. Effective graphs don’t need to sing and dance. If the insight being offered is useful and interesting, effective communication will be plenty engaging all on its own.
Elements of Information Design
When kicking off an information design, a lot of people will pull up a pattern library like https://datavizproject.com and just pick out something they like. Maybe they’ll give some thought to the strengths and weaknesses of each chart type, but I want you to go deeper. Really think about the basic elements of a design and how you can encode information in each of them.
Information Visualization Elements
Shape, Size & Position
Each piece of data in your visualization will be represented by a shape: point, line, rectangle, circle, etc. The size of these shapes is an intuitive way to encode quantity, but simple shapes are best. It’s easier to compare lengths than areas, so avoid rounded bars and pie charts.
Line graphs intuitively encode change over time. If you’re feeling adventurous, the width of a line can also encode an additional quantity, or you can split a line into multiple parts (see Alluvial Diagrams).
Maps use shape and position to communicate geographical data.
Generally speaking, if something in your visualization is larger than something else, users will infer that there is more of it, and that the difference between them is proportional. Using size to encode anything else is like ice skating uphill.
Color & Contrast
Everyone’s first instinct is to color-code things by type, but color and contrast are your best tools for directing users’ attention and guiding their value judgments. Don’t squander it! (More on this below.)
Due to the way light scatters through the atmosphere, we perceive low-contrast elements as further away than high-contrast (or highly saturated) ones. Use this effect to make less important elements fade into the background, so the important data can take center stage.
Fill & Pattern
People will perceive an outline shape as less “real” or important than a solid fill; likewise for a dashed or dotted line. This makes fill another great way to create visual hierarchy or show what’s in focus.
Finally, try to avoid using multiple elements to encode the same information. If larger values are already larger or taller, there’s no need to also give them a solid fill or brighter color. Simplicity is the strongest foundation for any information design, as we’ll see next.
Principles of Information Design
The first three of these are taken directly from Edward Tufte, with examples and guidelines based on my own experience. The fourth is an essential principle from usability. Keep them in mind when assembling and styling any of the elements discussed above.
Minimum Necessary Contrast
Graphs have a lot of chrome: gridlines, labels, axes, legends, etc. These elements are not data, but they help users make sense of data. They work best when they fade into the background: there when needed, but never pulling attention away from the key insight.
Always start your design with the minimum necessary level of contrast.
For example, gridlines should be toned down to low-contrast grays and the thinnest possible lines, if not removed from the design entirely. Tufte suggests using white gridlines that cut across the color fills of a bar graph, so that they almost disappear.
Gridlines
Starting with the minimum necessary contrast is just good design. You can apply this principle to site navigation, column headers, or any other kind of UI chrome. Let you content shine through!
Data/Ink Ratio
If it’s not communicating information, get rid of it! Tufte refers to any visual element as “ink,” terminology from the world of print. We could as well call it the “Data/Pixel Ratio,” but… we won’t.
Optimizing your data/ink ratio usually means removing non-data elements. The typical box plot, for example, uses a rectangle to represent the normal range of values in a set. The vertical lines mark out the highest and lowest values. In Tufte’s redesign, the boxes are replaced with dots (usefully marking the averages) and remove the rectangles entirely, cleverly allowing users to infer the normal range from negative space.
Box Plots
Another optimization strategy is to consolidate repetitive elements, like x-axis labels, so that they’re only displayed once. For example, an hourly graph does not need to repeat AM/PM labels ad nauseum. Instead, you can display this information only when it changes (i.e. midnight and noon). You can use the same technique for day, month, and year.
Consolidated X-Axis Labels
Perhaps the most interesting approach is to find ways of encoding new data in otherwise non-data elements. For example, Tufte argues that static y-axis labels would be more useful if they omitted values outside the data set. This transforms them into range indicators that actually add new information to the graph.
Range Indicators
I’d even extend this principle to legends, those ubiquitous keys that tell you how to read a graph or map. For web applications, these amount to a first-time user experience. Once a user understands the visualization, they become non-data ink… unless you can embed real data in them.
One useful method is to combine them with summary statistics that, like range indicators, provide new information. In addition to explaining that different lines in a graph represent different years, for instance, your legend could also report the total dollars spent in each year.
Put that all together, and you get something like this…
Multiple Lines, Summary Stats, Range Indicator
These changes actually get you more information with less ink: monthly totals, yearly totals, and the total range. Plus, the increasingly solid line patterns use contrast to intuitively visualize the progress of time, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves…
Visual Hierarchy
Okay, so you’ve ruthlessly simplified your graph. Now it’s time to dial up that data. There are a lot of design levers you can pull to create an intuitive hierarchy of information in a graph, which is especially useful for layering on reference or comparison values.
In Bar Graphs: When displaying multiple data sets (e.g. a person’s savings vs the national average), you’ll need to use color and contrast to give the reference data less weight. It’s only there to put the primary data in context, after all. A target value could be layered on as a line, which has less visual weight than the bars.
Multiple Bars, Reference Line, Range Indicator
You can keep going with this — adding lower-contrast bars, dashed or dotted lines, etc. — but exercise caution! Every additional element adds cognitive load, making users work harder to understand. If your graph is telling more than one story, consider splitting it into multiple graphs.
In Line Graphs: It’s quite common to graph multiple time-series data as overlapping, transparent area charts (lines with a fill color), but this approach creates confusing color and contrast variations, and it treats every data set as equally important, which is rarely the case.
Instead, you should use fill and line styles as tools for creating visual hierarchy. In the below example, only the primary data set has an area fill. The reference value is just a line and has a less saturated color. Finally, a dangerous threshold is represented by a straight, red line that intersects the range indicator.
Multiple Lines w/ Color
Progressive Disclosure
If all of this minimalism and lack of traditional legends makes you nervous, fear not! The interactivity of web applications allows us to display helpful explanations and additional details whenever the user needs them.
In bar graphs, that might mean clicking on a specific bar to see its label and specific value in a fly-over panel. In line graphs, you’d click on a column (i.e. a date or time) to see all values for that period. Be sure to include an end dot for each line — one that’s large enough to tap on a touchscreen — so you can display its label and any other explanatory text that might be helpful.
Fly-Over Panels (a.k.a. Pop-Ups, Tooltips, etc.)
Putting Numbers into Context
There’s one more arena where these techniques can prove useful: helping users interpret unfamiliar numbers. Even dollar values, when they get large, can become difficult to evaluate. Highly technical information starts at difficult and gets impossible.
Simple visualizations can give people an intuitive sense of whether a value is a lot or a little, whether it’s trending up or down, and how they should feel about it. You’ll want to keep them extremely compact, so they fit comfortably within text or tables.
Bullet Graphs
Named because they look like bullets flying from a barrel, these compact visualizations show the relative size of two values. This could be an actual, measured value versus a target, versus a normal range, or versus any other reference value.
Bullet Graphs based on Target Value
With some color-coding, bullet graphs can also tell users whether they should be pleased or concerned about a value outside the normal range.
Bullet Graphs based on Normal Distribution
A full explanation of the comparison value — Is it a target? A normal range? — should be deferred to an on-click event, as described under “Progressive Disclosure” above. Once users understand the bullet graph, it will deliver these essential insights at a glance, which reduces cognitive load and increases productivity.
Sparklines
You’ve seen these little beauties on stock tickers. Rather than compare two values, they visualize how a single value has changed over time. Structurally, it’s just a line graph without any axes or labels.
Sparklines w/ Normal Range
These extremely simple visualizations answer important questions for any time-series data: Is this value increasing or decreasing? How quickly?
Status Pills
The simplest visualization of all has to be a pill style status message. You can wrap a color background around any string of text to indicate how a user should judge its content. For example, a status message can use color to quickly draw attention to problems.
Project Status Pills
This is particularly useful in data tables, where users often need to scan across dozens of records looking for items that need attention.
Pills can put numbers into context by identifying values that are abnormally high or low, above or below a target, etc.
Numerical Status Pills
Benefits of Information Design
Effective data visualizations can provide significant return on investment, mostly in the form of higher productivity and lower error rates. Both benefits come from reducing the cognitive load of working with data. Making tasks easier allows people to do them faster and better. Who knew?!
For purely consumer-facing applications, good information design can build trust and loyalty through improved user experience. A solid, minimalist visualization is the best base on which to add branding.
I hope you’ll continue to use great pattern libraries for data visualization ideas, but take the time to deconstruct your design and apply these principles to build something truly great. | https://medium.com/user-experience-behavior-design/information-design-d0bf15c2f203 | ['Dan Bayn'] | 2020-05-05 03:22:57.662000+00:00 | ['UX', 'Data Visualization', 'Enterprise Software'] |
5 Lessons My Dark Night of The Soul Has Taught Me | 1. Suffering is necessary.
A dark night of the soul challenges every aspect of your being. It destroys your reality to a point where you don’t even know if your healing journey is worth all the pain that’s coming up to the surface.
But guess what? That’s exactly what you need. We need to feel pain to transform ourselves. The biggest transformations don’t take place when we simply tell ourselves we have to change; they take place when our life circumstances force us to self-reflect and change our course of action.
“In the West, we generally reject suffering. We see it as an unwelcome interruption of our pursuit of happiness. So we fight it, repress it, medicate it, or search for quick-fix solutions to get rid of it. In some cultures, especially in the East, suffering is acknowledged for the important role it plays in people’s lives, in the meandering path toward enlightenment.” Tal Ben-Shahar, in The Role of Suffering
2. Our loved ones can be the most resistant to our growth.
This one is probably the hardest lesson to accept. When you’re growing, your family and friends will, often unintentionally, try to keep you the same instead of supporting your growth.
They’ll give you feedback that reinforces unhealthy patterns, they’ll act like you’re not changing for the better and they’ll probably make you feel guilty for finally being able to say “enough is enough” and staying true to yourself.
The reason why our loved ones are the most resistant to our growth is because they feel that they’re going to lose us if we keep growing. Our stagnation makes them feel comfortable; but we’re not here to stay stagnant, we’re here to evolve.
And this doesn’t mean we’re better than them. It simply means we’re on different paths.
3. Nobody knows us better than we know ourselves.
My dark night of the soul has taught me that no one has the right to tell me how to think, how to feel, what I should or shouldn’t do, or what’s better for my life. Absolutely no one.
As a child, I was not taught to search for validation inside myself. I was intrinsically trained to search outside myself for my choices; not to build my own identity and listen to my intuition.
I have lived many years in fear of being judged, rejected and abandoned. I have spent most of my life putting others’ needs first and letting their opinions dictate my truth. In fact, I was so skilled at it that I didn’t even know what I wanted or who I was.
That phase is over. Which brings me to my next point…
4. The real strength lies in our ability to be with ourselves.
Most of us spend our lives running away from ourselves. We can’t stand the idea of being alone with our own thoughts and emotions, so we do whatever it takes to keep ourselves busy.
My dark night of the soul started a few months before lock-down kicked in. I was gradually becoming aware of some wounds and emotional patterns, which made me feel a deep need to be alone and process everything I was feeling.
Then, I slowly came to the realization that, no matter how strong and accomplished I appeared, I never really loved myself.
Now, after almost a year of continuous healing and self-reflection, I know that the most important relationship in my life is with myself.
Nothing can ever replace our ability to just be, and to love ourselves so deeply that we no longer deny the most painful parts of our existence.
5. There’s always a hidden meaning that’s serving our own evolution.
Although this past year has been incredibly difficult, I know I needed to go through this process in order to reconnect with my true self.
I believe in the mystical forces of the Universe. I believe that if we learn to be quiet, to sit still and simply listen to our inner voices, there’s always a message or a meaning; a whisper guiding us and supporting our growth.
No matter how incomprehensible our experience may be, no matter how desperate and lonely we may feel, there’s always a lesson that we’ll later integrate into our lives. When the storm has passed and we’re finally able to distance ourselves, that’s when we realize how it has served us.
The Universe works in mysterious ways. | https://medium.com/change-your-mind/5-lessons-my-dark-night-of-the-soul-has-taught-me-4a1017b144af | ['Patrícia S. Williams'] | 2020-12-27 00:28:03.051000+00:00 | ['Spirituality', 'Mindfulness', 'Mental Health', 'Self', 'Life Lessons'] |
A judgment | See
the damage
a duplicate key
can wage
and the scattered screws
He says slut
And see this abused fuse
Slut
Where are his feet?
What happened
to his heartbeat
that seclusive clue
the basis of his life?
Was it edged with guilt?
His wife — tilt
That itchy bitch
(he calls her) who makes
his asshole twitch
in retrospect and it takes
many bucks per hour
these days to free the stirring seed
ere it turns sour —
But was it greed
that bled
him of his all
and bred
that groundshaking fall?
Was it her fault?
Ee ee eee he had gone
axing his life’s (then) vault
not stopping till he was done —
Die damn you, die
he had freaked out
Why damn it, why
it had shrieked out
planting a widow’s pique
on his craggy brow
And now his beak
(so like some carven prow
plowing through stormtossed waves)
downcurves cravenly as he
braves
the memory
And his eyes pale
as the debris again measures
(like an openended Richter Scale)
pleasure’s
price
It had, of course,
been his stupid vice
to suppose
that it was in lust
for his body
and not just
for his money
that his charm for women lay
And it had been
true in a way —
hadn’t he seen
her pant after the first
stud who came by
to quench her thirst
which (try
as he might)
he never seemed able to?
And how about those nights
with those many wenches who swore
they would give anything
for one more
fling of his loving?
And now this
He should never
have axed his
past love and true future
for a mere wife
The pain
feels like a knife
It’s vain
to brood
on it (he knows)
But it’s good
to pretend the blows
he sustained never fell
Just for a little while
He might as well
especially as the bile
of knowing nothing remains
threatens to drive
him insane
Besides, why deprive
oneself of a little solace?
And there’s no need to lose
a measure of grace
— Why had he had to choose? | https://medium.com/thenewnorth/a-judgment-a14729a483b7 | ['Tyrone Graham'] | 2017-09-06 02:10:15.721000+00:00 | ['Poetry'] |
Is being a Product Owner a Full Time Job? | Have you ever been part of an agile team full of rockstars who can commit to a ton of work per sprint and still you notice that something is not totally right? Maybe, you see lots of development but no concrete results?
As you may already know, a Product Owner is one of the many key pieces that makes an Agile team run smoothly. This person is the one that provides that heart beat to the team and feeds our backlog with all sorts of requirements for new work and improvement ideas.
But, why is it so hard to find a dedicated PO that can keep up to the task of providing a backlog that keeps a team busy sprint after sprint?
There are several answers to that..
PO positions at agile teams are generally filled with business representatives who have sufficient experience in a specific area of interest. (Those famous Subject Matter Experts)
This doesn’t always mean that this person is fully knowledgeable of how an agile process works. When teams are formed is usual to see very strict filters to get good Developers, Scrum Master, QA’s and other specialists. But, what about PO’s?
Well, the answer usually is..
- We found a guy who knows a lot about the business process but he’s never been a PO.. Oh! And BTW, he has many other things to do.
Another answer may be..
- We found a person that knows a bit about Agile, however, she is new to the company and doesn’t understand the business process very well.. Oh! And BTW, she’ll be PO for more than one team at the time.
Now let’s take a step back and analyze why is the PO position a full time job.
Prioritizing and building a backlog that suffices the necessity of keeping a team (sometimes an oversized one) busy through several sprints and keeping it as tidy and logically ordered as possible it’s sometimes an astronomical and almost impossible to reach goal for some PO’s. It requires hours and hours of stakeholder management, business insight and an incredible talent for documenting in a fast, concise and easy to understand style.
On a high profile Agile team, work items (often called User Stories) are usually taken as literally as they get written by the Product Owner, these work units must be fully groomed (once or twice) prior bringing them into sprint planning and hopefully written in an easy to read and hard to get lost methodology (i.e. Behavioral Driven Development). This implies that there’s always room for business rules and functionality gaps between User Stories, if individual features are not documented in a way that these gaps get covered the team will start noticing that something is missing in between. This can cause multiple setbacks (including tech debt increase) which will increment uncertainty and lack of confidence on what is being delivered as a quality product that will last.
But that’s only the first part! A PO job involves a holistic view of the picture; it is not only defining the path to follow but it also means to be on top of what’s being done and reacting fast to team discoveries along the way. If you are a Product Owner remember that this is your product (no need to say that the role’s name is self explanatory) and you are responsible for what the team is doing and how the team spends their time; at the end of the day everything gets translated to $$$. It is also necessary to say that priority changes are always welcome in Agile, however, these changes have to make sense and be cohesive with business goals.
That being said, I will call out some signals that may help you identify if your Product Owner is having trouble:
User story acceptance issues. Poorly documented US acceptance criteria causes confusion, misunderstandings and time waste.
Poorly documented US acceptance criteria causes confusion, misunderstandings and time waste. No logical order of priorities. Team might get blocked by non-existent context or architecture to develop on top of what’s needed. Tech debt increases.
Team might get blocked by non-existent context or architecture to develop on top of what’s needed. Tech debt increases. Not enough backlog. Time management related — Team member usage can stall and resources are wasted
Time management related — Team member usage can stall and resources are wasted Lack of business acumen. Knowledge gaps cause misdirection of efforts and overhead when issues need to be fixed.
Knowledge gaps cause misdirection of efforts and overhead when issues need to be fixed. Constant priority shifts. Agile welcomes changes, however these are accepted to a certain extent, common sense needs to be put to work.
Agile welcomes changes, however these are accepted to a certain extent, common sense needs to be put to work. Team frustration. Teams members are the perfect thermometer when finding out that something is wrong. Ridiculous priority shifts, direction issues and lack of work items can frustrate a team.
Teams members are the perfect thermometer when finding out that something is wrong. Ridiculous priority shifts, direction issues and lack of work items can frustrate a team. Increased tech debt. Frequently caused by last minute requirements which increase overhead and affect team’s velocity
Frequently caused by last minute requirements which increase overhead and affect team’s velocity Team image issues. Value delivery delays/errors can change how a team is perceived by upper management, these are not always provoked by the team itself.
As a final thought, a Product Owner role is not to be taken lightly. Our job is to make it visible in our organizations, these people are in charge of sailing the boat and in their hands is the responsibility of assuring that final customers needs are fulfilled at their maximum. Let’s give this role the importance it deserves.
— Luis Carlos Arias | https://medium.com/@luiskcr/is-being-a-product-owner-a-full-time-job-91c59d677ce6 | ['Luis Carlos Arias Leiva'] | 2020-03-03 06:51:26.583000+00:00 | ['Agile', 'Agile Methodology', 'Product Owner', 'Scrum', 'Agile Coaching'] |
Republican Cancel Culture Wants to Erase Critical Race Theory | Republican Cancel Culture Wants to Erase Critical Race Theory
American Anti-Slavery Almanac, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
You can always depend on Republicans to do exactly the opposite of what they claim to believe. When a racist is blocked from social media, they scream, “Cancel culture!” When a statue of a man who tortured slaves is toppled they scream, “Erasing history!”
But the second something emerges that Republicans don’t like, they instantly deploy the kind of brutal tactics that no decent person would ever even consider.
The latest target of Republican annihilation is Critical Race Theory. Republicans don’t know what it is, but they don’t want it taught. They don’t want kids to hear about it. They’re like abusers who attack children at night and in the morning say, “That was yesterday, why can’t we heal and move on? Why do you have to keep bringing up the past?”
The concept of using the legal system to ban a topic of study comes from the first paragraph of the authoritarian playbook. Leveraging our legal system to cultivate a systemic denial of reality is their objective. If history is any indication, the strategy has worked alarmingly well in the United States for decades.
What is critical race theory?
Sometimes it’s disgusting to observe just how completely Americans are controlled. These days, it’s rare to have a conversation with someone where they don’t parrot some idiotic talking point as if it was their own idea.
“Criminals by their very nature don’t obey laws.”
“Sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.”
These fraudulent soundbites form the foundation of half the country’s thought process. These same people, who consider themselves intelligent and free, instantly turn to right wing media to tell them what any new idea represents. In other words, they seek out people who will lie to them and incite hysteria even when the facts are harmless.
Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies — Stephen Sawchuk, What Is Critical Race Theory, and Why Is It Under Attack?
Essentially, critical race theory explains why so many of us have never heard of critical race theory. It’s also why we’ve never heard of the Tulsa massacre, or the way plantation owners sexually violated both male and female slaves. Instead, we get rosy lectures about the Wright brothers and lies about opportunity and fairness.
Teaching lies about American exceptionalism
Republicans insist they want children to “feel good good about themselves.” They always invoke their love of children when it’s convenient. Never mind that they slash educational funding, and they don’t do anything to help children get medical care. But when it comes to imagined psychological trauma about learning historical facts, Republicans are right there.
Trump decried what he said was a “twisted web of lies” being taught in U.S. classrooms about systemic racism in America, calling it “a form of child abuse.” He reprised themes from a speech he gave in July at Mount Rushmore. “Teaching this horrible doctrine to our children is a form of child abuse, the truest sense,” Trump said. “For many years now, the radicals have mistaken Americans’ silence for weakness. They’re wrong. There is no more powerful force than a parent’s love for their children. And patriotic moms and dads are going to demand that their children are no longer fed hateful lies about this country.” — Alana Wise, Trump Announces ‘Patriotic Education’ Commission, A Largely Political Move
Republicans consider it “child abuse” to instruct children about the truth of American history because it might make them feel ashamed to be from this country. Yet Republicans also encourage parents to send their kids to church where they’re told they’re “sinners” and that they will “burn in Hell for all eternity.”
We’re all so thoroughly brainwashed in this country that these massive contradictions often pass right under our noses. By social convention, if you make an objection, the offending party feels entitled to throw themselves into a hysteria because “their religion is under attack!”
There’s a web of lies alright, but it’s coming from the political right.
Banning Critical Race Theory is a ban on free speech
The Republican war on education continues. It’s stunning to see the efforts that are made to handcuff teachers and stop them from providing useful information to students. Don’t think for one second that student’s don’t recognize that this is going on. That’s why they hate school so much. Who wants to sit around being indoctrinated?
The Florida State Board of Education unanimously voted to ban teaching ideas related to critical race theory Thursday, making it one of the largest public school systems to fall in line with conservative efforts across the country to regulate certain classroom instruction of American history. The rule says in part: “Instruction on the required topics must be factual and objective and may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, and may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.” — Safia Samee Ali and The Associated Press, Florida Board of Education passes rule banning critical race theory in classrooms
The infuriating part is that banning Critical Race Theory represents an intentional distortion of facts. What are teachers supposed to do when students ask how the United States could be based on the principle that “all men are created equal,” when the man who wrote that himself owned human beings as property?
Will a teacher go to jail if they have an honest conversation about this blatant and obvious contradiction that’s going to be obvious to every single student in the classroom? Failure to speak honestly about this kind of thing is brainwashing, not education. It’s impossible to comply with this law as written.
DeSantis’s bizarre comments
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis went on record with a litany of bizarre claims that any reasonable person would be embarrassed to have attributed to their name.
Appearing virtually before the vote, DeSantis also called it “outrageous” that teaches [sic] would want to incorporate the theory in their classrooms. “Some of this stuff is, I think, really toxic,” he said. “I think it’s going to cause a lot of divisions. I think it’ll cause people to think of themselves more as a member of a particular race based on skin color, rather than based on the content of their character and based on their hard work and what they’re trying to accomplish in life.” — Victoria Moorwood, Florida bans critical race theory in schools
First of all, it should be noted that these comments represent DeSantis’s unsubstantiated theory on the effects of teaching Critical Race Theory. He has no basis for believing the things he claims. He has no scientific evidence that this is what will happen. Yet, he confidently stands in public to make these unfounded comments.
Also, if he’s going to quote Martin Luther King Jr. in his comments, he should at least properly attribute the quote.
Again, what are teachers supposed to do about all the historical injustices? How are they supposed to explain the fact that when a black man and a white man are caught doing an equivalent action, the black man is sentenced to death and the white man isn’t even detained?
Is the solution just to erase all the evidence that supports Critical Race Theory? Our history text books are going to be reduced to the size of an advertising flyer.
This ban isn’t going to work
Lawmakers in 16 states have introduced or passed legislation this year seeking to limit the teaching of critical race theory within public institutions. These bills all resemble former President Trump’s now-defunct executive order prohibiting federally funded institutions from teaching “divisive concepts” about race and gender. But whereas Trump’s order was widely interpreted to apply to diversity training, and lacked serious bite with the 2020 election fast approaching, these new state-level bills are already impacting the college curriculum. Many faculty members see this as censorship, by design — Colleen Flaherty, Legislating Against Critical Race Theory
The purpose to this kind of abuse of legislative power is simply to slow the progress of our nation. It’s Republican censorship, it’s Republican cancel culture, it’s a Republican effort to erase history.
Our children deserve to know the truth about our country. They see the truth outside their window and on the television every day. They know they’re being lied to and it makes them confused and angry.
We have to demand, not request, but demand that Critical Race Theory is taught as a fundamental component of American history. Leaving it out would be the same as a math teacher who refused to recognize the existence of odd numbers. It’s simply not possible to equip our children to achieve a better future if we are not honest about the crimes of our nation’s past. | https://aninjusticemag.com/republican-cancel-culture-wants-to-erase-critical-race-theory-e36499a9a901 | ['Walter Rhein'] | 2021-06-14 21:25:29.087000+00:00 | ['Republicans', 'Racsim', 'Trump', 'Politics', 'Black Lives Mater'] |
Perfection VS Progress 📈 | I work in a manner seeking progress, not perfection. The further I progress, the closer to perfection I’ll get.
And this is also why I push to Start Small. Start Early. Start Now.
“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good… If you can’t do it perfectly, do it good enough” — Eleanor Konik
Put this quote to work and see how it’s easier to start, start small, and actually accomplish something.
You can do iterations on it to make it better, but you have to start somewhere.
The desire to have something perfect actually stifles most people.
It stops them in their tracks — it leads to procrastination.
That reminds me of Steven Pressfield’s book “The War of Art” —
In the book, Pressfield writes an onslaught attack on the Lower Self — which he refers to as “Resistance”, the enemy to our life’s work.
Most importantly, he explains how procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize.
Don’t give in to Resistance. Don’t give in to procrastination. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Peace and Love | https://medium.com/@jesseyoungel/perfection-vs-progress-4e204c3343d | ['Jesse Young Iii El'] | 2021-06-21 12:43:04.637000+00:00 | ['Perfectionism', 'War Of Art', 'Getting Started', 'Procrastination'] |
Why Planning your day in the morning is the worst thing to do | Why Planning your day in the morning is the worst thing to do
Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash
Planning is in fact one of the most important factors you should consider if you want to live a productive and fulfilled life. It’s hard to get that sense of organization and to actually get the most out of your day if you are not prepared.
Having a clear goal of what you need to do and when you need to do helps you to get the most out of your day. Planning your day also helps you to save a ton of time. Brian Tracy said it best:
“Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives you a 1,000 percent return on energy!
Organizing your life is a way to live a fulfilled life but it becomes too late if you are doing it early in the morning.
You should have your plans ready when you wake up. If the first thing you do after waking up is planning your day, you will spend most of your mental energy on finding things you need to do and prioritizing them. This might even make you feel a little stressed and worried about your day.
Instead, do this:
Before going to bed every day, pick a pen and paper and write down all the things you need to get done tomorrow. In simple words, create a to-do list and prioritize the 2 most important tasks that need to be completed.
Making plans the day before has multiple benefits. As the author of the book Getting Things Done said, “Your head is for having ideas, not holding ideas, and it’s certainly not for filing things away. Without exception, you will feel better if you get stuff out of your head.”
When you plan your tomorrow, you will already have the list of things you need to do already prioritized.
This will not only help you to be relaxed but also sleep with a beautiful feeling that you are well prepared to tackle your next day.
Key Takeaways
If you start planning your day in the morning, it will not only suck your mental energy but also make you a little overwhelmed and stressed in the first hour of the day.
But, if you already have a plan for your day when you wake up, it creates natural momentum and motivates you to complete the tasks on your to-do list. | https://medium.com/afwp/why-planning-your-day-in-the-morning-is-the-worst-thing-to-do-de17df5479f2 | ['Prakash Joshi Pax'] | 2020-12-15 15:32:44.681000+00:00 | ['Planning', 'Habits', 'Productivity', 'Life Lessons', 'Self Improvement'] |
EU Looks To Drones And Space Communication To Get Ahead In Tech Race | EU Looks To Drones And Space Communication To Get Ahead In Tech Race Digital Times Africa Feb 22·2 min read
Brussels — The European Commission on Monday announced three flagship projects — in drone technologies, space communication, and space traffic management — aimed at giving the 27-country bloc a competitive edge in these new fields.
Called the Action Plan on Synergies between the civil, defense and space industries, the scheme’s objective is to harness research and innovation in the three sectors for the projects and other ventures.
The EU executive said the drone project would reinforce the competitiveness of the EU industry in this key area with a strong defense dimension, while space communication would provide for resilient and high-speed connectivity in Europe based on quantum encryption.
It said space traffic management was required to avoid collisions resulting from the proliferation of satellites and space debris while ensuring autonomous EU access to space.
“The idea is for innovations to systematically reach multiple uses by design. And to allow tapping into the huge innovation potential of researchers and start-ups,” European digital chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
EU industry commissioner Thierry Breton said the projects would help the bloc stand on its own feet instead of relying on other countries.
“It will also reduce our dependencies in critical technologies and boost the industrial leadership we need to recover from the (coronavirus pandemic) crisis,” he said
source: Reuters | https://medium.com/@digitaltimes-2020/eu-looks-to-drones-and-space-communication-to-get-ahead-in-tech-race-54e1040d80b5 | ['Digital Times Africa'] | 2021-02-22 11:47:38.347000+00:00 | ['Space', 'Drones', 'Technology', 'Technology News'] |
How will Bitcoin Behave if the Global Economy Erupts? | You can also read this blog post on the Adaptive Analysis website.
Economic conditions become increasingly turbulent after a decade of stimulative monetary policy & negative interest rate policies. A forward-looking indicator which has preceded every recession since the 1950s has recently signalled that a recession is in store. The limited evidence we have suggests Bitcoin has little downside risk in the event of an economic crisis.
Important Disclaimer: Nothing here should be constituted as financial advice. It also should be noted that the writer has upside exposure to Bitcoin, leading to all sorts of biases and degenerative opinions.
This newsletter was originally published in the Adaptive Analysis newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.
When respected global macro traders speak, it’s time to listen. These traders have what is known as “skin in the game”, a concept Nassim Taleb wrote an entire book on. The outlooks of global macro traders are closely tied to their wealth whereas the outlook of a politician, economist, or slickly suited banker is much more closely tied with matters such as election cycles, year-end bonuses, and public relations.
Recently, two highly respected global macro traders have shared their thoughts on how the global economy is shaping up. Ray Dalio published a 45-page report titled “Paradigm Shifts”, in which he analyses the major economic shifts in the United States over the past century along with a tentative forecast on how he believes the next decade is shaping up.
The other trader, Raoul Pal, published two monster threads, one detailing the wobbly legs the global economy is standing on and another highlighting the shaky state of the currency market. The economy has experienced enormous growth since the last recession. How much of this growth is due to real increases in productivity, as opposed to experimentative monetary policy, remains unknown. Regardless, the latest data indicates that we may be on the verge of another global crisis and the outlooks of Dalio and Pal are worth pondering.
This post details the latest economic developments along with some speculative outlooks on what this might mean for Bitcoin. How Bitcoin will behave as an asset in times of economic turbulence has been a highly speculated subject. One of the most common claims is that Bitcoin will outperform due to its strong store-of-value properties. This popular narrative compares Bitcoin to physical gold and uses this as a foundation to support the theory that Bitcoin will perform positively in times of economic turbulence. The fact is we have limited empirical evidence indicating how Bitcoin will behave if an economic crisis takes place. We explore some scenarios to how Bitcoin may behave by cross-examining the data we have on Bitcoin with the characteristics of how markets have behaved during previous recessions.
If you are just interested in how Bitcoin may behave in if a recession hits, skip to the “How will Bitcoin Behave?” section. You can also see the movements of Bitcoin when the Renminbi devalued in the “Currency Crisis” section.
Economic Developments
The dim outlooks many currently hold regarding the state of the global economy has a strong foundation in the data. The fourth-biggest economy in the world, Germany, is on the verge of recession after its gross domestic product (GDP) contracted 0.1% last quarter. GDP is essentially the income produced within a country’s borders. Two consecutive quarters of contraction and a country has officially entered a recession. China, the second-biggest economy in the world, has also been reporting weaker than expected growth.
However, GDP is a lagging indicator. The data is sent after-the-fact. The forward-looking indicators for other major economies are not looking any better. The yield of the 10-year Treasury bond has recently dropped below the yield of the US 2-year Treasury bond. This phenomenon has preceded every recession since the 1950s.
Premium of the US 10-Year Treasury Bond Yield Above the US 2-Year Treasury Bond Yield; Source: TradingView.com
The last time the 2-year yield rose above the 10-year yield was July 2007 before the Great Recession of 2008. Longer-term bonds typically have higher yields than shorter-term bonds. The longer-term yields dropping below shorter-term yield is representative of investors holding more pessimistic outlooks for economic conditions. In response to this, investors drive up the price of longer-term bonds as they look to park capital in safer assets. Given that investors in the US bond market include investors of all sizes globally, the curve is a good gauge of the global expectations of how the US economy is going to perform.
“Everyone invests in the US Treasury market from the Chinese central bank to pension funds in Canada and Europe, hedge funds in America. Everyone is exposed to and invests in the US Treasury market. So if you’re looking for an aggregate opinion of everyone in the world, what they think might happen to the US economy, and by extension the global economy, you would be very hard-pressed to find something more important to look at.” Alice Fulwood, The Economist
The United States is not the only economy where this is occurring. The yields of the 10-year bonds and 2-year bonds issued by the UK government have also inverted. Some fixed income analysts question whether the inversion still holds its power of predicting future recessions. However, most still consider it the strongest signal we have of an impending recession. However, the question of how long there is between a curve inversion and an actual recession is debatable. This has ranged from 8 to 24 months after each yield curve inversion since 1956.
Currency Crisis
Another major theme of the recent economic turbulence has been the instability of currency valuations. Several countries have devalued their currencies as they seek to reduce debt burdens and improve exports.
The PBOC, the central bank of China, devalued the onshore Renminbi above 7 per USD on August 5th shortly after a 10% tariff on $300 billion of Chinese imported goods was threatened by the US government. Trump quickly labelled China a “currency manipulator” after the devaluation.
The offshore Renminbi devalued even further against the USD. As the Renminbi depreciated against USD, bitcoin appreciated. Observe the performance of the two on the chart below when the onshore peg was set above 7 on August 5th.
Offshore Renminbi (CNH) versus USD in blue and Bitcoin versus USD in red, Source: Tradingview.com
The strict capital controls of the Chinese government combined with the devaluation of the Renminbi against the USD strengthens the value proposition of the permissionless and censorship resistance features of Bitcoin. As the yuan devalues, so does the wealth of Chinese citizens who are forced to hold the vast majority of their wealth in this fiat currency.
“Capital controls, inflation and capital flight have always proved to be significant medium-term drivers of the bitcoin price, as early as the 2013 Cyprus banking crisis.” Tuur Demeester
The fiat currencies of a long list of other countries have long been struggling to maintain their purchasing power. Argentinian and Venezuelan citizens have had their wealth rapidly eroded from extreme inflation. Raoul Pal highlights that many other currencies look to be on the brink of massive devaluation when compared to the USD.
Another point on the note of currencies is the position of the USD as the reserve currency of the world. The Bretton Woods agreement effectively placed the USD into the position of the reserve currency of the world meaning that economic activity worldwide would be predominantly conducted in terms of USD. This status still stands today with the majority of central bank reserves being in USD. However, its position as a world reserve currency has become weaker as the US share of global growth declines and the percentage of central bank reserves held in USD declines.
Even the Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, admitted before Congress that the world reserve currency status is not something which will last forever. Extremely candid words from the man spearheading the world’s greatest fugazi that all value should be denominated in USD.
“You’ve got to be running a fiscal sustainable policy and we’re not… I don’t think in the near term there is anything to threaten our status as reserve currency but in the medium and longer-term we’ll have to address our fiscal issues” Jerome Powell, Fed Chairman
JP Morgan Asset Management has also taken note of the questionable position of the USD as the world’s reserve currency. They are recommending their clients to diversify exposure away from USD by holding a basket of fiat currencies and precious metals.
“There is nothing to suggest that the dollar dominance should remain in perpetuity. In fact, the dominant international currency has changed many times throughout history going back thousands of years as the world’s economic center has shifted.” Craig Cohen, JP Morgan
Monetary Outlook
“If the whole world decides all at the same time that this quantitative easing while simultaneously running massive deficits on top of increasingly untenable debt level is not a great idea and we need a little bit of a hedge on that, there’s not enough [bitcoin] to go around” Travis Kling
Monetary policy has been one of the craziest aspects of the global economy over the past decade. It has been characterized by aggressive easing measures. Major central banks have injected huge quantities of cash into economies to stimulate growth and most central banks have been forced to lower interest rates to 0% or even negative territories to tackle deflation. There is almost $17 trillion in negative-yielding debt circulating worldwide which means investors are paying to put their money in these debt instruments. You certainly don’t need to be an economist to question how sustainable such a jig is.
The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank (ECB), and the Bank of Japan (BoJ) have all drastically increased the size of their balance sheets over the past decade through quantitative easing. Quantitative easing simply means printing money and injecting it into economies. This typically consists of central banks purchasing government bonds but can also consist of the central banks purchasing corporate bonds and other instruments such as equities. The BoJ today owns over 75% of Japanese ETFs and almost half of the government’s debt. If the BoJ begins to write off the debt that they owe to themselves, it could potentially cause huge disruption in their domestic currency and the welfare of their country.
Quantitative easing and lowering interest rates are two powerful tools that central banks have at their disposal when trying to stimulate the economy. However, interest rates are already at-bottom or near-bottom and the balance sheets of central banks have already drastically increased since the last recession. Further decreases in interest rates and/or more quantitative easing look highly likely to wreak havoc on the global economy. If interest rates continue to decline, a point will be reached where debt is no longer attractive to hold as an asset as the yield drops below non-productive assets and cash. This could catalyze mass-selling in the fixed income market and wreak havoc on institutions such as pension funds whose balance sheets are loaded with such instruments. The fixed income market already appears to be approaching the brink with the $17 trillion in negative-yielding debt having less of a yield than just holding cash. How far holders of such debt instruments are willing to let yields drop is unknown.
The lowering of interest rates also serves to make debt easy to take on. This spurs excessive borrowing and debt-fueled purchases. Governments run huge fiscal deficits and corporations execute large share buyback programmes. Travis Kling has described it as “Universal Basic Income for the rich”. Dalio is concerned about the social unrest it creates between the wealthy and the lower classes. The wealth disparity between those who own assets and those who do not significantly widened as a result of the debt-fuelled purchases.
The lowering of interest rates also serves to drive down the expected returns of risky assets. Each asset has a return premium to represent its riskiness. Cash and non-income producing assets such as metals have no productive return, bonds will mostly have a small return above cash, while equities and other risky instruments will have a higher return again. Debt-fueled purchases serve to drive the prices of risky assets up and their future expected returns down. We are already seeing the returns of bonds drop below cash in the negative yield cases. Currently, the markets are pricing in high expected future returns of instruments such as equities but as growth concerns and lower than expected earnings mount, there is a high possibility of a rapid reversal in expectations. When the expected returns are knocked out of equilibrium, a devaluation will typically need to occur putting pressure on businesses and investors who hold leveraged long positions on artificially inflated assets. The diagram below from Dalio’s Paradigm Shifts illustrates the relationship between interest rates and the future returns of assets.
Relationship between interest rates, asset prices, and expected future returns; Source: Paradigm Shifts
How will Bitcoin Behave?
The executive summary up to this point is that the current state of the global economy is shaping up to be extremely fragile. Key equilibrium points are being knocked out of balance. Central banks and the economies in the world are operating in an unsustainable manner. The equity markets and bond markets seem to be in an extremely vulnerable position as a result of highly experimentative monetary policy and huge fiscal deficits being taken on by the countries with the largest economies.
How Bitcoin will perform if the global economy takes a turn for the worse is a question which many have considered. To date, it is nothing more than a matter of speculation given that the asset has never existed in times of economic turbulence. The empirical evidence to draw upon is limited. There are several popular narratives tied to how this asset might perform in response to economic downturns. We explore some of these narratives and also draw upon what we know about the Bitcoin network and its procurers and users to derive some possibilities regarding how the asset may behave in times of economic turbulence.
Bitcoin’s Digital Gold Narrative
Bitcoin’s fixed inflation schedule has led many to tie the asset to a digital gold or safe haven narrative. The fixed supply schedule of Bitcoin is enforced by the distributed network of computers validating the ledger. The value proposition of the fixed inflation schedule is augmented by other properties such as censorship resistance and a design which is resistant to change.
As investors get concerned over growth prospects, they turned to traditional safe-haven assets such as treasury bonds and non-income producing assets like gold and the Japenese Yen. At times this year, Bitcoin has performed similarly to a safe haven asset as it appreciated in line with other safe-haven assets such as gold when signs of economic trouble arise. Both Bitcoin and gold have recorded a strong price performance this year in the midst of concerning economic developments.
Bitcoin Price & Gold Price Year-to-date; Source: CoinMetrics State of the Network
One method for assessing how Bitcoin may perform in times of economic turbulence would be to analyse the past performance of gold during prior recessions which have been mixed. However, this method would be flawed as Bitcoin represents an entirely different value proposition than gold. Although it has strong store-of-value properties, its technological features make it a completely different type of asset. Its historic low levels of correlation with other assets are a reflection of this. James O’Beirne does a great job of highlighting some of the key distinctions between Bitcoin and gold.
“Bitcoin is fully digital bearer asset and as such it has no counterparty risk. Final settlement occurs indisputably within hours, not weeks. The cost of storing it is negligible. Cryptographic features like multisignature schemes and scripting abilities like timelocks enable a trustless programmability that makes it a completely new kind of financial asset, which is basically just a bonus on top of its killer feature: hardness as a money and suitability as a safe-haven asset.” James O’Beirne
These features serve to make Bitcoin highly suitable as an asset which acts as a hedge against economic turbulence. On top of this, expensive hardware which can only be used for mining Bitcoin expends enormous amounts of computing power to protect the features which the network provides.
An interesting phenomenon in the Bitcoin network is the ability to view how long coins have been dormant since their last movement. This observation is made possible through Bitcoin’s unspent transaction output (UTXO) model. The ability to access this information is impossible in any traditional asset class. This information allows us to partition coins into segments based on how long it has been since they last moved.
The resulting graph, commonly referred to as HODL waves, shows an increasing tendency for investors to hold coins long-term. Over 21% of the current Bitcoin supply has been held for greater than five years. An increasing percentage of bitcoin holders have held their coins between 1 to 2 years with this timeframe band also representing over 21% of all holders. When compared with late 2017 to early 2018, a pronounced decrease has been observed in the lower timeframe bands. Spikes in these bands can often be associated with capitulation and market speculation as investors move their coins to exchanges to liquidate or trade. However, the graphic demonstrates that the current profile of Bitcoin holders is representative of long-term holders with low propensity to sell their holdings. Many of the holders in the 1–2 year timeframe band would have held their coins through the December 2018 lows suggesting that these investors have a low willingness to sell. Circumstances may be different in times of economic turbulence but the current distribution indicates “strong hands” represent a large portion of the Bitcoin market.
Bitcoin UTXO Age Distribution AKA Hodl Waves Superimposed with Bitcoin Price in black; Source: Hodlwave.com
Takeaway 1: Bitcoins’ technological features protected by vast amounts of distributed computing power combined with the tendency of network users to hold coins long-term decrease the possibility that Bitcoin will decline in value in times of economic turbulence but these properties make no strong case for Bitcoin increasing in value either.
Bitcoin’s Safe Haven Narrative
The argument for Bitcoin as a safe haven does not sit well with everyone. Josh Brown, AKA The Reformed Broker, believes Bitcoin’s volatility discredits the argument that the asset could be a safe haven. Brown presents the following two exhibits as his evidence against Bitcoin as a store-of-value or safe haven.
Parker Lewis from Unchained Capital published a great piece addressing Bitcoin’s supposed “volatility problem”. The premise of the post is that volatility and effectiveness as a store-of-value are not mutually exclusive.
The volatility of Bitcoin is a function of its price discovery and is a healthy attribute for an early-stage asset. The volatility of Bitcoin will only decrease as the asset progresses further along its user adoption curve. New waves of adoption currently are orders of magnitude greater than their base before an adoption wave. Parker estimates Bitcoin is currently at less than 1% of terminal adoption. In this case, each new wave of demand would be orders of magnitude greater than the demand level beforehand for many more cycles.
Given Bitcoin’s fixed supply structure, the price needs to find a higher equilibrium point at each new cycle given the disproportionate increase in demand compared to supply. For those familiar with the Econ 101 demand-supply curve, the scenario can be presented as follows.
Theoretical demand-supply curve when Bitcoin reaches maximum supply; Source: Unchained Capital
The demand curve shifts upwards and to the right after each new cycle while the supply curve will shift only slightly to the right with an eventual maximum supply of 21 million. The below graphic shows Parker’s estimates of the disproportionate demand-supply shifts from the last cycle (2016 to 2019) and the resulting impacts on price and market capitalization. It is estimated than the demand increased by a factor of twelve from 2016 to 2019 while supply increased only 10% over the same timeframe.
Demand-supply shifts from the latest market cycle and resulting impacts on price and market capitalization; Source: Unchained Capital
There have also been more detailed studies modelling the scarcity of Bitcoin with its price. Plan B (@100trillionUSD) has published one of the more interesting studies in this area with a regression model looking at the relationship between Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow ratio and it’s price.
Coming back to volatility, Bitcoin is indeed volatile when considered in terms of its USD price. But does its value erode because of this? On the contrary. The volatility Bitcoin exhibits is necessary for the borderless transactions which the network facilitates. To keep its volatility artificially suppressed, the network would need to control the capital flow (i.e. demand) and the supply. This theory is known as the monetary policy trilemma. The trilemma is widely accepted to demonstrate that central banks that issue their own money can only achieve two of three objectives: having a sovereign monetary policy, having free capital flow, and/or having a fixed exchange rate. Bitcoin’s volatility is, therefore, necessary for it to achieve free capital flow and retains an independent monetary policy.
On the other side, instruments which have low volatility are not necessarily good stores of value. The below graph demonstrates the purchasing power of the USD over time.
Building upon this, instruments which have artificially suppressed volatility are often placed in a highly vulnerable state. In Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Taleb describes the Peso problem. During the 1980s, the Mexican Peso exhibited long periods of stability but switched to high levels of volatility sporadically.
“Long periods of stability draw hordes of bank currency traders and hedge fund operators to the calm waters of the Mexican Peso; they enjoy owning the currency because of the high interest rate it commands. Then they “unexpectedly” blow up, low money for investors, lose their jobs, and switch careers”. Nassim Taleb, Fooled By Randomness
Takeaway 2; Bitcoin’s volatility does not discredit its effectiveness as a store of value or safe haven. On the contrary, the volatility is a natural function of price discovery and is necessary for the network to achieve permissionless payments. Bitcoin’s disproportionate increases in demand combined with its fixed supply schedule suggest that the price of bitcoin will need to continue to adjust upwards for many more adoption cycles to find new price equilibriums. While this does not necessarily relate to an economic crisis, it does make the case for the price of Bitcoin moving upward in the event of a crisis as such events will likely result in Bitcoin receiving more publicity and attention as a potential safe-haven asset which has been evident in the media this year. Such attention and publicity would likely serve to spur user adoption, increasing the demand for the asset.
Sellers Rush to the Door?
An opposing perspective would be that Bitcoin may find selling pressure if an economic crisis takes place. Recessions have often catalyzed selling in gold as investors sell liquid assets on the market to exchange for cash to meet debt obligations. Prices in riskier and illiquid assets drop even further as everyone tries to offload their speculative future returns on these instruments for cash. With Bitcoin considered to be among the riskiest assets and the entire network valued at roughly $0.2 trillion, how would it stand up in the face of such selling pressure? There several reasons why this may not be as big of a concern as it first appears.
Firstly, the development of hardware specialised to mine on the Bitcoin network has evolved into a very important feature of Bitcoin’s design. Those who are procuring the Bitcoin network, miners, have made costly investments in ASIC hardware with the aim of returning a future profit by converting their energy into newly Bitcoin. Such costly investments are essentially a bet on the long-term future of the network and highly disincentive sudden changes. If the ASIC hardware is not used to mine Bitcoin, it becomes worthless. The scope of miners investment also extends far beyond the cost of hardware. Businesses commit capital to land, building data centres specifically tailored for mining bitcoin, and sign 3–5 year power contracts. The huge capital investment which places these fixed assets on the balance sheets of miners translates to billions of dollars in investment which is all tied to the future success of Bitcoin.
Let’s say a certain percentage of miners do panic and want out. We can even consider the extremely unlikely scenario where a large percentage of miners rush to exit. They sell all of their bitcoin on exchanges to other buyers, maybe depressing prices somewhat with their panic. But for their hardware, there only option is to sell to other miners as there is no other use for the hardware. So, let’s say 30% of hardware comes offline by panicked miners looking to sell it. This hardware is redistributed to other miners at depressed hardware prices who bring it back online, having ultimately little impact on the hash rate apart from the temporary drops between exchanges of hardware. Even if the hardware does not come back online, the intelligent design of the difficulty adjustment means the difficulty of mining will drop for remaining miners, increasing their profit margins, and incentivising more miners to come online.
Secondly, institutions are largely responsible for the large sell-offs observed in traditional markets in turbulent. Not only do they represent the majority of the money in these markets, but they also often have risk parameters to oblige which results in all of them rushing to the door at once when things start looking shaky. Ironically, this idea of risk parameters is also what leads them all to pile their balance sheets with dodgy instruments when everything is looking rosy. 2008 was a perfect example of this where the balance sheets of all major banks were loaded with risky instruments that they all had to offload simultaneously when the crisis took place. A lot of these instruments ended up being purchased by governments who in turn placed the debt obligations on the taxpayers. Bringing it back to Bitcoin, while there is some evidence of institutions starting to represent a larger share of the Bitcoin market, they still represent the minority. This implies that the huge onslaught of selling pressure which purges traditional markets when troubles hit with will be far less prevalent in Bitcoin, if not absent entirely.
“institutional ownership of Bitcoin is almost nonexistent at the moment. In a rush for the exit (liquidity), large institutions will be selling off risk assets, but I don’t think these institutions have any substantial volume of BTC to sell.” James O’Beirne, Chaincode Labs Engineer
What about the retail investors that comprise the majority of the market? Will all of these rush to the door to sell? The HODL waves analysis indicates that the majority of the market is comprised of long-term investors. A spike in the shorter term timeframe bands of the HODL waves may certainly be indicative of some investors looking to convert their Bitcoin into fiat but the high percentages currently seen in the longer-timeframe band provides evidence that many holders are looking to hold long-term.
Takeaway 3; Evidence would suggest that there is little risk of a sell-off in Bitcoin as a result of a crisis taking place. The nature of the application-specific hardware in Bitcoin mining means that miners have invested in the long-term health of the Bitcoin network and have little to gain from offloading hardware. Furthermore, institutional investors, which play an important role in the typical market sell-offs observed during turbulent times, still represent a minority of the Bitcoin market. There is evidence that the remaining retail investors are long-term holders and their propensity towards selling would likely be little impacted by a crisis.
The Antifragile Nature of Bitcoin
When the Bitcoin network launched in January 2009, it has been well-documented that the code was marred with bugs. Bitcoin was certainly in an extremely vulnerable position at this time. Any array of attacks could have resulted in the network disappearing into the abyss of the internet forever. A bug introduced to the protocol, a failure to generate sufficient interest, or resistance by the right entities all could have potentially stopped Bitcoin in its tracks early.
Market crashes have led many to write early obituaries for the digital money throughout its ten-year existence. Yet, it still survives and each attack Bitcoin survives makes it stronger. There are still significant risks today. BGP hijacking was noted by Matt Corallo as one of the biggest threats to the network. However, as Bitcoin draws closer to the first economic crisis in its history, its antifragility naturally places it in a stronger position than ever to survive and potentially thrive in times of economic turbulence.
What does this all mean? The fiscal deficits, ominous forward-looking indicators, contracting lagging indicators, trade tensions, political tensions, pile of negative-yielding debt, imbalances in income produced compared to debt service payments, and imbalances in asset risk-reward returns would all typically suggest investors are in for a hard hit, if not a total restructuring of the financial system as we know it today.
However, given that these indicators are all painting a clear picture of turbulent times, the real shock likely lies elsewhere. The biggest hits are always the ones we do not see coming. The very fact that I am writing about all this, and certainly the fact that the mainstream media is writing about all this, indicates that these factors are likely not the real risk. The real risk will likely be second-order effects of how governments and central banks behave in response to these factors. We are likely to see some extremely experimentative methods put in place by governments and central banks to try and micromanage the impending crisis.
Whichever way you slice and dice it, Bitcoin warrants consideration as a hedge against economic turbulence. The empirical evidence is limited and the arguments I have made in this post are certainly speculative. Regardless of this, the network has demonstrated effectiveness in what it sets out to achieve. The limited evidence which does exist suggests there is little downside risk for Bitcoin in the event of a crisis. An argument can be made that a crisis would even benefit Bitcoin as it gains greater publicity as a potential safe-haven which will drive new waves of users to demand the asset. If volatility and the risk associated with Bitcoin’s survival is the concern, exposure could be limited to comfortable levels. Consider that a 5% bitcoin 95% cash portfolio has outperformed stocks for every four-year investment period from 2010 to 2019. However, it’s not all about returns and this is not financial advice. This is simply about the technology which is Bitcoin being an asset that is more detached from the fragilities of the global economy than any other asset which has ever existed.
-John Lee
Thanks to Matt D’Souza CEO of Blockware Solutions for peer-reviewing.
Recommended Reading:
If this topic interests you, here are some of the key resources used in this article for further reading.
Disclaimer: The Antifragile, Fooled by Randomness, and the Skin in the Game books are all linked with an Amazon affiliates link. | https://medium.com/messaricrypto/how-will-bitcoin-bitcoin-behave-if-the-global-economy-erupts-1ffb30e49b58 | ['John Lee Quigley'] | 2020-02-22 06:52:53.769000+00:00 | ['Economics', 'Finance', 'Investing', 'Messari Analyst', 'Bitcoin'] |
《毒液2：屠杀开始 Venom: Let There Be Carnage》官方预告片(2021) | 屠杀开始的剧情简介 · · · · · ·
据悉，索尼已将《毒液》续集提上日程。《毒液》凭借1亿美元的投资目前拿到6.77亿美元全球票房，最终甚至可能摸高到8亿美元，拿到的利润会超过索尼之前所有的蜘蛛侠电影。虽然影片媒体口碑一般，但观众似乎很认可。接下来的《毒液》续集除了要展现伍迪·哈里森扮演的屠杀，如何将汤姆·赫兰德扮演的蜘蛛侠融入进来。目前这版的彼得·帕克还是高中生，算是索尼和MCU合作的产物，他和汤姆·哈迪扮演的埃迪同处在一个宇宙、一个时间线上吗？
In 1889, on November 1 in Gotha, Germany Anna Therese Johanne Hoch, who later would be known as Hannah Hoch was born. Being the eldest of five children, the girl was brought up in a comfortable and quiet environment of the small town. Her parents, a supervisor in an insurance company and an amateur painter sent her to Girl’s High school. However, at the age of 15 Hannah had to quit studying for the long six years to take care of her newborn sister. Only in 1912 she continued her education with Harold Bengen in School of Applied Arts, mastering glass design. As the World War I broke up Hannah returned to the native town to work in the Red Cross.
The first years after war the young woman recommenced her studying, getting to know graphic arts. 1915 was highlighted by an acquaintance with an Austrian artist Raoul Hausmann, which grew into the long-lasting romantic relationship and involvement in Berlin Dada movement. For ten years till 1926 Hoch worked in Berlin’s major publisher of newspapers and magazines. Her task was to design embroidering, knitting and crocheting patterns for the booklets.
Being on vacation with her beloved in 1918, Hannah discovered ‘the principle of photomontage in cut-and-paste images that soldiers sent to their families’ (National gallery of Art). This find affected greatly on her artistic production, and she created mass-media photographs comprising the elements of photomontage and handwork patterns, thus combining traditional and modern culture. Her prior preoccupation was to represent the ‘new woman’ of the Weimar Republic with new social role and given freedoms.
Hoch was the only woman in Berlin Dada, who took part in all kinds of events and exhibitions showcasing her socially critical works of art. Till 1931 she participated in exhibitions but with the rise of National Social regime was forbidden to present her creative work. Till her last breath in 1978 Hannah Hoch lived and worked in the outskirts of Berlin-Heiligensee.
The piece of art which is going to be analyzed in this research is ‘The beautiful girl’ designed in 1919–1920. It combines the elements of technology and females. In the middle of the picture one can clearly see a woman dressed in a modern bathing suit with a light bulb on her head which probably serves as a sun umbrella. In the background a large advertisement with a woman’s hair-do on top is presented. Maud Lavin describes strange human as ‘she is part human, part machine, part commodity’ (Lavin). The woman is surrounded by the images of industrialization as tires, gears, signals and BMW logos. A woman’s profile with the cat eyes, untrusting and skeptical, in the upper right corner is eye-catching as well. This unusually large eye symbolizes DADA movement — a monocle, which is present in almost every Hoch’s work. The colour scheme does not offer rich palette of tints, including mostly black, white, orange and red pieces. The photo is surrounded by the BMW circles which add the spots of blue.
An apt description of the piece is given in the book ‘Cut with the Kitchen Knife’ and states that it is ‘a portrait of a modern woman defined by signs of femininity, technology, media and advertising’ (Lavin). In other words Hannah Hoch focused on the woman of the new age, free and keeping up with the fast-moving world. The artist promoted feministic ideas and from her point of view urbanization and modern technologies were meant to give hope to woman to gain equality of genders. With this photomontage she commented on how the woman was expected to combine the role of a wife and mother with the role of a worker in the industrialized world. The light bulb instead of a face shows that women were perceived as unthinking machines which do not question their position and can be turned on or off at any time at man’s will. But at the same time they were to remain attractive to satisfy men’s needs. The watch is viewed as the representation of how quickly women are to adapt to the changes.
In a nutshell, Hoch concentrated on two opposite visions of the modern woman: the one from the television screens — smoking, working, wearing sexy clothes, voting and the real one who remained being a housewife.
The beautiful girl’ is an example of the art within the DADA movement. An artistic and literal current began in 1916 as the reaction to World War I and spread throughout Northern America and Europe. Every single convention was challenged and bourgeois society was scandalized. The Dadaists stated that over-valuing conformity, classism and nationalism among modern cultures led to horrors of the World War I. In other words, they rejected logic and reason and turned to irrationality, chaos and nonsense. The first DADA international Fair was organized in Berlin in 1920 exposing a shocking discontentment with military and German nationalism (Dada. A five minute history).
Hannah Hoch was introduced to the world of DADA by Raoul Hausman who together with Kurt Schwitters, Piet Mondrian and Hans Richter was one of the influential artists in the movement. Hoch became the only German woman who referred to DADA. She managed to follow the general Dadaist aesthetic, but at the same time she surely and steadily incorporated a feminist philosophy. Her aim was to submit female equality within the canvass of other DADA’s conceptions.
Though Hannah Hoch officially was a member of the movement, she never became the true one, because men saw her only as ‘a charming and gifted amateur artist’ (Lavin). Hans Richter, an unofficial spokesperson shared his opinion about the only woman in their community in the following words: ‘the girl who produced sandwiches, beer and coffee on a limited budget’ forgetting that she was among the few members with stable income.
In spite of the gender oppressions, Hannah’s desire to convey her idea was never weakened. Difficulties only strengthened her and made her an outstanding artist. A note with these return words was found among her possessions: ‘None of these men were satisfied with just an ordinary woman. But neither were they included to abandon the (conventional) male/masculine morality toward the woman. Enlightened by Freud, in protest against the older generation. . . they all desired this ‘New Woman’ and her groundbreaking will to freedom. But — they more or less brutally rejected the notion that they, too, had to adopt new attitudes. . . This led to these truly Strinbergian dramas that typified the private lives of these men’ (Maloney).
Hoch’s technique was characterized by fusing male and female parts of the body or bodies of females from different epochs — a ‘traditional’ woman and ‘modern’, liberated and free of sexual stereotypes one. What’s more, combining male and female parts, the female ones were always more distinctive and vibrant, while the male ones took their place in the background. Hannah created unique works of art experimenting with paintings, collages, graphic and photography. Her women were made from bits and pieces from dolls, mannequins of brides or children as these members of the society were not considered as valuable.
Today Hannah Hoch is most associated with her famous photomontage ‘Cut with the kitchen knife DADA through the last Weimer Beer-Belly Cultural epoch of Germany’ (1919–1920). This piece of art highlights social confusion during the era of Weimar Republic, oppositionists and government radicals (Grabner). In spite of never being truly accepted by the rest of her society, this woman with a quiet voice managed to speak out loud her feministic message.
Looking at Hannah Hoch’s art for the first time I found it confusing, because couldn’t comprehend the meaning. It was quite obvious that every single piece and structure is a symbol of the era, its ideas and beliefs. However, after having learned about her life and constant endeavors to declare about female’s right, little by little I started to realize what’s what. … | https://medium.com/@jjeje5526/%E5%AF%BC%E6%BC%94-%E5%AE%89%E8%BF%AA-%E7%91%9F%E9%87%91%E6%96%AF-%E7%BC%96%E5%89%A7-%E5%87%AF%E8%8E%89-%E9%A9%AC%E5%A1%9E%E5%B0%94-%E4%B8%BB%E6%BC%94-%E6%B1%A4%E5%A7%86-%E5%93%88%E8%BF%AA-%E7%B1%B3%E6%AD%87%E5%B0%94-%E5%A8%81%E5%BB%89%E5%A7%86%E6%96%AF-%E4%BC%8D%E8%BF%AA-%E5%93%88%E9%87%8C%E6%A3%AE-%E5%A8%9C%E5%A5%A5%E7%B1%B3-%E5%93%88%E9%87%8C%E6%96%AF-%E6%96%AF%E8%92%82%E8%8A%AC-%E6%A0%BC%E6%8B%89%E6%B1%89%E5%A7%86-%E6%9B%B4%E5%A4%9A-%E7%B1%BB%E5%9E%8B-%E5%8A%A8%E4%BD%9C-%E7%A7%91%E5%B9%BB-%E6%83%8A%E6%82%9A-ee5593180883 | ['Jaja Jeje'] | 2021-03-22 16:01:03.070000+00:00 | ['Thailand', 'Hong Kong', 'Taiwan'] |
Top NPM Packages You May Have Missed | Photo by jesse ramirez on Unsplash
NPM packages are used by both browser and Node.js apps alike. NPM is the biggest repository of JavaScript libraries.
In this article, we’ll look at the top JavaScript packages on NPM.
Lodash is the most popular utility library used in JavaScript programs.
It lets us do math operations, manipulate objects, and work with arrays easily.
Some of them have plain JavaScript equivalents, but there’re many that still have no equivalent in the JavaScript standard library.
Therefore, it’s still a useful library for many JavaScript projects.
React is one most of the most popular JavaScript libraries for building browser web apps.
It has its own unique JSX syntax which lets us manipulate the DOM in an easy way.
Therefore it’s one library that we should learn how to use if we want to be a front end developer.
Chalk is a library for Node.js command-line apps to let us style text the way we want them to be displayed on the screen.
We can set colors, and compose styles easily with it.
Request is an HTTP client that can be used in Node.js apps.
We can make HTTP and HTTPS requests with it. Headers, bodies, and responses can all be processed with this library.
However, it’s deprecated so we may want to find another library like Axios for making HTTP requests.
Commander lets us run shell command automatically within a Node.js program.
It allows us a lot more flexibility than running with commands with spawn or other built-in Node.js programs for running child processes within a Node program.
Since the JavaScript Date constructor is deficient in features, many JavaScript date manipulation libraries have been made to address the issues with it.
One of them is the moment.js library. We can use it to parse date strings, add and subtract dates, get elapsed time, and do many other things that are hard with the native Date contructor.
Express is a micro-framework for building back end web apps.
It works by chaining together a bunch of middleware that are bound together by the Express framework.
It’s very basic. All it has is routing and abilities to listen to HTTP requests out of the box.
Anything else has to be done with its own middleware, 3rd party middleware, or we can write our own.
React DOM is a core library that goes with React. It lets React manipulate the DOM so that we can mount our app into a web page so that the React app can be run.
Prop-types is the library for validation prop types of React components.
We can watch the value of the props and validate them as they’re being passed in from parent components.
By default, we can pass in any values as props, which isn’t good since it’s error-prone as there’s no validation for data types or formats.
This library lets us do the required validation so that we can deal with props easier.
The debug library is used for making debugging Node apps easier.
We can just include this library and use it to add debug messages in the places that we wish to find out what’s going on with our app.
Photo by Daily Nouri on Unsplash
fs-extra has file manipulation methods that aren’t present in the Node’s built-in fs module.
It includes methods for copying files, making directories, checking for empty directories, reading JSON, and more.
Both synchronous and promise-based versions of the methods are available.
Axios is a popular HTTP client that can be used by browser and Node apps.
We can make any kind of HTTP request with it with various HTTP headers, and bodies.
Also, it can handle different kinds of responses with ease, including text and JSON, binary responses.
It also has HTTP interceptors to let us configure requests before they’re made, thereby eliminating repetition.
The async library has methods for doing various operations asynchronously, including iteration, filtering, concatenation, mapping values, and much more.
It has many other methods for control for and error handling, all done asynchronously.
Conclusion
We can do a lot with the top libraries.
They can be used to make full-featured front end and back end apps when we incorporate them with other supporting libraries.
We can make simple apps just with these libraries alone.
A note from the Plain English team
Did you know that we have four publications? Show some love by giving them a follow: JavaScript in Plain English, AI in Plain English, UX in Plain English, Python in Plain English — thank you and keep learning!
Also, we’re always interested in helping to promote good content. If you have an article that you would like to submit to any of our publications, send an email to [email protected] with your Medium username and what you are interested in writing about and we will get back to you! | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/top-npm-packages-you-may-have-missed-e7bd4da7cc2f | ['John Au-Yeung'] | 2020-05-08 20:05:18.461000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Programming', 'Software Development', 'Web Development', 'JavaScript'] |
I Got Fired 30 Days Ago. Here are my results. | I Got Fired 30 Days Ago
Here are my results.
Today marks 30 days since getting fired. Making a note of such observation was interesting, and I wanted to write a little more about what I’ve been doing and how I’ve been spending my time as a newly found content creator/writer/entrepreneur. That’s a mouthful.
Being an entrepreneur can take place in many different ways. There are various routes you can take, a multitude of different avenues, platforms, and products.
Since getting fired, I’ve been on some mission to jump into content creation. This is being done for several reasons. The biggest of which was having what I’ll refer to as an intense spiritual experience where I felt called to begin doing to — specifically to motivate and inspire others.
I know some of you will think that’s silly. And I won’t pretend to know or understand the context of what it is that I’m necessarily supposed to do.
But I’ve been giving it my all.
Now what I’ve done or accomplished in the last 30 days isn’t a lot compared to others, but I am feeling happy with my progress and the journey that goes with it.
I must analyze my progress for personal development in the future and see where I currently sit to set reasonable goals for the next 30 days.
Let’s dive in. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/its-been-30-days-since-being-fired-2132fc19234c | ['Matt Davis Motivation'] | 2020-11-15 17:29:58.727000+00:00 | ['Content Creation', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Self Help', 'Self Improvement', 'Writer'] |
Cryptocurrency Weekly Market Performance Report (6th August — 12th August 2018) | Written by Abhy Singla.
Cryptocurrency Market Performance
Previous week’s overview (23rd July ’18–29th July ’18)
All the major cryptos are trading in the red. In recent weeks, it had seemed that digital tokens like Bitcoin were finally coming out of a long-standing slump. BTC, which had tended to float between about $6,000 and $7,000 for many weeks, finally managed to rise up above that upper threshold, even ascending beyond $8,000 last week.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, every one of the top 10 digital currencies by market cap has declined in value across this week. BTC is trading at $7,010.94 at the time of writing.
Around $30 billion has been wiped from the total market capitalization of top 10 cryptocurrencies over the week.
Current week’s overview (30th July ’18–5th Aug ’18)
Like the previous week, this week also brought dismal news for crypto investors. Some of the largest and most popular digital currencies in the world saw declines overall, with nearly all of the top 20 coins and tokens dipping this week. Bitcoin, which just recently ascended the $8,000 mark, dropped below $7,000 on 6th August and further went down below $6500 mark towards the end of the week (12th July).
As of this writing, BTC is hovering just above $6,300. All the other currencies like Ripple, Ethereum and others ended the week in the red as well.
Possible reasons for market movement
Some of that decline was likely the result of news out of the SEC both last week and this week, which signaled trouble with the approval process for the first Bitcoin ETF.
On August 10th, SEC had to reveal its decision on the petition for a Bitcoin-linked ETF by VanEck and SolidX. In spite of recent rejections of Bitcoin ETFs, including a second failed attempt by the Winklevoss brothers last week, many analysts have seen VanEck’s fund as uniquely likely to meet SEC approval. On 11th August, though, the SEC revealed that it was pushing back the decision which further delayed the approval of BTC’s ETF.
Also, a new study from Yale University explained the erratic and unusual price movements of Bitcoin. Although much of the initial hype among the mainstream investment world has settled, the world’s largest digital coin by market cap is still prone to massive volatility. The study, which tracked 7 years’ worth of price movements, suggests that momentum and investor perception are key influencers on the price of BTC. If the price of the currency goes up or down by a significant margin in one week, that movement in and of itself makes it more likely to continue in the same direction the next week. In light of this, last week’s decline in BTC may have also contributed to this week’s movement downward.
Developments over the week in Cryptomarket | https://medium.com/invsta/cryptocurrency-weekly-market-performance-report-6th-august-12th-august-2018-90cf7009ccd4 | ['Joel Smith'] | 2018-08-13 04:34:26.481000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency News'] |
Top 5 Most active grocery retailers in the United States | Top 5 Most active grocery retailers in the United States
By number of stores currently under construction
By David Z. Beitz
March 22, 2021
19.5 million square feet of new grocery space is on the way. Grocery has been a bright spot in the economy over the past year as spending shifted away from restaurants, especially the one’s dependent on daytime office and tourism populations. Many people also recently tried grocery delivery or click and carry (pickup) for the first time and this trend will likely advance for many even after things return to “normal”. While e-commerce is changing how many get their food, the addition of new store locations is not showing signs of slowing down. Today, five grocery retailers are leading the pack with a total of 153 new stores currently under construction shown on the map below:
Source: Planned Grocery / BuildCentral
#5 Amazon Grocery: Has 22 locations under construction. Many of their locations are backfills of existing space such as former Toys R Us boxes or previous grocers. It is interesting to note that they have not announced any new locations in the southeast yet. Perhaps Publix’s strength and momentum in the southeast has something to do with that or it is a logistics issue with distribution. One more idea is that they could enter the southeast through an acquisition.
#4 Target: Has 23 locations under construction. Except for the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, location all of these locations under construction are the smaller footprint Targets that range in size from 23,500 square feet to 42,000 square feet. Target has been steadily adding more items to its private label food brand Good and Gather. According to their annual report, food and beverage makes up about 20% of Target’s revenue. It has been reported that Target’s smaller footprint stores devote around 25% of their store space to grocery items.
#3 Aldi: Has 31 locations under construction. Last month (February 2021) Aldi broke ground on a new regional distribution center and regional headquarters in Loxley, Alabama which they say will help support the company’s expansion throughout the Gulf Coast region. The 564,000 square foot facility will be equipped to service up to 100 stores in Alabama, Southern Georgia, Mississippi, the Florida panhandle, and Louisiana.
#2 Lidl: Has 33 locations under construction. Last year (2020), Lidl opened a new 700,000 square foot distribution center in Perryville, Maryland and has plans for a new distribution center in Covington, Georgia. In the United States, Lidl stores are larger that Aldi stores, but Lidl has downsized their store footprint compared to the stores they first entered the US market with. At one point in their expansion Lidl started tying up locations in Texas but then reversed course and divested most of those locations.
#1 Publix: Has 44 locations under construction. Greensboro, NC is the site of their 10th distribution center which is currently under construction and is expected to be complete by the end of 2022. This new distribution center will be the first in North Carolina and will have a 940,000 square foot refrigerated warehouse along with a 1.2 million square foot dry grocery warehouse. Publix made the news recently with their “Feeding More Together” program. This program funded by Publix supports food banks with produce directly from farmers along with delivering nonperishable food items funded by customer donations from their stores.
What drives new store growth?
Many factors go into the site selection process for a new grocery store. One of those items that is included in almost every site research package is info on what residential is planned, under construction, and recently completed nearby. With an average of $70 spent per person per week on groceries, more people mean there is potential for more sales. Below is an example of the new residential data from BuildCentral shown in the Planned Grocery platform:
Source: Planned Grocery / BuildCentral
Zoomed in on Florida, each square on the map is an active multi-family project and each diamond is an active single-family project with at least 20 new homes. Each project has info on the number of homes / units planned along with the timing of the project. As grocery stores often follow the new rooftops, data like this will be crucial in helping to find new markets and new store locations.
If you want to learn more about grocery anchor leasing check out my recent podcast with Lance Billingsley of Federal Realty. He goes over two recent projects and discusses the challenges of doing business during Covid. You can find a list of our podcasts here: https://plannedgrocery.com/podcast.
Any thoughts on this blog? Feel free to contact me at [email protected]
If you would like more info on Planned Grocery or the new residential data, please contact Alex DeLoach at [email protected] or give us a call at 888.511.5866. | https://medium.com/@plannedgrocery/top-5-most-active-grocery-retailers-in-the-united-states-510235dee92c | ['Planned Grocery'] | 2021-03-22 19:22:06.983000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Development', 'GIS', 'Commercial Real Estate', 'Grocery Store'] |
If you mean it… | Don’t know why I feel like I’m hiding,
From the fiction and all of its attractions.
They say feel the love and go and live it,
And I can’t say anymore I’m tired of it.
The season changes it all, the autumn and the fall,
And I long to live that day when it was springtime.
Sunshine and shore, Can you hear them talk,
Come and dance with us tonight.
Can you feel the love when you say it,
Make me feel it all if you mean it.
Mist till the dusk, and then it's raining,
Cold as it goes so don’t say it.
Only make me fall if you mean it… | https://medium.com/@quepayal/if-you-mean-it-c2e7104859c0 | [] | 2020-12-12 15:16:13.550000+00:00 | ['Universe', 'Plants', 'Love', 'Promises', 'Poetry On Medium'] |
Featured On Google Play | With 2.8 million apps available on Google Play for Android devices, and thousands that join the list each and every day, CallApp is incredibly honored to have been chosen to be featured on the front page. However, at the same time, we’re also not surprised in the least bit, and we’re sure that our 85 million global users aren’t either.
So what exactly makes Google Play decide to feature an app?
CallApp has been featured on Google Play
There are two main reasons:
1.To recognize a great app
Google Play knows better than anyone else how to recognize a great app, and when they do, they feature the app on their front page, providing the developers with a well-deserved round of applause.
Offering the most advanced number identification and communication technology on the market to always know who’s calling, there’s no doubt that CallApp is more than worthy of a feature on Google Play. CallApp has also recently updated its additional calling features, from call recording, to call screen customization, unique productivity tools, and even personalized calling data, proving that the future of communication is already here.
2. To increase app ‘discoverability’
Google Play features apps on their front page not just to praise an Android developer for their great work, but also to help Android users to access the best apps, which is best known in this context as ‘discoverability’. With 2.8 million apps available on the store, how in the world can users decide which to download? By trusting the judgment of the Google Play store to provide them with the apps that are the most functional, user-friendly, and of course, safe too, which is everything that CallApp entails.
What’s also notable about CallApp’s Google Play page is that it’s not only available in 22 different countries, but it’s also localized to these regions, rather than just translated, making for a comfortable, familiar, and easily accessible experience for all users. This might very well have something to do with Google’s decision to feature CallApp as one of the best apps available in the store.
To sum it up
Here at CallApp, we’re not going to stop ensuring that we provide nothing less than the very best calling experience possible. And as for Google Play? We thank you for ensuring that our hard work doesn’t go unnoticed, but most importantly, for ensuring that your users have the chance to discover our app and enjoy its endless benefits.
Download Now | https://medium.com/@CallApp/featured-on-google-play-6322cd1c58e | [] | 2020-11-16 07:33:52.420000+00:00 | ['Google Play', 'Android', 'Google Play Store', 'Feature', 'Pride'] |
How To Grow Kale | The Complete Guide To Growing Kale + 5 Harvest Tips | How To Grow Kale | The Complete Guide To Growing Kale + 5 Harvest Tips Gardenuity Follow Oct 15, 2019 · 6 min read
Kale is the hardy, cool-season green that’s perfect for growing as the temperature drops. Part of the cabbage family, kale is arguably the most nutrient-dense food in the world and it’s shockingly easy to grow. So how to grow kale?
Here is your complete guide to growing kale — from planting, to care, to harvesting. We cover how to avoid pests, exact garden soil needs, and more.
WHEN TO GROW
Kale is one of those rare vegetables that can be planted both in early spring and early fall. In fact, in some cases, it’s even a year-round plant.
If the weather in your climate doesn’t drop below 20° F, a kale garden is an option any time of the year.
To create a spring kale vegetable garden, plant in early spring before the summer heat becomes too much for the plant — best 3–5 weeks before the last frost. For a fall garden, plant approximately 6–8 weeks before the first frost.
This being said, kale seeds germinate most successfully in soil that is about 45°F, so plant according to your climate!
It may sound odd, but kale actually grows best in the cold air temperatures of fall. Kale is frost tolerant, meaning it can continue to grow successfully after a light frost.
In fact, kale tastes better when grown in the fall; the cold weather brings out the natural nutty flavor of the leaves and produces a more tender harvest.
To grow your own kale garden check out our Antioxidant Garden that contains kale and many other antioxidant-rich greens.
LOCATION
Essentially, kale can be grown everywhere — even the tropics will work with a little bit of shade! The city is no exception. You definitely don’t need a backyard to grow kale; this leafy green is a perfect candidate for a container garden. Be sure that your continue is at minimum 12 inches in diameter and deep enough to support kale’s root system.
Soil is a major part, if not the most important part, of your garden’s home. Be sure to use soil with good drainage. Enrich the soil with compost and fertilizer before you set out your seeds/seedlings, refreshing occasionally.
The ideal soil pH for a kale garden is between 6.5–6.8. This most successfully prevents clubroot disease. If clubroot disease isn’t a problem in your garden, you can push it as low as 6.2 pH.
Test the soil with a do-it-yourself kit or use a complete Gardenuity kit, which comes with kale seeds/seedlings and soil specifically curated for optimal growth.
PLANTING
Direct sow vegetable seeds 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch deep into well-drained soil. Water deeply after planting. After two weeks of growing, thin the seedlings, spacing them about 8–12 inches apart
Growing from transplants, or ‘adolescent’ aged plants, is a great option for fall growing. Doing so avoids the tenuous beginning growing stages and increases your chance of a successful harvest — especially if your fall garden is off to a late start or it’s a bit chillier than expected.
You can either begin your seeds indoors and transfer or buy your transplants from a farm partner you trust. After planting seedlings, allow at least 2 weeks for the seedlings to adjust to their new home. Consider replanting as a minor trauma for your plant. Watch them carefully during this period, being sure to water them regularly.
Because the soil gets cold and acts as a mini-fridge, a kale harvest can last much longer than normal. Use successive planting to extend your harvest throughout the winter. To do so, plant additional kale plants every 2–3 weeks until the first frost or until you run out of space.
Pro tip: Beets, celery, cucumber, herbs, and spinach made good neighbors for kale, while strawberries and tomatoes are unfriendly to kale’s growth.
WATER
Water your kale garden regularly, being careful not to overwater. Generally, kale prefers a nice even supply of water — about 1 to 1.5 inches per week.
Use the thumb test as a foolproof water to determine if your plants need water. Stick your thumb about an inch deep into the soil. If the soil is moist, wait another day. If it’s dry, water immediately.
SUNLIGHT
Kale grows best in full sun, but will tolerate partial shade. If your kale receives fewer than 6 hours of sun daily, your plants will be thinner and produce fewer leaves, but they’ll still be edible and delicious.
PESTS
Luckily, pest populations tend to drop dramatically in the fall. Regardless, watch out for the following pests.
Cabbageworm
Cabbageworm is the larvae of cabbage white butterflies. These pests are velvety green worms that are fond of chewing holes in kale leaves. Remove infested leaves.
Aphids
Gray-green cabbage aphids are often found in clusters in the folds of frilly kale. To treat, spray with organic insecticidal soap. If a specific leaf is badly infested, pick the leaf off the plant and discard it.
Harlequin Bugs
Harlequin bugs are colorful black and orange pests that plague older kale plants. The best way to protect seedlings from these (and other pests) is to cover them with row cover or another lightweight fabric.
HARVEST
Direct sowed kale plants typically mature in 55–75 days, while transplants are ready to harvest in about 30–40 days. You’ll know that your kale is ready to harvest when the green leaves are about the size of your hand.
Kale will grow until it’s 20° F.
As such, if you protect your kale with a row cover, you may be able to harvest all winter long.
Here are 5 kale harvesting tips to make your harvest easier.
You can harvest fully mature leaves 55–75 days after sowing, baby greens 20–30 days after sowing, or microgreens 12–20 days after sowing. Microgreens and baby leaves are particularly tender and can be eaten uncooked — use them in salads! Larger leaves should be cut and cooked like spinach, removing the tough ribs before preparing. Pick about one fistful of leaves per harvest. To lengthen your harvest, avoid picking the terminal bud, which is found at the top center of the plant. Pick the oldest leaves first which are usually found at the lowest section of plants. Work your way up the stalk as the growing season continues. As you harvest, discard leaves that appear yellow or ragged to keep your plants healthy.
Overwintered plants will eventually bolt. You’ll know your kale plants have bolted because they will start to produce yellow flowers. Once this happens, it’s time to tear up your kale garden and replant with something new.
STORAGE
Kale does not keep well, as it loses flavor quickly. We suggest you only harvest what you can use in a day. Return to your plant for more fresh eats as needed!
Store as you would any other leafy green. We suggest doing so in a plastic bag lined with dampened paper towels. For freshest tasting results, wait to wash leaves until right before serving. Alternatively, dry or freeze your kale harvest.
If your kale leaves get too big and therefore tough, don’t waste the leaves! Massage them instead. When you massage your kale, you break down the fibrous tissue to create a more tender edible green.
To do so, remove the ribs and woody pieces from the end of each leaf. Tear into bite-sized chunks and put in a bowl. Add olive oil until lightly covered and a pinch of salt.
Begin mixing and working this into the leaves like you’re kneading bread dough.
After 5 minutes, the leaves should look darker in color and feel more supple. Serve immediately!
ENJOY YOUR HARVEST!
Once you have your successful harvest, get eating! Check out this sweet kale smoothie recipe to begin your kale culinary adventures. | https://medium.com/gardenuity-the-sage/how-to-grow-kale-the-complete-guide-to-growing-kale-5-harvest-tips-841e6cbd41e9 | [] | 2019-10-16 16:47:42.721000+00:00 | ['Gardening', 'Health Foods', 'Plants', 'Garden', 'Healthy Lifestyle'] |
E-MAIL MARKETING | E-mail marketing is a process of promoting a product by an act of sending a commercial message typically to a group of people using email.
Why should I do email marketing?
Here is the answer to this question first it’s very cheap. There are two ways in this one is you could do it yourself or through email marketing agencies.
Then the second is flexibility and measurability. It’s easy to track and respond to your emails. At this time you have any agencies to send emails to your customer.
How could I get another’s the email address?
It’s not that much hard to collect your customer’s email address. Just you need to sign up with the platform called Mailchimp. This platform is a very useful tool in email marketing.
Things you should remember in email marketing:
⇾ You should not send emails continuously or frequently to your customer. So they may think that you may be a spammer. You should not threaten your customer.
⇾ Analyze and check optimize your mails as per the time so that your customer may wait eagerly for your mails.
⇾ Invest something after your first or second payment because you ant run everything every time free it has not many features. So go on with least paid.
If you are a beginner and you don’t know anything about marketing products? Here is our answer
There are many platforms to get affiliate products like Clickbank, Rakuten, Warriorplus, etc…On these websites, you can get products in your own wish. Now how to promote a product, the answer is a blog. Create a simple blog and say something about the product and promote it. If someone buys the product with your affiliate link you will get a commission. On the final page on the first page, you can get ask for your visitor’s email id and their name so you can send mails easily with their names.If you want to learn email marketing in detail here is your free ebook you can easily download it… | https://medium.com/@mohamedarshadh70/e-mail-marketing-ecdf0e4ed7ca | ['Mohamed Arshadh'] | 2020-12-18 04:52:27.821000+00:00 | ['Email Marketing', 'Ebook Publishing', 'Free', 'Importance', 'Tips And Tricks'] |
Let The Rain Fall | Let The Rain Fall
Wishes of a pluviophile
Image by chulmin park on Pixabay
Wind baptized by heat rules the atmosphere roaming everywhere
Yet it’s no longer an auspice of hope but something that tires exhausted bodies
Torsos of trees let go of dry leaves surrendering to its will, hiding the remorse
Provoked dust teases the strained eyes but tear glands keep a poker face
Lament of beings for a drop of water fills the air replacing cheep with sound of misery
while mirage is reinforcing the effect showing the wounded a false hope
Sun absorbs the silent sighs of a dry and cracked earth holding on to passive intentions
While profusely soaking anything with its rays unconsciously fueling the drought
Uncountable eyes are towards the sky yearning to see a ray of fortune
Only to get lost in the blue endless abyss hanging right above their heads
A single thought sparks the nerves that lurk in their skulls
Even the heaven is blind to the pain they are going through at the moment?
So, dear mother earth,
kindly wake up from your sleep
and open your eyes,
don’t let the prayers those innocents mutter in their mournings
pass beyond you without getting noticed,
Make your mind to allow these dethroned rivers and streams
to return to their old glory,
Let thunder become a music to the ears and | https://medium.com/illumination/let-the-rain-fall-39a15f221732 | ['Salitha Nirmana Meththasinghe'] | 2020-04-26 10:02:03.995000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Nature', 'Love', 'Poetry', 'Life'] |
4 Rumi Quotes That Will Boost Your Confidence | “You are searching the world for treasure, but the real treasure is Yourself.”
What it means:
We so often seek rewards and satisfaction in the outside world and its distractions. Whether it be chasing fame, fortune or possessions, we seem to be frantically running on our hedonic treadmill.
Yet, this is no source of lasting satisfaction or sense of purpose in life. This, the real treasure, the real aim — to feel content, on purpose and aligned with the world — comes from within.
How you can apply it:
Cultivate the inner confidence that all you really need in this life, is yourself. You can trust and rely on yourself. You are capable of achieving the things you want, but it has to come from a deep-seated sense that you can. That you have a right to.
And equally, do not get lost in the world but rather remind yourself that the real treasure is none but your own self!
Mindfulness practices such as meditation, yoga, deep yogic breathing and others can help you on that path. Build those habits into your daily life, and you will soon gain a new sense of calm and self-reliance.
Which will help you deal with uncertainty and life’s hardships more gracefully.
It comes from not being afraid to spend time with yourself. To seek a deeper understanding of your own emotional triggers and responses; to “know thyself” better, as the Ancient Greeks would have it! | https://medium.com/curious/4-rumi-quotes-that-will-boost-your-confidence-e40578ce8386 | ['Clément Bourcart'] | 2020-12-22 17:24:21.321000+00:00 | ['Personal Development', 'Personal Growth', 'Motivation', 'Self Improvement', 'Inspiration'] |
Lawns or Wildflowers? | My hometown of Norris is a good place to walk a dog. Hilly and green, with plenty of shrubs for a canine friend to sniff, our East Tennessee hamlet feels a lot like a classic American small town. With a population hovering around 1,400, it’s nowhere you’ve ever heard of outside of Tennessee, unless you’ve visited our one claim to fame, Norris Lake. You can learn more about that landmark in the Norris Museum, which you can find in a small back room at the Norris Library.
Before it got too cold, I was walking through Norris with a chocolate lab named Partner while his owners were out of town. Partner likes to take the long way around the Norris Commons to sniff all of his favorite places and pee on all the appropriate lamp posts. As I followed him to his usual haunts, I passed a small patch of greenery I hadn’t noticed before.
Partner being a good boy, patiently waiting to go on a walk. (Photo credit: Graham Marema)
The plants were ragged, green in some places, brown in others. The plot burst with unkempt grass, brilliant orange blossoms, rogue weeds, delicate purple flowers and tall stalks that ended in yellow tufts of blooms like a messy hairdo. A small sign sticking out of the ground said “Wildflower Garden: Feeding the bees.”
The Norris wildflower garden. Photo: Graham Marema
The sight of this small garden, hidden in the fold between two hills near the commons, brightened my day. I liked the idea that this little corner of my town was quietly working to feed our pollinators, even if it went almost entirely unnoticed.
So I did a little digging.
The Norris wildflower garden.
It turns out this wildflower project was created by a group called “Keep Norris Beautiful.” Their Facebook page has 380 likes. Not bad for a town of 1,400. This is exactly the type of work they do, planting flowers outside the community building; keeping up the basket of blossoms outside the local grocery store; and setting up a booth each Norris Day (our annual all-things-Norris summer celebration) to raise a small amount of funds to keep going.
When we think of a “beautiful” American small town like Norris, this sort of wild outdoor space probably isn’t what immediately comes to mind. We’re used to seeing neatly manicured lawns in fictional examples of the quintessential small town, like Mayberry and Pleasantville, where we might expect a nosy homeowners association rep knocking on your door to let you know your grass is an inch over regulation. Over the years, these neat lawns have become as American as apple pie and Chevrolet.
Our enchantment with freshly mowed green grass goes back to the 17th century, when nonnative grass types such as Kentucky bluegrass (originally from Europe and the Middle East) and Guinea grass (originally from Africa) spread across the country. In the early 20th century, the neat lawn boomed in popularity, in part because automobiles and trains were on the rise. To give commuters some scenery that was easy on the eyes, homeowners intentionally faced their homes and their aesthetically pleasing, neatly kept front lawns toward passersby.
Today, we think of a well-kept lawn as neighborly. It’s part of that old image of the American Dream — a nice house, a nice fence and a nice lawn.
But tidy lawns aren’t so neighborly to local wildlife. Nature intended grass areas to be wild and overgrown. But we work hard to keep them maintained. That often means using additional tools like pesticides and herbicides, which wreak havoc on local wildlife populations and have especially nasty effects for our hardworking pollinators. Plus, short grass isn’t nearly as conducive as long grass for providing shelter and food for insects and small animals. A nontraditional lawn also has more biodiversity. Rather than one type of grass, it can sprout native wildflowers, clover and a healthy mix of annuals and perennials, which encourages a diverse family of critters to flourish in your neighborhood.
The “Keep Norris Beautiful” group has the right idea. To these beautifiers, a town truly sparkles when it embraces wildlife and the unkempt, unruly, diverse quality of nature. By encouraging pollinators, our spring seasons are more vibrant. Baskets outside the post office and tiny green medians in our streets blush with the blues, reds and yellows of native plants. Our green spaces remind us that our goal is to live in harmony with nature, not flatten it into the proper aesthetic.
For the record, Partner agrees. There are a lot of great smells for him to explore in the wildflower garden. When I moved on from this little pocket of wilderness in Norris, it made me appreciate all those people working in their own corners of the world quietly encouraging nature to do its thing, making our world more vibrant, more biologically diverse and more beautiful. | https://medium.com/environment-america/lawns-or-wildflowers-58b7df10de40 | ['Graham Marema'] | 2020-12-09 16:37:50.469000+00:00 | ['Small Towns', 'Bees', 'Rural', 'Environment', 'Conservation'] |
5 ways to actually stick to your fitness goals in 2022 | It’s that time of year again. That time where we look in the mirror and actually tell ourselves to get our sh*t together. We aspire to be a better partner, parent, friend, and person, while hoping to get a promotion, chiseled abs, and learn new skills…and if we don’t see results, well, there’s always next year.
I get it. I was in the same position, wishing for changes but not ACTUALLY following through.
Somehow, these past two years were different. I’ve managed to commit to my goals. I’ve lost over 30 lbs while increasing my muscle mass. I’ve begun to create my own businesses. I’ve worked hard in college, receiving (except for one A- that haunts me) straight A’s. I’ve gained new skills on the side related to my career field. All at the same time.
I’d like to share with you five simple tips that have helped me along my journey. These are not just tips I came up with from the ether, but actual habits that I have cultivated that allowed me to change from someone who was depressed and felt life was uncontrollable to who I am now: someone who is ready to tackle life head on.
1. Get friendly with a physical calendar.
Of all of the times I tried to get into shape and failed, I was writing my schedule in my “Notes” app on my iPhone. I was also a procrastinator…not a huge one, but enough to hinder my optimal productivity. I felt out of control, as if all of the hours of the day passed me by and I could do nothing but watch.
There’s something to be said for physical calendars. They hang right next to you, reminding you of your commitment. They are organized and clear. They also allow you to see the smaller daily tasks rather than the big picture, which is helpful if you tend to get overwhelmed by the end goal.
Also, I just find it super satisfying to take my pen and check off each workout that I do.
So, here’s what I started doing two years ago, and what I continue to do today: on the last day of the month, I print out the next month’s calendar and physically write out each and every workout on the calendar.
Here’s my December workout plan. I actually just started a new training plan, in which I train my upper body, lower body, and then rest. I always write out my plans in pencil, just in case something major pops up and I need to rearrange something. Doing this has allowed me to never skip a workout ever.
I also HIGHLY recommend using a calendar, such as Google Calendar, in which you schedule your day, hour by hour. First, schedule in the things you absolutely have to do, such as the classes you take or the hours you work. Doing this allows you to see where you can spare at least a half hour. Then, schedule in the time you’ll workout each day and make it a reoccurring event. Now you can’t tell yourself that you have “no time!”
2. Experiment in the gym/with classes.
Doing exercise should not feel like a punishment. Slugging away on the Stairmaster when you HATE the Stairmaster will not get you any results, guaranteed. No matter what the latest studies find about different training styles, if you are not motivated, you won’t see results.
But there’s good news. What I didn’t realize before I started taking fitness seriously was how many options there are! From biking, to swimming, to powerlifting, to weight training, to walking, to hiking, to boxing, to jump roping, to dancing…there are endless opportunities for anyone. Just choose something that leaves you feeling good.
Remember this: there is no single way to achieve your goals, so find what you love and just show up and do it consistently!
Also, if you’re timid about joining the gym, I recommend starting with a class. From there, you can always observe others in the gym or search YouTube to find different exercises you may enjoy.
3. Make use of your down time.
Something that helped me seriously commit to my goals was to watch people I looked up to. YouTube has a LOT of content creators these days who try to sell quick fixes or promote unhealthy relationships with their bodies; however, there are also some gems on YouTube. These people give out quality, scientific information and know how to push themselves out of their comfort zones and grind.
Sometimes, just seeing other people work insanely hard motivates you to get after it as well. Following these people have been a huge game changer for me, because I see what is possible when you commit for the long haul. As a woman, seeing other women (and even men) lift hard and heavy makes me excited to work my way up to that level.
So, what does this have to do with down time? I consumed SO MUCH fitness content while brushing my teeth, waiting in line, washing the dishes, eating my meals, walking, and doing chores. I’ve learned a lot about diet, nutrition, exercise, sports science, and weight training simply by watching and listening to others. Knowledge truly is power, because the more you learn, the more you can apply the science to yourself. The best part is that you don’t need to set aside extra time to learn about these things!
4. Hype yourself up on motivation, but plan with discipline.
I’ll admit that for about a year (maybe more) I felt demotivated a lot of the time. This was because I was doing exercises I didn’t enjoy, and I was working way too hard for my level (another story for another time).
In order to hype myself up, I watched a lot of David Goggins and other inspiration on YouTube. I also watched videos of other people training and imagined their intense, sweat covered faces while I trained.
Even though I wasn’t always motivated, I always had a plan to follow. This is where your trusty calendar comes in! The calendar allows you to have a solid plan for the entire month, so even if you aren’t feeling motivated, you still have a commitment to follow.
In essence, I trained consistently because of the discipline I had (which came from my calendar), and I trained hard because of motivation. Even when I wasn’t feeling motivated heading to the gym, I usually found that when I was doing a set, I found the motivation to keep pushing (which, again, came from the people I followed). Sometimes the hardest thing is just getting to the gym!
5. Imagination is key.
I didn’t just say to myself that I wanted to lose 30 lbs. I felt it. It became an obsession, and when something becomes an obsession, nothing stands in your way of success.
I’m currently reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. One of the keys to success that he discusses is the burning desire you must have to achieve something. This, plus persistence and an open mind, make up the formula for achieving your goals.
It really is that simple. What matters isn’t the type of exercise you choose, the exact macros you eat, and the diet you choose to follow. As long as you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way to achieve your goals.
This desire can be cultivated by following (the right) influencers and looking at motivational quotes, but ultimately it comes from your imagination. When you set your yearly goals this year, don’t just write them down. Revisit them when you wake up and when you go to sleep. When you do, imagine yourself already having attained those goals. See and feel yourself having achieved what you want to achieve. This will strengthen your resolve when failures pop up, as they will undoubtedly do.
Bonus tip: Set a simple, unrelated daily intention for yourself, such as meditating for five minutes, journaling, studying for 30 minutes, or cleaning your room. The key thing I want you to remember is that every single time you commit to something and follow through on that promise, you build up trust with yourself. I can’t stress how important this is, because if you slack off in other areas of your life, you will undoubtedly slack off in fitness.
One final thing: Remember that mini failures are bound to occur, whatever that may look like for you. However, I am willing to bet everything on this statement: no one’s fitness journey has been 100% perfect. Everyone messes up, gets lackluster results, or feels demotivated. Just remember that the only way you can possibly “fail” at this is if you throw in the towel. Being consistent no matter what, even if it is the “imperfect” plan is must better than doing nothing at all and always wondering “what if.”
So, in the words of Shia LeBeouf: “Just do it!”
But seriously, fitness has genuinely changed the way in which I approach life, and I know that it can do the same for you. Stop making excuses for why you can’t work out and start finding excuses to work out, and I promise your life will change too. | https://medium.com/@daniellerecco/5-ways-to-actually-stick-to-your-fitness-goals-in-2022-b2b41f46947c | ['Danielle Recco'] | 2021-12-26 01:05:30.995000+00:00 | ['New Year', 'Goals', 'Fitnessmotivation', 'Fitness', 'Fitness Tips'] |
You Heard It Here First; 2021 Health and Wellness Trends | Get your unlimited data because 2021 is going to be all online everything. At home wellness, at home healthcare, at-home fitness, at-home beauty. If it can’t be delivered, happen online, or be touchless, it’s not happening. At least for the first part of 2021. Because if this year has taught us anything, it’s that the future is unpredictable and what may seem like a sure thing now could pivot and change tomorrow.
Me with my first flip phone. JK this is Paris with my first flip phone. Image Getty Images co Vouge.
Fitness and Wellness
In person wellness events and boutique fitness was slated to be hot, hot, hotter for 2020. And while 2020 has impacted us on an individual basis on every level we could imagine, if you’re a business owner, you know that to be true of your business as well.
2020 has asked us to rethink what’s working, what’s not and where we can pivot to meet the needs, desires and health of ourselves (and our clients).
The start of 2020 saw more boutique fitness experiences opening their doors and according to a MindBodyOnline survey 55% of people were planning to attend a live wellness event in 2020.
While the trend of in-person experiences may be on the decline for next year one trend from the same MindBodyOnline survey is here to stay. Sleep! Or more specifically, the need to prioritize quality sleep and rest. The survey found that 54% of people were interested in trying a nap bar in 2020 and while an IRL nap experience may not be at the top of everyone’s list for 2021, sleep will be. If you’re sleeping alone more now than ever, have needed to move to a different bed during the pandemic, are working from bed or have adapted an off rhythm (circadian rhythm that is) routine, your sleep was more than likely affected this year. 2021 will be the year to really understand the restorative benefits of and the deep need for rest and sleep. And if you need some help with getting your sleep on, I got you covered.
Nutrition and Wellness
People care more about their health and the health of their families more than ever.
The International Food Information Council’s 2020 Food & Health survey found that 54% of all consumers care more about the health of their food choices in 2020 than they did in 2010 and also that 28% of Americans eat more plant-based protein vs. 2019, 24% eat more plant-based dairy, and 17% eat more plant-based meat alternatives. This means we’ll continue to see a focus on healthful foods, immune supportive foods and plant-based alternatives.
We’ll also see trends from the later half of 2020 including a focus on immune system, sleep and stress support continue into 2021.
What’s On The Come Up?
Proactive immune support and building immunity with food and supplements will be on the rise as having a healthy immune system is still top of mind for many. The immune system is something that’s often not thought of until you need it. You don’t really think of all your immune cells working until you feel a cold or flu coming on but now we’re more aware of the beauty of this “behind the scenes” system and supporting it has become important for everyday, not just when you’re feeling sick.
Sleep support products will continue to be important. CDC findings from 2015 concluded that 1 in 3 adults do not get enough sleep. And that was pre-pandemic. If you think about how your own sleep habits have changed you can imagine those numbers couldn’t have gotten any better.
If you’re asking me, which I’m soooooo glad you are, I’m calling a need for getting our hormones checked out (tested) and in check (in appropriate levels, at the appropriate time, for YOU). This is KEY. If you’re feeling out of sorts getting to the root of it is the only sustainable way to change things going forward. Hormones are often over looked, under tested or their importance under appreciated. One simple way to support your body to filter out old and recycled hormones is to eat soluble fiber. The fiber found in beans, oats and psyllium.
Think About It
Have you ever seen a 2 year old in a full on melt down when it was past nap time because they were given the wrong color sippy cup? That’s exactly what’s happening inside you’re body when you don’t get enough sleep (for you). And while as an adult, for the most part, we have more tools in our emotional and verbal toolbox to skip the melt down, it shows up in other ways in our lives.
Support of proper sleep hygiene and supplements, like melatonin (which is responsible for regulating the body’s circadian rhythm), when needed, will be important for 2021.
Products with simple and traditional ingredients to support mental wellbeing will be key because stress is on the rise and consumers are looking for more natural, back to basics options to support their overall well-being.
And We’re Also Getting Deep Into Sustainable Habits
According to 2020 Global Wellness Summit the rise of at home everything continues. From at home beauty powered by the goodness of Mother Nature’s olive oil and back by celebs and Queens of Glow like J Lo, to at home fitness with variety, like Peloton’s “more than just the bike” app with everything from intense fitness classes to guided walks, at home is the sustainable habit of 2021.
But it’s more than just that it can be done “at home”. That’s the bare minimum. 2021 will be about what consumers do at home or with less or simpler or all of the above, all while being more in line with nature, and be something that they can still share with their family and friends. Thinking of more ways we can connect with nature and our community, organically and as no-touch as possible.
That’s not to say that IRL experiences are completely gone but we’re looking for more options close to home for now and into the future, amIrite?
If I had Only One Recommendation for 2021 It Would Be….
To not limit yourself. And to eat more beans, put EVOO on everything, rest more, and find ways to connect with the people you love and your community.
Want more nutrition trends, recommendations or tips? Let me know! | https://medium.com/@bridgetteleeclare/you-heard-it-here-first-folks-2021-health-and-wellness-trends-4588c4e56fa9 | ['Bridgette Clare', 'Nutritionist', 'Rhn', 'She Her'] | 2021-01-03 22:53:02.974000+00:00 | ['Nutrition', 'Stress Management', 'Health', 'Wellness', 'Sleep'] |
德國政府批評香港人權狀況惡化 | A columnist in political development in Greater China region, technology and gadgets, media industry, parenting and other interesting topics. | https://medium.com/@frederickyeung-59743/%E5%BE%B7%E5%9C%8B%E6%94%BF%E5%BA%9C%E6%89%B9%E8%A9%95%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E4%BA%BA%E6%AC%8A%E7%8B%80%E6%B3%81%E6%83%A1%E5%8C%96-3356d6bf1f97 | ['C Y S'] | 2020-12-04 00:29:37.771000+00:00 | ['Hong Kong', 'Germany', 'Government', 'China'] |
SMRT Leiden 2019 Day 2: Evolving Towards Precision Medicine with Longer, Accurate Reads | Euan Ashley (@euanashley, Stanford) began the second day of SMRT Leiden with a keynote presentation on precision medicine.
What is the definition of precision medicine?
Before defining precision medicine (or personalized medicine), the more important question to ask should be: why is precision medicine needed?
The answer could be found in Ashley’s disclosure of personal interest: “I want to help patients”.
Or, if one recalls the next sentence in President Obama’s State of the Union address, “To give all of us access to the personalized information we need to keep ourselves and our families healthier.”
Delivery of such information must not only be accurate, but also timely. One such case was the diagnosis of a newborn suffering from long QT syndrome, a condition that causes irregular heartbeats, where whole genome sequencing confirmed a pathogenic variant in KCNH2 gene at 10 days post birth. At that time, standard genetic testing would have taken 4 to 16 weeks.
And for many, though urgent delivery of information is not a matter of life or death, the eventual diagnosis means the world to them. The Undiagnosed Disease Network (UDN) was established in 2014 to solve rare, previously undiagnosed diseases. Within a 20-month period, they delivered diagnoses for 132 out of 382 cases, a 35% solve rate. More importantly, 79% of the solved cases had actionability; 1/3 of which led to changes in therapy. Finally, there’s cost! The average cost of patients who received a diagnosis before coming to UDN was ~$300,000, whereas the UDN diagnosis cost was only ~$18,000, or 6% of the previous cost. The value of an accurate genomic diagnosis was not just medical and emotional, but also financial.
So that’s the good news. But the other side of the 35% solve rate is that 2/3 of the patients still have no answer for their illness.
What are we missing?
Precision medicine, Ashely defined, is the treatment or prevention of diseases by more precise measurement. But the human genome is complex. It is filled with repeat sequences, paralogous genes, and mosaicism. For many of the repeat diseases — Fragile X, myotonic dystrophy, Huntington’s, just to name a few — “short reads just are not able to characterize these highly polymorphic regions,” Ashley said. Computationally, these regions also present challenges.
Keynote by Euan Ashley on the progression of precision medicine. Sketch provided by @ATJCagan.
“Precision medicine has to be accurate medicine. If we are not measuring the whole genome, we will fail to find the genetic causes for our patient’s diseases.”
The solution? Better algorithms, graph reference genomes, and long reads.
Ashley presented the instance where PacBio sequencing solved the case of a patient with recurrent myxomas. It was suspected that he had Carney complex, yet prior genetic testing including WES and WGS failed to identify the causal variant. Using low-fold sequencing on the PacBio Sequel System, they identified — using just 4 long reads — a heterozygous 2kb deletion in the PRKAR1A gene. Sequencing of the parents confirmed this to be a de novo variant.
Ashely then shared another case where a causal variant was identified at the FAM177A1 gene, and they are still working to link the variant and the disease phenotype.
For some of the unsolved diseases, RNA may play a role as well. Ashley pointed to a recent project of looking at the MYBPC3 isoform diversity using targeted Iso-Seq (paper to appear in Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine soon) where PacBio long reads enabled accurate haplotyping at the isoform level.
Ashley is optimistic that with improved sequencing technology, better reference genomes, and faster algorithms, we will be able to solve more of the rare diseases. | https://medium.com/pacbio/smrt-leiden-2019-day-2-evolving-towards-precision-medicine-with-longer-accurate-reads-f55c321caa46 | ['Liz T'] | 2019-05-10 08:33:36.889000+00:00 | ['Genetics', 'Biotechnology', 'Dna', 'Science', 'Dna Sequencing'] |
This One Thing Will Help you Love your Body | A few days ago, an old photo popped up on Facebook memories that made me realise how far I’ve come on my self-love journey. So I posted a transformation/comparison pic on my Instagram story about learning to love your body.
The old photo was from 2009 — a time when I had a lot of insecurities. Don’t get me wrong, I was confident on the outside and regularly wore what my Mum referred to as “barely there” outfits. Sorry Mum. And I did actually think I loved my body at the time.
But I spent years practically starving myself. And if I ever ate more than I deemed an ‘acceptable’ amount of food, I’d stay up late exercising as a form of punishment.
How could I have possibly thought that was ok!? Oh the shame. I feel embarrassed to tell you what I’ve just said, but I want you to know I’ve been there — I know how it feels to not love your body.
But now I adore my body!
You see, my body has changed a lot in the 11 years between these photos. I’ve grown a lot over the years…emotionally, mentally, spiritually AND (obviously) physically.
And I can honestly say the only thing I miss about the person I was in the first photo is my tongue piercing. I want that back!
When I posted this comparison pic the main difference I noticed was my legs. Now, I’m not saying skinny is bad or that we should all have bigger legs. My Iove for my body hasn’t grown because my legs are bigger. In fact, 2009 me would’ve freaked right out at the size of my legs today!
I’m only pointing that part of my body out to remind you that shrinking your body isn’t the magic gateway to happiness. I know because I spent years thinking it was!
Like so many others, I was desperate to have a thigh gap…as though that would somehow fix all of my problems. Or make my existence on this planet more worthwhile.
Anyway, fast forward 11 years and out of everything that’s changed for me, I believe the main changes have been on the inside… How I look at life in general. And how I look at my body.
After posting my Instagram comparison pic, so many people messaged me asking how I learnt to love my body that I’ve been inspired to write a post about it…
Don’t worry — I’m not just going to tell you to look in the mirror every day and say ten things you love about your body. I know it involves more than that.
Besides, saying something out loud repeatedly doesn’t make it true. Otherwise I’d spend my life walking around muttering under my breath “Zac Efron will fall in love with me”.
But there is one major thing you can do that will help you learn to love your body…
Stop valuing your body purely based on how it looks
This won’t happen overnight, but trust me — if you start seeing your body as more than just something that looks a certain way your relationship with it will change.
So how can you do this?
In order to love your body, you don’t need to change your body. You just need to change your goal.
When my body goals were all based on weighing a certain amount or looking a certain way I never truly loved my body. And on the occasion that I felt super confident, all it took was a ‘fat day’ or a bad experience with changing room mirrors to completely ruin my mood.
By the way, clothes shop changing rooms are the devil. Seriously, what is going on with the lighting in there!?
Anyway, when I changed my goals to focus on what my body could DO instead of just how it LOOKS my whole perception of my body changed. Instead of wanting to fit into a size 6 I wanted to be able to do 6 push-ups. And instead of wishing the number on the scales would go down, I started doing my best to push the number of weight plates on the barbell up.
And over time I started caring a lot less about whether my body looked a certain way because I began feeling immense pride in what my body was capable of achieving.
You all know I’m addicted to handstand training! So a lot of the upper body strength training I do is focused on improving my handstands. But if you have zero desire to do a handstand don’t just copy my goal.
And certainly don’t just pick a random goal because you feel you should choose it. Think of something you’d actually like to be able to do.
Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn to dance…so set a goal to complete a full routine in a class nailing each step. Or perhaps you wish you could surf…so learn to surf! Seriously, one of the best achievements I’ve ever felt was when I first popped up on a surfboard. I’m pretty rubbish at surfing but it still makes me feel incredible when I go. And it definitely makes me feel proud of my body for being able to surf…albeit not very well yet.
If you’re going to change the way you feel about your body then it needs to achieve things you didn’t think were possible.
You get the point, right?
The most important thing to remember when setting these goals is to make sure they’re pushing your boundaries beyond your comfort zone…
Actually work towards those goals. Each time you exercise, keep those goals in mind and do things that will help you achieve them. There’s no point in setting a goal to do a cartwheel or run a full 5km if you’re not actually working towards it.
So every single day, do something that gets you closer to achieving your goal. Even if it’s something small, each step counts.
And track your progress… That way if you do have a bad day you’ll be able to look back and realise how much you’ve already achieved.
So if you always place your value on your looks, your acceptance of your body will be susceptible to change at any time.
I’ll be honest — we live in a world where it’s almost normal for us to hate our bodies. I mean, so many companies profit from us hating our bodies. We’re constantly surrounded with messages trying to make us feel like we need to look better.
Think about it…how many adverts have you seen today for anti-ageing creams, weight loss products, cellulite lotions, etc? They’re everywhere! On TV, magazines, buses, trains and social media. It’s pretty much impossible to avoid them for a full day, let alone for the rest of your life.
But if your goal has nothing to do with appearance you’ll be too busy focusing on how awesome your body can be to care about whether you’re up to date with the latest body trend.
And never forget that two steps forward and one step back is still one step forward.
You might be thinking “Ok, I’ll set the goals and TRY to change my focus from how my body looks to how it feels. But what if it doesn’t work?”
I won’t pretend this is a quick fix. It’ll take time. And you’ll undoubtedly have moments where you feel like you’ll never be able to shift your focus from how your body looks. But just keep working toward those awesome goals you’ve set. Maintain your focus on that.
Also, unfollow anyone on social media who makes you feel insecure or inadequate. You know what I’m talking about — those accounts where you instantly start comparing yourself as soon as their photos pop up.
This is one of the main changes I made with my social media a long time ago and it majorly helped.
Instead, start following people who can do the things you’ve set as goals. Their posts will inspire you!
So if your goal is to swim a certain distance, follow awesome swimmers! Or even synchronised swimming accounts (because they’re bloody brilliant). If your goal is to do a backflip and you’ve joined a local gymnastics class, follow gymnasts on social media.
Only follow people who inspire and motivate you to be the best possible version of yourself. Those people post the kinds of things that will motivate you to get out there and train towards your goals.
Sure, I have cellulite on my legs now. But those legs can box jump a box almost half my height! And do incredible pistol squat jumps!
Please remember that learning to love yourself doesn’t mean shrinking yourself. I know because I got down to such a tiny frame that even some size 6 clothes were too big for me. And I wasn’t happy.
I’ll be honest…the old me didn’t have any cellulite. My arms didn’t wobble when I waved either. But I was unhappy on the inside because I made the mistake of thinking that shrinking myself was some kind of gateway to self-love. It’s not.
In fact, I have loads of badass party tricks since I shifted my focus to what my body can achieve through calisthenics training. And I feel proud of my body every time I even think about what it can do.
And yeah, my arms wobble when I wave. But those arms can do over 30 push-ups in a row! And they can carry my full week’s worth of food shopping from the car to my home in one trip. Badass and handy — great combo.
Am I completely immune to body insecurities? Hell no!! I have ‘fat days’ and times when I hate everything in my wardrobe because I feel like none of it looks good on me.
But those days are few and far between. And now when those thoughts do pop up I just remember how badass my body can be…and then I get on with my day.
I mean, yes I do care about how my body looks. I’m not going to lie. But I care far more about the fact my body is healthy (most of the time anyway — I do have health conditions to deal with).
And the fact my body works all day just to keep me alive so I can walk, run, jump and play. I had to fit playing in there because we all know I’m a big kid.
Change your focus so instead of wanting your body to just LOOK great, it can actually DO great things.
So you get the point, right? Think of the things you’d love your body to be able to do, then make it happen!
Love your body because of the incredible things it’s capable of when you choose to believe in it.
This is your one life. We only get one. Do you really want to spend it hating your body and wishing it looked a different way? Or do you want to take the focus off how you look and actually create a life you love celebrating all of the incredible things your body can do when you believe in it?
Our bodies are capable of so much more than most of us realise. All you have to do is set the goal, focus on it and believe in your own ability. Then once you achieve that awesome goal, send me a video or photo. I want to celebrate with you!
Nat xx | https://medium.com/@happyhealthynat/this-one-thing-will-help-you-love-your-body-happy-healthy-nat-fa212302c86c | ['Natalie Roberts'] | 2020-06-09 06:53:13.937000+00:00 | ['Love Yourself', 'Love Your Body', 'Body Positive', 'Body Image', 'Self Love'] |
Setting Up SFDX Environment. And creating your first Lighting Web Component. | Setting Up SFDX Environment. And creating your first Lighting Web Component.
Salesforce Developer Experience.
I hope you all love VSCode. I love it the most. But when you were working a few years ago as a salesforce developer you probably working with Eclipse IDE and force.com. You know before start working as a salesforce developer I used to be a Javascript developer in my college. But after joining my first company I started working as a salesforce developer. I loved Salesforce Eco-System but I hate the Eclipse thing 😑. And luckily the Sfdx was launched. So I started exploring the sfdx development environment. So here I am gonna try to merge all my findings so you can also start developing your new salesforce apps in the SFDX environment. I will also try to explain the new sfdx terms like Scratch Orgs, Dev hub orgs, 2G Packaging, Salesforce CLI, and Deployment, etc. So let’s get started 🚀.
Download Salesforce CLI
Salesforce CLI is the command-line interface which will help us to make lot’s of task easier like creating LWC or creating an Apex class deploying your code to an org, or pushing your code to a scratch org (Yes deploying and pushing are different 🤘🏻), before we start we let’s start with installing Salesforce CLI. You can use this link for downloading Salesforce CLI for your favorite OS.
Or you can use NPM to installing CLI
npm install sfdx-cli --global
Now to check that CLI is installed successfully run the below command.
sfdx --version
you should have output something like this.
sfdx-cli/7.72.0-697e9faee2 win32-x64 node-v12.18.3
Now let’s create a folder for your first sfdx project and open in VSCode. And install Salesforce Extension Pack.
This is gonna make rocket science easier. 😜
Now press Ctrl + shift + P to open command palate in vs code and search for creating a project with manifest
You can select Standard (default) for project type and provide your project name FirstSfdxProject.
I can’t show my recent. 😉
If your Project directory looks something like this. You are good to go. Cheers… 🥂
Now the next big thing. Salesforce Dev-hub org.
ohh, come on not so big. Just go to salesforce and signup for Developer Edition org, Once you are done then go to setup and enable Dev-hub.
Great job guys…..
Now we need to authorize this dev hub org with our VSCode. So Go back to vs code and open command palate (ctrl + shift + p) and type authorize a dev hub org and hit Enter. You will be redirected to the chrome tab with login.salesforce.com and here you need to login to your recently created Dev hub org. After login, if it prompts for allowing access to vscode then give access.
you should see this message on your VSCode if so then you can close the chrome tab and you have successfully authorized your dev hub
Dev-hub org nothing just a developer org that will help you to manage you project and scratch org with team. I will suggest you to use scratch org for your development and testing.
Scratch orgs.
Now let’s go back to command palate and search for create a default scratch org.
This is going to be your scratch org alias.
Here you will tell how long you need the org after that it will expire.
once you are done with this your scratch org is ready for use.
your org alias should be visible in the removed area and by clicking the highlighted icon you can open your scratch org directly.
Deployment…
To start coding we need to create some salesforce components. How about LWC. Hmm…Hmmm😉😉.
Call your friend and tell him to create an LWC component… Yes, your friend Command Palate.
Hit enter and type the name you want to name your component (firstcomponent in my case) and choose the default directory.
Do some changes so we can add this LWC to your lightning Record Page.
We also need to make some changes in the -meta.xml file so that we can add the component to the Lightning Record Page.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<LightningComponentBundle xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
<apiVersion>49.0</apiVersion>
<isExposed>true</isExposed>
<targets>
<target>lightning__RecordPage</target>
</targets>
</LightningComponentBundle>
now again call you friend and say sfdx: Push Source to Default Scratch Org
It indicates that we are ready to test out our Lighting Web Component.
Now open any Record detail page on salesforce org and click on the edit page from the gear icon (we normally use to open the developer console.)
2G Packaging.
Sfdx comes with a new feature of 2nd Generation Packaging. I would suggest you to read this Comparison.
So that’s it, guys. happy coding…
“Lighting Quick Action in LWC.”
If you like this article. follow me on twitter for more updates. twitter.com/@awsomvinod | https://medium.com/@awsomvinod/setting-up-sfdx-environment-and-creating-your-first-lighting-web-component-1b5b5ee653d9 | ['Vinod Patel'] | 2020-09-06 14:04:30.270000+00:00 | ['Lightning Web Component', 'Sfdx Cli', 'Sfdx', 'Salesforce Developer', 'Salesforce'] |
Autonomous RC Car Part 5. We’ve got a small camera. How do we… | We’ve got a small camera. How do we calibrate it?
New here? You may want to start from Part 0.
Snow
I was really hoping to generate some test data with the car. Getting data early and often is important when developing new products and can prevent premature optimizations. However, this is the track I was planning on running the car on:
Can you see the painted lane markers? Me neither.
So, there are a few optimizations that I’ve been considering. Premature or otherwise, we’re stuck indoors and we’re going to explore one of them. Small camera lenses often add spherical distortion to the images. This could affect our steering angle estimations and — with a little math — can be reduced or eliminated.
Camera Calibration
OpenCV has a convenient tutorial on how to undistort images. The jist of this is to take a series of pictures of a known-flat item, find some points on it, and reshape the image so these lines are straight. The OpenCV tutorial images look like this:
I initially printed an image of squares taped to a plate of glass (very flat) but this wooden chess board that has larger squares was easier to detect. My results were similar to the tutorial.
Overall the differences are slight. I changed the hyperparameters for the number of inclusive vertexes to 6 x 6 rather than the tutorial’s 7 x 6. I found that the Pi camera was a blurry around the edges so reducing the dimensionality yielded better results. I was moving the board around to capture different areas of the field of view of the camera, and that may have contributed to the blur around the edges. I used 25 images for calibration data running the code below several times and selecting only the images where findChessboardCorners() found results.
With my selected images in an images directory, we can run the code below to calibrate and undistort the images. When the calibration phase is complete, we’ll save off the parameters necessary to undistort using Python’s pickle feature (line 40). Later, we’ll use these parameters to undistort any images coming from this camera.
Putting it Together
In Part 2 we wrote some RPi image capturing code, in Part 3 we did lane detection, and now we’ve established a baseline calibration for our camera so we can undistorted the images it produces. Let’s put these three things together. This will be a large code block, but we’ve seen most of it before. The only substantial changes are around handling bad or missing data. Line 79 has our pickle calibration loading, line 92 should be familiar from where we initiated the Pi Camera, line 98 does the undistortion from above, and line 118 is where we add our detected lines to the newly corrected image. This will just grab the first 10 images and write them to disk. When we’re building training data we’ll store the original images and sensor data instead.
The output running in my basement is less than thrilling, but does demonstrate that it works. We’ll remove the frame limits around line 125 when we get this running on the AV.
Door frame lanes? Kinda.
Roads Not Taken
Let’s step back for just a moment and consider what we’re not doing. This robot is going to have its brain on-board. This limits us in compute power but increases our reaction speed and autonomy. If we relax those constraints, what could we have done instead?
FPV Camera with integrated transmitter
First Person View cameras used in racing drones are inexpensive wireless cameras mounted on fixed-wing and multi-rotor drones. The cameras are light weight, use little power, and transmit in near real-time (no compression) in the 5.8Ghz band. They’re intended to be received by VR goggles worn by a drone pilot, but there are also USB receivers that can interface with a laptop or video capture card. We could cram a laptop with a bunch of GPUs and dramatically outstrip the performance of our little Raspberry Pi. That would let us use multiple cameras, support parallax depth approximation, run YOLOv3 at a high frame rate, etc. There are some voices in the AV community that think autonomous vehicles won’t be safe without external resources helping to drive the car. I can certainly understand the attraction.
To make the RC transmitter/receiver portion easier, we could use simple 433Mhz transmitter/receiver pairs like the nRF24 or RMF96 LoRa chips. I have a bunch of these so I may prototype this just for fun.
We’re not taking this road because we want the constraints of autonomy to be with the robot and not external. The point of this project is to explore the limitations of full-sized autonomous vehicles with on-board computing and what sensor-fusion we can accomplish with limited resources.
What’s Next?
My LiDAR unit is in the mail, so we’ll get started playing with that. When the snow melts I’ll get the camera mounted to the car and do some driving. Once we have gathered some training data we can start building our regression model to predict steering angles from sensor input.
Update: Continue to Part 6. | https://medium.com/@mikkelwilson/autonomous-car-part-5-69aa7bdeac9a | ['Mikkel Wilson'] | 2020-12-31 02:02:44.322000+00:00 | ['Self Driving Cars', 'Computer Vision', 'Opencv', 'Autonomous Cars'] |
Leadership ! Stan Lee was right ! | For the past few years and still true today, leadership is becoming one of the best avenues to express yourself at work… unfortunately, in a lot of cases, this is in the wrong way …
Everything we can find in the leadership books, articles, etc , goes along the lines that good leaders display impeccable behaviour and communication skills and also show a lot of respect to everyone.
Sadly, companies are continuing to express themselves only around their business metrics data.
How many companies are just delivering and pushing metrics messages to their employees? On the other side of the coin, employees are instead searching for more confidence & well-being at work
Shouldn’t companies be providing different aspects of leadership in their organisation ?
Just to take an example.
From Sales meetings, to Go-To-Market meetings, when you listen to your Manager or Top Management, you expect to leave the meeting feeling driven and motivated from their leadership communication and discussions they bring to the table.
But in most cases, it is quite the opposite !
The leadership behaviour isn’t present: they use the wrong words at the wrong time, and ultimately, your goals & motivation are just plunged in the ground instead of trying to reach the sky.
Please, Manager, Top Management, use the right behaviour and words to motivate your team & leaders inside your company !
Leadership is a position of superpower — Motivation & talk can make a person become a better worker !
If we quote Stan Lee in the Amazing Spiderman, Uncle Ben said — « With great power comes great responsibility » — to his nephew Peter Parker aka Spiderman.
Wouldn’t you think that we can use this same mantra for the leadership positions in the organisation ? Leaders you have the responsibility to use your power to create a good environment and well-being for the employees !
Maybe what I’m writing here is very basic leadership training, but trust me, a lot of companies forget even this basic principle.
Don’t forget that leaders are the first impulse for good results.
Your team will thank you for the boost & motivation ! And I guarantee that if you do this, the result will be that your company will reach the yearly / quarterly /monthly goals.
Another important point, don’t schedule only one company launch per year ! You have to be in contact with your consumer every day right? so why you should talk to your employees only once a year ? Practicing leadership every day is a mix in between behaviour, communication & respect, so express your feelings and be honest with your team … with smiles 😊 | https://medium.com/@fabien.arneodo/leadership-stan-lee-was-right-ab16a9089deb | ['Fabien Arneodo'] | 2020-02-07 15:03:42.445000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Comics', 'Leadership Skills', 'Business', 'Leaders'] |
HOW TO LIVE A LIFE WORTH LIVING | I culled this title from Archbishop Fulton Sheen. He is one of my favourite televangelists and one of the teachers that I look up to for spiritual direction. His teachings have a way of bringing out the scriptures with deep intimacy and wit. I am writing this to not only feed my hungry soul but also to share how we can all learn contentment in this world that seems to never satisfy.
Get to know yourself.
Human, know thyself.
This sounds easy because many people will come from a place of defining their hobbies-which is a part of it but it’s not the ultimate. Getting to know yourself is a life long, intentional commitment. You must first and foremost be honest with yourself. Honesty is truth. Don’t try to be who you are not. As cliche as it may sound, you have just one life to live so you must live it for yourself and not for people. Even if it makes other people uncomfortable. You must also get to know your body and don’t say my body can’t do this when you have not tried. Be kind to it and treat it like a temple because that’s what it is.
2. Build Meaningful Friendships
when you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are
A wise man once said, “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are”. It does not necessarily apply all the time but everything is a matter of caution and it connects to also getting to know yourself. If you only see the flaws in others, you will most likely see the flaws in yourself but if you love yourself and are positive, you will see the light in others. You must learn to be the most authentic and best version of you and surround yourself with like-minded individuals because iron sharpens iron.
3. Give
No one is too rich to receive and no one is too poor to give
The things that we do for the greater good always has a way of returning to us.- what do we get in return, you ask? Joy. I remember a blind man whom I encountered, desperately needed help to get on the bus but could not find his way. He had a cane and was knocking the street without success to guide his path and when he got closer and almost hit me off the sidewalk, I asked if he needed help and he disclosed he wanted to get on the bus. So I took him by the hand and led him to the bus till he found his seat. He was happy and grateful and that made me feel happy, joyful even. It’s not all the time God brings people your way to help and when it comes, you must grab it with all your heart and not miss a bit. That experience taught me that If you want to lift yourself, lift someone else.
4. Heal from past mistakes
Forgive yourself darling. Let the tears come, let them water your soul
When we go through pain, it can be difficult to get through. Especially if we want to be tough about it and move on. I bet you’ll never get far with the healing process. You must be honest with yourself and state how you feel. You must be willing to accept that pain before you can heal. The healing may not happen immediately but when you live in the present moment, you find that our pain has less control over us. If someone hurt you and you are expecting an apology, you must accept that, that person may never apologise and permit yourself to forgive so that you may have peace. Ever notice how we feel grace leaving us when we hold grudges?
5. Do what you have always wanted to do NOW
Because you have it- TIME- and having it is a blessing. Spend some of it learning how not to be afraid of yourself — Upile Chisala.
Surely, if you read through points 1, 2, 3 and 4, you can’t be thinking of vices as activities to live a full life, talk less of a life worth living. When you understand and practice the points above, you will have the courage to conquer and live fearlessly. Be curious and get inspired by the things and people around you. Live in universal consciousness. This is the best way to discover new things and build knowledge to set the world ablaze. Steve Leasock once said “The key to embracing who you are is experienced now. However, it is never about focusing on the now; instead, it is about being in the now”.
In conclusion, we can live a life worth living when we realize that we must live presently and wholly. So don’t waste an opportunity. Go out and experience new things so that you can look back and say it with all honesty that it was all worth it.
xoxo | https://medium.com/@feliciaanyogo/how-to-live-a-life-worth-living-b822b6cc4072 | ['Ene Anyogo'] | 2020-02-20 10:30:40.500000+00:00 | ['Inspirational', 'Healing', 'Relationships', 'Freedom', 'Life'] |
2020 Recap: Looking Ahead | ✍🏾 Dear President-Elect Biden, we hope your administration’s first 100 days and beyond will be guided by these fundamental principles:
1. Fundamentally transform the criminal justice system
2. Protect and defend voting rights
3. Achieve economic parity for African Americans
4. Advance equity in educational opportunities
5. Promote a healthier nation by prioritizing testing, treatments, and cures for COVID in communities of color.
READ THE FULL LETTER: http://bit.ly/NULLetterToBiden
Also in 2021:
💉 The COVID-19 vaccine is here and Black communities must be at the forefront of the conversation. We’ll continue to bring you facts, updates, and resources.
🗓 Stay tuned for:
— National Urban League turns 110!
— Celebration of Whitney M. Young’s life + legacy on his 100th birthday
— Young Professionals Join Week
— Virtual conversations + events
— And much more! | https://medium.com/@naturbanleague/2020-recap-looking-ahead-9d0d3bfa7ed3 | ["Nat'L Urban League"] | 2020-12-23 16:47:18.428000+00:00 | ['Biden', '2020', 'Covid 19', 'Black Women', '2021'] |
Shared on LinkedIn Staurt. | The Great Tech-xodus: Why Startups (Like Mine) Are Leaving Silicon Valley In Droves
139 4 | https://medium.com/@tonse-pai/shared-on-linkedin-staurt-c8e82bc4c10d | ['Sridhar Pai Tonse'] | 2020-12-12 08:27:57.413000+00:00 | ['Silicon Valley', 'Exodus', 'Tech Exodus'] |
Feeling the Rivers in the Sky | Feeling the Rivers in the Sky
Michaela Vieser
This Essay first appeared in the Rewilding Issue of The Lissome Magazine with illustrations by Mimi Robson.
“A bay is a noun only if water is dead. When bay is a noun, it is defined by humans, trapped between its shores and contained by the word. But the verb wiikwegamaa — to be a bay — releases the water from bondage and lets it live. “To be a bay” holds the wonder that, for this moment, the living water has decided to shelter itself between these shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers. Because it could do otherwise — become a stream or an ocean or a waterfall, and there are verbs for that, too.[…] This is the grammar of animacy.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
There are rivers in the sky. Fed by the oceans, called by the trees. Serving as particle messengers, fungus spores and terpenes are released from the rooted soils and leafy foliages, sent up into the air to ionize the clouds. Anthropomorphized, the summoning by the trees might translate into: „Come hither, Come hither, you droplets and driblets of water.“ Addressed in nature’s language this works — not like magic and not like an algorithm, but because of the sensual interplay of everything alive.
From the sea to the coast into the lowlands and highlands, the drylands and wetlands, the farmlands and marshlands, these invisible rivers gather and meander. Their current is the speed of the wind, their shores are made up by the endless sky. They are not invisible to all: the golden winged warbler feels the storm coming before any meteorologist will know about its formation, despite the borrowed eyes from satellites watching down from outer space. And even our normal house cat senses the rain hours before it falls. Amongst us humans there are those who can communicate with the weather phenomenon in their own syntax: Rainmakers (a profession found in almost any culture, from the Andes to the Japanese archipelago) know songs and rhythms to entice them. How their melodies reach the clouds remains a mystery to us who listen to tunes made of digits: the music penetrating our brains through ear phones makes us forget the power of sound-waves, subdues basses and beats of their tickling and stimulating qualities, leaving organs and glands out of the loop of the full body experience of music.
The sheer presence and longevity of the rainmaking profession gives it credibility. The ancient Greek writer Plutarch observed the interplay of sound and rain. In his Parallel Biographies he writes: “Extraordinary rainfall often occurs after great battles; it may be that some divine force cleans the polluted air in this way and washes the earth with showers from above.” He is hinting that the sound waves unleashed from the loud war instruments induce rain, but there is more to it: If one was to understand all the micro-mechanisms of animated life and the invisible connections between species and spheres, shouldn’t there be an old/new worldview to tap into? Anthropologists like Sussy Gump of Mass University in Kenya are looking at how indigenous cultures interact with the atmosphere and how incantations of rain can actually or possibly make rain happen. They find that rainmakers seem to be able to read the landscape and the movements within it: “The Nganyi Forest Shrine in the village of Esibila, in western Kenya, may not appear as an important symbol on any geographical map, but the forest, which lies on just one hectare of land, has an untouched biodiversity that helps the community of Bunyore to predict weather conditions for generations to come. The shrines are made of huge and rare native trees that form a canopy and are considered sacred. The small forest areas attract reptiles, birds and insects, whose behaviour is observed to predict the weather ahead. The Nganyi have appropriated their interpretation of this detailed information into a floating ritual art between legend and science.“
While meteorologists read data from thermometers, hygrometres, barometers, ombrometres, parynometres and ceilometres in an ever more fragmented, reductive and digital-centered approach, rainmakers simply read the world around them. It is not for nothing that witches and druids of the old European past lived in the middle of the forest and spoke to animals and trees. Maybe their magic is nothing else but the ability to conjure up the right connections in a world where everything is connected to everything else. Italo Calvino touches upon this principle in the chapter Cities and Sky 1 in his Invisible Cities. He describes a carpet in the city of Eudoxia, which reflects everything that happens in the city: „But if you pause and examine it carefully, you become convinced that each place in the carpet corresponds to a place in the city and all the things contained in the city are included in the design, arranged according to their true relationship, which escapes your eye distracted by the bustle, the throngs, the shoving. All of Eudoxia´s confusion, the mules´ braying, the lampblack stains, the fish smell is what is evident in the incomplete perspective you grasp; but the carpet proves that there is a point from which the city shows its true proportions, the geometrical scheme implicit in its every, tiniest detail.“
Reading the weather is a bit like writing a perfect story — it is a matter of filtering out from an almost infinite possibility of variation those passages that are essential, those that make up a narrative. Such a view and interpretation of the environment naturally makes it richer. While the scientific revolution of the 17th century led to the creation of a silo culture regarding Nature, indigenous cultures have been perceiving it as a whole and as something we access with our senses. The US American psychologist Edward Tolman put forward the hypothesis that the cognitive maps of people, such as the rainmakers, druids and witches, naturally increase empathy, while narrow cognitive maps, such as those we obtain through codified knowledge, lead to a ‘’dangerous hatred of outsiders’’, ranging from discrimination against minorities to social upheavals. In short, cultures that read the weather using their physical sensations are less prone to xenophobia than cultures that rely on measuring instruments.
There are rivers in the Sky. If one would follow one of them from the Indian Ocean into the Delta of Bengal and further up North, to where the hills first undulate and wallow, then rise and soar, there is a place where the clouds let go with a giant sigh, before they continue with their climb. This particular river has a seasonal name: monsoon, and is called from a sublime voice. When it comes down in Mawsynram, it whips and trickles, splashes, sloshes, showers, sprays, pours, drips and drizzles, drums, streams and steams. And those amidst it, must adopt to such a drench.
The mountains might remember the time in the Carnian Pluvial Event, when it rained for two million years straight and might think nothing of the yearly waterfalls, but for everyone else it is a downpour and an outpour, not frighteningly so, but recurring and hence a situation that needs to be dealt with in daily life.
Some take it light, like the Jacobin cuckoo, a bird living in these hills. It enjoys the rain. Every year it will migrate from Kenya just before the monsoon arrives and drink those river-sky-waters, but never from the brackish ground: it will be sipping raindrops that drip from the leaves, pure and sweet, slightly betel scented and filling, directly into its beak. Chatak they call this bird in the old Sanskrit language and the word also carries another meaning: it is the sound of flower petals opening, if only one were to listen careful enough.
The Khasi people also made this region their habitat, despite the natural challenges. Building any kind of infrastructure in such an environment remains tricky: their houses look like shells, sporting roofs from which the rain just glides from and never has the chance to sulk, their entrances never face to the southwest from where the rains come. But the biggest architectural challenge are their bridges which are life-sustaining in this environment: Normal concrete bridges would simply be flushed away year upon year and the trail to school, to the market, to Auntie´s house, to the secret hiding place or to any other place would be barred and made unusable. Instead they have developed the indigenous lo-tech bridges of which the Khasi are now known for far beyond their hill regions. Made of vines from the rubber fig tree and supported with the woods of the betel tree, they are an aesthetic feast of efficiency in terms of energy input, usability and sustainability. The architect Julia Watson writes about them in her book „Lo-Tek“ in which she collects examples of agricultural and engineering practices by indigenous people who live in extreme conditions: the Totora Reed Floating Islands of the Uros in Peru; the Qanat Underground Aquaducts of the Persians in Iran; or the Milpa Forest Gardens of the Maya in Mexico. Lo-Tek is a term she coined, from TEK meaning traditional ecological knowledge and Lo-Tech — a primitive, unsophisticated technology. What the examples in her book have in common is that they have been in practice for centuries, some of them for millennia, and have been preserved until today because no modern implementation could come up with better solutions. Collected in her book are practices that are sustainable from every perspective; from their embodied energy to their aesthetics to the care system that keeps them alive like a living organism. In a way this is what these technologies have become, an extension of the indigenous people´s body functions. Or as Watson puts it: „Innovations that are arranged to amplify mutually beneficial interactions between multiple species.“
Take the aforementioned vine-bridges of the Khasi: Once latticed together and cared for year after year, these kind of bridges can outlast rains and civilizations. The Khasi have been inhabiting the same hills since the first century BC. To maintain their system of bridges, they incant them in their origin story, where a tree ladder connects heaven and earth. The bridges were taught by the gods and hence the Khasi culture and spirituality must protect them. Care is given to every action concerning the bridges: Law kyntang are sanctified areas and sacred forests along the rivers. Trees growing left and right of rivers must never be felled. The maintenance of bridges is a spiritual caretaking. The jinkieng dieng jri, or the rubber tree bridges, might take a generation to grow and generations after may use them.
There is a distinct aesthetic to the bridges of the Khasi people, a perfection that remains untamed and wild. The hill dwellers have not become slaves to a system: Technology to the Khasi people is not something that strives to always try and error new, to take apart and put together new, but having found something so efficient, that all it takes is a system of care to pass it on from generation to generation. It is based on a socio-ecological worldview in which a story of interdependency will keep trails alive for all generations to come. Care is woven organically into everyday life and evoked through ceremonies, songs, and actions. The big noun „Knowledge” in this context is not something that takes apart, but something that connects. Knowledge is storytelling and keeping those stories alive.
Still other Rivers feed keystone species, that sustain all and everything that leans towards them. Take the yellow cedar, fed by strong rainfalls, clinging on to the hills along the coastal regions, standing still. A sacred resource for the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation on the Western Coast of what is now Canada: With its silver weaving bark and the smooth and slender trunk, it embodies a woman to the the Nuu-chah-nulths. To them, life around connects to life within. Empathy is extended to all living organisms. Or, as Wade Davis, an anthropologist striving to preserve indigenous cultures legacies writes in his book Wayfinders — Why Ancient wisdom matters in the modern world: “The full measure of a culture embraces both the actions of a people and the quality of their aspirations, the nature of the metaphors that propel their lives. And no description of a people can be complete without reference to the character of their homeland, the ecological and geographical matrix in which they have determined to live out their destiny. Just as a landscape defines character, culture springs from a spirit of place.”
One needs stories beyond the utilitarian to forge connections to the land.
The bark of the yellow cedar contains water-repellant substances. The Nuu-chah-nulths developed a technique of weaving it and used it to make diapers, capes, dresses, shoes, headbands. When someone died, the body was wrapped in it. In the humid weather, nothing could compare to the light cedar cloth. The cedar bark clothing rubbed lightly on the body, creating a feeling that the Nuu-chah-nulth called „invigorating”. A tingling sensation that reminded one in every moment to the world around. The alternatives of woolen cloth and heavy ship sails they were forced to wear after the arrival of the European settlers were uncomfortable and soaked heavy with water over time.
Finding the right kind of tree was a matter of understanding the landscape.
While the Nuu-chah-nulth had several words in their vocabulary for the different types of cedar trees, it was shamans who went into trance to find the perfect tree whose bark was of the right age and showed the right properties for the use that was to come. When a tree was found in this way, the ancients would guide them, they had names for each stream, coast, hill or rock. Prayers would be said before visiting the tree to thank it for having its bark removed. Local knowledge and body knowledge were woven together in a living narrative that held the wisdom of a nation.
And sometimes the Rivers leave their heavenly riverbed and will dance with the waves. They will tickle the ocean floor and draw patterns into the silky sand, making it hard for the shrimps to perch. When the female Ama pearl divers of Japan delve into the sea and find the bottom slightly turvy and the shrimp paddling around excitedly, they know that a storm is coming and will leave the waters right away, warning the fishermen and everyone around. Centuries ago the Ama were themselves transported by the currents from the southern seas to this archipelago. They found a land filled with everything one could wish for. Trees and mountains, springs and seawaves. Their descendants called it 森羅萬象 Shinrabansho — the all covering forest, within a myriad things. With this compound word they found a name for everything that existed in their world.
There were once rivers in the sky that created a cosmic mandala. In its every detail everything was alive. By connecting with them and letting them run through our bodies and minds humanity survived for millennia.
And now climate change threatens to change everything, forcing us to adapt even as we are forgetting the lessons of those rivers, those patterns, those ways of being. „Dedicated to the next Seven Generations“, writes Julia Watson in „Lo-Tek“. But what kind of habitat will the 7th Generation know? Which technologies will they use to stay alive? Will they have to start at point zero and re-learn to building vine bridges and finding the right cedar tree? Will they have the sensitivity to name birds after the sound of a flower petal opening? Perhaps modern culture will learn to embrace the knowledge that already exists and embody it. Maybe a great listening will take place, a listening to Rivers, to little birds and to old stories that sound new. | https://medium.com/@michaela-vieser/feeling-the-rivers-in-the-sky-3b02e0fbb226 | ['Michaela Vieser'] | 2021-04-06 13:35:33.658000+00:00 | ['Nature Writing', 'Ecology', 'Nature Wisdom'] |
Is Wind Cargo Ships the Future of Cargo | Greenhouse gas emissions are certainly a problem around the world. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) estimates that Carbon dioxide emissions from shipping were equal to 2.2% of the global human-made emissions in 2012 and expects them to rise 50 to 250 percent by 2050 if no action is taken. We are very close that very soon, an advanced clean energy ship will be the ecological solution in the transportation of maritime cargo.
Sea transport can be acknowledged over any distance by boat, ship, sailboat, or barge, over oceans and lakes, through canals, or along rivers. Delivery might be for trade, amusement, or military purposes. While broad inland transportation is less basic today, the significant streams of the world including numerous waterways are still significant and are indispensable pieces of overall economies.
Basically, any material can be moved by water; in any case, water transport becomes unreasonable when the material conveyance is time-basic, for example, different sorts of short-lived produce.
There are two sectors of transportation, which have been shown to be difficult to work with in terms of achieving the “electrification” of your system. The automotive industry has already managed to take steps forward in its sector, which is crucial to reduce hazardous emissions and mitigate a climate crisis.
But we have good news on this topic within the ocean freight industry. Since Wallenius Marine announced in September a prototype that could change the future of this transportation sector.
We’re talking about reducing carbon emissions by a staggering 90 percent, a significant change for a global industry that currently carries a large carbon count. This new technology proposes to power a series of huge retractable “sails” that resemble the wings of an airplane, the so-called OceanBird will transport 7,000 cars (or their equivalent by weight) across the ocean.
The Oceanbird when fully extended, the vertical wing-shaped sails are 80 meters (262 feet) high and are able to propel the boat forward with the power of the air. This masterpiece of the ocean achieves an incredible speed almost at that of boats powered in the traditional way, that is, by fossil fuels.
Advances in technology are incredible, taking into consideration that the software will use mathematical algorithms to calculate how and when to adjust the sails of the boat, in order to constantly maximize its speed. These ongoing evaluations will allow the Oceanbird to reach up to 10 nautical miles per hour (knots) in order to complete a 12-day voyage across the Atlantic.
Companies that transport cargo in a traditional way need to calculate a large carbon footprint for their merchandise. Whereas the trips usually take 8 days.
These advances may also reach the cruise industry in the future, although perhaps not very near. Wallenius Marine voyages have a clean fuel system synchronized with an auxiliary motor that will move the ship in and out of ports very efficiently.
Oceanbird — the wind powered cargo vessel. Photo by (www.oceanbirdwallenius.com)
This company is still in the design phase, testing all this technology on scale models. However, the Swedish collaboration, which includes SSPA a naval technology company, and KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), is supported by the Swedish Transport Administration, which acts as a co-financier, and together they are receiving orders until 2021. to possibly deliver in 2024.
At the point when the main boat makes its launch, it will be an authentic event for the oceanic vehicles. The worldwide nautical association IMO has defined the objective of decreasing carbon dioxide outflows from global transportation by 40% by 2030. Ocean-bird will add to evolving, refreshing, and rebuilding a whole industry.
“We are pushing ahead, finding a manageable method to move freight over the Atlantic and around the globe with negligible ecological effect. Since change needs to occur. We need to be essential for the arrangement, driving the path in delivery. What’s more, drive advancement so Oceanbird can have any kind of effect. It is the start of another time and a continuation of our excursion towards really supportable transportation.” — Wallenius Marine.
A large number of years have passed since we figured out how to bridle the breeze so maritime vessels could travel quicker and further. The breeze helped us find our planet — now it can assist us with safeguarding it. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/is-wind-cargo-ships-the-future-of-cargo-b80118baea2c | ['Jesús Salazar'] | 2020-10-28 01:25:54.930000+00:00 | ['Innovation', 'Ideas', 'Transportation', 'Energy', 'Technology'] |
Removing Chicken Pox Scars — The Top 13 Ways For Safe Removal | Chicken Pox Scars — Chickenpox is a highly contagious virus that affects millions of people all over the world. The appearance of a vaccine for chickenpox has decreased the rate of infection up to 90 percent in the U.S. [1]. Nowadays, chickenpox is considered rare in children in countries that offer vaccinations. However, many adults who previously experienced chickenpox still show signs of this disease in the form of chickenpox scars.
Chickenpox causes intensely itchy blisters. The scarring is due to scratching of the chickenpox blisters. The skin gets damaged because of a deep wound caused by intense scratching. The resulting skin is commonly referred to as scar tissue. Chickenpox scarring produces a sunken appearance of the tissue due to skin inflammation and subsequent scratching.
Understanding The Chickenpox Virus
Chickenpox, also referred to as varicella syndrome, is a type of contagious infection that is triggered by the varicella zoster virus. Although it is typically not considered a life-threatening infection, complications may develop. Symptoms of the chickenpox virus include fever, malaise, loss of appetite, aching muscles, nausea and itchy blisters. The risk of serious complications caused by the varicella virus increases in adults. Between 5% and 15% of cases of adults who develop chickenpox will experience respiratory illness, such as pneumonia [2]. Treatment includes a seven-day course of intravenous acyclovir for varicella pneumonia.
When chickenpox develops, the blister-like spots appear on the face and spread to the torso and limbs. They will be small, red and generally itchy. Blisters are likely to appear on top of these spots which can add to the itching sensation. After two days, the blisters start drying and developing crusts. These crusts eventually fall off on their own. The best way to protect yourself or your kids from chickenpox is to ensure they receive the varicella vaccine.
Removing Chicken Pox Scars
People who are exposed to chickenpox disease know how frustrating it is to deal with the subsequent appearance of scars on the skin. This is especially true as the healing process can take weeks.
When blemishes appear on the skin, most people look for steps to lessen or alleviate their appearance. For those who have to deal with chicken pox scars, especially facial scars, finding the appropriate treatment is imperative. If you want to treat chicken pox scars, try the following skin care tips.
Vitamin E oil and aloe vera
To alleviate chicken pox scars naturally, mix vitamin E oil and aloe vera on the affected areas of the skin. Both these ingredients have soothing properties that reduce the itching and promote better faster healing. After combining these two ingredients, apply the mixture on the scarring several times in a day to prevent the scars from becoming dark.
Another tip for treating chicken pox scars is to apply cocoa butter to the blemishes on the skin. Cocoa butter is known for its ability to heal scars and spots quickly.
Lemon juice
For healing chicken pox scars, try using lemon juice as it is known for its ability to brighten the skin naturally. Lemon juice is packed with citric acid and vitamin C which are useful when dealing with scarring and skin discolorations. When using this treatment, make sure that the scars and spots from chickenpox are already healed to avoid getting stung by the acidic nature of the lemon juice. If your skin type is a bit sensitive, such as in the case of the skin of young children, mix the juice from half a lemon with two teaspoons of honey. Leave the solution on the affected areas for ten to fifteen minutes, then rinse afterward.
Papaya
Papaya is commonly used to brighten the skin thanks to the enzyme it contains called papain. This enzyme eliminates the dead skin found on the surface of the skin. Another plus to using this ingredient as a treatment for chicken pox scars is that it retains moisture which can speed the healing process. Make a papaya scrub by mixing a cup of fresh papaya, five tablespoons of fresh milk and five tablespoons of brown sugar. Start by combining the sugar and milk, then mix until the sugar granules have dissolved. Add the fresh papaya bits into the milk and sugar, and use it as a scrub after washing with mild soap. Use this regularly until achieving the desired result.
Honey
To heal chicken pox scars naturally, take advantage of honey. Honey contains antioxidants that help the healing process by boosting collagen production. Its antiseptic properties also aid in treating chickenpox scarring, especially when the scars have not yet thoroughly dried. Choose raw, organic honey as part of any scar treatments.
Baking soda
As chickenpox is quite itchy, baking soda can be used as soon as the blisters develop. Scarring occurs due to scratching at the blisters. Applying baking soda on the affected areas may soothe the itching and irritation while exfoliating the skin in the process. Make a baking soda paste by mixing a bit with water. Massage the paste on the spots on the skin to help remove the dead skin cells. An oatmeal paste or bath is also worth a try.
Aloe vera provides soothing and healing which can banish itching and irritation. Gather the gel from the leaves of the plant, and apply directly on the lesions. This provides some relief from the itching while speeding the healing process.
Chemical peels
In cases where atrophic scars have formed, the use of chemical peels may be recommended by a dermatologist. Chemical peels help improve chicken pox scars by reducing their tonal and textural irregularities. Glycolic acid is typically used for chemical peels. It can be used to resurface the skin and lessen the impact of chicken pox scars. Chemical peels are often used to treat dark spots that occur with aging and to treat acne.
Photofacial rejuvenation
Another technique for chicken pox scar removal is a photo facial rejuvenation which is a type of laser treatment that focuses on skin lesions. The tissue and capillaries are treated with intense pulsating light energy which aids in the rejuvenation of the skin’s complexion at the cellular level. This treatment also improves collagen production which makes the surface of the skin smooth. As a bonus, this laser treatment reduces the appearance of redness and wrinkles.
Dermal fillers
For chicken pox scars removal, sunken scar tissue must be treated. In this case, dermal fillers may be advised. As the name suggests, these sunken pockets of skin are filled until the depressed area becomes even with healthy skin. This may not improve the discoloration of the skin, but it can even the skin’s surface with chicken pox scars removal.
Micro-needling
To remove chickenpox scars, opt for micro-needling where a roller equipped with tiny needles penetrates the skin to encourage collagen production on the affected areas. This can help fill the sunken skin to its normal shape and alleviate the appearance of chicken pox scars.
Laser treatments
Another solution for scars caused by chickenpox is undergoing laser treatments for chicken pox scars removal. These treatments use light energy to boost the healing of the damaged skin by smoothing out the uneven pockets and dealing with discoloration.
A Last Word About Chicken Pox Scars
Chickenpox often causes discomfort especially when rashes and blisters appear. Fortunately, there are ways to alleviate the itching and reduce the scarring. Chicken pox cream scars are also available to apply on the spots, reduce the irritation and improve their condition. If the scars are still fresh or have been around for some time, try any of the treatments mentioned above to help them fade.
Chicken Pox Scars Resources:
[1] US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health; Varicella vaccination — the global experience, Peter Wutzler, Paolo Bonanni, Margaret Burgess, Anne Gershon, Marco Aurélio Sáfadi, Giacomo Casabona, July 13, 2017.
[2] US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health; Varicella Pneumonia: Case Report and Review of a Potentially Lethal Complication of a Common Disease, John T. Denny, MD, Zoe M. Rocke, BS,2 Valerie A. McRae, MD,1 Julia E. Denny, MSN, CRNA,3 Christine Hunter Fratzola, MD,1 Sajjad Ibrar, MD,1 Joyce Bonitz, MD, James T. Tse, MD, PhD, Shaul Cohen, MD,1 Scott J. Mellender, MD, Geza K. Kiss, MD. | https://medium.com/@ryan_monahan/removing-chicken-pox-scars-the-top-13-ways-for-safe-removal-c85a8f8b300 | ['Ryan Monahan'] | 2019-03-08 16:12:19.144000+00:00 | ['Baby', 'Infant', 'Chicken Pox', 'Rash'] |
Past — ماضی | Past — ماضی
Polyglot poetry — Urdu and English
Photo by Sourabh Barua on Unsplash
Roman Urdu
Maazi se azaadi paane ki koshish main
kahin apne aap ko peechay chor aae
Ab hum taareekh ke saaye talay
hain wapas apne wajood ko dhoondne niklay
Yeh chupan chupaai
ab humain basar nahi karti
Sooraj dil main liay phirte hain
magar darte hain roshan honey se
English
In the struggle of liberation from the past
we left ourselves somewhere behind
Now, by the guidance of this shadow
we continue our journey, in search of our existence
This hide and seek, does not suit us, anymore
You carry the Sun in your heart
yet remain afraid of being enlightened
Urdu
ماضی سے آزادی پانے کی کوشش میں
کہیں اپنے آپ کو پِیچھے چور آئے
اب ہم تاریخ كے سائے تلے
ہَیں واپس اپنے وجود کو ڈھونڈتے نیکلای
یہ چھپن چوپاای
اب ہمیں بسر نہیں کرتی
سورج دِل میں لیے پھرتے ہَیں
مگر ڈرتے ہَیں روشَن ہنی سے | https://medium.com/polyglot-poetry/past-%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B6%DB%8C-53d7b097506c | ['Taha Abbas'] | 2020-06-27 02:34:27.657000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Urdu Poetry', 'Poem', 'Past', 'Polyglot Poetry'] |
Inside Data Structures and Algorithms: Arrays | I have always struggled with identifying why do we use certain data structure of algorithm to a certain problem ? Why are these the benchmarks ? Why do we just cram the concepts and later forget them ?Until I relate them to real world examples surrounding us and this eventually made my concepts clear. I no longer require to remember how each and every data structure and create concepts on my own. I am creating this series to publish such stories that helped me in understanding what is known as Data Structures & Algorithms.
Arrays
We have all played or familiar with a pool game. No wonder 8 ball pool has more than 18M downloads!! There are a lot of 16 balls in a pool game, 15 with numbers from 1–15 and 1 white ball. These balls generally comes in a ball box having capacity to put 16 balls in it.
Something like this.
Let’s say each hole in the box has a number written on it telling us which ball should be placed at this hole (Consider white as 16). After you are done playing a pool game, a really good guy comes and decided to put these balls back into the box (lets admit you are not going to).
How will he put the balls back ?
He picks up every ball one by one from the pool table.
Reads the number on the ball.
Reads the number in the box.
Puts the ball to a corresponding numbered hole. (he is a really nice person)
Phew!! That was quite a task. Let’s do a retrospective on what we saw above.
Pool box has a capacity of 16 balls. Let’s call this `n`.
Each consecutive number is written one after the other continuously. For simplicity, consider all the holes to be in a straight line.
The logic of putting the balls back into box is mapped by same number as written on the box. Lets’ define this mapping fn as map(x). Here, map(x) = x for x ≤16
We can put less or equal number of balls to box’s capacity. Though box still has 16 holes in it.
These real world scenarios’ above made computer scientists think how do we make computer do the same think, what our mind does without thinking ? Thus, building blocks for making a computer robot. Scarryy!!
They defined something called as Arrays which is collection of items stored at contiguous memory locations. The idea is to store multiple items of same type together.
We reserve a contiguous memory location of capacity n, and assign this memory location to a variable in a programming language. If we don’t assign this to a variable, this reserved memory location is lost for our program.
We then identified a lot of similar type of real world structures around us, and dumped them into a family of DataStructures. Now, Array has a happy family. Finally!!
We will discuss other DataStructures in next series.
Beware: too much technical details below!!
What do we mean by contiguous memory locations ?
To understand this, first we need to look at what memory is in a computer world.
Our computer uses RAM to perform basic functions. Each of these comes with a specific size like 4 GB, 8 GB, 256 GB etc. These number quantify the memory a computer system have.
What is the basic unit of memory that above sizes deal with ?
Ex: 4 Kilo-bytes, 8 Giga-bytes. A byte is comprised of 8 bits (similar to array). The basic unit of memory is a bit.
We, as humans, deal with number from 0–9, also known as decimal numbers (deci — 10 numbers). Every other number is a combination of these numbers. On the other hand, computer deals with numbers from 0–1, also known as binary numbers (bi— 2 numbers).
So, each bit can contain either 0 or 1. This means, a byte of 8 bits can contain anything from 00000000 to 11111111. Converting binary to decimal it translates to 0 to 255. (Read about binary to decimal conversions). There are total of 2⁸ combinations for a byte. (either 0 or 1 at any place).
So, if you want to store an array of integers. How much memory do you need ?
In computer systems, the range of integers is specified from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. The total numbers in this range comes out to be 42,949,672,96 which is 2³² .
2³² = 2⁸ (1byte)* 2⁸ (1byte)* 2⁸ (1byte) * 2⁸ (1byte)
An integer takes a memory capacity of 4 bytes to be stored. When we define an integer, we reserve 4 bytes of memory storage to store any possible integer value.
Coming back to our problem of what do we mean by memory locations, remember we talked about how a byte is a consecutive set of 8 bits in memory. Consider a set of bytes to be a continuous set of memory locations.
Imagine whole RAM memory as a continuous set of bytes (for simplicity). When we define an array with a capacity n, our computer program reserves n blocks of 4-byte memory storage. Recall that all of these blocks are continuous memory locations.
Activity: Try to write a program which allocates an array memory equal to the RAM size of your computer. | https://medium.com/@notepad_104/inside-data-structures-and-algorithms-arrays-e6b9be7a4f42 | ['Shubham Aggarwal'] | 2020-03-21 19:05:28.069000+00:00 | ['Algorithms', 'Programming', 'Data Structures Course', 'Arrays', 'Data Structures'] |
How to handle In-depth Reactive Forms | By Chase Baker
I’ve been in software development for around a year and a half, mostly in the front-end of development. In that time I have become very accustomed to Angular, one of the most popular front-end frameworks, and with Angular comes Reactive Forms. When I first heard about reactive forms compared to template-driven, I was pretty confused but after completing a complicated and very involved reactive form for a timesheet, I felt much more confident with them.
This post comes with the assumption that you have somewhat of an understanding of Angular and Reactive Forms.
Alright, so where to start?
First, we need to import everything needed for the form in the component.ts file.
Let’s create our forms.
You’ll notice that I’ve created three different forms. One ‘master form’ (timesheetForm) and two ‘child forms’ (projectForm and adminForm). I do this to make things easier down the road but more on that later.
Next,
projectTime and adminTime will contain large objects with arrays inside. So to simplify things, I will separate them into their own components and send their form data back to the master form that resides in the parent component.
Adding data for the forms.
I call a service I’ve created to retrieve the data needed for the form through an API. Once the data is retrieved, I then use the method patchValues() to add the data directly into the created timesheetForm.
At this point, I’ve created the master or ‘parent form’ that will exist in the parent component. The three components will be the timesheet-submit component, admin-timesheet component, and project-timesheet component.
Here are 2 methods we will need to add the data from the child forms when they are updated by the user.
Each of these are listening for the $event coming from their respective child components, so once an $event occurs it will run the function to grab the new form data collected in the child component form and update or insert it into the master form.
Now in the child component project-timesheet, I will have a similar process of creating a form.
— I won’t be going into detail about the adminForm due to the process being the same. —
projectTime will be created as an empty FormArray. We will set projectTimesheet to the data from projectTime. Now I can use the method addProjects() to loop through and add each individual ‘project’ to the form array. This way the user can access each different project as its own miniature form when they need to make changes.
If you think it’s already deeply nested, we are about to go even deeper into the form. The form control hoursHashMap contains its own array of objects that represent each day containing another set of FormControls or FormGroups like comments, hours, day, open, and another array of objects named tasks to represent each day’s tasks. The tasks form control will contain another form but we will get into that later.
If you haven’t already noticed I like to use methods to do the work for me when creating each form control that is an array. That’s where initHoursHashMap() comes in. Otherwise, this form would be very long and taking up more room in the ts file, making it harder to read. Parameter 1 is the data that was retrieved from the API and parameter 2 is the day of the week that I have pre-set in another component.
Now I’ll use the method initDayTaskInfo() and pass in the needed data for each day of the week and then return the data back to the form.
Each day of the week has its own tasks so we need to create the form controls for those. I’ve created a small form called taskArray that will belong to the tasks form control above. Using a simple forLoop, I loop through the tasks and add each as their own group back to the array tasksArray. Now each task can be edited on their own. Think of this part of the timesheet being where the user will create a 2-hour work-related task ex. (Deployed Application, 2 hours, comments about the task). Remember this is creating the form and adding any existing data if there is any.
Here is what the html will like for the project timesheet. I have the formGroup ‘projectForm’ at the top level, inside of the projectForm element we can get into the formArray ‘projectTime’. For that we will need to loop through the controls, creating a new formGroupName of ‘I’ for each project. Then within that formGroup will contain another formGroup ‘hoursHashMap’ that contains the seven formGroups for each day of the week. the hoursHashMap object contains the info for each days tasks (comments, hours, task name ect.).
I’ve created a modal that opens when the user wants to add a task to a certain day. So with that, I need to send the data to the modal that correlates with that day. Once the user adds/updates new data to the modal and closes it, the results will be sent to the taskForm.
Here is the input modal html for each days task data using *ngFor to loop through the form controls.
Setting up the logic for the modal will start the same as any other component. We will need to add our imports and create any needed variables, with this being a modal I’ve injected the data through the constructor using Angular’s built in MAT_DIALOG DATA service.
Notice in ngOnIt() I have four functions, as the names suggest, I will set the data from the parent, create the form, patch the values and check for any existing data in the session storage or backend database.
The setDataFromParent() function is just taking the data injected when the modal was opened and assigning them to new variables, it also creates a key I will use for sessionStorage. The patchValues() function is what will actually be taking the data and setting it at the form controls of taskForm.
Then what I did was create a function for checking for data wether it is coming from the backend database or session storage from the user. I created a storageKey from the projectDesc and the dayOfWeek making each days task unique.
And of course we create the form for the task.
In regard to the onChanges method, it will update whenever changes are made to the form. What it is doing is updating the total hours the user is adding/removing from each project and it sends the form data to the parent component which will contain the master form.
The setWeekTotals method is needed to set the original total amount of hours for each project when the page loads and has that initial set of data.
Finally our Timesheet,
Project One and Project Two will populate with any existing data if there is any, otherwise they will start as an empty form. Each day has it’s own input for the amount of hours worked that day, then once the button is clicked the modal will pop-up for the user to input the task data for that day. | https://chasebaker21.medium.com/how-to-handle-in-depth-reactive-forms-8e2e64b242ba | ['Chase Baker'] | 2020-11-30 15:11:41.844000+00:00 | ['Reactive Forms', 'Angular', 'Nested Forms'] |
The Art of the Community- Defi, P2E, and Market Psychology | People Love Articles
It’s true. They love the fact that there are people on a team working to write content. Investors WANT to see the effort. They are a huge fan of things like these being written. However….no one really reads them. Right? Like, raise your hand right now if you’re reading this…
-looks around-
That’s what I thought.
But, the truth is, it’s all about market psychology. The ‘art of the deal’, if you will. You play the game to win the game, you make the moves because you can. You win and you win and you win….
…because losing isn’t an option.
Daily Recap
For those who have stuck with us for the last week or so, it’s certainly been a wild ride, specifically over the last 12 hours. We’ve seen a huge increase in volume due to the following factors:
-CMC Listing
-Gecko Listing
-Multiple Calls from Trusted Crypto Influencers
What we see here when these things happen are HUGE price fluctuations. They follow the sort of pump and dump fashion that you’ll expect from snipers of announcements. These jumps let emotional traders feel AMAZING and then feel equally terrible within a short span. This causes market sentiment to change immediately, but also cause many to get rekt.
However, to use this cliche…. ‘zoom out’. Look at it from a longer perspective. If a coin is .25 and after CMC listing it jumps to .52 and then back down to .27. The chart is going to look EFFED but at the end of the day what do we have here? A net positive.
The goals are to ride the waves and enjoy the net positives. Success isn’t a straight line, there will be some days that are better than others, but at the end of the day, the path is still clear. It’s, of course, why we have that 2% taxing fee that sends BUSD to holders as rewards for riding out these waves.
Quick Gaming Update
Gaming developers are taking a break for the holidays and I’ve taken over just creating a community. We will get updates soon after the new year and will begin pushing out the next phase of the updated game along with testing of our leaderboard and wagering system. All of this is being worked on in the shadows while I’m out front juggling and singing songs for you all.
But more than that….
Success in the crypto market isn’t about tangible products. It’s not about the games. Having it obviously helps. Without a doubt, being able to play a game and wager and have FUN is going to do nothing but benefit us as a cryptocurrency. I mean…it’s actual utility. However….
does utility make something a half a billion market cap? No.
The overall price speculation, value of Zionomics does not come from gaming utility, it comes from the market that we create as a community. There are productless tokens by the dozen out there that reach obscene marketcaps just because they exist. They make it a PROFITABLE PLACE TO EXIST.
This has to be a goal for us as well. Build a strong community, brick by brick and work together to make Zionomics a profitable place to exist.
If dog tokens can have a billion dollar marketcap, there is no reason we can’t.
Let me say that again…
If Dog Tokens Can Have A Billion Dollar Valuation, there is NO REASON Why We Can’t.
We can be better. Period. What’s it take?
-Active Community
-Commitment To Spending Money The Right Way
-A Little Bit Of Luck
Each day we’ve gotten a little bit better as a community, and if we do it together, things are going to get out of hand in a really BIG WAY really soon.
This isn’t a one person job. This is for all of us. Let’s win together as a community. Crypto needs the next big craze. Why not Zionomics?
Take the Red Pill. | https://medium.com/@zionomics/the-art-of-the-community-defi-p2e-and-market-psychology-fe5f3a6d09a6 | [] | 2021-12-28 18:50:43.668000+00:00 | ['P2e', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Defi', 'Ethereum', 'Binance Smart Chain'] |
Would You Enroll In A “Traditional” University If It Came With A Money-Back Guarantee? | A recent article in Money made the bold claim that college should come with a money-back guarantee. The statistics they cite for WHY it should do so were sobering — as but one example, less than 20% of of full-time students at public, four-year universities are actually graduating in four years.
The arguments and analogies the article provides to support its reasoning are both straightforward and compelling:
We often see guarantees for consumer goods and services when they are both expensive and complicated. And there’s a good reason for that. These purchases are risky. If an expensive purchase fails to meet a buyer’s expectations, it can have a big financial impact. A product or service that is complicated also poses a risk because it’s not easy for the buyer to tell whether it will turn out to be a “lemon.”
Guarantees give buyers the certainty that their purchase will deliver what they’ve been promised — making it a less risky endeavor — and they also push sellers to focus on quality and satisfaction. Higher education is a classic example of the expensive, complicated product for which guarantees would work well.
Udacity earns a mention in the article for our jobs-guarantee program, Nanodegree Plus. The authors, Beth Akers and Stuart Butler, highlight how this kind of guarantee addresses “the risk of unemployment (or underemployment) following graduation.”
The authors also highlight programs that financially incentivize on-time completions, such as a program at SUNY Buffalo called “Finish in 4.” These programs are not dissimilar to Udacity’s ongoing “Half-Back” program, in which students who complete their Nanodegree programs within 12 months receive 50% tuition refunds.
At the heart of everything to do with this topic is a core question: Is a college education worth it?
As simple as that question may seem, answering it is difficult. To do so, you have to first understand and make clear your objectives. For example, to borrow the “lemon” analogy from Money, if you buy a car, you have certain objectives for it, which are dictated by factors such as the amount you spend, the make and year of the car, and more. Your expectations for a brand-new Fiat 500e purchased directly from a dealer for 30K+ (assuming you can even afford to buy it!) are going to be very different than, say, for a 2003 Mazda Tribute purchased from a second-owner for 5k.
In the end, to determine whether you got your money’s worth — or got stuck with a lemon — you have to assess investment and outcome, and compare clearly defined and realistic objectives with actual results. If your Fiat falls to pieces in a year? Lemon. If your Tribute gives you another decade of solid service? You got your money’s worth.
To migrate this analogy to education, what are your objectives if you enroll in a community college vs. if you apply to Stanford? What are the costs? What are the risks? Is it even worth doing the former? Is it even possible to do the latter? Only if you work your way through these issues can you ultimately answer the question of whether a college education is “worth it.”
Which leads us to the question posed in this post’s headline. If you’re holding off on higher education today, would you pursue it tomorrow if it came with a money-back guarantee? Consider the conclusion the Money article comes to:
Thanks to recent innovations in data availability, students are more empowered than ever before when it comes to being able to shop for college based on quality and value. Guarantees offer one more tool that can help students and families use higher education as an effective means for improving their financial future.
If your educational objectives have anything to do with “improving your financial future,” then you may want to start looking at those programs that DO come with a guarantee. If you’re not already enrolled in one, that is!
~
This post was written by Christopher Watkins, Senior Writer, Udacity | https://medium.com/udacity/would-you-enroll-in-a-traditional-university-if-it-came-with-a-money-back-guarantee-6baec1205694 | [] | 2016-08-30 12:46:01.483000+00:00 | ['University', 'College', 'Higher Education', 'Education', 'Student Loans'] |
Start From Your Thoughts | Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
I started learning Chinese in sixth grade. I had wonderful teachers who helped me along every step of the way. In my very first class, I wanted to jump right into writing characters and speaking full sentences. Instead, we started with Chinese history and the Chinese alphabet. It wasn’t what I expected, but it ultimately served to give me the foundation I needed. The teachers understood that I couldn’t master the language in a day, and they never expected that of me.
Recently, I was talking to Sia, my girlfriend who I met in China when I went with the Confucius Institute in 2018. I was trying to explain something to her in Chinese, and I realized I was fumbling over words that a couple of years ago would have come to me quite naturally. “Aiya, my Chinese is so bad!” I said. But then it stopped there. I complained, but I did nothing about it.
Recently, I’ve been getting in touch with my thoughts and emotions. I have come to realize that my thoughts lead to emotions, my emotions lead to actions, my actions lead to consequences, and those consequences lead to more thoughts.
Imagine that I have a negative thought, like “I’ll never be fluent in Chinese. It’s literally going to be a never-ending journey. There’s no way I could ever learn everything in Chinese. There are so many idioms, phrases, and TONES. I don’t even know my tones well enough and I’ve been doing this for over ten years!!” (This is something I have thought and said out loud on many occasions.)
That negative thought is going to lead me to feel a whole host of negative emotions. It will make me feel discouraged. Hopeless. Inadequate. Ashamed.
And those feelings are going to cause me to take certain actions (or not take certain actions). I will stay in bed, eat junk food to hide my feelings, and most importantly, NOT try to make progress in Chinese.
Those actions will lead to certain results. I will not improve in Chinese and will probably get worse. Then the next time I’m trying to use Chinese, I do even worse, and my subsequent emotions, actions and consequences are all worse too. The cycle starts by changing my thoughts.
The truth is, that negative thought I had about my Chinese is totally irrational. “I’ll never be able to be fluent in Chinese.” I have no evidence for this. All fluency means is speaking in a natural flow, without pausing to think too often or hesitating. Plenty of people are fluent in Chinese. Why can’t I be?
“It’s literally going to be a never-ending journey. There’s no way I could ever learn everything in Chinese. There are so many idioms, phrases, and TONES.” That’s all true, and it’s only a problem if I’m focused on unrealistic and unattainable goals. It might be better to just drop the goals, and instead focus on daily habits that ensure my ability will improve. That way, I can feel happy by just doing my little bit of work each day, rather than putting my satisfaction off until I know every single word in the Chinese language, which will probably never happen. Think of all the English words and idioms I don’t know even though I’m a native speaker.
“I don’t even know my tones well enough and I’ve been doing this for over ten years!!” Well, I do know some tones. And I might benefit from reviewing them and finding ways to improve my pronunciation. But the fact that I have been learning for ten years doesn’t matter, especially if I have paid much attention to the way I go about my learning. Once I start being systematic about my learning, I will see more progress and I will improve over time.
If you were to argue with someone who said the negative things that you’re thinking, how would you pick apart their argument? Most of the time, we are making obvious logical fallacies in our own thinking, and then just accepting those thoughts as truth. We have thousands of thoughts per day, and when they’re negative, they can take a toll on us. Start by noticing those thoughts, writing them down, and questioning their validity. Be curious about it. I’m finding is that there is a lot to be hopeful about by doing this, and maybe you will too! | https://medium.com/@ryan.m.shaw/start-from-your-thoughts-8f328810ea1d | ['Ryan Shaw'] | 2021-12-16 00:17:31.612000+00:00 | ['Motivation', 'Language Learning', 'Chinese', 'Emotions', 'Self Improvement'] |
“The Spaghetti Incident?”: Guns N’ Roses’ Tasty Covers Album | uDiscover | Tim Peacock
After the world had waited four years for Guns N’ Roses to release their Use Your Illusion albums, it was a surprisingly short two-year gap between those records and the release of the group’s fourth, “The Spaghetti Incident?”. The fact that it was a covers album surely helped the timeframe, while its title — an obscure in-joke that outsiders would never have understood — suggested that, on a record that found the group paying tribute to their musical heroes, GN’R were out to please themselves, whatever anyone else’s expectations.
Listen to “The Spaghetti Incident?” on Apple Music and Spotify.
Not that “The Spaghetti Incident?” didn’t have plenty for fans to get their teeth into. Firstly, its tracklist offered fans a revealing insight into the (mostly old-school punk and hard rock) acts that first turned GN’R onto music. Additionally, it gave Axl Rose and co free rein to pay homage to their idols in the best possible way — by cranking out some truly incendiary rock’n’roll in their honour.
“We were this huge band, but nobody knew our roots”
The album’s genesis dated back to the protracted studio sessions for Guns’ multi-platinum behemoths, Use Your Illusion I and II. It’s been well documented that this lengthy studio lockdown took its toll on the band, so, “to alleviate the pressure”, as Slash later told Rolling Stone, GN’R began tearing through covers of songs they all knew and loved, and ensured the tapes were rolling.
Yet, while the band accrued much of the material for “The Spaghetti Incident?” this way, some of the songs’ components were laid down much later. For years, received wisdom told us the parts played by rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin (who departed after the massive Use Your Illusion world tour) were re-recorded by his replacement, Gilby Clarke. However, in a 2015 interview with Songfacts, Clarke categorically denied this.
“A lot of people think I erased Izzy’s parts,” he said, “but actually that’s not true. Izzy didn’t play on a lot of them, so I just got to put my parts on songs that were [otherwise] already recorded.”
“We couldn’t put everything we liked on”
Elsewhere, some of the music came together while Guns were on tour. Their impressive version of The Skyliners’ 1958 doo-wop classic ‘Since I Don’t Have You’ was cut on what should have been a day off. Instead, the band ventured into a Boston studio with a young engineer who could hardly believe he was helming a Guns N’ Roses session.
“Axl sent cassettes around and we went into a local studio, set up our own gear and cut the song,” drummer Matt Sorum told Rolling Stone.
“I remember it being one of the best sessions. The crew was stuck somewhere and the engineer was a young guy who got called in and showed up at the last minute. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he saw it was [Guns N’ Roses] in the studio — he was like, Oh, s__t!”
Guns’ regal, Mott The Hoople-esque reshaping of ‘Since I Don’t Have You’ opened “The Spaghetti Incident?”. Stylistically, however, it was atypical of the record’s content, which consisted primarily of punk and hard rock numbers from the mid-to-late 70s.
Axl Rose later explained the band’s choice of source material in a Rolling Stone interview: “It’s the energy and the defiance that punk had and that it didn’t really hit the mainstream all that much,” he said, “And we are, like it or not, in some ways in the mainstream, so we’ve got to bring certain songs to peoples’ attention.”
As “The Spaghetti Incident?” revealed, Guns set about their task with gusto. Rose was instrumental in selecting numbers such as Nazareth’s crunching ‘Hair Of The Dog’ and a vigorous take on UK Subs’ ‘Down On The Farm’, while Duff McKagan took the mic on tanked-up versions of The Damned’s ‘New Rose’ and a suitably ragged, yet glorious take on Johnny Thunders’ achingly sad ‘You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory’. Everything was performed with energy, commitment and heart, and where swaggering renditions of New York Dolls’ ‘Human Being’ and The Dead Boys’ nihilistic ‘Ain’t It Fun’ were concerned, GN’R arguably even surpassed the originals.
“We wanted people to look into punk”
Moving over a million copies in North America, “The Spaghetti Incident?” peaked at №4 on the Billboard 200 and went platinum elsewhere — impressive results for an album with no tour behind it.
The record even gained praise from the most unlikely of sources. Notoriously hard to please, The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau gave “The Spaghetti Incident?” a rare A- rating and confessed, “I remain impressed even with the excitement worn off.” Rolling Stone, meanwhile, declared, “Guns N’ Roses reveal themselves as a glam-rock band, and a good one, as if T.Rex and the Dolls had come out of early punk rather than the other way round.”
Long after the album’s release, the group have kept faith with the songs they so vividly reimagined for “The Spaghetti Incident?”. ‘Down On The Farm’ was aired during the Chinese Democracy world tour, while McKagan and Sorum’s side project, Neurotic Outsiders, often performed selected songs from the tracklist. More recently, ‘Attitude’, ‘Raw Power’ and ‘New Rose’ have featured in shows during GN’R’s rapturously-received Not In This Lifetime… tour.
“We couldn’t put everything we liked on the record, like Motörhead’s ‘Ace Of Spades’, but we did our best and it was fun,” Duff McKagan told Vive Le Rock in 2013.
“At the time, we were this huge band, but nobody knew where our roots lay. We wanted people to hear our record, go back and look into punk and put the puzzle together.”
“The Spaghetti Incident?” can be bought here.
Listen to the best of Guns N’ Roses on Apple Music and Spotify.
Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter: @uDiscoverMusic | https://medium.com/udiscover-music/the-spaghetti-incident-guns-n-roses-tasty-covers-album-udiscover-7fc9d9354b1 | ['Udiscover Music'] | 2019-11-23 10:48:36.932000+00:00 | ['Rock', 'Music', 'Pop Culture', 'Features', 'Cultur'] |
My Adulterous Pen Name Protects My Job Too | How to Cheat
My Adulterous Pen Name Protects My Job Too
And because of that, we will never meet.
Photo by Edgar Hernández on Unsplash
A question comes up in twitter’s writing community every so often.
Do you use a pen name, and why?
I usually respond by sending them to my profile’s pinned post, which links to my book — How to Cheat: Field Notes from an Adulteress.
The usual reply is –
Ah, ok.
Because it’s no surprise anyone who writes about adulterous sexcapades© would use a pen name.
Mine wasn’t picked to use the way I’m using it now or on platforms like this. I used it when started writing a few sexy short stories on Amazon.
In 2018, when I decided to take control of my sex life, I channel my overflowing hormones into erotica.
My Pen Name
I picked TJ Conway and added Teresa a little after that.
My name is Teresa, but Conway is not my last name. It belonged to Mary Mariah (Conway) Reid, a Potato Famine orphan who survived the crossing that took her mother’s life. Mary is one of my 5th great grannies. She was a survivor.
Why Won’t I Speak To You On the Phone?
Besides being an actual cheater, who has a real family to lose if I get caught, I also have a workplace situation I haven’t entirely navigated. And it’s an almost bigger deal than my marriage.
I’m a senior HR specialist who writes sensitive correspondence for a government official with national name recognition. I love my job, despite the fact my name never appears on what I write.
Because of this, I cannot be caught cheating.
I Cannot Get Caught Cheating
Not because I might embarrass my boss, though. There’d be no scandal outside my own life. His name is always on my work, so no one knows what I’ve written.
My job isn’t a secret. Others generally know what we do because my portfolio, a necessary evil, is a common bureaucratic function across the government.
So, if I were caught, I would lose my security clearance for a while. Which would mean I would lose my position. Simultaneously, a horribly invasive “who are the men you’ve slept with and what are their names,” security investigation would be conducted. That investigation could ultimately end in job loss.
Why? Because I’m required to disclose all sources of income irrespective of the source and any potentially compromising situations or changes to my family status. Adultery isn’t on the list, but at the end of every security interview, they ask,
“Is there anything we haven’t covered that you would like to disclose?”
Failure To Disclose Things Can Be A Bit Of A Deal
Undisclosed income is usually associated with people in debt, who sometimes sell information to make ends meet. It happens often enough to be a concern.
People who can be sexually compromised are considered vulnerable targets like debtors. Debt’s not my problem, but I could be compromised by someone interested in my boss.
My assessment is I present a low risk. That’s because the work I do is sensitive but of no material value.
This is just my educated guess, which doesn't matter to the people who ask the embarrassing questions. It takes next to no adverse information to start an investigation or be removed from my position because of my proximity to the boss.
I’ve made about $200 writing in the last two years, so I can say what I do under this pen name is a labor of love.
A labor of love that could cost me everything.
End Game
So, if I happen to completely disappear off all my platforms one day and never come back, it’s because the risk of detection became too great. At that point, I will delete everything in an attempt to leave as little in plain view as possible — I know it will always be there, but I need to make a first glance as clean as I can get it. And then I’ll make a very sharp turn away from this online life.
Who Am I?
Nobody. Unimportant. I’m a bureaucrat, not a spy or even an executive. I don’t work for a security agency. But I work in a position of trust close enough to a principal that my career would be over, even if I weren’t fired, after getting caught.
We Will Never Do Anything
Other than through [email protected], we cannot communicate. You cannot hear my voice. We cannot meet. We cannot text. We cannot do anything.
I have met some lovely women on this adventure. People that I would love to know better. But this barrier will never come down.
There are only two people who know both me’s. One is my lover, and the other is my oldest friend. My lover is controlled because he has more to lose than I do. Even my wingman doesn’t know I have an online footprint.
The result? My life is so compartmentalized that one compartment doesn’t know how the other compartments takes their coffee.
Teresa J. Conway isn’t just a Nom de Plume, it’s a Nom de Guerre.
In the last few weeks, I’ve had to turn down two opportunities for things I really wanted to, but I couldn’t justify the risk of making arrangements over the phone.
I hate it, but this is how it has to be. | https://medium.com/sex-and-satire/my-pen-name-protects-my-job-too-2237a9505d49 | ['Teresa J Conway'] | 2020-10-11 13:54:08.943000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Love', 'Writing', 'Security', 'Sexuality'] |
Familiarity, Neglect, and the Wrong Cut of Steak | I’m living in a pandemic lockdown with my ex. What started as a summer holiday became an endless reminder of why we divorced in the first place. We’ve played together now for 31 long years — one of them dating, 20 of them married, and 10 amicably divorced. Why is my eye twitching as I write this? Seriously, the whole thing has been a rollercoaster ride, a daytime soap, a Shakespearean tragedy played out on a stage surrounded by an enthralled and often perplexed audience.
It must be said, for the benefit of all who marvel at my expert portrayal of the eternal optimist, that amicability has been a choice, and often a ruse. I’m a peacemaker by nature. I choose to get along and, for the sake of our daughter, I continue to think of us a family unit of sorts; a broken up dysfunctional one, a comedy of errors if you will — of which food is often the villain.
When we were newlyweds, pizza was our Friday night go-to delivery.
“What do you fancy?” he’d ask.
“The usual,” I’d say.
“Vegetarian?”
“Of course. With pepperoni.”
“You’re so high maintenance,” he’d laugh.
“It’s why you love me,” I’d quip, poking him in the ribs with my toes while we sat on our crusty old second-hand just-got-married sofa.
As the years passed I assumed the pepperoni on my pizza was a given. I even thought “the usual” didn’t need explaining. But it did.
Sometimes, being a pretty sweet guy when it came to making the food aspect of our lives easier, he would surprise me on other nights, with pizza — Super Supreme. Mmmmm, yum… not. But it was still thoughtful right?
Me being high maintenance became a bit of a joke between us. I would take a sip of the tea he so thoughtfully made, then wince and remind him I didn’t like sugar in mine.
“Oh, sorry. I forgot. You’re so high maintenance,” he’d affectionately offer.
“That's ok,” I’d say. “We’ve only been married ten years.
*cue drum and snare, ba-dum tish!*
Hungry Jacks was always a challenge for him. I assumed after a decade or so he’d have it down pat by now, and surely no discussion about what we were about to order was needed while standing in the queue. So we’d queue in silence and wait until it was our turn before faffing around with our order.
“Hi, what would you like?” the cashier would ask.
“Large Double Beef Whopper Meal please and an extra Double Beef Whopper.” Easy.
He’d then turn to me. “What do you want?”
“The usual,” I’d say.
Seriously, I’m easy too ya know. I’m clear. I’m concise. I like what I like. I don’t stand around thinking about it. When it comes to food I’m entirely predictable. I mean, come on, it’s junk food for crying out loud. It’s not like we’re sitting in a nice little cafe salivating over an interesting seasonal menu. No, I gave those places up when I partnered off. He was a fast-food guy and I was an easy-going adaptable girl. Nothing high maintenance about me.
“Regular Whopper Meal,” he’d say to the cashier.
I’d nudge him. “No pickles.”
“Oh, and no pickles on that one please,” he’d pass on.
“Heavy onions,” I’d whisper.
“Heavy onions,” he’d repeat.
“Light mayo.”
“Light mayo.”
“Coke.”
“Coke.”
“Diet. No ice.”
“You heard her.”
*Audience laughs*
He’d carry our tray to a table, then laugh about how high maintenance I was as I folded my burger wrapping neatly beneath it and he barely opened his up before digging right in. We were chalk and cheese. Beauty and the Beast our friends would say. Me, a quiet, British-born artist, wordsmith, and food aficionado. He, a Pacific Islander, big, beefy, hugely popular, and prone to swallowing his food without wasting time tasting it in the process. No guessing which one was The Beauty.
We were such a cute couple. | https://psiloveyou.xyz/familiarity-neglect-and-the-wrong-cut-of-steak-28b4dfd453af | ['Sarah J. Baker'] | 2021-02-07 04:17:06.076000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Lockdown', 'Divorce', 'Nonfiction', 'Love'] |
Why Kids Will Be Fine Wearing Masks At School | Why Kids Will Be Fine Wearing Masks At School
Parents are more worried about the masks then kids are.
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash
Parents have been sharing with me their worries that their kids will not be able to tolerate wearing a mask at school. As a pediatrician, I have some reassurance to offer. Children will definitely be able to wear their masks at school during the coronavirus pandemic. It’s going to be okay.
Parents are worried enough about sending kids back to school, and I want them to feel more comfortable about masks. To unravel all the confusion about masks, we need to start at the beginning.
Masks in March 2020
Let’s start with the early misunderstanding about masks, which has left a lot of people confused even now. Because at the beginning of the pandemic, people in the U.S. were hoarding masks and healthcare workers couldn’t get them, public health officials made a decision.
To make sure masks got to healthcare workers, public health officials asked people to donate their masks. At that time we were just beginning to understand how coronavirus spreads, and we thought that touching surfaces with the virus on it could be an issue. It is for a lot of viruses.
So the worry was that since people who don’t normally wear masks tend to touch their faces a lot and mess with their masks, it would be better for the public not to wear them. That made sense when public health officials thought that touching surfaces and then touching masks would be a big way of getting coronavirus.
While it is possible to get coronavirus from surfaces it turns out that that is not a major way it’s spread. And that means that the worry about people touching their masks and touching their face is not such an issue after all. On the other hand, we learned over time that the COVID-19 virus is super contagious through the air.
That changes everything about how we think about masks. Anything we can do to cut down on our chances of breathing in the virus is essential. And that’s why the public health officials and doctors like me are now urging everyone to wear masks.
Masks are the best way to stop coronavirus
What I want you to leave with is the understanding that it’s super important for your kids to wear a mask so that they don’t breathe in the virus. And we’re not too worried about them touching their face anymore. Remember, it’s a new virus and we had to learn over time. And we are still learning.
Another reason masks are important is because just talking, or even breathing according to some studies, propels the viral particles into the air.
We still don’t know who’s contagious. Since people can be highly contagious for the four days before they show symptoms, it’s really important to keep our breath to ourselves. At school, kids and teachers need to wear masks to keep their breath to themselves and avoid breathing each other’s breath.
Why kids will be able to wear masks
Let’s move on to why I believe your kids will be able to wear masks. The biggest reason I believe this is because my patients have been doing it for a couple months now. As daycare centers started to reopen, they required kids to come back with masks on.
Many of my patients at ages four and five are being asked to wear their mask all day long. And guess what? They are doing it. Kids adapt more easily than their parents do. If adults tell them it’s the way things are, children take it in stride.
When parents and teachers have a good attitude about masks and share with their kids how important it is, kids do an even better job. My own son hates the way his mask fogs his glasses, but he knows he needs to wear it anyway.
Masks are good for us
We doctors are asking everyone to wear masks because we care about your well being. Masks are perfectly safe, and the front line of defense against coronavirus.
Unfortunately, there’s been a lot of really silly stuff on the internet about masks. It’s completely untrue, and it’s scared people for no good reason.
Masks allow you to get air just fine, and to blow off your carbon dioxide. Doctors have been wearing them all day in operating rooms for years, so we’d know by now if they caused problems. In fact, we do know. They don’t cause any breathing or lung problems.
To convince us, lots of doctors have run experiments and posted them online. One I know did a 60-minute high-intensity peloton workout with an N95 mask on, all while wearing a pulse oximeter. Her oxygen was great the whole time, and she has asthma!
So why do some people say they feel like they can’t breathe? We are used to breathing with nothing in front of our mouth. And so our brain notices the mask and that it’s a little hot, and interprets it as feeling bad. We say to ourselves, “I can’t breathe.” But actually you can. What’s your feeling is hot and uncomfortable, not air deprivation.
People feel the exact same way when they’re out of shape and start exercising. But nobody tells themselves that they can’t breathe and they have to stop exercising then. They know it’s that they need to get better at exercise and then the breathing will get easier.
It’s the same with masks. We just need to practice. We all do uncomfortable things in our lives to keep ourselves healthy. Just think of all the vaccines that protect your child. They’re uncomfortable, but they’re necessary, and they’re much much less uncomfortable than the diseases we’re trying to prevent.
Medical exceptions for school-aged kids
What about medical exceptions to wearing a mask? There’s actually very few of those.
What about asthma? Masks are even more important for kids with asthma. If a child with asthma can’t breathe comfortably in their mask, then that could mean their asthma is not well controlled. And that’s a problem. If asthma is not well controlled, that means you need to make an appointment with your doctor as soon as possible. We are rarely unable to control asthma when families work with us and use their medicine consistently.
Rather than asking your doctor for a note to excuse them from wearing a mask at school, make an appointment if they are having trouble with asthma.
Parents of children with severe developmental disabilities may find that their child can’t wear a mask, and that’s something they can discuss individually with their doctor. However, many kids with developmental delays are actually able to wear their masks with a little practice. The same is true for kids with anxiety. After all, a treatment for anxiety is exposure to the thing that makes us anxious, so we can build our strength. Practicing mask-wearing can help a lot.
How parents can help their kids with masks
We can do this and we can set a positive tone for our kids. And just think of the impact we can have on our world if we all wear masks. We can really slow this virus down.
This is our chance to help our kids feel like they’re contributing to their communities by protecting themselves and each other. It’s a way they can be good citizens.
I’ve been telling my patients that we’re all superheroes now. Superheroes put on masks and protect people. Now, we put on masks to protect people. That makes us superheroes. Kids love this idea.
A note to the parents of adolescents — I know you are worried that they won’t listen or wear their masks. And I know that you can’t be at school to watch them, so we’ll have to hope that your school enforces masks and social distancing.
But I’ve also noticed that many parents of adolescents don’t know about their power? Do you know your power? Hint: it has to do with that thing that has been surgically attached to your child.
Their phone. Their electronic devices. If they don’t follow your family’s expectations for masks and social distancing, take their phone. It only takes a day! It’s magic how their behavior changes after one day without their electronics. | https://medium.com/home-sweet-home/why-kids-will-be-fine-wearing-masks-at-school-99d03a71f99e | ['Alison Escalante Md'] | 2020-08-02 22:11:14.327000+00:00 | ['Schools', 'Education', 'Parenting', 'Coronavirus', 'Masks'] |
Peace & Perspective | The woods are dark, they go for miles.
They are filled with paths to rest my soul.
The woods are quiet, full of peace,
while in my outside world, turmoil hunts me.
The woods welcome me in warmth and grace.
They protect me from my outside strife,
They get me to an ethereal like place,
pulling me deeper in their home to stay.
But the woods to me, mean I am home,
they need not lure me in too deep,
they give me rest and time to recharge.
Love pours forth in this magical place.
A Peace & Perspective flood my soul,
Long tall pines on all four sides.
Everyday life gone for a short while.
This is a gift given from the trees.
The woods are haunting,people ignoring all it offers,
They ponder the deep dark woods, but never enter.
Some may attempt to feel their soul,
but fear of the unknown scares them,
it scares them right back out into the light.
A gift given back, fear beating in their hearts,
the woods abandoned for an office.
Come back call the woods,for there is nothing to fret,
you are welcome in this exceptional place. | https://medium.com/poets-unlimited/peace-perspective-8630a3eb84d9 | ['Debbie Aruta'] | 2019-08-14 14:28:50.305000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Poetry', 'Hiking', 'Woods', 'Poem'] |
I Speak for the Empty | To the children like me who see these broken bones in our society but cannot even stand to fix our own. Our world feeds us these unreachable ideals telling us we are not enough knowing we are young, we are simply children. And I ask why? Why put our world’s future through such pain? Do they realize the damage they do, the self hatred they cause? In short, they do see the harm, there’s no way they don’t. But a small waist is worth far more than a generation of healthy bodies.
An older man told me once that I look different from the girls my age, I’m bigger. And what I will say is that man had no room to judge. Anyways, he did not explicitly say this was a bad thing I understood. Because my tag said medium instead of small I was automatically different, I was worse. I did not know this man but his words stopped me. He looked at me and changed my worth because of the size of my body, the very body that keeps me alive. He acknowledged my existence yet stripped me of my significance as if I were a weed opposed to a flower. He was the first of many to distort my image of beauty, like one of those mirrors at the carnival. I’m told that I’m beautiful the way I am but at this point it sounds backhanded and hopeless. His words are stuck in my head, branded with an iron rod. This should not be my reality, our reality, because aren’t we just kids?
The characters on my TV glamorized starvation throughout my childhood. These illnesses were romanticized- telling us that we could one day be like them, one day be what society deems perfect. This disorder spreads like a wildfire upon our impressionable minds, burning our bodies until we are nothing but ash. For we are young, naive, we will listen to anything. If the pretty actress says diet, we diet, if she says exercise, we exercise, if she says starve, we starve. For we are just children feeding into the idea of emptiness forever leaving us hungry. And aren’t we just kids? For the media to look at us and tell us to conform to their twisted fantasy is torturous. We are to be loved and valued no matter what the tag of our jeans says because aren’t we just kids? What happened to the equality and positivity you to me preached just yesterday? Yesterday you told me to let myself live free of expectation, and not to give in to the societal pressures of perfection and today I read an article saying that I don’t need to eat every meal. We should not be subjected to such hypocrisy for we are just kids.
I’m constantly told by my doctor though; lose weight, that I’m at the top of my weight class. I’m told to be healthier, skinnier, prettier when I was never unhealthy to begin with. And aren’t I just a kid? I’m built like an athlete, I always have been. I have more muscle than fat, and while I could stand to be in better shape, I am healthy. Even after adjusting my diet, cutting out extra sugars, and working out every day I remain at the top of my weight class. And still I’m told to lose weight. So I do, I try at least. I leave my stomach empty but fill my ego, because now I’m thin. Kids my age, we don’t understand the damages either. We act impulsively, craving validation rather than food. And it’s not until we almost pass out while driving home from practice after not eating anything besides an energy drink we may recognize the problem. Yet the recognition of this only pushes us to work harder, to eat less. It’s the dreaded competition of a distorted cycle planting seeds in our brains while draining our bodies of the nutrients to care for them. And still, we’re told we’re unhealthy because of a number on a scale.
Now trapped in the cage that is my broken body I struggle to even look in a mirror. And aren’t I just a kid? I’m tempted to give in, so just maybe I can look like her. Maybe the old man will tell me that I am enough, that I’m like the other girls. Now that my hair is falling out and my hands are shaking, maybe now I am enough. But this is not what I want, what any of us want. We want to love ourselves the way we loved our stuffed animals when we were younger. The way we loved that one flavor of ice cream. The way we love our best friend. We deserve to love ourselves and be loved more than anything in this world because aren’t we just kids? | https://medium.com/@scabby-kn33s/i-speak-for-the-empty-ca629f83afd3 | [] | 2020-12-19 03:54:21.679000+00:00 | ['Teenagers', 'Eating Disorders', 'Speech', 'Poetry'] |
EcoSmart — 42Mln TRX already invested! | Crypto, DApps Posted on May 10, 2020 TronList
Updated Post: https://www.tronlist.com/2020/05/10/ecosmart-trx/
Hey everybody,
Another new and very promising Smartcontract/DApp has appeared on the Tron Blockchain — EcoSmart! Let us tell you so far people have invested over 42 000 000 TRX — and its growing by the hour!
Short Summary:
💠 First Tron Blockchain MLM Smart Contract
✅ 👥 15 LvL Referral System
✅ 🎯 Hybrid & MLM Marketing Plan
✅ 💎 New Innovation Transverse Overflow
✅ ♻ Unlimited Commission for Best Leaders
✅Smart Contracts 2
ECS: TH3sKvcNDwFng8ajJWMVGFx9YRsLW5yEHq
Communty: TWB58Ct9ktpbkt46g9oyzae3VFnATSXLr9
Well if we got your attention let us tell you a bit more about the project. It is an MLM Smart Contract with a very interesting Roadmap including an Gaming DApp, AI Trading Bot, Exchange and a Social Media website.
They offer 3 Investment Plans:
Plan A: 5050 TRX — gives you 5760 ECS Tokens + 5 Level Referrals + 10% weekly dividends straight to your tron wallet.
Plan B: 10050 TRX — gives you 11 520 ECS Tokens + 10 Level Referrals + 10% weekly dividends straight to your tron wallet.
Plan C: 20050 TRX + — gives you 23 040 ECS Tokens + 15 Level Referrals + + 10% weekly dividends straight to your tron wallet.
Furthermore every 7 days a token reduction happens — meaning you get less ECS for your investment. This will help the token economy create scarcity and make the price of ECS higher when listen on an exchange.
So the sum it up you not only receive 10% weekly dividends straight to your wallet every Monday at 6PM UTC, but also become shareholder in EcoSmart and will receive payments from all their future projects. Seems promising? There is one more thing to sweaten the deal — you earn commission for every person that joins under you — so invite 5 friends and you will ROI in no time. Here are some of the commission from people in the project:
If you join under our link we will give you part of the commission — only for a limited time: leave a comment if you do.
https://ecstoken.com/invest/?referralLink=TUSM4zce8GqppMNsXzitgr3um3o2NrQSm5
Useful Links:
Official Website:
www.ecosmartecs.com
https://ecstoken.com/invest/?referralLink=TUSM4zce8GqppMNsXzitgr3um3o2NrQSm5
Telegram Channels:
https://t.me/EcoSmartECS_EN
https://t.me/EcoSmartECS
Smart Contract: https://tronscan.org/#/contract/TWB58Ct9ktpbkt46g9oyzae3VFnATSXLr9
ECS Token Infos: https://tronscan.io/#/token20/TH3sKvcNDwFng8ajJWMVGFx9YRsLW5yEHq | https://medium.com/@dappromocom/ecosmart-42mln-trx-already-invested-212a140878d6 | [] | 2020-06-13 21:38:41.297000+00:00 | ['Smart Contracts', 'Investment', 'Dapps', 'Trx', 'Tron Dapp'] |
The Future of Know Your Customer (KYC) shared by ZeroBank’s CTO — Dr. Bao Ly at Europe’s biggest blockchain conference | On 26–27 June 2018, ZeroBank — a highly feasible project in money exchange and remittance, took a step further in its global presence by joining the Blockchain Summit London 2018 — the biggest blockchain forum in Europe. Here, Dr. Bao — CTO and co-founder of ZeroBank, one of the speakers at the event, spoke with other tech-peers about KYC and blockchain.
ZeroBank in the spotlight of the world’s top Blockchain Summit
ZeroBank team welcomed all the visitors to visit the booth in the summit
Blockchain Summit London is designed for market leaders, innovators and tech investors in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry to explore, discuss and network about the latest trends as well as technological innovations in the blockchain industry.
ZeroBank did not miss the opportunity to show up at this prestigious blockchain conference by becoming Silver Sponsor and spread its reputable project around the world. ZeroBank also contributed to the blockchain event with a dedicated KYC and blockchain panel discussion by its co-founder and CTO, Dr. Bao.
Words from the expert: blockchain application in KYC by Dr. Bao
Dr. Bao spoke during the panel discussion with other blockchain experts
The KYC and blockchain panel discussion with Dr. Bao as one of the key speakers is among many other interactive learning sessions and inspiring speeches at the Blockchain Summit London. The panel looked at 3 main aspects:
What challenges can blockchain solve for KYC?
Improving adherence to KYC rules
Changing how businesses think about identity
What is KYC?
KYC (Know Your Customer) is a process to identify and verify the identity of clients. It’s a widely used and required process in financial institutions by which they obtain detailed customer’s information such as their name and address while opening a new account or starting business with a client.
What challenges can blockchain solve for KYC?
Traditional KYC systems at current financial institutions have a centralised database of users and this data is updated each year. Therefore, this is a redundant process while considering all institutions together. This process is frequently done manually with a 4-eye check, which is not only time consuming but also error prone.
Some major institutions have to face the KYC challenge as well. Due to successive acquisitions, they can have different KYC systems, which are, unfortunately, not really inter-connected.
Applying blockchain into the KYC process may become an effective aid for banks as it helps prove the identity of customers more quickly and efficiently. With blockchain-based KYC, instead of giving raw information to an institution, users can (1) construct their profile by themselves, which is encrypted on the blockchain, (2) increase the profile rating with their daily activities, and (3) allow access to their profile when asked by institutions. Users become the owner of their data in this case. Their KYC profiles are constructed once and reused as they want.
How does this change how businesses think about identity & KYC?
Everyone believes that KYC must be standardised globally and across different sectors so it will be easier to share information. We also should think about applying AI in making KYC a completely automatic process instead of verifying user’s data manually.
Moreover, instead of constructing its own KYC process, an application or institution can use a third-party KYC service that is much more specialised and already covers a large portion of users. In this model, there is also a change of ownership of user’s data: it is the user who owns his or her data, not the financial institution.
How to apply KYC into blockchain-based applications?
In many fields using blockchain technology, particularly finance-related applications, the KYC process is not always appreciated due to its sluggish legalisation. For example, the holders of Bitcoin are not easily identifiable, according to Dr. Bao. Many tech innovators underestimate KYC and hesitate to apply KYC in their blockchain-based applications.
However, we should be aware that cryptocurrencies will certainly be regulated in the near future since governments and regulators are actively working on this issue. So, Dr. Bao suggests that start-ups working on blockchain need to immediately design KYC in their systems in order to avoid legal issues or other complications in the future. Noticeably, in the finance sector, the compliance puzzle is very difficult and takes up a big part of financial institution’s expenses.
Watch the video here:
Stay updated on our channels: | https://medium.com/zerobank-cash/the-future-of-know-your-customer-kyc-shared-by-zerobanks-cto-dr-451006392ce7 | ['Zerobank - Your Local Currency'] | 2018-07-17 02:50:09.534000+00:00 | ['Blockchain'] |
Every Model Learned by Gradient Descent Is Approximately a Kernel Machine (paper review) | Review of paper by Pedro Domingos, University of Washington, 2020
Originally published in Deep Learning Reviews on December 14, 2020.
In this paper, the author shows that neural networks trained using first-order gradient descent with a small learning rate can be represented as similarity kernels and that they memorize the training points and subsequently use this information to make predictions the same way as SVMs and other kernel methods. This insight should lead to a better general understanding of how deep neural networks operate and, hopefully, will help improve future algorithms.
What can we learn from this paper?
That the output of a trained neural network can be viewed as a superposition of its training examples.
Prerequisites (to better understand the paper, what should one be familiar with?)
Neural networks
Kernel methods
Neural tangent kernels
Discussion
Kernel machines are models that predict an output value for a given input x by calculating a weighted sum of the values of a symmetric positive-definite similarity function (kernel) K between x and each of the training inputs xᵢ, possibly with an added bias constant and a final nonlinear transformation. The most common example of kernel machines is support vector machines (SVMs), which typically use kernels that are linear (dot product), polynomial (polynomial expressions of the dot product), or RBF (based on radial basis functions, i.e. Gaussian similarity).
It has recently been shown that the evolution of a deep neural network during training with first-order gradient descent can be described by its neural tangent kernel (NTK), which is calculated as the product of gradients of the network output for two given inputs with respect to each weight in the network, summed over all weights. The contribution of each training input to the change in the output of the network in response to a test input is proportional to the NTK calculated between these two inputs (with the current weight values).
In overparameterized networks, the weights do not change significantly during training. Thus, by calculating the NTK between a test input and all training inputs for the fully trained network, we can estimate the magnitude of the effect of each of the training inputs on the prediction for this test input compared to the original untrained network.
The present paper takes this line of reasoning one step further, defining the path kernel as the integral of the neural tangent kernel over the path in the weight space during the training (not assuming a small change in weights), thus producing a more accurate estimate of the influence of each training input on the output for our test input. It proves mathematically that in the limit of a very small learning rate, the change in this output during training can be described as a linear combination of path kernels with respect to each training input. This observation provides better interpretability to deep neural network training and explains the fact that, like kernel methods, neural networks often generalize well while appearing to memorize all of the training instances, but can also quickly lose their accuracy as the test input moves away from the nearest training input.
In the author’s view, the most significant implication of the results above is that neural networks may not be as unique as they are thought to be, viewed as a way to discover new representations of the data, and that in fact, similar to other ML techniques, they rely on predefined features (gradients of a function determined by the architecture of the network). Understanding this mechanism may lead to optimization methods superior to gradient descent.
In terms of kernel methods, the path kernel overcomes the scalability issues of existing approaches for large training sets since during training it is no longer necessary to compute and store the Gram matrix (the matrix of application of the kernel to all pairs of training examples, which is quadratic in size in terms of the number of examples). Since all training inputs are stored as a superposition of the model parameters, the size of the model and its time performance during inference does not depend on the size of the training dataset.
The author also discusses the similarities between gradient descent and gradient boosting, suggests that the solution of every convex learning problem is a kernel machine, and discusses some of the potential research ideas stemming from the paper.
To me, this is definitely a very interesting paper that follows a novel kernel-based approach to neural network analysis and is likely to foster new ideas and better future models.
P.S. (December 19, 2020). In a comment below, Alan Fern brings up a point that since the coefficients a and b in the author’s expression for the neural network output depend on the input, it is not a true kernel machine, and since in fact a is obtained by dividing by the same kernel that it is a coefficient for, it appears to be just a mathematical trick to make it look like one. This is a valid critique, and the author mentions this issue in Remark 1 (which I probably should have discussed in my review).
However, if the derivative of the loss does not change a lot during training (I would need to investigate it using some practical examples to see how valid this assumption might be), the dependence on the input does (approximately) go away. Furthermore, since 1) the coefficients a and b do have a clear physical meaning as the average of the derivative of the network output along the gradient descent path weighted by the kernel, and 2) the kernel representation nicely explains some similarities observed between neural networks and kernel methods, I believe that the paper is still valid and interesting.
Original paper link
Every Model Learned by Gradient Descent Is Approximately a Kernel Machine by P. Domingos, 2020
Suggested further reading
Neural Tangent Kernel: Convergence and Generalization in Neural Networks by A. Jacot, F. Gabriel, C. Hongler, 2018 | https://medium.com/deep-learning-reviews/every-model-learned-by-gradient-descent-is-approximately-a-kernel-machine-paper-review-11bc11716485 | ['Stan Kriventsov'] | 2020-12-19 17:25:05.767000+00:00 | ['Kernel', 'Gradient Descent', 'Deep Learning', 'Support Vector Machine', 'Neural Networks'] |
Catholic to Catholic: Why Joe Biden is the true pro-life candidate | I.
I was an altar boy at St. Ignatius Loyola Catholic Church, in Hicksville, Long Island, NY, starting in the fifth grade. I also attended the parochial school there through eighth grade and was very proud of how well I knew all the rules about being Catholic: The Seven Sacraments. The Six Holydays of Obligation. The Three Theological Virtues. The Six Laws of the Church. I had a particular fascination with the Six Laws of the Church. These told us unambiguously what we had to do and how we had to act to be a good Catholic, and violating any of them would be a Mortal Sin. Unless forgiven in the sacrament of Penance, a Mortal Sin would send us straight to Hell upon death.
Since St. Ignatius was a big parish and had about 10 Masses every Sunday, I was frequently on the altar in the Sunday rotation. For convenience, my mom would attend the Mass I was serving and bring my younger brothers and sister with us. One year, as we entered Lent, I noticed that my mother had not been receiving Communion at Sunday Mass. A few weeks before Easter I asked her about it, and she said that she usually forgot not to eat something before Mass so she couldn’t receive. Okay, I thought, but Church Law #4 was starting to weigh on me, “It is the obligation of every Catholic to receive the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist at least once a year during the Easter Season, that is, the time between the First Sunday of Lent and Trinity Sunday.” It began to dawn on me that my mom had not received Communion during the Easter Season, and time was running out!
I started to keep track. Palm Sunday came and went. Palms yes, Communion no. Easter? Bonnets and chocolate bunnies, but no Eucharist. The post-Easter Sundays marched on, and mom still had not received. Ascension Thursday. No. Pentecost Sunday. No! Finally, her last chance: Trinity Sunday.
I was serving on the altar that day. I went through the motions of bringing the priest water, wine, and hosts, washing his hands in preparation for the Consecration, ringing the bells at the elevation of the Body and Blood, but my mind was on my mom. I kept glancing at her, sitting in the front row, off to the right, thinking of how I did not want her to go to Hell. Sure, she could go to Confession later, but why take the chance? What if we were in a car accident on the way home, and we all got killed? She would be sucked into Hades, and I would never see her again, for all Eternity.
And yes, I am Irish Catholic.
When the priest finished the Canon, I went and did the only thing I could do, what, I felt, any kid would do to save his mother from the fires of Hell. I slipped into the sacristy, snuck out into the church, and tiptoed up to my mom in the first pew. Words cannot describe the look of astonishment on her face as I said to her in a fierce whisper, “You have GOT to receive Communion today!” Astonishment quickly became embarrassment and anger as she hissed, “Kenneth Arthur, get back up on the altar right now.” “But mom…” I implored. “NOW!” she growled through clenched teeth. I did, trailed by the whispers and giggles of my siblings. Did she receive, much to my relief? Or did she sit there, and lecture me later about her reasons being her reasons? I’ll come back to that.
I am very lucky to have grown up in the Church in the 1960’s in the immediate post-Vatican II period. This was a time of renewal and change, of introspection and discernment, of being challenged by the Church and by God to look within to ask, who do you want me to be, Lord? Although St. Ignatius was a parish in a white middle class suburb of Long Island, we were taught that God calls us to reach out to the poor, the sick, the hungry, the outcast. This call resonated deeply within me.
At the same time, I also saw the world beyond Hicksville, NY, through The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Most importantly, as I watched the civil rights movement blossom in the South, I saw African-Americans being attacked, beaten, and jailed, and I couldn’t believe that people were being treated this way because of the way they were born, the color of their skin. While this might have seemed so very far from the white middle-class suburb where I was growing up, at this point in my life, I was just beginning to realize that there were things about me, about the way I was born, that, if people found out about them, I knew I would be treated the same way. I began to understand, then, what it was to be an outcast.
Discerning my path in life over years and through my personal experience and my religious faith, I finally accepted that my calling was to became a pediatrician, to take care of the most vulnerable, children, and to spend my life and my career in poor communities caring for those who were also outcasts.
I am not a recovering Catholic. I am not an ex-Catholic. I am, for better or worse, a Catholic, and I really cannot see that ever changing. I am also gay. I always have been, I always will be, and I am who God intended me to be. As you can imagine, that makes being Catholic…well, complex. But then being Catholic has always been — or should always be — complex.
For me, then, being Catholic and being gay are not opposing forces pulling me apart but synergistic energies that call me to a single purpose.
The Institutional Church, of course, does not always see it that way. Members of the Hierarchy have called me “intrinsically disordered,” and that’s when they’re being kind of nice. But that’s the thing: The Body of Christ has always been about so much more than a bunch of old guys in black and scarlet robes.
A couple of years ago I had an epiphany at Mass one day at College Church at Saint Louis University. It was during a period in my life when — because of some new, astoundingly hurtful statement out of Rome about gay people — I was really questioning whether I still could call the Church my home. At this particular Mass, the Old Testament readings included one from Exodus: the story of God giving Moses the Ten Commandments. The second one was from Leviticus. I can’t remember what that one was about, but since Leviticus is like the Ten Commandments on steroids — it comprises about 500 “Thou Shalt Nots” about things like shellfish and when NOT to have sex — I know that it was telling us not to do a lot of things.
The Gospel reading, however, was from Matthew 22. Jesus is asked, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment?” Jesus replies, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Well, as a Catholic and as a pediatrician, I thought: That’s interesting. I had been taught in those Religion classes at St. Ignatius — where I learned the Six Laws of the Church — that, before the birth of Jesus, God treated His people as a father treats His children. Viewed in that context, the Old Testament God is not unlike a father who has to tell His kids what to do and not do, whether it makes sense to them or not. His people, like young children, are in what the Jean Piaget, the famed Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development, called the Realm of Concrete Operations. Kids at this stage are unable to think ahead to the long-term consequences of their actions so parents have to give them very concrete instructions. As a parent, you know how often you have had to say to your kids, “DON’T stick your finger in a light socket! DON’T run out in traffic! DON’T jump off the roof! Why? Because I SAID SO!”
But what happens when your kids get older? You can actually have conversations with them. You can reason with them. You can teach them to look into their heart. If they come to you with a dilemma to ask what they should do, you can turn it back to them and say, “What do YOU think you should do?” and if you raised them right, if you taught them consistently by holding yourself to the moral and ethical precepts you espoused, then they will give you the answer that you would have given them. They have now entered Piaget’s Realm of Formal Operations where they can make decisions based on a consciousness of long-term consequences and a deep sense of empathy.
Jesus, then, is the fulfillment of God’s Covenant to bring His people to maturity. This maturity and wisdom is what Jesus is appealing to in his reply. He is saying that if, in your dealings with others, you honor that which created you and you act toward others as you would have them act toward you, you have become the person I hoped you would be.
One of the other things that I was taught at Saint Ignatius is that Divine Truth is revealed to every member of the Body of Christ equally if we are open to it. Jesus tells us this in Matthew. So what I have experienced as love and intimacy, seeing the face of God in the person I love and who has loved me, is as revelatory of God’s grace as the latest encyclical from the Pope. I have received so much from the Church, but I have also given so much to the Church. So as difficult, as complex as it is sometimes for me to be Catholic, I cannot imagine not being a Catholic. But of course, I also cannot imagine the Catholic Church without me in it.
One more thing: As a pediatrician and medical school professor, I spend a good part of my days teaching residents and medical students how to be doctors. They have spent a great deal of time and energy reading, memorizing, and learning rules, numbers, and concepts. My job is to reinforce their learning but also to give them a real-life context. I can’t tell you how many times I have had a student give me a presentation of a patient complete with history, labs, and X-ray findings leading to an assessment and plan of care, and yet when I ask, “So how does the patient look?” I get a blank stare. “I haven’t had a chance to look at her.” “Okay,” I say, “let’s go do that.” Once we do that, in a good number of cases, the assessment and plan no longer make sense. All the chart data in the world cannot substitute for the richness of actually looking at the patient.
Which brings me back to my mother, her decision not to receive Communion that day, and my fear of Eternal Damnation for her. When I was up on that altar, having checked off “No Communion” on her heavenly scorecard week after week, I never looked at HER. I never considered that a just and loving God never would send this woman who had lived this life and made these sacrifices to Hell on a technicality. Back then, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child. I just knew the Laws, and that was all that mattered. But as Jesus said, laws are made for Man, not Man for the law.
II.
I tell you this very long story because being Catholic and being a citizen in this country should not be simple. It should not simply be a matter of having somewhere to look stuff up and turning off our mind and our heart.
I have written about many things on this blog, but one thing I have avoided is the subject of abortion. I have not spoken about it because I have felt that others could speak with more authority on it. Yet, because of where I have stood on issues of public health, racial and LGBTQ equity, and social justice, I feel that people have made assumptions about where I stand on this issue.
Well, it’s complicated.
Whenever a human egg is fertilized, it possesses all the unique genetic information it will need to live up to a century as a thinking, feeling human being. Once gone, that being will never be duplicated in the history of all creation.
Does that make this entity a human being in actuality or only in potential? That, of course, has been the question for centuries. Where one lands on answering that question will determine whether one views abortion as a morally acceptable procedure or not.
As such, I cannot call myself Pro-Choice with capital letters.
However, I cannot position myself in the capitalized Pro-Life camp either, especially not as exemplified by the contemporary Republican Party and the current president.
My feeling on the matter are largely expressed in the “seamless garment” philosophy of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. In the November 2008 article, “Twenty-Five Years Later: Cardinal Bernardin’s Consistent Ethic of Life” in “Health Progress,” Ron Hamel writes:
“On Dec. 6, 1983, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, in a lecture at Fordham University, first articulated what he referred to as the ‘consistent ethic of life.’ …in light of the sacredness of human life and human dignity, Bernardin believed profoundly that life issues, broadly understood, are of one piece (a ‘seamless garment’). They are interrelated. In other words, if one is committed to ‘preserving life’ (opposing abortion, euthanasia, [the death penalty, nuclear proliferation, war, the environment], and the like), one should also be committed to ‘enhancing life.’ …As Bernardin said: ‘Those who defend the right to life of the weakest among us must be equally visible in support of the quality of life of the powerless among us: the old and the young, the hungry and the homeless, the undocumented immigrant and the unemployed worker…Because of its central importance to human dignity … I have felt a special responsibility to devote a considerable amount of attention to health care at both the local and national levels.’”
So I have a question for those call themselves Pro-Life, especially those who support Donald Trump and the Republican Party because they call themselves Pro-Life. I have heard that many follow along because this is so overwhelmingly important, despite all their atrocities toward immigrants, the poor, the handicapped, those who are non-white and non-Christian, those who cannot find a job, feed their families, care for their sick, and keep a roof over their heads.
My question: Are you truly Pro-Life, or are you merely Anti-Abortion and Pro-Birth?
Even before Trump, the Republican Party has consistently worked to weaken protections for those who need help. At federal and state levels, the GOP, practically to a person, have opposed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicare for All, Medicaid Expansion, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, the program is designed to help needy families achieve self-sufficiency), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, a food-based safety net program also known as Food Stamps).
If you are truly Pro-Life, shouldn’t these things be at least as important to you as the availability of abortion? And shouldn’t the reasons why women choose to have abortions be of interest to you?
I ask this because a major study by the Guttmacher Institute found that:
“The reasons most frequently cited were that having a child would interfere with a woman’s education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. Fewer than 1% said their parents’ or partners’ desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents. The decision to have an abortion is typically motivated by multiple, diverse and interrelated reasons. The themes of responsibility to others and resource limitations, such as financial constraints and lack of partner support, recurred throughout the study.”
A significant number of women, then, choose abortion because of economic factors as well as relational problems. Yet the Republican Party continues to make life more precarious for those with few means to begin with and to restrict curricula in schools that deal frankly with human sexual relationships, the very resources that might allow more women the economic and emotional space to consider having a baby.
And of course, there is pregnancy prevention. You can’t have an abortion if you are not pregnant. Yet the Trump administration and the GOP continue to be relentless in their desire to abolish the Affordable Care Act, even though the ACA has been one of the greatest drivers of drastically reducing numbers of abortions in this country in the past decade, not just in states where abortion is restricted but also where it is more freely available. As reported by the Guttmacher Institute:
“Because both abortions and births declined, it is clear that there were fewer pregnancies overall in the United States in 2017 than in 2011. The big question is why. One possible contributing factor is contraceptive access and use. Since 2011, contraception has become more accessible, as most private health insurance plans are now required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to cover contraceptives without out-of-pocket costs. In addition, thanks to expansions in Medicaid and private insurance coverage under the ACA, the proportion of women aged 15–44 nationwide who were uninsured dropped more than 40% between 2013 and 2017.”
III.
So what can we do? What should we do? I can, of course, only answer for myself:
· I can recognize that abortion is a procedure and a reality that has been part of human society and experience across time and cultures since the beginning of our existence as a sentient species.
· I can decline to participate in it personally and professionally.
· I can embrace the fact that scholars of various faiths have discussed this question and come to very different conclusions on the ethics and morality of it for centuries.
· I can accept that the decision to have an abortion is a deeply personal one that I cannot judge in another.
· I can understand that legislation and adjudication to outlaw this procedure will not result in its eradication and will only result in increasing harm to women who are seeking to terminate pregnancies.
Above all, I can work, not just as a Catholic, but as a human being and as a healer, to create a just, equitable society where every person has access to quality health care, everyone’s personhood is respected and celebrated, every child is valued, every person has the opportunity for education, housing, nourishment, safety, and love. I can work — as I have tried to for over 40 years — to be small-letters pro-life and to weave a seamless garment to promote human dignity.
And so, Catholic to Catholic, I urge you to vote for Joe Biden for president and for every Democrat on your ballot. Donald Trump and the entire Republican Party have cynically, hypocritically, and unambiguously abdicated their moral responsibility to our nation and have used the label of “Pro-Life” as a fig leaf to cover their profound undermining of American civil society while Democrats have just as consistently worked tirelessly for economic opportunity, racial justice, and social equity.
If one party embodies Bernardin’s “consistent ethic of life,” it is the Democrats. And if one presidential hopeful is the true pro-life candidate, it is Joe Biden. | https://medium.com/@kenhaller/catholic-to-catholic-why-joe-biden-is-the-true-pro-life-candidate-580f5974ba36 | ['Ken Haller'] | 2020-11-04 15:55:56.317000+00:00 | ['Biden', 'Catholic', 'Abortion', 'Trump', 'Pro Life'] |
Mothers & Daughters & Sisters oh my! | When a crime against a woman occurs, the media strips her of her autonomy. She is no longer an individual; she becomes a symbol. Her metamorphosis becomes front-page news, a teenager out with friends, a middle-aged woman coming back from work, jane doe transforms into a nation’s daughter. As women, we must relate, we must belong, the narrative must always begin and end with who we are according to men because women without men are unfathomable. They are without borders, making them a threat. And how do we protect our daughters? By restricting them for their safety. God forbid they venture out at night. God forbid they are left unsupervised, sirens luring men into the depths of their nature, unaware of their power.
Mustn’t we know better? Men cannot be held accountable for instincts beyond their control. Shouldn’t we always be a step ahead? Planning every move per how not to tempt them. It’s the least we can do. Father-less women, husband-less women, rogue women, asking for it. We’ve been taught how to comply since birth. Whenever I fought with my brother, ma would often warn me,‘’ don’t instigate him.’’ ‘’ I can’t hold him responsible if you push him in that direction.’’ Men without women are boundless, but women without men are a fire hazard, a danger to themselves and everyone around them. Like a contagion, they must contain us.
A woman whose son raped a young girl begged the judge to absolve him of his crimes because she promised that the rapist would marry the victim, restoring her of her ‘’honor.’’ In a country like India, sexual assault is more so about a woman’s integrity, than it is a violation, an act of violence, a dehumanization, a taking away of one’s power. In being viewed as such, isn’t it expected that the mother of the rapist would see marriage as a fitting solution to the problem at hand? Because once a wife, a rapist is no longer a rapist, but a husband claiming his right.
Boys will be boys, and girls should know better. Don’t draw any attention to yourself. Hold your breath as long as you can because your existence is enough to sound off alarms. Throughout history, fear has been a form of control. And this is how we control; we instill fear in the victim and not the perpetrator. We cage the victim while the violator roams free. We are part of a system that points fingers at the victim and calls it justice. She was out alone at night; her legs were visible, they were friends, she led him on, she was drinking, she laughed at his jokes, she froze, she didn’t run fast enough, she didn’t fight back, she didn’t say no. The list of rules on how we should and shouldn’t behave to avoid getting raped is endless.
Meanwhile, what do we teach our sons? What are the restrictions set on them? What rules must they follow to not rape? have we even taught them the meaning of consent? These are the questions we avoid answering. We believe in the principle of cause and effect. The effect being rape and the cause being sexuality. Do we categorize the rape of a five-year-old in the same way? She was sexual, and she enticed him. Rape is not a crime of passion. It is an act of violence, of control.
When someone is murdered, do we say that the victim was asking for it? They enticed the killer to draw the knife or pull the trigger. They should have known better. Well, we don’t because it's common sense. Somehow, we lose that sense when it comes to matters of sexual violence as if it’s a Rubik’s cube, something we try to solve while scratching our heads.
A woman’s virtue is not a matter of public debate, it isn’t a political issue, and it is certainly not an invitation for misconduct. A woman’s honor is not tied to her country, not her community, not her family. Fear is an inheritance; it is distilled in our blood from the very beginning. The prospect of freedom is limited if not a pipe dream once your safety is always is in question. | https://medium.com/@siiko/mothers-daughters-sisters-oh-my-f7a0b8b430b2 | ['Siya Kumar'] | 2021-06-08 13:01:55.730000+00:00 | ['Rape Culture', 'Feminism', 'Human Rights', 'Rape Victims', 'Sexual Assault'] |
Hire Dedicated Python Developers in the USA | Python is an unmistakable and ground-breaking object-oriented programming language, similar to Perl, Ruby, Scheme, or Java. Python serves as one of the top programming languages, for developing even the most complex websites, and web apps.
At HoulryDeveloper.io, we deploy top developers in the USA, who have been working for years in Python programming, to ensure code quality and stability. We have successfully delivered several diverse projects for Python development which were related to various industry verticals, like Healthcare, Education, Finance, Oil & Gas, Logistics, Retail, Transportation, and so on…
Below are the simple steps that we follow to hire our dedicated Python developers in the USA:
Ready to build a solid team of developers? Call us on +161–97–986983, email us at [email protected] | https://medium.com/@khushbu-muchhadiya/hire-dedicated-python-developers-in-the-usa-7e20acf19c2d | ['Khushbu Muchhadiya'] | 2020-12-26 08:58:05.771000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Hire Python Developers', 'Python3', 'Web Development', 'Python Programming'] |
EPSRC — the grants, the data, the diversity | The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) recently published a report on the gender balance of their grant portfolio. It presented a stark picture of under-funding of women scientists. In this post, we’ll summarise some of the findings of the report and discuss their implications. First though, it’s important to point out what isn’t in the report. The report acknowledges that “Currently UKRI collects gender data through the Je-S portal, across three options: Male, Female and Not Disclosed. While we recognise that a broader range of gender identities exist, we used our Je-S data for the analysis for this report.” Hence, the experiences of non-binary people aren’t acknowledged in the data. Furthermore, not all women experience our current academic systems in the same way. It’s tough to navigate the physical sciences as a straight, white, abled woman. It’s even tougher for women who are Black or of other minority ethnicities, disabled or LGBTQ+. The available data don’t address these differences, and true equity demands that these issues of intersectionality are brought to the forefront.
Nonetheless, the report is a big step forward in terms of analysis of EPSRC diversity data. The EPSRC have taken responsibility for analysing the data, not just reporting it. This is in stark contrast to the UKRI data release earlier in the year — where there is a lot of information, but almost no analysis or reflection. It seeks to reveal where the problems are not, hide them and has enough depth and detail to let us think about the origins of these problems. So let’s have a look at what the report does tell us.
Key findings
1. Women are under-represented in EPSRC’s Principal Investigator applicant pool — and the under-representation is more marked at higher grant values.
The graph below shows how the proportion of women applicants to EPSRC at various grant values compares to the HESA data for the proportion of physical/engineering scientists that are women — about 18% of the academic population. For small grants up to about 15% of applications may be submitted by women, but for the largest grants (in excess of £10M) only ~6% of applicants are women.
2. If women apply to EPSRC for large grants, they are less likely than men to be successful. This is masked by data which considers success rates only considering numbers of grants, not their value.
The graph below, taken directly from the report, shows success rates for women and men diverge for grant values in excess of £2.5M, with men being more than twice as likely to be successful when applying for grants in excess of £10M. This problem is not reducing as time goes on. Calculating award rate (i.e. success rate) by value, there was little difference between men and women in 2007–2009, but women have experienced lower award rates by value than men in almost every year since.
3. Even when women do apply for large grants, the amounts they are applying for are not as large as the amounts that men apply for.
The table below shows the largest grant apple for by a man and by a woman in each of the last 12 years. The values for men are higher than the values for women in every year.
4. EPSRC claim that there are “No noteworthy differences by gender in costs added by applicants” — i.e. men and women apply for the same things. But they also say women are A FACTOR OF 3 less likely to apply for funds for new equipment.
5. The EPSRC’s analysis of the salaries which applicants request on their grants is a very effective illustration of the gender pay gap.
Using age as a proxy for career stage, we see that men get paid more than women at similar career stages, and this effect increases with seniority level.
We’ll discuss each of these key findings in a bit more detail.
Findings 1 and 3
The first key finding is that women are less likely to apply for grants than men, and are particularly less likely to apply for large grants. This is also reflected in the third key finding. It would be easy here to shrug our shoulders and blame women for a lack of ambition and confidence. Instead we must ask what hidden mechanisms restrict the pool of applicants? What is it about the academic system that prevents or discourages women from applying?
TIGERS have written a review of the barriers women face when applying to grants, many of which are relevant here. The review suggests women are less likely to be encouraged to apply for funding by their line managers or research deans. It also provides ample evidence that women carry greater administrative and teaching loads than men, reducing the time they have available to apply for grants. This can foster a vicious cycle, according to Prof Carole Mundell at Bath: “The knock-on effect of not winning funding can also lead to an increased teaching load on women in male-dominated departments where men are winning grants and buying themselves out of teaching and/or admin duties, thereby further aggravating the problem.”
Another major concern is that many large grant processes involve some form of internal triage — a need to get internal approval from your University before you have the opportunity to put forward an application. We know of no data assessing how women fare in this process. Prof Athene Donald, Master of Churchill College, Cambridge says “Based on my experience in university politics, I can see only too easily how the man may look more forceful and command more favour than the woman, regardless of intrinsic merit of either the specific application or the particular woman who wants to lead it. Bias may well creep in at this point, unconscious though it may be.” Differences between men’s and women’s track records, which reflect personal circumstances rather than actual ability may feed into this problem, since women with caring responsibilities may be less likely to, e.g., be able to travel to give prestigious invited talks. Unfortunately, track records may also be affected by straightforward bias as well — whether conscious or unconscious, which diminishes the opportunities available to women.
Funding bodies and Universities need to consider how to break down the barriers which prevent women from applying for large grants, to give women the opportunities they deserve and to raise up a generation of women leaders who will be the role models for the next generation.
Finding 2
The second key finding in the report is that women have lower success rates than men when applying for high value grants. In many ways, what’s striking in the data is not the low success rate for women applying for very large amounts of money, but the very high success rate for men. For example, roughly three quarters of men applying for >£10M get awarded the money they asked for. That compares to a typical ~30% success rate for lower grant values, with some recent responsive mode rounds having success rates <20%. Are these very high success rates for men applying for very large grants really consistent with a picture of open competition, where everyone in the community has equal opportunity to apply for large sums of money?
Let’s have a look at an example of a grant greater than £10M: EP/R00661X/1 — awarded to Prof Phil Withers and one of several large grants awarded to establish the Sir Henry Royce Institute — “The UK’s National Institute for Advanced Materials Research and Innovation”. The grant has a male PI and nine men as co-investigators. To the best of our knowledge all of these men are white. All of them lead or have led “Royce” activity in their Institutes — a position of considerable power and influence. We can find no record of an open competition for this funding and grants on the web does not give any details for any panel at which applications for this funding were discussed. The decision making process around founding and funding the Sir Henry Royce Institute was a political one — it was announced by George Osborne in his Autumn Statement in 2014, who sited the Institute in Manchester as part of the “Northern Powerhouse”. This illustrates the political complexities involved in the decisions to award these large sums of money, and the fact that EPSRC and more broadly UKRI may not always have the power to implement equity policies.
Award rate data for the £10–200M range may be complicated by the inclusion of national institutes. However, at the £5–10M range, roughly half of men are awarded the money they asked for, but only a third of women. These grants span the EPSRC portfolio. EPSRC strategy funnels a substantial amount of funding into “longer larger” grants, when the data shows stark differences in outcome between men and women. This raises difficult questions about whether the proportion of the budget spent on large grants should be reduced to allow more funding to be channeled into lower value grant processes with more equitable outcomes.
Finding 4
The report reveals that while women apply for smaller grants than men at every level, there are few clear patterns in what specific things they ask for less of — except for one point: women ask for less money for new equipment. There has been no investigation of the reasons for this yet, but we can make a hypothesis, based on one specific feature of the EPSRC application process: the EPSRC currently only fund 50% of most equipment requests, with Universities having to make up the other 50%. Given we regularly see women complaining of institutional gatekeeping and a lack of university support for their applications, we hypothesise that getting a promise of funding for 50% of a large piece of equipment is more difficult for women than men. Women within TIGERS report that they either don’t succeed in obtaining such a promise or have stopped bothering to even try.
Because equipment funding is difficult to access, women have to think round the problem, and find other ways to get their research done — e.g. accessing shared equipment, or building collaborations. This suggests that when women do get grants, they have to work harder to get their research done, using the lower budgets available to them, whilst still stuck with more teaching, administration etc than men. This will have long term career impacts.
Of course this is only a hypothesis, and one which we hope will receive further investigation.
Finding 5
The final finding which we will discuss is that the salaries requested by men are higher than those requested by women, and this gets more marked with the age of the applicant. The report is not entirely clear on this point. We think it is referring to the salary rates which PIs request for their own contribution to the research project. The numbers in the report include the pension and oncosts in these salary rates. Assuming we’re interpreting this correctly, it’s important to realise that the salaries PIs request on their grants are not reflective of any kind of self-evaluation. These are the salaries set by the Institutions who employ the PIs, who are paying men more than women of a similar age. This is reflective of what is already known about the gender paygap in Universities: according to UCU the mean gender paygap in Universities in 2019 was a whopping 15.1%.
Although these data are basically just a presentation of the known information on the gender paygap, there is a link between pay and grant success. Evidence of winning funding is often required to get a promotion or pay rise, and if women experience greater challenges than men in winning funding, they will stay stuck at low pay grades. This is just one aspect of the broad range of impacts that inequalities in funding have on women’s careers, opportunities and scientific work.
Impact
Overall, the report tells us that women are less likely to apply for grants across the board, and are also less likely to be successful when they apply for large grants. How will this impact women’s careers and the research ecosystem?
We know that in research — just as in pretty much all else in life- success breeds success. This report gives evidence of systematic biases and barriers which will inevitably have a huge impact on the careers of women in science. Research is the one key metric needed to climb the Academic ladder, and lack of access to grant funding is keeping women out of senior roles. We need more visible women at the top of our profession if we are serious about tackling lack of representation.
What used to be ‘anecdotal’ evidence is now backed up by numbers: men are awarded more, women less. It would be lazy to think this is due to lack of ambition. Women go through a painful process of learning that teaches them that in asking for more, they are just reducing their chances to get funded. Systems designed by men for men, and the “old boys network” conspire to keep women ‘in their place’. By ‘asking for less’, women effectively work more over their careers for less money overall, just to keep their research going. The cumulative effect in a career is huge. We must also consider the psychological strain of engaging with institutional demand management processes in which women are often confronted with opposition not support; of a constant need to prove your worth and compete with men who have more privilege and access to resources.
Our current research funding system, of very low success rates and intense competition, breeds a culture where desperation can prevail over fairness, and where the opportunity to a short cut route to the large probability of a high value grant is never going to be turned down. What we need is major systemic change: Political will to properly fund the research ecosystem; leadership committed to equity and a recognition that policies and processes which ensure fairness and transparency are key to achieving the most from our talented researchers.
With the system as it stands, biased and flawed, everyone loses out, not just women and other marginalised folk who suffer directly from the in-built unfairness. Research is poorer because of these inequities. Innovations go unrealised, great ideas remain on the drawing board. The potential impact of the ingenuity of thousands of unique minds is lost. This report on gender only represents the tip of the iceberg in uncovering the impact of our funding systems on the diversity of our scientific community, and issues affecting racial minorities, disabled people and LGBTQ+ people are far more profound.
EPSRC are at the very beginning of taking action — perhaps not to achieve the kind of major systemic change we envision to address the broad swathe of equity issues, but at least to tackle the specific problems facing women applying for large grants. A consultation has been launched to help try and understand the data in the report better. We’d strongly encourage everyone, of all genders, to fill it in, and to amplify it to your networks. It will be available until 3rd December. Here’s the link: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/KGN98VK | https://medium.com/@tigerinstemm/epsrc-the-grants-the-data-the-diversity-5adbba3de877 | ['Tiger Instem'] | 2020-12-02 11:43:20.474000+00:00 | ['Data', 'Diversity', 'STEM', 'Funding', 'Gender'] |
A Glad I Did It Story — Magic In Mindfulness | A “Glad I Did It Story” originally written on 8th June 2020.
rama.dasaratha writes in our LIFESmart Facebook community, “Sharing a Glad I Did It Story is an important activity for sharing work in progress and playing it forward. It enables us to share our story in a way that others can gain actionable insights.”
Why this story?
The story is about a practical guide for mindfulness ebook. It has 19 pages with large text, and encourages individuals to explore mindfully where their creativity is and ignite their passions!
“Extremely useful little ebook by the force of nature and creative volcanicity that is Jane Tyson, an easily digestible and practical list of tips to help you keep your shizzle together. There is magic in mindfulness and I’ve found Jane’s tips for managing moments of immense usefulness recently. Highly recommend, this is the first of a series of ebooks, courses and downloadables coming soon.” Jackie Holmes
Questions from Rama:
When did I become Aware of_________________?
When did I Discover that it was doable and worth doing?
How did we decide on our next steps (Direction)?
What did we do to make it work (Integration)?
How am I doing (Transformation)?
How did we share our learning with others/Who do we talk to about our project? (Together)?
When did I become Aware of creating an ebook?
Four years ago I learned how simple it was to create a pdf from a document and call it an ebook! Its possible I could transform many blogs, workshops, and ideas into ebooks, how about you?
When did I Discover that it was doable and worth doing?
There is so much noise on social media, many ideas, plus plenty of mindfulness courses, so why another? I wanted to practise creating something simple and also beneficial for others, to:
stay more present and less caught up in negative emotions,
deepen their awareness and respond more skillfully to events in their lives
develop a loving-kindness towards others
nudge their creativity
How did I decide on my next steps (Direction)?
I wrote the text in google docs and originally transferred to Powerpoint and created a pdf. Recently I had a play and created the ebook in Canva. My mate Jackie put it on Designrr to have another play, however, this isn’t something I find easy to work with at the moment, so have published it via Canva again and then uploaded it to sell on Gumroad.
What did I do to make it work (Integration)?
I have been using Canva for a while now and have got quicker at creating with it.
How am I doing (Transformation)?
As a result of becoming more skilled at using Canva I am also delivering sessions to help people “Enhance Their Social Media & Marketing”.
The ‘Magic in Mindfulness’ ebook is also offered as a free download when people book a 10-minute mindfulness session online with me for £10. It is a good way to get a feel for each other! To date copies have sold from 60p to £15!
How did I share our learning with others/Who do I talk to about my project? (Together)?
A few friends read it and offered feedback, Jacked edited it and I shared this video too on a few platforms for fun. I mapped out this Glad I Did It Journey in Thortspace below too:
What’s Your Glad I Did it Story?
Jane Tyson | https://medium.com/@onemumatatime/a-glad-i-did-it-story-magic-in-mindfulness-4647a258477b | ['One Mum At At A Time'] | 2021-02-17 10:01:02.304000+00:00 | ['Thortspace', 'Canva Clinic', 'Ebook Publishing', 'Magic In Mindfulness', 'Magic'] |
The Blockchain Energy Grid Could Reshape Utility Delivery | Blockchains make it easier to secure, track, and exchange resources. With BItcoin, that resource is a currency. However, outside of cryptocurrencies, blockchain protocols are poised to disrupt a number of industries where certification and exchange are important. Recently on Coin Central, we’ve covered blockchain art, blockchain agriculture, and blockchain-based businesses. The blockchain energy grid is yet another idea poised to change how we think about using and paying for electricity.
The Current Model
Electricity powers most of the technology we have in our lives, and it’s constantly coursing through our homes and workplaces. However, the current model for electricity delivery is slow, cumbersome, and outdated.
Rarely do energy companies update your utility bill in real time. Every month, it can be confusing to decipher the bill you receive. Additionally, there are rarely breakdowns of how much energy you used per day or where your bill total comes from.
The current model becomes even more difficult to navigate if you want to compare prices from different energy providers. In fact, many consumers only have one option for where they buy their electricity. Moreover, if you want to purchase energy that’s generated from renewable sources, then finding and certifying the source of your electricity can be a challenge.
Putting Energy on the Blockchain
A blockchain energy grid could address many of these challenges. The first step would be tracking energy production and consumption on the blockchain. The idea is to enter energy data into a public ledger so that the source and destination of all energy transactions are more transparent.
For example, a power plant could update the blockchain with an entry for how much electricity they’ve produced since the last block. That amount of energy could then be divisible among consumers. Additionally, consumers could bid on it, creating dynamic pricing for electricity. If the power plant is overproducing at night, for instance, a blockchain energy grid would allow anyone to see how much electricity is going unused on the grid. Consequently, the marketplace price of energy at night would be lower than during the day.
An Energy Marketplace
By creating a marketplace for energy, you might inspire an intrepid entrepreneur to manufacture products at night, when the dynamic pricing of energy is cheaper. Or, it might incentivize consumers to invest in batteries, buying cheap power at night and reducing their grid consumption during the day.
The cool thing about this idea of an energy marketplace is it’s a win-win. The power company doesn’t face the same strain of high production during the day. They also don’t waste as much power at night. Instead, such a system would even out the overall energy load over time.
An open marketplace on a blockchain energy grid would also foster competition. Currently, some energy companies have complete market dominance over a geographic area. As the cost of energy production via solar and wind continues to decrease, you may see new, small-scale energy providers enter the marketplace. In fact, small-scale solar means that individuals could set up a solar array and sell electricity directly to their neighbors on a blockchain marketplace. This type of blockchain-based microgrid is already being tested in Brooklyn, NY. There, neighbors are selling each other the solar from their rooftops.
Buying Renewable
Many consumers and corporations want to be socially responsible in the type of energy they use. However, once electrons enter a power line, they’re indistinguishable–whether they come from a solar array or a coal plant.
To solve this problem, the EPA has created a system for Renewable Energy Certification (REC). However, the system is often confusing and difficult to use. A renewable energy provider has to create a spreadsheet of data about the energy they’ve produced. Then, they send that spreadsheet to a certifying agency who reviews the information. If the agency is satisfied, they send RECs to the energy company. The company can then sell those RECs to other companies and consumers as proof they’re using green energy. This whole process can take 6 to 8 weeks.
With a blockchain energy grid, the issue of certification could be resolved instantly. Solar arrays, wind turbines, and hydroelectric dams could have energy meters that write directly to the blockchain energy grid in real time. Everything those meters write could be tagged with a certification saying it’s renewable energy. Consequently, the energy producer could sell the energy and the certification immediately. The result is reduced overhead and fraud in the renewable energy market.
Smart Contract Grid Management
Another benefit of a blockchain energy grid is smart contract management. Once you move energy production and consumption to a decentralized ledger, consumers could pay energy producers in real time. The payments could be coordinated via smart contracts where every kilowatt gets confirmed and paid for instantly.
Utility companies would have consistent revenue that’s proportional to their electricity output at a given time. However, consumers would also be able to transition between energy providers should a better deal come available in the marketplace. Instead of receiving a bill every month from the same utility company, you could purchase electricity as a service on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Transitioning to a Blockchain Energy Grid
This won’t be a quick or easy transition for energy companies. However, the benefits could be enormous. The upshot is reduced overhead and real-time tracking of grid status. Additionally, consumers could benefit from increased competition and dynamic pricing. Our energy grid is already on the cusp of a major change with the falling price of solar and the rising prevalence of batteries in consumers’ homes. Blockchain could play an essential role in managing a more complex energy grid of the future.
LetKnow.News on Facebook and Twitter | https://medium.com/letknownews/the-blockchain-energy-grid-could-reshape-utility-delivery-839c2ab03574 | [] | 2018-03-31 11:11:45.880000+00:00 | ['ICO', 'Bitcoin', 'Energy', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain'] |
Exposanten op hét food event van 2012 | Owner of Convivio. Fine food ambassador in Holland. Best selection of mediterranean products and food stops. You are what you eat.
Follow | https://medium.com/vivio/exposanten-op-h%C3%A9t-food-event-van-2012-3912b64562c3 | ['Convivio - Sam'] | 2018-01-29 15:23:05.017000+00:00 | ['Italy Earthquake', 'Charity', 'Food Events', 'Italian Food', 'Food Marketing'] |
What is A Right? | Legal Rights
The rights a particular person is entitled to enjoy legally as enforced by the state/government.
Liberty Rights: A right which does not entail obligations on other parties, but rather only freedom or permission for the right-holder. Claim Rights: A right which entails responsibilities or obligations on other parties regarding the right-holder. Legal powers: The ability to give us our power. Immunities: Immunity is a liberation from a legal duty, prosecution, or penalty, granted by government authority.
Moral Rights
Rights that emphasize the universal ethical rights /guidelines the people can follow.
Negative Rights
My negative freedom requires only that you respect the right by not preventing me in doing it. Examples of negative rights are the right to live, to be free, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from violence, freedom from slavery, and property rights.
Positive Rights
My positive right requires you to respect it by complying with it. Examples of positive rights are the rights to free schooling, free healthcare, a job, and a minimum wage.
Human Rights
Human rights are the universal rights any human being can enjoy. The United Nations defines human rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights charter as the ‘Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.
Nevertheless, the protection and the recognition of human rights also vary from country to country even though many countries have already purported to recognize human rights through their constitutions, statutes, or international treaties. | https://medium.com/@melania.aseng/what-is-a-right-d3a305d348ed | ['Melania Sarah Aseng'] | 2020-12-14 16:03:30.238000+00:00 | ['Students', 'Human Rights', 'President University', 'International Relations', 'Politics'] |
Internet Privacy | Internet Privacy
Are You Kidding Me?
Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash
Suzy reads every email her 15-year-old son writes to his girlfriend. How? Months ago, David borrowed his mother’s laptop. When he returned it, she realized that he’d forgotten to log out of his email account. Which means that when her son is in his bedroom emailing his girlfriend about what a control freak his mom is, his mother is in her home office down the hall, reading every word.
“I’m not an interfering snoop,” she says to me. “I’m an involved, caring parent.”
Suzy knew the moment David and his girlfriend became sexually active. She phoned Allie’s mom, and the two moms planned strategy. They figured that they couldn’t stop the kids, but Allie’s mom made sure that her daughter was using birth control.
And Suzi continues to keep Allie’s mom in the loop about what the kids are up to. When Allie sent David an email boasting about the foolproof hiding place she’d found for her drug stash, Suzi quickly phoned Allie’s mom so she could find and flush it.
David is personable and bright, Suzy tells me, but he’s also impulsive and immature. “I’m going to make sure he graduates high school and gets into college if it kills me,” she vows.
As for violating her son’s privacy? That’s a small price to pay, she feels, to achieve that goal.
Privacy is history
My friend Deb doesn’t have the same window into her own son’s private life, but sometimes when he’s in the shower, she’ll slip into his bedroom and take a peek at the browsing history on the laptop he’s left open on his desk.
“So what do you find?” I ask.
“Nothing special,” she shrugs. “Gaming, music. A little porn. All perfectly normal. But if he ever gets into anything weird or dangerous, I’ll know about it.”
Is there anything wrong with this snooping? “When our mom cleaned my brother’s room,” Deb says, “she used to find the Playboys he’d stashed under his mattress. What’s the difference?”
Whenever George, an attorney in his fifties, writes a personal email, his 14-year-old son can read every line. Computer-savvy Sam set up and maintains both his dad’s and mom’s computers. His folks broke up two years ago, but because he continues to help them with everything computer-related, he’s able to access their email accounts.
When his mom remarried, Sam became the go-to computer person for his new stepdad as well. Which means that whenever his folks fire angry emails back and forth about custody and visitation, their son is in the loop, reading over their shoulders.
Beth and Ted are both retired academics in their seventies. During one of our recent chats, Beth confided that she knows that her husband of 40 years visits internet porn sites. “He has no idea that I access his browsing history,” she told me. “He stays up and looks at sex sites after I go to sleep. In the morning, he sleeps in and I check out where he’s been over my morning coffee.” She grins. “It beats reading the obits.”
Does his porn surfing trouble her? “It would bother me if our sex life wasn’t good,” she says, “but I figure this is what he does instead of being unfaithful. So, really, it works for both of us.”
“If he knew that you knew, would he be shocked?” I ask.
“Probably.” She smiles. “But he’ll never know.”
Revealing your secrets
“Internet privacy” is an oxymoron.
I’m never surprised when “private” sexy celebrity photos or “protected” corporate emails are leaked all over the web.
Internet privacy? You’re kidding me, right? There’s no such thing.
“Email is skywriting,” my pal the divorce lawyer often reminds me. “Never say or do anything online that you wouldn’t be comfortable reading about on the front page of your local newspaper.”
“If you reveal your secrets to the wind,” the poet Kahlil Gibran once said, “you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.”
And if you reveal your secrets to your laptop, you should not blame it for revealing them to your spouse, your mom, your boss, People Magazine or The Channel Ten News team.
The next time you go online, just imagine that the entire world is reading over your shoulder. It might encourage you to keep your secrets to yourself.
And if not? I look forward to reading all about you in the National Enquirer.
( Writing Coach and Medium Sherpa Roz Warren writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times, has been in 13 Chicken Soup for the Soul collections, and is the author of Our Bodies, Our Shelves: Library Humor. Drop her a line at [email protected].) | https://medium.com/its-a-hardback-life/internet-privacy-ee3f07357bd6 | ['Roz Warren'] | 2020-12-19 13:41:34.403000+00:00 | ['Internet', 'Privacy', 'Internet Privacy', 'Secrets', 'Parenting'] |
What Do You Think of When You Hear the Word ‘Wellness’? | Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
We can relate the quest for wellness to a theory from psychology. Psychologist, Abraham Maslow believed humans have a basic set of needs that must be met to achieve our potential, which he called self-actualization.
“Self-actualization can generally be thought of as the full realization of one’s creative, intellectual, and social potential through internal drive (versus for external rewards like money, status, or power).” — Positive Psychology
He called it the hierarchy of needs. It’s been around for 70 years and it is still used in motivational psychology today.
Photo by Saul McLeod / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
It’s generally represented in pyramid form, like the image above. At the bottom, and most essential for survival are your physiological needs. Things like food, water, sleeping, and breathing. Obviously, if you’re having trouble breathing, that’s going to take up all of your focus. Leaving no time for kombucha smoothies.
At the next level comes safety. This is having a safe place to live and the resources that you need to stay there. Then comes love and belonging. Humans are social and a sense of belonging is a critical need.
Once those three basic needs are met, we get into Maslow’s more “advanced” levels. By esteem, he means confidence, self-esteem, and respect. Respect not just by others, but for others as well. And once you manage that, he believes you can work at self-actualization.
How Does Self-Actualization Relate to Wellness?
Maslow believed that self-actualization meant the fulfillment of one’s greatest potential. If you can reach your full potential, it stands to reason, you will find well-being when you get there.
Reaching self-actualization, or being well isn’t about making the most money or being the most powerful person in the room. You don’t have to run marathons or even belong to a gym. You don’t have to be vegan or only eat organic foods.
You need a healthy body and a healthy mind. And when you’ve got that, you can begin to follow your dreams. You can try to reach your potential. It’s in all of our grasps to do so.
If you have financial resources, but your emotional state is hurting, you’re going to have trouble reaching it. But if it’s more than you can fix on your own, get professional help. Don’t struggle with things like anxiety or depression by yourself. | https://medium.com/exploring-wellness/what-do-you-think-of-when-you-hear-the-word-wellness-6b5c2a454644 | ['Jennifer Geer'] | 2020-06-23 21:39:04.597000+00:00 | ['Wellness', 'Health', 'Wellbeing', 'Self', 'Psychology'] |
What We Can Learn From the Most Successful Covid-19 Bubbles | The staff at the Berkshire Theatre Group desperately wanted the show to go on.
In March, theaters across the globe began canceling their productions, but Alex James, the company manager of the rural Massachusetts theater group, says she and her co-workers were determined to find a safe way to stage a show in the summer.
One of her colleagues came across a story about how Tyler Perry Studios planned on shooting four of its shows by creating a “Covid bubble.” During production, each show’s cast and crew would quarantine at the company’s Atlanta studio complex, creating a protective pod that would hopefully ensure people wouldn’t catch Covid-19 and spread it.
This bubble idea appealed to the Berkshire Theatre team.
“We thought that for a cast of a show that would be our best bet,” James says.
Since March, various types of Covid bubbles have popped up across the globe. They have ranged from large — enclosing vast sections of countries — to small, two or three families teaming up and assuming each others’ risk. In Connecticut, an assisted living facility owner paid his staff to live at the facility from late March until the end of May in order to protect his older residents. The NHL and NBA both resumed their seasons late in the summer by having players enter bubbles. The latter two bubbles have received significant praise for their apparent success. NHL players and staff isolated within bubbles in Edmonton and Toronto, Canada, where cases of the virus are relatively low, while the NBA’s bubble was established at Disney in Orlando, Florida — a state where the spread of the virus was rampant and thousands of people were being infected each day of the summer. Even so, both sports bubbles have succeeded and the hockey and basketball leagues have avoided the positive coronavirus cases that have hampered athletes in the MLB and the NFL.
Many public health experts applaud bubbles as a way to resume some aspects of society even as cases surge.
“For community institutions, there’s a responsibility to strive for that bubble ideal as much as possible,” says Stephen Kissler, a research fellow in the department of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He says that when done right a bubble can be a boon socially. “We are still able to play sports, and we are still able to have plays and art.”
The Berkshire Theatre Group designed its bubble strategy in conjunction with medical experts at Berkshire Health Systems, a nearby hospital and health care group, and the Actors’ Equity Association, a union representing more than 51,000 actors and stage managers. Because of these efforts, the group’s production of Godspell was the first musical in the U.S. since Covid-19 entered the country to be approved by the Actors’ Equity Association. The production ran from August 7 to September 20 at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Throughout rehearsals and the show’s run, cast members lived together in a former bed and breakfast owned by the theater company. They remained mostly sequestered from the world, only interacting with each other and select theater staff members who were also quarantining. During shows, audience members had to wear masks and sat more than 25 feet away (because the performers were singing, Equity officials and Massachusetts health officials wanted extra distance).
Performers were allowed to get takeout and make essential trips to places such as the grocery store or pharmacy while masked, but they were not permitted to dine out or visit family and friends without socially distancing.
These precautions and those employed within other bubbles limit but do not eliminate risk, experts say.
“There’s no bubble that’s perfectly contained. There’s always going to be some leak somewhere,” Kissler says. “People need to be fed. And so you need to have people who are bringing in food. There are always opportunities for transmission there. Making sure that those opportunities are as minimal as possible is really important.”
To help address this, the NHL had categories for different people who entered the bubble. Players and team and league staff were labeled category one and two and lived within a fenced-off secure zone. Others labeled category three and four lived off-site and entered the secure area but had minimum interaction with players. These included hotel security, housekeeping staff, and others.
Melissa Hawkins, an epidemiologist and director of the public health scholars program at American University, says bubbles are a good risk reduction strategy that she likens to safe sex education versus abstinence education.
“The only way to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases or infections is to not have sex, we agree on that,” she says. “But abstinence-only approaches don’t work.”
The risk involved in bubbles is why frequent testing is a vital part of an effective bubble strategy. Those in the bubble at the Berkshire Theatre were tested three times a week.
“We really got to know the people who did the test,” James says.
Many public health experts applaud bubbles as a way to resume some aspects of society even as cases surge.
Geographic bubbles
Canada’s “Atlantic bubble” encapsulates four provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Though essential workers can cross into and out of the region, and people moving there can enter after appropriate quarantine, it is mostly closed to the outside world.
Though restrictive, the bubble was designed to enhance freedom within its boundaries, says Susan Kirkland, the head of public health and epidemiology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, who has lived within the bubble since it went into effect in July.
“The intent was that there could be movement and flow across all four provinces, and perhaps it would revive some of the economic activity because a large economic driver in the Atlantic region is tourism,” Kirkland says. “For the Atlantic residents, there are still some requirements. You might have to stop at borders and go through forms and checklists and things like that, but there’s no requirement to quarantine.”
So far the strategy has been a tremendous success. Last week there were only six confirmed cases of the virus in the four provinces, less than one case per 100,000 people.
People continue to wear masks and be cautious, and life is far from normal within the bubble, but those who do venture into the world can do it with confidence that their chances of infection are low.
New Zealand is another large area with notable success establishing a protective bubble from the virus, and as with that island country, Kirkland says geography has certainly played a role in the Atlantic bubble’s feasibility. There are limited roads into the region, so setting up checkpoints is feasible. “It’s not like the border between Canada and the U.S. where there are hundreds and hundreds of entry points,” Kirkland says.
Luck and low-density population also helped.
“We had the advantage of low infection to begin with,” Kirkland says. “We have a lot of rural communities. Our cities are large but not that large.”
In the U.S. more than 20 U.S. states have enacted interstate travel restrictions, but there are no checkpoints or roadblocks and little evidence of widespread enforcement of quarantine requirements, says David M. Studdert, a professor at the Stanford University schools of law and medicine. Even with limited enforcement, these rules have encountered opposition. Kentucky’s orders that everyone entering the state self-quarantine for 14 days was suspended by one court, while in Maine an alliance of campground and restaurant owners have challenged the state’s self-quarantine mandate for visitors.
“There is a constitutional right to travel interstate in the U.S. That’s a pretty well-established freedom,” says Studdert who was the lead author of a recent New England Journal of Medicine perspective that examined how courts will handle challenges to state travel restrictions. “In constitutional law, there’s different levels of scrutiny that a court can apply. If they apply the most stringent level of scrutiny, what’s often referred to as strict scrutiny, it’s extremely hard for the government to win in that situation.”
He adds, in this instance courts would normally, “apply strict scrutiny, because it’s a constitutional protection. But there’s another body of law that says in public health crises governments, essentially, get a fairly free hand and you shouldn’t apply that strict level of scrutiny.”
Beyond the law, for society it’s “a social value question really, would you prefer to have your travel restricted, and then have more freedoms in other daily activities?” Studdert says. “Or would you prefer to have open borders, but yet need to really clamp down all across the country or a state or region?”
Though Studdert thinks bubbles can be a valuable strategy in these times, he says, it’s not a bad thing that the U.S.courts are scrutinizing these rulings. “It is one of those tools like so many tools of public health that if you wanted to use it as a pretext for something else, like keeping poor people out of your state, or restricting benefits, that would be easy to do.”
As with so much about Covid-19, even effective geographical bubbles have their potential downsides. Kirkland notes that the low spread of Covid-19 within the Atlantic Bubble may be “a bit of a blessing and a curse. Because although we’ve prevented Covid it also means that virtually all of the population is at risk of getting Covid because they have not developed any immunity.”
Kissler, from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says a consensus has emerged among experts from history and models that for pandemic-causing respiratory illnesses, large-scale bubbles delay but do not prevent the virus from spreading. “It just sort of pushes the epidemic down the road a little ways,” he says. “And that’s because it’s so difficult to maintain those boundaries on that sort of scale.”
He adds that New Zealand has defied this history so far, and delaying the viruses spread is not without benefit. “By delaying an epidemic, you have more opportunities to develop treatments and to institute other public health measures.”
The smallest bubbles
On the opposite end of the bubble spectrum are the bubbles two or more households form. These have also been dubbed quaranteams or pods. Whatever you call them, Hawkins, from the American University, is a proponent. A mother of four, she says her family joined a pod with another family because of their mutual child care needs and also so that kids in both families can socialize. During the summer, the kids spent most of their time outdoors but now the families alternate which house is hosting remote school days.
Some families have created bubbles with several different households, but if too many people join the pod, Hawkins says you get a “leaky bubble.”
Regardless of their size, bubbles are often only as strong as their weakest member, which is why everyone in them has to be on the same page, and trust and mutual accountability is vital.
“We are in constant communication,” Hawkins says. She adds those who enter a bubble together need to be willing “to have difficult and challenging conversations.”
Hawkins’ family and her friend’s family started their bubble in May and will continue it through the winter. “I think it’s important to double down on our quaranteam given there are going to be less opportunities to be outside because of the cold weather,” Hawkins says. “It’s also a good time to reevaluate and reassess the guidelines; the bubble was starting to get leaky this summer. Since there will be flu and other respiratory infections circulating this winter, along with the coronavirus, we will be relying on the shared guidelines of our quaranteam.”
Trust is also what made the bubble for Berkshire Theatre Group’s production of Godspell work.
Isabel Jordan, a 21-year-old performer studying theater at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, was cast in the show after auditioning via Zoom. She says everyone involved was mindful that what they did could serve as a model for other theaters to return to the stage, and they took care to be safe for each other and for the theater world in general.
“There wasn’t any moment during this process that I thought someone was going to break the bubble,” she says. “I think artists have a deep care for one another and truly, truly want to look out for each other. I felt safe the whole time.” | https://elemental.medium.com/what-we-can-learn-from-the-most-successful-covid-19-bubbles-4b52495d9fd4 | ['Erik Ofgang'] | 2020-10-06 12:29:29.070000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Covid 19', 'Pandemic', 'Coronavirus', 'Public Health'] |
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How Solana opens up step by step | Somedays I think to myself I am such a lucky guy. Being able to be with my wife who I consider extremely beautiful and sexy. I always dreamt of a hot Latina woman who loves sex as much as I do. And after a long and rough period we finally arrived at more calm waters which gives us the confidence and trust we needed to fulfill more of our sexual fantasies.
Recently there has been a new development in our lives. Her sister Graciela had been going through a rough time in her marriage and had finally separated from her husband. Now free from the shackles of a bad relationship, Graciela was eager to get back in the game. She had been with her husband for nearly 20 years since she was 16 and he was the only man she had been with.
She and Solana went out the other night to a restaurant and got pretty tipsy. She confessed she is eager to enjoy the single life again and enjoy the flattery of being chatted up, to feel the touch of a stranger’s embrace, the excitement of that first kiss and the chance to have sex with new and exciting partners. The excitement of not knowing who would end up between her legs at the end of a night out, how big his cock would be, what kind of an orgasm he could give her; these were all now possible where before she was living knowing the touch of only one man.
How was this a development for me and Solana you are probably wondering? Well, Solana and Graciela are very close and would always go out together, now when they went out Graciela would be available and openly flirting with other men as well as hooking up with random guys. Solana would get to see how much Graciela was enjoying this new freedom without worry or guilt and maybe then she would realize that this was also available to her, in fact, it was what I wanted for her and maybe that might be the encouragement that she needed to finally let herself enjoy this sexual freedom I wanted for her.
Recently I suggested that maybe Solana and Graciela should go away for a few days to get Graciela’s mind off the breakup and suggested that they fly abroad to completely get away from it all for a few days. They decided to take me up on my suggestion and booked tickets to a concert and flights and an apartment for 2 nights.
They were looking forward to the breakaway and so was I, but for different reasons. I knew that this was going to be 2 days of bars and cocktails. I always loved when Solana drank cocktails, she was always a lot more adventurous after them. On their first night over there they went to a cocktail bar so I knew that they would both be enjoying themselves.
At about 10:30 pm I text Solana to see how the night was going. She rang me not long after and she sounded like she was really enjoying herself. She told me that they had been in the bar since 8 pm and that a group of guys had asked if they could join them at about 9 pm. She told me that Graciela had hit it off with one of them a bit earlier so when the group asked to join them, she couldn’t say no as she knew that Graciela needed this. She asked did I mind. I told her that I didn’t mind and asked her if there were any other good looking guys for her in the group.
She hesitated so I knew that there must be someone who caught her eye. I told her that it was ok if she found one of them good looking and she didn’t have to worry about telling me. She told me that there was one guy there alright who caught her eye and that he had been chatting her up. I told her that she would have to flirt with him or she might ruin Graciela’s chances.
I reminded her that no one knew her there so she didn’t have to worry about rumors and that she should enjoy herself and that I was ok with her flirting with him. She said that she thought that I might get jealous. I reminded her of our conversations about her being a Hotwife and that I was serious about that if she wanted to be with another guy that I was ok with it. She almost whispered saying she thought it had been only fantasy talk. I said that the great thing about this fantasy was that the reality of her hooking up with another guy excited me far more than the fantasy ever did. Again she asked if I was sure and I reassured her that I was.
At about 11:30 pm I got another call from Solana. She told me that Graciela had hooked up with the other guy and that she was gone to his place with him and that she was now there alone with the good looking guy from earlier. She told me that he had asked her if she wanted him to walk her back to her apartment and she asked what I thought she should do. I told her “Solana, I think you should bring him back to the apartment and fuck his brains out”. “Is that what you want me to do?” she asked me. “Is that what you would like to do?” I asked back. She replied “maybe”. I said, “well then, what is stopping you. I look forward to hearing all the details”. With that, she said, “Oh thank you, babe, you know I love you so much”. “I love you too,” I said, “now stop wasting time and go have yourself a seriously good fucking”. With that, I hung up the phone.
I did not hear from her again until the following morning. She rang me and she seemed nervous on the phone. I asked her how her night had been and if she enjoyed being fucked by someone else. She told me that she had a fantastic night and she told me how it went. The guy’s name was Vincent, he was 27 and worked as a lawyer for an international law firm. He was only in town for the night and then he was flying back to the US. She said that it was obvious that he worked out and he made her laugh (something that is more important to Solana). She told me that after she got off the phone with me that she went back into the bar and told Vincent that she would like for him to bring her back to her apartment but that they should get a taxi as she didn’t want to waste any more time. She said that as soon as they set off in the taxi that he leaned across and kissed her. She said it felt weird to be kissing a stranger and me not even being near. But that as soon as she kissed him back she knew that she was going to enjoy this. She said that he slipped his hand under her dress and gently circled her clitoris. She tried to be silent but let out a sigh when he slowly entered her pussy with two of his fingers. The whole taxi trip he kept pleasing her while she desperately tried the taxi driver not to notice anything. She said she nearly came there and then with the excitement of the whole encounter.
As soon as they got back to the apartment he pulled her dress over her head and quickly removed her bra and panties. She was nervous standing naked in front of this guy that only a few hours earlier she had never even met, then she remembered our conversations about her fucking other guys and how much it turned me on. Remembering all this made her pussy swell up and get wetter by the minute. He started to kiss her again and gently laid her down on the bed. She lowered her hand and unzipped his pants and told him to stand up and remove them. He did and as soon as he removed his boxers her eyes lit up. In her words “damn, that is one nice cock”. She told me it was 9” long and as thick as your wrist. She got on her knees and started to suck it, she could hardly get her fingers around it. She stood up and told him “my husband wants me to get fucked real deep and hard, do you think you can do that with that monster?” She told me he didn’t even answer, he threw her on the bed and got between her legs. He placed his rock hard cock against the lips of her smoothly shaved pussy and slowly pushed it into her. “I was so wet babe that it slid right in and it felt sooo damn good” “You know I don’t like to make you feel insecure even though you always push me to think about bigger cocks. Well baby, let me tell you this one was huge. Twice as thick as yours and I now know how I prefer to feel my pussy all stretched out”
As he got deeper, his strokes got harder“ I could feel every inch babe, every stroke pushed deeper and deeper. I wanted to take it all for you, I wanted to be your Hotwife”.
After about 10 minutes of pounding her willing pussy this way he rolled her over onto her stomach. This is Solana’s favorite position and she always comes hard when she is fucked this way. “Oh babe, when he turned me over on my stomach I nearly exploded, I tightened my pussy around his cock as hard as I could and I was moaning so loud, it was incredible, I wanted to take every drop of cum that he had to give. He must have fucked me like this for 20 minutes, it felt like it was an amazing dream. When I came I let out a moan so loud that I must have woke all the neighbors but I didn’t care. I just lay there in absolute ecstasy as he continued fucking me in a total frenzy. As he exploded he pushed in all of that delicious meat deep into my pussy. He got up off the bed he asked me if my hubby will be happy with the fucking he just gave me, well babe, are you happy?”. I told her that I never loved her more than I did at that moment, that I was glad that she let herself do this and that she enjoyed it so much. I asked her if she was glad she did it. She replied “glad I did it, babe I am glad that I am DOING it!!! Vincent is still here and I intend to fuck that cock again before he goes to the airport. I am going to enjoy being your Hotwife. Love you. Bye”
What can I say, I do so love my new Hotwife.
Thanks for enjoying our new adventure. Feel free to read more of Solana
here on Medium. | https://medium.com/take-my-wife-please/how-solana-opens-up-step-by-step-567e39016e70 | ['Solana Simon'] | 2020-12-16 11:33:16.841000+00:00 | ['Cuckold', 'Sexuality', 'Wife Sharing', 'Sex', 'Hotwife'] |
The Real Reason Trump is Still Refusing to Concede | The longer this drags out, the better his chances of painting himself as the martyr. You see, if he was “wronged,” if he didn’t cheat, then he needs to show his camp he’s fighting for the truth. He’s portrayed himself as a “strong man,” after all, and conceding when he’s supposed to is only going to come across as a sign of weakness.
And there’s a good reason why he wants to be the martyr. If he intends on running in 2024, that’s the only hope he has of winning. Why? Sympathy votes work. Politicians in the Third World have been known to have assassinated their own family members to win elections. And if they were killed by someone else, you could count on them to politicise that too. What Trump is doing is nowhere near that, but the basic premise is the same. At large, people feel they’ve been wronged by the “powers that be” in one form or another. Stand on a podium and show them you have been too, and you instantly become “a man of the people.” Combine that with the fact that we’re living in the age of post-truth, and you’ve got a winning combination on your hands.
And that's why, over the next four years, Trump is going to be hammering the message of how “the man of the people was ousted by the corrupt establishment.” And make no mistake — he’s going to be effective. Because Trump, if anything, has proved that he’s the man you go to if you need to radicalise, gaslight, or divide. Rallying his vote bank of 73 million against the state is right up his alley.
And this is going to have a spiral effect.
First, this is the point where Trump makes the job of the Biden administration that much more difficult. Forget “healing the soul of the nation” he’s going to have his work cut out just trying to hold it together. Trump is going to waste no opportunity in delegitimising the federal government. And if he gets a helping hand from his GOP friends in state leadership, the attack is going to be that much more potent.
And you know where all of that leads?
Political instability — the kind that stunts economic growth. And Trump will blame the government for whatever economic problems he’s had a massive part in creating. Take into account that the economy had seen significant growth during Trump’s term, and people will, once again, buy into the “only Trump can Make America Great Again” nonsense.
And if you think about it, it is arguably a move of political genius — if people don’t see right through you, that is. And that’s where this gets dangerous. I’ve seen this tactic being played out in my country before, and progress came crashing to a halt. It didn't work in the long term — primarily because we’re so used to these dirty tricks it doesn’t take longer than a second to see reality for what it truly is. But America? It hasn't seen this before — and there’s a good chance 73 million either aren’t going to see right through him or are simply going to choose to look the other way.
And that matters. Because come the next election, it’ll be all to play for again. Our world moves fast, and by the time 2024 rolls around, Americans will have largely forgotten about the evils of Trump, and the only thing that’ll be fresh in their minds is the failures of the Biden administration.
And by not conceding now, painting himself as the martyr and subsequently attempting to destabilise the country, Trump will come into the next round stronger than he is right now. Plus, if there’s one thing 2016 taught us, it’s that Trump is dangerous when he’s got everything to win and nothing to lose. | https://medium.com/the-purple-giraffe/the-real-reason-trump-is-still-refusing-to-concede-4106f44409df | ['Sikander Hayat Khan'] | 2020-11-27 21:41:28.842000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'World', 'Government', 'Donald Trump', 'Election 2020'] |
Real world application of DSA to model and monitor corona-virus. | Real world application of DSA to model and monitor corona-virus. Jyotsna Follow Apr 22 · 3 min read
I am sure every beginner computer science student would have once wondered why do we find shortest path in graph or what is the use of trees, are we going to play josephus circle using circular linked list?
So, this article talks about the importance of data structures and algorithms in real world, with the reference of COVID-19.
The present outbreak of a coronavirus- acute respiratory disease called COVID-19 has resulted in a major epidemic. The main reason why coronavirus is a major problem is because it’s spread can be modelled by a tree.
Before the world took lockdown measures, estimates stated that each infected person was infecting between two and four other people.
In the study of infectious disease, this number is called R0 (R-naught), a mathematical denotation that indicates how contagious an infectious disease is. For instance, if a disease has an R0 of 15, a person who has the disease will transmit it to an average of 15 other people.
Three possibilities exist for the transmission or decline of a disease, depending on its R0 value:
· If R0 is less than 1, each existing infection causes less than one new infection. In this case, the disease will eventually die out.
· If R0 equals 1, each existing infection causes one new infection. The disease will stay alive and stable, but there won’t be an outbreak.
· If R0 is more than 1, each existing infection causes more than one new infection. The disease will be transmitted, and there may be an outbreak or epidemic.
Importantly, a disease’s R0 value only applies when everyone in a population is completely vulnerable to the disease, as in the case of COVID-19 where no one has been vaccinated, no one has had the disease before and there’s no way to control the spread of the disease.
In our model — R0 is the average number of children each node in the tree has. This means — each node in our tree has (on average) between two and four children.
If you’ve studied trees to any depth, you know this is going to get very large, very quickly.
The early objective of health organisations worldwide was to reduce R0 to around one (or less). If R0= 1, then each leaf node in our tree now becomes the head of a linked list. Each person is infecting exactly one other person, in the same way that a (singly) linked list has a reference to the next node in the list.
If R0< 1, then at some point a person will infect no-one else, and the line of infection (for that leaf) is broken. We can model that in code but having the node point to a null reference, meaning it is the ultimate node in the linked list.
One way to “solve” the coronavirus situation is to change the behaviour of the virus so it can be modelled by a collection of (eventually finite) linked lists, rather than a tree.
Well, I am no medical expert. I am here just to make you realise that Trees, Graphs & Linked Lists aren’t only used in FAANG interviews, but are actually very useful in modelling and solving real world phenomena. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/graphs-trees-in-real-world-df24ef23b358 | [] | 2020-07-19 20:09:24.287000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Algorithms', 'Trees', 'Data Structures', 'Coronavirus'] |
Tonight | Lyrics
If god don’t like me strike me where I stand
Cuz the money in your wallet don’t make the man
Cuz the pain that you swallow’s never part the plan
Middle finger to tomorrow cuz here I am
Here I remain hoping that the truth doesn’t hurt
For the moment just ease the pain
Embrace the rain knowing that no matter how hard we try
We all miss the train
Maybe that’s the way life’s supposed to be
Living to impress but deaths standing close to me
Fell short of the man that I hoped to be
Tugging on the past cuz I’m tryna catch the ghost of me
Too far to see too high to crash
Searching for a purpose in an empty glass
Searching for a virgin not a piece of ass
Sipping on the bourbon from the devil’s Flask
Im telling you baby that i’m caught in the middle
Between the life that you gave me and the life behind the pistol
Don’t you worry bout tomorrow cuz tonight is a party
And we’d rather fall in love with ourselves then somebody
Perception, perfection, anything that you want just mention
Anything for a false impression like
Hey I’m looking for a woman to invest in
Call me crazy might be faded often baby want it take it
Falling lately no one makes it
Swear you made me get you naked
Make a statement let’s crack the pavement
What’s a plan to a man who told fate we’re changing
From the gutter to greatness never stay complacent
Let’s own the night let’s take what’s taken
I’m contemplating sick of waiting
Sick of sleeping while the dream’s awake
And I swear I’m leaving if nothing’s changing
Embrace the weekend if tonight’s amazing
Baby, baby, baby, baby, help me lose control
Baby, baby, baby, baby, don’t spend the night alone
Im telling you baby that i’m caught in the middle
Between the life that you gave me and the life behind the pistol
Don’t you worry bout tomorrow cuz tonight is a party
And we’d rather fall in love with ourselves then somebody | https://medium.com/livin-to-inspire/tonight-424161739a93 | [] | 2017-11-22 21:22:58.193000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Storytelling', 'Love', 'Music', 'Lyrics'] |
Here’s How a Former NFL Linebacker Defines Sexual Consent | Here’s How a Former NFL Linebacker Defines Sexual Consent
Normally, I’m against men defining anything for women as it feeds the sexist notion that men know what’s best for everyone. Also, because unless you’re a woman, you can’t truly understand what it’s like to live in a society and culture that regards you as an object of desire above all things.
Women are sick of being told how to live. We’re also tired of bearing accountability for our sexual assaults. However, former NFL Linebacker DeAndre Levy is a man who seems to get it with his recent description of consent from women. He does this while also acknowledging the toxic idea of masculinity from which such pseudo gray areas form.
Levy opens his essay for The Player’s Tribune, titled “Man Up” with this:
Man up! You pussy! Grow a pair! These are insults that are so commonplace that we have all encountered them at some point, be it on a playing field, in a locker room or in any other situation where being “strong” and “tough” is paramount. They’re all based on the generally accepted premise that the worst thing you can do/say to a man is to question his masculinity. It wasn’t until recently, however, that I really considered what’s being communicated when men say things like this to one another. All of these statements are related to a man showing vulnerability or weakness, which is immediately connected to them being feminine. So taking things a step further, if appearing feminine has all of these negative connotations, how does that affect how men view women on a societal level?
That last sentence is the kicker. Behaviors deemed feminine traditionally signify weakness among men. If this is how similar traits are viewed, what about those who may demonstrate them most often? i.e., Women.
I know the counterargument: It’s ok for women to act like women and men to act like men. Some only don’t approve of one side behaving like the other.
Gender roles are part of the problem.
That fact aside, consider this. If you view certain traits as less than, how far removed can you be from viewing someone who exhibits those traits as less than as well? That’s the point.
Levy asks, “so what’s the opposite of weakness? Power. And oftentimes, how powerful a man is, is directly associated with his sexual exploits.”
Bingo.
I know several men who lost their virginity as boys to adult women. Yet, they don’t regard themselves as having been sexually abused. They’re proud of the idea that they “bagged” an older woman at such a young age. Their peers congratulated them for the feat, a response that continued with every female “conquer” that followed.
The idea of sex with women, masculinity, and ultimately power is inevitably tethered from this point.
A man thought to have women at his disposal is commonly the envy of all men. On the other hand, a man who doesn’t appear focused on getting women into bed or treats them as having unrelated value endures the questioning of his manhood.
I have a male friend who’s taunted by his buddies for being gay. He’s not. Yet, the fact that he’s never slept with me is all the evidence they need for a conviction.
What does this have to do with sexual consent?
Everything. Because it overemphasizes the importance of men having sex with women, to the point where a man may view it as tied to his manliness — something he’s wired to aggressively pursue and to which he’s ultimately entitled.
This perspective okays and even encourages a shameless, insatiable appetite for sex and women. Perceiving women as conquests makes it permissible to force the issue a little, and sometimes, a lot. If the goal is to conquer, the feelings of your subject are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if she’s uncomfortable, apprehensive, or uninterested. Your only concern is crossing the finish line.
This is why women who speak out against their abusers suffer character assassination and victim-blaming. It’s always, “Well, what did she do?” Everything from the way she dresses to her sexual history is presented as conflicting data — as though these elements justify a man forcing himself onto her or support the idea of him being confused.
Obtaining consent leaves no room for misinterpretation.
Here’s how Levy defines it:
Consent only occurs when a woman clearly says yes. Consent is not being naked, it’s not kissing, and it’s not touching or flirting. It’s a clear, freely given yes, which is not the same as the absence of a no.
Intimate spontaneity and passion can be appealing. Not many want to interrupt the moment by asking for consent. It sounds like a buzzkill. Besides, it allows the woman an opportunity to refuse advances.
Every woman I know has been in a situation where she felt pressured into having sex, including me. It may not have been textbook rape, but it was clear that the guy decided he was going to have sex with us whether we explicitly wanted to or not.
It’s the instances where you push a guy’s hand away, and he pins your arms behind your head. Or, you squirm, he chuckles and then gets on top of you so you can’t move. It’s the “come onnnn” when you’ve made it clear that you don’t want to have sex.
I had a guy tell me that most women say “no” but mean “yes” because we’re trying to be “ladylike.” The stories are abhorrent and abundant.
Sex isn’t merely either rape or consensual. There’s a lot in between there that can defy mutual agreement. It’s just, one only recognizes the signs they care to see. | https://medium.com/fearless-she-wrote/heres-how-a-former-nfl-linebacker-defines-sexual-consent-96f13786786d | ['Acamea Deadwiler'] | 2020-11-04 13:03:16.484000+00:00 | ['Rape', 'Masculinity', 'Feminism', 'Sexual Assault', 'Women'] |
What is Machine Learning? A Simple Guide | Introduction
What is Machine Learning: Machine learning is the process of teaching a computer system on how to make accurate predictions when fed data.
Let’s think of this definition with an example.
What is Machine Learning? Well, we have the world, and in the world we have humans and we have computers and one of the main differences between humans and computers is that humans learn from past experiences Whereas computers need to be told what to do, they need to be programmed.
And now the question is, can we get computers to learn from the experience too? And the answer is yes, we can. And that is precisely what machine learning is.
Teaching computers to learn to perform tasks from past experiences. Of course, for computers, past experiences are just recorded as data. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/what-is-machine-learning-a-simple-guide-ee86c3bc711d | ['Krishnan Navadia'] | 2020-09-04 13:18:30.953000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Scikit Learn'] |
Secretary Geithner’s budget speech, part 1 | There have been three important recent fiscal policy speeches:
Washington relies too much on off-the-cuff comments and tweets to drive policy debates. Serious policy addresses like these three provide depth that is essential to the national dialogue. I also wish we had more frequent serious policy speeches on the House and Senate floors.
Today I will begin to respond to the Geithner speech, which is the most effective presentation of the Administration’s fiscal policy argument I have seen. It’s a long speech with a lot that deserves analysis and response. Since the partisan policy battle is already fairly heated, and since I haven’t written in a while, I’ll start today with a reach-across-the-aisle post. Here are three important points where I agree with the Secretary. Disagreements will follow in future posts.
All quotes below are from Secretary Geithner’s speech.
1. The causes of future budget deficits
And we face unsustainable future fiscal deficits caused, in part, by the dramatic rise in the number of Americans who will turn 65 in the next decade, combined with the fact that we now live longer and will spend more on health care.
This is a fantastic statement. I’d fix it only by striking “in part.” Secretary Geithner is reflecting the conclusions of the Social Security and Medicare Trustees, issued last Friday, and he is saying something different from the Washington Consensus, which focuses only on health care cost growth. In fact demographics is a bigger deficit driver over the next 10–20 years than health care. Kudos to the Secretary for emphasizing both. He also correctly identifies the two subcomponents of an aging population: more Baby Boomers becoming retirees and longer lifespans. The first of these is big but temporary (one generation), the second is gradual and permanent.
2. We can’t wait.
We do not have the option of leaving this problem to another day, another Congress, another President. … [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1" background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3" animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Low interest rates on Treasuries] are a reflection of confidence that we will act, not a justification for inaction. … There is no way of knowing how long financial markets will give the American political system to get ahead of this problem. But it makes no sense for us to wait until they force action upon us. … As we saw in the fall of 2008, when confidence turns, it can turn with brutal force and with a momentum that is very difficult and costly to arrest. This is a threat we should pre-empt. If we don’t, the economic damage and the human cost will be much greater.
Bravo in all respects. Secretary Geithner is right that the ultimate forcing action will be when investors lose confidence in American fiscal policy and take their funds elsewhere. He is right that, if this happens, it can happen suddenly and without warning. He is right that this would be extremely painful and costly to stop. And he is right that it is unpredictable. We may not know the market-imposed deadline until it has already passed.
This last point is an important intellectual gap between Washington and Wall Street. Washington needs strict and clear deadlines to force action. In this case, the market-imposed deadline is impossible to predict. And because severe market discipline (a flight from Treasuries and the $) could happen sharply and without warning, policymakers are in a bad spot. They lack the clear deadline they need to force decisions, and are instead wrestling at the edge of a crumbling cliff.
3. Higher interest payments are a cost of inaction that will squeeze out other policy priorities.
Every dollar in interest payments means a dollar in higher future taxes or a dollar we can’t spend on more productive investments like education, our national security, or programs for the poor, the elderly or those with disabilities.
Secretary Geithner is absolutely right. To the extent these higher interest rates result from elected officials making difficult but unavoidable choices, we will see real policy costs resulting from political inaction.
There is a lot within Secretary Geithner’s speech with which I disagree, but I wanted to start on a constructive note. These are three important policy points where I think the Secretary deserves credit.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container] | https://medium.com/keith-hennessey/secretary-geithners-budget-speech-part-1-5c2dc94d8de2 | ['Keith Hennessey'] | 2016-12-22 04:04:56.394000+00:00 | ['Legal', 'Budget', 'Economy', 'Taxes'] |
I think I’ve got a clue for the secret success of Fatim Hemraj on News Break | I think I’ve got a clue for the secret success of Fatim Hemraj on News Break
Some writers may have hidden power for influencing their readers. Let me elaborate on this remark.
For the goal is to highlight high achievers in our community.
Because writers need inspiration.
Fatim Hemraj has joined ILLUMINATION-Curated as soon as we established the publication. Since then, she has been submitting remarkable stories delighting our readers.
True Crime Readers like her topic so much that some even requested more stories from Fatim in our readers feedback letters.
Why am I highlighting Fatim’s writing for ILLUMINATION-Curated?
Since last few days, I started discovering many writers contributing to our publications on News Break.
When reviewing featured stories on News Break, I came across Fatim’s profile. It is a pleasant surprise. I want to share my findings to inspire our writers.
Here is the profile which speaks itself.
What is impressive about this profile is with only ten posts Fatim received 520K views, which means that each story averaged 52K views. This is a remarkable achievement for a writer.
Besides, in such a short time, Fatim gained 2073 followers.
I have seen many writers on News Break recently, but this profile is the most outstanding one. It aligns with her success on ILLUMINATION-Curated.
In my view secret of Fatim’s success is her ability to engage the readers. Her readers admire her pen and her diligence on true crime topic.
Working with top writers like Fatim is a pleasure on ILLUMINATION-Curated. She is a source of inspiration for our readers and the readers of News Break.
Here is a quick taste to give you about Fatim’s two stories on News Break.
If you haven’t applied to News Break Creator program yet, you may use my disclosed affiliate link to start your application.
If you have questions about the program, you can approach me on our Slack workspace.
Thank you for reading my perspectives.
I hope you find this story inspiring.
How to connect with me
I established three significant publications supporting 7,000+ writers and serving 70,000+ readers on Medium. Join my publications requesting access here. You are welcome to subscribe to my 100K+ mailing list, to collaborate, enhance your network, receive technology and leadership newsletters reflecting my industry experience.
I am on ILLUMINATION Slack Workspace.
Connect with me on News Break.
Connect with me on Vocal Media.
I use Linktree to share my social platforms. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/i-think-ive-got-a-clue-for-the-secret-success-of-fatim-hemraj-on-news-break-1ed914842b3e | ['Dr Mehmet Yildiz'] | 2020-12-26 04:21:34.150000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Technology', 'Self Improvement', 'Freelancing', 'Writing'] |
One for the ARMYs: Creative Upcycling of the BTS Meal | Light it up like dynamite!
Korean Pop (K-pop) Boyband BTS lit everyone’s world up like dynamite when they released their collaboration with fast food restaurant McDonald’s: a “BTS Meal” consisted of 10 pieces of chicken nuggets with special sauces — sweet chili and cajun, fries, and coke. The chosen set of McDonald’s food was said to be the members’ usual orders when eating in the food chain.
The meal has a uniquely designed packaging, as the usual brown paper bag, food box, and drinking cup were designed and peppered with the famous symbol of BTS. In the Philippines alone, the meal became trending, as ARMYs — the name for the BTS fans — immediately ordered and tried the meal upon its release.
BTS is undeniably one of the biggest names in the entertainment industry today. From their debut in 2010, the boy group remarkably became famous within Asia and had their international breakthrough in 2017. Since then, the band appeared on cover pages of various magazines worldwide, featured and interviewed by numerous news sites, and collaborated with tons of international and Western personalities.
This popularity also meant reaching more people around the world, gaining more followers and fans. Currently, BTS is one of the music icons that have an extremely present fanbase online. And, being a part of this fanbase or any fanbase of famous personalities means being a part of a community, whether virtual or physical. The connections and influences within the ARMYs show through how they all make the boy group trend almost every week, more so when BTS won awards or when they are about to release a new song or album.
As fans, they have to have souvenirs or memorabilia of their idols. The BTS Meal somehow served as another merchandise or “merch” for the ARMYs. This made the fans preserve what can be preserved in the meal, such as its unique packaging. That’s why, together with the famous meal, creative upcycling ways of the packaging (or reusing of things to have a higher value) also went viral online.
Upcycling the packaging did not just benefit the ARMYs so they can preserve a memory of the meal. It also positively reduced the wastes from the certain upsurge of sales of the meal, avoiding the expected effect of an increase in the garbage.
To fully appreciate the creative upcycling projects appearing all over the net, here are some of the creatively repurposed BTS Meal packaging done by fans (at most):
1. Sneakers
From @josiahchua on Instagram
2. Necklace
From @craftedbycalai on Instagram
3. Bag
From The Lame Journal on Facebook
4. Phone Case
From @loveforbngtn on Twitter
5. Tumbler
From @assejromero on Twitter
6. Kid’s Dress
From Stef Pal on Facebook
These creative upcycling projects reduced what could have been tons of trash produced from the increased sales of the BTS Meal. Of course, it also reinforced, on a larger scale, the idea of repurposing things that are to be discarded. Being a part of an online or physical community is powerful, especially when done right. | https://medium.com/@gianmonzon/upcycling-bts-meal-435ccdb42b5a | ['Gian Monzon'] | 2021-07-15 02:06:01.401000+00:00 | ['Bts', 'Bts Army', 'Recycling', 'Upcycling', 'Creativity'] |
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