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Habits | I finished a book today.
My first on Kindle.
Which was a great investment.
Something about a physical book doesn’t do it for me.
However, I’ve just figured out, from reading this book (Atomic Habits), that I have another book, in print, which I now have to read.
So I’ll just do that.
I’ve learned a lot about habits, hopefully some of which I can digest further tomorrow.
Habits | https://medium.com/@dnaqvi/habits-90a39307273c | ['Danial Naqvi'] | 2020-12-26 22:39:32.878000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Flow', 'Habits', 'Choices', 'Reading'] |
Python 爬蟲教學-我們來做一個IG抽獎神器吧！（中） — HardCo. | 上回我們讓我們的瀏覽器能夠成功完成了登入的步驟，而這只是第一步而已，今天會教大家這次教學的重頭戲，也就是如何在需要進行不斷滑動的網頁（動態網頁）做爬蟲，如果還沒看過上一篇的朋友，連結在這邊
Python -程式碼講解
在開始講解之前，我們一樣要先理清楚我們接下來要執行的步驟，才能夠更好的在chromedriver上面執行我們的爬蟲，所以我們可以嘗試著用正常的網頁操作一遍看看需要什麼步驟
來到貼文頁面之後-> 將留言往下滑 -> 不斷地往下滑 -> 滑到底之後停止
這裡帶出了這個應用最難的一件事，如何讓留言不斷地往下滑？以及我怎麼判斷我的貼文已經到底了呢？首先讓我們先來解決第一個問題。
將留言往下滑
首先我們要理解，這種操縱網頁行為的動作呢，我們是無法透過Python內的代碼進行實現的，因為網頁的本質上還是使用JavaScript去做實現的，所以我們在這裡呢，就需要使用JavaScript的方法來做實現，我們來看下面這段程式碼。
browser.get(post_URL) #到達貼文網址 post = WebDriverWait(browser, 20, 0.5).until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.XPATH,'//*[@id="react-root"]/section/main/div/div[1]/article/div[3]/div[1]/ul'))) scrollTop = browser.execute_script('arguments[0].scrollTop +=300;return arguments[0].scrollTop', post)
執行JavaScript的方法使用 execute_script() ，而指令要用我們必須要在其中加入arguments[0]，也就是引數，這個引數會對應你放在後面的變數，所以就會長成以下這樣
browser.execute_script(‘引數+要執行的指令’,變數）
而這邊我們要執行的指令是scrollTop，這個代表元素和網頁最頂端的距離，所以我們可以透過JavaScript去操作這個元素，這樣就可以讓其執行不斷下滑的動作了，而問題來了，我們要怎麼知道哪一個元素才是要下滑的呢？
在某些網站，有些下滑區域旁邊都會有滾動條，而我們通常可以在這個元素中去找到scroll的屬性，而如果沒有明顯的滾動條像是IG那樣該怎麼辦呢？
我們一樣透過檢查這個動作叫出網頁的元素，並且隨便對著某個元素，再次點擊檢查，這樣就會進入一個狀態是，只要你點擊右邊的元素，左邊就會跟著出現對應的區域，就像上圖。
我們將其滑動到對應下滑的區域，找到了div.EtaWk這個屬性，這個時候我們必須要做第二個確認，也就是他的style裡面有沒有scroll這個屬性，因為對應下滑的區域不只有div.EtaWk，還有其下面的ul.XQXQT，我們必須要知道scroll是被編寫在哪一個屬性裡面，於是我們透過下方的style查找。
最後找到了ul裡面才有scroll的屬性，於是就有了我們上方post變數的由來，用這樣的方式就可以讓你的網頁做下滑的動作了。
不斷地往下滑
stop = False
while not stop: #滑動
scrollTop = browser.execute_script('arguments[0].scrollTop +=300;return arguments[0].scrollTop', post) scroll_time+=1
print(scrollTop)#測試
if scrollTop>950: #每次scroll如果看得到load more就點
print("執行中")
more_ele = WebDriverWait(browser, 20, 0.5).until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.XPATH,'//*[@id="react-root"]/section/main/div/div[1]/article/div[3]/div[1]/ul/li/div/button')))
more_ele.click()
time.sleep(1) #每次滑動都先停一秒，以方便觀測網頁狀況
首先我們先設置一個stop的條件，而只要還沒有達到stop的條件我們就持續執行程式碼，之後再來考慮要怎麼讓stop變成True，而我們再次手動去執行爬蟲的步驟，以了解接下來需要幹嘛，可以發現當你在IG不斷下滑之後，會出現一個＋號的按鈕，需要點擊才會再次載入更多元素。
於是我們就設定當滑到一個程度時(950)，而這個程度我們就必須要透過JS執行return scrollTop的指令才能在Python裡面使用，至於950是我個人測試的，大家可以根據自己的狀況去做微調，而按鈕的點擊就跟之前是一樣的道理，所以透過while ＋ 下滑 + 遇到載入更多按鈕就按，我們就可以完成不斷地往下滑這個功能了。
滑到底之後停止
#終止條件
#迴圈中
if scrollTop>maxTop: #代表有下滑到則將maxtop換為新的
maxTop = scrollTop
elif scrollTop == maxTop: #代表上次的和這次的一樣
stop = True
我們透過上一段中，不斷地print(scrollTop)會發現，scrollTop到底之後，就會停止增加了，如下面這樣
所以我們設置一個maxTop變數，只要每次有下滑都將maxTop設置為新的scrollTop，而若是新的scrollTop和maxTop一樣的話，就代表實際網站已經沒有辦法再下滑了，所以我們就可以將迴圈停止了，這就是如何判斷滑到底之後停止的辦法，以下是完整的程式碼。
browser.get(post_URL)
post = WebDriverWait(browser, 20, 0.5).until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.XPATH,'//*[@id="react-root"]/section/main/div/div[1]/article/div[3]/div[1]/ul'))) print(post) scroll_time = 0
maxTop = 0
stop = False while not stop: #滑動
scrollTop = browser.execute_script('arguments[0].scrollTop +=300;return arguments[0].scrollTop', post)
scroll_time+=1
print(scrollTop)
if scrollTop>950: #每次scroll如果看得到load more就點
print("執行中")
more_ele = WebDriverWait(browser, 20, 0.5).until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.XPATH,'//*[@id="react-root"]/section/main/div/div[1]/article/div[3]/div[1]/ul/li/div/button')))
more_ele.click() #終止條件
if scrollTop>maxTop: #代表有下滑到則將maxtop換為新的
maxTop = scrollTop
elif scrollTop == maxTop: #代表上次的和這次的一樣
stop = True
time.sleep(0.3)
到這邊我們就已經將所有留言讀取完畢了，接下來就可以開始做資料的處理並且進行抽獎了！
那今天我們就先教學到這邊，有任何問題都可以在下面進行留言喔！
馬上看Python爬蟲教學 -試著作自己的搶購機器吧!(上) | https://medium.com/@school021195/python-%E7%88%AC%E8%9F%B2%E6%95%99%E5%AD%B8-%E6%88%91%E5%80%91%E4%BE%86%E5%81%9A%E4%B8%80%E5%80%8Big%E6%8A%BD%E7%8D%8E%E7%A5%9E%E5%99%A8%E5%90%A7-%E4%B8%AD-hardco-28a90d019bb3 | [] | 2021-07-10 11:20:26.817000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Instagram', 'Selenium'] |
More things will scare us than crush us… | Seneca, a Roman philosopher, playwright and statesman wrote, “More things will scare us than crush us, for we suffer more often in the imagination than in reality” in letter 13 to his friend, Lucilius.
In France, people often ask their friends and family to help them move house. And afterwards, they reward everyone for their effort with takeaway pizza and rose wine, and sometimes champagne.
This year my friend Stephane asked me if I could help him move some cardboard boxes and furniture from street level to a third-floor apartment. I would regret saying yes…
I like challenges. So I gave myself a target of ascending 450 metres. I calculated this would require carrying 50 cardboard boxes, one at a time up the three floors. Most of his boxes contained books and comics or BDs as they’re called in France, so I couldn’t lift more than a single box at a time.
After three hours, I had climbed 420 m. I was chuffed with this. But I was exhausted. I had just come back from an active hiking holiday, driven 500km, and I had a cold. I wasn’t in good form. But the pizza and champagne that my friend offered perked me up.
As I climbed the stairs into my apartment building I felt a stab of pain in the place where I had an inguinal hernia operation in 2017. Oh damn!
I ignored the pain for a couple of days.
“It’ll go away, “I thought, doing my best to ignore the pain.
I knew the whole process of having a hernia would be difficult. I would need to…
visit my doctor,
then have a scan,
then visit the abdominal surgeon,
then talk with the anesthesiologist,
then have the operation with a general anaesthetic,
then change the dressings every day and,
then be very careful for weeks after the surgery.
I knew that having a hernia would mean: no yoga. no squash and no running. And no lifting my dog into the bath for a wash which she really enjoys.
I just didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to deal with this again.
Three weeks later, the pain had gone, but I was still feeling discomfort in my abdomen. My wife convinced me to schedule an appointment with a doctor.
I explained to the doctor that I thought I’d opened up my old hernia. He asked me why I thought of this.
“I have some discomfort in the place where I had my operation two years ago. And I was helping a friend…” I replied.
“…move house,” he finished my sentence for me. Apparently, a moving house hernia was common.
He confirmed I would need a scan to see what damage I had done.
I was gutted, probably literally as my gut was probably hanging out my abdomen.
“Here we go again!” I thought.
Two weeks later, I walked into the radiologists waiting room for my scan.
The other patients in the room were chatting among themselves and laughing crazily. I slinked into the nearest seat. I had no idea what they were laughing about and was once again reminded of how poor my French was. But the laughter was contagious so I laughed alongside even though I did not understand why.
“Monsieur MacGregor,” the radiologist interrupted.
“ Bonjour doctor, oui, c’est moi, “ I replied, and returned to my worries.
As I walked the pale green, well-lit corridor to the radiology department, I thought, “What a fool you are. Pushing your body like that. And the result, you’ve got another hernia. And you could have made it worse by leaving it for three weeks.”
Inside the examination room, I yanked down my trousers, hopped onto a turquoise leather examination table covered with a layer of clean tissue paper. The doctor squeezed some clear gel on the ultrasound scanner and pressed it firmly against my lower abdominal area.
He pushed harder than I would have expected. It hurt. As he examined the screen, I studied his face for any evidence of good or bad news.
“Tout va bien,” the doctor replied.
I stuck both thumbs up and squinted at him to confirm. “ Ça va, “ I said.
“Yes, you have no problem,” he replied in his best English.
“You stretched muscle too much,” he explained.
I was so relieved to hear this that I smiled from one side of the examination room to the other, forgetting I still had my trousers around my ankles.
If I’d visited the doctor earlier I wouldn’t have spent three weeks worrying over whether I’d need surgery again. But thinking about having to deal with multiple doctors and complex administration with my poor French was intimidating. However, most of the doctors and nurses spoke some English and were very helpful.
The fear of speaking and not understanding what people said in french. The fear of finding out once again that I had a hernia.
I’ve also put off making a sales call to a lead because I was afraid that I’d say the wrong thing and they wouldn’t be interested in working with me.
For months I have postponed contacting my clients to tell them that I am increasing my prices — anxious that they will be upset and no longer want to use my services.
I’m also terrified at the idea of doing a Facebook live or creating any video with my face on it.
I know it’s not easy to move beyond our fears but there is a different way we can consider the thing that is creating the fear.
Seneca’s advice to is that as we have limited facts and an outcome we can’t accurately predict, why not consider a more hopeful outcome to help balance the fear.
Most things turn out to be less bad than we imagined. And when we’re putting off doing something due to fear of something imagined happening, the constant presence of this thing we must do but are postponing, attracts anxiety and stress.
Creating our imaginary disasters is exhausting work. We predict, exaggerate, and conclude the outcome of future events based on few facts and little consideration for the hand that fortune will play.
“Perhaps the bad things will happen. Perhaps they won’t. Even bad luck is fickle. Almost surely they’re not happening now.” Seneca, Letter to Lucilius 13.11
Have you considered how many unexpected things happened to you and how many of the things you expected never happen?
We let ourselves be blown about by the winds, troubled by the unknowns, as though they were confirmed. And in this, we lose our sense of proportion and the tiniest of uneasiness turns quickly into fear.
“Is it necessary then for us to run out and meet our suffering?” Seneca writes. If suffering and pain are going to arrive it will do so soon enough. In the meantime, why not look forward to better things. In the time before the thing you imagine happening will arrive, there are so many things that could interfere to change the outcome.
So, the next time I’m avoiding my doctor or afraid to prepare a Facebook live, I must remember, | https://medium.com/@davidpmacgregor/more-things-will-scare-us-than-crush-us-26a114d4d776 | ['David P. Macgregor'] | 2020-12-10 09:27:13.169000+00:00 | ['Stoic Phiosophy', 'Procrastination', 'Stoicism', 'France', 'Fear'] |
Have the Courage to Just Be Yourself No Matter What Others Say | 4 Declarations for Your “Just be You” Journey
Photo by Makarios Tang on Unsplash
Declare: This Is Who and How I Am
Choose to be courageous enough to own who and how you are in the world by accepting it without reservation. When you are comfortable with who and how you are. There is not much anyone else can do or say that will rattle you.
Always remember that out of the over 7.5 billion people in the world. There is only one you. You have been uniquely created to “Just Be Yourself”. So, take pride in it and walk in the unique creation of who you are boldly and confidently.
2. Declare: This Is What I Believe
Remember. At a certain point in our lives what we believe (or don’t believe) is our own personal choice. Although attempts may be made to force you to believe one way or another. The truth remains. What we choose to believe, or not. Is strictly a personal decision that doesn’t require anyone else’s approval.
What is it that you truly believe? Why do you believe it? Your answers to the questions of what you believe and why you believe it can only come from inside of you. Once you know the answers. Stand on it and boldly and confidently declare. This is what I believe.
3. Declare: What I Believe and What Others Believe May Be Different
Know and understand this fact. There will never be a time when everyone believes the same thing. It’s not rationally possible. Although we share a common humanity as inhabitants on earth. We will never all agree on what we believe about the multitude of issues we face during this experience called life.
Because of this, it’s imperative that we understand and become comfortable with the fact. That at any given time. There is always a multitude of beliefs coexisting in the atmosphere. So, the discovery that what we believe may be different from what others believe is not only highly likely. It’s a given.
4. Declare: Being Different is Not Bad or Wrong It’s Just Different
Herein lies one of our greatest challenges. Learning to embrace that difference is not bad or wrong. It’s just different. Unfortunately, there will always be some who believe a certain way. And any deviation from what they have come to believe will be a definite sign that those who deviate are flat out bad and wrong. During these times, bowing out gracefully is prudent. No need expending too much energy in this type of space.
This is when the decision to agree to disagree is the only viable solution. Fortunately, as humanity continues to evolve. More and more people are learning to accept the truth that different isn’t necessarily bad or wrong. It is just different. And that’s good news for all of us. | https://medium.com/an-idea/have-the-courage-to-just-be-yourself-no-matter-what-others-say-c5f06d36a96c | ['Carla D. Wilson Laskey'] | 2020-12-22 16:24:16.596000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Opinion', 'Courage', 'Life', 'Beyourself'] |
Design + Open Source: Lessons from a year of contributing to the Kubernetes project | On July 30, 2019, I found myself at my first ever open source meeting. Everybody was on mute. They were waiting for the recording to start and the meeting to begin.
I looked around wondering if these people already knew each other. I recognized several of their names from the Kubernetes community forums. Months of intense discussion about the state of Kubernetes UX had rallied us around the formation of this new user experience-focused contributor group called SIG Usability. It felt surreal to have come this far and to see their faces for the first time.
At the end of that meeting, we all hopped off Zoom and I found myself back in one of the IBM Austin meeting rooms, feeling like I had been transported from another world. Around me, work continued as normal.
It’s been over a year since that first meeting and I’m still living my bucket list dream of contributing to open source. However, I’ll be the first to say it can be hecka intimidating to take those first steps. The Kubernetes community has 43,000 contributors (a modest size, I know). And I didn’t know a single one of them when I started engaging. From figuring out how to introduce myself to launching our first research study, it’s been a year full of learnings. To celebrate SIG Usability’s one year milestone, I’d like to share my top three lessons from venturing upstream as a first-time contributor.
Lesson #1: Don’t know where to start? Contribute thoughtful critique.
I found myself on a Saturday morning following an email thread titled: “UX working group?” It included a call for feedback on the new SIG Usability charter for Kubernetes.
There were a few reasons I was super excited to read this. I had just attended KubeCon for the first time just a few months earlier. The community was amazing, and it seemed like UX was a theme for the year. As a designer, I wondered what role I could play in this open source community. What opportunities are there for someone with my background to contribute?
All in all, this UX-focused email thread felt like that opportunity. I couldn’t help feeling mega intimidated at the thought of dropping comments in such a public forum. What if I said something out of context or people noticed I didn’t have any open source experience?
Dilbert comic by Unknown
Needless to say, as a designer on IBM Cloud and having been to KubeCon, I was as prepared as anybody could be.
I still spent like two more hours of reading and re-reading all the comments in the email-thread-turned-issue-turned-pull-request. Only then did I muster up the courage to jot up some comments. Oh, and I cleaned up my GitHub profile. Nobody’s looking … but you never know 😉
I dropped a few observation+suggestion comments in the thread, shut my computer and did a mini celebration. Later that night, I took a peek and saw that the maintainer of the pull request had gone through and incorporated some of my suggestions and responded directly to some others. Overall a great outcome!
And there you have it, my first contribution. The idea that a contribution can be in the form of timely, well-structured feedback was amazing to me.
Fast forward a few months to when I was working on the SIG’s first survey. I sent out an email to our email group asking for feedback and got back several responses. Some were from people I know and others from people I don’t. This is one of the amazing things about working in the open. It reminds me of this great quote from Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel and Git. He said this in his TED Talk about the first time he shared his project publicly:
“People started contributing ideas. Just the fact that somebody takes a look at your project, takes an interest in your code, looks at it enough to give you feedback and give you ideas … that was a huge thing for me.” - Linus Torvalds
I’m glad this applies not just to code, but to people commenting on a user research plan as well!
Lesson #2: Full-time designer? Manage your time & expectations.
After the SIG Usability charter was approved, project ideas started flowing. By this time, I felt comfortable proposing ideas. But as far as time commitment, I had no idea how much time I would be able to dedicate.
People on the Kubernetes project are extremely passionate about what they do. I saw no lack of discussions facilitated during my time at KubeCon, with the theme of debate coming up again and again. It’s contagious. Probably one of my favorite parts of the community. However, early on in my involvement with SIG Usability, I made the mistake of thinking I would be judged based on the amount of time I could spend contributing.
As a first-time contributor, I admired how involved everybody in the SIG seemed to be. They were chairs of other SIGs and seemed well versed in the inner workings of the community. It wasn’t until I met some of the other SIG Usability members almost 6 months later that I realized I wasn’t the only first-time contributor. All of a sudden I realized I was not alone. What’s more, I realized there were other first-timers who were also trying to balance full time design duties and contributing to open source all while keeping weekends free. I realized that while there are people whose work circumstances allow them to contribute full time. I should take on a level of contribution that makes sense for me. It should take into account my workload and what type of skills I want to build.
I should take on a level of contribution that makes sense for me. It should take into account my workload and what type of skills I want to build.
For me, this meant building up Kubernetes domain knowledge, flexing my user research muscles, and generally just giving back to the Kubernetes community. Overall this amounted to adopting a healthy 20% time attitude towards contributing. I attend the tri-weekly meetings, push survey work forward and if there are seasons when I can be more or less involved, I take advantage of that. Friday-you afternoons in the summer are the perfect example of a good season for being involved. Leading up to a Beta launch and having to work weekends, not so much.
Getting to that realization allowed me to worry less about what others expected of me and focus on contributing what I could.
Lesson #3: Hit a blocker? Help is a Slack away.
As our first survey approached a state where it was ready to send out, I still had it in a free version of Survey Monkey. It had gone through several rounds of feedback and had reached the point of, “Now what??”
With the help of our wonderful SIG leads, Tasha Drew and Vallery Lancey (Emeritus Lead), we were able to request permission to use the CNCF survey tool. CNCF helped us do a final review and publish our survey. We celebrated and sent our shiny new survey out to the SIG Usability email list.
Later the question became, how do we reach a wider audience than just our small SIG? Again, with the help of our SIG leads, I grew to realize help was just a Slack message away. Kubernetes has a whole Special Interest Group dedicated to the Contributor Experience. One message on their Slack channel and they help put you in touch with the right people. With their help we were able to share our survey via the CNCF Twitter, reach a global audience, and get a great response on our survey.
How amazing is it that the Kubernetes project has a SIG specializing in Contributor Experience? | https://medium.com/design-ibm/design-open-source-lessons-from-a-year-of-contributing-to-the-kubernetes-project-a85120acc890 | ['Gamoreno Cesar'] | 2020-08-13 15:58:56.939000+00:00 | ['UX', 'Open Source', 'Kubernetes'] |
Down with substitute thinking, properly research your target audience | “We know just what they want” is a common statement to come across while working on a project. It is expressed by people who fancy that their experience gives them the knowledge necessary to use substitute thinking. To decide for others what they want. The hope is that this will speed things up. However, it can lead to discovering later in the process that you are going about things the wrong way. Surely this is not a desired scenario. It would be much better to sympathize with your target group as much as possible.
There is no such thing as organizations
Vince Lombardi, former head coach of the National Football League club Green Bay Packers, managed to lead his team to five title wins in seven years. A historical achievement which was partially due to his views about putting a team together. Through an understanding of what motivated each member of the team, he managed to use them together to achieve his goal: winning the NFL title.
Vince Lombardi after winning the NFL title (photo credits: Green Bay Packers)
“The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual”. Vince’s words can be applied to his sport and also to organizations in general. Organizations, after all, are nothing more than groups of people aiming to achieve a mutual goal within a certain time period. This goal could be anything. Sports related (“we want to win the NFL again this year”), commercial (“increase revenue by 20% this calendar year”), charitable (“help those in our direct environment with lesser living conditions”), visionary (“the most innovative in the area of XYZ”); and so forth. To win yet another NFL title, Vince Lombardi was primarily dependent on his players and staff. By motivating them in the right way and at the right time, he was able to reach the collective goal.
It is no different in business. There too, we strongly depend on people. Those in the target group are key to success and therefore to the reaching of our goal. These are, after all, the people whom you want to bind to you. To achieve this, you need to understand the people, their motivations and their problems.
Don’t prompt someone else
But how familiar are you with what your target audience wants? With what they think of your organization, goods and services? With how you can help them, so that they will direct their attention to you, in a world in which they are inundated by organizations vying for their attention?
“We do know what our users want” is, therefore, one of the most dangerous sentences possible. It is a direct form of substitute thinking. You base what you do on what you believe a group of people believes. Since you continue passing on information, the message loses its nuance and can even be remembered and/or interpreted incorrectly. Instead, you are encouraged to get out there and get in touch with those whom you are targeting. It is the essence of Design Thinking for a reason.
Aggregating information already available within your organization is a great first step towards a reality check. It will give you fair amount of insight into your target audience, their problems and motivations.
Have a great start by talking to colleagues to gather known observations, problems, insights and ideas!
Take a journey through your own organization
Have a chat with your colleagues in Marketing. They will have plenty of information readily available about demographics, preferences and possibly even past market research. And what to think of colleagues responsible for the digital products you offer, such as websites and apps? They can provide insight into how the products are being used, by digging into the Analytics. Maybe you’re lucky and they have conducted tests themselves already (usability, A/B, multi variance tests etc).
And while you are collecting information, your next stop should be the people of customer service. They are in direct contact with the people of your target audience on a daily basis and will know like no other what questions these people constantly pose. They will also know how your target audience feels about you and particular actions. Another trick is to visit some of the social media yourself and see what people are saying about you.
Continue your journey to your colleagues in sales. Account managers, client service managers, salespeople, you name it. These are the people who know what motivates the target audience to take real action. Additionally, they will have the best anecdotes and testimonials possible. It is therefore most definitely worth it to get them talking.
Nuance is necessary
So now you have retrieved the shared image, but you still need to find out whether this information is consistent with reality. Information from your own organisation is, after all, extremely valuable, and is still second hand information. Ideally of course, you also obtain qualitative information first hand. Something you have heard or experienced yourself will provide essential nuance to the the aggregated picture. It will also ensure you don’t see the amount of data, but the actual people.
There is a perception that conducting qualitative research takes a lot of time and money, which leads to it being disregarded. That is unfortunate, because it doesn’t need to be a long process of getting the right candidates and conducting the research in a (proprietary) usability lab. It is possible to get it done on faster and on a smaller scale.
Talk to your customers, in order to know their real problems
Determine your focus and get out there
Though you may have an idea of what makes the people in your target group tick, it is still valuable to consider it for longer. This can help make a conscious choice about the correct representation of the group. Once you have this tweaked, you are ready to get out there. How? Making contact with those in your target group is quick and easy.
Friends and family tests
One of the most accessible ways is to engage people on the street. This can seem a little intrusive, so it is essential to find the right moment. Look for a café near the office or a train, bus or metro station. People are waiting anyway and will often be prepared to chat. Is your target group not out on the street? No problem. A location of your company where people enter is very suitable for field testing too.
Contextual interviews
People get involved with you, your product and service, from a particular context. That statement seems blatantly obvious, but at the same time this context is not taken into account often enough. Interviewing people in their “natural” environment will show how they truly interact, providing you with valuable insights. For instance, do you notice people using your digital product primarily in their cars? Adjust your interface accordingly and think of technical solutions enabling people to continue focusing on the road.
Shadowing and service safaris
Immerse yourself into someone else’s world and observe them. Find a public place where people interact with you. For instance, while we are working on digital solutions, there are often analog solutions already available. Observe the “real” world and see what people say and do. Be alert and pay attention to non verbal communication such as body language and micro expressions on people’s faces. These subconscious signals can tell you an awful lot, yet these are precisely the things people can’t explicitly put their fingers on during interviews.
A Day in the Life of
Do you want to get a broad overview of how people spend their days? To find out how you can help them improve it, for instance? Then this method is worth considering. You ask people to write down as much of possible of what they do during one day, complemented with questions of what you specifically want to know.
Insights lead to value
Empathizing with your target audience and getting real contact with them is always a good idea, regardless of which method you choose. When you start talking to them, observing and analyzing, you will see that you uncover a lot more detail than if you try to come up with everything by yourself.
Combine this detailed information and segment your target audience based on their motives and problems in user definitions. The differences will provide valuable insights which you can grasp in order to be of value, instead of doing this based on department, geographic location or age.
And because you give people something that is of added value, they will bind themselves to you. This has advantages for both of you, as it brings you a step closer to your own goal. So: get out there! | https://uxdesign.cc/down-with-substitute-thinking-properly-research-your-target-audience-b77728199b8 | ['Jeffrey Vd Dungen Bille'] | 2019-03-21 00:24:51.287000+00:00 | ['Design Thinking', 'Design', 'UX', 'Research', 'Service Design'] |
Digital Services Act: The New Foundation for Europe’s Digital Single Market | Bild von Laurent Verdier auf Pixabay
20 years after the introduction of the European E-Commerce Directive, the Digital Services Act (DSA) was presented yesterday by the European Commission to complement the aging Directive. Twenty years ago, when the E-Commerce Directive (which still regulates the internal market for online services) was introduced, there were no social media platforms as we know them today. Regulation aimed at the requirements of the platform economy is therefore urgently needed. In addition to the Digital Services Act, the Commission also presented the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is directed at platforms with a gatekeeper function. The DMA supplements regulations on competition law and is intended to limit the market power of the larger digital corporations.
The still valid e-commerce directive contains an instrument that is extremely important for the functioning of the internet, especially of platforms: the so-called “notice and take down” procedure. This, in short, releases platforms from their liability for illegal content of third parties, as long as they have no knowledge of it. However, this changes as soon as they are made aware of it. Upon becoming aware, they must act and remove the content, otherwise they are liable for it. The Digital Services Act builds on the E-Commerce Directive and retains this instrument. This is very welcome, also in view of the fact that in the USA, a comparable regulation, the so-called Section 230, is being heavily disputed and President-elect Joe Biden is eager to abolish it.
The Digital Services Act is intended, among other things, to better regulate illegal content on platforms and to remove it in compliance with the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. What sounds good at first raises the same problems that we already know from the German Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG): Platforms are to decide for themselves what is illegal. This is a task that the judiciary has to take on and not private companies. At the same time, the DSA makes no statements about what constitutes “illegal content”. This is — quite rightly — regulated in other pieces of legislation at European or national level. However, it is positive that the DSA, like the NetzDG, requires a contact person for the platform operator operating in the European Union. Likewise, the member states have to appoint a “Digital Services Coordinator”, who is to supervise compliance with the regulations in the member state and who will form the “European Board for Digital Services” at the European level, which will assist the European Commission as an advisory body.
However, the Digital Services Act also brings some improvements for users of digital platforms, especially in relation to content that has been removed according to the platform’s own community standards. For example, users must be informed why their content has been removed from the platform. According to the DSA, the platform must offer possibilities to appeal the decision and provide a platform for dispute resolution. It is also to be welcomed that the DSA provides for safeguards to prevent the misuse of the reporting function for posts — after all, false reports are often used to try to silence unpopular opinions. Platforms are therefore advised to find regulations to temporarily block these users and to explain this procedure in their GTC. The terms and conditions should also state in comprehensible language whether the content is moderated by humans or algorithms.
The Digital Services Act distinguishes between the size of platforms in the intended obligations. It explicitly notes that “very large platforms” have a very different impact on European societies. The DSA defines very large platforms as those with more than 45 million users, or 10 percent of EU citizens. The penalties provided for in the Digital Services Act are considerable: up to 6 percent of annual turnover is possible in the case of extremely serious violations.
Users should be able to better understand the composition of the content that is displayed to them. To this end, very large platforms should disclose what their parameters are for recommendation systems (e.g. the News Feed) and allow alternative settings to be made. This includes the possibility of a neutral arrangement of content that is not based on the user’s preferences as anticipated by the platform. Users should also be able to see why they are shown advertisements, i.e. according to which parameters the so-called micro-targeting was carried out. It should also be possible to see who paid for the ad.
As already mentioned in the “European Democracy Action Plan” presented at the beginning of December, the Digital Services Act contains regulations that are intended to limit the spread of disinformation. Online platforms are required to draw up a code of conduct outlining how they intend to deal with content that is not illegal but nevertheless harmful. This includes how to deal with fake accounts and bots, which often help spread disinformation and other harmful but not illegal content. Platforms that do not have a code of conduct and cannot justify this can be accused of not complying with the DSA. The obligation to provide data for research purposes announced in the Action Plan is reflected in the DSA.
It is also to be welcomed that very large platforms are to have plans in place for crisis situations, for example pandemics, earthquakes or terrorist attacks. In order to assess and mitigate risks, these platforms are also encouraged to include users, particularly affected persons, independent experts and representatives of civil society in their measures. This is an important step, especially in light of the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar, which was fuelled by disinformation and hate speech on Facebook, to which the platform failed to respond for a long time.
The Digital Services Act could also apply to channels (and possibly also groups) on Telegram and thus be more comprehensive than the German NetzDG, which has a loophole for messengers like Telegram that also enable public communication. This would mean that Telegram would also have to name a contact person in Europe. The DSA is not intended to apply to private communication via messenger and e-mail, but only to groups that are intended for the public.
The Digital Services Act is intended to create a uniform regulation for the European digital single market, which is also supposed to be a measure against the patchwork of national legislation that has arisen, for example, through the German NetzDG or the French “Avia Law”. However, it does not replace national laws, but supplements and unifies them. The DSA claims to want to set international standards. The fact that it seeks to do this by privatising law enforcement to the platforms — as was already the case with the NetzDG — is to be sharply criticised. It is to be hoped that the European Parliament will advocate for a more sensible solution in the negotiations on the final text of the directive.
This text was first published on fnf-europe.org. | https://medium.com/@anncathrin87/digital-services-act-the-new-foundation-for-europes-digital-single-market-6e571bbccfb4 | ['Ann Cathrin Riedel'] | 2020-12-22 10:09:09.454000+00:00 | ['Dsa', 'Digital Services Act', 'Europe', 'Digital Policy', 'Margrethe Vestager'] |
Implementing K-Means Clustering with K-Means++ Initialization in Python. | K-Means clustering is an unsupervised machine learning algorithm. Being unsupervised means that it requires no label or categories with the data under observation. If you are interested in supervised algorithms then you can start here.
K-means clustering is a surprisingly simple algorithm that creates groups (clusters) of similar data points within our entire dataset. This algorithm proves to be a very handy tool when looking for hidden patterns in scattered data.
The entire code used in this tutorial can be found here.
This tutorial will cover the following elements:
· A brief overview of the k-means algorithm.
· Implementing the k-means with random initialization.
· Overview of the importance of optimal centroid initialization.
· Implementation of K-means++ for smart centroid initialization.
Let us get started:
1. Understanding the Algorithm:
Suppose we have some random-looking data as shown in the picture below. We wish to create groupings in the data, so it looks a little more structured however, with the naked eye, it becomes difficult to decide which points to associate together. K-means will do this for us.
image source :http://sungsoo.github.com/images/scatter1.png
One shortcoming of the K-means algorithm is that you need to specify how many clusters you need from the data. This can be a problem in cases where you want to segregate your data but are unsure how many categories there should be optimal.
* Methods like the elbow method can be used to find an optimal number of clusters but those are not discussed in this article. *
The K-means algorithm follows the following steps:
1. Pick n data points that will act as the initial centroids.
2. Calculate the Euclidean distance of each data point from each of the centroid points selected in step 1.
3. Form data clusters by assigning every data point to whichever centroid it has the smallest distance from.
4. Take the average of each formed cluster. The mean points are our new centroids.
Repeat steps 2 through 4 until there is no longer a change in centroids.
Implementation of other algorithms;
2. Implementation
Enough theory lets us get to coding.
First, we will take a look at our dataset. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will use the dataset of human height-weight body index. The dataset is available for free and can be downloaded here.
#loading up the libraries
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import random as rd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
#loading data
data = pd.read_csv("500_Person_Gender_Height_Weight_Index.csv")
Visualizing our data
From the scatter plot, we can see that the data has quite a random distribution and there are no clear clusters. It would be interesting to see what sort of groupings our algorithm performs.
Let’s quickly write down a function to get random points.
Let's see if it works.
Random centroids initialized
These random centroids are…well… quite random 😵.
Let us code down the routine to reach appropriate centroids and create corresponding clusters.
Let’s run this routine to locate 4 clusters in the data.
Final Centroids found
All done!
Let’s see what we got.
Red dot: Centroid, Remaining Points: Dataset
Looks like we have our groupings all done ✌️. Now it is time to see if initializing the centroids any different would make a difference.
Let’s talk about the K-means++ initialization algorithm.
3. Optimal Centroid Initialization.
When initializing the centroids, it is important that the initially selected points are fairly apart. If the points are too close together, there is a good chance the points will find a cluster in their local region and the actual cluster will be blended with another cluster.
When randomly initializing centroids, we have no control over where their initial position will be.
The K-means++ is a smart way to tackle this problem.
Just like K-Means itself, K-Means++ too is a very simple algorithm.
1. The first centroid is selected randomly.
2. Calculate the Euclidean distance between the centroid and every other data point in the dataset. The point farthest away will become our next centroid.
3. Create clusters around these centroids by associating every point with its nearest centroid.
4. The point which has the farthest distance from its centroid will be our next centroid.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until n number of centroids are located.
4. Implementation of K-Means++
Let’s code our algorithm.
With the algorithm penned down, let us test it on the K-Means algorithm we built above.
Clusters after applying k-means++
We can see that this time we have found different clusters. This shows the difference initial centroids can make.
5. Conclusion
In summary, K-Means is a simple yet powerful algorithm. It can be used to create clusters in your current data. These clusters help you get a better picture of your current data and the clusters can be used to analyze any future data. This can be helpful if you are trying to analyze the customer base of your business. Grouping together customers can help you create personalized policies for each cluster and when a new customer joins, they can be easily associated with the already formed clusters, the possibilities are limitless.
For more articles; | https://medium.com/geekculture/implementing-k-means-clustering-with-k-means-initialization-in-python-7ca5a859d63a | ['Moosa Ali'] | 2021-09-11 10:13:50.913000+00:00 | ['K Means', 'K Means Clustering', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
Solving the Equation of Our Own Suffering | When we suffer, the question we often ask is why. Why did event X happen? However, in the equation of our own suffering, why is not the variable we are trying to solve. The scriptures teach us why things happen. Nephi taught “[God] doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world” (2 Nephi 26:24). And the Lord himself revealed that “[His] work and [His] glory” was “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). Thus the variable, for which we must solve, is how event X manifests God’s love to us or brings about His work and His glory through our experiences.
Instructively, the idea for the creation of algebra was not to dishearten future students, but to simplify problems so that we could solve them. The Lord does not give us problems we cannot solve either. Paul taught the Corinthians that “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Nephi was okay with “not know[ing] the meaning of all things” because “[he knew] that [God] loveth his children” (1 Nephi 11:17). Our faith in God can give us hope even amidst trials. This is likely why Nephi could be bound unjustly with cords helplessly watching the ship he built be thrashed around in a storm, and yet surprisingly comment, “I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions” (1 Nephi 18:16). Focusing disproportionately on comprehending what only the Lord can comprehend could be paralyzing instead of catalyzing our faith to action.
Although the word faith is more commonly used as a noun, in the grammar of the gospel, it is a verb whose object is God. Our faith in God inspires us to not only “hope for a better world” (Ether 12:4), but propels us to make this world better-one faithful act at a time. Sadly, sometimes our understanding of gospel grammar might allow a trust in faith’s object if only the subject were different. We may think, “sure ‘all things are possible to him that believeth’ (Mark 9:23), because the “him” in this scriptural sentence surely means someone else’. Mathematically speaking; however, the scriptures can say all things are possible to you and I, because no matter how small we think our all is, anything multiplied by an “infinite atonement” would equal infinity (see Alma 34:8–12). Through the enabling atonement of Christ we can all “come off conqueror[s]” (D&C 10:5) against our trials, if we believe.
Photo provided by my friend Brandon. | https://medium.com/mormon-writers/solving-the-equation-of-our-own-suffering-b1dfc27af95e | ['Nathan Arp'] | 2016-09-02 18:30:40.556000+00:00 | ['Bible', 'Religion', 'Self Improvement', 'Jesus', 'Christianity'] |
7 Tips for UI/UX Design Bootcamp From A Mentor | Network
If you’re enrolled in one of these programs, you’ll almost certainly be assigned a tutor or mentor to work with. In that case, I believe you’re extremely fortunate, as many excellent mentors and tutors in these programs will go out of their way to accommodate you and assist you, regardless of your situation.
And as a designer and mentor, one of the things I try to do is really get to know each of my student's goals and needs so that I can find side projects for them to work on, or if there are people in my network who I think would be a good fit for them to talk to, I try to connect my students with those people within the industry.
As a student in the program, one of the most important things you can do is reach out to your mentor and have an open conversation about your goals and needs. They will be able to contact people in their network in this manner.
They can help you find resources outside of the program and connect you with the right people so you can get the most out of it. So, in addition to going through the program and curriculum that your Bootcamp or program is teaching you, there’s a lot of value in supplementing your education and supplementing your program with some of these other available educational resources.
So, if you’re looking to learn new software, there are many great online resources available for free. Most of these businesses will have their own tutorial to walk you through the process of getting started with their software. However, there are times when you can find many great UX books and attend a lot of free conferences. There are many great ways to learn and further your education that you’re only scratching the surface.
So, in addition to simply learning from your program, applying the skills you’ve learned in your Bootcamp or program to a real-world project can be extremely beneficial. | https://uxplanet.org/7-tips-for-ui-ux-design-bootcamp-from-a-mentor-786500cdee2b | [] | 2021-07-16 20:27:19.609000+00:00 | ['Bootcamp', 'Design Thinking', 'Ui Ux Design', 'UX Design', 'UX Research'] |
Tonight’s c🎃mic is Gourd to Death | If you purge your soul onto paper and are doing it for the love of writing. Then this publication is for you. We love gritty, raw, emotional, thought-provoking, rebellious, sexual, spiritual, nature-related writings and comic strips.
Follow | https://medium.com/the-rebel-poets-society/tonights-c-mic-is-gourd-to-death-22d4ee65c3cd | [] | 2020-09-14 15:56:47.334000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Pumpkin', 'Storytelling', 'Halloween', 'Comics'] |
How To Prepare A Homework With Academic Publications | It can be given depending on the course instructor at colleges.
Before classes became online, I never had to use academic publications to make my homework. Until the final exam that required me to research various topics to write a two-page summary. Here, we’ll outline how to do this homework.
1-Researching academic literature
The first step would be to look for academic literature regarding the topic. And Google Scholar becomes useful when it comes to searching the literature. As you go through the literature, download the articles that could be useful to your assignment to your computer.
2-Reading and marking important points on academic literature
The second phase starts as soon as you’ve found the resources needed to make your own assignment. And the hard part begins when you started to open their pages to mark important points that could be used to complete your required homework.
3-Writing these marked points with the name of the papers to create an ordered list of phrases
After you’ve marked crucial points in various papers, you need to take notes with online note-taking applications downloaded on your computer. To make this process easier, you can copy and paste the marked points towards your online note-taking application downloaded on your computer.
4-Interpretation and finalizing the results
After you’ve taken your notes on various papers, you can start interpreting the results obtained from your research. But they have to be written in your own words or you might get into serious trouble depending on your school’s regulation on cheating and highly similar content. Even more, your professors might make it a problem if they found high similarity on your own papers.
5-Checking for potential errors before submitting
After you’ve done your own work, it might be needed to show references depending on your homework. And to make it look more professional, use Grammarly to check and fix your mistakes before submitting. After you’ve completed all the steps to do your homework, you can easily submit your assignment to places defined by the school or the professors.
How would you do homework that requires academic research? Have you ever done this kind of assignment? If you did, share your experiences in the comments section below. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/how-to-prepare-a-homework-with-academic-publications-9bfac1b4955d | ['Ata Tekeli'] | 2020-12-16 08:11:58.207000+00:00 | ['Academia', 'College Education', 'Assignment', 'Publication'] |
Just-in-Time vs. Just-in-Case Learning | Are you still learning like you were taught in school?
Just over a year ago I got the idea to catalog some of my thoughts on self-development and learning via this blog. I had never written anything publicly before and the last time I wrote something longer than a thank-you note or email was during my high school English class.
I was unsure how to start a blog or what it should look like. I didn’t even know if I had anything worthwhile to say. So, naturally, to kick-start this process, I began reading up on the subject. I read numerous blogs to pick apart what I liked and didn’t like about their style and content. I read books on writing and how to start an online business. I watched YouTube videos on how to build a WordPress site. I consumed any piece of relevant information I could get my hands on.
Over the next few months, I read tens of thousands of words related to this subject. Many hours were spent trying to learn how to start a blog. But can you guess how much time was spent on writing my first post? You guessed it — zero. All of this time spent consuming information to provide myself with a false sense of understanding of how to write a blog when all I needed to do was create a WordPress site and just start writing.
Just-in-Time vs. Just-in-Case Learning
Just-in-Time
There is a common term in the manufacturing world known as just-in-time manufacturing. Developed by Toyota in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s, it became a major competitive advantage in the automotive industry. Instead of following the industry standard of just-in-case manufacturing, whereby automotive manufacturers maintained large inventories of materials requiring expensive warehousing and additional labor, Toyota built its cars using a made-to-order process. This process allowed them to save millions of dollars in inventory costs which were then pumped into their manufacturing processes to speed up production.
By solely focusing on building cars in demand, Toyota was able to dominate the market by having low overhead, short lead times and the ability to adapt quickly to new market trends. Meanwhile, the competition was left behind with inventory they couldn’t sell.
This just-in-time model can also be applied effectively to how we learn. This involves putting all of your resources (in this case, your time and attention) into learning a skillset in demand. By focusing on developing one skill at a time, you speed up your learning process giving you an eventual competitive advantage in the skill-driven economy. However, this type of learning does not come naturally since most of us have been conditioned our entire upbringing to learn via the just-in-case model.
Just-in-Case*
The just-in-case model is how most of us were taught in school. You’re fed a wide variety of information spanning multiple subjects with the intention of some of it proving useful in the future. This type of learning worked well in a classroom environment where the information taught was soon reflected on the test to gauge understanding. Of course, most of the information taught is soon forgotten unless you constantly refresh yourself on what was learned.
This classroom model for learning often incentivizes students to learn by rote memorization of the material instead of trying to master the fundamentals. Having the ability to accurately recall dates, names and formulas don’t equate to an understanding of why an event occurred or how a formula represents a law of nature.
This model may have helped you excel in the education system but often falls short when trying to advance in the skills-centric workforce. To better understand why just-in-case learning doesn’t translate well to the real world, let’s look at some of the pitfalls of adhering to this model.
*Please note I am not trying to devalue the education system for providing us with a broad knowledge base. For the sake of this article, I am focused on skills-based learning needed to excel in the real world. We will table the discussion of the importance of philosophical knowledge for a later post.
Pitfalls of the Just-in-Case Model
Information Overload
If there was one thing the education system taught me, it was to always go back and re-read the chapter and any notes if you were unsure about a particular topic. While this technique might have worked in a structured school environment where the information is provided and organized, it is inefficient for trying to learn something new. You end up spending most of your time reading and re-reading the entire material in search of the one core concept you missed.
A more efficient way to determine where you are weak in your understanding is to use the Feynman Technique, made famous by the Noble winning physicist Richard Feynman. This technique involves writing out what you know about a particular subject in a clear and simple manner as if you were going to teach it to a child. This technique will reveal any gaps you have in your understanding since we often mask our confusion with complex vocabulary and jargon. Recognizing where the knowledge gaps lie helps you pinpoint where you need to focus your time and attention during your studies.
False Sense of Progress
When my most important goal is unclear or difficult to complete, I will often binge on “just-in-case” information found in articles and videos related to the topic. While it feels like I am making progress towards my goal, in reality, I am procrastinating from doing the hard work. I find it easy to fall into this feel-good trap of telling yourself you’re being productive by learning more about the subject matter when all you’re doing is spinning your wheels.
It would be a much better use of time to break down the goal into more manageable chunks to determine where the hangups are hiding. This will free you up to fully focus on the problem at hand to determine the best course of action for reaching your goal. Correctly defining the problem will allow you to start consuming the necessary information to help you reach a solution.
“Neomania”
We tend to obsess over the shiny and new. Whether its breaking news, the latest tip or trick, or even the latest NYT bestseller — we can’t seem to get enough. Our desire to constantly be in the loop is motivated by our desire for social status which is further fueled by well-budgeted marketing campaigns and social media shares. Our fear of being left out of conversations concerning current events compels us to read up on the newest information leading to this “neomania” phenomenon.
This innate desire to signal to our peers how well-informed we are will coincidently lead to more uncertainty in our understanding. We feast on a steady diet of new information not yet vetted by the course of time to determine its credibility. This leads to a constant “truth-seeking” while we rapidly update our worldview with each new piece of information presented. It would be a much better use of our time to study information that has withstood the test of time.
Changing Your Model
Perhaps you’re like me, obsessed with consuming information for the sake of learning. The just-in-case model from the education system has been implanted so deep into your subconscious when you hit a roadblock in your work, you revert back to reading more information on the subject. If you relate to this and wish to fight the infomania urge, I encourage you to follow some simple steps which have helped me be more intentional with my learning.
First, determine what skills you are interested in developing. If you wish to be successful in the future, pick a skill that others find valuable and are willing to pay for. Have a goal to master only one skill at this time. Be concrete about what you want to accomplish with learning this skill. Not having a clear understanding of what you are trying to accomplish will lead to procrastination and wasted effort.
Once you have made a decision, only search for answers to the question keeping you from further developing your skill. Any information that doesn’t help you progress at this time should be viewed as a distraction trying to diffuse your attention.
If you wish to succeed with this method, you must choose to remove yourself from the noise. This includes distancing yourself from social media where you are constantly bombarded with new information you are supposed to care about. You can’t keep a focused mind if you continually allow yourself to be fed random information in exchange for a cheap dopamine fix. Your ability to focus is what will separate you from the pack during the skill development phase.
With enough practice and patience, you can re-wire your brain to follow the just-in-time model for learning. Making this shift in your learning habits will allow you to develop new skills at a much quicker rate. So if you wish to stay ahead of the curve or even stay relevant in this new economy, this model for learning has never been more important. | https://blakereichmann.medium.com/just-in-time-learning-983ee971bfff | ['Blake Reichmann'] | 2020-01-14 15:27:02.918000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Learning'] |
Interview: C# Design Patterns — Why and How | Creational Design Patterns
Creational patterns provide various object creation mechanisms
Factory Method —
Factory Method is a creational design pattern that provides an interface for creating objects in a superclass, but allows subclasses to alter the type of objects that will be created.
Problem
Imagine that you’re creating a logistics management application. The first version of your app can only handle transportation by trucks, so the bulk of your code lives inside the Truck class.
After a while, your app becomes pretty popular. Each day you receive dozens of requests from sea transportation companies to incorporate sea logistics into the app.
Solution
The Factory Method pattern suggests that you replace direct object construction calls (using the new operator) with calls to a special factory method. Don’t worry: the objects are still created via the new operator, but it’s being called from within the factory method. Objects returned by a factory method are often referred to as products.
For example, to add a new product type to the app, you’ll only need to create a new creator subclass and override the factory method in it.
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Abstract Factory is a creational design pattern, which solves the problem of creating entire product families without specifying their concrete classes.
Problem
Imagine that you’re creating a furniture shop simulator. Your code consists of classes that represent:
A family of related products, say: Chair + Sofa + CoffeeTable . Several variants of this family. For example, products Chair + Sofa + CoffeeTable are available in these variants: Modern , Victorian , ArtDeco .
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Builder is a creational design pattern, which allows constructing complex objects step by step.
Singleton is a creational design pattern that lets you ensure that a class has only one instance, while providing a global access point to this instance.
Structural Design Patterns
Structural patterns explain how to assemble objects and classes into larger structures while keeping these structures flexible and efficient.
Adapter is a structural design pattern that allows objects with incompatible interfaces to collaborate.
Decorator is a structural design pattern that lets you attach new behaviors to objects by placing these objects inside special wrapper objects that contain the behaviors.
Facade is a structural design pattern that provides a simplified interface to a library, a framework, or any other complex set of classes.
Behavioral Design Patterns
Behavioral design patterns are concerned with algorithms and the assignment of responsibilities between objects.
Chain of Responsibility is a behavioral design pattern that lets you pass requests along a chain of handlers. Upon receiving a request, each handler decides either to process the request or to pass it to the next handler in the chain.
Strategy is a behavioral design pattern that lets you define a family of algorithms, put each of them into a separate class, and make their objects interchangeable.
State is a behavioral design pattern that allows an object to change the behavior when its internal state changes. | https://medium.com/@vishal18-gupta/interview-c-design-patterns-why-and-how-9ad681559181 | ['Vishal Gupta'] | 2020-11-25 15:16:02.982000+00:00 | ['Design Patterns'] |
A Pro Athlete’s 2 Tips on Life Mastery | The bright lights blinded me and stabbing pain shot into my brain.
“Wake up, five minutes till we leave,” he said flatly.
“Dad, five more minutes, I don’t want to get up yet,” I said, my 14-year old body writhing in morning suffering.
“Let’s go — time to practice.”
I’ll always remember those words. Those days when my parents were still married and my weekends consisted of peanut butter pancakes and large glasses of full milk and countless hours of shooting hoops with my brothers and my dad in the driveway.
The early morning workouts sucked, and it was my fault for asking for them.
I told my dad as a kid, (I just decided to call him Big Daddy Damon Ray), that I wanted to be great at basketball. He never took my dreams lightly. Even as my older brother Jeremy decided to pursue other sports and endeavors, it was my dad that was tugging at my blankets and flipping on the lights before the sun was up.
There is no time to overthink feelings on, “Why should I get up right now?”
See, Big Daddy Damon Ray knew there wasn’t always the feeling of motivation when building successful habits and mastering the craft you feel passionate about, especially as you begin your journey each day.
“Motivation is like ice. It melts when a choice gets too hot to make. That ice melts when times get tough, when mornings get early, when it’s time to put in the work — you need habits to help you make the decision to practice,” he’d say with his Southern Michigan farmer drawl.
Looking back at my childhood, this lesson of daily practice was what I needed to learn about the beauty of mastering my life’s passions.
“It’s time to become what you want,” he said, the quiet of dawn waiting for us to make our daily walk towards the gym. I’ll never forget those days, of his cinderblock shoulders and hands as thick as bricks ferociously passing the ball back to me.
“8 for 10. 7 for 10. 9 for 10,” he’d should back at me.
Yes, my dad was an inspiration for practicing the mastery of basketball. He didn’t teach me to dabble. To hack. To waffle. To wait. There was no practicing once in a while.
It was:
Every. Single.
Day.
But damn, those mornings were rough. The light would pop on, and I would get up slowly and start my practice with him.
“Stay low, stay fast,” he’d tell me. “Practice good habits, not bad ones.”
But what about when you grow up and have to do real stuff? A startup? Move up the corporate ladder?How do you create habits for your life then?
These days, I know more about basketball than him, but that is because pro basketball became my life. I mastered the game. The training. The end result was 20 years of practice. But really, whether it is pro basketball, basket weaving, writing, startups, or making money doing what you love, it always comes down to your approach to mastery.
It always comes down to being so good (through practice), that people can’t ignore you.
My fitness startup, if it becomes a viable thing, will succeed because of the experience, the design, the team of talent, the community, and the authenticity of how our practice feels to adults that want to smile while they sweat.
Practice shouldn’t always feel hard, but getting yourself moving may. Staying on the path of practice is difficult and takes checking in with yourself. This sports to life lesson taught me the beauty of practicing for the sake of practicing.
Like anything that brings you happiness, or a better, healthier life, paying attention to your breath, or your meditation practice, or your fitness routines, or your relationships (what is that like Trevor, hmmm, I’ll get back to you on that one?), you begin to live a life of mastery rather than mediocrity.
The fruits of living authentically happen naturally, so just practice your passions as much as you can.
The money, happiness, joy, and success will follow true mastery.
But let’s for a second, say, what if I’m wrong?
What if the money and success doesn’t follow true mastery?
What if I write every day for the rest of my life and never make a dime? Will I be upset? Will I quit?
A true master practices his craft regardless of the result.
The funny thing is I truly believe I will become a writer because of my habit to practice writing every day. The success may or may not come, but regardless, writing is a passion of mine.
I wish I had never stopped writing and sharing my stories as a pro basketball player.
You will become a ______ because of your willingness to practice ______ every day.
Fill in those two blanks.
What does it say?
Isn’t life simple if you focus on what gives you back what you put in?
This is one of the most influential ideas and concepts of authentic living: put in the practice of mastering the passions and purposes you know you want to become and you will be rewarded the joy and happiness of that work.
Life Mastery Tip #1: Is Motivation or Practicing Habits More Important?
“A practice (as a noun) can be anything you practice on a regular basis as an integral part of your life — not in order to gain something else, but for its own sake… For a master, the rewards gained along the way are fine, but they are not the main reason for the journey. Ultimately, the master and the master’s path are one. And if the traveler is fortunate — that is, if the path is complex and profound enough — the destination is two miles farther away for every mile he or she travels.” — George Leonard
The days I woke up and felt motivated to be a professional athlete got harder and harder as I moved up each level of competition from high school to college, and ultimately, the pros.
This is because we all hit plateaus. One mountaintop signifies the descent and climb for yet another. The initial excitement of winning and success succumb to failure after failure as you continue to find out new levels of competition. As you get better and better and become a master, you also learn success can’t be your only motivation.
The most successful athletes and humans can answer this question with ease:
Life Mastery Tip #2: Can You Control the Controllable?
Each plateau you hit in business, fitness, marriage, or startups, can ultimately ruin you if you practice a fixed mindset when the struggle and suffering start punching you in the face with jabs and uppercuts.
This pain is part of the process. This period is normal, and it might be the long, arduous walk up the next mountain peak.
Not understanding why periods of suffering, non-growth, and plateau happen, can cause a negative shift in your approach to mastering your next level of habits. Sticking to the practice is hard when you don’t get affirmation every day.
But why do you need affirmation if you love what you are doing?
Stop being needy. Insecurity doesn’t thrive with masters, and if it does, they can smile and laugh at it and not take themselves too seriously.
I suffered from this plateau process when I tried out for the NBA and got cut two times. I took it personal. Instead of laughing it off and focusing on the process, I was the most vulnerable to losing the fundamentals of what made me triumphant in the first place, my daily practice routines!
I was a kid, I hadn’t matured enough to see the error of my thinking.
But I see adults doing this and making the same mistake I did. By allowing the colossal failures and plateau of development frustrate you enough into losing your control of the controllable, you will make the same mistake I did.
I wasn’t an NBA player because of a lack of self-awareness about what true mastery is, be your practice for the sake of practicing.
“A boat under a bright starry sky.” by Bryan Goff on Unsplash
But the half-truth is, you will care about the end result more than you should. You will care about the success, the ego, the fame, the money, the greed, the wins, the things, and the funny thing is, all that stuff takes care of itself when you live your life like a master.
True mastery is benign to failure because true masters don’t care about failure. It is their jet fuel, you see. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/a-pro-athletes-2-tips-on-life-mastery-54b26adaa32a | ['Trevor Huffman'] | 2018-07-20 15:50:14.656000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Startup', 'Self-awareness', 'Sports'] |
How to set up a unit testing framework for your dbt projects | dbt (data build tool) is a powerful tool in the ELT pipeline that allows you to perform transformations on data loaded in your warehouse. In this article, we’ll discuss custom testing within dbt. We’ll be using GCP services such as BigQuery, Cloud Build and Cloud Source Repositories.
So you’ve set up your dbt project and created your models. How do you test them? In other words, how do you ensure that your models are performing exactly the right kind of transformations that you intend? This is where unit testing comes in.
The idea is to provide input files that resemble the type of data your model will be using and output files that resemble the results of your models. You want to tell dbt to choose this input file as the source for your model and then compare the results of that model with your provided output file. For that comparison to be performed, we’re going to have to define tests inside of our schema.yml . We’ll walk through an example.
The simplest dataset
My project, dbt-unit-testing, is set up with connections to my BigQuery dataset into which I’ve loaded the Iris dataset available from Kaggle. This dataset has been loaded into my project into a table named iris (creative!). My model does something very basic; it creates a new column that sums all the measurements in a row and stores them in a column named “Sum” (even more creative!). This is what it looks like:
Simple model
Suuuper simple. Here’s how we test this model.
Seed your files
Create input and expected output CSV files. Name them using the following format:
Input file: test_<model_name>.csv Output file: <model_name>_expected.csv
As an example, here are my input and output files:
Input file
Output file
Place these files under the “data” folder in your project directory. When you seed files in dbt, it is always a safe bet to provide the column data types for your files. You can do this inside of your dbt_project.yml , like so:
Add a section containing seed configs to your dbt_project.yml
This helps ensure that dbt parses seed files correctly. Set the seed schema to a dataset separate from your models, or you’ll find that your dataset gets cluttered very quickly. If you like, you can place your testing seeds in a folder (say, UnitTesting) so that you can control the schema of all the seeds within that folder.
Targets for tests
Think of targets inside of dbt as separate environments. You might have a dev and prod target already defined inside of your profiles.yml . We’re going to add another one called “unit-test”:
unit-test target
Notice the dataset defined inside of the “unit-test target”. This sets the default schema to “iris-testing” when the “unit-test” target is specified.
Macros for tests
dbt provides ref and source macros to help create dependencies between models and establish lineage. We will rewrite these to accept different sources based on the target flag we pass through when we run the test command. I’ve named them ref_for_test and source_for_test , but you can name them anything really. Add these to your macros folder.
ref_for_test
source_for_test
Here’s what these macros do:
Create a relation containing the model name originally passed to the macro ( normal_source_relation , normal_ref_relation ) Check to see if the target is “unit-test”. If it is, then “test_” is appended to the identifier (think model name) of the relation calling the macro. This means that if iris_modifier calls the ref_for_test macro in the unit-test environment, the macro returns a relation for test_iris_modifier If the target is not “unit-test”, the original relation ( normal_source_relation , normal_ref_relation ) is passed back to the model
Replace the ref and source macros in your models with these. When the target is “unit-test”, they’ll point towards the input files that we’ve seeded in.
Defining the test
dbt-utils is a package provided by Fishtown Analytics that contains useful macros that we will use in our unit testing adventure. Add it to your packages.yml:
We’re interested in the equality schema test provided, as we’re going to use it to compare our expected output with the results of our model. This test is defined within our schema.yml:
schema test
Execution
Now that we’ve set up all of the different elements required to perform our unit tests, we can look at the actual dbt commands/actions involved.
Run dbt deps to install packages specified inside of your packages.yml
dbt deps Run dbt seed to load the test files into the testing dataset
dbt seed Run the model to be tested against the unit-test target
dbt run --target unit-test --model <model_name> Run the test against the unit-test target
dbt test --target unit-test --model <model_name>
Running this locally, I get the following result: | https://servian.dev/unit-testing-in-dbt-part-1-d0cc20fd189a | ['Betsy Varghese'] | 2021-07-15 20:23:44.460000+00:00 | ['Gcp', 'Dbt', 'Data Engineering', 'Unit Testing', 'Google Cloud Platform'] |
A Burning Free Village becoming an inspiration for others. | Rice is grown on 35 lakh hectares of the area in Punjab. However, the increase in productivity and area under the rice has led to a huge production of rice straw. Paddy Straw is a good source of nutrients and an important component for the stability of the ecosystem. One ton of rice straw contains 5–8 kg N, 0.7–1.2 kg P, 12–17 kg K, 0.5–1 kg S, 3–4 k Ca, 1–3 kg Mg.
Rice Straw can be managed successfully in-situ by using the latest machinery being provided by govt. at subsidized rates. The use of new generation planters like Happy Seeder, Super Seeder leading to a wider adoption due to direct drilling in standing as well as in loose residue. It also improves water use efficiency by up to 25%. The suppression of weeds with straw mulch might help to reduce herbicide requirements. The farmers who want to grow vegetables need a well-prepared field as compared to the wheat fields also farmers having fields with heavy soils opt for the removal of straw while the incorporation of straw is the first preference of light to medium soil fields.
Farmers from the Gill village of Sultanpur Lodhi sub-division in Kapurthala district are becoming an inspiration to other farmers of Punjab. The whole village led by Sarpanch Narinder Singh has not burnt the paddy straw and did the incorporation using Mulchur, MB Plough for the Potato crop, and sowed wheat using Happy Seeder and Super Seeder.
Narinder Singh S/o Santokh Singh doing the in-situ incorporation of paddy straw into the soil for the last 7 years. Earlier he used the Mulcher and Rotavator for incorporation the straw. With the introduction of Happy Seeder last year now he has adopted this technique and sown wheat crop in standing stubbles. Due to the regular incorporation of straw for the last 7 years, the yield of wheat has been increased to 20 q/acre, which was 15 q/acre 7 years ago. Being a Sarpanch of the village, he inspired farmers from his village to not burn paddy residue and use it to increase the organic carbon in the soil as well as productivity. He started a campaign “Zero Burning Village” and got successful to implement this. Farmers of the Gill village has adopted various techniques to manage the paddy residue based on the next crop grown. For Wheat Crop, most of the farmers are using Happy Seeder and Super Seeder Machine.
One of the farmers Ajit Singh S/o Chanda Singh from the same village has done in-situ incorporation of straw for the third year in a row. He has used the Mulchur and Rotavator to incorporated paddy straw. He said “Yield of Wheat and Paddy has increased to 5–7% as he is incorporating the residue for the last 3 years.
Sucha Singh S/o Pooran Singh belonging to the same village has 24 acres of land and using Paddy Straw as compost in his field. In earlier years he used Rotavator for mixing the straw within the soil and this year he sowed the wheat crop using Super seeder after the use of Mulchur. He Said, “With the came of Super Seeder it becoming easy to sow wheat without any ploughing”.
Another farmer Lakhwinder Singh S/o Gurdeep Singh from the Gill Village has 17 acres of land and he has opted for in-situ incorporation rather than burning. He has sowed the wheat crop using the newly introduced Super Seeder. He stated that “our whole village has taken initiative for zero burnings. By using the Paddy residue we can increase the fertility of the soil and can gain more yield from the crops. | https://medium.com/@rajveerbrar6360/a-burning-free-village-becoming-an-inspiration-for-others-76db1feec71b | ['Rajveer Singh Brar'] | 2020-12-17 08:55:05.245000+00:00 | ['CRM', 'Crop Residue Management', 'Paddy Straw', 'Residue Burning', 'Agriculture'] |
Deliberate Action | Deliberate Action
Image by Michelle Raponi from Pixabay
In business, as in many things in life, we want and need both to do things correctly and move fast. To do these seemingly opposing things requires an appropriate balance between thoughtful analysis and decisive action.
Analysis is critical. There is a saying in the US Navy SEALs: “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast”, meaning that when you need to move quickly, don’t rush. Take your time to do it right and then move on. You can’t hit a target if you don’t take time to aim. And having to do things again and again — because you are not doing them right — is not fast, no matter how quickly you are moving or how much energy you are expending.
It is all too easy for any of us to get up a full head of steam and start plowing through stuff quickly at the moment-by-moment level, but still end up not getting very far overall, because we are rushing, having to stop, rethink, redo, clean up, etc. At the end of the day, what actually matters is how quickly we are moving overall, not how busy we are moment-to-moment.
But, too much analysis becomes counter-productive. It keeps us from moving ahead with diminishing returns for our continued investigation. A common reason that we can fall into “analysis paralysis” and plan forever without actually taking any action is a fear of making the wrong decision. That fear is directly related to perceived consequences of getting it wrong. I would be absolutely paralyzed by fear at the thought of walking on a tightrope 100 feet above the ground. But I will gladly walk on one that is only 1 foot above the ground (and have frequently done so, since I own a slackline :)). The action is exactly the same in both cases, the but the consequences of failure are dramatically different.
The key to reducing the fear of failure and thus the risk of ‘analysis paralysis’ is to reduce the consequences of failure. And that is the heart of the Agile method. Agility at its heart is all about risk management. It’s about reducing risk so that you can move ahead quickly. The Agile method reduces risk by breaking work into very small chunks, executing one chunk at a time, testing, making sure that chunk is correct, learning, and moving onto the next piece, leveraging what you learned, and not being afraid to back up and do a chunk again if you find you went down the wrong path. Since work is implemented in small chunks and tested frequently, the wasted effort of a wrong decision is minimized. It has been shown that implementing things in small batches is more efficient than big batches.
This approach mirrors the Scientific Method: look at the facts, form a hypothesis, run an experiment, gather data, analyze the data, and adjust your hypothesis to fit your new observations and analysis. This is at the heart of what it means to be a learning organization: do something, measure results, analyze, learn, institutionalize new learnings into your process going forward, repeat.
I have worked with people who circle problems again and again, rather than solving those problems. It is the fear of being wrong that causes the endless circling. My suggestion is to walk around the problem once, look at it from all angles, but only once, then make a decision and dive in. Manage overall risk by keeping each step small, measure and collect feedback, objectively analyze the data, learn, and move on. If you make a mistake, just fix it, immediately. There is another aphorism I like: When in doubt, do something. If the evidence doesn’t lay out a clear path, just pick a path, try it out, and see what you learn. The act of doing will generate new evidence you can use.
There is also an element of practice makes perfect here. By breaking work up into small pieces and measuring/learning after each piece, we are effectively practicing to become better. I could never walk to the other end of the slack line without falling off if I don’t try again again, falling off many times in the process, until I develop the skill to stay on.
So keep moving ahead, but make sure you take time, with each move, to really consider what you are doing, do it carefully and excellently, so you don’t have to do it again, or worse, deal with damage control resulting from a poorly executed project. When you move smoothly, you get to put projects behind you confidently and move onto the next. I believe this practice of thoughtful consideration should be baked into how we operate. We take reasonable time to plan before we act, but we also consider continuously, as we act, to make sure we are doing the right thing all the time. A habit of thinking while acting also allows us to avoid that ‘analysis paralysis’. I think of this as moving at a ‘deliberate’ pace: not hesitating, not rushing, being continuously thoughtful and moving the ball forward.
I read years ago that the ultimate goal of Bushido, the Zen path of the warrior, is for thought and action to become one. It is in essence a practice of continuous mindful execution. | https://medium.com/scaling-peaks/deliberate-action-12027391491f | ['Philip Brittan'] | 2021-03-22 18:37:59.281000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Risk', 'Learning', 'Business', 'Agility'] |
How to Stick to a Budget Without Tracking Spending | You don’t have to be a financial planner to know that one of the key ingredients of financial security is having a budget (although I prefer to call it a spending plan), but knowing you need one and actually sticking to one are two different stories. I’m not here to lecture about why you should budget, let’s instead discuss a way to make it less painful. The purpose of a spending plan is threefold:
To ensure you are not spending more than you make. To figure out how much you can actually afford to save. If you are spending more than you make or you’d like to save more, then it helps to figure out where you might be able to cut back.
Finding a way to stick to your spending plan
Putting together a budget is one thing. Tracking and sticking to it is another. The putting together is relatively simple and while there are lots of tools to help, the sticking to it is where most people give up. So let’s talk about that part, assuming you already know how much you need to spend each month on needs versus wants. (If you need help on that first step, Mint.com can help with that)
Stop obsessing over categories when tracking
Confession: I can’t tell you exactly how much I spent on dining out last month. And I can’t tell you how much I plan to spend on it this month. That’s because that number isn’t as important to me as first making sure I’m covering all my other financial goals.
What I can tell you is how much I’m saving toward several small but important financial priorities so that whatever is left over is what I can spend on things I can go without such as sushi night, shopping, spa services or Target. (Yes, Target is a discretionary expense for me and don’t tell me you also haven’t discovered their magnetic carts that just attract things.)
By prioritizing the things I know I need to make happen financially, I essentially back into what I can spend on wants without any tracking beyond setting up an alert to tell me if my account dips below $100.
Make it automatic
I do this through automatic transfers set to happen each pay day. I have a series of savings accounts, one for each financial priority, through an online bank that lets me set up as many different savings accounts that I want. It’s the electronic version of the envelope system.
My checking account for spending money is at a “bricks and mortar” bank, and I have a checking account for bills that’s also housed at the online bank. Here are some other accounts that you might set up:
Accounts to set up for the no-tracking budget
Monthly bills
Separating your known monthly bills into a separate account and then setting them on auto-pay might just revolutionize your relationship to money. This account is for things that have due dates and relatively set amounts like rent/mortgage, cable, cell phone, etc. You may need to estimate for things like electric and gas. I use the highest amount from the past year, which ensures I’m well-funded.
What isn’t this account for? Things you can pick and choose how much and when to spend each month like groceries, personal care, and even your dog walker. Yes, this is money you need to spend, but it doesn’t have a due date or a set amount, which defeats the purpose. This should be a fixed amount that would only fluctuate if you made a drastic change like moving, canceling cable, etc.
One side effect of this account: I sometimes work with people who have late bill payments all the time because they are afraid that they’ll need the money for something else. This account alleviates that fear — it’s specifically what the money is set aside for, so not only can this account avoid future late fees, but it could boost your credit score!
Emergency fund
Getting this account funded with 3 months of expenses was my top priority so before I even opened another account, I was saving as much as I could into this account. Now it’s just there, accruing interest. I can’t over-emphasize the peace of mind this gives me.
What isn’t this account for? Things I forgot to include in my “oh crap” account like expenses to stand up in a wedding, Christmas gifts for family or a plane ticket for a funeral. Those are all important things, but they are not an emergency.
Car stuff
This account is for all things car-related such as insurance, new tires, repairs, registration, etc. Once it’s paid off, I’ll start transferring my monthly payment into this account too so that I can save to buy my next car with cash.
What isn’t this account for? Gas money — that’s discretionary and comes out of my spending account.
Pet medical
Pet insurance can run from $10-$90 per month and Consumer Reports found that it’s not worth the money for the average healthy pet. Instead, pay yourself the premium so that if/when an expensive injury or illness pops up, you have some money saved. (it’s worth noting that most pets’ major expenses come when they’re older, so if you do this throughout their life, you should have a sizable chunk built up by the time you need blood work and x-rays to figure out what old age ailment they have)
What isn’t this account for? Pet food (spending account), pet-sitting (spending or vacation account), routine visits unless you’re accounting for that with the amount you’re setting aside into this account.
Kid activities
If you have kids then you know that their extracurricular activities can add up pretty quickly. Try annualizing the costs and transferring one-twelfth each month to ease the burden of sign-up and gear up season.
What isn’t this account for? Clothing, toys, everyday family expenses — try to isolate the “extra” stuff in this account, which can be a way for parents who may disagree about how much to spend on this stuff to keep tabs on it in an agreeable way.
Depending on what’s important to you and what you want to better control your spending on, you may have other accounts. For example, my friend who has a side gig has an account where she puts 20% of her income from that gig aside so she can have enough at tax time.
It takes a little bit of work to get these accounts set up, but it’s worth it. I shared this system with a friend of mine who is a busy mom of two young children and her email to me says it all:
“I just wanted to say thank you. I’ve separated all my fixed bills through those accounts and set up a couple of savings account for shorter term larger dollar items — Christmas, home improvements, and travel. That way, we don’t have to either put off those things or feel guilty about spending money on them.
Plus, I set up accounts for the girls for them to earn money and use on toys or whatever, and the transition of seeing the numbers is easier for them, because they are still learning math and identifying the value of the paper/coin money. So, they earn it in cash, then we add it up and deposit into our bank, and I transfer the money to their accounts.”
If you’re having trouble sticking to your budget, why not give it a try? What will your accounts be? Customize it to your life and just make sure you’re also being deliberate with any “extra” money you find by trying this process! | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-stick-to-a-budget-without-tracking-spending-27830d1ca86c | ['Kelley C. Long'] | 2019-08-12 23:08:56.866000+00:00 | ['Lifehacks', 'Financial Freedom', 'Budgeting', 'Money'] |
How to Honor Those You’ve Lost | Death. The true thief. It comes without warning and snatches away those who are important to us.
And even when we know our loved one is ill, that their death is imminent, we still hope, that just maybe they won’t die.
You’ve stood at the grave of your lost one, though honestly, you can’t believe you made it through their burial.
I felt that way just a couple of years ago as I stood at the grave of my granddaughter. They say you aren’t supposed to outlive your children. The same is true for your grandchildren.
Here are some ways to honor those you’ve lost.
Everyone grieves differently
First of all, it might be a good idea to make sure that you have others who will join you in your endeavor. Find others who feel the same as you. And explain to them this is just another way to grieve. To remember how important your loved one is. Not was.
Don’t be surprised if some don’t share your idea. There are many people who believe that after you have grieved for a while, it’s time to move on. Most of the people who hold this view have not laid to rest someone close to them.
Or sadly, if they have, their grieving was cut short from others who held up a timetable.
Let me go on record as saying, no one can tell you how long you should grieve. Everyone grieves differently.
Photo by Stephanie McCabe on Unsplash
Birthdays are difficult
Birthdays are celebrations. You stop and celebrate the fact that this person is another year older. And as you celebrate, you think back to the day they were born.
There are balloons, there is cake. It is a happy time.
But what about when your loved stops having birthdays. That doesn’t lessen the importance of the day he/she was born, does it?
When my granddaughter’s birthday rolls around, I believe there is still celebration going on in my son’s home.
They look at pictures and video’s of his daughter’s life. All 14 months of it. And I’m pretty sure there is cake.
One year they lit a lantern and lifted it up to the sky. Unfortunately, it burst into flames and Nathan ended up chasing it down the street to make sure it didn’t land on a house.
Birthdays can still be celebrated. Maybe you don’t feel like singing, but you could still celebrate the fact this precious life was born.
Your loved one won’t be getting older, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pause and thank God for the precious time you had with them.
Anniversary dates
Every year without fail when we approach the anniversary dates of those we’ve lost, we start feeling sad. It’s normal. It’s expected.
But what if you plan on something instead of letting the day dictate how you feel.
What if you make your loved one’s favorite dish and share it?
What if you spend some time looking at pictures. Thinking of some memories and creating new ones. Did your loved one like going to the movies? Pick a movie, or rent one and invite a few people over.
We honor those we’ve lost by thinking about what they’ve meant to us.
Set aside some time to reflect on a memory that is precious to you. Do what you can to take the hard part out of anniversary dates.
Sometimes when I’m missing my mom, I like to listen to a favorite song of hers. That’s a warm reminder of a little part of my mom. It’s a small connection, but one that makes me feel good.
She liked Elusive Butterfly. Listening to it the first time was hard. It took a while. But now I like listening to it. I’m enjoying something she enjoyed.
Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash
Talk about your loved one
You may find as time goes on that some people have stopped talking about your loved one. And while one of your fears has been that he/she would be forgotten, they are continually on your mind.
It feels funny when others don’t talk about them. And yet, we have to fight the temptation to conclude that it means our loved ones didn’t matter to others. We know they did. It’s just that life kind of pushes other things out when it takes over.
But if you think about it, there is probably one or two people who you feel close to who would be glad to reminisce with you.
In the beginning, when I lost my sister, I found it so hard that I would just share with people I hardly knew that my sister was killed. It’s not that I wanted to shock them, though that probably happened. It’s just that I had this burning desire to talk about her.
To just take out one of my memories and linger there a while.
And if you can’t find someone, then get by yourself, take a few favorite pictures and tell the Lord, how much you miss them. Share a story that means a lot to you. God will listen. He’s near the brokenhearted.
Plant a tree
Maybe you’d like a special place you could go and just sit and think about the one you miss. Maybe you could plant a tree in his/her honor. And as it grows you can go and sit beneath it. It will be your special place.
I’ve heard of people doing this and it gives them pleasure having a designated spot.
And the tree could grow and house birds and remind you that even though your loved one is gone, you still have love for them.
Love doesn’t die when our loved one dies.
Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash
Write a letter
I remember the first time a counselor suggested I write my sister a letter.
“What’s the use?” I asked the counselor.
“I want you to write 3 letters,” she continued. “Don’t type them either, they need to be handwritten. And wait about one or two weeks between each letter.”
I was reluctant at first, but my desire to keep working through my grief was stronger than my resistance.
I noticed my first letter was angry. I was angry that she didn’t tell us what was going on sooner. Angry that I was here and she was not. Angry that I had so much to tell her and nowhere to share it.
A funny thing happened as I wrote the subsequent letters. My anger started to dissipate and my sadness started feeling free enough to come out.
Yes, I cried a lot when I wrote, but tears are necessary in grief. Don’t ever keep yourself from crying.
By the time I had written my third letter, I felt as if I had actually talked to my sister. It felt good. Yes, I still missed her, but I felt like the connection was not lost, it had just changed form.
Live your life
There’s another way to honor our loved ones. A way that seems unnecessary to even mention, but I have to.
Sometimes when we are living and we’ve said goodbye to our loved ones we have what they call, “survival guilt,” Why are we here when they are gone?
It was hard for me for a long time to enjoy anything when my mom died. It felt like I shouldn’t enjoy anything if she wasn’t here to enjoy it as well.
But when I heard my son and his wife talk about losing precious Livie. They kept talking about being present. She had taught them to be present in their lives because if they weren’t they would miss something.
I believe a beautiful way to honor our loved ones is to live life fully. To be present and to appreciate everything we have.
To breathe life in and fully experience every second.
Living is a way to honor those who have died.
Photo by paul morris on Unsplash
Death changes us
Each time we say goodbye to a loved one, we change. With each loss I’ve learned how important relationships are. And this is something that I keep learning, it’s not a one time and you’ve got it, kind of thing.
We can actually incorporate what we’ve learned into our lives and it will be a wonderful reminder of the life they lived.
Every time I choose to be present in my life I think of sweet Livie.
When I see Lilies of the Valley, I think of my mother.
When I eat ice cream, I think of my sister.
Donate to a cause
Maybe your loved one died of cancer. You can make a donation in his/her name.
I once ran a 4K race and put my cousin’s name on the piece of paper pinned to my back. It was a race to raise money for cancer research and we had just lost our cousin, Pattie, to cancer.
Maybe you could donate to something near and dear to your loved one’s heart.
If we give it some time, maybe we’ll think of the perfect way to honor our loved ones.
Photo by Sam Schooler on Unsplash
One day
There is coming a day when I’ll see my loved ones again. In a place with no cancer, no Trisomy 18, no killing.
And I will sit and talk to my loved ones non-stop.
But can I tell you something? I won’t feel like I have to store up my love for them. I can tell them about that now.
Those I’ve lost may be gone, but they’ll never be forgotten.
Rest
If your pain is fresh, then maybe any of these suggestions are too difficult, and that’s okay. Be where you are.
Our son, Nathan, kept track of his thoughts as he and his wife still got to see and hold their precious daughter, Olivia. Eventually his thoughts turned into 4 projects. Two vinyl albums and two books. They chronicle his journey of grief.
If you’d like to know more about that, you can check that out here.
Even if you’re not interested in his projects, what he says on his video may bring you healing. He talks about rest. Something those in grief long for.
Be where you are in your grief. Don’t let anyone tell you how long grief should take.
I’m very sorry for your loss. I hope one day you will be able to rest. And as you go through your grief, I hope you will get to the place you realize that you already honor the one you’ve lost. Every time you think of them, you give them honor.
Every single time. | https://medium.com/thrive-global/how-to-honor-those-youve-lost-fd95fb262c84 | ['Anne Peterson'] | 2019-01-30 21:03:55.591000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Death', 'Weekly Prompt', 'Grief', 'Relationships'] |
I never understood JavaScript closures | I never understood JavaScript closures
Until someone explained it to me like this …
As the title states, JavaScript closures have always been a bit of a mystery to me. I have read multiple articles, I have used closures in my work, sometimes I even used a closure without realizing I was using a closure.
Recently I went to a talk where someone really explained it in a way it finally clicked for me. I’ll try to take this approach to explain closures in this article. Let me give credit to the great folks at CodeSmith and their JavaScript The Hard Parts series.
Before we start
Some concepts are important to grok before you can grok closures. One of them is the execution context.
This article has a very good primer on Execution Context. To quote the article:
When code is run in JavaScript, the environment in which it is executed is very important, and is evaluated as 1 of the following: Global code — The default environment where your code is executed for the first time. Function code — Whenever the flow of execution enters a function body. (…) (…), let’s think of the term execution context as the environment / scope the current code is being evaluated in.
In other words, as we start the program, we start in the global execution context. Some variables are declared within the global execution context. We call these global variables. When the program calls a function, what happens? A few steps:
JavaScript creates a new execution context, a local execution context That local execution context will have its own set of variables, these variables will be local to that execution context. The new execution context is thrown onto the execution stack. Think of the execution stack as a mechanism to keep track of where the program is in its execution
When does the function end? When it encounters a return statement or it encounters a closing bracket } . When a function ends, the following happens:
The local execution contexts pops off the execution stack The functions sends the return value back to the calling context. The calling context is the execution context that called this function, it could be the global execution context or another local execution context. It is up to the calling execution context to deal with the return value at that point. The returned value could be an object, an array, a function, a boolean, anything really. If the function has no return statement, undefined is returned. The local execution context is destroyed. This is important. Destroyed. All the variables that were declared within the local execution context are erased. They are no longer available. That’s why they’re called local variables.
A very basic example
Before we get to closures, let’s take a look at the following piece of code. It seems very straightforward, anybody reading this article probably knows exactly what it does.
1: let a = 3
2: function addTwo(x) {
3: let ret = x + 2
4: return ret
5: }
6: let b = addTwo(a)
7: console.log(b)
In order to understand how the JavaScript engine really works, let’s break this down in great detail.
On line 1 we declare a new variable a in the global execution context and assign it the number 3 . Next it gets tricky. Lines 2 through 5 are really together. What happens here? We declare a new variable named addTwo in the global execution context. And what do we assign to it? A function definition. Whatever is between the two brackets { } is assigned to addTwo . The code inside the function is not evaluated, not executed, just stored into a variable for future use. So now we’re at line 6. It looks simple, but there is much to unpack here. First we declare a new variable in the global execution context and label it b . As soon as a variable is declared it has the value of undefined . Next, still on line 6, we see an assignment operator. We are getting ready to assign a new value to the variable b . Next we see a function being called. When you see a variable followed by round brackets (…) , that’s the signal that a function is being called. Flash forward, every function returns something (either a value, an object or undefined ). Whatever is returned from the function will be assigned to variable b . But first we need to call the function labeled addTwo . JavaScript will go and look in its global execution context memory for a variable named addTwo . Oh, it found one, it was defined in step 2 (or lines 2–5). And lo and behold variable addTwo contains a function definition. Note that the variable a is passed as an argument to the function. JavaScript searches for a variable a in its global execution context memory, finds it, finds that its value is 3 and passes the number 3 as an argument to the function. Ready to execute the function. Now the execution context will switch. A new local execution context is created, let’s name it the ‘addTwo execution context’. The execution context is pushed onto the call stack. What is the first thing we do in the local execution context? You may be tempted to say, “A new variable ret is declared in the local execution context”. That is not the answer. The correct answer is, we need to look at the parameters of the function first. A new variable x is declared in the local execution context. And since the value 3 was passed as an argument, the variable x is assigned the number 3 . The next step is: A new variable ret is declared in the local execution context. Its value is set to undefined. (line 3) Still line 3, an addition needs to be performed. First we need the value of x . JavaScript will look for a variable x . It will look in the local execution context first. And it found one, the value is 3 . And the second operand is the number 2 . The result of the addition ( 5 ) is assigned to the variable ret . Line 4. We return the content of the variable ret . Another lookup in the local execution context. ret contains the value 5 . The function returns the number 5 . And the function ends. Lines 4–5. The function ends. The local execution context is destroyed. The variables x and ret are wiped out. They no longer exist. The context is popped of the call stack and the return value is returned to the calling context. In this case the calling context is the global execution context, because the function addTwo was called from the global execution context. Now we pick up where we left off in step 4. The returned value (number 5 ) gets assigned to the variable b . We are still at line 6 of the little program. I am not going into detail, but in line 7, the content of variable b gets printed in the console. In our example the number 5 .
That was a very long winded explanation for a very simple program, and we haven’t even touched upon closures yet. We will get there I promise. But first we need to take another detour or two.
Lexical scope.
We need to understand some aspects of lexical scope. Take a look at the following example.
1: let val1 = 2
2: function multiplyThis(n) {
3: let ret = n * val1
4: return ret
5: }
6: let multiplied = multiplyThis(6)
7: console.log('example of scope:', multiplied)
The idea here is that we have variables in the local execution context and variables in the global execution context. One intricacy of JavaScript is how it looks for variables. If it can’t find a variable in its local execution context, it will look for it in its calling context. And if not found there in its calling context. Repeatedly, until it is looking in the global execution context. (And if it does not find it there, it’s undefined ). Follow along with the example above, it will clarify it. If you understand how scope works, you can skip this.
Declare a new variable val1 in the global execution context and assign it the number 2 . Lines 2–5. Declare a new variable multiplyThis and assign it a function definition. Line 6. Declare a new variable multiplied in the global execution context. Retrieve the variable multiplyThis from the global execution context memory and execute it as a function. Pass the number 6 as argument. New function call = new execution context. Create a new local execution context. In the local execution context, declare a variable n and assign it the number 6. Line 3. In the local execution context, declare a variable ret . Line 3 (continued). Perform an multiplication with two operands; the content of the variables n and val1 . Look up the variable n in the local execution context. We declared it in step 6. Its content is the number 6 . Look up the variable val1 in the local execution context. The local execution context does not have a variable labeled val1 . Let’s check the calling context. The calling context is the global execution context. Let’s look for val1 in the global execution context. Oh yes, it’s there. It was defined in step 1. The value is the number 2 . Line 3 (continued). Multiply the two operands and assign it to the ret variable. 6 * 2 = 12. ret is now 12 . Return the ret variable. The local execution context is destroyed, along with its variables ret and n . The variable val1 is not destroyed, as it was part of the global execution context. Back to line 6. In the calling context, the number 12 is assigned to the multiplied variable. Finally on line 7, we show the value of the multiplied variable in the console.
So in this example, we need to remember that a function has access to variables that are defined in its calling context. The formal name of this phenomenon is the lexical scope.
A function that returns a function
In the first example the function addTwo returns a number. Remember from earlier that a function can return anything. Let’s look at an example of a function that returns a function, as this is essential to understand closures. Here is the example that we are going to analyze.
1: let val = 7
2: function createAdder() {
3: function addNumbers(a, b) {
4: let ret = a + b
5: return ret
6: }
7: return addNumbers
8: }
9: let adder = createAdder()
10: let sum = adder(val, 8)
11: console.log('example of function returning a function: ', sum)
Let’s go back to the step-by-step breakdown.
Line 1. We declare a variable val in the global execution context and assign the number 7 to that variable. Lines 2–8. We declare a variable named createAdder in the global execution context and we assign a function definition to it. Lines 3 to 7 describe said function definition. As before, at this point, we are not jumping into that function. We just store the function definition into that variable ( createAdder ). Line 9. We declare a new variable, named adder , in the global execution context. Temporarily, undefined is assigned to adder . Still line 9. We see the brackets () ; we need to execute or call a function. Let’s query the global execution context’s memory and look for a variable named createAdder . It was created in step 2. Ok, let’s call it. Calling a function. Now we’re at line 2. A new local execution context is created. We can create local variables in the new execution context. The engine adds the new context to the call stack. The function has no arguments, let’s jump right into the body of it. Still lines 3–6. We have a new function declaration. We create a variable addNumbers in the local execution context. This important. addNumbers exists only in the local execution context. We store a function definition in the local variable named addNumbers . Now we’re at line 7. We return the content of the variable addNumbers . The engine looks for a variable named addNumbers and finds it. It’s a function definition. Fine, a function can return anything, including a function definition. So we return the definition of addNumbers . Anything between the brackets on lines 4 and 5 makes up the function definition. We also remove the local execution context from the call stack. Upon return , the local execution context is destroyed. The addNumbers variable is no more. The function definition still exists though, it is returned from the function and it is assigned to the variable adder ; that is the variable we created in step 3. Now we’re at line 10. We define a new variable sum in the global execution context. Temporary assignment is undefined . We need to execute a function next. Which function? The function that is defined in the variable named adder . We look it up in the global execution context, and sure enough we find it. It’s a function that takes two parameters. Let’s retrieve the two parameters, so we can call the function and pass the correct arguments. The first one is the variable val , which we defined in step 1, it represents the number 7 , and the second one is the number 8 . Now we have to execute that function. The function definition is outlined lines 3–5. A new local execution context is created. Within the local context two new variables are created: a and b . They are respectively assigned the values 7 and 8 , as those were the arguments we passed to the function in the previous step. Line 4. A new variable is declared, named ret . It is declared in the local execution context. Line 4. An addition is performed, where we add the content of variable a and the content of variable b . The result of the addition ( 15 ) is assigned to the ret variable. The ret variable is returned from that function. The local execution context is destroyed, it is removed from the call stack, the variables a , b and ret no longer exist. The returned value is assigned to the sum variable we defined in step 9. We print out the value of sum to the console.
As expected the console will print 15. We really go through a bunch of hoops here. I am trying to illustrate a few points here. First, a function definition can be stored in a variable, the function definition is invisible to the program until it gets called. Second, every time a function gets called, a local execution context is (temporarily) created. That execution context vanishes when the function is done. A function is done when it encounters return or the closing bracket } .
Finally, a closure
Take a look a the next code and try to figure out what will happen.
1: function createCounter () {
2: let counter = 0
3: const myFunction = function() {
4: counter = counter + 1
5: return counter
6: }
7: return myFunction
8: }
9: const increment = createCounter()
10: const c1 = increment()
11: const c2 = increment()
12: const c3 = increment()
13: console.log('example increment', c1, c2, c3)
Now that we got the hang of it from the previous two examples, let’s zip through the execution of this, as we expect it to run.
Lines 1–8. We create a new variable createCounter in the global execution context and it get’s assigned function definition. Line 9. We declare a new variable named increment in the global execution context.. Line 9 again. We need call the createCounter function and assign its returned value to the increment variable. Lines 1–8 . Calling the function. Creating new local execution context. Line 2. Within the local execution context, declare a new variable named counter . Number 0 is assigned to counter . Line 3–6. Declaring new variable named myFunction . The variable is declared in the local execution context. The content of the variable is yet another function definition. As defined in lines 4 and 5. Line 7. Returning the content of the myFunction variable. Local execution context is deleted. myFunction and counter no longer exist. Control is returned to the calling context. Line 9. In the calling context, the global execution context, the value returned by createCounter is assigned to increment . The variable increment now contains a function definition. The function definition that was returned by createCounter . It is no longer labeled myFunction , but it is the same definition. Within the global context, it is labeled increment . Line 10. Declare a new variable ( c1 ). Line 10 (continued). Look up the variable increment , it’s a function, call it. It contains the function definition returned from earlier, as defined in lines 4–5. Create a new execution context. There are no parameters. Start execution the function. Line 4. counter = counter + 1 . Look up the value counter in the local execution context. We just created that context and never declare any local variables. Let’s look in the global execution context. No variable labeled counter here. Javascript will evaluate this as counter = undefined + 1 , declare a new local variable labeled counter and assign it the number 1 , as undefined is sort of 0 . Line 5. We return the content of counter , or the number 1 . We destroy the local execution context, and the counter variable. Back to line 10. The returned value ( 1 ) gets assigned to c1 . Line 11. We repeat steps 10–14, c2 gets assigned 1 also. Line 12. We repeat steps 10–14, c3 gets assigned 1 also. Line 13. We log the content of variables c1 , c2 and c3 .
Try this out for yourself and see what happens. You’ll notice that it is not logging 1 , 1 , and 1 as you may expect from my explanation above. Instead it is logging 1 , 2 and 3 . So what gives?
Somehow, the increment function remembers that counter value. How is that working?
Is counter part of the global execution context? Try console.log(counter) and you’ll get undefined . So that’s not it.
Maybe, when you call increment , somehow it goes back to the the function where it was created ( createCounter )? How would that even work? The variable increment contains the function definition, not where it came from. So that’s not it.
So there must be another mechanism. The Closure. We finally got to it, the missing piece.
Here is how it works. Whenever you declare a new function and assign it to a variable, you store the function definition, as well as a closure. The closure contains all the variables that are in scope at the time of creation of the function. It is analogous to a backpack. A function definition comes with a little backpack. And in its pack it stores all the variables that were in scope at the time that the function definition was created.
So our explanation above was all wrong, let’s try it again, but correctly this time.
1: function createCounter () {
2: let counter = 0
3: const myFunction = function() {
4: counter = counter + 1
5: return counter
6: }
7: return myFunction
8: }
9: const increment = createCounter()
10: const c1 = increment()
11: const c2 = increment()
12: const c3 = increment()
13: console.log('example increment', c1, c2, c3)
Lines 1–8. We create a new variable createCounter in the global execution context and it get’s assigned function definition. Same as above. Line 9. We declare a new variable named increment in the global execution context. Same as above. Line 9 again. We need call the createCounter function and assign its returned value to the increment variable. Same as above. Lines 1–8 . Calling the function. Creating new local execution context. Same as above. Line 2. Within the local execution context, declare a new variable named counter . Number 0 is assigned to counter . Same as above. Line 3–6. Declaring new variable named myFunction . The variable is declared in the local execution context. The content of the variable is yet another function definition. As defined in lines 4 and 5. Now we also create a closure and include it as part of the function definition. The closure contains the variables that are in scope, in this case the variable counter (with the value of 0 ). Line 7. Returning the content of the myFunction variable. Local execution context is deleted. myFunction and counter no longer exist. Control is returned to the calling context. So we are returning the function definition and its closure, the backpack with the variables that were in scope when it was created. Line 9. In the calling context, the global execution context, the value returned by createCounter is assigned to increment . The variable increment now contains a function definition (and closure). The function definition that was returned by createCounter . It is no longer labeled myFunction , but it is the same definition. Within the global context, it is called increment . Line 10. Declare a new variable ( c1 ). Line 10 (continued). Look up the variable increment , it’s a function, call it. It contains the function definition returned from earlier, as defined in lines 4–5. (and it also has a backpack with variables) Create a new execution context. There are no parameters. Start execution the function. Line 4. counter = counter + 1 . We need to look for the variable counter . Before we look in the local or global execution context, let’s look in our backpack. Let’s check the closure. Lo and behold, the closure contains a variable named counter , its value is 0 . After the expression on line 4, its value is set to 1 . And it is stored in the backpack again. The closure now contains the variable counter with a value of 1 . Line 5. We return the content of counter , or the number 1 . We destroy the local execution context. Back to line 10. The returned value ( 1 ) gets assigned to c1 . Line 11. We repeat steps 10–14. This time, when we look at our closure, we see that the counter variable has a value of 1. It was set in step 12 or line 4 of the program. Its value gets incremented and stored as 2 in the closure of the increment function. And c2 gets assigned 2 . Line 12. We repeat steps 10–14, c3 gets assigned 3 . Line 13. We log the content of variables c1 , c2 and c3 .
So now we understand how this works. The key to remember is that when a function gets declared, it contains a function definition and a closure. The closure is a collection of all the variables in scope at the time of creation of the function.
You may ask, does any function has a closure, even functions created in the global scope? The answer is yes. Functions created in the global scope create a closure. But since these functions were created in the global scope, they have access to all the variables in the global scope. And the closure concept is not really relevant.
When a function returns a function, that is when the concept of closures becomes more relevant. The returned function has access to variables that are not in the global scope, but they solely exist in its closure.
Not so trivial closures
Sometimes closures show up when you don’t even notice it. You may have seen an example of what we call partial application. Like in the following code.
let c = 4
const addX = x => n => n + x
const addThree = addX(3)
let d = addThree(c)
console.log('example partial application', d)
In case the arrow function throws you off, here is the equivalent.
let c = 4
function addX(x) {
return function(n) {
return n + x
}
}
const addThree = addX(3)
let d = addThree(c)
console.log('example partial application', d)
We declare a generic adder function addX that takes one parameter ( x ) and returns another function.
The returned function also takes one parameter and adds it to the variable x .
The variable x is part of the closure. When the variable addThree gets declared in the local context, it is assigned a function definition and a closure. The closure contains the variable x .
So now when addThree is called and executed, it has access to the variable x from its closure and the variable n which was passed as an argument and is able to return the sum.
In this example the console will print the number 7 .
Conclusion
The way I will always remember closures is through the backpack analogy. When a function gets created and passed around or returned from another function, it carries a backpack with it. And in the backpack are all the variables that were in scope when the function was declared. | https://medium.com/dailyjs/i-never-understood-javascript-closures-9663703368e8 | ['Olivier De Meulder'] | 2017-10-31 02:30:06.242000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Software Engineering', 'Closure', 'Programming'] |
Violence is Not Sexy | Violence is not sexy. Sex and violence are two totally different things. Let’s treat them that way for a change, and stop lumping them together.
They operate on completely separate wavelengths, and offer very different feelings. Sex is meant to be an enjoyable experience. Violence only brings pain and suffering.
It’s time to change course.
Let’s show violence as the atrocity that it truly is, and teach peaceful resolution to problems. Let’s stop normalizing body shaming and sexual phobia, and embrace the activities that feel good to us in positive, beneficial ways instead.
De-censor sex and the naked human body. Our own natural bodies are beautiful as they are. Let us freely enjoy feeling good in them without judgments.
Let’s start treating violence and other things that produce feelings of pain or discomfort, shock or horror, as inappropriate and unacceptable. | https://medium.com/@jonathan-hawkins/violence-is-not-sexy-e9d779b40f88 | ['Jonathan Hawkins'] | 2020-12-11 23:06:33.859000+00:00 | ['Normalization', 'Media Criticism', 'Opinion', 'Violence', 'Sex'] |
What is ISO and how do I use it for my Photography? | BASIC PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES: EXPOSURE TRIANGLE PART III
What is ISO and how do I use it for my Photography? Frithjof Moritzen Follow Nov 23 · 10 min read
Make some noise!
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
If you are as old as I am and grew up in Germany (as I did), then you would come across something called DIN, which film manufacturer used to describe how light sensitive their films were. Other countries used ASA (American Standards Association) and other, now extinct, measurements for light sensitivity of films.
ISO is the common successor, and, who would have guessed that, is a single world-wide used standard for describing … well, what exactly? That’s what I am going to explore with you in this article. You will learn about
what does ISO stand for
what is ISO measuring?
what is the native ISO setting?
how do I use ISO in my photography?
where do I find the ISO settings
what is auto-ISO
find out how far you can go with high-ISO settings on your camera
ISO as part of the exposure triangle
That is a lot of stuff to cover, let’s dig right in! As this is an article for mostly beginners in photography, I will not cover the more advanced scenarios where your camera ISO settings play a role, e.g. in flash photography. Also note that for the sake of simplicity I’ll cover ISO used for digital cameras, not for film cameras. They are very similar, but not the same.
What does ISO stand for?
ISO is short for “International Organization for Standards”. That’s odd. Should be IOS, but for convenience you could see ISO as ‘International Standards Organisation). That fits better, so we stick with that.
Knowing what it stands for does not give us any sign about what that setting does, as the International Organization for Standards is publishing a LOT of other standards not even closely related to photography. So why did the camera manufacturers use ‘ISO’ as the term to describe this camera setting? It is not completely unrelated to what the ISO setting does.
ISO gives the camera manufactures a standardized way of measuring how sensitive a camera sensor is to the incoming light. That’s the simple way to describe what that ISO setting means for a camera. It is important that the camera manufacturers all use the same way to measure that, to make sure that a camera with the same settings of aperture, shutter speed and ISO setting, using the same focal length lens, sensor size and illuminated scene all produce the same ‘output’, e.g. a jpg image with the same brightness. Independent of camera models.
So what does an ISO setting of 100 or 200 mean? I think it is best to think about these numbers as a relative measurement of how light sensitive a sensor is set to. A setting of 200 means the sensor is now twice as sensitive to light as setting 100. It is a linear scale. 400 is double as sensitive as 200. 50 is half as sensitive as 100.
Lowest and highest ISO settings
Most cameras have the lowest ISO setting of 50, or 100. On the other end of the scale it can be a lot more diverse from one camera model to the next, and that has something to do with the side effects high ISO settings have. The side effect (spoiler alert: image noise) can make it impractical to use with very high settings, as the image quality is not usable anymore. Expensive cameras with a larger sensor might provide high ISO settings without degrading the image quality too much. Common highest ISO settings are 25600, but there are cameras which can be set to e.g. 3280000. Not sure how usable that is, my camera is not very good at high ISO settings in a low light setting, so I rarely use ISO 3200 or higher as that gets too noisy for my taste. But you have to test that with your camera. It also depends on how good you are with post-processing (getting rid of noise), and how tolerant you are about seeing noise in an image. Some people don’t bother, some are very sensitive (pun intended) to the higher sensitivity settings.
Native ISO setting
Each camera has a native ISO setting. Most often that is the lowest ISO setting, but not always. The native ISO setting is the setting where the voltage to the sensor is not increased to boost or reduce the sensitivity level, and that setting is the one with the least amount of image noise produced. Most cameras have a native ISO 100 setting.
How do I use ISO in my photography?
That is probably the only important thing to know. Knowing how the technology works might tickle your brain, but if you can’t translate that knowledge into your photography, then it does not help you much.
If we leave out all the technical details, we are interested in ISO settings because it offers another way to increase or decrease the brightness of the exposure. Besides the aperture (controls the brightness by increasing or decreasing the size of the hole in your lens) and the shutter speed (controls the brightness by setting how long the light from that hole can expose the sensor), the ISO setting gives us a third method to control the exposure. The benefit of having a third method is that you have another tool to avoid the pitfalls or side effects of the other two methods. An example:
Your image might be correctly exposed with an aperture of f/2.8 and 1/15s shutter speed, ISO at 100 . You decide that 1/15s is too slow for your subject, maybe it is something that moves and you want it frozen in your frame. So you want a faster shutter speed. What do you do? Well, you can let more light in by opening up the aperture, but wait, f/2.8 is already the maximum your lens can do! ISO to the rescue, you just crank up the ISO setting, and your shutter speed drops to a faster setting (if you are in aperture priority mode, having set f/2.8). Basically, you have now three tools to juggle in the air to keep your exposure correct, but each of these three balls has their own side effect. Changing Aperture changes the depth of field. Changing shutter speed changes the capture of movement. And changing ISO? Changes the amount of digital noise in your image. Juggling these three parameters of exposure is discussed in the exposure triangle. There will be a separate article to put a spotlight on that, as it might take a little longer to give it justice. For now it is enough to know that with the ISO setting you have a third tool to increase the brightness of your resulting image, but at the cost of having noisier images. There is always a trade-off in photography. If you are a person who finds it difficult to decide between options, then photography is the ideal training ground.
Where do I find the ISO settings?
Each camera manufacturer has its own way to place the controls for ISO. Some have a dedicated knob for that, but as real estate on the tiny camera bodies is precious, most cameras will have that as a setting you control by pressing a button, and then turning a general multi-function knob to increase or decrease the setting. Some have touch screens to set it, some have programmable function buttons which can be set to control ISO. This is just something you have to learn how it works with your own camera. Sorry, can’t help with that.
What is auto-ISO?
Auto-ISO is something your camera might have, or not. It means that it allows the camera to choose an ISO setting it believes is best for a specific scenario. They might hide it in some kind of program mode, where the camera chooses some settings for you. It might also be something you can select actively, e.g. you can tell the camera to have the freedom to select between ISO 100–800 as it finds fit, but not above that (to protect you from getting too noisy images). I tend to not use auto ISO, but try to keep ISO as low as possible, and juggle only between aperture and shutter speed. That is enough complexity for my simple brain. I most often increase ISO to get faster shutter speeds when I take images of something fast-moving (like birds), and the light is not enough to get the fast shutter speed I need. I get noisier images, and as a punishment I have to deal with that in post-processing. That leads to the next point.
Find out how far you can go with high-ISO settings on your camera
Before you select a higher ISO setting to increase the brightness, it would be good to know if the result is something you would consider as acceptable. Every camera is different with how well they can handle noise with higher ISO settings, so just test it. Put your camera on a tripod (or plant it on something stable to remove camera movement). Set your camera to aperture priority setting and set it to f/8. Does not matter too much, just leave it constant. The camera will then select a suitable shutter speed, but as the camera is on a tripod, you get sharp images regardless of shutter speed, and the depth of field is constant. Now start with the lowest ISO setting and take an image. Increase the ISO setting and take images until you reached the highest setting. Make sure you get a properly exposed image each time. If you started in a too bright environment, your camera might not select a short enough shutter speed to compensate, in that case just go somewhere dimly lit and repeat.
Back at your computer, load your raw files (I forgot to mention, set your camera to capture raw files) into your favorite image processor, and inspect the images at 100% magnification, to make sure that one pixel on the screen relates to one pixel of your sensor. When do you see noticeable image noise? ISO 400? 800? 1600? Even better? Just make a mental or written note about that. Now use your image processor to reduce the noise to something you find acceptable. Note down the ISO setting where you can still use post-processing noise reduction to get an acceptable result. These two ISO settings are now your guideline in what maximum settings you should normally not exceed. Let’s have a look at an example. These two are at the opposite sides of the range I can shoot with my camera, ISO 100 and ISO 25600: | https://medium.com/the-global-photo-club/what-is-iso-and-how-do-i-use-it-for-my-photography-f1682efd6a8b | ['Frithjof Moritzen'] | 2020-11-23 08:28:10.125000+00:00 | ['Post Processing', 'Photography', 'Exposure Triangle', 'Iso', 'Exposure'] |
Smoking in Your Grow? Experienced Growers Explain Why Smoke Contaminates Your Grow | 3 Things You Should Know About Subjecting Your Plants to Secondhand Smoke
Smoking in the grow? (Credit: Pixabay)
We’ve all seen the picturesque shots on instagram of someone enjoying their first puff of the day with their plants or lighting up a joint in the middle of a pot field. Sounds pretty great, right? But how does the smoke affect your plants? According to the growers I spoke with, smoking can hinder plant growth, contaminate medicine, and leave harmful residuals on your hands that are then transferred to your plants even if you aren’t smoking in the grow.
Outdoors, with proper ventilation, you might be able to get away with a puff or two, but indoors, you’re subjecting your plants to secondhand smoke. I’ve heard quite a few growers advise against tobacco smoke in the grow, but what about joints, bowls, or dabs (vapor only)?
I asked seven growers about smoking in their grows and here’s what they said:
Paul Farley (@PureOrganicsGlass):
“I prefer not to smoke in the grow. As a cultivator of medicine, I believe it is my job to keep the plants as pure and unadulterated as possible. I don’t think my patients really want second hand smoke plants let alone plants that grew up in a late 90s bar atmosphere…the plants told me they prefer when I don’t smoke in there…So it usually happens once or twice during the cycle but I treat it as medicine so it’s a different philosophy. I feel the first five years of a growers life maybe it’s cool to sit in there and smoke and then you just evolve. Could be wrong though; people got their own style.”
Colin Gordon (@ethoscolin)
“[It is] unequivocally bad to combust anything inside of a room that is supposed to be clean and sterile. With proper ventilation in good room, it’s unlikely to get pathogens from one time, but making a habit of smoking in a room is like buying a huge amount of lottery tickets; some of that material that is combusted at some point may have a pathogen that may be released through combustion. Some pathogens are critical and can kill entire crops, but the only confirmed case I’ve ever seen from tobacco mosaic virus confirmed in a lab was from someone smoking cigarettes.”
Even if you aren’t smoking in the grow, residuals remain on your hands long after. (Credit: Pixabay)
Ralph Zitzman III (@ZitzGlass):
“I do know at the first dispensary I worked in, a test on flower failed because the grower had just smoked a cig on a break and then handled a bud (he smoked a lot). The test data said the plants had been exposed to a whole bunch of harmful shit…I feel like the MED compliance people even said cigarette smoke or nicotine can cause, or make the plant more prone to some plant fungal infection but I’m not %100 on that…I did stop smoking blunts in the grow room after that back in 2015.”
Ashley Casto (@ashleyyaaasto)
“I will not smoke someone’s product if I know they smoke in their grow. I’m incredibly selective about who I buy flower/concentrate from because of this too. Papers, I don’t mind, but tobacco products are a no for me. One guy I work for doesn’t allow any smoke of any type in his garden or in the trim room- and that’s the only guy I’ll take flower from.”
Land of Stank (@LandOfStank)
“You can get tobacco mosaic virus on cannabis from smoking or handling cigarettes or blunts then going into your grow and touching plants stripping leaves. You’ll see it more from organic tobacco, too; American spirits are notorious for that.”
Ellyn (@b0nghits):
“So the answer is *if* TMV (tobacco mosaic virus) can spread to cannabis plants, then yes, it is harmful. Supposedly it has been observed on hemp so it is a definite risk to smoke cigarettes in a grow or even go smoke and not wash your hands before touching plants. Really, it’s just gross to smoke in a grow anyway and unprofessional imho.”
Jason Nguyen (@jason.exxo)
“Not sure about cannabis plants but when growing pepper plants, I has some plants die and I think it was purely because I was vaping nicotine. After I heard that was an effect it could have, I started a whole new batch and always made sure to wash my hands and never smoke around the plants and they did just fine.”
Takeaways:
Smoking and vaping in the grow (of any kind, but especially tobacco) can be detrimental to your plants, regardless of what you’re growing.
Smoking and vaping tobacco (or any combusted carcinogens) leaves residuals on your hands, which can be transferred to your plants if you don’t properly wash your hands. These condiments can affect growth and final products.
Your plants should be respected for their harvests; fruits or flowers, consider whether your plants want to live in a “90s bar” or in a medicinal, healthy space.
So, next time you think about firing up in the grow for a photo, or even for a personal meditation with the plants, consider the long-term effects, and how subjecting your plants to secondhand smoke may hinder their growth, and increase the likelihood of their absorbing harmful adulterants from the smoky air.
Do you smoke in your grow? Did this article impact your decision? Leave a comment below and tell us why. | https://medium.com/@cannabenoid/smoking-in-your-grow-experienced-growers-explain-why-smoke-contaminates-your-grow-d8d11eb22196 | ['Ben Owens'] | 2020-09-16 16:21:23.981000+00:00 | ['Grow Advice', 'Smoking', 'Plants', 'Smoking In The Grow', 'Smoke'] |
We are the mapmakers and wayfinders for a world with a future | COMPROMISE, CONTAMINATION, CORRUPTION
There comes multiple points in time in everyones life where we are offered choice.
The first choice is easier. It might bring you towards your desires faster, with more cash, fame, glory.
The second choice is harder. It means that you refuse to compromise on the integrity of what you are creating, refuse to violate your own integrity, refuse to throw another human under the metaphorical bus to get what you want. A single other human.
To say yes to the first choice is temptation. Often, the very first time we make this choice, it is a small act that seems inconsequential. But like the addict, once you say yes to the small choice on this path, the second YES is easier. And then easier. Until lying, cheating and corruption are the norm and not the exception.
Of course this is easier in an ecology that says lying, cheating and corruption are acceptable behaviours. Where leaders and elected representatives are incentivised, through the design of our systems…unlimited funding in elections, lack of oversight or erosion of the oversight/checks and balances, the shareholder as the only one we answer to, and fudged metrics that tell a compelling but completely untrue story…to win, at all costs, even the cost of integrity.
Integrity means to hold its shape. When the shape is disintegrating, integrity cannot be present. Our systems and moral structures are disintegrating.
We need to consider our part in this global theatre. How we stood by and watched as the first lie was accepted. Did we rage against it? If not, we are complicit.
I am complicit. I did not speak up, speak out. Become an active citizen. Not in the beginning.
What can we do? What can I do?
Sitting in this question my answer has been arriving as a cumulative outcome of my entire life and body of work…
…rather than try and re-arrange the deck chairs on what I consider our global version of the Titanic…in the hands of our current political, economic, financial, governance, currency, enterprise design, human co-ordination systems …the Earth and her all of her creatures…including you, me and the 1%, are all headed off a cliff…not just climate, but poverty, inequality, natural systems collapse, extinction, human connection, meaning…
We might instead turn 90 degrees…and look to the future we want to create. We might consider comprehensively new models, new maps…we might be open to new mindsets towards a world that works for Earth and all her creatures.
We might hold our choice for integrity, integrity of our own expression, integrity of our art, our gift, our creativity and entrepreneurship, the enterprises we build, as he foundation.
We might take the time to get the foundation right before we rush to produce the thing. For if we do not, no matter how passionate we are, the thing we are creating might easily become contaminated and corrupted by the very models we are seeking to redesign. The temptation, at that point, will be too great…or…we might not even be aware we have been swept up into its powerful and all consuming field.
To take the harder choice is a declaration towards the future we want. It says..
Humans can create a world that works for all, without ecological offence or the disadvantage of anyone.
Me thinks this is the path of transformative innovation. This is possible. Towards this I have dedicated the rest of my life.
Here is my declaration, my pledge.
“We are the Map Makers and Way Finders — at the frontiers of new models of enterprise design, human coordination, capital, care and love for our planet and its future, all Earths creatures. When we commit to working synergistically our potential is exponential. Acting in this way, honouring the laws inherent in nature, and applying them to human systems, there is no problem towards an eternally regenerative Universe that cannot be solved”
I invite you to join me as we, the people, steward Spaceship Earth to a vibrant future for all.
PS…the declaration is taken from the pledge for Synropic Enterprise Creators | https://medium.com/@christine-mcd/we-are-the-mapmakers-and-wayfinders-for-a-world-with-a-future-8156b091c2e3 | ['Christine Mcdougall'] | 2020-02-18 22:54:23.127000+00:00 | ['Future Of Business', 'Integrity', 'Syntropic Enterprise', 'Future Of Work', 'Corruption'] |
SkiaSharp vs System.Drawing - part 2 | As you can see, we also set underlines of the text easily with the following font style property in System.Drawing:
Font font = new Font("Arial", 16, FontStyle.Underline);
//Bold, Italic, Regular, Strikeout, and Underline
Now, we are trying to get the same results with SkiaSharp. We’ll create a 500*500 SKImageInfo, and create a surface. Then, we’ll write into the center of that canvas with the following code:
var paint = new SKPaint
{
Color = SKColors.Black,
TextSize = 16,
TextAlign = SKTextAlign.Center, // Left,Right,Center
}; canvas.DrawText(text, new SKPoint(250, 250), paint);
That would be an acceptable output:
But if we want to customize that text as in the System.Drawing, unfortunately, we can not do it easily as in System.Drawing!
At first, as you see there is no underline property in SkiaSharp since 2017.
And then, changing SKTextAlign to Left or Right is setting the text to the left or right of the given start points(250, 250). | https://medium.com/@deremakif/skiasharp-vs-system-drawing-part-2-3e1eacdcb1a6 | ['Makif Dere'] | 2020-12-08 09:22:53.512000+00:00 | ['System', 'Drawing', 'Skia', 'Skiasharp', 'C Sharp Programming'] |
How to Use and Not Use Dialogue Tags in Your Fiction | How to Use and Not Use Dialogue Tags in Your Fiction
Photo by Adam Solomon on Unsplash
When it comes to fiction writing, there are a lot of rules and tips out there on how to handle dialogue tags. You know, the “he said/she said” attached to lines of dialogue. On the one hand, there are circulating lists of creative words to use other than “said”; on the other hand, there is plenty of advice telling writers to never use any other words than “said” ever, ever, ever or lest they been banished to the same circle of hell as writers who dare use adverbs. In other words, completely opposing viewpoints.
As with a lot of writing advice, the truth is somewhere down the murky middle. So here are some best practices when it comes to dialogue tags to cut through the confusion and give you some wiggle room for creativity.
Use as few as possible
Dialogue tags have a very perfunctory role in writing — clarifying who is speaking. If it’s not clear from context who is speaking, you need a dialogue tag. If it is clear from context who is speaking, you don’t need a dialogue tag. It sounds pretty straightforward when spelled out like that; however, of course, there are a lot of contingencies.
Why should you cut extra dialogue tags? One, space. When you are editing your draft down to make a word count limit, a lot of excessive ‘he said/she said’ tags can add up. Two, a cleaner, leaner manuscript overall. Three, because you may be using dialogue tags as an easy replacement for better writing choices.
Always make sure that it is clear who is speaking from the reader’s perspective and not just from your — the writer’s — perspective. Remember, you the writer always have insider knowledge. You don’t want readers to have to stop and scratch their heads in confusion because they can’t follow the conversation.
How to make your dialogue clear from context? Here are a few principles from basics to master level:
Make sure you are following the written (and unspoken rules) of grammar conventions in how dialogue is treated, such as starting a new paragraph every time a speaker changes and making sure action tags (see below) are aligned with the correct speaker. Give characters distinctive voices, cadences, turns of phrase, and even just strong personalities and opinions that it is obvious who is speaking because only that specific character would talk like that. Avoid ‘talking head’ syndrome. You do not want your story to read like two people talking at eat other in a blank white room. Do not just have two or more characters talking for prolonged periods of time with no action interspersed. Action doesn’t have to be a fight scene. It can be a tense dinner party, but people are still moving, interacting with the setting, etc., and so on. Always try to pair dialogue with characters actually… doing something.
Replace dialogue tags with action tags
An action tag is a sentence that is adjacent to a line of dialogue that has a character… doing an action. Action tags can go before or after the dialogue depending on the effect you are going for. Most of the time it will be after like dialogue tags are. If you are trying to create a pause or prolonged moment, putting the action tag before the dialogue is a useful trick.
So turn dialogue like this (dialogue tag):
“What do you think it means?” she said, lifting the pot to inspect it.
Into this (action tag):
“What do you think it means?” She lifted the pot, inspecting it.
Pairing action with dialogue can be a great way to reveal character, emotion, and even the inflection of the dialogue without having to state it explicitly. In other words, a great “show, don’t tell” strategy.
Consider (traditional dialogue tag with adverb):
“Why would you do that?” he yelled angrily.
Versus (action tag):
He kicked the door so hard the plaster cracked where the doorknob hit the wall. “Why would you do that?”
Action tags are great because they perform double duty. They give clarity to who is speaking while moving the story along with action.
A note of caution here… make sure your action tags and dialogue are properly paired together. One mistake I’ve seen in a lot of novice writing is putting someone else’s action tag in the same paragraph with a different character’s dialogue. The person who is speaking should be the subject of the action tag. Just as grammar rules dictate that you should start a new paragraph when a speaker changes, so should it change when the actor changes.
On another note, while action is more… active, “action tag” is just a convenient name for this way of pairing dialogue with a separate sentence with the speaker being the active participant. But it doesn’t have to be action. It can be introspection, memories, the character’s observations, or opinions on that matter…
Use anything other than “said” strategically
I am here to triumphantly tell you that you can use words other than “said” in dialogue tags, but that you should also put down the thesaurus right now. Do not get too excited to use every synonym for “said” you can find.
The argument against using any other would then “said” is that the reader’s eyes glaze over dialogue tags anyway, as they are just there as a clarity tool. That is true… to an extent. But these clarity tools can also be used to clarify how a person is speaking.
Some pretty safe alternatives to “said” include:
Questions and other conversation queues — asked, replied, responded.
Volume — shouted, yelled, whispered, hissed, mumbled.
But these should be used sparingly. In moments of necessity. For clarity. Because it can matter, and because it can add flavor to a story when a character shouts something rather than just says it. There is a different intensity there. Still, “said” should be your default.
Note, do not use verbs that are not something people use to speak as your dialogue tag verb.
Big offenders here are:
Nonverbal vocalizations/noises — yawned, sniggered, etc.
Facial expressions — smiled, frowned, sneered, etc.
People cannot “yawn” something. They can say something around the yawn, but people cannot talk with yawns. Similarly, people can smile before, during, and after talking. One can even poetically argue they can hear a smile in someone’s voice. But people cannot speak words with smiling.
Use adverbs with “said” sparingly
Adverbs in creative writing is a whole giant can of worms that cannot be covered in this article but the same rule applies to using words other than said. Use sparingly. Probably even more sparingly than even using words other than “said.”
If you are going to use an adverb to modify “said” (she said loudly, he said hysterically, etc.) please run down this check first:
Is it awkward? Some adverbs are just awkward-sounding inherently. In that case, you need to find a better word or a better way.
Is it needed? Remember, we care about clarity and context here. Remember, clarity and context. Is it clear who is saying the dialogue and how they are saying it without the dialogue tag? In other words, you don’t need to add a ‘he exclaimed’ after an exclamation mark.
Can the adverb-said pair be replaced with a stronger verb? (Such as turning “she said loudly” into “she yelled.”) And can it be changed without ruining your intended meaning? (As one famous Tumblr post says on the matter: “you can’t convince me that ‘she whispered’ has the same meaning as ‘she said quietly’” The Tumblr post is right because they don’t.)
Can the adverb he expressed in a better way? (Such as with an action tag or with a metaphor/description of the way a character is speaking that adds more layers of meaning.)
If you feel you can defend your adverbs use, that it is both necessary and that it is the best way to say it to get your intended meaning across, then right on you. Adverbs are another tool in a writer’s arsenal and should not be written off (no pun intended) entirely. Instead, like everything in writing, they should be used with intention.
Wrapping it up
In truth, there are no hard and fast writing rules. Any rule has an exception or can be bent. The same is true with dialogue tags. Nothing is forbidden, however, dialogue tags should be used in a way that best fulfills their function: Clarity. The clarity to who is speaking and — if necessary — how they are speaking. | https://writingcooperative.com/how-to-use-and-not-use-dialogue-tags-d057c7f98b62 | ['Margery Bayne'] | 2020-12-15 20:03:00.170000+00:00 | ['The Short Of It', 'Writing', 'Fiction Writing', 'Creative Writing', 'Dialogue'] |
What are the Important Factors When Buying Bluetooth Headphones? | When it comes to buying cheap gaming mice and cheap bluetooth headphones, you need to consider some important factors. There are many things you should think of in order to get the value of your investment and use these items for a long time. First of all, let’s discuss some of the most essential things before purchasing cheap gaming mice.
There is no need to speak about convenience as almost all gaming mice are developed to be ergonomically comfortable. If you buy your gaming mouse from a reliable source then you can be sure that the mouse has been checked thoroughly. So the first and most important thing is:
Mouse grip: Each person holds the mouse in different ways. There are many terms to explain how somebody holds the mouse, however, 2 things are very important when considering the convenience of the gaming mouse. They include claw or palm grip.
There are some people who prefer to put their whole hand on the back of the mouse while others prefer to move the mouse around with simply the fingertips. This means that people may like to buy both smaller and bigger sized mice as per their requirements. There are also gamers who like a heavy mouse. Some others want a light mouse. However, when you start using it you get used to it no matter how heavy or light it is. It is also worth mentioning that players did not like to buy mice that were wireless. It was because of the batteries of wireless ones went out quickly and there was a lag in response time. However, today these issues are solved due to the new technology.
Now let’s discuss some important facts about bluetooth headphones. People usually prefer to buy bluetooth headphones yet they always look for quality ones. Before buying, you need to understand your needs and then look for a reliable source. First of all, consider the size. If you are often moving around then in-ear headphones are more perfect options. They will stay on your ears conveniently allowing you to wear them while jogging. However, if you prefer bigger ones then consider headband options and make sure that your headset has music playback keys.
When buying a bluetooth headphone you should also look for such a model that comes with a standard micro USB port. This is a perfect option as it allows you to use your phone, tablet or any other gadget’s charger for your headphone. As a result, you will not carry an extra cable with you every time. | https://medium.com/@frozenthunderaction/what-are-the-important-factors-when-buying-bluetooth-headphones-c06e48b4c94e | ['Frozen Thunder'] | 2019-02-26 12:45:15.725000+00:00 | ['Buy Bluetooth Headphones', 'Headphones'] |
Exploring the US Cars Dataset | The US Cars Dataset contains scraped data from the online North American Car auction. It contains information about 28 car brands for sale in the US. In this post, we will perform exploratory data analysis on the US Cars Dataset. The data can be found here.
Let’s get started!
First, let’s import the Pandas library
import pandas as pd
Next, let’s remove the default display limits for Pandas data frames:
pd.set_option('display.max_columns', None)
Now, let’s read the data into a data frame:
df = pd.read_csv("USA_cars_datasets.csv")
Let’s print the list of columns in the data:
print(list(df.columns))
We can also take a look at the number of rows in the data:
print("Number of rows: ", len(df))
Next, let’s print the first five rows of data:
print(df.head())
We can see that there are several categorical columns. Let’s define a function that takes as input a data frame, column name, and limit. When called, it prints a dictionary of categorical values and how frequently they appear:
from collections import Counter
def return_counter(data_frame, column_name, limit):
print(dict(Counter(data_frame[column_name]
.values).most_common(limit)))
Let’s apply our function to the ‘brand’ column and limit our results to the five most common values:
return_counter(df, 'brand', 5)
As we can see, we have 1,235 Fords, 432 Dodges , 312 Nissans, 297 Chevrolets, and 42 GMCs.
Let’s apply our function to the ‘color’ column:
return_counter(df, 'color', 5)
Now, let’s look at the brands of white cars :
df_d1 = df[df['color'] =='white']
print(set(df_d1['brand']))
We can also look at the most common brands for white cars:
print(dict(Counter(df_d1['brand']).most_common(5)))
We see that most of the white cars are Fords, Dodges, and Chevrolets.
We can also look at the most common states where white cars are being sold:
print(dict(Counter(df_d1['state']).most_common(5)))
Next, it would be useful to generate summary statistics from numerical columns like ‘duration’. Let’s define a function that takes a data frame, a categorical column, and a numerical column. The mean and standard deviation of the numerical column for each category is stored in a data frame and the data frame is sorted in descending order according to the mean. This is useful if you want to quickly see if certain categories have higher or lower mean and/or standard deviation values for a particular numerical column.
def return_statistics(data_frame, categorical_column, numerical_column):
mean = []
std = []
field = []
for i in set(list(data_frame[categorical_column].values)):
new_data = data_frame[data_frame[categorical_column] == i]
field.append(i)
mean.append(new_data[numerical_column].mean())
std.append(new_data[numerical_column].std())
df = pd.DataFrame({'{}'.format(categorical_column): field, 'mean {}'.format(numerical_column): mean, 'std in {}'.format(numerical_column): std})
df.sort_values('mean {}'.format(numerical_column), inplace = True, ascending = False)
df.dropna(inplace = True)
return df
Let’s call our function with categorical column ‘brand’ and numerical column ‘price’:
stats = return_statistics(df, 'brand', 'price')
print(stats.head(15))
Next, we will use boxplots to visualize the distribution in numeric values based on the minimum, maximum, median, first quartile, and third quartile.
Similar to the summary statistics function, this function takes a data frame, categorical column, and numerical column and displays boxplots for the most common categories based on the limit:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def get_boxplot_of_categories(data_frame, categorical_column, numerical_column, limit):
import seaborn as sns
from collections import Counter
keys = []
for i in dict(Counter(df[categorical_column].values).most_common(limit)):
keys.append(i)
print(keys)
df_new = df[df[categorical_column].isin(keys)]
sns.set()
sns.boxplot(x = df_new[categorical_column], y = df_new[numerical_column])
plt.show()
Let’s generate boxplots for ‘price’ in the 5 most commonly occurring ‘brand’ categories:
get_boxplot_of_categories(df, 'listed_in', 'duration', 5)
Finally, let’s define a function that takes a data frame and a numerical column as input and displays a histogram:
def get_histogram(data_frame, numerical_column):
df_new = data_frame
df_new[numerical_column].hist(bins=100)
plt.title('{} histogram'.format(numerical_column))
plt.show()
Let’s call the function with the data frame and generate a histogram from ‘price’:
get_histogram(df, 'price')
I will stop here but please feel free to play around with the data and code yourself.
CONCLUSIONS
To summarize, in this post we went over several methods for analyzing the US Cars Dataset. This included defining functions for generating summary statistics like the mean, standard deviation, and counts for categorical values. We also defined functions for visualizing data with boxplots and histograms. I hope this post was useful/interesting. The code from this post is available on GitHub. Thank you for reading! | https://towardsdatascience.com/exploring-the-us-cars-dataset-dbcebf954e4a | ['Sadrach Pierre'] | 2020-05-09 16:47:54.414000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Programming', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Technology'] |
Boring Ways to Get Creative | Start Doing and Stop Hoping For Inspiration
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he credited hard work to people’s successes. In 1960, The Beatles were invited to play in Hamburg, Germany, a place which didn’t have rock-and-roll clubs back then. Before they rose to prominence, audiences didn’t care much about what they were listening to.
What made this experience exceptional was the length of time The Beatles played — sets were eight-hours long, and they played every night each week. By the time the world knew who the Beatles were, they’ve played live performances approximately 1,200 times. Within eight years, every album release was a hit.
The myth that doses of inspiration come while you wait around is fictional. Inspiration comes when you do the work. It comes during your work, not before nor after. That said, creative geniuses find the time to be creative. They work harder and longer than anyone hoping that among the hundreds and thousands of work produced, their efforts will pay off.
Indeed, there’s almost a correlation between the originality of one’s work and the time they spend churning it.
Mozart composed 600 pieces of music with 10 of them becoming his greatest masterpieces.
While it’s easy to beat ourselves down for not being able to harness the power of creativity at times, we need to remember that creative minds like The Beatles and Mozart slogged away for a seemingly infinite number of hours only to have a few smashing albums or art pieces take the world stage.
“Inspiration exists, but you have to find it working.” — Pablo Picasso
Be Bored Out Of Your Mind
Take up a piece of blank paper. Enclose yourself in a room with no TV nor any digital device. Sit on a chair for 15 minutes and stare out of your room’s window. Do nothing at all, and you’ll see that this is the best and most boring way to be creative.
Agatha Christie, a renowned detective novelist, once said in a BBC interview, “There’s nothing like boredom to make you write. By the time I was 16 or 17, I’ve written several short stories and one long dreary novel.”
Why is that so?
When we’re bored, two things are happening in our minds. The first is that we have the desire to want to do something, but we don’t want to do anything that’s on offer. Second, boredom fallows our mental capacity.
It’s not in boredom itself that births creativity. It’s the process of being bored that leads to creativity. Because feeling bored is as uncomfortable as it is aversive, we’re inclined to look for something else — landing us a chance at discovering something new.
Well, this all seems easy, but to benefit from this entire process of being bored, we have to put away digital distractions too. Mindlessly scrolling through your Instagram feed would chip away the minutes or hours you could use to leverage on your creative ability.
Borrow Ideas From Creative People
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.” — Mark Twain
Perhaps the greatest myth buster of all is that creativity is a reinvention. Apple created the iPhone not because it was a new idea plucked from thin air. It was an improved and futuristic version of the flip phones we used to have. Superhero films are a variety of characters with differing abilities, with good superheroes battling against evil villains to save the city from Mayhem. Writers read other writer’s books and try to emulate their writing styles.
The creative process is a remix of the old to come up with a new and novel idea.
In other words, the principle of creativity is merely making older things better.
Look to people whose works you deeply admire and try to imitate, then package them in your ways. However, understanding your voice, styles, and preferences is the first crucial step before differentiating yourself from the rest.
Thank you for reading! | https://medium.com/curious/nurturing-creativity-should-be-a-boring-process-5f1b6bcde836 | ['Charlene Annabel'] | 2020-12-19 06:18:46.113000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Life Lessons', 'Self Improvement'] |
Streaming! Tokyo International Film Festival Live, in Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, Tokyo, Japan | ❂ Artist Event : Tokyo International Film Festival
❂ Venue : Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, Tokyo, Japan
❂ Live Streaming Tokyo International Film Festival 2021
Conversation Series at Asia Lounge
The Japan Foundation Asia Center & Tokyo International Film Festival
Marking its second installment since 2020, this year’s Conversation Series will again be advised by the committee members led by filmmaker Kore-eda Hirokazu. Directors and actors from various countries and regions including Asia will gather at the Asia Lounge to engage in discussion with their Japanese counterparts.
This year’s theme will be “Crossing Borders”. Guests will share their thoughts and sentiments about film and filmmaking in terms of efforts and attempts to transcend borders. The festival will strive to invite as many international guests as possible to Japan so that they can engage in physical conversation and interaction at the Asia Lounge.
The sessions will be broadcast live from the festival venue in Tokyo Midtown Hibiya every day for eight days from October 31st to November 7th. Stay tuned! | https://medium.com/@b.i.m.sa.la.bi.mp.r.o.k/streaming-tokyo-international-film-festival-live-in-tokyo-midtown-hibiya-tokyo-japan-8ea3bcaa6247 | [] | 2021-10-30 14:02:02.106000+00:00 | ['Festivals', 'Film'] |
My Biggest Lesson About Change And Resistance | My Biggest Lesson About Change And Resistance
How group dynamics explain how we often create our own resistance Christiaan Verwijs Follow Mar 8 · 6 min read
You can also listen to this blogpost on our podcast.
How do you deal with a team that just doesn’t want to? How do you create movement when people seem to prefer to stay where they are? How do you get people to move along with your exciting ideas, whether this is Scrum, Kanban, some technical practice, or something altogether different?
This really is the penultimate question of change management. And one I’ve struggled with since my earliest experiences in the workplace. As a fresh business informatics graduate, I quickly discovered that the best technical solution wasn’t always cheerfully embraced by the people that is designed for. Struggling to understand the human factors at work here, I found myself on a different path and eventually ended up as an organizational psychologist.
You’d think that as a psychologist, I now know what drives people and how I can bring them along in a change. This was somehow what I was expecting from it when I started. But I don’t. In fact, if there’s anything I’ve learned from that journey, it is that it is much harder than books, models and methods make us believe. The richness of human behavior can’t be captured in a four-quadrant model. Neuro-linguistic programming isn’t going to magically resolve resistance like snow under the sun. And personality-tests like Ocean, DISC, and MBTI are not accurate predictors of future behavior at all. This lack of simple answers and tools is frustrating at times, but there is also something liberating about it. In order to understand what drives people, you have to talk to them and build a relationship with them.
“In order to understand what drives people, you have to talk to them and build a relationship with them.”
I’ve always deeply enjoyed my work as a Scrum Master and what can be made possible through Scrum. At the same time, I’ve always found it deeply frustrating when I see something that others don’t seem to see, and I can’t figure out how to get people to see this too. For example, one of my teams was unwilling to come up with a single Sprint Goal. So we always ended up with two or three. In another team, where I also worked as a developer, I often struggled to get others to try new technologies and practices in favor of sticking to the familiar. I remember lengthy arguments, spirited debates, and even some sleepless nights where I mulled over ways to get my team to go along.
Through those experiences, there is one lesson that I learned that may be helpful for other Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches too: if you want to change something, start with the people that are eager to change that too.
Let me explain how I learned this lesson. In my earlier experiences with what I then perceived as “resistance”, I (sometimes automatically) put most of my energy into the people that appeared most skeptical to me. So I would start sending them blog posts and books that I hoped would convince them. Or I gave them a lot of time during Sprint Retrospectives to dig into the reasons for their objections. My hope was that by taking away their worries and reasons to “resist”, I could move everyone along. But instead of overcoming resistance through debates and passionate arguments, I made it worse by essentially putting them on the spot. In what is actually a great example of group dynamics, the group as a whole became more hesitant because most attention was going to those who were skeptical. I was implicitly encouraging social conformity around the objections, where people that were on the fence initially eventually became skeptical because they saw that others were skeptical too. In a paradoxical way, I created my own resistance — like most change agents seem to do.
“In a paradoxical way, I created my own resistance — like many change agents seem to do.”
There was not one moment of insight where I discovered this pattern. But over time, I noticed how it seems better for everyone when I focus my energy on the people who are eager to change something too. This group may be small initially, even one other person. But the same group dynamics where you create your own resistance by pushing harder actually reduce it here. When people see at least some of their peers going along in a change, it lowers the threshold for them to join. Over time, you can draw in the people that are still on the fence, followed by those that are more skeptical. One example of this is when we tried to do pair programming in one team. Most developers weren’t eager from the start, but I and one other eager developer started pairing with the developers that were not super skeptical about it. Since those sessions turned out to be very helpful, and we had a lot of fun while doing so, more skeptical developers eventually started to accept our invitations to pair (with some reluctance). Because everyone — including the skeptical developers — discovered how well pair programming works in certain situations, it quickly became the norm.
The point here is not to ignore people who are less eager to join in trying something new. They usually have good and understandable reasons for not wanting to. As I mentioned before, you have to build a relationship with people to understand what drives them. When people feel heard, seen, and respected, it is so much easier for them to come along. At the same time, the more you focus on “convincing them”, the more likely it is that resistance will spread. So focus your energy on the people that are willing to try. The rest will likely follow. And sometimes they won’t. Or you discover that their objections were totally justified. There are no simple answers.
Hopefully, my lesson is of benefit to you. It certainly saved me and my teams a lot of frustration. And I think we did much better because of it.
Helpful tips | https://medium.com/the-liberators/my-biggest-lesson-about-change-and-resistance-bbced25d956d | ['Christiaan Verwijs'] | 2021-03-08 07:02:35.109000+00:00 | ['Resistance', 'Scrum', 'Coaching', 'Group Dynamics', 'Agile'] |
Heavy trappings | A dusty gaze revealed one map that shows
my inner rivers with their muddy shores
so you can trace me back to my darkest self
you know the walls but I removed the doors
Having the last word comes with heavy trappings
forking out onto a path littered with old deceptions
it sets the stage for acted blessings
to feed resentful unresolved questions
Butterflies swaying the threads
of webs trapping grueling memories
conceal ordeals beneath shiny garments
cunningly disguising naked tragedies
Clogged within a fable where every touch is shy
voices gasp for the sustenance of air
be ready to start and lose, be ready to try
be daring enough to look beyond every vanity fair | https://nunoricardopoetry.medium.com/heavy-trappings-cc15d34429cd | ['Nuno Ricardo'] | 2020-07-05 19:21:59.229000+00:00 | ['Society', 'Life', 'Self', 'Poetry Sunday', 'Poetry'] |
When It Comes to Our Job Search, We’re All Just Faking It | Here’s Why We Should Stop and Put the Authenticity Back into the Process
Me IRL vs me applying to jobs
Let’s be real, most companies we apply to do not inspire us. They are just providing compensation and an environment for our labor. And that’s just fine. Being able to do the job you’re hired to do without believing in the company’s work or some higher purpose is perfectly okay in what is at its core a very transactional relationship between an employee and an employer.
It’s equally important for companies to acknowledge this fact as well. Of course employers want candidates who deeply believe in their mission, culture and the way they do business, but they also should realize that this is not the case for some (most?) of their candidates. Sometimes candidates who match the role really well are just looking for a stepping stone, more value for their labor, a location change or something superficial in their careers that the company is providing with that job opportunity. And this is also fine. But companies also have to realize that with the passion missing, once the employee gets what he or she wants, they are out the door and onto the next. (That’s why screening for passion along with the qualifications of the job is so important — and may even compensate for a deficiency in skills or experience.)
But there are some times (albeit rare) when you encounter a company, a role or even a person who ignites the spark within you where you are willing to go outside your comfort zone, put yourself out there and express your “love.” Maybe you proactively look for and reach out to the people in the company who are doing the work you want to do because you are truly excited to learn from them. Maybe you lose the fear of professing your desire to work for the company in an informational interview. Or maybe you go above and beyond what is required in the application to showcase more of who you are than you normally would. It’s these moments that really set you apart from the pack and also allow you to be true to yourself at the same time.
My values-based and proactive job search approach is the right strategy for me because I’m no longer “faking it.” The passion I have for the companies I’m investing my time in is real because I’ve taken the time to explore what really matters to me in my career. Networking is much more effective when you’re finding and speaking with the people who have the careers in the companies you actually want to work for rather than just trying to get your foot in the door with random people who just happen to work for “sexy” companies. Your interview stories are way more inspiring when you have a compelling story about what really attracted you to the company rather than just trying to connect the dispersed dots in your background to fit a specific type of company culture.
When you fake it (and we all do), you can maybe convince a hiring manager to select you, but you’ll have an even harder time trying to convince yourself that this is really the right place for you. So many times in my professional career I’ve had to tell myself that I actually wanted to work for a certain organization or that maybe if I just put in X years, I can gain the experience to move on to something else. I have even interviewed for companies knowing I would not be happy working there. But I don’t want to do that anymore. I just turned 33 and I’m tired of faking it. I’m looking for the real deal (a “marriage” if you will, between me and my next employer) where the passion is genuine, mutual and long-lasting. | https://medium.com/@mfevola/when-it-comes-to-our-job-search-were-all-just-faking-it-97baa026dc5f | ['Michelle Fevola'] | 2021-05-03 14:49:45.598000+00:00 | ['Values', 'Job Hunting', 'Authenticity', 'Mba', 'Job Search'] |
The Dangers of Smart Baby Monitors and How to Avoid Being Hacked | You may have heard about the possibility of being hacked on your baby monitors. It’s scary! People have been speaking out about being hacked by various individuals, sometimes with malicious intent, but other times to help raise awareness for their hackable device. These devices that continue to be hacked are typically video cam baby monitors. These devices, which every parent buys to help relieve some stress and help out around the house, have been bringing more stress and fear into the homes of some families.
How do you avoid these hacks?
YouTuber Dad Verb has a great video on all the little things you can do to reduce your risk of getting hacked, linked HERE. In summary, you need to make sure you change the username and password provided by the monitor; you should make sure to change your password to something random with a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols; using two-factor verification is an incredibly helpful way to increase your security; if you can get a monitor that doesn’t connect to the internet that is still effective for you, that would be the safest option.
Is buying a video cam baby monitor really worth it?
It may just be unnecessary to buy a baby video monitor in most situations. If you’re looking for a product to help avoid SIDS, other baby monitors that do not have a video component are useful, like Owlet and Connect Wolf. These monitors provide the heart rate of your infant, among other things, that can help you keep track of the well-being of your child.
If your child has any medical conditions or sleeps relatively far from your room, then having a baby video monitor may make more sense.
In synopsis, when thinking about buying a video baby monitor, you should research your other options and consult your pediatrician. Think about what specifically you want to get out of this piece of baby tech; if there are any alternatives, perhaps go with those, if not, make sure to secure your piece of equipment before using! | https://medium.com/@ijoyce_43720/the-dangers-of-smart-baby-monitors-and-how-to-avoid-being-hacked-86ff3e1554c5 | ['Isabel Joyce'] | 2020-06-18 15:06:16.387000+00:00 | ['Baby Monitoring Device', 'Hacking', 'Security Camera', 'Safety', 'Video Camera'] |
Thinking About Building An In-house Data Integration Solution? | Thinking About Building An In-house Data Integration Solution?
Sixteen years ago, the road to commercialization of space was sketched on NASA’s old school drafting tables. Partly inspired by the realization that the Space Shuttle program was too costly and that NASA could not be both the supply and demand for space flight, NASA decided to partner with SpaceX. On Saturday, May 30, their collective continuity of purpose was realized and took commercial space travel one step closer to a regular occurrence: NASA astronauts launched in historic test flight of SpaceX Crew Dragon.
The significance of the launch is paramount for many reasons, one of which is a partnership forged on failure. The NASA of the 21st Century turned their back on building everything in-house and toward industry with the knowhow and desire to experience the small errors and cataclysmic failure-and embrace these experiences through testing. In other words, SpaceX’s strength in testing and failing routinely is built into their business plan, which allows them to derive valuable information and swiftly improve their hardware.
Learning from the Space Shuttle program, NASA is not in the market to purchase, own, and operate hardware. It took NASA 35+ years to figure out that when you are your own partner, you are the supply, demand, and limitations to what you can do.
Then NASA made a choice that can serve as a roadmap for any business.
In 2004, NASA decided to turn to industry to innovate and cut costs. Instead of telling SpaceX what to build, they gave them high-level requirements and told them to go. There were considerable bumps along the way, but NASA chose SpaceX for their unique ability to test, fly, fail, fix. Test. Fly. Fail. Fix…. to the point of docking with the ISS.
*Image courtesy of spaceflightinsider.com
In the age of new data control, compliance, tag management, first-party tracking, tag reduction, and major data privacy concerns and breaches, legislation is evolving in real-time. Fortune 50 companies, SMBs, FinTech, AdTech, LATAM companies-and others-are searching for partners to address and solve their data concerns just as NASA needed an innovative partner to move into the next age of commercialization of space.
Most businesses can’t afford to test, fly, fail, fix.
Building flexible data architecture for secure and compliant data integration is not easy. And not every company has 16 years to formulate their plan like NASA did. They don’t have time or resources to design and build architecture that’s flexible and stable enough to handle their data integration-while upholding compliance mandates, enabling tag management, switching to first-party tracking, and addressing other issues as they arrive. Improving website speed and adhering to regulations like CCPA, for example, don’t allow time to test, then fly, then fail, then fix, then test, then fly, then fail, then fix-not without costing something.
Even for companies that have dedicated resources to research and develop their data architecture, what happens when legislation and data regulations change? Do these companies have the resources to start all over again as new rules adapt and evolve with technology?
How ready for in-house data engineering are you?
We’ve found that our clients tend to fall into one of three categories:
Companies that build their own data routing architecture and spend two+ years developing and proofing the concept. As compliance and security standards evolve, however, they decide to outsource because they cannot afford the time and money to rebuild.
Companies that try to build, but quickly realize the time and money required to build, test, fly, and fix are far greater than a pre-built, proven and customizable solution.
Companies that choose to focus on what they do and immediately delegate the data architecture and control piece to industry innovators.
Of course, those buckets are relegated to clients.
There may be other companies that successfully build and maintain exactly what they need. Costs associated with building a successful data architecture flexible enough to change with ever-changing legislation vary. But if you extrapolate the R&D, the time required across multiple teams, and multiply it by the years needed to not just build but also prove the concept, the amounts become staggering.
In addition to the research and development costs, companies who aren’t compliant in time are subject to fines. According to a report from DLA Piper, there were 59,000 reported data breaches in the EU during the first nine months of GDPR enforcement. While this number sounds shocking, it shows that many more companies are actually coming forward and being transparent. Under the law, companies that do not disclose breaches to the public are subject to additional fines if caught. DLA Piper says that hiding data breaches “has become a high-risk strategy under GDPR.”
During this same period, 91 GDPR-related fines were issued to organizations operating within the EU. While most of the fines were relatively small, Google was given a €50 million fine by the French privacy authority. The company was accused of processing personal data for advertising services without prior authorization.
How to get it right the first time
NASA shares contracts across innovators Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX to ensure timely, safe, and repeatable space flight, effectively commercializing low-earth orbit.
Initiatives like better data control, data security, data compliance, site performance, or low cost per tracked user are difficult and complex. When you combine the challenge with the opportunity for businesses to remove IT risk/responsibilities from their scope and delegate the top-level requirements to proven and established solutions, the cost of managing everything in-house begins to heavily outweigh the benefits.
Let solutions like ours test, fly fail, and innovate. Then we’ll meet you on the launchpad, ready for liftoff.
If you have data, do business on planet Earth, and would like more information on proven partners who specialize in data compliance, data transfer restrictions, privacy, data breach notifications, and consent requirements, reach out to me directly at [email protected] with “liftoff” in the subject line.Photo by James Beheshti on Unsplash. | https://medium.com/@metarouter/thinking-about-building-an-in-house-data-integration-solution-da3556608f30 | ['Metarouter Team'] | 2020-06-15 14:52:34.579000+00:00 | ['NASA', 'Crew Dragon', 'Customer Data', 'Spacex', 'Data Integration'] |
Marc Elias — A 21st Century Democratic Carpetbagger | By: Jeffrey Winograd
Post-American Civil War history teaches us that carpetbaggers were northerners who came to the devastated south to reap private gain under reconstruction governments.
Marc Elias is the 21st century version of a carpetbagger who, instead of being vilified, is being touted by the adoring news media and lapdog Democrats as one of America’s foremost election law attorneys.
Make no mistake, Elias fits the dictionary definition of a carpetbagger as an outsider, especially a nonresident who seeks private gain from an area by meddling in its politics.
For those who need reminding, Marc Elias also was the paymaster behind the “Steele dossier” and the architect of the “Vote By Mail” corruption of American electoral values and law. He knows how to bring the big Democratic bucks into a law firm.
Elias Says Facts Don’t Count
Earlier this month, Elias hit the airways via CNN to lambast President Trump for saying the election results were still not final.
“No, [Trump’s] comment is not true and it’s important for the American public to understand this,” Elias said, adding that it is “well past time for Republican leaders to tell the president and the public” that it is over.
“There is no dispute,” declared Elias, who boasted that the Trump campaign has already lost more than 50 lawsuits.
He then lambasted 18 state attorneys general of the Republican persuasion who have been supportive of Trump’s court battles. “This is shameful in a way we have just not seen in our history in recent years,” pronounced Elias.
“There is only one factual side … [and to say otherwise] is a lie through and through,” he said.
However, the very next day a Wisconsin court boldly stated that there are important facts Elias denies exist.
Wisconsin High Court Sets The Record Straight
The Wisconsin Supreme Court in a December 14 ruling on a lawsuit (Mark Jefferson and the Republican Party of Wisconsin v. Dane County, Wisconsin and Scott McDonell, Dane County Clerk) challenging the legal authority of officials in Dane county (home of the city of Madison) and Gov. Tony Evers to allow voters to declare themselves homebound and “indefinitely confined,” thereby evading the statutory requirement of providing photo identification to receive an absentee ballot.
The lawsuit was filed on March 27 and oral argument was held on September 29.
The court concluded that Wisconsin election law holds that only an individual elector — not a municipal, county or state official — can declare himself “indefinitely confined.” In addition, the governor’s Emergency Order #12, which was a response to COVID-19, did not render all Wisconsin electors as “indefinitely confined.”
The respondents in the case, Dane county and the Dane county clerk, argued that the issue presented was moot, in part because the election occurred and Emergency Order #12 had expired.
The court rejected this, stating:
However, even in cases where an issue is moot, we may nevertheless reach the merits of the dispute. We may do so when “(1) the issue is of great public importance; (2) the situation occurs so frequently that a definitive decision is necessary to guide circuit courts; (3) the issue is likely to arise again and a decision of the court would alleviate uncertainty; or (4) the issue will likely be repeated, but evades appellate review because the appellate review process cannot be completed or even undertaken in time to have a practical effect on the parties.”
It should be noted that there were no outright dissents among the seven justices, only two dissents in part. The court majority prevailed.
Judicial Finaglers
So, having clearly stated that what occurred in the state was outside the bounds of lawful conduct, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, also on December 14, ruled in another lawsuit that the results of the vote tabulation cannot be changed.
In a 4–3 ruling, the court turned thumbs down on Trump’s attempt to toss out some 220,000 absentee ballots cast in Milwaukee and Dane counties, the state’s most Democratic strongholds. Declared the majority of justices:
The challenges raised by the Campaign in this case, however, come long after the last play or even the last game; the Campaign is challenging the rulebook adopted before the season began. Election claims of this type must be brought expeditiously. The Campaign waited until after the election to raise selective challenges that could have been raised long before the election.
The chief justice, who dissented, voiced his frustration, stating:
“[The majority] does not bother addressing what the boards of canvassers did or should have done, and instead, four members of this court throw the cloak of (timing) over numerous problems that will be repeated again and again, until this court has the courage to correct them.”
It would seem that in the Jefferson v. Dane County lawsuit, the initial filing was back in March and with oral arguments in the Wisconsin Supreme Court held on September 29, an expeditious ruling would have overcome the claim that the Trump campaign did not file expeditiously.
Facts See Light Of Day
The Epoch Times, a conservative-leaning, staunchly anti-Chinese Communist Party publication, has been doing yeoman’s work in covering the election dispute,
In early December, the newspaper published an “Election Fraud Allegations: Infographic” which contained a litany of allegations that have never seen the light of day in any courtroom, a situation which has immeasurably tarnished the American judiciary at every level.
Extremely disturbing allegations cited in the infographic ranged from batches of pristine ballots in Georgia that were 98% for Biden to ballots counted multiple times in Michigan to backdating of ballots in Detroit.
However, the infographic was just a primer on electoral abuses compared to a document that was recently released.
The Navarro Report
On December 17, Peter Navarro, director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, published a report titled “The Immaculate Deception: Six Key Dimensions of Election Irregularities.”
The report examined six dimensions of alleged election irregularities in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
As described by Navarro, “Evidence used to conduct [the] assessment includes more than 50 lawsuits and judicial rulings, thousands of affidavits and declarations, testimony in a variety of state venues, published analyses by think tanks and legal centers, videos and photos, public comments, and extensive press coverage.”
A matrix outlining the six allegations as they relate to the six battleground states “indicates that significant irregularities occurred across all six battleground states and across all six dimensions of election irregularities,” the report said.
Elias Unleashes Unprecedented Nationwide Legal Onslaught
As previously reported, Elias, acting under the guise of a lawyerly do-gooder, is the person behind an operation called Democracy Docket.
The website provides a roadmap to its activities, which appear to be funded by the Democratic National Committee and various unidentified deep pockets,
Elias’s name appears on numerous motions to intervene in lawsuits involving 2020 elections in battleground states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Among the names of law firms appearing along with Elias as an intervenor in various state court cases is Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP. Rather impressive as is one of the leading names frequently cited as an intervenor — Seth Waxman, former solicitor general of the United States under President Clinton. There are no indications that he and various associates are participating pro bono. How much do these guys get per hour?
Quite striking is the appearance of an article on the Democracy Docket website titled “How Georgia Went Blue” and authored by none other than the infamous Stacy Abrams, the failed candidate for Georgia governor in 2018. Wrote Abrams:
Legislation and litigation, including lawsuits by the indefatigable Marc Elias, began to chip away at the superstructure of suppression. Consent decrees created cure options for voters who sought to vote by mail. Legislative changes neutered “exact match” and slowed the purges for the time being. Other suits improved voter access and education.
Community investment led to drop boxes in 80% of Georgia counties — a direct rebuke to the weaponization of the U.S. Postal Service. Organizations heralded the best practice of making a plan to vote and then helped Georgians make those plans real.
Chutzpah To An Extreme
Bearing in mind that Marc Elias was the paymaster for the Steele dossier, which he has admitted under oath that he could have stopped in its tracks, he probably didn’t even blush when, on December 21, he published an article titled “Profiles in Cowardice.”
Playing off JFK’s “Profiles in Courage,” Elias mocked 17 of the state attorneys general who participated in the lawsuit brought to the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as 126 GOP members of Congress who supported the lawsuit, labeling them, in Yiddish, “schlimazel” (meaning extremely unlucky or inept).
“[They] were like court jesters, just there to bow and scrape in front of Dear Leader for his amusement,” he wrote.
This comes from a guy who prostrated himself at the feet of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the failed Democratic candidate for president in 2016, and who was a key provider of the funding for the Steele dossier.
Among those who have displayed political courage, wrote Elias, were local election workers and officials “who took pride in the work they did and the elections they ran. They are the real heroes of this election.”
How blessed American democracy would be if Marc Elias were to take his carpetbag full of dirty political and legal trickery and head off. into the sunset.
-30-
This article originally appeared at Un-American Activities — Democrats, Deep Staters & The Fourth Estate (un-american-activities.com) | https://medium.com/@un-american-activities/marc-elias-a-21st-century-american-carpetbagger-53cfdd2cd54 | ['Jeffrey Winograd'] | 2020-12-25 17:21:04.063000+00:00 | ['Trump', 'Democrats', 'Election Lawsuit', 'Election 2020'] |
Why Video Marketing Is The Next Big Thing | If you ever find you are hitting any sort of plateau when it comes to getting engagement from your customers and followers you might consider video marketing.
Video is a fast-paced way to get attention through social media, email marketing, advertsiing and much more.
If your business is primarily done online (eCommerce, service requests, consultation, etc..) you can target a larger audience by creating small videos to help promote what it is you do and why.
On top of allowing people to learn more about your business you can start to create a relationship as more videos are published. In time, you may just build a community around your message thus getting more people to put trust into what it is you have to offer. | https://medium.com/couple-of-creatives/why-video-marketing-is-the-next-big-thing-b4791127ad89 | ['Andy Leverenz'] | 2017-03-14 15:15:05.335000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Marketing', 'Branding', 'Social Media', 'Video Marketing'] |
Respect Don’t Fear All God’s Creatures | Sign up for Reflective Vibes
By Know Thyself, Heal Thyself
Reflection, reflection and more reflection. Each Sunday* we'll be sending out an inspirational quote followed by a short commentary, either in written form, video or link. Enjoy! Take a look | https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/respect-dont-fear-all-god-s-creatures-59c4a11d2d3e | ['Yohanan Gregorius'] | 2020-12-19 19:41:16.911000+00:00 | ['Connection', 'Personal Growth', 'Nature', 'Collective Intelligence', 'Haiku'] |
Here’s How You Deal with the Fear of Sudden Transition | No one tells kids how life can suddenly throw you a curve ball and you are supposed to act as if you expected it all along.
It was a simple life, my family of four. A tiny apartment, family friends and weekends spent enjoying celebrations. Much like life is now in Richmond.
I was 10 and happy to just have become elder sister to a little brother. We had just visited Iraq on a month long trip seeing all the sights and meeting the friendliest strangers. Till some of those very strangers (I presumed at age 10) helped invade Kuwait August 1990.
When we visited India, 3 months every year, I never ever thought we would one day have to take refuge in our motherland. Moving there with nothing but an purse full of jewelry and a bag full of diapers for a 6 month old.
Life was different. A room on top of the terrace, with a tin roof that made atrocious sounds when rain or hail came. A school in which I failed in the first semester, pining for my dad. Caste system. Relatives. Being a non vegetarian in an all vegetarian household was
All were jarring to a 10 year old. Not with any awareness mind you! I had no conscious inkling of how all this was affecting me. I just went along with everything, because, hey! I was a a kid. My life was all about making it through whenever and wherever we were.
Once my dad came back, we moved to a different city. A home my dad could build after losing everything because he had savings to fall back on. Two years of me building memories, another safe haven and learning dance and then that too changed with my parents deciding to move back to Kuwait.
Back to a tiny apartment, family friends and weekends. But you see, things has changed. Everything felt a shade greyer. There weren’t as many celebrations anymore. Fewer parties. People kept more to themselves and saved every penny and thing they owned, for the day they had to leave Kuwait again.
It was not a question of IF anymore, but a WHEN.
There were after all around us the reminders that some day everything could disappear again and we would be left with nothing. The old apartment that we would pass by, the tanks, the buildings that were destroyed and of course the liberation tower.
The entire older generation turned into squirrels. Foraging for winter. Either you had people not buying anything and saving everything or my parents, who bought everything twice, keeping one in India whenever we went there for the time, we had to go back. Even if after retirement.
My mom became a borderline hoarder of things. She currently has things going back to 1990. Not just for sentimental reasons but out of fear. I get why she does it, but I hate it. It means we have cupboards full of things no one needs anymore, or could even use if they wanted to.
Yes, life had certainly changed.
Today, I feel abhor storing things and am constantly purging. The possibility of moving our whole family back to India at a moment’s notice is an underlying rhythm to my days. Losing everything my husband and I have so lovingly built haunts me, more so now that I am a parent and think about what my parents had to go through. It makes me extremely conscious of choosing anything I buy or put my time into.
No matter where You end up living with your family, you have to be very aware that you are but a phone call aware from losing all that you have. Your pretty things, furniture, cookware, photos even. Poof!
So, make memories with those you love, and take full advantage of EVERY city you live in. Be mentally prepared for tragedies and constantly converse with your children about the world so they know that a place, at the end of the day is just that. A place. Who you are inside is what matters.
For my America born kids, India can only be as much as home as for me, a Kuwait born child was. Is. The day it happens, I hope they can happily acknowledge that the place they live in does not define who they are, their experiences do. Their values do. And how they live does.
A home is wherever your family is. | https://medium.com/thrive-global/heres-how-you-deal-with-fears-of-sudden-transition-41661576797e | ['Aditi Wardhan Singh'] | 2018-12-17 21:42:29.046000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Weekly Prompt', 'Self Improvement', 'Empowerment', 'Parenting'] |
The Creative Mess: Operationalizing Design | TLDR:
Operationalize you design practice by looking at:
Craft — Revolves around the depth and breadth of your team’s technical abilities to transform ideas into forms and shapes.
— Revolves around the depth and breadth of your team’s technical abilities to transform ideas into forms and shapes. Collaboration — Centers around how you work with someone (work dynamics), how you communicate to them (communication protocols), and how you compromise and resolve conflicts (conflict resolution).
— Centers around how you work with someone (work dynamics), how you communicate to them (communication protocols), and how you compromise and resolve conflicts (conflict resolution). Coordination — Defines the operational side of work. Each member of your team needs to know their roles and responsibilities (team structure), needs to be on the same page (alignment), need to know what everyone is doing (work visibility), and have enough bandwidth to perform the work (capacity).
— Defines the operational side of work. Each member of your team needs to know their roles and responsibilities (team structure), needs to be on the same page (alignment), need to know what everyone is doing (work visibility), and have enough bandwidth to perform the work (capacity). Compliance — Defines the standards of your work. It’s the bar where everything is measured. It grounds everyone from your team on what is acceptable and of quality.
— Defines the standards of your work. It’s the bar where everything is measured. It grounds everyone from your team on what is acceptable and of quality. Custom — Actions directed to achieve compliant results. Customs can be a set of formalized activities — standard operating procedures, written best practices, recipes, or even playbook. It can also be part of ad-hoc, passed on oral traditions that form your organizational work culture and peculiarities.
—
Design Operations (DesignOps / DesOps) aims to operationalize the practice of design to deliver value and impact at scale. Its primary impetus is to tame the chaos, streamline the activity, and achieve consistency with efficiency.
Large companies like Pinterest and IBM are vocal proponents that own significant mindshare that shapes the ongoing discussion around this burgeoning practice. It only makes sense. These organizations command hundreds or even thousands of designers across diverse product portfolios. Steering these behemoths demands expertise smaller organizations won’t even comprehend.
However, this role is finding its champion, trying to legitimize its value into the organization. Measuring “design” is challenging. In a recent survey of NN/Group, only 6% has a consistent way to measure the design quality across the organization. Standard business metrics prove to be insufficient and sometimes inconclusive.
But where do you even start? Is this practice exclusive for big product companies? Can smaller organizations benefit or consider investing in Design Operations?
Superfluous practice?
Any organization that uses design as a crucial component to deliver value should operationalize their design practice. It can help you navigate ambiguity with confidence, maintain a level of consistency on your output, and make your organization process-dependent.
Structure plays a considerable part in how organizations operate their design practice. A small unit, department, or company will have one designer to do everything. Some might have project managers and producers running the projects, or take an alternative route of getting creative service providers. Others would have mixtures of both in-house and external contributors. For most, this simplistic approach works, and formalizing the practices specific for design can be superfluous.
There’s a limit of how far poorly operated design practice can take you. Poor design practices compound out of short-term maneuvers. Designers are typically overrun by the number of endeavors they have to support across the organization. To keep up with demand, organizations hire more designers. This vicious cycle creates compounding operational debt, work inconsistencies, varying output and standards, poor work visibility, unbalanced workload distribution, and design conflicts.
Finally, the hurdle comes from the actual practice itself. There is limited literature about design operations. Design is complicated, contextual, and riddled with peculiarities that are only privy to those who practice it. And people are more fascinated to demystify the process of creativity that behooves only those who possess the gift than the exploring nitty-gritty of design production.
Where do you start?
Operationalizing your design practice is a daunting endeavor — it has to be intentional that demands discipline and rigor.
Investing in design and the practice of design is a strategic initiative with long-term prospects. Your organization has to recognize the inherent value of design and what it brings to the table. If you are a small organization, the design should be at the heart of what you do. It has to align it with your strategic objectives with an executive champion at the helm.
Your goal is to build operating infrastructure around your team’s skills, capabilities, and strengths. You start with your people. You have to equip them with the right set tools. Provide an environment conducive for productivity. Finally, align them with sets of practices and methodologies to streamline their activities for them to be efficient.
But here’s a clincher. Your design activities have to be measurable for it to be effective. The only way you can optimize is through intentional measurement of your practice.
5Cs of Design Operations Framework
Context
You can operationalize your practice even if you’re small.
Frost is a boutique creative service provider. We have been in the industry for more than 11 years. As of this writing, we are 15. 4 of them were designers. We started just like any other team — unorganized and fragmented. Prior, our operational practices hindered us from tackling complex projects. A lot of things have changed since.
The need for us to operationalize our processes comes from the scale of the projects we handled. We recognized the importance of creating strong practices as a key to untangle the complexities presented to us.
Honestly, our design operations practice is still evolving — we are far from where we want and have a lot to figure out. It can take us a lifetime to get it right.
Focus
Some articles about design operations cast a far broader spectrum. The magnitude of its coverage can make it overwhelming. To make it approachable, I decide to focus on design production and execution because it’s one area that has a profound organizational impact that affects you, your designers, and your company every day.
I took inspiration from NNg Design Ops 101 and Design Ops Handbook and cross-reference it to our current design practice. I have to simplify some of the principles to make it applicable to smaller organizations. Next, I intentionally exclude items that may not be relevant due to cross-functional responsibilities, operational scale, and capabilities.
The principles and the objectives defined by this framework applies to embedded (internal) creative teams and creative service providers (external consultants). Though they may vary in the intensity of practice and production lifecycle, they still exhibit the same challenges most creative teams need to overcome. | https://medium.com/a-view-from-the-inside/the-creative-mess-operationalizing-design-6c07287561cf | ['John Paul De Guzman'] | 2020-06-15 23:33:49.168000+00:00 | ['Design Operations', 'Framework', 'Process', 'Design Framework', 'Design Process'] |
Top 5 Types of Clustering Algorithms Every Data Scientist Should Know! | Clustering is a technique in Data Science by which similar objects or entities are grouped into a single cluster in such as way that the variance of objects internal to a single group is minimal; and that across groups is high. The modulus operandi to this is to find a list of factors or characteristics which are common in these data points of the population — and then group the data points based on their similarity on the identified factors or characteristics.
The key advantage of this clustering technique in data science is customer segmentation… Wherein certain specific strategies or tactics can be devised for a specific sample of respondents or customers; based on important characteristics such as purchasing power, demography, preferences etc.
Why do we need clustering in data science?
The concept of clustering in data science is mostly prevalent in case of marketing analytics wherein segmentation of an entire customer base is done.
Now, let’s take an example — Unilever’ which is one of the leading consumer goods companies in the world plan to launch a product targeting towards the baby boomers based out of Europe. Now, being in the B2C business, it is practically impossible to devise a targeting strategy for each of the consumers.
This is where clustering comes into play wherein, they identify certain factors which are common in the baby boomer population — and based on that, they cluster consumers having similar characteristics. Therefore, this helps them scale-up their strategy towards a cluster, as opposed to a consumer.
What are the top 5 types of clustering algorithms data scientists should know?
Before getting to the most preferred types of clustering algorithms, it must be noted that clustering is an unsupervised machine learning method; and is a useful tool for statistical data analysis. A few of the preferred types of clustering algorithms are explained below for reference –
1. K-mean clustering algorithm — This is the most basic clustering algorithms which deals with a random selection of groups, and assigning of a midpoint. Post this, the grouping is done based on distance between the individual data points and the midpoint of that particular group.
While this process is quite basic & simple, classification of groups has certain degree of randomness to it.
2. Mean-shift clustering algorithm — This algorithm is based on a centroid-specific algorithm; and aims to locate the midpoint of each of the groups. This algorithm enables researchers to find out the denser regions of the data distribution. This process is iterative in nature until and unless the centroid window contains the maximum number of data points. Now, this is done for other groups as well. While this algorithm has similarities with k-mean clustering; the key advantage here is that the number of clusters need not be pre-decided.
3. Hierarchical clustering (Agglomerative) — This is more of a tree-like clustering technique wherein each data point in the first iteration is considered to be a cluster. Post that, in each iteration, certain clusters with similar characteristics are merged to form a single group which gets improved with each and every iteration.
4. Expectation maximization (using Gaussian Mixture Model) — The key assumption in using this technique is that the data must follow a Gaussian distribution. The operating model is quite similar to k-mean clustering technique wherein number of clusters are randomized, and then the probability that each data point would be a part of the specific cluster is computed.
5. Spatial clustering (based on density) — In this type of clustering, the starting point is randomly selected; and then the distance of the neighboring points from the starting point is calculated. With every iteration, as the number of neighbor points increases; the clustering process starts; which gets refined with each and every iteration. | https://medium.com/boardinfinity/top-5-types-of-clustering-algorithms-every-data-scientist-should-know-efcffd79d712 | ['Board Infinity'] | 2020-05-09 12:03:42.137000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Clustering', 'Algorithms', 'Data Analysis', 'Machine Learning'] |
Cognitive Assessment Technologies Necessary More Than Ever | More than a year has passed since the outbreak of COVID-19, affecting our daily lives and work performance. Mental health disorders have been always imposing various issues in societies. Nowadays that our social activities and careers have been negatively affected by the pandemic, clinicians are dealing with patients infected with this virus. Mental health technologies are now essential more than ever to avoid hospitalisation of patients with mental disorders, in particular depression.
Attention, concentration, and recalling abilities during a day determine quality of individuals’ daily performance, which may affect their careers. But an impairment in brain functions is verified through neuropsychological tests. Traditionally, people take neuropsychological tests in the clinics using pen and paper. Thanks to the emergence of Web platforms, anyone can take neuropsychological tests everywhere — not at the clinics but at home! Clearly, digitised neuropsychological tests reduce a huge burden of the clinicians.
Cognitive test in ICAT- Internet based cognitive assessment tool
Mobile platforms have significantly contributed to eHealth. Mobile devices add a unique opportunity to support ambulatory cognitive assessment tools such that everyone can take the cognitive tests anywhere and during their daily activities such as walking, standing, sitting, etc. Therefore, mental issues of the individuals can be remotely identified through mobile devices. Wearables can also support mobile sensor data collection for knowledge discovery purposes, for instance digital phenotypes of mental health. UbiCAT is a smartwatch-based implementation of neuropsychological tests supporting digital phenotyping of human mental health.
UbiCAT- Ubiquitous Cognitive Assessment Tool [1]
Our recent study shows that features including sleep, step count, attention, and executive functions distinguish healthy individuals from bipolar patients through daily assessment of their cognitive functioning with UbiCAT and continuous monitoring of their behavioural, contextual, and physiological features [1]. As we are approaching the end of 2020 and COVID-19 is still affecting work and life of individuals, technologies like UbiCAT become more and more essential to control and monitor mental health in societies. Our recent paper [1] is a good read for everyone to understand 1) how wearable technologies can identify mental disorders and 2) how machine learning can support intelligent decision making remotely. | https://medium.com/@pegah-hafiz/cognitive-assessment-technologies-more-necessary-than-ever-cd127c018a3a | ['Pegah Hafiz'] | 2020-12-21 18:06:55.459000+00:00 | ['Wearables', 'Mental Illness', 'Digital Health Technology', 'Covid 19', 'Cognitive Computing'] |
The First Signs of Alcoholic Liver Damage Are Not in the Liver | The First Signs of Alcoholic Liver Damage Are Not in the Liver
Myfather died of alcoholic liver cirrhosis four years ago. It came as a surprise to all of us, even though it was clear he had a severe drinking problem for decades. It was especially surprising to me, as a former nurse and a recovering alcoholic. You would think I’d know more about liver problems and alcohol use than the average person. But the truth is, in the months before his death, I had no idea my father’s liver was struggling at all. Most people know about cirrhosis, but few people know how a liver goes from early damage to end-stage liver cirrhosis.
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The combination of my father’s death and my personal background lit a fire in me to know more. He was admitted to the hospital on June 24, 2016, and he died on July 18. Only 24 days passed between the first sign there was a problem and his subsequent death.
Now, hearing that he was in end-stage cirrhosis didn’t surprise me, given his heavy drinking. What did surprise me was that he’d visited several doctors and specialists in the months before his death, and no one knew his liver was struggling either.
So what happened? Does end-stage liver cirrhosis really sneak up that fast? Were there other signs that would have alerted someone to his failing liver?
As for why the doctors and specialists didn’t know what was happening, that mystery resolved reasonably quickly. The plain truth is that alcoholics rarely divulge the amount and frequency of their drinking to their doctors. This was the case for my dad. He had many health issues that he was trying to solve, but he protected his drinking habit fiercely. So he refused to spill the beans, even when it mattered.
The problem is that liver damage has numerous multifaceted symptoms that are confusing and associated with many other illnesses. Unless a doctor knows that the patient is an alcoholic, they may not know how to interpret what’s happening until it’s too late.
As he was dying, my father told me that he didn’t think to tell the doctors how much he was drinking. He said it was as if he blanked out and “forgot” to mention it. As crazy as that sounds, this strange “forgetting” is a common part of the alcoholic mindset. It may also be due to the metabolic and physical changes of cirrhosis itself.
There are many signs of liver problems, but oddly, none seem to point to the liver at first. And in fact, many of the first signs of liver damage occur in other parts of the body. Knowing these signs may help educate alcoholics and their families if they want to understand their risk of developing liver cirrhosis.
Liver damage has numerous multifaceted symptoms that are confusing and associated with many other illnesses. Unless a doctor knows that the patient is an alcoholic, they may not know how to interpret what’s happening until it’s too late.
Digestive signs
The liver plays a huge part in our digestive process. It filters out all toxins from food as well as helping to break down fats and glucose.
When a liver starts to slow down due to significant damage, it will reduce its digestive work. Instead, it will divert its energy toward vital functions like metabolizing medications and filtering toxins.
This means that symptoms like bloating, nausea, vomiting, gas, and diarrhea will start to increase. Over time, eating becomes more challenging. In the later stages of liver cirrhosis, toxins that can’t be filtered out begin to build in the bloodstream, which causes more nausea.
Cognitive signs
Although confusion and brain fog happen in end-stage liver cirrhosis, they can also be early signs.
The liver is responsible for filtering dangerous substances in the blood. It also helps regulate hormones, blood glucose, and vitamin absorption. In the early stages of liver damage, these processes can be interrupted. Inevitably, this affects our brain and nervous system.
This means that early liver problems can make you feel tired, confused, slow, and foggy. You may have some memory issues as well.
Neuromuscular signs
The liver stores vitamins required for the functioning of many organs and systems in the body — one of them is vitamin B1 or thiamine. A deficiency in this particular vitamin has been documented in many alcoholics with or without liver damage.
Unfortunately, alcohol inhibits the absorption of thiamine in the intestine. Over time, as the liver becomes damaged, it can no longer store thiamine in enough quantities. Thiamine deficiency is responsible for many neurological issues in people with alcoholism.
Symptoms of thiamine deficiency range from mild to severe and include things like: confusion, mental fog, lack of balance, pain and numbness in hands and feet, muscle weakness, rapid heart rate, digestive problems, flushing, and involuntary eye movements.
Thiamine deficiency happens in almost every alcoholic who consumes frequent and large amounts of alcohol. And if thiamine deficiency due to alcoholism is discovered, you can be sure the liver is suffering damage at the same time.
Many of the first signs of liver damage occur in other parts of the body.
Vascular signs
All alcohol consumption can lead to blood vessel dilation, causing flushing in the face and hands. Over time, this can cause damage leading to permanent redness in the face. Although many alcoholics have rosacea or spider-like veins on their faces, this is often benign.
However, spider angiomas are different from rosacea or spiderlike veins. They’re circular and have a central point called a spider nevus that is darker than the rest of the lesion. Spider angiomas are a sign of liver disease and can be present in the early stages. They often progress to more extensive and more numerous lesions.
Spider angiomas are caused by increased estrogen levels in the blood. When the liver becomes damaged, it can’t properly metabolize estrogens, which causes them to build up in the body.
Many women who are pregnant or taking birth control pills may have a few spider angiomas. However, in alcoholic liver disease, these lesions are often more frequent and accompanied by red palms and varicose veins in the esophagus.
These are a few of the main signs of alcoholic liver damage that happen outside of the liver. It’s important to know this because most of us have no idea how the liver functions and how it communicates distress.
The liver itself doesn’t show signs like pain or swelling in the early stages of liver damage. This contrasts with other organs like the heart or stomach, where any damage will emit pain or symptoms directly from these organs.
What happens with liver damage is that its many diverse functions become interrupted, causing symptoms in other parts of the body. This may explain why most people never think they have a problem with their liver.
Unfortunately, patients with alcoholism are rarely educated about these issues. This is because they often don’t reveal their drinking, to begin with. And even if they do, the symptoms are widespread and complex, which makes patient education challenging.
My goal in writing articles like this is to help educate regular people about alcoholic liver disease to understand their health and make better decisions.
It’s hard to say if my father would have changed his drinking habits if he knew more about his vague and complicated symptoms. But I think having proper education would have certainly helped him understand his risks and health problems better. | https://medium.com/@jonshonkmorgan/the-first-signs-of-alcoholic-liver-damage-are-not-in-the-liver-4ed8573c0cda | [] | 2020-12-19 13:26:26.922000+00:00 | ['Addiction', 'Health', 'Body', 'Alcohol', 'Mental Health'] |
Bowl Games Provide Big Payoff for College Football | Who decides which teams play in the bowl games?
The Power 5 Conferences completely dominate the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC 12 and SEC make up the Power 5 Conferences. Together they control the most lucrative college football bowl games played on or around New Year’s Day.
The FBS Playoff Committee selects the participants for its top bowl games as well as the four teams vying for the National Championship. There was a lot of money riding on the Big Ten landing one of those four coveted berths in the playoffs. Ohio State seemed like the league’s best opportunity.
Don’t get lost in the numbers!
In an article in Sportico, writer Eben Novy-Williams expects revenue may be 10–15% less this year because of the Pandemic and the uncertainty of attendance at this year’s bowl games.
The FBS Bowls include the Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl and the College Football Playoff game. The National Semi-Final games rotate each year between these six bowls. This year the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl will be the hosts.
Each Power Five Conference receives $66M in addition to money earned by participating in bowl games.
A deeper dive into the numbers reveals that a Big Ten team invited to play in one of the FBS Bowls receives about $2.4M for expenses. Teams who are chosen to play in the Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl will receive $6M, while those chosen for the Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, or Fiesta Bowl will receive $4M each.
According to Football Poll.Com, Big Ten teams could receive invitations to other bowls. Ranked in order of estimated payouts for each participating school — Guaranteed Rate Bowl ($157,000), SERVPRO First Responder Bowl ($412,272), Pinstripe Bowl ($2.2M), Duke’s Mayo Bowl ($2.3M), Music City Bowl (2.85M), Outback Bowl ($3.2M) and Citrus Bowl ($4.1M).
The revenue comes from ticket sales, corporate sponsorships and television revenue.
Big Ten will participate in five Bowl Games.
Prior to selection Penn State, Nebraska and Minnesota indicated they would not accept bowl bids this year due to Covid-19 concerns. Five Big Ten schools have accepted bids to play in this year’s “Bowl-a-Rama!”
Wisconsin vs. Wake Forest; December 30th ; Duke’s Mayo Bowl; Charlotte, North Carolina ($2.3M)
Iowa vs. Missouri; December 30th ; TransPerfect Music City Bowl; Nashville, Tennessee ($2.85)
Northwestern vs. Auburn; January 1st ; Vrbo Citrus Bowl; Orlando, Florida ($4.1M)
Ohio State vs. Clemson; January 1st ; Allstate Sugar Bowl; New Orleans, Louisiana; ($6M)
Indiana vs. Mississippi; January 2nd ; Outback Bowl; Tampa, Florida; ($3.2M)
If these estimates are even close to accurate, the Big Ten can expect to earn nearly $85M from this year’s bowl revenue!
Photo by Mike Bowman on Unsplash
High Schools are finding it very difficult to make ends meet!
High school athletic programs aren’t nearly as fortunate. Covid-19 protocol in Indiana has limited ticket sales, corporate sponsorships are down and TV revenue is very limited at best. It is likely that the high schools in your area are experiencing similar issues.
To examine the extent of the high school’s revenue shortfall, I posed nine questions to six athletic directors in the Central Indiana Conference. The schools they represent are located in Blackford, Grant and Madison Counties in Indiana. The athletic directors who responded were Tony Uggen (Blackford), Gregory Kyle (Eastbrook), Marty Wells (Elwood), Ryan Plovick (Madison-Grant), Chanse Young (Mississinewa), and Ryan Fagan (Oak Hill).
1. Did your school still receive some revenue from last year’s basketball tournament?
Uggen said, “We got our revenue from last year’s basketball sectional which would have been all we would have gotten. Each school made just over $3,000 apiece after the sectional. The six competing schools shared 98% of the profit earned, while the IHSAA gets 2%.” The other athletic directors agreed their schools received their sectional shares before the Pandemic hit. The share in 2021 may be closer to $750 given the current attendance restrictions!
2. Did your school save some of its athletic budget for 2019–20 by cancelling all of the spring events?
All of the athletic directors said their schools saved money by not having last year’s spring sports. “Spring season is always deficit spending for us,” Plovick said. “There is NEVER a spring season that goes by where an athletic budget gains money.”
“We did save some money because of no spring sports,” Young added. “I am not sure I can put an exact number on it, but we had purchased some field supplies and equipment before season was canceled.”
“However, the money saved has also been consumed by having smaller athletic crowds during the 20–21 fall and winter season,” Kyle said.
3. Were your spring coaches still paid even though there was no competitive season in the Spring?
“All of our coaches were paid in the spring. That money came from corporation funds,” Plovick said. That was the case at all six of the schools.
This may have been because of the Cares Act and the Payroll Protecction Plan, but none of the ADs were sure.
Districts pay coaching salaries or stipends from their General Fund. This fund cannot be used to buy equipment, hire officials, pay athletic workers, or buy athletic supplies. However, a district’s Capital Project Fund may provide some relief for field maintenance as well as heating and lighting of facilities for athletic events.
“They (coaches) had already started their seasons. Track had (already participated) in a couple of meets. Once the shutdown hit, they (coaches) didn’t have any responsibilities.”
Uggen who also coaches baseball in the spring at Blackford added, “That was much appreciated by coaches. Keep in mind that several coaches work out with their teams during the limited contact periods and conditioning/lifting sessions. So many had already done a lot in advance of the season with their kids.”
4. Were you able to save some of the 2019–20 transportation budget by cancelling the 2019–20 spring sports?
All six ADs reported saving money on transportation. There were no contests so there were no transportation costs.
5. Did your school make some of these purchases which can be used this year to help save money in the 2020–21 athletic budget?
Plovick’s response was typical for all of the schools. “All spring sports were canceled at the beginning of the spring practice season. All uniforms, equipment, and field maintence purchases were ready to go. That expense will not be there this spring….thankfully,” he added.
Kyle agreed, “We purchased baseballs, softballs, baseball caps, and field supplies. All of which will be used this Spring.”
6. Since your school has been able to have only very limited fan attendance, how has this affected your school’s athletic budget?
“We made money this fall,” Wells said. “In Madison County we were allowed to sell 50% capacity inside and out. We moved our 7th and 8th grade volleyball games to the high school gym so we could social distance and sell more tickets. We did not sell all-sport tickets this year so all of our fans had to purchase individual game tickets.”
“Our budget has been drastically affected,” Plovick added. “This week, I had to send out an email to all members of our coaching staff effective immediately, that there will NOT be any new purchases. All 2021 uniforms rotation schedule, equipment, and other expenditures will need to be suspended for the time being.”
Fagan is following suit at Oak Hill. “We have asked coaches to only get things they absolutely have to have.”
“Money has definitely been lost at this point in the year,” Young said. “Fall was better financially than I had anticipated, but definitely a hit. Winter has been a loss of a minimum of $4,150 per contest.
“Obviously, it hurts,” Uggen added. ”Our goal for ‘20–21 is to try to break even. That will be hard, but losing the profit will force us to be careful about other expenses. So we are pretty tight with our money right now.
It’s Luke Brown’s senior year, and our basketball team is expecting to have a very good season, we probably will lose at least $15,000 a night for boys games alone. We were unable to sell season passes this year since there were concerns about whether we would even make it through the fall which would have required us to give refunds. So we chose not to sell passes this year as a result. Thankfully, we are still playing!”
Luke Brown’s 32.3 points and 6.8 assists per game has created enough excitement to Blackford High School to pack the Bruins’ gym for the past three years. The sharpshooter is currently ranked third in the state in scoring and plans to continue his career next year at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida.
7. How much of a shortfall do you anticipate this year?
Plovick said he was surprised that teams played a fall season this year. “Since that did happen, and with limited spectators, expenses continued with less revenue coming in. This is now the trend, but it’s been even worse, this winter season,” he added. “Every event (HS, JH, 6th Grade) is losing money with major attendence restrictions and lack of concession money.”
“If things continue with the limited number of fans that we are permitted to have and looking at the gate receipts that we have lost I would roughly guess that this year we could lose as much as $10,000 to our athletic budget,” Young said.
Fagan agreed, “The fall season wasn’t real bad. The winter is where we are hurting. It will probably be a $10,000 — $15,000 hit.”
“At this pace this winter we could lose as much as $7500,” Wells added.
“Can’t venture to guess but several thousand compared to last year in gate receipts alone,” Uggen said. “However, that is an uncontrollable. So we are focusing on just trying to break even and stay afloat as best we can through the pandemic.
Fortunately, we were in pretty decent shape prior to the pandemic so we will make it through in decent shape, but if this goes into next year it could get interesting,” Uggen added. Sellout crowds for basketball the past three years helped provide this cushion for Blackford.
Kyle is hopeful Eastbrook can get back to 25% attendance. He still thinks his school has a chance to break even.
8. What type of fundraising projects have you planned to help make up the shortfall?
“We had a golf outing this year and this year was our best. I think people were ready to get out! We will also have a bowling fundraiser in early spring,” Wells said.
Fagan added, “Most of our teams do fundraisers to help buy luxury things. However, this year I have not let them spend the money to help us with operational cost if we have too. We did a golf scramble, sold apparel, sold discount cards, etc. The golf scramble was by far the most profitable.”
“We continue to rely on the athletic department supporters (advertisers) for a portion of our income and that has helped out tremendously,” Kyle shared. “Some of our teams have created videos asking for support, which appear on our website and that has generated some good financial support. It has been extremely difficult and we have relied more on more volunteers to work contest and teams have been told “NO” more often.”
“We have gone to using only volunteer event workers, purchased live steaming equipment and charge a pay-per-view to watch games from home,” Plovick said. “Also, we have raised money at different fundraising opportunities that haven’t been done in the past. The Athletic Department parked cars for the first time this fall at the James Dean Festival and raised over $2000 in one day.
“Madison-Grant chose to use the IHSAA Champions Network that is supported by the IHSAA for live streaming our events,” Plovick added. “The only cost initially was for equipment, which was around $3000 and we chose to pay $400 to have the ability to manipulate the cost per event.
“All of our streaming personnel are volunteers, which has been great so far. The school charges $8 for high school events and $5 for junior high events,” Plovick said. “We usually have 8–9 subscribers for junior high events and around 80 subscribers for high school events. The school receives 60% of the revenue from paid subscribers.”
Plovick isn’t worried about getting fans back in the stands once the Pandemic ends. “I feel that many people might stay home and watch live stream from home now that we have that option. I am hopeful people will take advantage of this. However, I don’t feel a large percentage of people will do that. There are still many people that would like to sit and watch a game live and in-person with a popcorn and drink in hand.”
Plovick admits it’s not always easy to find enough volunteers. “Many times I will find people to sell concessions or operate the scoreboard to work for free, but ticket takers and public address announcers are specialized and difficult to find. However, they have been dependable, once I get a committment.
I haven’t had any issues with support staff NOT working at events due to the fear of COVID. Everyone is very good about taking the appropriate precautions when working,” Plovick added.
9. Does your school have access to school sponsorships which can help with the budget deficit?
“We have a pretty good corporate sponsorship program that typically generates about $10,000,” Wells said. “This year we sent letters out telling our sponsors that we understood everybody had to make sacrifices and we were not expecting payment this year, BUT if the wanted to we would gladly accept it. We had 5 sponsors out of 27 still donate.”
Young added, “We did continue to offer our corporate sponsorships and thankfully many of our local businesses have been very generous in continuing with their sponsorship during this time.”
“We use sponsorships to help balance the budget,” Fagan said. “We actually saw no drop off in our sponsorship. We did however give a 25% discount on sponsors that had paid through the spring last year since we didn’t have a spring season.”
Kyle agreed, “We do have sponsorship and it helps out, however at this time we do not have enough support to solely support our athletic department.”
It was a different story at Madison-Grant. “Many of our small businesses within the area that supports athletics were hit hard as well,” Plovick said. “The advertising dollars were not there for schools over the summer and many thousands of dollars were lost. Unfortuantely, we do NOT have any local businesses that could signiciantly help offset the tens of thousands of dollar difference in lost revenue.
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
How can we help?
High schools face a future which is very hard to predict. Most likely this sports’ season will end with limited attendance and huge losses of revenue. Fortunately, there are a number of ways we can help:
Subscribe to the school’s media service and watch athletic contests online. Attend as many athletic events in person as permitted by current Health Department Guidelines. Make a cash donation by writing a check to the school’s athletic department. Donate the cost of an “all-sport” or “season ticket”, the cost of concessions you would normally buy at 5–10 athletic events, or simply $100. Offer to volunteer your services. Let the athletic director at your high school know if you are willing to keep a scorebook, run a scoreboard, sell tickets, run a stopwatch, pick places, or run a field event during track and field meets, etc.
As Indiana’s Governor Eric Holcomb likes to remind us, “We’re all in this together!” | https://medium.com/@jerryharshman2/bowl-games-provide-big-payoff-for-college-football-db872d32c671 | ['Jerry Harshman'] | 2020-12-27 16:50:52.545000+00:00 | ['High School', 'Sports', 'College Football', 'Sports Features', 'Fundraising Ideas'] |
What’s new in Google Chrome DevTools and Boost your website Ranking by DevTools New Feature | Chrome DevTools now, finally, has support for CSS grid debugging . For Example You have a grid with three defined Areas, Banners, sidebar, and content of your post. In the elements panel, notice that there is a new grid batch added next to the grid element and you click to customize the overlay further in the new layout pane. Google Chrome DevTools has great new features to help you better debug your site and your ranking.
1. The New rendering tab and sensors tab . Do you know you can emulate locales by setting a location By this Chrome DevTools Feature?
2. The New Idle State Emulations to support the Idle Detections API Feature. This API feature allow you to detect inactive users and react on idle state changes, This is good DevTools feature for users .
3. The Next DevTools Feature is new disable locker fonts emulations For define a font family, Rubik, in the fonts-face rule, and set the source to local Rubik Light locally.
4. DevTools also added a new CSS media emulations feature to emulate prefers-reduced-data media query.
5. You can now use DevTools to force and test the focus visible state like website.
6. The Inspect Mode Tool tips now displays more accessibility information.
7. Chrome DevTools can emulate blurred visions and four different types of vision deficiencies.
8. You can fix the low color contrast texts with our color suggestions Color Tools .
9. Represents new tabs and panels in Chrome DevTools. Have you ever seen a console for browser’s warnings, and you have no clue on how to fix it ? The new issues tab aim to improve that, Very good users.
10. You can now debug the web authentication API with the new Web Authn tab feature. Open the Web Authn Tab, create a virtual authenticator, and watch it play the part of a real device. | https://medium.com/@supertechuniverse/whats-new-in-google-chrome-devtools-and-boost-your-website-ranking-by-devtools-new-feature-45f4171817b7 | [] | 2020-12-26 10:56:43.121000+00:00 | ['News', 'Google', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Devtools'] |
Wolcen: The Hot New Underdog Action RPG | After five years in development, a successful Kickstarter, and an early access period, Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem is now a real computer game you can buy. It’s a fast-paced action RPG that’s one part Diablo III and one part Path of Exile, slathered in a sumptuous coating of CryEngine-powered visual excellence.
I’ve played it for a weekend, and I think it’s a whole lot of fun, with a massive asterisk hovering just out of sight for the bug-averse.
The game exploded out of the gate just a few days ago, and the servers for both the online loot database and co-op multiplayer almost immediately melted down, leaving the game’s Steam forum full of concerned players, some of whom had lost progress and items.
The game regularly fills the screen with enemies, and it’s great. Screenshot taken by Alex Rowe.
In the few days I’ve played the game, the servers have been online exactly one time. I decided not to try and play with anyone, because you can’t take offline characters into the online mode, and I didn’t want to start over and risk losing items in the process. It seems like the game’s small 13-person team is scrambling tirelessly behind the scenes to make it all work right.
You’d never realize that the game was made by such a small group unless someone told you. Its presentation is immaculate. The game’s visuals overwhelm the eyes with wonderful details. Environments are rife with ornate textures and materials, lighting effects, and realistic reflections. Character models exude the game’s just-south-of-realistic art style, which has enough of its own painterly flair to stake out a great middle ground between Path of Exile’s grime and Diablo III’s vibrance. Combat showers the screen in viscera, particles, and other satisfying feedback. It’s truly a graphical goal post that other isometric games will now have to contend with.
Fortunately, the gameplay has the power and impact necessary to sustain the hours and hours of fighting and looting that the genre is built on. Every attack hits hard, and you’ll have to make full dexterous use of both mouse and keyboard to succeed in the chaotic battles. You’ll unlock new skills through special items as you go, and those skills are also tied to the type of weapon you decide to wield. The game is completely class-free, allowing you to build your character through a combination of stats, weapon choices, and passive skill boosts from a giant sprawling array of nodes that borrows heavily from Path of Exile but adds rotating rings to mix it up.
Official Wolcen release trailer, www.wolcengame.com
Wolcen’s sound shines just as much as its visuals. The music was recorded by the Prague Symphony Orchestra, and the game’s many characters are well voice-acted. Combat sounds are a particular highlight for me. I’ll never get tired of the loud metal clang that accompanies each successful critical hit. Environmental sounds fill out the different soundscapes and match the detail of the world on display.
In addition to being a prettier, nice-sounding version of a game you’ve probably played a thousand times before, Wolcen has a fun storyline. Saying too much about it would ruin what little nuance it has, but it’s a tale of orphans, latent god-like powers, and powerful factions with hidden motives. It’s nothing all that new (notice the running theme?) but the lore is fleshed-out and the main protagonist has more of a personality than I usually expect from the genre.
I’ve gotta pick up those pants! Screenshot taken by Alex Rowe.
Wolcen doesn’t have as much content as its inspirations just yet, and what’s there is a little more janky than I might have liked to see in a “finished” game. On the plus side, the game delivers on its promise of a seamless open world…though it takes longer to load than every other action RPG on the market. The game’s main combat innovation is to overwhelm you with massive groups of enemies a la Dynasty Warriors, and force you to manage two special power resource meters at once that feed into each other like a see saw.
While it’s fun to battle huge swarms of enemies right from the beginning, it clashes a bit with trying to learn and build a character. Diablo III saved these types of encounters for later in the game, when you really have a grip on the mechanics and have better gear and more skills. It’s rather easy to die in Wolcen’s opening stages, which is a bold choice for a game genre built on easing you into a lifetime of dopamine-powered clicking.
Aside from the three large story chapters, the game has an endless mode that will generate random dungeons for you and your friends to bash against…and that’s it for endgame content. The game’s dungeon generation is adequate, though I’ve found some of the campaign’s subterranean dives get a bit long in the tooth. If you’re a dungeon fan, you might love this.
The character creator is limited enough that your protagonist will have a generically steely look no matter what. Screenshot taken by Alex Rowe.
In addition to the mess caused by the server fires, I’ve seen reports of issues with the offline mode as well, in spite of its locked-down characters. I’ve seen complaints that sometimes offline characters will just vanish in the blink of an eye. I’ve heard tales of passive skill nodes not working at all or providing far more of a boost than their text indicates. Also, folks that have already made it to the end of the game have found broken quests and missing text. I haven’t experienced any of these issues yet in my one weekend with the game, but it seems likely I’ll hit some sooner or later.
Still, the fun core gameplay, flexible character system, and breathtaking audiovisual presentation have me more than satisfied with spending the $40 dollars the game costs. I’ll happily grind through its campaign and dungeon modes a few times, and I’ll eagerly await the new content that’s promised.
The game’s environments are packed with realistic materials and extra visual flair. Screenshot taken by Alex Rowe.
It’s shocking to me that such a small team made a game that looks this expensive. The server issues and bugs are unfortunate, but are also the sorts of challenges that even large, well-funded games in this genre struggle against. The team has been in constant communication with fans online, and I feel hopeful that they’re going to push this game into an incredible product in the next few months.
Wolcen is a great early contender for my personal action RPG debut of the year, based on its wonderful presentation alone. That’s impressive considering that Path of Exile 2, Diablo IV, and Torchlight III are all coming sometime soon. It’s worth a buy right now if you consider yourself patient with technical issues, but otherwise perhaps hold off for a few months. | https://xander51.medium.com/wolcen-the-hot-new-underdog-action-rpg-92e76ef1f0c | ['Alex Rowe'] | 2020-02-17 19:55:04.273000+00:00 | ['Videogames', 'Graphics', 'Game Design', 'Gaming', 'Rpg'] |
Bobby Chacko Discusses the Importance of Developing a Chief Growth Officer in Your Organization | Companies like Kimberly-Clark, Lyft, and Coca-Cola have all replaced their Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) positions with Chief Growth Officers, but other companies may need the roles to work in tandem. “A CMO’s position used to naturally envelop company growth — marketing equals branding and sales and, therefore, growth, said the formula. But emerging technology and digital disruptions to industries across the world open new definitions of ‘growth’ and new opportunities for companies to diversify revenue streams and develop new products,” explains Bobby Chacko.
Enter the CGO.
A CGO Looks to the Future Says Bobby Chacko
“Too often, a company thinks about its growth only in the context of quarterly earnings. ‘Are we doing better than last quarter? This quarter is down over the last quarter, how can we turn that around to hit our numbers?’ But a company’s long-term success isn’t measured in 3-month increments. It’s measured in years. Decades,” says Bobby Chacko.
Bobby Chacko goes on the describe the role of a CGO in terms of lasting success. “You have to think about the new customer segments you could go after, the geographies you want to penetrate. You have to think about the experiences your brand could create. It’s not about growing three percent now — it’ about growing twenty percent this year or next year.”
A Chief Growth Officer Is an Advocate for the Consumer Says Bobby Chacko
“In a lot of ways, to be successful, you’re more an advocate for the consumer than you are the company,” reflects Bobby Chacko. “You’re fighting with sales, with production, with finance to develop your products and services based on what your consumers want and need. If you’re moving forward, but you’re leaving your current customers behind to do it — that’s not growth. You’re just replacing the money you lost by abandoning your longer-term, inherently more loyal customer base.”
Bobby Chacko goes on to explain that a real CGO is one that can look to the future and stay on top of trends while staying on brand and finding ways to deepen consumer relationships. “If you run a software company, it can be tempting to develop a whole new program to entice a new kind of customer to buy. But you have to stay on brand, you have to build on your strengths. Sometimes the best way to do that is to deepen your current offering and charge a little more, or to offer an expansion on services for advanced users.” | https://medium.com/@bobbychacko19/bobby-chacko-discusses-the-importance-of-developing-a-chief-growth-officer-in-your-organization-f84246aa76e7 | [] | 2020-12-22 09:44:34.007000+00:00 | ['CEO', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Bobbychacko', 'Entrepreneur', 'Management And Leadership'] |
Love is love is love… | Being Pride month, it was appropriate timing that my husband and I recently attended the wedding of Jonathan and George.
To witness their union was a blessing. Family and friends from all corners of the world filled the rows of seats as we sat waiting patiently for the grooms to arrive. Jonathan, originally from Boston, has Italian-American roots. George, born in California, is Mexican-American.
As I looked from one row to another, what was abundantly clear was not the varied mixture of cultures, ages, genders, and sexual orientation of attendees, but the copious amount of love and support for this about-to-be newly married couple at the beginning of their journey together.
It would be easy to take this celebration for granted, but I can assure you that for members of the LGBTQ+ community, we do not. You only need to pick up a newspaper or switch on the news to hear about the continual attack on equal rights. To clarify, we have made immense progress, but will are still far from true equality.
I couldn’t help think back to my wedding, but not for the reasons you may think. You see, my soon-to-be father-in-law, who had only confirmed his attendance that very morning was initially not very happy to be there. Without going into too much detail, he was wrestling with his own demons, a case of right versus wrong spurred on by his religious beliefs. I bring this up not to point the finger at the misguided, archaic doctrine of the Catholic Church, but to tell you about something much more powerful; one man’s complete transformation from discomfort and confusion to acceptance and celebration. You see, as the day unfolded, my father-in-law realized that whether it be a man or a woman, or two members of the same sex, love is love. It was as if the dark clouds parted, allowing the sun to light up the sky. I still tear up at the memory of his transformation. It is a moment I will never forget. I believe the world would be a very different place if seen through the eyes of my father-in-law. If only.
This brings me back to the glorious wedding of Jonathan and George. For one evening at the Franciscan Gardens, where we cried, laughed, and danced the night away, we celebrated the union of two souls and the fact that love is love is love.
By Ben Hartley
#loveislove #lovewins #pride #lgbtq+ #gaywedding #celebrate #nohate #progress | https://medium.com/@benhnyc/love-is-love-is-love-d0ba80a81ad9 | ['Ben Hartley'] | 2021-06-08 18:40:53.220000+00:00 | ['Progress', 'Acceptance', 'Gay Weddings', 'Love', 'LGBTQ'] |
A Year in Review: Design Co 2018–2019 | A Year in Review
This past school year marked another jam-packed year for us as we continued to inspire and encourage students toward a life in design. We wanted to focus on creating experiences where students can use their classroom knowledge. To do so, we continued last year’s successful Design Frontiers, a day-long design sprint, included more interactive activities in General Body Meetings (GBMs), and organized UC San Diego’s first-ever design-centric career fair.
Skill-based workshops
Throughout the year, we organized a series of workshops on a variety of subjects to help students sharpen their skill set. This ranged from different prototyping softwares to basics of visual design, to user research methods, and more!
Visual Design Workshops
Good user experience involves good use of visual design, which exceeds more than just the aesthetic. Visual design in HCD is a combination of creativity with relevant imagery elements that convey certain emotions. Many of our members have a strong background in design thinking, but since HCD is also about the clever use of visual elements, we held a range of visual design workshops to help students have keener eyes when designing.
We led many theory-based and interactive workshops on visual design. We organized a workshop on design composition and colors in the Fall, and one on the use of typography in the Winter. In Spring, we showed students a more creative use of visual design through motion design with our Adobe After Effects workshop.
Understanding Users
Designers must first understand their users in order to create a good product. To better implement user research methods taught in class, we invited Sony representatives to demonstrate their experience with storyboarding. This active workshop allowed students to create their own storyboard based on Sony products. From this workshop, students understood the importance of understanding the users before heading into a design. | https://medium.com/ucsddesignco/a-year-in-review-design-co-2018-2019-95524e84628e | ['Design Co'] | 2019-10-21 19:01:03.027000+00:00 | ['UX', 'Design Co', 'Design', 'Ucsd', 'Year In Review'] |
how to make baby calm after vaccination | how to make baby calm after vaccination
Although very important and necessary, vaccines hurt and increase the anxiety of our children. Being somewhat painful, you will notice that most babies come out of their health checks crying inconsolably. You may be wondering what you can do to soothe your baby after vaccination. The following tips from experts can help you:
Wrap your baby in a blanket on his side or tummy and shake him from side to side to comfort him.
• If your baby is using a pacifier, you can give it to him to calm down.
You can give him a little sugar water before injection; some studies show that it reduces pain after vaccination.
Click here: Proven method Helps exhausted mom put their babies to sleep
• Breast milk also helps. In fact, babies who are exclusively breastfed are less likely to develop a fever after injection.
• Talking calmly to your baby before and after the injection is also very beneficial. Calmly explain that the injection was for her good, to keep her healthy and because you love her so much.
• Charge and cuddle. This is the perfect time to pamper her and show her all your love.
• Bring her favorite toy and give it to distract her.
Take a deep breath. Place your little one on your chest and take a deep breath to convey your peace of mind.
Amazing children reading learning program
• Ask your doctor about anesthetic creams. If he recommends it, it should be applied before the vaccine as it takes about an hour to take effect.
• At home, gently move your leg or arm (depending on the area where the injection is given) to reduce pain.
• Massage the skin around the injection area to divert attention from the pain.
• Don’t forget to praise your baby for his courage; Positive reinforcement is very important!
Remember to follow your doctor’s instructions if your baby is very ill or has a fever.
Disclaimer: This article contains an affiliate link, If you made a purchase through this link we will earn a small commission. | https://medium.com/@millionaireminds/how-to-make-baby-calm-after-vaccination-20eb3081e8b6 | [] | 2020-12-21 11:12:56.189000+00:00 | ['Sleep', 'Baby', 'Cry', 'How To', 'Calm'] |
The need to automate the data labeling process | Machine Learning is the new technological wave whose impact on industries and the world can be compared to the emergence of PCs in the 1970s. While the first work now recognized as AI was done in 1943, it wasn’t until the 2010s that AI became widely used in consumer tech products and industries.
There are three types of Machine Learning Models:
1. Supervised Learning Model — where the model needs to be trained in order to perform a specific function.
2. Unsupervised Learning Model — where the model can perform a specific task without any supervision.
3. Reinforcement Learning Model — where the agent learns on its own through positive and negative reinforcements, much like a baby does.
While there has been a lot of advancement when it comes to Reinforcement Learning Models and Unsupervised Learning Models, it is Supervised Learning which is the most widely used form of Machine Learning.
With the widespread use of supervised learning models, the need for training datasets is very high in the ML industry. As a result data labeling has become a very important part of the training phase of the machine learning lifecycle.
Data Labelling or Data Annotation is an emerging sector in India, however, data labeling is primarily still done manually.
The problem?
Say you have built a supervised learning model and need a training dataset to train your supervised learning model to perform effectively. You have 5,00,000 data points that need to be labeled. Here’s what this could look like:
If you have hired in-house annotators and have five such in-house annotators and they can provide 2000 data points per person per day then it could take them ~ 7 weeks to get your data labeled
If you send your dataset to a manual data labeling firm, depending on the number of annotators working on your project the turn-around-time could still be weeks and the cost could be pretty high
So it could take you weeks and cost you hundreds of dollars by the time you get around to training your model.
Now, what if we automated the data labeling process?
Here’s what your training phase could look like then:
Instead of weeks, AI can label your data in hours which can reduce the time taken for your training phase by ~ 97% considering the example above — that it takes ~ 7 weeks for your data to be labeled
It will also be less expensive because automating the data labeling process does not incur the costs associated with manual annotations
The chance of human bias and human error entering your training dataset is low, ensuring a good quality labeled dataset which is crucial to ensure that your ML model performs optimally
Since the time taken to label your data is significantly low as compared to manual data labeling, it allows for rapid iteration to get a high-quality training dataset that ensures that your ML model performs at its best
However, even if an unsupervised learning model is used, in order to determine how well the data has been labeled we need a metric. To generate this metric, 5% — 10% of the data needs to be labeled for validation, in order to verify the predictions. Since no model is 100% accurate, thus a fully automated model is not possible.
What is the next best solution?
A combination of machine learning and human checks to ensure that the quality of the training dataset is as high as possible.
So the dataset is initially put through the ML model which predicts the initial set of labels and then in order to do away with false positives or false negatives, the labels are reviewed by humans.
This ensures that the labels are as highly accurate as possible. We save a lot of time by using Machine Learning to get initial predictions. Since we don’t have to manually label all the data points and instead just need to review the incorrect ones, this ultimately minimizes the time taken to review the predictions by ~86%. However, the amount of time that the training phase could be reduced depends on the dataset and the application.
For example, in certain tasks like image classification and text classification, AI can confidently generate high-quality labels thereby minimizing in-depth reviewing. However, for complex tasks like object detection and instance segmentation, AI can help generate initial predictions and the reviewer can rectify the wrong predictions and missing labels.
At Expand AI, we use ML-assisted labeling to generate high-quality labels at the lowest turn-around time and we also have humans in the loop to ensure high accuracy. Since we don’t incur the costs associated with manual data labeling we are also very economical with pricing.
Here’s what our pipeline looks like.
Once we get data from clients, we first clean the data and then label 5% of the data manually. We then use this data to train the model so that it can predict labels for the rest 85% of the data accurately.
We have humans in the loop to review the labels to increase the accuracy further. Finally, the labeled data is sent back to clients.
Reach out to us at [email protected] in order to test our data labeling software today! | https://medium.com/@amritagandha-dutta/the-need-to-automate-the-data-labeling-process-6cd2efacf3e3 | ['Expand Ai'] | 2021-05-09 13:13:59.674000+00:00 | ['AI', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Supervised Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Labeling'] |
Episode 11 [Full Watch] > HD Online - Full Episodes | New Episode — The Bachelorette Season 16 Episode 11 (Full Episode) Top Show
Official Partners ABC TV Shows & Movies Full Series Online
NEW EPISODE PREPARED ►► https://tinyurl.com/y5uzkwb4
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🦋 TELEVISION 🦋
(TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports.
TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 191s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new innovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 1950s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[1] during the 1915s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 150s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (531i, with 909093 intertwined lines of goal and 434545) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3451513, 3451513 and 3334. Since 115, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, HBO Video, iPlayer and Hulu.
In 113, 39% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[3] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 1990s. Most TV sets sold during the 150s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-115s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 115s.[1][3][8] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 3.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 115s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 150s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 150s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 115s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
🦋 OVERVIEW 🦋
A subgenre that joins the sentiment type with parody, zeroing in on at least two people since they find and endeavor to deal with their sentimental love, attractions to each other. The cliché plot line follows the “kid gets-young lady”, “kid loses-young lady”, “kid gets young lady back once more” grouping. Normally, there are multitudinous variations to this plot (and new curves, for example, switching the sex parts in the story), and far of the by and large happy parody lies in the social cooperations and sexual strain between your characters, who every now and again either won’t concede they are pulled in to each other or must deal with others’ interfering inside their issues.
Regularly carefully thought as an artistic sort or structure, however utilized it is additionally found in the realistic and performing expressions. In parody, human or individual indecencies, indiscretions, misuses, or deficiencies are composed to rebuff by methods for scorn, disparagement, vaudeville, incongruity, or different strategies, preferably with the plan to impact an aftereffect of progress. Parody is by and large intended to be interesting, yet its motivation isn’t generally humor as an assault on something the essayist objects to, utilizing mind. A typical, nearly characterizing highlight of parody is its solid vein of incongruity or mockery, yet spoof, vaudeville, distortion, juxtaposition, correlation, similarity, and risqué statement all regularly show up in ironical discourse and composing. The key point, is that “in parody, incongruity is aggressor.” This “assailant incongruity” (or mockery) frequently claims to favor (or if nothing else acknowledge as common) the very things the humorist really wishes to assault.
In the wake of calling Zed and his Blackblood confidants to spare The Bachelorette, Talon winds up sold out by her own sort and battles to accommodate her human companions and her Blackblood legacy. With the satanic Lu Qiri giving the muscle to uphold Zed’s ground breaking strategy, The Bachelorette’s human occupants are subjugated as excavators looking for a baffling substance to illuminate a dull conundrum. As Talon finds more about her lost family from Yavalla, she should sort out the certainties from the falsehoods, and explain the riddle of her legacy and an overlooked force, before the world becomes subjugated to another force that could devour each living being.
Claw is the solitary overcomer of a race called Blackbloods. A long time after her whole town is annihilated by a pack of merciless hired soldiers, Talon goes to an untamed post on the edge of the enlightened world, as she tracks the huggers of her family. On her excursion to this station, Talon finds she has a strange heavenly force that she should figure out how to control so as to spare herself, and guard the world against an over the top strict tyrant. | https://medium.com/@0jiho/week-11-the-bachelorette-16x011-series-16-episode-11-full-episodes-on-abcs-8b2845a33fc0 | [] | 2020-12-15 02:04:59.205000+00:00 | ['TV Series', 'Startup', 'TV Shows', 'Reality'] |
Ghostwriting: The Most Lucrative Writing Career | Ghostwriting: The Most Lucrative Writing Career
Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash
One of the greatest sources of passive income is publishing a book. You write, you publish, you await the royalty payments to your bank account.
Simple as that, right? Except it isn’t, is it? Writers know all too well that the fantasy outsiders envision when thinking of the above process — write, publish, roll in the cash — is far-fetched.
But there are plenty of people making a living writing. And for those aspiring to do the same, it can get pretty depressing as time goes on and your bank account remains empty. Weeks turn to months, months turn to years, and at some point, you look back and wonder what the hell you did with all your time.
The reason so many of us fall into this trap is that we assume our own writing is what will bring us the income we desire. But it’s when you open your mind to new possibilities that your career can benefit.
The beauty of ghostwriting
Your dream of being on a late night talk show isn’t ridiculous — it’s inspiring. Musicians, actors, and politicians get to go share their stories from the comfort of those couches, so why can’t you? After all, the novel you’ve just written is primed to be a bestseller.
The problem? There are over a million books published each year. Literally. So the competition is fierce. And if you have no prior books published, no following, no presence on social media and so forth, your chances of making any money on that book are slim, regardless of your advertising efforts.
Are you nodding as you read this? Good. Because I’m nodding as I write it. I understand the struggles of doing anything you can to gain exposure for your work because I’ve tried every path possible.
Friends and family.
Social media ads.
Virtual blog tours.
Book parties.
Those Twitter promo pages declaring they have 100,000 followers (but what they don’t tell you is that the ONLY post book promos from a single template).
Everything. Literally everything, yet there’s nothing to show for it. Again, I know the feeling because I’ve been there. Many times.
Ghostwriting, however, allows you to write without the burden of all the aforementioned tactics looming in the back of your mind. Because with ghostwriting, you’re not promoting — you’re simply writing.
Look at the odds
81% of Americans say they want to write a book. That statistic comes from a 2002 study. Yes, way back in 2002. Back when self-publishing and e-books were still considered to be amateur forms of publishing.
Can you imagine what those numbers look like today, with increased technology enabling print-on-demand titles and sites like ACX making it easier than ever to create audiobooks? Take a look at this chart from Statista below. It shows the tremendous growth in number of books published in recent years.
Image from Statista
Advancements in technology have made it easier than ever for those aforementioned 81% of people to get their idea out there into the world. Add that to the fact that the goal for most people in today’s working climate is to become an “influencer” and a vast pool of potential books is built.
But for many, writing an entire book seems impossible. They’re either too busy with their other efforts or, admittedly, no good at writing. And that’s where you come in — the ghostwriter.
Ghostwriting over personal writing
To be a successful writer, you need 3 things:
A message that resonates
A fanbase or following
Writing skills
What most writers lack are the first two. And that’s not to say your fiction novel isn’t great or that your self-help book doesn’t have some incredible perspective. What it means is that your work will get lost in the crowd of other published books.
What your work lacks is that all-important #2 on the list: the fanbase or following.
To be a successful ghostwriter, on the other hand, you need only one thing:
Writing skills
Why don’t you need the message that resonates or the fanbase or following? It’s because the person hiring you to ghostwrite already has both of them. They simply lack the writing skills component and need your help.
Difference in pay
The best part about writing in your own name is the uncapped potential. You could write a piece of prose that takes off overnight and makes you an instant success. And it is possible — it has happened. On the other hand, you could struggle for a decade, never amassing more than $1,000 in lifetime sales.
How do I know the latter is possible? Because it’s the path I went down. Several screenplays, short stories, and novels later, working jobs I despised to pay the bills along the way, I made less than $1,000. In ten years. All that work and nothing to show for it.
After a decade of writing for myself with the dream of being paid to entertain with my stories, I had to take a good, hard look in the mirror and be honest with myself. Either my marketing efforts were terrible or my writing was terrible — it had to be one of the two.
As Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank would say, I had to take this idea of writing for myself behind the barn…
Mr. Wonderful… not one to sugarcoat things.
I knew that a full-time writing career wasn’t going to happen for me with my own stories. I knew I needed something else. So I turned to ghostwriting. And within three years, I’ve been able to make a full-time living at it.
Breaking it down
Think about writing for yourself. It’s much more than writing, isn’t it? If you’re not one of the lucky few to be picked up by a publisher or an agent, the burden of everything falls on you. And the cost adds up:
Editing
Cover design
ISBNs
Interior Design
Distribution channels
And that’s all before you even begin to market your book. For those with no prior fanbase or following, the struggle can be intense. And you can find yourself spending much more than you receive back in royalties.
Ghostwriting, however, requires none of the above. As a ghostwriter, your job is simply to translate the author’s story. Help them to find their voice and tone, structure their book, and write it in such a way that sounds like the author. That’s it. And in return, you get a guaranteed payment.
When first starting out, it’s not uncommon to work for low fees. I wouldn’t advise any true writer to write for less than a few cents per word when starting out. But even that pay has its advantages, as low as it may sound.
Say you write a 40,000-word book for a client at $0.03 per word. That’s $1,200. For me, as a writer of a decade who couldn’t even break the $1,000 in revenue mark, one project of this magnitude was life-changing.
The best part? Only three years later, I’m now writing for $0.25 per word. And the totals only go up from there. Way up — like $100,000 or more for a single project if able to find the right client.
No need to quit your passion projects
Turning to ghostwriting for income doesn’t mean shelving your dreams of penning a bestseller with your name on the cover. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Think about the connections you can make as a ghostwriter. The things you can learn. I continually tell people that the best part of my job is that I get paid to learn.
It’s incredible. I’m paid to talk to people smarter than me and with more experience than me. I can absorb the advice I would otherwise pay $30 for (I’m all about hardcovers).
Take what you learn from these interactions and apply it to your own writing.
Ghostwriting for a marketer or business leader? See how they were able to grow their business and apply it to your writing.
Working with a social media influencer? Take some of that advice and put it into advertising your own books.
Learning from others allows you to expand your own possibilities. And who knows? You might even strike up a few friendships with your authors that could introduce you to the right person — the one who has the answers you need to get your book on shelves worldwide. | https://writingcooperative.com/ghostwriting-the-most-lucrative-writing-career-8193ceac3394 | ['John Feldman'] | 2021-03-11 03:03:58.790000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Writing', 'Writing Life', 'Freelance Writing', 'Young Professionals'] |
Balochistan University Of Information And Technology Buitems 2021 | Pakistan's number one online job site which connects talent with opportunity | https://medium.com/@4466154/balochistan-university-of-information-and-technology-buitems-2021-41a1399774e1 | ['Tasleem Shah'] | 2020-12-21 09:12:45.887000+00:00 | ['Blogging', 'SEO', 'Movies', 'Online', 'Blogger'] |
The best way to record screen on windows 10 for free | The best way to record screen on windows 10 for free Sukhen Jele Jul 2·3 min read
Friends, if you want to record your laptop or computer screen, you have come to the right place. Because today I will tell you how to record screen on windows 10.
If you are a software developer or want to create a guide video? if you are a professional and need a screen recorder for the project work? Maybe you are a gamer and want to record your game for your YouTube video? Whatever you do, you need a screen recording apps to do all that work.
Friends, you can use the Xbox game bar for screen recording in Windows 10, which is a built-in tool and free. With the help of which you can easily record your gameplay and Microsoft Office Work and many other apps.
You can record the screen of almost all applications and Windows screens with the help of the Windows 10 game bar. With the exception of Windows Desktop, File Explorer, and some Windows apps such as Weather, you can use the game bar to record everything else.
So friends below is a step-by-step guide on how to record a screen with the help of the Windows 10 Xbox game bar.
How to record screen on windows 10 with audio using built-in tools
Friends first open the apps or games you want to record.
the apps or games you want to record. Now hold the windows key + G together to open the Xbox game bar.
together to open the Xbox game bar. A menu bar appears. Find and click on the capture option.
option. When the capture dialog box opens, check that the microphone option is enabled. Then click on the start recording button or press (Windows + ALT + R) key together to record your live screen.
button or press (Windows + ALT + R) key together to record your live screen. When you completed capturing your screen click on the stop button to save your recording. If you didn’t find the windows game bar after exit, you can press Windows + G key together to appear it again.
to save your recording. If you didn’t find the windows game bar after exit, you can press Windows + G key together to appear it again. You will find the list of your recording. If you are not able to find your recorded file you can check your Videos\Captures folder.
Related Reading:
How to record screen on windows 10 without Xbox
Friends, many of you may not like Xbox game bar screen recording apps. So that I will add one more free screen recording apps here and how to use them. But friends, remember that since it is a free screen recorder, it has some limitations.
Here I am going to tell you about tunefab free screen recorder. With the help of which you can record gameplay and anything on your screen. You can buy this software’s premium version for more features. But don’t worry you can use the free version of this software without any problem. Here’s how to use tunefab.
First, download the Tunefab free screen recorder installer. And then install it on your windows 10 pc.
the Tunefab free screen recorder installer. And then it on your windows 10 pc. After installation, open the software. A pop-up will appear for the premium version, close the window by click on order later .
. Now you will find many options click on the video recorder .
. You will enter in the setup page. Here select custom or full-screen size . And check that your microphone is enabled. If you want you can enable a webcam.
. And check that your is enabled. If you want you can enable a webcam. After completing the setup click on the record button to start recording.
to start recording. Your screen recording will start with a timer. When you completed your screen capturing click on the stop button in the below menu bar.
in the below menu bar. A new pop-up opens with a preview and editing window. Click on the Save button and choose the destination where you want to save your recordings.
Related Reading: How to update drivers in windows 10? | https://medium.com/@techsukhen/friends-if-you-want-to-record-your-laptop-or-computer-screen-you-have-come-to-the-right-place-f35566b3ede1 | ['Sukhen Jele'] | 2021-07-24 17:52:55.222000+00:00 | ['Windows', 'How To', 'Windows 10', 'Screen', 'Screenrecordingsoftware'] |
Investment in a new manufacturing machine: important considerations | Virtual CFO Services
Introduction
Here we explore the question of whether it is as easy as buying a new manufacturing machine because the old one has served its purpose or it is time for expansion and new manufacturing machinery may be required. Investment in a new machine comes with challenges. A new purchase should be made in line with the strategic view of a manufacturing company. From the outset, the distinction should be made between an expansion or replacement of manufacturing machinery. Both options carry different risk profiles and may make estimating cash flow harder.
Ultimately what you are trying to determine is whether your new machine will bring about the maximum profitable results. On the other hand, there may be an alternative option that suits you better. Alternatives may for e.g. be, selecting machine A over machine B or buying vs leasing.
Factors to consider when making an investment decision in a new manufacturing machine include
Cash flow considerations
To be more specific, which cash implications (both inflow and outflows) will the investment in a new machine bring about.
Some considerations may be:
- The purchase cost of a new machine
- The selling price proceeds of a machine you are replacing
- The tax effect of selling an old machine
- Incremental operating cash flows
- The additional working capital commitments and or returns that the new machine will lock-in
- End of investment cash flows such as selling the new asset at the end of its useful life
Taxation considerations
Manufacturing assets are allowed to deduct manufacturing tax allowances in terms of section 12C. There is a normal allowance that caters for a 20% deduction per year. Alternatively, an accelerated tax allowance that caters for a 40% first year and 20% for the next three years
Recoupmens in terms of section 8(4)(a) and or scrapping allowances in terms of section 11(0) bears a cash flow implication and should be modelled into the investment decision.
Capital Gains Tax implications may arise in situations where the asset was disposed of for more than its cost price. This will trigger the inclusion of 80% for manufacturing companies of the capital gain made into its taxable income.
Opportunity cost considerations
The opportunity forgone should also be included as a cost in the investment of new machinery. Opportunity cost is associated with choosing one alternative over another e.g. in the event that a new expansion would decrease demand on an existing production process. The cost of loss in demand should be included in the model.
Time value of money considerations
The value of a manufacturer’s investment in new equipment will be determined by both the size of the future cash flows generated by the new investment and the timing of those cash flows. It’s more favourable to receive cash flows sooner rather than later and therefore a higher premium can be placed on an investment that generates a greater return in a shorter period.
Conclusion
Investment in a new manufacturing machine requires careful consideration between alternative and financial analysis as the wrong investment decision may end up costing the company. Information is key in making decisions and being able to gather the correct information from reliable sources will be as important as the analysis itself.
If you need CFO services, get in touch with us here.
Subscribe to our newsletter! | https://medium.com/@jannie_1804/investment-in-a-new-manufacturing-machine-important-considerations-531a1d375fa7 | ['Jannie Griesel'] | 2021-07-15 09:24:20.735000+00:00 | ['Manufacturers', 'Investment', 'Machinery Equipment', 'Manufacturing'] |
Data Science Careers In 2020 | Data Science Careers In 2020
Announcing Apteo’s report on the state of data science careers in 2020
In the past few years, we’ve seen the dramatic rise of data science as a career that spans all industries and geographies. In approximately 12 years (give or take), businesses have realized they need employees who are skilled in advanced analytics that can help leverage and monetize all of the data that they have access to. As this rise has occurred, media outlets have had a field day reporting on how data science and A.I. will change the world, consequently increasing interest in the field even further. However, while much has been made of this new career path, only a few sources have attempted to quantify this growth and the shortage in data scientists.
That’s why today we’re happy to publish our report on Data Science Career Trends In 2020. This report, which is provided as a public workspace hosted on our own data science platform, provides a high-level overview of the state of the world in data science careers today. The report attempts to quantitatively measure the current size of the advanced analytics labor market, growth and compensation in this market, and the shortage of data scientists today and in the past.
While the report contains a brief explanation of our data sources and our methodology, we wanted to expand a bit more on how we approached this task, as it required a mix of art and science and we believe it’s important for everyone to understand any shortcomings in our methodology so they can account for them when using this data for themselves.
Job Market Data
Discovering and aggregating data on the state of the job market today and in the past proved to be the most challenging and time-consuming part of the process. As previously mentioned, despite the popularity of data science in the media and in business, there are few primary sources that have published data on the number of advanced analytics workers in industry today or in the past. In order to gather the data we needed to measure the size of the labor market, we researched a variety of historical reports and analyses to understand estimates of the labor market in the past. This allowed us to contextualize present-day sources that could provide additional context into the state of the labor market today.
This historical data, while sparse, allowed us to determine a range for the size of the labor market in previous years. After determining this range, we attempted to quantify the size of the market today. While we did find an estimate for the total number of data scientists from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it appeared to be quite low given the context that we had gathered from previous articles. Ultimately, we opted to gather primary data by using one of the best sources of career data today, LinkedIn.
Unfortunately, LinkedIn does not provide an exact count of the total number of employees with a specific job title, nor does it provide an exact count for the number of available jobs on its platform with a given job title. However, it does allow users to see an approximation of how many of its members within any given user’s extended network match a particular search criteria, and it also allows individual members to see the number of relevant jobs within a particular geographical area that match a given search term.
Given these constraints, we used my LinkedIn account to run a variety of search terms to estimate the number of data scientists, machine learning engineers, and A.I. researchers within my extended network. While I’ll be the first to decry the many shortfalls of this method, it does provide a starting point for quantifying labor market data in the advanced analytics industry. Using this strategy, we conducted a variety of searches on LinkedIn that provided an approximation for the total number of advanced analytics employees within a variety of regions, and we combined results from these searches with statistics we discovered from research on historic metrics. This allowed us to fit an exponential growth curve to the time series data we collected, which we then used to interpolate the data for any missing years in our dataset. This curve also served to strengthen our belief that the estimate from the BLS may have been too low.
Once we gathered employee counts, we used our same strategy to gather a list of open data science jobs across various geographies. Given these two sets of data, we were able to conduct basic analysis of the state of the shortage in data scientists today and in the past.
Salary Data
After gathering job market data, we aggregated both historical and present-day data on salaries, broken down by geography. We used a variety of published statistics from job boards, consulting reports, surveys, and articles to aggregate multiple statistics on mean and median salaries. Using this data, we then constructed an analysis on the average salary for advanced analytics workers, both nationally and within several large urban centers.
Education Data
Finally, we aggregated data on educational programs that specialize in data science tools and skills. In this instance, it proved too difficult to find historical data, so we limited our analysis to educational programs today. In our analysis, we only included programs that we judged to have a data science-first approach, focusing on the core statistical, algorithmic, computational, and analytical skills relevant to a data science career.
The Analysis
Once we aggregated all of our data, we organized it into a public Google Sheet and then connected that sheet to the workspace using our Google Sheets data connector. We understand that our analyses falls short in precision, however, we believe it may still prove valuable to those who seek to understand the state of data science careers today.
Staying In The Loop
If you’re interested in staying in the loop with what we’re up to at Apteo, you can subscribe to our newsletter or create a free account for yourself on our platform where you can visualize, analyze, and predict your own data. Finally, if you’re interested in helping us build a data science platform that lets anyone analyze their data, especially if you’re a full-stack engineer or a growth marketer, please get in touch!
Finally, don’t forget to check out the report here! | https://towardsdatascience.com/data-science-careers-in-2020-1166ae0f41ca | ['Shanif Dhanani'] | 2020-05-05 20:40:27.370000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Analytics', 'Data Science Careers', 'Data Science', 'Data'] |
Within Us All | depositphotos (free)
Many lives urging to be born throughout
foundations of the world — wanting only
to move and to breathe. Still. Within us all
Here, giving birth to dream — to wake from sleep
Pressing through pain, realize its purpose
Many lives urging to be born throughout
The decider of this life, beyond life
The never born formless, yearning to be.
To move and to breathe. Still. Within Us All
Given passage to Shangri-la, we are
pangs of labor growing still through this flesh
Many lives urging to be born throughout
To open the doors of Heaven on Earth
Awakening: the Will of the Divine
To move and to breathe. Still. Within Us All
Every breath, a Hymn wherein praise is sung
Amidst the bedlam of cacophony
Many lives urging to be born throughout
To move and to breathe. Still. Within Us All
Wishing you All: Abundance, Health, and Joy in this New Year
-FS | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/within-us-all-eeff91302b17 | ['Fleur Sauvage'] | 2021-01-04 14:54:17.415000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Inspiration', 'Poetry', 'Manifestation', 'Spirituality'] |
6 Savings Hacks for the Happiest Place on Earth | Top 6 Savings Tips Directly from Disney Insiders
It turns out the Happiest Place on Earth is also one of the priciest. While there is no way to completely get around the cost of Disney, here are a few easy things you can do to pay less upfront, and save a bit here and there. The memories will be priceless, but it never hurts if the actual prices are a little less, too.
Get Piggy Before You Book
The mouse may rule Disneyland, but Piggy automatically applies coupon codes on travel booking and thousands of other online stores. Get the app before you book a flight, hotel, or buy anything online. Piggy is a free browser extension for computers and is now available for phones and tablets (Android & IOS).
Packages = Freebies
Disney World Hotels is offering free dinners with any reservation of three or more nights. Dinner out for the whole family adds up fast ($30 or more per person) so this can be a huge savings. If you’re comparing the costs of staying at a Disney resort to a nearby hotel, be sure to factor in that savings.
Vacation Homes Are Big
Did you know that vacation home rentals are a massive industry in Orlando? Booking a house on sites like VRBO can save you money and offer great amenities that hotels simply can’t match. How about a personal pool, extra beds and couches for big families, kitchens for eating in, and a respite from the non stop tourist action of the amusement parks to name a few. The cost saving can be huge too, especially if your crew is more than four people or your kids would rather stay home than share a bed at a hotel…teenagers right?
Buy Snacks and Maybe Even Souvenirs Before You Get There
It may seem kitschy to pack snacks in your suitcase but it can save you tons of cash each day you’re there, not to mention satisfy your late night cravings without dialing room service. Don’t be shy, buy ahead, bring a backpack and pack it with snacks and drinks each morning before you hit the parks. Now you can still splurge on ice cream sundaes because you earned it! Anything Disney branded can be bought online. If you can get away with it, buy souvenirs online, or snap a pic of the item at the store and then find it online (for less) when you get back to your room.
Don’t Rent a Car — Shuttle + Uber Instead
This is a no brainer if you’re staying at the resort. Take advantage of the shuttles to and from the airport and use Uber if you want to venture out for a non-Disney adventure. Even if you’re staying outside of the Disneyplex, many hotels offer free shuttle service to and from the parks and Uber is always there when you’re going somewhere else.
Double Dip Your Cash Back
Remember Piggy, your new saving secret weapon? Not only does Piggy provide automatic coupons at checkout, it also automatically pays you cash back on a wide range of bookings and purchases. Credit card companies frequently offer cash back to amusement parks like Disney, so get one serving of cashback from your credit card company and an extra special serving from Piggy when you book and buy online. You can get cash back up to 40% on everything from luggage, clothes, snacks, souvenirs, and of course, flights and hotels.
Do you have a Disney savings hacks? Tweet us @JoinPiggy and follow for more savings hacks. | https://medium.com/easysimplemore/6-savings-hacks-for-the-happiest-place-on-earth-fdcd387422a8 | ['Easy Simple More'] | 2017-06-08 18:00:25.449000+00:00 | ['Family Travel', 'Disneyhack', 'Disney', 'Disney World', 'Saving Money'] |
Finding a New Normal | As we begin to reinvent the way we live on our planet, there’s a simple process that can help us: becoming aware of awareness.
Often referred to as mindfulness, this everyday inward focusing of our attention helps us be more tuned in to our intuitive and creative self.
While the political changes needed to improve life seem to progress slowly, here’s something we can bring into our lives today that really makes a difference. | https://medium.com/assemblage/finding-a-new-normal-436582e59bcd | ['Paul Mulliner'] | 2020-08-20 04:14:08.056000+00:00 | ['Meditation', 'Self-awareness', 'Mindfulness', 'Personal Development', 'Life'] |
Baby Products All New Parents Need | Baby Products All New Parents Need
If you’re a first-time parent, and you want to know the things that you actually need, this list would be incredibly helpful for you.
A nose aspirator, because babies get stuffy noses and they can’t clean their own noses so what we find is that the NoseFrida works really well. You put the baby product into the baby’s nostril, and then use your mouth to suck. It may seem a little gross but it is a lot more sanitary than the pumps because they get moldy.
When babies are born, they have really long nails. Another baby product that you will need as soon as your baby is born, is a set of nail filers. You can find them in packs on https://www.bonanzamall.eu/ to shorten your baby’s nails when they are too short for nail cutters. Filing your baby’s nails once or twice a week is very helpful because babies love to just touch their face and they are always moving around and they may or may not scratch their face. In all parenting classes, babies learn and discover through touch even the very first days of their lives, so parents should not cover their hands with mittens and stop important early development of infants.
Another baby product that you should have encased, is a nail clipping set. The nail clipping set comes with a nail cutter and a nail file. This is something you should add to your baby register. you also need a car seat. The Kiko Key Fit car seat because it works really well. Don’t buy a car seat from a garage sale. A must-have baby product that all mothers should have is a swaddling blanket. They are thin and breathable.
You should also need to know what baby clothing you should have at the time of birth. The first piece of baby clothing you need is a bodysuit. Just stretch it wide and put their heads through and gently pull their arms through. Talk to your baby during this. Lift the baby’s legs and straighten the baby’s clothing, and just tuck it under the baby’s nappy and fasten the buttons. The next piece of baby clothing you need is a sleeping suit. Put their arm through, and then roll them to the other side and put the other arm through and close the buttons. Once they are warm again, the baby will calm down and get a bit quieter. The scratch mittens keep their hands cozy.
Having the right furniture is important when you are bringing a baby home. Some important pieces of furniture for your baby’s nursery are a cot, a rocking chair or comfortable sofa, and a small rounded table. Not having the right furniture around the house may cause serious injury to your infant who is just learning to walk. Toddlers may bump into corners of various furniture pieces such as a coffee table or cupboard handle. You need safe furniture for the proper development of your baby. | https://medium.com/@bonanzamall2/baby-products-all-new-parents-need-7830a67387d9 | ['Bonanza Mall'] | 2019-10-04 12:12:03.198000+00:00 | ['Baby Dresses', 'Baby', 'Baby Clothes', 'Baby Boy Clothes', 'Baby Products'] |
Cole leads Bronx Bombers to third straight victory in duel with Bieber | Cole leads Bronx Bombers to third straight victory in duel with Bieber Sean Fitzgerald Apr 25·4 min read
Photo Credit: Gabe Collura (Black Squirrel Radio).
Shane Bieber. Gerrit Cole. A dynamic clash for a crowd of 8,817 on a cloudy Saturday in Cleveland.
Both pitchers are considered among the game’s elite, and the victor would be decided by whoever blinked first.
In the duel of aces, Cole came out on top and the Yankees won 2–1 and on a three game roll.
Bieber struggled a bit with his control out of the gate. The reigning AL Cy Young winner allowed a one-out single to Giancarlo Stanton and walked Aaron Judge before striking out the next two Yankees hitters.
Cole dominated during first trip to the mound, working a one-two-three first inning on a groundout and two strikeouts, his fastball touching 99 mph.
In his second inning of work, Bieber made short work of the bottom of the lineup, sending the side down in order with two strikeouts and a liner to Andres Gimenez to end the top of the frame.
The same could be said of Gerrit Cole, whose only tough out was Eddie Rosario on eight pitches.
A duel of aces for a cool Saturday night game.
The trend would continue outside of a Roberto Perez double in the third, with each ace going blow for blow, strikeout for strikeout. The game came as good as advertised with the top billing, only one hit allowed between the two premier pitchers in the sport.
With one down in the fourth and on the second pitch, Jose Ramirez absolutely crushed a ball to deep right-center that Judge nearly went for a home run that ended up as a triple on review.
Eddie Rosario put the first run on the scoreboard by lining an RBI base hit to left-center and scoring Ramirez and spot Bieber a one-run lead.
Franmil Reyes ended up striking out but Eddie Rosario stole second narrowly, a play the Yankees challenged and lost to keep the fourth inning going before Cole struck out Josh Naylor.
Bieber quickly let go of that lead on an Aaron Hicks solo shot to the bullpens to lead off the fifth and the same going for the Indians Achilles heel all weekend in Rougned Odor, blasting his bomb 426 feet before forcing LeMahieu into a groundout to end the damage.
Bieber mostly dominated in his seven innings of work, giving up the two runs on four hits, three walks and whiffing nine and the loss. Bieber needed a career-high of 119 pitches to finish his outing, 74 good for strikes.
Cole similarly mowed down the Tribe hitters he faced. He threw seven innings, allowing only one run on three hits, while fanning 11 hitters. He didn’t issue a walk on 111 pitches, 75 of them finding the zone for the victory.
With Cole finally out of the game at the start of the eighth inning, The Indians found a spark of hope. Roberto Perez drew a one-out walk off left-handed reliever Justin Wilson and advanced to second on a wild pitch to pinch-hitter Jordan Luplow.
That hope was short lived with Luplow popping out on a full count and Wilson exiting the contest for Jonathan Loiasiga, who saw Amed Rosario pop-out to end the inning and finished out the game for the save.
James Karinchak comes on to pitch the ninth inning. He finished with three strikeouts. (Photo Credit: Gabe Collura, Black Squirrel Radio).
It was the closest to feeling like a regular game atmosphere in the ninth inning with James Karinchak striking out three Yankees batters after Bryan Shaw fired a scoreless frame, but the bats didn’t come out to play.
— — — Tidbits — — —
Bieber in elite company
Shane Bieber’s reign of dominance continues. He’s struck out 57 batters through his first five starts. He passed Randy Johnson (55 in 1999) and ended up behind only Nolan Ryan (59 in 1978) for the record of most strikeouts through the first five starts of a season.
He also tied Johnson’s all-time MLB record with 17 consecutive starts with at least 8 K’s.
Sunday’s probables
Triston McKenzie gets the nod for the Tribe tomorrow. Jameson Taillon will take the hill for New York | https://medium.com/@sfitzg18/cole-leads-bronx-bombers-to-third-straight-victory-in-duel-with-bieber-b616fc2be885 | ['Sean Fitzgerald'] | 2021-06-26 00:42:32.888000+00:00 | ['Cleveland Indians', 'Gerrit Cole', 'Shane Bieber', 'MLB', 'New York Yankees'] |
How to Pass Closures Between Sibling Views (and UIViewRepresentables) in SwiftUI | How to Pass Closures Between Sibling Views (and UIViewRepresentables) in SwiftUI
Sharing state between components
Photo by Jose Murillo on Unsplash.
Let’s take the following scenario: You have a ParentView with two child views, ChildView1 and ChildView2 . On ChildView1 , you have a button that should trigger an action in ChildView2 .
Now on that button tap, we want to change the text on that text field to something more appropriate. Let’s start by defining a typealias for our closure. If you don’t know what a closure is, it’s basically a method. You can read more about closures in the documentation.
Let’s add the following typealias above our ParentView declaration:
typealias OnClickHandler = (() -> Void)
So it becomes:
typealias OnClickHandler = (() -> Void)
struct ParentView: View {
...
}
And initialise it as an @State property in our ParentView :
struct ParentView: View {
@State var onClick: OnClickHandler = { }
... }
The idea here is that this onClick defined in the ParentView is our single source of truth. We don’t want another closure initialized somewhere along the call stack. We want this one passed to both our ChildViews.
In ChildView2 , where our button is, we add it as an @Binding , as it’s already initialized in our ParentView and ChildView2 at this point only manipulates it. Then we add it as the action to our button:
You’ll notice that we deleted the old closure in which we would print our message and just passed ours as a parameter. This is not mandatory, but it’s shorter and cleaner.
At this point, your ParentView is notifying you that you’re missing your onClick parameter when you’re initializing ChildView2 , so let’s just add that:
You’ll notice we passed $onClick to ChildView2 , as we defined our property as an @Binding , so we use $ to pass the binding and not a value.
We’re now going to do the same thing to our ChildView1 — add a binding property — but this time we’re also going to write the function that gets called when the button is tapped, and we’re going to assign that function to our passed closure:
The magic here is calling onAppear on the Text element. This means that when that field appears (think of viewDidAppear in UIKit), we are going to run the following code block. In that code block, we assign a function to our onClick closure that modifies the value of our string.
If you want to be fancy or your method is larger, you can even extract the whole code block into a different method and assign that to onClick :
Now, through the magic of SwiftUI and Combine, you managed to link two views that have no knowledge of each other. Congratulations! | https://medium.com/better-programming/passing-closures-between-swiftui-sibling-views-and-uiviewrepresentables-1f81a6cf5be6 | ['Alex Bartiş'] | 2020-05-25 15:24:42.060000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Combine', 'iOS', 'Swiftui', 'Swift'] |
30 days before my birthday 23rd | Right today, heading for 30 days before my 23rd birthday. I tried to share 30 bucket lists towards my 23rd birthday. Actually maybe, for you 23rd not as special as your 30th birthday. But this year is my critical year in finding my identity, looking for a career path, finding a mate (lol).
Today I filled my bucket list, Now i am entering the 11th month of living in Jakarta. And I really want to go to the Kota Tua. Random isn’t it? But I don’t know. Incidentally yesterday I did not have friends, so I went alone. Not going to style to go another place alone, but I tried. And I’m happy.
I happened to go by train, departing from the Sunday market station to Jakarta city. It starts from riding online transportation to the station, then to the station. Anyway why is the Sunday market station always full?
Then I arrived in the old city, but what I was confused was that I did not arrive at the old city I meant. I passed markets that I had never visited before, markets in the hallway.
But what makes me happy is that there are a lot of things in the market, there is also a market on the side of the road close to the Mandiri Museum. This is my favourite part that I can see toys that I have been looking for for a long time, namely watches !!!!
Indeed this is like a child, but I really like this clock. And the price is very cheap compared to buying in a big shop, of course, enough 35 thousand can use this watch. About quality? I can’t recommend. Because you don’t know whether or not it’s durable
Then after looking at the super-crowded market, I took a walk in front of the Mandiri Museum, near also by accident with the Jakarta Kota Station. I saw city buildings. And this is in my opinion the art angle for the photo. There are zebra crossings and old buildings. As if this zebra crossing demands my way.
It turns out that going alone is not alone. Sometimes we really need to spend our time, so that we are aware of what actually makes us happy is not someone else. Actually, happiness is from ourselves. Happy yourself, understand what you want yourself to be, and then you will be able to make other people happy. Maybe like that. | https://medium.com/@wulanmaulida796/30-days-before-my-birthday-23rd-c2273371285d | ['Wulan Maulida'] | 2019-07-01 14:06:51.181000+00:00 | ['Birthday', 'Self Improvement', 'Wishes', 'Daily Blog', 'Bucketlist'] |
ServiceNow app development | The goal of this article is to introduce the service management domain and ServiceNow app development to a newcomer. It is a collection of public resources and my reflections and tips. I would like to encourage you to comment with your own tips and links to make this a collaborative effort.
Service Management is an exciting domain that exceeds designing for digital and physical products. It focuses on the holistic experience of a customer (CX — Customer Experience) or a company employee (EX — Employee Experience). In our day-to-day practice, we design, develop, and maintain digital products that serve both our customers and service teams. We do all of this at the scale of an enterprise environment with the highest expectations on security requirements and an intricate map of various system integrations. The user interaction channels might vary and typically involves Emails, Web portals, Backstage Workspaces, ChatBots and mobile apps.
A sample of Service Backstage Workspace.
Product vs. Service
The line between the Product and Service is often blurry, and our success is measured through the success of the service.
Imagine yourself having a frustrating experience with food delivery where the food ended up being swapped, costing you money, and leaving you hungry. I bet the last thing you think of is “but the app was good.”
Tools used in Service Design and Product Design.
ServiceNow ecosystem
Some companies deploy ServiceNow as a fixed feature-set platform with out-of-the-box modules. We aspire to bring the best experience to our customers and often integrate ServiceNow with other best-of-breed systems. This puts a lot of emphasis on our Platform knowledge and insights — are we re-inventing something already available? Are we planning to develop a feature that is already on the product roadmap?
To enter the ServiceNow world, I recommend starting with the Knowledge video library. If you are a Product Manager or Product Designer, I recommend dedicating part of your future professional learning to the platform knowledge. There is plenty of available learning and certification courses available once you get access to the environment.
Design Guidelines
Underlying principles of good design practice are the same for B2C, B2B, enterprise software, or a public website. But the execution within ServiceNow ecosystem might be fundamentally different.
Blogosphere
ServiceNow is a vital platform with a large development and Partner ecosystem. Watching these blogs will give you great insights into the Platform evolution.
Twitersphere
I created a Twitter list with interesting people and companies to watch, ServiceNow included. If you are a Twitter person, I encourage you to watch other enterprise companies such as Box Developers, Microsoft Design or even Salesforce. They are all a great source of inspiration about what is happening in the world of enterprise software. | https://medium.com/enterprise-ux/service-management-domain-403d7861e105 | ['Peter Zalman'] | 2020-12-19 11:36:57.880000+00:00 | ['Product Design', 'Servicenow', 'Service Design', 'Itsm', 'Cx'] |
Fuel of the First Kingdoms: The Grain and Manpower Module | Photo by Nathalie SPEHNER on Unsplash
Every dynamic system requires energy to function. This is a fact of physics: you cannot have movement without a power input. This maxim applies to mechanical systems, biological systems, and also to human societies. Energy is another word for food; so we might ask:
On what does the state feed?
Leading up to this article, we have discussed how the state emerged and cemented its institutional power. Once the state becomes an entity, an “emergent property” of a pre-existing network of social systems, it requires fuel to keep it going.
Today, we’re going to examine how the early state fueled itself — what James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale, calls the “grain and manpower module”.
The Grain and Manpower Module
We can think of the grain and manpower module as representing the two ends of the energy system: consumption and production. The fuel is grain, and the output (production) is labor in the state’s service. Though the grain is the “food” for the laborers — just as gasoline is the fuel for the pistons in a car engine — the state, in a sense, “feeds” on manpower as well; that is, manpower is not only a mechanism of production but also a source of energy for accomplishing its goals.
Grain
All of the so-called “pristine” civilizations¹ were founded on grain crops: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, the Yellow River, the Mayans and the Inca. Grain acted as a food source both for individual laborers and their families, as well as for collective society; it was taxed and stored by the state so that it could be redistributed in times of famine, and the surplus farmed by agriculturalists could help feed priests, craftsmen, officials, and other non-agricultural workers. These crops were: wheat, barley, millet, rice and maize.
Why did the state system depend on grain so extensively for fuel? Scott has a theory: that grains are the most readily taxable type of crop.
“The key to the nexus between grains and states lies, I believe, in the fact that only the cereal grains can serve as a basis for taxation: visible, divisible, assessable, storable, transportable, and ‘rationable.’ Other crops — legumes, tubers, and starch plants — have some of these desirable state-adapted qualities, but none has all of these advantages. To appreciate the unique advantages of the cereal grains, it helps to place yourself in the sandals of an ancient tax-collection official interested, above all, in the ease and efficiency of appropriation.” (1)
Let’s take a closer look at those six points.
Visibility: Grain crops ripen simultaneously, and above ground. That makes it easy for the tax man to assess how much his dues should be, and in turn to collect them. When it comes time to harvest, it can be cut and carted away(by force, if necessary); no digging required. And since the harvest happens at one point — not continuously — the tax collector only needs to show up once. There is no hiding what you reap.
Divisibility: Cereal grains can be almost infinitely divided, which means they can be weighed in precise increments for accounting purposes. This also allows them to serve as standards of measurement by which other goods can be valued — which is exactly what early civilizations did.
Assessability: A tax collector can measure a field planted with grain crops and, because of their visibility and predictable growing patterns, calculate the expected harvest. “A tax assessor typically classifies fields in terms of soil quality and, knowing the average yield of a particular grain from such soil, is able to estimate a tax,” Scott writes in Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States.
Storability: Tubers can be stored for awhile, but will eventually spoil. By contrast, grains can be stored unhusked for long periods of time, until they’re needed.
Transportability: Grains have a low weight for their caloric content, meaning they can be transported less expensively and across longer distances than other foodstuffs. If they were shipped across water, this allowed a kingdom to collect taxes from a considerable area, thereby expanding control over their empire.
Rationability: Because they can be stored for long periods of time, grains make great ration-crops. Scott writes: “It was ideal for distributing to laborers and slaves, for requiring as tribute, for provisioning soldiers and garrisons, for relieving a food shortage or famine, or for feeding a city while resisting a siege.”
Without grain, Scott argues, power maintenance would have been impossible for the early state. Its institutions would not have been able to track, control, and coerce their citizens, who might have been more mobile, practicing shifting cultivation or full-scale nomadism; they would have had no reliable funding source or store for times of famine; they would not have been able to feed laborers or keep a surplus for non-agricultural officials.
Dr. Craig Morris describes a powerful example of this grain-dependency mechanic in the form of Incan chicha, a fermented corn beverage (what he calls “corn beer”). Chicha, he argues, did not simply facilitate state power; it was essential. Without it, Inca rulers could not maintain authority and motivate labor. He writes:
“It is not just that millions of gallons of chicha were brewed and consumed annually, it is that the way in which they were distributed made them basic to giving the leaders their authority. The state’s ability to increase beer production was essential to its political and economic expansion […] [Incan laborers] built more than 5000 miles of roads; they constructed the great fortress of Sacayhuaman above Cuzco, cutting and fitting blocks of stone weighing several tons; they built warehouses throughout the empire and stocked them with food and other goods….” (2)
In other words, the Incan rulers distributed chicha to their armies and workers, and it was this that kept them happy enough to work. It’s important to note that part of this wizardry is mythological; chicha was not just a casual alcoholic indulgence. It was a ritual beverage with powerful significance. Corn and its byproducts were food for the emperor, food to keep his officials loyal, and food to sustain the second fuel source for the state: manpower. They were a sacred part of the social order. The Spanish saw firsthand chicha’s power to legitimate authority: after they tried to outlaw it, they could not coerce anyone to work.
According to Bonavia:
“From all of the documents it follows that part of the prestige of a coastal lord lay in giving his subjects drink, and in having a large number of hammock bearers […] The caciques [local leaders] protested when Cuenca drastically banned this custom […] Cristóbal Payco, from Jequetepeque, clearly explained that the Indians obeyed their caciques because they gave them drink, and that they would not work their land if they did not receive it. Chicha provided the lords with ‘…the complicated web of reciprocities that could not be suppressed without it raising serious problems.’” (3)
Grain also served as rations for elite, non-agricultural workers. Oppenheim writes about Mesopotamia:
“Both [the temple and the palace] supported by means of food rations, oil, clothing allowances, and a number of other benefits the managerial personnel who directed, administered, and controlled the work, the deliveries, and the payments.”
Because of its importance, it was sacred to the early state, and therefore figured prominently in most civilized creation myths and dynastic legends. In the Mayans’ creation myth, found in the Popol Vuh, humans were created by the gods out of maize. According to Inca legend, the wife of Inca ruler Manco Capac taught the people to plant it. In China, the legendary ancestor of the Chou Dynasty played a similar role with millet:
“The high ancestor of the Chou house was Hou Chi 后稷, literally ‘Ruler Millet.’ Quite evidently he was, like some other reputed founders of prominent Chinese families, a spirit. He was conceived, the Poetry tells us, when his mother stepped in a footprint of the deity Ti. Many marvels are related of him and of his prowess in agriculture. He is celebrated as the giver of grain to the people, the founder of agricultural sacrifices, and himself the object of sacrifices for harvests. He was at the same time a culture hero, an agricultural deity, and the legendary ancestor of the Chou house.” (4)
Rituals and ceremonies frequently accompanied the planting of grains. The Sumerian Farmer’s Almanac, for example, was compiled by “pedagogues”² and provides instructions to farmers on how to sow barley. Several prayers are part of the process: one before, and one after, cleaning the grains. The Almanac concludes by invoking the agricultural deity Ninurta, the “trustworthy farmer” of Enlil. On the other side of the world, Bonavia describes the elaborate planting rituals of the Inca:
“In Inca times the priests had many maize-related duties. Every year they had to ask the gods whether or not they could plant. They had to follow the movements of the shadows in the Intihuatana in order to regulate the periods when the land would lie fallow, when it was to be irrigated, and when it was harvested. They kept a quipu system with which to check the sequence of dry and rainy years. They fasted from planting season until the sprouts were the size of a finger. They organized processions with war drums, in which the participants shouted to scare away the drought and the frosts. They sacrificed llamas in gratitude and to request a good harvest. The Intiwasi, the famed Temple of the Sun, was decorated with symbolic gold plants to stimulate the harvest (Murra, 1975: 54–55).”
Manpower
Michael Mann doubts the importance of slavery and corvée labor in the initial formation and consolidation of the state; however, its role becomes undeniable with the rise of despotism and the god-king. The free citizenry worked fields and paid taxes on their labor; but the state exploited a whole spectrum of unfree labor to their benefit, too. Free citizens could be drafted for corvée labor; forced resettlement, combined with city-building or agriculture, was a common way to expand an empire; debtors and landless immigrants could go to work on someone else’s land to earn their keep; war captives could be turned into slaves; occasionally, barbarians might capture neighboring nomads and sell them into slavery in the city as well.
The first serious walled fortifications start appearing around 2700 BC; they quickly became standard features of the urban environment.³ As Owen Lattimore famously suggests for the case of China, these walls were built as much to keep taxpayers and laborers in as they were to keep barbarians out. According to Michael Mann, increased fortification was associated with an increase in military organization. This, in turn, was associated with a rise in social stratification. As Robert McCormick Adams writes:
“The increasing concentration of political authority in dynastic institutions at the expense of older communal and religious bodies obviously took place in a setting in which both the perils and rewards of militaristic contention were fully and deeply understood. Successful conquest brought political prestige in its wake, not uniformly enriching the community but, instead, increasing the stratification within it and permitting the consolidation of an independent power base by forces whose initial role had merely been that of leading elements in a common enterprise.”
Mann awards the title of “First Empire of Domination” to Sargon of Akkad, before whom “5,400 soldiers ate daily”. (5) Those soldiers go out to conquer other lands, bringing back war captives, or turning over entire cities’ worth of productive labor to government oversight. Either way, the energy stored in these new territories, in the form of a workforce, was captured and transferred to the state’s dominion. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle; as the dominion grows, the army grows with it. The new workforce needs to eat, and the soldiers need to eat, as well. The state could fund army rations out of the tribute it collected from newly-conquered territories, thus expanding and in turn conquering more land. What did those rations consist of? If Sumerian accounting is any indication, probably largely grain.
The emerging institutions of the state were dependent on manpower, and manpower, in turn, was dependent on grain-based agriculture. Scott writes about the inseparable nature of the two in his book on barbarian-state relations in Southeast Asia, The Art of Not Being Governed:
“In its crudest version, the formula goes something like this: Political and military supremacy requires superior access to concentrated manpower close at hand. Concentrated manpower, in turn, is feasible only in a setting of compact, sedentary agriculture, and such agro-ecological concentrations are possible, before the twentieth century in Southeast Asia, only with irrigated rice.” (6)
Not only does grain feed the labor population, and lock people down to stable plots of land — where they can be tracked, taxed, and conscripted; it also concentrates people densely in physical space. Scott continues:
“Shifting cultivation requires far more land than irrigated rice and therefore disperses population; where it prevails, it appears to ‘impose an upper limit of population density of about 20–30 per square kilometer.’ Once again, concentration is the key. It matters little how wealthy a kingdom is if its potential surplus of manpower and grain is dispersed across a landscape that makes its collection difficult and costly.”
Forced relocation was one way that the state could concentrate manpower, while also suppressing insurrection. This was a common tactic in early empires. The Chou, having squashed a Shang rebellion, forcefully relocated many of the Shang people to places where they could integrate with Chou cultural practices. The Inca did the same thing when they conquered a new region. This forced integration helped erase tribal differences, homogenizing culture and creating a loyal citizenry. Forced relocation also provided a ready workforce for official projects, or for the military.
Creel describes how the Chou mobilized a Shang workforce to build a new capital city:
“The Documents seems to suggest that all of the labor of constructing the new city was supplied by Yin [Shang] people. Although the circumstances are not clear, it seems possible that large numbers of them were marched to the site for the work, and that only a portion of those who performed the labor remained to occupy the city.”
In Mesopotamia, powerful kings feared the scattered peoples of the hinterlands, who, when left to their own devices, threatened their reigning stability. Oppenheimer relates how they relocated and conscripted such people in service of the state:
“The most effective remedy against these potentially dangerous elements were projects of internal and frontier colonization which only a powerful king could set afoot. The inscriptions of such kings speak triumphantly of the ingathering (puḫḫuru) of the scattered, the resettling (ŝūŝubu) of the shiftless on new land, where the king forced them to dig or re-dig canals, build or resettle cities, and till the soil, pay taxes, do corvée work to maintain the irrigation system, and — last but not least — perform military service.”
Corvée labor⁴ such as this was a common way for the state to mobilize a workforce, not just among rebels or captives, but among their own otherwise “free” citizens. We discussed chicha earlier as a mechanism for motivating labor in the Inca empire; in fact, chicha was a “hospitality” reward for the corvée labor system imposed on men between 25–50. It was a way that rulers could “socially obligate” their workers to participate in public projects, when really they had no choice in the matter. It was a mild disguise for coercive conscription.
In Egypt, where wealth inequality rose quite steeply and early on, it seems that workers labored in gangs for landowning noblemen. They were paid in rations of bread, fish, grain, vegetables and beer; according to I.V. Vinogradov they were subject to the lash, like slaves. Despite this, they appear to have been entitled to some of the surplus they reaped from their toils, as they also traded goods in local markets. (7)
Robert McCormick Adams tells us the signs for “slave” begin to appear in the Protoliterate period (3700–2900 BC) in Mesopotamia. “War captive” follows soon after; however, it’s not until the Early Dynastic Period (2900–2400 BC) that we start to see terms like “full, free citizen” and “commoner of subordinate status”, and to see evidence of a more crystallized class status system. The early word for “slave” derived from a term for “foreign country”, “perhaps suggesting that the institution originated either in the taking of war captives or in the impressment of seminomadic groups who drifted into the settlements after their herds fell below an acceptable minimum for subsistence”. (8)
The majority of these slaves, at least in the beginning, were women. They worked in estates and temples, or manufactured textiles in centralized, factory-like industrial areas. Some also worked as millers, brewers, or cooks. In the Aztec kingdom, slaves seem to have played a different role. Adams tells us there is little evidence they were involved in manufacturing; it seems instead they probably cultivated private lands, served in the houses of nobility, and helped to transport goods in the absence of draft animals. However, as in Mesopotamia, corvée labor played a much larger role in early Aztec society than did slavery.⁵ Adams writes:
“Recruitment is said to have depended mainly on impressment of criminals, on defaulting debtors, on self-sale during times of famine, and, in some cases, on their requisition as tribute. It differed from the classical Western concept of slavery as an unlimited condition of depersonalization and servitude…”
In Mesopotamia slaves had some legal rights, according to Samuel Kramer. They could engage in business, borrow money, and ultimately buy their freedom. (9) Under some conditions they could work for their own living, provided they made monthly payments to their masters. But Adams and others suggest they were sometimes blinded to prevent escape, and in the Neo-Babylonian period the backs of their hands were often branded with their owners’ names. (10)
You can see, from this sampling, that the ancient state and its elites had a veritable menu of ways to extract labor from their citizenry and captive foreigners. There was a spectrum between “slave” and “free person”, and the boundaries marking different social categories weren’t always clearly delineated. One thing is certain: manpower was a crucial resource.
In the Akkadian creation story Atrahasis (18th century BC), the earth gods, or Igigi, create irrigation canals and till the soil. Weary of their charge, they petition the Anunnaki, the judges or “great gods” of the sky, to relieve them from their toil. Thus, man is created.
“When the gods instead of man
Did the work, bore the loads,
The gods’ load was too great,
The work too hard, the trouble too much,
The great Anunnaki made the Igigi
Carry the workload sevenfold.
[…]
The gods had to dig out canals,
Had to clear channels, the lifelines of the land,
The Igigi had to dig out canals,
Had to clear channels, the lifelines of the land.” (11)
These are the very first verses of the creation myth, indicating the prime importance of irrigation labor. Before humans were created, “the gods” had to do it; mankind was “invented” precisely for the purpose of relieving them from their toil. The gods of the earth go on strike, rioting at the door of the sky gods’ representative, until he takes their cause to the assembly.
Was this perhaps an early piece of propaganda — a way to explain to peasants why it was their duty to labor at the state’s service? We’ll never know for sure, but it’s not a ludicrous suggestion. Perhaps a story like this could even have explained why the city-state’s elite got exemption from the fields; if they were connected to divinity, then by extension they might be beyond agricultural duties just like the gods.
Beyond the Walls
“The state, in order to exert control over the boundaries that define it, cannot tolerate groups it perceives as transgressing those boundaries, for those groups threaten to destabilize it by demonstrating their ability to escape the means of control exercised within, and limited to, those boundaries.” — Anne Porter (12)
As we’ve already discussed, nomads and semi-nomadic agriculturalists didn’t necessarily rush to join the newly-minted city-state. In fact, there was a good amount of defection among the citizenry, as power closed in around them and state institutions began to exploit their subsistence. What happened to these people, and what was their relationship with the state? What happened to the people who dared to thwart coercive control?
The relationship was complex, and as we shall see — despite the fortifications — the boundaries were not sharply defined. Hunter-gatherers were forever changed by the arrival of civilization, even if they did not settle within its walls. And the state, though it hated and feared the living history it had left behind, also benefited from the services of “barbarians” on its periphery. These complex barbarian-state relationships will be the subject of our next article.
Notes
We discussed “pristine” civilization in a prior essay. In this series we use Michael Mann’s list of six: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, the Yellow River, the Mayans in Mexico, and the Inca in Peru. Mann admits we can possibly include Minoan Crete, and does discuss it to some extent, but I choose to include only the main six. James C. Scott appears to corroborate. This comes from Kramer. (9) This date, and everything else in this paragraph, comes from Mann. (5) Corvée labor is a form of compulsory labor, usually mandated by a feudal lord, king, or empire. I am not going to discuss slavery’s prevalence, or lack thereof, in early civilization. Creel also downplays the role of slavery in Chou-run China, claiming — like Adams with regards to the Aztecs — that ancient Chinese slaves did not fit our modern Western conceptualizations. It makes sense for this to be the case: if the first empires could just draft their free citizens to work on public projects or till fields, using corvée labor, the need for slaves would not be so urgent. Nobles might still want personal or domestic servants, but it took awhile for a truly stratified class system to become widespread and removed from the context of kinship clans. Slaves absolutely existed, and their use increased alongside increased militarization. But scholars far more well-researched than I argue the prevalence issue with convincing arguments. Adams suggests this divide classically runs along Cold War lines, with Soviet historians in the “prevalent” camp and Western historians downplaying slavery’s importance. Perhaps this debate tells us more about modern agendas than it does about history; the bottom line is, we do not have enough information to make claims with certainty.
Sources | https://medium.com/power-lines/fuel-of-the-first-kingdoms-the-grain-and-manpower-module-1d32f19c59d | ['Haley Kynefin'] | 2019-06-19 05:40:40.720000+00:00 | ['Inequality', 'Power', 'Sociology', 'History', 'Civilization'] |
Is Parler Right Biased? | Is Parler Right Biased?
First, I’m going to disclose that I’m pretty biased here. I’m a former Facebook engineer (2 years on main FB News Feed iOS product) and I’ve been a software engineer for over a decade. I live in Silicon Valley and voted for Joe Biden.
That being said, I try to look at ground truth, and while I use Facebook, and vote Democrat — I have major public complaints and feedback about each, I think it is healthy to recognize what you prefer as well as what is going on. I do love to download any new mobile iOS app to see what they are about and to grab my user name while the product is still in beta whenever possible. So when I saw that some of my Republican family and friends were asking on Facebook for us to “switch” to Parler, a website and mobile App that, in it’s own meta:description (Google Summary) tag claims:
Parler is an unbiased social media focused on real user experiences and engagement. Free expression without violence and no censorship. Parler never shares your personal data.”
Then I thought, better grab my user name, and downloaded and installed the app. The very first screen?
Oooh, is this for picking my complementary hat?
Ignoring that adding a feature to theme your social media app before you have copy and paste is just bad development and sets the general quality bar for the product itself fairly low (we aren’t here for that) and while I may think having a default color theme choice be red is tacky, it’s just a subliminal sign of the super-liminal hints that come when it’s time to “Personalize your Parler Experience”:
*Assuming your person is a MAGA republican
In case you can’t tell what these individuals have in common. It’s Donald Trump. 2 of them are sitting US politicians, and the rest are pundits. All are vocal Trump cultists. If you choose to “Skip” adding Hannity as one of your friends, you are taken to a second screen asking you again to “Personalize your Parler Experience”:
Look Familiar
Again, ignoring how confusing it is to have two identical steps (Kinda looks like the second one is their equivalent of “Pages” vs “Individuals”, though the distinction is unclear), and that they already suggested I follow Hannity, all of the suggests are pro-trump far right groups. The only question mark I had was “Transparency 2020” which is unrelated to any real organization that I could find, only reposts things claiming the 2020 election was rigged, and “transparently” describes itself only as “Unfiltered Content”.
So every page suggested during the setup process is Pro-Trump, and Far Right. If this is a mere coincidence of circumstance, it doesn’t start off on a good foot, and as a software developer, it occurred to me that the answers to the first 3 questions on this screen could very easily be used as a purity test, to spot and assist in banning users (We can get to that later). So far not seeing a lot of the “unbiased” claimed in the tagline. But let’s give it a shot. When you first join, you automatically make your first post:
Putting words in your mouth is the opposite of censorship!
Seconds after my “Hello Parler” Post, I had my first user interaction!
Wait, THE Ron Paul
Not sure if these automatic posts are a part of the Parler system, or just taking advantage of the fact that it currently has a really bad bot problem. In case you are thinking that an auto welcome post from Ron Paul means there is a non-Trumper on the system, he changed his position on Trump a while ago. Batting 100 still. So yes, while all the content and content producers so far seem to be MAGA Trumpers and Right wing “news” outlets, that doesn’t mean that the platform is biased. Just everything on it, right? The answer there comes when you go to the other tabs available in the App: “Discover” news, and search. For the Discover news tab, there are two feeds, “Partners” and “Affiliates”. I scrolled and checked bias for a while, but all of the content featured partners and affiliates were right leaning. As for the content (Which I could only find through their search hashtags function, a limited and kind of broken way to see “Trending Content” I suppose), was all either extreme right posts, or “sexy time” spam bots targeting evangelicals.
Alllllright. Sexy Time. Real Lady. High five.
So, the lions share of the current contributors, affiliates, partners and non-spam content are Right Wing.
Does that make the Platform Right Biased? For all practical purposes it does.
The CEO has acknowledged their membership problem, and has claimed to put up a 20k bounty for “an openly liberal pundit with 50,000 followers on Twitter or Facebook to start a Parler account.”, they had it at 10k but had to raise it up when nobody took the bait.
So maybe, the day will come when the wash of 2020 Trump mourners looking for a news feed that kept feeding them the reality they want to believe without all those pesky fact checkers, subsides. And maybe a few brave liberal influencers will come to the platform seeking to stand against the red hordes. And maybe a slow trickle of left leaning regular users and lurkers will come to follow that content rather than where those contributors normally post. And just maybe then everyone else will come in, and the content and contributors will find the same natural balance that Facebook and Twitter has in terms of left and right voices.
But personally I don’t think there will ever be anything close to the user and content base parity found on other sites, and If I’ve learned anything about what makes a social media site successful it’s having as many people on it as possible. And whether intentionally or sheer coincidence Parler has gotten off to a really bad start alienating half of its potential user base. Nobody is going to want to go somewhere to get bullied. Better to burn the brand and try again, with a rallying cry that is less one sided, or just admit to being a right biased safe space. | https://medium.com/swlh/is-parler-right-biased-ccf3c16ce0ca | [] | 2020-11-13 21:55:22.665000+00:00 | ['Parler', 'Politics', 'Bias', 'Social Media', 'Technology'] |
How to add swap space on Ubuntu | The smartest way of shielding against out-of-memory errors in your applications is to add some swap space to your server. In this guide, we will cover how to add a swap file to an Ubuntu 18.04 server.
What is Swap?
Swap is an area on a hard drive that has been designated as a place where the operating system can temporarily store data that it can no longer hold in RAM. Basically, this gives you the ability to increase the amount of information that your server can keep in its working “memory”, with some caveats. The swap space on the hard drive will be used mainly when there is no longer sufficient space in RAM to hold in-use application data.
Checking the System for Swap Information
Before we begin, we need to check if the system already has some swap space available. It is possible to have multiple swap files or swap partitions, but generally one should be enough though.
We can see if the system has any configured swap by typing:
sudo swapon — show
If you don’t get back any output, this means your system does not have swap space available currently.
You can verify that there is no active swap using the free utility:
free -h
Output total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 985M 84M 222M 680K 678M 721M
Swap: 0B 0B 0B
As you can see in the Swap row of the output, no swap is active on the system.
Checking Available Space on the Hard Drive Partition
Before we create our swap file, we’ll check our current disk usage to make sure we have enough space. Do this by entering:
df -h
Output Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev 481M 0 481M 0% /dev
tmpfs 99M 656K 98M 1% /run
/dev/vda1 25G 1.4G 23G 6% /
tmpfs 493M 0 493M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 493M 0 493M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/vda15 105M 3.4M 102M 4% /boot/efi
tmpfs 99M 0 99M 0% /run/user/1000
The device with / in the Mounted on column is our disk in this case. We have plenty of space available in this example (only 1.4G used). Your usage will probably be different.
Generally for swap size, an amount equal to or double the amount of RAM on your system is a good starting point. Another good rule of thumb is that anything over 4G of swap is probably unnecessary if you are just using it as a RAM fallback.
Creating a Swap File
Let’s create it now
Now that we know our available hard drive space, we can create a swap file on our filesystem. We will allocate a file of the swap size that we want called swapfile in our root (/) directory.
The best way of creating a swap file is with the fallocate program. This command instantly creates a file of the specified size.
Since the server in our example has 1G of RAM, we will create a 1G file in this guide. Adjust this to meet the needs of your own server:
sudo fallocate -l 1G /swapfile
We can verify that the correct amount of space was reserved by typing:
ls -lh /swapfile
-rw-r — r — 1 root root 1.0G Apr 25 11:14 /swapfile
Enabling the Swap File
Now that we have a file of the correct size available, we need to actually turn this into swap space.
First, we need to lock down the permissions of the file so that only the users with root privileges can read the contents. This prevents normal users from being able to access the file.
Make the file only accessible to root by typing:
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
Verify the permissions change by typing:
ls -lh /swapfile
Output -rw------- 1 root root 1.0G Apr 25 11:14 /swapfile
As you can see, only the root user has the read and write flags enabled.
We can now mark the file as swap space by typing:
sudo mkswap /swapfile
Output Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 1024 MiB (1073737728 bytes)
no label, UUID=6e965805-2ab9-450f-aed6-577e74089dbf
After marking the file, we can enable the swap file, allowing our system to start utilising it:
sudo swapon /swapfile
Verify that the swap is available by typing:
sudo swapon — show
Output NAME TYPE SIZE USED PRIO
/swapfile file 1024M 0B -2
We can check the output of the free utility again:
free -h
Output total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 985M 84M 220M 680K 680M 722M
Swap: 1.0G 0B 1.0G
Congrats!, Our swap has been set up successfully and our operating system will begin to use it as necessary.
Making the Swap File Permanent
Our recent changes have enabled the swap file for the current session. However, if we reboot, the server will not retain the swap settings automatically.
We can change this by adding the swap file to our /etc/fstab file.
Back up the /etc/fstab file in case anything goes wrong:
sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak
Add the swap file information to the end of your /etc/fstab file by typing:
echo ‘/swapfile none swap sw 0 0’ | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
Next we’ll review some settings we can update to tune our swap space.
Tuning your Swap Settings
Adjusting the Swappiness Property
The swappiness parameter configures how often your system swaps data out of RAM to the swap space. This is a value between 0 and 100 that represents a percentage.
We can see the current swappiness value by typing:
cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
Output 60
For a Desktop, a swappiness setting of 60 is not a bad value. For a server, you might want to move it closer to 0.
We can set the swappiness to a different value by using the sysctl command.
For instance, to set the swappiness to 10, we could type:
sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10
Output vm.swappiness = 10
This setting will persist until the next reboot. We can set this value automatically at restart by adding the line to our /etc/sysctl.conf file:
sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf
At the bottom, you can add:
/etc/sysctl.conf
vm.swappiness=10
Save and close the file when you are finished.
Adjusting the Cache Pressure Setting
Another related value that you might want to modify is the vfs_cache_pressure . This setting configures how much the system will choose to cache inode and dentry information over other data.
cat /proc/sys/vm/vfs_cache_pressure
Output 100
As it is currently configured, our system removes inode information from the cache too quickly. We can set this to a more conservative setting like 50 by typing:
sudo sysctl vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50
Output vm.vfs_cache_pressure = 50
Again, this is only valid for our current session. We can change that by adding it to our configuration file like we did with our swappiness setting:
sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf
At the bottom, add the line that specifies your new value:
vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50
Save and close the file when you are finished.
That’s it Your’e done!!!
Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash
Thanks for reading..happy coding | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/how-to-add-swap-space-on-ubuntu-ff9af2820adc | ['Ajith Kumar'] | 2021-04-25 16:20:20.339000+00:00 | ['Outofmemoryerror', 'Swap', 'Ubuntu', 'Servers', 'Ruby on Rails'] |
In the face of crisis, we will all become artists… | I remember the moment I finished reading what is still one of my favourite pieces of work, the same moment I truly realised my passion and desire to work with artists. As a young teen, I was reading a commencement speech by pianist and Director of the Music Division at Boston Conservatory, Karl Paulnack. He compares musicians to doctors (the profession my older sister happened to pick) and spoke about how in a similar way to doctors saving lives, music keeps people whole and able to continue with their lives. It helps comprehend with our hearts what we often can’t with our words. Whilst this played quite nicely into our sisterly squabbles, it had a much more profound impact on me.
Paulnack explained artists’ role in society and music’s sheer necessity to mankind so eloquently that I fell in love, there and then, with the idea of being able to support artists and play a part in this… and on to work in the creative industries I went…
A few years ago, I heard someone refer to my lifetime today as being in ‘peacetime’, a period name I quite liked the sound of. Thinking about that same label now, yes we can agree there is no physical war here, however, it is a label that I am not so sure I can accept as whole heartedly as I did back then, having been a few years shy of the catastrophic realisations we face today — climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, amongst others…
This understandably prompts the mind to thoughts of our future as a society and what that may look like. Yuval Noah Harari in one of his works, ‘Homodeus’, speaks about his perceived idea of our future existence and work ecosystems. He speculates on a world full of advanced technology, so much so, that it overtakes many of our industries:
“In a world where computers replace doctors, drivers, teachers and even landlords, everyone would become an artist”
Whilst initially this may seem scary (particularly if you are a doctor, driver, teacher or landlord without much artistic acumen) the principal message is not that of people becoming redundant to algorithms and AI solutions but the immense opportunity this provides to empower people to be more creative by removing labour intensive processes. Imagine the inventions we would come up with — in business, tech as well as the traditionally considered ‘creative sectors’.
Although there is already advanced technology that, for example, can replicate and create songs in the style of Mozart, there will always be a place for the unquantifiable beauty that stems from human hearts and souls. ‘Roxanne’ by The Police would not be the same without Sting’s laugh and accidental piano knock intro- a beautiful human error.
However, this is bigger than just the arts industries, each sector in itself will become creative. Is a new working piece of software or business start-up, whilst obviously different, not equally creative in comparison to a new written story or painting?
It falls to us to use our advancements to eliminate boundaries to entry, automate labour intensive processes and give time back to the creators. If we succeed, we won’t have to look too far to find ourselves amongst artists. | https://medium.com/@nikkicamilleri/in-the-face-of-crises-we-will-all-become-artists-43b333717838 | ['Nikki Camilleri'] | 2020-04-06 20:14:16.231000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Future Of Work', 'Startup', 'Coronavirus', 'Creativity'] |
What if You Never Make it? | Photo credit: Gary Flashner
I have a bad habit of getting too far ahead of myself. Then when I look back to where I am now, the gap appears so huge that I start to lose hope that I’ll ever close it.
No matter how good you get at something, there will always be someone who is better.
I’m especially susceptible when it comes to my dancing. I am a passionate and committed ballroom dancer, but it’s not my profession. So I spend more hours sitting in front of a computer for the day job than I do in the dance studio. I’ll see someone else more advanced in the dance studio and think I’ll never be able to reach that level. I might even wonder if I should just give up now.
Setting Goals
Before the pandemic, I had set a lofty dance goal for myself in 2020 — five ballroom dance competitions. On average, I don’t do more than two or three competitions in a year. Competitions for amateur dancers like myself are expensive, and realistically, there was no way I could afford five comps. My knees, both afflicted with chondromalacia patella, were also wondering if they’d be able to keep up the pace. And then there’s that voice in the back of my head that whispers, “what’s the point?”
When the odds are clearly set against me, so much so that this goal sounds like a fool’s errand, why would I make it my intention for the year?
Another lofty goal of mine is making dancing and writing my full-time career. I dream of being a recognized professional dancer and seeing my books displayed in bookstores and on Amazon as top sellers. But what if I never make it? Will this journey all be a waste?
Why do I do this to myself?
My dreams and goals have always tended to be larger than my current reality. Which means I fall short a LOT. Time and time again, I fail to reach my goals. It’s discouraging and disheartening.
Almost every time I hit a rough patch on this journey, I question if it’s really worth all of the struggles and whether I should just quit. I’m spending thousands of dollars every year on ballroom dancing that could be going toward erasing credit card debt or saving for a new car or a home with a backyard for my dogs. What is it all going towards? Just more expensive private lessons and competitions? What if I never reach the level of dancing I’ve set my long-term sights on?
I’ve also spent thousands of dollars on building my brand as a writer and self-publishing three books and two journals. What if no one beyond my small but mighty tribe (love you guys!) ever knows I exist? Should I accept that I need to keep the day job indefinitely to keep these passions alive? Is there a point where I need to give up trying to make these passions my career?
Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash
Let’s get real.
The hard truth is I may never “make it.” I’m 37 and it’s quite possible the only advancement I’ll make in ballroom from this point on is in my age category. Maybe I’ll continue to self-publish my books and never hit those traditional markers of success in writing, like signing a lucrative book deal or making it onto the New York Times best seller list.
The problem with “making it” is it’s incredibly difficult to pinpoint what that means exactly. What timeframe do you apply? If you define “making it” as accomplishing something by the time you’re 35 and you accomplish it when you’re 40, were you still successful? I would say yes, but then what if you haven’t accomplished it by the time you’re 40? Do you keep going and try for 41? Or is 5 years past the deadline too far and you should give up? What if you thought 3 years past the deadline was too far when you were on track to succeed at 5 years?
I don’t have any answers because I don’t think there are any standard ones. I think it’s individual to each person. The way I get through these incessant questions that have no good answers is ask myself another question — what’s the alternative?
If I decide I’ve missed my shot to become a professional dancer (what “professional dancer” means is a whole other topic, by the way) and that means I should give up on dancing, what’s the alternative? If I decide I’ve tried long enough at this writing thing and the recognition I’ve already gained isn’t enough to be considered “making it” as an author, what’s the alternative?
I could drop dancing and writing, shut down my blog, and just work the day job 5 days a week until I retire. It might be nice to have evenings and weekends free and a cushy nest egg in my savings account. I could go on actual vacations or buy a house.
But would I be happy? Would I be fulfilled?
Hell no.
I did the go to work, go home, chill on the weekends thing before I discovered my passions. I ended up empty, miserable and divorced.
Ballroom dancing woke up the creativity inside me that was slowly withering away with every day I spent sitting in rush hour traffic. I realized I was just surviving life, I wasn’t thriving.
I started thriving when I started pushing myself to try things that scared me and challenged my creative limits.
What if you never make it? Who cares!
Photo credit: Gary Flashner
Maybe reality hasn’t matched up with my vision yet, but if I shift my focus from comparing the future vision to the present and instead compare the present to the past, I’ve gained more success than I ever imagined. Or perhaps it just looks different from what I imagined.
Whenever I feel stressed or depressed about not having “made it” yet, I stop and ask myself what that really means. And what happens after I make it? Is that where the journey ends? Or does a new journey start and I’ll have to deal with not having made it in some new way?
Goals are essential to any journey. They give you direction. A destination provides a pull for you to keep moving forward when you stall or get off track. At the same time, the point isn’t necessarily to reach that goal. It’s about the journey you take to get there.
It’s about thriving while you’re on this planet, instead of just surviving.
Whatever goal or dream you create for yourself, working toward that will help you accomplish way more than if you didn’t have that goal, which in turn makes you successful even if you never reach the original goal.
I didn’t compete five times in 2020 (thank you coronavirus!). BUT because I had set that goal, I still danced at two competitions in the first two months of the year before everything was shut down. Before the end of the year, I’ll also have performed in two virtual events.
I’ve accomplished more this year, despite the pandemic, than I would have if I set no goal and decided to just wait and see.
So what are you waiting for? The time is going to pass anyway, so we may as well make the most of it.
Here’s to thriving! | https://medium.com/write-i-must/what-if-you-never-make-it-6b1c715fa437 | ['The Girl With The Tree Tattoo'] | 2020-11-17 14:54:44.074000+00:00 | ['Ballroom Dance', 'Success', 'Mindset', 'Goal Setting', 'Writers On Writing'] |
What to Expect as Mobile Advertising Moves to the Blockchain | What to Expect as Mobile Advertising Moves to the Blockchain
Blockchain-based mobile advertising is still a novelty for the ad tech market. The early solutions, however, promise the drastic changes for the ecosystem: the middlemen reduction, fraud removal, and transparency for every participant.
Blockchain inMobile Ad Tech
Experts predict that by the end of 2021 Mobile Marketing Market worth will reach 98.85 billion dollars. Mobile advertising is on the radar of media-buyers, marketers, and app developers who monetize their mobile apps with ads as only 20% manage to achieve their ad campaign goals.
Several problems are plaguing the sphere of digital advertising at once: ad fraud, inflated prices, commissions, insufficient transparency considering information origins, and income distribution between suppliers and providers. New technologies such as Blockchain are already changing the regular programmatic advertising, but, will the same be achieved in the fundamentally different mobile environment?
Why mobile advertising is out of control
Fraud. The National Association of Advertisers (ANA) published official statistics, according to it the total damage from advertising fraud in 2017 reached $ 7.2 billion, which in rough calculations accounted for 60% of the total budget spent on digital advertising.
According to preliminary estimates, the botnet called Methbot caused the largest damage to ad market in history faking up to 300 million video ad views per day in 2016. Bot farms like this perform clicks, simulate the ad views, website navigation, and human behavior in general. The problem with fraud is not limited to this, it typically involves transactional issues, installs hijacking, and fraud on mobiles. Even though for a long time, fraud has been mainly associated with desktop advertising, around 30% of fraudulent traffic already comes from mobiles.
Commissions and transparency. With an enormous amount of participants taking part in ad selling and purchasing, programmatic may seem way too complicated. Media agencies, Ad exchanges, DSPs, SSPs, Ad networks, DMPs, and ad tech providers make a long commission-dependant pipeline of intermediaries. Stripped of all fees, the sum transferred from advertiser to publisher for serving the ad barely reaches 30% of the total budget.
Some say the ad market is owned by Google. This statement is close to reality taking into account the media giant is trying to up the game with trust, acting like traffic quality arbitrator. Frightened by the perspective to deal with low-quality traffic, advertisers are pushed to pay the traffic quality arbitrators in order to guarantee their ads are served to real people.
Will Blockchain help mobile advertising?
Without digging through the details, which blockchain technology is brimming with, let’s uncover the basic principles: blockchain is more reliable than traditional databases because information is not stored on servers of the company, it exists on every computer of the chain simultaneously. Thus, It will not stop working even if several computers are hacked.
In the blockchain core, the information is formed as a sequential chain of blocks containing records, each of which has a unique key. Existing blocks cannot be removed or altered after the confirmation — the system simply will not accept the changes, it is recorded once and for all. Any entry in the blockchain is approved by all members of the network that makes unauthorized actions or hacks practically impossible to occur.
As all information can be stored in the blockchain: sales, contracts, dates, transaction details, etc., it will guarantee the total transparency of operations including commissions. As well, it will eliminate the number of intermediaries standing between mobile publishers and advertisers offering a convenient token exchange.
How decisions are implemented
The first blockchain ad tech startups popped up on the market several years ago, these projects promised to decentralize the digital advertising market fairly quickly.
Recently, the market embraced the first mobile ad platforms based on tokens, many of them are regularly represented on TechCrunch Startup Alley.
Utilizing such solutions, the application developers and app marketers will be able to monetize their apps with utility tokens without having to attract intermediaries. The users, in their turn, will be free to choose which ads to watch and receive tokens from advertisers for the views. The utility tokens are automatically credited after the action is confirmed. The gained tokens on the platforms can be used for content purchasing, financial operations with distributors and users.
When it comes to transparency considering information origins, the question is also easily investigated: the period of data collection, the supplier of such data, and other details are quickly tracked down in the system. In case one party reveals the attempt of fabrication it makes it easier for the other to find out and cease the future collaboration.
Some challenges yet to be resolved
The blockchain advertising is still in its infancy and the mobile sector is also hanging out somewhere near the starting line. The mobile ecosystem represents a highly potential environment for advertisers as the user attention inside the apps is not dispersed on website elements, such as, other ad units that compete for the website’s space. The mobile developers along with media buyers have the opportunity to render the user experience in mobiles better as playable and rewarded ads, for instance, allow to track the history of interaction and optimize towards higher conversion.
The latest market players’ infatuation with mobile advertising will contribute to increased funding of the platforms and sector growing, as a result, any time soon. The nomenclature and taxonomy that regulates the framework of technology functioning in ad tech, however, is still under construction. Without developed legislation, it’s difficult to bring the majority of highly-promising mobile blockchain-based ad tech projects to the market.
Nevertheless, the process was significantly activated in 2017, when the IAB’s blockchain working group started functioning. The purpose of this initiative is developing standards and best practices for technology implementation in ad tech. It is expected that in a few years the market will see the rise of blockchain advertising and app developers, advertisers, and marketers will finally work in a fraud-free and transparent ecosystem. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/mobile-advertising-moves-to-blockchain-changes-to-expect-891aa3149d28 | ['Irina Kovalenko'] | 2019-02-05 20:19:12.702000+00:00 | ['Mobile Marketing', 'Blockchain', 'Advertising', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Blockchain Advertising'] |
A Quick Guide to Knowing When to Quit Your Job to Start Freelance Writing | A Quick Guide to Knowing When to Quit Your Job to Start Freelance Writing Anna Meyer Sep 22, 2020·4 min read
Photo by Maxwell Ridgeway on Unsplash
It’s a common question asked among newbie writers:
“Am I ready to quit my current job to freelance full-time?”
It’s a simple yes-or-no question. But unfortunately, like many elements of freelancing, only you are capable of knowing the right answer to that question.
I can’t tell you whether or not you’re in the best place to quit. I don’t know your job situation, your income, your savings, your monthly spendings, your needs at home, or your goals as a freelancer.
But I can offer a few suggestions. You probably won’t ever be 100-percent ready, but even the smallest clues can help you make a wise decision.
Here are a few things to consider:
1. Be confident
In the early stages, you will be tested on why you’re doing all this.
Often.
Finding a support system is vital to your success, but knowing what to say when people ask you questions is equally important.
“What have you been up to lately?” “It must be wonderful to be at home all the time.” “So you’re a blogger?”
How do you plan to answer these?
Gather up your mental courage and hold your chin up high. The success you’re working toward (and the remaining tips in this post) depends on it.
2. Have a specific plan
I didn’t do so well on this one. I had general ideas, but I didn’t back them up with action or consistency.
Obviously, you’ll be writing. But during what times of the day? How many days of the week? Are you going to reduce your hours to part-time as a way of easing out of your current job, or are you going to quit cold-turkey? What will your daily routine look like? Are you going to respond to emails first thing in the morning or wait until the afternoon?
Don’t just have a plan. Be specific.
3. Have a backup plan
Nobody likes having these conversations, but you’ll be minimizing the risk by addressing the ugly now. What would qualify as the worst-case scenario for you?
Running out of money is a common concern.
What are you going to do if this happens to you?
Think long and hard about your backup plan — the more specific, the better. You’ll be saving yourself loads of time, stress, and pressure later on.
4. Give yourself time
Nowadays, I can get a post on Medium written and proofread lickety-split compared to when I first started. (My first post took over two weeks. I’m not kidding.)
The learning curve is real when you’re starting as a freelance writer. And I grossly underestimated how long it would take to find my groove.
I also wanted to live up to all the hype of freelancing: flexible scheduling, working a few hours a day, things like that. Having these as goals to work toward isn’t wrong, but I became blind to the time I would spend
building my website
setting up social media profiles
the pitching process
creating samples
finding a morning routine that works for me
And more. A lot more.
Being slow is not a bad thing. But being unrealistic with your speed as a beginner will hurt you (and your business) in the long run.
5. Take calculated risks
A calculated risk generally means “a risk taken after careful evaluation of the probable outcome.”
Risk-taking is an inevitable part of freelancing, especially in the beginning. But that doesn’t mean you have to “wing it” every time. In many cases, you can study your options and evaluate your outcomes in advance.
If you’re thinking about purchasing an online course, what do you do? You might look at payment options (if available), read some reviews, or wait a while to prevent impulse-buying. These are all excellent ways of increasing your chances of making a worthwhile investment.
Risks are scary, but they don’t always have to be if you do your homework.
6. Be prepared to change
This was the biggest surprise for me to deal with after I quit. It also showed up in very subtle ways:
Handling rejection
How I felt when my work was rewritten to the point where it didn’t sound like me anymore
Sticking to a schedule
Taking a weekend off without feeling guilty
Balancing work life and home life…at home
For me, being a freelance writer hasn’t been easy. But I’ve grown as a business owner and as a person. I’ve learned to trust my gut, even if it means I’m going against what others suggest. I’ve learned to take ownership of my mistakes. I’ve improved in speaking up rather than shying away when I notice an opportunity for improvement.
But more than anything, I feel a real sense of purpose and meaning, not just within my career, but in my life. Despite all the drawbacks and twists in the road, it feels pretty effing fantastic.
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
Wrap-up
As stated before, only you can answer the question posed in the intro: “Am I ready to quit my current job to freelance full-time?”
But if you have a confident response to these tips, you’re well on your way to saying “yes.”
With planning and sincere commitment backed by consistent action, you can make quitting your current job the best part of your career. | https://medium.com/@annameyeragency/a-quick-guide-to-knowing-when-to-quit-your-job-to-start-freelance-writing-b33adaf207a3 | ['Anna Meyer'] | 2020-09-22 16:56:02.989000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'Freelancing', 'Freelance Writing', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Career Advice'] |
A code-efficient CSS pattern for your theming and coloring needs, inspired by OOP and CSS Variables | Let’s talk about doing more with less code.
Do you struggle to write CSS classes to color and theme your components in a way that is easy to maintain and code-efficient ? That does not end up in hundreds of CSS classes ? Do your CSS libraries fail in simplicity, being lightweight, and code-efficient because of the hassle of managing all these colors ?
TLDR;
We propose a CSS pattern inspired by OOP that manages linear code-efficiency for theming and coloring in your web application. This substitutes to exponential code written in the style of generic libraries such as Bootstrap, Semantic, Tailwind.
We propose a lightweight library called Swatch ( https://swatch.dev ) that offer CSS classes and variables which expose this pattern in an efficient API. Swatch is pure-CSS, which means framework-agnostic. Also its source SCSS is easily customizable.
The problem : theming and coloring imply exponential CSS classes
We introduce you a pattern for writing CSS and modest library, called Swatch and based on that pattern, that aims at solving this issue. We’ve been using this pattern for over a year in production now. This pattern makes coloring and theming code-efficient.
What do I mean by code-efficient?
Probably, you have as many web devs used Bootstrap / Semantic / Tailwind / Material UI to build your UI. While we don’t criticize the fact these libraries are good to get started quickly, they soon become extremely cumbersome to use and maintain due to (1) the particular syntax of one CSS library (2) the huge amount of classes you need to know and write shall you want to extend a bit the core library features. In particular, for coloring, Bootstrap / Semantic / Tailwind have one class per color per component (.btn-red, .btn-green, .btn-orange, .btn-blue) … what if we could reduce it to just one class with a better pattern ?
Using these libraries, if you have 15 colors and want your buttons (.button), your cards (.cards) , and your labels (.labels) to be compatible with all of them, you would have
15 Classes for the button (btn-red, btn-green) …
15 classes for the cards (card-red, card-green) …
15 classes for the labels
This 45 classes in total, and each of the classes has very little value expect passing a particular color to the element. (All the colors are consumed in the same way by the component).
And imagine how many classes we would have if we had 10 components or a complete 100-component library. This amount to an exponential way of coding CSS classes for coloring and theming… for each component you create, you need to create X classes of colors to it. (Of course, we would use a preprocessor SCSS/LESS mixin, but I am talking about the compiled CSS output and what gets executed in the browser). What if we could reduce it to just one CSS class compatible with all the colors simply by using a better pattern ?
That’s where our pattern and the Swatch library comes in.
Using the Setter/Getter pattern to achieve code-efficiency in theming and coloring
(Just a word of warning: although we find this new pattern very efficient, it is probably best suited for medium to advanced experienced developers).
We adapted a pattern that comes from Object-Oriented Programming, the Setter/Getter Pattern to CSS. If you’re unfamiliar with it, this article should give you an idea what the pattern is in Python.
The Setter/Getter pattern applied to CSS amounts to a three-step process. This is how it works.
1. We define CSS color variables at the:root level
Nothing extraordinary here, just the base CSS variable logic
:root {
--red: #f8333c;
--light-red: #f48489;
--dark-red: #df000a;
--on-red: #ffffff;
--orange: #f46036;
--light-orange: #f19d85;
--dark-orange: #dd3100;
--on-orange: #ffffff;
--yellow: #ffbf00;
--light-yellow: #f6ce55;
--dark-yellow: #b38600;
--on-yellow: #ffffff;
--olive: grey;
--light-olive: #a6a6a6;
--dark-olive: #635151;
--on-olive: #ffffff;
--green: #44af69;
--light-green: #7fc096;
--dark-green: #268045;
--on-green: #ffffff;
// .... And many other swatches
}
2. We use special CSS classes, called Setters, that take one of the root variables (for instance, — red) and translate it to a local variable (for instance — x).
We associate the previously defined root variables to a local variable, --x and its variants, --light-x , --dark-x , --on-x (on = contrast color).
.x-azure,
.xh-azure:focus,
.xh-azure:hover {
--x: var(--azure);
--light-x: var(--light-azure);
--dark-x: var(--dark-azure);
--on-x: var(--on-azure);
} .x-blue,
.xh-blue:focus,
.xh-blue:hover {
--x: var(--blue);
--light-x: var(--light-blue);
--dark-x: var(--dark-blue);
--on-x: var(--on-blue);
} .x-pink,
.xh-pink:focus,
.xh-pink:hover {
--x: var(--pink);
--light-x: var(--light-pink);
--dark-x: var(--dark-pink);
--on-x: var(--on-pink);
}
3. We “get” the local variables and apply it to our HTML
Now it’s time to consume this API ! We can for instance use some of the following getter classes (which are included in the Swatch library), or you can write your own.
.b-x {
background: var( --x);
} .b-dark-x {
background: var( --dark-x):
} .b-light-x {
background: var( --light-x);
} .b-on-x {
background: var( --on-x);
} .c-x {
color: var( --x);
} .c-dark-x {
color: var( --dark-x);
} .c-light-x {
color: var( --light-x);
} .c-on-x {
color: var( --on-x);
}
Finally, your html will look like.
<div>
<div class='x-red xh-blue b-x'> This div has red background and blue on hover</div>
<div class='x-red b-x c-on-x'> This div has red background and contrasted text </div>
<div class='x-red b-light-x c-on-x'> This div has light red background and contrasted text </div>
<div class='x-red b-dark-x c-on-x'> This div has dark red background and contrasted text </div>
</div>
You can at the complete example and a live playground here : https://swatch.dev/docs/examples
In the end, what do we have ?
Root CSS variables, defined once and for all
One setter class per color, defined once and for all
One getter class per “use case”, this can also be understood as one class per component (example here).
You can implement this pattern yourself of simply use our llibrary, Swatch ( https://swatch.dev ) which will provide you with these three levels: you will get around 20 different colors with 4 shades each, you will get setter classes and getter classes.
The whole library is 15KB, and it boils down to 2.5KB gzipped. The best thing about it (in our opinion), is that this library is (S)CSS only. Subsequently it is completely framework-agnostic meaning you can use it with bare-bones HTML as well as your favorite front-end framework, think React, Angular, Vue, even Django, or WordPress.
Also, an example in production that uses this library site-wide.
We just finished writing the docs, and we would be really thankful for some adventurers to take a look at it, and tell us if our solution is usable and down-to-earth. If you like it, we would really value your feedback, either here, or as a Github issue.
Also, if you think our library is useful, please give us a star on Github, it would make us really happy!
Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you do, for considering this pattern in your applications !
Final words
Applying to Setter/Getter pattern to CSS allows for achieving theming and coloring on the component or application level with a linear quantity of compiled code. Thus, this represents a sizeable improvement over the old way of doing this (writing exponential CSS classes).
In consequence :
This allows for a HUGE reduction of CSS code relative to colors and theming (up to 90% when comparing component libraries made using this pattern with Bootstrap)
This pattern makes the CSS code much more maintainable.
Also, CSS vars make debugging in browser a breeze.
So far we are satisfied by the improvements that came from using this pattern in our projects, for over a year now. We would be glad to hear it helped you too. If you have any issues or suggestions about it please let us know here or at the github repository.
If you’re looking at the Swatch library, we’d like to make this clear : in our library, you won’t find any components or blocks. What we do is something simple: we just provide a simple implementation of the CSS pattern, we explained to take care of coloring and theming. Take a look at the docs or the examples to learn what you can build with it ! | https://adrianvi.medium.com/a-new-code-efficient-css-pattern-for-your-theming-and-coloring-needs-6570d8d98ef7 | ['Adrian V'] | 2020-11-12 09:53:38.564000+00:00 | ['Front End Development', 'Theming', 'Bootstrap', 'Optimization', 'CSS'] |
More than meets the eye.. | Hi y’all.This post will be dedicated to getting yourself informed. Information is king when you are investing. There is always more than meets the eye, and it is time to lift the curtain a bit.
In my last post, I talked about FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and that this causes people to get burned. Another way how people get ‘rekt’ is by being ill informed or not informed at all. I mean, how many times do you see comments of people on Reddit or Telegram showing that they do not have a clue about what they are investing in. Please do not be that guy.
When investing you should, first of all, get yourself informed. So read a white-paper, see what milestones have been reached, find out more about the team and see what the circulation supply and market cap is. These are just the basics, but for some this is already too much of an effort.
Next up is joining the Reddit, Slack and Telegram channels of a chain. Please read between the lines because a lot of gossip, FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is posted in these channels. And yeah, it sometimes gets to much with all the Moon, Lambo and Sharting memes. But at least you lol’ed.
As you can see, there are a lot of sources of information you can easily tap into. There are also a lot of ‘less obvious’ sources of info. For instance, do a Google Trends search to find out more about popularity and geographic interest of a chain. But like the title says, there is always more. So lets dig a bit deeper..
The CocaCola Kid
Sometimes, all it takes is an odd source of info. This is where it gets interesting, fun and weird. If I told you that sometimes you can get investment info on 4chan, you would probably ask me what I have been smoking (“Epa.. estas fumando una lumpia??”).
Let me give you an example. If you are investing in VeChain you probably have heard about someone with the nickname: ‘The Coca Cola Kid’. This guy always posts cryptic messages on 4chan when something is about to happen with VeChain. The message itself is always open for interpretation, but the timing is always spot on. So when he writes a message, you know the price of VeChain will either pump or take a nosedive and thus this is a brilliant source of information. Who would have figured.. 4chan..
Palm trees in the snow
We tend to think that it is just the market that moves a price up or down. Again, there is more than meets the eye. Sometimes a chain gets an unexpected bump and the reason behind it might surprise you. Let’s take a look at the Cindicator (CND) case. Again, this is one of those oddball source of information cases.
On the 18th of January I got a message regarding a pump on Neblio (NEBL). This was an interesting one as this was not the average ‘Pump and Dump’.
What was going on? The source had the inside loop on a report called ‘Palm Beach Confidential’ by ‘Palm Beach Research Group’. Yes, it is one of those ‘make me rich quick’ reports. But the thing is, there is a lot of money behind this one. And when I say a lot, I mean a LOT. And yes, there is front-running involved as it is confirmed that the guys behind this report buy-in before the report comes out.
The ‘Palm Beach Confidential’ report was scheduled for release at 21:30 (depending on your time zone) and it was still unclear which chain would be involved. Just before the release, the source found out that it would not be Neblio but Cindicator. And look what happened after 21:30. “Boom Baby!”.
If you look at the CND charts you will also see that there has not yet been a real dump. Probably because of the fact that the people using this report are not selling to quickly. But if a pump is caused by a scenario like this, you should be careful. Things are not always what they seem and can go sour very quickly. The reports usually float around on 4chan. For your convenience, I also provided a copy of the most recent one which you can find here: ‘Palm Beach Confidential’
Buy the rumour sell the news
Now this is a big one and it is as old as time. ‘Buy the rumour sell the news’ happens a lot in crypto and it happens time and again.
Think of investors like piraña’s that seek out undervalued chains. When rumours start to surface that a chain might have something big to announce, these investors will start to buy in. So the rumour will be priced in before anything has been announced. And because of the rumours, the value of a chain can get really inflated. If the rumour is false or below expectations, the market is overbought and this will cause an immediate selloff. As you can see, this is dangerous territory. Especially in crypto where rumours go as far as ‘Bitcoin will reach 1000000’ and ‘The position of the sun will be changed by this blockchain’.
Let’s give some clear examples so you will be able to tell when this might happen. Maybe you remember the Lisk (LSK) price plunge. At the end of November last year, the price of Lisk took a nosedive of 20% in just a few hours. The reason behind this dive was that the market, driven by rumours, was over-expecting. During a Meetup in Berlin, the real date of the rebrand was announced whereas the market was expecting a rebrand. The market interpreted the announcement as if the rebrand was postponed. This was all due to the rumours driven by the ‘moon boys’. The price took a dive and took some time to recover. But eventually it did and then some.
Before the Berlin Meetup the Reddits and Telegrams where full with “This is going to be huge” and “This is the best thing since sliced bread”. Although Lisk is great and I believe the value will increase quite a bit more, the market was overreacting. And when you get in during a moment like this, you will get burned for a while.
Let’s fast forward to the day before yesterday. The same thing happened with VeChain. One of the VeChain partners announced that there would be a live stream and the CEO(Sunny) of VeChain would be speaking and that something big was going to be announced. Keep in mind that this partner is a real Corporate so even doing something with blockchain is huge to them.
The market started to act. The price got pumped because the rumour mill was put in high gear. You could read stuff like: “They will announce a partnership with the Peoples Bank of China” and “China go full crypto with the Yuan and VeChain is the one who is going to do this”. Whenever somebody tried to temper the rumours a bit messages like: “Why are you so negative, this thing will moon, stop fudding!” would appear (a nice tell).
This continued until the livestream finally was up. Just a moment before they went live, volume skyrocketed (again a nice tell) and the price started to react erratically (again a nice tell). Although what was presented was quite special, it was nothing new. No surprises and definitely not the stuff that was expected by the ‘moon boys’. This, off course, caused a massive selloff. “And then Kapow! ”
Another classic example of ‘Buy the rumour sell the news’. And it this one you could smell from a mile away. When warnings get ridiculed without any clear arguments, you know enough. Really funny, I got banned from from some telegrams for issuing warnings. So admin, if you read this (and you probably will), I hope you die of crotch rot. Next time I hope you will act responsibly and protect those new investors who are putting their last dollars into something that looks and smells like a ‘Buy the rumour sell the news’ event.
VeChain will recover, don’t worry just hodl. But please remember what happened because the upcoming rebrand event on the 26th of February is just an event. The rebrand itself will probably not be completed until June this year and I already see that the rumours are starting to is pump this event.
A last general word of advise to all blockchain CEO and Marketeers: whenever you have an event, do not hype it. It will backfire, especially when you have nothing to tell what your investors don’t already know. This will make investors lose confidence in what you are doing.
It is better to give news directly without any pre announcement. And when markets start to pump and start to overflow with rumours, just kill the rumour. A simple tweet is enough. Look at what some chains do. They just deliver and let the world know by a simple tweet. Marketing is very important, especially in software, but you always need to have something to show for.
The market is irrational but always right
Markets sometimes act irrational, but if you dig a bit deeper, you will find out why it acts irrational. Take for example the BTC futures which expire today. As you can see, there is a BTC dump going on right now. This is because the profit on the BTC futures outweigh the cost of lowering the price of BTC. It is a gamble but it seems that some whales are willing to take the risk.
So as you can see, it is very important to take the time to get yourself informed. Information is the key to success, although sometimes it requires a big pair of hairy balls to actually act on it.
The market is quite bear now, and refreshing your Delta or Blockfolio every 5 minutes will not make you a happier person. Continuously looking at a bear market will suck the life out of you. It is the time of year to get informed and to sit back and enjoy the ride.
Take a holiday, have fun, read, clear your mind and inform yourself. The bulls will eventually return, but January and February are usually not the months where they have a winter sleep. Do keep an eye out because in crypto you never know when they will wake up again. And remember, when stuff happens in this highly volatile crypto market it always is ‘More than meets the eye’. Especially when the bots and whales are involved.. Stay tuned.
I hope you liked this article. I am thinking of writing an article every week. If you like this idea, than please share, tweet and clap this article in every channel have at your disposal. If you have any suggestions, remarks, inside info or stuff you want me to write about, you can contact me via the ancient way of email on [email protected]. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/more-than-meets-the-eye-ce096def5a94 | ['Olivier De Jong - Trejo'] | 2018-01-29 09:59:22.087000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Trading', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin'] |
Asus VivoBook F510UA Review | The low cost 15-inch laptop is usually a uncommon breed. Most spending budget models place screen real estate on the sacrificial altar-offering 11- or 12-inch displays-in their work to hit a low value point. And granted, the 15.6-inch Asus VivoBook F510UA Battery Asus G56JK doesn’t technically meet our definition of a spending budget laptop-it’s above our limit-but it comes also close to contact it something else. The VivoBook F510UA dazzles having a stylish style and eighth-generation Intel Core i5 overall performance. We just want its battery life have been far better.
Design
The ASUS VivoBook F510UA can be a revamped version on the preceding VivoBook edition of laptops launched by the company. This time ASUS has been in trend and made its laptops much more elegant, sleek, and fashionable. The laptops are also lighter and are marginally thinner than its predecessors and weigh just about 3.7 pounds and include measurements of 14.2 x 9.six x 0.eight inches.The laptop comes with a brushed metal, shiny chassis, inside a glittering grey color. The laptop is thicker in the hinge-edge and progressively gets narrower. The style elements Toshiba Z30-A Charger of the VivoBook, we feel, are largely drawn from the likes on the Apple’s MacBook Air externally. The placement of ports, trackpad, keyboard, as well as other vitals are extremely related for the prior generation of VivoBooks, and all in all, the laptop feels pretty simple to carry around.Yet another distinctive aspect of this laptop is the fact that it comes with an ultra-narrow 0.3-inch ASUS’ proprietary NanoEdge bezel, which provides an awesome of screen-to-body ratio. The bezels around the laptop are pretty negligible and are probably one of the rarest laptops Lenovo Y50–70 Charger inside the market at the moment to present such slim bezel show in a laptop at such low value.Because of this, ASUS VivoBook F510UA tends to make it feels like you’ve got a full-size 15.6" FHD WideView display embedded into a 14-inch show, which not only makes it compact and sleek to utilize, but in addition provides wider, bigger, and considerably superior display. On a final note on the design and style and construct top quality, the laptop comes with a uniform strong construct good quality Lenovo ADP-120LH Charger and certainly is stunning sufficient to attract the masses.Precisely the same material applied inside the body is replicated within the keyboard deck and touchpad. Nevertheless, it provides a decent level of important travel and also a comfy really feel, though, the keys themselves are not especially luxe. They do take a further point from this laptop’s premium building, but it’s a design you will not be seeing in similarly-priced systems.In spite of the laptop’s compact size, the keyboard is large in all the suitable areas, with nicely sized letter and quantity keys. The Backspace and Enter keys 904144 850 are large adequate, the Shift important is definitely the very same size as the rest in the keys, that is at times difficult to hit, but more than time you’ll get used to it. For the touchpad, it’s fairly good, however it does not give you the immediate really feel you get in the likes of XPS 13 and MacBook Air.The 15.6-inch full HD LED-backlit display produces a bright, crisp image. It lacks touch help, but simply because of this omission, Asus was in a position to forego the glossy screen coating that accompanies touch screens in favor of a matte finish that keeps glares and reflections at bay. The display’s viewing angle is not very wide, nonetheless, so this is a large-screen laptop finest made use of solo and not sharing the screen where you and your friend might be hunting at it from an angle that’s not straight on.The VivoBook F510UA produces passable audio. The sound is predictably lacking inside the bass division, but the audio output 904144 850 has enough oomph to fill a compact area and much more than suffices for YouTube videos and video conferencing.Multimedia stands as a popular quit for all sorts of laptop customers. Be it gamers, businessmen, students, common house goal, it doesn’t matter what the need to have is, a laptop will undeniably be utilized as a source of multimedia.The ASUS VivoBook F510UA comes with Two Built-in Stereo Speakers which gives quite highly effective and thumping audio output. Throughout our evaluation, we tested the speakers with bass heavy, punchy tracks, accustomed mids, as well as treble stationed lean tracks. And to our surprise, the sound was fairly clear on each of the occasions.As far because the videos are concerned, it might manage nearly all forms of videos charger dell 3646 and codecs. 4K and Full HD videos have been playing definitely lag-free and because of its wide viewing angles, we essentially had a good time watching content on this laptop.
Performance
The VivoBook AH51 is among the very first releases to sport the Intel’s eighth-generation family members of processors, and determined by the good results from the previous Kaby Lake processors, we’re searching forward to even greater functionality. The program is equipped using a quad-core 1.6GHz Intel Core i5–8250U processor and 8GB of RAM, Intel UHD Graphics 620. This really is precisely the same configuration we’ve seen around the ASUS ZenBook UX330UA-AH55. Though, the earlier iteration was fitted with a quad-core two.5GHz Intel Core i5–7200U processor along with the identical memory and graphics card.This CPU has four processing cores, eight processing threads Asus G73JH Charger and operates amongst a base frequency of 1.6GHz along with a turbo frequency of three.4GHz. It adds some much-needed functionality, in addition to pretty a bit of further battery life over its predecessor ‘Kaby Lake’, which was a sticking point in the earlier ZenBook models. What’s genuinely impressive about this program is how ASUS managed to fit in an 8th-Gen processor and adequate memory in such a tiny machine.With a CPU Benchmark score of 7381 points, it adequate for day-to-day efficiency, but not adequate to allow the system battery hp spectre x360 close-in on systems like the Apple MacBook, Dell XPS 13 Touch, and HP Spectre 13. Appear at it, the MacBook Air using the same specs fees virtually double, and you do not get the Windows ten expertise.On the VivoBook is definitely the integrated UHD 620 graphics, typical to midrange ultraportables, which do not provide considerably space for 3D gaming. The ZenBook’s Kaby Lake-R processor is pretty new, and together using a dual-channel RAM, its overall performance is practically at par with most devoted lower mid-range graphics cards. In quick, its gaming capabilities are restricted. At low resolution and low to medium high-quality settings, you could smoothly run games; particularly true for games that usually do not tax the hardware a lot. I tested it with hardware-hungry titles like the Witcher three as well as the frame rates were not anything close also fantastic.For midrange gaming, you could have to appear in the ASUS VivoBook M580VD-EB54 which comes using a committed NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 gaming graphic card, or better still the Acer Predator Helios 300 because of its potent NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5 graphic card. If we get nitty, the Zenbook AH54’s gaming overall performance Lenovo SA10J20098 Charger is on par with Apple MacBook Air 13-inch plus the Dell XPS 13 Touch, although with slightly negligible variations due to the fact none with the three can run high-end 3D games smoothly.
Battery life is not-so-great, though. We anticipated taht using the newer chip mobile computing will be far better, but appears like we’ll wait a bit longer. We’re looking at something about five hours 42 minutes on a single charge, that is about the exact same ballpark using the likes of the Dell XPS 15 Touch, but a pretty reduce than the MacBook Pro 15-Inch Retina Show. It might weigh more than the svelte ultraportables, nevertheless it will final nearly provided that most 15-inch laptops. This laptop can final adequate for any day at college Dell 7350 Charger or at the workplace on moderate use.The ASUS VivoBook F510UA-AH51 at Amazon is more affordable than most 15-inch laptops, and with its feature set, it really is the most effective worth about for any spending budget. Though the 1000GB of storage is more than enough for many customers, it would happen to be far better if Asus would have thrown in an solid-state-drive for loading apps and programs, even though the hard drive is usually used exclusively for storage.Now, Asus is offering a newer iteration with the same model, the VivoBook F510UA-AH55, with the same 1TB difficult drive and an extra 128GB SSD for Windows applications and apps; the rest from the capabilities and style remain the same. The storage choices notwithstanding, the Vivobook AH51 remains a value obtain for any person wanting a nice-looking laptop using the suitable features you’d will need in an entry-level notebook for college and perform.Asus VivoBook F510UA laptop provides a robust set of innards and is undeniably a highly effective device around the paper. Let’s possess a speedy glance at what does the laptop offers. Below the hood, the laptop is powered by the latest and also the most sophisticated, 8th Generation of Intel Core i5–8250U processor. The processor is by default clocked at 1.6GHz which can, nevertheless, rattle up to three.4GHz in its turbo mode.Multitasking plus the applications around the device are handled by an 8GB of DDR4 RAM. Storage department on the laptop is bolstered by a 1TB of HDD, that is while ample volume of storage, nevertheless lags behind SSD in terms of data transfer speeds and efficiency. We hoped that the laptop comes with an SSD storage, this could have already been a deadly combination for a laptop priced below $500. The laptop comes with an integrated graphics coprocessor and does not include any additional GPU.VivoBook also comes having a fingerprint sensor to add a layer of security for the device Asus G751JL Charger plus the data in it. That is absolutely among the rare finds in a laptop priced at this range.As far as upgradability of the hardware is concerned, the laptop’s RAM may be upgraded up to 16GB, and its challenging drive is also swappable with strong state drive. So, overall ASUS VivoBook F510UA-AH51 Laptop is usually a future-proof device which not just provides all current generation hardware specifications but additionally guarantees that it stays as much as date with time.
ASUS VivoBook F510UA laptop comes with Windows ten Residence variant pre-installed. Windows ten, which can be world’s most made use of computer system operating technique, requirements no introduction of what it is capable of. The laptop doesn’t include any a lot on the bloatware and is, hence, quickly, efficient, and nag-free. The device, having said that, does come pre-installed with a few of the productive aspects and tools, which ought to improve the overall productivity from the method.The CPU is absolutely among the highlights about this pc, since it is amongst the 1st to possess the all new Core i5–8250U. Component in the eight generation of Intel chips, this Kaby Lake R processor has substantial improvements from its preceding generation.The i5–8250U is actually a quad-core processor with hyper-threading, permitting it to possess a pretty amazing benchmark. Despite its rather low base frequency of 1.60 GHz, its maximum turbo Dell 9T48V Battery can go as higher as three.80 GHz. The processor itself is fairly energy efficient, allowing this ASUS to have a superior than typical battery life.If you want a slightly quicker CPU, you could also want to check our i7–8550U guide. The i7–8550U is slightly more rapidly than the i5–8250U and they are both portion in the eight generation of Intel chips.The GPU within this laptop will most likely disappoint those with gaming aspiration on a brand new laptop pc. The graphics card in this laptop is integrated, which definitely does not supply a terrific knowledge.If you would like a similarly priced laptop for gaming purposes, I recommend these powered by the all new NVIDIA MX150. There are actually some fairly affordable laptops charger inspiron 15 3567 using this new GPU.The storage can also be some thing pretty important to think about when buying a laptop. This ASUS comes having a 1 TB hard-drive disk, which, to become honest, came as fairly a surprise it. Its thin profile and new CPU would possess a a lot greater overall performance with a solid state drive.Nonetheless, 1 TB is often a large amount of space and most users may have a lot more than adequate space to shop their operates, movies or games. Windows ten boots swiftly and this HDD features a fairly good overall performance thinking about the all round price tag from the laptop.Connectivity is yet another important challenge in any laptop, particularly as the quantity of cool peripherals CP360065 01 tend to proliferate more than the years. The ASUS F510UA-AH51 presents the fours USB ports. Aside from that it also an d HDMI port plus a SD Card slot. Ultimately, its Wi-Fi is quite stable applying the 802.11ac technologies.
Verdict
The ASUS F510UA is absolutely the right selection if you want a very good value for the cash thin laptop. Even when it’s less potent than upper versions, specially within the ZenBook series,the F510UA continues to be a fantastic laptop.Even though its not the most beneficial laptop for gaming purposes, you’ll want to definitely contemplate it in case you are an occasional gamer. Finally, its all new Core i5–8250U processor includes a terrific benchmark and its performance on Windows 10 is very remarkable, even when its unplugged. | https://medium.com/@adapterone17/asus-vivobook-f510ua-review-5b807973fcc2 | ['Adapter Chen'] | 2019-02-26 06:30:55.617000+00:00 | ['Charger', 'Laptop Reviews', 'Asus', 'Battery'] |
Slow Progress is Better Than No Progress | Think of one of your goals, and imagine achieving it…right now. It’d feel great, right? For a bit, yeah, but the feeling would likely wear off pretty quickly. It usually does.
Why is that? It’s because of a trait we all share, a term coined “Hedonic Adaptation”. To sum it up, we love the thrill of the chase, but the satisfaction we get from catching the thing we were chasing only lasts a little while. Soon after, we find something else to chase, and the cycle continues, which is why it’s also known as the hedonic treadmill.
It can sound ungrateful or pessimistic if we look at it through the never-satisfied lens, or it can be accepted and used as a powerful tool for increasing motivation.
Sure, we don’t get lasting satisfaction from catching something, but we love the chase the entire time…no matter how long it lasts.
We love the chase so much that the moment we catch one thing — achieve a goal — we immediately start looking for the next thing to run after.
So, while it’s awesome to grow exponentially and crush your goals as fast as possible…
…you’ll likely be more happy overall if you take your time getting there, because you’ll have more time to enjoy the progress you’re making. Plus, the exponential growth can only last for so long before it levels off — to stick with the running on a treadmill analogy, you’ll eventually get tired and slow down — and that can be very demotivating. There are countless businesses that have made bad decisions trying to grow as fast as they did during an exponential growth period.
Don’t make that mistake. Slow and steady wins the race. If you move forward by just 1% per day for a year, you’ll be almost 4x better than when you started! It all adds up.
If you happen to improve at a faster pace for a while, fantastic! Enjoy it. But when things are humming along as fast as possible, just enjoy the process. Look back at how far you’ve come, not just today, but over the past few weeks, months or years.
Remember, regardless of how fast you’re moving, it’s better than not making progress at all.
All of this isn’t to say that reaching the destination and achieving goals isn’t awesome. It definitely is. The point is to consider whether you care more about one moment in time — the moment you catch what you’re chasing — or all of the moments that lead to it, combined.
Running around aimlessly is nowhere near as thrilling as a chase, so always have a goal in sight, but remember that it’s the progress itself that gives you consistent, lasting joy.
So, don’t worry if it’s taking longer than you thought it would. Just keep making progress. | https://medium.com/make-progress/slow-progress-is-better-than-no-progress-9c4dd223ce72 | ['Kyle Richey'] | 2019-11-14 19:01:02.909000+00:00 | ['Goal Setting', 'Productivity', 'Personal Development', 'Progress', 'Personal Growth'] |
With The Right Question, We Can Find The Answer to How We Want To Live Our Lives. | With The Right Question, We Can Find The Answer to How We Want To Live Our Lives.
Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash
“Have you decided how you want to live?” It’s not what you will do for a living, but your holistic approach to life in general.
Late at night, I think it was around 2 A.M. I was laying down about to end my day, while I unanticipatedly had a crystal clear answer of how I want to live my life from now on.
Because of the plenty of time I have at the moment during the pandemic, the only activity I diligently do is Yoga to keep my body and mind healthy. At the Yoga class, I’ve met people who have become a parent and surely have more life experiences than me. The life stories they shared got me thinking “Is that how they want to live their lives?” Is that the path they had chosen? As a housewife, as a Yoga teacher, as a single mother, as a bachelor. | https://medium.com/illumination/with-the-right-question-we-can-find-the-answer-to-how-we-want-to-live-our-lives-a4fe5a11f288 | ['Andriani Carolina'] | 2020-12-02 13:39:41.889000+00:00 | ['Questions', 'Development', 'Survival', 'Life Hacking', 'Thoughts And Feelings'] |
Longview vs Ryan | Texas High School Football Live Stream 12/26/2020 | Longview vs Ryan | Texas High School Football Live Stream 12/26/2020 Caringinjaya ·Dec 25, 2020
Longview vs Ryan | Texas High School Football Live Stream 12/26/2020
Watch Here Live: http://syehkhambali.sportfb.com/hsfootball.php
Lobos
9–2
Raiders
11–0
The Ryan (Denton, TX) varsity football team has a neutral playoff game vs. Longview (TX) on Saturday, December 26 @ 2p.
Game Details: at Mesquite Memorial Stadium
This game is a part of the “2020 Football State Championships — 2020 Football Conference 5A D1 “ tournament. | https://medium.com/@caringinjaya4/longview-vs-ryan-texas-high-school-football-live-stream-12-26-2020-c697c18c04de | [] | 2020-12-25 12:46:24.819000+00:00 | ['American', 'Denton Texas', 'Texas Rangers', 'Texas', 'American History'] |
There Is No Such Thing As A Moderate Mainstream Centrist | I just watched two mainstream political videos back-to-back from what is conventionally referred to as America’s political “center”, and just by coincidence they happened to completely contradict each other. The first was a Bill Maher segment in which he barely even attempted to tell any jokes, spending the time instead explaining to his viewers why the Republican Party is “the party of Putin.” The second video was a recent CNN interview with Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, who proclaimed that the US needs to be “more aggressive” toward Russia “across the board”, and described his party’s unified efforts to help escalate that aggression.
Royce is a Republican.
I have never recommended that anyone watch a Bill Maher video before, and I don’t expect that I ever will again, but this segment was really extraordinary in the shrillness and seriousness with which Maher advanced his ridiculous argument that the Republican Party loves Russia. I recommend taking a look at it and just noting the near absence of actual jokes and the few pity laughs the audience gives him. It’s fascinating:
Prior to that segment Maher had on the professional liar and “Saint Mueller Preserve Us” t-shirt salesman Malcolm Nance to give a pretend expert assessment of US intelligence and Russia. During that interview Nance falsely claimed that the Russian president was a “former director of the KGB,” and Maher ejaculated that he wishes the US intelligence community would stage a coup and take over the government of the United States.
This is what passes for the American political “center” today. Two mainstream parties, both backed to the hilt by the entirety of corporate media from coast to coast, arguing with each other over who is doing more to help advance cold war aggressions between two nuclear superpowers. They’re not arguing about whether or not the world should be destroyed, they’re arguing over who gets to push the button.
This is because both of America’s mainstream parties are fully owned and operated by a nationless plutocracy whose nationless empire is fed by war, ecocide and exploitation, and so are the media outlets which report on those parties. The Democrats and the Republicans advance policies which benefit the warmongering, ecocidal and exploitative agendas of their plutocratic owners, and then argue on Fox and CNN over who’s doing it best.
There is nothing moderate about any of this. The term “centrist” is meant to imply the moderate position centralized between two extremes, the far left and the far right, but the important issues being advanced by the Bill Maher/Ed Royce so-called center don’t fit anywhere on the left-to-right political spectrum which puts socialism on the left and capitalism on the right.
This is why I say that mainstream moderate centrists are a myth. They don’t exist. The notion that the US should definitely be escalating tensions with a nuclear superpower is being promoted by these mainstream “centrists”, as was the destruction of Iraq, Libya, and Syria, as is the continued decimation of the environment and economic injustice caused by rampant neoliberalism, as is the ever-expanding Orwellian surveillance network of the US and its international intelligence alliance, but these sociopathic policies have no place anywhere on the left-to-right spectrum anymore than the idea that it’s great to stomp on puppies does.
Where would you say someone who likes to stomp on puppy dogs sits on the political spectrum? Does her pro-puppy stomping position actually tell you anything about her political ideology or her position on socialist vs free market solutions?
Imagine if every time you turned on a TV screen or went to look up the news online, there was nothing but news reports about how important it is for everyone to stomp on puppies as often as possible. There’s lively debate about whether one’s left foot or right foot should be used to stomp on the puppies, but there’s a unanimous consensus that the puppies must be stomped upon. Because this idea is unanimously circulated to the general public and solemnly agreed upon by plutocrat-funded experts and authorities, puppy stomping has become a mainstream position that most people agree is good and right. This would be labeled the moderate, centrist position by the majority.
If you were to say to these people that you think it’s always bad and wrong to stomp puppies to death under any circumstances and using either foot, they’d brand you a crazed lunatic. The talking heads on television might even run an occasional special about the deranged extremist and their ponies-and-unicorns absolutist anti-puppy stomping position.
Now imagine if you met someone who agreed with you that it’s bad and wrong to stomp on puppy dogs. Their anti-puppy stomping position wouldn’t actually tell you anything about the rest of their political ideology, but you both agree that stomping on puppies is something that should probably be avoided. To the mainstream “centrists” in our hypothetical scenario, you would both look like you’re politically aligned with one another, even if you’ve got nothing else in common besides your opposition to puppy stomping. You might support economic equality and workers owning the means of production, and the other person might believe in rugged individualism and free market solutions to all problems, but to the mainstream, you’re both the same.
“Horseshoe theory!” they might exclaim. “They both moved so far away from the center that they’re now closer to each other than they are to us!”
And maybe that hurts your feelings. You don’t like to be told that your values have somehow led you to embrace their opposite; that you strayed so far from moderation that you now stand for everything you thought you oppose. But it only hurts because it isn’t true.
I often see horseshoe theory being used by mainstream Democrats to accuse progressives and socialists of being closer to the far right than they are to the Hillary Clinton “center”, which is a very effective shutdown because those groups generally oppose the things that the far right stands for. I’ve been told that libertarians and other antiwar conservatives are often smeared by Republican-aligned “centrists” in the same way on their side of the spectrum. But it’s pure fallacy. The fact that you might oppose military expansionism or whatever doesn’t make you ideologically “closer” to someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum anymore than mutual opposition to puppy stomping does.
Horseshoe theory is only true in the sense that the further you move away from establishment narratives, the less you buy into them. It doesn’t matter what your ideological reason for moving away from the CNN/CIA mainstream narratives, because as long as you’re not buying into the indoctrination, those narratives no longer make sense. The only way to see things like the drug war, support for Israeli government massacres of Palestinian protesters, or facilitating the slaughter of Yemeni civilians as normal and acceptable is to be propagandized into it; otherwise it just looks like the barbarism that it is. Recognizing the evils of mainstream “centrism” doesn’t make you ideologically similar to someone on the other side of the political spectrum who sees the same thing, it just means you’re two people who don’t like stomping on puppies.
There are of course people who espouse a central position on the left-right spectrum between proper communism and unregulated capitalism, as well as a central position between anarchism and totalitarianism, but those who maintain such a position without accepting the perverse omnicidal doctrines of the CNN/CIA mainstream are as rare as hen’s teeth. They are not mainstream by any stretch of the imagination.
No, what most people think of as “centrists” are actually violent, ecocidal, oppressive Orwellian extremists. The only reason they get to paint themselves as moderates is because vast fortunes have been spent on mass media propaganda to turn those depraved positions into mainstream perspectives. The fact that they’ve bought their way into the majority consensus doesn’t make them moderate, sensible or sane, though. Mainstream narratives do not have any rightful claim to truth or health, and everyone who sees any part of their lies should oppose those lies tooth and claw, wherever they sit on the political spectrum.
The best way to overthrow the oligarchs who profit from and promote this dangerous mainstream doctrine is to relentlessly attack the corporate media propaganda machine they use to manufacture consent for it. Expose their lies wherever you see them and ignore all their attempts to shame and bully you away from doing so. We can’t afford to let these monsters dictate mainstream perspectives any longer.
__________________________
The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to get on the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 | https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-moderate-mainstream-centrist-b80991c80408 | ['Caitlin Johnstone'] | 2018-08-06 01:09:15.525000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Propaganda', 'Mainstream Media', 'Oligarchy', 'Government'] |
American Police Need Verbal Judo | Communication, Racial Sensitivity Training Key to Reducing Deaths
The four white Los Angeles police officers videotaped brutally beating Rodney King in a 1991 traffic stop after high-speed car chase were a week away from taking George J. Thompson’s class on Verbal Judo.
Had the officers completed the training of the college professor turned police officer — who preached persuasion over force — the King violence may have been avoided.
Since that historic incident, many more citizens possess cell phones capturing footage of unarmed Black men being killed at the hands of white police officers.
No incident has been more impactful than the death last spring in Minneapolis of George Floyd, who smothered after a White police officer knelt on his back. The killing has reverberated through the nation resulting in massive calls for change in how society regards African Americans.
Many of the deadly police confrontations occured during routine calls. Eric Garner died in 2014 after being choked by New York police summoned to investigate allegations of his illegally selling single cigarettes without tax stamps.
Freddie Gray died in a Baltimore police van in 2015 after running from police. Gray was shackled without a seatbelt, breaking his neck after being thrown around the wagon. Last summer, Rayshard Brooks of Atlanta died after falling asleep in a Wendy’s drive thru line.
Floyd’s life ended after police responded to a call that he passed a fake $20 bill. Though Thompson has died, his 1993 seminal book contends police failures to effectively communicate with the public escalates such non-violent situations.
The “cocked tongue” is the most powerful weapon police possess, he writes.
The man who taught Shakespeare and Milton developed his Verbal Judo theory, and training institute in Auburn, N.Y., when he quit his cushy college job to test his communications theories as a police officer.
His first night on the job, the frustrated Thompson ripped three uncooperative drivers from the car and threw them to the ground.
His tactics changed when answering a domestic dispute with his hand resting on the butt of his .357 magnum. His training sergeant walked into the scrabble, sat down, and began reading the newspaper.
“Folks, folks, excuse me over here,” Bruce Fair said. “You got a phone? Look here, a 1950 Dodge in good condition. I know it’s late, but I don’t want to miss out on this.”
The fight evaporated with Fair asking: “Is anything the matter? Anything my partner and I can do for you?” The couple replied: “No, not really.”
Thompson’s call to master mind to mouth harmony, was born. Police officers traditionally arrive at tense situations with what Thompson called the “classic macho approach.”
Police officers routinely approach a man with a knife by challenging the guy, pointing their gun, and shouting: “Put that knife down or I’ll take you out! I’ll blow your head off.”
Thompson’s recommends a different approach: “Hey friend, let’s do each other a favor. You don’t want to spend the night downtown with us, eating our food, sleeping on our steel cot, and missing your woman. And I don’t want to sit at a typewriter for a couple of hours doing paperwork on this.”
But is Thompson’s gentle and more passive way realistic? Gary McLhinney, former president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Baltimore, one of America’s most violent cities, says dealing with suspects hopped up on drugs, unable — or unwilling — to reason, makes persuasion difficult.
“It takes two to deescalate a situation,” McLhinney said. “If the person I’m dealing with is not in the mood to deescalate, it isn’t going to happen. But I do believe in the Verbal Judo concept and that words are important and if you can be taught to use the right words, you can prevent things from getting out of hand.”
McLhinney, who also served as a Maryland police chief, said a survey of officers found they sought more training in one key area: communicating with the public. One officer told McLhinney “no one ever taught him how to talk to people.”
The contrasts may have been best displayed in the killing of Brooks on June 12. The first police officer found Brooks behind the wheel asleep in a Wendy’s drive thru line. After tapping on the window and getting Brooks to open the door, he asks the driver if he is okay or had a bad day, referring to him as “my man.”
Brooks nods off again and the officer asks him to park his car in the lot and take a nap. Suspecting Brooks is intoxicated, the officer calls a drunk driving police specialist, who shows up on the scene employing a more aggressive style.
Though respectful, the officer gets argumentative with Brooks and the police pair talk with Brooks, who failed a sobriety test, for 40 minutes. The incident escalated when the second officer grabbed Brooks’ hand to place behind his back to arrest him.
Brooks, who was on probation and knew he would return to jail if convicted, wrestled with the officers, tried to grab their tasers and was eventually shot to death.
The issue of race has thrown gasoline on American police communications, observers say. Phyliss Alexander once taught sensitivity training to the police academy in Allentown, Pa.
In her work, Alexander employed a simple test. Participants were asked to scrawl across the top of a paper all the ethnic groups they knew such as African Americans, Asians and Hispanics. On the left side of the paper, test takers listed social institutions, such as church, school, work, and community.
Alexander then asks participants to list — on a scale of 1 to 10 — their interaction with each group in each institution. Participant numbers are traditionally low.
“We are set up to be in isolation from one another,” said Alexander, a former director and current board member with the National Coalition Building Institute, a Washington, D.C. non-profit created to reduce racism in schools, communities, and corporations.
“We live separate lives in the same country,” Alexander said.
White officers involved in the deaths of Black citizens likely have had little interaction growing up with people of color, Alexander said. So how do you raise your numbers? Read the literature, taste the food, listen to the music, and try to consciously interact with those who are different from you, she said.
Black officers are not involved in the killing of whites because they have been immersed in a white world, Alexander acknowledged.
“Black officers are going to be trained in the way society trains us and gives white people the benefit of the doubt in a way that they are not trained to give Black people the benefit of the doubt,” Alexander said. “We receive the same mis-training that everybody else does on what it means to be white and what it means to be Black.”
McLhinney agrees that racial sensitivity training in law enforcement is lacking. He estimates officers receive from two to eight hours of such training over a four-month academy class.
“A lot of racial sensitivity training I see is really kind of off-the-shelf stuff, it’s not meaningful,” said McLhinney, approaching 40 years in law enforcement. “Any training needs to be reinforced; it needs to be continual.”
“We do that with firearms training,” McLhinney added. “Intense introductory firearms training is always a part of a police academy and then it’s followed up with, sometimes every six months, sometimes every year, that’s how you become proficient in something.”
Thompson writes that he is not suggesting that law enforcement — charged with the difficult job of bringing order to chaos — respect the actions of hardened criminals over hapless victims.
All people want to be treated with dignity, asked rather than be told and be given options over threats, Thompson says. He recalls the words of a North Dakota police officer.
“We treat people like ladies and gentlemen not because they are,” the officer said. “But because we are.”
Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast interview with Gary McLhinney below.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/49ZsO717Z6b7TgWeDrjn9V | https://medium.com/@gerardshields-75700/american-police-need-verbal-judo-29930716f786 | ['Gerard Shields'] | 2020-12-12 12:18:47.213000+00:00 | ['Police', 'Communications Strategy', 'Racial Justice'] |
Mimi Monday | Mimi Monday
It’s ok to not to show
Mimi got to go to a horse show this weekend! Unfortunately that was about all she got to do. Just go there.
I have been monitoring some hind leg puffy-ness that started a few weeks ago. She has not been at all lame or sore.
On Friday, everything was set up and ready to go by about 2PM. I pulled out Mimi and lunged her. She just wasn’t quite right. It had rained and I was making sure she didn’t play on the line.
I was THAT girl. The one who didn’t let her horse play on the lunge line. If only people knew I was trying to protect her from herself.
I decided to ice her, continue using dry standing wraps, and only hand walk her until we got home. I was disappointed but still optimistic. It was Mimi’s first away show. She was still getting all of the essential stuff she needs to experience as a show horse.
Loading, unloading, and spending time being driven around
Watching other horses leave and come back
Meeting and seeing new horses
Sleeping in a strange stall
Walking around at a show
Being in a strange arena
Hearing the announcer
Being in a large group of horses
Hearing different people talking, moving and doing what they do
Trusting that I am with her and not leaving her there
She really is an incredible horse. The timing of the last day left Mimi as the last horse standing in a barn that had been full of 20. She called out only once. I said aloud to her, don’t worry Mimi I’ll take you home I just need to put everything else in the trailer first. Then there Mimi stood, quieter than some of the best World Champions I know, waiting patiently to be loaded last.
I kept remembering an article throughout the weekend. It described a dressage rider who bowed out of the Rio olympics due to her horse not feeling well. Luckily, I have managed to separate my ego and my intentions when it comes to going to shows, but many have not.
If we do not put the health of our horses first, why do we even show in the first place? | https://medium.com/mimi-monday/mimi-monday-fc0f2545489b | ['Chelsea Mansour'] | 2017-07-11 02:33:28.675000+00:00 | ['Aphc', 'Horses', 'Horseback Riding', 'Sports', 'Horse Shows'] |
Stepping Out of Media Overload. In April 2020, a friend and I decided… | In April 2020, a friend and I decided to start a digital media literacy initiative. We wanted to combat the rampant misinformation happening at the start of COVID-19. The idea was to infiltrate people’s social media feeds with thoughtful posts about how to approach current topics. Thus, ThinkFirst News was born. At the onset, this worked well. Our page’s posts were consistent and people took notice. Then the news got worse, misinformation more nefarious, and online comments more divided. It culminated with an explosion in our home country of Lebanon that shook our ability to handle the negativity.
We limped through a few weeks following the blast. Our posts became infrequent and as we got ready to ramp up again, then the elections in the US came crashing in. This was the final blow for my own sanity. The sheer volume of unpleasant, poorly reported news, and online vitriol broke me. Operating ThinkFirst became quite difficult. It felt as though there were no more lessons to teach, and no one to listen. No matter what we would say, we would upset someone from the left or the right. It became clear that the only effective way to reach the masses was to pander to a side, but we were not interested in that.
As the year comes to a close a new strain of COVID-19 is emerging, we’ve seen almost no change in these behaviours. ThinkFirst still gets an occasional update, but it’s been challenging to figure out what to say next. This year, I was fortunate enough to land a Ground News as a client. They are tackling online polarization by highlighting the political leanings of news outlets. While I laud their effort, we need more efforts like beyond news outlets. We need solutions across a variety of different areas if we are to gain any traction towards constructive social discourse.
The spirit of ThinkFirst lives on, even if we have momentarily found it difficult to find inspiration. For the last decade there have been two issues at the forefront of my mind: Digital media literacy and proactivity towards algorithms. We need to inform our next iterations of digital tools with the latest discoveries in neuroscience. We can no longer sit idly by as our devices place funnels of sh*t down our throats. The giant digital platforms, once the beacons of innovation, cannot correct the course of society on their own.
My time for sitting back and thinking about this ended in early 2020. I have taken some preliminary actions towards solutions but I am not satisfied. There is far too much work to do, far too many minds to save, and far too much abuse to curtail. There are also far too many possibilities. I will not pretend to be confident about what the next step should be, but I know I want to take it.
If you are also interested in this, I would love to meet you — even if it’s for a sanity-saving chat. You can reach me on LinkedIn, Twitter, or my email, which you can find on my website.
We can only fix this together. | https://medium.com/@charliegedeon/media-theory-overload-bd993e0e902c | ['Charlie Gedeon'] | 2020-12-23 05:55:35.840000+00:00 | ['Personal', 'Media Literacy', 'Social Media', 'News', 'Media Theory'] |
Latest Telegram Groups Link Tamil | Hi friends, If you need to join Telegram Group Link Tamil you are perfectly located. Simply go to the link given underneath and join Tamil Group and you will join the group. Keep in mind, you should peruse every one of the principles before joining the group.
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On the off chance that you disapprove of the Telegram group and Telegram group individuals, You can contact the Telegram group administrator for a protest.
Tamil Telegram Group Links List –
As we as a whole realize Tamil Nadu is a truly outstanding and most wonderful spot in India. aside from that their people groups are so unassuming and all-around refined, So assuming you are from Tamil or live outside and looking for Tamil news, spots, and data groups then here we present probably the best group links for you, to join simply click on the link button and you are added on the group.
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For more click Here | https://medium.com/@hassanshah7672/latest-telegram-groups-link-tamil-91b3f8b80e3f | ['Whatsapp Groups'] | 2021-12-27 12:54:52.098000+00:00 | ['Whatsapp Group Links', 'Groups', 'WhatsApp', 'Telegramgroups', 'Telegram'] |
My father’s death by suicide inspired me to learn how to just ‘be’ | My father’s death by suicide inspired me to learn how to just ‘be’
It’s through this present-tense state of mind that I find my rhythm, my sense of calm, and my appreciation for all that is.
By Dana Mich
Nine months ago, I stood at my father’s burial trying to gather my thoughts before speaking about his life to family and friends. It was particularly difficult because I had arrived at a day I had been trying to prevent, and had feared, for a very long time. My dad had just ended his life. But then, as I was standing there searching for the words, I remembered an article I had read only seven days prior. It was about ways to help yourself feel safe in an insane world. And so I began by sharing what I had learned:
That “anxiety needs the future,” and “depression needs the past.”
My dad suffered deeply from both of these things: his fear and lack of control over all that lay ahead, and his regret over the things he couldn’t go back and change. He suffered from an unhealthy relationship with time. He lost his footing in the here-and-now. And it made him struggle — as all too many of us do — with the age-old Shakespearean dilemma: “To be, or not to be.”
Though it’s still difficult for me to admit it, this very question had begun to plague my mind just six months before my father died, during my own first battle with anxiety. And so as I stood there with my father about to be lowered into the ground with many knowing eyes upon me, I shared an answer that the article had given: to “be present.” It was an answer that spoke to my heart, and so I told them that — in that moment, and as hard a moment as it was — I was grateful to be with them.
Ever since that day, I have been thinking a lot about being present. I’ve been thinking about being centered, being grounded. In short, I’ve been thinking about … being. And I began wondering why it was so difficult to come up with a concrete meaning for what was perhaps the most basic verb in the English language, without consulting the online search-engine gods. And I worried: Had I forgotten what it was to just be?
Eventually, I turned to Google, and this is what it had to say:
Be /bē/ (verb.):
1. exist.
2. occupy a position in space.
3. stay in the same condition.
Sounds easy enough, right? Well … I’m not so sure, to be honest. After all, the word “be” is actually most commonly used in its fourth meaning: “possess the state, quality, or nature specified.” This is when “be” is followed by other words rather than a period. Other — sometimes aspirational — words used by and for us humans like “smart,” “healthy,” “hardworking,” “good-looking,” “athletic,” etc. The list goes on and on.
After some thinking on the subject, I began to wonder if the pressure of focusing on the many things we know we are supposed to “be” but sometimes fall short of (or believe we fall short of) diminishes our ability to more simply … be. To be in the traditional, unembellished sense: to be comfortable in our own skin; to be one with ourselves and our surroundings; to be at peace. (i.e. definitions 1–3 above).
So, I guess my question really is … have we as a society forgotten how to just be?
Ironically, I think it’s when we constantly try to “be” too many things at once (or perhaps one astronomical thing) that we entirely forget how to exist with any amount of calmness and composure in the present moment. When stressed beyond our normal capacity, our minds scatter and it can feel like we aren’t even inhabiting our own body. We can end up spiraling out of control, and losing our sense of place and time and self. We land somewhere dark and frightening and terrible. And it’s then, when we get to the very bottom of that downward spiral, that we think it might be better simply “not to be.” Because at that point, the thought of being anything at all has become unbearable.
I know it all too well. I’ve been there once for a horrific, acute six-week stint, and I hope never to be brought back again. So, in the spirit of National Suicide Prevention Month, I thought I’d share how I go about keeping anxiety and depression at bay. Yes, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about just being. But more than that, I’ve been putting it into practice. I’ve learned how to quiet my mind and focus on the present moment. I meditate, breathe and practice yoga. And building from that, I write, read, run, and do all the things I’ve always enjoyed.
But here’s what’s different: I’m newly practicing mindfulness and gratitude all the while. I’m ensuring that my brain is present where my body is. I’m making the effort to focus and mentally expand upon on all the simple things that keep me going. It’s through this present-tense state of mind that I find my rhythm, my sense of calm, and my appreciation for all that is.
Now, to be honest, it doesn’t always come easy (even for a mentally healthy, happy, neurotransmitter-balanced brain). In fact, it truly takes constant effort. But if, God forbid, there is to be a future struggle in store for me, I also know better how to take it back to the basics. I know how to close my eyes, to find myself … and to be. To truly just be.
Perhaps that is our answer. | https://medium.com/thewashingtonpost/my-fathers-death-by-suicide-inspired-me-to-learn-how-to-just-be-4501b0934a9e | ['Washington Post'] | 2016-09-12 21:31:50.940000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Meditation', 'Mental Health', 'Depression', 'Mindfulness'] |
To London, In London | Resting upon the River Thames, this city is one of the major tourist cities and investment hubs of the United Kingdom.
With ancient architecture, cultural diversity, and tragic history, it holds 26th position out of 300 influential cities of the world.
But truth be told, the town was not always that way…
In the early days when Romans founded the settlement, it was nothing but a patch of green and open water.
But over the years, the land witnessed its significant rise and fall; passing from Roman emperors to Brittonic tribes, Vikings lords, and Saxon Kings; each imprinting their presence on the bricks of erected buildings.
Time after time, people from across the world journeyed towards it for the greener pastures, subsequently flourishing the economy. Now, the city’s culture is so vast six out of ten seem to bear an eastern ancestry.
What started as a 60,000 Roman population, the capital now hosts 8.63 million people and 65 million overseas visitors, marking it the most populated city of the UK.
In fact, the bustle is so great that you would have to pay fees for merely passing through the heart of the city.
This is the magnificent London city. | https://medium.com/@zarqoonamin/to-london-in-london-b111616120c0 | ['Zarqoon Amin'] | 2020-12-30 05:51:47.662000+00:00 | ['Articles', 'Creative Non Fiction', 'Creative Writing'] |
Objective Data for a Polarizing Subject | Working for transparency on a murky subject.
I was excited to work for an organization focusing on human rights and Human Rights First says it all in the name. They are a non-profit focused on human rights in the USA which is a sensitive topic for many people as some believe there is no work to be done. A group dedicated to pushing the nation to living up to it’s own hype is something I can get behind.
The specific issue my team was tasked with involved giving transparency to police use of force in America. My part in this project was acquiring and preparing the data to be presented. The end product would be a website mapping the locations and dates for as many instances of police use of force as we could access reliable data about.
A source of inspiration and data. Mapping Police Violence . org
Because it was such a volatile subject I was a bit concerned with how this site might be used, but as a publicly available resource with objective data I felt it was ethical to work on. As I worked I found myself realizing a hidden issue with the project. The data we could show would present regions and departments who were the most honest in the worst light and departments who do not share their data as blameless. I wanted to work on this project to increase transparency not punish it. I voiced my concern and left it to the web design team to include warnings about how the information appears.
Example of data formatting
Step one of my work was always going to be locating data. Thankfully much of this work had been done by previous teams and I was able to use journalistic source for additional data. My next task was to prepare the data to be formatted into something useable. Much of the cleaning had already been done and I was very grateful for the previous teams. After a short time cleaning data that had been missed I set about compiling all the data into one useable set. This was the most time consuming as although the data was clean each source had a unique structure to their data and so I had to reformat the data while combining the individual parts. There were occasional errors in the data (dates, coordinates) so I had to correct those as well to keep the data clean uniform and usable.
The final total of incidents found 1995–2020
I coordinated with the Web backend designer to make sure the data would be received and useable. The data I worked on was used to populate the database which was used in the frontend. This was static data and the API created by the rest of the Data Science team adds updated data on to the existing set.
Trello for coordinating tasks
After getting my primary tasks completed I was able to provide source information as well as write some code to provide more information from the API. I worked with the web team to try and provide help when I could or direction for where we could go with the data.
Leaving the Project as Thus!
We were able to add many features and realize a lot of the work done in preparation by previous teams.
We were able to send real data from the Data Science API which is accepted by the backend of the web team. We populated the map with an extensive base of data giving the project more weight than a sparsely populated product. We added more data types to the base of the project to allow for more displayable information for a user.
The future teams working on this project will have more categories of data and more easily manipulated data to implement in creation of features. The likely additional features will be searching by type of force or other search criteria on the map. Another feature may be finding the types of force used by city and prevalence. The next team may even decide to include an actual predictive model with the site passing data from the user rather than just adding updated data. I foresee trouble with limitation of data by the reliable sources as well as the limited span of the data across the USA. I would recommend looking for publicly available police website which might provide even more data from a broader sample of America.
In the end, I feel even stronger as a team member because I was able to communicate with almost every other member of the team and offer assistance. I was able to communicate the limitations of the data and why we were not able to implement certain features or provide a global model even when other members were pushing for them. I think this experience will give me some perspective for my future work. I hope working on such a topical project will make me attractive to other organizations who can see how challenging the data work was. | https://bwitter770.medium.com/objective-data-for-a-polarizing-subject-a2a14c6daa8f | ['Benjamin Ian Witter'] | 2020-11-19 16:02:32.211000+00:00 | ['Police Reports', 'Data Science', 'Human Rights First', 'Human Rights'] |
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Legacy Must Propel Us to Fight Harder | I learned of her passing from a text from a group chat: “RBG died.”
I instantly called my friend and we processed her death together. A few minutes later, I heard my parents talking about her death. A shockwave rippled through my friend group and classmates on Instagram, with a tidal wave of Instagram stories commemorating her life storming my feed. Across America on Friday, similar shockwaves of grief ran through households.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a feminist icon and a Supreme Court justice, died at age 87 of cancer. Her legacy cannot be understated. After graduating from Cornell University, she went on to be one of eight women in her class at Harvard Law School and the second woman to be appointed to the position of Supreme Court justice.
In her lifetime, she worked tirelessly to advocate for the rights of women and marginalized groups, voting to legalize gay marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015 and voting to strick down a restrictive Texas abortion bill in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt in 2016. Before becoming a justice, she led the Women’s Right Project for the American Civil Liberties Union and was one of the attorneys representing Sally Reed in the 1971 Reed vs. Reed case and argued against gender discrimination when it came to awarding estate.
With her death, it’s easy to feel despair. Roe v. Wade is now in more danger than it was before of being overturned. The rights of anyone who isn’t a cisgender white man may be in danger — with a possible 6–3 conservative Supreme Court majority, the rights of the LBGTQ+ community, women, and marginalized racial groups may come under attack. This sense of anguish was echoed all over my social media platforms since her death.
It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to feel uncertain in what has already been a violent, turbulent year.
But we can also take inspiration from RBG’s legacy of perseverance and courage and continue doing what we can to make a difference in this upcoming presidential election. Phonebank, textbank, get involved in campaigns, donate, educate yourself and others, and speak out in person and on social media. We’re faced with a lot, but let’s take inspiration from RBG and continue fighting. | https://medium.com/joes-journal/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-legacy-must-propel-us-to-fight-harder-b68b583c9c97 | ['Lucy Ge'] | 2020-09-29 22:35:50.514000+00:00 | ['Opinion', 'Ruth Bader Ginsburg', 'SCOTUS'] |
Weeknotes S01E00 | [A mid week intro setting up for later]
TL;DR: Starting weeknotes so look out for them. It’s part of embedding changes in our governance. So get excited.
I’ve been meaning to start writing weeknotes for a while, and then guiding the team into using them as a good mechanism to keep connected in our messy, complex increasingly asymmetric world. Our shift to remote working as the norm requires us to shift how we make what we do visible, how we share how we feel on things and importantly how we have time to regularly reflect.
This is going to be one way for me. Worth noting from the outset that this writing doesn’t necessarily provide fully considered view but more an avenue for discussion and comment so I encourage you to get involved.
There is a better way
We’ve been spending a run of time recently thinking about how we do things differently formalising our shift to a digital approach to governance - check this out as a great set of aligned thinking :) Building and enabling digital teams (nhsproviders.org). During the covid period we shifted swiftly to changed governance and now we need to applying the learning and adjust to ensure we land understood behaviours and bringing people on the journey. This isn’t about replacing tried and tested practices — more adjusting to nature of the digital world we work in where iteration, learning and adaptation are key.
Emerging Principles
So weeknotes is going to be my personal shift as a very practical step ( openness and visibility) on applying some emerging draft ‘guardrail’ principles. This builds on some great work we did with Public Digital for our Children’s Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Transformation at an ICS level. Let me know what you think:
· Avoid duplication of effort through collaboration
· Run Show & Tell as the primary governance mechanism
· Welcome change and remain flexible
· Commit to developing skills and networks in partnership
· Base decisions on evidence through ongoing research with users
· Ensure digital inclusion is at the heart of what we do
· Safety and quality is everyone's business - Assure as you go
· Over-communicate on what we are doing and learning
· Use popup governance to resolve issues
There may be more…
There are of course some challenges we are learning from
· Uncertainty has seemed to rise (albeit for me this is uncertainty that was always there — we’re just being more honest) but this gives us flexibility to pivot to meet needs but….
· We need adjust and find better the ways of managing the tsunami of requests (especially the last minute ones)
· Devolving autonomy to teams is not easy and we need to build trust and understanding
· We need to start speaking the same language — what words do we connect with? e.g. Do we understand the difference between portfolio management and project/delivery management?
Again there will be more (I’m sure you all have some to mention)…
Lots to do in this space and a lot of improvements we can make.
So back to weeknotes — My intentions
I’m taking some inspiration from Andy Callow here
Write in a more concise manner than I generally talk Reflect on what happened and how/what I felt since last time I wrote weeknotes — what did I achieve, enjoy and would have liked to do more of. Let you know who I’ve been talking to outside the organisation What i’m looking forward to next week Celebrate what needs celebrating with enthusiasm and openness Give you some insight into what I’m reading and a few thoughts
So get excited and look out end of the week for what I’ve been up to and we will see how this goes. | https://medium.com/@mikecavaye/weeknotes-s01e00-1e4d0393732f | ['Mike Cavaye'] | 2020-12-16 16:55:37.163000+00:00 | ['Weeknotes', 'Governance', 'Something New'] |
Those Pesky What ifs — A Dust Settling Viewpoint with Hindsight | Kids — This is what a divorce looks like
“The problem comes with the captain, he didn’t have a great year, he’s not had a great 18 months but he’s captained the side to number one in the world, so he has to stay” — If I was from the other end of the spectrum, I would’ve surely resonated this snippet on my Twitter feed which, for all its intended purposes, would’ve resulted in exactly on how it sounds. Surprisingly though, it does come from one of the most respected cricket voices in the world today and since I hold Nasser’s opinion in high regard, I am not going to decontextualize something which he said only moments after England failed to chase down 145 on a day 4 Abu Dhabi pitch.
Much like Andrew Strauss in 2012, for whom the above quote was articulated, Sarfaraz too had found himself in a similar predicament for the last 18 months. He was part of a team that had come from the depths of despair in limited overs cricket, under a management which totally revamped the way we played the white ball game. However, I must also painfully admit that the only compounding liability in the team for the duration of those one & half years has been none other than Sarfaraz himself.
Contrary to how I normally assess a player, indulging in stats is pointless right now, those parameters are publicly available and the topic has been beaten to death. I will although, look at Sarfaraz’s failing in making a decision for himself, which not only would’ve saved us the current friction but also enabled a smoother transition to this current era.
When Andrew Strauss lost all semblance of form in early 2012, a period when the English Test team despite their 0–3 loss to Pakistan retained the #1 spot, he only stuck around for another 7 months — duly submitting his retirement from all forms of the game in subsequent late English summer. Funnily enough Sarfaraz was handed a much more tranquil opportunity when Pakistan were returning from their WC19 & the general sentiment around the team was that of, rain playing spoilsport to Pakistan’s plans.
A resignation under these circumstances would’ve given both Sarfaraz & Pakistan a much easier exit on multiple fronts. Firstly it would’ve conveniently resulted in a non-friction end to the relationship and (b) it would’ve helped keep options open for both Sarfaraz and Pakistan because the benefit of having a non-sacked captain is that he can be brought back if and when (please excuse my language) shit hits fan.
Right now Pakistan & Sarfaraz has had a very strained divorce which not only is bad for the player but also bad for the board since essentially there’s no going back from such a predicament, at least not in the immediate future. PCB now has to entirely rely on Babar Azam to keep things afloat in LOIs, while even if the castle comes crashing down & our rankings take a beating because as it stands, it would look even more foolish to go back to a player that was sacked only a few series ago.
The lack for foresight by the PCB and their failure to either enact this policy right after the WC once again proves that the board is still completely reactionary to a crisis and does not have the vision to see through a transition. In addition, it also paints a dire picture on how Pakistan cricket has had no contingency for Sarfaraz’s failure for nearly 3 odd years, and only months before a world T20 tournament are they changing the leadership roles of the team.
With all that said & for what it’s worth, Sarfaraz’s ouster undeniably gives full operational control to the new management led by Misbah & based on the primary component of his selection by the board (linear accountability) all results going forward, whether wins or loses, should be credited to him. His recommendations to the PCB have now fully relieved every aspect of the previous management and there should be no doubts as to who’s in charge in the dressing room. If the last match pressers are any indication, these next couple of seasons could potentially be a bumpy ride with a bygone era being thrust upon a team that would’ve done well without the baggage of the current administration.
As far as Sarfaraz goes, his sacking does make sense (at least statistically). However, a much more convenient resolution could’ve been reached had either party provided the other with an exit which, not only would’ve benefited Pakistan but also, for once, given the board a convenient escape route in case things didn’t go to plan. | https://medium.com/@ahmedwaqas92/those-pesky-what-ifs-a-dust-settling-viewpoint-with-hindsight-35ac25e94b95 | ['Waqas Ahmed'] | 2019-10-19 14:22:05.007000+00:00 | ['Journalism', 'Sarfaraz Ahmed', 'Cricket', 'Sports', 'Pakistan'] |
加拿大安大略省有人感染英國變種病毒 | A columnist in political development in Greater China region, technology and gadgets, media industry, parenting and other interesting topics. | https://medium.com/@frederickyeung-59743/%E5%8A%A0%E6%8B%BF%E5%A4%A7%E5%AE%89%E5%A4%A7%E7%95%A5%E7%9C%81%E6%9C%89%E4%BA%BA%E6%84%9F%E6%9F%93%E8%8B%B1%E5%9C%8B%E8%AE%8A%E7%A8%AE%E7%97%85%E6%AF%92-6eeca59cc117 | ['C Y S'] | 2020-12-27 01:48:50.267000+00:00 | ['UK', 'Canada'] |
Using HashiCorp Packer, Terraform, and Ansible to Set Up Jenkins | This post first appeared on TeKanAid’s blog.
Overview
Welcome to our second post in the blog post series called End-to-End Infrastructure and Application Deployment. In part 1, we discussed the HashiCorp Vault Azure Secrets Engine. That was the first step in securely automating our CI/CD pipeline. The purpose was to deliver Azure credentials dynamically for provisioning resources in Azure.
Our focus for this blog post is on the second step and that is to set up our CI/CD pipeline with Jenkins. This is done by following the steps below:
Use Packer to build an Azure image that has Docker installed. Create a Docker container image that contains Jenkins, Vault, Terraform, and Ansible. Use HashiCorp Vault to retrieve Azure credentials to use with Terraform Run Terraform to build a Jenkins VM in Azure based on the Packer image. Use Ansible to configure the Jenkins VM by running the Docker container.
As a reminder, the goal of this series is to learn best practices around the automation of infrastructure provisioning and application deployment. We cover the concepts of Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, secrets management, dynamic secrets, the secret zero problem, service mesh, and more.
tl;dr you can find the code for the blog series in this GitHub repo. Moreover, below is a video explanation.
HashiCorp Packer, Terraform, and Ansible to Set Up Jenkins — Part 2 of End-to-End Infra and App Deployment
Video Chapters
You can skip to the relevant chapters below:
00:00 — Introduction
01:50 — Agenda
02:44 — Overall Goal
04:17 — Topics To Learn
05:26 — Set Up Jenkins Diagram
07:38 — Folder Structure
09:08 — Packer Demo
18:44 — Terraform Demo
20:56 — Retrieve Azure Creds from Vault
24:13 — Terraform Code Walk-through
31:14 — Ansible Demo
34:23 — Ansible Code Walk-through
36:39 — Dockerfile Walk-through
42:39 — Check Jenkins Machine
43:15 — Recap
Pre-requisites
The following is required to follow along:
Overview of the End-to-End Infrastructure and Deployment Blog Series
As a reminder, let’s take a look at the big picture of this blog series.
The Big Picture
Below is an overview diagram of this 4 part blog series.
Break-Up of the Blog Series
We’ve broken up this blog series into 4 parts:
This is the first step to secure our pipeline. The purpose here is to create dynamic short-lived credentials for Azure. We will then use these credentials to provision the Jenkins VM and app VMs in Azure. The credentials are only valid for 1 day and they expire after that.
Part 2: HashiCorp Packer, Terraform, and Ansible to Set Up Jenkins
This is the topic of this blog post, we use a few tools to build a Jenkins VM that will be used as our CI/CD pipeline. Below are the high-level steps:
Packer to create an Azure image that has Docker installed. Create a Docker container image that contains Jenkins, Vault, Terraform, and Ansible. Use HashiCorp Vault to retrieve Azure credentials that have a 1 day TTL to use with Terraform Run Terraform to build a VM in Azure based on the Packer image that will host our Jenkins pipeline. Ansible then configures the Azure VM to:
Add necessary packages
Pull the Jenkins Docker image
Start the Jenkins container
Here we discuss the secret zero problem and how to solve it. This is often referred to as Vault secure introduction. The issue is that we need to provide the Vault authentication token to our Jenkins pipeline and to our application. Once we have the token, then we can access secrets in Vault. The challenge is how to deliver this Vault token securely. We address secure introduction by using Vault AppRoles, response wrapping, and the Vault-agent.
Finally, we put everything together in this part. Now that we have the Jenkins VM running and we’ve addressed the secret zero problem, we can finally run the pipeline to build our application. Below is the workflow:
A developer commits and pushes code into GitHub The Jenkins pipeline automatically starts due to a webhook from GitHub to Jenkins Jenkins retrieves Azure credentials from Vault Jenkins runs Terraform with these credentials Terraform builds 3 VMs: a Consul server, the Python Webblog app server and a MongoDB server Terraform completes the provisioning and passes the 3 VMs’ fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) to Ansible Ansible configures these VMs to do the following:
Download and install the Consul and Envoy binaries for the service mesh
Pulls the MongoDB Docker image and starts the container
Downloads the Python dependencies for the Webblog app and starts the application
Some Tools Used in this Series
HashiCorp Packer*
HashiCorp Terraform*
HashiCorp Vault*
HashiCorp Consul
Jenkins
Ansible*
Microsoft Azure*
*Featured in this post
Topics to Learn in this Blog Series
Vault Azure Secrets Engine Terraform Building VMs in Azure based on Packer Images* Ansible to Configure an Azure VM* Ansible to Configure an Azure VM The Secret Zero Problem and Vault Secure Introduction Vault App Role Vault Dynamic Database Secrets for MongoDB Vault Transit Secrets Engine Advanced CI/CD Pipeline Workflow using: GitHub(VCS), Jenkins(CI/CD), Terraform(IaC), Ansible(Config Mgmt), Vault(Secrets Mgmt) Consul Service Mesh
*Featured in this post
Setting Up Jenkins Overview
Now let’s focus on part 2 of this series and discuss how to set up Jenkins in an automated fashion.
Setting Up Jenkins
As seen in the diagram above, there are multiple steps to set up our Jenkins machine. The primary persona here is the DevOps engineer. Below are the steps involved:
0. Create a Docker container that has the following binaries: Jenkins, Vault, Terraform, and Ansible
Build an Azure image with Docker installed Request Azure credentials for the day from Vault Vault dynamically creates these credentials in Azure Vault provides the credentials to the DevOps engineer The DevOps engineer injects these credentials into Terraform variables Terraform provisions an Azure VM Terraform returns the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the Azure VM The DevOps engineer adds the FQDN into an inventory file and runs an Ansible playbook Ansible configures the Azure VM to pull the Docker image and run it
Next, we’ll take a look at the configuration of the Dockerfile, Packer, Terraform, and Ansible.
Dockerfile Configuration
Below is the dockerfile that we built to run Jenkins. It also contains the binaries of Vault, Terraform, and Ansible. Jenkins will use these binaries to build our app’s infrastructure and the app itself. You can also find this in the GitHub repo here.
FROM jenkins/jenkins:lts
USER root RUN wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/vault/1.6.0/vault_1.6.0_linux_amd64.zip && unzip vault_1.6.0_linux_amd64.zip && mv vault /usr/local/bin && wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/terraform/0.13.5/terraform_0.13.5_linux_amd64.zip && unzip terraform_0.13.5_linux_amd64.zip && mv terraform /usr/local/bin && rm vault_1.6.0_linux_amd64.zip && rm terraform_0.13.5_linux_amd64.zip RUN DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get update && \
apt-get install -y gnupg2 python3-pip sshpass git openssh-client jq && \
rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* && \
apt-get clean
RUN python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip cffi && \
pip install ansible==2.10.3 && \
pip install mitogen ansible-lint jmespath && \
pip install --upgrade pywinrm USER jenkins
Packer Configuration
You can check out the Packer folder in the GitHub repo for details.
Variables File
Add the Azure credentials to the variables.json file below and remember not to push this to GitHub.
variables.json :
{
"client_id": "3849e308-77c8-4d60-b03c-326e599edb4f",
"client_secret":"xxxxxx",
"tenant_id":"0e3e2e95-8caf-41ca-b4da-e3b33b6c52ec",
"subscription_id": "18392f20-9428-451b-8298-102ed4e39c2a",
"myResourceGroup": "samg-jenkins",
"myPackerImage": "samg-Docker",
"vm_size": "Standard_A0",
"location": "Central US",
"image_sku": "18.04-LTS"
}
Note: When using the Azure credentials, we couldn’t use the ones generated by Vault because they are specific to the samg-jenkins resource group. Packer for some reason uses a random Azure resource group when building. Therefore, it needs credentials that have a scope for any resource group. We used our regular service principal credentials.
Main Packer File
Now you can use the file below to build the Azure image:
ubuntu18.json :
{
"builders": [
{
"type": "azure-arm", "client_id": "{{user `client_id`}}",
"client_secret": "{{user `client_secret`}}",
"tenant_id": "{{user `tenant_id`}}",
"subscription_id": "{{user `subscription_id`}}", "managed_image_resource_group_name": "{{user `myResourceGroup`}}",
"managed_image_name": "{{user `myPackerImage`}}", "os_type": "Linux",
"image_publisher": "Canonical",
"image_offer": "UbuntuServer",
"image_sku": "{{user `image_sku`}}", "azure_tags": {
"dept": "Engineering",
"task": "Image deployment"
}, "location": "{{user `location`}}",
"vm_size": "{{user `vm_size`}}"
}
],
"provisioners": [{
"execute_command": "chmod +x {{ .Path }}; {{ .Vars }} sudo -E sh '{{ .Path }}'",
"inline": [
"apt-get update",
"apt-get upgrade -y",
"apt-get install python3-pip jq -y",
"snap install docker", "/usr/sbin/waagent -force -deprovision+user && export HISTSIZE=0 && sync"
],
"inline_shebang": "/bin/sh -x",
"type": "shell"
}]
}
Creating the Packer Image
To create the template image execute:
packer build -force -var-file variables.json ubuntu18.json
Terraform Configuration
Now let’s take a look at the Terraform configuration to build our Jenkins VM.
Retrieve Azure Credentials from Vault
Make sure you’re logged into Vault then run the command below:
vault read azure/creds/jenkins
2. Place the credentials into the Terraform variables section in Terraform Cloud (TFC) to store it securely. Remember that these credentials are valid for 1 day. You could also use a terraform.tfvars file if you’re using Terraform open source.
Connect TFC to GitHub
We’ve connected a workspace in TFC to GitHub. So upon a commit and a push to GitHub, Terraform will start a run. You can do the same or use the open source Terraform. We recommend using TFC as it stores your variables and state file securely.
Some Notes on the Terraform Configuration
You can view the Terraform folder in the GitHub repo in the BuildJenkinsVM folder.
Below are some notes to keep in mind:
Jenkins will run on port 8080 so we include that in our security group.
It’s always a good practice to pin your provider version to a specific version.
Make sure you are using the same resource group that was specified in Vault’s scope so that the Azure credentials would work.
Change the id_rsa.pub file to the public_key file that you would like to use in your VM so you can ssh into it.
The Variables File
In this file, we declare our variables. You can use a terraform.tfvars file to assign values to these variables if you're using Terraform open source. In our case, we use TFC to assign these variables. You can find a screenshot of the variables below.
Variables in TFC
variables.tf :
variable "subscription_id" {
description = "Azure subscription_id"
} variable "tenant_id" {
description = "Azure tenant_id"
} variable "client_secret" {
description = "Azure client_secret"
} variable "client_id" {
description = "Azure client_id"
} variable "prefix" {
description = "This prefix will be included in the name of most resources."
default = "samg"
} variable "location" {
description = "The region where the virtual network is created."
default = "centralus"
} variable "address_space" {
description = "The address space that is used by the virtual network. You can supply more than one address space. Changing this forces a new resource to be created."
default = "10.0.0.0/16"
} variable "subnet_prefix" {
description = "The address prefix to use for the subnet."
default = "10.0.10.0/24"
} variable "vm_size" {
description = "Specifies the size of the virtual machine."
default = "Standard_A0"
} variable "adminuser" {
description = "Specifies the admin username."
default = "adminuser"
}
The Main File
This is the main Terraform file that contains the configuration to provision the Jenkins VM.
main.tf :
terraform {
required_providers {
azurerm = {
source = "hashicorp/azurerm"
version = "2.36.0"
}
}
} provider "azurerm" {
subscription_id = var.subscription_id
client_id = var.client_id
client_secret = var.client_secret
tenant_id = var.tenant_id
features {}
} locals {
se-region = "AMER - Canada"
owner = "sam.gabrail"
purpose = "demo for end-to-end infrastructure and application deployments"
ttl = "-1"
terraform = "true"
} locals {
# Common tags to be assigned to resources
common_tags = {
se-region = local.se-region
owner = local.owner
purpose = local.purpose
ttl = local.ttl
terraform = local.terraform
}
} data "azurerm_resource_group" "myresourcegroup" {
name = "${var.prefix}-jenkins"
} data "azurerm_image" "docker-image" {
name = "samg-Docker"
resource_group_name = data.azurerm_resource_group.myresourcegroup.name
} resource "azurerm_virtual_network" "vnet" {
name = "${var.prefix}-vnet"
location = data.azurerm_resource_group.myresourcegroup.location
address_space = [var.address_space]
resource_group_name = data.azurerm_resource_group.myresourcegroup.name
} resource "azurerm_subnet" "subnet" {
name = "${var.prefix}-subnet"
virtual_network_name = azurerm_virtual_network.vnet.name
resource_group_name = data.azurerm_resource_group.myresourcegroup.name
address_prefixes = [var.subnet_prefix]
} resource "azurerm_network_security_group" "jenkins-sg" {
name = "${var.prefix}-sg"
location = var.location
resource_group_name = data.azurerm_resource_group.myresourcegroup.name security_rule {
name = "HTTP"
priority = 100
direction = "Inbound"
access = "Allow"
protocol = "Tcp"
source_port_range = "*"
destination_port_range = "8080"
source_address_prefix = "*"
destination_address_prefix = "*"
} security_rule {
name = "SSH"
priority = 101
direction = "Inbound"
access = "Allow"
protocol = "Tcp"
source_port_range = "*"
destination_port_range = "22"
source_address_prefix = "*"
destination_address_prefix = "*"
}
} resource "azurerm_network_interface" "jenkins-nic" {
name = "${var.prefix}-jenkins-nic"
location = var.location
resource_group_name = data.azurerm_resource_group.myresourcegroup.name ip_configuration {
name = "${var.prefix}-ipconfig"
subnet_id = azurerm_subnet.subnet.id
private_ip_address_allocation = "Dynamic"
public_ip_address_id = azurerm_public_ip.jenkins-pip.id
}
} resource "azurerm_network_interface_security_group_association" "jenkins-sga" {
network_interface_id = azurerm_network_interface.jenkins-nic.id
network_security_group_id = azurerm_network_security_group.jenkins-sg.id
} resource "azurerm_public_ip" "jenkins-pip" {
name = "${var.prefix}-ip"
location = var.location
resource_group_name = data.azurerm_resource_group.myresourcegroup.name
allocation_method = "Dynamic"
domain_name_label = "${var.prefix}-jenkins"
} resource "azurerm_linux_virtual_machine" "jenkins" {
name = "${var.prefix}-jenkins"
location = var.location
resource_group_name = data.azurerm_resource_group.myresourcegroup.name
size = var.vm_size
admin_username = "adminuser" tags = local.common_tags
network_interface_ids = [azurerm_network_interface.jenkins-nic.id]
// Add a public key to the same folder as the main.tf script (we use Ansible to send the private key to the Jenkins machine)
admin_ssh_key {
username = var.adminuser
public_key = file("id_rsa.pub")
} source_image_id = data.azurerm_image.docker-image.id os_disk {
name = "${var.prefix}-osdisk"
storage_account_type = "Standard_LRS"
caching = "ReadWrite"
}
}
The Outputs File
This is the output FQDN that we use with the inventory file for the Ansible playbook.
outputs.tf :
output "jenkins_public_dns" {
value = azurerm_public_ip.jenkins-pip.fqdn
}
Ansible Configuration
In this section, we’ll take a look at the Ansible configuration to run the Docker container with Jenkins. You can find the configuration in the GitHub repo under the Ansible JenkinsVM folder.
To run the playbook, make sure you’re inside the above-mentioned folder then issue the command below:
ansible-playbook -i inventory jenkinsPlaybook.yaml
Ansible Configuration File
In this file, we make sure that host_key_checking is disabled. We do this so Ansible doesn't complain and error out when it checks for the host key. Please make sure that this directory is not world-wide writable for this to take effect.
ansible.cfg :
[defaults]
host_key_checking = False
Inventory File
This is the inventory file to run with the playbook. Notice the ansible_host is taken from the output of Terraform.
inventory :
[all:children]
jenkins [all:vars]
ansible_user=adminuser
ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python3 [jenkins]
jenkinsvm ansible_host=samg-jenkins.centralus.cloudapp.azure.com
Playbook
Below you’ll find the playbook. It’s pretty straight-forward to read and understand what it’s doing. We’d like to draw your attention to 2 things:
We’re exposing port 8080 on the host for which Jenkins will listen on. We’re creating an .ssh directory and moving a private key into it. This key should correspond to the public_key that you would push into the app VMs later. We'll see this in the following blog post. It will allow Jenkins to use Ansible to ssh into the app VMs using this key.
jenkinsPlaybook.yaml :
---
- hosts: all
become_user: root
become: true
tasks:
- name: Install pip3 and unzip
apt:
update_cache: yes
pkg:
- python3-pip
- unzip
register: result
until: result is not failed
retries: 5
delay: 5
- name: Install Docker module for Python
pip:
name: docker
- name: Pull the Jenkins Docker image
docker_image:
name: "samgabrail/jenkins-tf-vault-ansible:latest"
source: pull
state: present
force_source: yes
- name: Change file ownership, group and permissions
file:
path: /home/adminuser/jenkins_data
state: directory
recurse: yes
owner: adminuser
group: adminuser
- name: Create Jenkins container
docker_container:
name: "jenkins"
image: "samgabrail/jenkins-tf-vault-ansible:latest"
state: started
ports:
- "8080:8080"
- "50000:50000"
volumes:
- /home/adminuser/jenkins_data:/var/jenkins_home
- name: Create .ssh directory
file: state=directory path=/home/adminuser/jenkins_data/.ssh
- name: Copy the Private SSH Key for Jenkins to Access Azure VMs
copy:
src: /mnt/c/Users/Sam/.ssh/id_rsa
dest: /home/adminuser/jenkins_data/.ssh/id_rsa
owner: adminuser
group: adminuser
mode: 0400
Logging into Jenkins
If all goes well, open your browser and put in the FQDN output from Terraform as the URL plus port 8080 like this: http://samg-jenkins.centralus.cloudapp.azure.com:8080 . You should be greeted by this screen:
Jenkins Unlock Screen
You can now log into Jenkins but first, you’ll need to retrieve the password. You will need to exec into the Docker container and get the password from the path mentioned on the screen. Remember to run this under sudo . Congratulations, you now have Jenkins up and ready to go!
Conclusion
In this blog post, we talked about how to set up Jenkins to become our CI/CD pipeline tool. We used the following tools to do the job:
Packer to build an Azure image that has Docker installed. Docker to create a container image that contains Jenkins, Vault, Terraform, and Ansible. HashiCorp Vault to retrieve Azure credentials to use with Terraform. Terraform to build a Jenkins VM in Azure based on the Packer image. Ansible to configure the Jenkins VM by running the Docker container.
Now that we have Jenkins up and ready, we can move to part 3 and see how to deliver secret zero securely to both our Jenkins pipeline and the Webblog app.
References | https://medium.com/hashicorp-engineering/hashicorp-packer-terraform-and-ansible-to-set-up-jenkins-72529dda81c9 | ['Sam Gabrail'] | 2021-02-08 18:30:45.248000+00:00 | ['Ansible', 'Hashicorp Vault', 'Jenkins', 'Hashicorp Packer', 'Terraform'] |
The beginning to everything. | Every experience starts from somewhere. Even a baby goes through milestones before reaching toddler’s stage. Without that first bold move, there will be no moments to share, and no story to tell.
According to Tom Stafford, humans are curious in nature. We are capable of absorbing so much more from our environment with extended childhood. We can learn and adapt to new ways of doing things even in adulthood, if we want to. Having said that, confidence is key for one to take on new challenges.
“The enemies of confidence are discouragement and fear.”- Carl Pickhardt
Many studies indicated that children are more open-minded learners compared to adults. This is not surprising considering adults have accumulated cause-and-effect learnings that are capable of narrowing minds throughout the years. These experiences can become a self-fulfilling prophecy; positive experiences are reinforced whilst negative encounters are shied away unless they are properly considered. Not to mention at this age when negatives news travel faster than good ones, others’ experiences silently roped into our thoughts and considerations, deterring our confidence, influencing our decisions, and hindering us from taking on new challenges.
How many attempts do we try again after every failure encounter? How much do we believe that experiences are unique by individual? How much time is spent on procrastination, dreaming over “what-if” possibilities and falling into self-pep talk of taking no actions?
Life is what we made of.
From parents guidance to teachings at school, college, and university years, they prepared us in overcoming bigger challenges in later years. It would be wrong to confine learnings only from books, as there are more to pick up in life that are beneficial to personal development such as self-awareness and social relationships. It’s all up to us. There is no graduation point to learning. Instead, learning requires an open mind, patience, curiosity, and courage in experimenting the knowns for quest of the unknowns. It is a lifelong journey of discoveries. What would life be if we stop developing ourselves?
Whilst thinking can mean consideration, it is as good as theory written in books. Doing is another — only by doing is when we experience learning to the fullest. It makes us realised what we’ve done right, what we’ve done wrong, and how we can make everything better. It gives us the boost when we’ve done something right. Likewise, it also test our courage in overcoming our fear for mistakes and humiliation. Sadly, we do more thinking and talking than executing. Some ideas remained as myths because they’ve never started. Some ideas remained half-cooked because they’ve never been given a fair chance to succeed.
Which is more satisfying? — An experience that we earn for ourselves, or a talk of experience that is owned by others?
There is a beginning to everything. Be the curious child you used to be.
Own your moment and share your story. A step forward is better than none. Live with no regrets.
Photo by Jukan Tateisi
Thoughts and reflections flow through mind — unfiltered, unspoken. Writing helps to express the unspoken, expands imagination beyond what I can possibly imagine. Follow my blog for you are my only source of encouragement and inspiration. | https://medium.com/@framesoflifeblog/the-beginning-to-everything-114279347096 | ['Frames Of Life Blog'] | 2020-12-24 14:41:41.514000+00:00 | ['Thoughts', 'Personal Development', 'Courage', 'Confidence', 'Positivity'] |
Trump needs to do more than call troops’ families. He needs to deliver a coherent policy | Trump needs to do more than call troops’ families. He needs to deliver a coherent policy
Dead service members and their families deserve recognition and respect, both from presidents and the American people. Active duty military also deserve a clear mission and the commitment of a nation to their service, fight, and future.
Families of the four Green Berets killed in a Niger ambush have now received condolence calls from President Donald Trump, but a growing American military engagement in Africa calls for a complete and coherent continental policy. That call remains unanswered.
Since his inauguration, President Trump has failed to define America’s strategic interests in Africa. In fact, he’s failed to show much interest or competence in the continent, as during a short speech to African leaders last month where he called one country “Nambia” and hit a raw nerve by saying Africa was ripe for exploitation by his “many friends going to your countries trying to get rich.”
False first steps can be corrected, however. Next week’s planned visit to South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo by Ambassador Nikki Haley could bring new attention and some clarity to U.S.-Africa policy, though the trip seems limited in scope and ambition. The Niger combat killing of special operations forces and the recent death of a Navy SEAL in Somalia should focus the president’s mind and be a defining moment for him to clarify Africa policy in an America First world.
Trump inherited “mission creep” in Africa. What started as slow and limited security and counterterrorism deployments by President George W. Bush were quietly, but extensively enlarged and underwritten by President Barack Obama. As a result, America is now a decade into its sixth and newest military command, AFRICOM, which has quickly gone from training national forces to traipsing into national conflicts.
AFRICOM’s original goal was a soft power oriented American military command meant to build security and bridges to African nations. In tandem with George W. Bush’s generously funded Presidential Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program, a U.S.-friendly Africa would grow resistant and resilient to both militant radicalism and virulent disease. Trump’s all guns and no butter approach, however, is not converting African hearts and minds and instead building continental anti-Americanism.
Ironically, a truly America First policy would dictate a lighter military touch and greater distance from Africa’s domestic difficulties. Instead, AFRICOM today exhibits a far heavier American hand. The special ops deaths indicate their mission may have been more than a military exercise.
AFRICOM’s boss General Thomas Waldhauser told military newspaper Stars and Stripes that his mission is “build defense capabilities, respond to crisis, and to deter and defeat transnational threats.” But all too often a narrow training and capacity building mission can over time and with a distracted White House turn into fighting another country’s civil wars. Does Vietnam ring a bell?
Make no mistake, terror groups in Africa are as bad as they come. They deserve to be wiped out. Truck bombs last weekend in Mogadishu killed at least 276 and injured another 300 civilians, suspected to be the horrific jihadist work of Al Shabaab. Boko Haram kidnapped the 300 Chibok girls and continues to wage a Nigerian guerilla war. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has found fertile ground in the north while ISIS is further wheedling its way into Africa both overland and online as it loses territory, troops and revenues from its defeats in Syria and Iraq. The collection of African bad actors is growing in numbers and lethality.
Trump’s Africa policies have emphasized increased military spending, presence and operational flexibility as his State Department dawdles on key appointments and proposes budgets that gut aid programs.
In the meantime, America is effectively ceding greater African influence and access to an assertive China that is using its money, military, and labor manpower to build intercontinental infrastructure projects and deep relationships with Africa’s leadership. In fact, as America deploys its special forces and drones to fight on African soil, China deploys its workers and cash to buy continent-wide popularity and political favor in places such as Ethiopia. Militarily, China deploys naval forces safely off the coast of Africa or in its new Djibouti port, out of plain sight and away from terrorist threats.
America expended troops, time, and treasure to win Iraq for the Iranians. The U.S. now runs the risk of backing into a protracted and costly fight in Africa only to pave the way for China to prance in as a preferred economic partner and political savior. An undefined long-term military investment in Africa runs the real risk of clearing the way for a China currently consolidating its power and with clearly defined neo-colonial African objectives.
Defense Secretary James Mattis made an early Djibouti trip to affirm American forces remain welcome, but Trump needs to define America’s military presence. Unfortunately, Trump’s erratic daily tweets and his consciously unpredictable approach often lead to befuddling foreign policy and simplistic military missions aimed at “winning.”
African conflicts deserve attention and counterterrorism should remain a priority, but President Trump needs to make it clear both to the American people and those in uniform whether they have signed up for an escalating African war. | https://medium.com/@KounalakisM/trump-needs-to-do-more-than-call-troops-families-he-needs-to-deliver-a-coherent-policy-4d35f89f5d99 | ['Markos Kounalakis'] | 2017-11-10 22:06:00.715000+00:00 | ['Military', 'Africa', 'Vietnam', 'China', 'Army'] |
Edhi Sb Biography: | Edhi Sb Biography:
Chapter two covers up the personal life events and some family back ground. Edhi Sb was belong to a middle family. Their grandparents converted to Islam after leaving Hinduism. He was lived in Gujarat ( India ). In early school life , he was very innocent, social, helping in nature. He felt happy to work in team. He wrote a lot about their parents life in this chapter.After freedom of Pakistan his family moved from Gujarat to Karachi. He left his education in middle class. In early life Edhi Sb also fall in love with a girls living along side their home. He just startup their social work with a van as a free ambulance. He never ever give up. In his social life he face different problems but never disappoint . The motto of Edhi Sb was “ Humanity is greater than religion. “ He helped every person without any discrimination of caste, color and religion. By the passing of time a huge was built of Edhi Sb.
Just Start-up Project:
I sart-up from my work of Synopsis writing. Before this i feel very hurdle to do it. I fixed my plan and work to it. Proper planing give me a energetic strenght. i learned so many thing first time in life. I improved my MS-word during this activity. This start-up also boost me to do other many works which are going in pending before. I feel experienced that start-up is batter than only thinking. I find new way , how to do hard work in smart way by proper time. | https://medium.com/@khawar.majeed99/edhi-sb-biography-b525943d30b9 | ['Khawar Majeed'] | 2019-01-20 09:11:06.736000+00:00 | ['Pakistan'] |
Why do dogs chase their tails? | Other than for grooming or injury reasons, it is abnormal for dogs to consistently chase their tails.
It can occur as an attention-getting activity or can escalate to a compulsive behavior that interferes with normal activities.
Compulsive behaviors are similar to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in people and one theory is that it results in an increase in endorphins in the brain thus acting to reinforce pleasure for the behavior | https://medium.com/@pvanush/why-do-dogs-chase-their-tails-10c5e0b67b4d | ['Anush Pv'] | 2020-12-26 07:28:52.640000+00:00 | ['Animals', 'Pets And Animals', 'Pet Behavior', 'Animal Behavior', 'Dogs'] |
Over 30 Hormone Solution | Women Weight Loss Diet — How to Lose 10 Pounds in 2 Weeks
Here’s a weight loss diet designed for women to help them to lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks. You won’t starve or feel like you’re suffering like
you do on typical diets.
Before I get to it, I must briefly touch on exercise.
Exercise obviously enhances weight loss, but diet is the key to massive amounts of weight loss. If you’re going to exercise to lose weight,
I suggest you invest in a mini-trampoline ($70) and jump on it for 2 minutes at a time. I use it during tv commercials.
Women Weight Loss Diet
I’ll give you the diet first and then explain why it works after.
Breakfast
3–4 scrambled eggs with 1/2 can of black beans
Lunch
Vegetable salad (you choose, but include lettuce) with either 1 chicken breast, 1/2 can of black beans, 1 can of tuna, or 1 lean hamburger
patty. (Note: Don’t use typical salad dressings… only use lemon juice, virgin olive oil, and or organic apple cider vinegar.)
Dinner
A lean meat with 1/2 pound of broccoli/cauliflower
Snacks
Apples, red grapes, grapefruit, protein shakes
Beverages
Water, protein shakes, green tea
Ok, the explanation on why this diet works for women’s weight loss.
First, it’s high in protein and high in fiber. This is key to keeping your metabolism running fast and your hunger in check. The fiber in
black beans fills you up big time. In just 1 can of black beans, you get 25 grams of fiber. That’s the daily recommended allowance for women
for a day.
If you notice, each meal has significant protein in it. For consistent weight loss, protein at each meal is ideal. It helps to control your
blood sugar levels which go crazy when you eat easily absorbed simple carbohydrates.
The snacks are high volume, low calorie, and filling. They’re all high in water content… so you’re basically eating water (a good thing).
The beverages are low in calories (none in water) or get significant calories from protein (protein shakes).
You don’t need to follow this diet exactly to lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks, but instead, use it as an outline on what you can do with your own
weight loss diet.
If you’re sick and tired of getting the same old boring and tired weight loss advice on how to lose 10 pounds… you know, like “Eat more
fruits and vegetables, drink 8 glasses of water, exercise more, and blah blah blah”… then you found the right person. I’ll make weight loss easy and enjoyable for you… AND NOT BORING!
First, click [http://www.weightlossguide4women.com] to get your free 19-page report “How Spinning Around in a Circle Like a 4-year old Child
will Skyrocket your Weight Loss Success”. This will give you a jumpstart on how to lose 10 pounds fast without a weight loss diet for women.
Second… after you get the free report, you’ll be sent inside my website for even more unique and little known weight loss tips, tricks,
techniques, and tactics. These unconventional tricks are a “shortcut” way on how to lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks… no mention of eating carrots or celery. I promise.
Third, with my advice, you won’t starve, have to go to the gym ever, or basically do anything that is a hassle for your busy life. Listen,
I understand you want to lose 10 pounds without changing much in your diet or exercise plans… I get it. I have this completely covered.
I’ve worked with over 3,700 clients. I know a 1 size fits all plan doesn’t work. So I’ve come up with lots of “tricks” to personalize weight
loss specifically for you and your lifestyle. | https://medium.com/@fb2afp/over-30-hormone-solution-f33718927ceb | [] | 2020-12-25 19:10:11.319000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss', 'Hormone Solution', 'Weightloss Tips', 'Clickbank', 'Weightloss Foods'] |
Revisiting the Separate but Equal Doctrine — Mistakes Were Made | Historian C. Vann Woodward wrote in a 1964 article about Plessy v. Ferguson, that white and black southerners mixed relatively freely until the 1880s, when southern state legislatures passed the first laws requiring railroads to provide separate cars for “Negro” or “Colored” passengers.
Florida became the first state to mandate segregated railroad cars in 1887 followed by Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and other states by the end of the century.
The Louisiana law is the Separate Car Act. The law required separate accommodations for black and whites on railroads. A group of concerned New Orleans residents composed of black, white, and creole citizens formed a group called the Comite Des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens). The Committee’s main purpose was to repeal the law or fight its purpose. The group got Homer Plessy a man of mixed race to take part in a test case against the law. Though Plessy was of mixed race, he is considered “black” under Louisiana law and thus required to sit in the “colored” rail car.
On June 7, 1892 Plessy bought a first-class ticket and boarded a “Whites only” railroad car in New Orleans, the train was bound for Covington, Louisiana. The Committee hired a private detective with arrest powers to detain Plessy, to ensure that they would charge him for violating the Separate Car Act as opposed to a lesser offense of vagrancy. After Plessy took a seat in the whites only car, he was asked to vacate the seat and instead sit in the blacks-only car. Plessy refused and was arrested immediately by the detective. Plessy was remanded for trial in a Orleans Parish.
At the trial, Plessy’s lawyers argued that the state law denied Plessy his rights under the Thirteen and Fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment provides for equal treatment under the law. The judge presiding over the case, John Howard Ferguson, ruled that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies while they operated within state boundaries. Plessy was convicted and sentenced to pay a $25 fine. Plessy immediately appealed the decision to the Louisiana Supreme Court.
The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the lower ruling. The court cited several precedents that backed its ruling. One was a Massachusetts Supreme Court case that ruled that segregated schools were constitutional. In its ruling, the Court stated: “This Prejudice, if it exists, is not created by law, and probably cannot be changed by law.” This court ruling was before the Fourteenth amendment was passed, and they repealed it 5 years after its ruling but it still stood as precedent. The other case cited was a Pennsylvania Supreme Court case, where the Court stated: “To assert separateness is not to declare inferiority… It is simply to say that following the order of Divine Providence, human authority ought not to compel these widely separated races to intermix.” Plessy lawyers appealed that decision to the United States Supreme Court.
While the Plessy v. Ferguson court case is making its way through the legal system, Segregation is picking up steam in the south. In 1892 Congress defeated a bill that would have given federal protection to elections. Congress also nullified several reconstruction laws.
On May 18, 1896 the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a 7–1 verdict in Plessy v. Ferguson. The court declared separate-but-equal facilities constitutional on intrastate railroads. The Court ruled the protections of the Fourteenth amendment applied only to political and civil rights (voting, jury duty) and not “social rights” (sitting in the railroad car of your choice, going to the school of your choice, eating at a restaurant, drinking out of a water fountain, going to the bathroom of your choice, etc…)
The Court denied that segregated railroad cars for blacks were necessarily inferior. “We consider the underlying fallacy of {Plessy’s} argument,” Justice Henry Brown wrote, “to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.”
Justice John Marshall Harlan was the lone dissenter from the decision. Harlan was a former slaveholder from Kentucky, who had opposed emancipation and civil rights for freed slaves during the Reconstruction era. Harlan changed his position because of his outrage over the actions of white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Harlan disagreed with the Court’s rejection of Plessy’s argument that the Louisiana law implied that blacks were inferior and stated that the majority was being willfully ignorant on the subject.
“Every one knows that the statute in question had its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white people from railroad cars occupied by blacks, as to exclude colored people from coaches-occupied by or assigned to white persons… The thing to accomplish was, under the guise of giving equal accommodation for whites and blacks, to compel the latter to keep to themselves while traveling in railroad passenger coaches. No one would be so wanting in candor as to assert the contrary.”
Justice John Harlan dissenting opinion
Harlan pointed out that the Louisiana law contained an exception for “nurses attending children of the other race”- this allowed black women who were nannies to white children to be in the whites-only cars. This showed that a black person could be in the whites-only cars as long as they were a “social subordinate” or “domestic”.
Justice Harlan also argued that even if many white Americans of the late 19th century considered themselves socially superior to Americans of other races, the U.S. Constitution was “color-blind”, and could not permit any classes among citizens in matters of civil rights.
Plessy v. Ferguson legitimized the state laws establishing racial segregation in the South and provided a blueprint for future segregation laws. Legislative achievements won during the Reconstruction Era were erased through means of the “Separate but Equal” doctrine. The doctrine became strengthened by an 1875 Supreme Court decision that limited the federal government’s ability to intervene in state affairs, guaranteeing to Congress only the power “to restrain states from acts of racial discrimination and segregation.” The ruling gave states free rein to implement laws that set racially separate institutions, only requiring them to be “equal.”
Things were never “equal”, there were already significant differences in funding for the segregated school system, but after Plessy, these differences doubled well into the 20th century. States consistently under-funded black schools, providing them with substandard buildings, textbooks, and supplies.
From 1890 to 1908, state legislatures in the South disenfranchised most blacks through rejecting them for voter registration and voting, making voter registration more difficult by providing more detailed records, such as proof of land ownership or literacy tests.
Plessy v. Ferguson is one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in history, right up there with Dred Scott v. Sanford. Separate but equal would be the norm until the famous U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Chief Justice Earl Warren, who wrote the majority opinion in the case stated, “the doctrine of ‘Separate but equal’ has no place in public education.” In the opinion Warren called segregated schools “inherently unequal and declared that the plaintiffs in the Brown case were being “deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.” Just like Plessy and the many other African Americans who did not get their Fourteenth Amendment protections because of the “Separate but equal” legal doctrine. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/revisiting-the-separate-but-equal-doctrine-mistakes-were-made-f26b55c7f596 | ['Marlon Mosley'] | 2020-02-16 03:15:09.919000+00:00 | ['African American', 'History', 'Law', 'Discrimination', 'Supreme Court'] |
The Ocean Swim | The Ocean Swim
“Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own.” ~Michelle Obama
Each year, at least 21.9% of candidates fail their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education(KCPE) exams. These 13-15 year old teens are forced to make a lifetime’s worth decision, guided by a system that is unrealistic.
Our Kenyan education system is structured in a way that ambushes the mindset of learners. They are encouraged to concentrate more on grades rather than skills and knowledge application. It’s so sad that we are made to believe that the higher your grades the sharper you are! I mean, what if I crammed the answers to get a good score?
It is unfortunate that we are trapped in a tenet of limitations to thinking only as far as good grades go: It’s even more tragic how a three-day examination has the power to determine one’s future after eight years of learning!
One wonders why we aren’t developed as a country yet our young generation is giving up on life simply because they failed at one thing regardless of factors such as the current state of their health, personal background, environmental surroundings that limit their performance or anxiety.
A few months ago, I came across a story of a 14 year old boy who ended his life as a result of failing to attain his goal of 300 marks out of 500 in his KCPE exams and instead managed 170marks. The system made him feel like there was no future for him with his performance. This only speaks for just one of the many incidences recorded yearly: This particular story caught my eye because I could resonate with his pain since I was in his shoes at one time in my life.
The reality of our society is that those who spring from well-off families have the privilege of getting access to further education despite their performance. Ever asked yourself what happens to the young teens in the rural regions and disadvantaged backgrounds, who sadly don’t have the luck to experience the glance of second chances?
The outcome is young girls giving up, getting married at a young age to start families while young boys getting into crime acts like robbery and drug abuse. This right here is what’s creating what we call "The Poverty Cycle".
Physiological preparation should be a necessity: In an ocean where you have no skills to swim, there needs to be knowledge and assurance that poor results do not equate to failure in life.
My relatable story starts in a small village- Keumbu, Kisii county, Kenya. Growing up I was neither dumb nor smart, I was more than an average kid to be precise; I had good grades to take home. Things changed when I sat for my KCPE exams and the results weren’t to my expectation; I felt ashamed, kept away from everyone; It felt like the end of the road.
Time went by and I was due to join high school. However, I faced this step with much opposition because I didn’t qualify to join a top-performing school. Already, I could feel my success in life wash away with all the limitations that came with our education system. The one exam that I failed at was dictating the direction my life would take and it did not sit well with me.
Our parents had been sucked into the system too, therefore, I was convinced to repeat the class and I did just that. I put my best foot forward and in two months, I performed well and it was decided that I would join high school.
In a small village in Msambweni, Kwale county, a small growing vearkat sponsored school is where I got to taste my second chance. Thanks to foreigns who started that initiative away from their home country to help young girls get an education. Although months late, with only 3 weeks to catch up on lessons and prepare for exams, I managed to beat the odds; having the society, my family, and the education system to prove my abilities are beyond limit. I managed to be among the 25 students that joined university to further their education.
While on campus, I realized my career path depended fully on self-learning. We all can agree on this; in our universities, all learners are taught is 100% theory and little to no practical skills. We are in no way prepared for the real world market. I’m lucky enough to have come across a mentor; Michelle Njeru, who encouraged me to start developing mobile applications while volunteering to mentor high school girls. She always joked with “mercy don’t give up again”.This switched the game for me.
Years later, I am a confident Android developer in an environment that supports young talented youth without impediments: Impact Africa Network. A place where your ability to think and solve problems is highly implemented. A place with exposure to real market experience and most importantly, a place where your skill matters!
My greatest desire is that the Kenyan education system is redesigned: It didn’t have to take 21years to realize my path, what if I started early?
“Failure is an important part of growth and developing resilience. Don’t be afraid to fail” ~Michelle Obama
Rise above the storm and you will find the sunshine. Be limitless! | https://medium.com/impact-africa-network/the-ocean-swim-d0c46b6d20cc | ['Mercy Nyaramba'] | 2020-10-03 14:51:58.875000+00:00 | ['Startups', 'Women In Tech', 'Android Development', 'Education System'] |
Holiday Blues | These days, on the holidays, there’s blue all over my mind. Controlling my body, sorrow whispers words of destruction:
“Nobody likes you! That’s why you’re lonely and will always be. Unless everything about you changes…Can you do that?”
Days go by and I try to be positive hoping to find a way to feel less hollow.But positivity isn’t enough to fill in this void.
Illustration by Sofia Paz-D’África
Then, in the middle of the fog, I spot them: the ghosts of hardship.
Baby, it’s true: I don’t belong here.
Light in my life to make things right.
Ice, I‘m frozen by the fear of the future.
Cyan, I can’t see why no one’s here!
Through the shades of blue, clarity comes: no gifts, no feast can replace the absence of a kiss, a piece of affection I haven’t received. | https://medium.com/@sofia-paz/holiday-blues-ece1a0ab34c | ['Sofia Paz'] | 2020-12-27 23:26:39.764000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Holiday Blues', 'Sadness', 'Holidays', 'Mental Health'] |
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