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The 10 Foundational Practices for a Good Life | If you want to improve your life, where should you start?
Years ago, when I started working on myself, I tried lots of different things. Some helped a lot. But a lot didn’t matter. Filtering by trial-and-error works, but it can be slow and discouraging. Knowing what I know now, I’d recommend different practices to my younger self.
The typical person, if seriously committed, could make enormous improvements in their life in less than a year. But only if they build from the right foundation. If you’re interested in building a better life, but not sure where to start, here are my recommendations:
1. Establish an Airtight Productivity System.
Productivity comes first. The mistake is in thinking that a productivity system is just about getting more work done. When in reality it’s about organizing all of your goals and efforts.
There are two problems people face when it comes to self-improvement:
A lack of resources. You don’t feel you have enough time or energy to do all the things you think you should.
You don’t feel you have enough time or energy to do all the things you think you should. A failure of follow-up. You set the intention to exercise every day, but three days later you’ve forgotten about it.
A productivity system, built correctly, solves both of these problems. It not only helps you keep a watchful eye over your limited resources, but it takes over the responsibility of remembering the stuff you intended to do.
The best book on productivity is David Allen’s Getting Things Done. His full system can be a bit too elaborate if you’re not a busy executive, but mastering the basics make a big difference.
2. Exercise Every Weekday.
Regular exercise is the easiest win you can make in your life. Getting exercise regularly has tons of health benefits, it makes your mind sharper and improves your mood. And unlike your relationships and career it’s entirely under your control.
While there are many different valid exercise schedules, I recommend starting with one that involves exercising every weekday, at the same time each day. Weekdays tend to be more consistent, so if you always exercise first thing in the morning, or right after work, it quickly becomes a habit.
A mistake I made in the beginning was having an inconsistent exercise schedule. I would exercise 3–4 times per week, but not on the same days. The result would be that if I skipped a day, it wasn’t necessarily a problem as I could still go tomorrow. Unfortunately, that resulted in more skipped days than I’d like.
Another problem can be needing 60–90 minutes to exercise. This makes it fall out of your schedule on days when you get too busy. I recommend focusing on 20–30 minutes, but of a high enough intensity that you get an ideal heart rate.
3. Read 30 Minutes, Each Day.
The most important thing you can do for any goal is to do the work. The second most important thing you can do is to read books about how to do it better.
Most of us read far too little. The typical American reads only four books per year. With the right reading practice, you can read that amount each month.
At minimum, however, you need to put in the time. Thirty minutes a day, especially if it fills the cracks in your schedule, is an amount that every person can do. You can definitely commit more, but you shouldn’t commit less.
Once you’re committed, the next step is to make reading as easy as possible. My tips:
Get an Audible subscription and listen too. This expands the situations you can get those 30 minutes per day in.
This expands the situations you can get those 30 minutes per day in. Buy lots of books. If you’re tight on budget, go to the library regularly and borrow a bunch of books.
If you’re tight on budget, go to the library regularly and borrow a bunch of books. Don’t worry about getting to the end. The key is reading a lot. Trying to finish every book can be counterproductive if it keeps you from reading more.
The key is reading a lot. Trying to finish every book can be counterproductive if it keeps you from reading more. Always have a book with you. Get the Kindle app for your phone and delete your social media. You can read now instead of endlessly scrolling through crap that won’t improve your life.
4. Journal Weekly.
What if I told you that there was a technology that expanded the capacity of your mind. It allowed you to instantly offload items from the top of your head to be memorized perfectly, enabled you to see connections between items that weren’t visible before, and made you much smarter.
How much would such a tool be worth to you?
There’s no sales pitch here, because the technology I’m discussing is writing. Our working memory, perhaps the major component of intelligence, is fundamentally limited. Writing expands this by giving us a buffer to store thoughts before they fall out of our heads.
Writing also enables self-reflection. You can write down a long series of thoughts and then read it — allowing you to simultaneously articulate an idea and critique it.
All you need to take advantage of this tool is to get a notebook and commit to writing in it at least once per week. Write about your current struggles, ambitions or plans. Review your recent days and note what went right (or wrong) with your other foundational practices.
5. One Conversation Per Week with Someone Smarter Than You.
The biggest mistake I made in my early self-improvement was that it was too introverted. I exercised regularly, kept up my productivity system and read books… except when it came to reaching out to other people I fell behind.
You should set up a time to talk with someone who is ahead of you, in at least one dimension of their life, once per week. If you’re working on your career, you should chat with someone who is a few steps ahead of you professionally. If you’re working on your health, have a conversation with the person who is fit at the gym. If you’re learning something, talk to someone who has done it before.
The strange thing is, few people do this. They mostly stick with the people they bump into accidentally — colleagues, classmates or random encounters. As a result, they remain limited by the knowledge of the people they happen to know.
Reaching out to people (and maintaining conversations with people you respect) is an essential practice that’s easy to skip over if you’re not careful.
6. Track Every Purchase.
For years I used to write down on index cards whenever I spent money on anything. When money was tight, this practice was essential for getting the most out of it.
These days, you don’t need anything so tedious. I personally use a spreadsheet that I can quickly review and allocate spending into categories, but you can also use personal budgeting applications that will do this for you.
The informal approach, where you only check your bank account balance, is the financial equivalent to making decisions about what to work on by how busy you feel. It’s too crude to make the distinctions you need that will actually improve your life.
Being able to invest in yourself financially can make a big difference. The good life needn’t be expensive, but it can be easier to attain if you’re able to budget for it. I always saved money for buying books, for instance, even when I was too cheap to eat out.
7. Fence In All Your Vices.
For many, the major obstacles to the good life aren’t the lack of a desire to change, but the abundance of temptations keeping us in the same spot. We watch too much television, play too many videogames, scroll Twitter all day. For others it might be drinking, smoking or eating junk food.
The simplest answer is simply to give all of these up. Abstain from everything that doesn’t make your life better. For some vices, this is probably the best answer — especially if you find you use them compulsively.
However, this austere solution may not be appealing or possible in all cases. I’d like to enjoy the occasional glass of wine or watch Netflix, even if I don’t want to be constantly binging either.
In this case, the foundational practice is setting up fences. Put up barriers that constrain the activity within predetermined limits. This can take a variety of forms, but the strength of the fence needs to be proportional to the temptation to jump over it:
The most basic is simply a rule. “No more than two drinks in a night,” or, “Only one episode of television per day.”
“No more than two drinks in a night,” or, “Only one episode of television per day.” The next level is to use the power of consistent conditioning. Limit the number of triggering situations that encourage indulgence. “I only use social media on weekend mornings.” Now, you don’t even think of checking on Wednesday afternoon because it isn’t the context you normally do so.
Limit the number of triggering situations that encourage indulgence. “I only use social media on weekend mornings.” Now, you don’t even think of checking on Wednesday afternoon because it isn’t the context you normally do so. A step up is to set barriers that add friction to engaging. Leechblock can control social media websites. Timed switches can turn off electricity to your television outside the hours you want to watch it.
Leechblock can control social media websites. Timed switches can turn off electricity to your television outside the hours you want to watch it. Next is to set barriers you can’t easily overcome. Leechblock, but you give your friend the password, so you can’t disable it.
If these last steps don’t keep your indulgence in moderation, then usually abstinence is the only answer.
8. Wake Up on Time Every Morning.
Set yourself a bed time and a wake time. Then stick to it.
For many, this kind of foundational practice will already be reinforced. If you have kids, or if you work in a typical office setting, waking up on time isn’t optional. Yet the tendency to stay up too late, and thus being extra tired in the morning can still be a problem.
However, for students or people who work from home, consistent sleep schedules can be a major life upgrade. The reason is simple: consistent sleeping and waking allows you to predictably plan all the other things you intend to do. If you wanted to exercise each morning, but you sleep through it some days, you’ll never make progress.
Additional tweaks can make this practice even better:
Don’t hit the snooze button. If you struggle with this, you can condition the practice of getting up immediately when you’re not actually sleeping to make it feel more natural when you’re groggy.
If you struggle with this, you can condition the practice of getting up immediately when you’re not actually sleeping to make it feel more natural when you’re groggy. Set aside the hour before bed for reading, journaling or quiet hobbies . This will make falling asleep on time easier and give you more energy consistently.
. This will make falling asleep on time easier and give you more energy consistently. If possible, keep the same wake time on weekends. If your work culture requires late night drinks with the team, or you’re single and want to socialize, this may not be ideal. However, if you can make it work, a consistent waking schedule is much easier to maintain than one which has you going to bed later and sleeping in on weekends.
9. Always Have a Major Project.
I prefer projects to goals. Goals are helpful, of course, but without a plan they’re often just fantasies. “Make a million dollars” doesn’t help unless it inspires concrete actions. “Start saving for retirement by putting away 10% of my income each year,” works much better.
Having a big project you’re always working on helps immensely to hold all the other foundational practices together. The problem with a lot of self-improvement efforts is that without some big ambition that necessitates them, they tend to fall apart in the slack. When you don’t need to wake up on time every day, why bother?
Just as a big deadline can get you over procrastinating, a big project can hold together the other practices.
Projects work best when you actually complete them. If you’ve had the habit of starting big efforts and not following-through, limit your projects to a couple months in scope at most to begin with. Even now, I find projects of 1–2 years to work best to maximize my efforts. Longer-term projects often feel too distant to compel motivation.
Which kinds of projects should you set? I tend to have four major types I rotate through:
Career projects . New efforts to improve my professional life.
. New efforts to improve my professional life. Learning projects . These are bigger in scope than reading just a book, but don’t always reach the scale of my public challenges.
. These are bigger in scope than reading just a book, but don’t always reach the scale of my public challenges. Fitness projects . Getting stronger, leaner or otherwise preparing for a physical activity.
. Getting stronger, leaner or otherwise preparing for a physical activity. Creative projects. Painting, programming, making or performing something.
This practice, sustained over years, can lead to the biggest result. Few people have the ability to work through independent projects to conclusion regularly, so those who do have an enormous advantage in being able to upgrade their life.
10. One New Experience Each Week.
This could be a new restaurant (or cooking a new meal at home), a new activity, event or even walking in a part of town you’ve never been to before.
One problem of productivity is that as you get better at managing your time, you choose activities you know are rewarding. The problem is that this “locks in” the range of activities you’ve already uncovered. You tend to avoid trying new things that may be a waste of time, because they tend to feel lazy or unproductive.
This isn’t to say that the typical person is spontaneous and adventurous. Quite the opposite — habits and routines pull us all into an orbit of the familiar. It’s simply that productivity enthusiasts often make this tendency explicit.
If, however, you put randomness in your calendar, you’re more likely to reach it. Sometimes the wins are mild — you find out about a new restaurant you like, or discover a cool bookstore you didn’t know about — but other times the results can be profound. You might stumble into a meetup that introduces you to people who change your life.
Photo by Nghia Le on Unsplash
A Six-Month Plan to Build Your Foundation
If I were starting my journey again today, I would spend six months building out each of these practices. While the length of time to get a good grasp on each practice can vary, I think it makes sense to focus on a couple at a time, rather than trying to simultaneously do all ten.
Thus, if you want to massively improve your life, I recommend:
First month for a productivity system. Get this under your belt first. Second month for exercise and waking up on time. These two practices can fit directly together if you exercise in the morning. Even if you exercise later in the day, they can help synchronize your energy levels throughout the day. Of course, schedule both in your productivity system so you don’t forget. Third month for reading and journaling. Thirty minutes a day on the former, at least thirty minutes per week on the latter. Again, this can be part of your productivity system so you don’t forget. The two often synergize as reading exposes you to new ideas, and journaling allows you to retrieve and retain them. Fourth month for tracking spending. Once this practice is in place, you may want to invest more time in a serious personal finance plan — including making regular savings and budgeting for different life areas. Fifth month for fencing in vices. If you feel like you have a lot of compulsive habits that don’t add a lot of value, you may need to shift this up the schedule. However, I recommend putting the emphasis on the positive first, because if you eliminate everything without good alternatives, it may not be stable. You want to feel some pressure from all the things you want to do more of, not just the guilt that you waste too much time. Sixth month for scheduling conversations and doing new things. Now that you’ve built the base of a personal system, it’s worthwhile creating more practices that expose you to new opportunities, people and experiences. This tends to work better when you already have most of the other foundational pieces, as new ideas and connections are less valuable if your life is in disarray.
This six-month process, if undertaken seriously, is itself a kind of project. Thus, once I was done with this, starting on a new project might be my goal. Of course, six months is the most optimistic timeline — given that real life has plenty of disruptions and setbacks, a year may be more realistic.
However, even if it took you five years to build this foundation, it would give you a strong base for pursuing any other goal in your life. Whether you want to have a better career, get in really good shape or simply be happier, you’d be in the best position to get started.
_ _ _
If you enjoyed this article, consider joining my email list :) | https://medium.com/swlh/10-habits-that-will-change-your-life-forever-51fd83edecfb | ['Scott H. Young'] | 2020-11-04 21:49:17.300000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Self', 'Productivity', 'Books', 'Habits'] |
TV-TWO: Early May Update. Just A Few Weeks To Go! | So you’ll have seen the announcement that we will start the TV-TWO token sale and pre-sale distribution on 24 May. We’ve had some great support from our community, so we just want to say a quick thank you to all of you who appreciate the lengths we’re going to create the Future of Television! We want the ICO to begin in an ideal market situation, and the bulls are already returning!
So much has been happening and if you’ve seen recent updates, you’ll know that not only have we been growing our increasingly impressive roster of advisors — welcome Christopher Obereder, Philip Rottschäfer, Cody Lamson, and Harold Kim! — we’ve also been
perfecting the product, doing our bit to create even more buzz, and pitching like crazy.
Our four new advisors!
It feels like things are finally paying off. Our Telegram community is now over 10,000 subscribers, our ratings are improving, and we even scooped a €25,000 prize at last month Crypto Conference in Berlin.
So what’s next? Well, for one we’ll keep pushing product development forward. We’ve already overcome the Ethereum blockchain’s scalability issues by using µRaiden; have implemented an incentivized survey system for the proof of attention; and launched a test user base for product feedback — which is already earning tokens on the Kovan Testnet.
Take a look at our latest product demo here: https://tv-two.com/documents/TV-TWO_Demo.mp4 | https://medium.com/tvtwo/tv-two-early-may-update-just-a-few-weeks-to-go-6660ba060806 | [] | 2020-04-17 18:06:21.370000+00:00 | ['Television', 'Ethereum', 'ICO', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain'] |
Isaac Franklin: America’s Billionaire Slave Trader | Isaac Franklin: America’s Billionaire Slave Trader
A forerunner of America’s long-forgotten slave-trading past
An Advertisement for the trade of slaves, Source: Wikimedia
Slavery has been an integral part of almost every flourishing society of the past, wherein the rich & powerful oppressed and exploited the weaker sections of society in an attempt to acquire more money and satisfy their greed for wealth.
The Portuguese colonisers were the first to bring forth the idea of abducting native people and sending them forcefully, to work on their plantations across the continents.
Representation of African slaves being loaded onto a colonisers ship; Source: Pic
Soon every other European coloniser followed suit and began forcefully shipping individuals of the weaker sections of the society to their respective colonies which were spread all across the globe. The colonisers noted that it was highly cost-effective to make helpless-slaves work on their plantations for free instead of hiring normal workers.
This concept of using unpaid slaves to work in various agricultural and industrial sectors spread like wildfire and within no time slavery was being practised in numerous countries across the globe, the American society being no exception from this evil practice. This social evil was embedded in the society to such an extent that, some American presidents, despite residing in the White House had enslaved individuals who were forced to toil for hours together for their masters unquestionably.
American president George Washington with his slaves; Source: Pic
These enslaved individuals lacked basic human rights and were made to slog like animals on the plantations owned by the wealthy & educated white families (with a few exceptions though). One of the primary reasons for their enslavement was their dark skin colour which they had no control off but were unconditionally forced to pay a heavy price for it. They were always shown-down and humiliated by the whites who considered dark skin colour to be a symbol of inferiority.
A slave along with her child in her in an undated image; Source: Pic
Further in 1662, the atrocious Virginia slaves law was passed which declared that, if an enslaved women gave birth to a child, then the person who owned the women was entitled to decide whether to, let the child remain with the mother or be sold away on the slave market. This law gave the slave traders a new loophole to earn money. The women slaves were now forcibly separated from their families and impregnated by the traders themselves. These pregnant women would then be sold for a price, higher than usual asserting that she is due to gift the owner with another generation of slaves. The unsold women slaves would be caged in slave-holding pens until they gave birth to a healthy baby who was then sold in the slave markets a few months later, similar to that of an everyday commodity. This cycle of using caged women slaves to produce newer generations of slaves kept continuing until the women perished out of exhaustion, only to be replaced by a new one.
The cellar from the slaveholding pen owned by Isaac Franklin and John Armfield; Source: Pic
Enter Isaac Franklin:
Isaac Franklin in an undated image; Source: Pic
Isaac Franklin was born on May 26 1789, at Pilot’s Knob Plantation on Station Camp Creek in Sumner County, Tennessee.
His father, James Franklin (1755–1828), had relocated from Baltimore, Maryland and served in the army during the Revolutionary War. After the war, the State of North Carolina awarded him 640 acres (2.6 km²) of land for his exemplary service (North Carolina then claimed Tennessee as part of its western territory). A vast part of this awarded land was converted into plantations, however since James Franklin was continually away from home for military purposes it was his son Isaac Franklin who was taking care of all the plantations related responsibilities like employing slaves, making sure that they don’t steal the agricultural produce, selling the produce to the nearby markets at profitable prices etc.
In 1808 during the harvest period, Isaac’s mother fell seriously ill. He was no longer able to focus on tending to the duties related to plantations therefore after the year’s produce was harvested and sold, he rented out all his workers to the nearby plantations.
This is when Issac realised that he could earn better profits by renting out his plantation workers than going through the gruesome process of cultivating crops throughout the year. So in 1810, he gave up taking care of plantations and began renting out all his plantation workers to nearby plantations. At this juncture, his father James Franklin had returned home and insisted that he should look at rendering his services to the army. Though at first Isaac was reluctant to enrol himself in the army he gave in to his father’s request and enrolled himself into the army.
A painting depicting the War of 1812; Source: Pic
So he began serving in the army and went on to battle for America during the War of 1812 in which he was badly wounded and was forced to 7 months of bed rest. This is when he earnestly returned to the slave trade and made it his full-time work.
Establishing Franklin & Armfield Slave Trading Firm:
The Franklin and Armfield house where slaves were stored in the cellar; Source: Pic
In 1828 Isaac Franklin’s father passed away leaving massive wealth and a large portion of his plantations for Issac. He along with his nephew John Armfield established a slave-trading firm; “Franklin & Armfield” in Alexandria financed by the fortune he acquired from his father.
The Fairvue plantation owned by Isaac Franklin; Source: Pic
Numerous branch offices were opened in all the prime locations and in a very short span of time, the firm became synonymous to slave trading and went on to become one of the most successful slave-trading firms of the country. The duo were soon selling slaves to various high profile politicians and business owners with at exorbitant prices. By 1832 the two companions were the undisputed tycoons of the slave trade with an economic impact so profound that nearly five per cent of all business credit available in the state-owned public sector banks was routed through their slave-trading firm. Several leading newspapers of the period described the duo as extremely successful businesses men with visionary leadership skills.
Wealth Attracts Power:
The staggering amount of wealth Isaac Franklin and John Armfield had amassed through selling slaves enticed numerous politicians and wealthy merchants to begin their own slave-trading business firms. This saw a massive increment in the number of slave trading businesses being set up and to meet the rising demand slaves were being captured and shipped across at breathtaking rates.
Within no time slave trade was one of the primary sources of funding for major political parties, the Churches, development activities in the United States, maintenance of the army and also setting up colonies overseas.
Inhumane Treatment:
Today there is very little evidence to back the fact that slaves were actually mistreated, after all the efforts of the elite class to erase these events from the pages of history.
A painting depicting how men and women slaves were stripped naked when aboard the slave ship to incite the feeling of inferiority; Source: Pic
Their gruesome journey began in Africa where the individuals were separated from their families, whipped until they became physically weak to fight back the traders then chained and boarded on to ships. On the ships, they had to endure the most sickening conditions like mistreatment by the crew, rape and danger of contracting deadly diseases due to unhygienic condition. The individuals who protested against this practice on the ship were thrown into the ocean so that they do not inspire others to do the same.
A woman being branded based on her physical looks; Source: Pic
Once ashore after months of the journey at seas, they were being bought by traders like Isaac Franklin who would then segregate men, women and children.
Women would undergo an extra round of segregation wherein the visually appealing, youthful ones would be separated from the others. These women were then branded as “fancy maids” signifying the potential for sexual exploitation and shipped across the country as gifts for pleasing high profile politicians, business owners, judges and otherwise sold at a premium cost. Some recovered letters sent between Issac Franklin and John Armfield indicate that they fathered children with several fancy maids but never accepted it publically.
Life After Retirement:
In 1835 Franklin retired from the slave-trading business with a jaw-dropping 10,800 acres of land and a bank balance of several thousands of dollars (around $24 billion in today’s currency) in his possession. After his retirement, he publically accepted to have fathered a child with a fancy maid named Lucinda who he had been raping for about 5 years, who was still residing with him.
A painting of Adelicia Hayes; Source: Pic
At the age of 50, he married Adelicia Hayes (22 years old), daughter of Oliver Bliss Hayes, who was a Nashville Presbyterian minister. Soon after his wedding, he sold Lucinda and her child to Adelicia Hayes’s father who in turn gifted the enslaved women and her child to an Englishman, whose fates remain unknown till date.
Isaac fathered 4 children with Adelicia Hayes of which none of them survived beyond the age of 10. Seven years into his marriage he passed away following a brief illness. This followed a bitter legal battle between his wife and business partner John Armfield regarding the ownership of his assets.
The court orders soon came in favour of Adelicia Hayes which made her the wealthiest women in Tennessee. In 1849 she married Joseph Alexander Smith Acklen who together had six children.
Final Thoughts:
We may seemingly never be able to comprehend the sentiments of all those millions of young men and women who were shoved into slavery and had to give up on their dreams and pursuits, solely because of their skin colour. At times like this, it is good to remind ourselves that there were indeed several people who have committed heinous and got away with it without any repercussions.
Despite all atrocities that were committed by Isaac Franklin he lived his entire life without being confronted about his barbaric profession which was a reason for sufferings for several thousand human beings. He enjoyed the reputation of being a well-mannered gentleman and with most of his friends belonging to the top tier social circles who frequently threw out extravagant parties in the name of raising funds for social charities and helping the society. He indeed lived a life of hypocrisy and met his very end without being penalised even once for all the lives he had ruined. | https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/isaac-franklin-americas-billionaire-slave-trader-ecd0c7397f60 | ['Vishnu A'] | 2020-09-13 08:01:00.907000+00:00 | ['Trade', 'Humanity', 'History', 'Slavery', 'Billionaires'] |
I Want to Start #NobodyAsksForYourOpinion | So, basically a while ago, something came up on my mind. I have a realization that during my college years, I often found myself with hesitation and doubt to speak up about my mind and my opinions. On public or even social media. There is a confession that even I have doubt to admit to myself and only few people that notice it, maybe. It’s a confession that I don’t even admit to myself. That I’m a shy and introverted person. I mean, is it… something to be embarrassed about? Is it… not a good thing? Now that I’m writing in on a public platform, will it be a boomerang for me? Will I be judged based on my confession? Is it a one brave step for me to write it on public? Surely I don’t sound shy and introverted when I’m writing this. But, what harm could it give me if I write, admit, and post it online? Well, maybe it’s a way for me to practice my confidence to let my mind and opinions about certain things be heard and known.
During that realization, a thought came, something that made me a little bit more accepting about myself. What if, before someone says “Nobody asks for your opinion” or “Nobody asked” to me, I say that to myself first? Accepting that, yeah, my mind and opinion might not be accepted or heard, but at least it’s out there. What if someone says “You’re wrong” or “You make no sense”, I accept that possibility first? No matter if someone thinks I’m ridiculous. It might sound easy as I’m typing it right now, but surely it will be a practice, and not an instant one. But it’s something that I’m willing to work on because I believe there is someone out there that has the same thought as me.
I guess, with that short explanation, I will start writing my mind and opinion here if I get something come up. I’m quite curious of how it turns out and hopefully, it brings me good.
-Prily | https://medium.com/@prcalista/i-want-to-start-nobodyasksforyouropinion-2b0bc0b67561 | ['Prily Calista'] | 2020-12-26 16:23:32.326000+00:00 | ['Mindset', 'Journal', 'Mind', 'Opinion'] |
MSPs must ‘recommit’ to child poverty targets after May election | MSPs elected to the Scottish Parliament in May must recommit to tackling child poverty, the former Edinburgh Poverty Commission chair has said.
Dr Jim McCormick, who is now chief executive of grant-giving charity The Robertson Trust, also warned politicians not to use the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse not to act.
Scottish Government figures show almost one in four children in Scotland were living in poverty between 2016–19 (230,000 per year).
And recent analysis estimated 60,000 children were at risk of falling into poverty due to income reduction as a result of COVID-19.
But the Child Poverty Act, passed unanimously by the Scottish Parliament in 2017, put in place a target of reducing child poverty to less than 10% of all children by 2030.
In an interview with Holyrood magazine, McCormick said there would be “tough questions” about the policy interventions required to help people out of poverty in the next parliamentary term.
He said: “It is absolutely right that we recommit following the election. Whoever is elected to Holyrood next May, thinking about the big turnover here in ministers and MSPs, we need to recommit to those targets and not use the economic shock as an excuse.”
The next Scottish Parliament election is set to take place on Thursday 6 May 2021.
Interim child poverty targets oblige the Scottish Government to ensure fewer than 18% of children in Scotland are living in poverty in 2023.
McCormick has also called for cross-party commitment to achieve this milestone, warning not doing so would risk meeting the overall target in 10 years.
He said: “It’s appropriate that politicians argue over the best way to get there, but there should be no argument about the fact that we should recommit and that this is feasible for a wealthy country like Scotland, pandemic or not.
“I think we need to reenergise everyone around this as the right goal for this decade, and be quite tough about the interim target three years from now rather than saying we can relax on that because we’ll get there by the end of the decade.
“We’ll only get there by the end of the decade if we make enough progress now.”
The Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland has also called for every level of government to work together on the issue.
Director John Dickie said: “Real progress can be made, so we need to build on the platform and really start to shift resources and priority in a pretty big way if we’re serious about meeting both the interim child poverty targets and the 2030 child poverty targets.
“With political will, with commitment and public support, these are targets that can be met.”
There have also been calls to support single parent families in particular, who face a greater risk of poverty than two-parent families.
One Parent Families Scotland director Satwat Rehman said: “This is not something we’re going to solve in three to five years. This doesn’t follow political election timetables and cycles neatly.
“This is something that we have to commit to for the long run, because it is about structural and systemic change.” | https://medium.com/@louisewilso/msps-must-recommit-to-child-poverty-targets-after-may-election-4f7ef18c54d7 | ['Louise Wilson'] | 2021-03-06 19:58:53.929000+00:00 | ['Child Poverty', 'Poverty'] |
Machine Learning System Design: Lessons from Facebook | Facebook offers a wide variety of products and services, most of which leverage machine learning. Each machine learning model requires first a training phase and then, once deployed, an inference phase. For the training phase, the model can ingest hundreds of terabytes of data. For the inference phase, depending on the product, the model may be run tens-of trillions of times per day. Generally, this needs to be performed in real-time. System design, therefore, is key in order to meet these requirements and guarantee optimal performance.
The post will analyze two papers ([1], [2]) published by Facebook in order to highlight the importance of system design in machine learning, illustrating three lessons that will be useful for any machine learning engineer.
Group multiple models as a cascading classifier, store them in separate servers
Online inference has to be done by optimizing for latency. It is important to have models that produce very fast results without sacrificing the quality of the prediction. A common approach to solve this problem is to join multiple models using a funnel architecture or cascade classifier. This means initially using simple models that can do fast passes with large quantity of data but rapidly transition towards more complicated models with sparse embeddings.
In order to design the architecture of a cascading classifier, Hazelwood et al. argue that simple and complex models should be run on separate servers. Because of their sparse embeddings and high amount of parameters, complex models are memory intensive. Therefore, for later passes, they should be run on a separate server from the initial passes. Some models can even be run directly on users’ mobile devices to reduce latency and increase decoupling.
Combine online and offline training to build a complex but fast hybrid model
Cascading classifiers have many purposes, like predicting clicks on online advertising systems. At Facebook, online advertisement systems filter large quantities of ads and guarantee that only relevant and personalized ads are shown to clients. These systems have two important requirements: They need to have a very low latency and use freshly generated data.
The requirement of data freshness comes from the fact that data distribution changes over time and therefore prediction accuracy degrades the older the data gets. He et al [1] illustrate how the delay in days influence the model’s normalized entropy:
He et al [1]: Prediction accuracy degrades with time
An additional requirement from the model is to generate feature transformations to improve the model accuracy. He et al. argue that Boosted Decision Trees (BDT) can be used to implement non-linear and tuple transformations. BDTs learn how to obtain the best feature transformations by interacting with the data and obtain good embedding representations.
The problem with these two practices (using fresh data and using BDTs) is that they are difficult to optimize jointly. This is because the BDTs need to be trained offline but this is detrimental to the data freshness requirement.
He et al. propose an interesting solution that uses a hybrid model that combines a BDT with a linear classifier. The joint model uses the output of each individual tree as a categorical input feature to the linear classifier.
The training process of the model can be broken in 2 parts: Boosted decision trees are trained offline ( in a 2 day span) and the linear classifier can be trained in near real-time. For the inference step the two models are joined.
Hybrid model structure: Part 1 (green) trained offline. Part 2 (red) trained online
This model would be used in the last stage of a click prediction model of a cascade classifier and presents a solution that tries to combine the best of both worlds: a complex model with multiple parameters that is trained offline and a simple and sparse model that is highly personalized and uses fresh data based on interacting with the user.
Design an online system to train the model
He et al. [1] introduce an experimental system that generates real-time data used to train the linear classifier (shown in the previous section) via online learning. This system is referred to as an “online joiner” because it joins the result of a user interaction (label) with the features of the user. This becomes the input for training the model creating a training loop:
He et al. Online joiner
He et al. discuss how to correctly label impressions and how to contend with the waiting window problem. Using too long a waiting window increases latency but a too short time window causes some mislabeling.
Finally because the process runs as a continuous loop, it is important to monitor for system failures because it can introduce a significant amount of noise in the training process.
Both He et al. and Hazelwood et al. show us creative ways of dealing with the challenges associated with training and inference in machine learning models. They propose ways engineers can design innovative architectures that will provide elegant solutions to common problems. If you are going to design a system or are interested in machine learning more broadly, Facebook’s research lab offers good lessons to start.
References:
[1]: He et al. (2016). Practical Lessons from Predicting Clicks on Ads at Facebook https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/practical-lessons-from-predicting-clicks-on-ads-at-facebook.pdf
[2]: Hazelwood et al. (2017). Applied Machine Learning at Facebook: A Datacenter Infrastructure Perspective https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/hpca-2018-facebook.pdf | https://medium.com/swlh/machine-learning-system-design-lessons-from-facebook-e78dc4db5372 | ['Roberto Valdez Ponce'] | 2020-12-06 05:47:29.570000+00:00 | ['System Design', 'Machine Learning'] |
A Short Introduction. | I forthwith condemn any inconcise introduction to advertisements fiendishly disguised as internet blog posts, and instead will inform the reader that I am quite usually, apart from some exceptional occasions, entitled by most as the simple, single-sylable name: Will.
The reader may wish to know that my title has a somewhat germanic orgin, and was first introduced to England by none other than “William” the Conquerer himself, after the Norman Conquest of 1066.
I am humbled to be able to be part of this spectacular platform, where writers, thinkers and artists are free as a bird to share their opinions, stories and ideas, to an audience rich with the noble spirit of humanity.
If the readers interests are so, they might also desire to be informed of my style of writing. I like to think that I do like to keep my works as succinct as is possible and, as you may see below and above, in easy, bitesize chunks so that the reader may stop to smell to the air or tinker with their fingernails, without losing their place. You’re welcome.
Tis’ quite possibly also within the surface questions of the reader’s mind as to what genre they will have ladled into their media-thirsty, twenty-first century minds. Well I can tell you this much friends: if the pen (or in this case the keyboard) is indeed mightier than the sword, then what better place to march an army of typography through the fortresses of those who percieve this Earth and their spieces as a place and as people for them to carelessly destroy, than this- the Garden-of-Eden, for the righteous, for the noble, for the people.
Those who find it not in the slightest bit disgusting to toss aside wrappers, paper cups, plastic cups, bottles, bags, boxes, packaging, lottery tickets, cigarette cards, fast-food containers, rubbish, trash, bags full of rubbish, boxes full to with trash, great, gaping vats overflowing with the ghastly, putrid waste that our people will leave like footprints in the snow- a trail, dawdling behind them as they too, dawdle through life, consuming media, eating, sleeping, drinking, disgarding, reproducing and then, finally, dying. You, inhabitants, are the people I write to. If it is in your best interest, the reader may like to know that, though no one will be able to change how you live your lives, writers in this ‘medium’ of creativity: we can change the way you think.
Think about it. | https://medium.com/@inverseandnoise/a-short-introduction-1ef4db8397c7 | ['Will R Howard'] | 2020-12-19 18:44:26.855000+00:00 | ['Introduction', 'Littering', 'Climate Crisis', 'Welcome', 'Hello'] |
CARMERA Partners with Baidu Apollo to Support the Apollo Open Source HD Map Format for AV Developers Worldwide | CARMERA Partners with Baidu Apollo to Support the Apollo Open Source HD Map Format for AV Developers Worldwide Ro Gupta Follow Jun 26, 2019 · 3 min read
TL;DR
We’ve partnered with Baidu Apollo to support the continued development of the Apollo autonomous driving open platform and its global community.
In 2018, we demonstrated high quality creation and vehicle integration of the Apollo HD Map for an initial test area in Silicon Valley, and have continued to support mapping for a variety of use cases in the Apollo format.
In 2019 and beyond, we will seek to support HD Map for global developers and partners of the Baidu Apollo open source platform for R&D and production needs.
Example CARMERA HD Apollo map created for Baidu Apollo research vehicles in Sunnyvale, California
A Rapidly Maturing Open Platform
Baidu launched Apollo in 2017 as an open source platform that enables developers and partners to build their own AV systems. With over 130 enterprise partnerships, including some of the most recognizable brands in AV like Ford, NVIDIA and Velodyne, as well as the massive adoption by many researchers, students and hobbyists all over the world, the Apollo technology stack is maturing at a rapid pace. In January 2019, Baidu Apollo released version 3.5, now with over 390,000 lines of code and over 12,000 Github developers.
This rapid maturation has sparked a demand for Apollo HD Maps. In fact, HD Map has become one of the most frequently queried topics by developers everywhere. In turn, we have seen a significant increase in our customers asking for and deploying map data in the Apollo format in categories such as Automotive OEMs, Trucking, Last-Mile Delivery, R&D Test Tracks and University Groups. Our versatile, I/O-agnostic approach to providing HD maps as a service has allowed us to deploy Apollo maps in these use cases quickly, reliably and repeatedly for production-grade vehicle operation.
“High definition maps have become one of the most fundamental elements of any AV system, and remain a top priority for the Baidu Apollo developer community,” said Jingao Wang, Executive Director and General Manager of R&D of the Apollo Platform, Baidu. “We are excited to continue serving our growing community by partnering with CARMERA, a high quality service provider, for building and maintaining maps in Apollo HD Map format around the world.”
A Partnership a Year in the Making
Today’s announcement is a milestone news moment, but it is also the result of over a year of collaboration between our two companies.
In 2018 in Sunnyvale, California, we successfully achieved in-vehicle integration of CARMERA-produced HD maps with Baidu Apollo’s test AVs. Since then, we have supported mapping for a variety of use cases in the Apollo format. Going forward, we will expand support, aiming to serve Apollo’s growing set of research and commercial use cases around the world. We will strive to be a resource for Apollo developers and partners worldwide in supporting the development of Apollo HD Map for education and research uses, as well as large-scale production deployment.
We’ve had a front row seat in observing the impressive maturation and customer adoption of Apollo. Their team’s commitment to cultivating a robust, democratized platform marks significant progress towards our industry’s collective “moonshot” for safe, reliable and ubiquitous autonomous mobility.
This partnership, along with our recently announced collaboration with Toyota, is indicative of what we believe is the wider, deeper opportunity within the HD mapping space: Level 4-capable maps with robust change detection and management that rely primarily on cost-effective cameras. In that context, with the vast majority of the world untouched by HD maps, our partnership with Baidu Apollo brings us closer to our goal of defining the next generation of global-scale maps to ensure that autonomy works for all. | https://medium.com/field-of-view/carmera-partners-with-baidu-apollo-to-support-the-apollo-open-source-hd-map-format-for-av-1d795dff2f03 | ['Ro Gupta'] | 2019-06-26 15:22:52.142000+00:00 | ['Autonomous Cars', 'Open Source', 'Mapping', 'Self Driving Cars', 'News'] |
Fiscal policy for net zero goals — have we got our principles right? | Fiscal policy for net zero goals — have we got our principles right? Padmasai Varanasi Feb 20·3 min read
Over the past year we have seen a growing sense of urgency from governments across world to respond to rising global temperatures and climate change. Countries which account for over half of global GDP have pledged to climate targets and are charting policy plans and milestones to work towards achieving their goals.
These call for a transformation of our attitude towards our planet and the resources it has to offer. Old extractive ways and attitude must be upended to make way for a new more symbiotic approach towards harnessing natures gifts. Change is necessary across the board, from the way we produce, cleaning up our supply chains along the way to the way we consume followed by reuse/repair or recycling.
Fiscal policy can play a powerful role in driving change, disincentivising harmful activities, nudging businesses and consumers to make more sustainable choices and spurring greater innovation. UNCC has a very insightful and informative course on Green Fiscal Policy which I highly recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the motivation, principles, the instruments and strategies for implementing green fiscal policy initiatives.
An important learning from the course that I’d like to draw attention to in this post is the idea of an environmental tax shift. An environmental tax shift entails increasing taxes on things the society does not desire such as pollution and environment degradation and using the revenue raised to lower taxes on things valued by society such as good jobs, income and profits.
This reminded me of the concept of a Pigouvian tax, named after English economist Arthur Pigou. Pigou, an English Economist espoused taxing activities based on their social cost, also taking into account the externalities they generate. For example, a factory that pollutes the environment currently only takes into account its private costs, with no concern for the social costs i.e. the adverse impacts of its activities on society such as health risks and environmental degradation. This has to change, a polluter must pay as per Pigou.
Bringing together Pigouvian taxes and an environmental tax shift could see economies reap a double dividend, as higher revenues raised from taxing undesirable activities can be channelled to incentivise innovation, protect the vulnerable who might be affected by taxes (e.g. tax on kerosene can affect the poor) or lower taxes on other desirable activities.
Carbon taxes implemented in British Columbia, Denmark and Finland are an example of a tax on the public bad, with the revenue raised directed to lower taxes on labour, protect the vulnerable and fund pension contributions.
Source: OECD
But where do we stand as a world today when it comes to applying these ideas to our policies? Fossil fuel subsidies are still significant globally. OECD’s analysis of budgetary transfers, tax breaks and spending programmes linked to the production and use of coal, oil, gas and other petroleum products in 50 OECD, G20 and European Union (EU) Eastern Partnership (EaP) economies shows that total fossil fuel support rose by 5% year-on-year to USD 178 billion in 2019, ending a five-year downward trend as can be seen from the charts.
Clearly reform is needed, the world is faced with a rapidly shrinking carbon budget and fossil fuel subsidies which encourage its use worsen the situation.
Can the revenue raised from reforming fossil fuel subsidies be channelled to social protection programmes that support the poor and vulnerable? Certainly. Solutions emerge when the guiding principles are clear.
The simple principle — to tax ‘public bads’ and invest in ‘public goods’ should underpin our fiscal policies. Every existing policy can be re-examined with this lens as we strive to strengthen our response to the grave threat of climate change.
I hope to explore ‘what are public bads and public goods?’, ‘how do we determine their value?’, how do we design fiscal policy underpinned by social value?’ and many other questions in upcoming posts… | https://medium.com/@padmasai/fiscal-policy-for-net-zero-goals-have-we-got-our-principles-right-d839da13ffc6 | ['Padmasai Varanasi'] | 2021-02-20 15:27:02.687000+00:00 | ['Green Economy', 'Sustainable Development', 'Fiscal Policy', 'Net Zero Emission', 'Climate Change'] |
Analysis of US presidential election 2020 | Harshita Garg
The US presidential election 2020 was full of drama, excitement, confusion and controversies. The whole world watched with bated breath as Joe Biden was declared winner, despite Trump’s continued refusal to concede.
The analysis presented here is an attempt to understand how people of different ages, races and education levels felt towards the two election candidates- Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
The questions that we would try to answer here are:
Is there any interesting pattern in voters’ feelings and their demographic data like age, sex, race and education? Do feelings of voters towards different races and ethnicities, affect their feelings towards Trump/Biden?
Data
The data for this analysis has been obtained from the website of American National Election Studies(ANES). ANES produces high-quality data by conducting online surveys on range of topics like voting, public opinion, and political participation.
First step for our analysis is to read data into an r data frame. Dataset can be downloaded from here.
data_2020 <- read.csv(“C:/Users~/anes_pilot_2020ets_csv.csv”, na.strings=c(“”,” “,”NA”))
In this dataset, feelings of respondents towards different people/issues in these surveys are described by feelings thermometer, with values ranging from 0–100. In this article we will be using the abbreviation ft for feelings thermometer.
There are a total of 3080 rows and 365 predictor variables in data_2020. But we are only interested in the feeling thermometer columns and profile data like age, race, education and gender. So let us now create a new data frame that has all the columns that are of interest to us.
col_2020 <- c("fttrump1", "ftobama1", "ftbiden1","ftblack", "ftwhite", "fthisp", "ftfeminists", "age", "sex", "race7", "educ")
short_2020 <- data_2020[,col_2020]
A quick run of !complete.cases command tells us that there are no missing values in the datasets. But some values for ft columns in short_2020 has invalid value 999. Let’s get rid of these rows.
short_2020 <- short_2020 %>% filter_all(all_vars(. !=999 ))
Exploratory analysis and visualization
Let’s draw some insightful plots and try to understand our data better.
ggplot(short_2020) +
geom_histogram(aes(x=fttrump1,fill = "green", alpha = 0.3)) +
geom_histogram(aes(x=ftbiden1,fill = "blue", alpha = 0.3), position = "identity") +
scale_fill_manual(name="FT", values=c("green","blue"),labels=c("Trump","Biden")) +
ggtitle( "Feelings Thermometer")
This is the plot for feelings distribution for Trump and Biden. In these histograms, we can see that there are more respondents who have warmest(100 degrees) feelings towards Biden than Trump, but there are also a large number of people who have cold feelings( 0 degrees) for both Biden and Trump. More people have 0 feelings for Biden than Trump. But the mean of overall feelings for Biden is more than that for Trump.
Let’s try and draw a correlation plot between all the variables of the data.
library(corrplot)
corrplot(cor(short_2020), method = "circle", type = "upper")
This plot gives us some interesting insights like:
There is a negative correlation between feelings for Trump and Biden and also, feelings for Trump and Obama. This means that people who have voted as having warm feelings for Trump tend to have cold feelings for Obama and Biden and vice versa. There is a positive correlation between feelings for Obama and Biden. Which means as respondents feelings towards Obama increases, so does their feelings for Trump. There’s a small negative correlation between feelings for feminists and feelings for Trump. suggesting that people supporting feminists do not generally support Trump and vice versa.
These insights can be further confirmed by plotting data for people who have voted high for Trump and Biden. For this, we have to first make a subset of people whose feelings for Trump is ≥ 75 degrees. We then plot feelings of these people for different races like Black, White, Hispanics and feminists. We did the same for Biden as well and got the following plot.
#subset of people who voted > 74 degrees for Trump
trump_high_2020 <- short_2020[which(short_2020$fttrump1 > 74),]
#Draw frequency plots for ftblack, ftwhite, fthisp and ftfeminists
p1 <- ggplot(trump_high_2020)+ geom_freqpoly(aes(x= ftblack,color= "ftblack"), size = 1.5) + geom_freqpoly(aes(x = ftwhite, color = "ftwhite"), size = 1.5) + geom_freqpoly(aes(x = fthisp, color ="fthisp" ), size = 1.5) +geom_freqpoly(aes(x = ftfeminists, color = "ftfeminists"), size = 1.5)
# Add labels and colors
trump <- p1 + scale_color_manual(name = "FT", values = c(ftblack = "black", ftwhite = "yellow", fthisp = "green", ftfeminists = "red")) +labs(title = "People who voted high for Trump", x = "Feelings Thermometer") biden_high_2020 <- short_2020[which(short_2020$ftbiden1 > 74),]
p1 <- ggplot(biden_high_2020)+ geom_freqpoly(aes(x= ftblack,color= "ftblack"), size = 1.5) + geom_freqpoly(aes(x = ftwhite, color = "ftwhite"), size = 1.5) + geom_freqpoly(aes(x = fthisp, color ="fthisp" ), size = 1.5) +geom_freqpoly(aes(x = ftfeminists, color = "ftfeminists"), size = 1.5)
biden <- p1 + scale_color_manual(name = "FT", values = c(ftblack = "black", ftwhite = "yellow", fthisp = "green", ftfeminists = "red")) + labs(title = "People who voted high for Biden", x = "Feelings Thermometer") #plot the 2 graphs together
grid.arrange(trump, biden, ncol = 2)
Above plots suggest that people who feel warm towards Trump generally have warm feelings for white and black races. They have mixed feelings for Hispanics and generally cold feelings for feminists. On the other hand, people who have voted high for Biden have mostly warm feelings for black, white and Hispanic races and mixed feelings for feminists. But in general, there is more support for feminists by Biden supporters than the Trump supporters.
Let us now try to find out how people from different races feel towards Trump. A plot of fttrump with respect to race variable can be done using the following code.
#convert race to a categorical variable
short_2020$race7 <- as.factor(short_2020$race7)
#getting rid of races with very few data points
less_races <- short_2020 %>% filter(short_2020$race7 != 7 & short_2020$race7 != 9)
#draw the plot
p <- ggplot(less_races, aes(x = fttrump1, fill = race7))+
geom_density(alpha = 0.4) + labs(title = "Feeling Thermometer by Race")
#fix the legend
p + scale_fill_discrete(name = "Race", labels = c("White","Black", "Asian","Mixed","Hispanic","American Indian"))
We get the following plot:
This plot shows a general pattern of how different races feel towards Trump. It suggests that black communities tend to have colder feelings towards Trump whereas White races have relatively warmer feelings. Other races have mixed feelings but in general, people from the races Asian, Mixed and Hispanic races feel more cold towards Trump than warm.
A similar plot for feeling Thermometer for Biden was drawn:
This plot shows that a large number of white people have 0 degrees warmth towards Biden, whereas a large number of blacks and Hispanics generally feel warm towards him. Asian and mixed races have mixed feelings for Biden, but general trend is warmer than colder.
Let us now try and see if we can identify any pattern in education of respondents and their feelings towards the 2 candidates. For this, we first group them by education and find their mean feelings. This data is then plotted on the graph.
#Group by education and find mean
educ_ft <- short_2020 %>% group_by(`educ`, educ)%>% summarise_at(vars("fttrump1", "ftbiden1"), mean)
#convert mean to factor
educ_ft$educ <- as.factor(educ_ft$educ)
#Plot the data
p1 <- ggplot(educ_ft)+geom_point(aes(x= educ, y = fttrump1), shape = 19, size = 4, color = "red") + geom_point(aes(x=educ, y = ftbiden1), shape = 15, size = 4, color = "green")
#Display education levels on the plot
p2 <- p1+ scale_x_discrete(labels = c("<= 12th grade", "High School Diploma", "No degree", "Associate degree", "Bachelor's degree","Master's Degree", "Professional Degree", "Doctorate"))
#display titles and axes labels
p2 + theme(axis.text.x=element_text( size=11, angle=30, vjust=.8, hjust=0.8))+labs(title = "Mean Feelings by Education") + xlab ("Education")+ ylab("Mean feelings")
This graph shows that respondents with higher education level like Masters, professional degree and doctorate tend to have warmer feelings towards Biden. Trump on the other hand is supported more by people who have studied till 12th grade and who have high school diplomas / associate degrees.
Now, we want to plot the ft by sex. Since we want feelings for both Trump and Biden to be plotted against sex on the same plot, we have used the melt function from the library reshape. You can read more about this function here.
short_2020$sex <- as.factor(short_2020$sex)
library(reshape)
#melt the data
m_2020 <- melt(short_2020, id.vars = 'sex', measure.vars = c('fttrump1', 'ftbiden1'))
#plot the boxplots
p1 <- ggplot(m_2020) + geom_boxplot(aes(x=sex, y=value, fill=variable))
#fix axes and titles of the plot
p1 + scale_x_discrete(labels = c("Male", "Female"))+ labs(title = "Feelings by sex", fill = "Feelings Thermometer" )
Mean feelings of females is a lot lower for Trump than that of males for Trump. For Biden, mean feelings of males and females is approximately the same(nearly 50 degrees).
Lastly, lets plot ft against age to see if we can find any patterns. A simple scatterplot of feelings thermometer by age failed to give any useful results. Therefore, age was divided into age groups of 10 years and plotted them against the sum of their feelings.
#create age range
short_2020 <- short_2020%>%mutate(AgeRange = cut(age, breaks = c(18,30,40,50,60,70,80,90)))
#plot feelings thermometer by age
p1 <- ggplot(short_2020, aes(x=AgeRange, y = fttrump1, fill = “green”, alpha = 0.3)) +geom_bar(stat = “identity”)
p2 <- p1 + geom_bar(aes(x = AgeRange, y = ftbiden1, fill = “blue”, alpha = 0.3), stat = “identity”)
#fix the labels
p2 + scale_fill_manual(name=”FT”, values=c(“green”,”blue”),labels=c(“Trump”,”Biden”))+ ggtitle( “Feelings Thermometer by Age”)
This plot shows that younger people tend to have warmer feelings for Trump than Biden. People in the age range 60–70 years and 80–90 years favoured Biden slightly more than Trump.
Conclusion
After plotting all the graphs and careful analysis of the given data, we arrived at the following conclusions:
Trump has lots of supporters from white race but not so many from black. Biden on the other hand has a large number of supporters from black race, with an equally large number of white people not supporting him. As the level of education increases, so does the chances of people supporting Biden. Comparatively younger voters favor Trump more than Biden and Trump has lesser female supporters than males. People who feel warm towards Trump also have warm feelings for White and black communities but not so much for feminists.
In the next part of this article We will try to analyze how voter feelings changed towards Trump in four years from 2016 to 2020. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/analysis-of-us-presidential-election-2020-226e0c268c7b | ['Harshita Garg'] | 2020-12-29 17:10:30.969000+00:00 | ['Us Election2020', 'Data Analysis', 'Visualization', 'Ggplot2', 'Data Science'] |
Promote stay-at-home mothers from housewife status to project manager | I’ve managed projects for several years, and there is one fact that will never change; you cannot learn how to be a project manager from a book. Good project managers learn from their mistakes and from varied experience.
Experience can be classed as different sized projects, working with different people, different terrains, different countries, different industries, and the list is endless.
Learning project management at university or the so called PMP qualification is just ‘noise’. It has no relevance and certainly does not qualify the candidate to become a project manager. Perhaps it could work in sectors where one has to collect lemons from a tree, but it certainly is and will not be accepted in sectors such as oil and gas, where common sense prevails!
Communication, having the right team members, processes and procedures, careful logistics, strong management of supply chain, are all key ingredients of the perfect project.
Maintaining schedule, quality and cost is the key to success.
However, I don’t see a designation in the job section as ‘office husband’ or ‘office wife’. So, why are stay-at-home mothers called housewives as a designation in applications, school forms, NHS questionnaires, and so on and so forth.
Does a mother not qualify as a project manager status?
Let’s look at this in some detail. Let’s assess the client. The client is a new-born baby. The mother has been handed a ‘project’ which may require management for c.20 years. As the baby is put into the mother’s arms (let’s assume there are no twins or triplets!), then the months of pre-reading and learning are thrown out of the window from the anxiety.
The mother looks around and instantly understands that this project doesn’t have many team members. Her partner is already asleep on the armchair.
The family go home. The baby cries. The onset of the perfect storm. Panic sets in. Where is the milk? Where are the nappies? Get the ipad! Get some toys.
The mother learns from cautious mistakes and trial and error what her child wants. She learns because she has a vested interest. As the days go by, her confidence starts to build. She begins to wear several hats, thereby representing the team herself. She learns to multi-task, sleep at odd hours, think whilst half-alseep, react to demands within the schedule!
The responsibility of a project manager may be over a few months after a project is delivered, and so any mistakes uncovered a few years later become the issue of someone else. However, that is not the case of a mother/housewife. They have to manage children or a home for years. The responsibility is ever present and quite tangible. Only when the child comes back with a tattoo or green hair do we wonder where one went wrong.
If we take a mother in Somalia. The so-called project environment is even harder. There is a shortage of income, food and medicine is not readily available. So, does the mother go back to the hospital and ask for more money or better conditions? She merely takes stock of the situation and decides how best to handle the situation. She is a true project manager. No experience, no help, and no guidance. But she manages. Perhaps it’s the sheer willpower or the sheer determination that allows an individual to find the strength to decide what to do in uncertain circumstances. Prayer can offer strength. Peoples’ smiles can offer strength. Moral support is equally important as emotional.
As I write this, even a project manager designation is understated. I elect that a more meaningful designation is provided to a stay-at-home mother. I presume people associate titles with salaries; CEO, director attracting the fat-cat salaries, whereas waitress and hair-dressers getting short changed. Why doesn’t the government pay larger allowances to mothers? Their job is frightfully more difficult than the role of the Health Minister who wouldn’t be able to spell the word ‘BOB’ backwards.
Can we offer better coaching and help to new mothers? Should there be consistent information available to them to help them? Perhaps that initial support if it was there would alleviate the stress and post-natal depression. A helping hand, words of wisdom, ensuring the mother eats and sleeps, are the cornerstones of compassion towards a new mother.
A mother’s jobs is very difficult and in many cases thankless. Children don’t realise the extraordinary efforts and love that a mother provides, the tears and worry she endures to ensure a baby develops happily into the world. The only realisation is when her child has their own child.
My mother was not a housewife; she was a senior project manager and a successful one at that. She managed supply chain, logistics, external issues, time, costs, people, to ensure I had the best start in life.
Mother Teresa said, ‘A life not lived for others is not a life.’
Next time you have to write the occupation for your mother or wife, cross-out housewife and put in the real title. Let’s not forget the efforts of a mother, and the sacrifices she made for another being. | https://medium.com/@msduhra/promote-stay-at-home-mothers-from-housewife-status-to-project-manager-3c478e379741 | [] | 2020-12-25 12:36:38.827000+00:00 | ['Appreciation', 'Family', 'Project Management', 'Love', 'Mothers'] |
The Year We Lost | The Year We Lost
Or Did We?
Photo by Leyy . on Unsplash
Instant, Momentary Sadness
I just walked into my daughter’s room. The stale air punched me in the face. That air that signals no one has been in there for a while. I was instantly a little sad. Thinking about all the times I put her to bed and prayed with her.
My son’s room was the same. A little messy, but not too bad. His bed full of stuffed animals and space battle drawings on construction paper. His TV stand packed with action figures and magic tricks. There is so much I wanted to teach him.
Photo by Adrien Olichon on Unsplash
Opportunity
Like many, I have been at home since March. Unlike many, I’m still working. One thing I realized after figuring out we were going to be at home for a while was this was an opportunity.
We’ve had an opportunity for past eight months to pour into our kids in a way we haven’t been able to before. We’ve also had an opportunity to better ourselves we may never have again.
I know this year has been tough for many people and I don’t discount that but calm seas don’t make for good sailors, or something like that. That probably sounds like empty platitudes but I believe you have to fight the battle every day.
Don’t worry. Nothing happened to my kids. They are still here, but my mind went to a place where they didn’t live here anymore. I’ve had the opportunity to drop them off at school then pick them up from the bus stop. Cook breakfast for them. Referee rock, paper scissor competitions to see who takes a bath first. Watch them swing on a rope swing over the river and jump in even though they were scared. Those were proud Dad moments.
They are 11 and 9. You may say I have a good bit of time with them before they grow up and move out. Any parent will tell you the days are long but the years are short. It wasn’t that long ago they were sitting in high chairs eating puffs. I only have a little time left to make sure they can thrive on their own. To help them become adults who contribute to society not take away from it.
I have no doubt that God put the word opportunity in my mind when this all started. I’ve never been much on the “word of the year” thing but maybe there’s something to it, at least this year.
I’ve had this great opportunity and have not taken full advantage of it if I’m honest. Some days I make progress, just a little, then the next day I take too many naps or zone out and stare at my phone. That’s just how it is.
Progress
You progress every day until you don’t. Then what? Jon Acuff calls this the day after perfect. What are you going to do when you absolutely fail at your goals one day? You start again. Notice I didn’t say start over. Saying you start over means you’re at the beginning again. That’s not how progress works.
Maybe this year happened for you, not to you. It’s all a matter of perspective. Sometimes you have to step back, take your emotions out of it, and look honestly at your progress. Then make a decision and move forward.
What opportunities have you had this year? What opportunities did you overlook? Have you made progress? If you haven’t, don’t worry. There’s still time. It’s about baby steps forward. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/the-year-we-lost-ca221b24f063 | ['Eric Swanson'] | 2020-12-08 22:25:13.313000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Opportunity'] |
For Katie’s Wedding | Here is a poem I wrote for Katie’s wedding in 2019. We decided on two separate sonnets, and it was a touching occasion indeed and this particular verse form certainly suits the well explored theme of love!
Behold, young love, it standeth here today,
So clear to those who know from whom it grows.
Their trembling hearts, their eyes do it convey.
Who here can doubt when this rare face it shows?
Two kindred souls, soon to be united,
Our lives have led us here, to this fair sight,
First the vows, that see this love requited,
Then drink, then feast, and dance right through the night.
Eternal cycles bring us here to see
A rite as old as chants and starlit fires,
In witness borne to what is meant to be
Our minds in harmony, a silent choir.
One consciousness, no science can disprove,
Aligned souls in this directed love.
Dear Kate we gather for your precious day,
Our faces glow with warmth and affection,
You’re good, you’re kind, it’s in all of your ways,
It’s this that has brought you and Liam this connection.
His family have come from the most distant land,
And well known to them is his virtue and grace,
You deeply deserve my dear sister’s fair hand,
Your union is one we all deeply embrace.
So now like the scent of perfumed roses,
We collectively share the sweet joy you both give
As summer’s breath nature’s bounty discloses,
Today we stand still, in the moment, and live.
So long as we have breath and eyes that see,
So long will this day be remembered by thee. | https://medium.com/@benhardyment/for-katies-wedding-b4135d5a0f9 | ['Ben Hardyment'] | 2019-06-18 10:06:05.878000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Verse', 'Sonnet', 'Weddings', 'Love'] |
Simple Steps to Save our Seas | From subarctic waters to crystal clear Caribbeans and everything in between, the oceans of the world cover over 70% of our planet. With this mass also comes a plethora of benefits that we gain from our oceans. Microscopic marine plants known as phytoplankton produce almost half of the oxygen that sustains all living things on earth. Furthermore, the oceans absorb most of the carbon dioxide that is polluting our earth and warming our climate at an alarming rate.
With the enormous impact that our oceans have on life, it is concerning the lack of consideration for its health that most of the human race is exhibiting. Major corporations like the World Wildlife Fund and National Geographic are working with governments, companies, and communities around the globe to change this declining ocean health. However, there are simple steps that everyone can take to help save our seas.
Clean up after yourself
If you are enjoying a summer vacation at the beach or relaxing by a lake, be cautious of what you leave behind. Too often, plastic or other nondegradable items are washed or blown into the water, having detrimental effects on marine life.
Ditch plastic
Plastic is a major contributor to climate change and declining ocean health. Make reusable products a trend by taking them with you wherever you go. Use cloth tote bags for groceries, reusable water bottles and utensils, and eliminate your overall waste.
Reduce your carbon footprint
Most of the carbon pollution you create will eventually be absorbed into our oceans. Be cautious of your footprint and make changes where you can. Walk or bike when you don’t have to use a car, and switch to eco-friendly alternatives at home and at work.
Respect marine life
While there are many fascinating and adorable marine life creatures to see, be respectful of their space. Interfering with wildlife or with their natural habitat can harm the animals. Don’t remove rocks, plants, or coral when you come across it. Leave your surroundings how they were when you happened upon them.
Support clean ocean initiatives
Encourage friends and family to join you in local beach cleanups. Find local organizations that protect oceans and consider donating time or money if you can. Research restaurants in your area to support those that practice sustainable seafood. Be a voice of change in your community.
Any change can leave a large impact on the health of our oceans. No act is too small when it comes to saving our marine life, and one small step could cause a ripple effect for positive change.
Originally published LisamarieBourke.co | https://medium.com/@lisamariebourke/simple-steps-to-save-our-seas-5895886c6936 | ['Lisamarie Bourke'] | 2020-01-09 13:40:36.076000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Oceans', 'Lisamarie Bourke', 'Environment', 'Global Warming'] |
Combine Image & Tabular data in one Model using PyTorch | The following blog will help the readers to understand how we can combine image and tabular data together in PyTorch using deep learning and generate predictions from the model . I will go step by step to understand the whole end to end scenario easily : →
#1# Create a custom dataset class →
I am going to use here OpenVaccine: COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Degradation Prediction dataset . After cleaning and processing the tabular data I will create the dataset class for our data as follows……
As there are a lot of codes and syntaxes , I recommend reading the codes with respect to the comments given beside each syntax written . The steps involved are: →
First we declared some of the specific libraries that we will need . we will define the constructor for the dataset class that we created. then we will define the __len__ function to calculate the length of the dataset then we will define the __getitem__ function extract the input and the targets that we will be feeding into our model that we will create.
#2# Create object for dataset class and dataloaders →
#3# Create model class →
I have commented the code syntaxes as much as possible , but reader if you still feel that you are unable to understand any part of the code please please please feel free to comment on this article , I will be very glad to answer your doubts .
Still there are 3 major syntaxes in this present in this at line no. 15, 21 & 56 where we combine our tabular and image data layers to generate predictions out of it .
15 self.image_dense_layer_2 = nn.Linear(512, 1) # in constructor 21 self.tabular_dense_layer_4 = nn.Linear(4, 1) # in constructor 56 x = torch.cat((x, tab), dim=1) # in forward function
#4# Define loss function , optimizer and training loop for our model.
After model creation we will define the following things easily .
Please consider going through my notebook I have written on this topic once , if you find difficulty in implementing it or simply put your comments here.
I hope you have understood the logic behind how we can combine image data & tabular data in a deep learning model using pytorch . Let me know , if you have any Questions , Comments or Concerns regarding this in the comment section ; Until then enjoy LEARNING……………….
For more awesome data science related blog posts check out the top data science bloggers on medium. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/combine-image-tabular-data-in-one-model-using-pytorch-38dfd23c437c | ['Soumo Chatterjee'] | 2020-10-07 12:48:28.585000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Technology', 'Education', 'Self Improvement', 'Data Science'] |
Discover Christmas Mission Tools | The jingles are ringing…….is it Christmas as usual?
Luke 2:8–20 tells us of the shepherds who heard the good news of a new born king and dropped everything to go see Him. On seeing Him, they glorified and praised God and went back to tell everyone about what had been said of the child and everyone was amazed.
As we usher in another festive season, we cannot be oblivious ofthe impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on our world. We have in many ways been shaken to the core and reminded of our mortality and the need to be totally dependent on God who is in control of every invisible force. We who are the ministers of the good news have also been reminded of the urgency with which we need to share the gospel with the lost, and more so our children. We have been reminded that this world is not our home.
So then, the big question we all need to ask ourselves as we get into this Christmas season is; will it be Christmas as usual?
Just like the shepherds, what do we need to drop and focus on our Lord and his mission?
The story of our Saviour’s birth is an unusual one, His birth happened in an unusual time and in unusual way, but it’s through the unusual times that we get to see the glory of God. Our prayer is that in this unusual year, we will experience the glory of God in an unusual way during this Christmas season.
There are many distractions that seek to take our attention away from our Lord Jesus during this time and distract us from celebrating Jesus’ birth and on honouring Him. This includes the story and traditions connected to Santa Claus, the traditions of giving gifts, family meals & reunions, events with friends, going away for the holidays etc. and the busyness of this season. With so many things to do, the Christmas holidays can be overwhelming.
Some of these things are good, but we are reminded that none of them are necessary to celebrate the birth of Jesus. What we need is to drop the busyness and focus on the reason Christ came, which is to forgive our sins and give us hope for a bright future. A wonderfully necessary reminder especially in a year where our hope has been shaken. As we are reminded of the coming of our King, we can look forward to the new year with hope and expectation that the Lord is with us.
As we minister to the children around us this season, we have the opportunity to engage them with the story of who our Saviour is. This holiday season, you, your family and the children that you minister to can enjoy these resources with a Christmas message that is relevant to them.
1.Bible App For Kids
The Jesus is Born story features a downloadable Jesus is Born video,The First Christmas Parent Guide, The First Christmas Adventure books — Week 1–4 and a colouring sheet.
2. SuperBook
Alongside full episodes, the SuperBook website includes short videos including The Message of Christmas, Wise Men Follow The Star to the King of the Jews, The Story of Joseph and Mary, Gabriel Shares God’s Incredible Message with Mary.
3. 4/14 Christmas Collection (RightNow Media)
The 4/14 Christmas Collection features holiday videos including VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer’s Why Do We Call It Christmas?, Franklin Graham’s The Cost of Christmas and Rediscovering Christmas and Max Lucado’s God Came Near. 4/14 has also curated other children’s resources for Bible teaching including 3 seasons of SuperBook, What’s In The Bible? Jesus is the Good News! and Clive & Ian’s 12 Questions of Christmas for the holiday season.
Sign up for a 4/14 RightNow Media account today! | https://medium.com/@414africa/discover-christmas-mission-tools-28d5bfdbe4d0 | [] | 2020-12-16 12:00:46.303000+00:00 | ['Childrens Ministry', 'Christmas', 'Missions', 'Church', '414movement'] |
Timepieces of The Ancestors Part 2 | Former Ambassador Gary Perez is pictured here at The Witte Museum (Michael Cirlos / Centro San Antonio)
Gary Perez is a descendent of the Hokan speaking peoples of South Texas, a researcher specializing in the indigenous cultures of this area, and a former Centro Ambassador. He spoke with us two years ago and described the White Shaman Mural near Del Rio and its connection to celestial events taking place in and around San Antonio’s Tricentennial Year. However, the scope of the calendar created by the indigenous peoples of South Texas extends beyond this.
We caught up with Gary once more during this Native American Heritage Month to further explore the legacy left for San Antonio by the indigenous peoples of this area. Gary’s research and theories have appeared in the Witte Museum and in his lectures all over, including the University of the Incarnate Word.
White Shaman Mural Rock Art near Del Rio, Texas. Courtesy, Witte Museum
Gary has pointed out many connections between the white shaman mural and celestial and geographic phenomena. For example, the mural seems to portray the four great natural springs along the Balcones Escarpment, running from Austin to San Antonio.
An overlay of one of the mural elements and the location of the four springs using GIS technology. Courtesy, Gary Perez
Gary also theorizes that the five figures portrayed in the mural are the five visible planets in the sky. These figures and their positions match the positions of the San Antonio Missions along the San Antonio River. It is the “dance” the visible planets do that comprises the next phenomenon that will align with the depictions on the mural. | https://medium.com/@centrosanantonio/timepieces-of-the-ancestors-part-2-7ed326bd0644 | ['Centro San Antonio'] | 2020-11-25 17:58:44.347000+00:00 | ['Rock Art', 'Native American Culture', 'San Antonio', 'Texas'] |
3 steps to believing you are doing your best | You’ve heard the expression that you can only love others as much as you love yourself. But what does that actually mean?
It means that you judge others just as harshly as you judge yourself. It means that you give others as little grace as you give yourself. It means that you speak to others the way you speak to yourself, so take note — is your tone contemptuous or curious? It means you have as much difficulty forgiving others as you do forgiving yourself when you mess up. It means when you aren’t perfect and you assassinate your character, you ascribe character faults to others when they err.
Where you have incredibly high standards, which are set to improve you based on a basic assumption that you need repairing, and which are so high that you are almost unable to meet them, and where you judge yourself as not being good enough, you don’t consciously or subconsciously truly believe in your magnificence.
Your starting point doesn’t accept that you are unbroken, have singular assets that the world needs, and are doing your very best amidst the challenges you are facing.
When I ask clients if they are doing their best, all of them laugh and shake their head. I have a very diverse client array, but their answers are homogenous. Hundreds of hours in, and I have not met a single client who — at their core — believes in their own magnificence and can look me in the eye and proudly attest to that.
If you judge your own behavior harshly, it makes sense that you would be naturally suspicious of other people, taking things personally, expecting the worst, or having trouble forgiving. Because you assume they will act just like you, and you are not kind and generous to yourself. So, it stands to reason that you can’t assume that others are unbroken or doing their best given the obstacles in their lives if you don’t apply it to yourself.
If, deep in your core, you don’t believe that anyone is doing their best, how does that affect how you approach the world?
Let’s look at an example.
Two people have a conversation about X — for this illustration, let’s say Christmas dinner plans. One comes out believing they aren’t eating together. One comes out thinking they are eating together. When this miscommunication is discovered, if they believe that basically everyone is good and doing their best, they will assume the best of the other. They will not take it personally. They will be curious about how the miscommunication occurred. They won’t attribute fault. They will give each other space to express their feelings and find a solution that works for both of them.
Where they don’t have a basic belief that everyone is trying their best, they will immediately begin to look to where they might attribute fault and shift blame. Assuming the worst of the other immediately changes the tone and the safety of their interaction. Outrage, instead of curiosity, is the active player. The sense that if you don’t have your own back, no one else is going to have it, is confirmed. Even if a solution is found, the miscommunication will feel like a raw wound for at least one participant, if not both.
You could substitute almost anything for X — an opinion, a political belief, a missed work deadline, etc. — and the outcome would be the same: assuming inherent goodness results in a safe space for engagement, whereas feeling like no one is doing their best ends on a battle zone with both sides aiming to kill.
This season, let’s change that operating pattern and give ourselves and each other the gift of assuming we are all doing our best. To do that, we have to start with ourselves.
1. Become aware of your self-judgment.
Notice and silence the Inner Critic. If you have trouble noticing judgment, start with language. Every sentence in your head that contains a should or shouldn’t, must, have to, or can’t, is judgmental. You can also use tone to scout judgment. Hear disgust, contempt, impatience in your head? Pause and listen for the judgment. What does the disgust mean about you?
Challenge and reframe your Inner Critic’s arguments. What evidence do you have that you are not good enough? What proof can you actually cite that you aren’t good enough? And beyond that, what proof have you been ignoring that you are good enough?
2. Practice self-compassion.
Whenever you think about your side of the argument, think of it from the point of view of your 10-year-old self. What is it the 10-year-old needs? To be heard, validated, or hugged? Give yourself those things. Think about it from the perspective of a good friend — tell yourself what they would tell you.
When it comes to language, flip the script. Substitute validating language for harsh language. Instead of being a disappointment, you are disappointed.
Normalize the feelings. Instead of not being enough, you feel like you are not enough because you are trying to manage an oversized quantity of work.
If you want to go a step farther, take a peek at Dr. Kristin Neff’s work: https://self-compassion.org/.
3. Sit with the feelings.
Don’t invalidate your feelings — you shouldn’t feel like that just takes you back to step 1: becoming aware of judgment.
Invalidating your feelings doesn’t make them go away. It just stuffs them in a finitely-sized box, which will overflow with enough invalidation. Replace repression with expression. Cry when you want to, whether you understand it or not. Feel frustrated, angry, resentful. Sit with it and just let it be. You’ll be amazed at how simple nonjudgmental acknowledgement can ease these feelings.
When you feel acknowledge and validated, when you understand that you are enough, when your Inner Critic is silenced you will begin to be able to sense your greatness. It’s from this perspective that you will be able to see it in others too.
Where you set growth standards, which assume you are whole and complete, but seeking learning in all situations, and where you judge yourself as being good enough, you consciously or subconsciously truly believe in your magnificence.
Your starting point accepts that you are unbroken, have singular assets that the world needs, and are doing your very best amidst the challenges you are facing.
If you judge your own behavior generously, it makes sense that you would naturally trust other people, not taking things personally, expecting the best, and easily forgiving. Because you assume they will act just like you, and you are kind and generous to yourself. So, it stands to reason that you assume that others are whole and doing their best given the obstacles in their lives because you apply it to yourself.
If each of us engaged from this perspective, imagine how the fabric of the world would change.
As with my other articles and videos, I encourage you to start developing the emotional resilience to be able to see that you and others are doing their very best given the circumstances. Start keeping a judgment journal. Note how you speak to yourself. Then look at how those judgments apply to others. Or practice self-compassion. Visit Dr. Neff’s site and do one of the meditations. Visualize giving your 10-year-old self a hug. Come back to the comments and let this community know how it worked!
If you’d like to undertake a full judgment detox and learn self-compassion, contact me to schedule a free discovery call with me. Be well! | https://medium.com/@meganwarren_18870/3-steps-to-believing-you-are-doing-your-best-practicing-self-love-megan-warren-coaching-3330aee5e864 | ['Megan Warren'] | 2020-12-22 10:26:58.607000+00:00 | ['Self Care', 'Self', 'Self Love', 'Self Love Techniques', 'Coaching'] |
Spark Dataset APIs: A Gentle Introduction | RDD was the initial backbone of Apache Spark that enabled distributed computing more accessible for masses with easy to use functional APIs.
Dataframe was later introduced to make the structured data computation more easy, however it didn’t have the type information for the data it was holding.
Dataset brings the best of both worlds with a mix of relational (DataFrame) and functional (RDD) transformations. This API is the most up to date and adds type-safety along with better error handling and far more readable unit tests.
Dataset clubs the features of RDD and DataFrame.
It provides:
The convenience of RDD.
Performance optimization of DataFrame.
Static type-safety of Scala .
. Structured queries with encoders
The encoder is primary concept in serialization and deserialization (SerDes) framework in Spark SQL. Encoders translate between JVM objects and Spark’s internal binary format. Spark has built-in encoders which are very advanced. They generate bytecode to interact with off-heap data.
An encoder provides on-demand access to individual attributes without having to de-serialize an entire object. To make input-output time and space efficient, Spark SQL uses the SerDe framework. Since encoder knows the schema of record, it can achieve serialization and deserialization.
However, it comes with a tradeoff as map and filter functions perform poorer with this API. Frameless is a promising solution to tackle this limitation.
Features:
Optimized Query
Dataset in Spark provides Optimized query using Catalyst Query Optimizer and Tungsten. Catalyst Query Optimizer is an execution-agnostic framework. It represents and manipulates a data-flow graph. Data flow graph is a tree of expressions and relational operators. By optimizing the Spark job Tungsten improves the execution. Tungsten emphasizes the hardware architecture of the platform on which Apache Spark runs.
Analysis at compile time
Using Dataset we can check syntax and analysis at compile time. It is not possible using Dataframe, RDDs or regular SQL queries.
Less Memory Consumption
While caching, it creates a more optimal layout. Spark knows the structure of data in the dataset.
Lightning-fast Serialization with Encoders
Encoders are highly optimized and use runtime code generation to build custom bytecode for serialization and deserialization. As a result, they can operate significantly faster than Java or Kryo serialization.
In addition to speed, the resulting serialized size of encoded data can also be significantly smaller (up to 2x), reducing the cost of network transfers. Furthermore, the serialized data is already in the Tungsten binary format, which means that many operations can be done in-place, without needing to materialize an object at all. Spark has built-in support for automatically generating encoders for primitive types (e.g. String, Integer, Long), Scala case classes, and Java Beans.
Check this link for RDD tutorials
http://homepage.cs.latrobe.edu.au/zhe/ZhenHeSparkRDDAPIExamples.html
You can try online version with DataBricks Community version @ https://databricks-prod-cloudfront.cloud.databricks.com/public/4027ec902e239c93eaaa8714f173bcfc/8963851468310921/1413687243597086/5846184720595634/latest.html
Dataset : StarWars.csv | https://medium.com/swlh/spark-dataset-apis-a-gentle-introduction-108cdeafdea5 | ['Mageswaran D'] | 2020-04-23 04:07:58.407000+00:00 | ['Structured Data', 'Dataset Api', 'Databricks', 'Scala', 'Apache Spark'] |
Momentum to Turn Away | you awaken to a house
purpled by the twilight
and the ceiling clicks from
its silver latch
before your eyes
rounded jaws begin to spin
a water wheel of singular
top of the scale notes
slowly at first, a familiar
but unrecognizable melody
comes into focus and it sounds
like childhood ending
melancholy and expectant
as a swing returns to dangle
on a rusted chain
the notes, so high begin
to clink faster, and you
clench your teeth into
a frozen smile, a permanent
wince from the tone
so close, so on top of you
smothering you by sound
and you finally have enough
momentum to turn away
you try to lift your hands
to cover your ears, but
they are already high above
reaching for the slanted stars
your finger tips, posed in an O
feel strung together, woven
by fibers that are of you but
seem all wrong, and you pick up
speed and see your feet from
some peripheral vision
you are on point, on point
maddening cramps from toe
to arch to shin to thigh and
is that a ballet outfit, a tutu
the tulle and gauze, the exact
shade of lavender you’d wished
your heart out for so long ago
the metal jaws face you again
churning sound — a crunch and twist
you turn away by luck or fate
dizzy from this involuntary pirouette
just when the agony of being glued
weighs your soul against the light
the music cuts, and by a hinge
you are folded into peace
to rest in the darkness
of your carved wooden box. | https://medium.com/the-pom/momentum-to-turn-away-ce6da32a8dc9 | ['Samantha Lazar'] | 2020-10-21 11:33:56.606000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Poetry', 'Pom Prompt', 'Magical Realism', 'Halloween'] |
What is the data science community’s favourite media source? | [Image by Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash]
This is that time of the year when Kaggle shares data from its industry-wide survey on its platform and challenges the Data Scientists all over the world to analyze that data and present a truly comprehensive view on the current state of data science and machine learning. Ergo, as a fellow data scientist, after looking at the dataset, I felt that it will be a nice exercise to know more about the patterns in the community.
In order to make this analysis, a bit more easy to read, I have divided it into a series of articles:
Part 1 : What’s Data Science Community’s Favourite media source?
Part 2 : Most Popular Machine Learning Tools and Algorithms
Part 3 : What's more popular Google Colab , Kaggle Kernels or Jupyter Notebooks?
Part 4 : Current State of Machine Learning in Industry
Since medium is a platform where we share our ideas and latest discoveries, it will be great if we start by uncovering some of the most popular sources of information and learning within the community. For the purpose of this article, as discussed above, I have used Kaggle 2020 Survey Data.
So without a further ado, let’s just dive in and find out who is using what for keeping themselves up to date on ML/DS news.
Kaggle, YouTube and Blogs are the most popular source of regular information and learning.
POPULAR MEDIA SOURCES USED BY DATA SCIENCE COMMUNITY
Kaggle Notebooks and its Forums have been the most popular source of information and entertainment for data scientists world over, followed by Youtube and Blogs such as Towards Data Science and Analytics Vidhya.
Fig 1 : Popular Media Sources [Image by Author]
Now that we know the most popular sources, let’s dig a bit further and try to explore if this preferences changes with Age, Gender, Region, Education level,Years of experience and Role.
POPULAR MEDIA SOURCES FOR ALL AGES
Blogs as the most popular source of information among late vicenarians, a.k.a data scientists in their late twenties(25–29 years), followed by early vicenarians(22–24 years). Popularity of blogs seems to decrease as people age. This can be attributed to the fact that we have most aspiring and serving data scientists in the age group of 18–40 years.
Fig 2: Popularity of Blogs by Age Group[Image by Author]
Youtube have been the second most popular source of information among Data Scientists. But let’s see, what age groups are more attracted towards it. The age distribution is more or less similar to Blog’s audience, but with only difference that we have slightly more audience in 30 and above age group who prefer reading blogs rather than watching YouTube.
Fig 3: Popularity of Youtube by Age Group[Image by Author]
Kaggle, the winner of everyone’s attention does well for all age groups. Data Scientists of all ages trust Kaggle forums for their ultimate source of information and learning.
Fig 4: Popularity of Kaggle by Age Group[Image by Author]
DO WOMEN CHOOSE THEIR MEDIA SOURCE DIFFERENTLY?
There have been many historical evidences of battle of sexes. But after analyzing the Kaggle dataset, we find that there is no such battle here. Women and Men all prefer Kaggle, Youtube and Blogs equally to keep themselves updated.
Fig 5: Popularity of Blogs among Sexes[Image by Author]
Fig 6: Popularity of Youtube among Sexes[Image by Author]
Fig 7: Popularity of Kaggle among Sexes[Image by Author]
You might observe stark difference in count of Men and Women respondents. This may be due to underrepresentation of Women in Data Sciences.
DOES EDUCATION LEVEL, LEVEL UP THE CHOICE OF MEDIA SOURCE ?
All three media sources, be it Kaggle, Youtube or Blogs find a great audience in people with Master’s Degree, followed by Bachelor’s Degree. This can also be attributed to the fact that most of the Data Scientist either hold a Master’s or Bachelor’s Degree.
Fig 8: Popularity of Blogs among Education Level[Image by Author]
A very interesting observation is that Data Science Burghers with no formal education after High School, college dropouts and professional degree holder’s find Youtube as their favourite source of information and learning.
Fig 9: Popularity of Youtube among Sexes[Image by Author]
Fig 10: Popularity of Kaggle among Sexes[Image by Author]
NATIONALITIES AND PREFERENCE FOR MEDIA SOURCE
When we look at the popularity of a media sources across geographies, we conclude that Kaggle is the most popular source. But there were certain interesting observations such as Blogs are a little less popular in certain regions, particularly in Brazil compared to YouTube and Kaggle.
On the other hands, blogs are the most popular source of information in USA. Nearly, 37% of fellow data scientists rely on blogs.This could be attributed to the popularity of Medium in USA.
Fig 11: Popularity of Blogs across Geographies[Image by Author]
Youtube is the second most popular source of information across all countries except USA. Other countries such as India, Brazil, Russia, Japan, etc rely on YouTube after Kaggle.
Fig 12: Popularity of YouTube across Geographies [Image by Author]
Kaggle is the indisputable king of media sources in the data science community. This hold true evenly across geographies except for USA.
Fig 13: Popularity of Kaggle across Geographies [Image by Author]
SHOULD MY CURRENT ROLE DEFINE MY CHOICE OF MEDIA SOURCE?
Yet again, Kaggle is the most popular media source across all roles. Albeit, we can observe inclination of people with Data Scientist and Statistician role towards blogs rather than YouTube as their regular source of information.
Fig 14: Popularity of Blogs across Roles [Image by Author]
Fig 15: Popularity of YouTube across Roles [Image by Author]
Kaggle is the most popular source of media for everyone, be it Data Scientist, Research Scientist, Machine Learning or any other role.
Fig 16: Popularity of Kaggle across Roles [Image by Author]
DOES PREFERENCE FOR MEDIA SOURCE CHANGE WITH PROGRAMMING EXPERIENCE?
Kaggle is the first choice for most of the data scientists. But we see a general trend that across all platforms people engage progressively when they have 0 to 5 years of programming experience . After that, their interactions seems to decrease may due to their shift towards leadership roles.
Fig 17: Popularity of Blogs across Experience[Image by Author]
YouTube is the go to media source for people with zero to 1 year of programming experience.
Fig 18: Popularity of YouTube across Experience [Image by Author]
Kaggle is the favourite media source for data scientists with 1+ years of experience in programming. This can be attributed to the fact that once you know programming you might want to practice on challenges and what could be better than Kaggle.
Fig 19: Popularity of Kaggle across Experience [Image by Author]
SAMPLE CODE
I will be uploading the entire analysis on my github. Feel free to check that out. For the time being, here is the code for visualizations used in this article.
Code for the first count plot :
Code for the count plots with hue :
Code for geographical plots :
WRAP UP
As per the analysis, we can conclude that Kaggle is the favourite media source in the data science community, followed by YouTube and Blogs. This holds true across geographies, sexes, job roles, age etc. While other players such as Reddit, Email newsletters, Journals etc. are all at almost the same level.
REFERENCES | https://towardsdatascience.com/whats-data-science-community-s-favourite-media-source-18a2c5e91bc6 | ['Priyanka Meena'] | 2020-12-03 22:09:36.764000+00:00 | ['Matplotlib', 'Kaggle', 'Data Analysis', 'Visualization', 'Data Science'] |
強烈寒潮南下香港下周或低見7度 | 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%BC%B7%E7%83%88%E5%AF%92%E6%BD%AE%E5%8D%97%E4%B8%8B%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E4%B8%8B%E5%91%A8%E6%88%96%E4%BD%8E%E8%A6%8B7%E5%BA%A6-b2018e78ba8c | ['C Y S'] | 2020-12-23 12:51:05.809000+00:00 | ['Government', 'Hong Kong'] |
Indonesia’s Digital Content: 2020 Recap | Indonesia’s Digital Content: 2020 Recap
In our last article on Media and ICT, we highlighted the industry’s market overview in Indonesia. With a USD 150 billion sector revenue outlook by 2025, the industry is mainly driven by the increasing number of Indonesian internet users. The country’s most prominent segments that have a lot of potential to grow are telecommunications, digital media and services, and cybersecurity.
(Credits: William Iven/Unsplash)
As one of the most emerging markets in Indonesia, the digital media sector’s revenue growth will reach around USD 8,168 million by 2021 (PwC, 2020). In January 2020, it was recorded that there were 175.4 million Indonesian internet users, an increase of 17% from 2019 (Hootsuite, 2020). 95% of Indonesian internet users use mobile platforms. With shifting consumer behavior, more and more content is being distributed in the digital world each day.
Businesses are now utilizing digital media as one of their marketing strategies. Focusing on the content that is being distributed, digital content marketing has been one of the marketing tactics that work effectively in increasing customer engagement and brand awareness. This article will highlight the digital content marketing trends that are happening throughout 2020. Which content stimulates engagement the most, and how will it be soon?
The Shifting Consumer Behavior
As the fourth most populous country, Indonesia has a demographic advantage. Most of its people are at the productive age of 25 to 54 years old. According to Deloitte’s Consumer Insights report, the majority of Indonesia’s population are young and digitally savvy. Indonesia is also currently undergoing massive urbanization, making 57% of the total population are urban consumers that are highly concentrated in 12 big cities.
Indonesian consumer’s behavior towards digital media has been shifting from time to time. Especially the youths, Indonesian are reacting very responsively towards digital content. The role of traditional mass media platforms has shifted. Radio has mostly been replaced by online community groups in Social Media such as Facebook, Telegram, and Twitter. The role of television is also shifting, although it still has the widest reach. The demand for premium TV and cable is also increasing, as Indonesian consumers are willing to pay more for premium, personalized, and ad-free content.
In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, people are spending more time with digital devices, as there are social and physical movement restrictions in the country. This year-long pandemic has also shifted Indonesian consumer behavior towards digital media. There has been an increase in media consumption. According to the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), during the pandemic, around 70% of Indonesian consumers have tried at least one new digital service.
Among the many social media platforms in Indonesia, YouTube became the most used platform in 2020. Followed by WhatsApp with 84% of internet users, Facebook (82%) and Instagram (79%). Other platforms that are also popular in Indonesia are Twitter, Line, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. As of November 2020, there are 169,7 million Indonesian Facebook users, where 54.4% are men, with 25 to 34 years old as the largest user group. Meanwhile, there are 81,7 million Indonesian Instagram users, where 52.5% of them are women with 18 to 24 years old as the largest user group.
Top Five Content Topics 2020
Google has released its Year in Search reports for Indonesia, and here are the top five topics that Indonesian are curious about:
Coronavirus
The coronavirus has been trending not only in Indonesia but all over the world. The new virus that has affected many people’s lives is the number one topic that is searched for in 2020.
2. The Large-Scale Social Distancing (PSBB)
Following the coronavirus pandemic, the Indonesian government tries to control the spreading of coronavirus by setting out a large-scale social distancing regulation, or as known as PSBB.
3. Pre-employment card (Kartu Pra Kerja)
The pre-employment card program is a Government program that aims to develop competency and increase the labor force’s productivity and competitiveness. The program is limited to job seekers, terminated employees, and employees that require improvements.
4. Folding bike
Indonesian have been increasingly aware of their physical and mental health during the pandemic. Mostly in big cities, many are choosing bicycles to stay fit, maintaining physical health, and to reduce boredom. Using folding bicycles was the new rising trend among Indonesian in 2020.
5. Odading
This trend proves how anything can go viral in Indonesia. Odading is a traditional Sundanese fried sweet bread, usually found in the West Java region. The seller of ‘Odading Mang Soleh’ has been selling his Odading in one of the big markets in Bandung for 30 years. However, he suddenly became viral after promoting his Odading on social media.
Digital Content Trends in 2020
Mobile-content consumption continues to surge. Among the 197 million internet users, 98% of them usually access the internet through their mobile smartphones or tablets (Nielsen, 2020). Over the months, the rate of mobile users is steadily increasing (Advertising+Marketing, 2020). Also, video is very popular among Indonesian internet users. According to Nielsen’s research, YouTube is the most widely used platform to watch online mobile videos. There are about 132 million active users of YouTube, accounting for 88% of the total Indonesian internet users. The rate of mobile video consumption increased this year, especially the short type of video.
Concise and relatable content. Personalized content is proven to be attracting customers the most. Indonesian enjoy the content that is relatable to them and is easy to understand. Most Indonesian prefer straightforward but informative content that is entertaining and easy to understand.
User-generated content sparks engagement. Studies found that customers find user-generated content (UGC) to be more influential. UGC is also triggering customer engagement the most. One of the examples of UGC that leads to a great engagement is the beauty products reviews done by Indonesian beauty influencers using many platforms, mostly YouTube and Instagram. Other than that, TikTok gained increasing popularity in 2020, as more engaging UGC content is distributed around the platform.
Interactive content. The use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) for content was increasingly popular in 2020. To increase the value of customer’s experience, several brands utilize AR to increase customer’s online experience. Specifically in an online furniture shop, some provide AR so their customers can project how the furniture fits into their home.
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The digital media platforms have been an effective marketing strategy that is being adopted by businesses in Indonesia. With the shifting Indonesian consumer’s behavior, content distribution around digital media will continue to be popular in 2021. Social media platforms will also continue to be one of the most effective platforms to trigger customer engagement. | https://medium.com/with-bright-indonesia/indonesias-digital-content-2020-recap-fc27ab4f0ed7 | ['Ristya Sangaji'] | 2020-12-25 05:25:51.180000+00:00 | ['2020', 'Digital Media', 'Digital Content', 'Indonesia', 'Withbrightindonesia'] |
My Year with the Nikon D850 | In this three-part series, I’m going to review all three of the cameras I work with. Each one — the Nikon D850, Leica M-P (Typ 240) and Fujifilm X-H1 — serves a very distinct, professional purpose for me and I use them all regularly. To my mind, this is a much better way to understand the differences between camera types than clinical comparisons of features, or even out-of-the-box reviews, in controlled settings. In the real world, cameras must integrate into your workflow, go through problems, get resolved, take a few hits, make mistakes and work some magic in multiple settings before they really earn a review.
I’ll be going over all three cameras, one at a time — a full-frame DSLR, a full-frame rangefinder and a cropped sensor mirrorless — in a completely non-academic fashion. I simply want to show you the various shoots I’ve done with them throughout the year with a few notes about what the camera offered me with each.
First up — the Nikon D850.
Nikon D850
I upgraded from the Nikon D800 to the D850 back in March and even from the very first shot, I knew the new sensor and larger files were impressive. I’ve shot Nikon since 1980 and have upgraded with nearly every major advancement — from the D100 to the D300 to the incredible D750 and on through to this one. With that, it was an easy integration with some substantial upgrades. Let’s take a look:
March: A Friend’s Ferrari
Ferrari Mondial. Photo by Josh S. Rose, March 2018.
One of the more typical situations for a photographer — a friend is selling his car and needs a few nice photos for the post. Always happy to oblige a nice car shoot, so I had him bring it over to Beverly Hills and we found a few nice spots where some reflective light from buildings helped me showcase the shape and sheet metal.
I’m no car photographer, and I don’t travel with the right lights to do it justice, but I know generally how to get myself into a nice three-quarter position to shoot one. The big files and excellent dynamic range really help when shooting cars, which usually need quite a bit of adjustments to look great. And while a lot of work would need to be done on a shot like this to get it magazine-ready, it’s got just about everything a car shot needs before getting the royal treatment, including detail in places where any admirer of fine classic cars could find themselves getting lost in for as long as they like.
Ferrari Mondial Detail. Photo by Josh S. Rose, March 2018.
April: To Tell a Story
Editorial Celeb Shoot. Photo by Josh S. Rose, 2018.
Getting to shoot a beautiful and talented actress in an editorial style is pretty much my happy place. This was not only a chance to test out the D850 for an ideal gig, it was also a good opportunity to pare it with a strobe — in this case, a Profoto B1 with a warm gel. This shot is nearly exactly how it came out of the camera and is among my favorites of the year.
Few cameras can create this quality of an image indoors, in an almost entirely dark setting. It requires a lot of things working right, both in-camera with the lens and with the strobe. As you recede in space in this image, you’re still cognizant of environmental features, like the oak barrel and background booth, which truly help this be more than a simple portrait and veer into editorial storytelling. This is hugely important to me and because of my style of shooting, which is very physical (I’m basically on the table here), I don’t like to use a tripod. This means I need a fast shutter speed to deal with all my moving. This is shot at 1/320th of a second. But in order to deal with me, the camera needed to be wide open at f/1.4 (35mm). And I wanted the lowest possible ISO for clarity (I’m already losing a lot by being at f/1.4). I was able to shoot this at a phenomenally low ISO 400. And, of course, keep in mind I’m also controlling a strobe at the same time. That’s an incredible amount of flexibility that the D850 affords.
May: Inside Job
D.A. Wallach for Ember. Photo by Josh S. Rose, May, 2018.
Every once in a while, something comes your way that changes the course of your entire life. April/May was like that for me. Around this time, I saw a major upheaval in life — bad for my anxiety, but great for my photography as it lead directly to meeting what would be one of the most creative clients to work with.
This shoot was our first go and this shot one of my first taken. Indoors, no flash, but I got to work with one of the very best continuous Arri lights available, coming in from outside, as well as a fog machine. I again set it up with a 35mm prime wide open to give me the most flexibility indoors and was absolutely stunned by the camera’s ability to capture the subtleties of the atmosphere we created. Separation from the room’s atmosphere and the coffee’s steam helped this scene come together, as well as the range in the shadows that offered a natural look for the subject’s face and enough detail in his glasses to give it real depth.
For a simple kind of shot, there’s amazing details here all along the spectrum. Indoor shoots are hard to make look extremely dynamic and sharp, but the D850 performed magnificently.
June: And a Glass of Wine
Betsy, Vase, Wine. Photo by Josh S. Rose, June, 2018.
Of all the things I shot in June, this stood out to me, even though it was not a professional shoot. My wife’s friend came over to visit for a bit and the light happened to be coming in beautifully through our living room window. I have a few cans of aerosol mist and decided I’d just have some fun and see what came out. I used a Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 here and it was dark enough that I bumped the ISO to 1250 and shot a slow (for me) 1/200th of a second.
But despite the great low light performance of the camera, what really stands out to me here is the color grading I was able to do with the shot. Most color adjustments on image files are relegated to white balance shifts and the more you really try to change the mood of the image, the more you just make it look bad or fake. But with this kind of depth in the image, I was able to do much better tweaks in color grading to really create a distinct look that is indistinguishable from what I might have produced using gels and special lights. This is a hugely valuable asset for post-production explorations that is relatively unique to the D850 image size and rendering.
Color grading, Nikon D850. Photo by Josh S. Rose, 2018.
August: Studio Portrait | https://medium.com/phlearn/my-year-with-the-nikon-d850-a02beabeb1e2 | ['Josh Rose'] | 2020-02-12 09:24:25.836000+00:00 | ['Nikon', 'Review', 'Photography', 'Gear', 'Photographer'] |
Tiptoe | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/simple-is-licious/tiptoe-4c6d2a327fbc | ['Lyondhur Picciarelli'] | 2017-09-06 05:00:50.399000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Sil'] |
Is Live Stream a Death Blow to the American Church? | The statistics of the American church are not promising.
The projected outcomes do not look great.
Experts, coaches, and consultants are searching for answers.
Some believe the future of the church is in hands of innovation and a new paradigm. Things like multi-sites, campuses and live stream.
Will live-stream be a lifeline or a death blow to an industry that once thrived?
Churches thrived in the Judea-Christian era
America was once considered a Christian nation. Not any longer.
Our forefathers front-loaded the founding documents with Christian values.
Bill Flax of Forbes writes: “The founding documents of every one of the original thirteen colonies reveal them to be awash in the concepts of Christianity and God.” America wasn’t founded as a Christian nation and many of our beloved Forefathers sadly were not, yet America was largely comprised of Believers. Liberty allows us to worship freely or not at all per conscience. America was never meant to be theocratic or homogenous religiously, but Christianity has always been indelible to our social fabric.
Christianity remains a part of our cultural fabric and still has a measure of influence in our communities. But the most recent statistics of church attendance reveal a coming change.
The Millennial generation is a factor in demographic changes. The Millennials view church differently than the former generations.
As recently as 30 years ago, 67 percent of Americans attended and supported a local church. The most recent (2013) poll by the Pew Research Center reported that just 37 percent of Americans attended church weekly (Gallup’s estimate came in at 39 percent in 2013).
Gallup gives a broader view. In 1967, Gallup found that about 2% of Americans — or 1 out of every 50 — claimed no religious preference. By 2014, that number had grown to 16%, or about 1 in 7.
It’s still increasing today.
America is now a post-Christian nation
Gone are the days when Americans attended church three times a week. Churches now define regular attenders as those who attend three times a month or less.
Can technology provide an answer? We will see.
Is live-streaming services a positive or a negative? It’s a Catch 22.
Research reveals both negatives and positives of using social media to broadcast church services.
Here’s a positive.
Pew Research found that 72 percent of online adults use social media. Every age group continues to experience growth, particularly those over 65 who have tripled their usage in the last four years — from 13 percent in 2009 to 43 percent this year.
Social media is a game-changer. But the caveat is knowing which way it will break.
Rejecting technology is not an option.
David Rainer weighs in; As a church, we should develop an appreciation for the technological advances that the Internet has to offer. Our young millennial families are kept abreast about the latest events because of their technological involvement. Skype, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Foursquare, Blogger, etc are all forms in which this generation keeps in constant contact with the world around them. While there are many pitfalls in this social networking web, there is also a great deal of benefits. Keeping leaders and the church in front of these young families through social media is an essential tool for reaching out and keeping the activities of the church in the forefront of the busy lives of the millennial family
But some believe live-streaming services provide people a good excuse to stay home.
David Murrow of PATHEOS shares why people choose to live-stream
It’s easier than attending
A great choice in bad weather
Convenient, if someone is sick
It’s comfortable (watch in your pajamas)
You don’t have to sing (or pretend to sing songs you don’t know)
No fighting the crowd
Comfortable to introverts
No dealing with difficult people
No pressure to give
Choose the service
People love church at their fingertips
A church service at your fingertips is convenient, but it cannot replace the benefits of attending.
Church on a computer screen is not a comparable substitute to a face-to-face encounter.
Digital reality never equals reality. The online church lacks the ability to provide a human touch.
The Live-Stream church can show what’s happening, but it rarely relays the experience.
You may sense a moment of silence through live-stream but fail to feel the hush.
Pastor Karl Vaters said it best; “Online church is real church, but it’s not real enough.
Thank you for reading this post. Find additional inspiring articles by visiting my website. | https://medium.com/publishous/is-live-stream-a-death-blow-to-the-american-church-3f1fc1c64f0f | ['Thomas E. Mcdaniels'] | 2020-07-18 22:33:19.854000+00:00 | ['Religion', 'Christianity', 'Live Streaming', 'Spirituality', 'Church'] |
How our early-stage startup is offering fair, equal, and transparent compensation | Data indicates that opaque, open-negotiation offers perpetuate systemic inequalities. Women are less likely to negotiate and more likely to undervalue their contributions. Black applicants negotiate at similar rates as white applicants, but they are less likely to receive the concessions they ask for due to biased assumptions. Secret compensation obscures these structural inequalities, which allows them to persist unchecked.
Wanting to treat employees fairly is the best reason to implement transparent salary practices, but it’s good for business, too. Inclusive workplaces are more productive, more innovative, and have higher retention rates. Employees are more motivated and collaborative when salaries are transparent. The data tells us that standardized compensation with transparency is a better way to do things.
How we set salaries
We standardize compensation to the role and level. Clear expectations keep roles and salary closely tied to employee’s contributions to the company and ensure that we’re not compensating people differently for reasons that are outside of those expectations.
We determine salary by mapping each role and level to our market data source for SF Bay Area and set a standard percentage of market value across the board. Total compensation is at or above market rates for our size of company. We need to be competitive to attract and retain strong talent.
We do not do cost of living adjustments (a controversial take, we know). The decision not to adjust comes down to valuing impact. The work costs what it costs. Expectations for performance don’t change based on geography. A senior engineer’s impact on the team should be the same whether they’re based in San Francisco or Toledo, so they should be compensated the same for their work. We also want our employees to be happy and we want to keep good people, which means giving them the flexibility to live where they want to without worrying about the effect on their paycheck.
How we determine equity
Equity distribution isn’t often, well, equitable. During open negotiations, equity can feel like an easy give since shares have potential versus actual value. But, equity negotiations, too, can perpetuate income inequality by biasing towards those who can wait for a payout, which consolidates wealth in the hands of people who already have it.
At bit.io, equity is determined solely by the role, level, employee number, and start month. In short, the amount is set to pay a multiple of the personal-net-worth opportunity cost of joining bit.io relative to a large tech company after accounting for risk taken. We calculate equity by start date, not by offer date, because earlier employees are taking on higher risks. At bit.io, their equity reflects that.
What do we mean by transparency
Secret compensation also can create interpersonal friction if — more likely when — employees share their salaries. It’s against the law in California to prohibit employees from talking about wages, and we wouldn’t want to. Hiring is a good-faith agreement, and negotiation is an inherently adversarial relationship. Starting with transparency and the best offer we can make builds a foundation of trust and respect from day one.
The salary, role, and level of every employee is available to all bit.io employees and candidates (it is not posted publicly due to privacy concerns). In addition to current-state transparency, we share a history of equity grants. True equity transparency requires historical transparency. If you don’t know what has been given out so far, you have no record, so it’s not transparent.
In addition to transparency being fairer for employees, it’s fairer to candidates. Negotiations stack the company with market and historical data, and access to recruiters against an individual with access to few, if any, of those resources. Transparency levels the playing field.
It’s to our benefit, too. Since we don’t negotiate, it’s important that we give candidates as much context as we can so they understand the full value of their offer. Giving them the data to make an informed decision is more meaningful than giving them the hard sell.
Why not to do this
There are many reasons not to do this. Setting an infrastructure based on no negotiation — or any rigid HR policy — is antithetical to much of early startup wisdom. The data is indicating that compensation transparency will be better for our business long term, but the long term doesn’t matter if we don’t have a business in six months. Often, it makes sense to throw more money at a person or a problem in the short term to get to the next milestone.
Conversely, we might be paying someone more than they would have asked for during negotiation. It takes time to do our approach thoughtfully and often comes with legal costs. And of course, there are ways for leadership to cheat the system (though, if you’re going to cheat the system, it’s not worth doing it at all).
For us, the reason to commit comes down to building a company driven by the values of inclusion and respect. We’re trying to build a great place to work, which for us means treating people fairly, paying them competitively, and giving them the data they need to make decisions. Data accessibility is the mission of our company. If we can’t commit to it at the company level, then why would we build a product around it?
The policy also helps push value alignment. By implementing this policy, we’re selecting for people who share our values and who will integrate those values into our product and company. Of course, there’s a chance we’ll miss out on someone great who simply can’t make the financials work for whatever reason. As painful as that would be, centering our mission and values early is key to building a company that lasts. | https://blog.bit.io/how-our-early-stage-startup-is-offering-fair-equal-and-transparent-compensation-ae582a1ad8e4 | ['Jonathan Mortensen'] | 2021-06-01 18:33:28.020000+00:00 | ['Transparency', 'Negotiation', 'Tech', 'Startup', 'Equity'] |
Story Selling: Using Email to Drive Sales | Do all the conversations about story selling, squeeze pages, landing pages, offers, order bump, and autoresponders make your head spin? Are you yearning for the good old days when you could talk to someone about their problems?
When you could answer customer questions face-to-face or over the phone, you didn’t need to think about squeeze pages and autoresponder series.
Oh, those were the days.
Who thought you’d miss the days when the salesperson standing by the door of the shop would ask you if they could help you, and you’d quickly reply that you’re just looking. And then you’d have the salesperson start chatting you up with a story about the merchandise.
They would get to know you to figure out what you’re really looking for so you could go home with the perfect item. That was if they had outstanding salespeople; they worked hard to make the customer happy.
So what do we do today? There are options, but the one I’m talking about is email marketing. Transform your email into that super salesperson who could chat up those who are ‘just browsing’ into happy customers.
And how do you do that, you ask?
You give your customers stories. Stories where they are the hero, and you are a valuable guide by their side.
Story Selling Definition
Have you ever noticed when you’re watching a great movie, you are so absorbed in the story that you didn’t notice the wild and outlandish twists and turns it takes to get the hero over the finish line?
You’re not thinking what the heck are they doing wear sunglasses before they were invented in Django unchained, the clip-on tie wasn’t invented yet in The Color Purple or the guitar in Back to the Future wasn’t around then.
You were engrossed with where the plot was going; the silly details didn’t matter.
That’s where you need to take your readers. You don’t even have to be a great storyteller. If you know them, like you say you do, then you can walk in their shoes, sandals, flip-flops, or sneakers with no problem.
What to Do If You Don’t Have Any Stories
But of course, you have stories. Everyone has stories to share. Your origin story is the natural account of how you became who you are today. We all have come from something that we had to overcome to be where we are today.
I’ve learned to listen to people from my four decades of listening to understand my intellectually disabled son. To understand what he’s saying in-between his words, a selection that isn’t always on point. He doesn’t always catch the double meaning of words; thus, his attempts to converse is often an exercise in mental gymnastics.
Of course, I’m listening to understand his intent, which makes me a great listener to my friends, peers, and clients. I’m mentally looking at the underlying problem that they’re facing and how it affects them.
Whatever you’re selling, you can connect them to your products/services emotionally if you understand your readers.
Story Selling in Action
The format for stories is straightforward.
What the customer is going through, emotionally
Why did others purchase from you
How did they feel after they used it
Let’s say you’re considering this. Here’s what flashes in your brain. First off, you don’t want to share your stuff. Second, the dreaded blinking cursor on the blank page is staring back at you.
You’ve got nothing…
Make it easy on yourself. Create your origin story. Nobody said it has to be 100% accurate. Your mom isn’t coming after you for lying. However, outright lying isn’t right as history proved for Lance Armstrong, who denied taking performance-enhancing drugs, or James Frey, who wrote his memoir about his experience with addiction — that totally didn’t happen.
You might remember how Oprah Winfrey was sympathetic and inspired by his story until she later learned that he made it up… big oops.
So, try to make your story close to the truth, maybe edit out the parts that go deeper than you want to go, or throw too many people under the bus.
Now that you’ve written your personal story, you’ve got the goodies to use in all your material. As they say, your mess is your message.
How to write a story
Stories are fun when you relax and start writing, dictating, or typing — pick yours. Think about how your product or service could fit into a problem/solution situation to get started. Noodle that around in your mind for a bit.
Then start typing. Don’t begin to correct it; that’s what you do when you’re done. You clean it up. Keep weaving a story around your product, how it transformed someone’s life.
Or think about something you’ve read recently, [you always need to be reading or listening to unrelated information] that got your attention. It was so strange, scary, or funny that you need to share it.
Recently I was sharing with a friend how everything old is new again. That is if you’re old enough to remember what the old stuff is. [this is a good starter if your audience knows what old is…]
A friend told me a joke, why do we tell actors to break a leg… because every play has a cast. [good starter to get the reader’s attention] I love jokes.
Story Tips
Stories can go anywhere, in your emails. Remember, the hero of the story is the buyer, not you. A silly mistake that novices make when writing is using the words I and me, more than you and your.
People like to hear about themselves more than you unless you can spin it around to include them too.
Weigh heavily on how good life will be once they’re used your product/service. When you know your readers like they’re your twin — only they’re in trouble, you’ll have a better sense of walking alongside them — guiding them along.
The Next Steps
Story selling is about life in living color. Don’t overthink it, as Nike says, just do it.
Collect stories that make you laugh, think, or they’re memorable.
In summary: If you need help coming up with the right stories for your project, reach out to me. Brainstorming is sometimes all that’s required. If you’d like to chat about your next project, reach out at [email protected]
Linda James Bennett; day 25 of 365 writing an article every day, making you a shiny object in the world. | https://medium.com/@lindajamesbennett/story-selling-using-email-to-drive-sales-4c5b0256e1f4 | ['Linda James Bennett At Shinyobjectmarketing.Com'] | 2020-12-14 00:07:50.757000+00:00 | ['Life Coach', 'Business Strategy', 'Business', 'Copywriting', 'Business Coaching'] |
DLF One Midtown Residential Project | DLF One Midtown Residential Project
DLF One Midtown Residential Project
DLF One Midtown Residential Project
DLF One Midtown
DLF One Midtown is a project by DLF in New Delhi. DLF One Midtown offers some of the most conveniently designed Apartments. Located in Karampura, it is a residential project. It has 915 units. DLF One Midtown offers some of the most exclusive 2BHK, 3 BHK, and 4BHK. As per the area plan, units are in the size range of 1700.0–3400.0 sq. ft. The address of DLF One Midtown is Shivaji Marg, Moti Nagar, Karampura.
DLF One Midtown Residential Project
DLF One Midtown ensures a coveted lifestyle and offers convenient living. It offers facilities such as Gymnasium. If you are a sports lover, there are provisions meant for you such as Cycling & Jogging Track. Residents also have access to Internet / Wi-Fi provisions in the project. Young families with kids can explore modern arrangements for leisure and play such as the Children’s Play Area, nearby apart from Swimming Pool. It is a Gated Community. Some other provisions include access to Landscaped Garden.Excellent Connectivity by Road & MetroHigh Luxurious Living Just 7 kms. from Connaught Place Suburban Living in the heart of New Delhi Surrounded by Acres of Greens Fully air-conditioned apartments Exclusive recreational facilities Modular Kitchen with appliances Modular Wardrobes Club, Shopping Complex, School Landscaped Park and Playground 24x7 Power Backup
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DLF One Midtown
DLF One Midtown Residential Project
DLF One Midtown is a project by DLF in New Delhi. DLF One Midtown offers some of the most conveniently designed Apartments. Located in Karampura, it is a residential project. It has 915 units. DLF One Midtown offers some of the most exclusive 2BHK, 3 BHK, and 4BHK. As per the area plan, units are in the size range of 1700.0–3400.0 sq. ft. The address of DLF One Midtown is Shivaji Marg, Moti Nagar, Karampura.
https://www.riseinfraventures.com/residential-projects/residential/dlf-one-midtown-in-delhi
#realestate #gurgaon #delhi #trumptower #gurugram #luxuryhomes #realestateindia #gurgaondiaries #realestategurgaon #gurgaonarchitects
!!! Nice post<a href=”https://www.riseinfraventures.com/"> DLF One Midtown Residential Project </a> and thanks … | https://medium.com/@infraventurerise_57043/dlf-one-midtown-residential-project-ec0698305af0 | [] | 2021-12-29 06:46:58.866000+00:00 | ['Property Investment', 'Property', 'Residential Property', 'Resistance', 'Real Estate'] |
Top Five Places to Get Murdered at UCLA | DISCLAIMER** This article was written purely for comedic purposes, and is not meant to be taken seriously.
Are classes ever too much for you? Do people keep telling you that your major isn’t marketable enough to make it in the modern job market, and that you’ll never pay off your student loans? Or is it the existential despair resulting from the realization that you and every last person who you ever loved or who merely even knew of you will be dead in a few centuries, eliminating the last pieces of evidence remaining that prove that you once existed? Well, this article is for you. Read further for rankings of the best places to get murdered at our beloved school, University of California, Los Angeles.
5. The Entrance to Viewpoint Conference Room at 4:00 A.M.
The flights of dull gray concrete stairs closed in by (you guessed it) concrete walls, the orange lighting, the homeless guy who stares at you as you walk by, and the general ambience pushed this location to number 5 on this list. No one will hear you scream. Especially not at 4 a.m.
4. The “Garden” Behind Canyon Point
This hidden patch of grass and concrete irrigation systems behind Sunset Village Canyon Point is rarely visited by UCLA locals (and for good reason). Only a serious low point would drive a person to willingly go there; whether it is a failed midterm, or the urgent need to pee after a night out that you will surely regret in the morning. Either way, the privacy and lack of proper lighting makes it a prime location for murder. Bonus points for giving back to UCLA’s campus as much needed fertilizer (maybe they’ll finally stop asking you for donations after this!)
3. The Bathrooms in Mathematical Sciences
The uncannily artificial lighting, the emptiness, the mysterious stains on the walls that have been there since before you were born, and the bleak atmosphere that lingers from the collective despair of thousands of depressed and aimless physical science and engineering majors creates a fantastic atmosphere for some first degree homicide. The proximity and ease of access for South Campus students is a positive as well.
2. The Garbage Alley Entrance to the Courtside Parking Garage
Those of you who lived in Courtside or Canyon Point probably know this alley and its weekly stench of sewage and garbage very well. During the day, it isn’t uncommon to see trucks backing into the alleyway and refusing to slow down as you try to walk through the alley. Now I know what you’re thinking: that’s not murder, that’s vehicular manslaughter. Don’t worry, I’m getting to that! Although this alley may not be a great place for daytime murders, it is absolutely fantastic for post-midnight murder. The many crooks and nannies, the dim lighting, the ramps, the stairwells, the many parking garage stories… on their own these are all classic horror movie murder locations, but putting everything together, this definitely deserves the number 2 spot on this list.
1. The Second Floor of Boelter Hall
Any student who has had the misfortune of having to take a class on the second floor of Boelter Hall knows that this deserves the number one spot. The banging sounds coming from the ventilation pipes hanging loosely from the ceiling that’s due to fail at any moment, the walls and ceiling that only just achieve the architectural bare minimum to keep the building intact, and the automatic lights that audibly flicker on and off and cast an unflattering yellow glow on the already unsightly halls, all make for an unforgettable experience. Only the most desperate Engineering major would walk through here, so chances are you will be alone. You may try to run, but the elevator will get to your floor at least 5 minutes too late. It will be days before they find your body, hidden in the maze that is the second floor of Boelter Hall. | https://medium.com/@gunsalusjacobi/top-five-places-to-get-murdered-at-ucla-f15a40451c86 | ['Jacobi Gunsalus'] | 2020-12-25 08:21:18.988000+00:00 | ['University', 'Articles', 'UCLA', 'Comedy', 'Murder'] |
Ancient Knowledge of the Trees | Ancient Knowledge of the Trees
Fascination with the rotting pine
Photo by Bradley Brister on Unsplash
The earth spoke to me
Before I had realization
With fascination
Of the rotting pine
Fallen trees
I could not help but notice
Messages
From the divine
Whispers through splinters
Words cutting to the heart
Revelation speaking in
Windy prose of art
Do you yet understand
The ancient knowledge of the trees
How death proceeds new life
In a cycle of infinity
Have you yet known
The secret to resurrection power
How death is the fertilizer
From which everything re-flowers
You may have fallen
You may be broken
But your life is not done
Just watch what you become. | https://medium.com/scribe/ancient-knowledge-of-the-trees-b0035dadff0 | ['Breanna Lowman'] | 2020-12-24 13:46:38.397000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Reflections', 'Poem', 'Nature'] |
It´s official: CosmWasm Integration to the Cosmos Hub!🐱🏍 | CosmWasm Hub Proposal Passed
We are thrilled to announce that the proposal #25 on the integration of CosmWasm to the Cosmos Hub has passed successfully! We are proud that there was more voting participation(72.42%) than any other proposal except the Cosmos Hub 3 upgrades and Governance Hub funding proposal. We also made a new record of delegator turn out, 5% of the whole network, what a pleasant surprise!
Amount to spend: 25k ATOMs from the community pool
Voting period: 12th-26th May 2020
Voter turnout: 72.42 %
Yes vote: 99.99%
CosmWasm is humbled by the response from the Cosmos community for the support and confidence in the proposal.
It is an important proposal as it places a smart contract container at the heart of the Cosmos Hub.
The CosmWasm team are looking forward to tailoring CosmWasm so it is “Ready for Integration¨ following the IBC upgrade.
What is this proposal for?
Validator-reviewed smart contract capability for the Cosmos Hub
Governance control over the complete lifecycle of smart contracts on the Hub, including upgrading and shutting down.
Working example of staking derivatives, deployed to a testnet
Why CosmWasm integration to Hub important?
After the launch of IBC(Inter-Blockchain Communication), there will be many competing hubs. The hub will need to provide necessary functionality and adapt to the needs of the ecosystem in a timely manner, without requiring downtime or forking. CosmWasm allows faster and easier iterations.
IBC is the future of the Cosmos Hub, and CosmWasm is the key to make the Hub to be the center of the ecosystem. Two largest post-IBC value propositions, relaying Dynamic IBC Protocols and Rented Security(Cross-chain staking), using ATOMs as collateral for smaller zones, would greatly benefit from CosmWasm’s flexibility.
Adding code to Gaia can open up security issues, and this should be tightly controlled. A misbehaving CosmWasm contract cannot damage the functionality of other contracts. It doesn’t add any functionality to Hub nor allow anyone to upload contracts or run them. It just provides a mechanism for Governance to add new functionality to the Hub in a very incremental approach.
With CosmWasm integration to the Hub, the entry barrier to add functionality gets much lower. This opens up the door wider to those non-core developers too.
Action to build proposed features
We are adding some key features to CosmWasm to convert it from a permissionless, immutable smart contract platform to a permissioned platform with Governance control for upgrading or shutting down contracts. This is a key requirement to be able to integrate CosmWasm to the Cosmos Hub with minimal disruption. Follow the implementation of the proposed features, we plan to demonstrate it on a testnet and fine tune following community feedback.
Our goal is to get the technology ready. You can test out, experiment, play around with all the possible scenarios of CosmWasm smart contracts. For example building a staking derivatives module. CosmWasm smart contracts provide the basic technology and then Governance decides the actual execution after reflection and discussion from the community based on the experience of trying the software.
Future Plan
We will continue development of CosmWasm, especially adding IBC integration as well as working towards a stable 1.0 release that can be audited and safely deployed (Q4 2020).
With the 0.8 release, CosmWasm allows the Hub integration work of secure smart contracts with native SDK modules in a permissionless setting. Between this and a recent ICF grant for IBC integration, we will focus on contract migration, adding optional permissioning/governance control, integrating IBC with CosmWasm contracts, and building out a healthy developer ecosystem of tooling and contracts around CosmWasm.
With the Cosmos Hub, we now have 6 projects-CyberCongress, Enigma, OKChain, Regen Network, Terra- committed or seriously considering integration of CosmWasm on their mainnet and we hope to be the go-to for smart contracts in the Cosmos that want to leverage all existing Cosmos SDK logic.
Community feedback
There were some concerns regarding security, complexity, timeline and smart contract autonomy against the governance but overall, we have received highly positive and supportive feedback from diverse social networks;
Figment Networks: “An important next step to keeping the Hub and ATOM competitive”
Asmodot: “A big thumbs up for this. This is one of the most important proposals Cosmos has to make and will greatly influence the future value proposition of the Hub”
Zaki Manian: “The most bullish thing to happen for ATOM in 2020, let’s build some comparative advantage.”
“The big thing that CosmWasm will let us do is extend the slashing conditions on the Hub to allow ATOMs to provide collateral to more zones”
Certus One: “Adding smart contracts increases the Hub utility”
Serejandmyself: “Very happy to see diversification of the community pool funds”
Chorus One: “We think this feature may help the Cosmos Hub to establish itself as the center of the IBC ecosystem by enabling quicker connections and other desired features”
Stakewith.us: “It’s important to implement a governance mechanism to add new functionalities to the Cosmos Hub in a post-IBC world.”
Thank you for your support, community!
Stay tuned for our next announcement of milestone achievement! | https://medium.com/cosmwasm/it-s-official-cosmwasm-integration-to-the-cosmos-hub-a9aab8a66230 | ['Misang Ryu'] | 2020-05-27 10:28:40.841000+00:00 | ['Proposal', 'Multichain', 'Governance', 'Smart Contracts', 'Cosmos Hub'] |
The Unwanted Side Effect of Speed Listening to Books and Podcasts | The Unwanted Side Effect of Speed Listening to Books and Podcasts
It’s not an issue of comprehension or productivity.
Photo by Start Digital on Unsplash
Do you listen to audiobooks and podcasts at double speed or higher?
It’s a great way to get through nonfiction at pace. It helps us get more out of our time. But it comes with a few drawbacks. Some people would argue you don’t enjoy the books as much, especially when everyone sounds like a chipmunk. Others argue that you don’t give yourself enough time to digest and reflect on ideas at the moment.
Those are genuinely valid points. But neither of those is the side effect I’m talking about. The unwanted side effect of listening so fast is that you get used to it. It becomes the norm.
Wait? How is that a bad thing?
The problem is that it doesn’t just become the norm for podcasts, audiobooks, and YouTube videos. Eventually, it can find its way into your real-life interactions and affect your relationships with others.
After marathon sessions of listening at 2x speed, regular conversations feel like they are going in slow motion. You might even start talking faster than usual.
It changes the vibe.
In an effort to maximize productivity, it’s possible to end up cultivating impatience in areas where patience matters most.
You might wish people would just talk faster and get to the point. But they need time to think. And so do you.
Unlike casual conversation, audiobooks share fully formed, highly polished, and edited ideas. At double speed, it sets a near-impossible standard to match in real-life speech.
Real conversations don’t always have a particular point or reason for them. Communication is often non-verbal. Often, it’s not so much about what people say as much as how they say it.
It’s about sharing our thoughts, feelings, and emotions to create a connection.
So, how do we fight this unwanted side effect?
Fortunately, just recognizing the problem can sometimes help solve it. When we notice we are impatient with others, we can remind ourselves to be more mindful and engaged at the moment.
If that fails, we can reduce our exposure to high-speed audio by simply consuming less. And we can slow speeds down from 2x to 1.5x instead. As long as we apply the 80/20 principle to what we consume, we shouldn’t lose out on much “productivity” at all.
Lastly, before interacting with other people, we can take a few moments to slow down and re-normalize. | https://medium.com/2-minute-madness/the-unwanted-side-effect-of-speed-listening-to-books-and-podcasts-43db5576fda2 | ['Kevin Lee'] | 2020-12-24 12:50:20.423000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Self-awareness', 'Productivity', 'Self', 'Life'] |
Christmas Wishes and Messages for father | Dads are the backbone of our family and christmas celebrations. Christmas is the festival for the family. Christmas is nothing without mom and dad. Whatever your today is because of your father. He shared his knowledge , wisdom and experiences. Christmas gives you the perfect opportunity to tell him how much you love him. Send perfect Christmas wishes and Messages for your father.
Also Read: 100+ Christmas Wishes for Dad | https://medium.com/@wisheslog-official/christmas-wishes-and-messages-for-father-dc11cd4b2dca | ['Wishes Log'] | 2020-12-15 12:05:26.088000+00:00 | ['Message', 'Christianity', 'Christmas', 'Fatherhood', 'Wishes'] |
Quick tips for conversion between Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese (繁簡轉換) | TLDR
Open Chinese Convert — opencc https://github.com/BYVoid/OpenCC
opencc is a powerful conversion tools among TC, SC and Japanese Kanji (Not sure what it is, just copied from above github webpage). Please find the detailed description in the official readme.
You may find some official supported language libraries or packages. In some cases if your systems are not implemented with supported languages, you can try to install the executable package in the OS, then use your program language to invoke the command to do the conversion.
In my case, my website was implemented by Symfony (PHP framework). The web server were installed in Debian. The conversion finally works by calling /usr/bin/opencc with Symfony\Component\Process. Codes show below (opencc CLI should be installed in OS):
use Symfony\Component\Process\Process;
$process = new Process(['opencc', '-c hk2s.json']);
$process->setInput("香港繁體到簡體
<pre>並轉換爲臺灣常用詞彙</pre>
<p>臺灣正體到繁體</p>");
$code = $process->run();
if (!$process->isSuccessful()) {
// raise exception or do what you want
}
echo $process->getOutput();
echo "
";
$process->setInput('你好嗎？');
$code = $process->run();
echo $process->getOutput();
Few points to note:
Config file (eg. hk2s.json) is required for it to work properly Input with multiple lines for each conversion works well. (Sounds normal? Try the CLI in shell with stdin may confuse you) Behavior of Process class: run should be call every time, but no re-initialize the instance is required.
Alternative(s) in PHP world:
This PHP package does not work in my case due to the Symfony framework version conflict. For those who use Laravel and latest Symfony, it is definitely worth to give a try.
To invoke the command, exec, shell_exec and proc_open etc. may work well. In my case, I have Symfony and Symfony\Component\Process is handy. I saved time and made the codes concise without using above PHP functions.
Please feel free to comment.
如需要中文解釋，請告知。 | https://medium.com/@kwongwa/quick-tips-for-conversion-between-traditional-chinese-and-simplified-chinese-%E7%B9%81%E7%B0%A1%E8%BD%89%E6%8F%9B-2ae1ce29db79 | ['Dave Wong'] | 2020-12-19 06:34:09.748000+00:00 | ['Multilingual', 'Character Conversion', 'Cli', 'PHP', 'Chinese'] |
Interview: Trulee Hall talks about her new exhibition at Zabludowicz Collection | Trulee Hall exhibition view at Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2020. Photo: Tim Bowditch
Housed in a former Methodist chapel in North London, Zabludowicz Collection is one of the country’s most innovative arts organisations, delivering a unique programme of exhibitions and events.
For its prestigious Annual Commission this year, Zabludowicz Collection has invited American artist Trulee Hall to create her first ever UK exhibition. Through of a mixture of newly commissioned work, pieces from the Collection and a number of videos, paintings and sculptures made over the past two years, Hall has transformed the chapel’s gallery spaces into an engrossing experience.
As the Zabludowicz Collection’s exhibition introduction explains, “the viewer moves through discordant scenes, each presenting a tangled meta-narrative. Installations comprising video, sculpture, paintings, composed soundtracks, and kinetic mechanisms create dense environments that invite the visitor to step around, peep through, and settle in, allowing a fractured and faceted perspective. Reappearing tropes populate the exhibition; stylised female nudes with mouths agape, rendered in gold and primary colours; bodies of many ages, genders and sizes relishing their physicality; and often repeated phallic serpents and corncobs.”
A focal point for the exhibition is Tongues Duel the Corn Whores, An Opera, a commission that began as a performance of the same name, realised by Hall at Zabludowicz Collection in 2019. Intended as an exploration of ritual and sexuality, the work weaves together Hall’s original score, libretto and choreography with an elaborate set, costumes, and props. Revolving around two female archetypes — the conservative and spiritual ‘Madonna’ and the hedonistic and provocative ‘Whore’ — CGI, clay animation and live footage are all employed to create an immersive, beguiling whole, “where there is no hierarchy of reality or rendering”.
Having just had the opportunity to scan the exhibition, The Net Gallery spoke to Hall to learn more about her approach to a fascinating, multifaceted show.
Trulee Hall, Tongues Duel the Corn Whores, An Opera, 2020, exhibition view at Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2020. Photo: Tim Bowditch.
The Net Gallery: Given that the Zabludowicz Collection building is so unique, what was it like to plan an exhibition in the space?
Trulee Hall: The main gallery is indeed such an uncommon and distinctive space, the first time I saw the room, I knew I wanted to create something super site specific. I responded to the tall ceilings, the surrounding balcony, the oval shape, the stage, alter and carvings on the wall. I also reacted to the Methodist Church history and iconography, the overall sacred meets profane vibe to the environment, and of course the acoustics are amazing!
I interpreted the carvings on the wall though my own pervy Trulee lens, pulling inspiration free-association-style from historical archetypes and personally relevant motifs. I could see fertility symbols everywhere in the carvings, such as sheela na gigs, serpent-shaped sperm, pregnant women, corn columns, and flower wreaths.
One of the main sculptures in the exhibition was also the set for my Opera and film — this was an enlarged and forced perspective version of the central architectural carving on the wall above the alter.
With all of this as inspiration, the show basically made itself. In one night I planned out the whole installation.
Trulee Hall exhibition view at Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2020. Photo: Tim Bowditch.
TNG: What does the prominent use of gold signify for you in the exhibition?
TH: In the Opera, the gold signifies the flashy, flamboyant, showing-off version of confidence that typifies the Golden Whore characters. They are Las Vegas style strippers who represent excessive, hedonistic, greedy, overly sexualized women, in direct contrast to the holy and righteous women who wear all white.
Gold also represents money and power. The Golden Whores are all about the Golden Corn, which is a disembodied phallic symbol, like a dildo. However, the cob section is the female, flower part of the corn plant — so it is a phallic female symbol. The gold color references actual gold, the standard of wealth. The women are after power in a self-gratifying and delicious female form.
TNG: Your work has been compared in the past to that of Edward Kienholz. What influence has Kienholz had on your practice, and how would you describe the relationship between his installations and your own?
TH: I love it when people draw links between my work and other artists and ideas, and of course it’s a compliment to be comparable to great artists! I do like his work and I totally see the comparison, but honestly he has not had any influence on my practice directly. Perhaps culturally in an overall sense he has, but I didn’t even know about his work until I was already well formed as an artist.
The artists who were most influential on my work early on are Cindy Sherman, Louise Bourgeois, Joseph Beuys, Eva Hesse, Egon Schiele, Basquiat, Henry Miller (in a philosophical sense), the Quay Brothers, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Jeff Koons, the Chapman Brothers, and Mathew Barney, I could go on… More recently, Suzan Pitt, Mika Rottenberg and Shana Moulton have had an impact. I am constantly inspired by other artists/writers/musicians and that is one of my greatest joys!
Trulee Hall exhibition view at Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2020. Photo: Tim Bowditch.
TNG: This is a broad and open-ended question, but how would you contrast the current climate in the US — either the country as whole, or the parts of it you know best — with the world(s) you present through your work?
TH: I don’t actually think of my work in that way. It’s totally fine for others to draw comparisons between my work and the current political climate, however that changes as time goes on. My work comes from an introspective place originating from my own internalized idiosyncratic provocations. I am very much alive in the world and of course I respond to it in my own way. It would be quite unnatural, uncomfortable and unrewarding for me to talk about my work in relation to Trump, for instance. I create my own worlds and characters, and the “logic” and language within them is self-reflexive.
I am obviously a sex-positive feminist, I’m incredibly passionate about animals and the environment, and in general I’m super opinionated! I’d prefer my work to be explored through a more abstract and provocative lens that is not limited to coronavirus politics and the current USA election! Although, of course it is really not up to me how my work is interpreted throughout time, but I personally do not feel inspired to make forced connections.
Trulee Hall, Polkadot Bedroom, Nightmare Set (Girl/ Monster), 2018, exhibition view at Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2020. Photo: Tim Bowditch.
www.truleehall.com
Interview by Richard Unwin for The Net Gallery.
You can view the virtual walkthrough of Trulee Hall’s Zabludowicz Collection exhibition, scanned and produced by The Net Gallery, here.
The exhibition runs at Zabludowicz Collection in North London until 14 March, 2021.
If you’d like to visit the exhibition in person, booking is recommended, and you’re advised to familiarise yourself with Zabludowicz’s guidelines before your visit. See www.zabludowiczcollection.com for more information. | https://medium.com/@info-61963/interview-trulee-hall-talks-about-her-new-exhibition-at-zabludowicz-collection-c045aa2840bb | ['The Net Gallery'] | 2020-11-05 11:02:29.192000+00:00 | ['London', 'Art', 'Contemporary Art', 'Art Exhibition', 'Artist'] |
How Great Bosses Helped Me To Be My Better Self | “Boss’, the word itself brings out various kinds of emotions in every individual who has worked under a supervisor. For some it brings positive memories, a smile to their lips and a warm feeling in their hearts. While for others, it triggers anger, disscontempt, apathy etc. I fortunately or unfortunately had the opportunity to work with both kinds. My first boss, whom I don’t remember too fondly, was an important reason for me to quit the organisation within a span of 11 months. Those 11 months were some of the most miserable ones in my professional life. I hated going to work everyday but was too apprehensive to quit as I had just set foot into the work sphere.
The focus of this article isn’t on terrible bosses. May be I’ll write on the predicaments of having an unlikeable boss another day because even dreadful bosses do teach important lessons. It’s also important to bear in mind that the terms “great”, “terrible”, “dreadful”, “wonderful” etc. are all subjective.
I first met Indrani di in 2012 when I came down to Kolkata from Jaipur for a short break. I was looking to relocate back to Kolkata and someone I know asked me to write to Sanlaap enquiring if they have any opening. I did just that and within a few hours I received an email from Indrani di asking me to come down to Sanlaap’s office the next day for a meeting. I was very new to the development sector and had absolutely no idea about the anti-trafficking sector. The only thing I had in my favour was my education as I had two Masters degrees. My previous job taught me very little and drained me completely of my self-confidence and self-esteem.
Indrani Sinha, who was fondly called Indrani di by almost everyone working in her organisation and most in the anti-trafficking sector, was the Founder Director of Sanlaap. Established in 1987, Sanlaap has been working over 3 decades on combating human trafficking, gender injustice and violence against women and children. Indrani di was the Executive Director and Secretary of Sanlaap from the time of its formation to her demise in 2015. I worked with Indrani di from 2012 to 2015 and she’s someone who will always mean a lot to me.
I won’t say Indrani di was perfect. She was as human as you and me and so wasn’t completely flawless. But to me she was my hero. At that point in my life, I was really doubting myself, wasn’t sure about my ability as a development professional and had little idea on the issue of human trafficking. But Indrani di believed in me when I myself didn’t. She gave me some important donors and programmes to manage when I was just a month into the organisation. To me it felt like she threw me into the deep end of the pool and left me to my resources to figure out how to swim on my own. But I knew that she was there, lurking somewhere in the background, ready to throw me the life support if I was to drown. The more she put her trust in me, the more I wanted to perform, even if it was mostly to impress her in the beginning. In my 3.5 years of working with her, I discovered my strengths, and was pleasantly surprised with my own potential. I probably would have stayed longer with Sanlaap if Indrani di was around.
Fast forward 2.5 years. Year 2018. That’s when I joined Kamonohashi Project- a Japanese Trust that has been funding programmes on survivors leadership and their access to justice in India since 2012. Tomomi Shimizu-the Kamo India Programme Director-was my immediate supervisor at Kamo. At 5ft 3” tall and rather slender, Tomomi could come across as soft to those seeing her for the first time. But a couple of minutes into a meeting with her, you will realise that Tomomi is no pushover. She won’t mince her words and her facial expressions and body language will make it completely evident how exasperated she is feeling with you :) And that’s why I love Tomomi. There’s no hypocrisy or duplicity about her. I’ve had the most honest and deep conversations with her and never have I felt that I can’t be candid with her.
It’s not like Tomomi and I never butted heads or had a disagreement. Oh, we’ve definitely had our share of arguments and squabble. And yet, whenever I felt low or was caught up in my feelings of inadequacy, it was Tomomi who was there to reassure me, to make me feel that I mattered. Tomomi could be a tough task master, holding her team to the highest standards of accountability and yet she is the most empathetic and compassionate boss I’ve worked with till date. Tomomi was not only my supervisor but also my voice of reason, my sounding board and my friend. That however did not mean that she would compromise on our supervisor-supervisee relationship and not scold me when my work was not up to the mark. She always wanted to build my skills so that I became adept at managing my portfolio and grew as a professional. I think I can safely say that it’s only at Kamo where I felt that conflicts are okay; giving honest feedback to your supervisor is okay, disagreeing with your boss’s point of view is okay. A boss who encourages you, invests in developing you and your skills and treats you as an equal will always bring out the best in you.
You know you truly have a great boss if s/he is approachable; gives you the space to share exactly what and how you feel, asks for your insights and pushes you hard at times so that you can reach your full potential. A good boss will also always hold everyone accountable including themselves. While I’m no expert on bosses but I definitely know which of my bosses brought out the best in me and what qualities of them made them great bosses. Like John Maxwell said “Leaders become great not because of their power but, because of their ability to empower others.” | https://medium.com/@pri.b/how-great-bosses-helped-me-to-be-my-better-self-80449392e56a | [] | 2020-12-23 17:26:43.829000+00:00 | ['Mentor', 'Leadership Development', 'Leadership', 'Relationships', 'Boss'] |
Best Alexa devices for every room: Our 2021 guide | We got our first Amazon Echo in late 2015. By that time, we’d already been buying smart devices and blogging about them for a few years, but everything we used was controlled by an app, or through our smart home hub with automations we configured.
Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains links that may earn us a commission from Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Opinions and conclusions are our own.
There were times when the app was slower or less efficient than flipping the switch or hitting the garage door button, but that didn’t matter. Our home was smart!
When we got the email invitation to buy an Echo, we were intrigued. We weren’t sure what to do with it, but we had been wanting to have music in the bedroom, so we figured since it had a big speaker, we could put it there.
Most everything we did with our smart home before was complicated, but it turned out that our smart home hub already worked with the Echo, so all we had to do was say: “Alexa, discover devices” and she found nearly everything in our house that was connected. Within a few minutes we could ask her to turn on and off most of the lights in our house, set the thermostat, and open and close the garage door. We were hooked.
Fast forward six years later and we have most every version of the Amazon Echo in our house, in almost every room. We have a few devices made by other companies that have Alexa built-in, but most of the time we use the Amazon-branded Echos.
Whether you are just getting started or want to expand Alexa around your house, here are our favorite Echo devices for every room.
See all our Amazon Echo Devices in action
Echo Show 10 — our primary Kitchen Alexa Device
We waited a while before we got our first Echo Show. We were fine with Alexa devices all over the house that could be listening to us, but something about adding a camera made us pause.
It wasn’t until we visited our sister-in-law and saw her Echo Show that we decided to get our own. We’ve loved having the large display, the ability to do video conferencing and having it as a cooking helper, showing recipes and multiple timers.
We recently upgraded to the Echo Show 10, the latest generation, that includes a nicer display, a better speaker, and a swivel feature that follows us as we move about the kitchen. We haven’t gotten the placement exactly right yet, sometimes the Echo bumps into our toaster oven or gets stuck the wrong way, but we suspect we’ll figure that out soon enough.
Added smart home features
We also love being able to see what’s going on with our smart cameras with the Echo Show display. We can ask Alexa to show us what’s going on in the backyard, in the garage or at the front door. Plenty of indoor and outdoor cameras and video doorbells work with Alexa today.
Also, the Echo Show 10 includes Zigbee, making it compatible with even more smart home products. Zigbee is a low-power, mesh network protocol that’s been around since the early aughts, and has been built into millions of smart home products since.
While all Alexas work with Wi-Fi devices, Zigbee devices generally have longer battery life and work together more efficiently without clogging your home Wi-Fi network. Before Amazon started building it in, you would generally have to use a separate hub to connect Zigbee devices in your home.
With the Echo Show 10 (and other Zigbee compatible Echos, like the full-size 4th Gen Echo or the Echo Studio High-Fidelity Speaker), you can connect lots more, even battery-powered, smart devices and create Alexa routines, such as window/door sensors, smart locks and thermostats.
Echo Show 5 — our favorite nightstand Echo
When we got our first original Echo, we put it in the bedroom, primarily so we could play music with the Bluetooth speaker. Soon we discovered that it made a great alarm clock — you can just ask Alexa to wake you up whenever you like. You can even ask her to snooze, set multiple alarms, or whisper to her if you don’t want to wake up your partner.
While the Echo speaker made a great alarm, it didn’t have an actual clock. So a couple of years ago we got an Echo Show 5 that includes a small display and a camera. In our case, the camera is almost always off (there’s a little privacy switch that covers the camera manually), and when you’re not using the display for Alexa, it shows the time.
A side benefit of using Alexa as an alarm clock — since it’s connected to the Internet, it always has the right time and you never have to adjust it for Daylight Savings Time. You won’t be able to trick yourself by setting it 10 minutes ahead though.
We actually have two Alexa devices in our bedroom. Our Sandman Doppler has Alexa built-in but does not have a camera or display, just a nice big clock. We had to change the wake word on the Echo Show to Amazon instead of Alexa so they don’t talk over each other.
The Doppler or an Echo Dot with clock are nice alternatives if you don’t want a camera in your bedroom but you still want to see the time.
Echo Dot — an Alexa for every room or a small space
After we got our first Amazon Echo and started controlling our house with it, we quickly bought a second one so we could use it in the kitchen. We have an open kitchen/family room situation so that was good enough to let us ask Alexa to turn things on and off from both our bedroom and the main living area.
But as we got more accustomed to using Alexa to control our smart home we realized we needed more. Thankfully Amazon introduced the Echo Dot, a smaller version of the original Echo at a much better price point. Pretty quickly we added Echo Dots in our offices and in our upstairs bonus room.
Calling other Alexa devices
In 2017 Amazon introduced another feature we can’t live without, calling between Echo devices like an intercom. We can just say, Alexa, Drop In: “Mark” or “Valerie” and call each other in our offices, or call the kitchen or bedroom. It works with both voice and video so if we call an Echo Show we can see each other too.
We can also make announcements that go to all of the Echoes in the house, such as “Dinner’s ready” — and Alexa is smart enough to add a dinner bell if you’re talking about a meal.
Since then, Amazon has introduced plenty of other messaging features — you can Drop in on Echos in other households, you can send text messages or call regular phone numbers in the US, UK, Canada and Mexico. While this is handy, we don’t really use it that much. We still use our regular mobile phones to call, occasionally asking Siri to help.
Echo Flex — a simple plug-in Alexa
Since we rely so much on Alexa to control our house, we would like to have an Alexa available in every room, but sometimes it’s not practical to plug in even something as small as an Echo Dot.
That’s where the Echo Flex is handy. It is a self-contained Amazon Echo that plugs right into a wall outlet, with a simple speaker/microphone that’s plenty good enough for commands (but not really a great speaker for music or other entertainment).
Our Echo Flex Review (2019)
Extra smart home control capabilities
One thing we really like about the Echo Flex are the expansion modules you can buy. We have both the night light, a nice bright night light that plugs into the bottom and can be set to a color, and the motion sensor.
With the motion sensor plugged into the Echo Flex, you can make Alexa routines that trigger lights and other devices based on motion, something that used to require a much more sophisticated smart home hub like Samsung SmartThings.
Speaking of routines, Alexa has really expanded this capability. Now you can use all sorts of devices, even ones attached to a Z-wave hub like SmartThings. You can even define a special phrase to trigger the routine, or use many compatible sensors to trigger the events.
With these types of sensors and the Zigbee capabilities we discussed before added into the higher end Amazon Echos, Alexa is fast becoming a more complete smart home solution.
Room for improvement
Of course, with so many Amazon Echos around our house, especially with a mix of older and newer models, we also can’t help noticing the flaws as well as the benefits. We know we have too many Alexas when the wrong one tries to answer or complete a task.
This gets really annoying when an Echo in the wrong room sets a timer and you have to shout upstairs to get it to turn off — more annoying when that doesn’t work and you have to run upstairs so it can hear you. Amazon must be working on this because the Echo Show in the kitchen often asks us if the right device is responding.
We’ve also noticed that the devices with Alexa built-in are not quite as responsive as the ones made by Amazon. They always seem to be at least one step behind when it comes to features and sometimes don’t work at all. We have had devices from at least four different manufacturers with Alexa built-in and none of them run Alexa as well as their Amazon-built counterparts. We’ll keep trying them though, since they do more than just voice commands.
Multiple accounts
One of the most annoying things about Alexa in our house is having different accounts. We have two adults in our household and we have our different preferences, for instance, in music and news, plus our own contacts in our phone book. So in this case it is useful to be able to switch accounts, say if I want to listen to my own Pandora music, I can ask Alexa to switch to my account.
Unfortunately, it is not useful when controlling our house. Mark generally sets up a lot of the routines in Alexa, but they don’t always translate to both Alexa accounts. For some reason, Mark can say, “Alexa turn off the lights,” and it is smart enough to figure out which lights are in that room and turn them all off, but that doesn’t work in my account. I have to ask Alexa to turn on the specific light or group of lights by name.
There are plenty of times when I ask Alexa to do something and she says that the device is not responding, but if I switch to Mark’s account it works right away. In these cases I spend a lot of time swearing at Alexa, and she only responds with her plainative “bonk.” She’s passive-aggressive sometimes.
Summary
It’s not exaggerating to say that Alexa has changed our lives, at least when it comes to controlling our home. Beyond just turning lights on and off and calling each other around the house, we also tend to listen to more music, and stay more well informed about the news and weather. We ask her for plenty of facts and figures we would probably never bother looking up on a computer or a phone. She’s even handy to do math, like converting measures for cooking. She’s become part of the family, and we miss her when we travel. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked Alexa to turn off the lights in a hotel or at a friend’s house.
So while she’s not perfect, we do love having Alexa around the house and we expect she’ll be here for some time to come. | https://medium.com/@appmyhome/best-alexa-devices-for-every-room-our-2021-guide-5ad90933a70c | [] | 2021-07-23 00:33:10.828000+00:00 | ['Amazon Alexa', 'Smart Home', 'Voice Assistant', 'Smart Home Automation', 'Amazon Echo'] |
“…But within a matter of years, police crackdowns, increased media attention on drug use, and the… | “…But within a matter of years, police crackdowns, increased media attention on drug use, and the dot-com collapse at the turn of the millennium all but extinguished raves..”
With all due respect, I beg to differ.
But before I do, I will say that the rest of the article is often “spot-on” and rather accurate. But it lacks a bit of depth and detail.
First, it’s important to make a distinction between large commercial events also known as “massives” for their tendency to draw crowds of 10,000 or more, and have more of a commercial and more widely accessible appeal, and the DJs that charge north of $100K per show.
Contrast this with a “rave” on a much smaller scale — a house rave — is an intimate house or warehouse underground party with 20–50 people, with a DJ lineup that gets more flexible after 6am and even a beginner can squeeze in (I know I did, in my own time). House raves almost always get busted by the cops, but cops entering the property is very rare in San Francisco, they just want the neighours to stop complaining.
A variation on the house rave is an even smaller and even more intimate house after-party that ironically, does not have to be “after-” anything. They often start as early as 4pm on Saturday and don’t end until Monday morning.
— How do you tell that Ravers have been to your house?
— They are all still there.
Past the house rave is the a more substantial production — either a renegade in the city like the infamous “Breakfast of Champions” every 6am on January the 1st. These have a tendency to get busted often.
Or the permitted campout on a private property somewhere a few hours away. Let’s call this a rave campout. These tend to NOT get busted, as they are on a private land, with the permission of the owners, and tend have anywhere between 150 and 800 people.
Your Rave is not Extinct
It’s the “massives” are the ones that are extinct, for the most part. The underground rave culture still exists and it strives, with many communities staying underground to the point of requiring secrecy as part of the membership and the privilege of being informed as to when where and who will be at the next event.
Early Rave scene of the late 90s also created many businesses where folks geeking out on the lights in 1998 would be running a ten-person lighting and visual FX company today.
The quintessential rave camp out hot tub was alternating between being a wreck of high-flying bodies (aka “the Raver Soup”), to a respectful debates on the finer points of TCP/IP tuning in the Apache Web Server (whose founders were often in the hot tub as well). Even today Apache runs nearly half of all internet sites according to https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/web-and-application-servers--425
And then there are the DJs.
The Rave/DJ cultures go hand in hand. A lot of DJs start out for the wrong reasons, and it’s remarkable to how far you can advance as a DJ with enough marketing and social media strategy. Unlike real musicians, DJs are often judged by the energy and groove they bring to the dance floor, but don’t get me wrong: it is a performance, so everything helps. Good looks, interaction with the crowd, dance moves — when done right can elevate an otherwise mediocre DJ to a star status, while passing on a quiet and introverted genius. Given enough time, though, after the dust settles, only the boom shakers and crowed movers remain in business. Being a DJ is terrible for your ego. Conversely, vast majority of really really good old school DJs have given up ego a long time ago, as you must do for any art to be truly authentic.
So yeah, rave culture is still here.
It might just be underground, where they can take a break from their own kids, or grand kids. | https://medium.com/@kig/this-is-great-and-on-the-whole-accurate-31f70c96aa64 | ['Konstantin Gredeskoul'] | 2020-12-29 04:09:30.443000+00:00 | ['San Francisco', 'Rave', 'Dj', 'Raving Culture', 'Electronic Music'] |
Apple wants to build its first car in 2024, Reuters says | Apple Inc.’s long-running effort to develop autonomous vehicle technology is reportedly on course to supply a self-driving passenger vehicle in 2024 with a game-changing battery of its own device.
Reuters cited unnamed sources on Monday who said that the Cupertino-based tech giant aims to create a mass-market personal vehicle for consumers. This diverts from a pack of companies within the self-driving race like Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo and Amazon.com Inc.’s Zoox that are developing robotaxis for driverless ride-hailing services.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been quietly performing on autonomous vehicles since 2014 with a stealthy effort dubbed Project Titan. It started off with a thought to style a vehicle from scratch, then shifted to less audacious goals around developing technology to be used by original equipment manufacturers within the auto industry. It seemed to travel to its original goals in 2018 when it rehired Doug Field, who had gone off to figure at Tesla Inc., in 2018.
It’s not clear who would assemble an Apple car. Reuters sources said it’s likely to usher in a partner to try and do that and can also likely use lidar and other elements developed by outsiders in its vehicles. the corporate has been engaged on lidar and a few new iPhones this year include such sensors.
A pair of former Apple engineers who have developed what they sit down with as “lidar on a chip” are expected to require their Mountain View company, Aeva Inc., public early next year in an exceedingly “blank check” merger.
Reuters’ sources say that the battery Apple is developing could drastically reduce cost and increase practice range on electric vehicles.
The same claims are central to the what San Jose-based QuantumScape Technologies Inc. is developing. It went public last month within the Bay Area’s most highly valued “blank check” merger. Its market cap (NYSE:QS) jumped by nearly 29% on Monday and its shares have over quadrupled since they started trading a couple of month ago.
Reuters sources said that while Apple would love to provide its first cars in 2024, it’s faced a number of the identical pandemic-related problems as other businesses. They said this might shift the beginning of production into 2025 or later. | https://medium.com/@yg0/apple-wants-to-build-its-first-car-in-2024-reuters-says-3bb2026d6c6f | [] | 2020-12-22 07:49:55.176000+00:00 | ['Self Driving Cars', 'Apple', 'Covid 19', 'Cars', 'iPhone'] |
Go for walks. It will change your life. | 2020 has been a rollercoaster of a year, and it’s certainly a understatement to say it’s. been rough. Whether it be the sudden problem of unemployment or having to isolate from your loved one, we have all been hit by a chain of events we could have never imagined. Yet there is the comfort knowing that we aren’t quite alone, this pandemic has affected the whole world, so this is a universal fight. And whilst similar reminders are frequently posted this can only provide so much comfort to the lone souls shut indoors. I myself felt the desperate helplessness when I was forced to quarantine despite my introverted persona, so I can’t imagine how the extroverts among us feel. As soon as I was given the green light to leave my bedroom and the four walls that seemed to be suffocating me, I had the urge to do something outdoors, something with my friends, but how could I? We were still in a national lockdown, and I still had to be responsible. However, no government rules had condemned me from taking walks, that would practically be stealing ones sanity. And in my particular reigon I had been given the liberty to meet with others, as long as the group remained to be total of 1 — 5 people. So naturally I started taking regular walks with my friend who lived locally.
It was the best decision we made.
Both of us agreed we felt physically and mentally relieved when on our daily walks, we often played music or brought snacks, but the essence of our meetings, the one necessary requirement was the element of the outdoors. Another agreement we both concluded to was how disgraceful it was that a pandemic had inspired this and we should have organized this long ago.
I cannot tell you how much these walks changed my whole day and in turn me as a person.
My head always felt so clear when out, whether this was because of the fresh air, the birds or the privilege I had of beautiful country views. As a result I often came home feeling more productive and I began hobbies I had previously wanted to start but had felt too depressed or lazy to think about. I also noticed my efficiency with studying had doubled, maybe because I wanted to finish quicker so I could leave the house or maybe it was the fact that I had a better mental state. I also had higher levels of physical activity throughout the week and I noticed changes in my physique such as more prominent calves and overall reduced body fat. Typically we would walk approximately 8 — 9km retuning either midday or evening depending on when we set off. The distance provided low intensity exercise, improving my cardiac functions which as a severe asthma patient I was truly in need of. I remember I dragged my dad and siblings out for a walk on a winter evening when we were all shivering even inside the house, my mum calling us crazy and shouting for my brother to put his hat on as we left. We ended up walking 9km that evening and retuned with some goodies for hot chocolate and a family movie night. Whilst on the walk we all agreed it was a good decision to have left because somehow we were all sweating and running to change into thinner clothes by the time we got back. My dad said had we stayed home, we would have just continued shivering and feeling sorry for ourselves. We wouldn’t have known what we missed. He said he would also make a new goal to go for walks more as he too couldn’t deny the mental gratification that was awarded with even 10 minute around the neighborhood. These are just the tip of the iceberg on the numerous benefits that have been proven by scientific research again and again. everything from lowering your blood pressure and reducing your risk of chronic diseases to making your brain sharper and your heart happier, not to mention improved sleep and creativity. As well as alleviation of joint pain and boosting the immune system. And the best part about walking is despite the numerous benefits, it’s the most accessible and inexpensive activity to partake in. It seems to good to be true but even infants can put one foot infront of the other and waddle alongside you. As long as you have the privilege to live in firstly a country that is not in national turmoil and secondly an area that is safe enough for you to walk alone, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t take a stroll outdoors. | https://medium.com/@haniyya11/go-for-walks-it-will-change-your-life-439d5c6c84a1 | [] | 2020-12-21 22:06:07.310000+00:00 | ['Covid-19', 'Mental Health Awareness', 'Lifestyle', 'Walking', 'Wellbeing'] |
Of the past | Photo by Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash
She opens her blouse
button unzipping, one by one
then she opens her bra
I see her from the back side.
Her long black hairs covering the bare back
as she slides them forward
I see some scars; look like beating marks; of the past. | https://medium.com/@nirbhyasingh/of-the-past-727cfb5f21e5 | ['Nirbhya Singh'] | 2021-01-24 06:03:57.543000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Poem', 'Relationships', 'Womens Rights', 'Men'] |
After being called ineligible by the regulating committee as late as September 2020, they have now gone back on their previous decision. Tesla will enter the S&P 500 on December 21, 2020. The… | WHEN DOES TESLA ENTER THE S&P 500?
After being called ineligible by the regulating committee as late as September 2020, they have now gone back on their previous decision.
Tesla will enter the S&P 500 on December 21, 2020.
The announcement of which stock is being replaced in lieu of Tesla has not been announced at this time. | https://medium.com/@TheJessicaBugg/when-does-tesla-enter-the-s-p-500-6f1b6c332a08 | ['Jessica Bugg'] | 2020-12-11 13:23:07.134000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Elon Musk', 'Investing', 'Short Form', 'Finance'] |
Nicely done. The poem with the historical background is a unique way to present historical events. | Nicely done. The poem with the historical background is a unique way to present historical events.
I started public schools in Topeka in 1958 and attended an integrated elementary school there. It seemed perfectly natural to a 5-year-old who had been raised without racial bias. I made friends with everyone, even the bully, a large white kid. I knew nothing of the segregation or racial discrimination that afflicted the families of my Black classmates until Junior High when prominent parents of some of the Black students told their stories during Government class.
I entered high school in 1968. Even during those racially tense times, most students got along with each other. Many of my Black friends had fathers who played on the all-Black basketball team that had existed during segregation. There were some incidents, the worst of which was a riot in the main hall provoked by outside agitators my senior year. Uniformed police occupied the school for two weeks. Nobody liked that. Black, White, and Chicano students came together and created a public relations program to restore the image of the school.
I am grateful for Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka. Without it, I would have missed out on many great friendships and experiences. | https://medium.com/@kcwriter/nicely-done-the-poem-with-the-historical-background-is-a-unique-way-to-present-historical-events-c62fffdd9201 | ['K.C. Knouse'] | 2020-12-16 01:10:25.126000+00:00 | ['History', 'Poetry', 'Racism', 'Civil Rights', 'American History'] |
Decision Optimization + AutoAI = Perfect Blend Available in IBM Cloud Pak for Data | Photo by Mike Kenneally on Unsplash
This article is written in collaboration with Julianna Delua
In the last few weeks, I have attended the data science conferences and seen companies talk about how artificial intelligence (AI) is the future. Yet many companies are struggling to adopt AI due to:
· Major gap between what business wants to achieve and the current AI focus.
· Shortage of skilled data scientists and analysts.
· Businesses cannot build high performing models fast enough with the talent that they have.
At IBM, we believe that AI needs to be built with a purpose — to augment human intelligence. We want to provide a pathway for an enterprise to build and scale AI models with trust and transparency so that businesses can directly benefit from AI investments.
AI is not magic. I have seen companies making decisions based on rules or experience. Some use machine learning(ML) techniques and others use optimization. Common business problems such as workforce planning, pricing and promotion plan, fraud detection, and risk management require a combination of predictive and prescriptive models. The field of machine learning and mathematical programming are now interconnected as optimization problems lie at the heart of most machine learning approaches. To optimize AI outcomes, you need to harness the collective power of predictive and optimization techniques.
Combining Decision Optimization and Intelligent Automation in a Unified Environment
Decision Optimization has been one of the best-kept secrets for top performing enterprises. Just like predictive analytics, optimization is a very old technique, and it was first used in military operations in World War II. Later companies started to use it in many business applications to make business decisions. Organizations have seen millions of dollars in cost savings and return on investment. When they use optimization technology, they gain improved customer service, operation efficiency and speed to decision making along with other benefits. What’s new is that data science teams can solve complex problems using optimization and ML in a single environment. This is why IBM Cloud Pak for Data is one of the most unique enterprise AI offerings that can help you predict and optimize business and exploit the rise of decision intelligence with Watson Studio Premium.
First, we made optimization modeling easier. The Modeling Assistant for decision optimization has simplified the model building process for users. A business user can start building models using the model builder and modeling assistant. The Modeling Assistant uses natural language expressions to build optimization models. There are pre-built templates for some common use cases (eg. resource assignment, scheduling, selection and allocation, and supply and demand planning.)
Modeling Assistant
You can see an example of the use of the Modeling Assistant and how one can develop the model easily using natural language. It makes it easier for data scientists and analysts to collaborate and build models.
Optimization templates
Second is the deployment. IBM Cloud Pak for Data helps address several challenges common in putting a model into production. The first challenge is the issue of the model’s compatibility from the point of creation to the point of production. Data scientists today use a variety of different tools. Each new tool and language they use must also meet IT requirements to deploy the model. Models often need to be recoded to meet production environment requirements. Monolithic architectures also strain companies on the options they have to deploy models. Another challenge of model deployment is lack of portability that is common to the legacy analytic systems. We addressed the portability to ensure that we support businesses for the variety of model deployment needs.
And last, when we deploy models we need to make sure that they can scale and meet performance needs. Data used during development is relatively static and at a manageable scale. As the model moves forward to production, it is exposed to larger volumes of data and data transport modes. We also have to support batch, real time or web online deployment type. Models need to be deployed into an application and can be accessed by REST calls at scale.
Batch deployment in IBM Cloud Pak for Data
Augmenting prescriptive analytics with AutoAI and SPSS
Predictive and prescriptive analytics with automation and productivity tooling in IBM Cloud Pak for Data help businesses fill the talent gap. It empowers data scientists and analysts to build and run models faster and in turn accelerate time to value. Organizations can transform projects that used to take months and weeks into ones that can produce better outcomes in minutes or hours. They can also mitigate the potential of significant model degradation.
IBM has added AutoAI capability to IBM Cloud Pak for Data to automate time-consuming data science tasks and dramatically reduce the time needed to complete data science projects. AutoAI prepares data, selects model, and generated rank model pipelines. AutoAI automates challenging parts of the AI workflow, such as data preparation, feature engineering and hyperparameter optimization, that requires years of experience and brute force to master. These parts of the workflow are not only demanding but also are the expensive bottleneck for business.
IBM SPSS Modeler — A citizen data scientist can quickly build machine learning models using powerful drag and drop data analysis and visualization with SPSS Modeler, a well-known visual data science tool that has been available as part of Watson Studio and Watson Studio Premium for Cloud Pak for Data. SPSS Modeler stream will prepare the input data to train and evaluate a machine learning model. We packaged SPSS Modeler and Decision Optimization together in Watson Studio Premium for IBM Cloud Pak for Data to help a business get more from the data science investment.
IBM Cloud Pak for Data provides a fully integrated data and AI platform that modernizes how businesses collect, organize and analyze data and infuse AI built on Red Hat® OpenShift® and powered by IBM Watson. IBM Decision Optimization, SPSS Modeler and Hadoop Execution Engine are available today as part of IBM Watson Studio Premium for Cloud Pak for Data. Watson Studio Premium is a consumption-based, value-added offering that you need to build and run AI models at scale. AutoAI will be available as part of IBM Cloud Pak™ for Data later in Q4 this year.
You can learn more about automation for IBM Cloud Pak for Data, Auto AI, SPSS Modeler and Decision Optimization. Or join us at our live 3-part Virtual Data Science Camp Fall Edition starting on October 31, 2019. You can view the Summer Edition of this popular 3-part series here. Other IBM Watson Studio webinar playlist is here.
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Nerav Doshi is a worldwide Digital Technical Engagement lead on Watson Studio Premium and Decision Optimization from IBM. He enjoys building solutions that incorporate business intelligence, predictive and optimization components to solve complex real-world problems.
Please reach out to Nerav for any questions or comments! | https://medium.com/ibm-watson/decision-optimization-autoai-perfect-blend-available-in-ibm-cloud-pak-for-data-95ec0ba0aed7 | ['Nerav Doshi'] | 2020-03-27 15:54:01.618000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Ibm Decision Optimization', 'Editorials', 'Ibm Autoai', 'Ibm Cloud Pak For Data'] |
10 years | Source: Sawt Al Niswa
A precarious state that seeks to pretend and occupy a space as if the past didn’t occur is untenable.
The theme I have encountered today or perhaps, I picked up on because it resonate beyond hollow words of hindsight, is imagination. Imagination is mine and yours. It is the space where you and I are what we want to be and the world can be what we envision. We contribute to each others and are involved in its creation. In 2011, we tried to bring that imagining to reality, but were met with forces our imaginations did not adequately prepare for. Hope carried us away and continues to be our linchpin.
So, while they can crack down and disappear our bodies, now that we have seen and tasted dissent, they cannot and will not remove that from the landscape of our imagination.
This does not mean they — yes again, the arbitrary they — because the movement in Egypt is not an isolated one; it is part of a global one against a system whose manifestation and its guardians are the military in Egypt — won’t try. They will persuade us with narratives that we are on the way to change, just a little while longer. Keeping us in the eternal waiting room, while they build their reinforcements and tighten their grip around the preservation valves. And when we get tired of waiting and demand results, we encounter the brute force that was silently underpinning the niceties. That is where we currently are.
We are in an adjourned state. And while we look back and try to draw lessons in hindsight, I think it important to admit that we are in a precarious state. And that, to me, is a hopeful state because it indicates more to come. A precarious state that seeks to pretend and occupy a space as if the past didn’t occur is untenable.
I don’t know where we are on the trajectory of change, but I know what has passed and I know that we have changed. We have changed and are grappling with how to translate that into the world.
I will leave us with a quote two quotes: | https://medium.com/@helana-reyad/10-years-852e4ff6a50c | ['Helana Reyad'] | 2021-01-25 20:54:21.872000+00:00 | ['Antiausterity', 'Neoliberalism', 'January 25', 'Egypt', 'Revolution'] |
The Hardest “Riverdale” Trivia Quiz! | Riverdale is one of the most popular adolescent dramas, based on Archie Comics. This suspense series keeps the audience on the edge of their seats throughout. The suspense keeps you captivated by the screen, unable to put it down. This dark take on Archie Comics combines two of the most popular qualities of adolescence: mystery and nostalgia. Riverdale is a television series that follows the lives of four kids who live in a small, boring town. Their lives, however, take a turn for the worst when they become entangled in a murder investigation.
Teenagers are drawn to suspense thrillers. The appealing ensemble and engrossing plot successfully hold the audience’s attention. If you’re a die-hard fan, this Riverdale quiz, as well as other Netflix quizzes, is perfect for you!
BEFORE TAKING THE RIVERDALE QUIZ
This Riverdale quiz will put your recall of facts as well as your attention to detail to the test. It pushes you to keep on your toes in a show full of plot twists. What is Riverdale’s catchphrase? What does Jughead have to say about Riverdale? This is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this in-depth quiz. Take the Riverdale trivia to find out whether you think these are simple.
Your pals are probably just as obsessed with Riverdale as you are because it is a popular programme among teenagers. This is a great chance to compete against them while also putting your love for the show to the test. Play this online quiz with your friends to see who can reach the top of the leaderboard first.
This quiz is a perfect outlet for you if you’re a master of conspiracy theories and have your own theories about the Riverdale characters. Put your beliefs to the test and immerse yourself in the show’s nuances.
It’s also easy to empathise with the characters. Jughead’s introvert tendencies, Betty’s fears, and Veronica’s struggles paint a more realistic depiction of adolescence. Because the characters, like most Riverdale viewers, are high school kids, it’s easy to relate to their experiences and feelings.
Do you think you can prove your love for the popular TV show? Take this Ultimate Riverdale Quiz to see whether you know everything there is to know about. | https://medium.com/@popularquizz/the-hardest-riverdale-trivia-quiz-a8f56bfb9195 | ['Popular Quizz'] | 2021-07-02 17:42:30.858000+00:00 | ['Tv Show', 'Netflix', 'Riverdale', 'Popular Quizz', 'Trivia Quiz'] |
Game Dev in Progress… Day 41 | It is Day 41 and only two more days before finally completing our project. We have reached MVP and we also have a build currently up on one of our GitHub Pages. We are so close to finishing, all we have to do now is to work on the marketing aspect as well as getting a working build on itch.io. During the day we were also play testing and fixing major bug issues. One of which had to do with my mid boss not dying. I thought I already resolved this issue but the changes might not have saved. I was a simple fix in that we needed to delete some lines of code that were messing with the explosions.
Another bug that we encountered was that the Big Slow Enemies didn’t destroy there parent containers. The design of the Big Slow Enemies was that we had a container for them to handle it’s rotation. The problem was that once the Big Slow Enemy inside that container gets destroyed, the container lingers and is still in the scene. This becomes a huge problem since even though we won’t see it in the game, if enough of them are around, it will take up memory and potential mess up the game. So the counter this, I already created a simple script that destroys the object that it’s attached to when all of it’s grand children are dead. We refactored this to work for children instead and attached to the containers.
All of today was play testing and fixing bugs above. All of us participated and just did a long peer coding session on Dylan’s project. At the end of it all, we managed to get a working build up and running. Now all we have to do is working on marketing and we should be set. Here is a quick demo playing the game from the beginning:
I’m happy on how far we’ve come as developer. Some of us in the team didn’t even have any prior experience in coding before this program. The fact that we were able to create something like this is proof that we have all grown in some way during this project. With that, I’m signing off for today. Have a wonderful day.
_
Cristian Aspacio | https://medium.com/@aspacio/game-dev-in-progress-day-41-a9756db99922 | ['Cristian Aspacio'] | 2020-12-17 03:35:40.213000+00:00 | ['Game Development', 'Intern', 'Unity', 'Coding', 'Games'] |
Comcast is Watching You. Isn’t it Time To Fight For Our Data Privacy Rights? | Photo by Pinho . on Unsplash
Most conversations about data privacy focus on the activities of social media companies. We’ve all felt the sting of realizing that everything from our search history to comments on our family photos is being used to show us ads designed to manipulate us to purchase products we don’t need. It’s a use of our personal information that we all know should be off limits.
But the commodification of personal data by data-devouring behemoths like Facebook and Google is not the whole story. The truth is worse. When it comes to abuse of personal data — including personal data that is legally protected — the most unrepentant, aggressively deceptive data swindler on the planet may be your local cable provider. It has detailed data on who you are, what you watch, and when you watch it — along with data about your purchasing behavior purchased from Experian or other sources.
Consider: Your ISP or cable provider has the ability to scan, collect, analyze, store, and sell every byte of data you send or receive over your home connection. They can store it indefinitely, and they can sell that data in any way they like, to whomever they like. If you demand details about the data it’s collected, it can — and apparently will — refuse to share it. (Try to sue them for this information, and you’ll be promptly reminded that you signed away that right as part of your service contract. Your only option is arbitration with a private arbitrator who won’t be getting much business if he angers big customers like Comcast or AT&T.)
This should be illegal. And it is. But that doesn’t seem to stop it.
Let’s Talk About The CCPA
This isn’t a new fight. As the cable TV industry took root across the country in the mid-1970s, it became clear to lawmakers that these companies could easily collect an extraordinary amount of “personally identifiable information” about their subscribers. It was obvious, nearly 50 years ago, that cable companies shouldn’t just be trusted with your sensitive personal information.
Throughout most of the early 1980s, cable company lobbyists did all they could to delay, diminish, and defang any proposed regulation of their rapidly growing industry. The cable industry won many of those battles, but one they lost was the fight over customer privacy. It’s right there in the Cable Communications Policy Act (CCPA) of 1984, Sec. 631, “Protection of Subscriber Privacy.”
The CCPA specifically forbids all cable operators from collecting, using, or disclosing personally identifiable data without the consent of the subscriber. It also requires all cable operators to notify subscribers of how long their data will be stored, requires that subscribers be given access to any data collected about them, and limits the kind of data that can be collected to only the “legitimate business activity” related to a cable service or other service provided to the subscriber. The act also provides for liquidated damages of $100 per day of violation. If you’ve been a subscriber for years, that could mean you have a claim for tens of thousands of dollars or more against a cable company that, we know, can afford to pay it.
Cable companies make so much money on the data that this doesn’t stop them. They don’t just collect legally protected information on the sly, they actively bundle and sell the private information, or at least its valuable use for marketing purposes (again, information that they have illegally collected and maintain about their subscribers) to advertisers. It has become an essential part of their profit model. It’s openly advertised on their websites and touted in their annual reports.
One of the most troubling details about cable providers’ illegal collection and storage of private consumer data is that we don’t even know its full. According to one lawsuit, Comcast refuses to comply with the Cable Act’s requirements that it provide subscribers with a copy of the data it keeps. Collecting anything beyond what’s required to provide the service violates the law. Thanks to research done by Experian, we know that cable companies collect and sell the use of personally identifiable data about the specific shows their customers watch, allowing for one-to-one targeting even on live TV broadcasts.
Case In Point: Comcast
There’s also no technical reason that a major cable provider — Comcast, for example — couldn’t capture metadata about every single scrap of data that flows through their subscribers’ internet connections. Every video your kids watch on their tablets, every gift you’re thinking about buying your spouse, every home grocery delivery you make, and every time you use an app to check your bank balance may well be considered fair game.
While some of this data may be encrypted, there’s still a staggering amount of personal, private, and legally protected information in that metadata. That’s what makes it so valuable to companies like Comcast, AT&T, Charter, and others.
Comcast actually published its intention to sell the use of customer information in its own Customer Privacy Notice in place from August 1, 2015. The company openly admitted that it would be using the subscriber’s “Comcast account number or device identifiers, or from third parties, to deliver better and more relevant products, services and advertising.” This is just one example from one company. The real problem is much bigger, and is by no means limited to Comcast.
How do they get away with it? Forced arbitration clauses in their customer contracts.
Once you sign a contract with Comcast, the company immediately begins the process of illegally collecting, storing, and selling your personally identifiable information to the highest bidder. This is decidedly illegal, violating both the CCPA and some state laws, but this hasn’t stopped companies like Comcast from acting as if those laws simply don’t apply to them. If there’s a problem, they simply force the customer into an unfair arbitration process safe from legal scrutiny by the courts.
In many places in the country, cable providers are effectively local monopolies. If you want to use the internet, you have to sign a service contract that you have no power to amend or negotiate. And one of the clauses almost all of these contracts include is an agreement for all disputes with the service provider to be settled through arbitration, rather than through the courts.
Let me reframe that for you: To get basic cable, phone service, or home internet, companies like Comcast require that you sign a contract waiving your fundamental right to take them to court. They have done this specifically to avoid the massive penalties and damages that can otherwise come from intentionally breaking the law.
It’s no secret that arbitration tends to favor these huge companies. They hold all the cards, they pay for the services of these ostensibly neutral arbitration firms, and they aren’t bound by the strict rules of evidence that would apply in a civil case. If they conceal damaging documentation, give misleading testimony during the arbitration, or even accidentally admit to breaking the law, they face few meaningful penalties.
And, of course, no class action is possible — so if they lose it’s just one small claim. They avoid accountability for the millions of other identical wrongs they’ve committed. These Arbitration agreements have also gotten a lot of support from The U.S. Supreme Court in recent years, which currently has a very pro-business majority. This allows companies like Comcast to openly violate privacy protections, failing to meet even the low bar of notification and consent required by the Cable Act.
It’s time to do something about this. Tens of millions of cable subscribers have had their data privacy rights violated. We need to do more than just sound the alarms. We need to use every tool we have at our disposal — from boycotts to class action lawsuits — to push back against this blatant abuse of our data. At a bare minimum, we need to force these companies into the courtroom so that we can reveal the exact scope of their illegal and predatory data-collection schemes.
Fortunately, there’s at least one group of lawyers out there fighting this battle for consumers against Comcast, or at least for those who timely opted-out of Comcast’s arbitration clause. These lawyers are making some headway in court in California in a case called Hodges v. Comcast, where they’re using some favorable California law to try and get around the arbitration clause. (You can get a copy of the complaint and more about that lawsuit here.) But they’re also reporting that the case law in the First Circuit (which includes Main, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico) may be most favorable for liability. Comcast has numerous subscribers in Massachusetts. If you’re one, it sounds like your claims is particularly strong.
Of course, most consumers don’t stand up for their rights. So wrongs like this just continue. But there’s a chance for people to profitably stand up for themselves here. Comcast gives consumers 30 days to opt-out of arbitration, starting from their subscription activation date. So it’s possible to get out of arbitration and get a fair hearing. And apparently numerous others are already doing it.
If you recently subscribed to Comcast and still have time to opt-out (here’s the link — be sure to print your confirmation screen as proof), or if you already timely opted out, you might be very interested to learn that the Cable Act provides for liquidated damages to Plaintiff and each Class member computed at the rate of $100 a day for each day of violation of 47 U.S.C. § 551 or $1,000, whichever is higher, pursuant to 47 U.S.C. § 551(f)(2)(A). For longtime subscribers, that could add up to tens of thousands of dollars. For California subscribers, according to the lawsuit there is also, statutory damages of $5,000 per violation of Penal Code § 637.5 for Plaintiff and each Class member pursuant to Penal Code § 637.2(a)(1).
If you’re a Comcast Cable Subscriber, it looks like your rights have been violated by Comcast
Under federal law, you decide whether to share your personal data with your cable company. If your cable company keeps and uses your personal data without your knowledge or consent, you lose control over your private information, risk its disclosure in a data breach, and are exposed to manipulative, personally targeted ads. Fortunately, as noted above, some subscribers are suing to enforce their federally-legislated privacy rights under the federal Cable Act, along with others like you, you may be able to recover up to thousands of dollars in statutory damages and make a stand for privacy. | https://peteraborden.medium.com/comcast-is-watching-you-isnt-it-time-to-fight-for-our-data-privacy-rights-24c8ce8a5198 | ['Peter Borden'] | 2020-12-08 17:09:08.129000+00:00 | ['Comcast', 'Data Privacy', 'Data Protection', 'Class Action Lawsuits', 'Privacy'] |
Such A Good Boy | Top Writer in Satire & Humor; Trying to Feel Okay, One Comic at a Time; IG: https://www.instagram.com/davidmilgrim; Contact me at [email protected] | https://medium.com/@davidmilgrim/such-a-good-boy-88f3140786ae | ['David Milgrim'] | 2020-12-19 17:57:23.971000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Couples', 'Questions', 'Humor', 'Comics'] |
Medium Burnout Is A Real Thing | I’ve seen this happen to writers time and again. It was only just a matter of time, and not I’m sitting here, completely blank. Burnout. Medium-burnout. …and that’s where this article was born.
I see many people publish amazing articles every single day, and I’ve done my best to try and keep up the pace — I should have known it couldn't last.
I know that in order to create a steady stream of income on Medium, quantity seems to be just as important as quality, but I’m beginning to wonder if the process can be challenged. I’m also starting to question if I’m going about it the wrong way; putting too much emphasis on the earnings and losing sight of the actual writing.
Over the past few weeks — since the MPP change — I’ve found myself obsessing over the daily earnings, refreshing my screen repeatedly after the clock hits a certain time every night until the earnings update. This obsessive state I’m in detracts from why I’m here in the first place, which is to write.
I found this platform when I did a Google search about “how to make money writing online.” I wanted a place where I could let my creativity flow, and this seemed like the ideal place to do that. My goal when joining Medium was never to write about Medium. And here I am, hitting the publish button on two of them in a row. Why? Well, because 1) I’ve realized, as many others have, that articles about Medium do well, and 2) I write about what I feel, and right now I’m feeling some pretty heavy Medium-burnout.
I’m a fiction writer. Other than dabbling (and failing) in personal blogging a time or two, I only began writing non-fiction pieces once I joined this platform back at the end of June. I’ve had to step out of my safety zone, and it has really helped me push my own boundaries and expand and grow my skills as a writer. But if I’m being completely honest, I miss fiction. I miss it dearly. And I hate this state of mind where I’m finding myself these days.
So I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to step back a moment and reevaluate things. I’m not leaving Medium — I love it here! If it wasn’t for this community, I would have never met some of the people I now consider my dearest friends. But my goal isn’t to lock myself in, it’s to continue to grow.
In order to do that, I know I need to widen my horizons beyond the walls of Medium. I need to add streams of income so that I’m not at the mercy of a single website. The goal is to turn writing into a full-time career, and although some writers make incredible amounts of money here, in my heart I know this is a stepping stone. One single aspect of what my career and my life is shaping into.
So I’ve decided that I need to stop putting so much pressure on myself. Publishing a story every single day (or trying to) has brought me to the point where my brain feels empty. Devoid of anything remotely inspiring. I need to reboot. I also need to break this crazy addiction to statistics.
Quality or Quantity
Instead of pushing myself to write things that just aren’t there every day, I’m going to work on putting out two or three pieces a week — with some poetry sprinkled in here and there. I’m going to focus on the quality of my work because I came here to add value first and make money second.
I’m not giving up my goals of writing for a living, so I’m going to hustle in other areas to try and create that career for myself. I’m not leaving Medium unless they kick me out (please don’t kick me out!) but I will be publishing less frequently.
There’s definitely a bit of controversy on this topic, and I’ve found myself agreeing with both sides of the coin in the past. I also know that different methods — quality over quantity, or vice-versa — work best for different people, and I’m hoping that this will be the right move for me. It may be for you, or it may not be…but I’m going to give it a shot! | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/medium-burnout-is-a-real-thing-1cb2bf95f414 | ['Edie Tuck'] | 2019-11-19 19:50:14.936000+00:00 | ['Priorities', 'Burnout', 'Medium Writers', 'Goals', 'Writing'] |
Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer in the night sky than they have in 800 years | Tonight, on December 21, the two largest planets in our solar system will meet in the evening sky for a rare celestial rendezvous.
Saturn, top, and Jupiter, below, are seen after sunset from Shenandoah National Park, Sunday, Dec. 13, 2020, in Luray, Virginia as they draw closer to each other in the sky, heading towards a “great conjunction” on December 21, where the two giant planets will appear a tenth of a degree apart. Credit: NASA/ Bill Ingalls
Over the past few weeks, Jupiter and Saturn have been inching closer and closer to one another in the night sky. As these two massive gas giants orbit counter-clockwise around the sun, Jupiter has been gradually catching up with its neighbor, until tonight, where the two planets will finally meet.
This event is known as a “great conjunction,” a special moment where Jupiter and Saturn appear closest to each other as Jupiter passes Saturn in its orbit, at least as we see it from the vantage point of Earth.
These conjunctions occur roughly every 20 years. But tonight, the alignment will bring Jupiter and Saturn visibly closer to each other in the night sky than they have been in nearly 800 years, where they will appear just a tenth of a degree apart. That’s about the width of your fingernail held at arm’s length.
The last time these two planets were this close together was actually about 400 years ago during the year 1623. At this time, the astronomer Galileo was alive and active in his field, having just recently discovered 4 of Jupiter’s largest moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto) in 1610 while also unknowingly observing Saturn’s rings, which would not officially be discovered until half a century later.
But at this time, the alignment occurred during the day in the same direction as the sun, making it virtually impossible for Galileo and others to have seen. This means that the last time these two behemoths were this close together in the night sky for humans to see was around 800 years ago during the year 1226, although no one on planet Earth at the time would have had a telescope to observe this incredible event.
That makes this year’s “great conjunction” particularly special. Not only will today be the first time in 800 years since they’ve appeared this close to each other, but it will also be the first time in human history that we will have the knowledge and the technology to observe it so closely, whether it be with a telescope or a simple pair of binoculars.
Jupiter, left, and Saturn, right, are seen after sunset above Jordan Lake during the “great conjunction” where the two planets appear a tenth of a degree apart from one another, Monday, Dec. 21, 2020, near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
This is a moment in human history where nearly anyone on planet Earth can look up at the night sky and marvel over these two massive celestial bodies appearing right next to each other in the solar system, with Saturn appearing as close to Jupiter as some of its own moons. And even though these gas giants actually remain hundreds of millions of miles apart in space, from our vantage point here on planet Earth, we get to see them both side by side in all of their grandeur to admire.
2020 has been a rough year, but it’s moments like these that offer a unique opportunity for us all to stop what we’re doing, look up, and gain a little appreciation for our place in the cosmos. | https://medium.com/everything-science/today-jupiter-and-saturn-will-appear-closer-in-the-night-sky-than-they-have-in-800-years-8d31437ac4f3 | ['Cody Welch'] | 2020-12-22 20:01:05.901000+00:00 | ['Astronomy', 'Jupiter', 'Saturn', 'Space', 'Great Conjunction'] |
Curling Iron Vs Curling Wand — Which is better | To get a beautiful and luscious curl, I have used both curling wand and curling iron. Both will give great curls, and thus beautiful looks, with the iron having a clip in it, and the wand being the Clipless iron. But since both are named different, designed quite a bit different, and priced differently too, people seeking a curling machine often get confused when it comes to choosing between the two.
Curling Iron Features
Heating: Heating speed in a curling is generally a couple of minutes. The barrel gets heated within minutes to give the hair beautiful curls.
Heat settings: The iron I use runs on only one heat setting. It cannot be increased or decreased. The iron can simply be put on and off. However, there are other types of irons with more than one heat settings, and this can go up to 10 levels off heat adjustment.
Barrel size: On this size depends the size and tightness of the curls. If the barrel is narrow, the curls would also be smaller and tighter. A wide barrel means you would get bigger curls.
Heating plate: There are three types of heating plate materials that are normally used, Ceramic, Tourmaline, and simple metal. Sometimes a combination of ceramic and tourmaline is also used. The iron I have been using is a ceramic one. The ceramic and tourmaline ones which are more expensive models protect the hair strands while heating, and resists damage to hair. The metal ones are less expensive, and offer less protection.
Interchangeable barrels: There are irons with this special feature that allows you to change of barrels. I can work with one barrel, and then change it and fit another barrel of different size to suit my needs another day. This way I can get curls of different sizes from the same iron.
Check out one of my curling iron reviews here to know more about irons as you exactly get to know how these features helps in creating curls.
Curling Wand Features
Heating: Heating is so fast, that I need to be cautious that I put on the safety gloves so that I do not burn my fingers. I grew more habituated with its use, I didn’t need the gloves.
Wand barrel shape: Shape of the curling barrel is tapered in front of wands. This makes curls tighter and smaller at the end of the hair strands.
No holding clip: As there is no clip to hold the hair in place like the iron, the curls come out even and smooth without the mark of the clip at the tip of the strand.
Durability of curls: Curls done with the wand stays all day and night as the heating is strong.
Check out one of my curling wand reviews here to know more about wands.
Difference between Curling iron and Curling wand
The key differences between the curling iron and curling wand are:
Curling iron
Structural: There is no clip in a wand which makes curls without the clip mark that looks like a small indentation mark, but with an iron this mark appears in every strand.
Speed: The wand heats up faster, and gives results much faster than the iron.
Smoothness: Curls are lot smoother and shiny when done with the iron. However, a wand though gives gentle beachy curls, yet doesn’t give that finish to the curls. Personally, I prefer a wand when going to normal outing and parties and am in a rush. Otherwise for a better finish the iron is good.
How to use Curling Wand
A wand is the iron without the clips. Because of this I need to hold the strand of hair with my fingers. Here is a quick guide on how to use the curling wand:
Hold the handle of the wand with one hand. Hold the strand of the hair with the other hand, preferably with gloves to avoid any chances of burning your fingers. Wrap the strand of hair from root to tip (in case of wand only) and hold it there for 5 seconds. Gently pull out the wand from between the curls.
Here is the video which elaborates how one can use the wand to get curls of different style and texture.
How to use Curling Iron
Now in case of an iron the technique differs a little. The wand comes with a clip to hold the strand of hair within like a clamp. Then you just roll the iron over the strand of the hair. The key difference here between the wand and the iron is, you wrap the hair from tip to root, and need to hold it for more than 5 seconds, say in 10 seconds or a little more.
Here you won’t need the gloves to protect your hands as the clamp will hold the hair, and the curls will be clearer and more noticeable, and a little flattened because of the clamp. Moreover the tip that will be clinched at the clamp will remain straight and look like a small indentation mark at the end of the hair, but that doesn’t ruin the looks in anyway.
Get a nice idea on working of curling from the below video,
Advantages and Disadvantages
Curling iron curls
If speed is your concern, then curling wand stays ahead. If perfection and smooth shiny curls are the ones you aiming for, then I suggest going for the curling iron, as it presses the hair for a longer time, and the non stick coating of the iron brings in a shine to the hair.
Curling wand curls
On using a tapered barrel wand, You could get curls with rings that gradually get smaller at the end. Curling iron can’t give varying ring sizes as their barrels are uniformly measured.
Which is better
It’s really hard to choose between the two types of curling tools. Here are my preferences,
If you are going for a quick curling session, yet want long-lasting curls, and bother less about shine, then curling wand is my machine.
However, if I plan to go to some wedding or big party, where I will need shiny curls with a great finish, then I invest a little more time with my iron to get that look.
Hope this article provides the most insight on curling iron and wands. If you’ve anything to share, do post your comments below.
References: Best Hair Straightener Reviews | https://medium.com/@besthairstraightener/curling-iron-vs-curling-wand-which-is-better-28c5f7f85303 | ['Emma Stevens'] | 2017-01-16 10:02:07.021000+00:00 | ['Hair', 'Beauty'] |
Is Instagram making a mistake? | You need not agree with me, but I know that some people actually judge others or feel proud of the number of likes they got on their photos. Yup, people use the like counts as a measure of success. And, maybe Instagram also realized it too, as it has given an announcement recently that it will eliminate the “Likes” (or love, heart) counter in some accounts globally.
If this new update goes live, we will not be able to check the number of likes someone received in their photos or videos. However, this does not mean that you can not see the number of likes on your photos or videos. You can not see the number of likes on other user’s photos/videos.
This feature makes me somehow sad and happy at the same time. Sad because Jennifer Aniston recently joined Instagram, and I would like to check how many likes or hearts she got. And happy because now likes would not be the factor with which some measure their own or other people’s success.
But, this test might alter some people’s business. The business of many artists and influencers is measured in their visibility on Instagram. Advertisers use the “like” counter as a visibility metric. To this point, the Instagram team shares their thoughts —
“We understand that likes counters are important to many creators, and we are actively thinking of ways to allow creators to communicate value to their partners.” — An Instagram core team-member
“We will make decisions that harm the business if they help the well-being and health of people,” said Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram. Hiding the likes counter will give a break to people who live obsessed with it. An obsession that Instagram itself helped create when it borrowed the “like” from Facebook and turned it into a heart in their social media platform.
Perhaps Instagram should provide an option to its users to chose whether or not they want to make their “like” counter public or private instead? | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/is-instagram-making-a-mistake-8a5b77a23a58 | ['Sajal Ghimire'] | 2019-11-16 09:22:05.727000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Information', 'Report', 'Instagram', 'Tech'] |
How to Prototype a CLI Using CommanderJS and InquirerJS in Less Than 3 Hours | Let’s get started!
First of all let’s create a workspace and install a few packages.
Initialization:
$> mkdir macha && cd macha
$> npm init -y
Your output should look like this:
{
"name": "macha",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "index.js",
"scripts": {
"test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
},
"keywords": [],
"author": "",
"license": "ISC"
}
After you initialize the package, we need to install commanderJS, inquirerJS along with 2 npm modules: colors, to add colors to our CLI, and pad,to add padding to the outputs. These will come in handy afterwards.
$> npm install --save commander inquirer colors pad
Now that our project is initialized, we need to add a bin field into the package.json file. In the bin field, we need to add macha , because this is going to be our app name in the CLI.
{
"name": "macha",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "index.js",
"bin": {
"macha": "./bin/index.js"
}, "scripts": {
"test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
},
"keywords": [],
"author": "",
"license": "ISC"
}
Add 2 folders to your working directory ( bin and lib ):
You will need to create a bin folder and a lib folder in your working directory. Under bin is where index.js lives, this is where you will put all your commands and how you want to structure them. Under lib is where you store all you commands such as list and order . This folder handles all the command outputs. You will need one additional file where you store all your values, let’s name it menu_items.js .
|-macha
|-bin
|-index.js
|-lib
|-menu_items.js
|-list.js
|-order.js
|-node_modules
|-package.json
Create items in our menu menu_items.js :
This step, we are going to put all the items in our menu into one place menu_items.js . In this file, we need to export all the variables so we can use it in other modules.
Create your first command output list.js :
In the list.js file, you will import the tea variable from menu_items.js and customize how you want to show the output. I use pad and colors to make the space between outputs easily readable.
Create a list command in index.js:
In our index.js file, we will define the list command so when the prompt calls a list command, it will call the list.js file to show the output.
Now let’s try to run the command from your terminal.
In your macha directory, run:
~/macha> node bin/index.js
Your output should look like this:
Create a proper sub-command list :
Let’s create a proper list sub-command, the commanderJS way. We want to be able to run $> macha list from our command prompt, so we need to create list as a sub-command with CommanderJS.
The way it works is Commander will parse arguments in program.parse(arguments) , which leaves any args not consumed by the program options in the program.args array.
In the example above, we need to add the Shebang line on the first line (as we will make it global later). Then create a list command with Commander. The convenient thing about this library is that, commanderJS will create a default help argument for you. There are different options and flavors you can choose from in commanderJS specific options, where you can choose how you want to customize your command.
Finally, add process.agrv in the last line, so Commander can parse user inputs.
Before we run, let’s install this CLI app globally so you can access this command from any prompt.
$> npm install -g ./ | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-prototype-a-cli-using-commanderjs-and-inquirerjs-in-less-than-3-hours-6d5f0d1b9725 | ['Amy Lily'] | 2020-10-26 06:13:36.326000+00:00 | ['UX Research', 'JavaScript', 'Prototyping', 'Cli', 'UX'] |
The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Your Startup’s Investor Pitch Deck | Drilling Down the Slides
Now I’ll go through slide by slide and explain each one.
Title slide
Include one line about what it is you do. Go for the big vision statement — not what you do, but why you do it! Hit them in the gut with this.
Problem
Here’s the place to describe the gap/problem /challenge that needs solving. This is best told in a story — your own, a friend or family member’s, something from the news, or even a made-up story. Back up the story with stats showing this is an issue worth lots of money, and hint that current solutions aren’t cutting it…
Solution
How are you solving this? Create a simple solution sentence: We’re doing X(solving a problem) for Y(for a specific audience) by Z(in a nutshell, what are you — a platform/app/solution/tool/etc.). And as a bonus, include your secret sauce that is enabling you to do it.
This should be so simple that anyone could understand it — even if they don’t have a degree in computer science or engineering.
Demo
Create a one to two-minute demo showing off your solution. It could be a short film, screenshots, a screenflow (use Camtasia), or even a mock-up. Guide them through a first-time user experience and highlight four to five of the standout features. Make them go wow, but don’t overwhelm them with details.
Benefits
Highlight the important benefits to your users (if this has already come across in the demo, don’t repeat). Keep it at six to eight, and no more. You might have two types of users — i.e. Businesses and Customers or Publishers and Brands — and you can list benefits for each.
Current status/traction
What are the major milestones you’ve hit in funding, product, users, downloads, revenue, growth, endorsements, partnerships, etc. since the time you launched or launched beta? If you haven’t launched yet, where are you at? The later stage you are, the more metrics you need to show.
Market analysis
Share the numbers of the TAM (Total Addressable Market), SAM (Segmented Addressable Market), and SOM (Share of Market) so they get an idea of the size. Include the value of the markets as well — what was the spend on similar solutions last year? You can go top-down or bottom-up — the most important thing to show is that you have a huge potential market!
Trends and opportunities
This slide is a silver bullet! It’s the, “Why us, why now?” This is the place to really show movement in trends and opportunities. Have there been major fundings or acquisitions among your competitors? Did an industry leader or a research firm like Gartner, Forrester, or the like say that a solution like yours is missing? Are there market trends among your users showing a shift in behavior? Was there a change in law or regulations mandating people or companies to find a solution like yours?
Business model
What is your main revenue model (subscription, ads, affiliate, rev share, etc.)? What are some additional revenue streams?
Go-to-market strategies
What are the strategies that will help you penetrate the market and gain users? Remember, you might not have money at the beginning for things like a sales team, so look at different phases—it’s likely that you’ll start with strategic partnerships, distribution channels, or before that, content marketing or social campaigns.
Competitive landscape
Who are your main competitors? We’re talking either enterprise, backed by VC money, or rapidly growing companies — though you should know about smaller competitors as well. Try to group them into three or four types and then create a magic quadrant, a petal diagram, or a marketscape showing how you measure up to them.
Most importantly, add in your true differentiation statement: “What truly sets us apart is…” It’s very important to not say anything bad about your competitor. It’s great that you have competition — now just prove that you have a clear advantage over them.
Team
Who are your executive team members? Include pics, titles, and a few important facts about them. You can add logos of outstanding organizations they’ve worked for, been affiliated with, or studied at. If you have an Advisory Board, add them too — it might need a separate slide.
RoadMap
What are your major milestones to be hit (product, marketing, revenues) over the course of time this funding round will last for — 12/18/24 months? Trying to put in financial projections past that is not entirely necessary. You can have a financials, P&L, and projections slide in your back pocket to send out as needed.
Future directions
Any exciting additional features or products in the pipeline that you intend to work on later? Maybe this is just the first step in a much bigger vision!
Funding requirements
Seeking $XXM for: (List the main allocations, such as R&D, Sales and Marketing, Team Expansion, etc.)
Round Objective: This will take us to XX months, XXXK users/revenue/downloads, etc., break-even/cash flow positive — wherever you will be when you are ready for the next round.
Key investment merits
Sort of a summary of what you’ve already said — the five to six bullets highlighting the most exciting things about your startup that make you an attractive funding opportunity. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/the-ultimate-cheat-sheet-for-your-startups-investor-pitch-deck-602f7ac97ace | ['Donna Griffit'] | 2020-01-21 16:42:59.419000+00:00 | ['Pitching', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Venture Capital', 'Silicon Valley', 'Startup'] |
How to Progress Rapidly as a Developer | Don’t Waste Your Time
When you’ve mastered coding fundamentals, the learning curve becomes steeper. New concepts are significantly harder to grasp. You need to learn effectively in order to progress.
Assume you’ve watched a great tutorial. You coded along and built an app with your teacher. But two days later you don’t remember much. When you try to use new knowledge, you get stuck. You feel the urge to watch that great tutorial again.
Don’t do it.
Time is a precious resource. You shouldn’t use it for rewatching or rereading.
Here are three simple techniques that help you study effectively.
Active recall
Active recall is a process in which you try to retrieve information from memory, instead of rereading it. A typical example is the use of flashcards.
You can use active recall anytime when learning to code. Next time when you’re watching or reading a tutorial, don’t code. Focus on following a teacher. Then try to recreate code from memory. Only get back to the lesson if you can’t reproduce some part.
Spaced repetition
You’ll understand new concepts much better if you learn in smaller chunks spread over time than if you cram in one sitting. Create a repetition system with the breaks increasing each time.
For example, learn about closures for thirty minutes. Check out what the closure is and when to use it, see some code samples, take notes, or make flashcards. Tomorrow, try to recall information about closure from memory. If you succeed, try again after three days. Each time lengthen a delay between repetitions. If you fail — stick to this same delay.
Experiment with different schedules to find the one that suits you the best.
Tests
Remember how you used to learn at school? You may have studied over all the semester, but you worked hardest and learned the most before the exam. Use that to your advantage.
Create a simple schedule. For example, devote two hours to testing once a month. You can easily find tests online or create them by yourself. The exam doesn’t need to have a traditional form. It’s even better if you test yourself by making an app using the knowledge you want to solidify. | https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-progress-rapidly-as-a-developer-39a282ead61e | ['Szymon Adamiak'] | 2020-05-06 14:46:42.043000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Python', 'Learning To Code', 'Education'] |
I built cards playing game for minimalist people | 1 day 1 profitable product
Approach
I use different approach for this. I use pre order.
Marketing
Twitter and Instagram (both are my own channel).
Result
0 pre order as of 2020–12–26
May be not enough reach yet. Let’s see later.
Follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/RicardoSawir | https://medium.com/@ricardosawir/i-built-cards-playing-game-for-minimalist-people-82b02635ad73 | ['Ricardo Sawir'] | 2020-12-26 01:26:04.663000+00:00 | ['Card Game', '1day1profitableproduct', 'Business', 'Minimalist', 'Lessons Learned'] |
3 Steps These Parenting Experts Take When Feeling Like a Bad Parent | 3 Steps These Parenting Experts Take When Feeling Like a Bad Parent
Photo credit: iStock
By Lina Acosta Sandaal, MA, LMFT
In January it will be three years since I opened my parenting center called The Nest in Miami, FL. It feels like I’ve been at this project for much longer; I guess that’s how we often feel when we are deeply engaged in a labor of love. My small business is a dream, but it’s also the cause of a lot of stress in my day-to-day life. Ironically, I find myself time and again talking with parents about how stress influences their day. Stress makes me feel like less of a parent. As a supposed expert on children and parenting, when that thought flies into my mind it is shocking. So I figured, I would soothe myself by giving it some contemplation, and share what I do when the world and my small business tells me in the form of stress and fear that I am not doing a good job with life and my little ones.
1. Get honest with someone.
Stress can take me to situations where I am short with my kids, avoidant of my kids or worse screaming at my kids. The truth is that it is just part of being human. When our brain is in stress, anxiety and panic mode, it shifts to a primitive state of fight, flight, or freeze. Sometimes in parenting, screaming is our fight or flight or moment of insane freezing. My number one cure for dealing with this part of the stress response is to tell others my truth. Let those close, trusted friends in and tell them what you did and how you handled it so then you can both have that human connection of “me too”. A lot of times in parenting we suffer in silence, imagining that the other parents never lose it. All parents lose it. I have training and expertise and education, and I have my awful moments, so today in my blog, I am publicly sharing my truth. When this is done, I will feel better.
2. Let your children off the hook.
It is important to be able to tell the story of your stress to your children. More often than not, children believe that you are upset because of something that they did. If we take a look at a situation with a child when we have a stressful day, the true problem is not the child, it is our day-to-day stress. It is not being able to take a deep breath before we deal with the frustrated preschooler who is trying to put on their shoes before we get them out to the preschool. Recently, I was overwhelmed with stress on a Saturday morning because one more time mommy was leaving home and my school-age daughter was not able to spend time with me. She followed me around and I felt guilty and ended up being short with her before I left. Driving home, I realized I needed to let her off the hook. When I got home I was able to use the morning exchange to apologize and then explain our family’s values about goals and making sacrifices for them. In this case, “I’m sorry we couldn’t spend time together and that I was mean, but mommy has a goal to help her business prosper so a lot of families can flourish.” My little one then said, “I understand mommy. I too want The Nest to be successful (BTW short concise version; the real one took about 20 minutes). It was a hard moment and a glorious moment at the same time. Apologizing and letting her off the hook gave both of us clarity and happiness.
3. Take care of yourself first.
On airplanes you are instructed to put the oxygen mask on your face before you put it on the child. This is true with parenting too, and especially true when we’re stressed. As a working mother, part of my existence is feeling guilty that somehow someway I am not spending enough time with my kids. A good friend of mine Luly B speaks about how “balance is bull#$%t”. She is right. What we do every day is take moments to think about what needs to come first, second, and last. For me, in certain moments, my business comes first and my children come second. It never feels like balance because there is always something I could do with one or the other. I take care of myself by setting up systems so that they are okay and I am okay. My truth is that taking care of me means that sometimes I need to leave the children with my mom because I just need to sit and have a coffee alone, or I need to work three hours on my business plan, or I need to turn off the phone and play Lego with my kids. It is difficult and it does not feel good but it is necessary so that when I am with each part of my life that part gets 100% of my attention.
So this is my little recipe for how I deal with stress and how I deal with the day-to-day guilt of not being a good parent due to life, work and stress. It is short, sweet, and never perfect. But then again, perfection is overrated.
—
The story was previously published on The Good Men Project.
—
About Lina Acosta Sandaal, MA, LMFT
Lina Acosta Sandaal, MA, LMFT began her career at Vista del Mar in Los Angeles. There, she developed expertise in child and adolescent development and infant and early childhood mental health, while strengthening her resolve to support families. She has trained and participated in research studies with Yale’s Minding the Baby, National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and Child Trauma Research Program. In 2015 she was named Mujer Legendaria de Ford for quality in her field. She is the parenting expert for Telemundo’s national morning show Un Nuevo Dia. As part of her commitment to helping all families, she is a member of the Florida Maternal Mental Health Steering Committee and a consultant for the early learning team at MomsRising, a national grassroots organization lobbying for children and family rights in Washington, DC. She brings this expertise to her work at her center, Stop Parenting Alone, and to all the organizations who rely on her expertise and consultation on development and parenting issues. Find out more by visiting www.StopParentingAlone.com | https://medium.com/a-parent-is-born/3-steps-these-parenting-experts-take-when-feeling-like-a-bad-parent-c0134c6c8a47 | ['The Good Men Project'] | 2020-12-13 11:32:34.567000+00:00 | ['Children', 'Advice', 'Parenting', 'Fatherhood', 'Parenting Advice'] |
Communication between the separated father and the mother of the child | Logo of www.papa-bleiben.de
As a separated father, if you want to call your offspring on the phone or plan the next reunion, you usually have to go through the mother. From a certain age or rather developmental stage of your child you can of course contact your child directly without any problems. But until then - up to an estimated age of around 15 years - the path inevitably leads through the mother.
I am aware that it is not always about the birth mother of the child, with whom you may have to deal as a separated father. Nevertheless, I will limit my contribution to this constellation because it is the typical case. This article applies accordingly to all other cases.
There are many other reasons that you may need to communicate with the mother of your child. For example, it can be about financial issues or parenting issues. Or maybe you want to find out about your child's development, school performance, or other news.
As you may know yourself or can imagine, this may work very easily, reliably and without any problems. If this is the case with you, I congratulate you very warmly and hope for you that it will stay that way for a long time. You can then safely skip this article.
The other extreme would be that communication with the mother does not work at all, or in other words, there is no communication. If that is the case with you, I am very sorry. To be honest, I don't know what advice I could give you. But I hope that you can cope with the situation to some extent and maybe even have active support.
The focus of this article lies between the two extremes: Communication with the mother works - more or less - sometimes like this, sometimes like that - more badly than right. I just assume that it works like that in most cases. It shouldn't matter in this article who has the buck, because it usually takes at least two.
Successful communication as a link to the child
What do I mean by communication that works more or less? First of all, I think of the frequency or even more of the regularity. As a separated father, you hang on the mother's information drip. The mother notices everything that happens with the child. She experiences all joys and sorrows up close, is involved in the vast majority of topics and has first-hand information.
I sense what one or the other mother may be thinking now: I don't notice anything from my child, he / she doesn't tell me, locks himself in his room or is only rarely at home. But this is typical behavior during puberty and will not be the focus of this article. Until puberty, however, it is undoubtedly the case that the mother knows pretty much about all the child's concerns.
And the father? The separation means that he is literally cut off from this flow of information. And if there is no regular communication between mother and father, then the danger of alienation between father and child increases dramatically. The father doesn't notice anything anymore, has no idea and at some point is completely left out.
Regular communication with the mother is therefore absolutely necessary - at least with small children - in order to stay on board as a father. Otherwise it can happen that at some point as a father you will not even be able to choose a birthday present for your child because you have no idea what the daughter or son is excited about. And that is really bitter!
So first of all I would mention the regularity of communication. But is regular communication enough on its own to get and maintain an insight as comprehensive as possible into the life of your own child as a separated father?
The very fact that I am asking this question suggests the answer: no. It is not enough to communicate regularly; the quality of communication is also important. By this I mean the objectivity, completeness and correctness of the information or messages.
There is a very high risk that one-sided, incomplete or incorrect reports will create a picture that has nothing to do with the child's actual life situation. It also doesn't matter whether this happens consciously - connected with an intention - or unconsciously. Either way, the damage to the father-child relationship is enormous.
And before an outcry goes through the ranks of the mothers at this point, who may have the impression that I would pass the buck on them: Fathers are responsible for taking serious interest, listening carefully and asking the right questions. I would put it this way: Fathers have the obligation to collect and mothers the obligation to bring. Only if both do their job conscientiously, everything will be fine.
Hurdles and traps
In addition to the regularity, there is also the quality of communication. Sounds simple enough: Talk to each other on the phone every week and talk sensibly. If it weren't for those stupid emotions that keep interfering and make everything so complicated. But why actually?
Why? Because you not only communicate with each other as a mother and father, but also as an ex-husband, ex-lover, ex-partner, ex-boyfriend, ex-roommate or ex-confidante. As a father and mother you would probably get along well, but the others also get involved, either individually or in the worst case all together.
This little prefix "ex" is closely related to hurt, disappointment, frustration, sadness, anger and hatred. It can happen that the communication between father and mother drifts into the same corner again and again, so that the actual reason for the call is completely forgotten and ultimately no exchange is possible except for mutual blame. No wonder if under such circumstances the next contact takes many days or weeks.
That is fatal of course if it is actually about the adolescent capers of the daughter, but in the end it is only beating and punching with the emotional club. I don't need to explicitly mention that it is primarily the child and his or her well-being that are left behind. And the fact that the father-child relationship also suffers massively as a result, because the mother becomes an insurmountable hurdle, is also understandable. But what to do?
It is worth a try
My experience is that in the first place your own basic attitude has to be checked and possibly readjusted: What is my real motivation? Is it really just about finding out how my child is doing or when the next meeting is possible? Or is this just the pretext to really give my ex-wife a good telling-off? This is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but I hope it becomes clear what I mean.
And it is also important to highlight this motivation right at the beginning of the communication. It should be clear to both father and mother why the phone call is taking place or why the e-mail is being written. Nothing is more burdensome than speculating all the time about what the other actually wants, and constantly being prepared for worse.
This motivation gives communication a framework in which one can hopefully move around in a relaxed and safe manner. And if father and mother manage to stick with the matter and then politely end the conversation, it will give them courage for the next contact.
I would bring the concept of conversation hygiene into play here: Communication free from attacks, injuries, lawsuits and other trivialities. Communication that serves the best interests of the child and the parent-child relationship.
And even if a careless word is uttered by mistake, it does not have to lead to the opposite side picking up the ball. In order not to lose sight of the actual occasion, and for the good of the child, it is quite helpful and also permissible to simply ignore some things.
I admit it takes a lot of practice and an absolute desire to communicate sensibly and constructively with one another. And despite all the good intentions, it won't work every time. But even from failure - with a little good will - you can learn a lot for the next attempt! | https://medium.com/@christian-peter-niklis/communication-between-the-separated-father-and-the-mother-of-the-child-c51e21d2cdc | ['Christian Peter Niklis'] | 2020-12-08 15:18:09.702000+00:00 | ['Communication', 'Children', 'Information', 'Family', 'Fatherhood'] |
Tal Does Things: Managing Multiple Podcast Productions | Welcome to the first installment of a series I am calling “Tal Does Things,” where I talk about how I do things in a more rambly, bloggy manner. Come peek into my process, but don’t judge me too hard. I’m trusting you here, dear reader.
So, I make a lot of podcasts. Right now I have 4 shows in active production, about 5 in passive production, and many, many more on the back-burner. This isn’t counting shows I don’t run and am just a part of, as a voice actor, sound designer, or writer. I’ve been asked multiple times how I do it, and I’m going to try to answer that. Emphasis on try. But first, a fact about myself. I, as a person, do not relax. I do not stop. I am always up to something. Don’t be like me, okay? Good. With that out of the way, let’s go.
I use a couple of different things to keep track of all my projects. The first is Trello. I have columns here by task. One for writing, one for directing, another for sound design, and a few for voice acting.
Voice acting gets three columns because I need to keep track of what I’ve been cast in but haven’t gotten scripts for (VA Upcoming), what I’m on the hook to record soon (VA Happening, where recurring roles live until they’re finished), and what has been recorded but not released yet (VA in production).
My voice acting columns! Most of this hasn’t been announced yet, pardon the redactions.
I use the “Custom Fields” power-up to let me keep track of status (“Waiting info”/“in progress”), payment (what I’m being paid and if I’ve been paid it), as well as if I’m currently waiting for information (like scripts). The color labels correspond to if I’ve put the show on my website yet, and what kind of role it is (cameo, supporting, anthology, or leading)
The sound design, writing, and directing columns are arranged differently. I organize cards these cards based on the order I plan to do them, and there’s no moving them from column to column. Ideally, whatever I’m currently working on is at the top of the list. I usually have something in work for each of these — an episode I’m writing, something I’m directing soon, something else I’m sound designing. What I work on depends on my mood (and looming deadlines). Lately it’s been lots and lots of sound design. The card colors aren’t really significant, serving mostly to group things I need done around the same time together.
The sound design and writing columns. The directing column is currently empty because I just finished all the episodes on my plate! Yes, I realize it is the end of December and I have two episodes to sound design by next week. It’s fine.
I also have a personal discord server I use for organization. It’s just me and a handful of bots in here. I have a channel where I make the day’s to do list to keep track of the tasks I need to get done, ideally, on that day. The server also has a reminder channel where I use Reminder Bot to poke me about upcoming deadlines, a calendar channel where I stick my meetings (I also write these on a physical calendar on my fridge because I like redundancy), and a channel to drop links to look at later. This channel is the only thing standing between me and 20 tabs, as I refuse to use bookmarks for short term things. Why? I dunno, I just don’t. In my mind, bookmarks are for things like show google drives that I need to reference often.
The organizational channels.
I’ve also got channels that mimic the Trello, with list of episodes I need to write/sound design/edit. This serves exactly the same purpose of the Trello. It’s redundant, but for whatever reason I like the simplicity of having an additional text list with everything on it. I only see the sound design stuff when I’m looking at the sound design channel, and it helps me focus. There’s no info about payment, little info about deadline, just show names and episode numbers. I also have a channel where I drop the links to things I need to audition for, and a channel where I drop the scripts to things I need to record. It helps things from getting lost in my email inbox.
The podcast related channels. Right now there isn’t a directing channel because I’m not doing any directing at the moment, but once that starts back up, a channel will appear!
I like Discord and Trello because I can use both on my phone and my desktop. Whatever I put on one automatically updates on the other since they’re referencing the same thing. I’ve also got channels for ideas and notes, places I can jot things down while on the go and expand on when I’m on my laptop back home.
I’ve also got a music corner all to myself :)
Each show I work on has its own dedicated space for production, often a discord server that spills into google sheets and docs. I use that to track the overall production aspect for the shows, pulling singular tasks to my own to do lists. This helps me stay focused — I can worry about the overall production status of a show while I’m looking at that google sheet, but when I’m sitting down to do stuff, I can look at my own lists and see what I need to do next for it.
Managing multiple podcasts mostly comes down to keeping track of lots of little details and making sure I do what I need to do when I need to do it. I love how easy Discord and Trello are to use for this — it’s easy to add stuff, it’s easy to move it around, and it’s easy to remove. If I need a completely new list, I can just make a column in Trello or a channel in Discord and immediately keep track of something else. A task doesn’t have to be or feel important to make a space dedicated to it, I can just do it. And that works for me. And that’s how I make my podcasts. I just do it. And that works for me.
I’m not sure this was any measure of helpful but hopefully it was at least interesting! That’s what I’m going for in these Tal Does Things segments. | https://medium.com/@talminear/tal-does-things-managing-multiple-podcast-productions-fb45338cdfea | ['Tal Minear'] | 2020-12-23 06:35:40.200000+00:00 | ['Organization', 'Podcasting', 'Audio Drama'] |
Building out an HTML5 game UI pipeline with Figma | Opting for Automation
A few months back, I was once again unplugging my laptop’s display cord from my Dell UltraSharp and leaving my desk for the common area of my team’s modern, ultra trendy, kombucha-tap-equipped shared workspace in FiDi. It was going to be another low-key afternoon breaking from my usual engineering work and instead moving stuff around in the Cocos Creator editor, so I figured I’d take advantage of a comfy couch and renewed cup of coffee while I pieced some new UI into place. As refreshing as switching things up can be, I think we all knew at this point that drag-and-dropping new menu dialogs together is probably not the best use of engineering time.
While the Cocos Creator editor can serve as a quick way to put together layouts on the design side if we had wanted to use it in this way, it lacks the robustness of graphics creation, custom shapes, and the real-time collaboration capabilities optimal for rapid UX design iteration and approval that Figma provides. In order to really integrate the workflow between product and engineering, we needed a way to easily translate finalized concepts into UI data that our current engine can understand with no tedious recreation necessary on the engineering side. Awesomely enough, Figma provides an intuitive RESTful API to access your document data from anywhere, so you have everything you need to build a design-to-engine UI pipeline.
Fetching your UI mocks as data
Figma’s getter endpoints range in specificity from getting entire file lists by project to specific nodes or style data in a given file, so feel free to browse the available endpoints in the docs. We’ll be coming back to a few of them shortly.
For now, let’s start with grabbing the data for a single Figma file. To perform a basic user-authenticated request for a Figma file, you will need two primary pieces of information:
An access token tied to your Figma account. Note that you can also generate an OAuth2 token if you’d prefer to have app-level authentication for your tool.
2. A file ID for the file data you want to pull. It can be easily gleaned from the file’s URL (see below).
Once you have these pieces of information, you’ll just need a way to make a request. cURL works, but if you want some ease-of-poking-around and beautified responses as you explore the API, I’d recommend Postman.
For purposes of this example let’s leverage some trendy Medium code formatting and use cURL:
If everything went as planned, you should have received a JSON-represented document tree in response as displayed on the left below:
Note how frames and layers are represented, with the bottom-most appearing first in the list of children
For this particular request, the resulting data is going to get you about 80% of the way to having everything you need to recreate the handiwork of your UX designer in various formats. The resulting data provides comprehensive descriptions of your entire document, such as (but not limited to):
Bounding box sizing and position Parent-child relationships Layer type (shapes, text, etc) RGBA color descriptors Gradient, image, and 2d shape fill data Layer opacity Font styles and strokes
Therefore, you can easily transpose this structure to HTML, an engine-specific layout file such as the Cocos Creator prefabs I was using, or another form of pre-processed JSON layout data that suits the needs of your application.
Asset Management
So, what’s missing? Well, let’s take a closer look at the results. If we look at any of our layers that contain graphics, you’ll typically see one of two types of sources:
A user provided bitmap image; something that was uploaded to the Figma document to be used as a layer fill. A custom vector-based asset. This is something created in-app with Figma’s graphics creation tools.
Structure of an uploaded image fill. Note the “imageRef” field is an ID hash.
For bitmap image fills, the data provided includes an imageRef field, but doesn’t seem to map to anything useful within the current data structure. To map this ID to a real image URL, we’ll need to ask Figma for the image fill data associated with this file or node. In this example, we’ll fetch against the images endpoint for this file. Let’s bring our request command back out:
images' curl -X GET -H 'X-Figma-Token: ' https://api.figma.com/v1/files/ /
The result should be a map of IDs to bucket URLs. Here is where you will find the actual references to each asset attached to the file.
From here, you can easily automate fetching assets to your project’s asset directories to be referenced by your in-game UI. Awesome bonus detail: Figma manages image assets in such a way that identical image fills are already de-duped — meaning if you have multiple instances of the same image throughout your mock, the corresponding nodes will reference a single image.
Getting vector-based graphics from Figma is something that may depend on the capabilities of your game engine or personal preference. Our initial response data contains all of the fields necessary to recreate custom shapes. This can be useful if you are able to or prefer to leverage granular custom 2d graphics in your layout models.
In the case of Cocos Creator prefabs, support for basic shapes such as ellipses and rectangles was easily done by pairing a geometric mask component with a nested fill layer, but we needed a way to support more complex 2d graphics such as custom polygons, rounded rectangles, and paths. A simpler way to include custom vector art in general, especially if it’s multi-layered, is to flatten and export it as a raster to use as an image fill. Figma enables us to automate this, too!
Leveraging the images endpoint, you can provide specific node ids (as seen in the initial file request data) that you’d like to flatten and export as a bitmap image. You can specify scaling, export format, and more:
An example of a complex asset flattened and provided as a raster by the Figma images API endpoint
So, how can we identify whether or not a layer requires flattening and exporting? One way to do this is for the UX designer to flag the layer in a way your tooling understands. Options include toggling the “Export” flag in the Figma’s UI (represented as a boolean in the returned file data), or providing some sort of convention for the layer name. In our case, because our designer needs to flag and manually export rasters of entire frames for inclusion in pitch decks and product meetings, it was easiest for us to decouple our tooling from that feature and rely instead on naming conventions.
Pitfall: Integrating Custom Fonts
While our document data already provides a few basics for constructing text elements such as characters, font weight, size, and alignment, unfortunately through Figma there is no native API mapping to the corresponding custom font assets. The only font family data we are able to extract from text styles is the family and post script name.
...
"characters": "Tap to close",
"style": {
"fontFamily": "Nunito",
"fontPostScriptName": "Nunito-ExtraBold",
"fontWeight": 800,
"fontSize": 26.0,
"textAlignHorizontal": "CENTER",
"textAlignVertical": "CENTER",
"letterSpacing": 0.0,
"lineHeightPx": 24.554399490356445,
"lineHeightPercent": 80.588798522949219,
"lineHeightPercentFontSize": 94.440002441406250,
"lineHeightUnit": "FONT_SIZE_%"
},
...
There’s still a programmatic solution! If you are sourcing your custom fonts from Google Fonts, we can leverage another tool to fetch them: the Google Fonts developer API. Similar to how you’d access the Figma API, you’ll need to first acquire an API key to make requests.
To get a comprehensive list of all the fonts available, you can hit the web fonts endpoint like so:
curl -X GET 'https://www.googleapis.com/webfonts/v1/webfonts?key=<YOUR_API_KEY>'
Note that your key in this case is a GET parameter passed to the endpoint instead of a header value. The response is a large list of all the font data available through Google, with asset references included:
Found “Nunito”!
From here, you can discern your variant of the font, fetch the corresponding font asset, and include it in your project asset directory just as you would images.
With structure, graphics, and fonts easily accessible through these APIs, you’ll have everything you need to build out an automated design-to-engine UI layout pipeline with a little bit of collaboration with your designer.
Level Design and More…!
The possibilities of design-to-engineering interfacing don’t just stop at UI mocks; entire 2d levels with implicit data can be built in, too!
Here is an example from our latest title, Stickerpets Island, where island progression is easily defined on the product side in Figma. There are a lot of creative ways your workflow implementations can leverage the provided data to easily plug in visual structure within all types of contexts. Happy tooling! | https://medium.com/knock-knock-games/building-out-an-html5-game-ui-pipeline-with-figma-9abf99f31591 | ['Veronica Vega'] | 2021-08-13 20:20:52.324000+00:00 | ['Game Development', 'Figma', 'Html5', 'Programming', 'Design'] |
How to solve the Sherlock and Anagrams coding challenge in JavaScript | Photo by Javier Quesada on Unsplash
Originally published at mihail-gaberov.eu.
This post is going to get you through my solution to a coding challenge called “Sherlock and Anagrams.” You may take a look at it in HackerRank.
I spent a lot of time trying to solve it, with JavaScript. When I tried to google it, I could not find a decent JS solution. I found just one, and it was not working correctly. Also, any explanations were completely out of the question. That’s why I decided to write an article about it and try to put some nice and easy to digest explanations along the way. Keep reading now!
⚠️CAUTION: I will roll out my solution below with short explanations about each of the steps. If you want to give a try yourself, please stop here and go to HackerRank’s site.
Problem
Two strings are anagrams of each other if the letters of one string can be rearranged to form the other string. Given a string, find the number of pairs of substrings of the string that are anagrams of each other.
For example s = mom, the list of all anagrammatic pairs is [m, m], [mo, om] at positions [[0], [2]], [[0, 1], [1, 2]] respectively.
Constraints
Length of the input string: 2 ≤ |s| ≤ 100
String s contains only lowercase letters from the range ascii[a-z].
Analysis
First thing first — we need to get a better understanding of the whole problem. What is an anagram? What is an anagrammatic pair? Can I see one? Also, what exactly does it mean substrings?
In other words, we need to have a clear picture of what are we trying to solve, before solving it.
From the description of the problem, we can deduct all we need. Keep walking! 🚶
I think this is a good moment to mention that the challenge in question is under the “Dictionaries and Hashmaps” section in the HackerRank website. You’ll probably think that you should use this kind of data structure when solving it. 😇
Anagrams
Since we are going to look for anagrams, let’s start with them. As it is described above, an anagram of one word is another word that has the same length and is created with the same characters from the former word.
Animation for the anagram “Listen = Silent”
So we will have to look for words and compare them with other words, in order to see if they are anagrammatic pairs. Once found, we will just count them.
Anagrammatic pairs
Since we’ve seen what an anagram is, it should be relatively easy to conclude that an anagrammatic pair is just two strings that are anagrams. Such as “mo” and “om”, or “listen” and “silent”. We will have to count how many pairs like this can be found in a given string. In order to do that, we need to split this original string to substrings.
Substrings
Substrings, as the name infers, are parts of a string. These parts could be just a letter or a pair of letters, such as what have we seen in the example above — “m” or “mo.” In our solution, we will split the original string to such substrings and then we will go over them and do the comparison, which will tell us whether we have anagrammatic pairs among them.
Solution
Now that we’ve done our analysis, it’s showtime! 🎆
Let’s summarize:
We need to find all substrings of the given string — create a method for that. We need to be able to check if two strings are anagrams — create a method for that. We need to count all anagrammatic pairs in the given string — create a method for that. Combine everything from above and spit the result — create a method for that.
Get all substrings
This will be our helper method for finding all substrings of a given string:
function getAllSubstrings(str) {
let i, j, result = [];
for (i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
for (j = i + 1; j < str.length + 1; j++) {
result.push(str.slice(i, j))
}
}
return result
}
As you can see, it has O(n²) time complexity. For our case, it does the job, because we have limited length of the input string (up to 100 characters).
Check for anagrams
This will be our helper method for checking if two strings are anagrammatic pairs:
function isAnagram(str1, str2) {
const hist = {}
for (let i = 0; i < str1.length; i++) {
const char = str1[i]
if (hist[char]) {
hist[char]++
} else {
hist[char] = 1
}
}
for (let j = 0; j < str2.length; j++) {
const char = str2[j]
if (hist[char]) {
hist[char]--
} else {
return false
}
}
return true
}
Remember that we assumed we’d most probably have to use data structures such as hashmaps or dictionaries (given the section where this challenge is found on HackerRank).
We use a simple JavaScript object to play the role of a hashmap. We do two iterations — one per string. When we iterate over the first one, we add its characters as keys to the hashmap and count their appearances, which are going to be stored as their values. Then we do another iteration over the second string. Check if its characters are stored in our hashmap. If yes — decrement their value. If there are missing characters, which means the two strings are not an anagrammatic pair, we simply return false. If both loops complete, we return true, signifying that the strings being analyzed are an anagrammatic pair.
Do the counting
This is the method, where we will use the helper for checking if a pair is anagrammatic and count it. We do that with the help of JavaScript arrays and the methods they provide. We iterate over an array containing all the substrings of the original string. Then we get the correct element and remove it from the array. And then we do another loop through that array and return 1 if we find that there is an anagram of the current element. If nothing is found, we return 0.
function countAnagrams(currentIndex, arr) {
const currentElement = arr[currentIndex]
const arrRest = arr.slice(currentIndex + 1)
let counter = 0
for (let i = 0; i < arrRest.length; i++) {
if (currentElement.length === arrRest[i].length && isAnagram(currentElement, arrRest[i])) {
counter++
}
}
return counter
}
And in the end
The only thing left to be done now is to combine all of the above and spit the desired result. Here is how the final method looks like:
function sherlockAndAnagrams(s) {
const duplicatesCount = s.split('').filter((v, i) => s.indexOf(v) !== i).length
if (!duplicatesCount) return 0
let anagramsCount = 0
const arr = getAllSubstrings(s)
for (let i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
anagramsCount += countAnagrams(i, arr)
}
return anagramsCount
}
Maybe you have noticed, here I am checking first for duplicates in order to know if I should continue further. As if there are no duplicated letters, then it’s not possible to have an anagram.
And finally, we get all substrings into an array, iterate over it, count the anagrammatic pairs that are found and return this number.
You can find the full code here.
Conclusion
These kind of exercises are very good for making you think algorithmically. Also they change your way of working in your day to day job. My recommendation would be to do the same I am trying to do — train your brain now and then with one of those. And if you can — share. I know sometimes you don’t have time for such challenges, but when you do — go for it.
My personal feeling after finishing this was total satisfaction, which is completely understandable, considering the time it took me to do it. But in the end, dear reader, I am even happier I can share this experience with you😌!
🔥 Thanks for reading! 🔥 | https://medium.com/free-code-camp/how-to-solve-the-sherlock-and-anagrams-coding-challenge-in-javascript-a80baa908637 | ['Мihail Gaberov'] | 2019-04-23 15:28:07.339000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Coding Challenge', 'Algorithms', 'Tech', 'Programming'] |
In Support of Our AAPI Communities | The California Arts Council stands with the countless members of our Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities who have been the targets of physical and verbal violence due to xenophobia and racism in this last year, and beyond. We grieve the eight lives lost to senseless and misogynistic violence in Atlanta in March and the elders who died by recent racially motivated attacks in California. During the past several weeks, we have engaged in a meaningful, phased process within our ongoing staff racial equity practice to take time for inclusion in preparing this statement.
We acknowledge and condemn the violent targeting and othering of our fellow Asian American friends, family members, neighbors, and colleagues. We condemn the dangerous rhetoric and willful ignorance of leaders that embolden white supremacy and encourage an environment of ethnic scapegoating against Asian communities during a global health crisis. We condemn the anti-Asian racism and invisibility that is inextricably linked to harassment and sexualized violence against Asian women, as outlined by the Asian American Journalists Association. Women of Asian descent have reported 2.3 times more incidents of violence than Asian men, according to a new Stop AAPI Hate report of nearly 3,800 hate incidents reported since March 2020. And for our local context, it is important to note that 45 percent of all reported incidents nationwide were based in California.
More than one-third of the AAPI people living in the United States call California their home. Our state’s AAPI community has a great depth and diversity, representative of more than 48 nations worldwide, with strong roots in communities throughout California. And yet throughout history, our AAPI communities have been met with unrelenting racism, hate, and violence that is multigenerational and systemic.
With this in our minds and hearts, we restate our belief that the arts are a tool for liberation that lives within us all. And that through the arts, we can all collaborate and build a better future together. As part of California’s creative community, we celebrate the rich cultural traditions, creative expression, innovation, and heritage of our Asian communities. We center their voices and experiences by uplifting Asian arts and culture and creative works addressing social and racial injustices and lived experiences.
As an organization and individuals that are deeply and openly committed to achieving racial equity, we recognize the continuum of white supremacy and we encourage our community to understand that the historic and current legacy of colonization, violence, xenophobia, and racism in this country includes violence against our Asian communities.
And as a state agency, we acknowledge the government’s role in creating and maintaining systems of oppression. We take seriously our unique responsibility to remove racist policies, to make institutional change, and to ensure racially equitable outcomes for California’s access to arts and culture in order to meet the aspirations we have set for ourselves. We understand our role is to support systemically disenfranchised communities to access healing, to prompt culture and narrative shifts, and to seed creative access. We encourage authentic dialogue and invite our arts community to connect with us on this and other race- and equity-based issues and concerns.
We are here to strive for joy, connection, witnessing, and healing through creative expression. We acknowledge the importance of becoming accomplices in order to achieve liberation for all, and that vigilance and action are crucial to that end.
Culture is the strongest signifier of California’s identity and, undoubtedly, it is a pathway to creating, together, a better and more just California for all.
At the California Arts Council, we continue to learn about and center the intersectional movements for liberation. In this moment, we offer a few resources that we have drawn on for education and support moving forward. | https://medium.com/calartscouncil/in-support-of-our-aapi-communities-a7f9a264a9b6 | ['California Arts Council'] | 2021-04-15 19:47:25.466000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Art', 'Racial Equity', 'Asian American', 'California'] |
“Hacker-for-hire” service launched distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against websites and phone-bombed its victims. | The Chicago Tribune reports that a federal judge has sentenced a man to three months in prison for the part he played in a “hacker-for-hire” service that launched distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against websites and phone-bombed its victims.
24-year-old Thomas Smith – who went by online handles including “1337zool”, “@xozool”, and ““@ZoolYeet” – was a member of the Lizard Squad and PoodleCorp hacking groups, which hijacked victims’ online accounts, sold stolen payment card details, and launched crippling DDoS attacks against corporate websites.
Lizard Squad weren’t afraid to draw attention to themselves, creating headlines worldwide after knocking both the Sony Playstation Network and XBox Live game networks offline for Christmas 2014.
The hacking group later claimed that the high profile attacks were a publicity stunt for their DDoS-for-hire service known as LizardStresser.
Lizard Squad was certainly not the first online gang to offer DDoS attacks as “cybercrime as a service”. There are plenty of other online criminals offering booter tools on underground hacking forums. What made Lizard Squad different, however, was its audacity – both in its choice of targets and in its active use of social media to promote its activities.
Ironically, Lizard Squad’s DDoS-for-hire service was itself later hacked, spilling the plaintext details of its registered users and no doubt providing law enforcement agencies with a very interesting collection of names.
Another deeply unpleasant way in which Lizard Squad made the lives of others a misery was through their “Phonebomber” service that allowed customers paying $20 to target victims with repeated phone calls from spoofed phone numbers:
[Phonebomber] is a no-registration phone bombing service. We will call your target once per hour with one of our pre-recorded messages for $20 a month. Since our calls come from random numbers, your target will be unable to block our calls. Your target will be left with only 3 options: Change their number, Bend to your whim, Deal with a ringing phone for the length of our attack :\ For the extortionists amongst us we’ve added an option to cancel the calls at the click of a button, giving you complete control over the length of the attack. . . .
Since there is no registration, all purchases are untraceable. The only data a hacker / feds would be able to exfiltrate from our database are the phone numbers currently being called, and the last 30 days of targets. Rest assured your privacy is respected here and purchase in confidence.
One victim reportedly received the following (redacted) message every single hour for 30 days:
“When you walk the ****ing streets, Mother****er, you better look over your ****ing back because I don’t flying **** if we have to burn your ****ing house down, if we have to ****ing track your goddamned family down, we will **** your **** up mother****.”
It’s easy to imagine just how stressful it must have been to be on the end of continual phone calls like that.
Some of the hacking groups activities, however, appear to have been more mischievous than malicious. Take, for instance, the January 2015 compromise of pop star Taylor Swift’s Twitter and Instagram accounts.
Messages posted to the celebrity’s hijacked accounts appear to have been more aimed at encouraging Swifties into following Lizard Squad’s social media accounts than something with much more potential for serious impact – such as a link to a website harbouring a phishing page or an exploit kit.
At the time, Taylor Swift was the owner of the world’s fourth largest Twitter account (some 51 million followers) and had a further 20 million Instagram followers. As such, if they had wanted to the hackers could have caused a significant problem.
Taylor Swift reassured her fans that the hackers’ claims that they would release nude photographs was nonsense (“Have fun photoshopping cause you got NOTHING.”), and, to her credit, responded to the hack in witty fashion:
“Cause the hackers gonna hack, hack, hack, hack, hack…”
Buchta, of Fallston, Maryland, pleaded guilty in December 2017 to one count of conspiracy to commit damage to protected computers, and faced a potential sentence of ten years in prison. However, following a plea deal that acknowledged he had co-operated with the authorities in a way that led to the arrest of two of his former gang members, his prison sentence was set at three months.
As part of his plea agreement, Buchta must also pay restitution fees of $350,000 to two gambling companies that were impacted by his attacks.
Before sentencing, Buchta read a statement to the court apologising to victims and explaining how he felt had turned his life around to become “a productive member of society”. Upon hearing that he would be serving prison time, Buchta burst into tears.
I guess Lizard Squad’s online antics don’t seem quite so funny anymore. | https://medium.com/@troyglobe65/hacker-for-hire-service-launched-distributed-denial-of-service-ddos-attacks-against-websites-93c5073f4905 | ['Ellen Nakashima'] | 2020-12-27 03:31:38.353000+00:00 | ['Lizard Squad', 'Hacker', 'Brian Krebs', 'Hacks', 'Hacking'] |
BTS Nominated For A Grammy’s Award | BTS at the Americans Music Awards on October 9th, 2018. Photo Credits: Getty Images.
The 7 member K-POP boy band, also known as Bangtan Boys, just recently received their first Grammy’s nomination. The group consists of Kim Namjoon (group leader), Kim Seokjin, Min Yoongi, Hoseok Park, Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung, and Jeon Jungkook. Their album Love Yourself: Tear album was nominated for the best recording package alongside with their branding company Huskyfox for impressive visualization. In May, the album was debuted as No. 1 on Billboard 200. The event of their nomination has not only driven joy to the BTS members and ARMY (BTS fanbase), but has marked a significant moment for the appreciation and inclusion of Korean pop music in the United States.
BTS and their team’s recognition for a Grammy award is only the beginning incline of their success. Fans recently witnessed one of their greatest performances at the South Korean Melons Music Awards, where they contributed the beauty of their Korean cultures and dances into their performance set during their hit song Idol. Along side with their performance they were crowned 7 MMA awards. Fans have boasted their 3 series album Love Yourself of similar themes expressing youth, love, passion, and heartbreak. BTS fans have supported them through sold out shows and merchandises worldwide. Millions of BTS fanbase accounts have taken over Twitter to unite together and boost BTS to be as successful as their can through award shows voting, story publications, BTS online support, etc. The K-POP group was most tweeted about on Twitter in 2017 and 2018.
Although fans have witnessed their greatest accomplishments throughout their first debut album 2 Cool 4 Skool to their most successful album Love Yourself: Tear, the world is only beginning to witness the growth BTS is continuing to forgo and change the pop industry internationally forever. | https://medium.com/bangtan-journal/bts-nominated-for-a-grammys-award-fb5a1670302d | ['Jenny Nguyen'] | 2018-12-07 20:24:35.037000+00:00 | ['Kpop', 'Korean', 'Bts', 'Kpop Charts', 'Music'] |
Goals | Goals
Part A:
I want to improve english skills (including communication) I want to be fit (including exercises , gymnastic).
Part B.
I select a goal of fitness (no. 1)
Write down three steps are:
1 . First week I want to walk , running on daily basis.
2.Second week I want to increase a area and add some exercise including pushups ,chinups , wrist, and improve a flexibility in our body.
3.Third week I want to increase to work hard of chest , six packs , legs , shoulder.
I completed a running with a jogar I am satisfy with itself. And It was amazing experience when I was started on first day its looks like difficult but third day feel well and increase the stamina as well throughout the week . I want to fit at higher level and always proactive in his life . I know it was a very benefit for me . Just Start | https://medium.com/@syed-ali168/goals-cac834cfd929 | ['Syed Ali Akkas'] | 2020-12-19 00:05:13.923000+00:00 | ['Amal Academy', 'Just Start'] |
30 Best Positions for a Perfect Happy Ending (Must Work) | Nothing monotonous is healthy. Like we say, try doing something new every day; it seems like it goes for everything in life and especially sex. Having sex every day in the same position can get boring, so we have listed down the 30 best positions that would help spice up your sex life. Below mentioned love sex positions are crafted purely for our readers who are looking for something new every day. This list will keep you occupied with your partner as you have each day in a month to try out something new.
Champagne Room:
The champagne room is one hell of an experience where the boy sits on top of the girl, both facing away. This sex position helps you to regulate the pace and get a good climax. This position is perfect for being tried out on the stairs or the edge of the tub. It will take a little bit of practice at the initial stage, but gradually everything will go smoother with practice.
2. Table Top Position:
The tabletop position is one of the best when it comes to face-to-face action. The girl lies down on the table with her vagina at the edge of the table. The boy enters the girl in that same position. This option is best suitable for partners who do have the same height. The table helps to put both at the same height.
3. Seated Wheelbarrow Position:
In this position, the boy sits at the edge of the chair, and the girl positions where her butt lies on the boys’ lap. The girl takes the support of the ground with the palms of her hands. This position is perfect as it allows deep penetration and helps the girl to workout with her arms.
4. Spork Position:
In this position, the girl lies on the bed while raising her right leg so that the boy can position their body between the girl’s legs. The boy’s position should be at a 90-degree angle to enter the girl in the right manner. The girl can lift the right leg and support it on the boy’s shoulder while having intercourse. The girl can easily fiddle her clitoris while they are inside of you.
5. Valedictorian:
This position is very similar to the missionary position, but the legs are raised off the girl. The legs extend, forming a V shape. This position allows for having good contact with the vulva. This position is quite interesting as you quickly shift to the missionary position by letting loose your partner’s leg.
6. The Pinball Wizard Position:
If you have seen a pinball machine, then this position is similar to that. The girl forms a partial bridge position with all the weight resting on the shoulders. The boy in a kneeling position enters the girl. This position allows easy access, stimulates the clitoris, and should be necessary for every girl.
7. The Chairman Position:
This sex position is quite exciting and should be a necessary try because it is quite effortless. The boy sits on the edge of the bed, and the girl sits on them, both facing away. This position is good as it hits the G-spot quickly. This position also allows easy access to the girl to fiddle her clitoris while the boy is inside.
8. Butter Churner Position:
This position will require a bit of hard work but is sure to amaze you. The girl has to lie on their back with her legs raised and folded over. The ankles of the girl should be on either side of the head. This position completely opens up the vagina of the girl allowing easy penetration for the boy.
9. The Seashell Position:
In this position, the girl has to lie back with legs raised so that the ankles cross behind their head. The boy enters the girl much similar in the way the missionary position goes. In this position, the girl’s hands are free, and they can efficiently work with their clitoris while the boy is inside them.
10. The Golden Arch Position:
In this position, the boy sits with their legs straight, and the girl sits on top of them with bent knees. In this position, both the partners lean back. This position allows the perfect view of both the bodies to one another while having intercourse.
11. Reverse Scoop:
This position starts from the missionary position. While both partners are in the missionary position, they require turning together onto one side without disengaging. Use arms to support the upper body. This position is quite romantic as it allows both partners to gaze into one another’s eyes.
12. Scoop Me Up:
In this position, partners lie on their sides, facing the same direction. The girl slightly lifts her knees for the boy to enter up behind the pelvis. This position is also popularly known as spooning. This position allows for more skin-to-skin contact arousing stimulation.
13. The Caboose:
This position can be done while being seated on a bed or chair. While partners are seated, the girl gets on the boy’s lap and spoon each other while being seated. This position does not allow partners to see each other during intercourse.
14. Cross Booty:
This position is much similar to the X symbol. The boy slides their chest and leg from the missionary position, allowing the pelvis to be in the same location, but limbs form the X position. This position allows the girl to feel their partner’s motion completely.
15. Missionary:
Missionary position is one of the oldest and prominent positions the world has known. In this position, the girl lies on their back while the boy lies face down on top of the girl. This is the most effective and straightforward sex position perfect for all ages starting eighteen, of course.
16. Ballet Dancer:
In this position, the girl stands on one foot facing their partner and wraps their other leg around their waist. The leg wrapped around the waist offer support. This position is suitable for making a connection and quality face time between partners. The ballet dancer position allows for a healthy yet romantic sex session and is appreciated by many partners worldwide.
17. Cowboy:
In this position, the girl lies on their back while their partner straddles them. As the legs are semi-closed, the boy enters gently inside the strap on or finger through the tight opening. The tightness caused increases the intensity of penetration. The cowboy position is quite popular and loved by many partners worldwide.
18. Reverse Cowgirl:
In this, the boy lies on their back while the girl straddles the boy facing their feet. This position is supreme for girls as it gives them total control of the motion. The boy can rest back and let the girl do the movements. The reverse cowgirl position is a popular one and loved by many couples worldwide.
19. Cowgirl:
The girl kneels on top of the boy. By pushing off your partner’s chest, the girl slides up and down their thighs. The girl can release some of the weight on top of e boy by leaning back and taking support on the boy’s thigh.
20. Magic Mountain:
In this, the boy sits down with legs bent, leaning their hand and forearm backward. The girl does the same thing on top of the boy and until they can enter inside. This position allows both of you to look at each other, and the girl can increase their stimulation by grinding their clitoris against their pelvis. The magic mountain position is quite a favored position as it allows to have intimidated sex sessions as both the partners are looking at each other. Partners can easily exchange kisses while having intercourse.
21. Stand and Deliver Position:
Partners need to be in a standing position facing away. In this position, the girl bends over at the waist allowing the boy to enter her behind. This position keeps the vagina of the girls tight and increasing stimulation while penetrating. The girl can slightly loosen her vagina to let the boy enter her by parting the legs.
22. Leapfrog:
The leapfrog position is a modified form of the doggy position. The girl has to get on their hands and knees to get started, keeping their hips raised. Take rest by resting your heads and arms on the bed. The boy enters the girl in a kneeling position. This position allows for deep penetration, and the girl is free to play with her clitoris while the boy is inside.
23. Wheelbarrow Position:
In this position, the girl has to get on their hands and feet, and the boy has to pick her up, holding the pelvis. The girl has to grip the boy’s waist with the help of her thighs. This is a male-dominant sex position and allows for deeper penetration. The boy can have a more profound position as he has total control over this position.
24. Cowgirls Helper:
This position is similar to the cowgirl position wherein the girl kneels on top by pushing off their partner’s chest and sliding up and down the thighs. This position is perfect for a good climax as it puts less stress on the girl’s leg. This is a female dominant sex position wherein the girl can delay the climax if she wishes. The cowgirl helper position is much similar to the cowgirl position and is highly renowned and a favorite one of many partners.
25. G-Whiz Position:
This sex position is regarded as one of the best for girls because when she raises her legs, it narrows the vagina and helps the boy target the G-spot. In this position, the girl lies back with the legs resting on each boy’s shoulders. Every girl should try the G-Whiz position to get the maximum sensation and reach a climax like no other.
26. Flatiron Position:
In this sex position, the girl lies face down on the bed with her legs positioned straight and hips slightly raised. The boy enters the girl from behind. This sex position allows the boy to enter from the back, making her feel the penis even longer. Shallow thrusts and deep breathing in this position will help the intercourse last for long and exciting for both partners.
27. Pretzel Dip:
This sex position allows deeper penetration similar to doggy style but allows partners to have eye contact. In this position, the girl lies on the right side while the boy kneels. The girl straddles her right leg and curls the left leg around the side of the boy. This position also allows the boy to rub the clits while being inside the girl exciting for girls during intercourse.
28. Doggy Style:
A doggy style sex position is one of the most popular among all the positions and is very favorable for partners. The girl kneels with her hand on the ground while the boy kneels and enters you from behind. The upper body should be straight and slightly raised off the girl for the boy to enter her. This position is popular because it provides deeper penetration and G-spot stimulation is easier.
This position also allows the boy to play with the clitoris while being inside. The girl can also play with her clitoris while the boy is inside her using one hand for support.
29. Face-Off position:
In this position, your partner sits on the chair or the edge of the bed, and the girl faces them while being seated on their lap. The face-off position is the right one if you are looking forward to getting intimate with your partner as both can face each other and exchange kisses while having intercourse. During this position, the girl has total control of the angle and depth of entry.
30. Corkscrew Position:
This position allows the girl to have a tighter hold, and it is necessary to try for partners. The corkscrew position is generally done near the edge of a bed or bench. The girl rests on their forearm and presses their thighs together. The boy stands and straddles the girl entering from behind. This position is also perfect for grinding if you are not in the mood of entering your partner. The girl can participate by thrusting the hip slightly and matching the tempo for the best experience. | https://medium.com/@lovesextoys/30-best-positions-for-a-perfect-happy-ending-42abd9b7fa8b | ['Love-Sex Toys'] | 2021-01-19 08:48:30.731000+00:00 | ['G Spot Vibrator', 'Love And Sex', 'Sex Positions'] |
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How Rape Play Saved My Sanity | This one’s a doozy. What in the hell is rape play, why would anyone want to do it (especially if they’ve been raped), and how can it possibly lead to healing?
I definitely can’t speak for everyone. I can simply share my own experience with it. It actually starts decades ago when I was in therapy. I was already writing, which is a suggestion many therapists give to those with trauma in their past. They’re always full of useful exercises and tools that are geared towards healing and integration. For my visually-inclined mind it was perfect, setting up worlds, rearranging and reimagining events, and creating scripts to follow with those who’d hurt me that I could practice by myself or with others. The point of any and all of that is to gradually and safely confront the traumatic events and to cut through all of the confusion and pain surrounding it. It was a way to dig deeper, to find the roots, and to yank it up and plant something better in its place.
But when one of my partners told me he would rape me until I fought back I thought he was insane.
He wasn’t threatening me. He was angry on my behalf. All of that rage I’d never expressed was tightly coiled inside of me, with no outlet besides my stories. He wanted to know what had happened to me. He wanted to understand it. Fight, flight, and freeze are our natural evolutionary responses to danger and he wanted to rewire mine to fight.
Now, the majority of rape play is one-way: there is the person (or several persons) in power and the person (or several) without. It’s not violent (although some people like it rough) and it’s not about physical strength. It’s all in the mind, in a way: some people get off on the fear, some get off on being manipulated or coerced, and others include other kinks with it. It is about someone taking power and someone losing power. It is mental much more than it is physical.
What separates it from actual rape are the many safety nets surrounding kink itself: safe, sane, and consensual. Everything is discussed beforehand, thoughtful before and aftercare are necessities, and it is done with the enthusiastic and informed consent of all involved. Even though it’s play it’s a very heavy thing and should not be taken lightly. In these situations, each person involved is in control of how it develops, how far to go, and when it stops.
Going back to my partner, the surprise I felt at hearing he wanted to rape me wasn’t born from fear. I was surprised because I’d never thought he was the least bit kinky. He’d always been far more vanilla than me. Also, like many people I had often wondered if fantasizing about rape meant there was something wrong with me, especially considering my past. There wasn’t, and isn’t, anything wrong with me as far as that’s concerned. Rape fantasies are extremely common and by themselves they do not indicate unhealthiness.
However, taking it a step further and turning the fantasy into reality is always fraught with danger. If I did not trust him (and wasn’t a switch) and if he didn’t trust me it would have never worked. Over the course of a few weeks, each night he’d hold me down and start to take his pleasure. My heart raced, my mind tried to run away, and there was always a niggling, fleeting worry of what if? He’d cover my mouth so I couldn’t speak. But this wasn’t about my words. My adrenalin started flowing and when he tried to push in I’d fight. Only a little bit those first few days. He would always stop and hold me afterwards, asking if he’d triggered me, telling me we could try again, comforting me with song.
And as the days passed I felt a new source of power well up within me; my own sense of control, of autonomy. He got rougher and so did I. Eventually I was damn near tossing him across the room. I’d hit him, I’d reach for objects to protect myself with (I never actually used them on him!), and I’d push him away and growl. He told me to tell him what they did and would reenact it as closely as possible. In my mind the moments melded into one. I changed the past by fighting back in the future. I saw what I could have done if only I’d had the strength. I forgave myself for freezing, knowing that at the time it was the best I could do. I cried with him as I came face to face with that terrified little girl and let her express herself.
Cathartic experiences are so rare. Recovering from trauma is hard, but not impossible. Role-playing painful memories isn’t the easiest thing in the world. But we did it. I grew my fangs and rediscovered my bite. I felt my heart and rediscovered my vulnerability. I saw his soul and saw my mirror. Across the years mirrors sprang up, echoes of all the people I’d ever met. Reflections shone as the diamond cleared and all that was left was a rainbow. I’d survived. I’d fought. I’d loved. I’d enjoyed. I wasn’t dead as I had feared. I was alive. So alive. And I was finally able to talk about all of it. To let it out in the open. To take leaps and bounds forward instead of baby steps. I was free.
I am free. | https://medium.com/postmodern-woman/how-rape-play-saved-my-sanity-9b30180b7d9b | ['Michon Neal'] | 2017-10-13 19:11:13.862000+00:00 | ['Consent', 'Sex', 'BDSM', 'Resilience', 'Past'] |
install driver windows 10 | install driver windows 10
Drivers are pieces of software that enable Windows to communicate with the devices you attach to your computer, and Windows 10 has a number of them.
Normally, Windows recognizes and embraces the new component, and everything works as anticipated.
Other times, before completing the task, Windows will connect to the Internet and retrieve some automatic instructions.
However, every now and then, you’re going to plug in something that Windows doesn’t recognize or remember.
Maybe something doesn’t work properly on your PC, and you get some odd messages about the need for a new driver.
Install all of your missing Driver Pack drivers DriverPack automatically selects and installs all drivers free of charge and without limitation.
Table of Contents
We’ve introduced a new virtual Windows 10, and we’ll install all the missing drivers by following the steps below.:-
Driverpack install driver windows 10 ?What is the functionality of the driverpack solution?what is driverpack solution ?Offline Installer for DriverPack SolutionAn Overview of the DriverPack SolutionIs it safe to use DriverPack Online?Is DriverPack Solution available for free?
What is driverpack solution –
Driverpack Solution is a free driver updater tool that, with just a few clicks, finds the correct device driver that your computer needs.
DriverPack Solution is a very helpful piece of software that simplifies the task of keeping drivers up to date.
It removes the need for each driver’s configuration files to be downloaded separately.
Since it is free software, it is a much more useful option for consumers. Because of its user-friendly interface, it can be used by anyone.
For all your driver-related tasks, we highly advise you to try DriverPack Solution.
Downloads and install for you — no clicking through any wizards or installation prompts.
What is the functionality of the driverpack solution –
The DriverPack Solution begins with a system-diagnosis to determine system details such as the BIOS sort, Hard Disk, RAM, antivirus, and so on.
The software then decides which drivers are mounted on your device and scans for changes at the same time.
You have the luxury of upgrading all of the drivers at once or manually choosing a few.
You may also create a restore point to roll back the upgrade if the operating system becomes dysfunctional.
DriverPack Solution shows a status bar on all of these drivers’ downloads. Many of these drivers need a restart after installation.
DriverPack Solution also informs you of the latest driver on your computer and whether or not a newer version is available.
If you want manual installation, you can do so by using the details given by DriverPack Solution to look for the most recent driver.
Offline Installer for DriverPack Solution –
DriverPack Solution is a totally free software that you can get from the internet. Using an offline installer is the simplest way to do this.
An offline installer is a very handy program that only needs the internet to download the configuration files.
You can install DriverPack Solution without using the internet until the installation is complete.
To get the offline installer for the DriverPack solution, click the following links:
You will get DriverPack Full Offline Configuration here (22 GB)
An Overview of the DriverPack Solution –
DriverPack Solution is a driver updater that is available for download.
It automatically detects which drivers are available for your computer and downloads and installs them for you.
It serves as a one-stop shop for all of your driver-related issues.
You won’t have to manually upgrade your drivers if you have this software loaded on your phone.
It’s a simplistic and powerful instrument. Its user-friendly interface, which is devoid of needless clutter, makes it simpler for them.
It is portable software so it does not need installation after downloading. You can get an ISO file when you download DriverPack Solution.
This ISO file just has to be installed before the executable file on it can be run.
Since the ISO file can be downloaded to a USB device and run on different devices, it is portable.
It’s a little piece of software that takes up very little memory.
It also works on all versions of the Windows operating system, from Windows XP to Windows 10.
You can also update the applications immediately after upgrading the operating system to avoid having to go through the hassle of manually installing the drivers for the first time.
Is it safe to use DriverPack Online?
Though DriverPack is secure to use on your PC, it does contain in-app third-party ads that can compromise your privacy.
The ads are already selected in the tabs titled “Drivers,” “Tech,” and “Security.”
Uncheck the boxes that you are not involved in to ensure that you are not installing any unwanted programs.
Although the suggested apps are common, thinking that you already want the services on your PC can be risky.
DriverPack Solution is an open-source initiative that you can contribute to under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
Since the updated editions are not officially protected, you can safely download and update the original version on your PC.
Is DriverPack Solution available for free –
DriverPack Solution was created by Artur Kuzyakov and is available for free download.
Drivers are available for a wide variety of computers, including controllers, scanners, tablets, video cards, and webcams.
DriverPack has a substantial database of driver options.
Driverpack for install driver windows 10 –
Click to Download Driver pack Solution.
Follow these steps :
Go to your browser and search for “driver pack solution”
2. Click on first Link
3. Click to Download
4.Install Driver pack solution
5 . Driver Pack Solution will automatically install all required drivers.
After making your choices on each tab (drivers, apps, security, etc.), click Install All,
the driver pack will download and install all the appropriate drivers and software.
Thank you for visiting and reading my blog post . We hope this post was helpful for you.
If you enjoyed this share this post and write your reviews in comments. Give your feedback and suggestions in comments.
For more posts visit us | https://medium.com/@yuvraj98290/install-driver-windows-10-4ffa030a0d00 | ['Yuvraj Singh'] | 2021-05-22 07:37:34.406000+00:00 | ['Windows Driver', 'Windows', 'Driver'] |
Buddhist Saints in Heaven | Having lived in Vietnam for a number of years I regularly witnessed Buddhist monks walking barefoot through the dirty streets of Vietnam. I was always struck by their humility a sense of grace.
I once went to the memorial to Thich Quang Duc, the Buddhist monk who self immolated during the Vietnam war. There is apparently a pagoda where his heart is preserved in a jar as a relic.
As a Christian living here in Vietnam I was am genuinely humbled by the Buddhists I meet. I was very struck by what I saw as their simplicity and humility and felt they possessed a sense of holiness that we Christians seem to have lost.
The truth is many Christians in the west have become obsessed with personal success and wealth. I think I would have been no different if it weren’t for the fact that I was just not very good at making money.
As I rode around the streets of Vietnam, I couldn’t stop thinking about the holiness I saw in the Buddhist monk as they walked the streets of Vietnam in their bare feet and saffron robes.
In Thailand I had worked briefly at a school that had lessons from the Buddhist monks of the forest. The Thais are very devout and I found many of them to be very good natured and kind.
So anyway the point of this story is this. One day while riding my motorbike to work I looked up to the heavens and said “Lord, I can see the Buddhist saints in Heaven praying for their spiritual children here on earth.”. Jesus said to me “Blessed are you my son, since flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but my father in heaven.”
This amazed me, I realised I hadn’t imagined the sense of holiness I encountered in the Buddhists it was real, but I didn’t understand how.
As a Christian I believe Jesus is part of the Trinity, He is God from God, and has revealed the entirety of the truth to us through his word. So what did this revelation from Jesus mean. Who are the Buddhists and what is the source of their teaching.
I have prayed about this…and what I came to understand is that Jesus as the second person of the Trinity came here to be among us and reveal the truth to us. This is not a new religion but the truth. The truth in how to think, in how to live and in how to know the Father.
This truth was obscured by corruption and sin but it was still there. Jesus in his ministry remarked on the faith of many of those who were not of the Jewish faith. The good Samaritan, the centurion whose servant was sick, the leper who returned to praise God.
Who can forget, at Christs birth, the presence of three wise men who had travelled from other lands to witness an event that must have surely been revealed to them.
It is then by this revelation, a singular gift of grace, that God the father can give to anyone that people throughout the world can come to know something of the truth.
As someone who grew up in a non-Christian household, I can testify to the fact that grace and insight about the nature of truth and reality were something I definitely encountered.
My own understanding of this is that people who preserve what is good and virtuous in themselves and their families and communities are not far way from the Kingdom of God. | https://medium.com/@mrtiengviet/buddhist-saints-in-heaven-13c27cd9e1ee | [] | 2020-12-08 14:16:45.625000+00:00 | ['Christ', 'Buddhism', 'Prayer'] |
Carving Out Another Path | Consulting, freelancing, and self-employment are often used interchangeably, so added clarification will be helpful for the rest of the article (note these terms may be used or viewed differently by others). A distinction is made between individual consultants and Consulting (capital C) (e.g. McKinsey or Boston Consulting Group), which is not discussed here. Rather, consulting may refer to a technical or non-technical “consult”, or a project involving technical works and deliverables. Projects are typically tied to one entity over long periods of time, likely structured as 6 or 12-month contracts. On the other hand, freelancing “gigs” may include technical analyses, writing, perspectives, or other forms of creation, with minimal attachment to any one project, person, or company. Jobs may vary from work performed in an afternoon, through contracts over weeks or months. Freelancing and self-employment are closest by definition herein, whereby a freelancer is self-employed, but may operate without a business entity, while self-employeds often incorporate as an LLC or Corporation.
Traction heuristics
There is no manual nor single approach for how to set up and maintain a freelance operation or consulting business. Nonetheless, either path requires cultivating a network, strengthening relationships, and sustaining (paying) projects. The alumni network from my graduate school provided a base for both contacts and projects. Starting out, early projects included both contracts through other companies (as a subcontractor), and directly with academic researchers who did not have the staff or expertise in particular skills or research topics. Collaborative projects with institutions may not be sufficient to financially sustain a business, but establishment, credibility, and demonstrable success on such projects are important currencies for those just beginning. In particular, I find projects in academia enhance credibility, and those in industry boost establishment for those looking to ultimately stay outside of academia. In addition, demonstrating value on private sector projects helps gain additional work on your own. More expansive and lucrative opportunities live in ecosystems rich with companies, conferences, and even informal scientific meetings, namely Silicon Valley and Boston. While much of the work itself can be performed anywhere, tech or biotech clusters contain strong network effects. As a result, I moved to Boston at the beginning of my journey into self-employment, and empirically, have found co-location a powerful force to build professional relationships.
These heuristics for obtaining work and building networks do not apply as strongly to freelancing, in which case rules of thumb from other creatives should be considered. These recommendations include establishing a business entity and developing work samples accessible through a website or explicitly shared with a professional network. For those coming from an academic setting, independent works are a stronger signal of competence and establishment than a resume detailing theses and publications. A similar case to produce such works can be made for those coming from the private sector, given it is unlikely prior work can be shared. These recommendations do imply time and monetary costs, however are continually easier and cheaper to execute than before. I would not recommend spending a significant amount of time on creating elaborate work samples or an immaculate website, as even the basic website and minimal samples I created were used sparingly. These items serve mainly as the minimum viable product (of yourself), as ultimately websites and work samples are not the ones finding customers and gigs.
Pros, cons, and lessons learned
Self-employment and scientific consulting have their perks. One perk includes broadened occupational exposures, perhaps from networking at conferences or events. In biotech, these occupations may include research directors or technology scouts at larger companies, or to biotech or other “deep tech” investors. I find such encounters to be underappreciated. For instance, there are few other means to witness what it may be like to scope emerging technologies at a large biotech or venture capital fund without working there.
Photo by Jaden Barton on Unsplash
Another benefit is optionality. Maintaining work requires maintaining scope of who is out there and what are the pain points across the scientific ecosystem. If the self-employment path is not a long term option, then this imperative to scope may lead to clarification on what problems are particularly interesting to work on or which people to work with. Another underappreciated point is that unlike the academic and biotech R&D paths, the status of self-employment is readily reversible. The likelihood of changing course otherwise is much lower given the time and effort to lay the foundation of the steps either up towards professorship or up in larger biotech or pharmaceutical companies. To the extent knowledge workers have skills valued by the market, working gigs and building networks can buy time to find which skills are most valued, or skills that can be retooled to meet a more highly-valued demand. For those keen on entrepreneurship, another benefit is skipping credentials. MBA programs cannot faithfully replicate the process of understanding the technical and business challenges in the tech or biotech industries, like one could achieve through direct and bespoke interaction within the industry. Case studies are not equivalent to listening to customers, and to how new technologies or particular expertise could address their needs.
Nonetheless, any path has drawbacks. Particularly if starting from graduate school or post-doctoral research, outsiderness and legitimacy are large hurdles. networks from a strong graduate or postdoctoral program help, however, credibility follows from both the work you have done and your customer base. These hurdles are even higher as a freelancer or consultant operating independently, and I would recommend individuals to either enter business with a colleague or recruit an advisor from industry (these steps may also lead to less awkward conversations at networking events, I have found). Without active planning and development, an independent may be left without models, mentors, or directors to learn from. Fortunately, geographic hubs contain rich entrepreneurial ecosystems with programs for mentorship or business development. Particularly for freelancing, there is a fine line between attaining independence and finding footing. Many of us may carry idealized notions of the creatives, who work less, control schedules, and work from anywhere. However, the work itself, let alone obtaining and sustaining work, is not easy. Traction from early projects is imperative, and the first projects are typically the lowest pay. Everyone should seriously reflect on their own situation and consider risk appetite, finances, and well-being, as reaching a critical mass of work takes considerable time and effort. One cannot forget in choosing this path, one needs to sell.
“Look around. If you don’t see any salespeople, you’re the salesperson” — Zero to One
Particularly for those coming from academic institutions, sales may seem antithetical to idealized purity of research and education. Even so, selling anything, whether it be yourself or your work, serves well in work and life.
The under-considered and contrarian
Among the possible paths of academia, industry research, Consulting, venture capital, government (research or regulatory), and self-employment, the latter is the optimum of safety and freedom on intellectual pursuits. Outstanding research directions from prior work, or new ideas unable to be explored under the prior environment, may be doors cracked open in an independent work situation. Great advancements often come from tinkerers and inventors, although this title has gone out of style in today’s world of cross-disciplinary research and hyper-specialization. Nonetheless, independent innovation has advantages, including ownership if successful, or a lack of beholdeness if not, whether to publishing expectations in academia or to returns on investment in industry or venture capital. Academia is a suitable environment to de-risk existing technologies or research projects in their infancy. Otherwise, the inventive incentive for trainees and researchers is extremely low, and one should consider other means to de-risk ideas. Additionally, for those with an entrepreneurial itch, exploratory research directions which couple technical traction with sound business logic is one means to begin the journey.
Photo by James Wheeler from Pexels
At the time of this writing, SARS-CoV-2 remains highly consequential to work environments and career planning, and subsequently requires an addendum. On one hand, the forced experiment of remote work proves more can be done anywhere than previously thought. Conversely, I now believe there is no true replacement for both an ecosystem of biotechnology, to network and prospect projects, and the increased efficacy of work under physical co-location. As I look back on the beginning phases of my journey into self-employment, starting from a move to Boston, my best guess is a similar “leap” in 2020, without relocating, would be extremely challenging. Nonetheless, I hope the tradeoffs and experiences outlined here are still informative for any new and creative means to self-employment that may arise in these times. | https://medium.com/bioeconomy-xyz/carving-out-another-path-22c3ca29a4a7 | ['Seth Rhoades'] | 2020-11-02 14:54:09.080000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'Freelancing', 'Science', 'Biotechnology', 'Self Employed'] |
¿Por qué Danilo Medina ganará en el 2020? | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/el-blog-de-jose-rosado/por-qu%C3%A9-danilo-medina-ganar%C3%A1-en-el-2020-f945ea6efa8a | ['Jose Rosado'] | 2016-06-02 03:03:22.855000+00:00 | ['Spanish', 'Politica'] |
“Are you happy now?” | This is a question coming out of my mouth after a few months of not talking to you
“No, I’m not.”
I thought you find your happiness already because God has sent you someone that should’ve fill your void.
Then I ask you what do you do to make you happy?
“I could think of a million ways to be hard on myself, but I don’t have the answer to your simple question.”
Then you gave me a same question instead of an answer. I was confused when you ask how can I make you happy?
“It was a tough question for me too.” I answer.
“You don’t have to really do it of course, I just want to know how.”
Of course I am no one to do it for you anymore sweetie, but I don’t have the answer to that question too.
At this particular time, I am sure what to do to myself.
For almost 2 years, I was trying to give and give and give, and making sure what I gave is the best, and I’m giving mostly me, I tried to give the best version of myself for one only purpose, to make you happy, to help you open your eyes and see that you’re worth. You’re worth all the love, you’re worth of all of the happiness., you’re worth all of the best things. I was trying to prove it to you.
But when you told me you are not happy.
When you ask me how to make you happy.
It’s like a slap on my face. A punch even.
So that is the reason why you can’t see what I was trying gave you.
How can you feel loved, how can you be happy? You were too blind to see it yourself, thinking that you’re unworthy, and shuting down yourself, trying to prove yourself, being hard on yourself.
Not knowing how to make you happy.
How can anyone else give you happiness when you don’t know to receive? | https://medium.com/@jeanicefelincia20/are-you-happy-now-1f84bf8e59d8 | ['Jeanice Felincia'] | 2020-05-26 14:36:47.305000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'How To Be Happy', 'Love', 'Lovestory', 'Poetry'] |
Between Waterfall and Agile | Product/Software Development
The development of a product/software comprises the following key activities:
Requirements Gathering from the customer/user or market specialist. They define what the product/software is expected to do/be. Requirements are not technical solutions.
from the customer/user or market specialist. They define what the product/software is expected to do/be. Requirements are not technical solutions. Architecture & Design : this phase, which can be split into two phases in complex systems, translates the requirements to technical specifications. Architecture deals with the high-level design, and the definition of the interfaces and interactions between subsystems. Design deals with the components, functions, subsystems, etc.
: this phase, which can be split into two phases in complex systems, translates the requirements to technical specifications. Architecture deals with the high-level design, and the definition of the interfaces and interactions between subsystems. Design deals with the components, functions, subsystems, etc. Implementation/coding of the specified design. This task can be done by the designer, by another developer, or automated.
of the specified design. This task can be done by the designer, by another developer, or automated. Testing : there are two types of tests, verification and validation (V&V). Verification checks that the design and implementation work as expected (e.g. unit testing, white-box testing). Validation checks that what we designed and implemented actually fulfills the requirements (mainly black-box testing).
: there are two types of tests, verification and validation (V&V). Verification checks that the design and implementation work as expected (e.g. unit testing, white-box testing). Validation checks that what we designed and implemented actually fulfills the requirements (mainly black-box testing). Release: in the case of software development, this phase entails the deployment and maintenance activities. In the case of a hardware product, it entails mass production.
There are different ways to perform these activities. The best way would depend on the type of the product and the market, the aggressiveness of the competition, the experience of your team, and so on.
The development practices fall broadly into two models: Waterfall (sequential, rigid, and one-shot) and Agile (adaptive, iterative, and incremental). In reality, there is a vast gray area between the two, and one can (or must) customize a model that is best suited for the project. Here are some models:
Waterfall
V-Model
Sashimi Model
Incremental Waterfall
Unified Process
Spiral Model
Agile Mindset and Practices
Most of the models above are inspired by the software industry, by can be easily adjusted to other industries. For more details refer to Agility — Beyond Software Development. Here, software and product are used interchangeably.
The Waterfall Model
The Waterfall model is a sequential process, as illustrated in the following figure.
This model can be very efficient in the following cases:
if the requirements are well defined and understood, and
if the teams are skilled and have experience building similar product/software, and
if no change (in requirements, design, or else) is required or might occur during the development.
Waterfall is for predictive and repeatable (business-as-usual) projects. Its major drawbacks are:
No flexibility : once the design started, the customers cannot introduce any change in the requirements.
: once the design started, the customers cannot introduce any change in the requirements. Mistakes are costly : design errors and requirements misunderstanding are detected late, during the testing phase, when the error cost is the highest.
: design errors and requirements misunderstanding are detected late, during the testing phase, when the error cost is the highest. Not customer-centric: the first release comes late in the process, and the customer/user needs to wait until the end of the development to test the product.
The V-Model
The V-model is an advanced version of the Waterfall that overcomes some of its shortcomings. By emphasizing the tests earlier, defining their acceptance criteria during the Architecture and Design phase, the team could avoid some errors and misunderstandings. This requires more upfront work. The V-model is presented below:
Besides reducing the mistakes (and their costs), the V-model has the same cons as the Waterfall model: no flexibility, nor customer feedback before the release. Thus, it remains better suited for the same type of projects as for Waterfall (predictive and repetitive).
The Sashimi Model
The Waterfall and V models are sequential and not adaptive; every phase relies on the previous one. They don’t allow for adjusting (shortening) the project schedule. They might result in poor resource utilization; for instance, during the design phase, the implementation team and testing team will be waiting and cannot work on the project.
The Sashimi model is a way to overcome these problems. It is based on the Waterfall model but allows for the overlapping between different phases when possible. The design team can start working on the requirements that were defined, while the marketing team is working on the rest of the requirements. The V&V team can test some functions while the designers are working on other functions, and so on.
This could shorten the development time and allow for better use of the skills and resources. The drawback of this process is that it may result in rework, and waste of time.
The Incremental Waterfall
Another variant of the Waterfall model is the incremental model. In this model, the project is divided into several parts that can be performed incrementally. This could allow for the overlap between increments (parallel workflow) to improve resource utilization.
Some projects are based on previous projects (product replacement, Kaizen, or next-generation), in this case, most of the upfront work and design are already there. The team can implement in increments to speed up the development and deliver value earlier. This is shown in the following figure.
Using the incremental model, the organization may profit from early value delivery, and get feedback and make necessary changes between increments if possible. The weakness of this model is that it may cause rework and increase the cost. This model allows for some adaptivity in the process, a value that is embraced by the Agile mindset.
The V, Sashimi, and Incremental models are variants of the Waterfall model. They work best for predictable projects, with rather experienced teams. The next two models (Unified Process and Spiral) are more suited for high-risk projects and allow for more adaptivity.
The Unified Process
The Unified Process (UP) is a framework that can incorporate other methods and models. It focuses on risk mitigation for big and risky projects. By allowing for iterative and incremental development, it increases the chances of success. It is a flexible approach, centered mainly on the architecture and use cases.
The Unified Process divides the project into four phases (with overlap):
Inception
Elaboration (milestone)
Construction (release)
Transition (final production release)
Even if the requirements are not all known early, the UP welcomes new requirements during the development.
By adopting the UP framework, the organization may profit from earlier value delivery. However, it is a rather complicated framework that may consume more resources. It is ill-suited for small projects.
The Spiral Model
The Spiral model is recommended for big projects with very high risks of failure (e.g. aerospace projects). It is a risk-driven cyclic model that comprises four steps:
Determine objectives
Identify and resolve risks
Develop and test
Plan the next iteration
These four steps are iterate over and over until we achieve the end product. The spiral model is iterative and incremental. It is adaptive and allows for changing requirements at any time during the development. It is a risk-driven that embraces the “fail fast to learn fast” mindset. It can incorporate other models and can be considered on the Agile side of the spectrum.
Agile Mindset and Practices
On February 11th — 13th, 2001, at The Lodge at Snowbird ski resort in the Wasatch mountains of Utah, USA, seventeen experienced software developers met to talk, ski, relax, and try to find common ground — and of course, to eat. What emerged was the Agile Software Development Manifesto, with 4 values and 12 principles that are summarized in the following figure.
Agile Practices
Agile is a Software development mindset that embraces change. It is neither a process nor a model, but a set of values and principles. It is a flexible approach for Software development that helps organizations to adapt fast to the market change. We can’t talk about the Agile process or Agile model, we rather talk about Agile Practices. They are proven practices to organize teams, manage workflow, track progress, and deliverables, etc. so that Software projects are conducted the Agile way.
The most popular Agile practice is Scrum, which is often mistaken for Agile. Other practices are Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), Feature Driven Development (FDD), Crystal, Test Driven Development (TDD), Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM), etc.
Scrum is today an established project management practice, with defined roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Scrum Team) and rituals (sprints, daily scrums, sprint retrospectives, etc.).
For more details refer to Agility — Beyond Software Development.
References | https://medium.com/@mohamad-koteich/between-waterfall-and-agile-the-gray-area-e8275a5fa9af | ['Mohamad Koteich'] | 2020-12-31 10:38:41.486000+00:00 | ['Engineering', 'Project Management', 'Software Development', 'Agile', 'Scrum'] |
Improving conversion rates by 75% just fixing minor UX problems. | Context
A client came to us with just one task: “We want conversion to increase twice.”
How simple and clear it sounded, and what a great challenge the task itself actually was. Not only we had limitations with the development platform, our role was to give some recommendations to the client to pick up which to implement.
The project implied to include three stages: a deep UX research, implementation and testing the most viable ideas, and redesign the website.
Client
Vocier is a luxury suitcases brand, founded by two ingenious entrepreneurs and designers. The brand unique suitcases have not only functional and well thought-out design but leave the suit always wrinkle-free, what makes them an irreplaceable attribute of any business traveler.
“The world’s first zero crease carry on.” Vocier luggage system uses the patented unique system to keep suits free of wrinkles.
Vocier products were awarded by many design competitions, including IF Design Award, German Design Award, Red Dot Award, James Dyson Award, and were recommended by the WSJ, GQ, Esquire, Capital, Vogue.
Concern
The current site was designed a couple years ago and now is working as a major sales channel. The client realized that it needs improvement to be met the today’s audience needs, but he was not ready for redesign.
Team & Timeline
The whole Vintage Web Production UX department partook in a project.
All research took 2 weeks.
Our approach
We wanted to focus on the customer’s user experience and start with improving the key pain points in customer journey.
Plan
Research. Survey User Personas Storyboard Brainstorming Hypotheses sorting and prioritizing Competitive analysis Web analytics User testing (aimed to form hypotheses) Hypotheses and recommendations Result
Research
Moodboard
Before starting, we dove into the customer’s’ world and surrounded ourselves with pictures which could surround real customers. It helped us better understand the clients of the brand, empathize their process of purchasing a new suitcase.
Survey
As usual, we have started our research with survey. Its goal was to reveal the key pain points of suitcase owners, their preferences, expectations, and problems they could face. We asked respondents how comfortable their suitcases are, what kind of bag they use and what they do like and dislike about them.
We got over 25 responses (entrepreneurs, directors, sales representatives, travellers). And that’s what we found.
Key requirements for the suitcases:
Main weak spots of suitcases:
too small short-lived zip short-lived straps slimsy handle mechanism slimsy rollers made from thin texture
User Personas
We have analyzed people who engage with Client’s and it’s competitors on social networks.
Based on survey answers and conducted analysis we have created 4 personas.
We’ve analyzed Vocier and its main competitors’ customers and their social media profiles, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Based on survey answers and conducted analysis, we’ve got 3 personas.
A persona is a collective image of a specific group of people. Although it is depicted as a person, a persona is an imagery individual representing a particular kind of customers. Personas allow designers to focus on a manageable and memorable cast of characters, instead of aiming on a generic ‘target audience.’
David — our primary persona. Being a business consultant, David has to take short business trips quite often. He always wears suits and his clothing always needs to look perfect, any wrinkles are unacceptable.
Patrick, the second persona. He is a stylish man and for him, a brand is important.
Truc is the third persona.
As for now, Vocier targets more male auditory, but based on our analysis, we suggested that there was a great opportunity for the business to aim on women.
So here is Truc, she is a successful women. Truc likes to go shopping for herself and for her boyfriend.
Storyboard
To summarize personas’ pain points and get a deeper understanding of Vocier’s customers and personal stories behind them, we have created a storyboard.
Brainstorming
Hypotheses sorting and prioritizing
Competitive analysis
Competitive analysis implies a parsing of features and the main user scenario of competing websites.
We moved on competitive analysis to see how Client’s competitors solve TA problems on their websites and to determine what unique features we could develop for the Vocier’s website.
The most important thing the analysis revealed is that the current website lacks the necessary functionality which helps people to choose a product and make a decision to purchase.
Most of the competitors have the following features on their websites that form the general user expectations in the industry:
Horizontal menu
Items / Sorting
Filter by color and item at Product Card
Favorite items
Website search
View 360 and zoom
Personal Account (optional)
Web Analytics
We did not forget also to check Google analytics stat. That significantly helped us form the hypothesis for Usability Testing.
A brief analysis of the statistical data revealed the following:
1/3 of all the visitors are women, and they bring up to 40% of the revenue — It is necessary to develop the female segment Most of the purchases are made from iPad and iPhone devices — The website must be optimized for iPad-iPhone There is a 30% bounce rate from Cart — The page must be fixed Checkout Page: a 30% bounce rate — users move to Journal, Contacts, T&C — Menu needs to be removed from Checkout Page so that nothing distracts a user from completing an order
User Testing
Based on the personas’ needs revealed, competitive analysis, and Google analytics statistics, we’ve formed major hypotheses on how conversion rate could be increased.
We’ve conducted the qualitative usability testing of both desktop and mobile website to test our ideas.
Key findings for the mobile version:
The button on Main Page is generally perceived by users as a link to Catalog
The main advantage (wrinkle-free) is not communicated enough. Instead, most of the test participants thought that luxury of the product is its main advantage
People don’t really understand the information from How It Works pages
The button Cart is hard to notice
The button Add to cart is hard to find on Product Page
Gaps revealed on the desktop version:
It seemed like the website is primarily for the older generation
The respondents had some problems with Catalog navigation: they didn’t get how collections differ one from another
It is impossible to understand what kind of material a product is crafted from — photos are too small, and product descriptions lack of this information
People failed to zoom photos on Product Page to review all the details
It’s impossible to add an item from additionally proposed ones to Cart immediately
All respondents had difficulties when filling all the fields on Checkout Page
When browsing the website on iPad, a user is asked to flip the screen
Hypotheses and recommendations
We’ve created 70 hypotheses and recommendations to improve the conversion rate for the website.
Together with the client, we’ve picked up 10 changes that would not take a lot of time to implement and would be effective.
For How It Works page, we’ve made illustrations more clear and understandable.
At Collections Page when hovering the mouse over an item, the item does not become highlighted, so a user doesn’t really get that they will jump to Product Page. The distinction between items from Product List is not evident.
Hovering was made more evident and added extended product descriptions: differences, characteristics, etc.
Product Page also was updated. Users had a problem of transmitting pictures views from all angles. We have added a photo gallery and video of the product.
Another problem was that users searched for Add to Cart button at the bottom of the page, where it was not. So we’ve add CTA to the bottom of the page.
We also worked on improving Cart. First of all, we have removed Side Menu from Cart Page.
Continue Shopping and Checkout buttons looked similar. We’ve made Continue Shopping button less noticeable and Checkout — more visible.
Also we’ve simplified Checkout Page by reducing the amount of inputs and dividing the form.
So basically, we have fixed some of the standard UX mistakes.
What was the result?
After conducting A/B testing, conversion on the “fixed” version of the website was 75% higher than on the old version.
Takeaways
It was a great challenge, but first steps are already done and we see major improvements on website performance.
This case study shows us that even small improvements on UX, such as enlarging a button or changing an icon, could lead to significant sales increase. | https://uxdesign.cc/improving-conversion-rates-by-75-just-fixing-minor-ux-problems-case-study-7761cd00ba1a | ['Masha Kokovina'] | 2017-10-12 16:46:50.761000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'Case Study', 'Business', 'User Experience', 'Design'] |
The Last Jedi | The Last Jedi
This is the beginning of what i think Star Wars the last jedi could have been. So when the force awakens came out, they gave us a bunch of new characters but no history. which is perfect cause then they can tell their stories over the next two movies, but instead they dont answer anything in the next movie and overload on information by the last movie. So this is my opinion on how they could have made The Last Jedi. First of, they laid down some good ground work with Ben Solo. In the legends, luke had a son named ben, and leia and han had three kids, twins then a third child. i think in the last Jedi, you introduce rey as one half of the twins that luke is the father of. with everyone believing the other twin is dead. but behind the scenes, the twin is actually alive and being raised by the sith. Kylo, who is Ben Solo, doesnt know his cousin is with the sith because they are raising the twin as the real heir to the empire thinking Kylo cant be trusted. for the movie itself, Luke trains Rey. through the force, he comes to find out that Rey is his daughter and tells her about her twin brother and her mother, who is mara jade. At the same time Kylo is talking to Snoke and he introduces to jacen, Lukes son and reys twin brother, in hoping that together the cousins can come together and defeat Luke and rey. But Kylo gets mixed feelings from Snoke keeping him a secret and doubt starts to build in his mind for joining the dark side, especially since he killed han, his father, in the force awakens. now the first order closes in on the jedis that are training, as the battle between Kylo and Rey begins, Snoke and Luke square off.. Kylos doubt shows up and it allows rey to hurt him. Snoke losing the battle to Luke, sees kylo hurt and decides to bring jacen out to face rey. in the beginning, luke doesnt sense that his son is fighting rey, his daughter, but at some point he feels the force through the young man and it freezes him. luke calls out to him hoping he will remember but he doesnt. rey now is trying to remind him but jacen brushes them off. Out of no where Leia shows up to the battle field to face Snoke and help her son Ben come home. in all this madness, Snoke wounds Luke, Rey and Jacen continue their fight as Leia steps in to fight Snoke. Leia feels kylos thoughts and doubt through the force and decides to sacrifice herself in hoping it will save Ben. The movie ends with the Jedis in retreat while the first order tends to Kylos wounds as he cries out for his mother. Luke is shaken seeing his sister die and also finding out that his son is alive. Snoke is happy how Jacen handled himself but is concerned that he might have lost Kylo to Leias sacrifice….. Star Wars: The Last Jedi | https://medium.com/@kevflowers91/the-last-jedi-e38fa294f8f9 | [] | 2020-12-19 23:30:54.452000+00:00 | ['Star Wars', 'Disney', 'Fantasy', 'Science Fiction', 'Fanfiction'] |
How do I Recover my SBCglobal Password? | How do I Recover my SBCglobal Password?
Are you forget your SBCglobal password? and you need to know the process to recover/reset sbcglobal password so call on +1–8888–256–1911 helpline number and get your solutions. Guiding Tech Dec 17, 2020·2 min read
To check the email that you got on the Sbcglobal account it is very well known that you need to enter the username and password. But, when entering the login credentials, you come to know that you are confused with the account password and do not know what shall be done now. Then you shall not panic or create a fuss. There is a known solution to every problem and this problem of yours can also be resolved. And to know-how, you need to refer to the steps related to recovering the account. To know how to proceed, you can refer to the steps below.
Sbcglobal Password Reset
Steps to Recover Sbcglobal Account!
Start by opening any preferred web browser and head over to the sign-in page from the search bar at the top. When the new screen gets displayed in front of you with the Sbcglobal email then enter the username that you want to recover and tap “Next”. In the password section, tap on the “Forgot Password” option so that you land on the recovery page of Sbcglobal. When the recovery page gets displayed you will be asked to choose any one recovery option. If you choose recovery by text then check the phone number linked to the account and tap the “Send Code” option. You will be getting the verification code for the Sbcglobal password reset as SMS. Check the same and enter the recovery code on the page and tap “Next”. Sbcglobal will be checking the code and then asking you to create a new password. Make sure that this time you create a strong but easy to memorize the password. When you are done, enter the password once again in the second box and tap “OK”. to confirm.
SBCglobal Password Recovery
Users who do not have the access to a linked phone number can still get access. Here, to proceed with Sbcglobal password recovery you can either choose to use alternate email as the recovery option or by answering the security questions. In case, users are still clueless on how to get the access back then he can proceed to contact customer service.
Contact Sbcglobal Customer Service to Seek Assistance!
Sbcglobal has a dedicated and separate branch for users who need any kind of assistance or information. So, if you are still stuck with your account recovery issue or password issue then you are free to get in touch with Sbcglobal customer service on any of its platforms. The customer service is made available 24/7 with highly qualified customer experts who understand users’ needs and the value of time.
Sbcglobal Customer Service
Therefore, the next time you are stuck with Sbcglobal email and its functions then you are free to contact its customer support if you are unable to get the resolution. | https://medium.com/@guidingtech/how-do-i-recover-my-sbcglobal-password-e559d6c95d55 | ['Guiding Tech'] | 2020-12-17 11:56:05.829000+00:00 | ['Forgot', 'Recover', 'Sbcglobal', 'Email', 'Password'] |
The Most Beautiful Hidden Beaches in the World | The hunt for the perfect beach means that many of the best spots in the world are well known to holidaymakers, leaving them overcrowded at the best of times. We’ve delved a little deeper and come up with a few options from around the globe that you have probably never heard of. Here is our collection of the most beautiful hidden beaches in the world.
Redhead Beach
You aren’t exactly short of options in New South Wales, or indeed in many of the other coastal states of Australia, but this spot is still something of a precious find. Rocky cliffs shelter the main stretch of sand and perhaps it is the steep inclines that put off unsuspecting sunseekers, as they can initially feel intimidating. Once you’re on the beach itself though, you’re in for a treat. Further along the coast you’ll find Nine Mile Beach, a solid alternative with its sections dedicated to dog walkers and 4WD enthusiasts.
Photo by Lynda Hinton on Unsplash
Totaranui Beach
Among the sheltered gems nestled within Abel Tasman National Park, you’ll find the spectacular Totaranui Beach. With clear, blue waters and golden sands, this is the ideal spot to unwind after a spot of trekking — either by cooling down with a swim, or trying your hand at kayaking and fishing. There’s also a campground nearby if you want to spend a little longer taking in your surroundings.
Photo by David Tip on Unsplash
Playa de Rodas
We’ve been obsessing over the Spanish region of Galicia recently. Seemingly home to everything we want from a holiday in one convenient package, the area is best known for its lush, green landscapes, but there are also fantastic beaches here. The island chain of Islas Cíes (Cies Islands) hides the stunning, white sand beach of Playa de Rodas, which those in the know rank as one of the best beaches in the country.
Photo by Alejandro Piñero Amerio on Unsplash
Triopetra
This relatively untouched beach is named after the three rocks that lend the shore its dramatic looks. Like many of the best beaches on the Greek island of Crete, Triopetra has turquoise water crashing against pristine sand, with the big difference being a distinct lack of big crowds. As the location is slightly further away from the main airport than more commercial resorts, it is best to travel here by car. Once you’ve parked up, however, you can leave all of those stresses behind and enjoy the incredible views.
Photo by Evangelos Mpikakis on Unsplash
Cala Corsara
A hidden cove on the island of Spargi in the Sardinian Archipelago della Maddalena, this tempting spot is untamed and wild. That makes it ideal for those seeking isolation, but a bit of a challenge for more casual travellers. If you’re up for an adventure you can hop on one of the boats on the island and seek out the beach yourself.
Photo by Simone Pellegrini on Unsplash
Fornillo Beach
Here’s proof that even the busiest destinations still have plenty to discover for curious travellers. The Amalfi Coast is one of the most popular holiday destinations in Europe and cute villages like Positano have become a favourite for Instagrammers around the world. If you see the crowds on the main beach here, don’t worry, all you have to do is follow the shaded path to Fornillo. Here you’ll be able to enjoy a cold drink and the best cuisine like a true local.
Photo by Maria Bobrova on Unsplash
Three Cliffs Bay
Three Cliffs Bay is a picturesque cove that is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful sites in Wales. The surrounding area might not meet the standards of the ultimate destination, but that’s not to say that the rough terrain is too off-putting either. All of that doesn’t really matter when you finally get to the water, with this beach one of the best-kept secrets in the UK.
Photo by Rhiannon Elliott on Unsplash
Pentle Bay
While tourists understandably flock to Cornwall’s picturesque beaches and towns, few venture as far as the Isles of Scilly, even though they lie just a little way offshore. The Isles can only be reached by ferry (or small plane if you’re really fancy) but the journey is worth it. At Pentle Bay, on the Isle of Tresco, rugged grassland lines a narrow sand beach where the waters shimmer in myriad hues of blue.
Yonaha Maehama Beach
Japan isn’t the first place you think of when it comes to a beach holiday, largely due to the plethora of enchanting vistas you’ll find elsewhere in the country. The coastline of Okinawa, however, will quickly change your mind and Yonaha Maehama is regarded as the best beach on the tropical island paradise. Though there are hotels and campsites a little further inland, you’ll rarely find encounter beachgoers on a trip here.
Photo by Adriel Kloppenburg on Unsplash
Secret Beach
Not only is the name of the beach a dead giveaway, but can you believe that one of the best beaches in America is in Oregon? Whilst not a secret among the locals, who prefer to find spots away from the crowds, Secret Beach remains blissfully isolated. Anyone hoping to visit needs to be aware that you can only venture here at low tide. Still, all things considered, this is one to write home about.
Photo by Cameron Venti on Unsplash
Puerto Morelos
When the crowds of Cancun become too unruly for your liking, take a trip to the quiet fishing village of Puerto Morelos. There’s a noticeable change of pace here and the relaxed vibe makes for an authentic experience. Explore the sea and go snorkelling in the clear waters, or simply look on from a sun lounger on the white sandy beach. | https://medium.com/@culturetrip/the-most-beautiful-hidden-beaches-in-the-world-a1706f3a63bf | ['Culture Trip'] | 2021-05-06 12:30:12.459000+00:00 | ['Oceans', 'Travel', 'Holidays', 'Sun', 'Beach'] |
I Got Botox | I Got Botox
The wonder drug from which you should run, screaming.
Grimace.
On my 30th birthday I sat in an office in Beverly Hills and winced while a doc shot 40 ccs of botulism into several holes that he made in my face.
Freezing my face was a big mistake. I know that now. I think. The problem is, I did it three times, each time unhappy with the result, each time going back for more. My high school once had a headmistress who became famous for accidentally shooting her lover in the back – nine times. So it was with me and Botox. Somehow, it just kept happening.
The first time, I sat for a few minutes in a waiting room before the doctor arrived. On one wall hung a giant poster of Greta Garbo. Comforting. I was following in the footsteps of the great beauties of history… by turning my face into impassive, impenetrable mask. Actually, my modern-woman’s lot was much better. I didn’t have to paste up my eyebrows with stick’um. Science would smooth my brow.
The doctor arrived. First we quickly cleared him of all possible wrongdoing with the necessary paperwork. I jokingly asked him why the price of Botox hadn’t come down yet, and he told me, very seriously, that he’s not the one profiting; he barely makes anything off a sitting.
“So you’re saying it’s a loss leader?”
He laughed and said yes. Apparently, Botox is plastic surgery’s gateway drug.
“OK, another question. Would it be possible just to clear up the line between my eyes, and leave the rest alone?”
He paused, and gave me a look.
“But what about the rest of your lines? Your forehead…” he trailed off, confused.
“I know. It’s just that it’s the line between my eyes that I’m really worried about. The rest doesn’t really bother me.”
“Well, if we cover more ground – here, and here, and here, and oh yes, probably here,” he said, dusting my face with his fingertips,” I think you’ll have a more natural result.”
I laughed.
“Natural?! We’re talking about using a toxin to disable my face.”
He laughed back – notably, without the involvement of his forehead.
“Don’t worry, I hate the frozen look. You’ll have the lift you need around your eyebrows.”
“Please don’t make me look like Joe Biden.”
“You won’t look like Joe Biden.”
I broke down pretty easily. Three days later I had the faint ability to raise the far corners of my eyebrows. | https://humanparts.medium.com/i-got-botox-fa16867259e | ['Sara Grace'] | 2019-02-07 22:31:53.438000+00:00 | ['Body'] |
Qiesto — What’s In A Name?. “Kwesto or is it Kuesto? How do you… | “Kwesto or is it Kuesto? How do you pronounce it? What does it even mean?”.
We’ve gotten this question a lot since announcing Qiesto (pronounced ki-es-to) to the world earlier this year. Most of the people asking are Nigerian so read the sentence with that accent ;-)
At Qiesto, we are building a platform to connect young Africans to opportunities to use and showcase their competencies as a pathway to a meaningful future (jobs, further education or entrepreneurship).
We then get asked how we chose the name and how it’s relevant to the challenge we are trying to solve.
In this post, we hope to shed a bit of light on these questions.
Know Thyself
Qiesto is a play on the French translation of the ultimate self-inquiry question: “who are you?” which, in French, translates to “Qui es tu?”.
At the heart of our work at Qiesto, we help young people take up opportunities that help them develop into highly sought after value providers. Achieving this outcome requires a deep focus on self-awareness and self-reflection as they go through a myriad of learning scenarios.
Amongst the areas around which we hope they develop more awareness includes:
Their beliefs: what are the things they believe that inform the way they think and act? How can they identify and make the effort to transcend limiting beliefs that may hamper their performance? How can they take on new positive beliefs about themselves and the world that will improve their outcomes?
Their values: What things do they hold most dear? How can they build a life and career that is in alignment with their values?
Their personal & professional interests: What issues do they have interest in? What new interests are they developing? How can they build a life and career aligned with their interests?
Their ideal work environment: In what kind of work environment and team scenarios do they thrive? In which ones do they struggle? How might they factor this as they start and build their careers?
Their strengths and weaknesses: What are they naturally great at? What things do they struggle with? What strategies can they use to harness these in order to become their optimal self?
Their personal & professional vision: Where do they see themselves in 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? How has this changed over time?
To learn these and much more about themselves, we have self-reflection and group feedback integrated into the learning experiences we provide young people. This makes every person’s experience unique and particular even if they are going through common learning experiences.
We believe that the more young people know about themselves, the better they project themselves to potential employers, teammates, partners, clients, investors etc, depending on which pathway they choose.
Our name reinforces this belief — “Who are you?”
Work as Fun
The name Qiesto also represents the idea of work being fun.
The popular belief that important things should be serious and generally, work being boring is not considered abnormal. In the industrial age, workers were prepared for this reality by going through an education (schooling) system that bored most children near to tears.
Work is consistently portrayed as drudgery or as the worst aspect of adulting.
There’s no shortage of memes and GIFs expressing the tragic end of the weekend or the need for a vacation in order to escape that “terrible” job. An entire industry has even sprung from the idea of leaving your 9-to-5 for a remote job to be done at a beach somewhere across the world.
This is the ideological environment in which young people today find themselves. In needing and wanting a source of income, they resign themselves to the fact that they might never get a job they love so they settle for whatever they can get.
At Qiesto, we think the common sense on this is nonsense. How you earn your living should be fun for you. It may not always be the raving fun of playing a great video game or attending a great party, but it should be innately pleasurable.
If you will spend 40–60% of your adult life working to earn a living, it should be fun. Postponing fun till vacation or after you have retired is a pretty sad way to live. That’s more existing than living.
To this end, we have designed a learning and working experience built to emphasise the fun. On our platform, members don’t work on projects, they go on missions, challenges or quests (the other source of our name). These quests are deployed by real-world organisations to achieve very clear business and/or social outcomes.
In taking this approach, we introduce our members to a new way of framing work that ties into the achievement of a higher purpose, into the thrill of overcoming obstacles and into the sense of personal growth and mastery.
In this way, we hope to produce a mindset shift to the idea that a job should not mean sacrificing your passion and pleasure. They can be seamlessly integrated with intention.
Getting meaningful work experience can be a fun journey. It can and should be a quest in self-discovery. It can and should be a quest into self-awareness.
Our name Qiesto is therefore a play on the word Quest.
Now You Know, Let’s Talk
So in more than a nutshell, that’s the idea behind the name Qiesto. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
If you like the ideas behind our name and want to be a part of the broader experience we are creating, feel free to connect with us on any of our platforms — our website www.qiesto.com and @QiestoEn on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.
We look forward to engaging with you | https://medium.com/qiesto/qiesto-whats-in-a-name-5f8d6d0e0244 | [] | 2020-05-07 13:44:20.207000+00:00 | ['Youth', 'Africa', 'Employment', 'Careers', 'Qiesto'] |
The Days of our Quarantine Christmas | The Days of our Quarantine Christmas
According to what is objectively the worst Christmas song, there are 12 days of Christmas. 2020 has given our family a Covid bonus: for us, there are 14 days of Christmas quarantine. A pandemic dozen, if you will.
On the first day of Christmas, quarantine gave to me: a swab of my nasal cavity.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. My wife and I had undergone the same procedure in Paris two days earlier, as a condition of boarding the first direct flight from France to Australia in 18 years. The 15 hour flight with three children under eight, after the drama of a rushed repatriation from Europe, had given me the impression that things were on the up-and-up. The chocolates handed out by a jolly Ambassador Bird at the departure gate were a nice touch.
But I definitely should have prepared our three year old, who boldly volunteered to be the first of our family to face the PCR test in arrivals hall of Darwin airport. I won’t soon forget the look of utter betrayal on his face as he realized this procedure wasn’t the fleeting jab and hit of sugar he was used to at the pediatrician.
I’ve never been so pleased to see a 787
On the second day of Christmas, quarantine gave to me: two mozzies biting and an appreciation for the Northern Territory.
Howard Springs Quarantine Facility is in a part of Australia where Ross River Fever is endemic, and it seems the local mosquitos are able to weave between RiD-smeared regions of skin to find their own Christmas dinner in the unlikeliest of spots. The third knuckle of my left hand. My 5 year old’s right eyebrow. My 7 year old’s middle toe. I went to the internet to check which was worse: ‘long Covid’ or an incurable, tropical disease. Still not sure.
Stormy skies bring rain and interrupted wifi
On the third day of Christmas, quarantine gave to me: three special meals, two upset tummies and a pregnant Korean Bibimbap.
Kudos to the Howard Springs caterers who have to feed 500 folk in sweltering heat with minimal contact between staff and us ‘inmates’. But day three was when we started to really miss cooking for ourselves. The kids struggled with the richness of the prepared dinners. The Covid- and food-safe packaging piled up in our room, revealing the waste we were creating. And the dietary requirement system had clearly been hacked by malicious actors. My eco-oriented, fitness-focused and definitely-not-with-child wife was suddenly designated “pregnant — needs extra food”, meaning all her meals were doubled up. Thanks for all the Bibimbap, chef, it was great. Wife not happy, however.
It was not at all clear who was pregnant
On the fourth day of Christmas, quarantine gave to me: four dropped zoom calls, three jet lagged kids, two pissed-off clients and a deep existential crisis.
Moving continents is hard. I was attempting to keep my work contracts going, but they were spread across Europe and the US and my shift in timezone threw out every careful schedule I’d crafted to suit clients without detracting too much from family time. My calls from 6pm to midnight Darwin time intersected perfectly with the spontaneous awakening and endless antics of the two little ones from 12.30 to 5.00 am. The act of pouring rice bubbles into a paper cup for my eldest at 6.00 am led me to question not just the whether we had made the right choice in coming home, but to realize that we are all nothing more than crispy puffs of wheat, isolated pockets of low-entropy matter waiting to be crushed into the linoleum floor of the universe.
Working into the wee hours, mask on, mosquitos out
On the fifth day of Christmas, quarantine gave to me: five single rooms, four angry words, three temp checks, two rescheduled flights and an outbreak in greater Sydney.
Each morning in quarantine starts with me figuring out which of our five identical rooms I’m in, which of my children is trying to push me off the single bed, and which overnight email is most urgent for me to address before breakfast. On day five the answers were ‘B, number 3 and the one from Jetstar’. Our flight from Darwin to Sydney, scheduled for the afternoon we were due to be released, had been cancelled. I admit, I swore a bit. And again when, later that evening, our replacement flight via Adelaide was also canned.
On the sixth day of Christmas, quarantine gave to me: six snakes a slithering, five Coles bags, four calling aunts, three French friends, two sunburnt arms and double shot of instant coffee.
Christmas Eve was upon us and the authorized supermarket deliveries had included a variety of Christmas treats. Bubble wands and chocolates had been ordered by friends in Sydney, and the mince pies and cream had survived the 40 degree heat. The Parisians further down the row yelled that the Howard Springs teams were preparing a slap up Christmas Day feast and that Santa might even deliver gifts to all the children.
The problem was that I couldn’t find our youngest. His disappearance naturally coincided with a text.
“Dear Howard Springs Residents. Please be aware that snakes have been sighted on the grounds. For your safety and that of your children, please remain vigilant.”
Merry Christmas all! | https://medium.com/@nicholasjdavis/the-days-of-our-quarantine-christmas-d3e3eaa1aa5e | ['Nicholas Davis'] | 2020-12-24 12:35:02.731000+00:00 | ['Covid', 'Quarantine', 'Christmas', 'Australia', 'Pandemic'] |
Findora（FRA）Token Sale: Participate in the Sale | Findora（FRA）Token Sale: Participate in the Sale
After the sale opens on December 28, 2020 at 12:00 PM ET (UTC -5) and you have successfully passed your KYC verification, you will be able to process the payment panel at sale.findora.org.
We recommend that you create a Findora wallet before you proceed to the sales page as you need to enter a FRA address to receive your purchased tokens later. Go to the ‘Wallet Section’ for more details.
Step 1: Round selection. Choose your preferred token round A/B/C/D/E (you may proceed with a different option from what you chose in the KYC process). You may only choose one option each time, but you can always come back to this page and start a new purchase.
Step 2: Payment panel. Specify the USD amount of $FRA you want to contribute (minimum 350$). Enter the public address of the Findora wallet you created on wallet.findora.org and select a payment method. This address cannot be edited later so make sure you have access to your keystore file + password.
Step 3: Payment confirmation. Confirm your purchase details and sign your name.
In the signature field simply enter your name as per your ID ( “Signature must match purchaser name…“ will pop up if there are any inconsistencies.)
Step 4: Complete your payment. DO NOT send payments from an exchange account.
You can use any non-custodial wallets to send the payment (e.g., Trust, MetaMask).
At the beginning of each hour, the platform will retrieve the price of the supported cryptocurrencies to be used for the following hour. An purchaser will be charged at the price when the payment is completed.
For payments in ETH and ERC20 tokens, we recommend setting a gas limit. There might be a surge in the Ethereum gas price.
You may go back to the ‘Round Selection’ page after you complete your payment to start another purchase. Make sure your accumulated purchase of each round is under the max check size.
Step 5: You will see the receipt page and receive a payment confirmation email from [email protected] when the payment is received. Thanks for the participation! | https://medium.com/findorafoundation/findora-fra-token-sale-user-tutorial-cc6922f0df6d | [] | 2021-01-11 22:59:47.426000+00:00 | ['Defi', 'Ethereum', 'Dapps', 'Blockchain', 'Token Sale'] |
The greatest Android modularization mistake and how to undo it | One upon a time, there was a singularity named :app module. Then came the smaller monoliths, namely :persistence, :networking and :models
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Why layers monoliths is a mistake?
They are still monoliths, albeit smaller than :app
All the problem that applies to :app still applies to :networking , :persistence and :models while you get none of the benefits modularization brings
Benefits of modularization
(Incremental) build time
Small and focused module — more productivity while working on a particular feature/ product
Features/ products are more self-sufficient and less inter-dependent so more flexibility in design, implementation and testing
Dynamic delivery of modules
More details in Jeroen’s article 👇
Why is it the greatest mistake?
The Internet is filled with tutorials that tell people to break :app module by layers
Looks familiar?
1 small tech unicorn I know fell for this trap just last year
1 big unicorn I worked for feel for it too and are moving to feature oriented module structure
Current team is also moving in the same direction
In my opinion, the only in benefit modularization by layer is an illusion of progress
What’s the better way?
Feature-first modularization!
How to undo the greatest modularization mistake?
i.e. how to go from layer monoliths to feature modules
Create your feature module and move classes to it bottom up (from data model classes to UseCases/ Interactors then ViewModels/ Presenter) one at a time
Whenever a class blocks your move or causes circular dependency, move it to :app module temporarily. Also, creating interfaces help, temporarily.
A real example
There is a Q&A feature in my current app.
This is the current code structure, with layer monoliths
Q&A feature in layer monoliths
Step 1
Move network data model classes and Retrofit interfaces to newly created Q&A feature module
No big challenge here, and since the domain data model classes (Clean Architecture) do not depend on anything, I move them too:
Step 2
Move the DAOs and Room entities to our newly created feature module
@Dao
abstract class QuestionRoomDao : BaseDao<QuestionEntity>, QuestionDao { //.. }
Since Androidx Room and BaseDao are required, remember to add the following dependencies to your qna/build.gradle
dependencies {
//... implementation "androidx.room:room-runtime:$room_version" // Room
kapt "androidx.room:room-compiler:$room_version" // Room compiler
implementation(project(":persistence") // internal library containing BaseDao }
Bonus: Now that QuestionDao and QuestionRoomDao are together in 1 place, I’d personally recommend to merge them. It does more harm than good to have interface when there is only 1 implementation.
In order to use AndroidX Room though, we need to have a configuration class like MyDb that extends RoomDatabase
MyDb is currently in :persistence module and requires QuestionRoomDao so this means we’ll have a circular dependencies here!
The solution is to move MyDb up the dependency graph to good old :app module 😄
It makes perfect sense since MyDb is supposed to be aware of all the *Entity (Room) and *RoomDao classes in the entire application. At the same time, :app module depends on all feature modules.
Room master configuration file should live in :app module
Step 3
Move the repositories to Q&A feature module
Final result
Notes: the :domain module still doesn’t feel right (doesn’t fit into Uncle Bob’s Clean Architecture) but that’s a separate battle for another day
Bonus step — Move the Use Cases
@Singleton
class GetQuestionsUseCase @Inject constructor(
private val userRepository: UserRepository,
private val repo: QuestionRepository
Since the UserRepository is unfortunately inside the :domain module and it might be a big separate ordeal we don’t want to rush into immediately, we must then:
Extract an interface so it becomes UserRepository (the interface) and UserRepositoryImpl
Create a :user feature module and put the UserRespository interface there (of course :app will depend on :user )
feature module and put the UserRespository interface there (of course will depend on ) Now make :qna depend on :user
depend on Now we can move GetQuestionsUseCase to :qna module
Need more inspiration to organize your code by feature?
Working demo with source code
Conclusion
The road to undo the greatest mistake in modularization is long. The good news is, you don’t have to do it in a big bang fashion. Just repeat the same steps mentioned here for each and every feature one at a time, at your own pace.
One might argue that something important like User or Profile needs to be separated into several module and one might be very right. However, my recommendation is don’t overthink the first step or nothing will ever happen. Just move all user/ profile stuffs into a :user / :profile feature module first. It will then be an order of magnitude easier to analyze the feature and break it down than looking at user/ profile as a part of the :app or the layer monoliths.
Next steps
Remove the out-of-place modules like :domain and :models to better conform with Uncle Bob’s Clean Architecture and to have everything organized by features, not layers.
Feature modules depend on *-common modules and optionally each other
2. Certain features are usually big like profile/ authentication and payment. It would make sense to break it down by sub-features and afterwards layers. For example, “payment” super feature can have the following child modules on
payment-common
payment-a which depends payment-common
payment-b-presentation, payment-b-core (domain and data layers combined)
payment-c-presentation, payment-c-domain, payment-c-data
3. Soon enough you’d end-up with dozens, if not hundred of feature modules/ directory under your project root, it’d then be natural to organize them under a | https://proandroiddev.com/greatest-android-modularization-mistake-and-how-to-undo-it-50eda336a595 | ['Eric N'] | 2021-02-18 15:11:42.993000+00:00 | ['Android App Development', 'Modularization', 'Android', 'AndroidDev', 'Clean Architecture'] |
the rural road | i took the rural road
to the mountains
of my past
before i26 could wind me there
around the curves
without the lights
noting small communities
cities and towns
where people live
and used to work
now work is hard to come by
the landscape changed
as the road flew by
boarded up buildings
rv parks
where people live
dollar stores
every mile or two
the forgotten people
who once knew life
and what it meant
now struggle to survive
the winter cold
chilled my bones
the broken dreams
beat at my heart
the emptiness
of what once thrived
a grayish sky
laced with chimney smoke
the mountains surround me
all around
i took the narrow road
to the top
the hair pin turns
and drops
that seemed to never end
i stopped to look
from a distant view
the lights twinkling
in the dusk below
the sun setting
in a rose light glow
i shivered in the bitter cold
the silence of our spinning world
these little towns
jewels in the faraway midst
collateral in the hearts
of greedy men
who shattered glass
with just one throw
await the artist’s gentle hand
to mend the break
willing the lights back on
with a brush stroke and click
reimagine in a whim
what goes here
and what goes there
a place for people
to toast and cheer
the jewels they kept
inside their souls
fleeting across
the blackest night
with stars waiting for a wish
as they shoot across
a coal black sky
into the blue of soft white clouds
where nightmares end
and dreams begin
the universe takes
hold of its beat up ship
to a place
where tears forget
the sorrow
of their cry
who once left them
forsaken
addicted
drug infused
a lonely
and forgotten road
a tragic
somber way to die
and leave this earth
and yet
never to arrive
— patty
*****
photo@ctt956 | https://medium.com/@pblamp/the-rural-road-e1062e92c7da | ['Patty Brown'] | 2020-12-16 17:51:40.873000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Small Towns', 'Words', 'Rural', 'Poetry'] |
Solving cold starts on AWS Lambda when using .NET Core | AWS Lambdas and .NET
The concept of serverless computing is incredible. No server provisioning, no worries about web server management, just focus on your code and pay for what you use. Using just a little? Pay just a little. Using a lot? The services will scale accordingly. No need to trigger more instances with a script, waiting for those to start… and so on!
AWS Lambdas are here to take care of our needs (as long as we understand how they work ^_^).
Cold starts on AWS Lambda using .NET Core
When I first saw a demo for a serverless application hosted on AWS Lambda using .NET Core, I noticed that the first time each function was executed took a very long time… some pages took more than 10 seconds to load.
Granted, the application was in the development phase, but something needed to be done to mitigate this problem.
It turns out the problem appears when a Lambda function is performing what’s called a cold start. To understand what a cold start is, we first need to understand how AWS Lambdas work.
How do AWS Lambdas work?
Lambdas work by having a Linux container take care of a user (or system) request. In the case of an API Server, each API call will be one request and will have a separate container processing each request.
It’s critical to note that each container will only process one request at a time, and all containers are isolated from one another. From a scalability point of view, this is fantastic. We can have thousands of users interacting with our application at the same time and we only pay for their usage and no more.
But depending on how we manage our Lambdas, they may be very user unfriendly due to the problem of cold starts.
What’s a cold start?
What we normally call cold start has to do with the creation and initialization of a new container that will process our request, as well as the initialization of the program that the container will run.
While the program is running, the container stays active and executing (in other words, it stays warm). But when the program stops executing and the container is inactive for some time, AWS drops the container.
With each subsequent request, the container will have to be spun up again, involving a new container and program to be launched to service the request. The additional time taken to launch this new container is called a cold start.
Hopefully this container will be reused for multiple requests, minimizing the amount of cold starts during the life of our application.
When do cold starts happen?
A cold start occurs on the initialization of the container (and the program within it) when the first request is received. That container will be killed at some point of it not being used, needing a new cold start with the next request.
Additionally, AWS will cycle the containers even if they are used periodically. So when this happens, the next request will also be a cold start. While there’s no clear indication of how long AWS keeps Lambdas alive, here’s an experiment that provides some insight into it.
If there are concurrent requests, the framework will create more containers. And if there are 5 concurrent requests, we need 5 different containers to be able to handle them! Otherwise, the user will have to wait for another container to finish its execution, or throw an exception.
How bad can this get?
A “hello world” application using .NET Core 2.1 that only displays hard-coded text takes 2.1 seconds to initialize when configured with 256MB.
Depending on your configuration, this will happen the first time you hit each function, which can create a poor user experience — even more so if you have one function call another. Keep in mind that these numbers are for an API that doesn’t have dependencies or connections to a database, critical bits of application infrastructure that will further slow container load times.
Let’s fix our problem — utilizing our own custom framework
This section is intended to give you an idea on how to solve this issue, but if you are looking for a detailed step by step guide, please check the documentation in this repository:
https://github.com/polgaro/LambdaExample
The comparisons were performed using the “Empty Serverless Application” template that comes with the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio.
As a baseline, we’ll use the .NET Core 2.1 and we’ll create a function “Get2”
We’re only creating a new function so we don’t use the default one created by the template. If we were to use the default “GET”, we’d get the same numbers:
Ouch! 2.2 seconds.
Let’s switch to .NET Core 3.1
The next step is to switch to a custom Runtime and to .NET 3.1. You can follow along with the code by reading the step by step implementation here.
For this, we’ll have to use the “Provided” framework. After adjusting our code, our time is… the same.
But this is only the beginning!
Adding ReadyToRun!
Adding ReadyToRun will require us to compile utilizing Linux (or a Linux-based container) because the underlying technology (crossgen) is not cross-platform between Windows and Linux.
Remember that you can follow the step by step guide to see where I’m getting the numbers.
Measuring the time: bingo! Total time is under 1.2 seconds! Not bad huh?
But can beat that? You bet!
Trimming our assemblies
By changing our MSBuild parameters, we can trim the unused assemblies.
And the results? 1.1 seconds. That’s half of the original time.
Can we keep going? Yes, we can!
Initializing the Newtonsoft.Json library ahead of time
Part of the time is being utilized on JITting the libraries and also on the execution of those libraries before the Tier 1 compilation (Or full JIT) has been completed. You can read more about tiered compilation here.
So, initializing the Newtonsoft.Json with a really small payload gets us down to one second! Great!
Disabling some optimizations
Even though disabling some optimizations may sound counter-intuitive, there are functions that we will execute only once and we can save time by instructing the framework not to do a Tiered 1 (Full JIT) compilation.
After disabling some optimizations in our startup routines, we get… 800ms!
This is a solution we can present to our stakeholders!
Additional recommendations for reducing cold starts
In addition to the investigation above, we have several other ways to address cold starts:
1. Increasing the amount of memory we use for each container
AWS scales our containers with the amount of memory, allocating more CPU resources.
As you can imagine, if we increase the amount of memory it will impact the amount of money we will pay per request; so please do the math before making this change!
2. Paying for our our applications to be ready and always initialized
A drawback to this approach is that we pay for each reserved concurrency. This makes our Lambdas more expensive and harder to estimate cost.
How many users will I have? How many of them are going to use the application at the same time? How much am I willing to pay? And most importantly, why am I using a serverless model in the first place if I’m going to be paying by the hour?
3. Creating our own Runtime
For robust enterprise development, you can use your custom framework. It may take you some time to code, but this will allow you to customize your framework so you can, for example, initialize libraries ahead of the first call.
Some of these tweaks are extremely beneficial, especially if you are using more than 1,792MB that gives you a second processor core.
We can create our own Runtime that will allow us to use multiple approaches to reduce the time:
Utilize the “provided” Runtime instead of using the ones created with .NET on them.
Customize the creation of the deployment package, using ReadyToRun, assembly trimming, etc.
Initialize the JITting of the assemblies we will use with a small payload ahead of the actual utilization.
4. Using ReadyToRun on AWS .NET Framework 3.1
If you’d asked me a couple months ago, I’d have said that to have a quality deployment of .NET Core + AWS Lambda, you have to have your own Runtime. But since then, Amazon introduced support for .NET Core 3.1, that opened the doors to use ReadyToRun without having to create your own Runtime.
But as most things in Software Architecture, it depends on your needs. With the introduction of the new 3.1 framework, you can use ReadyToRun without having to create your own Runtime. This can reduce the cold start times by more than 40%, making it a great alternative for rapid development. It’s fast enough and really easy to implement.
See the Suggested Reading section to learn more about ReadyToRun and follow the link Lambda support for .NET Core 3.1 to learn more about it.
There’s a big caveat though. The new Serializer provided by Amazon is severely lacking. It does not support loops as it works with System.Text.Json.
You can read about SystemText.Json and how it measures up to Newtonsoft.Json and make your own decision based on your needs.
Let’s compare the numbers
Putting all these ideas together, here are some benchmarks for the speed improvements you will see on cold starts using each approach:
2.1: Using .NET Core 2.1. 2200ms
3.1: Using custom framework with .NET Core 3.1. 2200ms
3.1 R2R: Using ReadyToRun over the Custom Framework 3.1. 1200ms
3.1 R2R+T: Adding Trimming over the previous test. 1100ms
3.1 R2R+T+IJ: Adding Initialization of the Json library over the previous test: 1000ms
3.1 R2R+T+IJ+O: Adding optimization hints over the previous test: 800ms
3.1 NS: With the new Serializer and framework: 400ms
Note that we never changed our memory size. If you do that, you can get almost negligible cold starts as Amazon will increase the CPU allocated to our process (don’t forget that this comes at a cost though).
You can get the code that I used for the examples here.
Pros and cons of choosing to use our own framework
There are multiple advantages to choosing to create your own framework to solve the cold start problem:
We can switch to our own framework without having to make changes in the rest of our code. After you know what to change, this process is very painless.
We can ensure that components like Newtonsoft.Json are being initialized with small footprints.
We can hint the compiler to not optimize certain functions, reducing the cold start times even further.
We can make use of multiple cores (when using more than 1,792MB) to initialize libraries in parallel even before we process the first request.
Support of layers. We can have one layer with all code and re-utilize it in all Lambdas.
Detracting from these advantages is the fact that we are not using any of Amazon’s provided frameworks. One example is that at the time of writing this article the custom framework runs on Amazon Linux (instead of using Amazon Linux 2).
In any case, using a custom provider may not be something that you feel comfortable doing.
What about choosing to use the .NET 3.1 Runtime?
This approach also has some advantages:
If you can get around the Serializer, this may be the fastest solution.
If you’re creating a new application from scratch, you can design your data transfer objects (DTOs) without loops, avoiding the single biggest pain of using the new Serializer.
You can create your own custom Serializer. (with the understanding that using Newtownsoft in a custom Serializer may add considerable amount of time to your cold starts.)
There are a few challenges with adopting this approach, as well:
The Serializer that Amazon provides is lacking, as it uses System.Text.Json.
We don’t have a way to initialize libraries before the Serializer is invoked.
No layer support. You have to upload the whole code for each Lambda you have.
When migrating from a previous version, you may need to change the code of our application when swapping the Serializer.
Conclusion
By creating our own Runtime, we can save a lot of cold start time by using ReadyToRun, hinting the compiler to not optimize some code and optimizing the functions we do want optimized (while using smaller footprints).
It’s a good idea to mark some functions to be optimized, as we do want the program to run as fast as possible. However, some functions will be executed only once and don’t need to be optimized. The compiler won’t know that those functions will not be called again, but we do!
If you are creating your application from scratch, or if you don’t think you’ll have problems with the Serializer, try out the new .NET Core 3.1 Runtime! It provides really fast start-up times and it’s easy to initialize!
Remember, we took a running API from 2200ms to 800ms using a Custom Runtime. But is this all we can do? Nope!
In a future article, you’ll see how to optimize your code for Lambdas by structuring your dependency injections, mappings, and Entity Framework calls.
Stay tuned!
Suggested Reading
Step by step implementation of a custom Runtime in AWS:
https://github.com/polgaro/LambdaExample
Lambda configuration and how memory affects performance:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/configuration-console.html
Provisioned instances:
https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/pricing/#Provisioned_Concurrency_Pricing
Virtualization technology used by AWS Lambda:
https://firecracker-microvm.github.io/
Lambda support for .NET Core 3.1
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/announcing-aws-lambda-supports-for-net-core-3-1/
ReadyToRun:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/whats-new/dotnet-core-3-0#readytorun-images
System.Text.Json vs Newtonsoft.Json:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/serialization/system-text-json-migrate-from-newtonsoft-how-to#preserve-object-references-and-handle-loops | https://medium.com/slalom-build/solving-cold-starts-on-aws-lambda-when-using-dotnet-core-51f244f08f60 | ['Diego Garber'] | 2020-10-07 15:53:52.216000+00:00 | ['Cloud', 'Performance', 'AWS Lambda', 'Dotnet Core', 'Cold Start'] |
Why we need a mentor in Data science | Why we need a mentor in Data science
As data science is everywhere due to the evolution of tools, computation power, speed, connectivity, storage systems and algorithms there is no way of getting out of working with it. Due to the pandemic the digitization accelerated furthermore and changed complete Eco system of all the domains. Therefore whatever domain you work for you need provide data driven solutions which serves the customer at his personal level with some kind of smartness around it
With this reality already people started working towards it and preparing themselves ready but on the process they need a mentor who can direct them in proper direction with the below reasons.
1) As mentioned above we are in the era of the data explosion , we have plethora of content freely available on data science process, procedures & deployment –etc ,and most of the times people are also getting confused with this content , we really need a mentor who can give connect the content with some kind of context through his real time experience and knowledge
2) As there is saying that instead of reading some bad books, one good book gives more knowledge in the same lines Good mentor can easily access your capabilities based on that they suggests the related content/areas which you can easily explore
3) When you are working domain specific projects they always put their real time experience and specific domain experience in your products and makes your more familiar with the domain that will help you to increase your data literacy skills as well as critical thinking.
4) With his Experience and exposure he will always ensures that you are not deviating from the specific problem and makes you focus on output of the problem you are working for
5) If your mentor is a practitioner, they can offer a internship project which can give you some real time exposure as well as culture , if not they can find the same in their connections or network
Therefore here finally, what I am suggesting, whatever way you are learning data science alongside please try to find a mentor with the above qualities by that you will get some kind of direction, prospective as well as discipline in your learning through which you can easily succeed your target. | https://medium.com/@venugopal-manneni/why-we-need-a-mentor-in-data-science-b3e5723810ef | [] | 2020-12-27 13:18:59.584000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'Data Science', 'Mentorship', 'Machine Learning'] |
SQLite3: Getting a Head Start | Photo: Unsplash.com
Introduction:
Are you an avid programmer but have always found SQLite3 to be oddly challenging? Here’s a quick tutorial to get you started.
SQLite3 is a complete functional relational database management system (RDSMS) that scales well. It’s the most used database in the world.
In this tutorial, we will start by looking at some important SQLite steps and operations such as: Connecting to table, Update, Select, Delete etc., and then playing with them on a working example.
SQLite comes bundled with Python and can be easily used in any Python application. I assume that you already have Python installed on your computer, and are here for a quick read.
So, let’s get started! | https://medium.com/@hafsahelyakubu/sqlite3-getting-a-head-start-32bb7feeb8d8 | ['Hafsah El-Yakubu'] | 2020-12-18 20:10:01.645000+00:00 | ['Beginner Coding', 'Python Programming', 'Sqlite3', 'Sqlite', 'Data Science'] |
Using Shared Libraries in a Jenkins Pipeline | Extending code libraries across Jenkins pipelines can seem like a daunting task. There are many different ways to accomplish the same thing in a Jenkins pipeline. Deciding between declarative or scripted pipelines. Choosing where and how to import libraries. There’s a laundry list of tasks for the Jenkins developer to work through. Not to mention keeping track of the environment and state of a pipeline as it evolves. So what’s the best way to share common functionality in different pipelines?
Using shared libraries (or Global Pipeline Libraries) we can easily and automatically pull reusable functionality into pipelines. Configuration is handled by Jenkins and there’s no messing about with manual path entries or environment variables. Shared libraries save implementation time, allow for easier code reuse and are simpler to manage in the long run.
Let’s take a look at how to setup a simple shared library and implement it in one of our pipelines.
Build the library
In order to use shared libraries, we must first layout the proper directory structure in the repository and write some Groovy code. For this example, we’ll use a basic Groovy class file that simply runs echo and outputs a message in the Jenkins console. Let’s setup a new directory for this inside our existing Git repository (this can be wherever you store your Jenkinsfiles and any accompanying Groovy files):
src/org/mytools/
Inside this directory you’ll create a new Groovy file called:
Tools.groovy
You should now have the following structure:
src/org/mytools/Tools.groovy
Now open up the Tools.groovy file and place the following code inside:
package org.mytools class Tools implements Serializable { private static final long serialVersionUID
def steps Tools(steps) {
this.steps = steps
} void myEcho(String msg) {
steps.echo msg
} }
Let’s break down what is happening here. In the first line we’re defining the package that this will be part of. This is a Java package declaration which let’s us group code together as one unit (most of the files inside this directory should be in the same package).
In the next line we’re defining our class Tools which is an implementation of the Serializable class. This enables us to save state on our classes during a Jenkins pipeline. The serialVersionUID provides the variable for saving a unique state ID on the object.
The next few lines inside the Tools class handle pulling in the steps variable from the calling pipeline. We have to accept the steps as a parameter because classes in shared libraries have no knowledge of pipeline step functions like echo or sh . This tells our class that we expect this to be passed in as a parameter when instantiated.
Finally, we setup our myEcho function which simply accepts a string and then uses the pipeline echo step to print it to the console. This wraps up the class and will be where we place the bulk of our functionality.
That’s it for our directory structure and Groovy configuration. If at any point you get stuck setting up your library, you can reference the official Jenkins documentation on shared libraries.
Next, let’s look at how we pull this new package into Jenkins.
Configure the library in Jenkins
In order to use shared libraries inside of a pipeline in Jenkins we need to configure the library. Open up the Jenkins instance and navigate to Manage Jenkins -> Configure System. Scroll down until you locate the Global Pipeline Libraries section. Enter the relevant information as it pertains to your Git repository and checkout details:
Configuring a Global Shared Library in Jenkins.
You can leave the defaults checked/unchecked, but make one consideration regarding the Load Implicitly box. If you wish to have your libraries available automatically in every pipeline you may check this box, otherwise leave it blank and we’ll cover importing them manually. In the beginning I would advise leaving this unchecked so you are explicit about what libraries get used.
Once the setup of the library and associated repository is complete, let’s move on to actually utilizing it in a pipeline.
Import the library in a pipeline
Using shared libraries in a pipeline is incredibly simple and you’ll wonder why you hadn’t done it sooner. After building and configuring the shared library in Jenkins it is now available to pipelines and only needs to be declared. Let’s look at a sample pipeline that uses our new library:
@Library('mytools') import org.mytools.Utils Tools tools = new Tools(this) pipeline {
agent any
stages {
stage('test') {
steps {
script {
tools.myEcho('test')
}
}
}
}
}
In the example pipeline above we add several items before declaring the pipeline itself. The most important element is the @Library entry. This tells the pipeline to use our new shared mytools library. However, this alone is not sufficient, we need to tell the pipeline which classes to use and then instantiate them.
First we’ll need to import the Utils class and then create a new object for it by calling new Tools(this) . Remember earlier when we said we’d have to pass in our steps? By providing the this keyword as a parameter to our class we provide the necessary pipeline context for things like echo .
Now that our object has been imported and created we can use it just like any other object. Inside any script blocks within a declarative pipeline we can simply call tools.myEcho and observe the output.
Shared libraries are straightforward and efficient. They save time and allow more of the focus to be on the core functionality of the pipeline, instead of where resources are and how they get imported. With shared libraries we can easily add more classes, modules and other Groovy objects without having to jump through hoops. | https://medium.com/swlh/using-shared-libraries-in-a-jenkins-pipeline-d20206943792 | ['Tate Galbraith'] | 2020-12-17 20:35:37.447000+00:00 | ['Jenkins', 'Technology', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'Code'] |
Spare Happiness | I’m afraid being too happy
I treat my happiness as a guest
Without much intimacy
I know she always brings her suitcase
Ready to go as she pleases
However, I wear my best outfit
I put fresh flowers on the table
I make poems and that’s it!
But, if she wants, if she really wants
I let her fly
As I lovingly let a little bird fly.
I share happiness in little pieces
And when she leaves
I always have a spare dose with me
That miraculously
Lasts forever. | https://medium.com/afwp/spare-happiness-b1288339a181 | ['Misa Ferreira De Rezende'] | 2020-11-24 15:33:34.765000+00:00 | ['Flowers', 'Birds', 'A Few Words', 'Happiness'] |
YOU MIGHT NEVER LOVE YOUR BODY AND THAT’S OK | I feel like a lot of “body positive influencers” out there constantly try to portray themselves to be comfortable in their own skin every single minute of every single day. I find it rather unrealistic because we’re human. It’s no fun if you don’t criticize yourself once in a while or don’t have little moments of insecurity AM I RIGHT??? I never found it necessary for humans to strive for a 100% in anything. WE’RE NOT EVEN GOING TO LIVE UNTIL 100, don’t spend all the decades you have left striving for perfection. Learn to be okay with not liking every single thing about yourself but instead focus on working towards improvement and acceptance. Isn’t it cool that all of us have different flaws from each other? Why would you want to fix EVERYTHING? YES my skin is darker than many of you reading this, and no I AM NOT in love with it every single day, it DOES make me insecure when I realize that sometimes I can’t wear all black without looking too dull. It DOES make me sometimes wish I was fairer, so when my friends and I are putting out our hands to take a photo of our drinks, my hands blend in rather than stand out. BUT I think that’s completely okay. I means what’s wrong with having a little something you aren’t always happy about right (I save a lot of money because I can’t easily find lipsticks that suit me btw). But, I do work every single day to appreciate parts of myself I may be at war with, and I definitely work towards giving myself and my body the love and care it deserves.
You really don’t have to be in love with every single inch of your outer appearance to take care of yourself. Work a little harder everyday to reach healthy levels of acceptance and confidence. But in the midst of that, please just also remember how much your body is trying to keep you alive. Don’t throw hate comments and don’t deprive it of physical and mental needs. You may not like how it looks but at least try to do it a favor by taking good care of it. AT LEAST TRY :) | https://medium.com/@mindstories/you-might-never-love-your-body-and-thats-ok-1c5217be848c | ['Sierra Ann'] | 2020-03-08 02:10:10.815000+00:00 | ['Body Positive', 'Life Lessons', 'Mental Health', 'Body Image', 'Mental Illness'] |
How to Deal with Stress during the Product Manager Job Hunt | How to Deal with Stress during the Product Manager Job Hunt Product Gym Jul 6·5 min read
Searching, applying, and interviewing for a product management position is stressful! Don’t worry, you’re not the only one who feels it. Our goal at Product Gym is not only to help you land that dream job but also to support you throughout the process: and that means helping you understand how to deal with stress. These top strategies to deal with stress during the product management job hunt are sure to help you keep the confidence alive from one interview to the next.
Create Structure
As an aspiring Product Manager, you are probably used to a fairly structured schedule. A busy work week with set hours and deadlines for each task. If you are working full-time and job hunting after hours, create a schedule that mimics that of a part-time job. It will benefit you to keep that type of structure during your Product Manager job hunt.
Set a goal of how many jobs you would like to apply for each week. Carve out time to update your resume and LinkedIn profile as needed. Create a schedule with set boundaries just as you would have in your Product Manager position. For example, you may choose to only fill out job applications during the week, leaving your weekends free to relax and recharge. Having a set schedule like this will help you deal with stress and avoid job hunting burnout.
Along with a structured schedule, an organized workspace will help you deal with stress during the Product Manager job hunt. Dedicate a space in your home, such as an office or the kitchen table, where you go to work on job applications. Try not to choose your bed as your dedicated workspace. Be sure and have a quiet room with an appropriately staged Zoom background ready for virtual interviews. Keep track of the applications you’ve submitted and use a calendar to schedule your interviews.
A little organization can go a long way when you are struggling with how to deal with stress during the Product Manager job hunt. Organizing helps us regain a sense of control that we tend to lose while we are out of work and looking for a new position.
Take Care of Yourself
When finding a product management position is causing you stress, it is easy to put your basic needs on the back burner. Making a conscious effort to take care of yourself will actually increase your odds of landing that dream job. When you are well-rested, hydrated, and eating right you will feel better and, in turn, perform better in interviews.
If job hunting is currently your full-time gig, scheduling a proper lunch break into your day will add to the structure you have created for yourself and encourage you to eat a good meal each day. Going to sleep at a decent hour and waking up at a reasonable time, just as you would get to your Product Manager job, is another great way to hold yourself accountable when it comes to taking care of yourself.
Staying active is as important during the job hunt as it is as a full-time Product Manager. Exercise is one of the top strategies recommended to people who are asking how to deal with stress. You release endorphins that make you feel better and boost your motivation and confidence, as well as your energy levels.
Whether you are a yoga and meditation type of person or more of a weight-lifting and cardio athlete, the important thing is just getting your body moving and living an active lifestyle that works for you.
Know Your Stuff
Knowledge is power and preparation is key. Prepare your elevator pitch ahead of time so you are ready to talk about yourself and your experience when it comes up in your interview, which it certainly will. Being asked to talk about yourself is one of the most common questions asked in a Product Manager interview, yet it still catches people off guard. Be sure to review your Product Manager resume and keep it up to date throughout the job hunt. Take advantage of all that Product Gym has to offer Product Manager job hunters like yourself. Get tailored interview feedback, reference check onboarding, interview questions, and so much more when you join the Product Gym community.
The more you know about the company you are interviewing with, and their people, the more confident you will feel going into your interview. Having the opportunity to relate and find common ground with your potential colleagues will highlight how you will fit into their company culture. It is important to review the job description and know exactly how you can fill the Product Manager role they are looking for.
Don’t procrastinate in preparation! It is easy to wait until five minutes before the interview to quickly read the about page on the company website and jump in. The lack of preparation will show in your interview and add to your stress about landing the position. It is better to show up over-prepared and totally confident in your ability to be the next best Product Manager they’ve ever seen.
Redirect Negative Self-Talk
Your mindset plays a huge role in how you deal with stress during the Product Manager job hunt. Focus more on the positives throughout the process to reduce stress and boost your confidence. It is very easy to feel beaten down by the Product Manager job hunt. That is why we need to redirect negative self-talk into positive self-talk every chance we get.
Whatever narrative you choose to give yourself will work its way into existence, so make it good! Instead of saying, “I am so nervous in every interview, I know they can hear it in my voice” try saying, “every interview is a chance to work on my confidence and practice talking with a steady voice. The more I interview, the better I get at it.”
Before you can convince a potential employer that you are the perfect fit for the Product Manager role at their company, you need to convince yourself! The more you interview, the better and more confident you will become. That is one of many reasons we encourage our members to apply for every Product Manager position.
Say Goodbye to Your Job Hunting Stress
These strategies will teach you how to deal with stress during the Product Manager job hunt and into your career. Remember that you are not the only one who feels stress while searching for a job. At Product Gym, you have an entire community readily available to support you and help you land the job of your dreams. If you have questions, are struggling with stress, or are wondering where to start: we’ve got your back. Schedule a free career coaching session with us today and let’s figure it out together. | https://medium.com/@productgym/how-to-deal-with-stress-during-the-product-manager-job-hunt-f39e899fb1e3 | ['Product Gym'] | 2021-08-05 14:07:30.701000+00:00 | ['Product Management Tool', 'Product Manager Interview', 'Product Management', 'Product Manager Job', 'Product Manager'] |
Curiously Distracted | Combinations, fragments, loose ends.
Make a connection.
Conquer this game of hide and seek.
Notice a glimmer of something in the distance.
This is an invitation to create. | https://medium.com/@halacurious/curiously-distracted-8056dc452f69 | [] | 2020-12-07 16:40:57.550000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Challenge', 'Creativity', 'Process', 'Mind'] |
Thursday Thoughts–Should the Blog Adopt a Dog? | Thursday Thoughts–Should the Blog Adopt a Dog?
Welcome to Thursday Thoughts, a new Local column where one of our writers shares some of the thoughts that they just can’t shake.
Should the blog adopt a dog? Probably, right?
When someone in my class said “my wife,” did the entire class hear me quietly repeat those words in a Borat voice?
Will the next episode of The Bachelor be pushed back a week because of the premiere of the new spin-off The Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart? Do I have enough self-respect to avoid googling this?
Can someone give me a job?
Should someone give me a job?
Should I buy the feminist Monopoly game where women get paid more than men?
Will I ever finish season two of Westworld? (No.)
Would Totoro from My Neighbor Totoro be my friend, or would he get fed up and leave after I kept asking him if he really liked hanging out with me?
Steve Harvey is on the front of a lot of NYC buses right now. If I got hit by a bus, would Steve Harvey be the last thing I ever saw?
If Baby Yoda is ever on the front of a bus, will that be dangerous for me?
Will my roommate read this article and realize he should stop listening to Chapo Trap House out loud in our shared living space, or am I going to have to ask him nicely like a real adult?
Did this article only run because we didn’t have enough content today? | https://nyulocal.com/thursday-thoughts-should-the-blog-adopt-a-dog-f7d23009c83e | ['John Dilillo'] | 2020-02-20 17:02:40.190000+00:00 | ['Thursday Thoughts', 'Entertainment', 'Buses', 'Musings', 'Life'] |
Python Dictionaries — in and out. Dictionaries are one of the most widely… | Iteration in Dictionaries
Fig-7: Iterating through dictionaries (img source:real Python)
Iterating through dictionaries are quiet different from another data structures because, in dictionaries we have (key-value) pairs whereas, in lists or tuples we only have one single element at each index and also list on its own is iterable.
Fig-8: Iterating through values in dictionary
Fig-9:various methods in iterating over keys in dictionary
Fig-10: iterating through both keys and values
In order to extract values from dictionary , we need to use .values() method. In the Fig-8, difference between iterating over lists and dictionaries can be seen(in terms of Values).
Similarly, we need to use .keys() method to iterate over keys in dictionary. As you can see in the Fig-9, the same can be done without using “.keys()” method also (it is not anway recommended).
To iterate through both (key-value) pairs at a time in dictionary, we use .items() method. This method returns an iterable collection (list of tuples.
Dict comprehension
These are similar to list comprehension (prior understanding of list comprehension will help in understanding better). I would cover about dict comprehension in very brief manner because it is one of the advanced topic in dictionaries.
Fig-11: Dict Comprehension
Syntax : {__:__for__in__} - it iterates over keys by default. If we want to iterate over keys and values, we should use .items() method. Conditional logics can also be written with in dict-comprehension (see Fig-11)
Methods in Dictionaries
In this part, I would briefly discuss about few inbuilt methods (clear, copy, fromkeys, get, pop, popitem)of dictionary data structure.
1.clear()
Fig-12 : clear and del in dictionary
clear() — — clears all the ‘‘keys and values’’ in a dictionary . But it doesn’t delete entire dictionary object from memory. If you want to delete entire dictionary object from memory, then we need to use del.If you further try to access deleted dictionary then you will get “NameError”, del can also be used to remove single element from dictionaries.
2.copy()
Fig-13: copy method in dictionaries
copy() method will create a duplicate dictionary in different address of the memory. This can be tested as shown in the Fig-13. In this, “==” refers to whether both the values in two dictionaries are same or not. Whereas, “is” refers to whether both dictionaries (original as well as copied) refers to same address in the memory or not. Change in one of the both, will not impact other as both are stored at different addresses.
3.fromkeys()
Fig-14 : fromkeys() method in dictionary
fromkeys() creates key-value pairs from comma separated values. condition to be followed— Key should be an iterable collection to the dictionary. All the iterables in key will be assigned to same value specified in the Value part, as shown in the Fig-14. This is rarely used method for creating dictionaries.
4.get()
Fig-15: get method in dictionary
get() method retrieves a key in an object and return None instead of keyError, if the key doesn’t exist.The biggest advantage is that, it doesn’t throw an error, even though if we try to access a key, which is not present in dictionary.
In Fig-15 —- sample_dict.get(‘a’) is equivalent to sample_dict[‘a’]
5.pop()
Fig-16:pop() method in dictionary
In lists, we use pop() method to remove an element from a list. In dictionaries, we use it to remove a (key,value) pair. pop() method should be provided with at least one single argument corresponding to the key. It removes that particular (key-value) pair from dictionary by returning the value corresponding to the key that was removed. If we try to remove a key which is not in dictionary, then it will generate key-error, which can be overcomed by providing optional argument to it(as shown in last in Fig-16).
6.popitem()
Fig-17: popitem() method in dictionary
If we want to randomly remove (key-value) pair from dictionary, then we should use popitem() method. If any argument is provided to popitem(), then we will get an error because, it doesn’t take any argument.
7.update()
Fig-18: update() method in dictionary
update() will change (key,value) in a dictionary with another set of key-value pairs. It will also overwrites an existing key. It will overwrite and edit the properties however, it won’t remove them if we pass an empty dictionary to update with existing one.
To list all available methods and attributes of a dictionary , use dir(dictionary_oject) | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/python-dictionaries-in-and-out-f1b7a3237a65 | ['Chamanth Mvs'] | 2019-12-16 12:38:58.228000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Python Programming', 'Data Science', 'Data Structures', 'Python'] |
Trying to Keep Death at Arm’s Length | Since we’re early for the appointment, we stop for coffee.
As my father bites into a giant chocolate muffin, my stepmom and I wink at each other. The best way to get my father to stop complaining is to feed him something, anything.
I notice he’s looking increasingly somber and subdued. At our small table, shared anxiety is palpable. As I root around in my backpack for more gum, my head starts spinning. But I force out a trademark goofy smile all the same and reassure my stepmom that whatever comes next, we’ll deal with it together as a family.
As we make our way around the Pantheon and past the Portuguese bookshop, she turns to me.
“You know, you can come in with us if you like,” she says.
The coffee I’ve just ingested threatens to exit my body through my mouth, geyser style. This wasn’t part of the plan. Deep breath, stand firm, let’s go.
“Of course, I’d be happy to if you’re sure you don’t mind,” I reply.
My parents both nod.
To defuse tension as we wait for the oncologist I whip out my cell phone and show my stepmom pictures of my cats. Back when I flew out at the end of December, my husband made them each an Instagram account to try and cheer me up. Desperate times call for desperate measures so I deploy the cute and even though my stepmom is a dog person, she relaxes enough to stop dabbing her eyes with a tissue.
The oncologist calls us in and I shake his hand as my parents introduce me. Somehow he becomes aware I’ve come from Seattle and he says he can hear it. I only have a slight anglo lilt in French when I’m extremely nervous, an audible tell that betrays my calm and composed exterior.
As he reviews the latest PET scan results with us and examines my stepmom, I get a better idea of how he’s been managing their expectations. I hear him loud and clear, and when we look at each other, he knows that I know.
This knowledge is heavy.
But I’m here purely as a witness, and at no point do I join in the conversation between him and my parents. The oncologist prescribes a new protocol in pill format and sends my stepmom to a nurse who will explain how it works.
Walking out of the cancer institute, we’re all a bit unsteady on our feet and in need of a pause so we stop at the Corsican coffee place near the Portuguese bookshop. My parents have barely sat down that my father is already scheduling medical appointments into his phone and organizing the new paperwork. My stepmom texts her son to tell him we’ll be on our way to his place shortly for a family debrief. I excuse myself so I can pop in next door and get the grammar book I’ve needed for weeks.
With a cheerful and assertive “Boa tarde!*” I walk into the shop where I spend a few minutes choosing books before timidly attempting a conversation in Portuguese with the owner, a well-known translator and editor. I want to ask him for advice about settling in Lisbon on a long-term temporary basis but my heart isn’t in it and I sound like a chipmunk with an Azores accent. The words tumble out at random but I still manage to leave with a business card on which an email address is underlined.
Granted, it might have been easier in French but the thought didn’t even cross my mind. I go back next door clutching a grammar book, a history book, a novel from the bargain box, and some Portuguese cough drops for my stepmom.
There was a small Dr Bayard display box jammed on the fiction shelf; she likes candy. | https://asingularstory.medium.com/when-you-realize-you-are-going-to-die-35280efe880a | ['A Singular Story'] | 2020-12-10 15:06:23.394000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Family', 'Love', 'Self', 'Spirituality'] |
Losing weight should not be the goal | Losing weight should not be the goal
Keeping losing weight as your goal will stop you from diving into the knowledge and practise of workout at gym. Many people want to lose weight, regardless whatever reasons, but losing weight becomes so strong for them to open their eyes to other aspects of workout such as grow muscle, strengthen the whole body. If you really want to enjoy doing workout, please learn to appreciate its beauty and its huge benefits in your whole life. If my main goal was losing weight, I wouldn’t have come so far. I was working out not because I need to lose weight and get more fit but because I felt my spirit needed it.
2021 was the year of change
Without any prior knowledge about workout, I bought my first Personal Training courses with some doubt about the future progress on my body shape on June 2020, by which time the body fat percentage was up to 39%. It was hard, really hard at the beginning. My body needed time to get used to the new movements and new weight I lifted. If losing weight was my goal, then I achieved it after one-year of ‘workout’ at the gym. However, the body shape was not improving in a meaningful way — no 6-pack abs, no appearing muscle. Strange as it was. Why losing weight was not exactly the same as building a REAL physical fitness?
At some point, it became overwhelming to come to gym after daily job and finished it within two hours before riding subway to my far-away home. I wanted to get in shape. But I was very, very skeptical about my body potential. It’s who I was supposed to be, having body fat equal to 39%.
My old bro told me that it would at least take two years for a beginner of workout to come close to the ‘6-pack abs’ shape. You couldn’t achieve it in such short period. Well, I boiled the self-doubt for a while, and then something critical came to my realisation that my poor diet must contributed a lot to my ‘slow growth’. It was a big mistake I had made during my many months efforts dedicated to the workout journey. At least it explained the reason why I still had ‘big’ belly fat after so many months efforts. That’s when the magic started to happen. It started from July 2021, and I posted about new diet on social media platforms, visible to all of my network connections and even the strangers on Instagram. Throughout exposing yourself to big audience, you would push yourself much harder to stick with it. It’s a way of manifesting what I want. Believe it or not, I gradually lost my belly fat to the extent that the muscles were awakened to working on their own, autopilot, so to speak. As the weeks went on, I was surprised to find out that I became desired to do my workouts and enjoyed them. They are my best friends. When I shared the toned belly image with my best friend, I could literally felt his proud. YES, desiring to making beneficial changes to our lives during pandemic is feeling great!
The huge benefits from my workouts
Achieving Physical fitness
Establishing a healthy diet
Building up confidence
Becoming more energetic
The new version of life
I could feel the difference while walking down the street, riding two-hour subway by standing with a kindle book to read, climbing many-steps stairs, carrying heavy bags, open heavy doors, etc. I also started to appreciate the analogy of workout used in various books. Workout is an attitude to your own life. You want to live your life intentionally.
What made me want to work out and keep it as a daily routine were all the benefits I feel, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Original article could be found on my blog website | https://medium.com/@amyjuanli/body-transformation-in-one-year-69fd9f1ebc3c | ['Amy Juan Li'] | 2021-12-31 11:22:27.825000+00:00 | ['Body Transformation', 'Workout', 'Fitness', 'Workout Routines'] |
Collaborating in Power BI | Collaborating in Power BI
Dashboards can have many layers of complexity; from the data collection to cleaning, transforming, calculating, and designing, we can have many different challenges.
Some of those challenges can benefit from bigger teams. Still, like three pregnant women can’t produce a baby in three months, adding more developers won’t necessarily get you that dashboard faster.
In this article, I’ll go through some of the specifics of teamwork using MS Power BI to build dashboards and visualizations faster.
Picture from PixBay — by Pexels
You can collaborate on PBI within SharePoint, Office 360, and you can even find some third-party tools for that. But most of them try to close the gap in communication, where you can add notes, comments, view, and make a few adjustments to your project.
I’ll not be focusing on that part, whether I’ll be focusing on Power BI Desktop projects or .pbix files. More specifically, how can multiple people work on the same file. | https://medium.com/@thiago-bernardes-carvalho/collaborating-in-power-bi-a295f6976fc9 | ['Thiago Carvalho'] | 2020-11-14 17:46:03.411000+00:00 | ['Dashboard', 'Business Intelligence', 'Data Visualization', 'Project Management', 'Power Bi'] |
Unfollow | photo by Lorenzo Ruj
Welcome to the 21st-century where people are more connected to others than they are to themselves. Joshua Fields Milburn, a co-founder of The Minimalists, has often stated “scrolling is the new smoking”, in fact, it’s even pinned to the top of his Twitter profile. We have become so intertwined with our devices we mindlessly scroll with little to no thought. Is it possible that we may know people we follow on social media better than ourselves?
The good news is no, but it's only because nobody posts their true self online for everyone to see. More than likely the typical person will be unwilling to open themself up to such judgment, scrutiny, or vulnerability. Social media has essentially created a digital mask for people to hide under. If you simply scroll through your Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook feed you will probably see a variety of different posts, which may portray people having the time of their life. Yet, this is nothing more than an illusion, a charade put on for other people. We attempt to curate every single little post to display we are the most interesting person in the world and have everything figured out. Why do we do this?
I’ve thought about this question and I have reached several answers on my own while also listening to others on the subject. One, we aren’t comfortable with ourselves. Maybe you think your life is boring and nothing you do is noteworthy. So, to combat this you try to paint a completely different picture of yourself on social media in an effort to make others think differently. Two, we never take a moment to detach and think of what we are doing. We blindly observe everyone partaking in this behavior online, so to fit in with the majority we follow the crowd. Take a second to contemplate why you even have social media in the first place? I bet there is no definitive answer and your accounts simply exist with little to no purpose other than having an online presence.
Social media quietly robs time and creates a toxic environment of comparison while also maintaining a consistent feeling of inadequacy about ourselves. There is still hope for these platforms despite the inherent problems. The solutions are simple but hard.
Solution one, unfollow everyone that does not play an immediate role in your life. If you have little to no contact with someone other than through social media it’s safe to say they are not playing any major role in your life and aren’t worthy of your time. If unfollowing doesn’t seem like a viable option to you for whatever reason, try muting unwanted people and add the people you do keep in contact with on a close friends list or group. These features are available on both Twitter and IG.
Solution two, utilize social media as a tool. Share your music, art, or other content you create and engage only with people doing the same. It’s a more productive use of time in my opinion and it also provides an opportunity to network with others interested in the same things as yourself.
Solution three, delete your online presence. This may be the most unpopular solution of the three but it may also be the most effective. For a couple of years, I had no online presence other than limited time on Reddit and Youtube. For the benefits that came with this time, I would be lying to say there weren’t any drawbacks. I honestly missed posting pictures of my family or keeping in contact with my close friends and the undeniable convenience that comes with having a social media presence.
Although social media is deeply flawed it still has an upside. If you stay disciplined and understand the platforms for what they truly are you can maximize the time you spend using these platforms. It seems simple but it may be difficult to stay consistent enough to break your “scrolling” addiction. Start by realizing that your time is far more precious than you think. Break the addiction and unfollow.
Thank you for reading.
Connect with me here: | https://medium.com/@erikkennedy11/unfollow-e4637a1e547 | ['Erik Kennedy'] | 2020-12-27 22:07:02.214000+00:00 | ['Growth', 'Habbits', 'Addiction', 'Perspective', 'Social Media'] |
Subsets and Splits