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When Your Mistake Hurts Someone Else | Sometimes the only person we hurt by our mistakes is ourselves. Other times, we inflict pain on others. When that happens, we should make a sincere effort to make amends.
Making amends is one of the key parts of 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s not just offering an apology, although that may be part of it.
The process of making amends brings about reconciliation. To be reconciled is to restore friendship or harmony. Jesus made it possible for us to be reconciled to God, and God wants us to be reconciled with one another.
It is only after we have tried to make amends — whether or not we succeed — that we can truly put the past behind us and live in the present.
Jesus made it possible for us to be reconciled to God, and God wants us to be reconciled with one another.
Often when we hurt people, we want to deny responsibility. We try to tell ourselves what we did wasn’t wrong — or at least wasn’t that bad. We excuse ourselves by claiming that the other person was too sensitive. Or we fall back on saying it was an accident, we didn’t mean it, and therefore we don’t have to accept responsibility for it.
But until we face the situation and go to the other person as God tells us to do in the Bible, reconciliation will not happen.
Now, before you start calling or emailing everybody you’ve ever hurt with apologies, stop and think about what you’re doing. Talk to God first. Spend time in prayer, sharing your feelings with God. Tell Him you feel hurt, angry, insecure, embarrassed, or guilty, that you know you’ve hurt someone, and you want to make it right.
But you want to be sure that whatever you do will actually have the results you want and not cause more pain.
Listen for God to tell you what to do and how to do it, and count on Him to tell you to make the first move. I can promise you it’s not likely to be an easy or comfortable move but do it anyway.
We can all learn from the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) — the holiest day of the Jewish year. Atonement means reconciliation, as in bringing together those who have been separated by some act.
Look at the construction of the word: at-one-ment.
Yom Kippur addresses the reconciliation of humans with God, but we can take that concept into our human relationships because God wants us to reconcile with each other.
A key part of making amends is to admit your mistakes — something that’s very difficult for most of us. You’ve probably heard the joke: “I made a mistake once. I thought I was wrong, but I wasn’t.”
I happen to believe that striving for perfection is a good and worthwhile goal, one that God supports. I think too many people use excuses like “I’m only human” and “Everybody makes mistakes” to avoid making the effort of doing their best. Yes, we are only human, but we are made in God’s image, and God is perfect. Of course, part of God’s perfection is His never-ending patience with us.
But to get back to the issue of making amends:
When you are admitting your mistakes, be humble; don’t get defensive, make excuses, or try to shift the blame. Own up to whatever you might have done.
If you’re dealing with an ongoing conflict, attack the problem, not the person. It’s unrealistic to expect everyone to agree on everything, so emphasize reconciliation, not resolution. You can make amends and re-establish a relationship, even if you cannot completely resolve your differences. Remember, we can always agree to disagree.
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18–29, NIV).
You may not always have a face-to-face reconciliation with the other person. There will be times that’s not possible — the other person may not be living, or you may not be able to make contact for some reason, or contact would cause more harm than good.
Pray about this, consider talking with a skilled counselor if necessary — be sure that as you work to make amends and achieve reconciliation, you don’t inadvertently do something else for which you’ll need to make amends.
One final thought on making amends: It’s more for your benefit than for the other person. Once you have either successfully made amends or tried your best to do so but have not been successful, let it go and move on so you can live in the present instead of being bogged down by the past.
Thank you for reading this excerpt from my book Finding Joy in the Morning: You can make it through the night.
You might also enjoy:
Here’s a little more about me:
Here’s how to get a beautiful inspirational quote delivered to your inbox every Saturday: | https://medium.com/koinonia/when-your-mistake-hurts-someone-else-c7766960727 | ['Jacquelyn Lynn'] | 2020-12-18 13:43:24.206000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Life Lessons', 'Forgiveness', 'Christianity', 'Reconciliation'] |
Six Sigma Process with R | Analyzing Process Capability and Sigma Level
Process capability is a statistical measure to asses the ability of a process to meet its specifications. Process capabilities (i.e Cp and Cpk) are usually obtained before and after the implementation of a quality improvement project or initiative to evaluate the level of improvement occurred.
There are two possible scenarios when analyzing processes capabilities: when their mean is aligned with the target value and when it is not. Centered processes are analyzed based on their Cp ratio while non-centered processes are analyzed based on their Cpk index. Let’s analyze both of them using an example in R software for their respective statistical analyses.
Centered Process
Centered processes are those in which the mean of a set of measurement is align to the target. In this scenario, most data points are close to the target, but not necessarily all of them.
For the following example, let’s analyze the capability and obtain the sigma level of a centered process that has a target value of 10, an USL of 13 and a LSL of 7, and from which 100 measures were obtained. Let’s take a look at the R code.
According to the histogram above, the process spread is wider than the specifications spread; thus, it can be stated that the current process is not capable. Even though most of the data points are located within the specification limits, there are nonconforming products exceeding the specification limits. The Cp ratio of 0.5 represents a sigma level of 1.5, which is considered non-competitive.
To deal with this issue, industrial engineers and six sigma practitioners must conduct root-cause analyses to identify causes of special variation. Once identified, they can develop and execute continuous improvement projects and initiatives to reduce the variability of a process and ensure that most of the data points will be located within the specification limits.
After the completion of a continuous improvement project or initiative, the improved process should like like this:
According to the histogram above, the new process spread is equal to the specifications spread; thus, it can be stated that the process is capable with tight control. After the implementation of the six sigma project, all of the new data points ended up located within the specification limits. The Cp ratio of 1 represents a sigma level of 3, which is considered industry average.
However, in order to achieve a sigma level of 6, the process variability must be reduced even more. By achieving this, more data points will be closer to the target and the process spread will be considerably narrower than the specifications spread, reducing the number of nonconforming untis to almost zero.
The histogram below shows the final outcome of the newly improved process, in which its spread is considerably narrower than the specifications spread; thus, it can be stated that the process is highly capable. Now, even more data points are located around the target value. The Cp ratio of 2 represents a sigma level of 6, which is considered world-class.
Non-Centered Process
Non-centered processes are those in which the mean of a set of measurement sis not align to the target; its mean is shifted either to the right or left of the target value. In this scenario, most data points are away from the target.
Since the Cp ratio does not consider the centerness of a process, the Cpk index is used instead to analyze the process capability and obtain its sigma level.
For the following example, let’s analyze the capability and obtain the sigma level of a process that has a target value of 10, an USL of 13 and a LSL of 7, and from which 100 measures were obtained, but from which it is know to not be centered. Let’s take a look at the R code.
According to the histogram above, the process spread is wider than the specifications spread and its mean shifted to the right of the target; thus, it can be stated that the current process is not capable at all. There are nonconforming units exceeding the upper specification limit. The Cpk index of 0.209 represents a sigma level lower than 1, which is considered non-competitive.
Once again, industrial engineers and six sigma practitioners must conduct root-cause analyses to identify causes of special variation and execute continuous improvement projects and initiatives to reduce the variability of the process.
After the completion of a continuous improvement project or initiative, the improved process should like like this:
According to the histogram above, the new process spread has been significantly reduced; thus, it can be stated that the process is highly capable. However, not all of the new data points ended up located within the specification limits, which suggests that the mean of the process needs to be shifted to the left. The Cpk index of 0.685 represents a sigma level of approximately 2, which is still considered non-competitive.
The histogram below shows the final outcome of the newly improved process after the implementation of continuous improvements initiatives and additional efforts focused towards shifting the process mean to the left. In the new process, its mean is (almost) centered with the target value and even more data points are located around it. The Cpk index of 1.81 represents a sigma level of approximately 5.5, which is still considered world-class.
Under perfect conditions, a process with a mean aligned with its target value will yield the same Cp and Cpk values.
Concluding Thoughts
Six Sigma consists in a set of tools, methodologies, frameworks and statistical analyses used to measure and improve a process variability. It is an area of high interest within academics and professionals in multiple fields (e.g. industrial and systems engineers, continuous improvement engineers and quality analysts).
In addition, Lean practices have been merged with Six Sigma, leading to what is known as ‘Lean Six Sigma’, which focuses in reducing process variability and eliminating waste (e.g. transportation, inventory, movement, waiting, over processing, over production, defects, human potential).
This article presented an overall overview of a Six Sigma process with an application in R, a useful free and open source software for statistical purposes with multiple packages focused on Six Sigma (e.g. SixSigma, qcc). In today’s highly competitive world, engineers are highly encouraged to study and understand Six Sigma concepts and pursue professional certifications associated with it to a better competitive advantage and a stronger resume. | https://medium.com/swlh/six-sigma-process-with-r-f2457c04fe5a | ['Roberto Salazar'] | 2020-11-08 21:37:30.908000+00:00 | ['Industrial Engineering', 'Coding', 'Six Sigma', 'Quality Assurance', 'Programming'] |
How to be more “productive” when you are unproductive | It is well known in the fitness community that you can train everyday but you probably can’t train yourself to death everyday. You need to pace yourself and allocate enough time to recover so you can come back much stronger. A lot of elite athletes attribute their longevity in sports to active recovery. Instead of idling or pushing to another hard training sessions, they all developed alternative ways and routines to get better even when they are not training. I was inspired by this interview with Lebron James and his trainer Mike Mancias on the Tim Ferriss Show.
Granted we are no Lebron James. However, we all sort of compete in our professional jobs, day in and day out. We go hard everyday and expect to excel in our own games. But we all have those days or moments during the day we feel just like a sloth. Sometimes, it is our physical body that calls for a break. Other times it could be just that our “Thinking Brain” is giving in to our “Feeling Brain”, according to “Everything is F*cked” by Mark Manson , and we need to negotiate with our “Feeling Brain” by trying out different things.
We are not machines so it is perfectly normal to have downtimes. However how you spend your downtime is going to play a big role in your up time. As a self-experimenter, I have been trying all sorts of things to leverage my downtime to mentally and physically prepare myself so I can go hard when I’m at 100%. We can’t forget the fact that our brain is just like any organs in our body, what we feed into it can make huge difference. The same way you can’t expect a great body with only eating junk food. Here is the list of my personal favorite activities to invigorate my mind when having my downtime:
Watch a show that are entertaining but educating
Passive learning is a great way to acquire new knowledge without even realizing it. We’re all familiar with the active learning the ways we were trained at school. It requires the logical mind to stay focus to memorize and compute. But another good way to learn is the immersive learning. By throwing yourself out there without specific learning objectives, your subconscious will figure out new things for you to learn.
In terms of the choices of shows, my rule of thumb is that any shows that doesn’t require binging watching is probably good. My personal favorite are food and culture shows such as Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown and David Chang’s Ugly Delicious. What I love about these show is that it is light, entertaining and informational. Food is such a centerpieces of every culture and is so fascinating to learn different cultures and places through the lens of their food. Also it serves as a reminder for me there is a big world to see.
Listen to podcast
I’m a big fan of podcasts because I felt we were so busy with our eyes these days on social media, news, video etc. Often times we forget about another great ability of ours– listening , and it is so under utilized in our daily lives.
What love about podcast is that it is such a great format for background learning while you hands are busy or you a in a transition moment of your day. When I’m feeling tiered and unfocused at work, I like to put on a podcast and take walk in a park near my office. When I’m at home, cooking whiling listening to podcast on my smart speaker just feels so relaxed and therapeutic for my mind. I also learned a little bit of Japanese during my daily commute prior to my trip to Japan and it turned out to be super helpful in a several survival situations.
Small time chunks adds up big and that is power of the compound effect. No matter you are just chilling or learning, sure your brain will feel invigorated after feeding it some what I called “informational nutrition”. Check out this post I write about how listening to podcast has transformed my life entirely. Leave a comment if you’d like to have some podcast recommendations.
Workout
If you felt mentally exhausted, some physical exercise will help tremendously. Going out for a run, going to the gym, play some sports, or even just stretch your legs or do some air squads. Motion creates emotion. You’ll feel much energized after some physical exercise than just sitting around scrolling through your social media feed. Get off your ass and start moving around.
Meditation
I like to think meditation is a recovery session for your mind and emotions, just like how we recover our body after a hard workout. Our mind is constantly busy with thinking, deciding and judging and it drains our “cognitive energy” over time. Mindfulness is about being aware of this constant stimulating state of our minds and make an intentional effort to take a pause. I have been using Headspace guided meditation for about two years and it was very helpful for me. But you don’t have to follow the guided meditation at all to practice mindfulness. Whenever you feel tired throughout the day, just pause, take a few deep breaths to restore yourself.
Journaling
When was the last time you actually write down your thoughts on a piece of paper? Probably been a while since we all have so much to fill in our daily schedule. I didn’t believe it until I tried a few times and I was always amazed by that mental state I was in after writing stuff down. Most of my journal is about things to appreciate in life, reflections on myself and motivational self talk. It gives me a unique perspective about the ups and downs in my life and how I can better relate to these emotions. This restored emotional energy and mental state always help me to stay sharp and focused when I switch back to work.
Connect with friends and family
Get offline and make real conversations with real people. Much of the exhaustion we are experiencing daily is a byproduct of the digital toxics. Meet a friend or family for coffee or dinner. Have a real conversation face to face with the people we love and care about. It will remind us so many of the good things we took for granted and this increased apprication will restore the emotional energy needed in our daily lives. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-be-more-productive-when-you-are-unproductive-58302bdcf6b5 | ['Zach Chen'] | 2019-08-19 14:30:17.500000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Lifestyle', 'Learning', 'Self Improvement'] |
White Women: How We Are Perpetuating White Supremacy at Work | As the Chief of Staff, I’m sitting in a meeting with our leadership team as we debrief about a company policy that negatively impacted an employee who is a Person of Color. We start to go down the path to defend ourselves: We are a Certified B Corporation, a social impact agency, our mission is to improve lives. We start cherry-picking facts to support our arguments in an effort to show how our decisions are well-intentioned. After all, no organization is perfect, right? We are better than most companies, and look how far we’ve come. The excuses are endless.
As a white woman, I have the privilege to choose whether to defend the status quo, and myself, or validate this employee’s experience and admit that our best efforts hurt someone. My unearned trust and whiteness are all too powerful in this moment of conflict. My ability to sway this group in itself is a byproduct of racism.
White women have been a critical pillar of upholding white supremacy for centuries. Reckoning with this reality is a critical piece in understanding how we — white women — are experienced by Black, Indigenous, People of Color today. [There are plenty of resources that explain this history of white women and oppression way better than I can. I found the CodeSwitch Podcast: What’s a Karen? extremely informative.]
Acknowledging the harm I’ve caused has been a painful, necessary blow to my self-narrative. Coming from the South, I took pride in challenging “the oppressors” and devoting my career to social impact, but I learned that it’s not enough to not be racist. The real work is to actively become anti-racist.
I took Rachel Rickett’s Anti-Racism Workshop and for the first time asked myself “How have I perpetuated white supremacy?” This question became a powerful filter to understanding how white privilege and power dynamics shape how People of Color experience me — especially at work where I have power and influence.
Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
Shift the Power Dynamics
I have to continually create systems to counteract the power dynamics that prevent team members who are Black, Indigenous, or other People of Color from thriving.
In my role, I am in a senior position advising our leadership team on company systems and policies. I’ve assumed:
Everyone has the ability to grow and navigate the organization the way I do.
The team trusts me to advocate for their needs and interests.
As a white woman, I’m given trust and the benefit of the doubt constantly, especially from white men. If I have a concern or have made a mistake, people automatically empathize with me and want to help me. I thought that everyone immediately experiences this level of trust in our team.
People of Color are often in the exact opposite position where they continually have to prove themselves, and have to advocate for why their feelings and perspectives are valid. Not only is this inequitable and racist, but it often means they opt not to share their needs because they’ve been ignored in the past.
I’m inherently inclined to center myself and my needs, and do what I think is best based on my biased, white perspective. I’m learning that my role is to instead shift power to team members who have been marginalized by this dynamic, and to co-design systems and solutions that center their needs and experiences. | https://bthechange.com/white-women-how-we-are-perpetuating-white-supremacy-at-work-b1a09cefc7e8 | ['Rachael Estess'] | 2021-09-15 16:52:49.751000+00:00 | ['Workplace Culture', 'White Supremacy', 'Anti Racism', 'B Corp', 'Purpose Driven Business'] |
How I Make $3,500 a Month From My Instagram Account | Last month, I made over $3,500 from my Instagram.
Before starting @pinlord — the repost account where I curate and sell enamel pins — I had no experience building a social media or online business. I’m also not an “influencer”, I’m not particularly “social”, and I definitely don’t have a fun and exciting life to show off on Instagram.
I learned how to monetize my Instagram account by making an effort to understand how the platform works and putting in the work required to execute the right activities at a high level, for a long period of time.
Trust me when I say, if I can do it, anyone can!
Thing is…there is no “easy money” to be made as a social media content creator or business. Yes, you can earn an income from your Instagram (or Youtube or any other social media platform), but like any other business, success requires consistent and thoughtful work.
Although there is no one formula to build a profitable business on Instagram, there are definitely a few principles that will increase the likelihood of making money from your account. From my experience, these are the ones have been the most important for my business:
1. I solved a problem.
Before starting @pinlord, I was first an avid enamel pin-aficionado, spending over $100 a month on pins. It was during this time that I first noticed a problem that I kept coming across when searching for enamel pins on the app — I knew there was the perfect pin for me on Instagram, but because the app doesn’t allow you to search for posts directly, it took a lot of time and energy to sift through dozens of Instagram hashtags and profiles to find the pin I would want to buy.
How did I solve this problem?
Btw, have you every asked yourself if your Instagram is actually even worth growing? If not, you should. It might help save you a whole bunch of time and energy. It’s not worth it for everyone…
I created an account (@pinlord) that featured the best enamel pins on Instagram.
By taking the time to comb through dozens of hashtags and accounts to find the most unique/interesting/well-designed pins each day and then centralizing all of them on my account, I made it fun and simple (and aesthetically pleasing) for anyone to go to one place and find the best pins to buy on the platform.
Problem solved!
2. When I started, @pinlord was highly differentiated within a content category that had a relatively small number of similar accounts.
At the time I launched my account (in the summer of 2015), there were less than 5 enamel pin reposters, and none of them took the time and effort to curate an eye-catching, clean grid as I did.
Looking back, I now realize that that was the main reason why I was able to build a large and engaged following fast — because I was highly differentiated within a content category with a relatively small number of similar accounts. Not because I held any special Instagram skills or knowledge.
Unless you’re a world-class content creator, how fast you’re able to build a large and engaged following not only depends on how you use Instagram but more importantly, on the number of similar accounts within your content category and how differentiated you are from them.
The smaller the number of accounts and the more differentiated you are, the higher the likelihood that you’ll be able to grow an Instagram following fast simply because you’re competing with fewer accounts for people’s attention (if you want to learn more about this, read my article on why your Instagram account isn’t growing).
If I were to start @pinlord today, my chances of building the same business from it would be slim and none because it would be very difficult for me to be differentiated within a content category (the enamel pin community) which now has hundreds of accounts competing for the same audience and creating similar content. When I began, we were only a handful.
If you’re looking to start an Instagram account with the purpose of making money, first make sure you’re creating a highly differentiated account within a content niche that has a small number of accounts doing something similar to you.
Like any other business, the less competition you have, the more likely you are to build a long term viable income.
3. I made an effort to understand how the Instagram platform worked and I used third-party tools to “growth hack” my account.
Around a year after starting @pinlord, the Instagram algorithm changed and for the first time, my growth rates and income began to plateau. That’s when I realized that creating a highly differentiated account within a content niche with a small number of similar competitors wasn’t enough to succeed long-term.
With the constant instability and audience fluctuations that came from Instagram’s frequent algorithm changes, how much money I could make from my account began to depend more on having a deeper understanding of how the platform worked and how well I was able to execute the activities that grew my audience and engagement faster than the average account (here’s a simple explanation of the essential activities to grow your Instagram fast).
In other words, I had to learn how to “growth hack” my account in order to reach more people than other accounts similar to mine.
To do that, I started testing new content and activities as frequently as I could — always measuring the results to understand what impact they had on my growth. The activities that helped me grow faster, I kept doing. The ones that didn’t, I stopped. I also made an effort to find third-party Instagram tools that could help me be more effective and efficient with the activities that helped me grow faster (because managing an Instagram can be A LOT of work if you’re not efficient).
The activities and tools that helped me “growth hack” my account were:
The better I became at executing these activities, the faster I grew, the more engagement my posts got, and the more income I made.
Also, here’s an article about the best Instagram content scheduling and post automation tools. Using them will help your posting process a lot more efficient 👍🏽
4. Because I know how to grow a large and engaged audience, I was able to make money from sponsored posts.
Also around the 1 year mark, I hit 35K followers and began advertising that people could request a feature on my page by placing a “DM me for a feature” prompt in my bio.
I started receiving requests from smaller pin-makers asking me to repost their pin designs so they could be discovered by a larger audience than they could reach by themselves. As my followers and engagement grew, so did the number of requests I got.
Whenever I featured a pin maker, they usually received value by getting new followers and sales, and most of them returned to ask for another feature. There was a demand for my service and this allowed me to start charging money for a feature.
At 35K followers I charged $5, at 50K followers I charged $10, at 75K I charged $15 and at over 100K I now charge $20.
At an average of 2.5 sponsored posts a day at $20 each for 30 days, I end up making around $1500 per month, with zero costs.
5. To give as much value possible, I price my sponsored posts based on what other accounts similar to mine charge for a comparable service.
When it came to pricing, I’ve had to determine the amount I charge based on what comparable accounts were charging for a repost (because that’s who my potential customers would compare my prices with).
For example, if @patchgame (an account comparable to mine) has 200K followers, 1% engagement, and was charging $40 for a repost, I would charge $20 for a repost since I have 100K followers and 1.5% engagement. People compare our follower and engagement numbers, and gauge which price has more value based those metrics.
The more value my customers (people I featured) receive, the more likely they are to return for my services and the more likely I am to build a sustainable, long term business.
It’s important to know who your customers compare you with when it comes to obtaining a similar service because then you’ll be able to get set your pricing to maximize value (and repeat customers).
This limitation to pricing is another reason why it’s so important to be highly differentiated within a content category. Unless you are the account within your category that has the largest and most engaged following (which is very difficult with millions of people on Instagram), you’ll always have to price your posts based on what other comparable accounts are charging for a similar service.
Better yet, if you’re a content category of one, you’ll be able to set your own prices…
6. I made paying for sponsored posts as transparent, reliable, simple and quick as possible.
For payments, it has always been very important for me to use the most reliable and widely accepted payment provider. For now, that’s paypal (because who the hell wants to give their credit card info to a random person from an Instagram account?!). To make the process quick and simple, I also created a paypal.me link so people could just enter the amount and pay directly from their browser.
In case you’re interested, here’s how you make a paypal.me account. A helpful tip is to think about the URL handle you create, because you won’t be able to change it in the future. In my opinion, it’s best if you make it something broad in case you want to use it to receive payments for other businesses in the future. I made the mistake of naming it paypal.me/pinlord and later couldn’t use it for other unrelated businesses because it had such a enamel pin-specific name.
To provide a good experience, I also gave a transparent and clear explanation of what people could expect from a post. These are the messages I send whenever I receive a feature request:
Using text replacement to streamline the process helps me to be able to respond to dozens of messages quickly, without having to spend all day on my phone writing out the same thing.
7. Conversely, I’ve also made the mistake of promoting products and services that don’t give my audience value, because they paid well.
Earning money from sponsored posts isn’t always the best option for a long-term business.
People follow my page because I provide value by featuring the best enamel pins from around the world, but at one point in mid 2017, I was featuring at least 2 pins per day that weren’t great. I was posting them because they were a way to get paid a little extra (and I had rent to pay…). Over the 3 month period that I was frequently posting low-value paid content, my engagement dropped from around 3% to 1.5%.
As this paid content was not providing as much value to my audience, they engaged with my posts much less. And over time, the more low-quality paid content I featured, the more my audience lost interest because I wasn’t actually featuring the best pins (the reason why they’d originally followed me). My engagement rates went down, lowering the long term value of my account because a much lower percentage of my audience took action whenever I recommended a product or service, or sold something = less customers for myself and for the people I featured.
It’s a pitfall a lot of paid content creators fall in, and I did too.
Ever since I noticed the decline in engagement during that time, I’ve made an effort to keep the number of low-quality paid posts to a minimum. Although that means a slightly lower monthly income right now, I am creating overall higher value for my business in the future because my audience believes that the content I post is sincere.
So, if you’re thinking about monetizing your Instagram through paid posts, I’d highly recommend that you avoid posting low-quality content, just because the pay is great. Believe me, your business will suffer in the long term because your audience will stop trusting (and caring) about what you say.
8. I used Instagram engagement data to understand what my audience likes, so I can create better products that sell more:
Also around the 1 year mark, I was getting over 8000 weekly profile visits from people interested in enamel pins, so I decided to begin selling my own pin designs directly through my link in bio.
In case you’re interested, I use Shopify. Although it takes a bit of time to get familiar with the platform, once you’re set up it’s super simple to manage and it has the most robust group of 3rd party applications that help you ship simply and cheaply.
At first, I made and released the pins that I wanted to see in the world and they sold great. But as the #pingame grew more popular and pin makers started making more money, more people began selling pins on Instagram and it became a highly competitive market. Thousands of new enamel pin options were available to the public and it became much harder for your average enamel pin to sell the quantities it had when there were only a few enamel pin sellers on Instagram.
This is a common theme with most product categories sold through Instagram.
Through trial and error, I learned that the two main keys to successful pin sales in this environment were: 1) coming up with designs people truly loved (because mediocre products don’t sell well in a competitive market) and 2) releasing new designs as often as possible (so people had a reason to come back and check my site frequently).
Knowing that I had to release a great new design at least once a week to increase my sales, but not having the creative juice to do that consistently (I stopped kidding myself that I was that creative), I began using the engagement data from my Instagram Insights to understand what types of pins people had responded to the most positively.
To get engagement data go to Instagram Insights, then hit the Content tab, then enter the Feed Posts section and sort by Engagement over the last year. The posts that show up at the top of this grid are the ones that people engaged with the most.
Although not perfect, this information helped me create successful designs more often because I had a data-based approach to understanding what type of designs, themes, colors, shapes etc, people already loved.
Data made up for my limitations as a designer (because I’m not one) and, by streamlining the production process with my factory, I was able to consistently release relatively-successful new designs once a week. Being able to do this had a positive effect and I saw my sales almost double from an average of around $900 per month to $1800 per month.
With production and sales costs at around 33%, that turns out to be close to $1188 of profit per month.
9. I listed my products on marketplace platforms with an in-built audience to make extra money.
Once I was releasing 1 new pin per week through my website, I also listed all of my products on Etsy and Depop. These platforms have built-in audiences that are actively looking to buy products similar to mine and, since they don’t require much work to maintain, I was able to sell a few dozen extra products per month, for almost no effort or money.
On Etsy I sell an average of around $500 and on Depop around $200 per month. With production costs removed, sales from these platforms amount to an additional profit close to $475 per month.
Btw, an effective and simple way to make extra money on your Etsy is to do paid ads. This is the video that showed me how to do it.
10. To find new revenue streams, I constantly test different projects and measure the results.
In addition to my sponsored posts and direct sales, I continually test new projects and measure the results to see if they can turn into revenue streams. So far, these are some that have worked for me:
11. It all adds up!
Adding up all of the activities: $1500 from sponsored posts + $1188 from direct sales + $475 from Etsy & Depop + $400 from referrals from my articles = I make around $3500 per month from my Instagram.
Although the number seems small in comparison to what Instagram influencers make, earning it isn’t a full-time job and that allows me to spend my time doing other things I enjoy (and I also don’t have to get a Job).
It’s a lifestyle that’s accessible to anyone who’s willing to make an effort to understand how the platform works and put in the work required to execute the right activities at a high level for a long period of time.
If it’s something that interests you, I hope this article provides some insight on how you can do it for yourself, in whatever topic you’re passionate about!
Btw, if you want to read more about how Instagram works, please read my articles about what Instagram really is and how works, Is Instagram dying?, how the Instagram algorithm works, Instagram niches and why they are the key to growth, why you’re losing Instagram followers, Instagram hashtags, how to pick the right Instagram username, and Instagram bots 2021.
Btw, if you want to learn more info about growth tactic on other social platforms, here’s my first TikTok article about everything you need to know regarding TikTok Bots.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read my article! If you enjoyed it, you can support me by signing up to my Instagram Small Business class, sharing this article and giving it a bunch of claps. You can also follow me on Instagram to get updates whenever I publish a new piece ❤ | https://medium.com/the-mission/how-to-make-money-on-instagram-7b13ce4b300d | ['Eduardo Morales'] | 2021-12-03 23:23:33.650000+00:00 | ['Monetization', 'Influencer Marketing', 'Social Media', 'Instagram Marketing', 'Instagram'] |
Top platforms to host your portfolio today | WordPress
So one of the most popular platforms out there is WordPress. WordPress is a popular content management system that powers many sites on the web today, big and small.
The nice thing about WordPress is there is nearly a plugin for everything because it’s been around for almost two decades at this point. This means you can make it your own and customize it the way you want to.
However, the interface isn’t straightforward to modify and customize unless you have some basic code knowledge.
Their editor can be pretty clunky, and the backend interface can take some time getting used to as well. If you’re going to use WordPress, you likely have to choose one or more themes or plugins to power your website.
Some plugins are more powerful and allow you the flexibility to build your site, however you want.
Divi, Elementor, Semplice, and WP Bakery are examples of some of these. The initial setup can be a bit of a headache, but once you get used to the platform, you’ll be able to change and add new pages in no time.
My Rating:
I’ll give WordPress a 2.5 out of 5 in terms of ease of use, 4 out of 5 for customization unless you’re using a particular premade theme, in which case that can vary depending on which theme you’re deciding to purchase. And I’ll give it a 4 out of 5 for price.
Again, this depends on which theme you decide to buy. Some themes are free, while others are more expensive. You get what you pay for, but ultimately, using WordPress, you can build a pretty good portfolio without blowing the bank. | https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/top-platforms-to-host-your-portfolio-today-45c69b8dd50b | [] | 2020-12-01 09:04:40.082000+00:00 | ['User Research', 'WordPress', 'UX', 'Portfolio', 'User Experience'] |
Krisa Gonna versus Gender Commander | About the Artist:
Krisa Gonna is a comic series created by illustrator Kris Barz. All of his characters are part of the LGBTQIA community. The stories are about friendships, relationships, work, family, sexism, prejudice and the strips touch those issues with irony, comedy and a little bit of sarcasm.
The webcomic is an independent project and the official website is live. Go to www.outandaboutcomics.com and check it out! | https://medium.com/matthews-place/krisa-gonna-versus-gender-commander-d90abb72733c | [] | 2020-12-16 19:49:55.691000+00:00 | ['Gender', 'Comic Strip', 'LGBTQ', 'Comics', 'Superhero'] |
“BitHD Multisig Partnership Plan” and Technological Walkthrough | The following is the walkthrough of Multisig technology:
1. A Quick Walkthrough of Multisig Basics
2. Why did we set 322 (March 22) as a multi-signature day?
First, from the date, the Bitpie proposes to set the annual “March 22” as the “Multiple Signature Day” because 3/2 and 2/2 are very common multi-signature schemes (of which 2/2 are widely used in the Lightning Network), it makes sense to define 322 this day as “multi-signature day”.
From the original intention of launching this activity, as one of the few wallet teams that have no security incident for 6 years, we have seen too many cases of losing money, and many of them have failed to use the multi-signature scheme reasonably. These grievous money-losing accidents have led to the collapse of one’s family, and some have led to the fall of the team, which is a serious obstacle to the upward development of the blockchain sector.
Here, we will give some examples to let everyone see why companies need multiple signatures, and why they need a reasonable and secure multi-signature scheme.
The first example is of course the famous Bitfinex. In August 2016, 120,000 bitcoins were stolen from Bitfinex. Their problem is that they used the wrong multi-signature scheme. From this example, the large multi-signature storage is a cold wallet, and secondly it is a reasonable multi-signature scheme. This is the lesson that should cause all corporate and personal attention.
Example 2: In 2018, a company asked Bitpie to help analyze the coin-losing incident, more than 200 bitcoins were stolen. We helped analyze the company and after the final identification, the bitcoins returned. In this case, if a reasonable multi-signature scheme is adopted, a large amount of bitcoin is managed by many people, and everyone can skillfully use the cold wallet, and there is almost no such asset risk.
Here again, the first place in security is cold wallet, the second place in security is multi-sig. Therefore, the correct approach is to first make a cold wallet, such as open source, secure hardware wallet using BITHD(bithd.com), and then design a reasonable multi-signature scheme according to the company’s own situation. Remember that each multi-signature participant should be a cold wallet.
3. The advantages of BitHD Multi-Signature Technology
Bitpie Wallet is one of the FIRST teams in the world to propose the HDM (HD+Multisig) wallet model, and we are also the FIRST team to make a “Cold HDM” wallet (there is a hidden mode in the Bither wallet(bither.net) that can open this feature); Bitpie is the world’s FIRST wallet to try to use the multi-signature technology to provide users with “OTC Trading On-chain Custody” service on the Bitcoin blockchain; BITHD makes user experience very easy in multi-signature. This is very significant because it means that a non-technical person (such as an accountant, lawyer, etc.) can easily participate in the management of blockchain assets, which is largely beneficial to the popularity of “cold wallet + multi-signature” technology; BITHD is the world’s FIRST hardware wallet to support ETH and EOS multi-signature functions; BITHD will soon support USDT multi-signature function.
4. More technological introduction on Multisig：
1）What’s the similarities and differences among the multisig mechanisms of BTC, ETH, EOS and USDT?
2）How to use Multi-signature function on Bitpie Wallet — YouTube
3）A Few Key Points to Correctly Choose a Hardware Wallet
4）Why Screenless Hardware Wallet = Hot wallet?
Official Links：
BitHD Official Website：https://bithd.com/ BitHD Source Code：https://github.com/bithd BitHD Manual：http://docs.bithd.com/zh_CN/latest/
More articles and videos on BitHD and Bitpie： | https://medium.com/bitpie/%E6%AF%94%E7%89%B9%E6%8A%A4%E7%9B%BE%E5%A4%9A%E9%87%8D%E7%AD%BE%E5%90%8D%E5%90%88%E4%BD%9C%E4%BC%99%E4%BC%B4%E8%AE%A1%E5%88%92%E4%BB%8B%E7%BB%8D%E5%8F%8A%E6%8A%80%E6%9C%AF%E7%A7%91%E6%99%AE-c6bfe14051e6 | ['Bitpie Wallet'] | 2019-06-20 16:22:49.661000+00:00 | ['Bithd', 'Security', 'Multisig', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Crypto Wallet'] |
The Tales of Nicaragua and Honduras: An Instructive Display of Media Hypocrisy | Local sociopath, John Bolton, recently coined the term “Troika of Tyranny.” It’s an alliterative and slightly more creative retake on the Bush-era “Axis of Evil” and is now used to describe what we’re supposed to think are the three most tyrannical governments in the western hemisphere: Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. The first two are no surprise; they’ve both been in the cross-hairs for a while, but Nicaragua is one we haven’t heard much about in recent decades. Let’s take a look at why it’s back on our radar.
Nicaragua elected Daniel Ortega, a Sandinista, in 2006. By all accounts, his victory was legitimate. His administration has been characterized by land reforms, increases in workers’ rights, improved literacy by prioritizing education spending, and increasing access to food and healthcare. He was reelected in 2011 and 2016 with more than 60% of the vote each time. The western media calls him a dictator, as they do everyone who doesn’t bow down to American corporate interests. They site Ortega’s harsh treatment of protesters and control of much of the media as evidence of his totalitarianism. Ortega and his followers would say that these authoritarian acts are a necessary evil to defend against US-baked coups and color revolutions. I realize this is a sketchy position with bad optics, but it doesn’t lack logic. This is a very valid concern, because the US and its proxies DID attempt a coup in 2018.
An armed student movement tried to seize control of the government last year. Government forces reportedly killed hundreds of people, but questions have been raised about the accuracy of these body counts and who is responsible for the initial instigation of violence. Given my own research into Syria, Ukraine and other revolutions, I’m extremely skeptical when the western media claims that one of the empire’s official bad guys is acting badly and that everyone protesting them are just wholesome, all-American freedom-lovers. The western media establishment obviously doesn’t give a damn about human rights and the deaths of innocent civilians. Case in point: Saudi Arabia. My skepticism is increased by the fact that a leftist government in the country next door, Honduras, was overthrown in a US-backed coup in 2009.
The Honduran military overthrew the democratically elected President Zelaya in 2009. This is the same military that receives substantial aid from the US, allows their country to be the home of the largest US military base in Latin America, and is widely believed to be involved in drug trafficking.
The new Honduran government has also been killing protesters, but don’t expect to hear about that in the western media. The country is run by a corrupt cabal of elites, many of whom were educated in the US, who are systematically transferring the country’s wealth out of social programs and into their pockets. While literacy and health are improving in Nicaragua, they are going the opposite way in Honduras. The president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, won reelection in 2017 under very suspicious circumstances. The fraudulent elections were even reported on by mainstream sources like Reuters and The Guardian . The votes were tracked in real time by an electronic system and televised. In the first hours of the election, Hernandez’s opponent, Salvador Nastralla, gained a substantial lead. Then, mysteriously, the vote-counting system crashed and went of the air. When it came back, Hernandez was in the lead and he went on to win by a narrow margin. Protesters took to the streets where the military killed at least 30 unarmed civilians. The US recognized the elections as free and fair.
Since the coup, the country has been engulfed by violence perpetrated by drug cartels and other organized crime syndicates. Many people in cities are extorted into paying monthly dues to syndicates, crippling living standards in an already impoverished country. Efforts to appeal to the police or government have been mostly unsuccessful because there is no clear divide between the Hernandez Regime and the crime syndicates.
The violence has kicked off a wave of immigration out of the country, much of it going to the US. If Trump were actually concerned about his imaginary immigration crisis, perhaps not supporting a dictatorship that has its populous living in terror would be a good place to start.
There are hundreds of articles and other news pieces criticizing authoritarianism in Nicaragua because they are an official enemy. Meanwhile, the problems in Honduras are buried.
There have been massive anti-regime protests in Honduras in recent months. But we’re only supposed to focus on protests in places like Venezuela and Hong Kong, places that haven’t been absorbed into the empire yet.
The contrast in how these two countries are treated in the western media is very instructive. It is a glaring flaw in the narrative machine that needs to be pointed out. | https://medium.com/@matthewgallaherheim/the-tales-of-nicaragua-and-honduras-an-instructive-display-of-media-hypocrisy-1f91894839e3 | ['Matt Heim'] | 2019-09-14 12:22:19.802000+00:00 | ['Media Criticism', 'Politics', 'Propaganda', 'Nicaragua', 'Honduras'] |
Wheel of Fortune: Building My First Ruby App | Wheel of Fortune Banner Logo
Go big or go home right? When I started the bootcamp prep program for Flatiron in early September, I did their mini Javascript, and Ruby programs. Since my cohort didn’t start until mid October, I decided to practice by building a Wheel of Fortune game in Repl. Looking at it today, I can see everything I did wrong. So when I came to the end of Phase 1 in my cohort, with the opportunity to build a command line application in Ruby that utilized an API, I decided to go further than just going through an API. I rebuilt Wheel of Fortune.
I remember thinking. “I already built it once. How hard could it be to build it again?”
“How hard could it be?” Always famous last words.
The answer was ‘very hard’, you see my first app was technically object oriented but there was no separation of concerns and it relied entirely on if statements and iteration for problems that could’ve been solved much more efficiently. Everything was in one class. I don’t think I ended up reusing any of my old code.
So I had 3 major challenges to tackle in my project.
Including the API Remaking the project more efficiently As a designer I really wanted to make the project more beautiful, the constraints of a text based project were rankling me.
Including the API
The primary objective of the project was to utilize an API, so the very first thing I did was work on the API. I knew I could turn in the entire project if I had a working command line application that interacted with the API and returned results. The rest was all bonus. I selected Quote Garden as an easy to interact with API with a simple structure. I utilized net/http, and open-uri, and json to access the API, extract and parse the data. I set this up in a class of it’s own so I could pull quotes as needed.
A screenshot of an API getting taken in and parsed
Remaking the Project
This was challenging, I was taking a project that had been built in one class, and rebuilding it to be more efficient, and with separation of issues. One of the big challenges was rebuilding how I rendered my game board. I needed to take the quote and convert it to dashes so the player knew the format of the quote they were guessing, and how many letters they had remaining to guess. Every time a letter was guessed, the board needed to re-render with the letter they had guessed included. In my old version I handled the board like this. I used an array of excluded characters (which included punctuation) to check if each character was in that array, and if it wasn’t I popped a “-” into a temporary array, if it was, I placed the character into the temporary array, then I joined the temporary array I had made, and displayed that. Obviously this was a lot. It meant iterating through every letter each turn. And it made handling vowels and consonants very difficult (since you have to buy a vowel and spin for consonants).
The code I used to update my game board in my old Wheel of Fortune Application
When I went about rewriting this, I created a module that could be included in my CLI file. I used gsub then passed the quote solution, an array of remaining consonants, and an array of remaining vowels as arguments to the method and used the arguments in a regex with a case insensitive modifier. This allowed me to easily render the new puzzle board every turn with one line, using the same symbols I was using to track the players moves (so they couldn’t pick the same letter twice) which meant I didn’t need two different sets of information doing the similar jobs.
The refactored code I used to update my game board in my new Wheel of Fortune Application
Making it Pretty
The constraints of making a text based application were painful as a designer and I was really researching to see how I could add some great design to my application. My answer game in the form of Ruby Gems and ASCII banners.
ASCII banners
I started with ASCII banners and a few Ruby gems to help improve the formatting of my game. ASCII banners simply use text characters to build beautiful text banners. And gems like TTY-Prompt help make nicely formatted prompts. But I wanted to see if I could push it any further, and after hours of research I found a gem called Catpix. This lead me down a rabbit hole which included 4 Development dependencies, 2 Runtime dependencies, the need to upgrade Homebrew, installing a patch for one of the dependencies, and a custom modification to one of the links in one of the dependencies before I got Catpix working. Honestly, I wanted to give up at times. But the end result was WORTH IT.
The title banner of my Wheel of Fortune Application
Catpix works by taking an image, creating a text version of it using block characters (such as █), and then coloring them with an extended color palette. The gem does so much work it is a bit slow, so I am only using it once for the title image, but I’m extremely happy with the result.
Final Thoughts
I had said a few times, “I made it once before, how hard could it be?”
And there were honestly a few times I really thought I wasn’t going to be finished. I still have a few things I may go in and tweak, but at this point it’s all gold plating, and I’m currently extremely happy with what I’ve created. | https://jessijokes.medium.com/wheel-of-fortune-building-my-first-ruby-app-1723d1ff35c4 | ['Jessica Bradham'] | 2020-12-08 05:18:05.075000+00:00 | ['Flatiron School', 'Learn To Code', 'Wheel Of Fortune', 'Web Development', 'Women In Tech'] |
自己的社交媒體帳號，是文案人每天的主戰場 | 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://fredjame.com/copywriters-battlefield-ba62d477d685 | ['Fred Jame'] | 2020-12-27 12:06:46.891000+00:00 | ['Hardcopy', 'Copywriting', 'Marketing'] |
Take a break? How does that work? | It’s ok to take a break sometimes as long as you have someone to blame
https://www.dieselsweeties.com/ics/1111/ | https://medium.com/@rstevens/take-a-break-how-does-that-work-b89925355dfb | [] | 2020-12-14 04:10:06.208000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Projects', 'Humor', 'Comics', 'Holidays'] |
On Both Ends: the Unique Experience of a Virtual Colloquy | On Both Ends: the Unique Experience of a Virtual Colloquy
Hear the experience of a student delegate in the virtual colloquy headed by the English Area. The SEEDS Publication 4 days ago·3 min read
I t started with waiting. Dry runs, extensive reviews, and exhaustive rehearsals had all been completed, and all that was left for the Ateneo Hearter delegation was to wait. The pixel landscape of the virtual meeting only amplified our eagerness, nervousness, and excitement in our anticipation.
Suddenly, by the signal of a teacher, cards with Chinese characters and IDs populated the screen. Immediately after, the meeting was filled with the deafening pitch of microphone feedback. Although awkward, it was the birth of a connection, the bridging of a link. It is moments like these that bear one of the hallmarks of the global world and, in a deeper sense, the human condition of interaction.
This was the start of a three-day event the school’s English Area headed. The goal? A virtual colloquy about conversational English between upper secondary students from our school and St. Aloysius Technical School in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Picture of the Virtual Colloquy (Photo Credit: Therese Napuli)
What was left then was to start and, as stipulated by the program, the Hearter delegation immediately began to converse with the Taiwanese.
Something rather profound and striking happened. With the goal of the colloquy clear in our minds, we spoke with all the fluency we could manage to muster. No words were sliced, no speech was swallowed, no cadence was dropped, and no air was left dead.
This, in the minds of the Hearter delegates, was the very miracle of conversational English: clear and fluent speech modulated and polished to a sparkle, and they expected as much from their counterparts. When the time came for the Taiwanese to respond, though, hesitancy and confusion was very evident in their voice.
This moved the delegation into a scramble, took us by surprise. The event’s administrators had told us that English was a foreign language to them, like Chinese is to us, but we had little idea of their actual proficiency. With the unanticipated delay of comprehension, we sought to be even more engaging and fluent. When conversing with them, ad libs were cautiously put in place to make their responses seem equally sophisticated.
By the start of the second day, before the Taiwanese delegates were to re-enter, we made it a goal to understand the circumstances of our counterparts.
This prompted us to be more concise and slow in our speech and to possess an attitude that was more patient in awaiting their answers. We saw dead air as “processing time” instead and made it a point to engage them in non-verbal games to get to know each other.
From the second day onwards, the colloquy found itself tinged in warm friendliness. It became evident that the strategy of understanding was key in developing a connection. The active mingling of both delegations became significantly more commonplace.
It may not have been evident then, but the decision to change the very en garde atmosphere was a manifestation of what is truly at the very heart of communication.
We have become so engrossed with the impression of distinction brought by impeccable fluency and grammar while failing to realize that communication is an act of connection. It is as reflective as it is logical, and it is as sympathetic as it is cognitive.
We must remember that the success of communicating hinges on the strength of a mutual and inclusive connection. This is especially important when our expressions today have been limited to the bounds of a screen, the shifting of digits, and the display of pixels.
As budding stewards of the constant evolution and breakneck dynamics of our globalizing world, the unique experience of the virtual colloquy proved that reflective connection is paramount in effective communication.
Written by: Dominic Carpio | https://medium.com/@jhsseeds/on-both-ends-the-unique-experience-of-a-virtual-colloquy-e12fc431e7de | ['The Seeds Publication'] | 2021-09-13 07:06:09.981000+00:00 | ['Language', 'Globalization', 'Communication', 'Schools', 'English'] |
The Infuriating Truths behind France’s “Work to Live” Mentality | Years before moving abroad, I’d heard mythical tales about how lazy the French are:
They’re always on strike
They never work more than 35 hours in a week
They take coffee breaks every 15 minutes at work, for at least 30 minutes at a time
Then I moved to France and started an Executive MBA program where I was the only American in the class.
I walked in the door after my first day of class and my loving wife inquired “How was school today?”
“They sure take a lot of coffee breaks,” was my kneejerk response.
Four weeks vacation… only?
Finding myself surrounded by Franco slackers, I decided to take advantage and begin poking around to see if there was any truth to the lazy faire (translation: a play on the word laissé faire — which the French love).
The research experiment all started with a friendly exchange with a buddy back home in The States who was planning to come to visit us with his family.
As is often the case with ex-pats that move abroad to non-war torn countries, there is a tendency for friends, family, and random acquaintances to begin planning visits.
Most of the time, such visits are welcome, occasionally they’re just plain awkward. Given this buddy was a best friend, his visit would be more than welcome. The only thing standing in his way was time, more precisely vacation time.
So, as I’m working away one afternoon, I get a notification via Google Hangouts.
“Big news!!!” was all he said — more than effective bait to pull me away from whatever I was working on.
My buddy next informed me that he’s just negotiated additional PTO (paid time off) with his employer.
“Awesome!!!” Was my genuinely enthusiastic response, “How much do you have now?”
Knowing that I’m now living in the Land of the Free Time, my buddy immediately reigned in my expectations:
“First, know this is the most PTO I’ll ever get, at least with this employer,” he prefaced. “There’s no echelon higher than where I am now.”
“Okay,” I respond, genuinely impressed.
This sounded promising. I knew, after all, that he was a rising star in his company, but I had no idea he was talented enough to merit demigod-status. I brace myself, anticipating the unthinkable.
“Four weeks,” he reported.
Normally I would have considered four weeks an impressive number of vacation days, but for some reason, the number thudded unspectacularly in front of me.
Disturbed by my lackluster response to my buddy’s big announcement, I wondered what had changed in me. It’s not like I had any more vacation time than before.
True, I’m working for an American firm that offers “unlimited vacation time,” but what that translated into was working with my American colleagues on French holidays and working with my European counterparts on American holidays.
It’s hardly what I would have called the supposed French ideal of lazy-faire.
The French Response
The revelation of what has changed begins to take form less than twenty-four hours later, as I’m breaking French bread with a Parisian client over lunch.
“It’s just like August in the office,” she offhandedly remarked. “Nobody’s around and it’s impossible to get anything done.”
“Excuse-moi?” Marveling that she can refer to an entire month to visually represent an empty office, I inquired further.
She explained that French law requires its citizens to use their paid time off, otherwise, it’s lost forever.
“In rare cases, people can negotiate a carry-over,” she explained. “Most people, however, just have to use it up.”
Fortunately, using PTO for the French is as popular a national pastime as not taking PTO in the States.
Just how popular? Check out the nifty graphic below…
According to Statista, “American workers get a raw deal on vacation compared to other developed countries. The U.S. remains the only advanced economy that does not guarantee paid vacation while a statutory minimum is very much the norm everywhere else. …It might then come as a surprise to hear that U.S. workers managed to waste 768 million paid vacation days last year despite their miserable vacation allowance. That’s also a 9 percent increase on the amount wasted in 2017.”
Digging in a little deeper, I began finding differing reports on France’s official minimum annual leave ranging between 25 and 30 days and between 1 and 10 paid holidays.
Seeing as 26 to 40 days of mandatory vacation time seems mythical to my American state-of-mind, I ask my French client her take.
“It’s true,” she confirmed. “Many people have more than five weeks. I have a good friend for example that accumulates an additional two days per month.”
Doing the math quickly, that comes out to about 10 weeks of PTO per year.
I almost choked on the crusted sugar top of my creme brûlée. “Ten weeks of paid vacation?!” That’s two and a half months, which when you add in public holidays means that my French friend’s friend is only required to work 3/4 of the year.
This was more than mythical, it’s outright absurdity ringing in my “Made in the USA” ears.
This might be because, of the 35 member countries that form the OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), which represents the far majority of the world’s most advanced economies, the United States is the only nation that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation.
This means that my best friend, with his MBA and C-level office accommodations, is guaranteed 30 times less paid vacation than the entry-level cashier at my village boulangerie in France.
It’s nuts, but true.
I checked with her just to be sure. She was a student that worked Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays mornings yet was still guaranteed five weeks paid time off.
Unsurprisingly, this type of discrepancy has a major impact on work-life balance. France, with its “Oh la la!” PTO perks, offers its workers a “Top 3” work-life balance ranking within the OECD:
The United States, on the other hand, manages to pull up the backend of the index, sharing a “Worst 10” ranking with countries like Turkey, Mexico, and Latvia (notice Latvia scores higher, BTW):
With the ranking comes a host of other nasty side-effects, as noted by Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business, in his new book Dying for a Paycheck:
“So many of these workplace practices, like work-family conflict and long work hours, are as harmful to health as secondhand smoke, a known and regulated carcinogen… We found that they account for about 120,000 excess deaths a year in the United States, which would make the workplace the fifth leading cause of death and costs about $190 billion dollars in excess health costs a year.”
It’s incredible to imagine that poor workplace policies can result in premature death, but that’s only because in the United States we’ve yet as a culture to develop a clear link between working days, stress, and longevity.
This is by no means a clear example of why the French model is universally superior.
It does, however, point to a willingness to focus on the well-being of the individual over the well-being of the organization, which is something I doubt will take hold in the States any time soon.
In the meantime, if you’re like my buddy Jim, you might consider taking an entry-level cashier position in my French village’s boulangerie.
Here’s my free guide to having a traveler’s mindset even when you’re at home | https://medium.com/mindtrip/the-infuriating-truths-behind-frances-work-to-live-mentality-a80fd13f2e4c | ['Dave Smurthwaite'] | 2020-02-19 17:09:30.815000+00:00 | ['Work Life Balance', 'Self', 'Vacation', 'Travel', 'Productivity'] |
Exercise vs Diet for Weight Loss Treatment | As far as fats consuming, the main thing that we consider is which course to take, would we be able to exercise, or do we start a better eating routine, or will we do a mix of them each? Weight loss treatment in Mumbai conventional suggestion to burning fats is to eat up less and to move more prominent.
There might be a huge number of elements to do to burn fat yet we’re restricted by method for our limited resources including Time and cash. Weight advantage and loss rotate around caloric use and utilization.
Weight loss treatment and best plans
That is the absolute best bearing because of the reality we will be eating other than so we should remove the calories in our dinner. For a great many people cutting, out calories are simpler than consuming them off however what we really need is burn fat and not to lose muscle. While we assume the weight loss plan least difficult way that is actually what occurs, presently not most straightforward will we burn fat but rather we moreover lose muscle as pleasantly.
While the larger part hears “Food Plan” they remember barbecued hen and plate of mixed greens best, be that as it may, that is an extraordinary Food Plan which you most likely might not need to commit yourself to. You may need to attempt an extra adjusted nourishment routine that comprises of extreme fiber and a determination of hues.
The diets with the quickest results are the low diets which influence them to the most renowned, yet they might be difficult to continue. Unfortunately, despite the fact that, the majority of the individuals on a Weight loss treatment in Mumbai program is the most effective program generally tend to gain the lost weight back inside years.
Weight loss treatment Exercising main course
Exercise is an urgent piece of weight decrease, without it, some portion of the weight loss may include muscle loss and no longer just fats loss. The issue with an exercise best arrangement is that you can presumably wind up eating more and as a result putting on additional bothersome weight. Notwithstanding, people that do Exercising frequently will in general hold the heap off for longer than individuals who don’t exercise.
Exercising for only twenty minutes can improve your state of mind for as much as 12 hours and may even help treating people with despondency. Exercise has numerous gifts like decreased pressure and higher rest around evening time. The most basic advantage of exercise is that it will expand the charge at which your edge consumes fat.
Muscle tends to retain considerably less space than fat so notwithstanding the way that you will put on muscle weight you’ll resistant appearance and sense better.
A total of each exercise and dieting
This may be the incredible way to take.
The brilliant issue approximately this exercise strategy is that Weight loss treatment in Mumbai help to supplement one another. The general guideline is that weight loss ought to be 75% nourishment routine and 25% working out. The basic issue to remember is that dieting, as a matter of first importance, permits the method of weight loss anyway exercise empowers to keep the weight off. | https://medium.com/@bodyzwellness081174/exercise-vs-diet-for-weight-loss-treatment-83afcccd7b0e | [] | 2019-11-21 05:45:31.111000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss Treatment', 'Weight Loss Program', 'Weight Loss', 'Mumbai', 'Weight Loss Tips'] |
Top 5 eCommerce Trends to Follow in 2021 | The eCommerce industry has taken a huge step forward in 2020, as this year taught many lessons. All in all, 2020 was an enabling environment for further improvement. And now it’s time to look forward and keep on expanding the eCommerce comfort zone.
Let’s see what tendencies online retailers should necessarily pay attention to in the coming year to be prepared for any eventuality:
Omnichannel business as a new standard.
As different surveys report, companies, which are able to provide their clients with omnichannel experience, manage to retain nearly 89% of their customers.
While companies that don’t focus on omnichannel strategy have customer retention rate of 33%.
Results are evident;
AI and AR as powerful instruments to offer great customer journey.
Digital retailers are going to invest $7,3 billion in Artificial Intelligence by 2022. And over 120 000 eCommerce websites will be using Augmented Reality technologies by 2022.
Artificial Intelligence serves to investigate user behaviour and, applying this information, subsequently treat them individually.
Augmented Reality is one more technological marvel.
As products, offered in online shops, cannot be fully assessed, Augmented Reality’s role is to simplify a process of online-shopping and let users experience digital content just like they experience the real world. Sounds amazing!
Dynamic Pricing Adoption.
Optimal cost determination matters a lot in retail business, as a correctly set price has a straight impact on a company’s profit.
In these cases dynamic pricing software can come to assist, to analyze your competitors pricing scale, market demand and form an optimal cost for your item;
Mobile eCommerce.
Сustomers have started to make online purchases via mobile devices a long time ago, and eCommerce entrepreneurs can’t ignore this fact.
Mobile-friendliness is favored by consumers, so if your website is not mobile-friendly, there is a high probability your client may interrupt his online journey without completing a purchase.
You can check if your online store is responsive enough, using Google Mobile-Friendly Test;
Voice Commerce.
Voice assistant is a new superstar on the eCommerce arena.
Voice commerce sales are expected to reach up to $40 billion by 2022. Give a voice to your business, and it will help not only to make online shopping more convenient, but also to get closer to your target audience.
Chatbots or voice messaging tools is one more opportunity to monitor users’ preferences and time, in which they are engaged the most actively.
To sum up.
All mentioned above methods are indeed efficient to achieve the only goal: to bring your eCommerce business potential into play. | https://medium.com/@dinarys/top-5-ecommerce-trends-to-follow-in-2021-f6d91083f707 | ['Jane Vishnova'] | 2020-12-22 08:57:40.323000+00:00 | ['Ecommerce Trends', 'Web Development', 'Augmented Reality', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Ecommerce'] |
The tactics, routines and habits of billionaires, icons and world-class performers | Book review : TOOLS OF TITANS | The tactics, routines and habits of billionaires, icons and world-class performers Olivier Roland Sep 7·24 min read
Summary of “Tool of Titans: the tactics, routines and habits of billionaires, icons and world-class performers” by Timothy Ferriss: Through a series of interviews with the biggest “winners” on the planet in a variety of fields, Timothy Ferriss reveals the keys to their success. What are their routines and daily habits, their favourite film or book or their biggest investment. What inspires them, what helps them to stay focussed, etc.
By Timothy Ferriss, 2017, 601 pages
Summary and book review of “Tools of Titans” :
Introduction
The origin behind this book was the Tim Ferriss Show
The author, Timothy Ferriss, is best known for his books “The 4-hour workweek” (over 2 million copies sold in 36 countries) and “Tribe of mentors”. He wrote this book after interviewing 200 major international figures.
In fact, Timothy Ferriss began interviewing these worldwide personalities as part of a series of podcasts called the Tim Ferriss Show (it is one of the most downloaded podcasts in the USA).
One day, he decided to bring his archives together to extract the most interesting information, compile it, and turn it into a book. And that is how the book “Tools of Titans” was born.
According to Timothy Ferriss:
This book is much more than an anthology. It is a genuine toolbox that can change your life.
A variety of profiles, all of the icons!
The profiles of the “Titans” that Timothy Ferriss met with are extremely diverse. Among his guests, you will find for example the founder of Twitter, the co-founder of Pixar studios, the superstars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Foxx or Kevin Costner, a genius employee at Google, professional athletes, several successful entrepreneurs, researchers, philosophers, film directors, officers in the marine, investment managers, lecturers, writers, engineers, doctors, neuroscientists, musicians, internet influencers, psychologists, coaches, etc.
This diverse range of profiles makes the book quite an eclectic collection. However, a common point acts as the guiding line. All of these global personalities at the top of their field are leaders, billionaires, icons, talented creatives or world champions. They have all, one way or another, been successful.
The keys to success
In “Tools of Titans”, Timothy Ferriss takes us backstage to meet these “Titans”. As part of the interviews, the personalities will all share the “little secrets” that have led them to success and many other secrets about personal development. In particular, we discover:
Their routines and why they have put them in place,
What, in their mind, is the key to success,
What they consider to be the biggest waste of their time,
The way they spend the first 60 minutes and the last 60 minutes of their day,
What they consider to be their best investment,
Their favorite book and /or the one they often give as a gift,
What inspires them and what they believe in,
Their tips on how to manage their company, stay fit and healthy…
By offering you practical advice that has been tried and tested by the greatest, this book will allow you to revolutionize your daily life to become a Titan yourself.
Note: It is very difficult to summarise this book, because the interviews reveal an enormous quantity of interesting ideas, which are very specific and personal to each of the people interviewed. I have however managed to bring together a certain number of points to make a summary. Despite this, to really get the most out of this book, I highly advise reading it. Then you can fish out what can inspire you personally from among all these tips, advice, and experience.
Part 1 — How to get the most out of this book by Timothy Ferriss
1.1 — Read and reflect in a new state of mind
If you have a project that takes 10 years to achieve, ask yourself why you can’t do it in 6 months.
This is the question that the multi-billionaire Peter Thiel likes to ask himself and other people. Timothy Ferriss puts it in the following way:
What would you do to achieve your 10-year objectives within the next 6 months if there was a gun pointing at your head?
According to Timothy Ferriss, we have to get rid of the “normal” systems that we have put in place in order to answer this question. We have to eliminate all the social norms and rules that we impose upon our lives. In fact, it is truly essential to realize that we can define our own reality from the very start.
The author believes that reading “Tools of Titans” should be the opportunity to reflect upon a number of questions in this new state of mind. He adds:
The world is a goldmine; delve into the minds of other people to unearth hidden treasures. […] This book will offer you an entire arsenal. […] This book is an all-you-can-eat buffet.
To fully appreciate “Tools of Titans”, Timothy Ferriss invites us to skip any passages that do not spark our interest. He insists that the book should be an enjoyable read. He invites us to consider this book like “a guide to choose your own adventure”.
In fact, Timothy Ferriss has one objective: he wants the reader to like 50 %, love 25 % and never forget 10 % of the book.
1.2 — The two principles to keep in mind
In “Tools of Titans”, Timothy Ferriss wants to pass on the following two messages:
Success, whatever definition we give it, is possible if we adopt convictions and good habits that prove to work. According to Timothy Ferriss, there is a shared book of recipes and DNA that we can borrow.
The superheroes that you can think of (your idols, icons, titans, billionaires, etc.) are all imperfect beings who have turned their weaknesses into an advantage. The author says that we are all engaged in a battle but nobody knows it, and the heroes in this book are no different.
We don’t “succeed” because we have no weaknesses; we succeed because we find our strengths and we commit to developing our habits around these strengths.
1.3 — Three concepts that this book will help us to develop
Timothy Ferriss gives us three 3 key tools which, according to him, will open the door to everything else. He mentions an excerpt from the book “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse (recommended reading for many of the personalities interviewed). The protagonist, Siddhartha, is a monk who looks like a beggar and who has no possessions. When he is asked what he has learned and what he can give, he answers: “I can think, be patient and fast.”
So, says Timothy Ferriss, “Tools of Titans” will help us to develop these three concepts:
Think: know the right rules to make a decision and know the right questions to ask yourself and others.
Be patient: be capable of long-term planning. Show endurance and distribute your resources well.
Fast: be capable of resisting difficulty and disaster. Train to become resilient and develop tolerance to suffering.
Part 2 — Who are these “Titans” and what do they tell us?
2.1 — The three major groups of guests, as sorted by Timothy Ferriss
The chapters in the book “Tools of Titans” are inter-dependent, which means that reading the book is not necessarily linear.
The book is split into three main parts. These parts correspond to three “categories” into which the author has grouped his guests:
The Healthy: athletes, high-level sportsmen and women, explorers of the extreme
The Wealthy: billionaires, celebrities, successful entrepreneurs
The Wise (or Smart): artists, stars, teachers, producers, influencers who have created their own success
The author suggests the following in terms of the three categories:
Imagine the three parts like a tripod on which life is balanced. You need to have all three to guarantee success or lasting happiness.
Timothy Ferriss once again insists that none of the talented people he interviewed have “superpowers”. They have simply established rules that allow them to (slightly) deform reality. These “rules” represent the “tools” mentioned in the title. They are generally habits, often original habits, and deep thought processes:
these “tools” have a vast definition in the book. They can be habits, reading material, self-persuasion, food supplements, questions that come up regularly, and much more.
2.2 — The list of people interviewed by Timothy Ferriss
Below is the list of guests of Timothy Ferriss mentions in his book “Tools of Titans”. Each personality appears in the category that he or she represents.
Most of the personalities have more than one hat. Sometimes it is difficult to boil them down to just a few disciplines.
The healthy
Amelia Boone — top athlete (obstacle course)
Dr. Rhonda Perciavalle Patrick — doctor
Christopher Sommer — gymnastics coach
Dr. Dominic D’Agostino — lecturer in pharmacology and molecular physics, scientific researcher
Joe De Sena — extreme sportsman, CEO, entrepreneur
Wim Hof, the “Ice Man” — extreme sportsman (temperatures, altitudes)
Jason Nemer — high-level sportsman (acrobatics)
Dr. Peter Attia — surgeon, researcher, athlete
Pavel Tsatsouline — trainer in the special forces, entrepreneur
Laird Hamilton — professional surfer
Gabrielle Reece — high-level sportswoman (volley-ball), model
Brian MacKenzie — entrepreneur (sport)
Kelly Starrett — high-level athlete
Paul Levesque (Triple H) — wrestler, entrepreneur
Jane McGonigal — researcher, innovator
Adam Gazzaley — doctor in cognitive neuroscience, laboratory director, scientific advisor
Chade-Meng “Meng” Tan — engineer, trainer (full consciousness, emotional intelligence), best-selling author
The wealthy
Chris Sacca — investor
Marc Andreessen — entrepreneur
Arnold Schwarzenegger — bodybuilder, actor, politician
Derek Sivers — lecturer, entrepreneur, professional musician
Alexis Ohanian — entrepreneur, investor, advisor to start-ups
Matt Mullenweg — internet influencer, developer
Nicholas McCarthy — pianist
Tony Robbins — performance coach, essay writer, author in professional development
— performance coach, essay writer, author in professional development Morgan Spurlock — documentary filmmaker, director, producer
Reid Hoffman — entrepreneur, investor
Seth Godin — author of best-sellers
— author of best-sellers James Altucher — American capital-risk investor, entrepreneur and best selling author.
Shaun White — snowboarder and professional skater.
Chase Jarvis — CEO and photographer
Dan Carlin — podcaster and political commentator
Ramit Sethi — blogger and entrepreneur
Ed Catmull — entrepreneur, CEO, computer engineer
Tracy DiNunzio — entrepreneur
Chris Young — handyman, inventor, experimental chef, CEO
Daymond John — CEO, entrepreneur, author, TV personality
Luis von Ahn — computer professor, CEO
Ryan Holiday — marketing strategist, author
Kevin Rose — shareholder (start-ups)
Neil Strauss — writer, editor, journalist
Mike Shinoda — rapper, songwriter, synthesizer and rhythmic guitar musician, singer
Justin Boreta — artist (music)
Dr. Peter H. Diamandis — entrepreneur (field of space)
Sophia Amoruso — entrepreneur in distribution
B.J. Novak — actor, screenwriter, director, producer, author, entrepreneur
The wise
B.J. Miller — doctor in palliative care and consultant/expert (on the subject of end of life)
Maria Popova — author
Jocko Willink — US Navy SEAL officer
Sebastian Junger — author
Marc Goodman — advisor and police and technology agent (FBI, Interpol, Institute of Future Crimes)
Samy Kamkar — hacker
General Stanley McChrystal — 4 star general in the American army
Chris Fussell — US Navy SEAL officer
Shay Carl — internet personality and entrepreneur
Will MacAskill — lecturer
Kevin Costner — filmmaker
Sam Harris — philosopher, doctor in neuroscience, author
Caroline Paul — author and high-level athlete
Kevin Kelly — maverick
Whitney Cummings — comedian, actor, author, producer
Alain de Botton — philosopher
Tim Kreider — essayist, cartoonist
Cal Fussman — author, chronicler
Rick Rubin — music producer
Jack Dorsey — entrepreneur, CEO
Paulo Coelho — writer
Cheryl Strayed — author
Ed Cooke — CEO, a specialist in memory
Seth Rogen — actor, screenwriter, producer, director
Evan Goldberg — director, screenwriter, producer
Andrew Zimmern — TV personality, chef, writer, teacher
Rainn Wilson — actor
Naval Ravikant — CEO, entrepreneur, investor
Glenn Beck — internet personality and entrepreneur
Tara Brach — clinical psychologist, teacher of Buddhism
Sam Kass — chef, advisor in nutrition
Richard Betts — wine steward
Mike Birbiglia — comedian, screenwriter, actor, director
Malcolm Gladwell — best-selling author, podcaster
Stephan J. Dubner — author, journalist, radio and TV presenter
Josh Waitzkin — professional chess player
Brené Brown — professor and researcher in human science
Jon Favreau — actor, screenwriter, director, producer
Jamie Foxx — actor, musician, comedian
Sekou Andrews — poet, slammer, singer
2.3 — The questions that Timothy Ferriss asked the “Titans”
Timothy Ferriss has a list of questions that he likes to ask his guests without giving them time to prepare. The answers to all these questions is what we can find in “Tools of Titans”.
The most frequent questions are the following:
If you were sitting next to a Nobel prize-winner or a billionaire, what questions would you ask them?
If they only had five minutes to give you, how would you make the most of them?
According to you, who best embodies the word “success” and why?
Are you convinced of something that everyone else considers to be crazy?
What books do you like to give?
Which one is your favorite film or documentary?
The best investment under $100 that changed your life in the last 6 months?
What are your morning rituals? How do you spend the first 60 minutes of the day?
The obsessions do you analyze in the evening or at the weekend?
The subject would you like to tackle that is outside your area of expertise if you had to give a TED talk?
What is your best investment (time, money, effort, or other)?
Is there a maxim that governs your life or that you think of often?
The worst advice that you ever heard in your area of business?
What would you put on a poster?
Thr advice would you give your 20, 25 or 30-year-old self? What were you doing back then?
How did a failure set you on the path to success? What is your favorite failure?
Does anything strange or uncomfortable happen to you regularly?
Over the last few years, have you changed your mind about anything and why?
Is there something that you are convinced about, even if you have no proof?
2.4 — The books of the “Titans”
In his interviews, Timothy Ferriss asks his guests about what books they would recommend or give to someone. In fact, several of his guests gave him books as gifts. Other books also came up in their discussions.
Below is the list of the top 17 books — all were mentioned at least three times — by decreasing order of frequency:
“Tao Te King”, by Lao-Tseu (5 mentions) Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand (4 mentions) Sapiens: a brief history of humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari (4 mentions) Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (4 mentions) The 4 Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss (4 mentions) The checklist manifesto by Atul Gawande (4 mentions) Dune by Frank Herbert (3 mentions) Influence: science and practice by Robert Cialdini (3 mentions) Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (3 mentions) Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom (3 mentions) “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman (3 mentions) The 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferriss (3 mentions) The Bible (3 mentions) The hard thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz (3 mentions) The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (3 mentions) Watchmen by Alan Moore (3 mentions) Zero to One by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters (3 mentions)
Part 3 — The tips that Timothy Ferriss borrowed from the Titans
Borrow copiously, combine this with originality and create your own master plan.
3.1 — Eight recurrent forms of behavior among winners
Timothy Ferriss lists eight practices that he repeatedly found among the major personalities he interviewed.
Most of those interviewed:
Practice a form of full consciousness or meditation on a daily basis (more than 80%);
Never take breakfast or only eat a small portion (especially the men over 45);
Sleep on a cooling mattress topper;
Love books, among others: Sapiens, Poor Charlie’s Almanack, Influence and Man’s Search for Meaning:
Are in the habit of listening to a song on a loop in order to focus;
Have carried out some form of “speculative work” (completed a project in their spare time at their own expense before putting it to an eventual buyer);
Are convinced that “failure doesn’t last”;
Have succeeded in turning a “weakness” into a great advantage.
3.2 — Five tools for better and faster sleep
Among all the habits of the “Titans”, below are the ones that Timothy Ferriss adopted to help him to sleep better.
They form a ritual that you need to put into place before bed. It lasts between 1 hour and 90 minutes.
Perform some AcroYoga movements to stretch the spinal column;
Sleep on a cooling mattress topper. It must be thin and barely perceptible under the sheet. There should be water inside it at a precise temperature selected using a device located near the bed;
Drink cider vinegar with honey (add 1 tablespoon of honey to 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar mixed with 250 ml of water) or caramel herbal tea or herbal tea with Californian poppy seed extract;
Perform visual rewriting or play a game of Tetris for ten minutes or watch a short program on tv that puts you in a good mood;
Wear a sleep mask and earplugs or use a white noise therapeutic device.
3.3 — Five morning rituals that help you win the day
Timothy Ferriss was inspired by the “Titans” not only to implement his evening ritual, but also a morning ritual. Below are five things that he tries to do every morning to set his day on the right track to succeed. This morning routine takes between 1 hour and 90 minutes.
Timothy Ferriss explains:
You may think that these are just details, but remember that the details are what matters.
Make your bed (< 3 minutes)
Meditate (10 to 20 minutes)
At least 80 % of the personalities interviewed for “Tools of Titans” practice some form of daily meditation. Timothy Ferriss also reads a few pages from the Stoics, such as “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius.
Do 5 to 10 sets of exercises (< 1 minute)
Prepare and drink a “titanium tea” (2 to 3 minutes): the author recommends aged pu-erh black tea or green tea, turmeric and ginger shavings, and 1 or 2 tablespoons of coconut oil.
Write your morning journal (5 to 10 minutes): the morning pages are mainly to unblock a situation or resolve a problem (what should I do?); the journal is to prioritize and express recognition (what should I focus on and how should I do it?).
3.4 — Five steps for mind training
More than 80 % of the big talents that Timothy Ferriss met practice a form of meditation or full consciousness every day. It involves “cultivating a state of consciousness that helps you to be non-reactive”. This is the most common practice that can be noted among the “Titans”.
To get into the habit of meditation, Timothy Ferriss advises:
Using an application such as Headspace or Calm;
Listening to a guided meditation by Sam Harris, Tara Brach or Maria Popova;
Taking classes in transcendental meditation.
If you prefer to try meditation with a mantra without taking a class, try this. Sit and silently repeat a word of two syllables (Timothy Ferriss chose the word “nature”) for 10 to 20 minutes as soon as you wake up.
Try one or several of the exercises suggested by Chade-Meng Tan.
You need to practice meditation for at least 7 days for it to be effective. According to the Dalai Lama, you need to meditate for “approximately 50 hours” to get results. According to several studies, simply “sitting” for a cumulative period of 100 minutes is sufficient.
For Timothy Ferriss, meditating improves productivity and reduces stress:
When I meditate regularly, my reward is that I do 30 to 50% more with my day and feel 50% less stress.
If you encounter difficulties sticking with meditation, Timothy Ferriss proposes three tips that make it easy to do on a daily basis over the long term. These tips are in fact from Chade-Meng Tan, the man who introduced Full Consciousness to Google:
Find a companion;
Do less than you can;
Do not practice for too long, so it does not feel like an obligation;
Commit to just one conscious breath per day.
3.5 — Eight productivity tips
Timothy Ferriss confesses that he is “useless at efficiency”
So, he took some lessons from the “Titans” he interviewed to create an 8-step method. The goal is to optimize efficiency (= do things right):
Get up one hour before you sit down in front of a computer screen.
Make a cup of tea and sit down with a pen and a sheet of paper.
Write down three to five things (no more) that make you anxious or uncomfortable. These are the things that we put off day after day on the list of things to do. In general, the most painful task is also the most important.
For each point, ask yourself:
“If I only do this today, will I be satisfied with my day?”,
“And If I begin with this, does it minimize the importance of other tasks or facilitate performing them?”,
“And If I do this, will everything else be easier or meaningless?”
Only consider the points to which the answer was “yes” to at least one of these questions.
Devote two or three hours to just one of these tasks. Put the other urgent things that are less important to one side. You will get to them tomorrow.
If you get distracted or start procrastinating, do not let your thoughts wander. Focus on the one task ahead of you.
Finally, if despite your best efforts you feel that you are losing your footing in life, it is good to remember that this happens even to the best of the best:
Do not overestimate other people and do not underestimate yourself. You are better than you think. Above all, you are not alone in this.
3.6 — Eight tactics for dealing with haters
Life is a combat sport, especially on the Internet. If you decide to climb into the arena, be prepared to get a bloody nose and scratches.
Over the course of his meetings with the “Titans”, Timothy Ferriss gathered their ideas about how to deal with haters.
Here they are:
It doesn’t matter how many people do not understand us. What counts is how many people understand us.
10% of people always find a way to feel like they are being targeted. We need to be conscious of this and take it on board in our calculations.
When you face the critics, it is important to be in control of yourself. The best thing is to cut off their oxygen, in other words, to ignore them. Tim Ferriss explains that in some cases, although they are rare, it can be useful to throw some oil on the fire, to promote them.
If you do confront them, do not be apologetic.
It is impossible to make somebody who has launched an unreasonable attack see reason.
Finally, Timothy Ferriss shares three other thoughts using three quotations:
“Wanting to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity. You’ll avoid the tough decisions and confronting the people who need to be confronted.” Colin Powell
“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.” Epictetus
“Living well is the best revenge.” George Herbert
3.7 — Keep a journal
History is teeming with examples of people, whether successful or not, who kept a journal. From Marcus Aurelius to Benjamin Franklin, from Mark Twain to George Lucas.
Timothy Ferriss tells us that he writes in a journal every morning. He does not keep the journal to be “productive”, nor is it to jot down big ideas or prose to publish later. No, the pages are just for him.
The morning pages are, as Julia Cameron said, “spiritual windscreen wipers”. It is the most profitable form of therapy I know. She adds: Once you have jotted down all these muddy, infuriating, confusing thoughts [vague worries, irritations, concerns] down on paper, you can face the day under better circumstances.
As Timothy Ferriss learned, it is not about writing well, it is about considering writing to be a tool. He finds that there are big benefits in writing things down, even if nobody is ever going to read them again. In fact, the morning pages are not about solving problems but about getting them out of our heads. Otherwise, they turn on a loop all day like bullets ricocheting around our skull.”
In other words, the process [of writing] is more important than the result.
To end this topic, Timothy Ferriss writes:
Will all this grumbling and complaining on paper for five minutes every morning change your life? As strange as it may seem, I think that the answer is yes.
Part 4 — The best tools we can learn from the “Titans”
I have mentioned here some of the tools that we can take from the mentors in “Tools of Titans.” The pages of the book are brimming with ideas waiting to be discovered and put into practice to develop personally and professionally. The author highlights lots of tips and concepts, such as the ice bath or the slow carb diet and nutritional ketosis. You could also choose two people a day at random and wish them happiness or make your emails more human, etc.
However, the strategies described below are the ones that Timothy Ferriss took one step further.
4.1 — The law of categories
Lots of computer companies have become rich and famous by following a very simple principle:
If you cannot be number one in a category, create a new category where you will be number one.
That is why, when you launch a new product, the first question to ask is not: “How is this new product better than the competition?”. The real question is: “First in what?”, or in other words: “In what category will this new product be number one?”
The author also stresses that if we are number one in a category, we need to promote that category because then there will be no competition.
4.2 — The strategy of the 1,000 True Fans
“Success” is not necessarily complicated. Simply begin by making 1,000 people really happy.” “1,000 true fans”, by Kevin Kelly
1,000 fans is feasible!
By definition, a true fan is an unconditional who buys everything you bring out. That is why there are two criteria to fulfill for this strategy:
First of all, create enough, each year, to be able to make an average profit of $100 per true fan. It is always easier and more beneficial to offer more to the customers you already have than to find new fans.
Then, maintain a direct relationship with your fans. In other words, when you make a sale, they must pay you directly.
Having 1,000 customers (more or less, it is a guideline that can be adapted on a case by case basis) is an easy to achieve goal:
1,000 fans is feasible! You could even manage to remember 1,000 names. If you win over one true fan per day, it will only take you a few years to get 1,000. Satisfying a true fan is both enjoyable and motivating. Artists can remain faithful to themselves and can focus more on the original side of their work, the qualities that fans appreciate.
Your fans: the biggest marketing force
By focusing on the unconditional in priority, their enthusiasm can increase our regular clientele. True fans are not our only direct source of income. They are also our strongest marketing force for our ordinary customers.
The principle of the “long tail”
The 1,000 fans strategy meets what Chris Anderson called “the long tail”. He found that the total sales of all products which had the poorest sales could match and sometimes exceed the sales of the products which sold best. Basically, the sales volume of the “tail” was identical to that of the “head”.
Crowdfunding
This is one of the many innovations that work for creatives because it is a win-win situation.
There are around 2,000 crowdfunding platforms in the world and many of them specialize. The most well-known crowdfunding platform is Kickstarter. When you consider that the average number of contributors to the success of a Kickstarter project is 290 (therefore much less than 1,000), it is very wise, as you have 1,000 diehard fans, to launch a crowdfunding campaign. By definition, a true fan will become a Kickstarter contributor.
4.3 — The Dickens process
The Dickens process is so-called because it relates to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. In the Dickens process, we are led to examine our strong convictions (two or three convictions that are holding us back) in the past, present, and future. After feeling the pain of the convictions that hold us back, the idea is to create two or three replacement convictions to move forward.
4.4 — Dramatise fear in 4 steps
Here Timothy Ferriss promises an antidote to anyone anxious at the idea of making the big leap or anyone who keeps putting things off for fear of the unknown.
This antidote involves the following 4 steps, namely:
Define the worst thing that can happen:
Imagine your worst nightmare. Imagine the worst thing that could happen if you do what you intend to do, and then ask:
Will it be the end of my life?
What will be the permanent impact, if the worst happens, on a scale of 1 to 10?
What measures can I take to repair the damage or set things right, even on a temporary basis?
Assess all the probabilities:
What are the results or benefits, both temporary and permanent, of the most likely scenarios?
Which are the most probable or positive results, whether inside us (self-confidence, self-esteem, etc.) or outside us?
What would be the impact of these likely results on a scale of 1 to 10?
How much is the probability of getting the correct result?
Have less intelligent people tried this already and succeeded?
If I got fired today, what would I do to get by financially?
If I leave my job to take a new path, how could I pick up the thread of my career if this became necessary?
What do we put off out of fear?
Accept the worst-case scenarios and answer the following questions:
What does it cost me financially, emotionally, and physically to procrastinate?
If I do not do what I want (inaction), where will I be in 1 year, in 5 years, in 10 years? What will it feel like if I let 10 years go by allowing circumstances to decide my fate and doing something that does not let me thrive?
What am I waiting for? If you have a hard time answering that question without bringing up the phrase “It’s not a good time”, the answer is obvious. You are afraid, like everyone else.
Act:
Finally, you need to evaluate the cost of inaction, to get it into your head that most of these wrong steps are unlikely, and no doubt repairable. Get into the essential habit of successful people and TAKE ACTION!
4.5 — Test the ‘impossible’ with 17 life-changing questions
What if I did the opposite for 48 hours?
What do I spend a ridiculous amount of money on? How do I scratch that itch?
What would I do/have/be if I had 10 million dollars? How much money is my target monthly income?
What is the worst that can happen? Could I turn back?
If I only worked 2 hours a week, what would be my priorities?
What if I let my staff take decisions by themselves if it is about $100? $500? $1,000?
What is the least overloaded network?
And what if I couldn’t make a pitch for my product?
And what if I created my own MBA in the real world?
Do I always have to fall on my feet?
What if I can only solve a problem by subtracting?
What can I put into place to be able to disappear for 4 to 8 weeks without telephone or email?
Do I hunt antelope or field mouse?
Is it possible that everything will turn out all right?
How would things be if they were easy?
How can I “waste” money to improve my quality of life?
No rush, no breaks.
4.6 — On the usefulness of “de-loading”
For Timothy Ferriss, de-loading periods must be planned and defended even more strongly than any job commitment. According to him, de-loading can strengthen and guide your work, but this does not work both ways.
You must create your own “quiet time”. Nobody is going to give it to you. It is the only way to move forward with the current without getting exhausted.
4.7 — The jar of awesome
Look for the positive. Train yourself to see the bright side of things and you will see them more often.
Put a Jar of Awesome label on a jar. The author invites us to write down anything nice that happens during the day, something exciting or that makes us happy. Put the paper in the jar.
The jar of awesome keeps a record of all the nice things that genuinely happened. We tend to forget them when we are feeling down or have a case of the blues.
4.8 — Films, documentaries and series to watch
Timothy Ferriss compiles a long list of documentaries and series recommended during his discussions with the “Titans”.
He also mentions the 25 most popular episodes of the Tim Ferriss Show.
Book critique of “Tools of Titans” by Timothy Ferriss
A goldmine of information
“Tools of Titans” is a veritable gold mine if you want to make a change in your life!
Among all the books on personal development, I find it special because it brings together an enormous amount of information. That is why you should not really read it straight through, but consult it regularly, opening random pages.
A very comprehensive book
The book is a compilation of interviews conducted by Tim Ferriss which:
Tackle many areas: personal development, health, starting a business, investments, etc.
Bring together the visions of extremely diverse and inspiring profiles. It is interesting but also rare to be able to get an insight into the minds of so many successful people in a single book. In the end, we realise that their strength lies in general in one little detail, but a detail that changes everything. The detail that will really make the difference: a habit, a way of life, a state of mind.
Is full of inspiring quotes, websites, and references of all kinds that we can use to take things further.
You may be interested to know that I was lucky enough to write the preface to “Les outils des géants”, the French translation of the book. The link is to my article about that.
It goes without saying that I highly recommend this book!
Strong Points:
The originality and the relevance of the questions that the author asks his guests. The idea, throughout the book, that it is vital to change your mindset to succeed.
The depth, the diversity and the relevance of the information;
Discovering inspiring personalities and the rare opportunity to benefit from the vision of so many incredibly successful individuals from various fields in a single book;
Weak point:
The structure of the book sometimes lacks coherence and we cannot always tell whether the author is speaking or whether it is one of his guests.
My rating :
Have you read “Tools of Titans”? How do you rate it?
Read more reviews on Amazon about “Tools of Titans”
Buy on Amazon “Tools of Titans” | https://medium.com/@olivierrolanden/book-review-tools-of-titans-the-tactics-routines-and-habits-of-billionaires-icons-and-813bad79e96e | ['Olivier Roland'] | 2021-09-07 15:01:20.653000+00:00 | ['Timothy Ferriss', 'Tools Of Titans', 'Habits', 'Book Review', 'Routine'] |
To Overcome Your Insecurities, Understand Where They Come From | To Overcome Your Insecurities, Understand Where They Come From
A crash course in eliminating negative thoughts.
Photo by Charnee May on Unsplash
I used to feel insecure all the time. I was frequently worried that everyone would judge me for the insecurities I saw in myself. Honestly, I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror because I always felt embarrassed.
Looking back, I realize that I allowed negative thoughts to get to my head. I let my insecurities control my mindset and prevent me from living a genuinely happy life.
I felt hopeless. But one day, I learned that the best way to overcome your insecurities is to understand where they come from. Because once you can identify why they exist, it’s much easier to prevent them from affecting you in the future. Quoting an article published by VeryWellMind:
“When you start confronting your negative views, you can begin to notice how many of them are not true in your life. Instead of assuming the worst, you may realize that you feel disappointed you did not reach a certain goal, but also accept that you are learning and growing from your mistakes and setbacks.”
From this, I learned that your mindset will never improve until you take action. Why? Because the only person who can control your thoughts is you. Which means you have the power to prevent them from negatively impacting your life in the future.
Here’s how: | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/to-overcome-your-insecurities-understand-where-they-come-from-10e73345fd56 | ['Matt Lillywhite'] | 2020-11-30 15:02:48.351000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Anxiety', 'Psychology'] |
Hearing from Hillary | Terry H. Schwadron
Oct. 20, 2019
Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t it time for Hillary Clinton to step back from the fray?
Rather than jumping in with unasked political commentary that mostly suggest she would have been a better president, or occasionally floating the notion that she could be drafted to run again or offering rude remarks about fellow Democrats, wouldn’t it be better if she could serve as a wise, quiet elder to others about things they might face?
Over just the last week or so, Hillary has been back on the various talk shows with daughter Chelsea to promote a book on resilient women, her email scandals have been raised anew by a State Department review that years later basically found little seriously wrong but criticized 38 former State employees, and popped off on a podcast about Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who was not named, being groomed as a Russian asset to ruin another Democrat’s day as a third-party candidate.
Has Hillary forgotten that she lost the election three years ago, and that we have moved on?
There is something in our society about having to regard people we seek to hire as government managers, even presidents, as something more than workers. We regard these “leaders” as having sway over our culture and values as well as managing our public monies and conducting foreign affairs.
Perhaps Donald Trump will cure us of such lofty ideals from the Oval Office, since he has been so trashing these values.
But Hillary sees herself of the pre-Trump world, in which her own self-worth is to be matched by an ultimate deference to her insistence on the righteousness of her views.
I think Hillary does have a lot to offer the country and particularly to many of the 20-plus Democratic presidential candidates who seem shy of foreign experience and expertise. But to me, this is a lot more in the mode of a Madeleine Albright making herself available as an adviser about foreign policy and context than it does as a would-be candidate who seems to be treating herself as a victim of Russian plots.
I found myself cringing this week with news of the dual Clinton authors at a Sunday Times of London interview at which Hillary was slow to acknowledge transgender identity. The mother-daughter duo were asked if someone with a beard and penis can ever identify as female: Chelsea said yes, and Hillary, well, Hillary said it would take a lot more time for her to be comfortable with transgenders.
And I found myself cringing again as Hillary attacked Gabbard, even though I find Gabbard pretty well outside my own ideas of good leadership.
As a result, we have Gabbard, a Hindu Hawaiian congresswoman who is a major in the Army National Guard, stepping up to fling mud back at Clinton as “queen of warmongers,” the source of rot within the Democratic Party, and blaming Clinton for orchestrating recent smears against her in the mainstream media.
Nice. This ought to help Democrats in the 2020 election.
Clinton was clear that 2016 Green Party candidate Jill Stein was promoted as a third-party candidate by Russians interested drawing votes away from Clinton, making Trump’s victory more possible (Stein says, no way). Now, she says, the Russians are eyeing Gabbard much in the same manner.
For sure, Gabbard is an odd duck among the Democratic candidates. She has visited Syrian President Hassan Assad, for example, rather than the more accepted view of seeing him as a sworn enemy. As a military person, she is the most vocal about avoiding international conflicts, and is dead-set against what she sees as regime change.
Curiously, as The New York Times has reported, among others, Gabbard has drawn a more-than-casual number of positive mentions from white nationalists, anti-Semites, and Russians. The Times had reported that 4chan, the notoriously toxic online message board, where some right-wing trolls and anti-Semites fawn over Gabbard, praising her willingness to criticize Israel. In April, the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website, took credit for Gabbard’s qualification for the first two Democratic primary debates. Brian Levin, the head of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino, said Ms. Gabbard had “the seal of approval” within white nationalist circles.
Still, Gabbard hovers around 2% of support in public polls.
But it hardly seems up to Hillary Clinton to decide who will be the Democrat to face Trump or a variety of other pressing problems.
##
www.terryschwadron.wordpress.com | https://medium.com/@terryschwadron/hearing-from-hillary-ee9b968a0c0 | ['Terry Schwadron'] | 2019-10-20 12:02:22.704000+00:00 | ['Hillary Clinton', 'Tulsi Gabbard', 'Russia', 'Politics', 'Foreign Policy'] |
Predicted Ghost Ads: An accurate and cost-effective method for measuring incrementality | Uncovering issues with PSA-based incrementality testing
There are many issues with the traditional method for incrementality testing which advertisers should keep in mind. First, in order to achieve statistical significance, the advertiser needs a significantly large control group. Since advertisers are paying for both the ads served in their campaign as well as the PSA ads served to the control group, this can be added cost which advertisers are unwilling to take on. Second, PSA-based incrementality testing becomes inaccurate when advertisers use performance-optimizing computer algorithms to deliver ads. This is because the algorithms will target the PSA ads in control to people who are more likely to interact with the PSA ad. This population is most likely not the same population who is interested in the ads launched by the test campaign.
Predicted Ghost Ads: Why is it better?
There is another method advertisers should consider when executing incrementality testing: Predicted Ghost Ads. Predicted Ghost Ads [1] offers a couple of major advantages that are attractive and beneficial to advertisers:
Entire budget is available for advertiser’s ads: The Predicted Ghost Ads method doesn’t serve ads to the control set at all, meaning that there is no cost to measure control responses. Once a would-be-bid in the control set is recorded, an alternate ad can be served in place of the campaign in test, thus not losing the bidding opportunity.
The Predicted Ghost Ads method doesn’t serve ads to the control set at all, meaning that there is no cost to measure control responses. Once a would-be-bid in the control set is recorded, an alternate ad can be served in place of the campaign in test, thus not losing the bidding opportunity. Works on performance-optimized campaigns: In campaigns which optimize towards a certain audience, PSAs might fail due to the targeting algorithm being biased toward a different audience profile. Predicted Ghost Ads would be immune to this issue.
Predicted Ghost Ads: How does it work?
The Predicted Ghost Ads method doesn’t serve ads to the control group at all; it simply records all bids which would have been served. One of the core functions of this methodology is choosing a set of bids as “would-be-impressions”, from the recorded control group bids. This is achieved using a simulated auction (see Section 4 in [1]). At dataxu, this simulated auction is implemented by training a recall-optimized machine-learning model on the bid and impression data from the treatment group. A recall-optimized model focuses on making sure that a majority of the impressions are predicted correctly rather than purely the accuracy with which it predicts the impressions and non-impressions. By “recalling” most impressions in this way, it helps the test capture more conversions within the relevant population in treatment and control, and in turn helps achieve significance.
Figure 1 shows a flow chart of the predicted ghost ads process. (1) As bid opportunities arrive from exchanges, the flights in the test campaign bid on the dataxu internal auction according to recommendations based on the dataxu bidding engine. If the flight wins, the ID relevant to the bid opportunity (either at cookie level or household level) is marked as falling in either the treatment or control group by leveraging a hashing function. The hashing function ensures that an ID which reappears will always be marked to the same group. (2) If in treatment, the ad is served. Both bids and actual impressions are recorded. If in control, the bid is recorded but the ad is not served. (3) A machine-learning model is then created using the treatment bid and impression data to predict impressions with high recall. (4) This model is run on the recorded bids from both treatment and control in order to obtain predicted impressions in both sets. Any small errors in the model will be shared by both groups and thus a fair comparison is achieved. (5) Actual conversion events within the predicted treatment and control impressions is calculated. (6) The lift is calculated across these conversion events. It is then scaled by the probability that a predicted impression is an actual impression, which is calculated using the treatment data.
Figure 1: Predicted ghost ads as implemented at dataxu
Results
Table 1 shows preliminary results for a campaign in test. We use a two-proportion z-test to compare the conversion rates in treatment and control. A small p-value (typically p < 0.05) indicates strong evidence against the null hypothesis, which in this case is the conversion rates being equal.
The results show Tactic 2 to be performing well in treatment while a significant lift is not observed in Tactic 1 (see Figure 2). This suggests that Tactic 1 should be tuned up and retested or its budget could be diverted to the more successful Tactic 2.
Table 1: Predicted Ghost Ads preliminary results for a campaign in test
Figure 2: Difference in Conversion Rates in Treatment and Control for each tactic
Overall, using the Predicted Ghost Ads methodology over the traditional PSA-based incrementality test allows the advertiser to measure incrementality for their campaigns in a more accurate and cost-effective manner. The implementation of this tool expands the state-of-the-art in the dataxu A/B testing framework and, as always, enables more accurate and data-driven decision-making for advertisers using the platform. If you’re interested in learning more about this methodology, reach out to your dataxu representative.
References
[1] Johnson et al. 2015 | https://medium.com/dataxutech/predicted-ghost-ads-an-accurate-and-cost-effective-method-for-advertisers-to-measure-ad0068b4da1 | ['Charith Peris'] | 2018-12-08 17:06:15.291000+00:00 | ['Ab Testing', 'Machine Learning', 'Advertising', 'Statistics'] |
Happy Mirror After | Photo by Jacalyn Beales on Unsplash
Charlotte threw open the tower window. A chill wind whistled through and she shivered. She wrapped her thick cloak tight, thankful for the expensive wool dress and thick stockings beneath.
She peered out the window, inducing mild vertigo. Dare she do it? The ground must be a hundred feet down. Her betrothed’s wrinkled old face floated into mind, and she curled her lips. It had been so kind of Cinderella to arrange for her to marry a wealthy lord — who wouldn’t want to marry a sycophantic fool in his seventieth year? Dear Mama kept telling her to focus on the fact that he was a wealthy old sycophant, but coins don’t keep you warm at night. She hoisted herself onto the windowsill and swung one leg over, fear forgotten.
Charlotte grasped the thick leaves bordering the window and slowly lowered herself out. The centuries-old ivy would hold — she’d seen the errand boy use it enough times. Just don’t look down. She focused on lowering her feet onto firm vines and slowly started to climb down the castle wall.
To distract herself, she tried to pinpoint the moment it all turned sour. Yes, she’d been a bit mean to Cinderella. But housework never hurt anyone. If anything, it taught Cinders that beauty and charm don’t always get you what you want. As the youngest, Cinders wasn’t entitled to go to that wretched ball anyway. Everyone knew it wasn’t a good idea to have the younger sisters out in company before the elder were married. Lucia was lucky Charlotte hadn’t kicked up a fuss about her going, too. Cinderella just took it all the wrong way.
And now, Cinders was marrying the prince, solely because she had pretty feet. It was all very well for those in this life who were beautiful from head to toe. They had it easy.
For one nasty moment, Charlotte’s foot dangled in midair. Sweat slicked her palms and she gasped. A gust of wind whipped around — but her foot got hold of a branch. Shuddering, she pressed against the wall and squinted down. Halfway. You can do it. She took a deep breath and continued the descent.
Cinderella hadn’t had to hear those whispers all her life. Ugly. Homely. Plain. Even her own mother said Charlotte had a stately Roman nose — and let’s face it, that just meant big. Couldn’t Cinders let Charlotte enjoy the little time she’d get in the spotlight without being compared to her youngest, most beautiful, sister? Obviously not.
Her next glance revealed the ground only a few feet below. Relieved, she navigated the final branches to land safely on the ground. Running away was extreme, even she admitted that. No other opportunity had presented itself, though. Cinderella refused an audience with her. Her mother wanted the nuptials desperately. Even Lucia had deserted her — probably because her choice of husband was significantly less repulsive.
The tower she’d climbed down lay at the rear of the castle. It would be a simple task to run lightly across the lawns and disappear into the thick surrounding forest. A servant had been posted outside Charlotte’s door to monitor her moves, but no one thought she’d escape out the window.
She reached the edge of the forest, holding her skirts above her ankles to ease her passage through the long grass. In the moonless night, the castle simply appeared as a black shadow against a black sky, tiny lights flickering in windows. Cold tendrils clutched her heart as she viewed the height she’d climbed. If she’d slipped, she’d be lying dead at the base now.
Charlotte smothered a derisive laugh. It was stupid to be afraid now she’d escaped. She turned and walked into the forest. Travel was hard in the dark, and she hadn’t been able to obtain any kind of light. After an hour of fighting through undergrowth, nearly smacking herself on an overhead branch, and tripping on roots, she gave up. She crawled into the middle of some heavy ferns and wrapped herself up in her cloak. The cold and damp seeped through, but with the relief of her escape, even the fitful doze she fell into was more fulfilling than her recent nights’ sleep.
Tossing and turning, every little noise half-woke her. Thankfully, these woods weren’t known to have worse predators than foxes and badgers so, discomfort aside, she had no reason to fear.
She opened her eyes to a grey dawn. She crawled out of the undergrowth and brushed herself off. Now to put her next plan into action.
She fished out some dry bread from her pocket and nibbled on it while waiting for the sun to rise. The idea of escape had hit her when she’d been wandering the castle a couple of days ago. In efforts to avoid her mother and her suitor, she’d taken to exploring. That particular afternoon, she’d climbed up one of the towers and come across a map room. The unusual pictures had fascinated her. She’d only seen small maps in books before, but these were large enough to hang on the walls.
One caught Charlotte’s eye when she recognised their town. It was a large map of the castle, town and surrounding area. She found their old home, then the castle, and traced the outline of the town with her finger. On one side of the town, roads led out to the coast, many miles away. The castle lay on the other edge of town, bordered by the forest in which she now sat.
A small hamlet on the other side of the forest, close to the country border, caught her eye. Small hamlets as a whole, weren’t terribly interesting. This particular hamlet, however, was rumoured to have a notorious inhabitant.
A few years ago, in the neighbouring country, an unbalanced Queen had been banished for trying to kill her stepdaughter. Charlotte’s country had given her asylum, with the requirement that she stayed living in humble conditions and didn’t cause any trouble. And as far as Charlotte knew, that had been the case.
This ex-Queen’s cottage was Charlotte’s destination. Not the wisest decision on the surface, but Charlotte had few friends and relatives, and even fewer who were likely to be sympathetic to her predicament. However, the Queen had one thing in her favour. She’d tried to kill her stepdaughter, Snow White, because she was too beautiful. Frankly, Charlotte sympathised. Okay, so the Queen had taken it too far, but Charlotte could see how that urge would easily arise. Didn’t she daydream about offing Cinderella? She probably wouldn’t go through with it, but the temptation was there. In a different situation, with more resources, it was easy to see how the mishap occurred.
Charlotte finished her bread and looked up at the sun’s position. If her calculations were right, she had a hard three-hour walk through the forest, followed by an hour’s trek to the hamlet. Perfectly doable in a day. Although that much walking wasn’t really her forte.
She had no choice now, though. Her departure would soon be noted, and she needed to be far away before they realised in which direction she’d headed.
The next few hours were the hardest of Charlotte’s pampered life. Plain looks aside, it hadn’t stopped most of her days revolving around pleasure rather than work. She pushed through branches, followed animal paths to dead ends, and got leaves and twigs caught in her hair. Only the physical activity kept her warm in the dank forest.
Still, she made progress and by continually checking the sun’s position, made it out of the forest by midday. After a short rest, she headed for the hamlet.
By the time she reached the tiny village, she was tired, her stomach rumbled, and she desperately needed a drink. The village consisted of a few stone cottages around a central pump and water fountain. She helped herself to a few much needed gulps of water while considering her next action. There was no sign of life.
However, she didn’t want to advertise her presence to anyone and she had no idea which cottage the ex-Queen lived in. She supposed she’d better peer through a few windows, unobtrusively, and see if she could spot her.
Charlotte headed for the nearest cottage. All the curtains were closed, so that was no good. She mentally noted it in case she had to go back and then tried the next one. An elderly couple lay dozing on chairs in the living room. She tiptoed over to the third cottage and heard a man’s voice before moving on.
At the fourth cottage, luck was on her side. A voice came through the wide open window, and she crept around the side of the cottage to get a better look. Carefully, she peeped over the windowsill.
The ex-Queen stood in the middle of the room, facing away from Charlotte, identifiable from her distinctive foreign-style robe and regal bearing. On the wall opposite the Queen stood what appeared to be a large mirror, with — what was that? Some kind of face appeared to be etched into the glass.
The Queen seemed to be talking to the mirror. Was she reciting a poem?
“Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
“Are we still doing this?”
Charlotte stifled a gasp as the mirror spoke, the etching of lips moving to the sound.
“Yes! Get on with it. Who’s the fairest of them all?”
“You aren’t going to like it.”
Charlotte could almost imagine a disapproving wagging finger from the tone.
The Queen put her hands on her hips. “I don’t care. I have to know. Do I have to say it again?”
The mirror sighed. “The fairest of them all is sweet Cinderella in yonder castle.”
“No!” The word burst out of Charlotte before she could help herself. Red spots floated in front of her eyes.
The Queen jumped back and spun to face the window, hand on her heart.
Charlotte scrabbled and jumped, catching hold of the sill. She threw herself into the room, not feeling a nasty graze on her leg, although her woollen tights ripped and blood oozed through.
In blind rage, Charlotte grabbed the nearest heavy object — a glass jug — and threw it hard at the mirror with a scream. “I will not be second best to my wretched sister any more!”
The jug hit the mirror full on and both shattered in shards of glass. Charlotte and the Queen both flinched.
The Queen gave a screech and leapt at Charlotte. She clutched Charlotte’s long hair in her fingers and pulled, yanking strands out at the roots. “You stupid girl! How dare you smash my magic mirror! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Charlotte turned on the Queen, slapping at her arms. She pushed hard, but the Queen’s fingers were tangled in her hair.
Together, they spun round, Charlotte trying to extract herself and the Queen intent on injuring Charlotte. Eventually, Charlotte’s superior strength won out, and she shoved the woman backwards. The Queen fell to the floor and Charlotte straddled her and sat on her stomach, grabbing her wrists.
“Get off me, you oaf!” Strands of Charlotte’s thick black hair still wrapped around the Queen’s fingers. “Are you a royal assassin? I’ve done no wrong. I’m following the terms of the agreement.”
Charlotte’s rage had dissipated somewhat. She relaxed her grip. “Will you let me explain if I get off you? I’m sorry about the mirror.”
The Queen glared for a moment, but then nodded, chest heaving.
Charlotte stood up and caught her breath, rearranging her hair and her robe. Her feet crunched on glass.
The ex-Queen likewise stood up. “You’d better have a good explanation.” She peered closer at Charlotte and something seemed to soften in her face. “Why, you’re just a child.”
“I’m not a child,” Charlotte said stiffly. “Children don’t get married to boring old men against their will.”
The Queen raised her eyebrows. “Shall I get us something to drink, and you can tell me what happened?”
Charlotte nodded, suddenly realising she was bone-tired. She brushed a few slivers of glass off a nearby seat and sat down. The graze in her leg suddenly flared with pain, and she winced and picked a splinter out of it.
A few minutes later the Queen returned, with a welcome tray of tea, and some bread and butter. “You look starved. Don’t think I do this for every stranger who breaks in.”
After a few sips of tea and a bite of bread, Charlotte felt up to explaining herself. The whole story came out. The Queen listened and nodded, right to the end.
“You poor child.” She put her hand to her breast. “I can see how hard it’s been for you. I know what it’s like to have someone undeserving holding the limelight simply because of their beauty. Whatever happened to skills? Intelligence. Cunning. Even good workmanship. But no, if you’re pretty to look at, you get to marry the handsome prince and live happily ever after.”
“I really am sorry about the mirror. I’ll clean the mess up.”
“We can do it together. And I’ll help fix your hair.”
Charlotte and the ex-Queen smiled at each other, and a moment of genuine warmth flowed between them.
The Queen leaned forward. “How do you feel about a journey? There’s a country far south of here that has a failing king. I understand he’s in ill health, can’t control the country, and his people hate him. You and me, we’re destined to be in charge, and we’ve been thwarted by beautiful idiots. Let’s go somewhere where we’ll be appreciated for our talents.”
Charlotte grinned. “That sounds like just the opportunity I’ve been waiting for.”
She raised her teacup and the ex-Queen leant forward, clinking her own against it. “To a beautiful future.” | https://medium.com/blue-fire/happy-mirror-after-e8819f085dfc | ['Elise Edmonds'] | 2018-10-24 20:42:40.858000+00:00 | ['Short Fiction', 'Fantasy', 'Fairy Tale', 'Fiction', 'Short Story'] |
Aloe Vera and the Void | (Notes — Transgender people are sometimes asked to bless people as it is believed that their blessings have merit.
- Guru-Chela translates as Teacher-Student or Master-Disciple. This relationship carries a tradition of community, and the chelas often live with/near the guru.
- The transgender community in India is very marginalised, and has limited access to employment opportunities and housing. Transgender women often depend on begging and/or sex work for income.
- The caste system in India is a system of social stratification which is centuries-old, and there are many theories about its origin. Under this system, people were categorised by their occupations. Individuals were born into, worked, married, ate, and died within those unalterable groups, there was no social mobility. This inherited, physically invisible difference eventually became discrimination.
Though in present day, caste discrimination has been outlawed and reforms are in place, the political and social force of this system still prevails.) | https://medium.com/kadak/aloe-vera-and-the-void-8000fbac51fa | ['Aarthi Parthasarathy'] | 2019-03-01 06:19:47.424000+00:00 | ['Bangalore', 'Lgbtqia', 'Transgender', 'Gender Bender 2016', 'Kadak Collective'] |
Storage Devices: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. | Storage Devices: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.
What the future of Data Storage Devices looks like?
I came across an article a few days ago that primarily focused on the new developments being made in the field of storage devices. Data is being generated at the rapid pace today and with that, the tools for storing large data is also being demanded. However, this seems like a race that will be lost if no further developments are made to the existing storage technology because the rate of increase on data generation will outweigh the rate of increase in storage capacities.
Credits: Stupid Friends, Pinterest
Have a look at the picture above. A 5 MB bulky storage occupying almost 4–5 rows of an airplane, costing a whooping $120,000 in 1956. A 5 MB storage device (that bulky). A high-definition image now days occupies more than 5 MB of space. On the right hand is a $60 chip-like looking device that can easily be placed on the tip of a thumb. And its capacity is 64 GB (almost 13000x more than the device on the left). This refers to the progress made in this field over the last few decades.
But such devices may not be able to suffice the demand of today or the growing demands of tomorrow. The right question to ask now is, what is the future of storage devices?
More often than not, most people do not realize the developments being made in the field of technology. A new technology comes, we find it little hard to adapt to it, we then finally adapt to it. After sometime, it becomes inseparable from us. But how often do we think about what goes into making this sophisticated piece of technology. Almost never! Some of us do not even know how a pen drive functions.
Nonetheless, the storage device tech is progressing fast and the developments are of unprecedented and revolutionary nature. One such development I would like to discuss in this article is DNA Data Storage. The name encompasses the technology in its true sense. DNA is a hereditary material in almost every organism that stores information as a code made up of 4 chemical bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C ), and thymine (T). Data can be stored in the sequence of these letters. Are you connecting the dots now? DNA Storage is possibly going to become the new form of information technology.
DNA stores genetic information about our body but they are being developed by scientists to store non-genetic information as well. Instead of the traditional way of storing information in bits (that is using binary digits 0 and 1), DNA stores information in form of strings using 4 potential base units (ATCG). Let us further understand DNA storage through its advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages of DNA Storage
In very simple words, DNA stores information about our body. Not only that, DNA stores information for a long time. It has a half-life of over 500 years. If stored in cold conditions, DNA is capable of remaining intact for hundreds of thousands of years. It is very stable so much so that information has been retrieved from a fossil horse that lived more than 700,000 years ago. Most of our hard drives or pen drives gets corrupted or damaged within a few years and information stored can be easily lost at any point. DNA storage eliminates this problem of hardware storage due to its stability.
Comparison of Information Density
The most important aspect of DNA is its storage capacity. As can be seen from the above graph, a single gram of synthetic DNA can store up to 215 petabytes of data! At that density, all the world’s current storage needs for a year could be well met by a cube of DNA measuring about one meter on a side. Also, one unique feature of DNA is that it automatically creates copies of the data.
To retrieve the stored data back, the same sequencing machine are used that are used for analysis of genomic DNA in cells. The information is then converted back to binary digits for further usage. This process can destroy the DNA as it is read — but that’s where those backup copies come into play: There are many copies of each sequence. And if the backup copies get depleted, it is easy to make duplicate copies to refill the storage.
The above mentioned benefits does classify DNA storage into a paradigm-shifting technology. However, this sophisticated technology has its own set of disadvantages.
Disadvantages of DNA Storage
For new technologies, cost is always an issue and DNA storage is no exception. In 2012, researchers encoded 0.74 MB of data in DNA at a cost of $12,400 per MB. This means over $11.5 million per GB. This is very expensive considering the cost of storing data today using normal silicon-hardware technology is in cents per GB. However, this cost is decreasing and will further decrease in the future. In 2017, the price of encoding data to DNA had fallen to $3,500 per MB (almost 3.5x cheaper in 5 years). Also, the number of organizations involved in the development of this technology has more than doubled since 2010, reaching 411 as of 2016.
The second disadvantage of DNA storage is the speed of reading and writing data is fairly slow compared to other currently-used devices. This makes it not a go-to option where data is needed quickly. Instead it can be best used to store data as archives.
Conclusion
DNA technology is a technology to look forward to, given the advantages it possesses and problems it can solve. However, it has its own set of disadvantages, such as cost, handling issues, etc, that makes this technology available to only a very selected portion of the society at present. Nonetheless, improvements are bound to happen as investments up to $1 billion have been poured over the last decade in synthetic biology companies. The question is, will it be available to the general public and if so, when will it be available on an industrial scale?
For more information, check out this article: The Future of DNA Data Storage
Thank you for the read. I sincerely hope you found this article insightful and as always I am open to discussions and constructive feedback.
Drop me a mail at: [email protected]
You can find me on LinkedIn. | https://medium.com/swlh/storage-devices-yesterday-today-tomorrow-80cee19b3bf | ['Ishan Choudhary'] | 2020-05-25 03:04:39.204000+00:00 | ['Information Technology', 'Database', 'Data', 'Data Science', 'Future Technology'] |
6 Modular Kitchen Design Tips for First-Timers | #1. Identify Your Kitchen Work Triangle — For the uninitiated, a kitchen work triangle constitutes your refrigerator, sink and hob. A large part of choosing a kitchen layout is deciding how these three essential items interact with each other.
#2. Ideal Counter Top Length- The standard counter height is related to the average Indian height which is generally between 820 mm to 860 mm. Ensure that the distance between your kitchen cabinets and the countertop should not be too much as the upward it goes.
#3. Choose Colours wisely- Always remember that it is you who will need to maintain the kitchen color in the longer run. Avoid an all-white kitchen simply because it demands consistent cleaning and is high on maintenance. But that does not mean you blindly opt for bright hues.
#4. Ventilation is the key- Cooking is one activity which generates a lot of heat. While most of the kitchens have a chimney or an exhaust fan or both to vent out the frying fumes outside the kitchen area.
#5. … and lighting too -Nothing can beat the brightness and warmth of the natural light seeping inside your kitchen through the window. However, there should be ample natural light as well as overhead lighting in the kitchen, especially falling on the countertop where most of the action happens.
#6. Don’t ignore corner spaces- Often, while creating storage shelves and cabinets in the kitchen, we ignore the corners thinking it will be of no use. | https://medium.com/@shabadinterior123/6-modular-kitchen-design-tips-for-first-timers-d5855b1e0cd9 | [] | 2019-10-17 12:39:05.794000+00:00 | ['Interior Design'] |
Apa aplikasi favorit kamu? | Login * Instagram
Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing… | https://medium.com/@septianafaza/apa-aplikasi-favorit-kamu-48c2247105e4 | ['Septiana Faza'] | 2020-12-27 23:43:17.321000+00:00 | ['UX Design', 'UX Research', 'UX', 'Ux Strategy', 'Application'] |
The Test | The president and his press secretary have made allegations of broad-based election fraud. However, in court, Trump’s lawyers back away from actually asserting fraud or conspiracy. Attorneys, who are officers of the court are restrained by professional ethics, rules of civil procedure and rules of evidence. They could face sanctions from the court.
This is a good example of what each of us individuals and our social networks should do. Yes, it is one thing to have opinions, to say whatever you want, to present “alternative facts”, to believe conspiracy theories; but there comes a point where all of those assertions must give way to professionalism and basic rules.
It is both the professionals and the traditional rules that people have come to despise. I was in Junior High School. Our teacher had made a statement in a history class about which a classmate disagreed. An argument ensued in which the teacher tried to explain that he had studied history longer than my 14-year-old colleague and should be listened to on this point. My friend complained: “I have a right to my opinion.” That is what is going on in our social-political life. One’s opinion is thought to trump (sorry, couldn’t avoid that) a professional’s knowledge.
When I was teaching, I simply told the class that right or wrong, the textbook had the last word. They had a right to their opinion (We were studying World Religions) but the text would be the standard they must meet when I gave a test. I am sure that my Junior High classmate eventually had to meet that standard as well. In the same way, the president’s attorneys have to give way to their assertions when they stand before a judge in a court of law.
We do not let just anybody write a textbook. A professional or group of professionals who stand in the stream of teaching authority and academic tradition are usually called upon. The text must also meet the standards of the knowledgeable teachers that will recommend its use. Our accredited, academic institutions are responsible for training those teachers and providing a forum for those professionals to question each other and review each other’s work.
Some of us have chosen to go with my classmate’s “I have a right to my opinion.” approach. That is their right. They will despise the “elites”, the professionals that try to hammer out the truth no matter how inconvenient it may be. They rail against the rules, insisting that they are free and no one can tell them what they can do or not do. They will tune in to whatever bolsters what they already believe.
Then comes the test… | https://medium.com/@clarkkilgard/the-test-2b0c62f08660 | ['Clark Kilgard'] | 2020-11-27 15:45:37.659000+00:00 | ['Academia', 'Politics', 'Reality', 'Facts', 'Law'] |
Get VPN Coupon Code by Undecided with Matt Farrell | The paste of technology development is really fast these days and it makes it quite hard to follow up with it. And here is where Undecided with Matt Farrell Youtube channel comes in handy. Here people will find everything about sustainable and smart technologies and not just know what is what but dive much deeper into the essence and the processes of it from a unique perspective.
Matt Farrell will tell you everything you need to know about smart technologies and ways it can make your life easier. One of these technologies is a Virtual Private Network a.k.a VPN. VPN is not a new technology but one which is becoming crucial everyday with the increasing privacy risks online, with the increasing censorship. Matt Farrell understands the importance of VPN and so should everyone. And in order to motivate people to take care of their security online Matt offers them a coupon code for their sponsors VPN — Surfshark.
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When you insert the coupon code you will need to create an account with your email and continue the payment with a chosen payment method. You will receive your passwords in your email and then will be able to set up the VPN on any device or browser.
Why you need a VPN
VPN is useful for many reasons — it provides privacy and security online, it helps to bypass any online monitoring, for example, it helps to keep your activities private from your ISP. Also VPN helps to bypass censorship online and bypass all sorts of geographical restrictions. You might face geographical restrictions online while trying to access specific websites that are blocked in your region or trying to access some streaming platforms. Besides providing security and bypassing geographical restrictions VPN can also bypass price discrimination and help you to get cheaper products online from plane tickets to all sorts of subscriptions.
Why Surfshark should be your choice
Surfshark is one of the most trusted and top ranked VPNs, as all really secure VPN they do not collect users logs and use industry leading encryption which lets their customers enjoy absolute anonymity. Talking more about security Surfshark offers a built-in kill-switch which ensures zero data leaks, they support anonymous torrenting which ensures that you will not get caught torrenting and they even offer GPS spoofing together with their VPN. Moving forward Surfshark has fast servers around the globe and really knows how to bypass geographical restrictions online, even the harder one like on Netflix, they offer a built-in ad-blocker and try to make the VPN experience as much convenience for people as it can be.
You can get Surfshark VPN with 82% discount right now by simply following this link. | https://medium.com/@wilkinsanna20/get-vpn-coupon-code-by-undecided-with-matt-farrell-3449fdf5889f | ['Anna Wilkins'] | 2020-09-14 11:09:33.869000+00:00 | ['VPN', 'Deals And Discounts', 'Discount', 'Coupon'] |
Growing Up White | Growing Up White
Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash
When I started kindergarten in 1977, my school district was part of a nationwide busing program to further integrate public schools. I would arrive at my elementary school, situated in a predominantly white Oklahoma City neighborhood, and busses full of Black children would pour off of giant yellow steaming buses.
At five years old, these were the first Black people I’d ever come into direct contact with, and they were fascinating to me. These kids looked different. They sounded different. They even dressed a little different. I remember asking to my mother, “Why do they smell coconut-y?” a question that she hotly reprimanded me for asking, though I didn’t understand why. I was too embarrassed to ask any further, and soon learned it was best not to ask questions, or to even mention Black children at all.
Usually the two or three Black kids that were paired in each classroom hung together, but when I entered the second grade, me and my two best friends, Stacy and Anne, included a fourth member into our childhood clique: Dawn. Dawn was a Black girl.
My first black friend.
What I remember most about Dawn was that she wore her hair in three pony tails: two in the front, one in the back. They were held together with those little ball pony tail holders that I used to call knobbies; She had a knobby at the base of each pony tail, another in the middle, and a third at the tip. I wore my hair in a knobby too, but only one, a giant knobby on the top of my head. At seven years old, those knobbies connected Dawn and me. They were our “thing.”
Near the end of the year, I invited Dawn to my eighth birthday party — a pool party — and she said she would come. On the day of the party my young guests arrived one by one, Stacy and Anne arriving first since they only had to walk a few blocks over from their houses.
When I opened our front door to Dawn, she was standing with her mother. Back then, mothers were not invited. If you needed to be dropped off, your mom was supposed to pull up to the curb, then pull away before you even made it up to the front door by yourself. After all, kids like me walked to school alone in kindergarten.
Not only did Dawn’s mother come to the door, she stayed for the entire party. She chatted with my mother nonstop, and kept a close eye on her daughter.
Later that evening, when everyone had gone home, I said to my mother, “How come Dawn’s mom came!?” My mother’s remarks were puzzling to me yet again. She said, “Well, I know I’d CERTAINLY stay if you were invited to HER birthday party!”
I didn’t understand her meaning, but I understood her tone and knew better than to ask more questions.
Dawn was my first black friend, and we stayed friends until we both graduated from the fourth grade. That was the single year that white kids got bussed off to the Black part of town, and Dawn and I got assigned to different Fifth Year Centers, so we soon lost track of each other. In the three years that Dawn and I were friends, we never had a single conversation about race. Not ever. It was never even referenced. In fact, I never spoke about race, any race, ever — to anyone. It was never discussed, not even when my family gathered around the television to watch The Jeffersons, laughing when George called Mr. Willis “honky” before slamming the door in his face. These shows were part of another world, they were fiction. We didn’t talk about them afterward.
What I Learned in Junior High School
Naturally in school I was taught of the occasions when racism impacted our country’s history. Our studies covered the seemingly-ancient problem of slavery, but mostly focussed on the tremendous progress that had been made, and the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement. It was clear to me at the time that racism (which I understood to be an overt, angry expression aimed at a person of color) was a shameful moment from the distant past. After all, we never even had to talk about race anymore.
It wasn’t until the eighth grade that I had an actual conversation about race. One afternoon there was a choir concert after school. I was in the girl’s bathroom curling the ends of my long hair under with my curling iron and spraying them with Aqua Net, as the ‘80s dictated. Two Black girls were also in the bathroom and they were also curling each other’s hair.
One of the girls said to the other girl, “Look at her,” (meaning me) “I didn’t know white girls used a curling iron.”
I said back to them, “I didn’t know Black girls used a curling iron.”
We stood in reflective silence, curling irons in hand.
What followed was a very enlightening conversation about our hair. We were honest. We asked questions. We were respectful, and even fun. I was finally able to put my childhood curiosity to rest — it wasn’t Black people that smelled like coconuts, it was the product they put in their hair.
I Married A Black Man
At age of thirty, much to the astonishment of my parents, I dated and eventually married a Black man. For over a decade he and I talked about race all the time. Every day some aspect of systemic racism entered our conversations, and I developed a deeper understanding of the Black experience. I became an advocate — joining the Black Lives Matter movement. Signing petitions. Calling Representatives.
We used to joke that I was “Black by marriage.” And sometimes I got lulled into the feeling that, because of my closeness to black culture, that I *knew* the black experience.
But I didn’t. And I don’t. Because I’m white.
No matter how woke, liberal, tolerant, inclusive, or “color-blind” I wanted to think of myself as… I’m still in my white skin, with all its history and privilege, in a country where white is the norm and everything else is other.
Throughout this time, I believed myself to be part of the solution. I was certainly not part of the problem. After all, I reasoned, one of my best childhood friends was Black. I had black friends in high school. I married a black man! Racism was a problem to be confronted in society. In others.
But for white people like me, not having to deal with racism until we are directly confronted with it — this IS the problem. This blindness is part of my white privilege, and admitting that I experience white privilege is a first small step toward validating the lived experience of Black people.
Having a Black friend, or colleague, or husband didn’t give me the experience of being Black in this country, just like not “using” white privilege to get ahead or subjugate Black people doesn’t mean that I don’t have it.
I do; I experience white privilege. This privilege includes a choice of whether or not to talk about, or even think about racism. But using white privilege to promote more conversation, listen to and amplify the voices of Black people is the only way that this privilege might possibly be good for something, and that is an ongoing choice I have the privilege to make. | https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/growing-up-white-47a2896d297d | ['Caterpillar Jones'] | 2020-12-26 14:32:36.393000+00:00 | ['White Privilege', 'Growth', 'Change', 'Racism', 'Personal Story'] |
7 Tips for a Successful Data Science Project in the Industry | 1. Define the problem and the goal
Manager: “I need you to build a model that will identify bad data flowing in the system.” Me: “Hmm, sure, no problem. Just let me know in which DB the data is located, and I’ll get right to it.”
But what exactly is “bad data”? Why do we want to filter it out? What is the business value in this project? It’s important to define what the problem is exactly, and what is our goal. What is the cost of a False-Positive in this case? Is it equivalent to a False-Negative? Ask all questions needed in order to reach a clear target, and create a clear metric for your project, preferably one which is a single value. It’s a shame if you perform a whole cycle of building a model, only to find out that you didn’t fully comprehend what the problem actually was. You might not exactly be back to square one, but that was a lot of effort spent in the wrong direction.
There are some cases where you’re dependant on other personnel in your company to fully understand the project. Don’t procrastinate, move forward toward a clear definition of what is required in your project.
Since we’re discussing the beginning of the project, I’ll add another note related to this stage of a project. Your manager doesn’t necessarily understand the difficulty of the problem at hand. It’s important to reflect an initial outcome of the project (what accuracy you will reach, etc.). You'll probably be off a bit, but when you come back with results, you prefer not to get an “oh…” reaction. Be aligned from the beginning.
2. Fully understand the data
Manager: “There are missing values in the label column. Those indicate that the annotater didn’t find anything in the image.”
That sounds logical. But turns out that missing values also indicate cases that the annotator simply couldn’t decide which of the 6 possible labels is the most accurate one, so he left it empty. These two scenarios are completely different, yet if both types of missing values are treated the same, this will harm your trained model.
It’s crucial to make sure you understand your data well. You might engineer some feature, and later find out that it was engineered wrongly (e.g. you took a “zip code” column and bucketed it to different regions in a certain country, but turns out that not all the zip codes belong to that same specific country).
Whether it’s the label column, or a column you’ll use as a feature, make sure that your understanding of the data is as accurate as you want your model to be. You can even consult the annotators themselves or their managers. Whatever it takes.
3. What will be the situation in production?
Manager: “The relevant data is in table1, table2, table3, and table4. A simple join will get you all the data.”
Cool, you got everything you need. You move forward with your model, get great results, and you’re ready to deploy it to production. You just need to make final adjustments.
Me: “Say, which source provides field A?” Manager: “Field A? That’s some enrichment we do to the data once it finished the full flow in the system.”
Oops, that’s not good. It turns out this is even a feature that doesn’t add too much to the model’s accuracy. But your model was already trained using it. Make sure you understand what will be the situation when your model will be in production, so your model will have all the data it needs, and it will be suitable for that specific setting in production.
4. Keep it simple
Me: “I think I’ll try the super-duper-really-cool-model first. What do you think?” Manager: “You’re the one with the knowledge. Go for it!”
As said, generally your goal is to bring results relatively quickly. Your manager doesn’t always have a sense of what the possible solutions might be. Usually, simple solutions are more valuable when the time invested is taken into account. And very often they’ll even perform better than the super complex solution you think will be cool here, regardless of the time invested. It’s, of course, not always the case, but at least first try the more “simpler” solutions before moving on to the “cool” ones.
In addition, very often it’s possible to solve the problem at least partially with a simple solution. When doing that, you’re already creating value. Once done, you can move forward to the more complex solutions, if still needed.
5. Consult others
Me: “Yeah, I tried algorithm A. It looks like a good solution here.” Colleague: “That’s interesting, it might work well here. Though I think I would try algorithm B here.” Me: “Huh… Didn’t think of that. Good idea!”
Hopefully you’re not a single Data Scientist in your company. If so, it’s a great opportunity to learn from others and hear how they would tackle your problem. Don’t feel uncomfortable. There’s no one who can come up with all possible solutions, there’s no one that knows everything. Besides, very often, as a result of brainstorming together, you’ll come up with an idea yourself that you wouldn’t think about without this consultation.
With regards to this topic, I would also add the importance of planning your project and breaking your work into tasks. The outcome of a group brainstorm should be just that. This will enable you to stay focused and not get caught up too much researching a specific algorithm that is a potential solution.
6. Error Analysis
Manager: “I wonder why the model performs well for scenarios A and B, but not for scenario C.” Me: “I think the other algorithm will work better. And also training on more data will probably do the trick.”
Yeah, this is probably not what you were dreaming about when you landed this job. But it’s extremely important. Looking into several (or many) mistakes manually can give you a good intuition about what’s wrong. Don’t feel as if this “isn’t something I should be doing”. This will probably be more effective than just throwing more data at your model.
7. Documentation
Me: “There was a reason I filtered out those rows from the data. I can’t remember why I did that…”
This is sometimes a step that’s neglected, or done only partially. The current project you’re working on has elements that you’ll forget about next month when you move on to your next project. Document what steps you took throughout the project, what data was selected and why, the queries you ran on your DB (and your code, of course!). The more, the better. This will be extremely useful when you might have to revise the project and refine your solution, or perhaps when you will be working on a different project that is related to this one. You can even benefit from documentation while still working on the project (“why did I decide to take route A instead of route B again..?”). | https://towardsdatascience.com/7-tips-for-a-successful-data-science-project-in-the-industry-1aa4166708 | ['Aviad Atlas'] | 2021-01-03 19:31:08.461000+00:00 | ['Office Hours', 'Tech', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning', 'Industry'] |
We Are Entering Hyperinflation Even If The News Says We Are Not | Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash
We Are Entering Hyperinflation Even If The News Says We Are Not Jessica Bugg Follow Dec 10 · 6 min read
What is inflation? Inflation is the rise in the cost of goods and services largely in part due to putting more money into the economy (ie the Federal Reserve printing more money and expanding the money supply by cutting the interest rates banks use to lend each other money).
Our interest rates are at an all time low. The lowest. Lower than post 2008 when we were told that we would never see mortgages under 4.5% in our lifetimes.
We are now at almost half of that.
Cost of Goods is Rising
Although interest rates being low may seem like a good thing, that is not always the case. Take home loans as an example, now because the interest rates are around 2–3% depending on the day.
That means little Joey buying a house who can only afford a $1200/month payment previously could only get a mortgage valued at around $150,000.
Now that interest rates are hovering around 2.9% at the time of writing this article, Joey can now take out a mortgage valued at $180,000 and be at the same amount of monthly payment give or take $20.
But Jessica, Isn’t It A Good Thing that the Interest Rates Are Low?
It can be because it means it’s almost free to borrow the money. That is the good thing.
The elephant in the room however is the rising price essentially overnight in economic terms due to the interest rates being so low.
So in our previous scenario, Joey could only afford to pay $1200 for a mortgage. His budget for his mortgage allows him to borrow $150K if rates are at 5%
Couple that with a 3.5% down payment (because most people do not put 20% down no matter what your favorite blogger wants to tell you).
Joey can afford about $155,000 for a house purchase.
Joey however, lives in Jacksonville, where most single family homes (the ones we are indoctrinated to believe hold their value) are about $180,000-$200,000.
Joey is saddened because he doesn’t want to buy a condo. He wants a house with a yard. His only choice is to buy a condo or wait until he has a larger down payment.
Then interest rates drop
So now our friend Joey has decided to wait until he can afford a larger down payment when wait! The mortgage interest rates have been cut! His mortgage broker calls him to say you can borrow more money than before!
Joey with the same $1,200/month is now bankable for a mortgage around $180,000.
Joey is ecstatic! He can go get that single family starter home of his dreams with enough back yard space to play cornhole.
Armed with his preapproval for $180,000 in mortgage money . . . Joey begins to look at single family homes now.
After all, he has an extra $30,000 to work with. He can definitely buy a single family home now.
Except He Can’t.
While Joey received more buying power through lower interest rates . . .
So did everyone else
Home prices, as a result, rise when interest rates are low, because more people can afford to buy the property AND can pay a larger total price for the home even though the monthly payment is the same.
Joey sadly, is STILL priced out.
But Jessica, Everyone is buying all the things right now, the stock market is up, and the TeeVee says that the economy is great.
The news often trails recessions by a 6 month lag time. It’s equatable to the amount of time it takes your parents to discover a “new song” or “new show” even though it’s been out for a year.
By The Time The News Reports A Recession It Is Almost Already Over | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/we-are-entering-hyperinflation-even-if-the-news-says-we-are-not-864ebefe8705 | ['Jessica Bugg'] | 2020-12-14 16:24:44.140000+00:00 | ['Economics', 'Money Management', 'Money', 'Education', 'Finance'] |
Leadership Off Limits | We all view the world through a unique lens. Politics is in literally everything from our churches to our social organizations to news events and crime to our governments. This is the place to share your view, regardless of your political leanings: all are welcome.
Follow | https://medium.com/politically-speaking/leadership-has-its-limits-5ddfa85ef2c2 | ['Jamie Mcintosh'] | 2020-05-10 20:41:26.284000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Leadership', 'Love', 'Business', 'Strategy'] |
THIS VALENTINE’S DAY | It starts in Elementary school. Do you remember? I do. My mom taking me to the store to pick out Snoopy valentines, or my favorite, at the time, Strawberry Shortcake! Then on Valentine’s day passing popping these precious cards into brown paper bags. Then at the end of the day peering into my bag to see all the bright papers. This is when the story of valentine’s started for me- a popularity contest. Through Junior High and High School it faded away, some. Then in college it started again. I watched the parade of flowers and chocolates delivered to the dorm desk or waiting in the lobby watching guys pick up girls to go out on their Valentine’s day dates. Today, this continues at work. Next to Executive Assistant’s day, I bet Valentine’s day is the busiest day for our security desk. It’s quite a sight!
Like many, I have mixed feelings about Valentine’s day and the celebration of “love”. This year is different. This is the first time in my life that I know what it means to be in a relationship, to love. I understand the care it takes, the joy it provides, and what it asks of me. In relationship and love, I’ve learned “Relationships are people growing machines.”
What I’ve been contemplating this Valentine’s week is not, what is love? But, what does love ask of me? Me- an only child and independent. Me- only in one other serious relationship which barely made it to one year. Me- shy and introverted knowing that there is a separate world in my imagination and heart that I struggle to share with others.
What does love ask of me? This is what I’d share with you.
It asks me to see, with my heart and not my head, the impact I have on those I love. To take responsibility and decide if that’s who I want to be and the impact I want to have.
It asks me to share my dreams, my feelings, my fears and all the beauty I hide.
It asks me to take a risk to be seen, or not.
It asks me to be myself, and sometimes hurt the other even though it means staying true to me.
It asks me to forgive, to understand, to have gratitude, and compassion.
It asks me to grow and stretch.
It asks me to love myself, to care for myself, to make myself happy.
It asks me to connect and to reach out, even when every cell of my being wants to hide.
It asks me to look at the parts of me that aren’t so beautiful and graceful.
It asks of me intimacy and vulnerability.
On this Valentine’s day, I am just starting to realize, like the first sprouting of a seed in the spring, what depth of love is possible. To not just know in my head, but in my heart that I choose to be loved. I accept love. I give love. I can find love, when I look for it beyond the obvious definition. Yes, romantic love has been a blessing but the biggest blessing is how it’s opened my eyes to love for myself, for others, and for all the things I love. The gift of love is the beauty and the tenderness it has added to my entire life.
And on those days when I’m not loved the way I want or I don’t feel loving, I hope to remember it all starts with me and really, maybe what need is a Snoopy Valentine.
What does love ask of you? of each of us?
P.S. I dedicate this to Luke. Thank you for showing me love beyond the obvious definition. I see your love for me in the notes you leave around my house, the patience you have for my quirky ways, the way you accept me and allow me to make mistakes and grow, the times you let me cry, and the support I see in your face when I’m the most vulnerable and scared. Happy Valentine’s Day! My hope is our love continues to give you a base to grow from so you can expand in abundance, love, success and joy and inspire more love in this world.
Originally posted 2/12/15 on kimelishaproctor.com | https://medium.com/@kimelisha/this-valentines-day-46ff8ae8496e | ['Kim-Elisha Proctor'] | 2016-12-28 04:30:54.683000+00:00 | ['Valentines Day', 'Love'] |
Sending Email with Java Mail. Email stands for Electronic Mail that… | Email stands for Electronic Mail that makes our life easier and reliable we are sending our text in a minute to anyone in the world in just a minute. Email providers like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo providing email services free for personal users that a really great thing for us because we are using email for making our daily life work easier, example universities using email to send information to their students like class scheduling, Job offers info, sending data from one department to another, Students are using email, Companies are using email for sending their data and etc we are using the email in our daily life but what about if we need a robot that sends an email at a specific time when we are not available, let take an example why we need Email bot, Supposes you made a scraping bot and you want the feature that when the scraping is done, it should email you the output data, in that case, we need the Email Bot.
In this article we will walk through how we develop an Email bot with Java language using the Java Mail module, Well without wasting any time let straight jump into it.
Installation Java:
We need Java JDK which stands for a java development kit and will be needed for writing the java programs. You can download the latest version of JDK from the Oracle website here Site_URL . Follow the following steps to install them Java JDK properly in your operating system.
Step 1: Download JDK from the site
Step 2: Install the JDK
Step 3: Install the Java JDK bin the Environmental Variables
Step 4: Verify the JDK by typing Java in the Command prompt
Step 5: Write your first Hello world test program
Step 6: Compile and Run your java program
For Mac os and other Operating system Guide please visit that Site
JDK or JRE?
Many new java programmers also confused about what to choose between for the java compiler JDK or JRE. Well JRE Stands for Java Runtime and needed for running the Java program while JDK is a development Kit and includes the JRE in it such as compiler and debugger so you don't need to download the JRE. With JDK you will get a JRE install of the same version.
Download Module:
We need the Java Mail module for coding our Java Email bot, download the java mail latest version from the following site.
URL: https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javamail-releases.html
Coding Part:
First thing first we will load the modules of java mail and java built-in modules. From line 1 to 2 we loaded the built-in modules of java and from line 3 to 5 we loaded the Activision packages and at last, we loaded the Java mail modules. We will work through each functionality of function that we loaded from the Java modules in the next code part.
We create a public class with a name the same as the name of the java file in which we are currently working. Well in the first part of the code we loaded the required modules and in the next part we created a class naming EmailUtill this will be our main class and within the class, I made another static class name Email in which I pass the 4 parameters one session type and other 3 was String type that was a body, subject and Reciever Email. From line 21 to 25 we set up the new session using MimeMessage msg = new MimeMessage(session); and then using msg. headers function we are populating the headers with the information of what type of email we are sending I set it to test/html format and encoding will be utf-8 that including almost languages charset.
In line 27 I had used the msg. setFrom() function in which we create a new InternetAddress which holding our login details Email and password and on the next line msg.setReplyTo() function holding the email of the receiver. From line 31 to 35 we are setting up the email body, subject, and date. In the next line, I use the msg.setRecipients() function in which add the information we store on the internetAddress, and at last, on next Transport.send(msg) we delivered our email to the receiver email. if you had noticed we used the try and except method that was useful if we got any bug in the time execution we will get a msg of error occurred using the printStackTrace() function.
Send Email in Java with Attachment:
We had seen how we can send a simple email with java, now we will learn how we can send an email with an attachment it can be a file or an image.
If you saw the Code We are setting up the body, subject and login details, etc like we one in the previous code and from line 14 to 17 new message body part using the mimeBodyPart() function and passing the body part as a parameter and next step we MimeMultipart() in which we are passing the mimeBodyPart() as a parameter this process is done so we send our message body part with attachment, from line 20 to 27 we are setting up the filename that we need to send, storing the filename in string datatype variable, I store a text file but you can attach any file format you want to send to receiver emails.
The next step is passing the filename in the function setFileName() and then the email body that we made with the MimeMultipart() function and pass this to addBodyPart() function and on the next line msg.setContent() function we are passing the multipart datatype variable which includes all the parts of the message including body, subject and content/file and in last we send the email with Transport.send().
Send Email with Image Attachment:
In this part we will walk through that how we can make a java mail program that can send mail with an image attachment, In simple words, you can view the image in the Email body, Take a look at the Code below.
If you saw the Code we already cover half of the code in the previous section, From line 23 to 38 we will set up the image has an attachment in an email, I again created a new MimeBodyPart() function and pass the body in it and next, I declared a string datatype variable and store the name of the image with its extension and on next lines, we set the headers to the image by using setHeader() so that email header when read by backend so they know that the email has an image viewer attachment.
On the next line, I created new MimeBodyPart() and using its method I pass setContent() I pass the name of the image that will be shown as a title if you notice I used <h1></h1> tags that because email always opened has an HTML view so <h1> the tag will make a heading size text, next final lines we again using Transport.send() to deliver our email.
So in the end we learn how we can send Emal using Java mail. I hope you learn something from this article and feel free to share your opinion. | https://medium.com/javarevisited/send-email-with-java-mail-3379285f109 | ['Haider Imtiaz'] | 2020-12-07 07:34:45.423000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Coding', 'Java', 'Programming', 'Email'] |
Book Review: Inner City Pressure // Dan Hancox | Grime’s against-all-odds success story is one I’ve followed pretty closely. My little brother even bought me a matching JME mug and coaster for Christmas last year. Having said that, Dan Hancox, the journalist behind Inner City Pressure, takes knowledge of the genre to new heights. His 2018 book covers so much depth, it’s obvious he used to interview MCs outside club nights back when he was simply blogging.
Inner City Pressure reads almost like a modern history of London, revealing how grime and it’s development is a true product of our time. When I first started the book, I was locked down in a sleepy village. I read the final pages of the epilogue in my new home- Brixton, South London. Although grime’s heartlands are considered to be in East London (Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham), Brixton is name checked a variety of times and the story of a gentrified London seen through the genre’s lens is all the more poignant.
The book runs chronologically but delves into themes ranging from the production of tracks, to seminal moments which pushed artists into the mainstream; think Dizzee and his 2003 Mercury Prize. Many of these moments reveal how MCs laid the foundations for success on their own terms. A prime example is Skepta’s MOBO award for the ‘That’s Not Me’ video after he spent just £80 making it. Another headline grabbing achievement for Skepta was a huge DIY carpark show in Shoreditch in 2015- everyone had to exit the stage before the police arrived. Each chapter is accompanied by a photo of the big names on their home estates, or spitting at pirate radio. It serves as a reminder that the references in grime have always been so niche and specific to individual communities, just one reason why grime shouldn’t have become a dominant UK sound.
Hancox presents the tale of us vs. them in which inner city kids take on poverty, institutional racism, under funded support systems, gentrification and the structures of the music business- and prevail. If ‘us’ is the likes of Dizzee Rascal, JME, Kano, Dave and Skepta, then ‘them’ could be New Labour and subsequent Tory austerity. Hancox clearly has immense admiration for the artists who made it despite everything. He argues grime is the last local pre-internet scene, where setting was everything and the grit couldn’t be polished up via Instagram.
The idea behind Inner City Pressure was reportedly first pitched by Hancox in 2012, a time when the UK rap that was charting was a lot more pop-centric. Think Tinie Tempah and Labrith’s Earthquake. Ibiza-biased tunes almost led the genre astray, but Hancox noted it’s political resonance in 2011 and stayed loyal. Grime was vastly different by 2018, and the scene has continued to evolve past the end of the book to where it’s at now. The vast successes first of Skepta and then of so many others was chronicled into an uplifting ending, but there’s even more to say in 2020. Stormzy is beyond a household name, having been the first black British solo artist to headline Glastonbury. Unlike some musicians labelled as grime such as J Hus, who bears little resemblance, Stormzy has largely stuck to the garage- influenced style. His more watered-down collaborations with Ed Sheeran stand opposed to grime’s younger cousin- drill.
Powerful figures are now falling over themselves to reference all kinds of MCs. Inner City Pressure asks us “This is what success looks like, right?” With rap consistently charting it seems as though grassroots-led music is here to stay. However, it is hard to say whether we’re seeing any real change in the lives of those communities left behind by gentrification. The inner London regeneration that inspired grime is still taking away from those that live there, although I could point to positive changes like Stormzy’s publishing house and the Guardian interview naming the Adenugas “Britain’s most creative family”. No matter where grime goes from here, I think every music fan should read this book. Dan Hancox is the perfect biographer for music with the potential to shutdown the capital.
Words by Jessica Whitman
Want more Books content from The Indiependent? Click here | https://medium.com/the-indiependent/book-review-inner-city-pressure-dan-hancox-ca48f272093c | ['Jessica Emma Whitham'] | 2020-12-10 09:29:04.332000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Rap', 'Review', 'Books', 'Grime'] |
Marijuana: Good or bad?. Buy marijuana online | What are the medical benefits of marijuana?
Over the years, research has yielded results to suggest that marijuana may be of benefit in the treatment of some conditions. These are listed below.
You can buy weed online now at
website …….https://www.gt-tech.biz/
Chronic pain
Last year, a large review from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine assessed more than 10,000 scientific studies on the medical benefits and adverse effects of marijuana.
One area that the report looked closely at was the use of medical marijuana to treat chronic pain. Chronic pain is a leading cause of disability, affecting more than 25 million adults in the U.S.
The review found that marijuana, or products containing cannabinoids — which are the active ingredients in marijuana, or other compounds that act on the same receptors in the brain as marijuana — are effective at relieving chronic pain.
Alcoholism and drug addiction
Another comprehensive review of evidence, published last year in the journal Clinical Psychology Review, revealed that using marijuana may help people with alcohol or opioid dependencies to fight their addictions.
But this finding may be contentious; the National Academies of Sciences review suggests that marijuana use actually drives increased risk for abusing, and becoming dependent on, other substances.
Also, the more that someone uses marijuana, the more likely they are to develop a problem with using marijuana. Individuals who began using the drug at a young age are also known to be at increased risk of developing a problem with marijuana use.
Cancer
Evidence suggests that oral cannabinoids are effective against nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy, and some small studies have found that smoked marijuana may also help to alleviate these symptoms.
So, is marijuana good or bad for your health?
There is evidence that demonstrates both the harms and health benefits of marijuana. Yet despite the emergence over the past couple of years of very comprehensive, up-to-date reviews of the scientific studies evaluating the benefits and harms of the drug, it’s clear that more research is needed to fully determine the public health implications of rising marijuana use | https://medium.com/@gttech50/marijuana-good-or-bad-3f63aa77ac1 | ['Gt Tech'] | 2019-09-23 09:37:53.097000+00:00 | ['Treatment', 'Kush', 'Chronic Pain', 'Marijuana', 'Cannabis'] |
Why Should You Hire Marketing Companies For Better Business Scenarios? | Digital marketing is the new form of marketing that is essential for improving the working pattern of any business organisation. With effective digital marketing tools such as email marketing and SEO, any business organisation can improve its working structure significantly. It is necessary to use creative marketing tools to promote the business product and service globally in this competitive business world.
Top marketing strategies
The unique marketing strategy for marketing companies in new jersey is as follows-
· Content marketing can emphasise the efficiency of any website. If a business organisation wants to improve its online presence, it should use an authentic content marketing strategy.
· Inbound marketing strategy for the business organisation works as per the business volume or working pattern. Customer relationship management is a special part of the inbound marketing strategy.
· Social media marketing is a useful and budget-friendly marketing strategy that can help business organizations promote their services and products through various social media platforms.
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization or SEO is one of the useful digital marketing strategies that can improve the website ranking to the search engine. If you can create web content with popular keywords, it can help the website enhance its ranking in the Google search engine.
SEO visibility is important for the users to navigate a website on the internet. SEO can automatically increase the audience visibility for a particular website. Thus SEO has become a popular digital marketing strategy in the 21st century.
Marketing strategy for new business
Business marketing strategy for any business organisation is essential for any business organisation to develop perfectly. High impact sales strategy can improve the digital marketing strategy of any business organisation. The latest thinking pattern of the business organisation is essential to improve the overall business strategy of the business organisation.
For the business organisation, it is essential to create a unique digital marketing strategy that is essential for improving the business pattern. Some business organisations use unique digital marketing strategies such as SEO and email marketing to reach global customers. | https://medium.com/@vnwmedia/why-should-you-hire-marketing-companies-for-better-business-scenarios-6548f9fffbe6 | [] | 2021-12-30 11:47:28.855000+00:00 | ['Marketing Agencies', 'Marketing Companies', 'Digital Media Company', 'Marketing Companies Nj', 'Digital Marketing Agency'] |
Esports Team Launched By Mumbai City FC. The Club Becomes First Indian Club To Field A Team In FIFA Global Series | Esports Team Launched By Mumbai City FC. The Club Becomes First Indian Club To Field A Team In FIFA Global Series Spawn Point Nov 26, 2021·3 min read
Mumbai City FC, the defending champions of the Indian Super League, in a landmark announcement, launched their esports team, on November 25, 2021.
Mumbai City FC have signed Saksham ‘Sakky’ Rattan and Siddh ‘Jenasidfc’ Chandarana to represent the club in all FIFA 22 events on the national as well as the international stage. The duo would also be representing the club at the FIFA Global Series, in both the 1v1 and 2v2 competitions, as well.
Both Saksham and Siddh have stood third and fifth respectively, in India. They have also won various tournaments representing India at various international competitions, such as the ESL Asia Cup and the FIFA eNations Series.
According to the CEO of the Mumbai City FC, Kandarp Chandra, “Gaming and Esports have brought another dimension to sport and we recognise the potential it has and the impact it can have on the football landscape in India. Through the power of Esports, we intend to increase our presence not just in India but globally and harness it to give our fans a holistic experience of supporting their favourite club, both on and off the pitch”.
Saksham Rattan & Siddh Chandarana Will Represent Mumbai City FC At The FIFA Global Series This Year
Mumbai City are delighted to announce our entry into #Esports, becoming the 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 Indian club to field a team in the #FIFAGlobalSeries 🎮⚽
Introducing our professional FIFA players — Saksham ‘Sakky’ Rattan and Siddh ‘Jenasidfc’ Chandarana! 👋#MumbaiCity #AamchiCity 🔵 pic.twitter.com/okykpkfIsP
— Mumbai City FC (@MumbaiCityFC) November 25, 2021
Speaking of the announcement, the twenty six year old Saksham Rattan has to say, “It’s a huge honour for me to be representing the best club in India. Mumbai City have ambitions to be at the very top, and that can be seen through the success the Club has achieved not only on the pitch but also off it in recent times. Seeing the direction the club are in is an inspiration to me and I am ready to do my best for Mumbai City along with my good friend Siddh”.
Siddh Chandarana, the twenty one year old native of Mumbai, said, “Being a Mumbai boy and a Mumbai City fan, it was impossible for me to turn down the opportunity to represent my home club. I know what it means to be a Mumbaikar, to live and feel that spirit of the city. Saksham and I have played together and against each other plenty of times and we’re prepared to take this challenge head on”.
We post the latest updates and insights from the world of gaming. For the latest news, updates, rumours and insights from the video games industry, upcoming games, new releases, game recommendations and much more, do keep an eye out on our space!
Source: Twitter/Firstpost | https://medium.com/@spawn-point/esports-team-launched-by-mumbai-city-fc-24ebb4977431 | ['Spawn Point'] | 2021-11-26 07:35:45.995000+00:00 | ['Fifaglobalseries', 'Esports', 'Fifa22', 'Esportsindia', 'Islanders'] |
Big Boy: The Cat Who Saved Himself, Then Named Himself | Big Boy: The Cat Who Saved Himself, Then Named Himself
“What greater gift than the love of a cat?” — Charles Dickens
Image by Toni Crowe
My favorite cat was Big Boy. He picked me to save him.
Me and my spouse were dropping off cat food, cat treats, dog food and towels at the local shelter. The attendant asked me if I would bring the cat food and treats back to the cat room as she would pass out the treats immediately. I followed her to the cat room.
We stood near the cat cages as she loaded the treat containers. I felt a paw tap me on the shoulder. I turned around to see a cage with a big red X on it. In the cage was a black ball of stinky, smelly, matted dirt with bright blue eyes. The cat stuck his paw out and tapped me.
The attendant looked puzzled.
“That is one mean cat,” she said. “He doesn’t like anyone. He is so disagreeable that he hasn’t had a bath, no one can hold him. No one will adopt him. We figure he has been on his own for a very long time. He has been marked to be put down.”
“The cat is irredeemable?” I asked as the grimy cat tapped me on the shoulder again and meowed to get my attention.
She waved at me to move aside. As she moved toward the cage, the dirtball hissed and backed up. He made the classic ‘I’m pissed’ cat bow with his back. The closer she got the more upset the cat appeared. It was furious.
I walked back over to the cage and stood there. The cat stopped hissing. It looked out at me and settled down, first licking then sticking its paw out of the cage at me again.
We all stared as the cat moved as close to the front of the cage as it could, pressing its body against the cage door, turning over on its belly then meowed directly at me again.
I turned around and spoke to the critter. I put my hand through the kennel and touched it. It purred.
“Toni” my husband said as I leaned even more toward the X marked cage. “We already have two cats.”
“Let’s see what happens if we take him out. Would you open the cage for me?” I said.
As soon as the cage was open, I put my arms out, the cat crawled into my arms, lodging against my chest, putting its soiled head against my neck. I could feel the sharp claws in my shirt, but I wasn’t scratched. The soft foul cat breath was whispering against my neck. The cat was big but thin.
Twenty minutes later, it was my cat. I paid the fee. The cat was male.
As soon as we got home, I put the cat down. It ran behind the couch. I got some dry cat food and water put them near the cat. The other two cats saw the new cat run behind the couch. After a bit of sniffing, they ignored him. We let him stay behind the couch that night.
The next day was Sunday. The creature was no longer behind the couch. Instead there were many clumps of dirt and clumps of fur where the cat had been trying to clean himself. I refreshed his food and water and began the search. I asked my husband and daughter to help me look for the “big boy cat”. We searched until we found him.
Into the tub he went. The dirt came off him in tufts. He was a long-haired cat. His fur was black on top and gray underneath. No way could we adequately clean him. When we took him to the vet for his physical, we would have him shaved.
On the day of his vet appointment, I could not find him. I asked my family to help me look for the ‘big boy’ cat. We hadn’t named him yet. I needed a name that fit him.
I dropped him at the vet's, and they agreed to call me when he was done. The veterinarian would need to sedate the cat so they could shave him. When I went to pick him up, they had not shaved him. Instead, they had combed him out. The vet thought the cat was about 4–5 years old. He had gotten a clean bill of health.
The technician asked me if I wanted to sell him. He was a Smoke Persian, prized for their multicolored black and gray fur. When healthy, when a Smoke walked it looked as if the cat was floating on air.
The mean grubby cat from the shelter had vanished. In his palace was an even-tempered kitty that would look exquisite in time.
My problem was that the cat was an outstanding hider. I was often asking my family to help me find the “big boy cat” to give him the vitamins and concentrated food the veterinarian recommended to help him get healthy and gain weight.
The cat was a great hider. One day my husband was helping me look for him. He found him…behind the towels on the top shelf of our master bathroom. What in the world?
Until… one day I called up the stairs to my daughter to help me find that “big boy cat” and the cat walked out of his hiding place and right up to me.
My husband laughed and said, “Well I think the cat named himself.” The cat became Big Boy.
Image by TeroVesalainen from Pixabay
Big Boy was the smartest cat I ever owned. He was a true copy-cat. If he observed another cat behavior that was self-serving, Big Boy would adopt that behavior.
One of our other cats, Laplace had a trick where he would loudly beg my husband for food and my spouse would give the cat treats.
One day Laplace walked over to beg and right beside him, also compellingly begging was Big Boy. Big Boy had never begged for treats, but he did now. Once he started talking, he never stopped. He continued being vocal for the rest of his life; expressing his pleasure or displeasure.
Another of our cats, would jump to the top of the couch then saunter down into whichever lap he wanted. Big Boy appropriated the technique and began his own lap rotation process.
The best trick though was that he figured out how to be fed multiple times. We kept dry food and water out for the cats at all times, but we would give each cat a ½ can of wet food once a day.
Me, my husband and daughter came home at different times. One day my husband got off work early. Big Boy ran over and whined about eating so my spouse fed him his ½ can of wet food.
When my daughter came home, a few hours later the cat repeated the act, getting another ½ can of food.
When I walked in the house, they stopped me from feeding him yet another ½ can of food, explaining that Big Boy had been puking us out for months, getting fed multiple servings of wet food a day.
Big Boy was a character. We had a pair of love birds. One day my daughter came home and let the love birds out. She saw a flash of black run past her and looked up to see that Big Boy had captured one of the love birds. He was carefully carrying the bird in his mouth. He was not biting it, just prancing around with it. My daughter had to chase him around to get him to drop the bird which she then put back in its cage.
My spouse caught on that that something had happened to the birds when he came home. Normally the love birds were in their cage chittering. If you spoke to them, they would chitter more and jump around.
When he spoke to the birds, one bird was sitting gripping the stick not moving, just sitting there. He asked my daughter what happened. She confessed that Big Boy had gotten the bird.
Big Boy was my cat. If I was home, he boldly followed me wherever I went, supervising my efforts. If I made a lap, he was in it. No matter where I was, he squeezed in beside me if he could not get on my lap.
“Sleeping together is a euphemism for people, but tantamount to marriage with cats.” Marge Piercy
The cat was beautiful once his fur grew back in. He had the Persian look, but he was a big cat.
Once one of my friends came from out of town and complimented me on the beautiful toy cats sitting on my bed. There were no beautiful toy cats. It was my two stunning cats, MD and Big Boy relaxing on the bed.
Big Boy lived with us for nineteen years. Every day that I had with him was a joy. He was the cat who saved his own life and named himself. Some say when we die, our pets are waiting for us.
If so, I can’t wait to see my beautiful smoke Persian Big Boy again.
****
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I can be reached at https://www.tonicrowewriter.com/ | https://medium.com/no-air/big-boy-the-cat-who-saved-himself-then-named-himself-e12616243f48 | ['Toni Crowe'] | 2020-01-28 04:30:58.086000+00:00 | ['Happiness', 'Cats', 'Pets', 'Short Story', 'Love'] |
The Essence Of Sanitizing & Masks In Beauty! | Change is the only constant thing, and all of us are aware of the fact that big disasters lead to changes. Change always hums along steadily but slowly, and every time the world faces a crisis the inertial force is overcome. Unprecedented situations often develop new fears, which in turn lead to alterations inhabits. These new habits lead to a gateway for new normal, for instance, demonetization changed the way we spend and made the country more digitalized. The world is dealing with one such crisis today, the Coronavirus is sweeping through the world, putting countries, societies & communities under tremendous pressure. There are lockdowns initiated in numerous countries and social distancing is something that is enforced by the World Health Organisation. As there is no vaccination for the virus, maybe it will pass in a few months. Maybe in a year. Maybe longer. The Coronavirus May stick along but the crisis will pass. The pandemic will leave behind a new pattern of consumption and new methods of working. The beauty industry is one such sector that is bound to experience a tectonic transformation. Now with the outbreak of COVID-19, the beauty industry is going to be severely impacted, it’s going to bring some new changes and trends, read on the blog to know how the mask will become a part of the beauty industry.
People’s Perception Of Beauty
People’s Perception Of Beauty
Everyone has their definition of beauty because we all have varied ideas, people have several different perceptions regarding beauty. In India beauty is as multifaceted as the country is diverse; ancient rituals on the one hand and glossy Bollywood inspired aspirations on the other. In the Indian culture, beauty was considered as an expression of godliness, from very ancient days’ need for cosmetics was witnessed. People have been utilizing a variety of cosmetics products both for curative purposes as well as for enhancing beauty.
herbal, natural beauty products
Till today many Indian consumers still prefer herbal, natural beauty products and homemade recipes, and these continue to play an important role in grooming routines. The Indian cinema presents another facet of Indian beauty where color, shimmer, and gloss were the order of the day. Bollywood’s idea of beauty was based on very specific criteria: fair skin, a silhouette with feminine curves, big expressive eyes, and long, dark, shiny hair. The salons are responsible for these typical beauty codes.
What Is The Indian Beauty Industry Like?
Ayurveda
From beauty traditions rooted in Ayurveda to those calling for the organic today, the beauty industry of India has come a long way. The Indian cosmetics market is continuously evolving, men’s grooming is no longer frowned upon. In the country, the beauty industry has truly been transformed by the waves of tech-induced changes brought about by newer generations.
Before the outbreak, it was growing at a CAGR of 25%, and the country was all set to become one of the top five global markets by revenue by 2025, and if thought in detail it all started with homegrown practices, origins of which could be traced back to the ancient science of Ayurveda. Self beautification initiating from the Indus Valley civilization to the time when millennials and Gen Z figured out that cosmetics can cure those mean Monday blues, the industry has grown a lot. In India, there was a digital boom in 2010, which further led the country’s e-commerce players set out to woo the women, by providing an option for their self-care. The rise of the cosmetics category in the online market was a natural progression and saw the birth of several online beauty retailers.
How COVID-19 Changed The Indian Beauty Industry?
Renowned Brands Manufacturing Hand Sanitizers
The beauty industry is said to be recession-proof, but the situation is completely different right now. In the past, the industry has survived world wars, insurgency attacks, demonetization, and economic recessions. But as the COVID-19 continues to spread in the country, the number of positive cases has risen to 27,977 and 884 deaths, the beauty industry is now faced by an unprecedented crisis. The beauty industry involves activities of touch and feel, testers, makeup trials, daily application of products all these are under scrutiny, and highly restricted under containment measures. The outbreak has led to severe damage for both established and emerging homegrown beauty brands, the Indian beauty businesses are dealing with crippling losses and future uncertainties.
Hand Sanitizer
The beauty brands across India-both homegrown and international have limited their brick and mortar operations, moving online for transactions and communications. The beauty brands that manufacture or source ingredients overseas, halted manufacturing and delayed shipment, mainly in European factories, have disturbed the supply chain and delayed the latest launches. The lockdown by the Indian government has shut stores and postponed deliveries for the period.
The skincare products and makeup have been replaced by hand sanitizers and cleansers. It’s speculated that the consumers will forget the lipstick effect and this will become the age of hand sanitizers. Hand washes, sanitizers, and masks will see a jump in volumes as even when the lockdown will be lifted some of these habits will continue.
How Will Face Mask Become A Part Of The Beauty In The Future?
How Will Face Mask Become A Part Of The Beauty In The Future?
As post lockdown the consumers will lean into the habit of wearing masks, the Indian beauty industry can expect macro-categories of color cosmetics such as eyeshadow, eyeliners, mascara, and concealers to gradually rise post-COVID-19. The face mask will change the future of the beauty industry as textures and finishes will lead beauty conversations to meet emerging needs. Consumers across the world are sticking to face masks, and in this situation, the beauty industry can fully reveal its potential.
It can be expected that the makeup will be dependent on the face mask, and could be called out as the mask makeup. The mask makeup holds a good potential to become a trend post lockdown, as wearing a mask will become an everyday affair for the people.
The life post-COVID is not going to remain the same as stated by the World Health Organisation, they also mentioned that how Coronavirus is here to stay for a long time, and all of us should be prepared for a long war. The changes in consumer behavior and habits will lead to new opportunities for the beauty industry. There is a lot of potential for the eye makeup, and mainly eye shadow to grow as consumers will look to match their eye makeup with their face mask as a part of their overall look.
Will The Emergence Of Masks Connect The Beauty And Fashion Industry?
Will The Emergence Of Masks Connect The Beauty And Fashion Industry?
The beauty and fashion industry have always had a close relationship, they both go hand in hand, each influencing the other on color and style. This relationship can be expected to strengthen further due to the widespread outbreak of COVID-19. The fashion industry and famous fashion designers are launching elegant mask designs as they understand that this is the need…
Source: https://www.iknockfashion.com/the-essence-of-sanitizing-masks-in-beauty/ | https://medium.com/@iknockfashion/the-essence-of-sanitizing-masks-in-beauty-957237db9236 | ['I Knock Fashion'] | 2020-06-10 05:41:30.118000+00:00 | ['Beauty', 'Masks', 'Coronavirus', 'Covid 19', 'Sanitation'] |
Wishing Fall Didn’t Have to End | Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash
Wishing Fall Didn’t Have to End
I love this time of year.
Fall is when I’m full of enthusiasm and ambition. Months of sunshine and good old vitamin D have built up in my system and life is good! I set all kinds of goals and make big plans: stick to my low-carb diet, get in better shape, get organized, finish the book I’m working on, etc.
And then something happens…usually around mid-December. My mood shifts. My energy level drops. My goals start to feel out of reach. Everything becomes overwhelming.
Every year I think this winter will be different. I’m not going to let the shorter days and cold weather get to me. No succumbing to winter blues!
This year really does feel different. I feel good, physically and mentally (despite all the craziness in the world). I like the way my story is shaping up. I’m determined to plow through and finally finish the first book in the mystery series I’ve been working on for far too long.
Wish me luck? | https://medium.com/@tammypwrites/wishing-fall-didnt-have-to-end-dddcd10a4b3b | ['Tammy Patton'] | 2020-11-11 17:08:10.752000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Goal Setting', 'Depression', 'Self Improvement', 'Autumn'] |
Memory Management And Garbage Collection In Python | Memory Management And Garbage Collection In Python
Reference Counting and Generational Garbage Collection
You are at the right place if you have these questions while learning Python:
How is memory managed in Python?
What is garbage collection?
Which algorithms are used for memory management?
What is a cyclical reference?
How are Python objects stored in memory?
Let’s see if I can answer these questions and some more in this article:
I am starting with the fundamentals.
Python Is a Dynamically Typed Language.
We don’t declare the type of a variable when we assign a value to the variable in Python. It states the kind of variable in the runtime of the program. Other languages like C, C++, Java, etc.., there is a strict declaration of variables before assigning values to them.
As you can see below, we just assign a variable to an object and Python detects the type of the object.
Python detects the type of an object dynamically. Image by author made with Canva
How are Python objects stored in memory?
In C, C++, and Java we have variables and objects. Python has names, not variables. A Python object is stored in memory with names and references. A name is just a label for an object, so one object can have many names. A reference is a name(pointer) that refers to an object.
Every Python object has 3 things.
Python objects have three things: Type, value, and reference count. When we assign a name to a variable, its type is automatically detected by Python as we mentioned above. Value is declared while defining the object. Reference count is the number of names pointing that object.
Every Python object has three things. Image by author made with Canva
Garbage Collection:
Garbage collection is to release memory when the object is no longer in use. This system destroys the unused object and reuses its memory slot for new objects. You can imagine this as a recycling system in computers.
Python has an automated garbage collection. It has an algorithm to deallocate objects which are no longer needed. Python has two ways to delete the unused objects from the memory.
1. Reference counting:
The references are always counted and stored in memory.
In the example below, we assign c to 50. Even if we assign a new variable, the object is the same, the reference count increases by 1! Because every object has its own ID, we print the IDs of objects to see if they are the same or different.
Image by author made with Canva
When we change the value of a like in below, we create a new object. Now, a points to 60, b and c point to 50.
When we change a to None, we create a none object. Now the previous integer object has no reference, it is deleted by the garbage collection.
We assign b to a boolean object. The previous integer object is not deleted because it still has a reference by c.
Image by author made with Canva
Now we delete c. We decrease the reference count to c by one.
Image by author made with Canva
As you can see above, del() statement doesn’t delete objects, it removes the name (and reference) to the object. When the reference count is zero, the object is deleted from the system by the garbage collection.
Goods and bads of reference counting:
There are advantages and disadvantages of garbage collection by reference counting. For example, it is easy to implement. Programmers don’t have to worry about deleting objects when they are no longer used. However, this memory management is bad for memory itself! The algorithm always counts the reference numbers to the objects and stores the reference counts in the memory to keep the memory clean and make sure the programs run effectively.
Everything looks ok until now, but …
There is a problem!
The most important issue in reference counting garbage collection is that it doesn’t work in cyclical references.
What is a cyclical reference or reference cycle?
It is a situation in which an object refers to itself. The simplest cyclical reference is appending a list to itself.
The simplest cyclical reference. Image by author made with Canva
Reference counting alone can not destroy objects with cyclic references. If the reference count is not zero, the object cannot be deleted.
The solution to this problem is the second garbage collection method.
2. Generational Garbage Collection:
Generational garbage collection is a type of trace-based garbage collection. It can break cyclic references and delete the unused objects even if they are referred by themselves.
How does generational Garbage Collection work?
Python keeps track of every object in memory. 3 lists are created when a program is run. Generation 0, 1, and 2 lists.
Newly created objects are put in the Generation 0 list. A list is created for objects to discard. Reference cycles are detected. If an object has no outside references it is discarded. The objects who survived after this process are put in the Generation 1 list. The same steps are applied to the Generation 1 list. Survivals from the Generation 1 list are put in the Generation 2 list. The objects in the Generation 2 list stay there until the end of the program execution.
Generational garbage collection. Image by author made with Canva
Conclusion:
Python is a high-level language and we don’t have to do the memory management manually. Python garbage collection algorithm is very useful to open up space in the memory. Garbage collection is implemented in Python in two ways: reference counting and generational. When the reference count of an object reaches 0, reference counting garbage collection algorithm cleans up the object immediately. If you have a cycle, reference count doesn’t reach zero, you wait for the generational garbage collection algorithm to run and clean the object. While a programmer doesn’t have to think about garbage collection in Python, it can be useful to understand what is happening under the hood.
Hope I could answer the questions in the beginning of the article. For the questions you cannot find answers to:
Further reading:
Mutable and immutable objects in Python.
Here is an unpopular but great article in Medium
2. How to understand variables in Python.
Here is an interesting article about tuples.
3. Local and global namespaces.
Here is a detailed explanation from realpython.com
4. Tracing garbage collection.
Here is the Wikipedia link to “trace-based algorithms”.
5. Stack and heap memory.
Here is an explanation to “how variables are stored” from geekforgeeks.
Any suggestions to [email protected] will be very appreciated! | https://towardsdatascience.com/memory-management-and-garbage-collection-in-python-c1cb51d1612c | ['Seyma Tas'] | 2020-12-06 05:39:35+00:00 | ['Memory Management', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Reference Counting', 'Computer Science'] |
My favorite data visualizations of 2018 | Throughout the past few years the quality of data visualizations and use of them has increased dramatically. Data journalism and visualizations have become less of a novelty and are now mainstays in journalism. Those graphics, illustrations and interactive data sets disseminate information in ways words alone cannot, a big reason why Grafiti cares about them as much as they do.
As a content creator and partnership assistant at Grafiti, I have a strong love of these graphics due to the amount of information they convey as well as the sheer creativity emanating from each one. These data visualizations inspire me as a creator and make me want to learn more coding and art skills to create similar projects.
In no specific order, here are some of my favorite data visualizations from the year:
Financial Times
How data analysis helps football clubs make better signings
After soccer fans across the globe had celebrated the World Cup events throughout the summer, the Financial Times put together an informative soccer piece detailing how analytics are being used for training and recruitment. As basketball and baseball increasingly use analytics for player development, it’s exciting to see soccer teams join the fray.
New York Times
How Much Hotter Is Your Hometown Than When You Were Born?
Leading scientists around the world released a report alongside the United Nations with a warning that the world has 12 years to make large changes to fix a rapidly warming globe. The changes in temperature are evident with warmer holidays and winters, but it can be difficult to quantify the effects of those changes. The New York Times put together an interactive where you can find out just how much hotter the temperatures in your hometown has gotten since you were born.
The Pudding
Population Mountains
Recently, Matt Daniels from The Pudding showcased the pockets of population density around the world. Asian countries such as India seem to be much denser than the rest of the world as countries like the United States spread out and create suburbs around cities, lowering the density.
South China Morning Post
Why the world’s flight paths are such a mess
When flying, especially on multiple connecting flights, it can be baffling to at the flight paths. Many times the routes seem scattered and inefficient but this visualization does a remarkable job at explaining the structure of the routes. The South China Morning Post goes in depth on the history of airspaces across the world and how politics affect the routes aircrafts take to get customers from point A to point B.
C82- Works of Nicholas Rougeux
Lunar Conversations
Although many people are familiar with the moon landing and Neil Armstrong’s famous utterance of “one small step for man…,” people are generally not aware of the rest of the communications between Houston and the astronauts. C82’s interactive graphic of the Apollo 11 spaceflight shows every piece of communication and the amount of work was done on land and in space to ensure the astronauts safety as they cemented themselves in history. | https://medium.com/grafiti/my-favorite-data-visualizations-of-2018-64d3fa3dca64 | ['Madison Hall'] | 2019-01-01 22:55:43.756000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Grafiti', 'Charts', 'Graph', 'D3js'] |
Death by a Thousand Cuts | Death by a Thousand Cuts
I was hired as a sales representative for US Foods, internally referred to as a “Territory Manager” (TM) in December of 2019. My job would be not only to sell food, supplies, and equipment to restaurants and other foodservice establishments, but also to act as a consultative partner with the aim of helping their business or organization to be successful. Below is an account of experiences I had during my 18 month tenure, all of which contributed significantly to my departure.
I pursued this job rather aggressively after hearing a podcast interview with a woman who worked for US Foods as a “Restaurant Operations Consultant”- the sound of which excited me. Having spent close to 20 years (i.e. my entire working life) bouncing between jobs in the food industry and those in public service, this role seemed like a way I might finally be able to merge my affinity for working in food with my desire to support my community. After doing some initial research, mostly by way of conversations with those in the industry, I learned that the best way in would be to start as a sales rep; I’d then be able to grow from that position. I was thrilled when I was offered the role.
I soon embarked on the 11-week training program required to become a TM. The process was intensive — my time was split between coursework and ride-alongs with other sellers when I was in my home turf of Southern New England. For the other half of the 11 weeks, I was away from home, either in South Carolina or Illinois, with a group of 40-ish individuals from around the country, all also in training for sales roles at US Foods. While the process was demanding and time-consuming, I was brimming with enthusiasm and excitement. I had a new job! I was traveling! I was meeting so many fun (and I mean FUN) new people! I had my concerns about joining such a large corporation, which in many ways was antithetical to my personal values and beliefs; but our trainer constantly reminded us that this job was more than it seemed- that we had a real opportunity to help people. People who owned and operated restaurants. My favorite people. She told us we could “change lives”. I drank the Kool-Aid. I knew I was just selling food, but I believed that by being an honest, intelligent, and committed sales rep I really could make a difference in how someone might run their business, and therefore in their life.
During this same period, I attended my first General Sales Meeting, a gathering of about 100 people representing the leadership and sales staff of the Southern New England division. I walked quickly past the groups mingling in the lobby, feeling like the new kid at school, hoping I could remain unseen, and took a seat alone in the auditorium. A bit later, as the crowd filed into the large space, I remained quiet and observed. The details of that meeting escape my memory over a year later, but I do clearly recall one outstanding thought- that the overwhelming majority of the faces I saw were those of white cisgender men.
I told myself it was naïve to be startled by this observation. The two fields that this job combines — sales and restaurants — are notoriously male-dominated. But here I was taking a seat — that had to be a sign of some progress. I set my mind to be as successful as possible in my role and also take whatever opportunity I had going forward to push for a more inclusive workplace.
A few months later, May of 2020 arrived and with it the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Many companies and businesses around the country alleged that they were interested in addressing racism within their organizations and making genuine change. On June 19, one high-ranking member of the leadership team at my division (I will refer to him as “Bob”) sent out an email to the entire staff sharing a link to a video with a rudimentary explanation of systemic racism, stating that up until now this was, “a term I have heard, but to be honest, never put the time in to understand.” He invited anyone who was interested to, “sit down with me and talk to help educate me further about this…”. I wrote back, opting in to the conversation, and also stating that it was our responsibility, as those who have benefitted from white privilege, to educate ourselves and not to call on the Black people in our lives to do so for us. In response Bob replied, “Thanks for the feedback” and that he would set up a call.
The call took place about ten days later. A small handful of employees joined, including one HR rep. As a whole, I found the conversation to be extremely uncomfortable, unprofessional, and generally unproductive. One woman spent a significant amount of time weeping in response to others’ stories of oppression and suffering. At one point, while a white-presenting employee was expressing concern for the safety of his children, Bob interrupted to ask said employee if his kids, “looked Black”. Why Bob thought he was in any way qualified to lead a discussion on such an important and sensitive topic is beyond me. There was no substantive follow-up communication after our conversation and no reference to any action being taken within the organization to make change.
Over the course of the next several months, I repeatedly followed up with Bob regarding efforts being taken to combat racism and promote inclusivity within the division. He referred me to an HR representative who provided a short list of initiatives taken to increase diversity in the hiring pool, none of which had been fruitful to date. In terms of anti-racism work, there was only one inclusion. The Night Warehouse Manager would be facilitating optional 30 minute “Allyship & Anti-Racism Self-Reflection Sessions” for the Supply Chain team. Later, on a call with the same HR rep, I asked why this training was only being offered to one small area of the division. Her response indicated that she also found this curious, although she had not previously given it any thought, and she told me she would look into it. I never heard back on the subject.
As our hiring ramped up to fill spots on the sales team left vacant due to pandemic-related layoffs, I continually pressed management on recruiting practices, inquiring about what was being done to increase our diversity and extend opportunity to marginalized groups. I was told more than once that BIPOC just “weren’t applying” for the positions. When I suggested the idea of a consultant to instruct and lead on this matter I received the following reply from Bob, “I am not sure about outside consulting as I feel we have people working thru many resources and we just need time and we need to get thru Covid before we might see some progress.”
I received that email from Bob in January of 2021. I had now been on the road as a sales rep for almost a year. Due to the pandemic, our industry had been turned on its head. Restaurants were closing, the supply chain was in shambles, product shortages were unrelenting, and of course, everyone was at their limits in terms of personal stress and anxiety. Despite these variables, in a job that already comes with a very steep learning curve, I was achieving great success as a seller. I had built strong relationships, earning the trust of my customers and colleagues, and was on my way to mastering the systems and procedures that would allow me to be successful. My sales numbers were growing steadily. In September of 2020 I was one of two sellers (out of approximately 40) in the division to earn the top payout on an ecommerce promotion. In December of 2020 I received a large payout from a five-month-long promotion aimed at bringing on new business — this time I was one of ten and also the newest hire to do so.
This is all to say that by external measures, I was succeeding in my role and also receiving regular positive feedback from both my manager and my customers. I had, however, begun to feel like my outspokenness and proclivity for pointing out flaws and hypocrisies in our systems was not exactly appreciated by leadership and that in doing so I had been branded a “troublemaker”. Even with my “wins”, I was often passed over for praise and recognition on a larger level. Within the sales organization, there was an air of favoritism and a “boys’ club” mentality that became harder to ignore. I saw the same individuals lauded over and over again, even on occasions when they had been outperformed by other, less golden associates.
At the same time, I was also coming to terms with what had become fairly routine sexual harassment, both from customers and occasionally from colleagues as well. I regularly received comments from customers on my appearance, was often addressed via text message as “sexy” or “beautiful”, and more than once was asked out for dinner or drinks. There were also instances in which coworkers made comments on my appearance — sending me texts after seeing me online in group meetings or conferences. I learned to shrug off these intrusions. I was (clearly) in a male dominated field and this sort of behavior seemed to be the price of admission. When it came to my customers, to alienate them would be to risk losing sales, which would swiftly impact the metrics on which my job performance was judged (and on which I would be compensated). Similarly, I could not chance damaging the relationships I had with my colleagues. This is a job in which we are constantly encouraged to “team up” and, especially being new, I needed the support of my co-workers to be successful in my role. When it comes to working in sales, you are only as strong as your relationships.
This all came to a head on January 15, when I met up with a fellow rep (I will call him “Jim”) for coffee — what I took to be a casual encounter on a Friday afternoon. Jim and I first met shortly after I was hired at US Foods and spent time together during my training process. New sales reps are strongly encouraged to rely on more veteran sellers for support and guidance; without significant direction and help, it would be impossible to be effective. Jim and I got along well, despite establishing early on that we had very opposing political views. This was always addressed in a genial and jocular manner, and not a particularly frequent subject of conversation. As the months passed, while I continued to text with Jim somewhat regularly and still called on him for help when needed, his communication occasionally took an inappropriate turn. He sometimes made comments on my appearance. He once called me “sexy” via text, and also expressed his desire to have a meal with me. I brushed off these messages, figuring them to be harmless — he was 20 years my senior and also married. I saw no reason why we couldn’t still have a friendly, platonic relationship.
On the date in question, Jim and I had been texting during a virtual sales meeting. When he mentioned getting together, I cautioned him that I was extremely upset following the events of January 6 at the Capitol in D.C. I told him as much, using very passionate and even inflammatory language in the course of our discussion. I suggested we might wait to talk in person until I felt calmer. He was unbothered, said he would like to hear my views, and wanted to meet up anyway — I acquiesced. A short while later we met for coffee, and the conversation included both personal and work topics. He did make comments on my appearance. I told him about someone I had newly begun dating, who I was very excited about. I also made reference to the fact that he (Jim) was not someone I would be interested in sexually. The discussion eventually came around to politics and, as I had warned him, I did use the same inflammatory language I had via text and became very energetic. While we did not reach any sort of agreement, after some time the conversation came to a conclusion and ended on a friendly note — we even exchanged texts afterwards.
Early the next week, I received an impromptu same-day calendar invite for a call with HR, both with my local rep and another individual who I had never met. I was immediately flooded with anxiety, convinced that something was awry or that maybe I was being terminated. I entered the video call, nervous and on edge. The new-to-me rep got straight to business, inquiring about my conversation with Jim at the coffee shop, then proceeded to inform me that “someone” had filed a very serious complaint about my conduct. This individual had purportedly been upset and threatened by my behavior and had decided to call in to an anonymous HR hotline to report me. I was questioned in great depth about my meeting with Jim and was repeatedly chastised and condescended to in response to my alleged behavior. A day or two later, after the “investigation” had been conducted, I was brought into another call wherein I was told that I was going to be receiving a “final warning” on my record because I had violated the employee code of conduct by discussing politics with a colleague. I was also going to be referred to an Employee Assistance Program. In addition, I was informed that both my manager and the entire leadership of my division had been made aware of the details of this incident.
To say I was humiliated would be an understatement. Not only that, but I felt a deep sense of betrayal and also utter confusion. I had no understanding as to why someone I thought of as a friend would have behaved this way. If Jim was so upset by my words, why didn’t he just speak to me directly? I expressed as much in my continued calls with HR (in all there were five total, ranging from 30 to 90 minutes each). I took the opportunity to share with HR the inappropriateness of Jim’s past behavior, and my general impression that, as a woman, I found this to be a hostile work environment. I also expressed my dissatisfaction with the inclusivity of the organization as a whole. The response I received was shocking. Firstly, I was told by the HR rep that I was wrong and that US Foods was a very diverse organization. She even went so far as to argue with me about the number of female sellers in my division, which I found bizarre. I was then interrogated as to what other untoward behavior I had experienced from either customers or colleagues. I was told that it was my duty to report on the conduct of these men. Although it was blatantly obvious to me, there seemed to be no understanding whatsoever on the part of HR the destructive effect that sort of constant tattling would have on both on my quality of life and my job performance. I declined to disclose any of the other experiences I had had — knowing that any customer I mentioned would immediately be removed from my book of business. At the end of the ordeal, I was informed that Jim had been disciplined for sexual harassment regarding his past behavior towards me. It was unclear whether any members of the leadership team were made aware of this fact.
It’s fair to say that things went downhill from there. My primary fear, after recovering from the bruise to my pride, was that I was now not only going to be viewed as a “troublemaker”, but an unstable one at that, and that I would lose my credibility and sense of integrity in the eyes of leadership — i.e. those with the ability to help me move forward in my career. Over the course of the next few months, that is exactly what I experienced. It became very clear that I was not viewed favorably by the powers that be. More than once, when challenges or difficulties arose, I would be reassured by my manager or another member of my team that I had nothing to worry about, only to later be castigated by upper management. When a difficult and abusive customer I had been servicing requested a different sales rep, I received a threatening phone call from a member of the leadership team, who told me that starting with the incident with Jim, I had displayed a pattern of unprofessional behavior, and that the “final warning” I had received was still in effect.
My morale suffered and I began to feel like it was impossible to recover my reputation. No matter what successes I had, anything I did felt overshadowed by how I was seen by leadership. I continued to want to do well in my role, but I genuinely felt like my spirit had been broken. I no longer felt strong enough to take on all the hurdles I needed to to be a part of this company — push for inclusivity, fend off harassment, and complete the daily demands of working in sales. When one of my customers, who had previously sent me several cringe-inducing messages (once referring to me as “eye candy”) sent a text jokingly threatening to spank me as punishment for an error a delivery driver had made, I made a report. As expected, the relationship between the customer and myself was severed immediately (meaning I lost the sales) and I was told not to make any contact with him. While swift action was taken in that regard, no one else in our organization was made aware of the change, meaning that over the next several weeks it fell to me not only to continue to help manage the account but also to be the one to inform others that it was no longer under my purview. I was told someone from leadership called and spoke with the customer about his behavior — they never called me to address it.
Six weeks later, I gave my notice.
I’m including, below, a list of some of the additional events and conversations that took place during my 18 months as a TM. While they may seem innocuous, these everyday slights and hostilities add up to more than a sum of their parts — death by a thousand cuts, if you will. I’d also like to note that since I was hired, no progress has been made in my division in terms of increasing the diversity of our sales force on the basis of either race or gender. Despite this fact, I remain optimistic that US Foods, and other corporations, can become welcoming environments for all marginalized people. Workplaces where individuals of any and every race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and ability feel supported and are able to thrive. There is a lot of work to be done to get there, and change will only be effective if it begins with leadership; as the saying goes, “a fish rots from the head down.”
ETCETERA…
A colleague told me he would not be pursuing business at a lead for a successful Peruvian restaurant because the area where it was located was “too ghetto”.
An individual in a leadership role expressed to me how nice it was to go out for a day of golf with his superiors because it allowed for bonding and connection and you “got to see a new side of people”.
A colleague told me stories of getting drunk and going out to a strip club with other associates after a division-wide sales meeting.
An associate, whose support I needed to do my job effectively, took a liking to me and told me as much. He called me to chat regularly and often made reference to my appearance and also to “us” — as in pointing out reasons we wouldn’t work as a couple (nevermind the fact that he was married and I was not interested). I once woke up to a “you up?” text he had sent late at night — he later told me he had been intoxicated at the time. When I implied to him during a phone call that maybe I was not as fond of him as he was of me, we never spoke again.
An associate from upstate New York joined a virtual meeting with my team of approximately ten sellers. He remarked excitedly that it was nice to see such a “diverse” team. Our team was made up entirely of white people — by diversity he was referring to the three cis women present.
A member of the Executive Leadership Team (i.e. one of the highest ranking individuals at US Foods) paid a virtual visit to a division-wide sales meeting during which he made the following comment, “They told me I’m not supposed to use sports references because of gender or whatever…” and then proceeded to use a sports reference to make his point.
In February of 2021, US Foods held a highly anticipated and noteworthy company-wide virtual conference during which there were eight sessions spread out over the course of two days. Every single presenter at every single session was a white cis man. | https://medium.com/@meredithlnewman/death-by-a-thousand-cuts-402e475a486e | ['Meredith Newman'] | 2021-06-21 20:45:19.331000+00:00 | ['Corporate Culture', 'Diversity', 'Racism', 'Sexual Harassment', 'Restaurant'] |
Social change happens one person at a time, so start multiplying your impact! | “Social change happens one person at a time.”
“If not me, then who? If not now, then when?”
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
These aphorisms can seem platitudinal, overused, and redundant. However, I often remind myself that they point to a deeper truth that we really need to let sink in, and continually remind ourselves of.
They relate to two core ideas that are simple, evidence-based, and important to keep front of mind:
Social proof: people are more likely to do what other people are doing; and Social norms: if you take action and lead by example, you shift the balance in what is seen as normal (and nudge people in the direction you want).
Social proof
The psychological and social phenomenon of social proof shows how people copy the behaviour of others. People are more likely to do things if they see others doing it. The term was coined by Robert Cialdini in his 1984 book “Influence” and is commonly used in marketing (e.g. reviews on websites, celebrity endorsements).
One of my favourite videos about how social proof relates to social change is the “first follower” video, popularised by Derek Silver’s TED talk.
It demonstrates the power of being an early adopter who’s willing to take risks. You de-risk and normalise the path forward for others:
“As more people join in, it’s less risky. So those that were sitting on the fence before now have no reason not to. They won’t stand out, they won’t be ridiculed, but they will be part of the in-crowd if they hurry. “
Social norms
Social norms take the idea of social proof a step further, into the territory of what is considered normal or acceptable behaviour. It is what we think is expected of us — it’s what a “good person” within a community is expected to do. This representation is shaped by what we believe most people are doing or thinking.
My favourite book on social change is “How Change Happens” by Cass Sunstein. Sunstein focuses on the crucial role of social norms and how nudging people in one direction can result in a social cascade.
Creating social cascades require us to take a risk. Publicly revealing our preferences can be scary, and occasionally costly. However, these fears are often overblown. The personal consequences are rarely as negative as we expect, and more often than not, they are positive.
Social proof helps shift social norms
The Giving What We Can (GWWC) community is an excellent example of using these ideas to create change.
GWWC members make public commitments to donate a portion of their incomes to the most effective charities.
Many people can make an extraordinary impact in the world by donating to effective charities, but why go further and make a public pledge?
The theory is that if we want other people to value compassion for others and a commitment to impact then we can speed up the process by taking the first step ourselves (and doing it publicly).
Remember here that “other people” aren’t just individuals — they are also part of our governments, philanthropists, and companies. The world is made up of individual people who respond to social norms. What we do and say really matters, and it has flow-on effects on those around us, and to the rest of the world.
Overcoming barriers to change
Three big barriers to change are often:
Awareness: are people aware of the thing Aspiration: do they want to do the thing Accessibility: are they able to do the thing
Social proof is one of the most significant factors in both awareness (helping people know about something) and aspiration (helping them want it for themselves). It even plays a role in accessibility (once something is normalised, it is often made more accessible).
In this 80,000 Hours interview, Cass Sunstein gives a great example:
“I’ll give you a little study from Saudi Arabia, which is that Saudi men, by custom, have authority over whether their wives work outside the home. Most young Saudi men actually think it’s fine that their wives work outside of the home, but most young Saudi men think that most other young Saudi men think it’s not fine. They think they’re isolated in their openness to wives working outside of the home.
In the experiment, once Saudi men were informed that most Saudi men actually think like them, then the number of Saudi women applying to join the workforce grew dramatically four months later. That was a research study, not a feminist program. There’s a clue there about programs of all sorts.”
In this example, it was the silence of the majority that was leading to a world that they didn’t want.
Innovation adoption lifecycle
You’ve probably noticed a phenomenon playing out in the real world where social norms can feel like they change rapidly. First, a small number of people support an idea, it seems to simmer for a while, and you almost forget about it. Suddenly it seems like it’s ubiquitous.
For all the years I worked in startups, the innovation adoption lifecycle was always front of mind. Getting your user base beyond just a few very early innovators to the group of early adopters was key — then you’d be well on your way to the majority.
Suppose you are someone who gets in at the innovators’ stage of the adoption lifecycle. In that case, you’ll feel like it’s taking forever. You’ll feel like you’ve been shouting at everyone with no success. You’ll start to think it’ll never take off.
But then something happens, and before you know it, it’s a success. Not as fast as you initially thought, but much quicker than you were starting to worry.
This pattern has played out in many social changes from same sex marriage, to gender equality and more:
“When opinions start to change, the change takes up increasing speed toward a much more even division. That is when the topic becomes socially and politically divisive. A majority forms around a new consensus and the pace of change slows again as the most committed supporters of the old view reluctantly come around; some never do. Researchers call this pattern the S-curve or, more properly, the sigmoid.”
The reality is we’re all active agents in the world. We can all nudge the world towards the world that we want, or sit back and be nudged.
The trap for those who get in early is to get tired.
Don’t ever forget that social change is a marathon. Something that seems old to you is just reaching the point of acceptability for the masses. It’s the time when endurance is most needed.
Multiply your impact
Advocacy is a way that we can all multiply our impact. For every person that follows our lead, we are multiplying our impact and making it easier for the next person.
Now, it’s over to you.
What change do you want to see in the world? And, more importantly, what are you going to do about it?
If you’re someone who wants to inspire donations to the world’s most effective organisations we encourage you to start advocating for effective giving by following (try these simple, easy advocacy ideas!).
Further Reading | https://medium.com/effective-giving/social-change-happens-one-person-at-a-time-so-start-multiplying-your-impact-c274b1f003b1 | ['Luke Freeman'] | 2020-12-22 23:39:47.889000+00:00 | ['Psychology', 'Social Movements', 'Innovation', 'Social Impact', 'Charity'] |
Donald Trump Is Smarter Than We Ever Gave Him Credit For | Donald Trump Is Smarter Than We Ever Gave Him Credit For
Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been played.
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
It was all an act.
Back in February, when everyone was trying to warn him about an impending pandemic, Donald Trump under-reacted. He didn’t seem to get it. He dismissed the experts. He called it a democratic hoax. In response, democrats mocked him as a fool. Now we’re finding out the truth.
The entire time, Trump knew how deadly the virus was. He’s on record acknowledging its potential to become deadlier than any virus we’d seen in a century. And yet, he continued to shrug it off as “Kung Flu,” and played politics with masks and ventilators.
He knew. And instead of trying to save lives, he conspired with his administration to sabotage cities and states with democratic majorities. He did this in hopes that it would weaken bastions of liberal progressivism, and turn the election in his favor.
Three books show us exactly who Donald Trump is:
You don’t even have to read these entire books to see the real Donald Trump, the one who his inner circle knows when the cameras cut off.
They show different sides of the president, but they all agree.
We should’ve been much more afraid of this man. | https://medium.com/the-apeiron-blog/donald-trump-is-smarter-than-we-ever-gave-him-credit-for-996c493f6492 | ['Jessica Wildfire'] | 2020-09-10 16:01:01.860000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Politics', 'Society', 'News', 'Culture'] |
Why parents choose Homeschooling | Photo by August de Richelieu from Pexels
This article is one that relates to me in particular. As a Homeschool parent, I thought it would be fitting to share some of the findings that have personally impacted me.
Parents like myself have choosen to homeschool for a number of reasons. According to research conducted in the USA, the number of students that are homeschooled have doubled in the last decade. We will explore 3 of the most common reasons that parents make this decision.
1.Making a change from a negative school environment.
The National Household Education Survey (NHES), which is conducted every four years by the U.S Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has presented statistics that reflect that this is the most common reason that parents choose to homeschool. A number of parents are concerned about factors such as bullying and school violence. These factors can negatively impact the mindset of a child and their personal development.
A negative school environment adversely affects the mental health of the child and as a result, there will be challenges with low self-esteem, depression, concentration, and the ability to produce satisfactory grades.
2.Get Higher Quality Education
Another reason that has sparked the interest of parents who are determined to invest in their children’s education is the fact that homeschooling allows the parent to provide personalized instructions and take control over what their children are learning.
Surveys conducted by the NHES has shown that parents are dissatisfied with the academic instruction that their children are receiving, especially because it is difficult for the teachers to provide one-on-one assistance in a crowded classroom. Homeschool parents can provide additional material and resources which will ensure that the child masters the course material before transitioning into another.
Lately, there have been statistics that are revealing how homeschooled children are scoring higher on state and federal standardized tests.
3.Tailored Social Interactions
With Bullying and peer pressure on the rise, many parents are joining the Homeschool movement which enables them to choose the social circles that support their value systems.
Because of the flexibility that Homeschooling offers, homeschool parents are not limited to a specific learning environment such as the home but they also have the options of enrollment in various clubs.
This promotes healthy emotional and psychological development of the child and children can develop healthy social skills in controlled environments.
Please feel free to share in the comments some of the benefits that you have discovered if you also fit the category of a homeschool parent. | https://medium.com/@keturahbartholomew/why-parents-choose-homeschooling-ef81785e3e96 | ['Keturah Bartholomew'] | 2021-01-22 20:37:57.141000+00:00 | ['Homeschooling', 'Parenting Tips', 'Parenting Teenagers', 'Parenting Advice', 'Parenting'] |
InPoker announces partnership with DareNFT, an NFT 2.0 protocol that brings innovation to the world of digital assets | InPoker announces partnership with DareNFT, an NFT 2.0 protocol that brings innovation to the world of digital assets InPoker Nov 23, 2021·2 min read
InPoker and DareNFT are pleased to announce they have entered into a strategic partnership to combine DareNFT’s innovative NFT ecosystem with InPoker ambitious e-sports vision.
DareNFT is an universal NFT 2.0 protocol for digital assets. DareNFT has developed a suite of products to address some of the challenges in the NFT landscape, including unrecognized benefits between NFTs, unrecognized relationships between NFT owners and hidden risks of NFT ownership. There are many content types out there and whereas the content types matter at application level, the licensing protocol layer is the same for all of them. Therefore, there is only one protocol needed to serve all.
The existing licencing processes of derivative content are mostly manual and time consuming. With an NFT 2.0 smart contract, these processes can be automated. Derivative content such as: song remixes, subtitled videos, edited images, learning contents, translated book often generates revenue from the rental and subscription business model. Creators can receive royalties from reproducer’s revenue via the NFT smart contract. This speeds up collaboration and sharing of benefits between the author and re-publisher, resulting in more income for both parties.
The advent of the NFT 2.0 protocol that DareNFT proposes can mark a new milestone for nonfungible tokens and the crypto market in general. The platform’s competitive advantage is its ability to adapt to emerging trends, banking on its NFT 2.0 protocol which is an essential element for building a thriving platform.
DareNFT will provide InPoker with the access to its ecosystem and the NFT marketplace where InPoker plans to list some of the Elite NFT membership cards. This long-term partnership marks a significant milestone in InPoker’s efforts to introduce the cutting edge technologies to online gaming.
Visit DareNFT: https://darenft.com/
Stay tuned for more exciting developments on https://www.inpoker.io
Join our official Telegram Channel here: https://t.me/influencerpoker | https://medium.com/@inpoker/inpoker-announces-partnership-with-darenft-an-nft-2-0-f00a05f424e5 | [] | 2021-11-23 07:51:35.968000+00:00 | ['Poker', 'Darenft', 'Partnership', 'Inpoker', 'Crypto'] |
Write your first Generative Adversarial Network Model on PyTorch | Generative adversarial networks (abbreviated GAN) are neural networks that can generate images, music, speech, and texts similar to those that humans do. GANs have become an active research topic in recent years. Facebook AI Lab Director Yang Lekun called adversarial learning “the most exciting machine learning idea in the last 10 years.” Below we will explore how GANs work and create two models using the PyTorch deep learning framework.
What is a Generative Adversarial Network?
A generative adversarial network (GAN) is a machine learning model that can simulate a given data distribution. The model was first proposed in a 2014 NeurIPS paper by deep learning expert Ian Goodfellow and colleagues.
GAN learning process
GANs consist of two neural networks, one of which is trained to generate data, and the other is trained to distinguish simulated data from real data (hence the “adversarial” nature of the model). Generative adversarial networks show impressive results in terms of image and video generation:
transfer of styles (CycleGAN) — the transformation of one image in accordance with the style of other images (for example, paintings by a famous artist);
Human Face Generation (StyleGAN), realistic examples are available at This Person Does Not Exist.
GANs and other data-generating structures are called generative models as opposed to more widely studied discriminative models. Before diving into GANs, let’s look at the differences between the two types of models.
Comparison of Discriminative and Generative Machine Learning models
Discriminative models are used for most supervised learning problems for classification or regression. As an example of a classification problem, suppose you want to train a handwritten digit image recognition model. To do this, we can use a labeled dataset containing photographs of handwritten numbers to which the numbers themselves are correlated.
Training is reduced to setting the parameters of the model using a special algorithm that minimizes the loss function. The loss function is a criterion for the discrepancy between the true value of the estimated parameter and its expectation. After the learning phase, we can use the model to classify a new (previously not considered) handwritten digit image by matching the most likely digit to the input image.
Discriminative model training scheme
The discriminative model uses training data to find the boundaries between classes. The found boundaries are used to distinguish new inputs and predict their class. Mathematically, discriminative models study the conditional probability P (y | x) of an observation y for a given input x.
Discriminative models are not only neural networks but also logistic regression and support vector machine (SVM).
While discriminative models are used for supervised learning, generative models typically use a RAW data set, that is, may be seen as a form of unsupervised learning. So, using a dataset of handwritten numbers, you can train a generative model to generate new images.
In contrast to discriminative models, generative models study the properties of the probability function P (x) of the input data 𝑥 . As a result, they do not generate a prediction, but a new object with properties akin to the training dataset.
Besides GAN, there are other generative architectures:
GANs have gained a lot of attention recently for their impressive results in visual content generation. Let’s dwell on the device of generative adversarial networks in more detail.
The architecture of generative adversarial neural networks
A generative adversarial network, as we have already understood, is not one network, but two: a generator and a discriminator. The role of the generator is to generate a dataset based on a real sample that resembles real data. The discriminator is trained to estimate the probability that the sample is obtained from real data and not provided by a generator. Two neural networks play cat and mouse: the generator tries to trick the discriminator, and the discriminator tries to better identify the generated samples.
To understand how GAN training works, consider a toy example with a dataset consisting of two-dimensional samples (x1, x2), with x1 ranging from 0 to 2π and x2=sin(x1).
Dependence x2 on x1
The general structure of the GAN for generating pairs (x̃1, x̃2) resembling points from a dataset is shown in the following figure.
General GAN structure
The generator receives as input pairs of random numbers (z1, z2), transforming them so that they resemble examples from a real sample. The structure of the neural network can be any, for example, a multilayer perceptron or a convolutional neural network. G G
The discriminator inputs alternately samples from the training dataset and simulated samples provided by the generator. The role of the discriminator is to assess the likelihood that the input data belongs to a real dataset. That is, training is performed in such a way that it gives out, receiving a real sample, and for the generated sample. D G D 1 0
As in the case with the generator, you can choose any structure of the neural network, taking into account the sizes of the input and output data. In this example, the input is 2D and the output is a scalar ranging from 0 to 1. D
Mathematically, the GAN learning process consists of a minimax game of two players, in which it is adapted to minimize the error of the difference between the real and the generated sample, and adapted to maximize the probability of making an error. D G D
At each stage of training, the parameters of the models and are updated. To train, at each iteration, we mark a sample of real samples with ones and a sample of generated samples created with zeros. Thus, a normal supervised learning approach can be used to update the parameters as shown in the diagram. D G D G D
Discriminator training process
For each batch of training data containing tagged real and generated samples, we update the set of model parameters D , minimizing the loss function. After the parameters are D updated, we train to G generate better samples. The set of parameters is D "frozen" during the training of the generator.
Generator learning process
When it starts to generate samples so well that it is “fooled”, the output probability tends to one — it considers that all samples belong to the original sample. G D D
Now that we know how GAN works, we are ready to implement our own neural network using PyTorch.
Your first generative adversarial network
As the first experiment with generative adversarial networks, we will implement the above example with a harmonic function. To work with the example, we will use the popular PyTorch library, which can be installed using the instructions. If you’re seriously interested in Data Science, you may have already used the Anaconda distribution and the conda package and environment management system . Note that the environment makes the installation process easier.
Installing PyTorch with, first create an environment and activate it: conda
$ conda create --name gan
$ conda activate gan
This creates an environment conda named gan . Inside the created environment, you can install the necessary packages:
$ conda install -c pytorch pytorch=1.4.0
$ conda install matplotlib jupyter
Since PyTorch is an actively developing environment, the API may change in new versions. Code examples have been verified for version 1.4.0.
We will use matplotlib to work with graphs.
When using Jupyter Notebook, you need to register the environment so that you can create notebooks using this environment as a kernel. To do this, in the activated environment, run the following command: conda gan gan
$ python -m ipykernel install --user --name gan
Let’s start by importing the required libraries:
Here we are importing the PyTorch ( torc ) library. We import the component separately from the library for more compact handling. The built-in library is only needed to get the value of the constant, and the tool mentioned above is for building dependencies. nn math pi matplotlib
It is good practice to temporarily secure the random number generator so that the experiment can be replicated on another machine. To do this in PyTorch, run the following code:
We use the 111 number to initialize the random number generator. We will need a generator to set the initial weights of the neural network. Despite the random nature of the experiment, its course will be reproducible.
Preparing data for GAN training
The training set consists of pairs of numbers (x1, x2) — such that x2 corresponds to the sine value of x1 for x1 in the range from 0 to 2π. Training data can be obtained as follows:
Here we compile a training dataset of 1024 pairs (x1, x2). Then we initialize with zeros — a matrix of 1024 rows and 2 columns. train_data
The first column is filled with random values in the range from 0 to 2π. We calculate the values of the second column as the sine of the first. train_data
We then formally need an array of labels, which we pass to the PyTorch data loader. Since the GAN implements unsupervised learning, the labels can be anything. train_labels
Finally, we create a list of tuples from and. train_data train_labels train_set
Let’s display the data for training by plotting each point (x1, x2):
Construction result
Let’s create a data loader named train_loader that will shuffle data from train_set , returning packets of 32 samples ( batch_size ) used to train the neural network:
The data is ready, now you need to create the discriminator and GAN neural networks.
GAN Discriminator Implementation
In PyTorch, neural network models are represented by classes that inherit from a class. If you are new to OOP, the article “An Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) in Python” will suffice to understand what is happening. nn.Module
The discriminator is a two-dimensional input and one-dimensional output model. It takes a sample from real data or from a generator and provides the probability that the sample is from real training data. The code below shows how to create a discriminator class.
A standard class method is used to build a neural network model . Inside this method, we first call to run the corresponding method of the inherited class . A multilayer perceptron is used as the architecture of the neural network . Its structure is specified in layers using . The model has the following characteristics: __init__() super().__init__() __init__() nn.Module nn.Sequential()
two-dimensional entrance;
the first hidden layer consists of 256 neurons and has a ReLU activation function ;
in the subsequent layers, the number of neurons decreases to 128 and 64. The output has a sigmoidal activation function, which is characteristic of representing the probability ( Sigmoid );
); to avoid overfitting, after the first, second and third hidden layers, a part of the neurons is dropped ( Dropout ).
For the convenience of inference, a method is also created in the class. Here corresponds to the input of the model. In this implementation, the output is obtained by feeding the input into the model we have defined without preprocessing. forward() x x
After declaring the discriminator class, create an instance of it:
discriminator = Discriminator()
GAN generator implementation
In generative adversarial networks, a generator is a model that takes as input some sample from a space of hidden variables that resemble the data in the training set. In our case, this is a 2D input model that will receive random points (z1, z2), and a 2D output that produces points (x̃1, x̃2) that look like the points from the training data.
The implementation is similar to what we wrote for the discriminator. First, you need to create a class that inherits from, then define the architecture of the neural network, and finally create an instance of the object : Generator nn.Module Generator
The generator includes two hidden layers with 16 and 32 neurons with the ReLU activation function, and at the output a layer with two neurons with a linear activation function. Thus, the output will consist of two elements ranging from −∞ to + ∞ , which will represent (x̃1 , x̃2). That is, initially we do not impose any restrictions on the generator — it must “learn everything by itself.”
Now that we have defined the models for the discriminator and generator, we are ready to start training.
Train GAN Models
Before training the models, you need to configure the parameters that will be used in the training process:
What’s going on here:
We set the learning rate, which we will use to adapt the network weights. lr We set the number of epochs, which determines how many repetitions of the training process will be performed using the entire dataset. num_epochs To the variable, we assign the function of the logistic loss function (binary cross-entropy). This is the loss function that we will use to train the models. It is suitable both for training a discriminator (its task is reduced to a binary classification) and for a generator since it feeds its output to the input of the discriminator. loss_function BCELoss()
The rules for updating weights (training the model) in PyTorch are implemented in a module. We will use Adam’s stochastic gradient descent algorithm to train discriminator and generator models. To create optimizers, run the following code: torch.optim torch.optim
Finally, it is necessary to implement a training cycle in which samples of the training sample are fed to the model input, and their weights are updated, minimizing the loss function:
Here, at each training iteration, we update the discriminator and generator parameters. As is usually done for neural networks, the training process consists of two nested loops: the outer one for the training epochs, and the inner one for the packets within each epoch. In the inner loop, it all starts with preparing data for training the discriminator:
We get real samples of the current batch from the data loader and assign them to a variable. Note that the first dimension in the array dimension has the number of elements equal to. This is the standard way of organizing data in PyTorch, where each tensor row represents one sample from the package. real_samples batch_size
Use to create labels with a value of 1 for real samples and assign labels to a variable. torch.ones() real_samples_labels
We generate samples by storing random data, which we then pass to the generator for receiving. We use zeros for the labels of the generated samples, which we store in latent_space_samples generate_samples torch.zeros() generate_samples_labels
It remains to combine the real and generated samples and labels and save respectively in and all_samples all_samples_labels
In the next block, we train the discriminator:
In PyTorch, it is important to clear the gradient values at every step of the training. We do this using the method zero_grad()
We calculate the output of the discriminator using the training data all_samples
Calculate the value of the loss function using the output at and labels output_discriminator all_samples_labels
Calculate the gradients to update the weights with loss_discriminator.backward()
Find the updated discriminator weights by calling optimizer_discriminator.step()
We prepare the data for training the generator. We use two columns to match the 2D data at the generator input. latent_space_samples batch_size
We train the generator:
We clean up the gradients using the method. zero_grad()
We pass it on to the generator and save its output to latent_space_samples generate_samples
We pass the generator output to the discriminator and save its output, which will be used as the output of the entire model. output_discriminator_generated
Calculate the loss function using the output of the classification system stored in and labels equal to 1. output_discriminator_generated real_samples_labels
Calculating gradients and updating generator weights. Remember that when we train the generator, we are keeping the discriminator weights frozen.
Finally, in the last lines of the loop, the values of the discriminator and generator loss functions are output at the end of every tenth epoch.
Checking samples generated by GAN
Generative adversarial networks are designed to generate data. Thus, after the training process is complete, we can call the generator to get new data:
Let’s plot the generated data and check how similar it is to the training data. Before plotting a graph for the generated samples, you need to apply a method detach() to get the necessary data from the PyTorch computational graph:
Results of building the generated dataset
The distribution of the generated data is very similar to real data — the original sine. The animation of the evolution of learning can be viewed here .
At the beginning of the training process, the distribution of the generated data is very different from the real data. But as it learns, the generator learns the real data distribution, as if adjusting to it.
Now that we have implemented the first model of a generative adversarial network, we can move on to a more practical example of generating images.
Handwritten Digit Generator with GAN
In the following example, we will use GAN to generate images of handwritten numbers. To do this, we will train the models using the MNIST dataset of handwritten numbers. This standard dataset is included in the package torchvision
First, in the activated environment, you need to install : gan torchvision
$ conda install -c pytorch torchvision=0.5.0
Again, here we are specifying the specific version just like we did with PyTorch to ensure that the code examples run. torchvision
We start by importing the required libraries:
In addition to the libraries that we imported earlier, we will also need to transform the information stored in image files. torchvision torchvision.transforms
Since the training set includes images in this example, the models will be more complex and the training will take significantly longer. When training in a central processing unit (CPU), one epoch will take about two minutes. It will take about 50 epochs to get an acceptable result, so the total training time using the processor is about 100 minutes.
A graphics processing unit (GPU) can be used to reduce training time.
To make the code work regardless of the characteristics of the computer, let’s create an object that will point either to the central processor or (if available) to the graphics processor: device
The environment is configured, let’s prepare a dataset for training.
Preparing the MNIST dataset
The MNIST dataset consists of images of handwritten digits 0 through 9. The images are in grayscale and are 28 × 28 pixels in size. To use them with PyTorch, you need to do some transformations. To do this, we define the function used when loading data: transform
The function has two parts:
transforms.ToTensor() converts the data into a PyTorch tensor. transforms.Normalize() converts a range of tensor coefficients.
The original coefficients are given by the function range from 0 to 1. Since the images have a black background, most of the coefficients are 0. transforms.ToTensor()
The function changes the range of coefficients to transforms.Normalize() [ - 1 , 1 ][−1,1] , subtracting 0.5 from the original odds and dividing the result by 0.5. The transformation reduces the number of elements in the input samples to zero. This helps in training the models.
We can now load the training data by calling : torchvision.datasets.MNIST
The argument ensures that the first time you run the code, the MNIST dataset will be loaded and saved in the current directory as specified in the argument. download = True root
We created so that we can create a data loader as we did before: train_set
Let’s use matplotlib for the selective plotting of data. Well suited as a palette cmap = gray_r . The numbers will be displayed in black on a white background:
As you can see, the dataset contains numbers with different handwriting. As the GAN learns the distribution of the data, it also generates numbers with different handwriting styles.
We have prepared training data, we can implement discriminator and generator models.
Discriminator and generator implementation
In this case, the discriminator is a multilayer perceptron neural network, which takes an image of 28 × 28 pixels and finds the probability that the image belongs to real training data.
To introduce the image coefficients into the perceptron neural network, it is necessary to vectorize them so that the neural network receives a vector consisting of 784 coefficients (28 × 28 = 784).
Vectorization occurs in the first line of the method — the call transforms the form of the input tensor. Initial tensor form forward() x.view() 𝑥, where 32 is the batch size. After transformation, the form 32 × 1 × 28 × 28 𝑥x becomes equal, with each row representing the image coefficients of the training set. 32 × 784
To run a discriminator model using a GPU, you need to instantiate it and associate it with a device object using the method : to()
discriminator = Discriminator().to(device=device)
The generator will create more complex data than the previous example. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the size of the input data used for initialization. Here we are using a 100-dimensional input and output with 784 coefficients. The result is organized as a 28x28 tensor representing the image.
The output coefficients must be in the range from -1 to 1. Therefore, at the output of the generator, we use a hyperbolic activation function. In the last line, we instantiate the generator and associate it with the device object. Tanh()
It remains only to train the model.
Model training
To train models, you need to define training parameters and optimizers:
We are reducing the learning rate compared to the previous example. To shorten the training time, set the number of epochs to 50.
The learning loop is similar to the one we used in the previous example:
Checking Generated GAN Samples
Let’s generate some samples of “handwritten numbers”. To do this, we pass the generator an initiating set of random numbers:
To build the generated samples, you need to move the data back to the central processor, if it was processed on the GPU. To do this, just call the method cpu() . As before, before plotting the data, you need to call the method detach() :
The output should be numbers that resemble training data.
Result of generating images
After fifty epochs of learning, there are several numbers, as if written by a human hand. Results can be improved with longer training times (with more epochs). As in the previous example, you can visualize the evolution of training by using a fixed tensor of the input and feeding it to the generator at the end of each epoch (animation of the evolution of training).
At the beginning of the training process, the generated images are completely random. As it learns, the generator learns the distribution of real data, and after about twenty epochs some of the generated digit images already resemble real data.
Conclusion
Congratulations! You have learned how to implement your own generative adversarial network. We first built a toy example to understand the structure of the GAN, and then looked at a network for generating images from the available sample data.
Despite the complexity of the GAN topic, machine learning frameworks like PyTorch make implementation very easy. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/write-your-first-generative-adversarial-network-model-on-pytorch-7dc0c7c892c7 | ['Mikhail Raevskiy'] | 2020-08-31 09:50:39.477000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Deep Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Programming'] |
How to Short Altcoins on Binance | Shorting Bitcoin has always been an option but we know there is no easy way to short a cryptocurrecy at this time
Well we may have found something that works and is really close to the way they do it and it has a very good tracking system in place as well.
We are using a trading platform called 3Commas that allows us to short altcoins and track the performance. You are able to take a coin and HODL it long term if you choose and still make profit off it when it goes down!
Check out this video for a in depth explanation to get a better idea of how we are making it happen:
https://youtu.be/xWnkLRII_FY | https://medium.com/cryptognome/how-to-short-altcoins-on-binance-fb74e29c53e4 | [] | 2018-06-27 18:33:37.403000+00:00 | ['Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Altcoins'] |
Зеленый цвет природы, роста и гармонии, но также богатства и стабильности | Sound Off Co-Founder. Design/ux, philosophy, gardening, meditation, magic, startups, well-being, some other words. | https://medium.com/@varibrusalina93/%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9-%D1%86%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%82-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B-%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0-%D0%B8-%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B8-%D0%BD%D0%BE-%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B6%D0%B5-%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B0-%D0%B8-%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8-48eafd04820e | [] | 2020-12-11 09:50:17.157000+00:00 | ['Green', 'Color', 'Nature', 'Design'] |
3rd Round of RGP Token Presale Whitelist Now Open! | 3rd Round of RGP Token Presale Whitelist Now Open! Rigel Protocol ·Feb 20
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E-mail: [email protected] | https://medium.com/rigelprotocol/3rd-round-of-rgp-token-presale-whitelist-now-open-c7f8b090c435 | ['Rigel Protocol'] | 2021-02-20 12:44:57.052000+00:00 | ['Ethereum Blockchain', 'Binance', 'Defi', 'Token Sale', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
The Beautiful Consistency of Mathematics — Alexander Yessenin-Volpin | Mathematics is often believed to bring people to madness. We hear many stories like those about Gödel, Cantor, Nash, and Grothendieck, describing geniuses haunted by insanity that is developing along with their mathematics. And there is something to it. A certain psychologist said that
A paranoid person is irrationally rational. . . . Paranoid thinking is characterized not by illogic, but by a misguided logic, by logic run wild
Mathematics is the paradigm of rationality and maybe if the rationality takes over all of the aspects of life, we can talk of a mental issue. But this time I want to bring to light an opposite example. This time I want to share a story about a mathematician who was the voice of reason and sanity in the world that has run wild. And one whose mathematics was the model of his approach in social life. Meet Alexander Yessenin-Volpin (1924–2016).
Alexander Sergeyevich with his mother in 1928
The Son of a Poet
Born in the era of power struggle in the USSR and raised under Stalin’s rule, young Alexander experienced the birth of one of the most oppressive political systems on earth. But this was not obvious from the beginning: many Russian intellectuals strongly supported Bolshevik ideas of overthrowing the rotten tsarism and bringing the power to people. Volpin’s father, Sergei Yesenin (1895–1925), was surely one of them. As one of the most influential Russian poets of the 20th century, he stood up for the revolutionists. Although he never met his son, the atmosphere of alliance of Russian intelligentsia with the communist government must have been accompanying the growing Alexander. It must have contributed to the shock of discovering how the idyllic idea met the real life in the soviet Russia. Volpin recounts in Free Philosophical Tractate, which he wrote when two decades old, his “adolescent crisis” in April 1939 when he pledged himself to reason over the mundanely-understood “emotion”. The latter was propagated by the Russian communist ideologues of the era as the antidote to the bourgeois abstract non-materialistic attitude of the anti-Marxist philosophies. Volpin however felt the need to free oneself form the ties of the down-to-earth pragmatism. In his early writings he repeated again and again that
Life is an old prostitute whom I refused to take as my governess.
He believed that the liberation should emerge through authenticity and precision of language, understood ideally as mathamatically-inspired formalisation of the language of areas closest to the practical and social life: ethics and jurisprudence. Without a language that is transparent and unambiguous we will not be able, he believed, to trust our thoughts.
He sought for a tool for making the legal languege more exact in applying modal calculi to the juristic dictionary. Today we know that various deontic logics turned out to be quite handy instruments in legal theory (but not practice). Indeed, they allow to make legal inferences more transparent, but only on a rather superficial level: problems arise always when it comes to specification of good and life-fitting definitions of “permitted” and “obligatory”, two basic operators in deontic logics, along with formalisation of other legal terms.
His Law
Volpin did not give up. He was one of the first initiators of the civil rights movement in USSR. And his approach was quite exceptional given the system he lived in.
He would explain to anyone who cared to listen a simple but unfamiliar idea [...]: all laws ought to be understood in exactly the way they are written and not as they are interpreted by the government, and the government ought to fulfill those laws to the letter.
Yessenin-Volpin in fact praised the 1936 “Stalinist” constitution for various civic rights it granted. Vladimir Bukovskii, a friend of Volpin and later dissident criticizing Soviet abuse of psychiatry for political purposes, recounted that Volpin was
the first person in our life who spoke seriously about Soviet laws. [ . . . ] We laughed at him: ‘what kind of laws can there be in this country? Who cares?’ ‘That’s the problem,’ replied Alik, ‘Nobody cares. We ourselves are to blame for not demanding fulfillment of the laws.’
He rebuked Russians for acting as if they had no rights. Surreal as it might sound, it was this “literal” approach of Volpin’s that forced Soviet authorities to let the political opposition meet at Maiakovsky Square in Moscow to publicly read (it’s obvious which kind of) poetry. And it was Volpin who convinced the court guards to let him in the courtroom during the trial of writers Bakshtein, Osipov and Kuznetsov by pointing to applicable paragraphs in his copy of the Soviet Criminal Code he always carried with him.
This “concrete” approach to law was a surprisingly effective method of opposition as it openly demanded that the authorities observe their own laws. But Volpin took consistency and transparency to the next level. He applied the same hard-core concretist reasoning in the most exact of sciences.
His Mathematics
Yessenin-Volpin believed that the traditional style of making mathematics is similarly hypocritical to the style of handling legal issues in the Soviet Union. He claimed that the unreasonable and careless inclusion of the concept of infinity into mathematical discourse is the culprit of depriving it of exactness it was actually to grant.
Therefore he urged for a radical revision of foundations of mathematics, based on the claim that the concept of infinity, both potential and actual, is utterly nonsensical. He repudiated the existence of the infinite and so confined the domain of mathematical objects only to the finite ones. Such approach might ring a bell when we think of the finitists or finitistically-inspired mathematicians like Hilbert or Skolem. But Volpin went much further: recall that Hilbert’s Program did not reject the existence of the “infinitary” part of mathematics, but only strived to found it on the more concrete “finitary” part. Apart from that, Hilbert allowed for what we now call recursive algorithms ranging over infinite domains whilst for Volpin operations involving them were meaningless.
The expression f(n) (for any n) was completely senseless for Volpin, since it involved an unspecified number n, when one cannot be sure whether f is applicable to all numbers or whether what mathematicians call “all numbers” even exists for that matter. Note that it is not even real numbers and continuum that we talk about. Volpin rejected even the idea of the set of natural numbers, hence he called his stance “ultrafinitism”, where he assumed that one can only operate on specific numeric symbols expressing finite numbers and those only. And so the conventional (especially real) analysis, irrational numbers, calculus, traditional number theory along with other fields get annihilated. Not even mentioning topology or set theory. Such approach is possibly even more heretical to a mathematician than the idea of allowing assemblies and free press was to Soviet authorities. But Volpin did not create it out of mere whim.
Like in ethics, he struggled for conceptual precission. If he was shown a symbol, he wanted to be given its exact meaning — and not the metaphorical or unspecified “any” or “some”. For, and I believe that we have to grant him at least that, when we talk about transfinite numbers, beginning with ω, we do take their meanings as metaphors of some sort and we do make a leap of faith that one can operate on infinity as if it was a number. Volpin wanted to achieve his required level of exactness by founding the mathematical endeavor on the more concrete and down-to-earth, physical world. Hence he even contested the existence of numbers too big to occur in the sensible physical description of the universe. Harvey Friedman in his lectures related that
I have seen some ultrafinitists go so far as to challenge the existence of 2¹⁰⁰ as a natural number, in the sense of there being a series of “points” of that length. There is the obvious “draw the line” objection, asking where in 2¹, 2², 2³, … , 2¹⁰⁰ do we stop having “Platonistic reality”? Here this is totally innocent, in that it can be easily be replaced by 100 items (names) separated by commas. I raised just this objection with the (extreme) ultrafinitist Yessenin-Volpin during a lecture of his. He asked me to be more specific. I then proceeded to start with 2¹ and asked him whether this is “real” or something to that effect. He virtually immediately said yes. Then I asked about 2², and he again said yes, but with a perceptible delay. Then 2³, and yes, but with more delay. This continued for a couple of more times, till it was obvious how he was handling this objection. Sure, he was prepared to always answer yes, but he was going to take 2¹⁰⁰ times as long to answer yes to 2¹⁰⁰ then he would to answering 2¹. There is no way that I could get very far with this.
This anecdote perfectly captures Volpin’s consistent approach: if 4 is twice as much as 2, we should need twice as much time to realize the “shape” or the four-ness of this number. The tacit idea here is that numbers are not all cognized in the same kind of mental act, but are composed of other numbers, so in order to come to grips with the idea of a bigger number, one firstly has to grasp the idea of a smaller one. The procedure of answering “yes” to each of Friedman’s question with respective delays aptly pictures the ultrafinitistic stance on the mathematical reality. The latter is understood as a structure build up the most concrete “atoms” of mathematics — units. And this is the concretist, anti-metaphorical approach that made Volpin interpret mathematics in this manner. We can imagine him saying ‘Look, here are the “bricks” of mathematics — the starting point of mathematical reflection. One can operate on them in various ways: add and multiply them and do all sorts of operations on them, but without external presumptions about their nature or other metaphysics.’
As in ethics, Volpin wanted to free mathematics from what he believed to be unjustified dogmatism, from which originated all murky considerations about the infinite. He wrote in 1959 that the fallacy lies in the deceptive dogma that what is useful is also true:
We desire some kind of practical result, and we divide the sphere of all possible assumptions into two parts. One corresponds to “yes”; the other to “no”. We explore reality and also divide the sphere of possible assumptions into two parts corresponding to “yes” and “no”. … We very often forget that these two divisions differ from one another, and as a result we adopt as reality that which is favorable.
We can note that such link is repeatedly occurrent in statements of various Platonists, regardless of it being G.H. Hardy connecting the beauty of mathematics with its truthfulness, or W.V.O. Quine stating that the usefulness of mathematics in explaining the nature necessitates its truthfulness. Yessenin-Volpin dubbed this fallacy ignoratio elenchi (ignoration of refutation) and believed that it was “the intellectual basis for every kind of demagogy.”
Yessenin-Volpin’s most renowned work in mathematics may be found in the following proceedings:
His Fight
Thus we see Alexander Yessenin-Volpin struggling against demagogy in two most fundamental realms of human’s intellectual activity, the pure and practical reason. His efforts for civic rights in USSR earned him a number of periods in psychiatric asylums and even a 5-year exile in Syberia. Most interestingly, the official “diagnosis” that put him into asylum in 1968 was, as Vladimir Bukovskii reported, pathological honesty. Whether being honest with others and oneself could cause a mental issue is a topic for psychiatrists, but it is sure that Volpin, with his independence and simple sincerity, did not fit into the oppressive society he lived in. And he inspired others with his inner freedom: he stood behind the famous Glasnost (transparency) demonstration in 1965, was called the intellectual godfather of the civil rights movement in Russia, and contributed to awakening of the generation of political dissidents a decade before Solzhenitsyn. When he was incarcerated in the asylum in 1968, 99 Soviet mathematicians sent an open letter to the authorities requesting his release. After the case became international, Volpin was set free. He emigrated to USA in 1972.
Ironically, he was similarly alienated for his mathematical ideas in the free world as he was in the Soviet Union for political reasons. I believe this says something about traditional mathematics. The upshot is that either Volpin mistakenly interpreted the philosophical and foundational assumptions at the underpinning of mathematical practice, or his thought aptly pictures the intellectual inconsistencies in the so-called free society. It is certainly valuable to study his ultrafinitism in search for misconceptions, whether it be for recovering the philosophical justification for mathematics, or for sole development in scholarship.
But regardless of the question whether there is some point to Yessenin-Volpin’s heresies, what is exceptional in this figure is the intention of overarching struggle for independence and unity of thought. To me, the story of his life and fight is the realization of a deep message about the abstract and the practical being not so distant from each other. I interpret it as the manifestation of Weininger’s words that
Logic and ethics are fundamentally the same, they are no more than duty to oneself.
Reading List
For more about Yessenin-Volpin’s life see:
For a critique of Volpin’s ultrafinitism see:
For a discussion of more contemporary account of ultrafinitism see: http://users.uoa.gr/~apgiannop/zeilberger.pdf | https://www.cantorsparadise.com/the-beautiful-consistency-of-mathematics-alexander-yessenin-volpin-b3c672f8ce96 | ['Jan Gronwald'] | 2020-12-16 10:35:36.846000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Ethics', 'Math', 'Philosophy Of Mathematics', 'Science'] |
What does UX Design and your kitchen have in common? | Photo by Nicolas Gras on Unsplash
Everything in life comes down to experiences. Whether we realize it or not, many of those experiences are the result of careful thought and planning with some end goal or purpose in mind. For example, that purpose might be to elicit joy, satisfaction, increase efficiency, or ensure safety.
Great planning often goes unnoticed, but its success is evident in the outcome of people interacting with its design.
That could be in the design of an ergonomic computer mouse that is a joy to hold in the hand, with convenient button placement that increases efficiency for its user.
Or even a well-planned wedding reception where the experience of the guests is meticulously considered and a plan executed to ensure efficient proceedings, maximum fun, and adequate safety for all in attendance.
UX design involves the thoughtful consideration of the end user to deliver something (a design) that solves a problem — Sometimes the solution to this problem is improving on a previous idea to create something that is more beneficial and useful. The process of going about designing these solutions starts with a simple activity: listening and observing — something all of us do daily.
It’s what we do with that information that begins the more tangible tasks of designing.
The process of cooking is similar.
You might be cooking for yourself, in which case, you may opt for a quick dehydrated noodle accompanied by a dry packet of seasonings topped off with some hot water. Some may be a bit more ambitious and go for an elaborate stir-fry.
Of course, some top ramen doesn’t involve much thought about the end user (a hungry, lazy, you) but at the very least it provides you with a time-efficient option that has arguably, a low risk to high reward ratio.
But what about, say, an at-home dinner date? A friendsgiving feast? Or an impress-the-in-laws meal? We might think about the experience a bit more. We have different problems to solve:
What kinds of food would my guests appreciate? Are there any allergies or problem foods that might ruin the entire event? How long should it take from one course to the next?
You might be thinking at this point, this sounds a lot like what chefs at a restaurant might consider. You’d be right. Chefs are also designers of experience. They just use a different medium to present. They use flavors and textures instead of wireframes and pixels!
To pull off either job well, you must understand your tools, your components or ingredients should be organized and at the ready to combine together into something useful and enjoyable by those you are preparing for.
The truth is, we are all designers on some level. When it comes to UX design, the most important thing to consider is the person on the receiving end of the design you are presenting.
Balancing all the other factors (stakeholders, logistics, developers) is equally important to being a successful designer, however, when it comes down to it, we all just want to enjoy the experience.
Good design, whether in UX or in the kitchen, keeps users coming back to use that app, and the in-laws dropping in for dinner — maybe a bit more often than is desired. | https://medium.com/@dleedesign/ux-design-and-your-kitchen-c253f28bd05b | ['Daniel Lee'] | 2020-12-28 15:13:35.924000+00:00 | ['UX Design', 'Organization', 'Design Thinking', 'Cooking'] |
There’s Nothing Pro-Life about The Trump Administration, or Amy Coney Barrett | There’s Nothing Pro-Life about The Trump Administration, or Amy Coney Barrett
It’s all about power and control.
Here’s what someone with an agenda sounds like:
“I can’t say… I’m going in with some agenda. I don’t have any agenda. I have no agenda… I [only] have an agenda to stick to the rule of law.” That’s what Donald Trump’s third appointment to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, said during her confirmation hearings this week. She was answering questions about abortion rights.
Republicans can’t even fool themselves anymore.
There’s no point in pretending that Trump, or any of his Supreme Court nominees, care about life in any form. If they did, they wouldn’t be going through with half their plans.
Protecting life has never been on their agenda.
They’re up to something else. Everyone knows it by now, which is why we’re calling them out. Silence is approval.
Trump treats humans like fodder.
This is about more than the Supreme Court. The Trump administration has claimed the moral high ground for years now, while continually devaluing lives that don’t serve their agenda.
The pandemic is a perfect example of how the GOP views the dynamic between life and control. Some human life is expendable, so Trump can keep bragging about the economy.
The most recent reports confirm what we’ve been fearing for weeks now. Trump is ready to sacrifice us for a jobs report.
The White House plans to officially endorse the herd immunity approach, even though barely 10 percent of the population has been exposed to the virus at this point. He doesn’t care. Our risk is his fail safe, in case vaccine and antibody trials continue to halt.
As the GOP sees it, letting a few hundred thousand additional people die is worth the cost of economic progress.
Trump is dancing while people die.
Forget his Sunday golfing.
In case you’re still wondering how much Trump values life, watch him dance at a maskless rally earlier this week:
Trump clearly thinks the pandemic is over, as far as he’s concerned. He talks about it in the past tense now.
He caught the coronavirus. He’s getting better (allegedly). Now he assumes it’s going to go that way for everyone else. Like he said, “You catch the virus, you recover, you’re immune.” That’s true for everyone except the 220,000 people who’ve died this year.
Almost a thousand people have died in just the last 24 hours. It’s a daily reality right now.
It doesn’t look like he’s in mourning. This is the dance of a man who clearly cares about one life: His own.
And then there’s the matter of COVID-19 reinfection, which health experts still don’t completely understand yet. None of this has stopped the White House from yanking a CDC order requiring face masks in all transportation hubs. The message is blunt: They want everyone to get sick in order to speed the recovery, knowing it’s going to kill people.
The Supreme Court plans to end Affordable Care.
If Trump or his administration were pro-life, it wouldn’t make any sense to snatch healthcare from millions of Americans. That goes double if your brilliant plan to deal with a pandemic is to sit back and have a diet coke, while letting a deadly virus infect everyone.
Amy Coney Barrett can dodge and deny all she wants. We know enough. She’s not qualified. She’s merely the handmaid to help Trump dismantle the Affordable Care Act. She knows this.
She doesn’t care.
Her nomination is about her, and her ambition. You can hear this in every calculated answer she gives. When asked about matters of life and death, she refuses to give any “pre-commitments.”
The sad irony is that Trump supporters are going to feel it as fast as anyone, when they’re suddenly dropped from their insurance, and their president tries to blame everything on Obama.
Some still won’t care. They’ve made their decision to support Trump based on a single issue, abortion.
So let’s talk about that for a minute…
Anti-abortion laws don’t save lives.
Time and again, research shows that limiting women’s access to abortion is the least effective way to reduce unwanted pregnancy. Sex education and access to contraception work far better.
Red states have the strictest abortion laws, but they offer the least amount of support for families in poverty, including single mothers. They offer the least help for victims of domestic abuse. They offer the poorest mental healthcare, and they have the highest number of uninsured mothers. If that weren’t enough, they also have the highest maternity mortality rates. Take South Carolina. The state has 14 different restrictions on abortion. As of 2017, their maternal mortality rate has tripled.
It’s pretty clear.
Banning abortion does nothing but kill expecting moms, while making women poor and miserable.
Someone with Amy Coney Barret’s privileged education is capable of grasping this logic, and the evidence. She simply doesn’t care. She’s one of the many white, affluent women who remain insulated from the impacts of their decisions. It’s not very compassionate.
It’s not very pro-life.
Pro-lifers don’t see their own hypocrisy.
Most pro-life advocates oppose the regulation on just about everything. Guns. Markets. The environment. You name it.
Most of them won’t even wear a mask. “It’s a personal choice,” they say, parroting the president.
These same people want to regulate a woman’s body.
They want to make it a universal law that life begins the minute a woman’s done having sex. They want to deny her the right to end a pregnancy in the last trimester, no matter what medical reason she might have. They want her to die in agony with her unborn infant, ensuring that she’ll never have another chance to become a mother.
Does that sound pro-life?
Pro-lifers don’t understand life at all.
Just listen to politicians like Ted Cruz try to describe the female reproductive system. Listen to Vito Barbieri, the Idaho representative who thinks doctors should conduct a gynecology exam by having women swallow a tiny camera. Sure. That’s where the uterus is located. Her stomach.
It would be hilarious if these clowns didn’t hold any real power over women’s bodies. But they do.
So you know, it’s terrifying.
These people want to regulate and legislate women’s bodies, but they don’t know the first thing about those bodies.
It’s shameful that our leaders don’t even have to know how life is created in order to have this much power over it.
All they care about is power and privilege.
Pro-life politicians don’t know how sex works. They don’t know how plants pollinate. They couldn’t explain how a cell divides, or tell you the difference between an egg and an embryo.
Many of them have never even seen a baby delivered.
They don’t care about life at all. They care about one thing. For them, it’s all about power and control.
Here’s the worst part:
In the end, it’ll be a woman who helps overturn Roe V. Wade, one who understands what’s at stake. She’s more than willing to sacrifice thousands of women’s lives over the coming years, all in order to achieve her own career ambitions, in line with her own personal religious views.
So congratulations in advance to Amy Coney Barrett on her confirmation. We all know it’s going to happen.
She’s in good company.
I’ll say that. | https://medium.com/discourse/theres-nothing-pro-life-about-the-trump-administration-or-amy-coney-barrett-e4eb36932ac4 | ['Jessica Wildfire'] | 2020-10-14 13:47:02.784000+00:00 | ['Society', 'Politics', 'Women', 'Feminism', 'Equality'] |
Climate Change Might Be A Threat to Wind Power | To combat climate change, reduce air pollution, and establish greater energy independence, China has been pushing hard for a nation-wide transition to renewable energy, and is now home to the world’s largest market for wind-generated electricity. The installed capacity for wind generation in China accounts for over one third of the global total. Yet a paper recently published in Nature Scientific Reports and covered by the Washington Post found that climate change might be threatening wind power — one of the very strategies that countries are relying on to help them achieve the goal set forth in the Paris Agreement of keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius.
Tiffany Chan from the Harvard-China Project sat down with one of the co-authors of the paper, Ph.D. student Peter Sherman, to discuss his team’s findings. Their discussion was also translated into Chinese.
Peter, you had a paper that was published in Nature Scientific Reports. Can you tell us more about the paper? What is the topic of investigation?
Under the supervision of Professor [Mike] McElroy and Xinyu [Chen], we looked at wind variability in China over the past 37 years from 1979 to 2015. We used a NASA dataset, which combines model data with observations from stations, to see how wind has varied over these years and how it could affect wind power.
What did you find? What are the results?
We found that there is a declining trend in wind speed over the past 37 years, particularly over the regions where a lot of wind farms in China already exist, mainly Western Inner Mongolia and northern China, where there are not only high wind speeds, but also environments that are suitable for installing wind turbines — so regions with the proper geographical features. We found a decrease in wind speed in these regions and it correlates really strongly with rising regional and global surface temperatures, which makes physical sense. We conclude that because there were these rising surface temperatures and decreasing wind speed trend, climate change probably had a pretty significant contribution to the decreasing trend and it could continue in the future.
Can you explain to us briefly how rising surface temperatures affect wind speed?
Basically, winds are formed by pressure differences. If there is high pressure in one area and low pressure in another, it’s going to form wind. A lot of this is due to the temperature difference between land and sea. If temperatures are increasing over land more than they are over sea, then we would expect this temperature difference to shrink and wind speed to decrease along with that. That’s what we think we are seeing here.
How do you think your finding might affect the planning of wind installations and the energy transition in China?
I don’t think it should affect the planning. While these decreases in wind speed may be happening, wind power is still very important and should become a more dominant source of energy in the future, because coal, we know, is not good for the environment. So while there may be decreasing potential for wind power, it’s still very useful. An area of concern that China has is wind curtailment. Wind power is a variable source; when it’s really windy and we don’t use all the wind power, we don’t have any way of storing that wind, so it’s being wasted. What China, in particular, needs to work on is to develop some kind of storage, like a battery, in order to be able to store the extra wind power that is not being used.
A map of the percentage change in wind power in China over 37 years — from 1979 to 2015. The legend ranges from +30% increase (red) to -30% decrease in wind power (blue). Some areas in the map are left blank because they are identified as unsuitable or uneconomic for installations of wind turbines, e.g. urban areas, forests, etc.
Are the results what you expected? Is there anything surprising?
There have been some other papers in the past that have talked about the decreasing wind potential in China, but we were particularly surprised by how strong the decrease was for these areas where there is great potential for wind — the greatest declines were actually in those areas, so that was pretty surprising for us.
Are there any future questions that your research raised?
What we are planning on doing now is we are going to look at climate models that project how wind speeds are going to change in the future to see if those models also demonstrate this declining wind speed trend and if that could affect wind power in China.
For some of our readers who might know little about this topic but are very concerned about the environment and climate change in general, especially with all these ongoing discussions about energy transition that is necessary to combat climate change, what is the one thing you want them to take away from this paper?
That climate change has broad implications for the energy system as a whole. Wind power is obviously an important step going forward in terms of what we should do to protect the environment, and yet even something like this is affected by climate change. It is important to bear this in mind in the future.
How did you get involved in this research?
In the winter of my junior year in college, I was looking for research projects to do over the summer. I looked up on Google the various professors who do research that I am interested in. I found Prof. [Mike] McElroy and reached out to him. He offered me a research assistant position with the Harvard-China Project over the summer, and I was really interested in it, so I took it right away. It worked out very well. That’s also how I met Xinyu [Chen], who was a postdoc at the China Project.
How do you find the transition from being a research assistant at Harvard-China Project to being a Ph.D. student at Harvard? What made you decide to come to Harvard to get a Ph.D.?
I found the transition very easy: it was basically doing the same sort work that I was doing over the summer. I have always planned on going to Harvard, and I think my work with Mike and Xinyu really confirmed that. It made me realize how collaborative the environment is here; everyone is willing to help with your work and talk to you — I was really surprised by that. When I was applying for graduate schools, there were a few other options I had, but I just felt that the environment here was so collaborative and helpful that I felt it was perfect for me.
Paper cited:
Peter Sherman, Xinyu Chen, and Michael B. McElroy. 2017. “Wind-generated electricity in China: Decreasing potential, inter-annual variability, and association with climate change.” Scientific Reports 7.
Peter Sherman is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree in Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. He received his undergraduate degree in physics from Imperial College London, U.K.. He is interested in a variety of topics, particularly green technology and how weather might affect it, and climate models in general. | https://medium.com/harvard-china-project/climate-change-might-be-a-threat-to-wind-power-f17233f4a616 | ['Harvard-China Project On Energy', 'Econ'] | 2019-01-13 17:20:59.875000+00:00 | ['China', 'Environment', 'Climate Change', 'Wind Energy', 'Renewable Energy'] |
Help, My Son Is Broken | Best Buy Geek Squad Logo (Fair Use)
The following is a phone call placed to Best Buy by a concerned mother.
Geek Squad: Hello? Can I help you?
Mom: Yes, I’m calling about my son. I think he’s broken and I don’t know what to do.
GS: Is that him sobbing in the background?
Mom: Yes.
GS: How long has he been acting like this?
Mom: Ever since that girlfriend of his broke up with him. He’s completely malfunctioning.
GS: Have you tried resetting him for ten seconds?
Mom: I’ve tried everything. I bought him some new clothes, I introduced him to a nice young lady. Hell, I even left him in a bucket of rice.
GS: Have you noticed him making any unusual noises? Or does he mostly just sit there and weep?
Mom: Actually, now that you mention it, he has been repeating this one phrase over and over again.
GS: What’s that?
Mom: He says, “I’m never going to find anyone as good as Denise, so what’s the point in living?”
GS: Wow. That’s really pathetic.
Mom: I know. It’s been four months. I figured he would get over it by now.
GS: Have you tried taking him outside? Sometimes all these devices need is a little solar energy.
Mom: It’s an impossible task. Most days, he just sits there looking at old photos of the two of them while listening to ‘Nothing Compares to You' by Sinead O' Connor.
GS: Glad to hear he’s keeping to himself, at least. With some of these earlier models, they’ll continue to contact the ex through repeated phone calls and text messages. It can get pretty ugly. Consider yourself fortunate.
Mom: …
GS: Ma’am? Are you there?
Mom: Last night, he left her six drunken voicemails.
GS: Oh, boy.
Mom: He had “their song” playing in the background the entire time.
GS: Jesus.
Mom: I’m afraid there’s more. Tomorrow, he plans on writing her a letter. He’s going to mail it to her. He bought the stamps and everything.
GS: Fucking hell.
Mom: I know.
GS: Sounds like it could be the red light of death.
Mom: Excuse me?
GS: It’s a tech term. Would you mind taking a look at your son’s lower left calf? You don’t see a flashing red light, by any chance, do you?
Mom: Hold on.
Ten seconds pass.
Mom: Yes. Yes, I see it. A flashing light. Is this good or bad?
GS: Ma’am, it’s time to start thinking about a factory reset.
Mom: Oh, no. That doesn’t sound good. Will he still remember me?
GS: Sadly, no. All of his memories will be wiped clean. But it should be enough to get his balls back up and running. | https://medium.com/slackjaw/help-my-son-is-broken-6ee80fa3ff28 | ['David Farr'] | 2019-08-31 13:56:01.197000+00:00 | ['Moms', 'Tech', 'Breakups', 'Humor', 'It'] |
The College Experience: Part 2 | The College Experience: Part 2
Courtesy of ZITHS
The second half of the Marathon; And the Marathon continues…
We are still in the midst of a global pandemic. No physical classes just online. Still the old same thing!
Sometime after the commencement of the second semester, the government announces the official reopening of higher learning institutions. I clearly remember the date, it was on the 28th, September. This is sorely because I was anxiously waiting and looking forward as to when physical classes would resume and do away with the “boring” e-learning lessons. Honestly, online classes didn’t do for me. They just never worked out in other words.
We were back in school after some good Six to Seven months. It was an exciting period. Relieved from the e-learning stress and getting back into physical contact with fellow mates and in the physical classroom with the lecturer standing in front of the white board and a marker between the thumb and the index finger.
Things were slowly but surely getting back to normal in a gradual process. We were adapting to the “new normal” of things. Everything was just going on well until the last minute, the examination period.
In my entire life and among all the exams I’ve ever written, this was the worst exam experience I’ve ever been in. Even as I pen this down, it’s hard for me to reminisce on the events that recently happened during the examination period.
Imagine this scenario, you just wrote your first two papers and everything seems to be going on just fine. You write your third paper and feel relieved because you are half way to the finish line. At this point, you’ve really got to put in some extra work and effort because the remaining papers are quite challenging than the ones you just wrote. Suddenly, you receive bad and disheartening news from your fellow classmate that a fellow friend has been incarcerated and is behind bars. This is around 21 o’clock.
How would this make you feel and what would be your reaction?
I felt traumatized and I was shaking. I couldn’t hold my phone and type properly because my hands were shaking. I just said “goodnight” because I felt too emotional and I just couldn’t be online at that particular time after hearing the traumatic thing that had just happened. It was pretty much a shock!
Fooling myself, I thought I was going to sleep, there and then, so as to escape the reality a little bit but reality couldn’t just let me. Like how could I truly fall asleep knowing well that a friend is in police custody? A female for that matter! I for one have not seen my Mum shade tears in a single bit. And hearing the story about how the girls’ Mum shade tears was so heartbreaking! Just picture your queen and hero on ground zero because someone acted stupidly! I couldn’t get my thoughts straight and clear. The least I could do was pray for her.
Up to date, I still struggle to get the full and bigger picture of everything that the young lady went through. It’s so hard. I mean, we ain’t picturing a male but a female(young lady) who is locked up behind the cells with no food to eat! That’s how cold the world can be at times!
The next morning, I reported for school to write my Business Accounting paper and the only emotions I could read on peoples faces were the sadness, the pain and the anguish that they felt deep in their hearts for the injustices our fellow and dear student was facing. And seeing a certain girl shade and wipe her tears out really made me want to cry. It was such an emotional episode. But thank God, she was released later that day in the afternoon though she couldn’t be allowed to sit for the next exams for reasons we don’t know.
Tay, a dear friend and fellow classmate is one of the first year students who’s had to face a traumatic episode at a tender and early stage of life. Experiencing the coldness and the rough side of the world just in her first year in College. It has been a tough and rough journey for her.
Three years ago, Chef 187 put out one of the most relevant line of this decade and the ones yet to come, and at this point in time, it hit me so hard like a blow on my right jaw! He snapped!
“If Judas would kiss Yesu in betrayal, bushe abacensele ebanensu? Limbi tebo…”
The stirring thing is, even though she’s had to go through all this mess and felt the cold and dark side of the world, she keeps and stays shining like the shooting star in the dark. She is the diamond that was buried in the dirty but kept its glow! | https://medium.com/@mulengamukonda/the-college-experience-part-2-400544593afe | ['Mulenga Mukonda'] | 2020-12-01 18:32:00.546000+00:00 | ['Academia', 'College Life'] |
How online violence restricts opportunities for women in the Middle East | Volunteer women of the HerStory youth-led initiative, which produces and disseminates knowledge about gender equality issues in the Arab region. Photo: UN Women/Emad Karim [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0].
How online violence restricts opportunities for women in the Middle East
Is the internet safe for women in the Middle East as COVID-19 accelerates digital transformation?
By Saoussen Ben Cheikh
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced countries into lockdown and quarantine. Trapped at home, many people have turned en masse to the internet to continue their daily routines from shopping, working, and learning to communicating and socializing. It’s likely that it will have a lasting impact well after the pandemic ends.
However, offline gender norms and violence are amplified online, which means that women are less likely to benefit from this digital transformation as much as men. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, online abuse and harassment have been forcing some women to self-censor and disengage from public discourse.
The internet is a double-edged sword. The online world is a reflection of offline realities. New technologies replicate limited environments that women navigate offline. Virtual spaces extend and perpetuate offline inequalities in terms of power dynamics and patriarchal gender norms.
Online abuse that targeted women increased in March 2020 during confinement by 50 percent similar to the surge in domestic violence, according to the office of the eSafety Commissioner in Australia.
Forms of violence against women online
Online violence against women can take different forms, including hateful and offensive comments, physical threats, sexual harassment, stalking, trolling, sharing intimate images without consent, and receiving unsolicited images with sexual content.
Most abuse against women online occurs on major social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube, according to a 2017 Amnesty International report.
In conservative societies where women bear the burden of so-called family honor, the image of a woman made public can have devastating consequences. In Yemen, women fear retribution by their families and therefore rarely show themselves on social media.
Dawla, a Yemeni Human rights activist Dawla told Global Voices:
There is a strict segregation of sex and men should not see women’s appearance. Women don’t usually post their photos online. If a woman shares intimate photographs in a private conversation — which can be something as mild as a picture showing her face without the full traditional black cover — there is a risk that someone will use it to bully or blackmail her. If known it could ruin her reputation and bring shame to her entire family.
Online violence targets women leaders
Women activists and journalists are particularly targeted online in attempts to intimidate, sow disinformation and discredit their work.
Recently, Tawakkol Karman, a prominent Yemeni human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said that she was subjected to what she described as “widespread bullying” and a “smear campaign.” The campaign, led by media affiliated with the Saudi government and its supporters on social media, targeted Karman after she was nominated to the Facebook Oversight Board, established by the company to take content moderations for two of its platforms — Facebook and Instagram.
According to a global survey conducted in 2018 by International Women’s Media Foundation and Troll-Busters.com, “online attacks have become more visible and coordinated in the past five years, particularly with the rise of nationalism around the world and the use of digital networks to thwart political processes.” The survey concluded that “physical, sexual and online abuse is a part of women journalists’ daily work”:
Online attacks against journalists have become more sophisticated in nature, more insidious in their damage to the news enterprise and more dangerous for journalists, both online and offline.
Women disengage and self-censor
As a result of a hostile online environment, women often self-censor and even withdraw from public discourse. The United Nation’s Human Rights Council identified widespread online violence against women as a significant reason for the global digital divide between men and women.
In Amnesty’s study, a vast majority of women said that they were apprehensive about using the internet after being targeted. Some closed their social media accounts, while others refrained from sharing specific kinds of content.
Palestinian women have also complained about the “surveillance tower” — familial and social surveillance that monitors and intervenes in online activities and interactions, which results in increased pressure to self-censor.
“Having your parents on Facebook has its effects. You start rethinking the posts you want to write, or photos you want to share, or people you want to connect with,” said Susan, a Palestinian woman from the West Bank in a 2017 report on online gender-based violence conducted by the Arab Center for the Development of Social Media, 7amleh and the Swedish Kvinna Foundation.
Online violence: Overlooked and underreported
As with domestic violence, the true extent of online violence against women is often untold and underreported.
A 2019 Moroccan study revealed that only one out of 10 women reported online gender-based violence to the authorities.
Even though cyber violence has been recognized by the United Nations as “just as damaging to women as physical violence,” the phenomenon in the MENA region is still largely unrecognized and overlooked, despite the adoption of a number of laws that criminalize cybercrime and online harassment in the past few years.
Women’s rights advocates say those laws often fall short of what is needed to protect women online. The Sisterhood Is Global Institute, a Jordanian women’s rights organization, said not enough women are aware of the new law and thus are still not reporting harassment.
In another example, despite Tunisia passing a law on the elimination of all forms of violence against women, prosecutions for online abuse and harassment against women remain rare. Although in an unprecedented ruling, on May 8, a Tunisian court pronounced a restraining order in favor of victims harassed online before stalking begins offline.
Civil society lacks capacity
In general, civil society lacks awareness and capacity in terms of what exactly constitutes cybercrime and related rights. As women’s rights groups in the region focus on advocacy efforts on pressing issues affecting women offline, they may not be left with enough resources for safeguarding those rights online. Social norms can also prevent women from speaking out.
In addition, there is often a lack of knowledge of technology among legal and law enforcement professionals. Police tend to trivialize online violence and abuse against women.
In the study by 7amleh and the Swedish Kvinna Foundation on online gender-based violence in Palestine, more than half of the women surveyed said they are afraid to speak up and do not trust the police to handle online abuse cases. Instead, many said they dealt with the issue within personal circles.
Online violence restricts freedom of expression, self-development, economic empowerment, civic and political participation. In an era where the internet is an increasingly critical space to exercise fundamental human rights, more needs to be done to ensure women’s safe participation. | https://medium.com/adinkra/how-online-violence-restricts-opportunities-for-women-in-the-middle-east-1423886f497c | ['Global Voices'] | 2020-06-02 18:02:10.981000+00:00 | ['Womens Rights', 'Middle East', 'Media'] |
Twenty for Twenty-Twenty | Red Rose (Photo Credit: Scholastica Olanrewaju 2018)
‘Ekene dike na nke ome, ome ozo' - Igbo Proverb.
I have heard my Mother and her Mother say this proverb countless times. It translates to - If you thank a strong person for what he has done, he will do more. The year 2020 was filled with many twists and turns which tested our resilience as a species. There is no doubt that it was challenging to adapt to a ‘new normal’ imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In spite of all the negative news and events that saturated 2020, I don't want to remember it for only the bad. Therefore, as we celebrate thanksgiving today while the second (and third) wave of the pandemic rage on, I decided to write down twenty things I am grateful for in the year 2020. I choose to document this so when I look back at 2020, I will remember that in spite of it all - the following (not in order) were some of the positives that bettered the year.
1. Family- I have an amazing Mother and brothers who I can always count on. I am thankful that the COVID-19 'lock down' and remote working arrangement gave us the opportunity to spend quality time together.
2. Friends- I don't take the gift of true friendship for granted. I am grateful for the friends in my inner circle that are bold to tell me the truth anytime and strong to offer me their shoulder to lean on. Thank you Ayobami, Ololade, Nandi, Ademikhe, Oluwapelumi, Ebele et al.
3. Health- Health of body, mind and spirit. I'm grateful that I and mine are healthy.
4. The Goodbyes- I am grateful for the good byes. In some cases, I held on to things, people, anger etc. that caused me more harm than good thinking 'how will I survive without them'. I'm grateful that I received the strength to let go and I did. I am also grateful for The One that left after showing us a practical example of how to be an amazing mother and human.
5. Learning Opportunities- I had the privilege to learn a lot this year; from mentors, family, friends, courses, books, movies etc. I'm grateful for every one that gave me this privilege to learn one or two things. You rock! I like that I learnt programming and project management this year.
6. Udacity Bertelsmann Scholarship- This scholarship gave me an amazing opportunity to learn programming - python and SQL in 2020 in the Data Analyst Nanodegree program. Although it was challenging to learn this new skill, I loved every bit of it.
7. Provision- I love to call God El Roi (The God who sees me) because he sees me and always make provisions to meet my needs. This year, I had many material loss but somehow somehow El Roi just dey show up for me. Everywhere I look- provision! #BurstMyHead
8. New Job- I got a new job during the pandemic!
9. Ability to Give- It is true that you can't give what you don't have. I'm grateful I had the ability to give money, time, smiles, books, trainings etc. I am thankful that I could be there for friends and family when they needed support.
10. Blessings in my Neighbourhood- I am thankful for the abundant testimonies received by family and friends. I loved every bit of hearing and sharing in the sound of rejoicing in my neighbourhood. #MoreOfThisPlease
11. Experience New Places- I got to visit two new states- Plateau and Kastina. Visiting Plateau was extra-special for me because it had been n my to-do for over four years now....I am glad that I finally got to do it with thanks to my gracious hosts.
12. HealthCare Workers and Researchers- I am thankful for the millions of healthcare workers who are in the frontline of the war against COVID-19. I am also grateful for the researchers who put in the efforts to ensure that the world gets effective vaccine to halt this pandemic.
13. #EndSARS- The courage shown by Nigerian youths even in the face of principalities and powers to fight for a better Nigeria is love. I am grateful that the hope and courage it filled us with.
14. Intimacy with Self- This year, I got to know and love me more. (Ps: all that lock down was not in vain. ) I also like that I am more easy on myself and accept me with all my flaws/weakness. It was fun to try out things I 'assumed' I would like only to find out that I don't like it. For example, I now know that I must get a Gardener if I want to keep plants- alive.
15. Opportunity X- I will not be specific with this as I am posting this in a public platform. All I will say is that I am grateful for a casual conversation with Peter that linked to opportunity X.
16. New Connections- I am grateful for the new connections I made this year both personally and professionally. These connections have saved me costs, offered me opportunity for career growth and even helped to review my work. Thank you!
17. Critical Thinking- The fact that I can analyse facts to come to my 'own' conclusion is a thing to be grateful for in this age and time especially in light of bandwagon syndrome.
18. The Marriages of My Friends- I am grateful that God blessed my friends with great and supportive spouse. I am glad that I am surrounded by happy marriages and I don't have a reason to arrange 'sense setting' for anyone.
19. Books - I am grateful for the books I read that added to my knowledge and gave me new insight. They include:
• Thrive (Arianna Huffington)
• Atomic Habits (James Clear)
• Making Ideas Happen (Scott Bellsky)
20. K-Drama- I discovered K-drama on Netflix and my chill time is never the same again. From 'Crash Landing on You', 'Start Up', 'Her Private Life' etc.; I am thankful for the people behind it who kept me entertained.
For all this and more, I thank you El Roi.
Happy Thanksgiving 2020! | https://medium.com/@schola21/twenty-for-twenty-twenty-22d167eb4079 | [] | 2020-11-26 01:56:24.640000+00:00 | ['Mothers', 'Gratitude Journal', 'Thanksgiving 2020', 'Thanksgiving', 'Gratitude'] |
Blockchain Society: Trustless Blockchain does not scale; A technical summary. | In my previous article, Blockchain’s Broken Promises, I skipped the tech jargon and the details in order to be understood by a wider audience. But it is a long read. For people who understand tech, the article can be much shorter:
A fully trust-less blockchain can not scale to replace e-banking There are no truly trust-less chains There is no point in a non-trust-less chain
Why trust-less blockchains don’t scale
A blockchain, as data, is a database transaction log, where every transaction is signed by the sender and a verifier (miner).
Getting data about anyone’s account without trusting someone else’s word for it, you have to re-do this transaction log on your own, initially empty, database.
You can do it once, and then keep track of everyone in the world’s account state continually, ie run every single transaction in the world, or you can add it to the log and only “re-do” the log for one single account when you want to validate a transaction from there. Or you can re-download and re-run this log every time you want to validate something.
This means, running fully trust-less, no matter how you do it, you spend some combination of storage, bandwidth and CPU power on every payment in the world. A bit of perspective: in 2017, 1.66 billion people shopped for goods online, but this only accounts for a maximum of 10% of global purchases. Just to buy goods, each of our blockchain clients would have to receive and process the data of 16 billion transactions a year.
Yes, you could just read the numbers from an already complete database — someone else’s database, implying a trusted middleman, the very thing that the blockchain is supposed to get rid of.
Yes, you could re-organize the data so that you don’t have to validate all the transactions, but only the ones relevant to you. But you can not know who you will interact with in the future. You will, sooner or later, have to access data that you have not validated. Therefore, you will have to trust somebody else’s results. Or … validate that data.
To put it simply: running a blockchain fully trust-less also means running one replicated (not “distributed”, but replicated!) database on several billion unreliable, untrustworthy nodes that all have to replicate each other’s work.
By the way: any design that offloads all the work to its miners… also doesn’t scale — there is precedent for this type of design and it failing, which at least one of the crypto CEOs should know full well. I will come back to that in a different article.
There are no truly trust-less blockchains
Whenever it is a company offering a new token contract or a new blockchain software, the company becomes the trusted middleman: they are designing the piece of software or a contract that you trust. As we have seen, with many of them, the trust is not well-placed. The same is true for any private chain run on some company’s computers, or private blockchain clients. How are you to know if they even have a blockchain?
And it goes further. As “Satoshi Nakamoto” themselves point out in the Bitcoin whitepaper:
If a majority of CPU power is controlled by honest nodes, the honest chain will grow the fastest and outpace any competing chains.
You trust the majority of the CPU power on Bitcoin, or another kind of majority on other chains. The sum of your miners are your trusted middleman, and this is not a good thing. This is what makes the the 51% attack possible — and it is not just a theory: there have been at least 9 successful attacks on major chains in 2018, resulting in millions of dollars lost to the attacker.
There is no point in a non-trust-less blockchain
There is another way to operate a blockchain, that is not susceptible to the 51% attack. That is a private blockchain, a chain operated by one company on its own servers. Of course, this company is, then, your trusted middleman.
If you trust a company to run a private blockchain for you, you don’t even know if they aren’t simply using a database. As damn well they should: It is cheaper, faster, and more efficient, they can devote more hardware to keeping the data safe and valid.
there are no untrusted nodes in the network to deal with
if the company is any good, the nodes are guaranteed to run the same software (and if they are not, why do you think their blockchain software would be any good?)
if they can trust their own nodes, they have no need for energy-guzzling “coin miners” on their network.
the company has the financial incentive to keep your data safe. A blockchain doesn’t, if it is not mining currency.
As soon as you begin to trust your nodes, you don’t need a blockchain, because any, truly any digital data storage technology is more efficient. The write speed of the bitcoin network is set to be 1 Block / 10 minutes. With the block size being around 1 MB, this is lower than that of 1980s floppy disk.
What do you use your blockchain for? Is there any property that gives you something a traditional (possibly geo-replicated) database wouldn’t? If yes, you are welcome to comment on the article, I would like to know. | https://macodiseas.medium.com/blockchain-society-trustless-blockchain-does-not-scale-a-technical-summary-7dec3215ddd0 | ['J. Macodiseas'] | 2019-01-14 17:31:02.119000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Mr. Krabs Family Tree | The Krabs Family is a part of the fictional crab family from SpongeBob SquarePants Animated Series that has been airing since 1999 on Nickelodeon.
Mr. Krabs or Eugene H. Crabs is a red crustacean, possesses a pirate brogue and obsessed with money. He is the proud owner of Krusty Krab and lives in an anchor. He accidentally founded the recipe for Krabby Patties after a fight with Plankton, his arch-nemesis. Krabs is a controversial fictional character and has been brought under fire for the extreme lengths he would go to save money, including mistreating his own employees. Even Le Bron James has once said that out of all the characters, he would love to be in Mr. Krab's shoes.
Pearl Krabs is the daughter of Mr. Krabs and is a young teenage sperm whale. She has an upbeat personality and loves spending her dad’s money in the mall. She is currently 16 years old and studying at Bikini Bottom High School. She is also gifted in math and loves cheerleading. Her character is always wearing pink and readily keeps a pair of pom-poms with her.
Victor Krabs is over 90 years old and has a lightened pink shell and a grey bushy moustache. He also speaks in a pirate accent similar to his son’s.
Betsy Krabs wears glasses and has white hair. She is not greedy, unlike her son but does possess a temperamental nature and is not someone to be messed with. She does not tolerate cussing and still punishes her son for any misdeeds by sending him to bed early.
Redbeard Krabs is over 100 years old, wears an eye patch and looks rough up. He is in tattered blue sailor clothes and light brown pants to complete the pirate ensemble. He took custody of Mr. Krans when he was an infant and taught him how to become a pirate.
Grandma Krabs only made an appearance in Mr. Krabs wallet and tattooed on his chest. Her teeth are made out of cardboard.
Great Grandpa Krabs is the oldest living member in the Krabs family, and his age is between 120 to 160. He is quite senile and confused.
Great Great Grandpa Krabs appears as a green ghost and wears Shakespearean era clothes. He invented the spendthrift billfold system to prevent money from being spent.
Great Great Great Grandpa Krabs appears as a green ghost and has a giant hook and sword with him. He became a pirate.
Pappy Krabs or William Krabs is Krabs western ancestors and looked exactly like Mr. Krabs only wears a western-style overall and garments. He is the owner of Krusty Kantina and was constantly broke because Dead Eye Plankton made him always pay his mortgage.
Source: | https://medium.com/@wikidata/mr-krabs-family-tree-6f521f4a8df2 | [] | 2020-12-09 05:21:45.741000+00:00 | ['Animated Series', 'Nickelodeon', 'Mr Krabs', 'Cartoon', 'Spongebob Squarepants'] |
Haunted | It’s like being haunted, these memories that pop up and bring instant confusion, sadness, and anger. I always remember this one time, I had to be five or six years old. I don’t know what caused her to do it, there is nothing that would have been a proper justification for it. It plays in my mind as if I’m watching a movie. There she was my mother dragging me down the hallway to my bedroom hitting and screaming at me. As she throws me on the bed I just remember holding my mickey mouse blanket while she beat the shit out of me. This was not a disciplinary tap on the bottom, this was rage, pure anger. This thirty year old mother taking out her frustrations out on a little girl. The most haunting part is I remember crying for my mom to help me, but it was my mom that was hurting me. I remember being embarrassed as my twin brother sat on his mickey blanket crying, watching this scene unfold. I grieve for myself for that child that had no control, no one to love her, no way out. I cry for her confusion and for her pain. You poor little thing you were perfect and didn’t deserve that. Your not a bad kid, she was a bad mother. | https://medium.com/@shefailednotyou/its-like-being-haunted-these-memories-that-pop-up-and-bring-instant-confusion-sadness-and-anger-8a0542441b60 | [] | 2020-12-15 00:43:56.471000+00:00 | ['Survivor', 'Narcissist', 'Strength', 'Cptsd', 'Abuse'] |
Delores and the Peppermint Invasion | In other news, I can report that
peppermint-essential-oil-soaked cotton balls did not deter the mutant rodents who invaded my house.
I love and respect all life. I do.
I’ve shared my home peacefully with Delores the Basement Spider all Summer. She is polite, and quiet, and stays in her funnel web.
The giant, hairy, nomadic basement spiders get air-lifted outside. They don’t hurt anyone (except basement bugs). But, they’re creepy and I never know where one will turn up. That’s why I like Delores the Basement Spider, she doesn’t sneak around.
Delores the Basement Spider
Then, the mice came. We heard them first. Scratching in the attic and scurrying in the walls. We should have acted then. We should have done something.
Then, we began finding evidence of them, tiny droppings along the walls and under the stove. I did a little research and placed peppermint oil soaked cotton balls in the back of cabinets, under the kitchen sink, and laundry room. The house smelled like a candy cane factory and my eyes stung.
This should have worked
The peppermint oil was beginning to work on me. All of the Eco-friendly websites claimed this would work. I was about to move out, myself. I don’t like peppermint oil as it turns out.
I left my family for the weekend and eventually the smell wore off. When, I came back home I found that mice had taken over the kitchen. Three days in a row, Dear Husband had found a mouse trapped in the kitchen sink. He carefully caught each one and released them across the river. Secretly, I suspect he may have caught one mouse three times and given him three exciting rides.
These mice would not be deterred with essential oils.
It was time to get serious
We could either defend our home or move out. We couldn’t afford to move. We had one option. Well, two actually, but I’m allergic to cats.
Onion the Fierce, Photo Credit: Anita Bowen Photography
A few days later, Dear Husband and I found ourselves standing, slightly stunned, in front of the rodent death aisle at our local hardware store. The aisle seemed to go on forever with packages showing happy rodents, happy hunting cats, or tiny red explosions with mouse tails and variations on the words ‘Power Kill!’.
I was torn between feeling appalled and fascinated at both the sanitizing of and sensationalizing of extermination.
They call it the ‘pest’ aisle. If they’re just pests, why the dramatics?
I love and respect all life. Unless it poops on my spoons
On the other hand, I had just had to sanitize all of my kitchenware, every single kitchen drawer, and cabinet; the mice had crossed a line. No one gets to poop in my kitchen drawers. In light of this, we could call this the disease vector aisle and that would, at least, justify the violence.
We loaded our cart with two each of three types of instant kill traps and a handful of, hopefully, environmentally friendly poison packages.
They were warned
I want to note that before we left for the hardware store, I stood in the middle of the house and hollered for all of them to either leave today or die. I considered giving them a time limit, “Get out by 6 o’clock tonight.” but realized that the invading mice may not, in fact, be able to tell time. So, I settled for giving them until sunset. Except Delores the Basement Spider, Delores could stay. But for the rest of them it was time to move out.
And so there we were, pushing a cart loaded with murder-y traps and poison-y poisons feeling both self-conscious and horrified at the dark turn our lives had taken. They had pushed us into this, after all. If they’d stayed in the attic and out of the kitchen cabinets, we’d be happily coexisting. They could visit Delores the Basement Spider and we’d all get along fine. But, no. They had to invade the kitchen, they brought this on themselves.
I considered what else could we toss into the cart of destruction to deflect attention from our arsenal. So, into the cart went batteries, gardening gloves, fertilizer, and bleach. That made it worse, somehow.
Nothing to see here
Owning our actions
I thought about whether this could be considered self-defense or first degree murder. I did warn them, after all. I gave them an afternoon to pack their little suitcases, contact their friends with pick-up trucks, and get out of town.
And, then we were checking out and preparing to commit atrocities. The young teller’s eyes widened as he scanned the arsenal across his counter. “Ummm, rodent problem?”
Clint Eastwood in “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly”
I locked his eyes, “Not for long.”
“Not for long.” | https://earthchick9.medium.com/delores-and-the-peppermint-invasion-ac863ef8ce3c | ['Susan Lane Singley'] | 2019-07-29 12:41:59.854000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Self Improvement', 'Home', 'Change', 'Life'] |
4 Smart And Different Ways To Manifest To Another Level | How Does Manifestation Work?
Are you looking for different ways to manifest the things you want in your life?
Maybe you’re not being able to follow the Law of Attraction and quite master manifestation? Manifestation is a very easy process if you understand it well.
Here, you’ll fully understand the best ways to manifest what you want.
Let’s get straight to the answer by learning to choose what you want to manifest by getting rid of any negative feelings that block your way, start visualizing what you want to manifest and start taking actions right away.
You must have heard these a lot of times. It may sound cliché, but is very true. There’s still more to this most people don’t answer.
Choosing the best ways to manifest your desires is making the smarter move. The path to success is not smooth.
Imagine a very rocky trail filled with thorns, stones and pebbles. If you have to walk on it, it’s going to hurt your feet. If you had to clear the path before walking on it so it doesn’t hurt your feet, it will take forever. Making the smart move is by wearing good shoes and walk over it. It may sound so simple, but we have forgotten to take the basic examples we have learned since the primitive age. So the best ways to manifest smartly are:
How To Manifest On Paper — Write Your Thoughts Down Immediately
Since we’re not in the primitive age anymore we have the advantage of learning through reading and writing.
Why not take that advantage my manifesting writing on paper? Once you are clear of what you want to manifest, write it on paper straight away. This will amplify your signal to the universe by being clear of what you want.
When you write your desires down, write it in present tense. For example, here are some things to manifest, “I am capable of overcoming any money-obstacles that stand in my way.” “I release all resistance to attracting money.” Or, “I am worthy of meeting the love of my life.” “I am worthy to get the job of my dreams.”
The mistakes most people make are by writing it in future tense like, “I will be overcoming any money-obstacles that stand in my way.” Or, “I will become worthy to meet the love of my life.”
The reason for this which doesn’t allow you to manifest is that the universe hears everything in the future and it will always be something that is going to happen. Manifestation should always be happening in the present fulfilling your desires as you move forward in life.
Once you write it down, read it with the burning desire you have to achieve the goal.
Let it become imprinted in your mind as a habit rather than something you have to force into thinking. Which leads us to our next manifestation technique.
2. Best Time To Manifest During The Day.
After you have written down what you want to manifest. You need to start making them an automatic habit that is imprinted in your subconscious mind.
Reading your written desires out loud randomly may work but can be a long and tedious work.
Your mind is best susceptible to receiving affirmation in the morning as soon as you wake up and at night right before you go to bed. When you wake up in the morning, fill your mind with your desires as the first thought of the day.
After sleeping all night your conscious mind is empty as soon as you wake up in the morning. It is of least resistance from any thought that comes during the day. When you give your desires the number one priority as you start your day, it stays in your thoughts throughout the day. You may have experienced the same thing with a song that you hear and it gets stuck in your head all day long.
Over time it becomes a pattern that you will start thinking about your desires as soon as you wake up and it starts running subconsciously throughout the day letting the universe know what to summon.
If you are wondering how to manifest anything overnight, then you got your answers right here. Reading your desires out loud right before you go to bed is a very powerful tool.
Your mind right before falling asleep is in between the conscious and subconscious mind. In this state of mind, it’s best to send signals that make an impact on your subconscious which works faster than reading your affirmations randomly during the day.
Also, while reading your goals and desires right before you sleep creates a window throughout the night when your body is working subconsciously and automatically goes on for hours effortlessly.
Related: 28 universal laws of success
3. Start Manifesting by Visualizing
Start by going somewhere that’s quiet and private, and spend some time on visualizing the thing you want. Start imagining the exact scene.
Don’t be vague or unclear. The more specific you are, and the more details you imagine, the better the visualization will work for you.
By doing this you are already creating a scene where your dreams have already come true. The visualization is an image that projects in your mind that indicates the universe in creating exactly what you are looking for.
Your dreams are exactly a visualization of your mind, so why not create one by yourself? It’s important to be consistent, because regular visualization can convince your brain that what you imagine is actually the truth.
Take your written desires and goals and start visualizing right away. It is even more powerful to visualize right before bed since it works automatically throughout the night subconsciously.
4. Learning The Power of Gratitude
No matter how much you try, if you don’t have a mind that is grateful, manifestation will not work in your favor. Even if you can’t be grateful yet for the desires you have written down, try being grateful for the little achievements you’ve made through the way. This gives you a positive attitude towards your goals.
Gratitude is the most powerful manifesting tool you can use when you want to reach your BIG dreams and goals. It’s like showing the universe every day what it should deliver. Just with the things you are grateful for shows all the stuff that makes you happy. The better you feel physically and emotionally, the easier it is for you to reach your dreams and take the necessary action to crush through your goals. Practicing gratitude reduces stress by focusing attention on something that enhances your life. It releases your mind from the bonds of negative emotions that may have you feeling stuck.
The simplest way of practicing gratitude is to make a list of things you are thankful for every day. Create a gratitude journal and write down everything you are grateful for that day. When you write them down, focus on why you’re thankful and spend some time focusing solely on being thankful without expectation. It doesn’t matter how big or small the thing you’re grateful for is. As long as you create the emotion, you’re on the right track.
Now you have the best techniques to manifest, don’t think twice. Apply them right away and start receiving the benefits instantly.
Want to read more similar articles? Go to www.67goldenrules.com | https://medium.com/@67goldenrulesmotivation/4-smart-and-different-ways-to-manifest-to-another-level-839df14ba1b0 | ['Golden Rules'] | 2021-07-06 13:09:44.958000+00:00 | ['Manifesting', 'Success', 'Personal Development', 'Manifestation', 'Manifesto'] |
The monster | The monster
A poem about my nightmare
Photo by Marloes Hilckmann on Unsplash
“I’m still here” said the monster
“I can see you” it smiled,
I tried closing my eyes
I held my breath for a while.
For a moment it worked
But then relief turned to fury,
The monster was gone
Replaced by a jury.
All of those voices
The laughter that lingers,
Shaking heads at my choices
And pointing their fingers.
The noise filled the courtroom
The judge started singing,
Naked bodies on ropes
From the ceiling were swinging.
I tried closing my eyes
When they opened again,
I drove through the desert
No roof in the rain.
Laughter I heard
From the passenger side,
She touched my shoulder and smiled
I saw myself in her eyes.
Golden hair rode the wind
But her voice was misplaced,
A manicured hand
Tore the flesh from her face.
“I’m still here” laughed the monster
When I awoke I was screaming,
The monster whispered
“Do you still think you’re dreaming?” | https://nasarkarim.medium.com/the-monster-bf6925a0991d | ['Nasar Karim'] | 2020-11-24 00:33:31.197000+00:00 | ['Poetry On Medium', 'Horror', 'Dreams', 'Nightmare', 'Poetry'] |
How to Build a CRUD Application with ASP.NET Core 3.0 & Entity Framework 3.0 using Visual Studio 2019 | In this blog, I am going to provide a walk-through on developing a web application using ASP.NET Core 3.0, connecting it to a database (database-first) using the Entity Framework Core 3.0 command, and performing CRUD operations using scaffolding (code generator). I am going to develop a sample application for inventory management with basic operations.
ASP.NET Core is a web framework from Microsoft. It is an open-source, cross-platform, cloud-optimized web framework that runs on Windows using .NET Framework and .NET Core, and on other platforms using .NET Core. It is a complete rewrite that unites ASP.NET MVC and Web API into a single programming model and removes system-related dependencies. This helps in deploying applications to non-Windows servers and improves performance.
Note: In this demo application, I have used ASP.NET Core 3.0 Preview 8, Entity Framework Core 3.0 Preview 8, with Visual Studio 2019 16.3.0 Preview 2.0.
Prerequisites
A .NET Core application can be developed using these IDEs:
Visual Studio
Visual Studio Code
Command Prompt
Here, I am using Visual Studio to build the application. Be sure that the necessary software is installed:
Visual Studio 2019 16.3.0 Preview 2.0
NET Core 3.0 Preview 8
SQL Server 2017
Create database
Let’s create a database on your local SQL Server. I hope you have installed SQL Server 2017 in your machine (you can use SQL Server 2008, 2012, or 2016, as well).
Step 1: Open Visual Studio 2019.
Step 2: Open SQL Server Object Explorer and click Add SQL Server.
Step 3: Here we have an option to choose from the local machine’s SQL Server, connected via network, and the Azure SQL database. I have chosen the local SQL Server instance. I provide the SQL Server details and click Connect. The SQL Server will be listed in Explorer.
Establishing connection to the database server
SQL Server listed in Solution Explorer
Step 4: Right-click on a database node and create a new database ( Inventory).
Step 5: Now we have the database in place. Click on our database and choose New Query.
Step 6: For this application, I am going to create a table called Products with basic attributes. Paste the following SQL query into the Query window to create a Products table.
Create Table Products(
ProductId BigInt Identity(1,1) Primary Key,
Name Varchar(100) Not Null,
Category Varchar(100),
Color Varchar(20),
UnitPrice Decimal Not Null,
AvailableQuantity BigInt Not Null,
CratedDate DateTime Default(GetDate()) Not null)
Step 7: Click the Run icon to create the table. Now we have the table needed for our application.
Create an ASP.NET Core application
Follow these steps to create an ASP.NET Core application.
Step 1: In Visual Studio 2019, click on File -> New -> Project.
Step 2: Choose the Create a new project option.
Step 3: Select the ASP.NET Core Web Application template.
Step 4: Enter project name and click Create.
Step 5: Select .NET Core and ASP.NET Core 3.0 and choose the Web Application (Model-View-Controller) template.
Uncheck the Configure for HTTPS under the Advanced options (in a development environment, we have no need of SSL).
Click Create. Then the sample ASP.NET Core application will be created with this project structure.
Install NuGet packages
The following NuGet packages should be added to work with the SQL Server database and scaffolding. Run these commands in Package Manager Console:
Install-Package Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design -Version 3.0.0-preview8–19413–06 This package helps generate controllers and views.
This package helps generate controllers and views. Install-Package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools -Version 3.0.0-preview8.19405.11 This package helps create database context and a model class from the database.
This package helps create database context and a model class from the database. Install-Package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer -Version 3.0.0-preview8.19405.11 The database provider allows Entity Framework Core to work with SQL Server.
Scaffolding
ASP.NET Core has a feature called scaffolding, which uses T4 templates to generate code of common functionalities to help keep developers from writing repeat code. We use scaffolding to perform the following operations:
Generate entity POCO classes and a context class for the database.
Generate code for create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations of the database model using Entity Framework Core, which includes controllers and views.
Connect application with database
Run the following scaffold command in Package Manager Console to reverse engineer the database to create database context and entity POCO classes from tables. The scaffold command will create POCO class only for the tables that have a primary key.
Scaffold-DbContext “Server=ABCSERVER;Database=Inventory;Integrated Security=True” Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer -OutputDir Models
Connection- Sets connection string of the database.
Sets connection string of the database. Provider- Sets which provider to use to connect database.
Sets which provider to use to connect database. OutputDir-Sets the directory where the POCO classes are to be generated.
In our case, the Products class and Inventory context class will be created.
Open the Inventory Context class file. You will see the database credentials are hard coded in the OnConfiguring method.
It’s not good practice to have SQL Server credentials in C# class, considering the security issues. So, remove this OnConfiguring method from context file.
And move the connection string to the appsettings.json file.
Then we can register the database context service ( InventotyContext) during application startup. In the following code, the connection string is read from the appsettings file and passed to the context service.
Then this context service is injected with the required controllers via dependency injection.
Perform CRUD operations
Now we set up the database and configure it to work with Entity Framework Core. We’ll see how to perform CRUD operations.
Right-click on the controller folder, select add new item, and then select controller. Then this dialog will be displayed.
Select the MVC Controller with views, using Entity Framework option and click Add.
We need to choose a database model class and data context class, which were created earlier, and click Add.
That’s it, we’re done. The scaffolding engine uses T4 templates to generate code for controller actions and views in their respective folders. This is the basic version of code; we can modify it as needed.
Please find the files created,
Now we have fully functional CRUD operations on the Products table.
Then, change the default application route to load the Products Controller instead of the home controller. Open the Startup.cs file and under the Configure method, change the default controller to Products.
With the help of the scaffolding engine, developers need not write CRUD operations for each database model.
Run application
Click Run to view the application. A new browser tab will open and we’ll be able to see the product listing page. Since there is no product in the inventory, it’s empty.
Click Create New to add new products to the inventory.
After entering the details, click Create. Now we should see newly created products in the listing page as in the following screenshot. I have added three more products.
Click Details to view the product details.
Click Edit to update product details.
Click Delete to delete a product. Confirmation will be requested before it’s deleted from the database.
Without writing a single line of code, we are able to create an application with basic CRUD operations with the help of the scaffolding engine.
I have shared the sample application in this GitHub location. Extract the application, change the connection string in the appsettings.json file that points to your SQL Server, and run the application.
Conclusion
In this blog, we have learned how to create an ASP.NET Core application and connect it to a database to perform basic CRUD operations using Entity Framework Core 3.0 and a code generation tool. I hope it was useful. Please share your feedback in the comments section below.
The Syncfusion ASP.NET Core UI controls library is the only suite that you will ever need to build an application since it contains over 65 high-performance, lightweight, modular, and responsive UI controls in a single package. Download our free trial from here. You can also explore our online demos here.
If you have any questions or require clarifications about these controls, please let us know in the comments below. You can also contact us through our support forum, Direct-Trac, or feedback portal. We are happy to assist you! | https://medium.com/syncfusion/how-to-build-a-crud-application-with-asp-net-bb10b94b515a | ['Suresh Mohan'] | 2019-09-04 12:20:15.130000+00:00 | ['Aspnetcore', 'Database', 'Entity Framework', 'Web Development'] |
Meross Outdoor Smart Plug review: A capable, if basic outdoor plug | Chinese brand Meross is pushing into the U.S. with a wide range of Wi-Fi smart home gear, including this outdoor plug with a familiar design.
The all-black device offers two three-prong sockets (each with a flip-out cover) and is certified as IP44 weatherproof (which is basically just protection against splashes and large solids. You can read more about IP codes in this story.) Devices that draw 10 amps or less are specified for use, and the unit supports only 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best smart plugs, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product. Christopher Null / IDG The two sockets can be powered on independently, but only within the app or via HomeKit.
The Meross plug is widely compatible, including support for HomeKit, Alexa, Google Assistant, SmartThings, and IFTTT. I initially set the unit up in iOS with HomeKit, and it was connected to my network in a matter of seconds. Later, I fired up the Meross mobile app to test managing the device via the official interface, and while it wasn’t immediately intuitive how to add a device to the app which had already been registered with HomeKit, after a little trial and error the plug appeared within the app.
As you might expect, there’s not much to it. One helpful feature is that, within the app or within HomeKit, you can control the two sockets individually, so one can be on and the other off, and so on. There’s only one physical power button on the hardware, however; it controls both outlets simultaneously (turning both on or both off) regardless of how you have them set in the app.
Aside from manual on/off control, the usual smart home features can be found in the app, including a section that lets you configure preset scenes, a scheduling system (including sunrise and sunset options), and an auto-off timer. The app also allows you to disable the green LED on the top of the plug should you prefer an LED-less solution.
[ Further reading: The best smart switches and dimmers ]While this plug is fairly basic in operation, I found it worked well throughout the bulk of my testing. It was normally responsive to commands in less than a second, only occasionally becoming unresponsive (usually when I was trying to turn the LED on or off). The $20 price tag is right in line with most other plugs with a similar feature set, and while the questionably translated website and manual may generate some small crisis of confidence, the required financial outlay should be small enough to minimize those concerns.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@angie67318043/meross-outdoor-smart-plug-review-a-capable-if-basic-outdoor-plug-286584394343 | [] | 2020-11-30 06:50:06.684000+00:00 | ['Connected Home', 'Audio', 'Electronics', 'Home Tech'] |
Ends and beginnings | Ends and beginnings
Everything has one
Everyone knows
But seldom do we remember before that someone goes
Grief and trauma they subside
In fate’s compass they confide
Spirit is a moments kiss
A hope, a wish. a flames diminish | https://medium.com/@hgbxqgmieb/ends-and-beginnings-cc5b0310a31e | [] | 2020-12-14 13:34:39.477000+00:00 | ['Poetry Sunday', 'Poems On Medium', 'The End', 'Poems', 'New Poetry'] |
Why Crypto-Everything is Here to Stay | Cryptocurrency is just the tip of a never-melting iceberg…
Biomemetic Tokens (Photo by Launchpresso on Unsplash)
No doubt about it, cryptocurrency, in fact, crypto-everything, is here to stay.
Individual Tokens
Why? We’re coming, as a global society, to understand the circular-linear relationship between an individual and a group. (Internet of individuals.)
Individual (IOI)
Process Tokens
And, this follows: there is a circular-linear relationship between centralized and de-centralized processing. (There is a circular-linear relationship between any X and-or Y (X and-or X) (X and-or X’).) (Internet of process(es).) (Input-Output-Process).
Process (IOP)
Abstract Tokens
Meaning what? Meaning everything, yep, everything, is a non-fungible token, because everything humans do, is based on a centralized-de-centralized ‘reality.’ Which is half-abstract, and half-concrete. Always a token (a biomemetic token) (a meme) for a circle.
Token (IOT)
Biomemetic Tokens
Putting this more simply, a circle is one ‘zero’ and one ‘one’, giving us a biomemetic token, that is responsible for everything in Nature (every object (and-or subject)) (the IOT, for example) (Nature’s IOT, let’say)).
Turning everything into a token.
Biomemetic Token
The IOT is, more technically, the internet-of-tokens, non-fungible (and fungible) tokens. But tokens (a token), just the same.
IOT
Mathematical Tokens
Thus, this clears the confusion generated by mathematics, because in a crypto-technological-world, with nothing but tokens, zero is, always, equal to one.
More, technically, zero is, half-the-time, one. But, technically, there is, absolutely, no difference between half-the-time and all-the-time.
This is because you cannot have a half without a whole (a whole without a half) and that’s what’s really going on in the non-fungible universe (Nature in general). Why everything, including the universe, and all of the Universe’s constituents, is a non-fungible token.
Non Fungible Universe (Tokenization)
Linguistic Tokens
All of your a-b-c’s in any language, all of the punctuation marks, all of the ‘rules’ of grammer, ‘rules’ in general, signs and symbols, anything involving the relationship between one token and another (where any reality, physical or abstract, as referenced by a word, or a picture, or anything in media or art) is a token) (any entity, process, or system) (any noun, and-or any verb) (any part of speech) (any musical composition) (the performance of a musical composition) (any video) (any text) whether it is ‘fungible’ or not, is a token.
All ideas, no matter how, or, even ‘if’, they are expressed, are tokens.
Linguistic Tokens (Signs and Symbols)
Human Tokens
So, you are, I am, we all are, biomemetic tokens. Explaining why all of our processes are, also, biomemetic tokens. We, all of us, look like this (forget what you ‘see’ on Instagram):
You, Me, Us
Proving there is no way we are going to get away from crypto-technology and everything that comes with it (up and down) (good and bad) (honest and dishonest). Everything is based on technology (a circle) (one zero, one one) (one circumference, one diameter).
So, there it is.
Conservation of a Circle (One Zero) (One One)
All Zeroes
One One
Crypto-Technological (Natural) Tokens
Conservation of the Circle is the core, and, thus, the only, dynamic in Nature. Generating, constantly: biomemetic, crypto-technological, tokens. No matter how many: just one. (So, technically, never-just-one.) Meaning, crypto-everything is here to stay.
See how biomemetic tokens (zeros and ones) (everything in the video) (everything in any video) work together (where the video is, also, a biomemetic token):
Continue with: Technology and the Realization of ‘Self’ | by Ilexa Yardley | The Circular Theory | Apr, 2021 | Medium | https://medium.com/the-circular-theory/why-crypto-everything-is-here-to-stay-758328bbb5dd | ['Ilexa Yardley'] | 2021-05-01 14:16:33.472000+00:00 | ['Circular Theory', 'Meme', 'Tokenization', 'Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Moths in Space | Moths in Space
A poem
Which are the stars, and which are their paparazzi?
The stars hold my gaze.
They wink and sparkle
and burn ablaze.
My atoms: moths
knocking each other askew
in a whirlwind rocket
to the modest moon.
But it’s being afar
that makes bright beautiful.
The sun is a star
that will eat you whole
if you get too close.
So we learn:
don’t touch the stove.
Be a flower, or a tree.
Reach for the warmth,
light and energy,
but keep your roots
in the cool shade of soil.
Grow up with ambition;
grow deep from turmoil.
The top-heavy only tumble;
The heavy-rooted never fly.
So you see,
there’s significance in our scars;
only humans lose their way
while reaching for the stars. | https://wormwoodtheweird.medium.com/moths-in-space-82e33c01a104 | [] | 2020-03-10 22:09:21.268000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Self', 'Creativity', 'Life Lessons', 'Poetry'] |
Do stock traders’ attitude on social media affect stock market? | It is very common to invest in stock on the basis of suggestions from professional stock traders online. Many of stock traders have several social media accounts to post their thoughts, conjecture and comments. As one of the biggest social media platforms, Twitter creates an online community for people to follow many specific topics. Some famous stock traders such as Peter Brandt and Steve Burns have got tens of thousands of followers and tweets posted. They pass along their attitude to their followers and others who may see their tweets. What powerful in this process is that every tweet can be retweeted, hence the attitude will be transmitted over and over. Twitter is literally a social network with weighted notes and edges. In this network, any posted tweets somehow have influence to others who received them.
In this article, I picked 100 influential stock traders on twitter whose tweets may have impact on their audiences. Basically, I categorized all the tweets into three attitudes — Positive, Negative and Neutral. Positive tweets may deliver confidence to investors, which results in buying stock, and vice versa. The objective of this research is to find out if there is an insightful relationship between stock traders’ attitude and stock market trend. S&P 500 index is used as the criterion to exam the trend.
Data Collection
Part 1. Twitter accounts collection
Basically, my list comes from Google. I googled key works such as “famous stock traders” and “stock traders on Twitter”. There are many lists online contain those famous stock traders Twitter information. You can also generate your list by searching other key words.
Part 2. Data download and merge
Twitter API provides developers access to most of Twitter’s functionality and database. Tweepy, which is an open source Python package, gives developers a very convenient way to access the Twitter API with Python. Tons of tweets and other data can be downloaded through Tweepy without dealing with low-level details. There are many online tutorials talking about how to get start with Tweepy, you can check them if you are new to Tweepy. I just list steps below for reference.
1. Go to Twitter developer site to apply for a developer account. 2. Fill the required information and create an application. 3. Create the Authentication Credentials, which include Consumer key, Consumer secret, Access token and Access secret. 4. Install Tweepy in your Python package. 5. Create a new tweepy.API object and set your authentication credentials.
Then, you are good to go. Twitter allows developers to extract maximum 3200 recent tweets per account. In this case, I extracted two levels of data — account level and tweet level. For account level, variables include:
screen_name # Twitter unique account id
num_total_tweets # number of total tweets posted by account
num_followers # number of total followers of account
num_friends # number of friends an account following
created_at # the date account created
if_verified # if a verified account
For tweets level, variables include:
screen_name # Twitter unique account id that posted this tweet
text # text content of this tweet
num_retweet # number of retweets of this tweet
num_favorite # number of favorite of this tweet
created_at # the date this tweet created
I merged these two dataframes on screen_name for future analysis. Because they are from different level, I broadcast accounts information to match the number of tweets observations:
import pandas as pd
merge = pd.merge(tweet_info, account_info.loc[:,['screen_name', 'num_total_tweets', 'num_followers', 'num_friends',
'created_at', 'if_verified']], how='left', on='screen_name')
Now I have a dataset with shape(311404, 10), which contains 10 variables and 311,404 observations.
Data Processing
The popularity of tweets is strikingly different. Some tweet received less than 10 favorites while others received tens of thousands. There are many ways to clean the data. Tweets received extremely high retweet and favorite rate may be retweeted tweets from other celebrities. We need to remove those outliers. In this case, I used z-score to detect outliers. Any z-score greater than 3 or less than -3 is considered to be an outlier.
sub = merge.loc[:,['num_retweet','num_favorite']]
z_scores = stats.zscore(sub)
abs_z_scores = np.abs(z_scores)
filtered_entries = (abs_z_scores < 3).all(axis=1)
new_sub = sub[filtered_entries]
Rescaling the dataset can offset the effect of large variance. MinMaxScaler rescales the dataset such that all feature values are in the range[0,1].
from sklearn.preprocessing import MinMaxScaler
scaler = MinMaxScaler() merge[['num_total_tweets','num_followers','date_diff','num_friends','num_retweet','num_favorite']] = scaler.fit_transform(merge[['num_total_tweets','num_followers','date_diff','num_friends','num_retweet','num_favorite']])
One problem I encountered is the date format. The format of created data variables extracted from Tweepy is “%Y-%m-%d %h%m%s”, we need to get rid of the hours, minutes and seconds, because the analysis sets day as index.
merge['created_at_x'] = pd.to_datetime(merge['created_at_x']).dt.date
merge['created_at_y'] = pd.to_datetime(merge['created_at_y']).dt.date
Sentimental Analysis
In this section let’s talk about text processing. There are many ways to do text analysis. You can train your classifier to do the job, or use already existed Python library for processing textual data. TextBlob is a very powerful text processing library that is built upon NLTK and provides an easy use interface to the NLTK library. Before training the tweets, an necessary step must be taken. You must remove the links and special characters from tweets.
from textblob import TextBlob
import re def clean_tweet(tweet):
return ' '.join(re.sub("(@[A-Za-z0-9]+)|([^0-9A-Za-z \t])|(\w+:\/\/\S+)", " ", tweet).split())
def analize_sentiment(tweet):
analysis = TextBlob(clean_tweet(tweet))
if analysis.sentiment.polarity > 0:
return 1
elif analysis.sentiment.polarity == 0:
return 0
else:
return -1 merge['senti'] = np.array([analize_sentiment(tweet) for tweet in merge['text']])
From the classifying result we could know that the percentage of positive tweets is 40.8%, the percentage of negative tweets is 15.5% and the percentage of neural tweets is 43.7%.
merge['senti'].value_counts()
0 136095
1 127099
-2 48210
Name: senti, dtype: int64
Model building
Because every tweet’s influential ability is different, a influential model should be built for calculating the affect score. For example, an account with more followers has influential score higher than an account with less followers; a tweet has larger number of retweet possibly has higher influential score. Based on this sense, I assigned different weights to related variables. The amount of weights decided manually by my intuitive knowledge of social media. A new variable is created as date_diff, which is the days difference between the date tweet created and the date account created. The concept of variable date_diff is that the account created 10 years ago has more influential ability than a new account that created 2 years ago.
w0 # weight of if_varified
w1 # weight of date_diff
w2 # weight of num_friends
w3 # weight of num_total_tweets
w4 # weight of num_followers
w5 # weight of num_favorite
w6 # weight of num_retweet w6 > w5 > w4 > w3 > w2 > w1 > w0
According to (Nasir, 2011), negative news travel faster than good news. In order to consider this affect into model, I set a weight for stock traders’ attitude — w=1 if tweet is positive else w=p (p>1)if tweet is negative. Hence, a manual weight is added to negative tweets.
merge['inf_score'] = (w0 * merge['if_verified'] + w1 * merge['date_diff'] + w2 * merge['num_friends'] + w3 * merge['num_total_tweets'] + w4 * merge['num_followers'] + w5 * merge['num_favorite'] + w6 * merge['num_retweet']) * w * merge['senti']
The influential scores calculated as above. Now we can group by day and calculate the total score for that day. For instance, there are many positive and negative tweets posted for a specific day, and the sum of total positive and negative tweets’ influential score is considered as the score for that day. The tweets have positive influence on stock market if the score is greater than 0, and vice versa. Now we can plot the scores and compare the trend with S&P 500 index.
conclusion
The graph below looks ugly, but it shows the trend of score between April and September. It shows that stock traders on Twitter had a positive influence started from April to middle of August, then the attitude dropped to negative after middle of August.
Below is the S&P 500 index, we can see that the trends roughly matched.
Limitation
Because for each twitter account only 3,200 tweets can be extracted, there are several possible bias of my dataset. For the very active twitter accounts, their frequency of posting tweets is much higher than other accounts. Therefore, I could only collect tweets in a short time. For example, if a twitter account posts 100 tweets per day, I could only extract data for 32 days at maximum. But for those who are not very active account, I could extract data for years. This problem leads to a unbalanced dataset, which means the older the time, the less the data points. Besides, the weights are set manually from my perspective. Different weights may change the result completely. Another research is needed for analyzing the weights applied on model. Furthermore, the pandemic is a strong cause to turn stock traders’ attitude to negative.
There are tons of reasons that may have affect on stock market. Stock traders’ attitude on social media is one of them that may give us a hint to this rapidly changing world. | https://medium.com/social-media-theories-ethics-and-analytics/do-stock-traders-attitude-on-social-media-affect-stock-market-f864097ad8a5 | ['Francis Zhang'] | 2020-09-22 19:47:53.418000+00:00 | ['Assignment 1', 'Sentiment Analysis', 'Stock Traders', 'Stock Market', 'Social Media'] |
Yawning in Meetings Is a Compliment | Yawning in Meetings Is a Compliment
Congratulations. You have the yawner’s brain working madly. (free public domain: clipart-people.com)
In our Time of Zoom and All Things Virtual, meetings can appear to be boring even when they are not. So picture this. You’re leading an important meeting when someone yawns. How do you react?
Do you get angry because you assume the person is bored and/or rude? Or do you continue, knowing that the yawner has paid you a compliment?
Excuse me? Yawning is a compliment?
Yes, it can be. After conducting experiments, researchers at the University of Albany in New York concluded that yawning helps the brain to stay alert.
The common belief is that we yawn because we crave sleep. Instead, we yawn when our brain needs cool blood for optimal mental functioning. (Congratulations. You have the yawner’s brain working madly.)
What if others join in the yawning? Well, team yawning may be a mechanism to help a group stay alert in the face of danger.
So, if your team yawns, take it as a compliment. They understand the need to stay alert in the presence of the Alpha Dog or B… top female dog.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide. | https://medium.com/@nonsenseatwork/yawning-in-meetings-is-a-compliment-d8b602252976 | ['James Mcintosh'] | 2020-10-20 17:41:06.298000+00:00 | ['Zoom', 'Boss', 'Meetings', 'Nonsenseatwork', 'Yawning'] |
The Curious Life of Elizabeth Ann the Black-footed Ferret | She was able to hear after 32 days and first opened her eyes four days later, on day 36. Elizabeth Ann’s shyness began to disappear as she became more confident and wrestled with her foster siblings. With this newfound energy, her appetite also began to grow! Not long after the 38th day, she began to vocalize with small cries and barks.
Elizabeth Ann playing with her foster siblings by USFWS.
By the time Elizabeth Ann turned 50 days of age, keepers at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center could no longer handle the feisty ferret. Now that Elizabeth Ann was a little older, her natural instincts began to kick in, and she started to become defensive toward humans. This was also the age where she got her first taste of the black-footed ferret’s favorite meal — the prairie dog! Her keepers fed her dead prairie dogs, and she just couldn’t get enough.
Elizabeth Ann gets her first taste of prairie dog.
By 60 days of age, Elizabeth Ann was showing off sharp, little teeth, which meant that, soon, she’d be able to catch and kill her own prairie dog dinners.
They sure do grow up fast.
Elizabeth Ann at 68 days old.
Fast-forward five months, and Elizabeth Ann was starting to become a normal black-footed ferret; her personality began to emerge as her curiosity grew. She was eventually removed from her nesting box so she could continue exploring her growing world, but she still kept a watchful eye on those crafty keepers.
Elizabeth Ann also started to show her feistiness when anyone invaded her personal space; if anyone got too close, Elizabeth Ann would let it be known she wasn’t pleased about it with some loud and defensive barks.
At this point, she wasn’t so little anymore.
Elizabeth Ann in her enclosure.
So, what does a typical day look like now for Elizabeth Ann?
In the wild, black-footed ferrets sleep for up to 20–22 hours a day, and the ferrets at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center are no different. Elizabeth Ann spends a good portion of her day enjoying a nice ferret nap! Her mid-morning snoozes are usually interrupted so she can keep an eye on her keepers as they clean her enclosure. Sometimes they’ll give her enrichment toys to keep her occupied.
Enrichment is an important part of raising ferrets because it allows them to sharpen their hunting abilities while burning off some energy. Activities include playing with toys (balls, tubes, and other objects they can move around) and disposable items (cardboard, paper bags, and other objects they can destroy), lounging on hammocks, finding hidden bits of food, and hunting prairie dogs.
Elizabeth Ann’s favorite enrichment activity is tearing apart paper bags.
Elizabeth Ann attacks a paper bag by USFWS.
Feeding time just might be Elizabeth Ann’s favorite time of day — something many of us can probably relate to. Once she has a full belly, it’s time for her afternoon nap in the sun or sprawled out in a hammock, resting up before a wild night.
Since black-footed ferrets are nocturnal, they are most active at night; however, since her keepers don’t work overnight, only the ferrets know what mischief they’re getting into.
And there you have it. Elizabeth Ann, the first cloned U.S. endangered species in history, has successfully progressed into a fully-grown black-footed ferret and is thriving, just like all her furry friends at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center.
They sure do grow up fast.
Learn more about Elizabeth Ann:
Innovative Genetic Research Boosts Black-footed Ferret Conservation Efforts by USFWS and Partners
Black-footed Ferret Cloning Research
Learn about the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center:
https://blackfootedferret.org/
Want more updates on Elizabeth Ann? Follow on Facebook:
National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center Facebook | https://medium.com/@usfws/the-curious-life-of-elizabeth-ann-618e8d828448 | ['U.S. Fish', 'Wildlife Service'] | 2021-05-20 17:47:52.815000+00:00 | ['Wildlife', 'Endangered Species', 'Science', 'Cute', 'Conservation'] |
Songs of the Season, Part II: | Songs of The Season is one man’s attempt to distill each MLB team’s season into a song. It will likely have no actual connection to the team, but instead seeks to capture the essence of the season, and succinctly summarize what it must feel like to be a fan of the team. The ultra-depressing Part I can be found here.
Author’s Note: As I suggested in the first “Caught Looking” column, sometimes life happens, and blogging takes a back seat. Unfortunately, just as I began committing to writing on here, life threw me some curveballs, and they made me look as silly as the Astros trying to hit Stephen Strasburg. I’ve still got a lot going on “off the field,” but I’m trying to at least finish the Songs of the Season before the absolute chaos of Winter Meetings and free agency take over, leaving the 2019 season as nothing more than a bat flip-induced fever dream.
As we move on from the worst-of-the-worst in our quest, I have some good news, and I have some bad news. The good news is that there is some serious positive energy going on with a few of the teams today. The bad news is that there was some truly awful shit off the field that will come up a little bit here, and that makes this whole process seems as silly as it truly is. But in this next group of five, despite their terrible records, we have real, legitimate superstars, all-stars, and generational talents. Which is good, because the playlist for Part I was pretty damn depressing.
25. Seattle Mariners (68–94, Last in AL West); “Who Are You?” The Who
Here’s a fun fact: on their way to 68 wins this season, the Seattle Mariners used an MLB-record 67 players. Take that in for a minute. 67. As in, they used one less player than they had wins. Despite the odds being heavily in your favor, I doubt that most casual MLB fans could name more than five or six players that appeared for Seattle this season. Once you get past the mainstays like Felix Hernandez and Ichiro, the impossibly-shaped Daniel Vogelbach, and the all-star caliber Mitch Haniger and Dee Gordon, it gets tough. Oh, you don’t know Zac “Totes” Grotz? Or Aaron Nola’s older brother, Austin?
All kidding aside, the Mariners actually played this year the right way, and made their intention to rebuild 1000% clear. Despite a 13–2 start that put steroid-era offenses to shame, this was never going to be the Mariners’ year. They traded talented players like Edwin Diaz, Robinson Cano, Jean Segura and James Paxton in the offseason, and parted ways with Edwin Encarnacion later in the year. Instead, 2019 was mostly about development of young talent, and saying goodbye to a pair of franchise legends. Ichiro got quite the tribute in Japan, and then former ace Felix Hernandez got his own goosebump-inducing moment in September.
Seattle managed to effectively and emphatically turn the page this season, and if they can develop some of the young talent in the organization, it may not be such a bad rebuild. But that still meant rolling out lineups in 2019 that appeared to have been randomly generated by the AI in MLB The Show.
An aside: if Felix Hernandez departs as expected, that means that Kyle Seager will be the only man left from the 40-man roster that GM Jerry Dipoto inherited in 2015.
24. Pittsburgh Pirates (69–93, Last in NL Central): “Runaway Train,” Soul Asylum
It seems no one can help me now
I’m in too deep
There’s no way out
This time I have really led myself astray
Runaway train never going back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I’m neither here nor there
Before there were Tweets and Facebook statuses and Instagram Stories, angsty teenagers used AIM Away Messages to convey the important reasons for why they’d have to step away from the computer. They’d share momentous occasions like “brb showering lol” or “OMG mom is making me do my laundry so I guess I have to do that <><.” You get it. Looking back, I’m slightly mortified by what my go-to away messages probably were, but I digress. I bring up away messages, and AIM in general, because sometimes, when feeling very angsty and hormonal, users would post really emotional song lyrics totally out of context in order to let the world know how how hard their life was. If the Pittsburgh Pirates had to post an away message for the offseason, they could do a lot worse than those utterly depressing words from Soul Asylum.
It’s amazing that such a catchy tune has such morose lyrics, but here we are. It was (sort of) fun while it lasted, but it looks like Pittsburgh’s competitive window has officially slammed shut. This team is a mess. There are clubhouse issues. There are off the field issues. And clearly, there is a problem on the field, because that’s usually the way you get to a very nice but very bad 69-win season (which included a 5–24 collapse that is truly, remarkably, terrible.) In the spirit of this exercise, I’m going to stick to the on the field issues.
There probably weren’t many Pirates fans watching Game 5 of the ALDS between Houston and Tampa Bay. If they were, their hypothetical away message might read something like:
</3 GC + TG + AM </3
The starting pitching matchup in that ALDS game was Gerrit Cole vs. Tyler Glasnow, both of whom were under contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates at some point in 2018. Tampa’s starting right fielder Austin Meadows, who just hit .291 with 33 home runs in an all-star campaign, was also on the Pirates. But alas, we can’t all have nice things. Pittsburgh traded Cole, their ace and a former №1 overall pick, to the Astros for a handful of Major League-ready prospects at the tail end of the 2018 Winter Meetings. The deal didn’t look great at the time, but certainly looks awful in hindsight after Cole steamrolled through American League hitters like Danny Almonte in the Little League World Series. Then, the Pirates front office said, “hold my beer” and sent Meadows and Glasnow to Tampa for Chris Archer in a trade that looked like a swindling from the second it showed up on the ESPN ticker. The Pirates had tricked themselves into believing they were a World Series contender when, my dear readers, they were not.
Now the Pirates and their fans are forced to watch from the cellar as their former players provide the spark for playoff teams. At best, it’s incompetence, and at worst it’s malpractice. I don’t know what else to say, so I’ll leave you with this:
Can you help me remember how to smile
Make it somehow all seem worthwhile
How on earth did I get so jaded
Life’s mystery seems so faded
That’s it. That’s the Tweet.
23. San Diego Padres (70–92, 5th in NL West) — “Here Comes The Sun,” The Beatles
Time to lighten up the mood a little bit! Last offseason, Manny Machado surprised, if not shocked, the baseball world by signing a massive 10-year, $300 million contract with the San Diego Padres. On the surface, it had the distinct look of a player choosing money and lifestyle over winning. To be fair, it’s pretty counterintuitive to hate on a guy for taking a $30 million per year paycheck to live in San Diego. But the Padres haven’t won more than 77 games since 2010, and have been in a perpetual rebuild for the entirety of this decade. So what was Machado thinking? Well, as the Beatles sang, the ice is slowly melting on the (metaphorical) winter of San Diego baseball, and the sun is getting ready to shine again.
The Padres’ farm system was ranked first by MLB.com in August, and that was after we watched a number of their top prospects find success in their rookie seasons. Fernando Tatis Jr. looks like one of the best shortstops in baseball, full stop. He was RAKING, hitting .317 with 22 HRs and 16 stolen bases before having his season cut short with a back injury. Tatis Jr. is a whirling dervish on the base paths, and every trip around the bases is must-watch television. NL Rookie of the Year Pete Alonso described him as being “like a Coke bottle… if you put Mentos in it.” If there was a League Pass for individual Major League players, Tatis Jr. might be the most popular subscription.
There’s a lot to love beyond the Padres’ superstar duo on the left side of their infield. As a team, they rock HARD. They also may have found their ace of the future in Chris Paddack, who throws hard, talks shit and dresses like a sheriff. Cal Quantrill, Josh Naylor and Francisco Mejia all showed flashes of potential to lead the Padres next contender, and there’s more help on the way (including Taylor Trammel, who just provided us with this incredible minor league moment.)
To take stock: the Padres have young talent, signed a free agent superstar, have lots of attitude, and the Sod Poodles sending reinforcements their way. Now if new manager Jayce Tingler can hit the ground running, maybe with one more free agent addition courtesy of GM AJ Preller, I think baseball is going to be alright in San Diego.
22. Colorado Rockies (71–91, 4th in NL West) — “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” John Denver
Is choosing a song by John DENVER a little on the nose for the Rockies? Sure. But I couldn’t resist. At least it isn’t “Rocky Mountain High.” And quite frankly, the Rockies, at least offensively, could benefit from spending more time in their home park. Because from a big, overhead view, their season comes down to the tale of two teams: the Rockies at Coors Field, and the Rockies on the road.
The Rockies starting lineup is like a star-studded ensemble cast for a movie, where you see the first trailer and instantly start Googling for more information. Sometimes, movies like this go really well. Take The Departed, for example. It’s a bunch of famous dudes doing Boston accents to a varying degree of success, ranging from Southie Dunkin Donuts employee to whatever it is Jack Nicholson was trying to do. And it worked. It won Martin Scorcese his first Oscar, garnered huge critical and commercial success, and is replayed on cable constantly (minus 237 “fucks”.) On the other end of the spectrum, you have a movie like Suicide Squad. I’m sure there are dozens of more reputable movies that people thought were going to be legitimately good before release, but Suicide Squad strikes a chord with me. For someone that isn’t big on superhero movies, the trailer looked excellent, and the cast (Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis) was loaded. And holy shit was it bad. Dumpster fire bad. Or whatever this explosion was before a game bad. It was a massive letdown for everyone involved, and it’s hard to believe that someone managed to make such a snoozer of a movie with that cast.
*Another aside: I refrained from using ensemble cash-grabs like “New Years Day” because those movies are pretty upfront about what the product is going to be.
In this metaphor, the Rockies home offense was The Departed. Home runs everywhere you look. Unfortunately, their offense away from Coors Field turned into Suicide Squad.
I want to make something abundantly clear: they have a lot of offensive talent that would be good no matter where they played. I still think Nolan Arenado is the best third baseman in baseball, both defensively and at the plate, even though he had some serious competition this season. Charlie “Chuck Nazty” Blackmon is a great hitter with an even better beard, Trevor Story is one of the best offensive shortstops in baseball, and this team probably wins a few more games if David Dahl is healthy the whole season. They have a ton of talent, which is unusual for a team that barely won 70 games. And I don’t want to credit all of their individual success solely to the thin mountain air. But as a team, Colorado’s home/road splits are Looney Tunes-level eye-popping.
Overall, Colorado hit .265 as a team (t-5th in MLB), scored 835 runs (9th) and were just generally a competent offensive team, though their OBP left something to be desired. They were first in Major League baseball with a .300 average at home, along with 500 runs. On the road? An MLB-worst .230 average with 335 runs (28th). That’s AWFUL. It’s like downgrading from Pablo Sanchez to Reese Worthington. It makes sense that the offense would improve at Coors Field, like all offenses do. But for it to be that much worse on the road is a serious problem. And that’s really only the tip of the iceberg.
Despite their offensive prowess, the Rockies were just 43–38 at home (though, when compared with their overall record, a .530 winning percentage sounds pretty darn good.) So to focus solely on the offense turning into a proverbial pumpkin on the road ignores another glaring problem. Their pitching was bad everywhere. There was no The Departed version of the staff. Overall, the Rockies had the second-worst ERA in baseball, and the second-most home runs allowed (worst was the Orioles, who had a historically bad staff this season.) Jon Gray and Gabriel Marquez were the only passable starters on the team, but even they made the offense work for victories (Marquez went 5–2 at home, but gave up over six runs per game. And that still wasn’t that bad in comparison to the rest of the staff.)
With their offensive talent, the Rockies come into every year with the chance to have a season like The Departed. But that team is going to be expensive to keep together, and if they don’t add any depth on the pitching staff, they’re going to continue to leave fans disappointed. Take them home, country roads.
21. Los Angeles Angels (72–90, 4th in the AL West); “Here I Go Again,” Whitesnake
To tell the story of the Los Angeles Angels is to tell the tale of a certain Mike Trout, and the improbable lack of team success that follows one of the greatest players of all-time. “Man of Constant Sorrow” from the Coen Brothers classic O Brother, Where Art Thou? would have been equally appropriate. That movie is loosely based on The Odyssey and directly references Sullivan’s Travels, both of which send men on impossible quests and harrowing journeys to achieve their greatest desires. Sound familiar? My love of 80’s rock pushed Whitesnake over the edge, but both song selections point to the central theme of the season: What the fuck does Mike Trout have to do get a winner in Los Angeles?
Other than trade places with Cody Bellinger in a Freaky Friday-type swap, I’m not sure. Every season, I expect someone to come along and take his belt as “the best player in baseball,” and every year, he does something we haven’t seen before. This year? Trout hit 45 home runs in only 134 games before his season was shut down early due to a foot injury. But again, because of injuries, bad contracts, and bad pitching, Trout was on the outside looking in come playoff time. I don’t think his injury ends his season if the Angels are contenders, but alas they weren’t, and a career year for Trout ended 18 games early.
Trout is at a place in his career where, every season, he is passing Hall of Famers on the all-time WAR list. According to Baseball Reference, Trout currently sits at 87th all-time, sandwiched between Cooperstown-lock Derek Jeter (88th) and victim-of-Coors-Field-bias Larry Walker (86th). And he’s done that in only nine seasons. Another 8.3 WAR season like this year, and Trout will vault ahead of legends like Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Johnny Bench, Joe DiMaggio, and Jeff Bagwell, to name a few. He’s no longer passing fringe Hall members — he’s starting to pass bonafide baseball royalty. Yet, every season, Trout probably has some form of “Here I Go Again” buzzing in his head.
And here I go again on my own
Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known
Like a drifter, I was born to walk alone
And I’ve made up my mind
I ain’t wasting no more time
Trout followed up an offseason in which he received a massive extension by hitting a career high in home runs. Somehow, the $400 million contract the Angels gave him last year already feels like a bargain. His only full season outside of the top-two in MVP voting was in 2017, when he only logged 114 games because of injury. Even that year, he finished fourth in voting. The writers may surprise everyone and award the 2019 trophy to Astros star Alex Bregman, but that seems like it would unfairly punish Trout for not having the two best pitchers in the American League on his team. Trout is built like a fullback and patrols centerfield like a gazelle, and he has the speed to steal 25+ bases every year. Yet, he’s still only made one playoff series, and played in only three ALDS games. It seems unfair. We are being robbed of seeing the game’s best player on its biggest stage. And despite his lack of team success, Trout keeps coming out better every year, hoping that eventually he’ll have a breakthrough.
Maybe this is the offseason that the Angels actually get Trout some help by signing Gerrit Cole. Maybe Shohei Ohtani takes another massive leap towards unlocking his potential. Maybe the Angels’ aging vets start drinking from the same Fountain of Youth as LeBron James and Tom Brady. Until then? More lonely 80’s rock for the young Mr. Trout. | https://medium.com/@max.r.wheeler/songs-of-the-season-part-ii-8981de362224 | ['Max Wheeler'] | 2019-11-14 21:36:48.346000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'Baseball', 'Mike Trout', 'Classic Rock', 'MLB'] |
From Afar | If I could hang upon a star,
I would cast my eyes upon
you from afar.
In the silence of the night
I would light your path
so clearly in sight.
Behind the clouds I would
always sparkle for you,
faithful and true.
May I always be to you
like a star, close by,
but looking from afar.
© Rita Duponty, 2020 | https://medium.com/blueinsight/from-afar-7929ad0bf28e | ['Rita Duponty'] | 2020-12-22 14:53:05.984000+00:00 | ['Blue Insights', 'Poems', 'Poems On Medium', 'Poetry'] |
4 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Becoming Your Own Boss 💭 | I don’t say that to throw shade or squash anyone’s dreams, but I have to be brutally honest. Self-starters are a rare breed. They know how to think on their feet, handle uncertainty, and hustle their way out of any slump. On the other hand, some people need the stability and structure of a full-time job — and that’s totally okay! (Having a full-time job doesn’t mean you’re less ambitious or not dedicated to your career; you just work differently.)
When I took the leap of faith almost four years (!!!) ago, I knew that I wanted to give the freelance life a try. I left a full-time position because I wanted to be in the driver’s seat of my own career. That said, I know everyone else’s freelance journey isn’t as deliberate as mine was. Some people feel pressured to become their own boss after getting laid off or moving away from their full-time position. But, before you take that big jump, I encourage you to ask yourself the questions below. Ultimately, the decision is yours — and everyone has different freelancing philosophies. But, I hope this insight helps you understand if being your own boss is for you.
Do You Know What You Want To Do?
Two years ago, one of my friends wanted to pick my brain about freelancing after they were laid off from a job. The catch? My friend didn’t know exactly what they wanted to do. “Maybe a little bit of marketing, I could write, or maybe some social media work,” they said. And, just last week, another person asked me what type of freelance work they should do.
I understand getting laid off is scary, and freelancing might seem like an attainable and immediate solution. Plus, I’m all for doing whatever it takes to support yourself, financially. However, I think it’s so important to understand what unique skills you can bring to the table first. Even if freelancing is a temporary chapter — a necessary step between jobs — it requires a lot of time, energy, and persistence. So, how are you supposed to get clients and thrive if you don’t even know what your secret sauce is?
Instead of diving head-first into the self-starter sphere — which can often feel like the digital wild west — take a beat to find your hustle. If you can’t think of a job that lights you up, you might want to reconsider the freelance path.
Do You Have Your Foot In the Door?
Admittedly, my transition into solopreneurship was relatively easy. You see, I was a professional journalist for years, and often took on freelance work in addition to my full-time jobs. So, by the time I went out on my own, I already had a few clients who gave me steady work. Before you go freelance, think about who you can reach out to for work during those first few months.
Of course, just because you don’t have a full client roster doesn’t mean you should neverbecome your own boss. If possible, spend a few months balancing your full-time job with a side hustle. That way, you can have some financial stability as you begin your self-starter journey.
And, once you’re ready to go out on your own, use these tips for landing your dream client. (Psst…it’s all about networking!)
Are You Self-Disciplined?
Despite being my own boss, my days are pretty structured: I wake up early (well, early on the west coast), send out emails as I enjoy my two cups of coffee, make a to-do list, and prioritize my assignments accordingly. Sure, I’m guilty of the occasional Instagram scroll — I mean, I’m human — but I know how to motivate myself.
Personally, I can’t stand when someone else tries to dictate how I spend my time. (As my own boss, I’m juggling multiple projects at once and have a strategy for getting things done.) But, I realize some people need that structure. They need to have a calendar filled with Zoom meetings, concrete work hours, and a boss to report to on a regular basis. At the end of the day, it’s a personal preference. But, if you fall into the latter category, full-time might be the better route.
Can You Be A Little Selfish?
I became my own boss at the perfect time in my life: I was in a long-distance relationship with my now-fiancé. I didn’t have kids to care for or a mortgage to pay off. And, I was still on my family’s insurance plan. Though I was enthusiastic about being a freelancer, I wasn’t totally sure how it would pan out. (I mean, how could I?) But, I could be a little selfish. I knew that I had the time and energy to fully immerse myself into my work.
Think about your personal responsibilities. Are you supporting other people? Can your savings account support you if needed? How will you and your family receive health insurance? Do you have the freedom to work nights and weekends, if needed? (Let’s be honest: We’ve all been there.)
Breaking out and being your own boss is a gamble. It’s a decision that should not be taken lightly. If you can’t be a little selfish with your time and energy, seek out opportunities with a formal contract and benefits.
Hustler of the Week: Delaney Vetter
What inspired you to become your own boss?
I wish I could say it was an active choice at the time, but it was really a string of tiny choices and circumstances that led me to “accidental entrepreneurship.” I’m a 2020 grad (a.k.a. pandemic grad) and like most people my age, post-grad life became even more unpredictable with a nonexistent job market. I got the opportunity days after [graduation] to get a small freelance role, which grew exponentially. I started getting referrals, and the possibility of pursuing this as a career became a reality to me.
In July 2020, I ended up getting a job offer at an amazing company, but I was so conflicted. My dad said, “You have nothing to lose and you might as well give this a shot while you have nothing else holding you anywhere.” That was when I decided to pursue this self-employed thing seriously and since then, it’s just grown and grown. I never thought being my own boss would be an option this young, so it felt like too good of an opportunity to not try and capitalize on.
What is your favorite part about being your own boss? Least favorite?
My favorite part is not being tied to one place. I haven’t been able to take advantage of this yet, but hoping to soon! Least favorite? It’s really lonely sometimes. I thrive in team settings and around people, so being your own boss and social distancing on top of that has been a real challenge at times.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned since becoming your own boss?
There are so many things I’ve learned over the last year, but something that comes up again and again is not being afraid to say no. When I first started, I felt like I had to work with anyone who approached me. That got me into several projects where I ignored red flags and ended up anxious and unhappy with toxic clients, or taking on things that weren’t what I wanted to be doing.
It took me several months and a lot of late nights and stress to realize that saying “no” was as important as saying “yes.” It wasn’t good for me or for them to say yes when I knew in my gut something wasn’t right. This is something I am constantly working on, but has been a huge realization for me.
Give Delaney some love by checking out her offerings, following her on Instagram, and subscribing to her newsletter, “Let’s Dig In.”
(Psst…like what you see? You can subscribe to “Office Hours with Kelsey Mulvey” here.) | https://medium.com/@kelseymulvey/i-dont-say-that-to-throw-shade-or-squash-anyone-s-dreams-but-i-have-to-be-brutally-honest-504c66029cd | ['Office Hours With Kelsey Mulvey'] | 2021-07-06 19:17:54.861000+00:00 | ['Solopreneur', 'Freelancing', 'Honesty'] |
Bitcoin ATM’s Around the Globe! | Following last weeks blog post on Why it’s not difficult to spend cryptocurrency , this week we thought we would take a look at Bitcoin ATM’s!
There are currently 2662 Bitcoin ATM’s in 67 countries around the world, allowing Bitcoin owners to exchange their digital currency into local government currency directly from the machine. These Bitcoin ATM’s also allow investors to buy bitcoin directly from the machine via a simple process.
Although it could be argued that these machines technically replace the need to buy cryptocurrency from a platform on your mobile or laptop, they also help to resolve the international issue of banking barriers demonstrating the advantage of digital payment systems.
How does a Bitcoin ATM work?
First, you will need to confirm your identification, this is usually done by confirming your mobile phone number, a slightly less complicated KYC process than most crypto platforms.
Once the user has been identified successfully, the next step is to enter your Bitcoin wallet address, either by typing it in on the screen or by scanning the wallet QR code, which can be found in your smartphone wallet app. To do this all you need to do is Simply place the code on the scanner and allow the machine to proceed!
Now, it’s time to insert your cash and confirm your purchase if you are buying, or if you are selling Bitcoin, the process is similar only this time the machine will provide you with a QR code for where to send your Bitcoin. Once the transaction has been confirmed the machine will then eject fiat for the agreed amount and you can spend it on whatever you like!
Although Bitcoin ATM’s are convenient, there is one important point to note, they are more expensive to use than web based cryptocurrency exchanges. The Bitcoin ATM charges around 5% of each transaction when using a Bitcoin ATM to buy and sell cryptocurrency.
The first Bitcoin Machines
Being an innovative industry, in the beginning, you weren’t going to find a Bitcoin ATM machine just anywhere! In 2013 the very first Bitcoin ATM was placed in a funky coffee shop in Vancouver called Waves Coffee House. The first machines to enter the US took up residence at the trendy business networking venue, Imbibe cigar bar in New Mexico, and the chic Casino hotel, D Casino in Las Vegas.
There are now a large number of bitcoin ATM’s around the world including in the UK, USA, Australia, Israel, Barbados, Mexico and Japan, which can be found in shopping malls, internet cafes, liquor stores and arcades. Below we have put together a list of some of the most interesting places where you can find a Bitcoin ATM!
London — Mr Snappy’s custom cap store in Camden is the only store in Camden to offer a Bitcoin ATM, but that’s not all they offer, also allow payment in Bitcoin for personalisation of your cap or beanie hat!
New York — While in New York, why not combine shopping for your groceries with investing in Bitcoin at the New York VIP Gourmet Deli on 96–21 57th Ave, Corona. Cheese, ham, wine and Bitcoin!
Sydney — Pan Shopping Centre is located in one of Australia’s most distinctive shopping addresses in Sydney, offering food, fashion, health, wellness and a Bitcoin ATM, Pan Shopping centre in Sydney is one of the trendiest places to invest in Bitcoin ;-)
Vaduz — Diamonds and Bitcoin go hand in hand, if you are rich in crypto then you want to show off those diamonds! You can now purchase your cryptocurrency via a Bitcoin Kiosk at Timeless Watches & Jewellery in Vaduz, or you may want to sell some to treat yourself to that new watch!
Zurich — What makes a great wine bar? The wine list, the glass, the service, the food?or the opportunity to buy cryptocurrency while you relax with a chilled glass of white or a zesty red in hand! Well, you can do just that at D-Vino Wine Bar in Zurich!
Zug — Not only does the Crypto Valley Labs provide a stylish co-working space for blockchain and cryptocurrency companies from around the world, but it also offers a Bitcoin ATM, although we suspect this might well be one of the busier ones!
Madrid — Marco Aldany was the first hairdresser chain in Spain, now with over 400 salons worldwide, it has become a leader in hairdressing! At the Madrid salon on Calle Diego de Leon, you can now relax, unwind then invest in Cryptocurrency!
Hong Kong — Where else would you look for a Bitcoin ATM but a trading floor? Genesis Block is the only trading floor in Hong Kong, and is home to not one but four ATM’s, which can be found outside the building and inside at the reception area.
These are just a few locations around that world that offer a cryptocurrency ATM, there are many more, take a look at Coin ATM Radar to find a ATM near you.
If you have ever use one then we want to hear about it! Let us know about the most interesting place that you have ever seen or used a Bitcoin ATM’s along with your experience when using one of these machines. | https://medium.com/b21official/bitcoin-atms-around-the-globe-aef95ebd1535 | ['Rhea Craib'] | 2018-07-18 09:57:28.534000+00:00 | ['Token Sale', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain'] |
A Mother Muses on Music | I’ve been slowly introducing Ben to the world of music. Not just “Wheels on the Bus” and “Baby Shark,” which both admittedly appear regularly on our Spotify queue, but music music. I marvel at his innate appreciation for music — the way it seems to transport him to a different place. We watch NPR’s Tiny Desk Music sessions together, and I witness the transformation that happens as his busy little body suddenly finds stillness. His gaze deeply focused on the faces of these music makers, in awe of their gift, mesmerized by their ability to manipulate sound. Occasionally, Ben will join them in song — — “Aaaah, aaaah, aaaah” he’ll babble in rhythm. “Uuuuh, uuuh, ooooh” he’ll croon from his seat. When a song with a heavy percussion plays, he propels his body towards the ceiling and then the floor, using his diapered bottom as a launchpad, his pelvis as a thruster. Hop, hop, hop goes his little bum-bum to the beat.
My little music lover’s general state of restlessness finds ease in song. I frequently compose tunes for him throughout the day to appease both his crying and my boredom. The monotony of stay-at-home motherhood is an injustice that doesn’t get as much attention as it should. It’s a universal sentiment, I think. Being with Baby all day is sometimes boring. “Oh, but of course I wouldn’t trade it for anything!” is the mandatory qualifier that must follow such a confession. “This time is so precious. He’ll never be this little again!” Any hint of disdain towards this sacred role we possess immediately leads to judgment and assumptions about our lack of character. We’re not allowed to not like being moms.
Seriously, how many board books can one read? The total sum of words in their dime-thick pages equates to a single paragraph, maybe two. Not much there in terms of entertainment value. Sometimes, I wish Ben would talk already so that I could have someone to talk to. But then again, he’ll probably just ask me a million questions all day, every day. That’s not what I’d consider riveting conversation either. Any attempt to have a real-life exchange with another adult human requires so much effort: navigating nap schedules and coordinating commutes. Texting is the simplest way to reach out to another grown person for connection. But the pace of conversation is so staggered, with a single exchange taking an entire day. Our babies inadvertently act like obstacles to our ability to connect with others.
But then… there are those moments — those cliche moments that bring me so much joy that time stops still. Like when Ben laughs at nothing funny. His giggles make my heart soar. It feels like falling in love each time. His laughter is so genuine, so sincere. The notion that what he’s laughing at is literally the funniest thing he’s ever seen in his life; it’s so damn cute, I could die.
I love Ben so much. I love every bit of him. Even his diaper rash that stirs up a pervasive feeling of inadequacy every time it shows itself — a little red target highlighting my ineptitude as a mother. Oh, and those marshmallow cheeks that I munch on every day as I tell him I love him. “I love you so much!!!!” munch munch munch, nuzzle, nuzzle, nuzzle. Ben’s learned to show his love the same way. I’m proud to admit that I’ve taught my son to gnaw on people’s faces as a sign of affection. When prompted to give a kiss, Ben will open his mouth, suck on your cheek, and lick its surface. It feels slimy and weird, but at the same time loving and generous. So special is my little creature. My lovely, lovely little creature. | https://medium.com/@heidiwoo/a-mother-muses-on-music-db6380bb5e22 | ['Heidi Woo'] | 2019-03-20 19:56:00.991000+00:00 | ['Motherhood', 'Music', 'Love', 'Stay At Home Mom', 'Baby'] |
How I Made My End Goal, My Reality — Working As an Engineer for a Bay Area Tech Startup | I became a great engineer before graduating.
I joined a local makerspace and got experience designing and machining personal projects!
I started with zero experience and became familiar with metal shop tools, wood shop tools, laser engraving, 3D printing, and design software all by working on personal projects!
I joined my university’s Formula SAE team, which exposed me to realistic engineering experiences; the nuances of working with a team of individuals that all have an opinion, problem solving with that team, coordinating several projects and responsibilities, following a budget and meeting deadlines. Attending Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) competitions allowed me to network with large tech companies, when they were actively recruiting!
I got a part time job as an assembly technician that gave me insight into what makes a good design for assembly.
I prioritized school but didn’t prioritize grades. I knew I needed at least a 3.0 GPA to make the cut to apply for competitive internships. As long as the GPA averaged out, grades were meaningless to me (I say this now, as if I haven’t had to hold back tears in class, on multiple occasions, after receiving a poor exam grade ).
I owned my weaknesses and went to my college’s tutoring center. I went as many times as was allowed; and when I hit my limit, I paid for additional tutoring outside of the tutoring my school offered.
Developing these skills opened the doors for me to complete my first internship, working as an Jr. Production Engineer for the same company I had started as an assembly technician for — a small hardware startup called ConnectDER. I ended up working with ConnectDER for four years, while I attended school part time, by the end of my time at ConnectDER I had been promoted to Production Manager! This gave me incredible experience working on a product I felt passionately about from the ground up, and managing a cross functional team of engineers.
My skills from Formula SAE and ConnectDER landed me an internship at Tesla! I worked my butt off and completed back to back internships at Tesla on their Model 3 Quality team! I made my time at Tesla count, and was able to help 4 other students from my University get internships on the same team, and helped 1 friend to land a full time job! The networking I was able to do during my internships enabled me to work in the Autonomous Vehicle industry.
Before I graduated from Temple, I had top managers at leading tech companies fighting over me, giving me competing offers and trying to outbid each other to get me to join their team! A few good internships, and proving that you’re a competent engineer doesn’t guarantee you a high paying role though — so what does?
Let’s discuss why some of the smartest engineers I know don’t get paid more than me.
Some of the smartest people I know never graduated college, and that severely limited their incoming-earning potential. You can be smart and not get paid well. I knew I would need to graduate with an engineering degree to be able to negotiate for a high salary.
An engineering degree, and being a competent engineer is not enough to guarantee a high salary though. It is my firm belief that a great engineer is more than just their technical skills. To complete difficult projects on your own is tough, so a good engineer develops social skills to have other people help them with their tasks AND to be the kind of engineer someone else would WANT to work with.
Everyone has heard of the engineer who’s so nerdy and anti-social that they can’t carry a conversation with a non-nerd. The stereotype exists for a reason. So, I need to be able to not only be a competent engineer, with an engineering degree, but I also need to be able to master communication.
Mastering communication is important for two reasons, first I need to be able to convey my engineering work clearly to non-engineers and engineers alike — this is important for getting a job but also necessary for keeping almost any job! Second, I need to not only be able to hold a conversation, but need to develop and use social skills to my advantage to open opportunities for myself and be able to skillfully negotiate when these opportunities appear.
People will remember the way you make them feel, you can and should use this to your benefit. I was influenced significantly by the book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. This book changed the way I viewed social interactions and made me realize my power to influence an interaction that benefited me and left the other person feeling good.
It’s easier than it sounds, and more impactful than you’d think. This changed everything for me. I naturally have an outgoing personality, and in engineering disciplines especially, this can be a valuable social skill to have.
Let’s Summarize: How to get paid a lot of money
Become a great Engineer before you earn a degree Become a great Engineer with an engineering degree Master communication
I started with my end goal in mind and continued working backwards, creating goals and sub-goals. I broke every task into an accomplish-able item on my daily To Do List. I believe you become what you constantly think about. A daily To Do List helped me think about my goals no matter how long it took to achieve them. It helped me stay motivated and focused in the face of what felt like constant struggle. The journey wasn’t easy. Life can be chaotic, and unfair, but I put in enough time and work to turn the tides in my favor. I know anyone reading this can too, but hopefully I can save you some time.
What can YOU do right now?
Step 1: Make a plan. Start with your end goal.
Step 2: Break your goals into actionable tasks.
Step 3: Never give up!
I recommend writing SMART goals to help break large goals up into easier to complete tasks. You can read more about SMART goals here.
Here are some easy action items to get started!
If you’re in college, make a study group
Create a portfolio of your projects to use during interviews
Learn a new skill (try python!)
Join a school team or club that’s solving real engineering problems
Ask someone to review your resume (if you made it this far into the article you can ask me!)
Schedule a mock interview over Zoom with a peer
Make a daily TO DO list
Practice self love, by setting your future self up to succeed!
Check out my post here to see online resources that helped me in my career!
Be proactive. Be intentional. At least take a shot at your dream life!
Comment below with any thoughts or questions you have about making your dreams reality! We’re all taking different paths in life, there’s no right or wrong but you might as well aim high.
Catch you on the flip,
J. | https://medium.com/@jkon812/how-i-made-my-end-goal-my-reality-working-as-an-engineer-for-a-bay-area-tech-startup-6e5383500bd4 | [] | 2020-10-27 14:13:11.698000+00:00 | ['Autonomous Vehicles', 'Career Advice', 'Engineering', 'Internships', 'Students'] |
Increase Your Concession Revenue Per Cap By $1.25 Within A Week | Interview with Jon Pickel, Owner of Tower Drive-in Theater and FanFood venue partner
“First night, we set ourselves up to fail — and it turned out to be our busiest night so far.”
You can watch Jon’s full interview here.
It’s only been a week since FanFood debuted at Tower Drive-in Theater, but one in five customers are already ordering on the app instead of at the concession stand.
“I was skeptical in the beginning whether FanFood is going to increase my sales,” said Jon Pickel, owner of Tower Drive-in Theater. “So far we are seven nights in and my [revenue] per cap of the whole night has gone up by about $1.25.”
Another added bonus? The long lines that used to be at the concession stand are now gone.
In fact, getting rid of the concession line was the initial trigger for Jon to start exploring mobile ordering solutions for drive-in theater. He had been brainstorming with his team for the perfect product that could cut down long lines without hurting sales (which, in the conventional world of concession sales, are correlated). That is, until he came across FanFood at a drive-in theater convention in Florida.
“I think [FanFood] would work,” Jon said. “That’s exactly what I need.”
Despite the conviction, Jon kept his anticipation low on the first night when FanFood was implemented. There were doubts in his head as to whether the app could actually work — since it was his first time seeing a mobile ordering app in action at a drive-in theater (frankly, ours too!).
“It turned out to be our busiest night so far.” Jon recalled.
Although it rained for two nights consecutively thereafter, customers’ high adoption rate of the app and their enthusiasm to try it out has been consistent. On busier night, it’s common that over 20% of all theater attendees were ordering on FanFood—and people absolutely loved receiving food in their car seats.
When was the last time you’ve been to a drive-in theater? Or have you ever??
“I’d be handing out flyers about FanFood at the ticketing booth, telling them to download the app,” Jon said. “The vast majority said ‘that’s cool! I’ll do that!’”The theater has not held back on their marketing push either. Fortunately, Tower Drive-In has maintained a huge loyal customer base on Facebook, where people go to check out the showing schedule. FanFood is also given a prominent spot on the theater’s website to inform people of the new service. And the technology of the app is simple enough that anyone could pick it up in no time.
“Y’all hit a pretty good home run on how that [the app] works,” Jon told us.
If there are topics / questions you’d love to see us explore on our blog, write or tweet at us @fanfoodondemand! | https://medium.com/fanfood-playbook/increase-your-concession-revenue-per-cap-by-1-25-within-a-week-ffb7aef6dc21 | ['Isabella Jiao'] | 2019-08-05 15:59:25.014000+00:00 | ['Theater', 'Revenue', 'Startup', 'Testimonials', 'Success Story'] |
WILL THEY | Photo:randy cooper
Will they really like me?
Will they realize what it takes?
Will they care that my heart and soul
Are laying out there for all to see?
Do they know how hard I worked to get here?
Do they know how many years are behind what I do?
Do they know the problems that I had to deal with
just to get to this point?
Would it stop me from doing this?
Would it change the way I feel about any of it?
Would I do things any differently
if they do not like it?
Absolutely Not… | https://medium.com/the-plan-b-vibe/will-they-de2eed5541f6 | ['Randy Cooper'] | 2020-12-23 17:56:34.633000+00:00 | ['Hope', 'Challenges In Life', 'Fear', 'Poetry'] |
6 Preferred Stances of Product Owners | In our previous blog on six misunderstood product owner stances, we talked about what you should not do as a product owner. Now, it is time to find out what you should do as a product owner so that you make wise decisions and achieve the desired results.
In this blog, we will discuss 6 preferred product owner stances that are widely accepted in a positive light and can help you succeed as a product owner. Let’s begin:
1. Visionary
Product owners with the visionary stance have a clear future vision and actively try to challenge the status quo. Team members are inspired to follow them because of their charismatic nature. Steve jobs, Elon Musk, and Thomas Edison are some popular examples of visionary product owners.
Following are the patterns using which you can identify a visionary product owner:
Envisioning the future and imagining what doesn’t exist today but might someday.
Clear details of the future possibilities and they always aim on the bigger picture.
Focusing on “what can be” instead of “what is” — thus always thinking about the future of your product.
Sharing and communicating their vision with others because they know they can’t achieve it alone.
Never being afraid of the failure.
How does this behaviour influences product development?
Scrum team always remains on the right track because they know where they are heading.
Visionaries also acts as a unifying force, motivating everyone to work for the same goal.
Visionaries act as a guide for employee actions and decision making. Visionaries can be motivating and inspiring, thus guiding everyone to perform better.
Since visionaries have a clear vision, the Development teams can build a better product.
The development teams can also learn to be more self-organized under the guidance of visionary product owner.
Visionary product owner can lead to improved product usage, increased revenues, improved total cost of ownership, and increased customer satisfaction.
2. The Customer Representative
Product owners with the customer representative stance are highly concerned about customers and their requirements. Not only they gain every insight about your potential customers, but also understand the team members what customers want, what challenges they have, and what are their pain points. Perhaps, this is the reason why product owners with this stance are highly preferred.
Following are the patterns to identify the product owners with the customer representative stance:
Great understanding of customers and their persona.
More listening over talking.
Ability to listen, observe, and ask powerful questions to understand your customers.
Identifying customer values and try their best to deliver it.
How does this behaviour influences product development?
Since customers representative product owners have a great understanding of customers, they can help you and your team a great product.
The development team also learn to be independent and self-organized under customer representative product owners.
They can help you focus on long-term goals.
3. The Collaborator
Product owners with the collaborator stance are team players. No matter how efficient they are individually, they prefer to take everyone in the team together. Such product owners believe in lifting up everyone. That’s why this is a widely preferred stance of a product owner.
You can identify a collaborator product owner by the following patterns:
Open and transparent to their team.
Saying what you do and doing what you say.
Always being eager to share their vision and information.
Listening to understand, not to respond.
Believing in being their authentic self and understanding the other people’s concern.
How does this behaviour influences product development?
Collaborators improve the flexibility in an organization.
Collaborators help in improving the employee engagement.
Meetings become more productive with collaborator product owners.
Collaborators have a great alignment with stakeholders and thus they can help you build great products.
4. The decision maker
Product owners with the decision maker stance help stakeholders in making crucial decisions to keep the time-to-market short.
Following are the patterns using which you can identify the decision maker product owner stance:
Knowing everything about the product: it’s marketing value, how it is performing right now, and what is its technical state. This helps them make informed decisions.
Not minding calling the shots if there is any emergency.
Always making sure the work gets done but always will be there with the team to make sure they get through if any problem occurs.
Spending a significant time convincing other people of their idea.
Being great team players. Such product owners believe in solving problems together and also value the ideas of other people.
How does this behaviour influence the product development?
The decision makers promote competitiveness and team spirit among the development team.
The product owners with this stance push employees to their limits and help them grow.
Members of the development team also learns to fearlessly contribute their ideas, thus creating better products.
The stakeholders can rely on these product owners because they are capable of handling many things on their own.
5. The experimenter
Product owners with the experimenter stance are the brain behind innovative products. They are great inventors and focus on developing products which are unique. People like Sir Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla, and Albert Einstein fall in this category.
Following are the patterns that identify Experimenters:
Stating hypothesis instead of user stories and requirements.
Seeing the work of the team as experiments to discover new and hidden value.
Valuing ideas and inspire their team members to be more innovative.
Never being afraid of failures. Instead, they see them as an opportunity for growth.
Keeping more than one alternative in mind.
Keeping themselves up to date.
How does this behaviour influence product development?
Under the guidance of these product owners, product increases and costs get reduced significantly.
Product owners with the experimenter stance can offer a better product and service quality to stakeholders.
They can help the development team create the next big thing for stakeholders.
The development team also grows a lot while working under such product owners.
6. The influencer
Product owners with the influencer stance have a great influence over the people working with them. They can get things done without even exercising any formal authority over their team members — and perhaps this is the reason product owners with this stance are widely preferred in companies.
You can identify an influencer product owner stance by the following patterns:
Always being honest and transparent to everyone.
Being compassionate, flexible, and great listeners.
Being great network builders and having the ability to blend reality.
Taking a stand for the team and knowing that the product development is not all about them.
How does this behaviour influences product development?
Influencer product owners are able to build a united force which can help your company grow in a positive direction.
Influencer product owners have a better alignment with stakeholders, customers, and end-users. Hence, they can support your product to become successful.
There are lesser arguments in the team, lesser discussion delays, and power struggles. So, the product development process never slows down.
Can product owners shift from misunderstood to preferred product owner stances?
Yes, they can. However, doing so requires a major shift in their mindset and personality. They have to change the way they approach issues, interact within the team, and approach shareholders. Doing so is not easy but with proper guidance you can easily get through.
Conclusion
So, these are the preferred product owner stances that you should adapt to successfully meet the expectations of both the development team and the stakeholders.
Also, it’s not much difficult to shift from one stance to another. With a little mindset shift and a slightly different approach, product owners with misunderstood stance can easily move to the preferred stance.
At Softobiz, we have been seen many of our product owners changing their approach from the misunderstood product owner stances to preferred product owner stances. We have seen them becoming highly productive. So, we can provide you the much needed guidance. Learn how you can grow your business with Softobiz. | https://medium.com/@softobiztechnologies67/6-preferred-stances-of-product-owners-ad8f2a6cad1d | ['Softobiz Technologies'] | 2020-12-23 04:37:51.272000+00:00 | ['Scrum', 'Product Management', 'Product Owner', 'Product Ownership'] |
10 Actions to Control Your Ego | So it doesn’t control you
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
My personal experiences have distilled a clear life lesson in that to have a fulfilling life, the ego must be contained. Yes, ego is not necessarily evil and may even be an important catalyst for progression. But ego is tricky to manage sometimes because it doesn’t have clear boundaries, breach of which would signal to the person to start pulling in the reigns!
Before I share the 10 actions that may help contain the ego, I have to punctuate that in all these actions, the underlying theme is gratitude, without which, in my view, ego will control us than vice versa.
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. ~Marcus Tullius Cicero
1. Fast often
Hunger has a carnal, physical and immediate way of curbing the ego. It reminds us of our dependence on availability of nourishment and the fragility of the human body. After a long day of fasting the first drop of water feels precious and a sense of rejuvenation takes over, followed by a sense of thankfulness.
2. Attend funerals
In addition to supporting the grieving friends and family and paying respect to the departed, one is shaken up by the proximity of death with every funeral. Frequently recalling ‘momento mori’ or ‘remember you must die’ keeps the finiteness of life in constant perspective, thus rarely allowing one to ride the wings of ego and float into the skies of delusion. Burials, especially keep us grounded in more ways than one.
3. Volunteer time
Helping teach the underprivileged has a remarkably strong imprint on one’s psyche. There are moments of awe, for example, when you find children staring at a color pencil box finally open it up for the first time and 20 minutes later draw and color their first parrot in all its glory with their eyes wide open and smiles even wider. The realization of what small things we take for granted is so deep that one can’t help but feel gratitude for what is already given and the joy of becoming a conduit of joy for others.
4. Compete up
As a 40+ year old, try competing with someone in their early 20s in an intense sport or physical activity. Then try to engage a 70-something old who has lived a well-examined life in a philosophical debate. In both cases the realization of your physical and wisdom gaps becomes apparent in a short span of time. Waves of humility begin to thrash against the jagged rocks of ego and that's a good thing.
5. Give charity every three months
Without cameras rolling, of course, physically provide for food and clothes to people in need. Though nowadays, with Coronavirus lockdowns instituted globally, it may be a bit more logistically challenging, however the idea is to engage in charitable acts throughout the year. No human being with a beating heart can dare to forget the eyes of the people he or she helps in person. These images are constant reminders how fickle fate is sometimes and keeps us on our humble toes.
6. Have a sense of humor
If you can’t take a good roasting, then maybe it is time to revisit ‘project self-esteem’ in earnest. A good joke at your expense should take some of the heavy bravado air out and leave you breathing lighter, cleaner oxygen! That is why people with strong family ties tend to have better social coping skills since they give and take lifelong ‘soft jabs’ with self-deprecating humor embedded deep in their DNA.
7. Follow your role model
Have a role model or two that you truly admire in personality and conduct and not just skill. Often, highly skilled idols can disappoint their fans by their personal behavior. Observe how this role model acts when showered with accolades, when speaking to the everyday person, when the spotlight is burning hot or when the limelight is dim. In different circumstances, a well grounded person will always reflect his or her values of humility and poise. Emulate that goodness.
8. Listen to Einstein and Socrates
“Ego=1/Knowledge. More the knowledge lesser the ego, lesser the knowledge more the ego.” ~Albert Einstein
The more knowledge we acquire the more we realize we are perpetual students in an eternally unfolding game of knowledge-seeking. Pride shouldn’t sustain in the presence of knowledge that continues to grow, especially for those who stay humble enough to keep seeking.
I know that I know nothing. ~Socrates
This is despite being considered one of the greatest thinking minds of his time. Acquiring knowledge only reminded Socrates of him waking up to the tip of the iceberg of wisdom. This is true freedom from ego.
9. ‘Tear down this wall’
Ronald Regan’s Berlin speech ended with ‘…tear down this wall!’ These four words should be branded in any person’s mind who grapples with his pride. Ego is one heck of a wall-builder. It will not only insulate one from the outside world but also push his loved ones inside over to the other side of the wall. People with inflated egos, I have noticed, struggle a lot more with loneliness in the later part of their lives. Ego will bring upon unnecessary suffering in your personal relationships and the result is a compounded effect over decades. Don’t let this wall get too high.
10. Pray with sharp focus
The act of sincere asking is one of the most humbling experiences in life — comparable to none, in my view. A prayer is infinite in its ask but immensely submissive in act. Acknowledging one’s lack of complete control and dependency on external factors moderates aggressive and ambitious behavior. We all need this counterbalance in our lives for clearer thinking, better resiliency and greater mental and emotional well-being.
Wishing you an ego that serves you well, not the other way around. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/10-actions-to-control-your-ego-2ca29cefb8c3 | ['Khawaja Saud Masud'] | 2020-05-08 05:20:29.179000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Personal Development', 'Self Esteem', 'Ego', 'Control'] |
How To Weight Loss with Apple Cider Vinegar(+3 Ways to Lose Weight) | How can apple cider vinegar help you lose weight?
Here’s how ACV can help you lose weight:
May help improve digestion.
Unfiltered apple cider vinegar contains proteins, enzymes and healthy bacteria known as’mothers’. It looks like a cloudy, spiderweb-like substance at the bottom of the bottle. This substance has probiotic properties, so it can support a healthy gut.
When you eat or drink something that contains probiotic bacteria such as apple cider vinegar, the friendly bacteria it contains promotes the growth of healthier bacteria in your gut. This supports clusters of beneficial gut bacteria (also known as microbiomes).
These beneficial bacteria help digest and extract nutrients from the food we eat.8 When our microbial community is out of kilograms and our levels of good bacteria are low, our bodies cannot get nutrients from food effectively and Apple cider vinegar may help. With it.
In other words, probiotic bacteria = better digestion = weight loss. | https://medium.com/@rkdwnl12/how-to-weight-loss-with-apple-cider-vinegar-3-ways-to-lose-weight-573c7ab238ce | [] | 2020-12-27 13:26:25.725000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss Tips', 'Weight Loss Program', 'Weight Loss', 'Apple Cider Vinegar', 'Weight Loss Supplements'] |
How to Not Work on Fridays | If you are working on Fridays in summer, you are a tool. That is the truth. But if you ARE working on Fridays in summer, and wondering how to change your life, well, we have the answer for you. Perhaps you spotted Flint Beamon, extolling the virtues of “not really working on Fridays” in the Styles section troll-a-thon today. It went like this: “Scanning the [Thompson Hotel] scene closely was Flint Beamon, 36, a director of events and lifestyle brands for a public relations company [N.B.: That firm is called PR Consulting] that gives its employees Fridays off in summer. He was there to network. ‘People here are usually in the upper echelons in their industries,’ said Mr. Beamon, who is a regular. ‘I’ve struck business deals by the pool.’” So the real money, if we can tell you the secret, is Facebook spam-scam survey pyramid schemes. THE MORE YOU KNOW.
But seriously, young people. You know how you don’t work on Fridays? JUST LEAVE. Close your laptop. Tell your boss you have “a thing.” Unless you’re paid by the hour, nobody should work on Fridays in summer, it’s NOT AMERICAN. Stop cracking the whip on yourself for your boss, you’re being a fool. JUST GO WALKABOUT. You’re only young once, and winter is coming. | https://medium.com/the-awl/how-to-not-work-on-fridays-a990451ed9b0 | ['Choire Sicha'] | 2016-05-13 16:39:44.496000+00:00 | ['Handy Advice', 'Summer', 'New York City'] |
Using Z3 Theorem on AVR Firmware | As many of you may or may not be aware of, I have a serious obsession with embedded systems security. It wasn’t until about two years ago where I started my journey of incorporating my knowledge in reverse engineering software applications into pulling apart firmware from embedded devices. Additionally, I also started learning hardware security concepts such as side-channel attacks, fault-injections/glitch attacks, bit flipping, and more.
Anyone who has began their careers in embedded security will tell you that the Arduino board is the best device to get started on. They have a pretty intricate IDE, and an abundant amount of HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) API calls to use. Needless to say, writing your first hello world application in the embedded systems industry is fairly rudimentary, which is just blinking an LED.
The goal of this paper to show you how to use the Z3 formula (with python) to break weak password checkers that use linear inequalities or equalities such as satisfiability modulo theories.
AVR Architecture
To give you some background on what Arduino uses as their main MCU (Microcontroller Unit), it will help to understand what AVR is. AVR is an 8-bit RISC architecture (Reduced Instruction Set Computing). AVR based microcontrollers became widely popular for being one of the first in the game to have on-chip flash storage. For the lab exercise, we will be using an Arduino Nano board with an ATmega328P MCU.
Block Diagram of Architecture
What we have here is a 28-pin chip with an operating voltage that ranges from +1.8V to +5.5V. Only 23 of the 28 pins are programmable as GPIOs (General Purpose Input/Output). It does come with your standard set of communication interfaces such as Master/Slave SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface), USB, USART (Universal Synchronous/Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter), and Two-Wire peripheral protocols such as I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit). We will discuss USB-to-USART more in depth later on as this will become important when flashing our chip with the target firmware and communicating with our chip by sending and receiving data.
Let’s go over this diagram above;
The data bus handles data in 8-bit chunks that travel inside the microcontroller, as the bus line is 8-bits wide.
handles data in 8-bit chunks that travel inside the microcontroller, as the bus line is 8-bits wide. General Purpose Registers are used for arithmetic operations such adding and subtracting numbers, setting jump pointers, and compare operations. From the previous article I wrote, we discussed registers for x86 architecture, and in this case of AVR we have R0…R31.
are used for arithmetic operations such adding and subtracting numbers, setting jump pointers, and compare operations. From the previous article I wrote, we discussed registers for x86 architecture, and in this case of AVR we have R0…R31. ALU stands for Arithmetic Logic Unit. This works in direct connection with the general purpose registers. Arithmetic operations between a GPR and an immediate operand can be executed within a single clock cycle. We can divide these operations into three categories: arithmetic, logical, and bit-wise functions.
stands for Arithmetic Logic Unit. This works in direct connection with the general purpose registers. Arithmetic operations between a GPR and an immediate operand can be executed within a single clock cycle. We can divide these operations into three categories: arithmetic, logical, and bit-wise functions. Instruction Decoder is a combinational circuit whose purpose is to translate an instruction code into the address at micro-memory.
is a combinational circuit whose purpose is to translate an instruction code into the address at micro-memory. Program Counter (PC) is 14 bits wide and addresses the program memory locations.
(PC) is 14 bits wide and addresses the program memory locations. As we can see from the picture above, there are three different types of memory being used here. 1) Flash Memory , which is programmable read-only memory (ROM), and firmware can only be changed using a programmer or bootloader. 2) SRAM , an area for volatile memory that holds data only when electrically powered. 3) Lastly, EEPROM (Electronically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), a semi permanent data storage that can only be accessed using special registers inside the AVR. It has the ability to control things like addresses to be written, data to be written, and flags used to read data.
, which is programmable read-only memory (ROM), and firmware can only be changed using a programmer or bootloader. 2) , an area for volatile memory that holds data only when electrically powered. 3) Lastly, (Electronically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), a semi permanent data storage that can only be accessed using special registers inside the AVR. It has the ability to control things like addresses to be written, data to be written, and flags used to read data. I/O Lines are used for controlling applications through the digital input and output pins. These pins can detect any voltage changes such as HIGH or LOW electromagnetic force digital output. All I/O pins are connected to diodes that trace to a VCC and GND line.
I/O Lines Schematic
Now that we have a better understanding of AVR architecture, let’s briefly go over how we are going to communicate with our ATmega328P chip using USB-to-USART.
USART
The USB-to-USART converter/bridge is a serial port to your computer and is responsible for sending serial data over two wires. There is no clock signal and no parleying between the two devices. To communicate accurately, both devices must be configured beforehand to use the same speed of communication, otherwise known as the baud rate. The baud rate is simply the rate at which information is transferred in a communication channel. In the serial port context, 9600 baud means that the serial port is capable of transferring at a maximum of 9600 bits per second. It can be calculated in two ways:
𝐷 = 𝐵⋅(𝑛/(𝑏+𝑛))
𝐵 = 𝐷⋅((𝑏+𝑛)/𝑛)
Where B is the defined as units of total bits per second, D is the application of data bits per second, and N is the bits that are conveyed per symbol, and the gross bit rate is R , inclusive of channel coding overhead, the symbol rate fs can be calculated as:
f⋅(s) = R / N
The USART clock must operate at 16 times the desired baud rate. The clock is based around the operation of a crystal oscillator which, in the case of the ATmega328P USART, is set to a constant 3.6881 MHz.
Lab Assignment
There are two files we are going to need for this exercise. Both of these files can be found at VirusTotal.
One is the bin file that is a dumped firmware image -> 7afa940272694061bde3d1eea7f4827a .
. The second is the hex firmware file used to upload and be processed by our Arduino Nano board -> 4f055c15d3841872ba8156ffb968a8ab .
The next step to getting our board ready will be to upload the hex file we just downloaded by using avrdude . Connect the board to your computer via USB, and be sure to have installed avr-tools . The typical baud rate upload speed is going to be 57,600. We are going to run this at the command line to get the firmware on the board:
➜ jumpy git:(master) avrdude -c arduino -p atmega328p -P /dev/cu.wchusbserial1410 -b57600 -u -V -U flash:w:jumpy.hex
At this point we need to figure out the what is the baud rate the USART is using to communicate all of its serial data. After running baudrate.py, you should get the result of 19,200. Now we can use the application screen to communicate with the board from our machine.
screen /dev/cu.wchusbserial1410 19200
Screen output
Looks like a pretty straightforward single-password check. Let’s move on over to the jumpy.bin file and start our reverse engineering process. We are going to use Ghidra for this project as I found it to be a lot cleaner when using the AVR disassembler. After we load the file into a project directory, specifying the language is a must; so in our case, AVR8 Little Endian 16-bit assembly was the best option.
Ghidra will automatically analyze all the code including the vector table at the start of the disassembly output. One thing to note: you will see a lot of opcodes that have not been analyzed in code section, and in that case we will highlight all those bytes and press D , this will automatically disassemble the opcodes and you can use the F key afterwards to create the newly examined code into a function.
After Ghidra has completed analyzing the binary file, the output can look a bit convoluted. The first set of subroutines are responsible for initializing the peripherals such as the USART/TX-RX, SPI, TIMER, PCINT, Interrupts, and Reset table.
Side note: If you ever want to find the main() function in firmware code, trace to the base address to RESET -> code:000000 of the bootloader. It will always contain a simple jump (I.E. jmp lab_000045 ) to an address outside of the bootloader that will directly lead to a start routine that holds main() after performing a lot of operations to setup the environment.
Jump to Start -> Main
We will most likely have better luck doing dynamic analysis, which won’t be easy, but will definitely give a lot more satisfying results. The strings table doesn’t show much and there are no XREF’s to any of the offsets in code segment.
Emulator
The goal right now is to emulate the code and figure out where the firmware is asking for input from the user in the USART. We have to find an offset in the beginning to set a breakpoint at so we can commence step-tracing. The first offset ( 0xaa ) I noticed that shows logical code is at function 0x003cc .
FUN_code_0003cc:0003d2(c)
code:0000aa cf 93 push Ylo
code:0000ab df 93 push Yhi
code:0000ac cd b7 in Ylo,SPL
code:0000ad de b7 in Yhi,SPH
code:0000ae 60 97 sbiw Y,0x10
Before we start up our debugger, there are three tools you are going to need to download:
Open three terminal windows and let’s start with the first one. Run this simavr-simduino command:
$ board_simduino/obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/simduino.elf -d jumpy.hex
atmega328p booloader 0x00000: 3402 bytes
avr_special_init
avr_gdb_init listening on port 1234
uart_pty_init bridge on port *** /dev/pts/1 ***
uart_pty_connect: /tmp/simavr-uart0 now points to /dev/pts/1
note: export SIMAVR_UART_XTERM=1 and install picocom to get a terminal
Next is picocom, which will be used as a bridge for the USART communication. In the next terminal window, run this command:
$ picocom /tmp/simavr-uart0
picocom v2.2 port is : /tmp/simavr-uart0
flowcontrol : none
baudrate is : 9600
parity is : none
databits are : 8
stopbits are : 1
escape is : C-a
local echo is : no
noinit is : no
noreset is : no
nolock is : no
send_cmd is : sz -vv
receive_cmd is : rz -vv -E
imap is :
omap is :
emap is : crcrlf,delbs, Type [C-a] [C-h] to see available commands Terminal ready
This setup will now get us ready to connect to a GDB server. We can now run avr-gdb in the third terminal.
$ avr-gdb ./jumpy.bin
(gdb) target remote localhost:1234
Remote debugging using localhost:1234
0x00000000 in ?? ()
(gdb) break *($pc + 0x000000aa)
Breakpoint 1 at 0xaa
(gdb) c
Continuing. Breakpoint 1 hit, 0x000000aa in ?? ()
Looking at picocom, it doesn’t look like we have hit any sort of text output yet, so we haven’t yet reached the point where the code is sending data through the USART terminal. Using the gdb command stepi 20 is a good trial and error technique to see how much we should step in the beginning before the first letter is output to the pico terminal. Interestingly, we hit the breakpoint again at 0xaa , and if we switch back to picocom, we can see the letters In being printed on the screen. This function looks like it is responsible for sending data over TX. Tracing back into Ghidra, it looks like we are hitting this peripheral component:
undefined USART2_RX()
undefined Wlo:1 <RETURN>
undefined1[255] Stack[-0x100 buf
USART2_RX XREF[1]: Entry Point(*)
code:000066 1f 92 push R1
code:000067 cd b7 in Ylo,SPL
After stepping a few more times, we come to a point where we can find directly what is printing to the picocom terminal.
(gdb) x/10i $pc
=> 0xd0: st Z, r18
0xd2: pop r0
0xd4: pop r29
0xd6: pop r28
0xd8: ret
0xda: push r28
0xdc: push r29
0xde: in r28, 0x3d ; 61
0xe0: in r29, 0x3e ; 62
0xe2: ldi r24, 0xC5 ; 197
(gdb) i r $r18
r18 0x75 11
Hex 0x75 is ‘u’ which makes sense if it’s printing the string Input . Whats happening here in the code is the register r18 holds the next byte to store into Z using the st instruction. Looking at the Atmel instruction manual, we can see exactly what this operation is doing. It indirectly stores from the register to the data space using index X or Z . If you look how Ghidra decompiles this logic, it will look like this:
undefined2 USART3_TX(byte param_1)
{
...
R18 = *(undefined *)(Y + 1);
write_volatile_1(UDR0,R18);
}
Y is the array index that holds our string table, and the st instruction is seen as a volatile write to the DR0 (Data/Debug Register). Now we can make note that in GDB offset 0xaa ( 0x66 in Ghidra) is part of the USART-RX, and offset 0xbe ( 0x70 in Ghidra) is responsible for the USART-TX. Side Note: Some register pairs can be used for 16-bit operations. These can only be used with the register pairs R26:R27 (X) , R28:R29 (Y) , and R30:R31 (Z) . I’m clarifying this because there was some confusion around debugging information in memory; so if we wanted to dump contents of Y using GDB, the command would be crafted like this -> x/10x $R28 .
Now that the TX/RX interrupts are located, we need to be able to find where our input is actually processed. After stepping through a bunch of the code, it looks like we may have found in Ghidra where our input gets processed:
code:000171 8a 30 cpi r24,0xa
code:000172 99 f0 brbs LAB_code_000186,Zflg
code:000173 8b 81 ldd r24,Y+0x3
code:000174 8d 30 cpi r24,0xd
CPI is responsible for comparing an immediate value. What sparked my interest when looking at this was the value 0xd and 0xa which is \r and
in ascii. My theory is, if we set a breakpoint at the start of this function which is offset 0x2ac ( 0x167 in Ghidra), the picocom terminal will prompt us for an input and allow us to enter a string. After hitting enter, we should hit the breakpoint.
/* GDB Window */
(gdb) break *($pc + 0x000002ac)
Breakpoint 1 at 0x2ac
(gdb) c
Continuing.
Note: automatically using hardware breakpoints for read-only addresses. Breakpoint 1, 0x000002ac in ?? ()
(gdb) /* Pico Terminal */
Terminal ready
Input:
It looks like the breakpoint was hit without giving us the opportunity to input a string. Let’s continue browsing the stack:
process_input
code:000167 1f 92 push R1
code:000168 cd b7 in Ylo,SPL
code:000169 de b7 in Yhi,SPH
code:00016a 1a 82 std Y+0x2,R1
code:00016b 19 82 std Y+0x1,R1
code:00016c 15 c0 rjmp LAB_code_000182
LAB_code_00016d
code:00016d 0e 94 54 01 call FUN_code_000154
From where we set our breakpoint, it looks like there is a function call at offset 0x154 . Decompiling this function, we get the output:
uint FUN_code_000154(void)
{
byte bVar1;
do {
W._0_1_ = uart_read_char();
} while ((char)W == '\0');
bVar1 = read_volatile_1(UDR0);
W = (uint)bVar1;
Z = 0xc6;
return W;
}
Subroutine looks simple enough to understand… it sets up the W register to interpret bits from the USART status and control register, if successful, it then takes a byte at a time and reads from the USART data register. Until a null terminating character is found, W will hold the entire value. Knowing this, we have to set a breakpoint after this function call, which will be at offset 0x2bc ( 0x15b in Ghidra). Let’s try this again, set a breakpoint at the new offset, and see if it works this time.
/* GDB Window */
(gdb) break *($pc + 0x000002bc)
Breakpoint 1 at 0x2bc
(gdb) c
Continuing.
Note: automatically using hardware breakpoints for read-only addresses. /* Pico Terminal */
Terminal ready
Input:helloworld /* Breakpoint hit in GDB Window after hitting enter */
Breakpoint 1, 0x000002bc in ?? ()
(gdb)
Perfect! From what we saw before $r24 holds each byte and compares it to an
or an \r . To confirm we can see if the register holds our first byte ‘h’ , (gdb) i r $r24 == 0x68 <=> 104 ; and it does! At this offset, we will be hitting this breakpoint X amount of times, X being equal to the size of our string + 1 . Once the code processes the null terminating string, the function exits. Our input string will be held at this address below.
(gdb) x/1s 0x80013e
0x80013e: "helloworld"
Time to step out of this function and see where this routine is being cross-referenced. Once we reach the return instruction, the $pc will be redirected to a module at:
undefined FUN_code_000192()
undefined Wlo:1 <RETURN>
undefined1[256] Stack[-0x100] buffer
FUN_code_000192
code:000192 cf 93 push Ylo
code:000193 df 93 push Yhi
code:000194 1f 92 push R1
code:000195 cd b7 in Ylo,SPL
code:000196 de b7 in Yhi,SPH
code:000197 19 82 std Y+0x1,R1
This could be the winning ticket for what happens next with our string. Just to keep track, we are at offset 0x302 ( 0x192 in Ghidra). I started to step through this function one instruction at a time, and it looks like it wasn’t actually comparing anything of interest once this function returned. Something interesting started to show once we got a bit further down the code base:
code:0001c7 82 0f add Wlo,R18
code:0001c8 93 1f adc Whi,R19
code:0001c9 83 3d cpi Wlo,0xd3
code:0001ca 91 05 cpc Whi,R1
code:0001cb 51 f4 brbc LAB_code_0001d6,Zflg
Looks like two registers are being added then compared to a value of 0xd3 . Let’s set a breakpoint here in gdb at offset 0x36c , and see what values of our input are possibly being added together.
/* GDB Window */
(gdb) break *($pc + 0x0000036c)
Breakpoint 1 at 0x36c
(gdb) c
Continuing.
Note: automatically using hardware breakpoints for read-only addresses. /* Pico Terminal */
Terminal ready
Input:helloworld923 /* Breakpoint hit in GDB Window after hitting enter */
Breakpoint 1, 0x0000036c in ?? ()
(gdb) x/3i $pc
=> 0x36c: add r24, r18
0x36e: adc r25, r19
0x370: cpi r24, 0xD3 ; 211
(gdb) i r $r24
r24 0x6c 108
(gdb) i r $r18
r18 0x72 114
We can see index 7 ( ‘r’ ) and index 8 ( ‘l’ ) added; this will give us the hexadecimal value of 0xde . Now that we know this routine begins at 0x1bb in Ghidra, we can rename this function compare_index_7_8() . As we move further down the code base, we start to see a lot of similar code. Side note: start labeling all comparative functions to keep track of what indices your input string are being are being compared to.
/* Comparing Index 9 and 10 */
code:00021f 82 0f add Wlo,R18
code:000220 93 1f adc Whi,R19
code:000221 8f 38 cpi Wlo,0x8f /* Comparing Index 11 and 12 */
code:0002fa 82 0f add Wlo,R18
code:0002fb 93 1f adc Whi,R19
code:0002fc 80 3a cpi Wlo,0xa0 /* Comparing Index 6 and 7 */
code:0002b5 52 9f mul R21,R18
code:0002b6 90 0d add Whi,R0
code:0002b7 11 24 eor R1,R1
code:0002b8 8c 30 cpi Wlo,0xc
code:0002b9 9b 42 sbci Whi,0x2b
code:0002ba 51 f4 brbc LAB_code_0002c5,Zflg
Over at address 0x2b5 , there is an operation that looks a bit different from the other comparisons. Index 6 and 7 of our input string gets their ordinals multiplied by each other, then gets compared to a lower WORD byte value of the result to 0xc and higher byte value of that WORD to 0x2b . In our example, we can take the two indices of ‘o’ and ‘r’ from helloworld923 and multiply the two integers to obtain the value 0x316e ; the lower byte of this WORD ( LOWORD ) in this equation is 0x6e and the higher byte ( HIWORD ) value is 0x31 . This is how the comparison will look like in pseudo-code:
if (ord(‘o’) * ord(‘r’)) >> 8 == 0x2b &&
(ord(‘o’) * ord(‘r’)) & 0xFF == 0x0c ⇒
The sbci instruction subtracts with the carry immediate command, and our final value that index 6 and 7 will need to equal is 0x2b0c . Static analysis will really take care of the rest from here on out because we know what specific mnemonics to keep an eye out for. We can build up our constraints table and use the Z3 theorem to solve the rest. The size of our string has to be 13 characters as seen in this snippet of decompiled code:
if (var_37 == 0xd) {
W = (char *)(CONCAT11(DAT_mem_013f,DAT_mem_013e) | 1);
input_string = (char)W;
}
Inside your Ghidra Functions tab, you should have labeled all 13 subroutines responsible for comparing each byte of your input.
Z3 Theorem Solution
To put it simply, Z3 Prover was created for Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) problems. These are decision problems for logical formulas with combinations that include arithmetics, bit-vectors, arrays, and unresolved functions. Z3 is an effective SMT solver with specialized algorithms to solve background theories as mentioned above. You can download the python library here.
At this point we can formulate the conditionals on how this firmware code checks for the right password and what constraints we can enter into our bit-vector that can be used as shorthands for sub-terms.
if string[7] + string[8] == 0xd3 ⇒
if string[8] * string[9] == 0x15c0 ⇒
if string[0] * string[1] == 0x13b7 ⇒
if string[2] * string[3] == 0x1782 ⇒
if string[3] + string[4] == 0x92 ⇒
if string[6] * string[7] == 0x2b0c ⇒
if string[5] + string[6] == 0xa5 ⇒
if string[9] + string[10] == 0x8f ⇒
if string[1] + string[2] == 0xa7 ⇒
if string[10] * string[11] == 0x2873 ⇒
if string[12] * 13 == 0x297 ⇒
...
-> decrypt_flag()
Side Note: The flag string gets loaded at Ghidra’s offset 0x55 . It will use the instruction lpm to load a data byte from the FLASH program memory into the register file. The Z-register in the register file is then used to access the program memory and place the data in register R0 . A final check function will be called at offset 0x3a7 to confirm how many times the variable isCompared was set to be true | 1 . If equal to (1<<14)–1 , then the code will proceed to print the flag.
LAB_code_000051:
code:000051 lpm R0,Z=>s__FLAG:_code_0006e4+ = "\r
FLAG:"
...
code:0003af 8f 3f cpi Wlo,0xff
code:0003b0 9f 43 lsl Whi,0x0e
code:0003b1 99 f4 brbc LAB_0003c5,Zflg ; not equal
code:0003b2 80 e0 ldi Wlo,0x0
code:0003b3 91 e0 ldi Whi,0x1
code:0003b4 0e 94 aa 00 call usart_print
...
LAB_0003c5: // if landed here, you'll get the "wrong password" msg
code:0003c5 8b e0 ldi Wlo,0xb
code:0003c6 91 e0 ldi Whi,0x1
code:0003c7 0e 94 aa 00 call usart_print
After all values are added to your constraints, you can use Z3’s check() function to examine whether the assertions in the given solver plus the optional assumptions are consistent or not. If the assertion returns true, the next step would be to return a model() for the last check() . This function raises an exception if a model is not available (e.g., last check() returned unsat ; your assignment doesn’t satisfy the quantified axiom). A simple test to see how the library works would be to use a three unknown linear equation from our challenge like x+y = 0xd3 && y*z = 0x15c0 :
>>> from z3 import *
>>> x,y,z = Int('x'), Int('y'), Int('z') # Test with no solutions
>>> s = SimpleSolver()
>>> s.add(2**x == 4)
>>> s.check()
unknown
>>> s.add(2**x == 16)
>>> s.check()
unsat # Reset general purpose solver with limited amount of preprocessing
>>> s = SimpleSolver()
>>> s.add(x + y == 0xd3)
>>> s.add(y * z == 0x15c0)
>>> s.check()
sat
>>> s.model()
[z = 348, y = 16, x = 195]
We can apply the same logic to our unknowns mentioned above. But as you can see, if Z3 is unable to satisfy the requirements needed to model the solution, it will return an unknown and everything added after will be considered unsatisfiable.
After running our solver, we finally get the password that is needed to decrypt the flag:
ryancor@ryancor-VirtualBox:~$ python solve.py
Found Password: g1v3_1t_t0_m3
The next step would be to program a module that takes this password, automatically sends it to the ATMega’s USART serial port, and retrieves the flag. The source code for this script can be found here. In order to do this, make sure to have your board plugged into the USB port and connected to your linux VM USB ports. To ensure your VM recognizes this device, check your kernel message logs right after its plugged in and you should see that the usb-core registered a new interface driver called ch341 :
ryancor@ryancor-VirtualBox:~$ dmesg
[ 231.342712] VBOXGUEST_IOCTL_HGCM_CALL: 64 Failed. rc=-54
[ 1054.110148] usb 2-2: new full-speed USB device number 3 using
[ 1054.447882] usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=1a86,
[ 1054.447885] usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=2,
[ 1054.447886] usb 2-2: Product: USB2.0-Serial
[ 1054.477153] usbcore: registered new interface driver
[ 1054.477430] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for generic
[ 1054.479961] usbcore: registered new interface driver ch341
[ 1054.480080] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for ch341-
[ 1054.480141] ch341 2-2:1.0: ch341-uart converter detected
[ 1054.502669] usb 2-2: ch341-uart converter now attached to ttyUSB0
In my case, the port I’m going to connect to in my python script will be located at /dev/ttyUSB0 . After running our script, we get a successful decrypted flag from the microcontroller.
ryancor@ryancor-VirtualBox:~$ python solve.py
[+] Found Password: g1v3_1t_t0_m3
[!] Sending input to driver... FLAG:D0_you_3ven_ROP?
Thank you for following along! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you have any questions on this article or where to find the challenge, please DM me at my Instagram: @hackersclub or Twitter: @ringoware
Happy Hunting :)
P.S. If you missed the link to my Z3 solver program above, you can find the source code here. | https://medium.com/@ryancor/using-z3-theorem-on-avr-firmware-c6d2f45ac9c2 | ['Ryan Cornateanu'] | 2020-05-27 16:05:02.920000+00:00 | ['Cybersecurity', 'Programming', 'Hacking', 'Electronics', 'Reverse Engineering'] |
Behind the Scenes of Singles’ Day, China’s Biggest Shopping Festival — Interest Outfit | Singles’ Day is China’s spending event of the year, with sales reaching a record $115 billion in 2020.
As consumers shop, ecommerce employees and delivery companies work overtime to keep the spree going.
Distribution centers bear the brunt of the workload and have to move billions of packages in days.
Singles’ Day proper started in China on Thursday, marking the beginning of the country’s largest online spending fest.
While this year’s event included a discount period on November 1, the true 24-hour sales frenzy traditionally launches on November 11, when consumers flood online shopping platforms like Alibaba’s Taobao and its rival JD.com.
Despite a crackdown this year from Beijing on lavish spending and consumer waste, reports creeping in from local media indicate Singles’ Day is still going strong, with 382 brands each hitting $15 million in sales since the start of this year’s event.
Here are some photos that show how China moves billions of packages to hundreds of cities on its biggest spending day. | https://medium.com/@rustyprotinfvh79/behind-the-scenes-of-singles-day-china-s-biggest-shopping-festival-interest-outfit-9ad3a5040c1e | ['Read C. E'] | 2021-11-11 17:49:45.814000+00:00 | ['Festivals', 'China', 'Shopping', 'Singles Day', 'Sales'] |
Plague Flushes Out Heresy, But Does Anyone Care | What happens when everything that you say is important for faith is taken away? Do you scatter for answers and shift for new meaning? Do you work as hard as you can to “keep” them and just shift it all online? In essence maintaining the status quo. Luckily we had those bywords we could count on in our time of need. Things like community and fellowship. That will keep them tuned in.
It’s amazing at how important marketing and things like SEO get when we can’t get them in the door. We will get them online. They will watch, fellowship, have community, and donate. The plan has changed, but it hasn’t been squashed. This pandemic will end and we will go back to the way things were. We just have to hold on until we can return to normal worship services. Let’s pray.
When you teach willing listeners to focus on one thing they tend to pick it up. They believe and at some point it becomes their dogma. The dogma of church. What I grew up hearing for the most part. You must attend, you must attend, you must attend. All the while ignoring a message they could take and apply anywhere. We heard the message. Come to church, come more, come often, come now, come all the time. If we didn’t show up we weren’t good Baptists. We needed to be there to get what they had. It all worked until it didn’t.
J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays provide an excellent hands-on approach to reading, interpreting, and applying the Bible. They state simply that reading the text thoroughly and carefully lies at the beginning of the interpretive journey. There is a distance between the Old Testament text and us because of time, culture, language, situation, and covenant. It can be crossed, but it takes some interpretive technique to pull meaning out of it. The practice of deriving meaning from the text is referred to as hermeneutics. Basic stuff for theology students and Christian scholars, but something not as familiar to church goers.
During my life time the church has argued over the authority of scripture. We want to be able to interpret the scriptures to suit our needs. Duvall and Hays explain that in order to interpret scripture we must first grasp the text in their town, measure the width of the river to cross between them and us, cross the principalizing bridge, and then grasp the text in our town. Which means we try to understand what the author wrote, decide what width of differences between that culture, situation, time and us exist, and then determine the theological principle that applies to us.
The churches fight over the authority of scripture did something to those watching, but perhaps not enough. We understand that people want to interpret verses the way they want and create theology and doctrine from it. We were kept so busy focusing on the doctrinal fights of the church that we missed an important point. The basis of our faith is scripture not the activities we have created around them and understanding what it says to us takes some work. Why aren’t we focusing on how to interpret and read the text instead of making people dependent on others to do that for them?
At our next meeting we will discuss how to keep them engaged during this pandemic. They have got to keep coming. Graphics and our marketing efforts are key. If we can ramp that up we will survive. People have to give so that we can continue to pay staff, keep the building going, pay for all this design work, and ensure we are in a place next year to increase attendance.
That was a real conversation at a church staff meeting. It’s a great meeting. Those are valid concerns. Yet, why does the church in this era insist on attendance as the key indicator of success? Somewhere they decided that attending and attending a lot was the goal. Why isn’t the focus on how to help others interpret the book? Even Denzel Washington’s character in The Book of Eli understands the importance of the book and ensuring it survives the apocalypse. He wasn’t concerned with ensuring the church survived, but ensuring the book could be disseminated.
There is a verse that encourages us to not forsake the assembly. Love our neighbor, love your wife, respect your husband, teach your kids, pray, do your duty to your country, pay taxes, work, eat, love, and follow the book. Outside of the traditions of the Jewish religion found in the Old Testament, which I am in complete awe of, tell me where are you pulling this emphasis on church activity? Church is a part of the whole, but it’s only part. What happens when we can’t attend? Nothing should happen. It can be an important part, but it’s not the basis of it all.
Legalism is based off fear. Concern over what will happen to us. When that drives it drives us to the wrong thing. The message that we need to find hope in turbulent times and for eternity is much simpler. Too simple in fact to denote a six figure staff budget complete with a marketing team, art director, and graphic designer. My daughter is a part of one of those teams at a mega church and while I applaud her work and their efforts and hope they thrive during the next year, I also get terrified that they are missing a simple message that could truly empower people in turbulent times.
There is a book. It needs studied in order to understand it. Despite what your Sunday school teacher might have told you, it’s not always as simple as just whipping out those color sheets. It might take some effort. We might need to introduce ourselves to the subject of hermeneutics and figure how to interpret centuries old text. When we are stuck at home and can’t “fellowship” instead of going to hell like you would have us believe why don’t we crack that book open and figure out what it says.
If Jesus is real, His story is true, He lived as a simple man, among fishermen, traveled, ate a simple diet, and lived like a nomad where do we get big buildings, budgets, and the dogma that says you must attend, you must attend, and attend more. Church church church is the message you sent my entire life. Now that we can’t attend like we used to are we damned? You are quiet about the message God might be trying to send now? Or are you afraid of what it might be?
We weren’t meant to worship church. Love it, praise it, fund it, and need it. The message is in the book, in community with like minded believers wherever they are, and in sharing life and helping each other out. It’s about a deity, isn’t it? I thought He was kind of everywhere. If this pandemic has showed us anything it is that we do not need church. It needs us. It sold people on the need to continuously show up, ill equipped them to live out their faith each day, and perpetuated a heresy that it’s members can only overcome in solitude and seeking. It’s a Man, it’s a book, it’s simple, it was never about the church. If you don’t believe me set out on an interpretive journey of the book and see where it leads you.
Marcy Pedersen | https://medium.com/common-place-notebook/plague-flushes-out-heresy-but-does-anyone-care-b18247bae98a | ['Marcy Pedersen'] | 2020-12-13 15:14:36.528000+00:00 | ['Religion And Spirituality', 'Religion', 'Questions', 'Church', 'Questioning God'] |
The Youth Futsal Club model: a way forward for youth soccer in America | American soccer is and always has been a disappointment. Let’s deal right away with the male chauvinism of this statement. How can that be true, given the US women’s national team has won the World Cup more than any other nation? That’s an achievement deserving of the highest praise, especially given the well-known deficiencies of soccer training in this country. Nonetheless, there have only been 9 women’s World Cups, compared to 21 for men, and there is a general consensus that as the international competition catches up, the women’s record is likely to resemble the men’s. The men’s team has qualified for only half of these and has never won.
But more telling than even our international rankings, the American style of soccer is just plain ugly. Soccer is called “the beautiful game” because real soccer is composed of an endless series of graceful, unimaginable displays of ball manipulation, so subtle they go unnoticed by the untrained eye. The comparison to American basketball is apt, if only more elusive in soccer because your average player doesn’t look like a super-athlete. Sure, Michael Jordan or Lebron James can defy gravity, but look at those guys! Seeing the beauty of Pele, Maradonna, the first and second Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Iniesta, or Messi move out of impossible positions and through a wall of defenders requires an insider’s eye. You can watch an entire match of the US national team and never see anything close. Some have compared America’s professional league, the MLS, to third- or fourth-tier leagues in Europe. That’s generous. That’s not to say you can’t win games playing ugly soccer. The US has pulled off some stunning upsets, but even then, they don’t look good doing it, and we know it won’t continue.
Skills are everything
The aim of what we’re calling a community futsal club is to train kids to play the beautiful game, locally and affordably. Yes, we certainly think this will lead to winning futbol, but it starts with a singular focus on style, and the foundation of style is technique — that is skills-training. You can count on one hand the number of highly skilled players the US has produced. And we’ve never produced a player like those mentioned above. Why not? The problem starts with our failings at the youth-development level. Futsal is the version of soccer played indoors on a small hard court with a smaller, heavier ball. And it holds the greatest promise for addressing the American problem because it is the proven program for developing individual skills.
A tremendous amount of ink has been spilled detailing what is wrong with our youth systems. Most of it is right. I know this as a casual player who started playing in urban parks with my older brother from a young age and progressed into competitive travel programs and as a parent of two (soon to be three!) aspiring players. Too much competition at early ages burns out many kids; pay-to-play winnows down the talent pool, a system whereby parents pay up to thousands of dollars per year for training kids as young as 8-year-olds; long-distance travel strains family resources, both financial and emotional; and though it’s less frequently mentioned, the potential of lawsuits leads to entirely counter-productive training rules, such as precluding mixed-age games even during practices and coaches not being allowed to scrimmage with the young players (this is an actual AYSO rule). But all of this describes what’s wrong with our current system, not how to build one that works.
Just Let Them Play
There’s been an alternative to the conventional, overly formal, anxiety-provoking, and competitive approach. Whereas travel and academy programs are built on scheduled bi-weekly practices, strong team identities buttressed by every-weekend league games and intense tournament schedules with promises of bright futures (leading to dreams that will end up broken), another voice has been around for a long time and has more recently started to gain traction. This is the “game-is-the-teacher” approach. This seemingly simple idea actually has profound complexities. Its strength is the countless examples of top players learning to play by, well, just playing.
I trained 3–4 hours a week at Ajax when I was little but played 3–4 hours every day on the street. So where do you think I learnt football?
— Johann Cruyff
The game-as-teacher approach suggests that the best way to train kids is to simply let them play. At its highest level, futbol happens when the eleven players from one side “pinball” the ball back-and-forth, moving freely down the field, finding or creating spaces among the defending team in an almost spontaneous flow. Futbol, unlike basketball, its closest American counterpart, doesn’t have a series of elaborate set-plays. Tactics in professional futbol are comparatively simple. The game is much looser than other sports, the action less practiced. Plays emerge in real time as the players find openings, move quickly, receive the ball, and then create more openings. What is easily missed in this seemingly unscripted development of a play is the rarest of skills required of every single player on the field. A slightly botched trap, or off-speed pass, a run made just too soon or too late and the entire remarkable grace of the assault collapses. Watch 5 minutes of any EPL, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga or Ligue 1 game and compare it to an MLS game and you’ll recognize this instantly.
For those who lament the negative effects of too much coaching and structure for young kids, just letting them play has the lure of a panacea. The problem with this approach, like all cultural translations, is the ease with which it can be distorted. The game can be a teacher only when the players are relatively highly skilled. In most instances in youth development soccer in the US, we insist on so-called balanced play, and we worry about older kids hurting younger kids, so we end up with allowing a bunch of unskilled 6-, 7-, or 8 -year-olds whacking and chasing the ball around the pitch. You can do this until the chickens come home, and those kids won’t learn to play futbol. The game can teach only when almost all the players on the field trap, move, and pass consistently — i.e., when they are all skilled. Until then, no learning takes place by just playing any more than an instrument can be learned without prior technical instruction.
Casual play is the way
Footskills, like any technical skills, develop through repetition only. There’s no shortcut. And maybe because futbol requires control with a part of the body that gets so little practice in everyday life, footskills might require even more repetitive training than the technical prowess required in other sports. In short, really developing skills, to the level needed to play competitive soccer, beautiful soccer, requires lots and lots of solo practice. In a typical 11v11 game each player is estimated to touch the ball about 20 times, for just seconds each time. In even well structured team practices it isn’t much better. A far more efficient way for kids to develop footskills is to create more casual opportunities for play.
The internationally renowned youth coach, Tom Byer, has developed an entire program focused on at-home training. There are several compelling reasons to explore this. First, kids can play any time — in fact, they can play all the time. Second, a great way to develop ball manipulation with all parts of the foot is to move a ball slowly around the living room furniture. Grabbing a sibling to play keep-away in a tight hallway is essentially as good as it gets. The home, Byer finds, is also ideal because it is a safe space. There kids can explore and be creative without the ridicule they often experience when botching a play on their team.
I don’t believe skill was, or ever will be, the result of coaches. It is a result of a love affair between the child and the ball.
— Roy Maurice Keane (named by Pele to the list of 100 greatest living players)
The next step in skills development can be supported in the move toward small-sided games. Rather than insisting kids play 11-a-side professional style soccer on a regulation-sized pitch, where they barely touch the ball, having them play 5-a-side on a tight pitch forces more touches and more quick decision-making. At Rondout Community Futsal Club (RCFC), based in High Falls, NY, we’ve taken this a step further by switching to futsal for training. Developed in the 1930s in Uruguay to keep playing going year-round, futsal is very much like 5-a-side indoor soccer, except the “field” is a hard court, and the ball is smaller and heavier. The weight of the ball means you need to use more foot and leg strength to maneuver it effectively and thereby build these critical muscles. The hard court makes the ball move very fast, thereby demanding quicker decision-making and quicker bodily movements to shake your defender. Brazilians, like Pele, started playing futsal in the 1940s. Many believe it is why they are known for their extraordinary number of next-level technical players. When British soccer player, Simon Clifford, discovered futsal, he was sure he needed to bring it home. He now has a dozen futsal schools around the world, proving the game can be imported to different cultural settings.
When kids training in futsal move onto a soccer pitch and use a bigger, lighter ball, their advantage is overwhelming. They’re already used to making fast decisions and now they have far more time and space to think, to see the openings. We’re going all-in on futsal.
The Rondout Valley, NY
This place has a lot going for it to try out this experiment. Though a small community it is rich in soccer tradition. Our town recreation program, Rondout Soccer Club, has been running strong as a fully volunteer organization for over 50 years. Affiliated since 1994 with the largest American youth soccer organization, AYSO, RSC has programs for children as young as 3 and draws nearly 200 kids into soccer programming for three seasons of play every year. We have a local travel program, Ulster Futbol Club, offering more competitive opportunities for local kids without having to leave the area and at a comparatively modest cost. UFC currently offers two competitive, co-ed teams and runs an incredible two-week soccer summer camp at the Soyuzivka Ukrainian Heritage Center in Kerhonkson, NY. Slightly older teens can play for the Rondout Rovers, a team that has grown up together with the same coach, a local resident and regular player himself. One doesn’t have to travel far to find larger clubs, such as the Kingston Area Soccer League, where close to 800 local kids can progress from recreation to travel programs without leaving the club. And there are more examples in neighboring towns like Saugerties, New Paltz, and Ellenville. Marbletown also boasts a phenomenal adult pickup league, with close to 30 men and women playing twice a week, all year round. Highly skilled young players meet seasoned veterans of the game for spirited matchups with players switching sides week-to-week and a welcoming community spirit. As soon as the children of these players reach the age and skill-level to play (some as young as 10), they are welcomed into the games.
But perhaps most compelling is the advent of the newest addition to the area, our very own semi-professional men’s team, the Kingston Stockade, launched in 2016. Stockade FC has made it possible to glimpse instances of the beautiful game in our own backyard. Club chairman, Dennis Crowley and technical director, Dan Hoffay, see Stockade as a vehicle for inspiring young athletes and building a community of support for the highest-level soccer. Doubt it? Search for Stockade online and you’ll find numerous blog posts and longer pieces they’ve authored, laying out their ambitions for soccer in the Hudson Valley. Their club offers affordable ticket prices ($40 for the season) and free clinics for kids throughout the year. There may have never been a better time to be a young, aspiring player in our area.
Supporting Youth Soccer
So, how do we make it possible for more young people to take advantage of all these opportunities? And how do we build a system of training that produces talent? Paying exorbitant prices for training by premier coaches is not the way. And let’s be clear, I’m not just talking about academy programs. Charging $300 for a two-week clinic doesn’t sound like a lot to some, but it effectively bars the opportunity for most. Take it from me, as someone who’s invested the time and resources in the best of these they aren’t worth it.
Soccer is a game of the people. Don’t take that as a trite statement masking populist pride. Soccer talent flourishes only when the masses are playing. A player is only as good as her competition. Remember what we said earlier about developing skills? It won’t happen from a single training session, no matter the coach, or even from all the sessions you can afford. Skills that can lead to playing at the professional level — and yes, your child can get there — come from playing the game more than any scheduled series of practices can possibly provide. They come from playing day-in and day-out, for hours on end. Most children don’t have this kind of dedication for any program. But they will absolutely put in the needed time, when they experience what they’re doing as playing, with a small “p.” If you had to pay for this no one could ever afford it.
To challenge the cost of athletic training programs for kids is not the same as saying it should all be free. There is a place for professional training, and professional coaches need to be compensated. Where does this money come from? Our youth futsal club, RCFC, calls it the “adults-pay-so-kids-can-play” model. Very simply, the adults in the community who love soccer, need to realize their responsibility in solving this crisis. First, they need to start playing with the kids. It’s just that simple. Not in clubs that limit how they play, but in casual ways, where the young players can see real skills firsthand. They’ll watch, then they’ll mimic, and soon they’ll be blowing by you with the moves they picked up and made better because they’re younger, faster and hungrier. And because their creativity is at its peak because they are “just playing” while yours resembles a forlorn memory. You don’t need to be a trained coach to impart this invaluable lesson to the next generation. And second, the adults who love the game need to contribute financially. Don’t think of it so much as paying for other people’s kids to play; rather, think of it as paying to support the game you love. If you want to see great soccer in your community, if you want to see the beautiful game live in your backyard, it’s time to stop pointing out what’s wrong with soccer training and take these simple and fun steps to fix it. | https://medium.com/@jedbtuck/the-youth-futsal-club-model-a-way-forward-for-youth-soccer-in-america-a6408f31ed4a | ['Jed Tucker'] | 2020-12-20 00:46:07.982000+00:00 | ['Youth Sports', 'Futsal', 'Marbletown', 'Soccer', 'America'] |
A Kingdom of Participants | A Kingdom of Participants
You were never meant to be a bystander
I love watching my brother play football. It’s something he’s good at and passionate about so whenever I can get to a game to support him I make it a point to. However, I’ve noticed that my brother doesn’t love standing on the sidelines in between plays. My brother is someone who wants to get out and play in the game, that's what I love most about him, he is always eager to get out there. I think for a lot of us we too would much rather be in the “game” than sitting on the sidelines. Many of us would rather be playing the “game” (whatever your “game” is) then be a bystander watching. Yet, when it comes to the Kingdom of God so many of us are willing to be bystanders then we are willing to be participants.
There is this story I tell a lot when I preach. It's about something that happened to me in the summer of 2017. It was one of those days where the day had just seemed to drag on, and if I’m being honest I was frustrated with work that day. You’ve had those days, right? Where nothing seems to go right, or your boss won't listen, or a project doesn’t pan out the way you thought it would. It was that kind of day for me. And I knew that above all else what I needed was a break. So I decided that I was going to Krogers, going to get dinner, and head home and just watch Netflix all night. Well, of course, Krogers was busy. And of course, it seemed as though only one register was open for at least 100* people. So I get in line and there I stand waiting for at least an hour* only to get to be the next person in line and the lady in front of me is having issues with her card.
I stood there with the most annoyed expression on my face. I couldn’t wait for this lady to be done. Yet, while she was doing her busyness I kept hearing this nudge from the Holy Spirit to pay for her groceries and finally I did so that I could get through the line. And I remember getting to my car, banging my head on the steering wheel saying
You idiot!
I was so mad at myself once I processed the situation. If I had been paying attention to what was happening I would have realized that she was trying to pay with a food stamps card, I would have noticed that she was in a mobility cart, and I would have overheard her talking about how she was so excited to see her grandkids that she hadn’t seen in a while. Instead of listening to and stepping into this woman's story, I was so hyper-focused on my own bad day that I neglected the story that God was calling me to speak into.
I don’t want this story to guilt you into thinking that it's not okay for you to have a bad day. If anything I want this story to empower you that even when we have a bad day, God is still calling us to participate in his story.
Luke Chapter 9 is one of my favorite moments in the Gospels. Especially for this moment that we find in verse 57–62
57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.”But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (ESV)
This passage above challenges me greatly. The first thing I am challenged by is the idea that none of these characters answer Jesus back. We never hear an end to there story. This struck me as odd at first, however, after careful reflection over this passage I began to insert myself into the story. I imagined if it were me saying I will follow Jesus and him responding back with such statements to me. At the moment when I ignored the lady at Krogers I heard the statement ringing through my head that, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” The kingdom of God isn’t looking for a bunch of people who stand around and doing nothing. God isn’t interested in a bunch of people watching his Kingdom unfold. What God is interested in is a bunch of participants living out his word and helping build his kingdom here. | https://thestoryofcraft.medium.com/a-kingdom-of-participants-513d4fc5a78a | ['Eric Craft'] | 2018-10-10 17:24:56.128000+00:00 | ['Christian', 'Participation', 'Bible', 'Christian Living', 'Christianity'] |
Major upgrade on DApp development tools of Vite blockchain | Since the launch of the smart contract function of the Vite blockchain in January 2019, many community developers have been attracted to develop DApp on the Vite blockchain. At present, some DApps have been launched on the Vite network, and users can find them in Vite App.
In order to make it easier for community developers to deploy and debug smart-contract on the Vite chain, we have made a major upgrade to the development tool Soliditypp. The main contents are as follows:
One-click deployment of smart-contract
Multiple networks support
Debug UI upgrade
Preview of new Soliditypp:
Welcome to experience the new version of the development tool, there are more new features waiting to unlock, click the link to download.
Download Address:https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ViteLabs.soliditypp | https://medium.com/vitelabs/major-upgrade-on-dapp-development-tools-of-vite-blockchain-7bd9cdfd1fb6 | ['Blackey Hou'] | 2020-11-16 09:12:25.698000+00:00 | ['Dapps', 'Vite', 'Announcements'] |
Triple Advantage: Your Bisness, Crypto, & Sessia | Catch the crypto boom. The engagement in the crypto market is an important aspect about Sessia for your business.
Now, regardless of the crypto market’s biggest growth, this area is still not discovered by many businessmen. Be one of the first and help your customers enter the new world of a great future.
Using Sessia, you attract an additional audience of crypto lovers as all kickbacks are credited in KICKS which are then tradable. Let us remind you that the current capitalization of the crypto market is over $600 billion.
KICKS is a ERC-20 utility token used by Sessia users to pay for products and services within the platform. You can send KICKS to any digital wallet which supports ETH including MyEtherWallet, MyCrypto, TrustWalet, Exodus, Metamask, and many other wallets.
Join this crypto advantage for free and boost your project. | https://medium.com/@sessia/triple-advantage-your-bisness-crypto-sessia-624901791ef4 | [] | 2020-12-25 09:47:18.391000+00:00 | ['Eth', 'Btc', 'Xrp', 'Sessia', 'Kickback'] |
It’s December 26th. Now what? | One of my favorite scenes in The Holiday is after Cameron Diaz’s character arrives at Rosehill Cottage. Forcefully stuffing her coat away in the armoire (“Cute dress”), and stowing her suitcase under the bed, she stands back, sighs, and asks into the void “okay, now what?”
This sums up my feelings on the day after Christmas. Okay, December 26th, now what?
9 months in to a global pandemic and I’ve figured out how to live inside a hermetically-sealed bubble, but 31 years and I still can’t figure out what I’m supposed to be doing the day after Christmas.
Do I take the decorations down? Leave them up till 2021? Have a glass of wine and some leftovers, or get a jump on fitness resolutions with green tea and celery?
This is the no-mans land between Christmas and New Years, where we ask, “what day is it?” Followed by “does it even matter?”
But this routine sounds all too familiar…we’ve been asking these questions since March. Is December 26th just another less-merry day in the quarantine world?
I have big self-improvement plans for January; and you may too. What’s stopping us from starting them now? January isn’t magical. But, I’m not ready yet.
Maybe, after an unprecedented year, a month of holiday prep, and a day (or days) full of coming and going and cooking and cleaning and family and zooming and shopping and prepping, December 26th is meant to be relished like a lazy Saturday morning. | https://medium.com/@samantha-rohman/one-of-my-favorite-scenes-in-the-holiday-is-after-cameron-diazs-character-arrives-at-rosehill-64494a36cf09 | ['Samantha Rohman'] | 2020-12-27 00:08:51.033000+00:00 | ['December 26', 'New Years Resolutions', 'Wellness Tips', 'Healthy Lifestyle', 'Wellbeing'] |
We Are Not Getting What We Need | By Mike Meyer ~ Honolulu ~ December 26. 2020
We are watching a world disappear and a universe transformed before our eyes. For many of us on this planet, the world we knew so well has been fading away over the last ten months. We thought it was falling into the fog from the pandemic, and the sun would soon burn off the haze. But the sun is lighting a different world that is far stranger than we are prepared to accept.
What was a time of anger and anxiety threatened by insecurity, growing poverty, and oppression for many held at bay by illusion has lost its camouflage. Things that were minimized and ignored are now blatant with no pretense of past normality.
The return to the old normal was supposed to happen quickly for the Trump disaster in America, Brexit in Great Britain, and for us all with a vaccine for COVID. But it hasn’t, and it won’t. We know that now, except for the main media commentators paid to maintain the pretense that the old world just went on hold and would soon return.
The wait has stretched beyond concern into fear of even more disasters. What is coming back is far uglier than we thought. We realized that what we thought was difficult and frightening was much worse than we were allowed to know.
That is a different order of problem. There is no firm place to stand. We can realize lies about the future, or we can discover lies about our past, and there is still some foundation. But simultaneously understanding that we have been lied to about our past and our future leaves us floundering in a sea of change.
The pandemic has destroyed our already failing economy just as we were learning our economy’s complete unsustainability. Refusing to accept the massiveness of the COVID-19 pandemic by weak governments was stupid and multiplied the complex layers of that disaster. By failing to learn the lessons of change and reducing malign production to save our planet, unquestionably restoring that economy's worst elements lies about our future.
In America, the struggle to remove a seriously mentally ill criminal dedicated to greed and fascism took four years. That it also exacerbated the pandemic's disaster with four hundred thousand deaths in the US alone and continues to destroy the last pretense of continuity in the proposal of representative government for the US is a stunning realization. No wonder so many frantically denies this.
That the political denialists are falling rapidly silent is the sign of that realization. As the numbers shrink, danger increases as desperation for believed lies drive people to violence. As much as we would like to believe that people learn from their mistakes, many will now search for ways to prove they weren’t fools and were right all along. For self-defining beliefs, two lies equal one truth no matter how egregious the lies. Only the number counts.
For America, the only allowed means of removing Trump was to declare only superficial changes and abandonment of open criminality. That reducing the public health murder rate and abandoning open criminality is the only thing needed to repair a failing economy and collapsing political system qualifies as a minimalist solution.
That it is no solution to the structural failures spreading through the extreme capitalist world while paying only lip service to the need for conversion to a truly democratic system and sustainable economy explains the failure in anxiety reduction for most people planetwide. Somehow an aging police state institutionalist, however pleasant, seems wrong probably because it is.
The wrong person's uncanny similarity with the wrong goals has reached a spectacularly unsatisfactory end in Great Britain. The Brexit trade agreement, such as it is, will accelerate an economic decline already so much worse because of COVID.
Due to generational change, the majority of voters would prefer to forget the whole Brexit disaster, but that was not an option. The only positive is reducing the deadly capitalist economy in Great Britain, but that is not the goal. Predatory capitalism will need to be whipped into a shambling run to save the wretched economy.
Our need is a fast turn toward community responsibility and ownership to promote local produce and minimal production of unneeded goods and services. Billions of people have learned that we can get by with much less destruction of our environment. Technology makes it possible to work more intelligently and remotely, learn more effectively and remotely, and have a more rewarding life. We need to remove the cycle of capitalist greed feeding a tiny elite that devastates the planet and destroys itself, along with millions of people, every four to seven years.
The goal is to make this the last planetary capitalist collapse as it is already the worst. That is not a minimalist change. We know this. Why do we accept befuddled and minimalist political rule? | https://medium.com/@mike-meyer/we-are-not-getting-what-we-need-4086d5e28b9 | ['Mike Meyer'] | 2020-12-27 03:02:51.264000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Future', 'Culture', 'History', 'Change'] |
Build and Deploy a League sponsorship service with Node.js, Sequelize, PostgreSQL , PostGis (PART 1) | Overview
The purpose of this application is to enable brands to find leagues to sponsor, and leagues to join our platform, to potentially receive sponsorship .Our application will initially only have two endpoints, in part one. One for adding a league to the system, and other one that lets users find leagues to sponsor.
Data Model
The data model for the league table will consist of a name, pair of longitude/latitude, and a single price to purchase their sponsorship opportunity.
Adding a League
Add a league using name, longitude, latitude, and price.
Finding a League
Our endpoint for finding a league should consist of three arguments, a latitude/longitude pair around which to focus the search, a radius in miles in which to search around that central point, and a total budget is willing to spend, to sponsor that league.
We will be using Postgis a spatial database extender for Postgres.It adds support for geographic objects allowing location based queries to be run in Postgres. Functions such as distance, area, union, intersection, and geometry data types, which we will use to store the coordinates in a point in Postgres.
TDLR:
Postgis will allow us to store locations of leagues as a series of points
Prerequisites
This tutorial assumes that you have:
NodeJS and npm installed
PostgreSQL installed
How to make requests with Postman
Setting Up
Clone this repository to get the starter folders and files needed for this application.
Install all dependencies
Open your terminal and run this to install the dependencies our our project needs.
npm install
Install sequelize, postgres, and the sequelize-cli
npm i --save sequelize pg
npm i --save-dev sequelize-cli
Next we will run this following command, which will initialize our project with a config, migrations, models, and seeders subdirectory
npx sequelize-cli init
Before continuing take a look at our db/config/config.json file, this is how we tell Sequelize how to connect to our database.
We now need to create the database. Run this command in the terminal
npx sequelize db:create
When you initialize sequelize its generates a config.json file with a corresponding json object, but when looking for this file in the db/models/index.js file its looks for a config.js file(WEIRD). To fix this replace the config variable with in index.js with this, so that its looks up the appropriate config.json file.
Next we’ll run this command in the terminal which will generator our league model and migration
npx sequelize-cli model:generate --name League --attributes name:string,email:string,location:geometry,price:decimal
We now have to run our migration which will League table with corresponding columns in our database.
npx sequelize-cli db:migrate
Running the migrate command will cause us to generate an error. Which essential tells us that the geometry type doesn't exist. To store spatial datatypes in Postgres we will needs an extension call PostGis
To remedy this issue, in your command line, go the the league-spx database in Postgres, issue the command below to enable PostGIS in your database. And we can now use spatial functions and store spatial object types in your db.
CREATE EXTENSION postgis;
Now you can run the migration command again.
npx sequelize-cli db:migrate
Seed The Database With Leagues
Inside of the db directory create a folder and name it seed-data, then inside the seed-data folder, create a file and name it league.seed.data.js. This file will have the data we need to populate the database with the inital Leagues. The leagues in this file has leagues that start in Santa Monica, CA all the way out to San Bernardino,CA which is approximately 80 miles apart.
Running the command below will tell sequelize to generate a seed file.
npx sequelize-cli seed:generate --name 01_Leagues
Then require our getLeagues file with our leagues data, inside of db/seeders/20201201031127–01_Leagues.js file, and use it in the queryInterface.bulkInsert method so that seqeulize can populate our database with leagues
Now to run our seeds, run the command below and voilà!!! Leagues baby
npx sequelize db:seed:all
Validating /POST Leagues user inputs
Create an api folder in the root directory, then inside the api folder, create a file and name it leagues.api.js. This file will have our endpoints to /POST and /GET leagues.
Afterwards lets define our leagues route in app.js
This will be the initial setup of leagues.api.js. Complete with our get and post routes.
Starting with our post route, which will add leagues to the database, we know a league at minimum must have a name, longitude, latitude, and a price. A user shouldn't be able to pass empty values, so lets validate the schema of our post request with joi
npm i --save joi
Create a helper folder in the root directory, and inside that create a validation folder. Then inside the validation folder create a file, and name it league.validation.js. This file will hold our validation logic, and make sure that the user passes the appropriate credentials to our /POST leagues endpoint.
Then back in our leagues.api.js, require addLeagueValidator, and use it as a middleware in /POST leagues route
Test our route in postman and if a user is missing any credentials then we get a error message
Adding Leagues
Now we need to require our sequelize models in our leagues.api.js to query our database. Once we’ve done that create a data object that will hold the name, location, price to create our league. Then afterward we’ll pass that data in the create method that sequelize provides us for each model to create the league.
Now pass valid values in postman, and we have successfully created a league WOOHOO!!!
Then open pgAdmin(or postgres via terminal), and check to see that our league was actually stored. ✅👌🏾
Validating /GET Leagues user inputs
Users should be able to find leagues within a certain radius, of any specified longitude, and latitude. And they should also only be returned leagues from that query up to their max sponsorship budget.
The first order of business will be validating user inputs. So being that a user shouldn't be able to pass missing or invalid credentials, let’s create a findLeagueValidator to validate user inputs, in our league.validation.js file.
Require findLeagueValidator file in our leagues.api.js, and use it as middleware in our /GET leagues endpoint. Now if a user passes missing or invalid values, an error message will be returned.
Finding Leagues
First thing we need to do is create a services folder to handle our business logic. So in the root directory create a folder and name it services, then inside that folder create a folder for leagues, and inside that a file named league.service.js
FYI:
order: we ordering price by lowest to highest so that once we filter the leagues based on the users budget, they are now returning the most amount of leagues that their budget can sponsor.
Now inside of our leagues.api.js we use the getLeaguesByRadiusRaw function in our league.services.js to get the leagues in that specific radius.
This is nice but we are returning all the leagues in the radius that the user specified, without taking into account their budget😦
To get all the leagues within the budget specified by the user, we’ll create a file in helper directory and name it getLeaguesInBudget.helper.js, and its job will be to take the leagues returned to us by sequelize, then return as many leagues as that a user can sponsor based on their budget.
Require getLeaguesInBudget in app.js, modify our /GET leagues endpoint so that we are not only leagues with a specific radius, but filtering even further to only return the most amount of leagues in that specific area, up to their sponsorship budget.
PostGis Functions :
ST_DWithin : Returns true if the geometries are within the specified distance of one another.
ST_SetSRID: Sets the SRID on a geometry to a particular integer value. Useful in constructing bounding boxes for queries
ST_MakePoint: make points with XYM coordinates.
And we have completed part 1 of our application, and we can now add leagues, and find leagues. Hope you enjoyed, and stay tuned for part two. | https://medium.com/@willsheppard29/build-and-deploy-a-league-sponsorship-service-with-node-js-76851c0036eb | ['Will Sheppard'] | 2020-12-07 20:23:43.309000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Sequelize', 'Expressjs', 'Postgis', 'Programming'] |
Stop Wasting Time Trying To Be Original. | When everything has already been done, seek to be fearlessly authentic.
Photo by Maarten Deckers on Unsplash
“Find yourself by getting lost in someone else’s work.”
There are around 55,600,000 Google results on the topic of originality. By the time you read this article, there will be even more — one more for sure.
Every time I think I’ve found an original idea for a blog post, video or a course, I end up — even sometimes accidentally — finding out that someone else’s made the same thing. Which makes it both a piece of good news and a bad one.
The good one is: if so many people are doing what you want to do, writing on similar topics, painting with the same new technique, or created a course you were already working on, it means that that topic is interesting enough that it has a market and an audience. Yay!
Ok, the bad one? well, that it already exists and someone else’s got there before you did. And that sure burns, doesn’t it?
When something like that happens it can certainly discourage you to keep on going, or even prevent you to start at all.
“If you are doing it for the love of the craft, or to help others, it shouldn’t really matter whether something already exists”.
So here’s what’s in the emergency kit for when you see your idea executed by someone else:
Change your perspective.
Or in other words, get over yourself. Think of why you are creating this project, article, video, piece of music or art.
Be honest with yourself, is it to boost your ego? ie: “I can’t believe someone else is doing it. It should have been me” or is it for the benefit of someone else?
If you are doing it for the love of the craft, or to help others, it shouldn't really matter whether something already exists.
Because your main purpose would be to just create something that will enrich someone else’s life or will make you happy — whether you get gratification from others or not.
Once you know your intentions, then shift your perspective from “I need to be the first” to “I am doing it for the love of… creating/helping others achieve something-something” and if you can’t do that? well, maybe you should reconsider why are doing what you’re doing.-I wrote another article on how to find your why.
Also, extra tip: finding the reason why you are doing something, not only will make the temporary disappointment go away, but it will fuel your creative journey with new energy when things don’t seem to go the right way.
Make peace with the fact that nothing is original anymore.
Even the masters and gurus once had a mentor, someone that inspired them and that helped them understand they were doing something they enjoyed.
They will chew on the same ideas, get inspired and then, add their own perspective to it and write the story their own way.
Because it’s not your originality that matters, but your authenticity:
“Your ability to express yourself and being true to who you are”.
And you, my friend, are unique, so even if your project is similar to someone else’s, just know it’s not going to be identical. Because your life experiences uniquely shaped you. Learn to stick to what you believe and express yourself, fearlessly and unapologetically.
Find your uniqueness by copying others.
This might seem counterintuitive but, I promise you, it comes from a good place. By copying I mean, mimicking and understanding what you like and why you like it. Copying it so well you will be able to find yourself by getting lost in someone else’s work.
During my photography school, one of the first exercises we did, was to pick a photographer and try to mimic the style, lights and overall technique. That not only taught me how to work properly with cameras and lights, and learn new techniques. It also made me understand what style I liked and made me comfortable with exploring and developing my own. Is my photography style original? no. Is it a combination of what I like and my own vision? yes, it’s authentic, but it ain’t original.
Bottom line, trying to be original is a waste of your energy and your potential. Try, experiment, copy, get inspired and then create something that will make you happy. And remember, being your authentic self is the most original thing you can do. | https://medium.com/@alessiachinazzo/stop-wasting-time-trying-to-be-original-281c8c6ad9 | ['Alessia Chinazzo'] | 2020-12-15 07:13:04.869000+00:00 | ['Originality', 'Creativity', 'Self', 'Mindset Shift', 'Self Help'] |
İçinde 3 Kere İnce, 5 Kere İnci, 7 Kere Ayna, 9 Defa da Kara Geçen İnceleme | Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.
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Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription. | https://medium.com/t%C3%BCrkiye/i%CC%87%C3%A7inde-3-kere-i%CC%87nce-5-kere-i%CC%87nci-7-kere-ayna-9-defa-da-kara-ge%C3%A7en-i%CC%87nceleme-b25197f92c92 | ['Mansur Yüksel'] | 2020-12-22 20:48:22.382000+00:00 | ['Edebiyat', 'Kitap', 'Kitap İncelemesi', 'Türkçe', 'Hayat'] |
1 7 20 | i broke face with mistakes that I don’t regret
i wasn’t ready for the ocean i was pushed around
you were needed to help me see my purpose
i got what i needed but not what I wanted
to gain some direction, some inspiration
we didn’t waste the connection
I’m better for it
i hope you’re better for it too
my biggest weakness is that i go invisible
I’m used to not being seen or heard
I’m used to shrinking into myself
so i don’t fuck up externally
I’m used to trying to be certain
so i don’t have to deal with the shame of failure
I’m used to giving up when things get too chaotic
all these are things put into me by my upbringing
these have never been me
always so disconnected from myself
all i had was a little taste and now i can’t deny myself
it’s sad most will never get to meet themselves
I’m used to assuming I’m the only one in the dark
I’m the only one left out
I’m the only one not worthy of acceptance
that’s the problem
acceptance was only given to me by Mama sometimes
i had to be someone else to gain other people’s
that’s why I’m timid at my worst
and rebellious at my best
i don’t trust authority or anything which assumes power over me
at the end of the day the only thing i fully trust is my deepest truth in the present moment
and I’m lost without it
find me on my website, unitedmasters.com/jesudiyimi and @jesudiyimi on all socials
Like, Share, Subscribe. I am also looking forward to your feedback 😁 | https://medium.com/@jesudiyimi/1-7-20-c7068883357f | ['Jesudiyimi Aare'] | 2020-07-01 03:32:03.837000+00:00 | ['Free Verse', 'Free Verse Poetry', 'Diary Writing', 'Journaling'] |
How to Provision AWS Infrastructure with Terraform? | Terraform generates an execution plan describing what it will do to reach the desired state, and then executes it to build the described infrastructure. As the configuration changes, Terraform can determine what changed and create incremental execution plans which can be applied.
With Terraform installed, you’re ready to create your first infrastructure.
You will provision an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in this tutorial since AMIs are widely used.
Prerequisites
To follow this tutorial you will need:
An AWS account
The AWS CLI installed
Your AWS credentials are configured locally.
With your account created and the CLI installed to configure the AWS CLI.
$ aws configure
Follow the prompts to input your AWS Access Key ID and Secret Access Key, which you’ll find on this page. The configuration process creates a file at ~/.aws/credentials on macOS and Linux or %UserProfile%\.aws\credentials on Windows, where your credentials are stored.
Note: This tutorial will provide resources that qualify under the AWS free-tier. If your account doesn’t qualify under the AWS free-tier, we’re not responsible for any charges that you may incur.
Write configuration
The set of files used to describe infrastructure in Terraform is known as a Terraform configuration. You’ll write your first configuration now to launch a single AWS EC2 instance.
Each configuration should be in its own directory. Create a directory for the new configuration.
$ mkdir learn-terraform-aws-instance
Change into the directory.
$ cd learn-terraform-aws-instance
Create a file for the configuration code.
$ touch example.tf
Paste the configuration below into example.tf and save it. Terraform loads all files in the working directory that end in .tf .
provider "aws" {
profile = "default"
region = "us-east-1"
} resource "aws_instance" "example" {
ami = "ami-12345678"
instance_type = "t2.micro"
}
This is a complete configuration that Terraform is ready to apply. In the following sections, we’ll review each block of the configuration in more detail.
Providers
The provider block configures the named provider, in our case aws , which is responsible for creating and managing resources. A provider is a plugin that Terraform uses to translate the API interactions with the service. A provider is responsible for understanding API interactions and exposing resources. Because Terraform can interact with any API, you can represent almost any infrastructure type as a resource in Terraform.
The profile an attribute in your provider block refers to Terraform to the AWS credentials stored in your AWS Config File, which you created when you configured the AWS CLI. HashiCorp recommends that you never hard-code credentials into *.tf configuration files. We are explicitly defining the default AWS config profile here to illustrate how Terraform should access sensitive credentials.
Note: If you leave out your AWS credentials, Terraform will automatically search for saved API credentials (for example, in ~/.aws/credentials ) or IAM instance profile credentials. This is cleaner when files are checked into source control or if there is more than one admin user.
Multiple provider blocks can exist if a Terraform configuration manages resources from different providers. You can even use multiple providers together. For example, you could pass the ID of an AWS instance to a monitoring resource from DataDog.
Resources
The resource the block defines a piece of infrastructure. A resource might be a physical component such as an EC2 instance, or it can be a logical resource such as a Heroku application.
The resource block has two strings before the block: the resource type and the resource name. In the example, the resource type is aws_instance and the name is example . The prefix of the type maps to the provider. In our case, "aws_instance" automatically tells Terraform that it is managed by the "aws" provider.
The arguments for the resource are within the resource block. The arguments could be things like machine sizes, disk image names, or VPC IDs. Our providers reference documents the required and optional arguments for each resource provider. For your EC2 instance, you specified an AMI for Ubuntu and requested a t2.micro instance so you qualify under the free tier.
Initialize the directory
When you create a new configuration — or check out an existing configuration from version control — you need to initialize the directory with terraform init .
Terraform uses a plugin-based architecture to support hundreds of infrastructure and service providers. Initializing a configuration directory downloads and installs providers used in the configuration, which in this case is the aws provider. Subsequent commands will use local settings and data during initialization.
Initialize the directory.
$ terraform init
Initializing the backend... Initializing provider plugins...
- Checking for available provider plugins...
- Downloading plugin for provider "aws" (terraform-providers/aws) 2.10.0... The following providers do not have any version constraints in configuration,
so the latest version was installed. To prevent automatic upgrades to new major versions that may contain breaking
changes, it is recommended to add version = "..." constraints to the
corresponding provider blocks in configuration, with the constraint strings
suggested below. * provider.aws: version = "~> 2.10" Terraform has been successfully initialized! You may now begin working with Terraform. Try running "terraform plan" to see
any changes that are required for your infrastructure. All Terraform commands
should now work. If you ever set or change modules or backend configuration for Terraform,
rerun this command to reinitialize your working directory. If you forget, other
commands will detect it and remind you to do so if necessary.
Terraform downloads the aws provider and installs it in a hidden subdirectory of the current working directory. The output shows which version of the plugin was installed.
Format and validate the configuration
We recommend using consistent formatting in files and modules written by different teams. The terraform fmt the command automatically updates configurations in the current directory for easy readability and consistency.
Format your configuration. Terraform will return the names of the files it formatted. In this case, your configuration file was already formatted correctly, so Terraform won’t return any file names.
$ terraform fmt
If you are copying configuration snippets or just want to make sure your configuration is syntactically valid and internally consistent, the built-in terraform validate the command will check and report errors within modules, attribute names, and value types.
Validate your configuration. If your configuration is valid, Terraform will return a success message.
$ terraform validate
Success! The configuration is valid.
Create infrastructure
In the same directory as the example.tf the file you created, run terraform apply . You should see an output similar to the one shown below, though we've truncated some of the output to save space.
Note: Terraform 0.11 and earlier require running terraform plan before terraform apply . Use terraform version to confirm your running version.
$ terraform apply ## ... Output truncated ... An execution plan has been generated and is shown below.
Resource actions are indicated with the following symbols:
+ create Terraform will perform the following actions: # aws_instance.example will be created
+ resource "aws_instance" "example" {
+ ami = "ami-12345678"
+ arn = (known after apply)
+ associate_public_ip_address = (known after apply)
+ availability_zone = (known after apply)
+ cpu_core_count = (known after apply)
+ cpu_threads_per_core = (known after apply)
+ get_password_data = false
+ host_id = (known after apply)
+ id = (known after apply)
+ instance_state = (known after apply)
+ instance_type = "t2.micro"
+ ipv6_address_count = (known after apply)
+ ipv6_addresses = (known after apply) ## ... Output truncated ... Plan: 1 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy.
Tip: If your configuration fails to apply, you may have customized your region or removed your default VPC. Refer to the troubleshooting section at the bottom of this guide for help.
This output shows the execution plan, describing which actions Terraform will take to change real infrastructure to match the configuration.
The output format is similar to the diff format generated by tools such as Git. The output has a + next to aws_instance.example , meaning that Terraform will create this resource. Beneath that, it shows the attributes that will be set. When the value displayed is, it means that the value won't be known until the resource is created.
Terraform will now pause and wait for your approval before proceeding. If anything in the plan seems incorrect or dangerous, it is safe to abort here with no changes made to your infrastructure.
In this case, the plan is acceptable, so type yes at the confirmation prompt to proceed. Executing the plan will take a few minutes since Terraform waits for the EC2 instance to become available.
## ... Output truncated ... Do you want to perform these actions?
Terraform will perform the actions described above.
Only 'yes' will be accepted to approve. Enter a value: yes aws_instance.example: Creating...
aws_instance.example: Still creating... [10s elapsed]
aws_instance.example: Creation complete after 1m50s [id=i-0bbf06244e44211d1] Apply complete! Resources: 1 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.
You’ve now created infrastructure using Terraform! Visit the EC2 console to see the created EC2 instance. Make sure you’re looking at the same region that was configured in the provider configuration!
Inspect state
When you applied your configuration, Terraform wrote data into a file called terraform.tfstate . This file now contains the IDs and properties of the resources Terraform created so that it can manage or destroy those resources going forward.
You must save your state file securely and distribute it only to trusted team members who need to manage your infrastructure. In production, we recommend storing your state remotely. Remote stage storage enables collaboration using Terraform but is beyond the scope of this tutorial.
Inspect the current state using terraform show .
$ terraform show
# aws_instance.example:
resource "aws_instance" "example" {
ami = "ami-12345678"
arn = "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:130490850807:instance/i-0bbf06244e44211d1"
associate_public_ip_address = true
availability_zone = "us-east-1b"
cpu_core_count = 1
cpu_threads_per_core = 1
disable_api_termination = false
ebs_optimized = false
get_password_data = false
id = "i-0bbf0gdhjuske789"
instance_state = "running"
instance_type = "t2.micro"
ipv6_address_count = 0
ipv6_addresses = []
monitoring = false
primary_network_interface_id = "eni-0f1ceashsji56h076"
private_dns = "ip-172-31-69-121.ec2.internal"
private_ip = "172.31.61.141"
public_dns = "ec2-54-124-14-244.compute-1.amazonaws.com"
public_ip = "54-124-14-244"
security_groups = [
"default",
]
source_dest_check = true
subnet_id = "subnet-1ffgj87d5"
tenancy = "default"
volume_tags = {}
vpc_security_group_ids = [
"sg-5255f429",
] credit_specification {
cpu_credits = "standard"
} root_block_device {
delete_on_termination = false
iops = 100
volume_id = "vol-0079esdjbs567fg"
volume_size = 8
volume_type = "gp1"
}
}
When Terraform created this EC2 instance, it also gathered a lot of information about it. These values can be referenced to configure other resources or outputs, which we discuss more later on in this track.
Manually Managing State
Terraform has a built-in command called terraform state for advanced state management. For example, if you have a long state file, you may want a list of the resources in the state, which you can get by using the list subcommand.
$ terraform state list
aws_instance.example
Troubleshooting
If terraform validate was successful and your apply still failed, you may be encountering a common error.
If you use a region other than us-east-1 , you will also need to change yours ami since AMI IDs are region-specific. Choose an AMI ID specific to your region by following these instructions, and modify example.tf with this ID. Then re-run terraform apply .
, you will also need to change yours since AMI IDs are region-specific. Choose an AMI ID specific to your region by following these instructions, and modify with this ID. Then re-run . If you do not have a default VPC in your AWS account in the correct region, navigate to the AWS VPC Dashboard in the web UI, create a new VPC in your region, and associate a subnet and security group to that VPC. Then add the security group ID ( vpc_security_group_ids ) and subnet ID ( subnet_id ) into your aws_instance resource, and replace the values with the ones from your new security group and subnet.
resource "aws_instance" "example" { ami = "ami-12345678" instance_type = "t2.micro" + vpc_security_group_ids = ["sg-0077..."] + subnet_id = "subnet-...a..." }}
Save the changes to example.tf , and re-run terraform apply .
, and re-run . Remember to add these lines to your configuration for the rest of the get started to track. For more information, review this document from AWS on working with VPCs.
Next Steps
Now that you have created your first infrastructure using Terraform, continue to the next tutorial in this track to modify your infrastructure.
For more detail on the concepts we used in this tutorial:
Read about the format of the configuration files in the terraform documentation.
Learn more about Terraform providers.
Find examples of Terraform configurations using multiple providers in the documentation use cases section.
Read this blog post and these docs to learn more about AWS authentication.
For more information about the terraform state command and subcommands for moving or removing resources from state, see the CLI state command documentation.
For References
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Follow us on Twitter 🐦 and Facebook 👥 and Instagram 📷 and join our Facebook and Linkedin Groups 💬 | https://medium.com/avmconsulting-blog/provisioning-aws-infrastructure-with-terraform-6ab885fb3fcb | ['Kubernetes Advocate'] | 2020-11-25 10:52:05.754000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'DevOps', 'Kubernetes', 'Tech', 'Startup'] |
Amazon Echo (4th Gen) review: The more things change, the more they stay the same | The fourth generation of Amazon’s Echo smart speaker marks a radical departure in industrial design, ditching the familiar columnar form factor of previous iterations for something that looks for all the world like a child’s bowling ball. Two things haven’t changed: The Echo (and Alexa) remain our favorite tools for smart home control, and the company still trails Sonos in terms of building smart speakers that sound great. The recent introduction of the Nest Audio leaves Amazon in third place behind Google in terms of audio performance (don’t forget the powerful Google Home Max).
Amazon continues to make strides in terms of audio quality, and the fourth-gen Echo sounds very good, especially if you like your tunes leavened with bass. But in a three-way comparison with the Nest Audio and the Sonos One (which, I should note, costs twice as much as either of its competitors), the Echo comes up just a wee bit short, as I’ll discuss a bit later. But Amazon further strengthened its smart home bona fides by building a Zigbee radio into this Echo, so you no longer need to step up to a “Plus” model to get a true smart home hub. The new Echo has an onboard temperature sensor, too.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best smart speakers, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product. In fact, Amazon sent an Ecolink door/window sensor and a Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance smart bulb along with the speaker for this review. And in less than 15 minutes, I had paired these Zigbee products to the Echo and created a routine in the Alexa app that turned the smart bulb on and tuned it to a warm white when I separated the two pieces of the sensor (simulating a door opening by breaking the magnetic field between the two parts). If you’re a smart home first-timer, you won’t find anything easier. You should be aware, however, that if you want to take full advantage of all the features that come with Philips Hue smart lighting products, you’ll still want to buy a Philips Hue Bridge.
Michael Brown / IDG Amazon sent along this Ecolink Zigbee door/window sensor along with a Philips Hue bulb, so I could evaluate the speaker as a smart home hub.
I continue to wish that Amazon would go all the way on the smart home front and build both Zigbee and Z-Wave radios into the Echo, just to cover all the bases. Amazon-owned Ring does just that with its Ring Alarm system. The new Echo also has a Bluetooth Low Energy radio onboard (you can connect up to 10 Philips Hue Bluetooth/Zigbee bulbs without fiddling with Zigbee at all, if you so choose), and Amazon would want me to point out that its new Echo smart home hub also supports its new Sidewalk “neighborhood” network. Amazon says “starting later this year,” buyers will be able to use this Echo as a Sidewalk Bridge to help compatible devices connect and reconnect to their router, as well as to set up new Echo devices and Ring Smart Lighting products.
[ Further reading: A smart home guide for beginners ] Mentioned in this article Google Nest Audio Read TechHive's review$99.99MSRP $99.99See iton Google Store And while Google is backing out of its own home-security effort—investing in ADT, but then withdrawing its own Nest Secure product from the market—Amazon has introduced Alexa Guard and Guard Plus. With the free version of this service, you can tell Alexa you’re leaving—“Alexa, I’m leaving,” and the Echo will begin listening for smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, and breaking glass. If it picks up any of those sounds, Alexa will send a notification to your smartphone. You can also program the Echo to automatically turn connected smart lights on and off while you’re away, to provide the illusion that someone is home. Guard also works with security systems from Ring and ADT.
Amazon has also announced the upgraded subscription-based Guard Plus that will listen for the sound of footsteps and doors closing—noises that shouldn’t be happening in an unoccupied home—and enlist outdoor security cameras to monitor movement outside the house. In addition to sending you an alert, Guard Plus will sound a siren on the Echo’s speaker and you’ll have the option of contacting a live agent to get help in an emergency (just say “Alexa, call for help”). Amazon says it will charge $4.99 per month or $49 per year for Guard Plus.
Michael Brown / IDG Moving the LED light ring to the bottom of the fourth-gen Echo smart speaker is a great idea.
DesignI suspect the new Echo’s spherical design will be polarizing. I’ve had the speaker for four days and still haven’t decided I like it, although I do like having the LED light ring on the bottom of the speaker, where it casts a glow on whatever surface it’s resting on. The speaker is larger than it looks in pictures, measuring 5.7 x 5.7 x 5.2 inches (WxDxH) and weighing a hefty 34.2 ounces, I could barely keep a one-handed grip on its slippery fabric covering and nearly dropped it while moving it from one spot to another. Amazon sent a “charcoal” version of the speaker for this review. You can also choose between “glacier white” and “twilight blue.”
Four tightly grouped buttons on the top of the ball control volume up/down, electronically disable the microphones, and perform actions (e.g., summon Alexa without saying the wake word, turn off an alarm, and so on). The LED light ring at the bottom of the speaker grows or shrinks as you adjust the volume, and the ring turns red when the mic is disabled (an LED behind the button itself also glows red). Even though I’ve never used it, I appreciate that Amazon includes a 3.5mm jack next to the Echo’s power connection that can be configured as either an audio input (so you can play music from a source that doesn’t have Bluetooth) or as an audio output (so you can send music to a higher-fidelity speaker or audio system that doesn’t support Bluetooth).
Michael Brown / IDG The button to mute the mics glows red when activated, as does the light ring on the bottom of the speaker.
Audio performanceThe fourth-gen Echo sounds very good for a $100 speaker, but the competition is fierce and Google has a better $100 speaker in the Nest Audio. The Sonos One is even better than that; but again, it also costs twice as much. Personally, I want the best of both worlds, so I use Sonos speakers for multi-room audio and Amazon Echoes for controlling my smart home—with one exception: I use a Sonos Move for both tasks when I’m out in the yard.
Mentioned in this article Sonos One (Gen 1) Read TechHive's reviewMSRP $169.00See it The new Echo had no problem filling my 13x19-foot home theater with distortion-free sound. And as I hinted earlier, Amazon’s latest speaker overemphasizes bass, but it comes by it honestly. The speaker has three drivers inside its enclosure: Dual 0.8-inch tweeters and one 3-inch woofer, a combo Amazon says delivers stereo sound (I had difficulty discerning a distinct left and right sound stage).
Michael Brown / IDG My hands aren’t particularly small, but I almost lost my grip on the speaker when I picked it up.
A cropped cutaway illustration in the reviewer’s guide shows the tweeters facing forward, but pointing very slightly to the left and right and tipped up to a minor degree. That honkin’ woofer points nearly straight up, but is tilted far enough toward the front of the enclosure that its sound waves don’t emerge from the very top of the speaker. I wish I could tell you what materials these drivers are fabricated from and what types of amplifiers are driving them, but Amazon declined to provide those details.
Amazon did say in its reviewer’s guide that “a sphere also has the lowest possible surface area to volume ratio, so it provides greater back volume for fuller and deeper bass.” That I can believe. This new Echo puts out a lot of bass, but listening to “Rolling On,” from the Mark Knopfler, Emmylou Harris album All the Road Running, the bass lines sounded just a bit bloated, while instruments in the middle of the frequency range—such as the fiddle—got lost in the mix. I had a similar experience with the Steely Dan track “Jack of Speed,” from the band’s Two Against Nature album. The bass was way forward in the mix, but the crack of the drummer’s snare drum was barely perceptible.
Michael Brown / IDG The 3.5mm connection on the back of the Echo (4th Gen) can be configured as either an analog audio input or output.
In comparison, the Sonos One and the Nest Audio deliver higher-fidelity audio performances, but without nearly as much low-end oomph (Sonos offers the option of a subwoofer—and so does Amazon, not that you need one with this speaker; Google does not). If you like boom in the room, you’ll enjoy Amazon’s offering. And if you’re looking for a speaker to provide background music, versus something you’ll use for critical listening sessions, this fourth-generation Echo is sure to float your boat. Speaking of floating, Amazon even thought to include a threaded mount on the bottom of the speaker, so you can mount it to stand or hang it on the wall (you’ll have to deal with the dangling power cord, though).
Bottom lineThe Amazon Echo (4th Gen) is a pretty good audio performer, but it’s a great smart speaker that’s also equipped with a Zigbee radio. I’m taking a wait-and-see approach to Amazon’s Sidewalk network for now. It sounds promising, but there’s nothing tangible in the real world to judge it by. In other words, don’t buy this speaker in the name of future-proofing your smart home—it’s just too early. Zigbee, on the other hand, is tried-and-true tech that will be here for the long haul. Adding support for Z-Wave (are you listening, Amazon?) would be icing on the cake. Oh well, maybe next year.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@jeremy85372870/amazon-echo-4th-gen-review-the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same-c3685cd5c914 | [] | 2020-11-12 22:09:50.737000+00:00 | ['Consumer Electronics', 'Home Tech'] |
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