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Figma Interactive Components — Practical Tips | Figma regularly introduces features that are extremely useful, amaze designers, and even boost their creativity.
It started with Variants. The feature helps to organize Components in a more efficient way. Finding components with Variants is much quicker. Modifying their appearance in a way similar to real solutions behavior is a real pleasure. When I work in Figma now, I cannot imagine my workflow without them.
This time I will show you how to get started with Interactive Components — revolutionary feature for prototyping. I will also share some additional tips for more advanced purposes.
Grab the mug of your favorite coffee ☕️, and let’s dive into Figma Interactive Components!
What are Interactive Components in Figma?
Interactive Components are features that allow you to create a prototype with UI elements that reacts to specific interactions.
It is worth mentioning that you may prepare interaction not only for “on click” action but also “on drag,” “while pressing,” “while hovering,” “keyboard clicks,” and things triggered automatically thanks to the “delay” feature. This gives you the ability to prepare a prototype that successfully imitates a real solution.
Creating interactive elements is very easy. In the next section I will show you how to do that. Let’s make interactive button.
Sample Button Component
How to Create Interactive Component
To prepare a UI element that will be interactive, you have to prepare the Component with it. Then duplicate it to create the next Components for various states of this specific UI element.
Button States
Now, select these components and create Variants from the group. Interactive Components work only for elements that are variants.
Variants
When you are ready with your Components, switch to Prototype mode by clicking the tab in the top right corner of the Figma window.
Select the first Component and press a little circle on the right side of it. Click the handle and drag it to connect with the other Component. This is how you create interaction.
Connecting Components
When two components are connected, you may configure the interaction. Choose the interaction type from the dropdown — it may be “on click” to start with. Select animation type, and your first interactive Component is ready!
Interactive Component in Prototyping Mode
To check it out, create the instance of the Component (drag default component out of the Variants area) and click the “Play” button to launch the prototype.
That’s it! It is very simple to achieve powerful results with this feature.
Practical Tips
Creating Interactive Component is fast and easy. However, if you want to make more professional Interactive Components, here are some additional practical tips for more advanced purposes:
1. Use for more interactions than “on click”
As we know, buttons, checkboxes, and other UI controls should react to different interactions, not only clicking them. Figma allows you to prepare various states, so use them in your prototypes to achieve better results!
2. Use Smart Animate
Changing the state of the element feels more natural when the transition is animated. Figma allows you to use the Smart Animate feature to prepare a nice motion design for your Interactive Components. Just remember to keep the same layer names within components so the feature will know how to animate the transition.
Interactive Components Settings
3. Use Custom Easing
When you start using Smart Animate, you will surely notice that to make your transition even more natural, you may pick various easing types for animation. There is also an option to prepare a “custom” one, so feel free to play around with this feature. Results may be impressive!
Interactive Components Sample
Feel free to get the sample Figma file with Variants and presented above Interactive Components. This may be the perfect starting point for your prototypes:
👉Get Figma Sample Interactive Components Now.
One more thing!
If you prefer watching tutorials instead of reading them. Feel free to watch the how to video showing how to create interactive button:
Figma Interactive Components in 3 minutes
To conclude
Interactive Components are the feature that brings not only better usability to our prototypes but brings some joy to our designs. The feature allows us to achieve remarkable results with just a few clicks!
What will you create with Interactive Components now?
Article originally published on my blog. Looking for more tutorials like this? Get notified by subscribing my blog’s newsletter.
Thanks for reading! | https://blog.prototypr.io/practical-tips-for-figma-interactive-components-c51915c28d16 | [] | 2021-03-22 10:05:47.431000+00:00 | ['Interactive Components', 'Figma', 'UI Design', 'Design Tutorial', 'Prototyping'] |
Christmas Bible Trivia | In my first year of Bible college, I failed my first “quiz”… on Christmas. I thought I had aced it because I had been in Christmas pageants and knew every Christmas carol. Unfortunately, people have created Christmas cards, carols, children’s plays, artwork, and other items that make assumptions about the Christmas story. While most of these assumptions are harmless (like how many wise men there were), it is essential to know what the Bible says about Jesus’ birth. Other Christmas myths are fictional (I’m sure Jesus cried, no matter what Away In the Manger says) and can affect our theology about Christ’s humanity. Some differences seem a little nit-picky (like the angels speaking to the shepherds and not singing), while other mistakes are glaring (like who is following the star in O Little Town of Bethlehem). Christmas Bible Trivia is a fun and appropriate game to play during Christmas, especially when all of your family members are present. Make this game a part of your family tradition, and see who has been keeping up on their Bible studies throughout the year
Take this Christmas Quiz to see if you can determine what is recorded in the Bible and what is not.
You can take the online quiz here :- https://bit.ly/3h95zcs
You can also play similar game like this :-
2. https://bit.ly/3mCLuwC
3. https://bit.ly/3mGI4Zw
4. https://bit.ly/34x6xds | https://medium.com/@apptraitseo/christmas-bible-trivia-879902f39486 | [] | 2020-12-21 12:44:18.965000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Bible', 'Youth Min', 'Holidays', 'Church'] |
Imagine a heart being pushed through a shredder. | Imagine a heart being pushed through a shredder.
The slicers move at blazing speed, but the process moves slow.
The muscle tenses up and goes weak,
As sharp teeth grind the the mass through and through.
Thin, neat slivers dangle as blood gushes towards the ground.
A numbing air rushes between the slivers,
The agonizing pain is gone.
The slivers meet the chilled pool of blood as they plop into a heap on the ground.
Imagine that despite the chilled blood, and the numb, limp slivers, not all life is lost.
Miraculously, the blood is absorbed and begins to clot.
It binds together the pieces torn apart.
A certain amount of time passes and the muscle becomes strong,
And the heart once again becomes warm.
Long striations of purplish-brown scar tissue contrast the colors of deep red and pink.
Now I ask you,
Should the heart be afraid of sharp objects? | https://medium.com/@hemolo/imagine-a-heart-being-pushed-through-a-shredder-53ec4d8e8482 | ['Kevin Costa'] | 2020-12-27 03:14:22.083000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Hemolo', 'Heartbreak', 'Therapy', 'Heart'] |
Intuitive Eating Definition: The 4 Characteristics that Make Intuitive Eaters Different from Dieters | Dana Barron
Intuitive Eating Definition
The technical intuitive eating definition, according to the two dietitians who literally wrote the book on it (Intuitive Eating: A revolutionary anti-diet approach) is:
“A weight-inclusive, evidence-based model and self-care eating framework, which integrates instinct, emotion, and rational thought.”
Which is great, but not super actionable. What we really need to know is how can we tell if we are an intuitive eater? If we’re not, how far off are we? And what do we need to work on to get there?
What actually makes an intuitive eater different from a dieter?
We can break down the intuitive eating definition a bit further to answer those questions.
There are actually four, key characteristics that can be measured when it comes the intuitive eating definition. Researchers needed a way to define what an intuitive eater was, and figure out how to identify them, in order to study the differences in health outcomes between them and dieters. So they created the Intuitive Eating Assessment.
Dr. Tracy Tylka, the researcher credited with creating the most widely-used assessment, broke the characteristics down into four parts and then crafted questions for each section aimed at uncovering what is true for the individual in the present moment.
—
What’s important about this is that we can measure our own mindset and behaviors around food against what’s true for the intuitive eater. We can figure out where we are and what we need to work on to begin — or continue — to heal our relationship with food. With this tool, we can also track our progress over time by comparing past assessments.
So today, we’re going to discuss what each of those four characteristics are so that you can gauge where you stand and what might make sense for you to focus on in the future. Or you can just hop over and take the quiz right now. Click here to take the Intuitive Eating Quiz (based on Dr. Tylka’s work).
—
The 4 Key Characteristics of Intuitive Eaters
Unconditional Permission to Eat
Intuitive Eaters give themselves unconditional permission to eat. No rules. No restrictions. No calorie counts or macro balancing. No food groups left behind. If you are an intuitive eater, all food, and as much of it as you want, is allowed.
This obviously differs from dieting in that all diets have rules of some form. Whether it’s the amount, the type or the timing of meals there is a rule to follow. Even intuitive eating itself can be turned into a diet easily by adding the condition that you can only eat when hungry and you must always stop when full. (And yes, Paleo, Keto, Whole30, Veganism and Intermittent Fasting are all diets. Don’t @ us).
If you are following any rules or guidelines at all you are a dieter. If you’ve given yourself unconditional permission to eat, you may match the intuitive definition.
2. Eating for Physical Rather than Emotional Reasons
Intuitive Eaters tend to eat in response to the physical needs of their bodies, not to cope with emotions. This is not to demonize emotional eating. This is just to say that, typically, since intuitive eaters are ‘unrestrained’ eaters and ‘unrestrained’ eaters don’t emotionally eat, if you are an intuitive eater, the driving force behind your food behavior is going to be to satisfy physical hunger. And, in concert with characteristic #1 above, to satisfy that hunger with the type and amount of food that you want with zero conditions.
3. Listening to Internal Cues (Hunger/Satiety) Rather than External Cues
Our past client Adrienne, found herself feeling crazy around food when a nutritionist she was working with dictated the macro balance she was to create for each meal. She found herself meticulously planning her meals to have just the right amount of each. This led her straight down the path to binge eating because she was perpetually dissatisfied by her carefully crafted meals. She was trying to eat by the external rule of “the nutritionist said this is enough.” When her body’s internal cues were screaming “No, it’s not!”
It was not enough. Because no nutritionist knows how much food is right for Adrienne’s body. Just as the authors of all the diet books don’t know what’s right for you.The only person who knows what you need is you, because you’re the only one inside your body, who can feel the hunger and satiety cues, and therefore respond appropriately.
Dieters try to stick to the external cues that dieting has created for them. This typically leads to feeling out of control. Intuitive eaters listen to and honor the internal cues coming from their own bodies and are therefore able to effectively satisfy their own needs.
To hear more about Adrienne’s transformation from binge eater to Intuitive Eater click here.
4. Body-Food Choice Congruence
Intuitive eaters make food choices that honor their health and taste buds while making them feel well. This is the best part, in my humble opinion. When you are an intuitive eater, you make food choices that feel good. No more binging until you feel like shit. No more eating that diet food that gives you horrible tummy trouble (hello, quinoa circa ‘09). No more forcing things down your gullet that make you want to gag in the name of health (spinach? Tf out of here!).
When you have a high level of body-food choice congruence, it’s easy to take care of yourself. To honor your health. Because you can meet all of your food needs (taste, satisfaction, enjoyment and nourishment) in a way that feels great. You actually look forward to eating, and feel well when you do. You’re able to feel healthy, nourished and strong, without any willpower or motivation necessary.
Or give us a listen over on the podcast.
Intuitive Eaters enjoy a multitude of benefits from this calm, peaceful relationship with food that dieters don’t, such as higher self-esteem, body acceptance, body appreciation, good cholesterol, proactive coping skills and life satisfaction.
They don’t suffer from disordered eating, binge eating or emotional eating. Their triglycerides, blood pressure and body dissatisfaction are lower. Even body mass index (which is a bullshit measure of health anyway) is shown to be lower among intuitive eaters. This is bonkers, since dieters are trying so hard to shrink.
The four characteristics listed above are what cause these incredible outcomes so it’s crucial to understand if you embody each and if not, what you can do to work toward them.
—
If you’ve been struggling with binge eating or emotional eating or just generally feeling crazy and out of control around food, it’s likely that you identify with the opposite of the intuitive eating definition. And our question for you is this: what are you waiting for?
Confidence and peace with food and your body are waiting for you and we can help. We believe that anyone can enjoy this calm, peaceful, empowered relationship with food. And so can you.
Here are some additional resources.
Resources:
If you haven’t yet, check out our free master class: 5 Simple Shifts to End Binge Eating.
It will walk you through the first 5 steps to take to start to heal your relationship with food and become an intuitive eater.
Watch the free master class by clicking here.
Or, if you’re ready to get started TODAY, like NOW, just grab a time on our calendar for your free Breakthrough Session. In this 45-minute call we’ll get to the bottom of your unique struggle with food, what you’re missing in order to fix it and a step-by-step plan to get you moving forward.
Book your free Breakthrough Session by clicking here.
Dana
On a mission to liberate women everywhere from diet culture, Dana is a head coach, podcast host and co-founder at Wellness Lately. After years spent counting points and almonds, punishing herself on treadmills and living in constant fear of nonorganic vegetables, she found her way to peace with food and her body through the principles of Intuitive Eating, Health at Every Size and body liberation. A Certified Health Coach, her passion is helping women escape the painful diet-binge cycle so they can live more confident, joyful lives. She lives in exotic suburban New Jersey with her husband, Joel, two children, Foster and Bode, and an old Shiba Inu named Jackson who honestly feels medium about her. To learn the five simple shifts she used to break the diet and binge cycle herself, watch our free masterclass at https://joinnow.live/s/wMPSwe | https://medium.com/@kimbercol188/intuitive-eating-definition-the-4-characteristics-that-make-intuitive-eaters-different-from-b4f35d379288 | ['Kimberly Dempsey'] | 2020-12-15 15:02:59.499000+00:00 | ['Health Coach', 'Intuitive Eating', 'Health At Every Size', 'Anti Diet', 'Body Image'] |
How to take part in Taylor’s Token Sale | What is a token sale?
A token sale is a relatively new and innovative way for startups to raise capital for its operation. It is a form of fundraising that is decentralized, and it is performed using blockchain technology. The principle is simple, a startup that wishes to raise funds via a token sale need to create a token offering in a platform that enables smart contracts, being the Ethereum blockchain the most popular for this practice. During the fundraising period, a token can be bought at its initial price, later on, it can be traded for other cryptocurrencies once the token gets listed on exchanges. Tokens can also be held as assets, allowing the token value to appreciate and therefore multiplying the initial contribution. A token can also be held to pay for specific products and services.
Important: Citizens from the following countries are banned by national legislation to participate in blockchain token sales: U.S.A., China, South Korea, Singapore and Canada.
Why should you participate in Taylor’s token sale?
Firstly, you will be contributing to a project that will bring crypto trading to everyone regardless of experience level. Taylor will offer a service that will provide a market monitoring system that will signal users with potentially profitable trades, together with a trading platform within the service that will be delivered via a mobile app. We believe that Taylor will open the doors to crypto trading to an entirely new audience, in return injecting more capital into the total cryptocurrencies market capitalization, and as a result possibly raising the value of an existing cryptocurrency portfolio.
Secondly, the creation of the Taylor token (TAY) and the capital raised in the initial private and public sale will facilitate all internal operations and developments. TAY holders that wish to use Taylor’s service will have the option to pay for it using TAY, by doing so, users will receive a discount for our service and have access to premium features. Holders of a minimum 1000 TAY will have access to basic subscription features free of charge as proof of stake. Holders of a minimum 3000 TAY will have access to premium subscription features free of charge.
Thirdly, we believe that the simplicity of our service will bring new players to the cryptocurrency game who were wary of entering it because of the complexity of its elements, and the learning curve involved in cryptocurrency trading. We believe that these aspects will increase our service demand, as well as, for the TAY token taking into consideration the benefits of paying for the Taylor service with it.
Step-by-step guide about how to participate in the Taylor’s token sale
Follow these easy steps, and you will learn all the necessary action to undertake to participate in Taylor’s token sale.
Step 1: Purchase Ether (ETH)
Taylor’s token sale will use Ether (ETH) as a form of payment. Therefore, the first step is to purchase it, which can be done without much effort on cryptocurrency exchanges such as coinbase, Poloniex and Bittrex. Most exchanges allow you to purchase Ether immediately with a credit card. Purchasing ETH via bank transfer is too possible, but usually, the transaction may hold out a few days. It is possible to by ETH using USD, EUR and BTC, depending on which exchange you will use. Here is a good list of exchanges supporting ETH.
Once the transaction is processed, and the Ether has been collected, you will find it in a wallet inside your private account at the exchange’s website.
The following step is crucial if you wish to participate in Taylor’s token sale or any other for that matter. PAY CLOSE ATTENTION!
Step 2: Transfer your Ether from the exchange wallet to an Ethereum ERC20 compatible wallet
The reason why token sales are performed in the Ethereum blockchain is that it employs a smart contract standard called ERC20. To put it in simple words, this standard allows tokens to be created with their own value and features. These tokens can be traded and used independently using the same blockchain. Thus, you can apply the same Ether address to purchase other tokens or contribute to token sales.
To take part in a token sale, you need an Ether balance located in an Ethereum ERC20 compatible wallet, such as myetherwallet (web-based) or Jaxx (mobile based). These types of wallets give you full control over your private keys. See our article about how to create a Ether wallet.
Once you have a wallet set up, it is time to transfer your Ether balance from the exchange wallet to your new Ethereum wallet using the address provided. Performing this transaction is quite simple and straightforward, and it usually takes just a few minutes. Follow your chosen exchange instructions on how to withdraw your funds to your newly created ETH wallet.
WARNING: DO NOT TRANSFER YOUR ETHER CONTRIBUTION VIA AN EXCHANGE. THE FUNDS MUST COME FROM A WALLET WHICH GIVES YOU CONTROL OF THE PRIVATE KEYS. FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN LOST OF FUNDS, AND THE TOKENS WILL NOT BE DELIVERED. TAYLOR WILL NOT HOLD ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR FAILURE OF FOLLOWING THIS INSTRUCTIONS. ,
Step 3: Sign up for the Taylor’s token sale
Already registered and identified participants please move to step 4
Head to Taylor’s official website at smarttaylor.io and sign up for the whitelist. You will be asked to provide your email address and the address of the ERC20 compatible wallet which your contribution will come from. You will also be required to go through a KYC (know your customer) procedure. This is a mandatory step to get whitelisted. It is a quick and straightforward identification procedure that is performed online, in real time, and the results are almost immediate. There is a small possibility that the identification process might need to be performed manually, in this case the results will take a few hours . You will be asked to provide a high-quality image of your passport or a government-issued ID. After successfully going through the KYC procedure, your name will be automatically added to the whitelist and Taylor’s contribution address will be made available on your Taylor dashboard.
Step 4: Sending your contribution
This step is critical for the success of the transaction, please pay close attention. The contribution address to the token sale will be ONLY made available in your personal dashboard on our official website https://smarttaylor.io. We will NOT send the contribution address via email or any other form of communication, therefore any communication received containing an ETH address referring to Taylor’s token sale should be FULLY DISREGARDED. Your attention to this instruction is extremely important since unfortunately there are scammers trying to take advantage of uninformed individuals.
On your Ether wallet look for the option to send ETH, you will be presented with a transaction form. In the receiver address field input the exact ETH address found in your personal dashboard on our official website https://smarttaylor.io (we recommend double checking it), select the amount of contribution desired, and set the gas price to maximum 50 gwei and click send. Setting the gas price is vital for the a successful transaction, contributions with the gas price set up to more than 50 gwei will be automatically rejected. You can check the status of you transaction on https://etherscan.io/.
Step 5: receiving your TAY tokens
The delivery of TAY tokens will happen alongside to the token sale, that means participants will receive their tokens immediately after the contribution order is validated and received. Tay tokens will be delivered to the same wallet that the contribution came from. However, the tokens will be locked until a few days after the token sale comes to an end on March, 20th, or earlier in case the tokens sell out.
That is it. You are now all set!
You have now the knowledge and the tools to be part of the token sales, which allows anyone to independently contribute to projects that he or she see the potential for growth and profit returns.
Previously, funding startups were reserved for the rich or for people with in-depth knowledge of business, and most of the times an expensive investment banking account. Those days are over, today all you need is a computer (a smartphone will do just fine) and an internet connection. Future proof yourself and get on this wagon as soon as possible. You won’t regret it!
Follow us and get in touch
Find more detailed information about the Taylor service, and our upcoming token sale at https://smarttaylor.io.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or on your favorite social media platform to stay up to date with our latest news and announcements, as well as, our blog here on medium.
Feel free to post your questions, suggestions, and comments on our Telegram channel. We’re looking forward to hearing from you! | https://medium.com/smarttaylor/how-to-take-part-in-taylors-token-sale-c226b973248e | [] | 2018-02-15 11:34:42.853000+00:00 | ['Taylor App', 'Blockchain', 'Tay', 'Token Sale', 'ICO'] |
British Landlord Association offer all members free courses | Landlords that are a member of the British Landlords Association have access to free essential courses. Some courses are chargeable; however, the crucial courses are offered to all members free of charge.
The association firmly believe in equipping their members with reliable procedure and practices well as ensuring the members are up to speed with recent legislation as part of their membership.
The British Landlords Association (BLA) is one of the fastest-growing landlord’s association in the UK. It is hardly surprising given the membership is free, essential courses are free and so are 299 documents. Some courses are chargeable, which contributes to the association for its operating costs.
Other organisations are subscription-based landlord organisations and all charge for courses.
The BLA offers landlord development foundation courses for UK landlords in which covers topics like:
Abandonment
Court procedure
Deposit protection
Electrical
Eviction
Gas
Housing Health & Safety Rating System,
Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO)
Inventories
Insurance
Notices
Self-managing
Regulations
Repairing obligations
Tenancy agreement
Rent reviews
Record-keeping
Use of agents
The British Landlords Association courses are designed to highlight best practices & procedures and awareness of recent legislative changes.
Mr Sajjad Ahmad, the CEO of the British Landlords Association, said: “We are committed to equipping our members with better practices, procedures and the pitfalls of the letting industry.”
“The BLA was created to encourage all landlords to join. Hence the BLA is a free landlords association. Equally, we want to ensure our members achieve an acceptable standard of professionalism to that end the essential courses one would expect to pay for are free to our members too.” | https://medium.com/@sarge-sa19/british-landlord-association-offer-all-members-free-courses-564318ebd610 | ['British Landlord Association'] | 2021-07-06 08:18:36.803000+00:00 | ['Online', 'Landlord', 'Courses', 'Training', 'Free'] |
District Attorney Krasner to Donald Trump: Leave Philly Alone | CONTACT:
Jane Roh, 215–686–8711, [email protected]
PHILADELPHIA (Oct. 28, 2020) — Less than a week out from the most significant U.S. election in generations, District Attorney Larry Krasner on Wednesday denounced baseless, incendiary provocations from the Trump Administration and warned that any criminal and violent attempts to interfere with Election Day activities or constitutionally required transfers of power would be dealt with swiftly by the District Attorney’s Office:
“The Trump Administration’s efforts to suppress votes amid a global pandemic fueled by their disregard for human life will not be tolerated in the birthplace of American democracy. Philadelphians from a diversity of political opinions believe strongly in the rule of law, in fair and free elections, and in a democratic system of government. We will not be cowed or ruled by a lawless, power-hungry despot. Some folks learned that the hard way in the 1700s.
“Donald Trump claims to be a ‘law and order’ president, but his administration has posed the greatest danger to public health and safety in modern history. More than 227,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and we are again seeing infections spike across the country. More than 100 police officers have died from COVID-19 this year — more than died from all other causes — including in the line of duty — combined.
“Philadelphians are grieving the fatal shooting by police of a Black man who appeared to be in mental health crisis. Instead of working with cities and states to improve accountability and efficacy in policing, instead of supporting and strengthening Black communities, the Trump Administration seeks to throw gasoline on a long-burning fire in order to provoke further unrest and violence ahead of an election he is terrified to lose.
“My office is working, as it always does, to hold accountable all those who cause harm, irrespective of status or position. Today, we filed a dozen serious charges against an individual responsible for seriously injuring a Philadelphia Police sergeant by hitting her with a vehicle during the unrest this week. That person is sitting in jail and is being held on $999,999 bail. My office is also investigating the police shooting death of Walter Wallace, Jr., because justice demands accountability for every death at the hands of government actors — whether on the streets or in prisons or in the ICE facilities where Donald Trump is caging children.
“The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office continues to work with our partners in law enforcement and government to ensure every voter gets to vote and that every vote is counted. Keep your Proud Boys, goon squads, and uncertified ‘poll watchers’ out of our city, Mr. President. Break the law here, and I’ve got something for you.”
More than 80 prosecutors and county detectives will be assigned to the DAO Election Task Force on November 3rd. The task force will be active until election results are certified in Pennsylvania. Members of the public are encouraged to call the Election Task Force hotline, 215–686–9641, to report possible criminal attempts to interfere with or influence voting and election activity in Philadelphia.
###
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office is the largest prosecutor’s office in Pennsylvania, and one of the largest in the nation. It serves the more than 1.5 million citizens of the City and County of Philadelphia, employing 600 lawyers, detectives, and support staff. The District Attorney’s Office is responsible for prosecution of approximately 40,000 criminal cases annually. | https://medium.com/philadelphia-justice/district-attorney-krasner-to-donald-trump-leave-philly-alone-c93e24283ef | ['Philadelphia Dao'] | 2020-10-28 22:38:10.482000+00:00 | ['Election 2020', 'Trump', 'Philadelphia', 'Press Release'] |
Connecting to Agora with Tokens — Using Unity | Security within video chat applications is necessary now that remote working and virtual events are part of the workplace. In the Agora platform, one good way to add a layer of security on your stream is to add a token service. A token is a dynamic key that is generated using a set of given inputs. The Agora platform uses tokens to authenticate users.
In this tutorial, you learn how to fetch an Agora token from a web service running an Agora token server, using Unity and C#.
To jump straight to a full working example, see the following repository:
The project in this repository with the token example is video-sample-token.
Prerequisites
An Agora developer account (see How To Get Started with Agora)
A basic understanding of C# and Unity
Unity
An Agora token server, either local or remote (see Agora Token Service)
Project Setup
Create a Unity project by following the steps in the Quickstart Guide, or go straight to the example project on GitHub.
A previous article on how to create a token server can be found here. To quickly launch a token server, this GitHub repository has all the necessary code laid out:
When you have your token server set up, you need to generate and fetch a token into your application. This tutorial shows you how to do this with Unity.
Fetching the Token
You need to determine the full URL to reach your token service. In my example, the service is running on the local machine, which is why I’m looking at "http://localhost:8080/..." . I’m also using my-channel as the channel name and 0 as the userId.
The example found in the Agora-Unity-Quickstart project calls a method found in tools/RequestToken.cs:
The FetchToken method above makes a request to the token server and passes the response as a string into the callback method. The callback method allows greater control of how to handle the received response. For example, in one instance you might need to connect to the channel. Or you might use the method within the OnTokenPrivilegeWillExpireHandler event to update the token for a channel you’re already connected to.
I’m using UnityWebRequest for the GET request. For information on this class, see Unity’s documentation on UnityWebRequest.Get.
Connecting to a Channel
Connecting to a channel with a token in Unity uses the JoinChannelByKey method, like so:
mRtcEngine.JoinChannelByKey(channelToken, channelName, "", 0);
Staying Connected
Tokens have an expiration by design. Once a user’s token expires, they are removed from the channel. Using the example token server, the token lifetime can be set as a default value by the token server or as a parameter sent in the request.
Once the user connects with the token, they will need to keep that token updated to remain in the channel. In order to have an uninterrupted session in the channel, the OnTokenPrivilegeWillExpireHandler is called 30 seconds before a token is set to expire. From there you can contact the token server again and request an updated token. The returned token can then update the current status of the user with IRtcEngine.RenewToken().
Here’s an example of the token expiring handler and RenewToken being used in C#:
Testing
Full Example
Other Resources
For more information about Agora.io applications, take a look at the Agora Video Call Quickstart Guide and Agora API Reference.
I also invite you to join the Agoira.io Developer Slack community. | https://medium.com/agora-io/connecting-to-agora-with-tokens-using-unity-13a4a9c9cb02 | ['Max Cobb'] | 2021-03-01 18:35:44.209000+00:00 | ['Video Call App', 'Agora', 'Rtc', 'Unity', 'C Sharp Programming'] |
I Miss the 100 Days of May | I Miss the 100 Days of May
Notes on parenting in the infinite present
Photo: dekzer007/Getty Images
For parents of school-age kids, May is filled with end-of-year concerts held in auditoriums with the acoustics of a school cafeteria, because it is the school cafeteria. These events are lovely and life-affirming, but they often start at nine in the morning or three in the afternoon or, occasionally, at the almost working-parent-friendly hour of six at night, which can still be impossible for anyone commuting during rush hour. May is also Mother’s Day, that special Sunday when your family insists that you not do the laundry or the cleaning, which just means you have more laundry and cleaning to do on Monday.
May means that every final project is due in every single one of your children’s classes, as if the teachers are unaware that the student has more than one class or that any family might have more than one child. And, yes, the projects were assigned in March or perhaps even in January, but my children have always waited until the last minute. And because they get this penchant for procrastination directly from me, it’s difficult to be mad about it, although I certainly have been mad about it for many Mays running. Because a person can only stand so many days in May being told by their children that they must be taken to the store right now to get poster board, and poster markers, and popsicle sticks. Will the side of a regular cardboard box covered in printer paper suffice? No, it will not. Will regular markers work or do you need poster markers? Poster markers. Obviously. Can you use the sticks I’ve been saving from the popsicles you’ve been eating since it got warm out? Mom. That’s disgusting.
And the point is not that I bought extra poster board last May, or that the markers I bought along with it should still work, if only my kids could remember where they left them. The point is that those things aren’t here now. And they need them now. Like right now.
And sometimes in May, when it is late on the night before the project is due, I take pity on them and offer to help. But they are wary of my artistic abilities and also the teachers have lectured them (and the parents, via email) that this is the student’s project and not the parent’s project and that the teacher will absolutely know if the kid does not do it on their own. So, many late-night hours in May, I just sit there and absorb the making-a-popsicle-stick-model-of-a-California-Mission anxiety like a sponge I will have to find another way to wring out at some point, maybe in June.
May is also the month of open houses, held at a working-parent-friendly time of 7:30 p.m., even though some of the parents, who have schedules that allow them to attend events at most any time of day, have started a petition to make it earlier, because 7:30 p.m. falls right in the middle of dinner time. If we are lucky to have our three kids attending the same school, May is when my husband and I divide and conquer the open house — though I always seem to be in the classroom where the roof of the popsicle stick California Mission has caved in, while all the other Missions seem to be not only structurally sound, but also so meticulously designed and well-crafted that everyone in that room knows they were not created by any third-grader. And especially my kid knows this, and that kid will ask me later why I just sat there and didn’t help him. Because I read the strongly worded email from the teachers about independent work on projects, I tell my child, who has already walked away.
May is the time for all the fake graduations — the preschool graduation, the kindergarten graduation, the elementary school graduation, the junior high graduation. All of these rites of passage leading up to the final graduations that, for kids scheduled to graduate from high school or college this year, won’t exist at all.
All that’s left of May is worry about the future and anxiety around finals and the AP exams being administered in their bedrooms on their laptops behind closed doors.
The 100 Days of May, we parents called them, exhausted to our bones by the performances and the projects and the brown paper grocery bags that come home full of our children’s work that would sometimes go directly into the recycling bin. But now, I would put on my mask and go to the store for a thousand packages of popsicle sticks if it meant one more brown paper grocery bag full of art, or one more evening in an uncomfortable folding chair for one more cacophonous trumpet concert. My kids are teenagers now; they’ve given up the trumpet and the flute and there are no more teachers asking them to make models of the California Missions. I was still anticipating 100 days of May this year, or at least 75 days, watching my daughter in her play and listening to my sons in their choral performance in the high school theater, which is actually a theater and not a cafeteria. The SAT was canceled, as were the trips to visit colleges. I’d been pushing my daughter to look at schools outside of California, where we live. New York City, maybe? Chicago? Now, not so much. Maybe it is better if she goes to college somewhere we can drive to, if she is allowed to go away at all. All that’s left of May is worry about the future and anxiety around the finals they still have to take and the AP exams being administered in their bedrooms on their laptops behind closed doors.
Because now the 100 Days of May is everyone still at home and reading news about more people dying and more news about more places opening up, anyway. May is every day reminding myself that my teenagers are not my friends and that they don’t enjoy hanging out with me nearly as much as I enjoy hanging out with them.
May is, “What is next? What is next? What is next What is next? What is next?”
May is wearing masks on walks in the heat and feeling like I can’t breathe, but also knowing that I’ve been healthy and almost everyone I know has been healthy or is healthy now and I have no idea what it really feels like to not be able to breathe. May is taking the day off from work at the job that I am lucky to have, but realizing I don’t have the energy to do anything besides clean hair out of the shower drain and sit around watching the dog dream. May is not knowing how many hours my kids are spending on Netflix/YouTube/TikTok instead of schoolwork because it all looks the same to me from the backside of the laptops and iPhones that are always in front of their faces. May is guiltily visiting my own mother and father while wearing a mask and keeping my distance and not giving them a hug. May is trying my best to let my kids feel what they’re feeling. May is telling my teenagers again and again, “I am so sorry that everything sucks now.”
May is, “What is next? What is next? What is next What is next? What is next?”
It’s a different kind of 100 Days of May. It is a thousand days and one hour because time means almost nothing anymore. No one knows what next May will look like. No one knows what the final week of this May will look like. We live in an infinite present. Even the dog is getting tired of always having everyone around. There’s a couch he’s not allowed to sleep on and we used to suspect that he always settled there as soon as the last member of his pack was out the door. But no one is out the door ever anymore, at least not all together at the same time. Will he ever get to sleep on that soft couch again, he wonders?
When all of this is over (if it is ever over), will I finally learn to be grateful for the gifts of the present moment? Or will I look back and think about how I had all three of my teenagers under my roof for months, with no social activities or friends or parties to get in the way, just them and their father and me together all the time, and still I felt sad for many hours of each day.
There’s a thing that every parent of babies and toddlers hears over and over again so many times that you stop hearing it at all — “the days are long, but the years are short.” I never say this to struggling parents of young kids, because I never found it helpful when I was a struggling parent of young kids. Instead, when I do see someone in the midst of those long days, I just try to make eye contact and form my face into an expression that says, “You are doing a great job, Mom or Dad. You will get through this.”
But who is there to make that face for me, and for the rest of us, right now? These days are long. And they’re so short. And I can’t seem to measure them at all. There is no one who has been through this, no one to assure us that we’re doing a great job, or that we’re going to get through this.
May is me trying to force myself to be grateful for what I have while still guiltily wanting more. I suspect that I will never learn to appreciate every stage of life as a parent — first steps, first words, the popsicle stick projects, the high school musicals, and the kids at college or whatever comes next? Maybe I won’t learn anything from this time. Maybe I won’t grow or accomplish anything significant.
“Be here now,” the people calmer than me say. But how exactly does one do that, I have always wondered. And why would I want to be here now, in this middle place where the past seems unfathomable and the future unknowable? I am allergic to uncertainty and I would rather be in any other place than now.
May is flattening the curve and herd immunity and new normal and social distancing and quaranteams and all sorts of other words and phrases that I will be happy to never hear again. Just one foot in front of the other, I suppose, and before I know it it will be June. Maybe I’ll mark the passage into the next month by letting the dog on the good couch, where I’ll sit next to him and watch him dream. | https://humanparts.medium.com/i-miss-the-100-days-of-may-cf8e2aa593a | ['Megan Morrone'] | 2020-05-26 16:43:10.409000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'School', 'Graduation', 'Motherhood', 'Parenting'] |
We Took Viberate 3.0 Around the World | Viberate 3.0 arrived
With the tech revolution, the doors are open wide for anybody who wants to create music and share it with the world. Fun fact: 40,000 tracks are uploaded to Spotify every day, and that’s just one of the channels available! The field is full of up-and-coming artists, so relying on music skills and intuition just isn’t enough. Artists have to learn how to promote their music, pitch gigs, and introduce themselves to the people who matter at all times. This gets easier with Viberate.com — the largest resource of reliable information for the music industry.
“We gathered the relevant data that would otherwise be scattered all over the internet in one place. Artists get their own digital ID with rich up-to-date content and use it as one-pager they can send to promoters, talent buyers and A&Rs. By now, we have over 460k artists’ profiles in our database,” says Matej Gregorcic, the CEO of Viberate.
Complex, one of the leading media in the music industry, sums up the benefits for the artists perfectly:
And this is how MixMag, one of the world’s most influential media for electronic music, sees it:
The platform also addresses another big issue — not getting enough gigs. With over 130k venues in our database, it’s not hard to find new ones to expand your options, and it’s easy to filter them by capacity and most frequently booked genre.
That’s not all. The platform also provides benefits to music professionals, who can now save a good amount of time they would otherwise have spent checking inspiring artists and doing their due diligence. And for true music fans, it’s the perfect playground, as they can follow their favorite artists, discover new music, make their ultimate festival bucket list, and be rewarded for their knowledge. More on that soon!
Check out the Music Network feature:
Music Network is a novelty in the music industry. It shows who follows whom on social media — rated by the popularity of the artists. For the artists, being followed by their peers is a badge of honor, as it reflects respect. You might also find a few unusual suspects or even anticipate future collabs.
And the results?
Since the official launch of Viberate 3.0:
registrations on the platform have increased by 5 times,
claims of artists’ IDs have more than tripled,
voting for genres has increased by 30 %,
and the number of fans who have shared their music knowledge and contributed to the platform at least once has tripled.
We explore music trends with our editorial content
Why did the career of an artist explode? Which are the hottest acts in Brazil? Who rules SoundCloud, and which genre is the most popular on YouTube? Which genres are on the rise at festivals all over the world?
We’ve got the answers. Our database includes more than 1M profiles of artists, venues, events, and festivals. Interesting stories write themselves when we connect the data points and put them in context, and we can now invite you into the wonderful world of music data we enjoy every day. Beneath the IDs of artists, venues, and festivals on Viberate.com, you can access articles that explore all things music, give useful information, share insights, and reveal trends — all for free.
Here are a few:
Overheard in Amsterdam: “With Viberate, the future of music looks bright!”
Some of the blockchain solutions could completely change the way we think and work — for the better. The more we talk about it, the more people will understand the benefits of this technology. Events such as Hard Fork Summit in Amsterdam help shine a light on it, with this year’s topic being the new era of blockchain.
Of course, our field of interest is the music industry, along with using technology to lend a hand to the artists. Since we’re already working on several blockchain solutions that will be implemented on our platform, we’re honored that Tanja Bivic Plankar, the president of Blockchain Alliance Europe, presented our vision to all the visitors of the FutureMusic event.
Tanja Bivic Plankar, the president of Blockchain Alliance Europe, shared our vision with the visitors of FutureMusic event at Hard Fork Summit in Amsterdam.
| Viberate.com |Instagram| Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Reddit | | https://medium.com/viberate-blog/no-time-for-the-winter-blues-we-took-viberate-3-0-around-the-world-5e1cf2187284 | ['Manca Šalehar'] | 2019-11-29 08:46:33.685000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Monthly', 'Music', 'Product Updates', 'Startup'] |
Yoga Exercises Can Make You Look Younger in simple steps | Yoga Exercises Can Make You Look Younger in simple steps
yoga continues to grow in popularity. More and more people are taking on the practice since it provides many beneficial results. Not only does a consistent yoga practice make you feel better, but yoga exercises can make you look younger, too. Here are several ways yoga exercises can help you look and feel younger.
Yoga Asana
Photo by Liliya Dyulgerov on Unsplash
Asana refers to the yoga poses that people practice in a typical yoga class. These are the positions an instructor will teach in order for you to be more aware of your whole body. This is the baseline for working toward looking younger while practicing yoga exercises. Whether you’re holding yoga positions or flowing from pose to pose, the result is an aesthetically pleasing body.
Strength Building
Yoga isn’t designed to help you build muscle since it is different from resistance training. But holding various yoga postures will help you tone your muscles. A consistent practice of specific yoga exercises will help to sculpt and define some of your muscles. Further, you can actually build endurance strength while holding some yoga poses. Here are a few examples.
Plank Pose
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Plank Pose is a good example of a yoga posture that will help you develop upper body strength. Come to your hands and knees to begin this posture. Align your hands under your shoulders. When you’re ready, lift your knees off the floor to elongate your entire body. You will form a high push-up position. While pressing firmly into your yoga mat with your hands, you will engage your arm, shoulder, and chest muscles. Holding the posture for at least 10 breaths will keep your legs contracted to assist with building greater strength.
Boat Pose
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Boat Pose is another strength-building yoga exercises that will enhance your core strength. Start in a sitting position with your legs extending out in front of you. Be sure you are sitting up tall to lengthen your spine. When you’re ready, begin to lean back while maintaining an extended torso. Bend your knees then lift them off the floor. (It is allowed to hold onto your bent knees with your hands to stabilize yourself in this position.) Inhale to continue lengthening through your spine. As you exhale, engage your abdominal muscles by drawing your navel inward toward your spine. Stay in this position for at least 10 breaths. These yoga exercises are guaranteed to make you stronger.
Flexibility
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With a lack of movement, your body can become stiff and achy. A moving yoga practice will keep you flexible and agile. Some postures help to stretch tight muscles. Your back and hamstrings are typical areas that hold tension. That chronic tightness can result in poor posture and limited range of motion, too. When you practice poses like Seated Forward Fold, for example, you regain flexibility thereby improving your posture.
Seated forward fold yoga pose
Photo by Benn McGuinness on Unsplash
Seated Forward Fold is a basic posture but has great value. Start in a seated position with your legs straight out in front of you. Also, be sure that your spine is straight. Take a full breath in to extend your arms into the air. As you exhale, begin to hinge at the hips and fold forward over your legs. Take your time with this movement; allow for the initial stretch in your legs and back to occur. Hold for 10 to 20 breaths as the muscle tension begins to release. With greater flexibility, your physical mobilization will improve. You will look and feel younger, too.
Weight Loss
Photo by Bill Oxford on Unsplash
Along with a regimented diet or an awareness of your food intake, adding yoga exercises can help you lose or maintain your weight. A regular yoga practice (at least 3 times per week) can effectively keep your weight at an even level. Some styles of yoga can also help you lose a few pounds. For example, Hot Yoga or Power Vinyasa Yoga may help with your weight-loss journey.
The heat in a hot yoga class triggers your sweat response and can increase your heart rate as you move through the practice. The movement and heat will help you burn calories. The same can go for a Power Vinyasa class. In this setting, you are in constant motion with deep breathing. The combination assists with fat burning mechanisms in your body. Adding these styles of yoga to your exercise routine will contribute to your younger-looking body.
Breathing
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This may not be the most obvious action to help you look younger, but in yoga, breathing is foundational. In yoga, breathing exercises are called Pranayama. There are many breathwork routines with a specific focus. Generally, breathing helps with blood and oxygen flow throughout the body. When your organs, bones, muscles, and skin are well oxygenated, it makes your muscle tone more supple and your skin radiant. If you add yoga to your exercise routine, be sure to also add Pranayama as special yoga exercises and practice.
Meditation
Photo by Benjamin Child on Unsplash
Various forms of meditation can assist in making you feel more relaxed. Anxiety is a common experience for people. Chronic stress can make you lose sleep at night, produce wrinkles under your eyes, and an overall heaviness in your body. It is important to add some type of relaxation exercise to your daily routines so that you can reduce and eliminate stress.
Guided meditation, breathwork, and other forms of relaxation all contribute to you looking and feeling better and younger. Sitting or lying down in stillness while listening to relaxing music, for example, is one form of meditation. Listening to a pre-recorded guided meditation is an accessible way to start your meditative journey. You will find that if you ease your mind and body with yoga meditation, you will be able to sleep better, feel more energized, and exude lightness and youthfulness in your being that makes you look younger.
So, if you’re wanting to look younger, try these yoga exercises. Monitor your progress and see the astounding results.
This article contains affiliate links, I will make a commission when you buy from it. | https://medium.com/@abassscheikh/yoga-exercises-can-make-you-look-younger-in-simple-steps-625ab5baff73 | ['Abass Vadel'] | 2020-12-27 21:36:57.946000+00:00 | ['Yoga For Weight Loss', 'Yoga Exercises', 'Yoga For Beginners', 'Beauty', 'Age'] |
Online Brand Protection for Start-Ups | I also write about IP matters Pointer Brand Protection
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Whether you’re a new tech start-up with patents to protect, or a fledgling fashion house that needs to safeguard its brand new logo, considering how you can defend your intellectual property rights against counterfeits should be a central part of your business plan. Although there are numerous different kinds of IP rights that may apply to your new business (from copyright to trade secrets), taking advice on future protection is crucial.
For many new businesses, however, especially those with an eye on the global market, one of the biggest problems may not be whether you own a substantial portfolio of IP rights, or how many online listings for fake products you have, the problem may well be closer to home…(HINT: it’s you!)
Counterfeiting is a reality of modern business, and most brands who achieve a modicum of success will face it at some time. That’s why the defence of your intellectual property rights should be factored in to your new business plan from the start. If you plan to succeed then you should also plan for defending your success and its inevitable piracy. After all, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
Don’t let your defences be something you only consider once the horse has bolted and the marketplaces are full of fakes — strategize for success ahead of the game.
A soapy example
Ollie and Stan start a company producing a brand new kind of soap with radical anti-bacterial properties. They aren’t too imaginative so they simply call it “BactiSoap”. As they are concentrating on the USA as their biggest possible sales region, they take out a single trademark for that area. The short -term gain for them is that they save some money on the initial outlay and a US trademark is quicker than some of the other countries around the world.
They work hard, and, in time, the product is on the wishlist of consumers across the world. The product is flying off the shelves, leading to a slew of new products from rivals and in-house (cheaper) own brands. As BactiSoap is only protected in the USA, manufacturers across the world are free to market similar sounding soaps based on the market-leading success of the originators.
Less than a year after the product’s launch the market is already flooded with low-quality imitations that drastically affect consumer perceptions of the idea. Everything the original founders had created is ruined. While initial sales in the USA had been strong they have now reduced dramatically, and when the company look to sell abroad they find that a rival company have already taken out IP protection on both the idea and the trademark.
What could they have done?
Many brands suffer from this kind of poor IP planning, resulting in damages to their own success. There are steps a new business can take to account for these possibilities, however, and they begin at the very start of the business planning stage.
Steps to take
· Intellectual property considerations should be made from the very beginning. As with the registering of a business address or a payroll system, IP rights are integral to growth. These registrations don’t have to be prohibitively expensive (even just a company name or key product range), but taking steps to protect your ideas should be crucial.
· Plan for success and for future expansion. What are the company’s ultimate sales goals? Be conscious that IP is protected by a system that takes account of differences across countries and the kind of products produced. If you believe that you may want to sell in additional markets and with other products in the future then starting the registration process earlier rather than later is worthwhile.
· Consider how the sales landscape is changing as your company grows. Your sales accounts will be a key indicator in how the market for your brand is changing globally. If sales are dropping off in a particular country with no apparent reason then it’s worth looking in to whether rival products have usurped your success.
· Rather than reacting to every single instance of counterfeit behaviour, use your time and budget effectively to target those places and platforms that are really causing you the biggest damage in terms of your sales figures or brand reputation.
Disclaimer: ALWAYS TAKE LEGAL ADVICE ON TRADE MARKS | https://medium.com/@drstephentconnolly/brand-protection-strategies-for-start-up-businesses-6d5f99b32782 | ['Stephen Connolly'] | 2019-06-17 07:58:08.506000+00:00 | ['Brands', 'Brand Protection', 'Startup', 'Counterfeiting', 'Intellectual Property'] |
Making sense of post-truth politics | “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act”
— George Orwell, 1949
Of the many things which the UK’s departure from the European Union has revealed, perhaps one of the most remarkable is the post-truth political culture which it has legitimized. The UK’s current administration, led by Boris Johnson, is like none which have went before in the country. Largely, this stems from their remarkable lack of commitment to the truth and blatant disregard for consistency or transparency in their decision-making. Be it the Prime Minister’s call for a general election just weeks after ‘categorically’ ruling it out, the paradoxical remarks which spearheaded his leadership campaign or his unlawful suspension of Parliament, Johnson has constructed a government that is ruthlessly dishonest and deceptive to its very core.
But what does this notion of post-truth politics really mean? How has it become so inherent within the very nature of modern day politics and to what degree has it seeped its way in every day society? Looking back to the philosophical teaching of Michel Foucault, one of the 20th century’s great thinkers on power and truth, this article digs a little deeper into the topic, debating how we can maintain sanity in a world seemingly beyond truth and accountability. Primarily, it is important to consider how UK politics has arrived at this current epoch of post-truth.
Post-truth and UK politics
It is fair to say that it wasn’t always like this in Westminster. While not ignoring the ruthlessness of Margaret Thatcher, it was at least clear in regards to the intentions of her conservative government. She was, of course, a Hayekian, who primarily fought for the interests of the bourgeoisie. Her ideology was embedded into each and every decision, with her stand offs against coal miners and hunger strikers as two of many examples, meaning there was little ambiguity during her premiership. A similar synopsis could be given to Tony Blair, who largely governed as he had presented himself in opposition. While the build up to the Iraq War will be remembered as a cauldron of fake news and lies, which most certainly played its part in shaping the crisis of trust we witness in today, it was, predominantly, localized in one policy area. It was clearly in pursuit of a set objective; of which we were all well aware.
David Cameron’s time in office is, perhaps, where the rot was really seen to set in. While he started out promoting himself as a kind and caring environmentalist, he ended up annihilating the country’s public services and did little to seriously tackle the rising effects of climate change. Ultimately, he was at once everything and, very soon after, nothing. Perhaps, this is why the term Cameronism is yet to receive much definition. Following his convenient resignation the morning after the Brexit vote, Theresa May campaigned her way to become Conservative leader and set out to deliver a strong and stable UK, free from the supposed shackles of the EU.
In reality, her government did little to turn the tide. Admittedly, every decision that was made came under the shadow of Brexit. This proceeded to make every societal problem immeasurably more challenging to manage. Ultimately, May was faced with an impossible task. Concerns and the potential implications of a post-Brexit Britain were swept under the carpet and denied for as long as possible, in the singular hope that a deal could be passed through parliament. As we know, such a scenario never arose. But despite her administration’s massive flaws, there was at least the reassurance that we knew what she was trying to do. At the same time, we also knew she was inherently doomed.
Johnson is several steps beyond that, however. He is completely off the scale. His government is like the proverbial bull in a China shop. Their rationalized narratives of ‘do or die Brexit’, ‘the people versus parliament’ and the ‘surrender bill’ are deeply problematic, with many commentators showing concern at their potential to incite violence. Added to this, there remains great volatility in their discourse, with many statements contradicting previously clarifications. Ultimately, the last few months have shown us how the current government is post-truth in its purest, most uninhibited and unadulterated form. Their decisions have been characterized by a relativist standpoint that devalues the truth claims of their political opposition and mainstream media.
All ‘truths’ are merely expressions of ulterior interests, in the eyes of Johnson. This devaluation of truth is held to undermine the democratic public sphere. It is so obvious, however, that we have quickly become cognizant of the government’s mistreatment of truth. In turn, we have been conditioned to give up on the idea that Johnson could ever tell the truth. Accordingly, the basic notion of any objective truth in the manner government is conducted is lost; a process which helps the powerful more than anyone else. If there is no empirical basis to assess government behaviour, it cannot be held to account.
While trust levels between politicians and society were already low prior to Brexit, this era of incessant lying and unaccountability will leave them almost entirely corroded. But what does this era of post-truth politics really tell us about the exercise of government power in contemporary times? Is this an entirely new scenario or simply a reincarnation of previously exercised arrangements? By considering philosophical interpretations of the relationship between power, knowledge and truth, perhaps such questions can be answered.
Translating the teachings of Foucault
French philosopher Michel Foucault is regarded as one of the great political thinkers of the twentieth century. In particular, his evaluations of the changing nature of power overtime have received significant attention. Responding to assertions that power is solely a constraining force exercised by sovereign arrangements, Foucault’s argued that power must also be understood as a productive force which exists within all social relations. The creation of truth, Foucault suggested, is an example of this. In this sense, truth is not above or beyond power. Rather, it is inextricably linked to and reliant upon power.
There cannot be any body of true knowledge which is not supported by powerful arrangements, nor sources of power which aren’t in some way built upon particular truths. Power legitimizes what we understand as the truth as a way of serving particular interest, suppressing alternative interpretations in the process. In turn, specific truths shape social behaviour, the development of societal norms and even our ideological understandings of what is right, wrong, good or bad. So, while Foucault did not directly discuss the notion of a time where society could be beyond truth, his work emphasised how the development of truth is inherently reliant upon power. Truth is constructed to serve the interests of the powerful, meaning what is authenticated as true knowledge at one point in time may be understood very differently at other times. Foucault’s analysis of the manner in which discourses on homosexuality, disciplinary power and sanity have changed overtime are testament to this.
Foucault at a demonstration in the wake of the killing of Mohamed Diab by police in 1972 (Robbins, 2017)
Ultimately, Foucault’s account of the relationship between truth and democracy suggests that the post-truth era which we inhabit is both less novel and less dramatic than it might appear. This is why we must not only be wary about truth denialism as a threat to democracy but also attentive to the way we venture to resist it. As the academic Sergei Prozorov has discussed, “we can never overcome contemporary post-truth cynicism and relativism by restoring the authority of truth, since this authority is made possible by the very same constellation that keeps undermining it. While post-truth politics denies the existence of truth, a hypothetical truth politics would deny its contingency.”
Therefore, there is a distinct advantage of following the work of Foucault when debating the topic of post-truth. Namely, that it is possible to affirm both paradoxical perspectives at once: “there exist discourses of truth that can always be questioned not as to their being or to their veracity, but as to their necessity.” It is only when truths are supported by powerful relations and recognized as existent that they can be contested as non-necessary. Thus, allowing other truths to take their place in a similarly contingent manner.
Maintaining sanity in a post-truth world
To conclude, the lesson of Foucault’s political history is that truth is neither said in vain nor uttered once and for all. This is an important addition to contemporary discussions on post-truth politics. It shows us that we do not necessarily find ourselves in a new political phenomenon. The role of truth in society will always be dependent upon power, and vise-versa, meaning that alternative arrangements will continuously arise and reconfigure themselves. While it is a worrying thought that the highest level of decision-making in the UK appears to no longer be held accountable to truth, this should not discourage us from calling out or challenging lies and corruption. As Foucault demonstrates, we should neither dispense with truth nor hide behind its supposed authority. We must remain cognizant of post-truth politics, therefore, and consider what its use is revealing about the future intentions of a government. | https://ben-mcateer.medium.com/making-sense-of-post-truth-politics-236d19b05d1d | ['Ben Mcateer'] | 2019-09-30 12:33:04.180000+00:00 | ['UK Politics', 'Brexit', 'Politics', 'Philosophy', 'Fake News'] |
Is Eco-anxiety the Future of Our Mental Health? | Is Eco-anxiety the Future of Our Mental Health?
If we don’t act immediately, yes, it will be.
Photo by Fernando @cferdo on Unsplash
What is the first thing that comes into your mind when you hear the words “climate change”?
Now, think about the second thing that comes into your mind.
And now the third.
Did any of your thoughts include its impacts on our mental health? And if so, was that your first, second, or third thought? When we think about climate change, we tend to overlook the importance of its psychological consequences.
“Imagine you go outside and you look up in the sky, and there is a comet there. And… you just have been told by scientists that that comet is racing toward the Earth and it’s going to kill everybody and everything in a big fiery storm, [but] nobody notices the comet. And you say, “Hey look, there is a comet and it’s going to kill all of us”, and people don’t seem to care.”
In 2017, the American Psychological Association (APA) co-published a report, which focuses on the impacts of climate change on mental health. Just reading the introductory note, you can understand the importance of future related implications. As it is mentioned, depression, stress, social and community tension, aggression, violence, and crime are all associated consequences. The report also touches on eco-anxiety, which is termed in its glossary as “a chronic fear of environmental doom”. [1]
Searching further, other definitions of eco-anxiety — or climate change anxiety — describe it as an existential fear, as it is mentioned, for example, by Dr. Steffi Bednarek, Psychotherapist, in this video made by BBC Northern Ireland. Dr. Bednarek also describes it as “an anxiety about the future and a trauma that we have not experienced yet, but that we know is going to come our way.” She says that although climate change anxiety is a relatively new term, it’s not new as a phenomenon. [2]
What makes you understand better the feeling of eco-anxiety are the descriptions that sufferers give in BBC’s video.
“When big ecological disasters happen around the world, I feel a sense of anxiety, I feel a sense of sadness and a sense of loss,” says one. Another sufferer explains his eco-anxiety in a hypothetical context saying, “Imagine you go outside and you look up in the sky, and there is a comet there. And…you just have been told by scientists that that comet is racing toward the Earth and it’s going to kill everybody and everything in a big fiery storm, [but] nobody notices the comet. And you say, “Hey look, there is a comet and it’s going to kill all of us” and people don’t seem to care.”
But what exactly triggers eco-anxiety? In the video, the people who talk about their experience also refer to thoughts that make them feel eco-anxious.
For instance, one of them says that when he thinks about the fact that other parts of the world are more severely impacted by climate change, that triggers his anxiety. One of the other interviewees mentions “the fear of people mistreating each other out of panic and fear” as one of his most stressful thoughts. Getting emotional, anger, powerlessness, frustration, and helplessness are feelings that the third interviewee in the video says she experiences due to thoughts related to climate change.
What those people have in common is that they care about the environment and its protection; they care so much that the state of their mental health is seriously affected.
So, what we’ll happen in the future if we don’t act sufficiently and on time at the present? Will everybody — whether they care or not about climate change now— suffer from eco-anxiety?
In countries such as Bangladesh that have already been severely affected by climate change, it seems that the immediate impacts of the phenomenon on mental health are already noticeable. For example, this is evident through the work of Psychologist Amanda Carrico, Ph.D. Carrico, as it is mentioned in this article on APA’s website, was told by a family in rural Bangladesh that they anguished over migrating to India to find work, after the productivity of their farmland was negatively impacted by climate change. [3]
As you can understand, or even have experienced yourself, agonizing over leaving your country and moving to one characterized as an “increasingly hostile to immigrants” is a mentally straining situation to be. This, among other things, proves how climate change can affect adversely one’s mental health.
Thus, thinking about possible scenarios and taking into consideration how climate change already affects many people psychologically, it seems that the most likely answer to the questions stated previously is this: Our future and that of generations to come will be impacted by eco-anxiety, severely.
If substantial action is not taken now, everything at some point will get worse. Then, we will all feel eco-anxious, because it won’t longer have to do with mere thoughts about events happening “somewhere else”, but with experiences related to events happening in the cities we all live in.
References: | https://medium.com/climate-conscious/is-eco-anxiety-the-future-of-our-mental-health-b2ed8b071597 | ['Athina Kontolati'] | 2020-12-07 15:42:54.963000+00:00 | ['Environmental Issues', 'Climate Change', 'Environment', 'Future', 'Psychology'] |
In Limbo Again | Love reading haiku? Then knock yourself out! Go read a few:
Want to be the first to pick up what I’m putting down? Click this link to slip inside my inner circle for updates on new articles, stories, poems, and anything else I’ve got goin’ on. | https://medium.com/house-of-haiku/in-limbo-again-e87eca444e66 | ['Jj West'] | 2020-12-11 23:45:36.138000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Haiku', 'Love', 'Health', 'Relationships'] |
Wyze Labs shakes up home security with an inexpensive pro service for 2021 | Wyze Labs shakes up home security with an inexpensive pro service for 2021 Amber Dec 24, 2020·3 min read
Wyze Labs is shaking up yet another market with an incredibly inexpensive product and service offering. The company is taking preorders on a home security system with professional monitoring for just $60 per year that will be delivered in March 2021—and buyers will get the basic starter kit for free.
Customers who don’t want to commit to a full year of service will be given the option to pay $60 for the starter kit and $5 per month for the service. Either way, the monitoring service—which will be provided by a third party, Noonlight—will cost exactly half what Ring charges customers who opt in to monitoring for its Ring Alarm product line. And a similar Ring Alarm starter kit costs $200 (although they’re currently on sale for less).
Wyze Labs Users will arm and disarm the system using either the Wyze app or this keypad.
Mentioned in this article Wyze Cam v3 Read TechHive's review$19.99MSRP $19.99See iton Wyze Labs A Noonlight dispatcher will be notified when the system goes into an alarm state, and the dispatcher will attempt to contact the subscriber and coordinate help from first responders (police, fire, or ambulance) if there’s an emergency, including routing information to the appropriate 911 call center. If the subscriber can’t be reached, Noonlight will automatically summon an emergency response to the subscriber’s home.
The Wyze Home Monitoring Core Starter Kit will include a Wyze Sense V2 hub (the brains of the system and the bridge to your home network), a Wyze Sense keypad (for arming/disarming the system), two Wyze Sense V2 entry sensors (for doors or windows), and a Wyze Sense V2 motion sensor. The hub will operate on AC power with a battery backup good for about 10 hours. It will connect to your home network via ethernet or 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (2.4GHz only), though it also supports Bluetooth 4.1 and Bluetooth Low Energy 5.1.
[ Further reading: The best smart home systems ]The system can be armed and disarmed from the keypad or via the Wyze app on a mobile device. The system will have Home and Away monitoring modes, so that the motion sensor won’t trigger an alarm while you’re home. The hub will have an 82dB siren onboard, which doesn’t strike us as very loud (the Ring Alarm siren puts out 105dB, and even that isn’t as loud as you might want). Perhaps more importantly, the Wyze hub doesn’t have an LTE radio onboard, so there’s no failover in case your broadband connection goes down (seasoned burglars know to cut your telephone and/or cable lines before breaking in).
Wyze Labs The Wyze Labs Home Monitoring System Hub has a battery backup, but there’s no LTE radio onboard for broadband backup.
The hub communicates with Wyze’s new sensors using unlicensed radio spectrum at 915MHz, which should provide excellent range (Wyze claims 500 feet for the keypad and sensors).
Mentioned in this article Ring Alarm Read TechHive's reviewMSRP $199.00See it Those outboard sensors can be configured to trigger cameras to begin recording video, but the motion sensors on the cameras cannot trigger an alarm state (a Wyze spokesperson said such a feature might be added down the road). Subscribers will receive one license for Wyze’s Cam Plus service, which brings AI notifications such as person detection along with event recordings of unlimited length on Wyze cameras. Additional licenses will be made available to subscribers at a discount.
Users will also be able to integrate other Wyze products—including its inexpensive smart bulb—into the Home Monitoring System, so that the system’s sensors will be able to trigger the bulb to turn on. And IFTTT users will be able to tie the Wyze system together with devices and systems from other vendors that also support IFTTT. Wyze says it intends to expand the system with water leak sensors (to mitigate water damage) and temperature sensors (to help avoid frozen pipes).
You’ll find more information about Wyze Home Monitoring Service at Wyze Labs’ website. We’re looking forward to getting a system in for an in-depth evaluation. Stay tuned.
Updated shortly after publication to clarify how the sensors on Wyze cameras interact with the system.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@amber07064554/wyze-labs-shakes-up-home-security-with-an-inexpensive-pro-service-for-2021-816178ee3af5 | [] | 2020-12-24 18:55:17.837000+00:00 | ['Home Tech', 'Cord'] |
Bansos untuk Rakyat, Kemana? | in In Bitcoin We Trust | https://medium.com/@faithfulmuslimah/bansos-untuk-rakyat-kemana-30f72883f196 | ['Faithful Muslimah'] | 2020-12-24 04:25:40.493000+00:00 | ['Pandemi', 'Indonesia', 'Korupsi', 'Bansos', 'Islam'] |
Advanced React (anti)patterns | OK, so here’s the problem… Let’s say we want to break our control flow at some point. Application will ask user to execute some action and the flow can be resumed only after that. The most simple example would be opening a modal dialog where user has to select one of multiple predefined choices. Something like this…
Standard “react” approach to this would be to create two callbacks. First for the button, which will set the state and thus open the modal. Second for the modal where we finally have access to the value. Here is a code example.
What’s wrong with it?, you might ask…
Honestly, nothing, it’s pretty straightforward. This is the react way. A declarative state machine. Nevertheless, what often bothers me in situations like this is the interruption of control flow. In more complicated scenarios with multiple asynchronous user actions, I end up jumping from one callback to another. I wish I could encapsulate that user action, wait for it to be done and then resume the flow. As it turns out, I can. Is it more imperative? I guess. Is it awesome? Definitely! | https://medium.com/front-end-weekly/advanced-react-anti-patterns-a644c55437fe | ['Jakub Šoltés'] | 2019-11-20 14:35:23.184000+00:00 | ['React', 'JavaScript', 'Asynchronous', 'React Hook', 'Callback'] |
Our Story | The story of Mia Health Technologies begins in my garage. It’s not because we were looking to try recreate an Apple or Microsoft story (perhaps, just their results); but because that’s where I could work on my motorbike and our business plan simultaneously. It was personal investment research project which dropped this dental additive manufacturing (3D printing) process in my lap and with the help of my best friends we began to align the benefits of additive manufacturing (3D printing) with the health care needs of our country.
Our eyes were opened to the simplicity that this modern technology and what it can bring to health care through our learning about clear aligners. Clear aligners are an orthodontic treatment that can, depending on the individual patient, be an alternative to braces with almost none of the traditional drawbacks. Clear aligners are made from strong, thin and most importantly, clear plastic that fits exactly over your personal dentition. Using intra-oral 3D scans, the aligners are tailor made to each patient’s needs. They come in sets of 10, 15, 20 or however many that particular treatment plan requires; making slight adjustments with each new set worn by the patient. In doing so, they move the teeth to the desired position to perfect your beautiful smile.
This innovation captivated our imagination for the possible adaptations of this technology for the South African market, where traditional orthodontic and dental treatments are not only unaffordable, but also inaccessible to many of our people. With the help of 3D Complete (New Zealand) and Photocentric (United Kingdom); we began to formulate our plan utilising the benefits of 3D printing and the cost savings of a local manufacturing process to bring quality and affordable treatments to the South African people. Cape Town is the tech hub of South Africa, so we thought it fitting that we set up our state of the art 3D printing facility right in the heart of the city. This will serve as our base of operations for the entire country and beyond. Our overseas partners have played an invaluable role in the establishment of our operations but the South African market is very different from the ones they work in.
We had to ensure that while we are offering an affordable treatment solution, we also make our services accessible, appropriate and holistic. To ensure all patients are able to access our servicers our medical practice has moved from a building onto your smart phone. Working closely with the Black Box (South Africa) development team we are in the process of programming a digital interface between our patients and the services we provide. Patients will not only be able to request the services of our mobile clinics directly to the comfort of their homes, offices or schools but also interact with our health care professionals and monitor their treatments. This will not only make our treatment accessible to all South Africans, but will also ensure we are able to offer treatments or solutions to all of our patients’ oral health needs.
While the promise of a beautiful smile is enticing to many, the aligner treatment is actually the last step in the holistic approach to good oral health. Our services needed to ensure that all oral health matters could be assessed and treated before aesthetic work could begin. Our Mobile clinics, responsible for the intra-oral 3D scanning, holistic oral health needs of the patients and follow up of the aligner treatments, will be run by our two dentists Dr Karishma Soni (Co-founder) and Dr Chandni Vala. We know that not every patient will have perfect dental health at the start of the treatment but our team is ready to sort out any problems. The mobile clinics are equipped to handle cleanings and simple resto cases, for example filling cavities. If more extensive work is required, where it is not suitable to have such a procedure done on the move, our dentists with the supervision of Dr Barry Beillinsohn will be able to treat patients from the Dental Studio in Sea Point, a fully equipped surgery just waiting to get the patients ready for their new smiles!
It is also important to note that the case selection and treatment planning is of the utmost importance. To ensure that our treatments are held to the highest standards we have teamed up with a Harvard trained orthodontist who has over 25 years of experience; Dr Andre de Villiers will oversee not only the case selection but also the treatment planning itself. In instances where the patient is not a good candidate for clear aligners we can then refer onto to Dr de Villiers who will be able to provide more specialist orthodontic care.
Our main focus at the moment is on our mobile dental clinics and clear aligner treatments however this is only the beginning; once we have perfected our model we will start establishing a comprehensive additive manufacturing service aimed at all sectors of the healthcare industry. So whether patients need a new smile or a custom metal 3D printed hip replacement we’ll be able to service their needs.
Watch this space! | https://medium.com/mia-health-technologies/our-story-6f75da00767f | ['Zane Stenning'] | 2021-11-24 22:41:16.878000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Africa', '3D Printing', 'Clear Aligner', 'Dental'] |
My Little Patch of Sky (part 2) | Dealing with the loss of my father both closed me down and opened me up. A lot of my poetry in Sky Collection became about that experience. It was a way for me to grieve, I suppose. Growing up, I was always losing my dad. This year was just the final loss. Ambiguous grief has been difficult throughout my life. It is a sense of always waiting for the next trauma to happen.
Ambiguous grief/anxiety took on a whole new meaning this year because of COVID-19, and that anxiety is far from over. I still feel like I am waiting. Waiting to be with people I love. Waiting to go somewhere. Waiting to feel safe enough again. Waiting to get my son into more stuff again. Waiting for things to go “back to normal.” I want to stop waiting and just be. So if I had to make any new year’s resolutions, that would be it.
My ritual with the new year is not to resolve to stop doing something. Instead, I decide what no longer serves me, and slowly or all at once, I let it go. Sometimes I write those things down and burn the paper. Then I decide what to keep with me for the next year. So into 2021, I will bring a new sense of healing, a wonderful writers’ community, a powerful and beautiful writing practice, strength to be a teacher in-person or remotely, stamina to wear a mask all day, every day.
Looking back at what I accomplished this year in my writing: I wrote a total of 115 poems in my Sky Collection project and hundreds more poems and stories in my notebooks and elsewhere on Medium. I opened up my publication Sky Collection to dozens of more writers. I created a writing- prompts practice, which inspired many people to create a diversity of responses.
Most of all, I am proud that I published my first poetry collection, Reaching Marrakesh, which is a book I think I have always been writing about losing my dad.
So even though I am finished with last year’s Sky Collection Project, I will also take into the new year my practice of stopping and taking in the sky. It is always important to take sacred pauses — to look up at the sky and notice there is so much more to our universe. To my little patch of sky, thank you for continuing to fill me with wonder and joy.
Happy New Year, dear readers! | https://medium.com/sky-collection/my-little-patch-of-sky-part-2-9a307e245275 | ['Samantha Lazar'] | 2020-12-22 18:16:16.120000+00:00 | ['New Year', 'Writing', 'Healing', 'New Year Resolution', 'Poetry'] |
2018 was an amazing year for clean energy | The biggest clean energy news of 2018
As we look back on 2018, the transition to clean energy made tremendous progress but it wasn’t without a handful of disheartening developments as well. Here are a few of the most noteworthy events of 2018.
SOLAR AND WIND BROKE RECORDS ACROSS THE WORLD
In 2018, global solar and wind installations reached one terawatt — that’s 1,000 gigawatts of capacity. A Texas utility signed a record shattering deal to buy solar for 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour (the average price of retail electricity in the US is 12 cents). According to banking firm Lazard, the price of solar has dropped so low it is now cheaper to build a brand new solar plant than it is to continue operating an existing coal plant.
COAL CONTINUED ITS DEMISE
Speaking of coal, despite the political efforts to restart the industry, 15.4 GW of coal plants were shut down or retired in 2018. The EIA says that coal consumption in 2018 will hit a 39-year low. Coal-generated electricity has dropped to just over half its peak in 2007.
SOLAR TARIFFS STUNG BUT DIDN’T WOUND THE US MARKET
On February 7, 2018, the US announced a 30% tariff on foreign-made solar cells and panels. The SEIA, a solar industry association, estimates installations only ended up falling about 9% over the previous year — much smaller than had been feared. Even more surprising were announcements of new US-based solar manufacturing. While Suniva, the US company that initially filed the trade complaint, remains shuttered, the other large manufacturer, SolarWorld, was acquired and has resumed operations. Additionally, several new manufacturing facilities are being built including LG in Alabama, Hanwha in Georgia, and Jinko in Florida.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES TOOK OFF
2018 US sales of electric vehicles grew more than 50% from 2017, hitting a cumulative 1 million EVs in the country. A lot of the gains in 2018 were the result of the explosive growth of Tesla’s Model 3. In fact, Tesla outsold Mercedes in Q3 and became the best selling luxury car in the US. 2018 is also looking like it will be “peak-ICE”, the last year of growth for internal combustion engine automobiles. Going forward the market for traditional gasoline cars is likely to only shrink (Financial Times, subscription required)
BATTERIES GOT SERIOUS
The world’s largest battery, based in Australia, is proving so successful at helping balance the local grid, it is on track to pay off a third of its installation costs in its first year of operation. With virtually no support from the government or utilities, Puerto Ricans built 10,000 new solar and battery systems in one year, nearly doubling the number already in place. Germany reached 100,000 installed residential batteries.
New companies with incredible new battery technologies made big news in 2018. NantEnergy has commercialized a safer, cheaper battery based on Zinc Air chemistry and is quickly approaching a price point so low that batteries become economically competitive everywhere. Another groundbreaking technology, solid state batteries, are the Holy Grail of storage, promising lighter, safer, and much longer lasting solutions. Ionic Materials and Solid Power both made news with big fundings and major progress.
Freeing Energy in 2018
Freeing Energy is a collection of people and media projects with the mission of accelerating the shift to clean energy and inspiring non-energy professionals to get involved in the industry. The effort is led by tech CEO, Bill Nussey and includes a website, a TED talk, and a podcast series (launching shortly).
2018 was a momentous year for the Freeing Energy team. We launched a highly successful facebook site that now has more than 100,000 followers. We started publishing monthly overviews of the clean energy industry’s biggest news items. Bill gave several speeches and was interviewed for the Suncast podcast series. We produced our first set of podcasts that will debut in early 2019.
Most importantly, we published over 50 articles, which attracted more than 120,000 views. The seven most widely viewed articles were:
Bill’s favorite articles were the “History of the Grid” series and his story of climbing a wind turbine, I learned the most important thing about wind power from climbing a turbine.
Wishing you a very clean and cost competitive 2019!
2019 promises to be another amazing year for clean energy. Prices of solar, wind, batteries, and electric vehicles will continue their relentless cost declines. Clean energy policies, finance, and regulations across the world will get smarter and more effective. There will be more record breaking low priced contracts as well as dozens of head-turning pilot projects that pave the way for the accelerating adoption of clean energy.
Happy New Year to everyone! | https://medium.com/@billnussey/the-biggest-clean-energy-trends-of-2018-143fedca802b | ['Bill Nussey'] | 2019-01-05 18:44:24.526000+00:00 | ['Renewable Energy', 'Electric Vehicles', 'Battery', 'Clean Energy', 'Solar Energy'] |
You Can’t Have a Strategy Without Priorities | Photo: Sanitation workers strike supporters marching in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, March 28, 1970
This piece was originally published in The Organizer.
Both Collective Power Network (CPN) and Bread & Roses Caucus (B&R) have presented labor resolutions for the 2019 DSA convention, Resolution 3 and Resolution 32 respectively. Both of these proposals demonstrate divergent approaches to how labor power can be built upon and grown to carry us forward into the next exciting stage of struggle. But how do these proposals relate to our work in the labor movement? How politically do they differ? And what specific goals make these proposals not just ideas or tactics, but a strategy?
It’s important to keep in mind the context of what exactly we will be deciding in Atlanta. Specifically, the convention has authority over the Democratic Socialist Labor Commission (DSLC), the body that connects Locals and national around labor work and pursues a range of national goals set by the convention.
The CPN proposal directs the DSLC to meet a set of very specific objectives. First, we propose that the DSLC “focus its activity on supporting the development of chapter-level labor formations made up of workers, regardless of the unionization status of their workplace.” In the tradition of the best methods of socialists in labor historically, our proposal is geared toward building the power of Locals to carry out and direct this work based on local conditions and by building its organizing capacity among all of its worker-members. Alternatively, B&R proposes that the DSLC should “focus on pursuing the rank and file strategy” as its core objective. But what does B&R mean when they say they want to “focus on the rank and file strategy”?
In a recent article in the Call, Barry Eidlin attempts to flesh out the rank-and-file strategy (RFS) and relate it to the broader desire among socialists for new labor organizing. However it’s apparent early on in his piece that Eidlin finds it difficult to relate B&R’s proposal to this broader goal, and ultimately he finds no direct way to carry out this work while holding fast the tenets of the RFS. Indeed, we are meant to believe that no such direct route for socialist and new organizing even exists.
Eidlin’s case for RFS suffers generally from failing to commit to a clear definition for what exactly the rank-and-file strategy is intended to mean. While he claims the aim is to “build the link between the Left and the working class, with the specific goal of identifying, developing, and expanding the layer of workplace leaders who are primed to fight the boss” — a valid if broad goal to be sure — Eidlin’s piece can’t seem to commit to whether this means just within the “small minority of already-union workers,” as he asserts in some places, or if this means workers in all workplaces everywhere generally.
Bread & Roses seems to be grappling with the apparent tension between the RFS and the obvious need for new organizing. Eidlin attempts to resolve this tension in a few ways. Moving the goalposts, Eidlin tries to re-frame the RFS’s focus on internal union work as itself somehow also organizing the unorganized. When discussing the recent teachers strike wave he states that “these efforts were all instances of organizing the unorganized, since most existing union members in these cities and states were not meaningfully participating in their unions before these reform campaigns and strikes. There’s a difference between being unionized and being organized.”
On this last point we would absolutely agree. There is a difference between the two, and we believe DSA’s focus should be on the latter. Instead of limiting our work to one approach by supporting just a handful of members in a handful of trades, CPN’s proposal instead focuses the DSLC on a set of precise goals that will go the furthest to build the power of Locals everywhere to engage in our critical task of building labor broadly.
This method, while focused in terms of how the DSLC’s work should look, lets Locals set the tone of how they balance their work inside and outside unions. CPN makes no claim that we can predict beforehand what approaches and tactics will be effective in every case. What we do assert however is that our work requires clear goals set for both the national and Locals that can allow us to flesh out these questions, adapting our approach over time, and engaging across regions so that a clearer overall orientation to these complex questions can be built, always on the basis of concrete work and experiences.
By contrast, based on Eidlin’s description of what RFS has looked like historically, the B&R proposal sees these complex questions as only too simple. According to Eidlin RFS means “getting rank and file jobs in unionized workplaces, forming and joining reform caucuses to win leadership in and transform existing unions, and building rank and file cross-union education and organizing networks such as Labor Notes.” The payoff to this approach for Eidlin is the possibility of electing reform leaders who in the past “have created openings for union staff to help develop workplace leaders,” though Eidlin admits attempts at this approach historically “have yielded mixed results.”
If B&R believes Eidlin’s description is somehow an unfair summary of what their proposed “focus on pursuing the rank and file strategy” means, then it’s at best unclear how their approach could mean one thing in practice but would somehow mean something else if it were established as focus of the DSLC as their proposal would do.
Here both Eidlin and B&R begin to show how limited and out of touch their whole approach really is. When the RFS was first codified in 2000, the socialist left was a small, isolated, embattled network of small sects, operating exclusively in large urban centers and topping out at maybe a hundred members in total nationally. The might of the labor movement was still in the throes of a historic decline. Strikes were at a historic ebb, and socialists mostly encompassed small grouplets operating on the fringes of a progressive movement moving further and further away from them towards the center-right.
In this context the RFS makes a bit more sense, indeed it even begins to look more like a strategy. Since majoritarian politics were totally off the table, focusing instead on creating a “militant minority” became the more attractive option. With only 100 members in the entire country, it made sense to try and convince them to stop whatever they were doing to go become a teacher or a nurse. If it meant the life or death of your entire organization to try and secure even just one leadership seat in a single local union, such a laser-focus on the success of one tactic seems reasonable even.
But this is not the situation we are in today, not even close to it. Ignoring the titanic shifts of the last twenty years Bread & Roses points backwards; not to a time when the left was its strongest, its most dynamic, robust and diverse, but instead to when it was it’s most marginal, weakest, handcuffed and at the mercy of political currents it had no weight to affect. To superimpose the left of the 90s onto the DSA of today is like comparing a box fan to a hurricane.
But Eidlin’s piece reaffirms yet another article of faith of the RFS in the quite bold claim that any new organizing “will almost certainly emerge from already-existing [unions]”, to support his view that capturing the leadership of existing unions is a precondition for socialists to initiate any new organizing of any significance. To support this claim he cites a smattering of historical examples such as the Western Federation of Miners and the United Miners Union with no real attempt made to explain how these examples relate to the RFS or even each other.
But if we consider even a small measure of context for these periods we see that the titanic upsurge in union activity — namely in the first four decades of the 20th century — had very little to do with socialists somehow focusing strictly on parachuting into existing unions or by getting staff jobs. Indeed much the opposite. Organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and later the Communist Party, which inherited many of the best organizers of the IWW, developed their approach in the context of a labor landscape dominated by the narrow trade focus of organizations like the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
The Communist Party in particular developed a comprehensive approach to labor that stood in stark contrast to the AFL’s narrow focus, one that would embrace both the masses of workers in new but unorganized industries as well as maintain an orientation toward the existing movement within unions that both connected to the subjective task of building their ranks.
A contemporary perspective gives us a particularly meaningful insight into this approach. Alongside this article the Organizer is republishing “Party Industrial Methods and Structure” written in 1925 by William Z. Foster, then chairman of the Communist Party of America (CPA), which we feel adds important context to the period which Eidlin in his piece makes reference to but fails to develop in any meaningful way.
The period during which Party Industrial Methods and Structure was written marks the opening of one of the most successful times for socialists in labor. It was the era of the Trade Union Education League (TUEL), an organization to which specific reference was made in the resolution which founded the DSLC in 2017.
Here Foster lays out an approach which at its core focuses on the capacity of the organization itself to engage its members in shop organizing and anchor them to the living movement of workers. Though Foster wrote this piece at a time of isolation for the CPA, the methods he lays out ultimately helped propel a period of massive upsurge in both new organizing and strikes, which only now are we seeing the like of again.
Foster points to four distinct layers to the CPA approach to labor, all with both a clear strategic and organizational edge: the shop nuclei (or shop committee), the party labor fraction, the Trade Union Education League, and the progressive bloc. The first two represent internal approaches within the party itself, while the latter represent external formations that the party sought to interact with and operate within.
For the CPA the shop committee was the foundation of this approach. It comprised any group of party members within a workplace that would meet regularly to discuss workplace issues and actively relate those issues to agitation and organizing among their fellow workers. These committees could be based on the workplace, but for larger units would be broken up into departments, shifts, etc. They were not supposed to be big, but instead tightly focused on the issues directly facing workers they interacted with on the floor, and provided crucial space for members to decide how to organize around things their co-workers really cared about, irrespective of whether their workplace had a union or not.
The party labor fraction gave another level of structure and focus to the CPA’s work. This was simply a body of CPA members within a union local, a central labor council, a national union, etc. Similar to the shop committee, it offered a vehicle for socialists to coordinate their activity so that it worked toward common goals to raise issues commonly held among workers in their unions. Without this explicit organizational space it’s hard to see how socialists could have had any coherent approach to their work within unions in this period.
TUEL and the progressive bloc served similar but distinct functions. TUEL was a formal organization of left-wing trade unionists, separate from the party that was open to everyone, but heavily in the CPA’s political orbit. The progressive bloc was more conceptual, representing a broader wing within labor nationally that the CPA could operate within while avoiding the trap of divorcing their labor approach to movements on the left more broadly. As a political project TUEL ended up being very successful in pushing the labor movement toward its goal of breaking from the narrow trade focus of the AFL and toward what they called “amalgamation”, building off the IWW’s earlier vision of “one big union”.
The industrial methods CPA pursued hinged everything on making the CPA a real workers organization. All questions of strategy and approach rested on the precondition that their organization could become a vehicle for workers themselves to organize and to translate the issues they were facing into a real political program of action. From that starting point, larger questions (such as union caucuses, broad left labor formations, and internal blocs contesting leadership) would be considered not as theoretical concepts in search of shortcuts and “militant minorities”, but on the basis of real credibility among their fellow workers built on the back of proven victories.
The CPA approach in this period was not perfect, and was of course grounded to the conditions of its time, and we should table any notion that the CPA should or could be replicated wholesale out of the mists of time. But of course no strategy is ever perfect, nor can any strategy allow us to dictate the context we work in. But that method or strategy is sound which gives an organization the widest range of motion, the greatest command over the field they’re operating on, and brings us always closer to workers themselves, always learning from and supporting their struggles, their hopes, their highest ambitions.
To be sure, Eidlin and B&R could come forward with any number of arguments where the RFS actually means something totally different to what they’ve argued in the Call, their proposal, and elsewhere. As we’ve already mentioned, for Eidlin and B&R the RFS can be generalized to such a degree as to really mean anywhere socialists are working to “build the link between the Left and the working class” when it suits the rhetorical needs of the moment. Organizing the unorganized can even become its opposite, since for B&R, “There’s a difference between being unionized and being organized,” making internal union work and organizing the unorganized, for them at least, one and the same.
But as hard as Eidlin and B&R may attempt, a strategy cannot be both one specific thing and at the same time also everything. A workable strategy, especially for an organization as large as DSA, has to be weighed in terms of its focus and trade-offs, the priorities and sacrifices it advocates as necessary to achieve its goals. In the final analysis this question comes down how we leverage our existing resources to marshal the sharpest point of attack in our war on capital. If a strategy can’t explain directly how it answers these very basic questions, in what respect can it be called a strategy?
While the B&R proposal lacks even these basic features, CPN proposes that DSA take an approach that gives focus to the national level role of the DSLC and accounts for flexibility and dynamism at the grassroots. It doesn’t close off Locals from carrying out an approach such as orienting heavily toward existing unions where they consider that work to be strategic.
Whereas the B&R proposal seeks to wed the DSLC to a strategy they’ve been unable to flesh out, the CPN proposal aims at setting the DSLC to the very specific tasks of member-worker education, building local labor networks, and getting its own house in order in a way that would anchor it to the work of the whole membership. But we are also sober that there would be trade-offs. The DSLC could no longer substitute itself to make up the deficit of local labor branches, and its work would be focused on building those local level networks as an essential precondition for socialist labor work of any real consistency; even when this investment would mean missing opportunities in the short term. But we believe it is exactly this clarity about priorities, focus, and trade-offs that make the CPN proposal the strongest and most comprehensive for strategy for socialist labor being brought to Atlanta.
But ultimately it will be up to the membership themselves to decide which approach will best serve their work in the coming years. Their choice will be between a DSLC that facilitates living connections between the organization and worker-members at large, or one that is simply informing members how they can participate in an already established plan. CPN looks forward to this debate, as it will be essential to the serious work to come. | https://medium.com/@rwmosgrove/you-cant-have-a-strategy-without-priorities-d3973da8b546 | ['Ryan Mosgrove'] | 2019-09-30 16:46:03.922000+00:00 | ['Dsa', 'Politics', 'Labor', 'Dsa Convention'] |
How to Learn Cybersecurity | Cybersecurity is a Journey
Let’s face it, cybersecurity can be really hard to learn. Not only is it broad and deep, but it consists of hundreds of different fields in technology and computing. I get a lot of questions asking: “what is the best course to take for learning cybersecurity?”. That’s a tough one to answer, because the real answer is: there is no course! Cybersecurity is a journey. It’s a field that is constantly changing where you’re always having to learn new technologies, tools, and methods to stay in the game. Everybody you ask is going to give you a different answer. And the reason for that is everyone’s journey in cybersecurity is different. It’s almost like asking a bunch of martial artists on how to fight. They will all give you very different answers and recommendations depending on where they came from and how they were trained. With that in mind, I’m going to show you some approaches you can use to overcome the challenge of learning cybersecurity, as well as the overall mindset you will need to maintain if you want to be successful on your own journey in the field.
Why Cybersecurity is So Hard to Learn
The number one reason why cybersecurity is hard to learn is because it consists of so many different fields each with their own unique stack of skills. Think of it this way: every component within each skill stack could be its own concept, tool, or even an entirely new field. A good example of this is network security. In network security, you may encounter IP tables, which let you set packet filtering roles in Linux, PCAPs, or packet captures, which are used to take static snapshots of data in motion, TCP or transmission control protocol which is used to segment data into conversations between devices, BGP or border gateway protocol which is used to govern the routes between autonomous systems on the internet, or switches which are used to connect physical devices together through cables and relay Ethernet frames between them.
There are so many different components and concepts that fall under network security, and the examples I gave you are only but a few of them. The list goes on and on. Not only that, each of the concepts that I’ve mentioned can themselves be broken down into smaller bundles of knowledge, which can then be broken down into even further bundles of knowledge. You get the idea.
Use Skill Stacks for Your Cyber Training
The idea of skill stacks applies to all the different subfields in cybersecurity. What makes it even more complicated is that all the stacks are interrelated to one another, kind of like a skill matrix. If you want to learn a high-level skill, like penetration testing, you will first have to master many different skill stacks before having a solid enough baseline to really understand penetration testing well. This applies to almost all cyber-specific areas of concentration like privilege escalation, security monitoring, incident response, threat hunting, data protection, insider threat, Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT), malware analysis, and so on.
It’s impossible to know everything about cybersecurity because there are just too many different subfields and concepts to know. It can very well take you 10 to 20 years to master just a few of them, at which point you just don’t have the time or interest to learn any of the other fields. The reality is if you want to be good at cybersecurity, I recommend starting off by focusing on just one or two areas first and expand out from there. There are many different journeys you can take. You can choose to become well-rounded in a few different skill stacks, or you can choose to become an elite master in just one. There is no right or wrong path. Each path offers its own unique challenges and rewards.
Personally, I began my cybersecurity journey in network and system security and then branched out into cybersecurity engineering. This gave me broad exposure to a variety of tools, techniques, and methods for not only securing and defending computer networks and operating systems, but also for building out enterprise-wide security infrastructures. Eventually, I landed in the realm of data protection where I became highly focused and specialize in conducting cyber technical investigations involving insider threat, internal fraud, and data exfiltration for large financial institutions and multinational organizations. As part of this skill stack, I’ve learned how to master querying Splunk to further investigations, how to build my own investigation tools using Python and PowerShell, and how to conduct OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) operations on targets of interest, to name a few.
As you’re asking yourself the question: “How do I learn cybersecurity?” and wondering where to begin, the very first step I would take is to start discovering all the different topics on cybersecurity and how they connect on a broad level. From there you can begin to narrow down the learning scope to just those topics you might be interested in starting off with. Let’s go over some techniques you can use for learning cybersecurity.
The Top-Down Approach to Learning Cybersecurity
Top-down is probably the most common approach where you pick a subject to tackle and go after the resources specifically tailored towards learning that topic. A good example of this in cybersecurity might be pursuing a specific certification such as “ethical hacking”. Unfortunately, there’s a misconception by newcomers to the field that “ethical hacking” is as simple as loading up Kali Linux and running all its variety of security tools on targets. Others think they just need to grab some courses and books on a subject, and then “brain dump” everything just to pass the certification exam. Once you got your certification, you walk around thinking that you’re a Jedi master, but the reality is that your baseline fundamentals are still very weak, and your true abilities aren’t good enough to operate in most real-world scenarios. I’m not saying certifications are bad. Far from it. I think they a play a useful role to help develop your skills and baseline fundamentals, and show you’ve already attained some level of knowledge about the subject. Especially if you actually take the time to really learn the subject matter, rather than just “brain dump” to pass the certification exam.
I like to refer to people at this stage in their journeys as “skiddies”, which stands for “script kiddies”. Basically, skiddies are young, aspiring beginners that only know how to run tools written by other people, but do not understand the principles behind why or how those tools work. In my opinion, the best way to acquire deep-level cybersecurity skills using the top-down learning method is through an apprenticeship.
If you look back in history before education was institutionalized through schools, the only real way to learn a specific craft or skill was via an apprenticeship under a master — someone with a few decades of experience under their belt. In the old days, the knowledge transfer process was rigorous and methodical. This was necessary to ensure the apprentice was actually teachable and would be useful in adding value to the craft.
The primary advantage of an apprenticeship is that masters can point you to the skill stacks that are relevant to the field you are learning while filtering out the ones that aren’t. Not to mention you have somebody who is available to answer all your questions and guide you on your journey to make sure you stay the course. Another benefit of being an apprentice is that it saves you a huge amount of time in the learning process, which in my experience can reduce what would take years to learn on your own into a matter of months.
Top-down learning through an apprenticeship can be great but finding someone who can teach you is not always an easy task. Many journeyman-level and master-level practitioners are either way to busy or not interested in coaching you if you don’t already have a solid baseline to begin with. This is especially true in cybersecurity. It’s a huge time investment on their part to teach students, since it takes them away from actual work and carries a high risk of failure. Nobody wants to teach someone who doesn’t have much grit or the drive to succeed in their chosen profession. If a senior practitioner doesn’t see much potential in you, they’ll probably just walk on by.
If you work for a large corporation, chances are you’ll receive on-the-job training. On-the-job training for cybersecurity professionals is extremely helpful because you’re surrounded by co-workers you can learn from, most of whom are likely better than you in one or more areas. If you’re lucky to find yourself in this situation, then try to identify the most technical people on your team and spend time learning as much as you can from them. Once you’ve developed a decent relationship with them, find out which experts they personally look up to. Then reach out to those guys. If you’re not able to get mentorship through professional circles, you might consider building a solid baseline knowledge through the bottom-up approach.
The Bottom-Up Approach to Learning Cybersecurity
The bottom-up learning approach is where you pick a subject to tackle and decompose it into its most basic principles, definitions, methods, and tools. You learn each of those components first before you dive into the actual target subject.
Take UFC fighters for example. They go through countless amounts of conditioning and training combined with simple exercises that build muscle memory and situational agility. Each of these exercises indirectly improves their fighting abilities over time. Even though the bottom-up approach takes a lot longer to do, you build a very solid foundation that becomes useful when you make the switch to more skill-oriented training.
In the case of cybersecurity where you literally become a mental athlete, bottom-up learning translates into tons of reading. And by tons of reading, I mean you start out by finding all the books you can that are related to computer and network security and just marathon away. What’s good about traditional book learning is that you tend to get much higher quality content than the average Internet post and you get to learn about each author’s style and approach to cybersecurity, most of whom are active practitioners themselves. Many authors also maintain blogs or tweet links to resources that you can follow. When you’re reading, remember to jot down all the different vocabulary and concepts you’re learning. You can create a mind map or use spaced repetition software like Anki.
I highly recommend Anki for studying new cybersecurity concepts. It’s a free and open-source tool that lets you build flashcards to learn just about any concept you happen to be interested in. Unlike normal flashcards, Anki utilizes a scheduling algorithm that decides when to show you concepts based on how well you already know them. This is great for active recall, where you’re asked questions and forced to remember the answers. Research shows that using active recall is a much more effective learning method than passive study for building a strong memory. When you take this process and distribute it consistently over increasing periods of time, it further cements your knowledge by forcing your brain to retrieve it with even deeper levels of recall.
Using the bottom-up approach for cybersecurity sets you up for success and makes learning new concepts much easier. One of the cool things about cybersecurity is that many of the concepts you learn will keep showing up repeatedly, since almost everything in cybersecurity is interconnected one way or another. One downside to bottom-up learning, however, is that it can get monotonous at times, since doing any activity for its own sake without a clear goal or purpose can certainly get boring.
The Project-based Approach to Learning Cybersecurity
One of my favorite approaches to learning cybersecurity is through projects. Project-based learning is a bit of a hybrid approach between the top-down and bottom-up learning methods and gives you more flexibility using both. Unlike the bottom-up approach where you don’t really have any specific objectives that need to be achieved, with a project you define what the technical outcome will be from the get-go, which allows you to gather the resources you need to work toward meeting your project goal.
Speaking of goals, it’s always good to set smart goals when working on projects. Smart goals are defined as specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. Saying something like “I want to hack” wouldn’t qualify as a smart goal. You need to get more specific like “I want to learn how to crack WEP encryption on my home wireless network by the end of the month”. It may take you longer than a month and that’s okay. The main thing is you have a clear objective in mind and the process will expose you to all sorts of different skill stacks, from air crack, layer 2 networking, the 802.11 protocol and much more.
Project ideas often fall in one of four categories: making things, breaking things, fixing things, and knowing things. For instance, if you wanted to learn different forensic methods for detecting and eradicating malware, you could have a project where you build your own virtual machine and then intentionally install publicly available malware on it to hone your skills. Always make sure to document your entire process and workflow, as this can help solidify the entire learning experience and be used later to analyze areas for improvement.
You Need to be in it for the Long Haul
A final thought I’d like to leave you with that will help you get better at cybersecurity is you need to go in it with the right mind set and time horizon for picking it up. The reality is that some areas of cybersecurity can take a long time to master, much like becoming a doctor or a lawyer. In the United States it takes four years of medical school followed by three to seven years of residency to become a doctor.
What’s interesting is medical residencies are basically apprenticeships that involve working 60+ hours a week. Many doctors I know work 80 or more hours a week and only sleep five or six hours each night. Depending on your residency of choice, this is anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 hours of training. Assuming you’re only working 40 hours a week, it would take you at least 10 to 20 years on the job in a cybersecurity role to attain the absolute number of equivalent hours as a doctor.
In his book, Mastery, the author Matthew Green describes mastery of any skill as a function of time and intense focus applied to a particular field of knowledge. In our age of two second attention spans and instant gratification, most people lack discipline to dedicate the time necessary to truly master a specific skill. It’s much easier to take a simple crash course or quick tutorial to teach you everything you want to know.
However, just seeking out a surface level education will keep you at an unconsciously incompetent level of learning where you feel super confident that you know everything there is to know, but you’re not actually skilled in the subject matter. As your cyber skills are put to the test under real-world scenarios, you soon come to the realization that you actually suck at what you thought you knew and eventually reach a point as to whether or not you want to continue on the path.
If you do take the time to push through it though, you will begin to feel more comfortable and accepting of the concepts you know and the ones you don’t know. Over time, you will reach the most mature stage of unconscious competence, where now you’ve become a true Jedi master and can execute on a skill without even thinking about it.
In a field like cybersecurity where there’s no clear institutionalized path to becoming a professional, you really got to self-educate using a combination of the different learning approaches available and be in it for the long haul. Taking shortcuts won’t “cut it” if you truly want to become a master practitioner in your specialized area of interest. Remember, cybersecurity is not a course — it’s a journey that can be very rewarding for those dedicated to its path.
Good hunting! | https://medium.com/@michatkins/how-to-learn-cybersecurity-8ac4f356887f | ['Michael Atkins'] | 2020-12-27 04:47:36.359000+00:00 | ['Cybersecurity', 'Technology', 'Education', 'Learning', 'Hacking'] |
Getting started with ESP32 and Firebase | IoT
In this tutorial I will demonstrate the fastest method to connect your ESP32 to Google’s Firebase backend. Firebase has become a very convenient option for developers to rapidly prototype their ideas, in this tutorial we lay the ground work for the development of a realtime temperature monitoring solution for the Apple watch. This article will focus on setting up the link between the ESP32 and Firebase, and in the next article we will focus on the watchOS application.
Hardware Requirements
The following hardware is needed to complete this tutorial:
ESP32 development board (any ESP32 board is okay, for this tutorial we will be using the ESP32 DevKit v3).
DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor.
Backend Setup
We will be using Google’s Firebase for our backend, to get started head over to Firebase, and sign in using your Google account.
Select the Add project option to create a new project. You will be asked to Enter your project name, give the project a suitable name, and then select the blue Continue button. I’ve called my project Smart Hommie
Disable the Enable Google Analytics for this project option — this will not be needed this for this project. Finally, select Create project.
Firebase will begin setting up your project. Once completed select Continue, and you will be taken to your projects overview page on the Firebase console.
The first thing we want to do is setup authentication options for our project. Select the Authentication menu option on the top left, and you will be taken to the authentication page. Select the Get Started button.
We’re going to start by using the Anonymous sign in for our ESP32 devices, and later on in the tutorial we will devise a more intelligent sign in method. Enable Anonymous Sign In as shown below and select the Save option.
Next we need to create a database which will hold all our sensor data. To do this, select the Realtime Database menu option on the top left, and you’ll be taken to the Realtime Database page. Select the Create Database button to initialise the database creation menu.
In the database creation menu you can choose a location that is closest to you, and select Next. You will be presented with the option to initialise your database in locked mode or test mode. Select test mode for now. The main difference is that in test mode a database access rule is placed allowing unauthorised access to your database for thirty days. If you plan to take your project into production, you will need to disable this in the future. Select the Enable button.
Lastly you should see a new page with your new empty database, and we are all set!
Before we continue there are two items you need to copy and store for future use in our embedded application. The first item we need is our Realtime Database URL, which you can find by copying the URL of the Realtime Database page, in our case it will be https://smart-hommie-default-rtdb.firebaseio.com
The second item we need to store is the project’s API key. To get you API key navigation to the project settings page by selecting the settings icon on the top right, and then selecting the Project settings menu item as shown below:
In the project settings page you should see your Web API Key, copy this and store it.
We all set to get started on our embedded application.
Development Environment Setup
The first thing we need to do is setup our ESP32 development environment. For this tutorial we will be using Visual Studio Code along with the PlatformIO Plugin.
If you don’t already have VSCode, download and install it from here.
Next you need to install PlatformIO using the following instructions here. If everything went well you should see the PlatformIO on the right menu items as shown below.
The first thing we need to do is install the ESP32 Platform for PlatformIO. Select the PlatformIO menu icon to enter the PlatformIO home page.
Select the platforms menu option and select the Embedded page. Search for the Espressif framework by typing “Esp”, and select the Espressif 32 option. Install the platform by selecting the install button.
Now let’s create a new project for our embedded application. Head back to the home page and select the Create New Project menu. You will be presented with the Project Wizard, give your project a name and make sure you select your EPS32 board. we will be using the Arduino Library for this project, so keep the default settings as is, and select Finish.
Finally we need to add a library from mobizt which we will be using in our project. From the home page head to the library page and search for the FirebaseESP32 library as shown below.
And finally add the library to your project as shown below.
Embedded Application
In the project explorer open the main.cpp file
The first thing we need to do is import all the libraries we need in our application, the Arduino library should already be present by default:
#include <Arduino.h>
#include <WiFi.h>
#include <FirebaseESP32.h>
Next we need to add some helper library which are used by the FirebaseESP32 library. The TokenHelper library is used to manage the token generation process, and the RTDBHelper library provides helper functions for printing data coming from the Firebase Realtime Database:
//Provide the token generation process info.
#include "addons/TokenHelper.h" //Provide the RTDB payload printing info and other helper functions.
#include "addons/RTDBHelper.h"
We need to define a unique device ID which can used to differentiate data coming from multiple sensors.
// Device ID
#define DEVICE_UID "1X"
Next we need to capture our WiFi credentials. Replace WIFI_AP with your WiFi Identifier, and WIFI_PASSWORD with your WiFi Password.
Note: It’s never a good idea to hardcode password information in your embedded application, for production cases you need to apply a device provision strategy that includes a secure device registration process.
// Your WiFi credentials
#define WIFI_SSID "WIFI_AP"
#define WIFI_PASSWORD "WIFI_PASSWORD"
Next we need to add a constant to store our API key, as mentioned earlier you can get your Firebase project API key from the projects settings page. Replace API_KEY with your API key. Similarly to include your Firebase Realtime Database URL, replacing URL with your own.
// Your Firebase Project Web API Key
#define API_KEY "API_KEY"
// Your Firebase Realtime database URL
#define DATABASE_URL "https://smart-hommie-default-rtdb.firebaseio.com"
Next we initialise 3 objects courtesy of the FirebaseESP32 library which will be critical to linking our application to Firebase.
// Firebase Realtime Database Object
FirebaseData fbdo; // Firebase Authentication Object
FirebaseAuth auth; // Firebase configuration Object
FirebaseConfig config;
Next we define a few global variables which will come in handy.
// Device Location config
String device_location = "Living Room"; // Firebase Realtime Database Object
FirebaseData fbdo; // Firebase Authentication Object
FirebaseAuth auth; // Firebase configuration Object
FirebaseConfig config; // Firebase database path
String databasePath = ""; // Firebase Unique Identifier
String fuid = ""; // Stores the elapsed time from device start up
unsigned long elapsedMillis = 0; // The frequency of sensor updates to firebase, set to 10seconds
unsigned long update_interval = 10000; // Dummy counter to test initial firebase updates
int count = 0; // Store device authentication status
bool isAuthenticated = false;
The first function we need is to setup the WiFi, we define a function called WiFi_Init() . We make use of the built in WiFi API provided by the Arduino framework. We use the WiFi.begin() function to initialise a WiFi connection using our credentials, we then check every 300 ms to see if the connection has been successful using the WiFi.status() function, after which we print out the local IP address using the WiFi.localIP() function. For other WiFi related functionality which you might want to use check out the Arduino WiFi API documentation.
void Wifi_Init() { WiFi.begin(WIFI_SSID, WIFI_PASSWORD); Serial.print("Connecting to Wi-Fi"); while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED){ Serial.print("."); delay(300); } Serial.println(); Serial.print("Connected with IP: "); Serial.println(WiFi.localIP()); Serial.println(); }
Next we need to implement our Firebase initialisation function which will connect to the Firebase backend, authenticate our device and initialise our Firebase library. We begin by passing our API key and database URL to the configuration object, along with enabling WiFi reconnection on upon setup. We then attempt to sign up our device anonymously, note that we send an an empty email and password to achieve this. If the signup is successful we define the database path where all our device data will be logged, we call this path Temp_Sensor , and we append the unique Firebase identifier from Firebase which we get from the auth object, which after successful signup will include the uid property. To explore further Firebase authentication functionalities check out the library documentation here. After signup we then initialise the Firebase library with the Firebase.begin() function.
Note: Each time we perform a Firebase.signUp() a new anonymous user is created in the backend, which mean each time we power the device on and off a new user is created.
void firebase_init() { // configure firebase API Key
config.api_key = API_KEY; // configure firebase realtime database url
config.database_url = DATABASE_URL; // Enable WiFi reconnection
Firebase.reconnectWiFi(true); Serial.println("------------------------------------");
Serial.println("Sign up new user..."); // Sign in to firebase Anonymously if (Firebase.signUp(&config, &auth, "", ""))
{ Serial.println("Success");
isAuthenticated = true; // Set the database path where updates will be loaded for this device
databasePath = "/" + device_location;
fuid = auth.token.uid.c_str();
}
else
{
Serial.printf("Failed, %s
", config.signer.signupError.message.c_str()); isAuthenticated = false; } // Assign the callback function for the long running token generation task, see addons/TokenHelper.h
config.token_status_callback = tokenStatusCallback; // Initialise the firebase library
Firebase.begin(&config, &auth); }
Putting it all together, our setup function will look as follows:
void setup() { // Initialise serial communication for local diagnostics Serial.begin(115200); // Initialise Connection with location WiFi Wifi_Init(); // Initialise firebase configuration and signup anonymously firebase_init(); }
Finally, let’s implement a test function which will upload sample data to our Firebase database, this will allow us to test that everything has been setup correctly. We create a new function called database_test() . Before performing any update, we check that 10 seconds has elapsed, and that the device is authenticated and lastly that the Firebase library is ready. Before doing an update we specify the node path of the Realtime Database whose value we want to set, and then we update that node with value of our dummy counter. The update is done using the Firebase.set() function which will override the previous value with the new updated value every 10 seconds. To explore other Firebase functions see the FirebaseESP32 API documentation here.
void database_test() { // Check that 10 seconds has elapsed before, device is authenticated and the firebase service is ready. if (millis() - elapsedMillis > update_interval && isAuthenticated && Firebase.ready())
{ elapsedMillis = millis(); Serial.println("------------------------------------"); Serial.println("Set int test..."); // Specify the key value for our data and append it to our path String node = path + "/value"; // Send the value our count to the firebase realtime database if (Firebase.set(fbdo, node.c_str(), count++)) {
// Print firebase server response Serial.println("PASSED"); Serial.println("PATH: " + fbdo.dataPath()); Serial.println("TYPE: " + fbdo.dataType()); Serial.println("ETag: " + fbdo.ETag()); Serial.print("VALUE: "); printResult(fbdo); //see addons/RTDBHelper.h Serial.println("------------------------------------"); Serial.println(); }
else
{ Serial.println("FAILED");
Serial.println("REASON: " + fbdo.errorReason());
Serial.println("------------------------------------");
Serial.println();
}
}
}
Finally we place our function in the main loop as follows:
void loop() { database_test(); }
Our code is all set for us to perform our dummy test. Connect your ESP32 board to your USB ports and compile your code by pressing the compile button in the bottom panel shown below:
After the build is successful, upload the code to the ESP32 device by using the upload button on the right of the compile button
If everything went well, you should be able to go back to the Realtime Database database browser on the Firebase console, and you should see your updates coming every 10 seconds as shown below:
You can also use the serial communication interface to check that the following outputs are being sent every 10 seconds.
Integration of DHT11 Temperature Sensor
Lastly let’s integrate our temperature sensor.
Firstly we need to ensure that our hardware connections are correct. The DHT11 sensor uses the I2C peripheral which requires two pins. Let’s start with a review of the DHT11 pin allocation:
The following table shows the DHT22/DHT11 pinout. When the sensor is facing you, pin numbering starts at 1 from left to right. We going to be using GPIO4 in this example, thus our hardware wiring will be as follows:
Now that we have our hardware configuration setup, let’s update our embedded application to utilise the DHT11 sensor. Let’s start by adding the DHT library from Adafruit to our project:
Let’s also add the DHT library to imports.
#include <Arduino.h>
#include <WiFi.h>
#include <FirebaseESP32.h>
#include "DHT.h"
We then need to setup our our DHT11 library, to do this we specify the GPIO pin which we plan to use to receive sensor updates from the the DHT11, we also specify which DHT sensor we are using, as the library is also compatible with the DHT22 sensor.
// Digital pin connected to the DHT sensor
#define DHTPIN 4
#define DHTTYPE DHT11 // Initialise DHT sensor
DHT dht(DHTPIN, DHTTYPE);
We then need to define some global variables to store our temperature.
Note: The DHT11 also tracks humidity, but for the sake of this tutorial we will only work with the temperature readings.
// Variables to hold sensor readings
float temperature = 0;
float humidity = 0; // JSON object to hold updated sensor values to be sent to be firebase
FirebaseJson temperature_json;
FirebaseJson humidity_json;
We need to update our setup() function to initialise our DHT library, the library will take care of the I2C setup:
void setup() { // Initialise serial communication for local diagnostics
Serial.begin(115200); // Initialise Connection with location WiFi
Wifi_Init(); // Initialise firebase configuration and signup anonymously
firebase_init(); // Initialise DHT library
dht.begin(); // Initialise temperature and humidity json data
temperature_json.add("deviceuid", DEVICE_UID);
temperature_json.add("name", "DHT11-Temp");
temperature_json.add("type", "Temperature");
temperature_json.add("location", device_location);
temperature_json.add("value", temperature); // Print out initial temperature values
String jsonStr;
temperature_json.toString(jsonStr, true);
Serial.println(jsonStr); humidity_json.add("deviceuid", DEVICE_UID);
humidity_json.add("name", "DHT11-Hum");
humidity_json.add("type", "Humidity");
humidity_json.add("location", device_location);
humidity_json.add("value", humidity); // Print out initial humidity values
String jsonStr2;
humidity_json.toString(jsonStr2, true);
Serial.println(jsonStr2); }
We then introduce a new function updateSensorReadings() which will be responsible to update our sensor readings and store them in our global JSON object variables which will later be sent to Firebase.
void updateSensorReadings(){ Serial.println("------------------------------------");
Serial.println("Reading Sensor data ..."); temperature = dht.readTemperature();
humidity = dht.readHumidity(); // Check if any reads failed and exit early (to try again).
if (isnan(temperature) || isnan(humidity)) {
Serial.println(F("Failed to read from DHT sensor!"));
return;
} Serial.printf("Temperature reading: %.2f
", temperature);
Serial.printf("Humidity reading: %.2f
", humidity); temperature_json.set("value", temperature);
humidity_json.set("value", humidity); }
Next we need to delete our old database_test() function and replace with with a new function called uploadSensorData() as shown below. We changed the node description to temperature and humidity . Lastly we then replaced the Firebase.set() with the Firebase.setJSON() function instead, and pass our two JSON objects holding by our temperature and humidity information. And lastly we replace the database_test() function with our new uploadSensorData() function in the main while loop. The final code version can be found on Github here.
void uploadSensorData() { if (millis() - elapsedMillis > update_interval && isAuthenticated && Firebase.ready())
{
elapsedMillis = millis(); updateSensorReadings(); String temperature_node = databasePath + "/temperature";
String humidity_node = databasePath + "/humidity"; if (Firebase.setJSON(fbdo, temperature_node.c_str(), temperature_json))
{ Serial.println("PASSED");
Serial.println("PATH: " + fbdo.dataPath());
Serial.println("TYPE: " + fbdo.dataType());
Serial.println("ETag: " + fbdo.ETag());
Serial.print("VALUE: ");
printResult(fbdo); //see addons/RTDBHelper.h
Serial.println("------------------------------------");
Serial.println(); }
else
{ Serial.println("FAILED");
Serial.println("REASON: " + fbdo.errorReason());
Serial.println("------------------------------------");
Serial.println();
} if (Firebase.setJSON(fbdo, humidity_node.c_str(), humidity_json))
{ Serial.println("PASSED");
Serial.println("PATH: " + fbdo.dataPath());
Serial.println("TYPE: " + fbdo.dataType());
Serial.println("ETag: " + fbdo.ETag());
Serial.print("VALUE: ");
printResult(fbdo); //see addons/RTDBHelper.h
Serial.println("------------------------------------");
Serial.println();
}
else
{
Serial.println("FAILED");
Serial.println("REASON: " + fbdo.errorReason());
Serial.println("------------------------------------");
Serial.println();
}
}
} void loop() {
uploadSensorData();
}
Compile and upload this new version and check that the Firebase database now shows a live temperature reading of your room temperature as shown below.
In order to make our application more realistic we going to need to populate some interesting sensor data on our database.
If you followed the tutorial, you can update the embedded application to change the location of the device and the device UID to simulate different sensor data coming from different rooms. Even better if you have 4 ESP32 and 4 DHT11 sensors, you can install each on in a separate room for the sake of this tutorial the following approach was taken.
The end result is that our realtime database will now include sensor data from each room as follows:
Awesome stuff! You’ve successful integrated your ESP32 device with Firebase.
Conclusion
To round it up, we’ve setup a new Firebase project which allows any ESP32 device to sign up anonymously and send temperature readings to the Realtime Database every 10 seconds. In our next tutorial we will build an watchOS application which will query our Realtime Database and provide us with realtime updates from all rooms onto an Apple Watch.
You can find the final code for this tutorial on Github here.
And finally lots of love and thanks to the guys from mobizt for giving us this amazing FirebaseESP32 library, there is lots of functionality there including the ability to send Firebase Cloud Messages, which could come in very handy for one of your next IoT projects.
Resources | https://medium.com/firebase-developers/getting-started-with-esp32-and-firebase-1e7f19f63401 | ['Fabrice Beya'] | 2021-07-27 17:59:48.838000+00:00 | ['Esp32', 'Embedded Systems', 'IoT', 'Smart Home', 'Firebase'] |
Unpretty: Beating the Beauty Myth | I used to pray every night in the hope that I’d wake up beautiful. And of course, each morning only brought another day of disappointment. There were times it got so bad that I’d avoid windows and mirrors in case I caught a glimpse of my reflection. Who wants a reminder that they’re not perfect?
Such impossible and narrow beauty standards are forced onto us. As well as toxic ideas of what it means to be masculine or feminine. We don’t realise that too many of us have insecurities and self hatred. We inspect each inch and aspect of our physical self, finding faults but failing to see the good others see in us. Not even supermodels are exempt from these impossible ideals. What’s worse is the systemic discrimination of fat people and those who don’t fit society’s beauty standards. This kind of discrimination leads to health and income inequalities, as well as physical and verbal abuse. As a society we have not even come close to shattering these harmful ideals and inequalities.
I can only speak from my experience on this and how these ideals have affected my own life.
Being a South Asian woman means you often get a double dose of beauty standards shoved in your face; from the mainstream media and from the community. There is a much higher level of scrutiny towards young South Asian women than South Asian men. An attractive man is a bonus, an attractive woman is a must. She must be slim and fair in order to be pretty.
My own experience was that people in my family and community couldn’t help but criticise my appearance. And when there wasn’t criticism, there was either silence or a back handed compliment. “Hmm. You’ve lost weight. Good! You need to lose some more.”
I’m not surprised that this feeling of not being beautiful or good enough was a source of depression and unworthiness in my life. Added to the other wounds and past trauma that I had struggled to heal. I’d been starving for affection and validation, when someone came along and filled my emptiness with love and adoration. I felt beautiful. Extraordinary. Valuable. I know now, that this was just love bombing.
My wedding day was the first time I felt people saw me as beautiful. When I walked into the hotel foyer that evening looking like a Bollywood queen, I heard the other guests gasp. Was this the validation I’d searched for my whole life?
Not long after, I began to plunge into a kind of self loathing and despair worse than before. The same person who made me beautiful, now made me ugly. I could not stop myself from envying everyone because each of them had something I didn’t. I wasted my energy thinking of ways I could become perfect. What if I got liposuction? A nose job? The answer was never in losing weight but ridding myself of the bad thoughts and people poisoning my mind.
I can’t help wonder if I’d been given more compliments than criticism, would it have saved me some pain? I think of how much time I wasted when I could have been focusing on my interests and goals or just enjoying my life. How many people did I push away or opportunities did I turn down because I felt unworthy?
I think back to the prayers of a young girl begging to be beautiful. It is only now that I realise, each morning I woke, my prayers had been answered. | https://medium.com/@tahreendewan/unpretty-beating-the-beauty-myth-b041a3877c56 | ['Tahreen Dewan'] | 2020-11-10 01:33:54.727000+00:00 | ['South Asian', 'Body Positive', 'Self Love', 'Beauty'] |
Blockwhat? Blockchain! | Photo by Anthony Indraus
Hello there lovely you, awesome that you’re here. Chances are very high that you’re here because you happen to be interested in this whole blockchain thingy.
Maybe you’re still at the beginning of your journey into the fascinating and sometimes cryptic lands of blockchain and want to get a thorough and understandable introduction into what’s up with the all this fuss about blockchain.
Or you might already have a sound understanding but are hungry for more information, in order to satisfy your inner curiosity and to gain a more nuanced knowledge.
Whatever the case, this blog will not disappoint you. We will explore everything here starting from the history of blockchain (which goes back all the way to the 80s!), to discovering the technological foundations which make this magic thing work (super interesting, I promise), all the way to diving into actual use cases of this mesmerizing new technology.
Oh, and I’ll provide you with reviews of some of the best resources that helped me to gain a thorough and sound understanding of this sometimes very confusing topic.
Let’s get rolling and dive right into the mesmerizing world of blockchain. It’ll be a captivating journey. Are you ready? | https://medium.com/blockwhat/blockwhat-blockchain-781a47b34306 | ['Till Antonio Mahler'] | 2019-02-06 15:06:49.702000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Distributed Ledgers', 'Emerging Technology', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
How Pollution Affects Mental Health | “There’s so much pollution in the air now that if it weren’t for our lungs, there’d be no place to put it all” -
Robert Orben
“Pollution is the introduction of harmful materials into the environment. These harmful materials are called pollutants. Pollutants can be natural, such as volcanic ash. They can also be created by human activity, such as trash or runoff produced by factories. Pollutants damage the quality of air, water, and land.”
According to National Geographic, pollution is a global problem and studies will show that there is an increasing link between environmental pollution and a risk of developing psychological disorders.
This begs the question, how exactly does pollution cause mental illness? Does it really affect human behaviour? Can environmental factors indeed cause mental illness?
Studies from the USC reveal the implications of air pollution on brain development and neurological health in children and older women.
These studies further state how tiny, inhalable pollutants from cars and power plants can impact our brains functions or dysfunctions.
These studies further show that these tiny particles, when inhaled, may alter the size of a child’s developing brain, which may then, ultimately, increase the risk for cognitive and emotional problems at a later time in the child’s life.
“At this young age, the neurons in children’s brains are expanding and pruning at an incredible rate. As your brain develops, it wants to create efficient pathways,” said Megan Herting, an assistant professor at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “If these pathways are altered by PM2.5 exposure, and different parts of the brain are maturing and making connections at different rates, that might set you up for individual differences later on.”
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 9 out of 10 people worldwide inhale polluted air. Exposure to polluted air is accountable for approximately 7 million deaths yearly. Respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurovascular diseases can be traced back to being adverse side effects of air pollution.
But how exactly does it cause mental illness or a change in human behaviour?
We have all heard that secondary smokers are largely at risk, just like active smokers, if not more. A secondary smoker inhales smoke passively. You don’t mean to breathe it in, you just do because you do have to breathe and in doing so, you are putting your health at great risk. 10 to 15 % of non — smokers are victims of lung cancer, and all they did was breathe in air tainted with toxic agents.
Air pollution, sleep deprivation, stress, noise pollution that jerks you out of much-needed sleep or causes a migraine, all affect mental health and have damaging lasting effects. One can only speculate what this means to the people living in Nigeria, where pollution is everywhere. As long as you live in Lagos, Nigeria, and a few other densely polluted states in the country, you are bound to be sleep-deprived and faced with the toxic air inhalation intrusion.
When we think of mental health, we think of the lack of lifestyle, genetics, and even diet. We hardly take into consideration, the fact that our environment is the biggest cause of many sorts of mental illness.
The environment we live and work in shapes part of the wider aspects of our lives. Ever wonder why it is said that a change of environment is needed once in a while? Or how a vacation or a pause from work to take in clean air, is used as a remedy to ease stress?
Several environmental factors can affect sleep cycles, and living in our part of the world, many of these are not within our control. Generators at odd hours, noisy neighbours, living close to the main roads, all of these and more could contribute to poor sleep, and in turn, takes a toll on the immune system.
Sleep aids the heart vessels in healing and rebuilding and affects processes that maintain blood pressure, sugar levels, and inflammation control. Lack of sleep increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. It affects hormone levels and brain function.
“Long-term health effects from air pollution include heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases such as emphysema and can also cause long-term damage to people’s nerves, brain, kidneys, liver, and other organs. Some scientists suspect air pollutants cause birth defects.”
When the brain is not motivated, when the human mind is limited, when no end is in sight to misery, when the toxic air soaks up the lungs, making it difficult to breathe it slowly fogs the mind, there is a rapid decline in mental health.
Our health is our own, and it is our wealth, we must do everything to protect and save it. | https://medium.com/@hagwort/how-pollution-affects-mental-health-7ab36920ab95 | ['Micah Emem Essien'] | 2021-05-28 21:58:03.389000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Pollution', 'Pandemic', 'Lagos'] |
How to Regain Your Focus After Distraction | Photo by Alex Kotliarskyi on Unsplash
Disruption of routines is a problem if we can’t manage our time properly. I find myself completely deviating from my to-do list plan for the day and I can’t help but wonder how much time I have lost.
I take my to-do list plan for the day seriously and all of a sudden something else caught my attention and took away all my time completely. I was really angry and mad at myself for not regaining control of my time till it was gone and because of that, I couldn’t even do a simple work from my to-do list as a result of activity disruption.
It is not easy to tell why I failed, I only lacked DISCIPLINE.
Discipline is like your will power to go on and do the things you set out to do irrespective of the outside forces out of your control.
Discipline is really needed in pursuit of whatever thing we want to do be it a small task or a large task and that was what I failed to put on which cost me dearly.
ways you can regain your Focus.
Reanalyze or re-strategize
If you find out you are deviating from your plan for the day because of outside forces out of your control, then re-strategizing is a good option or tool that can be used. But in most cases, if it is forces within your grasp or distractions, that is where the discipline and will come for you to leave and get back to your task. Discipline and will is something simple we claim we all have but it is the most difficult when we need to put in to use.
Photo by Sid Leigh on Unsplash
Take a break
Another way to regain focus after deviating from your plan is to take a break. Taking a break like a five to ten-minute walk, meditating, or reading are also ways to regain focus. I walk for five minutes anytime am distracted and can’t seem to get my mojo back while on work. After walking, my brain calms down and I get to regain my focus again.
Clear your desk and mind
When your desk is cluttered, your mind can be cluttered too. If you are feeling unfocused, take a look at your workspace if there is anything piled up. When we see a lot of papers and things pile up we immediately go into anxiety. If it is out of sight it is out of mind.
Drink a Glass of water
It may sound simple, but if you are having difficulty staying on a task, pause and drink a glass of water. Not only will getting up to pour yourself a glass force you to change your thought, and process, It will also keep you hydrated which makes you more alert.
There are other ways to regain focus these are just four simple steps I follow to regain my focus whenever am distracted. | https://medium.com/afwp/how-to-regain-your-focus-after-distraction-5f61c55b7b62 | ['Abayomi Omoogun'] | 2019-03-27 22:46:25.408000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Work', 'Improvement', 'Growth', 'Life'] |
Why Richmond’s Miller Knox Regional Shoreline is one of The Bay Area’s most underrated parks (Photo Essay) | *ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF AUTHOR UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED
Skyline
The Bay Area has a multitude of beautiful places to explore, but none seem to garner as little attention as Richmond’s Miller Knox Regional Shoreline. The park is tucked away on the southwestern edge of the city, just below the stop-and-go traffic of I-580. While on a mission to enjoy Fleet Week without being drowned in the usual crowd of spectators, I found this gem of a public space that combines the natural beauty of coastal California with the industrial beauty of the East Bay’s urban core.
Ferry Point
As our car made it to the other side of the Ferry Point tunnel, the first thing that I said was “Holy shit, this is Richmond?” The media image of Richmond as an ugly, industrial dot of blight on the Bay Area and the preconceived notions that had distorted my view of the city as a result of such coverage were immediately shattered as the calm bay breeze blew through my hair and the light of the sun shimmered beautifully on the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay.
Juxtapose
Beach side
Crack in the earth
I was compelled to walk through the park, attempting to take it all in, suddenly, the Blue Angels became of less importance. Every piece of this place felt alive. The dilapidated structures with direct view of the San Francisco skyline that are scattered around the area can make you feel like you’re traversing through a painting. None of it seemed real. Juxtaposition defined the experience. Two eras, two worldviews colliding. One shiny and new, the other crumbling and old; directly facing each other, as if in a sort of perpetual standoff.
Ramblers
Rust
Window View
Miller Knox wasn’t always a park, long before the East Bay Regional Park District was granted the acreage from the City of Richmond, this piece of land served as part of a vital train corridor, connecting the West Coast with the East. What is now Miller Knox Park was the western terminus of the Santa Fe Railway. Cargo or passengers that were San Francisco bound would then take a ferry at the adjacent Ferry Point.
Santa Fe
Division
Everywhere you look, there’s history. Not far from Miller Knox is the Rosie The Riveter WWII Home Front Museum that showcases Richmond’s importance during the war effort and how WWII shaped the future of Richmond as it was transformed from a small, rural community to an urbanized, industrial powerhouse.
Friends
Sunshine
Many still associate Richmond with crime and blight, but there is much more to this small, industrial city than meets the eye. It’s important to never judge a book by its cover. Even the most tattered and torn have a story, and can possess positive qualities that are easy to miss upon first glance. Richmond’s natural beauty and rich culture are a testament to this fact and Miller Knox is truly a great first chapter. | https://medium.com/@abrahamwoodliff/why-richmonds-miller-knox-regional-shoreline-is-one-of-the-bay-area-s-most-underrated-parks-4b5ca7c2c0f8 | ['Abraham Woodliff'] | 2019-02-28 17:12:08.575000+00:00 | ['Bay Area', 'Photography', 'San Francisco', 'Photo Essay', 'Richmond'] |
The Mitch McConnell Problem | December 18, 2020
I have spent the past week talking with 15 different U.S. Senate staffers, both Republicans and Democrats. I was working with a faith-based group to better understand the possibility of new voting legislation to support some of the broadly adopted improvements from this year’s election: early voting, voting by mail, on-line voter registration. All of these improvements facilitated the largest voter turnout we have ever seen for both major political parties. Nearly 160 million citizens voted in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. Truly this was an amazing accomplishment. From a democracy perspective, legislation to encourage using these new and proven methods should be an easy sell, but it isn’t.
What we heard from the staffers on both sides was a ray of hope and a lot of discouragement. One man, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Majority Leader of the Senate, personally controls the future of this legislation and nearly all other federal legislation. The way the current system works is that he decides what bills to bring forward and all, or virtually all, Republican Senators fall in line behind him. He also controls much of the money they receive for their election campaigns. By virtue of his position he can stop nearly any legislation from happening, no matter how many of us support it.
This system is wrong, unfair and undemocratic, and it must be changed. No one person in government should have this much power, not even the President of the United States. Regardless of the outcome of the two Senate races in Georgia, the current system needs to be changed. Our democratic system of government is built on the idea that different sides of an issue need to be heard before a decision is reached by voting. Mitch McConnell has taken that away from us and our country.
I am sure there are many ways to make this a more democratic process. One thought is for the President of the Senate, the Senate Majority Leader and the Senate Minority Leader to form a small committee to discuss and decide which legislation to bring forward to the whole Senate. That would ensure that a minority voice is heard. If the Senate President is asked to represent the will of the people, it would ensure that we are all included in the decision as well. | https://medium.com/@fredvandeu/the-mitch-mcconnell-problem-26bf849e286e | ['Fred Van Deusen'] | 2020-12-18 22:21:32.849000+00:00 | ['Elections', 'Mitch Mcconnell', 'Government', 'Democracy', 'Voting'] |
Facebook’s bullshit has to be stopped — here’s how | Facebook’s bullshit has to be stopped — here’s how
Automation can be used to achieve any number of goals, but it all depends on groupthink
It’s outrageous that Facebook is allowed to tell the world that policing its site for harmful content is not possible without an army of fact-checkers when they know full well that such a goal could easily be achieved with a little strategic thinking — thinking which could help avoid democracy and the economy they depend on from toppling.
Clearly Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want his people to go down that road, so let’s do the thinking on his behalf, shall we? Now, I’m no Nick Clegg, but to most people out there, that’s an advantage…
Firstly, Facebook wants you to think that they couldn’t possibly track every single one of the average 350 million posts made every day — which isn’t true, but it would be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming. However, of those posts, only 36 per cent are related to politics — still more than 100 million posts a day, but you could break it down further using algorithms and have a relatively small number of human decision-makers and still achieve results which would save the citizens of the world from being bombarded by fake news, lies and hate-stirrers. For instance, you don’t need to monitor users who rarely post or those who only post neutral content about animals, or jokes, or family events. It would be so simple to have an algorithm grade every Facebook user for the likelihood of their posting disinformation. The actual number of misinformation super-spreaders is relatively low, it’s just their impact that is huge. So find out who they are and target them!
After a number of strikes — say, more than three racist posts — your account should be automatically deleted
You could start this quest by putting anyone who has used the words ‘Trump’, ‘Brexit’, ‘jihad’, ‘5G’, ‘Vaccine’ etc in a post on the Facebook security radar. If you have previously post anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, racist or misogynistic content, your posts should be at the head of the queue for scrutiny by the detection team: mostly, this content would be read and blocked (if necessary) by AI. After a number of strikes — say, more than three racist posts — your account should be automatically deleted.
The idea, which Facebook promotes assiduously, that thousands of human checkers would have to sit there reading through all the posts for the site to be clean of any infringement is nonsense and they know it: the concept is parlayed simply to make you feel sorry for them. These people are, after all, the global masters of emotions, and they know that an appeal to one of the most basic emotions of all — pity — is the winner winner chicken dinner option.
The fact is, not only could they be doing more, they could stamp all the hate- and fear-mongering out quite easily. But they don’t want to, which brings us to the second issue concerning this platform, which is simply a gigantic scam to defraud us of genuine feelings: content which is divisive, outrageous and fraudulent appeals to our sense of confusion and despair about what is happening to us. To be a fascist or a misogynist is a safety valve for the fear and anxiety about existence that we dare not confess to in real life. It’s comforting to many (apparently) to think that some people are somehow ‘below us’ on the wheel of life, rather than to consider that every one of us, including animals and all of nature, is actually part of a unity.
Facebook is simply a gigantic scam to defraud us of genuine feelings
For too many people, externalising distress at the futility of a life not being fully lived creates a feeling of being worthwhile and belonging that is spurious, but still real enough for a mini-moment. The knowledge that our dog whistles are being heard by others makes us feel super-human, if only for a brief second — but as Zuckerberg knows, that short flame of reward and self-regard is enough to make grown men (let’s face it, it is usually men) feel relevant, important even, and nourished definitely.
Facebook is flying high but, unlike Icarus, it has no wings
So actually Facebook is a phase: we need to grow out of it, and we do that by identifying the messiness in our own lives, and accepting that it’s okay, because the alternative is to live lives that are simply black and white, lacking the nuance of adult thoughts and feelings.
Right now, the reason that Facebook continues to allow ‘alternative facts’ and other misinformation to proliferate is precisely because posts that are divisive and controversial generate more engagement, and that means more advertising revenue. Put simply, we all need to grow out of the cheap thrills that social media gives us, and concentrate on something meaningful, rather than validate the chaos theorists that run Silicon Valley’s most profitable platforms. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you should delete your account, but it does mean that you should become a digital agitator.
One day soon Facebook will learn how to adapt its business model so that we all become agitators: for instance, it could introduce a button, alongside the ‘like’ button’, which decrees a post harmful, and if a post generates enough ‘harmful content’ warnings from the user base, a human fact checker would analyse it. But we’re not there yet, because we’re still too busy self-harming. | https://medium.com/@mike-scialom/facebooks-bullshit-has-to-be-stopped-here-s-how-259831f03081 | ['Mike Scialom'] | 2020-12-28 13:44:41.527000+00:00 | ['Facebook', 'Culture Change', 'Social Media', 'Society', 'Wellbeing'] |
Walmart Labs Volunteers at The Social Engineering Project’s Overnight STEM Camping Conference | Catalog Engineers pause for a photo.
At Walmart Labs, we love to help inspire the next generation of software engineers. That’s why the Catalog team recently volunteered with The Social Engineering Project’s (TSEPs) Overnight STEM Camping Conference. Every year, TSEP takes about 150 high school students to Camp Cazadero to learn about math, science, and engineering. TSEP’s overall goal is to address the lack of diversity in the tech industry by providing programs for underrepresented groups.
Our team was tasked with organizing and teaching an engineering-based workshop with one caveat — they couldn’t use any technology. Ramya, Anthony, Lan, Dip, and Nadar spent hours coming up with an awesome workshop.
They used “Error Codes” on card stock, and randomly generated errors by shuffling the card deck and drawing a card. Students were broken into smaller teams and had to find the corresponding code from a list, and then solve either a math or engineering problem connected to the code within the given SLA.
“They were very motivated, excited, and proactive in all the activities we did,” Dip Shah said of the workshop. “Many of them even said they were inspired to join Walmart Labs.”
The camp takes advantage of the fact that there’s no wi-fi or signal available, which encourages kids to get close to nature, form friendships, and learn without the usual distractions like texting and Instagram.
The program is great for the students, but it’s also significant for the volunteers. Recalling his time there, Dip says, “We went to help students plan their career, but in return we also learned how this generation thinks and acts. It was a very fun and interactive way for ingenious minds to meet experienced minds and exchange numerous great ideas and tactics.” | https://medium.com/walmartglobaltech/walmart-labs-volunteers-at-the-social-engineering-projects-overnight-stem-camping-conference-5353e44b1a92 | ['Brittani Conley'] | 2019-03-14 22:31:38.577000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Volunteering', 'Leadership', 'Engineering'] |
ICO Analysis — 5 reasons why you should have a look at Blue Whale Foundation | 3. A decentralized system, some Provinces, a federal architecture and a DAO
In order to ensure trust on the Blue Whale network and to through the provision of transparency on every activity occurring within the system, the Blockchain technology and smart contracts are used. Furthermore, making use of advanced cryptography, the network is kept safe from external bad actors.
As a decentralized solution, Blue Whale Network plans to create a network of various sharing platforms (also called blockchain node) which share the same philosophy but have their own unique form of governance. These individual ecosystems within Blue Whale Network are labelled “Provinces”.
Each province can use a white-label DApps (provided directly by Blue Whale) feature their own CAMs, DANs, and an access to ReBa, which are powered by the Blue Whale blockchain. This permits those provinces to offer the same contribution-based reward and employment benefits to the freelancers on their own sub networks. This is all done while keeping a degree of autonomy over their own province and the freelancers within it. The Blue Whale network will respect this autonomy.
These province may also choose to issue their own token to raise funds through ICOs — of which, 10% will be kept as a reserve with Blue Whale. If not, they must purchase 10% of their valuation worth of BWX tokens at the prevailing exchange rate.
This ensures that the Blue Whale main network, and its sub networks, continue to remain mutually-invested in each other.
This kind of governance and autonomy is like the Federal system. That’s why Blue whale as labelled his architecture as a “Federal Architecture”. The provinces are free to operate according to particular parameters outlined by the federal blockchain.
In addition, the main governance of Blue Whale Network is a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) which has introduced a voting mechanism that will permit to address issues that affect the entire network. This voting mechanism will allow the participants on the network adjusting policies such as operating costs, savings rate into Rewards Bank, Referral fees, issuance of new coins, incentive/payout algorithm and penalties. | https://medium.com/biomanforcerose/ico-analysis-5-reasons-why-you-should-have-a-look-to-blue-whale-foundation-4bb55ef3bff3 | [] | 2018-05-26 13:02:06.131000+00:00 | ['Blue Whale Foundation', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Gig Economy', 'Ico Review'] |
Three Bitcoin Valuation Methods: A Literature Review | “Bitcoin is dead” as pronounced 411 times by mainstream media. Why the disdain and disbelief? Perhaps it originates from bitcoin’s famously hidden message on its genesis block, “chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”, when bitcoin was born as a decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash system in Jan 2009 during the global financial crisis. Gradually, “what doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger”. While central banks were busy printing fiat currencies out of thin air, bitcoin started its super bullish cycle since Oct 2020 with price quintuple in less than five months. In retrospect, “it is inevitable”, as claimed by Elon Musk whose Tesla treasury buying up to 10% bitcoin with corporate cash, coinciding with mass institutional adoptions including PayPal, Square, Guggenheim, MassMutual, NY Bank of Mellon, Fidelity, JP Morgan Chase, DBS Bank, BlackRock etc. This article leads investors through the three bitcoin valuation methods utilized by “smart money”.
1. Bitcoin as a Substitute of Gold
“The bitcoin story is very easy; it is supply and demand. Bitcoin is digital gold, and it is better at being gold than gold.” Bitcoin is a scarce digital asset that cannot be devalued like fiat currency, with a fixed supply of 21 million; ownership is preserved on a public, transparent, and decentralized ledger, as maintained by global network, advanced cryptography and market incentives.
The store of value theory states that a digital asset’s value is a function of its ability to act as a store of monetary value for its investors and users. As an example of calculating the fair value of the price of bitcoin with store of value in mind, we could look at the price of gold and make the assumption that bitcoin could one day replace gold as the go-to store of value for investors.
At a current gold price of around $1,832 per troy ounce, the total value of the world’s gold bullion is around $11.6 trillion. Suppose bitcoin replaces gold as a popular store of value globally and its total network value rise to $11.6 trillion, knowing that the total supply of coins is capped at 21 million, the price of one BTC would end up being $552,380.
$11.6 trillion / 21 million BTC = $552,380 per one bitcoin
2. Bitcoin’s Price Dynamic: Stock to Flow Model
“As a thought experiment, imagine there was a base metal as scarce as gold, and one special, magical property: can be transported over a communications channel” — Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin is the first digital object with a fixed supply that cannot be copied, duplicated or forged, contributing to its unique mathematical value. The Bitcoin network has been generating uninterrupted blocks since day 1 — genesis block was generated on the 3rd, Jan, 2009 and the reward for mining it was 50 bitcoins. On every 210,000 generated blocks there is an event called “halving” which cuts, in half, the reward value distributed to miners from that moment on. Since blocks are generated every 10 minutes, “halving events” take place every 35,000 hours: almost exactly every 4 years. Halving events continue to take place until the reward for miners reaches 0, as after the 33rd halving in year 2140. It will be the 21 millionths bitcoin to come into existence, after which point it will be impossible to create anymore, and after that bitcoin will become truly deflationary. An anonymous hedge-fund manager in the name of “Plan B” applied Stock-to-Flow model to bitcoin price on a log scale, with an astonishing accuracy:
The ‘Stock-to-flow’ is a number that shows how many years, at the current production rate, are required to achieve the current stock.
S2F ratio = Stock / Flow
While Stock = current reserve, Flow = current production
Bitcoin with a fixed supply on an immutable irreversible blockchain is associated with scarcity, the word linked with precious metal and monetary supply. Note for bitcoin as it halves every four years, the flow would decrease to 50% of its last value every four years, causing its S2F to double every four years, making it more scare in nature. The above figure is done with linear regression plotted on a log scale chart illuminating the mathematical relationship between past (dotted) and predicted (line) bitcoin price as a function of its S2F ratio, which increases every four year in the halving events due to the halving decrease in the production. For more in-depth analysis, readers are encouraged to pursue this article “modelling bitcoin with scarcity”written by Plan B.
3. Bitcoin as World Reserve Currency
“Upon when investors use bitcoin denomination, not US dollar denomination on the accounting balance sheet, Bitcoin become a reserve currency in the monetary system.” — Nik Bhatia, “Layered Money: from Gold and Dollars to Bitcoin and Central Bank Digital Currencies”. Quoting from this fascinating book, “Bitcoin is antifragile, because it thrives off global monetary disorder within the dollar pyramid and is resilient to the threats, slander, and legislation from dismissive bureaucratic entities. The plain truth about bitcoin is that nobody controls it. It has become the first-ever government-free, universally accessible digital currency …. The following figure elucidates a future in which BTC is the world reserve and only first-layer money:”
In this version of future vision, all future money will eventually be digital tokens held in digital wallets. People will simultaneously hold an assortment of currencies: bitcoin for neutrality with no counter-party risk, central-bank-digital currency for daily consumption and paying taxes, and stablecoins for earning interest. If bitcoin as a reserve currency embodies a future world outstanding treasury bond which is estimated as 119 trillion, per bitcoin price will eventually come to:
$119 trillion / 21 million BTC = $5,666,666 per one bitcoin
Conclusion
In conclusion, the above three mathematical modeling predicts bitcoin price statically and dynamically as follows:
1. If Bitcoin could eventually replace gold, 1 BTC would reach 550,000 USD.
2. If Bitcoin could eventually become world reserve currency, 1 BTC would be worth more than 5 million USD.
3. Dynamically speaking, stock to flow model has accurately simulated bitcoin to reach 10,000 USD in 2017 and to exceed 50,000 USD around 2021, both occurring within one year of halving event. It predicted bitcoin to reach or exceed 1 million USD around 2026.
This is only a mathematical modeling-based prediction, and by no means should be regarded as financial advice.
Reference
Robin Xie is from iSunOne (https://www.isun.one), a cryptocurrency wallet whose clients earn daily interest on BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC.
https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
https://cryptobriefing.com/bitcoin-birthday-satoshi-hidden-message-explained/
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-02-08/elon-musk-s-tesla-buying-bitcoin-is-inevitable-and-disconcerting
https://www.wsj.com/articles/paypal-wants-more-customers-to-pay-using-crypto-assets-11620341510
https://www.coindesk.com/square-bitcoin-cash-app-q1-2021-earnings
https://www.coindesk.com/guggenheim-cio-says-bitcoin-could-eventually-climb-to-600000
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-10/169-year-old-insurer-massmutual-invests-100-million-in-bitcoin
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/11/bny-mellon-to-offer-bitcoin-services-a-validation-of-crypto-from-a-key-bank-in-the-financial-system.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/24/fidelity-to-launch-bitcoin-etf-as-investment-giant-builds-its-digital-asset-business-.html
https://www.coindesk.com/jpmorgan-to-let-clients-invest-in-bitcoin-fund-for-first-time-sources
https://forkast.news/singapore-dbs-bank-crypto-exchange-digital-assets/
https://citywireselector.com/news/blackrock-opens-two-funds-to-bitcoin-investments/a1453179
https://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/bitcoin-price-legendary-investor-bill-miller-resilience-better-every-day-2020-11-1029776469
https://www.bitcoinmarketjournal.com/digital-asset-valuation/
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/quotes/economics/?order=desc
https://stats.buybitcoinworldwide.com/stock-to-flow/
https://100trillionusd.github.io/
https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/modeling-bitcoins-value-with-scarcity-91fa0fc03e25
https://www.amazon.com/Layered-Money-Dollars-Bitcoin-Currencies/dp/1736110527
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_market#:~:text=As%20of%202021%2C%20the%20size,Financial%20Markets%20Association%20(SIFMA). | https://medium.com/@bin-xie/three-bitcoin-valuation-methods-a-literature-review-fa21b27fa40 | [] | 2021-05-22 14:23:13.436000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin Price', 'Bitcoin Price Prediction', 'Bitcoin Price Analysis', 'Bitcoin', 'Bitcoin Wallet'] |
Sitara is My Word | Poetry Prompt: A Personally Meaningful Non-English Word
Sitara is My Word
Photo by Sven Scheuermeier on Unsplash
Sitara is Sanskrit for “morning star;” and my lover-soul-partner’s universal name.
She calls me on and on
Iridescent soul
The girl has returned to Source
Allowed to visit not often or long enough for me
Realizing though that what is best for her and me is what shall be
Alas, I love her so
YG | https://medium.com/the-brain-is-a-noodle/sitara-is-my-word-ff5da602193 | [] | 2020-12-27 15:18:29.572000+00:00 | ['Universe', 'Poetry Prompt', 'Spirituality', 'Venus', 'Sanskrit'] |
The identity crisis: “Testing costs me too much time for nothing?” | It can be a controversial topic, but what I know for sure is that every day at least I have a method for approaching the problems I face. This is a sufficient benefit for me on its own. Though, is it worth the price? Let me guide us through the process of trying to find out.
The story begins with the my first green passing test suite.
At first, it all seemed simple: It is true that with tests, some things take longer to implement initially. On the other hand, by first writing tests, I wrap my head around a problem. Besides, I am counting on the long-term savings I am making by introducing less technical debt and preventing regressions from occurring when refactoring or otherwise changing code. And dem gainzzz are real long-term, right? … Right? Anybody?
The other day, I asked myself if this was really true. There are those moments when you start questioning even the most elementary premise you go by. I mean, I do believe it is, but can I somehow quantify it? Or at least show to myself that it makes some sense? Once I started thinking about it, I felt more and more uncomfortable not having the answer and blindly following the method without evert trying to analyze it a bit deeper. At least in this way.
So finally one afternoon, I came up with an idea:
Can I make a simple mathematical model that simulates what would happen with and without using some method that initially takes longer, but reduces technical debt in the long run.
This is not TDD specific, and is applicable to any method with such characteristics. I personally would use this simulation to justify my use of TDD of course.
Please take a note that this model is really crude, the numbers and assumptions are best guesstimates off top of my head. So consider this post as a conversation starter of sort.
If it really does get the conversation started, you can contact me directly via my Twitter handle or in the comments down below.
Sorry to say this, but I have a disclaimer to make: don’t use the data shown here to go to your naggy friend to notify him that you told him so. Do your own research, play with the model and make your own conclusions.
Or even make a new shinny fancy statistical model that will take a lot more factors into consideration. I would be glad in that case, because inspiring somebody to do something has a merit of its own.
Our goal
It is always good to clearly state what you want, not just when running simulations. Repeat after me… We… Want…
We want to measure if it is profitable to invest additional effort in TDD or similar approaches given the potential reductions in cost and time.
Model assumptions
First let’s agree to this: we will examine the assumptions and results and only then go into the mathy meat of the model. Also spaces > tabs if we are on the streak 🤭.
So let’s open up the question that each modeler meditates on:
What does our model assume?
Before dwelling on that, we should briefly introduce some naming.
Let’s call coding methods:
TESTED: i.e. TDD and other methods that involve testing or other practices that improve reliability
i.e. TDD and other methods that involve testing or other practices that improve reliability QUICK: i.e. non-tested OOP code with bad patters sprinkled on top
Below, in Table 1, is a list of our estimates for method attributes. Of course you still don’t know what these attributes means, but you if you kept track so far, you know that the next step is explain each one of them.
Table 1: Comparison of TESTED and QUICK attribute values.
The meanings of the factors are as follows:
factor = Measures how many times longer the method takes to implement the same code compared to the QUICK method. Or in a nutshell, this factor measures how much additional work is added while coding . We assume that each feature takes the same amount of time to build (unrealistic I know, but let’s go one step at a time 👶).
= Measures how many times longer the method takes to implement the same code compared to the QUICK method. Or in a nutshell, this factor measures how much additional work is added . We assume that each feature takes the same amount of time to build (unrealistic I know, but let’s go one step at a time 👶). debt = This one might seem complex, but it is entirely natural and logical. Just follow along. It measures how much more time each new feature or a change takes just because of the effect of technical debt . So for example, if debt=0.01 this means even if we add a new feature of the sample complexity as the previous one, it will still take 1% more time to implement. This happens for various reasons, and one of the best known ones is the so called spaghetti code. The more you add to it, the more time you need to spend locating the place where the new feature or change should reside.
= This one might seem complex, but it is entirely natural and logical. Just follow along. It measures how much more time each new feature or a change takes just because of the effect of . So for example, if this means even if we add a new feature of the sample complexity as the previous one, it will still take more time to implement. This happens for various reasons, and one of the best known ones is the so called spaghetti code. The more you add to it, the more time you need to spend locating the place where the new feature or change should reside. old_bugs = The percentage of time spent on fixing the old bugs. These are bugs that were introduced into the system with some of the previous features and not the ones being added at the moment. Or even the bugs re-introduced again because we didn’t have tests covering those cases.
= The percentage of time spent on fixing the old bugs. These are bugs that were introduced into the system with some of the previous features and not the ones being added at the moment. Or even the bugs re-introduced again because we didn’t have tests covering those cases. new_bugs = We all know the feeling, we spend some of our time chasing bugs caused by edge cases we forgot to cover when hastily trying to bring a new feature closer to production. There is a saying Festina lente in Latin meaning Make haste slowly. Sometimes, by trying to be faster, you end up being slower. With this attribute, we measure the percentage of time spent fixing this type of bugs and glitches. | https://medium.com/@tms1337/but-dude-tdd-is-so-slow-and-besides-it-all-boils-down-to-the-same-sh-t-78ea3e8afe6d | ['Faruk Mustafic'] | 2021-01-10 05:22:38.938000+00:00 | ['Software Testing', 'Startup Lessons', 'Software Engineering', 'Simulation', 'Test Driven Development'] |
Aeroengine Composites Market to reach US$ 6,086.1 million in 2024 | Aeroengine Composites Market: Highlights
Composite materials earned a reputed image in the aerospace industry, owing to their excellent track record of more than five decades. With such incredible properties of composites in contrast to other materials, GE Aviation, Safran Aircraft Engines, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls-Royce scrupulously started investing in the material in the critical section of an aeroengine. For an instance, in early 2014, Safran and Albany strategically collaborated to manufacture 3D Woven RTM composite aeroengine parts, such as composite fan cases, fan blades and outlet guide vanes, for the LEAP engine series, empowering B737 max, A320neo, and C919.
Aeroengine currently represents a small share of the total aircraft composites market but it is expected to grow at an impressive rate over the next five years to reach US$ 6,086.1 million in 2024. Increasing composite penetration in the latest aeroengines, such as LEAP, GEnx, GE9x, and passport 20 coupled with increasing production rates of the next-generation composite-rich aircraft A350XWB, B787, and F-35 is the major growth driver of the market. The incessant demand for fuel-efficient engines, increasing fan diameters of newer variants engines, and introduction of fuel-efficient variants of the best-selling aircraft with a greater composites content: A320neo and B737 max are further corroborating the growth of composites in aeroengines.
Airbus and Boeing, the two aircraft industry giants, are enjoying a huge order backlog of their major aircraft platforms. Boeing and Airbus had a combined total order backlog of 13,114 commercial aircraft by the April 2019. These huge pile of order backlogs of commercial aircraft will allow both airframers to roll out their aircraft continuously for about the next eight years at current build rates. Also, they have been strategically raising the production rates of their key commercial aircraft programs in order to deliver aircraft to their widespread clients at a shorter period; however, recent crashes of two Boeing’s B737 max (Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610) have temporarily impacted the production of its best-selling model due to the aircraft grounding by many airlines, which, in turn, forced the airframer to reduce the monthly production from 52 per month to 42 per month.
Another trend, which has a mammoth impact on the adoption of composites in aeroengines, is the significant increase is the engine bypass ratio (BPR). BPRs have increased from 5:1 in the 1970s to 10:1 in the new LEAP engine and will be 15:1 for the Rolls-Royce UltraFan engine, which is aimed for entry into service in 2025. High-temperature-resistant composite materials, such as Ceramic Matrix Composites, are also marking their presence in aircraft engines, especially in the hotter section of the engine. For instance, GE Aviation, a leading engine OEM, is deploying five CMC components in its GE9x, the world’s largest turbofan engine, empowering the B777x.
Aeroengine Composites Market, by Aircraft Type
The global aeroengine composites market is segmented based on the aircraft type as Narrow-Body Aircraft, Wide-Body Aircraft, Regional Aircraft, Helicopter, and Others. Wide-body aircraft is likely to remain the growth engine of the market during the forecast period. Increasing production rates of the next-generation aircraft programs A350XWB and B787 and increasing penetration of composites in newer variants of aircraft, such as B777x, are driving the wide-body aircraft segment. The narrow-body aircraft segment is driven by LEAP-1A empowering A320neo family, LEAP-1B empowering B737 max, and LEAP-1C empowering C919.
Aeroengine Composites Market, by Application Type
Based on the application type, the aeroengine composites market is segmented as Fan Blades, Fan Case, Outlet Guide Vanes, Shrouds, and Others. Fan blades and fan case together account for most of the aeroengine composites market and are likely to remain the dominant applications in the coming five years too. New-generation engine models, such as GEnx, GE9X, Pratt GTF, LEAP-1A, LEAP-1B, and LEAP-1C, contain both fan blades and fan case made of composites, which has led to a colossal share of both segments in the market. Development of new composite applications in engines by replacing traditional metallic components is further substantiating the growth of the aeroengine composites market. In the last decade, a sheer interest has been recorded for the use of ceramic matrix composites in various engine applications, such as shrouds, combustor liners, and nozzles.
Aeroengine Composites Market, by Composite Type
Based on the composite type, the aeroengine composites market is segmented as Polymer Matrix Composites (PMC), Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC), and Metal Matrix Composites (MMC). PMC is projected to remain the most dominant composite type in the global aeroengine composites market over the next five years. PMC is majorly being used to develop all the major composite components of the engine, such as fan blades and fan cases. Carbon-epoxy composite is the perennial choice of PMC, used majorly in the market. The CMC segment is likely to depict the highest growth in the global aeroengine composites market over the next five years. Much of this growth is attributed to the significant growth in LEAP engines, which incorporate various CMC components.
Aeroengine Composites Market, By Region
Based on the regions, North America is projected to remain the largest market during the forecast period, driven by the presence of the world’s largest aircraft OEM: Boeing. The USA is likely to remain the growth engine of the region’s market during the forecast period, propelled by the presence of the major engine manufacturers, such as GE Aviation, CFM International, and Pratt & Whitney. Asia-Pacific currently represents a relatively small opportunity; however, is subjected to grow at a handsome rate in the coming years, largely driven by China. China is projected to be the new growth engine in the region. Presence of assembly plants of A320neo and B737max coupled with the upcoming C919 aircraft is expected to drive the market in the country.
The supply chain & the top market leaders
The supply chain of this market comprises raw material suppliers, composite suppliers, aeroengine composite component manufacturers, tier player, aeroengine OEMs, airframers, airlines, and MRO companies. Some of the key players in the aeroengine composites market are Safran Aerospace Composites, Safran/Albany, CFAN, GE Aviation, Meggitt PLC, FACC AG, GKN Aerospace (Melrose Industries), and Triumph Group Inc. The key aircraft OEMs include Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, Embraer, COMAC, Lockheed Martin, Dassault Aviation, and Gulfstream Aerospace. Development of new applications, in-house manufacturing of composite parts, and formation of JV and M&As are some of the major strategies adopted by the major players in order to gain a competitive edge in the market.
Source:- https://www.stratviewresearch.com/485/aeroengine-composites-market.html | https://medium.com/@stratviewresearch/aeroengine-composites-market-highlights-1b7936e657d9 | ['Stratview Research'] | 2019-07-22 06:06:30.946000+00:00 | ['Market Research Report', 'Aviation', 'Composites Market', 'Aircraft'] |
No-breakout makeup: drugstore foundation | Using makeup to cover up acne can be tricky — even if you’re a pro at finding your perfect shade match. Foundation can be expensive, and choosing the one that’s right for your unique skin can be ultra confusing. If you’re acne-prone or have sensitive skin, finding a non-comedogenic drugstore foundation is the most budget-friendly way to cover up blemishes without making your breakout worse.
The best drugstore foundations, reviewed
There are plenty of non-comedogenic foundations at the drugstore. I looked at all of them (with generous research assistance from Vicky Kriv — thanks, cupcake ❤) to see what’s currently available in terms of the best cheap foundation. Then, I analyzed each to find ideal matches for common skin concerns based on the product’s formulation and finish. Without further ado, here are my picks for the best drugstore foundations of 2019.
The best full-coverage foundation
Milani Conceal + Perfect 2-in-1 Foundation
2-in-1 foundation and concealer makes this super-duper full-coverage
Semi-matte finish that softens the appearance of skin
Works well with all skin types
18 shades from Alabaster to Truffle
$8.99 via Target
The best foundation for mature skin
CoverGirl + Olay Simply Ageless Foundation
Light, buildable coverage
Natural, glowy finish
Cream formula with moisturizing ingredients like niacinamide smooths and fills in skin texture
11 shades from Ivory to Classic Tan; skews pale. For deeper skin tones, check out Black Radiance’s mousse foundation, which is non-comedogenic and creamy, too!
$13.49 via Walgreens
The best foundation for dry skin
Pixi H20 Skintint Foundation
Hydrating formula with moisturizing ingredients creates a glowy finish
Easy to apply (just use your fingers!)
Light, buildable coverage (for full coverage, check out Neutrogena Hydro Boost foundation)
6 shades from Cream to Espresso
$24.00 via Pixi Beauty
The best foundation for combination skin
e.l.f. Studio Flawless Finish Foundation
Satin finish flexes with your face to stay matte in oily parts but not cake onto dry parts
Full-coverage — a little goes a long way
Maintains skin hydration with dimethicone and glycerin
41 shades from Lily to Ebony
$6.00 via Target
The best foundation for oily skin
LA Girl Pro.Matte Foundation
Matte finish keeps your face from getting shiny
Medium, buildable coverage
Minimal blotting necessary with long-lasting wear — especially if you set your makeup!
24 shades from Ivory to Ebony
$8.99 via CVS
The best foundation for acne-prone skin
Neutrogena SkinClearing Liquid Makeup
Salicylic acid is the active ingredient, which can help fight breakouts with occasional use
Medium, buildable coverage
Satin finish suitable for all skin types
14 shades from Ivory to Chestnut
$14.59 via Neutrogena
The best foundation for large pores
Sleek Makeup Lifeproof Foundation
Medium, buildable coverage with a pore-minimizing blur finish
Moisturizing ingredients make this great for dry skin
Combine it with a talc-free setting powder to achieve a more matte, long-lasting look
24 shades from fair to deep
$10.99 via Walgreens
The best foundation cushion
Wet n’ Wild MegaCushion Foundation
Medium, buildable coverage
Liquid formula with moisturizing ingredients leaves a dewy finish
Works well with all skin types
4 shades from Buff Beige to Tawny
$8.99 via Ulta
The best powder foundation
L’Oreal Paris True Match Loose Powder Mineral Foundation
Works best for oily skin types — if you’re dry, use a moisturizing primer
Mineral powder with kaolin clay makes this gentle on sensitive skin
Light coverage with a matte finish
9 shades ranging from Natural Buff to Natural Beige
$14.99 via Walgreens
Start your free trial (plus shipping and handling)
Ingredients to avoid
One of the downfalls of using just about any cosmetic product is that a lot of common ingredients can be pore-clogging or irritating. If you have sensitive skin, here are the skincare villains most commonly found in drugstore foundations:
Chondrus Crispus (pore-clogging)
Denatured Alcohol (irritating)
Ethylhexyl Palmitate (pore-clogging)
Palmitate (pore-clogging) Glyceryl Stearate SE (pore-clogging)
Glycine Soja Oil (pore-clogging)
Isopropyl Palmitate (pore-clogging)
Isostearyl Neopentanoate (pore-clogging, irritating)
Laureth-4 (pore-clogging, irritating)
Octyl Palmitate (pore-clogging)
Polyglyceryl-3-Diisostearate (pore-clogging)
If you suspect your current foundation is breaking you out, use the CosDNA test to see if it contains pore-clogging ingredients. But if your skin tolerates a foundation that contains some of these ingredients, it’s probably fine to keep using it. Keep in mind that the lower an ingredient appears on an ingredient list, the smaller the amount contained in the product.
The trick to happy skin
Common skin woes like acne and signs of aging got you down? Sign up for a free trial of Curology (just pay $4.95 plus tax for shipping and handling), and a dermatology provider will prescribe you a custom cream to treat your unique skin needs. For no additional cost, we’ll throw in your complete non-comedogenic skin routine, with a cleanser and your choice of moisturizer. You don’t have to ride the struggle bus alone — get a free month of Curology and start getting happier, healthier skin today. | https://medium.com/curology/no-breakout-makeup-drugstore-foundation-5af6183607e9 | ['Stephanie Papanikolas'] | 2019-12-19 17:50:39.675000+00:00 | ['Year In Review', 'Beauty', 'Skincare', 'Acne', 'Makeup'] |
morning music by liam storey | The feeling of waking up and playing your favorite music to get your brain into the rytham of the day is so relaxing yet motivational.
Pop,rock,rap,hiphop and many more whatever your taste when waking up and after cleaning your teeth just putting on your music in the morning to get the day started is amazing it could be the same song you,ve replayed a hundred times or a new song you have just discovered it gets you ready for the day.
The day could be raining and you have the perfect song for the atmosphere to motivate you to finish that piece of homework that’s due in 2 hours or the unholy amount of work your boss gave you to finsh over the weekend no matter what you have that song for the rain the sun or even the snow you know what song to put on to push through that morning slump of feeling tired and to start feeling ready to get on with the day.
You could have a whole playlist dedicated to the morning because they are the only songs you can listen to get the day going or to wake up your brain to let you know its time to start the day. it’s great to put on the radio as well they have a wide varity of songs to start of the day but they also have they ads inbetween and it might not be the music you like so you have your own personal playlist that you know will get you going.
When doing homework or regular work music could help you through it to concentrate to flow through it or just as background noise and then before you know it its the afternoon and your already done and your ready for whatevers next.
At the end of it waking up and putting on that song or songs to help get through the morning helps every single time and makes us feel that little bit better so we can push on and enjoy the day with a smile on our face and that is the beatuy of listeing to music in the mornings. | https://medium.com/@sqododly/morning-music-by-liam-storey-865e014866fa | ['Liam Storey'] | 2021-04-25 20:42:03.609000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Weather', 'Music', 'Workout', 'Morning'] |
These 5 Famous Writers Didn’t Quit and Neither Should You | Writing is tough. Getting rejected is even harder.
You sit in front of a computer, you let the words slice you open and spill your guts and heart onto a blank document. You have no clue whether it is good or not, whether someone else would find it interesting, but you give your best and let the story unfold.
Eventually, a stranger reads it or glances at it. They then send you a short, courteous private note: “Thanks, we will pass”. Sometimes, most of the time, you won't even get that.
This is brutal and has the potential to make you give up on your dream. You feel like throwing the computer out of the window, and finally, make your mother proud by becoming a lawyer.
So, a minute before you do that, bear in mind that you're not alone. Actually, you are in a really, really, good company. You shouldn’t give up just yet. | https://medium.com/illumination/these-5-famous-writers-didnt-quit-and-neither-should-you-4e648e67cfc2 | ['Elad Simchayoff'] | 2020-09-01 14:52:46.531000+00:00 | ['Inspiration', 'Rejection', 'Books', 'Positive Thinking', 'Authors'] |
“The More You Learn the More Questions You Have” — Pouria Kay | Pouria, talking to the participants of his workshop at the School of Startups.
Pouria Kay, entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of Grib, has been a good friend of The Shortcut from its beginning. Pouria’s story is an inspiring act on how one should follow the goals, have a passion to learn and give back to the community.
You might have met Pouria at the Startup Debut or workshops of the School of Startups. Pouria, whose adventures in the Finnish startup world started to bring positive results, agreed to share his experiences with The Shortcut.
It all started with a dream
“I decided to move to Finland already in 2009. I was working full-time, had two jobs simultaneously. I had finished my bachelor studies in Iran and career-wise everything was fine, but i felt that i needed to learn more and Iran wasn’t the environment for that. There’re social structural problems that do not allow you to learn especially if you’re young and too enthusiastic. I tried different ways and it didn’t work.”
“The more you learn the more questions you have.”
As I had lots of questions, I jumped into different areas. Back in Iran I started as a designer, doing small design processing in the advertising department. First I just wanted to improve the process, that led to the need of improving the whole PR and advertising, then I had to fix marketing and later the strategic planning and management too. Although I didn’t have enough time to study everything properly, going through that made me learn a lot. I also found that the more you learn the more questions you have.
“Although I didn’t know much about Finland, it seemed to be an environment where I could grow” Image by Marja Suurpalo
I started searching online where I could learn and what I could do about it. I found IDBM (International Design Business Management, Master’s program in Aalto University, that integrates business, design and technology — author’s note), which was starting for the first time as major. I was like “I’m going there!” I applied and I got in. Although I didn’t know much Finland except maybe a few general things that people know about the Nordics and seeing a bunch of pictures, Finland seemed to be an environment where I could grow, learn and develop.
“Finland is like home. I’m living here, I like the the environment, I want to stay here.”
It was the first time I was leaving Iran. I had several issues to solve in order to come here — military service, finances, visa, language exam. I had none of it. I started the planning seriously — “must have IELTS by this time, apply by this time, have this much money…” eventually I managed it all. It took a lot of effort and my friends were “Oh, you’re just lucky”. What was interesting is that I knew exactly what I was doing for the first time in my life and I’ve been focusing on one thing at a time. I’ve learned a lot from that. I came here for the studies and I wanted to do things. That led me where I am now.”
Saving humanity from annoying 3D software
“When I started Grib, I was already deep into the startup environment.When I got to Aalto, I got introduced to Startup Sauna, which was still a garage at that time. Ideas after ideas I started to help other startups.
My company was registered in 2016, but Grib itself started as a project in 2014, right after I graduated. Now we are in the stage of product development. We’re constantly looking for opportunities, learning, trying and seeing what we can do. I consider a product not just an app, for a startup a product could be the whole business model. We’re working hard on validating what we get to the market.”
Pouria found his new home in Finland.
Giving back to the community
“I got a lot and I’m still getting from the startup scene in Finland. It’s a good thing that people give back. The hard part is that everybody is trying to help and has very strong opinions, so some of the things you get are not necessarily right or good. Not everything I received was positive, but I guess it’s part of the learning. You hear different opinions and views, listen to them, learn and decide by yourself.
I wish there was some kind of system that would encourage everybody to share and give back. When you’re giving back you’re getting stronger. The dangerous side is that you also get stronger in your opinions, so you definitely need feedback. Circulation of information and feedback, I think it’s still missing.”
We need more “shortcuts” in the system
“It is important not to put 100 people to one box, but see each as individuals and understand what drives them, why they do what they do. Once you understand their drive, we can change the way we see them and can help more efficiently.
I’m not that far from the time I’ve been to that kind of environment, maybe 2–4 years ahead compared to the people who participated in the School of Startups. If I’m able to add anything then of course I’ll be around.
What helped me with Grib at the early stage were the mentors, I had very good mentors. For those who are at the very early steps, just having an idea, not even a concept, — the best mentors are the ones who’re just a bit ahead. It’s same with kids who are more likely to be influenced by other kids, — mentors are the ones who sit next to you, work with you through the process. If the person is a CTO of another 3 year old startup, that’s a great mentor for your tech idea. They have been through the same thinking, can see things the way you see it. It’s also good that each one gets connected to someone in industry. There are tons of people who have potential, but they’re disconnected.
One single channel can not do this, then The Shortcut may be a facilitator. I think The Shortcut is good and we also need others like The Shortcut in the system. Those are very effective.” | https://medium.com/the-shortcut/the-more-you-learn-the-more-questions-you-have-interview-with-pouria-kay-startup-notes-3a9b0d51afc5 | ['Anna Pogrebniak'] | 2018-09-18 12:46:14.007000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Stories', 'Finland', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup'] |
Therapists Jerry Wise and Mark Smith tell us that the reason affairs happen is neither of the two… | Therapists Jerry Wise and Mark Smith tell us that the reason affairs happen is neither of the two people have the emotional health to have a fifty-year connected marriage. The reason for this is you got married that way. The reason for this is your childhood.
I’m sharing this because I am a former “other woman” who did a HELL of a lot of work understanding WTF happened. I work and I work hard.
I also had a bit of help. You see, my guy dropped me to go into marriage counseling with his wife. I heard from him two and a half years later, and therapy did not help at all. He’s pretty honest with me, so I get the inside poop if I ask for it, and I have a pretty good bullshit detector.
The reasons counseling did not help in this case:
) The husband did not come clean about the affair in the first place. Therefore, the wife had no idea how truly serious the situation was. If she had, she might have had better sense than to go around badmouthing him to people outside the relationship when he moved out, saying things like, “He’s depressed,” and “He’s crazy.” Yep … He was depressed. But … yep. He had a good reason … two, actually. a.) He’s an adult child of an alcoholic with VERY low self esteem, and b.) She’s a champion distancer in the relationship who can’t connect to him with her own feelings because half the time she doesn’t know what they are. ) The second reason therapy didn’t do shit for this couple is this counselor only did the “five love languages,” which isn’t going to do poodoo when two people have deeply ingrained childhood issues such as the ones I’ve described. What these two needed was a Bowen systems therapist like the WISE fellow in the video up there, who could have unraveled how this happened in these two people making one the emotionally numb henpeckER and the other the emotionally numb henpeckEE. If you pick a therapist who doesn’t go deep enough, you’re likely to doom your marriage. ) The third reason this couple flunked therapy: The wife’s attitude. I heard from Husband: “I was hoping for a change in her that would spark a change of feelings in me. Instead, after insisting on the counseling, she sort of slept through it and acted like she really didn’t want to be there.” The person who behaves this way DOOMS THEIR MARRIAGE.
Interestingly enough, affairs also show up in your horoscope, and these three charts talk about all the same stuff.
This is all really important shit. From a former Other Woman, if you want to save your marriage, you are going to have to work and work hard. Go look up a video called “The Slaughter of Trust” on YouTube and watch ALL THREE PARTS. If you don’t want me coming back to steal your husband, this is your homework. Go Do It!! | https://medium.com/@thethinkingotherwoman/therapists-jerry-wise-and-mark-smith-tell-us-that-the-reason-affairs-happen-is-neither-of-the-two-fd06e476f905 | ['A. Nonymous'] | 2020-03-11 02:56:00.436000+00:00 | ['Couples', 'Therapy', 'Relationships', 'Mental Health', 'Affairs'] |
Integrating HMS Push Kit in Unity Game Development | Integrating HMS Push Kit in Unity Game Development
HUAWEI Push Kit is a messaging service provided by Huawei for developers. It establishes a messaging channel from the cloud to devices. By integrating HUAWEI Push Kit, developers can send messages to apps on users’ devices in real time using ag-connect. This helps developers maintain closer ties with users and increases user awareness and engagement. The following figure shows the process of sending messages from the cloud to a device. Shiddalingeshwar M S Dec 22, 2020·5 min read
Introduction
HUAWEI Push Kit is a messaging service provided by Huawei for developers. It establishes a messaging channel from the cloud to devices. By integrating HUAWEI Push Kit, developers can send messages to apps on users’ devices in real time using ag-connect. This helps developers maintain closer ties with users and increases user awareness and engagement. The following figure shows the process of sending messages from the cloud to a device.
Development Overview
You need to install Unity software and I assume that you have prior knowledge about the Unity and C#.
Hardware Requirements
A computer (desktop or laptop) running Windows 7 or Windows 10.
A Huawei phone (with the USB cable), which is used for debugging.
Software Requirements
Java JDK installation package
Unity software installed
Visual Studio installed
HMS Core (APK) 4.X or later
Integration Preparations
To integrate HUAWEI Push Kit, you must complete the following preparations:
1. Create a project in AppGallery Connect.
2. Create Unity project.
3. Adding Huawei HMS Core App Services to project.
4. Generate a signing certificate.
5. Generate a SHA-256 certificate fingerprint.
6. Configure the signing certificate fingerprint.
7. Download and save the configuration file.
8. Add the AppGallery Connect plug-in and the Maven repository in LaucherTemplate
9. Add the dependencies in MainTemplate.
10. Add dependencies in BaseProjectTemplate.
11. Build and run the application.
12. Result.
13. For more details, refer Preparations for Integrating HUAWEI HMS Core.
1. Create a project in AppGallery Connect.
2. Create Unity project.
3. Adding Huawei HMS Core App Services.
It will add new menu in unity Huawei > AppGallery
Enter the details by referring the agconnect-services.json file.
You can verify the Huawei folder once you added Huawei HMS Core App Services
4. Generate a signing certificate
Click on File > Build Settings under Publishing Settings create new key store and also you need to add Company Name, Product Name and Package Name.
5. Generate a SHA-256 certificate fingerprint
To generating SHA-256 certificate fingerprint use below command after generating signed key store.
keytool -list -v -keystore D:\Unity\projects_unity\file_name.keystore -alias alias_name
6. Configure the signing certificate fingerprint.
7. Download and save the configuration file.
8. Add Maven repository in LaucherTemplate and dependencies
To do this, click File > Build Settings under Publishing Settings enable build scripting as show below.
Open LaucherTemplate add the below plugin and dependencies
apply plugin: 'com.huawei.agconnect' implementation 'com.huawei.agconnect:agconnect-core:1.2.0.300'
implementation 'com.huawei.hms:push:4.0.1.300'
9. Add the dependencies in MainTemplate.
Open MainTemplate add the below code.
implementation 'com.huawei.hms:push:4.0.1.300'
10. Add dependencies in BaseProjectTemplate.
Open BaseProjectTemplate add below code in both build script repositories and all project repositories.
maven { url 'https://developer.huawei.com/repo/' }
11. Build and run the application.
To build and run the project for android first Switch Platform and then choose Build to generate apk or choose Build Run to build and run on real device connected.
Choose File > Build Settings > Build or Build and Run
12. Result
Tips and Tricks
1. Download latest HMS plugin.
2. HMS plugin v1.2.0 supports 7 kits.
3. HMS Unity Plugin v1.1.2 supports 5 kits.
Conclusion
In this article, we have learned to integrate Push Kit in
Unity based game and send push notification from Ag-connect
Console to device directly.
References
https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/hms | https://medium.com/@shikkerimath/integrating-hms-push-kit-in-unity-game-development-ac2ac4141086 | ['Shiddalingeshwar M S'] | 2020-12-22 13:31:52.290000+00:00 | ['Push Notification', 'Unity', 'Hms Core', 'Hms', 'Huawei Mobile Service'] |
A Less Known Attack Vector, Second Order IDOR Attacks | Most of you probably familiar within the vulnerability types “IDOR (Insecure Object Direct Reference)” and second order vulnerabilities such as “Second Order SQL Injection.”, still for the ones who are not familiar, OWASP defines IDOR in theory as:
Insecure Direct Object References occur when an application provides direct access to objects based on user-supplied input. As a result of this vulnerability attackers can bypass authorization and access resources in the system directly, for example database records or files.
So if you imagine, there is an endpoint exist such as https://ozguralp.com/my_cards.jsp?card_id=1231414 on a standard user profile, when you change card_id parameter sequentially if you get other users card information unauthorizedly, then the endpoint is vulnerable to IDOR attacks.
Now, PortSwigger defines Second-order SQL injection attack as:
Second-order SQL injection arises when user-supplied data is stored by the application and later incorporated into SQL queries in an unsafe way. To detect the vulnerability, it is normally necessary to submit suitable data in one location, and then use some other application function that processes the data in an unsafe way.
So for second-order vulnerabilities, after user sends a malicious request for the attack type, user needs to find a functionality on the application which executes that malicious payload directly rather than the input-sent functionality. You can also get the concept within the Stored XSS vulnerabilities, which is also defined by PortSwigger as second-order XSS, due to the payloads are executed on different pages rather than the exploited request’s response. Within understanding the concept, we can try to find any vulnerability type’s second-order attack vectors. We will focus two different real world examples of Second Order IDOR’s.
#Example 1
One time when I was testing a banking application, I noticed an endpoint which allows users to gather their transaction receipt’s when clicked on the page. The endpoint was like: https://bankingapp.com/transactions/show_receipt.aspx?id=32423423 . When this endpoint was requested, application was redirecting user the a https://bankingapp.com/transactions/receipt_success.aspx without any additional data or parameters. On this page, the PDF of the receipt was gathered successfully. When the id parameter was changed on the first request to the other users (or sequentially), now application was redirecting user to the https://bankingapp.com/transactions/receipt_error.aspx page rather than showing the receipt successfully. From this aspect, it seems secure since we cannot gather the other users receipts, right?
Workflow of the functionality
So, what could be happen if we request our receipt first but not follow the redirect to the success page, request other users receipt from repeater and now follow redirect to the success page?
Attack can be conducted via below steps:
Click the button for show_receipt.aspx?id=32423423 request on the page and intercept the request via Burp.
request on the page and intercept the request via Burp. Send request to the repeater.
Forward held show_receipt.aspx?id=32423423 request from proxy and intercept receipt_success.aspx request. Hold it.
request from proxy and intercept request. Hold it. Return to the repeater and change id parameter to other users as show_receipt.aspx?id=32423424 . Do not follow redirection from the repeater.
. Do not follow redirection from the repeater. Now forward the held receipt_success.aspx and cross your fingers.
Messing with workflow of the functionality
Well it depends on how the application gathers receipt information on receipt_success.aspx functionality. If it is returning last requested receipt id parameter from current user session, then we may get the other users receipt unauthorizedly. If it is returning last requested receipt id which belongs to current user session, then it would be not vulnerable. In my case, it was returning the last requested receipt id without checking whether it belongs to current session or not, so voila! It was possible to gather all transaction receipts of the bank!
Within a white-box approach to the topic, let’s imagine that these functions have below code lines on the back-end.
show_receipt.aspx.cs
receiptId = GetReceiptIdFromURL();
Session["receiptId"] = receiptId;
if(CurrentUser.Owns(receiptId))
{
redirect receipt_success.aspx;
}
else
{
redirect receipt_error.aspx;
}
receipt_success.aspx.cs
receiptId = Session["receiptId"];
return ReadReceipt(receiptId);
receipt_error.aspx.cs
return "Error";
So, when the attacker requests receipt_success.aspx endpoint directly, on the back-end receipt id is gathered from the session directly. If the attacker makes a request to the other user’s receipt id before requesting success page, due to application checks the IDOR control only at show_receipt.aspx page, it is possible to gather other users receipts unauthorizedly. For full remediation, same check also should be applied to the success page too.
#Example 2
One time when I was trying to find IDOR vulnerabilities on an application, I found another second-order vulnerability which was affecting the user logs.
So, when I was trying to gather another users message within changing the message id’s, application was returning Access Denied errors.
Changing messageId parameter to other user returns error.
However, on the account activity section of the application, while it was returning access denied on showMessageBody endpoint, nevertheless it was returning the information requested on that functionality via the event/audit logs!
Gathering other user information within second-order IDOR via audit logs
That was a standard user (Email: red<redacted>@synack.com) and do not had any access to the any other user rather than itself. While security controls were configured successfully on the first functionality; on the account activity section, all activity for user was gathered from back-end without checking whether it contains any access errors or not. So it was possible to gather other users information via second-order IDOR vulnerability existing at the audit log feature.
Last Words
Especially for bug bounty activities, keeping your mind open and checking this kind of less known/controlled vulnerabilities may bring success to you in the future. Instead of just changing the parameters and analyzing the results of the response pages one by one, thinking all application functionality as a whole and making analysis within this aspect may actually double your finding activities. | https://medium.com/@ozguralp/a-less-known-attack-vector-second-order-idor-attacks-14468009781a | ['Ozgur Alp'] | 2020-01-31 11:18:28.311000+00:00 | ['Vulnerability', 'Security Vulnerabilities', 'Information Security', 'Cybersecurity', 'Bug Bounty'] |
I’m writing a fiction novel that I wanted to finish in six months because I have five more | I’m writing a fiction novel that I wanted to finish in six months because I have five more Have something Nov 21, 2020·7 min read
And to top it all off, managing my finances became as much of a riddle as the rest as I had alimony, startup support, and more cash into a new relationship. But that one more startup “win” was all I needed.
The studies we conduct at the Center for Healthy Minds (where I am a research scientist) suggest that resilience is a skill, and so is its counterpart on the other end of the spectrum: human flourishing. It turns out we can train our minds and even rewire our brains to be more resilient in the face of challenges and to thrive when things are going well.
It focuses on gratitude and asks for 2–3 priorities for the day, and the opposing lined, blank page meant for jotting down a nagging thought or to-dos as they pop up. Write them down, unclutter your mind, and move on.
I put on the brakes and placed the notebooks on the shelf. I threw the Laws of Attraction planner in the trash. Tossed the idea of colored highlighters and took everything off the corkboard.
Insight refers to our ability to recognize how thoughts, emotions, and beliefs are shaping the way we see the world, and especially how we see ourselves. Take the experience my friend had listening to the morning news. Have you had a similar experience? Hearing all the doom and gloom likely triggered her anxious thoughts and feelings. These thoughts and feelings tend to shape how we see ourselves, other people, and our life as a whole. When your “insight meter” (that is, your level of insight in a given moment) is down, all these perceptions will seem like reality. There won’t be any room to step back and examine what’s really going on, and whether the situation is really as dire as it seems in that moment.
I didn’t accomplish things by using thick planners, task lists, prioritizing, highlighters, and time allocation. If I tried, I ran out of time, all the time and got overwhelmed.
There are many ways to do this. And again, the parallels with physical health are apt. Jogging, by itself, won’t make you perfectly healthy, nor will drinking enough water or practicing good sleep habits. Physical health is complex. We need an “all of the above” strategy or something will inevitably be out of balance. A similar approach is necessary to “grow” a healthy mind. Whether we’re focused on resilience or human flourishing — two core aspects of overall well-being — no one approach will be enough. There are multiple dimensions of well-being and we need strategies that target all of them. So what are these dimensions and how do we strengthen them? And where do we start?Scientists have been studying these questions for decades and have reached some important conclusions. One of the single most important discoveries is that when we are resilient, the most challenging periods of life can fuel growth and self-discovery. Scientists define resilience as the ability to adapt successfully to stress, adversity, and other life challenges. You are likely familiar with PTSD — post-traumatic stress disorder. This is what happens when the brain and nervous system get trapped in a vicious loop following a traumatic event, reliving the fear and anxiety of the experience over and over again. But you may be less familiar with post-traumatic growth. There are times when even extreme adversity doesn’t overwhelm us but instead makes us stronger. In those moments, we learn and grow in powerful ways. We forge positive connections with other people. We clarify our core values and become more focused on what truly matters in life.One of the best strategies to promote resilience and peak mental functioning is to let go of trying to avoid challenges and difficulties and to instead train ourselves to handle them well.
As life got away from me after 2012 because I wanted one more startup “win.” Even a small one. I had done it before in different ways, and I would do it again, I insisted. I overlooked too many things because there were too many puzzles.
In principle, this process is not all that different from physical exercise. Training the body builds our physical immune system. Training the mind builds our mental immune system. To summarize a great deal of scientific research on mental well-being into a singular finding: One of the best strategies to promote resilience and peak mental functioning is to let go of trying to avoid challenges and difficulties and to instead train ourselves to handle them well.
But the process of making choices and decisions after 2012 got obscured by the clutter, and it ultimately led to frustration and failure in multiple areas, and all the puzzles falling to the floor.
A funny thing happened when I took a minimalist approach to prioritize my daily life. I realized that it’s how I used to run my life for years. Uncluttered office. One notebook. One laptop that only had Office loaded. And a planner that fits in my pocket.
Before 2012, the only way I accomplished anything was to take life one riddle at a time. That type of focus helped to create sound motivations and controlled impulsivity. As a result, life usually turned out the way I expected.
I’m feeling better about myself. I’m sleeping better. I’m not producing the volume of Medium articles I need because several other priorities needed completing first, but I’m now working a Medium strategy every day, and I know I will get there.
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I recently caught up with an old friend who shared an experience that many of us can relate to. A few weeks ago, she got up in the morning and listened to a news podcast, like she does every day. And like every day, the news was filled with ominous stories and dire predictions. More and more coronavirus deaths. Political chaos. Lost jobs and school closures. She’d been hearing similar reports day after day for months, but on this particular day, her mind just snapped. She couldn’t take it. The thought of helping her kids get through the school day, making sure her elderly parents were safe and healthy, getting her work done on time, and the endless list of chores and unfinished tasks building up on her to-do list — all of it became too much to handle. All she could do was crawl back into bed and stare at the ceiling, hoping that she could simply close her eyes and make it all disappear.
Moments of insight happen spontaneously all the time, but we don’t have to sit around and wait for them to happen. We can train our minds to experience more insight. Studies have shown that meditation and other forms of mental training allow us to recognize when our thoughts and feelings are hijacking the way we see ourselves, and see the world, which then gives us the opportunity to shift the way we relate to our memories, expectations, and beliefs. Instead of all these mental phenomena distorting the way we see the world (like a defective pair of glasses), we can take the glasses off and inspect them. In scientific terms, this is referred to as the shift from a “narrative mode” of experience that is heavily influenced by our thoughts and emotions to an “experiential mode” that is focused on the here and now, and less so on all our beliefs and assumptions. There is even evidence that this shift corresponds to a related shift in brain activity.
And referring to Emerson’s Riddle, I could not identify and put together the correct puzzle pieces following divorce. And that led to developing poorly understood motivations and ill-advised impulses.
My friend was one of the lucky ones. She was able to take that day off — which gave her the space to recharge. She woke up the next morning with a little more energy and confidence and made a conscious choice to avoid the news. But there are times when it’s not so easy to get our head back in the game. When we get so overwhelmed that no amount of rest is enough, or we don’t have the luxury of taking the time and space we need to hit our inner reset button. So what can we do in these challenging times? How can we possibly be resilient when it feels as though the world is falling apart all around us?
In contrast, when your “insight meter” is up, you might notice all of this playing out in your mind. You can recognize that the information you’re hearing is triggering certain thoughts, and those thoughts are prompting you to fixate on all the bad things that might happen and completely ignore more positive outcomes. This ability to pause and notice your own thoughts and emotions and examine how they are influencing your perception defuses rumination. You might still have the same thoughts and feelings, but you can recognize that they are not necessarily true or accurate.
The scientific model that informs my team’s approach to well-being focuses on four pillars of a healthy mind that can be strengthened through training: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. All four are central to well-being. In other words, when we are fully present and more focused (awareness), we’re more resilient, and we’re at the top of our game when things are going well. The same is true when we feel more connected to other people (connection), and when we have core values and a sense of purpose that inspires and motivates us (purpose). Some of these factors may seem obvious, but the one that is perhaps least clear is the role of insight.
I transferred technology out of a university, established a startup with lab space in Boston while I lived in Raleigh, began a new relationship with a single mother that turned into a commitment, attended investor meetings nearly every week, and met with individual angel investors — no wonder I switched to a thick planner and highlighters.
But the process of making choices and decisions after 2012 got obscured by the clutter, and it ultimately led to frustration and failure in multiple areas, and all the puzzles falling to the floor. | https://medium.com/@meshamimraj/im-writing-a-fiction-novel-that-i-wanted-to-finish-in-six-months-because-i-have-five-more-7c519fbc27b4 | ['Have Something'] | 2020-11-21 17:09:28.637000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Šport', 'Startup', 'Coronavirus', 'News'] |
Making Money With AdSense — How to Use Your Website to Make AdSense Money | There are thousands upon thousands of programs on the internet for making money, but there can be none as easy as Google AdSense. Google has an advertising program called AdWords that charges the advertiser every time a visitor clicks on their ad. These ads are put onto AdSense members’ websites and you earn AdSense money every time someone clicks on an ad on your site. You are essentially helping Google publish their advertising and they pay you out of the AdWords money they earn. Follow Same Process on How i Got $1000 Sent to my Cash App
Because the ads on your site have been matched to the content of your site, they are relevant to your visitors and actually add value to your site. Specialized technology allows Google to assess your website for context and content to make matching AdSense advertising a simple task. It is in everyone’s interest to have well-matched ads appear on websites; the targeted traffic will be more likely to click on ads of interest and increase how much AdSense money everyone will make.
When you apply to join the AdSense program the content of your site will be assessed for originality and valuable information. Google will also be looking for the quantity of your content — new and original content appearing regularly on your site. Because AdSense relies on the numbers, your content and your ability for making money with AdSense are linked. You need to show that you intend to be around for a while and that you offer valuable information to visitors.
For AdSense to make money, there has to be a lot of traffic to your site, and this is another area Google will want to check before you are approved for membership. Google want maximum traffic to see their AdWords ads and so the volume of traffic you receive is a deciding factor.
There is no information about how much the AdWords pays per click, but you could expect a wide price range from.02c to about $15. How much money AdSense makes you will depend on your content and traffic, but this is a very simple way to add to your internet income.
Follow Same Process on How i Got $1000 Sent to my Cash App | https://medium.com/@shadetech/making-money-with-adsense-how-to-use-your-website-to-make-adsense-money-67d90c67bfe | ['Adejare Shadrach'] | 2021-12-20 01:11:23.943000+00:00 | ['Make Money From Home', 'Makeup', 'Make Money Online Fast', 'Make Money Online', 'Make Money Blogging'] |
Baby J’s 1st Birthday | Food
Just like a wedding, food is an important thing. I mean, we all love food. We had a noon party so to cater to “lunchtime” we had ordered cold cuts from Anthony & Sons (they give you such a great amount of food) that people could create their own sandwich with and huge savings with my husband making 2 trays of pasta. With sales at the food store on pasta and making our own sauce with cheese and the fixings, we spent $30 on the trays versus the $30 per tray. I also was super proud of my Nacho Volcano that fit the dinosaur theme. Chips, refried beans for the walls, velveta cheese in the bowl/center and scoop away. I also made buffalo chicken dip as he lava which is always a hit.
Dessert I made a pull apart cupcake cake, smash cake, dirt cups made with cookies, pudding and colored coconut flakes, and my husband made his delicious bread pudding. Again saving money on making the yummies. If you’re not a baker you can always ask a family member. Plus, my sister got these adorable Dino cookies that I would show you, but I ate them all.
Decorations
With the love of crafts, some I made and others I purchased from Hobby Lobby or Oriental Trading. I love balloon arches and made one in the past minus two must haves for his baptism. First must have is an electric balloon buddy, aka it inflates balloons for you. (saving your oxygen one balloon at a time) Second must have is the balloon arch tape. This must have locks in the balloon from where you tie it and holds it in place. I created three clusters with some glued on to fill holes and it turned out perfect! Add some Dollar Tree Mylar helium balloons and tada! I also purchased a T-Rex face with a cut out for photos and turned it into a game. Dollar Tree had plush dinosaurs that the kids used to toss in the T-Rex mouth and then later used it for pictures! | https://thequeenbuzz.com/baby-js-1st-birthday-f400b948305d | ['Deana Elwood', 'Head Bee'] | 2019-03-01 15:55:42.402000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Baby', 'DIY', 'Birthday', 'Baking'] |
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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/sadhguru-jv/sadhguru-97461cd074dc | [] | 2020-12-20 12:26:03.456000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Yoga', 'Meditation', 'Quotes'] |
The role of Leaders and Interpersonal Influence in Benefiting Employees and Organisations | Leadership in Organisations
The role of Leaders and Interpersonal Influence in Benefiting Employees and Organisations Madhur Dixit Follow Jun 16 · 7 min read
Image by Aliaks and rbarysen
An individual’s influence attempt is affected by various factors such as contextual factors, individual differences and different influence techniques. These factors are characterised by the relative power of the parties and direction of the influence attempt as stated by Fable & Yukl in their research.
Influence techniques in an organisational setting are categorised into eight tactics: assertiveness, ingratiation, rationality, sanctions, exchange, upward appeals, blocking and coalitions . These tactics can then be further classified into hard, soft and rational tactics (Yukl, 2008). Hard tactics are comprised of exchange, legitimating, pressure, assertiveness and coalitions, whereas, soft tactics include personal appeal, consultation, inspirational appeal and ingratiation.
Image by Dmitry Demidko
A good example of hard and soft tactics in practice are: Imagine a bank undergoing cost cutting. The CEO and top management would use their power to lay off employees in order to meet the cost cutting goals. This is an example of hard tactic, whereas imagine a firm wanting to solve a client’s business problem by coming up with creative and innovative solutions. The team working on this project will use the consultation approach to come up with unique solutions. This is where soft tactics come into play.
Leadership is a process of social influence in which one person is able to gain the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a given task .
Leaders can use both hard and soft tactics to benefit employees and organisations. In order to benefit employees and organisations, we must take into account the influence of leaders in strategic objectives, competitive strategy, formal structure, management systems and programs, corporate culture and the members’ skills and motivations (Osborn, Hunt, & Jauch, 2002). Employee and organisation effectiveness depend on efficiency, human capital and adaptation to the external environment, whereas, the performance is determined by the decisions and actions of the leaders .
An organisation’s efficiency can be improved in many ways such as redesigning work process, reducing excess inventory, using new innovative technology etc. It is facilitated by cultural values, meeting deadlines, error-free performance, adhering to rules and controlling costs. It is easy to improve an organisation’s efficiency if the leaders succeed to keep the operations relatively stable for a considerable period of time. For example, Imagine a technology firm such as Dell which is considering to provide a seamless experience to the consumers through omnichannel. In order to consider this step, a leader must perform a cost-benefit analysis and figure out whether this would be correct strategy to enhance the organisation productivity or not. If it requires to change operations constantly, then it would be an obstacle to increase the firm’s efficiency.
The effectiveness is also determined by the organisation’s ability to adapt to the external environment. Key indicators include long-term sales increase, increase in market share, and loyalty and satisfaction of customers (Yukl, 2008).
A leader can influence the employees in a positive way to be more creative, flexible and tolerant to mistakes, product quality and customer service to make the organisation more adaptive.
Image by Zhang Kaiyv
For example, it is Apple’s leaders and top management who are constantly adapting to the changes and competition and being ever more creative with their advertising and product launches in order to maintain their customer base despite the increase in competition. Making innovative changes is easier in organisations that are flexible in terms of operational processes and the types of products and services offered. This is exactly what we see in some of the world’s most innovative firms such as google, Microsoft, Apple, Vodafone etc.
Another way in which the leaders influence the employee and organisations is how they manage the human capital. “Human capital is the extent to which the members of an organisation have the skills and motivation needed to do the work effectively” (Hitt & Ireland, 2002). Managers and leaders should focus on constant acquisition and retention of human capital to have a stronger impact on business. For any company, talented employees with diverse perspectives to problems and unique knowledge base are the most important asset for an organisation. The leaders who hire such employees are a step ahead in influencing their organisation to thrive and perform well in this highly competitive environment.
Take an example of OYO, a hotel chain start-up originated from India. It is now in more than 16 countries and is the second largest hotel chain in terms of sellable room nights. They have achieved this in only 6 years. I was interning at OYO London last summer and having personally experienced the leadership style of the managers at OYO UK, I can confidently say that a firm’s performance is influenced by the kind of people hired by the managers and the way these managers motivate the employees to thrive under an extremely high work pressure.
Image by Austin Distel
Leaders can influence the performance of an organisation by influencing performance determinants in three different forms. First form is the use of specific leadership behavior in interaction with peers, subordinates etc. Second form involves decisions about management programs and systems. Third form of influence involves decisions about competitive strategy for the organisation. These three forms must be used collectively and consistently for an effective strategic leadership (Yukl, 2008).
Leaders should use the task-oriented behaviours, change-oriented behaviours and relations-oriented behaviours to enhance the organisational effectiveness. Task oriented behaviours can be used to improve productivity and reduce costs by minimising unnecessary activities and errors and accidents (Bass, 1990).
Image by Connelld
For example, almost all big retail firms are going omnichannel to provide a seamless customer shopping experience. What it also does is that it removes unnecessary costs of hiring the mediators, unnecessary operations of going to the stores to check inventory etc. What an omnichannel system does for a firm is magnificent. A firm can track its inventory online, provide services directly to the consumers, thereby removing the need of third parties and thus help in tremendous cost cutting.
Relation-oriented behaviours are related to higher job satisfaction and lower turnover (Bass, 1990).
Image by Amy Hirschi
Giving another example from my personal work experiences, during the first week of my internship last summer, we had a 5 day session on relationship building where every intern worked directly with a senior manager. We worked on small tasks where our managers helped us and motivated us to be totally open about our ideas and share what we think about the problem. At the end of the first week, I personally felt that I created a strong bond with my manager and as a result, throughout my internship my relationship with my manager and my team member made it very motivating and interesting for me to work on whatever tasks I was allocated.
Change-oriented behaviours include monitoring the surrounding environment to identify potential threats and opportunities, taking risks to promote change and building a coalition of supporters for a major change (Yukl G. , 2006). Another way of how leaders can influence to benefit organisations is by encouraging and facilitating collective learning, diffusion of knowledge and application of new ideas. For example, leaders from almost every firm before recruiting graduates emphasis the importance of entrepreneurial mindset and collaboration within a team and clients. On most of the companies’ websites it is clearly mentioned that they look for students who have the ability to learn from their peers, diffuse the knowledge, adapt to difficult situations and apply new ideas to a particular problem.
The way in which a leader behaves has a direct impact on not necessarily just one, but at times more than one performance determinant at the same time. For example, let’s say a team in a consulting firm got their new assignment. Now if the leader initiates a move and consults with this team about their action plan, it may result in increased member commitment by every individual in the team, it can also help in improving the use of available personnel and resources thus increasing the efficiency. Such brainstorming will also help the team to come up with innovative ways to fulfil the client’s demands and expectations.
The leaders, however, should also be considerate and careful about some potential negative effects of their behaviours. For example, a leader may motivate the employees and give them full autonomy to make decisions which might increase worker satisfaction, but if these employees are also determined to improve the customer service then the number of customers handled on a daily basis by each of these employees may decline thus resulting in lower efficiency rates.
There is a high need for these leaders to be able to understand the complex relationships among performance determinants and identify steps as to how and what needs to be done to influence them in a positive and beneficial way. The leaders in today’s competitive world must always stay ready to modify their leadership behavior, competitive strategy and programs and company structure to meet the challenges that their organisations might face.
To conclude, it is safe to say that in today’s highly turbulent, uncertain and competitive market, leaders need to be highly flexible and adaptive. | https://medium.com/swlh/the-role-of-leaders-and-interpersonal-influence-in-benefiting-employees-and-organisations-cd12882201b8 | ['Madhur Dixit'] | 2020-06-16 20:29:15.305000+00:00 | ['Interpersonal Relations', 'Leadership', 'Organizational Culture', 'Employee Benefits', 'Organisational Design'] |
Founders of Web 3 Podcast Series-Interview with Sergey Nazarov of Chainlink | Founders of Web 3 is a podcast series hosted by Outlier Ventures Founder & CEO Jamie Burke where he introduces you to the entrepreneurs, their investors and the policy makers that are shaping Web 3.
Sergey Nazarov, Co-Founder of Chainlink, shares how his experiences as an early Web 3 entrepreneur led him to solving the oracle problem. We talk about how Chainlink has successfully abstracted away its complexity to unlock the potential for reliable ‘universally connected smart contracts’ to become the dominant form of digital agreement which allow enterprise and end users to take control of their relationship to their money and data.
Listen to Sergey’s podcast on Apple podcast
Jamie: Welcome to the founders of Web 3 series by Outlier Ventures and me your host Jamie Burke. Together we’re going to meet the entrepreneurs that backers and the leading policymakers that are shaping Web 3. Together we’re going to try to define what is Web 3, explore its nuances and understand the mission and purpose the driver founders. If you enjoy what you hear, please do subscribe, rate and share your feedback to help us reach as many people as possible with the important mission that is Web 3.
So today, I’m really happy to welcome Sergey Nazarov, Co-Founder of Chainlink, Chainlink are all about smart contracts being connected to real world data events and payments, providing a reliable tamper proof inputs and outputs. For Complex, smart contracts on any blockchain, welcome to the show.
Sergey: Thanks for having me, Jimmy. Great to be on the show. Thank you.
Jamie: So just to expand a little bit more on training, we’re gonna go into this in much more detail over the course of the podcast. But effectively, you’re solving for smart contract external connectivity in the kind of middleware problem. So that web developers and FinTech developers smart contract developers on various networks can build fully functional, smart contracts for production use at scale. As I kind of look into the background of the people that come on the show, to add a bit of personal flavour, you offer some words of perspective on life, presumably drawing upon your early years as a philosophy student, which is really interesting to see. And so I kind of pulled out three: genius is one inspiration and 99% perspiration. Thomas Edison. Every new beginning comes from Some other beginnings end Seneca, and this time, like all times is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it by again, Emison. So I think those three are very relevant for web three. And many of the problems that we’re solving for today, the three best ones I’ve admitted some others out, but I don’t know if they fully reflective of Sergey today.
Sergey: Yeah, I think those are all very good ones. One other one I like is “if one does not know to what port one is sailing, no wind is favourable”. That’s also by Seneca, that’s also listed somewhere on one of my social pages. And another one is “we must stand up write ourselves not not be set up” by Marcus Aurelius. And it’s, it’s kind of around, putting things in in a position to succeed, and knowing where you’re going and having focus. I think the thing with the blockchain space, is that there’s so many different ways that the technology can be applied, and the people that are really and creating progress are the ones that are able to focus and make a specific decision about this is the thing that they want to do particularly well. And I think that’s an evolution of the space that starts to mimic would you see in more developed industries where you have people owning a piece of a stack or a certain subset of problems and being very good at solving those problems. And then other people are very good at solving other problems. And so I think in addition to those are very good ones. But in addition to those, the ones that really talk about having a focus are very important.
Jamie: And I think all of them very relevant in the context of being a Founder. And it’s strange, the number of founders I’ve interviewed on the show so far, and a large physical kind of outsized percentage of them have some background in philosophy. So I don’t know what it is about Web 3 and crypto that attracts these types of people. I myself actually did a philosophy degree dropped out though, so that there is something about the space that attracts our type. So the reasons why I’ve got you on the show there are a number. Firstly, I think you’re solving one of the most fundamental problems in Web 3, the oracle problem. Oracle’s as a kind of a trusted data feeds for smart contracts are perhaps the most tangible way, this new web, this new world we’re building connects with the old one. So you’re kind of a chain that you’re both literally and figuratively bridging web two to web three. You’ve also been hugely successful in scaling with ecosystem growth. And of course, that’s the one thing that all founders are trying to achieve in web three. So I think there’s going to be lots of interesting lessons there. You’ve become somewhat of a cult figure in the space and certainly within your community
Jamie: Similarly, as I think you’re aware for us, we entered the space roughly about the same time 2014. And as you say, this is kind of period of experimentation, like pushing the possibilities of technology. But quite quickly, we arrived at the same thing, which is ultimately there’s all data we’re talking about in the new data economy. And you know, a blockchain is just a means to coordinate secure, transport that data.
Sergey: Right, exactly. I think the way to reason about this more more holistically is Where can the tamper proof guarantees of a blockchain be applied? Right? How will they be applied? And that’s really the question. And then you can go industry by industry and sector by sector. And you can reason about what are the requirements that a blockchain based tamper proof system needs to meet for these various sectors, or various use cases. And the various use cases have very different requirements. So that’s that’s the other thing that I think is also important to understand is that there’s a lot of variability because all the different digital agreement types you’d be dealing with, and all the different data types are very different, right? So a system that’s very, very good for payments transmission might not be the best system for making tokens. And the system may for making tokens may or may not be the best system for global trade and supply chains and the system that’s very good for so it’s sometimes more specific. Now there are very good general purpose system And I think that’s smart contracts. Generally speaking as as a layer to manage all the logic involved in these tamper proof contracts, there does need to be a general purpose, globally shared source of truth Golden Record layer that in many ways will eventually replace even people’s use of databases. Because the databases often keeps so many redundant records between parties, because they don’t have an intermediary shared Golden Record that they can rely on as much as their own database. You do I think, need a general purpose system. I think there’s all kinds of things in scalability that people are doing and to help grow adoption there. I think the the way that really helped me think about it was don’t necessarily focus on what block chains are doing today. And really try to understand what are the guarantees that block chains provide, and then maybe even starting at the at the places that you understand best, think about where Can that be applied. The next thing that we worked on was a kind of decentralised exchange interface and a decentralised exchange model where you had one of the first and for a certain time is the most widely used decentralised exchange that was able to not only exchange tokens but layer on revenue sharing and other things. And this was secure asset exchange. And this was the more advanced use of smart contracts for essentially exchange data and and some amount of also revenue sharing where you would be able to distribute fractional kind of payment out to token holders. This led us to start to think more about smart contracts as a general purpose framework. And and that’s when we kind of moved on to make sure that there was a more general purpose system. That’s when we really shifted focus to working on more on smart contract Comm. smart contract comm was a focus on how do we compose smart contracts for various verticals, some of the first verticals, some of the first ones that that we were able to get running was things around shipping things around search engine optimization. So search engine results can be verified from public API’s even. And you would be able to see, if I paid you this much money, you would get my search engine rank to a certain certain ranking. And that ranking would then result in payment to the search engine optimization firm. And the user isn’t holding the payment over the search engine optimization firm in the search engine optimization form isn’t holding the payment and making false promises to the user. So it was kind of like strategically looking for situations where you can create a better trust dynamic on a vertical vertical by vertical basis. Then basically what happened is a number of banks started showing up a number of banks, insurance companies fintechs insure techs, and we started working with them on a number of either using smart contract comm or using a more advanced version of the back end that we built. And we basically arrived at a realisation that what these people needed was an abstraction layer. So they needed a layer Between the blockchain they wanted to use and all the other things they wanted to do with it. So they wanted the blockchain contract to know about something in the real world, like the shipment of a good or the market price change, or weather for insurance, or, you know, whether an ad was viewed on a web page or something, you know, 50,000 different things that people want to do with digital agreements, and the blockchains that they were trying to build this on. This is even I think, before aetherium was live and then aetherium goes live. And you know, it evolves a little bit from there. But I think the thing we realised from from actually working with a lot of these use cases was even if people were able to get some kind of state change working on a blockchain somewhere, the issue that they were going to have was once I get that state change, working by having a private key, replicate some kind of interaction with data, the actual interaction with a data source or sending a payment somewhere that isn’t on the blockchain. is going to have a lot of security issues. And it’s going to have a lot of failures and points where you can really break the model of a smart contract. Because I think the other thing that’s really important to understand is what is the model of a smart contract. The model of a smart contract is not the same as the model of a digital agreement. The digital agreement, basically has a central company with funding with a logo with a brand. And the brand says, trust me, I have a nice big brand I have I have my brand on the top of a big skyscraper in New York. You should trust me, I’m solvent. I can pay you out as needed. You know, here’s my brand, wire card, my brand on a big building somewhere, it’s fine. Everything’s going to be fine. And that’s the model, right? I’m going to run the digital agreement. You’re going to connect to it via API’s. Trust me, it’s fine. I have a big brand. I have a logo. I have some some certification, some sticker from somebody That says I’m a good good person. Good, good thing that’s going to work. Something something happened with me. Right? I have some check box, it’s going to be fine. Right? So that’s the model of digital agreements. And you know, I guess yeah, that that model is an improvement over not having that model. Absolutely. If I have a choice between digital agreements and paper agreements, digital agreements, absolutely. You can automate things with data fine. But smart contracts say something very different smart contracts, say there’s no brand, there’s cryptography there’s a mathematical guarantee that if you do acts according to this contract, you will get why it’s not a matter of a brand or a logo or a certification sticker from somebody. Good marketing. Fuzzy I’m your friend you know we’re gonna we’re gonna not be evil together thing is just like deterministic physics fact of life level stuff. And that is a huge difference. So that difference eliminates the possibility for people to basically not follow through on their commitments, whether they’re a large entity and you’re a small entity changes the power dynamic, whether you’re a single user, and you know, they’re a big kind of entity that monopolised all the data and all the interactions you have with other users. This can’t happen anymore, right? The power dynamic completely changes. And you’re no longer relying on someone’s brand or some some people somewhere, which is actually as brands fail, for whatever reason, as the trust that people have in a brand telling them it’ll be fine. Just don’t worry about it. As that dynamic begins to give way to a better guarantee a cryptographically enforced guarantee. I couldn’t explain to myself Why the hell anybody would choose a brand. I just couldn’t understand it. I would be like it. It would be like saying, you know, I’m gonna I’m gonna throw something and there’s a 10% chance that it’s gonna go in the hole and I can when when a toy, or I can, I can just throw it into the laws of physics work properly. And I know it’s gonna go in the hole at the, at the carnival, and I’m definitely gonna want it to it’s like playing a rigged Carnival game versus a fair Carnival game. Like, why would I ever not play the one that’s definitely going to work correctly. So this is really the nuance that I think people should focus on. And then all the infrastructure that people are building is how do we do that? Right. So how do we represent ownership in a blockchain through tokenization? How do we get that tokenized ownership into a contract where it can earn interest? How do we generate some kind of derivative financial product from that? How do we generate an insurance policy around something like weather? So when you when you start hitting the more advanced use cases, you start to see Oh, okay, I need I need To know what the weather is, but if you want to maintain that guarantee, right, if you want to maintain that cryptographic proof guarantee, you need to extend it to your relationship with weather. You can’t have it stop at the level of the blockchain is doing the state change, find the blockchain did a state change, that’s great. But if the blockchain that is state change and some other system that’s very easy to completely controls that state change. Well, you know, if you average out the amount of actual tamper proof pneus you’ve achieved, it’s pretty low. However, if you can validate and you can actually prove at a very high level of deterministic proof and get and and guarantees that the weather was actually no rain for the six month period of the insurance policy. Then you can make a deterministic truth smart contract for that. category of events. Right? And and that’s really the goal that that that we’re engaged in moving forward, we’re engaged in. How do we take the blockchain infrastructure that exists that many, many smart people are working on? many great people are moving forward and amazing, amazing and very complicated ways. And and how do we extend that to all of these other use cases? How do we extend it to be useful for I want to write an insurance product around the weather so that a farmer can now have weather insurance, even if their local government can support the existence of an insurance company? How do I do securities markets transactions between two countries that don’t trust their respective legal systems because of political issues, and I don’t need to rely on the political systems or the legal systems of those two respective countries that have tension, but I can still do a securities transaction between them because I don’t care about whatever’s going on. I just care about doing that transaction. And I need guarantees about it properly happening, right? How does somebody gain ownership of something and know that a bank or some other entity can simply shut off the ATM and tell them that they can only take out 66 euros per day? And that’s the new relationship that they have with their savings, right? How can we extend all of this functionality to more data, more use cases. And this requires this abstraction layer. And in our language, we’re seeing this as the creation of universally connected smart contracts. That’s what we really see as the next generation of these contracts, is they’re universally connected to everything you want them to actually influence. They’re connected in a way where the reliability that something actually happened out in the real world is so well validated and so proven to the contract, that it meets the same level of guarantees as the contract and Therefore, that’s when you have a smart contract about that category of activity.
Jamie: So a lot of what you kind of described there is in summary, this idea of the Oracle problem. And you know that that kind of articulation of this universal solution is I guess how you describe the changelings approach? How do you solve for the problem of quality of data and this kind of rubbish in rubbish out problem.
Sergey: Yeah, so that’s definitely a complicated problem. But that is the problem that we’re working on and we’re solving successfully in certain verticals. The model of smart contracts is that you have decentralised computation. So you basically have independent parties or entities computing the same thing multiple times coming to consensus that this is in fact what’s going on. Right. This is in fact the transaction that’s correctly sending tokens or coins from you know, address, hate address, be we’ve all agreed on that and so many of us have agreed on it. We validated so much in So many times across so many people that were, you know, with the help of cryptography and and, and certain solving of puzzles and math problems, you kind of arrive at a place where so many people now store that conclusion. So many people have agreed on that conclusion that that conclusion is considered definitive. Right. And so that’s decentralised computation. So the the logical step here would be to say, okay, decentralised computation is getting invented. It’s coming into existence. It’s going into this early to mid state of being polished and adoption. But how do we apply that to this problem of validating the outside world, right? How do we do that? Well, you basically need two dynamics, you need a dynamic where you have multiple independent nodes, entities, computing systems that are independent from each other, validating the world. And then you need multiple sources of data. That should be saying the same thing. So the creative thing around building an Oracle framework, or an abstraction layer, like what we’re doing is that you end up needing to make a very flexible system so that every unique situation that you’re in, whether it’s a smart contract security, whether it’s smart contract insurance, whether it’s something for ad networks to eliminate fraud, they will all have different data sources, they will all have different ways that they want to interact with that data. And they will all have different requirements about the privacy of that data, even when it’s in this Oracle network abstraction layer. And so what you really need to do is you need to build a flexible system that allows you to have multiple independent nodes that meet the requirements of a use case. They don’t meet the fantasised requirements of us. They don’t meet of like of the people building it. They don’t meet the fantasise requirements or even the real requirements of a single use case, right? Because that’ll probably only work for that. Use. case, right? You You make something for smart contracts securities, oops, insurance wants something else oops. trade finance needs a whole different way to interact with data or different dynamics around interacting with data. And and so examples of this are things like, Oh, I’m going to go and I’m going to validate prices from multiple sources using multiple nodes. Okay, great. That can work for crypto data that can work because you have multiple sources. It’s very fragmented. There’s a lot of exchanges, there’s very little locking across exchanges, volume shifts very rapidly, and you need to solve those categories of problems, right, you need proper market coverage of price. You need to make sure that there’s decentralisation of data sources, you need to make sure it’s coming from the source you need to kind of solve a specific subset of validating the outside world using this Oracle mechanism abstraction layer. Then you have other other use cases where you have insurance so if you’re insuring a field of solar panels, let’s say there’s 10,000 solar panels and every hundred solar panels has a sensor? Well, then what you would need to do is you would need to reason about, well, how do I get all those sensors feeding into my contract correctly. So I can properly insure this field of solar panels. So I don’t just want one sensor, right? That’s a big risk. Even if I have decentralisation at the middleware level, I want to figure out a way where I can properly have the different sensors giving me data about this solar panel field, maybe I want the sensor signing the data at the origin and sending them to me that way, maybe that’s the right model. Maybe the easiest way to do that, as is to give some lightweight piece of software to sensors. It’s something that evolves with different use cases, but it always comes down to two dynamics. It’s who is validating the data at the at the decentralised computation level, who are the nodes validating the data and then what are the sources of the data and when you have situations that are single source, so when you have situations where there are less sources Then what you begin to do is you begin to strengthen the relationship as much as possible between the source and the contract. Usually, with the way we approach this is we actually get the source to run the chain like software themselves. And so they’re both the source and they’re signing. And then what you look at is how do we strengthen this kind of relationship between data and the contract. And then also, very importantly, you would want this system as our system does, to prove to people what’s going on. So another big dimension is is the proof that a blockchain or decentralised middleware like ours can provide about what is actually happening with the delivery of data that’s triggering the contract, and this is something our system excels at as well. Because if you’re going to move from the world of I have a brand Don’t worry about it, it’s fine to the world of you know, various in numerous cryptography is proving to you that if you put You know this much value into this contract and you do x activity you will get y output. And that’s not dependent on a brand or a government or legal system or anybody, it’s just dependent on physics and mathematics working properly then you need to prove that to people and the system needs to have a capacity to prove that just like blockchains prove that and and so those are I guess the three dynamics at play there.
Jamie: Obviously at the moment you know, we’re speaking in July and depending on people actually listen to the podcast you know defy is very hot right now it’s where a lot of attentions going you know, chain link and and these kind of things are open source. So in theory, anybody can take them and apply them. But obviously you you also kind of have a business, how do you are you being pulled as a business into defy with that momentum? Or are you kind of actively exploring because defy is primarily on chain right? is a series of on chain events, versus what you’re saying is the ability to connect with effectively off chain data sets, where as a business see you being pulled versus the protocol and how people might be using.
Sergey: So yeah, we don’t necessarily view ourselves as a business, we view ourselves as an open source project, an open source product, that that’s enabling the implementation of smart contracts in a way that they’re gonna become the dominant form of digital agreement. Our goal is to enable that shift and how smart contracts are used for, for things beyond tokenization basically, so our our goal is to take our industry the blockchain industry, into the new world of decentralised financial products, decentralised insurance, decentralised global trade fraud proof, ad networks, fraud proof gaming, and I don’t think It’s a coincidence that decentralised financial products are taking off. When there’s better and better Oracle mechanisms and abstraction layers like ours, I think it’s all very connected. Because even in our case, we have cases where users came to us, we’re able to integrate in a number of weeks didn’t have to build infrastructure, just like they didn’t have to build a blockchain didn’t have to build an abstraction layer didn’t build have to build an Oracle mechanism, which is a serious set of security and computer science problems. And after launching in a matter of six to nine months, we’re able to get over 100 million in value secured. And that’s part of what’s counted in defy, right. And we have other users who are able to rapidly launch new markets, because we can provide new data to them, for them to launch new defy markets in the derivatives category. And you know, those users are great teams, like have a in the first case and then synthetics in the second. And we’re very, very proud that we have something to do with that. So we we don’t really view it as like here’s this business And then that type of thing, we’re very lucky to, to be in a position where we can, for the long term, build an open source product, we have the resources to do that we’re very, very lucky to have those resources, we’re able to deploy those resources to build an open source standard, which is being adopted more and more as a standard. And the goal of our team and our group of people in our body of work is to change what smart contracts are about to essentially redefine this industry, from tokens and exchanges, to everything else. That’s not saying tokens are wrong in any way, their tokens are great tokens seeded this space with value for people to put into contracts, at least in these initial defy formats. But there’s an evolution that needs to happen here. And in fact, it’s the evolution that I have been working on for think over seven years now. And you know, I’ll be working on it for many, many more years, and it’s Something I’m very committed to. And I believe in from a, you were saying before about philosophy from a really more moral point of view and ethical point of view, I think that making contracts function correctly, is really one of the things that more and more advanced societies have done. And then as more and more advanced societies are able to do that, you see, people have more time for art and science and invention, and, and just quality of life improves, and society becomes more civil and more the type of society that you see in science fiction, things that I read, like Star Trek and all these amazing things that are like, here’s the future. So I think our goal is really to make an open source standard that becomes a public good for how people build these contracts the right way. They can do that on a multitude of different environments. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that defy is taking off new markets and defy are being launched. I mean, we have a very large amount of main net live users. Now I can I can start We say that we’re the most widely used Oracle mechanism right now on public blockchains. And that’s only accelerating into into defy and into fraud proof gaming, I think the way to think about it is once you give people features that they can efficiently use while maintaining security, that is when our space begins to do more cool stuff, right? So what a cerium did was it, it gave these people and ability to make tokens both efficiently and without having to worry too much about the security, right? Like they have to write in security, they have to get an audit, but it’s doable. And that’s why everyone made tokens because all of a sudden, you could make tokens, you could efficiently and securely make tokens, and there was a boom in tokens. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that defy is taking off. The when Oracle mechanisms are around, and I think many of our users are driving a lot of that defy growth and many more of the people driving them During the process of integrating us into their system and, and kind of, I think that’s the really exciting thing for me and for our team is that we feel very proud to have a part to play in how all of these different products are redefining our space. And that’s why we don’t make a defy product. We don’t make a blockchain. We enable all these other people to, to basically combine an idea for a great financial product, a tamper proof contract that isn’t based on brand, but based on cryptography, together with blockchains, because they now have an abstraction layer, they now have an Oracle mechanism for them to make this universally connected, smart contract. And that’s the overarching goal that we have, like our successful outcome is the world is running on smart contracts as the dominant form of digital agreement. There’s the abstraction layer that we made powering the interactions that all those contracts have with everything else in the world. Other payments. systems, other data sources, chains, you know, any number of other resources. And that’s the thing that that we’re devoting our time and energy, pretty much in many cases our life to. So that’s kind of our our priorities.
Jamie: So do you think perhaps this is a philosophical question, but do you think that let’s just use defy as a catch all term that defy has the potential to go over the top of the world as it is the existing financial system, including insurance or as you say, Supply Chain Finance? Or do you think it’s more likely that we’ll see incremental decentralisation of the world as it is, or could both be true?
Sergey: I mean, I think it’s both. I think people are going towards the same place from different directions, just like they were with the internet. So in the internet, you had startups that were starting out internet first and they’re like, I’m internet first and I’m gonna win because I’m ecommerce centre. At first, and then there were some companies that were able to do the proper analysis and do the math and do the numbers and think about this in a more holistic, deeper way. And they said, this internet thing is gonna is gonna force us to really reinvent our business and if we don’t do it right now, well, we’re gonna have a huge problem not just because the startups was because my other competitor would do that. And and so I think it’s exactly the same here like there’s there’s this term internet of contracts that was popular before but isn’t popular now. For some reason. I think everybody will eventually just go towards saying, Yeah, yeah, you know, I was this was my plan from the beginning. Just like everybody eventually got on the internet, right? Like all these corporations that before I’m sure you can find quotes from whoever, wherever in that organisation saying, God the internet, it’s a joke, they laid it all this cable, all the cable they laid is worth this much money, but the value in trough traffic on the internet is only worth that much money. Oh, it’s such a waste or you know, they laid all the broad banded never gets used. You can I’m sure you can find quotes from From all these companies, many of which are dead, some of which still exist and are now powered by, by internet based interactions with their customers internally between the people that work at the company. I think it’s the exact same thing here. I think there’s there’s just, there’s just a new dynamic that you can do on the internet, basically be like, just in the evolution of the internet, you had unencrypted email. Okay, fine. I have unencrypted email. What can I send using an encrypted email? I can only send a certain category of things that I have encrypted email, then I have encrypted HTTPS transfers of credit card information. Oh, wow, I can do e commerce. Now. Isn’t that fascinating? And it’s the exact same dynamic, right? It’s just kind of, you’ll have startups that say I’m crypto First, I’m going to become the world leader in x category of contracts because crypto is the future. And because I have a really competent team that’s able to make really high quality financial products that are based on providing real value. You know, not purchasing users not like something else but but on the fact that my financial product has unique real value to provide, right. And that’s what I’m able to do. And I’m crypto first and crypto is a core value. And those people will get massively accelerated, just like the internet first companies got accelerated when the internet’s value became clear to users and and, and all those other kind of business to business transactions that people care about now. And then you’ll have enterprises that will be sitting there and we talked to a lot of these enterprises and I got to tell you, they’re getting more and more astute by the month really, I’m having conversations with people now that are much more informed than they were a year ago. In the enterprise. Many people have stopped saying, I want to make my own blockchain where it’s just going to be me and my employees and my one counterparty and I’m going to win because I’m going to have an intranet. So a lot of that thinking is evaporating. People are looking for standards. They’re saying, you know what, we use this thing But we also have a capacity to interact with others. And it’s this dynamic around an evolution. The important thing is where do people end up? The real question is, I mean, it is important that the crypto startups succeed. And it’s great that there’s all this value in tokens to let them succeed because you can now build a crypto startup and there’s enough private keys holding enough value to allow you to get a couple hundred million dollars in value secured on your on your product, because you made a good financial product, right in a crypto format in a smart contract format. I think that’s important. You see enterprises going more towards blockchains. I think the really important thing is the fundamental premise around cryptographically enforced technologically enforced contracts. And when does that become valuable? And in what environment does that become valuable? I think that the environment that that becomes valuable and is one of two environments, either it’s the environment where people have been able to see successfully make a value proposition that users are absolutely 10 x beating down the door to get, right. So some insurance company or some insure tech, some financial institution or a FinTech or a crypto startup makes a financial product that gives users access or an ability to use a financial product, whether it’s a derivative, or some kind of less rate of lending returns, like the lending returns in our space are way better than the lending returns in the traditional space. I still don’t know why that hasn’t taken off, maybe it’s because the on ramps into that need to get better. But it’s either that and then people see that somebody like some bank is feeding the other banks, or some insurance companies beating the other insurance company or some insurer tech got acquired by some company because they that’s all they do is this type of product. And then all the other companies kind of go that’s the future I got to get it in gear or alternatively, consumers in mass, come to the realisation that They value cryptographically guaranteed agreements. And the people that value cryptographically guaranteed agreements are the people who have had traditional, non guaranteed brand based agreements fail them. Like I can tell you right now that wire card users or wired card, you know, participants are very sensitive to the concept of a cryptographically guaranteed agreement for them. And I think that in my generation alone, and also depending on how the world evolves, and how many brand based agreements are actually fulfilled, or fulfilled properly versus not fulfilled properly for whatever collection of reasons, and and there’s these two kinds of forces, right? So either people start saying, you know, I don’t really like the concept of only being able to get 66 euros out of an ATM per day. I think I’m going to switch to a private key based store of value with that. can’t happen to me. And why would someone think that? Well, they would think that because the neighbouring country suddenly had that happen, right? When you saw the lockups in Greece for 66 euros per day, wallet numbers in neighbouring European countries like Spain and others, were people worried about similar situations due to debt solvency and solvency questions, their wallet registration numbers 600% growth improvement. So I don’t know which of those is going to happen first. But I think it’s it’s definitely something that both of those are in the cards, what the timeline is on both of those, it’s hard to say.
Jamie: So that’s a really interesting topic that feeds into the next question, which is, where do you see centre of gravity’s emerging? So, you know, typically, web two has been dominated by Silicon Valley and the West Coast. Of course, there’s been an emergence of kind of a next generation of startups coming out of Asia in that context of a demand for these kind of guarantees, the contracting level, where is there a centre of gravity or the centres of gravity?
Sergey: I think it’s really by region, what I see happening is that in specific regions, you see people adopting, sometimes due to regulatory requirements, like in China, where you have certain blockchain networks that are going to get mandated by by governmental sources that people are going to have to use. Just like they have to use certain applications. And there’s a firewall and things like that. And then there’s more permissionless models, where there’s a more public kind of replication of the internet and that dynamic. I think it’s really dependent on geography. And you’re going to have an evolution of different industries, and even different verticals, having security repositories and other people launching vertically focused blockchain offerings. Then you’re going to see the public Internet version of similar infrastructures, then you’re going to see regulated and required kind of use of certain systems and certain other geographies that that’s the dynamic there. That’s there. I think the hopeful thing that I have, actually, is that you can have systems working in different geographies, where, because they’re all based on cryptography, and because they’re all based on this kind of various and numerous concept of technologically enforced contracts, that you can actually still have guarantees across geographies, without relying on a legal system or a political climate or something like that. Right. I think that you’re seeing a number of different blockchains adopted in different geographies, sometimes due to enterprise sales, sometimes due to government regulation. From from our point of view, we’re agnostic. So we support Many different chains has those hyper ledger, aetherium polka dot, you know, a whole bunch of different blockchain environments, many, many more on the way we have over I think over 50, blockchain environments already announced, integrating with us different stages of integration, different stages of going live with them. And so from our point of view, our goal is to enable the usage of smart contracts and all of these environments, and maybe even help bridge the the kind of cryptographic proof that an abstraction layer would need to know about to guarantee that something is correctly happening somewhere else. The more important thing is that whatever blockchain systems, someone builds in their local geography, it’s able to meet the requirements of providing proof to other blockchain systems. And that partly depends on how data interacts with that system. So if you have blockchain systems that are run by a single party, one node, and then that party also gives all the data to the system. I mean, it’s tough to even call that a blockchain system right? It’s is just difficult difficult to say that. And so other blockchain systems might not put a lot of faith in the outputs or the transactions happening on that system. Right. Whereas if you have some other other blockchain system where you have, you know, 15 or 20 or 50, state run entities, all separate entities, all running some blockchain find it’s a blockchain, but it’s not permissionless. Okay, it has that property. But then the question is, how does that blockchain actually work in relation to data? How do the contracts on there are they How are they controlled? So there’s actually two orders of problems right. There’s How does the blockchain work? How do the contracts on the blockchain work? And I think once you meet those two requirements for tamper proof pneus, then you arrive at a place where people can still rely on what’s going on in different chains. Even though there’s different chains and use in different geographies. I think there will be a consolidation around certain types of technologies in certain verticals. For certain types of transactional data, so I think I think that’ll happen. It’s very difficult to predict it depends on what vertical we’re discussing who who the participants are, you know, there’s incumbents who who want to make their own blockchain, but they’re doing it sometimes the wrong way. There’s pure blockchain teams that want to instil that but they don’t have the participation of a lot of the participants. They need the blood, the banks participants and the hedge fund participants. And so it’s those are very complicated questions, but I think everybody’s kind of innovating in their respective geography, to meet the requirements of that geography. But I do see more and more people arriving at standards. So I do see that there will be standards even across across geographies.
Jamie: I think it’s really interesting. It kind of reinforces that idea about where gravity will form. If I if I kind of extend what you’re saying it feels like whilst there can be chains or networks that are designed for a particular To respect certain sovereignties, whether they’re corporate or national, ultimately there will be a kind of a weighting in these systems about how much other networks will trust or apply a weight of trust fullness, to what comes off those networks. And presumably, economic value will flow towards those systems that have the higher level a higher order of trustworthiness.
Sergey: I think it’s a competition between how much you want to do the deal and the risk that you take, right? Somebody wants to buy an asset in some country where they don’t trust the legal system, they have a big problem on their hands, right? So they’re weighing their desire to get the asset versus the risk of you know, I won’t actually get the asset, I’ll just get my money stolen, right. And it’s a relatively similar dynamic. And so the thing that I think people should do is they should architect out their blockchain systems to enable usage both for their internal and local requirements and for usage by the outside world because they need to meet them. requirement if they have any chance of people using it in the future for basically international business, which is the type of business you know, globalisation has made made that the way that people work today, even in the crypto space, it’s a completely global, completely global industry, exchanges and every basically every every part of it. So you basically arrive at a place where if you build a blockchain system, or the smart contracts in the system work in a way that’s very easy to tamper with, you diminish the usefulness of that system for external parties. And that’s a serious loss, right? Because that’s antithetical to what the system is supposed to achieve. So I think as long as the system achieves that and achieves that, at a high level of cryptographic proof, using well made software, well, you know, implementing certain key standards, and importantly, the contracts on those systems interact with data properly, and they function properly as well. If those two requirements are met, both blockchain functioning in a tamper proof manner and the contracts on The blockchain functioning in a tamper proof manner with the help of an Oracle mechanism that that makes that possible. That’s when you arrive at a place where, okay, I have my locally generated chain for my vertically focused kind of use case of supply chains or derivatives in my specific country. But everybody can interact with that, right? So people can still interact with that the global market of stable coin holders can still use my smart contracts on that chain. Will those people eventually say, you know, maybe we don’t really need to run a chain, and we need to go to this larger, bigger public chain that has the scalability properties and the privacy properties, and all these other properties that that we had in our local smaller chain? Yeah, maybe maybe they’ll do that. That’s very possible. Obviously, from what I mentioned, there’s a lot of properties that need to be in those chains for them to do that. But yes, I think the important thing is that in the medium term, whatever people build as their locally focused very enter their industry focused variant. That both the blockchain works in a way that meets the requirements of a blockchain. And the smart contracts on those chains interoperate with the real world in a way that they meet the definition of a smart contract, in the sense that they’re actually tamper proof.
Jamie: Yeah. Well, Sergey, it’s been fascinating talking to you. Thanks for coming on. I think you and chainlink and the team that you have there, your living case study of success in web 3, we reference you all the time in our accelerator and the kind of first time founders that we’re working with. And I think you’re really helping the space cross over into your mainstream industries and break out of just kind of this crypto echo chamber. So thanks for coming on. And I look forward to watching chairman’s ongoing success.
Sergey: Great, thank you very much for having me. Jamie. Great chatting with you again. Thank you.
Jamie: If you enjoyed today’s podcast, please make sure you subscribe, rate and share your feedback to help us reach as many people as possible with important mission of Web 3. | https://medium.com/outlier-ventures-io/founders-of-web-3-podcast-interview-with-sergey-nazarov-40f9fb1ce4cc | ['Outlier Ventures'] | 2020-07-21 14:56:50.791000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Web3', 'Smart Contracts', 'Blockchain', 'Crypto'] |
Welcome to Britain’s First Ever Prime Ministerial Primary | This blog post, in an abridged form, has been republished at the LSE’s Politics and Policy blog here.
[embed]https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/624587878845165569[/embed]
#JezWeCan? It’s a laughable comparison, of course: the engrossing election of 2008 which brought the United States its first African-American president, at the expense of its first female one, propelled by the power of hope, change, and the unifying rhetoric of the most gifted politician the twenty first century has so far seen. Jezza, you’re no Barack Obama, as I suspect the battle-hardened North London socialist would himself attest. But hope is a funny thing in politics, and as different the two men are in their background and ideology, it’s not hard to feel some similarities in their shocking, insurgent campaigns, both driven in no small part by social media.
There are two main reasons, I think, for the Corbyn surge and its potentially earth-shattering consequences for British politics as we know it. The first is circumstantial. The UK’s 2015 general election mirrors the 2004 US presidential election in instructive ways. A decidedly wobbly right wing leader rouses the ground troops with unexpected efficiency to see off an antagonist perceived to be foppish and over-educated (with more or less subtle smears from outside quarters against the content of the opponent’s character). Well-meaning left-wingers react in unalloyed shock, puzzled more than angry over the general electorate’s unexpected shift rightwards and in favour of the status quo.
Barack Obama is, as noted, a gifted guy in the extreme, but he’s a lucky one too, and the 2004 election provided the perfect foil for his candidacy. The blackest mark against Bush’s administration — the disastrous decision to invade Iraq — had been given rhetorical and legislative backing by then-Senator Hillary Clinton, a vote Obama, not yet in Congress, did not have to face. (He spoke against the war, but with perhaps a little less vehemence than he might, as his principal biographer suggests.) This allowed Obama to paint his opponent as on the wrong side of the most significant policy decision of the decade (or closer to a century, if the bleakest predictions about ISIS are to be believed.) It’s doubtful that, absent this sharp point of contrast, Obama would have been able to overcome Clinton’s juggernaut of a campaign.
As I say, the 2004–2008 experience for American Democrats is instructive for the next five weeks, and potentially the next five years, of Britain’s Labour Party. But the comparison is meaningful only because of the second major factor in Corbyn’s rise, which is structural. Labour’s last election in 2010 brought to the helm Ed Miliband, someone who the electorate hinted in poll after poll — and confirmed in the election proper — wasn’t up to the job. Miliband had only been able to see off his more centrist brother David with the support of the unions, who at the time enjoyed a 33% weighting in the electoral college, alongside a third each for Labour’s parliamentary party and its general membership, both of whom plumped for David.
The change to the way in which the Labour Party elects its leader is the structural reason behind Corbyn’s surge. After 2010, the tripartite division of voting rights was replaced with a simple one member, one vote system (albeit incorporating the Alternative Vote system of multiple preferences when more than two candidates stand). The parliamentary party still retains some sway, since candidates require 35 signatures from their fellow MPs to make it onto the ballot. Corbyn’s candidacy (and here’s where the storm becomes rather perfect) only received the requisite signatures minutes before the deadline, propelled in no small part by MPs who wanted “a proper debate” amongst leadership contenders from across the party’s ideological spectrum.
They might have wanted a proper debate, but it might feel like what they’ve got instead is a pulmonary embolism. Not merely the new, more egalitarian voting system, but also the party’s rather cheap membership (starting at £3 for the right to vote in the leadership election) has suddenly given a whole lot of people their first opportunity to elect a party leader. And who are they choosing? If the polls are to be believed (though we’ve heard that one before), the curmudgeonly Corbyn — who sits way out left of the Labour mainstream.
Or does he? It turns out that on an issue-by-issue basis, Corbyn’s policies — including rent controls, the renationalisation of the railways, and far higher rates of income tax on the super-rich — poll pretty well with a British population sick of the exorbitant cost of living and the privatisation of everything short of your grandma. Yet the most significant aspect of Corbyn’s rise isn’t the nitty-gritty of policy alignment but the distinctiveness of his character and his campaign. Corbyn carries the perception, not without founding, that he knows what he thinks and says so. There are certainly aspects of his personal character that appeals — he was the one of the lowest-claiming MPs during a decade dogged by the expenses scandal, and shares the quirk of his Hellenic comrades of getting through life without wearing a tie. More broadly, he seems to represents the antithesis of the Brylcreem Boys who have led mainstream British parties for the best part of two decades. Educated at London Metropolitan University in contrast to his Oxbridge-alumni rivals; free of the centrist excesses of the Labour era, not merely the Iraq invasion but also on university tuition fees; free enough, even during the current campaign, to vote against the Tory Government’s welfare bill while his rivals performed various volte faces. (Note to Andy Burnham: nobody ever won an election by abstaining.) Throw into the mix the British public’s perennial affinity for an underdog and you have a candidate that genuinely stands out from the rest.
Win or lose, Corbyn’s success adds credence to the conclusion that Britain is in the midst of its first prime ministerial primary. It certainly bears many of the hallmarks of the American equivalent, including TV debates and mass(-ish) rallies — phenomena not exactly new to UK politics but still quite foreign-feeling. But the biggest change is certainly Labour’s new voting system and lower barriers to membership, which are far closer to arrangements in America which — although varying state-by-state — generally allow voters some degree of flexibility in terms of which party to vote for from year to year. We even have the first evidence, albeit anecdotal, of mischievous Tory sympathisers “spiking the football” and backing Corbyn in the hope of keeping a newly leftward Labour party out of office.
Getting more ordinary people engaged in the political process is one of those unequivocally Good Things which all parties should aspire to, and though the scale of participation in the Labour leadership contest is an order of magnitude smaller than the US primaries, the excitement (and incredulity) whipped up by the process will — like the SNP’s post-referendum successes — not be quickly forgotten. But the primary system undoubtedly comes with a flip-side, perhaps best characterised at the moment by vole-ish and vile billionaire Donald Trump. Though at an early stage of the presidential race (absurdly early, when you consider that the new President will not be sworn in until January 2017), Trump tops polls of the Republican party, much to the barely-concealed despair of the Republican Party, which is rather redolent of the hand-wringing of many mainstream Labour commentators who cut their teeth in the Blair era. The reason for discomfort in both cases is the perception that these front-runners, though popular with the party faithful, would be unelectable in a general election due to the extremity of their views.
The worrying thing for Labour grandees is that while the US primary process is so gruelling that a more moderate candidate eventually wins out through sheer attrition — Mitt Romney saw off a fully-stocked carnival float of putative front-runners before winning in 2012, and John Kerry overcame initial excitement over Howard Dean to pull through in 2004 — there are no such safeguards in the nascent Labour primary system. The one-off election is only weeks away, and Corbyn really could win.
The key question, then, is which model Corbyn’s candidacy most resembles: the Trump campaign, building up a head of steam by being the most distinctive and populist before his sheer unelectability brings prudent voters to their senses, or the Obama campaign, turning initial excitement and energy into a far broader, more plausible programme for leadership of party and ultimately country?
It’s too soon to tell. The safe money is still on the former case — Corbyn is the Trump of the British left wing, who, even if he pulls off a remarkable victory in the leadership contest, would be felled soon after by a coup or at worst a shattering but inevitable general election defeat. But part of me — I suppose the romantic part, which yearns for the era of great debates between eloquent exponents of distinctive ideas (if such an era ever actually existed in real life) — sometimes daydreams that it might be the latter. Perhaps Britain’s first prime ministerial primary will see a stunning victory for someone who stands up for what they believe in, rather than what their special advisers tell them to say (just as they themselves did for their triangulating forefathers). That would surely be change that Britons could believe in. | https://medium.com/josh-cowls/welcome-to-britains-first-ever-prime-ministerial-primary-ad87cdf01145 | ['Josh Cowls'] | 2018-09-22 14:41:47.419000+00:00 | ['Barack Obama', 'Jeremy Corbyn', 'Pieces', 'Donald Trump', 'Andy Burnham'] |
“Type 2 Diabetes” Science-Research, December 2021, Week 4 — summary from MedlinePlus Genetics, NCBI Gene, Europe PMC, DOAJ and Springer Nature | MedlinePlus Genetics — summary generated by Brevi Assistant
Gestational diabetes is a problem characterized by abnormally high blood glucose levels while pregnant. Affected women do not have diabetes before they are expecting, and most of these women go back to being nondiabetic not long after the baby is born. Additionally, about half of women with gestational diabetes develop an additional kind of diabetes, called type 2 diabetes, within a few years after their maternity. Babies whose mothers have gestational diabetes are also more probable to create dangerously reduced blood sugar level levels soon after birth. Laron disorder is an uncommon type of short stature that results from the body’s inability to make use of development hormonal agent, a substance generated by the brain’s pituitary gland that assists advertise growth. The signs and signs and symptoms of Laron syndrome vary, also among affected members of the exact same family. Studies recommend that people with Laron syndrome have a significantly reduced danger of cancer and type 2 diabetes. Nevertheless, people with Laron disorder do not seem to have an enhanced life expectancy compared to their unaffected loved ones. Type 2 diabetes is a problem identified by unusually high blood sugar degrees. When blood sugar level degrees are high, the pancreatic releases insulin to relocate the excess glucose into cells, which minimizes the amount of sugar in the blood. The majority of people who establish type 2 diabetes first have insulin resistance, a condition in which the body’s cells make use of insulin less effectively than typical. Over time, the beta cells become much less able to reply to blood sugar level modifications, bringing about an insulin lack that protects against the body from reducing blood glucose levels effectively.
Please keep in mind that the text is machine-generated by the Brevi Technologies’ Natural language Generation model, and we do not bear any responsibility. The text above has not been edited and/or modified in any way.
Source texts: | https://medium.com/@brevi-assistant/type-2-diabetes-science-research-december-2021-week-4-summary-from-medlineplus-genetics-e869a55bcc92 | ['Brevi Assistant'] | 2021-12-31 04:20:01.009000+00:00 | ['Type 2 Diabetes', 'Health', 'Diabetes', 'Research', 'Biology'] |
Identity Story: from brand to movement — 5 questions for Maarten Jurriaanse | Identity Story: from brand to movement — 5 questions for Maarten Jurriaanse
@Interactive Storytelling Meetup #3 –10 March 2016
Interview by Femke Deckers
Maarten speaking at Interactive Storytelling Meetup #3
Maarten Jurriaanse is communication designer and owner of Ping Pong Design. After years of experience in creating brands and stories, he discovered that real branding starts with the employees and the people around it. A succesful brand is not a logo, but a community or movement.
At the Interactive Storytelling Meetup #3 Maarten presented ‘Identity Story’: a model created to help organisations change from brand to movement.
We asked Maarten 5 questions about this model and his point of view on the future of brands.
5 questions for Maarten Jurriaanse
#1) What triggered you to create the Identity Story model’?
I was working on an elevator-pitch for a client when I looked up Campbell’s classic (1949) storytelling model. It suddenly struck me how the underlying structure resembles principles of organizational vision, identity and motivation models (i.e. Collins & Porras). So I tried to integrate these into one model that could potentially be used to describe a process of organizational change, to help incumbent organizations become more community oriented.
2) Can you explain the relation between Campbell’s Hero model and your Identity model?
The Hero story structure describes the recurring stages that Joseph Campbell found in most heroic histories across many different cultures and continents. According to Campbell these storytelling structures are engrained in our human psyche.
Campbell’s classic storytelling model (1968)
In short it describes how the protagonist is challenged to embark on a journey with a following crowd or army, to fight for a good cause, to defeat the evil antagonist and to bring rescue to the beneficiary (the oppressed, the underdog, a princess etc.) and consequently receives recognition.
Also Star Wars follows the classic hero’s journey
In my model (see image below), I replaced the protagonist with organizational vision, the cause with organizational identity/community, the enemy with organizational habits and the beneficiary with customers.
Identity Story Model for organizations by Maarten Jurriaanse
Well-balanced organizations are steered by a vision (top of circle) that incorporates lasting values with specific goals that can be measured and achieved. But these goals can never be reached if the organizational habits (bottom of circle) are destructive.
The vertical axis connects visionary intent with actual habits. The horizontal axis connects internal communities with external customer-needs.
These are — in my mind — the four most fundamental aspects of organizational brand-behavior. If mastered — and that really is a continuous cycle — it should lead to an integration of visionary intent with positive behavior on a daily basis. A good balance should also motivate internal as well as external communities to coordinate for shared goals and to collaborate for preferred futures.
“Hairy goals can never be reached if organizational habits and patterns are destructive.”
Unfortunately, there are not yet enough organizations that do this or even strive for such behaviors. But Zappos Shoes, now a subsidiary of Amazon, specifically developed its internal culture as well as its surrounding communities to ‘deliver happiness’.
The strategic vision of Zappos Shoes became a management philosophy, rooted in positive psychology, that can be applied anywhere. The core of their business is not ‘shoes’ or ‘web-technology,’ but great service as an ‘operational habit’. Delivering happiness works as a fractal-principle in 1:1 employee-customer-interaction, but also applies when engaging with the local community about the development of their new headquarters (adding cinema, day-care etc).
“The core of Zappos Shoes is not shoes or web-technology, but great service as ‘operational habit’.”
#3) Why is it nessecary for (big) companies to change you think?
I am worried about the survival of large service organizations that serve fundamental public needs. Currently there is overwhelming interest for (tech) startups who promise to disrupt the status quo.
Firms like Uber and Airbnb will not only cherry-pick the most profitable customers, but also export their profits to shareholders who are out of reach of the communities they operate in, taking as little responsibility as possible for the negative sub-effects of their operations on the local societies.
“Organizations need to move away from creating wasteful output that no one needs.”
Incumbent organizations do have to change fundamentally though, away from production management that is focused on creating wasteful output that no one needs, towards meaningful business communities who are capable of creating economic as well as social value; for all stakeholders.
#4) Why is storytelling important to brands?
I see brands as representative concepts for products and services made by people. I am not interested in brands as ‘stickers’ on a pizza box or on an anonymus building. I cannot connect to that and I think most people don’t.
“First we make stuff and then we dump the stuff. Branding used to be a matter of distribution.”
Just as we need stories to become engaged, we need people to identify with. The traditional marketing idea of brand stems from neoclassical economic thinking and a fundamental orientation towards production: First we make stuff (embedding raw materials with value) and then we segment markets where we dump the stuff. Branding used to be a matter of distribution.
#5) What’s the benefit of creating a ‘movement’ above ‘just being a brand’?
Organizational movements are attractive because they choose to build a culture first. They find their resilience through the fabric of the relationship networks that they develop within and around the enterprise. This relational capital enables them to endure difficult times but also allows them to challenge the social, economical and environmental crises that we are facing.
Brand movements mobilize inspiring crowds around engaging goals that seem to address more than instrumental needs. It becomes an open community of people who collaborate for shared goals and dreams that seems to fulfill every ladder in their personal hierarchy of needs, from basic safety to aspirational, higher-order needs: it serves people’s identities and self-esteem: “I am part of something bigger”.
“Communites serve people’s identities and self-esteem: “I am part of something bigger.” | https://medium.com/interactive-innovative-storytelling/identity-story-from-brand-to-movement-1d579551b30b | ['Interactive Storytelling'] | 2016-05-25 11:35:19.146000+00:00 | ['Brand Strategy', 'Storytelling', 'Design'] |
8 Ways to Make Your Training Sessions More Effective | There’s a big difference between a training session and just exercising. If you’re just getting a workout in you find some time in the day, throw your gym clothes on and get your heart rate up. You probably don’t even think about it until you’re getting changed. A training session is different and requires more attention— there is a focus, there are goals and you need to have your head in the game long before you start warming up. After all, your training sessions are steps to the ultimate goal of success in competition, whereas exercising is the goal in and of itself.
That’s just the start though. There are a bunch of high performance habits you should implement if you want to get the very best out of every training session. High performance habits, when applied correctly, provide outsized results down the line. What these tactics are designed to do is ensure your body and mind are running at their optimal levels when you train, so the gains you make are greater than if you hadn’t put the thought into it. I’ve used these tactics myself over the last 10 years of competition at national level in two different sports, so I know they can work for you.
Fueling and caffeine.
Having your body in the optimal state to train begins with food and caffeine intake. Preparation is key, because we lead busy lives and you don’t want to find yourself unfed before you train. If you’re training late in the afternoon, for example, you need to be thinking about that session the night before. “Ok, tomorrow is deadlift/sparring/Murph/tackling day at training — what do I need to eat for breakfast, lunch and snacks to ensure that I’m firing on all cylinders when I arrive? When should I drink my coffee to make sure it’s kicking in when I need it to? Ok, tomorrow is going to be really humid, so I need to make sure I’ve consumed enough salt to replaced what I’ve lost sweating.” These are just some of the considerations you’ll be making up to 24 hours before you even walk into your facility, which will ensure you can put in the maximum effort in your session.
Training at a set time every day is crucial, because you can’t fuel appropriately if you’re always training at a different time. You need to be eating around 1–2 hours before you train, depending on how simple your food is (a protein shake and banana is going to digest very quickly, a bigger meal, not so much). Focus on foods with quick energy — that means nothing dense in fibre or fat. You want to be satisfied but not full or hungry. Caffeine is best consumed an hour beforehand, which means that as you’re moving through your warm up, it’s entering your bloodstream and providing you with a boost.
Related: The 3 ways to practice to accelerate your development in any field
Planning
This goes along with fuelling, but is focused more on what you want to get out of the session. Regardless of whether you’re a weightlifter or a boxer, you’ve got something that you should be aiming for each session, which is reflected in your programming. You don’t want your first thought of that day’s program to be when you’ve already walked in and warmed up. You should have reviewed it the night or morning before. Apart from knowing ahead of walking into training what you’re doing, it allows you to start getting your head in the game early. You’ll start thinking through what you want to focus on and achieve in that session and be setting further micro goals in your head.
If it’s one of your big sessions for the week, getting your head in the game early makes your training much more effective. Instead of getting changed an hour before and thinking “damn, I have to deadlift today”, if you’ve had it in your head since the morning, you’re going to be thinking about it off and on during the day. In the couple of hours before, you’re going to be getting more and more in the zone, and your pre-training ritual will then have your arousal levels peaking for maximum performance.
Pre-training ritual
Rituals are a huge part of life as a human and surround us daily in our lives. Why not turn that power to your training? In the movies, you always see characters suiting up for battle — they are almost always in a meditative like state, and as they put more and more of their armour on, their demeanour becomes more serious until they are primed for battle. So before your training sessions, what can you do to make sure you’re mentally and physically primed? Here’s some of what I’ve done in the past:
Wear a specific outfit. When I was training in strength sports, I’d have a specific outfit depending on which day it was. Captain America was for deadlift day. I loved that outfit because it made me feel like a boss. Don’t ever discount the psychological impact of these things — why just wear anything when you can wear something that puts you in the right frame of mind?
Listen to music or a motivational compilation that puts me in the right head space
Have my pre-session coffee
Look over my notes and program again
Thinking through how the session is going to go
Getting my game face on
The best thing about this is that even when you’re not feeling it, when you run through the same ritual every time it’s as though you’ve flicked a switch in your mind and your body automatically knows that it’s training time.
Get warmed up properly
Gen-Pop stuff like Men’s Fitness etc always say very generic stuff like “get your heart rate up, and break a sweat.” Sure, that’s true, but if we’re talking about training, it needs to be a bit more specific. A general minute or two warm up to get you warm and loose is great, but after that, you want your warm up to be specific to what you’re doing. You’re looking to prevent injury and to prime your body for what you’re training, so your warm up should never look the same from one session to the next, because you’re going to be working different things.
For example, if I’m doing a squat session, I’m not going to do arm curls or bench press in my warm up. I’m going to start with a few minutes on the assault bike to get the blood flowing. Then I might do some light isolation work, such as walking lunches and squat jumps to get my legs primed for the activity. By the time I’m ready to squat, the warm up sets feel like a breeze and when I get to my working sets, everything is firing.
Don’t stop moving
Never, ever stop moving during a training session. Whether you’re on the judo mats in between drills or you’re in the gym in between sets, the time between work should be spent walking around or moving in some capacity. Going from activity to complete rest means fluid pools in your limbs and you start to feel lethargic, which means when you start again you have to try and ramp your intensity up from a lower level. Having to do that multiple times in a session means you’re wasting a lot of potential, because for every new drill or set, you have to get back into the groove first.
Movement between activity means that your blood keeps moving around and you stay warm. You stay alert and focused on what you want to achieve because your mind hasn’t started wandering as a result of sitting down. It also ensures you don’t get injured, because when you sit for too long — especially in winter, it can have nasty consequences.
Stick to the program
It’s so easy when you’re feeling a bit down to leave a set out, or when you’re feeling awesome to go at a higher intensity and really push it. Doing either of these means you’re negating the benefits of your programming. The entire reason for a program is to ensure you are improving in your chosen sport while preventing you from overdoing it and burning out. So don’t mess around with your program just because you feel like going for it today, because tomorrow you’ll likely feel like crap and blow that session completely. Trust the process and stick to your program.
Related: How I Take an Athlete from Ordinary to Elite
Keep your phone in your pocket
This goes with the piece of advice to keep moving. Nothing ruins your training like scrolling social media in between sets. For combat athletes and those that don’t have pockets in their uniforms, that’s not such a big deal because your phone isn’t on you to just pull out and look at anytime you feel the urge. Go to any weight room though, whether it’s Crossfit, powerlifting or strongman and you’ll see everyone on their phone at some point in between sets. First of all, people generally sit down when they’re doing it, which I already spoke about above. Secondly, it pulls your focus away from what you should be doing — keep your head in the game! Being able to focus with intensity is one of the things that is absolutely essential when the day of the competition arrives, so if you’re allowing yourself to be constantly distracted during training, how do you think you’re going to go when it really counts? We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training, so if your training is scattered, it will show with sub-par results on the big day.
Finally, the loss of focus often means that a rest period becomes double or triple what it should be, so now you’re compromising your body by getting too cooled down when you should be keeping it warm. That also means that your training sessions end up going longer than they need to.
If you can’t help yourself, get an iPod or some other MP3 player for your music during training and leave your phone in a locker or your car.
Proper recovery
We’re talking about far more than a cool-down here. Of course, after your session, you want to go through an appropriate cool down specific to what you’ve done which will maximise your recovery. This should be paired with the appropriate meals and other aids to ensure you recover in minimal time and don’t compromise your training the next day. Here are a couple of really specific routines I’ve had previously to give you an idea:
Judo sparring session — This involves a brutal amount of falling, contact and sore hands/fingers from all the gripping.
Light movement: jogging around the mats, moving all the joints around and stretching the muscles and back out.
Protein shake and banana.
Hang out and chat for a few minutes — allows the mind to ease down from the intensity of the session.
Hot bath at home 45 minutes later. Soothes all the bumps, aches and pains and moves everything through the system, preventing too much soreness the next day.
Dinner.
Squat day — This puts enormous load on the legs and the nervous system.
A few minutes of walking around.
Lie with legs raised against the wall for 5 minutes —moves all the blood that has pooled in the legs out.
Foam rolling to loosen up the lower back musculature.
Lacrosse ball on the buttocks to loosen up the area.
Gravity boots to decompress the spine.
Protein shake + creatine and a banana before leaving the gym.
Hot bath at home.
Dinner.
As you can see, there are commonalities to both, but there are also very specific cool downs to ensure maximum recovery. Whatever your sport, you likely have a good idea what you need to do in order to maximise your recovery. Don’t just do the generic things — that’s for the general population.
Remember that the main aim here isn’t to get too caught up in the minutia of exactly what you’re doing at every step. Just like a morning routine, spending a heap of time obsessing over every detail is counter productive because a perfect routine isn’t the goal — performance on the day of your competition is. That’s what this is about. These are high performance habits that will ensure maximum benefit from each session and the best performance on the big day. Work out what is going to be best for you, and put it in place. Tweak a few things here and there until you’re happy with the results, then put it on autopilot and move on to the next part of your routine that needs looking at.
The Key to Unlocking Your Highest Level of Performance
5 Supplements Worth Your Money in 2020
4 Reasons Not to Waste Money on a Fitness Tracker | https://pwross.medium.com/8-ways-to-make-your-training-sessions-more-effective-44af6847b97c | ['Pete Ross'] | 2020-06-12 21:58:19.835000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Fitness', 'Lifestyle', 'Health', 'Sports'] |
The Best Places to Buy Round Small Area Rugs | Round small area rugs can help bind a room together or relate the motif of one room to the rest of the house. Round Small Area Rugs may not be the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to home or business decor, but they may help cover up any empty space on the floor that would otherwise stick out. Round and oval small area rugs are the two most common shapes. A long oval-shaped rug may be better than a perfect circle rug for filling an area. There are many different designs of circular Small Area Rugs to choose from. Instead of vibrant colors and trendy themes, they frequently use traditional patterns and motifs. In these areas, little round area rugs are frequently used:
Is it possible to place a square table on a circle rug?
“A round table on a round rug is visually harmonious, but you can put a square table on a round rug as well — just make sure the rug is significantly larger so the shapes don’t compete, and that there is enough room under the chair legs to pull chairs back when seated at the table in the case of a dining table.”
When is it appropriate to use a round rug in a room?
Why You Should Consider a Round Rug for Your Home
You want to draw attention to curved architectural elements.
You’d want to put another circular object on display…
You want to make a unique zone or vignette…
You should choose a bright accent rug to layer your carpet or Small Area Rugs.
You want to make a tiny space feel more spacious.
What factors should I consider while purchasing a round rug?
To estimate the circumference of your rug, measure the diameter of your circular table and add at least 30 inches. The trick is to make sure your chair does not fall off the carpeting when you back up to stand up. A table like this might be coupled with a few chairs and a circle rug without the window seat! | https://medium.com/@ooptech123/the-best-places-to-buy-round-small-area-rugs-6956b00ba07f | [] | 2021-12-22 18:22:02.433000+00:00 | ['Furniture', 'Rugs', 'Lighting'] |
Actually, “Whites” Hate “Whites” the Most | Actually, “Whites” Hate “Whites” the Most
And that’s always been the case
Trump needs the non-existent problems he creates. He recently tweeted that Al Sharpton “Hates Whites & Cops!” And his violent hit-and-run maneuver dodges the damning fact that — whites hate whites the most. All of history up to the present backs up that statement.
Whites have practiced their hate on each other and for each other in word and deed. Look at indentured servitude. Then look at how white elites invented and used whiteness. White elites made whiteness to protect their assets, to oppress Black people and people of color, and to thwart working-class solidarity across skin-color groups. That hateful whiteness is still working today.
This hatred of whites by whites has been at the highest levels. In the book The History of White People, the historian Nell Irvin Painter shows whites putting certain whites at the top of the racist hierarchy and claiming other whites were lower. Among several pieces of historical evidence, Painter quotes Theodore Roosevelt who — in his book The Winning of the West — wrote these words about white Southerners in the 1880s:
[P]eople drawn from the worst immigrants that perhaps ever were brought to America—the mass of convict servants, redemptioners, and the like, who formed such an excessively undesirable substratum to the otherwise excellent population of the tidewater regions in Virginia and the Carolinas. Many of the Southern [slur] or poor whites spring from this class, which also in the backwoods gave birth to generations of violent and hardened criminals, and to an even greater number of shiftless, lazy, cowardly cumberers of the earth’s surface.
Whites invented and used slurs against each other. No one had to release recordings of Roosevelt; he wrote and published his thoughts himself. Roosevelt didn’t love all whites, and he wasn’t alone. True to form, the whites in charge restricted immigration by whites they hated. And true to form, whites also experimented on and sterilized whites they classified as stupid and deficient.
History shows the policies of whiteness hurting whites. In 1948, the activist and writer Harry Haywood published his book Negro Liberation which included a blistering indictment of white supremacy and its impact on Southern whites. Haywood found that Southern whites had more sickness, more death, more underfunded schools, more exploited women, lower wages, and less democracy than the rest of the country. Haywood diagnosed white supremacy as the cause for the Southern condition and position.
Haywood wasn’t wrong. White supremacy requires whites to step on each other. We know from history, white supremacy lynched and murdered whites who stepped out of formation. And whites battled and killed each other in the Jim Crow South and around the country.
Today, white policies still hurt whites. White lawmakers know their white policies harm other whites — and they don’t care. In the book Dying of Whiteness, the sociologist and physician Jonathan Metzl documents how the politics of whiteness kills whites through a lack of health care, reckless gun laws, and austere funding for schools.
Metzl outlines how backlash politics can boomerang. With their votes, whites aim and throw white boomerangs — that bang them and pang them where it counts. Metzl goes so far to say that “Anti-blackness, in a biological sense, then produces its own anti-whiteness.” Even when whites hate people who aren’t white, they still end up hating themselves in some ways.
And it’s no better with voting because there are powerful whites who aren’t interested in a democracy that includes all whites. That has always been the case. In the book Democracy in Chains, Nancy MacLean shows how certain whites today don’t want all whites to vote, especially young students. Carol Anderson makes the same point in her book One Person, No Vote.
In MacLean’s book, she details the history of how the Koch brothers, and others, are rewriting the rules and rigging the courts to ensure democracy can’t block their itches for riches. For them, liberty is having the freedom to make as much money as possible, at whatever cost and damage, and they don’t care about whites who aren’t at their level.
With class warfare between white elites and other whites, we have more whites hating whites again. That much is clear in Nancy Isenberg’s book White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.
Even white-supremacy culture hates and harms whites. White-supremacy culture demands white standards for beauty, work, and life. Those white standards aren’t loving, and they create mental and physical issues for whites too.
From history to the present, other whites and whiteness are the real problems for whites. Whites should fight against other whites and fight against whiteness. Whites need to worry about what other whites are doing to them, especially white-male shooters, the Republican Party, and Trump.
James Baldwin is still right, “White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this—which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never—the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.”
Trump uses Black and Brown people to distract from his insecurities, his deficiencies, his bad behavior, and his hatred of whites. His hatred for whites is clear in his policies, his statement about “a dumb Southerner,” and his professed love for “the poorly educated.”
Let’s also remember that Trump attacks and demonizes many Brown and light Brown people who have legally checked the white box. And like whites hating whites, he still hates them. Trump’s hatred of Black and Brown people reflects his hatred for people — whites included. The same is true of many whites.
No Black person or person of color has hated whites more than whites have hated themselves. History is proof and so are the policies. Whites have the hatred of whites covered. And no one can do it like they can. | https://medium.com/thesamandmeshow/actually-whites-hate-whites-the-most-563051dcd86c | ['Sam Mckenzie Jr.'] | 2020-10-12 18:25:49.833000+00:00 | ['Equality', 'White Supremacy', 'Race', 'Whiteness', 'Racism'] |
How to be better than most people (at pretty much anything) | I’m not very talented…
There’s a ton of things I enjoy doing like recording music, writing articles, and making other forms of content.
I’m not particularly good at any of those things, but I think I’m pretty decent.
Now, I’m not in the top 10% or even the top 20%, but I’d wager I’m better than most people who do these things.
And it’s because of a little trick I use (that isn’t even very difficult)…
You don’t have to be talented or smart to do this, but it could help you become better than your peers.
Ready for it?
All you have to do is… show up.
And keep showing up.
I’m in a lot of groups of people for various things like copywriting and learning Chinese.
Am I the best at any of these things?
No way.
But I am better than the people who showed up a few times and then quit?
I think so.
All I do is show up and try.
Most people only show up for a while and eventually quit. They quit when it gets hard — before they get good.
And of those who do show up… some of them don’t even try.
With whatever you want to succeed at, showing up is half the battle.
Want to get better at a language?
Show up every day and use the language.
Want to have a successful business?
Show up every day and make offers.
Want to be a good writer?
Show up every day and write.
Remember, you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t even have to be good.
You just have to show up, care, and do an okay job. That’s more than most people ever do. | https://medium.com/@clickbear/im-not-very-talented-d71d4db49f8 | ['Josh Lee'] | 2020-12-12 15:15:13.999000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Motivation', 'Copywriting'] |
The Easy Trick That Will Boost Your Confidence | Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash
When it comes to confidence, some of us didn't seem to be born with it. Even as an adult, I could hardly walk into a room full of people or talk to anyone while looking into their eyes. That affected every part of my life. It affected the places I go, the people I talked to or visited, and the goals I pursue.
We must believe in the task to even get started. Lack of confidence in our ability to accomplish the task or skepticism in the task’s worthwhileness is tantamount to creating a path to failure. As Henry Ford said, “whether you think you can or think you can’t you are right”. Lack of confidence, fear, or anxiety brings about a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fear of failure makes you fail, and failure makes you fear. And the loop continues.
A common denominator among outstanding leaders of any generation is their confidence. They smell confidence, they talk “confidence”, they walk “confidence”. I mean It is so conspicuous.
If you are like me, you know how it is like to not have the courage to pitch that idea of yours to a boss or how it’s like to lack the confidence to walk up to a beautiful girl at the party. You have been staring at her. Your eyes meet. She smiles at you. Your heart skips a beat. You know you should walk up to her and say hi but you second guess. “What if she wasn’t smiling at me? what if she yells and creates a scene? What if the roof collapses? What if… what if… what if?“
The ”what-ifs” paralyzes you and you probably missed out on a dream girl or an opportunity to even try.
There is a way out.
Become inverse-paranoid.
This is a technique I learned from Jack Canfield, a self-help coach. Inverse paranoia is the opposite of paranoia as the name suggests. While paranoia is a tendency towards irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others, Inverse-paranoia is a belief that everyone is working towards your good. Mother nature designed our brains to keep us out of danger and any threatening situation. Our brain is risk-averse. Therefore, we are more likely to stay away from an activity, even though the gains outweigh the risk.
Being inverse paranoid is swimming against the tide of our cognitive bias of risk aversion. Here is how to use inverse paranoia.
If you want to ask my boss for a raise, assume he is going to say yes. Assume it’s a perfect time. Assume the company is doing great instead of raising imaginary objections like, the company is struggling, the economy is bad, today is a busy day, etc. It’s a yes until you get a no.
If you want to ask for a friend’s camera, assume his reply is a yes instead of assuming he wants to use it at the exact moment you need it. It’s a yes until you get a no.
If you want to woo a pretty lady, assume she is single and looking forward to a handsome guy like you talking to her instead of making unnecessary negative presumptions. It’s a yes until you get a no.
If you want to pitch your next writing piece, assume the editor is just looking for your piece in his magazine or blog instead of finding excuses not to send the pitch. Remember, it’s a yes until you get the rejection.
You miss 100% of the shorts you do not take.
The fear of failure cripples our confidence. When we learn to embrace failure as the stepping stone and a necessary curve in our route to success, we act more confidently.
The fastest way to be more confident is to stop negative assumptions and become inverse paranoid. We must realize that our assumptions are a subjective judgment of reality. Do not assume your article is not up to par for that big publication. Do not assume your boss will see your hard work and reward you- ask for the raise. Do not assume the pretty lady doesn’t want to be disturbed. Do not assume you are not good enough. Go for want you want and expect to win.
As a side note, as good as it is to be confident and charismatic, confidence does not solve all our problems. We all have our good and bad days. Sometimes we don’t feel like showing up. Sometimes we have doubts and that's ok — these doubts are part of what makes us humans. Sometimes we can’t quite the doubting voice that tries to put us down, telling us we are not good enough and can’t achieve much more. And sometimes we take rejection personally. We can’t let all that keep us from keeping on. True confidence is realizing that no matter the outcome, you’d be able to handle it, learn from it, and move on stronger. | https://medium.com/an-idea/the-easy-trick-that-will-boost-your-confidence-a9957b6e75e9 | ['Matthew Prince'] | 2020-12-13 03:09:35.179000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Motivation', 'Confidence'] |
One Health: A Necessary Blend of Biodiversity and Human Health Goals | [Note: this story was published originally by Mongabay]
As an American living in Germany and working for an international conservation organization, I find that most everyday people I speak with do not realize that in 2008, Chancellor Angela Merkel made a commitment of €500 million per year to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), with a focus on protected areas.
That was an extraordinary commitment by the German government — something worth knowing and to be proud of. Initially intended as a four-year commitment, this annual allocation has continued through to this day, making Germany one of the world’s largest bilateral donors to biodiversity conservation.
In addition to biodiversity, Germany has also shown significant leadership in the Global Health sector. As we confront a pandemic originating with the zoonotic transmission of a virus from wildlife to humans that has devastated the global economy, there is now an opportunity to combine these two commitments and areas of expertise.
“The One Health approach acknowledges the interconnectedness of human, animal, and ecosystem health.”
In so doing, we work to create a new pathway toward green recovery: One Health. The One Health approach acknowledges the interconnectedness of human, animal, and ecosystem health.
In 2004, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) brought together stakeholders in global health to discuss issues at the nexus of animal, human, and ecosystem health. The symposium prompted the Manhattan Principles, which launched the modern One Health approach.
Northern cassowary (Casuarius unappendiculatus) in Indonesia. Image by Rhett Butler for Mongabay.
As our planet has faced growing threats from climate change and biodiversity loss, One Health became too anthropocentric, placing nature at the service of humans.
In October 2019, WCS and the German Federal Foreign Office co-hosted a conference titled, “One Planet, One Health, One Future” which brought together members of academia, government, policy, and civil society from nearly 50 countries to forge the Berlin Principles on One Health. The message was to reassert the fundamental importance of biodiversity in One Health.
A mere two months before the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the global economy and took more than 1.25 million lives, the Berlin Principles captured the threat to society globally if we continue to ignore the interconnected issues relevant to human, animal and environmental health. In so doing, we reasserted the fundamental importance of biodiversity for human health.
Critical to the protection of biodiversity is the maintenance of intact landscapes un-degraded by agriculture, extractive industry, and infrastructure like roads, railways, and power lines. Degradation of nature destroys habitat, releases sequestered carbon, and exposes people to viruses to which they previously had no contact and for which they have no natural immunity.
“Critical to the protection of biodiversity is the maintenance of intact landscapes un-degraded by agriculture, extractive industry, and infrastructure like roads, railways, and power lines.”
COVID-19 provides an unfortunate but essential opportunity to demonstrate the fundamental importance of the One Health approach. The world has taken notice in significant ways.
In May, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a “Manifesto for a Health Recovery from COVID-19,” with the first suggestion being, “Protect and preserve the source of human health: Nature.” In June, the German Environment Minister, Ms. Svenja Schulze, gave a speech titled, “Nature Is Sending Us a Message.”
In September, German Foreign Minister Mr. Heiko Maas, at an event of the Alliance for Multilateralism, recognized ecosystem degradation as a root cause of pandemic disease emergence and called for full implementation of the Berlin Principles on One Health. At the World Health Summit last month, BMZ Minister Gerd Müller announced the creation of a new One Health priority area.
Blackwater oxbow lake in the Amazon. Image by Rhett Butler for Mongabay.
These announcements and efforts are to be applauded. Germany is demonstrating leadership based on science, and building on its own expertise and years of experience in the biodiversity and health sectors. Most importantly, Germany is setting an example for other nations to follow, both to prevent future pandemics but also to address the biodiversity and climate change crises.
As Germany moves forward with implementing its One Health approach, particularly with regard to official development assistance, it is necessary to learn from the not-so-distant past and keep biodiversity conservation central to the process. This means that Germany must maintain, or preferably increase, its financial commitment to implementing the CBD and supporting protected areas.
Indeed, if we are truly to avoid future pandemics and the devastating consequences of mass extinctions and accelerated climate change, Germany and governments worldwide must take the One Health approach further. The forests we convert to agriculture, the roads we build through wilderness areas, and the alternative energy sources that destroy habitat are all acts of self-harm.
“Using the Berlin Principles and a One Health approach, scientists, practitioners, and policy makers can show how nature conservation underpins human health.”
Following last year’s successful conference, WCS and the German Federal Foreign Office recently co-hosted a follow-up event titled, “One Planet, One Health, One Future: Moving Forward in a Post-COVID19 World.” Over five sessions, the online event highlighted and elaborated what One Health looks like in practice, how to operationalize it, and how to prevent future zoonotic pandemics.
No country, government, or sector can accomplish this alone. Together, we must work across national borders and the silos of our sectors to create new collaborations, new programming and new funding opportunities.
Using the Berlin Principles and a One Health approach, scientists, practitioners, and policy makers can show how nature conservation underpins human health and ensure that health is no longer perceived as a fundamental competitor to economic growth.
Annie Mark is Director of Strategic Relations for Germany at WCS. | https://medium.com/@wildlifeconservationsociety/one-health-a-necessary-blend-of-biodiversity-and-human-health-goals-a8a10f746a5f | ['Wildlife Conservation Society'] | 2020-12-04 21:48:13.047000+00:00 | ['Biodiversity', 'Pandemic', 'Environment', 'One Health', 'Conservation'] |
Why You Should Eat Your Carbs Last | Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash
You might be surprised to know that the order in which you consume foods can have an impact on your health and body weight goals.
Specifically, it is recommended to prioritize protein first, followed by fibrous vegetables, and save your carbs for last.
This method of eating has been proven to reduce post-meal hunger, which means you are less likely to snack shortly after your meal. Saving your carbs for last has been shown to help maintain satiety more effectively than eating carbs first or eating all meal components together.
The reason this works is because protein is the most satiating macronutrient, so you start to fill up your stomach by eating protein first. Vegetables come next because they are high in fiber — absorbing water and expanding in your stomach — further helping to achieve a sense of fullness. Carbs come at the end to take whatever remains of your hunger.
Of course certain types of carbs are healthier than others, but eating in this manner ensures you will sufficiently nourish your body without binging on refined carbs or sugary sweets.
So if you are eating a balanced meal of fish, broccoli, and rice, it would make sense to eat the meal in exactly that order. Same thing if your meal consists of chicken, Brussels sprouts, and potatoes. This approach also allows for occasionally finishing your meal with some dessert.
Whatever you do, don’t fill up on bread at the beginning of your meal. If you want to indulge in some bread, save it for last! | https://andrewmerle.medium.com/why-you-should-eat-your-carbs-last-3bfbf465e5dd | ['Andrew Merle'] | 2020-05-20 14:17:52.955000+00:00 | ['Food', 'Life Hacking', 'Health', 'Lifehacks', 'Lifestyle'] |
PREPARE FOR A LONG ROUND THE WORLD TRIP (PART 1: ABSTRACT) | One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. Henry Miller
Introduction
We all hear from time to time about a year-long-trips or, even more exciting, round the world (RtW) trips. For years I had been curious about that. What is the point to going away for so long? How does it feel? What and where would I visit? After all, how to manage everything?
Luckily, my wife and I had a chance to make it real. During the preparation period I tried to search practical advice on the Internet. Sadly, not much was able to be found (most probably due to lack of time, see below). Though some of the tasks are far from obvious, and yet are really important at the same time. That is why I decided to put our thoughts and practical experience on paper for those who travel by themselves. This article is about preparations, not our travel impressions. You will have your own!
An unexpected journey
To June 2019 a number of events lead to understanding that we have that unique chance to go! Initially, I was going to take several months for preparations and start our journey near Christmas 2019. However, when my wife and I drew a timeline with important personal milestones, we realised that the best time to start is in a month… May be we could delay for a few months, however there is no point in doing that.
Needless to say this finding shocked us. I am a kind of an experienced traveller; this is the map of countries where I spent at least one night prior the current trip:
I know how much time it normally takes to prepare to visit just one country. A month for a virtually any country in the world?! We decided to investigate the experience of other RtW travellers, and to build a mind map based on their advice and our own experience.
This is a rotated over-downsized initial mind map. I made it unreadable because it includes many personal items. Don’t worry, I am going to share a trimmed down high quality public version. The main thing here is that there are not many critical (red) tasks. These are the tasks that must be done prior to departure. Yellow ones are highly desirable but not showstoppers and may be done after leaving home. The good news is that planning for an RtW is simpler than you might think.
Legend
There are two key words that will be used for some points.
Severity
Critical — do not go unless done;
High — should be done to reduce negative consequences, but will have no fatal impact if delayed;
Normal — would be great to do to improve something, however can be skipped completely.
Dates
This is to arrange preparation tasks on a timeline. Starting earlier is as bad as starting late.
Of course, concrete dates cannot be used, therefore ranges are encoded using the following special markers:
T — Today, time to begin practical steps;
R — Ready to buy tickets (at least a draft route has been created and the departure date is almost fixed as certain points depend on where or when you go);
D — Departure.
Date ranges are represented as “<start date>, <finish date>”. When applicable, gaps are indicated as “<date> + <gap>” (date is equal <gap> days after <date>) or “<date> — <gap>” (date is equal to <gap> days before <date>).
Example: “Dates: R, D — 7”. This means start on R, and finish not later than 7 days before D.
Our planning assumption is that ideally preparations must be finished by one week before the departure. | https://medium.com/@haron.ru/prepare-for-a-long-round-the-world-trip-part-1-abstract-89fc59a20156 | ['Sergey Lovchev'] | 2020-12-25 04:35:05.410000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Dreams', 'World'] |
Tonight’s comic is wasting all its money on expensive lattés ☕️ | More from rstevens Follow
I make cartoons and t-shirts at www.dieselsweeties.com & @rstevens. Send me coffee beans. | https://rstevens.medium.com/tonights-comic-is-wasting-all-its-money-on-expensive-latt%C3%A9s-%EF%B8%8F-890f3b4b66e | [] | 2019-08-12 03:53:43.786000+00:00 | ['Financial Planning', 'Comics', 'Coffee', 'Millennials', 'Lies Boomers Tell You'] |
Sony TVs boast faster, smarter processing and improved audio, but there are no major technology changes | Sony TVs boast faster, smarter processing and improved audio, but there are no major technology changes Kay Jan 16·2 min read
Sony made no mention of major new technologies, such as mini LED backlighting, for the 2021 TV lineup, but the company has announced plenty of other improvements. Most noticeably, the new Cognitive Processor XR processing unit marries higher speed with more granular and processing algorithms. It will be available on Sony’s high-end XR series of smart TVs.
The end result of XR manipulation, which places great emphasis on the viewer’s focal point of an image, should be better overall images with increased detail, fewer artifacts, a higher contrast ratio, according to the company. Sony says its 4K and 8K UHD models will also deliver distinctly improved upscaling of lower-resolution content.
[ Further reading: TV tech terms demystified ]Sony audioSony already has the world’s best-sounding TVs, and the company says its 2021 models will be even bertter. Re-designed planar drivers that directly vibrate the display panel and bezel are said to produce more oomph, and—thanks to more of them and refined placement—they’ll even successfully reproduce 5.1.2 surround sound. If you’re never heard a high-end Sony TV, especially an OLED, take a listen next time you’re in a store—they sound better than many soundbars.
Sony Sony’s X95J LED will also get the benefit of XR processing. Sony already boasted arguably the best LED/LCD processing on the market.
Beyond improved image processing and audio, Google TV will make its way to Sony’s XR series, and as you may have noticed, the monikers are losing a digit. What was once a model 950 will be a model 95, and so on. Sony skipped a letter and will go directly from H to J. We’re not sure why, though it’s likely a visual thing. “I” can be confused with 1 in some fonts.
The new XR LED models range from the 8K Z9J to the X90J (called the X92J at 100-inches) at the low-end. The new OLEDs are the A80J and A90J. As usual, higher numbers are used for higher-end models.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@kay40679247/sony-tvs-boast-faster-smarter-processing-and-improved-audio-but-there-are-no-major-technology-1b06e51c7928 | [] | 2021-01-16 04:14:16.731000+00:00 | ['Consumer Electronics', 'Chromecast', 'Mobile', 'Home Theater'] |
Shaping your world: what you spend your 💰💰💰 on matters more than ever | photo credit: Micheile Henderson
Preface: I’m writing this from a place of privilege and I recognize not everyone can act on this right now. But I do think it’s important to do what we can.
Where you spend your money matters. In the free market, capital is allocated by how profitable an endeavor is: how many people want this, at what price, and how much does it cost to produce? You, as the consumer, can affect the first and second part of of this equation, which in turn affects the third (through economies of scale).
This has always been true.
And now, more than ever, it’s important to vote with your wallet. If you’re in a fortunate enough position to have disposable income, you can put that money to supporting people and communities and businesses that might not survive with you. Here are some to consider:
Medical staff and others on the front lines
Obvious first place to send some money is the people and organizations who are doing the most for using during this crisis. There are many organizations looking to feed medical staff. You can donate directly to organizations like the CDC and WHO who are doing more large scale interventions. You could buy a cake for a food delivery person! If your birthday is coming up, Facebook has a great fundraising feature where you can ask for donations for your favourite charity instead of birthday gifts.[1]
The communities you care about
For some reason I’ve always assumed my dance studios were pretty profitable. Maybe because I feel like I’m paying a pretty penny for classes, maybe because so many of them have been around for so long I just assume they’ll always be around, maybe because I’ve consciously and subconsciously bought into the bullshit STEM narrative[2] of art not deserving funding. But obviously I’ve never done the actual math on rent and payroll costs in a very expensive city like San Francisco.
I chose dance as an example because that’s a community I deeply care about, one that’s given me so much and has really built me up to be the person I am today. Obviously what this community is for you could be completely different.
A few communities that I’ve been supporting lately:
Dance : both my studio and my favourite instructors
: both my studio and my favourite instructors Music : lots of labels are doing charity concerts, and ajunabeats recently did a sale where all proceeds go to supporting the artists
: lots of labels are doing charity concerts, and ajunabeats recently did a sale where all proceeds go to supporting the artists Food : I don’t like take out, I’d rather cook when I’m at home. But ordering from my favourite restaurant has been both a treat and a way to make sure those places remain open when SIP is lifted. Some restaurants have also pivoted to selling their high quality ingredients. Some are directly seeking donations to support their staff. You can also provide meals for those affected and support local restaurants at the same time!
: I don’t like take out, I’d rather cook when I’m at home. But ordering from my favourite restaurant has been both a treat and a way to make sure those places remain open when SIP is lifted. Some restaurants have also pivoted to selling their high quality ingredients. Some are directly seeking donations to support their staff. You can also provide meals for those affected and support local restaurants at the same time! Fitness : I am unashamedly a Barry’s bitch and I’m super happy barry’s is keeping all full time employees and instructors. I think they’ve really lived up to their hype about community, and that really says something. Especially now!!
: I am unashamedly a Barry’s bitch and I’m super happy barry’s is keeping all full time employees and instructors. I think they’ve really lived up to their hype about community, and that really says something. Especially now!! Meditation : I started paying for the Calm app cause it’s one of the things keeping me sane through this whole thing. Obviously there’s free meditation content out there, but if you find something that’s creating value, why not pay for it so it survives so you can keep getting great content?
: I started paying for the Calm app cause it’s one of the things keeping me sane through this whole thing. Obviously there’s free meditation content out there, but if you find something that’s creating value, why not pay for it so it survives so you can keep getting great content? Fashion : I’ve never really been a consistently fashionable person (most of the time I wear a giant sweater and leggings to work because #engineer), but it’s always been a channel for self expression and creativity. I’ve been focusing a lot recently on ethical, sustainable brands who are sending some portion of their revenue/profits to COVID related charities
: I’ve never really been a consistently fashionable person (most of the time I wear a giant sweater and leggings to work because #engineer), but it’s always been a channel for self expression and creativity. I’ve been focusing a lot recently on ethical, sustainable brands who are sending some portion of their revenue/profits to COVID related charities Gaming: I caved and bought a Switch[3] and a bunch of games. I’ve always been a fan of the games you can play with friends, like Super smash bros, Overcooked 2 and Love in a dangerous space time. NO I HAVE NOT BOUGHT ANIMAL CROSSING NEW HORIZONS BECAUSE I DO NOT WANT TO LOSE MY LIFE TO A GAME
The communities I’m supporting are reflective of the things, people, and activities I love. They’re what makes this world worth living in for me, and I want to see these communities survive this pandemic. We’re going to get through this. But not all of the businesses we love will.
If you’re one of the people fortunate enough to have kept your job and are working from home, please please consider spending that paycheck wisely. I hope you can take some time today to think about the communities you care about, check in on how those communities are doing, and see if you can do anything to support them.
Imagine the world you want to return to when this is all over. Then think about where to send your money to shape our world in that image. | https://medium.com/@andeeliao/shaping-your-world-what-you-spend-your-on-matters-more-than-ever-c62b588c13cc | ['Andee Liao'] | 2021-05-12 18:42:19.013000+00:00 | ['Community Development', 'Money Mindset', 'Philosophy', 'Community', 'Money'] |
Best No-Code Platforms in 2021 — What to Expect | 2020 saw a significant boost in the popularity of No-Code platforms, as many businesses concluded the best way to grow out of an economic down-turn (resulting from the pandemic) was to innovate. Will 2021 be the year that no-code applications development takes hold? If so, what new innovations can enterprise buyers expect from state-of-the-art platforms like Encanvas.
Overcoming Bias
Few people who’ve been involved in the enterprise applications development market would be unaware of the strong bias towards coding and coding skills. The industry has been run by people who themselves trained as coder, and who believe coding offers unlimited versatility while any form of abstraction layer will inevitably lead to inflexibilities; if not in the functionality they can build into apps, then in the ongoing platform architecture — making it more difficult to protect data, integrate with other systems, scale apps or manage User and Group permissions.
This has led some IT leadership teams to focus their cultures and behaviors around coders and coding, not speed-to-market and business outcomes. It was assumed, through this professional bias, that any product claiming to be able to produce enterprise apps without coding was intended for ‘citizen developers’ — which has become industry speak for ‘amateur.’
The great thing about working with teams of awesomely clever and passionate people wanting to solve a problem, is they don’t see things like ‘bias’ as being an insurmountable obstacle; but rather just another bridge to cross. | https://medium.com/@ian-tomlin/best-no-code-platforms-in-2021-what-to-expect-979a5a1ca0a4 | ['Ian Tomlin'] | 2020-12-24 12:22:31.262000+00:00 | ['No Code', 'Digital Transformation', 'Fusion Team', 'Low Code', 'DevOps'] |
Giant sculptures and Retail displays for your business | Giant sculptures and Retail displays: After Covid-19 epidemic, global market is getting on its track gradually and it is the time you can think about promoting your business and products. Successfully executing your retail marketing strategies requires solid plans combining many factors and facts. Retail marketing has many key factors for success as Product, Price, Place, Promotion etc., and in promoting your products or business, visual displays like giant sculptures and retail displays plays a vital role.
Visual displays can be billboards, Point of Sale or Retail displays. Such attractive sculptures will definitely attract attention of potential customers and help in increasing the sale. Making of such giant sculptures were a challenge in past years. Huge investments towards making of such displays, waiting time and handling, maintenance and servicing all were blocking the way to get such displays. Introduction of 3D Printing technology made all old story.
At Inoventive 3D Printing Dubai, we have state-of-the-art 3D Printing facility in Dubai, UAE with multiple ultra-modern, industrial grade 3D Printing machine, where we can produce giant sculptures and retail displays within hours and for very affordable price!! We have the capacity of producing massive displays in any numbers or in any sizes or shapes.
We have excellent 3D designers who can understand your need and will help you throughout the process and make sure you will be getting the finest sculpture with all its detail.
We provide best 3D Printing services in UAE and Middle East region including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt and Africa.
Please feel free to contact us for any further assistance or inquiries. Call/Whatsapp: +971 52 598 8448 | Email: [email protected] | https://3dprintingdubai.ae/
https://3dprintingdubai.ae/giant-sculptures-and-retail-displays/ | https://medium.com/@sewig67441/giant-sculptures-and-retail-displays-for-your-business-aef60f7c8310 | [] | 2021-10-28 09:51:28.046000+00:00 | ['Retail Displays', 'Rapid Prototyping', '3D Printing', 'Additive Manufacturing', '3d Printing Company'] |
EARTH & US: Solstice, Change and Transformation | Greetings of the Solstice! This is a time of major change for me personally. Moving out of my home of 6 1/2 years, and actually leaving Asheville itself after nearly 16 years, is causing me to do a life review of sorts, as I discard what I no longer need and prepare to move to Swannanoa. The outer work of winnowing and paring down seems to have some parallel with my inner world, leaving me lighter and clearer. I’ve also applied to the Peace Corps — although placements are currently on hold due to the pandemic. (Did you know that there is no upper age limit?)
Astrologically, this Winter Solstice brings the “Great Conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn, just hours after the moment of the Solstice. Saturn is all about mastering structures of physical reality, while Jupiter in Aquarius indicates expansion of the transpersonal and intuitive, a big step into the “Age of Aquarius” that was heralded in the ‘60’s. Major breakthroughs, awakening, new freedom, transcendence, creative flowering are all possible. This seems to be a time for transforming foundational systems, institutions and structures, with mass protests and revolutions opening the way for freedom, and creation of new solutions. A 200-year “Great Mutation cycle” is also about to begin, a shift from earth to air; this shift moves us away from the materialistic (selfish grasping for wealth and power) and toward cooperative, collective thriving. It could be a time of finding joy in serving others with our unique gifts and talents. (Thank you Benjamin Bernstein of www.Astroshaman.com for these insights!)
I am hopeful that our country will finally take significant steps towards re-imagining the police, immigration reform, and reparations for both indigenous people and African Americans. It’s been centuries of colonization, brutality and inhumane treatment. The whole extractive, exploitative economy needs to change drastically in order to arrest and reverse climate catastrophe. This means major change, and soon!
We are witnessing the arising and leadership of indigenous women the world over. I especially invite you to look into Women’s Earth Alliance. For the past 15 years, a group of women have been mentoring younger grassroots women working internationally for environmental justice. Mainly indigenous and women of color, they are leading campaigns for food security, water restoration and protection; they’re fighting toxic dumping, air pollution, pesticides and pipelines. They are trailblazers in the “just transition” from a fossil fueled economy to a sustainable one. “Women nurture the land,” they say. Jessica Girard, of Fairbanks, AK, sees white supremacy as the root cause of the climate crisis, linking these two issues. Extractive economies steal from the Earth, from the commons, and extract labor from people. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color are treated as disposable. To get inspired by the women’s stories, visit www.Womensearthalliance.org.
***
Part of my moving and packing process was re-visiting some collages I’ve made over the past few years, mostly around New Year’s Day. I felt inspired to set them to poetry, one of which I’ll offer to you here along with the images. I hope you enjoy it; perhaps it will open something in you.
Heart Visions
What if we breathed?
Could we take a gentle breath into our hearts,
Love and forgive ourselves?
Offer love to our indigenous sisters,
Water guardians and protectors,
And see the brown skinned woman who sings
Love and peace from a radiant heart, in a river of rainbows?
Feel gratitude for the golden glory of a flower
Blooming bright as the sun above…
Love and connection with all creatures,
And with our children
As their delighted laughter
Brings peace and the rainbow.
When we listen to the music of the world
And tune in to our hearts,
Comes the deeper sight,
The heart’s own vision,
Through the eye of a bird…
A new hope, a flowering world.
Let us find the spiritual experience
That brings us alive and keeps us
Alive every day all the way,
Living the rainbow. | https://medium.com/@cathyholt/earth-us-solstice-change-and-transformation-badd75f5e416 | ['Cathy Holt'] | 2020-12-20 04:44:30.685000+00:00 | ['Winter Solstice', 'Indigenous Women', 'Astrology', 'Revolution', 'Womens Earth Alliance'] |
Yell at Joe | JOE DO SOMETHING YOU FUCK! NO SOMETHING GOOD! GODDAMMIT!
The constants experienced in America are numerous and cyclical. Traditions that are as guaranteed as divorce and Blockbuster. Seems kind of harsh, but Blockbuster’s demise is a promise of innovation and late stage capitalism. The next Blockbuster, along with several companies that will fold every year, will eventually be voting for old white guys for President. It’ll be painfully slow and irritating, however it will come. Then we can finally yell at a woman for bad praxis.
Meanwhile, we do have our first female VP. She’s a cop, she’s not any kind of “Marxist-Commie-Fascist-Maoist-Socialist-CatWoman” or whatever garbled word salad conservatives yell about, with a complete ignorance to any of those words definitions or blatant dissonance to each other. She’s here for the status quo and so is Joe. I enjoy seeing a woman become the first VP, I enjoy the President once again not being a blatant blood-thirsty lumbering fart beast. Joe is still those things, he just has enough experience in politics to hide it. People in politics are sociopathic, dead-eyed soulless goons, even the ones I like. It’s a requirement.
As a sociopathic, soulless goon myself with a slight glimmer of hope in my eyes, because I haven’t gotten big enough for it to burn out yet, I understand this. This is what we cycled through our nationwide flirtation with fascism, to the new age of the same old. The tradition we’ll be continuing is yelling at the President. We’ll yell, bite, kick, scream, tantrum, and continually pee our pants until our President does fucking anything. I’m talking directly to my fellow socialist/lefty folks. We have to make this geriatric, useless, stupid jackass do anything good.
We’ve been yelling for years, decades, hell, the beginning of the country being formed on the blood of slaves and the Americans that were already here. It’s only just now sinking in that maybe they should listen to us a little. Right now it’s scraps. It’s concessions, attaboys, and pats on the head. It’s a far cry from what it was, and during a democrat presidency we need to get even louder. I’m fully endorsing abusively yelling at an elderly man. He wanted the stupid fucking job, he signed up for this.
Protest louder and more often, I’ll be there with you. For now we’re going to have to deal with Joe and Co. trying to ignore the progressive voices, but we won’t shut up. My strategy is basically an autistic (don’t worry, I’m loaded with the Asperger's) tantrum till we all get McDonalds (healthcare, okay McDonalds was a bad example). Conservatives will say we’re crybabies as it’s one of their extremely limited list of insults, but they can’t say shit anymore. Countless years on record, amplified by the last four nullifies these fucks disdain. Failed coups, war-boners, hypocrisy, etc. and actively protecting their biggest infant who was their goddamn boss. Sorry you guys couldn’t install a dictator, such a shame. Fuck outta here, hate you motherfuckers, never let em’ live it down. Fuck Democrats too, status-quo loving, also war-bonery, hypocritical bitches.
Anyways, I got a little sidetracked there. In between the yelling at an old man, I’ll be grounding myself down and pretending occasionally to not be bloodthirsty and insane under a thin veneer of transparent calmness to present established beliefs and how they are beneficial for society. My spark will die slower as I see small victories over time, occasionally bringing some illumination in the form of actual hope. Watching the Blockbuster of the same-old collapse finally, and divorcing from the old conventions. Let’s go yell at an old man. | https://medium.com/@kylejhopkins/yell-at-joe-4135fda37869 | ['Kyle Hopkins'] | 2020-12-15 06:05:15.342000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Joe Biden', 'President Elect', 'Kamala Harris', 'President'] |
Requiem for Birds | Thank you for reading. My heart breaks as I read this Haiku over and over. I think about the devastation that is leading to so many species becoming extinct. We should all take notice. We should all take notice and not sit idly by as this destruction continues. We can play a part in making the world a better place. We MUST all play a part. | https://medium.com/literally-literary/requiem-for-birds-aee6759e5b5b | ['Sydney Duke Richey'] | 2020-12-16 20:52:00.299000+00:00 | ['Haiku', 'Extinction', 'Birds', 'Poetry', 'Silence'] |
Ecogreen Pest Management in Coral Springs | We provide superior lawn care services such as lawn fertilizer, lawn aeration, Ecogreen pest Management in Coral Springs, and more! Call to learn more about our Services.
You will see eco-green pests every day around you flying in your house. Flies and mosquitos are also on the list of eco-green pests. Ecogreen pests are very harmful to us and our food. They eat it and mostly lay eggs in it. How can you eat something like this or live in a place where eco-green pests are eating and
destroying your things. Ecogreen pests live indoor and outdoor both. The indoor eco-green pests include spiders, bedbugs, mosquitos, and others. Outdoor eco-green pests are grasshoppers, beetles, and fleas. Pests are uncountable, they are in such a big quantity that in your single room there are about hundreds of eco-green pests living in. They have diseases in them that cause the spread of various diseases. These diseases can result in great loss, of life and also to your living place and house. These eco-green pests should be killed because if there are pests in your house or building, that will give a speck of dirt and a bad impression to guests and other people.
To make things eco-green pests-free and rightly done, you have to contact a good eco-green pest management service that will manage to kill all the eco-green pests at your place. We kill pests in your area Optimus Pest Control will manage all the eco-green pests in Coral Springs with its excellent management. Our service is available for hospitals, schools, houses, restaurants, malls, and more. Optimus Pest Control can come to any building at any place in Coral Springs. Our workers do excellent work and we give the best eco-greenpests management services for all kinds of pests. Optimus Pest Control has always satisfied its customers by giving their overwhelming eco-green pest management service. Our eco-green pest management service also gives advice related to how to safely grow plants and protect your house from pests. Our eco-green pests management also guides you that how to keep your house clean and what makes the formation of these pests. Optimus Pest Control also gives you some free sprays that will keep eco-green pests away from your house. Optimus Pest Control will manage all eco-green pests in Coral Springs. Optimus Pest Control will come to your place and take information from you. Then before coming to your place, we will contact you. Optimus Pest Control has always given a brilliant eco-green pest management service around Coral Springs. | https://medium.com/@optimuspestcontrol00/ecogreen-pest-management-in-coral-springs-c10fe86bd732 | ['Optimuspest Control'] | 2021-04-27 15:59:57.612000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Blogging', 'Freelancing', 'Marketing', 'Médium'] |
Weekly Machine Learning Research Paper Reading List — #6 | Authors: Hoang-Vu Nguyen, Emmanuel Müller, and KlemensBöhm
Venue: Big Data Research
Paper: URL
Abstract:
In many real-world applications, data is collected in high dimensional spaces. However, not all dimensions are relevant for data analysis. Instead, interesting knowledge is hidden in correlated subsets of dimensions (i.e., subspaces of the original space). Detecting these correlated subspaces independently of the underlying mining task is an open research problem. It is challenging due to the exponential search space. Existing methods have tried to tackle this by utilizing Apriori search schemes. However, their worst case complexity is exponential in the number of dimensions; and even in practice they show poor scalability while missing high quality subspaces.
This paper features a scalable subspace search scheme (4S), which overcomes the efficiency problem by departing from the traditional levelwise search. We propose a new generalized notion of correlated subspaces which gives way to transforming the search space to a correlation graph of dimensions. We perform a direct mining of correlated subspaces in this graph, and then, merge subspaces based on the MDL principle in order to obtain high dimensional subspaces with minimal redundancy. We theoretically show that our search scheme is more general than existing search schemes. Our empirical results reveal that 4S in practice scales near-linearly with both database size and dimensionality, and produces higher quality subspaces than state-of-the-art methods. | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/weekly-machine-learning-research-paper-reading-list-6-828a5bb1b3a5 | ['Durgesh Samariya'] | 2020-09-10 18:01:01.301000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Academia', 'Learning', 'Research', 'Reading'] |
Machine Learning in Bioinformatics | Machine Learning in Bioinformatics
Classification of genes & Performance comparison of common classifiers
Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay
Bioinformatics is a field of study that uses computation to extract knowledge from biological data. It includes the collection, storage, retrieval, manipulation and modeling of data for analysis, visualization or prediction. Here we would use machine learning to classify genes of E. Coli bacteria.
Let us understand the basics of Genetics. DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. The DNA is made up of four chemical bases: Adenine(A), Guanine(G), Cytosine(C), and Thymine(T). Adenine pairs up with Thymine and Guanine pairs up with Cytosine. Each base is also attached to a sugar molecule and a phosphate molecule. A base, sugar, and phosphate together form the nucleotide.
Genes are made up of very long nucleotide sequences. Genes can be classified into 2 categories (Promoter & Non-Promoter) based on the nucleotide sequence.
It is impractical to look at the long nucleotide sequences. Hence we would be looking at the short nucleotide sequence(57 sequences) of genes of E. Coli bacteria and predict whether the gene is Promoter or Non-Promoter.
The data set ‘genes’ is of UIC machine learning data base.
The necessary packages are imported.
# Importing the necessary packages import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
The data is read into ‘genes’.
# Import UCI molecular biology (promoter gene sequences) dataset url = ‘https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/machine-learning-databases/molecular-biology/promoter-gene-sequences/promoters.data'
columns = [‘Class’,’id’,’Sequence’] # Naming the columns
genes = pd.read_csv(url,names = columns) # Reading the data # Naming the columns# Reading the data
Let us explore the dataset.
genes.shape # Prints the shape of ‘df’
The ‘genes’ dataframe is of shape (106,3) which implies 106 cases and 3 columns.
genes.nunique() # Prints number of unique elements in each column
Class :- 2, id :- 106, Sequence :- 106
There are 2 unique classes, 106 unique ids and 106 unique sequences. We know there are 106 cases. So each of the ‘id’ and ‘Sequence’ is unique.
genes[‘Class’].unique() # Prints the unique elements in ‘Class’ column
The 2 unique classes are labelled as ‘+’ (Promoter) and ‘-’ (Non-Promoter).
genes.head() # Displays first 5 rows of ‘genes’ dataframe
Some of the ‘Sequences’ begin with ‘\t’ special character which denotes a tab space. The preprocessing step would be to remove these special characters so that there are only bases(a,g,c,t).
# Removing ‘\t’ in ‘Sequence’ column for i in range(genes.shape[0]):
genes[‘Sequence’][i] = genes[‘Sequence’][i].replace(‘\t’, ‘’)
Let us verify this by checking the sequence and length of sequence of 5 randomly selected sequences.
for i in np.random.randint(0,106,5):
print(genes[‘Sequence’][i])
print(len(genes[‘Sequence’][i]))
print(‘
’)
‘\t’ characters have been removed and length of each sequence is 57.
Only the ‘Sequence’ column is important in classifying the gene. Let us make a dataframe of the ‘Sequence’ column.
# Initializing a dataframe ‘nucleotide_sequence’ of size (106,57) nucleotide_sequence = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randn(106,57)) # Storing each base of ‘Sequence’ in ‘nucleotide_sequence’ for i in range(genes.shape[0]):
nucleotide_sequence.loc[i] = list(genes[‘Sequence’][i]) # Storing 'Class' column of 'Sequence' as a column in 'nucleotide_sequence' nucleotide_sequence['Class'] = genes['Class']
Let us look at the dataframe ‘nucleotide_sequence’
nucleotide_sequence.head() # Displays first 5 rows of ‘nucleotide_sequence’ dataframe
plt.figure(figsize=(8,8))
plt.xticks(fontsize=20)
plt.yticks(fontsize=20)
plt.xlabel('Class',fontsize=20)
plt.ylabel('count',fontsize=20)
sns.countplot(nucleotide_sequence['Class']) # Displays count of each element in 'Class' column
There are equal number of Promoters and Non-Promoters in the dataset given.
Machine learning algorithms can be applied only on numerical values. Hence we convert the string characters of ‘nucleotide_sequence’ into numerical values using ‘get_dummies’ function.
# Switch to numerical data using pd.get_dummies() function numerical_nucleotide = pd.get_dummies(nucleotide_sequence)
Let us print the ‘numerical_nucleotide’ dataframe.
print(numerical_nucleotide.head()) # Prints first 5 rows of 'numerical_nucleotide'
There are 2 class columns :- ‘Class_+’ and ‘Class_-’. The class label ‘Promoter’ or ‘Non-Promoter’ can be found by just looking at one of the column (either ‘Class+’ or ‘Class-’). So one of them is dropped and the other is renamed as ‘Class’.
# Remove one of the class columns and rename the other to simply ‘Class’ numerical_nucleotide.drop(‘Class_-’,axis = 1,inplace = True)
numerical_nucleotide.rename(columns = {‘Class_+’:’Class’},inplace = True)
Now let us print the ‘numerical_nucleotide’ dataframe.
print(numerical_nucleotide.head()) # Prints first 5 rows of 'numerical_nucleotide'
Below given is the snippet of code that serves the same purpose as get_dummies() function (Optional)
Now that we have processed the data, the next step is train the data using machine learning classifiers.
The dataset is split into training and test sets.
# Import train_test_split from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split # X is input and y is output X = numerical_nucleotide.drop(‘Class’,axis = 1)
y = numerical_nucleotide[‘Class’] # Split into train and test sets X_train,X_test,y_train,y_test = train_test_split(X,y)
The necessary classifiers and metrics are imported.
# Performance comparison of 9 classifiers from sklearn.neighbors import KNeighborsClassifier
from sklearn.neural_network import MLPClassifier
from sklearn.tree import DecisionTreeClassifier
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier, AdaBoostClassifier
from sklearn.naive_bayes import GaussianNB
from sklearn.svm import SVC
from sklearn.metrics import classification_report,accuracy_score
from sklearn import model_selection
The Cross validation scores of the classifiers are calculated.
The Cross validation scores of classifiers are displayed.
Classifier rankings based on Cross validation scores :-
(1 Neural Net (MLP Classifier) & SVM Linear
(2 Naive Bayes
(3 AdaBoost
(4 SVM rbf
(5 K Nearest Neighbors
(6 Decision Tree
(7 Random Forest
(8 SVM Sigmoid
Neural Net (MLP Classifier) & SVM Linear have the best cross validation score of 0.9625. But it is not right to generalize the performance of classifier on new unseen data based on cross validation score. Hence we check the performance of classifier models on the test set.
for i in range(len(models)):
a = models[i].fit(X_train,y_train) # Fitting the model
y_predict = a.predict(X_test) # Predicting using trained model
print(accuracy_score(y_predict,y_test))
print(classification_report(y_predict,y_test))
K-Nearest Neighbors
Neural Net (MLP Classifier)
Decision Tree
Random Forest
AdaBoost
Naive Bayes
SVM Linear
SVM rbf
SVM Sigmoid
Classifier rankings based on Test scores :-
(1 Neural Net (MLP Classifier), Naive Bayes & SVM Linear
(2 K-Nearest Neighbors & SVM rbf
(3 AdaBoost & SVM Signoid
(4 Decision Tree
(5 Random Forest
Neural Net (MLP Classifier), Naive Bayes & SVM Linear have the highest accuracy score and f1-score.
The performance of the classifier models can be further improved by hyperparameter tuning. If you are curious, please do read hyperparameter tuning of Neural Networks.
Happy Reading! | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/machine-learning-in-bioinformatics-d81b1b3eaba2 | ['S Joel Franklin'] | 2019-12-22 19:38:26.165000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Bioinformatics', 'Supervised Learning', 'Classification'] |
Why space is an unceasing fascination | Blackhole in Interstellar
I am a recent fan of astronomy. I came to love astronomy after watching Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-worthy sci-fi “Interstellar”. I highly recommend everyone to watch it.
It may be a bit difficult to wrap your head around at first but, trust me when I tell you it’s going to blow your mind. Nolan explores some of Einstein’s biggest theories without making it boring for his non-science qualified audience. He shows space like never before.
Most of us look up at the sky and are fascinated by the stars, so shiny, decorating the night sky beautifully, and for most that’s all there is to space but there’s so much more than meets the eye! Since I have seen that movie, I have done a lot of research about black holes, multiple dimensions, and space in general. Thinking and researching about space is like falling down a rabbit hole. There’s just so much!
Space is mysterious, eerily mysterious. There are massive objects (million times bigger than our sun), with the strongest gravitational pull, and so black, that we can’t even spot them! There are asteroids, meteors, comets, exoplanets with many moons, and so much more! So much that we’ve only scratched the surface in our discoveries and so much that we know nothing about. Interested yet? Hungry for more?
If so, get ready to have your mind blown by facts and theories about the mysteries of space.
Let’s start with a bit of scaling. Ever wondered how small we really are? The largest thing we know of, on the planet, is Mount Everest, right? That all comes inside the planet Earth, which in turn comes inside the solar system. Even in the solar system, the largest object is the Sun. It’s huge compared to any planet. According to National Geographic, it is more than 100 earths wide and could theoretically fit all 8 planets inside nearly 600 times! Imagine that! Earth is to the Sun like a sand grain is to a basketball. We are smaller than a tiny spec on the large scale of the universe. About as small as the beings of Whoville.
Looking at space made scientists and astronomers realize that there is actually a lot more we don’t know than previously imagined. Like, finding out how the visible Universe consists only of 3% matter we know, the rest is composed of dark matter and the greatest component (70%) is dark energy.
The discoveries are frightening as they are fascinating.
The unknown frightens us all and that is what space is, a universe unknown.
It is amazing how physicists and scientists theorized things more than a century ago and they are being proven and discovered now. Like black holes, the possibility of wormholes, and the existence of multiple dimensions. At the same time, some people say that it’s out of reach and that these are just theories to geek out space fanatics. But that is not all. Space exploration can actually have a lot of benefits, immensely so. Some even theorize the idea of “space mining” to solve the limited resources problem and other global challenges as space is full of infinitely rich objects (asteroids). Visionaries in Silicon Valley are actually working on this so are all other leading space agencies (NASA and Space X).
I know that such huge projects require a lot of time and perhaps an entire human lifetime might not be enough to actually plan and execute such a futuristic project but that just adds to the fascination, doesn’t it? We keep wondering how we can reach these heavenly objects. | https://medium.com/@fizza-khalid124/why-space-is-an-unceasing-fascination-79d82beaa78e | ['Fizza Khalid'] | 2020-11-06 15:12:27.431000+00:00 | ['Interstellar', 'Space', 'Space Exploration', 'Space Travel', 'Black Holes'] |
Dialog DA14531 - Timers | A timer is a common peripheral found on a microcontroller which stores a value and keeps incrementing with a pulse trigger, which can be the internal clock or an external signal. Timers have a wide variety of use cases, for generating delays, periodically performing an operation etc.
The DA14531 has 3 timers — Timer0, Timer1 and Timer2.
Timer 0 is a 16 bit general purpose timer which can also generate PWM signals on 2 channels.
Timer1 is a 11 bit timer. It does not have the capability to generate PWM signals but it can be used to capture inputs on 2 GPIO pins.
Timer 2 is a 14 bit timer which is a PWM generator with 6 outputs.
In this tutorial, I have used Timer0 to toggle the state of a LED.
Project setup
The project with the code for this tutorial is available on Github at https://github.com/vicara-hq/da14531-tutorials
Download the project and copy it. The project has to be placed inside the Dialog SDK6 folder. Navigate to <SDK6_ROOT>/projects/target_apps/template and paste it in this folder. The project is a modified version of the empty_peripheral_template project provided by Dialog. But to keep this tutorial series as open source as possible, all the following steps will use the SmartSnippets Studio.
Code Overview
Our aim is to toggle a LED using a timer, so we will need to configure the GPIO connected to the LED i.e. P0.09 as an output pin in the user_periph_setup.c file.
void GPIO_reservations(void)
{
RESERVE_GPIO(LED, GPIO_PORT_0, GPIO_PIN_9, PID_GPIO);
} void set_pad_functions(void)
{
GPIO_ConfigurePin(GPIO_PORT_0, GPIO_PIN_9, OUTPUT, PID_GPIO, false);
}
Next, we will configure Timer0 to generate an interrupt every 100ms.
void user_app_on_init() {
timer_init();
default_app_on_init();
} static void timer_irq_handler() {
if (GPIO_GetPinStatus(GPIO_PORT_0, GPIO_PIN_9)) {
GPIO_SetInactive(GPIO_PORT_0, GPIO_PIN_9);
} else {
GPIO_SetActive(GPIO_PORT_0, GPIO_PIN_9);
}
} void timer_init() { static tim0_2_clk_div_config_t clk_div_config = {
.clk_div = TIM0_2_CLK_DIV_8
};
timer0_stop();
timer0_register_callback(timer_irq_handler);
timer0_2_clk_enable();
timer0_2_clk_div_set(&clk_div_config);
timer0_init(TIM0_CLK_FAST, PWM_MODE_ONE, TIM0_CLK_DIV_BY_10); timer0_set_pwm_high_counter(0);
timer0_set_pwm_low_counter(0); timer0_set_pwm_on_counter(20000);
timer0_enable_irq();
timer0_start(); }
To check the steps on linking the custom callback, take a look at my last tutorial on GPIOs, buttons and LEDs.
Before configuring anything, timer0_2_clk_enable needs to be called which will enable Timer0.
Timer0 can use the System Clock or the Low Power Clock as it’s source. We’ll be using the System Clock which runs at 16 MHz by default. We set the prescaler in the clock configuration structure to divide the frequency by 8 i.e. 2MHz. Timer0 also has an internal optional clock divider which divides the frequency by 10. After enabling it, the frequency at the Timer is 200kHz.
To get the LED to toggle every 100ms, we need to load the timer register with 20000.
20,000 * (1/200,000)sec = 1/10 sec = 100 ms
Timer0 also has 2 registers used for PWM which are set to 0 using the timer0_set_pwm_high_counter and timer0_set_pwm_low_counter functions. The timer0_set_pwm_on_counter is used when Timer0 is configured as a general purpose timer.
The timer0_init function takes 3 parameters. The first parameter decides which clock we use as the source. TIM0_CLK_FAST selects the system clock. The second parameter selects the PWM mode but since we are using Timer0 as a general purpose timer, we set it to PWM_MODE_ONE. TIM0_CLK_DIV_BY_10 enabled the internal frequency divider.
Timer0 has an interrupt which is enabled using timer0_enable_irq and we register the callback to the function using timer0_register_callback. To understand the code used in the callback function, take a look at my last blog post on GPIO, buttons and LEDs.
The last thing to do is to start the timer which is done by the timer0_start function.
Build the project and run the debugger. You should observe that the D2 LED on the DA14531 module daughterboard blinks rapidly. | https://medium.com/vicara-hardware-university/dialog-da14531-timers-b83a485745bd | ['Gowtham Ts'] | 2021-01-14 06:18:07.491000+00:00 | ['Tutorial', 'Electronics', 'Hardware', 'Bluetooth Low Energy', 'Embedded Systems'] |
Modern Zen Story | Modern Zen story -1 ( Take it on a lighter note)
There lived a wise tailor named Tsu in a Chinese town named Hang in Hangdu province. He had a tailoring shop on Mao Tsung street of Hang there was a tough competition by other tailors there. Despite the tough competition, Tsu had a flourishing business.
There there were many tailoring shops on that road. The display boards of the shops were as follows.
“The best tailor in the world”
“The best tailor in China”
“The best tailor in Hangdu province”
“The best tailor in Hang town”
The display board on Tsu’s shop followed.
“The best tailor on Mao Tsung Road of Hang town, Hangdu”.
One day, his son asked Tsu. “Father, what is the secret of your flourishing business?”
Tsu answered “ SEO on Longtail specific keywords”
Modern Zen story-2
A worried sales head went to meet the Monk on the top hills. The monk was considered to be a wise man of the corporate world. He was not an ordinary monk.
Monk not only sold his Ferrari but his billion-dollar AI startup which he built in silicon valley.
Our sales head explained in detail about his company products and sales performance. The monk listened to the details and thought a while. Instead of answering he started a story.
“My dear sales head, let me tell you the story of ‘Settlers and Swagman of Australia. In the 1800s, the settlers went to Australia and claimed the pieces of land, and started agriculture. The ownership of land was power and fortune.
The people who could not claim the land wandered aimlessly. They carry their swag ( bed) and navigate from farm to farm. They had no place to call their home and wandered around the place to place searching for work.
They stuck feeling resentful for not claiming the land when they had a chance. They always blamed the landowners that they worked hard but not paid well.
“Find out your niche and micro-niche and focus on that son”. Said the monk. | https://medium.com/corporatesoul/modern-zen-story-77adb7663d20 | ['Sateesh Hegde'] | 2020-12-18 03:32:34.566000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Growth Hacking', 'Sales', 'SaaS', 'Business'] |
Sundays Are For Love Letters | My house expanded
into a vessel of hot air-
the scent of spices and soup slowly filled each room
while the birds sung melodies on the telephone wire
and the branches of our ginko trees
swung in angry jolts
through the nipping October wind.
Dad had just woken up from his three-dream-nap…
and was chewing on this Sunday’s headlines
sculpture still
lips frozen
on the edge of his tea cup
and the thick lenses of his glasses fogged up by its steam.
You were still asleep upstairs.
Your body hidden under unraveling knitted sheets
just a curtain of bath-tub hair pressing into a now damp pillow.
I pranced quietly past my open violin case
(I promised I would practice later that night)
tiptoeing tiptoeing
a restless sneak
over the pile of dirty clothes
stopping to give the dog a belly rub
and into your bathroom,
where I returned to your box of love letters.
that sits right under your Pajama-shirt-cabinet
and hides between February’s ski socks.
and you shifted in bed, so quietly
so I made myself even smaller,
hunched over the papers so as not to be seen
examining a pile of crinkling loose leafs
while the birds continued to sing. | https://medium.com/@sck404/sundays-are-for-love-letters-5e95382c4b25 | ['Sophie Kohler'] | 2019-09-24 22:52:58.648000+00:00 | ['Childhood', 'Fall', 'Love Letters', 'Poetry'] |
Sunset | Sunset
A portrait of an indian summer sunset
Photo by David Mullins on Unsplash
His eyes
Were watching
Nature strip
Down her
Neon vernacular
To blue skies
Dressed in
An orange peel skirt
With lips
That taste
Of cinnamon
Raindrops.
2020 MDSHall | https://medium.com/sky-collection/sunset-2cbe6840a62 | [] | 2020-12-21 16:45:19.209000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Portraits', 'Sky Collection', 'Sunset', 'Indian Summer'] |
Making Matplotlib Beautiful By Default | What’s more, we can write some relatively code to set default visual settings. We can get quite granular. Don’t want that annoying box around every plot? Get rid of it by default. Want to use your brand’s colour palette without having to specify the hex codes every single time? Set them by default. Want to use Comic Sans for all your chart labels? Seek professional help (though you can set this by default as well, if you really insist).
Dealing With Colour
Though there are named colours in Matplotlib (such as the well known colours ‘bisque’, ‘lavenderblush’, and ‘lightgoldenrodyellow’), plots will also take colours in the form of hex codes. This is especially useful if we want to use a custom colour palette. For example, my CB91 brand uses a pre-defined set of colours.
We can set these as variables, by passing their hexes as strings:
CB91_Blue = '#2CBDFE'
CB91_Green = '#47DBCD'
CB91_Pink = '#F3A0F2'
CB91_Purple = '#9D2EC5'
CB91_Violet = '#661D98'
CB91_Amber = '#F5B14C'
Note — if you want to create your own colour palette, there are some useful tools online that can help. Colormind.io is especially cool — it uses deep learning to learn colour styles from photographs, movies, and popular art, and hence recommend hues and shades that go well together. Also, I can confirm that as a Brit, switching indiscriminately between ‘color’ and ‘colour’ has resulted in some deeply annoying code errors in my time.
We can put these defined colours into a list, and then pass this list into Matplotlib’s colour ‘cycler’.
color_list = [CB91_Blue, CB91_Pink, CB91_Green, CB91_Amber,
CB91_Purple, CB91_Violet] plt.rcParams['axes.prop_cycle'] = plt.cycler(color=color_list)
It will now use ‘CB91_Blue’ as the default chart colour for all plots in the notebook AND cycle through the colour list in order when creating multi-category plots.
You can also define gradients using lists of hex colours, which can then be used pretty much anywhere where viridis is a valid entry (e.g. Seaborn heatmaps). Of course, to make these gradients nice and smooth, you need lots of defined hex values in that list (at least 40 in my experience). Creating such a long list manually can be a pain — I instead suggest generating one automatically using a site like colordesigner.io (simply choose the colours that you want the gradient to transition between, max out the number of gradient steps, then extract the hex codes from the resulting HTML).
Edit: Peter Cahill has written a Python function that will generate gradient lists with n steps between two colour hexes— see the responses to this blog, below.
Here’s an example of a gradient running between two of my brand’s colours, and how they look on a matplotlib chart.
#A list of hex colours running between blue and purple
CB91_Grad_BP = ['#2cbdfe', '#2fb9fc', '#33b4fa', '#36b0f8',
'#3aacf6', '#3da8f4', '#41a3f2', '#449ff0',
'#489bee', '#4b97ec', '#4f92ea', '#528ee8',
'#568ae6', '#5986e4', '#5c81e2', '#607de0',
'#6379de', '#6775dc', '#6a70da', '#6e6cd8',
'#7168d7', '#7564d5', '#785fd3', '#7c5bd1',
'#7f57cf', '#8353cd', '#864ecb', '#894ac9',
'#8d46c7', '#9042c5', '#943dc3', '#9739c1',
'#9b35bf', '#9e31bd', '#a22cbb', '#a528b9',
'#a924b7', '#ac20b5', '#b01bb3', '#b317b1']
Tweaking Axes
One of Matplotlib’s nicest features comes in the form of an entirely different package; Seaborn. A library that uses Matplotlib as a base, Seaborn is a great way to create more complex chart types, like Heatmaps, Violins, and Joint Plots in a line or two of code.
An example of a Seaborn heatmap figure, which can take a list of hex colours as its cmap argument.
One lesser known feature of Seaborn is its ability to control Matplotlib plot defaults, using the .set() method. This is a neat way to tidy up plots, changing the colour and weight of axes (or removing them entirely), and the default font. We can also use the .set_context() method to fine-tune font size settings.
An example of how I use all of this is given below (a full list of everything you can control with the .set() method can be found in Matplotlib’s own tutorial on the matter).
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns sns.set(font=’Franklin Gothic Book’,
rc={
‘axes.axisbelow’: False,
‘axes.edgecolor’: ‘lightgrey’,
‘axes.facecolor’: ‘None’,
‘axes.grid’: False,
‘axes.labelcolor’: ‘dimgrey’,
‘axes.spines.right’: False,
‘axes.spines.top’: False,
‘figure.facecolor’: ‘white’,
‘lines.solid_capstyle’: ‘round’,
‘patch.edgecolor’: ‘w’,
‘patch.force_edgecolor’: True,
‘text.color’: ‘dimgrey’,
‘xtick.bottom’: False,
‘xtick.color’: ‘dimgrey’,
‘xtick.direction’: ‘out’,
‘xtick.top’: False,
‘ytick.color’: ‘dimgrey’,
‘ytick.direction’: ‘out’,
‘ytick.left’: False,
‘ytick.right’: False}) sns.set_context("notebook", rc={"font.size":16,
"axes.titlesize":20,
"axes.labelsize":18})
Putting It All Together
How you structure a repo is, of course, a very personal thing. I find that having all of the discussed code at the top of a Jupyter notebook can be quite untidy – especially by the time you need to set up multiple different gradients and their associated lists of 40+ hex codes. Moreover, if you have multiple notebooks in a repo, it can be a pain to keep things consistent if you ever want to make changes to the visual defaults.
To address these issues, I like to keep all the code pertaining to visual defaults in a separate python file elsewhere in the repo (called ‘cb91visuals.py’) then import them as part of the standard imports at the top of each notebook. Thus, all the messy lists of hex codes are kept hidden, and if you do need to make an edit, this only needs to be done in one place, with changes automatically reflected everywhere as required.
#Bring in data visualisation libraries as usual
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
%matplotlib inline
import seaborn as sns #Bring in our custom settings
#Assumes that cb91visuals.py is in the repo's root folder
from cb91visuals import *
Miscellaneous Tips
There are some other lesser-known Matplotlib/Seaborn commands that I use quite a lot. I tend not to have them set as default, but they can be useful nonetheless.
Legend frames: The little boxes around legends are often unnecessary, and add visual clutter. These can be switched off with the following:
plt.legend(frameon=False)
De-spining: Sometimes we want to remove an axis, for example, on bar charts. This is done with Seaborn’s despine method (specifying left, right, top, or bottom, as required):
sns.despine(left=True, bottom=True)
Numerical labels on bar charts: A feature that really ought to be available as part of the package, you can add numerical labels to the tops of bar chart columns with for-looping, and Matplotlib’s .text() method. For example, the following code…
#Here, 'labels' refers to the bigrams on the y-axis
#i.e. 'Look forward', 'Jó éjt', etc.
#and X is the list of values determining bar length #Loop through these labels
for n, i in enumerate(labels): #Create an axis text object
ax.text(X[n]-0.003, #X location of text (with adjustment)
n, #Y location
s=f'{round(X[n],3)}%', #Required label with formatting
va='center', #Vertical alignment
ha='right', #Horizontal alignment
color='white', #Font colour and size
fontsize=12)
…would put numerical labels on a horizontal bar chart, for example the following chart that featured in one of my blogs a couple of weeks ago. Note, to do this I also used the sns.despine() method to remove the x-axis, and passed plt.xticks([]) to remove the axis ticks. | https://towardsdatascience.com/making-matplotlib-beautiful-by-default-d0d41e3534fd | ['Callum Ballard'] | 2020-05-23 14:20:34.195000+00:00 | ['Matplotlib', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Towards Data Science', 'Python'] |
Keeping Your Documentation Up-to-Date with Bit and GitHub | Setting up the right project structure
One of the benefits of automation, is that you don’t have to worry about manually doing a particular task. But for this to happen, you have to favor certain configurations or folder structures. And in our case, the same thing happens; we’ll need to follow certain rules for this automation to take place.
The folder structure
You can customize the following structure however you like, as long as you then update the rest of the examples to accommodate for that change.
However, the folder structure I went with for my sample project is the following:
The .github folder will be created for us by Github or we can add it manually, that’s not a problem. Here is where the workflow file for our Github action will live.
folder will be created for us by Github or we can add it manually, that’s not a problem. Here is where the workflow file for our Github action will live. The components folder is where we’ll have our components “imported” from Bit. You can really have them anywhere, I’m just using this as an example.
folder is where we’ll have our components “imported” from Bit. You can really have them anywhere, I’m just using this as an example. The examples folder is where we’ll save our snippets and their corresponding test files (inside the examples/tests folder).
folder is where we’ll save our snippets and their corresponding test files (inside the folder). And finally, the last interesting bit, is the file called test-output-parser.js which will take the output of our tests, parse it and figure out which files to update based on the outcome.
Setting the tests for our snippets
I know what you’re thinking: who writes tests for their snippets? And I get it, if you only have 2 or 3 snippets, there is really no point for that. But then again, if you only have 3 snippets, then there is no point for you to be doing any of what I’m showing here.
However, if you’re building something massive, which has very rich documentation, you could be looking at tens or even hundreds of code snippets, showing all the potential ways of interacting with your project. And if that is the case, trust me, you’ll want to automatically check if they’re still valid or not after the component they depend on gets updated.
So, for each snippet you have, write at least one test that, and make sure they look like this:
A couple of points:
I’m using mocha for my tests, if you’re using something else, you’ll need to adapt the rest of the examples as well. Notice how the nested describe is mentioning the name of the file where the snippet is coming from. This is required, because we need a way to understand which file this test is testing (and there is really no other way of doing this).
This should be enough to make sure our snippets are still valid.
Creating the Github Action
With our folder structure in place and our tests written, we need to make sure that once we merge a PR, we execute them, and parse their output.
Here is where GitHub comes into play. We can do this by going to our repository and clicking the Actions tab:
Click on the Create new workflow button and pick any of the templates available, we’ll replace their content in a second anyway.
Essentially, we want a workflow that gets triggered on a Push action to our main branch. This is because I’m assuming you’re not allowing developers to directly push to your main , instead only PRs will be created against it and the only actual Push will be done by Github when we merge it. Sadly there are no merge triggers right now, so we can’t really use that event here.
The content of our workflow file looks like this:
There is some boilerplate code in there, but the main things to look at are:
In line 16 we’re setting Node’s version to be 14. We can add a list of versions if we want our tests to run with different ones just in case.
Line 26 runs npm install which makes sure we have every dependency required for our project to run the tests. This is also important, because if your PR only updated the package’s version inside package.json , then this will install that version.
which makes sure we have every dependency required for our project to run the tests. This is also important, because if your PR only updated the package’s version inside , then this will install that version. Line 27 runs the tests, parses the output and updates all needed files. This one line takes care of everything (we’ll take a look at the JS file in a minute).
Lines 28–40 take care of updating the branch, since we’ve potentially made changes to some files (the snippets that are deprecated), we’ll need to create a new commit (hence the commit message and the credentials shown in there).
This workflow will run every time you merge a PR. They may be PRs created by Bit or PRs created by other users. Either way, every time it runs, you’ll see an output like the following inside the logs screen:
Notice how in this particular scenario, the examples/sample1.js file got updated with the deprecation warning.
Also, in case you didn’t notice it, the command we’re using to run our tests is: ./node_modules/mocha/bin/mocha examples/tests -R json
We’re having to use the local version of mocha that gets installed as a dependency, and we’re using the JSON reporter, this will simplify the task of parsing the output. Which funny enough, is the next topic to cover.
Parsing the output of the tests
To make things simpler, we’re using Mocha’s JSON reporter, which gives all the information we need in a format that Node.js can easily interpret.
Our script will have to:
Look for errors reported For each one, we’ll parse the message extracting the filename Open the file, and add the deprecation warning at the top (only if it doesn’t have it already).
And here is the code that takes care of that:
The script is very straightforward, it captures the JSON received as part of the argv array and parses it. If there is anything inside the errors element, then we’ll iterate over those elements and perform the tasks I already mentioned.
Nothing else, the content of the files will be updated only if their corresponding tests failed and if they don’t already have the warning inside them (this is to make sure we don’t keep adding warning after warning with subsequent PRs).
How do we know if the workflow changed anything?
The easiest way to check for this, is to look at your repository’s list of files. If the workflow was executed and some tests failed, then it should’ve made the changes and saved them with the following message: “ci: Automatic Deprecation Warning added”
So just look for that in the list of files, like this:
As I mentioned before, you can extend this workflow even further and add the ability to notify you through the channels you need (i.e Slack, email or whatever you use).
Using the code snippets directly from Github
The final step we’ve not talked about yet, is the one about including the code snippets directly from GitHub. This will cause your documentation to be automatically updated with the deprecation warning the moment it is added.
And because you also might want to keep documentation and implementation as two separate projects, this tool might be the best fit for your needs: Gist-it
All you have to do to include the following script tag wherever you want your snippet to appear:
<script src="http://gist-it.appspot.com/URL-TO-SNIPPET-FILE"></script>
So, the following page:
Gets rendered like this:
You don’t really have to worry about the snippet, it will automatically update with any new change published to Github and as you can see, it already comes with syntax highlighting. Notice the first line of the code: the deprecation warning is already in place. | https://blog.bitsrc.io/keeping-your-documentation-up-to-date-with-bit-and-github-9cc6e62906f8 | ['Fernando Doglio'] | 2020-12-15 08:54:58.675000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Frontend', 'Nodejs', 'Front End Development', 'Web Development'] |
What It’s Like to Have an Anti-Vaxxer Mom | What It’s Like to Have an Anti-Vaxxer Mom
At 25, I’m getting vaccinated—and confronting my mom’s lies
Photo: baona/Getty Images
In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccines seem to be on everyone’s minds. For me, they have a complex history. My mother was an anti-vaxxer.
At 12 years old, I watched as my classmates lined up outside the school hall to receive their HPV vaccine. I stayed in the classroom. My mother refused to sign the permission form the week before. “You’re allergic to vaccines,” she explained. I took this information as gospel. Why would I question my own mother?
If anyone ever asked, I would tell them I was allergic. Allergic to what exactly, I wasn’t sure.
Then at 15, I was hospitalized for full body hives that swelled my throat and caused me to black out. I forgot my name and where I was. Swathes of red rashes covered my entire body, prompting my first time in an ambulance. My mother refused to indulge any further medical testing.
After the third reaction within months sent me crying into a cold shower in the middle of the night, I begged my mother to take me to an allergist. “Waste of money,” she replied.
The next week, she sent me to see an energy healer. The results were, obviously, inconclusive. Since my mother was so vehemently opposed to allergy testing for such a violent, physical reaction, I began to question her claim of my allergy to vaccines.
“You had a seizure after the measles vaccine,” was her explanation. Yet my father had no memory of this ever occurring.
My parents divorced when I was 10 years old, and I moved overseas with my mother six months later. Her truth became my truth. With a single parent — there is no other alternative. I only realized years later that she was using the story of my health as her badge of honor.
Working as a naturopath, my mother used my vaccine history as evidence traditional medicine was evil. She even bragged to her friends about the vaccinations I didn’t receive. I was her ticket to the anti-vaccination community. Whenever I was sick with the flu or debilitated by chronic bronchitis, all I had were her never-ending trail of natural remedies, which did nothing for me. It wasn’t that she wanted to keep me sick—quite the opposite. She was too ashamed to take me to the doctor and admit defeat.
I suffered through years of wondering when, if ever, I would have another reaction. I wondered what would happen if I stepped on a rusted nail and needed a tetanus shot. Would I react to that? It was my invisible enemy.
In 2018, I was finally free of my mother’s reign. After a spectacular disagreement that ultimately became our last, she dumped a box of old memories outside her house for me to take with me. She wanted no shred of evidence that I existed. Before moving overseas, I combed through the box of my baby photos, my yearbooks, and various newspaper clippings from my childhood. A booklet caught my eye; the title included “history” and “vaccination.” I thumbed through the pages in shock, reading the dates and details, the official stamps that declared the numerous vaccines I received before I was 18 months old. There were many. Including shots my mother said I’d never had.
I sat back, reading the stamps over and over again in rage. I carried a lump of fear my entire life, not even knowing the truth about myself. I still didn’t know the truth. I lived far from my home country and any access to a legitimate health record. Everything I knew about myself was from what my mother told me. And her stories changed each season, her recollections changing to suit her mood or who she was talking to. Her ego had always influenced whether I received medical treatment at all.
I tossed aside the faded booklet full of knowledge I didn’t know what to do with yet and sunk back into the unknown.
Years passed. I thought briefly about getting my shots up to date, but I was still traveling, still living away from home. Then, Covid-19 hit. Getting home, and staying home, suddenly became the most important thing in my life. During our days of a lockdown in New Zealand, my sister gave birth to her first child. In a beautiful gift of fate, he was born on my birthday. My aunt called to congratulate me on becoming an aunt myself.
“Are you going to get your shots before seeing the baby?” she asked pointedly.
“Of course,” I replied.
“Oh, good.”
“Do you know Mom is an anti-vaxxer?” I probed.
“Yes, your mother always advises me against them. Even the flu shot. I just do it and hope for the best.”
I rolled my eyes. My mother in fact canceled her own accreditation and left the natural therapy industry, claiming her anti-vaccination beliefs put her at risk of online shame, abuse, and even legal action. She took a job as a receptionist. Yet she was still advising family members. I took a sip of satisfaction in knowing my aunt, who spoke with my mother weekly, would surely pass on this information. I was getting my vaccinations.
I was leaving my mother’s lies behind me. A story that was never true, never mine.
So I found myself, days before Mother’s Day, three years after speaking to my mother for the last time, getting my first vaccine in over 23 years.
The medical form asked numerous questions about my vaccination history. Embarrassed, I left the lines blank. The next question read: Have you ever experienced a severe reaction to this vaccine?
Three years earlier, I would have answered “yes.” In fact, I wouldn’t have been getting a vaccination in the first place. I was almost excited to write “no.” In writing “no,” I was leaving my mother’s lies behind me. A story that was never true, never mine.
The pharmacist looked over my medical form with a furrowed brow and asked, “When was your last vaccination?”
I shrugged.
“My mom, she never—” I began. “I don’t have my history.”
“It’s okay.” She smiled knowingly. “We will just keep you here for a while to monitor you afterward.”
She prepared the shot and asked if I was ready. I was afraid of the rippling anxiety returning, the way I used to feel when my mother told me about all the things that would happen to me if I ever got vaccinated. The worry I felt about not being vaccinated, even though it turns out I was — kind of.
After the shot, I waited by myself in silence. No seizures, no anaphylactic shock. No allergic reaction like my mother told me would happen. I didn’t die. I didn’t faint. I was doing the right thing. | https://humanparts.medium.com/what-its-like-to-have-an-anti-vaxxer-mom-5480067b04e2 | ['Jess Thoms'] | 2020-06-08 18:50:08.512000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Life Lessons', 'Health', 'Vaccines', 'Family'] |
The Bomb Went Off at the Parking of the Airport in Madrid (Spain). | A senseless act of violence…
The Bomb Went Off at the Parking of the Airport in Madrid (Spain).
ETA’s planted bomb caused destruction at Madrid’s airport. Photo: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/0*_Ytu-8oV8nQM_zvD.jpg
Since we (my wife, my son, and myself) hadn’t taken any vacation for quite some time, we took advantage of the Christmas’ stoppage of the year 2006, to go on vacation to the Canary Islands. More in concrete, we went to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, from December 26, 2006, to January 1 °, 2007.
When we arrived at Barajas, Madrid’s airport, we parked our car on the second floor of the parking building of terminal 4 of the airport, from which our flight to Las Palmas was supposed to take off.
Eventually, we flew without a hitch on an Iberia’s plane, and on arrival at the island’s airport, we took a taxi to the hotel, the hotel located at one corner of the famous beach of Las Canteras.
In contrast with the cold and rainy weather of Madrid, both the island and its capital Las Palmas enjoyed a Spring’s climate (66 ° F), and the island and its beaches would embrace us until the 1st of January 2007, date at which we would come back to Madrid, because I had to work the following day.
In our taxi ride to the hotel, we passed in front of the port, Puerto de la Luz, which I had visited before a couple of times as a young boy (although I didn’t hold many memories of those occasions), as the island’s port was an almost obligated stopover to the vessels going or coming to Spain, to and from South America.
A cruise ship anchored at Puerto de la Luz. Photo: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/0*vDDYiqCbpxFWi-NK
In my crossings of the Atlantic Ocean when I was younger, the ships had made stopovers in Puerto de la Luz to restock and refuel, and in one of those occasions I’d disembarked, and in the company of other Spanish youngsters and two girls from Canada we’d met onboard, we went through the streets surrounding the port, but I didn’t recall much about that visit, except that the girls were from a town named Medicine Hat, Canada, a name which — somehow — sticked to my memory, perhaps because of its indian flavor.
From the window of our room at the hotel, I could see the beach of Las Canteras full of people that morning, particularly Germans, who seem to have fallen in love with the Canary Islands, and with their mild winter’s climate.
Las Canteras beach. Photo: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/0*gD8GmcZNLSGy0F-R
The hotel was also located at the end of a commercial boulevard populated by shops on both sides of the street.
The beach was surrounded by a cement boardwalk, over which there was a narrow, paved track limited on the right side by a metallic fence, and on the left side by hotels, houses and apartments with their balconies in front of the sea.
The boardwalk, on which I used to jog, ran for 3.1 Km., and by the narrow track circulated, seemingly at any time, runners and some cyclists.
One of the afternoons, I went shopping with my wife to the commercial boulevard, ending at the San Telmo Park, which with its African palms and surrounded by coffee-shops (or cafeterias, as they are known in Spain) whose small tables at the open were always full of people resting or slowly sipping a coffee, was very much like any other Spanish city, in spite of the island being closer to the African coast.
Typical coffee- shop at Santelmo’s Park. Photo: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/0*tVkROrEzEtR_uO5g
The last day of the year, I found out from a small, adjustable to the arm radio which I used to jog, that the Basque terrorist group E.T.A., which by then was discussing its dissolution with the Spanish Government, had planted and made it explode a bomb of at least 200 Kg. of explosives in the T4, at the Barajas’ airport in Madrid on 12/26.
At that time, concentrated as I was into looking for a place to receive the New Year, I wasn’t too alarmed by the fact that the explosion had taken place in the T4, precisely the terminal where I’d parked our BMW 320 just a few days before. However, once I reserved and paid the tickets for the festivity of New Year’s Eve, with dinner, champagne, bag of favors and grapes of luck, I realized — very alarmed — the seriousness of the issue, as a few days before, we’d left our car in the T4, as I said, precisely where the bomb went off.
Destruction at the parking lot of Terminal 4 at Madrid’s airport. Photo: Enrique Dans -Taken from Wikipedia.
In effect, at the same time — 9 A.M. — my family and I (as I already said, my wife and my son traveled with me) had taken the Iberia flight to Gran Canaria on December 26.
What a nightmare!
I also heard on the radio that the terrorists had called one hour before the explosion to three different places, announcing that a car-bomb had been parked at the T4 of the Barajas airport, and that the bomb would be going off at 9 A.M., adding that any attempt to deactivate the bomb would make it explode.
The National Police then roped off and evacuated the area, and all flights programmed for the T4 of the airport were suspended, but in spite of the warning, the explosion caused 20 people injured and two deaths: two poor Ecuadorians who were slept in separated cars, and unfortunately didn’t hear the police’s notice of evacuation.
As planned, we took the flight back to Madrid on January the 1st, and on arrival to Madrid, at the airport itself, the Association of Spanish Airports, AENA, had organized some desks in which we could inform that our car was parked at the site of the bomb.
After we gave the vehicle’s data to the attendant at one of the desks, she made a copy of the ticket issued by the machine at the parking’s entrance, which indicated the day and hour of the car’s entrance to the parking. I also filled a report indicating that I had left the car parked on the second floor of the T4, as well as my contact data.
Once everything was registered, the attendant said that somebody would call me, when the cleaning job at the parking’s destroyed building was finished. The Government handled the resources of the so-called Consorcio de Compensacion, a fund fed by 1% of the premiums of all insurance policies paid in Spain, dedicated to indemnify those affected by terrorist’s attacks and Nature’s disasters, like flooding, wild-fires, etc.
The Spanish Government had already said that the Consorcio would pay for all repairs, as well as for all vehicles destroyed by the explosion. We just had to wait then. Three days later, I received a call from AENA, asking me to go to an address near the airport to recognize and inspect what remained of the vehicle.
I went to the address AENA had indicated, a giant parking lot near the airport. There, I saw the remains of at least 300 vehicles, almost all rests of metal burned and twisted. There were also about 20 cars under roofed parking, with various degrees of damage, among them, miraculously, our car.
Cars destroyed by the explosion of the bomb planted by ETA at the parking of the T4, at Madrid’s airport. Photo: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/0*MwGxkVMgkXgonpEN
Apart from a crushed roof, the windshield shattered and the driver’s window’s glass broken, the car started and seemed to be in good condition, that was what I indicated in the report that I wrote and delivered to the attendant there.
I was told to look for a repair shop and authorize it to withdraw the car from that site, that the Consorcio would take care of all the expenses. I found a repair shop recommended by a friend and asked the shop’s owner to include everything in the budget to be sent to the Consorcio, even the minimal scratch; giving him a letter authorizing the shop’s employees, to withdraw the car from those parking facilities.
Two weeks later, I received the car, which looked very well. Following my instructions, the repair shop’s owner had presented a comprehensive budget to the Consorcio, so up to the minimal detail was repaired. Even the front engine’s grill, which I didn’t recall damaged, had been replaced, looking new and shiny now.
The maintenance of the car, according to its manufacturer was also done, so we didn’t have to spend any money in the car for some time. | https://medium.com/@eugenio-magdalena/the-bomb-went-off-at-the-parking-of-the-airport-in-madrid-spain-96a9e021556e | ['Eugenio Magdalena'] | 2020-12-06 13:50:44.477000+00:00 | ['Airports', 'Eta Basque Terrorist Band', 'Bomb', 'Terrorism'] |
The (Ultimate) List of Quarantine Activities | As most of us are stuck, in a dreadful but safe quarantine, there are many things to do. Today, I will give you a list of things that you could do:
Write a book Start a YouTube Channel Learn a new instrument; guitar, piano, drums, etc. Read (I said it) Make art Learn yoga online Learn to code Start a podcast Express your thoughts in a blog (like me!) Make Origami (Suggestion: Origami Mastery on YouTube) Start a garden Go for walks, runs, and bike rides Learn languages (Duolingo) Learn Morse code Write short stories Landscaping Build a treehouse Get an online job Learn a new card game Start a diary if you already haven’t
Hope you found something useful to do! | https://medium.com/@obtained/the-list-of-creative-things-to-do-in-quarantine-34046d1aaad | [] | 2020-12-30 23:37:19.158000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Pandemic', 'Creative', 'Quarentine', 'Activity'] |
Slovenian Prime Minister Dr. Miro Cerar tries out Elipay | Friday, 25 May 2018, was an important day for Eligma and BTC City. As one of the biggest shopping centres in this part of Europe, BTC City was visited by the Slovenian Prime Minister. The purpose of his visit was to open the Beyond 4.0 international conference, dedicated to digital society and blockchain, as well as to get acquainted with BTC City’s strategy to become Bitcoin City — a business and shopping ecosystem based on the latest technological solutions including blockchain, AI and cryptocurrencies, where Eligma plays an important part.
Prime Minister Dr. Cerar was met by Joze Mermal, President of the BTC Management Board, and Dejan Roljic, Eligma CEO. They headed for a morning coffee meeting, where Dr. Cerar was in for a special treat — a cup of ‘crypto coffee’ bought for him by Slovenian State Secretary Tadej Slapnik through the Elipay cryptocurrency transaction system.
After the presentation of the Elipay system to the Slovenian President Borut Pahor and the Slovakian President Andrej Kiska in April, this meeting again testifies to the growing interest in the latest technologies and to the pioneering efforts of Eligma and Bitcoin City in the business domain.
Photos by Siniša Kanižaj.
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Natural Language Processing Advancements By Deep Learning: A Survey | Introduction
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a discipline of computer science involving natural languages and computers. It helps machines to understand, process, and analyse human language. NLP is easy in these times due to advanced computational power, greater availability of large datasets and deep learning. This article covers the role of deep learning in the area of NLP and its broad range of categories. This article explains the challenges, opportunities, and evaluations of the impact of applying deep learning to NLP problems.
Background
Deep learning is using deep neural networks to massive amounts of data to learn a problem aimed at handling a task. It can solve any problem provided large and relevant dataset is available. It also detects and analyses the important features of the problem statement.
Deep Learning Architectures
Numerous deep learning architectures have been developed in different research areas.
Multi Layer Perceptron
A multilayer perceptron (MLP) has at least three layers — input, hidden, and output layers. A layer transfers information from the previous layer to the next layer using neurons. Neurons do not communicate with each other and uses nonlinear activation functions. Every node forms fully connected network by being connected to other neurons of next layer. MLPs are simplest form of Feed-Forward Neural Networks (FNNs) which do not create any cycle.
2. Convolutional Neural Networks
CNNs internally use convolution as their mathematical function which is a measure of the interoperability of its input functions. It is mainly used when data is to be represented as 2D or 3D map. The data points in the map represent information correlation. In image CNNs, the image pixels of the data map are highly correlated to their neighbouring pixels. CNNs have width, height, and depth. A CNN takes an image represented as an array of numeric values. After feature extraction, the key image content is captured and represented in output. These features can be used for different tasks like image classification or object detection. In the case of utilising CNNs for NLP, the inputs are sentences or documents represented as matrices. Each row of the matrix is associated with a language element such as a word or a character. CNN architectures are used for various classification tasks such as Sentiment Analysis and Topic Categorisation.
Fig. 1. A typical CNN architecture for object detection
3. Recurrent Neural Network
When we feed the output of each FNN as an input to the next one, a recurrent neural network (RNN) will be constructed. Like FNNs, layers in an RNN can be categorised into input, hidden, and output layers. Sequences of input vectors are fed as the input, in discrete time frames, one vector at a time. Thus, as shown in Fig. 2, at each time step, we use parameters of the current hidden layer as input to the next time step and make predictions.
Fig. 2. Recurrent Neural Network (RNN)
Hidden layers in RNNs carry information from the past or memorise the information. This is especially useful in inputs of sequence type. Long Short Term Memory Network (LSTM) is most widely used class of RNNs. LSTMs capture long time dependencies between inputs from different time steps. Speech Recognition often rely on LSTMs.
4. Auto-encoders
Auto-encoders implement unsupervised methods in deep learning and consist of sequence to sequence modelling. They are used in dimensionality reduction or NLP applications. Fig. 3 illustrates the schematic of an Auto-encoder. They aim to learn a code representation for each input since there is no label corresponding to each input. The decoder operates similar to the encoder, but in reverse, i.e., constructing an output based on the encoded input.
Fig 3. Schematic of an Auto-encoder
5. Generative Adversarial Networks
GAN is a combination of two neural networks, a discriminator and a generator and is iterative in nature. First, the generator network generates a fake sample. Then the discriminator network tries to decide whether this sample is real or fake. The goal of the generator is to fool the discriminator such that the discriminator believes the generated samples created by the generator are real. This iterative process continues until the generator produces samples that are indistinguishable by the discriminator. In GAN, once the training phase is finished, there is no need for the discrimination network, so we solely can work with the generation network. In the NLP domain, GANs often are used for text generation.
Core Concepts of NLP
Feature Representation
For NLP systems, due to issues related to the atomic representation of the symbols, it is imperative to learn word representations. The encoded input features can be characters, words or sentences. It is more preferable to provide a compact representation of the words than a sparse one. Word2vec and doc2vec approaches were proposed as an unsupervised algorithm and are called Paragraph Vector (PV). Doc2vec overcomes the drawbacks of BoW and is efficient in text classification and sentiment analysis.
One-Hot Representation
In one-hot encoding, each unique element that needs to be represented has its dimension which results in a very high dimensional, very sparse representation. In this method, there is no meaningful connection between different words in the feature space. Some research efforts present promising results using one-hot encoding.
Continuous Bag of Words
CBOW tries to predict a word given its surrounding context. CBOW is neither dependent on the sequential order of words or on probabilistic characteristics. This model is mainly used as a pre-trained model for more sophisticated tasks. In weighted CBOW (WCBOW), vectors get different weights depending on their relative importance in context. TF-IDF scores is an example of CBOW.
Word-Level Embedding
Word embedding is a learned representation in which words with related semantics become highly correlated in the representation space. It has high generalisation power as opposed to sparse, higher dimensional representations. Learning a distributed representation has advantage of word usage in context and provides similar representations for semantically correlated words.
Character-Level Embedding
CNNs have successfully been utilised for generating character-level embeddings and has been used in NLP. It can use small model sizes and represent words with lower-level language elements. It also uses out of-vocabulary word (OOV) issue which is usually encountered when, for the given word, there is no equivalent vector in the word embedding. This approach suffers from a weak correlation between characters and semantic and syntactic parts of the language.
Seq2Seq Framework
Seq2seq models the input and the output is represented as a sequence. This is used in applications like machine translation, text summarisation , speech-to-text, and text-to speech. It comprises of an encoder and a decoder. The encoder takes the sequence of input data and generates an intermediate output which is consumed by the decoder to produce the series of final outputs. This is implemented using Recurrent Neural Networks or LSTM. In different applications, the decoder could take advantage of more information such as a context vector or intra-attention vectors to generate better outputs. Teacher Forcing is a common approach to train the model. Once the model is optimised using the cross-entropy loss, it can generate an entire sequence as follows. In NLP applications, the output can be improved by using beam search to find a reasonably good output sequence. During beam search, rather than using argmax for selecting the best output, we choose the top K outputs at each step, generate K different paths for the output sequence, and finally choose the one that provides better performance as the final output.
Reinforcement Learning in NLP
Seq2seq models has two issues: (1) exposure bias and (2) inconsistency between training time and test time measurements. In teacher forcing, during the training of the model, the decoder utilizes two inputs, the previous decoder output state and the real input, to determine its current output state. However, during testing , the decoder fully relies on the previously created token from the model distribution. As the ground-truth data is not available, such a step is necessary to predict the next action. Henceforth, in training, the decoder input is coming from the ground truth, while, in the test phase, it relies on the previous prediction. This creates error growth. To solve this, remove the ground-truth dependency in training by solely relying on model distribution to minimise the cross-entropy loss. The second problem with seq2seq models is, when training is completed using the cross-entropy loss, it is typically evaluated using ROUGE or METEOR. This will form an inconsistency between the training objective and the test evaluation metric. This can be solved using reinforcement learning. The model employs its predictions to produce a sequence of actions (words sequences). Then, at each time step, a greedy search algorithm is employed to learn the optimal action, and the policy will be trained to predict that particular action.
In Actor-Critic training, the actor is usually the same neural network used to generate the output, while the critic is a regression model that estimates how the actor performed on the input data. The actor later receives the feedback from the critic and improves its actions. A major challenge is the massive action space in NLP applications, which causes difficulty for the right action selection and makes the training process very slow. This makes the process of finding the best Actor-Critic model very complicated and model convergence usually requires a lot of tweaks to the models.
Datasets
Benchmarking is the assessment of methods and algorithms to test their capability to learn specific patterns. Benchmarking helps validation of a new approach, compared to other existing methods. Benchmark datasets typically take one of three forms. 1) The first is real-world data 2) The second is synthetic data which is artificially generated. It is mainly used when the data required is more than available data or data privacy is a concern. 3) The third type are toy datasets used for demo and visualisation purposes. They are artificially generated. The effectiveness of the deep learning model depends on the quality of the data. The model needs to be trained on the data associated with the desired task. Hence, for different machine domains such as NLP, creating new datasets is crucial. However, that is not easy.Data should have 3 properties — the right data to train on, sufficient for the evaluation, and accurate to work on. The training data set is used to train a model to know how to find the connections between the inputs and the associated outputs. The test data set is used to assess the intelligence of the machine. Data preparation to make sure it is simple and understandable for human experts. Distribution of data may need to have specific authorisations, especially if we are dealing with sensitive or private data. Creating proper datasets is complicated and of great importance. That’s why few datasets are frequently chosen by the researchers and developers for benchmarking.
Deep learning for NLP tasks
Part-Of-Speech Tagging
Part-of-Speech tagging is one of the basic tasks in Natural Language Processing. It is the process of labelling words with their part of speech categories. WSJ corpus7 dataset contains over a million tokens and has been widely used as a benchmark dataset tagging systems. A wide variety of neural network based models have been proposed for sequence tagging tasks, e.g., LSTM networks, bidirectional LSTM networks, LSTM networks with a CRF8 layer, etc. Sequence tagging itself includes part of speech tagging, chunking, and named entity recognition.
Parsing
Parsing is assigning a structure to a recognised string. Constituency Parsing refers in particular to assigning a syntactic structure to a sentence. A greedy parser performs a syntactic and semantic summary of content using vector representations. Recently, deep neural network models outperformed traditional algorithms. Dependency Parsing shows the structural relationships between the words in a targeted sentence. In dependency parsing phrasal elements and phrase-structure rules do not contribute to the process. Neural networks have shown their superiority regarding generalisability and reducing the feature computation cost. Bidirectional-LSTMs have been used in dependency parsers for feature representation. A new control structure has been introduced for sequence-to-sequence neural networks based on the stack LSTM and has been used in transition-based parsing.
Semantic Role Labelling
Semantic Role Labelling (SRL) is the process of identification and classification of text arguments. It is done to characterise elements to determine “who” did “what” to “whom” as well as “how,” “where,” and “when.” The goal of SRL is to extract the semantic relations between the predicate and the related arguments.
Recently, deep learning approaches have achieved the SRL state-of-the-art without taking the explicit syntax representation into consideration. Current state-of-the-art methods employ joint prediction of predicates and arguments, novel word representation approaches, and self-attention models.
Text Classification
The primary objective of text classification is to assign predefined categories to text parts for preliminary classification purposes. A simple example is the categorisation of given documents as to political or non-political news articles. The use of CNNs for sentence classification, in which training the model on top of pre-trained word-vectors through fine-tuning, has resulted in considerable improvements in learning task-specific vectors. RNNs have been used for text classification. An LSTM-RNN architecture has been utilised in for sentence embedding with particular superiority in a defined web search task. A recurrent architecture in addition to max-pooling with an effective word representation method, and demonstrates superiority compared to simple window-based neural network approaches.
Information Extraction
Information extraction identifies structured information from “unstructured” data such as social media posts and online news. Information extraction has subtasks such as Named Entity Recognition, Relation Extraction, Coreference Resolution, and Event Extraction.
Named Entity Recognition
Named Entity Recognition (NER) aims to locate and categorize named entities in context into pre-defined categories such as the names of people and places.
Relation Extraction
Relation Extraction aims to find the semantic relationships between entity pairs. The recursive neural network (RNN) model has been proposed for semantic relationship classification by learning compositional vector representations
Coreference Resolution
Coreference resolution includes identification of the mentions in a context that refer to the same entity. For instance, the mentions “car,” “Camry,” and “it” could all refer to the same entity.
Event Extraction
Extraction of events recognising trigger words related to an event and assigning labels to entity mentions that represent event triggers.
Sentiment analysis
Sentiment analysis is sometimes called opinion mining, as its primary goal is to analyse human opinion, sentiments, and even emotions regarding products, problems, and varied subjects. Sentiment analysis is generally divided into three categories/levels: document level, sentence level, and aspect level.
1) Document-level Sentiment Analysis: The task is to determine whether the whole document reflects a positive or negative sentiment about exactly one entity. The Gated Recurrent Neural Network architecture has been utilised for this,
2) Sentence-level Sentiment Analysis: Sentiment analysis determines the positivity, negativity, or neutrality regarding an opinion expressed in a sentence. Recursive auto-encoders have been employed for sentence-level sentiment label prediction
3) Aspect-level Sentiment Analysis: Aspect-level sentiment analysis directly targets an opinion, with the assumption of the existence of the sentiment and its target. Aspect-level sentiment analysis usually involves Aspect Sentiment Classification and Aspect Extraction. The former determines opinions on different aspects (positive, neutral, or negative) while the latter identifies the target aspect for evaluation in context. Attention-based LSTMs are proposed for this.
Machine Translation (MT)
It is one of the areas of NLP that has been profoundly affected by the advances in deep learning.
Traditional Machine Translation
The BLEU score was introduced as a new evaluation metric, allowing more rapid improvement than when the only approach involved using human labor for evaluation.
2. Neural Machine Translation
Unlike traditional statistical machine translation, NMT is based on an end-to-end neural network. This implies that there is no need for extensive preprocessing and word alignments. A sequence of input tokens is fed into the network. Once it reaches an end-of-sentence (EOS) token, it starts generating the output sequence. The output sequence is generated in the same recurrent manner as the input sequence until it reaches an end-of-sentence token. One major advantage of this approach is that there is no need to specify the length of the sequence; the network takes it into account automatically.
3. Question Answering
Question answering (QA) is a fine-grained version of Information Retrieval (IR). In IR a desired set of information has to be retrieved from a set of documents. In QA specific answers are sought, typically ones that can be inferred from available documents.
Rule-based Question Answering: Baseball is one of the early works on QA The baseball system consists of (1) question read-in, (2) dictionary lookup for words in the question, (3) syntactic (POS) analysis of the words in question, (4) content analysis for extracting the input question, and (5) estimating relevance regarding answering the input question. Question answering in the era of deep learning: Smartphones (Siri, Ok Google, Alexa, etc.) are common examples of QA systems with which many interact on a daily basis. While earlier such systems employed rule-based methods, today their core algorithm is based on deep learning. The system tries to pick a sentence in the database that has an answer to a question, and a feature vector represents each question-sentence pair. Convolutional neural networks in order to encode Question-Answer sentence pairs in the form of fixed length vectors regardless of the length of the input sentence. Instead of using distance measures like cosine correlation, they incorporate a non-linear tensor layer to match the relevance between question and answer. Visual Question Answering: Given an input image, Visual Question Answering (VQA) tries to answer a natural language question about the image. VQN addresses multiple problems such as object detection, image segmentation, sentiment analysis.
Fig. 4. Neural Image Question Answering
Document Summarisation
Document summarisation refers to a set of problems involving generation of summary sentences given one or multiple documents as input.
Extractive Summarisation where the goal is to identify the most salient sentences in the document and return them as the summary. Extractive summarisation is prone to generate long and sometimes overlapping summary sentences; however, the result reflects the author’s mode of expression.
Abstractive Summarisation where the goal is to generate summary sentences from scratch; they may contain novel words that do not appear in the original document. Abstractive methods generate a shorter summary but they are hard to train.
Dialogue Systems
Dialogue Systems are quickly becoming a principal instrument in human-computer interaction, due in part to their promising potential and commercial value. Due to the high cost of knowledgeable human resources, companies frequently turn to intelligent conversational machines. Dialogue systems are usually task-based or non-task based. Despite useful statistical models employed in the backend of dialogue systems, most deployed dialogue systems rely on expensive hand-crafted and manual features for operation. Deep learning facilitates the creation of end-to-end task-oriented dialogue systems, which enriches the framework to generalise conversations beyond annotated task-specific dialogue resources.
Fig. 4. The framework of a dialogue system.
Task-based Systems: The structure of a task-based dialogue system usually consists of the following elements:
Natural Language Understanding (NLU): This component deals with understanding and interpreting user’s spoken context by assigning a constituent structure to the spoken utterance
Dialogue Manager (DM): The generated representation by NLU would be handled by the dialogue manager, which investigates the context and returns a reasonable semantic-related response.
Natural Language Generation (NLG): The natural language generation (NLG) component produces an utterance based on the response provided by the DM component.
The general pipeline is as follows: NLU module (i.e., semantic decoder) transforms the output of the speech recognition module to some dialogue elements. Then the DM processes these dialogue elements and provides a suitable response which is fed to the NLG for response generation. Recent task-oriented dialogue systems have been designed based on deep reinforcement learning, which provided promising results regarding performance, domain adaptation, and dialogue generation.
Non-task-based Systems
As opposed to task-based dialogue systems, the goal behind designing and deploying non task-based dialogue systems is to empower a machine with the ability to have a natural conversation with humans. Typically, chatbots are of one of the following types: retrieval based methods and generative methods. Retrieval-based models have access to information resources and can provide more concise, fluent, and accurate responses. Generative models, on the other hand, have the advantage of being able to produce suitable responses when such responses are not in the corpus. However, as opposed to retrieval-based models, they are more prone to grammatical and conceptual mistakes arising from their generative models. Retrieval-based methods select an appropriate response from the candidate responses. Retrieval-based methods usually employ either Single-turn Response Matching or Multi-turn Response Matching. In the first type, the current query (message) is solely used to select a suitable response. The model tries to choose a response which considers the whole context to guarantee conversation consistency. An LSTM-based model has been proposed for context and response vectors creation. Generative models don’t assume the availability of predefined responses. New responses are produced from scratch and are based on the trained model. Generative models are typically based on sequence to sequence models and map an input query to a target element as the response. In general, designing and implementing a dialogue agent to be able to converse at the human level is very challenging. For this goal, the machine is generally trained on large corpora of conversations. For quantitative evaluation, adversarial evaluation was initially used for quality assessment of sentence generation and employed for quality evaluation of dialogue systems. Despite remarkable advancements in AI and much attention dedicated to dialogue systems, in reality, successful commercial tools, such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, still heavily rely on handcrafted features. It still is very challenging to design and train data-driven dialogue machines given the complexity of the natural language, the difficulties in framework design, and the complex nature of available data sources.
Conclusion
In this article, we presented a comprehensive survey of the most distinguished works in Natural Language Processing using deep learning. We provided a categorised context for introducing different NLP core concepts, aspects, and applications, and emphasised the most significant conducted research efforts in each associated category. Deep learning and NLP are two of the most rapidly developing research topics nowadays. Due to this rapid progress, it is hoped that soon, new effective models will supersede the current state-of-the-art approaches.
This article is overview of the below IEEE paper —
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.01200.pdf | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/natural-language-processing-advancements-by-deep-learning-a-survey-24d2428ba19f | ['Rimzim Thube'] | 2020-11-06 17:19:42.338000+00:00 | ['NLP', 'Recurrent Neural Network', 'Convolutional Network', 'Machine Learning', 'Deep Learning'] |
Building A Photo Blog on Strapi Gatsby And Typescript: Part 4 Deployment | With the backend deployed on Render, how do I get my Gatsby front end up and running? The Render Gatsby docs are a little light on detail but now that I’ve dipped my toe in the Render pool, I think I can fandangle my way into getting this working. I know that I’ll need to tell Gatsby where my backend is now that its not just on localhost.
Weirdly there is no tab for the logs here, you have to click the deploy failure in Events to get the logs
I’m using process.env.API_URL in gatsby-config.js and gatsby-node.js to tell Gatsby where the GraphQL calls should be made to build the pages, so I know I’ll need to set that. Setting environmental variables on Render is pretty easy, but I wasn’t sure whether to use the internal address or the “live address” for the API_URL . After getting a couple of time out errors on the internal address, I used the live address.
Backend live and internal addresses
I redeployed after setting the environment values and got a 403 error.
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM Request failed with status code 403
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM Error: Request failed with status code 403
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM - createError.js:16 createError
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM [frontend]/[gatsby-source-strapi]/[axios]/lib/core/createError.js:16:15
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM - settle.js:18 settle
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM [frontend]/[gatsby-source-strapi]/[axios]/lib/core/settle.js:18:12
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM - http.js:202 IncomingMessage.handleStreamEnd
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM [frontend]/[gatsby-source-strapi]/[axios]/lib/adapters/http.js:202:11
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM - node:events:388 IncomingMessage.emit
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM node:events:388:22
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM - readable:1295 endReadableNT
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM node:internal/streams/readable:1295:12
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM - task_queues:80 processTicksAndRejections
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM node:internal/process/task_queues:80:21
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM not finished source and transform nodes - 0.176s
Dec 12 07:22:19 PM ==> Build failed 😞
403 means access forbidden, Of course, because I hadn’t set my roles and permissions in my live Strapi app to be public for viewing and counting. Now I get past the 403 error, but now I’m getting a time out error.
c 12 07:57:31 PM info Starting to fetch data from Strapi - strapi-wsb7:10000/photos?_limit=1000
Dec 12 07:57:31 PM info Starting to fetch data from Strapi - strapi-wsb7:10000/tags?_limit=1000
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM success Fetched Strapi Data - 130.802s
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM error "gatsby-source-strapi" threw an error while running the sourceNodes lifecycle:
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM connect ETIMEDOUT 0.0.39.16:80
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM Error: connect ETIMEDOUT 0.0.39.16:80
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM - node:net:1138 TCPConnectWrap.afterConnect [as oncomplete]
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM node:net:1138:16
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM not finished source and transform nodes - 130.878s
Dec 12 07:59:42 PM ==> Build failed 😞
Time out on getting Strapi data? That might be because there are no tags to fetch. I added a tag content type… but still got the same error. Here I switched to the live Strapi URL for my API_URL . This got me closer to deployment, but another error popped up.
Dec 12 08:10:47 PM error There was an error in your GraphQL query:
Dec 12 08:10:47 PM Cannot query field "tags" on type "StrapiPhoto".
Why can’t I query tags on StrapiPhoto? I didn’t have any tag content types connected to any photoes in the live Strapi site, so I added a tag in the live backend to a test photo. This again moved the needle closer to full deployment.
success run page queries - 0.107s - 5/5 46.55/s
Dec 12 08:24:56 PM success write out requires - 0.019s
Dec 12 08:25:12 PM failed Building production JavaScript and CSS bundles - 15.255s
Dec 12 08:25:12 PM error Generating JavaScript bundles failed
Dec 12 08:25:12 PM
Dec 12 08:25:12 PM Can't resolve '../components/photoDesc' in '/opt/render/project/src/frontend/src/templates'
Dec 12 08:25:12 PM
Dec 12 08:25:12 PM If you're trying to use a package make sure that '../components/photoDesc' is installed. If you're trying to use a local file make sure that the path is correct.
Dec 12 08:25:12 PM not finished Generating image thumbnails - 15.890s
Why can’t I import the component with the relative path? Why in the production environment does the “..” not get respected? I can import the <PhotoDesc> component locally.
Because that’s not the issue. The real issue is the same one I had back in part 1 of this build a blog journey. Capitalization. ../components/photoDesc is not ../components/PhotoDesc and Render (Linux really) won’t let me get away with sloppy camelCase. At least I’m not the only schmuck with this problem. There’s an open PR on Typescript for exactly this issue.
With that, my site is finally live on https://gatsby-frontend.onrender.com/! | https://medium.com/@tnodes/building-a-photo-blog-on-strapi-gatsby-and-typescript-part-4-deployment-b996cc69d356 | ['Taylor Nodell'] | 2020-12-18 01:16:22.660000+00:00 | ['Deployment', 'Strapi', 'Render', 'Gatsbyjs'] |
Two Years of Data Science Blogging: Here Are 5 Key Lessons I Learned | You Don’t Have To Be an Expert, Just One Step Ahead
Writing blog posts isn’t the same as writing scientific papers. Yet, many fail to distinguish between the two.
You don’t need a Ph.D. to write a simple “how-to” data science post. All you need is to be one step ahead of your target audience. For example, if you aim to write about moving average models in time series forecasting, you need to know some basic theory, math, and code implementation.
Being the expert can’t hurt, but the views on your articles will suffer as soon as you get too deep into the math, proofs, and unnecessary theory. People reading your pieces are in a hurry and need a solution — fast. Blog posts aren’t books nor scientific papers. What makes the blog post valuable is your ability to summarize 100-page subjects into a 5-minute read.
Having that in mind, almost anyone can write a decent blog post on a technology they learned yesterday. I’m willing to go as far and say that beginners can be better at teaching than skilled professionals — as one beginner knows the struggles of another.
Take a look at your favorite online instructors. I’m willing to take a chance and say they have courses in 20+ areas. Are they necessarily the industry leader in all of them? No. But they know how to teach just enough so you’re comfortable to explore further on your own. | https://towardsdatascience.com/two-years-of-data-science-blogging-here-are-5-key-lessons-i-learned-9bd0ddbc0cd9 | ['Dario Radečić'] | 2021-06-24 17:37:46.214000+00:00 | ['Blogging Tips', 'Towards Data Science', 'Programming', 'Blogging', 'Data Science'] |
Female Disruptors: Michelle Duval of Fingerprint for Success On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry | Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
My interest in the coaching industry was sparked by my early experiences in the hospitality industry working for 5-star hotels. My role at the time involved coordinating the visits for high-profile guests (like Andre Agassi, Richard Branson, and Pavarotti) to ensure that their needs are all taken care of during their stay.
Through this experience, I had the privilege of taking a peek into the lives of these individuals who are the top and elite in their respective fields. I got fascinated by the entourage of support each one of these professionals traveled with — ranging from dieticians, psychologists, chefs, sports coaches, and more.
And this got me thinking: How can I make this same level of support accessible to everyone so that we can all fulfill our potential in all aspects of our lives?
Since then, I’ve been working hard to solve this question through my startup, Fingerprint for Success (F4S) — an AI-powered web application that brings personal coaching to everyone.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Our main motivation for F4S is to make personal coaching available to everyone through the use of AI-powered technology.
The biggest issue with the coaching industry at present is that it’s always been seen as a “luxury” that’s only for those at the top in their field — superstar athletes, celebrities, CEOs, or top-level management.
But I’ve always wondered why shouldn’t these same resources be made available to anyone and everyone? Don’t we all want to discover our strengths, blind spots, preferred communication style, ideal motivators, and more? Wouldn’t this information make us better team players, leaders, people?
I found my answer to these questions through technology. With a focus on advancing conversational AI, we’ve been rolling out the world’s first personal AI Coach on our platform. Our “Coach Marlee” app is able to recreate that same coaching interaction within a device — such as your smartphone — making it more affordable, accessible, and convenient for everybody.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Several years ago, I was invited back to my old high school to speak to the students about my career and how I found success in my field. Before I took the stage, I’d decided I would head to the bathroom first. As I entered the auditorium again, I realized that the students were snickering. And I was wondering what was going on. To my horror, one of the teachers pointed out to me that I had toilet paper tucked into my clothes for the whole cohort to see!
So what exactly did I learn from that? From then on, I realized that the most embarrassing moment in my life had already taken place. And if I could survive that, I should be able to survive pretty much anything else that life throws my way!
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I actually go to various mentors for advice whenever I encounter different issues. It’s difficult to identify any single story to share about the impact they’ve made on my life. I feel that the impact can be seen in the culmination of how far F4S has come.
But the one thing I will add is that if you’re looking for mentorship, always try to approach someone who is a specialist in what they do. I find that people who don’t have the depth of experience in their field won’t be able to make as much of an impact as a mentor as someone who has had very specific experiences to share.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
I generally see disruption as a positive thing in most circumstances, and I feel that it should arise from the need to improve the current situation, rather than for the sake of going against the trend.
For example, the one area in which I find disruption to be ineffective is when I’m trying to develop a psychologically-safe space and culture for my team.
So when I talk about developing psychological safety in the workplace, I’m referring to creating an environment where people feel supported enough to make mistakes, be vulnerable, and be creative. And in order to develop this safety, it requires setting an empowering, consistent and welcoming work culture. So being disruptive, changing things up, and constantly taking big shifts in the way we work together may not be as helpful in developing this safety.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
The customer comes first: Coming from a hotel management background, I’ve always been obsessed with customer experience. And this ingrained mindset has helped me tremendously when developing the F4S application. Whenever I’m at a crossroads about something, I always put myself in the shoes of the user and think about what it is that they want at the end of the day. No one will love you like your dog: I learned this from my dog! For me, it’s also a great reminder that you can’t make everyone love you, nor can you make everyone happy. It’s incredibly important to be able to stay true to your vision and do the best you possibly can to achieve your goals. It’s not what you say, it’s how you make people feel: When I was working in hotel management, many of my team members would come up to me and tell me how much they appreciated my guidance or leadership. And I truly believe what they were most appreciative of wasn’t necessarily what I said to them specifically, but rather it was more of the feeling they had from our exchange — that told me they felt appreciated and supported in their growth.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Personal coaching can be beneficial to all individuals, and not just for a select few. My vision is to seeF4S used as a platform to break down these assumptions about who deserves coaching and who doesn’t.
Everyone deserves the chance to discover the best versions of themselves through personal coaching.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
This may surprise you, but I actually haven’t felt that I’ve experienced any major challenges that are unique to female disruptors.
I don’t feel that being a woman in this field has significantly disadvantaged me. If I encounter rejection from someone, my mind doesn’t automatically think that it’s because that person is biased against women. I could have been rejected for a whole variety of reasons — my race, nationality, physical appearance, etc. These are prejudices that men face too.
So instead of trying to figure out what superficial reasons that person had for rejecting me, I try to focus on how I can improve myself. Could my communication have been clearer? Is my idea really the best it can be? How can I make myself more convincing? These are the things I’m more concerned about.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
I’m quite a hands-on learner. So I find that it’s the interactions with people throughout my career that have had the deepest impact on shaping my thinking throughout my life. You can learn so much by just observing people and seeing how they live, work, and think.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
My #1 movement is to bring personal coaching to the world, and F4S has been my vehicle to accomplish this.
My other “movement” is health-related. When I was 23 years old, I was diagnosed with several autoimmune diseases and was only given a few months to live. It was only through sheer perseverance and experimenting with different therapies that I managed to “cure” myself. So I’ve made it my personal mission to create more awareness about these unseen conditions, provide support to others with the disease, and be involved with the advancement of treatment research.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
One of my earliest life lessons actually came to me as an experience, rather than a quote I read. When I was 17 years old, I scored badly on my high school trial exam. It came as a shock to me, and I got quite worried about how I was going to be able to bring my marks up for the actual exam.
I told myself I had to do something to fix this. And I decided to try listening to a hypnosis recording about creating the optimal study plan. Fascinatingly, after listening to that recording, I was able to create the most in-depth study plan that had everything mapped out for me — when I would study, how much rest I would get, when I ate, and even what I ate. And because of this, I was able to increase my marks by around 40%.
This was one of my earliest experiences with the coaching principle of how altering your mindset or motivations can have a profound impact on your life. If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
How can our readers follow you online?
Website: www.fingerprintforsuccess.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fingerprintapp/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fingerprintapp
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fingerprint-for-success/
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us! | https://medium.com/authority-magazine/female-disruptors-michelle-duval-of-fingerprint-for-success-on-the-three-things-you-need-to-4437adcf9bf5 | ['Candice Georgiadis'] | 2020-12-28 17:56:54.525000+00:00 | ['Business'] |
Facebook Ads Hidden Penalties: How you’re paying more for your ads even if you don’t know it (and how to pay less again) | Facebook Ads Hidden Penalties: How you’re paying more for your ads even if you don’t know it (and how to pay less again) Sergiu Zaharie Follow Sep 1 · 6 min read
Running Facebook Ads can often be a nightmare. You can have very good results for weeks, months or years but then this changes in a few days. It changes so fast you can’t understand what happened. In fact, it changes so fast you didn’t even know this would ever be possible. If you found yourself in a similar situation before, or if you just want to know what to do if this happens to you in the future, read this article to the end. Also, if you have valuable information about how this happened for you, make sure to leave a comment so other people here can benefit from it.
What are Facebook Ads hidden penalties?
I should start by telling you that you won’t be able to find this information on Facebook’s website. Actually, you will rarely find anyone talking about this. You might be wondering, “So how do you know this is true?” and that’s a good question. I had the problems I’ll speak about on multiple ad accounts I manage and I saw a few patterns. I had a feeling something like a “hidden penalty” might exist, but I also thought that might just be my mind, making up excuses for the fact that some of my ads were not working. So what I did was asked a few people that work at Facebook, in some consultancy calls I had with them. I asked 5 different people at Facebook about it. Three of them ignored my question and moved over it. However, two of them suggested this system exists although they don’t publicly speak about it. However, the real confirmation only came when I figured out how to get out of the “hidden penalty” phase and my ads were performing great again, but I’ll speak about this later.
How do you know you’re being penalised?
It’s hard to know when you’re being penalised, but as a general rule, I noticed one thing that always happened on the accounts that had a penalty: CPM is going crazy. Let’s say, for example, that your CPM was around $20 when your ads were performing well. With a penalty, in just a few days, your CPM could go to $30+.
Another indicator, although not as strong as the CPM in my experience, is poor traffic quality. You can easily notice this if you make no changes to your funnel but your conversion rate drops significantly in just a few days.
With that being said, let’s see what will get you a hidden penalty and how you can get out of it.
Trending GoBeyond.ai articles:
Reasons why you could get a hidden penalty from Facebook
You’re getting too many rejected ads in a short period of time
If you’re running ads in a very restricted niche, such as debt management or face masks sales, you will most probably get rejected ads frequently. And when this happens… well… Facebook will screw you.
In order to avoid this, what I find to be working well for me is publishing just 1–2 ads at a time, in a single ad set. When these get approved, I’ll duplicate them in the other ad sets as well and when the duplicates get approved I’ll move forward and launch some new ads. If they don’t get approved, I’ll try to get them approved in a manual review. If they get approved in a manual review, it’s like nothing happened. If they don’t, you’ll need to sort out what you’re doing wrong and fix that before publishing new ads. You need your ads to get approved, so you should consider using a new creative or a short simple text, just to get the ads approved and make sure your account stays healthy.
If you’ve already been penalised, what you need to do first is to make sure you get rid of all the rejected ads in your account — just delete them as fast as possible. Never ever keep rejected ads in your ad account. The second thing you need to do is to keep running ads, even if you do that at a lower daily budget until things get back to normal. In this period, make sure you don’t publish anything else that might have chances of being rejected, every new rejected ad will just increase the period of the penalty.
I also heard some people are publishing 100% compliant ads and turning them off, just to increase the approved / rejected ads ratio. Not sure if this works, I have never tried it, but it sounds reasonable. If you want to try it, give it a go and make sure you leave a comment with your findings.
If you’re doing everything right, you’ll start to see improvements within a few days to a week later and it will take up to 4 weeks to get your results to what they used to be.
2. You have rejected items in your catalog
This is not as intuitive as the first one, but it can have the same impact on your ad account. Rejected items in your catalog will make Facebook suspicious about the ads you’re running. As a result, Facebook will charge you more to discourage you running ads.
Never ever keep rejected ads in your catalog! You can either get them approved by changing the description or the image, or you should just delete them. Of course, you will have to say goodbye to Dynamic Remarketing for those products, but that’s way better then being penalised by Facebook. Their penalising system is so brutal you have no chances of staying profitable in the long run.
3. You have frequent payment problems
In my experience, this leads to penalties as well. However, the penalties here are not as brutal as in the cases mentioned above. But it’s still a penalty and you’re still paying more.
So next time you receive a Payment Failed email from Facebook, you should be just a bit worried and you should make sure this never happens again.
Conclusion
I’m sure there are many other cases in which you can be penalised by Facebook, but these are the ones I went through and got out of in the last few years.
Were you ever penalised by Facebook? Did you find the reason why? How did you get out of it? Let us know and maybe I’ll write a part two based on your stories.
Thank you for reading. Don’t forget to Subscribe for more useful Facebook Ads & General Marketing tips.
Sergiu Zaharie — Brand Developer
Don’t forget to give us your 👏 ! | https://medium.com/gobeyond-ai/facebook-ads-hidden-penalties-how-youre-paying-more-for-your-ads-even-if-you-don-t-know-it-and-3b23a29c2ccc | ['Sergiu Zaharie'] | 2021-09-03 15:24:59.065000+00:00 | ['Ecommerce', 'Marketing', 'Facebook Ads', 'Lead Generation'] |
I have created a website to query the GPT-2 OpenAI model (AskSkynet.com) | A few days ago, OpenAI announced that they have created a very sophisticated AI model called GPT-2, it has been kind of famous cause they have refused to release the full model due to its potential dark uses (Fake news generation, fake content generation, etc.) But they have released a small part of it, called 117M.
I tried it by launching the Tensorflow environment, and I was astonished with the results (some of them quite curious and funny). So right away I was thinking about sharing my GPU with some other cloud GPUs in a website, to open OpenAI a little bit more :-) The goal is also show to others what is the current state of the art on Artificial Intelligence and creating a higher consciousness on the challenges we will face very soon in our society.
How you should query it and how it works
This model has been trained with 40GB of data to predict the next word in a sentence, and this data was selected by using the most upvoted links on Reddit, so yes… you can expect some weird topics in the output!
You shouldn’t ask directly to this model things like: “Am I going to be rich?” Cause it is trained to predict the next word, so if you are expecting a concrete answer you should probably do something more similar to: “Am I going to be rich? Yes, but to be rich I should start doing” At least in this 117M reduced model we need to give some context to create an answer with some sense.
This AI is also pretty good creating stories so you can try some of my random examples in AskSkynet.com to generate some crazy stories from scratch.
Opening OpenAI
The setup is running in 2 servers (1080Ti & nVidia P4), which have been load balanced using Cloudflare, the 1080Ti computes the inference in only 9 seconds, while the P4 is taking around 21 sec., so this last server is acting as a backup server and as a load balancer through Cloudflare when the first one is very busy.
The web application has been developed using the Python framework Flask, it is a great example of how Flask can be used in a controlled production environment by adding only a Cloudflare in front of it.
What are the implications of this for the future?
This topic maybe deserves its own article, but to summarize I will say that we are not aware of the short term challenges we are facing right now, some people could say that “well, experts always have said that in AI”, but believe me, when things like these are open marvelous things happen.
The apocalyptic approach:
Fewer jobs
More fake news
What I want to happen:
Politicians understanding AI and changing the society base: educating more and creating a universal basic income paid by the AI/robots that are earning more
A more critical thinking society and justice, where we can’t trust even a video or an audio recording
If you are reading this at this point, probably you are also one of the people that need to put his/her grain of sand to move the current society to the second approach, if AI follows the positive way we can say goodbye to the word “crisis” forever.
www.AskSkynet.com
Follow me on Twitter: @asierarranz
Thanks to Azken & Dixper for providing me a great 24h/7d GPU nVidia P4 server to have a 100% availability! | https://medium.com/@asierarranz/i-have-created-a-website-to-query-the-gpt-2-openai-model-11dd30e1c8b0 | ['Asier Arranz'] | 2020-06-05 06:08:12.161000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Deep Learning', 'OpenAI', 'Unsupervised Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Using A Framework to Make Beautiful Websites: Bulma w/ Rails | There are two ways to start with rails. After you have created a new rails application with rails new if you have Rails version 6.0, in the terminal type:
Yarn add bulma
This will install all of the Gems and dependencies you need to get Bulma running in your application.
If you don’t have Yarn; however, there is still a workaround.
In your Gemfile add:
gem "bulma-rails", "~> 0.8.0"
Then run Bundle install in your terminal.
We’re almost done. Inside of your stylesheets folder,( app/assets/stylesheets/ ) add two new files:
main.scss
_layout.scss
main.scss is going to act as your hub where you will manage all of your scss partials and variables and _layout is a partial that will be used to style your css classes. Inside of main.scss add:
@import '_layout';
@import 'bulma/bulma';
Finally, inside of your application.scss require the main file with *= require main .
Congratulations! You now have Bulma installed in your application.
Now that our environment is set up we’re ready to beautify our web page. | https://medium.com/@caprioli.tyler/using-a-framework-to-make-beautiful-websites-bulma-w-rails-65ff6d5f31fc | ['Tyler Caprioli'] | 2020-02-10 11:10:22.350000+00:00 | ['Ruby on Rails', 'Framework', 'CSS', 'Bulma'] |
Machine Learning : Multi-Label Classification : MPST : Movie Plot Synopses with Tags : Tags Prediction | Featurizing Data : The most important part of any Model
Let us talk about the most creative and most toughest part about any Machine Learning model, i.e. creating the features out of the raw data..
Lets us look into features which i came up with while solving the problem.
Lexical Features :
n-Gram : 1,2,3 Char n-Gram : 2,3 k-Skip-n-Gram
Will Explore the Lexical Features one-by-one :
1. n-Gram : 1,2,3
We will understand this with an example : Let’s take this sentence into consideration “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”
Now for a feature of 1-gram it will consider each word to be a vector :
The, quick, brown, fox, jumps, over, the, lazy, dog
Now for a feature of 2-gram it will consider combination of 2 words to be a vector :
The quick, quick brown, brown fox…. and so on.
Similarly for 3-gram it will take :
The quick brown, quick brown fox,… and so on.
They are basically a set of co-occuring words within a given window.
2. Char n-gram : 2,3
Character n-Gram implies the same concept as n-gram the only difference is, it works on a character level.
For Example :
Consider the word “Machine Learning”
Char-2-Gram : “ma”, “ac”, ”ch”,”hi”… and so on
Char-3-Gram : “mac”,”ach”,”chi”… and so on
3. k-Skip-n-Gram :
In skip gram architecture of word2vec, the input is the center word and the predictions are the context words. Consider an array of words W, if W(i) is the input (center word), then W(i-2), W(i-1), W(i+1), and W(i+2) are the context words, if the sliding window size is 2.
Source Google.
As we say, picture speaks more than words, well that’s absolutely true. The above image just saved me from a lots of explanation. It is clear how k-Skip-n-Gram works.
Bag Of Concepts : Parts Of Speech Tagging
It is a process of converting a sentence to forms — list of words, list of tuples (where each tuple is having a form (word, tag)). The tag in case of is a part-of-speech tag, and signifies whether the word is a noun, adjective, verb, and so on.
POS tagging Word Wise
Basically POS tagging is word wise, so we have to very careful before using them that how are we suppose to use them for our machine, in my case i counted the number of POS i have in my sentence and made a bow model and updated the count, this way there will be no dimension mismatch in our data.
Sentiments and Emotions :
I used “SentimentIntensityAnalyzer” to find out the sentiment values of a particular sentence, this function returns us with 4 dimension feature along with their value for a particular sentence, the values are basically :
neg, neu, pos, compound : these are scores based on the analysis of the text given.
Word Embedding :
I have used 4 word Embedding, namely :
BOW TF-IDF Avg W2V TFIDF weighted AvgW2V
Lets go through each one of them and understand their significance :
BOW :
The bag-of-words model is a way of representing text data when modeling text with machine learning algorithms.
Machine learning algorithms cannot work with raw text directly; the text must be converted into numbers. Specifically, vectors of numbers.
A bag-of-words model, or BoW for short, is a way of extracting features from text for use in modeling.
A bag-of-words is a representation of text that describes the occurrence of words within a document.
For example : Let’s consider 2 sentences :
“This is a good place to stay” “This is a good place to eat and drink”
Now, we need to have 2 things to make up our BoW model,
i. A vocabulary of known words.
ii. A measure of the presence of known words.
So, lets us consider a something called a Binary BoW, which specifies whether that sentence contains the word or not.
Here our BoW vector will be like [This, is, a, good, place, to, stay, eat, and, drink]. Hence the binary BoW for 1st and 2nd sentence will be as follows :[1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0] and [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,1,1] respectively.
TF-IDF :
Tf-idf stands for term frequency-inverse document frequency, and the tf-idf weight is a weight often used in information retrieval and text mining. This weight is a statistical measure used to evaluate how important a word is to a document in a collection or corpus. The importance increases proportionally to the number of times a word appears in the document but is offset by the frequency of the word in the corpus.
TF: Term Frequency, which measures how frequently a term occurs in a document. Since every document is different in length, it is possible that a term would appear much more times in long documents than shorter ones. Thus, the term frequency is often divided by the document length (aka. the total number of terms in the document) as a way of normalization:
TF(t) = (Number of times term t appears in a document) / (Total number of terms in the document).
IDF: Inverse Document Frequency, which measures how important a term is. While computing TF, all terms are considered equally important. However it is known that certain terms, such as “is”, “of”, and “that”, may appear a lot of times but have little importance. Thus we need to weigh down the frequent terms while scale up the rare ones, by computing the following:
IDF(t) = log_e(Total number of documents / Number of documents with term t in it).
Avg W2V :
Word2vec basically place the word in the feature space is such a way that their location is determined by their meaning i.e. words having similar meaning are clustered together and the distance between two words also have the same meaning.
lets first understand what is cosine similarity because word2vec uses cosine similarity for finding out the most similar word. Cosine similarity is not only telling the similarity between two vectors but it also test for orthogonality of vector. Cosine similarity is represented by formula:
if angle are close to zero than we can say that vectors are very similar to each other and if theta is 90 than we can say vectors are orthogonal to each other (orthogonal vector not related to each other ) and if theta is 180 we can say that both the vector are opposite to each other.
We need to give large text corpus where for every word it creates a vector. it tries to learn the relationship between vector automatically from raw text. larger the dimension it has, larger it is rich in information the vector is.
properties:
if word w1 and w2 are similar than vector v1 and v2 will be closer. automatic learn the relationship between words/vector.
we are looking into Male-Female graph we are observing that distance between man and woman is same as distance between king (male) and queen (woman) Not only different gender but if we look into same-gender we observe that distance between queen and woman and distance between king and man are same(king and man, queen and woman represent same-gender comparison hence they must be equal distance)
how to convert each document to vector?
suppose you have w1, w2, …wn word in one document(row). in order to convert into vector.
each word has one vector, we will convert average word2vec than divide by the number of word in a document.
TFIDF weighted Word2Vec :
In this method first, we will calculate tfidf value of each word. than follow the same approach as above section by multiplying tfidf value with the corresponding word and then divided the sum by sum tfidf value.
Hence, these 4 techniques were used to add as a feature to my model’s training.
Numerical Feature for Text :
Len of each Plot Synopsis : Basically, i took the length of each plot synopsis and made that as an additional feature. Len of Unique words in Plot Synopsis : Counted each unique word for every plot synopsis and included that as a feature.
Combining All the Hand-Made Features :
Finally after combining all the features, we have all together of 12 features to be used for Training of my model.
Models :
1. Multi-Label Classification : Machine Learning
1.1 : One Vs Rest : Logistic Regression :
One-vs-the-rest (OvR) multi-class/multi-label strategy. Also known as one-vs-all, this strategy consists in fitting one classifier per class. For each classifier, the class is fitted against all the other classes. In addition to its computational efficiency (only n_classes classifiers are needed), one advantage of this approach is its interpretability. Since each class is represented by one and one classifier only, it is possible to gain knowledge about the class by inspecting its corresponding classifier. This is the most commonly used strategy for multi-class classification and is a fair default choice.
This strategy can also be used for multi-label learning, where a classifier is used to predict multiple labels for instance, by fitting on a 2-d matrix in which cell [i, j] is 1 if sample i has label j and 0 otherwise.
In the multi-label learning literature, OvR is also known as the binary relevance method.
To know about Logistic Regression refer this...
After using OVR : LR and hypertuning it, we got the below results :
Test F1 Score with prob > 0.25 for each tags : 0.6533833574983932
Here, all the tags are given a probability for being in the plot synopsis, hence i considered only those which had a probability of more than 0.25
1.2 : One Vs Rest : MultinomialNB
For knowledge about MultinomialNB please refer this…
I used, Multinomial Naive Bayes, as a classifier along with OVR, lets visualize the results :
Hyper parameter tuning.
Test F1 Score with prob > 0.495000 for each tags : 0.076542
Very less, cannot be considered.
Let’s try something different than Machine Learning, let’s try Deep Learning models.
2. Multi-Label Classification : Deep Learning
For Deep Learnings, we need to consider, custom metrics and our custom Word Embeddings.
Custom Metrics.
Featurization :
I took the whole raw text data, and performed Word Embeddings for the same.
We can use Tokenizer and with Max_No_Words, Max_Seq_Length and Embedding_Dim.
In word embeddings, every word is represented as an n-dimensional dense vector. The words that are similar will have similar vector. Word embeddings techniques such as GloVe and Word2Vec have proven to be extremely efficient for converting words into corresponding dense vectors. The vector size is small and none of the indexes in the vector is actually empty.
To implement word embeddings, the Keras library contains a layer called Embedding(). The embedding layer is implemented in the form of a class in Keras and is normally used as a first layer in the sequential model for NLP tasks.
Details about Embedding can be found here.
Splitting Train and Test Data (80:20) :
I split the data into Train and Test For the DL models.
2.1 : Model 1 : Embedding + Conv1D + Conv1D + LSTM
Model Comprises of : Embedding Layer, Dropout, Conv1D, Dropout, Conv1D, LSTM, Sigmoid Layer..
Test F1 Score with prob > 0.500000 for each tags : 0.018086
The score is really not good, will have to try something else.
2.2 : Model 2 : Embedding + Conv1D + Conv1D + LSTM + LSTM
This model consists of the Following sequence :
Embedding > Conv1D > Dropout > Conv1D > LSTM > BatchNorm > LSTM > Sigmoid
References links for the explanations have already been provided in Model 1, I have mentioned BatchNorm explanation link in the sequence.
Test F1 Score with prob > 0.250000 for each tags : 0.296534
Still the F1 score cannot be considered to be as good.. Let’s Move on.
2.3 : Model 3 : Embedding + Conv1D + BN + LSTM
Here, embedding means, i did a custom Embedding using Glove Vector, and used those embedding to train and predict the test data.
As, per the Above explanations, we all know about the elements of the models, lets dive into the results
So the F1-score is 0.34 which is better than above, can be considered, but lets see can we get more than that..
2.4 : Model 4 : Embedding + Conv1D + Conv1D + LSTM
Worst model ever, Lets try one more model.
2.5 : Model 5 : Embedding + Conv1D + BN + Conv1D + BN + LSTM
Test F1 Score with prob > 0.150000 for each tags : 0.330111
After trying, so many models, it seem we need some more fine tuning the models, and come up with more than features.
Lets summarize out results, and give a closure conclusion to this problem.
Model Summary :
Machine Learning :
Deep Learning :
Conclusion :
The maximum micro averaged F1 score is 0.4015 and the maximum value of recall is 0.4827.
2. Char N-gram features proved to be significantly powerful than word N-gram features. Skip Grams were also useful.
3. Using featurization like bow, avg word2vec, tfidf word2vec and combination of TF-IDF and Word2Vec features, our models behaved surprisingly better than the previous implementation.
4. In today’s era, we are more used to see scores above 90%. But given a very limited data size sample of 14K datapoints, we have actually managed to get a decent micro averaged F1 score.
Further Improvements :
We can use more features into Deep Learning models, some more fine tuned architecture, more hyper tuning can be done.
We can achieve a good f1 score when we add more features, and consider a deeper network..
References : | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/machine-learning-multi-label-classification-mpst-movie-plot-synopses-with-tags-tags-8314e6841e17 | ['Bishal Bose'] | 2020-10-14 20:05:52.216000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Multilabel Classifier', 'NLP', 'Data Science', 'Deep Learning'] |
Yin and Yang | Photo by Katarzyna Grabowska on Unsplash
A few weeks ago I flew down to Phoenix to spend time with my mother and stepfather. My mother is seventy-nine and my stepfather Al is ninety-two. My mom takes care of pretty much everything — the meals, the house, the bills, the finances, the travel arrangements, communication with family, and caregivers. She’s got a ton of energy and she’s very connected. She rivals my fifteen-year-old daughter for time on her cell phone. She’s always in touch with someone or researching something or getting directions on her phone.
My stepfather, on the other hand, was too old to take on a smartphone when the technology burst onto the scene. At ninety-two Al is in good shape. Though he no longer drives, he still plays bridge once or twice a week and is pretty mentally lucid. During my week visiting them, I was aware of how their little universe functioned. Mom buzzed about cooking, cleaning, typing away on her laptop or cell phone, going to the gym, taking care of her houseguests (me and my daughter Lucia). While mom was always up when I woke (early), Al slept later. He rose and dressed slowly and then took his time walking with the help of his walker or cane from the end of the house where the bedroom was to the other end of the house where he spent most of his time, in his study. Mom spurred Al along to eat, get dressed, take his meds, and Al offered Mom the invitation to slow down and be at rest. Though I could tell it was challenging for her at times, I noticed that Mom sat longer at the table at meals, patiently waited for Al to make his way down the hall, allotted more time to get into and out of the car.
Al would eat his breakfast of yogurt and granola that my mom made and set in front of him, watch some news, and tinker at his desk. Sometimes he fell asleep for five or ten minutes sitting on the couch or in his chair at the dining room table. One afternoon after lunch on the patio, Lucia and my mom went out to the garage to finish an art project they were working on. I said I’d clean up but Al struck up a conversation and I ended up sitting at the patio table with him for over an hour. I had the itch to get up and go into the house to do the dishes so that my mother wouldn’t have to do them when she came back in, but something told me not to.
Al and I sat there, mostly in quiet, looking over the landscape of Saguaros, Chollas, and Ocotillos. The multiple bird feeders on the patio hosted cardinals, cactus wren, Gambel’s quail, and curved-billed thrashers. Every once in a while I would ask Al what kind of bird was feeding or Al would ask me a question, something about what I was doing in my life these days or our plans for the rest of the day. A few times he fell asleep. But as quietly as he fell asleep he woke up again and resumed our conversation. After an hour or so Mom came in, walking her efficient, determined walk, to check on us. It was a natural moment to transition — me to the dishes and Al back to his study. But the stillness and silence I felt from sitting with Al stayed with me.
I’ve thought about that time with Mom and Al a lot — how this complex system of energies balances their lives. Mom is the Yang to Al’s Yin and vice versa. The symbiosis of their energies makes their life as a couple possible. It’s a reminder to me that we all need both. Maybe our partner or our kids or our co-worker offers some Yin to our Yang. Maybe we need a little Yang to fire things up and we find it through another person, animal, or place. The point is that we all need both the Yin and the Yang energies to be in balance. And though we might weigh more heavily in one area, both the Yin and Yang energies live within each of us.
Being more Yang myself, I appreciated the experience of sitting with Al, this quiet force of stillness. And I appreciated that Mom kept his quiet world spinning with her gale-force energy. My time sitting with Al that week helped me connect with my Yin energy a little bit. Al, at ninety-two, embodies the authentic grace that comes from slowing down and the end of a very long life. I feel grateful to have had that special, enlightening time with him. I hope the feeling stays with me for a while. | https://medium.com/the-forgotten-generation/yin-and-yang-d52ce8352f25 | ['Laura Culberg'] | 2020-12-26 17:39:28.312000+00:00 | ['Wisdom', 'Gen X', 'Parentsneed', 'Yin And Yang', 'Aging'] |
When Machines Outsmart Humans. 20 years ago Nick Bostrom published… | Preface
One score ago, Nick Bostrom published “When Machines Outsmart Humans,” an ex ante commentary on the future impact of artificial super-intelligence on humanity. I share my thoughts on his essay because it is one of the most renowned in the AI ethics discussion.
To begin, his essay foresees a reality where machines possess significant influence and control over human life. He expands on Moore’s law which states, “the number of components on an integrated circuit would double every year.” Bostrom expects this to translate into the growth of a super-intelligence whose capabilities are limitless and plenary. He writes, “the speed of artificial intelligence will double at least every two years leading to the singularity.” The singularity is the moment an artificial super-intelligence crosses the threshold of human intelligence permanently. In addition, he asserts there are four immediate ramifications caused by a super-AI:
Once one is created, it can be easily copied. Human level artificial intelligence quickly leads to greater-than-human level artificial intelligence. Technological progress in other fields will be accelerated by the arrival of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligences are potential independent agents.
Therefore, he purports these implications are imminent and the emergence of a super-intelligence would be poised to disrupt large portions of society. The arguments below expand on the most well-founded and pertinent reasons for Bostrom’s concerns.
Opening Statements
Arthur Clarke has said, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Modern humans are at the cusp of conjuring magic beyond any conceivable force known to date. This force is artificial super-intelligence. Artificial super-intelligence, the zenith of computer science, is a man-made program with intellectual powers beyond those of the smartest, skillful, most inventive humans. Currently, nascent forms of this technology have demonstrated adeptness for human tasks. For instance, artificial intelligences have bested us at chess, reading comprehension, and predicting patient outcomes. Bostrom is concerned this technology can have irreparable effects on society. He warned the creation of an artificial super-intelligence would be the beginning of humankind’s obsolescence. On the other hand, his polemics argue this technology would be a boon milestone in human progress. In my opinion, we should be concerned about an artificial super-intelligence because unlike past technological revolutions, an artificial super-intelligence is capable of disrupting all facets of life and has the power to become an omnipresent force in determining human progress.
Artificial super-intelligence, the zenith of computer science, is a man-made program with intellectual powers beyond those of the smartest, skillful, most inventive humans.
Disrupting the Workforce
To begin, we are already noticing the displacement of humans by simple machines. More than 25% of jobs in the United States are experiencing high levels of disruption due to automation. Likewise, 37% of workers are worried about losing their jobs directly because of automation. There are potentially more losses to come through the development of self-driving automobiles. Jobs related to driving employ over 7 million people in the U.S. Immediately, the creation of autonomous cars and trucks would displace these careers. Additionally, contrary to widespread belief, artificial intelligence is not limited to blue collar workers — it also affects white collar workers. Kai-Fu Lee, one of the most renowned technologists in China said, “artificial intelligence is about to supplant many millions of the country’s office workers.” He continued, “Law firms might need fewer paralegals, for instance, if machines can quickly and efficiently search through thousands of documents in researching a case.” As a result, from law clerks to news anchors and more, the destructiveness of an artificial super-intelligence would leave few survivors.
Artificial intelligence is not limited to blue collar workers — it affects white collar workers as well.
Driving Inequality: A Force of Divergence
Moreover, an artificial super-intelligence could create perpetual class division. When a machine has the ability to optimize tasks more efficiently than human labor, the apropos question becomes, “why do we need people?” To put this in perspective, consider the typical multinational corporation employing thousands of people. In the company, there are the workers who are paid by salary, and the executives who are paid by salary and stock (ownership in the company). When an executive presents the income statement to shareholders, the largest expense is often payroll. The executives want to lessen their expenses and increase profit so the stock price increases and they earn more income. One day, an artificial intelligence is pitched to the executives. The artificial intelligence is more skillful, diligent and cost-friendly than most employees. So the executives fire their employees and integrate the artificial intelligence. All of a sudden, thousands of people are unemployed without career transferability, while the organization and its shareholders continue to thrive from the increased profitability. Referencing Karl Marx, the “proletariat” (those who must be present at their work to earn and not given company ownership) are displaced, while the “bourgeoisie” (those who own the means of production and the company’s properties) continue to prosper from the AI’s productivity increases without needing significant human resources.
The consequences of widespread automation are already conspicuous; in America, the world’s petri dish, we are experiencing a more stark decoupling of productivity from employment than ever before. As seen in the diagram below, the rate of employment has begun to divert from the increase in yearly Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Such a phenomenon continues to increase the gap between the rich and the poor, between the powerful and the powerless, and accelerates injustice and inequality.
Selective Pressures
Furthermore, the emergence of inequality, as a consequence of artificial super-intelligence, would be a fundamental threat to our species. In biology, there is a form of natural selection known as disruptive selection. In a species experiencing disruptive selection, the extremes are favored over the average in the population. For example, in an oyster population, light-colored oysters would blend into the rocks in the shallows, and the darkest would blend better into the shadows. The ones in the intermediate range would show up against either backdrop, offering those oysters no advantage and make them easier prey. Thus, with fewer of the medium individuals surviving to reproduce, the population eventually has more oysters colored to either extreme of the spectrum. I am confident this is occurring in homo sapiens, with artificial intelligence acting amongst the selective forces. Eventually, two groups will remain in society — people who own the machines (and the productivity increases of the machines) through capital, and people who the machines replace. In the diagram below, the right panel is where I believe we are heading today. An aspect of this divergence is elucidated through the ‘K’ shaped recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. The rate of return on income from capital is outpacing the rate of return on income from labor. The prosperous (“bourgeoisie”), who primarily derive their wealth from capital income (ex. rights to owning the AI, equities and other instruments) continue to outpace most of society (“proletariat”) who must compete against more efficient and productive intellectual machines.
This does not mean humans will cease to exist, but the way we survive will need to adapt. In the ideal society, we see a stabilizing socio-economic selection.
Humans will not cease to exist, but the way we survive will need to adapt.
We would prefer to see this in a stable society.
Balancing It Out
There are unwarranted concerns in the discussion on AI. For instance, some argue artificial intelligence cannot merely be a tool — this is not true. We are the creators of these intellects; therefore, we have the ultimate power to decide the extent of its reach. Should humans be prudent and collectively decide to halt progress below the threshold of “human intelligence,” then this worry is negated. Second, defining intelligence is conceptually tedious. For example, one person might have more spatial intelligence, but less social intelligence, and so we are unable to line up all humans in strict order of intelligence. The same logic can be applied when measuring the machines — the intelligence of a “super-intelligence” is difficult to objectively define. Moreover, others portend a future where the human spirit is vitiated. Although I agree artificial intelligence will assert a strong presence in society, I do not agree our worth becomes inane. Rather, it is likely many of us will be displaced in the short-term, consequently triggering acute economic maladies; but in the long-term, the nature of our lives will tailor to the novel demands of the new social order. For instance, during the Industrial Revolution many tasks in the weaving process were automated; this prompted workers to focus on the things a machines could not do, such as operations. Therefore, it is possible a similar occurrence can occur through the integration of artificial super-intelligence.
The concept of intelligence is very nuanced. The intelligence of a “super-intelligence” would be difficult to objectively define.
Closing
All in all, we must approach the development of super-AI haphazardly. For one, it can disrupt the workforce. Nascent forms of artificial intelligence have already weakened the labor market. Continued development of this technology can displace many people from work without a near-term alternative. Next, such a phenomenon can drive inequality. The artificial super-intelligence would be capable of optimizing productivity in organizations without the requirement for employees. Concurrently, the entity’s few owners would experience significant wealth growth, whereas the common person would struggle to command employment. Finally, if it is able to drive the economic outcome for billions of people, then an unprecedented bifurcation would form between the haves and the have-nots and the machine would become a potent selective pressure on homo sapiens. To be sure, it is unlikely humans will cease to exist, but the way we survive will need to adapt. Therefore as you move forward with the knowledge from this piece, I hope you understand why an artificial super-intelligence is an ensuing force which cannot be ignored. We must be prepared to change how we define human functionality. | https://medium.com/@tgfray/when-machines-outsmart-humans-a-reflection-in-2020-9097e6a966c | ['Tyreek Gaynor-Fray'] | 2020-12-30 20:03:10.217000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Inequality', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'K Shaped Recovery', 'Machine Intelligence'] |
One-on-One with your Mental Health | “Getting personal with my mental health”, well that’s a scary sentence for me. For others, it can be a refreshing reminder to take that step for personal growth and development.
Personally, I didn’t realise the mental health issues I was facing until I gave myself the chance to learn more about it. That’s why it’s crucial to take a break and focus on what is in your mind. We all have the ability to break down the disorganization in our minds and understand what’s going on.
The week from October 4th to 10th was Mental Health Awareness Week. Initiatives like this build our knowledge about mental health and help us identify any issues we may be facing. For me, Bell Let’s Talk Day during my first year of university is when I first researched about mental health. After this research, I came to realize that I needed to confront the preconceived stigma I had before I would be able to progress in my mental health journey. I took that time as a chance to educate myself, prioritize self-care, and acknowledge my well-being.
Working with SMASH for the past year has been a valuable experience for me as it’s given me a way to explore my mental health and help create the conversation around it within my community. I wanted to reach out to my fellow SMASH members to hear their personal perspectives of their journey being one-on-one with mental health.
Annemarie Cutruzzola, my fellow SMASH blog associate, shared a quote that inspires her every day — “Do something your future self will be grateful for”. Taking actions now may help prevent further crisis situations, and it will promote a healthier mental state in the future.
“Mental health and mental illness don’t look like one thing. It is multifaceted and complex, and we should be aware that it affects certain groups disproportionately. I think most importantly, mental health awareness means letting people know it’s ok to not be ok. There’s no need to be ashamed or to suffer in silence- the help you need is out there.” — Annemarie
I believe the first step in tackling mental health is removing any stigma you might have had about it. The stigma I had was that anxiety, stress, depression, etc. makes you weak. I was not ready to face those issues or understand what was going on in my mind. It was easy for me to resort to that stigma and label it negatively to make it disappear. However, eventually bottled-up emotions will explode — which is what I came to realize.
“I start by not being afraid to talk about mental health. If anyone were to ask me anything at all, I would answer them directly and honestly. I know that people avoid talking about it because they don’t want to be perceived as “attention-seeking” or “needy” but the reality is that everyone has experienced difficulties at one point or another.” — SMASH member
So please, talk it out! Don’t be afraid! These are two things I tell myself every time I feel myself bottling up again.
As university students, we have to get one-on-one with our university support and resources. I think we can all agree that we would like the university to be transparent and vocal regarding mental health, and what actions they are taking to support the student community.
“When it comes to mental health and the accessibility of resources, I think the best thing that universities can do is listen to their students. Mental health is a very personal issue, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Students who are advocating for their needs should be listened to and consulted by the university when creating mental health programs and resources. Universities should also make it clear that health, both mental and physical should absolutely take priority over academics.” — Annemarie Another SMASH member was able to access one of Ryerson’s resources and shared their experience. “I was able to access counseling at the Centre for Student Development and Counselling where I worked with a great therapist. I also did group therapy which was extremely beneficial because it taught me crisis de-escalation skills. I really think Ryerson should put more money towards hiring more counselors for the students so that there is more opportunity for students to do long-term therapy if they really need it.”
While there are resources on campus, there is an obvious room for growth and improvement. But it doesn’t hurt to try out what’s available to us and take that first step.
WHAT NOT TO DO: keep your mental health second. It’s times like these when both our physical and mental health is the most important to take care of and prioritize. What are the best steps to address the mental health issues you are facing? It is not a one-size-fits-all, everyone must find their own fit.
The number of resources and information flooding social media can be overwhelming. Take one step at a time and do your personal research. Some prefer trial and error, and some prefer chatting with friends and gaining personal perspectives. Remember to stay connected with yourself.
By: Tanvi Srivatsa | https://medium.com/@ryersonsmash/one-on-one-with-your-mental-health-245f7e6e7484 | ['Ryerson Smash'] | 2020-11-06 22:54:59.586000+00:00 | ['Support', 'Health', 'Mental Health', 'Awareness', 'Wellbeing'] |
A snap overview of EOS | A snap overview of EOS
…to know what it’s really about beyond the recent hype
source: thecryptobase.io
Introduction:
EOS is a blockchain and smart contract platform that enables development, hosting and execution of commercial-scale decentralized applications (dApps) with a focus on speed, scalability and user experience. In a much simpler sense, EOS is a general purpose platform on which many decentralized applications can be built.
EOS uses delegated proof of stake (DPoS) model. Also, it regards token ownership as a bandwidth on the network to achieve high throughput and zero transaction fees. It is considered the major challenger and competitor to ethereum. However, other smart contract platforms that competes in the same category include NEO, Cardano, Tezos, Dfinity, Rchain, etc.
EOS is an open source software currently being developed by Block.one. Block.one is a company registered in Cayman Islands. Block.one describes EOS as an operating system for decentralized applications. Block.one currently employs more than 50 people and it’s growing.
Background:
EOS was first announced in May 2017 at the Consensus event. The project is by Dan Larimer who already been part of two successful projects in the blockchain world. The first is Bitshares which is a crypto exchange and the other one is Steem (which is like a decentralized Medium). Graphene was used as the framework for both projects and it is the choice for EOS also. Dan left Bitshares in 2016 and co-founded Steem and Steemit with Ned Scott. He left Steemit in the early part of 2017 and announced EOS soon afterwards.
Dan Larimer is the CTO of Block.one. The CEO is Brendan Blumer, a serial entrepreneur based in Asia.
Mainnet launch and tokens:
The date of the EOS mainnet launch is June 1, 2018. It is expected to be live by June 2. The current EOS tokens being traded on cryptoexchanges is a voucher token that will be exchanged for EOS coins (on EOS blockchain) by June 1, 2018. (This has already begun to take place on several exchanges). Current EOS token holders will receive an EOS coin for each EOS token they have.
The case for EOS:
There is (reportedly) a huge market for for dApps that needs to be hosted on a neutral, global database that offers platform-grade censorship resistance but with high level of speed and throughput.
For most blockchain apps, being hosted on a distributed neutral database is more important than maximizing decentralization. The thinking behind the EOS blockchain is that validation by a large network of consumer-grade computers all over the globe is unrealistic and unnecessary for global scale dApps. Therefore, the EOS model is to optimize for speed and throughput by using only as much decentralization as necessary to maintain useful levels of openness, censorship resistance and lack of a single point of failure.
Criticism:
Some argue than it will only capture the market for apps that do not need to be on the blockchain in the first place. High throughput apps that doesn’t require strong levels of censorship resistance should be built on a database not blockchain.
Response:
Decentralized ownership gives developers freedom and confidence that their apps will not be rendered worthless by top-down executive decisions. Also, the argument fueled by the existence of Steem that some apps do not require decentralization but could benefit a lot from it.
Uniqueness:
EOS uses DPoS, Graphene, message-based architecture, Web Assembly Virtual Machine (WASM), protocol-layer account recovery. DPoS concentrates block production in the hands of just a few known, semi-trusted entities in order to achieve orders of magnitude and more scalability than POW (Proof-Of-Work) or other POS (Proof-Of-Stake).
Ethereum’s POW consensus is quite slow and expensive. Not too long ago, a single dApp known as Cryptokittens halted the ethereum network. This is why ethereum is mulling a transition to POS.
In delegated proof of stake (DPoS), holders of network token casts votes to elect block producers. Votes are weighed by voter’s stakes and the block producer that receives the most votes are those who produce blocks. Block producers do not necessarily need to have a large stake but they must compete to receive votes from users.
EOS will launch using WASM Virtual Machine rather than Ethereum’s Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). WASM is known to be faster and better than EVM. Even Ethereum is said to be working on a WASM implementation. The advantages of WASM includes improvement in speed (and performance) and support for C, C++ and Rust (with prospects to add more compliers in other languages). This means that developers who already have experience with these languages can begin building on EOS instead of having to learn a new language like Solidity.
EOS is projected to be far more scalable than ethereum. Bitshares and Steem both have 3-second block times. EOS is targeting 0.5 second blocks.
Users don’t have to pay transaction fees to use the network. Rather, they must own or rent network tokens. EOS uses just inflation to pay block producers. The block producers will also offer storage services.
Investment Insight:
Ownership of EOS coins grants; bandwidth, storage, voting rights, access to dApps (for users), access to users (for dApps), income from renting out bandwidth and airdrops.
Block.one’s year long ICO has raised about $4B USD and have announced that they will reinvest majority of the amount raised into the EOS ecosystem. Block.one has an allocation of 10% of all tokens.
The best case scenario is that it outperforms ethereum and becomes the leading smart contract platform. The worst case scenario is where no (or very low number of) dApps is built on the platform. | https://davidol.medium.com/a-snap-overview-of-eos-8bb79ada9418 | ['David O.'] | 2018-05-30 10:01:06.879000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Technology', 'Bitcoin'] |
9 tips for inviting useful ideas and feedback | Let’s face it: All of us struggle with feedback. We generally avoid receiving it unless we have to, we frequently deny it when we do get it, and we rarely use it to make any substantial changes.
It’s horribly tragic because when we turn to one another, we always have the answers we are looking for. To get these answers, we not only have to be open to feedback, we have to actively invite it in. This is the only opportunity we have for real, lasting success.
Have you heard the saying about how success happens at the speed of trust? We all know that trust takes time to build, and that it’s pretty easy to damage too. Perhaps this is why group success is more of an exception than a rule. Trust can be difficult to cultivate, even when we know it is essential to progress.
Yet it’s relationships built on trust that create the containers in which we can bring our best selves to the table, the ones that are honest, open, and willing to contribute. When we come together in this way, we have all the information and ideas necessary to make our best decisions. When we invite feedback, we hear the ideas that can change the game and unlock new frontiers.
Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash
How can we get the best ideas on the table? Something I’ve learned over the past decade of working in design and communications (more often than not within collaborative contexts) is that there are two basic ingredients that enable groups to generate the very best ideas:
The goal must be to generate as many different ideas as possible. Not stopping after the initial easy ideas are on the table pushes us to think beyond where we have before and unlocks creativity. There must be plenty of different people participating in the ideation process. This helps achieve the goal of having lots of different ideas, and it helps people stretch their own thinking.
Both of these are not as easy as they may sound. First of all, we’ve been trained to constantly filter ourselves, only sharing those ideas that we like and that we think will be liked by others. Secondly, we tend to surround ourselves with those who think like us, because, well, we don’t like stretching our thinking. It’s uncomfortable.
The results are often that our thinking stays inside the box, we choose to implement ideas that do not generate real progress, and we miss valuable opportunities to do things better. Sure, we may get feedback along the way, but it may be too infrequent, too late, or eventually too costly (the latter is the most tragic as it often makes us even less likely to be open to it).
If we want to take every opportunity to grow, if we want to cultivate success, if we want to build trust intentionally, we must learn how to invite lots of other people to give lots of feedback. Here are some suggestions to consider.
1.Ask for feedback early and often. If we can start a new project, initiative, or team by establishing an expectation that we’ll be asking for input throughout, we are setting yourselves up for success because it’s harder to shift norms that have already been set from the beginning. As early as we can, we can signal to others, through our actions not just our words, that we care about what they think, we are willing to listen, and their input will indeed guide everyone’s understanding of the problems and potential solutions. It is very important to follow through by regularly asking folks to help us reflect, especially at key decision points. Follow through is what creates trust over time.
2. Remove barriers. This may be the easiest suggestion to implement so it’s amazing to me how often it is overlooked. It is critical to give careful forethought to the best time, place, and resources needed to get people to show up to spaces where they can offer feedback and ideas. It is considered a best practice to compensate any people who are not paid staff for their time and contributions. Offering food helps loosen folks up too.
3. Focus on big-picture goals, at least initially. From the very beginning of our conversations, we’ve got to get our thinking aligned somewhat and to feel that we are all working together even if our ideas may be different. We’ve also got to get our minds in a state of opening up, out of the general day-to-day reactive mode. For more on intentionally guiding group thinking, I highly recommend the book Six Thinking Hats.
Photo by airfocus on Unsplash
4. Give permission explicitly. Even if we’ve told folks that they are expected to brainstorm, they may still need to hear that it’s okay to speak up. Remember, it’s pretty likely that most of us have been told, by our families, our teachers, our bosses, and may others, to follow directions and not talk “out of turn.” Speaking of which, good facilitators make an effort to specifically ask those who are less vocal what they think, in case those who are not big talkers are still big thinkers. Unlearning is hard, so we need lots of encouragement.
5. Show more than you tell. We generally learn by example, so we need to be shown that it’s okay if we share an idea that we’re not so sure about or that we think others will not appreciate. We also need to be shown how to listen to others with respect and curiosity. If you are already perceived to be a leader in any way, you will be especially able to influence the group, for example by demonstrating through your own contributions that “bad” or “controversial” ideas are acceptable to share. It is easy for people in leadership positions to become insulated from feedback, so if you are in such a position consider listening as the most valuable skill that you can continue to invest in developing.
6. Recognize power dynamics. These dynamics are generally the “brakes” that limit the speed of trust. Just like we need to address participation barriers to create space for people to show up, we need to address power barriers to create space that is truly safe for people to be honest without fearing any consequences. We might carefully consider who will facilitate the conversation, where it will be held, and who will be invited (or not invited). We can think about whether anonymous feedback might be helpful and how we might collect and use it. We can ask ourselves who will benefit the least from our ideas, who will be most impacted, and who we have not included. I highly recommend Creative Reaction Lab’s Equity-Centered Community Design Field Guide for exploring further.
7. Discuss feedback aversion openly. This is the only way to know when indeed the brakes are being pumped. Often we avoid saying things because we don’t want to hurt others, even if it means withholding helpful feedback. Sometimes group agreements just reinforce the sense that we must be wary of stepping on toes. Adding to our agendas regular discussion about the challenges we may have with giving feedback not only helps us measure the speed of trust, it also helps everyone feel less alone in their reservations, thereby increasing connection and trust.
8. Let those who’ve given feedback know they’ve made an impact. Working through barriers, unlearning what we’ve been doing for possibly decades, and keeping an open mind isn’t easy. New behaviors need active reinforcement. Be sure to let people know how important their voices are, not merely through expressions of gratitude but by sharing what outcomes were possible as a result. We all want to feel valued, and this may indeed be why we might hesitate to offer anything that we are uncertain of, so this may be the most important suggestion of all.
Of course, these suggestions are just a beginning. We also need to consider the matters of how to best give feedback, how to best receive it, and how to intentionally use it. I invite you to leave a comment to let me know what questions or challenges you might be chewing on! | https://uxplanet.org/9-tips-for-inviting-useful-ideas-and-feedback-c9da5ac07da6 | ['Lydia Hooper'] | 2020-12-10 23:30:50.766000+00:00 | ['Communication', 'Community Engagement', 'Collaboration', 'Ideas', 'Design Thinking'] |
How they lie with statistics, part 2: the value of nothing | Numbers racquet: anyone for a £160,000 game of tennis with a former Russian minister’s wife?
Here’s a thought experiment. Picture a woman who’s two metres tall (about 6ft 6in). Easy, right? Now picture a second woman, standing next to the first, who is a millon times taller: 2 million metres, or 2,000km, tall. I guarantee you the giant you’re imagining is no more than 100 times the size of her neighbour.
Try approaching it another way. Say the six-foot woman launches a rocket, which travels straight upwards at 100mph (about the average speed of the space shuttle for the first minute after take-off). How long do you think you will have to keep mentally following that rocket before it draws level with the giant’s head? The answer is 12 and a half hours.
All of which is a rather long-winded way of showing that human brains are rubbish at processing large quantities. If everyday numbers cause a mental power cut in most of us, big numbers trigger a full-on meltdown.
“The crooks already know these tricks. Honest men must learn them in self-defence” — Darrell Huff, How To Lie With Statistics (1954)
‘We send the EU £350m a week’
No examination of number abuses would be complete without a look at the granddaddy of them all: the slogan that, along with “Take back control”, arguably swung the EU referendum for Leave.
On one level, of course, it was just another example of populists making shit up. The true EU membership fee, after the UK received its rebate, was probably at most half that sum (Vote Leave’s Skid Row Svengali Dominic Cummings admitted in a letter dated April 2016 to Sir Andrew Dilnot of the UK Statistics Authority that “£237m per week was the net level of resources being transferred from the UK as a whole to the EU”) (pdf).
But the arguably more interesting point is why he chose this line of attack in the first place.
The following Twitter exchange from a couple of months ago (I failed to screenshot before the inevitable block came) is enlightening.
“We’ll save £350m a week by leaving the EU!”
“No, we won’t. The figure on the bus was a lie. The true cost of membership is about half that.”
“Well, £175m still sounds like a lot of money!”
Wait. So £350m a week is too much … and a 50% discount on that is still too much? What’s a reasonable amount then?
This is what Cummings and co were bargaining on. They knew the exact sums involved were immaterial; all that mattered was the emotional impact of the big number. “Eek, seven zeroes!” Critical faculties switched off, job done.
(Meanwhile, the other prong of Cummings’ propaganda assault — Turkey — was designed with similar intent: “Eek, brown people!” Primal fear of The Other evoked, rational brain bypassed, job done.)
Some of us identified the flaw fairly quickly. If I arrived in the pub and told you breathlessly that I’d just spent one thousand pounds, you might raise an eyebrow, but you’d probably reserve your final judgment pending further information. Namely, what did I spend it on? A house, a car, a watch, a hat, or a packet of crisps?
A moment’s reflection, which is apparently more than 52% of the electorate could spare, would tell you that the statement Quantity X costs a lot of money is meaningless in isolation. Before you can judge whether that expenditure is a good idea, you need answers to the following questions:
Can the buyer afford it? What is this sum as a proportion of their budget? What do comparable items or services cost? Is it a reasonable rate? Are others being charged a similar amount? How much will it cost to get out of the contract? What exactly is the buyer getting for their investment? Does it represents good value for money? Can the same or better goods and services be obtained elsewhere, for less outlay?
“They said how much money we would save [by leaving the EU], but they didn’t say how much we would lose” — rueful Brexit-voting ex-miner from Sunderland, speaking to Financial Times journalist
Let’s tackle those points one by one.
1) The UK’s EU contributions for the financial year to April 2020, minus rebate and EU funds received, came to £7.7bn. Total government spending for the same period is predicted to turn out a shade north of £900bn. So as a proportion of the UK’s overall spending, EU membership cost less than 1%. If you’re a taxpayer earning £30,000 pa, that means you’re paying about £43.53 a year towards the cost of EU membership, or just over a quarter of the TV licence fee. Does £150m a week (£7.7bn/52) feel so enormous now?
2) To put that £7.7bn in perspective, the government spends around £190bn a year on pensions (“We send economically unproductive old people £3.7bn a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead”), £170bn on the NHS, £110bn on education, £43bn on defence, £15bn on civil service pay, £600m on running the House of Commons and the Lords, including £225m on MPs’ and Lords’ salaries and allowances, £67m on the royal family, and £80m on the Department for Exiting the EU. (Specific, up-to-date figures are not available for all these areas, particularly when it comes to the murky warrens of government, so I’m doing some approximating here, but they’re all in the right ballpark.)
To round off with a couple of other large-scale operations, the international aid budget stood at around £15bn a year (until the Tories slashed it), the BBC’s annual spend is around £4bn year, and membership of the United Nations and the World Health Organization sets the country back £100m and £10m a year respectively.
Does £150m a week feel so enormous now?
3) You’ll often hear Brexiters complaining that “the UK is the biggest contributor to the EU”. Again, that’s not true; Germany, France and Italy all pay more. Moreover, there’s a good reason why Britain chips in more than most, which is that Britain is one of the most populous and richest countries in the EU. If you work out the contribution per head, ie, divide the fee between us, the UK is bang in the middle of the field. Norway, which isn’t even a full member of the EU and has no say in passing its laws, pays in more per person than the UK does.
Besides, in most societies, taxation is organised such that richer people pay more than poorer people. It’s hardly crazy to suggest that the same logic should apply to economic blocs.
Does £150m a week feel so enormous now?
4) Calculating the economic cost of extricating Britain from the EU is fiendishly complex, because it touches on so many areas of government, business and personal life, so many of the costs are yet to be borne, and we can’t know for sure how things would have panned out if we’d stayed. But if we’re lacking all the pieces of the jigsaw, we have enough side and corner segments to give us an approximate idea of its size.
The costs come in the form of costs to the government, to businesses and to citizens, but since the government is funded by taxpayers and businesses have little choice but to pass on most costs to customers and employees, they will all, ultimately, be borne by you and me.
(There’s bound to be a bit of double-counting going on here, but I strongly doubt whether that will amount to more than the stuff I’ve missed. Speaking of which, if you’re knowledgeable in this field and you find anything missing or startlingly amiss, please point it out — politely — in the comments, and I will amend ASAP.)
COSTS TO GOVERNMENT
Holding referendum: £130m
Government information campaigns: £50m on Get Ready For Brexit in October 2019; £93m on Get Ready 2: Check, Change, Go, from July 2020
New customs infrastructure to monitor trade: £700m
No-deal Brexit agreement with ferry company that had no ferries: £87m
Consultancy fees: £150m
Paying 27,500 extra civil servants to plan and execute Brexit-related changes: £825m a year (conservatively assuming a salary of £30,000 per civil servant) (plus recruitment costs, benefits, pensions)
Assistance to exporters in training and hiring 50,000 customs officers: £84m
Festival of Brexit: £120m
Extension of Fujitsu contract to service old customs system: £12m
Building 29 lorry parks to hold lorries without correct paperwork: no hard figures yet available because work is ongoing, but the town of Warrington alone received has £800,000 from the government just to help with the costs of running them.
By the end of 2021, the government estimates that it will have spent £8.1bn just on making Brexit happen. And the haemorrhaging of cash isn’t magically going to stop then; businesses will still need support, negotiations for a new trading relationship with the EU will need to continue, and the government will likely have a lot of expensive court cases to fight.
COSTS TO BUSINESS
Re-registering all UK-produced chemicals under new licences: £1bn (one-off)
Processing new customs paperwork: £7bn per year (including, I assume, the salaries of the abovementioned customs officers)
Extra admin, traffic delays and lorry parks for haulage and freight firms: £15bn per year
New customs declarations: £17bn-£20bn a year
COSTS TO YOU AND ME
(These will of course vary from person to person, depending on your lifestyles and life choices.)
Travel visas
Health insurance
Mobile roaming charges
Credit card charges abroad
Kennelling fees, as pet passporting now defunct
Higher prices abroad due to lower value of sterling
Fall in value of pensions due to lower value of sterling
Rise in prices of imported food and other goods due to lower value of sterling
Reduction in portion sizes (loss of value)
Plus, of course, the loss of our freedom to live, study, work and retire in 31 countries, which to my mind is incalculable.
Finally, falling upon the nation as a whole is a hotchpotch of unknown and unquantifiable losses, which while impossible to nail down exactly, will without doubt all be sizeable negatives: the talented immigrants put off from coming to the UK; shortages of labour, skilled and unskilled; the brain drain of EU citizens and disillusioned Remainers leaving because of Brexit; the effect on the mental health of millions; the dire consequences for the economy of having a fanatical, incompetent, mendacious, anti-intellectual far-right government in charge; the social costs of a divided and disinformed citizenry; all the governmental, parliamentary and civil service time wasted on Brexit; the value of EU laws on workers’ rights, the environment, and health and safety; the huge blow to Britain’s global reputation and soft power.
All these factors feed into probably the best indicator of a country’s material wealth: its gross domestic product (GDP). When a country is spending so much time and energy on negotiations, and unnecessary infrastructure, and form-filling, and stuck in queues of lorries, it has less time and energy to make things. Meanwhile, tariffs and non-tariff barriers never fail to reduce the volume of trade.
Estimates of the long-term hit to the UK’s GDP vary from 2% to 9%, with only Patrick Minford’s discredited Economists for Europe group predicting any improvement, and that at the cost of the UK’s manufacturing industries. Two per cent of GDP is £42bn per year. Nine per cent is £189bn.
Does £150m a week, or £8bn a year, feel so enormous now?
5) Now to the crunch question. What did the UK get for its money? Even if not everything about the EU was desirable, some of it was clearly worth having, or the UK and every other member state would have quit long ago. Can all these bounties be sourced elsewhere? If so, at what price?
Here’s a list (far from exhaustive — again, please pipe up with any glaring omissions) of some of the basic, and not so basic, functions and programmes provided by the EU.
Frictionless trade, frictionless travel, trade negotiations, Horizon 2020, Natura 2000, Marie Curie programme, EHIC, Erasmus education programme, Erasmus+ sports programme, Galileo, Euratom, European Arrest Warrant, European Medicines Agency, European Banking Agency, European Youth Orchestra, regional development funds, research grants, pet passports …
Some of this is plain irreplaceable. The UK has already given up on developing its own alternative to Galileo, because it has neither the money nor the expertise. Erasmus and Erasmus+ are dead and gone, with only the spectre of a promise of a … UK-only version to succeed it. And if we want to be part of Euratom and the European Arrest Warrant again, we’ll just have to swallow our pride, beg for acceptance, and pay, doubtless over the odds, for the privilege.
Some is replaceable, but under the Tories, highly unlikely to be replaced. The government is going to give Cornwall a measly 5% of the funding it received from the EU, in breach (naturally) of its promise to match the sum in full.
Instead of a plaintive whine of “Lies!”, the Remain campaign’s response to the Bus of Bollocks should have been a bigger bus (Megabus? MAGAbus?) emblazoned with the slogan “£150m a week? Less than 1% of GDP? For all this? Bargain!”, and a word cloud listing all the positives of membership listed above.
Not as catchy, of course, but unfortunately for the good guys, the truth rarely is. | https://medium.com/@andybodle/how-they-lie-with-statistics-part-2-the-value-of-nothing-33b4d30ee084 | ['Andy Bodle'] | 2020-12-16 15:22:29.120000+00:00 | ['Brexit', 'Propaganda', 'Populism', 'Statistics'] |
Apple Watch SE 2 Months Later | Apple Watch SE 2 Months Later
Image: MTG Productions/YouTube
Apple Watch SE. It looks like every other Apple Watch at a glance. But, there are some differences that make this watch fit in its SE lineup of products. In fact, it is probably the perfect mix!
Image: MTG Productions/YouTube
DESIGN
Remember, this is a watch, which means, we need to touch base on the design. Apple has typically gone the route of avoiding the circular watch design. I have the aluminum casing and it’s held up pretty well. If you’re interested in picking up the stainless steel option, you’ll have to go after the Series 5 or the new Series 6. My Apple Watch SE is the Nike Edition, but I swapped the band for a Milanese loop. Anyway, the Apple Watch SE has the same display as the Apple Watch Series 6. It has both 40mm and 44mm options just like the Series 6 with a display resolution of 368x448.
Apple Watch SE includes an OLED display which equates to more vibrant colors and deeper blacks. There is one thing that the SE does not include in which you can find in Series 5 and 6 and that is the always-on-display. However, in my opinion, raising to wake is fast enough and it also saves on battery life.
Image: MTG Productions/YouTube
PERFORMANCE
Since we touched based on design, let’s take a look at performance, where Apple has never disappointed the consumers with their products. The Apple Watch SE is fast. It might not include the latest S6 chip found in the Series 6, but the S5 chip it includes is still buttery smooth.
The Series 3 includes the S3 chip which has definitely aged, so, if you’re on the lookout for Series 3, please move on and look at the SE. You’ll notice the difference in speed between Series 3 and SE. Also, the SE stands pretty close to the Series 6 in speed. Coming from Wear OS devices, I’m super happy with the results because I’ve been looking for a fast performing smartwatch for such a long time. That’s why Apple is dominating the smartwatch market with its Apple Watch devices.
Apple has included a new feature built with families in mind called Family Setup with its latest Series 6 and SE. This feature lets you set up an Apple Watch independently for a kid or parent who doesn’t have an iPhone or any phone for that matter. Now, the caveat here is that if you want all of the features on an Apple Watch paired with Family Setup, you would need a cellular model so do keep that in mind. Otherwise, this family setup feature does come in clutch especially for parents who want to gift their children with a watch rather than a phone.
The Watch SE runs the latest Watch OS 7 without any lag, so you’ll be getting all the latest features like new watch faces, although some are exclusive to the Series 6. When I say without lag, I mean it. Even so, Watch OS 7 and the Apple Watch SE work seamlessly with the iPhone and I’m going to praise Apple for its amazing work with its ecosystem because it’s that good. Apple has perfected the hardware and software to work effortlessly together and other companies are struggling to keep up. You can’t pair an Apple Watch with an Android device and even if you pair a Wear OS device with an iPhone, you won’t be getting all of the features with notifications and other features.
Image: MTG Productions/YouTube
HEALTH
When we say Apple Watch, health is one of the main things that come to our mind. But, I just haven’t been using the watch for its health features. I’ve had the Watch SE for more than two months, and I just haven’t got into using the watch for the health features. I definitely should, and I will be in the future. When I first got the watch, I went ahead and tried out everything it had. The SE includes fall detection, noise monitoring, and Emergency SOS. I think that Emergency SOS and fall detection is super useful because I’ve heard real-life stories on how fall detection saved people’s lives. How about the new oxygen blood level sensor? That is unfortunately only available on the Series 6, so, if you’re on the lookout for a watch with an oximeter, skip the SE. Otherwise, everything else that makes an Apple watch an Apple watch is present in the SE.
Image: MTG Productions/YouTube
PRICE
It’s important to look at the price when picking up a new product. Now, I was hoping that the Apple Watch SE would start at $199, but Apple went ahead and priced it between Series 3 and Series 6 at $279 for the 40mm and $309 for 44mm. Honestly, the pricing is still pretty good. If you’re in dire need of a cellular model, it only costs an extra 50 bucks for each model, so $329 for the 40mm and $359 for the 44mm.
Just make sure that before you pick one up, ask yourself; Do I carry my phone with me all the time? If yes, you don’t need the cellular model. Apple is actually aiming for their Apple Watch SE to perform just like the iPhone SE. It is especially in my opinion the perfect way and a cheaper alternative to entering the Apple Ecosystem.
Image: MTG Productions/YouTube
If you’re in the market looking for a new Apple Watch, then the SE is a good buy. $279 for 40mm and $309 for 44mm is not too shabby, and if you look good enough, you may even find them on sale once in a while. Just remember this, if you’re on a budget, don’t consider series 3. I don’t even know why Apple is still selling the Series 3. It’s old, slow, and it won’t be supported much longer. | https://medium.com/macoclock/apple-watch-se-2-months-later-214881fa2cf0 | ['Melih Gungor'] | 2020-12-22 07:35:14.691000+00:00 | ['Gadgets', 'Apple Watch', 'Health', 'Apple', 'Technology'] |
Satoshi Nakamoto Is Not Relevant | On April 23, 2011, Satoshi Nakamoto sent their final email: “I’ve moved on to other things. It’s in good hands with Gavin and everyone.” They handed over the source code to the Bitcoin repository and disappeared.
Since that day, there is no ‘undeniable’ proof that ‘Satoshi’ has been heard from or has once shared their opinion on Bitcoin again.
For perspective, the Bitcoin project source code was first released in January 2009, nine years and two months ago. Satoshi left the project two years and three months in, therefore, contributed to the project for 25% of its history.
Contributed, is an important word. While Bitcoin was Satoshi’s vision, they could not deliver it without the support of others. They recruited smart people to help them deal with the many challenges of growing Bitcoin, respected developers like Hal Finney, Gavin Andreson and Nick Zsabo.
Since Satoshi left the project, we have had The Silk Road, Mt. Gox, Coinbase, ASICS, China Ban, Futures, Bitcoin Cash, Lightning Network… an endless list of technologies, people, governments and companies who have joined, contributed, regulated, damaged and helped Bitcoin. As such, the needs of Bitcoin has changed, and the needs of Bitcoin users have changed.
Now, the point of my article is not to forget Satoshi or dismiss their legacy. The point of my article is that statements such as ‘Satoshi’s Original Vision’ or ‘Satoshi would want…’, are not relevant.
We do not know what Satoshi would want; certainly not based on a white paper, written nearly ten years ago, without Satoshi having the other 75% of the project’s history to inform their opinion.
Satoshi may agree with Roger Ver and agree the Bitcoin Cash roadmap is the right one for Bitcoin.
We don’t know.
Satoshi may like The Lightning Network and agree that this is right for Bitcoin.
We don’t know.
Satoshi may dislike Bitcoin being considered a store of wealth as his original white paper was for ‘A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’. Let’s remember that the genesis block includes ‘The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.’ An explicit reference to financial instability caused by the banks. Satoshi may have seen how the people of Venezuela and Zimbabwe have used Bitcoin to protect themselves economically.
We don’t know.
Satoshi may say that Bitcoin is not a store of wealth and should only be considered and developed as a medium of exchange.
We don’t know.
Even if Satoshi was still involved in the project, even if they originally believed that on-chain scaling was best; after working with other smart people they may have changed their mind.
We don’t know.
We don’t know because they disappeared from the project.
They resigned from Bitcoin.
They stopped contributing.
They said you decide.
Any attempt to use Satoshi’s original vision (white paper) as an argument is weak because the white paper was a plan, a concept, but not a bible for which all things must follow. The US constitution has amendments for a reason, we humans make mistakes, we get things wrong, society changes, needs change and we evolve.
Any attempt to envisage what Satoshi would think is made so with incomplete information; this is conjecture. Have you noticed in films when a lawyer in court screams “Conjecture”, the legal system doesn’t like conjecture? It is guesswork.
Satoshi wasn’t/isn’t some infallible, all-knowing God of crypto. The early history of Bitcoin demonstrates this as they developed the protocol with other brilliant minds. Envisaging what Satoshi would want only indicates that the person who is doing this is weak at arguing their point. It is the last line of defence, “yeah but Satoshi would agree with me.”
You don’t know that.
Worse still, by placing Satoshi on this Crypto pedestal, you turn them into a single point of failure, something entirely against the decentralised fundamentals of the Bitcoin they created. Using the white paper as an argument not only makes Satoshi a single point of failure, but they are a single point of failure who is either dead or hiding from the world with others interpreting their wishes.
While individuals are celebrated for inventions, they usually invent things alongside other brilliant minds. Henry Ford was working with Thomas Edison before he started the Ford Motor Company. And do you think he sat in a barn building cars all on his own?
Surely we have enough smart people in the world of crypto who can sit around a table and figure these things out? Surely we don’t need to say “This mythical dead/hiding person which nobody has met or knows, would think this?”
And if we can’t agree, well this is the beauty of the Bitcoin project, we can create a fork, split-test different opinions and let the world decide. This is surely a better way of creating a cryptocurrency which changes the world, which is what we all want right? Rather than having this civil war, imagining what Satoshi would want “Dude, you don’t know shit, Satoshi’s original vision was this,” “shut up, you’re an idiot, Satoshi also said this.”
We don’t know.
Satoshi isn’t here; we have no idea what they are thinking or what they want.
And you know what, if Satoshi isn’t dead, should they suddenly appear back in the world and sign the genesis block, and tell the world what they think, it is still just an opinion of someone who left the project years ago. Steve Jobs, one of our other nerd Gods wasn’t always right; he was kicked out of Apple, failed with the NeXT computer before the world elevated to God-like status.
Satoshi could return and be at odds with the brilliant minds working on Bitcoin right now.
Satoshi would have to earn their right back into the Bitcoin project. Yes, I am sure they will be accepted, but whatever opinion they come back with, well, it’s just an opinion, the other brilliant minds working on Bitcoin may disagree.
To use Satoshi’s white paper, calling it their original vision, as an argument for anything is just propaganda and an insult to a person/people who apparently wanted to create something for the people.
Now I don’t expect everyone to like this or agree with me. I fully expect some smart technical people will start telling me I don’t know what I am talking about; this is fine, I am not a technical whizz. I have read the white paper and didn’t understand a lot of it. I have attempted to join debates on Reddit only to be told I’m a fucking idiot or gay. The thing is, you don’t need to be a technical whizz to realise that Satoshi gave us a gift and we waste time and energy with this civil war.
We have Bitcoin, we have Bitcoin Cash, we have Bitcoin Diamond, Gold etc.… We have the experiments out there. Let’s focus our efforts on taking on the real enemies here. The governments who endlessly print money, raising debt ceilings and taking away our public services. The banks which have led us into financial crisis after financial crisis, only to be bailed out by the governments while we lose our homes and jobs.
Let’s not keep fighting each other, we all have the same goal, right? Self-sovereignty, a right to privacy, choice and to make a little money by investing in the Bitcoin project. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/satoshi-nakamoto-is-not-relevant-b049880df46e | ['Peter Mccormack'] | 2018-09-03 16:50:36.853000+00:00 | ['Satoshi', 'Bitcoin', 'Bitcoin Cash', 'Lightning Network', 'Satoshi Nakamoto'] |
Simple Tips To Get Digital Marketing Jobs | Various fresher up-and-comers are slanting towards advanced promoting occupations. Gaining bucks just to sit on the online life by keeping it dynamic is a perfect activity for incalculable adolescents, appears genuine. While computerized promoting employments in India include a ton of time to be spent via web-based networking media stages, blogging, and tossing some GIFs to one side and to one side, there are a few different reasons that make it a famous calling for individuals who look for a future in advanced advertising. It is the cutting edge promoting which is reliably expanding and advancing. It requires innovativeness and scientific abilities that will keep you engaged in it. You’ll barely hear a computerized advertiser saying, “My activity is exhausting”. In case you’re hoping to break into the universe of computerized showcasing, there’s no preferable time over at this point. Peruse on as we have aggregated some down to earth tips to find an advanced promoting line of work. Thank you for being with betraybd.com for easy tips on getting digital marketing done.
The Skill Set You Need
There are no questions in conceding that advanced promoting is a multi-faceted occupation. Aside from conceptualizing thoughts, one must be inventive and have an explanatory methodology. Also, a computerized advertiser ought to incorporate key characteristics like:
Website composition and improvement of information
Incredible relational abilities
Helpful learning of substance advancement
Web crawlers and their calculations
Learning of every single social medium stages
An eye for detail to examine each nibble of information accessible
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Handy Tips That Will Help In Landing Into Digital Marketing Industry
Finding the privilege of advanced advertising occupation winds up easy when the competitor channelizes the methodology towards the single objective. In any case, following a couple of viable tips make the activity much simpler. Thank you for being with betraybd.com for easy tips on getting digital marketing done.
Experience Is The Key
Despite the fact that a degree is basic for managers for employing a skilled applicant, they organize experience similarly. Up-and-comers who need to seek after a vocation in the business of advanced showcasing ought to secure involvement. Computerized promoting temporary positions is essential to improve the resume for a fresher up-and-comer chasing for an opening for work in this industry. This, yet you can likewise help companions, relatives, and associates to raise the online nearness of their business. Thank you for being with betraybd.com for easy tips on getting digital marketing done.
Set up A Network
It is said that there’s no age to learn. An individual continues learning for a mind-blowing duration. So as to get the best information about the advanced showcasing industry and its patterns, nothing else is best than encircle yourself with students and capable people. The individuals you meet will turn into your help in getting to be enthusiastic about what must be done in the correct manner. They’ll additionally enable you to open ways to new chances. Systems administration with industry influencers and smaller-scale influencers is additionally basic to get familiar with the snappy stunts of the business and get more presentations. Going to the gathering, courses, and workshops are the most ideal approach to build up and support proficient connections. Thank you for being with betraybd.com for easy tips on getting digital marketing done.
Get Familiar With Industrial Jargon
Each advanced advertiser in India or abroad ought to get acquainted with various abbreviations in the computerized promoting word reference like PPC, SEO, SEM, SMO, CRO, and some more. Each term holds totally extraordinary importance from one another and hoodwinking between them means that a fledgling advanced advertiser needs further preparing. The capacity to investigate the mechanical patterns and advanced promoting efforts exclusively relies upon your insight industry language and phrasings. Thank you for being with betraybd.com for easy tips on getting digital marketing done.
Low PayScale Is Acceptable
Once, a not really well-known person said that Rome was not worked in a day. Each effective advanced advertiser on the planet out there was previously a learner. It required some investment to assemble his realm. The equivalent applies to each hopeful individual looking for computerized advertising work. When you get a chance, regardless of whether it pays a lesser entirety of cash, don’t stop for a second in tolerating it. Thank you for being with betraybd.com for easy tips on getting digital marketing done.
Well informed An Upper Hand
Being well informed with a comprehension of essential HTML abilities, illustrations advancement, and different things without any preparation give you an advantage among different competitors who have connected for a similar opening as yours. More or less, advanced promoting employments are more information-driven as opposed to being breathtaking.
Being Up To Date
The business of computerized advertising develops each moment. So as to coordinate the pace, a computerized advertiser should keep himself/herself refreshed with the most recent patterns and techniques utilized by their rivals. This won’t just help in understanding the current escape clauses be that as it may, it will give the correct thought and idea to fix the equivalent and take lead. Thank you for being with betraybd.com for easy tips on getting digital marketing done.
Be A T-Shaped Marketer
The T-formed advertiser is a term for tending to a computerized advertiser who has general learning of all promoting controls however spends significant time in a few explicit aptitudes. Computerized advertising organizations all over India head-chase up-and-comers with a wide range of abilities since they are considered as a significant asset to the organization. Besides, being a T-molded advertiser permits a person to pick another particular order.
The Bottom Line
This was a short rundown of some urgent tips for arriving into the privilege of computerized promoting work. As the business of computerized showcasing is developing, all businesses are ending up progressively stringent for restricting the correct ability that can perform in the long run. By channelizing the correct methodology and techniques, all people willing to seek after computerized showcasing occupations can without much of a stretch pack an open door in any control.
Thank you for being with betraybd.com for easy tips on getting digital marketing done. | https://medium.com/@neshadlema/simple-tips-to-get-digital-marketing-jobs-26cffb55df92 | ['Neshad Lema'] | 2019-09-14 18:18:48.069000+00:00 | ['Digital Marketing', 'Marketing', 'Job Interview', 'Market Research Reports', 'Jobs'] |
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