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5 Ways to Deal With WTF Is Going On Right Now | Photo: fizkes / Getty Images
The news that Donald Trump has been infected with the coronavirus feels like… it’s not even “too much.” It’s as if our concept of too much has been expanded to the point that Too Much is now the state of the world—and our brains.
GEN can help you process how this will upend the election. Elemental and Medium’s Coronavirus Blog can help you understand the ways in which Donald Trump put himself at risk. Forge? We can help you deal.
Like this:
See the bigger picture
What we’re experiencing is occurring on the continuum of American history. 2020 isn’t the problem. We are. And we’re the solution, too.
Take a break
Your brain needs a break every now and then to return to its preferred default state of idleness. It needs a reset. So take a break today. Or three. (And take a quick one right before any meeting.)
Stop doom scrolling
Every link we click on heightens our emotions and disrupts our brain’s ability to regulate our thoughts and make sound decisions. From time to time today, interrupt the dopamine loop.
Defuse negative emotions
Have a kind of argument with yourself by countering each negative thought with a “rational-but-honest thought.”
Run the other way!
Here’s a place to start. | https://forge.medium.com/5-ways-to-deal-with-wtf-is-going-on-right-now-aa900f63ef59 | ['Ross Mccammon'] | 2020-10-02 21:01:49.079000+00:00 | ['Burnout', 'Self Care', 'Donald Trump', 'Election 2020'] |
How Psilocybin Mushrooms can treat Depression | Psilocybin has shown outstanding promising potential in depression treatment. The FDA has even gone so far to call it “a breakthrough.” Yet psilocybin, like many drugs, have met legislative obstacles that prevent medicinal use. This despite much evidence suggesting psilocybin is superior to mainstream antidepressant medications.
Can Psilocybin therapy treat Depression?
Recently, in 2018, the FDA granted approval for psilocybin depression treatment. They hope that psilocybin can eliminate depressive symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). 17 million Americans and 300 million worldwide have this affliction. John Hopkins released a study this month that offered promise. A small sample of adults experienced a significant decrease in depressive symptoms. “The magnitude of the effect we saw was about four times larger than what clinical trials have shown for traditional antidepressants on the market,” one researcher said. Psilocybin was particularly notable for the speed of its effects. Typical antidepressants take weeks even months to work, with many unwanted side effects.
Tim Ferriss funded a recent study published last month in JAMA Psychiatry. A small sample of adults again showed a 50% reduction in symptoms for three-quarters of the group.
The Beckley Psychedelic Research Programme in England has a promising study from 2017. Every individual in their small sample group showed a reduction in depression symptoms. None of these studies reported any patients experiencing the usual side effects. (Typical side effects include Confusion, hallucinations, paranoia, depersonalization, etc).
Older studies found psilocybin helped people be “open-minded” and “shake off feelings of rejection”. These earlier findings may have foreshadowed current reports.
Psilocybin clinical trials treating Depression
There are currently several clinical trials investigating psilocybin impact on depression. These studies will publish by 2021.
The Beckley Programme study from 2017 administered oral psilocybin to 20 adults. All individuals had treatment-resistant depression, and had made efforts to curb symptoms prior. All patients saw remission in a week. The diminishment was most significant by week 5, and continued for several months. No individuals saw side effects, nor sought out alternative medications. The group had no placebo or control group.
The Compass Pathways study began in early 2019 and is expected to publish its results in 2021. This study will focus on treatment resistant depression and exclude comorbidities. This study is using 216 patients.
The Usona Institute is conducting a clinical trial on Major Depressive Disorder. This study began in late 2019 and will publish its findings in early 2021 as well. The Usona Institute study excludes comorbidities as well as pregnancy.
These studies measured symptoms by the MADRS scale.
The Ferriss-funded study published in JAMA began in 2019 and was completed and published in 2020. This study used 27 patients, excluding comorbidities, administering oral doses of psilocybin. This study had patients measure symptoms using the GRID-Hamilton Depression Rating Scale.
Yale University plans a quiet study of Psilocybin in the treatment of Depression. Researchers will administer psilocybin doses and take EEG readings of patient neuroplasticity. The study is looking for correlations between neuroplasticity change and remission in depression.
Psilocybin Depression psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy
Every one of these studies administered psilocybin treatments in the context of psychotherapy. The treatments were over weeks, with symptom monitoring occurring over several months. Patients would check in with a therapist, who had them rate their symptoms on one of two standardized rating systems. Given the possibility of strong emotional responses, therapy offers guidance, support and structure. Psychedelic experiences also are best had with a sober companion-known as a “trip-sitter”. Therapy alone may be insufficient in helping a patient remember everything. Psilocybin alone may lead to a frightening and isolating experience. In tandem, psilocybin psychotherapy offered the results discussed above.
The future of Psilocybin Mushrooms and Depression
The future of treatment of depression with psilocybin rests largely in the hand of legislators. Legal restrictions block easy access to psilocybin compounds. This inhibits research into depression and psilocybin. The mechanisms of psilocybin research are still largely unknown, and there are many variables left to explore (i.e. dosage, therapy). The behavior of the FDA thus far is very promising and may suggest a rapid change to come. | https://medium.com/@bengreeley/how-psilocybin-mushrooms-can-treat-depression-e1a64fc210ae | ['Ben Greeley'] | 2020-12-10 15:47:31.847000+00:00 | ['Microdosing', 'Psilocybin', 'Psychedelics', 'Depression', 'Psilocybin Mushrooms'] |
Monochrome Days | The tired man felt exhausted. He worked long and difficult hours and the soles of his feet hurt. A vague sense of dissatisfaction ate away at him, as if his daily efforts were in vain. He thought often of the tale of Sisyphus, that poor soul doomed to roll the same damn rock up a hill for eternity. His story didn’t even have the good decency to have an ending. The monotony of life stretched on and on indefinitely. Not even the mirage of a holiday did much to soothe his parched soul. The salve of love and friendship had dried up long ago.
The tired man came home late in the evening feeling much too worn out to cook a proper meal. The cupboards were sad and empty and covered with a layer of dust. Grease-soaked pizza boxes were stacked on the kitchen table. Fruit flies flew above the remains of their departed kin, fated soon to join them. The bananas were no longer yellow. Squirming larvae slipped down the sides of the overflowing trash can. The disgust the tired man felt at his own situation nearly surmounted his aching need to sit down and relax.
The tired man slipped off his shoes and stripped down to his underwear. He plopped down onto the recliner and turned on the TV. The pizza he had ordered was delivered and he guiltily ate all of it. Afterwards, he added the empty box to the stack on the kitchen table. He could still remember a time when he had the energy to actually do things worth doing, to engage in a life worth living. As he sat there watching millions of red, green, and blue pixels rearrange themselves into recognizable shapes, his heavy eyelids slowly closed the curtains on his monochrome day.
The tired man awoke in the middle of the night feeling parched. Netflix asked him if he still wanted to continue. It seemed at that absurd hour to be the most profound of existential questions. He went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water from the tap, downed it in one shot, then made his way to an unmade bed.
When the alarm rang a few hours later, he waved a hand across his bleary eyes and dragged himself to the shower. He finished brushing his teeth before realizing he had forgotten to eat breakfast. But then he recalled the state of the bananas and shrugged. After dressing, the tired man sat there leaning forward in his recliner, socks in hand, motionless and unthinking, waiting for the last possible moment before he would have to leave for work in order to start another long day. | https://medium.com/the-junction/monochrome-days-2eb101041feb | ['Stephen M. Tomic'] | 2019-07-12 00:55:45.186000+00:00 | ['Flash Fiction', 'Work', 'Mental Health', 'Fiction', 'Short Story'] |
18 Most Cute, Heartwarming and Best Wholesome Anime Ever you Must watch in 2021 | Bring some wholesomeness to your life with our recommended list of the best wholesome anime for you to watch. We have brought you anime’s that got your back and will help you narrow down your rough day and relax. Here are our recommendations for you on must-watch cute, heartwarming, and most wholesome anime ever.
Wholesome Anime
We are ranking the best anime available out there based on reviews. Other than that, we say every anime listed here are the best.
Do you like Death Note? Check these awesome Death Note posters:
These cute, heartwarming anime has got you covered and will give you a comfy, cozy, and wholesome watching experience.
Best Wholesome Anime you Must Watch!
1. Your Name (Kimi no Na wa)
Kimi no Na wa
Episode: Movie
Genre: Supernatural, Romance, Fantasy, Drama
Mitsuha Miyamizu, a teenager is a high school girl living in the town of Itomori. Mitsuha is bored with her small-town life thus in her next life wishes to be a handsome Tokyo boy.
She begins to swap bodies intermittently with Taki Tachibana, a high school boy in Tokyo when they wake up. They used to chat by writing messages on paper, phones, and sometimes even on each other’s skin.
Mitsuha’s latest note tells Taki about the comet Tiamat expected to pass
Earth on the day of her town festival. The next day, Taki wakes up in his body, he tries to call Mitsuha, but cannot reach her, and the body-switching ends.
Not knowing the town’s name he has to rely on his memories of the scenery, he decides to meet her. He goes out in search of Mitsuha and finds out a mysterious truth about her and the town.
Those who are watching this movie for the first time might find it difficult
to understand. Overall it is an amazing movie with excellent animation.
It is actually the best wholesome anime ever and I suggest everyone watch it to have a wholesome experience.
2. GATE
GATE
Episodes: 24
Genre: Fantasy
Look at the majesty, it’s such a beauty of the fabric, the hard reflectiveness. Somewhere in Japan, there is this mysterious magical gateway that leads to a rather stereotypical fantasy universe where people still fight with bows and arrows.
There are some elves here and there and the occasional magic user. Japan ends up sending in a stereotypical otaku to defend the locals leading to many jokes about his particular taste in the local female population.
A fun fact about the author of the GATE, he was originally a JSDF grunt himself and incorporates a lot of realistic military INFO into the show. I adore the concept and idea behind GATE but the way it went about is rather stupid at times.
3. Wise Man’s Grandchild
Wise Man’s Grandchild
Episodes: 12
Genre: Magic, Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
In a modern world, a lonely man dies and reincarnates in another world. Rescued as a baby from a tragedy by a brilliant sage named ‘Merlin’, the baby raised as ‘Shin Wolford’ goes under magic and martial arts training to kill the monsters and demons around.
At 15 years old of age, he had already become extremely powerful, but his grandfather forgot to teach him the common sense of this world. A general theme for wholesome anime that will bring you happiness and blow your mind.
4. Anohana
Anohana
Episodes: 11
Genre: Supernatural, Drama, Slice of life
This show focuses on a group of friends who drifted apart after the death of one of their friends, Meiko aka Menma. The spirit of the girl returns for reasons you don’t realize in the beginning.
The only person that can actually see her is the leader of the group, Jintan, who has become a loner and basically seems like he has given up on lots of things in life after the death of Menma.
In his childhood days, he used to be like the awesomest ever. Be careful Jintan. So the story moves on with the friends trying to figure out what could be Menma’s wish so she can rest in heaven.
This show is another roller coaster of emotions flying everywhere which will definitely make you cry. Why hasn’t Menma moved on yet? What has kept Menma from going to heaven? It is sort of sad but still, it makes you so happy and nostalgic at the same time.
I cannot say what you feel about this anime but for me, Anohana is the most heartwarming wholesome anime I have ever watched.
5. Danmachi
Danmachi
Episodes: 37 + 3 OVAs
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Overall, Danmachi was a pretty darn good anime and has the same feel as an isekai or game anime (although it isn’t).
Bell’s struggle to level up and become strong enough to face is actually very fun to watch, although I wish he wasn’t only doing it for a girl.
6. The Devil is a Part-Timer
The Devil is a Part-Timer
Episodes: 13
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
As the show’s title says, The devil is really a part-timer. You don’t get to see a Demon Lord working in Mc Donalds to keep up with his rents and food.
The anime is filled with comedy and action. It gives a very refreshing experience. It’s a slice-of-life comedy with elements of fantasy but most importantly it’s not set in a school.
The story follows Sadao Maou, the former demon king of Ente Isla. After his defeat falling from the throne, he retreats with this General Ashiya to modern-day Japan losing all of their magical abilities in the process.
This anime is definitely the one I recommend to you the more due to its wholesomeness.
7. Aho Girl
Aho Girl
Episodes: 12
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Slice of Life
Aho Girl is a comedy anime, set in a high school about Yoshiko Hanabatake. Aho Girl is probably the funniest anime. It is about a girl that is very special everyone is going bananas over.
The characters are so likable that you’ll become a hoe and fall in love with all of them.
The idiot girl has a lot of great qualities like being able to eat a lot of bananas, being a bit too good with kids, and getting zero on all her exams.
It basically revolves around her being a complete dumbass and how the MC Akutsu reacts to it. I had to throw in this, this anime is the queen of wholesomeness.
8. Konohana Kitan
Konohana Kitan
Episodes: 12
Genre: Fantasy, Slice of Life
Konohana Kitan presents the heartwarming tale of Yuzu, a cheerful simple little fox girl who starts her first job as an attendant at Konohanatei, a traditional hot springs inn.
Konohana Kitan blends cute moments with precious Yuzu and is like a hidden gem. Yuzu starts her training while meeting other fellow employees.
Yuzu steadily learns the trade of an inn attendant while she learns to love the magical world surrounding her. Nothing is more wholesome than cute girls doing cute things!
9. Blood Lad
Blood Lad
Episodes: 10
Genre: Dark Comedy, Supernatural, Action
This is the story of a vampire who has zero interest in drinking human blood. Yes, you read that right.
The vampire is an otaku deeply in love with Japanese culture and mangas.
I can’t find other reasons not to watch this anime. Give it a shot and I’m sure you will love it.
10. Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou
Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou
Episodes: 12 + 8 Specials
Genre: Comedy, Slice of life
The Daily Lives of High School boys is about the monotonous grind of the normal life of high school students and is still hilariously fun.
It’s a Slice of Life shell, anime of normal boys who enjoy sitting by the riverside with a nice book and some quiet time.
It’s for doodles while on the phone and for anyone who enjoys the taste of toast in the morning. You like long walks on the beach, it’s definitely for you.
11. Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it
Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it
Episodes: 12
Genre: Comedy, Romance
This anime has a unique quirk to it. it is basically a very unique spin to something like defragging or gamers but for an adult audience extending the nerdiness to one extreme to the other.
Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it, pokes a lot of fun at the lack of experience in romance situations and there is also a male to a female character so it is no coincidence that people may feel that this is similar to Kaguya.
I really like this anime, it’s comedy trying to prove love with science. Doesn’t that sound wholesome?
It is an anime with charming, romantic high school students with awkwardness and cluelessness who are inexperienced in love.
12. Trinity Seven
Trinity Seven
Episodes: 12
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
Trinity Seven has a mediocre story, typical high-school setting, convoluted magic system.
Trinity Seven would have been completely average and forgettable if it wasn’t for its characters. Trinity Seven is an average harem carried by an astounding male lead and adorable pretty female characters.
We can see a very well-written script and the interactions of the characters with each other and their relationships.
13. Princess Connect! Re: Dive
Princess Connect! Re: Dive
Episodes: 13
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Princess Connect! Re: Dive is an anime based on mobile games that have become increasingly popular over the last few years. It is a good game adaptation and a wholesome time to get invested in.
The series takes place in an unknown world. Yuuki is awakened by a mysterious Goddess only to find out that he is sent to another world to uncover the truth and return his memory.
What exactly happened to the MC is that he lost his memory and can’t remember anything.
It is the outcome of impressive work with comedy and does not think about it as some serious isekai.
14. Outbreak Company
Outbreak Company
Episodes: 12
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
Outbreak Company is based on a fifteen volumes Light Novel of the same name and is a love letter to the media.
Otaku culture, as a medium, is often mocked as a low form of storytelling. In Outbreak Company, the doujinshi is mightier than the sword.
If our values are not the same and often times a conflict could arise for our differences.
Outbreak Company is foremost a comedy and also excels in that regard.
The comedic aspects and the stereotypes that were played out were kind of like the best.
15. Nisekoi
Nisekoi
Episodes: 20 + 3 OVAs
Genre: Comedy, Harem, Fantasy, Romance
To those of you who are curious, Nisekoi means ‘fake love’.
The series is called Nisekoi (Fake Love) because the male and female characters start out in a fake relationship that is meant to maintain the peace between their respective families.
There is an animated adaptation of Nisekoi that ran for a total of 20 episodes over the course of two seasons for those who prefer wholesome anime. Wholesomeness is what I want in my life, yeah!
16. Skilled Teaser Takagi San
Skilled Teaser Takagi San
Episodes: 24 + 1 OVA
Genre: Romantic Comedy, Slice of Life
One of the most refreshing wholesome anime out there is Skilled Teaser Takagi San. It really lightens your mood. If you are into romance then this show is perfect for you.
You will love to see the chemistry between the character Nishikata and Takagi.
The cuteness is too much to handle. Overall a very good anime to watch
17. My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!
My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!
Episodes: 12
Genre: Harem, Comedy, Romance, Isekai
My Next Life as a Villainess follows a young girl named Katarina Klaus and she is a self-entitled spoiled girl as hell. This anime is a refreshing take on isekai genre.
The whole anime series in one sentence:
“You either die the villain or live long enough to see yourself become the hero.”
There are a hundred stories just like it never left the Manga world. The reincarnation as a villain story is so overdone that it is practically a genre of its own.
18. The Helpful Fox Senko-san
The Helpful Fox Senko-san
Episodes: 12
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Slice of Life, Supernatural
I honestly fell in love with it. This wholesome anime soothes and helps comfy your mood. It helps me relax and is like a healing heartwarming anime. | https://medium.com/animebuddie/wholesome-anime-3b6be6c60227 | ['Anime Buddie'] | 2021-07-26 11:54:18.039000+00:00 | ['Anime', 'Wholesome Anime', 'Heartwarming Anime'] |
Adding Web Support for Flutter Apps | Prerequisites for the Blog
Having a basic understanding of the Workflow of making Flutter Apps & an inquisitive mind is more than enough to follow the blog 😃
Getting Started
Let us configure our system in order to create a flutter project with Web Support.
Requirements:
Flutter SDK. Check out this link for Flutter SDK: https://flutter.dev/docs/get-started/install Google Chrome Browser in order to test and debug the Web App. An I.D.E. that supports Flutter. Android Studio, Visual Studio Code are my recommendations. Check out this link for I.D.E.: https://flutter.dev/docs/get-started/editor
I would be using Android Studio as an I.D.E.
Creating a new Flutter Project with web support:
1. Open the Android Studio and create a new Flutter project as follows:
Click on start a new Flutter project
Flutter Application
Give Project name of your choice
2. Now open up the Terminal Window on Android Studio and write the following commands one by one:
flutter channel beta
flutter upgrade
flutter config --enable-web
Terminal Window in Android Studio
Wait till the process is complete and Dart SDK is configured. At the end the Terminal window would look something like this:
To see if the Process completed successfully, type in the following command on the Terminal Window:
flutter devices
It would display Chrome as a device where you can Debug your App. Phew! You have successfully configured your SDK. Now just restart the I.D.E.(Android Studio) to work further. After restarting, just type in the following command to run you Flutter Demo App by the Flutter Team on Chrome!
flutter run -d chrome
Google Chrome is listed as a device now
After the Command Completion your first flutter Web App will open up for debugging on Chrome:
Demo Web App in debug mode
Pretty Charming right? You have just run your Flutter App on the web. You can take advantage of Hot Reload by just pressing ‘R’ on the terminal to instantly see up your changes & to make your work fast/efficient.
Now let’s build your Flutter App for build Release.
Note: Flutter’s support for web development is not stable yet and hasn’t
been thoroughly tested in production environments. Hence, you may experience some troubles when you use some external plugins in your Flutter Project.
Type in the following command to include the web files in Flutter Project:
flutter create .
flutter create . (It creates Web Files in Flutter Root Project) | https://medium.com/nybles/adding-web-support-for-flutter-apps-a3a691626272 | ['Yukta Gopalani'] | 2020-12-04 09:31:40.053000+00:00 | ['Website', 'Github Pages', 'Web App Development', 'Flutter'] |
REST API using Kotlin Coroutines, Spring Webflux and R2DBC | REST API using Kotlin Coroutines, Spring Webflux and R2DBC
Step 1: Environment
Please prepare your environment with the following technologies:
Java 8 or newer
PostgreSQL
I recommend to install pgAdmin (which comes with the Windows PostgreSQL installer). It’s a great tool to manage your database during development!
The PostgreSQL configuration in this example:
database: test
user name: test
user password: 123456
Step 2: Initialize Project
Let’s go to start.spring.io and use the project builder.
start.spring.io
As you can see in the screenshot above, you must select Spring Reactive Web, Spring Data R2DBC, PostgreSQL Driver and Flyway Migration.
It is up to you to choose Java 8, Java 11 or even newer. I prefer Java 11.
Click on “Generate” and open your project with IntelliJ.
Step 3: Database Configuration
Let’s create the database schema.
src/main/resources/db/migration/V1__Initial.sql
Now set the credentials.
Important: These are credentials for your dev environment, set the real credentials via environment variables, do not put them in your source code!
src/main/resources/application.properties
Tell Flyway to use these credentials (unfortunately, it cannot do it automatically at the time of writing).
src/main/kotlin/com/example/demo/FlywayConfig.kt
Step 4: Initial Test
Is everything correct? Run the gradle command bootRun
Run server
PS: I recommend to use pgAdmin to check the results. Otherwise use the terminal.
Step 5: Logic
Let’s write the actual code!
src/main/kotlin/com/example/demo/database/Person.kt
This is your model and repository. You can write them in separate files or do it in one file. If your project is large, then I recommend to structure your project in model/ and repository/.
src/main/kotlin/com/example/demo/Dto.kt
Dto means Data Transfer Object. It is useful to hide your model and only communicate with DTOs to the outside world. Especially important if you are handling with passwords!
Usually you should also write your responses as DTOs but in this case I leave them out. So only requests are using DTOs in this example.
This is your controller. The controller handles the requests and returns the responses.
Step 6: Test your API
I recommend Insomnia to test your REST API. It’s a great and simple tool :)
Insomnia: Create a person
Insomnia: Get all people
Source Code
https://github.com/Tienisto/spring-boot-kotlin/tree/master/rest-r2dbc-flyway | https://medium.com/@tienisto/asynchronous-spring-using-kotlin-coroutines-and-r2dbc-93b3a079ac22 | ['Tien Do Nam'] | 2020-11-15 02:10:13.293000+00:00 | ['Spring Boot', 'R2dbc', 'Kotlin Coroutines', 'Spring', 'Kotlin'] |
Increasing triplet subsequence problem | Hi today, I have solved an algorithm issue (Increasing triplet subsequence) which is very interesting, I would like to share the solution.
Given an unsorted array return whether an increasing subsequence of length 3 exists or not in the array. Formally the function should: Return true if there exists i, j, k
such that arr[i] < arr[j] < arr[k] given 0 ≤ i < j < k ≤ n-1 else return false. Note: Your algorithm should run in O(n) time complexity and O(1) space complexity.
Example 1:
Input: [1,2,3,4,5]
Output: true
Example 2:
Input: [5,4,3,2,1]
Output: false
So the purpose is to check if there exists a sub-sequential 3 integers (a, b, c) who increases which means a < b < c in the array.
Taking the note into consideration, the algorithm should run in O(n) time and O(1) space.
Thus my thought is that
We define a minimal first element minOne which indicates the minimal element which is the 1st of the triplet.
And we defined a minimal second element minTwo which indicates the minimal element which is the 2nd of the triplet.
Then we iterate from the first element of the array to the last element of the array. For each item
1, If the item is smaller than minOne, we assign minOne to item because minOne records the minimal first item of the triplet
2, If the item is larger than minOne, we assign minTwo to Math.min(minTwo, item) because it means that it can be the 2nd item of the triplet and we use Math.min to find the smaller minTwo
3, If the item is larger than minTwo, we can say that we found the triplet and then we can return true to say there exists a triplet.
Until the end, we return false as we cannot find a triplet which increases.
Now it is the code show (in Java)
public boolean increasingTriplet(int[] nums) {
if (nums == null || nums.length < 3) {
return false;
}
int minOne = Integer.MAX_VALUE;
int minTwo = Integer.MAX_VALUE;
for (int num : nums) {
if (num < minOne) {
minOne = num;
}
if (num > minOne) {
minTwo = Math.min(num, minTwo);
}
if (num > minTwo) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
The one-way iteration takes O(n) time and we defined extra two variables minOne and minTwo which takes O(1) space.
And this is kind of dynamic programming which basically calculate the current result based on previous calculated result
Hope you enjoy this! | https://medium.com/@xiaogegexiao/increasing-triplet-subsequence-problem-995471b338f1 | ['Xiao Mei'] | 2019-02-14 12:19:33.089000+00:00 | ['Algorithms', 'Programming', 'Dynamic Programming', 'Arrays', 'Data Structures'] |
Zero Covid campaigners hit back at “failed three-tier system”. | A socially-distanced “Zero Covid” rally took place earlier today in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester.
Disappointed with the way that the government has dealt with the Covid crisis so far, supporters of the movement are continuing to push the Zero Covid strategy as a viable option.
The campaign demands the implementation of stronger restrictions, an improved test and trace service to be run by the public sector, better pay for those unable to work during the pandemic, only “Covid Safe” workplaces open, as well as severe limits on travel.
“Zero Covid to save lives and livelihoods”
One of the speakers at the event, Dr Emma Runswick of the British Medical Association, compared the implementation of the Zero Covid Strategy in other countries with the UK’s lack thereof: “In New Zealand, they are now having sporting events, dancing events, nightclubs opened, etcetera.
“We want this rally to put pressure on the government, MPs, companies, employers and the media. This government could choose to protect livelihoods, but they have chosen not to.”
As outlined in a press release statement on the campaign website Zero Covid, one of the demands is that the government cover 100% of the wages of employees who cannot work during the pandemic, something which Hilda Palmer of the Hazard’s Campaign appeared to be particularly impassioned about: “There are masses of resources and there are lies that they haven’t got enough money. They have spent £12 billion on a track and trace app that doesn’t work!
“They’re pouring money into the pockets of their chums. It is corruption.”
Spectators at the Zero Covid rally.
Despite the rate of infection rates in Manchester steadily decreasing, the city still remains in Tier 3.
Simultaneous rallies formed by the same organisation also occurred in other major cities across the UK as part of the campaign’s “Day of Action”, including Edinburgh, London, Newcastle, Preston and Wellingborough.
Leaders of the movement encouraged attendees and spectators to support the programme by joining the campaign, meeting with their local Zero Covid group and spreading awareness of future rallies. | https://medium.com/@rhiannabenson1002/zero-covid-campaigners-hit-back-at-failed-three-tier-system-366d297b53e | ['Rhianna Benson'] | 2020-12-17 16:33:34.104000+00:00 | ['Manchester', 'Protest', 'Covid 19', 'Government', 'Coronavirus'] |
CyClean and Cryptocurrencies — Digital Currencies, A New Form of Payment | What comes to your mind when you think of currencies? Some people might think of paper while others might think of metal or a plastic card. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) just recently posted a picture that shows the evolution of money that people have used since the beginning of human civilization.
As you guys probably have realized, humans evolve, and so do their tools. In my opinion, this picture posted by IMF is a huge victory for those who are passionate about cryptocurrencies because this picture suggests that international organizations like the IMF officially recognize the usefulness of cryptocurrencies.
Why People Started Paying Attention to Digital Money
Money is a commodity. This means that money also evolves like other commodities in the market. Consider computers, cell phones and other goods and services in the free market. Every product in the market progresses to attract more consumers. So does money.
In 2008, people suffered from the economic crisis that was the result of an artificially created housing bubble. This bubble was caused by low interest rates and fiat money created out of thin air. The fundamental problem of this crisis is the fact that the central bank (also known as the Federal Reserve Bank in the U.S.) has the authority to print as much money as they want. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, lowered the interest rate to encourage people to borrow and invest money more easily, and this caused malinvestment. Satoshi Nakamoto understood the fundamental problem behind fiat money and decided to invent digital gold that people can send and receive instantly without a 3rd party getting involved. In this context, the 3rd party is a bank. And thus, Bitcoin as born as a digital currency.
A New Era
At first, Bitcoin was ignored by economists as well as computer engineers. However, people gradually noticed the potential of Bitcoin. Early investors like Roger Ver, Charles Hoskinson, Dan Larimer, and Vitalik Buterin realized that decentralized digital currencies can reshape this world, and each of them created alternative coins that can supplement what Bitcoin lacks. And now, CyClean has created a token that adds to Bitcoin’s original function as a digital currency. In this way, we are seeing more cryptocurrencies emerge.
And this is where Bitcoin began to be accepted as a currency. More recently, the US Security and Exchange Council (SEC) announced that Bitcoin and Ethereum are not securities. Many people around the world are starting to see Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as alternatives to fiat and centralized money. We are living in a very interesting, new era, and we are excited to see how CyClean plays a part in this revolution. | https://medium.com/cyclean-coin/cyclean-and-cryptocurrencies-digital-currencies-a-new-form-of-payment-df1f3915b0b1 | [] | 2018-06-22 05:04:48.850000+00:00 | ['Cyclean', 'ICO', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Newpayment'] |
Paint It Black: 7 Dark & Moody Kitchens to Enjoy All Year Long | It’s the color of choice for tuxedos, limos and chic little dresses. Black is luxurious, mysterious and it has gravitas — and in 2019 it’s been bringing all that badness to kitchens all over the world.
This fascination with dark, moody kitchens is a natural reflex to the white kitchens that have been so dominant for the past decade — so are all the other colors trending now.
“Everyone is looking for spaces that are moody and cozy and comforting,” says Sarah Robertson, principal designer at Studio Dearborn in Westchester County, New York. “Black makes the walls recede.”
Black is also a natural foil for the light wood and stone floors that are popular right now, too.
Even if you’re not thinking about taking your home kitchen to the dark side, you’ll still be inspired by these seven examples of black kitchens. Some are small, some are sleek and modern, others are cozy and comfortable. But no matter how you look at it, black is beautiful.
Photo credit: Tatiana Shishkina
Black Russian. This ultra compact, 24-square-meter (that’s 250 square feet) apartment designed by Tatiana Shishkina of Inroom Design in Vladivostok, Russia has just a slip of a kitchen. But with its textured walls, jewel-like appliances and white shelf and simple dining counter, it says so much. The best part may be the way she used skeletal stairs to divide the kitchen from the rest of the flat.
Photo credit: Ken Fulk
Black gold. Ken Fulk’s wonderfully warm black kitchen spans classic, farmhouse and midcentury. He collaborated with KitchenAid to outfit the Tribeca loft that’s his new East Coast headquarters. The matte black cabinetry features bright bin pulls and brass luggage corners.
Photo credit: Nicole Hollis
All black everything. California designer Nicole Hollis went all in on black to create this stunning kitchen for her San Francisco studio. We love how the shiny glass tile adds light and reflectivity. Using a range of finishes from the glossy to matte creates its own kind of palette, even though everything is black — save the salt. | https://medium.com/studio-dearborn-kitchen-design-journal/paint-it-black-7-dark-moody-kitchens-to-enjoy-all-year-long-e21fdbbdd2cf | ['Maria C. Hunt'] | 2019-10-31 17:35:06.152000+00:00 | ['Kitchen Interior Design', 'Design', 'Kitchen', 'Black Kitchen Ideas', 'Interior Design'] |
Limits of the Unable. | “Cannot” leaves the ownership of limits at someone else’s feet.
Being “unable” bring limits to the user. When owned permission to reason and explore change comes naturally.
We live in a world where people with no legs can run faster than those with two.
Paralympians take ownership of their inability transforming it to enduring and adaptable ability.
In any exchange ask….What or who is creating my “cant”? More importantly, can I take that ownership back? Become unable too own and expand what limits. | https://medium.com/@kfdurrant/limits-of-the-unable-9b8eb3005c89 | ['Karl Durrant'] | 2020-12-09 23:14:28.520000+00:00 | ['Psychology', 'Expanding', 'Limiting Beliefs', 'Insights', 'Acceptance'] |
Ginny Good: Chapter 16, Clift Hotel (January, 1965) | Ginny lost the watch pin in North Beach. We’d gone up there to be at the Jazz Workshop at midnight. It was the two-year anniversary of the night we met — which brings me to a point at which I don’t have to rely quite so completely on what’s left of my piecemeal memory. Ha! Yippee!
I have a little green diary of stuff I wrote about during the first nine days of 1965. The diary begins with a list of Ginny’s New Year’s Resolutions. They’re in her handwriting and no doubt speak for themselves:
“Gerry will: 1) Persistently, unrelentingly, write at least 3 pages every day, 2) Tell the truth each day about the above, 3) Eat like a hog and become fatter, 4) Get the scholarship to Stanford by next year, (this means writing stories, attending State and APPLYING to Stanford), 5) Take me to a swank hotel once a month and out for dinner and to a culturally and intellectually stimulating event, 6) Keep his apartment clean and neat at least 5 days a week; this resolution may be waived only in the event that Gerry is immersed in writing — at which time slobdom is permitted, 7) Make money — lots of it, 8) Not be sexually narcissistic except if he is absolutely compelled by frustration for a period of seven (7) days, and 9) Read at least one book a week.”
Hey, wait a minute, how come Ginny’s New Year’s Resolutions were all things I was supposed to do? What the hell was she was supposed to do? I don’t think either of us ever knew. Oh, well. Then comes a little preamble in my handwriting — which I barely recognize anymore. Who was this kid?
“Perhaps the most ominous prospective New Year’s Eve I’ve ever experienced began with Ginny on the threshold of acute nuttiness. She was to have gone out to dinner with Tom and his mother — a situation that was scary for various reasons, guilt about her relationship with Tom in his mother’s eyes, how she gets around Christmas, etc. She, in short, didn’t go and came over to my house (in a very beautiful but depressed state). We checked into the Clift Hotel, had a bottle of champagne and went out to a dinner of filet mignon and shish kebab at Omar Khayyam’s.
From there we went by cable car to North Beach to be at the Jazz Workshop (where we had met two years ago) at midnight.
Somewhere in the wild, mad confetti crowd, Ginny lost her new beautiful watch and was sick all night.”
After that, the day-to-day diary begins:
“Friday, January 1: Ginny and I woke up in our huge bed between sweet yellow sheets, puttered around with TV for awhile and finally slept again ’til 12:40 in the afternoon. I got a small bottle of good champagne and we drank it in front of the city from the edge of the bed. We went to lunch at David’s (lox, pickled herring, sauerbraten, blintzes and pastry) that we took with us to the movie ‘Goldfinger’ that evening.
Afterwards, we cleaned my apartment and went happily to bed.”
“January 2: Ginny was to stay in bed all day for her cold. I read to her and rubbed her back while she rested. I made a police report for her lost watch and called about apartments for us to rent. At 4:00 she went to the doctor’s and from there we again had drinks at Omar Khayyam’s. I let Ginny drink. I was happy and confident and she was loving me. Ginny’s drinking resulted in a horribly painful psychotic episode in which she smashed my typewriter and gouged a long slice of skin from my back. I was stupid and sorry for letting her drink (like I was daring her psychotic counterpart to emerge amidst all this love, as though love was a weapon to overcome Ginny’s demons). It didn’t work. I cried very softly, she harder.”
“January 3. Sunday: I knew it was morning when Ginny kissed me, her cheek on my shoulder. She seemed better but embarrassed and shaky. I cleaned the kitchen and bought groceries. She stayed in bed but any favorable responses to food or reading or back rubs grew less and less spontaneous as the day went by. Finally she was a sick girl again — strangely sick, mostly weak, tired, nervous — aftermath from last night I guess. She went to Tom’s and watched television.”
“January 4: I went quickly dressing and not shaving late to work today — extra talkative for some reason. At noon Sabine called. She wanted me to meet her that night. I took my clothes to the laundry and cleaners, then went to Sabine’s. We talked. I got drunk and pretty sick. Ginny came over and made me feel much better.”
“January 5: There was no hangover today and I ran excitedly on coffee and nervous energy, manic as hell. At noon I seduced Ginny, then laughingly took her home (to Tom’s). After work I took a bus downtown and walked in the windy rain for an hour with no coat, trying to get my typewriter fixed. Finally I traded it for an electric. Picked up my laundry, came home, called Ginny late and started writing. After I’d written a bit, I called Ginny again. She was sick-drunk and on her way over here. We laughed. I dictated to her and she typed. She got out of her nuttiness quickly and was loving me for typing. I got aroused, realized I couldn’t work any more. I was tired and went to bed. We made love nicely, pretty much all for me. I think it’s less enjoyable if Ginny doesn’t have an orgasm.”
“January 6: Pretty uneventful. I came home at noon, washed my face and got in the mail all nine Beethoven Symphonies.
(Beethoven, Ninth Symphony)
Ginny was here. We looked witty and irritably at each other. She said I kiss either like a fairy or too femininely, so I kissed her coarsely — she probably thought I was reacting and therefore it was phony (as perhaps it was a bit, but not that much). I don’t like her to ask me questions like, ‘What are you thinking?’ when I’m doing something to her which might be construed as a vent for some kind of queer tendencies. They’re not, but if I say so, she’ll wonder why then did it cross my mind. When I got home, I took a long bath and finished ‘Herzog.’ Beautifully done — writing and ideas.”
“January 7: I couldn’t get out of Bed (capital letters, like God) this morning. I slept ’til one-thirty. Missed an appointment at noon to bring some clothes over to Sabine’s and was slightly disappointed to find that at so late in the afternoon, Ginny hadn’t missed receiving a call. My stove doesn’t work. I paid my rent and bought a shoeshine kit from the Fuller Brush man. I worked ten hours straight writing Ginny’s Luft paper while listening to all nine of the Beethoven Symphonies.
(Beethoven, Ninth Symphony)
When singing burst out in the last one — after eight without any — it scared the crap out of me.”
“January 8: Friday: Was an hour late for work. At noon I took some clothes over to Sabine’s in order to set up our phony apartment. After work I got the gasman to fix my stove and talked with Mrs. Rousseau for a long time. She might be able to let me rent one of the huge beautiful apartments for Ginny and me. I worked on as much more of the Luft paper as I could without having the proper Jung quote. Ginny called me from the Hub Tavern. She had walked out on the symphony and was more angry-drunk than nutty. She came over. We had drinks in the big room and we painfully made love — apologizing and making up later calmly, truly.”
“January 9: Saturday: Elliot came bouncing up to the window in front of which Ginny and I were having a salami, cheese and French bread breakfast.
(Beethoven, Ninth Symphony)
He had been to the zoo. We talked, listened to some stories Elliot told about Vietnam and Thailand and then the three of us went to Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. Ginny and Elliot paddled themselves around in a paddleboat for a while, just the two of them.
I was quiet and a bit uncomfortable. Ginny was a marvelous hostess and Elliot was interestingly nerve jangling — to me at any rate. We took Ginny to her Doc. Elliot and I tonight had another episode of mutual irritation. He asked my permission (half just to make me squirm and half seriously) to take Ginny to Squaw Valley next weekend. That, in the frail state Ginny, myself and ourselves are in, was not the right thing to have asked for reasons I’m not going to go into.”
At that point, the diary skips a month — in fact, the only other entry in the whole thing is that on February 17, Ginny went to the hospital to get an abortion. It was before they were legal. We had to go through all kinds of rigmarole.
Reading these diary entries reminds me what kids the three of us were, doing the things kids have been doing forever — falling in love, irritating each other, running into predictable complications, figuring them out as best we could. We’re still figuring things out as best we can. Well, some of us are. I am. Fuck.
Which brings me back to Elliot “bouncing” up to our kitchen window. Everything up to now has led to Elliot bouncing up to our kitchen window that Saturday, and everything from now on is going to lead to what Ginny and Elliot and Melanie and I all tried to do with each other back in the summer of 1972. Keep that date in mind. Saturday, January 9, 1965. That was the first time Elliot flat-out tried to steal Ginny away from me. That was the beginning of everything. Could he take her to Squaw Valley? Ha! No. He couldn’t. He could stick Squaw Valley up his ass. | https://medium.com/@gerardjones/ginny-good-chapter-16-clift-hotel-january-1965-f82e1949c895 | ['Gerard Jones'] | 2021-05-09 13:38:49.771000+00:00 | ['Narrative Nonfiction', 'San Francisco', 'Diary', 'Beethoven', 'Writing'] |
My Best Online Dating Horror Stories | My Best Online Dating Horror Stories
The most popular of my Cupid Tinder Match series
Katie Dutch — used with permission
You’ve laughed, you’ve cried, you’ve thrown things at the wall in solidarity with me over the myriad heinous online dating horror stories from my indentured servitude wading through the Bog of Eternal Stench that is OKCupid and Tinder.
I’m finally off the market! And it’s my two year anniversary of writing on Medium. To celebrate, I’ve rounded up the top ten most popular Cupid Tinder Match stories for your reading pleasure.
Please enjoy getting frustrated, bewildered, shocked, and angry with me all over again!
1. Mr. Impatient
2. Are You Ready For Some Football?
3. The Comedian
4. Is That Code?
5. French Guy in LA
6. Bakersfield
7. They’re Not ALL Terrible Stories
8. Definitely a Professional
9. Indirect Pass
10. Cause of Death: Boredom | https://medium.com/digital-dating-for-dummies/my-best-online-dating-horror-stories-a2a6580b9d23 | ['Niki Marinis'] | 2019-04-05 19:27:49.569000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Online Dating', 'Dating', 'Relationships', 'Life'] |
How Should You hire Deep Cleaning Services Hyderabad in 2022? | This content will help you all to understand how can you hire the services of the best deep cleaning service providers in 2022.
We love to clean our home on daily basis, not only this, we love to keep our home well clean for special occasions like new year parties and other loveliest occasions. Therefore, at one time or the other in our lives, we want to pursue cleaning activities for our home. But merely cleaning on daily basis won’t make out a perfect schedule, instead we can opt for hiring Deep Cleaning Services Hyderabad. But in 2022, we should at least give a note towards how should we hire the services of deep cleaning service providers to make their cleaning tasks go smart.
What are the Perfect Platforms to Hire for the Deep Cleaning Services Hyderabad?
Hiring the services of deep cleaning service providers is an important task to make our sweet abode clean. Therefore, if you are trying to hire deep cleaning services in the year 2022 , you must keep yourself abreast in the technology and ensure to hire the services of the best deep cleaning service providers via scouting the internet.
, you must keep yourself abreast in the technology and ensure to hire the services of the best deep cleaning service providers via scouting the internet. If you want to hire the services of the top deep cleaning service providers, you can ask for recommendations from your family members, friends, and other acquaintances. It will help you get the best choices from various sources for deep cleaning services.
If you want to pick the services of the best deep cleaning service providers, the best choice is to hire for the services of the top online portals such as ZoopGo . We will help you get in touch with the best and verified deep cleaning service providers.
. We will help you get in touch with the best and verified deep cleaning service providers. In the age of instagram, you can also check out the Instagram handles for picking the top 5 deep cleaning service providers.
Final Fame:
With these ideas you can pick the best deep cleaning service providers and ensure making your home cleaning journey go at the best pace. If you are still looking for any other services say, Pest Control in Hyderabad, you can contact ZoopGo to hire for the services of the best pest control services who are completely verified by our staff. | https://medium.com/@priyaagrahari07286/how-should-you-hire-deep-cleaning-services-hyderabad-in-2022-f8f6d6cb6f8c | ['Priya Agrahari'] | 2021-12-22 04:40:09.157000+00:00 | ['Deep Cleaning Service', 'Hyderabad', 'Cleaning', '2022'] |
Trans-Continental Christmas | Trans-Continental Christmas
If I pay extra, will USPS deliver a hug?
What does it cost to ship love from Atlanta to Seattle? You don’t want to know.
On our daughter’s second Christmas morning, she opened a toy house handmade by her grandmother. Constructed of stiff cardboard covered with fabric, it was lovingly decorated with tiny furniture and a photo of our little girl on the wall.
Her next gift, from us, was a Fisher Price farm. Barn doors opened to reveal a plastic sheep, cow and chicken. The tiny farmer and his wife were perfect for the house Grammy had made.
Our toddler turned her sweet face from one treasure to the other, eyes wide with wonder, and finally announced, “I have a house and a farm. I have everything.”
That was some 30 Christmases ago. Traditions have been born and matured. Each child gets a new ornament, something to symbolize the year’s events. There’s a tiny drum set, miniature ballet slippers, a blown glass Mario, karate belt, pewter dragon, two skylines — Atlanta and Seattle — and dozens more meaningful trinkets.
Everyone gets new pajamas for Christmas Eve. Wouldn’t want to greet Santa in last year’s pjs, now would we?
I suspected late last summer that the flight from Seattle to Atlanta might get a thumbs-down from the youngsters. Nothing was said because neither child wanted to disappoint mother. So, in late October, I asked.
They gave the answer one would expect from two bright and careful children. A text from our 29-year-old son said it all: “I’d feel awful for the rest of my life if my coming back for the holidays led to one or both of you contracting Covid.”
So there it was. Obviously, I can mail this year’s ornaments and pajamas to the west coast, but what about the rest of our traditions?
For the past several Christmas Eves, we have each made an appetizer and enjoyed four delicious creations for dinner. This year it will be a fancy drink and Zoom happy hour, sure to be made fun by our almost-son-in-law, who loves to create in the kitchen. But it won’t be the same.
We’re a big game-playing family and Hearts has always been a favorite. In December, it is “awards season”, with trophies and speeches and very silly fanfare. Instead, we’ll play online and bestow the honors remotely. We’ll have fun but, of course, it won’t be the same.
Then there is Moe the penguin. He was originally a package decoration I tried to throw away. The kids rescued Moe and we went on from there, with me pretending to victimize this character and them exalting him.
Moe has a tiny cage and coffin as well as a star and top hat. Our little friend is missing a foot and most of his feathers. He could be tortured and revered online, of course, but maybe Moe gets a well-earned break this year because — you guessed it — it just isn’t the same.
I usually buy each child a board game but, hearing about the popularity of jigsaw puzzles this year, decided to go with that. Besides, it’s too sad to have a new game and nobody to play with. I even got them a puzzle mat, a nifty little gadget that allows you to roll up your project when the only table in your 700-square-foot place needs to be used for cooking, eating and remote work.
Stockings? I bought a couple cheapies, filled them with little toys and necessities (we’re big believers in zinc for colds and who doesn’t need a nose flute?) I sewed the top closed and shipped those off as well.
But what will we do without kids home at Christmas for the first time in 30 years? I’ve bought us a couple new two-player games. We’ll take long hikes and continue to work on our ping pong game. Maybe we will learn to play something together on the piano.
Holiday plans for two are in the works and no, it won’t be at all the same. Still, looking at the current state of affairs, I can’t help being reminded of that Christmas morning so long ago.
I have my family and my health. I have everything. | https://medium.com/crows-feet/trans-continental-christmas-952b1cb04949 | ['Cindy Shore Smith'] | 2020-12-07 19:18:50.466000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Family', 'Love', 'Christmas', 'Life'] |
Joe Biden Was Nobody’s First Pick. Thank God. | The president-elect was a tepid compromise candidate in an era when politics runs on wild-eyed fandom. It’s a relief.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
The most promising thing in American politics right now is that no one really likes Joe Biden. My only hope is that Joe Biden doesn’t try to fix this anytime soon.
To be clear: I don’t hate Joe Biden. He does nothing to inspire the visceral anger and fear I felt toward his predecessor. He’s the generic, semi-competent white man I wound up with after my hopes for several better Democratic candidates fell through. For most of the Democrats and left-leaning voters I know, Joe Biden is just that: the last available option, the human safety school. He’s the nice-enough boy you go to the dance with when your true love asks someone else.
Presidents, more than most politicians, run on mystique and emotional connection. There are plenty of dull and competent senators out there — Joe Biden was one of them for decades — but when you become the focus for an entire nation, that nation typically demands to be entertained. In my lifetime — which, to be fair, began in an era presided over by literal movie star Ronald Reagan — most presidents have been brands as much as people, embraced not just for themselves but for what the choice says about their supporters. Presidential candidates tend to cultivate mythic auras and marketable personalities: Bernie Sanders, the wild-haired revolutionary, or Hillary Clinton, the crest of the feminist second wave, or Barack Obama, simultaneously the cooler-than-thou college friend and clarion prophet of hope. Even Bill Clinton’s saxophone thing, I’m told, seemed cool at the time.
At least during my lifetime, when Democrats have run tolerable but unexciting white guys — your Al Gores, your John Kerrys — those guys lost. The same has held true for Republicans, though not to the same extent. George H.W. Bush inherited Reagan’s seat, in part because of Reagan’s popularity and in part because he ran against an even less charismatic white guy, Michael Dukakis; his son would have the similar advantage of competing against Gore. But just look at Mitt Romney. Biden broke the pattern because he ran against the most unpopular and disastrous president of the modern age. Most Americans felt that anything would be better than a second Trump term, and Biden was the “anything” on offer. Thus, for the first time since at least 2008, we wind up with a president who has so little star quality that even his defenders are reduced to backhanded compliments: “There’s nothing wrong with Biden’s performance,” enthused Ezra Klein at Vox. Peter Wehner, at The Atlantic, called him an “average political talent,” noting that “what stood out about him was his longevity more than his achievements,” and this is in an article about how much he likes the guy. And seemingly nobody considered him a first choice. Even Obama, Biden’s former boss, advised him not to run. Twice.
This is all for the good. Public affection for Biden, if it existed, would only shield him from the scrutiny and criticism he continues to deserve. He’s a president who believes that “abortion is always wrong,” taking office just in time to preside over the likely fall of Roe v. Wade; a president who prizes moderation and stability in a time when only drastic action will resolve climate change; a president who believes in bipartisanship and consensus building at a time when the Republican Party has drifted toward fascism and grown suspicious of democracy. Biden seems incurious about the leftward drift among the party’s younger voters. His rumored cabinet picks range from the merely uninspiring (Janet Yellen) to the actively atrocious (Rahm Emanuel, who covered up a murder). His vision is, specifically, an America in which “nothing will fundamentally change”; his job was to depose Trump, which he did, but without Trump in the picture, it’s easier to notice that “nothing changing” also means “nothing getting better.”
He isn’t a savior or an imaginary friend or a father figure; he’s just someone we elected to do a job.
There have been attempts to polish Biden’s persona. There was the “cool Uncle Joe” Onion caricature during the Obama years, though that was mostly a reflection of the shimmer coming off Obama himself. More recently, he’s been painted as a font of tender sentiment: the mourner-in-chief, endowed with “beautiful” empathy, someone whose “superpower [is] his ability to comfort and listen and connect with people,” the nurturing daddy we always needed, etc. This is all standard campaign stuff, intended to forge emotional connection with the brand. It is also all bullshit; someone with superhuman empathy would not believe abortion to be wrong, would not have railroaded Anita Hill, and would not sneak up behind a female colleague at a work event and kiss her without permission, as Joe Biden is said to have done.
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Attempts to make Joe Biden into some kind of national father figure or likable pal are misguided and completely beside the point. The single biggest benefit of the Biden presidency is that voters aren’t expected to care about the guy. He isn’t a savior or an imaginary friend or a father figure; he’s just someone we elected to do a job.
Look, if Kirsten Gillibrand or Elizabeth Warren had won the nomination, I’d be peppering my social media feeds with praise and photos and trivia about their dogs. If and when AOC runs, I expect to be insufferable on her behalf. Yet there’s something deeply toxic about turning every presidency into a cult of personality. Donald Trump was a personality cult and almost nothing but; he was elevated to a position he clearly wasn’t fit for simply because he was a celebrity, and for his supporters, his loud, bullying bigotry felt like vicarious release. Even as the country collapsed into a flaming, disease-ridden heap around him, Trump kept throwing rallies, relishing the chance to perform for his audience. And his audience kept showing up.
It’s easy to think you’re above this sort of thing. Yet the messianic fervor with which many left-leaning voters embraced Obama, or Bernie Sanders, was no more grounded in reality. It has become customary, especially on social media, to turn elections into fandom wars, to treat preferred candidates like sports teams or pop stars (the #KHive, Kamala Harris’ dedicated fan base, is explicitly modeled on Beyoncé’s #Beyhive) and descend upon unbelievers with stannish fervor. This has made the electoral discourse a site of more or less constant harassment and abuse; though the atmosphere of apocalyptic conflict led to high turnout in the Trump years, over time, undecided voters are likely to tune out of the conversation if staying in it means getting death threats. A democracy doesn’t function when people don’t feel safe making their choice. For those who have gotten sucked in — and, again, I include myself — the atmosphere instills a kind of combat-based tunnel vision: We can be so determined to protect “our” candidates from bad-faith criticism that we dismiss even legitimate concerns.
Framing candidates as perfect or superhuman might help them win elections, but it hurts them in the long run. In the case of Barack Obama, many of his supporters turned on him the moment it became clear he could not reverse decades of political polarization or centuries of American racism just by getting elected. The virulent anger Obama currently inspires on some parts of the left is, yes, grounded in policy — drone wars, deportations — but it’s also grounded in the expectation that he could single-handedly fix every problem caused by George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency or force a Republican Congress to pass single-payer health care by sheer force of will. We built Obama up to be Superman, then yelled at him for not being able to fly.
Joe Biden sometimes seemed to be the only serious presidential candidate without a fandom at his back, and his victory is, at least, an opportunity to get some peace and quiet. We can stop treating the president like a friend or a fashion choice and focus on how well he does his job. I didn’t vote for a daddy or a demigod. I voted for the guy who can sign his name to the executive order relieving my family’s student debt. If Joe Biden does that, I don’t need to like him, and if he doesn’t, I don’t really care how nice he is. I don’t expect this presidency, or any other, to single-handedly resolve problems centuries in the making, nor do I believe any politician when he says that “he alone can fix” what ails us. I just want someone who does more good than harm with the power they’re given, and if that balance tips in the other direction, I want them gone.
There is every reason to worry about how Joe Biden will use his power. There were also reasons to worry about every other candidate on the ballot. Elections are the beginning of the work, not the end, and with Biden, the need to hold him accountable doesn’t come as a surprise. It’s a bigger blessing than you’d think. For once, we can stop thinking about whether we like the president and start thinking about whether his decisions are good for us. We can stop caring about Joe Biden and start caring about ourselves. | https://medium.com/@zydy4t5dox/joe-biden-was-nobodys-first-pick-thank-god-94f227907fc8 | [] | 2020-12-16 17:36:53.886000+00:00 | ['Biden', 'Democrats', 'USA', 'Election 2020', 'Politics'] |
DetroitCoin: Bitcoin is the new vehicle currency | Detroit can serve as a key for those looking to unlock the code of American economic history. Its pivotal role in the economy, its sensitivity to Federal policy, and its saliency as a symbol make it the perfect tool for combustion analysis.
I was born in Detroit and raised in Detroit. I graduated from a school named Renaissance. Our mascot was the Phoenix. Detroit’s motto is Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus — ‘We hope for better things; it will rise from the ashes’. For the past century the internal combustion engine has been the beating and erstwhile ailing heart of the City. The mere mention of Detroit brings to mind images of industry, factories, and of course cars. This might lead many people to think that lifeblood of the City is oil. But another lubricant — fiat money — has at least as legitimate a claim.
This might lead many people to think that lifeblood of the City is oil. But another lubricant — fiat money — has at least as legitimate a claim.
In 1913, Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law. The Act was in some ways a response to the Panic of 1907, an aftershock of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. It established the central bank of the United States with the goal of promoting economic growth & stability and thwarting systemic crises. Chicago won out over Detroit as one of the new system’s regional seats.
Credit, is often given to mass production for making durable goods such as automobiles and radios affordable for the masses. But this is only part of the story. The importance of consumer financing cannot be overemphasized. Following WWI, low interest rates fomented the expansion of credit. And new institutions like General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) (founded in 1919) funded a ballooning of durable goods purchases. The age’s greatest industrial genius, Henry Ford, was hapless against the financial innovations of General Motor’s chief Alfred Sloan. By 1940 Ford’s US market share had fallen by two-thirds while GM’s had almost quadrupled, making it the greatest private industrial institution in global history. The expansion of credit through the Federal Reserve’s low interest rates made it cheaper and cheaper for consumers to borrow money to purchase durable goods like cars. This led to a boom for the auto industry and a boon for autoworkers who went on to do things like fill the nation’s theaters, buy more cars, radios & other durable goods, and funnel more money back into the system. Over the 1920’s the City’s population nearly doubled, bringing immigrants from Europe and the American South to work in auto plants. Low interest rates also helped to fund the construction boom in Detroit’s downtown, with most of the City’s gems hailing from this period. Detroit’s engines were roaring.
Gem.
The initial result of an expansion of the money supply is increased expenditures, but eventually, with more and more money chasing the same number of goods, prices begin to rise. As prices rise so do business costs, and as business costs rise, profits fall. Investments made based on artificial liquidity signals begin to go sour, stock prices propped up by artificial demand and artificial profits plummet. Wealth, which seemingly appeared from thin air, disappears just as quickly. As more and more of the phantom cash which funded consumer expenditures (on cars for example) disappears, economic activity declines in a vicious autocatalytic cycle. History books are chocked full of stories and images of traders in New York losing their shirts in the stock market Crash of 1929. But the Depression hit harder in Detroit. After the waves of the crash reverberated through the economy, the auto industry employed a fraction of the workforce at a fraction of the wage that had previously attracted so many to the City. The Federal Reserve’s monetary policies had caused the bubbles and busts that it had been created to prevent. The auto industry was built largely on the flow of cheap credit of the 1920s. When that flow collapsed, the industry and the City built on it nearly did as well.
With another, and in this case unprecedented, economic crisis playing itself out on the great American stage, the Federal Government once again answered the resounding call for dramatic action. With riots and strikes breaking out across the country, and one particularly bloody one at Ford’s River Rouge plant in 1932, the government needed an antidote for Red Revolution and perhaps the most definitive restructuring of American society to date proved to be the potion. Hoping that giving people a greater stake in their society by encouraging property ownership would placate the masses, the Federal government, as a part of FDR’s New Deal implemented the federal programs most responsible for the current structure of American society. The programs were made possible in part by the creation of now notorious institutions like Fannie Mae, and the Federal Reserve’s once again low, low interest rates.
The global social crisis which grew in part out of America’s financial crisis created conditions perfect for the rise of fascism. Europeans demanded dramatic action and received some of the most horrifying performances in human history. This indirect product of monetary mayhem pushed Detroit to the top of the largest industrial operation in world history. The automotive industry survived until the trickle of money from consumers turned into a flood from the government with Detroit serving as the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ and the workhorse of the Allied war effort. The city’s factories were once again brimming with activity, though this time they were rolling out matériel for war and not the luxury cars of the boom years. The Guardian Building, an Art Deco masterpiece in the City’s center served as the command and control center for US wartime production. The nation’s first freeway was constructed to ensure good contact between inner Detroit and outer ring factories. The uptick in production and the development of infrastructure to support it was funded by the largest ever expansion of the national debt, which in turn the Federal Reserve helped to monetize by expanding the supply of money through the purchase of government bonds.
With the close of the war, the historical stage was set for another post-war boom era. Luxury cars again began rolling off the factory floors and the City reached its peak population of almost 2 million. The transformations in real-estate finance of the 1930s and the buildup of infrastructure of the 1940s sowed the seeds of a new social structure and a new American Dream that began to come to fruition in the 1950s: a suburban detached home, owned by (mortgaged to) the occupier, with, of course, a two car garage. This brought about a demographic transformation as dramatic as the one the City underwent in the first half of the 20th century. The structure of the City was gradually completely remade, ostensibly along the lines of credit-worthiness, in fact along lines of race. Blacks were not offered their piece of the property pie and were forced to remain renters in the inner-city while whites formed an ever receding ring around the City’s center. Tensions between the two groups grew until the expression of grievances by the City’s African American population took a violent turn in July of 1967. The riots helped to complete what the freeways had started. Whites began leaving the City in droves, with their tax dollars, for a piece of the suburban pie. Inflation in the 1970s, exacerbated by OPEC price fixing, further damaged the competitiveness of Detroit’s auto industry. These forces worked together to give us the City as we know it today, with an anemic economy and a population divided by color and credit. | https://medium.com/inbitbox/detroitcoin-bitcoin-is-the-new-vehicle-currency-cd6c4afd625a | [] | 2017-04-20 16:40:22.741000+00:00 | ['Economics', 'Bitcoin', 'Detroit', 'Macroeconomics'] |
Why we are all about to be consumed by consumerism and its hedonistic implications | Why we are all about to be consumed by consumerism and its hedonistic implications timi celcer Sep 4, 2020·4 min read
If I agree with anything with the Marxists is that capitalism does have a tendency to create a sort of superstructure that reinforces it, perpetually sophisticating an ethos that best suits its needs. While capitalism in an of itself does not necessarily imply the creation of an ethos that we are now left to deal with, it is one of the main blamers for it. That is because many contemporary versions of capitalism were met with too soft of opposition or attempts at regulation in the cultural sphere. What that spawned was an array of destructive inclinations and modi operandi, including tendencies towards hedonism, materialism, radical individualism, and superficiality, all flowing from the stream of consumerism.
The underlying aim of capitalism is the maximization of profit. But in each society that basic force on top of which the capitalistic system sits, is somehow regulated as to not push in unwanted directions. While we have blocked some of capitalism’s potential destructive elements, especially in terms of wage slavery, the environment (here in Europe), etc., we have let it wreak havoc in terms of its cultural influence. We have let it transform our minds.
In the process of the capitalistic competition between different entities inside the system, a certain desire of that system becomes apparent. In order to maximize its profits, it must create a “one-dimensional man”, to borrow the phrase from Herbert Marcuse (although I most definitely do not share all that Marcuse extrapolates from that conception). That man (or woman), must be the type of man most inclined to consume, as much as possible, the many fruits the system wants to sell him, hence creating a mindset we call consumerism. That mindset is created most subtly through many forms of “propaganda”, chiefly among them, advertisement.
Materialism usually follows as material objects are usually the ones being sold. As consuming enters the center stage in a person’s life, material wealth and material objects become a source of identification and pride, much more than otherwise. But a far more pernicious attitude gradually gets established in the form of hedonism.
The easiest way to sell things is by appealing to one’s centers for pleasure. If you can get a person addicted to an easy fix, by stimulating his dopamine receptors, for example, he will forget that he once desired the deeper elements of life (which are for the most part unsellable). You do that by selling the hedonistic lifestyle as the ideal one. The idolization of people like Dan Bilzerian and the Wolf of Wall Street are all manifestations of the effects of that effort.
The hedonistic culture that consumerism created to better reinforce itself is evident all around us. It is present in the superficiality of Instagram and modern dating to the ever-growing emphasis on the hookup culture and partying as the basic part of one’s life’s experience. It is also present in the commodification of other human beings, treating them more as means to pleasing a particular conception of pleasure, rather than treating them as ends in themselves. That is evident in the general approach to life and relationships, which are only as good as the pleasure they provide, or the “positive emotions ratio” they provide in comparison to other possible relationships available, be that friendships, romances, or family.
The problems with hedonism are plentiful. Not only is it disintegrating a particular society, but it is also detrimental to one’s mental health and happiness. Positive psychology, for example, discovered that a hedonistic lifestyle does not significantly increase happiness in the long run, because pleasure habituates rapidly. The only type of life worth leading is what some positive psychologists call “the meaningful life”. In this life, you have to sometimes sacrifice pleasure for the greater good. In other words, stick with someone even if it means pain or be loyal to a cause even to your personal detriment. It means having a meaning that transcends pleasure.
Just to put a quick footnote. I am in no way saying that satisfying your pleasure centers is a priori wrong, it is only wrong when it is being put on the highest pedestal. Partying or hooking up, for example, are not wrong per se, but they are wrong when they are put above one’s commitment to a certain meaning, be that family or something else.
Consumerism is an unfortunate product of a great device called capitalism. Capitalism is a system that gave us this unprecedented luxury and prosperity, but it is a system built upon a certain logic that needs close regulation. Consumerism and all its further forms such as materialism and hedonism must be met with resistance. They are destructive to any society and all its members and we must be constantly on our feet to proclaim the primacy of other values such as family, commitment, community, and a religious like dedication to those when put in conflict with the desires of our hedonic hotspots. Under those principles, we will be happier and firmer as a society. That entails recognizing where the problems lie and devising means of countering it. We must counter consumerism and hedonism, or they might become an element in our potential demise. | https://medium.com/@timacelcer/why-we-are-all-about-to-be-consumed-by-consumerism-and-its-hedonistic-implications-c411fcd6ba38 | ['Timi Celcer'] | 2020-09-06 19:27:11.926000+00:00 | ['Consumerism', 'Hook Up Culture', 'Hedonism', 'Materialism'] |
How to Dynamically Add Response Options to Dialog Nodes in Watson Assistant | Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
First, you need to prepare a webhook that returns the JSON object payload that will be rendered later by Watson Assistant. For experiments, Node Red or IBM Cloud Functions can be used. On the first level of the JSON object there must be a JSON array (in the example named “arr”) that contains a JSON object in the format of the options response type.
See the example of a JSON object below:
{
"arr": [
{
"title": "What time do you want your appointment?",
"options": [
{
"label": "Monday 1:00 pm",
"value": {
"input": {
"text": "Monday 1:00 pm"
}
}
},
{
"label": "Tuesday 4:00 pm",
"value": {
"input": {
"text": "Tuesday 4:00 pm"
}
}
}
],
"description": "",
"response_type": "option"
}
]
}
Code snippet of simple IBM Web action is below:
function main(params) {
return { arr:[{“title”:”What time do you want your appointment?”,”options”:[{“label”:”Monday 1:00 pm”,”value”:{“input”:{“text”:”Monday 1:00 pm”}}},{“label”:”Tuesday 4:00 pm”,”value”:{“input”:{“text”:”Tuesday 4:00 pm”}}}],”description”:””,”response_type”:”option”}]};
}
In this example, we expect the webhook response payload (after a successful webhook call) will be stored in the $webhook_result_1 context variable.
Now you need to add a dynamically generated list of options (the result of webhook call) to the response of the dialog node. To achieve this, we will use the Multiple Conditioned Responses that are generated when we customize our dialog node to use webhooks.
On the response for $webhook_result_1, open the customize window. In the popup, you need to open the ⋮ menu and click ‘Open context editor.’ You will set an auxiliary context variable “tmp” with the following expression:
"<? output.generic.addAll($webhook_result_1.arr) ?>"
The name of the variable (i.e. “tmp” ) is not important as you won’t need to refer to it later. The key thing here is you need to execute the SpEL expression on the right-hand side. This will add the dynamically generated options to the output message response.
Now you can put this all together to generate a dynamic option for your user. When the node you have configured gets triggered, the output of your assistant will look like this:
If you can see the options as in the screenshot above, you have successfully finished the goal of this article. Now you just need to modify the code of your webhook, to send dynamic options needed in your bot. More information about response types and webhooks in Watson Assistant can be found in the documentation. | https://medium.com/ibm-data-ai/how-to-dynamically-add-response-options-to-dialog-nodes-in-watson-assistant-e14c5e08beca | ['Jan Vystrcil'] | 2020-10-01 22:19:10.202000+00:00 | ['Wa Tutorial', 'Options', 'Watson Assistant', 'Tutorial'] |
The Truth About Self Help | The Real Truth About Self Help Is People Actually Don’t Want To Help Themselves. The Far Majority Of People Are Happy Or Unhappy With Where They’re In There Life And They Use A Story To Justify Why They’re Where They’re Completely Unaware Of It. It’s Not So Much They Don’t Want To Help Themselves But Don’t Have The Mindset To Be Open To Even Consider To Help Themselves.
To Many People Say No Before They Say Yes. They’re Simply Not Even Going To Consider The Possibilities Of A Yes. The First Rule Is Never Say No For The Other Party Or Person As That Is A Guaranteed No. But Saying Yes And Being Open To Getting A Yes Or No Is Much Better Mindset To Have. You’ll Learn If You Get No’s And Hopefully With Reflection You’ll Grow.
Use Your Time To Invest In Yourself And Your Future. Use Money To Do The Same. You Always Want To Keep Learning And Growing Otherwise You Might Is Well Call It A Day Now. Do Whatever You Want To Do. That’s What Life’s About Doing What You Want To Do Whenever You Want To Do It. | https://medium.com/@coachbradleyheal/the-truth-about-self-help-560a9ca1f70 | ['Bradley Heal'] | 2020-09-16 07:39:41.312000+00:00 | ['Help', 'Self', 'Truth', 'Self Improvement'] |
Why Remote Learning Was a Big Hot Mess | This September, we started the 2020–21 school year fully remote and it only took three weeks for our family to breakdown and send the kids back to school on a hybrid schedule. I served on the re-opening committees at school, made suggestions, asked questions, and offered to help — but here we are — worse off.
Being an involved parent is an understatement in 2020. Aside from helping plan for the re-opening from brainstorming social-emotional learning ideas to inclusion, keeping on top of the kids each day while working remotely, and explaining to our teenager how to log into Zoom securely, nothing could have prepared us for this year.
And I’m left wondering — Why are our kids held to impossible standards during a worldwide pandemic?
It started on the first day of school when our son’s teacher posted a Zoom link to google classroom. He introduced himself while looking at the kids who attended in person, read them the book, wrote on the board while we watched, like peeping toms through a keyhole of sorts (Zoom). He muted his mic and then walked away and didn’t return. The next day, the google classroom remained unchanged, with no new links, no classwork, nothing.
The same happened on Monday.
Photo Credit: Canva.com
In another class, his teacher hit the mute button while talking and continued to talk for over twenty-five minutes while a dozen students sat there staring patiently at the screen. That same teacher has given him zeros for not completing work with vague instructions while he has no access to the textbook online.
And I’m not pointing the finger — I’m saying that we are all stuck in miscommunication limbo waiting for this cycle to end. But it isn’t going to end soon. Now that the flood gates of remote possibilities have opened, remote learning to some capacity is a permanent part of our lives.
A few mismarked absences and zeros later, our son fell apart. He fell apart before me.
He said he felt invisible after more e-mails about missed Zoom calls and classwork came. Eager to help him, I logged into his classes and saw for myself — vague assignment instructions and Zoom links buried under the announcements stream in unmanaged google classrooms. Teachers responded to his private comments with e-mails that went unread. It was like going on a scavenger hunt for information and none of us wanted to play anymore.
Remote only learning is a big hot mess because it requires parents and caregivers to be more present than any of us know how to be, or have time to be. We’re also asking teachers to deliver instruction to separate populations of students with completely different needs at the same time. On top of everything, we are asking kids to act like adults.
Our teenager has been silently struggling, not asking for help, upset about miscommunications with teachers he has never met in a school he has never actually stepped foot in while accumulating absences in the empty shells of his virtual classrooms. And it is all his fault, allegedly.
Why is it assumed that teenagers are mature enough to manage their own remote learning? Why are they left to fend for themselves in this sink or swim environment? This isn’t a job and they aren’t at work.
But their parents probably are. Not every student has someone at home to help them during the day. What they need are clear instructions for everything from logging in to meetings to assignment prompts. They need broken-down grading rubrics and reminders. They need grace periods and brain breaks. They need compassion. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/why-remote-learning-was-a-big-hot-mess-12fd89f6b161 | ['Laura J. Murphy'] | 2020-10-27 00:44:32.223000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Remote Learning', 'Mental Health', 'Parenting', 'Education Reform'] |
TerminusDB: Importing, Reordering & Exporting a CSV | Nathan is the bald guy
Remember Sarah? She’s a junior developer at Industrial Gizmos and Widgets. Her boss Nathan needs to figure out how to unwarble some widgets. It’s not an easy task and her senior team members don’t seem interested.
Industrial Gizmos and Widgets have some seriously antiquated IT systems and that makes everything harder.
The main gizmo and widget ERP is built on a DB2 that was first installed in 1986 when DB2 was still young. The database schema is out of control and the source code for the application has been lost. The only person that knows how to fix the DB2 was poached by IBM and they charge Industrial Gizmos and Widgets $2,500 per hour of her time.
Database Schema
The system is a mess.
Sarah thinks that what they really need is some sort of abstraction layer to allow them to better understand the important things in the ERP data — leave the DB2 chugging away and extract the key information into a knowledge graph. Much easier to manipulate and query once it’s there.
If they had such a tool, solving the warbled widgets problem would be relatively easy.
Sarah saw Cheuk’s ‘World of WOQLcraft’ stream on Twitch and thought she could use some of the methods to solve the warbled widgets problem.
After watching Cheuk’s videos, Sarah ran TerminusDB Quickstart.
She opened up a terminal (or Git Bash for a Windows user — Sarah runs Ubuntu) and ran:
cd terminusdb-quickstart
mkdir csvs git clone https://github.com/terminusdb/terminusdb-quickstart.git cd terminusdb-quickstartmkdir csvs
Sarah ran the following afterwards:
TERMINUSDB_LOCAL=”$(pwd)/csvs” ./terminusdb-container run
Windows users can use this:
TERMINUSDB_LOCAL=$(cmd //c cd)\\csvs ./terminusdb-container run
The mkdir csvs command made sure that Sarah had a local directory — Sarah will save the output of this tutorial in that folder. That is also the purpose of the TERMINUSDB_LOCAL environment variable, it sets the directory for TerminusDB to mount to the local csvs directory.
After installing TerminusDB using Quickstart, Sarah opens the Console. The default address is http://127.0.0.1:6363/console.
The TerminusDB console appears in Sarah’s browser:
Create A Database
Sarah creates a new database so she can import and manipulate her warbled widgets CSV. She calls it ProjectSpreadsheet .
Sarah Has A Database
Next Sarah wants to eyeball the data to see what she is dealing with. So she grabs the relevant csv extract. It is a mess:
gizmos and widgets
Sarah quickly writes a short WOQL query to load the CSV into TerminusDB, filter the data to only contain the warbled widgets, and export a new CSV.
Sarah knows that the warbled widgets contain the date “1970–01–01T00:00:00” as the DB2 was set up in 1986 and no widgets could possibly have been created at the company at that time!
Here is the query she uses:
WOQL.put( WOQL.as('Sku', 'v:Sku') .as('date_added', 'v:Date'), WOQL.and( WOQL.get( WOQL.as('sku', 'v:Sku') .as('date_added', 'v:Date') .as('category', 'v:Category') ).remote('http://terminusdb.github.io/terminusdb-web-assets/tutorials/episode_1/items.csv'), WOQL.eq('v:Date', '1970-01-01T00:00:00'), WOQL.eq('v:Category', 'widgets') ), WOQL.file('/app/local_files/warbled_widgets.csv'))
She puts it into the query pane on her TerminusDB console and uses the commit message Importing, Ordering and Exporting CSV so she knows what happens if she has to come back to check. She then hits run query .
Query Pane on the Console
The query returned in just under 2 seconds and Sarah found the exported CSV in the csvs directory in the terminusdb-quickstart folder. All tidied up as well: warbled_widgets.csv .
Here for Windows Users
When she opens the CSV, Sarah found that it had been filtered just the way she wanted it:
No more gizmos
Sarah took the csv and emailed it to her boss, Nathan. He rang her the next morning to thank her for her excellent work and, while he still called her Sandra, she was happy to have solved a meaningful problem.
Sarah thought — if I could do that so easily with TerminusDB, maybe I should take a deeper look.
See you soon for Episode 2! | https://medium.com/terminusdb/terminusdb-importing-reordering-exporting-a-csv-afe138ea66b7 | ['Luke Feeney'] | 2020-07-16 16:38:26.055000+00:00 | ['Terminusdb', 'Database', 'Data', 'Graph', 'Data Science'] |
Motherhood— My Gift of a Lifetime | My husband and I were in our early 30’s when we felt we were ready for babies. Of course, we had no idea what that would entail. We were sure that we wanted children. We had multiple years to grow as a couple, learn how to pick our battles, and enjoy all-inclusive vacations that serve you the cute cocktails right on the beach.
Now that we were ready, out went the birth control. Because this quickly became my focus, all I could concentrate on every month were my cycles and trying to get pregnant. The added personal pressure and heightened awareness did nothing to help the process but naturally, as a planner, I couldn’t help myself.
Oh how that quickly became my first lesson in motherhood and I didn’t even know it at the time. The lesson of making plans and the plan not quite panning out at all on the time table you wish it to.
Over that same year, I saw my sister-in-law get pregnant. I continued to count the days in my cycle getting my hopes up with no positive pregnancy test. There were tears, there were prayers, and I felt all-consumed with the desire to say I was expecting.
Not until I started being open with friends and family that my husband and I had been trying for months, only then the self-imposed shame started melting away. In fact, it’s from being vulnerable and sharing what I felt was a weakness that gave me new insight. Better connections bloomed with those closest to me struggling in silence as well. It also widened my perspective to other ideas in tracking my fertility that I know aided in that long-desired double pink line I had been waiting for. | https://medium.com/home-sweet-home/motherhood-my-gift-of-a-lifetime-9e2ffa358ad2 | ['Allison Ditmer'] | 2020-12-30 12:19:38.337000+00:00 | ['Motherhood', 'Prompt', 'Pregnancy', 'Family', 'Parenting'] |
PyTorch Lightning 1.1 - Model Parallelism Training and More Logging Options | Image by Author
Lightning 1.1 is now available with some exciting new features. Since the launch of V1.0.0 stable release, we have hit some incredible milestones- 10K GitHub stars, 350 contributors, and many new members in our slack community! A few highlights include:
Sharded model training- save up to 55% of memory without losing speed
Sequential Model Parallelism
Automatic logging for callbacks and any LightningModule hook*.
Lightning Bolts 0.2.6 release
Sharded model training [BETA]
We're thrilled to introduce the beta version of our new sharded model training plugin, in collaboration with FairScale by Facebook. Sharded Training utilizes Data-Parallel Training under the hood, but optimizer states and gradients are sharded across GPUs. This means the memory overhead per GPU is lower, as each GPU only has to maintain a partition of your optimizer state and gradients. You can use this plugin to reduce memory requirements by up to 60% (!) by simply adding a single flag to your Lightning trainer, with no performance loss. | https://medium.com/pytorch/pytorch-lightning-1-1-model-parallelism-training-and-more-logging-options-7d1e47db7b0b | ['Pytorch Lightning Team'] | 2020-12-11 21:09:41.146000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Deep Learning', 'Pytorch', 'Machine Learning', 'Pytorch Lightning'] |
Deep learning for recommender systems | In my past article on latent collaborative filtering, we used matrix factorization to recommend products to users. The input for that algorithm was UserItemRating matrix R. This matrix contains all the ratings of all the products given by all the users. This is the same matrix we are going to use to train our neural network. If we want to take this as input for the neural network then there becomes a problem because it is an integer identifier for users and items. For example, say the following users are tracking the following items:
UserId MovieId
455 344
345 433
23 425
567 753
If we feed this into a neural network then we don’t get anything. So the idea here is to find a good representation of them. The same problem arises in neural nets when we deal with text tokens in NLP, categorical variables in other ML models like tags, category, etc. Say ‘s’ be the symbol in the vocabulary V. Then for a word ‘love’ in the dictionary, we can represent as :
one-hot-encoding(‘love’) = [ 0, 0, 0, 0 …… 1 …… 0]
Here this vector is very sparse and has a huge dimension. Also, another problem is that the distance between the vectors is equidistance. Meaning that love and hate are in the same distance as love and peace. So this does not capture the meaning of the concept clearly.
Embedding
Instead, we want to encode the vectors as continuous values in a lower-dimensional space. This is known as embedding. E.g
embedding(‘love’) = [3.23, -4.5, 5.2, ……. 9.3]
We can quantify this by using distance metrics like Euclidean distance or Cosine similarity between the vectors. If you want to learn more about the distance metrics here is a good article.
Advantages:
It is continuous and dense. Embedding metric can capture symmetric distance.
Another way you can see the embedding is as the linear layer of neural network typically as the input layer that maps one-hot representation into the continuous space. We can achieve this by multiplying one hot-representation with embedding matrix W ∊ R n x d.
embedding(s) = onehot(s).W
We initialize W randomly in the start and entries of this matrix are tunable. They are also known as embedding parameters.
In Keras:
So now we have the output of embedding that can be fed into our model and define loss function depending on the target we want to predict. We then get the tunable architecture and we use gradient descent to adjust the parameters of embedding.
Now our initial problem was to predict ratings for product j by user i. In my previous post, I have talked about matrix factorization way of doing so. Now the concept is similar but we input the embedding vectors for our items and products. Then we take the dot product of them and minimize the loss function.
So the concept looks pretty similar but what is the advantage of doing this in a neural network way?
Instead of just using dot product as the interaction(rating) we can use multi-layer perceptron with many fully connected layers to calculate the rating or interaction
First, we concatenate the embedding then feed into the neural network and this will give us the ratings as the output. And we use the same loss function to minimize the errors.
2. The size of embedding can also be different meaning that we can have items a lot more than users. We can also concatenate the metadata information into the neural network. For instance, if some metadata have categorical variables like the director of the movie, we can define new embedding for directors or new embedding for movies and so on.
So we have many embeddings as the input rather than a single matrix factorization model.
But if we don’t have explicit feedback from users, we cannot use the regression loss function like before. We should use another architecture also known as triplet architecture.
Conclusion
In this architecture, we have a user i and he has watched the movie j. Then we also pick up another movie k at random from the database and it is very likely that the user has not seen the movie past or will not see in the future because there are a lot of movies that are negative(meaning that the user might not be interested in watching). So we contrast a negative movie with positive movie for a given user. So we compute the two interactions by taking the dot product and we compute the difference between them. And we make sure that the positive interaction between user and a positive movie is larger than the user and a random negative movie. Then we minimize the loss and maximize the difference. And at the end, we tune the embedding and come up with good recommendations.
The V embedding for positive and negative items is the same matrix, we just take different rows in the same matrix. So we train with the same model parameters. These types of networks that use the same model parameters are known as Siamse networks.
YouTube uses the same concept of learning embedding parameters to recommend videos to users.
Here the metadata are geographical information, age, gender, and more. We feed these embedding into the neural networks and the serving selects the top N nearest neighbors and then softmax calculates the probability of the user watching that video. Then the results are sorted in descending order and presented to the user.
Conclusion | https://medium.com/mldotcareers/deep-learning-for-recommender-systems-442fb9e46934 | ['Rabin Poudyal'] | 2020-09-12 13:16:58.685000+00:00 | ['Neural Networks', 'Data Science', 'Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning'] |
Using click testing to validate website designs | What’s the problem?
Over the last 12 weeks, the sutton.gov.uk redevelopment team has designed and tested hundreds of concepts for a new council website. The best ideas have been shortlisted and now the challenge is figuring out which design is the most effective and should be prioritised in beta.
One of the methods we’re using to validate effectiveness is first-click testing. This activity captures where on an interface a user first clicks or taps when completing a task. It’s a useful method to understand if users find a website clear and navigable.
Why is click testing important?
Website research shows that if a user's first click leads down the right path their overall task success tends to be higher (around 87% task success) than if the click leads down the wrong path (around 46% task success).
These statistics echo the feedback we’re getting about the current sutton.gov.uk website. We’re hearing that the design lacks clarity and often leads users into the wrong areas of the website. The result is a frustrating experience with users preferring to call or email the council instead.
With this in mind, the design of a new Sutton website needs to be thoroughly click tested to ensure users can successfully find what they need.
How do we conduct a click test?
The image below shows two variations of a homepage for the new website. Each variant uses a slightly different set of components and navigation structure. We want to know which variant users find clearest to navigate.
Side by side comparison of two variations of a homepage for the new Sutton council website
To test this we assigned users with a simple instruction, indicate where on the interface they would go to renew a parking permit. The image below shows the responses received as a heatmap.
A click map showing where users would go to renew a parking permit
Once we’ve received a significant number of completions the next step is to analyse the data. Here we’re looking at three things to confirm whether a design is effective. Distribution, time, and confidence.
Distribution
Did users click or tap in places that might lead to a successful task completion? In the parking permit heatmap above, we see that Variant A generated lots of clicks in areas unrelated to the task. Variant B, however, received a more accurate click distribution.
A noisy click scatter might signal that a design is causing uncertainty.
Time
How quickly did users decide where to click or tap? In the example above, the average click time for Variant A was 10 seconds whereas for Variant B it was 7 seconds.
A long decision time indicates users are having to think harder to find what they need.
Confidence
How confident do users feel that their click or tap would lead to completing the task? To determine this we asked users to place how they felt on a confidence scale. In the parking permit example, users tended to feel more confident in their decisions when using Variant B.
Lower levels of confidence suggest the labeling or design of an interface is unclear.
Going forward
In this example, we are confident that variant B generally outperformed Variant A for usability. We now need to test how our shortlist of design variants perform when users complete other tasks (i.e where would you go to pay a council tax bill). Depending on the insight gained we might then need to amend any poor performing elements of a design to identify whether this makes a difference to usability.
Once we’ve tested all our design variants across a wide breadth of tasks, we can use the evidence to help us make an informed decision on which website design to focus on in beta. | https://medium.com/@luke-piper2/using-click-testing-to-validate-website-designs-dca891d24086 | ['Luke Piper'] | 2021-09-13 13:10:20.937000+00:00 | ['Local Government', 'Council', 'Website Design', 'UX Design', 'User Research'] |
Ethical Journalism Powered by The Blockchain | We’ve all participated in the rhetoric at this point. Ironically or otherwise, it’s likely you’ve said or thought the phrase “fake news” while scrolling through social media, tuning the radio or flipping through television. Many of us have come to expect a level of bias, shoddy journalism, corporate interference and dishonesty from our news sources and a divide is forming in America between those who trust the news and those who don’t. Regardless of where you fall on that spectrum, to many, the news landscape in America is looking bleak.
Blockchain technology, primarily known for secure ledgers and transactions, isn’t a conventional solution to this problem but DNN (Decentralized News Network) and a handful of others are looking for ways to utilize it to reintroduce objectivity to journalism. Reading like a Thanksgiving dinner dialogue, the DNN White Paper lays out some disheartening statistics about the state of modern news media. In a time where fewer and fewer organizations own more and more of the major news distributors and more adults are utilizing platforms like Facebook as their source of major news, it’s no wonder that trust in the accuracy of the news is being undermined.
What companies like DNN, Civil, Unsplash, and Simple Token are attempting to do is disrupt the model of the single source news story and distribute it amongst contributors, fact-checkers and publishers so that no one person, group or corporate entity is controlling the narrative. Participation is incentivized and tracked on the blockchain to further facilitate transparency. By incentivizing participation with tokens from the top down, anyone with a story can tell it and be incentivized. Fact-checkers are incentivized to validate the reporting and it’s up to the community to decide if the story gets published. Participation, accuracy and relevancy are rewarded by a community of people dedicated to truly news-worthy stories and ethical journalism.
It’s an egalitarian view of journalism and one that is particularly tempting given the era of “fake news” we’ve entered into.
Naturally with anything this idealistic, there are inherent problems. This structure could and should work ideally. In a truly capitalistic system, good stories and good reporting draws in an audience that actively participates in keeping the ecosystem healthy. There is an existing model of this type of participation. Wikipedia was created and is curated by the online community and even with its problems, the enormous pool of contributors, editors and enthusiasts have made it into a go-to source of information that has a growing track record among its users and critics. So the fundamental premise is correct: a large, active and decentralized group of participants can create and maintain a compelling body of work.
However, it’s just as likely that group could become saturated with people or entities who have something to gain from having the upper hand in the market as it is that the group will remain dedicated to decentralized news. While the blockchain provides a level of transparency by providing a clear roadmap of who has been incentivized and when, it can’t track outside motives conversations the writers, checkers or publishers may be having on the road to publication. In other words, people are very good at finding ways around accountability and the technology is limited by its own rigidity. That being said, any level of transparency and accountability is much needed and steps should be taken to restore trust in news sources.
The other potential problem is the use of tokens to incentivize participation. Without getting too lost in the nuances, let’s imagine a coin dish in your mom’s living room. In the dish, you have a couple of gold Sacajawea US dollars, a Canadian loonie and a handful of leftover tokens from last weekend’s trip to the arcade. The dollar and loonie are native currencies; you could go down the street with the dollar and purchase a drink or go to a bank and swap the loonie out for whatever the dollar equivalent is. However, the arcade tokens have no purchasing power at the store and can’t be swapped at the bank. Even though mom paid for them with her native currency, they have no use or value outside of the arcade’s ecosystem. Very roughly, that’s what we’re looking at with Ethereum Tokens.
Why could this create a problem for decentralization? Just like with the arcade tokens, the participation is limited to who comes to play. That’s why these types of set ups are commonly referred to as “pay to play;” the scope of people interested in purchasing the tokens from those compensated with them, is limited to the participants interested. This can create an incestuous market where the same groups of creators sell their tokens to the same groups of readers and the same echo chamber that exists outside of blockchain journalism perpetuates itself inside.
DNN says this in their own White Paper that the biggest defense against someone coming in and consolidating the network is going to be recruiting and sustaining a large and enthusiastic community that is dedicated to this concept of keeping the news decentralized. A more true statement couldn’t be made. Ultimately, it’s great to see creative solutions to a widely known problem and there’s something inherently hopeful about placing so much trust in the hands of the public.
For more details, check out the DNN White Paper who’s token sale is live now or follow Civil on the podcast ZigZag. | https://medium.com/pink-sky-group/ethical-journalism-powered-by-the-blockchain-68af0de67ccc | ['Pink Sky Research'] | 2018-12-06 22:20:30.187000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Journalism'] |
The next phase of WazirX begins 🚀 — Part 1 | It was Wednesday, January 31st, 2018 when I unveiled WazirX with only one thing in mind — to provide every Indian with a product that surpasses every other global product in terms of quality. It was also the day we introduced WRX, India’s first token backed by a cryptocurrency exchange, to involve our community while building and growing WazirX.
After furious coding and testing, we finally launched WazirX exchange platform on 8th March 2018 with 3 tokens — Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dash. We were also the first Indian exchange to be available on Web, Android, and iOS. With almost 80 tokens trading in our markets, and support for Mac and desktop clients, we’ve come a long way. It wouldn’t have been possible without your support, tribe! 🙌
Have no fear, WazirX P2P is here 💪
I remember how shortly after our launch, the Reserve Bank of India put a blanket ban on crypto in India. True to our promise of involving everyone into the blockchain revolution, we innovated hard and launched WazirX P2P with the world’s first auto-matching P2P engine. What a game changer it’s been! Today, due to its unique nature, WazirX P2P is the cheapest, fastest and most-used method to deposit or withdraw Indian Rupees in India.
India’s first ever Highest Trader contest!
I love how at WazirX, we’ve always continued to innovate and keep the crypto fire alive in India while we saw most exchanges shut shops or move out. Over the previous 20 months, we’ve brainstormed and introduced iconic features like, Deposit Dhamaka, WRX Mining Rewards, XID, and latest being STF!
All this, and YOU have helped us grow rapidly, and become India’s most trusted and largest cryptocurrency exchange! But we’re just getting started. 😎
Fiat <> Cryptocurrency conversion is a global issue.
Millions of people around the world — especially in developing and underdeveloped countries — are facing delays and banking issues with buying or selling of cryptocurrencies with fiat currency. We believe that the next phase of cryptocurrency adoption will happen when the world’s Fiat <> Crypto problem is solved for the masses. We plan to fix this global problem with our one-of-a-kind solution — WazirX P2P! But how?
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” — An African Proverb
This cryptocurrency revolution is bigger than any of us, and we’ve decided to do something to make it happen faster. And this, tribe, marks the beginning of the next phase — Phase 2 — of WazirX’s journey!
We’ve been acquired by Binance! 🎉
The WazirX team has joined forces with Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange to be a part of their greater mission to spread freedom of money. Read our official announcement here.
…To be continued in Part 2. | https://medium.com/wazirx/the-next-phase-of-wazirx-begins-part-1-aae88578779d | ['Wazirx Bitcoin Exchange'] | 2019-11-20 16:55:44.044000+00:00 | ['Binance', 'Wazirx', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency News'] |
COVID-19 | Recommendations for pregnant women | Since the beginning of the pandemic, many pregnant women feel uneasy about their health and that of their future babies. However, they should not be alarmed! from all medical centers, hospitals, research centers, universities, and others, we are trying to learn more about the virus to provide better measures.
To give you a little more peace of mind, today we answer some questions that you may have asked yourself.
What effect will the virus have on my baby if I am diagnosed with COVID-19?
Studies have shown that there does not appear to be vertical transmission. This means that the virus does not cross the placenta, so it does not infect the fetus. However, newborn babies can get the virus after birth. This is why doctors may recommend temporary separation of the baby if the mother is ill at the time of delivery.
Likewise, it is considered unlikely that the virus can cause fetal abnormalities. None have been observed at present.
Can I breastfeed my baby if I have Coronavirus (COVID-19)?
Remember that breastfeeding is beneficial because it provides antibodies and helps create immunity in the newborn.
The women COVID-19 itself can breastfeed. Studies have shown that the virus is not found in breast milk. The problem is in the direct contact that the mother has with the baby when breastfeeding. That is why each doctor will advise his patient what action to take as the case may be. For example: if it is better to express the milk and give it to him separately; or if precautions are taken when breastfeeding, such as wearing a mask, washing hands before and after touching the baby, and disinfecting the surfaces in contact.
How can I reduce my risk of getting COVID-19 during my pregnancy?
The recommendations do not differ from what is indicated to the rest of the population, so it is recommended:
Wash your hands regularly and effectively.
Have social distance and avoid going out.
Use the mask. Wash your hands before putting on and also before taking it off.
Avoid inquiries that are not strictly necessary.
Avoid visits from friends and family to meet your baby.
When should I go to the emergency room?
The symptoms of pregnancy are very diverse and each case is different, but due to obstetric issues, you should go to the emergency room in cases of: vaginal bleeding, severe abdominal pain or if you feel the absence of fetal movements.
In the case of symptoms related to COVID-19, such as fever and respiratory symptoms, if they are mild it is better to be at home, if you feel that the symptoms are severe, such as respiratory distress, you should immediately contact your doctor. | https://medium.com/@surawhitt/covid-19-recommendations-for-pregnant-women-d63f2ff2e1ce | ['Sura Whitt'] | 2021-04-25 12:58:26.934000+00:00 | ['Pregnant', 'Baby', 'Newborn', 'Pregnancy', 'Breastfeeding'] |
Meet the team: Mike Balestrino | What do you focus on at B Capital?
I spend the majority of my time working hand-in-hand with our incredible founders on a range of projects, from strategic to operational, to help grow their businesses. Tactically, this means getting “under the hood” to gain a first-person perspective of what’s really happening with the business to help them prioritize and execute on their strategic objectives. Beyond the direct engagement, I spend the remainder of my time helping grow our firm, which could mean advising on our growth strategy or looking for solutions to help us become more efficient.
What attracted you to working at B Capital?
At the onset, the first thing that attracted me to B Capital was how much progress the team had made in its first five years. From building a global firm to managing $1.5B AUM, it was clear that this was a team that both had a vision and executed on that vision. Beyond the growth, however, was the people. Each person I met was incredibly impressive in their own right yet had a curious humility that was very attractive. Now, having been part of the team for a while, it’s clear that we grow through one another, with each person pushing and educating his/her peers to help the collective get better. I haven’t seen this dynamic elsewhere in my career, and it’s a big reason why I was attracted to the firm.
If you weren’t in this career, what would you be doing?
As an avid sports fan, I’ve always imagined that I would end up working in some sports-related field. And while my aspirations to end up on a field ended years ago, I’d like to think I’d be trying to be the next “Brad Pitt in Moneyball.” My love for sports coupled with my inner nerd who’s obsessed with statistics and data tell me that if I weren’t in VC, I’d be somewhere in the sports business realm, ideally as a team general manager.
What is most interesting or unique about working in venture capital?
The most interesting part of working in venture capital, and specifically growth investing, is seeing first-hand how decisions impact the growth trajectory of a business. Having come from the F500 world, it wasn’t always clear how one’s work impacted the business, but the venture space provides a nearly real-time assessment of how decisions shape the business in the near and long-term.
What is something someone might not know about non-investing roles at a VC firm?
Something that surprised me about working in VC, outside the traditional investor role, is the amount of exposure you can get when experiencing growing companies’ inner workings. The ability and opportunity to see the mechanics of the business, coupled with the variety of the work, is extremely rare. Consequently, the learning is off the charts as you’ll be talking growth strategy with one company in LATAM one day and operational efficiency with a completely different company in the US the next.
Connect with Mike on LinkedIn today!
Recommended Reads:
Meet the team: Nick Thompson, Head of Technology at B Capital Group
Meet the investor: Shwan Kazzaz
Meet the investor: Aditi Sharma | https://medium.com/b-capital-group/meet-the-team-mike-balestrino-b4d0bfb07281 | ['Brianna Jo Thompson'] | 2021-03-04 17:13:12.901000+00:00 | ['Venture Capital', 'VC', 'Operations', 'Startup', 'Investing'] |
Short Story I. A monologue. | A monologue.
“I’m a grinder you know. I grind my teeth when I sleep, my dentist tells me that’s bad but who listens to dentists. I had my wisdom teeth removed when I was young, probably around high school age. I opted to get put under to get them removed, weird thing being sedated. You know what I’m talking about you fall asleep and wake up and it feels like zero minutes has gone by, all the while a surgery just happened.
“I wonder if dying is the same way. Is it just like falling asleep and then you wake up feeling like zero minutes have gone by? Guess there really is no way of knowing, although if time were to be kept I’d say there is about thirty minutes between dying and waking up again wherever it is you’re supposed to wake up. That’s another fun idea, is waking up when you’re born the same as waking up after you die? I don’t remember waking up when I was born so I wonder if when things die do they remember waking up after?
“My mom told me how I almost died when I was born, or I guess shortly after I was born. My skull was too small so it fucked something up with my brain anyway my point is if I had died after I was born does that count as waking up; or does dying shortly after your born not count as being alive at all? In a weird way I guess that would mean I was born here. I wonder if you’d like my mom, she got along with most everybody. She was nice to the neighbors and stuff, I didn’t care too much for them but she always made me play with them. I guess there are worse things a parent could do.
“I once saw someone’s dad just kick the living shit of him. I mean just one kick after the other after the other. I couldn’t do anything except watch, I couldn’t tell my mom because I don’t think she could’ve done anything about it. It’s just one of those things that happens in the world you know. By the way you have to admit this is some good meat here. I’ve had deer before, like eating it right after a hunt, but that’s nothing compared to this you should be proud. Anyways a few months after I got my wisdom teeth removed my mom died. She had a little too much to drink and then was on her way home and that was that. I didn’t go to her funeral, we didn’t really have one. I just let the people burn her body and let them keep it, I wasn’t gonna do much with it I figured I’d let them decide what was best. The court gave me some money for her dying, not too much money but enough to not have to sleep outside every night.
“I ended up just heading west. Saw a magazine talking about some mountains and I wanted to see them so that’s the way I started. I got about eighty miles before I needed to stop. I checked in to some shit bag motel and called it a night. The next morning I went to shower and saw no towels in the closet, the people up front said they’d send someone so I just waited and got my clothes ready so I can leave after I got out the shower. I opened the door for the housekeeper and you would not believe me, she looked just like Mom. She wasn’t as tall as Mom, I must have looked insane to her.
“She restocked the towels and I just kept staring, I couldn’t let her leave. She kept trying to get around me, I told her she looked just like my mom and she looked at me like I was crazy. I couldn’t blame her I had just been gawking at her for the last several minutes. She started saying something and all I could do was look at her eyes. Apparently I ended up killing her, and more like her I guess. They ended up catching me a few months later just sixteen miles away from them goddamn mountains. I never got to see them you know, the mountains. I mean from a distance sure but I wanted to be at the base and just see how high it went. It’s not all bad though, there’s a room in here that lets you see the world. It’s kinda like a movie you can fast-forward, rewind, even better than a movie you can see alternate scenes like what if something else happened kinda like a butterfly effect. So it keeps you from wondering what could’ve been because you know what could’ve been you can see what could’ve been.
“I can see the base of the mountains, similar to my life, if I had made it. I never got to see the mountains. I never made it out of that hospital. You made sure of that didn’t you, how could the idea of me make you so mad when she told you? And for what it’s worth not like you made anything of yourself, shit that’s why we’re both here. Man even babies can come here, I guess you did the world a favor. Not saying much since all you did was muddle along your entire miserable existence, how did it end for you? Was it peaceful? Was it painful? Did you see it coming? I bet you wish you were back there huh instead of here like a spread.
“No worries, your leg should last us a few days. After that who knows what crazy ideas come up next and it’s not much of a big deal, once your leg is all healed up and back to the way it was when you got here we can ration you again.” | https://medium.com/@zdtatumstories/s-story-i-efc8f3d6e82a | ['Z.D. Tatum'] | 2019-02-10 07:12:07.426000+00:00 | ['Short Fiction', 'Critical Thinking', 'Suspense', 'Fiction', 'Short Story'] |
PP-OCR — New SOTA in Character Recognition | 1. Text detection
The goal of text detection is to locate the text area in the image. Generally, it is hoped that the detection result is divided into fields. PP-OCR uses a segmentation-based DB text detection algorithm. The starting point of using this method is the text detection method based on segmentation, which can get the tight bounding box of the text. In addition, the post-processing of DB is relatively simple and convenient for practical applications. In order to further improve the effect and efficiency of the text detector, PP-OCR adopts the following 6 strategies, ultra-lightweight backbone network selection, head weight reduction, SE module abandonment, cosine learning rate, warm-up learning rate, and FPGM model cropping Finally, the size of the text detection model in PP-OCR is only 1.4M.
2. Detection frame calibration
In order to improve the text recognition effect in the detection frame and maintain the consistency of the text, it is generally desired that the text frame to be recognized is in a positive horizontal direction. Since the DB text detection result is represented by a polygon with 4 points, it is easy to transform the detection result in a horizontal direction after an affine transformation. If the transformed image is in the vertical orientation, it will become horizontal after being rotated 90 degrees. But after changing to the horizontal orientation, the text may be upside down. So a text direction classifier is needed to determine whether the text is upside down. If the text is upside down, it can be recognized after correcting it. Training a text direction classifier is a basic image classification task. In order to further improve the effect and efficiency of the text direction classifier, PP-OCR adopts the following 4 strategies, ultra-lightweight backbone network selection, data enhancement, increasing input resolution and PACT int8 quantization, and finally, the text classifier in PP-OCR The size of the model is only 500KB.
3. Text recognition
The goal of text recognition is to convert text line images into text. PP-OCR uses CRNN, a commonly used method for text recognition. Although the CRNN text recognition method was proposed in 2016 and has some history, it is the most commonly used and effective text recognition method for Chinese recognition. CRNN mainly combines convolutional features and sequence features, and uses the CTC loss function to solve the problem of inconsistency between predicted labels and true value labels. In order to further improve the effect and efficiency of text recognition, PP-OCR adopts the following 9 strategies, ultra-lightweight backbone network selection, data enhancement, cosine learning rate, increasing feature map resolution, regularization parameters, warm-up learning rate, head Lightweight, pre-trained large model and PACT int8 quantization, in the end, the size of the Chinese and English text recognition model in PP-OCR is only 1.5M. The size of the pure English digital text recognition model is only 900KB.
Training data
The researchers collected data for both Chinese and English. There are three small datasets in total, which are combined into one big one:
97,000 images for detecting text in the image;
for detecting text in the image; Dataset for classifying the direction of text from 600,000 images ;
; 17.9 million images for OCR task
Demonstration | https://medium.com/deep-learning-digest/pp-ocr-sota-character-recognition-598ccd8ff3f6 | ['Mikhail Raevskiy'] | 2020-10-20 10:51:53.518000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Deep Learning', 'Data Science', 'Machie Learning', 'AI'] |
Working in the Open: April 29–May 10, 2019 | One of Code for Canada’s principles is to operate in public. These regular blog posts put that value into practice, giving readers a window into what we’re doing — and how we do it.
Code for Canada fellows, including (from left) Andee, Jen and Fatima delivered a presentation at the Canadian Digital Service’s regular ‘Show the Thing’ meeting on May 9, 2019.
Welcome to our #weeknotes! Here’s Code for Canada’s Rose, Bud and Thorn for the weeks of April 29–May 10, 2019.
🌹 Rose: Civic Hall Toronto turned one on May 10! 🎂 We want to take a moment and acknowledge all the wins and learnings from CHT’s first year, as well as the incredible work that our staff — especially Shea — and our members have put in to make the program not just a reality, but a success. Here’s a quick ‘by the numbers:’ In the past year, Civic Hall Toronto has signed up 13 government members, hosted 30 events (including 12 training workshops attended by over 200 people), and helped members deliver on seven impactful civic innovation projects. It’s been quite a year, and we look forward to building on our successes and putting some of our learnings into practice for year two.
And because we can’t resist a meta Working in the Open rose, we also wanted to shout out our in-flight fellows for being working in the open champions these past few weeks. Separately and together, they’ve written about bringing modern tech tools into government, presented at the Canadian Digital Service’s ‘Show the Thing’ event, and delivered a lightning talk at Policy Ignite.
🌱 Bud: We’ve been experimenting with a document review format that Melissa Sariffodeen introduced us to called ‘5, 60, 90.’ The idea is to share documents with the people you want feedback from when they’re 5% done, 60% done and 90% done. It helps prevent us from spending too much time on important things without getting feedback (thus preventing sunk costs) while also setting up clear expectations between the reviewer and the reviewee about what stage a document is in, and what sort of feedback is needed. We’ve found the framework to really beneficial, so if you’re looking to improve your document review process, give it a spin!
📌 Thorn: We’re currently planning a number of upcoming events (yay!) but we’re learning that we consistently underestimate the amount of work that putting on a great event requires (boo!). As a result, we often find ourselves a bit over capacity as event dates get closer, and it’s a pattern we’d like to break. We’re going to take some time and put together a clearer framework for how we plan events, why we hold them, and what the expectations and processes are for them. Our goal is to avoid scope creep for events and bring our time/capacity estimations in line with reality. | https://medium.com/code-for-canada/working-in-the-open-april-29-may-10-2019-3511da3dac22 | ['Luke Simcoe'] | 2019-05-10 21:32:59.634000+00:00 | ['How We Work', 'Working In The Open', 'Weeknotes', 'Civictech'] |
Handle UI Change OnClick with Jetpack Compose | Learning Android Development
Handle UI Change OnClick with Jetpack Compose
Understand Jetpack Compose State and UI Recompose
Photo by Andreas Haslinger on Unsplash
Early this week, I share how to draw simple clock animation using Jetpack Compose as per the blog below.
It’s an App that keeps updating its screen upon startup, using animateFloat object.
Now let’s explore how to have a button to click start and stop the animation, and restart it again. Although it seems simple, there are many learnings of Jetpack Compose way of working one could get out of it. (show below is additional start/stop button to start the animation.
The just animation model
Before we explore a clickable start-stop clock, let’s look the structure the Clock composable function we previously had.
In it, there’s a an OnActive function that is called once upon the Composable function drawn for the first time. It kicks off the animationFloat to animate. After that, it will not. be called again, until a new Composable Clock is called again.
After the animationFloat has started the animation, it’s value will continue to change. As inside the Clock composable function, it keeps on accessing the new state value from animationFloat , the Clock got recompose and hence redrawn each cycle upon update of the value. This create the animation like effect.
Adding a toggle button.
To make a toggle button, similar to the Clock composable, we make a ToggleButton Composable function, that has a toggleState boolean state.
Upon changes of the toggleState value, the Text value will be changed accordingly.
There’s no need of OnActive here as the toggleState value can be initially upon the start calling of the function, instead of start of drawing (like the animation Clock needed).
You can get a detail description of how the composable ToggleButton works and it’s comparison with the conventional Android View way of doing in the below article.
Putting all together
To put everything together, we have setContent which contain a Column , which has the Clock composable and Toggle composable
setContent {
Column(
verticalArrangement = Arrangement.Center,
horizontalAlignment = Alignment.CenterHorizontally
) {
Clock(modifier = Modifier
.aspectRatio(1.0f)
.padding(64.dp))
Toggle(modifier = Modifier)
}
}
The important note is to know where we need to access the state value. by accessing the state value, the composable function is be recompose (redrawn).
Note: if we access the state value in Column , then both the Clock and Toggle will get redrawn, and hence making strange unexplanatble drawing update behavior.
Triggering the start and stop of animation
In the above diagram, one major missing point is, how can the button trigger the animation start and stop, since the toggle value state has to be fully decoupled.
Do note the Clock is a Composable function, hence there’s no way for the MainActivity to access to the animationFloat value inside Clock to start. or stop the animation.
To solve the problem, we introduce another stateToggle called animationToggle . This value is in the MainActivity scope, but it is
Inject animationToggle into the Clock composable to control the start and stop of the animation.
into the composable to control the start and stop of the animation. The ToggleButton has a callback function. We use that callback function to triggered the animationToggle .
With that, we link up the ToggleButton and Clock composable functions , without affecting the MainActivity external view need to be recomposed.
class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
private val animationToggle = mutableStateOf(false)
override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
setContent {
Column(
verticalArrangement = Arrangement.Center,
horizontalAlignment = Alignment.CenterHorizontally
) {
Clock(modifier = Modifier
.aspectRatio(1.0f)
.padding(64.dp),
animationToggle)
Toggle(modifier = Modifier) {
animationToggle.value = it
}
}
}
}
}
You can get the entire code here. | https://medium.com/mobile-app-development-publication/handle-ui-change-onclick-with-jetpack-compose-a2d6d12fdfb0 | [] | 2020-10-22 12:47:01.011000+00:00 | ['Mobile App Development', 'Android App Development', 'AndroidDev', 'Android', 'Jetpack Compose'] |
Teaching Language Courses Online During a Global Pandemic | In the second week of March, when we all returned to campus after spring break, I quickly discovered that my role as professor of Spanish language and literature had changed.
Italy was on a draconian lockdown in efforts to prevent further infection. My family in Spain were resigned to a life locked inside for several months. Here in the States, we were business as usual.
Or so we thought.
My students had traveled and visited with friends from the hot spots of the pandemic, potentially exposed to the virus just as they were returning to campus. Having a young son with asthma and having lost my husband tragically 2 years prior, I was still recovering from the trauma and the loss.
I was terrified.
The pandemic had pushed me into a role that I wasn’t prepared to play (monitoring the health of my students) and yet for the safety of my students, myself and my young son, I felt the need to take all precautions necessary.
Though we all tried to go back to class as if nothing had changed, I quickly realized that things were not the same.
Our world was irrevocably altered.
The pandemic would play out for each of us in different ways, exploiting the inequalities and differences that separated us.
It served to magnify the socioeconomic differences amongst my students and made going online for some students an impossible and defeating task.
Offscreen, in the background of our online learning, a human drama was unfolding that would explode in our faces months later.
In fact, there were two different pandemics threatening the fabric of our society.
One was Covid19.
The other was a virus even more menacing — a virus that has plagued us for too long and in some circles been ignored — inequality.
The slogan that started to circulate within the social media circles: “we are all in this together” quickly transformed into an empty message.
Were we really all in this together?
Certainly, we were all facing a global pandemic, but some were “in it” more than others. This inequality became center stage when we converted everything to online learning.
We were told to shelter in place and work from home. But online learning only works if everyone has the means and access to a private room, a computer and a good internet connection.
Virginia Woolf’s book A Room of One’s Own came to mind as we switched to online learning.
For many of my students the challenges of learning online during the pandemic came down to not having a room of one’s own.
Some students had lost family members to Covid-19 and were in the grips of grief and trauma. Many students had to choose between work and school because they were supporting their entire family as a result of the lock down and loss of income.
Suddenly, survival took precedence over online learning. Their immediate present erased their future dreams.
Still, they were expected to continue their education online.
I never once assumed that the transition from in-class learning to online learning during a pandemic was going to be smooth.
We were all trying to come to terms with the knowledge that life as we knew it was altered indefinitely. We had no clear indication of what our future would look like.
Still, I tried to navigate this unfamiliar territory.
I realized that if I was going to get through this online challenge, I would have to be sensitive to my students’s needs and acknowledge the obstacles that we would face.
Thankfully, my university quickly offered many informational sessions about the various platforms available for online learning. All of a sudden everyone was using Zoom, which came with its own set of challenges.
I had to decide whether to hold synchronous sessions, which happen in real time, or asynchronous sessions, which are prerecorded.
Language classes are most effective when students are exposed to the second language frequently. Scheduling one synchronous session a week — and making the other two asynchronous — was not ideal for language acquisition.
Another solution to the synchronous/asynchronous dilemma was to prerecord my lectures on Zoom using the share feature. This solution enabled those students who could not attend the synchronous lecture to at least participate by watching the lectures on their own time.
The online format also made class participation and class presentations very challenging. Of course, language students are always hesitant about speaking up — especially my freshman students.
Zoom has a very nice feature that allows you to divide the class into breakout rooms. During my 50 minute class online, I would divide my students into breakout rooms 4–5 times and provide them with a task.
I found that these smaller groups provoked much more discussion and willingness to participate from my students. The breakout sessions also gave them the confidence to participate in the larger group when they returned.
Alternating between the two helped my students feel more comfortable about participating. | https://medium.com/the-humanities-in-transition/teaching-language-courses-online-during-a-global-pandemic-a-lesson-humanity-e4e3c3f48cf6 | ['Maria Robertson-Justiniano'] | 2020-06-14 23:47:44.947000+00:00 | ['Pedagogy', 'Pandemic', 'Online Learning', 'Higher Education', 'University'] |
A Collection of My Work on Medium | I have several poems and other pieces published in ILLUMINATION and in Lucy The Eggcademic (she/her)’s publication or self-published that I feel my KTHT family would enjoy that are not getting viewed by y’all, so I’m submitting this short form 12 days of Christmas to KTHT with links so you can easily click and enjoy in what I feel will be downtime in the mediumverse — I look forward to seeing you all soon — my son asked me the other day if I had made friends in New Hampshire — I said no but I realize I have in fact made many many friends:
Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash
A love haiku to my lover in Heaven— the very first poem I ever wrote:
A love tanka:
A haiku prompted by Lucy’s question of sound vs silence:
A haiku for love as a double entendre
In response to Spyder’s prompted submission:
An out-of-the-blue haiku to a member posting on the anniversary of his mom’s passing:
A love haiku
A haiku returning gratitude:
one more expression of gratitude:
and finally, memories of holiday meals — a member had posted a haiku of remembrance that I was graciously allowed to re-wrap and re-gift back | https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/a-collection-of-my-work-on-medium-82bcfecd6d6e | [] | 2020-12-24 07:01:41.261000+00:00 | ['Friendship', 'Spirituality', 'Holidays', 'Gifts', 'Love'] |
Migratory Notes 192 | DACA back for good? More kids risking it at border; Ghana Go Bag fashion
Looks like a fashion shoot, but these are plastic bags. New York-based artist Obinna Obioma’s project “Anyi N’Aga” — or “We Are Going” in Igbo — is an exploration of migration focusing on the iconic Ghana Must Go bag, reports The World.
Know someone who might like Migratory Notes? Please help us spread the word: Here’s the subscribe form and here’s an archive on Medium. Got a story or an immigration-related resource or opportunity we should know about? Send it on!
#MustReads
The caller was gasping for air. “It was someone whose story I’d been following for almost two years, someone whose life I couldn’t imagine could get any harder. Now sick with COVID in the ICU,” opens KQED reporter Sasha Khokha’s intimate audio documentary. Luna Guzman attempts, and fails, three times to reach a California where she will be free of the threats she faces as a trans woman in Guatemala. With voice overs from trans actress Zoey Luna, extensive audio from court trials, WhatsApp messages recorded crossing the border, and video of a concert at a Central Valley drag bar, this meticulously reported story brings alive how the U.S. asylum system often fails LGBTQ migrants who flee violence. Khokha reported with Erin Siegal McIntyre and with support from the International Women’s Media Foundation.
Under the Trump administration, ICE has become the least popular of 10 federal agencies according to one study, and promoted a political agenda that will be hard to shake, reports Buzzfeed in an investigation featuring interviews with more than a dozen past and current ICE officials. “ICE put their MAGA hat on. They’re gonna try to take it off come January, but I don’t know how successful that will be,” one former official told Hamed Aleaziz. (Apparently DHS is not happy with Aleaziz’s access to inside sources: ICE issued a subpoena to BuzzFeed News to reveal sources related to a story on a fast-track deportation program, the department’s latest attempt to erode freedom of the press.)
Biden Administration
Biden tapped California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is the son of Mexican immigrants, to lead Health and Human Services, a key agency that will deal with the pandemic. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said the decision to appoint a Latino to the role signals that the president-elect understands that their communities have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. The caucus members also told the Biden transition team they hope a Latino heads one of the “Big Four” positions as the head of the departments of State, Treasury, Defense or Justice.
DACA
The Trump administration announced Monday it will start receiving new DACA applications for the first time in three years in compliance with a court order to reinstate the program. Many DACA recipients celebrated, while also recognizing they remain in a precarious situation without permanent legislation, reports The New York Times. An estimated 1.3 million people are hoping the Biden administration will keep its promise to fully reinstate DACA, reports the Miami Herald. But the fate of DACA remains uncertain, even in these next few weeks. DHS said it may seek to appeal the court’s decision and 10 state Attorneys general asked a federal judge in Texas to hear a case on the legality of DACA on Dec. 22, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Immigration is an International Issue
DHS extended TPS for citizens of El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan for nine months because of an ongoing dispute in the courts over whether the Trump administration can legally end the programs, reports the Miami Herald. The decision came after more than five million people across Central America were affected by back-to-back hurricanes, and experts say it could take decades for the region to recover, possibly spurring another wave of migration, reports The New York Times.
Last week, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández spoke to The Washington Post about his decision to seek TPS extension for Honduran citizens in the U.S. “If they are returned to Honduras, it would have a double negative effect. The United States would lose a labor force and a very important tax contribution, but also in Honduras we would see the impact of their not being able to send remittances,” Hernández said. The announcement Monday was not a new TPS for Hondurans, but rather an extension for TPS granted after Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
Caravans
A caravan set off from Honduras and plans for other caravans spread through social media, likely spurred by the worsening economic situation caused by the pandemic and the devastation from the hurricanes, reports Reuters and Bloomberg. Cubans in Uruguay, Chile, Guyana and other South American countries are also organizing caravans to seek asylum in the U.S. after the pandemic made it more difficult for them to re-establish their lives in South American countries, reports El Nuevo Herald.
Border Crossings
A new border crisis of young children being smuggled via risky tactics could be emerging and may create problems for the Biden administration. October saw the start of a spurt in unaccompanied minors crossing that could overwhelm Border Patrol stations as in 2014 and 2018, reports The Wall Street Journal. Officials worry about their young age, most being under 12 and some who are infants, reports USA Today. Instead of turning themselves in at ports of entry as most have in recent years, smugglers are taking different routes to ensure the minors aren’t rapidly expelled under a COVID-19 rule. These tactics are riskier and include crossing remote areas of South Texas in rafts or trailer trucks and staying in stash houses.
Border Wall
Two whistleblowers allege contractors building the border wall illegally smuggled Mexican security guards across the border to guard construction, according to court documents unsealed Friday, reports The New York Times. The allegations came to light as The New York Times also revealed that migrants have repeatedly been able to cross the supposedly impenetrable wall.
President-elect Biden has promised to end border wall construction, but some indigenous tribes along the border say the administration must also take steps to repair the damage done to the environment and cultural sites and traditions, reports PRI’s The World. In Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona, construction has reduced the flow of a natural spring and disrupted the habitats of jaguars and other rare species, but this damage can still be reversed if the wall is taken down, reports Audubon.
Family Separation
Yovany was the last remaining child in custody who the federal government considered eligible to be released. It’s now been more than two years since he has reunited with his mother, but the transition to living together again has not been smooth, reports The New York Times in a profile of the aftermath of the family separation policy. “The bonds broken during their 26 months apart — when Ms. Peren was a voice on the phone more than 1,500 miles away, as Yovany made new friends, went to a new school, learned to live without her — have been slow to regrow,” writes Caitlin Dickerson.
Enforcement
Immigrant advocates worry local leaders will be more likely to renew contracts with ICE under the assumption that detention will be cleaned up during Biden’s presidency, reports The Appeal. For example, a New Jersey jail renewed its contract with ICE shortly after Biden won the election, even though officials had previously promised to end the relationship.
More than a year after the arrests of eight recruiters for a fake university helping students get visas, immigrant advocates and politicians question whether the ICE sting operation known as “Operation Paper Chase” was a proper use of resources, reports The Guardian. One expert said the charges served a symbolic purpose of justifying a threat of visa fraud and showing the power of ICE as an agency.
COVID-19 & Immigrant Communities
Latinos make up 24% of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., although they are 17% of the population. In Los Angeles, Latinos’ rate of infection is more than double that of whites, reports the LA Times. Here are how some communities are containing the spread:
Detention
An estimated 5.5% of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. can be attributed to ICE detention centers, including cases of spread in the communities surrounding ICE facilities, according to a new report by Detention Watch Network, reports The Intercept.
Public Charge & Hunger
The public charge rule has strained food pantries and relief services during the pandemic as undocumented immigrants fear enrolling for public benefits, it’s another challenge Biden will face in his early days in office, reports The New York Times. In New York, a Pakistani group responded by creating their own food pantry serving an immigrant community that, in many cases, did not qualify for or was scared to apply for government aid, reports The Daily in a moving account of one day in line.
Crime Rates
Between 2012 and 2018, undocumented immigrants in Texas were half as likely to be arrested for violent crimes and drug offenses than U.S.-born citizens, reports Scientific American. The new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA is the first to link immigration status to crime rates for specific crimes and builds on previous research that shows immigrants are less likely to carry out crimes contradicting what Trump has claimed many times.
Courts
Nearly 20 minors in the Houston area received last-minute notices in November to appear in immigration court as part of accelerated court proceedings, reports the Houston Chronicle. The cases appear to be part of a nation-wide initiative the Executive Office for Immigration Review to move along an overloaded immigration docket.
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Recently released immigration books and films(got one, send it over)
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If there’s a story or immigration-related opportunity you think we should consider, please send us an email.
*Daniela Gerson is a co-founder and the editor of Migratory Notes. She is an assistant professor of Journalism at California State University, Northridge and senior fellow at the Center for Community Media (CCM) at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York (CUNY). Previously she was a community engagement editor at the LA Times; editor of a trilingual hyperlocal publication, Alhambra Source; staff immigration reporter for the New York Sun; and a contributor to outlets including WNYC: New York Public Radio, The World, Der Spiegel, Financial Times, CNN, and The New York Times. She recently published Digital First Responders: How innovative news outlets are meeting the needs of immigrant communities, a report for the Center for Community Media. You can find her on Twitter @dhgerson
*Elizabeth Aguilera is co-founder and executive editor of Migratory Notes. She is a multimedia reporter for CalMatters where she co-hosts the new political podcast California State of Mind and covers the health and welfare of California’s next generation. Previously she covered health care and social services, including immigration for the digital outlet. Before joining CalMatters Aguilera reported on community health for Southern California Public Radio. She’s also reported on immigration for the San Diego Union-Tribune, where she won a Best of the West award for her work on sex trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico; and worked for the Denver Post covering urban affairs and immigration. You can find her on Twitter @1eaguilera
*Anna-Cat Brigida is a staff writer for Migratory Notes. She is a freelance reporter covering immigration and human rights in Mexico and Central America. She began covering immigration as a journalism student at USC Annenberg and later moved to Central America to work as a reporter. She has covered the region since 2015 and has been based in El Salvador since January 2018. She has also worked as a Spanish-language writer for Fusion out of the Mexico City office. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Guardian, Univision, LA Times, and Al Jazeera, among others. You can find her on Twitter @AnnaCat_Brigida
*Yana Kunichoff is a special projects editor for Migratory Notes. She currently covers public education for Chalkbeat Chicago. She was project manager for Migrahack 2016 in Chicago. She has also produced feature-length documentaries and a pop-culture web series for Scrappers Film Group; worked as a fellow with City Bureau, where she won a March 2016 Sidney Hillman award for an investigation into fatal police shootings; and covered race and poverty issues for the Chicago Reporter. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Pacific Standard and Chicago magazine among others. You can find her on Twitter @yanazure
*Migratory Notes Advisory Board: Daniel Connolly, Maria Kari, Dan Kowalski, Paola Marizán, Mirta Ojito, Roberto Suro, Phuong Ly, Fernanda Santos | https://medium.com/migratory-notes/migratory-notes-192-de112a08ca2d | ['Daniela Gerson'] | 2020-12-10 19:25:40.403000+00:00 | ['Refugees', 'DACA', 'Immigration', 'A is for America'] |
A comparison of sklearn and statsmodel’s multivariate logistic regression functions | A few days ago I made a post where I compared sklearn’s LogisticRegression() function with statsmodels’ Logit() function. During this comparison I was quite surprised to discover that statsmodels’ Logit() scored 3% better accuracy than sklearn’s LogisticRegresion(). When I investigated this, I learned that sklearn’s parameters are tighter than statsmodels and this is the reason for the better accuracy. The documentation stated that I could set sklearn’s LogisticRegression() C parameter to a high number, such as 100, and penalty to ‘none’, but when I tried this the accuracy did not improve. Therefore, even when I loosened the parameters of sklearn’s LogisticRegression(), its accuracy still did not improve and as a consequence did not perform as well as statsmodels’ Logit(). The link to this post can be found here:- A comparison of sklearn and statsmodel’s logistic regression function | by Tracyrenee | AI In Plain English | Dec, 2020 | Medium
Sklearn’s LogisticRegression() not only is able to make predictions on binary labels, but can also predict on multilabel datasets just by setting the parameter multiclass to ‘multinomial’. What I discovered, however, is that Statsmodels has no such parameter setting. Instead, when making predictions the function MNLogit must be used to carry out the computation.
I decided it would be prudent to compare sklearn to statsmodels using a multiclass dataset and decided to use the class imbalanced E.Coli data set to test on. I wanted to see how statsmodels’ NMLogit() responds to such an extreme class imbalance. The E.Coli dataset can be found at this link:- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jbrownlee/Datasets/master/ecoli.csv
The imbalanced dataset describes the problem of classifying E.coli proteins using their amino acid sequences in their cell localization sites. That is, predicting how a protein will bind to a cell based on the chemical composition of the protein before it is folded.
The dataset is credited to Kenta Nakai and was developed into its current form by Paul Horton and Kenta Nakai in their 1996 paper titled “A Probabilistic Classification System For Predicting The Cellular Localization Sites Of Proteins.” In it, they achieved a classification accuracy of 81%.
The dataset is comprised of 335 examples of E.coli proteins and each example is described using seven input variables calculated from the proteins amino acid sequence to form eight classes.”
I created a Python program using Google Colab because it is a free online Jupyter Notebook that has many libraries already preinstalled on it. It is easy to use and the good thing about it is the fact I can call the Python program up from any computer I am working on that can access Google Colab.
Once I created the Python file, I imported some of the libraries I would need, such as pandas, numpy, matplotlib and seaborn.
I then loaded and read the E.coli dataset into the program. The dataset did not have any column names, so I had to define the column names, otherwise the first row of the dataset would become the column names:-
I then checked for any null values and on this occasion there were not any null values that needed to be imputed:-
Because the labels were strings, I had to label encode them using sklearn’s LabelEncoder():-
I wanted to know how many examples I had of each class to work with, so I put the labels on a counter. When I counted how many examples of each class, I realised this is an extremely imbalanced dataset and is therefore very difficult to work with:-
I plotted a graph of the target variable and was given a visual representation of the class imbalance I needed to make predictions on:-
I defined the X and y variables, which will be used to split the data into training and validation sets. The target is y and is composed of train.result. X is composed of the dataset with train.result dropped.
I then used sklearn’s train_test_split() to break the dataset down into training and validation datasets. I set the test size to 50% in the hope every class would be represented in the validation process.
I scaled the data down to an appropriate level using sklearn’s StandardsScaler() function.
I decided to put y_val on a counter and was pleased to see that all eight classes swerve represented in the array:-
I then set the class weights, which would be used to address the class imbalance during the modelling process.
I plotted y_val in a graph so the class imbalance of the array was very apparent:-
I selected sklearn’s LogisticRegression() and when it was trained and fitted I achieved an accuracy of 89.82%
When I made predictions on the validation set I achieved an accuracy of 76.79%. When I put the prediction on a counter and confusion matrix I could see that Class 2 was not represented in the model:-
The next model I tested on was statsmodels’ MNLogit() but I was unable to obtain a score for training and fitting the model:-
When I predicted on the validation set I achieved an accuracy of 80.36%. When I plotted the prediction I could see that two of the classes had not been represented:-
When I put the prediction on a counter and a confusion matrix i Could see that Class 2 ans Class £ were unrepresented. I investigated this and found that statsmodels Logit() and MNLogit() do not set parameters to balance weights. Therefore, for the time being anyway, statsmodels is not a suitable library to predict on highly imbalanced datasets.
The code for this program can be found in its entirety in my personal GitHub account, with the link being found here:- Misc-Predictions/E_Coli_sklearn_&_statsmodels.ipynb at main · TracyRenee61/Misc-Predictions (github.com) | https://ai.plainenglish.io/a-comparison-of-sklearn-and-statsmodels-multivariate-logistic-regression-functions-8b2b87ad8cdb | [] | 2020-12-18 19:20:11.278000+00:00 | ['Multivariate Analysis', 'Logistic Regression', 'Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science'] |
3 types of relationships you’ll form as a creative collaborator | As a creative, whether at work, for your business, or a side hustle, you’re bound to collaborate with other beautiful creative minds at some point. Who doesn’t love working with other creatives, right? Picture pop culture scenes from the 90s with a small crew of cooky painters, writers, songwriters, and dancers crammed into a new york apartment with all of their creative energy working in synergy to create a massive work that will save the day. Well, now that you’re back to reality, you know that creative collaboration isn’t always as picturesque as we’d like. Here are three types of relationships you’ll form and how to use them to your advantage.
People you work well with
You ever collaborate with a partner on a project and everything works smoothly? You match each other’s work styles, the communication is on point, and the synergy helps you work like a well-oiled machine? Sound rare? But it happens. These are creatives you work well with but aren’t necessarily buddies with. If you have the mentality that you go to work “to work” and not make friends, these teammates are perfect. These are the creatives who throw on a whiteboard at the right time and make sure you’re in all of the right meetings. It’s pretty self-explanatory why these creatives are good to have in your corner.
If you find someone you work well with, stick with them. You don’t have to like their personality to work well with them.
People you get along great with
You know those teammates you love so much you either talk with them outside of work or you wish you did. They’re also valuable in the workplace. Those people make great allies in and outside of the workplace. You don’t necessarily have to work well with or work with them on a regular basis to build a connection with them. It’s great to see them in a meeting and know you have them as a checkpoint or point of contact to follow up with after the meeting for additional information. If you don’t have an ally like this on your current team, look nearby. It doesn’t have to be someone you even see regularly. Dig in your employee directory and find a new face. Reach out.
People you don’t work well with
Ok, so these can be a bit of a challenge. These are the teammates who you don’t necessarily dislike, you just don’t work well together for whatever reason. They don’t communicate enough or communicate too much. Add you to too many meetings or no meetings. Need you to answer every question or never consult you for anything. Whatever it is, you seem to bump heads a lot, and it’s affecting your workflow when you have to collab with them. Well, you can’t stop working with them, and, as a professional, you’ll have to learn how to cope with these types of problems.
One possible solution is to learn to at least understand what drives them to do what they do. In psychology, there are two things that drive you to do anything: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation are those things that we hear about all of the time like money, fame, materials, grades, etc… We do these things to receive a reward or to avoid punishment. The other is intrinsic motivation, which are the things that we do because of personal goals. They make us feel good internally like self-value.
Chances are, as a creative, you’re intrinsically motivated by your work in some way. Creative work is so exploratory it’s hard to think that someone may only be motivated extrinsically by their work, but it could happen.
Chatting with this teammate at a work event or some other event that holds less project pressure is a great time to find out what’s driving them and finding a point of common ground. Hey. Maybe it’s not even that deep. Maybe they love Red Dead and so does your gamer roommate. That’s good enough. Bond over the visuals and the great storytelling and use that to break the ice. Use your team mate’s motivation to better connect with them and collaborate better. When you’re better able to bond with your creative collaborator, it’s easier to work with them on projects. They don’t need to be your best friend, they just need to be easier to work with. You may find that after a conversation or two you can be more forgiving of some of their problematic workflows and they may become more accommodating to some of your requests.
Of course, any of these scenarios can be applied to nearly any role, but it can be particularly challenging in a creative field as someone who doesn’t have an option to not collaborate, unlike some business roles that may well-suited for those who prefer to work alone as much as possible. | https://medium.com/@jaswillwrite/3-types-of-relationships-youll-form-as-a-creative-collaborator-da2b54bab96d | [] | 2020-12-09 13:47:36.075000+00:00 | ['Creative', 'Creative Collaboration', 'Creative Process', 'Workplace Relations', 'Workplace Culture'] |
Building an Implicit Recommendation Engine in PySpark | Recommendation System
Imagine you are on a spree of shopping online and you looked up various Winter Jackets that you will purchase, so that you can withstand the Cold Weather with Winds this year (It is going to be a bit windy this year). You did love a jacket which belongs to a particular brand named: 1. You viewed the jacket for several minutes, read the whole description of the jacket material, the size etc. and then you wanted to explore some other brands to see if they have the similar items like the one you viewed for this long. And Boom! You are recommended several products which quite match with the product you viewed earlier. In this post, We are going to develop a Recommendation System using PySpark ML-Lib’s Alternating Least Squares API. You have in hand, a data set which consists of the Following:
Variables belonging to the data set
Here, We will consider the 4 important variables for modeling dataset:
Renamed the Columns for ease of use!
Building a Recommendation System comes with its own challenges; Implicit Data and Explicit Data being the first challenge to overcome. Implicit Data means a data which is generated on a Real-Time manner by the User; and the User doesn’t have any idea about this. Implicit Data examples are: Number of Views on a product by a user, Time Spent by a user exploring a Product, Recent Clicks of the User on a Website etc. These type of Data are not refined and Data Scientists have a huge Task in their hands to refine the Data set so that they can include this in the Model. If we, as a Data Scientist; are able to include these data sets in the Model, then our Model will train itself on such Real-time data and give us accurate predictions regarding the potential products that a Customer could purchase. One of the Implicit Data used in this Model building is the Quantity of the Items purchased by a Single User. These Items do belong to a certain Brand and hence, we are having the Number assigned to each brand; so that recommendation System can recommend a User, products belonging to his/her favored brand.
Further, there is exploration about the modeling dataset for better idea about various metrics that comes into my mind.
Out of the 9M Rows in the Dataset, these are the Customers present.
Total Products
Total Brands
After exploring about the Data more, We should start diving in for the task for building a Recommendation System. We will use the technique of Collaborative Filtering; where we will use Matrix Factorization technique in a way in which a large number would be factored into two smaller prime numbers. We end up with two or more lower dimensional matrices and their product is equal to the original matrix.
We want to solve a matrix with consists of million dimensions but a User wont have these many dimensions for his/her tastes. Even if the user did see many items on a website, it just portrays that the User is having various interests. Using ALS gives us a lead in dissolving a bigger matrix into 2 parts namely; all users by their taste and Items by their taste matrix. These dimensions are known as Latent Features that we learn about the User from the observed Data. Recommending Items becomes easier because ALS represent each user as a vector of their taste while representing items as a vector of the types of taste they are a part of.
If I get back with the ALS functioning and their value prediction:
Rkj = Uk *T(Pj) where R is the Rank Matrix and k is the User in the user Matrix U, while P is the Product Matrix and Pj relates to product J. If we need to predict how User Uk would rate product Pj, we will multiply those two vectors. This is called Alternating Least Squares because we generate the two matrices U and P by first fixing U and optimizing P and then fixing P and optimizing U. Optimizing generally means here that we are minimizing least squares error on those recorded values that we have in the Rank Matrix already.
Now, since the Data is implicit, we don’t have a rating for the Items which user likes and the User gives a rating explicitly so that we can conclude whether he/she likes it or not. But, imagine of we have an implicit data which shows the total number of purchases that are done from a single brand, where User 1 purchases 2 products of Brand 5, while User 2 purchases 1 product of the same brand. This comes to the idea of User preference; whether the user would like any other item of this brand. We can denote this as:
Preference, P =(0,1); where 0 denotes no preference while 1 denotes user likes it.
The Next Model is R; recording which denotes the number of purchases from a brand: Rui.
If we integrate the above two methods, we will get this:
Pui = 1 if Rui>0 & Pui = 0 if Rui = 0
This means that if you purchase a product from a specific brand i.e. Pui = 1, you like that brand or you don’t like it if it is 0.
Now, if we add a notion of confidence in the Model, Cui; we can model it in the following Manner:
Cui = 1 + a*Rui
which helps in having some confidence in smaller recordings, while having greater confidence in larger recordings.
Alpha, a is the tuning parameter which measures the difference of weights between recording of 0 and recording of 1.
If we integrate all the above models together, we are implementing ALS in order to minimize the following equation:
Cui(Pui — Uu * X-Ti).
So, let us start implementing the Model in PySpark.
ALS Class in MlLib.
Included ParamGrid for testing various Parameters of the Model
A Single model is tested but please add various parameters to check the Best one.
I included a single Model because I am implementing this on my local machine and hence I get Out.Of.memory Error because of memory constraints. But, if you have Azure Databricks to work on, please feel free to implement 4 models together.
The Predicted Values which denotes whether User will purchase the product again.
Recommendations from various Products for USER 1591
Products that USER 1591 purchased already.
Here, Brand 107 is the prime favorite brand for user 1591 as he is getting recommendations from that brand, while he purchased products of that brand and also some neighboring brands as well.
The whole Code for this Model is on GitHub. Please feel free to reach out to me if you need a help for the same.
Please connect with me on other Social Media Platforms and you can check out some of my Projects in GitHub as well.
I look forward to help someone who is interested in collaboratively working on new Machine Learning Algorithms to learn from. | https://medium.com/swlh/building-an-implicit-recommendation-engine-in-pyspark-508bcd46d242 | ['Uttasarga Singh'] | 2020-11-22 20:58:33.809000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Spark', 'Pyspark', 'Spark Mllib', 'Recommendation System'] |
Full Stack Development in 1 Twitter Thread | Full Stack Development in 1 Twitter Thread
End-to-End Steps for Turning Your Idea into Something Real
When Form Follows Function
People have ideas. Lots of ideas. But how often do they turn those ideas into something real? There is a distinct difference between what’s in our heads and what can be created.
Most people don’t build software. This includes many people on actual software teams. If you’re not coding now you see the creation of working software as someone else’s job. Perhaps you’ve wanted to start learning (or relearning) yourself but assume it takes too long, is too technically challenging or just not something that interests you.
Ideas typically live as drawings, post-its, mockups and “clickable apps”, all of which might capture ideas but are hardly validation of something workable. There is a transition point between one’s ideas and what nature allows to happen, and through that transition is where innovation actually happens. There is a beautiful correspondence between form and function that only a true piece of working software can expose.
There are no excuses left for someone not making software. No matter your interest, if you want to see your ideas come to life then you need to build software. Given today’s level of abstraction in tooling, full pieces of software can be created rapidly.
Software development isn’t about “programming” computers it’s about crafting something real, that interacts with people, and becomes part of the working economy.
I originally wrote this on Twitter in a single thread, to show how just how accessible it is for anyone to create end-to-end software applications.
There are many false gatekeepers to opportunity. The assumption that you need formal education, online courses or years of deep experience is patently false. Everyone has the ability to piece together their idea into something that actually works.
Let’s get started.
The Pieces
You only need a browser, a notepad, and your computer’s terminal (command prompt on PC). There are a few high-level pieces that go into building all applications:
a page
styles
layouts
interactive elements
events
server
fetching/storing data
People rarely write programs from the ground up anymore. That’s too slow. Today we use libraries. We will use JavaScript and Python libraries. I will use Azle for front-end stuff ( DISCLAIMER : I created Azle, but you can use any JS library), and Flask for back-end stuff.
Let’s start with our page.
Pages always have an index.html file. Go to the Azle homepage and click on the STARTER HTML icon in the top left. Copy and paste this into notepad or whatever editor you want (I’ll use TextWrangler), then save the file as index.html (on your Desktop).
Grabbing the STARTER HTML file from Azle.
Every web application has an index.html file. It’s the page your browser points to when you load a website or web application. Let’s place the file in a folder called my_app , and drag your index.html file into this folder:
If you right-click the index.html file and choose your browser you can view the page. Doing that will pop open your browser and show a blank page.
Let’s style the page. Go grab the style_body code from Azle and paste it into your index.html file (inside the create_azle function):
Don’t be like Reddit and think you’re cool cuz yer ugly. Go grab some minimalist hex codes and style your page like its 2020. Nothing says I’m modern like Russian pastel:
flatuicolors.com/palette/ru
Choose your favorite color by clicking on it. Replace the “background” color in the style_body function with your new color. I’ll choose Biscay. We also don’t want to use standard browser fonts because the only thing worse than looking like Reddit is looking like Craigslist.
Google fonts to the rescue. I’ll choose Ubuntu. Nice and modern looking.
Of course, we need to make our Google font available. Let’s load that prior to calling our style_body function. Search for “font” in the docs to find the load_font function):
az.load_font("Ubuntu")
I also set the min-width property in the style_body function to 1150px so the page doesn’t squish when I resize the browser. Since we’re only prototyping an application we don’t care about responsivity.
Our code should now look like this:
Since this all sits in our index.html file we can refresh the browser and see the result:
Here’s the CodePen if want to play with the code. Try changing the color of the background. Of course, changing the font won’t make a difference yet since we are not showing any text.
Whenever you see CodePen in this article, click on it to open a tab showing a live interactive version of our current code. Play with the values to suit your preferences.
We are making progress…
Of course, nothing is on our page. Let’s change that. We will add a section to hold our content. Add 1 section using the add_sections function:
…and refresh your browser:
Azle’s default color for sections is a blue color, but of course, we can change that as needed.
CodePen
Try changing the number of sections.
Let’s head back to Russia and see if we can’t find a better color than blue for our section. Use the style_sections function (placed directly below our add_sections function) to style our new section. To style an element we must target it using its class name and instance number. We know the class name of our section is called “my_sections”, and since we only made 1 section it must be the first instance. Our style_sections function looks like this:
I will choose Apple Valley as my section background color. I also added a border-radius of 6px to round the corners. I set the height to auto , which allows HTML elements to grow and shrink based on the contents inside the element.
Since we want to arrange things on the page we will use layouts. These are just grids; boxes placed on the page, which we fill with text, buttons, sliders, inputs, etc. I’ll add a layout with 2 rows and 1 column using the add_layout function:
It looks like this:
I want the top row to hold my title. I’ll change the top row’s height to 60px by targeting the first row of my layout using another style_layout function, directly below our previous one:
Note how I targeted the class name of the row “my_layout_rows” and the first instance (row 1). Refresh the browser to see the difference:
Everything we’ve been adding inside the curly braces of our style functions is standard CSS styling. As you try to figure out how to achieve the styles you want just search online for the right CSS. With time you will learn many styling tricks.
Let’s go ahead and show off the Ubuntu font we loaded earlier by adding a title to our application. We target the first cell of our layout and add text using the add_text function:
Let’s increase the font size of our title, and center its alignment:
Pretty good so far. Now things get more interesting, as our next step is adding interactive elements to our application.
Let’s add another layout inside our 2nd cell to hold our interactive elements. Copy the same layout code we used before, pasting it at the bottom. Target the 2nd cell of our original layout, use 1 row, 2 columns, and color the background creamy peach (or whatever you like). We add the add_layout and style_layout as functions directly below our previous code, as follows:
Notice I also used the column_widths property of the style_layout function to give a 20/80 split between column widths.
The app looks too “liney.” Let’s remove the bordering from our most recent layout by setting its border to 0 :
That’s cleaner. However, I still want some kind of separation between the 2 cells of our inner layout. Let’s color the 2nd cell “Squeaky” from our Russian palette:
Notice our app no longer requires any bordering, since the coloring alone demarcates our layout cells. Let’s make it minimal and smooth by removing the outer layout’s (the first one we added) border.
Here’s the CodePen at this point.
Now we’re ready to add our interactive elements. We didn’t start with any mockups of what we wanted to create, which is fine. But now might be a good time to think about what we want this to be.
Most of today’s interesting applications are data-driven. What kind of interesting data could we fetch, and what kind of model might we use? While I write this, covid-19 is on everyone’s mind. Let’s fetch covid-19 data and use a model to predict cases.
****Usual Disclaimer***** Don’t be an idiot and use this model to make real-life decisions regarding a pandemic. This is just for demonstration purposes.
We want publicly-available data, ideally delivered as a “RESTful service” (“REST API”). REST APIs deliver data and functionality “over the wire” into our browser, making it easier to create interesting applications without having to write a ton of code.
If someone offers covid-19 data as a REST API it means we don’t have to store/manage the data ourselves; we can just use it
I found one here: https://about-corona.net It’s free and requires no authentication.
REST APIs have “endpoints”, which are what we point to with our browser to fetch actual data. After reviewing the documentation I found the endpoint we will use:
https://corona-api.com/timeline
This gives global counts for deaths, confirmed and recovered cases.
Anytime you want to see what a REST API’s data looks like just open your browser to the endpoint:
To use the data in our application we don’t access it as above, rather we ingest the data using JavaScript, and parse the results into some useful form. But first, let’s get back to our mockup. Now that we’ve seen the data, we can think about how our app might look and act.
A dirty mockup is all we need to anchor our approach. Here’s what I came up with, using Google Slides to create the sketch:
The user chooses a type (deaths, confirmed, recovered), with results visualized on the right in a graph. The user then chooses a “horizon” (future days) and clicks FORECAST to run a model in the back-end, whose results also get visualized when they are returned.
With data and mockup in hand we can start adding our interactive UI elements. We need a dropdown, a slider, a button, and a line chart. Let’s start with the first 3. I’ll add a new layout inside the first inner layout cell to help position our elements:
Notice I kept the border set to 1 so I can see the new layout:
Now let’s add our UI elements inside these new cells. From Azle’s documentation we can grab the code we need.
Add dropdown, slider and button code to our application:
Boom, now we have UI elements:
Let’s tailor these elements for our app. We know the options we want for our dropdown (deaths, confirmed, recovered). Add those now:
Let’s allow up to 30 days for the prediction. Set the default to 1 week out ( 7 days), with min_value of 1 day and max_value 30 days:
Let’s center the elements and remove the border from our recent layout.
We will use the all_ prefix in front of a new style_layout function to apply center alignment to all 3 cells at once:
I also set the border on the layout to 0 since we no longer need it.
Toggle the border between 1 and 0 while developing.
halign with center ensures the contents of all 3 cells align horizontally.
Now let’s add our line chart visual.
Starting to look like a real application now. For the line chart we will use another library called Plotly. Plotly is built on top of D3.js, an industry-standard visualization library written in Javascript.
While you can learn D3.js itself, Plotly offers an abstraction layer that makes development (much) more rapid. Click the line chart option on Plotly’s website:
We will copy the line chart code into our application. First, we need to make this library available. The simplest way to make a JS library available to an app is via CDN (content delivery network). We just add the appropriate URL to the header of our index.html file. We find this URL from Plotly’s Getting Started page:
Now we can use any of Plotly’s visuals in our application. Grab the line chart code from Plotly’s website and place it inside a function called draw_line_chart , like this:
Place this anywhere in the index.html file, outside the main create_azle function (so anywhere at the bottom, but still inside the <script> tags). Look in the next CodePen to see.
If we invoke our draw_line_chart function it will draw our line chart inside the element with the my_div id. Of course we don’t have any element like that now, so let’s create the HTML element that will house our plot.
We will use Azle’s add_html function. I will give the div an id called “hold_chart” :
Let’s go back and change ‘myDiv’ in the previous draw_line_chart function to ‘hold_chart’ so it targets correctly.
We need a way to call our draw_line_chart function. Let’s make it so that clicking on our FORECAST button draws our line chart.
To add events to UI elements in Azle we use the add_event function. Let’s add a click event to our FORECAST button like this:
If we now click the FORECAST button we will see the line chart drawn:
Looks great. Here is this latest CodePen.
Plotly provides a lot of slick stuff out of the box. We get tooltips, zooming, panning, and a host of customizable options. Doing this all yourself in raw D3 isn’t fun.
The data shown in the line chart is just mock data provided by Plotly. Obviously we want to hook up real data. Let’s do that now.
I mentioned earlier that we will ingest the REST data using JavaScript, and parse the results into some useful form. An important fact about building apps that rely on fetched data is the data must be available prior to using it.
While this sounds obvious it’s easy to miss when one is just beginning to learn software development. As an example, when our users first load our app we want to show the line chart. But that line chart depends on data being available.
To make sure data are available to any pieces of our app that require it we use so-called “asynchronous code.” Asynchronous code WAITS until something has happened (e.g. data has been fetched) before calling a function of our choice.
In our case, we want to fetch covid-19 data, WAIT until it’s available in our app, THEN draw our line chart. JavaScript makes all this possible via its “fetch” API. With fetch, we simply point to the URL provided by the REST service and tell it what to do once data are received.
Let’s use fetch to bring our covid-19 data into our application. How do we use it? A simple Google search led me to this, which explains it quite nicely. It tells us to use fetch like this:
Let’s paste it into our code, using the covid-19 URL we found above (right after our Plotly code):
Refresh your browser. The app itself doesn’t look any different. But if we open the “browser console” we can see the covid-19 data we fetched. Open the browser console by right-clicking anywhere on the screen and clicking “inspect”. Then click console.
You will see an “Object” sitting in the console. This is the covid-19 data we fetched (notice the fetch API we pasted above says console.log(data)). Click repeatedly into this object to view its structure:
This looks a lot better than what appeared in the browser when we first pointed to the covid-19 URL. Now we can parse this data object, using its contents to populate our line chart. To do this we’ll need to make a slight change to how our line chart is being drawn.
Inspecting the line chart code we added earlier we can see it uses “traces” to convert raw data into lines. We need to get the data from our fetch results into these x and y properties of the trace object:
Let’s write some JavaScript to parse the results of our fetch. We need to: 1. understand the source structure; 2. understand the destination structure. We can understand the source structure by inspecting the data in the browser console as we did previously.
The destination structure is the trace object required by Plotly. I wrote the following function to take the raw data retrieved from fetch and convert it into the trace structure needed for Plotly:
Functions are how we group code in software. They have a name, accept arguments, and return some result. Functions help keep code modular and maintainable.
What’s important here is to understand this is not the way to parse data. It’s a way. You must experiment with JavaScript and toy around until you find something that works. Search online for how to parse JavaScript objects, loop through them, and return new structures.
My get_dates_and_cases function accepts the fetched data, a choice (e.g. deaths), loops through its contents, extracts the pieces I need for plotting, and returns the object for Plotly. I will write another function to draw the line chart with our prepared data.
We can remove the original Plotly code we added and use this function instead. It uses our first function to prepare the trace data, then plots the line chart as usual.
Be sure to keep the “hold_chart” div we added so the plot has somewhere to live.
Recall that our fetch code only fetches data but does nothing with it. Let’s make it do that our fetch function draws our line chart once the data have arrived. Change our original fetch code to look like this:
Finally, remove the call to draw_line_chart that currently sits inside our add_event function. We’ll add it back in a second. Also, don’t worry about the az.hold_value.fetched_data = data line yet. We’ll explain that later.
Your current code should look like this: CodePen.
Notice in the CodePen I wrapped a setTimeout around the fetch function. This just adds a slight delay to ensure the elements are on the screen when it goes to draw the plot. This won’t be an issue once we move the fetch function to inside our add_event in the next step.
Our covid data is now showing in the line chart. Importantly, the line chart will only be drawn when the data have been fully fetched from the REST API. To recap, we used asynchronous code in JavaScript to fetch data from an API, THEN created a visual once the data were ready.
We also wrote 2 functions to prepare the raw data and plot the results. We are getting close:
…although we haven’t discussed the data storing yet.
Our next step is to allow the user to select a choice (deaths, confirmed, recovered) to redraw the line chart accordingly. Let’s store the returned data so we can use it as needed, without having to refetch the data each time.
I will keep the returned data in a JavaScript object. I will just use Azle’s namespace like this:
Type az.hold_value.fetched_data into the browser console and hit enter. You can see that we can access our covid-19 data anytime by simply working with this object.
First, we want to redraw the line chart when the user makes a choice from the dropdown. Let’s use Azle’s “ change ” event to make this happen.
To add an event to our element we use Azle’s add_event function as we did before for the button, targeting the element of choice, just as we did with styling:
If you refresh your browser and make a selection from the dropdown you should see the choice alerted.
Now we just need to redraw the line chart instead of calling alert. Our draw_line_chart function we wrote earlier is ready to go. It already takes the data and choice as arguments and redraws the plot accordingly. So all we need to do is add draw_line_chart to our add_event function for the dropdown:
Notice we are using the data stored inside az.hold_value.fetched_data . We are also using a new Azle function called grab_value ; this allows us to grab whatever value the user chose on an element (targeted as usual, with class name and class instance ).
Let’s see if it works:
Beautiful.
Here’s the current CodePen.
Adding events to our other elements works the same way. But those elements relate to calling some back-end model to make predictions using our covid-19 data. So before adding the other events let’s start working on the back-end model.
For the “back-end” we need a server that supports the heavy lifting required to compute our predictions. We could use a cloud provider such as Digital Ocean or Amazon Web Services, but since we’re just prototyping ideas we’ll use our own local computer.
Getting a front-end communicating with a back-end requires a web service. A web service will allow us to send requests to the server and receive something in return. This is what we need, since we want to give a back-end model data from our front-end and return a prediction.
We will use a lightweight web framework called Flask to build our web service in Python. Let’s do that now. At the beginning, we created our index.html file. Let’s add another file to the same folder, calling it predict.py :
I just copied the index.html file and removed the contents to make an empty predict.py file.
Now we will add some basic Flask code to our currently blank predict.py file. Flask’s documentation has a Quickstart guide where they show us the minimal code needed to set things up:
We will need a few more pieces, like extra libraries, to get our web service suitable for our purpose. Here is what our predict.py file will look like:
Whereas in JavaScript we used “CDNs” to add extra libraries to our application, in Python we use import statements. Above we are importing Flask, as well as the “request” and “jsonify” libraries, which will enable us to receive and send data from-and-to our front-end.
We also set a “route” which is an “endpoint” for our service. Recall our discussion on endpoints when we looked at fetching covid-19 data from a REST API. If you’re thinking we are making our own REST API right now then you are correct :)
Much of today’s back-end machinery in enterprise software is made available as services, consumed as REST APIs. This makes it easier to patch together various functionality and maintain and scale the application.
Beneath the “route” in our predict.py file we create a function. Python functions look different than Javascript functions, but the idea is the same; a modular piece of code that can accept arguments and return a value. I called our function forecaster.
Finally, we specify the “port” at the end of the file. A port is a programmatic docking point that grants access from the outside world to our local system. I chose port 5000. You can choose a different number if you want (if it’s already being used your computer will tell you)
Let’s fire up our web service to see if it works. If it all goes well we’ll add our prediction model and start serving real forecasts for our application to consume and visualize.
So far we’ve just been using a browser and notepad to create our application. But now we need to speak directly with our operating system, and for that we must use terminal (command prompt on PC).
I am using a Mac, so everything you see here will be in macOS. But the same general steps apply to PC. Open terminal. Quickest way in Mac is to use Spotlight Search by typing “command + spacebar” and typing in “terminal”:
With terminal open, change into our my_app directory by running the following:
cd Desktop/my_app/
…and hit enter. Now type:
ls
… and hit enter again.
You should see both the index.html and predict.py files. Hard to believe our entire application is only 2 files.
Thanks to the level of abstraction available in today’s tools we only require minimal code to create a full blown app.
Now, start our web service by running the following:
python predict.py
…and hitting enter.
You are now running a web service, exposing your Python code to any application capable of communicating with it. This is pretty cool, considering so many high-powered libraries are available today in Python. Just think what you could create!
Our back-end is being served on “localhost”, port 5000, with an endpoint called “predict_covid”, accepting parameters called “x” and “y”. To pass all this information “over the wire” we can construct the following URL:
http://localhost:5000/predict_covid/?x=100&y=400
This is the standard way to communicate with a REST API when using URLs in the browser. The ? mark precedes the first parameter name, and the & precedes the second. Open a new tab in your browser, add the above URL to the top, and hit enter. You should see the following:
Our web service simply returns the values we passed for “x” and “y”. Not too exciting, but it does prove our web service works.
Let’s hook it all up, end-to-end, so that our front-end application written in JavaScript (Azle) is passing data to, and receiving data from, our web service (rather than the browser). If we succeed, the only thing left to do will be building a good forecasting model in Python.
We need to pass the following data to our back-end:
dropdown choice
slider value
dates and # of cases
Note: We could fetch the covid data in the back-end rather than passing it over-the-wire, but then we would be fetching data twice. Since we are only forecasting a few dates and values it makes more sense to use the data already fetched from the front-end.
We already know how to “grab” the values from UI elements, using Azle’s grab_value function. We also have our fetched data structured nicely in our az.hold_value.fetched_data object.
To send this to our web service we could use JavaScript’s fetch API again. Instead, let’s use Azle’s call_api function, inside our button’s event listener:
Here is a breakdown of what is happening:
We added an “event listener” to our button, just like we did to our dropdown earlier. We also added Azle’s call_api inside the event’s function property, specifying the URL to our Flask service, the “x” and “y” parameters, and an alert when data are returned.
Refresh your browser and click on the FORECAST button:
Our application is officially interacting with our back-end service, passing data to, and receiving a response from, our Python code. Let’s replace the “x” and “y” parameters with the actual data we need to send, and also add the forecast horizon from the slider value.
Here I am grabbing the slider value, and the “x” and “y” data from our existing get_dates_and_cases function.
We now have our events hooked-up:
Finally, let’s build a forecasting model to make predictions based on the user’s choice of type (deaths, confirmed, recovered) and horizon. After some searching around I found a library called Prophet, which was open-sourced by Facebook.
Facebook recently released their neural prophet version as well.
Prophet is a forecasting library for time series, and has a Quickstart guide for Python that should get us up and running.
Our final predict.py file receives data from the front-end (which we already know how to do), prepares the data as needed by the Prophet library (as specified in their docs), trains a forecast model, makes a prediction, and returns the results.
All this in about 10 lines of code. Not bad! (There’s that abstraction working for us again).
In our index.html file I added 2 new functions for prepping data for the 2nd trace (to show the forecast). You’ll see it’s very similar to the ones we wrote for trace 1. I also added the new draw_forecast function to the done property of our call_api function.
Have a look over the final index.html to see the changes. You should recognize the final changes as familiar code. If anything looks unfamiliar search online to learn why it might have been added.
Let’s refresh our browser one last time to see the full application in action.
We achieved everything on our original list:
Before singing off, I want to add a spinner when the user clicks FORECAST so they know to wait for the result. I also want the Plotly chart to be transparent so we can see that nice blue background we had. Finally, I’m going to change the title of our app now that it’s something real.
You can find the final code here:
And here is the final CodePen. Note that since CodePen isn’t running our back-end web service you won’t see the predictions. But everything should be working on your local machine.
These are the major parts that go into building any application. With these skills you can grow into the world of software development (or just use it as a hobby to build stuff).
That’s it. Might seem like a long article but considering you just crafted an entire application with all major pieces, not too bad. If you’re stuck, reach out to me on Twitter. We’ll work through the code together. And don’t stop here. Try other libraries. Other use cases. Other anything. Just build.
Again, the only gatekeeper to opportunity is you. | https://towardsdatascience.com/full-stack-development-in-1-twitter-thread-5a0cbce2e059 | ['Sean Mcclure'] | 2020-12-02 04:27:42.885000+00:00 | ['Front End Development', 'Hacking', 'Prototyping', 'JavaScript', 'Development'] |
Why Tradition is Over-rated | In Jordan, the statement we often hear to justify why things are the way they are is simply “It’s tradition.”
Said like fact, it’s expressed as though this being that is “Tradition” was a source of wisdom and genius.
And it’s not.
It’s actually the greatest obstacle to tapping into the possibilities of an upgraded future, hanging instead onto false refractions of light we see of the past.
And what is at stake in these dialogues on tradition or change is our freedom, happiness, and the pursuit of our purpose.
In these dialogues between our truth and tradition is the invitation to step into our greatest power: the power of our choice. Every time we hear the voice of tradition, we have two choices: to succumb, or to challenge.
As a woman born in the Middle East, I’ve had to face the social “boundary” of tradition time and time again as it applies to my career choices, my relationships, and personal evolution.
The choice is always to believe in myself, or to believe in a “society” that knows better.
I look at where our societal values have gotten us. How much freedom has been stripped from women, from the arts and expression, and the unfolding of a higher, more connected, community that operates beyond division and separation.
And I see the space for our evolution.
The thing is, every time we allow tradition to dominate our choices, we sacrifice our truth and integrity.
And in each instance where “tradition” shows up as the cultural force limiting me from living my truth (whether it’s pursuing a shamanic career, or taking my time in a relationship), I hear the voice inside me that knows so well, this is not the truth my soul knows to be true.
Tradition and Soul are twins that took the opposite directions in life; one chose to stay blind to her truth, and the other, to listen as deeply as possible.
No matter how evolved a society (and in our case in Jordan, the answer is not so evolved socially speaking), tradition does not fuel growth.
It has contributed to keep our social bonds strong. It has served its purpose. Now, it is out-dated.
And it’s safe to say, it demands an upgrade.
But how do we step up to that challenge, to be soulful warriors of truth and empowerment? To stand for the higher truths we believe in and not allow outdated cultural blueprints to dictate our lives?
Nelson Mandela once said, “Law is nothing but organised force used by the ruling class, to shape the social order in a way favourable to itself.” And it’s exactly the same for tradition.
It has served a purpose in society. The purpose to safeguard existing norms, and resist change.
Target: Truth…and Fire
What happens when the call for change is so strong we can no longer resist?
What happens when the soulscape is ripe for change? For tuning into what TRULY matters, and nothing else. No more compromises. For trusting the truths we feel in our gut, and not allowing “Tradition” to hold us back from the reality we CHOOSE for ourselves.
If there is one thing that’s become clearer and clearer on this path of empowerment (and I grant, empowerment is a process, not a goal), it’s that everything is a choice.
Choosing to accept tradition is a choice.
Choosing to sacrifice our values to lay low is a choice.
Of course, our choices come with consequence s— but what is the price we are willing to pay; for our freedom, for our truth?
I always said freedom was my most important value, but in all honesty, my life does not yet fully reflect that. I have blind spots I am only now starting to see. In the places where it matters most, I have chosen comfort over freedom, security over the unknown that freedom brings along.
Until now.
And with a growing awareness of my blind spots, I can step more fully into my truth. Into the places where I have sacrificed my freedom to depend on a certain level of stability. Where I have held in my truth and expression, yielding to an organisation, or a parent, or some entity I perceived to be more powerful than myself.
When it comes to tradition, our generation knows it’s over-rated.
And in the whole Middle East, that system is ripe to be dismantled. But it needs spiritual warriors willing to step up and offer an alternative.
There are new choices to be made.
It’s time.
_____
If you enjoyed reading this and want a complimentary coaching session to explore and envision your own empowerment, spiritual awakening, and evolution, drop me a message. | https://medium.com/@AwakenLOVE/why-tradition-is-over-rated-936c58ab840a | ['Madiha Bataineh'] | 2019-06-17 10:45:26.590000+00:00 | ['Spirituality', 'Change', 'Empowerment', 'Evolution', 'Tradition'] |
What is the first step to buy property | First step to buy the property is to arrange the required fund to buy the property . Generally to buy a property we need to borrow either a part of total fund required or totally depend on loan. So we have to choose the mortgage plan we can afford according to our income . Many times we have already some property and want to invest in another property, in that case we can easily mortgage on our first property.
After planning the fund arrangement, preapproval of the property is required which is done by organization we are taking loan from. Preapproval of property is done for verification of property whether it is built on government approved land all, documentations are legal or not .
Then we have to know the rate of interest which will be payable on that loan or mortgage according to our income. There are many different organizations offering loan and having different rate of interest which changes according to time of repayments. There is also requirement of some down payment to pay and after that there are EMI’s to pay.
These are the steps you have to follow.
Some real estate agents also helps people in getting loan on property and can get some suggestions from them.Their are many online sites where we can select the property according to our requirement of location and budget. | https://medium.com/@bplprimeproperties/what-is-the-first-step-to-buy-property-6cbbcaae7a0a | [] | 2021-12-24 07:58:01.019000+00:00 | ['Property', 'Real Estate Agent'] |
“Birds of Prey” excels at showing awesome female heroines and anti-heroines dominate in an entertaining comic-book film | A Review Written By Victor DeBonis
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures
From a bunch of misfortune, much fuel and understandable fury can come and slowly start a greater independence and attitude that is both fun and interesting to watch. In its own twisted yet highly amusing way, “Birds of Prey” accomplishes at expressing that while also showing some solid talent from the actresses on the forefront and much of what’s on the screen, too. It’s a fun, wild, and oddly lovable movie about some cool women who make their way and kick rear through a society that doesn’t give them much of a break.
Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn to narrate this crazy tale mainly about herself and these other characters that isn’t always tightly written but refuses to waver from firmly charging forward with serious style and performers owning up to their roles with pride and talent. It’s a colorful action flick that made me grin and chuckle through much of its time, and it made me appreciative for the off-beat voice from its own personality, fittingly representing that of the delightful madness of Quinn herself.
This film is a spin-off to “Suicide Squad,” a clumsily executed wreck indicative of the time when DC movies were still trying to find their footing. Robbie as Quinn, however, stood out as one of the few highlights of that film, and her gleefully chaotic presence as the main character of “Birds of Prey” only further exemplifies why I’m so glad that she’s a part of DC’s film universe right now. I struggle to think of another actress who can pull someone who I’ve admired since the first time that I saw her on “Batman: The Animated Series.” Her vocal delivery brims with the rapid energy and pauses of almost child-like obliviousness that we’ve come to expect from her character. She also moves and fights with impressive force and a visible love for embracing her own insanity that flows through her from head to toe. However, when there is a calmer or more subtle moment, Robbie also believably expresses the exact quietness needed to illustrate her hurt while still keeping well in character and maintaining her edge.
Ewan McGregor is a blast as psychotic Roman Sionis, and it appears as though he’s getting a kick out of his role, too. There’s a sense that he absolutely hates when his own power and sense of control is being threatened, and he is not afraid to tear through someone with brutal force or rage to illustrate how he is not someone to dumbly consider trying to cross in the wrong way. Inexplicable, quick bursts of arrogance or macabre joy make their way between moments where he performs a hideous act of cruelty, and McGregor savors each one of these scenes. Between his fantastic performance in last year’s “Doctor Sleep” and his role here, McGregor reminds me more, right now, why I have such great respect for him as an actor.
As for other actresses in the movie, Rosie Perez excels as detective Renee Montoya, a character that numerous Batman fans, such as myself, will recognize from the Dark Knight’s universe. Perez gives life to her in this movie, playing her as hardened, gruff, and intensely passionate about her work to a point that she is willing to step outside of unfair boundaries set around her to provide justice. I’ve admired this actress ever since I saw her in “Do the Right Thing” and the sadly underappreciated 1993 movie, “Fearless,” and I’m so happy to see her in a movie again. Ella Jay Basco plays Cassandra Cain, the young girl who countless thugs are trying to track down for the priceless diamond that she’s stolen and how much incredible power it’s worth. She shows real talent, balancing an identifiable vulnerability with a playful cockiness that made me warm up to her character rather fast.
I also respect how well Cathy Yan directs this movie, too. There’s a vibrant, colorful personality and chaotic yet playful energy to this flick that echoes that from its main character so well. Speaking of the term, “colorful, Yan solidly establishes her voice by having several scenes set up with plenty of bright, radiant colors that contain a fierce, punk aesthetic almost reminiscent of the 90’s and the stylized color palette from that time. In small, street markets and lighting from the background, plenty of bright-pink and bright-yellow colors decorate these scenes and help this movie look great. For someone who grew up in the 90’s and enjoys the stylized, punk vibe that rock bands and music videos carried from some of that time, I got a kick out of the color palette here and what it reminded me of. Cinematographer Matthew Libatique deserves equal credit, too, for the movie’s terrific appearance. Yan also works well with the editing here, making effective use of comedic pauses and longer shots that welcome more character and momentum in action scenes or moments where you’re trying to get a sense of the distinct environments within this movie.
Action scenes are a blast to watch, utilizing wider shots with wide-open or creatively designed environments to make for interesting combat and use of objects surrounding the fighters to play with. It’s great to see these actresses perform their stunts, and it was awesome to get something out of the typical action scene, where a camera simply sits behind a fighter and throw one or two punches before cutting to another shot that’s almost identical. The climactic scene in an amusement park attraction, in particular, is a blast and made me grin throughout its entire time. Also, the soundtrack is neat to listen to, giving a decent blend of funk and 80’s rock and more current tunes that actually blend well with the tone of the movie. You get a sense that this is another comic book film soundtrack having been a bit inspired by the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies, and, while the music here is obviously not along that same height, it’s still fun to listen to.
Maybe, the element that I admire the most about this movie is how it’s a film that, in its own absurd yet still effective ways, honors strong women who don’t let the awful events from their past or present situations or society’s bad treatment keep them from asserting themselves and finding ways to get better from their awful scenarios. Harley, for instance, comes off the heels of an awful relationship with the Joker at the very beginning of the movie. In addition to losing someone who she cared for deeply (despite suffering horrid treatment from him), she no longer has the same protection from other wicked people that she used to hold when she was attached to the Clown Prince of Crime. In spite of this, she carries out her own ways of dealing with her pain, such as buying a pet to give her love. Are they absurd? Without question, they are. Yet, again, they match with her character and are humorous and interesting to see. Other female characters hold a firm strength and determination to be better in the face of the unfortunate circumstances set by their situations or society in the movie, such as Montoya, who, despite being a fantastic cop, doesn’t get the opportunity to properly advance, thanks to an unfair work environment that places a biased emphasis on what the male cops do as opposed to the women working there. Yet, she still does everything in her power to pursue what happens in the conflict and reach out to people linked with the main crimes of the movie as the awesome cop that she is, regardless of what the people at the station think or say to her. In both comedic and serious ways, this movie takes time to let the audience knows what tough events help drive each woman and make us care even more when they rebel against their patriarchal society or dark pasts and kick rear as the movie goes on, and I had a special respect and appreciation for that.
Perhaps, the female character in the movie that I cared the most about in this movie was young Cassandra herself. Having grown up from an abusive home life, she is trying to find a path of her own and, perhaps, a strong connection with someone when the people who are supposed to be providing that aren’t doing that. Ultimately, we see Cassandra establishing that connection with Harley. True, Harley isn’t exactly a role model, but, on the other side of the coin, she does provide a genuine relationship with her and looks after her and cares about her in a way that the people from her previous home never did. Harley and Cassandra’s bond stood out to me as a darkly comic yet sincere, sisterly bond that I truthfully found heart-warming. I admire simply watching them eat cereal and chuckle over Looney Tunes on the tube (Because, what else would Harley be watching in this movie?).
I will say that some of these characters, cool as they are, could be given a little more time spent developing them and fleshing out their personalities and what makes them tick. As much as I love Ewan’s performance and character in this movie, for instance, I don’t really know what motivates him to become the wacko that he is, and the movie never takes a moment to give an idea of that. Cassandra is cool but I would’ve liked to learn a bit more about her, too, and the “protect the kid” storyline that surrounds her, while not awful here, has been done before in countless other movies and shows. In terms of the plot itself, it does tend to jump around back and forth quite a bit with it abruptly halting quite a few times to explain what happened before, sometimes for a little while. While I can follow what happens in it fine, the pacing of the narrative and its flow feels a little jarring during some moments.
All in all, though, “Birds of Prey” works pretty darn well. The action, confidence, and chaotic glee shined fondly in the movie, and much of that results from the great direction, terrific acting, and the number of flawed yet lovable and bold women at the center of the movie. A little tighter work on the script might’ve elevated this film from being pretty good to great, but, thankfully, the characters and the movie’s firm handle on balancing brutal, comedic action with enough sincerity made this a blast to watch, even more so than, say, “Shazam” (I liked it, but I didn’t love it). It’s the most enjoyable time that I’ve had watching a comic book movie in a while, and how much I cared about its cool characters and Harley at the center of it made me grin even more with a close-to-wicked sense of glee.
Grade: B+ | https://victordebonis.medium.com/birds-of-prey-excels-at-showing-awesome-female-heroines-and-anti-heroines-dominate-in-an-d27ab47025cb | ['Victor Debonis'] | 2020-02-22 23:19:46.906000+00:00 | ['Comic Books', 'Movie Review', 'Film', 'Film Reviews', 'Comic Book Movies'] |
New Hampshire | I just left New Hampshire and I’m humbled that so many amazing people took the time these last few days to join us for my first of what will be many visits as a candidate for president.
We started at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, where I had a great time talking with Granite Staters.
Then, we headed to Portsmouth for our first town hall in New Hampshire — the largest so far in this primary.
We talked about numerous issues critical to the future of our nation: passing gun safety legislation; giving middle-class families a hand up and ensuring wages meet the cost of living, gas, rent, and utilities; making Election Day a national holiday; the Green New Deal; and more.
The place was packed! So many people came out that the fire marshal made us close the doors, so I went outside to talk to the hundreds who braved the snow.
This morning, we joined the Politics & Eggs series — a forum to meet with local leaders and talk about the issues that matter to the people. And, of course, I signed some of their famous wooden eggs:
New Hampshire, thank you for sharing your stories, thoughts, and hopes for the future of our nation. I can’t wait to be back.
Sincerely,
— Kamala Harris | https://kamalaharris.medium.com/new-hampshire-356bf82c564f | ['Kamala Harris'] | 2019-02-20 16:29:33.610000+00:00 | ['2020', 'Politics', 'Kamala Harri'] |
Ramble | From now on maybe
my poems
will ramble
they will stretch
for miles and miles
taking up the scenery and space.
They seem to feel like someone
has told them something about
longer is best,
more means automatically quality
and the heart of the matter, the point,
the purpose, is something that only
exists at the end of
a long trail,
a winding road
of words words more words —
but did I mention
I’m not really the rambling kind?
Did I mention I know your
mind and mine
tend to take it all in
in spurts of wisdom, moments of
brief inspiration, hits of
quick motivation,
and the thing that we take in
most is
connection
across a scrolling flipping searching
rolling rambling screen —
we take what we can get
maybe breathe maybe smile a bit,
and then it’s off to click and scroll
and search again
for the next brief big thing in
the daily journey
the online intellectual grind
reaching and grabbing for
a small moment
with you,
in real time. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/ramble-8218dd9e2c40 | ['Jenny Justice'] | 2019-11-05 11:07:53.804000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Community', 'Writing', 'Writer', 'Social Media'] |
There are 3 common reasons so many people’s New Year’s don’t succeed | There are 3 common reasons so many people’s New Year’s don’t succeed
Photo by Ava Sol on Unsplash
If you struggle to keep your New Year’s resolution, some experts say you might not be setting the right kind of goal.
Business Insider spoke with psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert, author of “Be Fearless: Change Your Life in 28 Days,” who broke down three of the biggest reasons people fail to complete their resolutions each year.
Here’s what he has said:
Your resolution isn’t specific enough
One of the biggest reasons people fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions is because they’re not specific enough, Alpert told Business Insider.
For example, resolving to “exercise more” or “lose weight” are easy ways to set yourself up for failure, as they lack ways to mark progress and are unlikely to keep you motivated throughout the year.
Instead, try making your goal specific, like running a particular 5K-10K you have circled on the calendar or losing a certain weight by a certain date.
“It’s easier to drop out or walk away when you set goals or resolutions that are vague,” Alpert told Business Insider. “When it’s really detailed and specific, it’s harder to walk away from it.”
Having a timeline on your resolution is helpful, he said, so think of short-term, medium-term, and long-term benchmarks that will let you know you’re on track to achieving your goal.
“What do I need to do this week, what do I need to do over the next month or so, and what do I hope to accomplish over the next several months?” Alpert said.
You aren’t framing them positively
Another problem people face when making resolutions is framing them with negative language.
When people resolve to stop wasting money or stop eating junk food, for example, it often backfires because it makes them think about the very thing they’re trying to avoid.
Photo by Devin Avery on Unsplash
“It’s almost like I say to you, ‘I don’t want you to think about what a zebra with pink and blue stripes looks like,” Alpert told Business Insider. “You kind of have to think about what that would look like not to think about it, right?”
Try framing your goal in positive language instead.
“So much of how we talk to ourselves impacts our actions and our behaviour,” Alpert said.
“We need to feed ourselves positive self-talk. Instead of telling ourselves ‘Don’t eat junk food,’ we should be telling us the behaviour we desire, like ‘Eat carrots and peanut butter as a healthy snack.’”
Your resolution isn’t about you
Another major obstacle people face is the tendency to make New Year’s resolutions that don’t reflect what they actually want.
The biggest culprits are dieting and exercise trends, Alpert said. But it can apply to any number of goals, like a career-related goal inspired by what you think other people expect of you.
“Goals need to be made for the individual,” Alpert said. “So often, people seem to be influenced by their friends, their family, what they see in society.” “I think it’s important for people to set goals that are for themselves and unique to themselves.”
Goals and resolutions can be started at any date. It doesn’t have to be the New Year. At times because you choose this date it can give you an added amount of stress, which will make you fail from the start.
If you put goals like loosing weight, or training for an event…remember you are allowed to have a day off from time to time. Give yourself a realistic time frame to implement, and reach your goal.
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
I find that people that want to lose weight for example change their habits drastically regarding exercising and dieting, and forget that the best way to do it , is by implementing changes slowly in their normal lifestyle. Plus cheat days , and cheat meals do not exist. They are just a fast way of going down the wrong slope quick. Remember, we all crave ice-cream, or a more decadent meal from time to time, but that doesn’t mean you need to stop all the work you put in to changing your life because you did it.
The diet thing is only an example, I used because most people chose this goal know.
If you have negative people that are nor supportive regarding the life changes you want to implement in your life, tell them to back off, do not let them ruin your positive state of mind.
So be fearless, just like Jonathan Alpert is saying in his new book. Good luck to us all, and may we all reach our resolutions and goals in the near future. | https://medium.com/@georgygeorgiana/there-are-3-common-reasons-so-many-peoples-new-year-s-don-t-succeed-2c89ba33cada | ['The Writing Bug'] | 2020-12-26 22:32:58.224000+00:00 | ['New Year', 'New Years Resolutions', 'Keep Positive', 'New Years Resolution 2021', '2020 Resolution'] |
Come and Get It While It’s Hot | The shrill sound of my phone’s ringtone wakes me from a deep and restful sleep. For a moment or two, I am completely confused and discombobulated. Then comes the panic: the only reason someone would be calling at this time of the morning is because of an emergency. Something bad must have happened. Flustered, I snap up my phone, glance at the caller ID, and swipe to answer it.
“What? What’s happened?” I ask, my pulse racing with a powerful chemical combination of anxiety and dread.
“I’m in a taxi. I’m coming over,” he replies, simply. I can hear the sound of the car engine in the background, confirming that he’s not joking.
“Why? Oh God, what’s going on? Tell me.”
“I need you. Now.”
This sounds urgent.
“Fuck,” I mumble into the phone.
There is a pause, before he answers, “Well, yes, as it happens. Precisely.”
“Huh?”
“I need to fuck you. Tonight. Or this morning, whatever it is. Right now.”
I am dumbstruck. Surely he did not just call me at 2 in the morning for a booty call.
“Are you fucking high!?” I ask, incredulously, rubbing my sleep-encrusted eyes.
“No, I’m not. But Tarquin is certainly getting higher as we speak, imagining himself buried in your sweet, wet pussy.”
Tarquin. Our pet name for his penis. Whenever he starts referring to his prick in the third person, I know shit’s getting serious.
“But baby, we’re seeing each other tomorrow night.” I do some quick arithmetic in my addled head. “Tonight. Whatever.”
“I know but I can’t wait until then, baby. I need you.”
Shit. My body reacts immediately to the desire in his voice, a Pavlovian response inside the deepest depths of my cunt. I feel the familiar wetness start to drizzle from between my legs, moistening the crotch of my silky underwear. My nipples pucker and harden, tingling as their erect peaks brush against the satin of my babydoll nightie. His need is like a siren call to my own.
I sigh, “Honey, you’re so naughty.”
He chuckles, and the husky timbre of his voice sends my pulse racing.
“You better believe it, baby. And I intend on being very naughty indeed when I get there. First, I’m going to kiss you, hard, and carry you back to bed. Next, I’m going to pull your panties down using only my teeth, and then kiss and lick my way slowly back up the insides of your legs until I reach your beautiful, wet pussy.”
I moan, and slide a hand under the neckline of my nightie to caress my nipples as he continues.
“I’m gonna slip my tongue in between your velvety folds, and taste your sweet cunt while you rub yourself against my face. I’m gonna drink every drop of juice from your pussy, suck on your pretty little clit, and make you cum with my mouth, my tongue and my lips. Again and again.”
The heavy throbbing between my legs intensifies, the pulsing waves of my arousal beating like a bass drum in my sex. It occurs to me that the taxi driver can probably hear the deliciously filthy things that he is purring down the phone to me. The thought that the driver might be getting turned on while eavesdropping on our dirty phone call sends a frisson of excitement through me.
“Then,” he coos, “when you’ve cum so many times that your body is limp and your breath is hard and panting, I’m going to kneel between your thighs and slide the head of my hard cock up and down your slit, and sink inside your warm cunt.”
I hear his voice catch and make out the sound of him swallowing hard. I wonder whether he will actually make it to my place before blowing his load. It really sounds as though he’s close to cumming there and then.
“How far away are you, baby?” I ask, pinching my nipple firmly between my thumb and the knuckle of my forefinger. I can practically feel the thick length of him inside me, my legs wrapping around his hips as he thrusts hard and fast. I am so wet that I can feel the slick stickiness soaking straight through my underwear, coating the inside of my thighs and seeping into the sheet beneath me.
There is no reply. Fuck, had he cum? Is he silently recovering from his climax, the inside of his trousers filled with his spunk and Tarquin currently deflating in the viscous liquid?
“Baby? You there?”
Nothing.
“Babe?”
Suddenly, the intercom buzzes noisily, indicating someone at the door of my apartment building. I pounce up from the bed and race to buzz him in. On the video screen, I see him smile and wink as the door clicks open. My legs tremble as I hear the lift spring to life, knowing that he is only seconds away. The lustful ache in my cunt is almost unbearable; I have to fight the urge to slip my fingers under the waistband of my panties and start stroking my clit.
When I hear the lift landing on my floor, I open my front door and watch him practically sprint down the corridor toward me. He crosses the threshold, his erect prick tenting his trousers and his urgent, shaking hands reaching for me. I purr, “come and get it, baby,” as he slams the door shut behind him and makes good on all his filthy promises. | https://medium.com/wtf-moments/come-and-get-it-while-its-hot-ddc79efb8c07 | ['Jupiter Grant'] | 2020-12-22 23:33:23.686000+00:00 | ['Pointer Sisters', 'Sex', 'Music', 'Erotica', 'Booty Call'] |
Millennial Anxiety: the Dizziness of Freedom | In 1979, Jean-François Lyotard published his book The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, in which he defines postmodern “as incredulity toward metanarratives”.
Metanarratives are the grand stories of humanity, stories that have heroes and an aim. In the story of Enlightenment, the hero is an abstract free and rational individual, and the goal is for him to discover universal laws of the world (and the universe) using the tool of his reason.
These stories provide legitimacy to our actions and our goals, but also to the knowledge we produce about ourselves and the world. They give us comfort because they usually work to create order in our own understanding of the world.
For example, in the story of Christianity, god created the world and people. The people were bad so he banished them from his garden. The people continued to be bad and he continued to punish them. He, then, sent his son to die to redeem the bad people, but the people continued to be bad and he continued to punish them. This will keep repeating until at some point god decides he’s had enough, and there’ll be Judgement Day. The good people will be admitted into the garden again.
The story is pretty much the same in all other religions. People are bad, god punishes them, people are still bad, god punishes them again, etc. Until the good guys eventually (never in this life) get some reward.
Postmodern arises as a response to these stories. It is our incredulity to the story that makes us doubtful not only of that particular story but of all stories. Of our commonly-held understanding of the world, of our knowledge production and of knowledge itself.
The postmodern condition is, therefore, characterised by smaller stories, similar to each other, but different enough to legitimise different aims.
While knowledge in modernity could be described as a mirror, with the aim of reproducing as closely as possible what happens in material reality, postmodernity breaks the mirror. It distorts and fragments the reality which is reflected in it.
We start understanding that there is no Truth. There are only different interpretations of the world. And this knowledge that we are producing is becoming simply a commodity.
According to Lyotard: “Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange.”
Knowledge, then, ceases to be part of a grand story of humanity and becomes just another product to be sold, bought, and consumed. From the perspective of scientific knowledge, this is problematic: if there is no Truth, or more precisely if there is no mind-independent world (nothing to hold up to our own version of the story and check if it is close to reality), how can we know that what we are saying is correct?
But on the level of the individual, this realisation is both liberating (since we are no longer constrained by the story about the progress of history and the goal of humanity being universal peace) and anxiety-inducing.
On the one hand, if there is no right way to be or live, you can live and be any way you want. You can find a partner and have children. You can go to school when you’re 70. You can eschew a standard job or build a standard career.
On the other, if the metanarratives are dead, what is the point of your life? What are you living for? If there is no reward, either now or eventually, why would you do anything? | https://medium.com/modern-woman/millennial-anxiety-the-dizziness-of-freedom-bafbfc1a1c0b | ['Kristina Hemzacek'] | 2020-10-15 06:56:53.574000+00:00 | ['Personal Development', 'Millennials', 'Postmodernism', 'Freedom', 'Anxiety'] |
A List of a Baker’s Dozen Pretty Much Defines Me | A List of a Baker’s Dozen Pretty Much Defines Me
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
This is in reply to a story by Tree Langdon. Dunno if I did that right. Dunno if this is supposed to be open to the public.
In any event, thank You for the idea, Mx. Langdon.
After a great deal of thought, and not in chronological order:
I’m nobody; attempting to find myself again. Dunno exactly what tagging someone does… Led a pretty dull life. Was fired when I was 15, in 1970, and also on January 1, 1976. Still haven’t recovered completely. Dropped outta an Ivy League school in my sophomore year, when I learned how to kiss a girl. (That doesn’t count when I whored myself when I was eight or nine. ;) After I dropped outta college my motto was “I’ll try anything once!” Tried a lotta things once or thrice. Decided not to try heroin because I already faced a nicotine addiction and thought that’d be sufficient. Quit for 11 years and then started again three years ago. Sheesh! Was suicidal for two years after my Wife remarried. Among four others, I was ranked #1 in my High School. When the Vice Principal called us together to talk about who wanted to be valedictorian, She asked me if I was supposed to be there. I had long hair at the time. Officially became head of the computer department exactly three years to the day from the day I started working there. Had, and have, poor people skills. Got divorced for two reasons: My Wife worked for me for 15 years. Ten or 11 years of our 12-year marriage We were “just friends.” Moved into my first house exactly one year to the day from when We got married. Spent most of the last 16 years laying in bed. Sheesh, even more. First piece I ever published (recently on Illumination, which is why I’m attempting this) was a piece of fictional commentary. Fiction?! Of all things!! I’m a computer nerd! Really enjoyed myself, last few months, trying to learn how to write things. At one time, never conceived such-a thing’d be possible.
For those born in the prehistoric age: If You remember the Bugs Bunny Show, I thin’ it was Elmer Fudd who wrapped it up by saying, “That’s all folks!” | https://medium.com/illumination/a-list-of-a-bakers-dozen-pretty-much-defines-me-3bfa5821740 | ['Jay Toran'] | 2020-12-27 14:42:35.354000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Illumination', 'Writing', 'Vulnerability', 'Depression'] |
How to Have Good Sex | Sex is like pizza, even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. — Mel Brooks
The good thing about ageing, when it comes to sex, is that you already know the difference between good and bad. When you are still in your twenties, sex is about learning everything about it, learning a lot about your own body, about your reaction, about the other’s body, about positions and tricks. It is a whole lot of experimenting, always looking for something new, or even someone new.
With a few decades of experience behind you, just as with every other thing, it starts to become a different sensation. If you consider sex as a way of personal growth, knowing yourself better, defining your boundaries and pushing your limits on your own terms — it becomes different. It begins to be more about quality than quantity, more about intimacy and pleasure than experiments.
Experience doesn’t come from a huge number of sexual partners, it can come from spending a lot of intimate time with one single person. It can come from good moments just as well as from bad moments — all of what you live through shapes you and teaches you.
I learnt the most about sex from someone who turned out to be quite a bad choice. He taught me a lot of things nevertheless, he taught me what is good like and he showed me also how it can be really bad. It all shaped me and taught me ab awful lot about myself primarily, but also about my expectations, my need for connection, my hard limits.
What makes good sex good sex?
It’s not about all the positions you can try out — although it never hurts to try new things out.
It’s not some special skill that you or your partner needs to have — although it can be nice if someone is an expert of cunnilingus; it’s rather a bonus, it cannot make up for the lack of everything else.
It’s not even being infatuated with someone — although the emotions can heighten the senses and can offer an even better experience.
There are a couple of things that should be considered without a need for special skills, without breaking your back trying out a pretzel of a position, without the fireworks of fresh love.
Be seen
Making love in the dark can be magical, it has a special beauty to it, as switching off vision, all your other senses will become more enhanced. Touch, taste and smell become more important — being your only guidance when your eyes won’t help you out.
But making love with the lights on, or in broad daylight every now and then offers another sensation overall. To see and be seen. To appreciate and be appreciated in your raw and vulnerable nakedness.
In many cases, we refrain from being seen, as we feel we need to cover up out own imperfections, breasts that are not as perky as we would want them to be, stretch marks, muffin tops. Our inhibitions and perceived imperfections stop us from being appreciated by our partner. We need to learn to love the body that is loved by the other, to see ourselves through their eyes, to accept that our flaws are loveable, our underappreciated body-parts are something to fall in love with over and over again. Our expectation of perfection and our own distorted beauty standards stop us from opening up.
Eyes wide open
There is nothing to be ashamed of and so much to see. So many feelings, so much love, so many hidden signs to pay attention to. Having sex/making love with eyes wide open is a whole new universe of sensations, and bonding — seeing deep into the other through their eyes, knowing from a squint how overwhelmingly elated they feel or seeing a glimpse of loneliness and sadness in the middle of ecstasy is a tell-tale sign for changing something, saying something or carrying on just exactly as before. It provides a deep connection, that goes beyond skin and flesh — a glance into their very souls.
Be here. Now.
If you take sex seriously enough and you want to make the most of it, then it has to be considered for what it really is: a connection that shouldn’t be disturbed by the reality of the world. Our daily connectedness to the world needs to be cut off, be it phone calls, vibrating messages, or inappropriately paced or loud music. You need to focus on that person who you are with. You need to be there, then. Multitasking does not exist, it’s only the capability of your brain to jump from topic to topic. Having sex shouldn’t be one of many topics, it should be the only thing you are focusing on.
Showing undisturbed and undivided attention, ignoring everything else, forgetting about the troubles — just being there, being present, being mindful. Just breathing and letting all the emotions wash over you provides an incredible experience, that is near impossible to describe.
Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash
Talk the talk
Words are the foreplay to the foreplay.
Expressing desire, showing interest, teasing your partner, talking in innuendos, being open to discussing anything that is related to your sex life out of the bedroom too will make the bedroom experience more intimate, more interesting, more exciting. Talking about wishes and expectations and limits is key to have a balanced and healthy sex life. Not to mention the arousing power of words when the real deed is out of reach — being apart, not being alone etc.
Find out what are the overlapping interests, be curious and be brave about telling what you have in mind. The point of any sexual encounter is to agree on what consensual means for the two of you and how far it is safe to go together without the boundaries being pushed too far. Words are the best way to explore this.
Talk some more
Communication is key, always. But talking during sex — as in talking dirty or getting into a roleplay to change the usual narrative can be a huge turn on. Be respectful about the other’s boundaries, try out what else lies beyond the average positions and setups, live up to your kink, whatever it might be as long as it is respected and accepted.
Never underestimate the thrill of the novelty that is brought by a different word, a different fantasy, a different story. It can be only words, or you can take it way further by making it into roleplays, full stories or dressing up.
Walk the talk
Don’t just discuss it and get excited and aroused about it. Try it, experiment together. Try new things, new positions, new toys, new situations. Change the scenery every now and then, do not just create a routine, make it a routine to deter from it. Feel safe and certain enough to say no. And to say yes to anything that excites both of you. Be open to being surprised and try to surprise — with an unexpected comment or touch, with something out of the box, a new idea, a new outfit, a new revelation.
Giving for the sake of giving, not getting
Sex should be about mutual pleasure, but it’s not a transaction. It makes a world of difference if something is done in a transactional way — as in expecting something in return, or it is given just for the sake of giving. Taking turns when it comes to oral sex is a good example to it. If you go down on your partner just because you want them to go down on you — it shows. No matter how skilled you are, it can be felt if it’s done with real enthusiasm, and you find it pleasurable yourself too, or you do it only to get it over with, waiting for your turn to get your own dose of pleasure.
If you want to have really good sex, then the attention, the enthusiasm, the wish to please the other has to be genuine and honest. Faking it will only get you so far — you might get away with it once or twice, but it shouldn’t be the point.
Orgasms are just a bonus
When it comes to measuring sexual satisfaction within a heterosexual relationship, there is so much more than exclusively the orgasm.
Pleasure comes in different forms and on different levels. Being intimate with your partner, enjoying their company, enjoying their body, finding satisfaction in the connection itself, enjoying giving just as much as receiving can be just as satisfactory without an orgasm.
It can be very liberating, especially for a woman if sex is admittedly for the pleasure but not linked to the orgasms of either party. It is a sexual act even if none of the participants is having an orgasm, but both of them enjoying each other’s bodies, without the pressure of expected relief.
Without the expectation of orgasm, the possibility of reaching it, just from being more relaxed and less pressured, is increased. Especially if the other isn’t pushing for his own pleasure either, and the quality of sex is not defined by the number of notches. | https://zitafontaine.medium.com/how-to-have-good-sex-c3df90074a96 | ['Zita Fontaine'] | 2019-07-21 08:22:50.763000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Love', 'Advice', 'Sex', 'Sexuality'] |
TensorFlow Quantum is an Open Source Stack that Show Us how the Future of Quantum and Machine Learning Could Look Like | TensorFlow Quantum is an Open Source Stack that Show Us how the Future of Quantum and Machine Learning Could Look Like
TensorFlow Quantum allow data scientists to build machine learning models that work on quantum architectures.
I recently started a new newsletter focus on AI education and already has over 50,000 subscribers. TheSequence is a no-BS( meaning no hype, no news etc) AI-focused newsletter that takes 5 minutes to read. The goal is to keep you up to date with machine learning projects, research papers and concepts. Please give it a try by subscribing below:
The intersection of quantum computing and artificial intelligence(AI) promises to be one of the most fascinating movement in the entire history of technology. The emergence of quantum computing its likely to force us to reimagine almost all the existing computing paradigms and AI is not an exception. However, the computational power of quantum computers also has the potential to accelerate many areas of AI that remain unpractical today. The first step for AI and quantum computing to work together is to reimagine machine learning models to work on quantum architectures. Recently, Google open sourced TensorFlow Quantum, a framework for building quantum machine learning models.
The core idea of TensorFlow Quantum is to interleave quantum algorithms and machine learning programs all within the TensorFlow programming model. Google refers to this approach as quantum machine learning and is able to implement it by leveraging some of its recent quantum computing frameworks such as Google Cirq.
Quantum Machine Learning
The first question that we need to answer when comes to quantum computing and AI is how the latter can benefit from the emergence of quantum architectures. Quantum Machine Learning(QML) is a broad term to refer to machine learning models that can leverage quantum properties. The first QML applications focused on refactoring traditional machine learning models so they were able to perform fast linear algebra on a state space that grows exponentially with the number of qubits. However, the evolution of quantum hardware have expanded the horizons of QML evolving onto heuristic methods which can be studied empirically due to the increased computational capability of quantum hardware. This process is analogous to how the creation of GPUs made machine learning evolved towards the deep learning paradigm.
In the context of TensorFlow Quantum, QML can be defined as two main components:
a) Quantum Datasets
b) Hybrid Quantum Models
Quantum Datasets
Quantum data is any data source that occurs in a natural or artificial quantum system. This can be the classical data resulting from quantum mechanical experiments, or data which is directly generated by a quantum device and then fed into an algorithm as input. There is there is some evidence that hybrid quantum-classical machine learning applications on “quantum data” could provide a quantum advantage over classical-only machine learning for reasons described below. Quantum data exhibits superposition and entanglement, leading to joint probability distributions that could require an exponential amount of classical computational resources to represent or store.
Hybrid Quantum Models
Just like machine learning can generalize models from training datasets, QML would be able to generalize quantum models from quantum datasets. However, because quantum processors are still fairly small and noisy, quantum models cannot generalize quantum data using quantum processors alone. Hybrid quantum models proposes a scheme in which quantum computers will be most useful as hardware accelerators, working in symbiosis with traditional computers. This model is perfect for TensorFlow since it already supports heterogeneous computing across CPUs, GPUs, and TPUs.
Cirq
The first step to build hybrid quantum models is to be able to leverage quantum operations. In order to do that, TensorFlow Quantum relies on Cirq, an open-source framework for invoking quantum circuits on near term devices. Cirq contains the basic structures, such as qubits, gates, circuits, and measurement operators, that are required for specifying quantum computations. The idea behind Cirq is to provide a simple programming model that abstracts the fundamental building blocks of quantum applications. The current version includes the following key building blocks:
· Circuits: In Cirq, a Cirquit represents the most basic form of a quantum circuit. A Cirq Circuit is represented as a collection of Moments which include operations that can be executed on Qubits during some abstract slide of time.
· Schedules and Devices: A Schedule is another form of quantum circuit that includes more detailed information about the timing and duration of the gates. Conceptually, a Schedule is made up of a set of ScheduledOperations as well as a description of the Device on which the schedule is intended to be run.
· Gates: In Cirq, Gates abstract operations on collections of qubits.
· Simulators: Cirq includes a Python simulator that can be used to run Circuits and Schedules. The Simulator architecture can scale across multiple threads and CPUs which allows it to run fairly sophisticated Circuits.
TensorFlow Quantum
TensorFlow Quantum(TFQ) is a framework for building QML applications. TFQ allows machine learning researchers to construct quantum datasets, quantum models, and classical control parameters as tensors in a single computational graph.
From an architecture standpoint, TFQ provides a model that abstracts the interactions with TensorFlow, Cirq, and computational hardware. At the top of the stack is the data to be processed. Classical data is natively processed by TensorFlow; TFQ adds the ability to process quantum data, consisting of both quantum circuits and quantum operators. The next level down the stack is the Keras API in TensorFlow. Since a core principle of TFQ is native integration with core TensorFlow, in particular with Keras models and optimizers, this level spans the full width of the stack. Underneath the Keras model abstractions are our quantum layers and differentiators, which enable hybrid quantum-classical automatic differentiation when connected with classical TensorFlow layers. Underneath the layers and differentiators, TFQ relies on TensorFlow ops, which instantiate the dataflow graph.
In terms of execution standpoint, TFQ follows the following steps to train and build QML models.
Prepare a quantum dataset: Quantum data is loaded as tensors, specified as a quantum circuit written in Cirq. The tensor is executed by TensorFlow on the quantum computer to generate a quantum dataset. Evaluate a quantum neural network model: In this step, the researcher can prototype a quantum neural network using Cirq that they will later embed inside of a TensorFlow compute graph. Sample or Average: This step leverages methods for averaging over several runs involving steps (1) and (2). Evaluate a classical neural networks model : This step uses classical deep neural networks to distill such correlations between the measures extracted in the previous steps. Evaluate Cost Function: Similar to traditional machine learning models, TFQ uses this step to evaluate a cost function. This could be based on how accurately the model performs the classification task if the quantum data was labeled, or other criteria if the task is unsupervised. Evaluate Gradients & Update Parameters — After evaluating the cost function, the free parameters in the pipeline should be updated in a direction expected to decrease the cost.
The combination of TensorFlow and Cirq enable TFQ with a rick set of capabilities including a simpler and familiar programming model as well as the ability to simultaneously train and execute many quantum circuits.
The efforts related to bridging quantum computing and machine learning are still in very nascent stages. Certainly, TFQ represents one of the most important milestones in this area and one that leverages some of the best IP in both quantum and machine learning. More details about TFQ can be found in the project’s website. | https://medium.com/dataseries/tensorflow-quantum-is-an-open-source-stack-that-show-us-how-the-future-of-quantum-and-machine-d1435593660 | ['Jesus Rodriguez'] | 2020-12-26 10:55:55.808000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Deep Learning', 'Data Science', 'Thesequence'] |
CCTV(Close Circuit Television) | CCTV stands for closed-circuit television. There are two common types of cameras in use today: Analog and IP-based cameras.
It is a video system where placed cameras catch video images and transmit to a TV monitor for watching from office.
To read more https://cctvdetails.blogspot.com | https://medium.com/@siddharthasengupta629/cctv-close-circuit-television-56e65ce4cfb0 | ['Siddhartha Sengupta'] | 2020-12-26 14:51:09.759000+00:00 | ['Schools', 'Videos', 'Technology', 'Cctv', 'Cameras'] |
The Cloud-based business: Explained | What is “the Cloud?” Here’s what you find using a Google Search:
cloud-based Computing (of digital data) stored, managed, and processed on a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet, rather than on local servers or personal computers: a commercial cloud-based platform | cloud-based services | HR platforms are increasingly cloud-based.
So,“the Cloud” is a bunch of computers connected to the Internet that processes (software) and stores files. The name sounds magical and enables tech companies to leverage the mystique so Cloud services can be bought and sold so (mostly) you can store your files off site. Great as a redundant system to save your data although I do still find it funny when people refer to it like some new thing since it’s been around for decades.
Have you wondered how “the Cloud” helps businesses to run? Here’s a short and simple infographic deck I developed to help explain the anatomy of a cloud-based business. It includes the advantages of Cloud computing, overview of Cloud service types, and a Cloud integration diagram.
Download here for free for use at your next client meeting or family reunion ;) | https://medium.com/@jeffhardypro/the-cloud-based-business-explained-9f89ebf3634a | [] | 2020-09-16 14:48:15.456000+00:00 | ['Cloud', 'Infographics', 'Business', 'Cloud Services', 'Cloud Computing'] |
Our Take: Klaus (2019) | Our Take: Klaus (2019)
A film that demonstrates how ordinary people can bring the magic and spirit of Christmas and create a legend. The_FilmPost Dec 25, 2020·4 min read
A true selfless act always sparks another.
A year after its release on Netflix, the Film Post re-watched the BAFTA award winning and Oscar nominated Christmas film, Klaus. The animated film directed by Sergio Pablo, who previously worked on several Disney films, including Hercules and Tarzan, tells a story of a spoilt postman, Jesper (voiced by Jason Schwartzman) coerced to establish a post office on the bleak and sinister remote town of Smeerensburg (roughly somewhere in Scandinavia, we suppose). He befriends a lonely woodsman and convinces him to donate all the toys he made to the children of the town who write letters to him. This toymaker is no other than the titular Klaus (voiced by J. K Simmons) himself. Together they foster change in a town and inspire hope and the habit of selfless acts, consequently creating the legend of Santa Claus.
Klaus and Jesper
When talking about Klaus, it’s hard not to give credit to its animation — it is stunningly phenomenal. In a behind the scenes video, Sergio Pablos shared that he wanted to bring 2D animation forward into the future. With the amount of details and shadowing work on the animation, the film elevated 2D animation. In the months following its initial release there have been debates on whether or not it’s actually 3D!
The film is more than just it’s eye-catching animation. The soul of the movie, and what we love the most, is its story, particularly how they showcase the morals and spirit of Christmas through a reimagining of the origin story of Santa Claus. Despite the simplicity and straightforwardness of the plot, it still manages to inspire and remind us of the true spirit of Christmas. Some of the lessons the film teaches us that hope always finds it way through Alva (voiced by Rashida Jones), a schoolteacher who has lost sight of her dreams when the delinquent children of Smeerensburg no longer go to school.
The Town of Smeerensburg
A prominent lesson in the film is showing kindness through selfless acts. In a town where there is a long tradition of feuds between the clans, the Ellingboes and the Krums, hatred and spite thrived within the hearts of the townspeople, until Jesper threatens a kid that Klaus won’t give him any gifts he is naught. This resulted in the children doing chores and random acts of kindness which influences their parents.
There is one lesson that truly resonates with us. It is how sometimes the most magical things in life are created by the ordinary. Just like how the film uses innovative 2D animation to create a visually remarkable film that puts it on a competitive level with the animation used in Toy Story 4, the unique and imaginative, though simple, plot of the film still manages to have the same awe-inspiring and feel-good effect on audiences as other Christmas films like The Polar Express do. In Klaus, there is no magical, ethereal man in a red suit giving out presents at midnight instead, there is only a toymaker with a generous heart and his friend, Jesper, a slender postman who does all the delivering for him, such as climbing down the chimney and eating cookies. Together, these two ordinary characters create a legend. This is a lesson that is more relevant in these times of a pandemic that halted our holiday plans and traditions. Keeping the true spirit of Christmas and with a little imagination, we can make magic during this holiday season.
All in all, if there’s a film that you must watch with your family, it is Klaus. There are enough sarcastic jokes and quips for the adults as well as the usual slapstick comedy for the kids. While it also has its heartfelt moments and lessons that would apply to anyone of any age. Five years in the making, Klaus is a Christmas masterpiece that we wouldn’t mind revisiting every year. | https://medium.com/@thefilmpost/our-take-klaus-2019-4f65b233f666 | [] | 2020-12-29 17:33:36.097000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Movie Review', 'Movies', 'Family', 'Animated'] |
DRDO provides ‘Bharat drones’ to the Indian Army for accurate surveillance at the India-China border | (google file pic)
India-China LAC: With tensions at LAC going on between India and China for more than two months now, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has provided drones named ‘Bharat’ to the Indian Army. The indigenously developed drones are sent to provide accurate surveillance along the Line of Actual Control in high altitude and mountainous terrains of Eastern Ladakh, news agency ANI reported quoting defense sources as saying. The Indian Army requires drones for accurate surveillance in the ongoing dispute in the Eastern Ladakh area. For this requirement, the DRDO has provided the Bharat drones to it,” defense sources told ANI here. The Bharat drones have been developed by a Chandigarh-based laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation. The Bharat series of drones can be listed among “World’s most agile and lightest Surveillance drones. Indigenously developed by the DRDO.” | https://medium.com/@dibo237/drdo-provides-bharat-drones-to-the-indian-army-for-accurate-surveillance-at-the-india-china-f8bce4ed93a9 | [] | 2020-11-22 09:30:42.084000+00:00 | ['Army', 'Indian Army', 'Politics', 'China', 'Drones'] |
Expected a more balanced and nuanced perspective. | Expected a more balanced and nuanced perspective. You seem to have pitched your idea from the perspective of a Tesla **fanboy**, to be honest. It is only expected that he will not be kind. How about a more realistic, impassive look. Chevy volt has sold well I believe. There is still a space for PHEVs and full electrics in the market. | https://medium.com/@arinbasu/expected-a-more-balanced-and-nuanced-perspective-ec1dbb2b6c9a | ['Arindam Basu'] | 2020-12-04 21:11:40.679000+00:00 | ['Mobilist', 'Electric Car'] |
NEXT Protocol x Finminity Own-A-Robot Competition Result | 💥 Big Announcement 💥
️⚡ We are excited to Announce our Own-A-robot Competition’s Result ⚡️
😍 Thank you all. We have received overwhelming response from you. 😍
🤖 We have list of 20 winners. 🤖
🤖 You all will get fractional ownership of our Robot (Serial № 00118350006) 🤖
💥 This will be shared with you after our IDO 💥
✔️ Here is the list of all the 20 winners:
1. Kevin Vanlancker
2. Rurmar Indianaco
3. Krishan Patel
4. Artur fritsler
5. Rob Steenhagen
6. Michael Perkins
7. Isaac Santana
8. baasanjargal enkhsaikhan
9. Peter Afonkin
10. al baqoriy
11. Phelype Haron Oleinik
12. ANTON CHASHCHIN
13. Dave Hoogland
14. Rachel Griesmer
15. Sanjay Hatwal
16. mehdi zare
17. Elias Hohl
18. Febri ikhsan rois
19. Will Griesmer
20. Chukov Anton
💰 Also top 5 of you will get 1000 $FMT Tokens as follows 💰
Kevin Vanlancker — 300 $FMT Rurmar Indianaco — 250 $FMT Krishan Patel — 200 $FMT Artur fritsler — 150 $FMT Rob Steenhagen — 100 $FMT
Note: This will be distributed on 25th June, 2021. If you haven’t provided your BEP-20 Token address while participating in Gleam Campaign, we will make arrangements to collect from you.
🎉 Congratulations to all the winners 🥳
🙏 Thank you to all the participants to make it a success 🙏
✅ More announcements to come. Keep following us. ✅
Website : https://nextprotocol.tech
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProtocolNext
Telegram: https://t.me/nextprotocol
Medium: https://medium.com/@nextprotcol
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PoweredbyNextprotocol
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7AefOa83Ee-JeKW8eqt0Fw
LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/company/nextprotocol/
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/nextprotocol/ | https://medium.com/@nextprotocol/next-protocol-x-finminity-win-a-robot-competition-result-57b02496c1ce | ['Next Protocol'] | 2021-06-18 11:07:04.429000+00:00 | ['Finminity', 'Competition', 'Nextprotocol', 'Win A Robot'] |
A Personal Religion that Goes Public | The religious habits and leanings of Southerners have been a source of multitudinous proclamations, conversations, protestations, discussions, debates, arguments, satires, and jokes over the last fifty years. In the era after the Civil Rights movement, what John Kennedy Toole caricatured in The Neon Bible was on the wane, and a new brand of religion was on the rise. Though the updated version was not a complete overhaul, it moved the South from tent revivals to megachurches, embraced the usefulness of television and screen media, and yielded such byproducts as the “moral majority” in the late 1970s and ‘80s.
These changes had definite effects. In an April 2019 article, the polling organization Gallup shared this, which shows how religion had changed in America, not just in the South:
U.S. church membership was 70% or higher from 1937 through 1976, falling modestly to an average of 68% in the 1970s through the 1990s. The past 20 years have seen an acceleration in the drop-off, with a 20-percentage-point decline since 1999 and more than half of that change occurring since the start of the current decade.
Despite that decline, a breakdown of the data presented near the end of the article shows that the South still has the highest rates of church membership, even though those rates did drop from 74% in 1998–2000 to 58% in 2016–2018.
Five years earlier in 2014, another polling organization, the Pew Research Center, published their own study that sheds light on Southern religion more specifically. Pew found that 76% of Southerners claim Christianity as their religion, while the second largest group was “Unaffiliated” at 19%. All other religions hover around 1% or less, meaning that, in the South, any non-Christian is squarely outnumbered. Moving in closer to those numbers, most of that 76% are Protestant; about 15% are Catholic. The center also found that 71% of Southerners believed in God with “absolute certainty” (16% more were fairly certain, for 87% total), and that 62% said religion was “very important” in their lives (21% more said it was “somewhat important,” that’s 83% total). Likewise, 62% of Southerners said they pray every day. What I’m driving at is: the vast majority of Southerners are Christians who take their religion quite seriously.
However, a series of telling details from the Pew Center’s graphs can augment and alter this glance at Southern religion. Most notably, only 41% of respondents said they attend a religious service once a week. That means that about a healthy portion of those folks who believe with “absolutely certainty” and who find religion “very important” don’t make their way to a church on Sunday. That could presumably be the 33% who go “once or twice a month/a few times a year.” Similarly, 50% said that they “seldom or never” attend Sunday school or some other kind of religious education. So, while five of eight Southerners pray every day, half make little to no effort to study their own religion. That assessment is reinforced by the statistic that 44% read scripture every week, though 36% read it “seldom or never.” It’s staggering to think that, in a region of such notable religious fervor, four out of ten Christians hardly the crack the spine on a Bible.
Maybe it’s this mixture of strong faith and self-definition that yielded the next set of results. Pew reported that 88% of Southerners feel a sense of “spiritual peace and well-bring” regularly, while barely half feel a “sense of wonder about the universe” regularly. So, most Southerners feel good about all the cosmic stuff, but far fewer think about it. Which may explain another dead-heat between what is above and what is here on Earth: asked about their source for understanding right or wrong, 40% said religion, while 41% said common sense. That wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if common sense were actually common.
Getting back to the cause for concern in this project — the beliefs, myths, and narratives that drive Southern culture — the numbers illicit some questions. Holding these figures up to the light, fuzzy areas where the numbers don’t line up cause me to wonder: how can religion be very important to a person who rarely opens the Bible, seldom goes to church, and trusts his gut as a moral compass? Perhaps there’s more feeling than thinking going on among a certain swath of the faithful. What is difficult for a conscientious observer to swallow is that those who follow gut-instinct act in the name of their faith just the same as — and sometimes more loudly than — informed, thoughtful adherents. And those actions affect Southern life in ways both large and small: from the outcomes of elections and decisions about public policy to ideas about educating children and the social acceptance of microaggressions.
—
To learn more about adding your voice to Nobody’s Home: Modern Southern Folklore, read “A Word from the Editor on Submissions,” or visit the Submissions page. | https://medium.com/nobodys-home/a-personal-religion-that-goes-public-da46de569888 | ['Foster Dickson'] | 2020-10-01 11:34:07.997000+00:00 | ['The South', 'Christianity', 'Controversy', 'Myths', 'Religion'] |
The Middle East and Gender — myths and reality | Annabel Harper is an Executive Leadership Coach and Facilitator, and a Middle East specialist.
In this 18 minute talk Annabel shares some fascinating insights into what is happeneing in the region and how conversations are the answer to increasing gender equality and gender equity.
For her recently published book “Shujaa’ah: Bold Leadership for Women of the Middle East”, Annabel interviewed aspiring and new women leaders in the region, covering the cultural complexities of faith and gender and what organisations need to do more of, what women could be doing more of for themselves and how the Leadership paradigm in the region has to be different from typical Western traditional approaches.
======================
If you’d like to share your talent, passion or fun topic (no sales pitches), pick a date (Fridays 1–2pm) add your name and topic to the list and we’ll be in touch.
Register to watch future events at: https://www.drivethenetwork.com/events/category/ed-talks/ | https://medium.com/ed-not-quite-ted-talks/the-middle-east-and-gender-myths-and-reality-e5f96f1793cd | ['Ann Hawkins'] | 2021-01-23 11:01:02.363000+00:00 | ['Middle East', 'Gender'] |
We Are Always Watching: The Dawn of Biometric Surveillance | This report was originally submitted for the Big Data for Intelligence course supervised by Dr. Ayşe Ceyhan (Sciences Po Paris) — May 2019
Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s computationally generated 3D portraits
In 2012, an American artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg embarked on a controversial biopolitical art project called Stranger Visions. She collected items New Yorkers unintentionally left behind (chewed up gum, cigarette butts, strands of hair) to “computationally generate 3D printed life size full color portraits representing what those individuals might look like, based on genomic research.” (Dewey-Hagborg) The project exemplifies the eerie potential of biological surveillance in identifying individuals through genetic determinism. Indeed, biometric authentication as “the automated recognition of individuals based on their anatomical and behavioral characteristics” (Biometics Research Group) is increasingly utilized in intelligence and law enforcement.
Biometrics serve as a convenient mechanism through which individuals can be identified by unalterable biological characteristics. The datafication of these characteristics with the help of Big Data analytical tools can be used in in a variety of contexts, including military, border protection, healthcare, among others. Case in point, American military intelligence “has relied heavily upon biometrics to identify hostile actors in a guerilla or counterinsurgency environment” (Gioe : 216) during post-9/11 invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. A group of Jordanian researchers proposed a new approach in identifying jihadist militants “from their geometric features of victory sign alone, as this sign might be the only information available about such persons.” (Hassanat, Alhasanat and Abbadi : 6) In the meantime, private companies are also employing biometric features, such as fingerprint recognition in smartphones, in provision of goods and services, as the total revenue of the global biometric system market is expected to reach $30 billion by 2021. (Statista : 7)
In the process, vast amounts of data containing sensitive biological characteristics of individuals are increasingly accumulated in public and private biometric databases. This report aims to analyze the privacy and data protection implications of datafication when it comes to biometric information. Firstly, it will characterize the increasing use of biometrics in intelligence and law enforcement contextualizing it in the broader theoretical framework. Secondly, it will explore the privacy and data protection issues emerging from the use of biometrics in surveillance. Finally, it will conclude with a brief case study of genetic information potential in intelligence, drawing on practical examples from commercial and forensic use of DNA.
Biometrics: A Gold Standard for Law Enforcement
Identity has come to be one of the crucial components and means of governance in an increasingly digital world. As far as intelligence and law enforcement is concerned, “identification has become represented at the forefront of the techniques and technologies of so-called homeland security.” (Amoore : 22) In particular, biometric technologies are often described “as the new silver bullet, the simultaneous ‘solution’ to a number of problems associated with the organizational desire for positive identification.” (Lyon : 501) As biometric authetification relies on unique physiological features, Jain, Bolle and Pankanti point to 7 factors that provide biometric parameters with several comparative advantages as a source of intelligence, notably:
‣ Universality
‣ Distinctiveness
‣ Invariance
‣ Collectability
‣ Performance
‣ Acceptability
‣ Circumvention (1998 : 1)
According to their biological characteristics, the biometric modalities can be further categorized into hand-based, facial region, ocular and periocular region, behavioral and medico-chemcial attributes. (Unar, Seng and Abbasi)
As a result, biometrics serve as an attractive tool for intelligence and law enforcement institutions, because “identification may be achieved using features that almost all human beings have by virtue of being bodily creatures, in a process that is relatively quick, non-invasive and low-risk (…) for the person identified.” (Lyon : 501)
Owing to the convenience of biometric characteristics in identification and the advent of modern technology, public and private actors alike have embarked on biometric datafication, amassing vast amounts of bodily characteristics in databases. To this end, biometric systems are created for “the capture and storage of enrollment (reference) biometric samples, and the capture of new samples and their comparison with corresponding samples (matching). (Pato and Millett : 2) In this enrollment and verification process, the information collected is stored in a database.
Lyon and Bennett observe that “national identification systems have been proliferating in recent years as part of a concerted drive to find common identifiers for populations around the world.” (2008 : 3) For instance, in 2009, India constructed a biometric identity system Aadhaar, connected to the national identity card, which “retains the cardholder’s demographic and biometric information — including iris scans — in a national, centralized database.” (Dixon : 544) With 1.2 billion users enrolled (around 15% of the global population) since its conception, Aadhaar is the world’s largest biometric identity program. (World Government Summit and OECD)
The identification potential of biometrics is also progressively instrumentalized by intelligence and law enforcement institutions. In 2011, the FBI deployed the Next Generation Indetification (NGI) biometrics database, which “provides the criminal justice community with the world’s largest and most efficient electronic repository of biometric and criminal history information.” (Federal Bureau of Investigation) The initiative aimed to expand the pre-existing IAFIS database “to include multimodal biometric identifiers such as iris scans, palm scans, face-recognition-ready photos, and voice data, and makes that data available to other agencies at the state and federal levels.” (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
The NGI encompasses an immense volume of personal information, including more than 70 million criminal records and 38 million civil records. (Kofman) In such way, the activities of the FBI are endowed with an added multimodal functionality, which is symptomatic of “the normalization of datafication as a paradigm in science and society” (van Dijck : 198) in the activities of intelligence and law enforcement bodies.
This broader paradigm shift energized by Big Data technology does not only foster new capabilities, but also presents operational challenges. Gioe emphasized the rise of Big Data technology like biometric identification as a ‘double-edged sword’ for the intelligence community, as “the role of such interconnected technology on the battlefield and improved real-time situational awareness has been revolutionary for military personnel, but networked computer systems carrying massive amounts of information can also pose a threat to military officers.” (2017 : 216)
Indeed, the American military has extensively used biometrics-enabled intelligence in Afghanistan. For instance, it controversially enrolled individuals on the ground in the Biometric Enabled Watch List (BEWL), connected to the domestic FBI and Department of Homeland Security databases. This allowed the US to not only “identify and locate suspected insurgents,” (Public Intelligence) but also acquire extensive biometric information on the population under the pretext of coutnerterrorism. On the flip side, there are emergent operational challenges intelligence agencies face with the increasing penetration of biometrics. Case in point, the future of international human intelligence (HUMINT) operations is at stake, as “biometrics — particularly those at international borders — make alias travel more challenging.” (Gioe : 2016) Ironically, the privacy of intelligence officers is at risk, as biometrics are increasingly becoming part of the equation in a multiplicity of contexts.
Hence, the advent of biometrics-enabled intelligence is symptomatic of the broader paradigm shift in the intelligence community, as Big Data is transforming its methodological and operational tooxbox. Owing to the parameters that take into account the intrinsic qualities of individuals, biometrics serve as an attractive and relevant tool in the conduct of intelligence and law enforcement activities, particularly forensic, battlefield and counterterrorism investigations. Simultaneously, the implementation of biometrics in other commercial and public contexts, such as national identification systems, provides intelligence and law enforcement entities with new avenues for data collection, bolstering and adding value to their modus operandi.
As emphasized by Maj. Gen. (ret.) Farkash, the former head of the Israeli Defence Forces Directorate of Military intelligence, the datafication of biometrics allows “to fuse all of this information together in real time and determine actionable intelligence for end users, namely special forces and similar units.” (2017) However, as colossal quantities of information containing intrinsic biological characteristics of individuals are collected and stored in databases, it is necessary to consider the ethical and privacy-related implications of biometrics-enabled intelligence.
Under Surveillance: A Global Paradigm
Beyond operational dynamics, a broader epistemological shift is occurring in intelligence and surveillance. However, debates on this transformation remain scarce and confined to the academic circles, while the consideration of privacy and data protection issues remains ever-relevant in the context of the digital era. Ceyhan uses Bauman’s liquid modernity theory to emphasize the transformative “fluid conditions of globalization and the production of a global risk society generating an increase of perceived uncertainties and insecurities in almost all aspects of life.” (2008 : 105)
In this context, Bentham’s panopticon, a metaphor widely used in surveillance studies to describe “increased capabilities of ‘watchers’ (…) to acquire more power over the ‘watched’,” (Manokha : 220) is evolving with the emergence of surveillance technologies. According to Lyon, “electronic technologies through which power is asserted in today’s mutuable and mobile organizations makes the architecture of walls largely redundant.” (Bauman and Lyon : 10)
The trend is indicative of new dynamic characteristics of liquid surveillance, which enables the “creation of a space that is not colonized either by individuals and citizens, and also not controlled by states, generating new fears and anxieties.” (Ceyhan : 106) The 2013 Snowden revelations sparked new concerns over the privacy and data protection implications of surveillance.
Contextualizing within the scope of the aforementioned example of the Indian biometric system, the American whistleblower has pointed out in 2018 that India has virtually “created a mass surveillance system with Aadhaar, and warned that Indians could face a civil death given that Aadhaar is linked to everything.” (The Times of India) There are several dimensions that point to the critical privacy flaws within the Indian biometric system.
First, Dixon criticizes the “marked lack of protective regulatory controls of the Aadhaar program, which has in turn resulted in profound mission creep and a loss of autonomy.” (2017 : 565) Nonetheless, the Supreme Court of India ruled in favor of its constitutional validity back in 2018. While it struck down controversial clauses like sharing of data on the grounds of national security, the Court retained the compulsory enrollment in the system for many crucial aspects of public service delivery, such as welfare. (Bloomber Quint)
Critically, WikiLeaks revealed that the CIA potentially possessed the tools to access the Indian biometric identity database. Aadhaar was implemented by an American company Cross March, which allegedly assisted the CIA in the creation of a “covert information tool that is used (…) to secretly exfiltrate data collections from such systems provided to liaison services.” (Kasli) This alleged meddling of a foreign actor in a national framework speaks volumes in illustrating the transnational implications of liquid surveillance.
Meanwhile, as the “world’s largest collection of fingerprints, DNA profiles, palm prints, face images and other biometric identifiers,” (Kofman) the Next Generation Identification (NGI) database of the FBI has also been subject to rigorous public scrutiny concerning issues of privacy and data protection. In 2016, the FBI has requested to be exempt from the Privacy Act of 1974, which “governs the collection maintenance, use and dissemination of information about individuals that is maintained in the systems of records by federal agencies.” (US Department of Justice)
In its notice of proposed rule-making, the FBI justifies the request “in order to prevent interference with the FBI’s mission to detect, deter and prosecute crimes and to protect national security, which includes the use of criminal record information and biometric identifiers.” (US Federal Register) This has garnered heavy criticism from civil society, as it pointed to the controversial arbitrary involvement practices, because the “database stores millions of identifiers for US citizens who have not been convicted of a crime, alongside those who have.” (Kofman) It potentially hampers the ability of uninvolved individuals to pass background checks in pursuing employment, in addition to danger of potential false positives in criminal investigations. The FBI was eventually granted the exemption, an emblematic example of the emergence of a liquid surveillance space beyond the control of legislation and bottom-up democratic oversight.
In the global context, China has been particularly invested in biometric surveillance methods for social governance. In 2014, it embarked on the implementation of a highly controversial social credit system (SCS). With prospective application in the country by 2020, the SCS aims to create an overarching citizen surveillance and ranking framework, under which “people will be ultimately scored based on past behavior, taking in misdemeanors such as traffic offenses and court records.” (Lucas and Feng) The system, frequently branded as Orwellian, relies heavily on Big Data technology, including artificial intelligence and biometrics, with ultimate goal of making every Chinese citizen traceable “by a file compiling data from public and private sources by 2020, and for those files to be searchable by fingerprints and other biometric characteristics.” (Hvistendahl) China’s invasive encroachment on citizen’s privacy does not end there, however.
Authorities in Xinjiang, a region in eastern China populated by a historically persecuted Muslim Uyghur minority, “are collecting DNA samples, fingerprints, iris scans and blood types of all residents in the region between the age of 12 and 65.” (Human Rights Watch) There has been evidence of complacency of American companies in this case of state surveillance, as a recent leak has “led to accusations that Microsoft had partnered with [Sense Nets] to help repressive surveillance efforts in Xinjiang.” (Burt) The Chinese biometric surveillance practices are becoming a practical embodiment of a digital panopticon.
The aforementioned examples illustrate that the epistemological frameworks that conceptualize the emergence of liquid surveillance in the digital era are increasingly manifested in the real world. The datafication of personal characteristics through Big Data technology, as evidenced by cases from applications of biometric identification methods, entail threats to privacy and data protection. Manokha points out that digital surveillance can indeed lead to the so-called chilling effect. As he further explains, this concept “is now widely used to describe changes in behavior made by individuals, aware of being under surveillance, to be in conformity with the perceived norms and expectations of the surveyors.” (2018 : 230)
As the Snowden revelations have also shown, individuals change their behavior both online and offline, as soon as they acknowledge the scale of surveillance, even if “there was no increase in coercive or repressive measures by security agencies.” (ibid : 228) In the case of biometric surveillance, this effect could potentially lead to a greater sense of unease and anxiety, since individuals could be identified by their intrinsic biological features, rather than their online presence. The passivity through which biometric information could be collected, such as CCTV cameras and the analysis of DNA trances, can lead extensive and intrusive surveillance practices in a form of a digital panopticon.
It’s in the DNA: Can You Escape Biometric Surveillance?
As evidenced by the biopolitical art project of Dewey-Hagborg, by simply collecting cigarette butts from public spaces it is possible to recreate the facial features of the smoker. The use of DNA-based biometrics can in fact enable law enforcement, investigative and intelligence institutions to identify people though genetic information. the increasing use of biometric DNA technology in public and private realms were “spurred by sociological phenomena such as genetic essentialism (the notion that genetic material is the “essence” of the individual) and genetic determinism (the notion that genetic information is determinative of an individuals predisposition for disease as well as other social behaviors).” (Arrigo)
Compared to other modalities, DNA is the most identifiable biometric, because it contains the unalterable characteristics specific to an individual. The collection and testing of DNA has already been digitized by forensic investigators and law enforcement agencies.
Nonetheless, the collection and storage of DNA samples is not limited to artistic projects and intelligence agencies — it has also been on the rise in the private sector, although its share in the market still remains fairly limited. In particular, online platforms like 23andMe, MyHeritage and Ancestry allow users to send a sample of their own DNA in order to find possible lost relatives and acquire a better understanding of their ethnic heritage. At first glance, these services seem innocuous, but the possible access of intelligence agencies or third parties to the private DNA databases of such companies can constitute major risks for the privacy of its users, but also those who are not.
Verge Science’s short documentary The At-home DNA Test Craze is Putting Us All at Risk outlines the privacy issues that individuals face when they use one of these services. Through comparison of the DNA with other samples from the dataset, it is possible to track down distant relatives of the person in question. By looking at the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs), which are specific segments of the DNA that reveal information about the genealogy of the person, the platform inks the DNA to a specific region of the world or to a set of matching people.
In doing so, companies that sell this type of service collect vast amounts of DNA samples in their private biometric databases. As the documentary explains, the number of people tested by the consumer genetics companies is estimated to be around 26 million individuals. In order to authenticate a specific person through DNA matching, it is not necessary to have an exact match in the system. Through a long range of familiar search, it is possible to connect the DNA of the person in question to a potential third cousin.
Verge Science argues that “for any population with some common ancestry, DNA from just 2% of the people could make anyone findable via a third cousin or closer. For example, all Americans with some European ancestry could be matched by just a 2% pool.”
Should intelligence and law enforcement agencies decide to get access to these databases, they have two legal solutions. First, they can contact the company and solicit collaboration, as it was the case for FamilyTreeDNA, which admitted sharing genetic data with the FBI. (Haag) Second, if the company refuses to collaborate, these actors would require a specific judicial warrant, such as a court order, that would compel the company to give access to the data. However, peculiar work-arounds emerged with the boom of at-home DNA testing companies with readily accessible databases.
While these databases are primarily used to trace lineage or ethnicity, the 2018 breakthrough in a 1970s murder case illustrates that these databases can be used by investigators to identify suspected criminals. Case in point, American investigators were faced with an impasse in the “Golden State Killer” case, who between 1976 and 1986 raped and killed dozens of individuals across California. Despite the fact that investigators possessed his DNA samples, they were not verifiable in FBI’s extensive DNA databases. With the emergence of freely available commercial DNA databases, police “checked the crime scene DNA against one of the genealogy sites that have recently become popular. (…) GEDmatch, a free service, confirmed that police used it to identify” (Selk) the serial killer via a close relative. The criminal is now facing charges more than four decades after the crime was committed.
This phenomenal instance points to the underlying privacy issues in the digital era. Liquid surveillance practices now go beyond traditional modus operandi of the intelligence community. As the conclusion of the “Golden State Killer” case shows, the intelligence community is not limited to their in-house resources and databases, as now they can pool into freely available commercial counterparts. While the aforementioned case points to the immense potential of commercial DNA databases in forensic investigation, the fact that individuals can be traced and identified through the DNA of their relatives from a small pool of samples speaks volumes about the implications to the integrity of personal privacy. In this context, an ethical dilemma persists, since genetic information is not something an individual personally chooses and gives consent to share with its relatives.
In the meantime, your entire physiological features can be reconstructed from a cigarette butt left behind in a public space.
_____________________
Sources:
Amoore, Louise. “Governing by Identity.” Bennett, Colin J. and David Lyon. Playing the Identity Card: Surveillance, Secuirty and Identification in Global Perspective. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. 21–36.
Arrigo, Bruce A. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Surveillance, Security, and Privacy. Charlotte: Sage Publishing, 2016. Bauman, Zygmunt and David Lyon. Liquid Surveillacne. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013.
Biometrics Research Group. What is Biometrics?
Bloomberg Quint. Aadhaar: A Quick Summary of the Supreme Court Majority Order. September 26, 2018.
Burt, Chris. Biometric Surveillance Raises Ethics Concerns for China-US AI Industry Sharing. April 12, 2019.
Ceyhan, Ayse. “Technologization of Security: Management of Uncertainty and Risk in the Age of Biometrics.” Surveillance and Society 5.2 (2008): 102–123.
Chin, Josh and Clément Bürge. Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life. December 19, 2017.
Dedrickson, Kirsten. “Universal DNA Databases: A Way to Improve Privacy?” Journal of Law and Biosciences 4.3 (2017): 637–647.
Dewey-Hagborg, Heather. Stranger Visions.
Dixon, Pam. “A Failure to “Do No Harm” — India’s Aadhaar Biometric ID Program and Its Inability to Protect Privacy in Relation to Measure in Europe and the US.” Health and Technology 7 (2017): 539–567.
Electronic Frontier Foundation. FBI’s Next Generation Identification Biometrics Database.
Farkash, Aharon Zeevi. Walk this Way, Talk this Way: Using Multiple Biometrics. April 1, 2017.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Next Generation Identification (NGI).
Gioe, David V. “‘The More Things Change’: HUMINT in the Cyber Age.” Daver, Rober, Huw Dylan and Michael S. Goodman. The Palgrave Handbook of Security and Intelligence. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 213–227.
Haag, Matthew. FamilyTreeDNA Admits to Sharing Genetic Data With F.B.I. February 4, 2019.
Hassanat, Ahmad B. A., et al. “Victory Sign Biometric for Terrorists Identification.” 2016.
Human Rights Watch. China: Minority Region Collects DNA from Millions. December 13, 2017.
Hvistendahl, Mara. Inside China’s Vast New Experiment in Social Ranking. December 14, 2017.
Jain, Anil K., Ruud Bolle and Sharath Pankanti. Biometrics. Personal Identification in Networked Society. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998.
Kasli, Shelley. How CIA Spies Access India’s Biometric Aadhaar Database. August 25, 2017.
Kofman, Ava. FBI wants to exempt massive biometric database from the Privacy Act. June 1, 2016.
Lucas, Louis and Emily Feng. Inside China’s surveillance state. July 20, 2018.
Lyon, David and Colin J. Bennett. “Playing the ID Card. Understanding the Significance of Identity Card Systems.” Lyon, David and Colin J. Bennett. Playing the Identity Card: Surveillance, Secuirty and Identification in Global Perspective. London and New York: Routeledge, 2008. 3–21.
Lyon, David. “Biometrics, Identification and Surveillance.” Bioethics 22.9 (2008): 499–508.
Manokha, Ivan. “Surveillance, Panopticism, and Self-Discipline in the Digital Age.” Surveillance and Society 16.2 (2018): 219–237.
Pato, Joseph N. and Lynette I. Millett. Biometric Recognition. Challenges and Opportunties. Washington D.C.: The National Academies Press, 2010.
Public Intelligence. Identity Dominance: The U.S. Military’s Biometric War in Afghanistan. April 21, 2014.
Regalado, Antonio. 2017 was the year consumer DNA testing blew up. February 12, 2018.
Selk, Avi. The ingenious and ‘dystopian’ DNA technique police used to hunt the ‘Golden State Killer’ suspect. April 28, 2018.
Statista. “Biometric Technologies.” Statistical Report. 2017.
The Times of India. Snowden calls for criminal action against Aadhaar misuse. August 20, 2018.
Unar, J. A., Woo Chaw Seng and Almas Abbasi. “A Review of Biometric Technology Along With Trends and Prospects.” 47.8 (2014): 2673–2688.
US Department of Justice. Privacy Act of 1974. July 17, 2015.
US Federal Register. Privacy Act of 1974; Implementation — A Proposed Rule by the Justice Department on 05/05/2016. May 6, 2016.
US Government Accountability Office. Face Recognition Technology. FBI Shoud Better Ensure Privacy and Accuracy. Report to the Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, Committee on the Judiciary, US Senate. Washington D.C.: US Government Accountability Office, 2016.
van Dijck, José. “Datafication, dataism and dataveillance: Big Data between scientific paradigm and ideology.” Surveillance and Society 12.2 (2014): 197–208.
Verge Science. The at-home DNA test craze is putting us all at risk. April 16, 2019.
World Government Summit and OECD. Embracing Innovation in Government — Global Trends 2018. Review. Dubai: Observatory for Public Sector Innovation, 2018. | https://medium.com/@zkapocius/we-are-always-watching-the-dawn-of-biometric-surveillance-a3f6989e6c1b | ['Žygimantas Kapočius'] | 2020-12-23 05:02:53.695000+00:00 | ['Digital Policy', 'Biometrics', 'Intelligence', 'Privacy', 'Surveillance'] |
A Better Way to Communicate, Engage, Recognize, and Reward Remote Workers | An effective employee communications and engagement platform can help you make sure your employees are happier, more engaged, recognized, rewarded, and more productive.
As an HR professional, how can you make sure remote employees (or any worker) are happy, engaged, and aligned with your company’s objectives?
It’s an important question. Today’s employees want rewarding work and to feel valued and appreciated for their efforts. They also want to be connected to your company, especially when they’re not in the office, so they know they’re still an important part of the team and contributing to a common goal.
Communication is key. In fact, effective communication should be the cornerstone of any successful employee-engagement strategy. Yet in today’s workplace, “more” is not necessarily better. For example, many employees are already overwhelmed by the amount of emails they receive each day. This means sending important information by email may only add to the clutter and could miss the mark.
The same result is true for other tools and platforms, such as instant messaging, wiki pages, portals, or more. Employees may lose track of whereto find critical information or become frustrated by how many steps it takes to find what they’re looking for. These challenges only become exacerbated when employees are out of the office.
All of this adds up to an important question: What can you do to improve employee communications, especially with remote employees or field workers who may not even have access to a laptop?
An Employee Communications and Engagement Platform: The Right Tool for the Right Results.
There is an answer. Innovative new employee communications and engagement platforms use mobile apps to improve the way you communicate, collaborate, and engage with remote employees and your entire workforce.
This blog will take a closer look at the traditional challenges companies face when trying to communicate and engage with remote employees or field workers. It will also introduce Workmates is changing the way we all think about employee communication and recognition, and in doing so, helps drive Workmates, HR Cloud’s powerful employee communications and engagement platform. You’ll see how to new highs.Most importantly, we’ll connect the dots by demonstrating how an employee communications and engagement platform such as Workmates delivers very real, and very significant, business benefits. productivity, engagement, and advocacy
A Remote Workforce Requires New Communication Strategies
Today, more than 63% of companies rely on a remote workforce of some kind, whether it’s employees working at home; mobile or field-based workers; or just about any other employee who doesn’t come into the office on a regular basis.
For most companies, giving employees the opportunity to work remotely helps attract and retain top talent while also serving as a tangible perk to promote work-life balance, drive productivity, and enhance employees’ job satisfaction.
The concept of a remote workforce is here to stay and enables employees to continue to be valuable resources for their employers while gaining the flexibility and balance they crave. Yet many companies need to develop new communication strategies to make sure these employees consistently feel informed, valued, recognized, rewarded, and part of the larger team.
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Even if Employees Are Out of the Office, Keep them Close to Heart
According to the same research, a majority of companies (57%) report that they do not currently have an official remote work policy in place.
Without clear policies and effective tools, companies could face communication and collaboration issues that could even snowball into larger challenges. Currently 60% of employees admit to not knowing their company’s strategic vision.
This makes it difficult for traditional remote employees who may have a hard time staying up to date on new announcements or policies, but even more challenging for field-based workers who may only have access to a mobile device.
All of this points to a growing gap. On one hand, in order to recruit and retain top talent, employers should continue to offer the perk of remote work flexibility to increase productivity, encourage employee advocacy, and reduce costs. Yet if they’re not careful, or don’t embrace proven communications, engagement, and recognition tools-they run the very real risk of disengaging valuable employees.
Employee Engagement is a Valuable Advantage
Why should you care about disengaged employees? For starters, you could be in danger of losing top performers if they’re not engaged and motivated in their current role.
Yet to look at it another way, employee engagement can become a powerful competitive advantage.
According to research from Aon Hewitt, those companies with high levels of engagement (65% or greater) outperform the stock market, posting total shareholder returns 22% more than the average. On the other hand, companies with low engagement (45% or less) had total shareholder returns that were 28% lower than average. Additionally, from 2002–2012, the Top 40 Best Companies to Work for in the U.S. enjoyed nearly 4x better financial returns than the S&P 500.
Clearly companies with higher levels of employee communication and engagement are proven to achieve higher growth rates, productivity, and financial success.
HR Cloud’s Workmates: Effective Employee Communications and Engagement Starts Now
Now there is an extremely effective way to improve the way you communicate and collaborate with remote employees.
Workmates is so effective because it puts communication directly in employees’ hands. Say goodbye to trying to force cumbersome new processes on busy employees. Instead, Workmates becomes a tool they want to use since it naturally facilitates information sharing to keep employees in sync and improve overall performance.
With Workmates, employee communication and recognition becomes easy and fun and encourages mobile collaboration with any employee, no matter where they happen to work.
Happy Employees = Engaged Employees
With Workmates, we have designed and delivered everything you need to foster an ongoing culture of communication. Workmates includes real-time social feeds, company announcements, an employee directory, direct messaging, surveying, and more-all to get teams talking. Employees can post light-hearted messages or animated GIFs on the feed. Share a company announcement for an upcoming team meeting. Or even give a shout-out to a fellow to recognize a specific accomplishment. With Workmates, employee engagement feels like fun, not work.
Keep Employees Motivated
Praise and recognition are extremely effective ways to keep the workforce motivated, productive, and aligned with your company’s goals.
Workmates now helps your company improve the overall employee recognition experience and keep the workforce as motivated as possible. Now a manager (or any team member) can recognize any employee’s accomplishment or contribution with a well-timed “kudos,” thank-you gift, prize, or other rewards. It all becomes the digital equivalent of a high five and will help drive employee engagement to new highs. Workmates offers customizable badges and other options to reward employees, share accomplishments, and celebrate milestones and successes with the entire team.
Workmates Fosters Communication, Collaboration, and Better Business Results
Managers and HR professionals simply can’t meet with employees individually to keep them informed and up to date on the latest company news. This is especially true when employees are not in the office. Workmates now overcomes this issue and enables all team members to communicate effectively in the way they prefer to get the information they need when they need it. This comprehensive employee communications and engagement platform delivers many advantages and benefits:
Personalize employees’ content experience and give them access to the latest company information on a variety of channels.
Deliver critical information to the right employee in the right moment as constructive feedback, not after the fact, or worse, not at all.
Workmates lets any employee reward a peer for any contribution or achievement. Highlighting exemplary behavior becomes fun and encourage future recognition and effort.
Happy, engaged employees will now become company advocates, willing and able to embody your company’s best interests, promote your products or services, and contribute to a stronger culture.
A Closer Look at All that Workmates Has to Offer
Automated email reminders help admins, IT, and the rest of your team welcome new employees.
Recognize employee accomplishments and motivate more with instant feedback and recognition.
Get information to employees quickly through a single, streamlined source, direct from the company.
Connect teams and groups to the information they need to get the job done with personalized portals on desktop or mobile apps.
Integrating with and reporting on other applications is easy through HR Cloud Custom Objects™.
A Leading Management Consulting Firm Improves Employee Engagement and Transforms Its Company Culture with Workmates
The company’s HR Director remembers what led the company to consider an employee communications and engagement platform. “First, we definitely wanted to improve the way we shared information with our entire workforce, even when employees weren’t in the office to make sure they were happy, informed, and fully aligned with our goals,” she says.
The firm also wanted an employee engagement solution that could begin to transform the culture. HR envisioned anew platform that would go vira throughout the company and let employees post pictures, celebrate achievements, and have fun posting pictures, GIFs, surveys, polls, and more.
Download now
Improved Employee Engagement Starts Now
Companies of all sizes need a better way to communicate with remote employees, field-based workers, or any employee looking to feel more connected. This idea is much more than a “nice to have” improvement on HR’s wish list. Instead, improving communication with remote employees is proven to increase engagement, retention, productivity, and financial performance.
HR Cloud’s Workmates platform helps promote and foster employee communications and engagement. With Workmates, employees communicate and collaborate more effectively, positioning your entire company to achieve results that matter most.
About Author: This article is written by a marketing team member at HR Cloud. HR Cloud is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications & engagement, and rewards & recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk. | https://medium.com/@hrcloud/a-better-way-to-communicate-engage-recognize-and-reward-remote-workers-e5aed801fbc8 | ['Hr Cloud'] | 2020-12-03 19:48:23.597000+00:00 | ['Employee Engagement', 'Employee Experience', 'Communications Strategy', 'Company Culture', 'Recognition Rewards'] |
Go: When Using a Map as a Set, What Value? | Say a piece of code wants a Set, not for all a Set’s many operations, just for a membership test, or uniquing a collection of values. Go doesn’t offer a Set natively, but you just use a Map of course, using just the keys to do what you need.
But The Value…
A question comes immediately to mind, if all we care about is the key, what should we use for the value seeing we don’t care about it? Maybe the key again, a bool? Obviously nothing that will waste a lot of space. I was told the efficient answer is use a struct.
Example
So when I used a bool, here’s what I was told to do instead:
var set := make(map[string]struct{}) set[“foo”] = struct{}{}
The guidance I was given in the pull request was this was the most efficient value to use.
Why?
I’m assuming that this results in a small thing with flexible alignment which works well in the map, but I’d love to know the answer without having to dig through the Go source of map and investigate. | https://medium.com/@nwillc/go-when-using-a-map-as-a-set-what-value-b9b8bdca06b7 | [] | 2020-11-07 22:20:20.977000+00:00 | ['Set', 'Map', 'Efficiency', 'Go'] |
WYPIS? [what’s your place in space?] | Sun Ra led us on a chant, “What’s Ur Place in Space?”…and so it went that the message went by without the fullest of ingestions, thus we have to say it again, with different window dressings…
Mind Time was my journey to restate the question, 10 years ago…enjoy the journey.
…sanity is the notion and the motion has gotta be the path home…it’s your mind to save…a mind is terrible thing to waste..tomorrow needn’t be a replay of yesterday unless you are happy with the newscast…the price of gas is too high, but you keep on driving…who dunitt to your mind…don’t loose the time to get sane…don’t you want to go home?
Can you feel me? | https://medium.com/thrive-global/wypis-whats-your-place-in-space-100214b04251 | ['Diem Jones'] | 2017-04-04 18:44:37.184000+00:00 | ['Equanimity', 'Poetry', 'George Clinton', 'Music', 'Wisdom'] |
B2B SAAS Marketing Strategies50+ B2B SAAS Marketing Strategies with Case studies | Marketing is a demanding profession. After a decade of experience, I can safely conclude, without any fear of controversy, that customer acquisition, and on boarding is the toughest challenge faced even today. The pressure aggravates manifold especially when you are engaged in cloud wars. We design and adopt various strategies to retain our B2B customers.
Start-ups offer free products and services as a trial to build up a platform for seamless acquisition. This is a long-term strategy called SaaS marketing. The widely accepted strategic model emphasizes on the concept “free” in its offer of ‘free trial’, ‘free trial for premium service’, ’60 days free trial’, so on so forth. Unfortunately, the free trials do not always end up in client acquisition and we have seen business virtually losing out on their game. At the same time, many of the start-ups have flourished owing to their successful B2B SaaS marketing strategies. If you wish to unravel the secret to their success keep reading!
1. Adapt to the remarkably short sales cycle
Unlike the sluggish pace of non-software purchases, the constantly evolving SaaS buying is real quick.
There exist very little time between product or service comparison, seeking guidance from friends and buying. A SaaS product becomes extinct within a short span of time.
Owing to the constant up gradation of SaaS products, velocity of sales is the key to success.
Adapt to a fast changing environment and provide as much information possible to your potential customers.
Reliance JIO started offering “free” call service, “free” unlimited data service to its customers for a trial period of 90 days even before its launch.
The SaaS marketing strategy charged up the already competitive service provider environment and compelled customers queue up in front of Reliance stores to register themselves.
2. Developing a kickass content marketing
Identify your audience and know what triggers them. Develop a strategy to correlate your call to action with visible equity.
It’s a great digital strategy to compel your visitor to act the way you want without letting it dig deep into their conscience level.
Michael Aagard from Unbounce checked this out with a simple A/B test on payment page.
Two buttons with a free trial were made as per the B2B SaaS marketing strategy.
strategy. One button carried, “Start YOUR free trail for 30 days”, while the other had “Start MY free trail for 30 days,” written on them.
The latter saw a 90% increase in the click through rate as compared to the former.
This strategy established how it triggers the audience to act according to my wish as the latter correlates with the visible equity with their action level.
3. Build up a social strategy and third party publishing schedule
Invest your time to find out third party authoritative publications.
Publish your article, blog on their sites to reach out to a larger audience and generate more traffic.
James Clear invested much in identifying an email list of around 100000 with a constant traffic of 250000 unique visitors on the blog per month.
He republished his blog on Lifehacker only to experience an increased traffic of 99k views.
For a quick check on your performance and number of visitors sign on Google Analytics.
4. B2B SaaS marketing with monthly reporting
Use any of the available apps on the internet to create your editorial calendar. It helps scheduling your blog post in a timely fashion when you are associated with multiple writers.
A task management app Meistertask allows you drag and drop task for each participant.
New content scheduled each day attracts more traffic.
A study in Hubspot has suggested, business publishing more than 16 blogs a month, get 3.5 times more traffic than business that posts 0–4 blogs.
Lead generated through content marketing increases the average sales price by 20% as per content marketing institute.
In order to understand the engagement of audiences with SaaS, quantify the objective to measure the effectiveness of B2B SaaS marketing strategy in relation to content marketing.
5. Increase your visibility on review sites to raise your sales by 18%
Brightlocal, a local SEO tool and local citation building service conducted a study on purchasers.
The study revealed, 72% consumers get a positive vibe about a product if the reviews are positive. The trust factor increases with positive reviews.
A US based e-commerce business, Reevoo had a sale of $298.2 billion in 2014. The figures jumped to $341.7 billion in 2015 owing to positive reviews on site.
A 15% jump in sales is evident.
6. Close Range Marketing
Use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to send across promotional messages to customers on their smart phones and tablets.
Provide as much information possible about your products and services.
Close range marketing is popularly termed as proximity marketing.
7. Invest in long-term relationship with your customers
Your customers are your assets. Gartner proposes, in future your business will receive 80% of the revenue from 20% of your customers.
Researcher Bain & Co echoed similar lines. They stated, you can raise your profit share by 75% simply by increasing your customer retention by 5%.
Customer retention is challenging for SaaS industry.
8. Take advantage of trends for generating more traffic
Check out Google Trend, a real-time search data to stay ahead of your competitors.
Analyze the marketing trend data to gauge consumer search behavior.
Video streaming, visual storytelling, native advertising, influencer marketing, and mobile marketing have dominated virtual internet market.
Fire Brands showed 90% of business has experienced increased profitability owing to video content.
9. Social media marketing as part of B2B SaaS marketing strategy
Build up a customized page in Facebook and engage with your fans. A personalized page will bring more fans to your page, promote upcoming events, contest etc.
Showcase customer reviews, create content library and offer coupons and discounts.
Post a well researched content on LinkedIn pulse.
Brian Lang, a professional blogger at Small Business Ideas conducted a research on 300 posts on Linkedin pulse.
He found articles related to careers, self-improvement, technology, current events and productivity.
Around 90% of the articles got more than 500 social shares.
Target to feature on the online communities having unique monthly visitors and raise your visibility.
Use Reddit to expand your business. It’s a community of people with similar interests.
News in the portal is categorized as ‘hot’, ‘controversial’, ‘wiki’, and ‘promoted’. Your customers can accordingly choose to follow them.
10. E-Mail marketing
This is age-old strategy of sending newsletters. Post-Up, an e-mail marketing platform conducted a study on their client to convert inactive subscribers.
They designed an automated reactivation campaign and was successful in boosting sales by 164%.
Personalised e-mails boost average sales by 19% as per a data from CMO.com.
Put a subject line to trigger curiosity among receivers, to ensure a growth in e-mail opening rate.
11. Scarcity marketing
Making your product accessible to a choice set of customers makes it scarce and increases its brand value.
This is done to control the use of high cost raw materials.
Apple IPhone6 got sold as quickly as it hit the market because of the brand value and scarcity value attached to it. People stood in queue from a night before to get hold of their status symbol.
12. Marketing Automation
Trigger the curiosity among your subscribers to increase the e-mail opening rate.
Design and introduce automated behavioral triggered e-mails to acquire 71% higher opening rates.
It’s a most effective SaaS marketing technique having 102% higher clicks.
having 102% higher clicks. Collect customer data through a transparent system and ensure 100% privacy to gain customer trust.
Informatica, conducted a search on 2000 UK adults who showed their concern in sharing their private data with start-ups.
Add cookies to the browsers of potential customers, who visit your site as a newcomer. Later on, you can track them and show him your advertisement to convert him as an active customer.
13. Undercover marketing
At times, maintain some secrecy about your product and service, just enough to raise the curiosity level of your customers.
Do not provide all all-round description of the product simply to excite the grey-cells of your seasoned customers.
They will flock to buy the product to unravel the mystery.
14. Develop online public relations
Build up a strong customer base. Today’s generation is brand-conscious and sometimes identify with the brand.
A good cause can make them pay a premium price for the brand. For example, shoe brand TOMS created a campaign, ‘One day without shoes’.
For every sale of a pair of shoes, the business was donating another pair to a needy child.
They managed to get endorsed by celebrities and got ample media support.
People across the world walked barefoot to support the cause.
Use digital marketing to reach out to customers. Avon’s ‘choose beautiful’ had a 5 million views on YouTube.
15. Start running affiliate marketing
There exist perks and pitfalls of running affiliate program in B2B SaaS marketing strategy. The perk is you can generate much higher revenue than your existing one and the pitfall is, it does not work for all business.
Shopify runs affiliate program. It rewards the affiliates with $2400 per sale. Bluehost toes the same line to expand its customer base.
Thomas Cook Airlines has mapped out its affiliates’ value to minimize cost per sale and increase number of long haul bookings. =
Implement a publisher campaign through an affiliate program as did Cost Plus World Market, a furniture store.
The result was evident after 90 days when the monthly traffic increased by 100.7%, and sales by 257%. The furniture store witnessed a growth in monthly revenue by 177%.
16. Mass marketing or positioning oneself on the market
In order to grow, big corporations drive their sales big time with a lot of expenditure on advertisement and promotion of the brand.
Walmart is a mass market retailer who has effectively positioned it as the number one retailer.
Spending on self promotion and advertisement helps business do a data crunching and effectively position them in the market with more than one competitor.
17. Seasonal marketing
Connect with your customers through seasonal marketing.
Hallmark promotes its business around Valentine’s Day and experiences an increase in sales.
Similarly, Woolmark brand does well by reaching out to people before and during winter.
18. Evangelism marketing to protect you against online trolls
Encourage your brand lovers. They will gladly don the hat of brand advocates and fight against any negative tweet or hate mails on your behalf.
One negative tweet or few hate mails are enough to ruin your online reputation thus making your sale graph go southward.
Brand lovers are valuable asset for the business who fights to protect the reputation of the brand without asking for any perks in return.
An American retailer, Old Navy posted an interracial couple picture on social media and got trolled nastily.
The brand lovers of Old Navy came to the rescue by posting their own picture with interracial couples within their family to counter the social trolls and made a strong statement.
19. Allow your SaaS sell itself
For a moment, forget about all hefty business jargons like client acquisition, customer retention, statistical algorithm, and linear attribution models, so on and so forth.
Reasons why your SaaS will sell itself is superior quality product and a strong customer support team.
Ramp up the features of your product and build up a pro-active customer support.
20. Integrate offline marketing with new technologies to announce your presence both in real as well as virtual world
Most of your target customers are glued to their virtual world.
Design some innovative technology to get best of both worlds. Coca Cola has devised a vending machine that would hug their customers and remind them of happy times.
Customers can experience the product offline as well as connect online with the brand through social media.
21. Buy traffic through pay per click (PPC) advertising
Google Adwords are the best tool to divert traffic of your target customer to your website. They follow pay per click advertising.
Get access to a larger customer base by paying for social media advertisement in Facebook, LinkedIN, Pintrest and Instagram.
22. Drive your sales northward by 185% by promoting superior quality case studies
Superior quality case studies are effective in conversion optimization rates.
A survey conducted by The Content Marketing Institute revealed how 63% of the respondents believe case studies are an effective SaaS marketing tool.
It generates higher traffic, has better conversion rates than traditional marketing tactics and leads to higher revenue.
Case studies rank as one of the most popular tactic along with social media postings, newsletters and blog posts.
23. Information drives SaaS marketing
SaaS provider is the gold mine of information. Their blog posts, rich content, equip the customer with more than necessary information about the product, its competitor, and substitute.
For example, Buffer, have famous blog posts to support their social media promotion.
Engage with your customers continuously, however, it should not be interrupting or intruding.
Flow of information through customized Facebook page, tweet, blog posts and social media posts are always intriguing and has high conversion rates.
24. Publish lead magnets
Invest time in meticulously building e-mail contacts, create e-books and white papers.
These are prominent B2B SaaS marketing strategy easily catching the attention of the target customers.
25. Create a vertical content market
Identify the vertical market you cater to by investing in some data crunching.
Promote market-specific report or make sure your customers are able to access some insight based on certain report available in your website.
This will ensure your trustworthiness and raise your conversion rates to a great extent.
This is another way of engaging with your target audience and customers.
26. Create presentation with PPT slides to generate higher traffic
This method is more popular with B2B marketing.
An US based advertising agency, Didit Marketing conducted a research with slide share.
The outcome was whopping 500% more B2B traffic.
Slide shares work wonders with business owners as compared to Facebook and Youtube.
27. Use AMP to divert 40% of the traffic from the total site traffic and get an edge over your competitor
AMP loads faster in mobile devices owing to its light weight web page with static content.
A page having an AMP version, experiences more clicks and witnesses an average growth of 2% in CTR.
It diverts the 40% of total site traffic thus facilitating the business owners.
28. Develop partner websites to create an impact on Search engine optimization
The movers and shakers of the cloud wars wisely choose their keyword phrases and influence SEO.
Start-ups tie up with content writers and digital marketing team to divert traffic to their site.
They publish blog posts, education websites, web directory, and forums
OutReach Mama tied up with big house business like Forbes and Huffington Post only to experience 350 backlinks from over 100 domains within 60 days time.
29. Explore your social influence to rank higher on social media rankings
According to some strategist, social media rankings are correlated with social shares while others refute this claim.
Google, for example, do not count on social share and incorporate it in their direct algorithm.
However, a survey reveals, increase of 100 Google Plus followers lead to a 15% in rankings.
Facebook lifts up rankings by 6.89% with 70 shares and 50 likes.
Twitter elevates social media rankings by a meager 2.88%.
30. Apply segmentation as B2B SaaS marketing strategy and raise your deliverables
Classify your customer based on their behavioral preference, location, income group, lifestyle, keyword search, and several other factors.
This is an effective tool that leads to 40% email opening rate, increases deliverability and thus results in greater revenue generation.
Johnny Cupcakes emailing campaign is worth mentioning here. They have classified their customers in terms of gender, preferences, and buying habits.
The campaign sent across separate emails to each of their categories.
Data crunching revealed each campaign had 42% increase in CTR, 123% increase in conversion rate and a revenue growth of 141%.
31. Create buzz in social media to promote your business
Tie up with specialists and experts from your industry and pay them to talk positively online about your product and service. This is different from mainstream advertising.
Neil Patel, a marketing consultant, spent $57000 to carry out such innovative campaign.
He paid models to pose with placards, ‘who is neil patel’ written on them. The pictures went viral and arouse immense inquisitiveness amongst viewers.
The campaign ended up earning $332.6 in three months, 5 times more than the investment.
Take a cue from the campaign to create similar buzz in social media.
32. Promoted tweets, promoted twitter trends will give you a 2% return on investment
Twitter followers are all too well acquainted with jargons like trends, promoted tweets etc.
These promoted tweets, trends, facilitate lead generation, interact with existing followers and increase the conversion rate.
The B2B SaaS marketing strategy focused on deliverable by incorporating a ‘call to action’ with each promoted tweets.
Hubspot, a US based inbound marketing pioneer, carried out such prolonged twitter campaign.
The outcome of the campaign was a 32% increase in return on investment and 150% increase in sales.
33. Event marketing
All lovely ladies out there need a reason to shop and de-stress themselves.
If you can give reason to people, who remain hooked on to the internet, to come by and enjoy shopping out in the open, they will oblige you by driving up your sales.
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in US has become a cult in bridging the two concepts of thanksgiving and shopping.
We witness similar trend in India where sales drive up during the Diwali season.
34. Offer discounts and coupons as B2B SaaS marketing strategy
SaaS marketing was developed based on the idea of giving out freebies. SaaS business gives away the SaaS product as free to experience a trial for 30 days or more.
was developed based on the idea of giving out freebies. SaaS business gives away the SaaS product as free to experience a trial for 30 days or more. You cannot afford to give away SaaS every time to promote your business. Instead, you can explore giving away various discounts and coupons.
Social media Facebook page can be a great option to announce the freebies, if mainstream advertising causes a hole in your pocket.
Promoted tweets can be used to reach out to a larger audience who can then be converted to potential customers.
35. Develop a lead scoring system to generate more sales at half the cost
Assign a lead scoring system i.e a quantifiable value to social media interactions based on the engagement of the visitor.
Most business use lead scoring system to generate more leads in marketing automated systems.
Based on the value of the leads, sales representative of your business can get in touch with the visitor and convert him/her to a customer.
Without the lead generation, many contacts get lost and it’s an opportunity lost for the SaaS business.
A recent study reported successful marketing personnel has followed lead scoring system to increase 50% sales at 33% cost.
Lead scoring is an effective B2B SaaS marketing strategy in a cut-throat competitive business.
36. Create a narrative through engaging video content and see for yourself the rise in conversion rate
Video content is catching up fast with 1 billion unique monthly visitors in You Tube and is more fascinating to watch.
Other video streaming sites, Vimeo, DailyMotion, LiveLeak and Vine have their shares of million viewers, not to forget the daily video content shared on social media sites.
According to a study by Hyperfine media, video watching helps in the decision making for 90% viewers.
Your conversion rate will increase by 80%, if you have an engaging video content on your home page.
Most B2B company rely much on video content as a part of their SaaS marketing strategy.
37. Bring in visitors through Webinars
Organize Webinars using a microphone and a PC. Connect with your viewers through any Webinar platform.
You can exchange ideas, receive some information and insight worth pondering into.
Conducting Webinars is part of effective and successful B2B SaaS marketing ideas to help bringing in more visitors and convert them.
to help bringing in more visitors and convert them. A rise in conversion level would automatically end up generating higher revenues.
38. Manage expectation and keep your customer well-informed
Keep your customer informed about the offer. Do not shy away from informing your customer that post a 30 days free trial, they have to pay up front for the SaaS.
Most of the time, the SaaS selling team do not inform the customer hoping they will themselves start paying for the service after the trial period.
It never happens and the business loses a prospective customer owing to mismanagement of the flow of information.
Well, honesty is still the best policy.
39. Remove barriers for customer even before they sign up for SaaS
Reduce sign up fields to minimal.
Qualification details, credit card number are unnecessary frictions that keep out the potential customers.
People often take a liking for business that has reduced their first step sign up field to few data points or even single field.
40. Referral bonus, an effective SaaS idea
‘Invite a friend, collect your referral point’ — This marketing strategy can work wonders.
You can practice it even within the organization, as well as outside it.
Make sure the referral point can be redeemed against any of your product and service.
Conversion rate is much higher with the lucrative bonus.
The SaaS product thus sells itself.
41. Direct marketing
Open up all channels of communication.
Communicate with your customers through fliers, text messages and e-mails.
Some companies assist business sending mass texts to customers against a small fee.
Explore the option to connect with people. Conversion rate might not be that great but then every option is worth trying.
42. Inbound marketing
You can take the opportunity to sell SaaS when your customers call you for several other reasons.
It’s a great opportunity to make your customers aware of your products and services on a business call.
43. Optimize your website to maximize conversion rate
Your homepage must have links to the features, pricing, sign up page, and free trial option.
Customer sign up for free trial, payment page and call to action must be interlinked seamlessly.
A flawless navigation to reviews, social media sites and back to trial or login page raises conversion rate.
44. Positioning yourself as an authority is an effective B2B SaaS marketing strategy
Boost your reputation in the industry.
Accept invite for interviews, podcast, conferences and talk at length about your product and services.
45. It pays off to be ‘up close and personal’
It’s a very simple yet effective tool to connect to customers.
Make sure all your departments have a face. A customer feels more comfortable dealing with a human than with an e-mail id.
Put out the names of all department heads in your website.
46. Be vigilant to protect your reputation
You have taken years to build up your reputation; spent billion on developing a successful B2B SaaS strategy.
This can be at stake, if you do not monitor your reputation. You have to be a close guard in protecting it from hate mongers.
Keep a vigil offline and online and address the grievances immediately.
Make sure you are able to give a successful resolute to every grievance and customers are happy to come back to you.
47. Monitor your competitors to stay on top of the list
Keep a close watch on your competitors’ behavior and market responses.
Look out for the discounts they are offering, responses they are receiving on their social platforms.
You can a leaf out of their successful strategy and incorporate them according to your deliverables.
48. Diversify online lead generation
Diversify your tactic and spin a healthy marketing ecosystem containing SEO, SEM, content marketing, blog posting, advertising and sales development.
With a remarkably high turnover time, it’s in your best interest that you do not depend on one tactic.
49. Publish E-books for the niche market
It usually caters to the niche clients and the most cost effective B2B SaaS marketing technique to make prospective customer aware of your product and service.
Exchange ideas and learn more about the preferences of your target customers.
Dish out e-books to pamper their choices.
50. Offer a freemium that comes with a twist
A free trial gives unrestricted access to the system.
A freemium comes with a twist where it provides restricted access. All tools do not open up unless the subscription is paid for.
It acts as an incentive for the customer to upgrade the subscription to be able to get access to the valuable tools.
There exist several choices of B2B SaaS marketing ideas. The owner of a start-up can follow different approach from among the ones mentioned, to suit his needs and objective. Creativity is the key to unlock success and ensure higher conversion. Incorporate the ideas that are most suitable for your business and the ones you can afford in order to make a difference.
Good luck! | https://medium.com/@hupport/b2b-saas-marketing-strategies-50-b2b-saas-marketing-strategies-with-case-studies-29823f9099cc | ['Hupport Appointment Scheduling Software'] | 2020-12-19 03:18:06.669000+00:00 | ['Saas Tools', 'Saas Hupport', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Saas Marketing', 'SaaS'] |
Index Your WordPress Website In Search Engines | Index Your WordPress Website In Search Engines Visualmodo Follow May 4 · 4 min read
When you finally create a new WordPress website, you might be expecting visitors to start coming eagerly. In reality, before people start visiting your site, search engines need to find, index, and rank it. In this article, I share some of the best tips and recommendations to index your new WordPress website in search engines.
Index Your New WordPress Website In Search Engines Faster
Do you want more organic search traffic to your site? I’m willing to bet the answer is yes — we all do! Organic search traffic is critical for growing your website and business. Some research claims around 33% of your site’s traffic can be attributed to organic search. But the stats don’t matter much if your site doesn’t show up in the search results at all.
How do you get your new site or blog indexed by Google, Bing, and other search engines? Well, you’ve got two choices. You can take the “tortoise” approach. Just sit back and wait for it to happen naturally, but this can take weeks or months. Trust me, I’ve been there before, not fun. Moreover, you can make it happen now, giving you more time and energy to put towards increasing your conversion rate, improving your social presence. Finally, writing and promoting great and useful content to index your WordPress website.
In a way, we are completely at Google’s mercy when it comes to being found on the web. No index, no organic traffic. However, the good news is that there are plenty of things we can do to move Google into giving us a spot in their SERPs which we will talk about in the following.
Content, content, and content
The thing about being indexed by Google is, we don’t just want them to be aware of our site, but be aware of it in a good way. If your site is empty or worse, full of crappy content, it might get indexed but it won’t get anywhere near the front row of the SERPs. That’s almost as bad as not being indexed at all.
It’s no secret that Google cares about the relevancy and quality of your content. For that reason, when you set up your site, focus on high-quality, useful, original content. Naturally, that also means to stay away from duplicate and/or scraped content.
Disable “Discourage Search Engines” In WordPress
During the development phase, usually, the last thing we want is to be indexed by search engines. In fact, we want to keep Google and Co as far away from our site as possible. Otherwise, incomplete and low-quality content and Google will form an opinion about our site based on that.
One of the most common mistakes is to leave “discourage search engines from indexing this site” active in the back end of WordPress. That’s basically a death sentence for organic traffic on your site. So, in order to make sure you get indexed (or if you are having problems appearing on Google), definitely have a look at this setting at the bottom of Settings > Reading to make sure it is unchecked. Finally, save changes.
Good Hosting Provider To Index Your New WordPress Website In Search Engines
One of the first potential barriers to getting Google to the index is the hardware your site runs on. Slow server speed, downtime, and disconnects can cause search spiders to abandon their cause. While not very common, it is a possibility. So, since in hosting you get what you pay for, investing in a quality host with good hardware and excellent availability is always worth it.
Ping Services
Ping services offer another effective way to notify search engines of your existence. Pingomatic is one such tool that you can use to notify multiple search engines at once, and another you can try is Pingler. WordPress does have a default feature to ping services but giving one of these other options a shot can’t hurt.
Comment In Other Sites To Index Your New WordPress Website In Search Engines
Since one of the sites in my example was a premium job and some complications within a given time-frame, I added almost 30+ comments for on another popular WordPress websites. I did not check for do-follow or nofollow attributes, but I did comment on popular, high traffic blogs. This can make that search engine bots will follow the comment links and will land on my blog. | https://medium.com/visualmodo/index-your-wordpress-website-in-search-engines-27850be9495b | [] | 2020-05-04 20:25:42.244000+00:00 | ['SEO', 'Index', 'WordPress', 'Guid', 'Google'] |
What’s your optimal music setup ? | Music has been playing in my life ever since I was a teenager in Bangkok. I would tune in to 107.7fm “the quiet storm” all day, growing up to the voice of Casey Kasem in his syndicated program and all the other DJs on the radio whom I befriended back then over the years.
Many many years later, as soon as I could afford it, I got my own hi-fi setup in my living room, with an Onkyo pre-amp, a McIntosh MC205 amp, and Bower & Wilkins CM9 line speakers. I even got the discontinued Oppo BDP-105 (not the D version) universal player and configured its DAC for use with my system. It’s all installed on great-value-for-money hi-fi racks from… Hifiracks.com.
After almost 10 years, I’d love an upgrade to my system, as we move to even higher quality digital music and my pre-amp and gear are not optimal anymore. If I had a bigger place, I’d love B&W 803 speakers, a proper recent McIntosh pre-amp (any good recommendation? specifically with a great DAC so that I can skip the Oppo, or a separate digital streamer) that I can use for both hifi and home theatre configurations. I hope I can keep the amp. I’d love newer cables (I can’t afford the price of Nordost’ Odin2); I read AudioQuest offers a good compromise at entry-level / medium level prices. I’m not convinced about power optimisers, although I did listen to a demo once for Nordost QRT that seemed to make a difference. Feedback on this anyone ?
In the meantime, I’ve upgraded the sound and music playing on my iMac. I subscribe to Spotify, Tidal (better for R&B, and rap; and MQA format) and Qobuz (better for jazz, classical music and opera in Master audio), and synchronise playlists via Soundiiz (although there’s a 999 songs limit for Qobuz playlists). I’ve not tried Apple Music nor Amazon Music. You can see what I listen to, as I scrobble to last.fm for statistics.
On my Mac, I aggregate all these sources for bitperfect playback via Roon which has a very slick interface. I also use Audirvana as an aggregator as it allows me to play the music via my local area network into the DAC of my Oppo universal player, then into the pre-amp, the amp and my living room speakers. Obviously I have Amazon Echo devices and Sonos devices in other rooms in my house (Roon supports Sonos) that are voice-controlled for basically streaming radio via TuneIn, but much lousier speakers. I’ve even calibrated the Sonos devices and my hifi system to the room with a specific mic and open-source software. But it’s cumbersome, and I’m not convinced about the difference upgrade.
On my Mac, I just moved from an Audioquest Black to Cobalt USB DAC that supports MQA, but is limited to 96 Khz. I compared them and it was very notable: clearer, more precise and fuller sound with the Cobalt. I’ve hooked 2 old and decent enough small desktop DELL speakers to the computer, and have yet to upgrade that as well. I thought the Bose Companion 50 would be good, but they were designed over 8 years ago. Reviews say they sound rather metallic. Probably I need to find active speakers such as the Audioengine A5+ or studio monitors.
Bottom line:
what is your own setup for DIGITAL music ? Do you have recommendations for me (+ why ?) for :
a new pre-amp ?
value cables (interconnect and speaker cables)?
power optimisers ?
the right desktop speakers for my computer.
Thanks for your help ! This is a bit geeky, but I love audio. Obviously I’m a proud owner of volumes 1 and 2 of TAS (3 still not out), and the McIntosh heritage book.
ps: anyone recommends a signal-theory course ? such as these ? https://www.coursera.org/search?query=sound%20engineer
I did read back in the day a version of the Complete Guide to High-End Audio. | https://medium.com/@rodrigo/whats-your-optimal-music-setup-bc3d8792b2cd | ['Rodrigo Sepúlveda Schulz'] | 2020-11-12 23:29:43.130000+00:00 | ['Sound', 'Music', 'Hifi', 'Audio', 'Home Theater'] |
What is the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP)? | Provincial Nominee Program is one of the streams through which you can immigrate to Canada as a Permanent Residence through the Express Entry Process. In PNP, a Canadian province or territory is required to nominate you. It usually takes around 13–15 months for the entire PNP process. You can find updated processing times on the Government of Canada website. The process can be divided into 2 steps —
Choosing a province where you want to live and apply for nomination Once you get the nomination, Apply to IRCC for PR.
Choose a province or territory
The first thing you have to do is decide which Province do you want to live in and apply to that province for nomination. They will review your application based on their needs and if you really plan to live there.
To be nominated by a province or territory, you must follow the instructions on their website and contact them directly:
The criteria by province and territory vary and can change without notice.
Apply for Permanent Residence
Once you are nominated by a province or territory you can apply to IRCC(Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) for permanent residence. The application package includes the instruction guide and all the forms you need to fill out after a province or territory has nominated you. Alternatively, you can download or sign up for early access to our app at treknation.ca for a step by step guide on how to apply for PR. | https://medium.com/@treknation/what-is-the-provincial-nominee-program-pnp-9a705bb18f2a | [] | 2020-12-17 22:17:24.691000+00:00 | ['Pnp', 'Pnp Program Canada', 'Pr', 'Immigration', 'Canada'] |
Naming When We’re Not Doing Well, And Tackling It For Good | Photo by Cullan Smith on Unsplash
What do you do when life’s circumstances hit you hard, when you feel like crap and you’re not doing well?
Two Christian therapists, Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton, recently sat down to try to record a podcast on a new topic. Unfortunately, neither of them were in the state of mind to engage in what they had in mind. Luckily, their instincts kicked in, and they decided to talk about just that: what to do when we are not doing well and started the three-part “Not Doing Well” series on The Allender Center blog. The two of them sought to answer some fundamental questions:
“How can we continue to pursue the work we are called to, continue to seek healing and growth, and continue to love people around us when it feels like things are falling apart?”
Rachael is used to not doing well and “just having to get through it,” as many of us are in our daily lives. Only a few lucky souls on the planet are fortunate every hour in the 9–5 work schedule, and that is just how it is. But sometimes, the feeling of “not doing well” crosses a line, and we persevere too much in circumstances that require us to halt for just a bit. “No pain, no gain” is an attitude that Rachael has had throughout her life, that urges us to just power through when he hit barriers, and is just a fundamental part of our culture. I feel this too, especially as a runner. I am a Boston-qualified marathoner, and during the race and runs of longer than 20 miles, you do not have the luxury to just stop when you want to.
The other option when we’re not doing well is that we escape, isolate, hide away from the public so we don’t feel any more pain.
Dan Allender acknowledges that there are few people that know when they’re not doing well. How we’re doing is not always an act of categorical perception, that we’re either well or we aren’t: we’re usually somewhere in between. But in those times that we really aren’t well, in the words of Allender, “it has to be almost catastrophic for us to know that we are not well.” For us to be able to name that things just are that bad, everything changes. “Everything begins to, in some sense, collapse on itself.”
Rachael expands on Dan’s point, that it’s just so exposing when “you only get to name that you’re not well when it gets so extreme.” I know that’s how it is with me — when I actually acknowledge to my friends how poorly I’ve been doing or feeling, it makes me feel emasculated, vulnerable. And the two of them agree that when we’re in that state of despair, we have that tendency to “remov[e] ourselves from others, convinced that our absence is better for everyone when we are unwell.” The two of them agree that this is a “false nobility,” a mixture of martyrdom and well-intent that ultimately just lead to “well-worn structures of addiction and sabotage.”
When we’re really not doing well, and it requires some sort of disruption, an “intersection of spirit and spirit — our spirits with the spirit of God,” that leads us to begin to change. We find new ways to go forward. Contending with the spirit of love is what happens — love from others, and love from God. When we acknowledge we’re not doing well, “it can be an incredibly vulnerable statement and a window into our most formative stories and the most deeply entrenched message about ho we are.” It disrupts us in our usual states of coping, and it makes us recognize that we need something that is different from “our spirals of sabotage and escape.”
What are your venues of sabotage and escape? I know that I resort to isolation, sometimes I resort to obsession over work and surface-level accomplishments. And I know you may have different ones.
But it is in those moments where we don’t ask for help and don’t reveal our personal weakness. Admitting that we’re not well allows us to do that. Rachael doesn’t want us to blame ourselves for doing so, because “when something has harmed us…what kind of decisions do we make about ourselves, about God, about the world?” We have to tackle our unwellness in “new, courageous ways, [and] it will inevitably lead us back to our earliest stories and families of origin.” So many of us come from homes where if we admitted we weren’t doing well, people would just tell us to “get over it.’ Did we have the space to be vulnerable?
Rachael acknowledges that exploring these roots “are painful places.” We have to challenge our false beliefs that we have to be well all the time, “that the only options are isolation or to dissociate and fragment.” Even when we’re in this realm of battle, conflict, and confusion, we are also in this realm of hope. Think about how we feel when we hear someone say “I’m not doing well, and it’s okay if you’re not doing well too.” Sure, life sucks sometimes. It can feel like everything is crashing in, but we will not be taken down “because we are not alone.”
“In not being well, my heart is well,” Dan says.
This is where we become people of the Spirit, people with deep souls. We aren’t alone, now. We know “the Spirit contends with and for us, alongside the beloved community of resurrection people.” These people don’t shy away from death or minimize pain, because what we are going through now is a part of a larger story, one that is far from being finished.
“There is something of the glory of God that is meant to be a gift to one another,” Dan says.
So how can we move forward when life still sucks, and circumstances remain unwell? Well, if there’s one thing to learn from this article, it’s that powering through when we’re not doing well isn’t going to work. My pastor, Lisa, gave an analogy of life being floating through a river with a bunch of rocks impeding our paths. We need to flow away from the rocks, but too often we try to jump crush the rock in front of us rather than finding a way around it.
Dan and Rachael then invite us to “have the courage and humility to be honest about we’re at, and to open ourselves to the care of others.” The problem is that the times we are vulnerable and the times we seek care are not always met with kindness. In these situations, we’re not only dealing with not doing well now but “with a whole history of triggers and traumas colliding.”
So how do we move forward toward being well when our circumstances don’t reflect it, when “things are beyond our control.” In these moments, we need to stop our usual cycles and take a step back. We need to retreat, and we need to regather, which isn’t running away and giving way to isolation. It’s “an act of humility, maneuvering to create space so that we can work on repair.”
This, Rachael says, is beautiful, an intersection between faith and hope. We don’t always believe God will be there when we take the time to stop and retreat. We sometimes think that God will only be there if we try to crush the rocks in front of us, “if we prove that we have the capacity in our own right.” Retreating and regathering are acts of surrender, being vulnerable and trusting that Jesus will be present in the overwhelming flood.”
And the question Dan asks us next is whether Jesus will greet us with kindness, which is what we reject the most from ourselves and from God when things are not going well. “Kindness will change my heart,” Dan writes. “But…there’s something in me that believes both that I don’t deserve it, and that it’s not true.”
When we pause and surrender, it’s not that everything in our lives is fixed. I know that when I do, there’s still that part of me that is overwhelmed by daily life’s rigors. Dan calls it rest, that we find grounding in the midst of a storm. “In that rest, we can begin to look for a new beginning, a way to move forward that is authentic, vulnerable, and courageous.” And he doesn’t stop there: once a relinquishment or surrender happens, there needs to be a new beginning.
Dan calls the new beginning a consecration, where he asks himself: “what does it mean to consecrate the next 90 seconds — to life, to him, to beauty, to goodness?” I do this in a different way: I have a mantra in my head that says “trust God, no matter what,” and when I’m faced with circumstances that leave me not doing well, I ask myself “what is God telling you to do?” I’ve written before about not knowing what God wants, and that being a fundamental part of what faith is. But somehow, someway, I’ll tell myself to trust God, go to him, and make a decision and take a risk regardless, just feeling, for some reason, that it was the right one, regardless of the outcome.
Rachael closes the three-part sequence talking about the reorientation of identity in a way that grows faith. It is the voice that names I am loved when we’re not doing well. It’s the voice when we feel worthless and futile, that tells us “I’m meant for more than futility and struggle.”
For a lot of this past year, I have been not been doing well, but I’m grateful for that, even though circumstances are largely still the same. I’ve navigated a crisis better than I thought I could and re-chartered my identity in ways I didn’t think possible.
I close this article looking no further than Maya Angelou’s famous poem, “Still I Rise.” Downtrodden, written down in history, defamed by other people’s “bitter, twisted lies,” the narrator speaks up with a tone of faith, hope, and defiance, that like “dust, I’ll rise.” When we aren’t doing well, we’re dust, but through re-orienting ourselves, through God, we will rise. Rachael puts it beautifully, that when we go through an odyssey and journey of not doing well and surrendering and consecrating ourselves, we marvel, and say look what God can do with dust. | https://ryanfan.medium.com/naming-when-were-not-doing-well-and-tackling-it-for-good-4a3e815210f9 | ['Ryan Fan'] | 2019-04-10 14:30:08.404000+00:00 | ['Depression', 'Christianity', 'Self', 'Spirituality', 'Life'] |
You Need to Know About “Decrim” | What are the statistics?
The rights of sex workers are human rights, are civil rights, and is also a socioeconomic discussion. These are but a few of sex work’s categorizations. Here’s why:
1 in 5 police reports of sexual assault in the U.S., of urban-located emergency rooms, have been filed by victims who are sex workers. Of these victims, the majority were younger, poorer, and suffered greater injuries than victims of sexual assault who are not sex workers. Many U.S. states still exclude sex workers from the protections of rape shield laws. This includes New York State. With this, the majority of sex workers are ineligible to relieve rape victim compensation funds. U.S. rates of sexual and otherwise violence from police officers towards sex workers are incredibly high. 17% of New York City sex workers have reported sexual harassment/assault and abuse by police, including rape. In Chicago, 30% of erotic dancers and 24% of street-based sex workers who reported that they were raped identified a police officer as the rapist. In 2020, 37 known TGNCNB individuals were murdered; the highest annual rate recorded thus far. This rate is just under double the number recorded the year before. The vast majority of those victims were Black transwomen, with many of those individuals being sex workers. For many Black and Latinx transwomen, their sex work is considered “survival sex” due to sex work, for them, being the last resort as a source of income. Overall, 34% of Black transwomen in the U.S. live in poverty due to high rates of discrimination in healthcare, housing, education, incarceration, and the legal workforce. Many migrant sex workers in the U.S., especially women, face a higher risk of deportation compared to migrant people who aren’t sex workers. This risk especially present when migrant sex workers report to law enforcement that they have been a victim of sexual assault or an otherwise sexual crime. This then deters them from reporting incidents to the police, who are, as statistically stated, often the perpetrators themselves. Along with transphobia, the general homophobia/queerphobia experienced by LGBTQ+ sex workers is much higher than the queerphobia experienced by LGBTQ+ people who are not sex workers. Due to continued governmental stigmatization of sex work (as the government decides what is considered legal work), HIV-positive LGBTQ+ people face high rates of discrimination in access to quality healthcare, if they are able to access any healthcare at all.
Sources: 1,2,3,4,6 ; 5 ; 7
This is horrible. So what is “Decrim” then, and how would it aid sex workers?
“Decrim” is the name given towards all efforts being made on state and federal levels to decriminalize sex work and trade, as well as the advocacy of additional laws, protections, and rights of sex workers associated with the decriminalization of sex work. DecrimNY is currently advocating for three main bills in the NYS legislature that would greatly uplift the lives of sex workers, with attention to one of those bills in particular.
While the “Walking While Trans” bill is making great strides, and work continues to be done in passing the “Record Relief” bill, the “Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act” is quickly ramping up in support in support in the form of coalition building. Led by progressive champion State Senator Salazar and Assemblymember Gottfried, community organizations are making sure more moderate elected officials know that this is a humanitarian issue and not a political game.
I’m personally noticing many LGBTQ+ groups across New York State increasing their advocacy towards the measure, whether they were involved in advocating for sex workers’ rights in the past or are starting to do so now.
The Act summary directly states the mission of the bill as the following:
“Decriminalizes certain prostitution offenses; amends provisions relating to [the] prosecution of such offenses and vacating judgments…. To repeal statutes that criminalize sex work between consenting adults, but keep laws relating to minors or trafficking, and to provide for criminal record relief for people convicted of crimes repealed….”
In summary, all sex workers in New York State, and therefore New York City would no longer be criminalized for their work. The criminal history of sex workers relating to the criminalization of their work would also be “expunged” from their record. Additionally, the Act’s decriminalization would in itself be nondiscrimination protections for sex workers previously excluded from particular benefits governmental entities have already been offering to those considered part of the legal workforce.
By doing this, already marginalized people would receive the safety they are due and would force an additional spotlight on the connected systemic issues that need to also be addressed from a holistic lens.
Another main part of this bill, if passed, is that sex trafficking would also be reduced. The people who commit sex trafficking-related crimes would not find a “safe haven” in the currently criminalized practice of sex work, of people within so left vulnerable.
Your moral argument is valid, but are there any other reasons to decriminalize sex work?
Yes, absolutely. Just as the human rights issues at hand are intersectional, so are the benefits from so after correcting this injustice.
It’s not a coincidence that advocacy for sex work is increasing during a pandemic. Many political theorists, economists, and peer-reviewed studies have concluded that decriminalizing sex work would actually boost our uneven and deflated economy.
Not only would decriminalization give the desperately needed COVID-19 funds to sex workers, as the majority of sex workers are ineligible to receive stimulus funds and unemployment benefits, but it would provide the financial means to mitigate the exploitation and sex trafficking that sex workers face.
As a whole, introducing a “new” industry into the legal market is always economically stimulating. Though this example is legalization rather than decriminalization, this is exactly what’s happening with the massive revenue being generated from legalizing hemp, which is a major step forward in addressing our broken criminal justice system, and our racist, transphobic/queerphobic governmental institutions.
To recap:
It is 2021. Let’s grow up.
Human rights are being violated because peoples’ access to means of living is being denied, people are being hurt, and people are dying violent deaths. Civil rights are being violated because of the lack of socioeconomic opportunity due to the discrimination of marginalized people, and the stigmatization of this type of work continues to play out in our legal code. Essentially, the criminalization of existence.
Additionally, because we are failing to challenge our preconceived notions of sex work, we are also missing out on the immense economic opportunity this could bring to New York State and our nation as a whole; during a pandemic and in general.
Sex work is work. New York especially should be keeping up with the times. Sex work needs to not only be federal decriminalized but undergo federal legalization. The injustices stated need to be fully corrected, and this industry has the ability to be fully saturated into our economy.
This is simply the right thing to do. | https://aninjusticemag.com/you-need-to-know-about-decrim-545020245102 | ['Max Micallef'] | 2021-01-11 17:53:29.159000+00:00 | ['Sex Work', 'LGBTQ', 'Bipoc', 'New York', 'Human Rights'] |
My Take On The Filibuster | My Take On The Filibuster
The idea that the filibuster rule encourages debates and deliberation in the Senate is false. Instead, I see it as a political mechanism essentially designed to target policies that address fundamental social changes.
My biggest issue with the filibuster is that it doesn’t apply to all Senate’s pieces of legislation.
As the New York Times Columnist Ezra Klein pointed out, “it does not make sense to require 51 votes to pass trillions of dollars tax cuts for big cooperations, but 60 votes to protect the right to vote.” As America faces gun violence and hate crimes by people who have no business carrying a gun, I have to mention the filibuster is also applied to vote on gun control in the Senate.
I don’t believe the filibuster creates some equity or freedom of expression in the Senate — nor that I think it encourages unlimited debate where a minority has a say on policies. If you check the filibuster history, you would be surprised to realize that it is rooted in racism, slavery, and a consistent attempt to oppose civil rights.
The way I see it, there’s no guarantee Democrats will hold the majority in the Senate for the next four years. There’s no guarantee they would get any significant legislation voted there either. GOP could get it back in 2022. So I think Democrats should seriously try to find out how they will get policies to get through the Senate.
Whoever has the majority in the Senate should be able to get legislation passed. That’s the bottom line. Therefore, canceling the filibuster could be the ideal thing for Democrats to do right now before it’s too late. | https://medium.com/@williamjpl/my-take-on-the-filibuster-287e96af1fd0 | ['William Jr. Pierre-Louis'] | 2021-04-18 04:27:57.817000+00:00 | ['Democrats', 'Republicans', 'Majority', 'Minorities', 'Filibusters'] |
etailed explanation of the ten classic application fields of artificial intelligence | Detailed explanation of the ten classic application fields of artificial intelligence and its technical principles Sajjad Hussain Follow Jun 8 · 17 min read
This post will use the term “algorithm” to describe a single algorithm, model, or software that uses multiple algorithms in a highly simplified manner. In each category, discuss the type of data input, the algorithm as a black box, and the output one by one (for simplicity, even if the real algorithm is not a black box, consider it as a black box for the time being).
Because this is a high-level overview, I encourage you to delve into specific applications of interest and find out exactly how they apply to industries or business activities. There are also many resources available to learn the technical details and specific algorithms involved.
Predictive analysis
Prediction is synonymous with predictive analysis or predictive modeling. This is the process of judging the output data based on labeled and sometimes unlabeled input data. In machine learning and artificial intelligence, predictive analysis can be further subdivided into regression and classification.
The two subclasses that use labeled data (supervised) for prediction are discussed below.
Return
The process of inputting labeled data in the regression method, processing by the prediction model, and then generating values from the continuous series (such as the stock market’s closing price).
Applications include customers’ full-cycle stock value and net profit, revenue and growth forecasts, price changes, credit default risk, and stock transaction calculations.
Classification
Classification refers to the process of inputting labeled data and processing the classification model to divide the input data into one or more categories
The spam filter is a standard case of binary classification application. E-mail is the input data processed by the classification model, and the output data is determined spam or non-spam. Non-spam refers specifically to those good emails that do not contain spam. Spam mail will be sent to the trash, and non-spam mail will be sent to the inbox.
If the third category “uncertain” is introduced, then the classifier can now divide the incoming mail into three categories. Because there are more than two categories, this is an example of multivariate classification. In this example, the email client may have a “suspected spam” folder for users to review each message and use this to train the classifier to better distinguish between spam and non-spam messages.
If you want to divide the input data into three or more categories, the algorithm can choose a single category for the input data or calculate the probability that the input data belongs to each category. In the latter case, you can use the category with the highest probability as the result of selection, or use the probabilities of all categories to process according to your own customized rules.
In this case, assume that a newly received email is determined to be 85% likely to be spam, 10% to be non-spam, and 5% to be uncertain. Because the probability of being spam is relatively high, it can be determined that the mail is spam, or the calculated probability can be used in other ways.
Finally, some algorithms can assign multiple tags to the same input. Here is an example related to image recognition. Assuming that the input data is an image of a red apple, the algorithm can assign multiple different labels such as red, apple, and fruit to the image. In this case, it is appropriate to assign all three categories to the image.
Applications include credit risk, loan approval and customer churn. Classification can be combined with the identification applications discussed later in this post.
Personalization and recommendation system
A recommendation system is a personalized form of recommendation based on existing information, and the results are very relevant to each user. It can be used to increase customer conversion rate, sales rate, satisfaction, and retention rate. In fact, Amazon increased its operating income by 35% by adding these engines, and 75% of Netflix viewing programs also came from such recommendations.
The recommendation system is a special information filtering system. Personalization can also be accomplished through user search, ranking, and scoring. The recommendation system completes recommendations (such as products, articles, music, and movies) based on input data such as commodities or users through recommendation model or engine processing
It is worth mentioning the “cold start problem” associated with the recommendation system. Cold start means that smart applications do not yet have enough information to make highly personalized and relevant recommendations for specific users or groups. For example, users have not yet generated information about their preferences, interests, or purchase history.
Another example is when merchandise (such as clothes, products, videos, songs) has just become available. There are several techniques that can help solve this problem, but due to space limitations, I will not discuss it in depth.
Recommendation system applications include recommended products, videos, music, songs, books, and TV shows (eg Amazon, Netflix, Spotify). In addition to recommendations, it also includes personalized content, including news, reports, emails, and targeted advertisements (such as Twitter).
Other examples include personalized medical plans, personalized images, and icons (e.g. YouTube, Netflix, Yelp), wine recommendations, personalized shopping (e.g. perfect jacket matching), fashion outfits (e.g. StitchFix), and full automation recommend.
Computer Vision
Computer vision is a broad field that includes pattern recognition involving visual information such as images and videos (another technique will be discussed in the next section). Computer vision takes photos, still video images, and a series of images (videos) as input, and processes the model to produce output
The output can be to identify, detect, and discover a certain target, feature, or activity. Vision-related applications imply a certain degree of automation, especially automated vision, which usually requires people to participate in the application (such as inspection). The term machine vision is used to describe similar or overlapping technologies in industrial applications, such as inspection, process control, measurement, and robotics.
There are many interesting and powerful applications of computer vision, and the application scenarios are also increasing rapidly. For example, you can use computer vision in the following scenarios:
Video analysis and content screening
Lip-reading
Command automated machines (e.g. cars and drones)
Video recognition and description
Video subtitles
Identify human interactions like hugs and handshake
Robot and its control system
Crowd density estimation
Number of people counted (e.g. queuing, infrastructure planning, retail)
Inspection and quality control
Retail customer walking path analysis and participation analysis
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are often referred to as drones. Through the application of computer vision, drones can perform inspections (such as oil pipelines, wireless signal towers), complete building and area searches, assist in making maps, and deliveries. Computer vision is now widely used in public security, security, and surveillance. Of course, such applications should also pay attention to ethics and protect people’s interests.
The last thing about computer vision is worth mentioning. Through the five senses of seeing, smelling, listening, touching, and smelling, human beings can perceive the environment and the world around them. The senses capture the information and then pass it to the nervous system for conversion. It also determines what action should be taken or what response should be made. Computer vision is an analogy for applying vision to specific artificial intelligence.
Pattern recognition
Pattern recognition involves inputting unstructured data, after model processing, and then detecting whether there is a certain pattern (detection), and then assigning a category (classification) to the identified pattern, or discovering the subject of the identified pattern (recognition)
Inputs to these applications can include images (including video — a series of still images), audio (such as speech, music, and sound) and text. Text can be further subdivided into electronic, handwritten, or printed (eg paper, check, license plate number) according to its characteristics.
The purpose of using images as input may be to detect targets, identify targets, discover targets, or all three. Face recognition is a good example. Train the model to detect faces in the image, classify the detected targets, and label them as humans. This is an example of target detection. The targets here are unrecognized faces.
“Detection” is used to refer to an object found that is different from the background. It also includes the measurement of the target position and the specific measurement around the margin frame of the detected target. Recognition refers to the process of classifying or labeling detected targets (in this case, faces). Recognition goes a step further and assigns an identity to the recognized face.
Biometric recognition technology such as face recognition can be used to automatically tag people in the picture. Another form of biometrics is identification based on fingerprints.
Other applications include:
Read the text in video and audio
Label and classify images
Car insurance based on images to assess the degree of car damage
Extract information from video and audio
Emotion recognition based on face and voice
Facial expression recognition
Audio recognition applications include:
Speech Recognition
Convert speech to text
Separate and identify speakers
Emotional intelligence analysis based on voice, real-time customer service and sales calls
Logging and deforestation sound detection
Defect detection (e.g. defects in the manufacturing process or parts failure)
Finally, the handwritten or printed text can be converted into electronic documents through optical character recognition (OCR) and handwritten character recognition. Documents can also be converted to speech, but this is considered more likely to be a generative application of artificial intelligence rather than a recognizable one. Generative applications will be discussed later in this post.
Clustering and anomaly detection
The clustering and anomaly detection are the two most common unsupervised machine learning techniques. They are also considered as pattern recognition technology.
Both processes take unlabeled data as input and undergo corresponding algorithm (clustering or anomaly detection) processing to complete the grouping in the clustering scenario or determine whether it belongs to an anomaly in the anomaly detection scenario. We first discuss clustering.
Clustering aggregates similar data from unlabeled data into groups. The specific number of groups is determined by the person who completes the clustering task (usually a data scientist). There is no absolutely correct or wrong number of groups, but for a specific application, the ideal number of groups can usually be determined by trial and error.
Because the data has no labels, the cluster must assign a certain meaning or label to each group in order to describe it clearly (for example, sports fanatics). The model is then used to assign new data to a group, thereby assuming the label or description of that group. You can think of this process as some form of predictive classification, that is, assign a class (by grouping labels) to each new data point.
Assigning new data points (such as customers) to clusters (market segments) will provide us with a better method for accurately positioning, personalizing, and strategically positioning products, and can use appropriate methods to identify each Marketing by customers in different markets.
Clustering applications include segmenting and focusing on markets and customers, 3D medical image analysis, product classification according to shopping habits, and social media analysis.
Anomaly detection is a technique used to detect patterns of abnormal data (highly unusual, deviation from conventional or deformed). Anomaly detection applications include audio-based defect and crack detection, network security, quality control (such as manufacturing defect detection), and computer and network system health (such as NASA defect and error detection).
In terms of network security anomaly detection applications, common threats include malware, ransomware, computer viruses, system and memory attacks, denial of service (DoS) attacks, phishing, unwanted program execution, credential theft, data transmission, and theft Wait. Needless to say, there are endless scenes of anomaly detection in this area.
Natural Language
Natural language is a very interesting and exciting field in the development and application of artificial intelligence, usually divided into three sub-fields: natural language processing (NLP), natural language generation (NLG) and natural language understanding (NLU). Let us discuss separately.
1. NLP
Natural language processing (NLP) inputs text, speech, or handwritten language, and outputs structured data after NLP algorithm processing. There are many potential NLP scenarios and outputs.
It is worth mentioning that sometimes NLP is also considered to be a superset of NLG and NLU, so artificial intelligence natural language applications can be considered as a form of NLP in general. Some people think it is a specific collection of natural language applications, and we are discussing part of it.
Specific tasks and technologies related to NLP include:
Quantification and target text analysis
Speech recognition (speech to text)
Topic model (such as topics and topics discussed in the document)
Text classification (eg TV series “Game of Thrones”)
Sentiment analysis (e.g. positive, negative, neutral)
Subject detection (e.g. people, location)
Name recognition (e.g. Grand Canyon, Miles Davis)
Semantic similarity analysis (e.g. similarity of overall meaning between different words and text)
Tag some voices (e.g. nouns, verbs)
Machine translation (e.g. English to French translation)
A specific NLP application involves company meeting recording, text conversion, and then provides a meeting summary, which includes analysis and meeting performance around different topics (https://www.chorus.ai).
Another application uses NLP to analyze recruitment interviews and give overall scores based on factors such as gender neutrality, intonation, and wording. It also provides optimization suggestions for improving the score and overall job description.
Other applications include:
Emotion-based news aggregation
Emotionally driven social media surveys and brand monitoring
Analysis of parent vaccine attention based on message board
Sentiment analysis of movie reviews and product reviews
Animal sound conversion
Many cloud service providers now provide some functions in this area through NLP services and API interfaces.
2. NLG
NLG enters the language in the form of structured data and is processed by the NLG algorithm to produce the corresponding language as output. This language output can be in the form of text or text converted to speech. Examples of structured input data can be statistical data on athletes in the game, advertising performance data, or company financial data.
Applications include:
Automatically generate text overview based on sentences and documents
Brief review (e.g. news and sports)
Story about pictures
Business analysis report summary
Recruiting staff to participate in hospital research
Patient hospital bills in natural language
Fantasy Football Draft Summary and Weekly Game Review
Property description and real estate market report
Press releases related to company revenue reports
3. NLU
Finally, NLU takes language as input (text, voice, or handwriting), and after processing by the NLU algorithm, it produces a language that can be understood as output. The resulting intelligible language can be used to take action, generate responses, answer questions, conduct conversations, etc.
The word “understanding” can be very esoteric and philosophical, and it will involve the concept of comprehension. It is important to note this. Comprehension refers to the ability not only to comprehend information (as opposed to rote memorization) but to integrate the understood information with existing knowledge and use it as a growing knowledge base.
The lack of language understanding and comprehension similar to humans is a major drawback of today’s natural language-based artificial intelligence applications. The root cause is that it is difficult for machines to acquire language understanding capabilities similar to humans. Remember the previous discussion about the status quo of artificial intelligence and the problems of artificial intelligence? This is a clear proof.
Without a full philosophical discussion, let us only use the term “understand” to express the algorithm (reiterate, greatly simplify) can do more work on the input language, not only to parse and perform simple tasks, such as text analysis. The problem to be solved by NLU is obviously much harder than NLP and NLG (general artificial intelligence problem), and NLU is the main basic component to realize general artificial intelligence (AGI).
The current NLU is improving day by day and has applications including personal virtual assistants, chatbots, customer success (support and service) agents, and sales agents. These applications usually include some form of handwritten content or voice dialogue, often around information gathering, question answering, or some assistive tools.
Specific application examples of personal assistants include Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google’s Assistant, and Nuance’s Nina. Application examples of chat robots include lubricant experts, job interviews, student loan consultants, and commercial insurance experts. This is an area where artificial intelligence research is very active and has potential for development, and it deserves attention.
Time series and sequence-based data
In most cases, the data is collected in a sequence, so the sequence of the data is extremely important and determined by a specific index.
The most common data series index is time, and the data sorted by time is called time-series data. Stock price fluctuations, DNA sequences, IoT sensor data, and scientific phenomena such as wind direction are good examples of time series during daily trading hours.
Time series analysis and modeling can be used to learn, judge, and predict time-based events, including trends, seasonal changes, cycles, and noise.
For some specific applications, the sequence of letters and words is also valid sequence data. These sequences are labeled with different labels, such as n-grams, skip-grams, sentences, paragraphs, and even the language itself, where the language is speech, text, or Expressed electronically. In addition, audio and video are also sequence data.
Applications include:
Forecast (regression and classification)
abnormal detection
Predict the future exchange rate of currencies
Real-time tracking of health trends
market prediction
Weather forecast
Sequence-based recommendation
emotion analysis
DNA sequencing
Text generation
Sequence-to-sequence prediction (such as machine translation)
Information search, extraction, sorting, and scoring
Many powerful artificial intelligence applications revolve around searching, extracting, and sorting (scoring) information. This applies particularly to unstructured and semi-structured data, such as text documents, web pages, images, and videos.
This type of data (sometimes supplemented by structured data) can be used to extract information, provide search or optimization process recommendations, and rank or score entries by relevance, importance, or priority. Most of this group of technologies is related to personalization, because search results and other items can be arranged or sorted according to the size of the relevance for a certain user or group.
At present, many search tasks are provided by keyboard input or voice to search engines such as Google, which uses Google’s unique artificial intelligence search algorithm. E-commerce applications also use their own engines to search for products, and the search process can be driven by text, voice (voice), and visual input.
Text search includes Google search, Microsoft Bing, and distributed, transparent, and community-driven search.
Search applications based on sound and images include:
Clothes and Fashion Search
Song and artist search
Pinterest lens search
Image and video search
Font search
Video search is based on image content. Shopping apps have already adopted this approach. The user submits the photograph taken to the video search engine. Then use photos to generate similarity search results, such as clothes. Some image engines can also visually display similar other products and recommendations.
In addition to classification techniques, there are ranking and scoring techniques, including these applications:
Lead scoring
Information and document retrieval (eg web search)
machine translation
Pathogenic gene search and discovery
Determination of protein sequence structure
Reinforcement learning
Reinforcement learning (RL) is very different from the artificial intelligence techniques described so far (simply recall the aforementioned method of human learning). The basic idea is to have an agent acting in a virtual environment to obtain a positive return. Each action causes a change in the state of the environment, and each action is determined by a model called a strategy. The strategy attempts to determine the excellent actions to be taken in a given state.
Don’t worry if you don’t understand it for the time being; I will give an example, I hope it can be explained more clearly.
You can consider the game “Ms. Pac-Man” (Why Ms. Pac-Man?) as an example. Ms. Dou’s goal is to eat all the points on the screen, but the bigger goal is to get the most points out of the possible points. Why is it the real goal to score the most? Or why play this game?
First of all, the more points you get, the longer you can get a free life. The longer free life you can play, the longer you can accumulate more points. Secondly, if you can complete the game or create a world record, you can get the official “browning rights”, who doesn’t want it?
In this case, the score is the reward, Ms. Pacman is the agent, the environment is the screen, and the person (player) participating in it decides the strategy for taking action by manipulating the joystick of the game.
Of course, the environment is stateful. There is a common undetectable situation, that is, when Ms. Dou eats the dots and fruits on the screen, she must avoid the ghost that chases her, and there is an invincible situation, that is, when Ms. Dou eats invincible pills (I don’t know what it is called), she can eat the ghost and get a lot of extra points.
What determines the invincibility and non-invincibility is the change in the state of the environment and the ability of the agent in the environment.
It is worth mentioning that in the process of playing the game of “Ms. Pacman”, people are sometimes driven by the completion of on-screen goals, trying to get as many levels as possible instead of getting the most points. In this case, people will only use the invincible state to accelerate, eating as many unimpeded points as possible, and may not get the most points by eating ghosts.
Suppose you have a reinforcement learning application and the goal is to get the most points. In this case, the app will try to learn how to do this, that is, eat as many ghosts and fruits as possible.
One more thing to mention, scoring is a positive return. The death of a ghost is a negative reward. Over time, enhanced applications should try to maximize scores and minimize loss of life. Although this example is built in a game scene, we can use reinforcement learning in many other ways.
Applications include:
Beat the Go World Championship
Find excellent configuration of neural network
robot technology
Optimize drug dosage
Optimize traffic signal control
Optimize chemical reactions
Autopilot
Hybrid, automation and others
The final section of the actual application points out some applications, because they involve multiple combination techniques, or are not suitable for any category that has been discussed, so they are classified as mixed or miscellaneous.
Application examples include:
Self-driving cars and fleets and self-driving space shuttles
Real-time flight route prediction and air traffic optimization
Driverless racing
Warehouse logistics and picking automation
Dogs and humanoid robots
Ingenious hands of robots
Coral reef monitoring jellyfish robot
Hospital patient care automation
Disease outbreak prediction
Reduce cooling costs
Weather forecast
Automated meeting coordination
Predictive maintenance
Intelligent systems related to the Internet of Things
Another area of real interest in artificial intelligence development is generative applications, which basically refers to artificial intelligence that can generate something for a given application from a specific type of input. Including the following examples:
Generate images from text
Generate images and image area descriptions
Generate images of galaxies and volcanoes
Generate images from sketches
Generate music according to the characteristics of the song
Generate diverse sounds and voices
Synthetic singing
Generate software code based on the design model
Generate video based on text
Other applications include style conversion (for example, ordinary image conversion to reproduce Van Gogh or Picasso-style “art”). There is also a technique called super-resolution imaging, which converts a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional image by generating missing three-dimensional image data. Finally, automatic image coloring is another interesting artificial intelligence application | https://medium.com/dataprophet/detailed-explanation-of-the-ten-classic-application-fields-of-artificial-intelligence-and-its-e1258d8f3c0f | ['Sajjad Hussain'] | 2020-06-09 01:25:43.564000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'AI', 'Data Science', 'Deep Learning', 'Machine Learning'] |
Ways to Stop Other People’s Demons from Becoming Your Own | Ways to Stop Other People’s Demons from Becoming Your Own
Don’t be blinded to your own self-worth by others’ negative comments
Image by Alexas_Fotos on Pixabay
When Mahatma Gandhi says, “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet,” he’s exhibiting a mental strength that many of us simply don’t have.
Everyday most of us let someone “walk through [our] minds” with their words and actions. For example, we listen to others’ opinions on our looks, choices, and behaviors, and then we turn them into cold hard facts our brains (and hearts) believe. But it doesn’t stop there. We hear their statements and then subconsciously read between the lines, our self-concept transforming not only through the words themselves, but through their pauses, facial expressions, and body language.
And because of the sad fact that most of us already have self-esteem issues and are conditioned to believe the worst about ourselves, others’ words imprint themselves on our psyches and create stains that won’t go away no matter how hard we try to erase them. We become doormats where everyone’s negative statements get stuck in the fibers of our consciousness.
And to be honest, I don’t think there’s a way to completely stop this chain of events. No matter what others may say about their iron-clad confidence, I don’t believe them. Yes, they may be more self-assured than the majority, but the old adage that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is a bold-faced lie.
So the question is, how do we stop these “dirty feet” from doing irreversible damage? Here are some ways we can lessen their impact.
Seek to understand the people whose hurt you
The majority of people’s words and actions are never really about you. Instead, their behaviors stem from their own emotional baggage and unfulfilled needs.
That coworker who belittles every idea you have or refuses to listen to your suggestions on a work related issue? Their reactions are most likely due to their own own insecurity about their job performance or their jealousy about the recognition you have received for your accomplishments.
Their behavior may even be a result of their personal lives. For example, they may feel powerless in their relationships with spouses or other family members, so they decide to be unyielding or overly aggressive at work.
That’s why it’s so important to recognize these people’s negative responses towards you are a result of their own inner demons, not a flaw in your own performance or personality.
What about the friend who downplays all your successes, criticizes every person you date, or tells you your goals are impossible? Maybe they’re upset at themselves for not working to achieve their own personal ambitions. Maybe they’re jealous you believe in the possibility your aspirations can come true when they have given up hope on fulfilling their own passions and desires. Maybe they simply feel alone or incapable of finding a relationship partner.
And the wounding words of your spouse or significant other? They could be due to the fact that they’re feeling unloved or insecure in their relationship with you. Maybe they’re struggling with wounds or scars from previous partnerships. And because these are the people with whom you share the most time, their toxic treatment could be related to negative interactions with people on the job, family and friends, or anyone they meet during the day.
The point is, when you start to believe that these people’s psychological bullets are a true reflection of your own self-worth, you need to remind yourself that it’s their problems with themselves that are likely the culprit behind their words. This is why you should never accept their comments as valid ones.
Walk away when changing the situation is beyond your control
There are some people’s “dirty feet” that we actually invite into our inner world. Toxic people we call “negative Nancy’s” or “emotional vampires.” Narcissists and abusers whose only goal is to make themselves feel better and make us hurt as badly as they do. And not only do we let them into our world, we make them the most important people in our lives. Our husbands. Our wives. Our “best friends.”
Why do we do this?
Perhaps because their dirty feet have made us believe we are not worthy. The lasting impact of their words and actions make us believe we are damaged goods, that no one else would want us or love us , that the only option is to continue the relationship because, well, at least they’re there with us, right?
Wrong.
I promise you (and it’s a promise I can keep) that there are people who will love you the way you need to be loved. There are people who will build you up instead of tearing you down.
So when the verbal abuse or mistreatment by these people becomes an everyday occurrence, you can walk away. You can leave. And yes, it will be hard. You’ll feel exposed, alone, and scared. But over time, the emotional stains these people have left on your heart will start to fade away. You will begin to heal and rebuild your self-esteem and your battered ego.
This is not to say that the occasional ugly comment or lashing out of a person whom you are close to means you should abandon ship and sever all ties. No one is immune to bad days where we say or do the wrong things to someone we care about. But trust your instincts. Trust your past history with this person. You know deep down whether or not a person’s poisonous actions or words towards you will continue.
And don’t go on believing that you can “fix” these people. They have issues that only they can overcome, and nothing you do will likely make a difference until they choose to do the work they need to do on themselves.
The bottom line:
Author John Mark Green says that “toxic people attach themselves like cinder blocks tied to your ankles, and then invite you for a swim in their poisoned waters.” So, accept that the waters are poison, and then step away from the shore. There are better bodies of water to swim in, and you deserve the opportunity to test them out. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/ways-to-stop-other-peoples-demons-from-becoming-your-own-e9d63210dbd7 | ['Dawn Bevier'] | 2020-12-02 23:57:14.171000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Relationships', 'Self', 'Advice', 'Mindfulness'] |
I Got the Moderna Vaccine | I Got the Moderna Vaccine
My “reaction” so far.
Two days before Christmas, I got a phone call: “Can you be here at 2:00?” asked Rebekah, our small county’s (only) Public Health nurse. Yes, I said, and by 2:30 Rebekah had injected my wife and me with the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.
Ouray County Public Health nurse Rebekah Stewart gives me the Moderna vaccine (in the agency’s parking lot!) from the first vial opened as full-time paramedic Ruth Stewart, no relation to Rebekah, looks on. (Photo: Kit Cassingham)
Getting the Covid vaccine on Wednesday was quite a surprise. Public Health nurse Rebekah Stewart had given Ouray County Emergency Medical Services personnel a briefing on Zoom Tuesday evening. My wife and I are volunteer medics in our rural Colorado county. Our first Covid death was April 8, pretty early in the pandemic for such a rural county.
Rebekah didn’t even have an estimate of when their vaccine supply was arriving, but she wanted us to know the science behind the vaccine’s development. Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Covid vaccines are extremely similar, but as a small county that didn’t have a freezer cold enough to keep Pfizer’s vaccine, we would be getting Moderna’s.
She also went over the expected side effects so, when it was offered to us, we’d have enough information to make an informed decision as to whether we would want it. I had decided long ago that I would take it as soon as it was offered.
So it was quite the surprise to get Rebekah’s call the next morning asking if we could be there at 2:00: our county’s initial supply had arrived by FedEx shortly after the Zoom call. FedEx was already working pretty late with the Christmas rush and Ouray, our county seat, is at the end of the route.
While the CDC provided suggested priority “phases” for vaccine rollout while production ramps up, states are allowed to adjust the priorities. The State of Colorado decided that “Phase 1A” would include the highest-risk healthcare workers — “People who have direct contact with Covid-19 patients for 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period,” plus long-term care facility staff and residents; “Phase 1B” would include, among others, “EMS, firefighters, police, correctional workers, dispatchers … and other first responders.”
In our county, where EMS has transported multiple patients with confirmed Covid-19, well, we’re in direct contact with patients for a lot longer than 15 minutes. Here, there’s no 5-minute hospital rides: our transports are 20–60 minutes to get to the closest hospital, and that’s on top of any time we spend evaluating, treating, and loading them up before we can start moving. Our health department, then, decided to move EMS personnel into the first priority phase. Since we tend to be available at a moment’s notice, that’s how we — along with the longest-serving dentist in town and his assistant — ended up getting the shots from the first 10-dose vial.
My wife getting her shot. Note our festive seasonal masks! (Photo by the author)
When we arrived, our little Public Health department didn’t want anyone but their own employees inside the building, which helps keep it from getting contaminated, such as by people not knowing they have Covid. So we actually had to bare our arms, one by one, in the parking lot out front: it was lightly snowing, and 18 degrees (-8 centigrade), and then we had to stay there for 15 minutes to ensure none of us had any severe reactions. None of us did.
But let’s back up a little and talk about vaccine efficacy and effectiveness, which sound like they “should” be the same thing, but aren’t, and what they mean since I muddied the waters a little bit by not being clear and detailed enough in my previous article.
Setting the Bar
Back in June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that to win approval, any Covid-19 vaccine would have to prevent the disease — or decrease its severity — in at least 50 percent of the people who receive it. Also, they said, the group of test subjects should include a wide age range, and include minorities.
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn assured Congress the agency would follow established scientific principles, and “will not cut corners in our decision-making.”
That 50 percent figure, which refers to efficacy, was criticized for both being too low, and too high. 50 percent is “a realistic goal but not a very high bar,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. But even 50 percent wouldn’t be the end, he said, adding “Our first vaccine won’t be our best.”
“I would hope we could do better than 50 percent,” agreed Dr. Paul Offit, Professor of Vaccinology and Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The cutoff, though, is “generally reassuring because the FDA said it wouldn’t approve a vaccine unless it was effective.” Which, you may be starting to realize, is relative.
On the other hand, Dr. Stephen Ostroff, the FDA’s Chief Scientist and former acting commissioner, thought the 50 percent figure was too high a bar. “A vaccine that has efficacy of less than 50 percent may still be very beneficial for people at high risk of developing the disease,” he said. With the virus “rampaging through a lot of parts of the United States, I would certainly consider a vaccine with less than 50 percent efficacy.”
Racing to Find Efficacy
Pfizer recruited 43,661 volunteers to test the vaccine candidate, with about half randomly assigned to a placebo group, which means they were injected with saline, or sterile water with the same amount of salt as in our bodies, and the rest got the actual vaccine. To get to a statistically significant result, they then had to wait until 170 of those test subjects caught Covid.
Ironically, the surge in cases as colder weather rolled in “helped” (if I can use that word) to push the test subjects to 170 Covid cases.
No one in the test group knew if they got saline or the actual vaccine, and neither did the people who gave them the shots, which is called a “double blind” study — researchers want to ensure there is no psychological influence. Interestingly, the placebo group reported a significant level of side effects too, even though they didn’t actually get the vaccine: psychology really does play a large part in that.
But as the reports of Covid cases came in among the 43,661 volunteers, Pfizer’s computers knew who got the placebo, and who got the vaccine candidate. And of the 170, just 8 were from those who got the vaccine; 162 got the placebo. Do some simple math and find those 8 who got the vaccine among the 170 Covid cases is a hair over 4.7 percent, which leaves the efficacy at 95.3 percent, which Pfizer rounded down to 95 percent. *
With the FDA expecting at least 50 percent efficacy, “Hearing that at the interim analysis we are over 90 percent effective — it was almost stunning to hear,” said Dr. Kathrin Jansen, Pfizer’s chief of vaccine research and development.
It was unprecedented.
Efficacy vs Effectiveness
Yet, that’s efficacy, not effectiveness. What’s the difference?
Efficacy is determined by testing in “best case scenario” conditions: a double-blind randomly controlled trial as just described. In addition, researchers have really tight controls on how the vaccine is stored, how it’s given to each test subject, and how those subjects are closely monitored. It’s one of the reasons vaccines are expensive: it’s a detailed process. And, it takes awhile.
What’s not a “best case scenario” is when those careful safeguards go out of the developers’ control: are the vials really kept at around −94 degrees Fahrenheit, in the case of the Pfizer vaccine? (Which is −71 degrees centigrade. That’s one cold freezer.) Moderna’s only needs to be kept at −4 degrees Fahrenheit (−20 degrees centigrade, which just about any freezer can do).
In the case of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, once a vial is taken from the freezer and opened, the doses have to be used within six hours, or whatever is unused has to be thrown away because it degrades so quickly. You can bet that procedure was followed to the letter by the researchers. Do busy public health departments and hospitals follow the rules that closely? We hope so, but it’s hard to know for sure, and we can’t know for sure if every person who gets the vaccine will report back if they get sick later. They could, for instance, figure they caught a cold, not Covid. They might not get the second dose on time, or at all.
So if the “best case scenario” is a 95 percent efficacy, a number that will certainly change at least slightly as more of the volunteers get Covid (which is probably why Pfizer rounded down), then what’s the “real world” effectiveness going to be?
Something different — something lower. And that’s the difference between efficacy and effectiveness: ideal conditions versus real world conditions.
But remember part of the definition that the FDA laid out in the first place: to win approval, that 50 percent efficacy requirement, was that the “vaccine would have to prevent the disease — or decrease its severity.” We know the vaccine won’t necessarily make you immune to Covid-19, but it’s still worth it for that reduction in severity if you do get it.
And remember, even when properly vaccinated under “best case” conditions, so far 8 of the volunteers still got Covid: none of the vaccinated population will really know if they’re “immune” from Covid. Any one of them can still get it, and be contagious, so that’s why we need to continue with the usual safeguards — wearing masks, social distancing, washing hands — even after getting the vaccine.
Interestingly, I found when researching this that while both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines are nearly identical — but not fully so, which is obvious when you consider their vastly different required storage temperatures — Pfizer’s contains 30 micrograms of vaccine, while Moderna’s has 100 micrograms. Yet Moderna’s efficacy is a little bit lower: 94.1 percent. That’s also subject to change as their studies continue, and maybe Moderna’s and Pfizer’s numbers will converge, but it goes to show that more isn’t always better.
Side Effects
More might — or might not — also create more side effects. After my first shot 2 days before Christmas, I felt fine. The next day, my arm was sore at a level I described to the CDC as mild. On Christmas, less sore. And a day later, I had to poke at the injection site on my arm to feel it at all. Sunday, as I’m recording this, I don’t even have pain if I hit my arm. I did sign up with the CDC’s vsafe program, discussed in my previous article, and that’s how I reported all of that to them. But I never felt anything else, no other side effects, from my Moderna injection.
Some reports say that the second dose reactions can be more intense, but starting where I am, even if it’s 10 times worse, which seems unlikely, it would still be somewhere from mild to moderate, for a very short time. I’ll take that any day over getting Covid, since even symptom-free cases still develop long-term complications with lungs, heart, and other organs. No thanks!
I’m absolutely one of the lucky ones to get vaccinated so early, especially considering my little county can’t even handle the Pfizer vaccine, and had to wait for Moderna’s to be approved.
The Rollout
Pfizer expects to ship 50 million doses by December 31st — enough for 25 million people to get both doses, three weeks apart, and 1.3 billion more doses during 2021. Obviously, the U.S. doesn’t get all of those: other countries have also received their first shipments, with more to come soon.
Moderna, meanwhile, which requires two doses 4 weeks apart, said they expect to ship 20 million doses by the end of the year, which is coming right up.
Employees at McKesson, a healthcare supply chain distributor, work in a freezer to pack up the first doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine for shipment. (Photo: McKesson)
The Trump Administration’s Operation Warp Speed officials previously said they expect 20 million Americans to have their first shot of one vaccine or the other by the end of the year, and 100 million by the end of March, which could increase if we get another effective vaccine approved before then. But, so far, they’re behind that expected pace. That’s partly the difference between “best case scenario” and “real world conditions.”
The only question that remains to be answered is, how long with the vaccine last? Only time will tell, but the two companies have tens of thousands of volunteers who got the vaccine long before you will, so they’ll know that answer before you need any sort of booster.
My bottom line remains, when you get the chance, get the vaccine unless you have a condition your doctor says makes you a very high reaction risk, in which case you should definitely at least strongly encourage anyone near you to get theirs to help protect you. | https://medium.com/true-uncommon-sense/i-got-the-moderna-vaccine-3cc7ec25fd2c | ['Randy Cassingham'] | 2020-12-30 23:44:55.378000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Vaccines', 'Science', 'Coronavirus', 'Medicine'] |
AMAL MINDSET GROWTHING TOTKAY | AMAL MINDSET GROWTHING TOTKAY
A.O.A Amal fellows!
1_SELF TALK:
Talking with other is common but taking with their mind or with own self is less .Any person that motivate you and able to change is only yourself . So it is a time to done something good by own feet.
2_Getting out your comfort zone:
Anything which you want to do is only possible when you kick out your comfortzone its a time to perform Time is in a speed and time not come back.
3_Creat New Habits:
After getting up every morning we play a task like tooth brushing .is a habit .Like this we should set our habits change their mind it help to improve quality .of our vision and become possible every what we want.
4_Ask people for help:
Anything no matters is in food type or rupees type when we use it it come down and at least stop and off. But The amount of things that we serve on other people by help is it remain for us by Allah.
5_Fake Till you Make it:
Fake word is bad thats first coming image in our mind about it But in Amal totkay fake is helpful word .Say and put yourself on other front as a good example no means actually you have .@Qasim Ali shah says set your personality as what you want to become it will push you to drive a near path both . | https://medium.com/@sidra.younas202/amal-mindset-growthing-totkay-85ffce70a199 | ['Sidra Younas'] | 2021-08-20 18:48:12.208000+00:00 | ['Amal Totkay'] |
Top Python Libraries for Data Science | Python is the most commonly used and one of the best programming languages for data science. This is because Python is an easy to use language and it has many open-source libraries that can be used for data science. Since Python is open-source, it is free and has an active community which makes it regularly updated. Here, I have discussed some of the top Python libraries for data science. I have divided these libraries into two: those used for data processing and modelling, and those used for data visualizations. Let’s go!
Libraries Used for Data Processing and Modelling
1. NumPy
NumPy means Numeric Python. It is used for scientific computations which include linear algebra, n-dimensional arrays and matrices vectorization and processing, Fourier transformation, random number processing. The main objects in Numpy are the n-dimensional or multidimensional arrays or matrices. Several operations can be carried out on these arrays, some of which are: Arithmetic Operations, Reshaping, Transposition, Flattening, Slicing, Stacking, Splitting, Broadcasting and many more. NumPy is a fundamental Python library as many other libraries e.g Scipy were built on it.
2. SciPy
SciPy library is different from SciPy stack. SciPy library is built on NumPy and is one of the main packages in SciPy stack. It has several submodules which can be used for statistics, linear algebra, integration, interpolation, optimization etc. Because SciPy is built on NumPy, its main objects are multidimensional matrices as well. SciPy has great documentation which makes it easy to use.
3. Pandas
Pandas is called Python Data Analysis Library. It has two main data structures which are:
i. Series (a 1-D array which can hold any data type)
ii. Data Frame (a 2-D tabular data structure with rows and columns)
Pandas is a great tool for data analysis, data wrangling, data manipulation, data aggregation, handling missing values, simple visualizations and many more. Pandas are also used for reading and writing datasets or files of various formats such as SQL, CSV, Excel, Text etc.
4. Scikit-learn
Scikit-learn is primarily used for Machine Learning operations such as Regression, Classification, Decision Clustering, Model Selection, Dimensionality Reduction and Preprocessing. It can also be used for data analysis and mining. Scikit-learn is built on Numpy, Pandas, Scipy and Matplotlib libraries and so it interoperates with them.
Libraries Used for Data Visualization
5. Matplotlib
Matplotlib is used for data visualization and 2-D plotting. It is the most widely used Python plotting library. Matplotlib can be used on several platforms such as Jupyter notebook, Python and IPython shells, Web application servers etc., and also for embedding plots into applications through its object-oriented API. Matplotlib library is used to produce line plots, histograms, pie charts, bar charts, scatterplots, stem plots and many other visualizations.
6. Seaborn
Seaborn provides a high-level interface for creating informatory and appealing statistical graphics. It is based on Matplotlib library and is closely integrated with the NumPy and Pandas data structures (arrays, series and data frames). Seaborn helps in data exploration and understanding. Seaborn has a broad gallery of visualizations which include histograms, bar charts, pair plots, heatmaps, violin plots, boxplots, cluster maps etc.
7. Plotly
Plotly can be used to create sophisticated visualizations like contour plots, tenary plots and 3-D charts which are rare in other visualization libraries. Plotly provides a large number of unique graphs e.g heatmaps, histograms, area charts, scatter plots, multiple-axes, subplots, polar charts, bubble charts and many more. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/top-python-libraries-for-data-science-7471e3aabd8b | ['Peace Ikeoluwa Adegbite'] | 2020-11-10 12:59:02.099000+00:00 | ['Data Analysis', 'Python Programming', 'Data Visualization', 'Python', 'Data Science'] |
Another great story about writing from Illumination. | Another great story about writing from Illumination.
Going back a few months, I read this excellent story written by Steve QJ. He takes us through the heady experience of having a great idea and how we must act on it to begin to make something beautiful.
‘The problem with ideas is that they don’t exist yet. They’re ambiguous, ineffable, apparitions. Smoke in which we imagine we see patterns.’
How you get from the idea to reality is fraught with danger. He describes it as a journey across a fragile bridge.
‘This bridge is almost always unsteady and poorly built and offers a thousand different opportunities for your idea to fall into the ravine.’
You just have to walk across and make your first mark. Read his words here.
Make Your First Mark. The fragile nature of ideas | by Steve QJ | ILLUMINATION | Oct, 2020 | Medium | https://medium.com/illumination/another-great-story-about-writing-from-illumination-e78fbb0857a3 | [] | 2020-12-07 19:11:53.739000+00:00 | ['Short Read', 'Creative Writing', 'Advice', 'Creativity'] |
Money: the medium of truth | Photo by Sahand Hoseini on Unsplash
It was an ordinary day well apart from the home clothes we were wearing at school for a change away from the usual uniform and the naming of the day as entrepreneurship day, when I made a small purchase of something I do not even remember. I had paid with a big note well that is if you consider R50(about $3) a particularly big note, I was then handed quite some change. Later on I realised to my shock and horror that I was handed half a R10(about USD62c) note which I did not notice because it was wrapped neatly in other bills. When I the found it was amusing well, my initial reaction was of anger and fury. As I began thinking about the incident I decided not to confront the 7th year learners who had tricked me with this bill because I understood that even if I could complain and get my money back that does not really solve anything, I realised that this is a much bigger issue then half a R10 note and perhaps can be used to define how people think of money.You see this note tells a story of greed and I have used it to remind me of a lesson which in simple words is “everyone is trying to chase more green beware those you encounter who hold that intention at the deepest level but hold no ethics or morals, for it is them fuelled with greed who will do anything for a slight gain or more.”
The way most people see money is through the lens of luxury, you can hardly go a day in pop culture without hearing the phrase “i want to be rich” which at its core is pointless, what’s the point of being the richest person in the cemetery? As Elon Musk said — Money is not something to be accumulated in vast quantities but rather should be used as fuel to achieve greater missions such as landing a man on Mars. Money is not the root of all evil but the mirror upon which evil or good can reveal itself. Be careful what you wish for, the more money you have the deeper the uncomfortable truths about yourself become. As the great philosopher Notorious B.I.G once said ‘mo money mo problems’.Was it not Frederich Nietzsche who warned us a century or so ago by saying —: if you stare long enough into the abyss the abyss will stare back at you” in other words if you spend all your life chasing as much money as possible you inevitable become the thing or type of person you once loathed as younger person. Very rarely will they remember you for the amount of money you make but rather the amounts of lives you changed.
Money perhaps more than any other thing in the world is the most mis-understood. Money is simple the storage of value a glorified “i owe you” note if you will. It allowed us to move from barter trading to factories, airplanes in skies, rockets on the moon and beyond which otherwise would have been not possible. Money for most people holds within it hope, hope that tomorrow will be a better day than today. Let us not hate those who have more money than us, let us indeed seek to provide real world value such that some day we too can be of great wealth. They say chase your dreams and the money will follow, I beg to differ money is being made in places were big problems are being solved and that’s the idea of money, money is a guide to incentivise and reward those who dare to solve the worlds most complex problems. Want to be rich? Solve a problem that huge masses are experiencing whether that be fulfilling a creative need through music or good health as doctor or starting a business as long as people are willing to pay for it you will create real wealth.whether we are capitalists, communist or anything in between we can agree that the distribution of money is necessary for peace and harmony itself to exist.
Perhaps the greatest lesson we can take from Money is that fact that it never losses its value: I can squash, folded up, step on it and it will still hold the same value it had prior. This is a life lesson that we should all carry as we navigate our lives no matter how different you look, how damaged you may think you are or how lucky you are, you still have immense value within you that you have to see before the world actually sees it. When normal thinks such as wood and chemicals are put together we form money a creation that changed everything and thus if seemingly ordinary people join forces we can archive that which was believed to be fiction and the stuff of dreamers.
Isn’t it sad how we put a champion of freedom and equality on a piece of paper most people are enslaved to.It is perhaps symbolic to the growing inequality we face how the top 1% own more wealth than the combined bottom 50%. But let us not be too quick to Blame it on the the rich for in most cases you realise that devil is within.As of 2012 If you make more than $32k you are in the top 1% of global earners, instead of pointing the finger upward in the hierarchy of money accumulation we as individuals and a collective should seek to do the things that our leaders fail to do, money is power and we should you unite to honour some of the great people who’s face is on all our notes by building that just and equal world they dreamed off. Money’s greatest trick was to convince us to have more of it than other people while it united us all against it. | https://medium.com/an-idea/money-the-medium-of-truth-910b1179254e | ['Ashley Nyadongo'] | 2020-11-05 06:00:25.563000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Truth And Life', 'Money Mindset', 'Money', 'Life'] |
Can Green Energy Be Economically Viable: Pros and Cons | Can Green Energy Be Economically Viable: Pros and Cons
@Chantelle via Twenty20
Electric energy is one of the most important forms of energy that supplies our world as more than 80% of households depend on electricity. Thanks to scientists and technology, this form of energy is going to run the electric range vehicles in the future on the regular basis. Even at this moment, we have an electric car or an electric SUV that through electric charging charges and to run instead of the fuel that is toxic to the environment.
As technology makes progress, our society is slowly gravitating towards renewable and economical energy. Electric vehicles are slowly becoming a standard way of transportation. It is the same with the green energy — the demand for green energy is rising, which reduces its cost of installation and maintenance.
Thus, the economic potential, which is based on several data metrics (including photovoltaics, wind, geothermal, biomass and hydropower resources), is huge and it is going to increase exponentially every year. But, can it be viable in the long run? Looks like it can — not only from the perspective of the clear and safe environment but also as it will expand the job market and introduce some new work-spaces. Still, things are far from perfect, but the main concept is good and worthy.
What Do Economists and Ecologists Say?
Rob Jeffrey, a council member of the Fossil Fuel Foundation, noted that the renewable sources were the main cause of political backlashes both in the UK and the US. At the same time, these sources may lead to reduced energy availability but also to poverty as people may lose jobs after the technology changes. Still, this is not something that should be taken for granted.
On the other hand, the Governments and countries like the idea of the renewables as these make space for subsidies and fixed rates. Governments impose different taxes on renewable energy programs and therefore collect money aside. The reason for this is that all renewable sources of energy could reduce global warming, but also stability in the long term, especially if inflation happens.
But what happens if we have a wind-powered plant and suddenly there is no wind? Or if your solar installation does not get enough sunlight? How to charge your solar panels? Looking from one side, economists may be right when they say that the whole concept is unstable (because of the mentioned problems) but there is a solution in the form of smart metering or storage batteries that would serve as the backup.
@TonyTheTigersSon via Twenty20
Therefore, it would be easier to accumulate solar energy and get more solar power from your solar roof than to use electrical equipment to generate electricity. Thanks to this, the cost of these systems is going to be even lower due to the competition and the entire structure of the energy structures is going to change.
The thoughtless country’s interventions that have a goal of decarbonization increased the electricity’s cost and people end up paying a high price for the electricity. However, as the new concepts arrive with greater efficiency solar features and lower start-up costs, the concept of green energy is going to become more affordable, especially when large countries like the UK or the US implement these and encourage other countries to apply it. The damage we had done to our environment is much greater than the price our children would pay for the powered systems.
What are the Benefits of Renewable Energy From Scientists’ Perspective?
The first and obvious benefit from the scientists’ perspective is the less pollution that is harmful to all living beings. Of course, there are some pollutions but this is not as harmful as it is today with the existing technologies. Once the process of catalysis is researched better and we find the appropriate agents that would not emit the harmful gases or byproducts, the pollution will be decreased to zero, which is the ultimate goal and the main principle of the alternative energy sources.
Solar price is not going to be high as the process of building solar powered structures is not expensive nor hard to maintain. Therefore, in terms of building and maintaining, it’s much better than the regular systems for the production of electricity.
Placing such a system in the area where the wind blows more than 80% of the year is bingo streak as there is no need for any additional power supply. As long as the wind blows, your plant is able to operate and produce electricity. So, you invest 100% and you get 90% in return, which is more than good math.
The second benefit is that we will not run out of the solar energy as long as Sun exists. According to the scientists, the Sun will remain to exist for the next 5 billion years, which is, let’s be honest, more than enough to find a totally new way of renewable energy. The only problem that might arise is poor weather, which can influence the amount of accumulated/produced energy. But all areas that have 250+ sunny days throughout the year can produce enough energy to rely on this system.
In addition, you can save on your electricity bill in this way, especially if you have a surplus amount of energy that you return back to the grid. So, if you generate more energy with the solar equipment that you spend, you might even earn some money aside!
What are the Benefits in the Long Term?
Since there is no pollution (or it’s reduced to a minimum, at least), our environment stays healthy and we make its lifespan longer. Therefore, the concept of green energy is more than profitable in the long run. Not only in terms of ecology and the environment. As I mentioned, a lot of countries give subsidies and get tax return on these programs, which is what every stable country needs.
Therefore, the economic part will be healthy, especially when the installation costs get in the normal price range of commercial use. Not to mention that all the energy will be 100% available, 24/7 round a clock.
At the moment, the UK produces around 20% of the entire energy throughout the renewable sources and it is possible that it will increase up to 80% by 2030. The whole thing makes everything more stable and economically secure. The same way some job occupations will disappear with the existence of the cost solar system, the new jobs will be introduced which makes the solar price affordable and profitable. It is estimated that by 2030, we will have 77GWs of wind-generated energy, while 28GWs will come from the solar systems.
These statistics pave the road for energy export as well as for the new companies that will regulate the export of energy. Translated into the jobs — there will be 7.8 million jobs available in wind and 9.7 million jobs in solar installation and maintenance. Getting a piece of this cake would skyrocket the domestic economy and make the country more advanced.
Pros
Speaking of pros, the first pro is the technological advancement that will improve the existing principles or even replace them completely. This means that pollution will not be a problem anymore and we will not ruin our nature with the deadly poisons and gases. The innovations in the fields of quantum physics and nanotechnology would lead to the point where the car battery replacement will not be the case as it will be impossible to empty your battery.
Instead of the ion batteries, we could have the next-level technology-based battery that will work all the time, until you plug it off from the car. The possibilities are endless as the technology will so advance that we will not be able to understand the present concept of energy production and use.
@hannievanbaarle via Twenty20
The current concept for electricity grids is highly expensive for maintenance and one of the strongest characteristics of renewable energy is the low maintenance cost. There are no moving parts that are always problematic, which means there is no wear and tear. The only thing you would need to replace is the inverter that constantly converts sunlight into the electricity, which should be replaced after some 5 to 10 years. In addition, the cables might need a replacement as well. But other than that, there is nothing that could break and stop the system.
The remote and rural areas where the power grid does not exist suffer a lot and the renewable energy systems could solve this problem once for all. The remote areas often have a lot of sunny days, which is perfect for solar systems. Not only these areas could get the electricity and other features that go along, but they could also use the same system for water filtration. Or even to power the satellites! Therefore, it could lead to a bigger civil advancement that would bring global growth.
Cons
The first con is the huge amount of space that we need for building the plants and factories that would use solar/wind energy to produce electricity and offer other sustainable solutions. It means that some parts of wildlife would suffer as we would need to take its space, which is the last thing we need. Then, we have the ruining of wild life’s harmony. Once you penetrate into the wild life’s territory, it makes permanent damage to the wilderness, which can cause the disappearing of some endemic species. The efficiency-solar panels take cca 100 square feet for the production of 1kW of energy, in the ideal conditions. Therefore, the solar factory would need probably more space as it is more complex and therefore our wildlife territory could suffer.
The next con is air pollution, which has been a serious global problem for the last several decades. The air pollution is inevitable as we would create various chemical processes that could ruin the environment and quality of life. Of course, it would not be anywhere near what we do today, but still, the effects of greenhouse gases would be evident.
Just analyze the transportation of the equipment and you can realize that we make pollution before we even start healing it. In addition, during the production of photovoltaic systems, various toxic materials are used for the manufacturing process. Also, the level of carbon dioxide’s emission is going to decrease with the use of electric cars. Tesla battery for example could see the redesign as the plan is to use renewable electricity to split water and produce hydrogen-rich fuel that would run the car.
The renewable electricity, with the power of solar/wind energy, would help us to store this hydrogen-rich fuel in the fuel cells. This way, we use both solar and wind to produce electricity that would “charge” our batteries and improve battery capacity. But, the main problem is in water as it requires a lot of energy to split it so it could be appropriate for fuel. This could be solved by adding Iridium or Ruthenium noble metals, but due to their high costs, this could not be a commercial solution.
Therefore, the biggest con is the lack of right catalysts that are cost-effective and environment-friendly. There are some researches that are giving a glimpse of hope that the ideal catalysts will be produced, but we are still waiting for the concrete evidence and details that would replace the ion battery.
What Can We Expect in the Future?
@artist3650 via Twenty20
As I said, the perfect implementation of renewable energy systems does not exist at the moment, but the advancements are made every day both in solar and wind researches. Each step is a huge leap in the process of making the world a more sustainable place, starting from battery electric cars, to the wind-powered plants that filter water.
The major countries of the world invest a lot of resources in the researches of alternative energies and making the green energy available for commercial use is going to take some time. But, the leaf battery will become our reality that we will embrace with both hands. The future is not only about us, but also about our environment and wildlife. Before the electrical battery cost drops down, we need to research more and perform solar experiments.
Therefore, at the moment, green energy may not be 100% economically viable, but it will become in the future as the experiments and researches reveal new things in the field of solar energy. The new jobs will replace the ones we have today, a more economic approach to the electricity use will redefine the entire concept of using/producing it, while the wildlife should remain unaffected. So, we definitely can expect green energy to be economically viable, especially in the long run. | https://medium.com/@romanreitman/can-green-energy-be-economically-viable-pros-and-cons-f4c645ec1 | ['Roman Reitman'] | 2020-10-18 13:02:07.161000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'Solar Energy', 'Technology', 'Green Energy'] |
Invisible | No matter where I sit,
Or where I stand,
Whether I stay or go.
No matter what I do,
Or what I don’t do,
I’m not sure I’m here.
Nothing reassures me I am.
All that is me goes unseen.
Invisible in plain sight.
Hidden before your eyes.
In the middle of the square,
Mid-day, all bright, I wear black.
Do you see me yet?
The sunshine knows I’m there,
It coats my face, blinds my eyes and
Makes my hair look lighter than it is.
Maybe it sees me, and I’m here, after all.
Or maybe the sun just shines as bright as it can,
Not choosing where its light lands.
I would ask the sun,
But I doubt it would hear my voice.
Am I not really here at all? | https://medium.com/not-poetry/invisible-5340072c4979 | ['Mayra Gomes'] | 2020-12-13 13:03:06.676000+00:00 | ['Feelings', 'Poems On Medium', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Invisible', 'Poetry'] |
Proud to Support Gitcoin Grants Round 8 Hackathon | Let’s build cool stuff together! 🤖
This feels #GR8…
We at Ethereum Push Notification Service (EPNS) truly believe in Gitcoin’s mission and vision of enabling anyone to work on the open internet, and using markets for good 🙏
EPNS was built at ETHGlobal hackathon from where our journey started! Later we got selected to be part of Gitcoin Kernel0x Accelerator. We are extremely grateful to Gitcoin and EthGlobal hack for their guidance and wanted to show our gratitude by supporting awesome builders, community members in the ecosystem. We are thrilled to announce that we are sponsoring Gitcoin Grants Round 8 Hackathon— which will run from December 2nd to December 17th. | https://medium.com/ethereum-push-notification-service/proud-to-support-gitcoin-grants-round-8-hackathon-5a829c357aa | [] | 2020-12-14 12:39:00.721000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Hackathons', 'Gitcoin', 'Announcements', 'Ethereum'] |
Foresting Signs a Partnership Agreement with DeCentre | Foresting CEO Daniel Eom (left) with DeCentre’s CEO Hong-Sean
Foresting, a blockchain-based, compensation-based SNS service platform company, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on marketing and a comprehensive cooperation with DeCentre (CEO Hong-Sean).
Through the agreement, the two companies will share technical know-how and will work closely with various blockchain related businesses starting with blockchain-based compensation SNS service.
Foresting is a blockchain-based rewinding SNS that breaks the value distribution system of the existing social media platforms and provides a more fair value distribution system for users who provide content through blockchain technology and contribute to the platform in various forms.
Foresting will utilize blockchain technology in the future, such as blockchain-based rewarding SNS platform, “Foresting Bank” for digital bank service. The company will gradually expand the service area with the “Foresting Lab” to realize the change.
“We will do our best to support the Foresting project and create synergies with the blockchain linkage business through our cryptographic marketing strategy, pre-sales, ICO and global public relations. We will cooperate as a comprehensive adviser, including blockchain marketing and investment support, based on our experience in the market for cryptocurrency,” said Hong Young Sean.
“The Foresting network will bring about changes in the value of labor in the existing society, and this will be accomplished through the blockchain-based compensated SNS proposed by Foresting Network and innovative financial services supporting it. This is the core value of the Foresting network. “
Meanwhile, Foresting plans to launch a pre-sale and crowd sales schedule in the middle of the year, and plans to show the Foresting platform to the blockchain SNS market through the collaboration with D & C. | https://medium.com/foresting/foresting-signs-partnership-with-decentre-b3a88b9a0ca5 | [] | 2018-07-11 08:45:47.362000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Partnerships', 'Cryptocurrency News', 'Social Networking', 'Company'] |
Long Valley Biodiversity | by Thomas Gomersall
Few people remember that Hong Kong once had a thriving agricultural sector, farming rice and other water-dependent crops. Fewer still realise that the traditional practices used to farm these crops, such as field flooding and the lack of pesticides, made farmlands an ideal habitat for a wide range of wildlife, including migratory birds. But as farming has increasingly become a sunset industry, many farmlands have been abandoned and/or developed over.
Just a short drive from Sheung Shui, however, lies one of the few places left in Hong Kong where this habitat and the traditional practices that have helped to create and maintain it survive. Long Valley’s patchwork of freshwater marshlands, vegetable patches, fishponds, lotus ponds and paddy fields support over half of Hong Kong’s bird species, 42 per cent of its amphibians, and the mosquitoes and crop-eating insects they all feed on (Mcleish, 2018). Small wonder then that it’s a favourite spot for local birdwatchers, as well as one of the three main locations for WWF-Hong Kong’s annual Big Bird Race.
Male greater painted snipe. Photo credit: Martin Hale
Female greater painted snipe. Photo credit: Martin Hale
Greater Painted Snipe (Rostratula benghalensis): Typically, in a lot of animals, the female does most if not all of the work in rearing the young. In the greater painted snipe, the sex roles are reversed. Here the larger, more colourful female bird leaves her eggs in search of a new mate as soon as she lays them, leaving the drab male to play Mister Mum (Hsu & Severinghaus, 2011). Not that he really needs her around, being a fiercely protective parent that will spread his wings and make a ‘kek-kek’ call in a threat display if anything comes too close to his chicks (Vishnudas & Krishnan, 2013). As well as being a winter visitor and passage migrant, there is also a small resident breeding population of these birds in Hong Kong (Viney et al, 2005, p. 92).
Photo credit: Martin Hale
Oriental Pratincole (Glareola maldivarum): A passage migrant from Southeast Asia and Australasia, the oriental pratincole passes through Hong Kong during the spring migration between late March and April. Though it has the long legs of a wader, it actually hunts for flying insects on the wing like a tern and even possesses a forked tail like some tern species. It is best seen in open habitats with plenty of water as it chases after its prey (Viney et al, 2005, p. 90).
Female Eurasian teal. Photo credit: Thomas Gomersall
Male Eurasian teal. Photo credit: Thomas Gomersall
Eurasian Teal (Anas crecca): Alongside the male northern shoveler, the male Eurasian teal is one of the most colourful ducks to visit Hong Kong in the winter. Unlike the shoveler however, which is a common sight on the gei wais of Mai Po, the teal prefers the smaller, more sheltered bodies of water just outside the reserve in San Tin and Long Valley. Even here, however it is not always easily seen, as it has undergone steep declines in the last few years, though the reasons for this are currently unclear (Allcock, 2018).
Photo credit: Martin Hale
Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica): This colourful member of the robin family is a winter visitor to wetland and agricultural areas in the northwest New Territories. The male bird has a bright-blue band separating his chin from his breast, though in the summer breeding season, it covers his whole chin. Although it is a common species, it is hard to see as it tends to keep out of sight in thick cover near water, although it does sometimes perch in prominent areas (Tipper, 2016, p. 139; Viney et al, 2005, p. 168).
Photo credit: Martin Hale
Baillon’s Crake (Zapornia pusilla): A very small, very scarce but very attractive passage migrant to Hong Kong, the preferred habitat of the Baillon’s crake is marshland and flooded agricultural fields, making Long Valley an ideal place for it to rest mid-migration. It is a good swimmer and diver that predominantly feeds on aquatic insects and their larvae, but will also take molluscs, crustaceans and fish (IUCN Red List, 2019; Viney et al, 2005, p. 84). Although it is currently listed as a species of ‘Least Concern’ by the IUCN Red List, it is still threatened by the loss of wetlands and wetland vegetation, as well as collisions with power lines during flight (IUCN Red List, 2019).
References:
· Allcock, J., interviewed by Thomas Gomersall, 2018, WWF — Hong Kong Birdwatching Society.
· Hsu, Y.H., Severinghaus, L.L. 2011. Nest-site selection of the Greater Painted snipe (Rostratula benghalensis benghalensis) in Fallow Fields of I-Lan, Taiwan. Taiwania, vol. 56 (3): 195pp.–200pp.
· IUCN Red List, Baillon’s Crake, [website], 2019, https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22692667/86163860 (Accessed: 30 September 2019).
· Mcleish, E., ‘The Chinese diners eating a rare songbird into extinction, and the conservationists fighting to save the yellow-breasted bunting’. South China Morning Post, 5 July 2018, https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2153735/chinese-diners-are-eating-yellow-breasted-bunting-rare-songbird-extinction (Accessed: 16 October 2019).
· Tipper, R. 2016. A Naturalist’s Guide to the Birds of Hong Kong. John Beaufoy Publishing, United Kingdom. 139pp.
· Viney, C., Phillipps, K. and C.Y. Lam. 2005. The Birds of Hong Kong and South China. Information Services Department, Hong Kong SAR Government, Hong Kong. 84pp., 90pp., 92pp., 168pp.
· Vishnudas, C.K., Krishnan, N.V. 2013. Observations of breeding of Greater Painted-snipe Rostratula benghalensis in the rice paddies of Wayanad, Kerala. Indian BIRDS, vol. 8 (1): 1pp.–5pp. | https://medium.com/wwfhk-e/long-valley-biodiversity-43b62751369f | ['Wwf Hk'] | 2020-09-30 09:22:24.639000+00:00 | ['Hong Kong', 'Birds', 'Conservation', 'Biodiversity', 'Nature'] |
Business Advice from Ballers on HBO | I have a confession to make. I have a bit of an obsession with a TV show called Ballers. Never heard of it? Well it just finished a five season run on HBO starring Dwayne Johnson and Rob Corddry among a cast of characters. I don’t binge watch much but this show always got me after catching an episode on an airplane once. I realized I couldn’t wait each week so would wait for the entire season to come out and then would watch it on demand and run through the whole season.
Basic premise — Dwayne Johnson stars as former NFL player Spencer Strasmore, player turned financial manager for players who over the various seasons winds up in a variety of roles tied to sports and entertainment figures. What caught me initials was that Johnson played this one straight — meaning not in his “Rock” persona, raised eyebrow, superheroish character we might come to expect. Instead, I really appreciated him showing acting chops — expressing vulnerability while maintaining NFL player swagger. Seriously, over the seasons we saw financial ruin, pain management turned into drug addiction, male inadequacy tied to male sterility…I mean wow, whenever did you expect to see such portrayal by the Rock? Let me say, he does it well and convincingly. Rob Corddry, whom I have loved since the Daily Show likewise shows he is an accomplished actor as Strasmore’s business partner Joe Krutel as well as does John David Washington as wide receiver Ricky Jerret (guess the influence of dad Denzel helped) and many others round out the show well.
My point however isn’t to provide a television show review. Instead, I am captivated by the fifth and final season and how it applies to entrepreneurs. As noted above, Strasmore is a complex individual. He has tasted success, playing at the highest levels of competitive sports and then found himself a little lots when faced with failures, lot of failures over several seasons. Each time, there was a glimmer of hope and possibility for greatness once again and that kept him getting back up and out there. More than once he bet the farm and more than once the farm was lost but Strasmore keeps learning season after season and he also keeps his eye on his one bedrock principle — in his case it is to serve the players better than he was served while playing the game. Whether that means taking on the NCAA, agents, endorsement deals or the all mighty NFL, each time Strasmore picks himself off the ground and gets back out there to try again.
Entrepreneurs can learn a lot from watching this show. Sure the dollars may be bigger and the lights might burn brighter (plus lots of fancy cars and homes and scantily clad women abound many episodes) but no matter what business you are in, the stick-to-itiveness is contagious. No doubt that many of Strasmore’s downfalls are his own doing and the squirrels do get in his head sometimes but that is what is so real about it. We all Monday morning quarterback ourselves (pun intended) and we all listen to the squirrels too much from time to time. This despite all the business gurus out there telling us to ignore such voices and to get back up after each failure.
It’s one thing hearing gurus tell you on podcasts, in Medium articles, in their books etc. to look out for the squirrels in your head, and the naysayer telling you that you aren’t good enough or countless excuses keeping you from “doing”. It is something else watching it unfold on screen in the physical specimen that is Dwayne Johnson. If we know him from his typical genre, we expect him to get the girl and save the day, all without breaking a sweat. In Ballers we literally see him sweating it out often waiting for the other shoe to drop and when it does and when he falls, watching him get back up, lick his wounds a bit and then get back to it. Seeing it on the screen makes it more real and I believe provides valuable lessons in business such that this show should be required watching for business school students!
I don’t want to give away the show and its well-conceived final season, so entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs out there, watch Ballers from the beginning (it streams on HBO) and let me know your thoughts. I believe you can find lessons in each season and apply it to your lives and business. | https://medium.com/@corporatethought/business-advice-from-ballers-on-hbo-e1ffd61e5c1c | ['Marc Marling'] | 2019-12-10 20:57:46.951000+00:00 | ['Failure', 'Overthinking', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business Advice', 'TV'] |
Whiteboard View v.0.0.1 | Note that you can filter entities in Tree Component to see only relevant entities:
Filter entities in Tree Component.
You can also double click on entity to see its details. And that is it so far :)
How is this useful right now?
Well, so far the only case is hierarchy visualization. For example, you may want to see Goals, Initiatives and related Work in a hierarchy. With filters you may see only active goals and active initiatives, thus narrowing down the view. | https://medium.com/fibery/whiteboard-view-v-0-0-1-601b1665b5f | ['Michael Dubakov'] | 2019-11-25 18:12:34.604000+00:00 | ['Canvas', 'Productivity', 'Startup', 'Whiteboard', 'Fibery'] |
Dealing With Travel Burnout | Dealing With Travel Burnout
A look at some of the unique challenges I encountered after attending artist residencies for a year.
Drawing made at the Nes Artist Residency in Iceland. “Self-portrait (hot pot)”, graphite on paper, 2019.
I have been traveling now for a little over a year. During this time, I have experienced tremendous highs, have enjoyed my freedom and have seen myself grow as a person. But as I faced some logistical setbacks, the charm of my nomadic life started to wear thin.
Especially when I first started, I was dazzled by everything I saw. I was so excited to get out of my métro-boulot-dodo routine that nothing would phase me. My first stop back in July 2018 was Mexico City. It’s is a crowded, sprawling metropolis that is more than just a little dangerous for women. But I was leaving behind a lifestyle in San Francisco that no longer suited me, so when I moved into my apartment in the way-out-there neighborhood of Claveria, I was ready to take it on. Adventure!
It was all new and exciting as traveled around to ancient temples, gothic churches, archeology museums, delicious local restaurants. Even after I got super sick from food poisoning, and remained so for the rest of my trip, I still was able to muster the energy to connect with an amazing group of women and go on weekend trips to other regions around central Mexico.
Back in Athens after 17 years
This sparkly feeling of wanderlust continued for the next few months as I traveled to Greece and Paris, where I revisited places I had been on my study abroad trip almost 20 years earlier.
Six months in, I was still feeling confident about my ability to adjust to the many changes required by life on the road and so when I arrived back in San Francisco for a few months, I started to plan an even longer trip abroad to attend artist residencies in Iceland and Europe for a 5-month stretch.
The magic of Skagastrond, Iceland — home of the Nes artist residency
When my plane first touched down in Reykjavik in March, I felt like I had landed on the moon. The rush of this foreign-looking place was validating, and I knew I was where I was supposed to be. Plus, I was relieved to be free of the stress of driving long commutes back and forth over the Bay Bridge and working extra hours to cover the high cost of living in the Bay Area. Plus, I was meeting new people and expanding my worldview in the most fun way possible: through art!
But then about a third of the way into this new trip while in Europe, I was hit with a wave of bad luck: multiple financial ‘surprises’ that left my budget at least $1000 short, a weird group living dynamic at one of the residencies and a bunch of small mishaps include bug bites on my face that swelled one of my eyes shut. Something was clearly not right. I was out of flow with the universe and was starting to doubt my decision to go on such a lengthy trip.
The beginning of the end of the honeymoon
As my rose-colored glasses wore off and my budget continued to shrink, I was hit by the everyday realities of the quaint towns that I lived in. Things that had been charming were starting to grate on my nerves, like unreliable transportation, technology issues, a lack of art materials, and limited studio space. And even though I was meeting new, fascinating people all the time, I missed MY people. I missed having binge-Netflix-on-the-couch and fart-openly-without-embarrassment friends. Added to that feeling was the fatigue of always traveling to a new place every month, never feeling truly settled in a home, learning new languages and establishing a routine somewhere, only to have it all change a few weeks later.
I no longer wanted to see any churches or museums. I couldn’t afford to go on any weekend trips. And I was sick of the small European town I was living in- scratch that- all small European towns.
I was still making art, which I guess could be called a win, but I felt like I was doing so in a vacuum. Who was even going to see it or care? Maybe it’s stupid and this whole premise of traveling and art-making was misguided. I continued to spiral.
Problem was, I was less than half-way through the trip that I had spent so much time and money organizing. My inner-Carrie Bradshaw couldn’t help but wonder, what the fuck am I supposed to do now? I actually started fantasizing about returning to a 9–5 desk job as an Executive Assistant just to regain some stability in my life.
Rather than give up, in part because I am too stingy to cancel a bunch of non-refundable flights, I decided in this new phase of my nomadic adventure, I would need to make a conscious effort to stay curious and open.
First, I needed to remind myself that where I was and what I was doing didn’t come with a template. After joining a bunch of Facebook groups for solo female travelers and reading books by women who have struck out on their own adventures, I realized that no one is the expert. The part of me that wanted to do it ‘the right way,’ needed to make like Cheryl Strayed and take a long hike.
Second, I had to keep in mind that this trip had an expiration date, and so did my life as a nomad. (Not to mention my life on this planet and who knows when that is.) I decided that I wanted to look back on this trip and not have regrets about wishing my time away because I couldn’t see the bigger picture. After all, while constant traveling was starting to feel normal to me and all European cities were starting to look the same, it was not and they are not.
Finally, I asked myself what I wanted to get out of the experience and how best to make that happen. I made a list of my goals for the remainder of my time (drawings, paintings, book proposal, karaoke) and pictured how I wanted to feel (connected, grateful, abundant). I then thought about my resources, big and small, that I could leverage. What would I do if I felt I had enough right now to make it work, at least for the short term?
That week, as I doubled down my quest to answer this question, I was inspired by the scene in the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody where Freddy Mercury convinces the band to sell their van to get enough money to record an album. I was raised by a musician for whom people like Freddy was a role model, so this anecdote was all the permission I needed to sell my Bitcoin (at a loss) and cash out some of my 401k (please don’t tell Suzy Orman).
I want to add that I consulted with my financial planner (who is really great) before pulling from my savings. While we agreed it made economic sense to use it in part to pay down some high-interest debt (sexy), it still felt weird to break one of the cardinal rules of personal finance. However, after sitting with this feeling of transgression for a couple of days, I felt empowered. If I could break that rule without the world ending, what other boxes could I bust out of?
As part of the deal I made with myself in exchange for being financially reckless, was that I set myself some clear goals for my studio practice and my business to accomplish before I returned back to the US in August. After all, Freddy Mercury wouldn’t have sold his van only to spend it on gelato and kayaking tours.
Because oversharing seems to be what bloggers do, here is a bullet point list of my semi-revised goals for the last 2/3 of my trip:
A finished book proposal for the book I want to write about my travels, along with the first three to four chapters
Three large paintings (since changed to two works on canvas and one mural)
10 drawings from the sauna series that I started in Iceland
Start a new series of drawings at my residency in Portugal
Get at least one new client a month for my digital marketing business
Publish at least one travel writing article in a publication that is not my own
Create new content for Artists + Travel
Since then I am happy to say that I have written one and a half drafts of the book proposal, gotten new work as a travel writer for two different publications, connected with two new marketing clients and have continued my series of drawings and paintings.
While making progress on the goals has helped me to stay focused and feel more grounded while everything else is constantly shifting, my objectives are not set in stone. I see the risks I am taking and the work I am putting in, wherever it goes, as gifts to my future self who will look back and be proud that I didn’t waste this time worrying and not being open to the unexpected. | https://medium.com/artists-travel/dealing-with-travel-burnout-and-financial-stress-on-the-road-year-one-1659d54817f1 | ['Sarah Thibault'] | 2020-08-06 18:55:28.805000+00:00 | ['Artist Residency', 'Artist', 'Digital Life', 'Art', 'Digital Nomad'] |
Solidity: A Small Test of the Self-Destruct Operation | Solidity: A Small Test of the Self-Destruct Operation
Photo by Harrison Kugler on Unsplash
For the purpose of this article, I have read some good sources, starting with “Why Do Smart Contracts Self-Destruct? Investigating the Selfdestruct Function on Ethereum,” a recent publication that really digs into self-destruct mechanisms. The selfdestruct command stands out in the general immutability of the blockchain: selfdestruct renders inoperable a smart contract. A motivating example of why an immutable blockchain needs such a powerful command is reported in this paper:
“The DAO attack continued for several days and the organization even noticed that their contract had been attacked at that time. However, they could not stop the attack or transfer the Ethers because of the immutability feature of smart contracts. If the contract contains a selfdestruct function, the DAO organization can transfer all the Ethers easily, and reduce the financial loss.”
If you want to know more about the DAO attack and its consequences, you can refer to references [2] and [3] at the end of this article.
About the opcode that is generated at the compilation of the selfdestruct method there is a nice story about the sensibility of the Ethereum community: Originally the opcode was named SUICIDE but they decided to rename it as SELFDESTRUCT because
“Suicide is a heavy subject and we should make every effort possible to not affect those in our development community who suffer from depression or who have recently lost someone to suicide.” — EIP6
Below you will find a small toy example that contains the smallest amount of logic to make some tests. It is easily executable using Remix, so you can try it even without installing the development environment.
pragma solidity >0.6.0; contract Storage {
address payable private owner;
uint256 number; constructor() {
owner = msg.sender;
} function store(uint256 num) public {
number = num;
} function retrieve() public view returns (uint256){
return number;
}
function close() public {
selfdestruct(owner);
}
}
Below is what happens after the deployment of the contract. In Remix, each of the methods of the smart contract is easily accessible on the left pane.
The methods of the smart contract right after the deployment
The first method to test is store , which will just store the integer value passed as a parameter in the internal state of the smart contract. The next method to test is retrieve , which, as the smartest among you might already have figured out, retrieves the value stored beforehand in the internal state. Calling this method before actually storing anything will just return 0 because the variable is zeroed by default.
Invoking the close method will just execute selfdestruct without any further notification than what is reported in the next figure, a correctly executed transaction:
From now on, each interaction with the smart contract will be successful but still will not do anything.
This is, in a way, an inconsistency: The client that invokes the smart contract is not aware of the fact that the smart contract has been destroyed. For instance, in this particular smart contract, calling the retrieve method before and after the selfdestruct will return no error, and in the particular case where the internal variable contains 0 , the two calls are indistinguishable (see the following figure).
The retrieve method called before (first call) and after (secondo call) the selfdestruct
The wrap up is, selfdestruct is designed to be the extrema ratio for a malfunctioning contract. It is the emergency button, the SCRAM of your smart contract. Still, before calling it, consider adding additional logic to, for example, pass control to another smart contract.
As a further reading, I strongly suggest reference [1], below. | https://betterprogramming.pub/solidity-what-happens-with-selfdestruct-f337fcaa58a7 | ['Rosario De Chiara'] | 2020-09-18 16:43:29.872000+00:00 | ['Solidity', 'Smart Contracts', 'Ethereum', 'Crypto', 'Programming'] |
Sichere den WordPress Login und wp-login.php vor Bots und Brute-Froce | 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/inhalt/sichere-den-wordpress-login-und-wp-login-php-vor-bots-und-brute-froce-f872eb53497c | ['Jochen Gererstorfer'] | 2021-01-12 14:32:41.165000+00:00 | ['Wordpress Security', 'WordPress', 'Login'] |
> Create a simple app with Mix tool | Setting up Elixir Environment
All the details necessary to install Elixir in your OS are listed in this installation page. After installing you can check the current version of the Elixir by executing iex -v
$ iex -v
IEx 1.9.0 (compiled with Erlang/OTP 20)
Creating Elixir project & add dependencies
in order create a new Elixir project, we use Mix, a build tool comes with Elixir which provides methods for creating, running, testing Elixir applications and managing dependencies.
To create a new project, we can use mix new command .
$ mix new ex1
* creating README.md
* creating .formatter.exs
* creating .gitignore
* creating mix.exs
* creating lib
* creating lib/ex1.ex
* creating test
* creating test/test_helper.exs
* creating test/ex1_test.exs Your Mix project was created successfully.
You can use “mix” to compile it, test it, and more: cd ex1
mix test Run “mix help” for more commands.
A file called mix.exs has been created inside the project directory. It’s main function is to configure the project. Also mix generates a default file called lib/ex1.ex . It comes up with a module which has a default function called hello
Compiling the application
To compile the project you can execute,
$ cd ex1
$ mix compile
After a successful compilation, it will give following output.
Compiling 1 file (.ex)
Generated ex1 app
Once project is compiled , _build directory is created inside project root folder. It contains all the articafts generated by compilation such as ebin folder etc.
Using the interactive shell
$ iex -S mix
This will starts an interactive iex session as follows.
Interactive Elixir (1.9.0) - press Ctrl+C to exit (type h() ENTER for help)
iex(1)>
By executing above command, both application and dependencies will be loaded to current run-time. In this session you can call your module functions as follows.
iex(1)> Ex1.hello()
:world
Mix provides a command called recompile , which is used to load new changes while you are in the iex session.
Let’s make small change to hello() function and recompile it.After executing the recompile command it will give following output when there is a change in the code.
iex> recompile()
Compiling 1 file (.ex)
:ok
Following output will be generated when there is no change.
iex> recompile()
:noop
Managing dependencies
Since the application we just created is a basic one, it has no any dependencies. But a large application may contain hundreds of dependencies.
Mix comes with a cool way to manage dependencies. Required dependencies of the application are listed in the deps function in mix.exs file. For example let’ add ecto_sql and myxql libraries to our project as follows.
defp deps do
[
{:ecto_sql, "~> 3.0"},
{:myxql, "~> 0.2.0"},
]
end
To fetch the dependencies , you can execute following command inside the root directory of the project. | https://medium.com/@kasunedward/playing-with-elixir-crate-a-simple-app-with-mix-tool-badde24bbbb3 | ['Kasun Edward'] | 2019-11-24 16:50:54.262000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Computer Science', 'Elixir', 'Functional Programming', 'Erlang'] |
Редизайн системы управления игровыми сессиями в клубах виртуальной реальности | 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/ux-clan-flow/%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BD-%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%8B-%D1%83%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F-%D0%B8%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%BC%D0%B8-%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%8F%D0%BC%D0%B8-%D0%B2-%D0%BA%D0%BB%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%85-%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%80%D1%82%D1%83%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8-6303082455cf | ['Alex Voloshyn'] | 2021-02-06 13:35:28.668000+00:00 | ['UX Design', 'UX', 'Projects', 'Virtual Reality', 'Product Design'] |
THE POWER OF AUTHENTICITY — PART #1 | THE POWER OF AUTHENTICITY — PART #1
“Be yourself - everyone else is already taken."
Oscar Wilde
"The most important gift we can give ourselves is the commitment to living our authentic life. To be true to ourselves, however, is not an easy task. We must break free of the seductions of society and live life on our own terms, under our own values and aligned with our original dreams. We must tap our hidden selves; explore the deep-seated unseen hopes, desires, strengths and weaknesses that make us who we are. We have to understand where we have been and where we are going. Every decision we make, every step we take, must be informed by our commitment to living a life that is true and honest and authentic to ourselves and ourselves alone. And as we proceed, we are certain to experience fortune well beyond our highest imagination."
(Robin Sharma)
THE BUSINESS CASE FOR BEING AUTHENTIC
Recent researches in related fields support the author's decades of International experience in Leadership Development that, Collective Authenticity:
(1) Helps create an Organizational Culture of Inclusion - an open, honest, and responsive environment :
(a) Where all employees feel free to be themselves at work - irrespective of their beliefs or backgrounds; and they feel welcome and integrated in the team; and
(b) Where people, teams, and their leaders feel free to be vulnerable and share their true feelings.
(2) Improves communication, connection, and trust;
(3) Enhances emotional intelligence (EQ);
(4) Challenges people, leaders, and teams to step out of their comfort zones;
(5) Helps people effectively deal with conflicts and engage in difficult conversations; and
(6)All of the above combine to act as catalysts for increased levels of creativity and innovation
(series to continue)
_______________
ABOUT: The Author
Josh Sarkar,
B Sc(Hons), M Tech(Cal), M Sc(Edin), MBA(Gla)
In his early career, Josh was responsible for leading Innovation and Process Transformation within Philips, which involved the interception and integration of leading edge technologies in order to secure and sustain product and market leadership.
Josh’s work took him across Europe - developing and facilitating multi-nation, multi-function and multi-cultural teams, made up of outstandingly talented individuals.
In his subsequent career - working as a Leadership Coach and Transformation Catalyst with heads of multinational conglomerates (such as Sun Microsystems, ICI, Cookson, Tyco Keystone, CTD/St Gobain, and others); Public Service Authorities, owner managers and key staff at all levels - in well over one hundred organizations of all types and sizes - secure significant successes in Key Areas of their Operations.
Over the past decade Josh has been spending an increasing percentage of his time ‘Giving back’ - mostly but not exclusively to unemployed and under-employed graduates and senior executives within the voluntary sector.
Josh spends a few winter weeks every year in India with a mission to give back to the Nation which gave him so much in his formative years.
------------ | https://medium.com/@prosper.evolve/the-power-of-authenticity-part-1-ac3023f18553 | ['Josh Sarkar', 'M Sc', 'M Tech'] | 2019-02-01 14:05:01.476000+00:00 | ['Innovation', 'Leadership', 'Authenticity', 'Teamwork', 'Relationships'] |
How to Choose Tongue Bars Piercings | The first step in getting a tongue bar piercing is to get the body part swollen. This swelling can make the tongue twice as thick as it normally is, but it will go away quickly. After this, you should change the bar as often as possible. A good place to start is with acrylic bars. Steel bars can be harmful to your teeth and gums, so you should always switch them out every few months.
Once you have had your tongue pierced, you can choose from many different styles and types of jewellery. The most popular tongue ring is a snake-eyes style that involves a horizontal bar that goes through the tip of the tongue. It is mostly painless and requires a little pressure to apply. You can choose a wide variety of styles to match your personal style. You can also choose from snake-eyes-styled rings with a larger hole.
Tongue bars can be made from a variety of materials. The most popular are acrylic and BioFlex. Both are plastic and are flexible. You can also wear retainers over them to keep them open. Regardless of the material, tongue piercing jewellery is a great choice for anyone who wants to add a unique and trendy accessory to their body. There are several styles and types to choose from.
Choosing a Type of Tongue Bar
When choosing a type of tongue bar, be sure to choose a barbell that is strong and does not cause excessive bleeding or swelling. The thinnest barbells will migrate and cause discomfort. Use a large, bulky, and flexible wholesale tongue bar. This will decrease the risk of pain and swelling. Once your tongue bar is secure, you can wear it with confidence. The pain is minimal and the ring will last for years.
The next step is choosing a barbell that is comfortable. The piercer will check your tongue for blood vessels before piercing. A barbell that is too long can damage intraoral structures. When choosing a tongue bar, it is crucial to select a piercing that is not too deep. It should be a one-time procedure. In addition to the length of the barbell, it is important to choose a piercing bar with a high degree of comfort.
Risks and Benefits of Having a Tongue Piercing
When choosing a tongue piercing, you should be aware of the risks and benefits of the procedure. You should expect to have a few blisters and bleeding afterward, so make sure that you choose one that is well-designed and comfortable. To keep the piercing area free of infection, the piercer should use a clean, soft-tissue cleaner to remove the excess blood. Once the healing process is complete, the initial barbell should be removed and replaced with a new barbell. | https://medium.com/@userpierced111/how-to-choose-tongue-bars-piercings-6dfcebabaeff | [] | 2022-01-04 05:21:24.479000+00:00 | ['Jewelry', 'Body Piercing', 'Tongue Bars'] |
Case Study: Reinforce a better work in living room | Changing into a ‘better way’
Due to this covid lockdown situation, I thought to spend my time usefully by learning new things. So I came to know about “User Experienced Design” (UX Design). I searched a little about UX design and found Growthschool where they came up with two days Workshop. I enrolled myself in that and learnt a bit about UX designing. At the end of the two days session, they announced UX Mastery Course. After two days I joined a UX mastery course with them. As per their project timetable, the first step of UX Design is the “Design Thinking Process”.
PLAN OF ACTION
So as per the Design thinking process, they made us into 10 different groups in each group 6 to 7 members were there. They gave us a set of topics based on the parts of the house such as Balcony, parking, terrace, living room, home office, dining area, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, storage areas, utility area. We should choose a topic but not choose the same topic which your teammate chose. So I took the topic living room. I took the living room because it is the main place of a house.
What is Design Thinking?
In simple words design thinking is a better way to understand the user’s problems that they are facing and giving them a permanent and simple solution.
For Finding the problem and solution for the users we need to go through 5 different steps such as EMPATHIZE, DEFINE, IDEATE, PROTOTYPE and TESTING.
In this process, we were made to chose our teammates as users.
EMPATHIZE the users
The living room is a common and public place of a house. The living room is mainly used for spending time with family, watching television and sometimes even for working purpose because due to this pandemic people used to work from home.
Interviewing our users will help us to find their problems and difficulties facing in their living room. So let's find out!
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
1. What properties do you have in your living room? 2. How will you spend your time in the living room? Describe in detail. 3. Have you ever visited your friends or relatives’ houses? If yes, describe the Experience in their living room. 4. If any guest visits your house, in which room will you make them sit and how well you treat them? Describe briefly. 5. While Watching TV in your living room, where will you keep your things like TV Remote, DTH Remote, mobile, headphones etc? 6. What is the purpose of the living room? Tell it from your perspective. 7. Size of your Living Room? 8. Colour of your living room? 9. Lighting in your living room? 10. What will you say that a perfect living room is? Like what things will make a perfect living room? 11.Would you prefer to work or study in your living room? If yes, why and what and all difficulties will you face while working or studying? 12. Rate your living room experience out of 10.
So I interviewed four of my teammates and below is their answers. | https://medium.com/@pvenkat25012002/case-study-reinforce-a-better-work-living-room-f4d8cc0364bb | [] | 2021-07-13 05:31:03.411000+00:00 | ['UX Research', 'Ux Writing', 'UX', 'UX Design', 'Case Study'] |
Harmony 2019 Q4 Planning | Harmony’s vision is “Open Consensus for 10B” (see harmony.one/story).
Toward a fully open development and platform, we publish our quarterly planning publicly here as harmony.one/plan. We follow Google’s OKRs.
We believe activity < productivity < impact < value < meaning.
Here are our main goals this quarter:
$10k transaction fees: stablecoin, animoca game, porting dai
$10m ONE staked: delegation, 3 pools (binance, blockdamon, staked.us), 10 wallets
100% uptime: 40% external, $50k machine cost, 2-hour deploy
10 hires: 3 eng, 1 biz, 3 interns, china (2 eng, 1 biz)
We wear our ambitions on our sleeves. But these goals are not guaranteed deliverables.
Leadership & Vision
wallets / no throttle for token swap with binance, bitmax, kucoin (open deadline)
delegation, economics, slashing for EPoS specification
design doc for cross-shard HRC20/721 token standards
publish on cross-border financial products with china/india/vietnamese currency pairs
treasury management on foundation tokens, US utility memo | https://medium.com/harmony-one/harmony-2019-q4-planning-76140629d3a0 | ['Stephen Tse'] | 2019-12-17 06:44:42.288000+00:00 | ['Staking', 'Blockchain', 'Leadership', 'News', 'Meaning'] |
You are what you believe. Fortunately you can change that. | “The Sum Of Its Parts” by L. Pemrick
Believing is easy. So is disbelieving things that don’t fit your current paradigm or worldview.
However, unbelieving something you currently believe in is much, much harder.
Unbelieving goes far beyond disbelief — it’s letting go of a belief so completely that it no longer affects the way you think or see things.
It requires a total releasing of all preconceived ideas, judgments, biases and expectations in order to create a clean slate for new perceptions to happen. And it’s not easy to do.
For example, STOP BELIEVING IN GRAVITY. Right now. Just do it.
See what I mean?
It seems ludicrous to even consider such an absurd notion.
But what if our destinies are limited by all kinds of beliefs we’re not even consciously aware of?
And what if the capacity to unbelieve is every bit as important to a positive journey through life as being able to believe?
What if, in order to reach a more expanded state of awareness and higher consciousness, many deeply held beliefs must be shed — even those which seem so basic and obvious that they appear self-evident, like gravity?
WHAT IF THE ABILITY TO FLY WAS NOT ABOUT BELIEVING THAT YOU CAN, BUT UNBELIEVING THAT YOU CAN’T??
What if it turned out that your belief in gravity is the only thing that’s keeping you from soaring around the room right now? And if you were somehow able to let go of that belief completely, you’d very naturally and easily levitate off the ground?
Most people would consider this line of thinking to be ridiculous to the point of insanity, and will never allow themselves to ponder the possibilities.
That makes me sad.
Because while the “unbelieving in gravity thing” might not actually get you to lift off, contemplating it would definitely open your mind and make it easier to let go of the many, many unhelpful beliefs that weigh us all down.
And the feeling you get from doing THAT comes pretty damn close to flying. | https://medium.com/@lisapemrick/you-are-what-you-believe-fortunately-you-can-change-that-170aca054679 | ['Lisa Pemrick'] | 2021-02-02 17:44:51.251000+00:00 | ['Spiritual Growth', 'Self Improvement', 'Spirituality', 'Psychology', 'Self-awareness'] |
You can’t be good at writing about everything, can you? — A conversation with Abhijeet Kumar | Q. First off, I wanted to ask you about your career. Where did it all start for you and what were the challenges you faced?
I started with Upwork, the freelancing website. I needed something productive to do in my free times, and in the past few years, I found I am good with writing. So, freelance writer it is. Since I write part-time, there wasn’t much struggle, I would say, that I had to go through.
I kept submitting proposals to prospective clients and landed my first one-time project within a week. Lucky me! The regular work, however, started only after a month.
Q. Have you ever felt that freelancing has slowed you down in terms of your career trajectory?
Not at all. I find it better to freelance. If you’re good you will always have work. There are times when I don’t have any but I have got people who return to me when they have some work for me. So, it’s all going well.
Q. What is your dream writing platform?
Haven’t thought about it yet, still exploring.
Q. At maice, we are creating an ecosystem for writers and creators to be able to communicate, share and display their writing prowess. Do you think creators would prefer a much transparent community?
Of course, one to one communication is always beneficial than talking through an intermediary. Take the interview as an example. If you want to do an interview with someone you can either do it yourself or tell someone to go on your behalf.
That someone will ask questions provided and discussed between both of you, adding few of his/her own as the interview proceeds and will provide you the answers. But what if you felt a need to ask another question while going through the answers? You will need to approach that someone again, and probably a quick call to the interviewee this time.
Q. What is your take on niches? Many people choose their expertise while others remain open to multiple domains. How would you categorise yourself?
Having a niche is good, or should I say, mandatory. You can’t be good at writing about everything, is it? You can be open to multiple domains but with you having a niche, the clients will feel more secure that you will understand what they need. And thus, trust you with their work.
I started without a portfolio and without a niche. But as time passed, I found myself more comfortable with Tech topics. Travel topics are fun too. Having a niche minimizes the chances of having confusion. A client approaches you with finance-related topics, but you can only do it well if you have the required knowledge. If not, you will spend most of the time understanding what he wants and how you should proceed. That’s the problem you face when you don’t have a niche.
Q. For a writer starting out, what are the most basic (but important) things he/she needs to take care of?
The first thing is to be open to learning. You know you write well but others also write well. How would you make a place for yourself? Learn from others. See what people do, ask them things you don’t understand and keep yourself updated. Even though you have a niche, don’t forget venturing into other areas. Who knows you find yourself a new area of expertise.
Second, start making relationships. Start small but give preference to clients who can provide you with regular work. And don’t just ask people for work, be a part of their life and they surely will remember you when they need something that you can do. Your client is human like everyone else.
Next, it doesn’t matter if you’re writing for others or on your blog, give the best you can. Oh yes, a blog! Every writer needs to have a place where s/he writes. Why? You say you can write but how would someone know? Yes, you can have a sample portfolio but before approaching you, it’s better that a client has some idea of how well you write. The blog can be your tool or go the LinkedIn way.
Start writing on LinkedIn itself or showcase your works. It works for any industry, and not only writing. I get to enjoy some awesome experiences there.
Q. What do you think is going to be the future of content marketing or content creation given the current trends?
Content creators and marketers have a bright future… Everyone needs content, whether they sell something or provide a service, but not all can write. We can be their life-saviour. Yes, I am proud of what I do and happy with it. | https://medium.com/maice/you-cant-be-good-at-writing-about-everything-can-you-a-conversation-with-abhijeet-kumar-976197d29b56 | ['Abhishek Thakur'] | 2018-07-19 08:57:19.817000+00:00 | ['Content Writing', 'Freelancing', 'Writing'] |
From the VC’s corner (27): Manage relations or go bust! | Illustration by Móni Munguia
As founder and CEO of an early-stage, VC-backed company, one of your key responsibilities is to manage the relations with your investor(s); not only with the major ones (lead investors), but also with that individual looking like a white dude with a beard drooling over the company’s potential to provide him with cash upon a future liquidity event (and yeah, you took his pre-seed money.)
Just as fundraising, managing relations takes time. Time well spent, as you need a well-functioning founders-investors team. When you generate success, everybody celebrates and it’s only smiles. However, when in crisis and critical situations, you (the founders) get what you sowed when you’ve picked your party round investors. Weathering the storm requires communicating in an open, honest and direct manner. Needless to say, hiding critical info or making things look better do not help.
While the process of due diligence has already created a detailed understanding between the parties, a mutual understanding is key to a long-lasting relationship. Apart from the monthly updates (on a set of KPIs) and regular board meetings, you may invite investors to join your office from time to time and participate in some of your daily routines. It’s even better if you grant investors access to a BI dashboard so they check (some of) your company’s KPIs real-time. All experienced investors have their own perspective on how to collaborate with founders; some don’t even want to get involved as frequently as others. Ask for their expectations in this respect.
Even when no financing round is in preparation, I recommend keeping potential investors (you’ve met and had some chemistry with) up to date regularly — easier if sending a quarterly update newsletter or when participating at regular startup events. Potential investors always look for markers of motivation / indications of motivation and passion, people who have shown conviction about something, including by blogging or showing evidence on GitHub. Additionally, demonstrate traction for your product / service. Partnerships, podcasts, newsletters, events, content marketing, etc., all have to convert into customers.
Ask yourself: how do we build a community / team that gives back? How do we start educating the customers while being as inclusive as possible? Giving opinions, thoughts, being real, speaking them in a way that resonates. Managing relations matters.
Definitely, founders work many hours, so take care of yourselves and be bullish to prioritize your time (Cat Noone’s time design.) This requires self-discipline.
If it’s the first time you pitch your startup to a large group of investors, avoid making mistakes so naive and embarrassing that nobody in the audience / panel wants to consider investing. “You need to be very articulate about your business model and the problems you’re trying to solve. And you need to be very articulate about how you’re going to solve them,” says Jean-Charles Samuelian, cofounder and CEO of Alan, a dynamic French healthtech (health insurance) startup with a distinct culture. And as soon as you set a communication bridge, manage the storytelling and capitalize on the moment.
Try to practice your storytelling, hire an exec coach, do drink a good amount of caffeine and always enjoy some workout at the gym!
My today’s preferred: Judy — prepare for what you can’t predict. “That last part — the educational content — is what Judy hopes will separate it from the competition; the company can help you prepare for emergencies depending on where you live in the world. If you go to the company’s website, there’s a nifty little tool that lets you enter your zip code to understand the natural disasters that could occur in your area, such as earthquakes, fires, floods and hurricanes. You can then download a corresponding plan to understand how to better prepare for unpredictable emergencies.” | https://medium.com/@ciprianghetau/from-the-vcs-corner-27-manage-relations-or-go-bust-3957864ac7ea | ['Ciprian Ghetau'] | 2020-02-07 10:57:34.128000+00:00 | ['Startup Lessons', 'Executive Coaching', 'Founder Stories', 'Relationships', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
“I moonlight as a DJ” | It had been forty minutes and my bum was starting to hurt. How much longer now? The fluffy pillows I saw at a distance on my bed were beckoning to my exhausted soul. As I bounced on the big, blue yoga ball as though my life depended on it, the ridiculousness of it all just started to dawn upon me. All this, and more, just to get my baby to sleep. I looked at said baby, down in my ring sling (for the uninitiated, that’s like a joey pouch for babies). My baby, looked back at me with his big, greyish-green eyes. Eyes that were totally wide awake. Sigh.
Fast forward to now. The joey is now turning into a toddler kangaroo, who has a baffling (and cute?) affinity for cows, dances to anything that sounds remotely rhythmic and has a line up of stuffed animals that accompany him to bed. Before you ask, yes, my days of bouncing on the big, blue yoga ball are long gone. As our toddler’s communication skills are increasing every day, he can now clearly tell us when he wants to sleep. He’ll pick the lucky animal for the night and kiss his father goodnight (or night-night as he says it). He will then proceed with the chosen animal to the bedroom and if I don’t follow in three seconds, I am summoned. “Amma, come”
My new challenge at bedtime is quite interesting and tests my competency in many areas. Apart from the required obvious musical skills, I am also needed to sharpen my creativity, presence of mind and patience. Did I mention patience?
I follow my sleepy toddler armed with his animal for the night and we plop ourselves on our floor bed. The opening act of the night is also the easiest part of the night – a customary cow story. After many hits and misses I have made up an exciting, aptly timed and barely believable story about a cow and my offspring going on a trail. If I don’t start the story as soon as we start nursing, I receive a sharp nudge. Totally deserved. The story ends with the story-version of my son going to sleep. But the reality-version of my son is still awake.
It has begun; my performance for the night. I clear my throat and mentally go over the playlist. I start with something safe, like a nursery rhyme. Three words in and I hear those dreaded words, shattering my ego and my paper-thin patience;
“Amma, no, no, no, no.”
I take a deep breath. I’ve prepared for this, I have got this. I ask him what song he wants to hear. He looks at me, chuckles and continues nursing. Well played, my son, well played. I switch gears and move to a peppy-ish number. It seems to have been well received. I look at him, his eyes are closing slowly and the pep in my voice multiplies. Wrong move. He’s opened his eyes and is going to say the words again.
“No, no, no”
Raise your hand if you’ve ever yelled ‘DJ sucks’ at one of those college festival DJ nights. I have, multiple times and with immense enthusiasm. I can now empathise with how DJ Suneel would have felt that night. This is ‘DJ sucks’ raised to infinity as my nipples are getting twiddled with, I’m holding my pee in and that salted caramel ice cream in the freezer isn’t going to eat itself.
Six unfinished songs later we have reached an impasse. I have exhausted my playlist. That’s when he decides to throw me the curveball – “Amma, new song”. I have to think quick. His drowsy eyes tell me that the right song will help him sleep in seconds. Should I make one up or sing a random, slow bhajan? I decide to go with random, slow bhajan as songs I’ve made up in the past haven’t gone down too well with his refined musical taste. I look at him as I hum the names of Krishna and I know I have made the right decision as he drifts off to dream about cows in my arms.
Almost every night, I walk out of the bedroom waiting to tell Arun about what had happened in there. “I had to sing like fifteen songs today!” Arun doesn’t understand if I’m tired of it or enjoying it. I shrug with a smile to have him believe I don’t know too.
As the words of my song trail off into the silence of the night, I gently move my son on to the bed and kiss his forehead. My heart is full and in that moment, every night, I do know. | https://medium.com/the-amazing-elephant/i-moonlight-as-a-dj-aae474020ba3 | [] | 2020-04-19 03:28:51.931000+00:00 | ['Parenting', 'Breastfeeding', 'Humour', 'Motherhood'] |
Dose your Best friend, the main enemy for you? | Friendship is the most valuable factor in our existence. To find a true friend would be the greatest thing for your life. in this new global, new societies, and the improvement of technology, this whole extra development bring more stressful lifestyle. You’ll need someone to talk, share your thoughts, to share your plans. Your friend is the person, who desires everything properly for you. appreciate you, value your ideas, everything, someone you can find when you need help. ever feel that your exceptional friend may be your main enemy for your life?
discusses a few points, if you find these things in the person in front of you, so you know it’s your enemy, now not your friend.
1-Never listen to you:
This man or woman is not your friend, a person always wants you to focus, they always need you here when they need you, someone only needs your energy, your soul, but they no longer listen to you, without giving you a percentage of interest, so you must stand back for your own sake.
2-Nowhere to be found:
This friend should be here, when you feel lonely, will be here, when you feel depressed and just need a person to give you a shoulder, right?
Sometimes you need someone to talk to or share your sadness with? Things that stress you out, you just need someone to share it. Do you think your friend will be here by your side in this hard time of your life, but for someone who isn’t your true friend will disappear.
3-Never appreciate your support:
Never value your support, so you give this person all of your energy, all your heart, your thoughts, you are helping them all the time. But never appreciated. Always imply that you are the only one, never here, never listen So this person is not your friend.
4-Judging you all the time:
Judge all of your opinions if you find that your friend is always judging you and telling you that what you are doing is not very important and not very valuable, that you are doing nothing. You are nothing. Your thoughts is not very good. Do not do that leave. It will kill you. That’s not your real friend, is it?
That someone wants you to fall, f Someone wants you to be alone. Someone wants you to have no life in order not to feel lose yourself.
At the end, don’t give trust to anyone, until you know them well. Choose wisely, don’t let anyone treat you bad in your life, just leave. | https://medium.com/@dina53302/dose-your-best-friend-the-main-enemy-for-you-231ba8927944 | ['Dina Sobhy'] | 2020-12-25 15:04:23.991000+00:00 | ['Just Be Yourself', 'Truth', 'Friendship Stories', 'Sadness', 'Judgement'] |
Angel: New Gifts | Angel: New Gifts
angel from above
a Christmas gift of delight
cheerful beginnings
peace-filled and warm hugs
mark the spirit of the year
embracing goodness
a bright tree topper
with shades of white and gold glow
brilliantly at night
glorious music
commits itself to our ears
faithful enchantment
let's fill hollow hearts
with plenty of love and light
true motivation
intense connections
sobering up on cold nights
winter wonderlands
this angel still stands
top of the class, holding strong
welcoming new gifts | https://medium.com/@treisthename/angel-new-gifts-bf4586288356 | ['Tre L. Loadholt'] | 2020-12-19 11:31:04.959000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Christmas', 'Poetry', 'Gifts', 'Haiku'] |
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