title
stringlengths 1
200
⌀ | text
stringlengths 10
100k
| url
stringlengths 32
829
| authors
stringlengths 2
392
| timestamp
stringlengths 19
32
| tags
stringlengths 6
263
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
How To Make Your Wordpress Site Load Faster | How to make wordpress sites load faster
In this article, we will cover one simple solution to completely improve your website speed without a headache. Learn how you can speed up your website. It’s much simpler than you might imagine and it requires almost no time to improve things like your speed test and other website related tests. Come along with me and learn how to make my WordPress site load faster isn’t a problem.
After hours of testing and retesting, I’ve come up with the best solution for improving your website speed. If you’re like me you spent a ton of time (wasted) trying all manner of things.
Before we can look at the solution we need understand the problems.
What creates a slower website?
A slower website can be the result of three different things in my book.
Huge unoptimized images
Poorly/All in one theme
Bad Plugins
Your image is slowing down your website
If your uploading images to your website without them being optimized then you are really shooting yourself in the foot. There are a ton of image optimization plugins (insert link) that someone can use.
The rule of thumb is images should be less than 500 kb. The smaller the better.
Stop buying themes that are sold by one man shops. Getting a faster website easy if you stop making mistakes like these.
Sorry, but the one man shop for a theme is normally a bad idea. It takes a team to make sure that a theme is properly updated and constantly stays secure.
Make sure if you buy a theme it has:
Excellent documentation
Support
History/Changelog
Bad plugins work the same as themes
Unsupported Plugins a no better than a bad theme. They are often coded poorly and not properly updated which means, your in for a ride.
Just don’t use them or find a similar plugin that works that is supported. I’d rather pay money for something that works than something that does not. Learning how to make my wordpress site load faster takes more work than most people would be willing to consider but the results are worth it.
What about free plugins?
If you are like me, free plugins are a source of frustration. They offer just enough solution to keep them installed but rarely offer a complete package. I tried all manner of plugin combinations but at none of them improved my speed without losing in another area.
Some popular plugins like wp cache or w3 total cache. It wasn’t till I was in a Facebook group that I heard of wprocket.
When I began exploring the solution I figured, maybe it would be worth the money. Maybe this one solution could give me a faster website easy.
I spent the money and I have never looked back.
What about a free theme
Free themes run into the same problem as plugins and everything else. If they are coded properly a theme can be a great asset to a business as it provides the best and safest security for your site.
A poor theme, on the other hand, can completely topple your speeds. If you don’t believe me try running a simple speed test at Pingdom.
You will see how bad off your pages are according to that site which also happens to be pretty accurate. Even if you rank in the top 90% if you are trying to get 95+ it can make the difference between a customer staying on your site and leaving.
So when you are thinking about how to make my WordPress site faster, always consider your theme.
How to make my WordPress site load faster
Website speed is a problem. How do we fix it? Most websites load over 2 seconds which is a huge problem.
Lot customer is lost money and the only way to solve this issue is to speed up that slow website.
Enter WP Rocket. I am a part of a bunch of Facebook groups where developers talk shop and this plugin kept coming up into my radar. So I dropped the money and decided to give it a shot and boy was I shocked!
Below is an image from Pingdom Speed Test, showing my somewhat optimized speed after days of the grueling test.
My Original Speed Test
This is what my website looked like after installing WP Rocket with zero input from me.
My new speed test using WP Rocket
Out of the box, it increased my speed and solved some of my problems.
Here is a follow up screenshot months later with the plugin optimized. Same website hardly any additional changes:
Completely customized Speed test
This one program did what several free plugins could never do, improve my website speed without a lot of input from me. Learning how to make my WordPress site load faster is a task that anyone can do but it requires you to spend a little money in order to achieve the results.
I’d highly recommend that you give WP Rocket a shot. How to make my WordPress site load faster is easy, just use WP Rocket.
Disclaimer: I am not an affiliate for wprocket. This post is not sponsored and is just my experience with the product. | https://medium.com/techtrument/how-to-make-my-wordpress-site-load-faster-d1a7ac6b6ffb | ['Patrick Mccoy'] | 2018-01-29 21:45:00.365000+00:00 | ['Speed', 'Design', 'Hacks', 'WordPress', 'Webdesign'] |
I’m not a hero or celebrity who can save the world. I’m just trying to help people as I can. — A conversation with Ira Bowman. | Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 3 months, you would’ve heard about Ira Bowman and #projecthelpyougrow. Today we talk about the “Human” side of him and why he decided to start the project. Follow Ira on LinkedIn by clicking here.
Q. We have more than 70 mutual connections on Linkedin. Everybody knows you as this “LinkedIn guy who is trying to help people out”. I wanted our readers to understand who Ira is outside of LinkedIn?
First off, I am nobody special. I’m just a human being who spends a lot of time volunteering and helping my community. I love LinkedIn because over there, borders don’t matter. In fact, I used to be a very selfish person who was constantly worried about himself and himself only, but as I grew older, I realized that success can never be achieved by being selfish. I had to lift other people up and help them. I started off small; volunteering with soup kitchens and with the local church. I was homeless for 6 weeks as a child and that is something very close to my heart and I care deeply about poverty, pain and the mental depression that comes with it.
I have a full-time job selling large format printers. I have a small territory or around a 100-mile radius. I call businesses in and around that area and try to sell them my products. I have been married for 18 years and I have 8 children. I spend a lot of time trying to raise my kids and instil the same values in them that I grew up with.
People need to make a living, but If our only motivation in life is to make money, I think our priorities are due for an update. I’m not a hero or celebrity who can save the world. I’m just trying to help people as I can. 45 days ago, I didn’t even know this was possible. Honestly, it started out as a quest to help people grow their connections. I wanted to grow my connections too and I figured it was better to help other people do it alongside me.
Q. You have been a Salesperson and have worked in marketing as well. Let’s keep all the selflessness aside for a moment and talk about how you’re using LinkedIn to connect with people all over the globe. Is that something that comes naturally, or did you have to learn it?
Being a trailblazer is always the harder role than the person following the path. I think my methodology might be difficult for somebody to emulate especially if they don’t have a marketing degree like I do. Having said that, the whole purpose of projecthelpyougrow was to blaze the trail for other people and help show them how to do it. I try to give out as much coaching as they might need to help them in some way. The only advice I would give to somebody is to be consistent and put in the work. Because it’s not a magic pill, you’ve gotta put in the effort.
#projecthelpyougrow
Here’s an example: I’ve had 400+ registrations on my website in the last 12 hours. It is amazing and exceeds every target I had set, but there’s a problem. Almost 300 out of those 400 members haven’t filled out their profile correctly. There is a lot of missing data and the recruiters who are applying filters and searching for relevant people can’t locate the ones who have an incomplete profile. That is where the “work” comes in. A lot of people are looking for jobs maybe millions and millions of them, but a simple error like not updating your profile correctly can be the difference between getting noticed and being ignored.
Q. You have been giving out free coaching to people along with tips and tricks on how to use LinkedIn and other tools. How do my readers get in touch with you for that? What are the criteria for them to be considered for a free session?
First off, the criteria is simple. You’ve got to be clear about what you want. Location is no boundary for me. I’ve spoken to people in Africa, Europe, Asia who belong to a lot of different countries, but the one thing I always look for is the clarity about what they need from me. There are a lot of ways to get in touch with me. LinkedIn is probably the best tool, but I’m also on Twitter and other social channels. I can be reached via email on [email protected]. In fact, my website has my profile section that gives out most of my details and links to my channels. This is something that all members can use to link their profile to their social channels.
Q. There are other people on LinkedIn who employ storytelling as their content strategy. Fake stories, maybe. But stories, nonetheless. Is that something you believe in too?
I think it comes to relatability. If every post comes off as commercial, then you are gonna lose your audience. This is something Oleg and Bridgette do extremely well; They tug at people’s heartstrings. They use words like “inspire” and “encourage” that people can easily relate to. Where they fall short, and I’m not being critical here, is they do not have any mechanism to actually help people other than giving them some temporary exposure. For example, if Oleg or Bridgette like/comment on your post, it can bring a temporary influx of visitors on your post that will last about 5 minutes. Then it goes back to being normal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it doesn’t help, but surely there is a better way.
If I could talk to Oleg or Bridgette, which I have openly asked them to, I would like to tell them about projecthelpyougrow because I feel they come up short in the help mechanism. Imagine the power and ramp-up on my website and the number of people I can help if one of them decide to even just share my post/website. They ask you to Like/Tag them to get extra views and attention. How about you give people a method to get exposure from recruiters and also engage with recruiters and figure out what they need and how it can be made better. I respect them both and follow them like most people. I can’t help but wonder about the large-scale change they can bring if they decided to do something about the gap in their helping mechanism.
Q. Before we end this discussion, is there something you would like to say to our readers who want to increase their connections?
Adaptability is key. The LION mentality that might have worked 2 years ago, doesn’t really work these days. People are wary of their connections and add people who provide value. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a recruiter, a potential job seeker or just somebody trying to promote themselves or their company. Adapt to your audience and give them something of value. | https://medium.com/maice/im-not-a-hero-or-celebrity-who-can-save-the-world-84a499236766 | ['Abhishek Thakur'] | 2018-09-26 20:52:10.240000+00:00 | ['Maice', 'Interview', 'Recruitment', 'LinkedIn', 'Employment'] |
DSE2: G3 Data Analytics of Covid-19 | This publication consists of articles related to Data science and AI written from Botnoi’s data scientists and students.
Follow | https://medium.com/botnoi-classroom/dse2-g3-data-analytics-of-covid-19-8b5aa2214675 | [] | 2020-12-15 03:48:08.031000+00:00 | ['Botnoi', 'Botnoi Classroom'] |
Free Speech: In Array or Disarray? | Freedom of speech antecedents back to the Athenian Democratic Principle circa early 5th or 6th century. The hypothesis of free speech can be found on early human rights document, for instance England’s Bill of Rights 1689, which set the ground for free speech in the house of parliament. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, set up by the constituent assembly of France in 1789, was the first to welcome free speech as a sacrosanct right. The Constitution of India has enshrined freedom of speech on its body as one of the six fundamental rights guaranteed to its citizens. Even though being much aware of the idea’s objective, is free speech in peril?
Recently there has been much upheaval about dissent being part of freedom of speech, much chaos politically, has attracted mixed views from the all-knowing social media users to several human rights activist. Looking at France, people are left discombobulated about how a free breathing idea engender grim consequences. The incident revolves around a teacher, Samuel Paty, who was left headless for showing a caricature of the Muslim prophet to his students. French President Emmanuel Macron and several other world leaders have condemned the incident while France being jostled between freedom of speech and secularism.
A grave question arises, what is the discernible region of free speech? Back in 2015, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, constituting a bench of Hon’ble Justice Deepak Mishra and Hon’ble Justice Prafulla C. Pant observed in the case of Devidas Ramachandra Tuljapurkar v. State of Maharashtra[1], that freedom of speech is not an absolute right and it has some reasonable restrictions within the parameters of our constitution. They even added that Article 19(1)(a) of the constitution is not absolute in vista of Article 19(2) of the constitution. Behind every controversial statement or admission, one must look for the motive, is it to incite dreaded chaos erupting like an active volcano or to express one’s opinion. In 1962, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India demarcated free speech and sedition in the landmark ruling of the case Kedarnath Singh v. State of Bihar[2], in the constitutional bench of Hon’ble former chief justice Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha, Justice A.K. Sarkar, Justice J.R. Madholkar, Justice N. Rajagopala Ayyangar and Justice S.K. Das. Dissent plays a vital and healthy part for governing the ruling party and keep them in check. In recent years, new techniques of coercing limited speech have been introduced, such instance is when a doctor was attributed to say something she never said while delivering a speech in Aligarh Muslim University, somewhere around December 2019, for a protest of CAA and NRC. After one month, he was arrested for delivering an inciting speech. Ten days later, he was approved bail but was not released from prison. After that, he was kept in preventive detention under the National Security Act. The doctor confronted it in the Hon’ble High Court of Allahabad and the order was quashed. The Hon’ble Court conjectured that the petitioner allegedly said things which he did not.
The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India recently observed that television channels are allegedly misusing the power of free speech, giving up the its primary role of being a watchdog and instead fall back on to trials and broadcasting one-sided narratives.
A top grossing incident now, the dramatic manner in which Republic TV editor Arnab Goswami was arrested is the center of discussion for suffocation of free speech and personal liberty, engendering senior ministers, leaders and Editors Guild of India enunciate their tenets. Rolling over the cause of the arrest, an interior designer and his mother committed suicide in Mumbai in 2018, allegedly because the victim was not paid his honorarium for the job he did in Goswami’s office. This scene engenders emergence of bigger questions on the state of governance in the country today and the role being played by the fourth pillar of democracy. One will be in denial if they don’t accept the fact how heavily media has been politicized in recent years, not just in India but all over the world.
This year the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India has divulged that access to internet a fundamental right. The judgement came into occurrence on hearing of a pleading in connection with Internet blockade in Jammu and Kashmir since August 5 in the view of revocation of Article 370 of the constitution in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir citing security concerns and emerging anti-national activities. It has been listed in Article 19 (1)(a) of the Constitution being a part of free expression of thoughts and speech. Internet is the foremost source of information to the citizens. A non-citizen can employ the same benefits but cannot assert it as her fundamental right.
Free speech is not a right only for the elite classes of the country, even criticized to be one, possibility of one reason is faltering on political ideologies. Rather, free speech has caused the marginalized people of the society to express their interests in various issues including constructive judgment of the chosen representative. None of us can justify the limit of free speech by causing physical harm or hurting religious sentiments to cause violence.
Some legal savants for instance Tom Wu, Colombia University, have argued that the traditional drawbacks of free speech that worrying threat to free speech is the censorship of totalitarian states, and that mal-informed or malevolent speech can and ought to be overcome by “more and better speech” rather than suffocating. This lacking came under light during the 20th century, but with the introduction of the internet, information became plentiful, “but the attention of listeners” still lack.
One’s voice is important and ought to be heard. One preserves the right to say what he/she surmise, share true information and demand a finer world. One also has the right to give assent or express displeasure with those in power, and to express these slants in amicable protests. Employing these rights in use, without trepidation or unlawful interference, is synonymous to living in an open and fair society; in which the amass can access justice and enjoy their human rights. Governments have a duty to embargo hateful, inciteful speech but many abuse their power to hush peaceful dissent by passing laws against freedom of expression, often done disguised under the excuse of counter terrorism, national security or religion. How governments endure censorious views and voices is often a good sign of how they treat human rights in rem.
It is cardinal for each of us to wield our fundamental rights within certain boundaries. It is time for all the institutions of a healthy society to realize that the people of this country express their dissent in good faith, and in any democracy, there are bound to be different points of view. These must be respected — otherwise the spirit of our society might splinter, and fraternity, one of the arch words in the preamble to our constitution we have given ourselves, might just become another corpse. Reminding in the end what John Milton expressed in the ‘Areopagitica’:
“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”
[1] Criminal Appeal №1179 of 2010
[2] 1962 AIR 955, 1962 SCR Supl. (2) 769 | https://medium.com/@adhip-banerjee14/free-speech-in-array-or-disarray-d07941cd0934 | ['Adhip Narayan Banerjee'] | 2021-01-16 08:53:43.659000+00:00 | ['Freedom Of Speech', 'Law', 'Free', 'India', 'Freedom'] |
Getting Started with Android Application Security | Android Application Security
Security has always been a major concern for businesses, and this concern is even greater when it comes to mobile applications. Today, almost every leading brand or product has a mobile app to connect with their customers more easily.
More users than ever, rely on mobile applications for a majority of their digital tasks over traditional desktop applications. In 2015 in the U.S. alone, users spent 54% of their digital media time on mobile devices actively using mobile apps. These applications have access to large amounts of user data, much of which is sensitive data and must be protected from unauthorized access.
From a pentester’s perspective, there is a growing need for skilled mobile pentesters. To me mobile applications have always been an interesting attack surface, and although all popular mobile platforms (iOS & Android) provide their own set of security controls designed to help the developers build secure applications this is often left to the developer to choose from a variety of security options. If not implemented properly, or left misconfigured, they introduce security loopholes in an application.
In this blog, I will focus on android application security resources and demonstrate how one can get started with setting up an android test lab and start discovering vulnerabilities.
Android Core
Android applications are written primarily in Java, Kotlin, and C++. When distributed, they use the .apk extension which stands for Android Package. An APK is a ZIP file containing a predefined structure that is used to store different components of an application, like assets and byte code, such as the one mentioned below
A typical unzipped APK structure:
Structure of an APK File
Structure of a typical Android package:
Testapp.apk
├── AndroidManifest.xml
├── META-INF/
├── classes.dex
├── lib/
├── res/
├── assets/
└── resources.arsc
1. AndroidManifest.xml
This file contains the meta-information about the app, such as: the name of the app, package name, different activities and services, permissions required, supported version of Android, etc.
2. META-INF/
The META-INF/ folder is essentially a manifest of metadata information, including the developer certificate.
A Directory with APK metadata in it, such as its signature.
3. classes.dex
The classes.dex file contains app code in the Dex file format, this file contains the Java libraries that the application uses.
4. lib/
Lib is a directory with compiled native libraries used by your app.
5. res/
The ‘res’ stands for Resource file. It can store resource files such as pictures, XML files, etc. It contains some additional folders such as Drawable, Layout, and Values.
6. assets/
A directory with application assets.
7. resources.arsc
Application resource file which contains compiled resources in a binary format; may include images, strings, or other data used by the application
Application Components
Application components are the essential building blocks of an Android application. These components are loosely coupled by the application manifest file AndroidManifest.xml that describes each component of the application and how they interact.
Typical Android Application Components
1. Activities
2. Services
3. Broadcast Receivers
4. Content Providers
Android application components
Android Application Security Testing
Now that we have familiarized ourselves with the components and structure of an Android application, let’s dive into the pentesting methodology for a typical Android application. The methodology of testing an Android application can be broadly divided into two categories:
Android Security Testing
1. Static — Method of analyzing the application by examining source code and the package before the application is run.
2. Dynamic — Method of analyzing the application by executing it in real-time.
Let’s begin with Dynamic testing and see how can one can perform the dynamic tests and what all tools would be required.
Testing Environment
To begin an Android pentest, one would need a physical device or an Android emulator running the most recent Android version as a testing environment. Below are the tools and programs you’ll want to leverage along with the steps on how to quickly set up an Android test lab:
Exploring some of the Tools & Programs:
Genymotion is one of the most used Android emulators. It’s both powerful and widely used by developers and pentesters because of its ease of use.
Download Genymotion here.
Change the file permission and make it executable:
$ sudo chmod +x Genymotion-3.2.1-linux_x64.bin
Install it:
$ ./Genymotion-3.2.1-linux_x64.bin
VirtualBox: Genymotion uses VirtualBox as a virtualization platform to host an Android VM. Therefore, before getting Genymotion, you will need to install VirtualBox.
Install
$ sudo apt install virtualbox
Android SDK Platform-Tools: Android SDK Platform-Tools is a component for the Android SDK. It includes tools that interface with the Android platform, such as adb, fastboot, and systrace these are essential components required during android debugging and need to be installed.
Download the Android SDK Platform-Tools here.
Appie
Appie is a software package that has been pre-configured to function as an Android Pentesting Environment on any windows based machine which is developed by my friend and fellow Core Pentester @exploitprotocol
Download Appie here.
Various important tools which are important for Android Pentesting are included, refer to the usage of appie here.
Now that we have explored some of the tools and programs that are useful for pentesting Android, let take a deeper look at how to use some of them:
Creating a Test Device
Let us explore how to add our virtual device on Genymotion and Configure it.
Open Genymotion and press [CTRL+N] to add your virtual device.
to add your virtual device. It’s recommended to go for Google Pixel 2 with Android version Android 9.0 Pie also allocate the number of processors and memory size depending on the configuration of your device and proceed with creating a new device.
Creating a test device
Let’s confirm if our virtual device is live using the Android debug bridge.
Listing all the listening android devices
Listing all the listening Android devices. (And yes, it works!)
Installing the Test Application
We can install the application on our test device through Google play if available or if we are given an Android package we can install it using:
$ adb install <path to the apk-file.apk>
As an example for installing an Android app, let’s try downloading the Subway Surfers game and install it on our device.
Use this link to download the apk file from the play store.
Install it using the below-mentioned command
$ adb install Subway.apk
Android Debug Bridge
Android Debug Bridge (adb) is a versatile command-line tool that lets you communicate with a device. As we go further we need to get familiar with a few of the important adb commands:
1. adb basics
adb devices (lists connected devices)
adb root (restarts adb with root permissions)
adb kill-server (kills the adb server)
adb reboot (reboots the device)
adb devices -l (list of devices by product/model)
adb shell (starts the background terminal) 2. Package Installation
adb install <apk> (install app)
adb uninstall <name> (remove the app) 3. Important paths
/data/data/<package>/databases (app databases)
/data/data/<package>/shared_prefs/ (shared preferences)
/data/app (apk installed by user)
/system/app (pre-installed APK files)
Configuring Device with Burp Suite
a) Configure the Burp Proxy listener
Navigate to “Proxy -> Options -> Proxy Listeners” and Add a new listener on all interfaces on whatever port you’d like. Here, we will choose 8085:
b) Adding Proxy on an Android device.
Android Proxy
Navigate to Settings > Network & Internet > Wifi> Click the Advanced options drop-down menu and set Proxy to manual.
Click the Advanced options drop-down menu and set Proxy to manual. For hostname, enter the IP address of the local machine that is running Burp suite.
For the Proxy port, enter the port that the burp is listening on (here, we have set 8085).
c) Installing Burp’s CA Certificate in an Android Device
Open up the browser in the Android device and type “http://burp/”. Burp suite’s page will open. Now click on the “CA Certificate” button in the top right corner.
CA Certificate — Burp
or Can download the cert on your computer and can add it to your device using
$ adb push (path of certificate) /sdcard/Download
The default format of Burp’s CA certificate is “ .der ” format, but android does not support the “ .der ” format for certificate installation.
” format, but android does not support the “ ” format for certificate installation. Navigate to the downloaded file and rename it to “burp.cer”.
Install the certificate by navigating to Settings →Security →Install certificate from SD cards.
Install Certificate
Let's verify if it's working perfectly.
Intercepting mobile request
And it works perfectly as the request is sent through the burp suite.
Bypassing SSL Pinning on Android
SSL pinning: allows the application to only trust the valid or pre-defined certificate or Public Key. Developers use SSL pinning technique as an additional security layer for application traffic. In the SSL Pinning implementation, the application does not trust custom certificates and does not allow proxy tools to intercept the traffic.
Frida is a dynamic instrumentation toolkit that is used to inject snippets of javascript into the application running process, where your JS gets executed with full access to memory, hooking functions, and even calling native functions inside the process. Using Frida we can Bypass security controls like SSLPinning and Root detection and other business logic implementations.
SSL pinning bypass using Frida
Frida client
$ pip install frida-tools
The above command installs the latest version of the Frida client on your computer.
Now deploy the Frida server in the android system.
Before downloading the Frida server check for the existing frida version on the client.
$ frida --version
Frida version
Find your android device architecture
$ adb shell getprop ro.product.cpu.abi
Frida Server
Click Here to download the Frida-server release for your android devices which matches your current Frida version installed on the client.
[frida-server-14.2.16-android-x86.xz] Here 14.2.16 is the frida version and -x86 the device architecture.
Here is the frida version and the device architecture. Extract it and Push the frida server on the device
$ adb push frida-server /data/local/tmp/
Push Frida server to device
Grant necessary permissions
$ adb shell “chmod 755 /data/local/tmp/frida-server”
Run this server on the device
$ adb shell “/data/local/tmp/frida-server &”
List the processes running on the connected device and copy the package name of the application you want the SSL pinning to be bypassed.
$ frida-ps -U
List the running process
For example, the package name for the test application here is com.test.androidtest
Click here to copy a sample SSL bypass code, and Save it as a .js file & run the command mentioned below.
$ frida -U -l sslpin.js -f com.test.androidtest --no-pause
Here:
-U stands for “USB device”
-f stands for “Filename”
-l stands for “location of js file”
--no-pause stands for “automatically start the main thread after startup”
SSL pinning bypass
Or
Frida’s codeshare repository has a massive collection of generic Frida scripts that can be used directly in the command line with downloading, this can be seen in the example below :
$ frida — codeshare pcipolloni/universal-android-ssl-pinning-bypass-with-frida -f YOUR_BINARY
Now you can successfully intercept and play around with the request sent and received by the application ✌.
2. SSL pinning bypass using Objection (Non-Rooted)
Objection is a mobile exploration toolkit that uses Frida and automates the injection process by providing a command-line interface to the end-user that allows them to bypass the certificate pinning, dump process memory, modify values on the fly, and other security implementation by selecting various options without a need of a rooted phone.
a. Install objection:
$ pip3 install objection
Install Objection
Run the following command that patches the apk with frida’s shared library
$ objection patchapk -s com.test.androidtest
A new apk with “ .objection ” added to the filename will be created.
” added to the filename will be created. Install the application
$ adb install (path to apk)
b. Running Objection
$ objection -g com.test.androidtest
explore -q
Disable SSL pinning using the below command
$ android sslpinning disable
Now you can successfully intercept the request sent from the application without rooting your test device.
Bonus
There are many other dynamic instrumentation frameworks with a Web GUI, powered by Frida and provide a clean visual representation making it relatively simple to assess mobile applications by implementing dynamic function hooking and intercepting and intended to make Frida script writing as simple as possible.
Reverse Engineering Android Application
1. Decompile an APK or DEX file using jadx
Jadx is a command-line and GUI tool used for producing Java source code from Android Dex and Apk files, Its main feature is to decompile Dalvik bytecode(.dex) to java classes.
a. Download Jadx
Download the latest release of Jadx from here
Extract the zip file and go to the bin directory and run jadx-gui
Or
b. Appie
If you have Appie already set up on your machine then just type jdgui in the console and a new tab will open with JD-GUI in it.
2. Get Started Analyzing the APK
Open the APK using jadx-gui and you’ll notice a menu on the left-hand side of the screen containing some dropdown sub-menus. This view is common across all Android applications.
Jadx-gui
Here the “ Source code ” section contains the different files that make up the application’s code.
” section contains the different files that make up the application’s code. The “ Resources ” section contains app assets, versions, certificates, properties, the Android Manifest, APK signature info, etc.
” section contains app assets, versions, certificates, properties, the Android Manifest, APK signature info, etc. AndroidManifest.xml This file is an important part of the application because it provides data about the application structure and metadata, its components, and the requirements.
This file is an important part of the application because it provides data about the application structure and metadata, its components, and the requirements. One can check for hard coded secrets, credentials etc. in the application binary by utilizing the search functionality.
If the application does not strip symbols in the Java source code, it is also possible to reverse engineer and determine the client-side application logic implementation.
OWASP Mobile Top 10
OWASP Top 10 is the list of the 10 most common application vulnerabilities. It also shows their risks, impacts, and countermeasures. Updated every three to four years, the latest OWASP vulnerabilities list was released in 2016. Let’s dive into it:
OWASP Mobile Top 10
Automate your Security Testing Using MobSF
Mobile Security Framework (MobSF) is a free and open-source tool that automates security assessment for both Android/iOS pen-testing and security assessment framework capable of performing static and dynamic analysis on the android applications.
a. Setting up MobSF
Run the following command to clone MobSF from Github.
$ git clone https://github.com/MobSF/Mobile-Security-Framework-MobSF.git
Enter the folder
$ cd Mobile-Security-Framework-MobSF
Run the Setup command.
./setup.sh -For Linux and Mac
setup.bat -For Windows
b. Running MobSF
For Linux and Mac: ./run.sh
For Windows: run.bat
Navigate to http://localhost:8000/ to access the MobSF Web interface.
to access the MobSF Web interface. Click on Upload & Analyze button and upload your apk file.
Upload APK
An automated security scan report will be generated once the assessment is done.
MobSF- Dashboard
You can also analyze your previous scans and download your reports.
Recent Scan section
Practice Lab — DIVA Android
DIVA (Damn Insecure and Vulnerable App) is an Android App that is intentionally designed to be insecure with different labs and you can easily practice to enhance your skills.
Click Here to download the DIVA apk file.
Install the application on your device and dig into it to solve the labs.
Solutions — DIVA Android
Click here if you need some help in solving the labs.
Learning is a continuous process and no piece of knowledge goes in vain. I enjoyed writing this blog and learned a lot during the process. I hope you enjoyed reading this blog as well and found it to be informative. Please feel free to contact me on Twitter for any feedback on this.
Until next time, happy hacking. Cheers & stay safe! | https://medium.com/@avanishpathak/getting-started-with-android-application-security-6f20b76d795b | ['Avanish Pathak'] | 2021-06-09 07:09:54.349000+00:00 | ['Hacking', 'Android', 'Security', 'Infosec', 'Bug Bounty'] |
Handling Failures in Civil Engineering Projects: A Brief Case Study | An undeformed linear longitudinal extent of the (undamaged) girder- sight of the end of the girder is unrestricted when viewing it from the front, unlike the case where it may have been buckled.
Cause of Failure
During the lifting process, the girder tilted in a direction where it did not have sufficient inertia to bear its own weight, which resulted in the development of cracks. This tilting was due to the lack of a stable, even casting base on the bed where the girder had been laid.
Consequences
Fortunately, no lives were lost in this mishap. However, it did result in the loss of precious labour and time of at least 2 months, along with an estimated monetary loss of Rs 5–7 lakhs, which certainly sets the project back by a few months of work. Apart from the additional cost of the project this delay brings with itself, it also invites inconvenience of the huge amount of traffic that flows throw this section daily, due to the space the project takes upon the ground.
Had these cracks gone unnoticed or this section been placed onto its position on the flyover regardless, it could have led to much more dangerous situations involving bursting/collapse of the concrete girder and invited a heavy penalty for the contractor owing to negligence. Hence, the girder will now be discarded and replaced by the contractor and his team.
Conclusion: My Two Cents
Clearly, the simplest of tasks on-site in civil engineering projects require a lot of precision, in the absence of which, heavy losses(whether in terms of resources or lives) can be incurred. That being said, it would be interesting to think of a future where conventional civil engineering equipment is replaced by intelligent machines that can manage such tasks seamlessly and adapt to situations on-site, maybe even serve as decision support systems. | https://medium.com/civil-engineering-consortium/handling-failures-in-civil-engineering-projects-a-brief-case-study-970c6784ac60 | ['Keerat Kaur Guliani'] | 2021-02-10 13:35:42.669000+00:00 | ['Case Study', 'Civil Engineering', 'Field Trip', 'Flyover'] |
50% Off — MiniTool ShadowMaker Pro Coupon Code | 50% Off — MiniTool ShadowMaker Pro Coupon Code
MiniTool ShadowMaker Pro — All-inclusive data protection solution for Windows PC and Windows Server. Easy data backup, system backup and disk/partition backup. Restore the OS to the previous state even when OS fails to boot with Bootable Media Builder (WinPE). This tool helps create a WinPE-based bootable CD/DVD disc, USB hard disk or flash drive to restore everything when OS fails to start.
More info:
https://www.datarecoverycoupons.com/backup-software/442-minitool-shadowmaker-pro.html | https://medium.com/@datarecoverycoupons/50-off-minitool-shadowmaker-pro-coupon-code-9ba9d2db3257 | ['Data Recovery Software Discount Coupons'] | 2020-12-26 23:58:24.467000+00:00 | ['Online', 'Software', 'Coupon', 'Sales', 'Backup'] |
Home Alone | By now, most experienced sofa-surfers, kitchen-crushers, or basement-dwellers realize there are plenty of alternatives to the home office. Co-working spaces, coffee shops, libraries, and the like, but let’s leave those things for another article (this one maybe?). For now, let’s focus on what we can do as home-based workers to not only keep up on our out-of-home relationships but stay sane for the long term. It’s easy to do, but the moral of the story is this — get the f*** out the house!
First things first, this is just one list. There is obviously a multitude of things you could do to get outside and take in a little fresh air, but I want to make this quick and actionable so below find a tight-ish and hopefully helpful list of things to do. Not only should these items keep your head in the game, but honestly, if you can make each a habit, they will likely help you professionally as well.
Attend industry events and conferences. One of the best things to do while working apart is taking advantage of your freedom to roam untethered and seek out opportunities to meet other like-minded professionals and learn a little something. Trade shows, industry nights, meetups, conferences and more can be just the kinds of places to get that done.
If you have an employer that’s got deep pockets or an inclination to send you to the big shows in your field I recommend strongly that you pack your bags and go as often as possible. The big events can be a little spendy for most solo-operators costing anywhere from many hundreds to many thousands to attend. Not to mention lodging, rental cars, food, etc. To that end, if you work for a company willing to invest in your growth and education, you’d be a fool not to take advantage.
For the freelancers and contract-worker-types some of the biggest and best events may be out of reach, but I’d suggest either setting aside a little coin and budgeting to attend a couple a year anyway or stretch that dollar and check out smaller, regional or more niche events that are a little more affordable.
One of the best things to do while working apart is taking advantage of your freedom to roam untethered and seek out opportunities to meet other like-minded professionals and learn a little something. Trade shows, industry nights, meetups, conferences and more can be just the kinds of places to get that done. If you have an employer that’s got deep pockets or an inclination to send you to the big shows in your field I recommend strongly that you pack your bags and go as often as possible. The big events can be a little spendy for most solo-operators costing anywhere from many hundreds to many thousands to attend. Not to mention lodging, rental cars, food, etc. To that end, if you work for a company willing to invest in your growth and education, you’d be a fool not to take advantage. For the freelancers and contract-worker-types some of the biggest and best events may be out of reach, but I’d suggest either setting aside a little coin and budgeting to attend a couple a year anyway or stretch that dollar and check out smaller, regional or more niche events that are a little more affordable. Engage in social media. Most of the time you won’t see me advocating for burning minutes on the socials. It’s not that they are inherently bad, but it’s that for me, Instagram is like a tube-o-Pringles. Once I pop, I can’t stop. So it’s best for me to simply look the other way. However, for the disciplined in the audience, social networks can be a great way to enter into and engage in business-related or work-related conversations not to mention maintaining many relationships from the comfort of your Herman Miller.
While I certainly don’t think web-based interactions are going to trump face-to-face conversations anytime soon, they might, as a second- or third-best option, keep you from feeling totally alone when you can’t make time to get out of the house.
Most of the time you won’t see me advocating for burning minutes on the socials. It’s not that they are inherently bad, but it’s that for me, Instagram is like a tube-o-Pringles. Once I pop, I can’t stop. So it’s best for me to simply look the other way. However, for the disciplined in the audience, social networks can be a great way to enter into and engage in business-related or work-related conversations not to mention maintaining many relationships from the comfort of your Herman Miller. While I certainly don’t think web-based interactions are going to trump face-to-face conversations anytime soon, they might, as a second- or third-best option, keep you from feeling totally alone when you can’t make time to get out of the house. Pick up the phone. Think of the phone like your grand-dads social media, only better, and at least marginally closer to a real-life human interaction when you are working from home.
It seems that most people in modern times lean on text-based chatter — email, slack, text, DM, IM, and so on — avoiding at all costs a call that would likely save them time. In fact, did you realize that that little TV in your pocket isn’t just for gaming or catching up on the latest episode of Tosh.O? That thing can actually be used to make an old fashioned phone call. Isn’t that something?
Hopping on the phone won’t just save you the aforementioned time, but it will also give you a little respite from your otherwise dank seclusion. While a call is still second fiddle to an in-person lunch every time, it’s not a bad way to get out of the house virtually anyway.
Think of the phone like your grand-dads social media, only better, and at least marginally closer to a real-life human interaction when you are working from home. It seems that most people in modern times lean on text-based chatter — email, slack, text, DM, IM, and so on — avoiding at all costs a call that would likely save them time. In fact, did you realize that that little TV in your pocket isn’t just for gaming or catching up on the latest episode of Tosh.O? That thing can actually be used to make an old fashioned phone call. Isn’t that something? Hopping on the phone won’t just save you the aforementioned time, but it will also give you a little respite from your otherwise dank seclusion. While a call is still second fiddle to an in-person lunch every time, it’s not a bad way to get out of the house virtually anyway. Never eat alone. Teased mere moment’s ago the prospect of the in-person lunch is a great way to get out of the house, be social, develop long-lasting and meaningful relationships and eat something all at the same time. Not bad, right?
This is such a great idea, in fact, people have written books on the importance and intrinsic value of breaking bread. In the über popular Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, he says as it pertains to in-person meetings, “I’ve come to believe that connecting is one of the most important business — and life — skill sets you’ll ever learn. Why? Because, flat out, people do business with people they know and like. Careers — in every imaginable field — work the same.”
The connections he is referring to can be co-workers, business acquaintances, clients, prospective clients, whomever. The point is that the more — and better — we are at connecting with those who bring us joy, the better off both we and the person who is hopefully footing the bill will be for it.
Teased mere moment’s ago the prospect of the in-person lunch is a great way to get out of the house, be social, develop long-lasting and meaningful relationships and eat something all at the same time. Not bad, right? This is such a great idea, in fact, people have written books on the importance and intrinsic value of breaking bread. In the über popular by Keith Ferrazzi, he says as it pertains to in-person meetings, “I’ve come to believe that connecting is one of the most important business — and life — skill sets you’ll ever learn. Why? Because, flat out, people do business with people they know and like. Careers — in every imaginable field — work the same.” The connections he is referring to can be co-workers, business acquaintances, clients, prospective clients, whomever. The point is that the more — and better — we are at connecting with those who bring us joy, the better off both we and the person who is hopefully footing the bill will be for it. Take breaks, and take them with others. For many remote workers, we can easily slip into the trap of overwork and exhaustion. With no one around to break up our day, we commonly work through lunch, sometimes not eating at all, working our fingers to the bone, and for what? We don’t give our minds any downtime — let alone our horrible posture. Self-care is right out the window.
Instead, not only should you schedule breaks and be disciplined in taking them, you should schedule them as opportunities to get out and be social. Sure, we could hop on the Peloton in the study for a quick thirty to stave off impending death from lack of cardio, but why not plan to meet a friend, hit the gym, or go for coffee and mack on that one barista?
For many remote workers, we can easily slip into the trap of overwork and exhaustion. With no one around to break up our day, we commonly work through lunch, sometimes not eating at all, working our fingers to the bone, and for what? We don’t give our minds any downtime — let alone our horrible posture. Self-care is right out the window. Instead, not only should you schedule breaks and be disciplined in taking them, you should schedule them as opportunities to get out and be social. Sure, we could hop on the Peloton in the study for a quick thirty to stave off impending death from lack of cardio, but why not plan to meet a friend, hit the gym, or go for coffee and mack on that one barista? Paint the town whatever color you like. Unlike our office-based counterparts, tired by the daily dramas of working in-house, who can’t wait to get home and decompress, remote workers, fresh off a quiet and productive day in the home office, are often charged with energy and craving a little social interaction.
Due to the excessive amount of time you spend alone in your day-to-day, you must be purposeful about your free time. Get out and hang with the boys, take out that special someone — maybe the aforementioned barista you’re crushing on — or take in the latest Tarantino flick over at the megaplex.
Whatever you choose, the point is that you evade the shackles of self-induced isolation rampant in the detached community and take care of yourself in mind, body, and spirit.
Like I said at the top, nothing revolutionary here. The fact is that all remote workers have their way, their routine. However, if you aren’t working in time for self-care, social interaction, and an occasional long walk on the beach you’re likely setting yourself up to face some or all of the many dark parts of being a teammate apart — seclusion, isolation, depression, etc.
Are you great at dodging the many pitfalls of working from home?
Tell me about it! We are always looking for great techniques and advice for the ever-expanding network of outsourced talent in the marketplace. Join me here in the comments or feel free to find me on the socials to take this conversation wherever the audience most suited to hear it can get involved — I am @ryanroghaar here on Medium, Twitter, and Instagram and click here to find me on LinkedIn. | https://medium.com/teammateapart/home-alone-d6020f87f872 | ['Ryan Roghaar'] | 2019-12-20 23:37:37.076000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Digital Nomads', 'Work From Home', 'Teammate Apart', 'Remote Working'] |
Coronavirus Is Giving Prisoners a Death Sentence | As most of the United States fiddles with the idea of seeing loved ones for the holidays, more than 2 million incarcerated people are faced with this challenge: staying alive during a global pandemic which has claimed the lives of more than 250,000 people in the U.S.
U.S. correctional facilities — like the rest of the country — are recording unprecedented spikes in coronavirus cases. Michigan just recorded more than 50,000 COVID-19 cases in the last week, a number it took the state more than two months to record at the start of the pandemic, and many states are floating along with the same dilemma.
However, correctional facilities alone recorded 13,657 new coronavirus cases the week of November 17, according to the Marshall Project. The previous week saw 13,676 new coronavirus cases. These are the highest totals since the pandemic began, and it’s been grim since.
The American prison system is the perfect breeding ground for such a virus. While most outside the system are advocating for mask-wearing and social distancing, the reality is that prisoners aren’t able when prisons are overcrowded and most are poorly ventilated, old, and hygiene standards are difficult to maintain.
While some of the data can be hard to pin down, what’s available is frustrating: as of mid-November, more than 196,000 coronavirus infections have been reported among state and federal prisons. More than 1,450 of those prisoners have died. Case rates among inmates is more than 4x that of the general public, and death rates are more than twice as high.
Spencer Weiner/Los Angeles Times
The U.S. prison system also employs more than 685,000 people — guards, nurses, etc. More than 45,000 prison staff members have been infected and around 98 deaths have been recorded to date. Their case rates are 3x as high as the general public.
And these are just what’s been reported. The actual numbers are much more gruesome. This issue is even harsher on rural communities; 40% of prisons are located in counties with less than 50,000 people and are nowhere near as equipped for handling such an outbreak. Even something a bit more modest would be difficult to handle with not many ventilators or I.C.U. beds available.
The pandemic should’ve been handled with more aggression, both at the state and federal level. Current lame-duck President Donald Trump delayed the virus, even gaslighting a nation while he claimed fear of hysteria was an excuse to not act immediately; his actions (or lack thereof) are inexcusable. Other governors, such as Georgia governor Brian Kemp, have refused to set mask mandates, or any mandate to slow the spread of the pandemic further.
Some states have taken it upon themselves instead. Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer announced a three-week emergency order prohibiting outdoor sporting events, dining at bars and restaurants, and other indoor or group activities. The order went into effect last week. Meanwhile, New Jersey governor Phil Murphy signed a bill in October that would permit prisoners with less than a year left on their sentences to be released up to eight months early. Already, 2,000 people have been released and more than 1,000 releases are anticipated.
Obviously, a lot more still needs to be done. One short-term solution includes diverting minor infractions into “noncustodial penalties” for things like parole violations and probation, and limiting the amount of pretrial detentions via reducing or eliminating bail.
It’s also key to minimize the effect the virus has on communities and those involved. More comprehensive standardized testing and reporting requirements would be helpful, in addition to offering testing prior to release.
Managing the coronavirus crisis is difficult and isn’t something that will be achieved overnight. It’s a process and will require sustained effort by all parties involved. It’s easy to ignore what’s happening right now in prisons, but it’s not helping anyone. Their welfare is very much linked to everyone else’s. America’s failure to heel the prison population is both a public health catastrophe and a moral disaster. | https://medium.com/@bradleyalanlaplante/coronavirus-is-giving-prisoners-a-death-sentence-3a3a3071a81a | ['Brad Laplante'] | 2020-11-22 18:49:01.367000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Pandemic', 'Covid', 'Prison', 'Jails'] |
Week Nine In Review | Week Nine In Review
This was the week people got livid.
This was also the week that a number of companies including Twitter announced that employees could work from home indefinitely (although in some cases "indefinitely" was tied to the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic), which made me happy because it's what Maya Geryk and I advocated for in our podcast from last week. Listen to it here if you haven't already.
But this was the week that everyone was fed up with being managed poorly at home or with knowing they weren't managing as well as they could from home. With dealing with technology that promises everything but has huge gaps. With dealing with traumatized kids and with their own trauma. With having questions no one can answer. With having to do...this, or some form of this, for the foreseeable future.
It was overwhelming and it made us all brittle and angry and sharp.
There's nothing wrong with that. I think next week is going to be rough, too, with more losses becoming apparent and still not a lot of good news (especially in states that have opened up or are about to open up), and then after that we'll be able to start digging in to figure out how to manage this without constant pervasive anxiety.
While I usually have a few things for you to think about over the weekend to make next Monday better, today I only have one thing and it isn't going to have much effect on this coming Monday yet: What is one thing (big or medium), that, if you had a really solid handle on it or process for making it work, would lift that constant sense of being right on the edge or of actively failing from you?
Even when you have a whole bunch of small problems, there's usually one that takes up more emotional weight than the others. Figure out and isolate what yours is. You don't even have to start trying to fix it yet. That's too much for you in the middle of trauma. But figure out what it is. (If you can't figure out anything realistic that would remove the dread and fear, come up with something that isn't realistic that would save you.)
That's it. Oh, and let yourself be angry. You've lost a lot and you're still losing. Anger is a reasonable response here.
Love,
Magda
Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@hhh13 | https://medium.com/@magda.pecsenye/week-nine-in-review-376a16261013 | ['Magda Pecsenye'] | 2020-05-28 19:48:17.160000+00:00 | ['Management', 'Anger', 'Pandemic', 'Work', 'Week 9'] |
We just burned 5 CORD + 500 VACC, and awarded 0.08 BNB in tri-weekly CORD traders’ draw! Burn + draw every 3.5 weeks! | We just burned 5 CORD + 500 VACC, and awarded 0.08 BNB in tri-weekly CORD traders’ draw! Burn + draw every 3.5 weeks! cordfinance Jul 22·3 min read
All eligible purchase orders of 10+ CORD for BNB are entered to WIN BNB every 3.5 weeks!
Latest winner got 0.08 BNB today just for buying 10 CORD and holding it for ONE HOUR! Congratulations 0x5fb9ad8ec4e5225a77adf94a252ce4d2bc3354e0! Plus we burned 5 more CORD + 500 VACC. Tri-weekly lottery (every ~3.5 weeks during vault resets) to win BNB, and tri-weekly burns (to regularly and permanently reduce supply of both CORD and VACC).
Funds come from our very small (0.25%) tax on transactions, and 5% tax on rewards from vaults. Tax revenues divided as follows.
· 1/5 burned, permanently reducing supply of CORD and VACC, which can never be minted. Over time, this means your stash will become more and more valuable as scarcity increases forever.
· 1/5 shared back to community as BNB via lottery! This will be obtained by selling the taxed amounts just before the draw
· 3/5 kept by team for development gas
The rules of the tri-weekly lottery are simple. Once every 3.5 weeks during pool resets, we will look back since the last draw, and collate all purchase transactions of at least 10 CORD purchased on SushiSwap or PancakeSwap V2 (details below). To be eligible, there must be no outbound tx of CORD from your wallet for at least 1 hour. That means no trading CORD for at least 1 hour after you buy it, staking is okay. The winner must also be hodling OR staking at least 1000 VACC at the time of the random draw, which will occur during the 3.5 days downtime between vaults. That’s it! We will select winners based on closest transaction hash of their buy order to the transaction hash of the tri-weekly CORD burn that we do just beforehand (tx hash must be under the burn hash); a verifiable random draw. Stack cards in your favor by placing more buy orders to get more chances! Just make sure you hodl the CORD for a FULL HOUR. And remember to hodl or stake minimum 1000 VACC at time of the random draw (you should hold more than that anyway to enjoy the global VACC hodler’s multiplier in all our vaults including partner vaults). Any tri-weekly draws that do not have any eligible transactions will be carried forward to the next draw for a bigger prize. (P.s. The project leaders not eligible to win.)
Contract for CORD on Binance Smart Chain (BSC)
0xa3506A4f978862A296b29816C4e65cf1a6F54AAA
Contract for VACC on Binance Smart Chain (BSC)
0xb01228C32F85db30b8F9fc59256B40C716b0E891
To buy or trade CORD-BNB on PancakeSwap V2, enter the BSC contract address of CORD in one of the PancakeSwap V2 exchange token fields, and select BNB in the other field.
https://exchange.pancakeswap.finance/#/swap
To buy or trade CORD-Sushi on SushiSwap, enter the BSC contract address of CORD in one of the SushiSwap exchange token fields, and select Sushi in the other field.
https://app.sushi.com/swap
To buy or trade CORD-VACC on PancakeSwap V2, enter the BSC contract addresses of CORD and VACC in the PancakeSwap V2 exchange token fields. https://exchange.pancakeswap.finance/#/swap
Any CORD purchase transactions meeting the above criteria will be automatically entered for the next random draw. The next tri-weekly CORD & VACC burning and BNB lottery are set to occur during the next vault reset ~3.5 weeks from now. So get trading CORD, and hodl for as little as one hour (how easy is that!), to WIN BNB. Just make sure you also hodl or stake 1000 VACC in your wallet at the time of the random draw.
In other news, vaults have been restarted for another 3 weeks as follows
· CORD -> VACC
· CORD-VACC-LP -> VACC
· VACC -> CORD
Good luck fellow CORDians!
- The CORD.Finance Team | https://medium.com/@cordfinance/we-just-burned-5-cord-500-vacc-and-awarded-0-08-ac7224ed297f | [] | 2021-09-09 14:34:52.226000+00:00 | ['Yield Farming', 'Cord', 'Finance', 'Defi', 'Lottery'] |
Maybe this is annoying and easy for some people to move on…some of you must be thinking “ah this… | Maybe this is annoying and easy for some people to move on…some of you must be thinking “ah this story is about a love story, broken heart, and bla bla…”
and I must say, yes, it’s true. I want to pour it all down into the words here.
I struggle for finding my own happiness. Even, I don’t know what is my true happiness in this world. If we talk on the religious side, of course, I am happy with my religion and be grateful for what my God has given to me, because without Him, I can’t face this life, meanwhile, it’s not enough. As a normal human with so many dreams, fantasy, and imagination, I want all.
I have a lot of burdens on my head that I have to get it out one by one. I don’t know what should I do first. My emotions are broken because I need support from someone and currently that someone doesn’t exist.
I love foreign guys, and getting the best one to be my husband is my biggest dream. But it’s hard for me who doesn’t have a beautiful face and a sexy body. But to local guys, their interest in girls does not exist in me. Also, their characters which I found were not suitable for me.
That big dream is not easy. Multiple times I’m failed and get hurt by those rude men. They gave me promises and talked like my best friends, but they were fakes! Took me for granted after had fun. I am also stupid! Believing in Long Distance Relationship. I just need support emotionally and physically.
“What about your parents?”. I grew up in the not-showing-affection-directly family. We never show love physically or giving affection words to each other, we just giving materials that we need in life as much as we can (even not all materials). But after the time passed, my dad, the one who gave us money before, got sick. It means thatI have to take a part to live my dad, mom, sister’s life.
I can’t save money for what I need, for my happiness. I don’t know what should I do, I got stuck to make people happy or myself happy.
If I think about my dream, the people who I have responsible to will be broken. the other side, If I think about people, I need to take away my dream, my happiness.
I just don’t like to struggle alone, I need support, but no one understand. | https://medium.com/@flacose/maybe-this-is-annoying-and-easy-for-some-people-to-move-on-some-of-you-must-be-thinking-ah-this-a089db95a209 | [] | 2021-08-25 14:17:19.764000+00:00 | ['Sad', 'Dear Diary', 'Dreams', 'Broken'] |
The 5 Benefits of Integrating Your Risk Assessment Software and Communication Platforms | We are all aware of the problems we face with poor data management. Storing and managing data on different platforms is not only inefficient but it also makes it impossible to analyse it accurately. Gathering and managing data manually from several systems gives you inconsistent results and takes away the much needed visibility of what’s happening in real-time.
Also, while your employees and contractors could be working on their next tasks, they are often stuck with entering duplicate data into different platforms, wasting precious working hours. If you add the risk of missed compliance actions or deadlines, you could be facing a real problem very soon.
Nowadays, working with online integrated systems is crucial for several tasks, including efficient risk assessments and property checks. It ensures smooth data connectivity and reduces the likelihood of errors, improving the internal workflow of your organisation and reducing risks for your tenants. Read on to find out how integrating your risk assessment software and communication platforms can improve your day-to-day tasks.
Click here to know more about how Riskhub can help.
1. Real-Time Visibility
Basing time-sensitive decisions on outdated information can have serious consequences. When your compliance tasks are not updated consistently, you run into unnecessary inaccuracies. It takes too long to go through this information manually, and in time, your team might start to neglect to analyse some data in order to focus on other, less time-consuming tasks, hindering the company’s efforts and increasing risk at the same time.
Constant data connectivity ensures all of your teams are well-informed and perform their tasks based on correct data, which can be accessed from anywhere at any time when using a cloud-based system. System integration minimises risks and enables you to make more intelligent decisions more rapidly and based on higher-quality information.
2. Improved Process Efficiency and Employee Satisfaction
Your data management processes can benefit from integrated systems in many ways. For instance, your employees can finally focus on their actual tasks instead of wasting time manually entering data into multiple systems your company uses. Non-value-added activities can also be eliminated and value-added ones are streamlined to reduce lag time and undesirable variation.
Having enhanced visibility on performance lets you work on the quality of your team and not on its size. Having your systems integrated and most of the processes in place and working helps you to reduce the necessity of hiring new employees and to focus on more important and challenging tasks that can help your company to grow and evolve.
Plus, when systems are managed more effectively, you start working towards having more satisfied employees, which can, in turn, result in enhanced company reputation, better talent attraction and recruitment cost savings.
3. Better Resource Deployment
Housing associations and councils work with a wide range of in-house teams and on-site contractors, so it’s key to manage all your resources effectively. Having a wealth of information from your risk assessments at your fingertips allows you to determine overall resource needs and enhance its allocation. You can be fully aware of what tasks need prioritising and what resources you’ll need in the short and longer terms, and it means all FRA actions are directed to the appropriate people and departments.
4. Valuable Data Collection
There is a reason why data is so popular nowadays and it is because it allows you to analyse every decision that your company makes and to detect every mistake. Having data centralised at one location and talking to other systems not only gives you more accurate results, but it also allows you to consider all possibilities, both positive and negative, and lets you identify new opportunities and challenges.
Also, in retrospect you can answer important questions like ‘What have we missed here?’ or ‘What have we left out?’ and creates an opportunity for improvement in the future. All data collected from all your properties is invaluable, but only if you know where it is, what you can do with it, and if it’s from a reliable, clean source.
5. Cost Savings
With integrated systems, cost saving benefits can be found at every phase of your business processes. However, the greatest benefit comes from making better and more informed decisions. Thanks to streamlining your tasks, you and your team can focus on new challenges and consider developing new skills which will allow your company to thrive.
Plus, there’s better capital allocation. Identifying the areas of attrition and wastefulness allows you to allocate all your resources more effectively.
Integrating your systems is a great way for your business to remain compliant and competitive. It helps you to meet the needs of your tenants and handle business processes better. It also allows you to analyse what you might be doing wrong and what is hindering your efforts. Without integration, it is impossible to gain accurate data, but thanks to API technology and automated data transfers, having your systems working together is no longer a problem. So what are you waiting for?
Click here to find out how Riskhub can help you. | https://medium.com/@riskhub/the-5-benefits-of-integrating-your-risk-assessment-software-and-communication-platforms-9add4f0ca579 | [] | 2020-12-14 11:00:53.482000+00:00 | ['Risk Assessment', 'Fire Safety', 'Housing', 'Compliance', 'Data Management'] |
Markets sitting at a key juncture on trade dispute uncertainty | Market Overview
There has been a shift in sentiment across major markets this week, driven by a growing sense of exasperation in the trade dispute. There has been a slide in the expectation that signing of “phase one” could be seen in 2019, whilst Trump’s talk about raising tariffs again has hit risk appetite. The attention will increasingly turn towards what the US does on 15th December, where tariffs are already slated to be increased. The situation is being further complicated by the US Congress passing a couple of bills that denounce China’s interference in Hong Kong. China is clearly unimpressed by this move and it is over to President Trump as to whether the bills are signed or vetoed. It is though interesting to see the safe havens not managing to sustain traction in the past 24 hours. The yen is not rampant, nor gold and nor the dollar. Markets are taking more of a holding pattern. There has been an initial reaction lower on equities as Wall Street closed lower for a second straight session. However, if bond yields begin to stabilise (tentative early signs today) then a trending move is unlikely. Markets are at an intriguing junction.
Wall Street closed broadly weaker with the S&P 500 -0.4% at 3108. With US futures another -0.2% lower today we have seen Asian markets lower ( Nikkei -0.5% and Shanghai Composite -0.3%). In Europe, the corrective momentum shows signs of continuing with FTSE futures -0.4% and DAX futures -0.6%. In forex, we see a very slight risk of negative bias but with negligible traction. In commodities, the rally on gold seems to have lost traction too, whilst oil is just edging back lower again after yesterday spike higher on EIA inventories.
There are a few more entries on the economic calendar than previous days this week, but it is still fairly light on key data. The UK public sector borrowing number for October is at 0930GMT and is expected to be £8.6bn (much higher than the £5.6bn in October 2018). The ECB monetary policy meeting accounts (minutes) are released at 1230GMT and focus will be on the potential splits in the Governing Council over easing measures. The US weekly jobless claims at 1330GMT are expected to drop back slightly to 219,000 (down from 225,000 which was the highest since late June). The Philly Fed Business Index at 1330GMT is expected to +7.0 (up from +5.6). The Eurozone Consumer Confidence at 1500GMT (flash reading for November) is expected to improve slightly to -7.3 (from -7.6 in October). US Existing Home Sales are expected to improve by +1.4% to 5.47m in October (from 5.38m in September).
Chart of the Day — French CAC
It has been a strong run higher on the French CAC, however, the bulls are on increasingly shaky ground. A trend higher of the past six weeks has now been broken as the market has formed a couple of negative candles followed by another close lower on Wednesday. This trend break comes with momentum indicators slipping back as the MACD lines bear cross lower. The RSI is sliding away and if there is a drop below 60 along with a Stochastics confirm a sell signal it would really be a sign of a loss of momentum in the bull run. An opening gap lower on Wednesday has been bear-filled and the corrective pressure is growing. Could 5966 (the highest traded level since August 2007) now be at least a near term high in place? Profit-taking is threatening and would grow if support at 5861 were to be breached on a closing basis. The hourly chart indicators deteriorating and increasingly correctively configured. The key support area is 5700/5737.
EUR/USD
The euro rally has run out of steam in recent sessions, but it is also notable that the dollar bulls have not managed to regain control either. The result has been that EUR/USD is consolidating around an old pivot band $1.1060/$1.1075. What is also notable is that momentum indicators have flattened off around their neutral points, with RSI and Stochastics around 50, and MACD lines almost entirely at zero. This consolidation is reflected in the hourly chart where the hourly RSI has oscillated between 35/65 for the past two days. Resistance is building between $1.1080/$1.1090 as the market searches for direction. Initial support at $1.1040/$1.1050 which is protecting the market from a slip back to the $1.0990 pivot again. However, we are increasingly neutral on EUR/USD between $1.0990/$1.1090.
GBP/USD
Whilst the sterling rally has tailed off in recent days, it is also interesting to see that there is a lack of dollar buying to drag Cable back. We retain our view that GBP/USD will be in consolidation for the run-up to the UK General Election, but for now, the market is holding up well. The resistance band $1.2975/$1.3010 is still the main barrier overhead, but the market is consolidating with a positive bias to momentum. Indicators are taking on an increasingly ranging configuration as both daily and hourly chart signals increasingly lack conviction. Yesterday’s perfect Doji candle (rare in forex) is another reflection of this and the moves today again lack conviction. As with the euro, this is a market beginning to need a catalyst again. Clearly the UK election and polling will have a say and need to be watched.
USD/JPY
The bulls managed to claw back from what had looked for much of yesterday’s session as a growing corrective outlook. The market held the key low at 108.25 in the end and a mildly positive candle has helped to stabilise what had threatened to be a negative outlook. Another look at the support early today in the Asian session has again held firm and whilst this support at 108.25 remains intact, there is still a mixed outlook. However, there is a growing neutral outlook now, having broken the 11-week uptrend. A failure at 109.05 earlier this week is bolstering the resistance between 109.00/109.50, and a nascent downtrend remains intact at 108.85. Momentum indicators are still drifting back to around their neutral points (at least on RSI and Stochastics) and moving averages all flattening. This is becoming a market in need of a catalyst again, with a breach of 108.25 support or above 109.05 resistance needed for direction.
Gold
The failure of gold to push ahead in its recovery momentum will come as a disappointment for the bulls. Even as safe-haven flows have begun to resume yesterday, the gold price closed lower and runs the risk that this tepid rally has already run out of steam. The band of overhead supply between $1474/$1480 has come in to act as a barrier to the recovery and yesterday’s high at $1279 is notable. Momentum indicators are tailing off in their recovery too and the small candlestick bodies show what a lack of conviction the market has over the past week and a half. We continue to see this recent move to be an unwinding rebound that helps to renew the downside potential for what we see as a medium-term correction. The resistance of the overhead supply around $1480 runs the potential that this is the extent of the rebound. Support at $1464 and $1458 protect $1445. Above $1494 would give the outlook an improving look.
WTI Oil
Oil spiked back higher on Wednesday on the EIA inventories data which showed lower than expected stockpiles. From a technical basis, this is a volatile period for oil, throwing up mixed signals. Yesterday’s strong bull candle cancelled out the technical implications of Tuesday’s strong bear candle. This is a situation where the dust needs to settle before we can pick up the true picture again. The 50% Fibonacci retracement (of $63.40/$51.00) is a gauge to watch and it was interesting that it came back in as resistance yesterday. There is a legacy of the trend channel breach from earlier in the week and if this channel is quickly breached again soon (by the market falling back again) then there will be a growing sense that the outlook is shifting negative again. Yesterday’s low at $54.75 is also a gauge of support.
Dow Jones Industrial Average
With the Dow closing decisively lower for a second consecutive session (something not seen for over six weeks) the market sits at a key junction. Is this a minor pullback within the bull run, or the start of a deeper correction? Given the propensity for the bulls to buy into weakness, there is not enough on the technicals yet to turn negative. There has been a reaction with RSI back under 70 (the most basic of sell signals) but Stochastics have only marginally turned back and similar on MACD. A six-week uptrend was breached intraday during yesterday’s decline, but not held into the close. The sellers will point to a bearish downside gap fill which gives rise to a potential near term pullback. We see the support of the medium-term breakout 27,310/27,399 as being a key buffer for any potential downside, whilst initial support is at 27,517/27,600. A pick up into the close of yesterday’s session suggests that the bulls still have an appetite in this market. With futures showing another negative open today, this appetite will be tested again. We see this as a minor near term pullback. | https://medium.com/hantec-global/markets-sitting-at-a-key-juncture-on-trade-dispute-uncertainty-effad2d53fb9 | ['Hantec Markets'] | 2019-11-21 08:50:22.061000+00:00 | ['Economy', 'Stock Market', 'Technical Analysis', 'Forex', 'Currency Trading'] |
Puri- A great Hindu pilgrimage in India | Puri- A great Hindu pilgrimage in India
Puri is the most popular city in eastern India that locates on the Bay of Bengal and 60 km away from Bhubaneswar. Jagannath Temple is the main attraction in Puri for which Puri is also known as Jagannath Puri. It has been said that Puri plays a very important role in Hindu pilgrimage as most of the people believe that religious journey is incomplete without visiting Puri. Puri is known as various other names that include Purusottama Kshetra, Neelachala, Neeladri etc.
The grand festival in Puri
The festival of Chariots, Rath Yatra attracts visitors from all over the world where people visit Puri just to be a part of this grand celebration. In the celebration, the idols, Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra are places in a chariot and are taken in a procession and again brought back to Jagannath Temple. During the month of July, this particular festival occurs and this is the time when the visitors come to experience this amazing festivals.
Tourists attractions in and around Puri
Puri is considered as one of seven most holy places in India where you can experience the myriad of temples. Though there are a lot more interesting places one can explore except Jagannath Temple in Puri. Balihar Temple, Chakra Tirtha Temple, Shree Gundicha Temple, Alarnath Temple etc are some of the notable temples you can visit through Puri tourism. Govardhan Math is one of the important places in Puri which will help you to feel more relaxed and calm and will take you always from daily stress.
After Jagannath Temple, The Puri Beach is an another attraction for visitors that also include Puri beach festival. You can capture some of the amazing scenic beauty of Puri beach. Some people also love to experience the breathtaking views of sun rise and sun set that make the Puri beach more unique and beautiful.
Apart from these places, one can also visit Balighai Beach, Raghurajpur, Swargadwar from Puri for a short trip.
Handicrafts are also very famous in Puri and you can get some of the most beautiful crafts made of seashells that signifies the traditional culture of Puri.
Best time to visit
Either you can visit from the month June to March or during winter season for a pleasant weather.
How to reach
By train — There is a direct railway service available in Puri from any other cities in India. From Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore etc one can get direct train.
By road- The roads are well-maintained so buses and cabs are available from any city in Odisha and Kolkata. If you are looking for the best cab option, then Wowcabs will be the best choice as Wowcabs are very popular in Odisha and Kolkata and they provide the most luxurious cab service at the cheapest price. You will get sanitized cabs at the best price. No cancellation charge or no extra charge will be included in the final bill.
By Air- The nearest airport is in Bhubaneswar, and this airport is connected to many other major airports in India. From Airport, you can pre-book Wowcabs so that you don’t have to pay any extra money on taxis or cabs. Wowcabs charge you the minimum money just based on the kilometers. | https://medium.com/@wowcabs.in/puri-a-great-hindu-pilgrimage-in-india-768534b98a67 | [] | 2020-12-01 09:35:55.922000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Journey', 'Tourism', 'India', 'Odisha'] |
Highlights from Peter DeSantis Keynote at re:Invent 2020 | Resilience between AWS and other cloud providers
AWS design its infrastructure in a resilient way, comparing to its competitors.
The fundamental concept Regions (physical location in the world made out of multiple Availability Zones)
AWS definition of Availability zone — “one or more discrete data centers, each with redundant power, networking, and connectivity, housed in separate facilities”.
Google Cloud Platform definition of zone as “a zone usually has power, cooling, networking, and control planes that are isolated from other zones”
References:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/aws-overview/global-infrastructure.html
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/regions-zones#choosing_a_region_and_zone
AWS Hardware announcements in 2020
On 2020, AWS announced the 4th generation of its Nitro architecture, which re-architected the traditional hypervisor crucial components (such as network, storage and even security) from the hypervisor itself, to dedicated set of hardware-based chips and software components.
Examples of Amazon EC2 instances supported by the Nitro architecture, announced on 2020:
Amazon EC2 C5a, Amazon EC2 C5ad, Amazon EC2 G4dn
On 2020, AWS also announced the 2nd generation of its Graviton processors (Graviton2), based on the 64-bit Arm architecture.
Examples on Amazon EC2 instances announced on 2020, based on Graviton2:
Amazon EC2 T4g, Amazon EC2 M6g, Amazon EC2 M6gd, Amazon EC2 C6gd, Amazon EC2 R6gd and even Amazon RDS instances based on Graviton2 — M6g, R6g and C6g.
The Graviton2 processors provides up to 40% better price/performance, as compared to 1st generation of the Graviton processors, enhanced performance for video encoding and hardware acceleration for compression workloads.
Each core of the AWS Graviton2 processor is a single-threaded vCPU, compared to Intel and AMD based EC2 instances where 2 vCPU (2 threads) equals single physical core. This provides more core and more power for running workloads, as shown during the keynote: | https://medium.com/@eyal-estrin/highlights-from-peter-desantis-keynote-at-re-invent-2020-67aa7718a11e | ['Eyal Estrin'] | 2020-12-13 18:59:19.241000+00:00 | ['Amazon Web Services', 'AWS', 'Announcements', 'Reinvent', 'Infrastructure'] |
Five Types of Creative Thinking | This is an outtake of my Master’s thesis on what role creative thinking plays when we think about the future. Part of this research was to go through a vast amount of literature on creative thinking, which I categorised into five main types of creative thinking:
Much of the management research and general literature combines these five types into one type, simply called ‘creative thinking’. This is based on old bi-polar concepts such as right vs. left-brain thinking or rational vs. intuitive thinking. So that’s why we often hear that a person is either a right-brain or a left-brain thinker, or have either a creative or a logical personality. That can certainly be useful sometimes. But much of the research around creativity paints a more nuanced picture.
There are similarities and correlations between the five clusters, and instead of five, I could have picked ten. Another challenge in my study was that much of the literature on creativity is based on personal stories, which makes any classification difficult as it can never be proven whether different accounts of creativity and creative thinking are referring to the same experiences for different people.
1. Divergent thinking
“The work of art is the exaggeration of the idea”.
– André Gide
The American psychologist J.P. Guilford was the first who proposed that an element of divergence is involved in the creative process. He made a distinction between convergent and divergent production, which he also called convergent and divergent thinking.
Divergent thinking is the process of thought where a person uses flexibility, fluency and originality to explore as many solutions or options to a problem or issue as possible. It is the opposite of convergent thinking, which has the characteristic to focus on only one idea or single solution.
Brainstorming is a typical example of divergent thinking, where “downloading” or emptying the brain of a certain topic takes place. This technique is however limited in that it builds on releasing the ideas that are already stored in a person’s brain, and not to generate any new ideas.
Other tools for divergent thinking are for instance to assume that something known for certain is false, or to explore ideas that cause discomfort.
2. Lateral thinking
“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”
– Edward De Bono
Creativity researcher Edward De Bono came up with the term lateral thinking in 1967 to “distinguish between artistic creativity and idea creativity”. The term was invented as an alternative to step-by-step thinking, so-called vertical thinking, which is justified with sequential steps based on logic.
Lateral thinking can be used for generation of new ideas and problem solving as it by definition leaves the already-used behind and looks for completely new options. This type of thinking is based on avoiding the intrinsic limitations in the brain, which rapidly sees patterns and handles information in a distinctive way, where long thought sequences are not broken up once formed. Instead, lateral thinking tools and techniques can be used to restructure and escape such “clichéd” patterns and think “outside the box”.
Lateral thinking is related to divergent thinking, as discussed above. Both have the purpose to break out of habitual ways of thinking. Both falls “outside the box”, but divergent thinking is still sequential in that it follows on an earlier thought, while lateral thinking has no direct connection to an earlier thought.
If rational or vertical thinking is described as following the most likely path; divergent thinking is following an extreme path, while lateral thinking is following the least likely path.
3. Aesthetic thinking
“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child”.
– Pablo Picasso
The philosophy of aesthetics concerns the creation and appreciation of art and beauty. Taste is also a key concept here and the study of for instance form, colour and shape can augment a person’s aesthetic thinking.
This type of thinking involves producing or discovering things, which are pleasant, harmonious and beautiful to our senses. It is an ancient form of thinking within us humans, and can be learned by anyone.
Some of the types of aesthetic thinking are visual and spatial, where knowledge of structure, composition, colour schemes and shapes can be used to make things aesthetically pleasing. Many architects, designers, painters and other aesthetic thinkers through the ages have been fascinated with mathematical characteristics of aesthetics, and how patterns, ratios and proportions found in nature can be represented by numbers and also in creative pursuits. Music, drama and other forms of culture can also be considered aesthetic thinking, where tempo, dramaturgy, rhythm, melody and other structural elements are applied to make output beautiful and harmonious.
Scientific formulas themselves can also be considered beautiful, and many chemists, physicists and mathematicians consider their work elegant and aesthetic. Many aspects of storytelling can also be included in this category, as this “art” is based on dramaturgic elements, pace, a well-crafted dialogue, etc.
It is however important to emphasize that this type of creative thinking might be enough to build a story, but in order to create a great work of art, other types of creative thinking are needed too. The same goes for all work, which is built on aesthetic thinking. A person will not become a great artist only by going to art school.
4. Systems thinking
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while”.
– Steve Jobs
Systems thinking can be described as the ability to see how things are interrelated and form a larger “whole”. Some people seem to be able to perceive such links more easily than others, to “connect the dots” and understand that if one thing is changed, the whole system will change.
There are a number of different principles for a ‘systems thinking approach‘; some of which are interdependence of objects, holism (emergent properties not possible to detect by analysis but possible to define by a holistic approach) and hierarchy (complex wholes are made up of smaller subsystems).
A foundational aspect of systems thinking is the synthesis of several elements into one, which transcends the significance of the sum of the two independent elements.
Systems thinking is closely related to aesthetic thinking, as mentioned above, in that synthesis and making things “whole” and perfect, somehow is related to elegance and beauty. It is also closely related to the next type of thinking — inspirational thinking.
5. Inspirational thinking
“I was living in a little flat at the top of a house and I had a piano by my bed. I woke up one morning with a tune in my head and I thought, ‘Hey, I don’t know this tune — or do I?’ It was like a jazz melody. My dad used to know a lot of old jazz tunes; I thought maybe I’d just remembered it from the past. I went to the piano and found the chords to it, made sure I remembered it and then hawked it round to all my friends, asking what it was: ‘Do you know this? It’s a good little tune, but I couldn’t have written it because I dreamt it”. – Paul McCartney recounting how he wrote the song “Yesterday” in early 1964
This type of creative thinking concerns the perception of receiving insights from somewhere or someone else. It often happens in dreams or other states, but sometimes in extremely powerful, rapid bursts of clarity and focus, known as light-bulb moments or peak experiences.
Some researchers call these breakthrough insights higher creativity. Compared to normal creative outputs, these seem to take a quantum leap beyond what can be achieved with other types of thinking. These extraordinary experiences, when everything seems to make sense in one instant moment, have been called poetic imagination, revelation and sometimes channelling. The last word indicates the belief that someone else is involved and the person with the breakthrough insight is simply a medium for the collective unconscious or a higher spirit.
Inspirational thoughts are something valuable, which needs to be noticed, recorded and put to use. This is clearly illustrated in the example of Paul McCartney above. He had a piano next to his bed, immediately found the chords, but also asked his friends for feedback. Countless personal experiences of this kind have been reported, but they are hard to measure with scientific rigour, as they are very difficult to generate at will. | https://medium.com/@adamjorlen/five-types-of-creative-thinking-3f734a427f7c | ['Adam Jorlen'] | 2020-06-17 07:59:19.212000+00:00 | ['Systems Thinking', 'Innovation', 'Creative Process', 'Thinking', 'Creativity'] |
Learn about shungite, a powerful healing rock | Everyone’s talking about the Corona virus, Covid-19, information/misinformation, face masks, hoarding bleach, disinfectants, and how to avoid contacting this pandemic virus.
The stock market is falling like the crumbling stones of an ancient wall.
That got me thinking about rocks. I love rocks as much as I love seashells.
Rocks from the beach, the desert, the mountains-I bring a rock or two home with me on every visit to Angel Boy 2.0. I’ve conditioned him to look for rocks for me, “Here’s a really special one, Grandma! This one’s for you!”
On our last day together, we walked on the beach at Golden Gardens right on the Salish Sea, and he found a small perfectly round, extremely white stone. In an awed tone, he exclaimed, “This is the most amazing rock EVER. I’m going to keep it ’til I’m as old as YOU, Grandma!” (Thanks for that, little buddy lol.) Something about that white quartz touched his little soul and that touched my soul. As soon as we got home, he showed it to mom and dad and placed it on the window sill in his bedroom– a treasure. That’s a boy after my own heart, that’s for sure. The apple (stone) didn’t fall too far from the tree.
But I love other kinds of rocks too; amethyst and carnelian, selenite, kyanite, rose quartz, all the varieties that are attributed with extraordinary and spiritual powers. I gave crystals to DIL before birthing the babies. She loves them too, I’m happy to report.
Since I also love shiny things, I was attracted to a new rock I never before heard of called shungite, and it has an old and fascinating history.
Shungite is approximately two billion years old. It was formed before there was known life on earth, deep within the earth’s crust. The main deposit of shungite comes from the Zazhoginskoye deposit near Lake Onega in the Shunga region of Karelia, North West of Russia. Shungite is composed of mostly carbon and as we know, carbon forms the building blocks of life.
There are claims that it’s an extraordinarily positive stone and using it may bring a variety of good fortune as well as health benefits. Shungite contains fullerenes, which are powerful antioxidents and specifically thought to protect us against the dangers of EMFs.
Fullerenes are a newly discovered (1985) form of carbon which was previously only known to exist as diamond, graphite, or coal. They’re named after Buckminster Fuller, the American architect who designed geodesic domes which resemble spherical fullerenes in appearance.
Shungite is a stone of transformation with a huge list of amazing benefits, and because of its nature and composition, it’s unlike any other stone on the planet.
“Shungite cures, rescues, purifies, heals, protects, normalizes, restores and even stimulates the growth. It kills and devours anything that harms people and other living beings, and concentrates and restores all that is good. The scholars who have studied Shungite in one voice declare, it is a miracle! “ — A. Doronina “Shungite — the Stone-Savior”
Following are some of the benefits of shungite:
Assists in evolving spiritually
Restores emotional balance
Powerful protective stone — shields the wearer from negative energies of all kinds, including psychic protection
Removes negative energies and thoughts
Shields from harmful electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) from cell phones, computers, Wi-Fi, cell towers, TVs, etc.
Provides healing on all levels: mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual.
Cell rejuvenation
Cleanses and purifies water and adds beneficial minerals
Catalyst for growth and transformation
Increases personal power
Raises vibration
Grounds energies to the earth
Promotes positivity
Clears and balances aura and chakras
Enhances metaphysical abilities
Boosts energy
Normalizes sleep
Clears, activates, and aligns ALL chakras
EMF Protection — We’re bombarded by WiFi and electromagnetic frequencies 24/7; these disrupt our energetic field and negatively affect the cells in our body, leaving us feeling drained, mentally foggy, and out of balance. Shungite has been proven to neutralize EMFs.
Antiseptic — Shungite also has antiseptic properties. Russian Tsar, Peter the Great instructed his troops to each carry a piece of shungite to purify their drinking water. Allegedly, enemy forces succumbed to dysentery while the Russian troops remained strong because of the shungite advantage.
In addition to keeping a piece of shungite in our bedroom and near us when we’re on the computer or our cell phones, I found a simple recipe for Shungite Water that I’m going to try tonight.
Shungite Water — My cursory Google research reveals a recommendation to drink at least 2–3 glasses of shungite-infused water daily to heal or prevent digestive, muscular, or nervous system illness and to increase circulation. Daily use of shungite water to wash face or body improves elasticity of skin and gives it a healthy look. Hey, I’ll try ANYTHING to slow down the hands of time and reduce wrinkles!
Here’s what I did: so simple…I took my piece of shungite, placed it in a glass and used filtered water. I’ll leave it overnight and start drinking it tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe a miracle will occur and I’ll shed twenty or thirty years. Fingers crossed, right?
Have you heard of shungite?
Do you believe in the power of crystals and rocks?
What are your faves? | https://medium.com/@enchantedcshel/learn-about-shungite-a-powerful-healing-rock-a7e5219ea587 | ['Enchanted Seashells Princess Rosebud'] | 2020-03-04 03:37:06.912000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Energy Healing Crystals', 'Shungite', 'Rocks'] |
Breathing new life into the damaged environment | NaturTrust | Breathing new life into the damaged environment
The President of the General Assembly (Ecuador) warned in 2019 that we are the last generation that can take concrete actions to effectively reverse the damage done to our environment.
Decades of Industrialisation has led to heavy emission of Greenhouse Gases ( 50 billion tons per year on average). Carbon Dioxide produced from burning of fossil fuels combined with plastic pollution from microplastics and single use plastics has led to erosion of natural resources and depletion of the natural environment.
If we are to sustain healthy human life on this planet and overcome the damage done to the environment, a mindful and thoroughly macro-approach is the need of the hour. This would translate into taking a series of actions towards a more sustainable and eco friendly approach pertaining to various aspects of human life.
Innovative alternatives to fossil fuel
“Experts suggest that it is time to revisit dated yet less damaging alternatives to fossil fuels.”
Before fossil fuels became readily available during the industrial revolution, biomass and other natural materials were the popular fuels of choice. Experts suggest that it is time to revisit these dated yet less damaging alternatives to fossil fuels, much like how biodegradable plastics are made utilising naturally decomposable materials. For example Biomass which is used to make biodegradable plastics includes wood, animal and plant by-products. Additionally, automobile, fashion, FMCG, and even mechanic based industries are trying to harness the power of nature to create large-scale clean energy and new developments are being observed very frequently.
Giving Biodegradable Plastics a chance:
“ Switching from traditional plastic to biodegradable and compostable plastic can greatly accelerate the initiative to save the environment. “
It is no surprise that the planet is over littered with plastic with an ongoing struggle to accommodate its waste in landfills. Switching from traditional plastic to biodegradable and compostable plastic can greatly accelerate the initiative to save the environment. Biodegradable plastics are either made with natural biomass or have the molecular structure to break down and decompose completely, leaving no traces of microplastics behind which otherwise result from usage of traditional plastics. Biodegradable plastics also use less fossil fuels like oil to produce and hence are a much more sustainable option in the long run.
Effective Waste Management:
“Rising popularity of biodegradable and compostable plastics can be attributed to easier and cost effective ways to dispose of their waste.”
Effective Waste Management: While waste management may not be an obvious factor, it surely is an important one in determining the health of the environment. Once pollutants like greenhouse gases and microplastics enter the environment, it hinders human life and has detrimental effects on our breathing and overall well being. Effective waste management can greatly curb these negative implications as all the waste is either recycled or decomposed into water and biomass. This is also one of the reasons for the rising popularity of biodegradable and compostable plastics since it is much easier and cost effective to dispose of their waste.
Accountability for corporate social responsibility: “The HORECA industry is now embracing biodegradable plastic as an alternative to traditional plastic.”
Accountability for corporate social responsibility: By holding corporations responsible for their business choices and having sustainability regulations in place, governments can ensure the environmental wellbeing in their respective territories. The cycle of demands and supply will create a more environmentally conscious breed of entrepreneur and client which will result in an immediate shift in the health of our environment. For example: the HORECA industry is now embracing biodegradable plastic as an alternative to traditional plastic. To ensure these ethical practices further, production and sales of biodegradable plastics are regulated and certified by centralised bodies in most countries.
Investing in reusable and recyclable resources: Biodegradable plastics are a leading example of why it’s worthwhile to invest in reusable and recyclable resources.
Once biodegradable plastic breaks down completely, the leftovers are used by industries as compost on a large scale. Further, biomass is used for reproduction of biodegradable plastics or other projects, thus facilitating a zero waste cycle with low carbon footprint.
Perhaps other innovations in the sustainability sectors can look at biodegradable plastics as a benchmark to creating new solutions that help in restoring the environment. | https://medium.com/@naturtrust/breathing-new-life-into-the-damaged-environment-naturtrust-28a35e612ca1 | [] | 2021-07-09 09:26:11.494000+00:00 | ['Green World', 'Pollution', 'Eco Friendly Products', 'Ecosystem'] |
Avoid ‘Victim Wanna Be’ People | This kind of people are dangerous for our mental health
Unsplash (@/belart84)
We are born as a social creature, no matter we are introvert or how much we avoid to be distracted from the world. Human always needs others to make their life colourful also meaningful. But life will not run smoothly. Solitude is bliss when we want to make a precious craft. But why is there a quote like this? ‘Loneliness can kill people’ or ‘Loneliness can affect our mental health’.
Sometimes we will find the obstacles then maybe some people make us upset and feeling miserable. Dead end, abandoned, guilty are the normal feelings may occur. In one case, we may be a victim but in another case that I have found is some people showing off their suffer to obtain another sympathy for their own sake.
I call the people who take advantage of another sympathy as ‘the victim wannabe’ people. It is normal to use a mask to hide our truth, but according to me, it is bad if we use it to reap many benefits without thinking about the side effect. Who is ‘the victim wannabe’? I describe it below based on my own experience.
They will praise us often than asking for many things
We like to be loved and admired. This kind of ‘the victim wannabe’ people will praise for our achievement although it is not a huge success. Slowly, they look as our supporter. Then, they start to ask our help, pretending they cannot do it alone and we will feel guilty if we want to refuse their asking. They place themselves as the one who needs helps in every single time.
Every relationship needs mutual consideration. Giving and giving is the best way to nurture our friendship, romance, and so on. If it is a one-sided relationship, it will kill someone who is in the position as a giver. The taker will get whatever they want with their selfish heart.
They are blamer
Maybe we have heard those kinds of complaint from the victim wannabe person, ”I was dumped because of her/him. She is a liar.” And “I fail because my parents never allow me to do this task. I lost my concentration to finish it properly.” A complaint is not wrong, but it becomes a problem if they invite us to hate the people who they blame. They repeat it continuously.
When we have a misunderstanding with this kind of people, they will reject to talk wisely then we will become the next wrong person. They will blame us and shouting to the crowd that we cause the troubles.
The best thing that we can do is leaving them and limit the frequency to talk or connect. But if we should work with these annoying people, be professional but keep our eye to detect their real intention. Don’t give 100% trust to them.
Hothead and selfish
The difficult thing is the victim wannabe person will never recognize that they are annoying. They think as the good one and force another to believe in their opinion. Hothead and selfish. Manipulation is their best trait.
So if you meet or knowing the three characters of the victim wannabe, please beware! It is better not to stay close. Don’t be too kind and too permissive. We can make a friend without thinking who they are, but we should know who can treat us as a good friend sincerely or not. | https://medium.com/light-mind/avoid-victim-wanna-be-people-a52ef5549f8a | ['Reffi Dhinar'] | 2020-12-13 13:36:23.269000+00:00 | ['Self Love', 'Self Improvement', 'Opinion', 'Courage'] |
How I Sold More Membership Cards Than Any Other Store Clerk | How I Sold More Membership Cards Than Any Other Store Clerk
The exact scripts to use
Photo by Christiann Koepke on Unsplash
In 2007, when I was a 17-year-old sales assistant in a clothing store, I sold more store cards than entire store ‘clusters’ put together.
A cluster, in this example, was all of the staff in all of the stores for each area — competing against me. So I wasn’t just first, I was so far ahead that the company itself actually asked me to re-train its sales assistants on my technique.
After it became immoral to sell people into retail credit-agreements (post-2008), these skills transitioned into my other ventures of sales and marketing. Less used for selling ‘finance’ or ‘payment plans’ and instead focusing on making products look, sound, and feel more attractive to buyers.
You see, marketing is sales. Marketing is the efforts you make to create, support, or close the sale. Today, I’m going to tell you exactly what it was that helped me do so well, so in turn, you can use these tactics in your own careers too. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/how-i-sold-more-membership-cards-than-any-other-store-clerk-3166376576a2 | ['Geraint Clarke'] | 2020-08-11 17:05:53.527000+00:00 | ['Sales', 'Business', 'Startup', 'Marketing', 'Psychology'] |
"Role of communication skills in professional life." | "Role of communication skills in professional life."
Introduction:
Once a genius man said: "Words once printed have a life of their own." Communication means how do you interact with people around you. It's a pattern of exchanging information that might be valid or worthless. One can not live and survive alone. Human is a social animal and communication act as food for his deprived soul.
Importance:
When it comes to professional life, the importance of communication skills increases to a greater latitude. If you don't know the art of communication, your chances to endure society's pressure degrade to a dangerous level. Upgrade yourself according to the needs and increase your demand in every market.
Most influential ways to communicate:
In our professional life, we come across a lot of people. They have a different attitude and personality. It will help if you are smart enough to come to the level where you understand the person's mindset in the front. Leave your comfort zone and enters into the comfort zone of the person you are interacting with.
Choose your words wisely. They either build your personality or destroy it. Don't be rude to anyone. Always adopt a positive and natural tone of the conversation. Show professionalism with every aspect. Silly and Childish behavior in professional life is not acceptable at all.
Try to avoid useless discussions. Constructively, utilize your time. Adopt optimistic changes from society and flee away from the pessimistic zone.
Benefits of effective communication:
Effective communication highlight the positive gesture of your personality. People become more curious about you. They love to enjoy a constant shower of your company. They value your opinion and take an interest in your general gossips.
Moreover, it is really helpful to develop your career by learning powerful communication skills. You can groom yourself in the practical field. It's better to play in the ground where you know the condition of the pitch.
Challenges due to poor communication:
Poor communication skills reduce your confidence to a dangerous level. It is the biggest barrier in the smooth flow toward victory. You become surrounded by negative thoughts that reduce your working stamina. Tension and anxiety become a common issue. People misunderstand you as you didn't properly deliver your point of view. It highly reduces your worth.
Conclusion:
Good communication skills are mandatory in all walks of life. If you want to move ahead in the prosperous journey of professional life, start working at your weak points. Just throw away all the bad habits that stop you from moving forward. The role of useful communication skills can not be denied in any way. So it's better to leave arguments and make a better choice of learning. | https://medium.com/@farzanakousar164/role-of-communication-skills-in-professional-life-decfed762080 | ['Munazza Batool'] | 2020-12-25 13:33:08.652000+00:00 | ['Positive Thinking', 'Professional Life', 'Communication Skills', 'Rules', 'Way Of Life'] |
How does a Real-Time Face Recognition work with OpenCV? | An eazy code from eazy ciphers
Are you keen to learn about the implementation of Real-Time Face recognition? Here eazy ciphers came with an innovative and eazy way to run a simple Real-Time Face Recognition code where you can predict the face of an individual.
When I talk about the real-time you might get confused about what I am going to discuss here it’s nothing but the implementation of the model which detects faces that appeared on the webcam.
If you want Hands-on experience on this model then go ahead and step forward in its implementation.
In day to day life, facial recognition became a part of the things. So, here is a quick example of Real-Time face recognition before getting into the topic.
When you start registering your face for a smart lock in your phone, tablet, or laptop it asks for the person’s real-time image to capture and that is stored in the database for further clarifications in recognition of that particular person.
This process of approach is done through many iterative ways of prediction with the input image. Similarly, Real-time face recognition works with the implementation of the OpenCV framework python.
These together packed in one combo level to implement a model for the Real-Time purpose. | https://medium.com/eazy-ciphers/how-does-a-real-time-face-recognition-work-with-opencv-ddd4c1cd4b43 | ['Eazy Ciphers'] | 2020-08-20 13:38:15.201000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Face Recognition', 'Opencv Python', 'Deep Learning'] |
Unraveling the power of Headless browser with Puppeteer | Being a web developer, I spend half of my day in a browser.
Browser to me is always something I see, with all the layouts, forms, developers tools etc. When I got to know about the Headless browser I started to dig deeper on it. Turns out it’s such a powerful thing that I have been unaware of all these years. It fascinated me so much that it brought me here to do some write ups. But before moving ahead let’s know what a headless browser is;
A headless browser is a web browser without a graphical user interface. It provides automated control of a web page in an environment similar to popular web browsers, but are executed via a command-line interface.
Simply, it just means there’s no graphical user interface(GUI). But what’s the point of a browser without a GUI? Here we go!
We can unravel the power of headless browser with many different tools, but I am here with Puppeteer.
With Puppeteer we will be taking a screenshot of a web browser, generate PDF of a web page and automate a form submission headlessly. But what exactly is Puppeteer?
Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control Chrome or Chromium over the DevTools Protocol. Puppeteer runs headless by default, but can be configured to run full (non-headless) Chrome or Chromium.
TLDR;
Let’s start by setting up headless chrome and puppeteer assuming that the node environment has already been set up in your device.
mkdir puppeteer-project
cd puppeteer-project
yarn
yarn add puppeteer
Okay, now that we are all set and configured, let us begin by taking a screenshot of the website! Create an index.js file inside puppeteer-project directory with following code
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer'); (async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://facebook.com');
await page.screenshot({path: 'facebook.png'});
console.log('Screenshot saved!'); await browser.close();
})();
We will then run this file with node and check the puppeteer-project the folder where our screenshot facebook.png will be saved.
node index.js
Great! You have screenshot the browser window, but you might be thinking it’s cropped out? I bet you did. You can set the viewpoint in puppeteer as follows:
page.setViewport({width: 2000, height: 2000});
How about generating a pdf for the same page, not much of a big deal. We’ll use the browser’s pdf method to execute it. So, now in index.js instead of using the screenshot method we’ll use the pdf method as follows:
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer'); (async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://facebook.com', {waitUntil: 'networkidle2'});
await page.pdf({path: 'facebook.pdf', format: 'A4'}); await browser.close();
})();
Run the file again to see facebook.pdf inside our folder. I discovered puppeteer while searching for packages or tools to download content from the web in as pdf for the application (Mero Resume) we made for a Hackathon.
Lastly, automating form submission. Since we are working with facebook.com let’s try to log in to facebook headlessly.
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer'); (async () => { const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
const email = '[email protected]' await page.setViewport({ width: 2000, height: 2000});
await page.goto('https://www.facebook.com', { waitUntil: 'networkidle2' }); await page.type('#email', email)
await page.type('#pass', '*********') // enter your password here
await page.click('input[type="submit"]');
await page.waitForNavigation({ waitUntil: 'domcontentloaded' });
page.screenshot({ path: 'loggedIn.png' }); })();
Check the loggedIn.png to see your logged-in homepage. Like this, we can automate any form submission. I mostly use this while I have to register a new user frequently for testing purpose. You can try this in any other forms and if you want to see what’s happening under the hood you can launch puppeteer in a browser window like below:
const browser = await puppeteer.launch(({ headless: false }));
These are a few things we can do with Puppeteer, you can discover more cool things and not to forget there are many other tools and frameworks to automate browsers like Selenium which supports browsers other than Chrome. Do try it if you haven’t already. :) | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/unraveling-the-power-of-headless-browser-with-puppeteer-eb585a2ee393 | ['Nishla Shakya'] | 2019-09-18 10:06:02.499000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'JavaScript', 'Puppeteer', 'Web Development', 'Automated Testing'] |
Join the world’s largest birthday party! | To celebrate our first year of existence, we’re adding another 1.7 million tokens into a new bounty competition! As part of our continuing bounty campaign, we will reward the top 2,000 bounty hunters with an additional 1,700,000 tokens.
This is coming right after the epic success of our initial bounty campaign and demonstrates that we’re not resting on our laurels. On the contrary, we aim to remain as close as possible to our eager bounty hunters. Our newest competition will be done both as an expression of gratitude for the massive interest shown in our initial bounty campaign, and as a way of celebrating our first year with the community. The Bethereum B-day Party Bounty will be just one part of our upcoming celebration, the aim of which is to express a big thank you to our loyal community!
We’ve seen first-hand how gamification elements were well received among our bounty hunters. By changing the entire bounty campaign into one big contest, we’re mirroring the gamified nature of our betting platform. The competitive element reflects the very nature of betting itself. Our bounty campaign is perfectly representative of Bethereum — successful, fun and engaging, with big rewards for those who are unafraid of competing!
The Bethereum B-Day Party Bounty ends on the 10th of April and on this day, we will distribute the token in accordance to everyone’s rank. To promote some healthy competition, we are going to reward more tokens to those higher up on the leaderboard.
Further details:
We’re very excited about having created an effective and sustainable bounty campaign, and we hope that our newest contest will be met with a similar level of enthusiasm and interest from our bounty hunters. | https://medium.com/bethereum/join-the-worlds-largest-birthday-party-adfda5bef815 | ['Sarah Weiss'] | 2018-09-12 00:31:38.262000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto', 'Updates', 'Bitcoin'] |
How to Improve Your Job Interview Skills? | Getting a secured job in a good organization is that everyone dreams of. To get your desired job, you need to proceed through some phases of interview sessions. Giving an interview is all about how you present yourself in front of your employers. You resume screens all your qualification along with your skills. Now you have to show your talent, personality, and enthusiasm to your employers so that they can positively keep their eyes on you. One thing you should keep in mind that your first impression is your last impression. To grasp the attention of the employers, you should improvise your job interview skills.
Being eye-catchy in the interview session is necessary for earning your dream job. Thus, you need to ensure some necessary tips to boost your interview skills up. The below points will illustrate the tips.
• Develop your communication skills: The main element that can improve your job interview skills is communication skills. You should develop both your verbal and non-verbal skills up to snatch the attention of the employers. To improve your verbal communication skills, you can practice answering the typical interview questions that can be asked for the post you have been applied for or selected. Being confident and providing a positive approach can screen you improved non-verbal skills.
• Dress properly: Dress sense plays a vital role to advance your job interview skills. You should maintain the dress code of the company. Research properly about the company’s dress code. Besides, you need to wear a decent dress properly that makes you presentable and approachable as well.
• Listen to your employers carefully: Another vital step to be taken for uplifting your job interview skills is that you have to listen to your employers carefully. When your employers will be illustrating their company or your job role, you need to listen to them properly. Even, you can ask them questions related to their company or the position you are seeking. It can screen you interesting for the designation to the eyes of your employers.
• Talk decently: To improve your job interview skills, you should talk decently to your employers. Talk to the points. Do not show yourself loquacious. You should be confident while talking to employers.
One thing you should keep in mind that you should make yourself presentable. The tips described above will surely help you immensely to upgrade your job interview skills. | https://medium.com/@developers_33307/how-to-improve-your-job-interview-skills-9cb560283ff1 | ['Interview Expert'] | 2020-02-07 12:12:49.771000+00:00 | ['Skills', 'Interview', 'Job Interview', 'Interview Tips', 'Interview Skills'] |
How do I blog? | This series of 8 common rookie mistakes will definitely help you.
Blogging is more than just a hobby. It helps to revitalize your website, enhance your professional image in your industry and increase interaction with your visitors. Are these points not enough to convince you to write a blog?
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
You’ve understood the benefits of blogging, you’ve done your research on the topic, your keyboard is ready, you have your writing ideas in mind, and you’re about to start coding. But wait just a little longer! Dash this and some other common mistakes we all make when blogging to introduce. If we don’t keep an eye out for the mistakes we walk into, we may pay the price for it. Since our predecessors have already accumulated some experiences and lessons, let’s learn from history and bypass these detours.
Don’t make up the word count.
For many magazine or newspaper columnists, pay by the word count of their articles is a standard way of calculating pay. But blogging for your own website is a different story. We write blogs because we want to provide valuable information to our readers, and just because a blog post is longer doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best, and it’s important to keep in mind that a blog post is fine if it conveys information clearly and explains a point of knowledge. Therefore, don’t write for the sake of writing, and don’t think of what to write, don’t wait until the “emergency brake” to find out that you have gone off-topic, but should be clear thinking, understand the point you want to make, and grasp the size and fire, when to slow-cook and steam, and when to braise and stir-fry, so that the article written is to the audience’s taste. Remember: just get to the point.
High-quality blog posts are all about concise language. If you can express your thoughts clearly in 200 words, there’s no need to write quite a short story in words. In addition, most people tend to talk about themselves in everyday conversations; it’s inherent in their genes. The same is true in website blogs, where many people often write about things that relate to them. While expressing personal feelings isn’t a bad thing, there’s a problem if we’re telling our own stories all the time. Remember that a blog is for the reader and should be reader-centric. In other words, you need to love your readers as much as you love yourself, and even give them more attention and love.
Don’t settle for an “okay” headline!
The title is the face of the article, and we all want the title to be “multi-skilled”: simple, powerful, user-friendly, and immediately attention-grabbing. However, the competition for potential users’ attention is brutal and fraught with difficulty, and we may need to compete with “Cat Dancing on the Piano” or “Rainbow Cute Cat Sneezes”. Boring headlines will only remind readers of last year’s tax assessment report and will make the blog less valuable. But let’s also note that it’s best that the blog’s title isn’t too gorgeous and shiny like an elevator billboard either, and too much of a title can be counterproductive.
The title of the blog should ideally be attractive. It should be descriptive and appealing, so short that search engines like Google and Baidu can retrieve it in no time. An easy way to come up with a golden headline is to use the magic formula: Get Answers = User Desire / Cost to Pay.
Here the “user desire” is a generalization, is not the same, stimulate the user to read the motivation can use the question method, the method of suspense, such as “the website” to add images? This principle is so surprising! In the event that you’ve read so many articles, but still do not do well in operation, the query helps to stimulate curiosity.
And reduce the desire to “pay the cost” is to reduce the user’s time, energy or money, then we can use the keyword method, data method, such as “dry goods” share, five can effectively increase the user conversion rate techniques, let the customer buy! The data is obvious in the article, “These 8 Ways to Easily Eliminate Your Fear of KPIs”, and the keywords “quick improvement” and “easy elimination” are very attractive to visitors. So, a successful title is one that increases the user’s “desire” and lowers the “cost” of acquiring that desire, so think of a good title for your blog post.
Don’t neglect the abstract
Do you remember the theme song to Journey to the West? Lampden Waiting for the Light ~ Just play these four beats and everyone knows it’s a western. This is the summary of the song. The summary, from the very first word of this blog post, shows the writing style, and thus determines the tone of the entire post. It’s as if you heard “Leng Deng Waiting for the Light” and at least expected an upbeat, fast-paced song.
Today’s readers are fast readers, they won’t give you a second chance, and if the abstract is compelling and worth their time, they will read it immediately. On the other hand, if your abstract looks lacklustre and uninteresting at first glance, readers will probably toss it aside immediately.
Don’t Overestimate or Underestimate Readers
On the one hand, don’t overestimate your readers. Unless your blog is discussing academic research about quantum mechanics, you’re better off keeping your site light and easy to understand. Also, if you’ve recently learned how to take left-handed photography in Romania, don’t let your readers get annoyed by the name of the place, but if it’s not particularly important, then omit it if you can. Only the extremely targeted out-of-the-box bloggers can use crepe language or technical jargon without losing more than half of their readers yet, but that’s not easy for everyone to do.
On the other hand, don’t underestimate your readers. Readers aren’t looking for “something like a glass of warm milk” or “a Mickey Mouse that wants to be hugged”. Since they chose to read your blog, you need to know that they are smart, intelligent and educated people, so treating them as equals is the most important and easiest rule in writing, right? Go write some general human-level blog posts, consider the target readership of your blog, and imagine that you are talking to a colleague, a friend, or a family member.
Don’t forget the important links
Think of your blog post as a newly established community on top of an island. Each hyperlink set up in the text is like a bridge, a new rail line or even a cheap and reliable route off the island in case of a bad situation. In short, a hyperlink is your link to the outside world. Hyperlinks can improve your website’s SEO ranking, improve its readability, and can be used to cite other people’s material to enrich and embellish your own posts.
In addition, online readers are used to interactivity and like to jump from this page to that one, paying attention to interesting side footnotes, so if your blog can provide a similar user experience, that’s great.
Errors in spelling, semantics, etc.
Spelling mistakes may be most likely to make the reader feel that you are reckless and unprofessional. We all make mistakes, but it is important to know to correct them. Nowadays, we all use modern tools like office, WPS, and other text tools that have automatic error correction set up inside, but there are some mistakes that they can’t find. Don’t let those low-level mistakes like spelling ruin your well-constructed blog post. Oh, and by the way, illogical sentences and words that appear without a clue are equally unwelcome.
Been staring at your computer for so long coding yourself that you can’t stand to stare at the computer screen anymore? It’s okay to send the text to a family member or friend so they can help you look at it. Different people may have a different perspective when reading the text and be more sensitive when checking for spelling and other errors.
Share the blog
Sharing is a way to show that you care about your readers. Readers don’t set reminder alarms for when you update your blog, nor do they search the site in order to find your posts. Even if you already have a small “fan base” of people who like your posts, you still have to market and promote your blog. The social buttons at the bottom of your blog page are not for show; remember to use them.
Share your blog on multiple channels. It’s time to sign up for an account on LinkedIn or another social platform that will help attract new readers. In the meantime, send links to your blog posts to your friends and colleagues and share your new creations. Oh, and there’s nothing worse than asking your own parents to share your posts, which is about as difficult as changing your paintings on the fridge.
Layout of the entire article
When a visitor is interested in your headline and clicks through to start reading the blog post, whether they decide to read it or not depends on how it looks. By appearance what we are talking about here we mean the paragraph spacing, subheadings, etc. of the article. When people start reading an article, they usually start with a quick glance at the full text. If they find that it’s a 1000-word paragraph, the most obvious thing they’ll notice is: why is it so long? Probably give up on it for that reason. So, remember to segment your article sensibly, put some subheadings, provide some non-verbal information (charts, illustrations, etc.), and a proper layout will give readers a reason to believe that your article will be the perfect companion on the journey for the next 15 minutes on the train.
To summarize, make it easier for readers by:
- Dividing the article into different paragraphs
- Adding subheadings
- Adding tables, icons and graphics
- Adding additional photos and illustrations
- Bolding or slanting text to emphasize a section of the article | https://medium.com/wreader/how-do-i-blog-138870afff1e | [] | 2020-11-13 17:20:18.944000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Blogging', 'Success', 'Life', 'Tips And Tricks'] |
Yeedi K650 review: This robot vacuum is tough on pet hair | Budget robot vacuums necessarily make concessions, and that’s okay as long as cleaning isn’t compromised. Yeedi understands this. Its no-frills vacuums have performed consistently well in our tests even if they don’t have much, if any, advanced functionality. The Yeedi K650 continues this trend, adding a bigger dustbin and a tangle-free brush option that while not particularly sexy are most certainly welcome.
The K650 has a fairly minimal design, and its white finish is a nice change from the hordes of black botvacs on the market. On top are an Auto clean button and a Wi-Fi indicator. The power and reset buttons are located on the sides, and there’s 800ml dusbtin in back. The vacuum comes with a rolling bristle brush and an alternative silicone rolling brush, and it has a pair of spinning side brushes.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best robot vacuums, 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.You can control the K650 with the Yeedi companion app or your voice, via Amazon Alexa, though the latter is limited to simple commands. You’ll need the app either way to connect the K650 to your Wi-Fi network, switch cleaning modes, enable boundaries, and take advantage of other features.
Yeedi The K650 has a maximum suction of 2000Pa.
This is the first vacuum I’ve used with the Yeedi app, and a clutch of one-star reviews in the Google Play store raised concerns about its usability. The seamless setup put those to rest, at least temporarily. I just needed to scan the K650’s QR code and the app prompted me through a handful of steps to connect to my network without a hitch.
[ Further reading: The best robot mops ]The Yeedi K650’s default mode is to clean your entire space until it’s done or its battery runs out. You start a cleaning job by pressing the Auto button on top of the vacuum or in the app. In this mode the vacuum cleans in a random pattern, using its onboard sensors to navigate around furniture, walls, and other obstacles. The app displays the total area cleaned, cleaning duration, and battery level in real time.
The vacuum’s two other modes—Spot and Edge—can be activated from the app. Spot cleans areas of deep dirt in a spiral pattern, Edge mode cleans along walls and corners.
Yeedi The K650’s silicone brush is great for pulling up pet hair without tangles and getting it into the dustbin.
You can adjust the vacuum’s suction power by choosing from four presets in the app: Quiet, Standard, Max, and Max+. Quiet lowers the decibels to whisper levels, which is a small mercy with so many of us working at home. The suction tops out at 2000Pa.
I used the K650 on my downstairs level to see how it fared on medium-pile carpet, hardwood, and vinyl tile. It generally did well cleaning all three, but I quickly learned the secret weapon for cleaning the carpet was swapping out the bristle brush for the silicone one. With a quartet of four-legged family members, pet hair is a constant issue. These tend to get tangled in bristled rollers, requiring me to remove the hair with a cleaning tool or to cut it off with scissors. The silicone roller agitates pet hair as well as the bristle brush, but the hair gets where it belongs—in the dustbin. The K650’s extra-large dustbin meant that I didn’t have to dump it as often as smaller ones, which tufts of pet hair fill pretty quickly.
Being a budget robot vacuum, the Yeedi K650 doesn’t offer much in the way of features and customization. It doesn’t map your floor plan, so it can’t remember where it’s cleaned and where it hasn’t. That sometimes left areas neglected. You can’t do zone cleaning or set virtual boundaries, either. The app includes a toggle for enabling magnetic boundaries, but Yeedi doesn’t provide any magnetic tape. That’s something I missed with the Yeedi K600 and K700 as well).
Yeedi The Yeedi app tracks the cleaning area and duration in real time.
In terms of app functionality, you can schedule cleanings, view cleaning logs, put the Yeedi K650 in Do Not Disturb mode, and track usage stats of the vacuum’s brushes and filter, so you know when to replace them. There’s also a Find My Robot feature that prompts the K650 to say “I’m here,” so you can locate it.
I never encountered any of the connectivity or usability issues mentioned in those app reviews. Still, given the number of them, Yeedi is hopefully investigating.
The Yeedi K650 sells for about $50 more on Amazon than the Yeedi K600. Both are solid, no-frills cleaners; but if you have pets, the K650’s bigger dustbin and tangle-free brush are well worth the extra cash.
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/@alicia44097332/yeedi-k650-review-this-robot-vacuum-is-tough-on-pet-hair-e42173dc16d6 | [] | 2020-12-05 02:43:19.284000+00:00 | ['Connected Home', 'Home Tech', 'Tvs'] |
How to enable mixed (Light & Dark) theme on Windows 10? | Being the developer of one of the widely used OS, Microsoft has added pretty much everything on Windows 10. Windows 10 is a complete package of numerous features. This operating system has such note-worthy features that you don’t have to install other third-party apps. Gaming Mode, Blue Light Filter, Clipboard History, etc. are widely discussed aspects of Windows 10. And now it’s for the Dark theme. Dark theme/Night Mode is the current trend for most of the application (both desktop and mobile-based). There are numerous apps that have already introduced the dark theme on their platform.
Following this with the release of Windows 10 (build v1903), Windows has optimized its theme setting. Previously you could use either Light theme or Dark theme but now you can use the combined light and dark theme.
If you want to learn more about the Dark theme on Android devices, please read, “ 33 Android Apps with Dark Mode Support and How to enable it “.
How to enable/combine mixed (Light and Dark theme) on Windows 10?
To use the mixed theme on Windows 10, you must have an updated version of Windows 10 May 2019. Follow the instruction given below to enable mixed theme:
Click on Windows (flag icon) and type ‘Settings’. Select ‘Personalization’.
On the left-hand side menu, press on ‘Colors’.
You can follow a shorter route.
For Windows mode, I have selected Light theme and for App Mode Dark theme.
Experiment with different options and select the best one. Customize the best display settings for you. | https://medium.com/prabidhi-info/how-to-enable-mixed-light-dark-theme-on-windows-10-5b83577ef629 | ['Prabidhi Info'] | 2020-01-23 05:33:22.003000+00:00 | ['Dark Mode', 'Tips', 'Tips And Tricks', 'Windows 10', 'How To'] |
WAR | I was always a writer but lived in a bookkeeper’s body before I found Medium and broke free — well, almost. Working to work less and write more.
Follow | https://medium.com/resistance-poetry/war-e99a46f6c8e1 | [] | 2017-08-21 02:52:08.323000+00:00 | ['War', 'Crime', 'Trump Administration', 'Russia', 'Trump'] |
How do you copy by value a composite data type? | We use data types to specify what kind of data can be stored & manipulated within a program.
In Javascript, the data types can be classified into 3 major categories as:
Primitive (pass by value) Trivial Composite (pass by reference)
Primitive data types
String, Boolean and Number are primitive data types.
Primitive data type example illustration
From the above code snippet, we infer that “Primitive data types can hold only one value at a time.” In the above example when a is assigned to b, copy of a is created for b and if we are changing the value of a, the value of b is not affected because already another copy of a is created and stored for b.
Composite Data Types (pass by reference)
Objects, Array and Function (which are all types of objects) are composite data types.
Composite data type example
“Composite data types can hold collections of values and more complex entities.” Variables that are assigned a non-primitive value are given a reference to that value. That reference points to the object’s location in memory. The variables don’t actually contain the value.
Trivial Data Types
‘Undefined’ and ‘Null’ are trivial data types.
Trivial data type example
The undefined data type can only have one value-the special value undefined. If a variable has been declared but has not been assigned a value, has the value undefined.
A null value means that there is no value. It is not equivalent to an empty string (“”) or 0, it is simply nothing.
How to Copy by value a composite data type?
Copy by value a composite type can be achieved with the help of spread operator (…).
Copy by value example for Composite Data Type
Spread operator allows an iterable such as an array expression or string to be expanded in places where zero or more arguments (for function calls) or elements (for array literals) are expected, or an object expression to be expanded in places where zero or more key-value pairs (for object literals) are expected.
#JavascriptTips #Javascript | https://medium.com/@namratadwivedi1001/how-do-you-copy-by-value-a-composite-data-type-be3e75847e69 | ['Namrata Dwivedi'] | 2020-12-03 16:17:29.319000+00:00 | ['Javascript Development', 'Javascript Tips', 'JavaScript'] |
Doctor’s Notes | When I was in college my childhood pediatrician decided to retire. I received a legal size envelope in the mail containing a personal note announcing her retirement accompanied by my whole patient chart spanning most of my life. I remember being home on break and plopping myself down on my bed to flip through my chart. It was almost like opening a time capsule.
Reading through my doctor’s handwritten notes was like having a bird’s eye view of my childhood and adolescent health. In reading her observations, I gained new insights into my life that I never before had answers to. My chart with my doctor’s notes was precious. I filed the folder away for safekeeping.
Finding a New Doctor
A few years later, I returned home to New York after living in Texas. I needed to get organized. I needed to find a new primary care physician (PCP) to replace my pediatrician. Up until this point, walk-in urgent care clinics had acted as my go-to for all medical needs. The next logical step was Google. With one search I found ZocDoc. I remember going on ZocDoc, searching for providers who took my insurance, and booking an appointment. How cool!
Appointment Booked and Ready to Go
I pulled my pediatrician’s manilla folder out and brought it with me to meet my new PCP where I gave her the folder entrusting her with my health information and all of my pediatrician’s notes. I remember thinking “Good job Jenny. Nailed it. Way to be prepared and responsible”.
Out of Network
A year later, my insurance changed and that new PCP no longer took my insurance. I needed to switch doctors to an in-network provider. I called the practice and asked for my pediatrician’s file to be mailed to me. They said I needed to come in and fill out some forms in order to transfer the files. I went to the office to fill out the paperwork (yes, I had to go in person). They handed me a thin file. I opened it to find only a few sheets of paper.
Where were all my pediatrician’s notes? Where was my time capsule? They had thrown out my records.
The front-office administrator explained that they only needed the immunization history and they had discarded everything else. I became very upset. I had given the new PCP my pediatrician’s notes because I naively thought she would be the new guardian of my healthcare. I was wrong. I was angry with myself for being so careless.
Time and Materials
As I looked at my empty file in disbelief, I heard the front — end administrator ask that I pay the office fee for my records. I remember looking up and saying absolutely not. I had them bring out the PCP and explained I would not pay the fee for them to prepare this thin file after they had destroyed my historic medical records. The doctor agreed and I never went back.
State Laws
Each state has its own laws about how much you can be charged for your medical records, whether paper, digital, or another format. In the State of New York, “the law allows physicians and institutions to charge no more than 75 cents a page, plus postage, for paper copies of medical records. Physicians may charge the actual reproduction costs for radiographic materials, such as X-rays or MRI films. A provider may not impose a charge for original mammogram films but may charge postage. However, an individual cannot be denied access to information solely because he or she is unable to pay.” (New York Department of Health)
Why am I sharing this story?
I filed this moment away in my memory and forgot about it completely until a few years later when I was sitting with the team brainstorming about OneRecord. As individuals, we all have health care stories. It’s what brings us together, it is was draws new team members to the project, it’s what drives us to keep collecting stories and design for them.
We believe in people — the power of the collective in pursuing goals that often seem impossible. Individuals banding together, tackling problems and making things better for everyone. That’s what we do at OneRecord.
Follow me, Jennifer Blumenthal and OneRecord on the convergence of health information technology, privacy & security, company transparency, and data. | https://medium.com/@jenniferblumenthal/doctors-notes-a12bac22c2fd | ['Jennifer Blumenthal'] | 2020-04-29 03:35:01.200000+00:00 | ['Healthcare', 'Health Technology', 'Transparency', 'Medicine', 'Doctors'] |
Bitcoin and the Tyranny of Time Scarcity | Economics is the social science of cooperating and competing to overcome the immortal tyrant of time scarcity. In this never-ending struggle, one of our most important tools is money—a socioeconomic emblem of human time. For centuries, time was the only absolutely scarce substance in the universe, but now a novel money has also exhibits absolute scarcity—Bitcoin.
A Tyrant of Time Immemorial
All human action inescapably occurs within the bounds of time. As the universally shared element of experience, time is the grand paradox of nature; it heals all wounds, yet ultimately ravages all things. Each of us feels a current of time that is totally impersonal; in a ruthlessly egalitarian manner, time flows equally for rich and poor, sick and healthy, young and old alike. The temporal flows we experience cannot be reproduced, reversed, or stopped. At an intrapersonal level, our allotment of time is as scarce as our lifespan is limited. Interpersonally, time scarcity manifests as the total time we can collectively allocate towards serving one another; whether we are making goods, providing services, or gaining knowledge — we have but a finite quantity of hours to commit towards our efforts. In this sense, time scarcity is the immortal tyrant subjugating all of us mortals. Only through cooperative action can we break free of the restraints time scarcity clasps upon us.
Society is the sum total of cooperative actions taken, a social order that is, paradoxically, shaped by competition among its constituents — free people. Actions intent on improving our relationship with nature, which enhance our quality of life by saving us time, necessarily involve the use of natural resources. If one seeks to dig ditches faster, he will first need to construct a shovel — a tool that requires wood from a felled tree, refined metal ore, and expertly shaped screws to hold the (earth-shattering) device together. Since the Earth we share is physically finite its natural resources are inherently scarce, and we must each compete to earn our own fair share. In a world that is as physically abundant as our ingenuity will allow, it is ultimately only our finite time that constrains us from producing more of anything we want.
Existing under the ubiquitous tyranny of time scarcity, it’s natural for animals to adopt more energy efficient means of satisfying their wants. The “Law of Conservation of Energy-Mass” is the 1st Law of Thermodynamics; an inviolable principle of the universe that organisms (lazily and cleverly) follow to the letter. Predators in the wild frequently make expected-value calculations when deciding whether or not the anticipated energy expenditure in pursuit of a particular prey is worth the caloric value of the meal, should the hunt be successful (most hunts have low chances of success). Even herbivores like koala bears economize their physical movements to maximize their consumption of eucalyptus leaves per exertion. Of course, these decisions are not (likely) based on any mathematical knowledge, but rather on instinct.
Similarly, driven by an instinct to overcome the oppression of time scarcity, us humans have always found ways to uncover and extract ever-more natural resources as we “hunt” for satisfactions to our wants. We have literally “just scratched the surface,” as our efforts haven’t even taken us halfway into the Earth’s crust, its thinnest and outermost layer. Through generations of trial and error, with our collective learnings accumulated in heuristics, written knowledge, and methodologies, mankind has steadily economized his productive efforts, gradually making more and more use of his time. The fruits of our labor are evident: the price of all natural resources, in terms of time necessary to produce them, has steadily decreased over the long-run as technological advancements continually increase our productivity — our capacity to produce the greatest results with the least effort. Metal prices over the past two centuries are a testament to this:
Evincing the simple truth of mankind’s ever-rising productivity is gold: as the annual new supply flow of this extremely rare metal remains steady, it makes no sense to consider other natural resources (which are less rare than gold) as scarce in any practical sense. Indeed, only time scarcity truly constrains our creative output. In this sense, time — both individually and collectively — is our most precious and scarce resource. Each of us seek to extend and savor our time on Earth. As a population, we strive to economize our actions and increase our productivity to attain the greatest results possible with minimal use of time and effort. Indeed, the purpose of the world economy is to accelerate our collective productivity gains through innovation and trade; in a term, to gain energy efficiency — our sole emancipator from the hardships imposed by time scarcity.
Trade Interconnects Us
Acts of trade (or interpersonal exchange) interconnect us into economic networks which increase our productivity by virtue of our inherent comparative advantages: a diversity of skills, experience, and know-how that arises naturally among us. Trade allows us to focus on our comparative advantages and become ever-more specialized in our skills over time. This positive-sum game undergirds all economic activity; by working as a cooperative ensemble we become more productive than we would be working as isolated individuals. Our economic interdependence makes us collectively more productive and prosperous. This cooperative dynamic is commonly called the “division of labor” and the general purpose of society is to foster an environment which favors its proliferation.
The division of labor enables each of us to concentrate on what we do best and increases our collective productivity: meaning it lets us produce the same amount in less time or a greater amount in the same time. Alternatively, we can choose to use these newfound time savings to innovate. Innovation involves the creation of tools and technologies to help us do even more in less time (i.e. digging with a shovel instead of by hand). As innovative new tools and ideas become diffused into society through trade, more time savings are generated, and this process becomes recursive into a self-reinforcing, virtuous cycle with no known natural limit:
By specializing, trading, and innovating societies create a (literal) wealth of time savings that can be spent productively or leisurely. By spending time savings productively, societies create wealth — the accumulation of time saved in the form of capital. Anything that economizes human action — tools, knowledge, or even relationships — is considered capital, as it provides a way for us to more quickly satisfy our wants. Said simply, as we become more productive, we accumulate more capital — a form of frozen time savings. In this respect, we have come a long way over the past two centuries:
Money: Mankind’s Masterwork
Money is the most marketable (or readily exchangeable) capital in an economy; it is the most liquid measure of time savings — a social chronometer of sorts. Money is the technology we use to measure and move the value of our time savings across time and space. The primary function of money is to store value, meaning that it must (at a minimum) retain its own exchange value across time. Naturally, as our collective productivity increases, the value of money rises in tandem, and prices expressed in it decline. The secondary function of money is to mediate exchange, meaning that it can be exchanged for anything in the marketplace — goods, services, or knowledge. Money is sought by all seeking to trade their way into satisfying personal wants (this includes everyone that isn’t entirely self-sufficient). The tertiary function of money is to quantify exchange ratios, meaning it is used to denominate prices across the minds of market participants. Consider how we think in dollars, or in our local currency, when deciding whether and how much to buy or sell of anything in the marketplace. Interestingly, this “unit of account” function of money is so deeply etched into our mental machinery that it actually changes how we think and perceive the world.
Besides these three functions, monetary technologies generally exhibit the following traits:
Scarcity: resistance to money supply manipulations and, thus, dilutions to its monetary unit value (difficult to produce) Divisibility: ease of accounting and transacting at various scales (separable and combinable units) Portability: ease of moving value across space (high value to weight ratio) Durability: ease of moving value across time (resilient to deterioration) Recognizability: ease of identifying and verifying the monetary value by other parties in a transaction (universally identifiable and verifiable)
Whatever good is most impervious to the depredations of time, transference, and greed is naturally selected as “money”. The monetary technology selected freely in a marketplace is referred to as “hard money”; a haven for liquid value (exchangeable time savings) that resists the ravages of time, damages related to transference across space, and intentional misappropriations by those vicious two-legged apes (people). In these respects, monetary metals have been historically superior due to their durability and portability, making them ideal for storing value across time and space, respectively. With the advent of coinage, which standardized each monetary unit, the divisibility and recognizability traits of these metals were greatly enhanced. Critically, the scarcity of monetary metals is governed by natural laws that are beyond the control of man, making their supplies (mostly) resistant to greedy manipulations. Gold became, and remains, the prime monetary metal of the world precisely because of its superior relative scarcity — historically, it has been the best reflector of absolutely scarce time.
Gold is the hardest monetary metal to produce and nearly every ounce ever mined remains part of its extant supply today, as it is chemically an ultra-stable element. Taken in combination, these properties made gold the best medium for storing value across time, as its supply is the most resistant to change, and therefore the most inflation-resistant. By providing sufficient monetary characteristics (divisibility, portability, durability, recognizability) coupled with superior physical scarcity, gold was naturally selected as money on the free market (hard money). With a (low) reproducibility and physical scarcity most closely aligned with the absolute irreproducibility and scarcity of time, gold has been the most credible store of value historically — which explains why freely acting individuals have hoarded it for centuries. More technically, gold’s superior stock-to-flow ratio makes it more resistant to supply inflation (and, its corollary, monetary value dilution) than all other monetary technologies (prior to the invention of Bitcoin).
Game Time
To understand gold’s ascent, we must realize the actions of people in free markets are driven by game theory. In game-theoretic terms, a “game” is any situation in which people can win or lose — as is the case in markets. A “strategy” is just process for making decisions. Game theory is applicable in any domain where people must decide whether to cooperate or compete. For instance, if you and I are being chased by a bear, my decision to run or fight is not based on how fast I am, but rather how fast I think you are. Game-theoretically, I only need to be faster than you, not the bear, to ensure my survival. Such assessments of interpersonal dynamics are also closely related to economics and monetary evolution.
In the context of monetary evolution’s relationship with time: free market participants choose hard money over all other monetary technologies because its resistance to supply increases most closely reflects the immutable flow of time. No matter how much time was allocated to gold production, its supply resisted inflation more than any other monetary metal, causing people to coalesce around its use as a superiorly sound store of value. In game theory terms, gold production became the “Nash Equilibrium”, a game state in which everyone follows the same strategy because there is no advantage to be gained by switching to any other strategy. So long as people sought to maximize their freedom from time scarcity by accumulating capital, collectively produced more than they consumed, and accomplished these goals through trade, gold remained the best proxy for the scarcest economic resource — time.
Unicity of Time and Money
Time is the only irreversible element in existence. Its directionality is imparted by the ever-growing entropy of the universe — as defined by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. This “Thermodynamic Arrow of Time” which points us into an increasingly chaotic universe is, in fact, the only irreversible aspect of reality; every other natural process is symmetrical, making it impossible to discern whether an event is unfolding forward or backward in time. As such, this universally objective and unidirectional flow of time provides our purest reference point for all values (of the seven key metrics maintained by the Systeme Internationale of Units and Measures, six are rooted in the time it takes light to move through a vacuum). Gold, then, as the most difficult commodity to produce no matter how much time was allocated towards its extraction, served as the best market proxy for the objective purity of ever-flowing time. It is commonly said that time is money, but few realize that the reciprocal is also true — money is time.
Beyond relative irreproducibility, hard money exhibits other properties akin to the natural flow of time. Markets naturally optimize for a hard money that is as impersonal, irreversible, and unstoppable as the flow of time to which it is anchored, and which it is intended to epitomize in the marketplace. As hard money arises naturally as the result of countless market interactions in which individuals seek to trade their goods for steadily more exchangeable goods, it is inherently beyond the control of any single individual, nation, or central bank. This makes hard money apolitical and impersonal; it cannot be used to benefit any one group over another. In other words, hard money tends to be politically neutral, like time.
Hard money is also equity-based, meaning that physically possessing gold as an asset, for instance, is 100% equity and 0% debt (a bearer asset). This makes payments in gold immune to reversal, unlike those made with monopolistically imposed debt-based monies, called fiat currencies, which are liable to the whims of bureaucrats, who can choose to confiscate, censor, or deauthorize fiat currencies at any time, for any reason. Finally, hard money is unstoppable, in the sense that if I flip you a gold coin, there is no single authority on Earth that can block or devalue that transaction. Hard money, like gold, derives its value from freely acting individuals choosing the best monetary technology available to them.
Sacred Sovereignty
Bearer assets, like gold, offer another significant advantage — each individual unit is self-sovereign. Sovereignty refers to the freedom to take action as one sees fit. As Rosseau said: “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.” The struggle of history has been the need for flexible coordination of human action on a large scale against the usurpation of individual sovereignty that the institutions built for this purpose typically impose. Paradoxically, as mankind pursued large scale mobilization of his efforts to overcome the natural tyranny of time scarcity, he gave birth to an artificial tyrant that engorges itself by consuming our individual sovereignty — the government and, its apparatus of thievery, central banking. True sovereignty originates at the individual level; it naturally reigns when our individual expressions, whether verbal or financial, are unmanipulable by others. When a government censors your speech or a central bank devalues your dollar, it is a violation of your individual sovereignty. Let no one prevent you from speaking your mind or spending your time and money as you see fit. We are each our own supreme ruler:
Gold is a self-sovereign bearer asset whose credibility and value as money is derived from the combined sovereignty of countless self-interested individuals exercising free choice in the marketplace. When a good gains value on the free market, it is a result of market participants finding it useful, making sacrifices for it, and, thereby, imbuing it with part of their individual sovereignty. Since gold achieved dominance on the free market as a result of countless “votes” in the form of self-interested trade decisions by a faceless multitude across history, it can be considered the monetary materialization of popular sovereignty — the founding principle of Western Civilization:
Although it’s an ancient monetary technology, gold still forms the prime monetary sovereignty layer of Earth, as it underpins all governmental sovereignty. In turn, governments use this power to monopolize the market for money (via their central bank henchmen) and insulate fiat currencies from direct monetary competition. Such insulation is the only way debt-based monies can survive alongside hard money. Gold and other bearer assets are final extinguishers of debt, as payments in them carry no associated liability. Modern central banks still perform final settlement exclusively in gold and actively engage in market machinations to suppress its price (see Gata.org); a testament to the primacy of this ancient monetary metal.
Den of Thieves
Despite this misappropriation of gold’s sovereignty by government for its own self-seeking purposes, fiat currency is no longer anchored to gold, making it highly reproducible at near-zero cost. Indeed, fiat currency is the softest form of money in history; it can (and in virtually all cases does) suffer from counterparty risks such as censorship, deauthorization, or hyperinflation. Hard money is anchored in the reality of time to secure the time savings of its holders; fiat currency is a political tool that facilitates the institutionalized system of time-theft known as “expansionary monetary policy” perpetrated by central banks globally.
Although governments legally compel us to use fiat currencies today, these rules are only enforceable due to their vampirism — the sucking of sovereignty out of gold holdings. Ironically, this stolen power is used to monopolize violence and silence dissent. Government sovereignty, then, is derived from the agglomerated self-sovereignty of its gold hoards; which, in combination with the anticompetitive artifices it erects (legal tender laws, capital controls, capital gains taxes, etc.) in the sphere of money, explains why gold has been confiscated and its private ownership outlawed repeatedly throughout history:
There is only one reason for such confiscatory acts: governments grasping for more power; a means to usurp gold’s self-sovereignty, an embezzlement of power which itself originates in the actions of free people selecting a monetary technology in the marketplace; a tragedy at the heart of all modern economies. As the axiom says: “Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.”:
Prime Money
In this sense, gold is prime money: as its physical possession underpins the sovereignty of governments, which misappropriate it to enforce central bank money production monopolies on free people. Paradoxically, it was the actions of free people that generated the sovereignty that is now wielded against them by governments and central banks. This “duopoly of monopolists” has proclaimed time and time again that gold is irrelevant, a mere monetary artifact, and that they alone will lead the world economy to a brighter future. Ignore anti-gold propaganda; just watch their actions:
Although gold resisted supply manipulation in many ways, it is far from perfect. Through the London Gold Pool and other machinations (seriously, see Gata.org) central banks cornered the market on gold, enabling them to surreptitiously suppress its price and better insulate fiat currency (soft money) from direct competition with gold (hard money). Market manipulation like this is only possible because of our passivity. In surrendering our sovereignty to unaccountable institutions like central banks, we cede conscious control over most aspects of our lives. Remember: central banks engaged in “expansionary monetary policy” are actively stealing time from free people; as they increase money supplies, they reallocate claims on productive capital from the majority to a politically favored few. This parasitism on the savings of society extends the working lives for most of the citizenry. In this way, monetary inflation is a direct violation of private property rights and individual sovereignty. It is worth repeating: human action is the essence of sovereignty; it is our actions that instill institutions with this divine quality intrinsic to free people. Let us all exercise the utmost vigilance in deciding which institutions to empower with our sacred sovereign energies:
Hard Money Renaissance
Against this usurpation of our individual sovereignty by government, we find hope in the emergence of a modern innovation called the internet — the universal exchange engine for knowledge. The internet has already democratized and disintermediated many aspects of our lives — from lodging and transportation, to media distribution and commerce. Compositionally, the internet is a set of open-source protocols (known as the internet protocol suite) for permissionlessly moving information worldwide in an instant. Constructed in a free market manner, through years of cooperation and standardization efforts, the internet is the greatest knowledge network in history. Today, we all benefit from this readily-accessible library of human knowledge:
As Milton Friedman so aptly pointed out in 1999, about ten years before the invention of Bitcoin, the one thing the internet lacked was a secure, private “e-cash”:
“The one thing that’s missing, but that will soon be developed, is a reliable e-cash, a method whereby on the Internet you can transfer funds from A to B, without A knowing B or B knowing A.”
Friedman’s prescience proved astonishingly accurate. Coming into the 21st century, we had two key inceptors for digital hard money: gold, the ancient and prevailing monetary sovereignty layer (representing an unmanipulable money supply), and the internet, the ultimate engine of exchange (representing global interconnectivity or liquidity). By combining and building upon the economic properties of both, Bitcoin is a momentous monetary innovation that has achieved the divisibility, portability, durability, and recognizability of pure information infused with the absolute scarcity of time. As the internet gives us freedom to express and absorb ideas without obstruction, Bitcoin gives us the freedom to express and receive value in a hard money that cannot be stopped. In this sense, Bitcoin is the latest evolutionary layer of the internet protocol suite; a quantum leap over the monetary “Nash Equilibrium” gold represented.
Historically, gold has become more difficult to extract with the passage of time due to chemistry, physical rarity, and game theory. Gold is the ancient anchor to the prime economic reality of time scarcity, precisely why it remains the prime money of modernity. Time is the most objective measure for our intersubjective (opinion-based) valuations, as it is the one unarguable aspect of existence. In a society run on hard money, price levels naturally decline over time as our productivity grows in tandem with the division of labor. Put another way, hard money tends to appreciate over time as human knowledge becomes more specialized. In this way, increases in the value of hard money reflect how far humanity has liberated itself from time scarcity.
Liquidity of Time and Information
Conceptually then, money is both frozen time (as a means of storing time savings) and liquid time (as a means of exchanging time savings). We earn money by sacrificing our intrapersonal time and can trade it for commensurate sacrifices from others. As such, anyone that gains control over a money supply, and can manipulate it at will, can steal time savings directly from the users of its money via the shadow tax of inflation. To shed light on the true nature of fiat currency in one line, let’s call it like it is: a pyramid scheme built atop gold that is subject to unlimited supply inflation. Since it bears repeating: inflation is intrapersonal time theft — a legally enforced injustice.
Manipulation of money supplies has other consequences. Money is an economy’s main informational utility; a touchstone to measure the value of the time savings (or spending) expected to be made possible by an economic good in the future. When a money supply is manipulated, the objectivity of its measurement ability is compromised. This breakdown of money’s informational utility is called price signal distortion. Such manipulation makes economic calculation less reliable and causes entrepreneurs to overborrow, misallocate capital, and, ultimately, degenerates time savings as capital is consumed instead of being compounded through reinvestment. Price signals provide a system for “market participant telecommunications” and can be explained as follows:
Price signals are the navigational instruments for entrepreneurs sailing the tempestuous seas of markets, and money is the medium through which these signals propagate. Said another way: money is a measurement system for value (a temporal quality) in the same way a ruler is for length (a spatial quality). The less elastic the supply of money is, the better it fulfills this mensural purpose. If you are measuring a table with a ruler that you cannot trust, then you can’t be sure whether you’re measuring the table or the ruler; you cannot distinguish the signal (the actual length) from the noise (changes in unit of measurement). Gold outcompeted historically because of its relative supply inelasticity, which made it both the best store of value and conveyor of price signals. Uniquely, Bitcoin is a money with perfect supply inelasticity; it is the most uncompromising measurement system for value the world has ever known. In this sense, Bitcoin is like an inviolable ruler: a perfectly objective unit of measurement for the endless variations of market values.
Therefore, the more closely a money supply is credibly congruent with the absolutely scarcity of time, the better it communicates the time savings generated by our collective productivity gains. In this way, both gold and Bitcoin share the same principal attractiveness: they are more closely reflective of the impersonal, irreproducible, irreversible, unstoppable, and absolutely scarce nature of the experiential element money is intended to symbolize in the marketplace — time.
Temporal Anchorage
When money is disconnected from time scarcity (as fiat currency is), its “skin in the game” is compromised and the economies it facilitates start suffering from distorted price signals, malinvestments, recessions, and an exacerbated boom-and-bust business cycle. As with most systems, money requires skin in the game to function properly — meaning that money must be costly to produce, otherwise those who can produce it cheaply will do so to steal the value of time savings stored therein (as central banks do).
For gold, the costs associated with mining provide this critical skin in the game characteristic. For Bitcoin, an ingenious composite of proof-of-work energy expenditure (skin in the game) and economic incentives (game theory) enabled it to digitize scarcity. In this sense, Bitcoin’s blockchain is like a bridge between physical and digital reality — the first incarnation of a digital asset with provable scarcity. An innovative amalgamation of open-source software and behavioral economics, Bitcoin was designed to be a monetary network that reproduces itself relentlessly:
From this perspective, the value of mining both gold and Bitcoin is the “unforgeable costliness” that each represents — a measure of the time sacrificed in production, which is redeemable for the time of others. Imbued with digital scarcity, Bitcoin preserves the advantages offered by gold’s physicality (self-sovereignty, irreversible transactions, final settlement) while eliminating its disadvantages (ease of confiscation, expensive safeguarding, high settlement costs). Digitization also makes Bitcoin a weightless, intangible, and (potentially) everlasting monetary technology. As a totally impersonal and self-sovereign monetary network capable of adopting market-proven features from competitors over time, while simultaneously resisting changes that negatively impact its users, Bitcoin may be the last evolution we ever see in global prime money. Gold is the “pristine collateral” which underpins the entirety of the highly-levered fiat currency financial complex; Bitcoin is poised to become the foundation for an entirely new economic order.
Monetary Horizons
In the near future and for the first time in history, the world will have a money that is harder to produce than gold. A fixed supply of 21 million units makes Bitcoin absolutely scarce — a property never before achieved by anything other than time itself. In the same way that Galelio’s invention of the telescope led to discoveries that reoriented our relationship with space, so too has the invention of Bitcoin led to the discovery of absolute scarcity; a bewildering breakthrough that perfectly parallels and will forever change mankind’s relationship with time. Soon, in accordance with its perfectly predictable issuance schedule, Bitcoin will become the scarcest liquid asset in human history. At this point, Bitcoin will become the monetary technology most closely aligned with the absolutely scarce nature of time. From there, every block produced will (asymptotically) further perfect this alignment until the last Bitcoin in mined in the mid-22nd century:
The supreme divisibility, portability, durability, recognizability, and scarcity characteristics of Bitcoin constantly increase the likelihood (via the Lindy Effect) that it will continue to outcompete gold and fiat currencies in its long climb toward becoming global prime money. Bitcoin, with a supply more closely aligned with the prime economic reality of time scarcity, is slowly but surely *undermining* gold’s role as prime money. The word *undermine* literally means “to dig under fortifications to collapse them”. In this sense, Satoshi designed Bitcoin to “dig deeper” into reality than gold and, in doing so, undermine its role as prime money by more closely mirroring the fundamental nature of time. As a result, the value of fiat currencies will also diminish as gold slips from its position of primacy.
Temporal Metaphor
Time is the ultimate experiential element we all share. It is ruthlessly egalitarian, flowing equally for all alike. Time is our objective anchor in a world of ceaselessly shifting intersubjective valuations. Abstractly, money is our metaphor for time. As a tool, it best serves mankind when its supply is as inelastic as the absolute scarcity of time. Here, gold does well; yet Bitcoin, the first money with a supply that is absolutely scarce, reflects time perfectly.
Money is the medium through which many minds become one; it is the coordinating mechanism of human action. Money matters because only through cooperation and innovation do we mortals gain ground in our struggle against the immortal tyrant of time scarcity. Perhaps one day to be regarded as the most impactful technology ever invented, Bitcoin is simply a tool for saving time; it stores the value created from our time spent serving one another, reduces the time needed to establish trustful coordination, and it protects our mutually generated time savings from confiscation. Furthermore, Bitcoin promises to reduce the money, capital, and life wasted in warfare. Bitcoin accomplishes this by transcending laws and outcompeting money production monopolies, which use taxation via inflation to stealthily fund perpetual warfare. As Ron Paul said: “It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking.”:
Bitcoin also promises to help generate even more time savings by deepening the division of labor, a direct result of financial disintermediation, the benefits of which flow to everyone. Finally, Bitcoin encourages us to adopt lower time preferences and think long-term. Hard money incentivizes us to save and invest, and disincentivizes excessive debt and spending, since it naturally appreciates over time as our collective productivity grows. Fiat currency is the reverse: it pushes up our time preferences and disintegrates societies. As the repeated fall of ancient civilizations shows, monetary integrity and social cohesion are inexorably linked.
Breaking the Chains
Bitcoin belongs in a certain class of momentous innovations — like antiseptics, electricity, or the internet — that either extend our lifespans individually or enhance our productivity and, therefore, our time savings collectively. These innovations expand our relationship with time in one or more ways: extending life expectancies, lowering time preferences, or enhancing productivity. Bitcoin promises to contribute to all three by being the best self-sovereign savings technology in history: reducing death tolls and capital destruction from warfare by financially starving governments, incentivizing savings and investment in innovation, and accelerating our productivity gains by reducing artificial and arbitrary trade frictions.
Bitcoin has the potential to bend the grand arc of human history back towards a free market paradigm. Bitcoin is doing this in the market for money, and its underlying technology may one day be applied to other markets like equities, bonds, and real estate. Going forward, Bitcoin promises to further liberate us from the clutches of time scarcity, eliminate time theft via inflation, reinvigorate individual sovereignty, and, as a cumulative result, radically increase social scalability worldwide. As Alfred North Whitehead said:
“It is a profoundly erroneous truism repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they’re making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking about what we’re doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.”
As we continue our endless contentions with time scarcity, government-authorized money monopolies remain a scourge on our humanity. Central banking, an institution of monetary socialism and systemized time theft, has repeatedly wounded our individual sovereignty, time preferences, and freedoms throughout history. We mortals must break the shackles of this oppressive institution and focus our energies on innovating against time scarcity — the immortal tyrant. In doing so, we will create a world in which our children, their children, and all future generations are born able to live totally self-sovereign lives — forever free from the chains of governmental tyranny.
By Robert Breedlove
Oct, 2019 | https://medium.com/the-bitcoin-times/bitcoin-and-the-tyranny-of-time-scarcity-1d1550dfd8b0 | ['Robert Breedlove'] | 2020-11-14 02:56:36.590000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Economics', 'Freedom', 'Time', 'Bitcoin'] |
Boosting your Sequence Generation Performance with ‘Beam-search + Language model’ decoding | Boosting your Sequence Generation Performance with ‘Beam-search + Language model’ decoding
Whenever Image Processing, Audio data Analysis or Natural language processing (NLP) tasks are concerned, Deep learning has proved to be an ideal choice and has shown outstanding outcomes. Neural Network-based model architectures are really good at understanding complex patterns as well as generating meaningful and realistic data. Although deep learning-based solutions are generally very efficient, it’s never a bad idea to use better post-processing techniques to make predictions even more accurate.
Complex problems such as Neural Machine Translation (NMT), Image caption generation (ICG) and speech recognition (ASR) are very much solvable today using deep learning. These problems are categorized as sequence generation problems where given an input, the model learns to generate some text sequence. If you take a look at the research papers showing state of the art (SOTA) results on these tasks, you will probably find their solution utilizing a beam search decoder fused with a Language model to boost the results. Let’s learn more about these decoding techniques with examples —
Going further, we will define an example sequence generation problem and explore post-processing (decoding) techniques. We will start with a greedy-search-decoding technique and introduce beam-search-decoding fused with language model to further improve the overall results.
Example Problem
Consider a problem of English language text generation and suppose we have already trained a model to do that. Depending upon the nature of the problem or solution strategy, our model might be a character-level model or a word-level model. A character-level text generator model generates text by predicting one character at a time. Similarly, a word-level text generator predicts one word at a time and multiple predicted such words make a sequence.
Assume we have trained a character-level model that generates text by predicting one character at a time. This problem can be related to any of the following problems — Speech to Text, Optical Character Recognition, Image caption generation….etc. Such problems are usually solved using an encoder-decoder architecture as shown in the figure below. The encoder part is responsible for taking an input vector (audio, image or text….) and producing an encoded context vector. The decoder part then uses that context vector to generate the output sequence by predicting one token (char/ wordbbb) at a time.
As our model is character-level, It will generate a probability distribution over all the possible characters for each token in the output sequence. In other words — For each token (char) our model is predicting, it will generate a probability array of length 26 (as per the English language — a to z) and the probabilities will show how likely a particular character is to be the output token.
For a predicted sequence of length 10 (chars), our models' output would look something like this —
output_shape = 10 * 26 output = [[0.1, 0.01, 0.03, ... ... ... ... ... (len-26)],
[0.1, 0.002, 0.6, ... ... ... ... ... (len-26)],
'' '' '' '' ''
'' '' '' '' ''
[0.9, 0.01, 0.01, ... ... ... ... ... (len-26)]]
To convert this probabilistic output into a readable form (English text), we need a decoding algorithm. The simplest decoder would be a greedy-search-decoder. Let’s write a greedy-search-decoder along with a complex one called beam-search-decoder —
Note — A sequence generation problem doesn’t necessarily involve text generation, it could be any kind of sequence. We are taking a text generation problem as an example because we are going to talk about language modeling as well in this post.
Greedy search decoder
The simplest way to decode the models’ predictions is to consider the most likely sequence as output. A greedy decoder, also called as the best-path decoder considers the token (character or word) with the highest probability in each prediction and concatenates all the predicted tokens to get the final output sequence. This is a simple and fast way to get the output sequence. But it may not always give you the best output.
Here is how you write a greedy decoder for your model in Python —
Here the shape of the model's prediction is 5*4 that means, the model is trying to generate a sequence of length five. As there are only four different tokens in the vocabulary, the model predicts the probability distribution of size four for each token in the sequence. As per the definition, the greedy decoder generates the sequence with the highest probability by choosing the most probable tokens at each time step.
Beam search decoder
Beam search decoding is another popular way of decoding model predictions that leads to better results than the greedy search decoder in almost all cases. Unlike greedy decoder, it doesn’t just consider the most probable token at each prediction, it considers top-k tokens having higher probabilities (where k is called the beam-width or beam-size). Although beam-search gives better results, it makes the overall pipeline slow as it is computationally complex.
Thus it doesn’t just give you one output sequence, it gives you k-different output sequences along with their likelihood (probabilities). Unlike greedy decoder where we had only a single output sequence, we have k different output sequences here and there is a very good chance that one of these k sequences is the correct output sequence.
algorithm
For the first time-step prediction, choose k tokens having higher probabilities instead of one (as in greedy we choose only one). Now going further, consider every token of the current prediction and append it to all the previously decoded k sequences and keep calculating corresponding probabilities of new sequences. Now choose top k sequences out of the new sequences based on the probability score and move to the next time-step. Repeat this process until the last token. Finally, return k sequences with their corresponding probability values.
Tip: word-beam-search is another variant of beam-search decoding technique that restricts to or chooses output sequences having dictionary words only. It performs better than a vanilla beam search in most cases.
Writing a beam search decoder in Python—
why log-likelihood?
It’s because a regular probability would cause problems when there are longer sequences. For example — Consider a sequence of length 100 is generated by the model. And the probability of each token in the sequence is 0.10 then the probability of the output sequence would be the multiplication of all these probabilities —
Probability of a sequence with 100 tokens would be--
P(sequence) = p(t1) * p(t2) * p(t3) .............. * p(t100)
= 0.1 * 0.1 * 0.1 * .................... * 0.1
= 10 ^ (-100)
# An extremely small number
As we can see it’s an extremely small number. Any programing language might fail to compare such small floating-point numbers as this could cause under-flow. This is why we calculate log-probabilities instead of regular probability. If you pay attention we are multiplying negative log-probability to calculate the score (line 16 in code), this is because the logarithm of a probability ( 0 < 1.0) is always a negative number. And thus we are choosing the top k sequences with minimum log-scores.
Probability of sequence with N tokens would be —
P(seq) = p(t1) * p(t2) * p(t3) ........ p(tN) ### taking log on both sides (calculate log-likelihood) log(P(seq)) = log(p(t1) * p(t2) * p(t3) ........ p(tN)) log(P(seq)) = log(p(t1)) + log(p(t2)) + .. log(p(tN)) ### logarithm of a number < 1.0 will be always negative so in this ### case log-likelihood of the sequence would be negative.
If we take a log on both sides, this multiplication will convert to a summation. Hence calculation of the log-likelihood instead of real probability would be faster and efficient. As we know logarithm of a number < 1.0 would always be a negative number. So we will get a negative score for our sequence. We can convert this score(log-likelihood) to the original probability by taking the anti-logarithm of this score. For the purpose of finding k best sequences using the beam-search, we only need to compare the probabilities of certain sequences, so the log-likelihood would work just fine.
++ Language model
Now we know that the beam search decoder gives you k different output sequences instead of one and there are good chances that one of these sequences is the correct output. But we don’t have a way to identify which of the output sequence is the best. This is where a language model comes into the picture.
what is a language model?
A language model is a statistical representation of a given language. It is supposed to be able to guess the next word if a list of previously occurring words is given, from a given sentence. In other words, A language model is something that can determine the probability of a given text-sequence (sentence) where sequence tokens (chars/words) are pulled from a fixed vocabulary (language vocab). So, basically it can score your sentence. A good score means that the sentence is contextually correct and belongs to the given language.
Language models are usually trained on a very large corpus of the text and are able to understand(learn) the context(co-occurrence) of words in the given sentences. A language model not necessarily has to be word-level, we can train the language model on characters as well. A character-level language model is supposed to guess the next character in a sequence, given the previous few characters. Again character-level models can also give you the probability (or likelihood) of a given sentence.
language model to score text sequences
Consider a scenario where a deep learning model is trying to generate some text (or consider a problem where the model is trying to convert voice to text) and the resulting probability distribution of characters is sent to the beam search decoder with a beam-width of 5. Assume that the following are the top 5 sequences generated using beam-search-decoding.
Generated Sequences Probability (model) 1. speech recogniiion is a hald problem 0.41
2. speech recog niiion isa hard problem 0.39
3. speech recognition is a hard problem 0.37
4. spe ech recogniion is a hard problem 0.32
5. spe ech recogni tion is ahard problem 0.29
A greedy-search-decoder will give you the first sequence as output because it is the sequence with the highest probability (0.41) as per our model. But clearly (3) is the correct output with slightly lesser probability.
To find the best sequence out of these 5 sequences, we will use the language model to check the likelihood of each of these sequences as per the English language. If our language model is well trained, it is supposed to give a good probability(score) to the third sequence as it is 100% correct as per the English language.
Assuming that the following are the likelihoods of these 5 sequences as per our language model.
Generated Sequences Probability Probability
(model) (L.M.) 1. speech recogniiion is a hald problem 0.41 0.20
2. speech recog niiion isa hard problem 0.39 0.40
3. speech recognition is a hard problem 0.37 0.70
4. spe ech recogniion is a hard problem 0.32 0.35
5. spe ech recogni tion is ahard problem 0.29 0.47
Now to choose the best output sequence, we will consider the weighted sum of both the probabilities —
P(final) = Alpha * P(model) + Beta * P(L.M.)
Values of the constants Alpha and Beta is decided after tuning them on the validation dataset. We choose the values which give the best result on the validation set. We then use those values to evaluate our model on the test set.
*Note: Sometimes the sequence length is also considered while calculating the final score of a sequence. If we don’t penalize the scores with the sequence lengths, our model will give more preference to the smaller sequences. As the score would be lesser for the longer sequences (multiplication of more probability values (p < 1.0) will result in even smaller scores).
Tip: It is observed that using a word-level language model gives better results in most cases. To be able to use a word-level language model for scoring, output sequences should be restricted to the dictionary words only. Thus a word-beam-search algorithm is used to come up with restricted beams and later those beams are re-scored with the language model to decide the final output.
PS: Usually, as per research-papers, a very large number is used as beam-size (~1000–2000) is used while applying beam-search. It delivers better results but at the cost of speed as inference becomes quite slow.
Originally published here.
Few research papers utilizing beam-search decoding and a language model to improve the results —
https://papers.nips.cc/paper/5346-sequence-to-sequence-learning-with-neural-networks.pdf Listen, Attend and Spell (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.01211.pdf) Show and Tell (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1411.4555.pdf) SEQUENCER (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1901.01808.pdf)
Image Sources:
That’ll be all !
Thanks for reading, Don‘t forget to share your thoughts with me. | https://towardsdatascience.com/boosting-your-sequence-generation-performance-with-beam-search-language-model-decoding-74ee64de435a | ['Kartik Chaudhary'] | 2020-07-30 14:27:13.114000+00:00 | ['Language Model', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Deep Learning', 'Language Learning', 'Beam Search'] |
5 different DIY Projects with Wine Corks | Some days just seem to call for a bottle of wine. So you grab a bottle, you pop the cork…and then you find yourself saying “well this is a nice bottle of wine, so I should keep the cork”. Jump to a year later, and suddenly you’ve got a bucket full of corks and no idea what to do with them, and clearly you’re not going to throw them out now…you just need the right project! Well, we’ve come up with our five favorite ways to use those leftover corks.
#1: Cork zoo? Cork zoo.
People have gone pretty wild with these cork animals, and there’s loads of ways to make them. You can use the cork as the body, and attach some body parts to it. Feeling more artistic? Grab a marker and design yourself a penguin or a tiger. In a more constructive mood? Take a few and build yourself a horse (here’s a hint: start with using a cork for each leg, another for the body, and cut a third into a big piece for the head and a smaller piece for the neck). Endless possibilities!
#2: Who started the fire? Wine corks!
You know what pairs well with a nice glass of wine on a cold day? A nice fire in your fireplace. And you don’t need to be a pro camper to make a fire if you’ve thought ahead with some wine corks. Just fill an airtight container with some rubbing alcohol, throw in your corks, and let ’em soak. Once it’s time for your fire, throw in some kindling with your logs, and then put in your corks. One match later, and you’ll be relaxed next to a warming fire with a warming glass of wine in hand.
#3: It’s gonna be a very classy affair
Wine is best shared with friends, and sometimes that means classing the place up a bit. You break out the nice plates, make sure all the silverware matches, and with a few corks, you’ve got yourself some placeholders too! All you need to do is cut a small slit lengthwise down the cork, and you’ve got yourself a perfect placeholder for all your guests namecards.
#4: Build a bathmat
If you’ve found yourself with a prodigious collection of corks, you may find yourself saying “well those suggestions are well and good, but it’s not going to dent my cork cabinet!”. Enter the cork bathmat. All you need are corks, a good powerful glue (hot glue works best), and a non-adhesive liner to place them on. Then all you need to do is build a rectangle out of your corks, cut the liner to size, and glue them into place. Boom, cork bathmat.
#5: A plant holder for even the least green of thumbs
If you’re the type who has managed to kill even your plastic plants, this is the plant holder for you. Take your cork, and punch a hole in the top (you can even use a corkscrew for this). Then use a knife to dig out a bigger hole, which you’ll want to go about halfway down the cork. Then fill the hole with soil, plant a succulent clipping. They’re cheap, hardy, and in style, so you’ll seem to be quite the fashionable gardner.
About Toast!:
We made Toast! gummies shareable so you can easily carry them in your bag or pocket and then be the talk of the group for bringing party favors! Check out our collection here and stock up today. | https://medium.com/@sean_71552/5-different-diy-projects-with-wine-corks-edf48e8535b2 | ["Sean O'Neill"] | 2019-03-07 18:39:38.113000+00:00 | ['Alcohol', 'DIY', 'Funny', 'Wine'] |
Can Analytics Help a Sari Sari Store? | I had this interesting conversation earlier about analytics while at a BNI meeting.
I started explaining to the person I was sitting next to what I do and he asked can analytics really help any business?
Of course I said yes.
He asked even a Sari Sari store?
For those of you who don’t know much about Sari Sari stores, let me tell you a bit about them.
By far the most common form of self-employment in the Philippines are small, family operated convenience stores. Called Sari-Sari stores, there are an estimated 1 million Sari Sari stores across the Philippines. Per wikipedia, this counts for an estimated 30% of all retail sales in the Philippines.
Sari-Sari, which is Tagalog for variety, are an important economic and social pieces of just about every Filipino community. Most are privately run, family owned and are operated from the front of the owners house.
Commodities are displayed behind a large mesh screen to both allow customers to see what is available and to prevent shoplifting. The most common goods sold are candy, snacks and other non-perishable food items. Cigarettes and mobile phone cards are also popular items for sale. Household needs like soap, detergent and cleaning supplies are also common. Some stores have small refrigerators to offer cold drinks like soda and beer.
Sari-sari stores generally have higher prices when compared to supermarkets which is a tradeoff for proximity to their customers. It is also common to buy single units of a product versus an entire package as paying more to meet a quick need is valued over planning and budgeting bulk purchase over the long term.
Some Sari Sari stores also offer credit to neighbors. Micro lending of this scale is wide spread and generally done under the rule that if the credit is not repaid, the store owner will report this to the local government officials.
Some Sari Sari stores barter goods and services with farmer, fishermen and other businesses.
Most Sari Sari store proprietors buy their goods at supermarkets then mark up the prices for resale (on the average 20%). In some areas, businessmen make act a middle man offering bulk products to the Sari Sari store.
It is my belief that most Sari Sari stores can benefit from a simple strategic business plan and some very basic analytics.
My understanding is that Sari Sari stores operate on a very tactical level with little long term planning and operate with little market awareness.
If I ever to consult with the owner of a Sari Sari store, my initial approach would be to develop a business strategy plan and build a basic analytics process to gather data and provide a proof of concept.
This approach would be broken into the following steps:
Business Strategy Assessment — How do they conduct business? Competitive Landscape — Who do they compete with? Demographic Profile — Who are their customers? Market Assessment — How much upside is in their market? Inventory Analysis — How to they optimize inventory? Facilities Assessment — Are they getting the most of their location? Risk & Security Assessment — What risks do they face?
I will flesh out each of these steps in upcoming blog posts.
Once I have complied data from these 7 steps, I can develop a business strategy plan unique to the individual Sari Sari store.
After my presentation of the business plan, I can make a determination if they Sari Sari store will enter Phase Two of the plan.
I would work with the proprietor store for a set period of time in a consulting role to determine viability of operations and if they meet our program standards (detailed later in this document).
In addition to offering a consulting solution, through my company, I can also offer additional services including cash management, accounting, marketing, inventory and fulfillment assistance, and other solutions as they arise.
Its my experience that the busiest Sari Sari stores offer something unique. Some might have an ice cream maker, or a special dish they prepare, or some have home baked goods. Regardless, they generally have something that sets them apart from a store that just offers traditional goods.
So, the final piece of my involvement would be cross selling our unique products to Sari Sari stores in need of a unique product to build their business around.
After that consultation, I would expect that three things would happen:
the Sari Sari store proprietor would have a better grasp of a strategic business strategy. the Sari Sari store would increase profits and the Sari Sari store would expand its customer base and build up loyalty with existing customers.
So, to get back to the question… how can analytics help a Sari Sari store?
By applying some lessons from the corporate world.
Analytics in the Philippines — The Philippines is at the center of the action when it comes to solutions to the global need for analytics. Blessed with a solid foundation of young, educated and English speaking workforce, companies around the world are look for Filipino analytics talent to fill analytics positions.
Daniel Meyer heads Sonic Analytics, an analytics firm with offices in Manila, the San Francisco Bay Area and Ocala, FL. With over 20 years in Big Data, Dan is one of the most sought-after public speakers in Asia and offers big data coaching and analytics training seminars on both sides of the Pacific. Dan has also recently joined the Powerteam International family as a small business analytics resource speaker.
Sonic Analytics(www.sonicanalytics.com) brings big data analytics solutions like business intelligence, business dashboards and data storytelling to small and medium sized organizations looking to enhance their data-driven decision-making capabilities. We also advocate the use of analytics for civic responsibility through training, consulting and education.
As citizens of this great democracy, we need to look at the data (analytics), plan a course of action (strategy) and share our data-driven viewpoints (presentation). This approach to a data savvy work force starts in school. So, we started an internship program to empower our youth to use Analytics, plan Strategy and Present their insights… ASP!
When not training current and future analysts, you can find Dan championing the use of analytics to empower data-driven citizenship by volunteering his expertise with schools and non-profits dedicated to evidence-based social progress like Saint Leo University’s Women in STEAM 2020 Conference. | https://medium.com/@themightyd1-87735/can-analytics-help-a-sari-sari-store-4b3493ee6f86 | ['Daniel Meyer'] | 2020-01-14 07:16:01.277000+00:00 | ['Philippines', 'Ecommerce', 'Sari Sari Store', 'Big Data', 'Dan Meyer'] |
Things to Know Before Your First Pilates Class | Instagram: @the.pilates.space
Honestly, it’s not like Pilates had ever gone out of fashion. But lately, it’s as if every Hollywood babe, KPop starlet and fitness influencer has jumped onto the Pilates train.
Upon closer look, it’s actually not hard to understand.
Pilates, with its focus on core strength and building lean muscles, is the weapon of choice for many looking for a lithe, slender physique. It’s also a highly recommended exercise for people with neck, shoulder and lower back pain.
Whether you’re purely inspired by all the sudden hype or you’re looking for a new rehabilitative workout regime, here’s what Pilates beginners need to know before their first class.
Pilates vs Yoga — aren’t they both the same?
Many yogis go into Pilates thinking that it’ll be a similar workout (*cough* this was me). Sure, both use controlled breathing and require mind muscle connection. But yoga is predominately about flexibility, balance and relaxation as you flow through a sequence of poses. Most movements return to a standing position where you ground yourself down onto the floor before pushing away.
Yoga is also focused on deep belly breathing and both inhaling and exhaling through the nose. This has the effect of activating your parasympathetic nervous system which will promote deep mental and muscle relaxation.
Pilates helps build core strength and spinal alignment. The exercises are primarily done lying down and the focus is on using your pelvic floor muscles and transverse abdominis to move through the different movements.
The Pilates breath is drawn in through the nose right into your ribcage before exhaling forcefully through the mouth while tensing your core. It’s a more strenuous workout compared to yoga and you’ll walk out of a session feeling taller and more even.
Should beginners do Mat or Reformer Pilates?
Broadly speaking, your physical condition will dictate whether you choose Mat or Reformer Pilates.
Mat Pilates is the equipment-free variation which relies on your body weight as resistance. It’s a highly challenging workout because you’re working against gravity to strengthen and lengthen many often neglected muscles. From time to time, props like disk sliders, Pilates balls and circles/wheels and resistance bands may be used to up the workout’s intensity.
Reformer Pilates requires additional equipment like the reformer bed, trapeze, wunder chair, barrel and others. It’s a rehabilitative form of Pilates using springs, levers, ladders and boxes to add resistance and more accurately target specific muscle groups. Many liken reformer Pilates to being on training wheels, as the additional equipment helps beginners to better develop core strength and find neutral spine alignment.
Whichever style you choose, both will help redefine movement patterns within your body so you can move lighter and easier in your day-to-day.
Invest in a private Pilates class
You could learn Pilates on your own but there’s plenty of ways to do it incorrectly. It’s highly recommended to have a trained instructor who will teach you proper form.
One of the key benefits of Pilates is learning how to support your posture, internal organs and lower back using your core muscles. These already under-used muscles can be hard to find on your own. A qualified Pilates instructor will be able to teach you how to best activate these small muscles.
Don’t be afraid to try out a few instructors before settling on someone you enjoy working with. Some instructors are better than others at cuing and that alone can make a huge difference for Pilates beginners. Others are more hands-on when it comes to adjustments to your shoulders and pelvis which can be incredibly useful when retraining yourself how to move.
Small studio groups of 3–4 people also work well for Pilates beginners. Arrive early and let your instructor know that you’re new to Pilates. This way they’ll be able to slow down their cues and give you some extra attention to ensure you’re moving correctly.
Do Clinical Pilates if you’ve got pre-existing injuries
If you have pre-existing injuries, it’s especially important for you to see a Clinical Pilates instructor with a physiotherapy background. These practitioners first examine your problems before designing a workout program that will help rehabilitate your trouble areas. Having studied the human body, these physios can often be more effective at helping you recover from that sore tech neck or ankle sprain that just won’t heal properly.
Bonus points if your physio has an ultrasound which can show you in real-time how to use your transverse abdominis to brace your lower back and activate your pelvic floor to support your pelvic organs!
If you’re in Australia, remember that Clinical Pilates classes are claimable under your private health fund Physio Extras.
Grip socks are totally worth it
If you’ve got your heart set on reformer Pilates, do get yourself a pair of grip socks before your first class. These socks with small rubber grips help keep you safe by minimising slips and falls when on the equipment. Better grip also means that you can concentrate on activating and using the correct muscles. Normal socks which don’t fit tight enough might mean you need to over compensate in order to stay upright on the reformer.
Grip socks don’t need to be fancy. If you’re crafty, you can make your own grip socks or these inexpensive Cotton On ones do the job well!
If you rock up without a pair, don’t sweat! Ask your studio if they have any non-slip pads you can use to steady yourself with.
Slow and steady wins the race
When you’re in an open studio class, it’s easy to get caught up in what others are doing. They might be gliding in and out of movements faster than you and that’s okay.
Pilates is focused on slow, controlled movements and it prizes correct form over higher resistance and repetitions. There’s two reasons for this: firstly, you’ll increase your mind muscle connection and decrease the likelihood of injury. Secondly, slower Pilates gives a more intense workout that develops your strength and lengthens your body from inside out.
So don’t worry about what others are doing. For Pilates beginners, your priority is to develop good form and technique through a slow and steady practice.
Muscles you didn’t know existed will be sore tomorrow!
It’s common to have sore abs the day after your first Pilates workout. This is a good indicator that you’ve been using the right muscles during your session! The soreness goes away in 2–3 days but, in this period, you’ll notice that you’re now more mindful of your posture and moving easier (even lighter on your feet!).
If you do feel any sharp pain, your best bet is to seek medical advice to ensure that you haven’t injured yourself. | https://medium.com/@afourthplace/things-to-know-before-your-first-pilates-class-75a0741f22f5 | [] | 2020-12-23 09:39:47.894000+00:00 | ['Pilates', 'Mindfulness', 'Wellness', 'Exercise', 'Workout'] |
Improving ERP Data With Data Science | Enterprise resource planning (ERP) data helps companies manage their day-to-day operations with help from specialized platforms that compile information from multiple streams and allow companies to get real-time feedback for better decision-making.
Businesses can enhance their ERP usage by hiring data scientists who understand how to make sense of the information from an ERP interface and use it to drive profitable actions.
Enabling Better Demand Forecasting
Data scientists have a thorough understanding of how to identify patterns within historical data. Considering that ERP platforms typically contain information about sales fluctuations over time, data scientists can dig deeper to find the trends that could help companies determine how soon to order more products and which items customers will want most.
The data scientists hired by a company can assess yearly, monthly and weekly seasonality factors and give guidance to business leaders about keeping products in stock that range from sunscreen to snow shovels. Plus, it’s important to remember some of the other things that could influence customer demand.
If a celebrity carries a widely available purse while strolling down the red carpet at an awards show, that visibility could make consumers want to buy it. Or, if a respected thought leader posts a tweet about a product, that mention could spur desirability, too. ERP software provides the hard data that companies need, and it’s data scientists who help connect the dots by determining both the obvious and less evident factors that make people want products.
It’s easy to see the benefits of this in the retail world, but the advantages expand to manufacturing and customer service, too. For example, increased demand for a consumable item containing a difficult-to-acquire ingredient might cause a company or its supply chain partners to expand their network to source the item or look for alternative ways to formulate the product.
Or, a rapid uptick in the number of people buying a newly released smartphone may require a brand’s customer support team members to go through additional training before handling the barrage of questions about that tech item. Once businesses rely on data scientists to better understand demand-related patterns, they should be better equipped to anticipate and cater to ever-changing requirements.
Helping Companies Feel More Confident About Solving Problems
Business leaders frequently encounter situations that require them to assess the options and make the most appropriate choice for a given scenario. That often starts when company representatives select ERP software. For example, they evaluate whether an on-site or cloud-based ERP solution is better, then conclude that the answer depends on the enterprise’s needs.
The previous section discussed how predicting future needs with help from data scientists could help businesses succeed. Companies can also excel if they rely on data scientists to assist in the area of prescriptive analytics — or figuring out the best approach to take when tackling a known problem. That’s because getting the necessary insights to proceed with prescriptive analytics requires focusing on data quantity and quality.
Fortunately for companies already using ERP software, most or all of the data they need will be within that platform. However, data scientists come into the picture by assessing the data to ensure it’s free from errors or duplicate records that could skew the results if not removed from the database before analysis begins.
KPMG carried out a CEO survey and found that 67% of respondents did not trust the conclusions drawn from data analysis or computer-driven models in the last several years. They said they failed to act on what the data indicated because it contradicted their intuition or experience. Leaders could feel even more doubtful if they suspect the database contains mistakes that could lead to improper conclusions.
Letting data scientists carefully prepare the data before scrutinizing it is not a guaranteed fix for company leadership’s lack of confidence in the available information. But data professionals clean the data to reduce inaccurate results. That means company executives could more authoritatively act on information in an ERP if data scientists handle it first and check for problems and usefulness.
Assisting in Compiling Data From Multiple ERP Tools
Working with company data from ERP interfaces gets exceptionally complicated when a multinational company reaches the point of using multiple ERP systems around the world and needs to combine the information into a single platform. Such was the case with Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s biggest name in beer.
The brand formerly used nearly 30 individual ERP platforms across its global subsidiaries but is now in the process of transitioning to a single standardized system that will primarily function in the cloud within the next five years or less. In the last year and a half, the brand’s team of 80 engineers took part in 30 data projects, all of which factor into the company’s digital transformation.
When companies are in similar situations where they want to begin using one ERP solution instead of dozens or more, data scientists can ease what could otherwise be a tricky transition.
However, since analysts predict the demand for data scientists to increase, company leaders should not delay in making their hiring decisions and offering attractive employment packages to candidates.
Data Scientists and ERP Tools: A Practical Pairing
This overview emphasizes how the expertise of data scientists can improve how companies use their ERPs. Moreover, it shows why company leaders increasingly see bringing data scientists onto their teams as a smart investment. | https://towardsdatascience.com/improving-erp-data-with-data-science-9c7cc00bc4bf | [] | 2019-07-10 22:26:08.989000+00:00 | ['Data Analytics', 'Erp Solutions', 'Data Visualization', 'Erp', 'Data Science'] |
CalCPA Daily Clips | Dec. 9, 2020
BUSINESS
Is self-sabotage hurting your career progression?
People might subconsciously sabotage their chances for advancement for a number of reasons, including fear of losing personal relationships. Here is a look at how to recognize and guard against self-sabotage.
Fast Company
— —
Why compassionate leadership requires wisdom
Effective leaders combine compassion with an understanding of employee motivation and how to get workers to agree upon priorities.
Harvard Business Review
PERSONAL FINANCE
Here are 3 year-end 401(k) moves to make
The great thing about 401(k) plans is that they make saving for retirement an automatic process. And with 2020 coming to a close, now’s the time to give your 401(k) some added attention.
USAToday
— —
12 States That Won’t Tax Your Retirement Income | Kiplinger
Retirees can save a lot of money in these states that completely exempt the most common types of retirement income, including 401(k)s, IRAs and pensions.
Kiplinger
— —
How to make and meet financial goals in unstable times
Despite a chaotic year, many Americans retained a sense of financial stability. Keep it going in the new year with a plan and a financial professional.
USAToday
POLITICS & POLICY
California’s tax windfall is $15.5 billion, Newsom tells tech industry group
The estimate offered by Newsom is significantly smaller than the one made last month by the independent Legislative Analyst’s Office, which put the size of the unexpected cash surplus at $26 billion for the fiscal year that begins in July.
Los Angeles Times
PROFESSION
How to audit during a pandemic? You asked. We answered.
Is it possible to audit remotely? Will there be a rise of businesses with going concern issues? Learn how to proceed with audit engagements when the coronavirus pandemic has made business far from usual.
AICPA Insights
— —
Achieving Accounting Modernization — Without Disruption
Like other sectors, the accounting space can no longer afford not to modernize as the pandemic forces organizations to shift online in a remote work setting
Pymnts
— —
2020 in Review: CPA Firms Redefine Their Role with Small Business and Ramp Up Advisory Offerings
CPA firms reaffirmed their value to small business clients in 2020, even as they reshaped the way they deliver their services.
CPA Practice Advisor
— —
Accountants are reinventing themselves during COVID
Yes, accounting is debits and credits and a lot of spreadsheets. But it’s much, much more than that. Businesses rely on accountants to keep their business on track. Especially in the midst of the pandemic, organizations are relying on accountants to help manage loan covenants, provide more granular financial reporting and identify sources of cash flow.
AccountingToday
— —
New end-of-year tax planning issues
For tax professionals and taxpayers alike, the past year was characterized by various legislation addressing the coronavirus pandemic, as well as by reacting to the continuing implementation of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Moreover, legislation passed at the end of last year affected expiring tax provisions, retirement provisions and disaster relief.
AccountingToday
REGULATORY
PCAOB to shake up inspections in 2021
The impact of the coronavirus will be a major focus in the coming year.
AccountingToday
TECH
5 tech trends that are key to productivity in 2021
There are many lessons learned over the past year and how it changed not only the way we view business and our operations as a whole, but what business leaders must consider doing next to maximize productivity.
AccountingToday | https://medium.com/calcpa-daily-clips/calcpa-daily-clips-b9d906517aa7 | [] | 2020-12-09 15:39:48.649000+00:00 | ['CPA', 'Accounting', 'California', 'Irs', 'Business'] |
What is it like to have too many interests? | Since a young age, I always had too many interests. I read every single book in the house, I danced, swam and played every sort of sport, I travelled and moved countries. But I never knew what I was really interested in. Even now I am struggling. I am in the last year of my degree and the only thing I know is that I wish to continue travelling and studying. How to make it possible? This is maybe for a future story. Right now I just want to share my experience in understanding what I am sure I am not interested in.
For so long I believed that I was interested in everything I was good at — or I was told to be good at. I thought that I loved to dance. My every-day-life was made of dancing in front of a mirror. I thought that I loved it because my parents loved seeing me dancing. I thought I loved to swim because my brother was extremely good at it, why wouldn’t I love what he loved? Then the years passed by, and I was interested in many things: skating, languages, philosophy, history, culture, etc. I am not saying that I was never interested in all of that, but I was interested in them just for a short period of time. I would become an expert on every single topic and then slowly giving up.
Everyone around me kept asking how I was doing in my many interests and I learnt to lie, even to myself. I was keeping projecting their hopes into mines. Until I started understanding what I loved — I am still in the process though. I wasn’t giving up because I wasn’t good enough or because someone was telling me I couldn’t make it. I gave up because my curiosity on those topics wasn’t growing anymore. Once I understood that, I finally looked at everything differently. I was riding my metaphorical horse with a baggage of knowledge that I wouldn’t have gained if it weren’t for my fake interests.
The takeaway of my reflection is: don’t give up right away on those things that may not interest you, you may learn something from them. At the same time, don’t hold onto them for too long. You may have many activities ready to be tested. | https://medium.com/@estellepetroz/what-is-it-like-to-have-too-many-interests-20f255482730 | ['Estelle Petroz'] | 2020-12-24 10:35:23.354000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Beyourself', 'Dontgiveupworld', 'Curiosity', 'Confidence'] |
Flying to competitivity | Image from https://unsplash.com/@hal9001
Relation between arrival-departures flights and competitive cities.
Data analisys based in study “Ciudades Resilientes” from IMCO.
Days ago I was hearing a note in a local media about a study called “Ciudades Resilitentes-Indice de competitividad Urbana”. In the interview, IMCO’s Investigator showed data about 73 cities in México and their competitivity rank and mentioned Hermosillo, as a fourth in general ranking in the 500K-1M; hard data, and interesting about the capability of the cities to attract and retain investment and talent that is traduced in wellness for their habitants.
In the present article, we’re going through data of this excellent investigation and their relation with arrivals and departure flights between all those cities with data found in datosmexico.org, to practice EDA and some skills acquired in feature engineering course.
Searching in IMCO site I found the source dataset of competitive cities, and scratching a little in https://datos.gob.mx/ I found data about all arrivals and departures between the study cities and more, so… let’s go to the data!
Getting the data
There’s 48 sheet inside the excel file from the IMCO site, the first one is the well explained contains of the rest, as well as the used methodology to construct the ranking of the cities.
I used the general ranking sheet in order to do simple, to demonstrate the cleaning of data, I’ll merge with another source.
Load the libraries that we’ll need:
Load the dataset from the excel file, the dataset to use came in well-formatted and shape, additionally I’ll load the population size from the same excel file, in a different sheet.
Name the population dataset columns
From the ranking dataset check the column names, doesnt have:
Cleaning Data
I’ll create a series from years to search in columns, create an array with the position of year changes and create an additional column for the replicate year:
Copy the year value in my new column in the correspondent position and fill the rest with fillna (ffill)
Drop empty values and rename columns with first header.
Rename the year column and drop duplicates to remove the repeated headers.
I found that city names in the first and second dataset are different for the same city, I use a not fancy method, but…..
Now I’ll merge with the population dataframe to get the cities size, regions and category, after that read the Flights dataset:
Flights dataset is an excel file contains data with all arrivals and departure flights between all cities with airports in Mexico, including international flights.
Remove totals, remove null and columns from years that I don’t need
I’ll create series from city names to leave only flights between the list of the ranking (there was international flights and to other cities)
Drop observations with no flights in all years to get at least one flight in any listed year, and transform to get a new column with year and flights of the year between two cities and remove again all obs with no flight in a year.
I’ll merge with the ranking data frame to get cities with their rank, population, and flights (departed and arrival) between cities.
There are some NaN values in the flights, they are real zero flight values so I’ll impute with zero, the result is my tidy dataset so I’ll save it in CSV file.
Analizing Data
With my tidy data let get some info about the data and some stats.
Let see in a graphic some more data, like the highest-ranked cities in 2010 categorized by city size.
Great!, Hermosillo is one of them… what about 2018?
Let's take a look at the same cities but along of years…
Now, obtain correlation and plot a graphic between my variables
Finally, plot the relation between the amount of flights by cities, the flights include departed and arrival between the cities.
As we can expect the bigger the city is, the biggest their flight's amount, but not necessarily this amount of flights means that the city is more competitive, small cities with a small quantity of flights like Hermosillo, appeared at the top of competitive cities with frequence.
Conclusion.
There’s a lot of companies, institution, and individuals that collect a big and Amazing amount of data, those persons most time don’t know the potential of that useful data to make decisions; in another hand there's a lot of data available and public, a combination of one of more of these databases can lead us to discover invaluable information about the data and their relation that we cannot easily see.
All data source, source code with tidy data, and dashboard with graphics is available:
Dataset IMCO : https://imco.org.mx/indice-de-competitividad-urbana-2020/
Flights Dataset : https://datos.gob.mx/busca
Source Github link : https://github.com/ealvaradoc72/ICU_Analisys
Dashboard: https://ealvaradoc72.github.io/ICU_Analisys/ | https://medium.com/mcd-unison/flying-to-competitivity-aa16d6ac54cd | ['Enrique Alvarado'] | 2020-12-21 03:18:22.069000+00:00 | ['Icu', 'Eda'] |
[TIL-2] Immutability of an object | Recently, I got question about “what is an immutable object?”. Back then, I only knew that immutable objects meant that the object cannot be changed.
After I answered like that I got a follow up question,”so final keyword is immutable ?”. And then I said “yes I guess, but I’m not sure”
Driven by curiosity. I read sources at other websites and make my understanding make sense.
What is Immutability ?
An immutable object is an object whose internal state remains constant after it has been entirely created.
In real life project, immutable object guarantees us that it will behave in the same way during its whole lifetime. In real life project the API gives us only read-only methods, it should never include methods that change the internal state of the object.
What is the differences immutable object vs final object ?
final means that you can’t change the object’s reference to point to another reference or another object, but you can still mutate its state (e.g using setter methods). Whereas immutable means that the object’s actual value can’t be changed, but you can change its reference to another one.
or another object, but you can still mutate its state (e.g using setter methods). Whereas immutable means that the object’s actual value can’t be changed, but you can change its reference to another one. The final modifier is applicable for variable but not for objects , Whereas immutability applicable for an object but not for variables.
, Whereas immutability applicable for an object but not for variables. By declaring a reference variable as final, we won’t get any immutability nature, Even though the reference variable is final. We can perform any type of change in the corresponding Object . But we can’t perform reassignment for that variable.
. But we can’t perform reassignment for that variable. final ensures that the address of the object remains the same whereas the Immutable suggests that we can’t change the state of the object once created.
Why we should create immutable objects ?
You Know What to Expect from an Immutable. Since the state of an immutable cannot change, we know what to expect from it. We know that the state of the object is valid throughout the object’s lifetime. Nowhere in the code can the state be changed to potentially introduce inconsistencies that may lead to runtime errors.
An Immutable Is a Gatekeeper for Valid State. If implemented correctly, an immutable object validates the state it is constructed with and only lets itself be instantiated if the state is valid. This means that no one can create an instance of an immutable in an invalid state. This goes back to the first reason: we can not only expect the immutable object to have the same state through its lifetime, but also a valid state. No more null-checks or other validations strewn across the codebase. All those validations take place within the immutable object.
If we’re working with concurrent threads that access the same objects, it’s best if those objects are immutable. This way, we cannot introduce any bugs that arise from accidentally modifying the state of an object in one of the threads. Since the internal state of an immutable object remains constant in time, we can share it safely among multiple threads. We can also use it freely, and none of the objects referencing it will notice any difference, we can say that immutable objects are thread-safe and side-effects free.
Conclusion
Immutable objects don’t change their internal state in time, they are thread-safe and side-effects free. Because of those properties, immutable objects are also especially useful when dealing with multi-thread environments.
Every time we add a field to a class we should make it immutable (i.e. final) by default. If there is a reason to make it mutable, that’s fine, but unnecessary mutability increases the chance of introducing bugs and maintainability issues by unintentionally changing state.
References | https://medium.com/@davidasync/til-2-immutability-of-an-object-50104a855dc6 | [] | 2020-11-21 16:30:46.517000+00:00 | ['Concurrency', 'Final', 'Object Oriented', 'Threads', 'Immutable'] |
DAWN OF MARVEL’S FAULTY CASTING (Probably) | Marvel studios moving towards the likes of DCEU and Dark Universe in terms of casting popular actors for their movies shows their lack of confidence in their upcoming projects.
Marvel Cinematic Universe started in 2008 with Iron man. Casting an almost nobody like Robert Downey Jr. against likes of Tom Cruise & Hugh Jackman seemed to be an epic suicide but it worked and took off the studio which was initially bankrupt.
This formula seemed to work for them in later years with Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L Jackson, Scarlet Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Paul Rudd, Josh Brolin etc.
Apart from few exceptions like Edward Norton & Terrence Howard every casting has been on point. This formula of picking up an unnoticed talent and making people feel invested in their portrayal of character seemed to work all the time.
How do you make people feel invested in a character?
By doing what marvel did. Casting an actor who does not have associations with any iconic role previously i.e., getting a clean slate.
For example, it’s not possible to cast Tom Cruise in a movie and expect audience to not think of him as Ethan Hunt or Casting Daniel Radcliffe and expecting audience to not shout “Hey that’s Harry Potter”.
What did marvel do wrong?
They casted these beautiful and famous individuals for their upcoming phase IV movie “Eternals”.
Richard Madden as Ikaris, Harry Styles as Thanos’s brother Starfox, Angelina Jolie as Thena and Kit Harrington as Black Knight.
There are Pros of casting famous names which is obviously getting their fanbase and then there are cons. The downside is these Pros are short term while the cons on the other hand can be long lasting in case of a franchise based universe like MCU.
You can’t look at Richard madden without thinking about Robb stark/GoT, You can’t look at Harry styles without your mind auto-playing a one direction song, You can’t look at Kit Harrington without thinking about Jon Snow/GoT and last You can’t look at Angelina Jolie and not think about well, Angelina Jolie and This creates an obstruction for people to actually get invested in the character.
Most Lead Game of thrones actors like Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams & Emilia Clarke haven’t been able to prove themselves out of GoT-universe. Apart from Richard madden in BBC Bodyguard and Peter Dinklage in Avengers: Infinity war, most of the GoT caste have become irrelevant.
I still believe that Marvel can make these characters shine without letting actor’s previous work overshadow in present but it’s going to be tough, tougher than it ever was for them.
Let’s just hope for the best. | https://medium.com/@saurabhraj254/dawn-of-marvel-cinematic-universe-a219024c2bb1 | ['Saurabh Raj'] | 2020-10-10 14:51:57.009000+00:00 | ['Comic Book Movies', 'Game of Thrones', 'Marvel Cinematic Universe', 'Movies', 'Comic Books'] |
Just Think About It | An essay-rant centered around critical thinking
Increasingly people are given access to a greater and greater amount of information, yet this greater amount of information is diluting the worth of information, and people are losing the ability to critically evaluate this information. This essay will cover a variety of aspects which form this problem, namely a desecration of critical thinking, including the manufacture of consent, poor quality and misguided education, psychological drivers and the impact of hyperindividualism. I strongly, strongly believe that critical thinking leads to a variety of conclusions, as people hold different assumptions as to what is good, what is desirable, what is possible and what means justify what ends. These differences are vital, we need to keep each other in check, so I am not advocating for any specific conclusion or worldview, I know many people who hold solid positions which oppose my own, and who am I to say they’re wrong? The first thing that I investigate when presented with opposing views is on what grounds those views are built? Has this person blindly accepted propaganda from any ideology? Or have they done their own research? What infuriates me perhaps most is those who blindly adhere to leftism, leftism is not a movement which can be blindly adhered to, that is directly opposed to the values of the left. When I see people posting or commenting simple talking points without actually knowing what they are saying, it deeply worries me. Of course I believe there are views so abhorrent that they must be opposed by any means necessary. I make assumptions about the world which are based on weak foundations, but I am lucky enough to have access to people and resources which regularly challenge and test these views, causing them to crumble and improving my ability to form opinions. I will present a variety of arguments, challenging common assumptions and also providing reasons for the desecration of critical thinking. Of course this essay will not be truly objective, that is simply not possible, but I truly hope that this essay can convince someone to just critically examine their worldview.
A widespread, fundamental assumption about the world, at least in the west, is that we live in a meritocracy, a democracy and that ultimately our system is good. When this assumption is challenged by evidence, such as by Tim Costello in the SMH, or by Thomas Pikkety or in the case of the United States, the work of Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page which argues the US is an oligarchy, people react quite negatively. Was it democratic when the US murdered Fred Hampton? When the FBI tried to convince MLK to commit suicide? How much do you know about COINTELPRO, would you call that democratic? Much like the concept of Determinism, when presented with these conclusions, people will resort to outright denial, without actually presenting a proper argument against it. These claims challenge a fundamental assumption and rightly make people uncomfortable. Unfortunately for these people, being uncomfortable with claims built on strong foundations means nothing, it does not help anyone understand or change the situation. The most common ‘argument’ I have encountered in regards to this goes along the lines of “my parent/s came from a working class background and now they are wealthy!” This argument is a great example of survivorship bias, as well as being very anecdotal. Survivorship bias occurs when someone only pays attention to those who have made it past a barrier or selection process, such as class transition, while ignoring the far greater number who did not, often due to their lack of visibility. Having grown up in South East Asia, I saw first hand the sheer numbers of inequality, living a very privileged life while seeing families living on the streets every day, but in the west, it is not as common to see inequality so clearly, often it is hidden behind closed doors, both literally and figuratively. Education is often seen as the path out of poverty in a meritocracy, but Australia’s education system is one of the most unequal in the ‘developed’ world (note, I use developed simply for ease, but of course we must keep in mind that these nations are developed because they are exploiters while the ‘underdeveloped’ are actually the overexploited). A 2020 report by Victoria University shows that 86.3% of students from high SES backgrounds gain post school qualifications, while only 52.9% of students from low SES backgrounds do the same. The Opportunity Atlas is a prime example of clear evidence that the US is far from a meritocracy, while the Murdoch Commission in Australia demonstrates the huge impact the rich have on our government through propaganda. Now, with all this information available and working off the assumption (yes, I’m assuming in an essay about critical thinking, it is just easier) that people in these nations would value freedom, democracy and equal opportunity, it is a puzzle that there is not more uproar, more action taken in response to these conclusions, that we are not truly free, democratic or equal. I don’t doubt that essentially the entire population is capable of understanding this, and many do comprehend it, but I would say that the reason our reaction to this is so pacifist is fear. A fear that what we were taught about the world growing up is false, that hard work does not guarantee success, that any of us could lose everything by chance, that we are far closer to being homeless than being a billionaire. Given the enormous scope of structural change necessary to remedy the issues of inequality, it is far easier to deny, either consciously or subconsciously, that these serious problems exist and that we can fix them. It is here that we see the loss of critical thinking, as a society we succumb to fear in the face of these monumental challenges, we have surpassed the peak of the Yerkes-Dodson law. This line of thinking can be seen in conspiracies which have arisen within anti-lockdown, covid denier and anti-vaxx circles. These groups are confronted with a rightly frightening reality, that we are living in a pandemic which is to a large extent beyond our control. For some people, it is easier to concoct a complex conspiracy which requires enormous amounts of backfilling, so that there are clear lines of good and evil, that there is a secret, evil group controlling the world and causing the pandemic. What I find funniest about this position is the assumption that a secret group of people control the world, instead of the group of people that we know control the world, such as documented by the wealth distribution studies of Oxfam. For these people, accepting lockdowns and vaccines means accepting the well documented reality of the pandemic, which deeply frightens them. Of course there are other reasons for this, which I will touch on later. Ignorance may well be bliss for some, but while these people live in bliss, billions suffer, and those in bliss begin to lose it due to their ignorance. We must be willing to be afraid, to recognise that we have little control over the outcome of our lives, to critically examine the nature of our reality, we cannot let fear triumph over critical thinking.
What good is a right if we cannot effectively make use of it? We forget the ‘right of critical thinking’. Freedom of speech and thought is seen as one of the great achievements of liberal democracy, often its primary defence against criticisms, yet are we truly free to say what we want? This is another very common assumption in the west, often used to criticise other nations, but as Fidel Castro once stated in response to an interview question about freedom of the press, “An enemy of socialism cannot write in our newspapers. But we don’t deny it, and we don’t go around proclaiming a hypothetical freedom of the press where it actually doesn’t exist, the way you people do.” Without passing judgment on the actions of the Cuban government, Castro raises an important point here, freedom of speech does not truly exist, it is just a question of which governments admit that. Once again I bring up the case of the Murdoch Commission in Australia, which investigates the shrinking media diversity in Australia and the impact of Newcorp’s ownership of roughly two thirds of Australia’s daily newspapers. To quote Noam Chomsky, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.” The Pew Research center demonstrates that Americans rank in the middle of education rankings, often behind “other advanced industrial nations”, and Australia was ranked 39/41 middle-high income nations in education by UNICEF. As the University of Western Australia states, “Fewer than 20 per cent of year 12 students go to independent schools yet they receive about one-third of all university offers”, and Australia was ranked 30/38 in education equality, while the US was ranked 24th. When combining high inequality in education with overall poor quality of education, the worth of free speech is diminished. But once again, despite being aware of these issues, fear overcomes us as a population, we do not want to consider the possibility that our speech may not be as free as we think, if you keep a population within a certain scope of thinking, speech is not a threat to power, as Mark Fisher argues, we cannot conceptualise a different world. Returning to my favourite case study, the various groups opposed to covid measures, we see this effect in a weird manner. Cries that those opposed to them are “sheep of the mainstream media” and “need to wake up” are common, but in reality, these people are simply an unintended product of the very propaganda they say they oppose. Firstly of course, the idea that a secret group of evil people control the world instead of the widely known group of people who control the world is a product of both fear, wanting to assume our system is still fundamentally good and is instead being sabotaged, and misplaced genuine, fair anger. Much like age old antisemitic conspiracies, it works in the favour of the ruling class for the population, especially the working class, to blame some abstracted, external group for the woes actually caused by the ruling class. There are different types of people opposed to COVID measures, one of which being working class people who have been given little financial and health support, and as a result had poor material conditions thrust upon them during this lockdown. A frustration at the material conditions experienced by the working class at the fault of the ruling class sounds very Marxist, and at the least, one would think they would demand better social welfare at least, but instead they oppose lockdown. Why? Because these people have been denied proper education, they have been subject to intense, covert propaganda and been fed conspiracies blaming abstract groups instead of the structural flaws of our capitalist system which have led to this point. Looking at footage of the Sydney protests, I saw no hammer and sickles, no red flags, no flags of anarchy, instead I saw right wing and populist banners and iconography, it was even revealed far right individuals had organised these protests. For the people, they have been told this red herring is entirely responsible for their suffering, instead of the people actually responsible. Our ability to think critically has been destroyed by our lack of equal, quality education and the intense media propaganda. Often media outlets claiming to oppose the ‘mainstream media’ point their audiences towards views which further the control of the working class. Freedom of speech and thought is worthless without the equal development of critical thinking.
Although this is a sort of digression, I do find particularly interesting another prominent group which opposes COVID measures — the upper class trope. The trope is well known, the ‘hippies in Byron Bay’, ‘Anti-Vaxx Mums’, wealthy people who do not face real oppression and all of that sort. What is initially puzzling is the fact that they have no clear reason for this opposition, they have benefitted from the system, they live comfortably and safely. To contrast, African Americans, among the huge myriad of reasons they have to oppose the government, know the history of the American government using medicine as a faucet of oppression, leading to the Pew Research Center reporting in November 2020 that only 42% of African Americans would be willing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, despite 71% claiming to know someone who was hospitalised or died as a result of COVID-19. Another example of reasonable medical hesitancy occured in Pakistan, where rates declined by as much as 39% after it was revealed that the CIA had been using a vaccination drive to collect DNA without patients knowing to aid their search for Bin Laden. So why are these people suddenly greatly concerned by government overreach, freedom and vaccinations? My serious answer is revolutionary cosplay. These people have seen, through history and the contemporary world, the very real struggles of oppressed peoples, in a legitimate search for freedom, equality and safety, yet these ‘upper class freedom fighters’ have never actually experienced systemic oppression. Social change has been turned into a spectacle, seen in the well meaning but frankly weird means of support for the BLM movement, such as posting black squares, or painting the clenched fist on one’s face and making it into a TikTok, for these people, politics has become a game of social clout points. This is what is often termed ‘performative activism’. For these specific COVID-19 measure opponents, they feel left out that they haven’t had ‘a turn’ at playing the freedom fighters, they are bored of their ivory tower, so they invent reasons to feel oppressed, claiming threats to their freedom. Comparisons to the Holocaust are horrifying, but unfortunately often made by these people, as they are so far removed from the reality of oppression that one of the most inhumane, disgusting and shameful chapters of human history is comparable to them not being able to go to the gym. To these people I simply raise the case of the ‘smoker’s rights movement’, which arose when bans on smoking in certain public places were put into place, the movement was defeated by the argument that although smokers are entitled to bodily autonomy in terms of choosing to smoke, they are not entitled to do so in places where smoking violates other’s autonomy by exposing them to harmful substances. In the same way, these people are entitled to not get the vaccine, but are not entitled to risk spreading COVID-19 to others. Choices have consequences. A lack of critical thinking is once again found, as these people start with the desire to be oppressed, and find reasons to create an illusion of oppression, instead of worrying about the people who actually do face oppression.
A remarkable trait of humans is our ability and tendency to work together, we are able to create something greater than the sum of our parts. The ability to work together with others, especially those with different views is fundamental to critical thinking. Our societal obsession with being ‘self made’, ‘always hustling’ and entrepreneurs is both a symptom and cause of the demise of critical thinking. Hyperindividualism has been cultivated as a result of the ‘dog eat dog’ nature of our modern world, convincing people that they should not care about broader populations, that they can really only count on themselves and their opinions are valid simply by having them, and that they deserve a platform to express these opinions. I’m sure you would have come across at least one video online of a young middle age — old man yelling at an audience about only sleeping 4 hours, investing, not going to university and attempting to convince them that hard work is always rewarded. As established prior, this belief is false and often driven by survivorship bias, but I want to focus specifically on the points of inherent validity of their opinions and an aversion to university or qualifications in general. I do not doubt the ability of people to teach themselves, there are hundreds of free lectures, essays and sources available online, but these comprehensive resources do not match with our shortening attention spans, people prefer short 5 minute videos, a 10 slide infographic or 15 second TikToks explaining complex topics simply, if you’re still here reading, congrats and thank you, that’s pretty impressive to be honest. This obsession with being self made (which is just not possible) leads people to avoid university, instead attempting to teach themselves all by themselves, and leads them to assume that everyone should value their opinion, regardless of their qualifications or knowledge of the field. Universities and academia do need to undergo reform in terms of accessibility and cost, but they do provide an excellent opportunity to work with others, to conduct thorough research, to talk and debate with professors, all of these opportunities lead to collective reasoning, people are exposed to entirely different worldviews and are invited to examine their own, all while learning how to work collectively. This is seen clearly in the practice of peer review, but also in the less formal class discussions, hallway conversations and debates. As Michael from Vsauce puts it, “I don’t need to learn how to fix a car AND practice medicine AND vulcanize rubber OR remember everything … other people are doing that for me just as I do things for them. We are a species of individuals that is also one big interdependent lumbering growth.” Critical thinking works best when others think with us. Take a jury for example, we use a randomised group of people to determine guilt in the criminal justice system, so that multiple perspectives, multiple inherent biases and multiple arguments can come together to hopefully reach a sound conclusion determining guilt, and it is why unanimous decisions are often required by courts. We all know what cognitive bias is and how it impacts us, for example I am likely to interpret events through the lens of class and power, this does not mean I am correct or incorrect, it is simply one perspective, which should be mixed with and critiqued by other opinions. This does not mean that the middle ground is always correct, that assumes a false equivalence of opinions, for example the commonly mocked Horseshoe Theory, which states that far left and far right stances are equally bad, but I would hope you agree that striving for equal opportunity, equal rights and true liberation is not equivalent to striving for an ethnostate, repression and a high concentration of power in a ruling class. Collaboration is essential, and to constantly outright brand all opinions different to your own as ‘unreasonable’, ‘evil’ and ‘wrong’ only leads to our detriment. Collaboration is essential, exposure to different views is essential, and committing to critical thinking is essential.
I now shift my focus to three concepts; short termism, hyperobjects and behavioural inertia. These concepts come together to impact our ability to think critically and create paralysis when action is needed most, claims such as “It is too entrenched to change”, “it’s the best we can do”, “it’s not that bad” and, my personal favourite, “it’s not that deep’’ all point back to these three concepts. Short termism is the growing tendency to look only at recent history and look only into the near future when making decisions, leading to ill informed conclusions and actions. A prime example of short termism comes in Thomas Picketty’s refutation of the Kuzents theory, Picketty showed the assumption that global inequality would lessen under capitalism was not true by looking at 200 years of recent history. Short termism is also seen in the fact that in 1900 the average history dissertation covered 75 years, but in 1975 it covered 30. When looking at our response to climate change, short termism is clear, we struggle to act despite our desperate need to do so because we struggle to look to the future. Hyperobject is a term coined by Timothy Morton, referring to issues which cover so much time and space, and which are so intertwined with so many different lives in so many different ways that ‘removing’ these hyperobjects would upheave many assumptions and structures we view as fundamental. Climate change is a great example of a hyperobject, it impacts every single person on earth, with dire consequences for some today, while others won’t feel the impacts until later. Real solutions to climate change do require significant structural changes, changes which some people feel threatened by. Hyperobjects are hard to fully comprehend, that is their nature, and they are often rather scary due to their influence, which is where we get the phrases “it’s not that deep” and “it’s the best we can do ‘’. Capitalism is itself a hyperobject, it impacts every aspect of our lives, down to the way we see nature and ourselves. We know the impact of it on mental health, systemic oppression, climate change, healthcare and science, yet we do nothing, precisely because it is such a big issue, it is far easier to deny it, and view all of these as completely separate issues, but of course, nothing happens in a vacuum, there are chains of cause and effect, and these chains are the structure of our society. Behavioural inertia is, as the name suggests, the tendency of humans to continue following the status quo, on an individual level yet also on a societal level. We are averse to significant change, especially when the subject of change is a hyperobject, as our individual thinking prefers to imagine hyperobjects as separate issues, so the conclusion from that line of thinking is that less action is required. Often those who stick with behavioural inertia will claim neutrality, but neutrality is impossible, claims of neutrality would be better translated as supporting the status quo, be it through inaction, ignorance or a conscious adherence to our perceived ‘center’. These three concepts combined lead the majority of us to believe that “there is no alternative”, when in reality a better world for all is possible, it just requires us to accept certain conclusions which may cause fear and demand action from us. The next time you feel driven to claim “it’s not that deep”, stop and think for a second, ask yourself if you’re actually denying uncomfortable, inconvenient truths.
While studying an anthropology unit at Macquarie University in late 2020/early 2021, I was exposed to the work of Desmond Manderson a professor at ANU and the founding director of the Centre for Law, Arts, and the Humanities at the university. Manderson’s work concerning symbolism piqued my interest and provided a new framework for understanding the world around me. Manderson writes in his work ‘Possessed’ that “When our friends and family behave irrationally, indulging in fears and behaviours that even they concede are dysfunctional, perhaps we suggest that they see an analyst. It is their irrational impulses that need to be understood if they are to change.” Manderson’s work provides, in his words, “a psychoanalytic account of institutional action.” Although he applies his work to law and particularly drug law, I have seen many areas where the framework is applicable. First we must establish ‘moral theatre’, a demonstration produced, directed by, and starring the state. The state uses moral theatre as a means to portray themselves as a force for good, against evil actors. Manderson uses the example of witches and Witchcraft Acts as a historical example, arguing the idea of witches served as an actor in a play of the Church, where witches were seen as having been seduced by the devil, and serving as the means through which evil entered the world. This served two main purposes; explaining where evil comes from, which necessitated the need for the church to retain its authority, and the ability to brand dissident women as evil and a threat to society, so that the ruling class did not need to justify the oppression of women. All of the evidence suggests that drug harm reduction policy produces the best outcome for everyone, whereas ‘Zero Tolerance’ policy causes significant harm, yet our policy and public views do not reflect that. In a similar fashion, left wing ideologies are subject to this irrational symbolism. In America, we see both politicians and voters brand anything they don’t like as socialism, communism or anarchy, despite the fact that what they are referring to is far from any of those terms. Anarchism in particular is a victim of this, as most people assume anarchy is a chaotic lack of rules, when a century of political philosophy, anthropology and sociology suggests otherwise. Communism and socialism are terms which essentially have no true meaning to anyone outside the left, and even among some people who call themselves leftists, there is a significant lack of understanding. This is irrational, beyond reason, and into the realm of emotional symbolism. Communism and socialism have come to basically mean ‘evil’ to the average person, without having any reason as to why it is evil, they just accept what they have been told. A reminder here to watch Chomsky’s ‘Manufacturing Consent’ if you haven’t. Critical thinking is the remedy to this, I am certain that the left would be far stronger if people did not blindly accept the narrative they are fed, but contemporary moral theatre requires the left play the role of the villain, so that the state may maintain its role as the hero, despite knowing that in reality western states are far closer to any conception of the villain (seriously all of their crimes are available online like the CIA has admitted to a lot of terrible stuff, interventions in South and Latin America are common knowledge this stuff is openly available). So, consider your role as the audience of moral theater, critique the play and critically think, access the information available, the state is not the hero we like to think it is. No matter how comfortable it may be to think of ourselves as the good guys, that just isn’t true.
“At least we aren’t as bad as the USA!”, chances are, if you live outside the US, you’ve either said or heard this, and aside from being a pretty blatant whataboutism in order to avoid uncomfortable truths, it isn’t really the case. I live in Australia, and while I’m grateful that I haven’t died as a result of not being able to afford insulin, we have many, many major problems. Prior to the pandemic, about 1 in 200 people were homeless each night in Australia. Our treatment of Indigenous Australians is disgusting, Aboriginal people have a life expectancy about 8 years lower than non-aboriginal people, they make up 2% of the national population yet 27% of the national prison population, in 2019 every single child in detention in the NT was Aboriginal, Aboriginal people are 6 times more likely to commit suicide. As already discussed, our education system is severely unequal, and failing. We must stop believing the myth that Australia has no serious problems, our country is deeply broken, from our treatment of our Indigenous population, to our treatment of poor people, we are failing. Our freedom of speech is nowhere near what we imagine and desire, the case of Witness J, who underwent a secret trial and sentencing, the case of Witness K, the Identify and Disrupt bill, we are kidding ourselves if we cling to the belief that Australia is fine.
I urge you all to critically examine the beliefs you hold, especially those which are fundamental assumptions. It is hard to admit that you’re not on the side of the good guys, that you’re more likely to become homeless than a billionaire, that our governments continue to commit atrocities and crimes, that hard work will not guarantee success, that the problems we face are structural, that issues like climate change require significant changes, but we cannot let fear of reality cloud our judgement. Always ask why, not just what. Don’t accept claims at face value. We must be better, for everyone’s sake.
Bibliography
Allam, L., 2019. ‘System is broken’: all children in NT detention are Aboriginal, officials say. [online] The Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/31/system-is-broken-all-children-in-nt-detention-are-aboriginal-officials-say>.
ALRC. 2018. Disproportionate incarceration rate | ALRC. [online] Available at: <https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/pathways-to-justice-inquiry-into-the-incarceration-rate-of-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples-alrc-report-133/executive-summary-15/disproportionate-incarceration-rate/>.
Argy, F., 2008. Education inequalities in Australia : Institute of Advanced Studies : The University of Western Australia. [online] Ias.uwa.edu.au. Available at: <https://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/new-critic/five/educationinequalities>.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. 2020. Homelessness and homelessness services — Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. [online] Available at: <https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/homelessness-and-homelessness-services>.
Carteron, N., 2020. America in 2020 Feels Like France in 1788. [online] Medium. Available at: <https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/america-in-2020-feels-like-france-in-1788-d4f2db892d5a>.
Chomsky, N., Barsamian, D. and Naiman, A., 2003. The common good. Tucson, Ariz.: Odonian Press.
Chzhen, Y., Rees, G., Gromada, A., Cuesta, J. and Bruckauf, Z., 2018. An Unfair Start: Inequality in Children’s Education in Rich Countries. [online] Unicef-irc.org. Available at: <https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/an-unfair-start-inequality-children-education_37049-RC15-EN-WEB.pdf>.
Costello, T., 2021. Myth of meritocracy casts Australia in a new light. [online] Smh.com.au. Available at: <https://www.smh.com.au/national/myth-of-meritocracy-casts-australia-in-a-new-light-20210411-p57i7l.html>.
Desilver, D., 2017. U.S. academic achievement lags that of many other countries. [online] Pew Research Center. Available at: <https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/>.
Funk, C. and Tyson, A., 2020. Intent to Get a COVID-19 Vaccine Rises to 60% as Confidence in Research and Development Process Increases. [online] Intent to Get a COVID-19 Vaccine Rises to 60% as Confidence in Research and Development Process Increases. Available at: <https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/12/03/intent-to-get-a-covid-19-vaccine-rises-to-60-as-confidence-in-research-and-development-process-increases/>.
Gilens, M. and Page, B. I., 2014. Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens. Perspectives on Politics. Cambridge University Press, 12(3), pp. 564–581. doi: 10.1017/S1537592714001595.
Han, M., 2016. Thomas Piketty debunks Australia’s meritocracy ‘fairy tale’. [online] Australian Financial Review. Available at: <https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/thomas-piketty-debunks-australias-meritocracy-fairy-tale-20161023-gs8sb6>.
Jones, A., 2021. Educational inequality in Australia: Too much talk is never enough. [online] Independent Australia. Available at: <https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/educational-inequality-in-australia-too-much-talk-is-never-enough,15056>.
Klein, S. and Hostetter, M., 2021. Understanding and Ameliorating Medical Mistrust Among Black Americans | Commonwealth Fund. [online] Commonwealthfund.org. Available at: <https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletter-article/2021/jan/medical-mistrust-among-black-americans>.
Lamb, S., Huo, S., Walstab, A., Wade, A., Maire, Q., Doecke, E., Jackson, J. and Endekov, Z., 2020. Educational Opportunity 2020: landmark study reveals entrenched educational inequality. [online] Victoria University. Available at: <https://www.vu.edu.au/mitchell-institute/educational-opportunity/educational-opportunity-2020-landmark-study-reveals-entrenched-educational-inequality>.
Lockwood, L., 2016. Literature in Castro’s Cuba. [online] The Paris Review. Available at: <https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/07/11/literature-in-castros-cuba/>.
Newsroyalcommission.com. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://newsroyalcommission.com/>.
Manderson, D., 2005. Possessed. Cultural Studies, [online] 19(1), pp.35–62. Available at: <Manderson, Desmond, Possessed: Drug Policy, Witchcraft and Belief (2005). (2005) 19 Cultural Studies 36–63, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1515428>.
Salinas, D. and Schleicher, A., 2018. Equity in Education: Breaking Down Barriers to Social Mobility. [online] Oecd.org. Available at: <https://www.oecd.org/pisa/Equity-in-Education-country-note-Australia.pdf>.
Stevens, M., 2021. The Future of Reasoning. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ArVh3Cj9rw&t=1508s> .
Youtube.com. 2019. Short-termism, Metanarratives and the History Manifesto. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tId7Sd0q28c>. | https://medium.com/@nickmair3/just-think-about-it-d5b3439e00a6 | ['Nick Mair'] | 2021-09-16 04:26:08.538000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Critical Thinking', 'Politics'] |
Javascript and Rails SPA(single page application) | For my Javascript frontend and Rails backend project I decided to do a single page assessment test application. The app would scroll through a series of questions, collect the answers into an array and save them to the database. Then a admin/user can view all the results and calculate the scores when needed.
BACKEND:
I set the backend up first, since that was going to be the easier of the two. Like most things in Rails there is a shortcut for set up.
$ rails new my_api --api
This sets everything up as if you just creates a new rails program, with the exception that it leaves the views out, because they will be handled by the Java script frontend. Once you create the new API, you can use the rails generators, to get everything set up pretty quickly. I used the scaffold generator which will set up your model, controller, and migration.
$ rails generate scaffold Post name:string title:string content:text
You will still have to run.
$ rails db:migrate
FRONTEND:
To get my frontend setup I first started with the files I would need. I will need one for all my javascript classes, plus one for main javascript, one for HTML, and one for CSS.
To link the Javascript files to the main HTML, you have to use a script tag:
<script src="index.js"></script>
<script src="src/admin.js"></script>
<script src="src/question.js"></script>
<script src="src/test.js"></script>
Most of the work of the program is being handled with AJAX(Asynchronous JavaScript And XML). AJAX cycle is an event occurs, Javascript creates a XMLHttprequest, the object sends a request to the web server, the server processes the request, then sends back the response, Javascript reads the response, and an action is taken.
I used the global fetch() method which comes from the Fetch API. With fetch() you are able to receive(GET) data:
function fetchAdmin () {
fetch(`${BASE_URL}/admins`)
.then(resp => resp.json())
.then(admins => {
for(const admin of admins){
let a = new Admin( admin.name, admin.username, admin.email)
a.renderAdmin();
console.log(a)
}
})
}
But also send(POST) data to a database
function testFormSubmission(){
event.preventDefault();
let name = document.getElementById("name").value
let selected = v
let test = {
name: name,
answer1: selected[0],
answer2: selected[1],
answer3: selected[2],
answer4: selected[3],
answer5: selected[4],
answer6: selected[5],
answer7: selected[6],
answer8: selected[7],
answer9: selected[8],
answer10: selected[9]
}
fetch(`${BASE_URL}/tests`, {
method: "POST",
headers: {
'Accept': 'application/json',
'Content-Type': 'application/json'
},
body: JSON.stringify(test)
})
.then(resp => resp.json())
.then(test => {
let t = new Test(test.name,test.answer1,test.answer2,test.answer3,test.answer4,test.answer5,test.answer6,test.answer7,test.answer8,test.answer9,test.answer10 )
console.log(t)
})
}
CONCLUSION:
I struggled with this project, and with Javascript in general. I found some of the concepts confusing, but I was able to overcome them. I had to ask for help from my cohort lead, which I am super grateful, but I also had to do most of it myself, which forced me to really focus on the language and pick up the concepts that Ihad been struggling with previously. I definitely feel like I’m grasping the concepts better than I was when I started this project, which gives me a sense of accomplishment. | https://medium.com/@robert-ricci/javascript-and-rails-spa-single-page-application-36f6154c333e | ['Robert M Ricci'] | 2020-09-06 11:01:46.808000+00:00 | ['Single Page Applications', 'Flatiron School', 'JavaScript', 'Learning'] |
How to get recruited in Europe (?) | Really. This is actually a question for you all. Do you know how can I get recruited in Europe as a Turkish citizen? If you do slide in my DMs and enlighten me. I would truly appreciate it.
For those failed by their education system, Turkey is this weird little (but not so little) country right between Europe and Asia.
For tourists and travellers, it’s exotic; people are very welcoming and warm; it has the most beautiful beaches; ancient cities are mind-blowing; it's a great holiday destination for literally anyone. The Turkish government should pay me for the number of people I invited to Turkey. For locals, depending on where and to which family you were born, it’s magical and depressing at the same time. So it’s literally like anywhere else in the world.
However, the country is also deeply divided, in debt and very much famous for imprisoning journalists and for many other human rights violations. The multifaceted reality of the place I was born in has initiated very interested and very dull conversations during my adult life. One being Turkey joining the EU.
When I was a kid, there were hot discussions on if the country should or shouldn’t be part of the EU, which is now a discussion on hold, indefinitely. At this point, I don’t even know if it makes sense to talk about Turkey becoming a member of the EU, it just seems too unreal for various socio-economical reasons.
All this is to say, when I was growing up, there was this seed of hope that someday Turkish people would also have the right to freely move on EU territory. When you are a kid, you don’t care about the politics behind it. It just means that you wouldn’t need a visa every single time you need to go abroad. Life would be simpler, you would be freer. I seriously love how I used to see the world as a kid. There were moments I genuinely sat down looking at the blank wall, thinking as hard as I could why frontiers exist (or do they really?). Around 30 minutes ago I was having a staring contest with my EU Law paper so let me tell you, they do exist. Although I still have a hard time understanding the concept. It must be the child in me… (Or that I am absolutely refusing to study for my paper lol)
Since I was lucky enough to be studying in France, I have a lot of friends from different European countries. And I really couldn’t believe at first how a good number of them were very foreign to the idea of visas. They were literally having a hard time understanding the daily reality of non-EU citizens. They, of course, meant good, it’s not their fault. What I realized was, they were simply thinking exactly like I did when I was 7 and frontiers didn’t exist. So in every conversation, I was laughing on the outside while screaming on the inside “What the heeeeeellllllll”. I was victimizing myself for being born in Turkey, and for losing the child’s perspective. Which is pretty useless when you think about it. However it doesn’t change the fact that if these last 3 years were a reality show in which I featured, people who are watching should have already created a drinking game: “ Each time Yaprak says visa, take a shot”. Even the ones who have a high tolerance for alcohol would be wasted by now. Visa is definitely on my Top 20 list, alongside with avocados. I just love avocados a lot.
I became distinctly obsessed with visas since I started looking for a job in Europe. I am ashamed to say this but I know the French government website on visas by heart and if you have any familiarity with the French government, it’s not a pleasant thought to have in your mind all day. Désolée France.
It gets even more challenging if you don’t believe in traditional education and if you want to follow a somewhat different way than the famous Licence-Master-Alternance trilogy. I love the idea of hustling, figuring your life out while freelancing or doing different things. But apparently, I need to go back to Turkey to do all that legally. If I choose to stay in France, I then need to juggle between my studies and a part-time role, while trying to find a job that will actually help with my visa as a recent graduate.
And I tried, oh I did. This whole Covid situation obviously didn’t help but I applied to a bunch of positions I am overqualified for and I didn’t even get shortlisted. And boy, my self-esteem was like Trump after the elections. Maybe this is becoming my Twitter. *chills*. Moving on.
Rejection is never pleasant when you feel the most vulnerable. After being rejected so many times, I started to think that it was actually not fully because I was incompetent for every single position that I was applying for. Maybe the fact that I was Turkish was playing a greater role than I had imagined in the recruitment scene. And maybe, I should have started going a little easy on myself.
If you are a non-European who went through the process of recruitment in Europe you must know this stigma: “Oh well, they just recruited the other candidate because they are European”. This is a very comforting thought and I would be lying if I told you it doesn’t keep me warm and happy in this cold cold winter in Strasbourg. But at the same time, it is very dangerous because it translates into my life as willingly constructing a mental barrier. It feeds me the belief that no matter how good I am at what I do, I will be cast aside, just because I am Turkish? Well, respectfully, fuck that. I truly don’t want to believe this is true.
Why? Because believing that doesn’t do me any good.
I am sometimes very cynical when I don’t feel motivated for new pursuits, which leads my friends to think of me as a pessimist. This is not true. If not the most, I am one of the above-average optimists out there. I trust in life and I believe that people are fundamentally good. It’s their government who’s forcing them to adopt these racist and discriminatory policies. And every now and then, there are people who will think outside of the box and surprise you. I love that. Best surprise ever. Are you my future recruiter? Hi :)
On a more serious note, if you don’t always feel like raging against the machine and protesting systematic discrimination, it’s fine. I am with you. I have spent so many hours contemplating this reality and ended up feeling frustrated and desperate. If that’s doing the trick for you, keep going. Personally, it really tires me out and I don’t see the point to it anymore. The alternative I am trying to adopt is the following: Wish them luck, swear genuinely inside and move on. Of course, after each rejection, there are tiny periods of grieving: of what could have been, and of how you would be so insanely good for that role. Well, you and 1988912 other people who don’t need a visa.
Will this funnily end up by me blaming the governments for their inability to generate relevant jobs for our generation? Probably, I mean we all know that democracy is deeply flawed and our politicians are sadly incompetent and have buried their heads really fricking deep in the sand but this is a different topic that I will save for later.
Memes are underrepresented on LinkedIn so let’s change that.
I focus on the things I can control because I have a limited amount of time.
This is becoming like a daily meditation session and I intend to end it very soon I promise. But honestly, if the laws will not be adopted tomorrow and if we cannot fix democracy all that fast, we might as well focus on being up to date on what is happening in the world, make ourselves useful, stay motivated and smile after getting 598569 rejections in a row. Yes, I like typing random numbers. Give me a break.
When hacking the system becomes a lifestyle
I have been living in Europe for the last 5 years (including that 1 year in the Brexit land which still counts). Of course, I love my home country and at the same time, 90% of my friends and professional network is based all around the world. As a foreign student, I definitely contributed to Europe my fair share financially and still doing so. The child in me is still looking at the wall and trying to figure out why I am being incentivised to go back to be able to work freely, without trying to hack the system. But you know what, this is our reality. So if no one recruits me because of my passport, I will stay on my given visa and improvise. I will start a company somewhere else, become a freelancer in my home country and “study”. Wink wink. And with time and experience, these “out of the box people” and I will meet and it will be glorious. I hope I am not admitting to a crime here… I go to my classes and I pay my taxes, so it should be fine.
Patience we must have my young padawans, we can do this. And in the meantime, we can think of this experience as a way of developing our creative skills. I heard they are very much needed in the job market nowadays.
Whatever you are doing right now, remember to drink some water.
Peace and love,
Yaprak | https://medium.com/@yaprakboyacioglu/how-to-get-recruited-in-europe-91d7c83f63ba | ['Yaprak Boyacioglu'] | 2020-11-18 11:10:14.898000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Recruitment', 'Immigration', 'Visa', 'European Union'] |
#Charles eugene hill | Areavibes | Charles Eugene Hill Born 11–17–1983 Nationality Other names Known for Education Salary Net worth Height Weight Political party Signature Website | https://medium.com/@charleseugenehill/charles-eugene-hill-areavibes-b70fadbe0e45 | ['Charles Eugene Hill'] | 2020-12-26 16:41:07.766000+00:00 | ['Cities'] |
‘Vanished Gardens’ “Jumps Boundaries Of Conventional Labels” Says Jazz Visionary Charles Lloyd | “The recording is definitely a cross-pollination of different worlds,” says Charles Lloyd, reflecting on the unclassifiable but eminently accessible musical terrain of his fourth Blue Note album, Vanished Gardens, where jazz improv, blues, gospel and Americana are inextricably intertwined. “It’s not easy to give what we are doing a category,” he says, “but if it’s great, it doesn’t matter what genre it is identified by. Labels can be so misleading, anyway.”
Vanished Gardens is the 80-year-old saxophonist/flautist’s second album with The Marvels, a supergroup whose ranks feature noted guitar maestro Bill Frisell, a fretboard virtuoso long renowned for his musical shape-shifting. He’s joined by country-influenced pedal steel and dobro expert Greg Leisz, alongside a jazz rhythm section comprised of bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland. It’s an unusual, multicultural and multi-genre mesh of talents but, as the group’s debut album, 2016’s I Long To See You, convincingly demonstrated, they sound like they’ve been playing together for years.
What’s different this time around is the presence of triple-Grammy-winning folk troubadour Lucinda Williams, whose weathered, smoky vocals grace five of Vanished Gardens’ ten tracks. “After we released I Long To See You, Lucinda came to one of our Marvels concerts in Santa Barbara,” says Lloyd, recalling how the singer-songwriter came on board. “She, Bill and Greg had known and worked together on several projects spanning a couple of decades. I knew of her from Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (her Grammy-winning album from 1999) and loved what she does. Following that meeting, she invited me to guest at her concert at UCLA a few months later, and I invited her to guest at one of my concerts. We then decided we should go into the studio to document what we were doing.”
“I don’t think there is a precedent for this recording”
The end result is a magical convergence of talents from different musical worlds: six musicians from diverse backgrounds who create alchemy together and take the listener on a journey into a new and hitherto undiscovered sonic landscape. “I don’t think there is a precedent for this recording,” says Lloyd. “Lucinda and I jumped into a river of music flowing toward the unknown. We found that the river widened with all of us in there: Lu, me, Bill, Greg, Reuben and Eric… all swimming in the same direction, but not necessarily the same stroke.”
“All swimming in the same direction, but not necessarily the same stroke.” From left to right: Greg Leisz, Lucinda Williams, Charles Lloyd, Eric Harland, Reuben Rogers, Bill Frissel
They achieved a rare sense of musical communion on Vanished Gardens without sacrificing what makes them unique as musicians, which the veteran saxophonist is keen to emphasise. “Lucinda was not turning into a jazz singer and we were not transforming our approach to become country/Americana musicians,” he says.
Williams contributes four original songs to Vanished Gardens, all gems. Though pensive, they are deeply passionate explorations of the human psyche. ‘Dust’ is a solemn existential meditation, while ‘Ventura’, though lighter in tone, is a wry confessional in which the mundanity of life is juxtaposed with the elemental beauty of nature. Lloyd plays an eloquent, unaccompanied saxophone solo to introduce the slow, waltz-time ballad ‘We’ve Gone Too Far To Turn Around’, an anthem of perseverance in the face of adversity. The energetic ‘Unsuffer Me’ is more overtly optimistic, about finding redemption through love. “Lu is a great poet,” says Lloyd, eulogising the Louisiana-born singer-songwriter’s gift for marrying words and music. “Her imagery is visceral and visual — unexpected reflections into human emotions.”
The fifth Vanished Gardens song to feature Williams’ voice is the album’s closer, a unique take on Jimi Hendrix’s much-covered ballad ‘Angel’. “This was a song that Lucinda had picked out to sing,” explains Lloyd. “The session was over, everyone had left the studio except for Bill and me. She said, ‘I wish we had been able to record “Angel.”’ Bill and I agreed to give it a shot and we did it in one take.” Though extemporised at the last minute, the combination of Williams’ plaintive voice with Lloyd’s fluttering saxophone notes and Frisell’s skeletal guitar filigrees is magical. For Lloyd, the song also brings back vivid memories of his friendship with the song’s composer. “Jimi and I knew each other from our days in Greenwich Village,” he reveals. “We had spoken of doing something together, but time ran out.”
“The utopia of our dreams”
Central to The Marvels’ sound is Bill Frisell’s distinctive guitar, which is subtle and often understated but also powerfully magnetic. The 67-year-old Maryland musician plays in an eclectic yet singular style that references jazz and bebop but is also steeped in folk and Americana. “Bill is a wonder,” says Lloyd. “He is one of the most versatile and expansive musicians I know. He brings humour and depth to whatever he does. We have a deep simpatico on and off the stage.”
Frisell’s guitar, with its spidery, staccato notes, is a key component of the title song to Vanished Gardens: a meandering meditation on loss which ebbs and flows and whose title is an elegiac metaphor for the current state of the world. Lloyd, its composer, says, “‘Vanished Gardens’ refers to the utopia of our dreams, a garden of Eden, which, in the current political climate, is being eroded away like a garden with no attention to erosion control.”
The most jazz-influenced track on Vanished Gardens is an absorbing version of Thelonious Monk’s classic composition ‘Monk’s Mood’, which is reconfigured as a duo for Lloyd’s tenor saxophone and Frisell’s guitar. “Monk is the great architect of our music,” says Lloyd, who knew the idiosyncratic composer/pianist very well. “We used to play opposite each other at the Village Vanguard.”
Indelibly engraved in Lloyd’s mind is a curious incident that happened backstage at the Vanguard when he was on the same bill as Monk in the 60s. It still makes him smile and encapsulates both the mischievous and rebellious side of Monk’s personality. “I had a requirement on my rider that every night I had to have fresh orange juice in the dressing room which Monk and I shared,” recalls Lloyd. “He always had a glass when he came in each night, but one night the juice was not fresh, so when the Baroness [Pannonica de Koenigswarter, Monk’s patron] came in, I told her to ‘please tell Monk not to drink the juice tonight because it’s tainted.’” On Monk’s arrival, the Baroness warned him that the orange juice was off but that didn’t deter the pianist, who, according to Lloyd, “danced his way around the room to the pitcher of juice and picked it up”. What happened next stunned the saxophonist. “He then danced his way back to me, and while staring me in the eyes, drank the whole thing down. He said, ‘Tainted, huh?’ and danced off.” Lloyd still laughs at the recollection, which, he says, “reminded me of the Tibetan monk, Milarepa, who took poison and turned it into soma”.
“Rock groups wanted to be on our bill… we were opening the music up so much”
Like Thelonious Monk, Charles Lloyd is regarded as a mystical figure in jazz. He famously retreated from the music scene at the end of the 60s to live an ascetic, solitary life in Big Sur, California, and it was there that he immersed himself in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment for many years. “My candle was burning from both ends and was about to meet in the middle,” the saxophonist admits; he says he stepped away from the jazz world in a bid for self-preservation and to heal himself.
His career, though, had begun so spectacularly. Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Lloyd began playing the saxophone when he was nine, though the musician that had the most profound impact on him, he says, was a pianist, Phineas Newborn. “He was my earliest influence and mentor,” reveals Lloyd. “His affect has been lifelong. I attribute the seed he planted in me for being responsible for all of the great pianists I have worked with.”
In 1956, Lloyd left Bluff City for Los Angeles, and, in 1960, he joined drummer Chico Hamilton’s groundbreaking quintet, replacing the estimable Eric Dolphy. “[Saxophonist] Buddy Collette was responsible for that,” says Lloyd. “After I graduated from USC, I was teaching in LA. Buddy knew that I wanted to play, so when Eric left he called Chico and said, ‘I have just the right sax player for you.’ It was a great learning experience, especially after he made me music director. I was able to bring [guitarist] Gabor Szabo and [bassist] Albert Stenson to the band. It was a dream team for a while.”
Lloyd then joined Cannonball Adderley’s band before leaving, in 1965, to lead his own quartet with pianist Keith Jarrett, bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Jack DeJohnette. “We all loved exploring the unknown,” says Lloyd of a group that liked to travel to “far-out” musical destinations and yet still made accessible music. “We were young idealists and the timing was right for us to come together.”
The quartet became the darlings of the American counterculture scene in the late 60s and were the first jazz group to play alongside rock and blues acts at promoter Bill Graham’s legendary Fillmore West venue. “A San Francisco group called The Committee used to come hear me play,” says Lloyd, recalling how his quartet registered on Bill Graham’s radar. “They told me I should be playing at a place called The Fillmore where there were a lot of young people. When I asked who else played there they said Muddy Waters. I knew him so I said OK, and then Bill Graham booked me one afternoon for half an hour.”
The quartet went down so well with the hippies that they weren’t allowed to leave. “The audience kept us on stage for over an hour,” remembers Lloyd. “After that, the rock groups wanted to be on the bill with us because we were opening the music up so much and they wanted that experience, too.”
Firing arrows into infinity
After the highs of the late 60s, Lloyd, by his own admission, was burned out. The 70s found the saxophonist in a meditative frame of mind and, though he still recorded intermittently, the records he made were more New Age in style than jazz. That all changed in 1986, when, according to the saxophonist, “I nearly died.” Struck down with a serious intestinal disorder, he had to undergo emergency surgery. Understandably, the experience changed him and made him take stock of his life. “When I recovered, I decided to rededicate myself to this music called jazz,” says Lloyd. “I had been gone for so long they made me get at the back of the line. It was a long, slow, re-entry.”
But Charles Lloyd is nothing if not persistent. By dint of hard work and dedication to his art, he’s built up a large and impressive body of work during the last 30 years, ensuring that he’s now at the front of the line and rightly revered as a jazz elder. Though he turned 80 in March 2018, Vanished Gardens shows that his desire to create new music — what he calls “firing arrows into infinity” — is stronger than ever.
Having just returned home from a successful summer tour of Europe with The Marvels, Lloyd is set to play three concerts at the Newport Jazz Festival, on Rhode Island, during the first weekend of August 2018 to celebrate his 80th birthday. On Friday, 3 August, he’ll appear with the trio Sangam (along with tabla specialist Zakir Hussein and drummer Eric Harland), and the following day he’ll perform with his usual quartet (with Rogers and Harland from The Marvels, and Jason Moran on piano).
His closing concert at Newport, on Sunday, 5 August, is billed as Charles Lloyd And Friends With Lucinda Williams. Though Bill Frisell can’t make the gig, Williams’ presence means that the saxophone magus will play some of the material from Vanished Gardens, an album that articulates his desire to make music that, he says, “jumps boundaries of conventional labels”.
Vanished Gardens is out now and can be bought here.
Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter: @uDiscoverMusic | https://medium.com/udiscover-music/vanished-gardens-jumps-boundaries-of-conventional-labels-says-jazz-visionary-charles-lloyd-3fb02ebb3610 | ['Udiscover Music'] | 2018-08-10 17:27:27.068000+00:00 | ['Pop Culture', 'Features', 'Culture', 'Jazz', 'Music'] |
Noah Berlatsky’s Critique of My Alleged “Class First Leftism” | Marchers at the 1964 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom hold signs demanding equal rights, full citizenship, full employment, and decent housing
Noah Berlatsky claims in his article Why Class First Leftists are Wrong that I advocate something called “class first leftism.” This came as a surprise to me.
By the time I got to the end of the article, I felt a little bit like Jimmy Shorts in Martin Scorcese’s gangster movie “Mean Streets.” Joey ‘Clams’ Scala has just called Jimmy a “mook.” Jimmy asks what a “mook” is. There’s a brief discussion about what it might mean but within moments Jimmy has gone from confusion to anger, yelling, “You can’t call me a mook!”
When I started reading the article, I’d never heard the words “class,” “first” and “leftism” used in that particular combination. By the time it was over…well, I’m a much more calm person than Jimmy Shorts. But I’d certainly prefer it if Berlatsky didn’t associate me with whatever he imagines “class first leftism” to be.
Berlatsky’s Definitions
At the beginning of the article, Berlatsky describes “class first leftism” as “the belief that economic class is the main form of oppression in the U.S. and the world, and that other forms of discrimination relating to identity — racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. — would be relative non-issues if we could attain economic equality.” That’s actually two definitions and nothing he says as the article goes on clarifies how they’re supposed to relate to each other. Does he think believing either of these things entails believing the other? If not, do you have to believe both of them to count as a “class first leftist” or will believing one do? Nothing he says in what follows gives us any indication of how he’d answer these questions.
Things go from bad to worse in the second paragraph when he starts talking about me:
As Ben Burgis wrote in Arc last month, the theoretical basis of class-first leftism is the idea that “class, unlike race or gender, is an objective relationship to an economic structure.” Burgis argues that oppression by race, gender, or sexuality are based on transient identity (i.e. “race” is socially constructed and therefore not “real”). Economic structure, by contrast, is “objective” and real. Therefore, class is the real, objective form of oppression, and addressing it will address other oppressions as well.
Let’s start with that first sentence. Did I in fact write in Arc last month that the part of a sentence he quotes out of context here was the “theoretical basis” of something called “class-first leftism”? No, I did not.
Did I say that race was “socially constructed and therefore not ‘real’”? No, I did not.
It’s also worth noting that, much like Jordan Peterson accusing campus SWJs of allegiance to “postmodern Marxism” even though Marxism and postmodernism are incompatible doctrines, Berlatsky is here attributing to me both social constructivism about race and error theory about race. The first view says that race is real but that it is constituted by social facts rather than biological ones. The second says that the idea that human beings are divided into “races” is just pseudoscientific nonsense — what some black socialist scholars have called racecraft — and we shouldn’t try to rescue the concept by trying to come up with some non-biological sense in which something called “race” exists after all.
The difference between social constructivism and error theory might be large or it might be mostly a matter of emphasis. A lot depends on how you make sense of the metaphor of social “construction” — a surprisingly tricky philosophical issue once you start to think about it. At the very least these are two very different ways of talking about race.
Crucially, whatever you think of this debate, neither of these views entail that racism isn’t real. (Witches have never existed in any sense. They aren’t even socially constructed! But the phenomenon of witch-burning was absolutely real.) Do I believe what Berlatsky says I believe — that class is “the real, objective form of oppression” while “oppression by race, gender, or sexuality” isn’t “real” or “objective”?
Anyone curious about whether I believe that might want to look at the paragraph from which Berlatsky is pulling the quoted phrase. In that paragraph, I talk about trans rights. I also say that, “Racism and its effects are all too real…”
Elsewhere in the article, I say that “injustice takes a variety of forms, some of which are directly and obviously economic, and some of which have to do with identity.” I then talk about the need for robust anti-discrimination laws to deal with the structural impact of the latter.
How about the claims that “economic class is the main form of oppression in the U.S. and the world,” and that “other forms of discrimination relating to identity — racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. — would be relative non-issues if we could attain economic equality”? Do I believe either of those?
I literally don’t know what it means to say that class is the “main” form of oppression. The word “oppression” here is being used to mean not only very different things, but very different kinds of things. As I’ve argued elsewhere, capitalist economic structures exploit workers. You can call that “oppression.” Prejudice and discrimination on the basis of perceptions about identity categories exist and more extreme forms of discrimination that were legally institutionalized in the past continue to have devastating effects. The word “oppression” could be used here too. But one isn’t a more intense form of the other. They’re fundamentally different in kind. Berlatsky oddly contrasts class structures with “other forms of discrimination,” but economic exploitation isn’t a form of discrimination. Capitalists aren’t deciding to extract surplus value from workers in the form of profits because they hate workers. The process happens in exactly the same way if the capitalist truly believes that there’s no such thing as “class” and he and his employees are individuals meeting each other on the field of market exchange from positions of exactly equal power.
Berlatsky points out that there are sometimes ambiguities about who to classify as being part of the working class, and that sometimes theorists disagree among themselves on this question. That’s true enough. But it has nothing to do with anything I said. The reason I argued that “race” and “class” aren’t categories of the same type isn’t that ambiguous borderline cases exist in one case but not the other or that disagreements about how to classify people exist in one case but not the other. The reason I said they were categories of basically different types — even if you think there’s some vague sense in which both are “constructed” by social decisions — is that whether someone is a victim of racism or sexism depends on whether people perceive them as part of the relevant identity category. Whether someone is a victim of economic exploitation is a matter of their objective position in an economic structure. It has nothing to do with how either they or their exploiters think about that structure.
Do I think that racism, sexism, etc., would be “relative non-issues” if we achieved economic inequality? If “relative non-issues” just means “would be considerably reduced,” I think that’s true. Every society that’s ever existed that has one cultural or religious or “racial” group whose economic conditions are worse than others tends to stigmatize that group by coming up with some sort of story to tell about how they’re living in poverty because they’re innately inferior. A future society in which the economic conditions of black people and white people, for example, had been equalized would be a society with a lot less anti-black racism than this one. If “relative non-issue” means “hardly an issue at all” or “nothing to worry about,” then no, I obviously don’t think that. More on that below.
Berlatsky’s Ifs
An odd rhetorical tactic Berlatsky uses throughout the article are “if” statements that seem to be directed at what I (or some other unnamed “class first leftists”) think, even though he doesn’t quote or link to any examples of my (or anyone else) saying these things and even though they don’t follow from his initial definitions of “class first leftism.”
If class distinctions are the realest thing in people’s lives…
If class is the main thing…
The only one of these that seems to be even tenuously connected to anything I wrote is this one:
If the first form of exploitation is the realest…
He seems to be referring to this passage from my Arc piece:
It’s true that injustice takes a variety of forms, some of which are directly and obviously economic, and some of which have to do with identity.
I say “directly and obviously” since many supposedly non-economic injustices can be traced back to economic causes. It’s not as if the British Empire invaded India for the sake of culturally appropriating curry. As Barbara Fields famously put it, it’s absurd to talk about the history of race in America “as though the chief business of slavery were the production of white supremacy rather than the production of cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco.” Nevertheless, prejudices that originally came about as rationalizations for fundamentally economic crimes like slavery and colonialism later took on a life of their own, and some of the effects of these prejudices require targeted solutions — like passing more and better anti-discrimination laws.
In this passage, I never make or come close to making the claim that economic exploitation is “realer” than other forms of injustice. Instead, I do two things. One is to endorse “targeted solutions” to racism, sexism, and the rest, like “more and better anti-discrimination laws.” (If you came away from this passage with the impression that I do not in fact think that these things should be dismissed as distractions from economic class struggle, then congratulations on your reading comprehension skills!) The other is to make the point that economic and other forms of injustice are deeply connected. Realizing this should in turn help us to think harder about how to tackle all of these injustices.
Berlatsky’s Strategic Assesments
From Berlatsky’s article:
Class-first leftists also argue that class provides a more universal basis for organizing. As Burgis puts it, “the movement against police violence would be more effective if it were primarily framed as a matter of urgent self-interest for poor people of all races.” This is again an empirical claim about which kinds of social movements are most effective. And in an American context, it is empirically inaccurate.
It’s true that I think that, while the problem clearly has a racial dimension (as I said in the piece Berlatsky seemed only to angrily skim) I also think that this dimension is only one part of a much larger problem of aggressive and militarized policing in poor neighborhoods. Part of the reason that its victims are disproportionately black is certainly racial prejudice by policemen but another big part is simply that, due to the economic legacy of Jim Crow, redlining and the rest, black people are more likely than white people to live in those neighborhoods. I tend to think that any movement that at least attempts to unite everyone afflicted by some problem on the basis of shared interests is, all else being equal, probably going to be more politically effective than movements that don’t attempt to do this. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about the racial prejudice aspect of the problem. It does mean, however, that we should think about how to frame the issue more broadly.
In response to this point, Berlatsky emphasizes that there have been gigantic protests since the death of George Floyd. That’s certainly true and I join him in supporting those protests. But a fuller picture of the realities on the ground would have to include the fact that public support for the movement actually considerably declined last summer. It’s true that over 50% of Americans still express some vague sympathy for its goals. On the other hand, polling over the summer showed a larger majority of the public supporting Tom Cotton’s call to send the military to American cities to quell the unrest, so Berlatsky’s apparent move from the premise that the protests were huge to the conclusion that what we’re doing is already working so well that we have no reason to consider a different strategy strikes me as pretty dubious.
Berlatsky also looks to American history for evidence against my claim that appealing to the shared interests of a broader group of people is generally more politically effective than talking about the interests only of a minority and framing everyone else as being merely supportive ‘allies.’
There have certainly been numerous, admirable, important labor fights that focused on poverty and class oppression. But the most effective movements to transform material conditions in the U.S. have been antiracist. During the Civil War, around 4 million Black people took advantage of the conflict to emancipate themselves and take control of their own labor and personhood. The Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and ’60s similarly led to a revolution in property laws, access to resources, and political power.
It’s certainly true that these movements were both “antiracist” in that they attacked institutions of racialized oppression. But leaving it here would be extraordinarily misleading. And Berlatsky’s grasp of the relevant history is worse than shaky.
First, the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s consistently used universalist language. Look at old pictures of the 1964 “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” and try to find signs with he word “black” or “white” or “race” on them — as opposed to terms like “bias” and “discrimination” that appeal to universal principles. Second, as that “jobs and” would tend to indicate, the Civil Rights Movement put a lot of effort into connecting the struggle for civic and legal equality for everyone with universalist demands that would disproportionately benefit black people but do so by addressing the material needs of poor people of all races.
During the Civil War, enslaved black people didn’t simply “take advantage of” some conflict that happened to be going on at the time “to emancipate themselves.” The war happened in the first place because of the electoral victory of the anti-slavery political party led by Abraham Lincoln. Historians Barbara Fields and Adam Rothman summarize how that happened here:
[O]verreaching by the slaveholders taught many white Americans — at least in the North — that the agenda of the slaveholders threatened their own rights. The Gag Rule of 1836–1844 prevented members of the House of Representatives from considering antislavery petitions from their own constituents. Under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, federal marshals could require Northern citizens to assist in recapturing fugitive slaves. The Kansas–Nebraska Act set off a bloody contest over the introduction of slavery into territory where it had previously been banned. The Dred Scott decision called into question the ability of white citizens to exclude slavery anywhere in the country. These milestones of antebellum politics convinced many white Northerners that their own rights would be trampled and their livelihoods cramped — and that they, too, could be made into slaves — if the “slave power” were left unchecked. Even white Northerners who mistrusted abolitionists and disdained black people were attracted to the new antislavery party.
Moving to the present day, Berlatsky points out that white people are far more likely to vote for conservative candidates than black people. But it’s deeply unclear why he thinks that this undermines rather than reinforces the point that we need to try a different approach. Once again, Rothman and Fields are very good on this point:
The Republicans can still win a national election without a critical mass of nonwhite voters, but the opposition cannot unseat them without a critical mass of white voters.
Therefore, those seeking genuine democracy must fight like hell to convince white Americans that what is good for black people is also good for them. Reining in murderous police, investing in schools rather than prisons, providing universal healthcare (including drug treatment and rehabilitation for addicts in the rural heartland), raising taxes on the rich, and ending foolish wars are policies that would benefit a solid majority of the American people. Such an agenda could be the basis for a successful political coalition rooted in the real conditions of American life, which were disastrous before the pandemic and are now catastrophic.
Berlatsky’s Accusations
At the end of the article, Berlatsky’s rhetoric kicks into high gear. He tells us that “class first leftists” “often” have ethics that he describes as “reactionary garbage,” and that their political program amounts to “a new white male cishet boss taking the place of the old.”
Are my ethics “reactionary garbage”? I suppose that’s a matter of opinion. And perhaps I should be grateful for that “often.” Being told that you’re a prime representative of a group that “often” has reactionary-garbage ethics isn’t quite like being told that you yourself are a walking pile of reactionary garbage…although I have to say that the distinction reminds me a bit of Donald Trump ending a rant about undocumented immigrants being rapists and murderers with a hasty “and some, I assume, are good people.”
All I can say is that I try my very best not to traffic in reactionary garbage. In fact, I spend a lot of time debating people who actually do have right-wing views on subjects ranging from abortion rights to economic redistribution to whether racism is still a major social problem in the United States. (My ice cold take on that question was yes.) But I suppose that if I really did advocate “white male cishet” domination over all other categories of the population, the shoe would fit.
Even typing out the words “I do not in fact advocate the continued oppression of trans people, women and non-whites” feels like giving Berlatsky a bit more than I should. (Lyndon B. Johnson once supposedly spread a rumor that one of his political opponents had carnal relations with pigs. An aide asked him why he’d promote such an outlandish accusation and LBJ is supposed to have said that he just wanted to “make the bastard deny it.”) But, for what it’s worth, I really don’t.
RGE in Theory and Practice
Berlatsky gives four examples of things that “class first leftists” do (or might do) that allegedly displaying RGE (Reactionary-Garbage Ethics). This is worth quoting at length:
If class is the main thing, then you must focus on class and worry less about other oppressions in the name of solidarity. And if that’s the case, then anyone who raises questions about racism in the labor movement is undermining the most important effort. Similarly, raising concerns about sexual harassment in left-wing political campaigns makes you a traitor to the cause. This is why class-first leftists often rail against ‘identity politics,’ buttressing and echoing openly racist and sexist language from the right.
It’s also why class-first leftists like Angela Nagle sometimes find themselves allying with right-wing bigots like Tucker Carlson. Nagle infamously went on Carlson’s show to make the case against open borders, arguing that generous immigration policies harm American workers. Nagle sees class as the main vector of oppression, and wants to protect working class Americans first and foremost. Racism against immigrants isn’t of much concern to her; it’s not real oppression. The mantra of class-first becomes an excuse to shrug off racism and center white workers, so that Tucker Carlson becomes a more logical ally than antiracist activists.
So we have (i) using the phrase ‘identity politics’ to describe views we dislike, (ii) telling people not to raise concerns about racism in the labor movement, (iii) calling people traitors for objecting to sexual harassment in left-wing political campaigns, and (iv) allying with Tucker Carlson on immigration. Berlatsky piles on extreme accusations so recklessly it’s hard to keep them straight but let’s at least make an effort to separate them out and address them all.
It’s also worth keeping track of small details like Berlatsky’s use of the phrase “the mantra of ‘class first.’” This sounds to me like he’s referring to someone somewhere who uses that phrase as a mantra. It’s too bad he doesn’t bother telling us who does that. I know I don’t. Neither does anyone I’ve ever met.
On (i), it’s true that the phrase “identity politics” (or variants like “identitarianism”) are used by various people in various parts of the political spectrum to critique various things. Matt Bruenig has an interesting and thoughtful critique of the practice of identitarian deference, for example, and Ben Shapiro has what I’d regard as a dramatically less thoughtful critique of what he sometimes calls “identity politics.” But if we’re going to say that Bruenig is therefore “buttressing and echoing” Shapiro, we could equally say that Berlatksky himself is, by criticizing “class first leftism,” “buttressing and echoing” a common line of attack by centrists against the socialist left as a whole exemplified by Hillary Clinton saying that Bernie Sanders didn’t understand that breaking up the big banks wouldn’t solve racism. I’d suggest that we not play that game at all.
On (ii) and (iii), it’s telling that Berlatsky neither names any names of leftists who supposedly have these positions nor includes any relevant hyperlinks. The one link he does include that has anything to do with (iii) is to an article about the existence of sexual harassment on the 2016 Sanders campaign. But this article doesn’t include or even hint at the existence of anyone calling female Sanders supporters who objected to this behavior “traitors.” On (ii), Berlatsky doesn’t so much as bother with a hyperlink.
Perhaps (ii) and (iii) are meant to be merely hypothetical examples — sins that people might be led by the heresy of “class first leftism” to commit in the future. If so, the reasoning falls apart on even cursory inspection. Why would someone who cared about class want to undermine solidarity between white and black workers by tolerating racism in the labor movement? Why would someone who cared about the issues Sanders was running on want to alienate the young women who were the backbone of his movement tolerate sexual harassment? Berlatsky doesn’t bother to spell any of this out. He merely shares his evidence-free suspicion that class first leftism either leads or might lead people to take these positions and moves on.
On (iv), he at least comes up with a name: Angela Nagle. If he’d bothered to google my name in conjunction with Nagle’s, he would have found this video, which I made in the immediate aftermath of Nagle’s Tucker Carlson appearance. (Forgive the terrible audio quality. It was made in January 2019. I’ve gotten better.) While I’ve enjoyed much of Nagle’s writing, I’m very much on record as disagreeing with her position on immigration and have been since she first starting talking bout it. I’m also very much on record on the subject of Tucker Carlson’s bona fides as an advocate of the interests of working-class people.
That said, it’s a bit much to say that going on Tucker Carlson’s show is the same thing as seeing Carlson as a political “ally.” And, whatever my disagreements with some of Nagle’s positions, Berlatsky’s description of those positions is an ugly caricature.
In her book Kill All Normies, Nagle criticized what she’s called “an identity-base internet subculture” associated with, for example, Tumblr. In interviews about the book like this one, she’s gone out of her way to differentiate that from forms of “identity politics” she endorses:
Identity politics gave us the women’s rights movement, the gay rights movement, the civil rights movement, and so on. It would be absurd to conflate that entire radical history with this small internet subculture.
What I criticized wasn’t identity politics in general but a specific version of identity politics that was about performative wokeness, and in particular the reason I didn’t like it was because it was very inclined to censor and it was very inclined to gang up on people. I hate that, and I think it deserves to be criticized.
Comparing Nagle’s actual words to the reasoning that Berlatsky attributes to her when he says that, to Nagle, racism is “not real oppression” and it can therefore be “shrugged off” should make you pause and think about the standards of evidence that Berlatsky uses to ground his often wildly inflammatory accusations. I’ll leave the question of what all of this might say about his ethics to the judgment of our readers. | https://medium.com/@benburgis/noah-berlatskys-critique-of-class-first-leftism-c9a738caf77a | ['Ben Burgis'] | 2020-12-08 17:36:26.270000+00:00 | ['Noah Berlatsky', 'Class', 'Race', 'Socialism', 'Race Relations'] |
UI Case Study: Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide | The Challenge
In the brief, I was tasked with re-designing the website for a charity of choice and give it a much needed design makeover. From the five options I had been given, I opted for Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW), a charity that ‘helps communities speak out for clean air, clean water, and a healthy planet’. I have always been passionate about the environment and after researching about the foundation, I immediately felt drawn to this charity and the meaningful work that they do.
This was an individual 4-day visual design sprint to rebrand and reskin two pages of the existing website. My responsabilities included competitor research, mood boards, brand identity, style guide, high-fidelity responsive designs across three devices.
Introducing ELAW
Since its founding in 1989, ELAW has grown from a group of 10 public interest lawyers in Oregon to a network of advocates operating in over 80 countries to challenge against environmental abuses.
ELAW helps challenge environmental abuses and builds a worldwide corps of skilled, committed advocates working to protect ecosystems and communities for generations to come.
Looking At The Current Website
The website looks to showcase the work of this network by guiding readers through the organisation’s success stories. Despite its informative structure, the site is difficult to navigate and struggles to emphasise the charity impact. This comes down to unintuitive content, oversized buttons and icons, inconsistent use of white space and unrelated stock imagery.
Donate page
I decided to re-design the website and reinforce the values of the charity and their personality as straight talking people by giving it a modern, bold and impactful feel.
Discover and Define
Competitive Research
Starting off with competitive research, I looked into both local organisations and larger, well known global non-profits. More specifically, I looked at Environmental Law Foundation, Plastic Oceans, Greenpeace and The National Wildlife Federation.
During this process, I’ve learned that the charity sector needs to make it as easy as possible to donate or join a cause — ideally in a few clicks — if they are to be in with a chance of obtaining valuable contributions and signups. Lenghty donation forms, re-entering data and difficulty finding key information are just some of the things that will make supporters look elsewhere.
Other key findings:
There is an emphasis on impact across the organizations’ websites
across the organizations’ websites CTAs to donate are visible in numerous places throughout the sites
throughout the sites Distractions (such as external links) are kept to a minimum on the Donation page to boost conversions
To start defining the personality of the brand, I have referenced these charities and their values:
Mind map
I then continued with a mind map exercise. This has helped me to come up with the main keywords that define ELAW. | https://medium.com/@emilialng/ui-case-study-environmental-law-alliance-worldwide-915fff7a1d2f | ['Emilia Lungu'] | 2020-12-10 00:11:42.244000+00:00 | ['Case Study', 'Visual Design', 'Charity', 'UI', 'Rebranding'] |
4 Tips for How to Cope With a High-Needs Baby | They’re fussy, intense, and demanding. They will feed frequently and refuse to be put down. Here’s what it means to have a high-needs baby and four tips for how to cope.
Before your child was born, you knew that raising a child would be challenging. You were ready for not sleeping at night and breastfeeding multiple times per day.
However, not for a single second did you imagine that you would be spending every waking moment trying to soothe her.
There are hours and hours of not sleeping, followed by hours and hours of fussiness. She’s extremely sensitive, a terrible sleeper, needs to be parented through every step of everything, and when she doesn’t get what she wants, she’ll go into a tantrum.
You tried everything, from rocking and bouncing to shushing and white noise. Nothing works!
Are you doing something wrong? Why are some babies sitting quietly in strollers and falling asleep easily while yours is the complete opposite?
What you may be dealing with is a high-needs baby.
And you’re not the only one.
Parents around the globe have experienced the same issues.
Here’s what it means to have a high-needs baby and four tips for making it better.
What is a high-needs baby?
A high-needs baby is a term coined by Drs. William and Martha Sears. It’s used to describe babies whose fussiness involves more than just uncontrollable crying and include exhibiting a personality/temperament where they need more attention and interaction than other babies.
The term doesn’t indicate a negative thing, but a positive, describing babies who aren’t sick or difficult but highly alert and requiring more attention.
Drs. Willian and Martha Sears describe 12 attributes of “high needs” babies, some of those traits including:
Intense . These babies invest more energy into any activity they do.
. These babies invest more energy into any activity they do. Hyperactive . The muscles and minds of high-needs children rarely relax.
. The muscles and minds of high-needs children rarely relax. Draining . High-needs babies drain a great deal of energy from their tired parents.
. High-needs babies drain a great deal of energy from their tired parents. Feeds frequently . High-needs babies are often comforted by feeding.
. High-needs babies are often comforted by feeding. Demanding . High need babies don’t just want to be fed and held; they demand to be, and they’ll tell you loudly.
. High need babies don’t just want to be fed and held; they demand to be, and they’ll tell you loudly. Can’t be put down . High-needs babies crave touch. They want skin-to-skin contact in your arms, at your breasts, in your bed.
. High-needs babies crave touch. They want skin-to-skin contact in your arms, at your breasts, in your bed. Super-sensitive. High-needs babies are fans of a secure and known environment, and they become upset when they’re in an unknown environment.
How do I cope with a high-needs baby?
Implement a nap and bedtime routine
A nap and bedtime routine can make kids feel safe when they know what to expect. Routines and rules help bring structure to the home and make life more predictable.
When your child follows a consistent bedtime routine, she knows what to expect and is aware of her boundaries. When you bathe her, dim the lights, and start reading her a book, she knows it’s time to get ready to sleep.
But how many hours should your little one sleep at night? How many naps per day does she need?
The best bedtime and naptime for your child depends on her age. For example, newborns need around 15 to 18 hours of sleep, while eight months old need around 12 to 15 hours of sleep. Read this bedtime chart by age for babies and toddlers for more info.
Sleep train
Many parents have found sleep training to be an effective technique for teaching their babies how to self-soothe and sleep independently.
In essence, it’s about changing the sleep associations your child has to fall asleep; for example, nursing to sleep.
This can lead to sleeping longer stretches at night, sleeping more soundly, and having better behavior overall during awake times.
You can try introducing a gentler technique that involves gradually teaching your baby how to sleep independently. There are periods of comforting and periods of distancing.
The core of the gentle sleep training technique is to move so slowly that your child has time to adapt to each change in her sleep routine.
Hiring a sleep consultant can be a practical and cost-effective solution to your problems as sleep training services are HSA and FSA eligible.
Go outside
High-needs children need constant excitement and stimulation. Unfortunately, the confines of your home may not be stimulating enough for them.
One way of getting your child more stimulated is by putting her in a stroller and simply going outside for some fresh air.
The change in light, air, and temperature, and the introduction of new sights, sounds, and smells are likely to get both you and your child in a better mood.
Take your baby out and try to be around other parents, preferably with parents who have similar kids.
The kids will get to play with each other, while you will get peace of mind knowing you’re not the only one with a high-needs baby.
Come to terms
At the end of the day, the most helpful thing you can do is come to terms with the fact that your baby is not the easygoing baby you thought you would have. Embrace your baby’s sensitivity, passion, and intensity, knowing that these traits will serve her well when she grows up.
Finally, here’s one great quote by Dr. Sears:
“To your baby, you are the best mother.”
When it comes to sleep training your child, you can always do it alone, or you can ask for professional help from a certified sleep trainer. When you have a sleep trainer working alongside you, you’ll get a personalized plan that fits your child’s temperament and personality. A sleep trainer can ensure you’re on the right track and offer unlimited support throughout the process. In no time, you’ll manage to turn those bedtime battles into regular and restful sleep patterns. | https://medium.com/@neha-74611/4-tips-for-how-to-cope-with-a-high-needs-baby-c2b5f39411a3 | ['The Sleepy Cub Blog'] | 2020-11-13 16:23:46.267000+00:00 | ['Parenting', 'Childcare', 'Baby', 'Motherhood', 'Baby Care'] |
Should Education be free for everyone | Education is a very well-known thing worldwide and many people question whether or not everyone should be entitled to have the right of receiving a free education. There are many countries that believe that people should receive free education because of how poor they are causing them to struggle in paying bills. There are also other countries that make a good amount of money causing them to believe that people should pay for an education simply because they could afford it. This is a very controversial topic among people due to the very opinionated reasoning people have about it as shown in the examples above and this is also a very fascinating topic as it could bring so many benefits into the world. Education should be granted freely to everyone because it increases people`s chances of success in the future and helps people with financial issues.
To begin with, it has been shown multiple times that the people who receive higher levels of education end up really successful in the future, which is one reason why a free education should be granted to everyone. According to Education Should Be Free to Everyone, Sarum states that, “With the population highly educated, this will benefit the whole world and lead to the increase of the development for human life.” (Sarum). This evidence illustrates that the more a person is educated, the greater their chances are on succeeding in the future because they will be most likely to contribute to the world in many ways leading them to make a huge impact on the world and how others will view it. Someone who is able to receive free education all their life is someone who is most likely going to use their intrinsic motivation to go and achieve the highest level of education they could possibly get leading them down the road to success for many different things such as doctors, lawyers, politicians, ETC. For example, in Should College Education Be Free, the wall street journal states that, “Advocates of free college say that giving everyone access to education not only would help individuals to succeed and contribute to society, but also would produce a better qualified work force for the evolving economy.” (The wall street journal). What readers should understand is that this piece of evidence is saying that a free education that everyone could have access to will ensure society to change tremendously in a positive way by people being able to handle more demands that their jobs require of them and the reduced amount of unemployment rate there would be due to the highly qualified people in the world. With so much qualified people in the world, not only would success be offered to them but it will also be offered to the world as a whole because it will make the world a better place with the better doctors, lawyers and better professional careers people will have that will make the world safer. As mentioned above, people can now be informed of how much success can be granted all from a free education.
In addition to a free education being accountable for higher amounts of people`s success in the future, it also helps people financially in many ways showing another reason why people should be granted a free education. As seen in why all public higher education should be free Samuels states that, “If students did not have to work while in school, the graduation rate would improve drastically.” (Samuels). This quote explains how if there wasn`t so much stress on students to pay for school, there would be an increase in the amount of students that turn out successful and that are helped out financially. There may be people in many countries that are trying to get their children to another school in a different country because of how poor and uneducated their country is trying to improve the quality of their children`s lives but now the children have to face the consequences of not being able to gain a proper education that they deserve to get just because their parents cannot financially afford to send their children to have a great education needed. Allowing these children, the chance of receiving a free education will help them and their family financially leading them to be able to better support themselves in their country all while receiving the proper education they need to be called successful. For instance, in Education Should Be Free for Everyone, Sarun states that, “If there was a change in prices of education, this would impact everyone as people will be able to attend.” (Sarun). This piece of evidence illustrates that if the entire nation came together to grant free education to everyone the world would be such a happier place as it would impact everyone financially because they will now be able to gain control of their finances better and people will now be happy to receive the proper education they need to be successful in the future at no cost. All the people that are struggling financially can benefit tremendously from a free education granted to them because they will be able to get the proper education they need to make sure they are not stuck in the same situations again in the future. For all these reasons is how having a free education can help people financially.
On the other hand, some people may believe that education should not be granted freely to people because of people`s social economic background and race. According to Race Not Just Poverty, Shapes Who Graduates in America, Barnum states that, “Education policy sometimes proceeds under the assumptions that socioeconomic statues matters, but that race and racism aside from their impact on family income doesn`t.” (Barum). This piece of evidence is showing the fact that some people believe that the rule of education follows certain guidelines such as being associated with one certain social economic statue or race in order for people to receive free education. For these reasons is why someone might believe that education should not be free because of the different social economic statues or races people have. Their argument is wrong because it contradicts the overwhelmingly amount of evidence there is that no matter what anyone`s race or economic background might be, it is not right to discriminate anyone and treat them unfairly by not granting them the same right to a free education as everybody else has. Furthermore, in the article Your right to equality in education, The ACLU states that, “The Constitution requires that all kids be given equal educational opportunity no matter what their race, ethnic background, religion, or sex, or whether they are rich or poor, citizen or non-citizen.” (The ACLU). This piece of evidence emphasizes greatly the importance of everyone receiving an equal education and no one being treated unequally in terms of some people being able to receive free education while others can`t. It also offers a lot of support that no matter what the differences are between people, everyone is entitled to receive the same level of equality in education which is a free education for everyone. Therefore, I believe that education should be free to everyone as everyone deserves to receive equality in the type of education they receive.
In conclusion, education is something that makes up a huge part in people`s lives in so many ways. Education can be both a very rewarding and fascinating thing as it is the key to the future and can help you in any direction you choose to follow. Whatever your dream may be whether that be to find the next cancer cure or to invent the next million dollar selling computer system in the world, education is the perfect path to follow to ensure that those dreams come true. With education there is nothing you can`t do. I encourage people now after hearing the amazing things free education brings to the world, to keep on pushing harder and keep on fighting to ensure that free education becomes a thing granted to everyone worldwide. Free education is something that should be granted to everyone worldwide because of the amazing things it offers people such as increasing their chances of success in the future and helping people financially. | https://medium.com/@lifeadvice/should-education-be-free-for-everyone-d9d208701125 | [] | 2020-12-05 23:19:33.511000+00:00 | ['Education Reform', 'Education', 'School Choice', 'Schools'] |
GoodNotes Comes to London! Here’s Why You Should Join Us | “It almost seems like we’re astronauts on an experimentation migration to Mars. We need to stay inside the safe house, so we work, play and live together… We just don’t need to grow our own crops.” - Sherry
Communicating between London and Hong Kong: How we make it work
We’ve been developing our remote-friendly working style for a long time, even before COVID forced us all to work from home.
One of our new Londoners had actually been working remotely from Germany for 4 years. We also have several team members working remotely in SouthEast Asia.
As a result, we have a strong culture of evidence-based decision-making and documentation — meaning that people can pick things up right where we left off, access the same information, and make meaningful contributions no matter the time zone.
Slack, Quip, Notion, and Webex are a few of the essentials in our remote-friendly toolbelt. What’s more, while most people are bilingual, the general language of our workplace is English.
That being said, we’re still sorting out the bumps in the road, and if you have some great ideas on how to work smoothly across different time zones, we’re all ears!
Exciting things are happening: Here’s why you should join us.
We’re building something new, and you’ll get to help shape the blueprints.
Our new office is working on a slightly different project than the core team in Hong Kong, and we have a soaring vision for it. We’re looking for people who have big questions and ideas, and aren’t afraid to test their hypotheses.
Work with the agility and creativity of a startup with the stability of a profitable company.
When it comes to this new project, you can think of it like a startup within a profitable tech company. We have the space to test bigger ideas without the risk that usually comes with failure. We’re experimenting and trying something different on top of a solid foundation, to build the GoodNotes brand and product in an exciting way.
“The small team moves quite fast. I love the productivity and efficiency.” - Eric
We have a dedicated community of engaged users (which makes user testing and feedback a dream!)
At GoodNotes we’re extremely thankful to have such a strong community of users, who are always willing to give us feedback, fill in our surveys, and help us continue to build with a user-centric design. To put this into perspective, our surveys can already generate thousands of responses within the first few hours — it’s a luxury, we know!
We offer a generous relocation package, so you don’t have to worry about logistics.
We’re hiring talent from all over the world — and if you’re not already based in the UK, we’ll make it easy for you to make the move. We’ll cover the cost of the flight and initial accommodations.
We make no compromises on health; we can compromise on office location.
Right now, particularly in light of COVID, our first priority is to keep our team members safe and healthy. If you’re not ready to make the move to London, remote work is definitely an option.
We’ve hit a big milestone and hope you’ll come along for the ride
If you’re a creative thinker and want to build something meaningful from the ground up, we’re confident you’d like it here with us.
Check out our openings here! | https://medium.goodnotes.com/goodnotes-in-london-join-us-d803722ff075 | [] | 2020-12-04 03:03:16.114000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'Work Culture', 'Life At Goodnotes', 'Startup Life'] |
Living Statue Torn Down Without Braking Character | TENNESSEE — After weeks of protesting and civil unrest, several confederate statues were torn down by protesters and dragged into the local river. One of the statues was Edwin McCormick, local artist and living statue. According to McCormick the protesters believed his rendition of a confederate soldier was accurate enough to be torn down and thrown into the river along with other actual statues that were originally stood in front of several government buildings.
“Honestly it was a dream come true,” said McCormick while taking a smoke break as Andrew Jackson, “Living statues strive to be perceived as actual static , stone or metal statues. And that night I was so believable they (the protesters) put a rope around my torso and watched me sink into the water. “ Protestors and local news affiliates learned of McCormick when he emerged from the river clothes soaked and silver paint running off his body. A group of protesters told us their story of the night.
“We were amazed by guy’s discipline,” said Beth Dahlkemper middle school history teacher, “ he never broke the illusion even when dozens of angry Tennesseans cursed, kicked, and spray painted penises on him.” McCormick still performs as a living statue filling the empty pedestals with historical figures, local heroes, and his copyright free of Spider-Man. | https://medium.com/@brendandobrien/living-statue-torn-down-without-braking-character-e680e5ac2473 | ["Brendan O'Brien"] | 2020-12-01 22:46:05.694000+00:00 | ['Art', 'Humor', 'Fake News'] |
Laurel & Hardy in Machine Learning | Source: Flickr
“Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”
This week I go even further back in time with my references, all the way back to the 1930s. In case some of the Millennial readers just thought “OK Boomer”, I’d like to clarify that I am a Millennial myself. It’s just that sometimes old-timey references make so much more sense than modern ones.
So for those of who don’t know of Laurel & Hardy, I urge you to go onto Youtube and watch a few videos before reading on. For those of you who have been fortunate enough to experience this duo in action, I hope you will see the parallel with what I am about to say.
The Laurel & Hardy of Machine Learning are known as Bias and Variance. Like Laurel & Hardy, Bias and Variance are joined at the hip. While both can lead to significant errors in your model, unlike Laurel and Hardy, who understood the power of errors in making people laugh, in Machine Learning errors are no laughing matter. If you’re not careful with Bias and Variance, they can downright cost you your job.
To help you avoid getting into a nice mess, let’s see why the Laurel & Hardy of Machine Learning deserve your attention.
Variance
Stan Laurel, Source:Flickr
“You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be led.” — Laurel
Fans of the show will remember that Laurel had genuinely good ideas. He would come up with an interesting way of doing something, and share it with Hardy, who in turn would go “Tell me that again”. As soon as those words were uttered, Laurel would trip up and give a completely nonsensical version of his idea the second time around.
Laurel exemplifies Variance in Machine Learning. Variance is your model’s error when it is not able to generalize to data it hasn’t seen before. If you change the data even slightly, the model’s predictions are completely off. Like every iteration of a “Tell me that again” led to a different answer by Laurel, the same happens with your Machine Learning model if it has very high variance.
In other words, your model will learn the noise along with the signal so it simply won’t be able to separate things if there is a missing from lead!
Bias
Oliver Hardy, Source:Flickr
“ You’re actually using your brain. That’s what comes from associating with me.” — Hardy
Hardy, on the other hand, never understood Laurel when he first shared his ideas, which, at least to the viewer, were clear. However, Hardy had an uncanny ability to understood the non-nonsensical version that Laurel blurted out the second time around.
Clearly Hardy had a lot of difficulty separating the signal from the noise and that’s what Bias is all about. In a simplified sense, Bias can be defined as an error that is caused by your model not being able to learn anything from the training data.
In other words, you’re going to look smarter if you simply use your brain than use a model that has high bias.
So what?
Here comes the usual so what? Why should you care about these terribly forced analogies? You have to care about them because every Machine Learning problem is about balancing the trade-off between the two.
Source: elitedatascience.com
If your model has very high bias, it simply isn’t learning enough (or even learning at all), so that beats the point of Machine Learning. This might happen, for example, because you’re using a Linear Regression for a non-linear problem. So, one way to go from being a Hardy to becoming a Laurel is to use more complex models.
If you then make your model too complex, like using a convoluted backpropogating SVM, Laurel starts hallucinating pencils and horses like I just hallucinated the model’s name, so you want to avoid that too.
Basically, what you need to do is find a trade-off between the two, a happy place where Laurel & Hardy and you live in perfect harmony.
Until you get yourself into another nice mess that is! but that’s what the life of a Data Scientist is all about, isn’t it?
Now if there are any of you that have suffered this far, below I provide a link for a better explanation of the bias and variance trade-off, one that might help your brain recover from what you just read:
https://elitedatascience.com/bias-variance-tradeoff | https://towardsdatascience.com/laurel-hardy-in-machine-learning-a0e739b51225 | ['Anup Raj Satyal'] | 2019-12-04 17:47:26.741000+00:00 | ['Supervised Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Bias Variance Tradeoff', 'Data Science'] |
SEM: Is There Value in the Google Guaranteed Program? | SOURCE: Google
Here’s a new wrinkle to Google search for local businesses. Advertisers on Google can now display a green checkmark, which Google will tag businesses with either “Google Screened” or “Google Guaranteed.”
It’s only available right now for certain categories of business, such as law, financial planning, and real estate for the Screened badge and service-oriented companies for the Google Guaranteed mark. To get the checkmark, businesses will have to go through background checks, provide proof of insurance and licenses, and other paperwork. To use the mark, you have to pay for the ads and be part of the search engine’s Local Service Ads program.
“…the real value of the badge is the access it provides to Local Services Ads (LSA). This is Google’s local trust pack. It is a cost-per-call advertising inventory unit that acts unlike anything we have ever encountered as marketers.” SEARCH ENGINE LAND
For consumers, booking through the Google Guaranteed ad includes an offer to refund up to $2,000 if you aren’t satisfied with the service you’ve received.
SOURCE: Google
Here’s how Google describes how the service works:
Google Screened
On Local Service listings, you will see the Google Screened icon next to these businesses. How it works All firms that have the Google Screened badge must pass a business-level background and a business-owner background check. Additionally, each professional in the business must pass a license check, and in some categories, a background check. See Requirements by category for details. These checks ensure consumers that the professionals they work with have been thoroughly vetted and provide them added peace of mind as they work with you. Who it covers Only firms that provide professional services including Law, Financial Planning, and Real Estate are eligible for the Google Screened badge. MORE INFO FROM GOOGLE
The Google Guarantee
The Google Guarantee badge is available for businesses that pass a Google screening and qualification process through Google Local Services. If you’re backed by the Google Guarantee, and your customers (that came to your business through Google) aren’t satisfied with work quality, Google may refund the amount paid for the service. The following are the upper limits of lifetime coverage for claims: What it Covers United States: $2,000
Canada: CAD $2,000 The Google Guarantee covers claims up to the amount on the job invoice up to the lifetime cap for coverage. Services must be booked through Google Local Services. The Google Guarantee doesn’t cover add-on or future projects, damages to property, dissatisfaction with price or provider responsiveness, or cancellations. How it Works If one of your customers submits a claim, we’ll contact you to learn more. You’ll have an opportunity to make things right with your customer. After investigating the claim, Google will decide on a resolution. MORE INFO FROM GOOGLE
A Deeper Dive
Search Engine Land does a deeper dive into this and is worth the read if you’re interested.
If you’re trying to figure out whether it’s worth it for you, get in touch with me and we can do an assessment for your business. | https://medium.com/digital-vault/sem-is-there-value-in-the-google-guaranteed-program-c0f350ae476a | ['Paul Dughi'] | 2020-09-18 15:15:15.363000+00:00 | ['SEM', 'Search Engine Marketing', 'Google', 'Advertising', 'Marketing'] |
Go + Postgres + Heroku Tutorial | 1. Create a Heroku Account
It is free and does not require you to enter your credit card: Link.
2. Download and Install the Heroku CLI
Instructions on how to do this is here: Link. You can verify it was successfully installed by running heroku --version in your terminal. Once that is done run heroku login to sign in to the Heroku account that was just created.
3. Install Go
Instructions on how do this is here: Link. Likewise, once that is done you can verify it was successfully installed by running go version .
A critical part of setting up a RESTful API in Go is understanding Go’s folder structure. All Go code is organized into a workspace rooted around the $GOPATH . The $GOPATH is the parent folder in which all Go code is to be kept. Typically the $GOPATH is set to $HOME/go . $HOME is the root directory for all user applications on Unix systems. The workspace will contain the source code for multiple Go packages in the src folder. The compiled binaries in the bin folder, and the intermediary compiled objects in the pkg folder. The Go tooling expects your code to be organized like this. Set up your folder structure similar to the one below.
$HOME/go - workspace root
/src - source code
/bin - compiled binaries
/pkg - intermediaries
Make sure to add the $GOPATH to the bash profile.
export GOPATH=$HOME/go
export PATH=$GOPATH/bin:$PATH
4. Create the Hello World! Application
Create a folder under the src folder named helloworld .
mkdir -p $GOPATH/src/helloworld
Inside the helloworld folder create main.go and copy paste the below code.
package main import (
"log"
"fmt"
"net/http"
"os"
) func main() {
// get the port
port, err := getPort()
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
} // GET /
http.HandleFunc("/", hello) // start the server
log.Printf("Listening on %s...
", port)
if err := http.ListenAndServe(port, nil); err != nil {
panic(err)
}
} func hello(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
fmt.Fprintln(w, "Hello World!")
} func getPort() (string, error) {
// the PORT is supplied by Heroku
port := os.Getenv("PORT")
if port == "" {
return "", fmt.Errorf("$PORT not set")
}
return ":" + port, nil
}
The above code is pretty self explanatory. The starting point of the application is the main function. We get the port which is supplied on application startup. We have one GET endpoint on / which simply outputs Hello World!. Finally we start the server on the specified port.
To build the binary file run the following command
go install
Then you can run the application with the following command
PORT=8000 $GOPATH/bin/helloworld
You can then visit localhost:8000 on your browser and you should see the text Hello World! on the screen.
5. Create the Heroku Application
From the command line simply run. This will create a Heroku app for you with a random name and will show you the URL.
heroku create
When you create an app, a git remote (called heroku ) is also created and associated with your local git repository.
6. Create the ProcFile
Heroku uses a file name Procfile to determine what to run. Create a file named Procfile (no extensions). In the first line put
web: helloworld
7. GoDep
Go dependencies are managed using a tool called GoDep. To install it run
go get -u github.com/tools/godep
Once that is installed run the following command
godep save
This will create a Godep.json file which stores all your dependencies
8. Commit Everything & Deploy!
Commit all the changes that you made to your local repository. Once that is done run
git push heroku master
This will trigger the deploy process and your application should now be deployed.
You can run the command below to see if your application is running.
heroku open
You can also tail the logs using the command below
heroku logs --tail
9. Add Postgres DB
To add a Postgres DB you first need to configure the add-on in your Heroku control panel. Login to heroku.com and navigate to the created application’s dashboard. You should see tabs such as overview, resources, deploy, metrics . Click on the resources tab. In the search bar search for Heroku-Postgres . A pop-up should open up when you select the resource and choose the plan you want. hobby-dev is free up to 10,000 rows at the time of writing. Click Provision and you now have an instance of a Postgres DB for your application.
10. Connect to your DB
Heroku supplies the DB url in your app as an environment variable, DATABASE_URL .
To connect to it copy-paste the following code snippet:
// retrieve the url
dbURL := os.Getenv("DATABASE_URL") // connect to the db
db, err := sql.Open("postgres", connStr)
You should now be connected to your Postgres instance running on Heroku.
11. Next Steps
There are still several steps that you can take to create a production ready server. To setup your local environment you will most likely need to install Postgres locally. Along with that, you also most probably some other frameworks and tools to help you. I have personally used refresh, chi and upper db at work.
Thanks!
Hopefully you found this article useful. There are several other articles out there that show the same process, but I tried breaking it down as much I could. | https://medium.com/@awshawka12/go-postgres-heroku-tutorial-801b3d69e116 | ['Waseef Shawkat'] | 2019-05-14 16:20:21.394000+00:00 | ['Postgres', 'Hello World', 'Heroku', 'Golang'] |
Seattle Airbnb Listings — an analytical picture | Apartment Listings
Apartments offer maximum flexibility to travellers who want to an experience as close to home as possible when they stay for work or pleasure in a big city, for extended periods usually. The option to cook one’s own meals is one of the biggest advantages in this regard. Houses offer a more space when it comes to this. So I decided to look specifically at apartment and house listings.
Apart from missing values and dropping/imputing them, the prices also had to be converted to integer values from strings. Yes, one listing also had 0 bedrooms in the value field.
For at least four or more guests, listings with at least two bedrooms would work. After a little cleaning up and taking into account listings that need a minimum of two nights’ stay and have at least two or more reviews per month, most apartments appear to have either two or three bedrooms, hence I treated them as categorical variables. And these listings are within the USD 150–160 per night range.
Apartment listings have major clusters in Queen Anne and Other neighbourhoods
The full map of apartment listings can be viewed here.
A little reminder is also necessary that more reviews per month can also mean negative reviews, but that didnt seem to be the case in this subset, going by the individual numerical reviews scores at least.
For apartment listings which accommodate four or more guests and have at least two or more bedrooms (but without the monthly review subsetting), around 41% listings are Downtown, while 19% are in Other neighbourhoods and around 13% are in Capitol Hill. Among these Downtown listings, majority of the listings are in the USD 200–450 range, while those for Other neighbourhoods are within USD 250-odd.
After narrowing it down to two or more reviews per month, the share of Other neighbourhoods goes up to around 30%, while Downtown is now second at around 28%. So, lower prices do tend to attract more guests, if monthly reviews is to be considered a parameter. And listings within the USD 250 upper bound also have better annual availability.
It is also worth considering that the number of bedrooms at this stage goes up again for apartments in some areas when the data is grouped by neighbourhoods, with some listings in Other neighbourhoods having as many as six bedrooms available.
With regards to annual availability, the Other neighbourhoods do well again.
As for price distribution of apartment listings with these specifications, the median is at USD 149.5 | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/seattle-airbnb-listings-an-analytical-picture-219782bed297 | ['Sukanto Mukherjee'] | 2020-07-16 16:21:35.810000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Airbnb', 'Pandas', 'Data Visualization'] |
What You Should Know About New Year Resolutions | Photo by @freepik via freepik.com
At this time of year, when some of us are already thinking about our new year’s resolutions, I’m encouraging you to invest a little time trying to understand a few things we could resolve that would help make us happier. We want to be happier, living a life of flourish, but we often chase both the wrong things and the wrong paths to get to them. It perhaps sounds strange but, people are awful at predicting what will make them happy. Even more disturbing is the fact that we are often disappointed when we get the very things we think we want. There are a few things that you should know before making your New Year Resolutions.
In one of the strongest statements against the possibility for change, Lykken and Tellegen, a pair of researchers from the Minnesota Twin Family Study suggested that “trying to be happier may be as futile as trying to be taller.” This study, which also coined the phrase, the hedonic treadmill, implies that our efforts to get somewhere, to be happier, don’t get us anywhere. I don’t believe this to be true, and below are three things that you may want to take into account when setting your goals for 2021.
New Year Resolutions the choice between possessions vs. experiences
What you should know about new year resolutions is that often it is a matter of choosing between possessions or experiences. There’s a logical assumption many people make when spending their money, that because a physical object lasts a long time, it will make us happier than a one-off experience, like a vacation or a night out. But, a 20-year study by Dr. Thomas Gilovich, a psychology professor at Cornell University, found the opposite to be true. “One of the enemies of happiness is adaptation,” says Dr. Gilovich. “We buy things to make us happy, and we succeed. But only for a while, resulting in no permanent gain in happiness. Worse, according to this theory, as we make more money or buy more things, our expectations and desires for them to rise in tandem.
Experiences on the other hand tend to provoke more satisfaction than time using material possessions. A possible explanation is the endurance of experiences in people’s memories, while the perceived value of material goods weakens over time. Moreover, our experiences are a bigger part of ourselves than our material goods.
“You can really like your material stuff. You can even think that part of your identity is connected to those things, but nonetheless they remain separate from you. In contrast, your experiences really are part of you. We are the sum total of our experiences.” Dr Thomas Gilovich
Another reason that experiences win over possessions, is that they connect us more tightly to other people. You’re much likelier to feel connected to someone you went to school with, went on holiday together than say someone who just happens to buy the same type of car or smartphone.
Add to your new year resolution list: conquering negativity
Negativity is, in general, thinking that whatever happens is most likely going to turn out bad. It doesn’t help that we are hardwired such that negative events have a much greater impact on our brains than positive ones, psychologists refer to this as the negativity bias, but there is a subtle difference between negativity and negative thinking.
The good type of negative thinking is why your mum checked if you packed a spare pair of pants on school trips. When your daughter is borrowing your car when someone is asking you to take a risky investment decision, there’s good reason to think about worst-case scenarios, it allows you to look at things more realistically, slows down decision making, and might save you money, or your life. Negative thinking often involves contemplating future events or outcomes where it is still possible to change the outcome; negativity, on the other hand, typically involves a habitual attitude of anger, cynicism, helplessness, or sadness about things we cannot change. If you find yourself dwelling on an insult or fixating on your mistakes, and you keep playing it over and over in your mind, this is negativity, and it’s probably not doing you any good.
If you are someone who after an event takes place, finds yourself thinking “I shouldn’t have done that,” or focuses on things in a negative way, try to look for ways to reframe the situation in a more positive light. What did you learn? What would you do differently next time?
Salvaging a funny story from your misfortunes can be a great way to turn the tide of negative thoughts. That old adage, “misery loves company,” is only partly true, “misery loves miserable company,” is more accurate. Humor is good medicine, the search for a funny aspect in a difficult moment can help us endure it, and when used to help others to copy, can be altruistic.
The Paradox of Choice
Psychologist Barry Schwartz took aim at a central tenet of western societies in his book The Paradox of Choice. Freedom of choice, in Schwartz’s estimation, has not made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied. Choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress.
In his book, Barry Schwartz explains that choice, the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish — becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being, impacts the challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs, and paradoxically becomes a problem instead of a solution.
Having too much choice, or choice overload, is a cognitive impairment in which people have a difficult time making a decision when faced with many options. Another factor which makes us less happy is FOMO, or the fear of missing out. To illustrate how FOMO works, imagine that you were shown 5 juicy oranges and told that one of them was the world’s tastiest, but you could only pick and eat one. Maybe you enjoyed your orange, but simply not knowing what the four other oranges taste likes lead to dissatisfaction. And, the more choices you have the worst it gets; if you have ten available choices, and you make a wrong decision, it’ll hurt more than if you only had 5 choices and made the same decision.
New Year’s Resolutions
So, when it comes to making your new year’s resolutions this year, try not to set yourself up for failure by setting goals that are vague, unrealistic, or influenced by what others expect of us. Because, if we ‘fail,’ we’re left feeling guilty, disappointed, and self-loathing — a far cry from the sense of confidence and empowerment we were after. Limit your choices, keep it simple, and try looking for something experiential. Happy new year, and here’s to a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2021!
Joanne Reed The Author
Author of “This Is Your Quest”. You can’t buy happiness but you can buy books. Your mission, should you wish to accept it is to experience happiness
Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/what-you-should-know-about-new-year-resolutions-2f3beeb9bf27 | ['Joanne Reed'] | 2020-12-27 17:31:35.002000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Self Improvement', 'New Year Resolution', 'Motivation', 'Inspiration'] |
Rebuild VA Awards Grants to 2,500 Small Businesses and Nonprofits | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/supplierty-news/rebuild-va-awards-grants-to-2-500-small-businesses-and-nonprofits-bb077cc667a9 | ['Jaymie White'] | 2020-12-17 15:20:30.745000+00:00 | ['Small Business', 'Nonprofit', 'Grant'] |
Sennheiser debuts two new headphones for the U.S. market: The IE 300 IEH in-ear and the HD 250BT over-ear | Sennheiser debuts two new headphones for the U.S. market: The IE 300 IEH in-ear and the HD 250BT over-ear Jason Jan 16·2 min read
World-renowned headphone maker Sennheiser has announced two new models for CES 2021. First, let’s take a look at the IE 300, a new in-ear headphone (IEH), featuring a refined version of the company’s 7mm Extra Wide Band (XWB) transducer, with an optimized membrane foil that minimizes natural resonances and total harmonic distortion, which is specified to be less than 0.08% at 1 kHz/94 dB.
[ Further reading: The best headphones you can buy ]In addition, the space behind the transducer is designed to minimize reflections within the housing, and a resonator chamber in front of the transducer removes masking resonances in the ear canal. The end result is a promised frequency response from 6Hz to 20kHz (no tolerance given). According to Sennheiser, the IE 300 “delivers clear high frequencies with a subtle and warm musicality that brings greater intimacy to vocals.”
Of course, durability and comfort have not been overlooked. The IE 300 comes with several sizes of silicone and memory-foam eartips, because using the right size for your ears is crucial for getting the best sound out of any IEH as well as maximizing noise isolation. Each earpiece features an individually adjustable ear hook for stability, and the included cable is reinforced with para-aramid that can withstand thousands of bend cycles.
The cable is detachable from each earpiece thanks to its gold-plated Fidelity+ MMCX connector that’s seated in a recessed socket for additional strain relief. In addition, you can use an alternate cable, including balanced cables with 2.5- or 4.4mm connectors that are available as optional accessories.
The IE 300 will be available by the end of January for an MSRP of $299.95.
Sennheiser’s latest addition to its wireless-headphone stable is the entry-level HD 250BT, which has been available in Europe since last year but is now coming to the U.S. market. Touted as offering “club sound for everyday life,” the HD 250BT offers 25-hour battery life and Bluetooth 5.0 wireless connectivity with support for high-quality codecs such as AAC and aptX. In addition, you can tailor the sound to your individual tastes with an intuitive equalizer offered by Sennheiser’s Smart Control app.
Sennheiser says this This over-the ear, closed-back headphone offers rugged construction, soft earpads that provide surprisingly effective noise isolation, and intuitive onboard controls. Even better, it’s highly affordable with an MSRP of only $69.95. Like the IE 300, it will be available in the US at the end of January.
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/@jason54071196/sennheiser-debuts-two-new-headphones-for-the-u-s-15e6236617ca | [] | 2021-01-16 01:32:46.990000+00:00 | ['Consumer Electronics', 'Deals', 'Consumer', 'Mobile'] |
Superheroes Need Love, Too. | Photo Credit: DC Comics
Right after the holidays, my kid sister (now 20) asked me if she and her significant other could move into the basement of my house. I politely and lovingly told her hell no. In our conversations since, she would pitch the idea again and again much grander than the previous time. My response would remain the same. Recently, I was talking with my mother on the phone and she recounted a conversation that she had with my sister about the matter. My sister asked my mother to once again pitch the idea of her moving into my basement. Her only request was that my mother relay to her, in detail, exactly what I said. My mother indicated that she had a pretty good idea about what my response would be. My sister just laughed.
“Oh, mom. I do, too.” She giggled. “I just like it when I ask her and she does that thing where she cusses me out without using cuss words. It’s hilarious and so cute.”
I burst out laughing when my mother told me that story. For one thing, the idea that the sister who was thirteen years my junior thought that something I did was “cute” was wildly amusing to me. The other thing I realized was that I was touched for two reasons: My sister revealed that she had a true knowledge of who I was as a person. I do have a tendency to “cuss people out without using cuss words” in situations where I do not overtly want to swear. The most touching thing I took away from this situation was that I did not need to do anything in order for her to love me or find joy in me. Just being myself was enough for her.
Over the years, I have prided myself on service to others. It was something that I watched my family members excel at over generations — from my grandmother’s Thanksgiving dinners where everyone in the neighborhood was welcome, to my parents taking in children who needed loving homes. Serve, pray, fight, persevere — if my family had a motto, that would be it. I assumed that mission and carried it on without a second thought. I had always considered it my duty to make the world a better place, no matter what the cost. My purpose was to fix things, whether the possible or the impossible. My purpose was to absorb the pain of those around me so they did not have to feel it. My purpose was to slay dragons and combat injustice. I was a superhero, born of a lineage of superheroes. Until the day I first encountered my kryptonite.
On that day, I realized how much of myself I had given away in exchange for the acceptance of others. I had given away my solidarity to causes that were not my own. I had given away my time and energy to institutions that were not aligned with my values. I had given away my loyalty to people who did not value it as a gift. I had wasted my voice on people who had willfully chosen not to hear me. I had lovingly shed tears into chalices and passed them out to those who consumed them and moved on without a second thought. I had given my ideas to those who had turned a profit on my existence without so much as an acknowledgement. To quote the Bible, I had “cast my pearls before swine” in an effort to be wanted. To be needed. To be valued.
I recently took a moment in solitude. I laid what was left of myself out on my bed and surveyed the disjointed pieces. I tried not to cut myself on the jagged edges of my disillusionment. I was shocked to find there was not much remaining for me to survey. I had given so much away to others that what was left of me did not resemble the me I thought I knew at all: Chronic pain. Interrupted sleep. Poor eating habits. Resentment. Bitterness. Fatigue. Lashing out. Dehydration. Dark circles under puffy eyes. Difficulty concentrating. Hair falling out. Limited joy. No peace. Perfect little Turea, the superhero, the fixer, the healer, the mover and the shaker, had finally reached the point where she was not able to do it all. In fact, she was not able to do much of anything. I was a shell of my former self, and it was far from pretty.
When I reached the bottom of my cup, trying desperately to manufacture some sort of energy from the dark, useless sludge that resided there, I came to an important conclusion: Pouring yourself out and trying to fix broken things are admirable desires. However, there does come a point when you run out of steam, even when you have historically been able to do it all. Giving of yourself without giving to yourself always comes at a cost, especially when you pour out to those who do not value you or replenish you, or the vessels you are pouring yourself into are not in alignment with your values.
I have reached the point where I need to acknowledge that I am tired. This strong woman is spent. I have very little left to give away in this moment, and am going to need to ration what is left until I replenish. I am going to have to make some tough choices about when I am able to give and when I am unable to give. I will need to do better in the future about giving back to myself so that I do not reach this point again. Acknowledging my own limitations has never been easy for me, and this is worsened by a world that feels entitled to my compliance, solidarity, time, space, loyalty, energy, blood, sweat and tears simply by virtue of its demand for those gifts. However, as I survey the disjointed pieces of myself that I laid out on my bed, jagged with disillusionment, I have realized that I simply do not have the luxury to give of myself with reckless abandon anymore.
I have realized that I need to fold up my cape sometimes. I need to laugh sometimes. I need to dance sometimes. I need to write sometimes. I need to scream sometimes. I need to be held sometimes. I need to cry sometimes. I need to sleep sometimes. I need to ask for support sometimes. I need to be still sometimes. I need to heal sometimes. That doesn’t make me any less strong or any less valuable (and the people who believe that it makes me less strong or less valuable are encouraged to go explore the great pleasure that they are capable of bringing to themselves — my sister would appreciate this line). It makes me human. And that is ok.
So, today I have decided I am not going go be the superhero. I am not going to be the healer. I am not going to be the fixer. I am not going to be the defeater of villains, nor slayer of dragons. Today, I am going to fold up my cape and leave it at the foot of my bed next to the pieces of myself that are left. Today, I am just going to be Turea, an exhausted mere mortal with very human limitations. I am going to have wants and needs and hopes and dreams. I am going to laugh, dance, write, scream, be held, cry, sleep, ask for support, be still and heal. I am going to lovingly gather the pieces of myself that remain, gently sand and weld the edges of disillusionment, cobble them together the best I can, and go thank the goofy girl who reminded me how amazing it feels to be loved — simply for being me. | https://medium.com/@turea.hutson/superheroes-need-love-too-6fd33f846ae2 | ['Turea Hutson'] | 2019-04-17 14:30:28.143000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Love Yourself', 'Rest', 'Burnout', 'Self Improvement'] |
On Climate Volatility and Contrarian “Science” | 2020 has brought fires, floods and hurricanes across the world alongside novel forms of climate change denialism. Consider Patrick Moore, a so-called scientist with a significant Twitter following who claims:
“Any effect of CO2 on temperature could easily be overridden by other factors. The long historical record does not support CO2 as some kind of control knob as NASA claims. They’re not in sync.”
To support his contrarian claim, Moore posts a compelling visual of CO2 levels vs. global temperature, albeit without citation. The chart seems to indicate a dubious correlation between CO2 and temperature (although it also seems that in the past 65 million years CO2 levels and temperature have declined in parallel).
Moore’s source-less chart
As is often the problem with social media, it is difficult to verify the claims of influential contrarians who invoke “logic” while obscuring methodology. As logical observers, we have a couple reasonable options:
Trust, but verify Don’t trust, verify
With some determined Googling, on Skeptics’ Stack Exchange it appears the time series does indeed have a source: a 2001 paper by Yale geophysicists. However it’s also potentially misleading, so let’s cross-check a more recent timeframe and study. By analyzing the past 800,000 years of history according to the NOAA, there is a powerful synchronization of atmospheric CO2 with global temperature and sea levels.
Temperature, sea level, and atmospheric CO2 indicate a powerful synchronization over the past 800k years:
As CO2 concentration rises, the sun’s radiance is trapped more effectively by the atmosphere. As temperature rises, ice caps melt and sea levels rise. By zooming in on more recent datasets by the NOAA, atmospheric CO2, global temperatures, and sea levels have been on sharp upward trends since 1959.
Rasmus Tonboe, a scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute has posited that “The October Arctic sea ice extent is going to be the lowest on record and the sea ice growth rate is slower than normal.” Reported by the Guardian, “A new Nature Climate Change study predicts that summer sea ice floating on the surface of the Arctic Ocean could disappear entirely by 2035.”
Millions of people will be displaced by sea level rise and the effects of climate change. In 2020, record temperatures in places like Australia and the Western U.S. are exacerbating unprecedented fires. But on the other hand, sensational “scientists” like Patrick Moore imply that CO2 emission is not something we should worry too much about.
Indeed, other control knobs certainly affect the Earth’s temperature other than CO2 concentration. Other greenhouse gases harness heat from the sun such as methane. Over the past few decades, atmospheric methane levels have been rising primarily due to industrial beef production.
Another key control knob of Earth’s temperature is also the degree of the sun’s radiance in itself. The unprecedented growth of CO2 emissions is overwhelming natural solar cycles that influence warming and cooling. According to NASA:
“The amount of solar energy received by the Earth has followed the Sun’s natural 11-year cycle of small ups and downs with no net increase since the 1950s. Over the same period, global temperature has risen markedly. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the Sun has caused the observed global temperature warming trend over the past half-century.”
The divergence is almost certainly due to the rise of global greenhouse gas emissions. Which countries account for the majority of global CO2 emissions?
Since 1945, the rate of global CO2 emissions have risen by almost seven times. Accounting by relative share of global CO2 emissions, Asia, primarily led by China, currently accounts for over 50%.
Short of a radical shift, it is unlikely the world will be able to reduce global CO2 emissions and reverse the trend. In the name of climate change, government interference in energy markets often leads to negative effects for hard-working citizens. Take France for example, where carbon taxes triggered the Yellow Vest protests that disrupted the country for months.
One of the most macroprudential measures a nation can pursue is mass tree planting, an ideal form of carbon capture. Knowing the existential threat of apocalyptic smog and flooding, China has also led the world in planting billions of trees. As reported by NASA:
“The world is literally a greener place than it was twenty years ago, and data from NASA satellites has revealed a counterintuitive source for much of this new foliage. A new study shows that China and India — the world’s most populous countries — are leading the increase in greening on land. The effect comes mostly from ambitious tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries.”
Trees are a natural and effective solution for capturing CO2 from the atmosphere, along with other harmful particulates. Trees help absorb and guard against flooding and soil erosion. Trees help regulate temperature. Trees help promote biodiversity. Billions of trees have already been planted, but it is not nearly enough.
World leaders need to pursue an accord to plant trillions of trees. It is likely our only hope to stabilize our climate. | https://medium.com/currency-waves/on-climate-volatility-and-contrarian-science-bbcafd9acbd2 | ['Mike Co'] | 2020-12-04 02:36:16.211000+00:00 | ['Climate Change', 'World', 'Science', 'Environment', 'Politics'] |
Diary of a Future President: Episode 1 | Disney+ | Diary of a Future President: Episode 1 | Disney+
Diary of a Future President — Season 1 Episode 1 | Disney+
Come on Let’s Join:
( http://popular.online-tvs.com/tv/94761-1-1/diary-of-a-future-president.html )
Elena battles a series of curve balls at school, as she forgets to do a homework assignment for the first time ever and struggles with whether or not to keep a secret about her former best friend. Meanwhile her mom, Gabi, struggles to tell her kids about her new boyfriend, Sam.
Thanks for joining, have fun, and check out and let me know what you guys think! Feel free to leave a clap and Follow
Thanks for watching guys!! Smiling a little better a big laugh.! Have a nice day :)) | https://medium.com/diary-of-a-future-president-episode-1/diary-of-a-future-president-episode-1-disney-e8fbb1e112 | [] | 2020-01-16 17:58:04.742000+00:00 | ['Disney', 'Comedy', 'Television'] |
What your fear is telling you | Image by John Hain from Pixabay
As I walked out of my boss’s office one thing she said stuck in my mind above everything else, “We are downsizing, so your job and department are being eliminated.”
What!? After spending my entire career getting to this position. One I really love. I am now being pushed out the door. I really had no idea what I was going to do. Afterall, I had invested most of my professional efforts into this company and building skills that allowed me to move up the corporate ladder. Now the rungs have been cut and I’m seeing myself speed down the ladder, like a terrified teenager plunging to their death in a bad horror movie.
Fortunately, I had the sense to invite my fear to lunch. We considered the past, did an inventory of the present and made a plan for the future. When our lunch was over, fear and I shook hands and went our separate ways. Your meeting with fear may not be so cordial. You may feel him taking a firm grip on you and heisting your hopes and dreams of a comfortable future. This doesn’t have to be the case. You can find a way past fear. A way to develop confidence and not just survive your travesties but to prosper through transcendence of the experience.
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. Nelson Mandela
Often we find comfort in the past, even a confining one. We know the past, and it doesn’t hold any surprises. We believe the past offers us stability. This is, however, not true. The past restricts us. It limits our growth and stifles potential. While living with the limits of your situation provides a sense of stability, it will never transform you. Surrendering to your circumstance will keep you bound to a life of subservience. You deserve more than that!
Life consists of ups and downs. It is a series of peaks and valleys that bring you both joy and sorrow. Realizing that your existence is fluid, always changing, will help you to free yourself from the obstacles that are holding you back.
Looking out over the horizon, we see a vast unknown. As a result, it is natural to gaze out into the void with anxiety and fear. Even though you are moving into uncharted territory, you are not doing it alone and unprepared. You have experience, skills and a network of people to help you through these trying times. You need to take inventory of your resources, plot out how to use them efficiently, and take action. This is your opportunity. March into the future bravely, accepting your fears and finding a way to navigate a course beyond them.
One of the greatest discoveries a person makes, one of their great surprises, is to find they can do what they were afraid they couldn’t do. Henry Ford
What are you so afraid of?
As you look at the road that lies ahead you, may have hopes and dreams of what your life could be. Maybe those ideals end with, “but someday,’ or ‘if only.” This limiting self-talk blinds you to possibilities. It keeps you static in a rapidly moving world. Why not take a few steps down the road to discover if you can see your future with better clarity?
Fear causes you to become immobilized, unable or unwilling to take the next action. You may be apprehensive about your future. Maybe you feel that failure is inevitable. That there is no sense in trying to get beyond it, so why even try. You can be better than that. How can you know what you are capable of if you don’t even try? Dip your toe in the water. Then take some time to honestly evaluate the experience. This is the way to discover the solutions that work best for you. It’s all trial and error, correct and make another attempt.
Don’t be afraid of failure. Of course, you are going to fail, that is how you learn to succeed. Naturally, it won’t be easy. Nothing worth its weight ever is. Nevertheless, take the moment for all it’s worth and wrestle your success from it. You are the master of your life, in spite of your fear and shortcomings. It is through this process of facing your fears that you will reduce apprehension and build confidence. As you build confidence you will gradually begin to understand that you are where you need to be at this moment, doing what you have to do, in order to become the person you are meant to be. Seize the moment.
I’ve learned that fear limits you and your vision. It serves as blinders to what may be just a few steps down the road for you. The journey is valuable, but believing in your talents, your abilities, and your self-worth can empower you to walk down an even brighter path. Transforming fear into freedom — how great is that? Soledad O’Brien
Accept failure as a by-product of the process. A chance to develop, become more intelligent, stronger and more prepared for the battles ahead. Failure does not equate to surrender — It is an indicator that you need to learn more. In that process you will comprehend how to succeed.
You don’t have the benefit of hindsight. As a result, you do not know the reason for the experience you are having, what you are to take from it and how it can help to guide you to a better existence. You need to complete your due diligence, have faith and jump. No regrets.
Make Fear a Colleague
Understanding your fears and what feeds them is vital to overcoming them. We tend to fear what we do not understand. Learning about your fear and why you are experiencing it will help you to overcome the anxieties that accompany your strong feelings of apprehension and maybe even terror. This knowledge will better equip you to manage not only the situation, but also future dilemmas.
Examine your fears and anxieties. Learn to identify what triggers and feeds them. Then educate yourself with solutions for overcoming them. In time, instead of looking for avenues of retreat, you’ll be confidently proclaiming: “Been there, done that!” And chalking up victories big and small along the way.
This ability to face your fears head-on will eventually lead you to freedom. Freedom to stand up and be recognized as a person of value. Freedom to live your life on your terms. Freedom to unleash the talents and abilities you have locked inside for too long. This all starts with looking your fears in the eye and considering the message they have for you. Fear is not a bad thing, it comes with a message of the need for you to take action. You need to be the one to manage your fears. Control them, don’t let them control you.
Being aware of your fear is smart. Overcoming it is the mark of a successful person. Seth Godin
It’s your life
This life is the only one you have. You can choose to peek through the peephole when opportunity in the form of a problem or conflict knocks at your door and lock the deadbolt. Or you can open that door and greet the experience with a firm and friendly, “Hi, how ya’ doing!?” It’s completely up to you.
Letting an abusive partner control you is not ok. Accepting to work in a situation where you are unappreciated isn’t acceptable. Believing that you are not worthy of achieving your goals or that someone has it better than you, will never allow you to unlock your potential. When trouble knocks you down, get up and force a smile, Then punch it right back. Accept nothing but the best from yourself each and every day. Like weight training, you will grow stronger with practice. The key is to keep working to combat your fears. If you fall off the horse, get up and try again. You won’t get today back, so do what you can to win this day.
As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others. Marianne Williamson
Related Stories from John Cunningham
Only You Can Make This Change
What are your emotions telling you?
Winning is painful | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/what-is-fear-is-telling-you-b4a12251eb2c | ['John Cunningham'] | 2020-10-22 09:10:43.881000+00:00 | ['Decision Making', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Empowerment', 'Self Improvement', 'Abuse'] |
5 Websites To Download Books And Audiobooks For Free And Without Registration | 5 Websites To Download Books And Audiobooks For Free And Without Registration Tehnologijaviews Apr 25·4 min read
HomeTech News 5 Websites To Download Books And Audiobooks For Free And Without Registration
Enjoying a good book is not synonymous with spending money , having to provide your data or giving up your privacy as payment. The Internet works like a large public library where it is possible to find hundreds of thousands of books in Spanish for free and completely legal.
Next, we show you five websites where you can download hundreds of thousands of books without having to pay and without having to fill out a registration form on their websites.
The pages that we show you below include, for the most part, free-to-use books. However, some offer titles that are copyrighted in force but are fully licensed for reproduction and download. Therefore, it would be 100% legal pages and not digital piracy .
In addition to the websites mentioned in this article, there are others (such as the network of public libraries in some autonomous communities such as the Basque Country, La Casa del Libro or Google Books) that offer the possibility of downloading and consulting complete books online. However, unlike those shown in this article, these sites require a prior registration process in which we will have to provide our data.
Depending on the format you have chosen to download, the books and audiobooks that you can read on your computer, on your mobile, on your tablet, on a Kindle or in an electronic book from another brand.
This page with 114,060 bibliographic documents in Spanish works as a large digital library for the preservation and dissemination of literature.
Wikisource is a project of the Wikipedia foundation and shares design and interface with the most famous encyclopedia on the Internet. Its page allows you to search for works by name, author, genre (stories, didactic works, essays, epic, poetry, theater …), country or time.
It is a very intuitive page to use and the texts can be read online from the internet browser or downloaded in PDF, ePub or mobi format.
This page has 56,507 books , documents and audiobooks available for download in .doc, .pdf, .txt or html formats among others.
It has a search engine by authors, a specific section for audiobooks and offers the possibility of searching titles in different languages (Catalan, Galician, Basque, English, French, German, Portuguese …) and by country of origin of the authors.
The main counterpart of this page created by Gabriel Chova Blasco is that its design is a bit dated, reminiscent of the pages of the mid-2000s. However, Liberoteca delivers what it promises : thousands of hours of reading.
This page named in honor of the father of the printing press has an extensive repository of books and audiobooks of more than 50 languages.
It offers the books in .html format (to read them on the internet), in EPUB format with and without images and in Kindle format (with and without images), among others. In addition, it offers the possibility of sending the books in any of the formats to our Dropbox, our Google Drive or our One Cloud account.
However, the main drawback of Project Gutemberg is that finding the titles in its long list can be somewhat difficult. However, this can be solved with the command “Control + F” to narrow your search by words.
The Alba Learning page has a catalog of books, audiobooks and video books that you can consult online or download for free.
One of its most interesting points is that it has a selection of titles with parallel texts (Spanish-English) ideal for all those who want to practice or learn another language.
An interesting function since the web shows the audios together with the texts in both languages so that users can also learn the pronunciation of the words.
The main problem with this page is that it has a smaller catalog than its predecessors, but its titles are in different formats to be enjoyed from different media.
It is a publishing house with its own social network elements in Spanish that specializes in publishing electronic books.
Founded by Andrés Alonso Weber and Olmo Cepero de la Plaza, Literanda offers a wide catalog of books to download (journalistic, Greek classics, drama poetry, black novel …) in EPub, PDF and Mobi formats.
The page also offers the possibility for authors to send their works (contract by means of) and Literanda is in charge of their layout edition. | https://medium.com/@tehnologijaviews/5-websites-to-download-books-and-audiobooks-for-free-and-without-registration-c598b63ae246 | [] | 2021-04-25 06:42:57.241000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Audiobooks', 'Libraries', 'Website', 'Free'] |
I Dare you to get Worse | I Dare you to get Worse
It’s supposedly felt like 31 years wrapped in one, right? I think so. I know my sense of time has become more messed up than before. I’m seriously not in touch with time and I have to set a reminder for almost every task and activity.
If this was a physical conversation, we’d be holding hands and repeatedly pressing into our palms, a gesture to prove we’re checking in with the other person and deeply concerned about their wellbeing.
So, if your eyes manage to land on this piece of rambling, I am hoping you are doing well and can truly exhale without tears running down your face. That’s a win. It’s also okay if you exhale and release tears at the same time, your body is letting it all out and that’s another win.
From probably the most mentally scattered person you know (if you follow me on twitter you know that I openly experience several pockets of mental breakdowns every 3–5 working days) to you, I am calmly squeezing your tense shoulders and telling you let out a breath, unclench your jaw and wiggle your toes. You’re here. You’re present. You’re a vessel of life and joy to yourself and others.
Okay, we did the love and light bit, let’s move on.
Another round of 12 months, 52 weeks, 366 years — well not yet, and we’re wondering what the hell is happening. To be fair, we’ve been wondering what the hell is happening in this thing called life but I guess nothing has amplified our raw emotions and feelings like a pandemic (and several many chaotic events simultaneously happening).
The whole year felt like a series of “I dare you to get worse” and as painful it was for some people, it was also fantastically amusing for a lot of others. On my part, I started the year with residual grief and untouched emotions. The first day of the year was literally spent crying alone in a toilet and mourning the loss of a friend, exactly a month after their passing. I had no expectations.
Of course, I had plans but I just didn’t want to do anything. I deeply wished I had enough money to take the year off but please laugh with me at that thought. I had no idea that I was stepping into my most financially unstable year since I started professional work. So yes, laugh with me at the idea of taking the year off. Who the hell do I think I am, right? I won’t dismiss my emotions and grief, and I still desperately need that time off.
I recently discovered I process emotions quite differently. No, I didn’t just discover that — I just got it validated. It’s not a terrible thing but it can be bad when I don’t extend a sensible level of patience to those around me.
So you can imagine my frustration when I seemingly made peace with the pandemic and everyone around me was falling apart. I had little cousins crying and wondering if the world was ending. Again, seemingly made peace. In my head, I made peace. Oh boy.
The problem with being trapped alone with your thoughts, demons, fears and whatever everyone might have been dealing with is you have to seek distractions and safer spaces. My generation (cringe) largely finds peace on social media — she says this calmly like that’s not her public journal (I wonder how many people have me muted, *shrug*). The problem with burying your nose into your screen during a pandemic is realising so much more is happening in the world around you.
The news you wouldn’t have cared for some months back is suddenly amplified and operation WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT THIS starts and every other person that doesn’t seemingly care about this cause is evil and lacking emotions. News agencies have the most fun by creating thrilling headlines and constantly baiting people emotionally fragile people and worsening their panic. More headlines were read than the actual news content, obviously.
Sitting back now and wondering why this year made me feel emotionally lousy, I realise I failed to process my grief and emotions in the beginning of the year. I just didn’t give it the time it needed because it was distracting myself with one piece of content or news that sincerely didn’t concern me. Everything started feeling like an attack and that mild trauma opened a bigger unhealed wound from actual trauma.
Yes kids, if you don’t treat that small scratch on your thumb, it can end up infecting your whole hand. Science!
I cringe when I see certain things I have shared with people in supposed moments of vulnerability and it just looked concerning because it was less of being vulnerable and more of needing an actual hand of help. The moment of getting hit by the cringe wrecking ball was an outing with friends and they jokingly spoke about my “constant spiral” on social media and it was chalked into a “oh she’s constantly crazy and talking shit”.
No, you don’t want to know what I thought about them at that moment so let’s focus on me.
I know I’ve previously spoken about publicly bleeding but now I just see it as you bleed in public and end up having to awkwardly stand there with everyone making their way around you. Like ma’am you can’t take up all the space in the community square, we heard you at the first scream, move along and let someone else take the stage. I won’t hate myself for acting like that. Do I randomly want to flog myself? Of course but no hate there.
That’s not the point. I can’t take it back. I had just to be brave and it takes a lot of bravery to accept that this brand of unhealed trauma is a cocktail of heavy expectations, FOMO, validation and a sprinkle of entitlement.
So with the world setting itself on many fires, I was thinking of ways to quench mine and I’m still on that journey. It’s such a lonely and painful journey. That’s largely life anyway, lonely and sometimes painful. It’s not personal (unless they’re doing you from the village then that’s deeply personal). It’s just how this experience on earth was designed to be and I still don’t know if it was intentional.
This year was supposedly meant to teach us how to value community more and alladat but I’ve never felt more dangerously and emotionally alone. It was a year to connect with more people et al, but it didn’t seem that way because I felt so much more disconnected than usual. The whole year felt like a scene from an American movie where all the cliques are sitting together during lunch and I was just standing there with my own tray, trying not to sit down next to the rude lunch lady or worse, trash can.
On the bright side, the year had a good number of positives. I made two short films. I didn’t even plan to make anything. Again, I really wanted to take the year off to just cry and stare at the sky. I did cry though, a lot. I tried to stare at the sky but yeah I’m lazy and fell in love with staying indoors even more than usual. I really did a lot of things this year.
A lot of them were desperate attempts to just do something and keep my brain stimulated. Every week I had a new idea and I sadly dumped on people who’d rather spend their time doing better things. At some point I paused and realised I have been desperate for new ideas since I was 14 and I went down a rabbit hole of so many things I have started and killed. I am not saying this is unique to me and I don’t even know I feel I have to clarify that.
Anyway, I have also decided to stop that too. I feel the deep need to stop a lot of things. Maybe I am burnt out. Maybe I am deeply internally fatigued. Maybe I have used up all my motivations and imagination. At the last conversation of “I have an idea!” I could smell the “Here we go again,” from the other person and it smelled stronger than Amla oil.
Of course, I cannot think about taking another year off. Did I mention that this has been my most financially unstable year? Because I feel the strong need to have that in bold. I spent the money I don’t have on a lot of these ideas that nobody asked for or needed.
It was a side effect of an unhealed thing spiralling and doing anything. The strong need to prove my worth and get creative validation by just doing so many things at once and wondering why they don’t exactly matter. I have no regrets and I learned so much more about myself and other people. I’m still going to stop though. I can appreciate the lessons and skills gained, and still want nothing to do with them for a while.
I’m proud of myself and I truly appreciate myself more than ever. I let myself be as human as ever this year and yes, it might have been so uncomfortable, but I’m glad it happened. At least for my mental health growth and progression.
After everything, I don’t know what’s next. I’m not excited or afraid, just not tired.
There’s a lot of unresolved conflict in the world to believe things would suddenly get better in a new year. I’m not sure if it’s faith or just how I am but tragedies and loss aren’t going to slow down or stop anytime soon.
A lot of our idols are growing old and it can be uncomfortable to witness multiple losses at the same time but being closer to people more than ever would make it hurt even more. Plus, average people already die every second and it’s not going to stop. It will only feel more and more personal because the next person on social media knows this person or internalises the pain, which is completely understandable.
Leaders of many countries are not going to suddenly change and a lot of us are at the ripe age of awakening so we’re either going to face more disappointments or have random streaks of luck in our various countries and cities. This year has highlighted that people employed to serve are capable of serving and some simply choose not to do their jobs, so we don’t know what that means for a lot of countries.
There’s a lot of tiredness replacing hope and excitement I once had for my career path but I am really grateful for what I get to do as a job. I don’t know if I’ll be doing it for a long time (I hope I do). I hope in time I like what it does for me.
I like the person I truly am, it is hard but I really don’t want to exist in another way. I wouldn’t even know how to.
The year has been one of gratitude and patience. A lot of patience in accepting and healing. A lot of gratitude that helps with staying grounded and humanising the entire experience.
I have come to the part where I don’t know how to end this. This writing and this year. I’ll let it do its thing and just end.
Anywhere the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me. | https://medium.com/@thegimsay/i-dare-you-to-get-worse-eaa44e2e13fa | ['Fatimah Binta Gimsay'] | 2020-12-03 17:28:24.631000+00:00 | ['Personal Essay', 'Self Reflection', '2020', 'Depression', 'Reflection'] |
A letter to Corona — the expression of different events India witnessed during the lockdown. | I know you are flourishing day by day, extending your root to the entire country, having a world tour, getting lots of attention but hatred as well. Well to be honest I don’t hate you because I know it was not your intention to enter and boom our lives. You came accidentally; to be honest, you were invited. I know you must be happy living inside bats but humans dragged you unnecessarily and then started the blame game. From snakes, bats, dogs to humans, you always got your host easily. Your life must not be as tough as ours!
I don’t understand I should thank you for unexpected college holidays, for extra hours of sleep, I get in the morning, for Daddy’s free evening hours with family, for controlling pollution, for making us realize that we can give up junks, for making us watch Ramayana and Mahabharata, for uniting India or dislike you for killings lots of people worldwide.
Hey, tell me one thing don’t you feel bad when we curse you, don’t you feel ashamed when we troll you, don’t you cry when we pray to get rid of you, and don’t you feel any hesitation while taking lives. I guess you must be. Don’t you find it funny that the economy is cracking because we are buying only essentials? You made us realize that it takes a very few pennies to survive, a lot to show off.
You gave us so much, a lot of family time, a lot of experiences, funny jokes over you, so much of time from our everyday busy schedules, chances to cook, and most of all a mirror of ourselves. During this lockdown period, I got to observe things in a little different way. I discovered Dad is not much strict, he is funny sometimes. My brother can actually cook well, sister is not that bad withdrawing and I can dance too. I got time to feel the stories of grand mum about the essence of life and mom is finally taking some rest from the dual shift of office and kitchen. Oh dear corona, I must be grateful to you for these entire things we were dying for but not getting time.
But, is lockdown the same for everyone? I am thankful to my parents that they saved some money and feeding us like any normal days. What about others? What about that uncle who used to pull rickshaw? What about that uncle who had a cloth store and what about Laxmi aunty, our maid? Oh no, they must be hungry or they must be praying for normal days. They must be cursing you.
How could I forget that policeman uncle, who still goes on duty and that Doctor aunty who treat patients by risking her life? How could they work so selflessly? He must have warned people not to go outside unnecessarily and she must have cried over dying patients. Their family must be worried about them every single minute. In that case, will they able to enjoy lockdown like us? No, I guess.
I got some short stories for you, few are worth giving goose-bumps, some made me proud and some were intensely sad.
On 22nd March, everyone whether common people or VIPs, rich or poor, children or elderly rang bells, clapped like crazy and blew conches to appreciate warriors fighting against you.
Do you remember the night of 5th April, when 1.3 crore people lighted diyas, candles, as well as flashlights at 9 pm for 9 minutes to shun your darkness on just one appeal of Prime Minister?
Donations in PM care funds in such a huge amount. Wasn’t that a mesmerizing? How differently-abled workers stitched most needed PPE kits for health workers. Wasn’t that a proud moment? The way Gurudwaras and temples are volunteering to help fight against you. An ailing father on his shoulder, a man in Kerala walked nearly a kilometers on his way home from the hospital due to lockdown. Do you know the story of 18-year-old Minnoli Aya who lost her mother Dr. Madhvi Aya who worked at Woodhull hospital in New York? In Chhattisgarh, nurses had to mother a Covid-19 patient’s 3-month-old child at AIIMS, Raipur. Isn’t that sad?
I wish you can feel their pain, you can see the tears of families of those 600 people whom you killed.
Please don’t ruin my college farewell party. I don’t want to get graduated through “zoom”.
I miss my friends, I miss my colleagues. I hope you will go back soon. | https://medium.com/@sakshimishra-94787/a-letter-to-corona-expression-of-different-events-india-witnessed-during-lock-down-cbec5fab1702 | ['Sakshi Mishra'] | 2020-10-13 10:51:58.051000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Letters', 'Lockdown', 'Corona', 'Coronavirus'] |
Blockchain Report — 12/6/2018. Summary: Cryptocurrency Scammers Get… | Summary: Cryptocurrency Scammers Get $78,000 In Under Three Months In Singapore; Cryptocurrency Bear Market Is Forcing Ethereum Co-Founder To Restructure His Company; Ethereum Classic Dev Team Shuts Down
Watch: Latest Episode of Blockchain Report on YouTube
Cryptocurrency Scammers Get $78,000 In Under Three Months In Singapore
According to The Next Web, Singapore citizens have lost $78,000 to cryptocurrency scams in the past three months. This is based on information discovered by Singapore authorities, who uncovered a series of fraudulent cryptocurrency marketing campaigns.
In the marketing campaigns, people claim that they’ve earned massive returns on their Bitcoin investment in fake companies. These marketing campaigns convinced Singaporeans to send cash to these fake companies, in which they did not receive anything in return. These fraudulent campaigns used Singapore celebrities to increase the credibility of the claims.
Despite the blatant scam, it appears that Singapore authorities will not be able to do much to stop this. Currently, Singapore does not have any regulations on the cryptocurrency industry. This means that they cannot enforce any rules to protect investors, because there are no rules to enforce in the first place.
Cryptocurrency Bear Market Is Forcing Ethereum Co-Founder To Restructure His Company
According to Forbes, the fall in prices for the cryptocurrency market has forced several different blockchain and cryptocurrency companies to rethink their long-term strategy. One such person who is restructuring their company is Joseph Lubin, the co-founder of Ethereum and chief executive of ConsenSys.
ConsenSys is an firm that develops applications on top of Ethereum. The company is now reorganizing into “ConsenSys 2.0”, as Lubin calls it, and will focus on efficiency, accountability, and attention to revenue. Underperforming projects in ConsenSys will be removed. Lubin says of the restructuring:
“We must retain, and in some cases regain, the lean and gritty startup mindset that made us who we are… We now find ourselves occupying a very competitive universe. We must recognize that what got us here will probably not get us there, wherever ‘there’ is.”
Ethereum Classic Dev Team Shuts Down
According to CCN, a major Ethereum Classic development team known as ETCDEV is shutting down. ETCDEV initially launched in 2016. Igor Artamonov, the founder and CTO of ETCDEV, stated on Twitter that due to a lack of funds the team will have to shut down. The public note stated:
“As is publicly known, we have struggled with funding our operation in the last few weeks…This was partially due to the market crash, combined with a cash crunch in the company.”
The Twitter account for Ethereum Classic stepped in, and stated that just because ETCDEV was shutting down does not mean that all development for Ethereum Classic was halting. In a tweet, Ethereum Classic stated:
“Ethereum Classic is not ETCDEV Ethereum Classic is IOHK, ETC Co-op, ETC Labs, ETCDEV, and a litany of volunteers. Keep Calm, and Build On.”
Do you want daily blockchain and cryptocurrency news delivered directly to your inbox or feed? Sign up today for the Blockchain Report athttp://blockchainreport.tv.
Watch us daily on social media:
- Instagram 📷: http://instagram.com/blockchainreport
- Facebook 🌐: http://facebook.com/theblockchainreport
- LinkedIn 🔗: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blockchain-report/
- Twitter 🐦: http://twitter.com/blockchainposts
- Telegram 💬: https://t.me/blockchainreportnews | https://medium.com/blockchain-report/blockchain-report-12-6-2018-4a64584ed80c | ['Christopher Durr'] | 2018-12-06 07:49:35.035000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'News', 'Investing', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain'] |
2019 in Review | I had started the year confused, lacking direction as to what to do, even after carefully setting out the famed “New Year goals”. 2019 was indeed a peculiar year, in that it started with me in one of my lowest moments, then gradually picked up and ended on a huge note.
By early January, I wasn’t comfortable with my current job, career trajectory, finances and the overall pace my life was taking. For whatever reasons, I always felt I had so many potentials to remain at that job and needed some fresh challenge. I need a timeout! -I abruptly concluded.
I quickly, without prior plans, packed a few clothes travelled up north — to Jos, Plateau State. I can still recall embarking on that journey. I had taken a GIGM bus to Jos — a city where I knew no one. Slept in the park on the first night — cold Jos park. My stay in the city was cut short by the Presidential Elections as I had to return to Lagos to my anxious parents & friends who were concerned about my wellbeing. I returned to Lagos — slept in the park again till dawn. (I was that broke)Finally, I got home to the warm embrace of my mom, ready to start my life over again.
Amidst the entire drama 2019 came with I picked the following priceless jewels;
Keep supportive friends & a loving mom: Having a loving mom (parents) & supportive friends can sometimes be the difference between failure and success. There were days I could afford nada, but I had a friend & a mom who both loved me relentlessly, housed me and fed me all through. The love & consistent support from them were all I needed to get my own feet in no time.
Persist! Persist! Persist! Life is tough, being Nigerian makes it tougher. You’ve got to rise up every single time you get hit on the face, no matter how hard it hurts. It’s okay to cry, it helps with the pain. But after crying, you MUST pick yourself up, dust yourself and go fight again — till you win! You’ll most likely face so many hurdles before you hit that goal but you’ve got to insist on exactly what you want. I can still vividly remember being out of a job and interviewing at several organizations, yet my standard remained high. I was not going to let my temporary uneasiness & pain push me into settling for a subpar role, company or salary. No way! It was either I go big or I went home and big I went.
The easier and surest way out of unemployment remains to have globally competitive skills. This remains the fastest way out of unemployment. Endeavour, you get (at least 5) globally competitive skills and be badass with the use of top software — the rarer the better. 2019 taught me that, on the contrary, there are quite a number of job openings nationwide daily, however, the challenge was the lack of quality talents to fill these roles.
You are not your work/job: The best time to learn this lesson is when you are out of job. I just left a job that afforded me great privileges, now unemployed. I had to learn that I’m not my job and ensure not to slide into that great misconception or trap or status that comes with being on a great job. Never again!
Invest heavily in yourself! Being out of job gave me enough time to read as much as possible, horn skills in data & business analysis, pick up programming and travel more. This might be a little harder to accomplish given that you are out of job with little or no income & savings, but hey, when there’s a will, there’s always a way.
GRACE: It was watch-night service in church late 2019 when Pastey raised up Michael W. Smith’s song; Grace. My entire 2019 flashed right before my face. How far I had come, from the lowest low, right back on my feet. That was the summary, I have been helped of God. Although started confused, I ended the year with so much order & clarity. I honestly feel 2019 was 5 years compressed in 1.
So much speed and growth amidst so much disorder. 2020: #WeMove! | https://medium.com/@olaniran.iyanuoluwa/2019-in-review-5f7f9009fdd8 | [] | 2020-01-12 08:02:31.947000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'Review', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Goals', 'Revolution'] |
An Intro to Web3 Development | Photo by michael podger on Unsplash
In my previous post, I talked about the basics of Ethereum at a higher level as an introduction to people just coming into the field of crypto. In this post (and future posts), I’ll be taking it deeper into the specifics of Web3 development using Node scripts and web3.js. For the full code example, check out the GitHub repo.
Set Up Test Wallet
The first step to developing on the blockchain is getting a test wallet set up. There are many ways to do this, but we’ll do it through metamask. If you already have a test wallet with a public address, you can skip this step.
First, install the metamask chrome plugin and then create a wallet. The main information you need now is the public address listed under the account name.
Add KETH To Wallet
Now we need to actually get some test tokens added to our wallet. You can use any testnet to do this, but for this article we’ll be using Kovan. Testnets are replicas of the mainnet blockchain that allow you to do interactions for free, and a faucet is a way to request tokens for use on these testnets. In order to get ETH in Kovan (KETH), you need to go to the Kovan faucet, login with GitHub, and put your public address for your test wallet in.
Hit Send me KETH! , then you should see it show up in your metamask wallet in a couple seconds. The default amount sent from the faucet is 2 ETH, which should be plenty for what we need.
Add Kovan DAI To Wallet
Since KETH is the native token on the Kovan network, it is a much simpler process to get and view those tokens in your wallet. If we wanted to add another test token to our wallet, like Kovan DAI, that gets a little more complicated.
The faucet for Kovan DAI isn’t as simple as KETH. Luckily, someone deployed a smart contract that does this for us, so all we need to do is send some of our ETH to the smart contract, and it will send Kovan DAI to our wallet. Hit the send button in metamask, and put the following address: 0x786e3c83cd270414649079A758Ad92f961EDdA0A . This address is the location of the deployed contract, so you want to use this exact string. You can send any amount, as long as you have it in your wallet, and then set the gas limit to 3000000. The gas limit refers to the maximum amount of gas you are willing to spend for a transaction, so setting it to a high value doesn't mean that's how much you will use, but this limit is the minimum that the faucet requires.
Once that’s done, hit Next and Confirm .
You can check your activity to monitor the transaction, and it may take a little bit for it to be mined. Once the transaction has gone through, you’ll see that you have less ETH (since you sent it away), but you won’t see your DAI token yet. This is because metamask only supports the native token for the given network out of the box, and we have to set up viewing another token.
To do this, go to your Assets tab and press Add Token . The deployed contract address for Kovan DAI is 0x4F96Fe3b7A6Cf9725f59d353F723c1bDb64CA6Aa , so set that as the token contract address. The other two fields should autopopulate, and then you can hit Next . You should see the balance of DAI you have in your wallet, and then hit confirm to finish adding the token. Now if you go back to your account, you should see both ETH and DAI listed as assets.
Set up Infura Account
The next step is to set up an account with Infura so that we can get a free project ID to use for their API. Infura is one of many APIs that allow us to interact with the blockchain. Go to https://infura.io and sign up, create a project, then grab your project ID. We’ll be using Infura’s API in conjunction with web3 to programmatically check our wallet balances on the blockchain.
View Native Token Balance
Now that we have our test wallet and infura project ID, we can actually start programming, using web3.js.
The web3.js library is a collection of modules that contain functionality for the ethereum ecosystem.
First step is to add it to our project.
yarn add web3
In order to use web3 to interact with the blockchain, we have to set up a web3 instance with a provider. Our provider will be an HttpProvider which comes with web3, and we'll use the Infura API with our projectId as the Ethereum node. This will look something like this:
const provider = new Web3.providers.HttpProvider(
`https://kovan.infura.io/v3/${YOUR_PROJECT_ID}`
); const web3 = new Web3(provider);
Now that we have it set up, getting the native token balance of our wallet is super simple.
const balance = await web3.eth.getBalance(YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS);
If you log what is returned here, you’ll notice that the number returned is waaaaay larger than the number you see in metamask as your ETH balance. This is because by default, Ethereum returns wei, which is approximately 10¹⁸ ether.
Web3 surfaces a set of utils that allows us to convert this easily, so we can call web3.utils.fromWei to get our balance in ethers.
const balance = web3.utils.fromWei(
await web3.eth.getBalance(YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS)
);
Now it should match the balance you are seeing in metamask:
View Kovan DAI Token Balance
Just like with getting and viewing Kovan DAI in our wallet, getting your balance using web3 isn’t quite as simple as it is with the native token. In order to do that, we first have to set up a web3 Contract instance using the ERC20 token standard ABI and the Kovan DAI token address.
ERC20 is a type of token contract that lives in Ethereum, and the ABI (Application Binary Interface) is the specification for the contract. These ABIs are public, and you can find the ERC20 ABI in a lot of different places. I have it listed in the the GitHub repo for this post here. You’ll need to copy that whole file and add it to your project, and then use it as part of the definition of the Contract instance.
The Kovan DAI token address is just the address of the token smart contract that is deployed on Kovan. It’s the same address we used above to add Kovan DAI to our metamask wallet for viewing: 0x4F96Fe3b7A6Cf9725f59d353F723c1bDb64CA6Aa .
Now that we have these two values, we can create a token contract instance, which looks like this:
const tokenContract = new web3.eth.Contract(ERC20ABI, DAI_TOKEN_ADDRESS);
We can now use this token contract to invoke functions on the token. The one we will be using is balanceOf , but if you look at the DAI token on Etherscan, go to the Contract tab and look at the Read Contract and Write Contract sections, you can see all the possible functions and even test them out. Invoking this function using web3 looks like this:
const balance = await tokenContract.methods.balanceOf(YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS).call();
As we saw with the native token, we will get the balance back in wei, so we need to do the conversion using the fromWei util again. After that, we should see the same Kovan DAI balance that we are seeing in metamask.
Now that we have managed public transactions that didn’t need any type of signature, we will try to send transactions using a private key for signing in my next post. | https://blog.echobind.com/an-intro-to-web3-development-deca193d6d2d | ['Dominic Sherman'] | 2021-06-17 14:08:47.841000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Web3', 'Nodejs', 'Software Development', 'Blockchain'] |
200 Practice Questions For Azure AI-900 Fundamentals Exam | Describe features of Natural Language Processing (NLP) workloads on Azure (15–20%)
Practice questions based on these concepts
Identify features of common NLP Workload Scenarios
Identify Azure tools and services for NLP workloads
127. What is Text Analytics?
Text analytics is a process where an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm, running on a computer, evaluates these same attributes in text, to determine specific insights.
128. You need to use a service from Azure that determines the language of a document or text (for example, French or English). Which one should you use?
Text Analytics cognitive service
129. You need to use a service from Azure that performs sentiment analysis on text to determine a positive or negative sentiment. Which one should you use?
Text Analytics cognitive service
130. You need to use a service from Azure that extracts key phrases from the text that might indicate its main talking points. Which one should you use?
Text Analytics cognitive service
131. You need to use a service from Azure Identify and categorize entities in the text. Entities can be people, places, organizations, or even everyday items such as dates, times, quantities, and so on. Which one should you use?
Text Analytics cognitive service
132. You are planning to read text information only. Which resource you should provision?
A Text Analytics resource - choose this resource type if you only plan to use the Text Analytics service, or if you want to manage access and billing for the resource separately from other services.
133. You are planning to read text information and objects in the Image. Which resource you should provision?
A Cognitive Services resource - choose this resource type if you plan to use the Text Analytics service in combination with other cognitive services, and you want to manage access and billing for these services together.
134. The Text Analytics service has language detection capability and you can submit multiple documents at a time for analysis. Is this true?
True
135. You have submitted multiple documents to the Text Analytics service. What is the output for each document?
* The language name (for example "English")
* The ISO 6391 language code (for example, "en")
* A score indicating a level of confidence in the language detection.
136. Consider a scenario where you own and operate a restaurant where customers can complete surveys and provide feedback on the food, the service, staff, and so on. Suppose you have received the following reviews from customers:
Review 1: “A fantastic place for lunch. The soup was delicious.”
Review 2: “Comida maravillosa y gran servicio.”
Review 3: “The croque monsieur avec frites was terrific. Bon appetit!”
You can use the Text Analytics service to detect the language for each of these reviews, and it might respond with the following results:
What does the information in the above table mean?
Review 1: It detected English with 1.0 confidence
Review 2: It detected Spanish with 1.0 confidence
Review 3: The language detection service will focus on the predominant language in the text. The service uses an algorithm to determine the predominant language, such as length of phrases or total amount of text for the language compared to other languages in the text.The predominant language will be the value returned, along with the language code. The confidence score may be less than 1 as a result of the mixed language text.
137. When the text in the document is ambiguous or mixed language content. What is the output of the Text Analytics service?
An ambiguous content example would be a case where the document contains limited text, or only punctuation. For example, using the service to analyze the text ":-)", results in a value of unknown for the language name and the language identifier, and a score of NaN (which is used to indicate not a number).
138. What does the confidence score of NaN Text Analytics service output mean?
Ambiguous or mixed language content
139. What is the Sentiment Analysis?
The Text Analytics service can evaluate text and return sentiment scores and labels for each sentence. This capability is useful for detecting positive and negative sentiment in social media, customer reviews, discussion forums and more.
140. What are the score ranges of Sentiment Analysis from the Text Analytics service?
Using the pre-built machine learning classification model, the service evaluates the text and returns a sentiment score in the range of 0 to 1, with values closer to 1 being a positive sentiment. Scores that are close to the middle of the range (0.5) are considered neutral or indeterminate.
141. What does the sentiment analysis score of 0.5 mean?
Indeterminate sentiment A score of 0.5 might indicate that the sentiment of the text is indeterminate, and could result from text that does not have sufficient context to discern a sentiment or insufficient phrasing. For example, a list of words in a sentence that has no structure, could result in an indeterminate score.
142. You are using the Text Analytics service for sentiment analysis. You have used the wrong language code. For example, A language code (such as “en” for English, or “fr” for French) is used to inform the service which language the text is in. What score does the service return?
The service will return a score of precisely 0.5.
143. What is Keyphrase extraction?
Key phrase extraction is the concept of evaluating the text of a document, or documents, and then identifying the main talking points of the document(s).
144. You are running a restaurant and have collected thousands of reviews through a number of surveys. You don’t have time to go through each review but, you want to know the most talking points. What feature of Text Analytics would help here?
Key phrase extraction: you can use the key phrases to identify important elements of the review.
145. What is Entity Recognition?
You can provide the Text Analytics service with unstructured text and it will return a list of entities in the text that it recognizes. The service can also provide links to more information about that entity on the web. An entity is essentially an item of a particular type or a category;and in some cases, subtype
146. You want to use the Text Analytics service to determine the key talking points in a text document. Which feature of the service should you use?
Key phrase extraction
147. You use the Text Analytics service to perform sentiment analysis on a document, and a score of 0.99 is returned. What does this score indicate about the document sentiment?
The document is positive.
148. When might you see NaN returned for a score in Language Detection?
When the language is ambiguous
149. What is Speech recognition?
The ability to detect and interpret spoken input. Speech recognition is concerned with taking the spoken word and converting it into data that can be processed - often by transcribing it into a text representation. The spoken words can be in the form of a recorded voice in an audio file, or live audio from a microphone.
150. What is Speech synthesis?
The ability to generate spoken output. Speech synthesis is in many respects the reverse of speech recognition. It is concerned with vocalizing data, usually by converting text to speech
151. What are the models you use to accomplish Speech recognition?
An acoustic model that converts the audio signal into phonemes (representations of specific sounds). A language model that maps phonemes to words, usually using a statistical algorithm that predicts the most probable sequence of words based on the phonemes.
152. What are some of the use cases for speech recognition?
* Providing closed captions for recorded or live videos
* Creating a transcript of a phone call or meeting
* Automated note dictation
* Determining intended user input for further processing
153. What are some of the use cases for speech synthesis?
* Generating spoken responses to user input.
* Creating voice menus for telephone systems.
* Reading email or text messages aloud in hands-free scenarios.
* Broadcasting announcements in public locations, such as railway stations or airports.
154. What are the required elements for the speech synthesis?
The text to be spoken.
The voice to be used to vocalize the speech. To synthesize speech, the system typically tokenizes the text to break it down into individual words, and assigns phonetic sounds to each word. It then breaks the phonetic transcription into prosodic units (such as phrases, clauses, or sentences) to create phonemes that will be converted to audio format. These phonemes are then synthesized as audio by applying a voice, which will determine parameters such as pitch and timbre; and generating an audio wave form that can be output to a speaker or written to a file.
155. What are the services for speech recognition and speech synthesis from Azure?
The Speech-to-Text API
The Text-to-Speech API
156. You want to use a service from Azure for just translating user spoken output to text. Which resource you should be provisioned in the Azure subscription?
A Speech resource - choose this resource type if you only plan to use the Speech service, or if you want to manage access and billing for the resource separately from other services.
157. You can use the speech-to-text API to perform real-time or batch transcription of audio into a text format. What does it mean?
Real-time speech-to-text allows you to transcribe text in audio streams. You can use real-time transcription for presentations, demos, or any other scenario where a person is speaking. Not all speech-to-text scenarios are real time. You may have audio recordings stored on a file share, a remote server, or even on Azure storage. You can point to audio files with a shared access signature (SAS) URI and asynchronously receive transcription results.
158. You have a person speaking right now and you want to transcribe that into written output. Which transcription should you use?
Real-time transcription
159. You have thousands of stored audio files and you want to transcribe that into written output. Which transcription should you use?
Batch transcription
160. Why Batch transcription is asynchronous?
Batch transcription should be run in an asynchronous manner because the batch jobs are scheduled on a best-effort basis. Normally a job will start executing within minutes of the request but there is no estimate for when a job changes into the running state.
161. You plan to build an application that uses the Speech service to transcribe audio recordings of phone calls into text and then submits the transcribed text to the Text Analytics service to extract key phrases. You want to manage access and billing for the application services in a single Azure resource. Which type of Azure resource should you create?
Cognitive Services
162. You want to use the Speech service to build an application that reads incoming email message subjects aloud. Which API should you use?
Text-to-Speech
163. What is Text Translation?
Text translation can be used to translate documents from one language to another, translate email communications that come from foreign governments, and even provide the ability to translate web pages on the Internet. Many times you will see a Translate option for posts on social media sites, or the Bing search engine can offer to translate entire web pages that are turned in search results.
164. What is Speech Translation?
Speech translation is used to translate between spoken languages, sometimes directly (speech-to-speech translation) and sometimes by translating to an intermediary text format (speech-to-text translation).
165. What is the service from Microsoft Azure for Text Translation?
The Translator Text service, which supports text-to-text translation.
166. What is the service from Microsoft Azure for Speech Translation?
The Speech service, which enables speech-to-text and speech-to-speech translation.
167. What is the output if you use the Text Analytics service to detect entities in the following restaurant review extract:
“I ate at the restaurant in Seattle last week.”
168. What are the services you should provision in your Azure subscription if you want to manage access and billing for each service individually?
There are dedicated Translator Text and Speech resource types
169. The Text Translator service supports text-to-text translation of more than 60 languages. is this correct?
True
170. Using the Text Translate service you can specify one from a language with multiple to languages, enabling you to simultaneously translate a source document to multiple languages. Is this true?
True
171. How do you handle brand names which are the same in all languages when using Text Translate service?
Selective translation. You can tag content so that it isn't translated.
172. When using the Text Translate you can control profanity translation by either marking the translated text as profane or by omitting it in the results. Is this correct?
True Profanity filtering. Without any configuration, the service will translate the input text, without filtering out profanity. Profanity levels are typically culture-specific but you can control profanity translation by either marking the translated text as profane or by omitting it in the results.
173. ________ used to transcribe speech from an audio source to text format?
Speech-to-text
174. ________ used to generate spoken audio from a text source?
Text-to-speech
175. ________ used to translate speech in one language to text or speech in another?
Speech Translation
176. You are developing an application that must take English input from a microphone and generate a real-time text-based transcription in Hindi. Which service should you use?
Speech
177. You need to use the Translator Text service to translate email messages from Spanish into both English and French? What is the most efficient way to accomplish this goal?
Make a single call to the service; specifying a "from" language of "es", a "to" language of "en", and another "to" language of "fr".
178. On Microsoft Azure, language understanding is supported through the ___________?
Language Understanding Intelligent Service
179. To work with Language Understanding, you need to take into account three core concepts. What are these concepts?
utterances, entities, and intents.
180. What are Utterances?
An utterance is an example of something a user might say, and which your application must interpret. For example, when using a home automation system, a user might use the following utterances: "Switch the fan on." "Turn on the light."
181. What are the Entities?
An entity is an item to which an utterance refers. For example, fan and light in the following utterances: "Switch the fan on." "Turn on the light."
182. What are Intents?
An intent represents the purpose, or goal, expressed in a user's utterance. For example, for both of the previously considered utterances, the intent is to turn a device on; so in your Language Understanding application, you might define a TurnOn intent that is related to these utterances.
183. What is None intent?
In a Language Understanding application, the None intent is created but left empty on purpose. The None intent is a required intent and can't be deleted or renamed. Fill it with utterances that are outside of your domain.
184. Creating a language understanding application with Language Understanding consists of two main tasks. What are these tasks?
First you must define entities, intents, and utterances with which to train the language model - referred to as authoring the model.
Then you must publish the model so that client applications can use it for intent and entity prediction based on user input.
185. How many types of entities and what are those?
There are four types of entities: Machine-Learned: Entities that are learned by your model during training from context in the sample utterances you provide. List: Entities that are defined as a hierarchy of lists and sublists. For example, a device list might include sublists for light and fan. For each list entry, you can specify synonyms, such as lamp for light. RegEx: Entities that are defined as a regular expression that describes a pattern — for example, you might define a pattern like [0–9]{3}-[0–9]{3}-[0–9]{4} for telephone numbers of the form 555–123–4567. Pattern.any: Entities that are used with patterns to define complex entities that may be hard to extract from sample utterances.
186. You need to provision an Azure resource that will be used to author a new Language Understanding application. What kind of resource should you create?
Language Understanding
187. You are authoring a Language Understanding application to support an international clock. You want users to be able to ask for the current time in a specified city, for example, “What is the time in London?”. What should you do?
Define a "city" entity and a "GetTime" intent with utterances that indicate the city intent.
188. You have published your Language Understanding application. What information does a client application developer need to get predictions from it? | https://medium.com/bb-tutorials-and-thoughts/200-practice-questions-for-azure-ai-900-fundamentals-exam-e981d28ce91d | ['Bhargav Bachina'] | 2020-09-03 05:01:01.206000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Certification', 'Azure', 'AI', 'Data Science'] |
Body Neutrality: A Realistic Approach to Self-Acceptance | by Ariana Valencia
If you’ve logged in to any major social media platform within the last couple of years, you’re familiar with the term “body positivity”. The movement has gained a lot of traction among young women especially, because it encourages people to love their bodies despite what the media may portray as the “ideal body type”. A term you’re probably less familiar with is “body neutrality”, but it’s beginning to gain popularity among those who believe body positivity feels like too much of a stretch. Body neutrality focuses more on the extraordinary things your body can do, rather than what it looks like. The body neutral movement also highlights why some may find body positivity inauthentic and ineffective.
For example, body positivity has come under fire for being highly commercialized in a way that almost encourages body scrutiny because it puts our bodies at the forefront of our minds when developing positive self-worth. Furthermore, a lot of the body positivity movement centers around positive self-talk that affirms, “I am worthy, I am beautiful, I am lovable, I am enough.” Or something to that effect. While positive self-talk is all good and well, if you’re someone who has a negative body image or has a low self-esteem, it can actually do more harm than good.
Canadian researcher, Dr. Joanne Wood, conducted a study with the University of Waterloo to determine the effectiveness of positive affirmations on general mood and body image. The study found that “repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people, such as individuals with high self-esteem but backfires for the very people who need them most.” In fact, researchers suggest positive affirmations are simply “incongruent with the mindset of those with low self-esteem” thus leading to more negative feelings about oneself. For those that may think body positivity feels forced, Dr. Wood suggests “going neutral” before “going positive”, as a means of creating neutral paths of thought that provide a sturdy foundation for positive thinking to begin.
Inclusive fitness expert, Lauren Leavel, says “body neutrality offers a space to observe without judgement and forced positivity.” If you’re on a journey to sustainable self-acceptance and body positivity just doesn’t feel authentic to you, consider incorporating these body neutral practices into your self-care routine.
Focus on Your Strengths
We are often our own worst critic but by appreciating the things our bodies can do rather than their appearance, it opens up new perspectives for us to truly gain body acceptance. For example, if you don’t like the cellulite on your thighs start by appreciating how strong your legs are. Acknowledge how your legs allow you to go on bike rides or simply walk through the mall while you shop. If you don’t like the stretch marks on your tummy, start by appreciating that your body created life and is ever-changing. New York based Psychotherapist, Alison Stone, suggests a good approach to body neutrality is to explore your body and find out what makes you feel good about existing in the body that you have. Even if all you like about yourself is your good eyesight, creating any neutral paths of thought facilitates sustainable positive self-image.
Change the Conversation with Yourself
It’s important that we change our negative self-talk in order to develop a more positive self-image. On the days when we just can’t seem to find anything about ourselves to appreciate, reciting body neutral mantras to replace criticism of our own bodies can help break that cycle of negativity. Research shows, simply saying things like, “I am more than my appearance. The way I look is just one of the many facets that make me, me”, encourages mindfulness thus reducing stress, anxiety and emotional reactivity. A great resource to gain a better understanding of the benefits of living body neutral, is the book “Beyond Beautiful” by Anuschka Rees. Follow the book’s Instagram @beyondbeautifulbook for daily exercises and mantras to help you on the road to self-acceptance in a realistic and attainable way.
Filter Your World
Beyond changing how you talk to yourself, what’s really important is how you interact with others around you when it comes to conversations about weight, exercise, diet or any topics that may trigger insecurity. Friends or relatives may compliment you for losing weight and comment how great you look. But this can be dangerous, because then we equate acceptance and praise with thinness and weight loss. So, when someone says something like, “Wow, have you lost weight? You look amazing! What’s your secret?” Try to pivot the conversation, to something that doesn’t have to do with your appearance. Suggest you decided to focus on your health and eat foods that make your body feel good and not what would make your body smaller. Weight loss is not the goal, but often the inevitable result of proper self-care. So, if you want to achieve true body acceptance, stay positive and remember, go neutral. | https://medium.com/@arianavalencia/body-neutrality-a-realistic-approach-to-self-acceptance-233d01922a18 | ['Ariana Valencia'] | 2021-04-13 01:27:30.611000+00:00 | ['Self Acceptance', 'Body Positive', 'Body', 'Body Image', 'Self Love'] |
Angular: Refetch data on same URL navigation | AngularInDepth is moving away from Medium. More recent articles are hosted on the new platform inDepth.dev. Thanks for being part of indepth movement!
Real-time applications usually use WebSockets or some server push technology. In case the backend doesn’t support a push technology we often use some polling mechanism to get the latest data.
However, there are use cases where we want to give control to the user and let him decide when the data should be refreshed. For example by clicking on a refresh button or a route navigation item while that particular route is already displayed.
By default, the router doesn’t emit router events when we try to navigate to the same URL that is already activated. Which generally is a good thing.
But how can we refetch data on route refresh? 🤔
There are different strategies to solve this problem. Each of them has some advantages and some downsides. Let’s have a look at them.
1. Emit route events on navigation to currently active route
The first approach is to tell the Angular router to emit the route events on refresh and then handle them accordingly in our routed component.
In early Angular versions, there was no option to tell the router to emit events on same route refresh. Angular 5.1 introduced the onSameUrlNavigation property on the routers ExtraOptions.
The onSameUrlNavigation property defines what the router should do if it receives a navigation request to the current URL. By default, the router will ignore this navigation. However, this prevents features such as a “refresh” button. Use this option to configure the behavior when navigating to the current URL. Default is ‘ignore’.
The onSameUrlNavigation property accepts either 'reload' or 'ignore' as values. We need to set this property to reload.
Inside our ExampleRouteComponent we then subscribe to the router events to get notified about the route changes. Notice that the router fires a lot of events while routing. We are only interested in the NavigationEnd and therefore filter out all other RouterEvents .
We subscribe to our filtered router event stream and fetch the data.
The NavigationEnd event gets fired every time we route to a component. It doesn’t matter if it is our ExampleRouteComponent or another one.
Even though our component gets destroyed when we navigate away the current implementation would refetch the data on every navigation. Any ideas why?
Follow me on Twitter or medium to get notified about my newest blog posts!🐥
Although the component gets destroyed, the subscription still survives. We need to ensure the subscription gets unsubscribed when the component gets destroyed.
To unsubscribe on component tear down, we use a Subject in combination with the takeUntil operator. Our Subject fires and completes as soon as the component gets destroyed. Our Subject then triggers the takeUntil operator which unsubscribes from our filtered router events.
Great!! We have implemented the refresh functionality. But wait! How does this behave with nested routes?
Distinguish between child route and parent route navigation
Let’s say our routed component defines its router outlet with routed child components. Guess what happens when we route to a child component?
The router emits the events, and we will again fetch the data because our routed component and its subscription are still alive.
To handle nested routes we somehow need to detect if the user routed to the parent or the child route.
Rx’s pairwise operator emits an array of the previous NavigationEnd and the current NavigationEnd which allows us to compare the URL’s and to distinguish between parent and child routing.
A match between the previous and the current URL represents a refresh. This is the only case we want to fetch data again.
Notice that we kick off the stream by using startWith . Due to the pairwise operator, the initial event would never emit without the startWith operator. No data would be fetched.
Pros of the route events approach 👍
Component decides when to fetch data.
Declarative approach.
Decoupling parent and routed component.
Cons of the route events approach 👎
Handling child routes requires some cumbersome extra logic.
Subscription management — we need to remember to unsubscribe the current subscription on destroy. TSLint rules can support us, but it is still error-prone.
2. Route resolver
We could move our fetch call to a resolver to prefetch data. In some use cases, we are even forced to do so. Resolvers ensure that some data is available before our component gets initialized.
As mentioned in the first approach the router does not emit route events on current route refresh by default. When it comes to resolvers, this means that the resolvers resolve function doesn’t get called either.
We somehow need to indicate to the Angular router that we want to recall this function. To get started, we again need to set the onSameUrlNavigation to reload.
But that’s yet not enough. While this change emits router events, the resolve function is not called again. In addition to the onSameUrlNavigation property we also need to set the runGuardsAndResolvers property on our route accordingly.
The runGuardsAndResolvers property has three possible values.
paramsChange: fires only when route params have changed
fires only when route params have changed paramsOrQueryParamsChange: fires only when a query param or a route param changes
fires only when a query param or a route param changes always: Always fires on navigation to the route
The combination of the onSameUrlNavigation and the runGuardsAndResolvers property is what gets us going. In our example, we set runGuardsAndResolvers to ‘always’.
This will recall our resolve function. The resolver is only called when we route to our RoutedComponent, and therefore no filtering is required. But again, what about child routes?
Resolvers and child routes
Child routes will also trigger our resolvers function. Again, some manual check is required. We need to find out if the current route is refreshed.
Inside the resolver, we assign the previous URL to an internal property. On the next execution of the resolve function, we then check if we want to refresh the current route or if child navigation happened.
Click here to tweet about this article 🐥
In the case of a refresh, we fetch the data. In the case of child navigation, we return an Observable that never emits.
Pros of the resolver approach 👍
No subscription management.
Decoupling parent and routed child.
Cons of the resolver approach 👎
Handling child routes requires some cumbersome extra logic.
Resolvers may introduce worse user experience — it is often better to already display some components layouts and a loading indicator while the data is fetched.
3. Refresh timestamp as queryParam
In this approach, we do not change the router behavior at all. Which means that we don’t emit events on same route navigation. Instead, we add a refresh query parameter that contains a timestamp of the current time.
this.router.navigate(['/routedComponent'], {
queryParams: {refresh: new Date().getTime()}
});
Inside our component, we subscribe to the queryParamMap and refetch data when the next handler is called.
Pros of including refresh queryParam 👍
Router behavior stays untouched.
No extra logic to distinguish between parent and child routing.
Cons of including refresh queryParam 👎
URL changes — contains a refresh parameter.
URL params may be confusing when copied and send to another person. Value of refresh property does not match with the time we fetched the data.
4. Call Method on routed component
Angular’s ViewChild annotation allows you to get a hold of child components and call methods on it.
Even though your routed component exists in the DOM, you can not access it via ViewChild.
But the router-outlet emits an activate event with the activated component. We react to this event to get hold of the currently activated component.
<router-outlet (activate)="setRoutedComponent($event)">
</router-outlet>
Inside our main component we can store it in the following way:
private routedComponent: ExampleRouteComponent; public setRoutedComponent(componentRef: ExampleRouteComponent){
this.routedComponent = componentRef;
}
When the navigation is clicked, we then need to find out if a refresh happened. This check allows us to distinguish between the initial routing and the refresh.
On first routing we usually navigate to our component. The component then is responsible for fetching the data.
As soon as the component gets activated, the router fires the activated event. We use this event and assign the activated component to an internal property.
When we search again, our logic will detect that the route has not changed and will call refresh on the activated component. The refresh will then refetch the data.
Refreshing multiple Routes with Refreshable interface
In case we have various routes that need to be “refreshable” it is quite helpful to have a standard interface for those components. Having this interface allows us to improve readability and type safety.
export interface Refreshable {
refresh: () => void;
}
Our component implements the Refreshable interface and specifies what to do when refresh is called.
export class ExampleRouteComponent implements Refreshable { refresh(){
fetchData();
} }
In our main component, we can then also use the Refreshable interface for our activated components.
private routedComponent: Refreshable; public setRoutedComponent(componentRef: Refreshable){
this.routedComponent = componentRef;
}
Pros of calling child methods 👍
Router behavior stays untouched.
No extra logic to distinguish between parent and child routing
Cons of calling child methods 👎
Coupling — Parent needs to know its children (or at least which method does the refresh).
What to use?
All the illustrated possibilities have their advantages and disadvantages. Pick the appropriate solution based on your use case.
We take advantage of the routers activate event in case we have nested routes. For routes without children, we use the first approach where we filter out the router events.
Tomas Trajan, thanks a lot for your feedback!
🧞 🙏 By the way, click on the 👏🏻 clap 👏🏻button on the left side if you enjoyed this post.
Claps help other people finding it and encourage me to write more posts
Feel free to check out some of my other articles about frontend development. | https://medium.com/angular-in-depth/refresh-current-route-in-angular-512a19d58f6e | ['Kevin Kreuzer'] | 2020-04-29 21:42:02.280000+00:00 | ['Front End Development', 'Angular', 'Web', 'Typescript', 'Angular Router'] |
February Platform Updates | Welcome back, Sapiens, to another monthly update from the team. We skipped January so we could focus on a lot of long-term planning for the new year, so this post will cover items we pushed in December and January. Let’s dive in!
The Sapien Wallet & SPN token
The SPN token was delisted from KyberSwap and listed on Uniswap
We removed the KyberSwap widget from the wallet panel and directed buttons for swapping the SPN token to the token’s listing on Uniswap
Sapien Wallet owners can now export their private keys for their own personal management.
Some notes on the exporting of private keys, starting with the process. Open your wallet panel, make sure you’re using your Sapien Wallet, and click on the purple arrow to the right of your wallet address.
Then click on the ‘Export private key’ button on the right.
You’ll be issued a stern warning via a popup modal, which we’re copying here to assert the warning’s contents.
Please take this warning seriously. Anyone who has access to your private key has total access to the wallet and any funds stored in it.
Click and hold on the eye icon for a few seconds to reveal your private key. Clicking the ‘Copy’ button will copy your private key to your device’s clipboard.
Again, please be VERY CAREFUL with this information. It is risky to manage your private key individually, so please use extreme caution when storing and using it. Once you have it, you may import the wallet into hosts like Metamask using the private key.
We felt this was an important feature to add to the Sapien Wallet to ensure our members have total control over their funds at any time. As the old adage from Andreas Antonopoulos goes: “Not your keys, not your coins.”
It should also be noted that the private key is extracted from a Torus Labs-owned API and the keys are stored as a property of a class. No private keys are ever stored in or passed through a Sapien database, so no one from the Sapien or Torus teams can access your private key. This means it’s totally secure, but no one can help you with accessing your private key beyond reiterating these directions. Please do not ask the team to access your private key; it’s impossible.
Now, back to the updates:
The support center is now available at https://sapien.zendesk.com; it is no longer hosted at https://support.sapien.network
at https://sapien.zendesk.com; it is no longer hosted at https://support.sapien.network We fixed that obnoxious bug that was repeating echoed posts in your feed
We also squashed a bug that duplicated posts on Sapien member profiles
We also fixed an issue with the code for displaying the site at really high resolutions
We hammered out the Tribe selector panel so it doesn’t get stuck anymore
We also smoothed out the problems some members had with editing posts, especially if they had links in them
If you’re trying to verify your SMS for your Sapien account, you’ll be given 3 chances to attempt to send the message to your device; beyond that, you’ll be directed to contact the support team for manual verification
And a host of other fixes to the web, mobile web, and app experiences!
Thanks for checking out this month’s important update. Don’t forget that transactions are now gasless on Sapien and everyone is empowered to create a Sapien Wallet for free! Check back fo
r more updates from the team. We’re working on some top secret stuff that we’ll be revealing in the future. Stay healthy, Sapiens! | https://blog.sapien.network/february-platform-updates-1901a6ec4fb0 | [] | 2021-02-02 21:18:47.136000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Platform', 'Social Media', 'Wallet', 'Blockchain'] |
Kyber Ecosystem Report #28 (2021 Recap) | Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! We are delighted to bring together the most exciting developments at Kyber Network in this year-end ecosystem report for 2021. It’s been a really eventful year for the Kyber community!
Among many updates, we successfully completed our Kyber 3.0 upgrade and the DMM has been rebranded as KyberSwap after requests from the community. Yes, KyberSwap is back, better than ever 😎
KyberSwap is on 6 chains now: Ethereum, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, Fantom, and Cronos, with more on the way. On these networks, you can instantly swap tokens with the best rates via DEX aggregation, earn by adding liquidity, and participate in liquidity mining for bonus rewards.
Total Trade Volume: Over $4B
Over $20M in fees collected for 20,000+ liquidity providers
All-time-high TVL of ~$500M and $50B in Amplified Liquidity
Another highlight of the year: Backed by our strong community and various ecosystem activities and media coverage, Kyber recently crossed 200,000 Twitter followers! Huge thanks to our Kyber Network $KNC community for your strong support through these years!
Below we give a recap of what transpired this year and share our key focus for 2022.
KyberSwap
After months in beta, DMM was relaunched as KyberSwap with a seamless user interface to provide the best trading and earning experience in DeFi.
✅Trade at the best rates via DEX aggregation
✅Liquidity Providers earn more with dynamic fees and high capital efficiency
✅Audited by ChainSecurity, Insured by Unslashed Finance for $20M
KyberSwap was recently deployed on Fantom and Cronos (first DEX aggregator to launch on the Cronos network), and now brings the best token rates to 6 supported blockchains: Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, Avalanche, Fantom, and Cronos (more networks like Aurora/NEAR coming soon!)
We look forward to providing the best token prices and enhanced liquidity for traders, liquidity providers, and Dapp developers on any network we are expanding to.
⭐️ You can easily use KyberSwap to swap tokens at the best rates on supported networks and farm bonus rewards! KyberSwap will improve the overall trading and liquidity provision experience for ecosystem users, Dapps and NFT games.
Dynamic Trade Routing (Aggregation) for the Best Rates
KyberSwap users can get the best rates due to DEX (decentralized exchange) aggregation via our novel dynamic trade routing algorithm. This saves users time and effort when swapping any token!
KyberSwap sources liquidity across these different DEXs to help achieve the best prices for any token swap, on any supported network. The optimal route is identified and trades split through 30 DEXs (over $26 Billion in combined liquidity catering to 20,000+ tokens), including KyberSwap’s own liquidity pools, to find the best rate on different chains — Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, Avalanche, Fantom, and Cronos.
Popular decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap, Sushiswap, Curve, Balancer, QuickSwap, Pancakeswap, Traderjoe, Pangolin, SpookySwap, SpiritSwap, VVS Finance, and more have already been integrated.
Swap any token at the best rates on KyberSwap! Some of the popular tokens available at the best rates:
Single Token Deposit
Adding liquidity into a pool is a core function for thousands of liquidity providers. With our new Single Token Deposit feature, you can use just one token in the pair (e.g. ETH in an ETH-KNC pool) to deposit and add liquidity to the pool, and receive the corresponding liquidity provider (LP) tokens, all in one seamless transaction.
Single Token Deposit makes liquidity provision even easier, saving you time and effort!
Easily add liquidity into pools using either token in the pair, all in one seamless transaction.
When removing liquidity, you can also automatically convert it to your desired token (either token from the token pair) in a single transaction.
ZKyber: New L2 DEX Trading Experience based on ZK-Rollups
Building upon our past research into Rollup scaling solutions, we unveiled our ZKyber testnet on KyberSwap! ZKyber is an L2 scaling solution that provides a faster, cheaper, and fairer DeFi trading experience on Ethereum, with anti-frontrunning capabilities. This can potentially address issues of network congestion, high gas fees, and frontrunning on Ethereum. Test ZKyber for FREE and earn a share of $50,000! Learn more.
Partnerships, Collaborations, and Joint Liquidity Mining
Sipher Partnership and $50 Million Campaign on Ethereum
Sipher is a MOBA and Exploration Game with an end-game goal of creating an Open World Social Game.
🚀We have partnered with Sipher to run a $50M Liquidity Mining Campaign (ongoing) to provide the best liquidity and rates for the SIPHER token! Sipher has chosen the capital-efficient KyberSwap protocol and DEX Aggregator for enhanced token liquidity for SIPHER-ETH on Ethereum. Watch how to farm SIPHER here.
$1M Liquidity Mining with Unbound on Ethereum
Unbound Finance is a decentralized, cross-chain liquidity protocol that is building the next money lego by unlocking liquidity from AMMs.
🚀 There are UND-USDC and UND-KNC pools on KyberSwap on Ethereum, and liquidity providers can earn a share of ~$1M in UNB and KNC liquidity mining rewards (ongoing)! Liquidity providers can add any amount of liquidity to the eligible UND-KNC and UND-USDC pools on the KyberSwap on Ethereum to farm and unlock their share of the rewards.
$1M+ Liquidity Mining Campaign with Pegaxy on Polygon
Pegaxy is a racing game with a futuristic mythological styling. In this game, players will participate in PvP format races with randomized elemental variables to win rewards.
🚀Pegaxy has set up a PGX-USDT pool on KyberSwap (Polygon). The PGX-USDT farm has been extended for one more month! Add liquidity and stake your LPs to earn your share of $1M+ in rewards (ongoing)!
$1M Liquidity Mining Campaign with Elpis Battle on BSC
Elpis Battle is an open-world RPG that features the play-to-earn model. Gamers can enjoy epic battles and earn sizable rewards at the same time.
🚀Elpis Battle has set up a EBA-BUSD pool on KyberSwap (BSC). EBA Yield Farming on KyberSwap (BSC) will distribute $1M+ in rewards to liquidity providers (ongoing)! Learn more.
Other Rainmaker Liquidity Mining Campaigns
Ethereum
BSC
Polygon
Avalanche
Visit KyberSwap’s Farm page to see all the active eligible pools and yield farms!
Krystal + Kyber Network Partnership
Kyber has partnered with Krystal DeFi to collaborate on their token sale launchpad KrystalGO as well as other DeFi initiatives!
KNC holders can enjoy better allocation for KrystalGO token sales if they stake KNC. Krystal will also have a KNC staking service to allow holders to earn rewards from KyberDAO.
Aside from those above, in 2021 Kyber also collaborated with Velo Labs, Mercurial Finance, Asia DeFi Network, DeFi Alliance, Ren Alliance, and Zcash Developer Alliance.
Integrations
Any Dapp or aggregator developer can integrate KyberSwap since the protocol is completely permissionless.
DEXTools
KyberSwap is integrated with leading trading analytics platform DEXTools! More than 30 Million users can now view and access KyberSwap’s token pairs and the best rates on Ethereum, BSC, and Polygon. DEXTools have also created a DEXT-KNC pool in which you can add liquidity to earn fees on pool trades! Learn more here. In addition, DEXTools has added liquidity to the DEXT-KNC pool on KyberSwap (BSC).
Rome Terminal
KyberSwap has been integrated by multi-blockchain network, multi-DEX, and multi-dApp trading interface Rome Terminal. DeFi users on Rome Terminal will enjoy very high capital efficiency as well as better token liquidity and rates. This also means a lot more volume will be generated through KyberSwap and in turn more fees for LPs and KNC voters.
Kattana Terminal
KyberSwap now provides amplified liquidity to Kattana’s Trading Terminal! This integration means the best token rates and high capital efficiency for thousands of Kattana users.
Coin98 Wallet
Coin98 Wallet integrated KyberSwap to provide highly capital efficient liquidity provision to hundreds of thousands of users around the world! Users can easily participate in the ongoing Rainmaker liquidity mining campaigns using Coin98.
DEX Aggregators
Since KyberSwap has very capital efficient pools, other top DEX aggregators such as 1inch, Paraswap, 0x API, Matcha and Slingshot have also integrated KyberSwap to provide competitive rates for their users.
KyberSwap Data Analytics
Top Dapps and data analytics sites such as CoinGecko, Coinmarketcap, DeFi Pulse, DeBank, DeFi Llama, vfat.tools, APY.vision, Token Terminal, The Graph, Zapper, and DEXTools are now tracking KyberSwap statistics.
KyberDAO and KIPs
KyberDAO is a decentralized community platform that allows KNC token holders to participate in governance. KNC holders can stake KNC to vote on important proposals.
Over $10M worth of rewards have been distributed to KyberDAO voters!
The Kyber community can propose and vote on Kyber Improvement Proposals (KIPs) through KyberDAO. Some of the recent KIP topics we covered:
KIP-18: Advance KNC Allocation for Small-Scale Liquidity Mining Activities
KIP-17: Joint LM with Unbound Finance, EvryNet and DeFi Yield Protocol
KIP-16: New joint liquidity mining campaigns with Jarvis Network, DeFi Warrior and Ape In on Polygon, BSC and Avalanche
KIP-15: Additional LM on ETH & Polygon
KIP-14: Allocate an additional 5M KNC from the ecosystem fund & transfer ~1.78M KNC for Avalanche LM
⭐️ Please visit the Kyber community forum to discuss how we can improve Kyber Network together! For example, we aim to improve our DAO design and lower gas costs for voters. Latest Kyber developments are discussed in our Community Calls on Discord. Follow KyberDAO twitter.
KNC (Kyber Network Crystal)
The KNC token will continue to exist and will play an increasingly important role on KyberSwap, incentivizing trading and liquidity, as well as enabling governance. KNC token holders will greatly benefit from the growth of KyberSwap. Apart from KyberSwap, the number of use cases and the support for KNC in the DeFi ecosystem continue to grow:
After the token migration earlier this year, new KNC is available on top centralized exchanges (we are working with Coinbase to support the migration as well). We aim to improve the utility and increase the use cases for KNC over time.
New KNC supported on Multichain (formerly AnySwap)
With the Multichain (formerly AnySwap) cross-chain router, KNC can now be easily routed across 5 different chains; Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Fantom, and Avalanche!
Sharing about KyberSwap with the DeFi world
Given the offline restrictions caused by the pandemic, Kyber team members participated in multiple online events instead to complement our various marketing initiatives to spread awareness and educate users. Here are some highlights:
Kyber in the Media
The rebranding of DMM to KyberSwap and its new innovative features were covered by various media and news sites such as Coindesk, Cointelegraph, The Block, DefiantNews, Bankless, Decrypt, Defipulse, Defiprime, AltcoinBuzz, Dapp.com, and Crypto Briefing. News can be found in the Media sub-channel that we have created for you on our Discord.
Take a look at the Decrypt article on KyberSwap and the article on Forbes that mentioned Kyber Network’s rise.
KyberSwap’s growth in different networks was also highlighted by crypto media such as CryptoRank, Lunar Crush, and DeFi News and our yield farming opportunities covered by popular research reports such as those by Delphi Digital.
Defiprime also has an excellent article explaining what is KyberSwap and how it provides the best rates for users and higher earnings for liquidity providers.
To continue staying up to date, join our Discord here and follow Kyber on Twitter.
Looking ahead: 2022 and beyond
With its multiple benefits over other DEX platforms, KyberSwap is well positioned for growth. In the immediate future, we plan to raise greater awareness of the benefits of KyberSwap and aggressively drive user adoption.
More DEXs and networks: We will continue improving our DEX aggregation algorithm; deploying on many other networks beyond Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Avalanche, Fantom, NEAR/Aurora, and Cronos, and integrating liquidity sources from all popular DEXs on each network in order to achieve the best swap rates.
More liquidity and token variety: Another key focus is working with top projects to increase the variety of token pairs and enhancing liquidity (and increasing TVL) in the liquidity pools. Given our high capital efficiency, projects like Pegaxy, Elpis Battle, ZukiMoba, Unbound, Evrynet, DeFi Warrior, Wanaka Farm, Creator, StepHero, Sipher, The Parallel, and many others have chosen KyberSwap to be their liquidity platform of choice right after their token sales.
In addition, we aim to quickly adapt to upcoming DeFi and GameFi trends by investing in and partnering with popular projects in the space, while continuing our research into Ethereum L2 scaling solutions such as ZKyber. We will share more details in 2022, stay tuned!
We continue to be committed to our vision to become the liquidity hub for the decentralized economy, where any user or application can easily access the required tokens for their liquidity needs at the best rates.
Kyber is a community-driven project and we always welcome more suggestions for improvement, be it in terms of the UI/UX, liquidity, integrations, or other areas. You can reach us through our social media channels and this contact us form.
We wish everyone happy holidays and a great year ahead. See you in 2022 as we carve new milestones together! 🤶🎄🎉
Onward, Kyber Network! | https://blog.kyber.network/kyber-ecosystem-report-28-2021-recap-d1287f5b9c3b | ['Kyber Network'] | 2022-01-10 13:06:44.295000+00:00 | ['Defi', 'Blockchain', 'English', 'Featured', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Automate your Kubernetes cluster bootstrapping with Rancher and Ansible and speed up your pipeline | An Ansible Playbook for Rancher Kubernetes Bootsrapping
Having an API in Rancher and an RKE template makes our job easier. With Ansible, we can automate the steps required to create a new Kubernetes cluster in Rancher and add some post-configurations, such as DNS entry from ingress and Helm Chart deployments. This playbook, for example, interacts with Rancher to deploy a cluster from a template.
Here is the information that we need before running our first playbook. This must be passed to Ansible as variables:
rancher_host: URL of your rancher installation. rancher_clustername: the name of your new bootstrapping cluster. rancher_user: Rancher username with “create cluster” permission. rancher_pass: Rancher password for your rancher_user. rancher_cluster_template_id: The id of your RKE Template (ex: ctr-abcd) rancher_cluster_roles: A list of roles that each node in your cluster will assume (controlplane, etcd and/or worker). An Ansible inventory file with the nodes that will be added to the cluster.
The steps executed by the playbook are:
Fig 1. Create Rancher Cluster Ansible Playbook Workflow
If everything goes as planned, the cluster will be ready and available under Rancher UI. The average time for a successful 3-node (Centos 7, 4 core, 6GB RAM) cluster bootstrapping is 17 minutes, but can be slightly shorter if you set up a single-node cluster. This is because of the node registration process, where each node downloads all required containers (including Rancher agent container), execute all the installation and interact with Rancher master for configuration.
This process requires, however, that you already have your Ansible Inventory ready, with VMs configured and docker installed. This is not flexible and definitely requires manual configuration. What we did in our automation is to rely on dynamic inventory and Ansible Roles to fully prepare our nodes before running this part of the playbook.
As our private cloud is VMWare-based, we used this dynamic inventory plugin, that queries vCenter and returns a list of VMs based on defined criteria (we use tags for that). Although, if you opt to create your VMs on the fly, you can also use Ansible Roles like this one. The amazing thing about dynamic inventory in Ansible is the large availability of plugins, whether you are on-premises or on public clouds, such as AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.
Let us add those new steps to the playbook’s workflow:
Fig 2. Create Rancher Cluster Ansible Playbook Workflow with dynamic node prep.
Ok, so now we have an automation that creates a Kubernetes Cluster on Rancher based on RKE Templates and that leverages dynamic inventory in Ansible to create or reuse VMs based on specific criteria. But, to get the most of it, we also want to deploy our application on this cluster, register the ingress endpoint in DNS and tell our Devs that their cluster is ready, with their new featured deployed.
Fig 3. Full Workflow with post-operation tasks.
The whole process took around 20 minutes — 17 minutes for the k8s cluster bootstrapping + 3 minutes for post-operation tasks (Do you wish a fast-track? Keep reading!)
Overall, this process, integrated with our CI/CD pipeline, not only dynamically creates the cluster but also sync Helm Chats deployed in the production of our main application and, finally, rolls out the feature that we want to test/validate with our clients. Additionally, we execute automated tasks to validate the configuration, check the performance, security and chaos testing. It has been so far a huge ally for our continuous delivery process. | https://itnext.io/automate-your-kubernetes-cluster-bootstrap-with-rancher-and-ansible-and-speed-up-your-pipeline-365f5e2fa484 | ['Alexis Sotto Maior'] | 2020-12-08 14:01:27.096000+00:00 | ['DevOps', 'Ansible', 'Kubernetes', 'K3s', 'Ci Cd Pipeline'] |
How to Change Careers or Roles | Over 15 years ago, I changed from being a software developer, a role that did not require I speak to people to a recruitment role, all I do is speak to people. My full story here:
How did I do it?
Here are 4 things that helped me:
1. Know your why.
First step was to figure out why you need a career change. Right now, it probably has something to do with the industry or the economic climate.
For me 15 years ago, it was because I did not love what I do. I didn’t exactly hate it, I just did not love it or like it. More importantly, I was not good at it. I am going to blame the fact that I did not love it, yes, I’m sticking with that.
I knew software development was not for me, so I needed to change. At the time, I had no idea what recruitment was. If I had to do it over again, I would research more.
When people come to me for help in changing career or roles, that is the first questions I ask them. Why? If the driving force is not strong enough, you maybe just wasting your time.
2. Find transferable skills.
Recruitment is a sales job. I went from a 2 person in the whole office with headphones on all day to 20 people in the same size room yelling at each other and on the phone all day.
What was my transferable skills? I took from my education, Computer Science. I can tell the audience that I came from the same world. I had great attention to details, this helped me spot mistakes in resumes that could cost someone the job. Lastly, I had excellent research skills. I can figure out what technologies each company have and identify the right people.
I am a firm believer that everyone has skills, you just need to identify yours. Worked at McDonald or another fast food joint? Your skills would be being able to deal with irate customers and excel under high pressure situations. Worked as a babysitter, looked after younger siblings, or is a parent? Your skills would be ability to multitask and time management.
All jobs have transferable skills. You just have to identify it.
3. Find role models.
When I started in recruitment, this is before YouTube. I had to find events or actual people that I want to learn from and go to them to be able to hear them speak. That is what I did.
I started in the office I worked. I watched and observed what the top person in my company did, watch how they spoke, how they work, and modeled it. That is how I knew I had to drop my voice. I learned what part of the job to focus on.
After that, I changed companies and did the same thing again. I also found books and events of the people I want to model.
With YouTube, you can do all that from the comfort of your own home. Find people around the world who has made the transition you would like to and model them. “Success leaves clues”, this is what Tony Robbins says. I believe in it wholeheartedly.
4. Check your ego at the door.
This one was hard for me to grasp. I left a super comfortable job in Information Technology for half the pay to be a recruiter. Often when you change careers, you do have to take a step back. But because of transferable skills, you will move forward much faster than someone without the previous experience. The salary decrease happens 90% of the time.
What I did not anticipate was how little I knew about the field of information technology. I thought walking into the role, because of my degree in Computer Science and because I worked as a developer, I knew the industry. How wrong I was.
Many times, I would walk into meetings and had not the slightest clue what they were talking about. My education nor my experience did not prepare me. I think I had a chip on my shoulder when I started my role in recruitment, but I was failing miserably.
It was not until I came to terms with the fact that I did not know much, that I started to learn and do better. I know now that I could have shortened my success path and saved myself weeks of misery if I just checked my ego at the door.
Change careers and roles are challenging, but sometimes very necessary. I hope these tips help you in your path. | https://medium.com/@junecoffey/how-to-change-careers-or-roles-d88881aa2373 | ['June Coffey'] | 2020-11-09 02:50:50.373000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'Self Improvement', 'Career Advice', 'Recruitment', 'Career Change'] |
Fusion vs. Fission: Why Fusion Serves as the Ethically Preferable Option | Context: Global warming; One of the most controversial yet pressing topic of discussion, now incorporated as a significant factor in almost every politician’s campaign. The fact is, the world is warming, and the NRDC predicts 2040 to be the year of no return unless greenhouse gas emissions slow down immensely. This timetable gives us 20 years to formulate policies and scientific innovations to ensure the survival of the human race. One of the most significant innovations is nuclear energy and all its potential. So far, there have been numerous nuclear fission plants in operation all across the world. There are approximately 100 reactors in the U.S., and 449 worldwide. Nuclear energy powered 10% of the world’s electricity production in 2016, 20% in the United States. An EIA study describes how nuclear power plants do not release any greenhouse gases during normal use, unlike the coal, oil, and natural gas industries; CO2 emissions from these industries are the “most long-lived ‘forces’ of climate change,” illustrating the immense efficacy of nuclear as an energy source. However, fission does have its drawbacks, both ethically and scientifically; I will discuss the ethical ramifications in the next section but for now, let’s focus on the scientific detriments.
The first and arguably most discussed issue with fission is the prospect of nuclear waste: the waste can last for hundreds of years, and there is no way to reliably get rid of it, resulting in its storage leaving large patches of land uninhabitable for centuries. Furthermore, there is only a set amount of uranium globally, and a Conserve Energy Future study concludes that “with the current rate of consumption of uranium, we have enough for another 70–80 years.” With plans to expand nuclear facilities and investments, it is evident that the supply will run out even sooner, leaving the plants virtually worthless. These problems, however, are solved by using fusion reactors as opposed to fission. Fusion essentially works by merging two hydrogen atoms in a fusion reactor to create helium and a vast amount of energy without generating nuclear waste. China and France are investing heavily in the project, with China’s “Artificial Sun’’ reactor being successfully powered up on December 2, 2020. The United States has yet to demonstrate support for fusion projects; however, numerous private companies such as Lockheed Martin and MIT CFS are working on creating fusion reactors.
Ethics of Nuclear Energy: For this post, we will observe nuclear energy through the prism of Intergenerational Justice, the philosophy of taking into account ramifications for future and past generations when making policy decisions. This form of justice is imperative to consider when discussing renewable energy policy options because a significant benefactor of these policies will be future generations. Additionally, if the wrong decision is made now, it might work for the present but could be catastrophic for future generations. Analyzing the two forms of nuclear energy, it is evident that one abides by the tenants of intergenerational justice while the other violates it. Increasing investment in fission can be detrimental for future generations; while an efficient energy source right now, a dependency on it will increase waste and result in the uranium supply being depleted quickly. Additionally, although fission plants will decrease carbon emissions, the waste is possibly even more destructive to the environment and ecosystem. As the limited source of uranium depletes, the plants will only become more costly to operate, until eventually they are shut down because there is simply no uranium left on Earth, causing significant issues for future generations both financially and environmentally. However, fusion avoids these issues by not generating radioactive waste in energy production and being a renewable source that will presumably be available for as long as it’s needed. By being both the ethically and environmentally superior option, it is clear that nuclear fusion is the future of energy. | https://medium.com/@themagicofand/fusion-vs-fission-why-fusion-serves-as-the-ethically-preferable-option-ad1d2ba2042d | ['Armaan Khare-Arora'] | 2020-12-28 00:48:23.763000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'Ethics', 'Nuclear Energy', 'Climate Change', 'Intergenerational Equity'] |
Exploring Data @ Netflix | By Gim Mahasintunan on behalf of Data Platform Engineering.
Supporting a rapidly growing base of engineers of varied backgrounds using different data stores can be challenging in any organization. Netflix’s internal teams strive to provide leverage by investing in easy-to-use tooling that streamlines the user experience and incorporates best practices.
In this blog post, we are thrilled to share that we are open-sourcing one such tool: the Netflix Data Explorer. The Data Explorer gives our engineers fast, safe access to their data stored in Cassandra and Dynomite/Redis data stores.
Netflix Data Explorer on GitHub
History
We began this project several years ago when we were onboarding many new Dynomite customers. Dynomite is a high-speed in-memory database, providing highly available cross datacenter replication while preserving Redis-like semantics. We wanted to lower the barrier for adoption so users didn’t need to know datastore-specific CLI commands, could avoid mistakenly running commands that might negatively impact performance, and allow them to access the clusters they frequented every day.
As the project took off, we saw a similar need for our other datastores. Cassandra, our most significant footprint in the fleet, seemed like a great candidate. Users frequently had questions on how they should set up replication, create tables using an appropriate compaction strategy, and craft CQL queries. We knew we could give our users an elevated experience, and at the same time, eliminate many of the common questions on our support channels.
We’ll explore some of the Data Explorer features, and along the way, we’ll highlight some of the ways we enabled the OSS community while still handling some of the unique Netflix-specific use cases.
Multi-Cluster Access
By simply directing users to a single web portal for all of their data stores, we can gain a considerable increase in user productivity. Furthermore, in production environments with hundreds of clusters, we can reduce the available data stores to those authorized for access; this can be supported in OSS environments by implementing a Cluster Access Control Provider responsible for fetching ownership information.
Browsing your accessible clusters in different environments and regions
Schema Designer
Writing CREATE TABLE statements can be an intimidating experience for new Cassandra users. So to help lower the intimidation factor, we built a schema designer that lets users drag and drop their way to a new table.
The schema designer allows you to create a new table using any primitive or collection data type, then designate your partition key and clustering columns. It also provides tools to view the storage layout on disk; browse the supported sample queries (to help design efficient point queries); guide you through the process of choosing a compaction strategy, and many other advanced settings.
Dragging and dropping your way to a new Cassandra table
Explore Your Data
You can quickly execute point queries against your cluster in Explore mode. The Explore mode supports full CRUD of records and allows you to export result sets to CSV or download them as CQL insert statements. The exported CQL can be a handy tool for quickly replicating data from a PROD environment to your TEST environment.
Explore mode gives you quick access to table data
Support for Binary Data
Binary data is another popular feature used by many of our engineers. The Data Explorer won’t fetch binary value data by default (as the persisted data might be sizable). Users can opt-in to retrieve these fields with their choice of encoding.
Choosing how you want to decode blob data
Query IDE
Efficient point queries are available in the Explore mode, but you may have users that still require the flexibility of CQL. Enter the Query mode, which includes a powerful CQL IDE with features like autocomplete and helpful snippets.
Example of free-form Cassandra queries with autocomplete assistance
There are also guardrails in place to help prevent users from making mistakes. For instance, we’ll redirect the user to a bespoke workflow for deleting a table if they try to perform a “DROP TABLE…” command ensuring the operation is done safely with additional validation. (See our integration with Metrics later in this article.)
As you submit queries, they will be saved in the Recent Queries view as well — handy when you are trying to remember that WHERE clause you had crafted before the long weekend.
Dynomite and Redis Features
While C* is feature-rich and might have a more extensive install base, we have plenty of good stuff for Dynomite and Redis users too. Note, the terms Dynomite and Redis are used interchangeably unless explicitly distinguished.
Key Scanning
Since Redis is an in-memory data store, we need to avoid operations that inadvertently load all the keys into memory. We perform SCAN operations across all nodes in the cluster, ensuring we don’t strain the cluster.
Scanning for keys on a Dynomite cluster
Dynomite Collection Support
In addition to simple String keys, Dynomite supports a rich collection of data types, including Lists, Hashes, and sorted and unsorted Sets. The UI supports creating and manipulating these collection types as well.
Editing a Redis hash value
Supporting OSS
As we were building the Data Explorer, we started getting some strong signals that the ease-of-use and productivity gains that we’d seen internally would benefit folks outside of Netflix as well. We tried to balance codifying some hard-learned best practices that would be generally applicable while maintaining the flexibility to support various OSS environments. To that end, we’ve built several adapter layers into the product where you can provide custom implementations as needed.
The application was architected to enable OSS by introducing seams where users could provide their implementations for discovery, access control, and data store-specific connection settings. Users can choose one of the built-in service providers or supply a custom provider.
The diagram below shows the server-side architecture. The server is a Node.js Express application written in TypeScript, and the client is a Single Page App written in Vue.js.
Data Explorer architecture and service adapter layers
Demo Environment
Deploying a new tool in any real-world environment is a time commitment. We get it, and to help you with that initial setup, we have included a dockerized demo environment. It can build the app, pull down images for Cassandra and Redis, and run everything in Docker containers so you can dive right in. Note, the demo environment is not intended for production use.
Overridable Configuration
The Data Explorer ships with many default behaviors, but since no two production environments are alike, we provide a mechanism to override the defaults and specify your custom values for various settings. These can range from which port numbers to use to which features should be disabled in a production environment. (For example, the ability to drop a Cassandra table.)
CLI Setup Tool
To further improve the experience of creating your configuration file, we have built a CLI tool that provides a series of prompts for you to follow. The CLI tool is the recommended approach for building your configuration file, and you can re-run the tool at any point to create a new configuration.
The CLI allows you to create a custom configuration
You can also generate multiple configuration files and easily switch between them when working with different environments. We have instructions on GitHub on working with more than one configuration file.
Service Adapters
It’s no secret that Netflix is a big proponent of microservices: we have discovery services for identifying Cassandra and Dynomite clusters in the environment; access-control services that identify who owns a data store and who can access it; and LDAP services to find out information about the logged-in user. There’s a good chance you have similar services in your environment too.
To help enable such environments, we have several pre-canned configurations with overridable values and adapter layers in place.
Discovery
The first example of this adapter layer in action is how the application finds Discovery information — these are the names and IP addresses of the clusters you want to access. The CLI allows you to choose from a few simple options. For instance, if you have a process that can update a JSON file on disk, you can select “file system.” If instead, you have a REST-based microservice that provides this information, then you can choose “custom” and write a few lines of code necessary to fetch it.
Choosing to discover our data store clusters by reading a local file
Metrics
Another example of this service adapter layer is integration with an external metrics service. We progressively enhance the UI by displaying keyspace and table metrics by implementing a metrics service adapter. These metrics provide insight into which tables are being used at a glance and help our customers make an informed decision when dropping a table.
Without metrics support
With optional metrics support
OSS users can enable the optional Metrics support via the CLI. You then just need to write the custom code to fetch the metrics.
CLI enabling customization of advanced features
i18n Support
While internationalization wasn’t an explicit goal, we discovered that providing Netflix-specific messages in some instances yielded additional value to our internal users. Fundamentally, this is similar to how resource bundles handle different locales.
We are making en-NFLX.ts available internally and en-US.ts available externally. Enterprise customers can enhance their user’s experience by creating custom resource bundles (en-ACME.ts) that link to other tools or enhance default messages. Only a small percentage of the UI and server-side exceptions use these message bundles currently — most commonly to augment messages somehow (e.g., provide links to internal slack channels).
Final Thoughts
We invite you to check out the project and let us know how it works for you. By sharing the Netflix Data Explorer with the OSS community, we hope to help you explore your data and inspire some new ideas. | https://netflixtechblog.com/exploring-data-netflix-9d87e20072e3 | ['Netflix Technology Blog'] | 2021-06-25 11:03:03.265000+00:00 | ['Cassandra', 'Nodejs', 'Vuejs', 'Dynomite', 'Redis'] |
Biotech Startup Raises $113 Million for Precision Medicine Against Neurodegenerative Diseases 🧬 | South San Francisco-based announced December 17 a $113 million combined Series A and Series B and short-term plans to take on Denali and Biogen in Parkinson’s disease and pursue the neural-side of a target that Bristol Myers Squibb has recently pursued to great success elsewhere in the body.
Established through a partnership with Germany’s Origenis, the funds, which includes $30 million in series A funding from Westlake Village BioPartners and Kleiner Perkins and an $80 million series B headed by Redmile Group, will lead two to three programs into the clinic in the next two years.
“We wanted to make sure that when we came out, we were really in the race,” Neuron23 CEO Nancy Stagliano, Ph.D., said. “We thought it was the right time given the focus and resurgence of interests in the CNS industry.”
Since October 2018, scientists at Neuron23 have worked silently on finding their position in the world of precision medicine. The position uses data science and artificial intelligence to target neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases in patients with certain genetic mutations.
Neuron23’s lead program is aimed at Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2), a gene that codes for a kinase enzyme of the same name. Mutations in this gene are solidly linked with 3% of patients with Parkinson’s disease. What’s exciting, Stagliano said, is that detecting a small-molecule inhibitor for LRRK2, which has an obvious genetic connection to the disease, can give a basis for biological knowledge to assist in treating the other 97% of Parkinson’s patient.
The second program targets brain-penetrant inhibitors for tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2), a kinase that causes multiple sclerosis.
However, it is worth noting that getting small-molecule inhibitors into the brain can be difficult. This is largely because the brain has evolved to keep toxins and other pathogens out of it through its blood-brain barrier. Small molecules can get through the bloodstream but can be quickly pumped out from the brain based on their structure or other features.
“One of the strengths of our partnership with Origenis, the additional chemistry partner we founded the company with, is getting these brain-penetrant molecules against these kinds of target kinases,” Stagliano said. “LRRK2 is extremely exciting and an area of hot pursuit in our industry because it systematically has been linked to Crohn’s disease. So we can look at that second group of LRRK2 molecules that don’t get into the brain, and we can say, what can we use those for?” | https://medium.com/@biotech/biotech-startup-raises-113-million-for-precision-medicine-against-neurodegenerative-diseases-82ae8d903012 | ['Biotech Brothers'] | 2020-12-23 18:01:37.877000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Biotechnology', 'Investing', 'Healthcare', 'Science'] |
Autoritarismo e Constituição | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/r%C3%B4mulo-garzillo/autoritarismo-e-constitui%C3%A7%C3%A3o-ee0c21c5cac2 | ['Rômulo Garzillo'] | 2020-12-14 18:18:38.351000+00:00 | ['Videos'] |
Buying A Villa in Bali: All the Perks & Cons to Know! | Ever think to buy a villa in Bali? Dubbed as the resort island of Indonesia, Bali is the most popular holiday destination in the country that receives constant stream of both international and domestic tourists. Owning a private vacation home in Bali can be financially and personally rewarding-but only if you can manage it right. We will help you decide whether or not buying a vacation home is the right next step for you, as well as how to properly rent it out.
Should You Buy A Villa in Bali for Profit?
You might be contemplating whether buying a vacation rental in Bali could be profitable in the long term. With vacation rental property, you might generate a constant stream of revenue and charge greater rates than traditional long-term renting with the correct property and strategy. There is clearly the potential to transform your house into a profitable large-scale enterprise. You can reap all of the benefits of owning vacation rental homes if you know where to buy and how to advertise them to the right target demographic.
The Perks of Buying A Villa in Bali
More Profitable Than Other Real Estate Investment
Vacation rentals can provide more revenue than long-term rental properties or regular real estate investing. Not only are guests prepared to pay more for a well-equipped vacation rental, but hosts can also change their rates at any time during the year.
This allows them to take advantage of high-season discounts as well as unique events such as festivals, sporting events, and business expos. Furthermore, hosts have the option to charge for additional services. There are a variety of things that your guests will gladly pay for as an add-on, ranging from transportation to laundry services.
Appreciation of equity
Buying a good property in Bali is a good method to ensure a secure financial future. Property values in real estate tend to rise with time. It’s the same with a vacation home. If the economy allows it and inflation continues to rise, the value of your investment property may rise over time as well. Consider making upgrades and adding amenities that will attract visitors and increase your appreciation. Vacation homes in Bali with jacuzzi, for example, can generate 15–20 percent higher revenue. You may cash in on the gains from selling your house when the time comes.
Short-Term Vacation Rental Allows More Control than Regular House Rental
When you buy a villa in Bali and turn it into a vacation rental business, you would have more control over the property instead of owning a regular residential house rental, which usually be put up for long term rental.
If you choose the short-term rental route, you’ll have more control over the condition of your property, its availability, and the rates. Because you haven’t signed a long-term contract, it’s more easier to set aside a weekend or raise your rate on weekends. Furthermore, the short time rental time frame allow you to inspect your holiday home on a regular basis.
The Cons of Buying Bali Villas
Irregular Income for Vacation Rental Owners
Short-term rentals might be more profitable than long-term rentals on general, but there can be times when your occupancy rate and income are lower. It’s no secret that vacation homes are subject to seasonal fluctuations. Before purchasing a villa in Bali, you should understand how seasonality may affect your business. You should figure out when your peak season is so you can make the most of it.
Managing A Real Estate Rental in Bali is A Hardwork
Managing a vacation rental takes constant care. You must guarantee that the room is clean and that everything is in working order for each visitor. It may also necessitate more care than a standard real estate investment due to the increased likelihood of wear and tear.
Dealing with Challenging Guests
Running a vacation rental house in Bali, you may encounter a problematic guest from time to time. This might result in property damage as well as a strained relationship with your neighbors.
On the plus side, you won’t have to deal with difficult visitors too often. Furthermore, you might charge a security fee or require your guests to sign a vacation rental agreement to deter troublesome guests from staying at your rental. | https://medium.com/@alonaarmest/buying-a-villa-in-bali-all-the-perks-cons-to-know-c740d495ae6c | ['Voyager Sky'] | 2021-12-22 07:45:06.777000+00:00 | ['Vacation Rental', 'Real Estate Investments', 'Bali Villas', 'Real Estate', 'Villas'] |
The Dark Intellectual Life of Old San Francisco | I sank into the dark intellectual life of San Francisco. It was the late 80s, and there was nothing one couldn’t do in that haunted place. The 60s and 70s were long gone, so any hippies or swingers were rapidly bloating into middle age. San Francisco had fallen out of favour, and was largely ignored by the world. It was the fucking best. This was an in-between time, a brief moment when San Francisco was able to hide from the rest of America. Rent was cheap. Things were cheap. San Francisco was underpopulated. There was no real major industry, and it subsisted on tourist trade, and the internal dabble of locals. It was a place lost in Avalonian mist. The city smelled like old cigarettes, sea air, engine grease, jasmine tea, antique shops, and library books. It was quiet for a city, introspective and strange.
I fit right in. It was a freak’s wonderland, and I bathed in its aberrant juices. I went to gigs, I smoked weed and snorted speed. I scoured bookstores, libraries. I saw black and white movies, and listened as professors entangled my mind in Hegelian babble. I drank shit whiskey in gulps between swigs of orange soda. I read, and wrote, and lived the life of a city which, back then, seemed like time had given it a wide berth. I rode Muni trains to nowhere, and wandered up and down every place I could find. I saw gods and spirits appear and disappear from street corners and graffiti-stained alleys, and no one thought anything of it, no more than they considered the stragglers in faded all-night diners, or the sad call of a ship’s horn from the churning mouth of the Bay.
— from my upcoming novel “Screens” | https://medium.com/the-creative-type/the-dark-intellectual-life-of-old-san-francisco-f2c188aa513a | ['Christopher Laine'] | 2018-10-02 19:48:36.122000+00:00 | ['Poetry', '1980s', 'Punk', 'San Francisco', 'Fiction'] |
5 Cybersecurity Myths That Can Cost You A Lot of Money | 5 Cybersecurity Myths That Can Cost You A Lot of Money
Tips on how to keep your information secure
Photo by Blogging Guide on Unsplash
Cybersecurity is often overlooked by many people.
However, failure to understand cyber threats can create hours of downtime and cost you plenty of money. Common myths related to cyber-security can also lead to a variety of problems that can easily be avoided.
Taking the extra time to learn about cyber-crime can save you a lot of stress and help you avoid many headaches.
Here are a few of the most common cyber-security myths that can cost individuals and businesses a significant amount of money.
#1 My Data Isn’t That Valuable
Many people falsely assume that their data isn’t that valuable to cyber-criminals.
However, a ransomware attack can hold all of your information hostage unless you pay a significant fee. Failure to pay the ransom within a certain amount of time can often mean you will lose all of your data.
On the other hand, paying a ransom is never a guarantee that you will regain access to your account.
#2 Anti-Virus Software is Enough Protection
Another common cyber-security myth is that anti-virus software is enough to keep your computer well-protected.
Unfortunately, you can become the victim of cyber-crime in many different ways. For example, social engineering attacks are often designed to trick users into giving out personal information without you even realizing it.
Keeping your operating system up to date while staying aware of the latest phishing scams is critical in keeping your data secure.
#3 My Password Will Keep My Accounts Secure
Creating a strong password is essential in keeping all of your accounts secure.
However, a strong password is only one step in keeping your data protected.
Enabling multi-factor authentication gives you an added level of security, as it requires you to verify your identity with a temporary password sent to your smartphone or email address.
#4 IT Security is Too Expensive
Many businesses make the mistake of not investing in cyber-security due to the extra expense.
However, a cyber-security incident in the workplace can cost your business thousands of dollars due to down-time.
A data breach will often ruin the reputation of your organization while also making it difficult to regain the trust of your customers.
Out-sourcing your IT security with a managed service provider is a great way for small businesses to stay proactive against cyber threats.
#5 I Can Easily Recognize Phishing Scams
Various phishing scams have been around for decades and only continue to grow more complex.
Always staying cautious while opening an email is important due to the prevalence of these scams.
Phishing scams attempt to create a sense of urgency to trick users into clicking on a link. Understanding how to recognize phishing scams is essential to avoid becoming the next victim to these cybercriminals.
You can learn more tips on how to recognize phishing scams by checking out this article.
Final Thoughts
Understanding the importance of cyber-security can save you a lot of stress and money.
Keeping up with the latest cyber-security trends is an excellent way to stay proactive while also keeping your data safe and secure.
Cyber-criminals will continue to find ways to target businesses and individuals but understanding how to recognise these scams can give you much-needed protection. | https://medium.com/illumination/5-cybersecurity-myths-that-can-cost-you-a-lot-of-money-1bff9074eefd | ['Marcus Musick'] | 2020-09-21 02:27:34.927000+00:00 | ['Cybersecurity', 'Tech', 'Cybercrime', 'Business', 'Technology'] |
the Dogs that Didn’t Bark | As Perry’s misconduct began to be reported by her victims themselves — in an avalanche that started in late 2016 and gained critical mass the following fall — the Oregon State Bar revealed that their duty to protect the public from bad lawyers took a backseat to their duty to prop up public perception of themselves and the Oregon judiciary… and to protect their coffers.
In one of Perry’s earliest complaints, a victim stated that the OSB’s Client Assistance Office (CAO) tried to talk him out of filing a complaint, because there was a “good chance” she would “quit representing” him if he did.
At least two other families tried to file complaints by phone with the CAO in 2015 and 2016, and did not receive responses. Both alleged forgeries and notarial mischief by Perry, but due to the overwhelming nature of the problems she had caused them, they were unable to follow up before she was disbarred.
Another complainant was turned away by the CAO in fall 2017 because his opponent — his ex-wife — had already filed a complaint regarding the same matter, and the information he provided did “not support the need to open a second investigation.” That was an extraordinary response by the CAO, because in reading both complaints cover to cover as I did, it is clear that the man’s ex had hired Perry solely to eradicate his parental rights but had largely failed; and due to this, the former couple’s mutual interest in investigating Perry was for profoundly different reasons.
In late January, Perry’s final complaint rolled in, which alleged all the same misconduct for which she was already notorious. Instead of referring this complaint directly to the Disciplinary Counsel Office (DCO), as they had done for the previous six, the CAO strangely asked the victim for more documentation. By the time the victim was able to respond, Perry had already announced her plan to surrender her law license.
The OSB’s Disciplinary Counsel and their General Counsel (i.e. the OSB’s own lawyers) had an even poorer showing regarding Perry than the CAO did.
Mark Johnson Roberts — Deputy General Counsel, “bar liaison” to the Unlawful Practice of Law (UPL) Committee, and recipient of the “hot tip” that the two Linn attorneys had emailed — landed a very difficult-to-execute triple-axel of fail regarding Perry.
It appears that Roberts literally shelved a UPL complaint against Perry. The complaint was correctly submitted to Roberts as liaison to the UPL Committee, then apparently never left his office again. When Roberts was questioned months later about the disappeared complaint, he responded with documents that in my opinion raise more questions than they answer.
Most disturbingly, Roberts was the original recipient of the email by the two attorneys warning the bar that Perry and Moeller were committing criminal offenses and offering to provide information and evidence.
It’s unclear whether the email was discussed and the bar’s response to it coordinated, or whether Roberts took a fashion-forward role in not caring about criminal offenses and simply ignored it by the seat of his pants. What is known is that Roberts assured the concerned attorneys, bizarrely, that destruction of evidence — which in matters of attorney misconduct primarily means client files, i.e. records in the attorney’s custody that are the property of the clients– did not matter, because the OSB already had more than enough evidence for its investigations of Perry.
It would be bad enough if Mark Johnson Roberts were a state bar official who didn’t know any better, but since this is Oregon, Mr. Roberts also frequently writes the “Bar Counsel” ethics column for the OSB’s monthly Bar Bulletin magazine.
Dawn Evans, the Director of Regulatory Services, similarly did not want to hear anything about criminal conduct. In the Polk County case and ensuing complaint, Evans refused to consider or even acknowledge the victim’s concerns that Perry had forged court orders. This was despite the victim providing compelling evidence and the OSB’s now-widespread understanding that Perry was forging items in several other cases.
In early 2018, Assistant Disciplinary Counsel, Susan Cournoyer, who investigated most of Perry’s cases, wrote “complaint summaries” for the first five complaints, which she presented to the State Professional Responsibility Board (SPRB). The SPRB acts similarly to a grand jury in the attorney disciplinary process. Three of Cournoyer’s summaries informed the committee of her confidence that documents in one case were forged, and that Perry had “manufactured a custody evaluation report” in another.
In March 2018, the SPRB authorized that formal charges against Perry be filed. At that point, the DCO was required under their own Bar Rule 3.3(a) to “report the possible crime to the appropriate investigatory authority.”
To date, public records requests with Linn County Sheriff’s and Oregon’s Department of Justice have returned zero evidence that the DCO fulfilled that obligation. Consequently, the Office of the Attorney General has shown little interest in investigating or even hearing about Megan Perry.
Their unconcerned attitude exposes their ideology that nothing is real or true unless they hear it from another lawyer. Perhaps they also suffer from the absurd belief that disbarment equals justice in criminal matters, and that a license to practice law is also a license to commit crimes, revoked only upon disbarment. | https://stephanievolin.medium.com/the-dogs-that-didnt-bark-40d434f0e103 | ['Stephanie Volin'] | 2018-11-09 00:23:28.255000+00:00 | ['Corruption', 'Government', 'Ethics', 'Oregon', 'Lawyers'] |
Post-COVID Action 3/5: Slash Global Travel for Business & Tourism Forever | Post-COVID Action 3/5: Slash Global Travel for Business & Tourism Forever
Picture courtesy PickPik
When I think back to the times before the coronavirus pandemic, it was like the world had gone mad with travel.
At the drop of a hat or less, people were travelling for business. With pride or lamentation (often faked) I used to hear, “Oh, I am away from home nine to ten months of the year”. Families were missing out on together-time, health was being put at risk and productivity was abysmal, if truth be told.
And tourism, oh man, if one didn’t have a bucket list to see every continent and all the top 100 hot spots of the world, one was pathetic and pitiful. And the top destinations were inundated, had become artificial and alike in many ways, with a scant sense of being exotic or an achievement to visit. The heat of tourism had turned them into a façade, a show, of their original specialness.
There were about 4.4 billion(!) air journeys in 2018. And tourist arrivals were 1.4 billion(!). Imagine the fuel burnt on the ground and in the air. Picture the red-eyed, back-clutching executives eking out an hour of groggy work for every 100 hours spent getting there and back. Visualise the wide-eyed tourist hordes walking around like an invasion of sheep in Paris, Rome, Venice, Bali, Rio and the like. And nary a thought for the side effects on the planet.
Now, when the pandemic has swiped it all away, the entire earth and these popular destinations are undergoing a creaking catharsis. It is like a giant who was bludgeoned to the ground managing to push himself up on hands and knees, head still hanging, breathing deep, hoping to be able to stand up.
We cannot let the mad global rushing around of humanity begin again.
Let us completely stop travelling by air for work, between countries and within countries. The only exceptions shall be travel for emergency aid and military duties. All other discussions will be done remotely, virtually, even heads-of-state meetings. It will slash environmental destruction.
It will align with the work-from-home movement too. Local, short-distance surface travel for work by 10–20% of workers for 10–20% of the time should still be allowed, as it has a miniscule impact compared to large and far air travel.
Sure, there would be about 50million airline industry jobs lost worldwide, and many companies would close, but there are other jobs to do and other sectors that will grow locally. The relative number is tiny in the global workforce of 3.5 billion workers.
Simultaneously, let us restrict the number of tourists to 20% of the global peak of 2018 in every country, city and nature resort. It should be combined with a ‘no-tourists window’ for one quarter of every year for every destination, with the selection left to it. It will be the fallow time allowing the place to recover.
About 150 million tourism jobs would become redundant worldwide if this were adopted. It is a larger number, and it will need planning, investment and intervention.
But it is not just vital environmentally but necessary economically, because tourism is, on the whole, a luxury for humankind. Admittedly, it increases our knowledge, makes us more tolerant of other cultures and promotes global trade, but it does not directly produce anything useful. It generates jobs, but they are all aimed at moving, lodging and feeding people as they flit from outdoor scenes to barely understood art to impressive but jam-packed buildings. Or we travel thousands of kilometres to visit the self-same malls and theme parks. And at the end of it all, we buy cheesy souvenirs, hardly any of them made locally by indigenous artisans, but mass-produced in distant Chinese factories.
Instead, if we turn these 150 million tourism workers to produce capital goods or services, it would boost every economy from the grassroots and generate even more jobs and gross domestic product.
So, let’s clamp down the torrent of global air travel for work and tourism, forever, even after this pandemic is behind us. The work will go on, businesses will continue, and we can still see at least ten foreign places in our lifetimes. That’s enough. Anything more is just professional and personal avarice.
If you like it, please spread it through your network. You never know who you can end up influencing. | https://medium.com/@ssastry1111/post-covid-action-3-5-slash-global-travel-for-business-tourism-forever-b2a58581461c | ['Shashi Sastry'] | 2020-12-11 07:50:09.906000+00:00 | ['Ecology', 'Global Warming', 'Travel', 'Post Covid 19 Recovery', 'Environment'] |
7 Tips to Conquering the Learning Curve | Whether it is getting that great new job, starting a new hobby, or wanting to speak a different language. When you start learning anything new, you will experience a steep learning curve at the beginning. That is followed by a single moment where the process clicks, and your brain wraps itself around the idea. I refer to it as my aha moment.
If you are like me, these moments make all the hard stuff that came before it worthwhile. I can still recall times in my life during the learning process when concepts clicked. There is a tremendous amount of joy that one feels when ideas become simpler. It’s not a mastery of the task, more of a moment when you know things will get easier.
For years now, I’ve worked on finding quicker ways to reach that mark. Shortcuts that make climbing to the top faster so the downward slope will be easier.
So the question remains, how can we speed up the process? Fortunately, we can look to science for assistance.
How can you speed up that aha moment?
Speak out loud what you are attempting to learn — When I coach speakers, this is one of the first lessons we discuss. Speaking aloud is the most important thing you can do to practice. You can’t just read the material. You have to hear it spoken out loud to fully comprehend its meaning. Take handwritten notes — While it may be faster to type, studies have shown handwritten notes are processed differently by the brain. This can lead to an increased understanding of the subjects being studied. Break study sessions out over days — Cramming the night before a test is never the way to go. You wouldn’t start practicing a piano piece the day before a concert. Why do the same for a physics test? Work on creating 30–50 minute study sessions for learning. Test yourself — But not immediately after learning. Wait to test yourself for a day or more. Having to recall what you learned from the previous study session will reinforce the learning process. Teach it to someone else — There is no more effective way to learn something than the pressure of teaching it to someone else. Get plenty of sleep — The more we learn about sleep, the more we realize how important it is to our health and well being. Getting a few extra hours of sleep a day can do wonders for your cognizant abilities. Drink plenty of water — Similarly to sleep; studies find that proper hydration keeps the mind in top form and ready to meet learning challenges.
Reflecting on these simple tips can decrease the time you spend on the wrong side of the learning curve. Getting you over the hump to continue the excitement and joy of learning. | https://medium.com/afwp/7-tips-to-conquering-the-learning-curve-2a12363d7d19 | ['Matt Inman'] | 2020-12-13 15:32:23.280000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Learning', 'Productivity', 'Personal Development'] |
Know Labs Provides Update on Company Business, Impact of Covid-19 | Seattle, WA. — December 3, 2020 — OTCQB: KNWN
Know Labs, Inc., an emerging leader in non-invasive medical diagnostics, announced that its efforts to test and validate its patented Bio-RFID™ platform technology for non-invasive glucose monitoring with third-party research organizations have been temporarily slowed by the impact of Covid-19.
Phil Bosua, Know Labs CEO, stated, “While the impact and restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic have necessarily slowed the work we are doing with third parties, we continue to work in our laboratory to productize our Bio-RFID technology. I’m very happy with what we’ve been able to accomplish. This work will undoubtedly have a positive impact on our strategy as we introduce our UBAND™ product line and its many health and wellness applications, including the first application measuring blood glucose.”
Know Labs has continued to work internally and with its external engineering firm to develop its prototype. Led by Phil, the Know Labs team has internally replicated the tests that will be performed at third-party research organizations several times to ensure success. Know Labs expects very positive results when they are able to conduct testing with third parties.
Ron Erickson, Know Labs Chairman & Founder, said, “We are all sensitive to the pandemic affecting the entire country. Local outbreaks along with travel restrictions have hindered our ability to move as quickly as we would have liked. We put the safety and health of our team and partners above all else. Nonetheless, we continue to work at our lab in Seattle to further the development of our technology. Additionally, we have been strategically building upon our foundational IP assets surrounding the UBAND technology.”
Know Labs will continue to keep the public and its shareholders advised of developments. | https://medium.com/know-labs/know-labs-provides-update-on-company-business-impact-of-covid-19-8d9179d1f9f3 | ['Know Labs Inc'] | 2020-12-03 14:02:23.176000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Biotechnology', 'Diabetes'] |
Top 3 ATS Myths That Just Won’t Die | So if ATS aren’t all-powerful employment genies, what does that mean for job candidates?
It means the resume writing process just got a lot more complex. Especially for candidates who’ve held the same job for years and are stepping back into the market for the first time in decades, the contemporary resume in 2019 is a different kind of beast.
A resume used to be a record of work and a reflection of achievements — usually a proportional one. I still get candidates asking me whether it’s okay for a work entry to consist of 20% financial analysis duties if they only spent 10% of their average workday doing it.
The answer is: Of course it is. In fact, if you’re structuring your resume according to what you do now, you’re demonstrably not structuring your resume according to what employers — and ATS — care about, which is their preset list of keywords, skills, and qualifications. That’s it; that’s the game.
Today, the resume is a document that has to be optimized with sufficient keywords to get past an ATS while also maintaining maximum readability for the human recruiter waiting at the other end of the bot scan. The vast majority of ATS require exact matches to make their light turn green, which means if your resume states that you excel in “budget administration” but the recruiter entered the phrase “budget management,” you’ve missed an opportunity to enhance your ATS results.
In a ideal world, job seekers would have unlimited time and could easily customize every resume to the specific lexicon deployed in the job ad for maximum points in the ATS. But since that’s not the case, most job seekers settle for a middling amount of keywords and pray that their resume makes it to a pair of human eyes.
Alternative, you could engage The Modern Resume to do the work for you.
Follow us on Twitter for daily no-nonsense job search and resume writing tips. | https://medium.com/@themodernresume/top-3-ats-myths-that-just-wont-die-3eb402275b15 | ['The Modern Resume'] | 2019-06-17 23:52:44.571000+00:00 | ['Resume Writing', 'Resumes', 'Job Hunting', 'Job Search', 'The Modern Resume'] |
What Is Holocron? | What if I told you that you could deploy parts of your Server Side Rendered React applications without restarting the server?
Discover Holocron: The backbone of One App, a new modular take on web application development.
Independent modules, independent deployments
You probably have heard about Micro Frontends, the new buzz word in the Frontend Community. Its premise is to allow you to split your monolithic frontend applications into small, tested, and individually deployed modules.
Holocron modules allow you to code split your application by default; setting the scope of your micro frontend as well as enabling reusability achieved by module composition.
Let’s create your first Holocron
Head over to your terminal with NodeJS installed and paste the following:
export NODE_ENV=development
npx -p yo -p @americanexpress/generator-one-app-module -- yo @americanexpress/one-app-module
When prompted, choose root module . This will be the entry point of your application where the routing and composition of other Holocron modules will happen.
Once the generator is done, go to your shiny new module and run the default command npm start . This will download the latest version of One App from Docker hub (Docker required).
Go to localhost:3000 and you should see the default welcome message.
Congratulations, you have successfully created your first Holocron module!
How does it work?
Holocron maintains an in-memory registry of Modules that can be updated dynamically without requiring a server restart. The idea is that an application can update Holocron’s module registry whenever a new Holocron Module is to be added to the application’s runtime. The result is an application that can have React components updated/added to it at runtime.
One App is the NodeJS server that acts as the orchestrator and stitches all your modules together as well as Server-Side Render your application.
In Production
Holocron modules are bundled and their static assets deployed to a CDN. The One App Server instance polls the module map periodically for updates to the module versions as well as new modules recently deployed.
The module map is a simple JSON file that contains the list of Holocron modules, their versions, and a link to their CDN location. Think of this file as your package.json , but instead of a list of dependencies, we have a list of modules.
Modules can be deployed to any location and they don’t even have to be on the same CDN.
In Development
Modules are served locally by adding them to the modules array in our package.json .
The npm start command uses Docker to download and start the One App Server locally; It will also start a CDN server that will host and serve our development module map and local modules.
By Passing the moduleMapUrl option in the runner section, the One App Server can download remote modules and serve them alongside the ones you are currently developing on your machine.
Conclusion
One App and Holocron can help you build dynamic quality user experiences, allowing for reusability and reducing bugs by helping you update only what you need.
The video version of this tutorial can be found here:
Now, let’s see how you put assemble multiple modules on a page by using the powerful Holocron Module Composition. | https://infoxicator.medium.com/what-is-holocron-224255625241 | ['Ruben Casas'] | 2020-09-07 22:53:52.849000+00:00 | ['Microui', 'React', 'Holocron', 'Server Side Rendering', 'Micro Frontends'] |
How to Understand if a Photo Works | How to Understand if a Photo Works
From a professional photographer.
Photo by Soragrit Wongsa, from Unsplash.
We live in images.
Today, if you don’t have a camera or a smartphone, you can’t spin the round of social games.
Like never before, images define us and our approach to reality.
For this reason, standing out for photographers became harder than ever before. We have to concentrate all human forces on creating a photo.
S uperficiality — insufficient research — can become an impediment to success.
Fortunately, we can check our work with different methods to understand if a photo works. I often use three top methods for my photo production. | https://medium.com/2-minute-madness/how-to-understand-if-a-photo-works-8345c162e126 | ['Gianluca De Dominici'] | 2020-12-24 13:42:49.758000+00:00 | ['Instagram', 'Tips', 'Editing', 'Photography', 'Art'] |
Calling RESTful APIs from inline AWS Lambda functions | Sometimes we need to make calls to some remote HTTP-based API from an AWS Lamda function. Let’s say our runtime is Node.js. On the surface, there seem to be two natural ways to do it:
Use Node.js low-level HTTP module’s client functionality.
The problem with this approach is that Node’s low-level HTTP API is cumbersome to use, especially when sending and receiving request/response payloads is involved. You have to read the chunks, assemble the buffers, parse and encode stuff, react to events, etc.
Use a 3rd party utility module, such as Got or the Fetch implementation (or the deprecated Request module for those who still work with the old stuff).
This is a very much valid solution, except it means that you have to include dependencies with your Lambda function, that is build the AWS Lambda deployment package zip, upload it to S3, etc. What if we are dealing with a tiny Lambda function and for various reasons we would prefer it to be an inline function without building and uploading any packages?
There is one other solution and we are going to demonstrate it in this post.
Use AWS SDK to call remote services.
We know that the runtime environment for AWS Lambda always includes the AWS SDK module and since many of the AWS services expose this or that kind of HTTP-based APIs, the module includes everything we’d need to make high-level HTTP calls to anything, not necessarily an AWS service. The only problem is that this foundational part of the AWS SDK is not very well documented. Luckily, it’s all TypeScript/JavaScript and we have access to all the sources. A little bit of digging around and you can see how it includes a lot of very high-level while generic functionality.
To be able to call our own RESTful API we need to define it as a “service”. Then, we define our API endpoints on the service as “operations”. After that we can call those operations on our service as methods, just like any authentic AWS service client provided in the SDK.
Here is an example:
There is a ton of more very useful functionality in the AWS SDK module that is not shown in the example above. You can start learning it from looking at the sources in the aws-sdk module ( lib/protocol/rest_json.js , lib/model/shape.js , lib/service.js and others). It is quite easy to understand (and the TypeScript definitions are helpful too). It’s pretty logical and after a short while you will no longer need to look into the source code that often.
This makes AWS SDK my HTTP client library of choice for AWS Lambda functions, especially those that are not part of a larger package! | https://medium.com/@levahim/calling-restful-apis-from-inline-aws-lambda-functions-4bf7e384c73c | ['Lev Himmelfarb'] | 2020-12-30 16:31:39.427000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'AWS Lambda', 'Aws Sdk'] |
RELATIONSHIP AND DATING | RELATIONSHIP AND DATING
Meeting new singles out in the real world during COVID-19 feels practically impossible. With social-distancing and venue capacity restrictions in place, you may be asking yourself “how exactly am I supposed to do it?” People are now even more unlikely to welcome a stranger walking up to them at a cafe, or on the train, so the chance of meeting someone out in the real world seems impossibly slim because it is. I’m sure you’d also agree that you don’t really want to be involved with a selfish & irresponsible random that is ultimately putting your health at risk if they approach you anyway, right? This sounds like the ultimate sucky situation, so what can we singles do instead?
Three words: Virtual Speed Dating. If you haven’t heard of it, you’ve likely been self-isolating just a little too intensely! Meeting singles at our Virtual Speed Dating events allow you to get to know them before you meet them in the real world, which is actually not a bad setup. It’s also the only option we have right now, so we might as well take advantage of this new norm! By accepting this new reality, so many people are moving forward in life, in a time where it feels like the world has stopped. People who do not accept this new reality are being left behind, not just within the dating scene, but in all aspects of this crisis. Let’s move forward together!
The COVID-19 pandemic will be here until at least the END of 2021. That is 18 months away! I’m not just talking about a spike in cases, but also about the aftermath of this crisis, as we will all need some time to work through this trauma. Virtual Speed Dating allows for face to face meetings that otherwise wouldn’t occur at all for singles for a very long time, either organically or via one of our venue-based speed dating events.
So what does that mean for single people wanting to meet other singles?
Whilst nothing beats meeting people in a real-life environment such as our venue-based speed dating, our Yarra Valley wine tours, or our massive singles parties, there isn’t anything you can do right now other than our virtual events. At our virtual events, you chat with singles face to face. Let me say it louder for the people in the back; it’s FACE TO FACE! There are real humans speaking to you, unlike online dating apps where you have photos for reference that end up looking nothing like the person in real life… Am I right? I know we’ve all been there! With all the tricky filters, perfect angles, sunglasses & far away photos, you just can’t make out what they look like half the time, and if people aren’t even honest about their appearance, how can you know they’re being honest about their personality?
During our virtual events, not only can you see who you’re chatting within a live environment, but you can also engage with them. You can score numbers and chat with them offline until you feel comfortable enough to meet that person in the real world.
MOST POPULAR DATING APPS IN 2020.CLICK HERE
Now, let’s break down the benefits of Virtual Speed Dating:
You don’t have to drive up to 45 minutes to get to a venue and another 45 minutes to get home. Just switch on your laptop or smart device and away you go!
You are dating from the comfort of your own home, your own space, your own comfort zone. Remember, it’s called a ‘comfort zone’ for a reason!
You have a host that is logged on with you to facilitate the night, so all you have to do is have the conversations.
No noisy venues! You get to see your dates FACE TO FACE and chat with them in a quiet video chat room, just the two of you.
You get to see your dates FACE TO FACE and chat with them in a quiet video chat room, just the two of you. You get to screen everyone and select who gets your contact details to contact you after the event has finished.
You don’t know what you don’t know, which is why it’s so important to experience as much as you can in life. Otherwise, how are you going to know whether or not you like something if you don’t try it at least once? The FOMO is real.
Do yourself a favor and give it a go. You may very well find your next major relationship!
MOST POPULAR DATING APPS IN 2020. CLICK HERE | https://medium.com/@sujannarocket94/dating-during-covid-19-3895305b374f | [] | 2020-10-06 19:59:47.954000+00:00 | ['Love Letters', 'Lovestory', 'Relationships Love Dating', 'Love And Sex', 'Relationships'] |
The day his heart cracked open. Yes my darling | Photo by zelle duda on Unsplash
Yes my darling
I know
It is scary to open your heart
It is terrifying to look somebody in the eye and offer them all of who you are, body and soul
It is
But it is also that look in your eye
The fear-soaked hope
The trembling of your lip
The bend of your brow
That is what tells me
It is real
This raw vulnerability
This courageous leap of faith
This transparent truth
This is real
This is you
How beautiful you are
A human being standing before me
No armor
No shell
No walls
This wonderful person laying their heart bare for me to see
For me to admire
For me to hold
There is no challenge, no sharpness, no sarcasm, no hidden meanings, no fall back plan
This is you offering me a place in your heart
A home in your world
Darling I know it is frightening
To show me your all
To let the tears roll down your cheeks and reach out your hand
You love me knowing I’m not perfect
You love me knowing I could hurt you
You love me knowing it won’t be easy
That is why you love me
Because you believe we can be magic
Darling you stand here in front of me not trying to be calm
Not trying to seem indifferent
Not trying to control your heart
Not trying to focus on something else
Not trying to hide your fear
You are completely exposed
You are the most astonishing sight I have ever seen
You shake me to my core and leave me breathless
Your vulnerability tears down my walls and leaves my heart as bare as yours
You wait for my reaction, my response
All I can do is pull you close; my soul can no longer bare the distance from yours
My mouth wants to kiss every inch of your beautiful face
I need to hold you to my chest so you can hear the song my heart sings
Just for you
Because now I’ve seen all of you
So now I can love all of you
Because of your courage
Our hearts are one | https://medium.com/@emelie.stark143/daring-to-love-for-real-f2eee67b8097 | ['Emelie Stark'] | 2019-06-11 17:34:03.604000+00:00 | ['Love Letters', 'Emotions', 'Vulnerability', 'Poetry', 'Relationships'] |
ACTION, NUMBER, SILENCE, WORK (PART TWO) :: RAYMOND DE BORJA :: FIELD NOTES | In his essay “Poiesis and Praxis,” Giorgio Agamben writes about how “the distinction between these three kinds of doing — poiesis, praxis, and work — has been progressively obscured.” In Greek thought, man’s ‘doing’ is any of Poiesis — “to pro-duce” in the sense of bringing into being, from non-being to being; Praxis — “to do” in the sense of acting out, expressing the will; and Work — physical work necessary for life’s needs. He later on goes to discuss a reversal in the status of work, and how work “climbs to the rank of central value […] in every human activity. He reminds us that in Greek thought work occupies “the lowest rank in the hierarchy of active life, whereas in both the classical liberalism of John Locke and Adam Smith, and also the writings of Karl Marx, work attains something of a central value — in Locke and Smith, where work is, respectively, origin of property, and source of wealth; and in Marx, where work is the expression of man’s very humanity.
In the realm of art, the disentangling of the categories of poiesis, praxis, and work, is important work. Agamben observes how in most contemporary art practice, art is interpreted as a mode of praxis, where praxis is “the expression of a will and a creative force.” This manner of interpretation is found even in the radical thinking of Nietzsche (art’s identification with the will to power), in Artaud (the theatrical liberation of the will), in the Situationists (overcoming of art).
Why is there a necessity to think again of art as poiesis, of art in relation to “producing”, in the sense of bringing something to being? And how is it possible for such need to be real, without nostalgia for a metaphysical past? Alain Badiou offers us a possible response. In Badiou, the event of art is “a new possibility of formalization, the becoming form of something that is not form.” “Because I think the political situation today is very obscure,” Alain Badiou says. “The specific responsibility of artistic creation is to help humanity find the new subjective paradigm.”
I think the poems in Modus Operandi are aware of the necessity of disentangling the categories of poiesis, praxis, and work. But at the same time also deeply aware of how inevitably entangled these categories have become and are, of how the poem’s powerlessness to effect change is both harrowing fact and potential. The poems recognize that “The unbeknownst/ is a border /is a passage only/the small know about.” | https://medium.com/the-operating-system/action-number-silence-work-part-2-raymond-de-borja-field-notes-97a9e942c725 | ['Adrian Silbernagel'] | 2019-07-22 19:49:53.808000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Work', 'Art', 'Creative Process', 'Praxis'] |
#Endorsit Airdrop — Gana $40 En Token EDS Por Registrarte Y $5 EDS Por Invitar Amigos | Endorsit Airdrop
You can contact @endrositbot right away. | https://medium.com/@rennyrodriguezgil/endorsit-airdrop-gana-40-en-token-eds-por-registrarte-y-5-eds-por-invitar-amigos-b990252b384c | ['Renny Rodriguez'] | 2020-12-20 04:09:30.845000+00:00 | ['Eds', 'Neo', 'Airdrop', 'Free Tokens', 'Endorsit'] |
Visual abstraction | Visual abstraction
“Visual representations are a fundamental component of human learning and understanding.” — Jock D. Mackinlay
One very important example regarding data visualization can be found when looking back in history. The graphic below depicts a great deal of information without being distracting. Most poignant is the drastic loss of life shown in just a small part of the diagram. It’s the simplicity of the visualization design that clearly conveys the complexity of the data.
Minard’s graphic of Napoleon in Russia
In order to underline the importance of data, several techniques can be used such as;
colour — highlighting important numbers with a different colour
saturation — decrease the saturation to make it more visible
enlargement — increasing the size of important data
When designing a product, it is essential to include some kind of testing. In relation to data, A/B testing is a prominent example. Different variants are compared to each other to find out which one is the most suitable. This process is iterated many times to figure out the weakness of a design or its strengths. Big companies like Google, Facebook and Netflix have the infrastructure and the user base to quickly and effectively conduct such testings. Nevertheless, when talking about using data we also have to consider our own behaviour and maybe reflect and be aware that each click is scrutinized and is used, whether we like it or not. | https://medium.com/@pmschmidinger/visual-abstraction-a706f1e4f90c | ['Paméla Schmidinger'] | 2019-05-06 19:46:37.217000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Seminar', 'Interaction Design', 'Design'] |
Latest Innovation Knocking in Automotive Global Data Cleaning Tools Market Trends, Drivers, Strategies, Segmentation Application with top key players Dundas BI, IBM, Sisense, Birst, Domo, ClicData, In | Latest Innovation Knocking in Automotive Global Data Cleaning Tools Market Trends, Drivers, Strategies, Segmentation Application with top key players Dundas BI, IBM, Sisense, Birst, Domo, ClicData, Intellicus, Halo, Corporater, Astera Software Shraddha Hature Nov 14, 2019·3 min read
This Data Cleaning Tools Market report provides in-depth review of the Growth Drivers, Potential Challenges, Unique Trends, and Opportunities for market participants equip readers to fully comprehend the overall landscape of the Data Cleaning Tools industry. The primary objective of the Data Cleaning Tools market report is to offer key insights on Competition Positioning, Current Trends, Market Potential, Growth Rates, and Other Relevant Statistics.
The latest report titled “Global Data Cleaning Tools Market” has been recently added into the Research N Reports Repository. It encircles the evaluation done on the basis of key competitors who are showing active participation in determining how the market actually works. They have accomplished major success by understanding what the expectations of their end-users are and what could be the predicted trends that may show up in the future.
Get Sample Copy of This Report@
https://www.reportconsultant.com/request_sample.php?id=52155
Topmost Key Players:-
Dundas BI, IBM, Sisense, Birst, Domo, ClicData, Intellicus, Halo, Corporater, Astera Software
On the basis of product Type:-
· Cloud-based
· On-premises
On the basis on the end users/applications:-
· Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
· Large Enterprises
Providing importance to the trends that are currently prevailing in the industry is a key to analyze in which directing the market may direct itself in terms of profit generation. The market has been segmented into a categorization called the regional provinces. North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa are the five key regions that are taken into the consideration while formalizing the working of the regional and global players concentrated in these regions.
Early Buyers Get Special Discount Click Now@
https://www.reportconsultant.com/ask_for_discount.php?id=52155
Important Points of Data Cleaning Tools Market:-
· Strategic recommendations, forecast growth areas of the Data Cleaning Tools Market.
· Emerging opportunities, competitive landscape, revenue shareof main manufacturers.
· This report discusses the Data Cleaning Tools Market summary; market scopegives a brief outline of the Data Cleaning Tools Market
· Key performing regions (APAC, EMEA, Americas) along with their major countries are detailed in this report.
· Company profiles, product analysis, Marketing strategies, emerging market segments and comprehensive analysis of Data Cleaning Tools Market
· Challengesfor the new entrants, trends market drivers.
· Data Cleaning Tools Market shareyear-over-year growth of key players in promising regions.
An emphasis has been laid on guesstimating the volume and revenue growth in terms of future prospects. The important factors directing the market towards outputting huge profits is a thorough learning of the competitive landscape. The historical traits have affected the present scenario and this will, in turn, have an impact on the upcoming Data Cleaning Tools market shares, strategies, and product modification. The study also evaluates the working of the key competitors and their business strategies, which is ultimately generating leads for them.
SWOT analysis has been used to assemble information related to the comprehensive development of the noteworthy trends that businesses are adopting. Production details, revenue figures, and pricing patterns of each segment are dispensed in the report, making it a comprehensive resource on this global Data Cleaning Tools market. | https://medium.com/@shraddhahature/latest-innovation-knocking-in-automotive-global-data-cleaning-tools-market-trends-drivers-50a909b8605d | ['Shraddha Hature'] | 2019-11-14 12:28:03.759000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Data Cleaning Tool', 'Technology Trends', 'Market', 'Trends'] |
Super Sex: Body Objectification and Superhero Narratives | I want a perfect body “Creep,” Radiohead She’s suddenly beautiful
And we all want something beautiful
Man, I wish I was beautiful “Mr. Jones,” Counting Crows
Superhero comic books have a long and troubling history of xenophobia, racism, cultural appropriation, sexism, and nearly any negative -ism you can imagine.
The comic book industry is obsessed as well with rebooting as an industry mechanism and rebirth as a recurring plot element. Whether reboot, resurrection, or adaptation, however, superhero narratives seem unable to shake the very worst aspects of cliche and reductive storytelling.
The adaptation of The Punisher (Netflix) and yet another rebooting of Daredevil, volume 6 (2019), share even more examples of failing to take advantage of starting over.
Season 2 Episode 1 of The Punisher puts Frank Castle, masquerading as Pete, in a Michigan dive-bar.
Ever stoic, Frank cannot avoid trouble, interjecting himself between a crude bar patron and the bartender, Beth, who has remained nearly equally as distant as Frank. When the bar bouncer moves to expel both the creep and Frank, Beth intervenes, and despite her protestation that she doesn’t need any help, she ultimately makes the move on her knight in shining armor, offering a nightcap at her place.
As Beth and Frank (Pete) walk to her car, Beth asks Frank to assure her he isn’t an “asshole”; Frank replies, “Isn’t that the kind of thing an asshole would do?”
Soon, Beth and Frank are entwined in Hollywood montage sex, interspersed with some dialogue where Frank confesses his name is Frank, and not Pete as he has told her.
Once again, Beth struggles with a reasonable concern about whether or not Frank is an asshole, just another creep, one whose body is riddled with scars.
And for the second time, Beth just goes with a feeling and accepts Frank is essentially a good guy.
Not blessed/cursed with superhero powers, Frank is one of the mostly human superheroes although gifted with skills and the prerequisite rage-motivation: a well-trained killing machine spawned by the military and then driven to incessant vigilanteism by the slaughter of his entire family.
Castle and Mad Max were cast from the same mold.
The Hollywood montage sex of E1 is much less about the sort of sex people have on one-night stands and more about the objectification of bodies in superhero narratives. And these narratives never stray too far from the unexplainable magnetism of the white male saviors that nearly always sit in the center.
Superhero sex is a compelling topic when those superheroes have exceptional powers like Superman needing to be human to be with Lois (see the Christopher Reeves films) or the violent and destructive coupling of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage in the Netflix adaptation of Jessica Jones.
But Castle, The Punisher, is all rage and training so the super sex is titillating but mostly secondary to the standard messages being sent about Frank as white male savior and sexually irresistible.
In both the Marvel comic book universe and the Netflix universe, Castle/The Punisher and Matt Murdock/ Daredevil are paired as different sides of the same vigilante coin — Frank the-ends-justify-the-means Castle juxtaposed with Matt Batman-lite Murdock.
With Daredevil being resurrected once again in the comic book with 2019’s volume 6, on the heels of the Death of Daredevil and three seasons of Daredevil on Netflix, we are immediately confronted with super sex and body objectification.
While superheroes such as The Punisher and Batman are essentially humans with super abilities gained through training and trauma, Murdock is a step above since he does possess super powers, although his physical strengths are mostly acquired. In other words, Murdock/Daredevil does not pose the same sexual threats as Superman or, say, the Hulk.
Fresh from the edge of death and the hospital, like Frank in S2 E1, Matt in issue 1 (2019) moves from the bar to the bedroom:
The panels preceding these are the comic book version of Hollywood montage sex, but this dialogue is significant for the ways this reboot approaches well and then fails the super sex motif.
In the early episodes of Netflix’s Daredevil, Foggy chuckles about Matt’s being blind but always attracting beautiful women. This adaptation remains uncritical in its use of the blind motif in Daredevil, which the comic book has tended to do since the early 1960s.
The scene above does complicate the blind motif when Matt implores: “Please don’t make my disability your fetish.”
However by the final panels of that page, the dialogue and artwork paint a disturbing, and far too predictable picture.
Matt’s partner in a one-night stand is aggressively establishing her seeking out his body. But she is drawn pencil-thin, and both she and Matt concur — despite her being attracted to Matt’s blindness (“I picked you up with my charm”): “I don’t have to worry if I am pretty enough,” she explains. “And yet,” Matt parries, “you’re beautiful.”
“And yet,” she echoes, “I’m beautiful.”
Superhero narratives remain compelling because they have potential, often underachieved potential, but potential none the less.
The Punisher and Daredevil are characters with moral and ethical imperatives about justice, but also embodiments of vigilante themes that are pursued uncritically.
They share as well the lazy super sex plot elements and body objectification that is reductive for women characters who are equally diminished by their capitulation to the irresistible white savior appeal of Castle and Murdock — stoic, scarred, and chiseled.
Real-life sex is almost nothing like Hollywood montage sex, and superhero narratives could benefit from realizing that as well as exploring the full physical and emotional complexity of humans, even when they have superpowers or especially when they are merely human in the presence of the superhuman. | https://plthomasedd.medium.com/super-sex-body-objectification-and-superhero-narratives-cfe4d5140b19 | ['Paul Thomas'] | 2019-02-24 12:23:40.032000+00:00 | ['Daredevil', 'Marvel Comics', 'Objectification', 'The Punisher', 'Netflix'] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.