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Apache Spark 3 playground — Back to school with Zeppelin notebooks! Pt.3 | In this third and final part of our “Apache Spark 3 playground” guide we will be adding a Zeppelin notebook into the mix.
Apache Zeppelin — from Zeppelin assets
Apache Zeppelin, from the Zepplin home page, is:
Web-based notebook that enables data-driven,
interactive data analytics and collaborative documents with SQL, Scala and more.
This will allow us to create a sandbox environment that will allow us to experiment and learn without needing to manage things like building, packaging, or deploying our code.
You can save these environments and share them with other developers, engineers, and analysts.
This guide will explain:
Setup a Zeppelin notebook in a local environment
Using Spark as a backend to explore data
The general guidance for solving an introduction data question (Word-count)
Zeppelin vs Jupyter?
Jupyter is usually to go-to notebook solution for data engines, it has amazing community support and is widely used.
I found Zeppelin to be easier and more intuitive to get up and running and decided to go with it, but both are great applications to know.
It would be interesting to try to recreate this guide using Jupyter for the sake of comparison and deciding what flavor you prefer.
The first two parts of this short series covered:
Setting up a local Spark environment
Adding an S3 mock and automating its creation
The only step you need to complete from them is cloning the guide’s Github repository, we did that in Part 1.
If you’re ready to go, let's start with spinning up our playground. | https://medium.com/@omrisk/apache-spark-3-playground-back-to-school-with-zeppelin-notebooks-pt-3-4ebc18da68f7 | ['Omri Keefe'] | 2021-04-06 05:13:48.902000+00:00 | ['Jupyter Notebook', 'Spark', 'Apache Zeppelin', 'Big Data', 'Apache Spark'] |
[PDF] The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory — More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Wizards and Non-Wizards Alike by Dinah Bucholz | [PDF] The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory — More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Wizards and Non-Wizards Alike by Dinah Bucholz Timothy Leon Dec 17, 2020·5 min read
Download PDF The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook
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Product details
Publisher : Adams Media; 8/19/10 edition (September 18, 2010)
Language: : English
Hardcover : 256 pages
ISBN-10 : 1440503257
ISBN-13 : 978–1440503252
Read Online
Download full version
With this cookbook, dining a la Hogwarts is as easy as Banoffi Pie. With more than 150 easy-to-make recipes, tips, and techniques, you can indulge in spellbindingly delicious meals drawn straight from the pages of your favorite Potter stories, such as:
Treacle Tart, Harry’s favorite dessert
Molly’s Meat Pies, Mrs. Weasley’s classic dish
Kreacher’s French Onion Soup
Pumpkin Pasties, a staple on the Hogwarts Express cart
With a dash of magic and a drop of creativity, you’ll conjure up the entrees, desserts, snacks, and drinks you need to transform ordinary Muggle meals into magical culinary masterpieces, sure to make even Mrs. Weasley proud.
Editorial Reviews
“If your kids love Harry Potter, nothing is going to inspire them to get in the kitchen like this cookbook. Some of the best parts of the Harry Potter books are the rich descriptions of the holiday feasts at the Great Hall. With this book, your kids can make Harry’s favorite dessert (treacle tart, of course). They can make the mince pies that Mrs. Weasley sends Harry every Christmas, and the pumpkin pasties from the Halloween feast scene I loved reading as a kid. They can even make Mrs. Dursley’s pudding — the one Dobby destroys in the beginning of The Chamber of Secrets. As long as you don’t mind your kids going down the weird meat-pie, haggis, and Scotch collop–filled path that is the world of British food, this book is sure to be a hit.”
— Epicurious
“Cooking dishes from popular fantasy books — from Harry Potter to A Game of Thrones to the Twilight vampire tales — has become a pastime for fans seeking to immerse themselves in their favorite fictional worlds. Literary foodies are trading tips on how to cook eel pie and nettle soup, sharing ideas on blogs, YouTube and Twitter, and occasionally scoring cookbook deals. The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, which came out last year, has sold more than 150,000 copies.”
— The Wall Street Journal
“Manage all your kitchen mischief, such as Cauldron Cakes and Molly’s meat pies. We won’t tell if you pretend your mixing bowl is a cauldron.”
— BookRiot
“This book could rightly be regarded as something like a portkey; to open it is to at once be transported back to a living world of … culinary delights. A pleasant stroll down memory lane with old friends. It’s a walk worth taking for many reasons, not least of which is the abundance of good eating to be shared along the way.”
— Flavorful World
“If your loved one in a whiz in the kitchen, they’ll love the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook. This top-rated cookbook has recipes for all the classic Harry Potter treats, from Treacle Tart to Pumpkin Pasties. Maybe if you’re lucky, the recipient will share the magical results with you!”
— Reviewed.com
“Includes recipes for the fictional foods from the series, like cauldron cakes and treacle, and is a fun way to get kids interested in Harry Potter also interested in food.”
— New York Magazine
“Maybe you already have all seven volumes of Harry Potter, but do you have the unofficial cookbook? Featuring delicious recipes from the wizarding world, including Cauldron Cakes and Butterbeer, it’s the only guide you need to throwing the ultimate Hogwarts-style feast.”
— Bustle
“The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook is filled with all of the delicious, magical recipes from your favorite wizarding world — and don’t worry, they’re all perfectly safe for Muggles. Let your mouth water at the thought of lemon drops, cauldron cakes, and pumpkin pasties, all listed with easy-to-follow instructions and context from the Harry Potter books themselves. For example, the lemon drop recipe … makes a reference to a conversation between Harry and Professor McGonagall … which is what makes this book so darn cool. Plus, the recipes … offer everything you could possibly want on any given day, focusing on a banana bunch of English foods that range from savory to sweet.”
— Buzzfeed
“The food in the Harry Potter series has had us drooling for over a decade … but now you can finally make your own! The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook will have you performing absolute magic in the kitchen … . These easy-to-follow recipes are apparently delicious and don’t require you to be a master chef either, meaning this is an essential book for yourself and for any budding chefs in the family. Time to dust off your cauldrons and get cooking!”
— Pretty52
“A truly brilliant idea that combines a beloved children’s literary classic with an old-fashioned recipe book. Designed to look and feel more like a literary companion with excerpts from the books providing context for each recipe … your little wizard will be able to serve up a pint of freshly made pumpkin juice, then imagine he’s sitting down to a feast in the Hogwarts dining hall.”
— EatingWell
About the Author
Dinah Bucholz is the official author of The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook. Dinah was born to a large family and grew up in a small New York City suburb called Monsey. The most exciting things that happened in her childhood were getting her pony tail pulled by various brothers, also getting teased by the same, and enjoying spectacular good times and spectacular fights with her twin sisters.
Dinahs first experience with baking occurred when she received for her ninth birthday a toy mixer from her mom that actually worked. She mixed up a chocolate cake batter without following a recipe and then poured the brown glop into plastic bowls and set them in the oven. Thankfully, she forgot to turn the oven on.
Dinah went on to bake many more chocolate cakes and it wasnt long before she was making fine desserts and cooking delicious food had become a passion second only to eating it.
Today, Dinah lives in Philadelphia with her husband, and to the sorrow of her four children, no pets. She spends her time cooking and writing and wearing a professional-looking white chefs apron when she remembers to put it on.” | https://medium.com/@timothyleon/pdf-the-unofficial-harry-potter-cookbook-from-cauldron-cakes-to-knickerbocker-glory-more-than-582db2eee4cf | ['Timothy Leon'] | 2020-12-17 06:48:43.095000+00:00 | ['Books And Authors', 'Book Review', 'Book Recommendations', 'Books'] |
Maybe I’m not a fish? | A lot of smart, independent, adventurous and incredibly dazzling women I have had the pleasure to have met, spent time with, laughed with and now follow wide eyed on instagram have undertaken a common sport. Long-boarding. The skateboard kind. Most of them to help them with their surfing technique. Others because, well, I don’t actually know. As someone who left the beach bum life quite recently I thought that maybe a long board on wheels could help me not lose the very, very, very small progress I have managed to attain after a year and a half of “surfing”. I looked at subito.it, a website where you can buy and sell directly from individual to individual, something not highly appreciated in a country with a mentality of the middle-ages like Italia. The best deal I could find was a twice used 100 EUR long board in Bologna which is around a 30 minute drive. It didn’t seem like much money. I thought I’d contact the owner the next day and see if I could get her down to 80 in cash and considering the add had been up for a while I was sure to have success. Then I remembered a very small yet essential detail. I don’t have a 100 euros to spend on a hobby I’m not entirely sure I’ll enjoy. I cannot invest this money on a whim. That’s all it would be. I mean, sure, it will certainly help maintain some sort of something of my surfing but very likely it won’t do much. When you’re out there in the water (I must confess I stayed in the white wash most of that year and a half) the experience cannot in any way be compared to curving and cruising on asphalt.
Realizing you’re 28, broke and living at home is an absurd trip. Let me explain for a sec before you start getting all hatey and judgey. I knew perfectly well when I turned 28 that I was turning that age and not 21 or 47. I knew I was broke…I have little to no money…I can’t live like I have money when I just…don’t have any…Lastly, I tuned in when I arrived from the beach life and put all my shit in the bedroom I spent the last years of my adolescence in. Yet it took noticing that I wanted something and that buying it would set me back enough that I would have to sacrifice other things to be like: “oh shit.”
I feel no shame. I’m very proud of the life I’ve lead. I’ve done some crazy shit, crazy shit I’d re-do in a heart beat. I lived and still live a life that’s unexpected and I love myself for that. I guess what comes with twenty eight years is also enough knowledge and experience to have a little perspective. That’s what I guess happened the night I realized that I wasn’t going to just get myself something today because I had bigger and better plans for tomorrow.
Buying that skateboard would mean I would have to work another 2 days just to pay it off. It would mean having an extra thing in my life I wasn’t sure I was going to actively use and get value from. It would mean giving in to that adolescent that whines and wants rather than the adult that is disciplined and focused on her goals.
As I put my phone down, I delete the number that would have had me eighty euros poorer, look out the window, alone with myself and my thoughts I remember: “didn’t I use to own roller blades?” I did. I found them. I took them out for a spin almost as soon as I saw they still fit. Did I suck? Yes. Did I fall? Not yet. Did I have a good time? Fuck Yeah! Now I have other micro-goals: get better at turning, learn how to skate backwards and twist.
Dominika Roseclay — Pexels
This morning as I was doing my pre-breakfast laps I saw someone I recognized. A beautifully slim, tall, box red head that I’m pretty sure I used to go to the gym with. She’s around my age. Looks exactly how I remember her. Oh. She’s pushing a pram. There’s a baby inside. How cool, she’s a mum! Awesome! I hope. The alternative is a rather dull scenario.
Where the skateboard ode stopped the roller-blade tale continued. As I’m on my fourth day of, uhm, rollerblading practice? She’s on day, they baby seemed fresh so around 90-ish, of motherhood. Bizarre, isn’t it? I’m just going up and down trying to get closer to my micro goals as she’s pushing her life on a four wheel high chair down the same street. Not to say this baby is now her life, of course she’s an entire human being without the baby but we can all agree that her and this baby’s life are now close-knitted. I wonder what her story is. Was this always her plan? Did she meet someone at the gym? Is this where she always dreamed to be? Is this the result she expected out of her own life? Is she just following the rest of the salmon up-stream?
When I was 16 I moved from a very small, traditional, catholic town to another very small, traditional, catholic town…in another country. I left my mother, father and brother behind looking for something else. What? I don’t know, you have to ask 16 year old Sara that and whether I found it or not is still up for debate but regardless we here now. It’s common for small town folk to live like, well, small town folk. We tend to be rather predictable. We finish school, most of us already have the partner we’re going to start and finish a life with, we have kids and move out of our family homes to…next door or not too far from it. Get divorced when we’re around 45, get with and move in with someone else you’ve known you’re entire life and then die. That’s more or less the cycle of life. For some it’s all they want. Really, you’ll be surprised at how many of my friends are looking for that contract, that mortgage, that partner to tie them down and give them purpose. Following in the same footsteps as everyone that came before them probably gives them a sense of comfort. Maybe it’s a normal, natural thing to want and aspire to. Maybe thinking locally is the norm that has kept us alive this long. Maybe it’s people like me that are jeopardizing our very survival as a species.
Too far? Fair.
But it’s definitely a question I’ve been asking myself lately. The last 4/5 years of my life I’ve been vagabonding around the world without thinking about the future. Just living every day, one day at a time, figuring things out as they came up and not really thinking about, well, not really thinking about anything really. My main inquiries were: can I drink/eat this? What’s down there? How do you say this in whatever language? Living far from home for the last 4 years this sort of local thinking had become such a blur I could barely make sense of it. Being completely submerged now, head below the water, if I look up all I see is the light rippling and become longer and shorter depending on the motion of the waves. I’m forced to look down now. At what I’d left behind. It took a few days to realize that this reality, the one below the water is one I don’t fit in with. That’s probably the reason I had no difficulty in leaving when I did. There were no tears in my eyes that day in July 2017 when I picked up most of my shit and took a flight across the Atlantic. To live somewhere different, with strangers, not speaking the language, not knowing anything.
Kirill Lazarev -Pexels
I guess fish have never seen what life is like in the open air, all they know is the eternal blue in which they swim in. Do they even know that there is an alternative? How is it that they swim in the same direction, doing the same thing, generations to generations, the same? Maybe I wasn’t born a fish? Someone dropped me in by mistake. Or maybe I was an asshole and they purposefully pushed me over some edge. I wouldn’t blame anyone. I kinda see why they would’ve done it.
I try not to fall over as I practice my right turns, slowly make my way home, take my skates off, rip my velcro knee pads off, walk into my grandparents house barefoot, leave all my shit in my room, put some music on as I get myself ready for my afternoon English classes, I look into the mirror and ask: what would I be doing if I had never left? That’s when I’m 100% sure that I’d much rather be here than there. I’d much rather have that awkward conversation saying that I’m back home because I made some decisions in life that have set me back financially and I now resort to the support of my family until I get myself on my feet. I would much rather put up with that patronizing look of: really? This is your situation at 28? than to be a fish.
Don’t get me wrong, I see nothing wrong with being a fish and quite frankly I envy those people that had incredible foresight and started investing young, bought houses, started their own businesses. I admire those who started creating and building there lives and now have something that’s tangible and theirs. I have nothing to my name. Nothing to say “I was here” except for this Blog and quite frankly hence the name. Yet considering that all my life decisions have culminated to this moment. This moment where I effectively have nothing. I think to myself: better this than that. The life that Sara who never left is one I’m not too curious about. That’s her business. Not mine.
Chevanon -Pexels
Maybe everyone else feels like they’re not fishes either and they don’t feel like making a big deal out of it and they just get on with their fishy errands because there’s shit that needs to get done. Maybe I’m not just living a fish life but I am a fish I just haven’t figured out which kind yet. There’s no mirrors in the ocean, to be perfectly fair to myself and other fishly-confused bretherens.
I wonder what kinds of pages I’ll be writing in 5, 10 or 15 years from now? What kinds of thoughts I’ll be having then when I find something else in my attic?
Until then,
I’ll be seeing you next week,
Sarita. | https://medium.com/@saritawashere/maybe-im-not-a-fish-df742ef76ed0 | [] | 2021-07-18 14:40:14.225000+00:00 | ['Reflections Of Life', 'Gratitude', 'Decisions', 'Exploration', 'Tradition'] |
Simulating the Coronavirus Epidemic in Switzerland with a realistic model | Next, I will explain how the analysis works, starting with the model. To arrive at above plot, I had to check the model with different values of its parameters plugged in a vast number of times against the data, keeping only those parameter values and predictions where the predictions of the model lie within the constraints given by daily death count data and daily total cases. There are a few assumptions made to justify the model used and also some shortcomings of it, all of which will be discussed after explaining it.
The model itself can be thought of as a function that when given any values for its parameters returns timelines of the different cases. But, for a complicated system like an epidemic, one can unfortunately not write down this function in a closed form. Instead the model is specified using differential equations, where the variables are fractions of the total population in different types of subpopulations. Any person can be a member of one and only one types of population. The populations appearing in the model are “Never infected”, “Currently infectious”, “Recovered, immune”, “Dead”. Note that these are more specific than just “Healthy” and ”Infected”. The main parameters of the model describe the relations between the populations. These can be summarized in the following diagram, which I’ll explain below. In this discussion we’ll also be able to see one first main shortcoming of the model, namely that one possibly important type of population is still missing, something one could address in a later analysis.
The arrow originating from “Currently Infectious” going left and meeting the arrow coming from “Never infected” means that a currently infectious person has to meet a person that has never been infected to add to the population in “Currently Infectious”. This would subtract the corresponding amount from “Never infected”. The interpretation of the parameter α in the simulation I ran is the amount of people one infected person creates on average per day. The arrows originating from “Currently Infectious” pointing rightward simply mean that “Currently Infectious” people can become members of “Recovered, Immune” or sadly, “Dead”. The parameters shown there correspond exactly to the daily probabilities of one person moving from “Currently Infectious” to one of the other populations, i.e. β is the daily probability of an infected person to recover and become immune, while γ is the daily probability of an infected person to die.
This model has some obvious shortcomings: First of all, spatiality, i.e. the population being spread out in space with differing densities and all the rest of it, is completely ignored. For a small, densely populated country like Switzerland this assumption seems reasonable. For a larger, less densely populated country, e.g. the United States, this assumption might no longer sufficiently hold. Such a system one could attempt to model by having spatially separated populations appear in the model with additional transition probabilities between them. Secondly, many other possibly meaningful subpopulations are being ignored as well. In the model used here, incubation for example is instantaneous: a person coming into contact with an infectious person immediately becomes infectious as well. This means that one infectious person in the model might not really correspond to real-world infectious persons, as one might need to split this group into infected(not yet infectious) and infectious. To inform policy, other stages through which infected persons may progress are important: One might add groups of people that are severely ill, that need to be hospitalised, that need to be taken into intensive care units, and that may need to be put on inhalators. This would of course complicate the model immensely, as additional transition probabilities between these groups and the subpopulations already in the model would need to be introduced where appropriate. Finally, the transition probabilities are assumed to be constant, which if society goes into lockdown is not realistic. However, for most of the time period from which data was used, quarantine was already in place, such that the probabilities calculated reflect spreading characteristics during and despite quarantine measures.
The dynamic relations between the populations in the model can now be expressed via differential equations, which, when iterated numerically, become difference equations. The next paragraph shows the part of the python code that calculates the daily change in the populations:
for i in range(time_steps):
delta_healthy = - alpha*healthy*infected
delta_infected = + alpha*healthy*infected \ -(beta+gamma)*infected
delta_immune = + beta*infected
delta_dead = + gamma*infected
healthy = cut_off(0,1, healthy+delta_healthy)
infected = cut_off(0,1, infected+delta_infected)
immune = cut_off(0,1, immune+delta_immune)
dead = cut_off(0,1, dead+delta_dead)
What I did not mention yet, is that each of the variables and parameters appearing in that bit of code is actually a numpy array of at least 32³ entries to make use of all the vectorization and parallelization built into numpy I could get to help speed up the scan of the parameter space on my 2012 Dell Potato.
The analysis works roughly as follows then. After loading the data, I am smoothing it slightly by sliding a moving average of 3 days over the data to correct for spikes and dips caused by delays in data reporting. The data consists of time series of integrated daily reported deaths and integrated daily total reported confirmed cases, taken directly from the WHO situation reports (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports/). I am using the total cases as a lower bound, but for deaths, I am assuming that as rare integer count events, they are Poisson-distributed. Because of this, I assume that if any day had a total number of deaths N that were picked from a Poisson distribution, the true mean of the Poisson distribution lies with the usual probabilities within 1 sigma, 2 sigmas, etc. where the 1 sigma error is given by the square root of N.
Next, I want to perform a scan of the parameter space. This means that I need to generate lots of parameters, which are then plugged into the model, after which the model predictions are checked against the constraints I want to impose from the data. To do this, the function that does one round of scanning, first generates large vectors of randomly chosen values for the three parameters, alpha, beta, gamma. Equally long vectors of the initial populations of the different types of the population are generated as well, after which they’re multiplied together in the way shown in above code snippet.
alpha = 1*np.random.random_sample((n**3,))
beta = np.random.random_sample((n**3,))
gamma = 1*np.random.random_sample((n**3,)) healthy = np.array([1 for i in range(n**3)])
infected = np.array([1/initial_healthy_pop for i in range(n**3)])
immune = np.array([0 for i in range(n**3)])
dead = np.array([0 for i in range(n**3)])
The result of one iteration are four numpy arrays of length n³ containing the predictions of the n³ models differing by their input parameters. These are then appended to larger arrays which at the end of that simulation run contain the n³ simulated time series, which are then returned by the function.
Next we check if the models lie within the bound prescribed by the data, i.e. whether the total number of cases in each model is larger than the total number of cases for each where the data is available so far, and if the number of deaths lies within the upper and lower bounds generated from the daily death counts and their errors. However, to speed up things considerably, I am trying to perform all operations on large numpy arrays solely by using built-in operations and functions that according to the numpy manual are vectorized and already internally use parallelization where possible:
for j in range(max_delay):
dead_timeline_cropped_transposed = \ np.transpose(dead_timeline[j:j+len(dead_data)])
healthy_timeline_cropped_transposed = \
np.transpose(healthy_timeline[j:j+len(dead_data)]) # t_j == 1: model good
t_j_list = (np.prod( \ np.heaviside(dead_timeline_cropped_transposed-dead_lower,1) * \ np.heaviside(dead_upper-dead_timeline_cropped_transposed,1) * \ np.heaviside(total_healthy_upper-\ healthy_timeline_cropped_transposed,1),1))
The speed-up achieved by never ever looping over large arrays is what only made this type of analysis possible on my computer, as the speed-up is by a factor of several thousand, which makes the difference between the program running for 2 hours and 2000 hours or more.
The elements of the array t_j_list indicate for every model if it is valid, i.e. if its predictions lie within the constraints by the data. Now only for those models that survived this step, the values of the three main parameters are saved, also externally, together with a new parameter generated in this step, namely all possible values of how many days the data needs to shifted along the simulation for the model to be allowed. A model is allowed when at any point in its simulation it lies within the constraints of the data.
This entire step of generating parameters, running simulations, checking against the data, saving surviving points can be repeated as often as necessary to collect sufficient amounts of statistics for the next step, analysing the valid models and plotting the data.
The previous step was generally the hardest one. Now for the few 100 surviving models, I simply checked for every day and every population what the minimal and maximal values on that day were. Similarly one can check what the ranges of the parameters were and other properties of the data, such as when the peak was reached in the surviving models, or when the earliest day with less than one infected person is.
I am still improving the program, but the code will be available when I have sufficiently cleaned it up. I am planning to update this post as further data becomes available and as I improve the analysis. | https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/simulating-the-epidemic-in-switzerland-with-a-realistic-model-uncertainty-despite-high-quality-d9b36805241a | ['Thomas Neder'] | 2020-04-15 19:05:08.728000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Python', 'Covid 19', 'Numpy', 'Data Visualization'] |
On being a woman who’s riding a bike from NYC to San Francisco | I am 27. Ten years ago, I would have thought that I will be a mum at this age, living a comfortable life in a cute apartment in Paris, settling in a job I am good at and absolutely thrilled to plan our next family weekend abroad.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea. But for some reasons, this is not the choice I made. Instead of that, I left the man and the apartment on the eve of being graduate and I started to experiment. A lot.
I tried to combine a professional path with travel experiences, which I succeed so far. Every 6 months/year ever since, I’m about taking on a new challenge that allows me to expand in possibilities.
Despite of the inconstancy due to the movement, the coherence remains: I love stories. When I’m not working on relating startup stories, or creating the best environment for brands to speak in the media, I’m creating mine.
“ What’s the story ? ”
Back in January 2016, I see one of Thomas’ video online and I fall under the spell of his project: Thomas is riding the world to meet game changers. At this time, I am working in a famous media in Paris. Within two weeks, I reach out with Thomas online, I quit my job and I began to get ready.
Today, 9 of May, I am with Thomas in Niagara Falls, Canada. I cycled 450 miles so far. I do wild camping most of time. I own nothing else than a bike. I have no plan farther than August 2016, when I shall arrive in San Francisco.
The present moment is the only thing I have. And even if this is the only thing we all have, I am experiencing it instead of knowing it and that makes a difference.
Here are the main thoughts and feelings I experienced so far.
I’d better love myself beyond all
I often made conscious choices to lead me to self discovery and self improvement. That wasn’t an obvious choice but I just couldn’t make it without experiencing who I am in different situations. Often the first weeks of cycling from NYC to Niagara Falls I felt too weak to cross the US by bike. Cycling every day requires to trust me in every pedal stroke. Physical efforts, pushing oneself to the limits, independence and courage are also lessons that make woman stronger.
A single decision can change my position in life but the thought that I am capable and confident is the essential fuel so that I go farther to the adventure.
One step at a time is the only path to big changes
I often pictured the kind of life I want to live. This is a daily thought I had without really understanding how to achieve it. I just had the feeling that one day, everything would just fit together. This cycling experience taught me that small things lead you way further than strides. Small things such as to only focus on pedal strokes and to write every day increase my self awareness. It makes me realize that doing something I love every single day improve my actual life while building a better tomorrow.
To sleep is as valuable as taking action
I lived in the obsession of time. Would I have enough time to travel the world, build a career, live a valuable relation, have children? I always think of the following action, the next stage, the next big thing and I end up being crushed with my bucket list. The road taught me so far that the sleep is an essential asset to give some rest in my mind and be able to be only focused on the essential action. To sleep helps me to see clearly, to cycle better better, to feel stronger.
Vulnerability is the strongest thing I have
I am traveling with a man who is cycling the world for a year. He is young, independant, action-oriented, confident and patient. I am emotional, vulnerable, full of doubt and impatient. Often I ask myself: do I have what it takes to cross the US by bike? Why do I put myself in such situation to do something I never did before, for whom I am not prepared? I won’t have any answer asking myself the wrong questions.
Vulnerability is what makes me who I am. This is the reason why I am here. This is the reason why I am listening to my guts and pushing me further to the person I want to become.
Vulnerability is the strongest thing I have because it leads me to my personal truth and it helps me to find the strength to achieve what I want. | https://medium.com/chloe-leb/on-being-a-woman-whos-riding-a-bike-from-nyc-to-san-francisco-17ca29ecee88 | ['Chloe Leb'] | 2017-11-09 11:17:37.218000+00:00 | ['Exploration', 'English', 'Cycling', 'Adventure', 'Women'] |
Journaling Cancer | Journaling Cancer
by Andy Mudd
Start with an anecdote, they tell you, to draw your reader in gently. Hook your reader with a humorous story, they advise, or a heart-warming reflection from your youth. An anecdote will ease your audience into your subject, a gentle metaphor as a pillow to entice them to stay longer. But there’s nothing in your life that compares to the explosion of hearing the word cancer. As in, cancer in your house. As in, cancer in your wife’s lungs that has metastasized to the occipital lobe of her brain. I can’t tell you a humorous anecdote like that. So I dove in with phone calls and a lot of crying. The anecdotes would come later.
I’ve been writing all my life. Ask my mother and she’ll tell you that I was writing before I could talk. When it came to telling our family and friends about my wife’s cancer and the daily experience of this new, weird journey, I decided I would rather write than talk. That night in December 2017, my wife Becky and I joined a health-support blogging website to share the details with everyone, because we agreed we didn’t want Facebook to become Cancer Central in our lives. Facebook was, of course, for cat photos and restaurant reviews.
Becky and I have been journaling since the first week of our cancer odyssey. I will post every time a twist in the road comes up, gentle curve or wild hairpin, sometimes twice a week if needed; while Becky writes infrequently, usually with a specific message for the larger audience. And it’s become quite a sizable audience: around 280 people from all compartments of our lives past and present tune in regularly to follow our adventure. In the 15 months since Becky’s diagnosis, three important aspects of our journaling cancer have come to light.
Sharing Information
Our blog posts keep everyone informed of our latest news. Sure, that seems obvious, but the benefit of sharing via writing is tremendous, a silver lining we never imagined. By writing it down, you share it once. People read about today’s doctor’s consult or the newest treatment, then that topic doesn’t consume every interaction we have with friends and family. Becky and I will see friends at a festival or concert or at the grocery store, and we are free to talk about normal, everyday topics rather than What’s the latest cancer news? They know already. They know we’re scared, they know we’re relieved, they know Monday is a big day, they know what they don’t need to ask about.
Thankfully our friends still ask how Becky is doing because they care about her, but it’s a quick blip on our conversational radar, not a lengthy narrative about visits and treatments and side effects. Likewise, over the phone with both our families across the miles, our conversations get to be about normal, family chitchat. School grades, local gossip, travel plans. Even the folks we don’t speak to regularly — old co-workers and former students, neighbors from our childhood, classmates from all levels of school — they have re-connected with us through our journal. So when we do talk, they already know our story. Let’s just have a regular, non-cancer conversation please.
Keeping Track
Life With Cancer changed our approach to doctors and medical visits. Before Becky’s diagnosis, we saw doctors only on rare occasions: a sinus infection, pink eye, an ear ache. More preventive than emergency, more mammogram and colonoscopy. We saw our dentist more often than any M.D.; we could count our health concerns per year on one hand. All that has changed with cancer, where we now have visits upon visits, with scans and cycles and updates. CT scans and MRIs. Chemo and radiation. Throw in a possible detached retina scare and a slip-and-fall on an icy curb, and we now chart medical visits like they are speeders on I-95 over a July 4th weekend.
Our online journal has become a terrific source to look back on dates and procedures and offices. Gamma knife? Tuesday, March 27, 6:30 A.M. Blood transfusion? Friday, April 20, 8:30 P.M. Our journal also keeps track of side effects and symptoms, nurses’ warnings and suggestions, what to look out for, what to avoid. When the doctor tells us Opdivo might affect Becky’s liver and kidney functions, we now know to check on those numbers regularly in her bloodwork. When the nurse asks when our last echocardiogram was, we pull up the relevant post that told the world about it. (Thursday, September 18, 2:30 P.M.) Insurance question? Payment delayed? Test recommended? We have all the dates close at hand.
Charting Progress
This journey with cancer has been a bumpy ride, full of emotional potholes and times when it feels like we lose all contact with the ground beneath our wheels. We’ve had some bright spots too, like when our doctor came in with the results of the latest CT scan and exclaimed, “Everything looks good!” Not only does our journal record the facts and information, but it also keeps track of our emotions. For months, we kept searching for our new normal. Our lives were disrupted so deeply for so long — our feeling and fears, our weekly plans, our evening meals — we were always asking: when are things going to feel normal again? More than just tracking the highs and lows, the posts on our blog have illustrated how Becky and I have adapted.
We write honestly and openly about our doubts, our fears, our uncertainty. The tale is told through a series of cliffhangers: Becky and I don’t know the end of the story. Each journal post could end with a To Be Continued. We don’t know how the path will turn next. But looking back over the mosaic of our story, told in tiny swatches of our weird days, we can see how much we’ve learned. How much we’ve adjusted, how much we’ve conquered. Now when we hit a new emotional pothole, we can read back in our journals to see how much stronger we are now than when we started.
Our story is not over. Eighty-one entries over 65 weeks. Photos included. To be continued. People have called it a love story; other call it a hero’s quest. I see it as a kind of therapy, a window on a speeding train so Becky and I can see that we’re not alone on the journey. I see it as a release valve on a pressure cooker. I see it as a pillow to entice the reader to stay with us just a little longer. | https://medium.com/@amudd63/journaling-cancer-1eb6e4e5f25e | ['Andrew Mudd'] | 2019-03-18 21:08:10.581000+00:00 | ['Cancer', 'Coping', 'Marriage', 'Journaling'] |
Why “Lived Experience” Is a Poor Basis for Knowledge | Recently, the term “lived experience” has become popular as a way of knowing or understanding things. This idea actually conflates two things. First is the understanding that we all operate in the world together and therefore need common frames of reference to interact and communicate with each other. The second thing is that individual experiences often contradict the common frames of reference and should be given consideration when dealing with individuals. Both of these things are true, but they are not the same thing.
Violent crime is very uncommon in the developed world. This is an understanding that most of us share. If we did not, we would not gather in groups with strangers such as at sporting events, and we would not go places that we can’t ensure are safe such as parks or the beach. This matters very little to someone who has been a victim of a violent crime, and it is wildly inappropriate to tell them to shake off the trauma of their experience because it rarely happens. That victim will certainly feel like violent crime has a high rate of occurrence, and in their life it will have.
That does not mean that violent crime has a high rate of occurrence in the city, state, province, country, etc. in which that person lives, and to operate as if it does would be quite unnecessarily disruptive. Yes, to always operate as if the worst case will occur will help prevent it from happening or mitigate its impact, but that will have other costs like never getting an education, severely decreased opportunities for earning a living, being completely antisocial, and living in a remote bunker on top of a mountain.
Thus, when dealing with any scale beyond the individual, individual experience does not apply. This also works the same in reverse. Men are stronger than women on average, but try to fight Gina Carano or Ronda Rousey and the vast majority of men will find out how irrelevant that fact is at the individual level. This was understood by everyone before what seems like last month (when “lived experience” was called anecdotal evidence).
Credit: Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
There’s a related concept that sometimes gets used of “personal truth.” It’s a rejection of objective truth and reality. Subjectivity obviously has its place. Hot and cold are relative terms. Red dwarf stars are cold compared to the average star, but they’ll still burn me to ash long before I get close enough to touch one.
Here’s a phenomenon I like to use to illustrate why “lived experience” and “personal truth” are bad ideas on which to base one’s understanding of the world. We perceive the temperature of water very differently based on the circumstances. If you’re outside in sub-zero winter weather without proper clothing, you’re going to get very cold. If you then go inside and step into a bath that someone has drawn for you with 80°F (27°C) water, that water is going to feel painfully hot. In contrast, if you’re working hard outside in a desert in summer when it’s 120° (49°C)and then jump in the ocean that’s 80°F, it’s going to feel freezing. You might even start to shiver after a few minutes.
Knowing this, how dangerous is it to drink water that someone tells you is hot, but not too hot? How about if your hand is frostbitten and someone has gotten a bowl of water to submerge your hand in. Do you drink that water or plunge your hand in without testing? Of course not. We don’t even like to jump into a pool without dipping a toe in first, and we know that the pool is neither boiling nor frozen before we do. We don’t care about the “lived experience” of the person in the pool, and if you take the “personal truth” of the person that brewed your coffee as reality, be prepared for a burned mouth or a disappointing lukewarm brew. What about delicate things like baking bread or maintaining aquarium temperature? How do we manage that knowing that our bodies are very subjective when it comes to water temperature?
We make an objective measurement. This is science, and it’s the best way to understand the world. Humans are subjective water heat detectors. A thermometer isn’t. Mercury expands the same amount under the same temperature of water every time. This is how we get rid of our own subjectivity to better understand things.
Similarly to the scalding (or tepid) coffee, if you base your life on the “lived experience” of a person who was mugged last week, you’re going to have a much worse life watching thousands of other people happily carrying on as if that possibility were as remote as it objectively is instead of the imminent threat you’ve been told it is.
Lastly, why is it called “lived experience” and not just experience? Is there some way to experience something other than living it? Did I not get the telepathy memo? | https://medium.com/bigger-picture/why-lived-experience-is-a-poor-basis-for-knowledge-d0e2c2f2fef4 | ['Craig Carroll'] | 2020-12-22 22:25:51.361000+00:00 | ['Society', 'Culture', 'Experience', 'Knowledge'] |
Please Stop Treating Your Career As A Race | Do you ever feel that you are stuck in your career? Do you ever feel that you are riding a bicycle whereas your peers are zipping past you in their Tesla(s)? Do you feel that that your career has become the Friends theme song sans the friends, the fountain, or even the spotlight.
“It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month Or even your year, but”
It’s everything you imagined your career not to be.
You see the scrolls of new shiny learning certificates appear in an infinite scroll on Linkedin, and you feel like the only one left behind.
You see your friends, and colleagues picking up venture deals, fancy new titles, salaries to feed an entire village, new degrees, and you think to yourself where did you go wrong?
How can they achieve so much so soon? How did they get the clarity of purpose to follow their dreams? When did they outfox you in the speed of recognition, and fame?
You feel smaller. You feel your career or life doesn’t amount to much as you haven’t earned the same markers of success like your colleagues.
The problem is not them. Also, not really you. But in the thought process of success being linear. I’m sorry to break it to you, but it isn’t.
We imagine our career and its success to be one smooth line like the one in an exponential curve whereas in reality, it is anything but a smooth curve.
Our life is a collection of endless dots — some big, some small — spread out on the canvas of space and time, like the infinite stars on a dark moonless sky.
But here is the problem — Our brains are meaning or pattern making machines. We constantly connect these random dots to derive meaning (say hello to survivorship bias). Because let’s face it — if science has taught us anything, it is that the world, as we know it, isn’t random.
And guess what — we don’t stop there. We then connect dots in other people’s careers, and then indulge in the most sadistic thing ever conjured up by our sinister minds — compare our graphs with theirs. Because what’s better than one career’s graph? Yes, you guessed it — two. Ahh…the joys we find in self-inflicted pain. The biggest disservice that you can do to yourself is to compare the contours of your life with another.
Please don’t compare. No one is running. Your career or life’s not a race. You are not competing with anyone. If it makes you feel any better, you are not lagging behind in any race. And even if the race is there, it is imaginary — you are not going to win a trophy when all of this ends.
You are fine just the way you are. Yes, you. Yes, the one who first spends copious amounts of time in deciding whether to binge watch Mirzapur, or Queen’s Gambit. And then spends the entire weekend binge watching either or both of them. Okay, while we are at it, please watch Queen’s Gambit — it’s lovely. Thank me later.
You don’t have to be constantly on a career boosting treadmill. Every single minute of your waking life doesn’t have to be squeezed into a knowledge juice full of pulp.
You should just create as many interesting, and varied size dots on your canvas of life. You don’t have to morph them into some sort of a curve to validate first your existence, or knowledge, and then compare how far along you are when compared to someone else.
Let the dots spread far out. It’s your canvas. And the only one you got.
Relax. Breathe. Enjoy the ride, will you? | https://medium.com/the-post-grad-survival-guide/please-stop-treating-your-career-as-a-race-581c629365c9 | ['Tarun Kohli'] | 2020-11-19 07:28:48.219000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Career Advice', 'Work', 'Careers', 'Philosophy'] |
‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen’ — the Holy Scripture of the Enlightenment Era | ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen’ — the Holy Scripture of the Enlightenment Era Shashwat Jha Follow Sep 2 · 5 min read
The Age of Enlightenment was not just a period of great philosophical progress and debate, but also one that synthesized the different forms of popular government.
Arguably the most prevalent one today is constitutional democracy which was the final answer to the tyranny faced by the masses at the end of the Age of Enlightenment. One of the first official, governmental documents to outline the traits of a constitutional democracy was the Declaration of the Rights of Man, hence naturally, it encompasses a plethora of enlightenment ideals.
For the purpose of this analysis, the first article chosen is the sixth one in the declaration. The stated article deals with the formation and maintenance of laws, displaying several enlightenment ideals. The first and foremost is human autonomy.
The article states that “law is the expression of the general will”[1], showing that humans are rational beings and can think for themselves. Through the development of reason, human beings agree on certain notions because of their general will and these notions are called laws.
Stating that “every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through their representative, in its [law’s] foundation”[2] emphasises another connection between human autonomy and the article.
This statement, and the article in general, also promote two other Enlightenment ideals. The concept of every citizen being equal in the eyes of law advocates universalism, whereas the choice of selecting a representative for the formation of laws displays the support for popular government.
Furthermore, this article displays attributes of reason and progress. Since the human history is the story of progress towards reason and freedom, it is only reasonable that every citizen of a state may hold legislative, executive and judicial positions in its government “according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.”[3] This article is a wholesome example of enlightenment ideals because it features the qualities of law necessary for progressive governance.
Concepts of secularism, universalism and progress are displayed in the tenth article of the declaration. The ability to freely express one’s opinions, which is provided in this article, is a sign of progress towards more liberty in society.
Since worship is a private matter, by stating that “no one shall be disquieted on account for his opinions, including his religious views”[4], the article promotes the ideas of secularism. Moreover, universalism is portrayed by providing this right to every citizen and uniting them via these fundamental rights.
A society where citizens are provided with utmost freedom in their faith benefits from these provisions since this freedom eventually develops a stronger faith in the governing system. To have the stability of a civilization depend upon its constituents’ independent and equal rights is a proof of development towards a progressive society — one which is entirely free of oligarchical, suppressive practices.
The thirteenth article of the declaration emphasizes the importance of economy by stating that a common contribution is needed by every citizen for the efficient management of society’s administration and military forces. Taxation is a major point of debate in the political spectrum.
Different political ideologies support different levels and distribution of taxation; however, it cannot be denied that taxes are one of the primary sources of revenue for governments around the world. “According to the most recent estimates from the International Center for Tax and Development, total tax revenues account for more than 80% of total government revenue in about half of the countries in the world — and more than 50% in almost every country.”[5]
These figures demonstrate the importance and necessity of taxation for a functional government. Additionally, by stating that every contribution should be proportionate to the contributor’s means, the article elicits reasoning because an equal contribution from all classes would result in a disastrously uneven wealth distribution. Hence, it is evident that the thirteenth article of the declaration is not only an imperative aspect of a constitutional democracy but also one which highlights empathy and rationality towards the state’s citizens.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man was not only ground-breaking in terms of the fundamental rights that it illustrated, but also for setting the foundation for numerous constitutional democracies around the world. It was adopted as the preamble of the French constitution of 1791, and even became the model for the preamble of the constitution of the world’s largest democracy, India.[6]
The Declaration of the Rights of Man was overwhelmingly revolutionary because it stemmed out of and encompassed the raging enlightenment ideals that originated during the French Revolution. It was the official, documented response to the years of tyranny that the common citizens had faced under feudalism and monarchy. As the title of the document describes, it was a bold assertion of their essential rights.
These essential rights have survived the test of time in most of the modern countries and several democracies continue to exhibit the ideals that were popularized by the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The basic rights depicted in the document — “liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression”[7] — are the most fundamental rights in most of the modern democracies such as the UK, USA, Canada and even France, from where it originates.
The enlightenment ideal of progress is also the story of humanity. The revolutionary values associated with liberty that were presented at the end of the 18th Century have progressed through two centuries to become even stronger and more resilient. | https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/declaration-of-the-rights-of-man-and-citizen-the-holy-scripture-of-the-enlightenment-era-19656e04d8db | ['Shashwat Jha'] | 2020-09-02 15:51:18.430000+00:00 | ['Enlightenment', 'Democracy', 'France', 'Liberty', 'History'] |
Then I Spoke Up and That Dysfunctional Family Dynamic Changed | Then for the hundredth time she laughed at our dysfunction. She made a joke she had made a hundred times about how dad had gotten drunk, again, and drove her to a local retail store. He asked her to get out of the car. They stood and looked at a barrel. Dad used that barrel to discuss life being empty and full. All of this because his sister called and said his daughter might be doing drugs. Dad’s way of handling that was to get drunk, drive his daughter somewhere his inebriated mind could come up with, and then use whatever he could to come up with an illustration that would help him basically tell his daughter don’t do drugs. My sister tells this story over and over again and she laughs.
The rest of the room laughs. It took me years to notice. When I did I stopped laughing. I delved deep into myself. Keeping quiet and thinking bad thoughts. I bitched to my adult kids about the dysfunction. About how family get togethers are dysfunctional at best. At how we have no relationship and just show up and make jokes about serious family problems. I get angry. I clam up. I decide to keep showing up, but just not say anything. They keep laughing, we keep not having good relationships, and I keep getting angry.
Despondency sets in. It’s a good point to be at. I finally do something that frees me from their dysfunction. I get fed up with life. I let myself get to the end of myself. Suicide looks better. I decide I want to quit everything. I get really depressed and lose all hope because of my current status quo. I linger in sadness and grief for just enough years to finally get sick of living like that. I decide I need to start speaking up. It feels good. I start gently saying what I want. Reminding people that I exist. That I have an opinion. That I like this or that thing. I start inducing myself into the process. Saying yes and no. I suddenly feel free. I suddenly see that I don’t have to wait for our upcoming move to change my life. The power was with me the whole time. Not the power to change others. The power to change myself. To take control of the situations that keep me in dysfunction.
We sit together at a long country table. Enjoying a home cooked meal. There is meat loaf, potatoes, lots of veges, salad, and homemade pie. The conversation starts nice, but as usual turns to making jokes about serious family problems. No one can say anything without sister making a joke. Isn’t it funny about that time when she was drunk and her small kids kept telling her they didn’t like drinking in the house and that it upset them? Isn’t it funny that time when they woke up and there was a mouse in the dryer, and no one remembers how it got there, or something like that? Don’t kids say the funniest things, like mom quit having people over and drinking so much. She laughs. A few others do to. I feel the need to get quiet. To close up and begin mind bitching. Why is she like this, why do we have to keep doing this, why are they laughing.
I wait until she is done. Until things get quiet and then softly mention that the reason dad got drunk and took her to a barrel to try to tell her he didn’t want her to do drugs was because his family never took the time to teach the man how to communicate like a normal human being. He was NEVER given the time. He had a cold self-centered mother. Someone we all loved, but someone who never gave him affection or taught him anything. He was a grown man who didn’t know what to do with his years of neglect, his deep emotions and love, and who didn’t know how to say simple things. Getting drunk and taking his daughter to a barrel to talk about half empty half full was all he had to give. There is nothing funny about that. Nothing. My sister walks off. I was quiet and gentle but made the point. It’s not funny.
I went home that day and realized that the power to attain the freedom I wanted was right in front of me. I could stand up against dysfunction in non combative ways. I could simply be a person who communicates properly, speaks gently, and stands up for her own values. I didn’t need to be physically removed to experience the freedom I longed for. I simply needed to be the person I wanted to be and speak up. I needed to say that is not funny, but hey can you pass the salt? I didn’t need to remove myself from the family or the table, but simply be me. Be the person I am and not get pulled into the laughter of dysfunction. I had truly found my freedom and hope for the future.
We can’t make others change. We can’t make them accept the damage they did to their children. We can’t make them quit making jokes about it. We can’t make them quit laughing about serious problems. We can’t make them be less obnoxious and more loving, but we can be who we are. We have the power to be us. To stand up for what we believe in. Our values. To maintain our integrity. To not laugh when things aren’t funny. To not get pulled into conversations that are not healthy. To not let unhealthy people dominate us or a conversation. We are free to be and free to not be. The power truly lies with us.
In two Sundays we will gather together again. We will sit at the same long table. Eat similar food. There will be fresh pie. We will talk about things that are not important. Sister will make jokes about serious problems and I will sit quietly and wait my turn to talk and when I do I will be me. I will not laugh at dysfunction. I will stay and smile and participate in the meal and I will maintain who I am. I will speak up when needed to bring a healthy approach to the conversation and I will help others by saving them from diving into her dysfunction. I will make the moment healthy, for my part, let go of what I can’t change, and enjoy that moment in all its dysfunctional family glory.
Marcy Pedersen | https://marcypedersen.medium.com/then-i-spoke-up-and-that-dysfunctional-family-dynamic-changed-b867b0dcc915 | ['Marcy Pedersen'] | 2020-01-16 11:43:57.655000+00:00 | ['This Happened To Me', 'Change Your Life', 'Stories', 'Family', 'Freedom Of Speech'] |
Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine | Important things we know about the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine
• From roughly 44000 participants, vaccine and placebo were administered 1:1 ratio, the vaccine participants demonstrated 95% efficacy in preventing COVID-19 in those without prior infection 7 days or more after the second dose.
• Partial protection from the vaccine candidate appeared as early as 12 days after the first dose.
• The vaccine has shown consistent results in people of different ages, races, BMI, and with various co-morbid conditions.
About the trial:
Pfizer conducted a randomized, observer-blinded COVID-19 vaccine trial for an mRNA vaccine named BNT162b2. The vaccine trial recipients will be followed up for two years to track antibody longevity and long-term side effects of the vaccine. The vaccine is dosed at a two-week interval. There are in total 6 visits and at the first two visits the vaccine was administered and blood is collected to check serum for preformed antibodies and the rest 4 visits are spaced at 4 weeks, 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years from the first dose, here only blood is collected to monitor serum antibodies.
The people enrolled in the trial have to maintain a digital diary of the symptoms. There are roughly 44000 people who have registered for the vaccine and various modifications were made to the trial as it kept increasing the study population such as including people below 16 years of age, representing minorities including African American, Hispanics, Native Americans, etc. Another update was to include people with Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, obesity, and some other co-morbid conditions. The vaccine had uniform tolerability and efficacy in such a varied population.
How did they calculate 95 percent efficacy?
There were 36,523 participants and 170 cases of COVID-19 onset were observed at least 7 days after the second dose, 8 cases were from the vaccine group and 162 from the placebo group, corresponding to the 95 percent vaccine efficacy (CI 90.3–97.6).
The vaccine efficacy between the first and second doses is 54 percent (CI 29.5 -68.4).
Common Side effects and storage requirements:
Amongst the side effects of the vaccine most common ones are pain at the injection site, fatigue, and headache. There is not enough data for the safety of the vaccine in pregnancy and excretion in breast milk.
The vaccine vial has to be stored at -70 degree Celsius and during administration, it has to be thawed at room temperature for 30 mins, diluted and then administered. Once the diluted vaccine dosage is made it can be stored for 6 hours in a refrigerator at 2–8 degrees Celsius. | https://medium.com/@tasneem-adenwala/pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-7c6b8210febb | ['Tasneem Adenwala'] | 2020-12-23 20:44:11.326000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Pfizer', 'Vaccines'] |
Map of the River Sabine… | The mouth of the Sabine River, where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico south of the City of Sabine, was the starting point for the Joint Boundary Commission’s survey.
Although the 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty established the boundary between Spain and the United States beginning at the mouth of the Sabine River, it had never been officially mapped.[2] It was not until the establishment of the Joint Boundary Commission, led by Memucan Hunt for Texas and John H. Overton for the United States, that the eastern border of Texas was formally set.[3]
A United States Custom House was situated northeast across the river from its Texas counterpart.
During early negotiations between the Republic of Texas and the United States, there was concern among the Texans that the United States government would attempt to claim territory up to the Neches River, rather than the Sabine as specified in the Adams-Onís Treaty.[4]Then, in evidence of the storied history of wrangling with semantics regarding the English language, another problem also emerged: what, exactly, was meant by the “mouth” of the river? Before the Joint Boundary Commission began its work, it was decided that the boundary river was the Sabine, and that its mouth was, in fact, on the Gulf of Mexico (and not, as Texas hoped to claim, north of Sabine Lake).[5]
The Neches River meets the Sabine at Sabine Lake. Texans were concerned that the United States would attempt to claim the Neches as the boundary line.
Beginning in the southern area of the map where the Joint Boundary Commission began its work, the mouth of the Sabine River is charted as it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. At the time of this survey, the United States’ boundary included everything up to the west bank of the river, as indicated by red shading on the Texan side.[6] A Texan Custom House is noted south of the City of Sabine, with its counterpart U.S. Custom House on the opposite bank, northeast of the city. Depths of the river, as well as Sabine Lake, are included in this portion of the map.
An intricate compass rose indicates north.
Proceeding northward, the Neches River is shown entering Sabine Lake, and numerous named bayous and creeks are labeled. The next town shown on the Texas side is Salem, with a road shown heading east to Opelousas.
The title block occupies a large portion of the inland section of the center of the map. It provides extensive information regarding the boundary commission, its methodology, and the scale at which the map was drawn. Below this, an intricately drawn lone star-themed compass rose indicates north. | https://medium.com/save-texas-history/map-of-the-river-sabine-9de86e94d97a | ['Texas General Land Office'] | 2020-04-30 14:09:14.579000+00:00 | ['Texas', 'History', 'United States', 'Maps'] |
Face Recognition with Python, in Under 25 Lines of Code | OpenCV
OpenCV is the most popular library for computer vision. Originally written in C/C++, it now provides bindings for Python.
OpenCV uses machine learning algorithms to search for faces within a picture. Because faces are so complicated, there isn’t one simple test that will tell you if it found a face or not. Instead, there are thousands of small patterns and features that must be matched. The algorithms break the task of identifying the face into thousands of smaller, bite-sized tasks, each of which is easy to solve. These tasks are also called classifiers.
For something like a face, you might have 6,000 or more classifiers, all of which must match for a face to be detected (within error limits, of course). But therein lies the problem: for face detection, the algorithm starts at the top left of a picture and moves down across small blocks of data, looking at each block, constantly asking, “Is this a face? … Is this a face? … Is this a face?” Since there are 6,000 or more tests per block, you might have millions of calculations to do, which will grind your computer to a halt.
To get around this, OpenCV uses cascades. What’s a cascade? The best answer can be found in the dictionary: “a waterfall or series of waterfalls.”
Like a series of waterfalls, the OpenCV cascade breaks the problem of detecting faces into multiple stages. For each block, it does a very rough and quick test. If that passes, it does a slightly more detailed test, and so on. The algorithm may have 30 to 50 of these stages or cascades, and it will only detect a face if all stages pass.
The advantage is that the majority of the picture will return a negative during the first few stages, which means the algorithm won’t waste time testing all 6,000 features on it. Instead of taking hours, face detection can now be done in real time.
Cascades in Practice
Though the theory may sound complicated, in practice it is quite easy. The cascades themselves are just a bunch of XML files that contain OpenCV data used to detect objects. You initialize your code with the cascade you want, and then it does the work for you.
Since face detection is such a common case, OpenCV comes with a number of built-in cascades for detecting everything from faces to eyes to hands to legs. There are even cascades for non-human things. For example, if you run a banana shop and want to track people stealing bananas, this guy has built one for that! | https://medium.com/geeky-bawa/face-recognition-with-python-in-under-25-lines-of-code-bc830c4a7078 | ['Vaibhav Hariramani'] | 2020-11-26 07:13:59.002000+00:00 | ['Facedetection', 'Opencv Python', 'Image Processing', 'Face Recognition'] |
Reduce Your Footprint To Save Yourself, Not The Planet | Improve Your Future By Looking To The Past:
I could spout on and on about why reducing your carbon footprint will benefit you. But I’ll keep my reasoning simple:
Anytime you can apply an understanding of human evolution to your present-day life, you will be better off.
We evolved to live in harmony with nature. We evolved to mostly eat lower on the food chain — think fruits and vegetables, not factory-bred meat and sugar-laden processed foods. We evolved to be on our feet, not on a comfortable couch or an ergonomic desk chair. We evolved to spend time outside. We evolved to derive pleasure from the simple things in life — socializing with friends and loved ones, not scrolling on a screen to find edited pictures to like or things to buy that you don’t need and are probably ecologically harmful. We evolved to live life in the slow lane, not the fast lane. We evolved to live surrounded by plants and rocks, not concrete and asphalt.
Your ancestors lived very sustainable lifestyles. It was good for them, their neighbors, and the finite planet they lived on.
The more you can emulate your ancestors in this respect, the better off you’ll be. Maybe that goes against the gospel of progress and futurism, but I’m a bit skeptical that many of the technological advancements we’ve made lately as a civilization — cars, TVs, smartphones, etc — have truly heightened our sense of well-being.
Call me crazy, but sometimes I wish I could enter a time machine and go back 10,000 or 20,000 years. Sure, Stone Age people had hard, risky lives back in the day. They toiled to find clean food and water. They faced harsh conditions and were always vulnerable to violence and predation. Trouble awaited them with every step and every breath.
Nonetheless, I don’t think they were significantly worse off than we are today.
They didn’t pollute their air and poison their water with deadly chemicals. They didn’t stare at screens all day and play dangerous fake comparison games with each other. They didn’t ‘buy’ things they didn’t need. They didn’t eat processed crap. They didn’t lounge around and sit on their asses. They didn’t build concrete cages divorced from nature.
They lived life to the fullest.
And so can you.
You can choose to adopt many of their wise practices, but you can benefit from the cars, antibiotics, supermarkets, and smartphones we take for granted.
You can choose to embrace the aspects of modern life that are good for you and embrace the aspects of ancient life that are good for you.
You have the best deck of cards any generation has ever had. If you play your hand correctly, you can live a better life than anyone ever has.
And your lifestyle will become a smaller slice of the carbon footprint pie.
Spend some time thinking deeply about what aspects of modern life truly benefit you. Then, think about what the ancients did that you too can do to cultivate your well-being.
Take advantage of the pandemic to reconnect with nature and thereby reconnect with yourself. You may never have a better opportunity to bridge the gap between your authentic self and the inauthentic aspects of your self you present to the world. | https://medium.com/climate-conscious/reduce-your-footprint-to-save-yourself-not-the-planet-901944d2a928 | ['Danny Schleien'] | 2020-11-04 13:03:21.202000+00:00 | ['Evolution', 'Self', 'Environment', 'Carbon Footprint', 'Psychology'] |
Cool Intellij IDEA Shortcuts | I have used Netbeans, Eclipse, STS, and Intellij IDEA but Intellij has been my ultimate choice since my first use. It is one of the best IDE for developing applications. Compared to other IDEs, it provides strong support for autocomplete feature. The debugging feature in it is a lot easier and the User Interface is awesome. I just love it.
Using shortcuts helps us to do more in less time. I have my favorite IntelliJ IDEA shortcuts mentioned below.
Note: I have GNOME as a keymap setting in my IDE.
Rename (Shift + F6)
This is the most frequently used shortcut for me. It helps to rename the variables or methods’ names. Let’s see an example.
public List<String> getPaymentList(){
// logic
return Collections.emptyList();
}
Your senior developer didn’t like the name of your method or let’s say Uncle Bob would hate you for this method name which is why you would like to change it. It had been used in twenty different places and you have to replace the name manually. Can you feel the pain? Go to the method declaration part of your code or to the method calling part, place your cursor to the method name and hit Shift + F6, and rename your method. Voila, you can see the changes being reflected in all the files.
Multi Cursor (Alt + J)
This is personally my favorite shortcut. It is also a shortcut to flex with junior developers. It helps us to multi-select the matching content. Consider the scenario, where you have this SQL file.
INSERT INTO users(id, name, address, phone) VALUES (1, 'John', 'ktm', '122233');
INSERT INTO users(id, name, address, phone) VALUES (2, 'Tim', 'ktm', '122234');
INSERT INTO users(id, name, address, phone) VALUES (3, 'Tom', 'ktm', '122235');
INSERT INTO users(id, name, address, phone) VALUES (4, 'Lindy', 'ktm', '122236');
INSERT INTO users(id, name, address, phone) VALUES (5, 'Catherina', 'ktm', '122237');
INSERT INTO users(id, name, address, phone) VALUES (6, 'Bill', 'ktm', '122238');
// 1000 of lines
You have to add one more column in this SQL called user_type with static value USER, are you going to do it manually? Definitely, not. There might be other options for this use case as well, but I am going to demonstrate the power of Alt + J. In the first line, place your cursor before VALUES and select phone) and hit Alt+J multiple times and you can see the exact word phone) being selected. This is what it looks like:
Move your cursor before ) and type , along with your column name i.e user_type. There you go, we unleashed the power of Alt + J. Also, we can unselect from the last by hitting Alt + Shift + J.
Bookmark (Ctrl+Shift+AnyKey and Ctrl+AnyKey)
If you are working with multiple files, you might have to navigate between methods across different files. It will be a pain to go back and forth. Let’s say you are trying to fix a bug written by somebody else, you are already tired searching codes and you forgot the method name or class name you recently visited, it will be so infuriating. Adding a bookmark will help you to be more productive in such cases.
You can hit Ctrl+Shift+AnyKey to set a bookmark. For eg: Ctrl+Shift+1. Intellij IDEA will show a bookmark icon.
You can work with other files and if you feel like jumping into this code, you can hit Ctrl+AnyKey (Ctrl+1 in this case) and you will be returned to this method. It’s that easy. Similarly, you can remove the bookmark by hitting Ctrl+Shift+AnyKey.
Inline (Ctrl+Alt+N)
I prefer deleting codes to writing codes. I love to refactor the code. This shortcut is used to inline the variable or method call. It’s mostly used while refactoring the code.
Customer customer = getCusomer();
createPaymentIntent(customer);
In the snippet like above, if it makes sense to you to inline getCustomer() method, then you can place your cursor to the customer object and hit Ctrl+Alt+N. It will inline the code and the result, then, looks like:
createPaymentIntent(getCusomer());
Extract Variable/Method/Field/Constant/Parameter
This shortcut also makes refactoring easy.
Snippet-1:
getCustomer(); //returns Customer Object
Select getCustomer() method and hit Ctrl+Alt+V to get the variable returned by the object. The result will be:
Customer customer = getCustomer();
Snippet-2:
Customer customer = new Customer();
customer.setName("Customer");
customer.setAddress("Ktm");
customer.setMobile("9779852365321");
Let’s say, you want to refactor this piece of code into a method. You can select these blocks of codes and enter Ctlr+Alt+M in order to extract to a method. Intellij IDEA will show a popup where you can enter the name of the method along with the visibility (access modifiers).
Likewise, Ctrl+Alt+P is for extracting the method parameter. Ctrl+Alt+C is for extracting a constant variable and Ctrl+Alt+F is for extracting a field variable.
Live Templates
You can save time by using live templates for the code blocks you use repeatedly. Intellij Idea itself provides some live templates. Let’s check it out.
psf: Type psf and hit Tab, public static final snippet will be generated.
snippet will be generated. psfs: Type psfs and hit Tab, public static final String snippet will be generated.
snippet will be generated. thr: Type thr and hit Tab, throw new snippet will be generated.
snippet will be generated. fori: Type fori and hit Tab, a for loop will be generated.
iter: Type iter and hit Tab, a forEach loop will be generated.
You can also define your custom live templates. | https://gautamsuraj.medium.com/cool-intellij-idea-shortcuts-d0c82db77dd2 | ['Suraj Gautam'] | 2020-09-18 07:05:47.460000+00:00 | ['Intellij', 'Java', 'Programming', 'Software Development', 'Shortcuts'] |
React Native at Wix — The Architecture II (Deep dive) | In my last post, I wrote about the high-level architecture of our Wix application. I explained how we adjust it to fit Wix organization structure (by using multi-module architecture, improving velocity, and shifting our environment to be Native agnostic), and how that helps us to achieve independent development and enhance the deployment experience for each group of developers.
Armed with this information, we can now dive deep into the code itself and see a practical implementation of such an architecture. We’ve previously outlined a few terms (Modules & Engine), which are used to describe the various pieces in the architecture. This post aims to illustrate some of them and points to relevant examples of code.
To better explain such a complex design, I chose to describe it from the bottom-up. First, we will jump into the Engine implementation, then build an example of a Module, and only afterwards review the main repository of the application.
For the sake of this example, I chose to build a simple blog application based on our react-native-crash-course by Dror Biran (recommended!). The example app will display a list of posts with the ability to view, add, and delete them.
The Engine
My example of an Engine implementation is called react-native-wix-engine , you can find the full source code here:
https://github.com/wix-incubator/react-native-wix-engine
It’s important to note that this is not the same Engine that’s used in the Wix application and it may not be the Engine you want to use — it’s just an example to help you better understand how to create your own.
To begin our journey, let’s create a new react-native project using react-native init .
Adding Native Libraries
As we discussed before, the Engine of your application should include all of the native implementation and the dependencies to 3rd party native libraries. Most likely things will differ from one application to another.
This is the point where you need to choose the libraries that will be the foundation of your application. When it comes to mobile app development using React Native, one of the most important steps is choosing the right navigation library for your project. Navigation serves as the backbone of an app and has a big impact on user experience. In my example, I chose react-native-navigation by Wix to achieve a fully native navigation experience. Another important library I decided to use is react-native-ui-lib — as a UI tool-set & components library.
You can add any libraries you want to the Engine, both JS and Native, and they will be available to be used by all the Modules in your application. If you install a Native library, remember to link it to native projects.
Pre-Built Binaries
The exciting part of the Engine is the pre-built binaries that are published to NPM together with the JS codebase of the Engine, and which are then used by Modules.
First, let’s see which files need to be built and published:
Android:
.APK file with debug symbols
file with debug symbols .APK file for release
iOS:
.APP file with debug symbols — built for Simulator (x86)
file with debug symbols — built for Simulator (x86) .APP file with debug symbols — built for a real iOS device (ARM)
file with debug symbols — built for a real iOS device (ARM) .APP file for release — built for a real iOS device (ARM)
In order to allow developers to debug applications with simulator\device in both release and debug mode, and to publish to the App Store and Google Play, we basically need to build our project 5 times. It means for every new Engine release, we should build all of these variations and publish them as an NPM package (here I chose to save the binaries in the same Engine NPM package, but it can be more efficient to save them in separate packages, and download only when required).
To build our Engine:
npm run build
You can review the full implementation of the publish script.
Remember that the pre-built binaries only include the native part, and we should also inject the JS bundle file, which brings us to the next section.
Engine Command Line Interface (CLI)
Among the goals we set was for our architecture and developers’ environment is to be native-agnostic.
Engine CLI is a command-line interface. The main purpose of our CLI is to replace react-native CLI (considering part of it is not relevant anymore) and to bypass the complexity of the Engine structure via a friendly interface for developers.
One example of Engine CLI usage is to install the pre-built on your device\simulator — which is a preferred and much faster option than using Xcode, Android Studio, or call react-native CLI command: react-native run-ios to build iOS\Android apps from scratch.
rn-wix-engine -run-ios \ rn-wix-engine -run-android — install the pre-built ios\android binary on all open simulators\devices, open the app, and run a local packager so the app fetches the bundle from it.
By using rn-wix-engine you can also:
Install\uninstall pre-built apps
Run the packager
Inject bundle file into pre-built release binaries (before publishing the app to store)
Other utils function from react-native CLI
You can basically add any command you want to the Engine CLI to improve the velocity of developers of Modules.
Project Structure
As you may notice, the structure of this project is a little bit different:
react-native-wix-engine
├── ...
├── inner_folder
│ └── react-native-wix-engine
│ ├── ios
│ ├── android
│ ├── src
│ ├── bin
│ ├── app_builds
│ └── ...
└── ...
The Engine holds the native projects (and binaries), and run locally from the library root folder, but at the same time it is also used by other projects as an NPM package, and so, the project structure can’t stay the same. One of the reasons for that is the location of the node_modules folder, which is installed by NPM in the root of the project which affect relative path in the code.
My Project
├── ...
├── node_modules
│ └── react-native-wix-engine
│ ├── ios
│ ├── android
│ ├── src
│ ├── bin
│ ├── app_builds
│ └── ...
└── package.json
For example, you can find the build.gradle file in your Android project which contains the relative path to the react-native package in your node_modules folder:
apply from: "../../node_modules/react-native/react.gradle"
Since we want to build the native project from both inside and outside the Engine repository, all relative paths to node_modules folder will fail, because from an external point of view, node_modules as a relative path moved two levels up, to be:
apply from: "../../../../node_modules/react-native/react.gradle"
We should simulate the same environment and restructure the Engine project structure. There are several ways to handle this challenge, I went with a simple trick and moved the Engine src folder codebase 2 levels inside (and add symlink to package.json to the root folder, for convenience)
Now, from either points of view: react-native-wix-engine root folder and any consumer of this library (installed in node_modules) the source code is the same.
To complete this restructure, we need to fix the relative path of node_modules in the native projects and remember to publish the Engine from the inner folder and not from the root folder.
Module Manager & Module Registry
Communication is basically the heart of your Engine — all traffic between Modules passes through the Engine, and that’s actually the best part here.
Module Manager is responsible for loading all the Modules, making sure their contract is valid, registering all Module APIs into the Module Registry, which holds all of the information about each Module and its contact.
Communication between Modules can be done in 4 ways: Method, Component, Broadcast, and Service. Later on, we’ll see an example of, and will talk more about each of them.
Running the Engine
If we run the Engine without a Module you should see this screen:
npm run start-empty-engine
Next, let’s make our app more interesting and implement a new module. | https://medium.com/wix-engineering/react-native-at-wix-the-architecture-ii-deep-dive-9cfcb3c2822c | ['Omri Bruchim'] | 2020-12-28 19:41:06.166000+00:00 | ['Software Architecture', 'Android', 'Multi Module', 'React Native', 'iOS'] |
What makes a trusted leader? (Hint: it’s not charismatic narcissism.) | Trust makes doing your job as a leader easier in just about every way imaginable.
You don’t have to read up on all the theories around this. You can feel it in your gut. Personally, I know I’ve performed far better under a manager I trusted compared to one that didn’t have my best interests at heart. I bet you’ve had the same experience.
So if we take it for granted that trusting relationships coincide with the people around us performing at their best (which, of course, means we can perform at our best), then how do we establish that trust?
Certain personality traits are part of the equation. An even bigger part is behaviours, which most of us learn through years of trial and error. After 7.5 years leading teams, I’m confident enough in these behaviours to share them and (hopefully) provide a shorter path to managerial bliss for others.
Fostering trust through behaviours
When I think about the best managers I’ve worked under or alongside, as well as what’s worked with my teams, there are a handful of behaviours that seem to go over well.
Care. Good leaders don’t fake this. They actually, truthfully care enough to understand their team’s different circumstances, backgrounds, cultures, and struggles — and celebrate their successes. It makes the people around them feel safe.
Listen. They listen to what other people are saying and resist the urge to offer solutions to every problem they get a whiff of. (To be fair, I find this really really hard.) Active listening builds rapport with the other person. Simply waiting for a chance to speak does not.
Empathise. Trusted leaders imagine how other people might feel about anything from an internal decision to an error message in the product. By using empathy as their compass, they signal to people affected by a decision or action that they’re not alone and have been heard.
Communicate. They share as much as they can as often as they can. The trust they show in their teams by being open and truthful with their teams earns reciprocal trust.
Show vulnerability. Sounds counter-intuitive, right? It’s ok not to have all the answers. Your team doesn’t expect that of you. (They do expect you to admit what you don’t know, however — see “Communicate”, above). It’s also ok to be passionate about things, both at and outside of work. Vulnerability and passion make you relatable, which, in turn, engenders trust.
Be kind. I don’t think this needs an explanation.
Putting trust into action
Ok. Well. That’s all lovely. Job done, right? Wrong.
One of the most important jobs to be done as a manager (and often an unspoken one) is to manifest those behaviours in your day-to-day behaviour. If you’re suffering a failure of imagination right now, that’s understandable. Let’s take that rather overwhelming list of abstract concepts and put them in terms of everyday life at the office. (See how I just empathised with you there?)
Share the pain
If you manage a front-line team, occasionally tackling some of the problems on the ground will help to give you first-hand perspective on what the team is going through (good and bad). Aside from being “Empathy 101”, rolling up your sleeves and pitching in when your team is overwhelmed shows that you care.
Managers who work remotely, or manage a team distributed across time zones, may need to ask team members to accommodate the occasional meeting outside of their typical work hours. This isn’t horrible, per se. Just make sure that you are the one being inconvenienced at least 51% of the time.
Lead by example
Whether we like it or not, leaders heavily influence the culture of their team. If you’re seeing behaviour in your team that isn’t productive or is counter to the mission of the team, ask yourself “Am I also exhibiting this behaviour?” By the same token, make sure you exhibit the positive behaviours you’d like to see more of from your team.
Meetings are an easy place to start. When we’re passionate about the topic at hand, we tend to forget our manners and interrupt our teammates. As a leader, you can set a positive example by coming back to the person who was interrupted. It’s as simple as saying “Before we move on, I want to make sure Maria has a chance to finish her thought from a moment ago.” Then listen.
Give (and invite) feedback
Feedback to your direct reports (or peers, for that matter) should be honest and frequent. Don’t delay until the annual review, especially if the feedback is critical. In the book “Radical Candor”, author Kim Scott says you should “challenge directly, and care personally.” I’ve found that to be very effective. My other big takeaway is that feedback should be framed in terms of behaviour — whether good or bad — instead of personal traits. And when possible, provide examples of the behaviour so it feels real.
It runs both ways, too. It’s much harder to develop as a leader if you’re not getting feedback from the people you’re leading. The ideal scenario is that your team trusts you enough to give honest feedback and challenge your decisions in a constructive way. You can set the example (see above!) by giving feedback the way you’d like to receive it.
Guide and develop
The more I learn about leadership, the more I realise it’s less about directing people and more about guiding and developing them. By “directing”, I mean giving orders — which has it’s place. For example, new starters sometimes need to be told what to do and how to do it in order to understand how the team functions. Teams with operational work may have run-books or checklists that just need doing. But if a person is only ever told what to do, they may not feel challenged or inspired. And they sure as hell won’t feel trusted.
“Guiding and developing”, on the other hand, means understanding what motivates people. What direction do they want to grow their career? How can I help them find opportunities to get there? Pointing someone toward an appropriately challenging project not only shows that you care, it shows you trust they’ll rise to the occasion.
Empower people
Because we’re increasingly dependent on others — be it service dependencies, infrastructure dependencies, cross-team dependencies, etc. — we don’t have full control over every aspect of our work. Therefore, as a leader, it’s important to develop the right behaviours in your team so they remain empowered in an increasingly interdependent company.
Help find areas where they can make an impact and influence (if not own outright). Delegate authority, not just tasks. Demonstrate confidence in them, even if it means taking a leap of faith occasionally. Feeling empowered rocks.
Trust starts with you
There is a lot more to leading a team (or team of teams!), but I believe building trust is the most important. When your team trusts you, they bring their full selves to work each day. You get to know them as a whole person, which helps you understand how they can best contribute. They don’t feel the need to hide mistakes — instead, they feel empowered to learn from them. They respect decisions, even as they challenge them.
There’s a lot more to building trust than just being a nice person. When you take on a leadership role, you’re essentially starting from scratch. But the good news is that trust begets more trust. It’s a virtuous cycle. Take the first step by placing your trust in your team. Given time, they’ll return it. | https://medium.com/smells-like-team-spirit/what-makes-a-trusted-leader-hint-its-not-charismatic-narcissism-7256d41f60f6 | ['Sam Jebeile'] | 2018-05-02 19:39:38.855000+00:00 | ['Team Culture', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Teamwork', 'Leadership', 'Trust'] |
Case study: Designing a gender transition tracking app | The Research
Week 1 was focused on doing UX research.
The Lean Survey Canvas
I started by organizing my research plan and looking at what options already existed.
Doing a Lean Survey Canvas to help me build my survey was the first step. I decided I would build the survey for Transgender, Non-binary and Intersex people. I also considered that valuable input would also come from people currently questioning their gender identity.
It helped build a survey targeted at the right people I needed to hear and learn from. It also helped me scratch down the typical questions like age or gender that I decided weren’t relevant here.
In retrospect: One thing I do wish I had asked was the location or nationality, because some of the informations I wanted to provide through the app were specific to a continent, country or state.
I got 36 answers from my survey and managed to interview 5 people through a private anonymous chat.
These were very insightful and helped me understand better experiences people went through, the feeling of isolation and lack of information on steps to take, their rights, or options they often brought up.
The Brand and Feature Comparison
To get a better idea of what existed so far on the app market I did a Brand and Feature comparison chart. During my personal research, I have found two apps focused on Transgender communities:
Solace, provides information and resources to guide transgender people through whatever process of gender transition they desire. Now available, for free, on iOS & Android.
Transcapsule, an app for transgender and non-binary people to document their transitions and track the long-term effects of gender-affirming hormones.
In the survey, people said they hadn’t heard of these two apps but some were using another application called Voice Pitch Analyser.
This chart helped me understand what features existed right now. Solace seemed to be more focused on concrete steps to take during gender transitioning, legally, medically, and personally. Transcapsule is more focused on tracking the progress of transitioning by taking selfies, setting milestones, and reminders. Voice Pitch Analyser is pretty straightforward and focuses on recording voice clips and analyzing the pitch to determine if it sounds more masculine or feminine.
I noticed all of these apps had very interesting features but none of them had internal communities, so I kept that in a corner of my brain.
Affinity Diagram
When a problem is overwhelming, a good solution to organize ideas is to make an Affinity Diagram.
An Affinity Diagram is an organized output from a brainstorming session. The diagram was created in the 1960s by Kawakita Jirō, a Japanese ethnographer, and is also known as the KJ method.
The purpose of an affinity diagram is to generate, organize, and consolidate information concerning a product, process, complex issue, or problem.
Constructing an Affinity Diagram is a creative process that expresses ideas without quantifying them.
This diagram helped me organize big themes such as Stats & Tracking, Educational content, Community, Personal path, Spiritual or Mental health, Physical & Body care, and Gender identities.
User persona
To apply all of the information I gathered through my research, I made a User Persona.
I created Kiera, an American transgender, and non-binary Young-Adult Fiction Author. They like to be up to date with Trans Rights and news related to the community, feeling empowered is important to them and they wish to empower younger generations as well.
User journey
With the persona defined, I built the User Journey. Kiera wants to track their transition after 15months of Hormone Therapy and shares pictures on social media platforms.
The process goes through many steps as Kiera needs to take the picture, get an app to edit two pictures side-by-side, select an older picture, and post it on social media. The design opportunities come up when they get nasty comments that make them feel bad about their body. But it feels like it’s all worth the hassle when they get occasional thankful DMs from people questioning their gender identity or starting their own transition.
Problem Statement
A problem statement is a clear concise description of the issue(s) that need(s) to be addressed on a project. It is used to center and focus at the beginning, keep on track during the effort, and can be used to validate that the effort delivered an outcome that solves the said problem(s).
My problem statement is as follows:
Transgender people, non-binary people, and people in questioning about their gender identity want to learn about legal and medical steps to take, and post content related to gender identity on a platform where their interrogations, frustrations but also victories and successes will be well-received and understood. They need to navigate the world from a place of knowledge, feel empowered by being true to themselves, as well as share, learn, grow and feel like they are a part of a community they belong to.
Hypothesis Statement
The hypothesis statement enables us to understand the implication of the question and the different variables involved in the project. It helps to make precise predictions for the launch of the project.
Here, I wrote a hypothesis statement based on the idea that this app would be developed and published. It is as follows:
We believe that by creating a platform for transgenders, non-binaries, and people in questioning about their gender identity, we will give them the tools to build more empowerment and engagement within the community but also, hopefully, the general mindset. We will know we are right when our product achieves a Retention Rate of 28% after 90 days of release and a DAU(Daily Active User*)/MAU(Monthly Active User) ratio of 50%.
*Are considered “active users” the ones who update the personal log/journal, update a goal, and/or upload and share content onto the platform
Mindmap
Again, I needed to organize my thoughts and decided to start a Mindmap. Similar to the Affinity Diagram, the Mindmap visually organizes information. But here, major ideas are connected directly to the central concept, and other ideas branch out from those major ideas. | https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/designing-a-gender-transition-tracking-app-21c1ea3d3bcf | ['Delphine Brunetière'] | 2021-01-28 16:08:12.087000+00:00 | ['Concept', 'Case Study', 'Transgender', 'Nonbinary', 'UX Design'] |
The Psychological Facts That People Don’t Know About Book Reading | The Psychological Facts That People Don’t Know About Book Reading
A study done at the University of Sussex found that reading can reduce stress by up to 68%.
Photo by Matias North on Unsplash
Good books can inform you, enlighten you lead you in the right direction. once you start book reading you experience a new world and start loving the habit of reading you eventually get addicted to it.
I love book reading because it visualizes a new life experience or teaches valuable life lessons. Every book has some unique lesson when we start exploring then we learning something different.
A study found in the 2009 book reading is a way to relax and reduce stress. It is important to read a good book for at least a few minutes every day to stretch the brain muscles.
The book really a best friend when we board, upset, depressed, and annoyed. A good book always guides on a great path. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/the-psychological-facts-that-people-dont-know-about-book-reading-554d366665af | ['Ashish Nishad'] | 2020-11-19 16:23:08.149000+00:00 | ['Anxiety', 'Personal Development', 'Reading', 'Depression', 'Books'] |
My first React project (part I) | For this second portfolio project, I had the option to keep working on my Bootstrap project and update it with my new found React powers or start a new project altogether. I decided to go with the second route and build a new project from scratch.
I have different interests, and I want my portfolio to showcase them. Disclaimer: This article cover picture is not an indication that I plan on binge-watching movies on Netflix instead of coding. For this second portfolio project, I decided to create a copycat Netflix using React. At first, I was thinking of building a Netflix-like app but specifically showcasing indie movies. But that would mean designing the UI from scratch, which I usually enjoy. But for this particular project, I decided to concentrate on assessing my understanding and command of React.
I’m only a week into my React course, so I still have a whole lot to learn. But I’m beginning to see the power of React and why it is so in demand.
Expected list of components
Navigation bar | Hero picture | Movie title |Short movie description
Rating | Carousel |Card | Card description
There are probably some components that I am missing right now, so this list might evolve as I progress with my project.
What my project won’t include
I wanted to give the user the ability to login and save movies as favorites. I quickly realized that, in order to do so, I would need some backend knowledge, which I don’t possess at the moment. It would be a challenge for the weeks to come.
Final thoughts
I’m both excited and a little anxious about this project. React has been a little bit challenging so far but I know that when I’ll get very comfortable with it, it will be so rewarding. This project will get me closer to this.state. | https://medium.com/@lauraharston/my-first-react-project-part-i-20117bd12c8c | ['Laura Harston'] | 2020-12-26 02:08:53.913000+00:00 | ['Netflix', 'Portfolio', 'Bootcamp', 'React', 'Frontend'] |
Announcing Muun 2.0 | Today, we are announcing the launch of Muun 2.0, a big iteration of the mobile wallet for bitcoin and lightning. What excites us the most about it is that it is much closer to our vision: building a bitcoin wallet that makes self-custody easy and safe for every bitcoin user in the world.
Muun 2.0 arrives at a crucial time. Bitcoin is under the watchful eye of many people, many of whom are new to the ecosystem. Now is the time to show them how powerful and simple bitcoin can be. Because, though bitcoin as technology can be incredibly complex, bitcoin as a solution is wonderfully simple.
The chasm
In the adoption of any successful technology, there is a chasm between the early adopters and the mainstream users. As we launch Muun 2.0, bitcoin is crossing its own chasm.
If you are reading this, you are probably an early adopter. You have been following bitcoin for a while. You educate yourself about it. You even educate others. You value self-custody. You see how bitcoin is finally happening.
Now think about the last time you onboarded someone to bitcoin. They are probably part of the mainstream. They hear about bitcoin mainly from you. They use the products you recommend them. They kind of follow your advice on not keeping money in custodial services, but ‘MtGox’ doesn’t even ring a bell. They are excited to try the ‘bitcoin thing’.
There’s a good chance bitcoin will look somewhat different on the other side of the chasm. The early adopters and mainstream users care about different things. This shapes the products and services they use. However, there’s one aspect of bitcoin we can’t afford to lose on the way: self-custodianship.
Self-custodianship is often understood as having control of your private keys. This misses a key point: just having your keys won’t be enough if bitcoin itself becomes sufficiently hard to use.
Imagine a scenario where bitcoin fees skyrocket (yes, now they are high, but 10x them). Will mainstream users still chose a self-custodial wallet over making cheap payments in custodial services? Probably not. The same goes for wallet recovery. Unless we change something, the fear of losing their money will trump the fear of confiscation.
When things get hard, self-custodianship seems like something you can relegate, something you can live without. We had a sneak peek of this phenomenon happening with lightning early on. Even some of bitcoin’s most experienced users chose UX over self-custody for their lightning wallets. The thing with self-custody is that, much like human rights, you don’t realize you need it until it’s too late.
As Argentinians, we are painfully aware of what goes wrong when this happens. What others call ‘potential risk’ we call ‘history’. In an increasingly cashless world, the mere fact that you can have complete custody of your bitcoin changes everything.
We believe that with enough work, self-custodial bitcoin can have an even better UX than custodial services.
Muun 2.0
Back in October 2019, we launched Muun 1.0 with support for sending lightning payments. Since then, many people have started choosing Muun as their main bitcoin wallet while recommending it to their friends and family. We got a lot of feedback during this time, including things you love about Muun, things you would rather be different, and things you want to see happen. We heard you all.
Muun 2.0 is a complete rethinking of the wallet based on what we learned with Muun 1.0. It’s the result of many months of hard work, yet it feels just like the beginning of an exciting journey. We are psyched to share it with you, together with our fresh new website.
We hope you like it!
Visit our website: https://muun.com/ | https://medium.com/muunwallet/announcing-muun-2-0-d61b0844dc0a | ['Dario Sneidermanis'] | 2021-02-08 07:43:20.141000+00:00 | ['Lightning Network', 'Bitcoin', 'Bitcoin Wallet', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Product'] |
5 Better Things to Do Instead of Staring at a Blank Page | Photo by Alessio Linon Unsplash
5 Better Things to Do Instead of Staring at a Blank Page
When you’re stuck, take a break.
Every writer feels stuck every once in a while.
The words don’t seem to come up, and the few that do simply do not fit together. Your thoughts are either muddled or non-existent. Yet, you persist.
You stare at the blank page, commanding your brain to come up with something, but it’s useless. Writing is something that’s just not happening for you today, and forcing it might actually make your writer’s block worse.
Here’s 5 better things for you to do than insist on staring at that blank page:
Go for a walk
Walking is an effective way to relieve stress and boost creativity. Charles Dickens and Jane Austen are only a few of many writers known to have enjoyed long walks on a frequent basis.
There’s something about the repetitive, rhythmic movements of walking that induces a meditative state. Recently, many authors’ instinctive preference for walking to induce creative output has been veryfied by science. Stanford researchers have found that “a person’s creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when walking.” (Source)
A 60% increase in creative output is nothing to sneeze at.
Going for a walk offers the added advantage of taking your eyes off the screen for a few minutes. It forces you to take a look at the world around you, and that alone might offer you the breakthrough you’ve been hoping for.
Exercise
While walking is a form of exercise, you can go one step further and do a more intense workout, such as running, biking, swimming, weightlifting.
Exercising offers many benefits in improving cognitive function, not to mention your overall health.
For me, an intense workout is the best form of meditation. While I can still “write in my head” while walking, when I go on a run my mind actually clears of all thought for a few minutes, and that creates the right mindset for welcoming new ideas.
Post exercise, there’s a blissful exhaustion that makes me feel completely renewed and ready for another writing session.
Talk to a friend
Talking to a friend forces you get out of your own head for a few minutes.
It’s easy to mistake isolating yourself with fostering a creativity-friendly environment. While writing is indeed a lonely occupation, sometimes breaking out of isolation is exactly what you need to get out of a creative rut.
Talking to a friend brings you a new perspective about life. It reminds you that your blank page with its blinking cursor are not all that matters in the world. There are people out there who have other problems, other projects, other sources of joy. Reminding yourself of that every once in a while shifts your perspective and unlocks new ideas.
Getting in touch with someone else’s reality helps you understand how you’ve blown your own creative rut out of proportion by focusing on it exclusively.
Play — by yourself, with your kid, or with your pet
“Play brings joy. And it’s vital for problem solving, creativity and relationships.” — Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.
We tend to think of play as only for children, but the reality is that adults benefit from play just as much.
If you’re playing by yourself or with friends, try to pick something that doesn’t involve the use of screens, to give yourself a break from that.
If you’re a parent, enjoy the opportunity to play with your kid. Children are not familiar with all the rules of the world yet, so they are less burdened by constraints on creativity. Ever seen a child paint a picture in which the grass is pink and the dog, green? Sure, grass isn’t pink in the “real world, “ but why can’t the grass be pink and the dog green in her world?
When you get immersed in play with children, you begin to see things in an entirely new perspective. You become aware of your own arbitrary rules, and start to question yourself, why can’t things be different?
If you’re not a parent yourself, play with a niece, a young cousin, or your friend’s kids (with permission and parental supervision, of course), or play with your pets. Pets are not the same as children, but you’d be surprised at all the creative ways cats and dogs play when you give them the freedom to be creative. My dog is always surprising me with how she choses to play with her toys — and with the stuff she thinks of as her toys (like my socks, or the toilet brush).
If you don’t have a pet, you can ask a friend to let you play with theirs— most pet owners would appreciate the extra hand (I know I would), and there are plenty of animal shelters that allow volunteers to spend time playing with the animals.
(Side note: always be careful letting children and animals play together. Make sure you know both the child and the animal well, and be careful to prevent any accidents. Your dog biting the neighbor’s kid is not going the outcome you want.)
Cook
Cooking is an excellent option to get your eyes off a screen and your hands into something tangible.
As you focus on following a recipe, on measuring and preparing the right ingredients, on minding the stove and the oven so you don’t burn your food to a crisp, you’ll find that your mind contemplates ideas in the background, much like when walking or meditating.
It doesn’t matter how skilled you are, you can always find a recipe that’s right at your level, besides, part of the fun of cooking is improving your skills and trying new things. If you’re a beginner, don’t put too much pressure on yourself to make something perfect: allow yourself to make mistakes. Embrace messing up as part of the process.
When you’re stuck, get your mind out of writing
Many writers mistakenly believe there’s only one solution to writer’s block, which is to push through, or to seek inspiration in writing-related activities, such as doing writing exercises or reading, but that’s not exactly true.
In writing, there’s a time to push through, and a there’s a time to step away. With practice, you can easily identify the difference between these two moments.
If if you suspect you’re stuck beyond the point where pushing through can help, step away from the computer. Turn your brain off of “writing mode,” release it to think of other things — or to simply not think at all.
You’ll be surprised at what your brain can come up with after taking a break like that. | https://medium.com/a-life-of-words/5-better-things-to-do-instead-of-staring-at-a-blank-page-d1c4edf75ece | ['Renata Gomes'] | 2020-07-15 21:01:44.645000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Writing Tips', 'Creativity', 'Writing', 'Self Improvement'] |
Moondefi | MoonDeFi is a protocol on Ethereum for swapping ERC20 tokens without the need for buyers and sellers to create demand. It happen by equitation set by automatically | https://medium.com/@onikahmed530/moondefi-17053802d463 | ['Onik Ahmed'] | 2020-12-15 16:14:50.527000+00:00 | ['Moon', 'Defi', 'Erc20'] |
Secure Wallet Update: Get Ready to Go (Chain)! | Last month we saw the addition of more than 600 ERC20 tokens added to the Secure Wallet firmware and ECOMI app. This month the development of our innovative cold storage wallet continues as we add private key storage for GoChain! We also have a number of other developments in the pipeline so keep reading to find out what’s next!
What's Going on With GoChain?
As you may already be aware, GoChain is the blockchain platform underpinning ECOMI Collect. After a recent re-brand, the company is targeting high-end enterprise solutions and offers a range of services from systems architecture and development to blockchain education and training.
Moreover, GoChain has built its own scalable, high performance, low cost, and decentralised blockchain that supports smart contracts and distributed applications. The company has also instituted its own consensus algorithm, allowing for faster, cheaper and greener transactions across the network.
GoChain is the fastest, most reliable, web3 based blockchain protocol and client. Enterprise tough. — GoChain.io
With a network that can process up to 1300 transactions per second (and the expectation that this figure will soon climb to 13,000 tx/s) and partners that include:
ECOMI
BlockDaemon
IBM
Bittrex
Binance
Microsoft Azure
the GoChain platform is not only poised to explode, but it is also imperative that the Go token has a means of secure offline storage! Enter the Secure Wallet, the world’s most secure and convenient cold storage wallet, and soon to be home of GoChain! The update is available now, and once you access it you’ll also be able to store your GoChain private keys securely and offline.
We’re Turning up the Heat with Hot Wallet Functionality
Up next on the development timeline is the ability to also use the ECOMI app as a hot wallet. The term ‘hot wallet’ refers to any means of storing a crypto-asset on a device that has been, or is currently, connected to the Internet. Whereas a true cold wallet is any device that is not wired or directly connected to the internet, such as the ECOMI Secure Wallet.
Adding hot wallet functionality to the ECOMI app has a number of benefits, including:
More functionality and flexibility to choose how to store your cryptocurrencies and NFT’s.
The ability to create both hot and cold private keys using either the Secure Wallet or Secure Wallet app, and choose when to move those keys onto the Secure Wallet for more secure cold storage.
The ability to use the ECOMI app to store your crypto without the need for the hardware device.
Of course, the safest way to store your digital assets is offline on the Secure Wallet, however, if you do not have the ability to do so yet adding hot-wallet capabilities allows you to become familiar with the ECOMI app, and utilise our in-built security measures. If you’re unsure about whether a hot or cold wallet is the best choice for you, check out this article.
It is also an imperative step as we move closer to the launch of ECOMI Collect, for users to be able to store their digital collectibles (non-fungible tokens) within the app itself, without the immediate need for a hardware device.
In saying that, once hot wallet functionality has been added to the ECOMI app (expected to roll out by the end of the month) we will also begin to incorporate non-fungible token standards! Be sure to keep your app and firmware up to date to take advantage of all the latest features available, and in case you missed them check out some of our other recent Secure Wallet updates:
*** The Secure Wallet is available right now on our online store, and to celebrate these recent updates you can take advantage of a 10% discount and free shipping! Simply visit SecureWallet.Shop to purchase yours and start securing your cryptocurrency today *** | https://medium.com/ecomi/secure-wallet-update-get-ready-to-go-chain-52fff41a1d2c | [] | 2019-05-28 18:06:45.174000+00:00 | ['Hot Wallet', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Gochain', 'Ecomi'] |
Do These 7 Things To Accelerate Startup Acquisition | Do These 7 Things To Accelerate Startup Acquisition
Image by Pexels
Private equity is worthless. It is upending a faith until second comings — acquisition and IPO. For most startup founders an exit is a dream aspired, not necessarily convinced.
In the last decade, going public was an uptight exit strategy. Today, the reality is reversed. The excruciating pain of following through with the expensive broken system cum stringent technical requirements, fall the route apart.
More than ever, startup founders have grown profound interest in acquisitions rather than pitching tents for public assaults. Hence, as a wise bride, how do you prepare and position yourself for the right suitor?
Here are seven things to keep atop of mind to quicken your startup acquisition:
Definite Optimism
“You are not a lottery ticket.” — Peter Thiel
Having a quick ( even slow) acquisition is not premise on luck and chances. You must be deliberate about your pursuit.
Generally, most startups fail. Building with no clear path to exit is similar to fighting with no rules for victory. It can only lead to the death of one of the fighters and the market is ever standing.
You must be optimistic about the acquisition and be definite on your path to its attainment. Do your research on the companies that need your proprietary technologies the most.
Curate a list of your prospective acquisitors. Cut down your list to focus your gaze on your vital few.
Know it is your job to get these companies' attention. Know the key players in the M&A division. Do your due diligence.
Don’t try to sell them your company from the start. Pitch them to contract your services. Bring them in an investment round. Be subtle, yet hunt for a substantial relationship.
Be open. Get their key players to know and romance your team, your culture, and big visions.
Positioning
PayPal accounts for a large percentage of transactions on eBay right before its acquisition by eBay. Paystack is famous as the Stripe for Africa years before its $200M purchase by Stripe.
In essence, what these historical startup successes have in common was good positioning. Both PayPal and Paystack align their brand to match their acquisitors.
It becomes a no-brainer that eBay should acquire PayPal as Stripe has embraced Paystack as a child company even before the financial merger.
Product fit
It is important that your product attunes to your buyer. It must fit so well to be considered a need.
Note, need triumphs want here. Need means it is essential and truly fits into the prospect’s offerings or will help them better a product line.
Here is an excerpt from the New York Times article briefing the Google YouTube acquisition:
The acquisition of the privately held YouTube will enable Google to thrive in one area of the Internet where it has so far failed to gain footing. According to Hitwise, which monitors Web traffic, [YouTube] has the lion’s share of online video traffic. YouTube has a 46 percent share, MySpace has 23 percent and Google Video has 10 percent.
From the above, it is obvious Google has a need for YouTube. Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp of $20 million in revenue for $19 Billion points to a dire need by Facebook.
Microsoft four-folds premium on Github that led to handing out $7.5 Billion doesn't end on the good notion to “strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness, and innovation.” as avowed by CEO Satya Nadella. No doubt, there is an underlying need to penetrate the cloud computing market.
Calibrate your product to solve a really pressing need. Work your butt to get noticed, then expect the obvious — a big-time cashout.
Complementarity
Not competition makes for an acquisition. Even while PayPal was competing with eBay Billpoint, it makes eBay's auction better altogether.
Most times, it is best to focus on the Non-Consuming market. You are most valuable if the pool of your customers is those the prospective acquisitor struggle to reach.
WhatsApp dominates mobile messaging. Instagram dictates Photo Sharing. FriendFeed was a real-time feed aggregator. Every acquisition complements Facebook’s quest as the social media giant.
Culture
“Company culture doesn’t exist apart from the company itself: no company has a culture; every company is a culture.” — Peter Thiel
In the event of an acquisition, the team, and the culture are a crucial consideration for most buyers. Often times, it is what matters the most.
Wimdu, the Airbnb knockoff actually got CEO Brian Chesky on his heel to seek help. He did consider the 25% stake demands by the Samwer brothers.
However, he feared the “finance-centric and metric-driven team could harm Airbnb’s design-driven culture.” Thus, he refuted the request and shoot to blitzscale.
Quite frankly, you also should not look forward to slaughtering your beloved startup in the hands of a cruel acquisitor. Culture fitness is a two-edged sword. As much as your buyer solves for culture fit, you should be critical of whether the company’s culture matches yours.
In terms of technology and company culture, “It is hard for me to imagine a better fit for two companies,” said, YouTube co-founder, Steve Chen. It is a no-brainer then that YouTube thrives under its new owner.
Be profitable
“It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law” — Douglas Hofstadter
Trust me, you are going to build the next WhatsApp. Even if you will, an acquisition takes longer than you expect.
Pending your acquisition ensure not to run out of cash. Be cash-positive enough to ensure your continuous product innovation and development.
A clear path to profitability gives you a huge edge. Nobody buys a piece of crap.
Finance
Lastly, set your numbers straight. An acquisition is a financial transaction. Bad numbers do not position your startup as credible.
Work closely with your finance team to ensure the numbers tell the true story of your brand. This is basic advice, yet lots of startups lack proper financial records.
Ineffective financial management accounts for most sudden running out of funds, under ( and over-bloated) evaluations, and ruinous financial commitments.
It is essential you put your finance in proper shape with corresponding forecasts and budgeting devoid of good feelings and attribution errors. | https://medium.com/swlh/do-these-7-things-to-position-your-startup-for-quick-acquisition-5b3d84041a76 | ['Timmy Brain'] | 2020-12-08 20:23:42.003000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Business', 'Acquisition', 'Startup Lessons', 'Growth Hacking'] |
How To Leave A Rude Comment That Will Ruin A Writer’s Life | How To Leave A Rude Comment That Will Ruin A Writer’s Life
All miracles pale in comparison to the joy of ruining a writer’s life.
From OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay
Walking on water. Turning water into wine. Sex. All these miracles pale in comparison to the joy of ruining a writer’s life with a single comment.
To be the most vicious and aggressive commenter of all time, follow my steps. There’s nothing better than putting arrogant “writers” in their place. One day, you might even take my title for “Writer’s Worst Nightmare.”
First, if the writer is talking about an extremely vulnerable experience in their lives, like losing a sibling, make them suffer for their vulnerability. Tell them, “yeah, your dead brother probably wasn’t that good of a person anyway,” and then move on.
The writer is probably feeling accomplished after all those positive comments they received about how “this article really helped me through my own traumatic time.” Who left that comment? Their mom? There always has to be a bad guy, and I’m more than willing to be the bad guy who’ll put the writer in their place.
Use an anonymous account so they can’t track you down. Don’t use your real name. Make sure to leave related comments from seven burner accounts to fan the flames of your first comment.
Your comment also needs to have horrible grammar, a plethora of typos, and a clear indication that you didn’t even read the article. You just looked at the headline, picture, and made a snap generalization about what the article is about — and that’s fine, because the writer doesn’t deserve your read. Because you are the rude commenter, and you’re a bigger expert on the topic than they are.
If the writer is a woman, be especially vicious. Use every misogynistic curse word in the book, and be so vicious that the writer resorts to using a pseudonym. If they already use a pseudonym, accuse them of not being brave enough to use their real name. It doesn’t matter that you’re not using your real name either. Anonymity is required if you don’t want to suffer any repercussions.
Occasionally, confuse the writer. Make it seem like you’re giving them a compliment, but then very quickly turn it into an insult. Show them you can turn on your command of extravagant vocabulary if you need to so they don’t even know if it’s a compliment or insult. After all, you’re smarter and better than the writer and need to prove it.
You’re just doing what’s good for the writer and exposing them to the real world. What were they expecting people to say? Nice things? It’s not like you have to say your rude comment to their face — because you’re an anonymous, unidentifiable account, there are no consequences for being an asshole.
Never, ever, apologize. Always double down on your viciousness, because after you do it for a while, leaving rude comments is akin to drug addiction — the more you do it, the less of a rush you get. You have to be more and more of an asshole to get the same rush.
Also, make sure to stalk them. Leave mean comments on their Instagram and Twitter pages. If they have a book on Amazon, leave one-star reviews from your numerous burner accounts.
Nothing makes you feel more like God than leaving a rude comment, so if you, like me, are unemployed, 40 years old, single, and living in your mom’s basement, take solace in the fact that you can still ruin a writer’s life by leaving a rude comment. | https://medium.com/slackjaw/how-to-leave-a-rude-comment-that-will-ruin-a-writers-life-4e07ed3a4639 | ['Ryan Fan'] | 2020-10-18 13:21:47.240000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Satire', 'Writing', 'Digital Life', 'Medium'] |
The Best Blogging Platforms | With hundreds of thousands of blogs running on the internet today, it is important to find the best blogging platform for you. A blog platform’s primary role is to host a dynamic website where you can store your latest posts as well as allow users to publish their own content. Blog platforms also allows users to search for information and share videos, photos, links and other media. In this article, I will give you an overview of different options and which one is best for you.
To choose the best blogging platform for your online business, evaluate first how its features align with your internet goals and needs. If you just want to boost your online visibility, look for a blogging platform with built-in search engine optimization (SEO) tools. If your primary goal is on starting publishing visual content more often, you may focus more on finding a blog platform that supports various media sharing features such as photo, video, music and themes integration. WordPress, by far, is the best blogging platform for both these kinds of users. Not only it comes with powerful search engine optimization tools, but it also offers support for WordPress themes, video and photo galleries, social media marketing tools, RSS feeds and numerous plugins. It has a number of themes available as well, such as business theme, portfolio theme, etc.
There are two major pros and cons to each platform. The most obvious pros to WordPress are its extensive variety of themes, which you can use to customize the look of your site. There are hundreds of themes available and WordPress offer several free themes as well. This is perhaps the biggest drawback of WordPress, its limited range of themes. Another downside of WordPress is its limited security features, especially if your site contains PHP security plugins.
There are other highly popular blogging platforms available in the market today, such as TypePad, Dreamweaver, Drupal and WordPress. These platforms have their own advantages and disadvantages and they each have their own unique set of benefits and drawbacks. Some even claim that they are the best free blogging platforms available in the market today, although they come with limited features. Their biggest benefit though is that they are very easy to use, even for non-techies.
If we talk about the drawbacks of these best blogging platforms, they mostly come in the form of limited features. There is also the fact that they are not supported by Adobe technologies. The Pygments language that is used by WordPress, is not compatible with Python and so you will not be able to use any of its functions from Python. As far as blogging is concerned, you will not be able to create any interactive graphics using Pygments. It’s really a shame that not all bloggers love to use this platform because it’s quite difficult to use and doesn’t support some advanced functionalities that are necessary for blog posts and web pages.
If you are someone who is looking for a cost-effective blogging platform, I would highly recommend that you look out for the open source solutions like Joomla and Drupal. These platforms are highly stable and they are built-in with PHP and MySQL and are supported by all the major browsers. Even if you want to use a fully-featured add-on for your blog, you will not have to spend a single penny on it because these platforms are supported by every popular browser. These add-ons are built in an open source basis and that is why most people prefer them over the others. The best blogging platforms today have been built in PHP and Java and are built in such a way that you can easily integrate them with other popular open source applications. | https://medium.com/@danishjdesai/the-best-blogging-platforms-72fb605db5c3 | ['Danish Jainuddin Desai'] | 2020-12-18 03:21:03.455000+00:00 | ['Blogging', 'Content', 'Platform', 'WordPress', 'Blogging Tips'] |
The Art of Digitally Manipulating Your Brain | Winston the Metal Freak
The Art of Digitally Manipulating Your Brain
The art of digital photography is always disputed as an idea of thinking about photography. Digital has changed the meaning of a photograph and probably has more of an impact on our lives than we at first realize. Sean P. Durham Dec 27, 2020·10 min read
Taking pictures, doing a shoot, or just making snapshots of the Christmas tree, are all acts with an intention to capture a moment. But it can often lead to a desire to manipulate the original to fit the intention.
An image and memory are two very different things.
We can imagine things, but we can’t keep those imaginings as solid images in our minds. The memory has a way of changing things. Even memories that we claim to be rock-solid factual memories of a past event, have probably changed to suit our own perception of life.
A camera takes a shot, and holds that digital image for as long as the pixels don’t deteriorate, or become manipulated in post-processing the photo. That’s what makes photography a useful tool. It also becomes a tool that we use to manipulate our vision and ideas.
Some of us need to take it a step further and make photos that express not only the moment, but also how we personally experienced that moment. So we learn how to adjust the camera settings to tweak the light, and the speed at which an image is recorded. The results vary according to how we balance the settings of ISO, Shutter Speed, and F-Stop.
It’s all about light. How fast that light enters the camera, how much light enters the camera, and how intense the light is when it hits the sensor.
Imagine, just by manipulating light and recording it, we can express what we feel about an object or a person. Technology is amazing.
The misuse of this ability to control the light with a camera has caused many a friendship to turn sour.
One of the problems with digital technology is the consensus that it makes everything easier for us. This is not true. It makes everything overwhelmingly fast and difficult for us to understand.
Somehow, Cameras and digital processing software are being combined as if they belong together. Photoshop is useful for a photographer when they want to adjust the light after the shot. But the belief that you must learn everything about Photoshop or similar to be a good photographer is an erroneous belief based on commercial marketing. To take photos you only need a camera.
Learning to take great photos is about exploration of the connection between the tool (camera) and you thought processes.
Before digital photography became a useful tool, analogue cameras were a thing. Cameras that carried a roll of film were a big challenge to the photographer — harder to use than a digital camera simply because you had to have a lot of faith in your abilities.
There was always something horribly enjoyable about the wait between taking a shot and finally seeing it fully developed on paper. You’d discover if you had been able to combine your skills at controlling the camera and your thoughts at the time of taking the shot.
The darkroom was a place to develop film, but a few tricks were always a part of the process. Dodging and burning on the paper allowed the photographer to manipulate the image to a point where it was satisfying, and reflected the thoughts of the photographer.
Trick Photography and Hoaxes
Trick photography was a clunky process of coming up with ideas that were often too elaborate to be bothered with.
Sometimes, people want to deliberately hoax the public and enjoy the publicity. These days, those hoaxes can create an enormous online following that will ensure large incomes.
Manipulating perspectives while taking the shot allowed photographers to create ideas that caused the viewer to question what’s in the photo.
Two or three adventurous men hanging around a large lake in Scotland once combined a plastic toy of a plesiosaurus with a toy submarine to make the whole world believe that there was a monster in Scotland’s Loch Ness. It took forty years before the photographer, Robert Wilson, finally admitted that it was a brilliant fake.
The Real Loch Ness Monster
The public loved it, and continue to believe that a monster must exist in Loch Ness. There’s just too many photos of ripples, strange shaped creatures, and shadowy looking figures in Lock Ness for it not to be real.
In spite of admitting it was a hoax, the public show willingness to continue in the belief that a monster probably does exist in Loch Ness. Life is more fun when we believe in things that can’t be disproved.
All you need is photographic evidence, then allow an audience to build their own narrative of “facts”.
Picasso said, create your own truth, then spend all your time convincing the rest of the world that it’s true. That’s a truth in art. Now, it gets used in business and politics.
According to photography, both analogue and digital, Yetis exist in the Himalayas, Sasquatch in Canada and parts of the USA.
Yet, in the United Kingdom where for at least six or seven decades Big Cats such as Pumas, Leopards, and once in Yorkshire a Siberian Tiger was sighted by a man while driving across farmland in a forklift truck, these big cats are considered a product of people’s vivid imaginations. Everybody knows that Pumas don’t belong in England.
The Yorkshire man claimed that the tiger leaped out of a woodland, and started to smash its paws against the perspex glass of the cabin. He was terrified when he returned.
There were doubts from colleagues and the local police, he had no photos of the incident, so it could easily be waved off as not real.
He showed the police the fork lift truck which was covered in weal marks that the tiger had left after ripping at the paint work with its massive claws. The police were impressed, and in spite of the man’s obvious trauma, hardly convinced at such a wild story.
When the police asked him to look at photographs of tigers in a folder they had compiled, he flipped through the pages easily, but when he saw the photograph of a Siberian Tiger the police said that he once again expressed fear as he pointed at it.
Weal marks from tiger claws, a petrified farm worker, and a positive identification of a Siberian Tiger weren’t good enough to convince the authorities that Tiger was roaming the Yorkshire Dales.
If the man had produced a mobile phone full of snarling tiger fangs and claws ripping at the exterior of his truck, he would probably have been immediately believed.
All you need is a photograph to prove your point, and you’ve started a narrative that can be twisted and turned to suit whoever cares to use it.
Digital photography has opened up a whole new world of truth, ready to be discovered, for photographers with an artistic bent. Pixels can be manipulated on photos.
We can take a photo of a crying baby and with a little sensitive dodging and burning followed by a slight “warp-liquify” process to the cheeks, we have a laughing baby. And it will go into the family album as such, then years later never be disputed that the baby was laughing about something shiny hanging on the Christmas tree.
Instagram is a haven for liars. Influencers have been caught out, again and again, while selling health products online. In order to “influence” their audience into purchasing the product, they felt pressured into tweaking their own waistline and raising their cheek bones a touch to ensure that followers would want the same look that the product promised.
Men with beer bellies, woman with wide hips, all washed away in minutes with the press of a button or two. Hey presto, Six Pack abs, and slimline starlet beauties with one million followers who want what they see in the digital photograph.
Recently, and interestingly, there was a photograph of a UK beach with holiday makers in the online Guardian newspaper. The piece was written by George Monbiot.
It was the 1970s, Brighton Beach. Someone pointed out that all of the people in the photo, families, children, adults, older people, were all slim and fit looking. There wasn’t an overweight Brit in sight.
1970s Brighton Beach
At first, online commentators were astonished. Then, after a few weeks, there was a line of commentary that the photo was a Photoshopped version of the original. Which isn’t a fact. The photo depicts a common sight from those times. Slim people.
People tried to point out that in those days, people generally didn’t eat as much food as people do today. Three square meals a day, nothing in between, and if you missed lunch it was tough luck.
A bag of crisps was a treat, and only a small one at that. No family sized packets of anything.
Statistics and Facts
There were many explanations for the slimness. The Photoshopping explanation won the day, and in most threads on the internet you can find commentators declaring that it was proved to be a fake; it wasn’t, and isn’t a fake.
Statistics and people’s memories tell us that it’s a real photo. People ate the same amount of food as today. They didn’t eat so much sugary foods as people do these days, though. So, 2,300 calories of beef and potatoes, is very different to 2,300 calories of soda drinks, high fat chips and supermarket processed foods. That’s the official explanation.
The problem is that the photo doesn’t show the average internet consumer the truth they are used to; that most people have weight problems, and that problem is as old as the hills. Actually, it’s a recent phenomenon in society.
Art and Reality
The line between art and reality has become warped. We now live in a world of creators. With life increasingly becoming an online experience it becomes ever easier to manipulate what’s really happening outside in the real world.
We read the news online, see pictures of events from around the world, and simply take for granted what we see. We accept it as the truth of what’s happening out there. It’s only when another photo that is similar comes along that we begin to question the validity of the digital image.
When we see photos of a past world that doesn’t match the opinionated ideas that the internet has given us, then we are confused about how to approach it. We become like a cat who is nervous about why somebody moved a chair across the room. We are much too focused on one thing; is it true or not true?
Life is complex, the internet claims to simplify things for us by offering images, emojis, and memes, so that we can quickly understand something and know what’s what.
Newspapers and Narratives
The newspapers have caused us to believe that everything we read on the front page of the newspaper is the truth, and it was the only thing of importance that happened that day.
The hidden narrative in any media outlet is that they are on your side, they are routing for you and defending your lifestyle. If you are unsure of your lifestyle, they will show you what it is by posting lots of lifestyle images for you to consume and identify with in the lifestyle section.
Our news source these days is a series of pickings that we take from around the internet. Twitter feeds, Facebook, and Google links that take us to websites that we can’t immediately verify for facts without interrupting our reading — so we just read on and believe. Mix that up with the online daily newspaper, and you’ve got yourself a lovely bag of confusing stories about the same things.
We like to trust ourselves and our ability to make good judgements about what’s true and what’s not true. This good judgement of ours is based on our personal experience of the world.
The more we allow ourselves to be influenced by the news and “facts” that we see on the internet, the more our confidence in internet truths and facts go unchecked, and we build and believe false narratives.
Social media knows how to manipulate your feelings. It can use the method of a timeline that presents you with a series of emotional triggers. The triggers consist of images and words. You scroll because you are bored, but with each movement of the scroll you expose your brain to a new idea. The mixture of emotional ideas that you see within a short time span of one minute, is enough to trigger a mixed up feeling of endorphins hitting the walls of your brain, and serotonin coursing through your veins like a bob-sleigh rider on acid. Do that everyday for one week, and you’ll experience depressive feelings. Many of us do — an emotional ride through the gamut of feelings is an addictive experience.
The trick is to keep the image and the text easy to understand. It’s a trigger, not a process.
Pre-internet day people were never exposed to the multitude of ideas, images, and varied opinions that we have to filter through our brains today.
The Cottingly fairies
A single photograph pinned to a wall can be of more use, and have more power than ten minutes flow of “good feelings” memes and images on social media can. When the mind is not focused, it is in danger of being hijacked by kittens on Twitter. | https://medium.com/@seanpatrickdurham/the-art-of-digitally-manipulating-your-brain-388b56e39da2 | ['Sean P. Durham'] | 2020-12-29 01:41:18.369000+00:00 | ['Internet', 'Creativity', 'Truth', 'Photography', 'Innovation'] |
New Lending Platform Announces Plans to List OGN | Decentralized finance (DeFi) acts as the backbone to the future of blockchain-powered commerce. DeFi protocols enable the creation and transfer of new forms of money, fueling the growth of blockchain-powered economies. Open and cryptocurrency-powered commerce networks power new ways of doing business for everyone, including the unbanked.
Beginning of this year, we launched our own ERC-20 token, Origin Token (OGN), which drives behavior for end users, developers, marketplace operators, and other ecosystem participants on the Origin Platform. More recently, we’ve introduced our own stablecoin, the Origin Dollar (OUSD), a high-yield savings instrument built directly into a medium of exchange. OGN acts as the governance token for the Origin Dollar (OUSD) network, creating a positive feedback loop between the two tokens.
As we continue to increase the utility of OGN throughout the entire crypto ecosystem, we were recently introduced to the Bonded Finance team. With a belief that open finance is a harbinger for the future of money, Bonded aims to make open and accessible DeFi products like any free marketplace. Today, we’re proud to share that Bonded Finance will list OGN as a lending and borrowing asset for their inaugural product, Ionic. This is Bonded Finance’s first product with a hand-picked selection of tokens that aren’t traditionally available on the incumbent lending platforms.
As part of our partnership with Bonded Finance, OGN holders will enjoy:
Access to Ionic — Bonded’s lending/borrowing product
Opportunity to lend and borrow the OGN token
Increased utility — earning potential in upcoming products
An opportunity to earn as you HODL
Drive demand by removing tokens from circulation
Ability to earn liquidity incentives and BOND tokens
Together with DeFi protocols like Bonded Finance that empower users to take ownership of their finances, we believe our free-to-run Dshop platform that is fully customizable and cryptocurrency-powered will unleash new economic opportunities to all participants of the Origin network. Both Bonded and Origin aim to be drivers of advancing DeFi economies and we are happy they chose to include OGN as one of their supported assets. | https://medium.com/originprotocol/origin-partners-with-bonded-finance-9c69ce1881d9 | ['Max Unger'] | 2020-11-11 02:20:23.054000+00:00 | ['Finance', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Fintech', 'Defi'] |
#280 (經濟學人導讀 — 每日新聞). #每日一經濟學人 #英文學習 #國際時事… | #每日一經濟學人 #英文學習 #國際時事 #謝謝志工AmyAndyJackyShane
👍我們的第七支影片：英國脫歐 (下) — 難解的北愛爾蘭問題，在 YouTube 上架囉：https://reurl.cc/Z7xGEQ
👍第二屆志工招募計畫至 12月13日 (週日) 21:00 截止，詳情歡迎私訊我們的粉專唷！
Tuesday December 8th 2020
2020年12月8日星期二
🌏Espresso — The world in brief
每日濃縮 — 世界概況
1️⃣US feat. HK v. Carrie Lam feat. China
美國 feat. 香港 vs. 林鄭月娥 feat. 中國
America imposed sanctions on 14 Chinese legislators in response to China’s expulsion of four pro-democracy opposition members from Hong Kong’s legislature. The sanctions are in addition to those previously levied on Carrie Lam, the territory’s chief executive, and several of her senior officials. President Trump is keen that America maintain pressure on China, even as he departs office.
美國對 14名中國人大代表進行制裁，以此回應中國將 4名泛民派的成員逐出香港立法會。這些制裁是在對香港特首林鄭月娥 (Carrie Lam) 以及幾名香港高級官員實行制裁之後施加的。美國總統川普即使在任期將屆之際，仍希望美國能持續對中國施壓。
2️⃣European Council: human rights is of vital importance
歐盟高峰會：人權至至至上
The European Council adopted a legal framework that allows it to impose sanctions on people and organisations involved in human-rights violations. The sanctions, which include travel bans and the freezing of funds, may be brought to bear on those involved in genocide, war crimes and other serious abuses, regardless of where the acts occurred.
歐盟 (政府首腦) 高峰會通過了一項法案 (架構)，允許對涉及違反人權的個人或組織實施制裁。包括旅行禁令、資金凍結等的制裁措施將適用於那些無論在何處發生、參與種族屠殺、戰爭罪以及其他嚴重虐待行為的人士身上。
3️⃣Chinese exports: simply irresistible…
中國出口：無法抗拒…
Chinese exports grew by 21% in November compared with the same month last year — the biggest increase since February 2018. The country’s exports have grown for six months in a row, propelling its trade surplus for last month to a whopping $75.4bn. China’s factories have been working flat out to supply locked-down Westerners.
中國在 (今年) 11月的出口額較去年同期增長 21％，是自從 2018年2月以來的最大增幅。中國的出口已經連續 6個月成長，而在上個月的貿易順差高達驚人的 754億美元。中國的工廠一直在拚命工作以供貨給被禁足令限制在家的西方人。
🔱Espresso — Today’s agenda
每日濃縮 — 今日頭條
🚀🚀🚀Starship enterprise: SpaceX’s new model
SpaceX 的新模型：飛向宇宙 浩瀚無垠
After a week of delays, the latest prototype of Elon Musk’s Starship may finally be ready for launch. If all goes well, SN8 will take off from SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch site on the coast of Texas and fly to an altitude of 15km before switching off its engine, turning on its side and letting gravity take its course. Shortly before it hits the ground, however, boosters will fire, returning the craft to its vertical orientation to enable a smooth landing. It is this remarkable belly-flop manoeuvre that, in theory, makes Starship fully reusable. No previous launch vehicle has ever held that accolade. Even the Space Shuttle, which travelled into orbit multiple times, required the rebuilding of entire components between flights. Mr Musk puts the odds of success at a mere one in three, but even if SN8 fails, SN9 and SN10 are already built and waiting for their moment in the stratospheric sun.
歷經一個星期中多次的延遲後，馬斯克 (Elon Musk) 的星艦 (Starship) 之最新原型機也許終於可以發射了。一切順利的話，星艦 SN8 將從 SpaceX 位於德州 (Texas) 海岸線旁的 Boca Chica 發射場起飛，並在飛到 15公里的高度後關閉引擎，轉向側身、讓重力發揮其作用。然而在它落地前不久，推進器將會啟動，使星艦回到垂直的方向，進而得以平穩的著陸。正是這樣非凡的轉向動作，理論上可以使星艦能夠完全被重複使用。先前的火箭就從未獲得如此成就的讚譽。即使是多次進入軌道的太空梭也需要在航程之間重新建構其整套組件。馬斯克認為成功的機率只有三分之一，但即使 SN8 失敗，SN9 以及 SN10 也已經製造好了，而目前正在等待它們進入平流層太陽下的時刻。
⚜️Daily takeaway⚜️
每日單字精選
✅Sanction (n.): 制裁 (名)
✅Expulsion (n.): 開除、除名 (名)
✅Senior (adj.): 年長的、資深的 (形)
✅Maintain (v.): 維持、保持 (動)
✅Framework (n.): 框架、架構 (名)
✅Violation (n.): 違反、侵害 (名)
✅Genocide (n.): 種族屠殺 (名)
✅Occur (v.): 發生 (動)
✅In a row (adv.): 連續地 (副)
✅Prototype (n.): 原型、原樣 (名)
✅Take off (v.): 起飛 (動)
✅Gravity (n.): 地心引力 (名)
✅Vertical (adj.): 垂直的 (形)
✅Remarkable (adj.): 卓越的、出色的 (形)
✅Component (n.): 零組件 (名)
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✔︎ SoundOn: https://reurl.cc/7oYNYD | https://medium.com/@leontheeconomist/280-%E7%B6%93%E6%BF%9F%E5%AD%B8%E4%BA%BA%E5%B0%8E%E8%AE%80-%E6%AF%8F%E6%97%A5%E6%96%B0%E8%81%9E-584199f6465c | ['Leon X The Economist'] | 2020-12-08 20:18:25.966000+00:00 | ['Chinese Economy', 'European Council', 'Carrie Lam', 'Spacex', 'Elon Musk'] |
My Hair Journey | My Hair Journey
2013
Fast-forward to 2013. I disliked my hair. I had no sense of haircare, so my hair got over-processed over time, and ‘stopped growing’. I then ventured into a relaxed hair journey, as my hair was completely ‘fried’. I stretched my relaxers out, and deep conditioned my hair. All to no avail. I made some progress (compare February 2013 to August 2013), however, the more my hair grew, the more it fell out. The damage could not be undone. Rather than getting a hair cut, I kept ‘trying’ to grow my hair.
2014
I wore my hair in buns in 2014. There was a massive gap at the back (from breakage in my crown), and so I could not wear my hair out.
HOWEVER, did I stop relaxing my hair? No. I relaxed AND straightened AND curled it regularly! *insert crying emoji*
2015
I bleached and colored what was left of her hair. On the bright side, I trimmed it, so it appeared fuller. I also stopped straightening it.
2016
My transition to natural hair was fairly quick. Nine months to be exact. I wore predominantly braids and twists to blend the new growth to the stringy relaxed ends. I do not wear extensions (braids) much, so I did not braid my hair while transitioning (if I did, perhaps just once during my 9-month transition).
2016–2017
I cannot begin to describe the joy and relief I felt! Nine months was long enough- I couldn’t go any longer. The stringy relaxed ends started falling off gradually, so I took the plunge and big-chopped, and I never looked back. I wore a wash and go, and I have not looked back. Here is why I chose to always wear a wash n go, and why I stuck with it since I big chopped.
2018
2018 was my awkward length phase. My hair was too long to wear my wash n go (like I did in 2016 and 2017), but it was too short to for other styles. So, I wore buns (shrunken and stretched) with flat twists in the front. I do not experiment often with my hair, I just so what works. Plus I was studying full time and working full time, and did not have the time or patience for experiments. | https://medium.com/@tinuodeleye/my-hair-journey-af341a8e4742 | ['Tinu Odeleye'] | 2021-10-21 10:49:48.700000+00:00 | ['Hair', 'Hair Care', 'Natural Hair', 'Hair Care Tips'] |
What “Her” teaches us about AI and human relationships | “Her “ movie poster
Artificial Intelligence is the manifestation of human curiosity to discover the secrets of the human brain and its complex functioning.
The story takes place in a distinct reality where a software company releases an operating system (OS) that is artificially intelligent and is meant to be the perfect personal assistant. The film revolves around the relationship between the protagonist and his AI operating system /assistant.
As the film progresses we see their relationship becoming complex and euphoric. Throughout the course of the film, we see the AI adapting and evolving according to the emotions of the protagonist. This striking similarity to human relationships captures the true essence of an artificially intelligent system. A true AI should be able to communicate with humans in an intimate and personal way, understanding their needs and wants. What seems extremely fascinating is how each experience shared by the protagonist becomes a source of information for the AI, which it uses to learn more about the protagonist and interact with him. We see how the AI helps in propelling the protagonist towards a more meaningful and purposeful life. The film thus captures the immense potential that AI has in improving our lives and making them more meaningful.
Apart from presenting a beautiful picture of the future of AI, the movie teaches us an important lesson about the human need for connection and profound relationships. It tells us how every person longs for a meaningful connection and a blissful exchange of emotions. The protagonist of the story who is anti-social and depressed at the beginning of the story re-discovers himself through his interactions with the AI and restores his relationship with his close friends and colleagues. The movie shows us how an understanding and unbiased listener can catalyze the development of an individual. It teaches us about tolerance, patience, and love. Throughout the story, we see the AI motivating and inspiring the protagonist to bring out his lost joy and curiosity about the world. We see a symbiotic relationship is established between the OS and the protagonist.
Finally, “her ” teaches us about the infinite and everlasting potential of a human being just waiting to be re-discovered from among the hidden layers of chaotic and unfortunate life experiences, giving us hope to pursue and persevere. | https://medium.com/vitmas/what-her-teaches-us-about-ai-and-human-relationships-195dae72309 | ['Mehul Jain'] | 2020-10-17 09:27:58.682000+00:00 | ['AI', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science'] |
Conceptual Character Photography by Kremer Johnson | Kremer Johnson (Neil Kremer + Cory Johnson) is a very talented photography team based in Los Angeles, USA. He is specialized in character-based portraits and narrative-driven scenes. They are the winners of some very prestigious awards and their client list includes big names like: CBS, Proctor & Gamble, Hulu, Braun.
You can also check them out on Behance.
You may also like
Best Case Scenario Photography by Danielle Guenther | https://medium.com/pixelsmarket/conceptual-character-photography-by-kremer-johnson-eaf3e0cf680d | ['Alex Ionescu'] | 2018-02-06 14:54:24.801000+00:00 | ['Photography', 'Inspiration'] |
4 Reasons Why You Should Be Bullish About 2018 Crypto | Business is rapidly changing thanks to cryptocurrency. Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash
Bitcoin and most altcoins surged like crazy in 2017 and this has everyone wondering if we are going to continue to go to the moon or if it will stop, drop, and burn.
Personally, I feel like this upcoming year of 2018 will be even bigger than the last year for growth in cryptocurrency and I am very bullish on crypto. I think I have great reason to be bullish. What do you think?
#1: Hedge funds and big money involved now
In December 2017, Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and CME Group were racing each other to market with Bitcoin Futures so big money is now starting to get into Bitcoin. We saw the market go up in one heck of a rush up in anticipation of futures being released.
After the release, Bitcoin surged about 26% and futures trading had to actually be halted because of the volatility. Futures were released as a way to hedge against volatility but I am not entirely certain that futures exchanges were quite prepared for the extreme volatility of crypto.
The fact that big money is now getting involved in cryptocurrency is drawing many new investors into crypto as a whole. More money invested equals higher profitability in the long-term. That is the assumption anyway.
#2: Masses of new coinbase users daily waiting to discover alts
Coinbase was up to 11.9 million users right after Bitcoin futures were announced up from 11.7 million previously in November 2017.
This surge in new activity is gamechanging for the growth of cryptocurrency because many newbie investors have found out about altcoins and are now pursuing other exchanges like Binance and Bittrex.
Coinbase only offers four coins at the moment so it is only a natural progression to want to pursue cheaper coins for most newcomers to the marketplace.
#3: Marketcap will reach the trillions
Peter Thiel, entrepreneur and venture capitalist, said this: “People are underestimating Bitcoin. It’s a reserve form of money like gold. There’s $70B worth of bitcoin in the world, but there’s $9 trillion of gold. Great potential!”
Screenshot of Coin Market Cap 1/3/18
The current market cap is sitting at $761,514,111,620 with Bitcoin holding 34% of that cap (according to Coin Market Cap). So, the rest of the market is pretty much fair game with 1,385 other coins being listed as active on Coin Market Cap.
The market has already reached higher than anyone else thought that it would in just the last year. I cant wait to see what this next year holds!
#4: Projects have so many releases in 2018 coming up
So many great projects coming up in 2018! Photo by Artem Sapegin on Unsplash
I am not partial to any of the upcoming projects for 2018 really but I have had my eye on a few:
· Request Network: A roadmap will be released in 2018 as well as some changes to their viable product that could potentially revolutionize the financial industry.
· OmiseGO: They already have partnerships with McDonalds and Credit Saison so I am looking forward to what other partnerships they will form in 2018.
· IOTA: This one is a little speculative for those investors that want to totally keep crypto decentralized because IOTA does centralize things a bit. But, many giant companies have partnered with IOTA and the company seems to be built on a solid foundation.
· NEO: NEO has many upcoming apps being developed for it that will be released in 2018 and I can’t wait!
· Waltonchain: They have successfully working product already, a strong foundation, and more upcoming partnerships that make this project a frontrunner for an undiscovered gem for 2018.
We’ve learnt a lot this year about the market and about how investor emotions will cause it to go up and down (if you are new to the market anyway). And we have learned about new projects that are changing industries that we use every day, like contracts and mobile payment services.
I expect that we shall see many more developments in the coming year and I am fairly certain that the bull market will continue upwards. Feel free to leave a comment to start a conversation and if you found this helpful then please clap and share with friends so those that need this will have access to it!
What do you think about the current state of the market? Will we continue to go up and up or will we drop? Let me know what you think!
Disclosure: This blog post is for educational and informational purposes only and is based upon my individual experience. Please do your own research and do not invest any money that you cannot afford to lose. Consult with attorneys and tax professionals for any legal or tax related questions that you may have. This should not be considered to be investing, legal, or tax advice. | https://medium.com/wespostdotcom/4-reasons-why-you-should-be-bullish-about-2018-crypto-8a5d22ea8583 | ['Ivy Riane'] | 2018-01-04 19:58:27.220000+00:00 | ['Sentiment', 'Finance', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain'] |
The Need For Empty Space Is Pressing | Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.
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Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription. | https://medium.com/meri-shayari/the-need-for-empty-space-is-pressing-b204cba0782d | ['Rebeca Ansar'] | 2020-03-14 22:26:59.110000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Poetry', 'Poem', 'Poet', 'Haiku'] |
Splunk Use Case: Domino’s Success Story | Splunk Use- Case — Edureka
While many companies and organizations have used Splunk for operational efficiency, in this blog post I will talk about how Domino’s Pizza used Splunk to analyze consumer behavior to build data-driven business strategies. This Splunk use case shows how Splunk can be used extensively in any domain.
Splunk Use Case: Domino’s Pizza
You might be aware that Domino’s Pizza is an e-commerce cum fast-food giant, but you might be unaware of the big data challenge they were facing. They wanted to understand their customers’ needs and cater to them more effectively by using Big Data. This is where Splunk came to the rescue.
Look at the image below which depicts the circumstances that were building up to cause big data problems at Domino’s.
A lot of unstructured data was generated because:
They had an omni-channel presence for driving sales
They had a huge customer base
They had several touch points for customer service
They provided multiple systems for delivery: Order food in-store, order via telephone, via their website, and through cross-platform mobile applications
They upgraded their mobile apps with a new tool to support ‘voice ordering’ and enable tracking of their orders
The excess data generated gave rise to the following problems:
Manual searches being tedious and error-prone
Less visibility into how customer need/preference varies
Unpreparedness and thus working in reactive mode to fix any problem
Domino’s felt that the solution to these problems would lie in a tool which can easily process data. That was when they implemented Splunk.
“Up until implementing Splunk, managing the company’s application and platform data was a headache, with much of its log files in a giant mess” – according to their Site Reliability & Engineering Manager, Russell Turner
Turner mentioned that using Splunk for Operational Intelligence in place of a traditional APM tool helped him to lower the cost, search the data faster, monitor performance and get better insights into how customers were interacting with Domino’s. If you look at the below image, you will find the different applications that were set up by implementing Splunk.
Interactive Maps, for showing orders in real time coming from all across the US. This brought employee satisfaction and motivation
Real-time feedback, for employees to constantly see what customers are saying and understand their expectations
The dashboard used to keep scores and set targets, compare their performance with previous weeks/ months and against other stores
Payment Process, for analyzing the speeds of different payment modes and identifying error-free payment modes
Promotional Support, for identifying how various promotional offers are impacting in real-time. Before implementing Splunk, the same task used to take an entire day
Performance Monitoring, to monitor the performance of Domino’s in-house developed point of sales systems
Splunk proved to be so beneficial to Domino’s that teams outside the IT department started exploring the possibility to use Splunk for gaining insights from their data.
Splunk For Promotional Data Insights
I am going to present a hypothetical Splunk use case scenario which will help you understand how Splunk works. This scenario demonstrates how Domino’s Pizza used Promotional data to get better clarity as to which offer/coupon works best with respect to different regions, order revenue sizes and other variables.
Note: The example of Promotional data used is representative in nature and data present might not be accurate.
Domino’s had no clear visibility into which offer works best — in terms of:
Offer type (Whether their customers preferred a 10% discount or a flat $2 discount?)
Cultural differences at a regional level (Do cultural differences play a role in offer choice?)
The device used for buying products (Do devices used for ordering play a role in offer choices?)
Time of Purchase (What is the best time for the order to be live?)
Order revenue (Will offer response change wrt to order revenue size?)
As you can see from the below image, promotional data was collected from mobile devices, websites and various outlets of Domino’s Pizza(using Splunk Forwarders) and sent to a central location(Splunk Indexers).
Splunk forwarders would send the promotional data generated in real time. This data contained information about how customers responded when they were given offers, along with other variables like demographics, timestamp, order revenue size and device used.
Customers were divided into two sets for A/B Testing. Each set was given a different offer: 10% discount offer and a flat $2 offer. Their response was analyzed to determine which offer was preferred by the customers.
The data also contained the time when customers responded and if they would prefer to buy in-store or do they prefer to order online. If they did it online, then the device they used to make the purchase was also included. Most importantly, it contained Order revenue data — to understand if offer response changes with the order revenue size.
Once the raw data was forwarded, Splunk Indexer was configured to extract the relevant information and store it locally. Relevant information being the customers who responded to offers, time at which they responded and the device used for redeeming the coupons/offers.
Typically, the below information was stored:
Order revenue based on customer response
Time of purchase of products
Device preferred by customers for placing the order
Coupons / Offers used
Sales numbers based on Geography
For performing various operations on the Indexed data, Search head was used. It is the component which gives a graphical interface for searching, analyzing and visualizing the data stored in the Indexers. Domino’s Pizza gained the below insights by using the visualization dashboards provided by the Search head:
In USA and Europe, customers preferred a 10% discount instead of a $2 offer. Whereas in India, customers were more inclined to a flat $2 offer
10% discount coupons were used more when the order revenue size was large, whereas flat $2 coupons were used more when the order revenue size was small.
Mobile apps were the preferred device for ordering during the evening and orders coming in from the website was most during the noon. Whereas ordering-in-store was highest during the morning
Domino’s Pizza collated these results to customize the offers/coupons with respect to order revenue sizes for customers from a particular geography. They also determined which was the best time to give offers/coupons and targeted the customers based on the device they were using.
There are several other Splunk use case stories which show how various companies have benefited and grown their business, increased their productivity and security. You can read more such stories here.
If you wish to check out more articles on the market’s most trending technologies like Artificial Intelligence, DevOps, Ethical Hacking, then you can refer to Edureka’s official site.
Do look out for other articles in this series which will explain the various other aspects of Splunk. | https://medium.com/edureka/splunk-use-case-da8ac0340f13 | ['Aayushi Johari'] | 2019-06-06 08:26:05.861000+00:00 | ['Splunk Administration', 'Log Analysis', 'Big Data', 'Splunk', 'Log Monitoring'] |
If At First You Don’t Succeed | Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash
That Feeling
Everyone knows that feeling. The moment when you have given it everything you have and you still fall short. The worst thing that can happen in sports is getting 4th place at The Olympics. You train your entire life at one thing, to be great in every way possible, only to find out that on the entire planet there are three people that are better than you. That feeling of knowing you gave it your all only to not achieve to you mind’s desire can be soul crushing and for some people it knocks them out of the big game. What is the big game? It is the one that they call life.
Transforming The Feeling
Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam said to Pramukh Swami Maharaj, “Swamiji, when I first launched a rocket it failed, and I became very depressed and disheartened. At that time I thought about becoming a sannyasi (ascetic), and giving up everything.” Pramukh Swami Maharaj said, “The Srimad Bhagvadgita defines renunciation in a unique way. “One must renounce not the performance of deeds, but renounce the desire for the fruits of those action.” It is my belief that with this thought His Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj was able to transform “The Feeling”. He drove himself selflessly, not wanting anything in return for what he was giving. He strived day and night for the betterment of humanity, and even when those very humans he was helping let him down he did not frown upon them. In actuality he only gave more of himself to them. Pramukh Swami Maharaj in this same conversation said to Dr. Kalam, “Human effort and God’s grace move the world…” I believe that His Holinesses only focused his mind on his efforts, prayed to God, and with that grace changed the world around him.
Now My Turn
It is here that I stumble, hard! The reason is because I have an expectation of the outcome. I am not selflessly giving myself to any task that I am tackling. I am doing it with a result in mind, and with that result some sort of recognition. It is because of this that I am going to have difficulty ever accepting the outcomes that do not fit into my mind. Also it will stop me from giving 100% of myself 100% of the time. Thus, for me to take that next step in realizing what I am capable of, I have to let go of my definition of what should happen. I should focus on what I can control like His Holiness did. My efforts. My prayers. His Holiness Mahant Swami Maharaj often says, “Do your best and leave the rest.” It is by these words of Mahant Swami Maharaj and the actions of Pramukh Swami Maharaj that I need to live by. | https://medium.com/@ohnoanish/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed-9eab1c285725 | ['Anish P'] | 2020-12-27 00:42:02.805000+00:00 | ['Pramukh Swami Maharaj', 'Personal', 'Growth', 'Motivation'] |
Shaping an Inclusive 'Future of Work': From Technology to People | Shaping an Inclusive 'Future of Work': From Technology to People JobsWeMake Follow Jun 14 · 3 min read
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, conversations around the ‘future of work’ have deepened, as the way we ‘work’ experiences a period of disruptive change. Labour markets are particularly affected by the disruptions, with deep repercussions on employment and inequality. Women and young people are the hardest hit. In India women and youth were already facing significant challenges to their employment with one of the lowest labour force participation rates in the world. Just to address the unemployment crisis in the country, estimates show that India would need to ensure the creation of 30 million jobs by 2030 , which is almost three times the population of Sweden. The marginalised will have to develop the entrepreneurial attributes needed to self-source their livelihoods in absence of comprehensive policies and support. After all, the least affected, economically speaking, are those who can ride the wave of technological progress.
Yet, within the ongoing conversations around the ‘future of work’, the ‘voices’ of the marginalised, part of India’s burgeoning informal economy, remain excluded and silenced. The broad discourse contends that technology will optimise ‘work’ where more can be done and had — with less effort. Ideas of optimisation, however, don’t seem to hold true for much of the rural populace. State-run support services merely ‘manage’ rural employment to ensure subsistence and need, rather than ‘optimise’ for individual and community aspirations. Top-down structures during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic cause deep distress as the marginalised are either pushed further to the peripheries of economic systems or are entirely expelled from them. One wonders if we are pushing for efficiency and optimisation at the expense of attributes of equity, justice, and inclusion.
The 'Future of Work' can be inclusive if we are open to new narratives and use-cases. Technology can be the window where the mental models in the macro-economic space can combine with those within communities to develop an ongoing relationship between broad discourse and the everyday lives of people at the grassroots.
If the ‘future of work’ is be shaped by logics of equity, justice, and inclusion, it cannot be within existing systems where the majority are only going to be spectators of a world passing them by. For socially innovative outcomes, the levers of change, namely technology, markets, and finance, implicit in entrepreneurship need to be interwoven with values of solidarity, collaboration, trust, and empathy.
In this issue of the Development Alternatives Newsletter, we discuss the need for communities, particularly women and youth, to co-design local systems to determine their own directions. We find that collaborative action is key in determining inclusive narratives of ‘future of work’. Technology that otherwise is central to the ‘future of work’ discourse, can be levers of co-productive change when co-designed with communities. Technology can then initiate discussions of socio-economic consequence, build peer networks, and address local needs and opportunities. The entrepreneurial energies thus unleashed provide early evidence that contrasts with the broad economic focus on hyper-individualised models inattentive to issues of employment security and dignity. In short, this edition shows that when the ‘future of work’ narratives focus on both individual and collective autonomy, there will be exponential change to business models, markets, and social structures. Technology will then be a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.
As for our work as practitioners, I borrow the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery: Our work is not to foresee the future, but to enable it. And enable it we will, when communities are at the centre of determining ‘their’ future work.
References: | https://medium.com/jobs-we-make/shaping-an-inclusive-future-of-work-from-technology-to-people-19b11bf4028 | [] | 2021-06-14 06:37:30.738000+00:00 | ['Solutions', 'Systems Thinking', 'Process Innovation'] |
Switzerland & Midwest Connections: Aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire | Switzerland & Midwest Connections: Aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire
Courtesy Chicago Architecture Foundation (photo by the author)
Welcome to the History Blog featuring the connections between Switzerland and the Midwest. I am Joerg Oberschmied, Deputy Consul General in Chicago. My interest in history started at an early age and continues to this day. The views expressed are solely mine and I hope you enjoy these journeys through time.
On October 7, a week of repeated small fires culminated in what would become known as the Saturday Night Fire. It began late in the evening and leveled twenty buildings on the city’s near West Side. It was not until the following afternoon that the blaze was extinguished, leaving firemen exhausted and their equipment in ill repair. The city was completely unprepared for the Great Fire, which began the next night. The 1872 Chicago report by Swiss Consul Heinrich Enderis to the Federal Council in Switzerland, reflects on the year following the Great Fire. It has been translated by this author with slight adjustments to modern language where necessary, but the tenor of the writing was otherwise left as it was. The subtitles have been added and were not part of the original report.
Within the past 12 months, as is well known, great changes have taken place in Chicago. Like a Phoenix, the city has risen from the ashes and, when fully rebuilt, will be able to stand alongside the finest, largest cities in the world. If the entrepreneurship of the Chicagoans was unsurpassed even before the fire, the trial by fire gave it an impulse that leaves all previous achievements in the field of commerce and industry far behind.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
The earnings during the first year after the fire were higher among all classes of the population than ever before, the losses suffered were more or less eradicated and mitigated. One must often wonder where all the money came from to build these colossal business palaces and huge hotels in such a short time, to fill these large warehouses, whose individual inventories number in the millions. If one considers that the effective loss due to the fire amounted to $190 million (1), it is easy to guess that these magnificent creations owe their origin essentially to foreign capital and credit.
ROBBER BARONS
Lack of earnings, stagnation in trade and a great money squeeze are beginning to make themselves felt. New arrivals suffer the most. Thousands of workers surround the various placement offices daily without being able to find employment. The immigrants seem to be under the delusion that they will find their Eldorado in Chicago. This belief seems to have been instilled in them in Europe and then in New York, where they like to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Our farmers in the West have also had a hard time lately as a result of low product prices, which often do not cover the cost of production, in some cases not even the freight to Eastern markets. Our farmers are anxious under the weight of the railroad monopolies. One squeeze of the freight tariff screw and the profit the farmer thought he had earned by the sweat of his brow is wiped out. Since this yoke became almost unbearable, a formal, well-organized peasant war broke out throughout the country against the railroad robber barons.
THE SWISS BENEVOLENT SOCIETY
It cannot be denied that in Chicago, as the metropolis of the West and the hub of its entire railroad network, there is a need for some kind of institution to support Swiss immigrants, given the great difficulties with which immigrants have to contend and the many miseries to which they are often subjected. A number of Swiss living in Chicago have, thanks to the encouragement of the Federal Council, organized themselves in 1872 to form a Swiss Benevolent Society with the purpose of assisting mainly needy immigrants with words and deeds and to step in until more effective measures are found for these needs. This society is supported by the Chicago Grütliverein (2) and the Swiss Men’s Choir.
With regard to imports from Europe, the undersigned takes the liberty of reminding you of the important circumstance that Chicago is now a direct import port and thus relieved of the unpleasant pressure of having to have the goods cleared through customs in New York. Our merchants, respective importers, thus save about $3–4 on each crate and can handle the whole business themselves without the mediation of any middlemen. Since in the local customs house all goods are registered in the order of arrival, without any classification, it could not be determined how many goods arrived directly from Switzerland. There is no doubt that Swiss exporters could increase their sales to America if they dealt directly with local wholesalers. Through the mediation of the undersigned, several such connections have already been initiated.
Don’t miss part II of Consul Enderis’ report from 1873 on the next edition of this history blog. Special thanks to Will Hansen from the Newberry Library (www.newberry.org) for the images.
Notes: (1) The equivalent of more than $4 Billion in today’s money. (2) The Grütli Verein was founded in 1856 and is the forerunner of today’s Swiss Club.
One Year from the Fire (John Wing, 1872, courtesy Newberry Library)
Chicago — bird’s eye view 1871 by Theodore R. Davis (courtesy Newberry Library)
Lake Street & Michigan, before and after the fire (Joseph Kirkland, courtesy Newberry Library) | https://medium.com/@switzerlandusa/switzerland-midwest-connections-aftermath-of-the-great-chicago-fire-213e94ecb221 | ['Switzerland In The Usa'] | 2021-09-08 19:12:39.127000+00:00 | ['Midwest', 'Chicago', 'Switzerland', 'Fire', 'History'] |
Justifying patheticism. I do think there is a value to being… | patheticism rocks
I do think there is a value to being pathetic in life, of course according to own self evaluation. Pathetic is whatever your personal definition of bad, lazy intolerant, narrow minded, depressed, slothful, pea-brained and sad you are. Patheticism is a valuable thing,- you know why? Because if all the Darwinism I am devouring currently is anything to go by, then being pathetic in your own eyes, or inadequate, or unfulfilled wouldn’t exist as an outcome of some highly evolved human specie in 300,000 years or whatever the newest paper in the anthropology journal revises the age of human civilisation to.
However this is outsourcing the justification of the statement I had made earlier to an appeal to authority that again is a fallacy in reasoning. Just because he said so, doesn’t mean it’s true. Aside from this minor blip of an argument where I could blow out my vocal chords, or in this case my keyboard in summoning the value of scientific consensus and years of smart people who failed to disprove Darwin, I think appeal to authority is a less scandalous fallacy than some of the others. Taking my argument further now will just be a matter of backjustifying, or working backwards from the starting point of assigning evolutionary value to being pathetic.
I fucking have no clue how i will reason myself out of this mire I willingly got into by even embarking on a piece of writing as a form of avoiding making a requiem about climate doomsday porn for a possible 4 year PhD of mourning over the uncontrollability of the events that will happen from now on in my tiny sphere of influence, but i will, because I should given the amount of energy I’ve already spent starting this unhinged or even slightly desultry piece of writing. God lo! I just identified the sunk cost fallacy here…
Wow. Okay. Awesome. It isn’t getting any clearer as to how I can come out of thinking through this chain of thought given I have already started the rambling in a false(?) sense of wishing people can find this piece of writing mildly entertaining and perhaps the elephant in the brain is using this opportunity to peacock and display feathers of intellection and skills remotely resembling writing. I don’t know… this brings me into the whole space of thinking why society assigns value to being humble or self deprecatory in the first place. Is this evolutionary too? If so, why… what might be the societal advantage of camouflaging your potential mating traits in the story of the selfish gene replicating itself?
No clue dude. I could think of some reasons off the top of my head, probably like avoiding attracting rivals, not barking loud and therefore attracting envy, but i can already point out flaws and inconsistencies in those views, though ‘taint hard to form a hypothesis that could be tested in the real world to settle the doubt. Say you get a room of people and request them to show off, and the other half to be humble and ask a person to choose who they would like as a mate. Would intentionally appearing pathetic, lazy, intolerant, narrow minded, depressed, slothful, pea-brained and sad increase your chances of being a fresh egg (aka laid) ?
Darwin would possibly justify that using his theory of female choosing mates in the animal kingdom and how this choice leads to a sexual selection of potentially dumb traits, case in point, ‘patheticism’, in the same kernel as a peacock’s ‘good-for-no-lion-hunt’ feathers. So though most patheticism would most probably drive you bankrupt, poor, under-confident and lead to a self-fulfilling cycle to drive you to choke in your own vomit, there is reason to believe natural selection (aka. survival for the fittest) might not have been the genesis of patheticism, but rather its rival - sexual selection. So you know, the next time you feel pathetic, understand it’s probably because of some grandmother of yours who was attracted to a lazy and pathetic person. VOILA!!!!
I had no clue I could actually make a point. But dare you ask why women like patheticism… my train of thought better be engaged in writing a research proposal about how our earth is going to end with a 6th mass extinction, putting brakes to millions of years of evolution and thus the very idea of sexual selection itself that has propagated pathetic creatures so much that Gaia has a plan to become fucked and uninhabitable. Natural selection might have made us survive, but sexual selection seems to have accomplished the opposite; we will all die because of grandmothers who liked rich, aka pathetic (short sighted, greedy, hedonistic, resource hungry) men who could offer them golden toilet seats. We are certainly not the first species to die because of bad sexual choices: did you see the video of the peacock that was almost killed by a lion when wooing the peahen for sex?
So the climate disaster is not us to blame, it is the way sexual selection worked to make some genes assholes who were/are short term and selfish (some of them are in you, as patheticism). Don’t worry, it is a self correcting system, the caveat being that you and everyone you know will be dead… or alive in some atom of a bacteria that managed to survive a hothouse earth and social collapse, when the Anthropocene is replaced by the Novacene and our Silicon Lords (aka AI) will increase entropy much faster than biological life, justifying our obliteration since the universe will have suddenly got better agents than us in fostering its own heat death. Suddenly, no one else will have to battle with the question, “What is the meaning of life?”, unless we go into the Chinese room mindfuckdebate of attributing consciousness to AI… or probably just admit that Deep Thought already figured it out; 42 and all subsequent AI from now on will repeat that answer. | https://medium.com/@excitedtruck/in-defence-of-being-pathetic-in-your-own-eyes-266178ed83f5 | ['Excited Truck'] | 2021-01-01 17:56:03.302000+00:00 | ['Solastalgia', 'Sexual Selection', 'Evolution', 'Climate Change', 'Darwin'] |
Finding your people. When I was 23 I was living in San… | When I was 23 I was living in San Francisco. There were a handful of days that year it was raining unusually hard — so hard that the city lost power in a few areas. I was told not to go into the office, so I ended up walking in the rain to Pinecrest Diner to work. It was a modest spot with San Francsico lore. Supposedly a waitress was once shot and killed there by a cook after they argued about poached eggs.
I sat in one of the old vinyl booths, a table away from a guy who looked maybe 15 or 20 years older than me. He was also sitting alone. There was something about the dreariness of the day that made me think that even as strangers we both shouldn’t be sitting there not acknowledging each other at all. So we started talking. His name was Kevin Saul and he was a general counsel at Apple.
It took me a while to piece together that he was dying. He spoke warmly about his sons who played soccer. He talked about architecture, creative work, and philosophy. He talked about his time at Apple, and how I should be careful in my career because he thought consistent stress can kill people.
I think everyone has their people in life. People who click with them, help them, or even just believe in them. As I sat there for over an hour chatting with him, I felt like he was one of my people even though I knew it was in passing. At the end of the conversation, he told me that I was the kind of person that Apple likes to hire. And he offered to put me in touch with the executive creative director there, Hiroki. It was the last time I saw him.
A few days later I received an email intro to Hiroki, and I had an hour long 1:1 with an executive at Apple whose time was particularly guarded. After the meeting, I spent all weekend rewriting one of their ads to prove I could create the kind of work that belonged there. I didn’t end up with an offer, but the recruiter ended up connecting me with an agency that I worked at for a while.
After a series of chain reactions, the Apple offer I wanted came two years later. When I got it I couldn’t tell Kevin about it, but he was the first person I thought about.
I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about connections and the serendipity they require. You have to be in the same place, you have to find personalities that click. And you have to be open to connecting in the first place.
After 7 years from that encounter, the connections I made and roles I took landed me at a company called On Deck. There was a lot of serendipity leading up to it, too much to mention here. But what interests me most about it is that it’s a company that’s designed to take some of the serendipity out of the equation. And I mean that in the best way possible: more faces, more people you click with, more conversations that leave you feeling energized or excited about the future.
There’s not much else that determines your life than the people in it. Your people are everything. And there are a lot of them you haven’t met yet, living in different cities or hanging in circles that haven’t quite overlapped. They are people who align with your values, want to start companies with you, want to be convinced to start companies, want to teach you something about the industry you share, or even want to invest in you. They’re people who know they can light a hundred candles and still stay lit themselves.
I’m here now because I believe at On Deck we can help you find them. | https://medium.com/@eade.bengard/a-recent-history-of-how-i-got-here-6096c7da1313 | ['Eade Bengard'] | 2021-08-12 18:32:21.774000+00:00 | ['Career Change', 'Journaling', 'On Deck', 'Autobiographical', 'Connection'] |
Long Build Up — Meaning, Best Example & Related Terms 2021 | Futures and Options are quite difficult to understand even for active investors of the stock market. F&O Segments affect the stock price so much. So let’s understand the most important things: Long Build up, Short build up, Short covering, and Long unwinding which affect the stock most of the time.
However, to understand these terms we need to discuss a few related things. let’s start with Open Interest:
What is Open Interest ?
You must purchase and sell futures and options contracts on a monthly basis. However, It is also weekly for the Bank Nifty. The open interest is 1 when a person buys a derivative but does not sell it. The phrase “open interest” refers to the number of derivative contracts that are active in the market.
If a contract is merely Bought or Sold, it is considered open. When you can purchase a contract which is not sold and also sell a contract which is not purchased. The contract is open in both cases, and open interest rises.
If the contract is both bought and sold, it is considered completed. As a result, open interest at a given time indicates the amount of contracts open or sold during a given length of time.
Important points about Open interest
When new contracts are added, OI rises. When contracts are squared off, OI drops
nevertheless, OI does not alter when contracts are transferred from one party to another.
Unlike volumes, OI is constant data.
Because OI and Volume statistics alone does not transmit information, it is necessary to always couple them with price information in order to evaluate the significance of their distinct variations.
Be wary of instances where the OI is abnormally high, as this signals significant leverage.
What is Long in F&O?
Long or long position is a condition in which investors are Bullish. It denotes that someone anticipates a rise in stock values. As a result, they are purchasing the stock first and then selling it afterwards.
Example
Long positions are bought at a cheap price and sold at a high price in order to profit. People are selling at a premium and will purchase at a reduced cost. The sell and buy actions take place at different times. This is the only distinction. | https://medium.com/@profitmust/long-build-up-meaning-best-example-related-terms-2021-8d2f4ce9168a | [] | 2021-06-08 11:16:02.049000+00:00 | ['Investors', 'Investment', 'Stock Market', 'Stocks', 'Investing'] |
Explainer-U.S. Government Hack: Espionage or Act of War? | The suspected Russian hack of U.S. government agencies has led to heated rhetoric from lawmakers, with U.S. Senator Dick Durbin calling it “virtually a declaration of war” and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio saying that “America must retaliate, and not just with sanctions.”
https://www.bkreader.com/events/streaming-live-ohio-state-vs-northwestern-big-ten-game-live-free-19-dec-2020/
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https://paiza.io/projects/crpNwqIwrg3xCTLRXmoECw
http://www.onfeetnation.com/profiles/blogs/gvbngfvhnfgv
http://millionairex3.ning.com/photo/albums/fbvgfcbgfchtfgh
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http://korsika.ning.com/profiles/blogs/fgbngfvnhgfvhjn
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http://sfbats.ning.com/profiles/blogs/fbgchnfghnf
http://allabouturanch.com/forum/topics/fcbgchnfghnfv
http://summerschooldns.ning.com/profiles/blogs/fgbfvthfh
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http://network-marketing.ning.com/forum/topics/xdvbgdcgbdc
But cybersecurity and legal experts said the hack would not be considered an act of war under international law and will likely go down in history as an act of espionage.
Here’s why.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE HACK?
The hack, first reported by Reuters, hijacked software made by Texas-based SolarWinds Corp. By inserting malicious code into updates pushed to SolarWinds customers, the hackers were for months able to explore the computer networks of private companies, think tanks, and government agencies.
Sources familiar with the U.S. investigation said the hack was likely carried out by Russia’s foreign intelligence service. Moscow has denied involvement.
The magnitude of the hack is still unclear, but hackers are known to have monitored email or other data within several U.S. government agencies.
The breached federal agencies include the Commerce Department, Treasury Department, and Department of Energy.
An Energy Department spokeswoman said malware had been “isolated to business networks only” and had not impacted U.S. national security.
WAS THE HACK AN ‘ACT OF WAR’?
It is too early to say for sure, but probably not, according to cybersecurity experts.
To qualify as an act of war, United Nations resolutions and other sources of international law require a certain level of force or destruction that does not appear to be the case this time.
“Warfare implies violence, death and destruction,” said Duncan Hollis, a professor of law at Temple University specializing in cybersecurity.
Hollis and other experts said the attack appears to have been carried out to steal sensitive U.S. information, and should be viewed as espionage.
“Simply stealing information, as much as we don’t like it, is not an act of war — it is espionage,” said Benjamin Friedman, a policy director at the think tank Defense Priorities.
Experts said cyber attacks can be acts of war if they cause physical destruction.
A Department of Defense law of war manual states that some cyber operations should be subject to the same rules as physical, or “kinetic” attacks. Examples include operations that “trigger a nuclear plant meltdown; open a dam above a populated area, causing destruction; or disable air traffic control services, resulting in airplane crashes.”
John Bellinger, the top State Department lawyer under former Republican Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said it was not yet clear whether the hack could be considered an act of war.
“It may simply be a massive act of espionage that would not constitute an act of war. We don’t know yet whether the Russians simply accessed U.S. government computers or actually disrupted government functions,” said Bellinger, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
IS THERE ANY PRECEDENT FOR THE HACK?
A hack in 2014 that targeted the U.S. government’s personnel agency, the Office of Personnel Management, exposed sensitive personal information of millions of current and former federal employees and contractors.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in 2015 that he suspected China of conducting the hack, and he said during congressional testimony two years later that in his view it was an act of espionage.
“I think there is a difference between an act of espionage, which we conduct as well, and other nations do, versus an attack,” Clapper said at the time.
A devastating 2017 hack attributed to Russia, known as “NotPetya,” crippled ports by paralyzing the shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk and other global corporations.
Olga Oliker, a Washington-based expert on U.S.-Russia relations, said in 2017 testimony before the U.S. Senate that, if Russia was to blame for NotPetya, “it is an example of precisely the type of cyber operation that could be seen as warfare, in that it approximates effects similar to those that might be attained through the use of armed force.”
HOW MIGHT THE UNITED STATES RESPOND?
The Defense Department manual says the United States cannot use force to respond to a cyber operation that is not itself an act of force. Instead, the United States can respond with measures such as “a diplomatic protest, an economic embargo, or other acts of retorsion” the manual says.
“We know that lots of countries engage in espionage, and we don’t bomb them in response,” said Friedman.
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden signaled on Thursday that he would use targeted financial sanctions to respond.
“They’ll be held accountable,” Biden told The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “Individuals as well as entities will find … there are financial repercussions for what they did.” | https://medium.com/@aung-jahmiere/explainer-u-s-government-hack-espionage-or-act-of-war-d870f4e9985b | ['Aung Jahmiere'] | 2020-12-19 12:57:03.641000+00:00 | ['New York', 'News', 'Networking', 'Newsletter'] |
“The student retention committee should formulate a plan to increase retention.” A review of as much as I could take of Jill Biden’s Ed.D paper. | “The student retention committee should formulate a plan to increase retention.” A review of as much as I could take of Jill Biden’s Ed.D paper. Christopher Willard Dec 17, 2020·7 min read
Wikimedia commons.
I was interested in the media frenzy about this document (I’m loathe to call it a dissertation) and so I looked it up. There are two litmuses that I use when first considering a thesis, exegesis, or dissertation: I look for a clear research question and I check methodology. What I found was a grab bag of sentences and assumptions generally unframed by a clear research question, arising from no gap in knowledge I could identify, lacking a clear methodology, and with a poor conclusion that to me seemed like a compilation of some of what those studying retention have known for years.
Here are my observations about the section titled Methodology, and these aren’t all of my comments but I got cranky by the time I’d written these up an I couldn’t bear any more reading of this thing.
“Methodology” is confused with “method.” The author called surveys methodologies. This is a rookie mistake. A survey is a method. Group discussion, also listed, is a method. It is unclear what sort of group discussion was used or how the data from any method it was collected and coded.
To be clear, no methodology is listed at all. And, nothing about surveys, the method used, is backed up with an articulation of why it is the most appropriate instrument, etc.
It’s either “pre-tech” or “pre tech.” Standardization needed.
“Students, faculty, and advisors were included in the methodology to hear from all the ‘voices’…”. Just an example of a poorly constructed sentence, one out of many.
It’s either “full-time” or “full time.” Standardization needed.
The survey allowed for only male or female identification, in fact the paper generally is gendered, which citation references generally advise against.
The survey allowed choice from only 5 specified race identifications.
#9 on the survey answer says “Your technology 85% or undeclared 15%” without any clarification of what the heck this even means.
Under analysis, broad claims are made with no foundation for such claims being cited. For example “The demographics of the pre-tech students at Delaware Tech reflect the current research findings regarding college education.” Citations? Research?
There are broad generalizations, e.g. “These added responsibilities make it imperative that students work while attending college.” The responsibilities are listed as children and care-taking, which may or may not mean that one must work. That depends on one’s financial situation. The assumption is problematic.
“The number of African and Indian American students is increasing.” No citation backs this up. Normative identification in the US has been, since the 1980’s“ Native American” or “Indigenous” or “American Indian.” The phrase “Indian American” would appear to be non standard usage for 2006.
Here’s an example of convoluted sentence of which there are many. “Almost 38 percent of the students sought help at the Writing Center, whereas 62 percent had never taken advantage of the help offered.” File this under the old quip, “Never use a big word when a diminutive word will suffice.”
“Three quarters of the surveyed students had never used library services. This statistic may be somewhat misleading as students are capable of doing research on the internet and may not feel a need to check out books, videos, or other reference materials.” The fact that students did not use the library is separate from what they may have used for research. Their use of the internet, for example, does not change the fact that 3/4 of all students surveyed never used the library. The author says that the reason students do not use the library is they may not feel the need to check out materials. Nothing backs this up and it assumes the only purpose of a library is for students to check things out.
Standardization on spelling out numbers or writing numbers would be nice.
“Retention literature strongly supports faculty mentoring….” No sources for this claim are given.
“55 percent of students agree that mentoring would be helpful to them.” This means, given a margin of error rate of roughly five percent, half the students do not agree that mentoring would be helpful. The implication that it is wanted is misleading.
“The cafeteria is impersonal — not an appealing place for students to gather.” This is the author’s view as no student data is given to back this up.
Creative Commons
“Approximately 85 percent of the student body felt that a student center might encourage friendships among students.” How much more vague can this get?
“Many students identified psychological problems they observed among students on campus.” Another unclear statement. Does this mean students observed others and attempted to distance diagnose their problems? “Among students” ? A group sharing of psychological problems?
Stress is cited as the main “psychological problem.” And the author assumes this is “from schoolwork” rather than including other factors.
On a side note I found it funny the college requires faculty to take a fitness test to use the fitness center.
“So, although a myriad of health services does exist, students are not aware of Delaware Tech’s Wellness Center. Yet, 135 students out of 159 state that a wellness center would be a welcome addition to the facilities.” There is no data here supporting this, and sentence two does not follow.
In prefacing a grid of answers, the author says “Students provided some thought provoking answers.” The responses are no more or less thought provoking than any other responses, so the statement is meaningless here.
Some suggestions by students “require money, which is not always available.” To say this is obvious, is an understatement.
“Surveys were given out during class; no one refused to take the survey.” This raises a highly problematic issue that an Institutional Review Board should have reviewed and required to be mitigated in advance of the survey dissemination. Using class time for non-course research demands a number of things that are put in place. On this issue, there is no introduction to a survey presented in the document that speaks about everything from being able to opt out, to data collection and retention, usage, and the use of course time for someone’s non-course research. Many ethical problems seem lurking but unstated, all without evidence of mitigation.
“The fact that 35 percent of Pre Tech college students had never seen their advisor was a problem itself.” Not necessarily. A straight A student might feel no need to see an advisor.
“…one would assume that the advisory component of the college experience would have a greater impact on first generation students.” One could assume a lot of things. The purpose of a dissertation is to stop assuming and build on research via rational arguments.
“On the whole, students found that advisors were available and approachable, yet, they seemed to view the 50 advisor/advisee relationship as purely mechanical — one designed only to schedule classes. The numbers reflect a superficial relationship, not one in which advisors are invested in the success of the students.” More broad assumptions.
“In general, students gave the advisors low marks in terms of helping them to succeed in college.” Students who do poorly often transfer their lack of success onto others. The authors takes this to mean that advisors were not “invested in them as individuals trying to meet their educational goals.” There is no logic in this conclusion.
“In future student retention studies, it would be interesting to note the students who consistently registered negative answers to questions. These students are the alienated students who could be addressed through early intervention.” There is nothing to back up this assumption.
“As is usually the case, this data could be looked at through several different lenses. The research needs to be cognizant of other assumptions and conclusions that can be reached.” Now this is just silliness as this level. This is a first year university learning outcome. A dissertation is supposed to make explicit the author’s lens and to address possible misreadings by way of arguments backed up by research that exhausts relevant research in the field.
Lots of additional faculty workload is proposed by the author, from engaging in extended listening, to guidance, to student mentoring. It’s easy to say that job scope for faculty should expand in all directions but for right or wrong, a good deal of research and it’s citation is required here.
“The student retention committee should formulate a plan to increase retention.” This smells like a student struggling to fill paragraphs.
“Then, the student retention committee should convey the views of counselors, faculty and administration in finding solutions.” To convey to whom, if they are charged with finding the solution?
Creative Commons
It appears the discussion is mixed up with the methodology section, which in turn leads to hardly a conclusion before recommendations are offered.
“We know that the first year of the college experience is the most important as statistics prove that the first year determines student persistence.” Again, nothing is cited to back this up.
In the appendix, this is the introduction section of the survey given to faculty: “Dear Colleague, I am using this information for my dissertation. Please fill out and return to me by May 31, 2006.” This would normally not pass an Institutional Review Board.
By this time I’d had enough. I found no evidence of coding data but instead found instances of assumptions based on survey results without cited research backing up the assumptions. The paper’s research question attempts to be: “The paper focuses on four areas of students’ needs: academic, psychological, social, and physical.” There isn’t a clearer one that I found, and it shows. This dissertation is in my view a mess, with many, many problems and frankly, I’m surprised it was accepted. But I knew that going into the writing of this because I’d skimmed the dissertation. I wrote this while attending a meeting because the problems were simply so obvious. My final grade: Yikes! | https://medium.com/@christopherwillardauthor/the-student-retention-committee-should-formulate-a-plan-to-increase-retention-72f55400ed | ['Christopher Willard'] | 2020-12-17 21:08:32.636000+00:00 | ['Biden', 'Politics', 'Writing', 'Critique', 'Education'] |
Hacking productivity in data science notebooks | Challenge 1 — Environment set up and management
The potential of data science teams is often limited by the engineering support that’s available to them. Managing Python packages, researching connectors to disparate data sources, and maintaining data pipelines is particularly difficult. The learning curve is steep and the experience is often exasperating. Setting up a development environment and maintaining its consistency takes up valuable time, and it can end up being an expensive and frustrating task.
At Deepnote, we aim to reduce this overhead and free up the hands of data scientists to focus on what they are best at, which is why we abstracted all this complexity away. Deepnote is built for the browser and is platform-agnostic. No pre-installs are needed — you can simply sign in, create a new notebook, and get to work while Deepnote handles the rest (you can try it here).
All hardware is remotely managed, every hardware tier is connected to the internet and can execute long-running tasks. Your projects in Deepnote are always available, with the hardware being up and running in just a few seconds. No need to spend time picking the right Linux version and managing multiple Python environments. If you need to upgrade your hardware, you can do so in just one click. We believe that by enabling a frictionless setup, we can move the data science community closer to reproducibility. Deepnote supports that in two major ways.
First, Deepnote makes dependencies management easy. When you pip-install a package in the cell of a notebook, we prompt you to move it into requirements.txt and append a specific version of the used package. Second, you can create Teams in Deepnote, which allows you to share datasets, integrations, projects, and environment configurations. This way, when your colleague shares a project with you, it includes the environment it runs in, not just the .ipynb. To learn more, take a look at my previous article discussing how Deepnote fosters collaboration in notebooks.
Challenge 2 — Code assistance
Although writing and managing code is a fundamental activity in the computational notebook paradigm, a lack of code intelligence in notebooks can make the experience difficult. Code editors and IDEs used by software engineers are not the right tools for the job either. As a data scientist, you most likely navigate function and class names by having another browser open to search for help or you get the job done by switching between software IDEs and notebooks.
Whether you are transforming your data, exploring, or building ML models, Deepnote helps with advanced code assistance. An IDE-style autocomplete system lets you work faster, and configurable linting tools point out bugs before they break your long training jobs.
IDE-style autocomplete in Deepnote
Challenge 3 — Understanding data quickly
Discovering patterns in data takes up a lot of the time before we’re able to start using those insights and building out models. Initial data exploration lacks the immediacy and often ends up being a never-ending cycle of “copy-paste and tweaking bits of code made worse by feedback latency and kernel crashes”.
Deepnote has a built-in variable explorer so that you can instantly review the contents of your variables without having to print them. It contains additional information, including histograms for each column of a data frame so that you can quickly get an overview of the current state. Discovering patterns is also made easier with the help of interactive plots.
Challenge 4 — Maximizing your speed
As data scientists, we need interfaces that help us explore data efficiently, prototype quickly, and move towards actionable insights. With Deepnote, we’ve introduced a bunch of features that save your time and help you iterate on your experiments faster:
Get a browser notification when a cell finishes executing.
See when a cell was last executed and how long it took.
If you’re executing a cell for the second time or more, Deepnote displays a progress bar showing you how far along in execution the cell is.
Deepnote shows which cells were successfully executed with a green checkmark. If the code changes without then executing the cell, the check mark disappears. This way, you know when a cell’s output is up-to-date and avoid struggling with a hidden state.
We’ve also introduced a powerful Command palette, as well as shortcuts that provide quick access to all your files and the most popular actions. Simply press Ctrl+P (or ⌘+P if you’re on Mac) and start typing to switch to another file, open a terminal, or execute an action. | https://medium.com/deepnote/hacking-your-productivity-in-data-science-notebooks-d194372ce0bd | ['Elizabeth Dlha'] | 2020-12-07 15:54:01.896000+00:00 | ['Tools For Developers', 'Data Science', 'Jupyter Notebook', 'Python'] |
WFH farmer -The beginning | “Dream so big that people think you’re crazy. Continue to pursue your dreams and know that everything is possible”
Our typical conventional ‘farmer’ experiences scarcity, over produce, meager income, and social stigma. This has been the case for decades. The conventional farming revolves around a certain set of non lucrative activities. There are a number of factors that affect farming. Even though, it dates back to green revolution, government policies, extensive chemical usage and later the same govt policy to salvage them through MNREGA.
A farmer in 1950–1970's was self sufficient and was able to produce and sustain a life without any hassle. Is the current situation of a farmer is due to the government policies or because the farmer failed to follow the previous generations practices.
In my own experience of learning to understand this vicious cycle a typical farmer undergoes from season to season. I decided to jump into farming with as much little knowledge. In 2012, I took up this as a initiative and selected one of my farm stretch of 4 acres that was purely rain dependent area. Before I share my detail experiences, let us ponder on the noise that is happening around Delhi.
The recent updates to the farm laws promise an open market, allowing farmers to sell their produce where they want, to whom they want and at the most competitive prices suitable to them. So, what is wrong in this and why Punjab/Haryana farmers protesting in a National Highway. Meanwhile, Is Corona still a topic of discussion or taken a break to support farmer protests?
Change is inevitable and that is the only way to come out of a tangle of government regulations that exist for generations. | https://medium.com/@margamfarm/wfh-farmer-the-beginning-4d7b3a4fcd44 | [] | 2020-12-20 11:37:40.198000+00:00 | ['Farming', 'Regenerative Agriculture', 'Natural Farming'] |
Life Goes On: Like a bicycle | A day came by when the world stopped without any warning. I was initially happy about the pandemic as there was a lockdown all over the country. There was no school, no tuitions and I had a lot of leisure time to play games, watch movies and eat all day. First two to three weeks were fun but when the lockdown was extended, I became concerned as I ran out of movies and dramas. Number of cases were increasing and the death toll was rising. Then we started with online classes. At first the classes seemed fun but as time rolled by, I noticed that there were many disadvantages to the online classes as well. Bored from the monotonous routine of my life I started riding my bicycle which was gathering dust in the garage.
Schools were closed due to lockdown
Cycling made me feel rejuvenated and healthy. I used to go riding in the morning when the roads were empty and I was all alone. It was an extraordinary feeling. I cycled to Rajghat and sat on a bench there looking at the beautiful green park with birds chirping and wind blowing. There were no cars, no people and hence less pollution and more fresh air. For that one hour I would forget about the pandemic and all the chaos going on in the world and concentrate on the beauty of it.
Cycling : The best exercise
Cycling relaxed my mind so that I could start every day on a good note. Life is all about balance, we can’t always be hard on ourselves for getting work done. Sometimes it’s perfectly ok, and absolutely necessary, to shut down, kick back, and do nothing. This pandemic showed us the importance of having hobbies and spending time with our loved ones. Though we were connected with our friend and relatives virtually but it can never be replaced by physical meetings. In the end we should all try to remember that whatever happens life goes on and we have to move on. | https://medium.com/@nishantmalik113/life-goes-on-like-a-bicycle-42a3ea742381 | ['Nishant Malik'] | 2021-07-15 10:53:41.415000+00:00 | ['Bts', 'Cycling', 'Lockdown', 'Pandemic', 'India'] |
Dynamic Notebooks for Versatile AI | Dynamic Notebooks for Versatile AI
Dynamic Notebooks for training identical models for every use case, to make Artificial Intelligence easier and more efficient.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels
Growth of Versatility in AI
From the earliest days of Artificial Intelligence, there has been notable importance given to the adaptability of the models, starting from Alan Turing himself who, in his 1936 paper titled On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem , in the sixth part, mentions a Universal machine. From then on, AI has grown tremendously with GPT-3 the closest thing to Machine Versatility we’ve ever seen.
While making models adaptable is being researched continuously, there’s a void to fill in on the Data and Deployment front. This is where Dynamic Notebooks come in.
The making of Dynamic Notebooks
As there is a lacuna, a need to bridge the gap between the adapting models and stagnant data, we need to simplify this into a single statement defining our solution.
Many datasets, same code.
Many datasets…
From tensorflow.org
Completion of the first part is made a breeze due to the excellent compilation at TensorFlow Datasets, where we see varied datasets, ready to load in a single line of code. For the sake of dynamic notebooks, I chose to use the Image Classification datasets, simply as their integration is the most straightforward.
However, considering that not all datasets are hosted, it is still ideal as the tf.data.Dataset class is able to represent every kind of dataset efficiently.
…same code
This part was more of a challenge than the first, as various datasets of Image Classification have distinct qualities.
Major differences were ~
Size of Input Image
Grayscale or Colour
The number of output classes
so there was a need for preprocessing the images and, inevitably, user inputs.
From Google Colab
Thus, I used a Colab IPython Notebook, and its forms, to make it as seamless as possible for the user to input data about his chosen dataset.
This whole process of dynamizing ML pipelines (for Image Classification, for now) can thus be shown elegantly by the above diagram.
An example of such a dynamic notebook is the one below, that I made for my TFDS and tf.data Tutorial.
Applications of Dynamic Notebooks
For showcasing new architectures in Deep Learning, the usage of such Dynamic Notebooks would enable a viewer to readily use hundreds of datasets with that architecture, evaluate it or test it and if found appropriate, deploy it with ease.
As a wise programmer said, `to learn code, write code’ and this can be enabled using such notebooks where extended learning is made rapid.
and many more uses for you to figure out.
Future work
Photo by Tomas Ryant from Pexels
The immediate step could be adding NLP, Object Detection, Speech Recognition and other fields to dynamic notebooks, on which I’d be more than happy to collaborate.
Further, such notebooks could be fitted with a progressive method of importing custom data and datasets from various sources.
Closing thoughts
While such notebooks may already be an efficient way to prototype and showcase AI, there still remains a lot of work to do regarding widespread implementation and versatility in operating fields. I sincerely hope that such extensive usage would, in turn, accelerate AI and make model training an easier thing to do, than it is now.
Feel free to mail me up for any collaborative opportunities, and have a beautiful day. | https://medium.com/swlh/dynamic-notebooks-for-versatile-ai-680fcafe5f6b | ['Dweep Joshipura'] | 2020-11-12 04:13:11.446000+00:00 | ['Google Colab', 'Data Science', 'TensorFlow', 'Neural Networks', 'Jupyter Notebook'] |
ETK Beta Rewards Platform Release! | We are pleased to announce that the beta version (phase 1) of our rewards platform is finally here!
To begin, we will be testing out a rewards program aimed at incentivising consumers to purchase electric vehicles by rewarding buyers with ETK — the blockchain token they can then use to pay for utility bills or instead save for future investment.
It’s a unique and interesting implementation of blockchain technology: changing consumer behaviour for societal good through the reward of tokens. Upon purchasing an electric vehicle, a consumer can submit their purchase receipt via the hosted website provided by the EnergiToken team and receive monetary rewards in the form of ETK for their prudent purchase.
For now, the site is in beta and is testing the possibilities of such a program with limited ETK rewards as a proof-of-concept. Over the course of time, the reward app and website capabilities will be updated to encompass more functionality and reward a broader range of consumer behaviour. The rewards program can be implemented and integrated into websites and apps hosted by a broad variety of EnergiToken partners, from government agencies to big businesses that want to encourage consumers and employees to reduce waste and conserve energy.
Because of EnergiToken, consumers will be motivated to change their energy-consuming habits for the better, knowing they can be rewarded with ETK. It’s truly a win-win scenario! Be a part of the program by checking out our website at https://energitoken.com/ and submit your electric vehicle purchase receipt for your share of ETK! | https://medium.com/energitokennews/etk-beta-rewards-platform-release-75df30a7f01c | [] | 2018-05-10 13:46:24.891000+00:00 | ['Solar Energy', 'Electric Car', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Energy'] |
Fiction | Wondering the hard time, when will it end…? as I feel so weak to face it again tomorrow. Wondering the hopes, thinking off if I don’t have anything left to keep it staying in my soul. Asking too much the tragedies, as I feel too much afraid if some time I can’t continue to survive in the day of storm.
All I want is to see people start doing the humanity each other, everyday. When the day begins.
All I want is to face the sweet things with the loves, as we care each other. Without stopping, without any ends, until we pass through.
As all I want is to feel the freedom, touching my heart when I begin my early morning, keeps warming me from the extremely cold night.
But wars are still taking place. Coloring the beauties to turn up to be dark, faded slowly where the black comes along.
Screaming and shouting scare the birds to fly high in the sky. Crying has trapped any children to dream their wishes. Then a big question stuck in me, “why?”
The innocents lying cold on the land. No words no voice. Some keep running to be at the shelter, saving their soul from the eye of the guns.
So let me create the world where you and I are in the same land. Talking and laughing. Sharing and smiling. Because we deserve to feel that peace ever.
And everyday, I’m trying to start moving my feet. Walking pass through, where I can feel the wind wishpering me a message… a message of good bye of the sorrow. And begins greeting the world by saying hello.
The pain seems so real. But it’s hard to be explained. Tears that have been blown away, never enough to make us cry again tomorrow. As I feel so tired.
Let me begins with my world, my wish, my own fiction. I want to hug you everyday. And don’t let me stop doing that, because I love you. Because I’m caring of your sorrow.
I wanna draw the birds. Painting the rainbow. Asking the storm to be friendly. Thunder’s becoming friend. Cause I don’t have any voice to shout aksing help. This time to end it.
Yesterday passed, we live our lives in tragic. They won’t hear us, they won’t come. God, please make us to keep standing by our legs, when we have no more strength. This seems like over, trapped and there’s no way out.
So let them in to my fiction. I will tell them a happy ending story. So they can wash away the fear inside. They can go through together.
I don’t know about tomorrow. The jail keep in closed. The gloomy days still coloring up above. Cloud can’t deliver good news. Looks like and feels like in hell. High water temperature, burning away our skin. No more left.
And if my fiction never taken place, please bring us to a better side. This crying is the witness, they destroy us like the animals.
If my fiction’s still not enough, send us Your love. We could be by Your side anytime. Die in peace… | https://medium.com/@breakingreza/fiction-4ea4531c6a84 | ['Reza Fahlevi'] | 2020-12-14 15:49:49.254000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'War', 'Fiction', 'Poem', 'Violence'] |
Ctfchallenge.co.uk | VulnLawyers | For my initial reconnaissance and enumeration I used dnsrecon, Sublist3r, dirfinder, cert.sh and ffuf. I always leave brute-forcing until last as I like to try and find as much information as I can as quietly as possible. I just think it’s best practice to do it that way to avoid detection in the real world. This challenge however had me diving straight into ffuf as I wasn’t able to yield any results from passive recon and I feel like this challenge in-particular relied heavily on brute-force techniques.
Tool: Dnsrecon
Command: dnsrecon -n 8.8.8.8 -d vulnlawyers.co.uk
Results: None Tool: sublist3r
Command: sublist3r -d vulnlawyers.co.uk
Results: None Tool: dirfinder
Command: python3 dirfinder.py -cookie=UNIQUE-COOKIE -d vulnlawyers.co.uk
Results: None
Because the above tools didn’t identify much information, I went into ffuf.
Command: $ffuf -b “ctfchallenge=UNIQUE-COOKIE” -w common.txt -u http://vulnlawyers.co.uk/FUZZ Results:
css [Status: 301, Size: 194, Words: 7, Lines: 8]
denied [Status: 401, Size: 1020, Words: 178, Lines: 30]
images [Status: 301, Size: 194, Words: 7, Lines: 8]
js [Status: 301, Size: 194, Words: 7, Lines: 8]
login [Status: 302, Size: 1119, Words: 197, Lines: 31]
There are two directories above that look interesting, /login and /denied. I know the others won’t be of much use as they’re only 194 bytes in size, and are likely just pages required to host specific web based files. I checked them out anyway found nothing.
Browsing to http://vulnlawyers.co.uk/login instantly redirects to me to http://vulnlawyers.co.uk/denied and gives a message stating that I “Cannot log in from this IP address”, so clearly that’s not going to be much use. There’s bound to be data here somewhere though, so let’s try curling to see if we can identify some kind of invalid forwarding, due to the fact that we’re redirected from /login to /denied.
Command: curl -H “Cookie: UNIQUE-COOKIE” http://vulnlawyers.co.uk/login
Here we find our first flag:
Figure 1. First flag in HTML from curl
Not only do we get our first flag but we see a href to another login portal:
<a href=/lawyers-only”>/lawyers-only</a></p>
Visiting http://vulnlawyers.co.uk/lawyers-only gives us another login panel that isn’t blocking us. Let’s try brute forcing the username field to find a valid logon:
Tool: ffuf
Command: ffuf -X POST -w namelist.txt -b “ctfchallenge=UNIQUE-COOKIE” -d “email=FUZZ&password=test” -H ‘Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded’ -u http://vulnlawyers.co.uk/lawyers-only-login
Results: None
No luck finding a valid username with fuff, and we’re currently not even sure what the naming convention is so I think we need some more content discovery as I’m not convinced we’ve found everything. There must be some place we can grab some users from.
We’ll try a brute force with dnsrecon:
Tool: dnsrecon
Command: dnsrecon -d http://vulnlawyers.co.uk -w namelist.txt -t brt
Results: data.vulnlawyers.co.uk: A : 67.207.71.104
Visiting http://data.vulnlawyers.co.uk takes us to an API page, which gives us an API version number and a flag.
Figure 2. 2nd flag from API page
So let’s once again fuzz our new domain:
Tool: ffuf
Command: $ffuf -b “ctfchallenge=UNIQUE-COOKIE” -w /home/user/wordlists/common.txt -u http://data.vulnlawyers.co.uk/FUZZ
Results: users [Status: 200]
Visiting http://data.vulnlawyers.co.uk/users gives us a flag a confirmation of naming convention alongside a few usernames we can brute force:
users
0
name “Yusef Mcclain”
email “[email protected]”
1
name “Shayne Cairns”
email “[email protected]”
2
name “Eisa Evans”
email “[email protected]”
3
name “Jaskaran Lowe”
email “[email protected]”
4
name “Marsha Blankenship”
email “[email protected]”
flag “[^FLAG25032EB0D322F7330182507FBAA1A55F^FLAG^]”
Now we have a valid list of Lawyer logins we can try brute forcing again and hopefully find ourselves a login.
Tool: ffuf
Command: $ffuf -X POST -w 10-million-password-list-top-10000.txt -b “ctfchallenge=UNIQUE-COOKIE” -d “email=*firstname.lastname*@vulnlawyers.co.uk&password=FUZZ” -H ‘Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded’ -u http://vulnlawyers.co.uk/lawyers-only-login -mc all -fc 200
Results: [email protected]:summer
Now we can login to the portal:
http://data.vulnlawyers.co.uk/lawyers-only-login
Once we’re in we are presented with a flag and the managers profile details:
It says that changes can only be performed by Shayne Cairns, so we need to get his creds. Let’s see if the page is vulnerable to IDOR.
In burp, we can see that when we refresh the page, a GET request goes to:
GET /lawyers-only-profile-details/4 HTTP/1.1
This gives us:
“id”:4,”name”:”Jaskaran Lowe”,”email”:”[email protected]”,”password”:”summer”
We send that GET request to repeater and change the link to:
GET /lawyers-only-profile-details/1 HTTP/1:
This gives us:
“id”:1,”name”:”Yusef Mcclain”,”email”:”[email protected]”,”password”:”Rk@c7#U3@2r%0f”
And again:
GET /lawyers-only-profile-details/2 HTTP/:
“id”:2,”name”:”Shayne Cairns”,”email”:”[email protected]”,”password”:”q2V944a1³p”,”flag”:”[^FLAG⁹³⁸F5DC109A1E9B4FF3E3E92D29A56B3^FLAG^]
And again:
GET /lawyers-only-profile-details/3 HTTP/:
“id”:3,”name”:”Eisa Evans”,”email”:”[email protected]”,”password”:”Sn06#ibx@lGPG7"
We can see that when we sent our request to profile 2 that we got the managers profile, including his creds and a flag — this is our second from last flag! one more to go.
Let’s now try and log in as the manager, [email protected].
We see our homepage with a “delete case” button which once clicked gives us the final flag:
VulnLawyers complete. | https://medium.com/@chris-stacey/ctfchallenge-co-uk-vulnlawyers-706b2cbf08ef | ['Chris Stacey'] | 2020-12-26 12:47:13.124000+00:00 | ['Web Testing', 'Cybersecurity', 'Pentesting', 'Hacking', 'Ctf Writeup'] |
There Are Only 3 Jobs That Matter | There Are Only 3 Jobs That Matter
Photo by Stephen Walker on Unsplash
We live in interesting times. Perhaps, one could reasonably assert, “end times”. Things that we have relied upon to be constant are changing, and rapidly — more rapidly than many of us can accommodate, integrate, and understand.
In conditions such as these, meaning becomes elusive. What we’ve relied upon for sustenance, comfort, and stability either ceases to exist, or ceases to provide. Trying to live a meaningful life amid this kind of chaos is a struggle. It first hit me in the aftermath of the “Great Recession” of 2008. A bunch of people lost their jobs. And they didn’t want them back. I could see it in their faces, their postures, their…capitalism-induced PTSD. There was a realization that much of it (“it” being the work, the stories we told ourselves about the work, the things we did with the money we got from the work) was bullshit. Unsatisfying. Soul-sucking.
Again, at the Winter Solstice of 2012, there was another recognition — not just in me but in many around me. More hopeful this time. Along with the end of the Mayan Calendar I felt the shift into a new, unscripted era, compounding the uncertainties around meaning and purpose.
At some point, I started thinking harder about what really mattered. And when that didn’t get me far enough, I started thinking harder and more clearly about the circumstances. And I got depressed.
I said to a dear friend, “The world is dying.”
And she said back, without missing a beat, “Yes. But at the same time, a new world is being born.”
And that made a lot of sense to me. I took it in. And that’s when I realized that there are really only three roles that matter —
Emergency Room
Hospice
Neo-Natal Care
It’s like this:
Emergency Room: When something is falling apart, some of us are really skilled at stitching it back together. At least for awhile. There are often heroics involved. (There’s also a lot of ego involved in emergency room work. We’ll have to be careful not to try to stitch together that which cannot be saved. We’ll need to develop the discipline of triage).
There’s value in emergency room care even at the end of the world, because, as they say, “all the trees and all the flowers and all the fruits of tomorrow are present in the seeds of today.” We will be carrying some things forward into the new and unfolding future, and those things are worth saving.
Hospice: But let’s be honest. Death is coming. Big Death. I was talking with a Native American elder and chief, sharing my desire to create this big gateway through which disaster could be averted. He looked at me with sage, sad, knowing eyes. And he said, “You can’t save it.”
It dawned on me in that moment just exactly why we’ve been turning to Native American culture and wisdom over the last 50 years or so. It’s because, I think, they understand catastrophic, senseless loss. And we’re about to experience that, at a scale none of us is prepared for. Except, perhaps, the Native peoples.
We’ll need a lot of hospice work. The challenge of setting down our attachments, especially in an attachment-addicted culture, will be enormous. Those who can lead the way, who exhort and encourage us to let go, to let things die, will be, at first, vilified — then desperately, achingly sought out. And, like Moses at the edge of the Jordan River, we’ll probably be left behind when the time comes. It’s important work. Best to see onself as the proverbial “hollow bone”, though. And probably best to be old (or an old soul), because Death is an indomitable task master.
Neo-Natal Care: Here’s where the sunny optimism (and naïveté) of the young will blossom. Innocence — true, unvarnished, maiden-in-the-garden innocence — will be the greatest blessing here. Many seeds will fail to sprout. Many will sprout and die. But some — hopefully, enough — will take root and be vibrant and grow thick and strong and tall, the scaffolding of a new world. Those who can tend joyously to those seedlings — and who can compassionately surrender to the circumstances that cause many others to fail, and still look with sparkling eyes on those that remain — they will be the nursemaids of our collective future.
So what’ll it be?
Best pick a role soon, and start honing your skills. As that Native elder, with a wry smile in his eye, once said to a colleague of mine, “You’re late. You’re not in trouble… but you’re late. Get to work.” | https://medium.com/@gescaro/there-are-only-3-jobs-that-matter-3e3ec5bfdf33 | ['Jc Gardner'] | 2020-02-22 21:55:33.932000+00:00 | ['Awakening', 'Death', 'Birth', 'Vocation', 'Philosophy'] |
Effective AI Infrastructure or Why Feature Store Is Not Enough | A new horizon is shining.
Compared to the current architectures, modern AI infrastructures will separate the operational efforts of model deployment from feature deployment and partially detach the bound between DS and SW Engineers.
Feature platforms enable teams to focus on domain-specific problems and not on the operational overhead. Illustration by author
Furthermore, new architectures rapidly adopt the feature store concept and separation of concerns in the ML industry. Still, Feature Stores are not enough and only solve a part of the problem; thus, modern infrastructures will have to provide comprehensive solutions:
Data Science Platforms (aka MLOps platforms)
Data Science platforms are comprehensive solutions responsible for developing, tracking experiments, managing, deploying, monitoring, and managing models. They responsible for the operational aspect of this process and ease the complexity of day-to-day ops.
The MLOps platforms supply a generic inference server that can provide an inference layer to the solution given a set of input features. These servers might also implement a “transformer layer” that enables connecting to the feature platforms. Some products on the market already provide such a layer: KFServing, TensorFlow serving, Seldon, SageMaker, GCP, and more.
Many have written about the importance of MLOps systems and their ability to reduce the dependency on Ops. Nevertheless, it is vital to not confuse them with infrastructure solutions due to their different role.
An excellent analogy is Kafka and Jenkins — Kafka is an infrastructure system, while Jenkins is a DevOps system.
Feature (Engineering) Platforms
Feature platforms are a missing component in the ML ecosystem. The feature platforms are responsible for transforming, serving, and monitoring the models’ features.
Due to their role as a functional part of the production systems, modern feature platforms must ensure adherence to the production SLA and provide a stable, scalable, low-latency, and fail-over resilience.
It is important to emphasize that features are required for both training and inference, and features should be engineered in both phases. This two-legged procedure creates a skew between the training and the inference — it’s the platform’s responsibility to provide a mechanism to ensure the alignment between them.
Unlike the MLOps platforms, the feature platforms are not responsible for the operational ecosystem but for accessing the production data flow.
Feature platforms are responsible for the following objectives: | https://towardsdatascience.com/effective-ai-infrastructure-or-why-feature-store-is-not-enough-43bc2d803401 | ['Almog Baku'] | 2021-04-22 12:36:24.515000+00:00 | ['Feature Engineering', 'Mlops', 'Feature Store', 'Machine Learning', 'Ai Infrastructure'] |
What Is Spirituality? | For a while, I thought spirituality was about crystals, tarot cards, and pink hair dye. Although I am a big fan of all those things, what I’ve realized is that there is so much more to it than that.
Spirituality is about paying attention, all the time. It is the result of living a conscious life, and it requires hard work and dedication.
I won’t attempt to define spirituality for you, or even for me, because it won’t do the term, or your own personal experience any justice. What I can do, however, is tell you what spirituality feels like. For me.
It is a constant, and often overwhelming feeling of love. It is a knowingness that we are all connected on the deepest of levels. And it is painful — it is a pain that runs so deep in my heart that sometimes, it’s difficult just to get through the day.
It is so raw, and so human — it’s hard work, and there are no instructions. Sometimes, (OK, a lot of times), I want to quit and give up and get a drink and just RELAX. But I don’t. I want to — and then I remind myself that the only thing more painful than experiencing it, experiencing life, is not experiencing it, because that would a life half lived and in my opinion, a life wasted. | https://medium.com/@ky23/what-is-spirituality-879ae56bb193 | [] | 2020-12-20 23:47:37.214000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Spirituality', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Love', 'Mental Health'] |
LATEST HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITY NEWS TODAY | LATEST HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITY NEWS TODAY
A Very Happy 86th Birthday to;
Dame Judi Dench.
Judi Dench was born in York, England, to Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and at Old Vic Theatre. She is a ten-time BAFTA winner including Best Actress in a Comedy Series for A Fine Romance (1981) in which she appeared with her husband, Michael Williams, and Best Supporting Actress in A Handful of Dust (1988) and A Room with a View (1985) . She received an ACE award for her performance in the television series Star Quality: Mr. and Mrs. Edgehill (1985). She was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1970, and was created Dame of Order of the British Empire in 1988.
Judi Trivia;
When Royal Shakespeare Company Director Peter Hall asked Judi Dench to play the title role in a staged, and then later televised, production of Cleopatra, Dench refused, saying that her Cleopatra would be a "menopausal dwarf." Director Hall was later successful in coaxing Dench into the role, of which she won rave reviews from both theatre critics and TV audiences.
Her first stage appearance was as a snail in a play at her Quaker junior school.
She made history in 1996 as the first person to win two Laurence Olivier awards (for British theatre) for different roles.
Her 1999 Oscar was awarded for an six-minute performance in only four scenes as "Queen Elizabeth I" in Shakespeare in Love (1998). It is the second shortest performance ever to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, the only shorter one being Beatrice Straight’s five-minute performance in Network (1976).
Mother, with Michael Williams, of Finty Williams.
Created the role of Sally Bowles in the London premiere of the musical, Cabaret.
She was cast to play "Grizabella" in the original West End production of "CATS", but she tore her Achilles Tendon and was forced to quit the musical. Elaine Paige replaced her.
She was ranked second in the 2001 Orange Film Survey of the greatest British Film Actresses.
Received the Film Actress Award for her role in Chocolat at The Variety Club Showbusiness Awards 2002. Unfortunately Ms Dench was in attendance at the Berlin Film Festival and couldn’t attend the Awards ceremony, but was able to send a televised message congratulating the charity on its 50th anniversary.
Awarded an honorary DLitt by Oxford University on 28 June 2000.
Was awarded an honourary Litt.D. (Doctor in Letters) from Trinity College on Friday, 11th July, 2003.
She was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1984 (1983 season) for Best Actress in a New Play for Pack of Lies.
She was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1988 (1987 season) for Best Actress in a New Play for Antony and Cleopatra.
Presented with The Society’s Special Award for her outstanding contribution to British theatre at the 2004 Laurence Olivier Awards. [February 2004]
She was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1996 (1995 season) for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in A Little Night Music at the Royal National Theatre Olivier Stage.
She was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1996 (1995 season) for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in Absolute Hell at the Royal National Theatre Lyttleton Stage.
She was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1999 (1998 season) for Best Actress for her performance in Filumena.
She was nominated for a 1998 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actress of the 1997 season for her performance in Amy’s View at the Royal National Theatre: Lyttelton and then Aldwych theatres.
Younger sister of Jeffery Dench.
She was awarded the 2004 Laurence Olivier Theatre Special Award for her Outstanding Contributions to British Theatre.
She was awarded the 1982 London Critics' Circle Theatre Award (Drama Theatre Award) for Best Actress of 1981 for A Kind Of Alaska and The Importance of Being Earnest.
She was awarded the 1987 London Critics Circle Theatre Award (Drama Theatre Award) for Best Actress for her performance in Anthony and Cleopatra.
She was awarded the 1987 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance in Anthony and Cleopatra.
She was awarded the 1982 London Evening Standard Award for Best Actress for her performance in A Kind of Alaska and The Importance of Being Earnest.
During the filming of As Time Goes By (1992) , she used to direct everybody to hide from the director when he left the set.
Even after winning so many acting awards, she still admits to being insecure and wanting to improve the next performance. She admits that she prefers stage first, television second and film in third place.
She was awarded the 1997 London Critics Circle Theatre Award (Drama) for Best Actress for her performance in Amy’s View at the Royal National Theatre.
She was awarded the 1997 London Evening Standard Theatre Award: The Patricia Rothermere Award for her contributions to theatre.
An Associate Member of RADA.
Won Broadway’s 1999 Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) for "Amy’s View."
Voted Best British Actress of all time in a poll for Sky TV [Feb 2005].
Was listed as a potential nominee on the 2005 Razzie Award nominating ballot. She was listed as a suggestion in the Worst Supporting Actress category for her performance in the film The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), she failed to receive a nomination however.
She was awarded a Companion of Honour in the 2005 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for her services to drama.
Currently supporting the Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds Restoration Appeal (2005).
Topped the poll in Britain’s Finest Actresses, July 2005
Attended the Mount School and at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
She and Vanessa Redgrave were in the same class at drama school.
As of 2014, received seven Oscar nominations, all of them when she was already over the age of 60. No other actor or actress collected more nominations when older than 60, the closest runner-ups being Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Laurence Olivier, Spencer Tracy, Melvyn Douglas and Edith Evans with a mere three nominations each.
When she started training at the Central School of Speech and Drama, she admits she wasn’t taking it as seriously as she ought to have done. She was caught out during an improvisation scene at which point she realised that that was what it was all about and studied harder than she had ever done in her life.
Was not able to attend the Oscars in 2007, because she had to undergo a knee surgery.
Shares two roles with both Kate Winslet and Cate Blanchett. She and Winslet both played the title role in Iris (2001), and she and Blanchette have both played Queen Elizabeth. All three of them have played Ophelia in Hamlet.
At the opening of the Judi Dench Theatre in London in 1986 she was introduced as "Here she is, Miss Judy Geeson’.
She and her The Shipping News (2001) and Notes on a Scandal (2006) co-star Cate Blanchett both received Oscar-nominations for playing Queen Elizabeth I in 1999. Dench won for her supporting role in Shakespeare in Love (1998) while Blanchett was nominated for Elizabeth (1998).
Provides the narration for Spaceship Earth at Walt Disney World’s Epcot in the 4th version (soft opening December 2007, final opening scheduled for February 2008).
Judi Dench is the new narrator of "Spaceship Earth", the dark ride at EPCOT. She replaced Jeremy Irons after Walt Disney World and Siemens decided to update the classic ride housed inside the infamous golf-ball.
She is a frequent co-star of her close friend Geoffrey Palmer.
First woman to portray the 007 series character "M", which she did in GoldenEye (1995).
Good friend of Paul Scofield.
Awarded honorary D.Litt from the University of St Andrews, June 2008.
She was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1970 Queen’s Birthday Honours List and awarded the DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1988 Queen’s New Year Honours List for her services to drama.
In a 2004 opinion poll of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Dame Dench’s performance as "Lady Macbeth" in Trevor Nunn’s 1976 production of "Macbeth" was voted the second greatest Shakespearean performance of all time. Only Paul Scofield’s masterful "King Lear" was ranked higher.
In her autobiography "And Furthermore," Dench says that she never really understood what was going on in the movie The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), but she enjoyed the experience of making the movie, and she thought the sets were great.
Has twice been nominated for an Oscar in the same year that another actress was nominated for playing the same role. She received Best Supporting Actress for playing Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998), while Cate Blanchett was nominated for Elizabeth (1998). She was later nominated for Best Actress in Iris (2001), for which Kate Winslet was also nominated for the title role.
Whilst training at the Old Vic Theatre in the 1950s, Dench shared a flat with Barbara Leigh-Hunt.
Was six months pregnant with her daughter, Finty Williams, when she completed her run of the play "London Assurance".
Following the birth of her daughter, Finty Williams, Dench and her husband immediately began trying for another child. However, having been unsuccessful, the couple looked into adoption when Dench was in her 40s, but they were turned down.
Became engaged to Michael Williams during Christmas 1970 after he proposed to her on a beach in Australia.
Has had custody of her grandson, Sammy Williams (b. 1997), since 2004 following her daughter Finty Williams’s rehabilitation for alcoholism.
Going blind due to condition called macular degeneration. Does not plan to retire [February 19, 2012].
A lifelong animal lover, Judi is the proud owner of a racehorse named Smokey Oakey. Also owns a dog, 4 cats, 2 Guinea pigs and some fish.
Counts Mrs Brown (1997) as the movie that became the quintessential breakthrough event of her career as a film actress, winning her her first Oscar nomination. Even though she’d performed regularly on stage in the US in Old Vic productions almost 40 years earlier, it wasn’t until after this movie that Hollywood really came calling.
Dench is a supporter of Everton Football Club and she has been named as a patron of the soccer team’s official charity "Everton in the Community".
She played a Countess in William Shakespeare’s "All’s Well That Ends Well" in London West End. [February 2004]
She visited Staunton, Virginia to promote the Shenandoah Shakespeare Theatre. [May 2004]
Playing Mistress Quickly in a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Musical at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK. [January 2007]
Her father, Reginald Arthur Dench, was from Dorset, England, and her mother, Eleanora Olive (Jones), was from Dublin, Ireland.
The longest she has gone without an Oscar nomination is the 7 years between Notes on a Scandal (2006) and Philomena (2013).
As of 2014, has appeared in four films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: A Room with a View (1985), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Chocolat (2000) and Philomena (2013). The only film to win in the category was Shakespeare in Love (1998).
Was the 114th actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Shakespeare in Love (1998) at The 71st Annual Academy Awards (1999) on March 21, 1999.
Lara Smith Publishers
Ann Jones | https://medium.com/@robystone92/latest-hollywood-celebrity-news-now-3e2d1b4df590 | ['Lara Smith Publishers'] | 2020-12-09 23:50:58.095000+00:00 | ['Celebrity Gossip', 'Hollywood', 'Judi Dench', 'News', 'Dame Judi'] |
What shame can do in your head | I know you love me
Still, sometimes I wish
everything could be easier
And we just could hold hands
with pride
But I know you’re afraid
of what people will think of you
Their judgments are stronger than my love
Just I know what shame can do in your head
You lose who you are into your fears
And then we are not us anymore
I become a frustrated version of myself
And you, a paranoid of yours
The worst of hate is not the violence
that thrives together
But is what we do to ourselves
Depriving our hearts of feeling the love
Our hands of sliding through a thrilled skin
Our souls of living the happiness of finding a perfect mate
Nevertheless, loving you is the only path I wanna follow | https://medium.com/n%C3%A3o-faz-a-fr%C3%ADgida/what-shame-can-do-in-your-head-eb14dc637dbd | ['Lucas Panek'] | 2019-04-01 20:24:24.148000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'LGBTQ', 'Queer', 'Love', 'Poesia'] |
Tornado | I’m emotional.
Glass is sinking in my soul
Because words hurt like a poison dagger.
I will be fine.
I will turn from dust to wind.
I’ll turn into a tornado from the wind.
I’ll take the bad and throw it away.
Then I will find a good place and rest.
I will rest.
I will be fine. | https://medium.com/@zeynepdilanyilmaz23/tornado-61bb1706eb3e | ['Zeynep Dilan'] | 2020-12-22 09:01:52.282000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Art', 'Poetry', 'Lyrics', 'Sadness'] |
A PLACE CALLED FRIENDS | She moves her eyebrows like the waves of the ocean
And when she is around me, she exercises caution
Her skin is dark as if scorched by the sun,
She moves with style, she provides so much fun,
But when you approach her, she produces a gun,
And says ‘Hands up, you better run,’
And I reply and say you have won. | https://medium.com/@docbulozi/a-place-called-friends-726fe4c25ce9 | ['Blessing Njodzi'] | 2021-01-29 21:44:10.458000+00:00 | ['Mess Up', 'Friends', 'Émotion'] |
Welcome Max Unger — From Active Investor to Head of Community | Building a new platform for powering commerce on the blockchain is challenging and novel work. Team, investor, partner, and community incentives must be aligned to ensure that networks are thriving and have active participation from all stakeholders. Feedback from investors and the community may sometimes be critical, but it is an invaluable tool that can help inform important decisions. Cryptocurrency projects must be open enough to genuinely listen to the community and be flexible enough to change when necessary.
In early 2019, we began receiving thoughtful questions about our roadmap, product direction, and the state of our community from one of our Strategic Round investors, Max Unger. His questions showed keen market insight, and we scheduled some calls with him to update him on Origin and get more detailed feedback. Our community had gradually weakened since the cryptocurrency gold rush of early 2018. We started to realize industry best practices around community management were changing dramatically while we had been heads down developing product.
Number of people in our Telegram channel over the last 1.5 years
After some time, we received a lengthy unsolicited email from Max. It contained a point-by-point, detailed critique of our community strategy with many actionable recommendations. Instead of taking offense to or ignoring his suggestions, we decided to listen to them and made the email mandatory reading for our whole team. Over the few months, Max provided guidance while we implemented changes to grow our community membership and engagement to new all-time highs. When we began hiring new community managers and asked for his recommendations, Max threw his hat in the ring and asked to be considered for a job. After spending hours talking to him in the interview process and working through several trial projects, it was an easy decision to welcome Max as our new Head of Community. Max will be setting new strategies and best practices for growing and strengthening our community, and he will manage our existing team of global community managers.
Part of why were were so impressed with Max was his unique background. He has been entrepreneurial from a young age, starting his own mobile phone trading business on eBay during primary school and running one of Australia’s biggest in-game currency (think World of Warcraft gold) marketplaces after graduation. Later, he moved onto web development and marketing, helping several Australian racing teams raise money from investors.
Max with Don Tapscott, author of Blockchain Revolution
Max started casually trading crypto in 2014 but fell deep into the Ethereum rabbit hole after reading Blockchain Revolution by Don Tapscott and Ethereum by Henning Diedrich in 2016. Throughout his time in the blockchain space, Max has built communities for the likes of EdenChain and OKEx, whilst acting as project manager for Restart Energy during their ICO. He has also worked extensively with RedNova, the marketing and incubation entity for Du Capital, to build communities for and promote their portfolio projects.
Max speaks fluent German and French, having lived in each country for extended periods of time. He was also a competitive table tennis athlete in the past. He enjoys practicing yoga, cooking, playing guitar, and playing tennis. He currently resides in Panama and is working on his Spanish.
Max after completing a 5k with family members
We’re thrilled to invite Max to the Origin team for a second time (this time as a full-time team member). If you want to submit your own critique or suggestions regarding Origin’s community efforts, please email [email protected]. Max and the rest of our team looks forward to hearing from you!
Learn more about Origin: | https://medium.com/originprotocol/welcome-max-unger-from-active-investor-to-head-of-community-1474018069c | ['Coleman Maher'] | 2020-03-30 23:50:17.685000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ethereum', 'Team', 'Bitcoin'] |
Demystifying statistics for Data Scientists — Central Limit Theorem | The Central Limit Theorem is perhaps the most important theorem in the development of modern statistics. It enables us to estimate the population characteristics using a sample dataset.
In this article, we will explore the workings of the theorem. We will also go through some python code to verify the central limit theorem using some visualizations.
Before deep diving into the theorem, let's understand some of the basic terminologies of statistics used in the theorem.
Note: You can find the code samples for this article at https://github.com/sandeepvja/statistics-repo
Basic Terminology
Population
Population represents all possible data items in a particular data set. In general, we don't have access to the full population.
Since we don’t have the population dataset, we can't accurately calculate the population dataset metrics like mean, variance etc. But using the Central Limit Theorem, we can estimate them (as closely as possible).
Example: The population data for Student Dataset represents all the students’ information in the world.
2. Sample
A sample is a subset of the entire population. We generally have access only to the sample.
Example: A student dataset of the University of Maryland is a sample from the whole population of student dataset.
3. Probability Distribution / Distribution
A probability distribution is simply a mathematical formula through which we can describe the entire dataset.
4. Gaussian Distribution
Gaussian Distribution (Normal Distribution) is a probability distribution which follows a bell shape similar to the image shown below. The distribution is perfectly symmetric around its mean.
Normal Distribution
Now let's try to understand the Central Limit Theorem,
Central Limit Theorem
Central Limit Theorem states that given a sufficiently large sample size from a population with a finite level of variance, the means of all samples from the same population will follow a Gaussian Distribution.
In short, the theorem states that from a Population dataset, if we take a lot of random samples of sufficiently large size, and take the mean of each of these samples, all those means will follow a Gaussian distribution.
This theorem is central to many of the statistical techniques that we will see in the later articles. But first, let's try to verify the Central Limit Theorem using python.
First, let's assume that we know the population from which we have to gather the samples from. For simplicity, let's take our population as numbers ranging from 1 to 6.
Now, let's create a python function for generating the samples and calculate their means, which takes the following arguments:
The size of the population The size of each sample to take from the population (sampling with replacement). Please take a look at this article if you want to understand sampling with replacement and without replacement The number of such samples to take
import pandas as pd def getSampleMeans(population_size, sample_size, num_samples):
population_range = range(1, population_size + 1)
population_data = pd.Series(population_range) sample_means = [population_data.sample(sample_size, replace=True).mean() for i in range(num_samples)]
return sample_means
Let's also create another function which creates a histogram from the sample means generated by the above function using plotly
def plotHistogram(sample_means):
# Import plotly
import plotly
import plotly.plotly as py
import plotly.graph_objs as go
data = [go.Histogram(x=sample_means)]
plotly.offline.init_notebook_mode()
plotly.offline.iplot(data, filename='jupyter/Normal')
The last two lines of the code snippet above are needed for the jupyter notebook to show the plotly visualization.
Now, according to the Central Limit Theorem, the sample means from the same population will follow a Normal Distribution.
Let's assume a population of numbers ranging from 1 to 6. And take 1 sample each time and take a mean of those samples and plot the histogram.
sample_means = getSampleMeans(population_size = 6, sample_size = 1, num_samples = 10000)
plotHistogram(sample_means)
The above code will plot a histogram similar to below plot
Histogram with sample size 1 for a population of 6
But wait !! This doesn’t look like a normal distribution !!
Why doesn't Central Limit Theorem work?
Notice that in the theorem definition above, the statement clearly specifies, sufficiently large sample size from the population.
We took only one sample from the population, and since it is insufficient, it is not working.
Now lets try to increase, the sample size to 2 and the code below,
sample_means = getSampleMeans(population_size = 6, sample_size = 2, num_samples = 10000)
plotHistogram(sample_means)
Then we will see a histogram similar to below.
Histogram with sample size 2for a population of 6
Now, this looks slightly better and closer to the Normal Distribution curve, but we can do much better with a higher sample size. Since we are taking sampling with replacement, we can take a sample size larger than the population size as well.
sample_means = getSampleMeans(population_size = 6, sample_size = 100, num_samples = 10000)
plotHistogram(sample_means)
Histogram with sample size 100 for a population of 6
You can now see that the above sample means approximately converged with the normal distribution.
You can further vary the number of samples, size of the population or the number of rep’s and see how the sample means start converging into a Gaussian Distribution.
We will further explore the applications of Central Limit Theorem in the upcoming articles. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/demystifying-statistics-for-data-scientists-central-limit-theorem-ee9d420fc154 | ['Sandeep Mellacheruvu'] | 2019-09-16 10:48:57.695000+00:00 | ['Statistics', 'Machine Learning', 'Analytics', 'Data Science'] |
MPS, STEPHEN HENDERSON (FORMERLY), A RACIST FREEMASON, AND HEAD OF MDDUS: THE ORAL SURGEON AT EDWARD BYRNE ASSOCIATES, BEDFORD, WITH ZERO TANGIBLE POSTGRADUATEV QUALIFICATION. THE CLOSETED RACIST BAST | MPS, STEPHEN HENDERSON (FORMERLY), A RACIST FREEMASON, AND HEAD OF MDDUS: THE ORAL SURGEON AT EDWARD BYRNE ASSOCIATES, BEDFORD, WITH ZERO TANGIBLE POSTGRADUATEV QUALIFICATION. THE CLOSETED RACIST BASTARD IS ALSO THE ORAL SURGEON AT JOHN MILLER DENTAL SURGERY IN OXFORD. Abiodun Bamgbelu Dec 22, 2020·6 min read
pt-br.facebook.com › Daringtruths01 › photos › district…
DISTRICT JUDGE AYERS OF BEDFORD COUNTY COURT: A BRAINLESS WHITE MAN; A RACIST DESCENDANT OF PROFESSIONAL THIEVES AND ..
www.facebook.com › Daringtruths01 › posts
Her Honour Judge Gargan, 11/12/20. District Judge Ayers, 10/12/20. Daily DJs, 11/12/20…
“A complaints such as Mrs Bishop’s could trigger a concern.” STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS.
A RACIST DUNCE.
“I don’t want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.” George Bernard Shaw.
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW: Babies with huge oil-wells and gas-fields near their houses eat only 1.5/day; a closeted racist fake expert, whose father and mother have never seen crude oil is the HEAD OF SCOTTISH MDDUS.
Then, racist bastards carried and sold millions of stolen children of defenceless poor people (Kamala’s ancestors); now, they carry natural resources — Habakkuk.
SUBSTITUTION IS FRAUDULENT EMANCIPATION.
“Moderation is a virtue only among those who are thought to have found alternatives.” HENRY KISSINGER.
WOLLASTON, ENGLAND: Based on available evidence, GDC-Witness, Ms Rachael Bishop, Senior NHS Nurse, unrelentingly lied under oath — Habakkuk 1:4.
A RACIST CROOK.
BEDFORD, ENGLAND: Based on available evidence, GDC-Witness, Freemason, Brother, Dr Richard Hill fabricated reports and unrelentingly lied under oath — Habakkuk.
A RACIST CROOK.
BEDFORD, ENGLAND: Based on available evidence, GDC-Witness, Dr Sue Gregory (OBE), Officer of the Most Excellent Order of our Empire, unrelentingly lied under implied oath — Habakkuk 1:4.
A RACIST CROOK.
NORTHAMPTON, ENGLAND: Based on available evidence, GDC-Witness, Dr Geraint Evans, England’s Class Postgraduate Tutor, unrelentingly lied under oath — Habakkuk 1:4.
A RACIST CROOK
OXFORD, ENGLAND: Based on available evidence, GDC-Witness, Dr Stephanie Twidale (TD), British Army — Territorial Defence, unrelentingly lied under oath — Habakkuk 1:4.
A RACIST CROOK
CORBY ENGLAND: Two, too, many Racist Scots, Dr George Rothnie and Dr Kevin Atkinson (dentists), unrelentingly lied under oath and/or record.
RACIST CROOKS.
Ignorant descendants of THIEVES and owners of stolen children of defenceless poor people (Kamalas ancestors) — Habakkuk.
A bastardised, unashamedly mediocre, indiscreetly dishonest, potently weaponised, vindictive, and institutionally racist system that is overseen by MASONS (Mediocre Mafia) — Habakkuk 1:4.
Facts are sacred.
Had they not had the power to inflict bodily suffering, we, their unarmed and irreconcilable enemies, would have told the closeted racist bastards everything; all truths.
“Find the truth and tell it.” Harold Pinter.
Then, at Yale, Justice Brett Kavanagh loved pretty girls and cold beer, but none of the > 300 opinions he created, approved, and released to the world was laden with unashamed mediocrity and immortal excessive stupidity; expectedly, they underwent several layers of filtration and refinement before being released to the world. But, then, he went to Yale, not Norwich-Polytechnic-Fake-University, so, he didn’t settle for daily dialogues with imbeciles (adults with the basic skills of a child), in a District Court, in one of the dullest adult populations in the industrialised world — OECD.
“The truth allows no choice.” Dr Samuel Johnson.
“It is incumbent upon the court and all those professionals involved to conclude court proceedings as quickly as possible. This hopefully ensures that a child has stability, love and affection and the parents working together to ensure that he has the best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.” The Senior Vice President of the Association of Her Majesty’s District Judges — proofed and approved Judgement
SEMI-ILLITERATE-RACIST-FREEMASON-YOUR-HONOUR
SHOCKING!
“Why, that is, because, dearest, you are a dunce.” Dr Samuel Johnson
YORUBA: “Omo ale ti ko gbo ede baba re.” African bush saying. A bastard hadn’t met her real father, and hadn’t mastered his language.
His language, not mine; he immortalised what his semi-illiterate mother and father spoke in Norwich, which his polytechnic-educated, semi-illiterate supervisors in Luton authorised.
His Honour Judge Perusko studied law at Polytechnic.
He wants superiority (APARTHEID BY STEALTH); he can have it but only on merit, not by using his purported language like an imbecile.
NIGERIA (oil and gas) is by far more relevant to the economic survival of his white mother and father than Luton; his children did not know that.
They (RACIST FREEMASONS) want to force us to live in a world where they have absolute control; a world where blind-merit is subservient to the indisputably superior skin colour that they neither made nor chose, and a world where the decorations on the shiny expensive aprons they use to decorate the temples of their powerless and useless fertility tools — are superior to Christ-granted natural talents.
When White Judges and White Courts resort to incompetent black-lies to save face; what’s left?
GOOGLE: INCOMPETENT LIARS: SOME LAWYERS.
“Natural selection will not remove ignorance from future generations.” Dr Richard Dawkins
“Someone must be trusted. Let it be the Judges.” Lord Denning
Typical Luciferians; they cannot repair the scatter-heads of their white kindred; they can destroy the academic attainment (careers) that their own natural talents did not gain.
A dishonest, institutionally mediocre, vindictive, institutionally racist, and potently weaponised system that is overseen by the FREEMASONS (Mediocre Mafia) — Habakkuk 1:4.
“All sections of the UK Society are institutionally racist.” Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe.
The Judiciary is part of the UK Society.
An institutionally racist system cannot judge itself; demons cannot cast out demons — Matthew 12:27.
Wollaston, England: Based on available evidence, Ms Rachael Bishop, Senior NHS Nurse, unrelentingly lied under oath — Habakkuk 1:4.
A RACIST CROOK. | https://medium.com/@factsaresacred89/mps-stephen-henderson-formerly-a-racist-freemason-and-head-of-mddus-the-oral-surgeon-at-60d4a398ceb4 | ['Abiodun Bamgbelu'] | 2020-12-22 17:46:57.555000+00:00 | ['Law', 'America', 'Africa', 'Racism', 'Politics'] |
Don’t Be Fooled. Looking for Inspiration Doesn’t Work Anymore. | Don’t Be Fooled. Looking for Inspiration Doesn’t Work Anymore.
6 proven tactics to get your best work done in no time
Photo by Miriam Espacio from Pexels
I’m so done with it.
Every time I run out of ideas or my current ideas aren’t good enough, I switch on the Dora The Explorer-modus and I go surf the internet. Hoping to find the shiny coast of opportunity and inspiration. Better said — I browse YouTube.
I didn’t do the math, but I guess that in 2% of the cases it works.
I came to the conclusion that consuming more content isn’t the answer.
My desk is located next to my bookshelves and in those moments of incompetence I take out some books — interesting or not — and scroll through them. Trying to find inspiration as if the map to Mordor is hidden inside one of them.
The best part?
This strategy has a success ratio of 3,7% — not great either.
That leaves me with the last option: bang my head on the keyboard until I find something to write about. I’ve had days where this behavior took place 4 times a day, but in better times it only happened twice a week. Besides these mental shackles and some bruises, I’m fine. I guess.
Oh, the success ratio? Around 5%.
I’m not an idiot. This year, I’ve published over 65 articles, so there must be something that I do that enables me to consistently push out content. That got me thinking — what are my strategies whenever I’m stuck in this crazy content-block-limboland?
It turned out that there are 6 tactics I subconsciously apply every time I’m stuck. | https://medium.com/the-brave-writer/dont-be-fooled-looking-for-inspiration-doesn-t-work-anymore-9db4606d4653 | ['Jessie Van Breugel'] | 2020-12-21 17:03:04.865000+00:00 | ['Inspiration', 'Freelancing', 'Writing Tips', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Writing'] |
The Words We Use Around the Holidays | There’s simply something uniquely special about this time of the year. The weather is changing, growing ever more colder, even here in Texas where I live. Even more noticeable than this, though, is the approach of all the winter holidays. Everywhere I look, I can see lights and other decorations and whether you’re an entrepreneur, marketer, or simply a consumer, we all notice that extra push to sell.
This season tends to bring about just as much commercial endeavors as warm, fuzzy feelings. Often, besides the tinsel and sale signs, it does this with words, with certain phrases that you’ll almost exclusively hear around the holidays.
It’s true! The way we communicate, come this time of year, can be noted as a certain seasonal shift. Just as the season itself is so unique, the words we use are something different as well.
Let’s take a look at just some ways the words we use around the holidays are a little bit different.
Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays
We might as well first jump into the most obvious one of all. I won’t get into the dilemma of which phrase is the right one, but we can all agree that folks love to wish each other a special season’s greetings.
In our personal life, we may choose to throw in the phrase of our choice as a sort of replacement to the typical “Have a good day.” We may even be so inclined to send out cards to all our loved ones, regardless of how often we see them. When everyone is so festive, it only makes sense to offer a greeting that matches the proximity to the happy days.
Expect to hear the phrase all throughout the holiday season, especially within the world of retail.
In fact, if you have your own business, you should absolutely be taking advantage of the holidays. Label those big promotions as a “Black Friday sale,” a “Christmas special,” or a “special offer for the holidays.” And don’t forget to wish those customers a very Happy Holidays!
Gifts, gifts, and more gifts…
Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa all include gift-giving as part of their yearly traditions. What this means for your yearly holiday communication is that many words and phrases uttered will be about the gifts that will be bought, exchanged, and received.
While you may grab a birthday gift for a few close friends and family all throughout the year, this time of year ramps up gift-giving to a whole new level. It’s no surprise then that you’ll soon find yourself inquiring about “wish lists” and discussing potential gift options with those around you.
Luckily, many marketers like to come in with our saves for the holiday gift dilemma. In the business world, a time of the year for giving gifts can easily be considered a time for making more sales. One smart tactic that can be used to accomplish this is gift guides which target gift-buying consumers with titles formed of carefully-chosen words.
Hey, if it words, why not play on the fact that this time of year is all about those gifts?
Santa Claus, Christmas Trees, and more symbols of the season
Well, it is about a bit more than just the presents that go under the tree…
Yes, there are lots of symbols and icons that represent what this time of the year means to many of us. And besides using these items as decor and watching the movies, we will almost certainly talk about them.
We’ll ask children what they want Santa to bring them. We’ll boast of our cookie baking skills. We’ll recount the tales of our holiday’s origin, full of all the wonderful language that makes it up.
If we run a small business, we will likely also not fail to pair those seasonal symbols with our brand and products. We may start calling our carrots “reindeer treats’’ or declare our beverage “Santa’s favorite”. The copy of your advertising can often be made so much better by just adjusting the words to fit this festive time of year.
“Good Tidings”, “Good Cheer”, and similar phrases
There are certain ways we wish each other well around the holidays that are simply different than at any other time. We may offer “good tidings” or hope for “good cheer.” These are phrases you’d almost never hear at any other time, but to the holiday season, they’re essential.
As this may be your only chance to use these kinds of phrases, so specific to the season, make sure to go for it!
Revel in the festivities and wish your friends, family, and yes, even customers some incredibly glad tidings for the year.
Wrapping Up the Year Conversations
Of course, it’s important to remember that Christmas and those other big holidays aren’t the only special events around this time. This is also the end of the year, and the time when we celebrate the start of the new year.
As soon as the thrill of presents and new things to play with winds down, expect to hear plenty of wishes for a “Happy New Year!” from all.
Your end-of-the-year conversations are sure to also bring words to the air of the joys and disasters of the year, and of the expectations and goals you might have for the next one. Businesses, as well, may participate in these discussions that help to wrap up the year. | https://medium.com/chihuawords-marketing/the-words-we-use-around-the-holidays-8f2b48350f7f | ['Brittany Lemoine'] | 2020-12-18 21:22:56.408000+00:00 | ['Holidays', 'Writing', 'Holiday Phrases', 'Words'] |
Attached To The Familiar | Rumi says that if a drop of the wine of vision could rinse our eyes, everywhere we looked, we would weep with wonder. Sadly, many of us are stuck in the confines of our culture and beliefs, and are unaware of the splendor that lies beyond what we know, beyond our perceptions and attachments.
“One way to expand our awareness, is to travel and experience a variety of unfamiliar cultures […] Another way to embrace the mystery and beauty of life is to learn the art of letting go of all that stands in the way of our inner development: for example, a belief that does not serve the common good, an argument that serves no purpose except saving face, a relationship that is toxic, a grudge that depletes our being.” (Sacred Laughter of The Sufis)
What are your thoughts on this matter? Leave some feedback if you feel like it or submit something in response to this article and tag it under “storytelling”.
Take care! See you next Thursday with brand new challenges. | https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/attached-to-the-familiar-70944e702ea0 | ['𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊.'] | 2020-12-17 09:59:26.962000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Short Story', 'Parable', 'Energy', 'Creativity'] |
How to Containerized React App with Docker | Introduction
In this post we will walk through how to Containerized our React App with Docker Container, but before we get started we need to give answer to some questions.
What is Docker?
Docker is a tool designed that make creation, deployment, and running applications easier using Containers.
What is Docker Container?
Docker Container lets developers to wrap up an application with all of its libraries and dependencies and deploy it as one package so that the application will run faster and rest assure that it will run in any environment.
Prerequisites
We need to install Docker Desktop, It will make running, building, debugging, and testing of our Docker containerized app faster and easier.
Getting Started
Let us start off by first bootstrap our react app with create-react-app.
npx create-react-app containerized-react-app
After it has successfully created, let us go to containerized-react-app folder and start our app
cd containerized-react-app && yarn start
yarn start command will try to open up our app in the browser on default port 3000, if everything go as we expected we will see this on our browser
Now that we have assure that our react app is working perfectly, we move on to the next step.
Containerizing our React App
Before we containerized our App we need to understand some Docker terms that use to come up a lot when talking about Docker and good insight of these terms will give us strong understanding of Docker. They are Dockerfile, Docker Image, Docker Container.
Explanation:
Dockerfile is a blueprint for creating Docker Image, this file is read by Docker from top to bottom, then build to produce Docker image. Docker Image is a text file that contain dependencies and configuration required by a program to run. Docker Container is an instance of Docker image in running state. Example of Docker image and Docker container in real world would be OOP Class and Instance of that Class.
By having all these under our belts. Let us create Dockerfile on the root of our Project folder and type bellow commands:
# We install node:alpine base image that will give us everything we need to use on this environment
FROM node:alpine
# We setup up our working directory named 'app' we can name it anything
WORKDIR '/app'
# We copy package.json file from our React App working directory(host) to the working directory we created above i.e app. you can also copy yarn.lock file also.
COPY package.json ./
# We run yarn install on the working directory
RUN yarn install
# Then we copy everything in our host to the working directory we created
COPY . .
# Lastly, is command that tells Container how to run this application and we can only have one command in a Dockerfile
CMD ["yarn", "start"]
Note: The Reason why we first do RUN npm install before we copy the other files and folders, it is because we do not want to be running npm install every time we change our code. Each lines in Dockerfile are known as layer or step whenever Docker is reading it and there is no changes it will cache it. So we want it to be cached.
Looking at the COPY . . command, it would copy everything in our host folder including node_modules folder that has a bunch of modules used by our React App, so in order to prevent it from that, we are going to add one more file called .dockerignore it works just like .gitignore. Then add node_modules to it.
node_modules
Next step is to build our Docker image
docker build -t yourusername/containerizedreactapp:1.0 .
What this docker command does is build us docker image and name it using tag -t yourusername/containerizedreactapp with version 1.0, and dot that tells it to build in current directory. For my own username I used muisoft.
After successfully build our Docker image, let us verify our Docker image we just build
docker images
Finally, we run our Docker image
docker run -it -p 3000:3000 muisoft/containerizedreactapp:1.0
Explanation:
We use docker run command to run our image.
We also did port forwarding -p 3000:3000, we mapped port 3000 (you can use any port number) to the port exposed by our container and that port is from react-script when you use create-react-app to bootstrap react app by default when you run start command it will open browser on port 3000.
And we supply name of the image we wanted to run and its version number.
Note: Without port forwarding we will not be able to access our app on the browser.
That is it…
In the next post we are going to discus how to deploy our containerized react app to Amazon ECS.
Thanks for reading :) | https://medium.com/@muisoft/how-to-containerized-react-app-with-docker-2dd561df27c7 | ['Muideen Adewale'] | 2020-12-11 07:38:47.467000+00:00 | ['Containers', 'React', 'Docker', 'Containerization', 'Amazon'] |
Setup Tensorflow GPU in Windows- The quick way | After days of struggle I figured out the simple 4 steps procedure to make tensorflow use your machine’s NVIDIA GPU. It takes about 3GB of download and 30 min of installation.
Step 1 — Install CUDA v11.0 and NOT the latest version.
Installing correct version of CUDA is the most important step while setting up tensorflow with gpu support. Make sure you install v11.0 and not the latest version of cuda as only v11.0 is supported by the current build of tensorflow gpu. Here is the link to download cudnn-11.0-windows-x64-v8.0.4.30 CUDA Toolkit 11.0 Download | NVIDIA Developer.
Step 2 — Install CUDNN v8.0 for CUDA 11.0 and NOT any other version
Download cuDNN for v8.0 from Download cuDNN v8.0.4 (September 28th, 2020), for CUDA 11.0. Just extract to a location like C:/tools/
Step 3 — Setup path variables
Add these 4 paths to your windows environment. (Click start -> type ‘path’)
C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v11.0\bin
2. C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v11.0\extras\CUPTI\lib64
3. C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v11.0\include
4. C:\tools\cuda\bin (this is the extracted cuDNN)
Step 4- Install tensorflow
pip install tensorflow
This installs tensorflow 2 with GPU support
Check with this simple code. If output value ≥1 you GPU will be automatically used by tensorflow.
import tensorflow as tf
print("Num GPUs Available: ", len(tf.config.experimental.list_physical_devices('GPU')))
That’s all folks. May the force be with you!
Links for reference.
GPU support | TensorFlow | https://medium.com/@sourav301/setup-tensorflow-gpu-in-windows-the-quick-way-150518e489a2 | ['Sourav Garai'] | 2020-12-19 08:11:55.520000+00:00 | ['Tensorflow Gpu', 'TensorFlow', 'Gpu', 'Nvidia'] |
Comics Are for Soldiers Too | Comics Are for Soldiers Too
Image courtesy of Image Comics
I grew up in a military household and as a result I never really considered the ARMY (or any other branch for that matter) to be a place for people like me. By that I mean a nerd, more specifically a comic book nerd. My dad was a former Drill Sergeant as well as a veteran of Vietnam and Desert Storm, so I heard a lot of what life was like in the military. I, on the other hand, was a kid that enjoyed reading Batman and X-Men comics, while watching Saturday morning cartoons on Fox. So I never pictured the military being an institution that was nerd friendly, but apparently I was mistaken.
Recently I decided to start talking to some of our members, and members of other Facebook groups who were in the military to find out more about this safe haven of nerdiness that I didn’t know existed. I’ve learned quite a bit about how accepting the military is to the nerd community. Of course the level of acceptance varies from branch to branch and even from base to base, but it seems that no matter where you go (aside from the middle of the Iraqi desert) you have access to nerd culture while in the military. When asked how many nerds they thought were on base I got a wide variety of answers:
“I would classify about 60% of the 35 and below age as nerdy, or slightly nerdy” — Marie Halvorsen
“Most definitely the comm and intel groups are nerdy without a doubt. You do find some more nerds here and there in other jobs. “ — Ethan Ward
“Every single one of my fellow Bees is a nerd in one way or another. Some did D&D for Jocks (fantasy football), others did actual D&D, some wrote fan fiction, others cosplayed, and a bunch of the biggest rednecks you’d ever seen were closet Bronies.” — Katie Knegeris
“In my unit I would say everyone under 30 was a nerd. Had D&D, Boothill and classic military board games…along with Sega genesis in just about every room and leisure suit Larry installed in hidden directories on most of the computers” -Drew Haskell
It turns out that comics have a long history of being made for the military. Some of the heroes we love have served in one form of the military including; Captain America, The Punisher, Green Lantern, Ms. Marvel, Rick Flag and War Machine. With the exception of the Punisher, these characters were said to be in the military from the get go; we would later find out that the Punisher was a Marine. Having characters in the military allowed people in service to relate to them better and sowed the seeds of the nerd culture in the military. As it were Captain America was actually depicted battling the Nazi’s before America was drawn into the conflict of World War 2, and may have inspired people to join after the Pearl Harbor attack.
Image courtesy of DC Comics
This began a trend of heroes from the ranks, as well as the depiction of fictional characters battling real world threats. Noticing the increasing popularity of titles depicting heroes at war, the publishing companies began to print comics solely about war, and showed things from the soldier’s perspective. This naturally led to the use of comics by the government as propaganda tools in an attempt to recruit people to aid in the war effort. The popularity of these war time comics would continue to be published until the mid 1980’s. Some of the more popular characters, like Sgt. Rock, were picked up by DC Comics and have become recurring characters within the DC Universe.
When I tried to find out if the current military had any comics for the troops I found that DC doesn’t really make issues geared towards the military anymore.
“I know Marvel had a deal with either AAFES or the USO. Every now and then they’d release a short comic that they’d give away at the PX or something to help boost morale. You know how that type of thing goes, superheroes fighting the good fight, but the tide turns when a squad of American GIs show up to lend a hand to the Avengers or whoever, and then Captain America tells them they never would’ve won without the soldiers’ help. Corny, but amusing.” — Charles Baggett
Image courtesy of Marvel Comics
It seems in recent history, Marvel has been the forerunner of military themed comics, releasing a series of Avengers titles that had them aiding in the war effort with various branches of the military.
Naturally this increase in military friendly comics saw an increase in the nerd community among soldiers. Most people seem to have been nerds long before signing up, but a few got their exposure on base. Of course there seems to be a consistent preference between what characters the typical military nerd likes with Punisher being the most popular choice among people I talked to. I thought this was a fitting choice, because Frank Castle is all about taking down the bad guys with a full arsenal of military grade hardware. No one really credited comics as their reason for wanting to be in the military but I feel if any comic had an influence on someone joining, it would be a Punisher comic. Captain America and Spider-Man were the other two characters that rounded out the top three military favorites (of people I talked to).
I learned quite a bit about nerd culture in the military but the one thing that stood out the most, was the reluctance of a lot of soldiers to call themselves heroes. The majority would say that it was their duty, or that they were just doing their job. To me this is an understatement.
“I never thought of myself as a hero for serving, and I still don’t. But it did make me appreciate hard work. If I had to make a comparison to a character I’d probably say The Shoveler.” — Chris Alexander
“I would never call myself a hero ever. I think you will find most of us who have served will say the same thing. I could be wrong though.” — Ben Wotawa
“Not sure if it found my inner hero, but made it clear that had I not got hurt I would’ve been a career military soldier without a doubt.” — Ethan Ward
Most people who aren’t in the service would consider it heroic to go through half of what your average soldier experiences. The nerds that risk their lives to protect others and preserve our nation ARE heroes, whether they call themselves that or not. I am forever grateful to have had the opportunity to speak with these heroes. I will, and forever will be, a comic book nerd and the idea that many of my fellow nerds are helping protect our country certainly helps me sleep a little more comfortably at night. | https://medium.com/@supertho/comics-are-for-soldiers-too-55711d0d832c | ['Tho Carrion'] | 2016-10-14 16:27:37.555000+00:00 | ['Marvel', 'DC Comics', 'Comics', 'Military'] |
What is Client Experience Program Management CXM/CEM? | What is Client Experience Program Management CXM/CEM?
What is Client Experience Program Management or CXM/CEM? You’re likely hearing this term a lot more frequently these days. This article will help you understand what it is and why it’s important for your firm to begin embracing it.
(We use the terms customer and client interchangeably in this article.)
CX management programs increase revenue, lower costs, engage employees, drive higher satisfaction and loyalty from more ideal clients and make your brand stand out in ways that matter. They enable these benefits consistently and measurably. Why more firms aren’t jumping on this opportunity is a mystery.
Ask any firm executive and she will tell you, driving business outcomes keeps getting more complex and challenging. On the inside, the pandemic’s acceleration of digital transformation has every firm on their toes. On the outside, expanding client access to information and choices, working from home, talent supply and demand, and the shifting winds of competition are enough to make most executives ponder early retirement.
All these challenges culminate at one nexus point for most firms. The willingness of new and existing clients to select and buy their services more predictably and the new normal around talent supply and demand.
Yet, given all the complexity, there aren’t many problems that cannot be solved when there is greater certainty about top- and bottom-line revenue into a culture of willing employees who believe in the mission.
How CX is Changing Your Business
Today, services-based businesses are no longer able to enjoy being first-to-market, having the lowest price, or having the most stellar reputation. That has all changed at the hands of technology-enabled, prospects, clients and employees who have more choices and information than they know what to do with. Not to mention the plummeting average age of employees who are seeking careers much differently than older generations. And, no, it’s not just Gen Z.
So how can your firm take all this into consideration at once and set a new course that ensures your brand can supply all clients and employees with what they demand? We’ve been asking this question and searching for the answer for two decades. The answer, as it turns out, is experience management.
Think about the last time you had a terrific experience as an employee? What happened to spark that moment? Now think about the last time you had a terrific experience as a client. What sparked that moment and how did that affect your likelihood to return?
The high and low points stuck in your memory for a reason. Next time you’re totally sure your service is the best and your clients love it unconditionally, think about that little thought experiment you just did. Now let’s extrapolate.
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If you can agree that experiences are powerful enough to drive client affinity for your service and employee affinity for your firm, how can you drive predictability, manageability and repeatability of affinity-driving experiences that sustain your brand?
How can you drive consistency into the experiences your clients, prospects, partners, employees, recruits, and firm leadership have with your brand?
How do you shift from blind trust or hope to certainty?
You do it with the two sides of experience management:
client experience management or CXM employee engagement programs or EE
Together, these two forces help you optimize and manage your three most critical relationships:
with prospects (the buyer’s experience) with clients (the client experience) with employees (the employee experience)
Get these three right and you’ll drive more ideal client wins, more recurring revenue from loyal clients and sustained employee enthusiasm for what you’ve chosen to focus on.
We say that experience programs help firms become the best version of themselves. It is our mantra for a reason. Why?
When you choose to zero in on learning what makes every firm relationship thrive, and you do the work to understand it thoroughly and act on it, systematically, you’re not just running a business, you’re getting directly to the heart of the human experience — those drives that influence behavior and spur positive talk.
What Is Experience Program Management or CEM/CXM?
Let’s get a few terms of phrase straight, first of all. When you hear “CX” or “Customer Experience” or “Client Experience,” you’re hearing common industry jargon for the unit of satisfaction someone has with a product or service.
When you put the word “management” on the end of it, you’re referring to the company’s acts of tracking, analyzing, overseeing, measuring and responding to those incoming points of data about satisfaction.
You many have also heard or seen “CXM” or “CEM.” These are acronyms for Customer Experience Management or Client Experience Management.
So, what does CXM/CEM mean?
It means a systematic approach firms take to manage units of awareness and satisfaction toward some desired ends — such as revenue, NPS ranking, Client Lifetime Value, Client Satisfaction (CSAT), Client Effort Score (CES), Cross-Sell/Up-sell, Client Churn, Loyalty, and Advocacy. The list of desired outcomes (we call them value-drivers) from CXM is approaching 100 at this point.
How do companies manage CX?
Here’s the rub. Most do not — or at least, most do not do it effectively. It’s not because they’re negligent or ignorant to client needs, but because they simply don’t know what they don’t know. In our two decades inside of firms trying to establish systematic CX programs, we’ve learned the number one initial obstacle is actually dead simple.
Most firm executives conflate “service” with “experience.” When they do this they are giving the firm implicit permission to keep believing they are covering all the bases. In actuality, they are only thinking about the act of providing a service without defects — ignoring how the client may feel about their experience with how the service was planned or delivered.
“Experience” and “service” are vastly different concepts but nonetheless, they live as one in well over 90 percent of services-based firms, today.
In other firms, they stop at client feedback collection, believing that is all that is necessary — that the act of feedback collection and problem resolution is all they need to do. This is also far from the truth.
There are dozens of reasons why well-intentioned firm leaders are frustrated by the lack of progress and success of their CX efforts. Betting the farm on feedback solving your problems is where most of these firm’s frustration begins and ends.
What is the Difference between Service and Experience?
Service is an act of delivery originating from the firm, outward.
Experience is an act of receiving a service originating from the client, inward.
When you mix the terms client service with client experience, it’s like mixing the terms “investment” and “dividend.”
Think about it like this: when a plumber is called out to your house to fix a bathroom leak, there are about 45 things or events that happen in that scenario playing itself out.
Of those 45 events, only four or five are a service, the other 40 are experiences. The service is the plumber taking your call, arriving on time, carefully fixing the leak, telling you how/what happened, leaving your house with care, and finally invoicing you. The experiences are how the entire, end-to-end sequence of events (we’ve counted, it’s close to 38) left you feeling, concluding in an idea of whether your plumber was good enough to use again in the future or recommend to a friend.
If your firm’s executives are conflating “service” with “experience,” they’re choosing to limit their control over their client relationships at 10 percent of the possible total.
Firms choosing to adopt and embed CXM, are choosing to take control of as much of the client experience as they can — leaving as little to chance as possible.
Look at the equation below. In the simplest way possible it spells out how experience is managed by firms. The quality of the total client experience is simply a function of product/service quality, price quality, and journey quality.
CXM is the art and science your firm works on to balance this simple equation.
CX Pilots’ Client Experience Quality Formula — “Balancing The CX Equation”
Every firm has services and clients. Every client has experiences with firm services. Every client goes through dozens of interactions across multiple touchpoints with your firm in their client journeys up to and through your service.
These interactions and touchpoints can include, researching (interaction) your firm and other competitors on Google (touchpoint). Finding an online review (interaction) on an online ratings service (touchpoint). Talking to an attorney or CPA or Engineer (interaction) on the phone (touchpoint). Choosing to sign your proposal, LOI, or Services Agreement (interaction) via DocuSign across email (touchpoint).
Every one of these interactions and touchpoints — no matter how seemingly insignificant or small — impacts the client’s awareness and sentiment about your firm, understanding of the value you want them to understand, and their overall connection to your brand. When firms set out to map these experiences, they often inadvertently view their client’s experiences through a very small window and often conflate perspectives. Here is how we like to map it:
Client Experience Management helps your firm ensure that every single interaction and touchpoint are not only from the perspective of the client/prospect and free from friction or inefficiency, but they are carefully designed to represent a consistently positive feeling clients get from their choice to associate with you, every single step of the way.
Interaction Volatility and Why It Matters
Big words for such a simple concept. Interaction volatility is what happens to your client’s total experience in between strings of connected interactions.
For any number of reasons, when a client or prospect’s expectations aren’t met through the firm’s touchpoints and interactions, they experience volatility. It may be something small to the firm but significant to the client.
CXM is what manages volatility out of the prospect or client’s journey. It does this by carefully analyzing the path clients (or prospects) take and makes sure the firm is doing all it can to provide positive experiences from one interaction to the next toward some desired end. This will be different for every client but wide scale CXM can solve for all issues no matter the client or segment they’re in.
This is an important concept in experience management. Left unchecked, it can mean the difference between a person becoming your next client for life or moving over to your competitor with a bad taste in their mouth. In many cases, interaction volatility comes from such minuscule and completely manageable transactions from the way you correspond to an interested prospect via email, to the way you onboard new clients. We see this all the time.
In perhaps one of the most egregious examples yet one that cost one firm an $11 million opportunity, we learned the prospect was turned off by the inconsistent email signatures from his correspondence with three firm representatives followed by one firm executive’s delayed email which included a misspelling of the prospect’s long Indian first name. In a post loss interview we learned he said, “I need to feel I am putting my project in the hands of someone who understands the concept of urgency and flawlessness. This firm didn’t show me that.”
Customer Insights are the Currency of your CXM
Well-managed client experiences always start with insights. Insights come in many forms. Most firms gain client insights from surveys, interviews, focus groups, and even client journey maps. In every case, creating experiences you want your prospects and clients to talk about begins with knowing who your stakeholders are well-beyond the standard NPS question (How likely are you to refer us to a friend or colleague?)
Client experience management programs should be designed to optimize the insights your firm gathers from new prospective clients, existing clients and former clients.
To be competitively effective, your firm needs to understand insights better than anyone else capable of supplying the service you deliver. This means knowing how cultivated insights tell you who the clients are as people and decision-makers, what they desire, their values, why they want what you deliver, what they dislike, what they’re like on social media, how they’ve interacted with you in the past, etc.
Ultimately, you need to structure your firm’s insights gathering machinery to capture and use data to bend the odds of exceptional experience in your favor — which requires data you can turn into actionable insights affecting the experiences they have with your firm.
CXM, when applied properly helps your firm mine, distill and refine data into these actionable insights that can be readily applied to experience delivery from any person at any point in your firm. The end result is a systematic insights mining operation that makes employees successful in assuring their clients feel heard, understood and appreciated, which are all the critical ingredients in crafting lifelong loyalty (internally and externally).
What is Customer Retention and Why Does it Matter?
It seems silly to even right this down because it’s like saying, “don’t forget to breathe!” But we have to say it anyway. Client retention is what keeps you in business.
Retaining clients is important because you have paid X to gain a client and Y to keep them, so why should you repay X for another replacement client when all the firm had to do was better manage the experience the client had in the first place.
Client churn (how many clients you keep over time) costs firms a lot. Here are some jaw-dropping stats:
It costs five times as much to attract a new client than to keep an existing one
to attract a new client than to keep an existing one Most firms focus 4X more on client acquisition than client retention
Cross-sell/up-sell probability: firms are generally 65% more probable to sell service to an existing client vs. 5–11% probability of selling to a new prospect
CXM can effectively decrease firm marketing costs by 44%, accelerate time to value by 38% making your firm significantly more profitable
CXM is purpose-built to manage deeper client retention into your firm. As you retain clients, you develop intimacy (in a professional manner, hopefully) while your client develops affinity.
This is how trust is made. In trusting client relationships, you create the opportunity to enrich the insights you gather from those clients, which in turn, allows you to serve them in accordance with their shifting expectations.
CXM also helps your firm understand specific client sentiments and behaviors that preserve client relationships over time. The more you know why clients stick with your firm over competitors, the quicker you can apply that learning to other relationships. This is what lies at the heart of CXM’s value to your firm.
It’s a virtuous circle that your firm can manage for pennies on the dollar while paying you back incredible dividends in the short-, mid- and long-term.
What You Need to Know About Customer Loyalty
Customer or client loyalty is earned through trust, it never just happens because you’re good. Trust is earned through consistent patterns that demonstrate you provide precisely what a client needs, when they need it and how they want it.
Trust is also created when clients feel great for having worked with you and using your service — even if your firm charges more than your client’s alternative choices. In fact, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great client experience. If your firm and its services make the client feel good about their affinity for your firm, you very likely will have a client for life.
The other thing you need to know about client loyalty is that there aren’t many clients who’ll go out of their way to tell you they aren’t very satisfied. This means when there are significant gaps in perception between what you think you provide and what the client actually feels you provide, you’re not likely to see it. We call this loyalty blindness, and we diagnose firms with it frequently.
One in 26 clients complain when the services they pay for aren’t up to par — the other 25 say nothing. What this tells you is that you are very likely going to operate on assumptions in the absence of client-articulated issues — who wouldn’t? Well, people investing in CXM, as a matter of fact.
CXM is capable of unearthing unarticulated issues with clients through interaction management and outreach. If you knew 92% of your clients were less than perfectly satisfied and you had an opportunity to find out why, wouldn’t you?
Why is Customer Experience Management Important?
Have you heard the phrase; “the customer experience is the new battlefield”? Yes, it was written for retail/consumer B2C but it applies to B2B and services-based businesses as well. By 2022, two thirds of services-based businesses will compete primarily on the basis of client experience. This stat is up from roughly 30% in over the past decade. What this means is that your client will be attracted to the service providers they feel can offer the best overall experience.
Service quality is subjectively defined by the client — not by the firm.
What you know to be a superior service, better employees, better overall project outcome in AEC, better matter management Legal, better tax and audit services in CPA industry, better member services in Credit Unions and so on, may not be perceived as better by those paying for your service.
The client journey experience is one area where your firm can establish a clear head start.
We have come to learn that the journeys clients experience with your firm determines whether your firm will see growing client lifetime value from lengthy relationships or constantly patching a leaky boat, so to speak, by perpetually spending new money to cultivate new replacement clients.
As client choices expand, their preferences and behaviors change and more information about potentially better experiences from competing firms begins to proliferate. Firms must be far more attentive and more adaptive than they once were. They need to be able to build learning relationships, where both the client and firm are willing to further educate themselves about the value they can give and get to move from merely satisfied to loyal.
You cannot do this at scale without a Client Experience Management program.
What Does CXM Look Like?
Modern CXM looks like a firm initiative because there are phases, stages and steps involved to ensure the right sized program is placed into your firm in the form and shape that it needs to be. Different parts and pieces of any CXM program will vary depending on the firm’s existing infrastructure, unique needs and culture. For instance, not every CXM program we help set up is the same because some firms have incumbent tech like Voice of Client (VOC) software running surveys and pumping out insights, while others do not. Some firms have thousands of employees in vastly different roles, some of whom require specific front-line training, others do not. Some firms want to focus exclusively on existing client relationships to control churn, others may be interested in a broader-spectrum approach to CXM that factors in the earlier stages of the prospective client’s journey.
In the most generic sense, CXM programs are typically structured as follows:
How Much Will CXM Cost the Firm?
This will vary quite a bit. It will depend on what you want to accomplish. Most firms we work with start somewhere in the middle stages of CXM such as mapping and later realize they haven’t laid the proper foundation to make the outcomes of mapping as productive as they could have otherwise been.
Many consultants will only engage if your firm signs a Letter of Intent to adopt a comprehensive CX transformation which can cost well north of several million dollars. Other consultants may enter at any stage and undercharge without guarantee of outcomes. In some lucky cases, you will find CX consultants able to plug in where and when you need to deliver precisely what you know you require — which is how we structure our engagements with services-based firms.
If your services-based firm has approximately 500 employees and between $50 million and $100 million in annual revenue, you should expect to pay around 1.5% of annual revenue on a managed client experience program. For a $50- $100 million dollar firm that’s roughly $750,000 to $1.5 million to accomplish all nine stages in the CXM program graphic above. However, as mentioned above, not all firms adopt all nine CXM stages and all have varying technologies, teams and processes to integrate so these figures should be used only as loose guides.
A good rule of thumb for forecasting CXM set-up and firm-wide deployment costs is to multiply the number of employees you have by $1875. If you have 50 employees, you can very likely stand up a fully functioning CXM program for about $90,000. If you have 1,000 employees, it will be closer to $1.8 million.
Important note: we do not base CXM program pricing on number of employees — we’re simply sharing patterns which, over time, have revealed a loose correlation between firm size and CXM program costs.
How long to CXM programs take to implement?
How long does it typically take for a CX consultant to help your firm accomplish a comprehensive CXM program? This also depends on many factors. Our average across nearly 50 CXM transformation programs to help an average sized firm is 425 days or 14–15 months. The mitigating factors with respect to timing are often the speed and efficiency of change within your firm. We have worked with firms which have set out to accomplish a full CXM integration within one year and succeeded. We have also executed the same sized program for a similar sized firm which took nearly two full years due to poorly mitigated internal politics.
Hopefully this information will be helpful to you as you plan for, reach out to, and ultimately engage a CX or customer experience specialist to support and guide you in the right direction.
This article (in slightly different form) appeared on CX Pilots’ blog. It has been written by Steven Keith, the founder of CX Pilots, a services experience firm purpose built to support CX leaders inside Professional Services firms. | https://medium.com/@stevenkeith/what-is-client-experience-program-management-cxm-cem-e3614e619c51 | ['Steven Keith'] | 2021-07-06 13:31:00.960000+00:00 | ['Business Strategy', 'Cx', 'Customer Service', 'Customer Success', 'Customer Experience'] |
Signal Alliance pushes ambitious holdco structure ahead of 25 years anniversary | In 1996, as a small group of technology executives were giving the world the term “cloud computing”, in Nigeria a small technology company was opening its doors for the first time.
That company, Signal Alliance, will later this year celebrate its 25 years anniversary. In hindsight, coming into the cloud market and information technology (IT) industry at the time it did was a great decision given that it gave an opportunity to get into a market that has come to be a major contributor to the Nigerian economy.
At 25 years old, Signal Alliance is beginning a new phase of life. The company is on the verge of completing a holding company (holdco) structure that will see it become even a bigger player in the IT sector.
The proposed holdco structure would have three subsidiaries — one focused on cloud business, another on technology consulting while the third, Sasware, which is already operating as a venturing company, would harmonize current investments and further invest in tech start-ups and tech-enabled businesses.
Signal Alliance is looking to make an emphatic statement in the tech ecosystem in Nigeria. Foreign investors have dominated the venture activities in Nigeria and Africa and they are increasing their positions in the Nigerian tech market. Last year, Stripe, the second-largest payment company in the world, acquired Nigerian-based payment gateway company, Paystack. Nigerian startups also dominated the venture capital activities in Africa in 2019 only to fall behind South Africa in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are also local venture capital firms and equity funds that are springing up and positioning for the market. In January, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, founder and CEO of Future Africa, a new venture capital that launched in 2020 said it has returned $3.7 million to some of the firm’s limited partners and invested over $1 million in 16 startups.
“There is a need to consolidate and grow our investments in technology-enabled start-ups,” Collins Onuegbu, Executive Vice Chairman of the company said. “Diversification of our business portfolio is imperative, and we believe that these activities, in line with our medium to long term strategy would produce compelling returns. Size and efficiency are key factors for our new outlook.”
Onuegbu also believes the tech market in Nigeria is still evolving despite the strides it has made in recent years. There is still a lot of room for growth and the company is being positioned to be part of that growth process. In the coming months, it will be looking to either acquire a majority stake in promising ventures or minority interest.
“There is no more sitting on the fence while the good deals get done. We need to gain a foothold in the tech space venturing in Nigeria and are targeting 50 tech and tech-enabled companies within a 3-year horizon,” Onuegbu said. He is also a director at the Lagos Angels Network, a group of well-connected and highly knowledgeable individuals who invest in early-stage entrepreneurs.
Signal Alliance would also be looking to grow its cloud market position. It is a market Signal Alliance knows very well given its partnership with Microsoft.
Microsoft is the second-largest cloud provider in the world behind Amazon and leads the Software as a Service (SaaS) segment of the market with a 17 percent market share and an impressive annual growth of 34 percent. The cloud market in Africa is growing and in 2019 rose to an estimated $1.7 billion valuation with players like Microsoft maintaining market dominance.
Signal Alliance is a Gold LSP Partner of Microsoft; among the other three partners in Nigeria and intends to utilise this partnership for its cloud business focus. The company expects that the holding company structure would give it the latitude to capture a significant share of the market despite tough competition.
“Despite handling much of Microsoft’s Azure cloud business in Nigeria, we are determined to grow the cloud business significantly, extending outside the shores of Nigeria,” Onuegbu said.
Beyond venture capital and cloud, Signal Alliance is also eyeing the intellectual property market, IT security, and managed services. The third subsidiary of Signal Alliance will focus on these segments. Its future trajectory is to grow technology and technology-enabled businesses, taking advantage of opportunities in the diversifying Nigerian economy.
“The world is adopting cloud services; consumption has grown tremendously in the past few years. It is important we segregate our cloud business to effectively push growth northwards. Value-added services are the driving force of our technology consulting,” Onuegbu said. | https://medium.com/@signalalliance2/signal-alliance-pushes-ambitious-holdco-structure-ahead-of-25-years-anniversary-8b7c313021c4 | ['Signal Alliance Limited'] | 2021-02-22 05:25:34.036000+00:00 | ['25 Years Anniversary', 'Technology News', 'Modern Workplace', 'System Integration', 'Signal Alliance'] |
3 Tips on How to Research a Website | As an eCommerce professional, I regularly encounter amazing websites. I often spend my spare time researching websites, seeking out Entrepreneurs behind online trade, particularly those who exhibit Innovation.
This article is an extension of Design Thinking, Innovation and Value Proposition discussed in my previous articles. My aim is to share three simple tools (free version) that reveal a lot about a website — research — the what and who behind any website.
Why? Because market research should be part of any project you and I undertake in 2020 and beyond.
Volunteer
To demonstrate each tool I need a volunteer — A website owner?
Oh, Dr. Mehmet Yildiz, I see you raised your hand. Are you willing to be the guinea-pig for the benefit of ILLUMINATORS?
“Yes, Paul” “Wonderful Dr. Yildiz”.
What is your URL? — https://digitalmehmet.com
Fantastic, let’s begin.
PS — didn’t actually get approval … but … what the hell! | https://medium.com/illumination/3-tips-on-how-to-research-a-website-78bc525be79e | ['Paul Myers Mba'] | 2020-04-02 22:32:45.031000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Website', 'Life Lessons', 'Personal Development', 'Innovation'] |
Public Event Sentiment Analysis in PostgreSQL | Background
Sometimes a business may want to know what will happen following a specific event. For example, will publishing house price regulations lead to large investment in the stock market?
Let’s take a look at how PostgreSQL databases can meet this type of requirement.
Simulate a Realistic Scenario
1. Construct the structure of a table holding events
create table event(
id serial8 primary key, -- Auto-increment sequence that determines the sequential order of events
class text, -- Event type
info text, -- Event description
crt_time timestamp -- Time when an event occurs
);
2. Insert 10 million event records, which are of 5,000 different event types
insert into event (class, info , crt_time) select (5000*random())::int::text, 'test', clock_timestamp() from generate_series(1,10000000);
3. Create indexes by event type
create index idx_event_class on event (class);
Requirements
Query a specific number of events following a certain event
Simply use the following function to meet the preceding requirement
create or replace function f(
sql text, -- Query the IDs of the target events to be analyzed
v_class text, -- Type of a target event
v_n int8, -- How many subsequent events are to be checked
v_limit int -- How many times events are analyzed. If all output is required, enter a large value
) returns setof event as
$$
declare
v_id int8;
begin
for v_id in execute sql loop
return query select * from event where id>=v_id order by id limit v_n+1;
v_limit := v_limit - 1;
if v_limit<=0 then
return;
end if;
end loop;
end; $$
language plpgsql strict;
Query example
Query two events following an event of type 1 and generate analysis results ten times.
postgres=# select * from f(
$$
select id from event where class='1'
$$
, '1', 2, 10);
id | class | info | crt_time
-------+-------+------+----------------------------
1592 | 1 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.77348
1593 | 3032 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.773483
1594 | 3409 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.773486
2784 | 1 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.777265
2785 | 2819 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.777268
2786 | 87 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.777271
12176 | 1 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.807489
12177 | 2586 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.807491
12178 | 4101 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.807494
19398 | 1 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.83072
19399 | 1179 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.830723
19400 | 4237 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.830726
19571 | 1 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.831296
19572 | 4368 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.831299
19573 | 2313 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.831302
24708 | 1 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.847794
24709 | 1327 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.847797
24710 | 4584 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.847799
29756 | 1 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.864234
29757 | 4386 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.864237
29758 | 3044 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.864239
30224 | 1 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.865765
30225 | 4704 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.865768
30226 | 332 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.865771
32004 | 1 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.871554
32005 | 219 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.871557
32006 | 3548 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.871559
36472 | 1 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.886097
36473 | 640 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.8861
36474 | 1139 | test | 2017-03-31 15:07:23.886103
(30 rows)
With the preceding results, we can know what events will happen after the occurrence of event 1.
To use the preceding results for further analysis, use hotspot analysis similar to keywords, use the MADlib machine learning database in PostgreSQL or use plR.
You always have a method to find the correlation between events.
Correlation Analysis of Non-Independent Events
Because the previous analysis targets independent events, which bear no correlation themselves, it is required to use functions to generate results.
Users’ mouse clicks on Taobao (for example, what other items a user clicks after clicking a specific item) is an example of non-independent events.
For non-independent events, the structure design includes associated fields like USERID, so that we can easily establish association.
Trajectory analysis can be performed on non-independent events by using recursive calls in PostgreSQL.
Summary
Recursive syntax in PostgreSQL and PL/pgSQL can perfectly meet the requirements of analyzing events before and after a specific event in public opinion analysis scenarios.
Then hotspot analysis, cluster analysis, MADlib in PostgreSQL or plR can be used to analyze events to find event correlation.
Original Source
https://www.alibabacloud.com/blog/public-event-sentiment-analysis-in-postgresql_594990?spm=a2c41.13103861.0.0 | https://medium.com/@alibaba-cloud/public-event-sentiment-analysis-in-postgresql-dcb8ec388b25 | ['Alibaba Cloud'] | 2019-07-10 05:40:53.711000+00:00 | ['Sentiment Analysis', 'Postgresql', 'Alibabacloud', 'Database', 'Sql'] |
Deep Water: An Encounter with Whiteness | I love the water but I don’t know how to swim. One of my resolutions this year was to conquer that fear, especially because I want to splash freely with my 8-year-old son in a pool, a lake, and maybe even the ocean someday.
A few weeks ago, I signed up for swim lessons at a local pool. My instructor made me feel at ease immediately. During our lessons, she would perch on the pool deck, and guide me. “Breathe and count to ten when you feel anxious,” she would say. She intuited that my biggest barrier is fear, not ability, and within a few lessons, I have felt not only comfortable in the water, but a sense of peace, expansion, and meditation.
This past weekend, my son and I decided to go for our first swim together. I was eager to show him what I had learned already, and he was eager to “teach” me. We talked to the lifeguard and the pool manager first to understand which lane we could use as very new swimmers. We then gathered our swim boards and fins. All of a sudden, a woman in the water yelled, “Stop! Stop! You can’t do that.” She was apparently a swim instructor teaching two children in a different lane. At first, I thought she was concerned for our safety on the pool deck, and nodded. But then, she proceeded to talk at me for another five minutes with a raised voice. According to her, I hadn’t followed the pool rules and was utilizing “reserved” equipment. I told her that my instructor had encouraged me to use the equipment, but she continued with many “you’re not supposed to” remarks, accompanied with vigorous head shaking. This continued for an unnecessarily extended period of time. There were others in the pool but no one else received similar treatment.
I was agitated because we weren’t disturbing anyone, and yet, she was singling us out in front of everyone. At one point, I said to her, “[y]ou know, it would be great if you could have treated us differently, because there are children present and given what’s going on in this country this week.”
Deep Water (Rosie Kerr|Stock Photo at www.unsplash.com
Refocusing on our time at the pool was hard. At one point, the woman spoke to the pool manager about us, gesturing in our direction (he later came over and apologized for what had happened), and at another point, she came over to take our fins.
Even though this encounter wasn’t racially charged in any visible context, I felt upset, angry, unsafe, and unwelcomed, to the point that I even referred to the country’s racial climate. But why? Obviously, I have dealt with many situations where implicit or explicit racism is clear and present. Most people of color have to deal with these sorts of interactions every single day. But it was especially challenging, and there I was, trying to focus on breathing in the water but feeling like there wasn’t enough air, as my son kept asking, “Should we go? She doesn’t like us.”
Hours later, I realized the subtext behind the pool encounter. Regardless of the absence of any racial animus, the interaction had nevertheless occurred in a racially charged climate and between two people who hold very different positions in this country’s racial hierarchy. Here she was, a white woman berating me publicly for not following a set of rules at a place where I paid membership and additional tuition. Here I was, an immigrant and a woman of color with a brown-skinned boy in tow, aghast by the violence that had just happened in Louisville, Kentucky (where I grew up) and Pittsburgh, and trying to find a measure of solace, belonging and normalcy.
Dominant white culture enables white people to enjoy the luxury of disregarding racial context, history, and dynamics altogether, including when they interact with people of color. But people of color can never do that. For me, the pool encounter was a reminder of how Black people have long been excluded at public pools. It made me think about how people of color are discriminated in every setting imaginable because of rules, practices, and norms. It made me flash back to experiences my immigrant family had in Kentucky where we felt like outsiders. It made me wonder how new immigrants and refugees, who often frequent the pool, might feel if they had a similar encounter. It represented the white gatekeeping that occurs in every context in this country that seeks to keep people of color in their place. It touched the parts of me navigating a sense of displacement, dread, and disorientation as an immigrant and woman of color in this country. All of that coursed through me, well after we left the pool.
Still, I second-guessed myself. Was this even a micro-aggression? Was I over-reacting because of how difficult the environment is right now? Why couldn’t I just brush this off as a “she was just having a bad day” interaction?
Here is the thing: while it is true that each of us is responsible for our actions and responses, it is important to understand context in any given situation, and especially so if we have some measure of power or authority. White people are responsible for how they engage with people of color and immigrants, especially now. We are communities under threat. Whether it is at a pool or a workplace, a classroom or the subway, white people must keep in mind today’s hostile racial environment and the context. People of color are feeling deeply threatened, and for those of us holding additional identities, we feel doubly or triply singled out and targeted. White people must understand this, and must not avoid, deny, or dismiss it.
That is why everyday interactions can have tremendous meaning. How do we treat an immigrant waiter, janitor, or mechanic if we keep in mind that they might be feeling terrified about the attacks on immigrants right now? How do we interact with the people of color on the subway who might be experiencing feelings of dread about the attacks on trans community members? How do we choose our words when we disagree with an immigrant or a woman of color who might be traumatized by the way sexual assault is treated in this country? How do we interact with the Muslim mother in hijab dropping her kids off at school, who might be concerned about school bullying? Each individual interaction can be meaningful, and at a time when everything feels so overwhelming, the small changes we can make with our own words and actions can make a world of difference.
At a structural level, institutions must move beyond diversity, cultural competence and multiculturalism trainings for their staff to ensure that they have an understanding of racial history as well as the effects of the current climate, and tools and language based in principles of anti-racism, inclusion and equity.
How could I relay any of this to my young son? How could I comfort him since he too was feeling like we didn’t belong at the pool? While my son is used to engaging with race and immigration dynamics through books, marches, and conversations, I didn’t have the words to explain while we were in the pool. That would have to wait for another time when I had processed further.
So, I said: “I know this hasn’t been a fun experience so far and we both feel bad. But we have every right to be here. Let’s focus on us.”
He didn’t stop there though. “What did you mean when you said what’s going on in the country this week, Mommy?”
I hesitated.
“You mean, the country is getting ready for Halloween, right?” he went on with a knowing smile.
Looking at his little face with beads of water glistening on it, I couldn’t bear to interrupt the innocence of pre-Halloween weekend and the memory of our first swim together with the realities of our troubled and tired world. Not this time.
“That’s right, my love,” I said. “Now, why don’t you teach me how to blow those bubbles underwater?”
For more on confronting whiteness: Listen to my latest podcast, Solidarity Is This, where white activists break down the effects of white supremacist culture and read the Solidarity Syllabus with resources and readings. Also, check out the Seeing White podcast series. | https://dviyer.medium.com/deep-water-an-encounter-with-whiteness-33a1ef3a2cfe | ['Deepa Iyer'] | 2018-10-31 16:18:21.983000+00:00 | ['Raceinamerica', 'Race'] |
The Stolen Coat | Wes Silverman’s coat had vanished.
A droopy, grayish pea coat, it had seen more years than Wes himself, and he’d seen a few. His sagging flesh and the scattered hairs lingering on his head so matched its fabric he might have been part of it, or it of him. The coat might once have been fine, but now, missing a couple buttons just as its owner missed a few teeth, it spent its declining years in denial. Its outward appearance notwithstanding, it would serve its master to the end and thus be made worthy.
Wes wore this coat, if not proudly then at least without shame, as he tramped about town from end to end in search of a life long since gone. A bit bent, joints creaking, he circulated among the coffee shops and grocers, the hardware and clothing stores, sometimes stopping of an evening to take in a movie but mostly whispering along the streets like a lazy autumn breeze. Homeless folk never found him in their company, but none were sure where he slept. Few were as old as he, and so few if any knew his past. Some said he hailed from the west end of town, once a wealthy neighborhood but now poor, where grass grew long and houses decayed at leisure because their denizens had neither the money nor the skills to fend off entropy.
Wherever he came from, wherever he went, the pea coat accompanied Wes like a faithful dog, wrapped about him when it was cool, slung over his shoulder like an almost empty flour sack in high summer — almost empty, for an essence of him remained within, stuffed into the sleeves, sewn into the collar. He could no more be separated from it than from his bones. And that was why, when he shuffled into the coffee shop that morning, his face a palette of distress and mourning, nobody quite recognized him.
Fran Unterbrink figured it out while pouring Wes some coffee. He fumbled in his pants pockets for money that wasn’t there and shrugged miserably, and then she knew. He always carried coins in his coat pocket. “Wes! Where’s your coat?”
A fragmented story spilled out, shards of it clinking on the counter and the floor: a noise in the night, dogs barking, a flashlight beam, darkness and terror and running, the bang of a screen door thrown wide and slammed shut. Then morning, and the coat, nothing but the pea coat, gone!
“Are you sure?” Fran asked, mouth agape. “Nothing else taken?”
Wes babbled. The TV, why hadn’t they taken that, or the radio, or his nice tie tack, or even the rings, Mary’s engagement ring and wedding band? He’d kept them when she died, didn’t bury her with them because she wanted him to treasure them, God knows why. They could have taken the rings, should have taken the rings! Why the coat, why not the rings?
Fran patted his arm to console him and asked, voice as gentle as a snowfall, “Did you call the police?” But of course he hadn’t, no police, no ma’am, none of them snooping about his home, not today, not ever. No rummaging through drawers, digging in closets, pulling up floorboards. No!
“Floorboards? Why would they do that?”
Reason hardly mattered. Wes, everyone knew, had half a mind at the best of times, and this was the worst. Who knew what he might do in this state, so Fran kept him in her shop all morning, worried that he might blunder into the street and get hit by a car, or stumble about all day and end up face down in a field. But he had no heart for wandering anyway. Instead, he possessed the table farthest from the door and refused to be moved throughout the morning and afternoon while his self-appointed nurse dispatched relatives and friends to ask around town: had the coat been seen anywhere, had any news of it leaked into the streets?
Fran stayed at her post all day, serving customers, and during lulls nudging and prodding Wes, hoping in vain for some morsel of information that might make sense of events. She’d always heard talk was good for the soul. Wes didn’t believe it. Little more than self-pity passed his lips, until finally Fran couldn’t take it any longer. “For God’s sake, Wes, it’s just an old coat! Why don’t we get you a new one?”
Fire ignited in his eyes. Wes pushed back and stood, jaw quivering and lips pinched. For the first time, she saw a shade of what he once had been: a man of resolve, of determination, a soldier in a cause she couldn’t imagine. Embarrassed she had insulted him so, she lowered her eyes and muttered an apology.
He sat, head bowed, and spoke not a word until evening began to swallow the town.
At about that hour, a commotion at the door alerted Fran to the presence of her son Edward, who had come in with a bundle under his arm. Congratulations and applause followed him to the table where Wes sat in disconsolate silence. Fran hurried to Edward’s side and gaped as he unfurled the faded old pea coat and draped it around Wes’ shoulders. Every breath fell still, anticipating the old man’s relief.
Slowly, gingerly, Wes’ fingers reached out, grasped the hems of the coat, and tugged. He tugged until, fully wrapped in the garment’s embrace, he shuddered. Tears glistened in the corners of his eyes. He rose, folded in the cocoon of his ancient coat, and shuffled toward the door. Just before he passed through, Fran dared speak.
“Wes?”
He paused without looking back.
“Are you okay now?”
A slight nod was his only reply. Then he stepped into the darkening night and was gone.
Edward shook his head. “I don’t get him.”
Fran sneaked to the door as though afraid to follow Wes too closely. She pushed it open, peered into the night. “Where did you find it?”
“On the back of some homeless old man. I traded him mine. I can always get another. It’s only a coat.”
“Yes,” Fran mused. “Only a coat.”
And not, she didn’t add, your dignity. | https://medium.com/lit-up/the-stolen-coat-78f34c299242 | ['Dale E. Lehman'] | 2020-11-11 16:07:19.726000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Short Fiction', 'Fiction'] |
Conversations with My Unknown, Unborn Child | I never envisioned myself the mother of boys. When I used to imagine my child, I would picture a little dark-haired girl. Sometimes, I would see her in glimpses, holding someone else’s hand. She would have a page-boy hair cut and look a little Asian. I had a long time to imagine and long for this imaginary child.
During the height of my infertility, I used to picture this little child, and tell her why I wanted her so much. I told her what a good mother and father she would have, if she would just be born. I shared my dreams with her. I looked in shop windows at little pink things that I might buy for her. She was my child of hope.
I came across a passage in a novel I was reading recently. It struck an unexpected chord in me, and I was reminded of my “infertility child”. Scottish sisters-in-law who lived in the 1700’s are talking late at night. One is a new mother, with her child at her breast. The new mother was explaining to her sister about how she talked to her baby before the child was born.
“You can talk to a babe, you know. You can tell them anything. You can pour out your soul to them without choosing your words or keeping anything back at all. And that’s a comfort to the soul. I have often wondered if that’s why women are so often sad, once the child is born,” she said meditatively, as though thinking aloud. “
Ye think of them while ye talk, and you have a knowledge of them as they are inside ye, the way you think they are. And then they’re born and they’re different — not the way you thought of them inside, at all. And ye love them of course, and get to know them the way they are… but still there is the thought of the child ye once talked to in your heart, and that child is gone. So I think it’s the grievin’ for the child unborn that you feel, even as ye hold the born one in your arms.” And she paused and kissed the downy head of her daughter.
“Yes, before….it’s all possibility. It might be a son, or a daughter. A plain child, a bonny one. And then it’s born, and all the things it might have been are gone, because now it is. And a daughter is born, and the son that she might have been is dead,” she said quietly. “And the bonny lad at your breast has killed the wee lassie ye thought you carried. And ye weep for what you didn’t know, and that’s gone for good, until you know the child you have, and then at last it’s as though they could never have been other than they are, and you feel naught but joy in them. But until then, you weep easy.”
The child unknown is an issue for many of those struggling with infertility. The child of infertility for you, may be the child you lost through miscarriage or stillbirth. The child you talked to in your heart may be the one you have to say goodbye to before you are able to pursue adoption or third party reproduction. And like me, you might be surprised to find that you did not or might not, give birth to the baby you were talking to for so long.
I sit on my couch, and I look at two beautiful blond haired boys. Not Asian in appearance, but rather Nordic. Tyler the five year old is actually hugging his little brother and shouts “Family Hug Time”. I gather my treasures in my arms. Treasures that were buried deep and almost lost. I sniff their hair and kiss their eyelids. They are so real and finally here. I am caught by the thought of that little girl, so different, that child of my infertility dreams. I think of her in the midst of solid, sturdy arms wrapped tight around my neck. And I bless her for keeping me company and giving me hope. Her image challenged me to find some inner strength.
In my mind’s eye, she asked me to find her. And I did. In two little boys.
Loving you from here,
Pamela Madsen
P.S. This is a writing from 1992 or thereabouts. When I was the Executive Director of The American Fertility Association. It remains one of my most favorite pieces of writing. I hope there is something here for you. | https://pamelamadsen.medium.com/conversations-with-my-un-conceived-child-102d77387175 | ['Pamela Madsen'] | 2020-11-02 20:52:25.431000+00:00 | ['Infertility', 'Birth', 'Conception', 'Children', 'Nurture'] |
Our Cultural Value as Women Is Decided by the Male Gaze | “Do I not exist?”
Grace and Frankie is one of my favorite Netflix shows. It’s about two women who are thrust into the same uniquely challenging circumstances when they discover that their husbands have been having an affair for 20 years.
The female character’s experiences speak quite loudly. As women age, society’s response is to make us frustratingly invisible.
In the show, Grace and Frankie are not only living through their seventies, they are rediscovering themselves. It would be challenging to find two more outwardly different woman, but at their core, both are on journeys that bring them closer together. The obstacles they face paint an egregious picture of what our super-progressive American culture values in women.
One scene of this show illustrates women’s invisibility particularly well.
Grace and Frankie are at a grocery store. As Frankie tries to get just one store clerk to respond to her, she and Grace are repeatedly ignored. Even when they yell for help, no one seems to hear them.
When a clerk finally begins to walk in their direction, it turns out that he actually has his eyes set on a young woman who arrives at the register much later than Grace and Frankie. As he proceeds to flirt with this customer, Grace loses her cool and screams, “Do I not exist?”
We like to pretend misogyny and sexism are culturally extreme values that don’t regularly permeate the lives of women. That’s just not true.
Video Source
The pressures of staying valuable in the male gaze
Even for women who haven’t yet reached their seventies, or their sixties, or even their fifties, this pressure of eventual invisibility reinforces in us that what matters in our culture is the male gaze. When we are no longer appealing to it, we will also be stripped of our worth.
This is why young women are pressured into getting married. What man’s going to want an old maid?
Even women learn to look at other women through the lens of the male gaze. This is one of the sicker victories of the patriarchy. It’s why dividing women even when it comes to our shared traumas is so easy.
There is a sickeningly common saying that “men age like fine wine and women age like milk.”
The male gaze values our sexual attractiveness. The male gaze values what we can do for men. So much of our social structure is dependent on this unequal distribution of power.
In a patriarchal structure like ours, all of the other valuable traits we women possess do not matter if men are not attracted to them. This is exactly the same logic that compels women with thriving professional careers and solid friendships to feel like they haven’t achieved anything worth having because there isn’t a man to validate it all with his existence. He doesn’t even have to be a particularly worthy one.
When we dissect what attractiveness means, we find that men and women have unequal claims to it.
While men are crowned with charming titles like “silver fox,” women are pushed out of professions due to their “advanced age.” Men are allotted decades longer to be considered attractive and handsome, while women’s attractiveness is dependent on their youthfulness.
There is a sickeningly common saying that “men age like fine wine and women age like milk.” This quote can stand alone in undressing exactly how the patriarchy seeks to diminish a woman’s worth. Years are stolen from women. We are reduced to the decades where we can be of service to men.
Things need to change, and not just a little bit
There’s always someone who comes out of the woodwork with the boring response that “things are changing. It’s just going to take some time.”
How much time? Can you tell me? Will sexism cease to exist during my lifetime? How about the next generation’s? Should I thank you for this comfort that you have tried to provide?
We like to pretend misogyny and sexism are culturally extreme values that don’t regularly permeate the lives of women. That’s just not true.
There are ways forward.
Our culture must actively and mindfully act on the knowledge that a woman’s worth is manifested in multitudinous other ways than how she can serve a man. Society’s definition of beauty must be literally overhauled. There is not way to be beautiful. Unattainable standards are just there to disempower us by keeping us visible only if we adhere to oppressive standards. No thanks.
A society that ignored women “of a certain age” is sexist. We must not accept the status quo of a culture that steals time and dimensionality away from women. We deserve more.
We always have. We are more than our looks and our beauty cannot be contained by the tired, needs-to-go definition put forth by the patriarchy.
As Grace says at the end of this scene, “I refuse to be irrelevant.” | https://medium.com/an-amygdala/our-cultural-value-as-women-is-decided-by-the-male-gaze-c70d77851abd | ['Rebeca Ansar'] | 2020-12-20 16:35:30.392000+00:00 | ['Television', 'Women', 'Culture', 'Feminism', 'Equality'] |
How to be productive | If you are reading this, it means you have somehow stumbled upon the story of a 21-year-old college student with 2 followers on Medium, good job! I am making the assumption that this was either a mistake or you are very desperate. Regardless, I encourage you to read for a minute or two and you might get a new sliver of information you can apply in your life.
I’ve read many productivity articles, watched YouTube videos telling me how I can organize to change my life, and self-reflected a bunch to see how I can improve. But I always seem to end back in the same spot, thinking more about how to be productive than well, actually being productive.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from productivity guides, it’s that they are not tailored for you, and what works for someone else can very likely not work for you.
My advice on how to be productive is to honestly throw all of the productivity articles and videos out the window and focus on things that work for you. I’m not saying you should never read or watch one again (well, kinda), but if you stop and actually think about your jobs, school, lifestyle; when have you been the most productive, when have you been the laziest, you will soon realize that you have full control over what you want to achieve, rather than waste time thinking about how to achieve it.
I do admit that I feel like a fraud writing this, because what do I know? I’m a young adult in college still trying to find out myself and what works best for me. But as an engineering student, when I reflect I find that the most productive I’ve been is where I don’t take time to look at what works for others, I hit the ground running and do what works best for me.
I do use planners still, but more as a guideline than a strict schedule because that had me feeling burnt out. I use Trello, a project management software, to plan tasks I want to get done each week with due-dates. This way I can pick and choose which task I feel the most passionate about working on and get it done the fastest, rather than dreading the strict schedule I set for myself.
I try to use the Pomodoro technique a lot now because I noticed it helps me from feeling overwhelmed, being able to take breaks. However, I don’t always use it like some people say you should do because there are times where I need to sit down with a piece of code for a few hours and grind it out to get the project done. Everything is situational.
I hope this article wasn’t a huge waste of time, cheers on being productive! | https://medium.com/@kaitlyndickinson/how-to-be-productive-303344a0bd0b | ['Kaitlyn Dickinson'] | 2020-12-24 21:05:14.411000+00:00 | ['Reflections', 'College', 'Planning', 'Burnout', 'Productivity'] |
The Unfulfilled Promise of Higher Ed | Higher education is afflicted by deep-rooted systemic inequities. Given this reality, what role can corporate L&D play to increase opportunities for learning and mobility for all?
College — and education more broadly — is the great equalizer. At least, that’s what many of us learned growing up and what we continue to teach our children. In reality, the path to college and subsequent job outcomes are highly dependent on your starting point.
To start, college attendance varies significantly depending on income level and racial background. The Association of American Colleges & Universities found that 87% of white high school graduates from families in the top income quartile go on to attend higher education, compared to 59% in the lowest quartile. Similarly, 91% of black high school graduates from the top income quartile go on to college, compared to 61% from the bottom quartile. Additionally, white students are more likely to come from high-income families than black students, and as a result, 71% of white high school graduates go on to college compared to 56% of black high school graduates. (This is also just the end point of traditional education; the gaps in primary and tertiary education outcomes are just as wide, if not wider, than higher education outcomes.)
Wealthy students also attend much different institutions than their less well-off counterparts. Roughly 80% of students from families in the top income quintile go on to attend public or nonprofit 4-year colleges, compared to 56% of students from the middle fifth and 36% from the bottom fifth.
Furthermore, wealthier students are more likely to attend selective colleges that provide meaningful enrichment and career opportunities: 69% of students from families in the top fifth go on to attend highly or moderately selective 4-year institutions, compared to 38% from the middle fifth and 22% from the bottom fifth.
National Center for Education Statistics
Simultaneously, the returns to a college education have never been higher; according to the Hamilton Project (a think-tank), the bachelor hourly wage premium remains well above 150%. These patterns exacerbate existing inequalities (access to quality food, healthcare, housing, and so forth) that limit meaningful access to economic opportunity for individuals who start lower on the economic ladder. It’s no surprise that intergenerational mobility in the U.S. is so much weaker than in other Western countries.
Brookings Institution
These trends highlight the deeply rooted systemic inequalities that burden low-income households as they work to acquire the skills and jobs needed to achieve economic sustainability. At Learn In, we believe that the solution is higher education and better access to higher education and more substantial opportunities for upskilling on the job, greater representation of low-income minorities at elite colleges and training opportunities to accelerate their progress up the corporate ladder. We don’t expect that corporate L&D on its own can reverse centuries of inequality, but we do believe that it has a meaningful role to play in complementing our existing educational system by providing job-relevant opportunities to nurture and develop talent. | https://medium.com/@learnin/the-unfulfilled-promise-of-higher-ed-c59a6107db7f | ['Learn In'] | 2020-12-22 18:19:52.906000+00:00 | ['Edtech', 'Higher Education', 'Education', 'Learning And Development', 'Training'] |
How to Verify A Thai Citizen | Overview
Thailand is struggling with the events of COVID, which is only exacerbating the existing economic issues. The latest lockdown measures may further delay the Thai economy’s recovery from its worst slump in more than two decades. Even before announcing the latest measures, Thailand’s central bank saw “significant downside risk” to its current 1.8% economic growth forecast for this year, saying a prolonged outbreak will squeeze business liquidity and hurt employment in the services sector. The Kingdom expects the economy to return to pre-COVID levels only in early 2023 if herd immunity is delayed to the end of next year.
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Status
Thailand is no longer on the FATF List of Countries identified as having strategic AML deficiencies.
In 2010, FATF identified Thailand’s progress in improving its AML/CFT legal and regulatory framework to meet its commitments in its Action Plan regarding the strategic deficiencies. Therefore, Thailand is no longer subject to FATF’s monitoring process under its ongoing global AML/CFT compliance process. Thailand will work with the APG as it continues to address the full range of AML/CFT issues identified in its Mutual Evaluation Report.
According to the latest Mutual Evaluations Report, Thailand was deemed compliant for 3 and largely compliant for 24 out of the 40 recommendations; and highly effective for 0 and substantially effective for 5 concerning the 11 areas of Effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime.
Regulators
Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO)
Founded in 1999, AMLO is the key agency in Thailand that is responsible for enforcing AML/CFT regulations. They play a pivotal role in solving crimes by implementing the AML/CFT measures to eliminate the commission of predicate offenses or block out utilization of assets connected with the commission of such crimes. Under the new laws, the powers of AMLO have increased to act as a central financial intelligence agency regulating companies both within and outside of Thailand.
Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG)
Thailand is a founding member of the APG (since 1997). The APG is an international governmental organisation. It consists of 41 member jurisdictions, focused on ensuring that its members effectively implement the international standards against money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing risks.
Relevant regulations
The Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) is the AML regulation applicable to every person in the jurisdiction of Thailand. Recently, the AMLA was updated and amended in compliance with the international standards of FATF.
In 2020, Thailand’s cabinet and parliament issued amendments to the AMLA to comply with the international standard of FATF. The reforms highlight a focus on financial technology services. The AMLA’s definition of financial institutions expanded to asset management and digital asset businesses, trustees in capital market trusts, personal load businesses, regulated e-payments systems and services, non-bank credit card service providers — but not limited to these businesses.
The government implemented a new customer due-diligence regulation under the Ministerial Regulation on Customer Due Diligence 2020. This regulation exempts reporting entities from the requirement to identify beneficial owners of certain types of customers, including government entities, special financial institutions, and listed companies.
Thai verification available
Thai citizens can be verified using government, commercial and credit data sources. Institutions can verify and validate their customers’ names, dates of birth, gender, province, phone number, addresses (based on their documentation) and document numbers. Citizens of Thailand can be verified using the following documents:
National identity card
The Thai national identity card is the official identity document issued by the Department of Provincial Administration, Ministry of the Interior. This document can be received by Thai citizens between the age of 7 and 70 years. You can verify your customers’ first name, last name, date of birth, and card number.
Passport
The Passport Division by the Department of Consular Affairs within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues the Thai passport. In 2020, a third version of the e-Passport was released that contains technical specifications that comply with the standards set out by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The e-Passport includes biometric data, helps to improve the verification process at immigration, and contains security features to prevent forgery. You can verify your customers’ first name, last name, date of birth, passport number, and nationality.
Driver licence
The Department of Land Transport under the Ministry of Transport issues the Thai driver’s licence. It allows you to drive in Thailand and other Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) states without an international driving permit. You can verify your customers’ first name, last name, date of birth, and licence number.
AML Screening
Global watchlists can identify ifThai citizens are high-risk individuals or entities. You can screen your customers against PEPs, Sanctions, and adverse media lists.
Author Sara Singh Tak, Data Zoo Marketing Specialist | https://medium.com/@datazooglobal/how-to-verify-a-thai-citizen-fb7975a57e76 | ['Data Zoo'] | 2021-07-15 05:43:35.126000+00:00 | ['Fintech', 'Identity Verification', 'Thailand', 'Aml', 'Kyc'] |
Finally Friday | It was the end of the work day and David wasn’t ready to go home. Friday was the day everyone looked forward to, but not David. There wasn’t anything, anyone, waiting for him at home. At least at work there was the commotion, the bustling of life. At home there was a worn out couch and a TV, bright and vibrant as it may be, but it wasn’t enough.
Reluctantly, he closed out of his email and turned off his computer. His jacket, which was draped over his chair, wouldn’t be enough to help him avoid the rain falling down in buckets out the window. When he got into his car, a sedan with three payments left, he was drenched.
At home he took off his shoes and flicked the light switch, only to watch as the room ignited for a moment before being swallowed in darkness after a sizzling pop came from the light-bulb.
The only thing in the fridge was leftovers from the night before, fried rice and vegetables.
As he waited for the TV to boot up, having to always make sure it was connected to the WiFi before he started going into the various apps, he placed a bowl of leftovers in the microwave. When the timer went off he found a movie worth watching, a romantic comedy.
He burned his mouth with the first bite. The second bite also burned his mouth. He laughed when he was supposed to, wiped a regrettable tear (he put hot sauce on his rice and managed to get some on his hand), and washed his face. When the movie was over he took out his laptop and went to a dating website, just to see if there was any validity to the movie. He’d tried dating sites in the past, but they never seemed to work. Nobody he ever met up with seemed like they wanted the real thing, although he wasn’t sure he knew what the “real thing” was.
After taking a half hour to make his profile he put some water on the stove for tea. By the time his tea had finished steeping he sat down at the kitchen table and noticed his profile already had some alerts. He smirked, sipped, and opened the first message.
“I love your profile,” said Kristen, from six miles away. “I don’t have any pets either, but agree that dogs are the best!”
David responded. Then Kristen replied back. Eventually they started talking on the phone. Soon it was 1:00 am, a time David hadn’t seen in nearly five years. They agreed it best to go to bed, but made plans to meet up for coffee the next day. | https://medium.com/the-coffee-pot/finally-friday-706ce8f40127 | ['Dan Leicht'] | 2020-09-11 11:01:01.448000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Fiction', 'Short Story', 'Love', 'Dating'] |
The Difference Between Busy and Productive | Being busy is not the same as being productive. I spent years saying “yes” to every opportunity and packing my schedule with activities. It was the productivity version of a Michael Bay movie — lots of action but a general lack of meaning and character development and pacing. But then I had a moment when I “broke up with busy” and eventually learned the difference between being busy and being productive. Here’s my story.
Breaking Up with Busy
When I was a new teacher, I believed I had to give 110% in everything I did. I thought that the best teachers were the ones who arrived first and left last. I was a busy teacher, taking on all kinds of committee work and saying yes to every project. But then I had a moment when I decided to “break up with busy.”
About eight years ago, I arrived home from work and my five-year-old son was already holding up a baseball.
“We can play, but I don’t have a lot of time,” I told him.
All I could think about was my to-do list. I had a department meeting to plan, papers to grade, and small projects to finish. However, as I slipped on the baseball glove, something changed. I forgot about my list. We tossed the ball back and forth.
But my son kept asking, “Is there still time?”
Is there still time?
I couldn’t answer it.
So, that night, I met with my wife and talked about my schedule. It was a hard conversation, where we talked about long-term priorities and what kind of a dad, husband, and teacher I wanted to be. I realized something critical: I was chasing perfectionism and trying to make a bunch of people happy and neglecting the people who mattered most.
That’s when I broke up with busy. I quit committees. I limited my projects. I set a curfew for myself at work. I learned when to give 110% and when to give 11 or 12 percent.
See, I was drowning in busy and yet I’d been wearing busy like a badge of honor; like I was winning some imaginary competition. But life isn’t a game. Actually, Life is a board game and I think it’s also a cereal (at least according to Mikey).
But here’s the thing: You don’t get a trophy for packing your schedule with more projects and more accomplishments and more meetings.
All you get is a bigger load of busy. But busy is hurried. Busy is overwhelmed. Busy is fast. Busy is careless. Busy is a hamster wheel that never ends and a sprint up the ladder without ever asking where it leads. There are moments when life gets busy. I get that. But I never want busy to be the new normal. I never want to look back at life and say, “Wow, I was really good at being busy.”
I Became More Productive When I “Broke Up with Busy”
When I made the leap and decided to “break up with busy,” I noticed something happening. I actually became a better teacher. After the difficult conversation with my wife, I remember thinking that I would be making sacrifices as an educator. However, that’s not what happened. I actually had more time, more energy, and more mental bandwidth to create epic projects for students. It turns out that I was more productive when I was able to rest. Here’s what I mean:
I crafted better projects. I finally had the time to prepare project-based learning unit plans and resources because I wasn’t spending insane amounts of time inputting grades or putting together bulletin boards. I took creative risks. Once I found the root cause of overworking, I began to experiment with student-centered learning and get over the fear of making mistakes as a teacher. I had already been shifting toward project-based learning and design thinking but now I felt the freedom to take it to the next level. I started transforming my practice. I began to focus on the things that mattered most and giving myself the permission to be less-than-perfect in areas that were not as important. This ultimately helped me to prioritize and focus on transforming instruction in my own classroom. I became more of a maker in my own life. I began to engage in creative work in my spare time. For example, I started to do a Thursday evening Genius Hour project which ultimately led to things like a novel or sketch videos. I still make time for passion projects each week. For years, my wife and I have both taken one night a week to go work on our own passion projects. I shifted further toward student agency and empowerment. I had already been asking the question, “What am I doing for my students that they could be doing for themselves?” I was on the journey toward empowering students with voice and choice. However, once I was truly able to “break up with busy,” I took this student ownership to the next level by letting students self-select the scaffolding, engage in their own project management, and assess their own learning.
Being Busy or Being Productive?
There’s a difference between being busy and being productive. Being busy is about working harder while being productive is about working smarter. Being busy is frantic while being productive is focused. Being busy is fueled by perfectionism while being productive is fueled by purpose. Being busy is about being good at everything while being productive is about being great at a few important things.
The following video explores this in-depth:
Nine Changes I Made in the Shift from Busy to Productive
Ultimately, when I broke up with busy, I learned how to be productive. This is what it looked like for me: | https://medium.com/synapse/the-difference-between-busy-and-productive-bdb08cb5986a | ['John Spencer'] | 2020-04-12 21:53:42.702000+00:00 | ['Creative Productivity', 'Teachers', 'Education', 'Productivity'] |
Love these public systems! | Pegasus Design System Pro for Figma
Move projects to your users faster with a UI Kit designed for greater consistency and usability that adapts to your… | https://medium.com/@hellojohnnymac/love-these-public-systems-e5dae5556bf1 | ['John Macmenamin'] | 2020-12-04 13:10:24.789000+00:00 | ['Design System'] |
Sometimes You Feel Every Human Emotion at Once | Sometimes You Feel Every Human Emotion at Once
What I learned tracking my feelings every day for a year | https://humanparts.medium.com/sometimes-you-feel-every-human-emotion-at-once-d3ed5d7b2b08 | ['Sophie Lucido Johnson'] | 2020-12-11 18:18:07.803000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Emotions', 'This Is Us', 'Comics', 'Self'] |
Vision 2027-Ideal Version of Myself | In the era of the digital world, startups are evolving vigorously and among them, one name is Aditya Rajotia. He is of the top successful personalities in digital marketing and turns into a unicorn in 6 years, he is a youth icon in the digital era and has marked his signature in the digital world. He provides online services and owns an XYZ agency to train and motivate the youth of the future world.
He has a group of 201 individuals, Mostly clients from Asian and European nations, and works distantly with no actual headquarters in that capacity, he says one can telecommute or work distantly, simply need to trust in ourselves and comprehend the genuine force of the internet, then, at that point there will be no requirement for corporate workplaces, going for work.
Gazing at the world, Ideal me-Just begin more milestone to achieve
Aditya is from Delhi-NCR, who remotely accesses all his work, he hardly meets his team once/twice a year physically, he gives a new definition of work by not going to the workplace, balancing the life of work and home with the help of the internet, turning into an expert and useful as in genuine corporate life. It’s not freelancing anymore, it’s a 2.0 version of freelancing.
He quotes ‘’this is the future of work and will all be our boss’’. All you need is the internet and your determination to master your skills, don’t run for a better life blindly ’’just be your boss’’, and one day the world will follow you.
He owns a luxury house and Farmhouse in Delhi-NCR and Bangalore itself, he travels 7 months in a year abroad working remotely, and in the remaining months he loves to spend time with family in his luxury home and farmhouse with remote access to work, he also has a good collection of luxury cars.
Ideal Home
He has a positive approach towards life and never recede to opposing forces. He meditates and does body exercise daily without fail, as physical and mental health are requisite of happiness. Good health is something we can not buy, he added don’t bargain with the norm in your life, just hang tight for the ideal opportunity.
The impact of his lifestyle motivated youths to start their career in the digital era and want to become their own boss.
Get insights into the development levels in Digital Marketing
Hey, everyone this post is a part of my internship(Digital Deepak internship Program) assignment, hope you will appreciate the efforts. | https://medium.com/@adityaeddy/vision-2027-ideal-version-of-myself-5073bd2654eb | ['Aditya Eddy'] | 2021-08-23 06:24:36.193000+00:00 | ['Digital', 'Future Of Work', 'Ideal Version', 'Startup', 'Vision'] |
Three Celestial Messages from the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter | Three Celestial Messages from the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter
The upcoming planetary alignment might impact your love, spirit, career, life and more
Art from Getty images/ Allure: Clara Hendler
The biggest astrological event of out lifetimes arrives on December 21. Jupiter and Saturn will appear the closest they have been since 1623.
The vibrations of the two planets will blend and work together effortlessly.
Henry Throop, an astronomer in the planetary division at NASA perfectly explains why this phenomenon is extraordinary.
“You can imagine the solar system to be a racetrack, with each of the planets as a runner in their own lane… From our vantage point, we’ll be able to see Jupiter on the inside lane, approaching Saturn all month and finally overtaking it on December 21.”
We are lucky to be able to witness the birth of a new consciousness as the energy created by the Great Conjunction will change the way we think and live.
The alignment will be special because it’ll occur in the sign of Aquarius, and the planets will only be 0.1 degrees apart.
Aquarius is the most humanitarian sign and symbolises harmony. It encourages us to nurture our unique qualities and let our hearts guide us from a foundation of love.
The air energy of Aquarius is about high-tech and creating things that work through light waves.
The association of wise Aquarius, boundary-setting Saturn and passionate Jupiter announces a new age of enlightenment.
I believe there are three fascinating messages from the Great Conjunction. | https://medium.com/la-biblioth%C3%A8que/three-celestial-messages-from-the-great-conjunction-of-saturn-and-jupiter-8d223dc8ffb7 | ['Charlotte Zobeir Ali'] | 2020-12-21 08:09:00.635000+00:00 | ['Spirituality', 'Ideas', 'Space', 'Energy', 'NASA'] |
Liquidity Tutorials — Hands-on Series — Part 2 | Photo by Weiwei Chen from Pexels
This is the second part of a tutorial series on writing smart contracts in Liquidity. See the first part here.
Last time we wrote the identity contract, and ran a simulation of it. This time, we’ll write a contract that sends one tez to another account. We’ll also deploy the contract to the testnet (Alphanet), and call it to see it in action!
The contract
The caller of this contract initiates a transfer from the contract’s account to the destination (receiver’s) address. The Liquidity code below is saved as send_one_tez.liq:¹
type storage = unit
let%entry main
(key : key_hash)
_storage =
let op = Account.transfer ~dest:key ~amount:1tz in
( [op], () )
In this contract:
the storage is unit.
is unit. the parameter is the address of the receiver of the 1 tez, of type key_hash.
is the address of the receiver of the 1 tez, of type key_hash. there is only one entry point, called main:
its inputs are:
the parameter of the contract, i.e., the address of the receiver of the transfer, of type key_hash. the storage, i.e., unit, of type unit. Because we don’t need to call this value in the entry point, it does not need to be named. The underscore before the variable name indicates this.
its output is a pair of operation list and storage:
the operation list has one element, op, of type operation, and it is the Account.transfer operation. More on this below. the storage, i.e., unit, of type unit. The storage is unaltered in this contract.
Let’s take a closer look at the Account.transfer operation. It has the following type signature:
dest:key_hash -> amount:tez -> operation
It takes two inputs, dest, of type key_hash, and amount, of type tez. In Liquidity, it is represented by tz. The output is of type operation. The contract executes an internal operation: a transfer, of the amount specified, from the contract to the implicit (default) account of dest. In this contract, we have specified the dest to be the parameter (named key) and the amount to be 1 tz.
Deploy and call
Now let’s verify that the contract does what it intends to do. We’ll first check the balances of the relevant parties. Then, we deploy and call the contract. After the call we check the balances again to see the change in balances.
Accounts and balances
In this example I have three accounts (adam, alice, and bob) activated. Follow this for instructions on activating accounts.
Adam deploys/originates the contract. Alice calls the contract. Bob is the recipient of the 1 tez.
To call the contract (with Liquidity), we need to know alice’s private key and hash, and bob’s hash.
Running tezos-client show address alice -S --show-secret shows the following for alice:
Hash: tz1ccqAEwfPgeoipnXtjAv1iucrpQv3DFmmS
Public Key: edpku5LTYXxXKTjmzj9qtHR6TTYH1K6JU7bFe8MyJs6qabUs9kiZes
Secret Key: unencrypted:edsk2gKnmssYQB5sNCAL6sCcgfPRZDuK1zixBowAQ1H1WCt78JxEhf
alice is a fake account on the testnet. Remember, NEVER disclose your secret key!
Running tezos-client show address bob shows the following for bob:
Hash: tz1Ra8yQVQN4Nd7LpPQ6UT6t3bsWWqHZ9wa6
Public Key: edpktqrmQgDqvdCZM4msb9eDpe2adQ6NDgE7Jax34ABPzvw2Pk9SaT
Before we call the contract, which will execute the transfer of 1 tez, let’s check the balances of the accounts:
tezos-client get balance for adam
11331.543993 ꜩ
tezos-client get balance for alice
29399.641915 ꜩ
tezos-client get balance for bob
7704.71877 ꜩ
Deploy
Compile send_one_tez.liq to .tz (by running liquidity send_one_tez.liq ). Deploy the contract with on the Tezos command line interface (CLI) with:
tezos-client originate contract sendtez for adam transferring 1 from adam running [path to]/send_one_tez.tz --burn-cap 0.43
I name the contract sendtez.
The contract is originated for Adam, i.e., Adam is the manager of the contract.
1 tez is transferred from Adam to the contract.
The --burn-cap option is needed because this operation will burn higher than the default of 0.
Alternatively, one can deploy/call a contract using Liquidity or the Liquidity online editor.
The output confirms that the contract is injected to the network with the address KT1Cm2wXCJVUb7QMqHEK4xFtvGh9XUMQ2Py8:
Node is bootstrapped, ready for injecting operations.
Estimated gas: 14470 units (will add 100 for safety)
Estimated storage: 430 bytes added (will add 20 for safety)
Operation successfully injected in the node.
Operation hash is 'ooAS5avXzYK8KsZc7e5DfY7o6Pd2trHvqkgsYFFRVbpn9eXSEkq'
Waiting for the operation to be included...
Operation found in block: BMVp7boyyk1r8mcEKyeG5kzDvUD6zB4zfXrbSDAHaSEFWCAsnLZ (pass: 3, offset: 0)
This sequence of operations was run:
Manager signed operations:
From: tz1fPjyo55HwUAkd1xcL5vo6DGzJrkxAMpiD
Fee to the baker: ꜩ0.001886
Expected counter: 40385
Gas limit: 14570
Storage limit: 450 bytes
Balance updates:
tz1fPjyo55HwUAkd1xcL5vo6DGzJrkxAMpiD ............. -ꜩ0.001886
fees(tz3WXYtyDUNL91qfiCJtVUX746QpNv5i5ve5,177) ... +ꜩ0.001886
Origination:
From: tz1fPjyo55HwUAkd1xcL5vo6DGzJrkxAMpiD
For: tz1fPjyo55HwUAkd1xcL5vo6DGzJrkxAMpiD
Credit: ꜩ1
Script:
{ parameter key_hash ;
storage unit ;
code { DUP ;
DIP { CDR @_storage_slash_1 } ;
DIP { DROP } ;
CAR @key_slash_2 ;
IMPLICIT_ACCOUNT ;
PUSH mutez 1000000 ;
UNIT ;
TRANSFER_TOKENS @op ;
UNIT ;
NIL operation ;
DUUUP ;
DIIIP { DROP } ;
CONS ;
PAIR } }
Initial storage: Unit
No delegate for this contract
This origination was successfully applied
Originated contracts:
KT1Cm2wXCJVUb7QMqHEK4xFtvGh9XUMQ2Py8
Storage size: 173 bytes
Paid storage size diff: 173 bytes
Consumed gas: 14470
Balance updates:
tz1fPjyo55HwUAkd1xcL5vo6DGzJrkxAMpiD ... -ꜩ0.173
tz1fPjyo55HwUAkd1xcL5vo6DGzJrkxAMpiD ... -ꜩ0.257
tz1fPjyo55HwUAkd1xcL5vo6DGzJrkxAMpiD ... -ꜩ1
KT1Cm2wXCJVUb7QMqHEK4xFtvGh9XUMQ2Py8 ... +ꜩ1
New contract KT1Cm2wXCJVUb7QMqHEK4xFtvGh9XUMQ2Py8 originated.
The operation has only been included 0 blocks ago.
We recommend to wait more.
Use command
tezos-client wait for ooAS5avXzYK8KsZc7e5DfY7o6Pd2trHvqkgsYFFRVbpn9eXSEkq to be included --confirmations 30 --branch BL8o7pZFbHAgAVheKMFLKWUwWJtSj6eaz7QvQLYojKJavmvTAyf
and/or an external block explorer.
Contract memorized as sendtez.
The output also shows that Adam paid for various fees to deploy the contract, and the contract’s balance is increased by 1 tez. We can check that the contract has a balance of 1 tez:
tezos-client get balance for sendtez
1 ꜩ
Call
Now we can call the contract. Let’s use Liquidity this time! Use the Liquidity command (see the full list of commands with liquidity --help ) --call [contract address] [entry point name] [receipent's key_hash] (in my case, bob’s key hash):
The output confirms that the call is successful:
Main contract Send_one_tez
Successful call to contract KT1Cm2wXCJVUb7QMqHEK4xFtvGh9XUMQ2Py8 in operation opANAeVfLmiVnXvgNVvtkuqMBFW73ZPPZQZ5SCkEpcjmZzSZo3A
To check that one tez was transferred from the contract to bob, let’s check their balances:
tezos-client get balance for sendtez
0 ꜩ
tezos-client get balance for bob
7705.71877 ꜩ
bob’s balance has indeed gone up by 1tz. alice paid for the transaction fees that calls the contract, so her balance is down by a little:
tezos-client get balance for alice
29399.591915 ꜩ
In the next tutorial, we’ll step up our game and write a contract that publishes authenticated data. Stay tuned! | https://medium.com/@thealmarty/liquidity-tutorials-hands-on-series-part-2-9c493836373a | ['Marty Stumpf'] | 2019-11-21 19:36:44.429000+00:00 | ['Development', 'Smart Contracts', 'Liquidity', 'Blockchain', 'Tezos'] |
The Product Manager <> Product Ops Relationship | The flexibility afforded to the product operations role is beneficial in so long as the overlapping responsibilities with other roles, primarily the product manager, are kept to a minimum. This article is focused on disambiguating the relationship between product operations and product managers.
Product Manager, meet Product Ops What is Product Ops? The Cost Paid for Flexibility: Overlapping Responsibilities Divide and Conquer: Proposed Division of Responsibility Disambiguating Shared Areas of Responsibility Final thoughts
Product Manager, meet Product Ops
The product manager will typically be the owner of the product and all its deliverables. Anyone who has ever worked as, worked with, or read about a product manager can tell you that they typically are responsible for all aspects of the product development — from roadmapping to the roll-out. And that’s true. Especially in small and mid-size companies, product managers can and should own all aspects of their product development, or partner with analysts/operations where appropriate.
Increasingly, however, many large company product organizations are finding that pairing their product managers with product operations can drastically improve the outcomes of the product team. Product managers are reporting that stakeholder communication, bugs, user feedback, and product audits are consuming so much of their time that they hardly have the necessary time to spend on strategy — enter product ops. As I like to say, as a general rule of thumb, product ops prioritizes the urgent so that product managers can prioritize the important. Put another way, the purpose of product ops is to enable product teams to achieve better outcomes
What is Product Ops?
Product operations is still a relatively new role, but one that many expect to grow in popularity and relevance in the near future. Although product ops roles may manifest themselves differently on different teams within the same company or across companies, the purpose of the role is typically to enable product teams to achieve better outcomes. This article by Blake Bassett does a great job at laying out what the role is and the key tasks and competencies associated — but this isn’t the topic I’ll dive deeply into in this article. I would summarize to say that product operations typically focuses on …
Ensuring the highest product quality, through bug triaging, dogfooding, product audits, and data analysis. Acting as the driver of change management, by ensuring ops strategy is informed of and aligned to product strategy, by driving and leading roll-outs including developing strike-teams where appropriate, and by regularly communicating updates and feature expectations. Informing product roadmapping/strategy, by accumulating user pain points, generating hypothesis across product teams and features, and by facilitating feedback amongst core stakeholders within and across product teams
The Cost Paid for Flexibility: Overlapping Responsibilities
Anyone who has worked in a product operations role, however, will tell you that the role is more ambiguous than most. Ambiguity is priceless for product ops in that it gives us the ability to flex as needed, ensuring the highest team quality and velocity at all times. This flexibility enables us to not only fill in for the roles on our immediate product teams as necessary (e.g. data analyst, product manager), but also to take on roles/responsibilities that may not have been foreseen (e.g. strike-team leader). I for one, wouldn’t trade the ambiguity for the world.
But the ambiguity does come at a cost: overlapping responsibilities with others. There is the occasional overlap with data analyst, program manager, and ops manager — but the undisputed source of the most frequent overlap of responsibilities involves the product manager herself.
The overlap can happen for a few reasons: priorities or team structures may change, responsibilities may be implied rather than defined from the start, or swim lanes may degrade over time as the team gets comfortable. Maybe certain individuals have more expertise and then narrow in on a specific set of responsibilities without much thought. Regardless of how it may happen, it typically leads to redundancy, a lack of velocity, and uncertainty over who the decision maker is….what to do?
Divide and Conquer: Proposed Division of Responsibility
As a rule of thumb, product ops prioritizes the urgent so that product managers can prioritize the important. Of course, no one should be prioritizing the less important and, as the Eisenhower Matrix taught us, urgent and important tasks should still be done first while less urgent, less important tasks should not be done at all.
More important but less urgent tasks are typically ones that are difficult to prioritize if your day is taken up by fire drills and meetings. When product managers, who are typically hired for their strategy and vision amongst other qualities, can spend more time on these tasks, the team as a whole benefits. These tasks include roadmapping, story creation, backlog prioritization done in conjunction with the development team, identification of where the team needs more analysis/deeper research, leading discovery alongside designers, and competitive analysis.
Less important (but still important), more urgent tasks are prime for product operations, with their skilled execution and stakeholder manager skills, to take on. This includes outages and/or bug triaging (working closely with engineering), feature audits to ensure quality of new or existent features, roll-out plans and facilitation, regular gathering of user feedback, and regular communication to stakeholders alongside feature expectations.
You’ll notice that high urgency, high importance tasks are typically shared evenly by product ops and product managers, but that product managers take those tasks that are relatively more important and less urgent. I also think that tasks across these spectrums can be equally impactful contributions to product outcomes; paradoxically, just because something is less important, doesn’t mean it’s less impactful — at least according to this framework!
Disambiguating Shared Areas of Responsibility
Of course, product managers and product operations will still have shared responsibilities when it comes to many of these activities. Here again, we benefit from defining what each responsibility looks like to a product manager vs to product operations.
Generally speaking, the product manager will be the one responsible for more strategy focused work within certain tasks, while product ops will be responsible for execution and communication focused work. For more strategic tasks, this manifests itself in the product manager doing most of the work while product ops supports and ensures stakeholders are informed and aligned. For example, while developing product roadmaps, the product manager will be responsible for the hypotheses, the alignment across product teams, and identifying where additional research is needed, while product ops will share user problems/feedback to inform the approach of the product manager while facilitating conversation between stakeholders. For more execution oriented tasks, this manifests itself in product ops doing most of the work with the product manager being accountable to the metrics that must be met and the prioritization of tasks to meet those metrics. For example, during roll-outs (especially longer, months long roll-outs) product ops typically owns timelines, expectations, training, and gathering feedback, while the product manager is accountable to the KPI set.
This division generally aligns with the skill set that product ops vs product managers are hired for: product managers tend to have more vision and technical depth, while product ops is relatively better at stakeholder management and execution — see the visual on the right.
Final Thoughts
As the product ops <> product manager relationship continues to evolve, so should the division of responsibility. The flexibility afforded to the product operations role is a benefit in so long as the associated cost (the overlapping responsibilities) is kept to a minimum. Is there anything you would add or disagree with in the above framework? For smaller companies that have embraced the product operations role, does this still apply? If not, how would it differ? Product ops is often a gateway to a product manager role — how have you seen product ops responsibilities evolve as they grow towards a product manager?
I created the visuals and frameworks in this article — if you’d like to use them for yourself, please do! | https://medium.com/@jasontgirouard/the-product-manager-product-ops-relationship-eabb69a5b753 | ['Jason Girouard'] | 2020-12-29 23:38:49.638000+00:00 | ['Product', 'Product Development', 'Product Ops', 'Product Management', 'Product Operation'] |
My Hands Betrayed Me | Today I write about the unfaithfulness of my hands. The lethargic style they adopted and the faulty impact on my brain. I will just go straight to the point.
I have lost it, or let’s say I’m losing it. I’m losing the friendship, companionship, trust, love, and everything amazing relationship that my pen has with my note. And all thanks to my hands
How did I get here, the point to which my note and pen are unlovable?
To which my pen lies unproductive in the leaves of my plain notes
To which my pen no longer calls my note comforting and my note no longer calls my pen Smart.
They swore to be together forever Comfort & Smart forever.
At what point did they lose interest in each other
Who would have thought that my pen would see my note and not crave to design it with letters from its heart or that my note would rather stay plain than be graced by the intelligent words of my pen?
Who would have thought that they’d go days, weeks, months without craving each other’s presence?
How did I miss not writing in a day, now two days, a week now a month and counting..
I’m not aware of the fight between my pen and note
I do not know the day they disagreed and chose to be apart
I can’t tell if they’ve been unfaithful to each other.
But I know my hands knew and kept it from me. I don’t even have an excuse but my hands knew all along and they didn’t tell me.
From the pinching of my right fingers around my pen to my lazy left palm relaxing on my notebook to the movement of my wrist and arms, I couldn’t have been more disappointed.
Today my hands choose to reconcile by the way. I understand that my note will not pick my pen and write by itself, it would take the effort of my hand. That effort is “ me being deliberate”
Perhaps, I haven’t been deliberate about writing hence I am my hand, my hand is me.
This rant is to many years of writing again.
Cheers! | https://medium.com/@techisfemale/my-hands-betrayed-me-80ee19b29e6d | [] | 2020-05-04 17:55:50.441000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Software Testing', 'People', 'Betrayal', 'Writers Life'] |
DCA Blog Series 2 we Build your presentation website for just 150 EUR | DCA Blog Series 2 we Build your presentation website for just 150 EUR DigitalCenturyAssets Jun 17·2 min read
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Together we will find the right strategy for your online project | https://medium.com/@digitalcenturyassets/dca-blog-series-2-we-build-your-presentation-website-for-just-150-eur-cf2eacbbb89a | [] | 2021-06-17 17:23:30.451000+00:00 | ['Web Marketing', 'Website Design', 'Build Your Website', 'Web Development', 'Website'] |
12 — Highly Important Skills, Every Kid Must LEARN. | The age of 3–12 years is the most critical point of every children's life. This is the period when their brain is learning things at a high speed.
The skills which am going to talk about, are highly essential skills for an adult to perform at their highest level.
12 — Important skills are:
Problem Solving Goal Setting+Power of Discipline & Will Power Swimming, Cycling, athletics, Riding Improv Life’s Ethics (Sins + Vices) Art of Meditation Spirituality & Time Management Bodybuilding Money & Financial Literacy Power of Choice. Science & art of Concentration Self Defense + Bushcraft
If from early on, we instill these Extremely important skills, then our future generation youngsters will be much more mentally & emotionally stable individuals.
I have this dream that this entire course to be taught in each & every school and colleges all around the world. It should be open to all, even adults from any walks of life can easily learn these skills.
Be Great. | https://medium.com/@samrat007/12-highly-important-skills-every-kid-must-learn-5b5bca7c25e4 | ['Samrat Chakraborty'] | 2020-12-23 06:58:24.284000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Success', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Habits', 'Wealth'] |
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Losing My Grandparents: Izumi’s Story | What happened to them?
My grandmother was admitted to the ER one night after complaining of breathing difficulties, she was soon diagnosed with pneumonia and died after a 1-week stay at the hospital.
My grandfather on the other hand noticed a strange lump growing aggressively on the side of his face so we brought him to the hospital to get checked, it turned out to be stage 4 parotid cancer.
What was the most difficult part of losing them?
I had a very close relationship with my grandmother especially, throughout my life she had always been very affectionate and caring towards me especially at times of need. My biggest regret was knowing that I didn’t visit her as often as I could and now I no longer have the chance to do so.
Do you remember your last encounter with them, what was it like?
When my grandmother was hospitalised, I spent a couple of nights sleeping over to accompany her. At that point, she was no longer able to speak so she responded mostly by nodding or shaking her head. On her last day with us, I was supposed to travel to Penang for work so I told her about it and asked her to wait for me to get back. She squeezed my hand and nodded.
The last time I saw my grandfather was when I dropped him and my aunts off at Hospital Putrajaya. He was feeling especially weak and they wanted to get him checked out. I had a flight leaving in a few hours to London and was contemplating whether I should even leave. I left and I remember seeing him through the glass doors of the hospital entrance, hunched in his wheelchair. It was one of the saddest moments in my life, I’ve never seen him in such a state before. He was always very independent, active and strong.
Visiting my grandfather at the hospital, a few weeks before he passed.
How did you cope with your own feelings?
My emotions were mostly up and down for the first few months, one of my biggest regrets was that I wasn’t present when both of them took their last breaths. I started spending hours on Reddit reading about other people’s experiences of losing a loved one and watched countless videos on Youtube of families surrounding their dying loved ones. My search history back then was pretty dark, haha!
I tried to cope with their passing by looking at photos of them on my phone, it was strangely comforting and was exactly what I needed to transition into this new phase of life without the both of them.
A gloomy day in London when we found out my grandfather has died.
If they could hear you now, what would you say to them?
Mainly I would like to apologise for not visiting them as much as I could have and I want them to know that I’ll always appreciate everything that they’ve done for me. I hope they know they’re one of the most important people in my life and I think of them all the time.
What is your favourite memory of them?
Definitely, the time when my grandfather taught me how to drive a car when I was 15 years old! He even joked that 15 was too old as he learned to drive when he was only 12.
I also think about all the times I would hang out with my grandmother chatting about my day at school, I remember complaining a lot but she always listened no matter how much I whined.
How do you feel now, are you still struggling?
It gets more manageable in time but I still think of them very often, especially my grandmother whose bed I now sleep on. I still end up crying whenever I talk about them but I’d like to think of those as happy tears.
I once heard a grief counsellor say that losing someone you love is like having a 50kg dumbbell thrown at you suddenly. At first, you struggle to carry that weight but in time you’ll get stronger and it becomes more manageable. But, the weight stays the same, it is you who’ll change.
What advice would you offer someone who is grieving?
Don’t rush to feel better, grief is a lifelong journey and you can’t expect to wake up one day and ‘move on’. Embrace your own feelings because it only means that they mean so much to you and that’s a good thing. And cry whenever you feel like it, emotions are meant to be expressed not suppressed. I‘ll leave you guys with one of my favourite quotes about grieving.
“Some things cannot be fixed, they can only be carried.” | https://medium.com/@bereev/losing-my-grandparents-izumis-story-e8de75e6e16f | [] | 2021-08-14 06:37:10.887000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Death', 'Grandparents', 'Startup', 'Real Stories'] |
The #1 Best Canned Soup for Weight Loss | Canned soup may not be the most glamorous of meals, but there’s not anything more convenient than the warmth-and-eat ease of beginning a can on a busy weeknight or for a workday lunch. Canned soups maintain in your pantry for ages, so even in the case, you’re all out of clean ingredients, having a few options handy may keep you from grabbing less-than-nutritious takeout. In case you’re trying to shed pounds, their mixture of convenience and prolonged shelf existence is a primary plus.
In reality, even though canned soups get a bad rap for their excessive sodium content, the right options may be fairly healthy — no longer to mention weight reduction-friendly. As a nutritionist, I’m usually happy to share my pointers on deciding on the one that’ll assist, no longer avert, your weight reduction dreams.
Canva
First, you’ll want to keep your eye on a few specific line items on the nutrition facts label, starting with calories per serving. Though calorie counting can be an overly restrictive weight loss strategy, calories do, of course, matter. My advice: look for a canned soup with about 400 calories per can or less. For most people, this is enough to make soup feel like a real meal.
While it may seem like calories per serving is the most important value to zero in on, there’s more to the weight loss equation than scaling back on them. I recommend looking at a soup’s content of fiber and protein, too. Studies show that a higher intake of fiber is associated with lower body weight. What’s that about, you may ask? Some research shows that fiber increases feelings of fullness, which makes us eat less. Meanwhile, fiber serves as “food” for the healthy bacteria in your gut. A thriving microbiome has been linked to lower body mass index (BMI).
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Getting enough protein in your diet is another key component of weight loss. Protein promotes satiety (aka feeling full) even more than carbs and fat, while also boosting the body’s metabolic rate. This is where many canned soups don’t deliver, however. Many are extremely low in protein, so always take a look at this entry on the nutrition label of your favorite can.
Canva
Looking for an example of a canned soup that checks all the weight loss boxes? Try a cozy bowl of Amy’s Organic Split Pea Soup, Light in Sodium. With just 120 calories per cup (and 200 in the entire can), it’s extremely low in calories — so low, in fact, that you may want to supplement it with a salad or side of whole wheat bread to round out your meal. A sizable 5 grams of fiber and 7 grams of protein per serving add to the pro-weight loss package.
Not only does this split pea soup make a weight loss-friendly choice, it also comes with some extra bonuses, too. One serving provides just 13% of the daily value of sodium — a far cry from many sodium-bomb canned soups you’ll find on grocery shelves.
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Plus, its organic ingredients are a better choice for the environment than conventionally grown ones. If you live with food allergies or intolerances, this soup can likely stay on your menu, since it’s free of gluten, dairy, lactose, soy, corn, and tree nuts. Last but not least, the flavors of basil, garlic, and bay leaves make for savory sipping and spooning.
Whether weight loss is your goal or you’d just like a warm-you-up bowl of flavor, you can’t go wrong with this hearty classic.
Related: Sign up for our newsletter for the latest health and food news!
If you are looking for more weight loss tips, download our free Ebook at [DOWNLOAD] today.
Youtube: WEIGHT LOSS MOTIVATION | https://medium.com/@mauracorigan/the-1-best-canned-soup-for-weight-loss-fba0c9869b62 | ['Maura Corigan'] | 2021-12-27 06:01:04.015000+00:00 | ['Weightloss Tips', 'Weight Loss', 'Health', 'Weightloss Foods', 'Soup'] |
bleed | I lie here and breathe through you
invisible bruise. obdurate pain.
suffering is a consistent visitor
divert focus to a bus ambling by
its rumble an impotent noise
you demand to be felt
curl me up into a fetal ball
roll it back to girlhood-before
your unannounced arrival
the aches and pills and tears
over petty things, over heavy things
the incorrigible bleed
announcing my womanhood. | https://medium.com/meri-shayari/bleed-3fbe2e0bedf5 | ['Rebeca Ansar'] | 2020-12-21 02:56:54.195000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Poet', 'Feminism', 'Poetry', 'Poem'] |
StoryFire — Scaling a Social Video Platform on MongoDB and Rockset | StoryFire is a social platform for content creators to share and monetize their stories and videos. Using Rockset to index data from their transactional MongoDB system, StoryFire powers complex aggregation and join queries for their social and leaderboard features.
By moving read-intensive services off MongoDB to Rockset, StoryFire is able to solve two hard challenges: performance and scale. The performance requirement is to serve low-latency queries so that front-end applications feel snappy and responsive. The scaling challenge introduces requirements for high concurrency, where serving increased Queries Per Second (QPS) is critical.
In this case study, we explore how StoryFire has simplified and scaled their real-time application architecture to future proof for huge growth in user activity. We explore one particular query “hot spot” and show how Rockset can be used to offload computationally expensive queries for unpredictable workloads.
User Growth Brings Performance Challenges
Offering greater support for content creators and increased opportunity for monetization, StoryFire is enjoying significant growth in user activity as users migrate from other platforms to grow their follower activity. These influencer migrations lead to significant spikes in site activity where concurrency becomes important as well as maintaining a responsive application.
The StoryFire experience is implicitly real time and data driven in that users expect to-the-second accuracy, across all devices. One of these key features is for a user to be able to see how many of their Stories have been viewed over the last 90 days; a not uncommon metric for any similar analytics user dashboard. Query complexity wise, this is relatively simple (with SQL JOINs) but high concurrency in conjunction with low latency is the challenge.
Identified as being a potential hot spot for performance degradation as platform usage increases, the execution time can vary depending upon the activity of the user. As a result, this type of query is ideal to offload from MongoDB, the primary transactional database, to Rockset, where it can be scaled independently and without potentially starving resources from other critical processes.
Rockset as a Speed Layer for MongoDB
Rockset can be thought of as a fully managed, click-and-connect “speed layer” for serving and scaling any data set. Commonly, when Rockset is introduced, many aspects of the overall architecture can be simplified; be it reducing or eliminating ETL pipelines for transformations and denormalization, as well as an overall reduction in complexity due to zero setup, administration and performance tuning.
MongoDB for Transactions
StoryFire selected MongoDB hosted on the MongoDB Atlas cloud as their primary transactional database, enjoying the benefits of both a scalable NoSQL document store along with the consistency required for their transactional needs. Using MongoDB Atlas allows StoryFire to use MongoDB as a cloud service, without the need to build and self-manage their own cluster.
Rockset Integration
As noted, Rockset connects to other data sources and automatically keeps the data synchronized in real time. In the case of MongoDB, Rockset connects to the Change Data Capture (CDC) stream from MongoDB Atlas. This is a zero-code integration and can be completed in a few minutes.
Once the initial connection has been made, Rockset will examine the data sizes within Mongo and automatically ramp up ingest resources for the initial “bulk load.” Once complete, Rockset will then scale the ingest resources back down and continue consuming any ongoing changes. One of the key architectural benefits here is that Rockset collections can be synchronized with MongoDB collections individually and hence only the data needed for the use case need be synchronized. This aligns well with a microservices architecture.
Application Integration
Rockset allows users to save, version and publish SQL queries via HTTP so that these resources can be rapidly implemented in front-end applications and accessed by any programming language that supports HTTP. These RESTful resources are called Query Lambdas. Query Lambdas also allow parameters to be passed at request time. In this example, the StoryFire user interface lets users look back over 30, 60 and 90 days, as well as of course the query needs to be specific for an individual hostID. These are ideal candidates for parameters. You can read more about Query Lambdas here.
Virtual Instances
The final feature of note is the ability to scale Rockset’s compute resources, without downtime within a minute or two. We term the compute resources allocated to an account virtual instances which consist of a set number of vCPUs and associated memory. With changing instance types being a zero-downtime operation, its very easy for customers like StoryFire to set a cost/performance ratio they are happy with and likewise, adjust based on changing needs.
Constructing Queries on User Activity
StoryFire data is organized into several collections. The User collection defines all the users and their ids. The Event collection captures every new story published and the EventViews collection records a new entry every time a user views a story.
The query in question involves a JOIN between two collections: Events and EventViews where an Event can have many EventViews . As with many other analytical workloads, the goal here is to aggregate some metric across a particular subset of records and view the trend over time.
SELECT
SUM(v."count"),
DATE(v.timestamp) AS day,
FROM
EventViews v
INNER JOIN Events s ON v.fbId = s.fbId
WHERE
s.hostID = '[user specific id]'
AND
s.hasVideo = true
AND v.timestamp > CURRENT_TIMESTAMP() - DAYS(90)
group by
day
order by
day DESC;
This yields a result set like the following:
Rockset automatically generates Row, Column, and Inverted indexes, and based on the particular predicates in question, the optimizer takes the most efficient path of execution. For example if the hostId predicate matched many millions of rows the column index would be selected because it is highly optimized for large range scans. However if only a small fraction of the rows matched the predicate, we could use the inverted index to quickly identify those rows in a matter of milliseconds. This automated indexing reduces the operational burden that DBAs typically shoulder maintaining indexes, and it allows developers and analysts to write SQL without worrying about slow, unindexed queries wasting their time or stalling their applications.
Solving for Performance and Scale
The SQL query was tested for Rockset and the historical days value was tested at 30, 60 and 90.
We can see here that as the range of data to be queried increases (number of days), the Rockset performance stays roughly similar. While response time for this query goes up in proportion to data size when querying MongoDB directly, Rockset’s query response time does not increase materially even when we go from 30 to 90 days of data. This demonstrates the power and efficiency of the Converged Indexes along with the query optimizer. It is worth noting that in the test query, a user ID was used that had several hundred join IDs and hence was relatively expensive to run. The same query for users with lower data volumes will execute in double digit ms range.
Overall, the results demonstrate the scaling capability of Rockset. As the compute is increased, the performance increases proportionally. Given this is a zero downtime and fast operation, it is easy to scale up and down as needed.
From an architectural perspective, an expensive query was moved on to Rockset where it can take advantage of massive parallel execution as well as offering the ability to scale up and down compute resources as needed. Reducing the complex read burden from a transactional system like Mongo allows performance to remain consistent for the core transactional workloads.
We are excited to partner with StoryFire on their scaling journey.
Other MongoDB resources: | https://medium.com/rocksetcloud/case-study-storyfire-scaling-a-social-video-platform-on-mongodb-and-rockset-ee3ef40ad13a | ['Ben Hagan'] | 2020-08-25 01:39:46.803000+00:00 | ['Sql', 'Sql Joins', 'Performance', 'Scaling', 'Mongodb'] |
Will the EU Beat the US to a Green New Deal? | by Jennifer Grosman Fernández
February 19, 2020
Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission President, presents the European Green Deal to the European Council
Carbon emissions from the world’s 20 biggest economies continue to rise. This is in spite of rising sea levels, raging fires, and flash floods around the world. No country has committed to a plan that will reduce emissions enough to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
In response, progressive politicians and climate activists in the United States have mobilized for an ambitious Green New Deal to tackle both climate change and economic inequality, echoing the urgency and determination of President Roosevelt’s New Deal.
In its current form, the Green New Deal is just a congressional resolution. But the deal has garnered significant public attention; established the personality and legislative boldness of Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Senator Ed Markey; demonstrated the influence of the activist Sunrise Movement; and significantly influenced the climate proposals of the Democratic presidential candidates. However, despite successfully shifting the conversation on potential climate goals, national climate policy has stalled under the Trump Administration, and the future of U.S. global leadership depends on an uncertain election outcome nine months from now.
So, where does that leave us? Considering long-standing European leadership on climate change, both the international community and U.S. domestic actors have turned to the European Union to provide the momentum to create a resilient, low carbon world. Adopting the same theme as progressives in the United States, the EU has branded its most recent policy initiative as the “European Green Deal.”
Was this designed to attract U.S. attention? The European Green Deal is a remarkable plan to transform Europe into the first “carbon-neutral” continent by 2050. The plan promises a radical transformation of the trading bloc’s economy over the next thirty years by targeting emission reductions, industrial innovation, and environmental restoration. The EU would fully decarbonize while creating green jobs in new low-carbon industries.
Framed as “Europe’s man on the moon moment,” the Green Deal consists of 50 policy measures to reduce emissions, including a proposed legally-binding target of reducing EU emissions to net-zero within 30 years. The plan also includes a carbon border tax to prevent companies from relocating outside the EU to avoid climate legislation, a €100 billion just transition fund to help spread the burden and help coal-reliant regions, and a policy prohibiting any free trade agreement with a country that is not a signatory to the Paris climate agreement; notably, only the United States falls into this category.
What’s new here since the Paris agreement? EU member states make up the world’s largest economic bloc, and rank third behind China and the United States in carbon emissions. Under the 2015 Paris agreement, the EU pledged to reduce emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, but set no definite goal for 2050. The Green Deal raises the 2030 target to a 50 percent reduction, and sets the 2050 target at 100 percent. It’s a drastic increase in climate change ambition from the bloc. But it may not be enough to keep to the 1.5 degrees target laid out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to stave off the very worst effects of climate change.
The European Union has proved to a skeptical global political and business community that a plan for sustainability and a drive for economic growth can go hand in hand. Between 1990 and 2018, the EU’s CO2 emissions fell by 23 percent, but its economy grew by 61 percent. Pushing that argument, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has framed the European Green Deal as “a strategy for growth that gives more back than it takes away.”
The result of years of complex negotiations between member states, the Green Deal is “designed to leave no one behind,” with massive investments in transportation, agriculture, and industrial innovation. While mandating climate strategies boosts Europe’s role on the global stage, the Commission must be wary in light of Brexit of giving a further cause for complaint to dissatisfied members.
Global climate politics have stalled recently and the Green Deal faces similar uncertainty. President von der Leyen announced the deal during the UN COP25 in December 2019 in Madrid, as the conference (outside the new Gender Action Plan) was collapsing due to a lack of progress. Fraught negotiations left unresolved issues over carbon market and transparency rules while the EU and the Climate Ambition Alliance were not able to raise the ambition of reduction and timeline targets.
Seen as a bright spot in climate action, global observers have largely welcomed the European Green Deal. But some conservative politicians and business leaders warn of possible adverse economic consequences as companies may move operations elsewhere without the regulations imposed by the deal. More pointed criticism came from youth climate activists who have spearheaded massive protests demanding a faster and more drastic evolution.
The deal faces a significant hurdle in March when the European Parliament votes on a climate law which will establish a binding target to become carbon neutral by 2050. There have been recent signs that the deal will be weakened in the coming months. Despite strong opposition from green parties that the projects would lock Europe into decades of reliance on fossil fuels, an overwhelming majority of European Parliament members passed a package of 32 gas infrastructure projects, claiming that natural gas is a necessary transition fuel, and a means to lessen energy dependence on Russia.
Faltering climate progress from the United States, China, Australia, Japan and other actors has reinforced the centrality of the European Union to take on the mantle of global leadership. However, the year ahead will be a rocky one. By leveraging European green innovation and using EU authority, the EU can affect much-needed change at home and inspire action abroad. The question remains if the political will is equal to the challenge.
Jennifer Grosman Fernández is a graduate student in Georgetown University’s Master of Science in Foreign Service program, and focuses her studies on the intersection between climate change policy and gender equality. She currently serves on the board of the School of Foreign Service Energy Club.
If you liked this article, you may enjoy this recent episode of The Europe Desk podcast, featuring an interview with the co-leader of the German Green Party, Robert Habeck: | https://gueuropeanhorizons.medium.com/will-the-eu-beat-the-us-to-a-green-new-deal-e62cf84d77eb | ['The Transatlanticist'] | 2020-03-08 22:26:13.429000+00:00 | ['European Commission', 'Climate', 'Green New Deal', 'Ursula Von Der Leyen', 'Climate Change'] |
Christmas presents on a budget: 6 tips that will help you to buy smart and save money. | Photo by Author
Can you believe that there are less than 30 days before Christmas and 2020 is almost and finally over?
If your year has not been its finest like mine and you love Christmas, you would understand how excited I am about it, Yay! Christmas can also mean spending money, which as an unemployed this year, is not something that I am excited about it.
I thought that sharing my tips with you on how to shop for low-cost Christmas presents will hopefully help you get some burden off your shoulders.
My first tip is to be realistic with your financial situation and be open and honest with yourself and others.
I have proposed to my family to do a secret Santa, which means I have to buy only one present for the family (I will also get only one gift in return). We have also set up a modest budget. By doing so, I am saving myself a lot of burdens, shame, worry, and get myself into financial trouble.
My second tip is to organize and plan accordingly. Knowing that Black Friday is just around the corner, I will most likely be fishing around for deals to get the best out of every euro.
My third tip is to use sites like Topcashback to get cashback when you are purchasing your Xmas present. It can never hurt to save a little more. Topcashback is a UK cashback portal that allows you to earn money for every purchase you made online through them. If you are from the UK or ROI, you can sign up for free or use my referral link to get an extra £10 discount that you can use to buy Xmas presents and start earning extra cashback by buying through them your Xmas shopping. You can make cashback buying at Amazon, ASOS, Disney.UK, Lego, Groupon, Topshop, Michael Kors, Ted Baker, M&S, GAP, etc. (This is a referral link from which I will benefit if it is used. The brands mentioned above are subject to T&C’s by Topcashback.co.uk).
My fourth tip is to check out charity shops. The great thing about this is that you will be helping with the charity and also helping with reducing pollution by giving a new life to second-hand stuff.
My fifth tip is to check your local and small businesses around. Most of them cannot afford to have sales or Black Friday, but it does not mean that they are necessarily more expensive. Small businesses offer diversity, which is great as you will be buying something more unique instead of something that everybody else will be buying, they also tend to offer good customer service, more sustainable products and they help positively in the local economy as they generate jobs and every penny spent on their stores will most likely stay locally.
My last and most important tip is to appreciate Christmas for what it is. Time to spend and enjoy with family and friends, so don’t get hung up on the materialistic side of it.
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas shopping.
Enjoy,
XX
Let me know in the comments below any extra tips on how you manage your Christmas on a budget.
Disclaimer: Topcashback works in the UK and ROI only. The link shared is a referral link that is being used, would benefit me directly. As Topcashback reserves the right to change at any time the conditions of their referral program, I can’t guarantee you would earn the cashback that is featured in this post. Neither that the brand mentioned on this post would have cashback at any given time. | https://medium.com/@stefib/christmas-presents-on-a-budget-6-tips-that-will-help-you-to-buy-smart-and-save-money-cb5f45a90693 | [] | 2020-12-01 15:42:15.033000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Money', 'Budget', 'Christmas', 'Charity'] |
Recognizing Handwritten Digits | Recognizing handwritten text is a problem that can be traced back to the first automatic machines that needed to recognize individual characters in handwritten documents. Classifying handwritten text or numbers is important for many real-world scenarios. For example, a postal service can scan postal codes on envelopes to automate the grouping of envelopes which has to be sent to the same place.
For this article, we are going to use the ‘Digit’ data-set from ‘Scikit-Learn’
Scikit-Learn is a library for Python that contains numerous useful algorithms that can easily be implemented and altered for classification and other machine learning tasks.
You can refer the documentation of Scikit-Learn from the mentioned link:
https://scikit-learn.org/stable/
An estimator that is useful in this case is sklearn.svm.SVC, which uses the technique of Support Vector Classification (SVC).
For this task, you can use Jupyter Notebook or Google Colab.
Implementation
Importing basic python libraries:
Python libraries we are going to use are: Pandas, Numpy,sklearn, Matplotlib
Imports are as follows:
Basic imports
2.Loading Data-Sets and finding out its shape:
3.Obtaining gray-scale image of data using matplotlib library:
Here I will display only 6images. But you can display as many as you want
Code to display the first 6 data as images
The output of the above code will be: | https://medium.com/@anshulsingh696/recognizing-handwritten-digits-605f113c533f | [] | 2020-10-02 08:34:30.127000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Model Training', 'Scikit Learn', 'Python3', 'Blog'] |
6 Powerful Headline Principles Inspired by Claude Hopkins | 6 Powerful Headline Principles Inspired by Claude Hopkins
42 Headline examples and practical tips you can use immediately
Illustration by Cynthia Marinakos.
Claude Hopkins was one of the world’s greatest copywriters and advertising men. He is credited with ad techniques such as market research, money-back guarantees, sampling, and trials. His techniques are as powerful now as back then. His book, Scientific Advertising, captures foundational principles of advertising and copywriting.
We don’t spend time creating and testing headlines because we want our articles published quickly. We neglect our readers because we’re too absorbed in writing what we want to write, the way we want to write it. We get tunnel vision from the products, services, and ideas we want to sell.
This book reminds us we’re here because of our readers. So shift the focus back to them.
It covers headlines in one chapter, yet so many of the principles can be applied when creating headlines. I came up with six key learnings from analyzing Hopkins’ headlines while at the same time studying his classic principles.
Address your target reader Aim for clarity Appeal to people’s desire to avoid pain Show credibility Focus on your reader’s interests Spend time creating and testing headlines
You’ll see examples of his headlines, a discussion of his approach, how it can be applied to our own headline, and examples of headlines we can create from the techniques. Let’s dig into these, shall we? | https://medium.com/better-marketing/6-powerful-headline-principles-inspired-by-claude-hopkins-dc73a8a68947 | ['Cynthia Marinakos'] | 2020-08-09 03:29:12.085000+00:00 | ['Headline Hacks', 'Business', 'Creativity', 'Startup', 'Writing'] |
Body Burdens | This is my first attempt at what I believe to be a lovely form and I first saw it here on Medium by the Master of Brevity herself, marika bianca. By reading all of you, I am learning so much and that is priceless— “Knowledge is power.” | https://medium.com/a-cornered-gurl/body-burdens-984c4bc6541c | ['Tre L. Loadholt'] | 2017-12-12 21:06:01.271000+00:00 | ['Health', 'A Cornered Gurl', 'Body', 'Weather', 'Writing'] |
Amazon Fire TV Stick (2020) and Fire TV Stick Lite review: Exactly what you expected | Amazon Fire TV Stick (2020) and Fire TV Stick Lite review: Exactly what you expected Brandy Dec 5, 2020·7 min read
It doesn’t take much time with Amazon’s new Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite to understand what they’re all about.
The $40 third-generation Fire TV Stick is an overdue upgrade to Amazon’s best-selling streaming player, replacing its four-year-old processor with one that’s much faster. The $30 Fire TV Stick Lite, meanwhile, is a naked attempt to achieve price parity with Roku’s budget Express streamer, with the same performance as the standard Stick but a major compromise to its remote control: There are no TV volume or power buttons onboard.
Of the two, the Fire TV Stick is much easier to recommend than the Lite version. I’ve said it before, but having TV controls built into the remote really is worth the extra $10.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best media streamers, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.Whether the new Fire TV Sticks are worth buying over other budget streamers is harder to say, because Amazon is preparing a major software overhaul for later this year. We’ll update this review after said software arrives. For now, those who enjoy the Fire TV experience can expect more of the same—just without as many speed bumps along the way.
Similar sticksHeld next to one another, the new Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite look identical. Both plug directly into your TV’s HDMI port (a short extension cable is included if you need more clearance around the TV), and both have a quad-core 1.7GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, and dual-band Wi-Fi 5 support. While the two sticks have no extra ports beyond micro-USB for power, a cheap USB-OTG cable would allow for thumb drives and other USB accessories.
Performance-wise, they’re a big improvement over the previous Fire TV Stick (which first launched in 2016), with much shorter loading times and less herky-jerky scrolling through menus, and they bring speed roughly up to par with other budget streamers. Roku devices tend to feel a little faster—if only because they’re better at showing partial menus or loading icons instead of just momentarily freezing up—but in terms of loading times, it’s pretty much a wash.
Jared Newman / IDG Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K (pictured at rear) is a bit larger than the identical-looking Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite
Both Fire TV Sticks can also supply 1080p video and support high dynamic range in the HDR10, HDR10+, or HLG formats, though neither support 4K video or Dolby Vision HDR. (You’ll need to step up to Amazon’s $50 Fire TV Stick 4K for those features.)
The only other difference on the spec sheet is on the audio front: Where the Fire TV Stick supports decode for Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital/Digital+, and DTS, the Fire TV Stick Lite only supports passthrough for those formats.
That said, the Lite’s lack of Dolby decoding won’t matter in most cases. I was able to hear Atmos’ object-based audio while watching Netflix’s Our Planet on both devices; and if you’re springing for an Atmos soundbar, chances are you also have a 4K TV to go with it. In that case the Fire TV Stick 4K is a better option anyway.
Different remotesThe bigger distinction between the 2020 Fire TV Stick and the Fire TV Stick Lite is in their remote controls. While the third-generation Fire TV Stick has TV volume and power controls on its remote, the Lite model does not.
Jared Newman / IDG The Fire TV Stick Lite remote (pictured at rear) has a channel guide button, but the Fire TV Stick (in front) has TV volume and power controls.
Amazon takes great pride in those TV controls, which support a wide range of televisions, soundbars, and A/V receivers via infrared commands. If you have a sound system with its own IR receiver, you can set up the Fire TV to control the volume independently of the TV, and you can also use HDMI-CEC to control everything in unison.
Once more, with feeling: It’s really nice having those controls on a single remote. On the Fire TV Stick Lite, I kept reaching for volume buttons that weren’t there, and needing to reach for a separate TV remote was a rude awakening.
The Lite model does have its own unique remote control button that launches the Fire TV Channel Guide, which displays a grid guide for supported services such as AT&T TV Now, Philo, Sling TV, YouTube TV, and Amazon’s Fire TV Recast DVR. But for most people, that’s not a worthy trade-off, especially because you can always use the remote’s Alexa voice control button to open the guide or tune directly to specific channels.
Jared Newman / IDG The Fire TV Stick Lite remote has a button for Amazon’s Channel Guide, which offers quick access to live channels in certain apps.
Same software (for now)This is the part of the review where things get a little squishy. Back when Amazon announced its new Fire TV Sticks, it showed off a new menu system that’s more streamlined than the current one.
But that’s not the menu Amazon is shipping today. Instead, it’s the same old chaos that’s defined the Fire TV experience since late 2016. Beneath the top-level menu and featured content, you’ll get a row for recent apps and recently-viewed Prime content, a sortable row of favorite apps, and then a sprawling list of recommendations with a heavy emphasis on Amazon’s Prime Video and IMDb TV services.
Jared Newman / IDG The Fire TV home screen, prior to a planned late-2020 overhaul.
Now, I’m on record for having liked this interface in the past. At the very least, it’s more interesting than Roku’s approach, which makes no attempts to recommend anything other than free, ad-supported video.
But as I wrote in my Roku Ultra review, devices like the new Chromecast with Google TV, TiVo Stream 4K, and Apple TV 4K are all better at dealing with too many streaming services. Like Amazon, they all try to provide a single menu for content instead of making you jump into lots of different apps, but they’re more organized, more customizable, and less biased toward certain sources of content.
Jared Newman / IDG Scroll down the Fire TV home screen, and you’ll get recommendations on what to watch.
Here’s a basic example of where Fire TV falls short: On my home screen, there’s a row called “Science Fiction,” with films like Moon, Arrival, Ready Player One, and Blade, but the home screen shows no information about where those films are available. For that, you need to click on each entry, which shows that Moon requires a Showtime subscription (which Amazon sells), Arrival is a rental (also sold by Amazon), and Blade is on Hulu. What seems like an attempt to make sense of streaming is really just a way to upsell you. By contrast, the new Chromecast and TiVo Stream 4K let you customize which services appear on the home screen, so you don’t get recommendations from services you’re not already paying for.
Jared Newman / IDG Navigating through the home screen means looking over lots of suggested apps and sponsored content.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s Alexa search function continues to return irrelevant results for genre searches such as “new comedies” or “classic sci-fi,” so you can’t really sift through streaming options that way. Given everything else Alexa can do on Fire TV devices—from launching music and video content to controlling smart home devices—search is an unusual weak point, especially compared to Siri on Apple TV and Google Assistant on the new Chromecast.
Jared Newman / IDG Asking for specific genres, like “80s comedy movies,” returns a lot of irrelevant results.
Whether any of this will change with the new interface is unclear, because Amazon hasn’t yet shown enough of it. We can only hope it’s not just a fresh coat of paint over longstanding flaws.
Other missing piecesThe other big issue with Fire TV devices right now is that none of them support HBO Max or Peacock due to Amazon’s ongoing carriage disputes with AT&T’s WarnerMedia and Comcast’s NBCUniversal respectively. While you can still watch HBO on the Fire TV Sticks through other methods—with an Amazon Channels subscription, via live TV services like YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV, or with standalone subscriptions through the HBO app—you won’t get the expanded Max catalog, and Peacock isn’t available on the platform at all. It is possible to sideload HBO Max and Peacock on Fire TV devices, but users shouldn’t have to jump through those hoops.
While I’m ranting: It’s time to stop giving Amazon a pass for not supporting private headphone listening. Apple TV and the new Chromecast both support Bluetooth headphones or earbuds, and Roku’s mobile app supports Bluetooth or wired headphones. Some Roku players even have headphone jacks built into their remotes. While Fire TV devices can technically connect to Bluetooth headphones, they provide no way to adjust the volume without elaborate workarounds.
A solid budget streamer with issuesThe new Fire TV Stick still has its upsides. Only Roku offers streaming players at comparable prices, and Amazon’s frequent sale pricing often makes the Fire TV Stick even cheaper. Alexa opens up some voice-control possibilities that don’t exist on cheap Roku streamers, such as launching live TV channels or controlling smart home devices. It’s also a nice way to access certain over-the-air DVR solutions, including Channels DVR and Amazon’s Fire TV Recast, neither of which Roku supports.
But it also feels like a streaming device trapped in limbo, with neither the app-centric simplicity of Roku players or the elegant unified streaming guide of the new Chromecast with Google TV. We’ll have to wait and see whether this year’s big interface upgrade will push the Fire TV in a clearer direction.
Either way, though, think long and hard before cheaping out on the Fire TV Stick Lite and its inferior remote. That’s something no software update can fix.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@brandy38616242/amazon-fire-tv-stick-2020-and-fire-tv-stick-lite-review-exactly-what-you-expected-8aafb0d98333 | [] | 2020-09-17 00:00:00 | ['Gear', 'Chargers', 'Security Cameras', 'Consumer'] |
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