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A Poem by Chaya Bhuvaneswar | A Poem by Chaya Bhuvaneswar
Mount of the Dead Men
Sculptor left your stone eyes blank. But you were busy looking someplace else.
No dancing girl, Mohenjo Daro, terra cotta, Indian Jazz Baby, Twenties flapper contraband for bobbed hair alone.
You’re one of us, all the real girls.
Three steps you were supposed to stay behind but you two-stepped, grape-vined, twined closer with a lover’s hand. Moved him out of the way, so you could see words he was reading.
Half out of his mind with grief once you were gone, out of sight, out of mind, he listened to you then, instead of expecting you to look at him.
In fact, it was his eyes that went blank then, listening for words you had to say that were his words, not finding them,
not finding you. No Eurydice, no Beatrice, no Muse, no Magic Bus.
You only came up to here, on him, but had it up to here with him.
And had your way. And didn’t get your way.
As one of us, all the real girls. An Amrita, Arundhati, Mira, Deepa, Mahesweta Devi.
You were a gritty brown bottom exhibiting yourself, telling stories of what the sculptor did. Leaving your eyes that way, so you couldn’t see. | https://medium.com/the-awl/a-poem-by-chaya-bhuvaneswar-73e9590fc350 | ['The Awl'] | 2017-08-03 14:51:07.586000+00:00 | ['The Poetry Section', 'Poetry', 'Chaya Bhuvaneswar'] |
We Have Yet to be Modern | In our heads we have two different senses of the word “modern”. We have the idealized version and the pragmatic one.
The idealized version concerns fashion, lifestyle choices, the promise of clean and bright cities bristling with light fixtures.
The practical modern fits the definition from the Latin, which comes from “modo” meaning “just now”. The “just” does not feel special, or illuminating, or romantic. It is simply remarking on a place in time.
And I think one of the key aspects of the year 2020 is how far this disconnect, the one between the idealized “modern” and the actual “modern” has widened.
A parallel for this schism occurs in patients with multiple personality disorder, as evidenced by the recent HBO Max documentary Crazy, Not Insane directed by Alex Gibney. In it, Dorothy Otnow Lewis takes us through her career in a part-biography part-political exploration of crime and punishment versus rehabilitation in the United States Criminal Justice System. Present day interviews of Lewis coincide with videotaped versions of murder suspects in prison or in mental health facilities. Dorothy is precocious, uncompromising, good-natured, and blunt. She has no qualms speaking to the strange derangements that surround these murder suspects, many of whom have been the victims of strange derangements themselves. One particular subject, Max, “gets along” with Dorothy very well, as he rocks back and forth in his chair and covers his face with his hands in what appears to be perpetual torment. Each of these suspects has an “other” who “protects” their partner inside their own heads. And oftentimes this other is stronger, more confident, and often short-tempered. They lash out, to absurd realms, with stabbing and cannibalism and everything in between. When we tend to think of modernity, it is doubtful that we have this in mind.
And if the behavior is not modern, the child abuse these murderers suffered is something suited for the middle ages. Many of these young men and women were sodomized, beaten, burned, raped, cut, and forced to clean up glass while their knees cut themselves red in the pieces stuck in the carpet. Rather than the central crux of the film being the most shocking turn — that the general public and even psychology experts will not take Lewis’s research seriously — it is these acts perpetrated by mothers and fathers against their own children which easily takes the lead. These are not some dated experiences of torture and mutilation as seen during the years Hieronymus Bosch painted the Ship of Fools. These kinds of horrific acts occurred barely a century ago. During the time of the industrial revolution. During the beginning of modernism.
It has been said that Michel Foucault kept gruesome displays of torture in his room during his stay at the Sorbonne. For a long time, I had imagined that Foucault had wanted to keep the atavistic psychology of civilization in his head when he wrote his treatise on madness. Perhaps it was the other way around: perhaps these were the examples of modernism, and he was attempting to articulate it to us in words. Here is Alex Gibney doing largely the same thing.
At its best, the documentary is able to weave together the strange desires of murderers with the behaviors of “typical” Americans who arrive to an execution to see someone die. Each one (usually in Texas), features men and women holding up signs wishing “Burn Bundy Burn” in reference to Ted Bundy, or in some other grisly poster that looks hastily made with sharpie and white posterboard picked up from a corner store. In one particular case, we see a gentlemen who serves as a proxy executioner, an electrician who travels to each place and performs the execution. He has killed 19 according to the archived footage, and he has no qualms over killing more.
Where the documentary slips is perhaps in Dorothy Lewis going after Ted Bundy. Feeling herself mistaken, Lewis is adamant about retracing her steps and correcting the mistake she feels she made when she classified Ted as having bipolar disorder. Based on evidence of letters, as well as some audio interviews, she is making a retrospective judgment that perhaps Ted Bundy might too have suffered from MPD. The background is there: Bundy had a miserable childhood, he gave a signature for letters by the occasional nickname of Sam (who happened to be Ted’s grandfather and abuser), and in one audio clip he finds himself externalizing his identity into a “being” who “takes over” his will.
While the background is apparent, the purpose is not. Lewis takes great pains to address why the death penalty keeps us from evaluating patients further, yet she happens to go after a very famous and very dead man. Scientists have every right to be political, and they have every ability to go where their minds desire, but Lewis’s is best served elsewhere. With the astounding advancements in fMRI technology and the subsequent discoveries in neuroscience on consciousness, some interdisciplinary work is yet to be done. Let Ted Bundy be forgotten.
Still, if a documentary’s highest praise is in garnering attention and a desire to look further into the subject material, consider Crazy, Not Insane a triumph. It forces us to ask questions not just at the individual level, but at society at large. I mentioned earlier that 2020 has ruptured our belief in modernity. How could it not? A global pandemic where the best course of action is what we have always done in human history, which involve the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI’s) of social distancing and quarantine. A return to autocratic, populism due to income inequalities and technological leaps like that before the first World War. And while fires and floods continue to pummel our continental United States, Exxon has put its carbon capture project on hold, while pumping gas and building more lines as it has always done. Crazy, Not Insane makes the walls between the mental institution and society porous. If for the purposes of open-minded inquiry and empathy, the documentary is worth a watch. | https://medium.com/@ctr0042/we-have-yet-to-be-modern-db85c9f85cab | ['Colton Royle'] | 2020-12-12 19:19:45.371000+00:00 | ['HBO', 'Mental Illness', 'Documentary', 'Criminal Justice Reform', 'Movies'] |
How Cannabis Can Help in Losing Weight | Image by Vidmir Raic from Pixabay
Cannabis has so far helped in relieving pain, treating anxiety, and curing depression. It is also being marketed as a weight-loss remedy. But can it really help in reducing weight?
According to the review published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in August 2011, cannabis users have lower rates of obesity compared to none users. Some studies associate them with a lower body mass index. Others claim that they have smaller waists too. Despite no scientific proof to support this, there might be a possibility that cannabis can help in reducing weight.
Medical experts cannot directly tie cannabis to weight loss but have theories that relate it with other issues that result in the same.
Let’s look into them.
Cannabis Improves Sleep
According to the University of Chicago, research shows that insulin sensitivity drops by over 30%, because of insufficient sleep. Insulin helps in converting starch and sugar into energy. Without enough sleep, it cannot break down as many fats as it should. Instead, it stores them away, leading to an increase in weight.
Since cannabis has helped in treating insomnia, some medical experts believe that cannabis users have a better sleep. This then translates to more fats breaking down, causing them to lose weight.
Cannabis Boosts Metabolism
When looking into using CBD to treat obesity, Korean researchers discovered that it stimulates genes that enhance the breakdown of fats. It also decreased the secretion of proteins involved in the generation of fat cells. More to that, it increased the body’s ability to burn calories.
Studies show that cannabis can brown the fat tissues in the body. It can convert white fat (detrimental to the body when it accumulates) to brown fat, which burns calories to generate heat. Therefore, some experts believe that using cannabis could help you lose calories and reduce weight.
Cannabis Improves Mobility
Running, walking, and dancing are some ways we stay active to maintain a healthy weight. Sadly, some people do not have the luxury of moving their muscles. Some may be post-surgery patients; others have hip fractures, Parkinson’s disease, etc.
In the past, cannabis has helped in relieving patients with multiple sclerosis of their symptoms. The compound CBD has helped them deal with fatigue, inflammation, spasticity, and pain. They have shown to have a better muscle movement with less or none of these symptoms. This has led the medics to believe that cannabis has a chance of improving people’s movement. They can also lose weight as they become more active.
Cannabis Reduces Stress Levels
Fatty and sugary foods provide great comfort when one is in distress. Although they dampen the stress-related emotions, overeating them eventually increases your weight. The body produces cortisol, the stress hormone, which pushes people towards eating. In combination with the high levels of insulin, they are responsible for the stress-induced craving of food.
Some studies have shown that cannabis can help combat stress and anxiety. This way, the cortisol level drops, reducing the need to eat.
Cannabis Strains That Influence Your Appetite
Image by Vidmir Raic from Pixabay
Cannabinoids
Different cannabis strains have different effects on people’s appetite. Some result in an increased need to eat, while others lead to a loss of it. Apart from the THC strain providing the euphoric feeling, it is also the one responsible for producing the urge to eat. It activates the cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) in the brain and small intestines. As a result, more ghrelin (the hunger hormone) produced. The method of cannabis consumption determines how much you eat. It may even determine the choice of food preferred.
Unlike the CBD and THC, the THCV (tetrahydrocannabivarin) is not popular. It is present in most cannabis strains but in undetectable amounts. You can barely experience its effects. In contrast to THC, the THCV suppresses appetite. It was found to reduce glucose levels in the body and increase one’s sensitivity to insulin. Many patients looking to lose weight choose THCV. They love it for its relaxing effects too. Although they are rare to find, lab results show that they are abundant in African strains.
Terpenes
There are over 150 different terpenes within the cannabis plant. They produce unique fragrances that influence customer preferences on a product. That said, each terpene has its unique powers. The humulene terpenes not only give a subtle, herbal scent but also suppress hunger. Alongside other chemicals, the humulene terpenes have helped in promoting weight loss. It amplifies your lack or appetite when it is combined with beta-caryophyllene (a dietary cannabinoid).
Cannabis for Weight Gain in Patients
Cannabis has been useful in helping to increase weight among the clinical populations. Oral cannabinoids have been used on patients with HIV-associated wasting syndrome. Synthetic THC has also been administered to patients with anorexia nervosa and cancer-associated cachexia. Although the slight increases may be beneficial to these patients, the results are not entirely reliable.
Conclusion
Safer, antagonistic cannabinoids may play a role in treating obesity in the future. But until we find conclusive evidence, we cannot rely on cannabis for weight loss. Doing exercises, drinking water, and having a healthy diet is the best way to cut weight. | https://medium.com/blunt-weed-solutions/how-cannabis-can-help-in-losing-weight-df662e5f16fa | [] | 2020-05-05 14:14:36.890000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss', 'Cannabis Medical', 'Cannabis', 'Cbd', 'Cbd Oils'] |
What President-Elect Biden’s Empty Schedule On December 18th Reminds Us About Death Anniversaries | My stomach starts hurting on that first week in January. The closer I get to January 10th, the day of my mom’s death, the more my mind starts meeting my body. I’m suddenly in 2003 again. I’m suddenly reliving life as a 10-year-old again. I’m suddenly doing it while also being 14, 21, or this upcoming year, 28.
On December 17th, President-Elect Joe Biden’s team shared that he would have no public events on his schedule on December 18th — the 48th death anniversary of his wife Neilia and his daughter Naomi.
I could understand why. No matter the expectation from those who haven’t lost someone that “you should be over it by now,” time serves a different purpose. It doesn’t add distance from the pain. It doesn’t add space between you and the day. It brings you closer. It offers opportunity to grieve in an intentional way that most years we don’t make time for otherwise, not because grief isn’t there, but because keeping up with life is hard enough.
President-Elect Biden’s decision to empty his schedule of public events was calculated. A death anniversary demands energy, time, and mental capacity. It’s a marathon you can’t stop running even when you physically try to. Sitting down still leaves your mind in full sprint. The next day it’s as hard because the emotional hangover lingers and your body is tired and your mind is having to make its peace again that those you mourn are still not around.
I wish yearly that somehow my offering to grief for a full 24-hours would lead to drastic change or at least a visit from my mom. Instead it brings me closer to myself and to the work I’m committed to. It reminds me what my life is in honor of and it reframes how my understanding of empathy was hard earned but never wasted. It reminds me that no one gives you a handbook on things you do after someone dies, so it’s okay that you’re figuring it out as you go.
President-Elect Biden is bringing the toll of grief into the national discourse and by doing so is giving others permission to do the same. A kid who struggles with the loss of his parents may tell his legal guardian that school is hard for them on a hard grief day the way it is for the future President. A boyfriend can now use today’s news story or viral tweet about the President’s grief to help his partner understand what he meant when he said that on hard grief days you have little to give because all your energy goes into living and remembering, simultaneously.
I’ve been thinking about the President-Elect’s win in the context of grief for weeks now. His decision to continue to honor his personal journey with grief is already making a difference. I’ve seen grief talked about more on Twitter and the news than I have in my entire life. And yet, I honor his decision not as a spectator who is thankful for the spotlight he gives grief (even though I am), but as a fellow member of this army of grievers.
I know admitting that a death anniversary is hard after years since the first one is complicated. There are moments when you join everyone else in wishing “you should be over it by now.” But unlike everyone else, you realize running away from it faster doesn’t get you far, it just makes you even more tired. Instead you choose to find the pockets of solace that work for that given year.
I read this morning that President-Elect Biden went to his church.
I hope for him what I hope for myself in January and what I hope for anyone who has live through hard grief days, that he gets the chance to be as present as he needs to be for it. That he’s reminded he’s doing the best he can with his grief, today and always. | https://medium.com/@vivnunez/what-president-elect-joe-bidens-empty-schedule-on-december-18th-reminds-us-about-death-c15a4ca837f0 | ['Vivian Nunez'] | 2020-12-18 13:42:45.134000+00:00 | ['Biden', 'Politics', 'Loss', 'Human Parts', 'Grief'] |
Why ‘Christmas With The Kranks’ is the ultimate Christmas horror movie. | Jamie Lee Curtis buckles to the concrete floor, letting out a guttural, animalistic scream. It’s the scream one would associate with someone in deep despair, the acting chops reminiscent of Donald Sutherland cradling his dead daughter at the start of ‘Don’t Look Now’. The grief is potent through the screen. Yet where you may expect to see a mangled body on the road at the receiving end of these shrill shrieks, the audience are instead shown a can of Hickory Honey Ham, crumpled by a lorry.
Needless to say, the stakes in Christmas With The Kranks are low. However, in 2020 where capitalism has been put under the critical eyeglass, it’s clear that these low stakes and trivial situations are mere gift wrap over a truly insidious undercurrent.
When we discuss movies which are transcendent in breaking genre codes and conventions, Christmas With The Kranks (2004) is an overlooked horror masterpiece. Bizarrely but understandably based on a John Grisham novel, the movie sees a family try to escape the traditional trappings of the festive holiday.
We often see a conglomeration of Horror and Christmas genres meld in movies such as ‘Black Christmas’ or ‘Better Watch Out’, where blood spittles over Christmas wreaths, and dead bodies are slumped in the reflection of silver baubles. However what makes Christmas With The Kranks all the more unnerving, is its absolute commitment to the genre of Christmas.
The setting is a snowy suburban landscape. The music is deafeningly festive. The colour scheme is harsh pangs of crimson red and mustard yellow. It wraps a noose of tinsel around your neck and tightens it until you’re gasping for air. There is absolutely no denying that this is a Christmas movie. Horror is never explicitly pursued, aside from shots played for laughs of Jamie Lee Curtis scampering around her house in fear of her satanic neighbours, or slithering down the wall in horror after her husband rejects the policeman’s annual holiday calendar.
Therein lies the genius of Christmas With The Kranks. Some Christmas-Horror amalgamations rely on a bloody axe being dragged across a cream carpet towards a Christmas tree, or the hooves of Krampus imprinted in the snow walking towards your front porch — but not away. The horror is obvious. What makes The Kranks so insidious, is the enemy is entwined with the theme. The movie self-consciously utilises its own theme to put its argument across. It’s a rebellion against genre, more specifically the Hollywood genre film: an industrialised mode of production focused on institutional supply and demand for the sole benefit of audience consumption and profit. It’s a criticism of cookie cutter movies that are made solely for profit. And therein lies its more important criticism: it’s a rebellion against capitalism. The enemy is capitalism. Invisible, but omnipresent.
In conversation with Noam Chomsky about Christmas With the Kranks, he states that the movie seems like ‘the commodification of every aspect of life that is a natural component of capitalism’. Capitalism is merely the backdrop which oozes into themes of traditionalism, consumerism, freedom, and America.
The malevolent and personified force of capitalism is established from the very beginning. Luther and Nora say goodbye to their daughter Blair for the holiday season. Already, the audience can feel the aura of capitalism loom over Nora and Luther like it’s the manifestation of Death in Final Destination. It’s already trembling at this breach of traditionalism, watching the abolition of the nuclear family unfold. To make matters worse, Luther rejects an umbrella from a man on the street whilst it’s raining, a rejection of consumerism. Rubbing salt into this wound, this umbrella is rejected from a man dressed as Father Christmas, mocking consumerist culture straight to its face. And just to twist that knife a little bit more, Luther sees an advertisement for a cruise ship holiday past the frosted window pane of a holiday agent, and thus decides to “skip Christmas”. It’s this trifecta of threat towards capitalism which preludes a truly harrowing festive frolic, that only The Wickerman could aspire to achieve in its penultimate climax.
The Kranks are loud and proud about their plan to go on a cruise ship holiday instead of celebrating Christmas. “I will NOT be celebrating Christmas this year,” Luther boastingly writes in a work email. “One year off, no Christmas whatsoever” Nora irritably tells her friends at a restaurant table. Their mouths hang agape in response to this. Shock washes over their faces and colours them pale. Bystanders from countless neighbouring tables crane their heads to stare at Nora judgmentally. It’s a malevolent detail which creates an oppressive atmosphere, and whilst it’s an innocuous detail, it does make it difficult to disagree that what we’re dealing with from the get-go is a Christmas cult.
This is just scratching the surface. We proceed to bubbling tension in the form of snide comments. The Kranks’ neighbour Walt Scheel calls Luther a ‘jerk’ for not wanting to purchase a Christmas calendar. Duke Scanlon emotionally guilt trips Luther for not purchasing a Christmas tree. Every exchange between the neighbours and the Kranks has an aura of threat to them. There is an overarching pittance to them not conforming to the standards of the traditional Christmas holiday, which the movie itself seems to side with.
We are transformed from snide comments to military action. The neighbours begin campaigning against The Kranks for not putting up their Snowman decoration. Outside their front porch, Vic Frohmeyer bellows “we’re here for Frosty!” He rallys a few kids from the neighbourhood to chant alongside him. It’s intense. Nora tries desperately to make a subtle escape in her car, only to be chased by Vic Frohmeyer, foaming at the mouth. “We just want Frosty!” he barks - with Nora whimpering in the driver’s seat. It’s a disturbing insight into how conformity has indoctrinated this neighbourhood. They have reduced themselves to a being a society characterised by fads and ritualistic behaviour, at the expense of a plastic decoration symbolic of a holiday devoured by capitalism. Their desperation for The Kranks to erect their Frosty decoration is representative of their blind conformity, slaves to the capitalist trappings of the holiday season.
Later on, Vic Frohmeyer sets a crazed group of Christmas Carollers to sing “Jingle Bells” outside their front porch. As they repeat this jingle, their tempo speedens, the intensity of their vocals grow into beastly proportion. The intensity grows and grows until suddenly - silence. Relief is potent through the screen. Nora drops a ball of wool on the floor - you can even hear the mild thud as it hits the cream carpet. Still silent. She grabs the ball of wool, and cranes herself back into her chair. Still silent - when suddenly - she looks up to her window. Carollers are there within an inch of her window screen - singing, close enough to claw at the glass. Nora and Luther scamper to the basement, met by a Frosty decoration, who’s usual happy facial expression has distorted into a maniacal grin. “Free Frosty” is chanted at their window once again by the unhallowed neighbours. It’s hell.
It’s at the midpoint where the horror truly cascades. Their daughter Blair phones them and tells them she is actually coming home for the holidays, with her new fiancé, Enriqué. The Kranks have spent the entire movie trying to escape tradition, yet it is tradition in the form of the nuclear family which claws them back. From here we see the neighbourhood pull together to help The Kranks celebrate Christmas, and what transpires is a unique spin on the ‘good capitalist’ trope that reoccurs in an array of Christmas movies. Where this trope usually follows the guideline that the kindness of the wealthy upper class is demonstrated as an adequate enough solution to appease the damage of class inequality, The Kranks gives a somewhat more realistic spin to the theme. It shows the rich support the rich, and besmirch any evidence of poorness.
Whilst these tropes are purposely turned upside down, the tone of the movie isn’t critical of this. The disdain of poorness is made to seem reasonable through the lighthearted tone of the film. It’s the subtlety of how these genre conventions are flipped which makes for an effective scare. You’re forcibly sided with the culture of capitalism that is dedicated to encouraging the production and sale of commodities. The festive genre conventions and the hellish story itself are diametrically opposed, but it makes the audience side with the cult unknowingly. It’s the closest you could come to being indoctrinated into an actual cult without notice.
cinematic parallels?
The Kranks are merely a comedy punching bag. The movie wants you to laugh at their misfortune, the film actively embracing the fervour of the crowd and actively criticising, even demonising, the choice of the Kranks. I think back to the scene where Luther rejects an umbrella from a man dressed as Father Christmas. His rejection of an umbrella is immediately followed by a throwaway gag of him getting drenched by water bursting through a window awning. It’s subtle, but the umbrella is merely a metaphor for how capitalism takes advantage of people’s misfortune for its own benefit. His immediate punishment for going against consumerist culture makes it difficult to argue against the theory that capitalism truly operates like Death in Final Destination. With the umbrella fulfilling the necessity we have for comfort, shelter, protection and convenience, it makes it seems like a fitting metaphor for how America has monopolised necessity.
We’re at the finale of this horror movie now — a finale which filled me with a greater sense of dread than what I experienced during the final 30 minutes of Hereditary. Like Hereditary, we watch as a family succumb to the cult which they’ve been trying to escape for the entirety of the movie. “Christmas (baby please come home)” echoes in the background hauntingly, as a child rides his bike down a frosted lane. We have the unfounded knowledge that these main characters have met their demise. As the neighbourhood clamber together to help them celebrate their traditional Christmas party, we watch as they partake in the typical Christmas traditions. They laugh amongst friends and strangers. They kiss under mistletoe. There’s an awful scene where they all sing Christmas songs together. Everyone is happy and cheerful. It’s hell.
Marty, a character who has been claus-coded throughout the film (a wink and a nod to the common trope of Santa being a character implied to be Santa rather than explicitly be Santa), arrives at the scene. He brings an item of sinister significance, which I believe offers a summation of this hellish movie.
I reminisce to the Honey Hickory Ham scene, where Nora watches a can smash to smithereens before her very eyes. It’s made abundantly clear in the scene prior (where we watch Nora almost slide tackle another customer to obtain this canned good) that this can of Honey Hickory Ham is the last one in stock. No other can of Hickory Honey Ham is available. When I said that grief was potent through the screen when Nora watched this can get obliterated by a lorry, I was not joking. But what does the Hickory Honey Ham embody, but a branded item used to establish a corporation using iconography to become an institution within itself? And who brings back this Hickory Honey Ham from the dead? Marty. The character who is claus-coded throughout the film. With Santa being somewhat the patron saint of capitalism, it seems befitting. The can is in pristine condition, demonstrating the immortality of corporations in capitalist America. The brand was invincible. It’s a stark reminder that The Kranks were never destined to win this battle. It reminds me of the scene in Hereditary where the class discuss whether Heracles having no choice over his fate makes his narrative more tragic or less tragic. A classmate chimes in, “I think it’s more tragic, because if it’s all just inevitable then that means the characters have no hope. They never had hope”. I believe this to be an excellent summation of Christmas With The Kranks, they truly never had hope to begin with.
It’s the inevitability of The Kranks’ demise which ultimately makes this festive frolic a horror movie. Even before Marty resurrected this brand of Hickory Honey Ham from the dead, we knew The Kranks were never destined to escape this capitalist hell. From the start of the movie, we watched them both yearn for a cruise ship holiday as opposed to the traditional Christmas holiday. It was the crux of the movie, a simple fifty-fifty chance of them making it to the cruise or being trapped in a suburban nightmare. But with the cruise ship being synonymous with freedom, one must ask — if this is their interpretation of freedom, what kind of freedom does America have? I am reminded of the Richard Spencer quote: “A nation based on freedom is just another place to go shopping.”
That is Christmas With The Kranks. It’s a capitalist horror-show in golden wrapping paper with a grotesque red bow tied around it, where consumerism is rife and tradition triumphs. The horror is truly centered around how obsessed this community is with Christmas, and by extension, capitalism and tradition. I asked Gregory Frantz a series of questions regarding Christmas With The Kranks. He recently helped the Campbell Soup company trademark the word “chunky,” so seemed like a suitable candidate for this think-piece. He claims “a life overly focused on economic activity is not likely to be fulfilling,” encapsulating the true horror of The Kranks. The finale is supposed to be happy, yet it’s an illusion. It’s a facade of happiness at the expense of becoming a slave to consumerism. It is sleight of hand as you know beyond the surface of The Kranks singing and cheering in this ghoulish finale, on the undercurrent they are imprisoned, with no means of escape.
We often watch tradition triumph modernity and consumerism peak, especially around the holiday season. This movie is merely a mirror to our own society. True horror is people gunning to shout the f slur in Fairytale Of New York under the guise of “tradition”. True horror is advertising convincing us that consumption is the answer to life’s challenges under the guise of “consumerism”. True horror is people refusing to wear potential life-saving face masks to suppress transmission during the busiest period of the year under the guise of “freedom”. If ever there were to be a horror reboot which actively pursues the horror codes and conventions, Ari Aster would truly do it justice.
We’re at the final shot of the movie. We pan away from Nora and Luther looking through their window at their neighbourhood partaking in their traditional holiday party — Nora’s head resting atop Luther’s shoulder. It’s snowing. It’s cold. The camera pans out to show each house in this suburban neighbourhood, a frosty snowman on top of each one. The screen cuts to black. As expected, a comment from an online forum perfectly summarises this scare-fest, from a user called JayEssArr: It’s a suburban postmodern nightmare psych horror film trapped inside boundless consumer-capitalist apologia that could only have been dreamed up by a haunted person, if not 5 haunted people. | https://medium.com/@harrymichaelphillips1996/why-christmas-with-the-kranks-is-the-ultimate-christmas-horror-movie-ead816a2699c | ['Harry Phillips'] | 2020-12-25 10:24:08.105000+00:00 | ['Horror Movies', 'Christmas', 'Capitalism', 'Christmas With The Kranks', 'Horror'] |
The Potential of Digital Self-Study Inspires Them to Continue the Self-Discovery | Let digital be a learning bridge,not a generation gap
“ For the past years,hi-tech products occupied an necessary part in the life of modern people with the transformation of society patterns and the rapid change of science and technology.The internet addiction of Phubber,hidden behind plenty of mental worries.More children and adolescents have a significant impact on brain cognitive development,disturbance of attention or mental health problems because of the hi-tech products. “ We can see the similar article to the digital problem on every website or newspaper, Even nouns such as “digital heroin” have emerged,representing the addiction of modern people to the digital age.On the other hand,we can solve problems by digital methods everywhere. “
“ In the learning process,reading is the extremely important ability.We can understand the knowledge and answer doubts through reading.And through the latest PIRLS online reading rating,we can find that the international has begun to focus on “Digital Reading”.However,reading online is not the same as digitizing paper directly,it includes the process that pupil searches and integrate data on the internet.Cultivating digital reading literacy is a significant process on learning in this digital century,even we can say that digital reading ability is road to digital self-study.”
Not only surfing,but also judging and integrating
“We had a experience on wandering on the internet,entering random websites and watching discrete information.Nevertheless,almost eight percent of information which people get on websites is unimportant.According to the suggest that professor Ke said,all of us must have a purpose on acquiring data.First,we need to define the materials which are necessary,then search and choose them.Second,we must judge these materials whether conforms to the original purpose in the vast amount of data,and consider the reliability and validity.Finally,we should integrate data into our knowledge.As a result,the purpose is extremely significant. “
“Why is digital reading ability almost equal to digital self-study?Modern people spend plenty of time on internet in one day.That is,if we had terrific digital reading ability,we could learn a lot of the information which is in requirement in an efficient way for a limited period of time.As mentioned previously,people can let this situation to become a tool,not a drug in this digital century. “
The new challenge on teaching in this digital age
“ Surfing on the internet is a major learning pipeline in this information age.people need to get data on the website,but at this moment,if we just transfer the knowledge which teachers teaches from class to computer is not enough,because it isn’t the only solution to solve the same problem.More important,we may find different things that we have searched for in the future.Besides getting data from websites,judging the materials and integrate them into our own knowledge are extremely significant.”
「Teaching of Science and Technology or Digital teaching?」
◎ Chinese Version : https://bit.ly/2C5CU49
※More Information about Us※
◎ N.T.T.U. Digital Volunteer Official Website
◎ N.T.T.U. Digital Volunteer Facebook
◎ N.T.T.U. Digital Volunteer Instagram
◎ N.T.T.U. Digital Volunteer Gmail
[email protected]
[email protected]
◎ N.T.T.U. Digital Volunteer Youtube | https://medium.com/@nttu.volunter/the-potential-of-digital-self-study-inspires-them-to-continue-the-self-discovery-6420f336e1d8 | ['Nttu Digital Volunteer'] | 2019-02-12 14:32:15.827000+00:00 | ['Steam', 'Teaching', 'Taiwan', 'Education', 'Digital'] |
#JusticeforJohnnyDepp. The Saga of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard | #JusticeforJohnnyDepp. The Saga of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s complex and controversial relationship
Johnny Depp is trending at the moment on Twitter, but for reasons he’d rather forget. His acrimonious relationship with Amber Heard of Aquaman fame is once again front-page news and things have just heated up on Social Media.
What’s all the fuss about?
In 2019 Depp filed a $50 million defamation case against Heard, after an op-ed piece she published in 2018. In the article, she painted herself as being domestic abuse survivor. Although she didn’t mention names, it was clear who she was referring to. That article led to Depp being fired from Pirates of the Caribbean. It was a huge blow to him. Jack Sparrow was no more and Depp had had enough.
The couple married in 2015 and by 2016 had agreed to separate. Heard filed for divorce and they released a joint statement at the time, shortly after their divorce was finalized.
“Our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gain. There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm.”
Statements and counter statements followed from both Heard and Depp shortly after that proved the relationship had in fact been beset by problems. Big Problems.
An audio tape just released by Depp’s legal team from a 2015 therapy session he and Heard attended, clearly indicates Heard was abusing Depp physically. She admits as much on the 2-hour long audio that has sparked a wave of support for Depp across the internet.
The tape is now seen as vindication by Depp’s many fans, who have taken to social media in a united front of support for the actor. Heard, who initially caused controversy by suggesting Depp had been abusing her, was, in fact, the abuser. Whether the abusive behavior was in fact perpetrated by both parties is currently under dispute and may never be resolved. It seems clear though from mounting evidence that Depp was the victim.
Shocking reports of Heard defecating in his bed, burning him with cigarettes and cutting off his fingertip have emerged. She admits on the tape to throwing objects at him in fits of rage.
Depps’ career has suffered massively because of Heard’s allegations of abuse. He lost his prized role of Jack Sparrow in the series, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the two actors have been engaged in reciprocal attempts to try and derail each other’s careers over the last three years.
Gal Gadot (Wonderwoman) even entered into the fray and was venomous in her condemnation of Depp when Heard’s allegations surfaced, coming out on Twitter in support of Heard. She accused Depp of being an abusive drug addict. She later withdrew her comments but the damage was done.
Abusive relationships are complex and incredibly difficult to resolve. There is a natural inclination to assume the man is abusing the woman, but often, as in Depp’s case, the reverse is true and occasionally the abuse is reciprocal.
The fact Depp was found guilty by the media and public without a shred of evidence to support Heard’s claims, shows the inclination to persecute first and ask questions later.
It is impossible to pass comment, let alone judgment in these situations, unaware as we are of the intimate details of the relationship. No one ever really knows what transpires behind closed doors and yet, it is in our nature to pass judgment.
Depp was judged and found wanting in the court of popular opinion, simply on the word of his estranged wife. The responses were swift and damaging to his career. He rapidly became a pariah in the eyes of Hollywood, with only his closest fans remaining loyal.
It remains to be seen if Heard will be judged with the same vigor in the courtroom of popular opinion and if her career will be sidelined as a result of her actions, with some on social media calling for criminal action.
Heard’s defense team has released a statement denouncing the tape and suggesting that it instead shows Depp was abusive and she was responding to his abuse. It’s a reach, a huge one, and unlikely to succeed.
From the responses on Twitter and the trending hashtags, it would appear Depp has the popular support and if public opinion is anything to go by, the trial scheduled for August 2020 will not end favorably for Heard.
Depp has produced a huge catalogue of work over the last thirty years and can arguably be pointed to as one of the most influential and talented actors of his generation.
His versatility and love for bizarre characters, starting with his 1991 role of Edward Scissorhands, have afforded him cult status with many of his followers and he has received numerous peer-based awards for his roles.
None of us will ever truly know what transpired between Heard and Depp but there is a lesson to be learned from their debacle. Don’t be too quick to assume, and if you don’t have the facts, all the facts, don’t pass judgment.
Let’s hope the trial is swift and allows Depp to get back to doing what he does best. Entertaining us. We want our Jack back. Our world is that little bit poorer without him.
If you’ve enjoyed this article, the follow on piece which calls for an end to the #metoo movement may be of interest. | https://medium.com/lighterside/justiceforjohnnydepp-the-saga-of-johhny-depp-and-amber-heard-b3e0d24e7781 | ['Robert Turner'] | 2020-02-18 11:03:27.087000+00:00 | ['Cinema', 'Entertainment', 'Amber Heard', 'Johnny Depp', 'Movies'] |
My Top 10 Stories in 2020 | My Top 10 Stories in 2020
Photo by Clarinta Subrata on Unsplash
I don’t know about you but I’m so happy that I’ve made it to the end of 2020. This was the first year in my life where I had the most twists and turns.
Dare I say I will not miss 2020.
However, this is not to say that 2020 was not a year full of good memories.
From taking a leap of faith in freelance writing and becoming my own boss to discovering my new purpose in life, 2020 has changed my life in ways I never thought it would have changed.
If I can give one advice to anyone who’s afraid to take a leap of faith. I would say: Don’t be afraid of taking risks because if you are afraid, you are limiting yourself to some amazing opportunities.
The reality is you may not enjoy everything that you do to achieve your goals in one year.
However, when you finish a task or jump over an obstacle, you will be thankful that you didn’t quit. You’ll be thankful that you took a risk.
After this (short) motivational talk, I wanted to take a trip down memory lane and share my top 10 popular stories on Medium throughout 2020.
This is a reminder that in 2020 I achieved many things on Medium. Even if they were small milestones, I am still happy that I accomplish them and I’m motivated to continue this growth.
Also, this is a reminder that just because 2020 was a weird year, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a meaningful year. How meaningful was 2020 for you? I would love to know! | https://medium.com/@jenniferarchives/my-top-10-stories-in-2020-c276f640e39d | ['Jen Eve'] | 2020-12-29 04:36:08.346000+00:00 | ['2020', 'Lists', 'New Year', 'Stories', 'Reading'] |
Dealing with life after university… | Life after university can be pretty daunting, especially, if you are unsure about what to do next. After being a student for most of your life and having timetables telling you what to do and where to go, it’s hard to be suddenly left alone without a proper plan.
For me, September 2018 brought big changes and proved particularly difficult. I had just graduated in July and also made a huge move with my family from London to Leeds. I was missing everything about my life at university, working on getting settled into a new city and trying to readjust to life at home as an adult.
So, if you are a recent graduate or someone going through major changes in your life, I really do sympathise with the uncertainty and fears that come with it. Here are some words of encouragement and advice which I hope you will find helpful. You are not alone.
1) Being positive and having gratitude
Gratitude has helped me heal from so much and adopt a fresh perspective in so many situations. It’s so important to reflect on all the things you have, rather than focus on what you don’t have. I understand that sometimes the situations in front of us seem overwhelming but you must remind yourself of the tough situations you’ve overcome in the past. I would urge you to make lists, meditate about the things you’re grateful for and remind yourself of the things you’ve achieved. It certainly helped me balance my thoughts and approach every problem with a positive attitude.
2) Figuring out what you want to do
Remember: It is okay to be unsure about what you want to do next.
Make a mind map or do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis on yourself. Go over things that you are good at, what you can improve on and for the opportunities section, you can note down the things that you’ve done and achieved in your previous professional experiences and how they might help you in the future. For threats, think of the things that hold you back, your fears and your practical limitations (money, location, etc). This will help you get a better picture of where you are currently and help you set yourself some personal goals and decide what you want to do next.
You could simply start by volunteering, working part-time (if you can), doing online courses and attending various free workshops/ events. Not only does this help you navigate your options but it also helps you stay proactive, recognise your interests and add to your experience.
Also, if you have many interests — it is not a bad thing. It doesn’t make you less focused or less ambitious. It is all the more reason to explore a range of things and indulge your curiosities.
3) Stop comparing yourself to others
This is something we all fall victim to at some point. It can be quite scary seeing people your age look like they have their lives figured out with ‘proper’ grad jobs and flashy five-year plans. However, you must remember that we all struggle with something and what ‘looks like’ is not often the same as ‘what is’. So, don’t become consumed by what others are doing. Also, if and when you do see people doing what they love and achieving things they’ve worked hard for, be inspired and wish them well! Seeing all my friends at different stages in their lives over the past year has taught me that there is no ‘right’ way of doing life and that it is normal to aspire to different things. It is entirely dependent on prioritising what matters to you and being led by instinct. So, go forth and live yours.
4) Habits and hobbies
When you suddenly go from routine to none at all, it is easy to become lazy or feel unmotivated. So, try to build some sort of a routine;
· Volunteering helps — gets you out of the house and do something meaningful with your time.
· Keeping fit is vital, so in whichever way you do this — make sure you get that heart rate pumping! I must confess, I am still working on doing this consistently and I’ve recently been dedicating ninety minutes every day to dancing in my room and honestly, it’s lit!
· Listen to podcasts, read and learn about what’s going on in the world — stay woke.
· MEDITATE — whether it’s prayer, silence or however you do it, it has definitely brought me peace and saved me from so much restlessness.
· Build hobbies — I’ve always loved to write, whether it’s poetry, spoken word or just a long rant about my day– so I decided to take it further and start blogging.
These may feel like small things but it all adds up and it has certainly helped me keep busy, avoid depressive episodes and just be myself.
Just keep calm and keep going ❤
These are just a few suggestions based on what has worked and is working for me. I hope that some of these tips help you on your journey. I would like to hear your stories and experiences about life after university, feel free to share. | https://medium.com/@sarahchebrolu/dealing-with-life-after-university-34e7db7a3328 | ['Sarah Chebrolu'] | 2019-09-14 00:46:12.852000+00:00 | ['Lifehacks', 'Change', 'University', 'Graduation', 'Adulting'] |
Earn Passive income in Bitcoin everyday ! | What is Betfury?
Betfury is an online casino, that does not only give you the chance to win some extra money, as every casino does. But, Betfury also gives you the opportunity to earn a part of the daily dividends as well. To sign up, use the following link: Betfury
How can I earn daily bitcoin from Betfury?
Betfury rewards you with, so called, BFG tokens when you wager a certain amount of bitcoin or TRX. These BFG tokens entitle you to a certain amount of the dividends that is released every day.
The dividends that get released every day are 3% of the total pool. This way your earnings will be consistent for a long time. At the moment, the dividend pool almost 70 bitcoin in it. And while releasing 3% everyday, the pool is still growing every day.
How to earn BFG tokens?
You can earn 2 different BFG tokens. The BFG BTC and the BFG TRX. The difference between the two is how you earn them and the dividends you receive. The BTC version, earned by wagering BTC, will earn mostly BTC dividends. While the TRX version, earned by wagering TRX, will earn more of the other 3 currencies. Of all daily dividends a certain percentage goes to all the BFG BTC holders and a certain amount goes to all the BFG TRX holders. In which amounts it is divided can be seen below:
BFG BTC :
90% BTC 10% TRX 10%USDT 10% BTT
BFG TRX
10% BTC 90% TRX 90%USDT 90% BTT In order to earn these BFG tokens you will have to wager either BTC or TRX. In my opinion, your best bet (see what I did there) is to go with BTC. BFG BTC gives you a higher dividend. How much you have to wager for one token, depends on the current amount of mined tokens. In the picture below you can see how much it is at this time
This might seem like a lot for only 1 BFG token, however you will get it for every wager and not a loss. Meaning that you can play games, such as dice, with a high chance of winning and this way you will not lose the BTC but will still get the BFG token.
Best way to mine tokens?
The best way to mine the tokens is through the game “dice”. By setting the game to roll under 95, you will have a 95% of winning. This will give you the opportunity to earn more tokens as the chance of losing you BTC is smaller. This way you can make more bets and this mine more BFG.
How high you set your bets, depend on how much BTC you have and how fast you want the tokens. A smaller bet, might give you more bets and more BTC, however the mining process will be slower as well.
How much will I earn?
This will depend on how much you will invest. More BFG tokens will earn you more daily dividends of course. At the moment 100K BFG tokens will earn you approximatly 0.00078 BTC everyday.
Now, I won’t say that you will get 100k BFG tokens in a day. But be smart about this and reinvest your daily dividends and your token amount will grow.
Betfury also gives you free BTC everyday. Well actually every 20 minutes. Every 20 minutes you can redeem a free box, which will give you 25 satoshi every time. You can do this till you hit the maximum of 1800 a day. You can then use these free BTC to earn BFG tokens and then earn a dividend every day. This will be a slow process as you won’t earn a lot of dividend in the beginning. But if you don’t have a lot to start with, you could try this strategy.
Other Boxes
Besides the free box you get every 20 minutes, there is also the opportunity to earn interest on your BTC with other boxes.
These boxes give you a certain amount of interest on the amount needed to buy the box. By buying the box you deposit your BTC in the box and after the chosen period you will receive it back + the interest. This interest is actually pretty high and can earn you a nice amount of income.
Other benefits
With the betting strategy from above, you will eventually run out of bitcoin. This is not a problem as we want to mine as many BFG tokens as possible, so running out of BTC in inevitable. We will earn it back through dividends anyway.
Cashback
However, there is also another way in which you get some of your losses back. And that is the cashback. Now, when you just created a new account, your cashback will only be 2%. But by wagering, which we do all the time, you will rank up and your cashback will increase. So what is the benefit of this cashback? Well, you will earn this cashback on all the losses you make. Meaning that we can then reuse to cashback funds to mine even more BFG tokens.
Daily Tasks
Betfury also gives you daily tasks you can complete. Completing those daily tasks awards you with some extra of the currency you completed the task with.
Promotions
Every week Betfury also runs promotions. These promotions give you the opportunity to win BTC. This can be through wagering or by using the telegram chat. For all the information I would recommend to check the promotions page once you signed up!
Conclusion
This site has the opportunity to earn you a nice amount of passive income. With a big dividend pool it also has a bright future. Getting in now might settle you for a long time! Sign up now and start earning. Starting early with compounding is the key to long-term success.
#Cryptocurrency #passivearn #bitcoin #dice #dividend #daily #income #free #freemoney | https://medium.com/@razvan.chinga67/earn-passive-income-in-bitcoin-everyday-18a117107a18 | ['Man'] | 2020-12-05 11:10:46.644000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Passive Income', 'Strategy', 'Freemoneyday', 'Mining'] |
Memory ~ Nwaoha Chibuzor Anthony | Photo by Andre Moura from Pexels
Memory is the story you were told about a city
which fell off an atlas into the hands of assailants,
who slashed the tongues of your elders,
and smothered the night with bullets and blood.
You were told that the sea was freedom
when your fathers and sons drowned with chains
into the blueness of a coulee
so that when the flames come screaming at your city,
with you behind bars
and your daughter severely injured between the laps,
you will remember the name of your mother
and the river she was lost in.
____________
Nwaoha Chibuzor Anthony is an Igbo-born poet whose poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Headline poetry and press, African writer, Kalahari review, Art lounge, Nantygreens, Konya shasrumi, Eboquills, Praxis magazine, Afritondo, Eunoia review & elsewhere. He lives in Orlu, a sleepy city in the Southeastern part of Nigeria. | https://medium.com/sub-saharan-magazine/memory-nwaoha-chibuzor-anthony-55501193015b | ['Chigozie Nelson'] | 2020-09-22 20:16:43.494000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poems And Stories', 'Poetry Writing'] |
Bomb Shelters to Blockchains; DJ Lethal Skillz | Article by Sean Gardner
I’m going to make an argument that DJ Lethal Skillz is the most OG figure in the Blockchain Music Community, having survived four platform transitions, the journey has not been without challenges and of course, the rewards!
In 2021, we are welcoming Hussein Mao aka ‘DJ Lethal Skillz’ to the Emanate team as our Distribution Systems Manager making him the first person to be promoted from Community Rep to Emanate Team.
I asked Mr Skillz about his life journey, since before he first laid eyes on a pair of turntables until now. This is what i found....
Lethal Skillz, friendly vibes
Growing up
My musical journey began in the 80’s when I was a little kid. Living in shelters with my mom and dad in Beirut during the civil war, my parents would play music to distract us from the bombing and sound of the war going on outside.
The impact of these childhood experiences affected my relationship and approach to music. It became my escape. At the age of 8 I began breakdancing, messing around and dancing with some kids on the streets, I was influenced by movies such as “Breakin’” and “Turbo and his Broom Dance”. Until one day, I caught Herbie Hancock’s “Rock it” on TV and saw Grandmaster DST moving a record on the turntable back and forth and I thought to myself that the sound was FRESH! That moment was the spark for me wanting to become a DJ.
From the age of 11, I started as a school DJ using tapes, playing at house parties, and eventually becoming one of the youngest radio DJ’s in the city at the age of 13. Though I was too young to work in the nightlife scene at the time, I used to slip into clubs through back doors at the age of 15 to DJ. Inspired by the greats, I learned the art-form using turntables to manipulate the music and found that it was a way I could fully express myself.
My experience with production stems directly from my experience as a DJ and Turntablist. It taught me how to reproduce sounds live, using the records by juggling and scratching and such. In 1995, I got back to Lebanon after a trip to Africa and hooked up with some local talents and we started imitating Western Hip Hop music, until we started representing our sounds, issues, and culture in our music. We were growing up in parallel and learning more and more about the power of Hip Hop and what it can do, beyond the kicks, snares, and heavy bass lines.
Throughout my musical journey I have been blessed to collaborate and perform with Hip Hop legends — Opening up for the likes of Pharoahe Monch and M-1 of Dead Prez at The Forum, Kentish Town, in London, England; as well as playing alongside Grand Master Flash, DJ Jazzy Jeff, De La Soul, Dj Q-Bert, Rob Swift, Dj Akakabe, Co-ma, DJ Tony Touch, DJ Vinroc (5th Platoon / Triple Threat), DJ Shortkut and DJ Apollo (ISP / Triple Threat) World DMC Champions among many others, including mainstream acts like Timbaland, 50 cents, Whokid, Big Ali, Missy Eliot, Sean Paul, MIMS, Coolio to mention a few!
Disruption
Along that journey, I’ve seen Vinyl become Cassette, CD become MP3, and MP3 transform into streaming services. With the shift in formats, royalties have dwindled to the point that artists are willing to sacrifice their true sound and art for plays and views.
That’s why when Blockchain caught my attention in 2016 I could see what the future had in store for artists and wanted to be a part of it.
When was the first time you ever saw something about the intersection of blockchain and music?
I first learned about the Blockchain through my good friend and partner in Hip-Hop, Vandal, who introduced me to a Beat Battle on the blockchain-based blogging Steemit, which rewards its users with cryptocurrency for publishing and curating content.
I joined for the producer battles, but when I won, I started making lots of new connections. I was hooked! Because of the community and the massive amount of new doors that it opened, I started learning about the power of decentralized platforms as a content creators, and the opportunities it provided to monetize and spread my music to a wider audience.
What have been the most interesting moments and developments over the last 4 years?
Over the last 4 years, I’ve witnessed the rise and fall of Blockchain music streaming and creative platforms. It began with Steemit, extending out to Dsound & DTube. I participated in the first Cohort of Sndbox by Creative Crypto and around the same time was put on to Musicoin I was also involved in a project called Hip Hop The Blockchain. After being heavily involved in Musicoin, EOS had just launched and I became interested in a number of their projects. Oh and of course I can’t forget falling victim to a Crypto Mining Ponzi, I think we’ve all been there at some point in time. But that takes nothing away from my experience of community building and empowerment through merging music and Blockchain.
Tell us about all the blockchain music platforms you have used and how it is all developing
Through my involvement in Steemit, I was introduced to DSound, where I would post my older music and new beats for upvotes and feedback. It wasn’t long until I got involved in the Musicoin community as an ambassador began utilizing competing platforms like Choon. That was all until I learned about Emanate!
Tell us about the NFT you sold on rarible.
My partner in crime, Vandal, was just launching his new record label concept and had envisioned a new way of connecting music to NFTs. Of course I’d already experienced NFTs with a litter of Cryptokitties, I was on board with the idea and we minted a Cover Art Collectible for Vandal’s song ‘Toss A Coin’.
DAO Records
Vandal has always been on the cutting edge of things and we’d been working closely together for over 10 years already, it was only natural to support his endeavours. He invited me to become one of the founding members of DAOrecords and I fully support the initiative as it creates a bridge between the traditional music industry and the revolution that is Blockchain and decentralisation. Effectively, DAOrecords is reinventing the record label and democratising the music industry, not to mention all the great strides in innovation and support for artists we are facilitating.
Being an Emanate Rep
What’s not cool about being part of the dopest team and most innovative platform in the space to date?!?
The community is awesome! We continue to explore and discover new artists and music daily, making valuable connections, and experiencing the cutting edge of music and technology as it happens. I get to do what I love, be a part of the future of music and get paid for it.
Starting work formally with the team in 2021? That’s straight-up awesome!
You’ve earned some money on Emanate for your streams
In the first 12 months, I’ve managed to earn $1200 on Emanate for about 20,000 Streams I think. Compare that to over 180,000 streams earning me $400 over 12 months on Spotify, you can do the math and quickly you see the obvious potential and power of Emanate! I push Emanate heavily to my followers but imagine all those were streamed on Emanate? That’s what I’d like to see next!
Ok so, what IS next?
With the explosion of NFT’s and the new NFT platform Atomichub on Wax Blockchain and with the help of Emanate, I am releasing my upcoming single and NFT with Dookie Brown a dope rapper and poet who I also met years back via Steemit, our track is called ‘Trees’ a spiritual uplifting Hip-Hop track produced by myself, written and performed by the dope Dookie!
The NFT will be minted on Atomichub, we are only minting one exclusive NFT and the owner of the NFT will have 10% of the music streaming revenue for life via Emanate smart contract on the eos blockchain along with an exclusive physical signed poster by Dookie and Skillz of the single and a T-shirt that will be shipped to the owner anywhere around the world.
https://eos.atomichub.io/market/auction/22
Moving forward, really it’s just a continued evolution of my journey combining all the things I love. I get to experience the innovations in the space in real-time and being a part of it at the core.
I’ll continue making music, crafting my skills as a producer and composer, engaging in collaborations and exciting projects that pique my interest. It’s a crazy world we are living in and with everything happening around us, community is more important than ever! Although my first love will always be Hip Hop, I continue to be fascinated by technological progress and hope to continue to be involved with a multitude of dope initiatives. Here’s to a decentralized future!
BONUS VIDEO
If you made it this far, that means you care. Here is DJ Lethal Skillz in his 1998 video clip which he claims is the first Arabic Rap Video in the world.
If you enjoyed this article, hit Twitter with a message ‘Congratulations DJ Lethal Skillz’ in the next 24 hours and DM our twitter inbox with your EOS address and we will drop you 100 EMT to help kickstart your own journey. | https://medium.com/emanate-live/bomb-shelters-to-blockchain-dj-lethal-skillz-859d1f111e14 | [] | 2020-12-15 10:05:54.680000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Blockchain', 'Music', 'Nft', 'Hip Hop'] |
M1 — Apple’s New Silicon Microarchitecture On A Chip | Apple innovates in many ways, whether it is the latest design or the best new features. They have taken the path to full vertical integration by developing some of their own hardware, including the processors. Apple began this move with the A series SoC (System-on-a-Chip) that first appeared on the iPhone and later the iPad. Apple also developed SIP (System-in-a-Package) chips which they introduced in the Apple Watch. These chips were designed using the ARM processor architecture, which differs from the x86 processor architecture used on Apple’s desktop and laptop models. Products like the Macbook Pro and the iMac use intel-based processors that use the x86 instruction set. The PC is also using x86 processors made by intel on models from Dell, HP and Lenovo (to name a few).
The move to an ARM-based microarchitecture for Apple’s desktop and laptop models is perhaps a big deal. It introduces what is called “Apple Silicon” to the rest of Apple’s retail line. It is also a move away from intel, the primary chip maker for Apple’s desktop and laptop line since the departure from the PowerPC architecture. Ironically, the PowerPC was similar to the ARM, since both used a RISC-based instruction set. The move from PowerPC to intel was mainly due to the lack of power efficiency, which affected Apple’s efforts to produce longer lasting laptops and less power hungry systems. It seemed unlikely Apple was going to return to that architecture moving forward, but ARM introduced a much better design which falls in line with Apple’s own principle.
During Apple’s One More Thing event last November 10, 2020, Apple made the official announcement of the M1 processor i.e. Apple Silicon. The first generation of products running on Apple Silicon will appear in the 2020 Macbook Air, Mac Mini and 13.3" Macbook Pro. The M1 is the first ARM-based processor to appear on Apple’s desktop and laptop line. This is also going to allow apps developed for the iOS to run on the devices running macOS, since they now have the same underlying architecture. No more different versions of an app since it will now be able to run across Apple’s ecosystem from an iPhone to a Macbook Pro.
Background
In June 6, 2005 during WWDC, then Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the transition from the PowerPC to intel. In his keynote speech, he made it clear what the reason for the transition was:
“When we look at Intel, they’ve got great performance, yes, but they’ve got something else that’s very important to us. Just as important as performance, is power consumption.”
The measure used to determine this is called performance per watt. This is in simple terms, how much performance can you derive from a product in a watt of power consumed. The product is referring to the CPU or processor (e.g. M1, i9–9900K, 5900X, etc.). The more that a processor can perform, the better. Unfortunately, the PowerPC did not have that capability. It was consuming more power to perform tasks that the intel processor can achieve more efficiently.
We can measure efficiency in terms of performance per watt. This is basically saying if you can perform more tasks (operations) (t) per clock cycle (f) of the CPU by consuming less power (W), the better the performance in relation to efficiency (E).
E = (t / f) / W
Fast forward in time, and Apple is transitioning once more. Apple is looking for more efficient processors that can prolong battery life. There are benchmarks used to measure the performance which can draw observations in the lab. In the real world it also translates to the results of those observations, but not directly in the same manner due to other factors. This is because benchmarks are based on tests while users are more random in how they use a computer. The point here is that benchmarks are the best way to determine how the product will perform.
When the iPhone was developed, they did not consider using intel processors because those chips are not energy efficient. Intel’s chips are primarily used for general purpose computing which run on desktop and workstations that are powered from the grid. What mobile device makers take into consideration are components that will run with less power at a longer duration using a battery. Since intel’s chips consume more energy, it will not be ideal for battery powered mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. The solution was ARM-based processors like that from Qualcomm that are more energy efficient. Apple then developed their own which became the A series processors (e.g. A14 Bionic). The M1 is the next generation of Apple Silicon.
Introducing The M1
The M1 is Apple’s first generation of Apple Silicon SoC developed for computers (e.g. laptops, desktop). It is built by TSMC using a 5 nm fabrication process which fits 16 billion transistors on the chip. The design integrates the typical features found in a system into a single die on the chip. That includes the CPU, graphics, memory and advanced features into one component. This consists of 8 CPU cores and 8 GPU cores with integrated caches, neural engine and DRAM.
The M1 processor die (Source Apple)
The CPU uses a BIG.little configuration which has a similar design to the A series chips. It utilizes 4 high-performance cores with 4 high-efficiency cores which balances workloads. All cores don’t have to run at the same power, which is why it consumes less energy. The high-performance cores deal with short burst compute loads that require faster clock speeds, while the high-efficiency cores handle background tasks or processes that don’t require as much power to finish. At the moment there is no official information posted regarding the actual clock speed of the cores, so that is something to look forward to.
The M1 uses a unified memory architecture or UMA, which creates a single pool for high-bandwidth and low latency memory access across all components in the chip. This improves performance since it decreases the data paths between the components to memory. This provides faster response times and improves the performance in graphics and video applications (e.g. streaming video and games).
According to Apple, the M1 boosts performance per watt up to 3x. This is in comparison to the latest intel processors (not specific), so that means it can perform more tasks at less power consumed. This is perhaps a good reason to use the M1 for laptops like the Macbook Air and Macbook Pro. It will initially appear on the Macbook Pro 13.3" version, not the higher-end. This should give time for power users like editors and graphics specialists to see how well the M1 performs on the 13.3" Macbook Pro model. Sure enough, if that creates more demand for a higher-end version, it should appear on the 16" Macbook Pro as well but it may not be called the M1.
A graph showing the increase in performance per watt from 2012 to 2020 (Source Apple)
The integrated GPU, which has 8 cores, is another feature introduced in the M1. Apple has also developed their GPU without resorting to using the design from partners like AMD. If they did, then it doesn’t quite follow the vertical integration path that they are trying to accomplish. The M1 can execute 25,000 threads, which leads to Apple’s claims of having the fastest integrated graphics (based on testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction 13.3" MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 chip and 16 GB of RAM).
The Neural Engine on the M1 is perhaps one of Apple’s MVP features. This is capable of performing up to 11 trillion operations per second. It is built with a 16 core neural engine used for AI-based computations designed for machine learning. Apple claims it boosts performance by 15x, allowing compute intensive applications like video editing to perform faster based on these AI calculations.
The features of the M1 chip (Source Apple)
Energy Efficiency
One of the main benefits of shifting to M1 from an intel processor is the amount of power devices will save. An energy efficient chip design not only conserves energy for longer lasting battery life, but improves the performance per watt. Being able to execute more operations per clock cycle at the fraction of power consumed is very much needed as performance demands among users increases.
In the Information Age, users demand their smartphones and laptops to last longer from a single charge. Users are doing activities that now require more battery life, like streaming video and working remotely on location. There is also the inconvenience many users face with recharging their devices. While portable battery chargers can provide some additional power, there are times one is not available. There are also times when it is not possible to charge when there are no places available to plug in.
Another benefit to having energy efficient devices is to the environment. It creates a smaller carbon footprint when taken at scale of millions of devices. The idea here is that having to charge a smartphone or laptop less cuts costs and energy demand in the long run, so this requires less fuel consumed per user (these are estimates only and not based on a complete study).
Streamlined Ecosystem
It is also going to benefit Apple’s ecosystem as a whole. By having a common instruction set compatible with the underlying architecture, apps that run on one device can run on a different device. This allows the same apps that run on an iPhone iOS to run on a Macbook Pro, Mac Mini and iMac that are running macOS versions. Previously it would require having to download a different version of the app since iPhones use an ARM-based RISC instruction set while the Macbook Pro uses an x86-based CISC instruction set. Now that the next generation of Macbooks will be built with an M1 or ARM-based processor, it can run the same apps installed on an iPhone.
This would really be convenient for developers. Gone are the days of having to prototype for different CPU architectures. Instead they can focus on just one platform, reducing development costs and saving time in delivering an app to market. A software company would have teams developing an app for different platforms. It could also get complicated over time since different versions of an app are platform specific. A single platform simplifies the development process, but there might still be some details that need to be specific to an app (e.g. display on a smartphone vs. display on a laptop screen).
A more streamlined ecosystem can even lead to a single operating system. If that were the case, then there will no longer be an iOS, macOS, WatchOS or tvOS. Perhaps it will just be an AppleOS. The naming convention is appropriate though to distinguish the type of device. The naming could remain the same, but the operating systems on each device will derive from the same source that supports a common instruction set.
Less Dependency
Apple’s move to M1 lessens their dependency on other chip makers, notably intel. While Apple still relies on chip manufacturer TSMC to build the product, the fact is the chip was designed by Apple’s own research and development team. They don’t owe any other company royalties or need to pay for licensing if they can build their own chip. With the M1 being fully Apple designed, if they had used AMD’s GPU like the RDNA 2, then they would have to pay AMD to integrate that with their product.
Less dependence on others gives Apple more control of development. In the past Apple would have to wait on intel every time they needed chips. This proved to be a horrible relationship since intel had problems fulfilling Apple’s orders. Apple had to rely on intel’s product cycle in order to get the chips they needed, and it was affecting Apple’s own product releases. That meant Apple had to wait until intel had the chips ready, but by the time they released it the product’s features would be obsolete or behind the times. That creates missed opportunities in the market, which can affect revenues. Apple has no control over that, which is why it makes sense from a business perspective to explore other options.
Final Thoughts
The M1 is just the first generation of Apple Silicon for the Mac line. Powerful computing no longer means power hungry systems that consume more energy to perform the most amount of tasks. The ARM-based processors show that optimized instruction sets that can use parallelism can improve performance at the fraction of the amount of energy consumed. This is the design philosophy Apple is adopting, as their products aim to boost performance with more efficiency that give users more battery time and value in terms of performance per watt.
Apple can part ways with intel, a break up that was bound to happen after intel’s production delays. Apple probably had enough of having to deal with intel’s issues. Now that Apple has the M1, they have control over their own production cycle. Newer products with the best features can hit the market much faster than before.
While the M1 is for personal computing, I now entertain the idea that Apple could possibly develop a processor for gaming. Now that they can develop their own chips, perhaps the market in the gaming industry could become a possible target. For now the focus would be to get Apple Silicon on the higher end Macbook Pro models and iMac Pro. Then we can see it on a premium product like the Mac Pro. Let us also not forget that early versions tend to have issues, like bugs. Eventually they are ironed out, and only then can we see Apple Silicon expand to other products. | https://medium.com/0xmachina/m1-apples-new-silicon-microarchitecture-on-a-chip-29b4dd45d7a7 | ['Vincent Tabora'] | 2020-11-19 04:56:46.551000+00:00 | ['Apple', 'Computers', 'Engineering', 'MacBook', 'Electronics'] |
My morning routine | Yoga
The first thing I do after I get out of bed is a quick yoga sequence — child’s pose, cat-cow pose, downward dog pose, standing forward bend pose, triangle pose — that I found online.
There’s something about the way it starts on the floor and slowly moves me upwards until I am standing that helps me make that transition from sleep to a ‘starting my day’ mindset, which is usually quite a struggle for me.
Meditation
I’ve done this on and off for a few years but fell off the wagon last year, so I’m starting it again in 2019.
There are two main benefits I hope this meditation practice will bring me — better sleep, something I’ve been struggling with for some time, and better focus during the day (hello, shiny thing syndrome).
A few people have recommended an app to me that has the benefit of tracking which days I use it, so it gives a little dopamine hit of ‘you’ve been doing this for xx days in a row’. Which is a satisfying way to start my day. (It’s the little things, right?)
Shower and dress
This goes in as a specific step in my routine because, since I am not working for anyone else at the moment, I want to tackle my tendency to dither and get distracted in the morning — for example, by reading the news, a big timesuck for me.
It’s an old trick, but feeling the water on my head does give me that little shock to the system that helps me accept that ‘yes, I am actually up and about’.
Breakfast
I’m including this mainly to encourage myself to pre-prepare my breakfasts at the start of the week, rather than blindly eating whatever appears before me, which isn’t always the healthiest option.
I’m trying to have a protein-based breakfast, so I’ve been having a frittata, which is good because all I need to do is cut a piece and heat it up. Fairly idiot-proof, which suits me fine. Especially before I have my first cup of coffee.
Get my water bottle
This is an easy one — a reminder to get my water bottle out of the fridge on my way to my desk and so to drink more during the day. I put the bottle in my eyeline behind my computer screen (on the windowsill) and I try to take a sip whenever I notice it. | https://medium.com/effai-me/my-morning-routine-bc6decad27bd | ['Sarah Magarey'] | 2019-02-14 04:42:32.342000+00:00 | ['Intentional Living', 'Getting Started', 'Morning Routines', 'Life Lessons', 'Productivity'] |
How I built Unstock, a place where you can grab isolated version of Unsplash | This is a series of 1 day 1 profitable product
Hi, friends.
The problem
I had a job where I needed to crop images from site like Unsplash to be put on a website. I need to extract the model from the background (A.K.A remove the background). And I hope that there’s some kind of Unsplash for this kind of isolated images.
Solution
And so I put up a website and put all of my last cropped images to the site. All the works listed here were done with human eye (hello, my eyes 😃) , cropped by hand using a graphic editing software. I think there’s a time I would like to get images cropped using human eye rather than using AI.
Consideration
Now I know there are a lot of other products in this space already (including some really great ones featured right here on Product Hunt), but I think, it would be nice if I just get the result already and decide if it really worths my money. So, my goal with Unstock was to provide isolated stocks ready to be used (hence you get a PNG and a PSD file). I’m sure there’s plenty of room for improvement, please let me know what you think 👍🏻
Execution
I launched this on Product Hunt and Hacker News. Hacker News is so under my expectation, it didn’t go anywhere, literally.
Product Hunt is what I’m going to discuss.
Result
Exposure 7/10
Monetization 0/10
Speaking as a hobby, I think this product can get a good thumb from me. This product break my personal record for the total upvoted from Product Hunt
57 upvoted. That my personal record on Product Hunt.
Let’s look at the graphic
What do you know from this data?
Everyone just look at the front page. From 117, Only 1 that went to the “cart” page. *invisible from the image, but this I tell you.
Only a few that looked at the products.
That’s an insight.
From this, I think I’m going to leave this be. But I’m going to make other again.
Let’s hope we can see a successful monetization product soon.
Follow me https://twitter.com/RicardoSawir | https://medium.com/@ricardosawir/how-i-built-unstock-a-place-where-you-can-grab-isolated-version-of-unsplash-7d3aa2260d7 | ['Ricardo Sawir'] | 2020-12-22 13:15:59.325000+00:00 | ['Lessons Learned', 'Marketing', 'Product', 'Design', 'Business'] |
How To Live A Life Of Intention | Amongst the plethora of differences that separate humans from one another, we are all connected by a significant similarity: what many of us crave more than anything is to experience something meaningful and, especially, to live a meaningful life.
What defines “meaningful” is subjective to the opinions and characteristics of each individual, but one thing that consistently contributes to meaningful experiences is the act of weaving intention into every aspect of one’s life.
Being intentional requires an awareness of what’s below the surface of the many components of our lives. Intention begs the question: What drives my thoughts, actions, or beliefs? If our lives are like vehicles moving through life, then intention is the engine that converts energy into motion.
It’s not easy to consistently live with intention. It requires a level of attentiveness and energy that’s easier to do without. To live with intention, you must first want to, and then know how to. Here are seven valuable ways to begin, or continue, living with intention:
Know what’s important and what’s not.
It sounds like common sense, but simply knowing what’s important to you is one of the first steps of living with intention. And in the process of thinking about it, you may find that you spend less time incorporating the important things into your life than you realize. Or, you may learn the opposite which is great as well!
One easy way to become more aware of the important and non-important things is to make a list. Divide a piece of paper into two sides: on one side write “Important” and on the other write “Not Important.” Be thoughtful about what you write, and try to do so in a quiet space with few distractions that might interrupt your thought process.
Also, try not to be judgmental of what you write down. If, for example, you know that scrolling mindlessly through social media isn’t important to you but you know how often you do it, still write it down! It’s okay to knowingly do something that’s not important to you — we all do it. What’s important is simply being aware of it; leave the judgment out.
After you’ve made a list (and it doesn’t have to include every single thing that is and isn’t important to you), then on a separate sheet write why each thing is or isn’t important. If scrolling social media isn’t important, is it because the information you’re consuming is meaningless, is it because you’re losing valuable time that could be spent doing something more fulfilling, or is it something else? Knowing the reason behind what is/isn’t important to you is where intention really lies. If you know the why, you can determine the what.
Be authentic.
What does that even mean?
Being authentic is the same as being genuine — it means knowing what’s important to you and aligning yourself with those things, without compromising them for an external reward, like social approval or financial gain.
An important part of knowing what’s important to you is being aware of your values, which typically represent qualities like honesty, integrity, and loyalty. What do you care about?
Be cognizant that what you once held as a value — say, as a child — might be different than what you value now. It’s important to get clear on your current values because you may be living your life by past values without realizing it. You can keep track of your values by writing them on the same (or different) paper you recorded what’s important to you on.
Once you feel clear about your values and what’s important to you, practice holding yourself accountable to those things. Doing this requires honesty — and again, without judgment. If honesty is a value of yours but you find yourself occasionally or frequently lying to those around you, get curious about that. What is driving your behavior?
Overtime, as you become more aware of your actions and curious about the why that drives your behavior, you’ll naturally begin to align what’s important to you with how you act day-to-day and how you spend your time.
Photo by Brooke Cagle
Practice self-reflection.
If you’ve gotten this far, you’re already practicing self-reflection! Knowing what’s important to you, your values, and aligning your behavior with those things is self-reflection in action.
One important thing to know about self-reflection is that it requires continuous effort. It doesn’t come with an end goal because we’re all humans who are changing, developing, and growing in every moment. Who you were ten years ago is likely very different than who you are now. If you continuously practice self-reflection, then you’ll be mindful of who you are through the transitions of life.
Journaling is one really effective way to practice self-reflection. Through the process of writing, you might come to realize something about yourself that you didn’t know before. However, the act of writing isn’t so much of what generates reflection. Rather, it’s in going back through old journal entries and reading what you wrote several years, or even several months, before.
Though we’re all constantly changing, there are consistent themes that run through our lives over long periods of time. When you observe your mind from a distance (like after several years have passed), you’re no longer as intimately connected to that version of yourself and can therefore learn A LOT about what’s important to you, who you are, and what lessons you’ve learned overtime.
Ask yourself challenging questions.
Journaling also provides an opportunity to ask yourself difficult questions, like “Why do I believe what I believe,” and “Why am I on the career path that I’m on?” Exploring these types of questions is also self-reflection in progress — and, might I add, really powerful reflection that leads to being more authentic and living a more intentional life. You may have noticed all the steps mentioned in this article build on each other.
As I’ve said before, try not to judge yourself for the answers that come through. While pondering why you’re on your particular career path, for example, don’t run away if an answer like “Well, I’m driven by money,” or “Others told me this was a good path to pursue” comes up. It’s important information for you to have on your journey of living a life of intention. The more aware you are of what motivates your thoughts and actions, the more control you have over your life.
Here are a few questions to help get you started:
Why do I believe _____?
Why am I in my current job?
Do I focus more on negative or positive thoughts?
Do I invest enough time and effort into the relationships that matter to me?
Am I proud of the person I am?
Am I living true to myself?
Do I take anything for granted?
Do I take time for the things that are important to me?
Am I generally happy or sad, and why?
Does ____ situation that happened a while ago still impact me negatively?
Remember that answering challenging questions about yourself is a process and not a one-time activity. The more you transparently explore answers to these questions, the more you’ll learn about yourself.
Photo by Brent Gorwin
Change your thoughts.
At this point you’re likely already feeling pretty dang self aware and are therefore well on the path of living life with intention. This is when things get really exciting, because the more aware you become of yourself, the more power you have to be intentional in everything you do, think, and believe.
Part of the excitement is changing your thoughts, which is something that generates results overtime, so try not to be too hard on yourself if your thoughts don’t change immediately (in fact, I can tell you now they most likely won’t). Being intentional about your thoughts is so important because what we think is often what shapes our perception of ourselves and the world.
Our brains get caught in thought patterns. The thoughts we think overtime create quick, go-to routes in our brains. It’s like developing a path in the wilderness. The path isn’t established immediately (unless of course someone is doing some serious hard work on that path). Instead, it turns into a clear path after people have walked on it over and over again.
Our brains aren’t much different. We’re quick to follow thoughts that we’ve had for a long time, like “I have to ____ because that’s what I was told,” or “I can only be happy if ____,” because we’ve created well-worn pathways in our brains.
Rewiring your thoughts is like creating an entirely new path in the wilderness — it takes time and effort, but the results are long-lasting. When you catch yourself in a thought pattern you’re trying to break, stop yourself in the middle of the thought and step over onto the new pathway you’re trying to develop. Before you know it, the old path will be growing over with weeds and you’ll be on a new journey of thinking.
Pay attention.
Yes, pay attention! But to what exactly? We’ve already talked about paying attention to what’s meaningful to you, your values, and your thoughts. What I’m talking about here is paying attention to what’s around you, like mindfulness.
There is always something beautiful near you, no matter where you’re at or what’s going on in your life. The catch is that you have to look out for it because beauty — like a ruby red rose growing in an alleyway — doesn’t typically beg to be seen. If you’re unaware of what’s around you, how can you appreciate it?
Paying attention contributes to an intentional life because you’re taking control of how you experience life. When you become intentional about noticing the simple beauties around you — like the silhouette of tree branches against a setting sun, the gentle harmony of birds chirping outside, or the silent sparkle of fresh snowflakes — it significantly impacts your experience of a meaningful life.
Anything that’s meaningful won’t appear meaningful to you unless you intentionally notice and appreciate that thing for what it is.
Practice gratitude.
Being grateful comes rather naturally when you practice paying attention to things around you. When you notice pleasant things that you didn’t take time to recognize before, you can’t help but feel gratitude for that thing.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t moments when life appears bleak, and you could spend all day paying attention to beauty and still not feel elevated. That’s okay. You don’t have to feel grateful in every single moment of every day. But practicing gratitude regularly leads to greater satisfaction of life in general because, as I mentioned before, you’re building pathways in your brain to naturally appreciate the things around you.
In the morning or at night, practice writing down three things you’re grateful for. If it’s at night, think of three things you’re grateful for that happened that day. Or, if you’re not much of a writer, just simply notice things in the moment. As you spend more time paying attention, do so with gratitude. When you witness something that brings joy, think “I’m thankful for ____.”
Gratitude has the greatest impact on our lives when we practice it in small moments on a consistent basis. Acknowledging that you’re thankful for something is making a choice to recognize it, and therefore choosing to be intentional about your thoughts.
A meaningful life doesn’t come on its own — instead, it’s the product of weaving intention into every aspect of our lives overtime. What each of us craves more than most things, if not all, is a life of meaning, which starts by being intentional about your life in the seven different ways I mentioned above.
Living with intention requires effort, attentiveness, and therefore a desire to want to live in such a way. Being intentional begins with the choice you make to be aware of who you are and the life you’re living. The fact that you read this article is a testament to your willingness to live life on your own terms, in a conscious and meaningful way. More than anything else, I hope you find purpose and meaning along your powerful, life-changing journey of living with intention.
XO | https://medium.com/@samanthacase/how-to-live-a-life-of-intention-b7dd1fd9a932 | ['Samantha Case'] | 2019-02-07 20:25:59.420000+00:00 | ['Intentional Living', 'Self-awareness', 'Self Improvement', 'Meaning', 'Life Lessons'] |
Kid Cudi Saved My Life | The ‘Man on The Moon’ Series
From 2008–10, Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi) attained chart success and subtly pioneered his way to prominence. Amid a culture shifting musically, in terms of style and lyrical content, Cudi paved way for mental health’s inclusion in rap culture.
On his first album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, Cudi delivered a dreamy, space-like persona that was introspective, honest, and somewhat revolutionary for the genre. Thanks to tracks like “Day n Nite,” “Pursuit of Happiness,” and “Soundtrack 2 My Life” Cudi rendered a composite of artless feeling among listeners world-wide.
Success continued for Mescudi on his bittersweet sophomore album, Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager. This project significantly shifted to a darker, more vulnerable tone due to tribulations of an intense drug addiction — the man had fallen into a black hole. The album acted as his psychedelic synopsis of misfortune, sorrow, and rage.
It was an open confession to suicidal thoughts and depression.
Relation to Mental Health
Mescudi grew up an artsy, uncoordinated child in Cleveland, Ohio. On multiple occasions, he’s expressed moments in grade-school where he felt awkward and out of place. At times, Scott was bullied for being an outcast and, worst of all, his father died of cancer when he was 11 years old. His troubled disposition lead him to expulsion from high-school — he threatened to punch the principal in the face.
Childhood was not one of ease or popularity for the young artist.
His struggle and bereavement had notable effect on his personality and subsequently his music.
Majority of Cudi’s impact stems from his willingness to express the pain and emotion he’s felt in his life; it’s been a cornerstone of his sound since the beginning.
Contrary to rap’s narrative of “money, cars, and hoes,” Mescudi changed the game by filling a void in virtue. Through his authenticity and readiness to reveal himself, he’s manifested a sense of connection and understanding with fans. He’s always felt his purpose had meaning beyond just “making music.”
Interview with Arsenio Hall — Source: YouTube
Kid Cudi made it okay to feel sad, lonely, and depressed.
Since success, he’s recognized his responsibility to help others cope with mental illness. By transmitting his own struggles through music, he’s able to commiserate with listeners from all ages and backgrounds.
He’s changed the way kids address disorder of the mind.
Other Voices in Hip-hop
Scott Mescudi is not the “one-and-only” ambassador for concern of loneliness, self-destruction, and internal confusion. Since the inception of hip-hop, emcees such as 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G, and Nas have expressed sentiments of suicide and depression.
However, no one has matched the grandeur of Cudi’s impact.
On the cusp of internet and hip-hop prominence, Kid Cudi’s message had a never-before-seen cascade effect. By the grace of timing and technology, Mescudi resonated with millions of adolescents and young adults around the globe. For many, it was the first time hearing subject matter of it’s kind — for all, it was the first time hearing it expressed so vividly and honest.
“Kid Cudi on Steve’s iMac” — Apple Keynote Event (2009)
Influence
Inevitably, Cudi has influenced musicians superseding him, too.
It’s worth mentioning Cudi’s correlation to luminaries in hip-hop culture, Kanye West and Drake. 2008 was a special year — it permanently changed the soundscape for hip-hop and rap.
The mixtape debut, A Kid Named Cudi, dropped in mid-2008 which caught the interest of none other than Kanye West, who flew young Cudi out to Hawaii to work with him. The two collaborated on Ye’s latest album; one that would incorporate more melody and melancholy, something Mescudi owned at the time. 808s & Heartbreak released later in ’08 — in hindsight, a prominent influence for a new wave of thematic content among the genre.
Drake followed this mixture of singing and introspective rap on his break out tape So Far Gone, which released in early 2009. Without the previous upsurge of “new-found style” from Cudi and Ye, it’s hard to say Drake would have made a project so on par with that vibe. Smash hits such as “Best I Ever Had” and “Successful” arose from such sound and launched Drake into the musical stratosphere where he continues to move today.
Cudi, Kanye, and Drake — a brain trust of sonic influencers — forever changed the course of hip-hop. They opened so many avenues for artists to rightfully express themselves and their state of mind.
Today’s “new-age” rappers have built off of similar undertones in their music, as well. Rap culture is affluent with hints and references to psychological disarray.
Artists like Vic Mensa, Lil Uzi Vert, and XXXTentacion have openly expressed suicidal urges — it’s commonplace to incorporate notions of sadness and despair. The doors have opened for performers to let their emotions ring true.
Moreover, plenty of people in and around hip-hop have expressed their respect for Kid Cudi’s contributions. Travis Scott and Pete Davidson have both stated on camera “Kid Cudi saved my life.”
In 2017, Logic released the biggest song of his career, “1–800–273–8255;” a song titled after a suicide prevention hot-line. On Logic’s third album, Everybody, the 28-year-old touches an array of mental health issues spanning from anxiety and derealization to suicide and depression.
Can you guess one of Logic’s biggest inspirations?
“Logic holding up a Kid Cudi album” Source: YouTube
Difference Maker
What makes an artist like Kid Cudi so special is not simply the fact he’s open about his woes. The real reason he’s revered and regarded as a hero is because he makes all the struggle and emotion come full-circle — he’s a beam of hope.
Majority of the current artists rapping about poor mental health conditions do not come with the same level of gratitude as Cudi. It’s difficult to distinguish who’s truly battling a mental disorder and who’s putting on an act. Much of the newer artists appear to shout precarious claims for the sake of sounding precarious.
“Edgy” is very popular at the moment.
But, Mescudi handled it differently. He carried his troubles authentically and rewarded kids who listened. Kid Cudi didn’t just deliver dead-end motifs; he came with justification, which is largely why he’s different.
He delivered his distress and emotion with an aim for higher ground. Although hurt, as a listener, you felt a sense of redemption through his music; like there was light at the end of the tunnel. Even though tracks like “Heart of a Lion” and “Mr. Rager” revolve around internal strife, they give the impression contentment will return, despite how much fight it might take to get there.
Above all, Kid Cudi empowered and emboldened young minds to conquer intense mental convictions — not run from them.
He made it okay to feel those dark emotions deep down. He made it okay to say nightmarish thoughts out loud. He made it okay to fight for the will to live another day.
“Kid Cudi saved my life.” | https://alecz.medium.com/kid-cudi-saved-my-life-7b97dd7da7c4 | ['Alec Zaffiro'] | 2018-08-07 22:40:08.321000+00:00 | ['Suicide', 'Mental Health', 'Hip Hop', 'Depression', 'Music'] |
year of content (a 2021-trospective) | credit: alex brenner (set/costumes: charlie espiner // lighting: alex fernandes)
Hello! I’ve been looking forward to writing this. It feels like a nice way to clear mental room for the year incoming. It also feels like a nice time to solidify ideas and say things. Let’s do that.
I spent a lot of time online this year and feel poorer for it. I spent my time trawling twitter or instagram or youtube or tiktok, usually bored at what I was consuming but not enough to do literally anything else. Content slips into how I think about things. The podcast The Content Mines and the newsletter Garbage Day may have had something to do with it, and both feel like breathing space to collect thoughts on what the internet is rn (or at least two other peoples thoughts on it). I’d recommend it to anyone interested in the internet/internet culture. I think it is worth talking about. I was considering doing a ‘best content’ section to this, but I don’t think I’d remember enough of it. It’s too ephemeral to make a lasting impact unless it’s something so wild you can’t not think of it, and I don’t want to give that further space. The only thing I’ve noticed is that everything seems faster: the cycle of memes, the immediacy of response, the reaction in the offline world. It feels disconcerting.
I don’t know how I feel about Inside. I think it’s inventive in what it does visually with one camera and a few LED lights, I think the songs are really great (always catchy, some emotionally hard-hitting), and its exploration of depression and the growing contentification of everything in the pandemic era is emotionally impactful and (to me) important. But I can’t recommend it fully. There’s an intangible quality that keeps me from loving it totally. Some topics/targets feel obvious. Much of its non-music comedy segments are forgettable. And despite its stance Inside cannot escape the snare of content, inspiring much of its own. While there is something heartening about people responding to something by creating, it’s practically fuel for the platforms that make this bad content possible. Also, some of it is really cringe.
THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH IS ABOUT DOGS DYING/PET GRIEF SO PLEASE SKIP IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ ABOUT IT. Two of my dogs died this year, Tess was 16, and Fred was 13. Both were put down due to health complications. When Tess died I felt okay, mainly because she had lived a long life and had been in poor health for a few years. It had been a long time coming and I had time to process it. It was strange seeing the places she would often lay now being vacant, the ongoing realisation that she will never be there ever again. Fred’s death came quicker. He had an inoperable brain tumour. He became slower and weaker, and after a day spent whining in pain, we felt it wasn’t right for him to continue. I was there when he died, and remember thinking I could see his eye move, his paw twitch; I felt a hope beyond hope that he would suddenly spring up for a cuddle. The suddenness of it all made it harder to deal with. I had spent a lot of the pandemic hanging out with Fred and that absence I felt with Tess became especially compounded. I think about him often. The grief for a pet is nothing compared to the grief for a person, but in their passing the qualities they had and the memories they left behind become so clear. A friend messaged me after Fred’s death and wrote that he ‘made us all happy without knowing’, which feels very selfless in a way. What a legacy for a dog to have.
I didn’t read that many books this year but I’m glad I read No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood and Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino. No One Is Talking About This captures (more any art I know) the strange meeting place of the internet and our lives, how each blurs into the other, how language is changing because of it, and what can happen to rupture us from our online lives. I found it a compelling read and it made me laugh a lot. Trick Mirror might be the best book of essays I’ve ever read and will join The Secret History in the collection of books I will keep with me no matter what. I think about Trick Mirror often due to how Tolentino explores/deals with the complexity of each of her essays’ topics. Each covers a lot of ground, sometimes feeling like two (or three!) essays at once, but she always manages to wrap them together. I hope I can be as good a writer/as deep a thinker as Tolentino is. It’s also stayed with me because a section at the end of the book that puts into words something I felt about myself: “The more I try to uncover whatever I’m looking for the more I feel that I’m too far gone. I can feel the low, easy hum of self-delusion whenever I think about all of this (…) the tug of my deep and recurring suspicion that anything I might think about myself must be somehow unnecessarily wrong.”
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut was the best game I played this year. I’d recommend it to everyone, even/especially people who don’t play games. I have not played a game recently that felt so rich in its text/art/design/voice acting. There is texture in everything. Running through the world feels like fingers moving across the grooves of a puzzle box. I remember chatting to friends and being overjoyed in the ways they overcame certain problems in ways I couldn’t have imagined. The world feels lived in and full; even it’s smallest characters are fleshed out and memorable. It feels like the game Cyberpunk 2077 wanted to be, made by a smaller team with fewer resources (and *way* better politics). It never wastes your time and feels chock full of things to do. For once I felt bad for not doing a game’s sidequests, for missing out on what it had to offer. If most games are about the physical (controlling a body in space) Disco Elysium is the cerebral, though presented in an incredibly visceral way. Regret and stagnation marinade your avatar and the world around you. But still it asks you to carry on, that it’s never too late to make some change, being labelled a sorry-socialist-art-cop or otherwise. It’s a game about being vulnerable, about learning to be aware of yourself and the world around you. It also has the best voice acting in any game ever. In so many ways, nothing (games or otherwise) comes close. A second play is an inevitability.
I saw Civilisation in 2019 but in the haze of the Fringe was too tired to take it in. Seeing it again this year cemented it as one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Subconsciously I’ve always wanted a show like this. Something that presents the ennui of being alone, the tiny moments that usually lay un-staged, the small hours curled up in bed with no one but your laptop. It’s the most beautiful bit of ‘naturalism’ I’ve ever seen on stage. The way it uses ‘Lay All Your Love on Me’ will be seared into my brain until I die. I love the choreography and the smooth focus of the dancers performing it. Their inclusion alongside the naturalism complicates our viewing, its movements responding to the naturalism as if to a soundtrack. Its interpretation-made-physical, though it is similarly abstracted. Civilisation gives you no exposition to cling to but many prompts to imagine off. Maybe the show is suggesting we shouldn’t be interpreting this woman’s grief but just pay witness to it. Maybe the dancers are filling the space left by the main character’s deceased partner. Whatever reading is made, we’re eventually left with a blank stage, its dancers moving without music, stripped of any interpretation the audience can give them. Then the show ends.
I spent June-November in a strange frame of mind. Of course things weren’t back to normal, but it felt the most like 2019 in a while. I saw my friends, went to the theatre, went back to work (eventually quiting the job I disliked), and got a new job. And that was all good! But I had some bad thoughts in my mind; that I had wasted the pause the pandemic gave me; that I had ended up in the same place as I had before. As autumn progressed I felt things were likely to get worse COVID-wise, that none of the current climate felt real.
FILMS I LOVED: The Twentieth Century, Beyond Clueless, Shiva Baby, L.A. Confidential, Minari, After Love, Another Round, Censor, Gobble-Gobble, The Green Knight, The French Dispatch, Cryptozoo
SONGS I LOVED: This Is The Day (The The), I’ve Told Every Little Star (Linda Scott), Starry Eyes (Cigarettes After Sex), 僕は一寸 (Haruomi Hosono), Bees & Honey (Rina Sawayama), Chaconne in G (Moondog), White Mice (Mo-Dettes), Avril 14th (YACHT), Savage Good Boy (Japanese Breakfast), Content, Sexting, Look Who’s Inside Again, Problematic, Don’t Wanna Know, All Eyes On Me (Bo Burnham), Industry Baby (Lil Nas X feat. Jack Harlow), Oxytocin (Billie Eilish), Just a waste (Pink Pantheress), Pop Star (Coco & Clair Clair), Kokomo, IN (Japanese Breakfast), Play The Greatest Hits (Wolf Alice), Fake ID (Riton, Kah-Lo), That Funny Feeling (Phoebe Bridgers), Goca Dünya (Altin Gün), Set it on Fire (Blood Cultures), The Private Dining Room Of The Police Commissioner (Alexandre Desplat), Patchwork (Laurie Spiegel), How Dare You Want More (Bleachers), Stavisky (Générique) (Steven Sondheim), Soñando De Ti (Part Time)
TV I LOVED: Feel Good (s. 1+2), Can’t Get You Out of My Head, I May Destroy You, Broad City (s.1) and Succession (s.3)
Deathloop is the game I had most fun playing this year. Traversing through it reminded me of my teenage years sprinting through multiplayer maps; where danger could be anywhere but every move was thrilling. Each of its levels seem small at first but grow in size, detail and intricacy as you replay them, like one string wrapped into a huge ball of yarn. It’s a game made of a dozen existing ideas and mechanics (the powers from Dishonoured, the time-loop clue-gathering of The Outer Wilds, and the PvP of Dark Souls to name a few) but does so in a way that feels exciting. It makes a case for this kind of iterative creation, of what the best result of it can be. I found myself dreaming up other games as I went through. I hope its success encourages other AAA studios to go out and make something just as specific in its texture.
I don’t quite know what my relationship to theatre is anymore, which is weird because this is probably the most active and “successful” I’ve been. I see fewer shows and feel less in touch or interested in searching out stuff. I think some of that will change next year (touch wood) but nothing quite feels right rn. The amount of organisations that have done pretty awful things especially compounds this. I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said. Just that it bears repeating that it doesn’t have to be like this.
I love Tim Rogers and I loved his two long-form reviews of Tokimeki Memorial and Cyberpunk 2077. His videos pull and tear what we expect a video game review into a strange, loud and personal new form. I’m not a fan of super long videos but Rogers’ work is the exception. Each of his Action Button Reviews have an album-like quality, where you can go back to certain sections you like/parts you weren’t fond of the first time with new understanding. They are at once a video game review, a memoir, a post-joycean language work-out and a wider cultural critique. Both videos are fascinating critiques about its specific game, the context within which they arose, and the effect they have had on Rogers, all rendered in bright visuals, classical music and maximalist text. They always go in unexpected directions. Like the best long experiences, they are a journey. If ‘content’ is an unmistakable part of our culture, then Rogers is one of the people showing how far it can be pushed, and maybe, how good it can be.
I waited eagerly for the third season of Succession. Watching it week by week felt odd after bingeing the last two series but I liked the ritual of it, the chance to digest and discuss the episode with friends week by week. I saw a lot of people online complaining about its slowness, and part of me feels that’s down to it’s serialised watching. My favourite episode was the eighth with its constant delivery of jaw-dropping moments. If I have one criticism it’s that this feels the most aware the show has been of its fanbase. The constant references to social media, the Nero/Sporus moment, the No Context-baiting of certain lines (Salome Wagaine wrote a great piece about that aspect here). Despite that, I thought it was good overall because Succession offers a lot to its viewers. Everything is multifaceted. Even when it’s slow, everything pays off.
Maybe content is so on my mind because the internet is changing. I don’t believe the Metaverse Facebook is pitching will happen, and Crypto is an undeniable scam/eco-disaster, but both feel like a harbinger of a new, unfamiliar internet. I’m interested in how theatre can respond to that content and form wise, if games can present a playful tech-alternative, if a new genuinely good art-form can arise from content. But I don’t know. The unknown of it worries me. Either way, I want to be less online next year. It’s numbing me. There are things I want to do, people to spend time with and places to go. I want my life to be more physical, not less.
I usually feel quite excited for the new year but right now I’m not sure. Everything that happened in 2020/21 has made it all feel more precarious. I hope you found you something you enjoyed this year at any rate. Everything is teetering on the edge, and it’s certainly harder to be optimistic, but I know the catastrophes that plague our lives will end. It might just take a little longer. I remember reading an interview/article about the cartoonist Simone Veil ending with a two-panel comic that I’ve thought about it a lot since. I’ve posted it below.
credit: simone veil
One day the sun will rise again. I know it will.
Happy new year x | https://medium.com/@jmsnsh/year-of-content-a-2021-trospective-102580aad902 | ['James Nash'] | 2021-12-28 17:16:47.521000+00:00 | ['End Of Year', 'Theatre', 'Content', 'Games', 'Personal Essay'] |
How to Be a Leader People Love | How to Be a Leader People Love
A little charisma goes a long way.
75% of employees consider their direct manager to be the “worst part of their job” according to a survey of almost 5,000 employees conducted by Hogan Assessments.
This is a troubling statistic for both managers and employees.
A hard-working technical genius of an employee doesn’t necessarily translate to a good leader.
Many crash and burn as a leader simply because they don’t understand what makes people want to follow them. They don’t understand how people see them. They don’t understand what makes people like and respect them.
Because leadership is all about people, it’s all about how your people feel about you.
Here are a few ways to be a more likable leader. | https://medium.com/mind-cafe/how-to-be-a-leader-people-love-8f2f1fa1a730 | ['Max Klein'] | 2020-07-18 16:33:27.633000+00:00 | ['Emotional Intelligence', 'Productivity', 'Work', 'Leadership', 'Leadership Development'] |
Wartime CEO stories | From wartime mentality to asking actionable questions — we picked and repackaged the 5 top crisis-time tips and cases from probably the best book out there on how to run a startup during hard times, Ben Horowitz’s “The Hard Thing About Hard Things”.
Ben, worth $3.5B, is a leading authority on the matters — he ran 2 of the defining companies of our era, Netscape, which shaped how Internet works, and Loudcloud, the first cloud company (later Opsware); he went through all kinds of hell with them, from the dot-com crisis to 9/11 attacks to multiple near-bankruptcies, and he runs Andreessen-Horowitz, a legendary VC firm famous for its pro-CEO strategy. And his book is quite unique in its openness about the challenges he faced and lessons he took out on the way to Opsware’s $1.6B exit.
1. Embrace WARTIME MENTALITY
“I was a peacetime CEO for three days and wartime CEO for eight years” says Ben. Wartime vs. peacetime leadership was an influential notion when Ben popularized it in 2011. Most management books and advice describe peacetime leadership techniques and very few describe wartime. Peacetime is about growing, wartime is about surviving. Peacetime CEO focuses on the big picture — wartime CEO is paranoid and micro-managing. Peacetime CEO follows protocols and minimizes conflict — wartime CEO doesn’t give a shit. And so on. A startup life is mostly a wartime, so when the market is in turmoil, you’re facing a double-wartime reality.
One year after pivoting from Loudcloud (cloud provisioning) to Opsware (cloud optimization SW), the company grew and all looked good. Suddenly EDS, the largest $20M/year client generating 90% revenue, decided to cancel the agreement and get the money back due to numerous problems with the product. This meant sure death to the company, given the financial hit to P&L, strong negative signal to the market and huge drop in revenues to investors.
While saving this crucial account seemed impossible, Ben stopped everything and regrouped the whole company around saving it at all costs, putting 2 of his best managers on 2 tasks: Jason on fixing all the issues and Anthony on finding out how to make the client happy beyond this. They identified and met with the champion at EDS, Frank (not his real name) who was so extremely negative that he shouted them out. They managed to get 60 days from Frank to fix all the issues, which seemed extremely tough. Jason marched the team through the deployment with 18/7 work-week. Anthony spent time with Frank, showing him the company, studying the deployment and Frank’s psychology. Ben held daily status updates and made sure every resource in the company is dedicated daily to removing any block discovered.
After 30 days it became clear that the fixes will not be ready on time. But Anthony discovered that Frank loves a small inventory product named Tangram which was about to be replaced by a free competitive product and Frank felt he was screwed, for which he had special sensitivity as he wasn’t really generally happy with his job. After initial skepticism, Ben discovered that Tangram’s valuation was only $6M and it was open for acquisition. Even though the standard M&A logic and everyone on the team was against it, Ben decided to acquire Tangram and managed to close it within the next 30 days. Opsware then provided it free to EDS, which made Frank really happy.
Tangram’s present and the enormous daily progress with fixing the issues so deeply impressed Frank that he told them they were his best vendor and he’d be happy to continue working with them. This saved the largest account for Ben and prevented the company from sure bankruptcy.
2. Make your Team your WARTIME GENERALS
“I was at war and I needed a wartime general”. Not only you — your whole team should embrace wartime mindset, especially your leading management.
When Opsware was struggling with sales, Ben felt he was in another survival wartime and after 3 failed attempts to hire a sales lead, he realized he needed to hire for strength and the crucial strength was wartime sales capabilities. After 2 dozen candidates Mark Cranney appeared, who looked the opposite of the classic dead of sales — he was short, came from a weak university and made people uncomfortable, including Ben. But he had the number one strength Ben was looking for — he absolutely mastered the sales process and training sales-reps and was tough, “he sounded like General Patton”.
The whole board was uncomfortable with hiring Mark, but Ben had a feeling he was the right fit for the wartime. He made a reference call where the reference praised Mark’s skills but overall didn’t recommend to hire him because he would be a terrible cultural fit for saying things like “if you don’t bring me five hundred thousand dollars a quarter, I’m putting a bullet in your head”.
This quote would disqualify a candidate in peacetime, but that’s exactly what was needed in wartime, so Ben hired Mark. Eventually, everyone on the board agreed Mark was the best possible hire; he brought more than a hundred million of dollars in sales and continued with Ben to be Andreessen-Horowitz’s leading sales expert.
3. Face TOUGH BUT ACTIONABLE questions
Instead of escaping or grieving on thoughts of bad scenarios, ask yourself ACTIONABLE questions about these bad scenarios, analyze them objectively and act on the answers early on.
After Loudcloud’s initial explosive growth in 1999, problems mounted — the dot-com burst in 2000, then 9/11 attacks in 2001, the market was slowing and largest competitor Exodus went bankrupt after raising $800M on $50B valuation a year earlier. The future started looking very bad. Ben spent several sleepless weeks realizing the future for Loudcloud business is dark and avoiding the question “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” since he knew the answer is bankruptcy.
Then one day Ben asked himself a different question: “What would I do if we went bankrupt?” He surprised himself with the answer: “I’d buy our software, Opsware (cloud automation), which runs in Loudcloud, out of bankruptcy and start a software company.” Then he asked himself “Is there a way to do that without going bankrupt?”. The answer was complex, but it started with separating Opsware from Loudcloud and Ben immediately assigned an engineering team to work on it quietly.
Few months later, Atriax, a large client, went bankrupt and cancelled its $25M booking. This effectively killed the fundraising campaign a day before its launch and forced Ben to accelerate the pivot and sell Loudcloud to EDS, leaving Opsware as the company’s future. The deal itself was a fire-sale but thanks to separated Opsware it both allowed to include licensing it for $20M/year as part of the deal and left Ben with a new product ready to be sold for the pivoted company. Thanks to Ben asking these questions and acting on the surprising answers early, the fire-sale wasn’t the end, but was a successful pivot which eventually led to $1.6B exit.
4. Spot MARKET ANOMALIES to identify Opportunities
Everything is relative. If everyone is panicking, the few that are not, or panicking less, can spot opportunities that all the others miss. For instance, in Ben’s case, when everyone was rightfully scared to go public, he chose to go through hell to go public and succeeded, even though this success by itself may seem relative.
Initially, things were super-bright for Loudcolud, the first ever cloud company that Ben and Marc founded after selling Netscape to AOL in 1999. Within the first year of founding, Loudcloud raised $200M+, reached $700M valuation, booked $30M+ in contracts, grew to 400+ employees, was praised as “Marc Andreessen’s second coming” and seemed like it was the fastest-growing business in history. Then, in 2000, the great dot-com crash happened, the NASDAQ lost most of its value, Loudcloud finished Q3 of 2000 with $37M in bookings against $100M+ planned and the cash was going to end very soon.
Every private investor was off and Loudcloud, half-year earlier the hottest startup in Silicon Valley, became un-fundable. But, it appeared that, as Ben says, “This may sound like a crazy anomaly and it was, but private funds had become completely cynical while the public markets were only 80 percent of the way there”. So Ben decided that even though everyone thought this was a crazy idea, this was a better option than trying to raise funds privately. The roadshow was nightmare, the press was horrible, Ben almost lost his wife and slept 2 hours in the 3 weeks. The market fell halfway and Loudcloud was advised by their bankers, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, to cut their price in half to reflect the reality and even after it they were skeptical.
Eventually the IPO succeeded to raise funds, even though much less than planned. “It may have been the least celebratory IPO in history, neither Goldman Sachs nor Morgan Stanley even offered us the traditional closing dinner”. But, IPO saved the company and allowed it to continue.
5. Embrace SELF-DOUBTS
“I often joke that I am considered to be a much better CEO now than I was when I was actually CEO”. You’re not alone if you have self-doubts, feel lost and stressed. Being The Chief is an incredibly hard, lonely and stressed position and the vast majority have occasional meltdowns. Apparently, it’s like the fight club of CEOs: The first rule of the CEO psychological meltdown is don’t talk about the psychological meltdown. Moreover, founding CEOs are not professional CEOs, they grow into the job on the go, and thus are even more stressed and have even harder time managing their own psychology.
In 1999, after raising an impressive funding for Loudcloud in its early streak, Ben and co-founders met with their VCs. As founding CEO, Ben was excited to meet his backers and to talk about how they would partner to build a great company. Then one of the senior partners asked Ben in front of all the people, “When are you going to get a real CEO?”.
Ben could hardly breathe. It was bad enough that he was publicly humiliated, but to make matters worse, Ben knew that at some level the partner was right, as he didn’t have the experience or the skills generally required for CEOs.
Ben remained the CEO and not a day went by without him thinking about that remark and having heavy doubts about how good he was at the job. Several time the press declared the company dead and shareholders called for his resignation, so these doubts were heavily grounded.
Eventually though Ben succeeded to navigate the company through numerous crises to the $1.6B exit and is now widely considered as one of the best founding CEOs. After all his experience, Ben thinks that by far the most difficult skill he learned was the ability to manage his own psychology.
Keep up!
Roostam Tiger | https://medium.com/@roostam/wartime-ceo-stories-30d2af61b7fa | ['Roostam Tiger'] | 2020-04-06 17:57:17.106000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Business', 'VC', 'Startup', 'Business Strategy'] |
Top 10 JavaScript Projects for Beginners | JavaScript for Web Developers
The language that powers the web by BRENDAN EICH. He first named it LiveScript, later some called it Jscript therefore ECMASCRIPT(Europeans standardised it) and the name became official in 1997. ECMAScript is often abbreviated to ES. We can use the Google Chrome browser as our development environment, because of the excellent developer tools it provides and is awesome to use.
It is a scripting language that enables you to create dynamically updating content, control multimedia, animate images, and pretty much everything else. (Okay, not everything, but it is amazing what you can achieve with a few lines of JavaScript code.)
Web Developers use this languages for multiple purpose like to code logical functionality for websites or to do server side coding (NodeJS is a good example for this)
Top 10 Projects to learn JavaScript as a beginner
All of these projects are very basic to try and will give you insights of the actual JavaScript which is used in Web Development.
To be honest you will get the code for most of them on the internet but it is my personal recommendation that even if you copy the code you should know the working of each and every line of the .js file you’ve copied. Moreover I will provide you my GitHub repository link where in I am re-coding these 10 projects again with proper comments so that a newbie can also understand the code. Also I will only brief you out here as the explanation part is done over repositories. So just take the idea first and start developing on your own at first place and then refer to the code if you stuck somewhere.
Tip : It is also recommended not to hurry and get all these projects done in hurry, take your time, learn by doing, keep a goal for doing 2 projects in one week or whatever suits with you.
1. JavaScript Stopwatch
An interactive timer for personal use while you are on PC, which runs in browser tab to record your activity. I have made it live using GitHub Pages, check it out: https://hitiksaini.github.io/Stopwatch/
Check the code on GitHub: https://github.com/hitiksaini/Stopwatch
2. Breakout Game
These games are in which the player must smash a wall of bricks by deflecting a bouncing ball with a paddle. The paddle may move horizontally and is controlled with the controller, the computer’s mouse or the touch of a finger (in the case of touchscreen). See it here: https://hitiksaini.github.io/Brick-Breaker-Game/
Check the code on GitHub: https://github.com/hitiksaini/Brick-Breaker-Game
3. JavaScript Calculator
It does not need an introduction, we all have coded a mini calculator in some programming language like C++, Python etc,. But in case of JavaScript it is a bit different because we can manage the output as a webpage and not like the traditional terminal outputs.
See it here: https://github.com/hitiksaini/JavaScript-Projects/tree/master/JavaScript%20Calculator
4. JavaScript Quiz
“How do I make a JavaScript quiz?” is one of the most common questions asked by people learning web development, and for good reason. Quizzes are fun! They’re a great way of learning about new subjects, and they allow you to engage your audience with something fun and playful. Don’t forget to play with the code and try something new. See the code over repository and see the hosted code here: https://hitiksaini.github.io/quiz/
PLAY IT! I’ve selected some good GK Questions for you.😎
Check the code on GitHub: https://github.com/hitiksaini/quiz
5. Guess the Number Game
It is a fun educational game that challenges you to find a number based on greater than or less than feedback. Everything is well explained as comments in .js file. You will have 10 guesses to randomly guess a number between 1–500 you win of you do it under 10 attempt. Play it here: https://hitiksaini.github.io/Guess-the-number/
Check the code on GitHub: https://github.com/hitiksaini/Guess-the-number
And as I committed earlier in this story that I will share a GitHub link where you can find more projects like these moreover you can create a PR(a term used in GitHub for pull requests) for better projects. Therefore,
6.. 7.. 8.. 9.. 10.. and more projects like these on my repository made for the sole purpose of getting started with JS, give it a star/fork
Thank you! I don’t know how this will go but do let me know how I was at my first attempt :)
Find me on:
LinkedIn | https://medium.com/@hitik20/top-10-javascript-projects-for-beginners-b5fdc2bf9aaf | ['Hitik Saini'] | 2020-12-20 10:40:33.919000+00:00 | ['Web Developer', 'Beginners Guide', 'Projects', 'Web Development', 'JavaScript'] |
Nobody’s perfect. | Nobody’s perfect. There was never a perfect person around. You just have half-angel and half-devil in you.
Days of heaven and days of hell. Terrence Malick puts us into kingdom come. We the viewers run through the Garden of Eden. He shows an eternal field stretching out to the sky, a lonely Edward Hopper-style house, one more beautiful than the other animals, but then this dreamlike world is turned into well of hell with Malick’s outstanding craft. He portrays the contrasts in our lives, the good and evil, the water and the fire, love and hate. He completes these contrasts with his artistic compositions.
It is not a simple thing watching and analyzing Terrence Malick’s films at the same time because the very words in your head begin to wither scene by scene. Eventually, you forget who you are and mesmerized. I feel like I am in a Jean-François Millet painting at almost every scene. The atmosphere he has created stem from the heart of pure art. Malick plays the god role, not only a director. He touches and creates out of nothing. He has only a field and sky above him in terms of setting, but his camera turns this nothingness into a dream through his low light shootings, the perfect compositions and the profound storyline. Malick demonstrates that he is aware of the nature’s progression. He knows what the nature is, he knows how works the human relationships. He is the face of god in the art of cinema.
As well as he is cabaple of showing nature’s true side, he also knows the humanity. With this film, viewers witness a poor family who works as farmers for seasonal works. A rich man manages farmers from a small house which you can see all through the film. This house seems small when we compare it to the eternal fields, but Malick achieves to show this small rich house creates oppression for the farmers. When you see the house in the frame, you can feel that rich men could see everything, because they have money and money creates right to speak, hence this small house stands for power. If you get in there, your status rises. As the film progresses, we witness love triangles, desperations and some opportunities. The family’s poor girl begins to live with the rich man and it is clearly seen that her life style is totally changed. Yes, Malick acts like a god and achieves to show;
The thin line between the poor and the rich. | https://medium.com/@onursum/nobodys-perfect-e1024e6bf3ec | [] | 2020-12-25 20:55:09.824000+00:00 | ['Cinema', 'Criterion Collection', 'Terrence Malick', 'Letterboxd', 'Criterion'] |
Everything Wrong With Ethereum In 2019. | Everything Wrong With Ethereum In 2019
By Eric Lamison-White on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE
The purpose of this state of the union is to criticize aspects of the Ethereum project and bring awareness to fixable issues while combating general ignorance of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain.
Ethereum is a cryptocurrency network which offers a new currency “Ether” to rival Bitcoin and national currencies like the US Dollar. Having the same blockchain-based roots as Bitcoin it functions the same as that family and requires differentiating qualities to stand out, and those differentiating qualities are very expansive and have single-handedly ushered in entirely new industries and work for governments.
Ethereum is the “world computer”, and is also the backbone of a new “decentralized finance” (“DeFi”) ecosystem. It is important to know that these things have very little to do with its native currency “Ether”. Many people wish to prosper from the success or proliferation of the Ethereum platform by purchasing Ether, hoping that more people want to use Ether and will buy Ether from them at a higher price. This is not the way to profit from — or voice an opinion about — the Ethereum platform. Ether is all but useless in the expanded feature set and merely needed to help keep the Ethereum network to be tamper-resistant, it can be ignored. Given the public interest in imagining that Ether’s demand is significantly affected by the use of the Ethereum network, we can revisit this next year to see if the dialogue has changed.
“DeFi” cannot exist without the “world computer”, so let’s break down the world computer feature first.
Everything Wrong With Ethereum In 2019.
World Computer
Ethereum is the “world computer”, and it is powered by a gas called Ether. To use the world computer, you must submit Ether to fuel any computations. These are two innovations combined: the first is that a network of individual computers all store the same outcomes of instruction, and there is a market price for doing so.
Humans act like a world computer when they tell the time. Almost all people have a set of rules and protocols they use to look at an analog clock they own and come to the same result on what time of day it is. Without telepathy or any other kind of networking, humans know what time it is. The goal of Ethereum is to give computers the same capability for more complex calculations, while also keeping a record that all computers, in fact, did come up with the same result. Obviously, humans telling the time would have slight deviations in what time they think it is, and in a similar people-driven system we would have to take the average answer in a record. We would furthermore begin deferring to certain people that have more specific technology for telling time. Computers, of course, are always exact — or at least will compute the product of unchanging inputs the same every time — so then the point of this network would be to merely ensure that one computer was not introducing bad data and getting that recorded. In the movie Minority Report, three telepathic humans “pre-cogs” were working in unison to determine whether a crime was about to happen, allowing law enforcement to arrest people that did nothing wrong yet. The plot twist was that one of the “pre-cogs” was introducing false future events, and they made a whole movie about it. The Ethereum network prevents bad computations from gaining consensus, records what the consensus was, and makes that record tamper-proof. So instead of trusting Microsoft, or your local government, to keep a record in perpetuity, the Ethereum network does it instead.
Photo by Jonatan Pie on Unsplash
What’s wrong? Actually, this part works extremely well. The outstanding issues are how many computations can happen at once, and how many results can be stored. In 2019, there are already several other networks with their own cryptocurrency that do the same thing, but faster, cheaper and for larger more complex calculations — so better. They all introduce different compromises on security to do so, but perhaps the market can simply bear that. Perhaps, Microsoft or your local government simply doesn’t require a completely tamper-resistant blockchain network in order to be a $1 Trillion company or maintain the trust of the people.
The World Computer allows people to run “decentralized applications” or “dApps”, pronounced de-apps (or dapp). This is nomenclature and pronunciation not settled yet, just like how people used to write E-Mail before the concept remained in the lexicon as email. dApps save developers time and resources by offloading a lot of a business or service onto the public utility of the Ethereum network. There are games like Cryptokitties where the digital collectibles are enforced by actual scarcity instead of a game developer’s promise, and there market intelligence services like Pareto Network where market-moving information can be submitted anonymously and paid for transparently. One common subset of these dApps are Decentralized Finance or “DeFi” services.
DeFi
The Decentralized Finance ecosystem is big already. These all aim to offer faster financial services that are not encumbered by regional limitations. These are borderless, global and egalitarian versions of financial services.
In many cultures, there is a tendency for people to wish that some people can’t access the financial system. In some cases, they link prosperity with morality, they imagine that because someone does not comply with their imagined social contract, that they should not be allowed to consolidate capital. The capital itself can’t differentiate and it is a stretch of the imagination to consider these things related but the effects can be real. Private businesses offering financial services arbitrarily cancel relationships with customers. In other cases, this is translated to using the power of the state to prevent certain groups of people from accessing the financial system. In the United States, access to credit for buying a home — the “American dream” a meme which briefly enraptured the hearts and minds of many during the last century — was not a dream widely available to people of non-European and especially African descent until the late 20th century. Centuries after landowners and speculators had carved out industries and directed generational wealth. In many other markets, no matter how nuanced the circumstances are which led to the outcome, you see people shut out of the wealth-generating system and global capital markets. Societies prosper from economic growth and the productivity of all participants. DeFi destroys the ability of some participants to limit the productivity of others through private businesses or the state. Outside of the DeFi and blockchain ecosystem, people and regulators actually view the “unbanked” as victims which need to become banked. The unbanked are still more numerous and this technology allows them to leapfrog the whole concept of a bank while having access to sophisticated financial products for investors.
It no longer matters that a host nation has declared that all occupants of a dependent state to be terrorists with no recognized national identity and deciding that they don’t deserve access to banking, let alone credit and investment opportunities. It no longer needs a diplomatic resolution as the state’s role in this has been completely disintermediated all while DeFi businesses/services have no ability to distinguish the attributes of a human participant. It doesn’t matter if that’s controversial in 2019, the only thing that matters is recognizing that the state’s monopoly on gatekeeping finance is gone. It has evaporated along with the human element and has been replaced with the autonomous Ethereum network which simply doesn’t care about the power consolidations humans seek to impose on others. An ephemeral machine has bestowed a public resource on this planet that doesn’t care about this planet’s history, reminiscent of the aether state machine and element Plato described 2,300 years ago. Using energy and resources to perpetuate financial exclusion only accelerate the growth of DeFi services and destabilize the centralized incumbent’s budget (and laughable, divide the very people that the government derives its power from, keep it up ya’ll), and in 2019 it is already far more than just marginalized persons using these services.
DeFi services offer insurance, stock exchanges, banking like services and much more. But it still might not be clear why, until you look at the commonalities amongst this wide range of services. A business that offers a DeFi service never takes custody of your money. When you use a stock exchange or bank, you deposit money with that company. You have to trust the company and trust the governing regulations to ensure the company doesn’t just take your money. And sometimes you still wind up disappointed! You find out you can’t withdraw your money or use your money, or you find out that you can’t use the service any longer because the company canceled its relationship with you. On the flip side, the company itself has to spend lots of money on compliance with banking regulations, investor regulations, consumer protection regulations and more, which means expensive lawyers and personnel, usually all triggered by the fact that they accept deposits or take custody of customer’s money. When a DeFi company is able to offer the exact same service without taking custody of your money, they are exempt from many regulations, and you also don’t need to worry about the business taking your money. DeFi services also have a shorter time to market because they don’t have to apply for regulatory approval, they don’t have to worry about local regulations and can immediately service the whole planet. Other times, a DeFi company’s regulatory exemption comes from there being no-known human to sanction. A government would need to take down the whole Ethereum network to prevent a non-compliant/unlicensed DeFi service from being inaccessible, and the Ethereum network itself makes that an expensive and profitable proposition to attempt.
What do DeFi services let you trade and invest in if Ether is the only native currency and it is just gas? Well, being the hottest asset issuance platform on the market, Ethereum users have made digital representations of real-world assets, along with new digital-only assets, on the Ethereum network. There are even competing versions of US dollars tradable one-to-one for actual US dollars. The Ethereum community and developers actively work on a variety of standards and protocols for the world computer to recognize and compute with. These are called ERC “Ethereum Request for Comments” and EIP “Ethereum Improvement Protocols”. The most monumental one of these has been ERC20, which refers to fungible digital assets. It simply means it is the 20th proposal put up for comments on Ethereum. (More technically, it doesn’t mean 20th consecutive, the just the one happened to be labeled #20.) Companies launching ERC20 assets or “tokens” have pioneered revenue models that have shaken up incumbents and gotten the attention of regulators worldwide. Earning billions of dollars since 2017. DeFi services allow people to invest in and manage risk with ERC20 assets. ERC20 as a concept has entered the lexicon as an adjective meaning “fungible digital asset”, even though the standard itself has already become antiquated in favor of ERC777, ERC1404 for securities and many others. On other blockchains, such as Tron, their token standard is called TRC20 even though it wasn’t the 20th of anything. It is just recognizable for fungible digital assets. This phrasing is something to revisit next year, to see if it remains in the collective conscious or has been replaced with something else.
Decentralized exchanges are a hit, but are actually beginning to voluntarily comply with regulations since they are not leveraging the most decentralized operations and can be sanctioned. Instead many exchanges are now starting to focus on the “non-custodial” aspect of their service, instead of the “there’s no business owner to throw in jail” aspect. Let’s see how this evolves over the next year, the regulators have been taking a collaborative approach since it is probably clear that if they did aggressively sanction, it will just make the technology evolve faster and take away their power forever.
DeFi is an interesting growth market, but many of the dApps do not have much use due to the niche and complexity of the user experience. Other faster, cheaper successors to Ethereum also offer parallel or competing versions of DeFi offerings. Finally, if they do have much use then they risk congesting the Ethereum network for other transactions and computations by using too much gas. Remember, Ether is gas.
Ether is Gas
Ether is the cryptocurrency for the Ethereum network and is also a base unit. There are many denominations of Ether, which are difficult to remember. “Gwei” is a popular sub-unit of Ether.
The only native use of Ether is as payment to the Ethereum computers to make your punch-card level calculations and store the result forever. The participating computers do not really have a choice in the matter, so it is more appropriately like gas to make as many calculations as you can before the computers run out of fuel. It is a provisioning system.
Since it is very complex and counterintuitive to use the computational aspects, so people just use Ether as a payment system. People trade Ether back and forth for goods and services, as a replacement for national currencies like the US dollar. People own Ether and use it to invest in projects which will eventually earn them more Ether. In this regard, it is no different than how people use Bitcoin, and Ether transactions are way faster.
Given this common use case of payments, when people refer to Ethereum, they are referring to the cryptocurrency Ether. Nobody says Ether. They might say “eth” for short, pronounced “EETH” like “TEETH” without the “T”, for example, “I sent 5 eth”. Given that so many things are priced in denominations of Eth, some people may adopt the terminology from the bitcoin community with an adjective and say “this cost 500 eth sats”. Instead of using terms for Ether denominations like “500 gwei”, people more often use satoshis or sats from the pre-existing Bitcoin economy.
Except, there is way more Ether on the market than needed, ever. Anyone expressing their enthusiasm in the Ethereum ecosystem by purchasing Ether may be in for a world of hurt. This is quantifiable by looking at a full block: at time of writing blocks have a gas limit of 8,000,000 gas, and the average gas price is 6 gwei. This means a miner found the privilege of creating that block to be added to the blockchain and included the optimum number of unconfirmed transactions that were waiting to be included in a new block. The optimum number of transactions means determining the most Ether which can be earned from the transaction fees that users added to their transaction — in order to be included in a block faster. This miner earned .13 Ether from all of these transactions. They earned 2 Ether for creating the block, and .13 Ether from the transactions. It would take 15 blocks to actually use that 2 Ether as gas, while 30 more Ether would have been created in the process. It is impossible for Ether to be a scarce resource. Even DeFi applications that use Ether as collateral only make a small dent, as they accept other digital assets as collateral too. A cartel is necessary to keep Ether valuable enough for the miners to remain incentivized to function at all. (Miners have costs and typically liquidate their earnings for cash, adding to the selling pressure of any Proof of Work cryptocurrency).
Developers have also noticed that the Ethereum network doesn’t actually need Ether as gas either! There are proposals via EIP to standardize how miners can accept assets besides Ether as payment!
Nobody needs a speculative amount of Ether. Even the most sophisticated developers of Ethereum only need a fraction of an Eth, solely as inventory to pay for their computations.
In 2019, even hedge funds express their love for Ethereum via excess speculative purchases of Ether, this expression of interest seems to be devoid of economic reality and is just waiting for a greater fool simply because there have been greater fools in the past, as Ether traded for 800% greater prices several years ago. Let’s revisit this next year. There are even Crypto Index funds that merely invest in holdings of the top 5, 10 or 20 largest cryptocurrencies, hoping they eventually go up in price. Ether fluctuates quite heavily but the fundamental economics alone does not support it, only speculative mania — which has historically been a profitable strategy completely divorced from the economic realities, but as the markets mature the realities would be expected to become more important.
Ether as a Necessity
Ethereum’s tamper-resistant security model does depend on miners — people running computers to find transactions — in exchange for finding transactions they earn newly created Ether and they also earn the Ether transaction fee paid by users making transactions. The price of Ether needs to be worth enough to keep miners interested and also too expensive for a malicious miner — the bad “pre-cog” from Minority Report — from introducing incorrect data. As long as 51% of the miners are telling the truth, then the system works flawlessly (see “51% attack”). This is the same as other “proof of work” blockchain networks.
Ethereum still has a stretch goal of transitioning to “proof of stake” (PoS) instead of “proof of work”. It hasn’t because Proof of Stake is not a proven security model, but Proof of Work has known limitations in speed and scalability. This has been a known problem and conundrum since the beginning of Ethereum back in 2014 when Vitalik Buterin launched it. Half a decade later it looks more like Vitalik Buterin is a one-hit-wonder and has no solution. That’s fine, it is just that he can’t admit it since it’s not fine to so many people who have put their confidence in the viability of Ethereum within Vitalik. The truth is that Ethereum will function fine either way, if you accept that Ether is not scarce, is not inherently valuable, and has little reason for supply shocks to make it more valuable. The Ethereum Foundation and some DeFi projects do aim to create circumstances that ensure the scarcity of Ether simply to entertain speculators and people with large holdings of Ether, including themselves. Like OPEC. Remember, Ether is gas.
Scaling and Future Growth
Ethereum main network is a victim of its own success, potentially. If any of the DeFi applications or if any of the games gain traction, the Ethereum network is debilitated until the user experience gets so bad that the DeFi application or game stops being played. More practically, it means there will be many transactions ahead of yours and you can skip the line by paying more gas. It self regulates by becoming expensive. The last time this self-regulation happened in late 2017, many of the computers simply couldn’t identify transactions fast enough so the transactions simply got dropped and never recorded. This was a horrible user experience because it wasn’t clear what was happening. Hopefully, the Ethereum software itself has improved since then to handle the load better.
This known problem is why Proof of Stake was considered in 2014 and perpetually delayed because proof of stake and security is an oxymoron and the secure version has not been invented yet. Transactions can be more numerous in proof of stake networks, than on proof of work networks.
But more recently, different experiments have been tried with competitors, one which has stuck around is called Delegated Proof of Stake or DPoS. Basically, the people elect representatives because the security model of direct representation breaks down across a large geographical region. Where have I heard this before? All of the competitors such as EOS, Tron, Binance Chain, and even Libra are using DPoS, with the representatives being called “Validators”. So now instead of needing a majority of mining computers around the world agreeing on a single source of truth, you only need 10 or 20 or 100 non-mining computers agreeing on a single source of truth. This means they can reach consensus much faster for much cheaper, and subsequently do much more complex calculations. Basically larger files (transactions and blocks) are transmitted between a small and known number of computers with fast internet connections, instead of an unknown number of computers worldwide with unstable internet connections. The downside? Tamper resistance is lost. In fact, on the EOS blockchain, it is called a feature that it is not tamper-resistant! The EOS validators reverse transactions in an opaque process, and they attempt to recreate arbitration and court tribunals to add confidence in their system to create some semblance of the rule of law. Governments can also easily get involved in that process. A government we might not agree with. This is the compromise. Ethereum is still the most efficient world computer with natural consensus, all other systems attempting to be more efficient have had to compromise on security, so it is, therefore, interesting to see how Ethereum tries to improve its bandwidth.
Since Ethereum mainnet’s transition from proof of work to proof of stake has been delayed for 5 years in a row, and basically indefinitely, Lord Vitalik et al have suggested Eth 2.0, the “beacon chain” which basically is a separate blockchain operating as a sidechain. If you can’t reasonably transition to Proof of Stake, why not launch a separate blockchain which is! This means an alternate chain of records where users can offload some computations in order to keep the main Ethereum chain less congested. Since the market has shown it can bear having faster, weaker security models and has the confidence to build billion-dollar businesses on top of them, the Ethereum network can also create these options for users.
Only the main chain exists so far, and this whole editorial is about just that chain. Wait till Beacon comes out.
There have been several scaling proposals for Ethereum which include a mixture of sidechains and shards. The beacon chain seems to be the latest and also most serious of these proposals. But does anyone remember Plasma? In 2017 Vitalik was promoting Plasma as the sharding and scaling solution for Ethereum. Sharding just means that small non-infinite blockchains are stored amongst relevant computers, with only the results of multiple records stored on the main infinite blockchain by all the world computers sometime in the future. So let’s revisit this next year.
Industry
Ethereum was inspired by Bitcoin but has separate evolution than Bitcoin. Vitalik Buterin tried to contribute to Bitcoin and was pushed away by Bitcoin developers of the time period. His approach was to make a blockchain network that could handle complex computations, instead of just payments. The complex computations he needed were to be able to issue assets, which Ethereum has become the market leader in, where Bitcoin has stagnated in.
There are other blockchain networks that evolved from Bitcoin. And Blockchain networks evolved from Ethereum. These two do not share a common ancestor.
Aside from competitor blockchains such as Tron being available. There are also permissioned blockchains used by Fortune 500 enterprises who are actively developing the Ethereum ecosystem in their own ways.
Typically, these systems do not use gas at all and have their own consensus models, which so far seems to work for JP Morgan and accounting firms.
The beauty is that developers can launch applications on Ethereum and Quorum and Tron and more, using the same code base. For people looking for a high growth skill, “Ethereum development” is something the private sector finds useful too! Although currently, self-driven software development on the Ethereum mainnet is more lucrative than doing it for somebody else. Recognize that it is not tech companies who are hiring for Solidity (Ethereum’s programming language) and Ethereum developers using Rust, Javascript or Web Assembly. It is finance and accounting companies experimenting with a pet project who already treat their IT staff as an expense instead of an investment. The startups in the space are also just not that big. Launching your own digital asset or catering to others trying to do so is much more lucrative. You also do not need to be a program to join a team doing these things. Let’s revisit the labor economy next year!
Using Ethereum
The user experience of Ethereum is pretty bad. That’s saying a lot since it is probably the best in the blockchain and distributed ledger sector. What happens is that Ethereum applications can do A LOT, but the visual interfaces to help people do those things practically do not exist.
The bare minimum that a digital currency system needs is an application that lets people send and receive the digital currency. Ethereum has these and they are called wallets. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts and speculators look for these for any cryptocurrency they trade, in this case, they see the price of Ether moving and they want an Ethereum wallet. But when you want to interact with the DeFi ecosystem, only a few wallets do this, and you typically sacrifice conveniences and familiarity to use those wallets. All of the wallet applications change over time as well, just like any software that tries to improve itself and its userbase.
This makes things confusing.
When you want to go beyond sending Ether back and forth, graduating to using an ERC20 token like PARETO you’ll find that many wallets do not show that you even have a balance of ERC20 tokens. Your whole portfolio, invisible! The most secure way to store your Ethereum assets is using a hardware wallet such as the Ledger Nano X which comes with its own software called Ledger Live. The ERC20 standard was first proposed in November 2015, developers started creating assets for their businesses and selling them in the beginning of 2017, the ERC20 standard was ratified in late 2017. The Ledger Live wallet began letting people see, and transfer, their ERC20 assets in September 2019. 🤦🏽♂️ Four years after the initial proposal, two years after ratification. This means during the infamous periods of speculative demand during 2017 and 2018, almost nobody was able to securely trade their Ethereum assets. It is easy to say that you missed the boat but think about what that boat really looked like at the time: a rickety raft on the high seas. It is more likely your portfolio would have been obliterated by a mistake or by a hacker during the infamous 2017 bull markets than you actually profiting from the speculative furor.
The good news is that wallets are mostly compatible with each other. Although your hardware wallet’s official application was unnecessarily handicapped, you could use your hardware wallet with Metamask or MyEtherWallet or other services, where you could see your ERC20 balances for years. In comparison, assets issued on Bitcoin have the possibility of being deleted and erased permanently when you use a wallet that isn’t configured correctly. There isn’t a real concern about this happening on Ethereum (unless someone went out of their way to make a malicious system).
Viewing the history of transactions on Ethereum Block Explorers is tricky. They try to show the chain of transaction but there are just too many types of transactions and computations to show on the Ethereum network for a single account/address.
View of an Ethereum address’ transaction record
Etherscan is a block explorer that shows the history of transactions in the most comprehensive way. It primarily tries to separate transactions by asset type: plain transactions of Ether from one person to another, transactions of Ether from a smart contract to the person, transactions of ERC20 tokens, and transactions of ERC721 tokens (non-fungible tokens, or collectibles). It doesn’t seem to have a way to consolidate all of these categories into a single list.
In areas where Etherscan falls apart, other companies have started their own block explorers. They often excel at one thing, revealing records that occurred in an intuitive way, but never being complete enough to show all records in an intuitive way.
There seem to be some paid offerings that excel here. Let’s revisit this next year.
So you want to be an online or in-person merchant that accepts Ether or Ether based Dollar assets while following the best practices and having a good user experience using readily available open source code? Tough luck! You have to use a payment processor bound by the same banking regulations that burden more familiar non-cryptocurrency offerings. Let’s also revisit this next year.
Regulatory
Bitcoin steals the thunder in prompting governments for regulatory clarity of it, and regulatory approval of financial products based around Bitcoin. The $150 Billion market cap helps here. Ethereum’s second place $18 Billion market cap has resulted in ambiguity. There are no Ethereum futures contracts to manage the future price of ether gas. There are no Ethereum ETFs on the stock markets. We can barely get a view from the SEC that Ether is not a security (Directors and Commissioners comments have so far not been the view of the SEC itself), or a view from the CFTC that Ether is a commodity given its similarities to gas. CFTC has claimed Bitcoin is a commodity.
Ethereum has prompted a response from governments on the topics of the assets issued using the Ethereum platform. ERC20 is back in view again as it has accelerated securities law policy and custody policy. This has been interesting, to say the least, but unresolved in many circumstances in jurisdictions that matter. This has raised the cost of doing business to be greater than incumbent financial services even though the technology itself lowers the costs to be a small fraction of incumbent financial services. Legal tweaks will change this and there are bills in committee in US Congress such as the Token Taxonomy Act which has so far stalled with a small trickle of co-sponsors. Let’s revisit this next year closer to the end of the congressional session.
The bad thing here is that there simply isn’t that much to write about yet. There are several ERC and EIP proposals that aim to adapt the Ethereum asset issuance technology to public and private sector regulations, and there are proposed laws around the world that would update the regulations themselves to make this less necessary and also unnecessary. This is all happening while DeFi services grow in ways that make it impossible for regulators to enforce any of their existing laws.
Conclusion
So, a long way to go! The great thing about permissionless technology is that you don’t need permission to contribute either! I identify these problems and help move things forward where they are broken, both personally and through my companies Blockology (Blockchain Development Company d/b/a Blockology) where we build and advise companies in the distributed ledger and blockchain space, Pareto Network where we trade information using blockchain technology, and others I advise. You can too! Addressing these problems makes all of my companies more viable and useful to a broader community! Reach out if you need guidance navigating the crypto space!
The private industry spends an inordinate amount of resources looking for specialists and marginalizing people with deep capabilities across a wide spectrum, but Ethereum, Blockchain, and Crypto space rewards generalists as far as they can apply themselves. This parallel economy is the true land of opportunity, and I hope it is clear where you can push it forward.
That’s a wrap everyone! In future series, I plan to highlight the state of the crypto space as a whole, and other crypto networks like Monero, be sure to read my other state of the union on Bitcoin. We have to revisit this once per year to see if anything has improved!
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If you like this post, hit the 👏 button as MANY TIMES as it lets you and feels free to mention incorrect or debatable aspects in the comment section. | https://medium.com/the-capital/everything-wrong-with-ethereum-in-2019-65ec532dced3 | ['Eric Lamison-White'] | 2019-09-09 15:25:01.587000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin'] |
Chandrayaan 2: Everything you need to know | Chandrayaan 2 is India’s attempt to reach and explore the unexplored dark side (South Pole) of the Moon. No other space agency of the world has been successful at achieving this feat. India successfully launched Chandrayaan 2 mission the Moon from the second launch pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre on 22 July 2019 at 2.43 PM IST by a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark III. Chandrayaan-2 is the second lunar exploration mission developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation, after Chandrayaan-1. As of today, the spacecraft’s landing module (a composite of the lunar lander Vikram, and rover Pragyan) separated and entered independent orbits around the moon. The spacecraft is expected to begin its descent towards the lunar surface at 1:40 am IST on 7th September. When the ‘Vikram’ lander will begin descent from the 30 KM orbit, it will use a 15-minute window till it lands on the surface. This window is fearfully termed the ‘window of terror’ by the good folks at ISRO. This 15-minute flight is one that ISRO has never attempted before, making Chandrayaan 2 the most complex mission ISRO has ever undertaken, in the view of ISRO’s Chairman Dr K Sivan.
Why explore the Lunar South Pole?
According to ISRO, Moon provides the best connection to Earth’s early history. It offers an undisturbed historical record of the inner Solar System environment. Extensive mapping of the lunar surface to study variations in lunar surface composition is essential to trace back the origin and evolution of the Moon. Evidence for water molecules discovered by Chandrayaan-1, requires further studies on the extent of water molecule distribution on the surface, below the surface and in the tenuous lunar exosphere.
The lunar South Pole is especially interesting because of the lunar surface area here that remains in shadow is much larger than that at the North Pole and is completely unexplored by the humankind. There is a possibility of the presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it. In addition, South Pole region has craters that are cold traps and contain a fossil record of the early Solar System.
Chandrayaan-2 will attempt to soft land the lander -Vikram and rover- Pragyan in a high plain between two craters, Manzinus C and Simpelius N, at a latitude of about 70° south.
Where can you watch the landing live?
On ISRO’s YouTube channel, the stream will go live at 1.10 am IST on 7 September.
2. A Nat Geo Chandrayaan 2 Live special starring NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger, leading up to the live landing streaming on Nat Geo/Hotstar. This special goes live at 11.30 pm IST. | https://medium.com/decodein/chandrayaan-2-everything-you-need-to-know-c4af1753f6bd | ['Decode Staff'] | 2019-09-06 12:01:44.079000+00:00 | ['Moon', 'India', 'Space', 'Space Exploration', 'Technology'] |
Viktor Frankl for the soul : The will to meaning | Viktor Emil Frankl (1905–1997) had a most remarkable life: a Holocaust survivor, a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna Medical School, the father of Logotherapy (literally “Healing through meaning”). He taught at Harvard, Stanford, Dallas and Pittsburgh and received a total of 29 honorary degrees worldwide as well as countless awards. A man of tremendous inner strength and insight, his books have been greatly influential around the world.
In 1945, shortly after being released from a concentration camp, Viktor Frankl sat down and in just nine days he wrote his well-known book, “A Man’s Search for Meaning”. In it, he tried to analyze the will to survive, and the strength behind one’s resilience. He has managed to endure one of humanity’s worst episodes in recorded history, and used his capacity for self-reflection to turn it into one big learning experience. If you have not yet read any of his writings, I highly suggest you pick up this book as an essential pandemic reading.
Finding meaning in suffering
“ He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
Viktor Frankl believed that if there is a meaning in life, then there must be a meaning in suffering too.
While imprisoned in Auschwitz, Frankl lost most of his family: his parents, his brother and wife, all but his sister. He himself was very close to dying in the gas chamber. In one instance, the prisoners were gathered up and split into two rows, on the right side and on the left side. He defied orders and sneaked unseen to the right line, a small act that saved his life. All the prisoners on the left row were executed. I can only imagine the horrors he endured in the concentration camps: the hunger, cold, disease, brutality. Yet he had the strength to find significance in these dire circumstances. Around him, some of the prisoners gave up all hope and abandoned themselves to despair, while others started seeing it all as a challenge and would bear it bravely.
What Frankl observed was that the people that had a purpose in their lives, that were still holding onto hope, had a much higher survival rate. He concluded that his own ability to find purpose helped him to survive.
Everything was taken away from Viktor, his whole life, even his own name. Instead of falling in despair, he started thinking about his suffering as an experience to be learnt from. One must endure the suffering of life, and accept it as a part of it, having the duty to overcome the obstacles laid in the path. He tells the story of how he would steal bits of paper and write his ideas down on them, or imagine he’s holding lectures about his experiences in the concentration camps. By doing this, he was able to objectify his suffering, and detach from it. He also reported humor and heroism as great powers used to self-detach. Laughing in the face of one’s misery is a way of standing up to life, showing that you can deal with the challenges faced. You can take it, and not only that, but you also have the power to laugh at it. Viktor even went as far as to consider humor as a divine attribute.
“There are situations in which one is cut off from the opportunity to do one’s work or enjoy one’s life; but what can never be ruled out is the unavoidability of suffering. In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end.” — Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
So, how can one take a negative experience and turn it into a human achievement? Frankl believed that this can be done by having the right attitude in front of misfortune.
In his book, he gives the example of one of his patients, a man that recently lost his wife. He was suffering and grieving, and so Viktor asked him, if it would have been the other way around, that he would die and the wife would not, wouldn’t she be the one suffering greatly right now? Would he not prefer sparing her the suffering of loosing her husband, by taking this suffering upon himself? Thinking this way, the burden of the patient was not lessened, but by shifting the perspective he had on his wife’s death, Frankl gave a purpose to the man’s suffering, that allowed him to carry the weight of his loss in a different way.
This concept lays at the heart of Logotherapy. Viktor Frankl infused philosophy into his psychiatric work, asserting that life has meaning in any circumstances, even in the face of horrors.
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” — Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
A will to meaning
Viktor Frankl calls “the will to meaning” the idea that humans are motivated by a desire to find meaning.
While helping suicidal patients during logotherapy sessions, Frankl would start by asking them a question: “Why do you not commit suicide?”. Based on the patients reply, he would find their reasons to live and help elaborate on them.
In one instance, while in a concentration camp, Viktor was approached by a prisoner that was suicidal. “Why do you want to commit suicide?”, Viktor asked him. The man admitted to wanting to end his life, because there was nothing for him in the future. He could not expect anything anymore from life. “Well, have you considered that perhaps life is expecting something from you?”. Frankls thus improvised a reply that managed to offer the man hope.
Viktor Frankl coined the term of “Existential Vacuum”. He noticed that an increasing number of patients are dealing with feelings of alienation, emptiness and meaningless. The most obvious sign of existential vacuum in a society is a manifestation of a state of boredom. To quote him: “Unlike an animal, man is not told by instincts what he must do. And unlike man in former times, he is no longer told by traditions what he should do. Often he does not even know what he basically wishes to do”. Nowadays, the existential vacuum is not only common, but it is also spreading fast globally.
The term “vacuum” is used here, because as it is the case, other things will rush to fill the hole left behind by a lack of meaning. People experiencing the existential vacuum will search for ways to numb themselves: seeking pleasures, sex, drugs, or seeking power, money, busy-ness, or even becoming angry and trying to destroy everything perceived as a cause for the existential vacuum. People will fall into these neurotic vicious circles, instead of paying attention to the reason why the emptiness was created in the first place.
Frankl rejected the idea that the ultimate goal in life was pleasure, as Sigmund Freud stated, or that the goal in life is power, as Alfred Adler believed. He was certain that only finding purpose can fill and close the existential vacuum. I agree with him on this point. Looking around society today, it’s plain to see that power and pleasure will not only never fill the existential vacuum, but it actually makes the hole bigger, deeper and hungrier.
Frankl believed that happiness, just as success, should not be actively pursued, but ensued, by living a life true to oneself, and focusing on a purpose deemed higher than oneself. By letting your conscience guide you, and following your purpose to the best of your abilities, happiness and success will follow naturally as a by-product of your efforts.
“Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run — in the long-run, I say! — success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it” — Viktor E. Frankl, The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy
There is no universal meaning to life, Frankl affirms. This meaning differs, from person to person, or even in the same person during time. The meaning of life is obviously flexible, yet he did identify three main roots of meaning:
Through work, by doing a deed or job, especially creative work
Through love, by encountering or seeing someone or something we care deeply for
Through the attitude we take towards unavoidable suffering (key word here is unavoidable)
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” — Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Viktor points out that in any given situation, between stimulus and response, there is a small space where a person can choose their reaction. There will always be unavoidable external forces working on a person, like the weather, traffic, or sudden illness. But the attitude towards these forces is what defines a person.
He believed that there are two categories of people, the decent and the indecent. As examples, he offered the story of the Nazi camp guard, that gave him a piece of bread even if it came as a risk for himself. Viktor is telling how his eyes swelled up with tears, not only in gratitude for the bread, but for the kindness of the gesture. At the opposite end, he recalled the prisoners that would insist on inflicting on their fellow prisoners the same pain as it was inflicted on themselves, most notable the kapo (a prisoner in a Nazi camp, assigned by the SS guards to supervise forced labor or carry out administrative tasks). These prisoners were motivated by survival, hoping to gain favors with the guards by carrying out their tasks in the most brutal way, in a system designed to turn victim against victim. Yet amongst the people captive in the camps, there were also the ones that would not bend, and would choose to give their last piece of bread away to a fellow in need.
In a world in which you experience everyday “the banality of evil”, as Hannah Arendt named it, you are just as likely to find beacons of humanity and kindness. What Viktor Frankl tells us is that one must choose and decide one’s own way, not thinking of a reward, but because this is the right thing to do | https://medium.com/@raluca-preda/viktor-frankl-for-the-soul-the-will-to-meaning-b85bb0283c58 | ['Raluca Preda'] | 2020-11-24 10:18:58.278000+00:00 | ['Mans Search For Meaning', 'Books', 'Viktor Frankl', 'Meaning', 'Willpower'] |
Why I stalk my ex-husband’s wife | It started out as curiosity about the mysterious woman who’d stolen my ex-husband’s heart and soul.
When James, my then-husband, described the woman he’d fallen in love with he said that she was a lot like me — we both had degrees in Communication and had majored in documentary-filmmaking. Like me, she was an event organizer, socially progressive, was bilingual, and had big, brown eyes. Also, like me, he called her his soul mate.
Another strange similarity was our birthdays. She was born one day after me — only fourteen years earlier. I was thirty-nine and she was twenty-five — ironically, the age I’d been when James and I had started dating.
Since she lived in Europe, there was no chance of accidentally bumping into her at the grocery store, so I turned to Google to learn what I could. It wasn’t much. She didn’t have any social media accounts or a website back in 2005.
Then she moved to Canada and became part of my pre-teen son’s life. I looked forward to meeting this woman who sounded so interesting and smart. But that was never to happen. James made sure she and I never met and never spoke on the phone.
When I picked Liam up from his dad’s house, I was ordered to wait in the car. For years, I never even laid eyes on James’s new wife. I imagine she was told to wait in the back room when I called to say I’d arrived.
For the first few years of my husband’s new marriage, the only things I knew about my son’s new part-time mom were snippets of family time that he shared with me. It wasn’t much and Liam always prefaced any small story with, “Don’t tell Dad I told you, but…”.
In writing this I realize that my first thought, were I reading this story, would be some small judgement about a mother who could leave her child in the care of a person she knew nothing about. And such an angry, secretive father.
But the man who was my ex-husband was not the same man who was my son’s father. He was patient and loving with Liam. His issue was with me. And, yes, I did have some concerns about this woman who was now parenting my child. My fears, though, were more along the lines of whether or not she was up to the task of co-parenting an angry and hurt twelve-year-old. I watched for changes in Liam’s moods and demeanor each time I picked him up from his dad’s. Nothing ever gave me cause for concern.
In time, I stopped obsessing about learning about this woman.
Six years after our divorce, James was dropping Liam off at my house and I happened to look out the kitchen window as they pulled up to the curb. I noticed a female passenger and walked out of my house to finally introduce myself to my son’s stepmom.
James jumped out of his car and physically held me on my lawn, away from his car. He ordered me to go back inside. I made eye contact with his wife and she looked away. She was never again with him.
By then Liam was 17 and my concern about her parenting was long dead. So too, was my curiosity about the woman who had been so much like me and somehow so much better.
But one day last year Liam innocently pointed out three new commonalities between myself and his stepmom: we’d both written and published a book, had launched online businesses and were doing webinars.
I have several email addresses, most of which have my name in them. But one does not. It was my very first Gmail account, based on my first business’s name. It’s also Liam’s middle name, which is uncommon and has a unique spelling. I signed up for my ex-husband’s wife’s webinar using that email address knowing that if she knew her stepson’s middle name, she’d know it was me and could remove me if she wanted to. And, if she didn’t know Liam’s middle name after twelve years… well, then she ‘deserved’ to be stalked.
I watched her webinar and loved her energy and authenticity. In the background, I could hear my ex-husband cough and the joyful sounds of their two toddlers playing.
She emails her list a couple of times a month and shares stories and tips from her area of expertise: in the last few years, she’s become a clinical psychotherapist who writes about love and relationships and communications. She helps her clients see the true nature of the people in their lives, behind the trauma and armour we all carry.
She’s a woman I admire and respect and someone I would love to get to know. I think I could even benefit from her counselling.
I can easily see myself becoming friends with her — which is likely why my ex-husband has remained so keen to keep us from meeting each other.
But I believe that to even say ‘Hello’ to her would put her in an awkward situation: would she tell James or keep it a secret? I hate secrets in marriages and do not want to be part of creating a situation that might result in one.
So, I read what she shares on her blog, learn what I can, and feel deep gratitude that the woman my son’s father chose to help him raise our child to adulthood has a heart that’s filled with so much love and compassion.
*Sometimes I write things just to make myself laugh. This was such a case. :) | https://medium.com/love-and-stuff/why-i-stalk-my-ex-husbands-wife-c6d448fc7d17 | ['Danika Bloom'] | 2019-08-23 23:28:08.978000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Family', 'Parenting', 'Relationships', 'This Happened To Me'] |
Nancy Drew Was Better Than Judy Blume | “The Clue in the Crossword Cipher” All rights © Penguin Random House
Full disclosure: I probably didn’t read more than two or three Judy Blume books. And that was 30 years ago. So maybe they were as “revolutionary” as a blurb I read today claims. But they never resonated for me.
I knew plenty of girls who found and lost and found themselves in those books but I could never relate. I vaguely remember a book about getting your period or wearing a bra. My friends and I talked about that stuff but I didn’t find it compelling enough to carry a whole novel. Then again neither was The Babysitters’ Club but I read every single book in that series.
The real intrigue was in mysteries. I was too young for Agatha Christie but I blazed through every single Nancy Drew book in our school library.
Our public library doesn’t limit the number of books you can check out. I was deeply envious of my neighbors when they brought their laundry baskets on one summer trip to the library. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Laundry basket or not I cleaned them out too.
Of all the YA novels I read well into middle school no one kept me captivated like Nancy Drew. There were standalone stories that held my imagination hostage like Hatchett but no other character endured like a James Bond for preteens.
She was brave, ambitious, smart and talented. She was shrewd with uncanny instincts other people trusted and relied on. She was admired and respected for her abilities. And being a career-driven young woman didn’t keep her from having a boyfriend. She didn’t have to choose.
“The Secret in the Old Attic” All rights © Penguin Random House
Not that I was thinking in these terms in elementary school but the clever protagonist making all the decisions and doing all of the plot-driving executive functioning was female.
There was no character arc for her, per se. As an iconic hero, her character was well defined without a hero’s journey per story. She didn’t need to overcome obstacles to become herself. Both iconic heroes and epic heroes can be role models. But in The Case of the Female Detective, not being singularly defined by overcoming uniquely female obstacles allowed us to explore her adventures, not her gender. Sexual politics didn’t define her try/fail cycles. The case did.
To use a term that the snowflake-haters likely also hate, she was post-feminist. She solved mysteries in a world where she was valued for her talent as a detective, rather than having to prove her worth as a woman. She established herself by her accomplishments — the truest meritocracy.
When I was in elementary school I was just a bookworm devouring Nancy Drew books faster than they could print them. I didn’t know she was a trailblazer. I just knew she was worth getting in trouble for so I stayed up past bedtime and read with my flashlight under the covers. Likely why I have to wear reading glasses now but as a little girl I traveled the world with a truly autonomous young woman who never bothered to mention her period. She was too busy traveling to France and Costa Rica, Istanbul and Nairobi — exhilaratingly faraway places I could barely imagine as a child, yet coincidentally places I would have the fortunate opportunity to visit as an adult. But never to solve crimes.
Being a tourist will never be as cool as being a detective. But Nancy Drew’s independence showed us everything we could do with our own passion. And for everything we can’t, there’s a vicarious thrill in reading about those who can. | https://heathermedwards.medium.com/nancy-drew-was-better-than-judy-blume-63a49540571e | ['Heather M. Edwards'] | 2019-08-13 05:40:58.337000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Personal Development', 'Culture', 'Travel', 'Books'] |
Retaining State of The Angular App When Page Refresh With NGRX | Retaining State of The Angular App When Page Refresh With NGRX
Rehydrate ngrx/store With an Example Project
Photo by Peter Osmenda on Unsplash
Most of the web applications are written with SPA frameworks such as Angular, React, Vue.js, etc. The problem with these SPAs is that the single page is loaded in the browser once and then the framework will take care of all the routing among pages and gives the impression to the user that it is a multi-page application. When you refresh your page in the browser that single page called index.html is reloaded and you will lose the entire state of the application.
There are ways you can retain the state of the application in those cases. One way is to make the necessary API calls to the backend server and retrieve the data again. This works well if you have a small number of calls but, it strains the server. Another way is to design your application in such a way that when you put the data in the local storage and retain it as soon as the page is loaded in the browser.
In this post, we will see how we can retain the state of the application in Angular apps with the help of NGRX store and local storage.
Prerequisites
Example Project
Problem
Solution
Implementation
Demo
Summary
Conclusion
Prerequisites
There are some prerequisites for this article. You need to have nodejs installed on your laptop and how http works. If you want to practice and run this on your laptop you need to have these on your laptop.
This is going to be a big post if I included the whole implementation of the project. So, I created separate posts for the actual implementation of the project without the NGRX store and one with NGRX Store. If you are a beginner to the Angular you can have a look at the below post. Otherwise, you can skip to the next section. This post is about step by step guide on how to develop an Angular app with NodeJS backend. | https://medium.com/bb-tutorials-and-thoughts/retaining-state-of-the-angular-app-when-page-refresh-with-ngrx-6c486d3012a9 | ['Bhargav Bachina'] | 2020-10-09 05:01:53.232000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Web Development', 'Angular', 'Software Development'] |
Software development: what has changed? | 379km, about 1 hour “gate-to-gate” (boarding) for 41 minutes of flight.
This is the shortest air route operated by A380, inaugurated in summer 2019 by Emirates between Dubai and Doha.
During this flight, about 14 tons of kerosene are burned in the atmosphere…
Do you find this absurd? Yet hundreds of thousands of companies behave the same way with their IT, most of the time without even realizing it.
Moore’s Law and euphoria
Let’s go back a few years, to the early 90’s, the “micro” is booming in companies.
The “Cloud” does not exist yet and the massive computerization, the beginning of the “digital revolution”, passes then by the equipment.
All large companies want their Datacenter, or at least their server room.
Manufacturers such as Sun Microsystem, HP, Silicon Graphics, IBM, and in France Bull share the Unix server market with their proprietary hardware and architectures, while Microsoft convinces more and more small and medium-sized companies to join their ecosystem on Intel servers, which are much cheaper.
Linux doesn’t exist yet, nor does Google.
The pendulum of enterprise IT is now clearly on the side of CAPEX: investment and amortization.
We buy big servers that we amortize over 3, 5 or even 10 years, whether they are used at 5, 50 or 100% of their capacity.
The software industry is just entering its maturity phase, SaaS and PaaS obviously do not exist yet, and the dominant strategy oscillates between acquisition from software vendors (for an “on premise” installation) and internal developments.
Moore’s law, which foresees a doubling of the number of transistors in CPUs at a constant price every 24 months, is in full swing. Intel released its Pentium in 1993 and will not contradict it for almost 10 years.
In this context of hyperinflation of hardware performance, software performance management is less of an issue than the productivity of developers, who are already a rare and expensive resource.
Language theory research and a number of individual initiatives gave birth to new languages, aimed precisely at developer productivity well before pure performance (it is enough to wait two years anyway for programs to run twice as fast without doing anything except renewing the hardware).
Perl was born in 1987, Python in 1991, Ruby in 1995, Java in 1996 plus a number of other “development environments” such as WinDev (and its teaser ads) in 1993 or Delphi in 1995.
The race to computerization is accelerating, it is necessary to develop quickly, even if it means doing it badly.
The race for productivity
In 1994, the Standish Group published its first “Standish Chaos Report” which analyzed the success rates and the nature of failures in enterprise IT projects.
The results are clear: almost 90% of the projects are failures: either the initial budget was largely exceeded (almost half of them doubled it), or the software had to be released by sacrificing part of the functionalities, or the project was cancelled and buried, without mentioning of course the repeated delays in deliveries.
No other industry would accept such a quality disaster.
In an attempt to fix the situation, new project management methods were invented: the V-cycle, Merise, AGL, and more and more hardware standardization (Intel and Microsoft took advantage of this) and software standardization (ISO model, ASN.1, XML, X500, etc.).
In spite of this gloomy picture, hardware performance continues to grow, almost linearly, with no sign of a slowdown on the horizon.
Hardware sales are doing well, since tomorrow’s machines are needed to run programs developed today.
Language designers are therefore encouraged to push the productivity lever even further, at the expense of performance, and perhaps a little bit of quality as well.
The object model was increasingly successful, interpreted languages were becoming more and more attractive, and PHP, which made its first apparition in 1994, democratized Web development at the time.
More and more abstractions, more and more indirection, more and more layers, whatever the “cost” is, we know that it will be absorbed by the next generation of CPU.
But that was before. Before the drama.
Winter is coming
In 2004, an event occurred that CPU designers/founders had been dreading for a long time.
If the number of transistors continues to double every 24 months as Moore’s law predicts, this doubling is no longer directly translated into an increase of the gross power available, or should I say, easily available.
Indeed, the uninterrupted growth of CPU power was previously expressed by the ability of the CPUs to execute a stream of operations ever faster.
When we talk about “free” performance increase, it does not imply that the new machines were offered to the customers, but that they did not have to do anything special in their programs to take advantage of the improvement (not even a recompilation).
In 2004, the founders reached a thermal limit resulting from the growth in the number of transistors on the one hand and the increase in the operating frequency of processors on the other.
The frequencies have been stagnating since then.
Nevertheless, the improvement in the thinness of the processors’ engraving allowed Moore to be satisfied. More and more transistors were put on the same silicon surface and in the same thermal envelope, but they had to be used differently.
The so-called “multi-core” processors appeared (or rather became widespread).
Before 2004, the objective of founders was to process instructions faster and faster, but after this pivotal year, the battle shifted to the field of parallelization: their ability to process more and more instructions simultaneously.
The graph above clearly shows the concordance of the stagnation of the frequency with the beginning of the takeoff of the number of logic cores. The number of transistors, on the other hand, continues to increase quietly (a dual-core CPU implies about twice as many transistors as a single-core CPU — although it is not that simple in reality).
For the first time in more than three decades, upgrading one’s infrastructure did not allow to increase “for free” the performance of programs…. which were mostly designed to work in a linear way (not parallelized) and therefore unable to exploit the additional cores and the additional of transistors.
The hangover
No more free performance increases, no more systematic absorption of new abstractions, indirections, overlay.
This time, the developer has three alternatives if he wants to improve the performance of his products:
Revert to lower level languages and optimize his programs: but productivity may take a big hit.
Use parallel programming: but this is much more difficult, a source of multiple errors that are difficult to predict and reproduce (race conditions, dead-lock, hazardous management of mutex, etc.), it requires a much higher level of skill and is too rare on the market to be generalized.
Cut large programs into several smaller modules (but still monothreaded) that can run in parallel and thus use a little of the available power.
It is essentially the third solution, the least expensive and the least risky, that will be favored.
New paradigms then appeared: multi-tier architectures, then service-oriented architectures, followed by microservices architectures, which are still in use today.
Thus, a large monolithic program designed in the 90’s / 2000’s can be broken down into small modules (let’s say twenty or so) that will work together, each consuming the equivalent of a CPU core, to deliver the same service.
Obviously deploying, monitoring and operating 20 programs costs more than one, so we had to find a way to automate these tasks to avoid economic disaster: say hello to Docker and Kubernetes.
Not all is lost for everyone…
On the one hand, we have new CPU architectures that companies are struggling to use optimally, and on the other hand, automated deployment and operating systems that are becoming more and more efficient.
Wouldn’t it be a good idea to share a multi-core infrastructure between several companies?
Thus was born the Cloud.
The 2010s saw the emergence of new types of offers, a new revolution that is not so much technological as economic.
Instead of investing in hardware that will be amortized over several years despite a more than partial use, the company can now rent its use for a fraction of its price since several companies will share (in principle unconsciously) the same hardware infrastructure.
From CAPEX we switch to OPEX: and this changes everything for the developer.
The company’s costs will now be directly proportional to the performance of its programs (which many companies have not yet realized).
The better the performance, the less resources they consume (CPU time, RAM, storage, network), the lower the bill from the Cloud provider, which is based on the “Pay-as-you-use” principle.
We are in 2021, and we have to admit :
That a large part of companies has not yet fully realized this.
That those who have become aware of it are discovering with fright the extent of the damage caused by 25 years of priority to productivity.
Technical debt
Infrastructure models have evolved much faster than development practices.
Job offers in the developer market speak for themselves: the most popular languages are those of the 90s, designed with developer productivity in mind, sacrificing performance (or efficient use of resources).
For example:
JavaScript: an interpreted language whose catastrophic performance is matched only by its level of reliability and security
Python: another interpreted language, adulated by Datascientists and other RAD (Rapid Application Development) enthusiasts. It has at least the merit compared to JavaScript to introduce the notion of typed programming (although it remains dynamic) decreasing a little the spectrum of potential errors.
Java: launched in 1996, a time when the diversity of CPU architectures was still important, with a seductive promise: “Write once, run anywhere”. It introduces a new concept, it is a compiled language, but for a non-existent CPU. The “bytecode” produced by the latter is indeed executed on a virtual machine (the JVM) which will convert it on the fly into code executable by the underlying physical CPU.
Let’s take a look at the latter, which still represents the majority of business application code in companies.
The initial promise was seductive, in the 2000s, the decade that saw its popularity explode, the server park in companies was still very diverse:
Unix servers (where each manufacturer had its own OS and proprietary CPU architecture),
“Wintel” servers (Windows + Intel),
and still a lot of mainframes for the biggest ones.
The application development was therefore divided into as many silos as there were hardware targets, with dedicated tools for each of them (IDE, compilers, build tool, debugger, libraries, framework …) and dedicated human skills.
This was a real obstacle to the pooling of developments and the rationalization of teams.
The promise of a technology that allows code to be written only once, regardless of the target platform, was a miracle: THE solution for many companies.
Java also popularized a concept that had previously been relatively confidential: object-oriented programming.
The ability to reuse code more easily, whether written by oneself or by others: more productivity gains in perspective.
It has been a dazzling success, it goes from the 26th place of the TIOBE ranking in 1996 to the 3rd in 2001 and obtains the podium of the most popular languages in 2005 (a place it will only lose in 2012).
Its adoption is undeniable and it starts to be taught in engineering schools.
But as in computer science, magic does not exist, its two main qualities (universality and productivity) are once again paid for in the field of resource consumption.
Java suffers from two big problems:
A gargantuan memory consumption: 20 to 100 times higher than an equivalent program written in C for example.
A very slow startup time, because the JVM has to analyze the bytecode and its real use at runtime to optimize its transcription into native code.
Greed and finite resources
Java is greedy, very, very greedy, especially when it comes to the RAM of the machines on which it runs.
This bulimia is explained by three properties of the language:
Its mode of operation: compilation “just in time”: at runtime, which makes massive use of introspection, greedy in resources.
Its memory allocation management mode: all Java objects are allocated in the heap, the least efficient, and in Java, everything is an object.
Its object model: while it facilitates code reuse, it also encourages the uncontrolled loading of unnecessary code.
There are two types of resources on a computer: finite resources and infinite resources.
Memory and storage are finite resources: the machine has a fixed quantity (e.g. 64GB of RAM and 2TB of disk), it does not increase with time (except by physically adding more).
The CPU is an infinite resource: The number of cycles, and thus, of operations it performs, increases with time which is a priori infinite (although not all physicists are yet certain of this hypothesis). Its speed is constant over time (it does not accelerate as it gets older, but it does not slow down either), but the more time passes, the more the sum of the operations performed increases.
Cloud providers have obviously built their pricing model by essentially charging for the use of finite resources, RAM and/or storage.
A software written in Java, consuming a priori much more RAM than its equivalent written in another language will consequently be much more expensive to run.
Incompatibility with the microservice model
Java was conceived and popularized at a time when the monolith was king, the big software running on a big server that belonged to the company and that only it used.
Its startup time was not important as it was started once and then ran day and night without stopping, whether there were users to consume it or not.
As long as the company was financially amortizing the server whether it was used or not, the fact that it was loaded to 5 or 100% of its capacity was not an issue. The fact that its available resources were being wasted was not important.
Many CIOs in the 90s and 2000s even measured their success and importance by the number of machines lined up in their server rooms. Environmental concerns were unfortunately not yet relevant.
The advent of microservices architectures and orchestrators, for the reasons explained above, has changed the game.
Since microservices are still mostly unable to exploit the multithreaded/multicore capabilities of modern CPUs, the idea was to increase the processing capacity of the system by multiplying the number of instances of each microservice to which a front-end load-balancer usually distributes the work.
Modern orchestrators can easily detect the processing capacity limit of an instance, so they trigger the launch of a new instance of the service and then balance the traffic between them.
When the traffic decreases, the orchestrator will “destroy” the useless instances in order to reduce the reservation / consumption of resources and therefore the customer’s bill (Pay-as-you-use), we speak of elasticity.
But this elasticity assumes that :
The start of a new instance is fast enough not to penalize the users who triggered it (one or two seconds maximum)
That this startup does not imply a high consumption of resources
But it is exactly the opposite that happens with a program using the JVM.
It can take 30 seconds (or much more) to start up, during which time it will consume a phenomenal amount of CPU cycles and GB of RAM.
In the infra world, it is said that the JVM “heats up”, like an old diesel engine.
It is therefore obvious that JVM-based technologies (Java, Scala, Kotlin, Groovy, JRuby…) are not the ideal candidates for the new Cloud paradigm… despite their hyper-presence in the enterprise application landscape.
Rewriting applications with technologies that finally prioritize performance and multithreaded processing will take time, years, probably decades, and we call this (among other things): technical debt.
A new lease on life
Rewriting (or writing) enterprise software with modern technologies, better suited to modern hardware and deployment paradigms, assumes that these technologies exist.
They do. For the last ten years, we have seen the emergence of new languages, which try to reconcile, as much as possible, productivity and performance.
Go and Rust are the two most significant representatives.
They were both designed with the new computing landscape in mind: massively multi-core architectures and a deployment paradigm based on elasticity.
They are both strongly typed, and compiled for real CPUs aiming at a level of performance and efficiency unattainable for an interpreted or semi-compiled language like Java.
They both excel in the management of concurrent programming, security performance and the reasoned but efficient consumption of hardware resources.
Productivity and performance being rather antinomic, they deal with the limits of the exercise with a different approach:
When the limits are reached, Go focuses on simplicity and productivity.
When the limits are reached, Rust favors performance and security.
Their popularity and adoption are seriously starting to take off, but it will be a long way before they take the place of Java and Python in the enterprise.
Personally, I’m glad they’re available and I call on all developers to take an interest in them: for the planet, and all managers and decision-makers: for their operating accounts.
The promise finally delivered
I won’t go into comparative performance and consumption figures for this or that implementation of a program in the various languages, as the web is full of them.
I will simply confirm that my personal experience attests to differences that are obvious and sufficiently important to justify in many cases the financing of the rewriting of a number of enterprise programs with these modern languages.
The financial gain in “Run” costs (i.e. the cloud provider’s bill) often quickly absorbs the investment required to rewrite the software.
Moreover, it is not excluded that on this occasion, the latter gets rid of a certain number of historical bugs by taking advantage of the new security and quality control mechanisms (e.g.: integrated unit test mechanisms, automatic or secured memory management, simplified but efficient concurrent programming models …) of these languages.
The promise of the Cloud, namely a decrease in infrastructure costs, and IT in general, has proven to be a mirage for many companies that, all things considered, struggle to justify their switch on a purely financial angle.
Other supposed advantages such as agility, risk control and my favorite one of all: the refocusing on the core business of the company, are often put forward ;-)
However, the reality is not so far from the promise:
By pooling infrastructures in giant ultra-optimized datacenters, we effectively lower the average consumption per company.
We allow them to pay for resources only when they are used.
They have access to a flexibility and elasticity of processing capacities that were previously unimaginable.
But to achieve this reality, it is imperative that their development teams (or editors) dig up a skill that has often been forgotten for decades in business computing: the search for software performance and efficiency.
Conclusion
It seems that our industry evolves in cycles of about two decades.
Mainframes ruled the world between the 70’s and 90’s, micro had its heyday after about 15 years and then the Cloud paradigm appeared in 2005, it took 5 years to really break through to become the default standard by 2010.
We can assume that it will remain so at least until 2030.
Investing in performance, elasticity and software quality (sometimes at the cost of a small drop in developer productivity) is therefore not an unreasonable gamble, especially since there is no reason to believe that we will see the “free” increase in performance of the 90s to 2004 in the near future.
I’m firmly convinced that it is worth it, financially, ecologically and intellectually. | https://medium.com/geekculture/software-development-what-has-changed-cd901207fa0d | ['Bastien Vigneron'] | 2021-06-04 08:27:52.613000+00:00 | ['History', 'Cloud', 'Rust', 'Go', 'Software Development'] |
Python 101 | Hello readers!!✨👋🏼 Here is my 12th-week blog as an intern in a software development company. For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been working with open source, but this last week more than being focus on doing open-source issues, I tried to understand and learn python. Here is some of what I’ve been learning as a newbie with python. Also, it’s helping me to find more challenging issues to work on next.
First of all, I’ve been going through the next concepts on REPL (Read-evaluate-print loop). You can use it in Visual Studio Code (extension). REPL is another terminal, and you can use it to test assumptions, little bits of code, and get an instant result. Let’s start with the basic concepts and their explanation:
Functions: To start a function, you need to start the function definition (def), then the name. For example, “def variable_name():”
Functions can also accept no arguments, for instance:
Accepting arguments: If there is no control flow, then everything after “return” is ignored.
Function Arguments:
Lists: Used for storing similar items and in cases where items need to be added or removed. An empty list can be defined as “[ ]” or “List_name( )” and it will always start in the position 0. Let’s see an example of updating an item in a list:
Also, there are two ways of sorting number in python. Let’s see some examples with this list “lottery_num = [1, 4, 34242, 78, 11]”:
Using “Sorted”: what this method does is make a copy of the list and return the values sorted.
if we want to save the copy we just need to define a variable, for example, “x=sorted (lottery_num).”
2. Doing it in place: This will actually modify the list
Adding items to a list: To add items we will used “append”
Extend: We use “extend” to combine two lists. “names.extend(colors)” where “colors” is the list that will be combined into “names.”
List lookups: It looks for the value and position inside a list.
Index: “.index” tells you in what position the item is.
Count: “.count” tells you how many items with the same name are on the list.
Change and remove an item:
Tuples: Lightweight collection that is used to keep track of related but different items “Immutable.” Tuples are perfect for containers that need an immutable key aka a key that can’t be changed.
Unpacking tuples: Are great to quickly consolidate information. To unpack “(“Max”, 10, “Math”, 9.5)” we need to declare variables for each item, for instance, it would look like this: “name, age, subject, grade = student”
if we don’t want to save one of the values as a variable, we can use underscore “_.” Example: name, age, subject, _ = subject
I know I wrote a lot about basic concepts, but from my experience, it’s better to start filling the voids or getting strong basics. To be able to start with something more challenging. | https://medium.com/@marianayazp/python-101-6d52cd823201 | ['Mariana Yañez'] | 2020-12-22 05:05:02.819000+00:00 | ['Python3', 'Python', 'Python Beginner'] |
The Serverless Vector Map Stack Lives! | TL;DR: With the release of AWS Aurora Serverless Postgres (with PostGIS support), building an entirely serverless map stack is now possible, including the database.
The world of serverless computing continues to expand. In my previous post, I discussed using AWS Lambda to run a vector tile server. Recently AWS announced the release of Aurora Serverless Postgres which presented an opportunity to continue the discussion around architecting an entirely serverless map stack.
Serverless Aurora Postgres
On July 9th, 2019 AWS released Aurora Serverless Postgres. Some high level, applicable bullets:
Postgres 10.7 installed with PostGIS 2.4.
The database can scale down to 0, as in the database is no longer running. This is not the default but can easily be enabled.
Data storage scales from 10GB to 64TB in 10GB increments. If you scale the database down to 0 Aurora Compute Units (ACUs), you will only be paying for storage.
Currently available in the following availability zones: US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), EU (Ireland), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo)
To be honest, I’m a bit skeptical of “Serverless Databases”, but I also like to explore new technology, so let’s see how this goes.
The vector tile map stack
When setting up a vector tile stack there are three core components:
Vector tile server: responsible for listening to incoming tile requests and orchestrating data fetching, tile encoding, tile caching and responding to the request. The tile server may also handle geometry processing (clipping, simplification, makeValid, etc.). Data provider: Data providers house the data which will be served to the end-user. Data providers come in many forms, for example, Postgres + PostGIS, GeoJSON, Shapefiles, GeoPackage, etc. Tile cache: Generating vector tiles is resource-intensive so if your map data is not highly dynamic then it makes sense to implement a tile cache. Tile caches come in many forms, for example, AWS S3, Redis, filesystem, etc.
The high-level architecture can be visualized as:
High-level vector tile architecture
Severless vector tile servers
The section title sounds confusing, but the first tool you’re going to need is a vector tile server that has been designed to work with AWS Lambda. Here are a couple of examples of which the first one I have helped develop and the second one I recently found by Henry Thasler.
Tegola Lambda
https://github.com/go-spatial/tegola
Native geoprocessing and encoding
Supported data providers: PostGIS, GeoPackage
Written in Go
Cloud Tileserver
https://github.com/henrythasler/cloud-tileserver
PostGIS used for geoprocessing and encoding (ST_AsMVT, ST_Simplify, etc.)
Supported data providers: PostGIS
Written in Node.js (typescript)
For additional details around configuring and running these tile servers, visit their project pages.
Aurora Serverless Postgres
Spinning up an Aurora Postgres Serverless instance is remarkably easy. In the AWS console, you simply navigate to RDS and select Amazon Aurora and then choose “Amazon Aurora with Postgres Compatibility”. If you have spun up an RDS instance before, then the majority of this setup will be very straight forward and familiar to you.
The Serverless nuances show up under the section titled “Capacity settings”. Here you will have the opportunity to configure the scaling options for your RDS instance. Scaling RAM is one of the interesting options here, but if you unfold the section “Additional scaling configuration” you will find an option titled “Pause compute capacity after consecutive minutes of inactivity”. Check this box and you can now configure scaling the database down to 0! That’s right, if the database is not being used for a configured amount of time, you can shut the entire database down and cease paying for the resources. As you will later see this comes with consequences, but for many situations, this might be entirely acceptable.
Once the database has been configured, you will receive a hostname to connect to and then you’re ready to connect to the database like you would any other RDS instance. I was pretty impressed with how smooth everything was to setup.
The Cold Start
This post would not officially be about Serverless technology without a mention of “cold starts”. There are plenty of articles covering Serverless cold starts but for the sake of this post a cold start refers to the time cost of instantiating serverless resources.
A cold starts happen when:
a function has not been invoked for some time (say 10 minutes)
scaling concurrency
Lambda + tegola_lambda + S3 + Aurora Serverless
The following architectures reference using tegola_lambda for the vector tile server. While other vector tile servers could be used their architectures may differ.
The Glacial Start
The following graphic outlines what I call the “Glacial Start”, an extreme situation when absolutely everything in the serverless stack is cold and the database is set to scale to 0.
Let’s run through the request flow:
A request comes into API gateway and it’s proxied to Lambda. If the function has not been invoked for awhile the function will have a cold start time of 0–2 seconds. When tegola_lambda is instantiated it will parse the config file and open a connection to the database. This process is only necessary during the cold start. Lambda functions live outside of VPCs, but typically you want your database to live within a VPC. Lambda creates a network bridge by dynamically instantiating Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs). This process comes with a cold start time of 8–10 seconds. Note that on September 3rd, AWS announced improved VPC networking for AWS Lambda functions which is addressing this issue. This will take time to roll out across all regions but this is a big step forward for Lambda when leveraging a VPC. At this point, tegola_lambda is opening up a connection with Aurora Serverless Postgres but the database has scaled down to 0. In my tests, the initial cold start time for connecting to the database was 30–40 seconds. This is a nontrivial amount of time for a production environment, but for a development environment, this could be completely acceptable.
Some quick math and you can see that a cold start request is taking between 38 and 52 seconds! API gateway times out after 29 seconds so our first request would inevitably fail. Not ideal, but again this less than ideal experience may be acceptable in some situations.
A less glacial start
So while we’re waiting for improved VPC networking for AWS Lambda functions to be deployed to all regions, AWS has provided an alternative suggestion: don’t put your database behind a VPC, but instead use IAM roles to manage access to it. The request flow is very similar to the last architecture:
Let’s run through the changes to the request flow:
The VPC line is now designated IAM. This indicates that the database is not deployed within a VPC but IAM policies are now the firewall. Notice that the ENI cold start time is gone.
Aurora Serverless no longer has a cold start time associated with it. Rather than having the database scale to 0 this strategy would run the database at the minimum resource requirements. The pricing for Aurora Serverless is a combination of Aurora Compute Units (ACUs) at $0.06 / per hour and storage at around $0.10 / GB / month. You can roughly estimate that it will cost a minimum of $100 a month to keep the database running.
Using IAM roles as the database firewall may be perfectly acceptable for some situations but I would prefer to keep my database inside a VPC. As you can see, this approach does get rid of the VPC ENI cold start hit, so depending on your requirements this may be an option.
Let’s add a Content Delivery Network
A Content Delivery Network does come with additional costs, but the end-user experience is greatly improved. Since the nature of serving up map tiles is lots of network requests, latency is an important consideration. Here are a couple of options that build on the architecture we have been discussing.
Option 1
This option is the most straight forward. Essentially you set up Cloudfront (or any CDN for that matter) to point to the API Gateway endpoint that was previously configured and you’re done. The request flow looks like:
Although this is quick and easy to set up, it has some downsides. For example, if you were to set the CDN to cache tiles for 24 hours, as the tiles expire you’re going to need to invoke Lambda calls which could encounter the cold start costs which were previously discussed. Additionally, if the tile has not changed then you’re being billed for running the Lambda function to just fetch the tile from the tile cache. We can do better!
Option 2
This second architecture is one that I have borrowed from Henry Thasler (author of the other tile server mentioned above) and I think it’s a great approach. Here’s the request flow:
Let’s walk through the request flow:
A tile request comes into the CDN and if it’s a CDN HIT the request is done. If it’s a CDN MISS, the request is routed to the tile cache (S3) which has been configured for static website hosting.If the tile is already in the tile cache, then it’s returned to the CDN and the request is done. If the tile does not exist in the tile cache then S3 issues a 307 redirect to our API Gateway endpoint which will then process the tile request, store a copy in the tile cache (S3) and respond to the request.
I love this design as it allows for a performant user experience that scales horizontally, and as your tile cache fills up the user experience improves. Also when you need to update data, you can purge parts of the tile cache thus causing the stack to regenerate the tiles. And to top it off, using a Serverless stack (including the database) the infrastructure will scale up and down on demand.
Some nuances to consider:
In order to have S3 return the correct headers (i.e. Cache-Control, CORS, etc.) you will need to setup Static Website Hosting and make sure the tiles have the correct meta-data associated with them.
Pointing Cloudfront at an S3 bucket will not trigger the 307 redirect correctly. To trigger this behavior point Cloudfront’s origin to the S3 bucket’s website endpoint.
Cloudfront will cache the 307 redirects unless you setup your cache control headers correctly. This is done by setting the Default TTL on Cloudfront to 0 and then making sure that the proper Cache-Control headers are set on the S3 object.
Would I use this for production?
My experience so far has been great but I have not stress tested this setup enough to be entirely confident in it. What’s great about the discussed architecture is that you can implement parts of the Serverless stack without needing to implement all of it and still run a very robust and performant vector tile stack. In summary here are a few recommendations:
Use a CDN . A CDN does come with additional costs, but the end-user experience is greatly improved. Since the nature of map tiles is lots of network requests latency does become noticeable.
. A CDN does come with additional costs, but the end-user experience is greatly improved. Since the nature of map tiles is lots of network requests latency does become noticeable. Use a tile cache. Unless your data is light and / or highly dynamic a tile cache should be leveraged.
Unless your data is light and / or highly dynamic a tile cache should be leveraged. Pre-seed the tile cache for lower zooms (0–10) . Typically the lower zooms provide global context and the data does not change often. Pre generate these zooms rather than wait for the user to request the tiles.
. Typically the lower zooms provide global context and the data does not change often. Pre generate these zooms rather than wait for the user to request the tiles. Don’t scale Aurora Serverless to 0 . The cold start time of 30–40 seconds is just too much burden to push to an end-user. Don’t leverage this feature unless the situation can accommodate the hit (i.e. a dev environment)
. The cold start time of 30–40 seconds is just too much burden to push to an end-user. Don’t leverage this feature unless the situation can accommodate the hit (i.e. a dev environment) If you’re brave, don’t put the database in a VPC and use IAM roles. This avoids the ENI cold start problem, but then again that is going to be less of a problem in the near future.
Well there you have it, the serverless vector tile map stack is entirely possible! Time to deploy the planet!
Frequent Asked Questions
Are there alternatives to API gateway?
On November 29, 2018, AWS announced support for ALBs to invoke Lambda functions. I have not yet fully deployed this architecture using ALBs but technically it’s possible. There is an update slated to land in tegola_lambda v0.11 which will add support for being invoked via ALBs triggers.
What about raster tiles?
I have not tried this with a raster tile server but the same architecture can be used for raster tiles. For example, check out Mapbox’s blog about using AWS Lambda with Rasterio. | https://medium.com/@alexrolek/the-serverless-vector-map-stack-lives-22835d341d7d | ['Alexander Rolek'] | 2019-10-23 12:01:02.027000+00:00 | ['GIS', 'AWS Lambda', 'Vector Tiles', 'Postgis', 'Serverless'] |
Sibling Rivalry | Sibling Rivalry
As a busy mother who wrote on the side, I was pretty proud of myself—until my high-achieving sister came to visit.
The joke in my family is that I always wanted a white picket fence. Translated, that means I wanted a life of ordered domesticity, with a well-kept home and well-behaved children. I was completely out of step with the aspirations laid on me by others. I was smart. I was supposed to do something. You know, ride the crest of the wave of second-wave feminism and make my Daddy proud.
Instead, I popped out five babies in seven years and settled down in a tidy Cape Cod in New York City’s northern suburbs. I was fascinated by my children, and a friend told me I was the only woman she knew who seemed actually to be fulfilled by motherhood. I kept writing, though, so I was pretty proud of myself. As contributing editor for a national trade magazine, I interviewed company execs while nursing a newborn, my older children playing safely with a teenaged babysitter up the street. I got up at 5 a.m., while the tykes slept, to write articles.
The next morning, my husband woke me up, looking puzzled. “Why were you crying in your sleep?” he asked.
Proud, that is, until my high-achieving sister came to visit. The day she arrived, I furiously cleaned to get ready. I was wearing a maroon sweater vest, buttoned up the front, and I idly wondered if it made me look too boxy, like one of those middle-aged women with thick torsos and thin legs. We settled in to chat, catching up. Then I went downstairs to my little basement office to check my clunky old answering machine, the kind we used to have before voice messages.
I hit the button to get my messages, pleased because my father had called earlier, when I had run out for a few minutes. Kat picked up, however, not realizing the answering machine was running, recording every word. Their conversation was taped. “How’s everything? How’s Jacque?” Daddy asked.
They chatted, and it wasn’t flattering. I don’t remember everything that was said, except my sister’s words, “I don’t know what she does all day.”
I was stunned. I had five children under the age of 10. Two attended speech therapy twice a week. One was dyslexic and struggled in the early grades; I traced letters on her back to help her learn the alphabet, and drew pictures on flash cards to help her remember letter sounds. My daughter attended a parochial school, so I provided transportation to the public school twice a week for reading help. I took my children to ballet lessons and soccer practice. I was a mother, that’s how I stayed busy. And I was a closet writer, too.
Upstairs in the kitchen, I confronted my sister. White-faced, she said, “Don’t listen to the rest of the conversation.” So of course I did, and heard my sister excoriate my looks, describing how I had gained weight and how the maroon sweater was so unflattering. I could almost see Daddy shaking his head in disgust, because he was always very critical of women’s looks.
I felt I had existed in my sister Kat’s shadow for a long time, going back to high school. By that time, my chubby little sister had grown up to be tall and busty, with big eyes, full lips, brains and a lot of charm. While I was painfully thin and angular in high school, her prepubescent pudginess had melted away into soft, full curves. I was tongue-tied and very nearly an elective mute; she was charming and flirtatious, the belle of the ball wherever she went.
My sister was smart and knew what she wanted, and later confessed that she faked the easy social banter, like an actress. That was a skill I didn’t learn until much later. As a result, I often seemed aloof. That, combined with my modicum of good looks, led to my being branded as a “snob” in high school, when our rivalry was most intense. That perception of me was made worse by the fact that I refused to wear my glasses, so I didn’t recognize people when we passed in the high school hallways.
My little sister, 18 months younger than me, looked and acted older and more sophisticated than me. We shared the same intense insecurity, though. As a preschooler Kat was such an inveterate thumb-sucker that my mother took to painting that appendage with all kinds of foul-tasting potions. By the time Kelly was in high school she had stopped sucking her thumb, but now obsessively picked at the skin around her fingernails, sometimes leaving them bleeding.
That insecurity led my sister to marry a brutal man. Trained as an occupational therapist, Kat lived with him in Wyoming, where he supposedly went to school while she supported the family. He had dropped out without telling her, though, and spent his days smoking pot with friends. When she finally left him, Kat secured a job as the director of a battered women’s shelter in another state. Sadly, she got the job based on personal experience as much as professional expertise.
I was lucky; I had the luxury of focusing on my children. Forced to work to support her two sons, my sister was fierce in her support of the women in her care. When she remarried — to a police officer, an atavistic attempt to grab at safety — she began to gain attention for her work. She was the star, the one who lived up to Daddy’s expectations. I was the drudge, the dowdy housewife who no woman could or should possibly aspire to be.
My sister’s gift for figuring out how to get what she wanted or needed was allowed to flourish once she was no longer scrabbling to pay the bills. Her social skills made her a brilliant fundraiser for the cause of battered women. Once, I asked her why she spent so much money to get an expensive haircut when she could get the same cut for much less.
“That’s where the women with money go to get their hair cut, and that’s where I meet them and become friends with them,” she explained. I could see her point, and marveled at her skill.
I said nothing further to my sister after listening to her taped assessment of my life that day, and we had a pleasant visit. In fact, I still love her and I am her biggest fan.
I said nothing to my father, either, or to my husband. The next morning, though, my husband woke me up, looking puzzled.
“Why were you crying in your sleep?” he asked. | https://jacquewhitekochak.medium.com/sibling-rivalry-502aaf0315e8 | ['Jacque White Kochak'] | 2019-10-11 20:34:15.258000+00:00 | ['Sisters', 'Family', 'Sibling Rivalry', 'Writing', 'Siblings'] |
From Charlie to Christchurch: The Dangers of “Absolute Freedom of Expression” in Liberal Democracies | These were 28-year-old Australian citizen Brenton Tarrant’s haunting words published on his manifesto — “The Great Replacement”, shortly before he livestreamed his 17-minute terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand which resulted in the deaths of 51 Muslims. Tarrant’s attack was viewed for approximately 4000 times on Facebook before being removed and has catalysed rigorous debates on the limitations of freedom of expression (FOE) within liberal democracies. Tarrant’s manifesto constitutes a dark possibility of what a freely expressed ‘absolute’ and ‘unregulated’ right-winged ‘ecofascist’ extremist ideology entails whilst also highlighting the structural deficiencies of inadequate measures taken to address the exponential spread of ‘online hate speech’. For the purposes of this piece, I will define absolute FOE to entail the freedom to express any idea in any form to the public and have confined my analysis of its impact on Western liberal democracies.
Drawing on the gruesome parallels between the ‘Christchurch shootings’ and the 2015 attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo; this piece will analyse the impact of classical and modern liberalism on the development of FOE within the Western liberal democracies and show how these developments have shaped their respective interpretations of FOE. These different interpretations on FOE by Western liberal democracies then feeds onto my hypothesis on how FOE cannot be absolute because it is inherently malleable and contingent on the dominant discourse from which it derives its meaning from. To support this theorem, I will draw on the inconsistent attitudes towards free speech between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in western liberal democracies. My piece then explores the harmful effects of unregulated FOE online to democracy before concluding with how current limitations to FOE within online platforms can be extended upon by the judiciary, executive and legislative branches of power to promote a moral and secure society.
Flowers and tributes near the Al Noor Mosque days after the massacre. Photo/Getty Images
The role of ‘liberalism’ on the development of freedom of expression
The core of liberalism’s political doctrine seeks to protect and maximise an individual’s freedom through the emphasis of meritocracy, autonomy, and the protection of that individual’s rights to life, liberty and property from both the state and the private sector (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019). Although only entrenched into European politics in the early 16th century, liberalism drew its genesis from the combined effects of the Renaissance’s heightened intellectual ferment, the rise of a newly emerging middle class due to the proliferation of mercantilist economic policies and the spread of Protestantism that challenged the absolutism of both European monarchies and Roman Catholicism (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019). Following renewed interest in the ‘Magna Carta’ during the heat of the English civil war; the newly empowered English ‘middle class’ were then given a formal medium of expression in the ‘social contract’ theorems developed by English philosophers John Locke who argued against the government wielding absolute power and advocated for the rights of individuals to exercise their natural rights to freedom of thought, speech, and worship (Loewenstein, 2008).
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
Whilst Thomas Hobbes’s “Leviathan’s” definition of ‘social contract’ theory justifies the absolute rule of a sovereign so long as peace and security were guaranteed, Locke’s “Two Treatises of Government” differs by stating that such power must not be absolute. The developments in ‘social contract’ theory would pose as a major factor that advocated for increased “freedom of expression” within Western liberal democracies that manifested itself formally in the English Bill of Rights in 1689 which outlined basic civil rights that are still cited in legal proceedings within the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms. Article 9, regarding parliamentary freedom of speech is actively used in Australia (Roberts, 2011).
Liberalism would then expand from merely encompassing ‘social contract theory’ to also affirm rights that to write, speak, organise, associate freely without fear of reprisal. These rights would be embodied not only in the 1689 English Bill of Rights, but also within the ratified U.S. Constitution in 1788 and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen which (The 1789 Declaration) would serve as the core documents built upon liberal principles to uphold the right to FOE within Western liberal democracies. Despite many Western liberal democracies being able to draw inspiration to legislate FOE from such declarations, their respective attitudes towards the protection of their national security, defamation laws, preservation of public order and defence of moral fibre determines their different judicial interpretations of FOE.
The different interpretations of freedom of expression within liberal democracies
Every state has the right to protect the doctrines and ideals essential to its well being and proscribe detrimental ideas that seek to undermine its national security and will limit FOE accordingly. In France, FOE is firmly embedded within the 1789 French Declaration and represents a complex matrix that complements many other fundamental freedoms enshrined within the jurisprudent provisions of the Conseil Constitutionnel (Constitutional Council) (Alicino, 2015). Under France’s current legal system, the ‘Charlie Hebdo’ cartoon drawing depictions of the Prophet Mohammed constitutes a work of ‘satire’ and would be protected under Articles 10 and 11 of the 1789 Declaration which refers to the protection of the freedom of opinion and expression. The French bloc de constitutionnalité or constitutional block is made up of the 1789 Declaration, the 1905 Act — which formally separates the Church and State -, the preamble to the1946 Constitution, and the 1958 Constitution. The constitutional block has affirmed that FOE only be limited in the name of preserving “public order” which it has defined as protecting public safety, public health, public peace and respect for human dignity. French judges rarely perceive offences against religious beliefs to constitute a violation order on the basis that it doesn’t contravene any of these 4 pillars (Alicino, 2015).
Furthermore, as religion receives no special legal protection in France, it may be openly discussed, disapproved or even ridiculed as there is no specific rule in France that regulates the protection of religious practice in the name of maintaining public order and protecting individual rights (Alicino, 2015). This is because in France, FOE is primarily linked with the principle of ‘Laicite’ which emphasizes the neutrality of state law when it comes to religion. Hence, there is no provision outlined in France’s criminal code for penalties for blasphemy or offences against religions unlike the provisions found in the Italian Code.
In stark juxtaposition to how ‘blasphemy’ is adjudicated in France, the International Humanist and Ethical Union’s Freedom of Thought reports in 2018 that there are 55 countries that subject blasphemy to a myriad of judicial penalties. Blasphemy is punishable by imprisonment in 39 countries and may even warrant the death penalty in 6 countries. In Greece, Article 198 of Section 7 of the Greek penal code paves the legal scope to punish “malicious blasphemy” against the Greek Orthodox Church and similar tolerated religions. Regardless of any individual’s expression of reasonable doubt about God’s existence, state prosecutions under Article 198 have occurred and will continue to do so (Sturges, 2015). A high-profile case where Article 198 was invoked involved the successful banning of the screening of Martin Scorsese’s 1988 movie, ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ (Sturges, 2015). The contrasting approaches in FOE concerning ‘blasphemy’ isn’t the only avenue where Western liberal democracies differ in their respective interpretations of FOE. Differing views on online censorship provide ample legal battlegrounds between individuals who believe in absolute FOE and those who condone its limitation.
Following the ‘Christchurch Massacre’, significant steps have been taken to restrict FOE under the notion of combating the use of the internet for terrorist and violent extremist purposes evident through the European Commission’s EU Internet Forum and the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) (Metz et Satariano, 2019). Whilst 18 countries and many major tech corporations have expressed support for New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s call to quell online extremism to usher in a “a free, open and secure internet” by signing on to the non-binding ‘Christchurch call’ (Christchurchcall.com, 2019); The United States’ Embassy & Consulate has refused to join the endorsement despite having signed on the ‘Zurich-London Recommendations on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism and Terrorism Online’ alongside the other 28 members of the Global Counterterrorism Forum in 2017 (U.S. Embassy & Consulate in New Zealand, 2019). President Trump who has regularly denounced the media as “the enemy of the people” has his administration refuse to join the ‘Christchurch call’ under First Amendment concerns. The White House also told the Washington Post that “the best tool to defeat terrorist speech is productive speech” and that to sign the “Christchurch call” would be a direct contravention of the First Amendment (SHAFER, 2019).
Whilst France may not have laws that punish blasphemy, the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks has seen the country enact laws that criminalise anyone who speaks positively of a terrorist act or group even if their intention is not to incite violence or promote the group. The French Interior Ministry figures report that 20 percent of the 2300 cases of individuals who allegedly spoke positively about terrorism in 2016 were minors with 6 percent being between the ages of 10 and 14 (Mondal, 2018). On the contrary, in the USA, the freedom to publish due to the provisions outlined in the First Amendment has been the norm and was further entrenched in 1966 when Congress passed the Freedom of Information Act (Parmar, 2018).
However, unlike how the 9/11 terrorist attacks were widely broadcasted over American networks, the “Christchurch Massacre” was quickly censored in CNN and many other social media platforms despite the provisions that support the freedom to publish under the First Amendment. Facebook’s vice president of integrity announced that the social media platform would place more restrictions on the use of its live video service, with the possibility of first-time offenders being temporarily banned from the service for 30 days (Nytimes.com, 2019). Backed by $7.5 million in funding, Facebook also announced that it would partner with the University of Maryland, Cornell University and the University of California to develop new technologies to better detect and eliminate troublesome images from the internet (Nytimes.com, 2019). Despite Facebook’s good intentions to curb the spread of “online hate speech and violence”, the 9/11 attacks were arguably just as deliberate and calculated as the Christchurch assault. Nonetheless, this didn’t impede the press from refraining from broadcasting the events on television and online on the basis that it would encourage more acts of terrorism. Such inconsistencies in the application of FOE within the US draws upon Stanley Fish’s theories that FOE cannot exist as not all ‘reasonable trains of thoughts’ on its application are uniform and is contingent on the social structures of governments and corporations who currently define what version of free speech adheres to the logic of their preconceived idea of ‘liberalism’ (Fish, 1994). This theory then feeds on to my next point that explores how FOE is inherently malleable and therefore can never be absolute regardless of the intentions of libertarians.
Freedom of expression is inherently malleable and can never be absolute
In Western liberal democracies, free speech is exercised inconsistently with regards to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Mondal argues in his article that liberal free speech theory is unable to account for its actual operation within the confines of liberal social orders and therefore is always restrained to the whatever preconceived conception of “free speech” it is subject to which will inevitably serve to confine FOE (Mondal, 2018). This is exemplified when the UK Labour Party’s suspension of member of parliament, Naz Shah in 2016 for anti-Semitist remarks posted on her Facebook page during the height of the 2014 Gaza crisis. The UK Parliament Home Affairs Select Committee then went on to establish a separate enquiry to ascertain the degree of anti-Semitism rampant within British political parties (Mondal, 2018). However, the intolerability of Islamophobia contrasts highly the level of urgency warranted to addressing Anti-Semitism within the UK. No such expansion on the legal proscriptions against expressions of Islamophobic sentiment is currently afforded to remarks that would suggest ‘hate speech’ or ideological condemnation of associating Muslims with acts of terrorism (Mondal, 2018).
The Baroness Sayeeda Warsi’s suggestion that the hypocrisy evident within the normalisation of Islamophobia in contrast to the legal protection afforded to anti-Semitist remarks accentuates the notion that FOE is a malleable and fluid concept that falls privy to the dynamic clashing forces of the predominant hegemony and counter-hegemony who constantly seek to redefine FOE (Bhatia, 2017). Therefore, for FOE to be absolute, liberal speech theory must reflect this flexibility of not having its definition be confined to the predominant liberal speech tradition outlined by whatever current hegemonic ideology it is subject to. Hence, the multidimensional complexity of FOE in the hypocritical treatment of “Islamophobic” and “Anti-Semitist” remarks within the UK suggests that more debates on FOE within liberal social orders are needed to redefine a more liquid, and malleable understanding of FOE that cannot be absolute (Mondal, 2018).
With Charlie Hebdo, the fact that France doesn’t have any laws that prosecutes “blasphemy” but does have laws that criminalise minors for remarks that advocate terrorism suggests the ability of Western liberal democracies to redefine and change the scopes for FOE at their discretion (Houry, 2019). Another example that solidifies my hypothesis on the malleability of FOE lies within the changing attitudes of Swedish internet policy and regulation. The World Wide Web Foundation’s 2014 Web Index ranked Sweden’s internet 5 among 61 nations with respect to its significance in political, social and economic impact (Freiedersdorf, 2019). Home to some of the largest file-sharing platforms like “The Pirate Bay” and the first pro file-sharing political party — ‘Pirate Party’, Sweden is considered a leading country both in terms of its technological innovation and progressive policy-making concerning FOE online. According to the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU), Swedish attitudes towards child pornography were extremely liberal at the time, so much to the extent that it was even legal to buy, sell, and possess child, animal, and violent pornography in Sweden in 1971. Sweden eventually recriminalized child pornography in 1980, and recently 23 women were convicted of possessing sexually explicit videos and photographs of children (Thelocal.se, 2019).
Despite the liberal approach adopted to FOE, even Sweden has recently imposed restrictions to FOE concerning issues of net neutrality, surveillance and piracy (Cbsnews.com, 2019).
The Internet Infrastructure Foundation has reported that TeliaSonra has systematically given a lower priority to online traffic exercised by BitTorrent file sharing protocols and was also highly criticised in 2012 for announcing a pricier high traffic mobile plan (Thelocal.se, 2019). This breach of net neutrality contravenes the ability of the internet to be utilised as a medium to allow FOE to flourish as it systematically discriminates between which websites should receive higher or lower online traffic. Despite potentially breaching Article 12 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights as well as Article 8 and 13 of the European Convention on Human rights; the Swedish government’s grant of extensive surveillance power to the National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets Radio Anstalt — FRA) over online activities to combat ‘external threats’ to national security allows the FRA to effectively monitor all cross-border cable-based communication without a warrant (LeTourneau, 2019). In 2009, the Swedish Parliament was the first European liberal democracy to enact the intellectual property rights directive (IPRED) into its domestic legislation which compelled internet service providers (ISPs) to release the identity of alleged offenders of piracy (Thelocal.se, 2019).
Despite having veered close to the realm of allowing absolute FOE to flourish within Swedish society with regards to its liberal policy on pornography, file sharing and the openness of the internet; Sweden’s recent actions has shown that even its interpretation of FOE isn’t absolute and is open to be remoulded by the democratic principles championed by its citizens. As society’s values evolve so too does our definition of what constitutes FOE that doesn’t aggravate public order and stir unrest.
Absolute freedom of expression may cause more harm to democracy
Courtesy of NYMG pictures
Whilst FOE shares a symbiotic and complementary relationship with democracy, absolute FOE may unintentionally cause more harm to the successful implementation of a democratic society. Like the Christchurch attacks, the 2014 Gamergate scandal is another dark example of how online abuse inflicted by “keyboard warriors of the alternative right” can incorporate a misogynist campaign on female members of the gaming community. Gamergate was proliferated by online platforms; particularly 4chan, 8chan, Reddit and Twitter (Salter, 2017) and was catalysed in response to Eron Gjoni’s initial 9000-word rant about his ex-girlfriend Zoe Quinn who allegedly slept with prominent gaming journalist, Nathan Grayson of Kotaku to obtain better coverage for her game. It then escalated to a misogynistic campaign that argued for the respect of ethics within gaming journalism and deteriorated even further when gamers used the alleged scandal to attack women for exploiting their sexuality to “infiltrate and destroy gaming from within” (Salter, 2017). The suffix “-gate” gave into a proposition and further entertained the idea that the attack on Quinn unravelled a mass conspiracy comparable to the ‘Watergate scandal’ where “authoritarian leftists” like Quinn were seeking to indoctrinate young people to politicise video games as opposed to allowing gamers to freely enjoy the gameplay features games provide without being influenced by politics (Chiel, 2019).
Within this antagonistic atmosphere, Gjoni’s article was removed by moderators across multiple websites but was still allowed on 4chan (Salter, 2017). Soon the hashtag #Gamergate became a viral phenomenon on Twitter emboldened participants of Gamergate who then allowed themselves to delve deeper into delusion as they imagined themselves to be akin to “noble crusaders” who justified their focused harassment and abuse inflicted upon women under the banner of protecting “ethics in video game journalism” amongst multiple contradictory rationales. Such was the damage of the spread of exponential harm in the form of “hate speech” “trauma” and “psychological abuse” online that in September 2014, 4chan administrators took the unusual step of banning discussion of Gamergate despite their history of non-intervention on the site (Perrault et Vos, 2016). This then prompted gamers to migrate to 8chan, an imageboard site like 4chan where FOE is entirely unregulated to the extent that even enables the distribution of illegal child abuse materials which allowed participants of Gamergate to continue the abuse campaign (Salter, 2017).
The recent disinformation scandal and Russian interference during the 2016 Presidential elections is another example that proves how the exponential spread of unregulated FOE can warrant damaging consequences that undermine the credibility of Western liberal democracy’s institutions. The New York Times’ 3-part series documentary ‘Operation Infektion’ explores how Russia exploited Facebook’s search algorithms to systemically target vulnerable social groups within the US’s demographics with its disinformation campaign (NYTimes.com, 2019).
Creepily, Microsoft’s artificial intelligent Twitter chatbot Tay, became ‘viciously racist’ within only 24 hours (Chiel, 2019). Interestingly, the similar chatbot Microsoft released in China that had been talking to millions of people for a year did not experience the same issues (Chiel, 2019). Microsoft soon removed ‘Tay’ and has deleted its offensive tweets; however, this experiment has dangerous implications for FOE in the future. Who should be held accountable should artificial intelligent entities express themselves in a manner that is conducive to promoting hatred and disinformation?
Redefining limitations on the freedom of expression for online platforms
As he blasted a morbid perversion of ‘The Brigadiers’ theme, Brenton Tarrant shouted sarcastically, “Remember lads, subscribe to PewDiePie”, a reference to YouTube’s most subscribed channel (Roose, 2019). Hours before the attack, Tarrant freely uploaded his ‘right-winged’ themed manifesto to 8chan which was rich with irony, contradictions and references to online meme culture. Even Tarrant’s manifesto, which was riddled in “shitposting” was clearly designed to derail serious political conversations and elicit strong reactions from people who didn’t understand or weren’t familiar with online subculture as he acknowledges how video games taught him ethno-nationalism (Lorenz, 2019). Thought daunting and confusing to many, this strange reality is a product of FOE online and only shows how detached regulators of free speech are.
Building on top of Neo-Gramscian theories of international governance that argues for more consent to be built for institutions to be effective and enact social change, I propose that Western liberal democracies adopt a clear distinction as to what constitutes extremist content designed to destroy the fabric of a secure and stable society from satirical expression. More clarity and education are required to familiarise law makers with the evolving nature of communication and to better equip them to differentiate “jokes online” from harmful content. The recent US Federal inquiries onto Facebook following the Cambridge Analytica scandal just goes to show how outdated and ‘clueless’ legislators on online forms of expression are (Graham-McLay, 2019). Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg recently called for the need for more regulation with respect to harmful content, election integrity, privacy, and data portability. Zuckerberg also called for a more standardized approach and suggested that third-party organizations could set standards on harmful content while Internet companies should be accountable for enforcing these standards. Facebook has also recently invested in research that studies techniques to detect manipulated media as part of its efforts against fake news (ASEAN-Australia Strategic Youth Partnership, 2019).
Government must ensure that measures to protect national security like Australia’s data encryption laws, the US’s Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism and the UK’s Counter-Extremism and Safeguarding Bill (Prevent Strategy) do not unjustly discriminate any ethnic minority (Parmar, 2018). The UK’s Prevent Strategy has encouraged universities to enforce an unhealthy culture of ‘self-censorship’ within politically active Muslim students by encouraging the monitoring and recording of online communications of students and staff (Parmar, 2018).
Conclusion
By utilising the role of liberalism’s evolution to explain the legislative rationales for different interpretations of Western liberal democracy’s limitation of free speech, I hypothesise how FOE is inherently fluid and subject to the confines of liberal free speech theory of the predominant ideological hegemon. FOE therefore can never be absolute regardless of the intentions of libertarians who believe in unregulated freedom of speech. By referring to the Gamergate scandal, the Russian disinformation campaign and the censorship of the Christchurch massacre video; I then suggest how FOE if left unregulated can cause more harm on democratic institutions before building on top of Neo-Gramscian theories to suggest alternatives to redefine the limitations on the FOE on online platforms to better contain the spread of “hate speech”. | https://medium.com/swlh/from-charlie-to-christchurch-the-dangers-of-absolute-freedom-of-expression-in-liberal-4699481e337b | ['Edward Wong'] | 2019-06-14 06:29:11.812000+00:00 | ['Christchurch Shooting', 'Charlie Hebdo', 'Freedom Of Speech', 'Democracy', 'Politics'] |
Dear Mayor Pete, I want my “Pocket Change” Back! | The Democratic Party primary can largely be seen as a contest between two wings of the party: the progressives and the neoliberals. Up until very recently, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has been attempting to keep a foot in each camp — his rhetoric was often quite progressive, but his policies mostly fell into the centrist/neoliberal camp. In recent days he seems to have abandoned this strategy, deciding rather to totally embrace the centrist position.
This can be seen in his recent comments on Medicare for All and his aggressive attacks on Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren at the last Democratic debate. However, the clearest, and most repugnant, example o this was a comment he made two days ago during an interview. He was asked about his fundraising in the race. Buttigieg has had some impressive numbers during this campaign. In the first quarter of 2019, he raised over $7 million, despite being a fairly unknown figure. By Q2, he was the top fundraiser in the field, bring in $25 million. His numbers in Q3 were pretty strong as we, raising $18 million. However, his numbers did drop and he dropped to third place, behind Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who brought in around $25 million each. These numbers were even more impressive because Sanders and Warren did so almost entirely with small grassroots donations.
Over the last few months, Buttigieg’s polling numbers have been falling as well. He was able to point to his strong fundraising as a defense for staying in the race. That argument is harder to make as he dropped to third in fundraising. Buttigieg, who has donations from 24 Billionaires (the most in the field), when questioned about the fact that he was outraised by two candidates who mainly took small donations, railed that “we are not going to beat [Trump] with pocket change.” Without a doubt, this is the most insulting thing any of the Democratic candidates has said this election cycle. The progressives, especially Sanders, have been raising money from ordinary working-class Americans, averaging $18 at a time. The profession that has donated the most of Sanders are teachers. Among the top employers of his doners are hourly wage-workers from Amazon, Starbucks, and Walmart. What Mayor Pete calls “pocket change” is the hard-earned money of folks that can scarcely afford to spare even a few dollars. While Buttigieg attends fancy fundraisers in the Hamptons and collects checks from billionaires, Walmart workers that are struggling to pay their rent and feed their families are giving what they can because they have found a candidate that truly fights for them.
When Mayor Pete first jumped into the race, I found him interesting and, despite being a dedicated Sanders supporters, I wanted to help him make the debate stage. I donated $1 to Mayor Pete to help him hit the 70,000 grassroots donations he needed to qualify. I gave some “pocket change” to him because, quite frankly, he fooled me. I thought he would be a progressive ally in the civil war that was being waged in the Democratic Party. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I am a teacher; when I give money to a candidate, it means something to me. Now, as I see the true Mayor Pete, I am ashamed that I donated to his campaign. And so, I am formally requesting my “pocket change” back. I would like to donate it, instead, to a candidate that does not display complete and utter disdain for the working people of America!
UPDATE: On October 29th, the Buttigieg campaign refunded by “pocket change.” Additionally, on December 12th, others began to copy the action described in this post and the hashtag #RefundPete was born. It has now gone viral as thousands of people are demanding their pocket change back from Wall Street Pete! | https://medium.com/the-long-island-left/dear-mayor-pete-i-want-my-pocket-change-back-117e6c2a8d2f | ['Ron Widelec'] | 2019-12-12 17:40:07.003000+00:00 | ['Elizabeth Warren', 'Bernie Sanders', 'Politics', 'Democratic Party', 'Pete Buttigieg'] |
THE ONE THING YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR HEALTH RIGHT NOW | THE ONE THING YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR HEALTH RIGHT NOW
Have you ever seen someone getting scared about something that shouldn’t be scary at all, like seeing a spider or taking a flight?
You might have noticed them having real physical reactions — clenching their fists, becoming tense, sweating or showing other signs of panic. Yet while witnessing these very real signs of stress, you’ve likely been sat there wondering what is wrong with them — after all, they’re seeing and experiencing the exact same things that you are.
However, while you remained calm, that exact same situation created stress for someone else. Their brain perceived the situation as a highly stressful event, producing a cascade of chemical and physical reactions, triggering the stress (or fight or flight) response you saw.
These types of situations highlight how, even when the input (visual representation) is the same for two people, they can each interpret that input very differently.
This is because the human brain processes visual input based on our individual knowledge and previous exposures to an object or situation, and then produces a reaction according to our respective personal meanings of the event. This process means that stress and the stress response both occur inside the brain and are only stimulated by external triggers.
At the same time, stress and the stress response are not solely produced by simply encountering those triggers. Your personal appraisal, which has been developed from your exposure to said triggers, also plays a crucial role.
THE SCHOOL OF STRESS:
The fear and stress response is learned. If someone had never learned to be scared of a big hairy animal — for example, a bear — they wouldn’t find it scary upon seeing one for the first time.
Similarly, children don’t immediately realise the danger of oncoming cars — it’s their parents who must instruct them to move away from the traffic, when they’re cruising back home from school on their scooters. This example highlights another way to learn fear and subsequently produce a stress response — this is via exposure to other people’s reactions and their experiences.
Recent developments considered, your entire family doesn’t have to catch COVID-19 and barely survive for you to be afraid of disease. The consistent exposure to negative media coverage is sufficient to build your appraisal, so that every time you think of the disease, it produces a stress response — but this in turn, weakens your immune system, making way to a higher chance of infection.
In an experiment conducted by Schachter and Singer in 1964, 184 males were injected with a drug called epinephrine, a hormone which produces bodily reactions, such as trembling, increased heartbeat and rapid perspiration. All participants were told they were trialling a new drug that would test their eyesight — however only some of them were told about the side effects.
The participant groups were then placed in separate rooms, where the doctors conducting the experiment would act out different types of behaviours, such as angry and happy.
The participants who were told nothing about the drug felt more emotional, intensely mirroring the feelings shown by the person conducting the experiment, whereas those already told about the side effects had a more controlled response. The latter immediately associated their physical sensations with the drug itself, not just what they were witnessing.
What this experiment confirms, is that our pre-conceptions make us see things differently to how we otherwise would. Even the strongest physical sensations from the body can be reappraised by the brain, depending on what we’re told and how we’re expected to react.
This is the same for life events, our stress response is heavily influenced by the people surrounding us, their opinions and the explanations we’re given — but what happens if we do not know how to react to something unprecedented, such as a global pandemic, and we don’t have an explanation for it?
Well, just like those participants in Schachter and Singer’s experience, who were unaware of the side-effects of the drug, we feed off the atmosphere and mimic the emotions and responses from those around us.
This was also made clear in the now infamous experiment involving Little Albert in 1920. Today it’s considered greatly unethical, but the results are still used to show psychology students how fear conditioning occurs.
In the experiment, a nine-month-old toddler named Albert was exposed to various fear stimuli, including animals as small as a rat or rabbit, and as big as a dog. When Albert showed no fear to any of the animals, those conducting the experiment started striking a steel bar with a hammer every time he touched a rat.
Eventually, poor Albert would show a fear response each time a little rat appeared. Notably, after learning that fear, he would then become distressed by any hairy things, including dogs, which were never accompanied by the loud striking noises in the experiment — he was even scared of a Santa Clause mask with a furry beard on it.
What become of Little Albert is unfortunately unknown, but I’m sure we all have seen those fully grown Albert’s leaping out of their skin to avoid “danger,” causing everyone to turn around looking for impending danger — only to see a man in his 50’s running away from a pocket dog.
To this man’s brain, the dog constitutes to danger, and one of the main functions of the brain is to save the man’s life — no matter how small that danger may seem to everyone else.
STRESS CHRONICLES:
Once your brain receives a visual, sensory or audio input that constitutes danger for you personally, it produces a cascade of bodily reactions in order to save your life. To the brain, there’s nothing more important than saving your life — your survival ensures your brain survives, after all — it directs all resources to this very important task.
The stress response then produces a series of hormonal, biochemical, neurological and physiological reactions, such as slowing down your metabolism (who needs to digest food when you’re about to lose your life, right?), increasing your heart rate, elevating adrenaline and flooding your body with cortisol — also known as the stress hormone that is commonly associated with storing fat.
Once all of these systems are activated, the body is prepared to either run or fight. This is the reason behind these physical reactions — the body is embracing itself to respond to what could potentially kill you.
Remember that the stress response is something we learn and our body is only supposed to be experiencing it when we are actually in danger; once that danger has been avoided, our bodies gradually return to normal. But how often do our brains sense danger, resulting in stress, in our day-to-day lives?
How often have you felt like your heart is beating in your throat when you’ve remembered a tight deadline, had an impending mortgage payment, saw your child crossing a busy road or watched the news about COVID-19? On all of these occasions, your body is experiencing stress. This stress may be less intense compared to if you were about to be hit by a car, but it is consistent — it is chronic stress.
In the case of an oncoming car, once your stress response had helped you to avoid being killed, your bodily functions would gradually return to normal, but with chronic stress, our bodily responses remain active over the days, months or years, with no end in sight.
In fact, experiencing the full cycle of stress (fight of flight response), whether a positive or negative outcome, is more natural and therefore much healthier than being exposed to multiple stressors per day, over a long period of time — your body not knowing whether or not they will kill.
We are programmed to engage all of the body’s resources to avoid danger, we are not, however, programmed to be consistently primed for danger that will most likely never happen. Thinking about danger several times a day and living in a constant state of “what if?“ is incredibly detrimental to our health, because our bodies don’t know the difference between imaginary or real danger — they simply respond every time we ask them to.
Normally, things that stress us out, such as a deadly virus or a mortgage, are stuck in our minds in a continuous loop, and once we feel overwhelmed, we try to switch onto something more pleasant; something to keep us busy, but our body is still fighting a battle behind the scenes. Our heart rates and cortisol levels are still elevated; our metabolisms depleted.
We let this stress linger without actually addressing it and by the time all these levels start to go back down, we have more stressful scenarios running through our minds. This cycle leaves us in a chronic state of surviving, with no room for normal healthy functioning of the immune system — all resources are expended towards surviving.
Essentially, stress steals energy from your immune system, and it is immunity that you need the most in order to fight viruses, however it doesn’t just attack the immune system — it also hugely affects neurogenesis, the production of new neurons in the brain.
Not only does stress affect the production of new neurons, it also affects their survival. The hippocampal area of the brain — a region critical in memory formation, learning abilities and anxiety regulation — is one of the regions where neurogenesis is happening and new neurons are produced. Reduction in hippocampal neurogenesis has been linked to depression and Parkinson’s disease, to name a few of the many possible consequences.
What all of this means, is that unaddressed chronic stress, even if it’s only imaginary, eventually leads to depression and other neurodegenerative disease. In order to get rid of chronic stress, the stress response must be reduced, and your stress must be allowed to complete its cycles.
LIVING IN A HORROR MOVIE:
Every time we ask ourselves “what if?” — What if I lose my job? What if I catch COVID-19? What if my partner is cheating on me? — we only let our stress responses go half way, led by our imaginations, leaving ourselves hanging in the midst of an unfinished movie that never has an ending.
Every story has a tie, a climax and a denouement, unless it’s a horror story. Living through things half way — when we hold our breath in anticipation, sweating and feel chills running down the back — is a favourite method used by horror book authors and movie directors.
Neither Stephen King’s books, nor Hitchcock’s movies would be so nerve-wrecking if they didn’t employ the element of anticipation, where something is about to happen, about to happen, about to happen… until we’re only watching that movie from behind a cushion or the gaps in our fingers.
We are consistently worried about things that might not happen, especially when caught up in the hysteria fuelled by the news. It’s this anxiety that makes us binge-watch a series until 5 am too; the shows keep us hooked and worried, but if each series had a proper finale, we wouldn’t be glued to the screen like addicts.
This is why one of the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) methods for people with depression and anxiety, who tend to ruminate a lot, includes concreteness training and the ‘play the script until the end’ technique.
In concreteness training, people are trained to replace abstract rumination and worrying with a specific style of thinking. In the play the script until the end method, anxiety is reduced by imagining the worst-case scenario in nitty-gritty details, so that there are no feelings of impeding danger and perhaps even several solutions made available.
If you unconvinced by the modern CBT techniques, there’s Bushido, which translates to “a way of warrior’ and represents a samurai code.
In a famous quote by samurai Yamamoto Tsunemoto, in his commentaries to bushido, he stated the following: “Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day without fail, one should consider himself as dead.”
Although this quote may sound ominous, it teaches us it to imagine the worst scenario possible, in order to get comfortable with it — this way, there is no energy wasted on never-ending worries or fear of the unknown.
In other words, this approach means replacing a “what if?” attitude with “so what?” keeping you calm, focused and also healthy by completing the stress response once, instead of living in a daily horror series that you have to binge watch until the immune system is completely run down. | https://medium.com/@valeriyastark/the-one-thing-you-can-do-for-your-health-right-now-b146c22658c2 | ['Valerie Stark'] | 2020-12-20 19:06:25.391000+00:00 | ['Stress Management', 'Coronavirus', 'Mindfulness', 'Stress', 'Meditation'] |
No More Distractions…Kind of. | No More Distractions…Kind of.
“By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.” -Christopher Columbus
“Ding!”, “Ding!”, “Ding!”.
The calls from our phones that scream like a baby to tell us to check up on it. So we go like the mother’s and father’s that we are and we realize it our friend messaging us on Snapchat or someone just commented on your Instagram post.
And doing this 20–30 times throughout your day adds up. A productive day turns into a day full of distractions and nothing gets done.
So what is the solution?
Well to begin to resist against it too much. At that point, you are using your will power and you will lose because will is finite (for most). Some people don’t have that discipline ingrained into them from their childhood so they struggle in their adulthood.
So what we can do is use what is called the Pomodoro Technique. It originates from the use of a kitchen timer which looked like a tomato (“pomodoro” means tomato in Italian).
So the technique says that you should use 25 minutes of your time to completely focus on one task and then use 5 minutes for a phone break and to walk around or even meditate.
This was an especially valuable tool for me because I have ADHD so staying focused on certain tasks in already difficult to me.
What I would recommend when using this tool is, to begin with, 25 minutes and move your way up to 45 minutes. Try moving up 5 minutes at a time or if you can push harder then move up 10 minutes a time.
In a survey done by Udemy, this technique reported three quarters of people who have learned to reduce distractions also report being more productive, while 56% say they’re happier at work (Doing Creative Work When You Can’t Stop Looking at Your Phone by Brian Solis).
So implement it into your life and begin reaping the benefits. Improve yourself one habit at a time and the outcome may truly shock you. | https://medium.com/@AbutheGuru/no-more-distractions-kind-of-db094c3ad29d | ['Abubakir Aldarazy'] | 2019-06-06 13:43:32.464000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Productivity', 'Efficiency', 'Work', 'Hustle'] |
How alarmism on seabed mining helps destroy our planet | We are living in strange times: on the one hand, the fanciest global trend implies shifting to the ultimately eco-friendly “green” economy where fossil fuels are to be rejected. On the other hand, we keep destroying our planet with the predatory onshore open-pit mining to satisfy the needs of the new “green” economy in the so-called energy metals. Such an ambivalence can be accepted as a sign of a certain psychological immaturity along with some excessive enthusiasm of the current generations with regard to the new socio-economic paradigm where we’d prefer to appear as soon as possible. As any other period of a paradigm shift, the present days provide us with numerous examples of a sorrowful mess in the methods we apply to one or another industry which has to be reshaped by some innovative technologies.
In many cases, we are trying to combine incompatible things when some new civilizational pathos backed by our imagination hurries us up to reach some “noble” objectives regardless of the cost we have to pay for it. We are so eager to exchange our old pollution-generating ICE cars for “clean” electric vehicles to reduce the environmental impact on air. Isn’t that a noble objective? We are struggling against building of the new oil pipelines to make our leaders realize that the coming post-carbon economy should prioritize the renewable sources of energy. Isn’t such an intention commendable? We support our environmental activists in their resistance to the seabed mining which threatens to destroy the ocean biodiversity. Don’t we feel proud of being so ecologically-responsible in this case?
It would be fine unless the reality runs in a complex manner being hardly reformable with straightforward approaches. And a superficial way in which we deal with many problems disables us to see the forest through the trees.
The booming EV industry is one of the most telling examples of how a seemingly apparent impetus can lead to a highly ambivalent results. The roaring commercial success of Tesla Motors made the world automobile industry reconsider fundamental car-production technologies with which every manufacturer should proceed. It was a clear sign of a postcapitalism when quite a voluntaristic ambition of Tesla to supply the notorious Model S created a huge public demand for EVs which, in its turn, encouraged investors throughout the world to fund a battery industry with billions and billions of dollars to keep up with the skyrocketing EV production. This was followed by a common situation for a classic capitalism — the demand for batteries increased a demand for the so-called battery minerals such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, and copper. That was the turn of the world mining industry to join the race. And exactly at that moment something went wrong.
Mining corporations decided to go an easy path by intensifying their mining activities everywhere they have battery mineral deposits. Such a solution can be equated with putting new wine into an old wine skin. Because the continental mineral resources have been already explored all over the globe for the most part. And (hand on heart) any mining enterprise can barely increase the supply of cobalt or nickel 10-fold — an approximate increase in demand for battery metals appearing due to the present battery rush. And even in spite of many brave reports from various mining corporations regarding an increase in their production capacity, the gap between the global demand for cobalt, for example, and the supply of this mineral remains too huge to be ignored.
One of the actual indicators of that gap is the market price of battery minerals which keeps growing despite all media efforts to make us sure that no battery metal shortage is available. Everyone who is not alien to common logic can clearly foresee depletion of onshore mineral deposits in a short-term perspective due to the predatory mining we still practice. Even if the world mining industry could satisfy the current industrial needs in battery metals, such a situation wouldn’t last long. The onshore mineral resources are not renewable, and being depleted to zero they cannot create another portion of minerals. Hence, the intensification of the continental mineral mining is just a tactical measure capable of providing the global battery industry with energy metals for 10–15 years from now. What do we do after 2035 then?
Here a dilemma arises: we should either to suspend the “rEVolution” or to find some other sources of battery metals. Since the “go green” movement in a global economy is hardly reversible, the pace we go to a post-carbon world will most probably be kept the same, if not faster. Hence, we need another Earth to extract 10 times more minerals than we have now. Where to find another Earth?
The solution is a lot easier than it seems. Once about 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered with the oceans, we have two more worlds underwater. The worlds that are almost untouched in terms of mineral deposits. According to preliminary estimates, a piece of the ocean floor which area constitutes less than 2% of the entire seabed — the Clarion-Clipperton Zone can provide us with about 130 million tons of cobalt along with about 760 million tons of nickel in the form of the so-called nodules — the potato-sized pieces of the polymetallic ore.
Once again: less than 2% of the ocean floor can provide the entire world battery industry with energy metals for decades, if not centuries.
If we know where to find more than enough battery minerals, what prevents us from starting the seabed mining? It would seem that the biggest challenge of the industrial seabed mining comes to the depths of 3–5 km where the underwater mineral deposits are located. Indeed, the deepwater vehicles capable of working at the pressure of 300–600 bar are more challenging than spacecrafts in some aspects. But the deepwater vehicle technologies are already developed and ready to use. If desired, the world submarine industry can also be involved in the development of the deepwater mineral miners. As one mechanical engineer says, we don’t face any insoluble technical task, but what stops us is unachievable dates. How odd it may sound, the environmental concerns oppose the whole seabed mining industry which, by the way, is the only viable alternative to the predatory onshore mining which, in its turn, keeps destroying our planet.
The fact that only 15% of the ocean floor have been explored and mapped up to these days makes us question the actuality of the anthropogenic impact on the ocean deepwater biodiversity that many alarmistic environmentalists insist on. Where do they get the data regarding the harmful consequences which seabed mining could entail? Is any actual precedent available?
Of course, the environmental activists can create a virtual model of what could happen at some certain seabed area if an industrial seabed mineral mining would start there. It’s a normal practice in the contemporary science especially since the available technologies of computer simulation are advanced enough to build a model of almost any complexity. But such a computer simulation can be scientifically relevant only when all necessary data is available. Even though we can find a sufficient data about biodiversity of some particular seabed area (let’s assume the area belongs to those 15% of the seabed that have been already explored) the other set of critical data for such a simulation remains very questionable. We mean the technology of seabed mining.
On which particular mining technology should environmentalists rely while evaluating the seabed mining impact on the ocean floor’s biosphere? Do we have any standardized technology which can be accepted as a technological benchmark providing us with a general understanding of the effects of the entire seabed mining activity? No analogs from the onshore mining industry are relevant in this case because seabed mining has nothing common with the continental mining in terms of both the applicable machinery and mining methods. Hence, a variety of utterly different seabed mining technologies available now on the internet in purely virtual versions prevents us from making any considerable generalization.
As they say, no smoke without fire: a lack of relevant technical details about one or another seabed mining technology encourages some alarmists to speculate on harmful environmental effects of seabed mining in general. It’s a serious shortcoming of the seabed miners’ community to keep their technologies insufficiently explained to a wide audience. With very few exceptions, almost all websites of seabed mining technology providers represent just a very general info about their technologies with neither drawings of the deepwater vehicles nor the descriptions of their mining tools and methods. However, keeping the details in a secret is explainable from a business perspective — any viable seabed mining technology is a valuable commercial secret in the days when the entire industry is going to emerge. Indeed, confidentiality is about leadership in seabed mining. But it is hardly possible to imagine a seabed mining company which refuses to explain their technology to environmental activists when they appeal to the company for the details. Has anybody heard about such a practice?
Another seemingly crucial aspect of seabed mining relates to the renewability of the oceanic minerals. There are a lot of sufficient arguments for the very process with which the oceans regenerate seabed mineral sediments over time. This complex process which is running in the mineralized near-bottom waters under high pressure is absolutely natural. All statements in favor of the mineral renewability are based on the academic researches whose authors are well-known in a scholarship environment. Nevertheless, some environmentalists remain doubtful about an ability of the oceans to regenerate seabed minerals. Their arguments against it come to a period of several centuries if not millennia necessary to create a thin layer of polymetallic sediments at the ocean floor. Of course, if we take a human lifespan as a benchmark in such a historical process, the seabed mineral renewability is to be equated to zero.
But who says that a period of human life should be taken into consideration in such a process? The very capability of the oceans to regenerate seabed minerals happen over centuries because the relevant natural conditions such as water mineralization, gravity, temperature, and high pressure are always available in the oceans as long as they exist. The process contradicts any typical image of the onshore minerals that can be naturally regenerated under no circumstances. Probably just this cognitive dissonance prevents some mining experts from accepting the renewability of seabed minerals in the same manner as they accept solar and wind as the renewable energy sources whose effects can be experienced here and now.
We have to confess with a heavy heart that our message has fallen on deaf ears. Our core idea is based on the enormous amount of the available oceanic minerals that cannot be utilized by the humankind over centuries — the very centuries that the Earth’s oceans need for regenerating minerals at the seabed areas which should be left idle after a properly arranged partial seabed mining.
Even though we have no rights to speak on behalf of the entire seabed mining industry, the resistance from alarmists that many seabed mining companies face is very indicative. In whose hands do they play in fact? What if the transnational mining behemoths whose profits are at risk due to a possible abundant supply of minerals from the seabed are standing behind those scaremongers whose goal is to suspend seabed mining as long as they can? The alarmistic discourse in media which depicts a horrendous fate of the benthic creatures in case of seabed mining is based on the groundless speculations in most cases.
Alarmism is nothing but a subset of populism, by the way, and everyone who fights against seabed mining on the basis of a shallow amateurish expertise should remember that in doing so s/he indirectly supports the depletion of the onshore natural resources executed through the present predatory open-pit mining. Before laying all the sins (not committed sins, please note) on seabed miners, the ecologically-responsible activists should ask themselves what they actually know about one or another seabed mining technology and how deep their expertise is. Intending to debunk the renewability of the oceanic minerals in terms of a poor feasibility of seabed mining, the respected mining experts should figure out who benefits from the absence of seabed minerals on the global market after all. What could the humane defenders of wild animals feel if the following would be indicated on the batteries of their Teslas: “made with child labor” since about 40 000 Congolese children are still involved in the cobalt extraction in the DRC (and numerous supra-national entities do almost nothing about it).
Without falling into conspiracy, we have to come to a conclusion that something other than environmental concerns along with doubts in seabed mineral renewability is standing behind the alarmistic resistance to seabed mining. To sum up our belief, we could call it the existing status-quo in the world extractive industry.
In other words, the well-established system of the transnational mining corporations extends the moment with seabed mining in order to get all possible profits from their onshore mineral deposits as long as the latter are not depleted completely. Once it implies billions and a billions of dollars, anything goes and everything is used against seabed mining technologies beginning from fake environmental threats and up to a total disregard of the economic advantages of seabed mining in the world mass media.
This is about a global control over material commodities along with their distribution. It seems an industrial seabed mining will appear only after the global mining behemoths start practicing it themselves. And then, undoubtedly, no environmentalistic anti-mining discourse will be present with regard to negative consequences of seabed mining. | https://medium.com/@cryptosamadhi/how-alarmism-regarding-seabed-mining-helps-destroy-our-planet-ddf049a7558a | ['Konstantin Rovinskiy'] | 2019-01-27 19:12:29.052000+00:00 | ['Oceans', 'Environment', 'Battery', 'Metal', 'Resources'] |
How Translations Perpetuated An Information Wall Against Spanish-Speaking Americans | Translation has mattered throughout the Americas’ history, never more than this very moment.
October 12 is known in all the American continent, except the United States, as the “Day of the Race,” meaning an encounter of different races and worlds, not “Columbus Day.” The U.S. is the only country that celebrates the discovery of one continent by people from another one, as if the native peoples didn’t exist before being seen by the people coming inside three ships. It also celebrates the cult of personality. For all these reasons, the diverse people of the United States are considering renaming Columbus Day under different terms and a different understanding of history.
Words have meaning and history, usually from the conquerors’ point of view. Latin American countries speak Spanish because our native peoples were conquered by the Spanish Crown, while native peoples in the North were conquered by the British Crown. Ever since, our languages divide us. We need translations to build bridges between us.
T he U.S. is the only country that celebrates the discovery of one continent by people from another one.
For good or bad, translators can change history. They are the anonymous ghostwriters of it. They can also create myths, or else, destroy them. Mexico City was built on top of, and because of many myths, but also, one translator — Malinche. Four-hundred ninety-eight years before the latest deadly earthquake, when Spaniard Conqueror Hernán Cortés took over the majestic city, Aztec mythology was certainly on his side, but a translator on the other one. Aztecs mistook him indeed for their Serpent God Quetzalcóatl who, according to prophecies, was supposed to return.
As written by the conquerors themselves, King Moctezuma welcomed Cortés most warmly inside the sacred city that was built over another myth (the eagle and serpent’s myth over the lake). He opened the doors of his palace and temple for him. He hosted him. He allowed him to scold the Indigenous people for having such horrible non-Christian gods. He gave Cortés access and time enough to figure out how he was going to steal Axayácatl’s treasure, but one always wonders if all that non-violent first part of the Conquest would have been possible without the Indigenous woman Malinche translating the summit.
When Moctezuma addressed to Cortés, he called him, Hernán Cortés, “Malinche,” because that was the person who spoke on behalf of the Spaniard Crown. She was the voice that the Indigenous invaded people heard in their heads. We will never know if she modified or suppressed some parts of the conversation that made history.
The Other Wall
Before Trump’s wall idea, another kind of wall has already been built between Mexico and the United States — the wall of disinformation. It is the wall that led to NAFTA, signed without the consensus of both U.S. and Mexican ordinary people, compromising our future for generations, and increasing immigration. It is not in the best interest of Mexican oligarchs, Mexican drug lords, U.S. plutocrats and U.S. politicians that a majority of ordinary people start communicating between each other. They would end up making a better deal for both countries. So, this is a wall that was built for a reason.
One would expect that Google translators and communication apps in the digital era can break language barriers among ordinary people, but a closer look to any election campaign in any country, and particularly last year’s presidential election in the U.S., would correct this interpretation. With the help of Facebook and Twitter farms of trolls, more U.S. people ended up insulting more Mexican people than ever, probably, and not wanting to learn any foreign language.
Better communication with the help of automatic translators might be certainly the case in private exchanges, but not in open forums where social and public interest issues are discussed, and definitely not with the interference of paid trolls with political purposes. They are trained to end any conversation before it starts.
It’s a hard wall to break without professional journalism informing the public about real issues across the continent, and the language barrier doesn’t help.
It was not until recently that one U.S. progressive network, Democracy Now!, started considering the need to “go South” and communicate not only to Mexico but also to all of Latin America and immigrants in the U.S., offering not just the leftovers made with “the guy who speaks Spanish at the office” but high quality translation services of their news. Their web page in Spanish made a tremendous difference. Not too long ago, the only TV channels available to Spanish speakers in the U.S. broadcasted old soap operas mostly produced by the Televisa network and talk shows publicizing Televisa stars, hosted by conservative people at an elementary-school level, and no interest in social issues, economy, and politics.
Progressive media and leftist organizations didn’t think that such a massive attack on the immigrant workers’ mentality needed to be countered by a very professional, objective, smart radio, press or TV.
The rest of the press, radio, and TV news in Spanish was mostly a replica of Fox and Friends in English. Strangely enough, progressive media and leftist organizations in the U.S., led by people who acknowledged the existence of a very diverse working class in U.S. America — including immigrant workers as part of that workforce — didn’t think that such a massive attack on the immigrant workers’ mentality needed to be countered by a very professional, objective, smart radio, press or TV.
For years, conservative news shows in Spanish had no other relevant competition but the least qualified hosts who seemed to be picked by the policy of “the guy who speaks Spanish at the office.” No offense to the intern who is in the process of learning Spanish or the “guy next door” whose mother speaks Spanish because she was born in Latin America, but there is a double standard in the progressive U.S. media that needs to be addressed to break that wall.
If you were the CEO of a radio or TV network in English, would you hire a host with no experience and/or no grassroots representation whatsoever in his or her community, no traction, no leadership, not enough vocabulary to speak fluently on the microphone, no information, and no background in communications, not even in theory?
That’s exactly what an iconic progressive radio station in NYC has been doing over the last decades when it comes to most of their shows in Spanish. They apply a double standard to their hiring policies because they are progressive, but only in English. Judging by the results of their productions in the last decades, they don’t think their Spanish audience deserves the same level of information and professionalism, let alone grassroots representation.
With very little audience, in certain cases, their hosts are precisely some of the most isolated persons of their communities, be it because they have no social skills, charisma or any background in communications. You can see them trying to socialize in our public political events. They don’t even introduce themselves as reporters of this station (no one taught them to do so). I know at least one host who believes that the Illuminati are taking over the planet and OVNIS will rapture us. It doesn’t make his radio chain very different than InfoWars.
This two-tier system for English and Spanish media produced so many bad shows that turned to be reason enough for the National Public Radio to eliminate its Spanish Division in the ’90s.
This two-tier system for English and Spanish media produced so many bad shows that turned to be reason enough for the National Public Radio to eliminate its Spanish Division in the ’90s. The low-quality level was documented.
Such reduction of funding only hurt the smaller, truly grassroots and less-fancy (but with larger audiences) networks directed by and for immigrant workers like Radio Bilingüe, broadcasting in Spanish, Indian Mixteco, and English languages. Founded by Indigenous agricultural worker from the Mixteca Zone in Oaxaca and Harvard-graduate Hugo Morales, this listener-supported network produces the only daily national Spanish-language news and public affairs programs in the U.S. public broadcasting.
Even though most of their audience is made by workers living in low-income communities, Radio Bilingüe doesn’t treat them like second-class citizens who don’t deserve high-quality standards in information, vocabulary and fluency, only because they speak Spanish. Needless to say, they were directly benefited by Democracy Now! being professionally translated into Spanish, which Radio Bilingüe features on its home page as their top recommendation.
Spanish Versions Go South
It is a hard and tall wall to break between North and South, because it is made of several layers of cultural indifference.
“Democracy Now! has been really helpful by translating their key article of the week into Spanish and making some interviews to immigrant rights activists, for instance,” Rebelión Collective says.
“[Democracy Now! host] Amy Goodman is an excellent interviewer, allowing her guests to go deeper in their subject. Both her and Juan González and all their team are outstanding, in comparison to the rest of the U.S. media, because they give voice to grassroots, African American, Latin-American organizations, and people from across the world who have been affected by the US government policies. They give perspectives that have been systematically excluded from commercial media.”
With about 10,000 readers every day — half of them living in Latin America — Rebelión is one of the most diverse and professional online publications across Latin America and Spain. It is made by a group of editors, translators and writers from all Latin American countries, covering all the continents. They respond collectively to this interview, explaining that they cannot trust commercial U.S. media because “they don’t give an idea to the rest of the world of what is really happening in the U.S., since they are just broadcasting propaganda in favor of the 1% protected by a police state investing astronomical numbers of money in wars while denying health care and education to their people, in a country with the highest per-capita rate of prisoners in the world.”
“Our main sources of information are independent journalists,” Rebelión Collective continues.
“We voice Hispanic immigrants living in the U.S., including undocumented workers who are suffering in flesh the system’s discrimination and oppression. We publish texts by community groups fighting for a more just society, like Unión del Barrio, as well as thinkers and activists like Noam Chomsky and James Petras. It is basically from all of them, and other alternative media, that we present to our readers another view of reality in the United States.”
Rebelión is one of the few online publications that pays special attention to the work of translation from different languages, with specialized translators for various subjects or sections. “Why are they still interested in using human translators instead of Google robots?” I asked.
“Since its foundation, Rebelión has been lucky enough to count on a translators’ team who are militant and aware of the importance of making accessible into Spanish information that was written in other languages. Information needs to be really understandable so that the reader gets access to it. Automatic translation apps rarely get the context. A writer-author-thinker-human being deserves to be translated by an equally human, thinking translator. A ‘human translator’ will always strive to make an article’s content both most understandable to the reader and accurate to the original version. This is something that members of our team pay special attention to.”
‘U.S. Fights That Are Close to Our Heart’
Ke Huelga Radio in Mexico City reproduces Democracy Now! every day in Spanish. Created during the long but successful 1999 students’ strike opposing the privatization of public college — which gave the people of México two more decades of free public education at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM, by its acronym in Spanish) — Ke Huelga Radio has become one of the most trusted alternative radio stations for grassroots movements in Mexico. They respond to my questionnaire for AlterNet after the quake, while running from one “Centro de Acopio Autónomo” (“Autonomous Rescue Collective Center”) to another one. They too don’t want to be quoted individually but as a collective.
Ke Huelga Radio find it “most important” that critical media in the U.S. is heard by Mexican people, and that’s why they broadcast Democracy Now! for the “Ciudad Monstruo” (a city of a monstrous size). “This news show reports about many fights that are close to our collective hearts, like Standing Rock and the fight of immigrant workers against xenophobic measures proposed by president Donald Trump.”
Rebelión is one of the most diverse and professional online publications across Latin America and Spain.
Ke Huelga talks very seriously against disinformation, especially after the earthquake. This collective of reporters and grassroots radio hosts considers that it is the duty of alternative media to keep people well informed about the autonomous rescue teams working right now in Mexico, the police attacks, the government’s hoarding of international donations and, last but not least, sorting out the information on social media to dismiss fake news.
“In contrast, Mexican commercial media has turned the quake into a circus of morbid curiosity, even making up nonexistent victims like Frida Sofía, while portraying the Mexican Army and Marines like heroes,” they say. However, the Army prevented independent organizations of professional rescue workers from doing their work.
Subversiones: Cracking the Media Siege
Founded in 2010, Subversiones is a non-commercial, online publication “seeking to champion the people’s collective memory and critical understanding of the context we live on.” To them, the context is as important as the event itself, so they rely on good translations as well. “We communicate in honesty and earnest from our recognized subjectivities, in order to crack the media siege and create a counterbalance to the commercial media and its massive manipulation.”
During the earthquake, they became a community service to connect people in need of help with people who want to help, not only in Mexico City but Oaxaca and Chiapas. They have been reporting the movement against the Mexican government’s corruption that caused so many new buildings collapsing. Their publication is mostly made by voluntary work and fundraising events, selling photographs and printed publications, as well as readers’ donations.
These are just a few examples of the many bridges that progressive media can build across the United States and Latin America while commercial media keeps echoing president Donald Trump’s tweets. Incidentally, it is the same mainstream media that helped to put him in the White House by publicizing everything he did and said during the primaries, while ignoring the fight for life that was taking place in Standing Rock.
This article originally appeared on AlterNet. Republished here with permission. | https://medium.com/the-establishment/on-conquering-translations-while-renaming-columbus-day-ad5e39054ab5 | ['The Establishment'] | 2017-10-15 14:25:11.799000+00:00 | ['Latin America', 'News', 'Media', 'Spanish', 'Immigration'] |
10 NBA Rookies Who Could Make an Impact During The 2020–2021 Season | Photo Credit: 247 Sports
Devin Vassell SG San Antonio — I loved Devin Vassell as a prospect going into the 2020 NBA Draft, and Vassell has looked great so far this preseason. San Antonio displayed acumen during the NBA Draft yet again by drafting Vassell 11th overall, as Vassell is an excellent shooter and defender. Devin Vassell shot 50% from beyond the arc during the preseason, and also shot 51.7% from the field on 29 shots through three games (NBA Player Stats). Vassell also led all NBA players with 9 steals over the entire preseason. I think that Devin Vassell will end up being one of the biggest steals of the 2020 NBA Draft.
James Wiseman C Golden State — We didn’t get to see Wiseman play during the preseason due to an ankle injury, but Wiseman is likely going to be a difference-making player for the Warriors this season. James Wiseman projects to be a rim-running center who can rebound, defend, block shots, and score around the basket along with a limited jump-shot. It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes Steve Kerr to trust Wiseman to close games.
Isaac Okoro SF Cleveland — Okoro’s offensive game has been pleasantly surprising this preseason. While already possessing all of the tools to be a plus defender in the NBA, Okoro’s willingness to drive to the basket was impressive. In four preseason games, Isaac Okoro went 14/26 from the field and shot 16 free throws. While preseason 3-point percentages aren’t transferable to regular season games for unproven players, Okoro’s 45.5 3-point percentage shows that he has some basis of shooting fundamentals (NBA Player Stats). Overall, I was impressed with Okoro’s scoring prowess and willingness to play hard this preseason. Okoro could eventually become a versatile wing player.
Cole Anthony PG Orlando — Cole Anthony was outstanding during the NBA preseason. Anthony finished his four game preseason with a 47.6% field goal percentage while taking 10.5 shots per game. Anthony also displayed his ability to shoot NBA 3 pointers, as he sunk 47.1% of his 3s during the preseason (NBA Player Stats). Cole Anthony played with tremendous energy, and Orlando’s lack of a great point guard could pave the way for him to earn minutes in the regular season.
Killian Hayes PG Detroit — Killian Hayes got a lot of opportunities during the preseason, and he will likely get a uniquely large amount of playing time for the Pistons this season due to Detroit’s lack of guard depth. Hayes’ final preseason stats were ugly, as he posted a 28.6% field goal percentage and a 22.2% 3-point percentage, but I like the fact that Hayes got better in each game (NBA Player Stats). Despite having a miserable 7-turnover-debut, Hayes gained increasing confidence handling the ball and only committed 5 turnovers in the three other preseason games combined (Killian Hayes Game Logs). I think that Killian Hayes will likely improve dramatically as the NBA regular season goes along.
Malachi Flynn PG Toronto — I don’t know if Malachi Flynn will find his way into Toronto’s rotation right away due to the Raptors’ deep roster, but Flynn impressed me a lot during the preseason. Malachi Flynn looks like a versatile guard who doesn’t need to dribble the basketball to make an impact. Flynn showed a shooting touch, going 7/17 from beyond the arc during the preseason. Along with his elegant shot, Flynn’s passing ability was impressive, as he totaled 12 assists in three preseason games (NBA Player Stats). I like Malachi Flynn’s potential a lot.
Tyrese Haliburton PG SAC — Haliburton looks like a fierce, energetic point guard who pounces on opportunities to make an impact on both ends of the floor. Haliburton’s shooting and ball-handling looked good during the preseason, making him an intriguing bench player for Sacramento this season.
Theo Maledon PG & Aleksej Pokusevski C Oklahoma City — The Thunder’s roster being barren of NBA players might be an invitation for rookies Theo Maledon and Aleksej Pokusevski to log more minutes than expected. In the brief action I watched, Maledon looked good, playing with nice pace as a secondary ball-handler. Pokusevski looks like a very raw, underdeveloped big man, but Pokusevski’s high upside could pave the way for him to play a little bit for Oklahoma City this season. Considering that Oklahoma City is in an all-out rebuild, Aleksej Pokusevski is exactly the type of high-upside prospect to take a flyer on in the middle of the 1st round.
LaMelo Ball PG Charlotte — LaMelo looked promising during his four NBA preseason games. Even though we’re working with a small sample size of footage, LaMelo resembles many characteristics of his older brother Lonzo, in that both are tall point guards who are limited scorers, but have rare vision when passing the basketball. There’s finesse woven into LaMelo’s passing, and Ball appears to be a decent rebounding guard. LaMelo still has a lot to improve upon though, as his 26.2% field goal percentage and 27.3% 3-point percentage this preseason are problematic (NBA Player Stats). LaMelo will likely come off the bench and not close games right away, but I’m intrigued by some of the skills he’s displayed this preseason. | https://medium.com/@lpastor631/10-nba-rookies-who-could-make-an-impact-during-the-2020-2021-season-ffda9d94a985 | ['Lou Pastor'] | 2020-12-23 00:06:04.588000+00:00 | ['Nba Players', 'NBA', 'Basketball', 'Nba Rookie Of The Year', 'Basketball Analysis'] |
The Three Pillars — How to transition from devastation (caused by Covid-19) to rejoicing! | Moving from the physical to the digital world…
For many small businesses that had to face the harsh reality of quarantines, the silver lining can be hard to find to say nothing of finding exuberance.
But if you look deep enough and ask the right questions, you may find an answer. An answer that 2 years from now may cause rejoicing, knowing you are in a better place than you would have been without the shakeup caused by the virus.
Harsh realities are difficult to appreciate in the midst of the storm. But take a moment to consider the three pillars of your business back 15 months ago.
What were they? An ideal location, an attractive store, a steady stream of customers? Yes, those were the strength of your business.
But Covid-19 changed all that.
The customer flow has radically decreased or stopped completely. The attractive store has not been updated because it is barely possible to keep the lights on. And the store location is in serious jeopardy as cash needed for rent or mortgage payments has almost disappeared.
The process of moving from devastation to rejoicing requires a changed mindset. I never said this will be easy. The only representation is that it is doable.
Mindset…
After many months, or more likely many years of building your business many structures and processes are in place that at some level you could say the business functions day-to-day almost on autopilot. That is except for the fires that occur every day needing close attention.
To make the transition the most important and first step is to develop a Success Mindset.
Successful people have a positive outlook about their capabilities. This means that the very first thing is to believe in your own capabilities.
You must have a firm belief that you can succeed in achieving what will become your new goal.
Research has shown that you are the composite of the five people you hang out with. So, be sure that those you hang around with share an optimistic outlook. This is what success-oriented people always do.
People with a success-mindset make use of setbacks and oftentimes the related fear that develops can be used in a positive way. They consider their current situation as a unique learning experience preparing them to achieve a new level of success.
The negativity of fear can be used to do something productive and beneficial when couched in a success mindset. And, this positive outlook towards fear is also one of the top successful mindset secrets.
People who have a successful mindset are very well aware of their true source of motivation which is the undefined but fully imagined future state of their wellbeing.
Ideal Location…
The concept of the ideal location has a close parallel in the digital world. Get used to the word “niche.” For that is the concept of learning and understanding where your ideal clients or customers hang out in the digital world.
The location of your physical store was calculated to be where it would be convenient for your customers to find your store and frequently stop in and shop.
The same concept is true for the digital world. It is necessary to reach out to where your customers spend time so you can let them know you are in that space ready to offer them services and products to make their life better.
The major difference in the digital world is that geography can be eliminated or certainly down-played.
You will no longer be limited by the space and time of when a physical store can be open at a particular address.
A creative and open mindset is necessary to identify and refine the niche that you will now be able to serve.
Attractive Store…
The concept of the store is replaced by the website that you will create for your digital presence.
The website can be structured to encapsulate all the features of the store.
Using a vivid imagination and internal or purchased creativity, images, video, audio, introductions, displays, catalogs, features, discounts and so much more can be presented on your website.
Your public presence is no longer confined to the physical realm but you are free to let your desired imagination dictate what and how you will be seen by your new potential customers as they come to your website to shop.
Stream of Customers…
In addition to the freedom available as outlined in the previous two features of your new digital presence, the flow of customers can be totally different.
Actually, you have much greater control of clients or customers coming to your online store.
The concept of “traffic” is widely written about and there are about as many ways of bringing traffic into your website as there are people writing, blogging, and YouTubing about the topic.
Your traffic flow can be influenced by the methods that you select. You may pay to get the desired flow or you can implement methods that do not require a cash outlay.
But either method will cost something, cash or time and effort. Methods of bringing customers to your online store are beyond the scope of this article but a quick Google search will open your eyes to a wide range of opportunities.
A final thought.
Don’t miss the Ultimate Guide that is available for you to transition from devastation to rejoicing in this FREE download moving you from frustration to joy. Click here Download Now. | https://medium.com/@rpe147/the-three-pillars-how-to-transition-from-devastation-caused-by-covid-19-to-rejoicing-24c6d0d5c559 | ['Ronald Egge'] | 2020-12-14 15:33:04.874000+00:00 | ['Accounting', 'Bookkeeping', 'Joy', 'Transitions', 'Covid 19'] |
Tesla could easily TRIPLE its price in the next decades 🚗 | Tesla is my favorite stock as it might be for many of the investors. If you had bought Tesla at its IPO you would get Tesla at $17 ($3,4 stock split adjusted), which means that by today you would have profited more than 16.000%. 𝗔𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 $𝟭𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝘄𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 $𝟭𝟲𝟭.𝟬𝟬𝟬 by today 💸 These are some pretty crazy numbers for a 𝟭𝟬-𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 but also teaches us the importance of patience when investing.
𝐓𝐋:𝐃𝐑
◾ We’re facing a world rotation from ICE to EV and the journey is just beginning as the EV market share represents only 3% of the passenger vehicle market.
◾ Most countries are making plans to ban ICE vehicles by 2030–2040 which will lead to a surge in EV demand and increased market share.
◾ Tesla is building a global manufacturing infrastructure in the 3 continents (North America, Europa and Asia), expecting a production capacity of 2 million vehicles p/ year by 2022 / 2023.
◾ In the Battery Day event, Tesla unveiled its new 4680 battery cell developed in-house which will reduce the cost of their batteries by more than 50%, five times more energy capacity and an increase of 16% range for Tesla’s vehicles. All that in just 3 years.
Now, let’s analyze why Tesla has so much room to grow and why the price can easily double in the next decade.
🥧 𝐓𝐀𝐌 (𝐓𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐝𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭)
Tesla is not only a car manufacturer, it’s way more than that. We can say that Tesla operates under the Transportation and Energy sector. Tesla doesn’t only sell cars. It sells electrical trucks, solar panels, solar roof tiles, batteries, car charging service at supercharger stations, insurances, and services in general.
According to the analyst Adam Jonas from Morgan Stanley, Tesla’s addressable market could potentially be $10 trillion for the light vehicle market, $1 trillion for the logistics market (courier, truck, farm, warehouse vehicles), up to $3 trillion for the energy market and lastly he added “a potential multi-trillion market captured in the 600 billion hours of consumer time spent in cars in the form of content delivery and data monetization”.
In 2020, its expected sales of around 2.3 million units of PEV (plug-in electric light vehicle), representing an increase of 5% from 2019 Seems to be a low growth rate, yet, we should consider that during the first six months of 2020, the PEV sales have declined by 40 percent on China (world leader in EV sales) YoY. caused by the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.
According to Electrek’s estimations, Tesla accounts 18% of the global EV market, considering that the EV market represents about 3% of the global passenger vehicle market (as of October 2020). Deloitte forecasts a CAGR of 29% over the next ten years for EV sales.
The projections for the EV market share continue to get higher as the transition starts being made. Find out why in the next point. 👇
🔋 𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐭𝐨 𝐄𝐕 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭
Incentives for EVs have been established around the world to support and incentivize the adoption of electric vehicles. These incentives can be: purchase rebates, tax exemptions and tax credits, access to bus lanes, fee exemptions (charging, parking, tolls), etc. Tesla even has a whole page with all the incentives in the US: www.tesla.com/support/incentives
𝗜𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗦, in September, California Governor — Gavin Newsom — signed an executive order that will ban the sale of new combustion-engine vehicles in the state by 2035. “By moving aggressively and boldly now, we can help save Americans from the dire health and economic impacts of the climate crisis” — said Mike Levin — California Representative.
𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐊, Minister Boris Johnson announced on November 17, that the ban of ICE cars will begin by 2030 (previously planned to ban by 2035 and 2040 as the deadline was now moved up).
𝐈𝐧 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞, in the climate change, plan its stated “Take greenhouse gas-emitting vehicles off the market by 2040: stopping sales of petrol or diesel cars will encourage car manufacturers to innovate and take the lead on this market.”
𝐈𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐚, the announcement of the future road map for new energy vehicles plans to require that all new cars sold after 2035 be eco-friendly according to Nikkei Asia. The plan state that as of 2035, 50% of new cars sold in the country will be either electric, plug-in hybrid, or fuel cell vehicles, and 50% of new cars will be conventional hybrids.
𝐈𝐧 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲, Angela Merkel, despite not having defined a timeline, said in 2017 that the country must eventually join other European countries in banning new diesel cars as she mentioned that the plans by UK and France to phase out fossil-fuel powered cars by 2040 as “the right approach”.
𝐈𝐧 𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐲, the sale of all fossil fuel-based cars will be banned by 2025. Politicians have reportedly reached some conclusions about 100 per cent of Norwegian cars running on green energy by 2025.
Among these countries, we also have 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬, 𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐠𝐢𝐮𝐦, 𝐈𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝, 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤, making plans for an EV transition in the next decades. It’s crystal clear that the world is making a transition to EV over the next generations so that only proves that EV is here to stay.
🏭 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲
Tesla is building a global manufacturing and delivery capability by constructing infrastructures all around the world. Currently, Tesla is either under construction or already producing in the following Gigafactories:
Gigafactory Fremont (in production)
Gigafactory Shanghai (in production)
Gigafactory Berlin (under construction)
Gigafactory Texas (under construction)
Gigafactory Nevada (production — batteries)
Gigafactory New York (production — solar roof tiles)
Elon Musk is very clear about this, he explained in February 2020 that a Gigafactory on each continent would mean that cars would reach consumers faster. “The biggest problem we have to solve right now is having production on each continent, because it’s insane to be making cars in California [and] shipping them to Europe and Asia,” Musk said.
Although, the main and obvious reason is to increase production capacity, with 3 Gigafactories (Fremont, Shanghai, Berlin) Tesla could be producing more than 1.5 / 2 million vehicles by 2022 / 2023 at full potential. This production capacity it’s like the same as the EV sales in the US and China combined in 2019. This will play a huge role in meeting demand but also the faster Tesla can scale, the far away it will be from its competitors.
💼 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥
Elon Musk started Tesla with the mission to “accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass-market electric cars to market as soon as possible.” That’s a bold mission for a new company under all the big sharks of the automotive industry but the disruption it’s proven to be the catalyst for the companies surge.
𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐥𝐚’𝐬 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬. Traditional car manufacturers, sell through franchised dealerships, Tesla instead, uses direct sales by creating an international network of company-owned showrooms in urban centers all around the world. Tesla believes that this way, they can create a better customer buying experience, branding coherence and have an advantage in the product development process. Tesla has already more than 400 locations around the world . Tesla generates a lot of awareness to drive sales through the Internet (Social Media), word of mouth, referral programs,Elon Musk, etc. Tesla also allows customers to place orders directly on the website. Customers can build their own car, add features, choose different color combinations, choose financing options, enabling a unique customer buying experience.
𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐥𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝. Customers can charge or service their vehicles at these service centers, also known as “Service Plus”. Tesla invests heavily in executing its own sales and marketing efforts locally to not only provide a unique experience but also to learn from customers, know what they are saying, their problems, making the learning and innovation process much faster. In certain areas, Tesla mobile technicians who can service vehicles from your house, also known as “Tesla Rangers”, can sometimes, through wireless upload data from your car so these technicians can fix some problems online.
𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐥𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 to widespread the adoption of its electric vehicles. This stations is where drivers can charge their cars in about 30 minutes for free. If you can’t charge your car (like you would put gasoline in your car at a fuel station), why would you buy an EV? Tesla is playing a huge role in creating a massive network of these chargers with already +2,000 Supercharger stations with +20,000 superchargers worldwide.
💡 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
When consumers complained that Tesla cars were too expensive for the middle class and that their driving range between charges was too short, Elon promised to work with battery manufacturers to cut costs and improve efficiency. Guess what, they are doing it!
Currently, Tesla uses its cylindrical battery cells (supplied from Panasonic, LG Chem and CATL) while other automakers are using pouch cells. In 2019 Tesla bought companies like Maxwell and Hibar, enabling not only the in-house producing capacity but also increasing their margins, making disruption / innovation faster and new patented technology, like a tabless battery cell and a cell to pack design.At the last Battery Day event (Sep 22, 2020), Tesla unveiled its new 4680 battery cell developed in-house which will reduce the cost of their batteries more than 50%, five times more energy capacity and a increase of 16% range for Tesla’s vehicles. All that in just 3 years.
Batteries are a big competitive advantage for Tesla but it also could turn out to be a huge mass market for Tesla as legacy automakers are finally shifting toward EV now that climate change has become one of the priorities for leading countries. “Tesla is open to licensing software and supplying powertrains & batteries. We’re just trying to accelerate sustainable energy, not crush competitors!” — Elon Musk tweeted.
🧐 My take on Tesla
The global EV shifting is just starting and the more the pie grows, the more Tesla will grow. Some might think that Tesla at $1T market cap will never happen, others think it will be the biggest company in the world. It’s impossible to determine forward numbers but one thing I’m assured is that Tesla is only starting and it has plenty of future ahead. On the run, expect volatility, but expect them to rock in the future, just be patient.
PS.: There is much more to speak about Tesla, like FSD beta, Robotaxis, on the air updates, battery mass-market production, etc. Maybe gonna let that for another post :) | https://medium.com/@pgsinvest/tesla-could-easily-triple-its-price-in-the-next-decades-de3f47ec96e2 | ['Paulo Sá'] | 2020-12-04 18:06:41.299000+00:00 | ['Tesla', 'Stocks', 'Electric Vehicles', 'Electric Car', 'Stock Market'] |
Growing Your Customer Base by Telling the Right Story | How can you be sure you’re crafting the right message for your digital product? Maybe you have a complex product, or maybe it solves a very specific problem that you can’t draw on personal experiences to relate to. Either way, it can sometimes feel like you’re shooting blindly when you craft the message.
This was a concern of Nick Tippmann, VP of Marketing at Greenlight Guru. Greenlight Guru is a Quality Management Software designed specifically for the medical device industry, and because it solves such a specific problem for users, Nick couldn’t draw on his own experience when crafting the product’s message. Instead, Nick had to use some unique tactics to ensure that he was capitalizing on the marketing opportunity for Greenlight Guru’s unique value proposition.
Nick explained a few lessons that learned as he grew the marketing function at Greenlight Guru this week on the Better Product Podcast. Here are a few of those lessons.
When selling to a hyper-focused market, lean on subject matter experts to make sure you’re crafting the right message.
If you’re a marketer building a product for other marketers, then crafting a message should be easier since you can just pull from your own experience and speak how you’d want to be spoken to. But when you’re selling a specific solution to a hyper-focused market, it is difficult to know if your message will resonate. When that is the case, you have to get out and conduct target market research, talking to real people facing the real problems you’re trying to address.
Nick faced this problem at Greenlight Guru, but luckily for him they had actual medical device engineers and experts on staff, so he didn’t have to travel far for feedback. Nick was constantly interviewing them, getting their inputs, tweaking the message, and learning the lingo to ensure that he was telling the right story and telling it in a way that showed the market that he knew what he was talking about.
Use customers as a guide to your product growth.
There is nothing worse than pouring time, money, and resources into product updates that doesn’t actually provide value for your users. We’ve seen it time and again, where companies will spend their entire budget on a digital solution that their customers never actually wanted in the first place. While you should maintain an overall vision for your product and you should resist the temptation to accommodate outlier feedback, you should be paying attention to overall trends in feedback and, if you continue to hear the similar suggestions from users, that is typically a good sign that this is where you should focus your time and energy.
Greenlight Guru’s founders had always had a vision for their solution to be more than a pre-market quality management software, but it was through conversations with customers that Nick and the rest of the team learned the next gap that their product should fill. This led to the creation of a second product that complemented the value provided through their first product, but to a different persona within their target organization.
This initiated a product messaging refresh to create a cohesive story, because as Nick explains, “We have a story and benefit for product one and we have a story and benefit for product two. But what is this new overarching story and this new overarching value that we’re providing medical device companies? What is that message and what is that story?” By listening to customers and using their feedback as a guide for the next phase of product growth, it opened up the flood gates and really took Greenlight Guru to the next level, providing more comprehensive value to the medical device industry.
If you’re positioning yourself as a thought leader, you need to lean in and deliver on that promise.
Many people like to claim that they are a thought leader, but there is a lot of responsibility that accompanies that title. Thought leaders need to be on the cutting edge of innovation in their industry, and need to actually lead the industry in their educational resources. And with that title comes a level of responsibility for delivering value to your audience.
Greenlight Guru experiences this responsibility as the first quality management software for the medical device industry. While others have subsequently joined the industry, Nick has stayed strong in their quest to remain a thought leader in the industry. Greenlight Guru has relationships with the regulatory bodies to ensure that they are remaining on the cutting edge of industry changes and new expectations, and they disseminate that information to their customers, personally taking the burden of keeping up with changing regulations.
Greenlight Guru has also leaned into the concept of True Quality over just compliance with regulatory standards, and by doing this they have steered the conversation in the medical device industry towards achieving quality over compliance. As Nick explains, “You go to a restaurant, and just because you have a meal that’s compliant with food regulations and there’s no health code violation, it doesn’t mean that’s a high quality meal.” They take this same approach with medical devices.
By doing this, Nick knows that they may turn off some potential customers, but something that Nick has recognized and leaned into is the fact that it’s critical to work with customers that understand the importance of true quality, otherwise they won’t see the value of Greenlight Guru’s solution. | https://medium.com/better-product/growing-your-customer-base-by-telling-the-right-story-7662422d99b2 | [] | 2019-07-02 19:51:45.572000+00:00 | ['Growth', 'Messaging', 'Product Management', 'Podcast', 'Product Marketing'] |
Pop Culture Mondays/12.21.20 | Love and Chicken Wings
SHE’S JUST A GIRL, STANDING IN FRONT OF A BOY, ASKING HIM TO LOVE HER:
The problem is THAT boy is in prison and seemingly has no interest in her and she has blown up her entire life for him and allowed Elle Magazine in and tell HER story and we are watching mental illness unfold and then they put her in a dress by one of my favorite brand’s “The Vampire’s Wife” (do not let this dissuade you from this brand it’s absolutely brilliant and go check it and the designer is SUSIE CAVE WHO IS THE WIFE OF NICK CAVE) and it’s all too on the nose and frankly IT IS ALL NUTS.
OK, so let me backup here. This bomb of a story dropped Sunday evening and media twitter lost their collective shit and frankly it was a LOT for a Sunday night news drop. Though I will say this is one of THOSE stories that has just taken off and is being shared around the world and maybe it’s because it makes us all feel better about ourselves somehow? The writer, the tremendous Stephanie Clifford, had sat next to Christie Smythe. the subject of this story, in court while this dude was on trial — as they both covered the trial — and she clearly sensed more was going on. She was able to bring this story to life in a way I cannot imagine many others would.
OK..Some of you MIGHT need a brief Cliffs Notes version of who the main character in this story is, Martin Shkreli (and let’s be clear he is the main character here not her..)
THIS GUY:
This guy is MAYBE one of the more loathsome characters we have come across in recent times. He would have been a perfect “Game of Thrones” character to be honest…like he would have fit right in there…a mix of whiny, batshit crazy, narcissistic and for good measure, lets throw in the fact that he’s a sociopath. HELLO KINGS LANDING.
Every ONE of these characters would have welcomes Martin with open arms:
Except he is ours. LUCKY US. He is known as “Pharma Boy” and I don’t want to give this guy any more attention so you can read about him here for all the gory details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli
BUT in a nutshell, he was the guy that jacked up the prices to meds he had control over by thousands of dollars leaving people unable to get their needed prescriptions. And bragged about it. He’s the guy that bought the ONE COPY of the Wu Tang album for $2 million on the Paddle 8 Auction site (incidentally Paddle 8 was founded by the lovely and charming Alexander Gilkes who is now engaged to be married to Maria Sharapova…congrats kids!) ANYWAY, I digress…Martin ended up getting busted for securities fraud (SHOCKER) and dragged off to prison for 7 years. YAY! END OF STORY….Well, not quite.
AND THEN ENTER CHRISTIE SMYTHE, the now FORMER Bloomberg reporter who was covering him and the arrest and everything that followed. Just doing her job…then going home to her husband in Brooklyn Heights and that would have been just fine.
BUT NOW…thanks to Clifford’s piece in Elle, we learn this was not at all what was happened and girlfriend fell for the crazy Martin guy and blew up her life and her career and racked up a whole host of ethics violations along the way. She got too close to her source (no sexy time only kissing though) and she became like a little girl in love…with a narcissistic sociopath using her for his own needs. Christie’s unnamed now ex-husband is a part of the story with the voice of reason trying to get her to understand that Pharma Boy was using her. She remained undeterred, The marriage ended and in maybe my favorite tweet of all time or at least this week was this one:
So while ex-husband will LITERALLY be flooded with hot single ladies looking to date, his ex is standing by her new “man”. They are LIFE PARTNERS she says from her “well lit basement apartment in Harlem,” Only the thing is, Pharma Boy is not speaking to her. So there’s that.
But before he stopped talking to her, he made her his girlfriend and of all the crazy parts of this story (there are too many tbh) this is what got me:
“At first he’s like, ‘Can I call you my girlfriend?’ ” she says, and “this led very naturally into thinking about a future together.” Soon they were discussing their kids’ names and prenups. After Smythe worried about being too old to have children when Shkreli got out of prison, he suggested she freeze her eggs. She did so last spring.
I have a history of making bad choices in the love department…I will admit that. Give me a scoundrel, throw in a some musical talent or an accent or some sort of damaged as a child became genius creative storyline and I WILL FALL MADLY IN LOVE. It’s like my super power. But HANDS DOWN I bow to Christie for she really is the winner of this whole BAD CHOICES club for reals. Like she wins ALL the blue ribbons and all the gold trophies. I cannot compete here.
But the thing here is, it’s slightly more complicated than that…it all feels a little exploitive now..not the story itself, but all that has happened since and we are talking less than 24 hours ago…Christie was on the app CLUBHOUSE last night where people can connect and listen into a conversation/interview but some of the people on there listening to her felt it was exploitive and I couldn't bring myself to go listen.
And the photos. A fashion spread She is all dressed up in these photos pleading for him to notice her, to love her, to talk to her, to give her the FIX she is so clearly in need of.
The thing is…she gets her book and her movie and frankly I imagine more is to come with Stephanie Clifford’s story which deserves its own story arch (NETFLIX SERIES PERHAPS??)…and yay for that…though I hope above everything else, Christie gets a really good shrink. | https://medium.com/popculturemondays/pop-culture-mondays-12-21-20-c9d2db9918ac | ['Brooke Hammerling'] | 2020-12-22 04:00:42.033000+00:00 | ['Elle Magazine', 'Bee Gees', 'Newsletter', 'Pop Culture', 'Tom Cruise'] |
From the Material to the Causeless Cause | As pertaining to the life functions, and has been already mentioned earlier, the heart beats, the blood circulates, the lungs inflate and deflate, the body’s waste gets evacuated, the senses operate, and the mind thinks under the facilitory auspices of prana. And as to how this pertains further to the five senses and the brain, these “six” senses (five senses and mind) owe a great allegiance to the pranic force. Relative to this, there is one story in the Upanisads wherein the gods of the mind and senses, the gods of the five elements, and the gods of other various functions in the heavens and on earth, all got together one day to debate on who was the greatest amongst them. Every one of them got up and spoke most convincingly on how he or she was the greatest power in the universe. But the god of prana only sat and waited, silently. When all had taken their turn and had their say, then prana stood up and said, “I am most definitely the greatest among you, and I can prove it!” Speaking thus, and before anyone could object, prana thereby and immediately vacated the premises, whereupon all the gods and goddesses present there fell down lifeless. No further argument was given.
The presence of life force, then, is undeniable, yet most beings, even intelligent ones, fail to acknowledge it. What is more, beings who do espy it see its inner workings and thus keep the mental picture clear. That is, people are always and ever attributing their actions and thoughts, and what happens to them on a daily basis, to God. “God made me do it,” “God granted me this boon,” “God took away my child or loved one” — these are common exclamations. But we have already stated that God, Brahman, is actionless and free of any intention or motive for beings or their lives — these lives (except in the case of the illumined souls) being assumed by the decision of their own desiring egos and lived under the force of their own personal karmas. Practically speaking, prana animates the body and senses; prana brings the forces of repercussion to bear on everyday life, and prana, again, causes the thoughts to rise and fall, advance and retard, aspire and fall down. Prana even facilitates life and death, even rebirth. Knowing this, beings should bring the forces of prana under their control so as to live a dharmic life — as the luminaries do.
On the subtle level, prana holds sway too. This has already been inferred by indicating the mind and its thoughts. These are presided over by what is called the psychic prana, which differs from the gross prana just like gross thought differs from refined thought. And here is the bridge to rudimentary spirituality. If a physicist were to detect prana, and became sure of it like the yogis are, he would soon become a metaphysicist. This epitomizes entrance into the subtler worlds which lie back in the recesses of the mind, as in the Christ’s saying that “The kingdom of heaven lies within.” Here, in this refined region, called a loka, the prana works in lightning swift fashion to bring thoughts, insights, and realizations to bear on the now awakened mind. This teaching reveals the distinction between brain and mind, the former which decays and dissolves, and the latter which stretches beyond matter and senses, remaining operative in what religion calls the “afterlife.”
The unreal never is. The Real never ceases to be.
To complete this overall description of the Primordial Cause, a mention of what the yogis call “the five tanmatras” is required. Listed on the chart under study as the “five subtle elements,” they are another unseen and missing bit of knowledge in our present-day understanding. Knowing about them will inform and connect us to the world of vital forces on so many levels which are important to our lives, scientifically, religiously, spiritually, and medically, to mention a few.
To explain this from the root up, the world, the senses, and the life forces are not to be taken for granted, or left unconnected in people’s minds. Through focused and quiescent meditation the nature of each tattva (mutable principle) is to be examined and known, and then connected consciously back into the Self. In brief, after separate meditations are accomplished on each tattva, then this liberating process of internal connections can be undertaken. This art of introspection is mostly missing in our western science and education due to a preoccupation with appearances perceived only by the senses. What underlies appearances, seen by the single eye of meditation, is far more real and vastly more important.
And so, and as a part of the meditative process, the seeker after what is subtle brings together earth with smelling, water with tasting, fire with seeing, air with feeling, and ether with hearing. When this work is complete, consciously, and the five elements have been linked to the five senses, the allocation of the elements and the senses to the subtle elements (tanmatras) comes next, i.e., earth and smell with the principle of odor/solidity, water and taste with the principle of flavor/ liquidity, fire and seeing with the principle of visibility, air and touch with the principle of tangibility, and hearing and ether with the principle of audibility. In other words, the principle of a thing/object is subtler than the thing itself, and also subtler than the senses which behold or experience it. This, in a nutshell, is the thorough examination of the world and its causes and effects on the basic yogic level, and how to look beneath appearances, or maya, to behold subtler causes.
What is good is called cosmology, what is better is called philosophy, and what is best is called spirituality.
How can this process of connections really help us? First, if external life is left unconnected, and all the elements of our existence are allowed to exist in a random and unordered fashion, the mind itself soon becomes fragmented. Then complaints inevitably begin to surface, oft repeated in this day and time, such as “I do not see any purpose to my life,” “I am bored and listless,” “Life does not make any sense,” etc. Here, the zest and verve for life are lost and the inner mystery of existence overlooked — those very things which are epitomized by prana itself. When a person is listless, then, he has literally lost hold of his vital energy, prana.
And here is a second reason for the integration of the physical elements to their primordial counterparts, that being that one can consciously gain control of the vital force and use it for revivification of body, life, and mind. This is called wholistic health in this day and age, though both higher intelligence and pure spirituality get overlooked in the quotient thus far due to contemporary man’s preoccupation with food. Besides the fact that we have never seen nor heard of a bored or listless luminary, the control of vital energy will allow the inner wayfarer to access what is subtler still. That is, if the gaining of control over the gross prana can bring good health and energy, and the acknowledgment and facility around the subtler level of prana can open the mind up to the secrets of where our ancestors have gone and are abiding, then the gaining of control over the psychic prana can throw open the doors of the all-powerful intellect and introduce the aspirant to the Subtle Cause.
The Subtle Cause
Higher intelligence has already been mentioned. In spiritual systems and circles, higher intelligence does not mean knowledge of intellectual subjects. Intellect is different from intelligence. The former is a sheath (upadhi) or container (kosha), and the latter is a free-flowing verity (partly due to prana) which shines with the Light of Consciousness Itself. The distinction between brain and mind also applies here. Suffice to say, however, that the Subtle Cause is the realm of mind per say, and intelligence plays the most important part in that realm. | https://medium.com/vedanta-teachings-for-the-west/from-the-material-to-the-causeless-cause-414ec6caba7f | ['Babaji Bob Kindler'] | 2017-06-09 23:57:59.862000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Spirituality', 'Reincarnation', 'Causality', 'Nonduality'] |
Spotify, one of the best streaming music apps, has new updates! | There is always room for improvement!
We have already advanced a lot in the program, the designer mindset is becoming a part of me more and more while the projects have increased in demand. This project consists of analyzing an existing and frequently used application to add a new/missing feature. We were free to choose between a large list of applications and I chose Spotify.
Spotify is a digital music, podcast, and video streaming service that gives a user access to millions of songs and other content from artists all over the world.
The main focus of this project was on visual design skills since our job is to create a high fidelity prototype for the first time.
To understand the streaming music industry and the impact on user behavior within the market, I carried out secondary research. These are some of the insightful facts that I discovered:
44% of users listen to Spotify on a daily basis.
There are 40 million tracks available on Spotify.
The following chart shows the feature comparison between Spotify and other popular streaming music companies. Something that is very interesting, is that although Spotify does not have any of the listed features, it is the most used in the market. This is the reason why this type of study serves to highlight strengths and weaknesses within the industry and therefore opportunities to improve.
Competitive Feature Analysis
This comparison allowed me to see that Spotify is the most inclusive of the streaming companies, while Apple Music is positioned as the most exclusive, since it can only be used with devices from the same company.
On the other hand, most young users prefer Spotify, while most older people use Pandora.
As user experience designers, we are always keen to understand what the user’s objective is, how they feel and their overall experience when they use a product. We want to find out what could facilitate the scenario in a specific activity or what could give them greater satisfaction. For this, 6 interviews were conducted. To help collect the data I used the application Otter, which I highly recommend. It makes the interview flow more easily since it takes notes as one speaks.
Otter lets you record, transcribe, search and share your voice conversations. … Essentially, a voice recorder that offers automatic transcription, Otter is designed to be able to understand and capture long-form conversations that take place between multiple people.
Quotes from the interviews
Most relevant Pains (opportunities to design):
I wish Spotify had a history list.
The “Jump back in” (actual feature to listen to previously heard songs) is not accurate.
It would be nice if Spotify had voice control.
Pains and Gains gathered from interviews
All the collected data was organized an affinity map and value proposition canvas. Once classified by gains and pains we could define gain creators (how the product or service creates customer gains and how it offers added value to the customer) and pain relievers (a description of exactly how the product or service alleviates customer pains).
For further information, bellow is the link of a website that explains it with details.
What is the Value Proposition Canvas? The Value Proposition Canvas is a tool which can help ensure that a product or service is positioned around what the customer values and needs. The Value Proposition Canvas was initially developed by Dr Alexander Osterwalder as a framework to ensure that there is a fit between the product and market. It is a detailed look at the relationship between two parts of the Osterwalder’s broader Business Model Canvas; customer segments and value propositions.
Jobs to be done framework was a new tool that I used for the first time in this product. This very effective tool can transform our understanding of consumer choice in a way that no amount of data ever could. Through this practical technique, one creates a sentence that describes a story and looks at situations and motivations for an outcome.
The JTBD template is as follows: The when focuses on the situation, the want focus on the motivation, and the can focuses on the outcome.
Basically, this tool helps one to describe a user’s ideal scenario when using the product.
New Feature Story:
When I want to listen to a song that I’ve heard before, I want to have an organized history list, so that I can find it easily and quickly.
Based on the data, I implemented a song history feature to implement the feature of a Songs history, (just like the one Googles creates when you visit a website), so that users can have access to a playlist with all the songs they have listened to in the past.
The MOSCOW Method helped me to narrow down the many features that I brainstormed and assisted in creating the MVP.
Prototyping
The moment to design arrived and I was ready to implement the solution to the most relevant users insights gathered from the interviews. So, after analyzing the existing visual design, and based on the data gathered, I added the “Song’s History” as one the options Spotify offers on the Home Screen.
It was extremely important to design within both Spotify’s and Apple’s existing guidelines.
The added feature created a classified “Songs history classified “Songs history” based on time (Today, Yesterday, This week, Last Month, etc).The feature also gives access to the songs history give access to the Songs history from the “Your Library” section located in the Navigation.
Also added to the feature is the option of sorting the playlist by “Most played order or played order”. The other options shown were already part of the app. | https://medium.com/@federicamatos/there-is-always-room-for-improvement-60f1e18c9e4b | ['Federica Matos'] | 2020-04-01 17:33:17.319000+00:00 | ['Spotify', 'Features', 'UI Design', 'Improvement', 'UX Design'] |
Happiness | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/chalkboard/happiness-c6808eaca565 | ['Ana-Maria Schweitzer'] | 2020-11-05 18:09:38.815000+00:00 | ['One Line', 'Childhood', 'One Line Poem', 'Happiness', 'Games'] |
[NEWS] Safely Returning to Physical Activity After COVID-19 | Depending on the length and severity of your symptoms, your physical fitness may have taken a considerable step backward.
RETURNING TO PHYSICAL activity following any serious illness can be a difficult and frustrating process. You just want your body to behave and perform like it used to, but the reality is that, depending on the length and severity of the illness, your physical fitness may have taken a considerable step backward in terms of muscle strength, tone and conditioning, as well as cardiorespiratory fitness.
site:https://www.vlive.tv/post/1-20539075
With all of these variables in mind, the Hospital for Special Surgery Sports Medicine Institute in New York City recently published guidelines for returning to exercise following recovery from mild to moderate COVID-19. It’s important to note that these guidelines, which touch on six key areas, are likely to evolve along with researchers’ understanding of the disease. Also, these guidelines are strictly for those patients who are fully recovered and symptom-free and have been cleared by their doctors to resume physical activity.
[ READ: How to Regain Strength After COVID-19. ]
· For those who had respiratory symptoms, like pneumonia:
Rest for at least a week after symptoms subside, gradually return to physical activity and stay mindful of the quality and rate of your breathing.
site:https://www.vlive.tv/post/1-20539087
· For those who had cardiac, or heart-related, symptoms:
Rest for two to three weeks after becoming symptom-free. Those with heart inflammation should wait as much as three to six months before returning to exercise.
site:https://www.vlive.tv/post/1-20539096
· For those who had hematologic, or blood-related, symptoms:
Start with low-intensity activities such as taking a short, leisurely walk and limit sedentary time, as this will reduce the risk for blood clots.
· For those with gastrointestinal symptoms:
Keep track of your fluid and caloric intake while easing back into a physical-activity routine.
site:https://www.vlive.tv/post/1-20539100
[ READ: How to Disinfect After Someone in Your House Has Had COVID-19. ]
· For those with musculoskeletal symptoms:
Gradually return to exercise, taking things slowly before returning to the workouts you were doing before COVID-19.
ADVERTISING
· For those with no symptoms:
Make a gradual return to exercise, at about 50% of your pre-COVID exercise intensity. And pay attention to your body in case symptoms begin to appear.
[ READ: What Are the Long-Term Effects of COVID-19? ]
Take Things Slowly
The key is to take things slowly and listen to your body, and to not push through symptoms in your eagerness to “get back to normal.” And remember, moderate-intensity exercise — which can be anything that elevates your heart rate above normal levels — can improve your immune system and your overall health. You don’t need to work super hard to reap benefits.
site:https://www.vlive.tv/post/0-20532169
It’s absolutely essential that you also listen to the recommendations from your personal physician, which are not to be replaced by the general guidelines outlined above. Remember, your doctor knows the details of what you’ve been through in your battle with COVID-19, so their advice should always be followed.
One final note: An important element of the consistent performance of physical activity is the setting of meaningful goals that align with your current values and lifestyle. So, modify your expectations and set goals that make sense to you right now. You may have to set aside any performance-related goals you set in the pre-COVID days and replace them with health-related goals that can be achieved within the parameters of your new day-to-day routine. Be patient and, importantly, be kind to yourself and your still-recovering body.
site:https://www.vlive.tv/post/1-20539139
6 Ways to Improve Lung Health
Medical concept of pink lilac flowers shaped in human lungs on pink background. Flat lay, top view. Harm of smoking (Medical concept of pink lilac flowers shaped in human lungs on pink background. Flat lay, top view. Harm of smoking, ASCII, 116 compon
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Cedric X. Bryant, Ph.D., Contributor
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Cedric X. Bryant, PhD, FACSM, is president and chief science officer at the American Council … READ MORE
site:
Tags: diet and nutrition, exercise and fitness, coronavirus | https://medium.com/@ngeri049/news-safely-returning-to-physical-activity-after-covid-19-4c5b35d3c560 | ['Ngeri Man'] | 2020-12-27 03:21:32.039000+00:00 | ['Fitness', 'United States', 'Safety', 'Covid 19', 'News'] |
A Birth on Highway 4 — A Truly Meaningful Way To Start One’s Day | A United Hatzalah volunteer helping deliver a baby on the street (Illustration)
On Monday morning, one of the most inspiring medical emergencies that can happen took place on Highway 4 just outside of the city of Ashkelon in southern Israel. A husband and wife were on their way to the hospital in order to deliver their fourth child. The woman was in active labor. As this was e fourth birth, time was of the essence as it was unclear how long the labor would last. While the hospital was not too far away in terms of distance the traffic was another thing entirely.
The baby decided that its time had come to enter the world while the parents were still on the Highway. Her husband pulled the car over to the side of the road and called for help.
United Hatzalah volunteer EMTs live a life where they are always on call and ready to respond to any medical emergency as soon as the siren goes off on their personal communication devices. Any time of day or night, these volunteers, who form a nationwide network of more than 6,000 fully trained medical first responders, will drop whatever they are doing and rush to help someone in need of medical attention, and they do it for free.
While many of them have been responding for years, most of them have never shared in the joy of assisting in the delivery of a baby. On Monday, two volunteers, both of whom are veteran responders, got their first opportunity to do so.
Laura Zohar and Chagit Bitton, who were both in close proximity to the birth-in-progress while it was taking place, rushed over to the location given to them by dispatch and found the woman in the advanced stages of labor inside the car.
Bitton relayed: “I was home in the town of Nitzan when I received the call. I work from home these days so I am there a lot. It took me less than 4 minutes to arrive and find the car with the woman giving birth. When I arrived at the vehicle, the woman was in the advanced stages of labor and I had enough time to prepare the surrounding for the baby’s arrival and then receive the baby. I instructed the mother to give a few last pushes and then I received a beautiful baby girl into my hands. I cleaned the baby and allowed the father, who had been coaching his wife up until I arrived, to cut the umbilical cord. The birth went smoothly thank God. The baby was healthy and had an APGAR score of 10. The ambulance arrived ten minutes after the baby was delivered. Once the mother and baby were on the ambulance on the way to the hospital, I headed back home with a great feeling.”
Zohar also spoke about the incident: “When I arrived, Chagit was already finishing with the delivery. I helped clean the child and make sure that everything was okay. I wrapped up the baby and brought it into the ambulance to the staff there. After that, we assisted the mother and helped her through the rest of the process, and brought her to the ambulance as well. They were then transported to Assuta Hospital in Ashdod in good condition. This was the first time I have ever assisted in a delivery, aside from helping my sister in the hospital when she had her children, but I was more of a spectator for that one.”
Bitton concluded: “I was s pleased that I was able to arrive quickly and assist the family. I’ve been volunteering for a few years now, and this is the first time I was present to assist in delivering a baby. To do so in the middle of the highway is even rarer. This family will certainly have an interesting story to tell. For me, this was a truly meaningful way to start my day.” | https://medium.com/the-edge-of-heaven/a-birth-on-highway-4-a-truly-meaningful-way-to-start-ones-day-d85f0279737c | ['Raphael Poch'] | 2020-09-15 06:26:33.597000+00:00 | ['Birth', 'Women', 'Israel', 'Baby', 'First Responder'] |
The nether days of December –– that dead zone between the 25th and 31st –– feel exactly the way… | The nether days of December — that dead zone between the 25th and 31st — feel exactly the way one must feel after blasting out an enormous, paint-peeling fart from three days of eating chili con carne con muchos frijoles. This particular year, however, the day after Christmas feels more like the Hindenburg felt right after… well, you know.
But it’s all good. The new year is right around the corner and the future’s beginning to seem like something to look forward to. The days are already getting longer! Last winter wasn’t so bad after all!
Happy Solstice! ❤
Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash
Adelia Ritchie, just trying out this Shortform thing. Could be fun! | https://medium.com/illumination/the-nether-days-of-december-that-dead-zone-between-the-25th-and-31st-feel-exactly-the-way-c867dd2325ae | ['Adelia Ritchie'] | 2020-12-27 03:58:08.080000+00:00 | ['Winter', '2020', 'Holidays', 'Humor', 'Illumination'] |
What benefits does a mentor receive from mentoring? | The thing is, if you help someone for a purpose of his or her betterment, you can find peace and happiness. If I mentor someone then I would recall that the guy will care about me too. Sometimes reverse mentorship works too. People who come to SkillPal can have mentorship and personalized feedback on his or her work. That may help that person to improve his or her plan. A mentor can change ‘society’ by the ideas.
Mentoring partnerships can be mutually beneficial and rewarding on both professional and personal levels. Mentors can develop leadership skills and gain a personal sense of satisfaction from knowing that they’ve helped someone. Mentees can expand their knowledge and skills, gain valuable advice from a more experienced person, and build their professional networks. And both partners can improve their communication skills, learn new ways of thinking, and, ultimately, advance their careers. SkillPal is the best platform to get a fruitful mentor who may help you with ideas and knowledge.
The specific benefits of being a mentor include:
recognised involvement in a programme of strategic importance to your Faculty
new perspectives and insight into your Faculty
potential for networking
additional experience in staff management and development
opportunity for self-reflection, and personal satisfaction
funding bodies increasingly value an active mentoring programme and often encourage senior staff to be mentors
developing mentoring/coaching skills
Additionally, Quinn identified the following as being generic benefits to mentors:
career rejuvenation
increased confidence
personal fulfilment, particularly satisfaction from seeing junior staff progress
The specific benefits of being mentored include:
being encouraged and empowered in personal development
being helped to identify and achieve career goals
being helped to identify and correct gaps in generic skills and knowledge
increasing your confidence
developing and maintaining a broader perspective on career options and opportunities
having access to a senior role model
gaining insight into University culture
developing mentoring/coaching skills
The Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) commissioned a literature review (Hawkes 2012) and study into Mentoring: progressing women’s careers in higher education (Quinn 2012) and found that mentoring has a number of benefits for mentees, mentors and HEIs alike.
From the study, Quinn identified the following as being generic benefits for mentees:
career advancement, including a higher rate of promotion
increased opportunities and a likelihood of staying at the institution
higher salaries
increased productivity and better time management
greater success in achieving external research grants
personal and professional development, including increased job-related wellbeing, self-esteem and confidence, and better work-life balance
preparation for the future and heightened career aspirations
developed networking skills
A mentee-mentor relationship entails work, commitment, and follow-through on both sides if it’s going to be successful. Consider the following traits to assess your mentoring skills and areas that you wish to develop to ensure that the mentoring you offer is effective and has lasting value.
· Good listener/sounding board
· Flexible
· Value diversity of perspectives
· Knowledgeable
· Nonjudgmental
· Able to give constructive feedback
· Honest and candid
· Able to network and find resources
· Successful in career
· Willing/able to devote time to developing others
· Eager to learn
Do a self-assessment and know what you are offering to your mentee and what you expect of yourself.
· What are my strengths as a mentor?
· What are my challenges as a mentor?
· In what ways can I compensate for my mentoring weaknesses (e.g., books, training, advice from good role model)?
Choosing a mentor is not easy. But it is easy if you go through SkillPal. Here you can get the most important feedback of your work and knowledge. They are the most important pal of your skills. A mentor is someone whose life or work you value and admire, and who you think might be a good guide. These days, a mentor can be any age, in any field, so we encourage you not to think of a mentor in traditional terms. Too often we limit our mentors to those in more senior positions. Don’t let a person’s age, title, or experience pigeonhole your thinking.
Suppose somebody needs guidance regarding his or her plan, where should they go! To a mentor of course. Everybody needs to make a good relationship with his or her mentor. A mentor can show a young guy the right choice. A right decision needs to come from the right person at the right time. Most of the time the young members make mistakes and therefore time and money everything gets wasted. So, a mentor’s perception is very important in every category. If you are searching for a mentor SkillPal is the best way. Effective mentoring requires more than common sense. Research indicates that mentors and mentees who develop and manage successful mentoring partnerships demonstrate a number of specific, identifiable skills that enable learning and change to take place. | https://medium.com/@chatterjeesayantan62/what-benefits-does-a-mentor-receive-from-mentoring-867716e4722 | ['Sayantan Chatterjee'] | 2020-12-11 06:17:30.165000+00:00 | ['Personalized Mentorship', 'Growth', 'Business', 'Augmented Reality', 'Skillpal'] |
6 Tips To Write A Hooky Blog Introduction In 2020 (100% Working) — HookyCrash | Writing blog posts consistently but still not getting enough engagement in your blog post?
And also your bounce rate tends to increase?
I know that now you were feeling disappointed and some may be in the thought of quitting blogging.
But do you know that blogging is a game of patience, you constantly have to learn and you get result slowly
Hooking people in your blog introduction is an art and if you stay till the end I will share my 2 years of blogging experience and how I learned to write a hooky blog intro?
Earlier when I use to get 10–15 users a day I use to get happy because at that time I use to push more on social media a lot
So I use to get unique users but that fact is my bounce rate is dancing between 98–100% and some days is exactly 100%
Then I read plenty of blog posts but I didn’t get much knowledge from them all were the same and were just theoretical information and nothing works as much in reality.
Then I observed some of the ranking blog posts and I found a similar pattern of writing blog posts.
After observing plenty of blog post I conclude and finally figured out these 6 things you can use to write a hooky blog intro
But, why should we focus more on the intro rather than the title?
Because the title works as an invitation to any party and a good Introduction decides whether to continue the party or to leave that party, go home and sleep.
I hope you got my point
Writing a hooky title will work and bring more users to your blog post but having hooky and catchy introduction will convert that random user into your loyal audience.
Have you seen the news headline and introduction?
That if you read any news headline you will always be in mystery and have a curiosity of knowing more.
And when you read the rest of the article you will still have that curiosity because they present it in a very dramatic and in a particular flow that we tend to be hooked up by it.
So that’s the art we will get to know in this blog post about how to write a hooky introduction for your blog post.
I have some quick example of some best blogger in the industry
Example 1 — Neil Patel
Example 2- Brian Dean
As with all the above-mentioned blog posts, are you able to identify any similar pattern?
I also highlighted each and every stage to understand it in a better way.
Let’s break down those stages of getting clear about hooky blog Introduction.
1.Start with the major question -
Whenever you start writing your blog post open your blog by asking a question equation may be an open-ended question or maybe closed-ended question,
but it should be a valid question that is directly connected to your content inside your blog post.
The best advice is to always ask a question, which is answerable by every people who are reading the blog post.
The question which you are going to ask should be the problem which is faced by many people
For example
“ Do you write quality content, but still not getting traffic to your blog? “
This type of question is more relatable to the people who are reading your blog because everyone faced the problem of getting traffic to their blog post.
Related — 15 Free Chrome Extensions For SEO in 2021
So this type of question will help them to get engaged with their blog post so that they can have an idea of what type of problem you are going to solve in this blog post.
2. Explain major facing issues -
You don’t have to give answers to your readers in your blog introduction because a blog introduction is just to elaborate on the questions and queries which readers have and the problem which they are facing.
So you should discuss some of the problems which they are majorly affected by so that they can easily relate to your blog post with their problems.
Because people always visit any blog post just to get a solution to the problem.
So in the introduction part if you explain the problems so they can get Hope or a better idea about your blog content so that they will end up reading your entire blog post by just reading the blog introduction.
This will make your blog introduction very hooky.
For example -
“ Tired of trying multiple niches but still not getting a niche? “
Every blogger faces this problem as a beginner, so if you explained this major faced problem in your blog introduction.
There is a high chance that they will stick to your blog if they have the same issues which you are talking about
To find the issues and problems which are most searching on google then you can try this tool
AnswerThePublic
In this tool, if you search any keyword or niche you will get all the most searched terms by people on google.
By using this tool you can pick any of the problems which you want to cover in your blog post.
But if you want to do keyword research that too for FREE (17 free tools) then I have made a comprehensive blog post on that topic and chosen all the FREE tools which I use and which is highly recommended.
3. Talk about your experience or thought -
After explaining the problem in your blog introduction you have to share your own experience with that problem and what all thing you have faced and how you overcome that problem
By explaining all your problems related to that topic in your blog introduction, readers will have a good engagement with your blog post
So they will have some sort of hope in your blog post that they will get a solution for their problem by just reading your blog introduction
That will attract them to the reader the rest of your blog post
Observe yourself, how many blog posts you have read and why did you read them fully?
If you think of this then you might just get an answer within yourself
Some might have the question in their mind
That I don’t have any experience in that topic or niche?
So by researching that topic you can express your thoughts or suggestions related to the topic
Because people always have the curiosity of knowing what’s in your mind, so by expressing your thoughts and experiences you are building your brand in their mind which will help you to get readers into the audience.
4. Include facts -
Always includes facts in your blog post introduction because it creates reliability of the readers into your blog post.
One thing is to highlight is that whenever you add some facts into your blog post-instruction, make sure you Link out that Source from where you get it.
People will not trust any statistics or facts unless they have the exact Source.
Statista is the tool that I always used to find any kind of Statistics or research topic, which I want to write a blog about. So you can use STATISTA.
It is a free tool that you can use to find out your statistics about any Niche or content, which you are writing.
Although including facts makes or builds trust in You by the readers which helps you to get more and more engagement rate as compared to others.
5. Explain- how you will solve it
Explain to your reader how you’re gonna solve that problem.
And what all things are inside this blog post?
You can give a quick comprehensive paragraph of what all things are included in this blog post so that if anything feels relevant to them or they wanted something they will read the article.
Also, Read — How To Become A Productive Content Writer For Your Blog Post
6. Express your Research
Whenever you write a blog post try to express your research regarding that blog post.
But how?
While researching your blog post you have to read 5 to 10 top-ranking blog articles on Google search engine.
And create a comprehensive summarized way of all that article including your research + experience + knowledge in it.
For example
If one blog includes points A and B
And another blog includes points B and C.
So you have to include A, B, and C into your blog post in a very summarized and in-depth way.
So that people will not get disappointed with your blog post by reading it.
You need to provide as much content researched information you can so that it will build trust in You So then whenever they see your link in any of the platforms they’ll tend to click it because they know that you always provide better content for them.
Conclusion -
The points which I have mentioned above, you don’t necessarily need to follow all this unless it is applicable.
For example — For some contents, you will not get statistical information and facts about it so you don’t have to include it.
The message of this blog post is about you have to include all these things if possible in your blog post, you don’t necessarily need to follow this ascending order.
You can make your way of writing content. And making your blog introduction as per your need and your wish because if you see many of the big bloggers will find they have their way of writing blog introductions.
You have to make your way of writing a blog introduction and create your brand by your way of writing.
Which point do you already follow? | https://medium.com/@harimudaliyar123/6-tips-to-write-a-hooky-blog-introduction-in-2020-100-working-hookycrash-fdd312939381 | ['Hari Mudaliyar'] | 2020-12-12 09:01:53.233000+00:00 | ['Blog Intro', 'Blogging', 'SEO', 'Content Writing', 'Blogging Tips'] |
March 30— ULTIMATE BUCKETS FROM ULTIMATE COOKIE!!! | Today I got ~100 buckets!!!!
Eric from work recommended that I ask Ultimate Cookie for buckets, a wholesale cookie manufacturer in his neighborhood. Gail from Ultimate Cookie said that they had about 20 buckets, but they had a hundred!! I ordered a Lyft plus to get them all home.
I am surprised at how I can still see the floor of my room, given that I have all the materials for 100 bucket kits, except for the USB fans. Good thing I don’t have that many clothes in my closet, so I can fill it with buckets :D
Huge thanks to Eric and Gail and the Ultimate Cookie crew!!! | https://medium.com/grow-bucket-life-project-kickstarter-diary/march-31-ultimate-buckets-from-ultimate-cookie-8bd02c1e3cb2 | ['Ruth Grace Wong'] | 2017-04-02 23:48:25.378000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Travel'] |
How anxiety shapes my life | It is part of who i am.
First of all, a little bit of context about me. I’m a 30 year old millennial (i know, you can be 30 and still be a true millennial), so i have had many years of ups, downs, and aha-moments regarding anxiety and it’s influence on my life. My goal is to make you feel less alienated if you’re suffering from the disorder, or if you want to have a better understanding of what it is like for someone living with it.
I have experienced General Anxiety Disorder for the past 12 years, so i’m pretty familiar with the subject. It’s important to mention that i’m not a psychiatrist, the insights you’re about to read are just my personal experience and knowledge living with this condition.
It’s not just being nervous all the time
What am i?
Being anxious and being nervous are two very different things. The Mayo Clinic states that General Anxiety Disorder includes persistent and excessive anxiety and worry about activities or events— even ordinary, routine issues. The worry is out of proportion to the actual circumstance, is difficult to control and affects how you feel physically.
Being nervous is a natural human response to certain stressing scenarios in your life. Being anxious is a whole different thing. It’s important that you identify your symptoms and talk to a professional to get a proper diagnose of the type of anxiety disorder you may be experiencing.
What i’ve learned over the years is that it’s always better to identify and learn about what you are experiencing. We all know the phrase “knowledge is power”, once you know exactly what’s going on, you’re going to be able to have a better and more complete picture of a plan of action (there is always a way to treat your disorder, and remember the positive result may vary form person to person).
It comes in waves
It’s not a straight line.
One great insight i’ve gained living with anxiety is: there’s no cure and it comes in waves, with peak moments and plateaus, that can last from several days to months. It all depends what you’re going through in life and your treatment course (meditation, therapy, exercise, medication and so on).
The silver lining is, once you know how to deal with your anxiety, you start to identify your triggers, how long does the peak episodes tend to last, and how to cope with the situation. You can have one bad week or two bad months, but knowing how your mind works and which treatments help makes it less scary and it becomes a manageable condition.
It is part of who you are
Change the way you look at it.
Accepting that having an anxiety disorder is part of who you are instead of constantly trying to deny it, or feeling guilty for experiencing it, will make your life much easier.
Don’t get me wrong, it will not be easy, and no one should ever try to invalidate what you are feeling. But changing the negative energy associated with your disorder and just letting it be, working every day to overcome it, will help you live your life more fully.
Try everything: meditation, therapy, exercise, mindful thinking, breathing exercises, in severe cases medication, and so on. Find what works for you and your life, and remember that you have to work at it every single day, it will become easier, and when you have peak anxious moments (there’s no way around it, they will happen) you’ll say to yourself: i know you… but i now have the tools to manage you and get back on a positive mindset.
I hope this helps anyone who’s living with anxiety and make people who don’t understand it more empathetic with the ones who are living with the condition.
Always be true to yourself and work towards having a better understanding of who you are as a human being. | https://medium.com/@axgun/how-anxiety-shapes-my-life-1a7e1576c8 | ['Axel Gunter'] | 2020-12-24 04:33:45.923000+00:00 | ['Anxiety Disorder', 'Mental Health', 'Anxiety', 'Millennials', 'Mindfulness'] |
A Founder’s Story: Chris Li, CEO of BioBox Analytics (1/3) | I’ve always loved computers and software.
I remember booting one up in my aunt’s office back in 95' and loading an 18Mb video game from a floppy disk. But I never thought I’d be building software one day as a career. My goal was medicine or life-science research. Fast forward to my 20’s and I’ve just received an opportunity to work as a research student in a brand new research institute.
Dream do come true.
Photo by Cookie the Pom on Unsplash
Biology, meet Bioinformatics
First week on the job, my boss says to me, “We’re a small lab, and bioinformatics is too expensive right now for us. Your project this summer is to do bioinformatics.” I had no idea what that meant, but I stood there, nodded and accepted the challenge enthusiastically.
After googling, “What is bioinformatics”, I sat back into my uncomfortable lab chair, and thought to myself, “What did I just get myself into?”.
I thought life-science research was about tissue-culture, mouse-models, complex biochemical manipulations, yet here I am trying to figure how to use a Makefile to compile this program?
“do Bioinformatics”
Looking back now, I still chuckle at the notion of “do bioinformatics”. Bioinformatics is the happy love-child of computing, software engineering, advanced probability and statistics, and biology. It’s a discipline borne out of necessity through a tectonic change in life-sciences research — next generation sequencing (NGS).
Find any major life-sciences high impact research paper in the last decade. You’d be hard-pressed to see one that didn’t use some form of bioinformatics. It’s now a foundational aspect of life-sciences research. Through NGS tech and advancements in computation biology, we’re now able to decipher information about biology that lead to the discovery of new genes, disease-causing mutations, and fundamental biological processes at an unprecedented rate.
But there is a cost to this knowledge, as an unintended side-effect emerged. These advancements made software literacy and programming chops one of the most sought after skills in biological research.
Fortunately, in my story, the summer of doing bioinformatics ignited in me a deep curiosity, passion, and borderline obsession with the cross-section of software, stats, ML, and biology. A few years later, by the time I entered grad-school, I was fully self-sufficient in bioinformatics and was able to leverage those skills to blast through the first two years and generate enough data for a reclassification. But throughout my grad school experience I saw first-hand what happens if you were less fortunate and didn’t have the time to train in bioinformatics.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
My email inbox and backlog of work was consistently full from collaborator and colleagues requests for bioinformatic support. I can’t count how many late nights I’ve had with colleagues crunching through numbers with them, whipping up figures, and translating their biological research question into a computational pipeline. Don’t get me wrong, I did this gladly and would do it whenever asked, because this is what science is about. Scientists help each other in the pursuit of knowledge, not trading tit-for-tat favours. But I could see their frustration from losing the autonomy of conducting/performing this work by themselves. The frustration from a request to collaborators or bioinformatic services being unanswered for weeks, only to have the results/figures come back different from their expectations, and trigger another round of this toxic cycle.
Photo by Q.U.I on Unsplash
It started with a napkin
One consequential Friday evening, me and my now co-founders met up after work and went across the street to the bar. A few too many pitchers later, we began discussing these issues and on a bar napkin, we drew out a hypothetical system to solve this problem. At the time, we didn’t think it would grow into what BioBox is today. We just wanted the emails to stop so we could get back to our own projects. It was a small simple web-app that loaded their data, and gave them the ability to run basic stats tests, plotting, and simple analyses. After a month of tinkering on weekends, I sent it out to a few colleagues and the results were amazing. Inbox — 0 new emails. Then the feature requests started coming in.
After a little more research into how pervasive this problem was, the three of us decided take the leap and we left our careers behind to found BioBox.
It’s been almost 2 years (at the time of this writing) since we committed to this path. The purpose of our company is to build a platform that provides autonomy back to the biologist by giving them all the tools they need to execute their bioinformatic analyses. In so doing, freeing up the bioinformaticians from requests like, “Please make my plot more red”, and getting their time back to focus on the things they love doing, like developing new algorithms, tools, and pipelines.
We live in a time where sequencing your entire genome is cheaper than your iPhone
We are blessed to live in an era of scientific progress where we’ve generated and collected more biological data than ever before.
But having data is not the same as having knowledge. Transforming data into knowledge relies on the creative/innovative thinking from our biologists and the efficiency/ingenuity from our bioinformaticians.
Pushing the boundaries of science is like rowing a boat upstream. It takes work, commitment, sweat, and energy from our scientists. At BioBox, we’re not rowing the boat for you, we can’t. Only you can. But what we can do is give you the best oars, boat, and gear to support you along your journey. This is the singular mission for us here at BioBox. | https://medium.com/bioboxanalytics/a-founders-story-chris-li-ceo-of-biobox-analytics-1-3-a2e5fd110521 | ['Christopher Li'] | 2020-12-10 13:49:44.249000+00:00 | ['Biotechnology', 'Genomics', 'Software Development', 'Founder Stories', 'Startup'] |
Up in Smoke: Wildfires Present a Hazy New Reality for West Coast Cannabis | Image: Mikhail Roop / Shutterstock.com
Satan might have felt at home on the West Coast during 2020, where dry, hot, and windy weather created ideal conditions for flames that marauded through millions of acres for weeks on end, destroying property, livelihoods, and lives. Some blamed the blazes on lax forest management or pyromaniacs with too much free time, while others called the devastation the best evidence yet of the imminent danger from climate change.
In California alone, CAL FIRE reported 8,200 fires burned well over 4 million acres, doubling the previous annual record. Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Colorado also went up in flames. The full impact on the cannabis industry is still being assessed as farmers tend to their damaged crops and hope the flower will pass lab tests. Meanwhile, distributors and retail outlets nervously wait for the Croptober harvest to come in and replenish retail shelves.
The pandemic has made 2020 a difficult year for everyone, but the fires have put a grim exclamation point on a year in which cannabis farmers and other operators have had to demonstrate more resilience than ever.
In the Northern Coast Range of California, the August Complex fire started in mid-August after dry lightning strikes ignited thirty-eight separate blazes in the region. With strong winds fueling flames over rugged, mountainous terrain, fires blazed a path through all three counties in the Emerald Triangle, home to some of the biggest and most well-established cannabis farms in the United States. The August Complex burned a 100-mile-long path covering nearly one million acres.
Jeff, who preferred not to use his last name, established Little Hill Cultivators in 2011 on a mountaintop in Trinity County. The outpost was one of the first licensed grows in the region. When fire began an inexorable creep toward his farm, he remained optimistic that clearing brush and trees around the land and digging fire lines would keep the damage to a minimum. As the blaze grew and spread across the region over several weeks, Jeff watched closely and prepared for the worst.
By early September, the Hopkins fire was moving northeast of Covelo, California, in the Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness and the Shasta Trinity National Forest. When the fire summited the mountains, which top out at nearly 8,000 feet, “that kind of got everybody on alert, and the dozers started clearing fire breaks up on the ridge and in the valley,” Jeff said. “But then it just kept moving up, and they couldn’t get a lid on it. A few weeks later, it jumped the lake and came west to my valley.”
As flames moved through his 120-acre property Jeff remained on the site, braving “overpowering” winds that damaged several of Little Hill’s greenhouses. He estimated 117 acres on his property burned; the only green spots left were the tops of trees. Fortunately, Jeff expects most of the trees to recover in the spring, and the damage to his structures was minimal — a barn, a trailer, and some items in storage. “As far as clearing brush and scraping down to bare land, that really worked, and it stopped the ground fires in their tracks,” he said. “And luckily, the wind didn’t blow too much over the line. Next time I’m going to have more sprinklers to protect structures, because those worked well, but I just didn’t have enough room for everything. If I would have had one on the barn, it would have been okay.”
Consequences of the August Complex fire at Little Hill Cultivators.
After the fires moved on, his farm was submerged in smoke for several weeks. The plants in the greenhouses suffered. When the power went out and his generator malfunctioned, Jeff wasn’t able to water plants properly and take other measures to protect the crops in a time of crisis.
“It turned all the hairs prematurely, and they just didn’t grow,” he said. “So, they didn’t mature properly, and I don’t know if there’s going to be a smoke taint yet. I basically abandoned two greenhouses, and I’ve probably lost at least 50 percent of the crop just due to it not maturing fully. And the weight plus the value of the quality just isn’t there.”
Countless West Coast cannabis growers share Jeff’s experience — able to save their crops but left to deal with stressed plants that didn’t reach their potential. Farmers won’t have a clear picture of the scope of damage until they weigh their harvest and perform lab testing to determine the THC and terpene levels, then compare those figures to previous years’ harvests.
By late October, the California Department of Food and Agriculture had received thirty-nine requests for license-fee deferrals and four requests for moving harvested cannabis to another licensed site as a result of the fires.
Impact on pricing and supply
Camille Roistacher, co-founder and chief executive officer at Voyage Distribution and the flower brand Wyllow, has been waiting for an influx of flower at her distribution center but hasn’t seen it yet. Flower prices across the board have been high for most of the year, she said. Of the 200 farms she works with, primarily in northern California, only a handful were impacted by the fires. However, with supplies already limited due to the upswing in sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, she anticipates a continued pinch in supply and prices that will remain high into next year. “I would say pricing and supply are where we’re going to see the biggest impact,” she said. “Then the problem with that as it continues in the supply chain, if bulk flower is still very expensive, that makes it even more expensive as it’s packaged and labeled and sold to a retailer. So, that cost is just continually passed all the way through to the consumer. Normally we see an increase in supply this time of year bringing the pricing down on the bulk side. We’ll see how we finish out the rest of the year, but I think those fires really hit us pretty hard.”
Etienne Fontan, vice president and co-owner of Berkeley Patients Group (BPG) and a founding board member at the National Cannabis Industry Association, said BPG sources about 50 percent of its flower from outdoor growers and does not buy flower tainted by smoke. “Prior to Prop[osition] 64 we had a large network of growers, but the network has changed and now we’re reliant on distributors,” he said. “And even some distributors won’t know until the products pass testing, so we’re still kind of in a gray area of just not knowing” how the market will look.
A similar scenario is playing out in Oregon, where Jesse Bontecou, deputy director at the Oregon Retailers of Cannabis Association, said the state was beginning to experience a shortfall in flower supply before the fires. When the pandemic started, he said, Oregon experienced new records in sales month after month. “We’re hearing from retailers and wholesalers that they were having a hard time finding flower, and the prices have been increasing significantly since 2018,” he explained. “So, availability was already a problem and I think there is some concern, but we don’t know what the effect is going to be yet. I think we should expect to see a small increase in the wholesale cost of flower, at least until the fall harvest comes in. We’re all waiting to see to what degree this affects the marketplace.”
California companies large and small have struggled since Prop. 64 — officially the Adult Use of Marijuana Act — passed, bringing with it with high taxes, stiff competition, and plenty of red tape. Flaming farms certainly haven’t improved the situation. The dilemma for growers with smoke-damaged crops is whether to send them to an extraction facility or spend the money to have them tested, hoping they will pass muster. Since the value of flower is much higher than trim — the primary source material for extraction — many farmers will roll the dice and try to take their flower to market.
The East Fork Cultivars crew takes a break from fighting the Slater fire.
Not all smoke is created equal. Burning brush leaves everything coated with ash that doesn’t poison plants, but when buildings and other structures burn the smoke and ash likely include toxic byproducts produced by the chemicals used to treat wood and other construction materials. The fire retardant dropped from planes to help control the spread of flames can destroy or seriously damage flowers because it, too, contains dangerous chemicals.
Jeff Gray, founder and chief executive officer at SC Laboratories in Santa Cruz, California, said state regulatory agencies require testing labs to test for a specific roster of substances (pesticides, cannabinoids, mycotoxins, etc.). Contaminants not on the list may go undetected, meaning contaminated flower could end up in the retail market legally. “Some people were thinking there could be toxicity in the smoke because you’re looking at houses that are burning, so we’re looking at chemicals in the air that could possibly be dangerous,” he said. “There’s a lot of different factors, but in the past, we didn’t see a lot of people fail tests against the regulated panel we run. So, I didn’t see a spike in contaminants being present in flowers that were grown in the areas affected by fires.”
Gray also noted SC Laboratories, which operates in both California and Oregon, is in the process of developing a smoke test modeled after those used in the wine industry, which, due to its longevity, has much more experience with fire damage. “Anytime you apply something from one industry to another, there’s going to be some shortcomings,” he said. “When we start running these labs, I’ll be able to provide insight into the presence of chemicals that aren’t normally tested for. It’s possible — but like I said, we haven’t seen it and we haven’t seen a ton of evidence to support that.”
Fontan said BPG was one of the first dispensaries in the U.S. to start testing flower, primarily to measure THC levels. “There’s going to be carbon fallout and different readouts that are going to show anomalies in tests from years past,” he said of testing smoke-damaged flower. “The damage is there and it cannot be washed off like [it can be from] grapes or fruits because of the sticky nature of the exterior of the [cannabis] plant. So, unfortunately, whatever falls upon [cannabis plants] will go through and be part of the testing reality. And some growers are in for a rude awakening, but that is the reality of farming.”
Faced with an early, unplanned harvest, some farmers have had to dry and cure their crops in ad hoc storage spaces, raising concerns about microbial contamination and other damage that could result in failed lab tests. Even in scenarios where smoke-tainted flowers are able to pass testing, knowledge the plants were harvested in smoke-saturated areas makes selling into the retail market much more difficult.
“I would outright reject a [smoke-damaged] product that made it through our system because I know contaminants are there,” Fontan said. “We used to joke about how this year’s fire crop would be sold as ‘Hickory Kush’ on the East Coast, because we are educated cannabis people here in California and won’t accept that.”
“The smoke smell makes it very challenging to sell,” said Roistacher. “If we can smell it, and then if it doesn’t pass the [certified lab analysis], we just can’t do anything with it. So, it’s going to be very, very challenging for those farmers.”
Seeking help
In Oregon, just up the road from Humboldt County and near the town of Takilma, East Fork Cultivars grows nearly ten acres of hemp and adult-use cannabis. When fires crept to within a mile of the farm, co-founder and President Nathan Howard and his team used hoses to soak the property and tractors to dig fire lines along the border. After the county issued a mandatory evacuation order, the crew returned to the farm by day to move equipment, genetics, and other valuable assets to safety.
“Even though we had a mandatory evacuation, we kept going to the farm, despite the fact we could see fire half a mile from us burning away,” Howard said. “We could hear the fire roaring, and at times the wind would shift and it would come toward our farm. Smoke and ash and smokey taint is much less of a concern to us at this point than just the actual impact on harvest operations, which will unfold as the rains start to come. The story is still playing out because there are people, including us, who still have tens of thousands of pounds of cannabis in the ground that need to be hand-harvested throughout southwest Oregon and up and down the West Coast.”
This is the third season during which East Fork has suffered from smoky conditions. The farm has escaped serious damage each time and has had no major issues with smoke damage or tainted crops. “How much yield are we actually losing from those smokey days and the reduced UV? We don’t really know. One of these heavier smoking years in 2018 was a total banner year. But there’s that question about how much we could have grown and how much more chemical production we would have had with unmitigated sun for the entire season.”
Nearly 20 percent of Oregon’s licensed cannabis companies are located in evacuated areas. A September survey by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, the state agency that licenses cannabis businesses, found:
Of the twenty licensees in “wildfire burn zones,” twelve were a total loss: nine retailers, two labs, and one producer.
Of those in evacuation zones, thirty-four were under a Level 3 alert (“go now/leave immediately”), five were under Level 2 (expect an evacuation order soon), and five were under Level 1 (be ready to leave if necessary).
Of those licensees who experienced crop damage, seven said they had “complete” damage, twelve had “partial” damage, and fifteen had “unknown” damage. Thirteen respondents reported no damage.
“Obviously there were fires back in 2017 that caused similar disruptions in relation to people being evacuated and smoke and things like that,” Bontecou said, “but as far as I remember, there was no direct fire damage. This year there were whole towns that were essentially destroyed, and we have not seen that level of damage before. It is tragic, and for people that don’t have a lot of resources available, such as insurance or federal aid in case of emergencies, it’s really destructive.”
When natural disasters strike, state and federal aid is often available. Cannabis remains a federally illegal substance, so businesses in the sector don’t qualify for federal disaster aid. Likewise, insurance companies are reluctant to write policies for cannabis farms; only a small percentage of farmers carry any type of insurance against crop damage.
U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and U.S. Representatives Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio — all Oregon Democrats — in September introduced legislation that would ensure state-legal cannabis businesses can qualify for disaster recovery programs like any other business. “Cannabis businesses in Oregon hurt by the blazing wildfires or any other disaster shouldn’t be shut out from federal relief simply because the federal government is stuck in yesteryear,” Wyden said. “These legal small businesses employ thousands of workers and support our struggling economy. If they need federal support, they should get it. Full stop.”
Although the federal government likely won’t provide aid, industry members in California and Oregon are seeking ways to work with state officials to find assistance for legal businesses impacted by fires and other disasters. “We have internally started a conversation about going to the state and trying to set aside some of the cannabis taxes the state is currently collecting but not spending on the industry and creating an emergency fund,” said Bontecou. “People are beginning to think about how we need to plan for this, because it does seem like it is going to be a reality that we’re dealing with in the future and a growing threat that demands and deserves attention, especially for an industry that’s so large in Oregon. I mean, currently we are on track to surpass a billion dollars in sales this year, which is no small feat.”
While wildfires will continue to be a serious issue for West Coast farmers, there is a silver lining, of sorts: After fires have consumed all the dead leaves and other debris on a forest floor, out-of-control blazes are much less likely to occur in that area again, at least for a while. Fires also rejuvenate whatever plant life remains and spur new growth by returning nutrients to the soil.
Little Hill and East Fork hope this year’s blazes will reduce the chance a major fire will flare in their vicinity in the foreseeable future. “We have just an immense amount, about 150,000 or more acres, of [wildfire] fuel we don’t have to worry about now,” said Howard. “We’re sitting pretty. I mean, the skies are blue with a few clouds. We’ve been harvesting under pretty much ideal conditions all day. So, we are in stark contrast to having a 1,000-plus [Air Quality Index] for consecutive weeks with the fires half a mile away from us just a few weeks ago.” (An AQI value of 300 is unhealthy; anything over 500 is hazardous.)
“It could have been a lot worse,” Little Hill Cultivators’ Jeff said. “I would trade the crops for my infrastructure any day, and I lost a lot of crop, but all in all I’m definitely in a good position to rebuild and get back at it next season.”
By Christopher Jones
Originally published at https://mgretailer.com/business/up-in-smoke-wildfires-present-a-hazy-new-reality-for-west-coast-cannabis/ on December 7th, 2020. | https://medium.com/mg-magazine/up-in-smoke-wildfires-present-a-hazy-new-reality-for-west-coast-cannabis-696552430b29 | ['Mg Magazine'] | 2020-12-15 19:57:27.507000+00:00 | ['United States', 'Cannabis', 'Wildlife', 'Outdoors', 'California'] |
Laganja Estranja — Medicating For Success | Laganja Estranja — Medicating For Success
Written by Kyah Luna| Emerald Magazine
Photo by Chris Desabota
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Laganja Estranja never slows down, even in quarantine. From choreographing and writing the short play Up in Smoke, starring in the series Muse Me on YouTube, and her debut album HIGHconic, fast approaching, Estranja takes her THC to-go.
“I am a successful stoner,” who has “chosen an alternative form of medication,” Estranja emphasizes.
Located in L.A., Estranja boasts an impressive resume as a former Rupaul’s Drag Race queen, founder and choreographer of Laganja’s Dance School, musician, and cannabis activist.
Picture by Ash Danielsen
“As someone who’s always on the go with a million jobs throughout my day, I need a medicine that’s going to keep me active,” says Estranja.
While one could say she’s a sativa girl, it’s particularly the lemon and tangerine terpenes that are benefiting her the most, Estranja explains.
Terpenes are aromatic hydrocarbons found in many plants such as peppermint, rosemary, lemons, and cannabis, according to Medical Jane’s Introduction to Terpenes. Estranja specifically favors the citrusy limonene terpene.
“I am putting myself through a lot of physical pain with drag, with the tucking, super gluing earrings to my ears, the nails,” says Estranja, “so again, the cannabis helps to alleviate some of the pain.”
Limonene’s anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties can provide significant pain relief. The compound enhances mood, is a dietary aid, and protects and possibly fights against cancer cells. Currently, it is undergoing trials as a treatment for breast cancer, according to a scientific study in São Paulo, Brazil.
Yet, Estranja, born Jay Jackson in Dallas, Texas, could never imagine forefronting the cannabis drag community.
“I chose the name Laganja Estranja because I thought it was cool . . . but I had no idea that one-day people would be waiting in lines at my meet and greets with joints for me!” exclaims Estranja.
Before she became a female impersonator, Estranja dreamed of performing on Broadway and was a “’good boy. I got all A’s. My parents were high school counselors,” she remembers.
Estranja first experienced cannabis at 18 years old after a dance injury left her in chronic pain. She found it relieved discomfort and helped her to sleep and eat healthier.
Picture by Austin Young
“I really believe that because my first introduction to the plant was as medicine, as a way to be a better creator, that I had a different lens to the plant,” Estranja says.
Estranja used cannabis to enhance her creativity and focus on dance, earning the title U.S. Presidential Scholar of the Arts as a teenager. Wearing a pink triangle pin, she performed in front of then President George H.W. Bush.
After high school, Estranja relocated to attend the California Institute of the Arts, eventually earning a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree in dance and choreography. But it was not until 2011 that the Estranja persona debuted at an amateur contest at Micky’s West Hollywood, a popular gay nightclub.
After winning the competition, Estranja threw herself into the spotlight as a regular showgirl at the club.
Estranja competed on season six of LogoTV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2014. Due to federal regulations specific to production sets, Estranja was not allowed to medicate during the showing. Instead, she turned to a substance that was allowed on set — alcohol, which helped relieve the stress and pain of rigorous drag performances.
“I was extremely depressed and almost lost my life and cannabis pulled me out of that hole,” Estranja explains. “I found this plant to really save me from many situations. I was sober three years after my spin on RuPaul’s Drag Race where I was dealing with alcohol.”
Estranja began her road to recovery, asking herself, “What am I trying to escape?” Alcohol allowed her to escape the physical and mental pressure of performing. It boosted her confidence and allowed her to relax. That was when she turned to cannabis again.
Estranja finds consuming cannabis is a helpful alcohol harm reduction method.
“I decided through self-discovery that it was a choice. I was choosing to be an alcoholic, just like I was choosing to be depressed,” Estranja explains. “If you want to be the most happy you’ve ever been, you’ve got to choose that first. When I am medicated, I am able to make that choice a lot easier.”
Picture by Ash Danielsen
Many questioned Estranja’s sobriety as she continued medicating with cannabis. Yet despite the general classification of cannabis as a recreational drug, research finds the plant successfully reduces the harmful effects of alcohol withdrawal and usage, according to The Harm Reduction Journal.
“It became something that when I was sad, or I was depressed, I was able to smoke cannabis and look at my life in a more grateful way, in a more humble way, and I think it really kept me grounded,” says Estranja.
After three years of sobriety, Estranja can now have a drink at dinner with friends. Estranja does not believe she is cured of alcoholism; but attributes her recovery to the benefits of cannabis, therapy, a stable support network, and introspection. Instead of getting tipsy before a performance, Estranja gets high to relieve the strain of dance and to reinvigorate her energy for the audience.
Cannabis also allows her to evaluate her impact and responsibilities.
“I chose to not drink. I choose now to moderate, and I choose to continue to live with my eyes open and aware of the facts that I could easily slip, but that’s a choice,” Estranja states.
In 2015, Estranja toured the production #TeamTooMuch with drag star Gia Gunn to promote safety and substance moderation, specifically within the drag community. She realized that a queen could not be a queen without a platform. Cannabis pulled her out of a dark place and she wanted to share her story with others.
Estranja partners with brands she believes stand for her communities, not just those that “slap a rainbow on it” in June. For Pride
In Loving Memory of Chris Desabota. Rest in Peace.
Month 2019, she collaborated with Roxanne Dennant of Fruit Slabs of L.A. to create edible gummies. The campaign focused on celebrating the LGBTQ+ community emphasizing the liberation of gender expression.
“I am really sure to partner with companies who are not only talking the talk but walking the walk and making sure their staff is diverse, that they’re hiring people of color . . . I pick and choose who I stay in contact with, and I am lucky that I have that ability,” Estranja explains.
Estranja is certainly not the only one interested in accountability this year. In a recent series of tweets, Miss Fame, a former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant, called out drag queens, including Estranja, who created content with Jeffree Star, a YouTube beauty influencer exposed for racist and problematic actions., who have not addressed their connection to him. When asked about this, Estranja states, there is no relationship between them, and there never was one behind the scenes in the first place.
“It’s all about accountability in oneself. You have to hold yourself accountable, and if you can’t do that, well, then you’re not really a person I really want to be involved with,” she continues. “My relationship with Jeffree Star is my relationship. I didn’t make some big public statement about how we are not friends. I don’t trash him in public because I don’t need to do that. Karma will get everyone.”
Today, Estranja enjoys participating in the online cannabis community. “This time at home has really given me a chance to focus on my creative side,” she says. She often appears on WeedTube and is uploading regular content to her YouTube channel as well.
Estranja keeps her tiara on her head and her seat at the throne as a successful stoner. If she could say anything to a cannabis skeptic, she’d say, “to judge a plant that saves someone else’s life, I would just say you might want to take a look at that, gorg.” | https://medium.com/@EmeraldMedia/laganja-estranja-medicating-for-success-27dc5e7016e0 | ['The Emerald Magazine'] | 2020-12-18 10:22:19.083000+00:00 | ['Advocacy', 'Medical Cannabis', 'Cannabis', 'Drag', 'Medication'] |
API calls from a Rails App on Heroku Pt. 2: Adding an SSL | In the process of being a one-man developer show, don’t we find that the time we spend actually coding is only part of the process? You have to come up with a decent design, code the “thing”, and then do some DevOps when you deploy the said, “thing”. Sometimes we can get stuck down the rabbit hole of researching how to accomplish these tasks.
In this article, we will talk about how to add an SSL to your Rails API endpoint when it is hosted on Heroku.
Why Add An SSL?
As mentioned in part 1 of this series, if you using a Rails API as an intermediary or gateway between your frontend and a third-party API, and this backend is hosted on Heroku, then you will need to ensure the following:
You have a custom domain address for your Rails API The Rails API endpoint is HTTPS
So let take on the first step in this process: Configuring your custom URL with Heroku.
Add Custom URL To Heroku
There are many services where you can purchase a custom domain. I used Name.com, and so this section will have that in mind, but most everything should apply to other services.
First, you want to navigate your Heroku project console’s setting tab. You should see a section on adding a custom domain that looks like this.
You then will need to add your domain. An explicit example would be something like: mybackendapi.com. Heroku will then generate a DNS target that you will need to use with the domain provider.
Navigate to the page where you manage the DNS records for your domain. You should see an area where you can add DNS records. You will notice the inputs: Type, Host, Answer, TTL. Try providing the following details.
Type: CNAME
Host: (blank)
Answer: (DNS target from Heroku)
TTL: 300
After doing this your Heroku project should successfully be pointing to your new custom domain. If it isn’t right away, you may need to give it some time for it to process.
Important!
The www prefix will still not work at this point. Repeat the steps in this sub-heading, but with the www prefix prepended when adding the domain to Heroku. When adding the new DNS record to the domain provider, input “www” under the Host field.
The SSL Rabbit Hole
Before continuing on this guide I must inform you that there are two ways to proceed from here in adding an SSL to your Heroku project. There is an automatic way that requires probably less than a minute. The manual way or more time-consuming way is more educational. When automation fails, as it sometimes does, it is good to know how to drive the ol’ stick shift. As you might have also guessed, I discovered to hard way before discovering the easy way, hence “The Rabbit Hole”.
The Automatic Way To Generate An SSL
Once you successfully have your custom domain working, you need to make the endpoint secure. We are talking about HTTPS!
To do this on Heroku you have to upgrade to their Hobby dyno. Their built-in Automatic Certificate Management will take care of the rest!
I told you it was easy…
The Manual Way To Generate An SSL
The manual way would not be such if it did not involve the command line, so break out your terminal and get ready!
First, go to the root directory of your project. The directory where you would normally heroku login . You need to generate a server.pass.key. Enter an easy password for later when prompted.
openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.pass.key 2048
Now you will create a server.key file. Enter in the password from earlier when prompted.
openssl rsa -in server.pass.key -out server.key
You are now ready to generate the server.csr. The CSR will be needed to generate your SSL certificate.
openssl req -nodes -new -key server.key -out server.csr
Specific information is needed to generate the CSR. For individuals, it is ok to put their name under Organization Name. Under Common Name, make sure to put your domain. Also, notice which fields were left blank. This is totally fine if it does not apply.
Provide the server.csr to your SSL provider to receive your SSL certificate. This may take a few hours for them to get back to you.
Once you receive the SSL certificate you want to create a file in the root directory called server.crt and paste the SSL there. If you received intermediary and root certificates as well, then similarly create intermediary.crt and root.crt in the root directory.
Now you want to add the SSL certificate to your project. This command checks that the server.key is the same key that was used to generate the CSR, before adding the SSL to the project.
heroku certs:add server.crt server.key
As an option, you may provide the intermediary.crt for better compatibility with older browsers.
heroku certs:add intermediary.crt server.crt server.key
Make sure to keep all of these files safe for later use and you should be good to go.
Final Words
So the easy way or the hard way? Whichever one you pick is up to you. I went down the Rabbit Hole myself and am happy I learned something. Hope it helps!
Sources:
https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/acquiring-an-ssl-certificate
https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/ssl | https://medium.com/@uharston/api-calls-from-a-rails-app-on-heroku-pt-2-adding-an-ssl-93e3ef959b08 | ['Uriah Harston'] | 2020-12-16 18:01:24.824000+00:00 | ['Ssl', 'Json', 'Ruby', 'API', 'Heroku'] |
Why every municipal Chief Data Officer should be a journalist first | Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash
I don’t really mean that, but it makes for a catchy headline. One of the most powerful things about municipal Chief Data Officers is the breadth of experiences and backgrounds that exist. Some have data science backgrounds, other policy, or history, or public administration, or economics, or something else entirely. But, I originally wanted to be a newspaper journalist, and though that didn’t become my career, I’ve used the skills I learned during my time writing for a couple of newspapers constantly in my Chief Data Officer life.
To be clear, I was never close to being a Pulitzer Prize journalist, I wrote for both my college and hometown newspapers during my undergrad years.
Ask tough questions
As a journalist, you have to ask a lot of questions to truly understand the full story. Sometimes those questions can be uncomfortable to ask, and the way those questions are answered can be challenging to hear as well. At the same time, in order to get the interviews and the quotes needed to file a story, you have to approach the interviewee in a way that builds trust.
Similarly for a Chief Data Officer, the data that a municipality holds is often challenging to understand. You may need to spend hours looking at a dataset, then go to actually do the work with the department that generates the data (we’ve filled potholes, picked up trash, tagged along for code violation inspections, and more), and then ask a lot of questions just to accurately count how many things happened on one day. Once you have a sense for what the data say, you will likely uncover some strange results that potentially show a bottleneck or inefficiency. Then you have to ask why the data looks the way it does. The answer may complete the story, but it also might be threatening to uncover. These are people you’ll continue working with in the future and will likely need to ask more questions, so every step requires judgment and tact.
If you aren’t willing to be creative and ask lots of questions, even the tough ones, then you probably aren’t cut out for the job.
Big picture and focused view
A good newspaper story will generally highlight a specific example of a problem as well as the broader reason for why that specific problem matters. Oftentimes, an article will start out telling a story about one person who had a bad experience somewhere, and then by the end of the piece the reader will have learned about why that problem is important for more than just that specific person. Being able to write about the big picture and more specific focus area requires a grasp of the overall topic and a need to talk to a lot of different people, gathering data to inform the article.
As a Chief Data Officer, often times the most meaningful way to convince someone about a project’s findings isn’t done by sharing a bunch of statistics, but instead by targeting a very specific piece of information. Maybe one neighborhood is particularly impacted, or maybe you can relate the overall findings to how someone might see the impact on their street or on their commute to work. Then, once you’ve captured their attention, you can talk about the larger issues and the overall findings that encompass the city as a whole. Combining the two gets the attention that is needed to push for considerations around a policy change.
Put together a story
If a journalist can’t tell a good story, then people won’t read their articles. A catchy headline, a well-written lede, interesting interviews, and maybe a good picture all make for a quality article.
Similarly, a Chief Data Officer needs to tell a good story with high quality data visualizations. Even if an analysis requires complex statistical analyses, ultimately the presentation of the findings needs to be distilled in a way that is understandable. Generally, outside of the data office, no one will care if the analysis was done in Excel or Python or using a linear regression or deep learning. The assumptions, findings, and clear recommendations are what matters.
Understanding the limitations
Any journalist should attempt to report objectively and if a piece of information is not available, that should be reported, too. When a mistake is made in reporting, the journalist or newspaper should acknowledge that mistake and issue a correction.
One of the most common challenges in dealing with municipal data is that often times data is missing. Potholes may get reported to the City so they can be fixed, but they are not reported equitably. For a number of reasons, people in different neighborhoods call the City to complain at different rates. If a Chief Data Officer was asked to manage a project predicting where potholes would appear next year so the Department of Public Works could better budget for materials and staffing, it would be irresponsible to only build a model based on historical pothole complaints. Certain neighborhoods would be ignored. Just as a journalist should understand where information is unavailable, so should a Chief Data Officer. The final deliverable on the pothole project example would either include a large assumption about who calls in complaints, or maybe it would require some new data collection from neighborhoods that have historically under-reported potholes. Also, when a mistake happens, it needs to be acknowledged immediately and fixed, or the analysis should be retracted.
Push for transparency, with some limitations
Ultimately a journalist’s job is to report on the facts. They oftentimes will expose information that may uncover a troubling reality, but it is in an effort to hold people accountable and expose the truth. There can be limitations — sometimes information may be held back especially if the newsworthiness is questionable, particularly when compared to the harm it may bring.
For a municipal Chief Data Officer, making data more available in the public realm is a key tenet of the job. Open data is useful both for internal staff and for the public. It also can hold city staff and processes to account. But there are limitations. If a dataset is released that includes information about someone who paid a parking fine late once, and now that information is online and searchable forever, does that have enough value to balance against the harm it may bring to the person? It might depend on the person, but a Chief Data Officer will need to make a judgment on issues like this, with an eye toward transparency, but and understanding of appropriate limitations.
Conclusion
During my time as Chief Data Officer in Syracuse, I’ve always enjoyed watching the local government reporters do their work. I think back to my time as a newspaper reporter often in this job — I do think the two have a lot of similarities. I don’t know how many other Chief Data Officers, or others working in the data field have any background in journalism, but if you do, I’d be interested to hear if you agree with what I’ve written! | https://samedelstein.medium.com/why-every-municipal-chief-data-officer-should-be-a-journalist-first-4cfb829659ae | ['Sam Edelstein'] | 2020-06-18 02:56:29.212000+00:00 | ['Data Storytelling', 'Data Science', 'Data Journalism', 'Chief Data Officer'] |
Static and Dynamic Typing: A Point of Friction | Yes, I started this one with a pun.
Hi everyone! I’m back again to talk about something that I think is pretty cool and is both new and old.
One of our instructors gave us a quick lesson on something that he told us was called “static typing”. At the time, I didn’t understand why we would use static typing and why he thought it was such a cool feature. From my point of view, static typing seemed to make Python code longer and even more detailed than it needed to be. I realize now, well after that first introduction, that static typing is quite powerful. We did not use it much in our classes or projects in the bootcamp, but I think it would be a good idea to actively incorporate it.
What is dynamic vs static typing?
Dynamic typing? From http://gph.is/1oXJHnO
Static typing? From http://gph.is/2aRJKNj
Static typing is kind of the opposite of how Python was made. Python by default uses dynamic types for variables, which means that a coder can declare variables without stating what data type they are and the types are given by Python in the background automatically.
For example, if we had
counter = 0 # Python
counter would be of type int . While we as humans could look at that code and say “of course!”, Python wouldn’t actually know until it ran the code counter = 0 and assigned the int type to counter.
Here’s where I realize my memory is bad: My previous experience with Java years ago should’ve set off alarm bells as Java requires data types for variables to be declared when the variable is created, unlike Python. For example, in Java, I would’ve had to have
int counter = 0 // Java
Ok, so how and why is static typing in Python helpful? Wouldn’t dynamic typing be better since that was how Python was made? Well, yes and no. Let’s think about this according to the Zen of Python ( https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/). Dynamic typing certainly saves keystrokes and time for developers, and makes for prettier, simpler, and sparser code. Basically, dynamic typing goes against the “Explicit is better than implicit” aphorism but better fulfills the aphorisms “Beautiful is better than ugly,” “Simple is better than complex,” “Sparse is better than dense,” and “Readability counts.”
Using static typing in Python, or rather utilizing the optional static type checker mypy (http://mypy-lang.org/), allows for better error checking and debugging! Now that I’m more experienced with data science, I can tell you that I’ve run across a few different datasets where a human (say me, most of the time and when I’ve had enough caffeine) looks at the data, somewhat logically classifies what the data is and how it can be used, and then begins actually working with the data in code just to see how differently the machine spirit handles it.
Easiest example? Let’s make a card picker game in Python. If you’ve never really looked at a deck of cards, been bored, and pondered a world where 4 2D kingdoms fight over treasure with only 13 members in each kingdom, let me explain what’s in a deck of cards. We’re going to ignore the (usually 2) Joker cards as well as the blanks and the rule cards, and we’ll find 52 cards split among four different symbols with 13 different ranks for each symbol. These symbols are the Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades and the ranks are Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, and King. Now, look back at the ranks and realize where there could be a problem. A human might look at the ranks and say “Well, these cards are technically categories and combined with the fact that some have names, I would use strings for the card values.” As such, I would declare hearts = ['A’, ‘2’, ‘3’, ‘4’, ‘5’, ‘6’, ‘7’, ‘8’, ‘9’, ‘10’, ‘J', ‘Q', ‘K'] . When debugging, the developer may keep in mind “Everything has to be a string” and never run into an issue because they would always use strings as inputs.
However, the USER of this game may not have this in mind! They may input a 5 card as the integer 5 instead of the string ‘5’. In this case, the game would never agree with the user as int 5 is never equal to string ‘5’.
Original card picker script, which in my head is named “Jean Luc”
Hey wait a minute…Now that I actually ran the code…
I take most of what I just wrote back: through writing the pick_card script, I ended up finding out that inputs are taken as strings! In an extremely roundabout way though, this points out one of the benefits of static typing: It makes explicit what you expect to provide as an argument and what you expect to receive from a return.
Demo for card picker with explicit “static” typing.
While this is something that can be fixed with type casting in the code or by explicitly asking for strings, this is not always applicable for larger scale projects.
For example, let’s look at our King County real estate data:
This is a subset of the King County
Residential Building zip provided at
https://info.kingcounty.gov/assessor/DataDownload/default.aspx
We can see that there are values that are technically numeric (zip code, majorID, minorID) but should not actually be integers or floats. Logically, we would process them as strings, such as when we concatenate the major and minor ID values to make parcelID. However, if we allow majorID and minorID to be naively interpreted as numeric values by Python, we will end up with incorrect values for parcelID; the ID values might get added like integers, or Python may/will remove leading zeros. And in fact, the latter is what happens in the dataframe. The county states that parcelID values are 9 digits from being a concatenation of 5 digit major and 4 digit minor ID values, but some of the minor values are only 2 digits!
That leading zero issue is a much bigger problem than it seems! Think about time given in 24 clocks, or even trying to reapply the King County model to ANY of these zip codes:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZIP_Code_prefixes#000s
Then the model would give you errors because all of those leading zeros would be removed. Unless the developer knew about this issue beforehand, they could end up deploying code that would not return easy-to-find errors. In these cases, it would again be better to explicitly state what you’re looking to use as arguments and what you expect to receive back as a return.
So, I highly encourage using this feature, introduced to Python in version 3.6, to help with bug checking and even sanity checks for developers! | https://medium.com/@awchen2009/static-and-dynamic-typing-a-point-of-friction-e033b21b9f16 | ['Aaron Chen'] | 2019-12-20 19:41:07.163000+00:00 | ['Python3', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Debugging', 'Learn To Code'] |
Magic in the Age of COVID-19 | Magic is one of the throughlines of my life. My father started me on it when I was pretty young. I returned to it in my adulthood and found friends and mentors whom I cherish. One of my favorite things is performing for happy audiences. I’ve been performing professionally for many years now.
This is where things get tricky. My act is mostly made up of a mixture of “close up” effects and mentalism. For the record, mentalism and magic are akin to jazz and rock ’n’ roll; they’re different aesthetic choices made with the same tools. If you’re used to performing card tricks, your ability to do this is somewhat limited by the pandemic. It’s hard to get close up when you’re trying to stay far away.
My good friend Sylar convinced me to give video shows a shot. I was ambivalent about it because I know a lot about video and feel like performing for a camera gives the performer almost too much control. I like things to feel on the edge. Then came an offer to do a show. I accepted it and got to work on my online act.
Last week I gave a talk to the Google Assistant Personality Team, one that began with a performance. What I found was that certain effects I feel don’t necessarily play big on stage but worked well on camera, and some effects one cannot do as a close-up magician worked well on camera, made convenient because one needn’t carry a whiteboard easel as one goes from table to table. It’s not the same as performing in person, but it’s still performing. The audience still has a great time, I get to do what I love, and everyone can feel like life is normal for a few minutes.
Much of being a magician is about adapting to shifting situations, be they party guests becoming inebriated or some new technology that makes an effect seem less impressive. Be you a magician or some other profession, the key is finding a way for you to do what you do, even in this crazy time.
The show must go on, after all. | https://medium.com/the-work-life-balance/magic-in-the-age-of-covid-19-246ff01b8a48 | ['Mister Lichtenstein'] | 2021-01-06 17:43:54.258000+00:00 | ['Zoom', 'Pandemic', 'Magic', 'Google Meet', 'Google'] |
Missing | I missed many things growing up,
Leaving me with many a hang-up.
My mother is gone.
Can’t show her the path I am on.
No mother-daughter talks.
No shopping trips and walks.
I want to talk about fashion with my sister.
She will not; she still grieves for her brother.
No senior prom, no slow dance, or first kiss at sixteen.
No chance to be that beautiful prom queen.
No corsage pinned on me by a date,
No slow dance with a handsome classmate.
Never a bridesmaid and never a bride?
Am I to be denied?
Never feel the pains and joys of childbirth,
Never to feel that worth.
Never a mother?
Just a father?
I see a woman when I look in the mirror;
And sometimes I wonder, “Is it just a veneer?” | https://medium.com/branwen-drew-my-poetry/missing-17ace375e4df | ['Branwen Rhiannon Drew'] | 2020-12-14 19:11:54.371000+00:00 | ['Transgender', 'Grief', 'Gender Identity', 'Poetry'] |
Hate is Prevalent at Gay Pride March | This month, the LGBTQ community celebrated Pride in cities around the country. We do this every year to recognize our freedom to be our authentic selves, live our truth, and love who we want, how we want. But wherever there is love and joy, hate seems to follow.
That was especially evident when neo-Nazis showed up to the Detroit Pride Parade with a singular goal — to incite violence. Openly carrying weapons and flanked by police for protection, this group proceeded to shout slurs at parade-goers. They tore up rainbow Pride flags and marched waving swastika flags. Detroit police said the explicit purpose of the group was to create a Charlottesville-style clash. Thankfully, the situation did not escalate — but it easily could have.
Nazi, neo-Nazi, White Nationalist — they are hate and intolerance in human form. But what happens when those of us who claim to be tolerant become so narrow-minded that we begin to embody hate and intolerance ourselves?
That is exactly what happened during the D.C. Pride celebration. Organizers of the DC Dyke March refused to allow Jewish groups to march if they displayed the Star of David. How narrow minded have we become that an ancient religious symbol is considered aggression to those who don’t like Israel? Event organizers said they wanted to ban all “nationalist symbols”, including the Israeli flag and the American flag. The Palestinian flag, however, was more than welcome.
The event page says the march was “meant to bring together all who identify as dykes through marching as an act of visibility and protest,” but by singling out a symbol of the Jewish faith in the name of creating a “safe space”, they are not bringing people together at all. They are creating more division and promoting anti-Semitism in the process. As one New York Times writer put it, “Once anti-Semitism required Jews to wear stars. Now it requires them not to.”
Sponsors of the event, including DC Dyke March, One DC, No Justice No Pride, HIPS DC, Casa Ruby LGBT Center, Black Lives Matter DC, If Not Now DC, DCATS, New Synagogue Project, and Muslims for Progressive Values should all be ashamed by how this display of discrimination unfolded.
In the face of hate, Zioness, the Jewish group that was turned away, took it in stride — standing in solidarity with all the queer Jews who want to participate with all of their authentic selves, including their commitment, as Jews, to Jewish self-determination.
The Jewish population has actually gone to great lengths to further the rights of the LGBTQ community. From physicist Magnus Hirschfeld, who promoted the validity of sexual diversity in his research, to Edie Windsor and Roberta Kaplan, who helped overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Jewish people have made countless contributions to further the mission of equality and acceptance for all. Israel itself is considered the only safe space for queer people in the Middle East. Thousands of LGBTQ Palestinians have fled to Israel to avoid persecution and, every year, Tel Aviv hosts the largest Pride celebration in the region.
We cannot forget what it means to be intolerant. Hatred as stark at that demonstrated by the neo-Nazis in Detroit is easy to point to and say “that is hate”, but hatred is also denying someone the right to express themselves — be it their sexuality, their heritage, or their religion. Just as love is love, hate is also hate and we must reject it in all forms and stand together in solidarity with our Jewish LGBTQ brothers and sisters. | https://medium.com/@sanctuaryspaceforus/discrimination-is-prevalent-at-gay-pride-march-b601a9470928 | ['Sanctuary Space'] | 2019-06-17 15:06:19.250000+00:00 | ['Gay', 'Anti Semitism', 'Nazis', 'Jewish', 'LGBTQ'] |
What does that really mean? Success to one person could mean the opposite for someone else. | What does that really mean? Success to one person could mean the opposite for someone else. Jiihad Nov 19, 2020·5 min read
Life is a journey of twists and turns, peaks and valleys, mountains to climb and oceans to explore.
Good times and bad times. Happy times and sad times.
But always, life is a movement forward.
No matter where you are on the journey, in some way, you are continuing on — and that’s what makes it so magnificent. One day, you’re questioning what on earth will ever make you feel happy and fulfilled. And the next, you’re perfectly in flow, writing the most important book of your entire career.
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What nobody ever tells you, though, when you are a wide-eyed child, are all the little things that come along with “growing up.”
1. Most people are scared of using their imagination.
They’ve disconnected with their inner child.
They don’t feel they are “creative.”
They like things “just the way they are.”
2. Your dream doesn’t really matter to anyone else.
Some people might take interest. Some may support you in your quest. But at the end of the day, nobody cares, or will ever care about your dream as much as you.
3. Friends are relative to where you are in your life.
Most friends only stay for a period of time — usually in reference to your current interest. But when you move on, or your priorities change, so too do the majority of your friends.
4. Your potential increases with age.
As people get older, they tend to think that they can do less and less — when in reality, they should be able to do more and more, because they have had time to soak up more knowledge. Being great at something is a daily habit. You aren’t just “born” that way.
5. Spontaneity is the sister of creativity.
If all you do is follow the exact same routine every day, you will never leave yourself open to moments of sudden discovery. Do you remember how spontaneous you were as a child? Anything could happen, at any moment!
6. You forget the value of “touch” later on.
When was the last time you played in the rain?
When was the last time you sat on a sidewalk and looked closely at the cracks, the rocks, the dirt, the one weed growing between the concrete and the grass nearby.
Do that again.
You will feel so connected to the playfulness of life.
7. Most people don’t do what they love.
It’s true.
The “masses” are not the ones who live the lives they dreamed of living. And the reason is because they didn’t fight hard enough. They didn’t make it happen for themselves. And the older you get, and the more you look around, the easier it becomes to believe that you’ll end up the same.
Don’t fall for the trap.
8. Many stop reading after college.
Ask anyone you know the last good book they read, and I’ll bet most of them respond with, “Wow, I haven’t read a book in a long time.”
9. People talk more than they listen.
There is nothing more ridiculous to me than hearing two people talk “at” each other, neither one listening, but waiting for the other person to stop talking so they can start up again.
10. Creativity takes practice.
It’s funny how much we as a society praise and value creativity, and yet seem to do as much as we can to prohibit and control creative expression unless it is in some way profitable.
If you want to keep your creative muscle pumped and active, you have to practice it on your own.
11. “Success” is a relative term.
As kids, we’re taught to “reach for success.”
What does that really mean? Success to one person could mean the opposite for someone else.
Define your own Success.
12. You can’t change your parents.
A sad and difficult truth to face as you get older: You can’t change your parents.
They are who they are.
Whether they approve of what you do or not, at some point, no longer matters. Love them for bringing you into this world, and leave the rest at the door.
13. The only person you have to face in the morning is yourself.
When you’re younger, it feels like you have to please the entire world.
You don’t.
Do what makes you happy, and create the life you want to live for yourself. You’ll see someone you truly love staring back at you every morning if you can do that.
14. Nothing feels as good as something you do from the heart.
No amount of money or achievement or external validation will ever take the place of what you do out of pure love.
Follow your heart, and the rest will follow.
15. Your potential is directly correlated to how well you know yourself.
Those who know themselves and maximize their strengths are the ones who go where they want to go.
Those who don’t know themselves, and avoid the hard work of looking inward, live life by default. They lack the ability to create for themselves their own future.
16. Everyone who doubts you will always come back around.
That kid who used to bully you will come asking for a job.
The girl who didn’t want to date you will call you back once she sees where you’re headed. It always happens that way.
Just focus on you, stay true to what you believe in, and all the doubters will eventually come asking for help.
17. You are a reflection of the 5 people you spend the most time with.
Nobody creates themselves, by themselves.
We are all mirror images, sculpted through the reflections we see in other people. This isn’t a game you play by yourself. Work to be surrounded by those you wish to be like, and in time, you too will carry the very things you admire in them.
18. Beliefs are relative to what you pursue.
Wherever you are in life, and based on who is around you, and based on your current aspirations, those are the things that shape your beliefs.
Nobody explains, though, that “beliefs” then are not “fixed.” There is no “right and wrong.” It is all relative.
Find what works for you.
19. Anything can be a vice.
Be wary.
Again, there is no “right” and “wrong” as you get older. A coping mechanism to one could be a way to relax on a Sunday to another. Just remain aware of your habits and how you spend your time, and what habits start to increase in frequency — and then question where they are coming from in you and why you feel compelled to repeat them.
Never mistakes, always lessons.
As I said, know yourself.
20. Your purpose is to be YOU.
What is the meaning of life?
To be you, all of you, always, in everything you do — whatever that means to you. You are your own creator. You are your own evolving masterpiece.
Growing up is the realization that you are both the sculpture and the sculptor, the painter and the portrait. Paint yourself however you wish. | https://medium.com/@7jiihad/life-is-a-journey-of-twists-and-turns-peaks-and-valleys-mountains-to-climb-and-oceans-to-explore-70fb00361e85 | [] | 2020-11-19 18:56:55.501000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Sports', 'Live Streaming'] |
The Ultimate Guide | In this guide, we discuss everything you need to know about cryptocurrency taxes. From the high level tax implications to the actual tax forms you need to fill out, you’ll learn all about what you need to stay compliant and get your taxes done properly.
The Basics of Crypto Taxes
Just like other forms of property like stocks, bonds, and real estate, you incur capital gains and capital losses on your cryptocurrency investments when you sell, trade, or otherwise dispose of your crypto.
For example, if you bought $10,000 worth of bitcoin in October and sold it two months later for $12,000, you would incur a $2,000 capital gain from the sale of your bitcoin (12,000–10,000).
Outside of buying, selling, and trading, if you earn cryptocurrencies-whether through a job, mining, staking, airdrop, or interest from lending activities-you are liable for income taxes on the US Dollar value of your crypto earnings.
We will walk through examples for all of these scenarios further below.
When Do You Owe Taxes On Your Crypto?
Whenever you incur a taxable event from your crypto investing activity, you incur a tax reporting requirement.
A taxable event simply refers to a scenario in which you trigger or realize income. As seen in the IRS virtual currency guidance, the following are all considered taxable events for cryptocurrency:
Trading crypto to fiat currency like the US dollar Trading one crypto for another cryptocurrency Spending crypto to purchase goods or services Earning crypto as income
Below, we run through practical examples to illustrate each of these taxable events.
1. Crypto ➔ Fiat (USD)
Emma buys 2 ETH from Coinbase for $1,200. A few months later, Emma sells her 2 ETH for $1,000.
Selling crypto for fiat currency is a taxable event. In this example, Emma incurs a $200 capital loss (1,000–1,200). This loss gets deducted and actually reduces Emma’s taxable income.
2. Crypto ➔ Crypto
John purchases 5 Litecoin for $250. After holding onto his Litecoin for a couple of months, John trades all 5 Litecoin for 0.5 ETH. At the time of the trade, 5 Litecoin is worth $400.
In this scenario, John incurs a taxable event by trading his Litecoin for Ethereum. Trading one crypto for another is treated as a disposal, and here John incurs a $150 capital gain from the trade which he would need to report on his taxes (400–250).
3. Crypto ➔ Goods/Services
Taylor owns 5 bitcoin, each of which she bought for $100 pre-2014. Taking advantage of her new found wealth, Taylor uses 3 bitcoin to purchase a new Tesla for $51,000. At the time of buying the car, 1 bitcoin is worth $17,000.
In this example, Taylor incurs a taxable event when she disposes of her bitcoin for the new Tesla. She incurs a $50,700 capital gain in doing so (51,000–300) and needs to report this capital gain on her taxes.
4. Earning Crypto
Jake runs a cryptocurrency mining operation. Every day, Jake mines 0.5 bitcoin through his crypto mining rigs.
In this example, Jake would recognize income for the USD value of 0.5 bitcoin each day. For example, if Jake mined 0.5 bitcoin today on November 30, 2020, he would recognize $9,750 of income (as bitcoin is currently trading at $19,500 per coin).
When Don’t You Owe Taxes On Your Crypto?
In certain circumstances, you will not trigger any taxable events when transacting with crypto, and you will not have to pay or report any cryptocurrency taxes.
You do not trigger a taxable event when you:
Buy and hold crypto Transfer crypto from one wallet you own to another wallet you own
1. Buy and Hold
If you simply buy bitcoin or another cryptocurrency and hold it in a wallet, you do not have any sort of tax reporting requirement as you haven’t realized a gain or loss on your investment yet.
Once you sell, trade, or trigger a taxable event by disposing of the coin, this is when you realize a capital gain or loss.
2. Wallet ➔ Wallet
Sending one cryptocurrency from one wallet you own to another wallet you own is not a disposal of your crypto. You still own the crypto, and thus you do not trigger a taxable event.
Fair Market Value — Cost Basis = Capital Gain/Loss
How Do You Calculate Your Crypto Taxes?
To calculate your capital gains and losses from each of your crypto sells, trades, or disposals, you simply apply the formula:
Fair Market Value — Cost Basis = Capital Gain/Loss
Fair Market Value
Fair Market Value is simply the price an asset would sell for on the open market. In the case of cryptocurrency, this is typically the sale price in USD terms.
Cost Basis
Cost Basis represents how much money you put into purchasing your property (i.e. how much it cost you). Cost basis includes purchase price plus all other costs associated with purchasing your cryptocurrency (fees, etc).
From our examples above, it’s easy to see this formula in action. If you buy 1 Litecoin for $250, your cost basis is $250 per Litecoin. If you sell or trade it when it’s worth $400, that $400 is the fair market value. Applying the formula:
$400 (Fair Market Value) — $250 (Cost Basis) = $150 Gain
Fairly straightforward.
Now, let’s dive into a more complex example to see how you would calculate your gains and losses using this same formula when you have a number of transactions instead of just one or two.
Transaction History Example
Say you have the following transaction history on Coinbase:
1/1/20 — Buy 1 BTC for $12,000
2/2/20 — Buy 1 BTC for $10,000
3/3/20 — Buy 1 BTC for $8,000
4/4/20 — Trade 0.5 BTC for 8 ETH (0.5 BTC was worth $4,000 at this time)
With this transaction history, you first trigger a taxable event (and thus a capital gain/loss) when you trade 0.5 BTC for 8 ETH. To calculate the gain/loss then, you need to subtract your cost basis of 0.5 BTC from the fair market value at the time of the trade.
The question here is, what is your cost basis in the 0.5 BTC that you traded for 8 ETH? After all, you have purchased 3 different bitcoins all at different prices prior to this trade.
To answer this, you have to determine which bitcoin you are disposing of in this scenario.
To determine the order in which you sell various cryptocurrencies, accountants use specific costing methods like First-In First-Out (FIFO) or Last-In First-Out (LIFO). The standard method is First-in First-out.
These costing methods work exactly how they sound. For First-In First-Out, the asset (or cryptocurrency) that you purchased first is the one that gets sold off first. So you are essentially disposing of your crypto in the same order that you first acquired them.
If we use First-In First Out for our example above, we “sell off” that first bitcoin which was acquired at $12,000 on 1/1/20. The cost basis in this first bitcoin is $12,000, making the cost basis for 0.5 of this BTC $6,000 (0.5 * $12,000).
As denoted in the example, the fair market value at the time of 0.5 BTC at the time of trading it was $4,000.
So by applying the formula, we can see that this transaction history triggers a $2,000 capital loss (4,000–6,000). This loss gets reported on your taxes and reduces your taxable income.
You can learn more about how various costing methods work to calculate your gains and loss for your crypto trades in this blog post: FIFO, LIFO, and HIFO for crypto trading.
The Challenge For Crypto Traders
As you can see throughout the examples above, to calculate your capital gains and losses from your crypto trading activity, you need to have records that keep track of your cost basis, fair market value, and USD gain or loss every time you dispose of a crypto (trade, sell, spend etc).
Without this information, you aren’t able to calculate your realized income from your trading activity, and you aren’t able to report it on your taxes.
This is extremely challenging for many cryptocurrency investors as most haven’t been keeping detailed records of their investing activity. Trying to track the cost basis and USD prices for all of their cryptos across all of their exchanges, wallets, and protocols at any given time quickly turns into a difficult, if not impossible, spreadsheet exercise.
This is the reason why hundreds of thousands of crypto traders are turning to crypto tax software like CryptoTrader.Tax to automate all of their crypto tax reporting. You can sign up for a free account here.
How Do You Report Crypto On Your Taxes?
If you’re like 90% of other cryptocurrency investors, you likely have only bought, sold, and traded crypto (i.e. capital gains investing activity) via a cryptocurrency exchange. This crypto income is considered capital gains income and is reported as such.
On the other hand, if you earned cryptocurrency-whether that’s from a job, mining, staking or earning interest rewards-that earned income is generally treated as ordinary income and is reported as such.
We dive into the reporting for each of these income types below.
Capital Gains and Losses for Crypto
Your capital gains and losses from your crypto trades get reported on IRS Form 8949.
Form 8949 is the tax form that is used to report the sales and disposals of capital assets, including cryptocurrency. Other capital assets include things like stocks and bonds.
To fill out Form 8949, list all of your cryptocurrency trades, sells, and disposals onto Form 8949 (pictured below) along with the date you acquired the crypto, the date sold or traded, your proceeds (Fair Market Value), your cost basis, and your gain or loss for the trade.
Once you have each trade listed, total them up and fill in your net capital gain or loss for the year at the bottom.
For a detailed walkthrough of filling out Form 8949, checkout this blog post: How To Report Cryptocurrency to the IRS with Form 8949.
Ordinary Income
Unfortunately, ordinary income doesn’t fall nicely onto one tax form like we saw with capital gains and Form 8949.
The ordinary income you receive from mining, staking, interest accounts, or perhaps crypto you received as payment from a job get reported on different tax forms, depending on the specific situation.
Schedule C — If you earned crypto as a business entity, like receiving payments for a job or running a cryptocurrency mining operation, this is often treated as self-employment income and is reported on Schedule C.
Schedule 1 — If you earned staking income or interest rewards from lending out your crypto, this income is generally reported on line 8 of Schedule 1 as other income.
For a step-by-step walkthrough of the crypto tax reporting process, checkout our explainer video below.
How Much Tax Do You Pay On Your Crypto?
Your personal income tax bracket and the holding period of your crypto assets (short term vs. long term) will determine how much tax (and what % of tax) you pay on your crypto income. This will be different for each investor.
Short Term Capital Gains
Short term capital gains apply for any crypto that was held for less than 12 months.
For example, if you bought Ethereum for $400 and sold it 5 months later for $600, your $200 gain would be a short term capital gain.
Short term capital gains don’t get any special tax treatment. They are simply treated as income on your taxes (just like income from your job), and thus you pay taxes on your short term capital gains according to your personal income tax bracket (outlined further below).
Long Term Capital Gains
Long term capital gains apply for any crypto that was held for 12 months or more.
The government wants to incentivize investors to invest for the long term, so they offer tax incentives for doing so.
Long term capital gains tax rates offer lower taxes than short term gains, and the chart below depicts these rates.
As you can see, holding onto your crypto for more than one year can provide serious tax benefits. If you are in the highest income tax bracket, your taxes on your long term capital gains will be 20% instead of 37% (the highest tax rate for short term gains).
You can use CryptoTrader.Tax to automatically detect which cryptocurrencies in your portfolio qualify for long term capital gains and to help plan for future trades. This can help save you tens of thousands of dollars in taxes in the long-run. Get started for free here.
Crypto Income
Crypto transactions that are classified as income are generally taxed at your personal income tax bracket.
This includes your short term capital gains (as mentioned above), staking rewards, airdrops, and interest earnings.
These income tax brackets are outlined in the chart below.
Example
Let’s say you made $25,000 in short term capital gains from your crypto trading, and this was the only income you had for the year. Would you simply pay 12% of tax on that $25,000?
No. You actually pay 10% on the first $9,875 and 12% on the next $15,125.
How Do DeFi Taxes Work?
Cryptocurrency lending platforms and other DeFi services like Uniswap, Maker, and Compound have exploded in popularity within the evolving crypto landscape.
Receiving interest income from crypto lending activities or liquidity pools is considered a form of taxable income and must be reported on your taxes-similar to mining and staking rewards.
The full tax implications associated with transactions common to the DeFi landscape are outside of the scope of this piece; however, we discuss them thoroughly in our blog post here: The Defi Crypto Tax Guide.
Why Crypto Exchanges Can’t Provide Accurate Tax Forms
This is where a big problem exists within the crypto tax space.
Because users are constantly transferring crypto into and out of exchanges, the exchange has no way of knowing how, when, where, or at what cost basis you originally acquired your cryptocurrencies. The exchange only sees when crypto appears in your wallet.
The second you transfer crypto into or out of an exchange, that exchange loses the ability to give you an accurate report detailing the cost basis and fair market value of your cryptocurrencies, both of which are mandatory components for tax reporting.
As you can see pictured below, Coinbase themselves explains to their users how their generated tax reports won’t be accurate if any of the below scenarios took place. This affects over two thirds of Coinbase users which amounts to millions of people.
The Crypto Tax Reporting Solution
The solution to the crypto tax problem hinges on aggregating all of your cryptocurrency data that makes up your buys, sells, trades, air drops, forks, mined coins, exchanges, swaps, and received cryptocurrencies into one platform so that you can build out an accurate tax profile containing all of your transaction data.
Once all of your transactions (buys, sells, trades, earnings) are in one spot, you’ll be able to calculate cost basis, fair market values, gains/losses, and income for all of your investing activity.
You can aggregate all of your transaction history by hand by pulling together your transactions from each of your exchanges and wallets. Or you can avoid the manual work and automate this process with the use of crypto tax software.
Crypto Tax Software
By integrating directly with leading exchanges, wallets, blockchains, and DeFi protocols, the CryptoTrader.Tax engine is able to auto-generate all of your necessary tax reports based on your historical data. You can test out how it works by creating an account for free.
How Does The IRS Know About Your Crypto?
The IRS uses a variety of tactics to detect cryptocurrency investments and unreported income. The most predominant of which is the 1099 reporting system.
Both you and the IRS get sent a copy of these forms at year-end.
If the IRS receives a 1099 from your crypto exchange but sees no cryptocurrency income reported on your taxes, your account will be flagged and an automated CP2000 letterwill be sent alerting you of your non-reported income and tax liability.
“At any time during 2020, did you receive, sell, send, exchange, or otherwise acquire any financial interest in any virtual currency?”
Outside of 1099 reporting, the IRS works with blockchain analytics companies like Chainalysis to track cryptocurrency movements directly on-chain. Since 2015, the IRS has spent more than 10 million dollars on Chainalysis contracts. They use this data to identify tax fraud and money laundering.
What Happens If You Don’t Report Your Crypto Taxes?
The IRS can enforce a number of penalties for tax fraud, including criminal prosecution, five years in prison, along with a fine of up to $250,000.
With this much scrutiny on the cryptocurrency asset class, it’s likely that we will see audits and criminal tax prosecutions continue to increase as cryptocurrency and bitcoin adoption accelerates.
How Do Other Countries’ Handle Crypto Taxes?
Similar to the U.S., countries all over the world have started taking action and enforcing cryptocurrency-related income taxes. While the tax rules are very similar to the U.S., small differences do exist. For more detailed information, checkout our guides on various countries below:
How Do You Lower Your Crypto Taxes?
As with any other form of income, there are certain steps and actions you can take to actively minimize your cryptocurrency-related tax obligations. We discuss some of these strategies below.
Tax Loss Harvesting
Tax loss harvesting is the practice of selling a capital asset at a loss to offset a capital gains tax liability. It provides one of the best opportunities for investors to reduce their cryptocurrency gains for the year.
Amy has realized $15,000 of capital gains by selling her bitcoin at its height this year. Amy is also still holding an amount of XRP in her portfolio which she originally purchased for $12,000. Today, that amount of XRP is worth only $5,000.
In this scenario, Amy can “harvest” her losses in XRP by selling it or by trading into another cryptocurrency. This triggers a taxable event and realizes $7,000 of capital losses (12,000–5,000).
Amy’s $7,000 loss reduces her overall capital gains for the year to $8,000 (15,000–7,000).
You can use the CryptoTrader.Tax Tax Loss Harvesting Dashboard (as pictured below) to automatically detect which assets in your crypto portfolio are “underwater” and thus present the best tax loss harvesting opportunities.
Learn more about how you can tax loss harvest with cryptocurrency here.
Long Term Capital Gains
For any significant cryptocurrency gains that you plan to realize, you should see if you have the ability to lock in long term capital gains rates.
Remember, long term capital gains apply for crypto that is held for longer than 1 year, and they offer significantly lower tax rates when compared to short term gains.
Prior to selling or trading, you should review your portfolio to see which assets qualify for long term gains and which do not. This is a great strategy to help lower your cryptocurrency tax bill for the year.
What If You Forgot to Report Your Crypto Taxes?
If you’re like many other crypto investors, there’s a strong chance that you weren’t always aware of the fact that your crypto-related income needed to be reported on your taxes.
Many cryptocurrency investors go through this process without issue, and it’s always better to amend your return in good faith rather than waiting for the IRS to find you.
For a detailed guide, checkout our blog post on how to amend your tax return to include your crypto.
Other Cryptocurrency Transactions and Tax Examples
Airdrops
Cryptocurrency received from an airdrop is taxed as income. This means that you are liable for income taxes on the USD value of the claimed airdrop.
George receives 400 UNI tokens via the Uniswap airdrop in September 2020. At the time of receiving the tokens, UNI was trading at $3.50.
In this example, George realizes $1,400 of income (400 * 3.50) when he claims the tokens. His cost basis in UNI becomes the amount of income recognized, in this case $1,400.
If George sells his 400 UNI two months later for $2,000, this is a taxable event and he incurs a capital gain of $600 (2,000–1,400).
Hard Forks
If a certain cryptocurrency that you are holding goes through a hard fork which “occurs when a cryptocurrency undergoes a protocol change resulting in a permanent diversion from the legacy distributed ledger,” the new forked cryptocurrency you receive is taxed as income.
Your cost basis in the newly received cryptocurrency becomes the income you recognized.
Megan held 2.5 Bitcoin in July of 2017 and received 2.5 Bitcoin Cash as a result of the bitcoin cash hard fork.
Megan recognizes income at the fair market value of the bitcoin cash at the time it was received. If Bitcoin Cash was trading for $500/BCH that day, Megan would recognize income of $1,250 ($500 * 2.5). Megan’s cost basis in this Bitcoin Cash becomes $1,250.
Interest Earnings
Mitchell lends out his crypto and receives interest rewards for doing so. In September, Mitchell earns 0.2 ETH in interest from lending out his Ethereum. At the time of earning this reward, 0.2 ETH is worth $120.
In this scenario, Mitchell recognizes $120 of ordinary income from his ETH interest earnings.
Margin Trading
Cryptocurrency exchanges like BitMex have popularized the use of margin trading. The IRS has not yet set forth explicit guidance on how cryptocurrency margin transactions should be handled from a tax perspective, but we can infer the likely treatment based on other guidance.
A margin trade consists of borrowing funds from an exchange to carry out a trade and repaying the loan afterwards. The conservative approach is to treat the borrowed funds as your own investment and pay capital gains tax on the margin trading profit and loss.
Gifting Crypto
Gifting is tax-free up to $15,000 per friend or family member. This offers a great way to save on your taxes if you are feeling generous.
Donating Crypto
Donating your crypto is tax free and deductible as long as you are donating to a registered charity.
The amount of your donation that is tax deductible depends on how long you have held the assets:
For crypto held for more than 1 year, you can deduct up to 30% of your Annual Gross Income
For crypto held for less than a year, you can deduct up to 50% of your Annual Gross Income and the lesser of cost-basis or the fair market value of the donated crypto
Conclusion
The entire cryptocurrency ecosystem is still in its infancy. As the industry evolves, further rules and regulation will inevitably come forward.
“Our mission is to make cryptocurrency more accessible for everyone. If we can make tax reporting seamless, the entire ecosystem will benefit.”
- David Kemmerer, Co-Founder & CEO, CryptoTrader.Tax | https://medium.com/the-capital/the-ultimate-guide-bb62bcc17f91 | ['Lucas Wyland'] | 2020-12-18 00:59:23.503000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Taxes', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Investing'] |
How To Buy Your First Home Poker Table | Many things go into buying a good-quality poker card table. But you have nothing to worry about. This article is the perfect guide to help you find your first home poker table.
Here we will walk you through everything from what size to choose from how much it costs to where to get the best poker table suited for your needs.
How Much Should You Spend
A common question you would ask yourself on every other purchase you make would be how much you should spend. Various factors will come into play, like the materials and components that come with your poker table when it comes to poker tables.
Basic hardwood models come at around $600, but custom tables cost $3,500 or more. Adding chairs to the list is often more than twice the price tag.
To ensure you don’t overestimate, consider your budget and financial range as you shop for poker tables. Remember that the quality of the table also plays a big part here.
Room Space
Measure or estimate the space you have for your poker table. If you don’t have much space to work with, you might want to consider getting a low-profile poker table.
Perhaps a folding design for easy storage or a small-sized table to make the most out of the space you have. Doing some research on a model you like would also help. You can get the table’s dimensions and compare them to the area you have planned to put your table in.
Table Size and Shape
As mentioned before, the size of the table could affect the price of the poker table and the area you plan to place the table in.
Different poker table shapes are best for certain game modes and play styles. And the most common poker table shapes include:
Oval
Rectangular
Octagon
Round
Materials and Craftsmanship
Your ideal poker table’s materials and overall build can affect the price and how smoothly your game goes.
A good-quality table should be durable and sturdy to hold up with the weight of the players leaning on the table. In addition to that, many poker tables have features that you can include based on your preferences.
A few examples of these additional features include built-in ashtrays, automatic card shufflers, cup holders, lighting, and other innovative designs.
Where To Shop For Poker Tables
There are many poker table models and designs to choose from, which you can get at different places. And here are examples of areas where you can take your pick from.
Physical Stores
Local hobby shops and sports shops mainly focus on board games, poker included. Department stores with furniture sections could also offer a few choices that you might like.
Online
Justpokertables.com offers many options for your poker table needs. There are a variety of models, features, shapes, sizes, and customizable designs to choose from. You can even grab poker accessories and chairs offered on the website.
Wrapping Up
It’s important to keep in mind that you have to take your situation into account. Your home could be your casino where you spend your time enjoying poker games. So picking out the best poker table could be the most important decision you can make.
Weigh out the pros and cons of owning a poker card table and what factors it could affect before settling on your final verdict. | https://medium.com/@justpokertables/how-to-buy-your-first-home-poker-table-5f1b1cbf27bc | ['Just Poker Tables'] | 2021-12-28 12:20:06.045000+00:00 | ['Poker', 'Games', 'Poker Online', 'Entertainment'] |
Nirvana is Getting a Brand New Look | We’ll be introducing the all-new Nirvana in just a few days. It’s taken a lot of hard work and took a lot longer than expected, but we think it was worth the wait, and we’re sure you’re going to love it.
We didn’t change how Nirvana works… why mess with a good thing? Instead we found ways to make it faster and more visually appealing (and consistent!) across devices — iOS and Android, phones and tablets, and of course our original trail-blazing web app for desktop browsers.
What? Change?! Don’t panic! All of your data and how you’ve organized it will remain completely intact — it’ll just be a lot prettier and more pleasurable to work with. Having lived with the new Nirvana as my trusted system for several weeks, I would never want to go back. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming.
Our New Look
Everything is cleaner, brighter, and easier to read. We’ve removed some of the old themes that were holding us back, and made everything “retina-ready” — if you’ve got a high-res display, everything is as sharp as a tack.
New Mobile Apps
We brought all mobile development in-house so that we’d have complete control over our beloved handsets.
New Tablet Apps
Finally! Nirvana runs native on iPad and Android tablets.
We’re eager to get all of this awesomeness into your hands, and we’re now in that agonizing holding pattern where we wait for Apple to approve and release our apps to the AppStore. Once we’ve gotten the green light, we’ll release everything in one fell swoop — new apps for web, iPhone, iPad, Android phone and tablets, a new support system and our new website.
EDIT Oct 22: Great news! We just got approval from Apple, so we are gunning for the new site and apps to be up at some point over the weekend (Oct 24–25) when site traffic is at its minimum. Yes! | https://medium.com/nirvanahq/nirvana-is-getting-a-brand-new-look-33ab19e91b01 | ['Team Nirvana'] | 2017-06-27 15:53:44.123000+00:00 | ['News', 'Nirvana App Updates'] |
MIT Hackathon | Why I wanted to participate
During the lockdown I was attending webinars, trying to educate myself more about current events, and at the same time keeping myself occupied to stay positive. However, this was not enough and I didn’t feel like I was able to change anything. I did some research and found the hackathon organised by MIT, which is one of the most elite schools in the USA. I saw that they had previously done a COVID-19 hackathon in April. This was the second one, which was more focused on mental health after the pandemic and very applicable to me and the people in my surroundings.
I am very passionate about this topic and I also needed motivation to overcome my own concerns about life after this crisis. I quickly realised that this was a project for me and I could actually be part of a solution, which would have a serious impact on society. | https://medium.com/@zoe-muller/mit-hackathon-88586bdee4d4 | ['Zoe Müller'] | 2020-12-11 12:10:46.963000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Covid 19', 'Hackathons', 'MIT'] |
Reflections over Resolutions | Reflections over Resolutions
Originally posted at https://www.danielstillman.com/blog/reflections-over-resolutions
New Year’s resolutions are declining in popularity — A Forbes survey showed that about 75% of people over 45 don’t bother with them anymore. And good riddance. Research shows that resolutions are not very effective at changing behaviors — after a month, nearly half of resolvers had failed at whatever they were resolving to do.
Resolutions are driven by what we think we should do
The top ten resolutions should look pretty familiar to you:
Exercise more, Lose weight, Get organized, Learn a new skill or hobby, Live life to the fullest, Save more money / spend less money, Quit smoking, Spend more time with family and friends, Travel more, Read more.
Most of these are driven by an idea of what we *should* look like, *should* have or *should* be like. Resolutions are driven from the outside.
Resolutions are also problematic because they are focused on the goal, devoid of any plan or process to make them happen. So let’s peel these two issues back to the heart of the matter: How to Reflect so you develop deep insights about how you want to be and How to Resolve so you accomplish what you want.
Reflect before you Resolve
Towards the end of 2020, I packed up my laptop, my sketchbooks from 2020, a mess of post-its and markers and loaded up my bicycle panniers. I took a 30 mile ride North up out of New York City to a quiet town in the woods. I booked a small AirBnb for myself and took a few days to think about the year.
I was exhausted from the emotional roller coaster that was 2020 and couldn’t really think about the new year. So all I knew was that I wanted to do a deep dive on the year that had just passed.
How to Reflect: Use a Process
There’s nothing wrong with randomness or improvisation in your reflection process…but even Improv has some fundamental rules with coherent internal logic. So I wanted to use a simple format to guide my process. Reflection is a conversation you have with yourself and I believe that we can, do and should design our conversations — both with others and ourselves.
I’ve found that the best processes have a deep, internal logic. That’s why I fell in love with Design Thinking more than a decade ago. Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver are four words that can move any creative conversation forward with clarity, regardless of the challenge. And Reflection is the perfect process to make the “Discover and Define” upfront part of the process effective.
Some of my favorite reflection prompts come in groups:
Plus/Delta is the simplest of all of the approaches I’ve used, and I learned it from Gamestorming, a powerful library of group process designs. Plus is positive and Delta is the symbol for change. This model of reflection asks us to ask ourselves “what worked?” and “what would you want to change?” . This simple process is a great reflection format because negativity is removed from the conversation — if there’s a “minus” we’re asked to turn it into a “delta”, which is a fundamental approach to reframing challenges.
Rose/Thorn/Bud (RTB)is attributed to the Boy Scouts of America. I first learned about this format from a co-worker of mine who used this format to facilitate a better dinner table conversation with his three daughters. He’d ask each of them for something nice that happened that day (A “rose”) and also would ask them for something not-so-nice that happened that day (A “thorn”). While Plus/Delta removes negativity on purpose, RTB includes it, on purpose. Knowing that negativity is included in the conversation can create clarity and safety. If you’ve ever seen the Pixar movie Inside Out you know how damaging it can be to focus only on the positive side of things.
“Buds” are like little roses…they’re not in full bloom, but they might develop into a rose with the right support. Buds can be something on the horizon, something emergent, something hopeful. A very simple way to put RTB is “Positive/Negative/Potential”.
Facts/Feelings/Insights/Potential: This approach has many mothers. A foundational approach in Non-Violent Communication (NVC) is separating out Observations, Feelings, Needs/Values, and Requests (OFNR). Disagreements in groups of people usually happen when we dance around and between each of these elements or combine them haphazardly. Using the OFNR approach as the foundation for a reflective process can be powerful, and it’s the approach I used for my personal retreat. The ONFR approach smells a lot like What/So What/Now What, another favorite for group reflections attributed to Rolfe et al in 2001.
Separating Facts and Feelings is powerful. The key reflection questions here are: “What Happened?” and “How did it Make me Feel?”
These two questions are extremely neutral, which is an advantage, but also very general. I use these two questions in my workshops often because I don’t want to put my thumb on the scale when teams are thinking. But looking with more specific detail can be helpful.
Positive/Negative/Potential is one more detailed way to look back over the year: What happened that was awesome? What happened that was awful? What happened that has potential? These questions address the first phase of the Design Thinking process to help us Discover “What Happened” in a more balanced way.
A friend recommended Alex Vermeer’s 8,760 Hours as a guide to my retreat. Vermeer’s approach is to do a mind map of 12 life areas: Values & Purpose, Contribution & Impact, Location & Tangibles, Money & Finances, Career & Work, Health & Fitness, Education & Skill Development, Social Life & Relationships, Emotions & Well-Being, Character & Identity, Productivity & Organization and (finally!) Adventure & Creativity.
Doing a RTB on *each* of these areas will give you a much clearer picture of “what happened” over the last year and a much deeper sense of how you feel about these elements of your life. If you don’t like Alex’s 12 life areas, choose your own or synthesize some other approaches.
Alex has his own suggested Reflection Questions for each element:
What went well? What did not go well? Where did you try hard? Where did you not try hard enough?
By the end of a half-day, I had flipped through my sketchbooks for the last year and captured a series of nuggets of inspiration and sketched a host of mind maps for each area of my life. I was also beginning to feel energized about possibilities for 2021 (which surprised me).
Don’t Forget Gratitude
I talked over my plans for a retreat with my wife and my therapist and they both had the same advice: Don’t forget gratitude. Looking over the year (as difficult and chaotic as it was) and finding moments of brightness was profound. Gratitude and joy, in this context are data about how I felt. Many years back I diligently kept a gratitude journal: Three things I was grateful for, each evening. At the end of the year, I copied all of my entries to sticky notes and made a huge wall-sized map of what triggered gratitude for me. This map was a map to my happiness — it was pretty clear what elements I needed to keep cultivating in my life to keep me alive inside and out.
How to Resolve: Run Some Experiments
Using the “Discover” mindset from Design Thinking along with a series of thoughtful prompts can help you begin to “Define” what areas are most in need of support. Support to continue flourishing, and support to get on track.
Resolving to achieve ALL of the top ten resolutions will leave you pretty spread out and exhausted. You can’t Exercise more, Lose weight, Get organized, Learn a new skill or hobby, Live life to the fullest, Save more money / spend less money, Quit smoking, Spend more time with family and friends, Travel more, Read more ALL at the same time. So pick 2–3 areas from your reflection to work on.
So when I suggest “run some experiments” I mean SOME not all. Pick 2–3 areas from your reflection map and decide how you want to shift each of them.
Leverage Lean Startup for your Life experiments: Measure-Build-Learn
There are a lot of versions of this multi-circle diagram and they are all dizzying. The key idea is that there is a Design Thinking — Lean Startup handoff at the midpoint of the traditional double diamond, expanding and adding more detail to the “Develop/Deliver” phases.
We’ve leveraged a self-empathy process with our reflection questions to address the upfront, problem solving phase in the below diagram.
In the Lean mindset, you build as little as possible, try something out and then measure the results. We pick something we want to learn about, build something to help us do that, and measure the results.
Define your Approach Clearly
“Get in Shape” is a pretty broad goal. Round is a shape, after all.
Do you want to run a marathon? Lift your body weight? Swim the English Channel?
Regardless of your goal asking about your Why is critical. Why do you want to run a marathon? Asking 5 Whys is a minimum — 9 Whys will potentially get you to the heart of the matter.
As Nietzsche said, He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. When the going gets tough (and it will) knowing your why will help pull you through.
In essence, instead of resolutions, frame a hypothesis:
If I sign up to run a marathon I’ll get in better shape. (maybe)
If I sign up for a running group I’ll train for the marathon. (much more likely)
Behind this hypothesis is a tacit assumption and a deeper Why: If I’m in better shape, I’ll be happier.
One of my goals is to read more so I can learn more and be smarter. I like being smart since it makes me better at my job. One of the ways I’m going to make that happen is having more authors on my podcast. I think it’s rather rude to invite someone for an interview and *not* read their work. In essence, my podcast is a system I’ve set up to enforce my goals.
Systems over Events
Getting in Shape and Reading More are not events…they’re processes that occur over time. Wishing to “get in shape” doesn’t make it so. Not smoking a single cigarette doesn’t a quitting make (although not smoking a single cigarette is much easier than never smoking a cigarette ever again. Check out the behavior grid for more.)
Signing up for a running group is changing the system your fitness approach exists in. Telling my wife that I want to stop looking at my phone after 10PM is changing the system my sleep habits exist in. I see the events and the patterns…but unless and until we shift the system our lives exist in, the effort to stick to our goals will be more challenging than it has to be.
The Iceberg Model is a key mindset for reframing your goals in terms of increasing impact.
A few years back my friend Rob struggled with quitting smoking. He noticed that he smoked the most when he was working from home during the week. So over the weekend, he’d throw out his cigarettes and give his wallet to one of our friends. He didn’t need money during the week — He could order nearly anything over the internet with his credit cards stored in his computer while his corner bodega, where he would buy cigarettes, would only take cash.
Rob decided to take the events and the patterns out of his hands by shifting the system, a place of much higher leverage to foster change.
How can you change the system, rather than just relying on your willpower to shift events one at a time?
The Iceberg Model: Events, Patterns and Systems
Inspect the Results Regularly
In essence, the problem with resolutions is that they are the ultimate waterfall approach. It’s no surprise that making resolutions once a year with no check-ins along the way fails 81% of the time over two years.
How often should you check in with yourself? (in essence, how often should you re-reflect?)
In Scrum, there’s a daily standup. And that’s not a bad suggestion, but a little lightweight according to Ben Franklin, who suggested a morning standup and an evening check-in! He suggested that each morning one should ask “What good shall I do this day?” and at night to check back in with “What good have I done this day?”
My wife and I actually have a RTB conversation at the dinner table most nights, so, I’m not against this approach. For me, I’m planning weekly check-ins with myself and a 90-day retreat. That’s just for my business. I have a weekly men’s group as well as therapy to check in on my emotional wellbeing. | https://medium.com/@daniel-stillman/reflections-over-resolutions-fded3c6d1211 | ['Daniel Stillman'] | 2021-02-08 01:40:31.802000+00:00 | ['Lean Startup', 'Reflections', 'Systems Thinking', 'New Years Resolutions', 'Design Thinking'] |
The Literally Literary Weekly Update #6 | Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Happy Wednesday and welcome to your weekly update from Literally Literary. These updates are here to highlight some of the top stories and poems from the past week. We may be biased, but we think our writers are crushing it.
Here are some of the top works since the last letter: | https://medium.com/literally-literary/the-literally-literary-weekly-update-6-bb481dd8eee0 | ['Jonathan Greene'] | 2020-01-29 15:39:52.712000+00:00 | ['Publication', 'Poetry', 'Fiction', 'Ll Letters', 'Writing'] |
Are you hacking yet or are you still safe? | Not least after Spectre and Meltdown the question arises: Would I already be hacked or haven’t I noticed it yet? So why not make a virtue out of necessity and adopt your own systems? The learning curve is steep, but it helps to recognize and minimize risks.
It is essential that security know-how is built up in the team. The first step is to create an awareness of the problem. Especially for agile teams it is therefore important to establish different control points with automatic security tests. In addition to static code analysis, however, it helps enormously to get yourself into the role of the attacker.
Safe on the road
Remark
At this point we would like to point out again that hacking without the consent of the domain owner is illegal.
In general, you should not install the various hacking tools on your regular computer. It is best to use Whonix or Kali-Linux in a virtual machine. In the following Kali-Linux is used. The nice thing is: Most of the tools are already installed and can be used directly. Alternatively you can use a docker image, which is also the case in this article.
Note
One more note about using Tor: Tor is useful for things like surfing the Internet, but when it comes to using hacking tools like nmap, sqlmap, and nikto, which make thousands of requests, they run very slowly over Tor.
Exploring the site
Even if Hollywood presents it differently to us: Hackers often spend more time preparing the attack than they do with the actual hack. This is primarily about collecting information, such as domain entries: Here is fierce, whois queries of IP addresses and domain names and reverse whois queries to find all IP address ranges and domain names associated with an organization:
First of all, an attempt is made to obtain more information (AXFR request) via the network via zone transfer. This will not work in most cases
Now Fierce tries to find out if a wildcard entry exists
Subsequently, various further subdomains are found by BruteForce
A total of 10 entries were found
Using Whois queries you can now start to find out more about the provider who has registered the domain and probably also operates it:
So now you can search by reverse whois search for further addresses. But since these are expensive, you can also try your luck with Google. Just do reverse search via Google for ip address listings or urls.
Since we do not have a direct Whois record in our case, but only the entry of the hoster, too many IP ranges are listed to us here. However, this can vary depending on the configuration and setup of the company. Finally, the reverse search serves to extend the list of interesting IPs/domains.
At this point, a note on the security of cloud providers. If you try to get more information via DNS at AWS, it’s not that easy: | https://medium.com/holisticon-consultants/are-you-hacking-yet-or-are-you-still-safe-3d91f3ecda36 | ['Martin Reinhardt'] | 2019-11-06 05:44:07.247000+00:00 | ['Continuous Integration', 'Security', 'Hacking', 'Continuous Improvement'] |
What Does it Take to Land a Rocket? Part 2 — The Challenge is Bigger than I Thought | The final code and results can be found here: https://github.com/jamesHo22/VTVLRocket/tree/main/main_functions The textbook I reference, “Advances in Industrial Control,” can be found here: https://www.springer.com/series/1412
Rocket landing with Unconstrained MPC
Updates Summary / TLDR
Sometimes you will never know how deep the deep end is without jumping in. Since the previous post, I have been swimming in the deep end reading up on different control strategies that can potentially solve this optimization problem. A very important requirement was that the controller has to account for hard input constraints. This means that it should not request infeasible amounts of thrust from the engine or unattainable gimbal rates from the actuators. Because I wanted a controller that can handle these constraints, I ended up learning about model predictive control (I haven’t yet implemented the constrained optimization in this post).
(I have to disclaim that I have not considered the suitability of other control architectures and will be something I dive into in the future. I am just beginning to learn about control theory and don’t yet understand which controllers work best for a given system. If you have suggestions or resources, please let me know.)
To recap from the previous post, model predictive control is a control method that optimizes a control input subject to constraints. In summary, for every time step, the MPC controller looks at the current state of the system, the previous input, the desired output, and calculates the optimal input trajectory for the next n time steps. It then picks the first input and implements that one. It does this at every time step.
I was able to implement a discrete time, unconstrained MPC controller for regulating (getting the state to zero) the inverted rocket and understand the high level math behind it. The limitations with this implementation is that it cannot track a reference trajectory yet and is still unconstrained. I also cannot specify specific penalty weights for the actuation energy or state error (something you can easily do with LQR). I also don’t have a way of quantifying the performance of the system yet, making it difficult to evaluate different controllers.
Figure of the closed loop system response. Rocket starts at (-50, 100) m and reaches (0, 0) m.
There are also still a few bugs with it. For instance, when I increase the mass of the rocket and keep all the other parameters the same, it becomes unstable.
The rocket’s mass was changed from 5 kg to 50 kg. It is no longer stable.
Approach Update
I could very easily sink all my time into “perfecting” the MPC controller and never make it past simulation. To keep the project on track, my next steps are to start building hardware to test these controllers on. Something I have learned from working on my formula electric racing team is that you should always validate your models with tests. Without grounding your model with experimental data, the results it produces are only as good as its assumptions, which by definition are not true.
To get ready for this process, I will be building a 3D linear rocket state space model and an LQR controller to stabilize it. I will then begin the mechanical design process. As I work on these subsystems, I continue to build on the MPC controller and learn about other control methods.
The rest of this post will walk through the math and code behind MPC.
MPC Explained Intuitively
Simply put, model predictive control computes an optimal control signal by predicting what will happen in the near future. A real life example of this could be you planning out your work day. Before you start, you need to know how well you work and how the effort you put in affects the state of the task. This is analogous to the system model. You also need to know the current state of your task. This is analogous to the state of the system. You also need to know what resources you can access. These are your system constraints.
You start the day at 10:00 am and look at the current status of your work. Given this information and knowledge of how you work, you plan ahead for the next 5 hours. You then implement the first hour of your plan. At 11:00 am, you check how much work you’ve actually done and plan for the next 5 hours again. While planning, you also keep in mind what resources you have access to so you don’t demand anything you cannot physically do. You keep repeating this process until your tasks are complete.
The key pieces of information are:
The time window for the planning (prediction horizon) The current status of the work (system) Constraints on what work you can do (constraints)
This is the essence of model predictive control. Now we will derive and implement the unconstrained version of MPC.
Mathematical Representation and Implementation
Linearizing about fixed points
We start off with our state space system of the rocket in the form of x_dot = Ax + Bu. The first step is to linearize our system about a fixed point. This is done by taking the Jacobian of the A matrix with respect to the state variables and evaluating it at the fixed points.
Example of finding the Jacobian of a matrix with respect to x
Finding the derivatives of our system
Creating the linearized A and B matrix
Finally, we plug in our fixed points and compute the matrix. Here is the code that does that:
Creating the Augmented Model
Now that we have our linearized dynamical system, we can begin creating a control law for it. We now define the C and D matrices, which are the output and feedthrough matrices respectively. These two matrices are used to calculate what the system’s output is. In our case, we are going to set C to a square identity matrix of size 6*6. This means that the controller can observe the full state of the system. D is a zero matrix of size 6*2. This means that the current output cannot affect the current state. Since we need the current information of the system for prediction and control, we have implicitly assumed that the input cannot affect the output at the same time [Advances in Industrial Control, pg 4, section 1.2.1].
The next step is to convert it from a continuous time system to a discrete time system. This will allow us to create a discrete MPC controller for it and later implement it on a microcontroller. This is done by using this MATLAB command.
Next, we want to write these matrices in a form that tells us the difference in the state vector from one time step to the next. This form will also help us later on when we need to compute the optimal control inputs. The full derivation can be found on pages 4 and 5 in “Advances in Industrial Control (Liuping Wang),” so I will not go over it in detail here. We end up with an augmented state space model.
Image from “Advances in Industrial Control (Liuping Wang)”
Here is the MATLAB code that creates the augmented model, which we will use in the design of predictive control:
Ad, Bd, and Cd are the normal discrete matrices we got a while ago.
Predictive Control
Using this model, we can predict what the state will be in the next Np sample steps given the current state and input. The derivation can be found on page 7 and 8 in “Advances in Industrial Control (Liuping Wang).” In summary, x at k + Np where k is the current time step and Np is the prediction horizon…
We compute the output matrix y at k + Np in a similar manner. Again, the derivation can be found in the book on page 8.
If we rewrite these equations into a compact matrix form, we end up with the following…
This allows us to predict the outputs of the system for Np time steps into the future given the current state and a set of inputs, Delta U.
The following code does this:
Optimization
Finally, we can optimize our system to find the best control input. To do this, we start by defining a set point and a cost function. In our case, we set the set point to zero and define our cost function as
Where Rs is the setpoint and R_bar is an identity matrix multiplied by a control input penalty. The larger the penalty, the less energy our controller will try to use to reach the setpoint.
Here, Nc is called the control horizon. It is the number of control steps we want to optimize for. It has to be less than or equal to the number of prediction steps (Np). Once again, I will refer to the textbook for the derivation (pg. 9).
It can be shown that the optimal control signal is…
The final step is to take the first control signal and apply it to our system. This is one iteration of the system. We perform this optimization at every time step, implement the first control signal, recompute the state and output, and repeat. Page 15 in the textbook walks through a SISO implementation of this algorithm. The code I have written adapts it to work with MIMO systems.
The following code snippet simulates the linearized discrete MPC system and controller:
The complete code can be found on my github page.
Results and Limitations
Finally, we can simulate our system! Below is a video of the rocket starting at (50, 100) m and going to (0, 0).
There are still a number of limitations with this implementation. First, the controller only regulates the system (makes the state vector zero). Ideally, we want to be able to track any trajectory. The simulation is also calculated on the discrete linearized system, which is far from the actual nonlinear system. Finally, I am having a few issues with the system becoming unstable when the mass of the rocket increases. I am not sure if this is an issue with my implementation or a matter of tuning the parameters.
I am also still learning about concepts that will allow me to quantitatively evaluate the performance of a controller. This is important for comparing different control laws and assessing the stability of the system.
Conclusion
If you made it this far, congratulations! A lot of the algebra I breezed over is very clearly described by Wang in the “Advances in Industrial Control” book I reference. I heavily recommend reading it if you’re interested in a step by step walk through of the math behind the controller.
Next Steps | https://medium.com/@8-james-ho/what-does-it-take-to-land-a-rocket-part-2-the-challenge-is-bigger-than-i-thought-4df2a436a1ad | ['James Ho'] | 2020-12-17 20:47:30.406000+00:00 | ['Engineering', 'Space', 'Robotics', 'Mechanical Engineering', 'Optimization'] |
Am I a Rapist? How To Prevent Well-Meaning Men from Committing Sexual Assault | Am I a Rapist? How To Prevent Well-Meaning Men from Committing Sexual Assault
Photo credit: Shutterstock
By Alan Cohen
“Am I a rapist?” It’s a ludicrous question on one level. But I am sure that I am not the only man asking himself this following news of Weinstein, Louis CK, Cosby, Trump, and others. I am troubled by the possibility that I might have traumatized someone in ways I did not comprehend, and would never have intended.
Recently, I thought back to two dalliances I had decades earlier while I was bartending overseas. Until then, these were just unremarkable, unfulfilling hook-ups. Now, like a character in an Ishiguro novel, I worry that my memory deceives me, and wonder to what extent I can really know what happened.
In both cases, women I had met at the bar came back to my place and we had sex — no excessive drunkenness or physical coercion involved. I know I would have stopped had I suspected that the other person didn’t want to continue.
I never saw either of these women again, but when I think back to their body language, in the light of what we are hearing in the media, I can’t help but wonder whether their experience was quite different. Did they feel violated or traumatized? I simply don’t know: while I recall my actions generally, I don’t know how the women perceived them. I know that I was well-intentioned. I also know that I had all the sexual energy and naiveté of a young man.
I say all of this as a man who was potentially seen as an aggressor, but also as a victim. When I was 10 years old, while changing in the men’s room at a public swimming pool, a creepy man approached me and asked to see my penis. I said “no” very clearly, ran out, and told my mother.
I knew what he had done was wrong. I thought (naively) that I knew how to stand up for myself. To my mind, no lasting harm came from the interaction, and I did not think of myself as a victim of sexual assault.
In the second incident, when I was overseas bartending, a young woman came into the bar with a creepy, much older guy with a strange, thin mustache. She flirted frivolously with me the whole evening while he sat there smirking. When it was time for them to go, I showed them to the elevator (a normal part of my duties), and when we were alone in the elevator foyer, she approached me, grabbed me forcefully in the crotch, and stood on tip-toes to kiss me hard on the lips. All the while, creepy guy was just looking on, smirking. I eventually herded them into the elevator, smiling, bowing, and thanking them for their patronage, while she continued to grab at me.
Rather than feeling traumatized, it was just the material for a good story I’ve told many times. It has only recently occurred to me that this could qualify as sexual assault by any normal standard, very much like what Trump described in the Access Hollywood tape.
I don’t consider myself a victim of sexual assault, but this is completely dependent on my subjective experience of these incidents, not on the actions of my aggressors. In no way am I suggesting that we blame victims for how they experience events. Neither of the people who assaulted me was in the right, and the fact that I was not traumatized does not excuse their actions. But given the subjective judgment required to understand what is and is not kosher, I am left wondering how we can possibly stop sexual harassment and assault, and get justice for survivors.
Beyond education about consent, we also need to teach kids how easy it is for people to misunderstand each other, especially where sex, romance, and hormones are involved. This teaching is best done through the narratives we present in the media, in my opinion.
As David Wong so eloquently wrote recently, Hans Solo sexually assaults Princess Leia in Star Wars, and my generation, male and female, grew up with them as role models. We need to change how we define masculinity socially and in the media and arts. If I had seen Princess Leia traumatized after a disturbing encounter and Hans Solo as a creep, it is highly unlikely I would now be questioning my history.
In closing, I’ll note that men’s voices may not be the most welcome at this time, and nuanced discussion about sexual coercion, harassment, assault and rape may need to follow strong immediate responses to the Harvey Weinsteins of the world. But to stop sexual assault, we need boys and men to hear honest accounts from others about our experiences, and just how hard it is to understand and to be understood.
—
The story was previously published on The Good Men Project. | https://medium.com/co-existence/am-i-a-rapist-how-to-prevent-well-meaning-men-from-committing-sexual-assault-647805bc06b8 | ['Agents Of Change'] | 2020-12-23 02:32:54.459000+00:00 | ['Ethics', 'Rape Culture', 'Social Change', 'Sexual Assault', 'Rape'] |
Understanding Tooth Decay | Martin Urban DDS | Tooth decay is one of the most common oral health problems in children and adults. Tooth decay is a disease that forms when harmful bacteria in your mouth mix with the food particles left on your teeth after eating. Bacteria convert sugars to acid, which can eat through tooth enamel if not removed quickly enough. The process of tooth decay occurs over time and usually starts around age three or four.
Types of Dental Caries
There are three types of dental caries. They are pit and fissure, smooth surface, and complex.
Pit & Fissure Caries
Pit and fissure caries is a cavity that forms on the biting surfaces of your teeth (front teeth) where two tooth surfaces meet together in a bottomless pit or fissure. The high acid content of plaque is responsible for pit and fissure caries.
Smooth Surface Caries
Smooth surface caries affect the back teeth with a flat top with no deep pits or grooves on their chewing surfaces, such as molars. Over time, smooth surface tooth decay can develop from not brushing or cleaning your teeth properly.
Complex Caries
Complex caries are a cavity that forms on the chewing surfaces of back or front teeth where deep grooves are located in the tooth’s surface. There are many small pits and fissures, making them more challenging to clean than other cavities. This type of decay usually happens when someone eats excessive amounts of carbohydrates, such as candy.
Prevention Tips for Tooth Decay
Brushing and flossing
Brushing your teeth at least twice a day is vital for removing food particles, plaque, and bacteria that can lead to decay. Flossing daily will also help remove any leftover debris in between the tight spaces of your teeth.
Fluoride treatment
Fluoride helps strengthen tooth enamel by replacing the lost minerals due to acid wear. It also helps protect your teeth from decay by blocking bacteria’s ability to produce acid and dissolve tooth enamel.
Visit a dentist regularly
A dental checkup can help catch early signs of cavities or other problems between regular cleanings so they can be treated sooner rather than later.
Making wise food choices: You can prevent cavities by limiting the sugary foods and drinks you eat. The bacteria in plaque use sugars to produce acids that cause decay, so avoiding them will help ensure your teeth stay healthy. | https://medium.com/@martinurbandds/understanding-tooth-decay-martin-urban-dds-832398483214 | ['Martin Urban Dds'] | 2021-11-24 13:59:43.383000+00:00 | ['Martin Urban Dds', 'Dentistry', 'Oral Health', 'Dentist'] |
Get Your Freak On | Get Your Freak On
And celebrate the three weirdest holidays you never heard of
It’s amazing what you can do with a piece of wood! Source: Pixabay.Com
Do you know what today is? Yeah, it’s Wednesday, and it’s no different from the day before, or the day before that, thanks to the pestilence that surrounds us like stink on stink. But, in spite of the ordinariness and stagnation of our mind-numbing, snooze-inducing daily lives, today is actually a special day.
A day to whip up a pitcher of Mimosas, retrieve that butter-spattered Eggs Benedict recipe and pack on another three pounds!
Today is a holiday, folks! Actually, three holidays are feted on July 22nd:
National Hammock Day
National Rat Catcher’s Day
National Penuche Fudge Day
Are you excited? I’m not, but it takes me a while. Perhaps, though, as we go through these bizarre “holidays,” my enthusiasm will build like Trump’s tangerine glow after eighteen holes at one of his exclusive clubs. You know: The ones named after him.
Screw POTUS. Let’s break down these holidays.
National Hammock Day.
What do we know about hammocks? Well, they’re “slings” made of rope, netting, or fabric that are anchored between two poles, or even trees, that we use for the purpose of flopping in. In a sense, hammocks are ass-slings. In contemporary times, they’re used solely for the purpose of chilling in the outdoors.
The word itself means “fishnet” and originated with the Taino, an indigenous people of the Caribbean, who used hammocks for protection against the elements, according to kammock.com. So I’m guessing they hunkered down underneath them during hurricanes and such.
After observing they’re widespread use among the Taino community, Christoper Columbus introduced the hammock to those erudite Europeans and in the mid 16th century, they were utilized as the on-deck “beds” of choice by the Spanish and English navies.
Here’s something that may surprise you, as it did me: Today, hammocks are a big deal among Millenials, especially, according to Matt Powell, a sports industry analyst at NPD, because “Millennials are looking for products they can share with their friends that they can turn into an experience.”
Huh? Have they never heard of Psilocybin? What’s with kids these days?
National Rat Catcher’s Day
What can I say other than this day celebrates a dude whose claim to fame was catching rodents. Big ones.
NRC commemorates the myth of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Certainly, you remember him? No? Check it out: According to folklore, the town of Hamelin hired a guy with a taste for flamboyant apparel to rid their town of rats.
The Piper turned out to be an outstanding exterminator and a “green one.” Without using poison or any crap that would hurt the environment or other creatures, he made every single rat disappear. How? With his flute! Yes! For some reason, the Hameline rat population was not found of woodwind instruments so as soon as the Piper whipped out his wood, they skedaddled.
This story does not have the happiest of endings, however. The townspeople proved to be cheap SOBs who refused to pay the Piper for his excellent work. So he returned to Hamelin and this time, used his flute to entice the town’s children to follow him to…I don’t know. Wherever the hell he went.
The town of Hameline, Germany was left devoid of both its rats, and its kids. Some people would call that a fair tradeoff. Not me, necessarily. But “some” people.
This particular holiday is also a time for thanking our exterminators, should we be so misfortunate as to require the use of one.
That brings me to our last reason to celebrate the sheer glory of being alive today:
National Penuche Fudge Day
You might be wondering, “What the hell is a ‘penuche’?” It sounds something a candy-loving milliner would make. That said, there is no chocolate in Penuche Fudge.
According to huffpost.com, Penuche, or Panuccio in Italian, is a fudgy treat made with brown sugar, milk, butter, and a hint of vanilla. Yikes! That’s gotta be sweet.
Screw the Quarantine-15! Let’s have some fudge! Source: Free-Images.Com
A New England staple, people down South love it, too, and call this type of fudge, “Brown Sugar Fudge Candy.” It’s reportedly yummy, with a buttery, creamy, melt-in-your-mouth lusciousness. Because of the brown sugar, and it’s molasses content, the candy is light-brown in color, and also makes a delish cake frosting.
Aside from its calorie content, what could be bad? As to why we have a whole day celebrating Penuche Fudge, I couldn’t tell you. So I’m making up for that by providing a recipe that you can whip up as soon as you’re done reading this.
Because we haven’t gained enough friggin’ weight. Enjoy!
From Taste of Home:
Penuche Fudge
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon plus 1/4 cup butter, divided
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup 2% milk
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts
Directions:
Line a 9-in. square pan with foil; grease foil with 1 teaspoon butter.
In a large heavy saucepan, combine sugars, milk, corn syrup and salt. Bring to a rapid boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Cook, without stirring, until a candy thermometer reads 234° (soft-ball stage). Remove from heat. Add vanilla and remaining butter to pan (do not stir).
Cool, without stirring, to 110°, about 40 minutes. Beat with a spoon until fudge just begins to thicken. Add walnuts; continue beating until fudge becomes very thick and just begins to lose its sheen (about 10 minutes total). Immediately spread into prepared pan. Cool.
Using foil, lift fudge out of the pan. Remove foil; cut fudge into 1-in. squares. Store between layers of waxed paper in airtight containers.
Nutrition Facts:
(We don’t care about these right now, but here you go, anyway.)
1 piece: 48 calories, 2g fat (1g saturated fat), 2mg cholesterol, 12mg sodium, 9g carbohydrate (8g sugars, 0 fiber), 0 protein.
Enjoy with whatever gusto you can muster up these days. And remember, every day is a holiday, somewhere! | https://medium.com/rogues-gallery/get-your-freak-on-5a2c16d536ef | ['Sherry Mcguinn'] | 2020-07-23 17:01:59.796000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Holidays', 'Weird', 'Food', 'Recipe'] |
Here’s What Would Happen If Donald Trump Nuked North Korea | When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Maybe this is why so many Americans wonder why they can’t just nuke a country posing a risk to their security. With an arsenal of some 6,800 operational and precisely engineered warheads, it seems almost too appealing to end all your worries with the push of a button. But there’s a good reason why our nuclear posture isn’t determined by trigger-happy civilians eager to immolate enemy nations in radioactive hellfire. More than two decades of not having to think about nuclear annihilation seem to have created a bizarrely casual attitude about the, well, for lack of a better word, fallout from using nukes.
Maybe this is why Trump has been psychotically cavalier about the notion of starting a nuclear war lately. It’s as if we’ve time-traveled to 1950 when the Korean War gave Douglas MacArthur the idea to nuke China in response for intervening with his forces, an idea that was rebuffed as not to invite Russian use of nuclear weapons in otherwise conventional conflicts, and ultimately cost the general his job after he went rogue and tried to defy Truman’s orders on the subject. Just like MacArthur, Trump seems unable to grasp the real world consequences of deploying humanity’s deadliest invention on a whim.
Nuclear weapons are not just big bombs that create huge fireballs and level a large territory. On top of the terrifying geopolitical implications, they come with some very nasty side-effects that are impossible to contain, especially if they’re ever used in bulk. But before we get into the details, a primer on how these weapons work and how this influences fallout seems in order. We’ll use the American W88 warhead as our example, the 450 kiloton thermonuclear device on standby today, and seemingly a close analog to North Korea’s last unveiled design according to the experts.
The W88 is an implementation of the Teller-Ulam design, named after the duo of academics who came up with the concept for the thermonuclear warheads we know and fear today, though their collaboration wasn’t exactly friendly. The overall idea is to put the core of a fission device, much like the ones that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and use the heat, radiation, and pressure of the initial fission blast to trigger the ignition of a radioactive spark plug which would fuse two isotopes of hydrogen into helium. The fission device would be the primary, logically making the fuel for the subsequent fusion reaction the secondary, which is how they’re referred to in all designs.
While the isotopes in question — deuterium, distilled from water, and tritium, created when the neutrons from the fission blast bombard lithium-6 in the warhead — are the same for every thermonuclear design, the W88 features a rather interesting, and very relevant twist. Most of its explosive yield comes from its unusual, egg-shaped fission primary, meant to help miniaturize the warhead so multiple bombs could be fitted on a single missile. This way, it could be delivered using MIRVs, or Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles, making attempts to intercept it by an enemy state fiendishly difficult. | https://medium.com/rantt/heres-what-would-happen-if-donald-trump-nuked-north-korea-ea40416581af | ['Greg Fish'] | 2018-04-14 23:44:23.602000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Politech', 'World', 'Politics', 'North Korea'] |
Leveraging Webpack to import all images from one folder | Did you know that apart from import and require there are some Webpack specific methods that you can use directly in your components to import files you need? Let me tell you the story of how I figured it out.
Using Require to load images
In our codebase, we had a component that rendered some logos in the footer.
It looked something like this:
And the code looked like this:
<template>
<div class="_game-provider-logos">
<div class="container-fluid">
<b-img-lazy :src="logoNetent" alt="Netent Logo" fluid />
<b-img-lazy :src="logoYggrasil" alt="Yggrasil logo" fluid />
<b-img-lazy :src="logoScientificGames" alt="Scientific Games logo" fluid />
<b-img-lazy :src="logoMicrogaming" alt="Microgaming logo" fluid />
<b-img-lazy :src="logoSlingo" alt="Slingo logo" fluid />
</div>
</div>
</template>
<script>
export default {
name: 'FooterGameProviders',
created () {
this.logoMicrogaming = require(`@/assets/images/footer/microgaming.png`)
this.logoNetent = require(`@/assets/images/footer/netent.png`)
this.logoScientificGames = require(`@/assets/images/footer/scientific-games.png`)
this.logoSlingo = require(`@/assets/images/footer/slingo.png`)
this.logoYggrasil = require(`@/assets/images/footer/yggdrasil.png`)
}
}
</script>
So, as you can see it was a pretty much dummy component. It just imported some images from the asset folder using require function and displayed them using the bootstrap <b-img-lazy /> component.
The problem
One day I came across a ticket related to this component. The task was to simply add another 19 logos to it. Pretty straightforward, right? And I already imagined how I manually do the same thing 19 times, just like a robot … But before actually doing that I decided to double-check if there is a way to somehow automate this process.
And here is where Webpack’s require.context came to help. Since most of the modern javascript applications are using Webpack under the hood and some image loaders alongside why actually not going a bit further and trying to use Webpack specific methods to load required assets?
Let’s check how it works.
What is require.context
According to Webpack documentation:
require.context allows you to pass in a directory to search, a flag indicating whether subdirectories should be searched too, and a regular expression to match files against.
The syntax is as follows:
require.context(
directory,
(useSubdirectories = true),
(regExp = /^\.\/.*$/),
(mode = 'sync')
)
An example for my case will look like this:
require.context('./../assets/images/footer/game-providers', false, /\.png$/)
You can play with this depending on the type of files you need(it can be components, HTML files, styles, or anything else), and whether you need files from subdirectories or not.
Context module API
Let’s have another look into docs:
A context module exports a (require) function that takes one argument: the request. The exported function has 3 properties: resolve , keys , id . resolve is a function and returns the module id of the parsed request. keys is a function that returns an array of all possible requests that the context module can handle. id is the module id of the context module.
In our case the most useful will be the keys property which we can use to import all files from the images folder like this:
function importAll(r) {
r.keys().forEach(r)
}
importAll(require.context('../assets/images/', true, /\.jpg\.svg\.png$/))
Important to note that Webpack parses for require.context in the code while building and all the arguments passed to require.context must be literals.
The solution
After adding all necessary images into a separate folder, and applying the guidelines from above the component started to look as follows:
<template>
<div class="_game-provider-logos">
<div class="container-fluid">
<b-img-lazy
v-for="image in images"
:key="image"
:src="image"
fluid
/>
</div>
</div>
</template>
<script>
export default {
name: 'FooterGameProviders',
computed: {
images () {
const path = require.context('./../assets/images/footer/game-providers', false, /\.png$/)
return path.keys().map(path)
}
}
}
</script>
As you can see now it is even smaller than it was with the 5 images. No repeating anything many times, no need to type file names and in general, it looks just great.
Amazing stuff, isn’t it? | https://medium.com/dailyjs/leveraging-webpack-power-to-import-all-files-from-one-folder-cddedd3201b3 | ['Shyianovska Nataliia'] | 2021-05-04 12:25:27.850000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Web Applications', 'Webpack', 'Image Loading', 'Vue'] |
Tree Week 2020 | You have probably heard that trees are very important to our planet and ecosystems — but why? Well, they aren’t just any old plants…
Trees in a forest, courtesy of Getty Images
From the massive Redwoods of Canada, to the ancient Oaks in the UK countryside, trees can be found everywhere that there’s adequate soil and sunlight. But why are they so important? Well firstly, they aren’t just there for our enjoyment.
Hundreds of thousands of animals depend on trees for a variety of reasons — for example, they provide branches for nesting, trunks to be hollowed out by birds or insects, and height for protection. Tree habitats are some of the most diverse, with a huge risk of species extinction in areas of mass deforestation.
Trees are also vital to food chains — because they provide habitats to certain plants and fungi, they also allow for insects to both live there are consume the plants on them. These insects provide food for birds and small mammals… the list goes on. If a majority of trees were to be felled in an area, this would be devastating to local food chains.
Food Webs related to trees. Courtesy of Preservation Tree.
Finally, trees are also massive contenders in the fight against climate change. The largest contributors to climate change are greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. Trees, as well as other plants, take in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and turn it into oxygen which humans and other living things use to breathe. So not only do trees reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, they also provide oxygen which is essential to most life on earth.
How can I help?
If you’re interested in helping towards the fight against deforestation and climate change, you can do your part by making sure that any paper/card/wooden things you buy are from sustainable sources. You can learn more about some of the amazing organisations that are involved with tree and forest protection as well, such as the Tree Council and the well-known Woodland Trust.
If you’re interested in trees and how truly amazing they can be, why not check out the STARTS Prize honorary mention TreeLab, which involves research into trees and their sounds in nature. | https://medium.com/@stemresponsewlv/tree-week-2020-d50347ebf7f0 | ['Stem Response Wlv'] | 2020-12-04 14:41:55.014000+00:00 | ['Ecology', 'Science', 'Trees', 'STEM', 'Nature'] |
Bokeh 0.12.0 Released | I’m pleased to announce that Bokeh Version 0.12 has been released! This is a major update with many new improvements. Before getting into the details, I’d first like to also announce:
0.12.x is the last line of releases before Bokeh 1.0
There will be more to say in a separate blog post about the roadmap to 1.0 later this year, but for now I’ll mention that the primary focus will be: bugfixes, performance and optimization, build and test automation to support API stability and semantic versioning, and a few high-priority remaining features.
The 0.12 release cycle was longer than most Bokeh release cycles. We plan to move to a time-based schedule in the near future, with more incremental releases, more often. But this release represents a giant step forward.
Here are just a few of the things that are new:
Responsive layout and styling improvements throughout
First-class BokehJS APIs for plotting and charts
Legends can be placed outside / next to the central plot area
New color palettes: Viridis, Magma, Inferno, and Plasma
Expanded WebGL support to all markers and fixed WebGL bugs
New annotations: Arrow, Title, Label, LogColorMapper, FuncTickFormatter
Support for computed transforms (e.g. Jitter) on data columns
Server features for threading and simpler deployments
New hosted demos at https://demo.bokeh.org
And as usual, many bugfixes and documentation additions. For full details, see the CHANGELOG and Release Notes.
This release can most easily be installed in the usual ways: conda install -c bokeh bokeh if you are using Anaconda or pip install bokeh otherwise.
Here are some details about a few of these areas of improvement.
Layout and Styling
One of the primary focus areas of this release cycle was a major overhaul to the way Bokeh lays out documents and components. Some of the new capabilities include:
Titles can be laid out on any side of a plot
Plot axes and widget extents align automatically, when possible
New responsive sizing modes scale_width, stretch_both, and others
Toolbars can be “sticky” and adhere closer to the plot.
In addition to the layout improvements, Bokeh also got a style refresh. Here are the major changes in appearance: Titles are also bold, closer to the plot, and left-aligned by default. Axes labels are smaller and italic. For individual plots, toolbars are now on the right side. Finally, Bokeh widget appearance is more “flat” in general.
Putting all this together, we can see a nice example below with the styling changes as well as the nice layout
The extensive work on layout and styling is still fresh, and there are some specific use-cases and issues to hammer out. We will be making incremental improvements consistently with micro point releases in the coming weeks and months.
NOTE: In order to accomplish this undertaking, some old interfaces had to be deprecated and two small breaking changes introduced. For full details, consult the Migration Guide.
Bokeh App Improvements and Examples
In addition to the layout improvements, a number of fixes and features directly related the the Bokeh server were made. This includes better support for using threads with Bokeh apps, a new default index page, the ability to configure multiple processes easily with --num-procs , as well as bugfixes and performance improvements. Together, all of these made it simple to create new compelling example applications. Many of these can be viewed at https://demo.bokeh.org, including the new crossfilter example, embedded live below:
Select different fields from the dropdowns to query the data along different dimensions.
BokehJS APIs
Until recently, BokehJS has mostly been an internal implementation detail to support the Python (and other language) bindings for Bokeh. But there has been interest in developing a BokehJS as a compelling JavaScript library in its own right. With the 0.12 release, BokehJS gains its own set of APIs: Bokeh.Models and Bokeh.Plotting, which largely follow the corresponding Python APIs, and Bokeh.Charts which is a new API for high-level charts unique to BokehJS.
Below is a small example using Bokeh.Plotting and the streaming interface:
The code for creating the plot is similar to the Python code for creating a comparable plot:
var plot = plt.figure({
tools: "pan,wheel_zoom,save,reset",
title: "Streaming Stocks",
plot_width: 600,
plot_height: 400,
background_fill_color: "#eeeeff",
x_axis_label: "time",
x_axis_type: "datetime",
y_axis_label: "price",
});
As is the code for streaming data to a data source:
var t = 8;
var period = 0.5; // seconds
function new_data() {
t += period;
var d = {
t: [t * 1000],
corp_a: [Math.sin(t * 0.3 + 0) * 2 + Math.random() + 3.0],
corp_b: [Math.sin(t * 0.5 + 1) * 2 + Math.random() + 3.4],
corp_c: [Math.sin(t * 0.7 + 2) * 2 + Math.random() + 3.8],
};
source.stream(d, 50);
}
setInterval(new_data, period * 1000);
Besides the new User’s Guide section on the BokehJS APIs, there is also a new section on Extending Bokeh that contains more information about using BokehJS directly, from the perspective of building custom user extensions.
Finally, I would just like to say Thank You to all the core contributors, new contributors, and the Bokeh community at large. Bokeh is the success that it is today only because of the tremendous work and feedback from so many individuals.
Thanks,
Bryan Van de Ven | https://medium.com/bokeh/bokeh-0-12-0-released-9ed98616ce4e | [] | 2020-07-06 23:46:15.169000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Python', 'Data Visualization', 'Bokeh', 'Open Source'] |
During the meal, 4y-old daughter’s new idea. | My 4y-old dauter’s cute & happy idea.
She is so positive. | https://medium.com/@maru-illustrator/during-the-meal-her-new-idea-dde9c6d5ae4c | ['Satsuki Marui'] | 2020-12-19 06:47:05.560000+00:00 | ['Goodidea', 'Toddlers', 'Humour', 'Parenting', 'Comics'] |
GNY Climate Change Use Case | GNY has built neural nets that are now predicting electricity demand in California 5% more accurately than the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In the next 6 weeks GNY will build off of these powerful neural nets to predict the exact date of “peak” fossil fuel consumption as well as provide a vision for how a ML powered blockchain could revolutionize renewable-only electric grids. Our hope is that these datasets may advance conversations that investors are having about divesting from fossil fuels.
GNY’s 24hr predictions of California Electricity Demand VS US Energy Information Administration
Introduction- How energy data, machine learning, and blockchain can fight climate change by hastening the divestment from fossil fuels
GNY set out to build a powerful platform for developers and businesses that combined the power of machine learning with a blockchain. Our goal was to provide a platform that delivered high transaction rates, and easy to use tools through a secure on-chain machine learning. We did this because we believed in the capacity of these two technologies to work together to solve large and complex problems. Climate change is the perfect example of such a problem. To fight it one needs to collaborate, successfully incorporate both private and public data, and access to the most cutting edge machine learning.
A growing movement among NGOs fighting climate change is to target the producers of fossil fuels where it hurts them most- their bottom lines. The extraction of fossil fuels is expensive, dangerous, has huge environmental costs and demands a constant flow of capital. NGO’s are starting to convince investors that fossil fuels are a poor investment when compared to renewable energy. In order to succeed at this effort these groups need convincing data-driven arguments for investors. When will peak fossil fuel consumption occur? What are the true all costs (environmental, fiscal, societal) associated with different energy sources? Our team decided to investigate how our technology might be of service.
Our goal in producing a GNY use case for climate change was two-fold. First, we wanted to demonstrate how our ML and BC technologies could be applied to combat climate change. Secondly, we hope that these demonstrations might attract the attention of NGOs for a real-world application and partnership. We are NOT climate experts, but we have built a powerful tool that we think might be impactful.
In order to show powerful results in a short period of time we narrowed our scope to focus on the electric generation market in California. Production of electricity accounts for approximately 35% of all fossil fuel consumption, and 63% of all electricity is generated from fossil fuels. Additionally, electricity generation represents a market that is actively being disrupted by renewable energy. How could superior predictions, smart-chain technology, and machine learning advance that disruption? That is where things got interesting.
In this live and ongoing GNY use case we will demonstrate how GNY’s proprietary machine learning technology and future integration of our blockchain technologies can be applied to:
Outperform Near-Future Supply and Demand Energy Predictions from the U.S. Government Predict when the “Peak” will be for Fossil Fuel Generated Electricity in California. Demonstrate Renewable Energy Can Provide As Stable Energy at Lower-Cost Than Fossil Fuels to Encourage Divestment from Fossil Fuels Demonstrate how Fossil Fuel Generated Energy has higher lifetime cost and should be divested from Model how moving these models onto the blockchain could provide increased collaboration, impact, and faster transition to a greener world.
This work will be published in stages, and then the full use case will be published when the work is complete. We will also provide models for how blockchain can be utilized to build systems to support a smart grid of renewable electricity and other financial incentives to speed the transition to greener energy.
How does prediction of peak fossil fuel consumption influence the fight against climate change?
Peak consumption is not just a buzz worthy term- it is a key indicator of change between a legacy technology and a disruptive innovator. This “peak” is the moment when supply starts to overshadow demand, prices plummet, and the entire fossil fuel industry starts to contract. Our team set out to make a process to define “peak” that could be applied to various geographies. The below chart from the excellent organization Carbon Tracker displays it beautifully.
Calculating the peak fossil fuel consumption helps to analyze how competitive renewable energy is cannibalizing demand for fossil fuels. This process is easily achieved in hindsight, but predicting it is a much more difficult task. This peak spells the beginning of the end for the legacy tech for a number of reasons. In this particular case here are some of the biggest contributing factors:
In the US the price of solar has decreased by 70% in the last decade and the home solar market has grown by 49%. The price of producing sustainable solar energy will continue to decline ensuring that solar costs become more and more competitive in the marketplace. The cost for sourcing fossil fuels are incredibly high and shows no sign of slowing down. As the effects of climate change become more and more severe there will be an increase in restrictions and limitations and tariffs of carbon f combustion of fossil fuels. For example: California has already outlawed the sale of combustion vehicles after 2035. The trend to renewable electricity is growing and unstoppable.
This use case also provides GNY the opportunity to demonstrate how we approach complex data problems, and the bespoke data solutions we offer businesses of all sizes. Our goal is to share our logic process, technology application, and the results as they become available.
Why We Selected California As Our Geographic Target
To help advance the understanding of the peak fossil fuel consumption in the US we decided to start looking at a smaller segment of the overall challenge that had great public data. After looking into several potential applications, the GNY technology team landed on analyzing California’s electricity supply for a number of key reasons:
California is the largest economy in the US with a GDP of $3 trillion. Leadership in California has already signaled that they want to move to renewable power and away from fossil fuels. California over the past several years has seen some of the devastating effects of s changing climate from the biggest fires in the state’s history to record temperature and drought. So, ideally, our work here may actually help inform policy and future legislation.
Phase 1- Generate the Most Accurate 24-Hour Predictions of Supply and Demand for Electricity in California
Before we could predict the future of electricity supply and demand in California, our team needed to build a complex and powerful multi-factor ML model that could explain the present. Building this predictive model has two additional potential benefits:
● In order to effectively transition to renewable energy without destabilizing the power grid, accurate predictions for supply and demand are essential. This will empower utility companies to freely move more resources to renewable energy. This is often referred to a “smart grid”.
● As electricity suppliers feel secure in moving to renewable energy they help advance the divestment from fossil fuel generated power.
It took our proprietary GNY ML engine a month of training to start to provide accurate next day predictions. The graph below shows how our predictions improved as the neural nets continued to self-learn and adjust the weights of the hundreds of parameters we used to correctly predict the next day’s supply and demand. A full excel file of our predictions vs actuals is available for download below.
GNY 24 Advance Electricity Demand Predictions for California VS Actuals
Our team also compared our neural net’s predictions to those made publicly available by the U.S Department of Energy. Our team analyzed the energy predictions that the EIA was sharing and concluded that they were generated using linear regression techniques. When compared to the predictions generated on our neural net (after it’s one-month training period) GNY delivers an improvement of approximately 5% for next day predictions.
GNY 24hr Predictions (Green) Vs California Department of Energy
GNY 24hr Predictions (Green) Vs Actual
This 24 hour improved prediction let us know that we had constructed neural nets that were sufficiently complex and accurate to start predicting further into the future to start to predict the “peak” and other compelling data points that will hopefully erode investor confidence in fossil fuel’s long term potential profitability.
Our excel downloadable file on our official blog ( https://www.gny.io/post/gny-climate-change-use-case ) shows our training period, predictions, actuals, and the predictions made by the California Department of Energy.
This is just the first step on our multi-segment use case. In the following we weeks we will continue to publish content including, but not limited to the following:
1. Predicting the “Peak”
Now that we have the neural nets accurately predicting 24 hours in the future we can start to predict more impactful information that will help influence investors make more accurate decisions about continued investment in fossil fuels. There is a chance that the peak has already occurred, but showing an accurate prediction of the upcoming energy transition will assist investors in making investments that reflect a rapidly changing market.
2. Predicting Supply Needed for Stable Electric Grid
In order to effectively transition to renewable energy without destabilizing the power grid, accurate predictions for supply and demand are essential. This will empower utility companies to freely move more resources to renewable energy. This is often referred to as smart grids.
3. Blockchain Integrations
The concept of a “smart grid” demands a “trust-less” system, and one that can be constantly learning and improving regardless of the preferences of individual energy producers. We will model out how a GNY decentralized smart-chain could be the solution everyone has been waiting for.
***With an NGO partner we could do much more. As we stated we are not climate experts, but our entire team is extremely dedicated to this issue and committed to being a part of developing solutions.
Our team is eager to connect with climate change focused NGOs, and with readers interested in collaborating. Connect with us on Telegram, or Twitter. | https://medium.com/@james_62282/gny-climate-change-use-case-2a5a03c10eb9 | [] | 2020-12-07 19:09:51.275000+00:00 | ['Energy', 'Fossil Fuels', 'Renewable Energy', 'Climate Change', 'Machine Learning'] |
Not smart enough to accept, not smart enough to adapt | Photo by Leon Contreras on Unsplash
“You’re one of those annoying bastards who can’t let go!”
“Errr… well… yes!”
This was the highlight of a lunch conversation I enjoyed with business colleagues many years ago when one member of our team, a fiercely bright Kiwi, shared her forthright opinion on the dating habits of one of our party, a very sheltered (at least in the ways of romance) Englishman. I felt my face flush when her barbed insight pierced not just my colleague’s thin veil but also my own. I dove into my sandwich to mask my embarrassment. My memories dragged me back to those times in which I had also clung too tightly to something, or someone, unable to move on.
I have just deliberated for an inordinate amount of time over whether it was better to say, ‘unable to move on,’ or whether it would have been more correct to say, ‘unwilling to move on.’ Inability feels more accurate if only because I work on the basis that everyone goes through life trying to do the right thing, and anyone who doesn’t just can’t help being an a***hole. This confident assessment of how everyone is wired has got me through some tough interactions over the years. But I’m digressing; I was talking about letting go.
When the world moves on without us, or when people do, it is in our own interests to adapt quickly, yet speed of adaptation is not something that comes naturally to many of us, myself included. It doesn’t come easily to organizations either despite there being a whole discipline around helping them adapt quickly.
The discipline of change management helps people in organizations adopt new ways of working, and there are three components to adoption: how many people have embraced the change, how well they have embraced the change, and how quickly they have embraced the change. That final point, in relation to speed, often gets overlooked.
If a company wants to move you from point A to point B they might start up a project to build a car. By the time everyone has argued over design, color, and technical specification and a compromise solution has been delivered, everyone is exhausted and there is no more money. But having a car was never the goal; the car was just the company’s way of achieving the goal. Now the ‘victim’ who actually needs to make the journey — because it can truly feel like you’re being abandoned in this way — is left to figure out the rest for the themselves.
A project with change management would make sure you knew how to drive the car and that you knew which direction to drive. It would monitor and feed back to you any driving behaviors likely to delay your arrival or compromise safety, and it would regularly check that you were taking the fastest route. Really good projects would make sure you knew a lot of this even before the car was finished. The best projects would make sure you knew and accepted why it was so important to get from A to B in the first place, because that fosters will and desire. Desire is crucial, both for companies and for us personally.
It’s hard to accept and move on when a change comes that you didn’t want, and even harder when it’s also a change you didn’t expect. It’s important to take time to process the grief. Change can feel like grief.
As a British Europhile I recall how I felt when the U.K. voted to leave the European Union — it was like a punch to the stomach. To preserve my sanity my brain took me straight to DEFCON 1, which lies somewhere in the land of denial between obsessively digesting every tiny morsel of news to make sense of what has just happened, and burying my head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich, leaving my backside in the air in the process. But there comes a point where wallowing in the delusion that the world isn’t changing serves no one, least of all yourself.
“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”~ not Stephen Hawking. (I’m still researching who said this, but it also wasn’t Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, or Nelson Mandela, who seem to be collectively responsible for about 90% of the misattributed quotes on the interwebs.)
As I formulate my thoughts on the topic of adoption, grief, acceptance and change I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that this is not about intelligence at all. (I’m going to add the word ‘not’ to each line in the title of this post.) Reflecting on my own experiences two things have evolved, which work in tandem. The first is is an increasing ability to let go, whether it be of anger, or the past. It’s not an easy thing to cultivate, but like a muscle it gets stronger with practice. The second is a corresponding increase in hope for the future. I still grieve, but hope sustains, and like a precious flame it can be nurtured into a sturdy fire.
The questions we ask ourselves have been a useful trick in accelerating my evolution. Instead of saying to myself, “what if the future is not going to be as good as the past?” I say to myself, “what if the future is going to be better than the past?” The great thing about this question is I don’t even need to persuade myself that it’s true, I just have to commit to always asking myself the latter over the former. With a little time and enough repetition you slowly begin to believe it’s true. With even more time you look for ways to prove to yourself that it’s true. Now I’m filled with hope that I speak the truth when I say I’m no longer one of those annoying bastards who can’t let go. | https://medium.com/@paoloduffini/not-smart-enough-to-accept-not-smart-enough-to-adapt-937dd8d00c4c | ['Paul Duffy'] | 2020-11-24 22:00:06.197000+00:00 | ['Acceptance', 'Change Management', 'Change', 'Brexit'] |
Anisole Market Analysis, Emerging Trends, Forecast and COVID-19 Impact Analysis | Dec 23, 2021/IndustryNewsGlobal/ The unexpected shifts in the global markets because of the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 virus have brought many major and minor tremors to industries of all sizes including the Anisole Market.
It was estimated prior to this unanticipated outbreak that the Anisole Market is likely to witness a CAGR of 5% during the forecast period. Major factors such systemized retail, increase in urban population, rapid westernization of FMCG sectors paired with the growing e-commerce industry are expected to drive the market during the forecast period. In addition, an assertive surge in women spending on products related to skin and hair care and the uphill trends in male grooming business, is likely to underpin the market growth further.
Anisole is an organic material which bears the scent of an anise seed. Given its distinctive physical and chemical properties, the usage of this chemical substance has been on rise in diverse industries.
This report studies the market covering a period of 12 years of trend and forecast. The report provides detailed insights into the market dynamics to enable informed business decision making and growth strategy formulation based on the opportunities present in the market.
Segment Analysis
Based on the purity type, the market is segmented as up to 99.5% and above 99.5%. Products with purity above 99.5% are expected to witness significant growth rate in the market during the forecast period as the purity of anisole depends upon its fabrication process which involves a chemical reaction of dimethyl sulfate with phenol and sulfur hydroxide. Key industry players such as Merck Inc., Oakwood Products, Inc., etc. have been fabricating methoxybenzene with purity above 99.5%.
Based on the application type, the market is segmented as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food and others. The pharmaceuticals application segment is anticipated to register high growth rate in the market owing to its role in producing numerous pharma compounds, as a major precursor. One of the examples is, mequinol — a type of phenol with varied applications in the field of organic chemistry and dermatology.
In terms of regions, Asia-Pacific is estimated to be the leading region in the market owing to the increasing inclination towards usage of premium products, dependence on imported personal products, and eminent level of unrestricted expenditure in several cosmetics and personal care products. In addition, useful changes in social economic factors such as rise in disposable income and purchasing power of consumers, increase in young population are estimated to drive the anisole market during the forecast period. China and India are the growth engines of the region. North America and Europe are also expected to offer substantial growth opportunities during the forecast period.
Key Players:
Key players operating in the global Anisole market are-
Atul Ltd.
Huaian Depon Chemical Co.
Merck Group, Ltd.
Solvay SA
Westman Chemicals Pvt. Ltd., etc.
Features of the Report
This report offers high-quality insights and is the outcome of detailed research methodology comprising extensive secondary research, rigorous primary interviews with industry stakeholders and validation and triangulation with Stratview Research’s internal database and statistical tools.
The Anisole analysis report discusses the following heads in great detail:
Market structure: Overview, industry life cycle analysis, supply chain analysis
COVID-19 Impact Assessment
Market environment analysis: Growth drivers and constraints, Porter’s five forces analysis, SWOT analysis
Market trend and forecast analysis
Market segment trend and forecast
Competitive landscape and dynamics: Market share, product portfolio, product launches, etc.
Attractive market segments and associated growth opportunities
Emerging trends
Strategic growth opportunities for the existing and new players
Key success factors
Know more about Stratview Research:
Stratview Research is a global market research company and is known to offer custom research reports in varied fields such as aerospace & Defense, Advanced Materials, Aerospace & Defense, Automotive & Mass Transportation, Consumer Goods, Construction & Equipment, Electronics and Semiconductors, Energy & Utility, Healthcare & Life Sciences, and Oil & Gas. Our team makes sure to have deep research about the topics so that the most useful insights can be delivered to the professionals.
Need a detailed report? Get in touch with us:
Stratview Research
E-mail: [email protected]
Direct: +1–313–307–4176 | https://medium.com/@stratviewresearch/anisole-market-analysis-emerging-trends-forecast-and-covid-19-impact-analysis-b6a9c0a50a28 | ['Stratview Research'] | 2021-12-23 10:54:13.061000+00:00 | ['Anisole Market', 'Market Research Reports', 'Market Research'] |
Red Lanterns Overhead | A slender woman with long black hair walked briskly beneath hanging red lanterns. She didn’t look up. The crowded streets were lined with restaurants and small shops labeled with symbols she could not read or understand.
She came upon a run-down apartment building, opened the door, and took the elevator to the eighth floor. She knocked on a door bordered in red with the number 889. After the sound of shuffling feet came the clink of the door as it was unlocked.
“Lina, you are here. Come in, come in.”
“Hi Ma,” Lina said as she stepped inside and took off her high heel boots.
“Put on the slippers, your feet will be cold.”
“Ma, it’s like summer in your apartment.”
“The tile is very cold. You will get sick. Put the slippers on, yes?”
“You’re impossible,” Lina whispered under her breath as she slid the slippers on.
“Have you eaten? I will make you noodles.”
“Ma, I’m just here to check on you. I only get 30 minutes for lunch. You said you had something important to talk to me about. And I’m not hungry.”
“Oh, no, no, I will make you noodles. You are too thin child! Do you ever eat?”
“Ma, really, what did you have to talk to me about? Was it the doctor appointment? Did they find anything?”
“Oh child, do not worry, it is not that. Your Ma is healthy and strong. Nothing to worry about. Come sit while I make noodle.” Lina sat down in a slump and stared out the window at the red lanterns strung across the alley.
“You know, it will be New Year soon. Will you travel to China with me this year? All your relatives miss you and want to see you and hear about your luck and fortune in America.”
“Ma, you know I am too busy. And last time…well, it wasn’t for me.”
“Oh, you can make time for this. It is the most important holiday. And I have something special planned for you. You don’t want to miss it.”
“Who am I meeting this time!?” Lina said as she crossed her arms.
“Oh, child, don’t be like that! I hear he is good man. And very rich too.”
“I don’t care who he is Ma, I don’t want to be set up! You do this every time I see you!”
“Child! You must be realistic. You are getting old and running out of time to have children. I only try to fix your problem.”
“Uhh, Ma, I’m not interested in this matchmaking nonsense. And I’m only 31. How many times do we have to talk about this before you will leave it be!?”
“I am just trying to help! You seem to need lot’s of help in this area, no?” Lina took a deep breath and stared silently out the window again. Her mother set a bowl of noodles in front of her and the steam floated up between her and the red lanterns.
“Eat, child,” the mother said as she laid a pair of chopsticks on the table. “You know, everyone asks why you do not have a husband. They say you are pretty. They say you are successful and have a good job. But no husband. No children. It doesn’t make sense. We just want to help you. It’s how I met your father. Nothing wrong with this way.”
“Ma! I don’t need a husband. I am happy.”
“No, you’re not! Look how skinny you are. And so busy. You need to have family.”
“Can we just stop talking about this. I’m not going to China. And I don’t want you and your relatives to be my matchmakers. Just leave it alone. I’ll meet someone in my own way and in my own time. This is my life.”
“This not just your life. You are here in America because of me and your father and our relatives. We made a way for you to have a better life! Don’t be selfish.” Lina rolled her eyes and took a bite of noodles.
“I’m still not going to China, Ma.” Silence hung in the air.
“What if I was sick? Would you go then?”
“Ma! Are you sick? Really, what did the doctor say?!”
“I go to China for second opinion. You come too, okay?”
“Ugh, you are impossible!” Lina said as she slammed her chopsticks down and got up to head for the door.
“Wait, child, let me wrap this up for you. You need to eat more.”
“Ma, for the last time, I am not hungry,” Lina said as she flung the slippers off and managed to push her sweaty feet back into her boots. “I’ve got to get back to work. I will see you next week. Thanks for the noodles.” She closed the door behind her, leaving her mother standing in the hallway with a bag of noodles to go.
Lina walked quickly out of the apartment complex and back through the market. She gazed ahead at the city scape of New York, glistening in the setting sun and took a deep breath. The red lanterns hung above her head and swayed in the wind, but she didn’t look up. | https://medium.com/storymaker/red-lanterns-overhead-2c4db350a824 | ['Breanna Lowman'] | 2020-12-24 16:07:49.297000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Storytelling', 'Fiction', 'Culture', 'Immigration'] |
THE BENEFITS AND DISADVANTAGES OF CANOPY BEDS | Canopy beds are beautiful additions to any boudoir. Canopy beds go back to the days when kings and queens slept in ornate chambers. When layers of fabric fell from the ceiling, whether thin or thick, they produced an outstanding mood. Canopies are becoming less frequent in current times. A bedroom with a well-designed canopy, on the other hand, is the epitome of indulgence. Why not create your own canopy if your bedroom is your haven?
If you’re looking for an antique canopy bed or a vintage canopy bed, Bidsquare is a well-known firm for antique and vintage furniture. You can look through the antique and vintage furniture and bid on it to obtain the best value.
Antique Canopy Bed
There are a few things to think about if you’re on the fence about including one of these beds in your custom home. Here are some of the benefits and drawbacks of owning a canopy bed:
Advantages of Canopy Beds
Canopy beds are recognised for their flowing draperies and material, but they have a lot more to offer. The following are some of the advantages of canopy beds:
The Room’s Aesthetics
Canopy beds are quite gorgeous. They are available in a variety of styles, making it simple to find one that matches your room and the rest of the decor in your custom house. A canopy bed also takes your master bedroom to new heights. The ability to change the covering linens adds another layer of customization to your bed, allowing you to update and change themes as your tastes evolve. Other furniture is more difficult to produce because it usually requires reupholstering and refinishing.
Controlling the temperature
In addition to their visual appeal, canopy beds have a useful purpose. In the winter, being able to encircle your bed in extra linens may help you stay warm. With some careful planning, you might be able to use your bed to keep cool in the summer. This temperature control can make your bed and bedroom more comfortable throughout the year, but be careful: your bed may become too comfortable to leave!
Heavy fabric can also be used to help block out the light. Layers of fabric can block out sunlight on weekends so you can sleep in, and your bed drapes can muffle noises so you enjoy a better night’s sleep. Ties run along the bed posts, allowing you to pull the canopy back while still having access to your bed.
There are a plethora of design possibilities to choose from
You’re also not bound by a particular canopy design. Of course, your custom home could have a four-poster bed or a canopy frame that allows you to easily add one. Drape a little fabric from head to foot or cover the four sides of your best for complete privacy. If the canopy drapes ruffles over the side of your frame rather than down, it will not get in your way. Some individuals wrap fabric over their bed frames for a unique aesthetic. Simply drape four pieces of light, airy cloth from the centre of your bed frame, one over each post.
Canopy Beds’ Drawbacks
Although functional and elegant, canopy beds are not suitable for every lifestyle or room design. Here are some of the drawbacks of this type of bed to consider:
There’s a lot more cleaning to be done
Cleaning your bed linens is probably second nature to you, but with a canopy bed, there’s a lot more linen to clean. Despite the fact that most hangings do not require as much washing as your bedding, it is still extra labour. Furthermore, the dusty top cover of canopy beds must be cleaned on a regular basis to minimise allergy difficulties.
If you or your loved ones suffer from dust allergies, canopy beds may not be ideal for you or them, especially if you have dogs. Why give more places for dust and dander to collect if you don’t have to? However, you can have a canopy bed without the linens for structural reasons, so there are still options if you don’t want to deal with the extra material.
Temptation of a Pet and a Child
Canopy beds are attractive, and your pets and children will agree. The hanging linens have been known to be grabbed by children, causing damage to the material, the bed frame, and even themselves. The high surface of the canopy is a difficulty to cats and dogs on occasion. As a result, many pet owners may find their felines or other animals imprisoned on top of their beds. A canopy bed might not be the right decor decision for you if this is a pain you don’t need.
Choosing the right bed is one way to design your bedroom for better sleep. Depending on the aesthetic and function you desire in your master bedroom, a canopy bed may be the best option for you. | https://medium.com/@k-taylor3124/the-benefits-and-disadvantages-of-canopy-beds-34d78140fd8e | ['Kevin Taylor'] | 2021-11-22 13:52:44.988000+00:00 | ['Furniture', 'Antique', 'Vintage', 'Bed', 'Canopy Beds'] |
Getting Started with Baselines | ARTICLE
Getting Started with Baselines
This article discusses getting started with baselines and generalized linear models.
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Take 37% off Transfer Learning for Natural Language Processing by entering fccazunre into the discount code box at checkout at manning.com.
___________________________________________________________
Neural Network Models
Neural networks are the most important class of machine learning algorithms for handling perceptual problems such as computer vision and NLP. Thus, it is the most important class of models for the subject covered by this book.
In this post, we will train two representative pretrained neural network language models on the two illustrative example problems we have been baselining in this chapter. The two models we will consider here are
ELMo — Embeddings from Language Models, and
BERT — Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers.
ELMo includes elements of convolutional and recurrent (specifically LSTM) elements, while the appropriately named BERT is transformer-based. The simplest form of transfer learning fine-tuning will be employed here, where a single dense classification layer is trained on top of the corresponding pretrained embedding over our dataset of labels from the previous sections.
Embeddings from Language Models (ELMo)
The Embeddings from Language Models (ELMo) model, named after the popular Sesame Street character, was among the first models to demonstrate the effectiveness of transferring pretrained language model knowledge to general NLP tasks. The model was trained to predict the next word in a sequence of words, which can be done in an unsupervised manner on very large corpuses, and showed that the weights obtained as a result could generalize to a variety of other NLP tasks. We will not discuss the architecture of this model in detail in this section — this will be done in the appropriate subsequent chapter. It will suffice to mention here that the model employs character-level convolutions to build up preliminary embeddings of each word token, followed by bidirectional LSTM layers which introduce context of surrounding words into the final embeddings produced by the model.
Having briefly introduced ELMo, let’s proceed to training it for each of the two running example datasets. The ELMo model is available through the Tensorflow Hub, which provides an easy platform for sharing Tensorflow models. We will use Keras with Tensorflow backend to build our model. In order to make the tensorflow hub model usable by Keras, we will need to define a custom Keras layer that instantiates it in the right format. This is achieved by the function shown in Listing 1.
Listing 1. Function to instantiate Tensorflow Hub ELMo as a custom Keras layer.
import tensorflow as tf # A
import tensorflow_hub as hub
from keras import backend as K
import keras.layers as layers
from keras.models import Model, load_model
from keras.engine import Layer
import numpy as np
sess = tf.Session() # B
K.set_session(sess)
class ElmoEmbeddingLayer(Layer): # C
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
self.dimensions = 1024
self.trainable=True
super(ElmoEmbeddingLayer, self).__init__(**kwargs)
def build(self, input_shape):
self.elmo =hub.Module('https://tfhub.dev/google/elmo/2', trainable=self.trainable,
name="{}_module".format(self.name)) # D
self.trainable_weights +=
K.tf.trainable_variables(scope="^{}_module/.*".format(self.name)) # E
super(ElmoEmbeddingLayer, self).build(input_shape)
def call(self, x, mask=None):
result = self.elmo(K.squeeze(K.cast(x, tf.string), axis=1),
as_dict=True,
signature='default',
)['default']
return result
def compute_output_shape(self, input_shape): # F
return (input_shape[0], self.dimensions)
# A Import required dependencies
# B Initialize session
# C Create a custom layer that allows us to update weights
# D Download pretrained ELMo model from Tensorflow Hub
# E Extract trainable parameters — these are just 4 weights in the weighted average of ELMo model layers, see tf hub link above for more details
# F Specify shape of output
Assume the availability of a data variable raw_data – a list containing a concatenated string of word tokens per email. We can use the code in Listing 2 to build and train the Keras ELMo TensorFlow hub model.
Listing 2. Function and calling script to build ELMo TensorFlow hub model for Keras using the custom layer defined in Listing 1.
def build_model():
input_text = layers.Input(shape=(1,), dtype="string")
embedding = ElmoEmbeddingLayer()(input_text)
dense = layers.Dense(256, activation='relu')(embedding) # A
pred = layers.Dense(1, activation='sigmoid')(dense) # B
model = Model(inputs=[input_text], outputs=pred)
model.compile(loss='binary_crossentropy', optimizer='adam',
metrics=['accuracy']) # C
model.summary() # D
return model
# Build and fit
model = build_model()
model.fit(train_x, # E
train_y,
validation_data=(test_x, test_y),
epochs=5,
batch_size=32)
# A new layer outputting 256-dimensional feature vectors
# B Classification layer
# C loss, metric and optimizer choices
# D Show model architecture for inspection
# E Fit the model for 5 epochs
A few things should be noted here — first of all, notice that we have added an additional layer on top the pretrained ELMo embedding, producing 256-dimensional feature vectors. We have also added a classification layer of output dimension 1. The activation function ‘sigmoid’ transforms its input into the interval between 0 and 1, and is essentially the logistic curve. Its output can be interpreted as the probability of the positive class, and when it exceeds some prespecified threshold (usually 0.5) the corresponding input to the network can be classified as the said positive class.
The model is fitted for 5 “major steps” or epochs over the whole dataset. The Keras code statement ‘ model.summary()’ in Listing 2 prints the model details, and produces the following output:
_________________________________________________________________
Layer (type) Output Shape Param #
=================================================================
input_2 (InputLayer) (None, 1) 0
_________________________________________________________________
elmo_embedding_layer_2 (Elmo (None, 1024) 4
_________________________________________________________________
dense_3 (Dense) (None, 256) 262400
_________________________________________________________________
dense_4 (Dense) (None, 2) 514
=================================================================
Total params: 262,918
Trainable params: 262,918
Non-trainable params: 0
We note, without delving into too much further detail as this will be addressed by Chapter 4 of the book, that most of the trainable parameters in this case (approximately 260 thousand of them) are coming from the layers we added on top of the custom ELMo model. In other words, this is our first instance of transfer learning — learning a pair of new layers on top of the pretrained model shared by ELMo’s creators. We also note that it is important to use a powerful GPU for most NN experiments, and the value of the ` batch_size ’ parameter – which specifies how much data is fed to the GPU at each step – can be extremely important to the speed of convergence. It will vary by the GPU being used or the lack thereof. In practice, one can increase the value of this parameter until the speed of convergence of a typical problem instance does not benefit from the increase, or whenever the GPU memory is no longer large enough for a single data batch to fit on it during an iteration of the algorithm, whichever happens first. Additionally, when dealing with a multi-GPU scenario, some evidence that the optimal scaling-up schedule of the batch size is linear in the number of GPUs, has been presented[1].
On a free NVIDIA Tesla K80 GPU via a Kaggle Kernel (see our companion github repo[2] for Kaggle notebook links), we achieve the performance on our email dataset for the first 5 epochs as shown in Figure 1 for a typical run. We found a batch_size of 32 to work well for us in that context.
Figure 1. Convergence of the validation and training accuracy scores for the first five epochs of training the ELMo model on the email classification example.
Each epoch takes approximately 10 seconds to complete — this information is printed by our code. We see that a validation accuracy of approximately 97.3% is attained at the 4th epoch, i.e., in under a minute. This performance is comparable to the performance of the logistic regression approach, which is only slightly better at 97.7% (see Chapter 2 of book). We note that the behavior of the algorithm is stochastic, i.e., it behaves differently from run to run. Thus, your own convergence will vary somewhat, even on similar architecture to what we used. It is typical in practice to try the algorithm run a few times, and pick the best set of parameters among the stochastic and varying results attained. Finally, we note that the divergence of training and validation accuracies is suggestive of the beginning of overfitting as indicative in the figure.
For the IMDB example, the ELMo model code yields the convergence output shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Convergence of the validation and training accuracy scores for the first five epochs of training the ELMo model on the IMDB movie review classification example.
Each epoch again takes approximately 10 seconds and a validation accuracy of approximately 70% is achieved in under a minute at the 2nd epoch. We will see how to improve the performances of the end of this article (see also Table 1). Note that some evidence of overfitting can be observed at the 3rd and later epochs, as the training accuracy continues to improve, i.e., the fit to the data improves, while the validation accuracy remains lower.
Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT)
Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) model was also named after a popular Sesame Street character as a nod to the trend started by ELMo. At the time of writing this book, its variants achieve some of the best performance in transferring pretrained language model knowledge to downstream NLP tasks. The model was similarly trained to predict words in a sequence of words, although the exact masking procedure is somewhat different. It can also be done in an unsupervised manner on very large corpuses, and the resulting weights similarly generalize to a variety of other NLP tasks. Arguably, to familiarize oneself with transfer learning in NLP, it is indispensable for one to familiarize oneself with BERT.
Just as we did with ELMo, we will again not discuss the architecture of this deep learning model in complete detail in this section — this will be done in an appropriate chapter of the book. It will suffice to mention here that the model employs character-level convolutions to build up preliminary embeddings of word tokens, followed by transformer-based encoders with self-attention layers that provide the model with a context of surrounding words. The transformer functionally replaced the role of the bidirectional LSTMs employed by ELMo. Recalling from the previous chapter that Transformers have some advantages versus LSTMs with respect to training scalability, we see some of the motivation behind this model. Again, we will use Keras with Tensorflow backend to build our model.
Having briefly introduced BERT, let’s proceed to training it for each of the two running example datasets. The BERT model is also available through the Tensorflow Hub. In order to make the hub model usable by Keras, we similarly define a custom Keras layer that instantiates it in the right format, as shown in Listing 3.
Listing 3. Function to instantiate Tensorflow Hub BERT as a custom Keras layer.
import tensorflow as tf
import tensorflow_hub as hub
from bert.tokenization import FullTokenizer
from tensorflow.keras import backend as K
# Initialize session
sess = tf.Session()
class BertLayer(tf.keras.layers.Layer):
def __init__(
self,
n_fine_tune_layers=10, # A
pooling="mean", # B
bert_path="https://tfhub.dev/google/bert_uncased_L-12_H-768_A-12/1", # C
**kwargs,
):
self.n_fine_tune_layers = n_fine_tune_layers
self.trainable = True
self.output_size = 768 # D
self.pooling = pooling
self.bert_path = bert_path
super(BertLayer, self).__init__(**kwargs)
def build(self, input_shape):
self.bert = hub.Module(
self.bert_path, trainable=self.trainable, name=f"{self.name}_module"
)
trainable_vars = self.bert.variables # E
if self.pooling == "first":
trainable_vars = [var for var in trainable_vars if not "/cls/" in var.name]
trainable_layers = ["pooler/dense"]
elif self.pooling == "mean":
trainable_vars = [
var
for var in trainable_vars
if not "/cls/" in var.name and not "/pooler/" in var.name
]
trainable_layers = []
else:
raise NameError("Undefined pooling type”)
)
for i in range(self.n_fine_tune_layers): # F
trainable_layers.append(f"encoder/layer_{str(11 - i)}")
trainable_vars = [
var
for var in trainable_vars
if any([l in var.name for l in trainable_layers])
]
for var in trainable_vars: # G
self._trainable_weights.append(var)
for var in self.bert.variables:
if var not in self._trainable_weights:
self._non_trainable_weights.append(var)
super(BertLayer, self).build(input_shape)
def call(self, inputs):
inputs = [K.cast(x, dtype="int32") for x in inputs]
input_ids, input_mask, segment_ids = inputs
bert_inputs = dict(
input_ids=input_ids, input_mask=input_mask, segment_ids=segment_ids # H
)
if self.pooling == "first":
pooled = self.bert(inputs=bert_inputs, signature="tokens", as_dict=True)[
"pooled_output"
]
elif self.pooling == "mean":
result = self.bert(inputs=bert_inputs, signature="tokens", as_dict=True)[
"sequence_output"
]
mul_mask = lambda x, m: x * tf.expand_dims(m, axis=-1) # I
masked_reduce_mean = lambda x, m: tf.reduce_sum(mul_mask(x, m), axis=1) / (
tf.reduce_sum(m, axis=1, keepdims=True) + 1e-10)
input_mask = tf.cast(input_mask, tf.float32)
pooled = masked_reduce_mean(result, input_mask)
else:
raise NameError("Undefined pooling type")
return pooled
def compute_output_shape(self, input_shape):
return (input_shape[0], self.output_size)
# A Default number of top layers to unfreeze for training
# B Choice of regularization type
# C Pretrained model to use, this is the large uncased original version of the model
# D BERT embedding dimension, i.e., size of resulting output semantic vectors
# E Remove unused layers
# F Enforce number of unfrozen layers to fine-tune
# G Trainable weights
# H Inputs to BERT take a very specific triplet form, we will show how to generate it in the next Listing
# I BERT “masks” some words and then attempts to predict them as learning target
Unlike ELMo, we need to convert the input list of strings into 3 arrays — input ids, input masks and segment ids — prior to feeding them to the BERT model. The code for doing this is shown in Listing 4. Having converted the data into the right format, we use the remaining code in the same Listing 4 to build and train the Keras BERT Tensorflow hub model.
Listing 4. Code for converting data to form expected by BERT hub model, additionally for building and training it.
def build_model(max_seq_length): # A
in_id = tf.keras.layers.Input(shape=(max_seq_length,), name="input_ids")
in_mask = tf.keras.layers.Input(shape=(max_seq_length,), name="input_masks")
in_segment = tf.keras.layers.Input(shape=(max_seq_length,), name="segment_ids")
bert_inputs = [in_id, in_mask, in_segment]
bert_output = BertLayer(n_fine_tune_layers=0)(bert_inputs) # B
dense = tf.keras.layers.Dense(256, activation="relu")(bert_output)
pred = tf.keras.layers.Dense(1, activation="sigmoid")(dense)
model = tf.keras.models.Model(inputs=bert_inputs, outputs=pred)
model.compile(loss="binary_crossentropy", optimizer="adam", metrics=["accuracy"])
model.summary()
return model
def initialize_vars(sess): # C
sess.run(tf.local_variables_initializer())
sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer())
sess.run(tf.tables_initializer())
K.set_session(sess)
bert_path = "https://tfhub.dev/google/bert_uncased_L-12_H-768_A-12/1"
tokenizer = create_tokenizer_from_hub_module(bert_path) # D
train_examples = convert_text_to_examples(train_x, train_y) # E
test_examples = convert_text_to_examples(test_x, test_y)
# Convert to features
(train_input_ids,train_input_masks,train_segment_ids,train_labels) = convert_examples_to_features(tokenizer, train_examples, max_seq_length=maxtokens) # F
(test_input_ids,test_input_masks,test_segment_ids,test_labels) = convert_examples_to_features(tokenizer, test_examples, max_seq_length=maxtokens)
model = build_model(maxtokens) # G
initialize_vars(sess) # H
history = model.fit([train_input_ids, train_input_masks, train_segment_ids],# I
train_labels,validation_data=([test_input_ids, test_input_masks,
test_segment_ids],test_labels), epochs=5, batch_size=32)
# A Function for building model
# B We do not retrain any BERT layers, but rather use the pretrained model as an embedding and retrain some new layers on top of it
# C Vanilla tensorflow initialization calls
# D Create compatible tokenizer using function in BERT source repo
# E Convert data to “InputExample” format using function in BERT source repo
# F Convert InputExample format into triplet final BERT input format, using function in BERT source repo
# G Build the model
# H Instantiate variables
# I Train model
Similarly to the ELMo model we built in the previous subsection, we put a pair of layers on top of the pretrained model and only train those, which amounts to about 200 thousand parameters. With hyperparameters set at comparable values validation accuracies of approximately 77% and 71% for the email and movie review classification problems respectively were achieved (within 5 epochs).
Optimizing Performance
Taking a look at the performance results of the various algorithms from the previous sections, we might be tempted to make conclusions right away about which algorithm is the best-performing for each problem we looked at.
We must remember that we only know this to be true for sure at the hyperparameter settings at which we initially evaluated the algorithms, i.e., Nsamp = 1000, maxtokens = 50, maxtokenlen = 20 , in addition to any algorithm-specific default parameter values. These are the number of samples per class in training data, maximum number of tokens per sample and maximum token length, respectively. In order to be able to make general statements, we need to explore the space of hyperparameters more thoroughly, by evaluating the performance of all algorithms at many hyperparameter settings, a process typically referred to as hyperparameter tuning or optimization. It may be that the best performance found through this process for each algorithm changes their performance ranking, and in general this helps us achieve better accuracies on our problems of interest.
Manual Hyperparameter Tuning
Hyperparameter tuning is often initially performed in a manual way driven by intuition. We describe such an approach here, for the hyperparameters Nsamp, maxtokens and maxtokenlen which are general across all the algorithms we considered.
Let’s first assume that the initial amount of data trained with, i.e., with Nsamp=1000 , is all the data we have. We hypothesize that if we increase the number of tokens in the data for each document, i.e., maxtokens , and increase the maximum length of any such token, i.e., maxtokenlen , we can increase the amount of signal for making the classification decision and thereby the resulting accuracy.
For the email classification problem, we first increase both of these, from values of 50 and 20 respectively, to 100 each. Accuracy results for doing this for logistic regression (LR), support vector machines (SVMs), random forests (RFs), gradient boosting machines (GBMs), ELMo and BERT are shown in second data row of Table 1. Furthermore, we increase maxtokens further to 200 to yield the results in the third data row of Table 1.
We see based on this that, although SVMs is clearly the worst performing classifier for this problem, logistic regression, ELMo, and BERT can achieve nearly perfect performance. Note that ELMo is the clear winner in the presence of more signal, something we would have missed without the optimization step. The simplicity and speed of logistic regression would likely result in it being picked as the classifier of choice for this email classification problem.
Table 1. Comparison of algorithm accuracies at different general hyperparameter settings explored during the manual tuning process for the email classification example.
We now repeat a similar sequence of hyperparameter testing steps for the IMDB movie review classification problem, i.e., we first increase maxtokens and maxtokenlen to 100 each, and then increase maxtokens further to 200. The resulting algorithm performances are listed in Table 2, along with the performances at the initial hyperparameter settings.
BERT proves to be the best model for this problem across the board, followed by ELMo and logistic regression. Observe that this problem has more headroom for improvement, consistent with our earlier observation that this is a harder problem than email classification. This leads us to hypothesize that pretrained knowledge transfer is more impactful for harder problems, which makes intuitive sense. This is also consistent with general advice which stipulates that neural network models are likely to be preferable to other approaches when significant labelled data is available, assuming the problem to be solved are complex enough for the additional data to be needed in the first place.
Table 2. Comparison of algorithm accuracies at different general hyperparameter settings explored during the manual tuning process for the IMDB movie review classification example.
Systematic Hyperparameter Tuning
A number of tools exist for more systematic and exhaustive hyperparameter searches on ranges of hyperparameters. These include Python methods GridSearchCV , which performs an exhaustive search over a specified parameter grid, and HyperOpt, which does a random search over parameter ranges. Here, we present code for using GridSearchCV to tune an algorithm of choice as an illustrative example. Note that we tune only some internal algorithm-specific hyperparameters in this exercise, with the general ones we tuned in the last subsection fixed, for simplicity of illustration.
We pick email classification with RF at the initial general hyperparameter settings as our illustrative example. The reason for this choice is that it takes about a second for each fit of this algorithm on this problem, and because the grid search performs a lot of fits, this is an example that can be executed quickly for the most learning value for the reader.
We first import the required method and check which RF hyperparameters are available for tuning:
from sklearn.model_selection import GridSearchCV # A
print("Available hyper-parameters for systematic tuning available with RF:")
print(clf.get_params()) # B
# A GridSeachCV scikit-learn import statement
# B clf is the RF classifier from Listing 2.13
This yields the output:
{'bootstrap': True, 'class_weight': None, 'criterion': 'gini', 'max_depth': None, 'max_features': 'auto', 'max_leaf_nodes': None, 'min_impurity_decrease': 0.0, 'min_impurity_split': None, 'min_samples_leaf': 1, 'min_samples_split': 2, 'min_weight_fraction_leaf': 0.0, 'n_estimators': 10, 'n_jobs': 1, 'oob_score': False, 'random_state': 0, 'verbose': 0, 'warm_start': False}
We pick three of these HPs to search over and specify three values for each of them:
param_grid = {
'min_samples_leaf': [1, 2, 3],
'min_samples_split': [2, 6, 10],
'n_estimators': [10, 100, 1000]
}
We then carry out the Grid Search, using the following code, making sure to print out final test accuracy and best hyperparameter values:
grid_search = GridSearchCV(estimator = clf, param_grid = param_grid,
cv = 3, n_jobs = -1, verbose = 2) # A
grid_search.fit(train_x, train_y) # B
print("Best parameters found:") # C
print(grid_search.best_params_)
print("Estimated accuracy is:")
acc_score = accuracy_score(test_y, grid_search.best_estimator_.predict(test_x))
print(acc_score)
# A Define grid search object with specified hyperparameter grid
# B Fit the grid search to the data
# C Display results
This experiment required training the classifier at 3*3*3=27 points, because each of the three hyperparameter grids has three requested points on it. The overall experiment took under five minutes to complete, and yielded an accuracy of 95.7%. This is an improvement of more than a one percent boost over the original score of 94.5%. The raw output from the code is shown below, specifying best HP values:
Best parameters found:
{'min_samples_leaf': 2, 'min_samples_split': 10, 'n_estimators': 1000}
Estimated accuracy is:
0.9566666666666667
Indeed, when we performed the tuning across the board on all classifiers, we found that we could boost the performance of each by 1–2%, without affecting the conclusions on the best classifier for the problem that was reached in the previous subsection.
That’s all for this article. If you want to learn more about the book, you can check it out on our browser-based liveBook reader here. | https://medium.com/@manningbooks/getting-started-with-baselines-b9324f84e183 | ['Manning Publications'] | 2020-12-16 08:16:39.042000+00:00 | ['Naturallanguageprocessing', 'Deep Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'NLP', 'Transfer Learning'] |
HOQU on EOS: Getting Started | Dear community!
The HOQU platform version on EOS is already running on the main network!
HOQU is an ecosystem for affiliate marketing that integrates webmasters, advertisers and the network into a single platform.
Key features and benefits of the HOQU platform on EOS:
The ability to create or register your network on the HOQU platform;
A common base of webmasters and advertisers, thanks to which advertisers and webmasters have the opportunity to interact with almost all networks on the platform;
The transparency and honesty of the actions of all platform participants through the use of smart contracts, as well as transaction security.
Low commission (0.5% of the reward for a confirmed lead)
Transparent rating system.
Registration on the platform
Registration on the platform is available via the following link: login.hoqu.io
Select the registration application appropriate for your role:
Webmaster
Advertiser
Network
The following authorization methods are available for registration in each application:
Registration by email
2. Sign Up with Scatter
Registration by email
To register using email, you must fill in the data in the window that appears.
The account name must be 12 characters long.
Note: EOS allows you to use unique names (account names) for token transfers.
If an account with the name you entered already exists on the EOS network, then you will see an error indicating that this account is already registered.
Accordingly, if the given name for the account is already taken, then it is necessary to choose another combination of characters.
If you want to use an account that already exists on the EOS network to work with the platform, then we recommend using Scatter to register with the application.
After successfully filling in the form, you must proceed to the next step.
2. Next, you need to generate keys and link them to your account.
Note: To use an EOS account as a wallet (for payment), you must bind at least one pair of private-public keys to it.
On the page that opens, click Generate Key, after which a pair of keys will be automatically generated, which will be associated with your EOS account upon completion of registration.
The generated key pair must be securely stored. Then click Register.
3. Email Verification
To complete the registration, you must confirm the email by following the instructions sent to the address you specified during registration.
After the email is confirmed, the account will be sent for approval. Why is this step necessary? To work with the HOQU platform on EOS, you must have an account registered on the EOS network. Therefore, after and in case of approval of the account being created, the HOQU team will independently create for you an account on the EOS network with the same name. Then you get full access to the application.
Note: Use Scatter to register an account on the platform by skipping the approval step. You will thus be creating an account on your own.
In the future, you will also be able to log in to the platform using your email address to log into an account that you have already registered.
Scatter
Scatter is an analogue of MetaMask for the EOS network. It creates a secure access to the wallet without the need to show the private key each time.
To work with Scatter, you must have an account on EOS with keys attached to it. We will describe the scheme of working with Scatter below in more detail.
Install and run:
Follow the link, download, install and run Scatter.
When you first start, you need to think up and enter the password twice, which you will need later to enter Scatter.
Next, Scatter will generate 12 words that need to be copied and stored securely.
After agreeing to the terms of use, you will be asked to make a backup, with which you also need to agree.
2. Import the keys.
To get started, Scatter will ask for a key, which you also need to agree on by providing one of the keys.
Click Add Keys →Import key →Text →Enter the private key from the key pair → Confirm.
After successful import of the key pair, a window will open where you can view information relating to these keys, as well as carry out settings.
The Key name field will contain the automatically generated name for the key, which, if desired, can be easily changed, as was done in the example.
Click on the Back button, which is located in the upper left corner, and go to the main window. In the field to the left, you will see the Key name of the key just imported. The number of linked accounts will be indicated below.
Scatter allows you to work simultaneously with multiple accounts. If you need to add another account, click: Add Keys →Import key → Text → Enter the private key of the key pair associated with the account you want to add.
3. Creating an account in the HOQU app using Scatter.
Select Scatter as the authorization method.
If at least one account is configured in Scatter, a window will appear allowing you to select an account for authorization. If Scatter remembers your account, then this step will be skipped.
For authorization, you must click on login near the selected account.
Thus, if the account is used for authorization for the first time, then after authorization it will be associated with the role under which you have entered. For example, if you are logged in as a merchant for the first time, then this account can later be used only for authorization as a merchant. To enter another application / role, you will need to create another account.
After selecting the account in the window that appears in the Scatter, click Allow.
Note: secret is a random number generated automatically at each authorization. Used by internal platform logic to verify account ownership.
After you give permission, the application that interests you will open.
How to change an account to access another application.
With successful authorization, Scatter will remember your authorization. If you open Scatter, you will find information about it on the main application window.
This means that Scatter remembered the account that was used for actions on login.hoqu.io.
Therefore, if you want to use another account, then you need to delete this data from Scatter. To do this, just click on the symbol that resembles a basket next to the saved authorization method.
How to get started with the platform
HOQU for Affiliates
To work with the platform, you need to:
1. Fill in the profile data (Account → Profile).
2. Join the network (more details in the Affiliate Networks section).
3. Create an advertising campaign for a specific offer of the network.
After the campaign is created, the affiliate will receive an affiliate link to which the traffic is sent as part of this campaign. Users following this link to the merchant’s website will take actions, including targeted ones, and the affiliate will receive rewards for them.
Leads in the HOQU platform will be recorded at the time the target action is performed with its parameters being determined in the conditions of the offer.
HOQU for Merchants
To work with the platform you need to:
1. Fill in the profile (Account → Profile).
2. Join the network (more details in the Affiliate Networks section).
To join the affiliate network, you must select a network and send a request to join the network. The application will be immediately sent to the representatives of the selected network. After the network approves the application, the network manager will contact the merchant.
3. Provide data for creating offers
The network you joined creates an offer for you. The merchant must provide all the materials to create an offer.
4. Confirm the offer created by the network, to activate the offer.
5. Conduct integration, or add integration codes from the HOQU platform to your resource. Integration instructions will be available later in the Help center, as well as on the offer card.
6. Have a positive balance on your wallet.
HOQU for Affiliate Networks
To start working with the platform you need to:
Fill in the network data.
To work on the HOQU platform, the network owner must fill in the network data.
2. The network can set up special settings for joining, as well as add managers to its network.
You can view all applications for joining your network in the Participants section and accept the merchant’s / affiliate’s application, or reject it altogether.
3. Only the network can create an offer in the system, which subsequently becomes attached to a specific merchant. The offer itself is created on the basis of information provided by the merchant. Before the offer is made available to affiliates, it must first be confirmed by the merchant.
After the offer is activated, the affiliate will be able to create an offer campaign and get an affiliate link. Information about existing campaigns can be found in the Campaigns section.
When creating an offer, the network can indicate in the settings Working conditions: Publicity. In this case, when the affiliate creates the campaign, the campaign will first be moderated. The network conducts moderation and only after that the affiliate gets an affiliate link.
Key sections of the application
1. Leads
A lead is a target action of a potential client, which is defined in the offer.
To view information about leads, go to the Leads section. This page will display a list of your leads with such data as: ID, status, date, offer, payout.
The merchant/ affiliate/ network can view information on leads in the “Leads” section and reports on this section by day and by offers.
2. Dashboard
The merchant/ affiliate/ network can view basic information in the Dashboard section, which shows general information on the system in the form of graphs (earnings / payments / merchant’s costs/ affiliate’s earnings / conversion) and tables.
3. In the Analytics section you can see the earnings / payments and conversion analytics.
4. Offers
The offer is an merchant’s advertising offer, which is entered into an affiliate network.
The offer is created for the merchant via an application to the network.
The offer includes:
Basic data (name, category, type, description, rules)
Links
Conditions of work (level of publicity of the offer, Level of the affiliate, waiting time)
Settings (country, status, traffic sources, logo, targeting, limits)
5. Affiliate networks
How to join a network?
To join a network, go to Networks → All networks.
In the general list of networks, it is possible to view information about each network and join the one of interest. In order to join a network, you must click on the Join button on the network card. If the network has the Auto Confirmation setting, then the merchant automatically joins the network. If this setting is not present, then the application for connection will be immediately sent to the network. The merchant can work with different networks.
The network can set the settings for joining. If you do not meet the requirements of the network to join, you will not be able to join this network.
How to disconnect from a network?
In order to disconnect from the network, you must select Networks → My Networks.
On the network card you want to leave, click on the “Leave” button.
If you already have offers on the network you want to leave, then all active offers will be deactivated when you disconnect from the network.
6. Tickets
If any questions arise, the merchant/ affiliate can ask the network using the ticket system (you can create a ticket using the side menu of our interface: Support →Tickets section). In addition, each affiliate or merchant is assigned a network manager, whose contacts are displayed in the Support → Personal Manager section, which can also be contacted to resolve issues.
All questions relating to the operation of the platform, suggestions and comments can be sent to the email [email protected]. In addition, for a quick consultation, the affiliate networks can use the chat in the application for networks,that will be available in the near future. | https://blog.hoqu.io/hoqu-on-eos-getting-started-25b3a04ec8a2 | [] | 2019-04-29 10:32:05.050000+00:00 | ['Affiliate Marketing', 'Getting Started', 'Blockchain', 'Eos', 'Hoqu News'] |
Signs, Trends, and Mistakes to avoid — All about Bathroom Renovation | Bathrooms are one of the most used rooms in the building, so it’s understandable that you want them to feel and look as opulent as possible. If you’re looking for Bathroom Renovations Brighton, follow the below guidelines to ensure the best results.
Signs you may need a bathroom renovation:
You are disappointed with your bathroom — If you go into your bathroom every day and groan, it’s a clear indication that a renovation is in order. You may have only one pet peeve, and that pet peeve is ruining the atmosphere in your room. One benefit of a bathroom renovation is that minor changes will enhance the appearance of your bathroom.
You’re moving to a new house — If you’ve recently chosen to sell and move, a bathroom renovation will give your home a competitive advantage and improve its overall value.
Your bathroom is outdated — If you’ve had the same bathroom for 70 or 80 years, chances are it’s starting to look a little worn out, and a bathroom renovation might breathe new life into space.
The most recent bathroom renovation trends:
Papered walls — Background wallpapers have recently undergone a resurgence. It is now possible to use new types of wallpaper in a wet and steamy environment. Many homeowners and decorators don’t want to miss out on the ability to decorate their bathrooms with fun and colourful designs now that ventilation systems have improved. Consider using light floral or geometric patterns on your tile wainscoting.
Bathtub shapes — You are way behind the times if you assume there is only one regular kind of bathtub! Bathtubs come in several bizarre forms in the most sophisticated bathroom designs, including those designed to use less water and those designed to hold the body comfortably.
Soft edges — Bathroom designers are moving away from minimalism’s rough edges and straight lines today. Softer, more natural looks are becoming increasingly common. Curved storage units, shower stalls, and vanities are becoming more common due to the added comfort.
Asymmetry — Although symmetrical placements are historically accepted as a prerequisite for all interiors, many designers have recently experimented with harmonised asymmetry to create very appealing designs. Use subtle touches, including unusually spaced tiles and overhanging sinks, to integrate this pattern into your bathroom.
Customisable Toilets — The new toilet designs include a range of adjustable choices that make the toilet more available to people of all ages, heights, and disabilities. Some toilets also take cultural preferences into account, encouraging users to stand, sit, or squat.
Stop these blunders at all costs.
Make sure you have enough access to your plumbing at all times. It’s unlikely that you’ll be pleased if the plumber has to hack into a wall or dig up your tiles just to get to the channels.
However,
Having sufficient storage would make your room more practical, comfortable, and efficient. Bear in mind that you’ll need to find storage space when you’re done with Bathroom Renovations Sandringham for various products and objects. | https://medium.com/@studio45/signs-trends-and-mistakes-to-avoid-all-about-bathroom-renovation-b3720b1197a9 | ['Krish Smith'] | 2021-03-22 08:46:12.445000+00:00 | ['Construction', 'Bathroom Renovations', 'Home Improvement'] |
Modularizing the logic of your Vue.js Application | As an application grows, it is, unfortunately, common to see poorly designed components, with a lot of duplicate code, business logic scattered across methods, complex logic embedded in the templates, and so on. The components become large, brittle, and hard to change and test. The application becomes increasingly hard to evolve, sometimes reaching a point where the developers are eager to start from scratch, preferring a costly and risky rewrite than handling the current application state.
It doesn’t have to be that way. We can and should do better. In this article, we will discuss moving the bulk of the application’s business logic into a functional core that will be easy to reuse, easy to test and change, and which will lead to smaller, leaner, and more maintainable components.
We will pick up from where we left in our previous article, so you might want to check that first if you still haven’t.
Interfaces and Functional Modules instead of Classes
When we discussed adopting TypeScript in Vue.js applications, we took a somewhat unconventional route. Instead of modeling our data around classes, we have defined very lean interfaces to add type-annotations to our data. We have only used the fields that make up our objects in the interfaces — we have not mentioned methods or any operation over the data yet.
This article does not aim at doing an in-depth debate about Functional vs. Object-Oriented programming paradigms. Both have pros and cons, but I tend to prefer a functional style, because it is easier to follow and to test, in my opinion. Thus, we will use a functional approach to build our application core, and we will try to show how it leads to a modular, testable, and reusable codebase.
We will continue developing the simplified Invoice application that we started in the previous article.
Planning the app functionality
Before we jump right into the code, let’s talk about what functionalities we need in our application. In a real scenario, we would probably receive the requirements from a task description developed by a product team, or, if working on a side-project that we fully control, we would define that ourselves.
For our simple app, we will need ways to create and manipulate invoices. This will involve adding, removing, and changing line items, selecting products, and setting rates and quantities. We will also need a way to instantiate User and Product objects easily.
As we did for the types definitions, we want a modular way of building these functionalities.
Building our modules
We will put our modules inside a modules directory under src . We will split the functionality into as many files as it is sensible to do, grouping related functionality into single modules.
Let’s start with the User and Product modules:
User module
Product module
These two modules are very simple and similar, but they serve as a container for all the functionality related to users or products we might need down the road. Even though it looks that we are repeating code, we should not try to unify these create functions in any way — that would cause coupling between unrelated concepts and would make the code harder to change.
Notice how we have defined default values for all the parameters. This will allow us to call the create functions without passing arguments and still have a valid object of the appropriate type.
One thing you might be concerned about the code above is that we are listing all of the fields as individual parameters. We only have a couple of arguments in each of the create function, but the number of parameters could grow a lot as we make our models more complex. We will ignore it for now, but we will revisit this when we discuss defining a clear application boundary in a future article.
Even though we have declared the LineItem interface in the same file as the Invoice , we will use a separate file for the Invoice and LineItem modules. We could group the invoice and the line item modules using a directory, but we will keep it simple and flat for now. You can use any folder structure that suits your particular situation.
The lineItem module will be pretty simple as well:
LineItem module
Let’s move on to the Invoice module now. It will be a more complex module, so we are going to stub out the functions before implementing them.
Invoice module stub
Developing the Invoice module with TDD
When we modify the line items in an invoice, by adding, removing, or changing a line item, we have to recalculate the invoice total. This is critical data in our application — we cannot afford to have the wrong amount calculated for the invoice — so we should test the invoice module thoroughly. With our modular core logic, it will be pretty straightforward to add tests.
When we scaffolded this app, we didn’t add any of the unit test features available, but vue-cli makes it very easy to add plugins to existing projects. We will use jest to write our tests, and we can add it to our project by running:
$ vue add unit-jest
That will take care of installing and configuring jest to work in a Vue project. Let’s write a few tests for our Invoice module.
Invoice module tests
These tests are a little bit lengthy, but they are easy to follow. We start by ensuring that our create function in the invoice module returns an empty invoice. Then we move on to test the other parts of our Invoice module. We have added a testData function to help creating objects used in the tests.
In a production-grade application, we would add more tests, especially to cover edge cases, making sure our module would work in every possible scenario. But for this article, this is good enough.
We should now run these tests:
Failing tests
As expected, the tests fail because we haven’t implemented our functions yet. Let’s do that now.
Invoice module implementation
We have created two helper functions to avoid repeating code. The first one was the calculateTotal function. It takes the invoice and returns the total amount. It does so by first calculating the subtotal for each line item, using a new function we have added to the LineItem module, then summing all the line item totals. Let's see what the LineItem module looks like now.
Adding the calculateLineTotal function to the LineItem module
The calculateLineTotal function is very simple. It just multiplies the rate by the quantity. Still, having it in a separate function makes our code easier to follow and easier to change.
Back to the invoice module, we can see that the setLineItem helper function takes an invoice and a list of line items and then returns an updated invoice with the given line items and the calculated total amount.
With these helper functions in place, implementing our public functions is very simple — they just need to generate the new list of line items (based on the operation) and use the helper functions to return an updated invoice.
And now our tests pass!
Tests now succeed
Using the modules in a Vue component
Let’s rewrite our createInvoice method in the HelloWorld.vue component, just to have a taste of how we use our modules in a component.
Again, this is a contrived example, but it already looks better than before. We now have the objects with the appropriate type from the modules’ create functions (instead of having just the type inference). In a more realistic scenario, the user would be the authenticated user; the product would come from some selector that reads from a product list; the rate and quantity would be set in the UI using inputs; and it would be possible to add/remove/update line items directly in the UI. We will build those components in the next article.
Wrapping up
At this point, we can have a fair degree of confidence that our invoice related logic is working. We should probably add some more tests, but we have a great baseline to develop our invoice application.
We have built a solid functional core for our application logic. We are not spreading the business rules across components and, when the time comes to wire this functionality up with the UI, the components will end up being a skinny layer to connect the user actions to our core modules.
Let me know what you think of this approach in the comments!
Shameless Plug: If you liked this article and there are openings in your company, I’m currently looking for a job as a Senior Full Stack Engineer. You can check my Linkedin and drop me a line at vinicius0026 at gmail dot com if you think I’m a good fit. Cheers! 😃 | https://medium.com/swlh/modularizing-the-logic-of-your-vue-js-application-5b920e17c25e | ['Vinicius Teixeira'] | 2020-06-02 16:16:51.759000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Typescript', 'Vuejs'] |
The Long Tail: The Future of Marketing | A Brief History of The Longtail
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. It’s a book that talks about the history of The Long Tail and where we are heading. Jeff Bezos coined the term’ The Long Tail and Chris Anderson wrote a book about it.
We obsess over hit’s what’s hot and what’s not and the rise and fall of them. The mass market is now turning into a mass of niches. Hits are great, but niches are emerging as the new big market. We had a relatively small pool of hit content. You either made it or you didn’t. know it’s no longer the case.
In traditional retail, what’s going to sell a lot is what mattered. Here they weren’t interested in the infrequent sellers. They wasted space, and space counts for money. The Retail Stores would only store the hits and the Top of the Mark products. Retailers were leaving so much money on the table because they could only accommodate so much.
This was the breakthrough that led to companies such as Amazon, Netflix, and iTunes. Here space costs nothing, and you could look at the infrequent sellers again. This was the birth of The Long Tail.
The Economics of the traditional market soon ran out of steam and gave way to the digital space. The Era of One Size fits all was on the decline, and the market of niches was on the rise. The culture has shifted from following the crowd to finding your own style.
What happens when everything becomes available to everyone? The Long Tail. You are now no longer bound to a few select options but can make your decisions based on a plethora of choices.
The availability of The Long Tail economics became clear through the databases of Google, Netflix, Amazon and iTunes.
The idea of the long tail is to not try to cater to everyone. You don’t have to serve the masses you just have to have a small devoted audience to have success.
The Long Tail Explained
Think of the X-axis as the products and the Y-axis as the sales or popularity. Now the left-hand spectrum represents the hits, while the right-hand spectrum represents a niche audience.
The Head comprises the top sellers, record hits and blockbuster movies.
The left end does the most sales and is highly popular, but that doesn’t mean you neglect the right end. The curve seems to taper as the rank goes down, and this is the long tail. Do not ignore the long tail. The riches are in the niches.
There are clearly more niche goods than there are hits, and the aggregate of the niche goods could be equal to or even more than the hits. The Tail, when aggregated, leads to a significant market. Smaller things have a larger scale impact.
The cost of reaching those niche goods is falling dramatically, and we must give consumers ways to find them via recommendations and filters.
The demand curve is flat but infinitely long. With The Long Tail people actually search for what you are offering, rather than you telling them this is what I do.
Netflix, Amazon and iTunes are always ahead of the brick and mortar stores because they have a wide range of products that aren’t available in the physical retail stores (niche good’s). It’s funny, but we always want something that’s not available or something we don’t have.
Most of our potential customers lie somewhere along the tail. Our job is to find them.
The Breakthrough
For the first time in history, both the hits and misses are on the same economic footing. Both are equally worthy of being carried. The Quest for mass market acceptance is no longer the norm.
Long Tail products not only account for most of the sales but because they’re often cheaper to acquire, they can be very profitable as long as we keep inventory costs to a minimum.
The Breakthrough of The Long Tail occurred in these major stages.
Amazon changed the Books Industry (Physical goods)
Netflix changed the movies and television industry
iTunes changed the music industry (Digital goods)
Google changed the advertising industry (advertising services)
The major rules of the long tail are to make everything available to everyone and help people to find it. The above-mentioned companies follow this principle to perfection.
Long Tail in action
In 1988, a mountaineer Joe Simpson wrote a book touching the void. His near-fatal but successful climb of the Peruvian Andes. It was a modest success, but soon forgotten.
A decade later John Krakauer wrote a book into thin air another mountain-climbing thriller. It became a publishing sensation and suddenly, touching the void which didn’t see the light of day for years started to sell again.
By mid-2004, touching the void began outselling into thin air by 2 to 1. The reason? Online word of mouth led to this phenomenon. When into thin air came out, people who had read touching the void wrote reviews that pointed out the similarities.
What’s popular today might be defunct tomorrow, and what’s not popular today might be tomorrow’s sensation. This is the underlying principle of the long tail.
More than a quarter of Amazon’s book sales come back from outside of its top 100,000 title’s. 70% of the books are long-tailed.
The Future
The Barriers of entry has significantly reduced compared to a couple of decades ago. People now can create. The PC has leveled the playing field. Everyone now can be a producer or a publisher, with the internet serving as the distributor. The tools of production are now transparent and everyone can create. The middleman no longer exists.
News has left the paper age, podcasting has taken over radio and even I read this book on my computer screen. Who Knows What the Future Holds? | https://medium.com/@muthusblog/the-long-tail-the-future-of-marketing-6f37bb230afd | ['Muthuraja Ramachandar'] | 2021-03-10 10:42:46.541000+00:00 | ['Marketing Strategies', 'Marketing', 'Book Recommendations', 'Books', 'Book Review'] |
A Letter to my Younger Self. Dear Younger Self, | Dear Younger Self,
So, you’re about to graduate and soon hit the world of work… congratulations! You’ve hopefully made some solid friendships and picked up a load of life skills along the way. Now to get a flattering graduation photo to upload on Instagram and caption it “Uni? Completed it mate.” and figure out how you’re gunna prevent being discombobulated by the enigmatic puzzle known as life!
Now let’s get into it. Firstly, stop using words like discombobulated and enigmatic. You sound silly. Secondly, and probably the most important thing to get in order, is management of your personal finances. No longer are the days of reckless spending without proper due care of a longer term plan. So how do you manage and maximise your finances? Sure, track your spending and set aside budgets if you like. But central to this conundrum is being able to negotiate as much as possible. I thought Bengali’s were the best at this when at Whitechapel market I saw a man bargain a £5 fish down to £1 fish (yes, I sang the song in my head just now too), until last summer I ACTUALLY saw an Egyptian man (the seller) say “usually I would sell this item for £20 but for you habibi just £3”. And this was before the buyer had even opened his mouth!
Ok end of jokes. In all seriousness, there must be a lot of things on your mind right now, each bringing their own bout of emotions from excitement, uncertainty and anxiety. I won’t underestimate the importance of this transitional time, and neither should you.
Going forward, you’ll face several situations where you’ll have to make difficult decisions. Should I take this job? Should I marry this person? Should I trust this overly friendly Arab man trying to sell me this supposedly £20 umbrella for £3?. Precision in thought is important. But it’s one of the hardest things to have. Yet such is the beauty of our religion that Allah ﷻ has provided us solutions. One of the most powerful tools through istikhara. The beauty of this is that whatever course you take, it was according to Allah’s ﷻ guidance and there are blessings even if you cannot see it or make sense of it.
And you shouldn’t reduce it just for the biggie decisions. Did you know, the sahabah used to pray istikhara for everyday mundane situations such as what shoe laces to buy at the market!
There’ll be many times when you’ll question the direction you’re taking, no doubt. So don’t let the future terrify you, and be confident in the plan of Allah ﷻ, the best of all planners.
And be mindful of the following. Life is not lived in isolation and you essentially have three relationships. They can be categorised as such:
You and Yourself You and Others i.e. people/surroundings You and Allah ﷻ
Most people you’ll interact with in the workplace (unless you’re joining a religious institution/organisation) won’t have that last one let alone given it any thought. And that’s THE most powerful of them all, and transcends the first two relationships (as you’ve hopefully see below!) Inextricably linked. There’s so much to say on each one, but I hope the following advices may be beneficial to you:
You and Yourself
Take care of your body —follow the mantra trio eat well, exercise and sleep well. These three things are VITAL to all round healthy state whereby one can maximise productivity, energy and general mood throughout the day. Practical advice — try and become a morning person; start your day after Fajr as is the Sunnah of our Prophet saw. This is one of the best things that’ll revolutionise your life (trust me, I’m from the future). You’ll have a head start on the rest of the world, start your day having already accomplished things, and you’ll get so much more from your day.
Take care of your MIND — a seriously underestimated. Be wary of shaytaan’s ploys in polluting your mind, especially through internal dialogue = “ugh I’m not good enough for this”, “I’ll never be as good as X”, “I’m never going to be able to cope”.. etc. Remember purpose — why Allah ﷻ created us.
Many a time it’ll be tough to keep up with life demands and resultantly you may find your emaan dip. Practical Tip: Fill your daily thoughts with Dhikr, whether it be walking or in your commute, beautiful supplications such as Subhanallahi Wa Bihamdihi, Subhanallaihl Azeem. Regulate your social media use but when you do use it, subscribe to beneficial accounts, these little niblets of knowledge can go a long way to keeping yourself immersed in remembrance and It’ll also keep you mindful of staying away from harmful content.
You and People
Maintain a strong relationship with family, particularly your parents. Continue finding ways to make your parents proud! If you’ve done something good at work, don’t shy away from telling them about it. If you find it hard to express emotion with either or both your parents, there are many ways to show affection, such as asking them how they are and going to them for advice. Take heed of the importance of being dutiful and honouring parents, and the status that is given to them in our religion. Also keep positive relations with their friends and siblings. Always be mindful you are a role model to your younger siblings whether its noticeable or not, spend a lot of time with them, be patient, teaching them and showing your love.
Always remember that you are an ambassador of Islam, and your non-Muslim colleagues will learn a lot through you. Be polite, smile, forgive others. Always seek to embody the sunnah of our beloved Prophet ﷺ who practiced sakeenah in his daily life — not calling people from afar, walking leisurely yet with purpose, being gentle and patient. And keep good friends and companions who remind you of Allah ﷻ, and be that friend to others too.
And wherever you go, always try to leave something of benefit, whether its knowledge you shared, a Qur’an in the Masjid, a charitable donation or even a kind word to a resident.
You and Allah ﷻ
و يمكرون و يمكر الله و الله خير الماكرين
But they plan and Allah plans, and Allah is the best of planners (8:30)
This really is the key one of them all. The winning formula. A somewhat famous saying that many scholars cite is that “if you want to speak to Allah, then pray, and if you want Allah to speak to you, then read the Qur’an”, both of which is accessible to you. Always keep your intentions pure and for the sake of Allah ﷻ, and don’t just make it something you remind yourself at the beginning of a course of action, but consistently remind yourself and correct it. Remember you can do whatever you put your mind to. It might mean taking a step back from active front line extracurricular work, but so long as your intention is pure, you’ll still get rewarded and be able to dedicate later years to community, personal study etc. Intentions truly are a big secret to success.
Our beloved Prophet Muhammad ﷺ has given us his lived experience and advice on how to navigate all three of the relationship types above, and through him was delivered the best guidance of them all — that is the book of Allah ﷻ, the holy Qur’an. Make this your best friend. Spend some time really understanding and pondering.
Abu Hurairah narrated that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
“Allah, the Most High said: ‘I am as My slave thinks of Me, and I am with him when he remembers Me. If he remembers Me to himself, I remember him to Myself, and if he remembers Me in a gathering, I remember him in a gathering better than that. And if he seeks to draw nearer to Me by a hand span, I draw nearer to him by a forearm’s length, and if he comes to Me by a forearm’s length, I draw nearer to him by an arm’s length. And if he comes to Me walking, I come to him quickly.’”
Let me sign off this letter by asking the following question: If I were to ask you, rhetorically, what is the sweetest thing in this life, for you, at this moment– what would you say? Is it your family and enjoy their company? Is it your good health? Is it having a roof over your head? Is it your ability to travel and see the world and all its beauty? Have a think about it before you read on.
In many respects, these are all noble responses. These are all blessings that we have, that many in the world do not. Now for those who do not have a way of life, i.e. a purpose or an aqeedah, would many of them not respond the same way? Would they not say the same things?
So what it is that differentiates our responses, as Muslims? It is our ability to recognise the source of these blessings — which they come from Allah ﷻ the almighty. It is our ability to know that what we do have or what we don’t have is all decreed by Allah ﷻ, the provider of all good. Always be mindful of this, to be thankful and to glorify Allah ﷻ.
Ibn al Qayyim (r) — “How pitiful, the worldly people! They leave this life without ever having tasted the sweetest thing in it […] The love of Allah, the knowledge of Allah and the remembrance of Allah.”
Tc Wsalaam. Your Brother,
Tahmid
This article was written for new graduates for the UCL Islamic Society Alumni Network. | https://medium.com/@tahmidrchowdhury/a-letter-of-advice-to-my-younger-self-60748b22c64a | ['Tahmid Chowdhury'] | 2020-12-26 00:31:10.928000+00:00 | ['Mindset', 'Reflection', 'Islam'] |
Modern Recommender Systems | Hybrid recommendation models
1. Factorization Machine
One idea that was introduced by Steffen Rendle in 2010 is the Factorization Machine. It holds the basic mathematical approach to combining matrix factorization with regression
where the model parameters that need to be estimated during learning are:
and ⟨ ∙ , ∙ ⟩ is the dot product between two vectors vᵢ and vⱼof size ℝᵏ, who can be seen as rows in V.
It is pretty straight-forward to see how this equation makes sense when looking at an example of how to represent the data x that gets thrown into this model. Let’s have a look at the described example in the paper on Factorization Machines by Steffen Rendle:
Imagine having the following transaction data on movie reviews where users give ratings to movies at a certain time:
user u ∈ U = {Alice (A), Bob (B), . . .}
movie (item) i ∈ I = {Titanic (TI), Notting Hill (NH), Star Wars (SW), Star Trek (ST), . . .}
rating r ∈ {1,2,3,4,5} at time t ∈ ℝ
Fig.1, S. Rendle — 2010 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, 2010- “Factorization Machines”
Looking at the figure above we can see the data setup for a hybrid recommendation model. Both the sparse features that represent the user and the item as well as any additional meta or side information (e.g. “Time” or “Last Movie Rated” in this example) are part of a feature vector x that gets mapped to a target y. Now the key is how they are processed by the model.
The regression part of the FM handles both the sparse data (e.g. “User”) as well as the dense data (e.g. “Time”) like a standard regression task and thus can be interpreted as the content-based filtering approach within the FM.
The MF part of the FM now accounts for the interactions between feature blocks (e.g. interaction between “User” and “Movie”), where the matrix V can be interpreted as the embedding matrix used in collaborative filtering approaches. These cross-user-movie relationships, bring us insights such as:
user i who has a similar embedding vᵢ (representing his preferences for movie attributes) as another user j with embedding vⱼ, might very well like similar movies as user j.
Adding the two predictions of the regression part and the MF part together and learning their parameters simultaneously in one cost function leads to the hybrid FM model that now uses a “best of both worlds” approach to making a recommendation for a user.
This hybrid approach of a Factorization Machine at first glance already seems to be a perfect “best of both worlds” model, however, as many different AI fields like NLP or computer vision have proven in the past:
“Throw it in a Neural Net and you will make it even better”
2. Wide and Deep, Neural Collaborative Filtering (NCF) and Deep Factorization Machines (DeepFM)
We will first have a look at how collaborative filtering can be solved by a neural net approach by looking at the NCF paper, this will lead us to Deep Factorization Machines (DeepFM) which are a neural net version of factorization machines. We will see why they are superior to regular FMs and how we can interpret the neural net architecture. We will see how DeepFM was developed as an improvement to the previously released Wide&Deep model by Google, which is one of the first major breakthroughs of deep learning in recommendation systems. This will finally lead us to the aforementioned DLRM paper, released by Facebook in 2019, that can be seen as a simplification and slight adjustment to DeepFM.
NCF
In 2017 a group of researchers released their work on Neural Collaborative Filtering. It contains a generalized framework for learning the functional relationship modeled by matrix factorization in collaborative filtering with a neural network. The authors also explained how to achieve higher-order interactions (MF is only order 2) and how to fuse the two approaches together.
The general idea is that a neural network can (in theory) learn any functional relationship. That means that also the relationship a collaborative filtering model expresses with it’s MF can be learned by a neural net. NCF proposes a simple embedding layer for both users and items (similar to standard MF) followed by a straight-forward multi-layer perceptron neural net to basically learn the MF dot product relationship between the two embeddings via neural net.
Fig.2 from “Neural Collaborative Filtering” by X He, L Liao, H Zhang, L Nie, X Hu, TS Chua — Proceedings of the 26th international conference on world wide web, 2017
The advantage of this approach lies in the non-linearity of the MLP. The simple dot product used in MF will always limit the model to learning interactions of degree 2, whereas a neural net with X layers can in theory learn interactions of a much higher degree. Think of 3 categorical features that all have an interaction, like male, teenager, and RPG computer games for example.
In real-world problems, we don’t just use a user and an item binarized vector as raw input to our embeddings but obviously include various other meta or side information that might be valuable (e.g. age, country, audio/text recordings, timestamp, …) so in reality we have a very high-dimensional, highly sparse and continuous-categorical mixed dataset. At this point, the above presented neural net from Fig. 2 could very well also be interpreted as a content-based recommendation in the form of a simple binary classification feed-forward neural net. And this interpretation is key to understanding how it ends up being a hybrid approach between CF and content-based recommendation. The network can in fact learn any functional relationship, thus interactions in the CF sense of degree 3 or higher, e.g. x₁ ∙ x₂ ∙ x₃, or any non-linear transformation in the classical neural net classification sense of the form σ( … σ(w₁x₁+w₂x₂ + w₃x₃ + b)) can be learned here.
Equipped with the power of learning high-order interactions, we can specifically make it easy for our model to learn also the low order interactions of order 1 and 2, by combining the neural net with a model that is well known to learn low-order interactions, the Factorization Machine. That’s exactly what the authors of DeepFM proposed in their paper. This combination idea, to simultaneously learn high and low-order feature interactions, is the key part of many modern recommender systems and can be found in some form or another in almost every network architecture proposed in the industry.
DeepFM
DeepFM is a mixed approach between FM and a deep neural network, that both share the same input embedding layer. Raw features are transformed such that continuous fields are represented by themselves and categorical fields are one-hot encoded. The final (e.g. CTR) prediction, given by the last layer in the NN is defined as:
which is a sigmoid activated sum of the two network components: the FM component and the Deep component.
The FM component is a regular Factorization Machine dressed up in neural net architecture style:
Fig.2 from Huifeng Guo, Ruiming Tang, Yunming Ye, Zhenguo Li, and Xiuqiang He. DeepFM: a factorization machine based neural network for CTR prediction. arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.04247, 2017.
The Addition part of the FM Layer gets the raw input vector x directly (Sparse Features Layer) and multiplies each element with its weight (“Normal Connection”) before summing them up. The Inner Product part of the FM Layer also gets the raw inputs x, but only after they have been passed through the embedding layer and simply takes the dot product without any weight (“Weight-1 Connection”) between the embedding vectors. Adding the two parts together through another “Weight-1 Connection” yields the aforementioned FM equation:
The xᵢxⱼ multiplication in this equation is only needed to be able to write the sum over i=1 through n. It isn’t really part of the neural network computation. The network automatically knows which embedding vectors vᵢ, vⱼ to take the dot product between due to the embedding layer architecture.
This embedding layer architecture looks as follows:
Fig.4 from Huifeng Guo, Ruiming Tang, Yunming Ye, Zhenguo Li, and Xiuqiang He. DeepFM: a factorization machine based neural network for CTR prediction. arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.04247, 2017.
with Vᵖ being the embedding matrix for each field p={1,…,m} with k columns and however many rows the binarized version of the field has elements. The output of the embedding layer is thus given as:
and it is important to note that this is not a fully connected layer, namely there is no connection between any field’s raw inputs and any other field’s embedding. Think of it this way: the one-hot encoded vector for gender (e.g. (0,1)) cannot have anything to do with the embedding vector for weekday (e.g. (0,1,0,0,0,0,0) raw binarized weekday “Tuesday” and it’s embedding vector with e.g.: k=4; (12,4,5,9)).
The FM component being a Factorization Machine reflects the high importance of both order 1 and order 2 interactions, which are directly added to the Deep component output and fed into the sigmoid activation in the final layer.
The Deep Component is proposed to be any deep neural net architecture in theory. The authors specifically took a look at a regular feed-forward MLP neural net (as well as a so-called PNN). The regular MLP is given by the following figure:
Fig.3 from Huifeng Guo, Ruiming Tang, Yunming Ye, Zhenguo Li, and Xiuqiang He. DeepFM: a factorization machine based neural network for CTR prediction. arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.04247, 2017.
a standard MLP network with embedding layer between the raw data (highly sparse due to one-hot-encoded categorical input) and the following neural net layers given as:
with σ the activation function, W the weight matrix, a the activation from the previous layer, and b the bias.
This yields the overall DeepFM network architecture:
with the parameters:
latent vector Vᵢ to measure impact of feature i’s interactions with other features (Embedding layer)
Vᵢ gets passed to the FM component to model order-2 interactions (FM Component)
wᵢ weighting the order 1 importance of raw feature i (FM Component)
Vᵢ also gets passed to the Deep component to model all higher-order interactions (>2) (Deep Component)
Wˡ and bˡ, the neural net’s weights and biasses (Deep Component)
The key to getting both high and low order interactions simultaneously is training all parameters at the same time under one cost function, specifically using the same embedding layer for both the FM as well as the Deep component.
Comparison to Wide&Deep and NeuMF
There are many variations that one can dream up on how to tweak this architecture to potentially make it even better. At the core, however, they are all similar in their hybrid approach on how to model high and low order interactions simultaneously. The authors of DeepFM also proposed interchanging the MLP part with a so-called PNN, a deep neural network that gets the FM layer as initial input combined with the embedding layer
The authors of the NCF paper also came up with a similar architecture which they called NeuMF (“Neural Matrix Factorization”). Instead of having an FM as low-order component, they used a regular matrix factorization fed into an activation function. This approach however is lacking the specific order 1 interactions modeled by the linear part of the FM. Also, the authors specifically allowed the model to learn different user and item embeddings for the matrix factorization as well as the MLP part.
As mentioned before, Google’s research team was one of the first to propose a neural network for a hybrid recommendation approach. DeepFM can be thought of as a further development of Google’s Wide&Deep algorithm that looks like this:
Fig.1 from Heng-Tze Cheng, Levent Koc, Jeremiah Harmsen, Tal Shaked, Tushar Chandra, Hrishi Aradhye, Glen Anderson, Greg Corrado, Wei Chai, Mustafa Ispir, Rohan Anil, Zakaria Haque, Lichan Hong, Vihan Jain, Xiaobing Liu, and Hemal Shah. Wide & deep learning for recommender systems. In Proc. 1st Workshop on Deep Learning for Recommender Systems, pages 7–10, 2016.
The right side is our well-known MLP with an embedding layer, the left side however has different, manually engineered, inputs that are directly fed into the final overall output unit. The low-order interaction in the form of the dot product operation is hidden in these manually engineered features, that the authors say can be many different things, for example:
which captures the interactions between d features (with or without another previous embedding) by cross multiplying them (exponent equals 1 if xᵢ is part of k-th transformation) with each other.
It is easy to see how DeepFM is an improvement since it does not require any a priori feature engineering and is able to learn low and high-order interactions from exactly the same input data that all share one common embedding layer. DeepFM really has the FM model as part of its core network, whereas Wide&Deep does not do dot product computations as part of the actual neural net but beforehand in feature engineering steps.
3. DLRM — Deep Learning Recommendation Model
So with all these different options from Google, Huawei (research team around the DeepFM architecture), and others, let’s take a look at how Facebook views things. They came out with their DLRM paper in 2019, which focuses a lot on the practical side of these models. Parallel training setup, GPU computing as well as different handling of continuous vs categorical features.
The DLRM architecture is described in the below figure and works as follows: Categorical features are each represented by an embedding vector, while continuous features are processed by an MLP such that they have the same length as the embedding vectors. Now in a second stage, the dot product between all combinations of embedding vectors and processed (MLP output) dense vectors is computed. Afterward, the dot products are concatenated with the MLP output of the dense features and passed through another MLP and finally into a sigmoid function to give a probability.
DLRM Network as described by DLRM. Figure by Max Beckers.
This DLRM proposal is somewhat of a simplified and modified version of DeepFM in the sense that it also uses dot product computations between embedding vectors but it specifically tries to stay away from high-order interactions by not directly forcing the embedded categorical features through an MLP layer. The design is tailored to mimic the way Factorization Machines compute the second-order interactions between the embeddings. We can think of the entire DLRM setup as the specialized part of DeepFM, the FM component. The classical Deep Component of DeepFM that gets added to the outcome of the FM component in the final layer of DeepFM (and then fed into a sigmoid function) can be seen as completely omitted in the DLRM setup. The theoretical advantages of DeepFM are clear as it is, by design, better equipped to learn high order interaction, however according to Facebook:
“… higherorder interactions beyond second-order found in other networks may not necessarily be worth the additional computational/memory cost”
4. Outlook and Coding
Having introduced various deep recommendation approaches, their intuitions as well as pros and cons, in theory, I had a look at the proposed PyTorch implementation of DLRM on Facebook’s GitHub page.
I checked out the details of the implementation and tried out the predefined dataset APIs that they have built-in to handle different raw datasets directly. Both the Kaggle display advertising challenge by Criteo as well as their Terabyte dataset are pre implemented and can be downloaded and subsequently used to train a full DLRM with just one bash command (see DLRM repo for instructions). I then extended Facebook’s DLRM model API to include preprocessing and data loading steps for another dataset, the 2020 DIGIX Advertisement CTR Prediction. Please check it out here.
In a similar fashion after downloading and unzipping the digix data you can now train a model on this data with a single bash command as well. All the preprocessing steps, shapes of the embeddings, and neural net architecture parameters are adjusted towards handling the digix dataset. A notebook that takes you through the commands can be found here. The model delivers some decent results, as I am continuing to work on it to improve the performance by understanding the raw data and the advertisement process behind the digix data better. Specific data cleaning, hyperparameter tuning, and feature engineering are all things I would like to further work on and are mentioned in the notebook. The first goal was simply to have a technically sound extension of the DLRM model API that can use the raw digix data as input.
All in all, I believe hybrid deep models are one of the most powerful tools for solving recommendation tasks. However, there have been some seriously interesting and creative unsupervised approaches on solving collaborative filtering problems recently using autoencoders. So at this point, I can only guess what the large internet giants are using today to feed us ads we are most likely to click on. I assume that it very well could be a combo of the aforementioned autoencoder approach as well as some form of the deep hybrid models presented in this article.
References
Steffen Rendle. Factorization machines. In Proc. 2010 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, pages 995–1000, 2010.
Xiangnan He, Lizi Liao, Hanwang Zhang, Liqiang Nie, Xia Hu, and Tat-Seng Chua. Neural collaborative filtering. In Proc. 26th Int. Conf. World Wide Web, pages 173–182, 2017.
Huifeng Guo, Ruiming Tang, Yunming Ye, Zhenguo Li, and Xiuqiang He. DeepFM: a factorizationmachine based neural network for CTR prediction. arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.04247, 2017.
Jianxun Lian, Xiaohuan Zhou, Fuzheng Zhang, Zhongxia Chen, Xing Xie, and Guangzhong Sun. xDeepFM: Combining explicit and implicit feature interactions for recommender systems. In Proc. of the 24th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery & Data Mining, pages 1754–1763. ACM, 2018.
Heng-Tze Cheng, Levent Koc, Jeremiah Harmsen, Tal Shaked, Tushar Chandra, Hrishi Aradhye, Glen Anderson, Greg Corrado, Wei Chai, Mustafa Ispir, Rohan Anil, Zakaria Haque, Lichan Hong, Vihan Jain, Xiaobing Liu, and Hemal Shah. Wide & deep learning for recommender systems. In Proc. 1st Workshop on Deep Learning for Recommender Systems, pages 7–10, 2016.
M. Naumov, D. Mudigere, H. M. Shi, J. Huang, N. Sundaraman, J. Park, X. Wang, U. Gupta, C. Wu, A. G. Azzolini, D. Dzhulgakov, A. Mallevich, I. Cherniavskii, Y. Lu, R. Krishnamoorthi, A. Yu, V. Kondratenko, S. Pereira, X. Chen, W. Chen, V. Rao, B. Jia, L. Xiong, and M. Smelyanskiy, “Deep learning recommendation model for personalization and recommendation systems,” CoRR, vol. abs/1906.00091, 2019. [Online]. Available: http://arxiv.org/abs/1906. 00091 [39] | https://towardsdatascience.com/modern-recommender-systems-a0c727609aa8 | ['Maximilian Beckers'] | 2021-02-01 15:51:45.474000+00:00 | ['Recommender Systems', 'Getting Started', 'AI', 'Deep Learning', 'Collaborative Filtering'] |
How to Create a Writing Portfolio When You Have Zero Experience | How to Create a Writing Portfolio When You Have Zero Experience
Photo by Andrej Lišakov on Unsplash
How do you gain experience when you have no experience? It is a question that has befuddled college graduates and career transitioners for years, and which is only getting worse in our gig economy. Companies no longer invest in employees from the get-go, they no longer have an interest in improving the people they hire, but instead, seek someone pre-trained and perfect for that one piece of work they need. This is making it even harder to get started when you have no experience.
This new landscape has the frustrating consequence of reinforcing social inequalities because when no one will pay you until you can prove your ability, that means that your first experiences have to be done for free. Kids from richer families can afford to do an unpaid summer internship and land their first byline, or volunteer at a local paper — those that are less well off will meanwhile be working full time to pay for their next semester.
This is an annoying reality, but luckily, whatever your background, even with 0 experience, it is possible to catch up. After all, all you need is to land one writing job, and from then on, you will have experience to showcase.
The question is how do you get that first job. Say you have seen a perfect gig on Upwork, and you need to show your portfolio to apply. Or you’ve got a response from an editor about that pitch you sent, and they’re asking for writing samples.
Don’t panic: it doesn’t matter if you haven’t got previous paid work to show off. Here are five ways you can produce content to land you your first job.
1. Create Your Medium Page
The advantage of Medium posts is that you can showcase your talent while writing about whichever topic you are most comfortable with. You can draw up a few pieces about something you know well, allowing you to produce content quickly while focusing on structure and style, or you can write about a topic relevant to the job you are applying for.
If you write as a hobby but have so far not shown your work to anyone, Medium is a great place to start posting. You get feedback, you grow more comfortable sharing your work, and you enter a community of other writers. Plus, it encourages you to finish your pieces, and polish them. You can even make money from your work straight away — it might just be a few cents, but depending on how you market and how much you write, you might also start making a solid amount from your writing. However much you make, your Medium articles can be an ideal starting point for your writing portfolio.
2. Create your blog
This takes more time than Medium, as there are more things to format, but you also gain control over your page, and a blog can be a great addition to a website presenting your writing services.
3. Think Back
Are you 100% you don’t have any writing samples to use? Have a think about the work you’ve produced in the past. If you have an interest in writing professionally, I assume that you have at least some experience, even if the pieces you have penned so far have never made it out of your Notes app or torn scraps of paper. Maybe you have written product or restaurant reviews that went long and which, looking back, are actually solid pieces of writing to show to potential employers. Or maybe that angry response you wrote to a troll on Facebook turns out to be such a structured argument that you can make it into an opinion piece or blog post with only a few tweaks.
4. Write mock pieces
This is unpaid labor, but it can be a good solution if you have nothing else to show. Write fake samples of the type of writing service you are offering: this could be descriptions of random products, an interview or feature article about a friend, copywriting for businesses … Just make sure you don’t make up facts or figures, and that your work, even if it is about businesses or products that don’t exist, there are no factual inaccuracies in your piece. Make up a client and a product that are realistic.
5. Write pieces on spec
This is similar to writing mock pieces, except that you write them with a real client in mind, and you are aiming to sell your piece after writing. It involves doing the work with no guarantee of payment, but I recommend this option rather than mock pieces because it actually makes it easier by focusing your work, and it is good practice for writing for a client, taking into account real-life restrictions of style, length, and topic.
Other important tips for beginners
For your first job, focus on having three pieces to show, all well-written, factually accurate and grammatically correct. Ideally, you should have at least one piece similar to the form of the job you are applying for, and one piece that is related — even loosely — to the topic of the job.
Presentation is particularly important as a novice, to make your work seem more professional — even when you have no paid writing to show. Check and double-check your spelling and grammar. Post your articles on your website — making sure it is neat. Minimalist is fine. Messy is not. Rather than sending PDFs, put the titles of your piece in your email with links to your work.
Landing your first paid writing job does require a little effort, but with these hacks, you should be able to produce a small portfolio in less than a day. And once you have your first paid writing job, you may never have to write for free again! | https://bettermarketing.pub/how-to-create-a-writing-portfolio-when-you-have-zero-experience-d81594cf3c86 | ['Stark Raving'] | 2021-01-13 20:15:32.330000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Work', 'Experience', 'Freelance', 'Portfolio'] |
A perfect storm | A perfect storm
One of the posters of the ReBirth NFT collection from upcoming game Start Atlas.
If you create games, you should care about Web 3. Now.
Ten years ago, most people from the games industry were skeptical about mobile games and in-app purchases. “Desktop and console AAA games will always be superior,” they said. Today, they are the biggest category in the games market.
Now, we’re seeing a similar skepticism in the games industry surrounding Web 3. But like ten years ago, three things are changing at the same time: user behavior, business models, and the tech itself. These three forces are converging and forming a perfect storm that is only just starting. Yes, it’s currently generating noise and some hype. Probably part of it is a bubble that will burst. But when the storm clears, it will leave a completely new and more fertile landscape for the gaming industry.
5 reasons why you should care
There are several ways in which Web 3 is redefining the ways we will design, develop, and play games. To see them, we need to remove any cognitive bias coming from previous games industry experience and not get trapped.
I myself — as having spent several years at Google Play and investing in games at Initial Capital and now Cherry Ventures — have also fallen into some of the same mental traps until last year when some key ideas emerged that made me look at Web 3 in a different way.
1) Rather than measuring how much a player is worth for the game, we should measure how much a game is worth for a player.
In the current ecosystem, retention and lifetime value (LTV) are the key value drivers for developers as they measure the stickiness of the game and its ability to monetize users over a long time. A developer will do anything possible to keep the interest of players alive as the more time they spend in the game, the more money they can generate.
This long-term incentive represented the most profound disruption to the previous dominant model of paid games where the interest for the developer virtually ended when the player purchased the whole experience. But, even with free-to-play, eventually, after 5, 10, 20 years, most if not all the games will become obsolete and the developer will not have enough of an incentive to keep them alive.
With fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the value of game assets can exist and evolve in perpetuity regardless of whether these are used or traded within the game that originated them. Yet, more than retention and LTV, what will matter in this new framework will be the usage of game assets and their market cap.
Game assets can even be created by different people and before games are built around them. For example, Loot is a collection of NFTs each representing a randomized list of items that could be used in a game (like a sword, a shield, etc). Game developers can decide to build games that support players using these. At the time of writing, it’s the ninth all time NFT project ranked by traded volume (55k ETH) and it’s just a week old.
It’s not just about the financial value, though. A gamer’s identity in the metaverse will be captured in his or her blockchain wallet and a game will need to convey a sense of belonging that motivates people to own (a piece of) it. In a similar vein, people buy Tesla or Beyond Meat shares not just because they believe they can profit from them, but also because they identify themselves with those companies and their missions.
Gamers will want to own what they are more excited and passionate about.
2) Play-to-earn games can, for the first time, compete for users’ productive time — not just their free time.
The fact that players will be able to accrue value and earn money is somewhat counterintuitive to the concept of games we had so far. Games are a form of escapism. We use our free time to wonder, compete, have fun, and form new relationships or strengthen existing ones. Introducing a financial aspect to them seems to defeat the purpose. Until you realize that more people will be able to spend more time on the games that they enjoy because they can generate an income from it, rather than having to employ their time in a more traditional job or looking for it.
So far, game studios and media platforms have been competing for the same portion of time, but now the boundaries with which that is defined are going to blur. Game studios will compete with gig economy companies like Uber as much as they compete with Netflix today. This will have a profound impact on the way we design and market games and it will massively expand the size of the opportunity for the whole industry.
3) With more choice we are moving from play-TO-earn to play-AND-earn.
Play-to-earn mechanics are seen by many as a cover up for the lack of quality and fun in a game. “People play it only because they can make money out of it,” some may say. Maybe this is partially true today for many of the projects that are currently live, but as more games become available, the player will have the choice to shift to the best experience while still generating a yield.
Projects like Guild of Guardians (from whom I first heard the term play and earn), The Sandbox,Star Atlas, Illuvium, Parallel, Ember Sword, and others show that there are strong teams that are already at work to bring AAA new experiences to life soon.
4) Instead of buying players, companies should let early adopters buy into their games.
Game assets can be sold to users before the game is even launched. This tactic has been employed in some cases by traditional games as well, but the liquidity these assets have in the Web 3 world makes it much more compelling for users to scout and embrace new games on the blockchain.
As an example, Start Atlas has been selling a series of “meta posters” of concept art pieces as NFTs which players can collect before the launch of the game next year. These will unlock other NFTs that will be functional in game items. Parallel has released their first set of (gorgeous) cards and they have been hugely popular. At the time of writing this collection is the 14th top ranking in Opensea, with a 36k ETH trading volume and 7k owners. All of this before the game mechanics were fully revealed and users would know exactly what those cards would do.
These early adopters are more vested than ever in the success of the game and will serve as a very active community. The time they spend advocating for the game, providing feedback, and testing is rewarded emotionally and financially by the potential success of the project.
Moreover, these tactics not only have the benefit of onboarding an engaged community, but also represent a way to fund the company in its early days and partially validate product market fit before building the entire game.
5) It started with Web 3 games gamifying DeFi. Now games are being DeFied
Traditional games mostly work with users spending money to play or to acquire and own assets. It’s a relatively simple economy: as if the only thing people could do in real life was buying and selling goods and services. Our financial systems are much more complex than that and so will be the games we play. For example, the blockchain architecture makes it easy for players to borrow and lend games assets as well. And this can happen inside or outside of the game.
Yield Guild Games and BlackPool show how an ecosystem of borrowers and lenders can be built on top of Web 3 games. With YGG players who can’t afford to buy Axies can borrow them through a “scholarship program” and earn SLP (Axie Infinity’s game token), which they share with YGG and can then be converted in other crypto currencies or fiat.
Traditionally, you could cluster users in tiers and build a pyramid with a relatively small group of whales on the top. With Web 3 games it’s going to look more like a circular economy as assets flow more easily between players and more complex and deeper dynamics can be established between them.
Breaking the barriers
In the last ten years, as we witnessed the massive expansion of the games market, mostly driven by free-to-play mobile games, we have started believing that games will eventually eat the world. First, they would take over social networks, then media platforms and then who knows what. The result would be a metaverse composed of all games’ and media ecosystems so entangled in each other and with the real world that it would be difficult to tell them apart. But this prediction was only tracking consumer behavior.
Fortnite and Roblox are obvious steps in that direction and show a glimpse of what a metaverse could look like, but they are still relatively closed ecosystems with their own APIs, SDKs, and business relationships. Assets from these platforms are only available within those boundaries. Life outside still goes on in the same way.
The main resistance to change so far has been the lack of incentive for game developers to open their games: they have been focusing on keeping their users and assets within their own ecosystem as that is the only way they can monetize them and grow their equity value. In this context, players are also incentivized to remain within a specific game, otherwise they lose the value they created by spending time in it. Once they leave though (for example, because they get tired) their incentive to come back diminishes as they pick up new games.
With the evolution of blockchain infrastructures and of player-owned economies, we will finally have the right tech and business model to break these barriers between games. Both have been around for a while, but they are now mature enough to underpin the exponential innovation that we have just been imaging until now.
It’s a new game for the games industry (the pun was not intended but also not avoided) and the rule book is being written now. For this reason, we should be even more careful to avoid judging this new phase of gaming with the mental framework of the previous one. Similarly we shouldn’t evaluate it only based on what it has produced so far.
It’s the cognitive bias captured in Amara’s law:
We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.
We should remember instead that we are just at the beginning of something completely new. It’s messy, noisy, and hyped. It generates FOMO, confusion, and doubt. But it’s also exciting, liberating and intoxicating. It’s innovation and it’s happening now.
Soon, we will have a generation of users for which the first game they ever played is one they owned on the blockchain. That is going to be the next inflection point.
When that happened with free-to-play mobile games we never went back. | https://medium.com/cherryventures/a-perfect-storm-703b28ce65cd | ['Matteo Vallone'] | 2021-09-07 11:07:27.674000+00:00 | ['Nft', 'Venture Capital', 'Web3'] |
Trump’s Possible Impeachment Over Mueller’s Firing | Would President Trump get impeached if he fires Mueller or would it not be an issue at all?
Democrats and also some Republicans have spoken about the possible consequences of firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Most of it centers on a possible impeachment. Even Liberals are against the move.
Trump had ordered Mueller’s firing over the summer but then retracted it as he cannot directly fire Mueller without cause. He has taken a different approach with a direct attack on Mueller and his proceedings. And has shown that he could remove those who are against the order and could also fire his national security adviser, his secretary of state and other top F.B.I. officials involved in the investigation. However, his impeachment is still unlikely.
By happenstance of Mueller’s dismissal and Trump not getting impeached, lawmakers could demand that Mueller’s evidence be turned over to Congress and could press to censure the president. Congress could also pass a law to reinstate an independent investigator in the executive or legislative branch which Trump would have to sign. Congress could also leverage its influence on the Justice Department nominees and pull strings to safeguard the evidence gathered by Mueller. Then, Mueller could be called to testify by relevant committees and a public disclosure of his investigation could be given to Congress which would be extremely difficult for Trump to stop.
Several Democrats are for the impeachment but the minority have a little leeway. Most Republicans think the move too implausible to happen. Ultimately, it would most likely be determined after the people vote in November. | https://medium.com/bvity/trumps-possible-impeachment-over-mueller-s-firing-521869643b68 | [] | 2018-04-08 21:16:21.896000+00:00 | ['Robert Mueller', 'Politics', 'Mueller', 'Impeachment', 'News'] |
The Consequences of Corrupting and Politicizing Science | Photo by CDC on Unsplash
December 2020 has the distinction of recording some of the deadliest days in U.S. history. We recorded more deaths than occurred at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, several more than the 2,977 who perished on September 11, 2001, during the post-Thanksgiving surge. More than 17,000 Americans died in one week in December, and total deaths since March topped 300,000. Most of those lost loved ones should never have died. We have nothing and no one to blame but ourselves.
We are in the middle of a pandemic. Healthcare providers are overworked, exhausted, underpaid, underappreciated, exposed to, and having to witness death as a norm. Almost half of Americans ignore their plight, passing off the COVID-19 virus as fake. Our hospitals are filling and overflowing. At this moment, more people die every day as perished on 9–11, 2001. Despite warnings, despite science and the urgings of authorities, many refuse to wear a simple mask. Why is this possible?
The behavior has a long history that has slowly evolved over the last 50 or more years. We get a clue from the anti-vaxxer movement, but it is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Anti-vaxxers are part of a loosely-organized conspiracy theorist subculture. They blame the medical practice of vaccinations for a wide range of health problems, including autism. It is a view shared by many, including the current president, but from whence did this suspicion and disbelief in science arise?
It’s of no surprise the same people who comprise the anti-vaxxer movement express disbelief in the coronavirus or any vaccine created to vaccinate the public to curtail its spread. Many dismiss anything they hear from media or, more disturbing, from scientists and other sources of authority and knowledge that contradict their world view. Many, but not all, of these doubters, lack having education beyond high school.
This large body of unbelievers has to be seen in the context of the anti-science, anti-intellectual, and generally anti-authority time in which we live. There is a bit of history being ignored. We didn’t arrive in this place and predicament by accident.
I am lucky enough to have grown up during a time when we trusted science. There was goodwill leftover from World War II. The Cold War was at its height. We cooperated and saw ourselves on the same team regardless of our politics. Not long after beginning seventh grade in the fall of 1957, our classes were interrupted, herded to the gym, and inoculated with the Salk vaccine for polio. No one complained. No one refused. There is a big difference between seeing yourself as part of the community and seeing yourself as an entity to yourself, the mythical rugged individual.
The genesis for what we are seeing today can be found in corporate-promoted research. Studies funded with the expressed purpose of showing the desired outcome favorable to whatever product that corporation was developing. There are ample examples available online or in books for anyone wanting more information. My purpose is to try and shine a little light in the dark corner.
The corrupting and politicizing of science over the past 50 years happened on many levels. Colleges and universities have increasingly had to seek funding from whatever sources were available. Public institutions have experienced a long decline in state support resulting in large corporations, foundations, and other private interests stepping in to fill the gaps. However, this funding comes at a price. It is not unusual to see research projects funded by corporate sources being conducted without regulation or oversight. It raises a lot of troubling questions.
In the end, it raises concerns about the reliability and accuracy of what is purportedly science and scientific research provided to the public through journalistic outlets. It also raises questions and doubts about the messengers, the journalists, as well. The whole system is jeopardized because we allowed the market or quest for profits to pervert the science we rely upon. Once the accuracy of science or any structure we trust is compromised, its value is depreciated, called into doubt, and ultimately ignored. This is where we are today.
Sadly, we are now in a place where large numbers of us reject all information or authority that fails to conform to our version of the truth. We reject science. We are suspicious of and refuse vaccines. We engage in behaviors without any real idea of what kind of suffering — physically or mentally, our actions and behavior impose on others. Too many of us think only of “my” rights without regard to the rights of others, particularly their children. They fail to understand that “my” rights do not and cannot be allowed to impinge upon anyone else’s rights. The interests of the community weigh heavily in such matters.
When I read about or hear someone refuse to wear a simple mask to protect themselves and others from the COVID-19 virus, I think back to what happened to my mother. She was a 10-year-old elementary student in early January 1924 when she came home from school sporting sniffles and a cough. Her parents thought it was no more than a cold and paid no more attention, and her symptoms never became anything more severe.
She joined in play, as she was fond of doing, with her three-year-old brother. But this was no ordinary sniffle. Unknown to my mother or my grandparents, she was infected with a lethal bacterium known as diphtheria. My mother was asymptomatic. Her little brother and her older sister were infected. The family was quarantined with notices nailed to the front door forbidding anyone from entering or leaving. All my grandparents could do was treat and comfort their children as best they could, hope, and pray for recovery.
The disease progressed rapidly. Mother’s little brother died, and her sister was expected to join him, but recovered. Throughout, Mother never exhibited more than a slight cough and sniffles. She remembered that when her brother passed away, the casket was displayed in the front window where friends and family could view it. That is the way things were done in the early 1920s. Vaccines were few, scarce, and virtually unaffordable for most working families.
Years later, my mother endured more trauma and heartache with the loss of her first-born son to polio. It left an indelible mark. I never understood what seemed to me as my mother’s unnatural concerns about polio. Her memory of diphtheria and polio evoked fear she inadvertently revealed by cautioning me in my activities during every summer of my childhood. It was a behavior I never grasped until I was older and could connect the dots.
Science deniers, anti-vaxxers, and others have grown up in a world free of most childhood and other diseases that once took a savage toll on our young. Being ignorant and unaware of the consequences, unbelievers are devoid of such fears.
I will get vaccinated when the opportunity comes. I am mindful of those on all sides who deny overwhelming scientific research and data. Their refusal to wear a simple mask and have themselves and their children vaccinated imposes a potential peril on the rest of us. The opposition generated by disbelief in the science, fears of autism, alleged religious grounds, or other excuses doesn’t matter compared to the suffering their selfishness and ignorance causes.
But let us not forget the underlying cause that has brought us to where we are. Our lust for profit, gain, and crass materialism at any expense is putting us and our planet in peril so a few can live in pretentious opulence.
Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/the-consequences-of-corrupting-and-politicizing-science-c9714f220fa8 | ['Jerry M Lawson', 'De Omnibus Dubitandum'] | 2020-12-27 15:26:03.749000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Life Lessons', 'Science', 'Politics', 'Life'] |
My Life as an Intern: Does Networking Matter? My Story | I was sitting on the couch at home configuring my Debian machine for the thousandth time (Chromebooks don’t make great dev environments) when my wonderfully supportive wife told me that a local company had an internship available. Her search showed that it was posted 6 days ago. All my experience in the job searching world has told me that 6 days is an eternity when a job is posted externally. The statistics say that countless people, who were doubtlessly more qualified than me, have already applied to this position. Plus, I’ve been looking for work off and on for 6 months, and even Walmart wouldn’t get back to me.
Photo by Sven Brandsma on Unsplash. Not my actual couch.
Perhaps you can relate to that.
Of course, the story doesn’t start there. It actually starts two years earlier, before I started back in university, before I got married, and before I knew anything of what I was doing.
Before my wife made the crazy decision to be my girlfriend, I went to visit her at church. She greeted me at the door, and then told me to go find one of her friends. Something important came up that prevented her from sitting next to me, so I sat next to a complete stranger, a business analyst at a local company. Eventually, as long-term relationships tend to go, her friends became my friends, and this mutual friend told me of a job opening on his team.
What Worked and What Didn’t
I could tell you the long story about the rounds of interviews and how I ended up not getting the job, but I will spare you the digression. I will share some of the things I think did and did not work for me.
Ambition
First, showing ambition worked well. I remember spending a lot of time and effort trying to get my name and resume in the hands of as many people over there as possible. Any email address that I could get that belonged to someone related to the position, I used. When I got an email from the recruiter (the one quoted above), I quickly and eagerly responded.This may sound like a no-brainer, but following up really does help.
Beating Impostor Syndrome
Second, not knowing certain technologies didn’t hurt me. At this company, we use XML in virtually everything. I know HTML well enough, but I had never read a single line of XML before I started here. The position I applied for initially customizes existing XML files to fit the client’s needs, and troubleshoots if they mess things up. My not knowing XML did not affect my hireability whatsoever, as far as I can tell. This may be in part because I know HTML, but I think that any good manager will agree that you can teach a developer new tools easily, but teaching them to solve problems like an effective engineer is much more difficult.
In case you’re interested, some of the other buzzwords that they asked about were SQL Server (Microsoft’s brand of the well-known database query language), C# and the .NET framework, and CSS. I have only written a few lines of MySQL, and all of it was in the last 3 months; they didn’t seem to care that I wasn’t experienced in that.
Photo by Max Chen on Unsplash. I recognize this isn’t any of the languages listed above.
The point of that is: don’t focus too much on the buzzwords listed on the job description page. Go ahead and apply. The worst-case scenario is either that they don’t get back to you — in which case you lose nothing — or they ask you about it and you awkwardly say you don’t know. If you can find something else to make an interviewer pay attention to you, focus on that.
Buzzwords don’t matter. Who you are as a person matters.
As a disclaimer: what I read online says that if you don’t have certain buzzwords on your resume, automatic filters will ignore your resume. That may be the case. And if it is, do your best to find a way to send your resume to someone directly. They will likely notice that, see the initiative, and appreciate it.
A totally staged picture from my actual desk. I also drink a lot of coffee.
What You Gain When You Lose
Third, if you don’t get the job, you still gain something. Since my interview with A, the recruiter, I have sent her emails a number of times, including my resume, which she already has, at least twice. Having the contact information for an internal recruiter is always a win. That is, unless you don’t like the picture you get from the company. And if you end up not liking what you find, then you still gain something. There are a lot of tech companies out there, and good number of them have different benefits than others. Personally, I was looking for a company with a lot of flexibility, a laid-back character, and one that has a sense of humor. In other words, I needed to be convinced that I would enjoy working there before I ever set foot in the door.
There are a number of ways to help determine that, and I’ll share some of the things I’ve learned in another post.
Persistence, Persistence, Persistence
Persistence pays off.
The next thing I’ll mention is persistence. You may recall that I said I’d been looking for a position like this for two years. I applied to various positions in this company 3 times before they found the place I belonged. And I tried everything I could to make myself look good each time. In fact, that evening when my wife showed me that job posting that was six days old, I applied, and then immediately sent the email saying “Thank you for applying” to the recruiter. I apologized for sounding pushy, and asked if she would be at the career fair our school holds each semester. I had met her in person at the last one, and we talked briefly then. She said she wouldn’t be there.
On the day of the career fair, I showed up early and made sure I was the first person to talk to the reps from the company. We chit-chatted about things on my resume, and things off my resume; about the weather, how fast the tech world moves, and other pleasantries. I made sure they knew that I had applied to a position already, and hoped to hear back soon.
I can’t take much credit for the job I have, but the one thing I will say is that I was persistent. Persistence pays off.
What You Can’t Control
And that brings me to the last thing. You can’t control what you have no control over. At the end of the day, the job decision isn’t in your hands. You can make a full-time job out of networking and still end up unemployed. But networking does help (more on that in a moment). I said I can’t take credit for much in this process, and that’s true. If my wife hadn’t entertained the annoying kid she met two years ago, I wouldn’t have met the friend (and now coworker) I have. I wouldn’t have had A’s email address to spam her whenever a new position came up. I wouldn’t have even seen the position when it was posted, if it hadn’t been for my wife. Almost everything about this job process was outside of my control, and that’s okay.
At the end of the day, the job decision isn’t in your hands.
You don’t have to control everything to get your dream job. The best that you can do is put a really great foot forward, stick your hand out, and give a solid handshake (or whatever else you do in your culture). The rest is up to providence. It will only hurt you emotionally, physically, and spiritually to worry about what you can’t control. A much better decision is to focus on what you can control, and let the worries take care of themselves. | https://medium.com/@gabatton/my-life-as-an-intern-does-networking-matter-my-story-5d119b6341e7 | ['Guy Batton'] | 2019-04-12 21:05:25.595000+00:00 | ['Networking', 'Software Engineering', 'Inspiration', 'Software Development', 'Careers'] |
Bringing your Kharacter to life: №001 | Welcome to the Kharacter Series
The Kharacter series strives to share with you what it takes to craft your own authentic character. This series will open you mind to what you require to discover your authentic self, and the realisation of the skills and practices you need to experience and achieve your own personal excellence. An authentic understanding of your character, that is who you are and what you are to do in this life, is needed to build sincere motivation and lasting grit towards the pursuit of any goal in your life. Without this, you will fall short and die wondering.
Throughout this series there will be foundational ideas shared, along with storytelling to help you conceptualise the purpose of each topic. From this point you will be challenged to apply the concepts to your own personal situation. This can be challenging and may require further support and teaching to do this, however it is important to remember during these potential frustrations that in the chaos that is human life nothing stays the same. As humans we are always evolving, course correcting with the wind as we connect new and old experiences to reach our final destination. The aim of this final destination is the daily living of our undeniable true selves no matter the circumstances.
This being said, please be patient with yourself in digesting the ideas presented, and exploring these in your own life’s situation. You may feel you are not able to completely align the topic to your situation, or you may not be initially happy with what you have provided to yourself. This is okay, and is a part of the process. Let your thoughts linger in your mind’s eye over the coming days, weeks, months, and come back to the posts and topics to continue to evolve and chisel your true character.
Please follow on through this series and deepen your understanding of what is involved in building your character and achieving your own personal excellence.
Sincerely,
Coach Kertesz | https://medium.com/@coachkertesz/bringing-your-kharacter-to-life-156266ab994b | ['Coach Kertesz'] | 2020-12-26 04:45:14.380000+00:00 | ['Personal Development', 'Character Development', 'Journalling', 'Wellbeing', 'Coaching'] |
I Stopped Taking My Antidepressants So I Could Orgasm | A couple of months ago I lost my orgasm.
2018 was the year from hell for me. Looking back, it is a wonder I came through to the other side. I’ve battled with my mental health for years, but due to stigma, I refused to seek help.
I had recently started studying Psychology at the University of Leeds after switching programs from nursing. However, due to clerical errors, my funding for the course was delayed so I was forced to go to university and work full time at the same time. At one point I even got a second job to cover my expenses.
I was fine until I wasn’t.
I went from powering through to being unable to leave the house due to anxiety and daily panic attacks. Simple tasks like; showering, doing the laundry, and cooking were impossible. I stopped seeing friends, stopped going to work, and stopped attending university.
After a few months of battling my pride, I finally went to the doctor who immediately diagnosed me with depression. I started taking 50mg of Sertraline daily. A little later on, I was subsequently diagnosed with BPD (borderline personality disorder) which in short is a personality disorder characterised by unstable relationships with other people, unstable emotions and an unstable sense of self.
This was my first time taking antidepressants so I was a little apprehensive about the side effects. Luckily I only got a few — which included insomnia and loss of appetite — but considering my history with eating disorders, the latter didn’t make me too sad (to be honest).
I would like to say that I came out victorious. But I did not. I had been too slow with getting help; I got fired from my job, and withdrew from university (again). And on top of that, I had a painful fall-out with a long-term (now ex) friend. It was then that I stopped taking my medication and spiralled (again).
However, this time my friends didn’t let me sink too far down. They saw the signs, refused my requests to be ‘left alone’ and pushed me to go back to the doctor. This time with my dosage doubled, I emotionally felt better. I got a new job and began to sort out my life.
Sertraline is an example of an SSRI- selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor — some of the most commonly prescribed antidepressants. Other well-known brands include; Zoloft, Prozac, Paxil and Lexapro. They act by increasing the amount of Serotonin the brain makes — by blocking the reuptake of serotonin in the brain, making it more readily available — resulting in better moods
.
Serotonin works with dopamine, a neurotransmitter that can alter your sex drive, so the increase upsets the equilibrium. The sexual dysfunction caused can both diminish your libido and inhibit your orgasm. However, the effects vary from person to person due to our differences.
Between 25% to 73% of people taking SSRIs experience sexual side effects and the resulting psychological fallout is serious: in fact, this past June, the European Medicines Agency officially declared that they were going to recognize Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) as a medical condition.
A 2018 literature review called the condition “debilitating and under-recognized”, describing the chronic numbness as genital anaesthesia. In addition to a lack of desire and ability to be aroused, folks suffering from PSSD also experienced erectile and orgasmic dysfunction.
While everything else was looking up, I reacted very differently to the medication the second time around; perhaps it was the higher dose, perhaps lots of things. The first symptom was extreme fatigue. No matter what I did, I always felt lethargic. Working nights at a bar didn’t help. My chronic exhaustion was so bad that while on a trip with friends, I spent 70% of my time in bed sleeping, while they took to the hills, hiking and exploring.
Then I noticed the second symptom. I was having sex with my partner at the time and it felt fine. Which was the problem, it was — just fine. It was then I realized my clit was losing sensation. I was also drier than usual. Turns out that my partner had noticed this too and gifted me with some lube the next time we met up.
I assumed the problem would fix itself — I hadn’t connected my body’s quieting to my antidepressants — so I left it alone.
Then one day I was watching a TV show which featured a sex scene and I realized that I hadn’t masturbated in a while (I don’t masturbate to sex scenes, it was just a reminder). Then I realized hadn’t wanted to masturbate. I had gone from once a day to nothing in two weeks.
I instantly went into doomsday mode. I tried everything. From switching sexual partners to changing my vibrator batteries. I even went for the nuclear option — intense high vibrator masturbation sessions. But even that couldn’t get me a little wet. After around 30 minutes of failure, I did what all people are advised against and Googled my symptoms.
Luckily Google wasn’t too far off and correctly diagnosed my issue as a side effect of my antidepressants. It was then I decided I didn’t need orgasms. Surely the decrease of my depression was enough for life satisfaction? Orgasms were a gift I would just have to sacrifice for my joy, I thought. And I made it work.
The definition of an orgasm is one that is highly subjective and frequently disagreed on. It has been reported that when people are asked to describe one, the responses vary wildly. However, sex and relationship expert Dr. Jess O’Reilly describes it as, “ the ultimate experience of pleasure.” Stating that while for some it is a release, for others, they lose control, scream and even convulse. Some even cry .(Crymaxing).
During orgasm, genital muscles contract, genitals fill with fluid and the heart rate soars. At the same time, their brain will release high levels of oxytocin and dopamine — hormones that ply you with feelings of happiness, closeness and even empathy.
For years, female orgasms have confounded scientists — the prominent theory being there’s no biological necessity for conception — but a team of scientists now believe these hormonal surges were crucial many years ago for reproduction.
“In mammals such as cats and rabbits, these surges occur during sex and play a crucial role in signaling for eggs to be released from the female’s ovaries,” writes Guardian columnist Nikola Davis of the study. “By contrast in a variety of other mammals, including humans and other primates, females ovulate spontaneously.”
Regardless of their biological origins, there are myriad benefits to orgasms from providing circulation to organs and aiding in healthy estrogen levels that keeps vaginal tissues supple, to protection against osteoporosis and heart disease. Not to mention the glorious post-orgasm wave of relaxation.
During my former stoned masturbation sessions, I would either cook or order some pizza first (it tastes so much better), and after eating I would smoke some more and then masturbate till my soul felt centered.
However, seeing as my clitoris was numb, I ditched the masturbation and settled for pizza and Netflix. I was looking to kill time and cure my boredom. Whereas before I would budget myself to one takeaway a week and cook the other evenings, due to filling the void with food, I began ordering out almost every single evening. I wanted something to look forward to at the end of the night. And for me, pizza settled those urges.
In retrospect, I could have just gone to the doctor and changed my medication, but I felt that it would be selfish for me to want both good mental health and orgasms. In life, we are told that we have to make sacrifices and I believed that this was my sacrifice.
After the last two months I had put in, I didn’t want to erase what progress I had made. For all we know, the sensation will come back tomorrow, I told myself. So I decided to power through.
And I did. Until one night, when I was out with friends and we all got into a group picture. When I saw myself I was horrified with how I looked. Even though I had been eating considerably more, I hadn’t noticed my weight gain until seeing that picture.
My fatigue was no better — if anything it’d gotten worse — my diet was awful, and I hated how I looked. Although the medication was working in helping my moods, the side effects had the opposite effect.
It was then and there that I decided not to go back to get my prescription refilled. I was petrified of restarting a different medication in case they landed me back into a situation I was so desperately trying to escape. So I stopped taking them. Orgasms — and all the behaviors wrapped up in and around them — were more integral to my life than I thought. Without them, all equilibrium was lost.
And a few weeks after my break? My orgasms returned. Due to the nature of my disorder, my moods peak and fall. So far I have been very lucky and been fine without my medication. However, I am well aware this will change.
I have noticed my anxiety has subtly been making a reappearance so I intend on restarting them again soon before I spiral and collapse. In doing more reading I have found — and believe — that I don’t need to choose between happiness and physical release — I deserve to treat my illness and have some orgasms in the meantime.
There is no such thing as the perfect body, life, or antidepressant, but I’m getting closer to wonderful all the time.
Not being able to orgasm is a hard place to be. I didn’t realize what I was missing until it was gone, as cliche as that sounds. My antidepressants made me realize that I need my orgasms. I am due to restart my medication soon and for when I do, I have found a few tips that can help manage the symptoms. (Whether or not I’m with a partner.) | https://medium.com/pulpmag/finding-my-orgasm-ef624716766 | [] | 2020-08-26 17:52:07.247000+00:00 | ['Sexuality', 'Relationships', 'Self', 'Feminism', 'Mental Health'] |
Legalizing Abortion; Still A Taboo in Sri Lanka? By Tiranya Ranasinghe | Legalizing Abortion; Still A Taboo in Sri Lanka? By Tiranya Ranasinghe
Young Feminist Network is hosted by Everystory Sri Lanka. The Network brings together young women and girls in Sri Lanka interested in issues of gender, feminism and activism together to learn from each other, collaborate on projects, be connected to funding and other opportunities, mentoring opportunities, how to better shape their ideas and work, tools they can use and more. This will be an informal network built collectively with the members and their ideas/needs. Everystory Sri Lanka Nov 27, 2020·3 min read
This piece first appeared following a call for submissions in the Young Feminist Network by ESSL newsletter for the Month of August 2020
The debate on whether abortion should be legalized continues to be an uphill battle where crux of the matter has boiled down to two main components: freedom of choice and freedom to life.
The term ‘abortion’ refers to the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. Many women are forced to go through harmful and unsafe procedures in Sri Lanka, as abortion is deemed illegal and heavily frowned upon by society. Statistics show that majority of the women who go through these procedures are from lower income families, who cannot afford to pay private healthcare, thus resorting to unsafe means. Women who want to abort as a result of rape, incest or even fetal deformities are not granted any jurisdiction to get an abortion by the law, ultimately restricting their freedom of choice.
The Sri Lankan society still remains to be very close-minded on this particular issue, as the ‘morality’ of the situation remains to be the key core of their argument in which they believe that one goes against the law of nature and commits a murder the moment they choose to seek an abortion. People have developed an inherit bias where they believe that the moment abortion is legalized in Sri Lanka, women are going to misuse the law and this prejudice stems from a patriarchal society that is afraid to lessen their control over the freedom of choice women are subjected to. But what society has failed to understand is that each circumstance is different, and there are many reasons that can justify seeking an abortion, such as a woman’s mental health (which means that she may be incapable of raising a child), financial situations and even being in an abusive marriage. What’s ironic is that despite the state being so adamant on prohibiting abortion, the state has not provided any suitable alternatives to adopt the child or any other measures that will give comfort to the lady who is not ready to be a mother. Therefore, questioning the morality of the situation has passed beyond the current status quo, and as society progresses, women are now fighting for their freedom of choice as it should be them who makes a choice on whether a child should be brought into the world.
The debate on this matter continues to enlighten many Sri Lankans and there is hope for the future as an increasing amount of Sri Lankan women and activists continue to be pro-active on this matter. | https://medium.com/@everystorysrilanka/legalizing-abortion-still-a-taboo-in-sri-lanka-by-tiranya-ranasinghe-a75157a4202 | ['Everystory Sri Lanka'] | 2020-11-27 04:53:54.809000+00:00 | ['Abortion'] |
Flushing’s Day and Night | Restaurants at Flushing
It is an old neighborhood, old in the sense of the rusty storefront tablets and golden bracelets, the aged pedestrians’ Chinese dialects that your grandma used to mumble, and the scents of braised duck feet that you remembered as a child.
It was Sept. 26, five days before the Chinese Moon Festival. Outside the Taipan Bakery on Main Street, several people lined up shortly in front of the grime-thickened glass door in thin sunlight. Inside, two crammed shopping paths, one for mooncakes and another for other bakeries, intersected, then separated.
The Moon Festival on Wednesday is a time when the moon is supposed to come full, and families are supposed to come together. While the weather forecast already declared Wednesday night to be rainy and the moon to be engulfed by clouds, no one knew if the night for that petite, wrinkled women waiting in the mooncake line will be about family reunion and festive blessings.
She wore an azure shirt and black pants with hair braided into a loose bun — a quintessential image of an aged Flushing woman. She leaned forward, pressing her body against the mooncake counter. Without a second of real observation, however, she swiftly leaned back again and swayed her head slightly to peer what other customers had bought. Another typical image one would recognize from their small town relatives’ shopping habits.
It seemed that she liked talking, at least to the young Chinese couple behind her. But it was one-way outputting instead of communicating, merely an act of opening her mouth and making some sounds that never echoed back.
“The fruit flavor mooncake bundle should be nice,” the young couple discussed. “But wouldn’t eight pieces be too much?”
“There are other bundles down there,” the women pointed to the lower section of the mooncake menu, turning around to the couple but holding her head low as if she was only muttering to herself.
The couple responded with a prolonged sound of “eeemm,” but the women went on murmuring about the flavors, the prices, and her recommendations for the young’s mooncake choice.
When it was her turn, the mooncake expert only bought one — a single, large, typical mooncake. As she walked out and disappeared into the street, the shopping throng moved a step forward.
It is Flushing in Queens, a place where the young only show up as night falls, shopping or eating or drinking, while the old ones stay, under the daylight. | https://medium.com/@lilytrack/flushings-day-and-night-34b81ca52388 | ['Lily Yang'] | 2020-12-21 20:42:52.950000+00:00 | ['Nonfiction', 'Scenes', 'Flushing', 'Chinese Culture', 'New York'] |
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