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8 Methods of Resolving Conflict. | Resolving Conflict
Understand the 8 Methods of Resolving Conflict:
Conflict is an everyday part of life in the UK Grocery Industry. Discounters are growing. New stores are hard to come by. Employees want salary raises. Bosses want bonuses. Shoppers expect value for money. Resolving conflict is, therefore, an essential part of life in the UK Grocery Industry. Here are 8 methods of conflict resolution — Do you know all your options?
1. Resolving Conflict: Unilateral Decision
No, we’re not giving in, that’s it’. We’ve all heard the stories of a big brand and a supermarket getting to the point where one has decided to delist the product or stop the supply of the product until the other party yields.
Advantage: Shows strength and resolve.
Disadvantage: The other party may call your bluff and it is not good for long-term relationships.
2. Resolving Conflict: Persuasion
‘It’s a no-brainer, you should do it’. Persuading someone to do something that they may not want to do is undoubtedly a skill that can be learnt. To illustrate, some top tips from the experts are 1. Actively listen to their point, 2. Find common ground, and 3. Use the power of ‘because’.
Advantage: It’s free.
Disadvantage: Success is usually low unless you are a persuasive master!
3. Resolving Conflict: Haggling/Bartering
‘I’ll meet you halfway’. Most of us haggle when we go to the markets, where it is the norm. In the UK we sometimes haggle when we want to agree on something and we believe we are negotiating, but we are not, we are haggling.
Advantage: Haggling is a sound method for conflict resolution, but don’t believe that it is negotiating.
Disadvantage: It will cost you ‘meeting halfway’.
4. Resolving Conflict: Arbitration
‘Ok, let’s ask them for their opinion’. Not something we hear much of in the UK Grocery Industry unless the ‘Competitions and Markets Authority’ are involved. Occasionally you might hear, ‘Let’s get another perspective on this’, which is very valid.
Advantage: An effective method of resolving a conflict.
Disadvantage: You might lose because it is 50:50.
5. Resolving Conflict: Postponement
‘We’ll come back to this at the next meeting with a plan’. Our observations of learners on our negotiation skills training course, for instance, is that most people looking to resolve a conflict opt for agreeing that a plan will be presented at the next meeting. This is usually a postponement where the two parties come back to the original points once again, with, again little resolution.
Advantage: Sometimes a postponement allows people to ‘cool off’ and/or revisit the problem another way.
Disadvantage: Postponements that are used to get away from dealing with the problem are not useful in resolving the conflict.
6. Resolving Conflict: Problem Solve
‘I’ve got an idea, how about if we…?’. Problem-solving is where the majority of conflict resolution takes place.
Advantage: A mutually beneficial solution is a great way to solve conflict because both parties usually win.
Disadvantage: You may not find a suitable solution for both parties and it requires both parties to want to problem solve.
7. Resolving Conflict: Total Surrender
‘Ok, we’ll agree to the deal’. Total Surrender is where one party gives in to the other party by giving up, waving the white flag, and agreeing to the other party’s demands.
Advantage: The advantages of this method are limited; as a result, they are likely reduced to the chance that you might get some payback in a later deal.
Disadvantage: You lose the lot!
8. Resolving Conflict: Negotiation
‘If you…then I…’. This tool is very simple and is a must in any negotiators’ toolbox. If you do something for me, then I will do something for you. We see negotiating as trading. Yes, there’ s a lot more to it. Essentially, therefore, it is about ‘giving to get’. Trading what you have for what they have to get and aiming for a win:win outcome.
Advantage: Both parties can win.
Disadvantage: The better negotiator gets more. So for that reason, our ‘Negotiating with Buyers’ Masterclass will help!
Free download: Competency Frameworks.
Related topics
How to Improve Your Conflict Resolution Skills
How do you handle team conflict? What are the skills needed for resolving conflict? How can conflict resolution skills be improved in the workplace? Hopefully arriving at this point you feel you have a better understanding of conflict resolution. Also, you have started to answer some of these questions.
The easiest way to further develop your conflict management skills is to attend a conflict resolution training session on the core skills and behaviours. This will help you understand the theoretical models in the classroom. However, it is really important that you apply the skills. In team situations, it is important that we get people talking and building trust with each other. This could be in more formal meetings, over lunch, coffee out of the office, or a team-building event.
Which one of the above options do you use most? Please share your view by commenting below.
For further information, you can find our Ultimate Guide to Conflict Resolution Skills by clicking the link below.
Feel free to get in touch. Simply fill out the form below or email us at [email protected], and we will be happy to get back to you with further information.
Slideshare of this post — 8 Methods of Conflict resolution by Darren A. Smith
Would you like to read this post in Spanish? — Click here | https://medium.com/@makingbusinessmatter/8-methods-of-resolving-conflict-ee12f13d5dff | ['Making Business Matter', 'Mbm'] | 2020-12-17 08:52:27.394000+00:00 | ['Sticky Learning', 'Conflict', 'Mbm', 'Resolutions', 'Workplace Culture'] |
How The Artificial Neural Network Work-Part 2 | In Part 1, we learned about the basic components of the artificial neural network. In this section, let’s talk about how an artificial neural network works and its types. Let’s code a Perceptron together. And let’s see how it works together. If you’re ready, let’s start :)
Types of Neural Networks
What Is a Perceptron?
A perceptron is a simple binary classification algorithm, proposed by Cornell scientist Frank Rosenblatt. It helps to divide a set of input signals into two parts — “yes” and “no”. But unlike many other classification algorithms, the perceptron was modeled after the essential unit of the human brain — the neuron and has an uncanny ability to learn and solve complex problems.
A simple perceptron model
Perceptron is a single layer neural network and a multi-layer perceptron is called Neural Networks. In this type of neural network, there are no hidden layers. It takes an input and calculates the weighted input for each node. Afterward, it uses an activation function (mostly a sigmoid function) for classification purposes.
Where we can use perceptrons?
Perceptrons’ use lies in many case scenarios. While a perceptron is mostly used for simple decision making, these can also come together in larger computer programs to solve more complex problems.
For instance:
Give access if a person is a faculty member and deny access if a person is a student. Provide entry for humans only. Implementation of logic gates
Steps involved in the implementation of a neural network:
A neural network executes in 2 steps :
1. Feedforward:
On a feedforward neural network, we have a set of input features and some random weights. Notice that in this case, we are taking random weights that we will optimize using backward propagation.
2. Backpropagation:
During backpropagation, we calculate the error between predicted output and target output and then use an algorithm (gradient descent) to update the weight values.
Why do we need backpropagation?
While designing a neural network, first, we need to train a model and assign specific weights to each of those inputs. That weight decides how vital is that feature for our prediction. The higher the weight, the greater the importance. However, initially, we do not know the specific weight required by those inputs. So what we do is, we assign some random weight to our inputs, and our model calculates the error in prediction. Thereafter, we update our weight values and rerun the code (backpropagation). After individual iterations, we can get lower error values and higher accuracy.
Summarizing an Artificial Neural Network:
Take inputs Add bias (if required) Assign random weights to input features Run the code for training. Find the error in prediction. Update the weight by gradient descent algorithm. Repeat the training phase with updated weights. Make predictions.
Flow chart for a simple neural network:
Artificial Neural Network (ANN) Basic Flow Chart
The training phase of a neural network:
Training phase of a neural network
The Perceptron Learning Rule
The perceptron consists of 4 parts.
Input values or One input layer Weights and Bias Net sum Activation Function
The Neural Networks work the same way as the perceptron. So, if you want to know how neural network works, learn how perceptron works.
Steps of Perceptron’s :
Initialize weight values and bias
Forward Propagate
Check the error
Backpropagate and Adjust weights and bias
Repeat for all training examples
We don’t have to design these networks. We could have learnt those weights and thresholds, by showing it the correct answers we want it to generate.
Let input x = ( x1, x2, .., xn) where each xi = 0 or 1. And let output y = 0 or 1.
Algorithm is:
Repeat forever:
Given input x = ( x1, x2, .., xn). Perceptron produces output y. We are told correct output O. If we had wrong answer, change wi’s and t, otherwise do nothing.
Weight change rule:
If output y=0, and “correct” output O=1, then y is not large enough, so reduce threshold and increase wi’s. This will increase the output. (Note inputs cannot be negative, so high positive weights means high positive summed input.) Similarly, if y=1, O=0, output y is too large, so increase threshold and reduce wi’s (where xi=1). This will decrease the output. If y=1, O=1, or y=0, O=0, no change in weights or thresholds.
Hence algorithm is:
Repeat forever:
Given input x =( x1, x2, .., xn). Perceptron produces output y. We are told correct output O. For all i:
wi := wi + C (O-y) xi t := t — C (O-y)
Results:
->where C is some (positive) learning rate.
->Note the threshold is learnt as well as the weights.
->If O=y there is no change in weights or thresholds.
->If xi=0 there is no change in wi
The sequence of exemplars presented may go like this
Perceptron Example:
Below is a simple perceptron model with four inputs and one output.
A simple perceptron model
A set of data
What we have here is the input values and their corresponding target output values. So what we are going to do, is assign some weight to the inputs and then calculate their predicted output values.
In this example we are going to calculate the output by the following formula:
For the sake of this example, we are going to take the bias value = 0 for simplicity of calculation.
a. Let’s take W = 3 and check the predicted output.
The output when W = 3
b. After we have found the value of predicted output for W=3, we are going to compare it with our target output, and by doing that, we can find the error in the prediction model. Keep in mind that our goal is to achieve minimum error and maximum accuracy for our model.
The error when W = 3
c. Notice that in the above calculation, there is an error in 3 out of 4 predictions. So we have to change the parameter values of our weight to set in low. Now we have two options:
Increase weight Decrease weight
First, we are going to increase the value of the weight and check whether it leads to a higher error rate or lower error rate. Here we increased the weight value by 1 and changed it to W = 4.
Output when W = 4
d. As we can see in the figure above, is that the error in prediction is increasing. So now we can conclude that increasing the weight value does not help us in reducing the error in prediction.
Error when W = 4
e. After we fail in increasing the weight value, we are going to decrease the value of weight for it. Furthermore, by doing that, we can see whether it helps or not.
Output when W = 2
f. Calculate the error in prediction. Here we can see that we have achieved the global minimum.
We can see that there is no error in prediction.
Now what we did here:
First, we have our input values and target output. Then we initialized some random value to W, and then we proceed further. Last, we calculated the error for in prediction for that weight value. Afterward, we updated the weight and predicted the output. After several trial and error epochs, we can reduce the error in prediction.
Illustrating our function
In real-life data, the situation can be a bit more complex. In the example above, we saw that we could try different weight values and get the minimum error manually. However, in real-life data, weight values are often decimal (non-integer). Therefore, we are going to use a gradient descent algorithm with a low learning rate so that we can try different weight values and obtain the best predictions from our model.
How To Implement The Perceptron Algorithm In python
Perceptron for the OR gate:
What is Stochastic Gradient Descent?
Gradient Descent is a machine learning algorithm that operates iteratively to find the optimal values for its parameters. It takes into account, user-defined learning rate, and initial parameter values.
Working: (Iterative)
1. Start with initial values.
2. Calculate cost.
3. Update values using the update function.
4. Returns minimized cost for our cost function
Generally, what we do is, we find the formula that gives us the optimal values for our parameter. However, in this algorithm, it finds the value by itself!
Implementation of a Neural Network In Python:
*Assign input values
*Target output
*Assign weights
*Adding Bias Values
*Assigning a Learning Rate
* Applying a Sigmoid Function
*Derivative of sigmoid function: (In gradient descent algorithm we are going to need the derivative of the sigmoid function)
The main logic for predicting output and updating the weight values:
Compilation result:
Check the Values of Weight and Bias:
Predicts: | https://medium.com/@dilanbakr/how-the-artificial-neural-network-works-part-2-c624a355a16 | ['Dilan Bakır'] | 2020-12-04 21:47:54.099000+00:00 | ['Gradient Descent', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Perceptron Algorithm', 'Artificial Neural Network'] |
The Brand Book 2021 | The Brand Book 2021
2020 has been a once in a lifetime experience for everyone.
2020 was a forcing function for change.
2020 impacted hundreds of thousands of businesses, some have scrapped, some have just about survived and others have thrived.
The 2020 Challenge
Companies have had to reevaluate who they are, what they offer and how they make their customers happy while working with less staff and more constraints.
Many smart brands pivoted quickly and went directly to consumer, a number of brands struggle to shift online and really hit their bottom line.
Unfortunately, some industries will feel the impacts for years to come.
Challenge For Consumers
The customer has also been forced into a series of difficult situations, reliance on online shopping, forcing generations to rely on online shopping and mobile ordering, higher wait times for deliveries and stores shut for long periods of time causing a habitual shift from even the most loyal fans.
Brands have had to step up, become more flexible, more original, more experimental, this has seen a decade of change in under a year and that led to a huge change and in many markets more competition with more aggressive pricing, with large competitors going D2C.
Brands in 2021
Brands have a difficult 2021 ahead, however, brands and companies have a great opportunity to refresh, re-energise and create deeper relationships with existing customers and mean more to potential new customers.
The Brand Book 2021
All these are important factors in why I interviewed six brand leads, I wanted to ask a series of questions to help CMO’s, brand leads, start-up execs and founders to build better brands, leading to better products and better customer experiences.
Read as a magazine on Issuu below:
The seven brand book questions posed were:
What does Brand mean to you? Why do you think Brand and Marketing is often misaligned?
Or are the two misunderstood? Which brand do you think just gets it and delivers their brand every time? What is the best piece of (brand) marketing you have seen over the last twelve months? Brand Marketing is going to get harder with more brands fighting for our hard-earned money for the much desired short term results, what are two brand tactics that will get the best cut through? What is the best piece of advice you would give to struggling brand managers getting cut through currently? What are the three actions for brands looking to gain cut-through right now?
Helping You In 2021 & Beyond
In the Brand Book 2021, you will find seven questions answered and a number of new questions to pose internally and develop out your offering, including:
Do you have Brand respect?
Do you own the cognitive brand space?
Do you regularly make it onto customers lists?
Is your brand part of your flywheel?
Is your brand high or low frequency?
Download the full list of questions as a worksheet
If you would like a PDF copy of the Brand Book 2021, happily reach out on LinkedIn. | https://medium.com/@dannydenhard/the-brand-book-2021-a1ce88f5760f | ['Danny Denhard'] | 2020-12-14 10:18:29.234000+00:00 | ['Marketing Strategies', '2021', 'Branding', 'Marketing', 'Brand Strategy'] |
How we learned to stop worrying and love pull request templates. And why you should too. | How we learned to stop worrying and love pull request templates. And why you should too. Andrei Iordache Jun 10, 2019·6 min read
Setting up source control. Maintaining legacy code. Dailies. What do all have in common? They can be tedious, but all of it needs doing. Just like settling on a pull request workflow and sticking with it.
If you`re like us, you probably love coding, but hate the grunt work. That`s one of the reasons we picked up pull request templates (PR templates for short) as a simple tool to improve our workflow. We get to keep things neat and tidy without the tediousness.
And they`re also a great way to make sure you`re not missing anything important when submitting a pull request. When you add a PR template to your repository, the PR description will be automatically populated with the template`s contents and all project contributors will have access to it.
In this article, we`re going to walk you through the steps of creating PR templates on two of the most popular platforms: GitHub and Bitbucket. We also included two PR templates we use in our daily work, which you can customize for your own projects. Finally, we`re going to talk about the benefits of using PR templates and what we`ve gained out of the whole thing.
Adding a PR template to your repository
GitHub
You can create PR templates as files in your repository, either as simple text files or markdown (.md or .markdown). To make sure collaborators can also use the template, store the file on the repository`s default branch.
To create a pull request template, click the Create new file button on the main page of the repository and name your file PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE. Make sure to add the .md file extension if you`re going for markdown. | https://medium.com/@team-62166/how-we-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-pull-request-templates-and-why-you-should-too-7ed883d8f54e | ['Andrei Iordache'] | 2019-06-10 11:14:06.247000+00:00 | ['Bitbucket', 'Best Practices', 'Pull Request', 'Template', 'Github'] |
Three everyday ways changemakers use STEM | Three everyday ways changemakers use STEM
What comes to mind when you hear “STEM”? For many of us, the term might conjure up images of rocket scientists or computer engineers. In reality, STEM — science, technology, engineering, and math — includes a broad range of skills.
While top tech innovators no doubt use STEM on a regular basis, so do changemakers working in their communities on all kinds of projects, big and small. Working to design a recycling initiative? Create a website? Educate yourself about your local ecosystem? All of these activities, and many more, draw on STEM skills.
At Ashoka, we’ve seen many creative ways that young people are using STEM to solve some of our most pressing social and environmental issues. Here are just a few.
Creating online opportunities
Whether it’s a website, social media channel, or other online platform, many changemakers around the world are using the power of digital tech to make a difference. When Matine Khalighi and his team at EEqual created a scholarship awards program designed to help youth experiencing poverty and homelessness afford college tuition, they didn’t realize how critical basic technology would be to carry out their idea.
Faced with social pressure, “students dealing with poverty and homelessness don’t often feel comfortable identifying themselves as needing help,” Matine says. “Our programs need to be inclusive, safe, and discrete enough for them to come forward themselves.” Instead of direct outreach, they created a microgrant program that operates entirely online, and teamed up with the Colorado Community College Foundation to offer a scholarship.
“This means that students can apply online and we will be able to send their resources to their institution,” Matine says. “By removing the step of self-identification for students, this makes it easier and more comfortable for them to apply.” Whether it is custom and complex, or simple and straightforward to create, an online platform can make a world of difference.
Working with (and learning from) nature
After Megan Chen realized how hard it was to access affordable fresh food in her community of Wilmington, Delaware, she set out to learn more. Later she created The Urban Garden Initiative (TUGI), a nonprofit that aims to inspire and empower youth to achieve urban sustainability through a gardening-based program.
Working with her peers, she discovered that 85% of the students had no experience with environmental education. TUGI not only draws on scientific knowledge to grow fresh produce for the community, it provides opportunities for students to deepen their own grasp of environmental science through firsthand experience and biannual workshops.
“Part of our workshop is divided into an environmental education portion where we teach youth about different environmental issues that they might not be going over in school,” Megan says. “The other half is hands-on container gardening, an easy, transportable, and accessible way to garden.”
During a workshop on pollution, students use a kit to test their local streams and ponds for pollutants. In other workshops, students learn about plant anatomy, soil, the science behind climate change, and more. To design raised-bed gardens, students use mathematical calculations. STEM has found its way into many of core activities at the organization, which now has international chapters in 4 different countries and has impacted over 1,000 youth.
Using data to make a difference
Lead poisoning is a pressing public health issue which, according to the CDC, impacts children in at least 4 million American households. Despite this, blood lead level (BLL) data — an indication of lead level in water — is not available in all states. California is the only state where testing data available statewide by zip code. And Ananya Sridhar saw this information as an opportunity.
Ananya founded The Neptune Project, which uses a machine learning predictive algorithm to identify characteristics of communities with high probability of contamination, using California’s valuable data for training and testing.
By pinpointing the areas which are most at risk for lead poisoning and offering an affordable testing technique that can be distributed in these communities — a litmus test Ananya developed and prototyped herself — the Neptune Project aims to provide a solution that protects children from this serious health hazard, especially in high-risk communities.
“One takeaway from my work on Project Neptune is that my generation, which has grown up in a digital age, has opportunities to leverage technology and data for social good,” Ananya says. “This is a message I have been working to spread to my peers and other students.”
STEM is for everyone
Science, tech, engineering, and math are helpful skills for any changemaker. And as this generation faces a climate catastrophe, we need powerful STEM skills to develop the solutions to protect the planet and build a better future. | https://medium.com/change-maker/three-everyday-ways-changemakers-use-stem-640dc7142e73 | [] | 2020-12-16 15:01:57.580000+00:00 | ['Education', 'STEM', 'Sustainability', 'Environment', 'Social Change'] |
China to block more than 120 offshore cryptocurrency exchanges | China is poised to block more than 120 foreign cryptocurrency exchanges as part of the government’s broader crackdown on activities related to digital money, according to state media.
Authorities will block access in China to 124 websites operated by offshore cryptocurrency exchanges that provide trading services to citizens on the mainland, the Shanghai Securities News, a newspaper affiliated with the country’s financial and markets regulators, reported on Thursday.
It said authorities will also continue to monitor and shut down domestic websites related to cryptocurrency trades and initial coin offerings (ICOs), and ban payment services from accepting cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin. The newspaper cited people close to the Leading Group of Internet Financial Risks Remediation, which was set up by China’s cabinet in 2016 and headed by Pan Gongsheng, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China — the country’s central bank.
Multiple calls made by the South China Morning Post to the central bank went unanswered.
The report marks the latest effort by Beijing to intensity the clampdown on cryptocurrency activities because of concerns about financial instability.
Censors recently shut down at least eight blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused online media outlets, some of which raised several million dollars in venture capital. These entities found their official public accounts on WeChat blocked on Tuesday evening, owing to violations against new regulations from China’s top internet watchdog.
Separately, Beijing’s central Chaoyang district issued a notice on August 17 banning hotels, office buildings and shopping malls in the area from hosting events promoting cryptocurrencies. The document was leaked online this week and confirmed by the Post with the local authority.
Last September, Chinese regulators banned ICOs, describing them as an unauthorized illegal fundraising activity. During the same month, Chinese regulators also ordered Chinese cryptocurrency exchanges to cease trading.
ICOs are a form of crowdsourced fundraising by which companies exchange their newly created cryptocurrencies — called tokens — for payments in an existing currency, usually an established cryptocurrency such as ethereum or bitcoin. ICO investors profit when their tokens gain in value at a faster rate than the currency they used to pay for them.
The government crackdown prompted Chinese cryptocurrency exchange operators and ICO projects to move their operations in friendlier jurisdictions, such as Singapore.
In February, state media first reported that China will soon block all websites related to cryptocurrency trading and ICOs — including overseas platforms. Popular cryptocurrency exchanges, including Bitfinex, Bitnance, Huobi and OKEx, have since been blocked on the mainland.
Since the crackdown began last September, a total of 88 cryptocurrency exchanges and 85 ICO projects have been shut down in China, and the yuan-bitcoin trading pair has dropped from 90 percent to less than 5 percent of the world’s total bitcoin trades, according to Shanghai Securities News.
Pan, the central bank deputy governor, said in Beijing last December that China made the right decision to clamp down on cryptocurrency exchanges.
“If things were still the way they were at the beginning of the year, over 80 percent of the world’s bitcoin trading and ICO financing would take place in China — what would things look like today?” he said. “It’s really quite scary.”
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as China to block offshore crypto access | https://medium.com/bexpro/china-to-block-more-than-120-offshore-cryptocurrency-exchanges-7822995cbf6 | ['Harsha Reddy'] | 2018-08-30 17:47:37.374000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Crypto', 'China', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin'] |
POMprompt # 18 | POMprompt
POMprompt # 18
‘I don’t belong here.’
Image by Prawny from Pixabay
Ravyne Hawke Reminded me today that I have not done a POMprompt in a while, and she is RIGHT. It’s been since July. My goodness.
I guess you could say I have been busy. Life came along and turned me upside down and I have not quite recovered. But I have learned how resilient I am. How strong I am. And just how much poetry and my poetry community lift me up each day. For that, I am so grateful.
So here I sit. Where — you might ask?
On the couch belonging to the ex-boyfriend, who I LEFT back in July.
With my little doggie sleeping at my feet and my fluffball cat sleeping next to me. (They still live here — I do not.)
And I do not belong here.
The ex took off for a few days to another state. He let me know as he was pulling out of the driveway here and since I want my pets to be cared for while he’s gone, I packed a bag and came over here to stay for a few days. It was all very sudden and I do not do well when shoved out of my comfort zone. I prefer to take my own mental health risks, thank you.
And I really, really do not belong here. This is not my home anymore. Things look so different yet still the same. Everything smells different. I couldn’t find the remote. I don’t want to bathe here. I don’t want to eat the food or use the toilets or loiter for too long in any one spot. It is going to be a stressful few days. I may not sleep. I may sleep the whole time.
So I ask you, dear poets — when is the last time you found yourself in a place you did not belong? Perhaps you have felt this way before? What was it like? Put yourself there for a moment and tell me what you see. How you feel. What does it smell like or sound like? Let your reader FEEL this space and your discomfort. Let your reader sit with you in that moment and empathize, connect, understand.
This time you won’t be alone.
Your poetry prompt for POMprompt # 17 is “I don’t belong here.” Now, let’s see that deep, meaningful work!
For those of you who have never done a POMpromt, you can find the previous ones on the POMprompt tab of The POM publication. Here is the link for the post that tells how to participate — PLEASE follow the directions and save our editorial staff the eye-rolls and sighs :) We have so much to do it gets hard making all the corrections and messaging — just re-read the rules part ok? It’s about halfway down the page:
Thanks y’all — and wish me luck and all that for the next few days. I really am quite uncomfortable. 🙁 I guess I’ll sleep here on the couch? 😬
Poetically yours,
Christina M. Ward, EIC of The POM | https://medium.com/the-pom/pomprompt-18-896149bf3ce7 | ['Christina M. Ward'] | 2020-10-08 05:18:09.509000+00:00 | ['The Pom', 'Creativity', 'Pomprompt', 'Poetry', 'Writing Prompts'] |
Fili-Busted | Where We Left Off…
At this point we have a list of all HTML elements on our root page that hold the tag “a” (anchor), meaning they contain a hyperlink (href) to another web page or different part of the current page.
First 10 links printed out via a for loop for easier viewing
In this specific case, I did not need all of the links that were on this page, just a small section of them. In order to make sure I caught everything I wanted, I had to do some manual searching through the captured links and on the web pages themselves using the “Inspect” feature on Chrome.
Slicing Links
In order to find the links I needed to target within the start_links list, I just used the inspect tool on Chrome to find the first and last links and matched that to the indices they represent (depending on your needs and the page, this may not be necessary). Eventually I came up with this:
First 10 U.S. Senate election links (Post 17th Amendment)
At this point, I have what is needed to access each subsequent page on the senate elections stored in start_sen_links . My next step is to pull out the information stored in the href attribute and use it to navigate from page to page within a single scraping function.
Linking Together
If you’ve been following along with my code on your own, you may have noticed that each string stored in the href attribute does not contain the full URL to a web page, just what appears to be the last bits of one. This is actually the case, as we will need to determine the base URL component that will take us to the desired web page before scraping using a custom function.
Luckily, this only meant navigating to the web page in Chrome (or your preferred browser) and copying the part of the URL that precedes the information stored in the href attribute. This part will vary depending on the site, so make sure to research where you are trying to navigate and adjust your code accordingly. Wikipedia fortunately was very consistent, meaning I only needed one base URL for all the targeted pages.
In order for the function to work, I need to be able to combine the two parts into a single URL that can be used by the Requests and Beautiful Soup packages to connect and scrape the data I need.
This can be achieved with the .get() method within Beautiful Soup and Python string operations.
Creating a complete URL using links scraped withBeautiful Soup
Getting Loopy
Currently, I have everything needed to build the function out:
A list of HTML anchor elements containing the end of the URLs to our targeted web pages
A confirmed base URL to combine with end URLs for more scraping
A confirmed process that combines URLs into a usable link
I now need to implement code that will do all of these steps in an iterative fashion, storing the collected data appropriately along the way.
In hind sight, I would have taken more time to investigate more of the pages I was going to scrape prior to doing so. In my specific case, Wikipedia has updated/altered how they identify certain items in the HTML over time, meaning the same items on separate pages may need to be looked up differently. In making my function able to account for this, I used a lot of time up towards my deadline.
After a first trial with my code, it became apparent that the election result tables I wanted from each page did not come with the state’s information once scraped. I would need to come up with a (creative) solution that did not involve scraping a different source. This solution came by way of the table of contents for each page, as it contained by name each state’s election for that year.
Keeping this in mind, here is the for-loop portion of the code I came up with for my function:
For-loop portion of custom function used to collect election data from Wikipedia
One thing to point out in this code is my use of the attrs parameter in the Beautiful Soup objects. When using the attrs parameter you only need to input a dictionary with:
The key(s) set as the HTML attribute(s) to select for
The value(s) set as one or more strings (in a list if multiple) specifying the version of attribute to collect
By using this parameter I was able to only collect tables that contained election data (save some edge cases)!
Secondly, I took advantage of a custom filter in line 30 called is_state . This enabled Beautiful Soup to look at each of the links in the table of contents and, based upon the link, decide whether or not to save it into the link_toc variable. Here’s a link to the documentation that showed me how to do it: Filtering with functions.
Custom filter function used in Line 30 of for-loop code above
Lastly, line 34 is very important to this process, as it turns the HTML for each table into a closer representation to what it appears like in a browser or the typical Pandas DataFrame. Tip: this method requires the HTML to be in string format for it to convert properly.
Checking Our Work
Putting together the code from part 1 with this, we now have a function that will:
Connect to a web page with links to more pages and scrape them
Combine ending URLs with base URL to access these pages
Use Beautiful Soup methods to collect all tables with senate election data and the table of contents for each page for state referencing later
Convert tables from HTML is to easily workable Pandas DataFrames
Store table of contents and DataFrames in a dictionary with the corresponding year for the elections as the keys
During each step, we’ve verified the code will take a table from Wikipedia like this:
Table as it appears on Wikipedia page for 1994 U.S. Senate Elections (Washington state)
Turn it into it’s base HTML elements:
Portion of HTML for corresponding table above (1994 Washington State Senate General Election)
Then return a Jupyter Notebook friendly version via Pandas:
DataFrame for Washington State’s Senate General Election in 1994 (same info as above)
What’s Next?
The next step(s) in creating a data set from this would be to reformat and/or clean the data as necessary. The specific methods required will vary depending on the source material. The more consistent the source is with their HTML, the easier this will be, so make sure to do this process in manageable chunks with respect to any deadlines you may have if the HTML is inconsistent (like in my case).
In part 3, I will show the final results of my scraping and scrubbing along with some of the cool visuals I was able to create it!
Links
Fili-busted!
Part 1 — A web scraping introduction
Part 3 — Exploring the data
Part 4 — Predicting the vote
Link to full project | https://medium.com/swlh/fili-busted-dbabc517f05a | ['Darius Fuller'] | 2020-09-25 00:29:10.450000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Web Scraping', 'Politics', 'Beautifulsoup', 'Wikipedia'] |
Every Step in the Dirt is a Prayer — Day 10 of Simplicity | Day Ten — Notice — 25 Days of Simplicity
I’ve always loved hiking, but lately it doesn’t seem like an option. The trail is my church. It is the place I can take a deep breath, literally and figuratively. On the trail, everything I’ve been holding onto releases without even trying to make it happen. I simultaneously feel completely free and connected to everything. The words below capture that feeling and hopefully guide you towards feeling it as well.
This is church.
No need to fold your hands to pray.
Every step in the dirt is a living prayer.
Breathe your whole body into that prayer.
Every breath out a release of the weight you’ve been holding.
Every breath in a renewed sense of freedom.
Breathe out release.
Breathe in freedom.
Breathe out release.
Breathe in freedom.
Notice as your body gets lighter with every step in the dirt.
Notice as your face lifts towards the sun without even trying.
Notice as the radiance shining on you becomes radiance shining within you.
Notice.
Breathe.
Pray.
This is church.
- Reflection and photo by Heather Whelpley (Intertwiner, author of “An Overachievers Guide To Breaking the Rules,” and Campfire Song Enthusiast)
Now get outside. Get creating. Get free! Get you to church! | https://medium.com/intertwine/every-step-in-the-dirt-is-a-prayer-day-10-of-simplicity-58c6aeff1086 | ['Mike Rusert'] | 2020-12-10 11:27:54.586000+00:00 | ['Advent', 'Freedom', 'Hiking', 'Outdoors', 'Spirituality'] |
10 interesting facts about Cake DeFi | Fact 1: Cake DeFi already serves over 150,000 happy customers
At the beginning of 2021, we were still serving under 50,000, but we can now already call over 150,000 people from all five continents our customers, or sometimes lovingly “bakers”. A number that continues to grow rapidly. The reason for this?
Fact 2: Excellent Customer Support & Customer Retention
If you ever have a problem or even a simple question about Cake DeFi, our customer support is always ready to help you. No useless standard answers, but real help!
But that’s not the only reason why Cake DeFi is so incredibly popular.
Fact 3: Over $49 million paid out to customers in May 2021 alone
Not only is Cake DeFi easy to use and incredibly fun to use, but you can also make some real money with it. In the month of May this year alone, “bakers” received a total of over 49 million USD in earnings paid out!
That makes an average earning of about $327 USD passive monthly income per customer, which is over $3900 USD a year. Free vacation, anyone? :-)
Fact 4: Baking unconditionally for over 2 years
The market can go up, the market can go down, it can move sideways, or it can even go in circles — admittedly, it can’t do the last point, but one thing always remains certain: no matter how the market behaves, Cake DeFi will pay you your earnings on time.
The company has been running like Swiss clockwork for over 2 years now, and there has never been a problem with even a single payout.
Fact 5: The founders have an impressive background
Cake DeFi was co-founded in 2019 by Dr. Julian Hosp (CEO & Co-Founder) and U-Zyn Chua (CTO & Co-Founder).
U-Zyn Chua is a blockchain architect from the beginning and has developed one of the first Exchanges in Asia, worked on a blockchain project for the government of Singapore, as well as recently developed the Digital Bahamian Dollar based on blockchain technology in collaboration with the Central Bank of Bahamas.
Dr. Julian Hosp left behind a promising medical career to turn to entrepreneurship, and is now the biggest crypto influencer in the German-speaking market with nearly 200,000 followers on YouTube alone and two published bestsellers on the topic of cryptocurrencies, even ranking among the top 10 financial channels in Germany.
Fact 6: Secure in the financial centre Singapore
Singapore is a global financial center, with clear and strict regulations. There are few countries in the world where financial service providers are watched as well and in the best interest of the customer as in Singapore.
A big advantage specifically for Cake DeFi is that it is clear how Singapore stands on cryptocurrencies and what crypto companies like Cake DeFi have to abide by. This is something that still raises a big question mark and brings uncertainty for most crypto companies in other countries.
On top of that, Singapore generally has such strict laws that there is virtually no crime here in general.
So with Cake DeFi, you’re definitely on the safe side (of this world). :-)
Fact 7: Over 200 countries are served by Cake DeFi
From wherever you are reading these lines here, it is very likely that you may use Cake DeFi.
This may sound trivial, but a lot of Cake DeFi’s competitors exclude countries like the US or Germany because they don’t meet the strict required regulations in those countries. At Cake DeFi this is not a problem, and we are of course happy to welcome you as a customer!
Fact 8: Open & Transparent even as a private company
There is probably no other private company that is as transparent, open and honest as Cake DeFi.
Through the quarterly transparency reports, you always know exactly how Cake DeFi has developed over the past quarter and what the next planned steps are.
From small details that have been worked on, to new team members and planned products, to overall development and key performance indicators, you’ll find everything there is to know about Cake DeFi in these transparency reports.
Speaking of team members, you can also find our Employee Spotlight Playlist on YouTube, where you can get to know the team and people behind Cake DeFi better.
Do you know of any other private company that is so transparent?
Fact 9: Strong financial position
One big difference between Cake DeFi and many other financial services companies — especially in the cryptocurrency space — is that the company is in such a strong financial position that it could easily survive more than two years without any revenue at all.
Since as you can see in the transparency reports our revenues are not only stable, but already net positive and practically just growing, this scenario is already extremely unlikely.
However, it’s always good to know that even in the worst case scenario, Cake DeFi is a sustainable, long-term safe place for your investments.
Fact 10: Crypto returns without luck-based timing and trading
The big problem with cryptocurrencies is — or rather, was — that unlike stocks or real estate, they don’t yield cash flow, and actual profit thus only comes from buying and selling again.
This causes many investors to repeatedly try their luck at trading or timing the market — which not infrequently ends in the same misery as a novice chef slicing open a pomegranate for the first time.
With Cake DeFi, you don’t have that problem, because we do all the work for you, and we’ve been doing it for over two years without a single hitch. Simply amazing, isn’t it? :-)
If you haven’t registered for Cake DeFi yet, now is your chance to do so — with instant profit.
Sign up for Cake DeFi today and receive a one-time $20 sign-up bonus! | https://medium.com/@cakedefi/10-interesting-facts-about-cake-defi-8cf5f75306ab | ['Cake Defi'] | 2021-06-20 19:34:47.885000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Facts', 'Cakedefi', 'Returns On Assets', 'Cash Flow'] |
Introduction Who am I? | Greetings to all of my future readers. I know what you’re probably thinking, Who is this person and why should I bother reading their blog?
Allow me to introduce myself, for the sake of anonymity my name is Wittie. I’m a first time mom who also happens to be completely blind. With this blog I want to be able to share tips and tricks that I have learned along the way when it comes to parenting with a disability. I want the content to be relatable and easily accessible. I remember searching for answers and having to scour the web to find other parents like me. I have made many friends along the way but it was frustrating trying to find positive information. Besides parenting I want this blog to be a fun place to share opinions on a variety of topics such as TV shows, movies, and music. Last but not least I want to write about access technology and how to use it. Lots of able-bodied people tend to think that blind people live in the Stone Age and don’t use computers, smart phones, and modern technology. People who do know that we are using smart technology don’t understand how inaccessible certain parts of the Internet can be and how frustrating it is for those of us who have to rely on screenreaders. My hope is that this blog can shine a light on this topic and create an open dialogue between able-bodied and disabled people.
Thank you for reading and joining me on this crazy journey through life. | https://medium.com/@britniwsa2012/introduction-who-am-i-ec0c85c892c7 | [] | 2019-03-06 18:50:34.618000+00:00 | ['Introduction', 'Parenthood', 'Disability', 'Blindness', 'Parenting'] |
Drone Market Ecosystem map | After looking into both the VR and IoT space, I wanted to dig in and understand the drone ecosystem and how all of the various players fit together.
Some caveats before we dive into the analysis.
This ecosystem map is not designed to be 100% comprehensive. It’s more to understand all the different spaces within drones.
I am biased towards startups in the space.
If I am missing something tweet me @mccannatron.
This space is developing quickly so take this into consideration.
Observations
Drones are hard to categorize. The drones (hardware) themselves are multi purpose and can be used as a tool for any function. I categorized them based on how each drone company talked about themselves on their home page (see the areas under “commercial”).
It’s interesting to see a few drone companies verticalize and provide the hardware, tools, software, and analysis for a specific market. For example Sky Futures is for oil and gas, Avetics is for film and photography, etc.
It’s interesting to see corporations experiment with drones, most notably in the delivery space. This includes Amazon & Alibaba and also the existing shipping companies: DHL and UPS. One report states that a Chinese Shipping company called SF express is already delivering 500 packages a day via drone. (I can't tell how believable this is).
There is a whole ecosystem developing around the hardware of drones including: insurance, fleet management, marketplaces, data analytics for drone data, etc.
Once the long range programmable drones hit widespread adoption in the consumer and enterprise sector, this could be the first inflection point. For example this drone pictured below made by Airborne Drones can fly up to 90 min, is programmable, has a range up to 12 miles, and can carry 17 pounds.
Company observations
Commercial
If you are thinking about starting or going into the commercial drone market, I would pay attention to all of the various sub industries within the commercial market. I pulled all of these from the websites of all of the commercial drone companies, on the markets they said they served.
Sub industries within Commercial: Agriculture, Construction, Infrastructure, Oil & Gas Utilities, Mining, Inspection, Wildlife, Environment, Humanitarian, Public Safety Mapping, GIS, Surveying, Cinematography, Videography, Advertising, Law Enforcement, and Maritime.
Consumer
From various estimates I have read it looks like DJI has between a 60% and 70% drone marketshare within the consumer space. DJI was reported to have done around $500M in revenue for 2014 and on track to do $1B in sales this year.
EDIT- As many people pointed out DJI drones are widely being used in commercial applications and is the top of the list for FAA exemptions. All that being said I still consider DJI to be a consumer centric company, which many enterprise centric companies can leverage for use in commercial applications.
Marketplace
Insurance/Education
Very interesting to see the big players in insurance — AIG and StateFarm — trying out drone insurance. I’d pay attention to Skyward.
DartDrones is one of the few FAA certified drone flight schools. Depending on the FAA regulations and insurance standards, these types of schools could become important.
OS/Deploy Systems/Data | https://medium.com/@mccannatron/drone-market-ecosystem-map-a8febf0ca8fd | ['Chris Mccann'] | 2015-08-15 19:51:28.700000+00:00 | ['Drones', 'Startup', 'Market Research Reports'] |
Coronavirus Exposes Existing Trends | Riggs Eckelberry reports weekly on issues facing the water industry. In this report, he tells us how to read the impact that an economy impacted by Coronavirus will have on the trillion-dollar water industry. To watch him live, sign up at www.originclear.com/ceo.
Trending Now
Coronavirus is the big news of the day. Many companies are reacting towards it by halting operations and restricting employee travel assignments. For example, Nestlé, the world’s biggest food company, has asked all of its 291,000 employees not to travel until at least mid-March. Not only they, but other large corporations are pulling back.
As air travel is being discouraged, other forms of communication are taking off. In fact, I use the Zoom platform to deliver my weekly live briefings. A month ago, their stock was about $75, and now it’s nearly double at over $115. So… the real world is being reflected in the stock market.
What’s happening? How can an investor find a way forward?
Well, I went to Sam’s Club the other day, because I needed something that same day. Normally, I would order this item online but I needed it that day, so I opted to physically go to the store. That’s when the broader scope of this situation hit me:
most people aren’t going to be coming to these big stores because of the Coronavirus epidemic.
Not just big stores but, theaters, conventions centers, restaurants, all are being affected. Even the World Cup of skiing, being held in Italy in mid-March, has now chosen to ban casual spectators.
The truth is, this event is just reinforcing existing trends: from marketing and shopping to communication and entertainment.
Sewage Systems and Fecal Matter
What does any of this have to do with water? I’m sure you saw the headlines about the multiple sewer line breaks in Ft Lauderdale, that caused one Pennsylvania man to cancel his plans to retire there.
In Alabama, where we’re saving a trailer park from its water treatment problems (and there are thousands of those), 34% of residents taking part in a 2017 study tested positive for hookworm─a parasite that people contract by walking barefoot through soil contaminated with fecal matter.
Johnny Depp has done an amazing film about toxic waste: “Places so toxic they threatened any life that enters them.” That is a failure of waste water management on a giant scale.
What’s going on? Simple: local governments can’t pay for the infrastructure to keep up with sewer demands. As I related in my weekly briefing of 20 February, it’s been going on now, at a national level, since 1960.
Here’s the graph from our friends at Lux Research:
Webinar: Closing the Loop: The Future of Decentralized Water (Lux Research. JUNE 26, 2016)
Even when the funds exist, big projects just aren’t happening. For example, San Diego’s landmark water recycling project is delayed. Why? Because there are major union problems.
Big projects in this day and age suffer from an already developed landscape and very high labor costs. And of course, you have NIMBY, “not in my backyard”. Go ahead and try and locate a sewage plant anywhere near where people live.
The general story is that things are falling apart in sewage and the big systems just aren’t being built. Won’t be, really.
As things begin to fall apart in the center, the people at the edge still need their water treated. And there lies the trend, the trend that is accelerating.
Well actually, there are two.
Both these trends have been going on for decades, but now they are accelerating.
Big Trend One: Decentralization.
Industries doing their own water treatment, mostly because central systems
are increasingly failing. Our own Dan Early started seeing these on-site projects two decades ago. Now, like the brewery that had to build its own water treatment plant, they
are commonplace.
Big Trend Two: Maintenance.
When you don’t invest in new systems, you have to spend more to maintain the old.
This isn’t a new trend — as you saw in the graph earlier, we have seen Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs rise by more than seven times since 1960.
We will see much more spending on refurbishment and maintenance, to keep those old systems running longer.
But all this must be done at a lower price with higher quality.
That’s the other big trend: lower cost, higher quality.
Standard design = lower cost, shorter install time
At OriginClear, we were recently able to slash the price of our pump and lifting stations.
We did this by standardizing their design, eliminating both the extra cost and the delay of customized systems.
And we have the quality advantage of our modular design, and our Structurally Reinforced Thermoplastic (SRTP) material boasting a lifecycle of up to 100 years. (Protected by five patents.)
Cities Mandating Modular Pump Stations
I’ve got an email here from Dan Early, our guru. I am not going to name names, but he says here, “I just hung up on the phone after speaking with a certain water company and this water company was following up on a mandate from this particular city in the Mid-Atlantic region that has instructed their consultant to start working on budgeting and design for a packaged pump station using our structurally reinforced thermoplastic, or SRTP material.”
Modular Water Systems™ Structurally Reinforced Thermoplastic systems (SRTP) are built with non-corrosive reinforced plastics with a lifespan as great as 100 years. Pictured: a Dan Early design using SRTP.
“The city will no longer use any concrete structures for their pump stations, too expensive to maintain and replace every 20 years. The city was aware of what we do and instructed their consultant to start work in that direction. The consultant called the water company, which called us. The key message is that the city is going to adopt this SRTP standard moving forward. This is a huge deal because once the first locality does this, the rest of the Mid-Atlantic region, will follow suit.” Then, as Dan says, “It spreads from there to other regions.”
So─lower prices, much higher quality. That’s what is winning in the marketplace. And water is no exception.
Water Autonomy™ for businesses and industry is a megatrend that is accelerating like everything else in this winner-loser economy. OriginClear is moving quickly to take full advantage of it. | https://medium.com/@originclear/coronavirus-exposes-existing-trends-b4499c036364 | ['Originclear - Total Outsourced Water'] | 2020-03-11 19:02:33.943000+00:00 | ['Wastewater', 'Investment Research', 'Investment Opportunities', 'Investing', 'Investors'] |
INDIA’S COVID VACCINE DRIVE — fears and facts | India has planned to start rolling out its vaccines for Coronavirus from today that is 16th January. India has planned to conduct its vaccine drive in 3 stages. During the 1st stage, the frontline workers such as sanitary workers, police are vaccinated.
This will start immediately. The next stage is for senior citizens.Those who are 75 and above are vaccinated without questions whereas those above 50 are to be vaccinated if they have any co-morbidities (any symptoms). The third and final stage is for all age groups with co-morbidities. The good thing is that you are not forcibly vaccinated. If you wish to be vaccinated, you can do that and vice versa.
The vaccine is given in 2 doses with a gap of 40 odd days. The first dose is called the prime and the second dose is called the booster. The problem arises here. We have two types of vaccines: Covishield by Oxford-Astrazeneca, Serum Institute of India and Covaxin by Bharat biotech in collaboration with NIV( National Institute of Virology) and ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research). Covishield is a vector vaccine that injects the activated Influenza virus of Chimpanzees treated with the protein of covid 19 viruses into our bodies.
This is a new technology when compared to a tried and tested technology used in Covaxin which injects inactivated virus into our body. Both methods are proved to be effective for any mutation of the virus but the point is that we don’t have a choice to select the vaccine. And we have to use the same vaccine for the 2nd dose too.
Side effects are another issue. Though we don’t have any data in favour or against it, we have to wait. But, persons with other serious illnesses and food allergies are advised not to take the vaccines for time being. By the time, the vaccine is available for common men, we will have the data from other countries like the UK and India’s data from stage 1 for us to decide. | https://medium.com/@bharathravi/indias-covid-vaccine-drive-fears-and-facts-fb19feb5cbea | ['Bharath Ravi'] | 2021-01-16 07:39:36.620000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Vaccines', 'Corona'] |
Natural History Illustration 101: Drawing Animals | by Elisabeth Yaneske | Nov 24, 2020 | Animal Art
I recently completed a fantastic course, Drawing Nature, Science and Culture: Natural History 101. It’s an online course run by the University of Newcastle in Australia on the edX platform and is aimed at artists who want to improve their observational skills in order to draw realistic animals and plants. The course is free, but you can pay a small fee to get a certificate if you achieve a mark of 50% or above. You are awarded marks by taking part in two multiple choice exams, peer assessment of your drawings and participation in the discussion forums. The course runs for 6 weeks and covers the following topics:
Week 1: About the course
Week 2: Observational Drawing
Week 3: Field Work
Week 4: Understanding Structure — Botanical
Week 5: Understanding Structure — Animals
Week 6: Rendering
Composition
I found this course really useful in explaining some of the fundamentals, like composition. I had a general understanding about what composition was, but this was the first place I found a clear break down of the components. It really made me think more about my drawings.
Drawing Construction
My favourite module was understanding the structure of animals. Not only was the anatomy of different animals fascinating, but I learned an incredibly useful skill: drawing animals using basic shapes. The technical term for this is drawing construction. The task for that week was to draw a mammal and a bird using basic shapes. I decided to draw a North American river otter and a Toco toucan.
How to use Shapes to Draw Animals
Using basic shapes to draw a mammal you can start very simply by drawing a circle for the head, a circle for the rib cage and an oblong for the pelvis. You connect them together to form a neck and body to give a starting structure that you can then start refining by adding muscles.
The legs and arms start as basic cylinders with cone shapes for paws. Having the pelvis bone represented makes it easy to add the tail as an extension of the spine from the pelvis. Drawing lines to indicate the 3-D nature of the form can help with the placement of eyes, nose and ears.
Adding a few fur details can really bring the structure to life but the objective is just to get the shape and proportions of the outline, not to add all of the fur or feathers, that comes later in the rendering stage.
How to use Shapes to draw Birds
Drawing the structure of a bird is a bit different. You start with a circle for the head, a circle for the body, and an oblong for the beak. No pelvis this time.
Using lines to indicate the 3-D form of the head can help with the correct placement of the beak which actually connects to the skull under the eye. The legs are initially drawn as simple lines, like you would give a stick figure.
The tail starts as a fan shape which you can add some indication of the different feather shapes. From these general shapes you can then refine the shape of the breast and add the wing shapes. Adding an indication of feathers and distinguishing marks adds a bit of character.
Drawing a Hare
For the final assessment I used there techniques to draw a hare. You can read all about it in my blog post ‘Natural History Illustration 101: Drawing a Hare‘. | https://medium.com/@nifiko-papoutsi/natural-history-illustration-101-drawing-animals-c8afe2e30dfd | ['Seo Managment'] | 2020-11-26 10:35:51.191000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Artist', 'Drawing', 'Colouring'] |
Decorating Class Method | Source:- Towards Data science | Google
Hello Guys,
Came across an interview question about how will you decorate all methods of the class without decorating each method separately.
I was not able to answer that then I started searching for the answer and I finally found how to do that. It is a bit complex compare to normal decorators.
For decorating all of the methods of the class we have to override class special method __getattribute__ which gets called every time we call an attribute or method on the class object and this is the reason that this has performance concern and slows our code a bit.
I have written the below code to explain how to do this. This might be back-breaking at the start but please sure you read the comments carefully and try to understand what the below code is doing.
It will print the below output:
I am decorating
I am fun
Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or any difficulty in understanding what is going on here.
Stay safe and keep learning!! | https://medium.com/@vignesh_jeyaraman/decorating-class-method-fcb0a3dacdb8 | ['Vignesh Jeyaraman'] | 2020-11-17 07:59:20.711000+00:00 | ['Object Oriented', 'Class', 'Python3', 'Decorators'] |
YFDAI Monthly Transparency report | YFDAI Monthly Transparency report
Dear Community
The first monthly unlock from the time-release smart contracts has been completed, please find below confirmation of upcoming transfers.
Team Tokens — Maximum Monthly Allocation 105 Tokens
https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd539730edca381051263833d89e2cd3f4f15fddcd9380fd0c0c41f26c16ed7d1
As you are aware YFDAI did not carry out a presale and funding of the project has been paid directly from the team. The team tokens are in place to pay for all team members and Devs.
Usually 100% of these tokens would be used monthly however the core team have agreed that only 50% of the available tokens will be used for the October release (52.5 tokens). The remaining 52.5 tokens will be locked via time release smart contract for 3 months reducing the monthly outflow of tokens.
This month 50% of the team tokens available will be used to cover the salaries of the team. The additional Devs are taking 50% Tokens which they want to hold and 50% USDT. The team will fund the USDT balance of $18,385 directly to save large sales being placed on the market. This will be recovered by selling a maximum of $500 of tokens per day from each of the core team wallets. To ensure no price impact will be seen a maximum of $200 worth of tokens will be sold at anyone time. The $500 of tokens per wallet, totaling $1,500 of tokens per day will be sold on a daily basis ongoing to fund the USDT costs of the business. This figure will be reviewed on a monthly basis and detailed in the monthly transparency report.
The 52.5 tokens will be transferred to the following addresses detailed in the chart below
The token payments for the Dev team totalling 23.77 tokens will be paid directly to the Devs from the Development fund. https://etherscan.io/address/0xFdb317591EC1b11d7FECe49Bfe424525F33FA7fC to the wallet’s addresses detailed in the chart above.
The remaining 50% of available team tokens (52.5 Tokens) will not be entering the market and will be locked in time release smart contracts for a 3-month period. We had previously outlined that these would be added to the liquidity pool however this is currently not practical as the team would like to hold the ETH available for some planned expenses this week that will finalise the legal process to allow for full identities to be revealed, along with personally funding another large expense -some more exciting news that will be released in the next 14 days.
Marketing Tokens — Maximum Monthly Allocation 175 Tokens
https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd0d0b5be31ed2a7397571e55bc237f637e7d7b2c8e89da5cc0d4422d0a65866b
As we start to ramp up the marketing campaign a mixture of YFDAI tokens and USDT will be used. There is a total of 175 tokens available and the current initial spend shall be around 105 tokens. Please note that this may not be the final amount used for the month as we are still in talks with several marketing options. The remaining tokens not used will roll over for future marketing. For each party who receives tokens there is an agreement in place that not more than $500 of tokens can be sold in a 24hr period and with a maximum slippage/price impact of 2% to be respected. Staking has also been offered to our partners with the large majority opting to stake some or all of their tokens.
Please note that all marketing contracts are based on a USD amount of YF-DAI, therefore the amount of YF-DAI required per month will decrease. We also have segments of the marketing campaign that will not start until certain milestones are reached.
You will see multiple amounts leave the wallet later today/tomorrow.
Advisor Tokens — Maximum Monthly Allocation 105 Tokens
As previously confirmed the tokens allocated to the team of advisors will be staked and will not be entering the market. Tokens will be transferred to the following wallet:
https://etherscan.io/address/0x5AB109aFb3f592265ce9102e74D447CaFc60F2d9
Summary
As you can see from the above although the marketing and Team expenses are funded via the tokens that are held in the time-release smart contracts, we have managed to reduce the amount of team tokens potentially reaching the market by 50% and the marketing allocation by 40%. Furthermore, we have added strict terms of sale to all parties receiving tokens to ensure that the price is not affected negatively by this monthly token distribution.
YFDAI Team
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https://t.me/yfdai | https://medium.com/@yfdaifinance/yfdai-monthly-transparency-report-4d19c96e92b6 | ['Yfdai Finance'] | 2020-10-13 11:08:03.008000+00:00 | ['Farming', 'Transparency', 'Staking', 'Defi'] |
Maps as Truths: How the Next Generation of Internet Users Navigates the Unknown | 1. Digital Maps Are at the Foundation of Data Driven Development
Maps are used to measure how far people are from schools. With this information you can measure how many minutes kids are away from schools and what percentage of them live less than 20 minutes from a school. This number provides a strong indication of literacy.
What percentage of the world is less than fifteen minutes away from a hospital? That question provides you with an indication of mortality. So based on maps, governments know how to decrease mortality by improving roads. Because if something happens in a certain village, then instead of 30 minutes the villagers can get to the hospital in 10.
2. Five Billion People Have Given Google The Power to Decide What Is Truth
Today Google Maps put everyone ahead with maps. Before Google Maps it was very hard to know where you were and where you wanted to go. Google Maps is the second app to achieve five billion downloads. The other one is YouTube. It is that important for us to have maps.
At the same time giving Google the power to decide what to show on the map comes at a cost. It is similar to giving Google the power to decide what is truth. Maps are not a perfect representation of reality, maps are leaving out many details.
What are the companies, community organisations and authorities that are shown when you search for a place in Google Maps? Are these the same places that your friend would see? Your grandparents? And what are the places left out by commercial interests?
3. Maps Are Only Useful When They Are Imperfect
Maps are missing things. That is the beauty of maps. How much can you remove from a map to make it useful? If you had everything on the map it would be hard to find anything and thereby the map would lose its usefulness.
This is the business of Mapbox. Building on OpenStreetMap, Mapbox allows people to create their own maps, highlighting what is relevant to them. In this way a bike rental company can create a map showing where their bikes are while at the same time hiding public transport or competing bike rental shops.
4. Maps Are Extremely Political
Namibia [W] — South Africa — Botswana [E] credit Imagined Borders.
The borders on Google Maps are placed differently depending on whether you access it from China or India. This is surprising at first, but it is not surprising when you see a map in your native language. In this way we are constantly changing the realities of maps.
When you travel to India, the immigration form it says it is forbidden to import drugs, pornographic material and maps with illegal borders. The problem is that the borders often depend on who you ask. Just think about the disputed territories in Russia, Ukraine, Tibet, China, India and Kashmir. This makes it hard for places like OpenStreetMap and the World Bank that requires a canonical database, one single map that is true to everyone.
5. Maps Empowers People To Claim and Take Ownership
Maps are not just about where is the next restaurant or bank. Maps give agency and legitimacy to people. If you live in a slum without street names and then one day your street has a name, it makes it more official and people become very proud to be able to name the street where they live.
After the civil war in Kosovo, women used maps to claim the ownership of the land they were living on. Land that historical only had been possible for men to claim. Claiming ownership of the land also meant that the women could ask for credits, using the land as collateral to accelerate other business opportunities.
6. Community Driven Maps Could Be The Future
When Haiti was hit by the earthquake in 2010, the community used OpenStreetMap to respond and record the impact of the earthquake. The community added details on what houses were destroyed and what roads were still working, allowing for emergency people responding to have the most updated version of the catastrophe. In very short time Port au Prince became the most mapped place in the world, creating something that no single company could accomplish. It shows the power of community.
Communities could make decentralized, offline, customized, inclusive and democratic maps with OpenStreetMap. However, unless we rally the communities for doing this, the future of maps lies in the hands of Google, Facebook and Apple who have a vested interest in making their own maps the true reality.
7. Making Maps Accessible Should Be On Everyone’s List
Many of the existing tools that are out there are very difficult to use and requires a lot of expertise that people living in remote areas often don’t have. There is a lot of possibility in building open source tools that are really build with and for local communities.
One example is Mapeo, a mapping and environmental monitoring tool that can also be used for other types of local documentation. Mapeo has been built with indigenous communities in the Amazon, where it is used to protect their land from the evading oil-industry. Struggles that at first can sound unfamiliar to us, but often is not much from reality in Copenhagen, New York and Berlin, where local communities are fighting commercial interest from real estate developers. | https://medium.com/comatter/maps-as-truths-how-the-next-generation-of-internet-users-navigates-the-unknown-d5def7471b3a | ['Kristoffer Tjalve'] | 2019-04-12 10:27:05.986000+00:00 | ['Maps', 'Internet', 'Community', 'Technology'] |
Dear Future Me, | Dear Future Me,
I want you to be happy. I know a utopia of sunshine and rainbows and dancing flowers isn’t realistic, but I at least hope you can be peaceful. Let go of the chains that weigh you down. If you can’t find the key to the lock, look for the bolt cutters. If those are hard to come by, fight with fire. Even if you die trying, never accept the ugliness as a piece of you; always be searching for the means to release it.
You have been through so much. Some may say you’ve been through too much, but here you are. You wanted to give up sometimes. You wanted to give in. You wanted to let your world break you because it was easy, but you made it. I don’t have to tell you how bloody amazing that is because somewhere, however deep down, you already know it.
You know that even though you’ve been ripped down to the last string of thread, the thread held. It held long and strongly enough for you to be sewn back together.
You can forgive the ones who hurt you. You can forgive the ones who crushed those you love. Forgiveness isn’t handing power back to the demons and telling them it’s okay, it’s you letting go and taking the power back for yourself.
The right thing to do is often the hardest thing to do, but that’s exactly why you have to do it. Don’t take the cheap, simple shortcuts. Very rarely will those allow you to actually grow and breathe. The most stifling routes will incur the most freeing journeys.
Be peaceful. Take happiness from that peace. It’s all you can do and all I wish for you. | https://medium.com/@mxvieinq/dear-future-me-82c9990444e1 | ['Jennifer Lynne'] | 2020-12-24 04:23:39.394000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Letting Go', 'Forgiveness', 'Future Me', 'Letters To Myself'] |
My top 10 vintage Japanese tracks | In the past years I have been getting more and more into “world music”, which in general is not such a hip term. I have however seen a change in the popularity of different (let’s say alternative) music from different regions. Obviously the upcoming of the internet in the last 2 decades has also changed a lot in terms of availability. The comeback of vinyl (and represses) has given the “world music” genre the comeback it deserves, at least in my opinion.
The great thing about music is that there is pretty much an endless amount of music available, way more then any person can get to know in their lifetime. In my opinion these different “repress-labels” have opened a world for music-aficionados, since most of the re-releases are even hard to find online.
Since there are way too many good represses coming out from all different regions of the world, I will focus this time on solely japanese releases. These have also been even more hidden due to the fact that the english speaking world can’t even read or type the characters in the japanese language.
So without further ado, my top 10 japanese tracks:
Chiemi Manabe — Untotookue
Taken from Chiemi’s 1982 album, very sweet track with catchy female Japanese vocals and melodies.
Pizzicato Five— Porno 3003
Pizzicato Five is a japanese popband that has been rocking it since 1979, recorded 15 Albums so far. This gem is taken from the “Happy End of the World” album from 1997
Osamu Kitajima — Wild Monk
Upbeat Jazz from Multi-Instrumentalist Oasmu Kitajima, released on the album “Masterless Samurai” in 1980
Midori Takada — Mr. Henri Rousseau’s Dream
Very artsy track from 1983, repressed in 2017 by Palto Flats
Osamu Kitajima — Taiyo (The Sun)
Second track in this list by Osamu Kitajima, taking from the more “Zen” album Benzaiten
Ryuichi Sakamoto — Plastic Bamboo
B-side from the 7 inch repress of Thousand Knives on Rush Hour, originally released in 1978
Yasuaki Shimizu — Suiren
Taken from the very rare Kakashi released in 1982, repress by Palto Flats in 2017
Masahiko Sato — TBSF
Taken from the Belladonna Soundtrack (Italy-inspired anime from 1975), repressed by Finders Keepers
Yasuaki Shimizu — Kakashi
Title track from the before mentioned Kakashi album repressed by Palto Flats
Kenji Kawai — M08 Floating Museum
Taken from the Ghost in a Shell OST, re-released multiple times.
For more Japanese music (and hearing the above ones in a set) you can have a listen at: | https://medium.com/beathunter-net/my-top-10-vintage-japanese-tracks-5546de1c9594 | ['Niek Mahler'] | 2018-04-27 09:10:03.315000+00:00 | ['Vinyl', 'Music', 'Vintage', 'Charts', 'Japan'] |
Startup Of The Week: Haltian | Haltian co-founder Ville Ylläsjärvi
Haltian, a Finnish startup, has developed an Internet of Things platform called Thingsee to simplify the adoption of connected devices in sectors such as smart cities, manufacturing, energy, logistics and facilities management.
Platforms such as Haltian’s Thingsee, which includes both wireless sensors and a cloud-based data management service, are seen as a critical step toward wider deployment of connected devices. While observers have touted the benefits of such systems for years adoption continues at a measured pace as companies launch pilot projects and weigh the costs and benefits.
To lower some of the hurdles, the Thingsee platform starts with a variety of customizable wireless sensors. These sensors can, for example, measure things such as distance which allows for tracking the rate at which a container is filled, or the movement of assets. They can also monitor the movement of people in a facility or enviromental factors such as temperature, humidity, air pressure, or light. The company packages those sensors with hardware called the Thingsee Gateway that manages the connection of all the sensors and hooks them into the company’s cloud-based data plat form.
Through the platform, customers can monitor performance, need for maintenance, and analyze the data to improve efficiency of their workflows, says Haltian co-founder Ville Ylläsjärvi.
The company is now working with Finland’s transmission system operator, Fingrid, to help digitize the maintenance of its electrical grid. Its sensors are doing things like monitoring temperatures of various components. Sudden changes in temperature can indicate some kind of trouble, whether it’s dirt, corrosion, or a faulty part.
In its largest deployment to date, Thingsee has partnered with Lindström, the global textile provider and facilities management company. Lindström is using more than 100,000 of the IoT devices as well as the Thingsee cloud service for a service it calls “Flowability Smart Washroom Service.” Sensors are placed in towel dispensers which monitor the rate of usage and alert facility managers of the need for replacements or maintanence, Ylläsjärvi says. The system has lowered Lindström’s costs while allowing its clients to offer improved service in facilities such as shopping malls, hospitals, and various other public spaces.
Founded in 2012, Haltian is based in Oulu, Finland. It was started a group of former Nokia employees who left the company amid layoffs in its faltering mobile phone business. “We were working together in an internal unit of Nokia,” says Ylläsjärvi. “Even back then, we were focused on developing new ways of creating products.”
Initially, the Haltian team focused on product design, specializing in helping clients create connected consumer products. This role as a boutique product development company resulted in steady growth, until the company decided to start building its own hardware. That resulted in the launch of the Thingsee IoT platform in November 2017. Following an initial burst of interest and pilot projects, the company raised a $5 million round of venture capital in December 2018, led by Finnish VC firm Inventure.
Today, with more than 70 employees, the company is looking ahead to the rollout of 5G networks, wich are predicted to encourage even greater IoT adoption. The Thingsee platform is now evolving to be ready for use with 5G networks, says Ylläsjärvi.
At the same time, Haltian has continued its product development work with other clients. Ylläsjärvi says wider IoT adoption remains unpredictable, with many larger players hesitant to move beyond pilot projects. Continuing to have steady revenue from that product development work gives Haltian a solid foundation, he says, as it continues to encourage partners to embrace the Thingsee platform and a connected future. | https://innovator.news/startup-of-the-week-haltian-3f037c7ebb4d | ["Chris O'Brien"] | 2019-03-18 07:58:33.930000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneur', 'Startup', 'IoT', 'Technology'] |
Canada’s Recording Label & Academy President addresses 2021 PLAQUE AWARDS & Website Upgrades | Photo: Wright Record Label & Recording Academy| XXavion West | President & CEO
By: Sarrah Matthews
The Plaque Awards is a prestigious recognition given its members of the Wright Records Recording Academy annually within 38 music genre categories, vlogs, and spoken words. But in light of its recent discovery ‘Wright Records Label,’ the parent company of the recording academy has confirmed its web platform onboard commencing January 1st of the new year.
XXavion West President & C.E.O of the mega entertainment network located in the northwest region of Canada interviewed said; “ The passion of turning one’s dream into star quality while creating entertaining memories for our fan base audience is the sole mission of Wright Record Label and its Recording Label. So beginning January 1st, 2021 the first annual plaque award would be available to the public for submissions. The submission portal would be accessible to both independent and signed artists as well as other recording labels.”
The Plaque Awards are set to arrive in fall of next year as production key players gather final preparations on the debut of the website, and nomination entry page that’ll entail five categories; Popular Field (Reggae, R&B, Pop, Rap, Dancehall, Hip-hop, Country, Rock, Gospel, K-Pop, Latin) All-Star Field ( Music Videos, Vlog Videos, Canadian Roots) Genre X Field ( Indie, Jazz, Blues, Classical, Afro Beats) Composition Field ( Album Lyric Notes, Remixed Recording, Immersive Audio, Spoken Words, Musical Theatre Comedy) and the Pinnacle Field (Producer, Song, Album, Artist, Vlog of the Year)
and with this breathtaking futuristic Recording Academy, president and C.E.O XXavion West ousted momentarily that in little over nine days the official website would debut. XXavion had opened the organizational brand to create a welcoming engaged community that would improve the lives of others woeful the recording label is honoring Black artist momentum to its official launch and beyond so that each other gentlemen can claim the rights to their empires.
Fifteen thousand streaming platform has currently been their collaboration to exclusive red carpet televised plaque awards, but almost seven months into its public publication, the Plaque nomination would be finalized for the 2021 Plaque Awards.
How many performances are scheduled?
The Plaques Awards has unofficially selected local star appearances which would etch memories of our history. | https://medium.com/@xxlucion/canadas-recording-label-academy-president-addresses-2021-plaque-awards-website-upgrades-4a315504398 | ['Rajiv Rodriquez'] | 2020-12-20 01:26:31.013000+00:00 | ['Plaques', 'Xxavion West', 'Recording Academy', 'Canada', 'Record Labels'] |
How Rails Generators Make CRUD Workflow Go Smoother | Photo by Michael Hodgson, New York 2019
Ruby on Rails or Rails is a user-friendly open source framework. Its main goal is to optimize the web application development process.
Rails developers must follow standard best practice conventions in order for the magic to happen. Rails is built on the principle of convention over configuration (for example: a model is singular — a controller is plural).
Generators are a nifty way of integrating standard features that help creating CRUD functionalities in an application. So instead of having to build them manually each time, Rails came out with a faster automated way. Let’s break this more down by running rails g in the command line of a rails application:
General options:
-h, [--help] # Print generator's options and usage
-p, [--pretend] # Run but do not make any changes
-f, [--force] # Overwrite files that already exist
-s, [--skip] # Skip files that already exist
-q, [--quiet] # Suppress status output Please choose a generator below. Rails:
application_record
assets
channel
controller
generator
helper
integration_test
jbuilder
job
mailbox
mailer
migration
model
resource
scaffold
scaffold_controller
system_test
task ActiveRecord:
active_record:application_record TestUnit:
test_unit:channel
test_unit:generator
test_unit:mailbox
test_unit:plugin
We see a list of all built-in generator, from application record to task . If we want to generate any of them, all we need is run rails g (name of generator we want to generate).
Let’s compare two of the most common commands. rails g resource vs rails g migration . I personally consider the first one to be the smartest of all. For example, running rails g resource SignUp username id_number:integer would mainly create the following:
A migration file with the proper name/path: /db/migrate/20201221141414_create_sign_ups.rb, as well as the corresponding attributes:
class CreateSignUps < ActiveRecord::Migration[6.0] def change create_table :sign_ups do |t| t.string :username t.integer :id_number t.timestamps end end end
A model file that inherits from ApplicationRecord
class SignUp < ApplicationRecord end
A controller file that inherits from ApplicationController
A view directory
A full resources call in the routes.rb file
On the other hand, for example, we can add a new table to a data base by running rails g migration <SignUp> . This create the migration file ‘’######_sign_up.rb
class SignUp < ActiveRecord::Migration[6.0] def change end end
Our take on this: Rails generators follow Rails best practices, which includes utilizing RESTful naming patterns. | https://medium.com/@nouraloudani/how-rails-generators-make-crud-workflow-go-smoother-59a4fba5285b | ['Noura Loudani'] | 2020-12-21 14:36:18.289000+00:00 | ['Rails', 'Beginner', 'Generator', 'Ruby on Rails'] |
The Warren Buffett Indicator Shows the US Stock Market Is Dangerously Overvalued by 200% | “Buy stocks” is the typical throwaway investing strategy given out online.
“Buy the index,” they say.
Working in finance for many years has forced me to loath these phrases. They’re throwaway lines, dished up in personal finance books, designed to upsell investing products.
If investing was as simple as “buy stocks,” we’d all be millionaires. I’d funnel my entire paycheck into US stocks and never look back, if all you needed to know was “buy the US Index Fund and you can’t go wrong, buddy.” There are so many hidden secrets of stocks.
There is gambling… and investing.
Gambling is believing the stock market hype. Gambling is having zero financial education.
Investing is looking at the data to see what it tells you, and managing risk accordingly.
Right now in the US there is record unemployment. Some argue the unemployment rate is improving. But that assumption forgets there is a lot of underemployment too. You might have a job, but you could be earning 40% less than last year. Politics hides this reality.
CNBC reports that “the United States economy is set to fall by 4.3% this year, but the economic contractions in the UK, France, Italy and Spain are around 10%. With lockdowns returning in Europe due to the pandemic, the decline in GDP is far from over.
The point of reminding you of all of this isn’t to make you fearful or to destroy your optimism. It’s to highlight the issue with stocks, and people flocking into them in ignorant bliss like a game of poker at the local Casino.
Earlier this year I sold my entire investment portfolio. This allowed me to lock in a 30% profit and sit on the sidelines for a while. The primary reason I did this is that stocks were, and still are, overvalued. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.
You could argue that stocks will always go back to the same old highs again. But there’s more to the story.
What the Warren Buffett Indicator Reveals
Warren is so successful at investing that he has his own indicator. Many people are unaware of it.
While Warren’s indicator is only one set of data points, it sure does paint a simple picture to help put stock prices into perspective. Yahoo finance explains how the Warren Buffett Indicator works:
“The Buffett indicator is calculated by dividing the total value of all stocks in the US market and by the gross domestic product of the US. Traders typically use the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index as a measure of total US. market cap.”
Let’s get to the good stuff. The Warren Buffett Indicator reveals stocks are dangerously overvalued by more than 200%.
Image Credit: US Bureau of Economics Analysis/fred.stlouisfed.org
One of the biggest stock bubbles in history was the Dotcom Bubble. It was during the dawn of the golden age of the internet where anyone with a website and a bobsled looked like a hero you should throw wads of cash at.
The euphoria was out of control. It resulted in a massive recession and a collapse in stock prices. Look at the chart above. The 2000s Dotcom Bubble is tiny compared to the stock bubble we’re in right now. | https://timdenning.medium.com/the-warren-buffett-indicator-shows-the-us-stock-market-is-dangerously-overvalued-by-200-eb5a2bf1fd78 | ['Tim Denning'] | 2020-11-04 21:24:59.321000+00:00 | ['Economy', 'Society', 'Money', 'Education', 'Life'] |
How-To Create Your Own Token With Fabrx in Less Than 5 Minutes | How-To Create Your Own Token With Fabrx in Less Than 5 Minutes
This is a step-by-step visual walkthrough of how anyone can create their own token in less than 5 minutes without having to write their own smart contracts or learning to code.
A video tutorial is also included at the end of this should you prefer to listen to my soothing voice walking you through each step.
Accessing the Fabrx Dashboard
Head to the Fabrx website here.
Fabrx Login Page
If you already have an account, login with your credentials to access the dashboard. If you don’t have an account, please register for one.
The main Fabrx dashboard can be seen below:
Main Fabrx Dashboard
Accessing the Fabrx Tokenization Suite
There are two ways to access the Tokenization Suite. The first way is through the Marketplace.
Go To Marketplace > Create Tokens > Launch New Token
Go To Marketplace
Create Tokens
Launch New Token
Token Dashboard
The second way is through the Web3 Adaptors menu on the left:
Market > Tokenization > Launch New Token
Market > Tokenization
Launching Your Token
Enter your Token Name Enter your Token Symbol Enter the Number of Tokens to Create Enter the Email** or Wallet Address of where you want the tokens to be sent. Click Add User Launch your token.
**If a user does not have an Ethereum address, the tokens can be sent to an email. A wallet will be automatically generated for that user linked to that specific email address. They’ll be able to log into a dashboard and view those tokens received.
Should you want to get deeper into the process and see the actual steps laid out, the API’s can be viewed on the right side of the Token Launch Dashboard.
Token Deploying
Once you launch your token, the Status will be Deploying and all the magic happens in the backend. Smart contracts are created and tokens are being minted.
It should take only a few minutes but once the token is Live, the status will change and you’ll be able to view the contract and token information on Etherscan.
🎉🎉🎉 CONGRATULATIONS!!
You’ve just launched your token.
These tokens can be used to represent almost anything from collectible items, memberships, tickets, coupons, certificates, licenses, and essentially any tokenized information that requires uniqueness.
See below for the step-by-step video tutorial on token creation:
Start Building Today
Create your tokens today in under 5 minutes without learning how to code by using the Fabrx Interface or integrate it into your application with just a few lines of code. Visit the Fabrx Website for more information.
The Fabrx Tokenization Suite is powered by our friends at 0xcert. Please visit their site to learn more.
Recommended Reading:
How-To View, Add, and Transfer Tokens Inside Your Fabrx Dashboard
How-To Spin Up Your Own Exchange with Fabrx in Less Than 5 Minutes
How-To View and Edit Your Exchanges Inside the Fabrx Dashboard | https://medium.com/fabrx-blockchain/how-to-create-your-own-token-in-less-than-5-minutes-40d1f204f75c | ['Christopher Lee'] | 2019-07-01 14:45:17.060000+00:00 | ['0xcert', 'Fabrx Blockchain', 'Tokenization', 'Fabrx', 'Tutorial'] |
Five Tips to Boost Your Sexual Confidence and Prepare Your Body for Pleasure | I used to think my oh-so-confident pornstar alter-ego was hiding somewhere under those extra 10 pounds I’d wanted to lose for the past decade. Or maybe the sexual diva I longed to be would reveal herself when I hit 30?
Then I hit 30 and didn’t magically morph into a porn star when the clock struck midnight.
The fearless sexual confidence I longed for always seemed just out of reach. Somewhere on the other side of a long and tedious road to sexual self-discovery. For years, I sold myself on the idea that sexual confidence wouldn’t come easy for me. After all, I was a little broken and my sexual baggage had become a heavy load.
But what if tapping into your very own inner sex-goddess wasn’t that complicated at all?
What if taking the pleasure I craved came naturally to my body and all the other stuff was just background noise? What if cultivating the confidence to allow ourselves to let go and enjoy pleasure was the difference between avoiding my naked reflection in the mirror and reveling in its sex appeal?
What if feeling like a sexual goddess is not a destination at all — but instead, a practice.
Much like practicing yoga, sexual confidence requires self-love, compassion, forgiveness, risk-taking, and a commitment to learning and exploring your own body. It’s all about taking baby steps in the right direction. There is no finish line, it’s a fluid evolution towards becoming the kind of sexual being you can be proud of.
Each tiny step makes us feel a bit more aware of our desires and confident in our abilities to find pleasure. Every single act of confidence-inspiring sexual courage gives us another boost towards bringing our pleasure to life.
“Beauty is to recognize how full of love you are. Sensuality is to let some of that love shine through your body.” — Divine Union
Getting in the mood and boosting your sexual confidence
I’ve found a few favorite strategies that continue to give me the sexual confidence I’m looking for and get me in the mood for pleasure. These techniques have become a part of my practice to become more sexually aware and help me experience a level of confidence I thought was reserved for only a certain type of sexually privileged woman.
From self-pampering to turning on mood-boosting music, it all starts with trying different things and finding what works best for you. No matter what suggestions you try, remember that sexual pleasure is right around the corner.
Don’t wait for pleasure to find you…go get it!
1. Communicate
Sometimes the best way to feel more confident about your sexuality and get in the mood is to talk. It might be the last thing you want to do, but even if it feels a little forced, give it a try.
If you’re on a solo mission, write down exactly what you are feeling. Journal about your sexual blocks, what turns you on, how you feel about your body — anything and everything you can think of that you’ve been holding in sexually. Putting pen to paper is a seriously underutilized therapeutic tool.
If you have a partner, try telling them exactly what kind of day you’ve had and how you’d like to soothe away those worries with some sexual healing.
Cheesy as it sounds, a little dirty talk works.
When I first started learning how to talk dirty I was surprised by the thrill I got from testing out different words and phrases. Going outside of my comfort zone and trying something new earned me a little extra confidence in the bedroom — score!
It sounds silly now, but I always assumed dirty talk was just used to turn my partner on. I certainly didn’t expect the act of talking dirty to turn me on quite as much as it does.
2. Pamper yourself with a bath
Drop in the perfect bath bomb or add some bubble bath, lay back, and relax. Let your worries wash away and focus on sensation alone. Allow yourself to unwind surrounded by the comforting warmth of a hot bath.
A little “you” time can ease any overwhelming thoughts after a hectic day. It helps you become more present and available to the sexual experience coming your way. Plus, you’re going to feel clean and smell amazing!
Turn off the lights and use candles for an even sexier experience. Gently touch your silky smooth skin and use kind and encouraging thoughts.
3. Create a stress-free space for intimacy
When my room is messy it makes me seriously stressed, and feeling and acting stressed-out is anything but sexy. Messy spaces or an unmade bed can trigger all sorts of negative emotions that quickly kill any sexy plans you have in the works.
Aside from making sure your space is clear of clutter, you should also make changing your bedding a priority. There’s nothing sexier than sliding naked into a neatly made bed with fresh linens. You could even add some essential oils or linen spray to your sheets to kick it up another notch.
4. Turn on the tunes
Relax, close your eyes, and let your favorite music change your mood. There’s a bunch of science behind this, but to sum it up, music taps into the pleasure center of your brain and releases all the good sexual mojo.
According to a study done by Sonos, couples who listen to music out loud together report having more sex than couples who don’t listen to music.
5. Let go of expectations
Release the expectations you’ve assigned to your sexual experience. Instead of living inside of our heads during sex, try to breathe into each moment and let it come. Allowing your breath to guide your body and determine your next move.
Gently reminding yourself to practice mindfulness might just bring you the clarity needed to feel a deeper and more confident sexual connection to your body.
Are you still struggling to get in the mood?
Don’t forget that sex hormones and stress hormones are fundamentally linked. If one is high, the other will likely be low.
Stimulants like sugar, caffeine, and nicotine also raise your stress hormones making it less likely you’ll be able to get in the mood. Kicking some of those habits or dialing them back will make it easier to find pleasure. | https://medium.com/the-pillow-talk-press/five-tips-to-boost-your-sexual-confidence-and-prepare-your-body-for-pleasure-cbb22eb9d059 | ['Bradlee Bryant'] | 2020-12-14 19:09:06.447000+00:00 | ['Self Love', 'Women', 'Self', 'Love', 'Sexuality'] |
How to Get into a Good Mood | How to Get into a Good Mood
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Getting into a good mood can at times be challenging and at others downright impossible. When you have a mood disorder as I do; bipolar to be precise, a good mood may be far off into the horizon almost unattainable some days. Getting into a good mood is a good skill to learn.
So, I was able to manage this feat today and a few things came into play.
I had an excellent sleep the night before. I went to bed fully happy and resolved all my stressors. I spoke to myself about my life and my goals, feeling secure in where I am right now. I reached out to those I care about and love. I set aside leisure activity and me time. I promised myself I would be kind to myself.
And that’s all it took!
I am now as cheerful as I’ve ever been and perfectly content. I feel as though I have not only all that I want and more, but that I have the agency and capability to reach for whatever I may desire. I don’t see any limits to what I can or cannot do.
Usually, this enthusiasm is fake. It feels so when I’m depressed and stuck in a desperate loop of negativity and frustration, but now I can look back and see that what bothers me is insignificant in comparison to what else there is for me. Nothing is as bad as it can seem when hope is lost. Hope is what keeps us going.
Feeling secure in our relationships also improves overall mood. Just feeling as though the people we are friends with like us back and respect us. That’s enough to ease our worries and calm our anxieties. As we develop ourselves and our sense of self, we can independently become stronger and more confident in who we are, deserving of such treatment. | https://medium.com/dreamscapes-in-the-simulacrum/how-to-get-into-a-good-mood-a7e12d7b86e8 | ['Aimee Sparrow'] | 2020-12-25 21:39:40.002000+00:00 | ['Bipolar Disorder', 'Good Mood', 'Mood Disorder', 'Confidence', 'Self'] |
Well, you’re not wrong, although in this last election I would consider a vote not Democrat a… | Well, you’re not wrong, although in this last election I would consider a vote not Democrat a default vote for Fascism, no matter what knives in the back existed. I’m curious, though,how you view other Democrats that are progressives. AOC? Bernie Sanders? Elizabeth Warren? They call themselves Democrats. But your thinking may be more progressive than that, in which case I would wonder how your activism works. | https://medium.com/@RamseyTherapist/well-youre-not-wrong-although-in-this-last-election-i-would-consider-a-vote-not-democrat-a-7efcefb80d74 | ['Patrick Ramsey'] | 2020-12-24 14:58:10.814000+00:00 | ['Bernie Sanders', 'Democrats', 'Progressivism', 'Elizabeth Warren', 'Aoc'] |
How To Know The Right Person To Marry! | They are secret on how to know the right man or lady to marry, but many single men and women depend on saying “God will give me my own” but not playing their part so that God will do his own part. When I say playing your part you shouldn’t be confused, what I mean is that you should pray and ask God to show you the right direction to follow.
Know Who You Are:
I tell u if u don’t know who u are u can’t know who to marry, u need to understand yourself, understand that beauty is not in the face but in character.
Note: You don’t just meet someone today and go for marriage; we have four (4) levels of relationship which you need to undergo before you know whether he/she is the right person for you to be marrying.
These are;
1) Friendship: This is the level of relationship whereby you know the person by name.
2) Dating: This is the level you take a friend you already know.
3) Courtship: This is the level you begin to talk of marriage.
4) Marriage: This is a result of knowing the right person to marry.
They are ten (10) signs to know if you are in a bad relationship and that will be posted tomorrow.
Click and follow me in order to be notified whenever I create a new post. | https://medium.com/@patrickwrite/how-to-know-the-right-person-to-marry-5e060c391cc1 | ['Patrick Akpan'] | 2021-02-20 16:47:09.656000+00:00 | ['Love Letters', 'Marriage Counselling', 'Love And Sex', 'Love', 'Relationships'] |
There is a Power in Sadness | Photo by Galyna Greiss on Unsplash
There is a power in sadness
It never leaves you
it stays with you
hiding between deep layers
of your subconscious.
While you flirt with happiness
sadness waits for you.
It waits until your love affair
with happiness dies
its natural death
and your adventure seeking impulse
goes back to finding solace
in the lap of sadness.
It’s comforting to hang out
with sadness
it makes you
understand yourself better
so you can pick yourself back up
and get your energy back
for your next adventure
with another happiness.
But the sadness gets sad
and lets you leave
and then awaits for you
to come back again.
Perpetual bliss is a myth
and the definition of perpetual bliss
is distorted to make it
all about happiness.
Perpetual bliss is the dance
you do between
finding yourself with sadness
and letting go of yourself with happiness.
Embrace your sad part too
after all there is a power in sadness. | https://medium.com/@number1849/there-is-a-power-in-sadness-ba600f74e514 | [] | 2020-12-23 20:16:32.742000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Motivation', 'Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Sadness'] |
An Introduction to Recursion in Programming | An Impossible staircase that leads to itself in either direction
If you have been coding for a bit, you may have used or written several recursive functions without knowing it, and this is a concept that is important to understand as you begin to work with more complex data structures. Recursive functions are everywhere in coding! Why are they used so frequently? One reason is it can be a cleaner alternative to iterators like loops. In fact, common functions like JSON.stringify and DOM traversal often run recursively.
So, what is a recursive function? A recursive function is a function that invokes itself. Pretty simple right? There’s only two basic rules that must be met to write a proper recursive function. The first rule is the function must have a base case — a condition in which the recursive action in the function stops. The second rule is, the function must change its input before calling itself again in order to reach the base case. Without these rules, recursive functions would get caught in an infinite loop, like that first picture of Penrose stairs.
Let’s take a look at some javascript functions to illustrate the point. If you wanted to write a function that when given a positive number, returns the sum of the range between one and that number, you could write a non — recursive function like the following.
function sumRange(num){
let total = 0
while(num > 0){
total += num
num--
}
return total
}
This works! It also fills one of our rules, the loop breaks once a condition is met. However, the function does not call itself. Let’s look at a recursive version.
function sumRange(num){
if(num === 1) return 1;
return num + sumRange(num-1);
}
In this example, the function runs, and if the input number is greater that one, it adds the input number to the return value of another occurrence of the function, ran again with an input 1 less that the previous input. This adds each recursion of the function to the top of the “call stack” (the list of functions currently being ran from top to bottom), with each instance of sumRange waiting to add its input to the return value of the next sumRange. Once this recursion has gone all the way down to calling sumRange(1), we get our first return value, which is 1. This allows the next occurrence of sumRange down the call-stack to receive the 1, and return 2 + 1, which allows the next one to return 3+(2+1) and so on, until we get our final sum.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
This is a basic introduction to recursive methods and hopefully you can understand, recognise, and implement some recursion in programming. The most important take away when dealing with recursion is that you need to have a base case (a condition that breaks the recursion) and a change of input within the function to move towards the base case. Without doing this, you will add too many function calls to your call stack. This will result in and error stating that your maximum call stack size is exceeded, known as ‘blowing your stack’ or most commonly referred to as phrase every programmer has heard before, “stack overflow”.
I hope you have found this useful and continue to learn more about recursion and how it fits into more and more complex functions. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/an-introduction-to-recursion-in-programming-b38f25bee843 | ['Steven Parsons'] | 2020-06-17 20:07:13.194000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Coding', 'Flatiron School', 'Codingbootcamp'] |
The Mi:Lab December Newsletter | Mi:Lab’s 2020 in Higher Ed
How to Co-Design Better Schools, IDEO
The Post-Pandemic University Project by Mark Carrigan brings together diverse global voices to reflect on how we can build higher education back better.
As We Rush Online, How Might We Redesign Higher Education? By Rafe Steinhauer is an empathetic and actionable set of ideas and resources for designing intentional learning experiences.
After the Pandemic, a Revolution in Education and Work Awaits by Thomas Friedman predicts lifelong “just-in-time learning” as the ‘pension’ of the future.
How to Co-Design Better Schools by IDEO is one in a series of projects IDEO has launched this year to re-imagine education around community and equity. Also check out this visions for reimagining learning.
Wicked problems: (how) does higher education solve problems for students? By Jim Dickinson considers the “wicked” problems of Higher Ed, and the need for “a bit less conspiracy theory and a bit more complexity theory.”
A podcast for faculty & higher education professionals on research design, methods, productivity & more, with Dr. Katie Linder.
The Innovating Together Podcast, An Interview with Michael Crow Thoughts from the innovative and pioneering President of Arizona State University. | https://medium.com/mi-lab/the-mi-lab-december-newsletter-9102a2726650 | ['Mi Lab Team'] | 2020-12-22 10:52:17.696000+00:00 | ['Design Thinking', 'Creativity', 'Milab', 'Higher Education', 'Education Innovation'] |
How to detect image contents from Ruby with Amazon Rekognition | Rekognition is a new Amazon Web Service that “makes it easy to add image analysis to your applications.” It can detect faces and objects, and even let you store libraries of faces for future recognition.
If you’ve ever used an AWS service from Ruby before, doing some simple image rekognition (sic) is straightforward.
Create a .env file with your AWS credentials
AWS_REGION=us-east-1
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=[put that key here]
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=[and the other one here]
Get the credentials from AWS, as you would for any other service. (For extra security, use IAM to create credentials solely for Rekognition.) Note that it’s currently only available in US West, US East, and EU Ireland regions.
Create a Gemfile to get a simple project going
source ' https://rubygems.org gem 'dotenv'
gem 'aws-sdk'
The dotenv gem pulls in the .env file as environment variables for your program. The aws-sdk gem is Amazon’s official Ruby SDK for AWS.
Write a Ruby program to query Amazon Rekognition
require 'dotenv'
Dotenv.load
require 'aws-sdk' client = Aws::Rekognition::Client.new resp = client.detect_labels(
image: { bytes: File.read(ARGV.first) }
) resp.labels.each do |label|
puts "#{label.name}-#{label.confidence.to_i}"
end
First, we load our libraries and load in the environment variables from .env. The AWS SDK will use your credentials automatically.
Next, we create a client object and call its detect_labels method (really, Rekognition’s DetectLabels method) with the raw data of a file whose name is passed in via the first command line argument (ARGV.first). Finally, we print out the labels and confidence levels returned.
Do some detecting
If the above file were called detect.rb for example, you could run this:
ruby detect.rb myimage.jpg
Let’s say that myimage.jpg looked like this:
The above Ruby script would produce:
Freeway-64
Road-64
Dirt Road-63
Gravel-63
Asphalt-56
Tarmac-56
Intersection-55
The labels of what’s been detected are on the left, with the percentage ‘confidence’ of the detection algorithm on the right.
Have fun and remember Amazon will charge you $1 per 1000 images processed unless you’re on the free tier.
Random terrible ideas for this stuff if you’re bored | https://medium.com/statuscode/how-to-detect-image-contents-from-ruby-with-amazon-rekognition-46a962cb040f | ['Peter Cooper'] | 2016-12-03 23:36:42.808000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Image Recognition', 'Ruby'] |
Letter to Maa.. | A personal note my mother…
I know you are not there,
But your memories are still fresh in my eyes.
The way you looked, you touch.
I remember the time when you were getting me ready for the fancy dress competition,
Fruity is what you made me.
And I screwed it so bad.
I remember how you and dayda use to fight for the speed of the fan.
You turned it fast and dayda slow and I use to laugh at you guys.
I remember how you use to call him “Abhi”,
I remember how you took me to your tuitions,
Saw you teaching them and me engrossed in playing toys.
I have seen your possessiveness for me, when I use to give more importance to amma and not you.
I remember how desperately you wanted me to get into a convent school.
You put in all the efforts to see me there.
A true example of mom is what you set.
I remember how ill you were but still wanted to celebrate my b’day on a large scale.
But I never knew that would be the last.
You left, went somewhere far,
A tale that ended soon.
Small I was, but knew what just happened.
Life was about to change.
Me and dayda were left alone,
You left us.
School started, teachers saw me with those sympathy eyes.
Not just one but all.
I was loved not for me but just because I was a child without a mother.
I use to get jealous when I saw other mother daughter smiling, fighting, loving, making fun of each other.
I imagined what life would have been if you were there.
Sometimes I get angry, frustrated on you.
Wish I could tell you how difficult things are without you.
Wish I could complain how daddy was before and what he has turned now.
Wish I could tell you how I miss that word family in my life.
I have seen Mom, Dad, child.
But me, I was surrounded with a lot of members.
They loved me, and so did I.
I have everyone, but no one to be known as mine.
I know everyone loves me, but that personal touch is something I miss the most.
I got many moms in my life, but I keep finding you in everyone.
I have become so mean that I see their love but never as a mother.
My amma of whom you were jealous was my new mom.
She spoiled me like mad and I love her like you.
I love that she is imperfect and she loves me back.
We have our small personal fun time.
But still you were never replaced.
Even though you are that far, I can still feel you around like a shield protecting me from anything bad.
I am an adult now,
Married, family, husband,
The best family and life partner I could ever get.
I know you set it up for me.
But yes you still cannot be replaced.
I miss that mom advice which you would tell me for my relationship.
I miss how nervous I was on my day.
Didn’t have anyone to hold my hand and say calm down.
I miss you were not there on my big day.
I miss telling you about him.
I know up there you are watching us,
May be not in real but I know you are there.
I am not perfect maa, made lot of mistakes,
and I wish to make more.
I wish I could know you more.
Not the mother you, but the person you.
You know masi gave me all your pictures and school marksheets.
I love hearing all your stories including the crush one.
Dammnn we are so similar.
Stay there Maa, you are irreplaceable.
Miss is just a small word for that emptiness.
Love you Maa…
Happy Mothers Day! | https://medium.com/@pkwedding21/letter-to-maa-1736f785def9 | [] | 2020-05-20 16:05:58.508000+00:00 | ['Mothers', 'Motherhood'] |
Decision Trees — Just the everyday things! | “Waiting hurts. Forgetting hurts. But not knowing which decision to take can sometimes be the most painful…”
In this article, we shall be covering the following:
Introduction Components of a Decision Tree Classification Trees Regression Trees Exploring the Algorithm Entropy, Gini Index, Variance Building a Decision Tree Classifier and Regressor using scikit-learn library Overfitting & Pruning Pre-pruning & Post-pruning Advantages & Disadvantages Conclusion
Let’s get started!
What am I?
Imagine a scenario where you are a property broker and have a house price list with given characteristics- number of bedrooms, area, electricity and water availability, etc. What if someone calls you up to make a deal about a new house that isn’t on your house price list? Is there a way in which you can predict the price of this new house with your existing data?
Well, you’ll be glad that there are Decision Trees to the rescue. Here is an example of a very basic Decision Tree.
A Decision Tree is a tree-based supervised machine learning algorithm that creates a clear dichotomy between the choices at hand using nodes to divide and leaves to offer a conclusion based on those choices.
Components
Root: The node at the top of the tree (1️⃣), which kickstarts the chain of questions and decisions is called a root.
Internal node: Each node (2️⃣ ,3️⃣ ,5️⃣ ) is a junction that represents a test on one of the attributes/ features and is followed by a branch that represents the outcome of the test. The convention is that the branch to the right is for evaluation of the test as true and the left for false. Each branch leads either to another node or a leaf.
Leaf: A leaf (4️⃣ ,6️⃣ ,7️⃣ ,8️⃣ ,9️⃣ )is the final step in any Decision Tree algorithm and it represents the decision taken after computing all the features that concern it. They are also referred to as terminal nodes.
Let’s delve deeper into the subject of Decision Trees which are broadly divided into Classification Trees, which are used for object classification, and Regression Trees, which are used for predicting continuous values.
Classification Trees
Suppose a company is about to launch a product and would like to have maximum reach in a fixed marketing budget, i.e, they need to identify their target demographic. A Decision Tree is incredibly helpful in such situations as it literally models out how the human brain thinks by picking one of two options at hand and refining it further by recursive binary classification to reach a conclusion. Also, given the simplicity of the Decision Tree, they could use their sales data from previous products and data of other similar products in the market to model the various parameters that could impact their sales.
Let’s take an example to understand how it works. For the sake of simplicity, we would be classifying the person as simply fit or unfit (which might be a bit crude but bear with me).
We start off with the question at the root node, which is whether the person is younger than 30 years? If yes, the next attribute to be considered is the abundance of pizza in their diet. If that evaluates to be true, they are unfit, otherwise, they are deemed fit.
Let us look back to see what path we’d have gone down if the person was older than 30 years. The next feature to be considered in that case would be whether or not they exercise in the morning, if they do, they are deemed fit otherwise unfit. You saw how simple that was? This intuitive nature of Decision Trees and their easy visualization is what makes it so popular.
For any classification tree model, the choice of attributes and their relative position is done in such a way that we can claim our prediction with the maximum possible probability. The nodes with questions of higher importance are placed closer to the root node and various methods and parameters are affecting this, which will be elaborated on later on.
Regression Trees
You must have got a pretty good idea about how classification trees work and moving a little further with a little more calculation, you can learn about regression tree algorithm. The only difference between the classification tree and the regression tree is that the former has a boolean value and the latter numeric. In the classification tree, the model segregates based on the “yes or no” value provided and that’s pretty easy to understand and code too. But in the regression tree, we have a vast range of values to consider of the feature with numeral value and then to classify them accordingly. So we bring in a limiting value that decides the flow of the classification. If a parameter evaluates to greater than a threshold at a node, decide to go right in the tree or left (KDAG is right and nothing is left :-))
So to get the best classifying line, we have to bring in some function to quantize the value of each line telling us how ‘well’ it can classify the data which will help us pick the best one among them. This can be done by finding the deviation of this function with respect to these lines and selecting the one with the least error. So that raises the question “are we really going to check for each and every value present in the axis“ pssst definitely not.
Sit tight as we begin with the algorithm itself!
Exploring the Algorithm
First, sort the dataset with respect to a feature and then get the average value of the consecutive samples which will be our potential candidates for the classifiers. As this line graphically splits the dataset into two parts, now we can check how well the line has classified the dataset. To check, we first take the average of the two groups individually and find how much it has deviated from its actual value by taking the sum of squares of difference (technically called the “sum of squares of residuals” abbreviated as SSR) from its actual value to that of average value, we then calculate this for all the lines and select the one with least error. Out of the two samples obtained in classification, we select the one with the lower value of SSR and continue this process until the last nodes(leaves) of sufficient purity. You can perform this partitioning as much as you want but it would result in overfitting which is a common dilemma in machine learning (bias-variance tradeoff…don’t worry, we’ll explain it in the subsequent sections) which only works good for the training dataset but will be of problem to the testing dataset. You can read about it in the subsequent parts.
Providing a suitable example would make you understand it even better, the following small data will be used to do so.
From the above dataset, we get the potential classifiers as 166, 168, 170, 171.5, 172.5. We will show here the way to calculate the SSR for just one line and that can be done to all of them, from which we can get the line with the least error.
Let’s take the value 168, then
the average of 1st class = (4+4)/2 = 4
and the average of 2nd class = (5+9+9+10)/4 = 8.25
SSR = (4–4)²+(4–4)²+…..(10–8.25)²
Finding all the SSRs and comparing the values we will get 170 as the best fit line to classify the dataset. So this can be extended to as many classes you want and here you go, you have as such learned the regression tree. The regression tree works well even for many classes in the dataset but can easily overfit the dataset and one has to be careful about it. In the coming part, we will discuss how to preprocess the data and remove unnecessary stuff.
Entropy, Gini & Variance
With more than one attribute taking part in the decision-making process in a Decision Tree, it is necessary to decide the relevance and importance of each of the attributes. Thus, placing the most relevant at the root node and further traversing down by splitting the nodes. Hence the major challenge is the identification of this attribute for the parent node in each level. This process is known as attribute selection. The following is an example of how a group of students playing cricket can be split based on their gender, height, and class features.
We need to select, splitting the students based on which feature will give us the best homogeneous set of population. For doing that, the decision tree has various criteria. Let us look at a few popular attribute selection methods used by Decision Trees:
Entropy
We all know that in thermodynamics, entropy means the measure of disorder. In the machine learning world, it can be defined as a measure of the purity of a sub-split. The Decision Tree can be partitioned into smaller subsets and entropy acts as the threshold value for each tree node and decides which parameter/feature of the data will result in the best split.
The mathematical formula for the calculation of entropy is as follows:
where the probability, P(i), denotes the fraction of examples, of a given class i.
Basically, entropy is the negative sum of the probability for each event multiplied by the log of the probability for the event. Since probability falls in the range of 0–1 the summed value will always be negative thus it needs to be multiplied by -1.
Higher values of entropy imply a high level of impurity. The maximum impurity for a data set is achieved when there is an equal division of all the unique values in the data set.
Steps to split a Decision Tree using Entropy:
For each split, we individually calculate the entropy of each child node,
Then we calculate the entropy of each split as the weighted average entropy of child nodes
We select the split with the lowest value of Entropy to be used as the splitter for the dataset
We keep on repeating steps 1–3 until we get homogeneous nodes (or nodes of sufficient purity)
Below is a Decision Tree performing classification on Iris Dataset using the ‘entropy’ criterion.
Gini Index
Gini index or Gini impurity measures the degree of probability of a particular variable being wrongly classified when it is randomly chosen. The value of the Gini index varies from 0 to 1.
0 indicates all elements belong to one specified class or there exists only one class
1 indicates all elements are randomly distributed across various classes
0.5 indicates elements are equally distributed over some classes
The mathematical formula for calculating the Gini index is as follows:
Here Pi is the probability of an object being classified to a particular class i. While building a Decision Tree, we would prefer choosing the attribute/feature with the least Gini index as the root node/parent node.
The steps to split a Decision Tree using Gini Impurity:
For each split, we individually calculate the Gini Impurity of each child node
Then we calculate the Gini Impurity of each split as the weighted average Gini Impurity of child nodes
We select the split with the lowest value of Gini Impurity to be used as the splitter for the data set
We keep on repeating steps 1–3 until we get homogeneous nodes.
Below is a Decision Tree performing classification on Iris Dataset using the ‘gini’ criterion.
Comparison between Gini Index and Entropy
The internal working of both methods is very similar and both are used for computing the feature/split after every new splitting. But if we compare both the methods then Gini Impurity is more efficient than entropy in terms of computing power. Let’s plot the graph of entropy and Gini impurity against probability:
As one can see in the graph for entropy, it first increases up to 1 and then starts decreasing, but in the case of Gini impurity it only goes up to 0.5 and then it starts decreasing, hence it requires less computational power. The range of Entropy lies between 0 to 1 and the range of Gini Impurity lies between 0 to 0.5. While calculating too, entropy is more complex since it makes use of logarithms and consequently, the calculation of the Gini Index will be faster.
Hence we can conclude that in general, Gini Impurity is a better criterion as compared to entropy for selecting the best features.
Variance
Reduction in Variance is a method for splitting the node used when the target variable is continuous, i.e., in case of regression problems. It is so-called because it uses variance as a measure for deciding the feature on which the node is split into child nodes. The mathematical formula for variance is:
Here, X is the actual value, 𝛍 is the mean of all values and N is the total number of values.
Variance is used for calculating the homogeneity of a node. If a node is entirely homogeneous, then the variance is zero. Value of variance increases when the dataset becomes non-homogeneous leading to impure nodes.
The steps to split a Decision Tree using variance:
For each split, we individually calculate the variance of each child node
Then we calculate the variance of each split as the weighted average variance of child nodes
We select the split with the lowest value of variance to be used as the splitter for the data set
We keep on repeating steps 1–3 until we get homogeneous nodes.
Now let’s get our hands dirty with some coding!
Let’s Code a bit!
1. Building a Decision Tree Classifier using scikit-learn
(the link to the dataset on which we are working can be found here)
2. Building a Decision Tree Regressor using scikit-learn
(the link to the dataset on which we are working can be found here)
Overfitting and Pruning
By now you must’ve gotten a decent idea about the working of Decision Trees. Now let us look at how to improve their performance. If the Decision Tree grows without any restriction then it will end up giving a very high accuracy score for the training data set, which might sound like a good thing after all we want our model to learn from the data. However, while doing so, it just might happen that quite a few nodes will split with very little data at their disposal, just to reduce the loss and increase the information gain. This may result in wrong and unreliable predictions for future data sets. This situation is called “Overfitting’’.
In overfitting, the machine learning model predicts the outcomes of the training dataset almost perfectly, but it may fail to do so for any other dataset and may end up with erroneous predictions. We say that such a model has low bias and high variance. Here, bias conveys whether or not any strong assumption has been made regarding the model. Variance gives a measure of the degree to which the model is based on the training dataset.
Underfitting and overfitting are two opposing situations as shown here:
For an ideal fit, we would like to keep both the variance and the bias low. Since in overfitting, the model memorizes the outcomes of the training set, thus we hardly make any assumptions regarding the data (Low bias), however, while fitting the data we also fit the noise in the data to the model, thus the model relies heavily on the training data (high variance). Similarly, in underfitting, the model fits the data points by taking into consideration a lesser number of features, which in turn leads to a high bias and low variance situation.
As can be seen from the graph, there exists a sweet spot in between the underfitting and overfitting regions that give us an optimal complexity.
An example of overfitting and underfitting
Striking the right balance
There are several methods to prevent the model from overfitting the training data and we’ll look at one of the widely used methods known as “Pruning”. As the name suggests, we will prevent the tree from becoming unnecessarily large.
The two kinds of pruning are — (a)Pre-pruning and (b)Post-pruning.
Pre-pruning
In pre-pruning, we first impose restrictions and conditions on the tree to grow and the nodes to split and then allow the model to fit the data. For Pre-pruning we can use several parameters that are available with Scikit learn’s DecisionTreeRegressor model. Some of these parameters (AKA hyperparameters) are:
max_depth: Restricts the maximum tree size.
min_samples_split: Assigns a threshold value for the minimum number of sample data that a node must have to split
max_leaf_nodes: Restricts the maximum number of leaves a tree can have.
min_impurity_decrease: This allows a node to split if the decrease in impurity after splitting is greater than the threshold assigned.
There are a few other parameters that can be tweaked to prevent overfitting. Tweaking these parameters is also called “Hyperparameter tuning”. The optimal values of the above parameters can be found by using some strategy (such as Grid Search) and the best value for a parameter can be assigned either by simply using the values on the test data or by cross-validation. An initial guess for some of the parameters can be obtained directly from the original overfit tree.
Post-pruning
Apart from pre-pruning, we can also go for post-pruning which may give comparably better results. In post-pruning we first allow the tree to grow without any restrictions, thus resulting in overfitting, and once the Decision Tree model is obtained we start pruning the tree. One of the most common methods for such pruning is “Cost Complexity Pruning”. Let’s understand this in some more detail:
Let us define a function R, which calculates the Sum Squared Error of the predicted values and actual values for the given data points.
where yⱼ= actual value from the data set, and pⱼ= predicted value
For the training data set a model facing overfitting will give a comparatively smaller value of R, whereas the test data set will give a higher value. Thus the value of R itself is not a very good way to decide whether the model is performing well or not. Thus we define a new function:
Here |T| refers to the number of terminal nodes in the tree T. Thus, it can be seen that the greater the number of leaves, the higher is the penalty. This function overcomes the shortcoming of the SSR by penalizing the trees with a greater number of terminal nodes.
To ascertain the value of α, first, we create a Decision Tree taking into consideration the entire data (training and testing), then we select different values of α which will correspond to different subtrees of the newly formed Decision Tree. For example, if the alpha value is zero we’ll select the complete tree since R_α=R for this case. Similarly, several different subtrees can be obtained by pruning the leaves of this tree which will correspond to the least R_α value for a given α.
Now that we have a list of possible values of α, we’ll select the best-suited value by fitting the model to our original training and testing dataset for all values of α and selecting the one with the maximum accuracy score.
For the Iris dataset, let’s work out pre-pruning and post-pruning with a code.
Pre-pruning:
Post-pruning:
‘α’ is selected in the range [0.01, 0.02] since a maximum for test accuracy is obtained in this range
From the above execution, it can be seen that the model performs much better after pruning the original decision tree.
Advantages
1. The merit of the Decision Tree over other algorithms lies in its simplicity to visually represent it and the ease of being able to comprehend the binary choices at each node which are made without any assumptions about the distribution of the data. This makes it a very intuitive algorithm for even a muggle (we’ll call them that for now).
2. What makes it incredibly powerful is its ability to work with both boolean and numerical as well as discrete and continuous data in form of classification trees and regression trees.
3. Decision Trees do not demand a lot of effort in data preparation during pre-processing, normalization, or feature scaling like linear regression, logistic regression, and Neural Networks.
Disadvantages
1. Decision Trees are at constant risk of overfitting on the sample data (which we shall explore later).
2. They are extremely sensitive to the slightest change in data.
3. They are comparatively much slower when it comes to regression and are practically applied mostly to classifications.
4. Decision Tree being a greedy algorithm always selects the current best split that maximizes the information gain and as with most greedy algorithms, it does not backtrack to change a previous split. This makes it vulnerable to reaching a decision that may not be the overall optimal choice (analogous to a logistic regression reaching a local minimum but not a global minimum).
CONCLUSION
Now give yourself a pat on the back for completing the article 😃.
Through some real-life examples, we introduced you to the basic idea of Decision Trees. We talked about the basic structural components of a decision tree, its advantages, and its disadvantages. We learned about the application of Decision Trees in regression and classification by grasping the underlying concepts of entropy, Gini, and variance through mathematical expressions and the intuition behind them. Finally, we dealt with the case of overfitting in decision trees and understood the methods of pre-pruning and post-pruning to deal with it.
So, revise, code, and watch out for our next article!
Follow us on: | https://medium.com/@kdagiit/decision-trees-just-the-everyday-things-d41056e77ff2 | ['Kdag Iit Kgp'] | 2021-09-08 05:08:52.391000+00:00 | ['Decision Tree', 'Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Algorithms', 'Machine Learning'] |
A Comprehensive List of Dapps Catalogs | One of the most discussed topics of today is dapps. The issue seems controversial: from evidence in their failure (researches say that ’86 percent of ETH dapps had zero users today — and 93 percent had no transactions.’; and the Ethereum ecosystem is definitely at gunpoint) to that it is too early to judge and dapps need some more time to thrive.
However, there is a wide range not only of dapps per se but different lists of them as well. We made a comprehensive catalog of dapps lists: | https://medium.com/finrazorcom/a-comprehensive-list-of-dapps-catalogs-3f3458fc04f6 | ['Finrazor Team'] | 2019-02-19 09:24:31.276000+00:00 | ['Fintech', 'Crypto', 'Dapps', 'Ethereum'] |
We’d Like to Thank Our Members | We’d Like to Thank Our Members
For your support, your belief in us, and your creative ideas aboout the future of Permission.io, we want to thank you.
We wish you the happiest Thanksgiving with your family and friends!
We couldn’t be more thankful for each and every one of our Permission members. Without your belief in Permission.io, we wouldn’t be realizing our vision of empowering people all over the world.
It’s been quite a journey, from lauching our beta mobile app at SXSW 2018, to transforming into a progressive web app last July, and now counting down to the token going live! Through the sharp turns and bumps in the road, our members have proven to be loyal and passionate about Permission, holding on and enjoying the ride.
We have so many people to thank that have made this journey possible.
We want to say thank you to our Telegram warriors, who helped us answer our most frequently asked questions over the last few months.
We want to thank our members who care enough about the platform to interact with us online, whether by active participation on social media, emailing us your feedback, or even talking about us in your videos.
We want to thank our members who shared Permission.io with friends to help grow the value of this network.
And of course, we want to thank our new members for having faith and joining the Permission family!
To show our gratitude…
We are giving you and your family and friends more rewards and opportunities to earn this holiday season!
To kick off the season of giving, we want to give you extra tokens throughout the Thanksgiving weekend. From Thursday ’til Sunday, you can earn 3,000 Permission tokens per person you refer! Your family and friends would definitely appreciate it if you clued them in on the best way to earn cryptocurrency. They even get 300 tokens just for signing up with your code. Don’t forget, the token is going live at the end of the year!
Stay tuned tomorrow for Black Friday specials in the app, too! Avoid the crowds and earn while you shop on Permission.io. | https://medium.com/permissionio/wed-like-to-thank-our-members-4a29c9c018d4 | [] | 2019-06-03 22:31:16.670000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Thanksgiving'] |
3 niches in which to invest in 2021 | Hey guys! How has been up lately?
The past couple of weeks I have spend my time analysing the market and researching what are the upcoming investment trends for 2021!
I was really wondering in what to invest in the upcoming year. In my opinion this year the electric car insutry was really the go-getter. Tesla, Nio, Xpeng all of them had really went way up in the stock market. Lately Nio market share was even bigger than Daimler(Mercedes). On the other hand something which I am sure no one expected to happen — airlines, pharmaceutical companies went way down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Oil also had it’s fair share. In the beginning of the pandemic it’s price went low as $6 for barrel and currently is around $50. However I’ve decided to share what would be ‘trend’ in the stock market for 2021. Here we go:
1. Electric cars
Lately this niche is huge. Entrepreneurs are competing with multiple companies to create the best electric car out there. Trying to go/be eco is the trend lately. And in my opinion is something all of us should think about. More and more companies are coming out — Nio, Xpeng, Li-Auto, Fisker, Ayro — all of them are new founded companies. As the people are trying to be more mother Earth friendly it is logical those companies will hit the sky in the next years. Just for comparasion — 2 months ago Nio stocks were at $6 and currently they are at $47. Nearly 700% for just 2 months.
2.Beginning of the End of Covid-19 (pharmaceutical companies)
The approval and gradual distribution of Covid-19 vaccines will be a major obsession in early and mid 2021. Will the vaccines work as advertised? Will they be rapidly distributed around the world? Companies like Moderna and Pfizer had already developed vaccines and are starting to distribute them. Not only that in my opinion when this COVID-19 pandemic ends all others pharmaceutical companies will return and even outgrow their previous stock prices. This is due to 2020 more money and energy was spent in finding a cure for COVID-19. If this end companies will return to normal
3. Travel Stocks
The world is preparing to get back to normal in 2021!
Pent-up demand for travel could drive a gold rush for long-punished airline stocks, hotels and even cruise lines. And all that increased economic activity will do wonders for hard-hit tourist cities around the country and around the world.
This means all airlines, cruise lines, hotel or rent a room/house companies like AirBnb stocks will also reach heights. Of course this is relevant only if the pandemic ends. If not maybe we should wait a bit more. | https://medium.com/@martinkiriloff/3-niches-in-which-to-invest-in-2021-b70a41a2be6d | ['Martin Kiriloff'] | 2020-12-24 12:41:20.320000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Mkiriloff', 'Stock', 'Market', 'Invest'] |
How to Win Without Fighting in ‘Game of Thrones’ | Daenerys Targaryen and Jorah Mormont on the battlefield. Credit: HBO
If you’re not caught up on “Game of Thrones” through Season 8, episode 3, then stop reading this and tell the god of SPOILERS: “Not today.”
As winter finally arrives in the final “Game of Thrones” season, the Night King’s chances for a victory look very good. His massive army of zombies — its ranks filled with undead humans and giants and even a dragon—is poised to overrun not just the human stronghold of Winterfell but also the entire continent of Westeros. The only hope for Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen and the forces of living is to kill the Night King and therefore break his unholy magic spell that raises seemingly endless hordes of the dead to fight for his cause.
This is a moment that calls for the Night King to make the most of his army’s unique strengths by exercising patience. Instead, he gambles upon a riskier strategy by ordering an immediate frontal assault that exposes himself in the process — and he ends up losing everything.
The Night King begins with all the advantages to win a long war of attrition that exhausts both the forces and supplies of the living. His army of zombies (known as “wights” in “Game of Thrones” lore) has the unique advantages of not needing food, shelter, or sleep. The wights do not suffer from the cold winter weather that comes howling down out of the North to accompany the Night King’s march south toward the lands of the living. On top of all this, the Night King has the extraordinary power to replenish and even grow his military forces by simply raising the dead en masse from battlefields and graveyards alike.
By comparison, the armies of the living awaiting the Night King’s onslaught at the stronghold of Winterfell are already facing a severe supply problem even before the fighting begins. Jon Snow’s smaller army of Northern bannermen and Free Folk (Wildlings) has been reinforced by Daenerys Targaryen’s armies of disciplined Unsullied spearmen and Dothraki horsemen — not to mention Dany’s dragons Drogon and Rhaegal. Unlike the army of the dead, these armies of the living all require food, shelter, and rest.
The “Game of Thrones” depiction of military logistics — the organizational challenges of transporting and maintaining armies — has always been haphazard at best when medieval-era armies sometimes appear to move at lightning speed across continents and the Narrow Sea. But talk of food and other supplies needed to sustain large field armies or castle garrisons has never been entirely absent either.
In fact, some of the most compelling and poignant “Game of Thrones” story themes have revolved around the coming dangers of the long winter and the human suffering of war-torn lands facing privation and famine. Taken together, those story threads make it possible to piece together the logistics situation facing the armies of the living and the people of the Seven Kingdoms as the long winter and the Night King threaten their survival. They also point to a winning strategy for the Night King that deliberately avoids seeking battle with the strongest armies of the living.
Laying Siege to Winterfell
The arrival of the Targaryen forces in the North immediately puts a huge strain on the supply situation at Winterfell, where Sansa Stark had been carefully collecting and hoarding grain and other foodstuffs in anticipation of the coming winter. She voices this concern during the equivalent of a war council meeting at Winterfell:
“May I ask, how are we meant to feed the greatest army the world has ever seen? While I ensured our stores would last through winter, I didn’t account for Dothraki, Unsullied, and two full-grown dragons. What do dragons eat, anyway?”
It’s clear that time is against the living with so many mouths to feed and limited food supplies. The fact that Daenerys previously voiced similar concerns about feeding her large armies only emphasizes the importance of this factor (more on that later). That food situation becomes a ticking time bomb that puts pressure on the living to achieve a quick and decisive victory over the army of the dead — a victory that can only be won by killing the Night King.
With time on his side, the Night King has many more strategic options available in achieving victory. One of the simplest ways to deal with the armies of the living assembled at Winterfell would be to surround them with his army of the dead, cut off all supply lines, and effectively put the castle under siege. The wight army would not even have to actively attack in order to starve out the armies of Jon and Daenerys, who would face mounting pressure to seek a decisive battle before their forces weaken.
The X factor is that Daenerys and Jon can ride the dragons Drogon and Rhaegal into battle and use the dragons’ fire-breathing capabilities to make the fantasy equivalent of napalm bombing runs from the air. The dragons have also proven that they can serve as flying transportation to ferry a limited number of people on their backs. But it’s highly unlikely that the dragons would have the carrying capacity to either evacuate thousands of warriors and civilians from a besieged Winterfell or bring in enough food supplies from the outside—and it’s clear that most of the surplus food in the North has already been stockpiled at Winterfell.
Having killed the dragon Viserion and raised it from the dead as his own battle steed, the Night King has some options in countering the living dragon air force despite a 1:2 dragon disadvantage. He has also demonstrated a solid throwing arm with his ice spears that allowed him to kill Viserion in the first place and could still threaten the remaining dragons. And his apparent immunity to dragon fire makes him a unique threat to the remaining dragons as long as he retains a supply of ice spears to throw.
If the Night King uses the mere threat of his undead dragon or his own presence to keep the living dragons in check, the armies of the living have very limited options once they become besieged at Winterfell. And by effectively neutralizing the most powerful military forces opposing him, the Night King gains even more strategic options in turning his attention to the soft southern lands of the Seven Kingdoms.
The Winds of Winter
If the armies of the living gathered at Winterfell aren’t in the best shape from a supply standpoint, the rest of the Seven Kingdoms seem even more woefully unprepared for surviving either an onslaught of the Night King’s undead army or the coming of winter.
At the start of “Game of Thrones,” the Seven Kingdoms are enjoying the waning months of what is described as the longest summer in living memory. According to a discussion of the small council at King’s Landing during Season 2, a long summer is typically accompanied by an equally long if not longer winter. Given how Ned Stark mentions the long summer lasted nine years, it seems that the coming winter will last for approximately a decade, if not longer.
There is also a possibility that the Night King’s coming may herald an even longer winter through a dreadful repeat of the Long Night — a legendary period from 8,000 years ago when the Night King and his White Walkers descended upon Westeros for the first time. The White Walker invasion with its armies of the dead supposedly threatened to bring an endless winter to the continent and exterminate all life. The character of Old Nan tells that story to Brandon Stark in Season 1:
“Thousands of years ago there came a night that lasted a generation. Kings froze to death in their castles, same as the shepherds in their huts. And women smothered their babies rather than see them starve, and wept and felt the tears freeze on their cheeks.”
It’s possible that the Long Night’s duration and impact has been greatly exaggerated in the retelling after thousands of years. But the war-torn Seven Kingdoms already faces a dire food shortage that would likely mean many people starving to death even during a decade-long winter.
The Ravaging of the Riverlands
The civil war that breaks out following the death of King Robert Baratheon — known as the War of the Five Kings — could not have come at a worse time for the Seven Kingdoms. The end of the long summer should be a time for collecting and storing the last crop harvests needed to survive the long winter. Instead, many farmers likely end up being forcibly conscripted to fill the ranks of rival armies, whereas others are killed, robbed or driven off their farms during the conflict.
There are many clues pointing to the grim possibility of mass starvation come winter. When the War of the Five Kings breaks out, the Lannister forces holding the capital of King’s Landing already face a tough food situation. Petyr Baelish (aka “Littlefinger”) summarizes the situation at the start of Season 2 during a small council meeting: “We have enough wheat for a five-year winter. If it lasts any longer, we’ll have fewer peasants.”
Littlefinger’s words come as refugees fleeing the conflict pour into King’s Landing. The capital is also initially cut off from the two main breadbasket regions that supply the most grain to the Seven Kingdoms: the Reach that is controlled by House Tyrell and the Riverlands held by House Tully. Both the Tyrells and Tullys oppose the Lannister control of the Iron Throne early on, which eventually leads to food shortages among the refugees and populace of King’s Landing.
The capital’s food shortages become bad enough so that a riot breaks out in Kings Landing as an angry crowd attacks a royal procession consisting of many Lannister family members. The violence is preceded by the starving populace begging King Joffrey’s procession for food:
“Please, your grace, we’re hungry!” “Please, your grace, give us some food!” “Bread, your grace, please!”
The Lannisters eventually find some relief from the food shortage by forming a temporary marriage alliance with the Tyrells and gain access to supplies from the Reach. A conversation between Olenna Tyrell and Tyrion Lannister leads to Olenna listing the Tyrells’ supply contribution to sustaining the population of King’s Landing:
“What is it, 12,000 infantrymen the Tyrell family has supplied? 1,800 mounted lances. 2,000 in support. Provisions so this city might survive the winter. A million bushels of wheat. Half a million bushels each of barley, oats, and rye. 20,000 head of cattle. 50,000 sheep.”
But the overall food situation for the Seven Kingdoms worsens as the Riverlands, the other main breadbasket of Westeros, becomes a frequent battleground for marauding armies crisscrossing the region during the War of the Five Kings. Many unhappy scenes suggest that the Riverlands’ farmers probably aren’t having much luck in tending and harvesting their crops unmolested.
The fate of the Riverlands is driven home during the wanderings of Arya Stark and Sandor Clegane (aka “The Hound”) when they encounter a dying farmer whose hut was also burned down by raiders. The Hound also ends up stealing silver from a farmer and his daughter who were kind enough to provide hospitality, and coldly explains his actions to Arya in response to her outrage: “They’ll both be dead come winter; dead men don’t need silver.” He later returns with the Brotherhood Without Banners to find the skeletons of the farmer and daughter — the Brotherhood’s leader Beric Dondarrion speculates that the farmer took his daughter’s life and his own rather than face starvation.
The Sack of Highgarden
The widespread destruction in the Riverlands leaves the Reach as the main breadbasket region sustaining much of the Seven Kingdoms by the time Daenerys Targaryen’s armies arrive in Westeros to challenge Cersei Lannister’s rule in King’s Landing. The Tyrells switch their allegiance to Daenerys, but strategic blunders allow an army led by Jaime Lannister and former Tyrell bannerman Randyll Tarly to crush the Tyrell garrison at Highgarden and seize control of the Reach.
After the sack of Highgarden, the Lannister forces loot House Tyrell’s gold reserves for the purpose of paying back Lannister debts and to replenish the war chest for future expenditures such as hiring the 20,000-strong Golden Company. But Jaime also orders his subordinates Bronn and Randyll Tarly to clean out the Highgarden granaries and send soldiers to collect the current harvest from all the farms in the Reach — even if it means leaving the people in the Reach without supplies to survive the winter.
Bronn: “I’m not much for shoveling wheat.” Jaime: “No, but motivating reluctant farmers to hand over their harvest — I bet you’re going to have a real talent for that.”
When news of Highgarden’s fall reaches Daenerys, she is almost as concerned about the food supply situation as she is by the loss of her ally. Tyrion tries to soften the blow by pointing out that Daenerys still commands the largest armies in the form of the Unsullied infantry and Dothraki cavalry, but Daenerys retorts that her armies “won’t be able to eat because Cersei has taken all the food from the Reach.”
Daenerys decides to strike a strategic blow at the Lannister forces by targeting their strung-out wagon train loaded with food supplies as it heads back to King’s Landing. The Lannisters manage to get all the stolen gold safely through the gates of King’s Landing, but Daenerys attacks soon afterward by leading a force of Dothraki cavalry into battle from aboard her dragon Drogon.
The resulting Battle of the Goldroad leads to the apparent destruction of most of the supply wagons that hadn’t made it into King’s Landing and were likely loaded with the much-needed grain from the Reach— Jaime later tells Cersei that the dragon burned 1,000 wagons. It’s unclear what the food supply situation looks like in King’s Landing at that point, but it’s undoubtedly a severe blow to the city’s ability to survive either the long winter or a protracted siege.
Furthermore, it’s clear that the Lannisters were hoarding food supplies at the expense of the Reach and many other regions of Westeros. That makes it seem certain that many farmers and villagers living outside King’s Landing likely face starvation in the coming winter. The looming specter of widespread famine and winter’s impending arrival both represent golden opportunities for the Night King to exploit.
The What-If Southern Campaign
The Night King has several options if he chooses to keep the armies of Daenerys and Jon bottled up at Winterfell. He has what appears to be an overwhelming numbers advantage over the armies of the living, given that Jon once described the Night King raising “tens of thousands” of dead Free Folk who were slaughtered at Hardhome to form “the largest army in the world.” And those undead reinforcements came on top of the preexisting wight army that the Night King brought to Hardhome.
First, the Night King can remain outside Winterfell with the majority of his army and split off smaller but sizable detachments led by his White Walker generals to cause terror and confusion in the south. The appearance of marauding zombies in the Riverlands and the other regions near King’s Landing would likely send many panicked people fleeing to the perceived safety of the capital or other major walled cities. A sudden influx of refugees would further strain the food supplies and potentially lead to more rioting or infectious disease epidemics among the crowded and malnourished urban populations. And eventually the city garrisons could collapse under siege or simply because disease and starvation take their toll.
A second and likely better option for the Night King would be to leave enough forces to keep the armies of the living at Winterfell in check while he himself heads south. A southern campaign led personally by the Night King would effectively accelerate the same process of destroying the Seven Kingdoms. After all, the Night King could continually raise fresh armies of the dead from all the crypts and graveyards of Westeros — not to mention recruiting tens of thousands more people killed on battlefields or left dead from famine, pestilence and exposure to the elements. His undead dragon Viserion could also act as both swift conveyance and as a mobile siege weapon for blasting holes in city and castle walls.
It’s unlikely that the Lannister forces would be able to stop even more modest contingents of zombies. Cersei gambled on the idea that the armies of Daenerys and Jon would defeat the Night King in the North, and therefore spent most of her time preparing to confront Daenerys’ dragons rather than the army of the dead. A lack of mass-produced dragonglass weaponry would render most of the remaining Lannister armies and the mercenaries of the Golden Company ineffective in combat against the wights, unless they resorted to more widespread use of fire and possibly even wildfire out of desperation.
Trapped in Winterfell, the armies of Daenerys and Jon are better prepared and equipped to fight the wights, but would still face almost impossible odds as long as the Night King kept himself safe from harm. Even if the armies of the living somehow break out of a besieged Winterfell and try to pursue the Night King, they would have to fight their way through a growing rearguard horde of wights while the Night King rampages through the southern lands and raises fresh recruits from the newly slain.
The Knights of Summer
Last but not least, it’s hard to overstate the difficulties of winter campaigning for armies that consist of living human beings. Medieval warfare operated on a seasonal cycle with active military campaigns during the warmer months and armies temporarily disbanding to seek food and shelter during the winter, as historians pointed out in a Time Magazine article examining the impact of winter on warfare. From a logistics standpoint, medieval armies lacked the supply chains to keep large numbers of men and horses fed on the march — they depended on being able to forage and pillage the surrounding countryside for food and fodder.
“Game of Thrones” has already demonstrated the folly of winter military campaigns through the example of Stannis Baratheon in Season 5. In a huge blunder, the southerner Stannis set out upon a foolhardy march from Castle Black at the Wall with the overly ambitious goal of capturing Winterfell — then held by Roose and Ramsay Bolton — before the onset of the long winter.
The Baratheon army’s ill-fated march was marked by great human and animal suffering as the men and horses staggered through snow drifts. A severe winter storm forced the army to hunker down in camp and effectively cut the supply line stretching back to Castle Black. Stealthy raids led by Ramsay Bolton destroyed most of the Baratheon army’s meager food supplies and killed or drove off many of the horses. Meanwhile, the Bolton army sat safely behind the walls of Winterfell as Roose Bolton remarked upon the challenges of military campaigning in winter:
“As long as we stay behind these walls, they can’t touch us. Not to mention the snow is so deep, we couldn’t get an army through to engage them even if we wanted to.”
Stannis finally got his starved and depleted army to move out on foot when the winter storm passed, but only after losing all his horses and many of his men due to desertion. The staggering remnants of the Baratheon army proved no match for the well-fed and mounted Bolton army that finally came out to finish the job.
With that cautionary tale in mind, it’s worth remembering that the armies of Daenerys and Jon already face a food shortage even with Winterfell’s supplies at hand. Trying to carry whatever food they could while marching and fighting against an encircling army of wights in winter weather would be to court death and disaster.
In any case, the Night King could likely use his power of summoning winter storms to keep the armies of the living from venturing outside the shelter of Winterfell. He demonstrates that power both during the “Hardhome” episode of Season 5 and “The Long Night” episode of Season 8, when a rolling blizzard front effectively creates whiteout conditions that reduce visibility to almost zero. Such conditions help render the dragon advantage of Daenerys and Jon fairly ineffective during much of the “ Long Night” battle for Winterfell.
If the armies of the living did foolishly try to venture outside Winterfell’s walls and fight the army of the dead in whiteout conditions, the results might resemble a magnified version of the nightmarish blizzard battle between Jon Snow’s small expedition beyond the Wall and a zombie bear — except this time with tens of thousands of wights and zombie giants charging in at the vastly outnumbered and encircled human forces.
The Long Night That Wasn’t
Given all the Night King’s advantages in being able to field an all-weather army of the dead that needs no supplies, his best bet is to avoid risking himself in direct confrontation and focus upon destroying farms and villages, keeping the strongest human armies besieged in their castles, and pushing the food shortage problem of the Seven Kingdoms to the breaking point. True to the original Long Night that supposedly lasted a generation, such a long war strategy would truly threaten to wipe out all life in Westeros.
This long war (or Long Night) strategy never comes to pass. Whether because of sheer arrogance or some nagging impatience to finally kill off that annoying line of Three-Eyed Ravens, the Night King chooses to hurl his massive army of wights directly at the walls of Winterfell in what he must imagine to be the decisive battle. He nearly succeeds through a combination of overwhelming numbers and some decidedly terrible battlefield tactics displayed by the armies of the living, but is defeated in the end by master assassin Arya Stark.
No one can really begrudge Arya her shining moment in the spotlight as the savior of humanity. But there is a lingering sense of lost storytelling opportunity in how the main existential threat never makes it past Winterfell to challenge the rest of the Seven Kingdoms — especially when the show has already woven in plenty of storytelling threads about how unprepared Westeros is for the long winter and its attendant dangers. It’s truly a shame to let those go, because such story lines about the universal need for food and shelter often featured striking intersections between the otherwise seemingly disparate lives of nobles and the masses of commoners.
You would think that the near-immortal Night King who spent thousands of years biding his time in the Lands of Always Winter would have learned something about patience and playing the long game. But then again, it’s also possible that the Night King’s unique capability to operate without much concern for logistics also blinded him to the importance of supplies as the weak point for the armies of the living. Whatever the case, he could likely have benefited from learning the Westerosi version of that hoary saying: “Amateurs study tactics, armchair generals study strategy, but professionals study logistics.” | https://jeremyhsu.medium.com/how-to-play-the-long-game-in-game-of-thrones-67f958718b4b | ['Jeremy Hsu'] | 2019-05-10 22:53:59.229000+00:00 | ['Night King', 'Logistics', 'Long Night', 'Game of Thrones', 'Strategy'] |
Against All Odds, You Can Rise! | You have overcome some bad times, haven’t you?
You have faced horrid circumstances and you have wondered if you would make it through…
And yet, here you are, walking forward…
A little bruised perhaps…
A little shaken…
And maybe even, a little bit broken inside…
And yet, you rose and you kept moving forward.
Honey, you are stronger than you think and more capable then you think.
But there is a problem…
You feel stuck in place…
You have certainly overcome a lot but that now causes you to be wary of moving forward into the unknown…
But you want more than this current life experience and so, in order to get it, you KNOW you are going to have to venture away from the known trail…
You have to get on the narrow path and that looks dark and uncertain and you are not sure that you can do that… NOT AGAIN!
Your youthful bravado is fading fast…
Life has simply been too tough…
But you still want more…
And you know that you are born for more…
Abundance is crying out to you and somehow you know that you will not find it here on the sidewalk…
So, what can you do?
I have been through my fair share of trials…
And I know how fabulous it felt to reach what I thought was the promised land…
I was FINALLY a pharmacist…
I had FINALLY overcome the craziness of my past…
I had managed to stay at school against overwhelming odds…
I even had managed to marry an awesome loving dude in the middle of all the tribulations…
I was supposed to be THERE!
And yet, I had climbed the wrong mountain…
And I wanted to be on the one way over in the distance, not this one…
This mountain of everyone else’s agenda did not fill my heart with the hoped-for feelings of fulfilment and freedom…
I felt stuck though because it had taken such a long time to get here…
And ‘here’ was the practical thing to do…
‘HERE’ was the practical place to stay…
‘HERE’ was killing my soul though…
Just as your version of ‘here’ is doing to you…
And unlike many who learn to live with the internal deadening, you cannot.
It leads to depression, anxiety and many other mind ailments because you are fighting your very own nature and you cannot win that battle.
You may as well surrender right now…
And remind yourself that you are THAT person who triumphs and rises despite overwhelming odds.
Don’t you know yet that the worst battle you face is the one between your ears?
Don’t you know yet that nothing can really overcome you, unless you lay down and let it?
Yes it is scary…
To leave this mountain that you have finally arrived at…
To get off and go do something different when it took so long to build this life…
And yet, I would suggest that you do not wait until your own spirit gets fed up of waiting for you to move willingly and instead causes you to self-sabotage your very blessed self…
That happened to me…
Bankruptcy…
Depression…
Until finally, I surrendered and pursued my real purpose…
Though I still took a sideways turn as I went into real estate because I thought that seemed more reasonable but it was not the thing I was called to do.
And I knew it.
I wisely got off the mountain myself this time though I still made a mess of it when I left…
That side ways route served a purpose and got me free of the pharmacist job but it was not what my whole life was to be about and so I had to start again, AGAIN!
And AGAIN
AND AGAIN
As I kept trying to take more reasonable routes…
Because I did not trust that my calling would keep me going…
And so, I made it so by not trusting that I could live out the calling on my life and still be taken care of…
And finally, I truly surrendered…
Owned the fact that despite many, MANY odds, I had remained standing…
Nothing had completely killed me off…
And so I could learn to trust the calling on my life and just choose to wake up to living it out boldly!
And so here we are.
Singing, speaking, writing, inviting…
That is it.
All I do daily to live out the calling on my life…
Things that I was told were not practical…
And yet these are things that make my heart and soul sing…
And allow me to serve the people I feel called to serve…
Project 334k happens because I simply do what I am called to do.
334000 people worldwide achieving financial independence, living free lives and making a dent on the planet — My calling.
What is yours?
What do you really want your life to be about?
And what are you telling yourself, is impractical?
Honey, you have overcome incredible odds and still you stand…
The narrow path to your true destiny will not defeat you.
Choose you this day to serve the call on your life, will ya? | https://medium.com/the-deliberate-millionaire/against-all-odds-you-can-rise-53deb3debe76 | ['Rosemary Nonny Knight'] | 2020-12-26 09:20:44.519000+00:00 | ['Instagram', 'Spiritual Growth', 'Self Love', 'Personal Growth', 'Spirituality'] |
It’s Okay To Admit Your Parents Screwed You Up | Most of your adult issues stem from the way you were raised as a child.
Your fears, insecurities, inability to maintain healthy relationships, lack of fulfillment— all of it has something to do with your childhood, one way or another. It has something to do with your parents.
Often, when people think about childhood trauma, they tend to imagine something tangible, physical, such as sexual or physical abuse, or parents who are alcoholics. While these are absolutely horrifying and certainly damaging to a child’s well-being, emotional and psychological mistreatment can potentially be no less hurtful and lead to serious problems in adulthood.
In fact, due to its subtlety and the ability of abusive parents to gaslight you and manipulate your perception of the circumstances, psychological abuse can go unnoticed for a very long time, causing a profound, harmful impact on your development. To such an extent that many years later, as an adult, you find yourself stuck in a permanent state of demotivation, guilt, and low self-esteem, lost in a whirlwind of one-sided, dysfunctional relationships where you keep getting hurt — but you have no idea why and what to do about it.
The answer to that often lies in your childhood trauma. You could have been born in a “good” family that looked very benevolent from the outside. Your parents may have been there, provided for you, maybe even paid for your school. They weren’t alcoholics.
Still, they could have screwed you up.
And, if you have toxic parents, the relationship with them continues to be damaging and degrading even when you grow up.
The Toxic Parents Questionnaire
Dr. Susan Forward, in her book “Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life,” provides the following questionnaire meant to help you identify if your parents are toxic:
Do your parents still treat you as if you were a child? Are many of your life decisions based upon whether your parents would approve? Do you have intense emotional or physical reactions after you spend or anticipate spending time with your parents? Are you afraid to disagree with your parents? Do your parents manipulate you with threats or guilt? Do your parents manipulate you with money? Do you feel responsible for how your parents feel? If they’re unhappy, do you feel like it’s your fault? Is it your job to make it better for them? Do you believe that no matter what you do, it’s never good enough for your parents? Do you believe that someday, somehow, your parents are going to change for the better?
And a few more from me to top it off:
Do your parents often judge, criticize, shame, or mock you, your decisions, or actions? Do you feel obligated to do what your parents say even if it goes against your own wishes and capabilities? Do you feel like you are obligated to help your parents, even if you don’t want to, and despite the fact that it causes you emotional or financial discomfort? Do your parents gaslight you? Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you feel justified in standing your ground, but your parents make you feel like you are wrong and a bad person for feeling that way?
Note that while the questions use “parents” as the plural for generality, your answers may apply to only one parent.
If you answered yes to even a third of these questions, I got bad news for you.
It’s Hard To Admit Your Parents Are Toxic
Chances are you already know your parents are toxic — most of us can tell. You have felt and lived with it your entire life, after all.
Oftentimes, however, you just aren’t able to admit it — even to yourself, let alone to others.
There is a multitude of reasons why.
It can be because having been gaslighted your entire life, you feel like your parents are right, and you are wrong and oversensitive.
Or because you’ve been guilted into feeling like you’re forever indebted to them for whatever it is they did for you.
Or because speaking ill of your parents is taboo in our society, and you feel like people around you wouldn’t understand if you told them how you really feel.
Or maybe you think Well, they didn’t beat me up, so I shouldn’t be complaining.
Or it could be you don’t want to admit it because admitting the abuse would mean admitting the humiliation you’ve been subjected to, and you are ashamed to acknowledge that you allowed someone to mistreat you like this.
Or you are just plain scared because the moment you admit the truth, you have to do something about it, take action, and you’re just not ready yet.
So you are keeping this pain and doubt to yourself and continue living in the misery of being subservient to your toxic parents.
Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash
The One Thing You Need To Move Forward
Understandably, sharing something intimate like this can be hard. But the reality is that by keeping quiet, you continue soaking in the poison of self-doubt and uncertainty, torn between the senses of dire injustice and unbearable guilt.
In order to break out of this vicious cycle and begin healing, you need validation.
You need to break the silence.
Find a trusted friend or a relative that you can confide in and openly share your truth. Therapy is a great place to start, as it’s completely confidential, and you can get the perspective of a trained, impartial professional.
There are also many support groups for children of toxic parents online, such as on Reddit and Facebook, where you can go and join a community of people who may be going through similar things. It’s likely that after reading the experiences of others, you will find comfort in knowing that you are not alone. And it will give you the strength to move forward.
You need to get validation for your feelings because until you get a reaction from someone other than yourself, breaking out of the bubble your parents gaslighted you into can be challenging.
Your parents conditioned you to feel guilt, shame, and fear, and you need to find an ally — someone that can hear you out and tell you that what’s happening is not okay. Someone who can take your side and back your point of view. Their feedback will offset the destructive notions instilled in you by your parents and ensure you stick to the course even when your emotions try to drag you back into the black hole of guilt and dependence.
Because they will.
It may seem insignificant, but it makes all the difference in the world. Validation is critical when you are trying to break out of any toxic relationship, be it your significant other or a parent. And recovery from the trauma is impossible without it. | https://medium.com/be-unique/its-okay-to-admit-your-parents-screwed-you-up-e07239b9a91c | ['Anastasia Summersault'] | 2020-10-15 02:09:00.866000+00:00 | ['Parenting', 'Life Lessons', 'Family', 'Children', 'Advice'] |
Gaddafi’s Role In Burkina Faso Examined. | Author note: This not a complete overview of Sankara’s or Gaddafi’s rise or fall, this article is strictly focued on presenting the factual relationship between Muammar Gaddafi and Thomas Sankara likewise this is also not a hit piece on Gaddafi. Everything underlined is sourced and everything with the number (1) or (2) is from books on the subject. (1) is A Certain Type Of Madness, and book (2) is Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa.
The most photogenic leader in Africa.
When Thomas Sankara was languishing in prison over his progreessive outlook on Upper Volta’s future, his best friend and ally at the time Blaise Compaoré was working on a plan to not only free him but to also seize the country for the both of them, all this done by uniting with a foreign sponsor in Libya and therefore aligning the Burkinabe revolution with the Libyan revolutionary Muammar Gaddafi.
The plan worked without a hitch the outcome of their alliance was a bloodless coup that saw Sankara take head of the revolution and alter not only the colonial the name of Upper Volta but also it’s working conditions away from its previous French and colonial past to it’s new future as a socialist nation of Burkina Faso.
Had this been the end of Gaddafi’s involvement in the revolution then he’d been seen as a hero to most of Black Africa today, still some try to portray him as such, unfortunately for them the full extent of Gaddafi’s role in Sankara’s life has been becoming clearer and clearer, knowing what we know now from the survivors in Sankara’s inner circle including his bodyguard like Etienne Zongo (not to be confused with the traitor Henri Zongo) and corroborated by Valère Somé (1) and Mousbila Sankara both of whom also served as members of Sankara government one of which served as a ambassador to libya and therefore Gaddafi himself.
We know from them that Gaddafi was ultimately displeased with many aspects of Sankara’s foreign policy, including but not limited to Sankara’s lack of support for his war in Chad and his refusal to accept more ideological symbolism in his fledgling country(1). Although ultimately according to Mousbila Sankara, it was Thomas Sankara’s absolute refusal to partake in the criminal element that was Charles Taylor that put the Libyan leader solely on the side of Blaise Compaoré (for many years to come). This theory behind Gaddafi’s motivations are also backed by Charles Taylors longtime associates some of whom like Prince Johnson were involved heavily in the actual plot to assassinate Thomas Sankara who will tell you not only of how Gaddafi supplied them with arms and cash but also how France and America (CIA) were involved in the plot thought the giving of info and training to end one of Africa’s favorite sons.
A famous picture of Charles Taylor.
The collapse of Gaddafi’s Liberian network has revealed much of what we know today including what we know about the CIA’s plans for West Africa , Sankara was just the start, he was the person that Charles Taylor had made his bones with, and just three years after him Samuel Doe would also be dead, killed by Prince Johnson and his body paraded around and desecrated, a bloody start to Charles Taylor’s new government.
Years before all of this when Charles Taylor was still under Gaddafi he was being paid by the CIA for intelligence work, a fact the CIA freely admits now, his allies also admit that Charles Taylor spied on Gaddafi and sold his secrets to the agency whether he went rogue or not is to be debated but it doesn’t change the fact that for years the US state department was aware of the plot to kill Thomas Sankara and their money and most likely training also went towards killing Samuel Doe.
Although before he died Samuel Doe was a brutal bastard in his own right even led a bloody coup of his own, a coup that Gaddafi was the first to recognize as legitimate and back. All of this can be summed up as bad foreign policy, Gaddafi trusting Doe, Doe trusting Gaddafi, and then Gaddafi trusting Charles Taylor all of which was just bad politics that came to a head with Doe’s apparent public mistrust of Gaddafi. Just three years after Sankara, Gaddafi had ruined another relationship with a African leader with Doe denouncing him saying ‘’Qaddafi is a man who, I think, would like to lead the whole continent of Africa, which is impossible to do.” and also ‘’Qaddafi pays terrorists to carry explosives to other African countries, and of course we in Liberia are aware of Qaddafi’s threat, and we’re very cautious about that.’’ Was Samuel Doe’s rejection of Gaddafi. I tell you all of this to make clear that Gaddafi had no qualms with removing those who opposed him no matter how sovereign or whatever political red tape was wrapped around them, he just had to sure his role was never in the limelight, always passing the dirty work.
Samuel Doe before his death.
Unlike Blaise’s who after killing Sankara forbade the people of even speaking his name, Charles Taylor paraded the fact he was a killer. He let everyone know who killed Samuel Doe and his following reign of terror that was backed by US commerce and Libyan connections saw him leave even more people he refused to cover up in his bloody wake, even his running slogan to legitimize his regime “He killed my Ma, He killed my Pa, But I will still vote for him.” is gory to the extreme. It was no wonder he didn’t get away with the large amount of slaughter his forces committed and because of his lack of shame the bloodstained dirt of his actions splashed hard on Gaddafi’s legacy. Blaise however was different, he covered everything up going as far to execute his co-conspirators, forge Sankara’s death certificate and arrest and torture any members of Sankara’s government (Mousbila Sankara and more).
But not even Blaise could stop the rumors or the theories from springing up, The people had noticed and wanted answers on how their leader died and when they got that they wanted answers on why he was so brutally slain, and so Blaise gave them that too in the form of another elaborate lie about resisting arrest and when the people asked what Sankara’s crime was all of Blaise’s frustration with his previous friends goals and ambitions spilled into his reasoning in total it was a sh*t storm of angry Burkinabe people and a man digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole he’d never climb out off. The overall lapse of judgement of stringing the people along with the mystery of their leaders death cumulated in more rumors that speculated on who helped him do it, Sankara’s body was never supposed to be found, in Blaise’s mind the original idea of telling them that Sankara had died of natural causes was ruined and in turn much like Charles Taylor all of Blaise’s allies were thrown into question including France who welcomed him with open arms and then Gaddafi who after the murder of Sankara went through with his original plan of using Burkina Faso as a arming ground for Charles Taylor and other West African groups, all in view of the Burkinabe people.
All in all, Gaddafi got what he wanted, Sankara was dead and it was undebatable that after he died, He (Gaddafi) and Blaise had turned his country into an enclave for terrorists, for people like Charles Taylor, who was eventually arrested for his open war crimes and tried in Sierra Leone. His trial was very revealing and documented by the large group of people who were personally affected by his rule, some of which were more interested in the extent of Blaise’s dealings with him. They were not disappointed with the info provided. Now Gaddafi is dead by the same people who most likely gave Blaise and Taylor info on Sankara and Blaise is the one who is up soon for a much needed court date. | https://medium.com/@RegularSanstan/gaddafis-role-in-burkina-faso-examined-3baa630b4486 | ["Waco'S Storytime."] | 2021-08-05 01:18:42.389000+00:00 | ['Gaddafi', 'Communism', 'Revolution', 'Afric', 'Sankara'] |
-> Japanese From Zero! 1: Proven Methods to Learn Japanese with integrated Workbook and Online Support by George Trombley -> Available in Hardcover \ Kindle \ Paperback \ AudioBook | -> Japanese From Zero! 1: Proven Methods to Learn Japanese with integrated Workbook and Online Support by George Trombley -> Available in Hardcover \ Kindle \ Paperback \ AudioBook Tinho Dalua Aug 27, 2019·1 min read
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Japanese From Zero is an innovative and integrated approach to learning Japanese developed by professional Japanese interpreter George Trombley and co-writer Yukari Takenaka. The lessons and techniques used in this series have been taught successfully for over ten years in classrooms throughout the world.Using up-to-date and easy-to-grasp grammar, Japanese From Zero is the perfect course for current students of Japanese as well as absolute beginners.In Book 1 of the Japanese From Zero series, readers are taught new grammar concepts, over 800 new words and expressions, and also learn the hiragana writing system.Features of Book 1: * Integrated Workbook with Answer Key* Over 800 New Words and Expressions* Learn to Read and Write Hiragana* Easy-to-Understand Example Dialogues* Culture Points about Japan* Bilingual Glossaries with Kana and Romaji…and much more … (More info! -> https://ebookfirstbestpopular.blogspot.com/?book=0976998122) | https://medium.com/@8tinho.dalua/japanese-from-zero-2badb0e44096 | ['Tinho Dalua'] | 2019-08-27 06:41:33.355000+00:00 | ['Japanese'] |
How to Lose Weight Faster and Forever? | One of the most common questions we all have is, “How can I lose weight quickly?” This happens because we are all too preoccupied with other things and forget to take care of our own bodies. We look in the mirror one day and discover that we no longer look the way we thought we did. Then we decide that we need to lose a few pounds.
It is widely assumed that gaining weight is always easier than losing weight. It’s not entirely correct. You will discover that you can achieve and maintain a healthy and attractive body with little to no effort. It is easier to lose weight quickly than it is to gain weight.
Getting fatter is thought to be easier than getting thinner because it can be done without paying attention to what and when you eat. It takes time to gain weight. It takes some time. It is such a complex process that you might go through it without even realizing it. It becomes habitual. It’s the same thing as losing weight. It is simple, requires no effort, and happens faster than you might think.
What exactly is fast weight loss?
Fast weight loss, as it is colloquially known, is the process of losing weight in a short period of time. True, you may appear thinner for one or two days, but due to the stress and effort placed on the body, you may appear simply exhausted.
Because of your enthusiasm, you may not even want to consider the risks that come with it. A rapid weight loss may be harmful to your health depending on your decisions.
Even though this method exists and is feasible, there are no compelling reasons to use it. There is no way you could lose 10 pounds in a single day.
On the other hand, there are methods for losing weight quickly and efficiently. It all depends on the kind of life you want.
For example, you can lose 20 pounds (about 10 kilograms) in as little as two months. It all depends on your level of involvement, desire, and, most importantly, determination. If you are truly committed to losing weight and reshaping your body, you will achieve your goals much faster than you can imagine.
When you begin to devote your full attention to a goal, it becomes more likely to become a reality. You will begin to feel your motivation flowing through your veins once you begin to engage in new and healthy activities. From one day to the next, you will feel better and, as a result, you will look better. Really quick! And this is what we truly mean when we say “lose weight quickly.” It is possible, as long as it is done correctly.
Getting in shape is the polar opposite of getting fat. You wake up to the point where you don’t even notice it, despite the fact that your entire routine has changed.
First and foremost, devise a rapid weight loss strategy.
Before beginning to lose weight, it is critical to identify the underlying causes of your body’s dysfunction. Examine your habits and vices, and ask yourself if you are truly satisfied with your daily life.
You will most likely discover that there are many aspects of your life that can be easily changed for the better. However, the prospect of change may frighten you. It’s a perfectly normal reaction.
Humans in ancient times were trying to settle down in a place where they could feel safe. They were safe from the dangers of the surrounding environment in that location. The most important factor in selecting such a safe haven was the availability of food. The risk of death was almost always present whenever humans were forced to face changes. The fear of change has been deeply ingrained in our DNA. Even if we are unaware of it, it operates on a subconscious level.
Even in modern times, we all feel the need to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Change is no longer lethal. Change has the potential to be beneficial.
So, once you’ve identified the things you want to change or improve in your life, you’ll need to plan out your weight loss strategy.
First and foremost, you must define your objective. How much weight (or kilograms) do you really want to lose? What is the best way to set a goal? Make use of a quick weight loss calculator.
There are numerous websites that allow you to calculate your body mass index online (BMI). The Body Mass Index (BMI) is a mathematical formula that can estimate the percentage of fatty tissue in your body. To determine the percentage of fatty tissue in your body, enter your current weight, height, age, and gender into the calculator. In order to provide accurate percentages, some calculators may also require your ethnicity. Furthermore, these online BMI calculators are extremely useful because they calculate how many pounds (or kilograms) you should lose in order to achieve a healthy percentage of fat in your body.
How are you going to get to your goal weight?
Once you’ve decided on a goal, you need to think about how you’re going to achieve it. The process of losing weight is solely dependent on three major factors.
Your determination is the most important factor. You can’t do it unless you’re determined. When you decide to lose weight, you must also start fueling your determination. Your strength will be determined by your level of determination. Furthermore, as your determination grows, you will find it easier and easier to deal with the weight-loss process. As your determination grows, you will discover that it is very simple to lose the unwanted weight. You simply cannot achieve your goal if you lack determination.
The other two key components of a successful fast weight loss plan are equally important: watch what you eat and exercise regularly. In other words, without determination, it is impossible to begin eating the right foods at the right times and to exercise regularly.
The key to losing weight quickly is to be determined from the start and to stick to the plan you set for yourself. You will begin to see results sooner than you expect. Most importantly, you will begin to notice results quickly.
Which diet should you follow if you want to lose weight quickly?
There are several diets that are extremely effective and will greatly assist you in losing weight. The right diet is entirely subjective. It all depends on your preferences and requirements. The following are the most effective diets.
The Keto diet is one of the most effective fast weight loss diets. The Keto diet’s guiding principle is to consume as little carbohydrate as possible and replace it with fat. This change should result in a metabolic state known as ketosis in the body. This diet is very popular because when the body enters ketosis, it begins to easily burn fat, which is converted into energy. Furthermore, ketosis aids in the conversion of fat into ketones, which are essentially brain energy.
The Paleo diet is another extremely effective weight-loss diet. The Paleo diet is founded on the idea that all modern diseases are linked to the Western diet, as it is believed that the human body has not evolved to assimilate grains, vegetables, and dairy. As a result, the Paleo diet is based on foods that our forefathers ate, such as whole foods, nuts, seeds, vegetables, and lean meats. The Paleo diet strictly prohibits the consumption of any processed foods. The Paleo diet now comes in a variety of flavors. Some of them are less stringent, allowing the consumption of cheese as well.
The Paleo diet is thought to be quite effective for weight loss. For example, one study found that 14 adults who followed the Paleo diet for three weeks lost about 5.1 pounds (2.3 kg).
The Mediterranean diet is not designed to help you lose weight. Nonetheless, it has been shown to be effective for those who use it in conjunction with regular exercise, while also lowering the risks of heart disease. Eating like the Greeks appears to be very healthy.
Fruits, vegetables, fish, seafood, nuts, and whole grains are all part of the Mediterranean diet. Extra virgin olive oil can be used to prepare anything. It also allows for moderate consumption of dairy, eggs, and poultry while restricting the consumption of highly processed foods.
The DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) is intended to aid in the prevention and treatment of high blood pressure. This diet emphasizes fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. This diet forbids the consumption of salt, red meat, and fat-added sugars. Even though the diet was not designed to aid in rapid weight loss, those who adhere to it report significant improvements in terms of kilograms (or pounds).
Low-fat diets have been popular for many years. A low-fat diet consists of limiting fat intake to no more than 30% of total daily calories. There are some very strict versions of the diet that limit the amount of fat to less than 10% of daily calories.
The reason that low-fat diets are so effective is that fats provide approximately twice the number of calories per gram as protein and carbohydrates. As a result, limiting their intake may help you lose weight significantly. These diets are typically plant-based, with no meat allowed.
Suggestions for quick weight loss meals
As you can see, there are a lot of options when it comes to foods. Regardless of how picky you are, you should be able to easily find new foods that will help you lose weight quickly. Keep in mind that each meal necessitates the consumption of proteins, healthy fats, and vegetables.
If you want to lose weight while eating complex carbs, you should include whole grains in your diet, such as:
Oats
Wheat;
Quinoa;
Rye;
Bran;
Barley.
Furthermore, here are some breakfast ideas based on your desire to lose weight quickly:
Aside from the poached egg with avocado and some berries;
A spinach, mushroom, and feta crustless quiche;
A nut milk, spinach, and avocado smoothie;
Oatmeal Greek yogurt
Here are some lunch ideas that may help you lose weight quickly:
Aside from the smoked salmon with avocado and asparagus;
Wraps of lettuce with grilled chicken, beans, and red pepper;
Salad of kale and spinach with grilled tofu, chickpeas, and guacamole.
Even if you’re trying to lose weight, it’s perfectly normal to eat some snacks. Here are some snack suggestions:
Hummus;
Veggies;
Combine with the nuts and dried fruit;
Crispy kale;
Pumpkin seeds, roasted;
Pouches of tuna;
Fruit and brie
8 Ways to Accelerate Your Weight Loss Journey!
There are some tricks you can use in addition to your diet and exercise to help you lose weight faster.
Here are eight tips to help you lose weight even faster:
Make sure your breakfast contains a lot of protein. It has the potential to significantly reduce cravings as well as overall calorie intake for the day.
Add whole foods to your diet because they can help you feel full quickly, causing you to eat less.
Slower eating can help you manage your weight. Chewing quickly has been scientifically proven to be a cause of unwanted weight gain.
Only drink water. It makes no difference whether the water is still or sparkling. The most important thing is to avoid sugary beverages.
Drinking water before meals has been shown to reduce calorie intake and may help you lose weight.
Consume soluble fiber, as it has been demonstrated that it helps to maintain weight loss.
Caffeine has been shown to improve metabolism, so drinking coffee and tea is advised.
Every night, try to get a good night’s sleep. Sleep deprivation or poor sleep quality can lead to a variety of health issues. Sleeping poorly may increase the chances of gaining weight.
Is it possible to lose weight quickly without engaging in physical activity?
You can lose weight without exercising at all, but you won’t lose it quickly. Exercising causes your muscles to burn more fat.
There are some methods that may assist you in losing a few extra pounds (or kg) without exercising at all:
Drink plenty of water. Drinking water, especially before meals, can significantly reduce your appetite for food. In other words, drinking water on a regular basis may help you eat less.
Concentrate on what you’re eating. Recent studies have shown that people who eat while watching TV tend to eat more than they need. The distractions may fool you and cause you to forget how much you ate. Watching TV while eating may cause you to consume excessive amounts of food.
Only water, coffee, and tea should be consumed. Any other drink, by definition, contains sugars. Because your brain does not recognize those calories, you will consume more calories per day than you should. Furthermore, sugary beverages may be harmful to your health in the long run.
Rest well and stay away from stress. The less you sleep well, the more likely you are to become stressed. When you are stressed, your cortisol level rises. It may result in an imbalance of appetite-regulating hormones, causing you to eat more than you need.
Slow down your chewing and try to concentrate on what you’re eating. You will finish your meal faster because you will eat less than when you chew faster. The faster you eat, the more calories you will consume in a day.
Exercises to Lose Weight Quickly
Exercising is essential for a healthy lifestyle, especially when trying to lose weight. Physical activities can help you improve your metabolism and strengthen your immune system.
If you want to lose weight quickly, you should know that exercising effectively increases the number of calories you burn. If you engage in physical activity on a daily basis, you will lose weight faster because you will burn more calories with each passing day.
Here are a few examples of physical activities that could be considered quick weight loss exercises:
Walking. It is critical, and it can be done almost anywhere and at any time. It does not require any special equipment or environment. Walking is very good for you. The more steps you take, the better you’ll feel.
Running. You’ll need some more comfortable shoes at the very least, but it can be done anywhere and at any time. Running is a popular way to lose weight quickly because it helps burn off excess calories. According to studies, a 155-pound (70-kg) person burns approximately 372 calories during a 30-minute run.
Cycling. This activity necessitates the use of a bicycle. Even so, the bicycle can be normal, as in cycling across the streets, or stationary, as in the bicycle does not have wheels and stays in a room. It does not necessarily have to be at the gym; you can also have one at home. It has been demonstrated that a 155-pound (70-kg) person can burn approximately 252 calories during a 30-minute stationary cycling session.
Lifting weights. It is a fantastic fast weight loss exercise. It not only burns about 108 calories in a 30-minute workout session for a 155-pound (70-kg) person, but it also gives you more strength, both physically and mentally.
Swimming. It is one of the best fast weight loss exercises because it is simple to perform. Swimming also aids in fat burning and the prevention of a variety of diseases, including cardiovascular problems.
Yoga. It can be done anywhere, and aside from helping you burn calories, it can also help you mentally strengthen. It may help you avoid falling into the traps of cravings.
Should I take the pills to lose weight quickly?
There are no weight-loss pills available for purchase over the counter.
The pills that can help you lose weight are not suitable for everyone. First and foremost, you must consult with your medical specialist. He will only prescribe these weight loss pills if you have already tried to exercise regularly and follow a diet without seeing any results. It is critical to understand that these pills should only be used in conjunction with exercise and a healthy diet.
Those with a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 30 are more likely to be prescribed weight loss pills. Additionally, people with a BMI greater than 27 who also have another health condition, such as obesity, diabetes, or high blood pressure, are more likely to be prescribed these pills.
Conclusion
As a result, the most important factor in losing weight quickly is to become determined. You will lose weight at a faster and faster rate depending on how determined you are.
If you want to lose weight for a specific event, you should plan ahead of time. Depending on how much weight you want to lose, you must plan ahead of time in order to achieve the perfect body and the sensation of being wonderful.
Do you want to lose weight quickly? I can’t understand what you’re saying! “Do you want to lose weight quickly?” I asked. Concentrate on it and keep working on it!
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE…. | https://medium.com/@onlineglobalmediaacademy/how-to-lose-weight-faster-and-forever-af343743eb2a | [] | 2021-12-18 06:25:46.355000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss', 'Health', 'Lose Weight Fast', 'Fitness', 'Keto'] |
Does Gary Glitter deserve the vaccine? The criminal justice system and our lust for revenge over rehabilitation | Does Gary Glitter deserve the vaccine? The criminal justice system and our lust for revenge over rehabilitation Max Coleman Jun 2·5 min read
This question was raised by Piers Morgan on ITV’s This Morning and it fascinated me as a debate. The very notion that this even needs to be raised is a shocking indictment of our collective lust for revenge. Let me first say that Gary Glitter is a despicable and perverted paedophile who deserves to be in prison for the heinous crimes he has committed. However, the very idea that the government should be creating a priority list that includes the morality of its citizens based on their convicted crimes is a mandate for authoritarianism. In this period of time when many people are concerned that the government is using lockdown as a way to increase absolute control, it is absurd that we would then request that they withhold the vaccine based on their own morality criteria.
The issue here is that Gary Glitter has been utilised in a way that will encourage people into agreeing that prisoners should be low priority for the vaccine. They have chosen a man so vile that it is hard to disagree with, however, where do you draw the line? Is it just paedophiles and rapists who do not receive the vaccine or are murderers included in this immoral lineup of the damned? What about ex-convicts who have been released since committing these crimes? Or, to make this selection more simplistic do we simply say all prisoners, no matter their age or condition, must be offered the vaccine after the rest of the population has been vaccinated?
It is estimated that the Coronavirus vaccine will only be effective if at least 80% of the country is vaccinated. This includes prisons where Coronavirus cases have increased dramatically over the beginning of the year in line with the rest of the country. Prisons are not isolated places — officers travel in and out each day, prisoners are released on a daily basis across the country and they receive deliveries regularly. To write off the prison population as undeserving of a vaccine before the righteous population outside of the prison is a nonsensical self-sacrifice based on pride and intolerance.
Furthermore, the Lammy Review of 2017 made it crystal clear that minorities are overrepresented in prisons. The BAME population of the UK is 13% yet they make up 27% of the prison population with black men being 26% more likely than white men to be remanded in custody. Thus, to not include prisoners on the designated priority list assigned to age and health would be to further disadvantage these communities who are already sceptical of the vaccine due to a generational distrust in the government for these very reasons.
Although it may seem as though I am getting sidetracked from Gary Glitter and the question at hand, this all feeds into a wider debate of sentencing, rehabilitation and punishment. The right-wing media use stories such as Gary Glitter receiving the vaccine before others who are more deserving as a way to perpetuate this idea that we need to ‘get tougher on crime.’ It is a slogan, that along with his xenophobic Brexit rhetoric, won Boris Johnson the election. If you read any right wing tabloid there will almost certainly be a story such as ‘How London’s knife crime epidemic is putting terrified tourists off the capital’s hotspots’ or ‘Britain’s softest judges exposed,’ (both of which are, of course, from The Sun). Although Britain’s prison population has skyrocketed since the 1950s and sentences have increased dramatically especially for knife-related crimes, there has been no decline in criminality, in fact, quite the opposite. Thus, one must come to the conclusion that getting tougher on crime and criminals perhaps does not work and we should instead be focusing on rehabilitation.
To the east we have a multitude of examples of rehabilitative justice systems where rates of recidivism are extremely low such as Norway which has a rate of about 20%. On the other hand, to our west we have a damning example of where our criminal justice system is heading. A May 2018 U.S. Department of Justice report on state prisoner recidivism found that of prisoners that were released about 68% were arrested within three years, 79% within six years and 83% in nine years. Reducing crime is, evidently, not a matter of punishing criminals but instead rehabilitating them.
To say to a prisoner, especially one who is vulnerable to the Coronavirus, that we are not giving you the vaccine because of the mistakes you have made in your life is to say you are worthless and no longer have a purpose in this society. The likelihood of that person reoffending is extremely high because once someone is made to feel useless why would they then try and contribute to a society that has written them off?
It is the relinquishment of someone’s liberty after they have been convicted that is the punishment not the vengeful destruction of their soul through being thrust into a drug-filled, violent maze of concrete walls and metal bars. Gary Glitter will most likely not see the light of day again, however, most prisoners will and it is fundamental they return to society rehabilitated rather than further criminalised.
Longer sentencing, harsher penalties and overly strict probation rules do not provide this, but instead a life plagued with criminality and a lack of hope. We do not give every criminal a life sentence because everyone has the ability to change. Should an injured criminal on the side of the road be given medical attention? Yes of course, because no matter the history of that person’s life, they are entitled to the same level of health care as everyone else. It is for this same reason that we cannot write off prisoners as less worthy of receiving a vaccine because it would set a dangerous precedent for the ways in which the government could use Coronavirus and the vaccine to extend authoritarian control.
To conclude, I would like to mention Jack Merritt, the young man who was stabbed to death during the London Bridge terror attack in 2019 after leaving a prisoner rehabilitation event. After his death his father said, “Jack lived his principles; he believed in redemption and rehabilitation, not revenge… we know Jack would not want this terrible, isolated incident to be used as a pretext by the government for introducing even more draconian sentences on prisoners, or for detaining people in prison for longer than necessary.” For a grieving father to say this with such fortitude after the gruesome death of his son is a testament to his son’s life and cause.
Therefore, in order to eradicate incidents such as these and to prevent inspiring people like Jack from being murdered, the answer is not writing prisoners off, increased sentencing and more prisons; it is rehabilitation and trust. The notion that a vaccine should be withheld from prisoners is a small issue within a much larger and far more tragic one. | https://medium.com/@max-coleman-404/does-gary-glitter-deserve-the-vaccine-74a291146e64 | ['Max Coleman'] | 2021-06-02 11:06:04.683000+00:00 | ['Reform', 'Covid Vaccine', 'Prison', 'Prison Reform', 'Gary Glitter'] |
Perseverance | We work hard and go on working hard until we finish the work. I think that is perseverance. Perseverance means keeping on trying until we succeed. If we had perseverance in our work, we would get the blessings on earth. Perseverance never fails to bring success in the end.
Man is the architect of his own fate.
If we make proper use of our time, we will surely prosper in life. If we do not, we will fail.
Perseverance is to work hard and regularly and not to give up. It is a very good habit, but only a few persons have that habit. We must work regularly and very well. Our work may be difficult but we must go on doing our work until we finish it successfully.
A student begins to work for an examination at school. His subjects are new and interesting. At first, he finds them easy, and works well. After a few months, the subjects become more difficult. He loses his interest. At last, he gives up his regular work and wastes his time. So, he fails in the examination.
Many of students do not work hard. They want to do only easy work. If work has become difficult, they give up. They should work very hard but they waste their time. No wonder they fail in their examination. So students must have perseverance if they want to pass their exams and get good marks. If they want to be doctors or engineers, or university teachers, they must work hard now. They will then get good marks and they will be allowed to take up higher studies.
We should have perseverance. If we don’t have, we will not succeed in life. First, we will fail in our exams. If we fail, then we will not be able to get a good job after our school. We will not prosper. We must have the habit of working hard. Then only we will be able to work hard in jobs later. Then only we will become successful people.
We must always work hard. All men must work hard. All women must work hard, too. There are many things to do in our lives. If we do not have perseverance, we will not become rich or powerful. We should get that habit now.
To gain perseverance we must be punctual in our work. We must do our work with great care so that we do not make mistakes. We must be punctual and careful. People who don’t go to work on time and people who don’t care to do the work properly, will become useless. They will become poor people.
Man has strength and ability to do any kind of work. We must do it even if we don’t like it. If we work hard, the work will be quite easy for us. Nothing is difficult to a hard worker. So we should become regular hard workers. Regular work helps to build our character. It teaches us such good habits as punctuality, carefulness and perseverance. | https://medium.com/@kweephyoe/perseverance-4956e78ad8d6 | ['Phyoe Min Thant'] | 2020-12-26 11:16:00.827000+00:00 | ['Essay', 'Writing', 'English'] |
The Week To Be In Crypto [8/28/2018] | Market Overview
A few main themes over the past week (or two, I was on a baby-free vacay last week so no update) that I have seen across a number of headlines. In general on the price front, a nice pop today, we will see if it sticks. Hash power is back to ATHs which at least means that people with money (miners) think its worthwhile to pour effort and money into trying to acquire BTC so thats a decent sign. Im not going to try and make any price predictions but I have a hard time believing it will take years to get back to the bitcoin ATH. One year maybe but at the current pace of development in the space it feels like we should see another run in the not too distant future.
Ethereum Bear Case
ETH has obviously taken a pretty big hit, actually being down on a 12 month timeframe. I have always considered there to be a ceiling on the price of ETH for two reasons.
It is inherently leveraged by all of the tokens running on ethereum, priced against ETH, and requiring ETH to transact/trade
There is no set limit for the total supply
That being said, I have been holding on and still buying tokens through the downturn. I don’t have a target ETH price in mind but it will be interesting to see what happens first………
ETH price returns to new heights
ERC20 projects release actually useful products/solutions
If value starts flowing into the various token economies built on ethereum before ETH recovers we may actually see the correlations decline. I think lower correlations are healthy for the space but we are probably still at least 6 months out from any product becoming what could be considered a commercial success.
ETFs
We have now entered bitcoin ETF backlash after the most recent proposal rejections with many in the community now saying they think an ETF approval will be bad for the space. Its kinda like getting rejected by someone at a bar and then telling your friends theyre ugly. Having an opinion on if it will be good or bad isnt particularly useful. Its going to happen, there is too much money in it, so it comes down to what are you doing to help move the space in the direction you think it should go to be prepared for this eventuality? The pro is it will make the crypto asset class accessible to more people. The downside is, depending on how the products are structured, it could in essence dilute the bitcoin supply through synthetic instruments. I think it will be best if physically backed/settled instruments are approved first so a distinction can be made between them and the truly synthetic. The introduction of futures trading basically signaled the top so we will see what happens when an ETF is approved.
What I’m Buying
Buying ERC20s is like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic right now. The only thing I am actively buying is REN. The reasoning is that when their platform is live, those running darknodes will be able to earn fees in the traded coins/tokens (bitcoin, ethereum, ERC20s to start). mainnet should be live in a couple weeks, if things go as planned running one could be a great way to earn some crypto through a continued bear market.
Recommended Media
Read
Just finished Daemon. Entertaining read and was an interesting dive into what the extreme of decentralization could look like.
Listen
Really haven’t had much time to consume podcasts recently but here ya go.
From the Slack
A collection of content from The Bitcoin Podcast slack group the past week
Follow Me
twitter: https://twitter.com/Tompkins_Jon
linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathantompkins
steemit: https://steemit.com/@j-o-n-t
telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/FqrpRUo8CKHV8gGKRuNNNQ (nothing really here yet but will start engaging if a few more folks join) | https://medium.com/the-bitcoin-podcast-blog/the-week-to-be-in-crypto-8-28-2018-dc557eb55092 | ['Jonathan Tompkins'] | 2018-08-28 20:33:38.790000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
Predestination, Election, and Free Will | Predestination, Election, and Free Will
An Augustinian-Thomistic Model
The old Catholic Encyclopedia features an article on the various solutions to the Controversies on Grace. Although there are 4 main solutions (Molinism, Thomism, Congruism, and Augustinianism), the Augustinian solution is the least developed and addressed. However, when combined with the Thomistic understanding of free will as detailed in the previous article, it can be a powerful tool in understanding predestination, election, and free will.
It is important to note that when speaking of the “Augustinian model”, it is not the historical model taught by Saint Augustine himself. However, what Augustinian models share in common is they
(1) distinguish between efficacious and sufficient grace whereby they are both essentially different from one another. Sufficient grace is required to choose one’s salvation, whereas efficient grace is required to choose and claim one’s salvation.
(2) recognize a tension between man’s desires for sin, and their desire to serve God which explains why one grace will overcome sin, and one will not.
(3) accept the fact God chooses not to elect all, but only some of the mass of sinners.
The aforementioned article describes the Augustinian system like this,
there is a ceaseless conflict between the heavenly delight and the evil delight of the flesh, and the stronger delight invariably gains the mastery over the will. Sufficient grace, as a weak delight, imparts merely the ability (posse), or such a feeble will that only the advent of the victorious delight of grace (delectatio coelestis victrix, caritas) can guarantee the will and the actual deed… The necessity of gratia efficax [springs] from the inherited perversity of fallen human nature, whose evil inclinations can no longer, as once in Paradise, be overcome by the converting grace (gratia versatilis; adjutorium sine quo non), but only by the intrinsically efficacious heavenly delight (gratia efficax; adjutorium quo). Augustinianism differs, however, from Jansenism in its most distinctive feature, since it regards the influence of the victorious delight as not intrinsically coercive, nor irresistible. Though the will follows the relatively stronger influence of grace or concupiscence infallibly (infallibiliter), it never does so necessarily (necessario). Although it may be said with infallible certainty that a decent man of good morals will not walk through the public streets in a state of nudity, he nevertheless retains the physical possibility of doing so, since there is no intrinsic compulsion to the maintenance of decency.
Think of the sinner as a beam balance scale, on the right-hand side of the scale is our desire for sin. On the left-hand side of the scale is our love of the good. After the fall, our love of sin weighs down the scale to the right, where we are necessarily disposed to sin. God places the sufficient grace needed to draw them away from that desire for sin, but the scale will still balance out to the right-hand side since it only imparts such a feeble weight. What is needed to overcome the weight sin bares on us is for God to place the weight of efficient grace on the right-hand side so that we can overcome our sins and accept God’s love, and the Catholic faith.
There are numerous issues with this model, but I think it can be reformulated to side-step them.
Objection 1
The first issue comes from the Controversies of Grace article, even though it is applied to the Thomistic system, it equally applies here.
The first objection is the danger that in the Thomistic system the freedom of the will cannot be maintained as against efficacious grace, a difficulty which by the way is not unperceived by the Thomists themselves. For since the essence of freedom does not lie in the contingency of the act nor in the merely passive indifference of the will, but rather in its active indifference — to will or not to will, to will this and not that — so it appears impossible to reconcile the physical predetermination of a particular act by an alien will and the active spontaneousness of the determination by the will itself; nay more, they seem to exclude each other as utterly as do determinism and indeterminism, necessity and freedom. The Thomists answer this objection by making a distinction between sensus compositus and sensus divisus, but the Molinists insist that this distinction is not correctly applicable here. For just as a man who is bound to a chair cannot be said to be sitting freely as long as his ability to stand is thwarted by indissoluble cords, so the will predetermined by efficacious grace to a certain thing cannot be said to retain the power to dissent, especially since the will, predetermined to this or that act, has not the option to receive or disregard the premotion, since this depends simply and solely on the will of God. And does not the Council of Trent (Sess. VI, cap. v, can. iv) describe efficacious grace as a grace which man “can reject”, and from which he “can dissent”? Consequently, the very same grace, which de facto is efficacious, might under other circumstances be inefficacious.
Despite the technical terminology at play, the argument is rather simple to understand syllogistically.
P1. For all choices, if a choice is a free action, then it requires some agent has the ability to do otherwise. P2. Either (1) efficient grace cannot be rejected, or (2) it can be rejected. P3. Efficient grace cannot be rejected [assumption 1] C1. If efficient grace cannot be rejected, then it violates human free will [P1, P3]. P5. Efficient grace can be rejected [assumption 2] P6. If efficient grace can be rejected, then human free will isn’t dependent on God as a cause, and it violates the nature of efficient grace being efficient. C2. Either the doctrine of efficient grace (1) violates human free will or (2) isn’t dependent on God as a cause, and it violates the nature of efficient grace being efficient [P3-P4, P5-P6, P2]
The Council of Trent makes taking the third premise of the syllogism impossible since it claims,
If any one [sic] saith, that man’s free will moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, nowise co-operates towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of Justification; that it cannot refuse its consent, if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive; let him be anathema [1]
The justifying grace is the efficient grace in the case of the believer since it would be the grace that ends up bringing about the justification of the believer.
Response 1
The flaw in the above argument is in thinking that “the essence of freedom does not lie in the contingency of the act”. From a Thomistic perspective, this is false. There is freedom both in the act of free will and in God. On Thomism, God is the cause of all actions. Even Saint Thomas admits as much in the Summa when he confesses that God’s will is the cause of the act of sin (not that he is morally responsible for it as we shall see further down).
The act of sin is a movement of the free-will. Now “the will of God is the cause of every movement,” as Augustine declares (De Trin. iii, 4,9). Therefore God’s will is the cause of the act of sin. [2]*
First, remember that God is the cause of our freedom. Looking back at my last article on God’s relationship to free will, I claimed God and human free will are both causes working at two different levels. Our free choice and God’s causal power are not exclusionary, but rather one is derivative of the other.
Secondly, what exists in the cause also exists to some degree in the effect, meaning that there is freedom both in the cause (God) and the effect (us). As an analogy, when fire creates heat to weaken some piece of metal, heat would exist in both the fire, as well as the metal. However, the heat would exist in two different ways. In the same matter, our freedom does exist differently in God and us, but it exists regardless in both the contingency of our actions and in God. This means mankind does retain the freedom to reject God’s efficient grace. Does this mean efficient grace is not efficient?
Human beings do retain their free will, but this does not render efficient grace inefficient. A distinction has to be made between necessary propositions, and propositions which are true in an infallible sense. A proposition is made of a subject, a predicate, and a connective. Think of “Water is H20”, “water” is the subject, “is” is the connective, and “H20” is the predicate. There is no way water can exist unless it is H20. Thus, it is necessary. However, if we say “I am thinking”, such a proposition is infallibly true, not because you must always be thinking, or you couldn’t exist without thinking, but because every time you reflect on your thoughts, you are thinking, and that’s something you must always be aware of, whether you’re dreaming, awake, or being deceived.
Likewise, efficient grace is efficient, not because it must always work out of necessity, but because God infallibly knows how a man will cooperate with his efficient grace in a free manner. He knows all men will cooperate with his efficient grace, not despite their free will, but because of it.
Objection 2
The next objection from the old Catholic Encyclopedia’s article the Controversies on Grace is made along the same lines as the last.
Herein the second objection to the Thomistic distinction between gratia efficax and gratia sufficiens is already indicated. If both graces are in their nature and intrinsically different, it is difficult to see how a grace can be really sufficient which requires another grace to complete it. Hence, it would appear that the Thomistic gratia sufficiens is in reality a gratia insufficiens. The Thomists cannot well refer the inefficacy of this grace to the resistance of the free will, for this act of resistance must be traced to a proemotio physica as inevitable as the efficacious grace
The objection here concerns what is sufficient grace sufficient for? If sufficient grace requires some efficient grace, it cannot be sufficient on its own.
Response 2
Sufficient grace is sufficient to grant those who suffer from the depravity of sin the ability to recognize and desire the good, even if God knows infallibly sinners will not act on it. Whether or not God wishes to add efficient grace is up to him. Some will say this is unfair, but after he knows we will reject such a sufficient grace (not out of necessity) the fact he wishes to give additional grace is a mercy unto itself.
Objection 3
The next objection is accounted for by Saint Thomas himself.
Moreover, a third great difficulty lies in the fact that sin, as an act, demands the predetermining activity of the “first mover”, so that God would according to this system appear to be the originator of sinful acts. The Thomistic distinction between the entity of sin and its malice offers no solution of the difficulty. For since the Divine influence itself, which premoves ad unum, both introduces physically the sin as an act and entity, and also, by the simultaneous withholding of the opposite premotion to a good act, makes the sin itself an inescapable fatality, it is not easy to explain why sin cannot be traced back to God as the originator. Furthermore, most sinners commit their misdeeds, not with a regard to the depravity, but for the sake of the physical entity of the acts, so that ethics must, together with the wickedness, condemn the physical entity of sin.
Since God is the cause of our sinful actions, while withholding the ability to not sin through efficient grace, it becomes difficult to see how our sins are not just inevitable. Thomas, as just cited earlier in the Summa, does agree God moves us towards sin. The problem is that the levels of causality are misplaced.
Response 3
Thomas does not hold God is the direct cause of every sin, but the indirect cause of sin. Sin is a privation of the good (much the same way coldness is a privation of heat, or a hole is a privation of surface area). This is why we cannot trace back sin to God as originator, because God himself has no privation like evil.
Since an act of sin requires goodness to exist, and God is the cause of the good an agent has, it could be said God is the cause of the act of sin only insofar as allows it to exist through some greater good God graces us with. Does this mean God is morally responsible and blameworthy for that act of sin? No, God is only the cause by giving us the greater good of free will, which we can abuse to cause evil ourselves. While it is true he withholds efficient grace, sufficient grace still retains within its nature, no matter how feeble, a potency to overcome sin, even if God knows infallibly we will not utilize it.
Objection 4
Thomists…have only apparently found in their physical premotion an infallible medium by which God knows in advance with absolute certainty all the free acts of his creatures, whether they be good or bad. For as these premotions, as has been shown above, must in their last analysis be considered the knell of freedom, they cannot well be considered as the means by which God obtains a foreknowledge of the free acts of rational agents. Consequently the claims and proper place of the scientia media in the system may be regarded as vindicated.
The argument here is that since Thomists require infallible certainty prior to God’s premotion, it follows that God would need to possess middle knowledge.
Response 4
The issue here is that middle knowledge proceeds the decree of God’s will, while under a Thomistic-Augustinian system our free will and grace (either efficient of sufficient) are an effect of God’s causal power, it is not an antecedent to it. Thus, what we have is not an issue of “middle knowledge”, but rather is just a part of God’s free knowledge.
Objection 5
Unlike the Thomistic model of predestination, Augustinianism rejects the notion that he wills the salvation of all men. As Fr. William Most, a critic, writes,
Tragically, St. Augustine did, more than once, deny that God wills all to be saved… In his work De correptione et gratia 14. 44 he quotes 1 Timothy 2. 4 and continues: [it] can be understood in many ways, of which we have mentioned some in other works, but I shall give one here. It is said in such a way. . . that all the predestined are meant, for the whole human race is in them.” But this is not honest. All really means only those whom He predestines. [3]
Now, Fr. Most claims that 1 Timothy 2:4 is a strong scriptural proof that God elects all men to be saved. We read,
This, first of all, I ask; that petition, prayer, entreaty and thanksgiving should be offered for all mankind, especially for kings and others in high station, so that we can live a calm and tranquil life, as dutifully and decently as we may.Such prayer is our duty, it is what God, our Saviour, expects of us, since it is his will that all men should be saved, and be led to recognize the truth; there is only one God, and only one mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ, who is a man, like them (1 Timothy 2: 1–4)
Response 5
But ‘all’ doesn’t need to refer to every single person without exception. In fact, as Fr. Ronald Knox points out in his commentary,
It is possible that the false teachers at Ephesus, if they were Jews, may have been influenced by the unpopularity of Roman rule in Judaea, so as to preach disloyalty to the Empire; perhaps, too, they refused to recognize that the gospel was offered to the whole of mankind. [4]
In this context ‘all men’ could refer to “men of all nations and in every station of government”, rather than every single individual. This would include kings (as the passage mentions) and Roman citizens (as well as citizens of all nations).
Paul uses similar wording elsewhere,
All alike have sinned, all alike are unworthy of God’s praise (Romans 3:23)
A literal reading would deny the sinlessness of the Virgin Mary, yet Fr. Most and many other Catholics would not say a plain reading makes her a virgin. Not to mention Christ himself, who is sinless. Yet when remembering that the chapter is about Jew and gentile nations, not individuals, we realize that it would be fallacious to apply what is true of the nations to the individuals. Just because something is true of the whole, does not mean it is true of the part. Just because both nations alike have fallen short, does not speak to every individual therein. Likewise, just because God wills that all of mankind is saved, it does not follow every individual is willed to be saved, but it suffices that Paul was speaking about people from all sorts of national backgrounds.
However, a point to bring up is that while God does not will for the salvation of all people after the fall, it would be silly to believe God’s will prior to the fall wasn’t to will Adam and his descendants to salvation. God willed that Adam and his descendants would be saved (giving him the free will to merit for himself and others eternal life), but would permit the fall only to bring about a greater good. Furthermore, even by providing the reprobate a sufficient grace to weakly move our desire towards the good shows God is damning them not out of his will, but because of their resistance.
Objection 6
Fr. Most claims that to deny the universal sense of 1 Timothy 2:4 amounts to throwing away the notion of God’s love, he writes
To deny the words of St. Paul in 1 Timothy 2. 4. is horrendous: “God wills all men to be saved.” Why? When The Father says in 1 Tim 2.4 that He wills all men to be saved, it really means that He loves them, for He wills them good, even divine good [3]
This is an issue that a lot of Augustinians wrestle with, but must we assume that God hates those who he permits to fall away, that they are a mere means?
Response 6
Not at all, when people fall away, they are using their free will, they are not forced to fall away. Furthermore, God shows love and hatred to sinners, and there is no contradiction. As Saint Thomas says,
Nothing prevents one and the same thing being loved under one aspect, while it is hated under another. God loves sinners in so far as they are existing natures; for they have existence and have it from Him. In so far as they are sinners, they have not existence at all, but fall short of it; and this in them is not from God. Hence under this aspect, they are hated by Him. [5]
God hates nothing which exists (Wisdom 11:25). God loves sinners because they exist, and to exist is a good of some kind. Evil for Thomas and Augustine are privations of the good, and as such, they have no existence in themselves. God hates this aspect of the sinner, but because of their positive nature, God still shows love to them. Even in sin, God allows them to have pleasures in this world (Luke 16:25). God’s mercy might be small but to some degree it is present.
Footnotes
[1] Trent, Session 6, Canon 4, link
[2] Summa Theologiae, First Part of the Second Part > Question 79, Article 2, On the Contrary, link
[3] Fr. William Most, Summary of Debate on Salvific Will Started by Augustine, link
[4] Fr. Ronald Knox, Bible Commentary, The First Epistle of the Blessed Apostle Paul to Timothy, link
[5] Summa Theologiae, First Part, Question 20, Article 2, Reply to Objection 4, link | https://stjohnfisher.medium.com/predestination-election-and-free-will-78e7f3e62509 | ['John Fisher'] | 2020-02-27 00:08:25.232000+00:00 | ['Free Will', 'Augustine Of Hippo', 'Thomas Aquinas', 'Predestination', 'Election'] |
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To Learn About The Courses Click Here Successmode | https://medium.com/@successmode/second-chance-successmode-lifetime-success-club-all-courses-tools-3f32342b0099 | [] | 2020-12-21 14:49:02.117000+00:00 | ['Success', 'Earn Money Online', 'Money', 'Tools', 'Courses And Training'] |
Those In Power Rarely Share It Voluntarily | The reasons why the “just be nice” tactic will not work in a dominance hierarchy
Licensed from Adobe Stock
I have to admit that nothing frustrates me more in a discussion about societal equality than a person who advocates for oppressed people to just do a better job of getting along and being “nice.” On the one hand, telling someone they are a “despicable” probably isn’t going to move the needle too much in the right direction, but on the other hand, clear and progress-based suggestions for how to have fewer structural impediments and implicit bias is a necessary factor for any kind of social progress. Firmly and powerfully demanding better is the only thing that has ever lead to social improvement in this country (or anywhere).
First of all, most discrimination and marginalization of demographics with less social power is not being done consciously. It’s coming out of the subconscious and the dynamics of living in a dominance-based hierarchy, where a relatively few elites (white men are only 31% of the population but still the bulk of power and privilege), and everyone else is somewhere lower down the pyramid. White men have 8 times as much political power as black women, not simply because there are more of them, or they are inherently smarter and savvier. It’s because we’ve always had a system in this country where black women as a demographic are the very bottom of the pecking order and white men as a demographic are closer to the top. Until very recently, there were many overt structural systems to keep it that way put into place by the very white men who didn’t want to lose their spot in the hierarchy.
This is not necessarily due to malice, however. In a dominance-based hierarchy (which is what a patriarchal system truly is) everyone is trying to either hang on to their spot or to rise to a better one. It’s a zero-sum dynamic where in order for someone to win, someone else has to lose. There is no voluntary sharing of power or privilege. It’s a win/lose paradigm and for those most bought into this social system, conceding anything to someone else means that you have lost something. If it happens to be wrested away, through superior effort or force, or some kind of other circumstance, it’s usually given somewhat grudgingly. In many cases, however, the resistance continues on for decades afterward.
American women had to advocate for the right to vote, in other words, for the right to be considered actual full citizens, for close to 100 years. Part of the reason that it took so long, apart from garden variety misogyny, is that several large interest groups were afraid that a voting block of women would be more likely to go against their interests. Southern factories that used child labor didn’t want that practice disrupted, just as breweries and distilleries didn’t want a large voting block of prohibitionists. If the suffragettes hadn’t spent all those decades demanding the right to be treated as full American citizens, it certainly wasn’t going to just be handed over because it was “the right thing to do.”
Not only are those with more historic access to power unlikely to be willing to just give something to someone else because it may disturb their interests, but due to the elements of stratification that are inherent in a dominance-based hierarchy they undoubtedly don’t see why they should have to concede anything to someone “weaker.” A dominance hierarchy is a might makes right system. No one in such a system is going to just voluntarily cede some of their authority or privilege to someone who hasn’t taken it from them by force or by exerting concerted pressure over time.
Even among the suffragettes, there was a clear element of class awareness and snobbery. Susan B. Anthony was primarily interested in the rights of middle and upper-class white women, and the legacy of that is still being felt in modern feminism, where even today black women have legitimate grievances about the way that they have been marginalized within the feminist movement. Whether this is outright racism and classism or something more subtle and more subconscious is not really relevant because it has the same impact on those who are harmed by it.
Other types of subtle elements also impact who keeps the apex of the hierarchy, and who has to continue fighting for a place. The research demonstrates that having a more honed ability to manage the impression you give at work, often referred to as “an executive presence” does confer advantages over intelligence and actual competence alone. Co-workers from a working-class background may simply come off as less polished, or less elite — because, in a social hierarchy, part of the currency is elite status. Most people are looking to climb the rungs of the pyramid, and if someone is already “dressed for the part” then it’s easier for managers and others to imagine them there, whether they are truly the best candidate or not.
Social inequalities tend to lead to structural inequalities and this makes it easier for those nearer to the top of the pyramid to maintain their historic power and social authority. Up until the mid-1970s, there were hundreds of laws that applied differently to women than they did to men, to say nothing of our nation’s history of segregation, disenfranchisement, and marginalization of blacks, all of which was codified by law, and continued by custom long after the laws were abolished. Due to this long-standing history, it is not only possible but likely that most of us (particularly those born higher up in the hierarchy) harbor some deeply unconscious beliefs about the “natural order of things” that we’ve picked up from being raised in a dominance hierarchy, no matter what our conscious beliefs about equality may be.
Having a less stratified system feels deeply uncomfortable to many people, and one need only look into the headlines to see that being played out. After all, what else are The Proud Boys? What else are the people who were deeply offended when a black man was elected president or a woman played in a football game? In their minds, the stratification is set, and people who are supposed to be on the lower rungs are way out of line for imagining that they are on their level — because in their belief system, only one of them can “win.”
Those with that level of subconscious feeling of being offended and threatened will never voluntarily change the system to be a more egalitarian one when their own insecurities are assuaged by being born into one of the higher ranks of a stratified system. If you are always comparing yourself to others, always looking over your shoulder for who is coming for your social position or level of authority, always worried about where you rank in the hierarchy — so much so that you are willing to enshrine it into both culture and law — it’s not likely that you will give that up to someone of perceived lower-ranking just because they’ve been “nice.”
Some people like to complain that mass protests don’t accomplish anything except for destruction and civil unrest, but our country has a long history of change being fomented by just such protests, from the Boston Tea Party of 1773 to the Women’s Suffrage Parade of 1913 and on to the Stonewall Riots of 1969, all the way up to world-wide protests that emerged after the killing of George Floyd. Each of these mass demands for a less authoritarian, less stratified society did lead to positive social change — although there is certainly room for plenty more.
These types of mass protest, which do typically result in some injury, as well as the destruction of some property, wouldn’t be necessary if those who are seeking redress for the harms against them were listened to when they were speaking calmly. In each of those examples above, the people in question started by asking nicely, by speaking about the ways that they were suffering, and in each instance (as well as many others), it wasn’t until unanswered requests or other provocations boiled over into forceful demands that anything changed.
The Black Power movements of the 1960s and 70s came directly in response to decades of trying to assimilate into White culture by being “nice” and “respectable” and finding that it largely did not move the ball. Black Americans were still looked down upon, discriminated against in jobs and housing, and largely treated as second-class citizens. Groups such as The Blank Panthers sought to create both safety and self-sufficiency for Black Americans within a society that still often looked upon Whites as being inherently superior. When they saw that they could not win by playing “the game,” these Black Power movements sought to opt-out and create their own game.
After the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee decided to cut ties with the mainstream civil rights movement. They argued that blacks needed to build power of their own, rather than seek accommodations from the power structure in place.
I would say that hip-hop culture has a lot of similarities. It’s black musicians and others trying to opt-out of the established white power hierarchy by creating one of their own. Unfortunately, because it’s still a dominance hierarchy, bullying, violence, and the oppression of women is often an integral aspect. In order to have top rungs, you still have to have somebody else beneath, on the lower ones. It’s just trading out one pyramid structure for another one.
You can say that someone attracts more flies with honey than with vinegar. You can say that when people feel criticized, they feel defensive, and are less likely to be sympathetic to those they feel are attacking them, and you may be right on both counts. But none-the-less, in the history of this country, and the history of the rest of the world, no demographic with more traditional power has ever given it away to one with less out of the goodness of their hearts if they live in a dominance hierarchy. It simply goes against the grain of that sort of social system.
Exhorting marginalized people to be less forthright about how they are being systemically harmed is actually a bid for the comfort of those closer to the top of the hierarchy. The system largely works for them, so they don’t particularly want to know about how it doesn’t work for others, because they tend to be under the illusion that they have somehow earned that place, rather than been born into by an accident of gender, skin color, or sexuality. As well, it’s an integral part of a dominance hierarchy that one must accept abuse when it comes “from above” but then can dole it out to those “below” by way of recourse.
What I consider the appropriate balance between these two poles is to look at the flaws of the social structure, and how that encourages people towards viewing social stratification based on immutable traits as natural. I also look at the way that this is so deeply a part of our culture as to be almost invisible. Most people aren’t truly despicable, but that doesn’t mean that they might not still be contributing to the marginalization and oppression of others by defending this social system — something that may be taking place either without truly realizing it or without any malice. Not understanding that, or not meaning to is not a free pass, and resisting it tooth and nail when it’s brought to your attention doesn’t get one either.
If you want less “culture war.” If you want fewer marchers in the streets. If you want fewer pointed fingers, then it’s incumbent upon those with more societal cache to overcome some of their territorial instincts and listen and to encourage others like them to listen, and then to use their power to act in response to what they’ve learned. And if you don’t want to do that, then you’ll have to be prepared for the loud and uncomfortable demands for a more egalitarian system to keep taking place.
If you want to preserve a system rooted in a dominance hierarchy, then what you can expect is the fruits of that. Marginalized and oppressed people know that being “nice” is never going to get them anywhere. They’ve tried that already, sometimes for hundreds of years and they understand, even if you don’t, that this is not how a dominance hierarchy works.
© Copyright Elle Beau 2020
Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen. | https://medium.com/inside-of-elle-beau/those-in-power-rarely-share-it-voluntarily-f8dc78754124 | ['Elle Beau'] | 2020-12-14 19:42:38.734000+00:00 | ['Society', 'Power', 'Equality', 'Social Justice', 'Hierarchy'] |
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) | Plot Summary: Sean Boswell is faced with prison or moving to Tokyo (it’s in Japan, you know) to live with his father. Naturally he goes to Tokyo where he’s drawn into the underground world of drift racing. Or something like that.
Genre: Action/Crime/Drama
Director: Justin Lin
Key Cast: Lucas Black, Bow Wow (seriously?), Sung Kang, Nathalie Kelley.
Five Point Summary:
1. Japanese culture (duh).
2. Lovely shiny cars
3. Another completely superfluous love story.
4. Driiiiiiiftiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
5. Sonny Chiba classing the place up
Analysis:
Until this week, this was the only Fast and Furious film I’d seen. Yeah I know — random, right? Let me explain. I am a former subscriber to the Lovefilm rental service, and despite having all (four films, at that time) on my viewing list, they decided to send me the third one first. Go figure. So having little choice in the matter I watched this, returned the disc, then received something completely different next time round. I never did receive any of the other Fast and Furious films, and not being a massive fan of cars I didn’t get round to seeing the rest. Until now, of course.
On my first viewing all that time back, in the long dark recesses of 2009, I wasn’t overly enamoured with the story, and that feeling has remained. It’s passable, and certainly better than the old Fast and Furious method of “how can we get the characters to drive somewhere and make it fit it into the paper thin story somehow?” But to me it was a glossy reprint of the storyline from the first two films, only transferred to the gorgeous looking streets of Tokyo and handed to a younger (and mostly foreign) cast. The key twist here as well is that the focus is on drift racing rather than the usual 10 second race stuff. The stunts, as a result, look fantastic. I can fully appreciate the skill required to drive like an absolute NUTTER and yet still maintain control of the vehicle. Apart from the obligatory sections where Sean can’t drift and he hits pretty much everything, all of the driving sequences with cars slipping and sliding all over the place are a joy to watch. Additional bonus: not CGI. Practical effects for the win!
In an effort to give some of the characters a bit more than the standard 2D cardboard cut-out fare, Bow Wow (I’m never going to use his character name) is a purloiner of half-inched (pinched) technology and similar gubbins, which is usually broken or damaged in some way. He’s beaten up by one of the Japanese guys (sorry I couldn’t tell you who, they all look the same… SHOCK HORROR -RACISM! I jest, I know who the actor is. It was… oh, erm… anyway, moving on.)
One more thing I love about the film is the cinematography. Stephen F Windon, I doff my proverbial cap to you, sir. This is the same guy who did the cinematography on Deep Blue Sea and Anacondas. Somehow I think he should focus more on lighting cars than actors reacting to CGI creatures in future. As he’s also done the same job on every “Fast” film to date, then I would say we’re in good hands. The cars look fantastic, enhanced by the Tokyo setting. In fact I would say that applies to any film that shows Japan at night, the Resident Evil film series included (but that’s for another review). Justin Lin brings a real sense of class to proceedings and pushes this a step above the first two films in every sense. Except for the script, unfortunately he couldn’t do much about that.
So… it’s more of the same, yet slightly different. Cinematography and a director who actually has a clue what he’s doing will only get you so far.
Favourite scene: Anything scene where Sonny Chiba turns up. Cinema gold.
Quote: “My mother, she’s blind in one eye and she can drift better than that.”
Silly Moment: Bow Wow slips into the lift alongside a group of ladies, then breaks the fourth wall and winks knowingly at the camera.
Score: 2.5/5 | https://medium.com/simonprior/the-fast-and-the-furious-tokyo-drift-2006-d5f6a8f468b1 | ['Simon Prior'] | 2017-07-08 22:36:17.101000+00:00 | ['Vin Diesel', 'F', 'Action', 'Drifting', '2006'] |
Quick and Easy API with Python’s Flask | Flask
Flask is a Python web framework with lots of capabilities. We’ll only explore a few of those in this article—only the most essential to get us quickly hosting our JSON.
This should only take 10 minutes and less than 15 lines of code. So, without further ado, let’s install the libraries we’ll need.
pip install flask
pip install flask_restful
pip install pandas
Flask_restful will make our lives even with ready to go methods for building restful APIs, and Pandas will be mostly used for testing and reading the JSON files.
We’ll also make use of requests and json but those should come by default with Python.
Now we need a JSON file to use in this example. I’ll use https://calendarific.com/ to get the holidays for Canada in 2020. I’ll save that data and serve it in our Flask API.
Requests and JSON
If you want to use Calendarific, you’ll need to register and replace where it says ‘YOUR_KEY’ with the key they assigned you. You’re welcome to try the next steps with other APIs; there’s this great list of public APIs at GitHub you could try, or skip this part and go directly to the Flask API.
import requests
import json response = requests.get("https://calendarific.com/api/v2/holidays?&api_key=YOUR_KEY&country=CA&year=2020") with open('myfile.json', 'w') as json_file:
json.dump(response.json(), json_file)
Nice! That should get you a JSON file in your working directory.
Now let’s try to open and see what’s in this file with Pandas. Note the structure of Calendarific response:
Meta → Code
Response → Holidays →Name, Description, Country, Date…
I don’t want the full JSON; I want the Holidays part of it. So, I’ll select [‘response’][‘holidays’] .
response = requests.get("https://calendarific.com/api/v2/holidays?&api_key=YOUR_KEY&country=CA&year=2020") with open('myfile.json', 'w') as json_file:
json.dump(response.json()['response']['holidays'], json_file)
Pandas can help us check the JSON file in a friendlier format.
# pip install pandas import pandas as pd
df = pd.read_json('myfile.json')
print(df)
That’s it; we have our JSON file in our working directory. Now we can build our API to serve it! | https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/quick-and-easy-api-with-pythons-flask-dbf9eef79acc | ['Thiago Carvalho'] | 2020-11-16 20:38:14.232000+00:00 | ['Json', 'API', 'Pyhton', 'Flask', 'Programming'] |
How to Say Thanks to Your Freelance Writer | How to Say Thanks to Your Freelance Writer
Many may not be aware, but it’s said that the 2nd week of February is considered Freelance Writer Appreciation Week. As a freelance writer myself, I consider this week as big a deal as my birthday (which if you know me personally is not a small thing). Many people don’t know or truly understand what it is I do so to think there’s an entire week dedicated to appreciating that rejuvenates my excitement for the type of work I’m in.
If you’re someone who’s hired a freelance writer before or currently (or even one of my clients!) and you’ve appreciated all that they’ve done for your business, why not take a moment this week to say thank you? If you’re not sure how to start, here are a few ideas:
K.I.S.S.
OK so the last “S” is a little harsh, but let’s focus on the first 3 letters: Keep It Simple. Shoot them an email that says how much you’ve appreciated what they’ve brought to your business. Maybe highlight something positive that happened as a result of their work. You could even go old school and send a thank you card because who doesn’t love getting something other than bills or junk mail?
Tell the World
The biggest compliment I would ever receive as a writer is a great recommendation. If you want to really help your freelance writer without any monetary effort, celebrate them publically. This can be done through a review on sites like the Better Business Bureau or a quick “thank you” on your social media channel that tags them or their business page.
Go All Out
If there are not enough words to express how grateful you are for your freelance writer, I’ll be the first to say honestly gifts are wonderful, too. If you’re like me and love to give gifts of great meaning, try something like Aqua Notes (because we all know inspiration comes in the shower!).
No matter how you choose to give accolades to your favorite freelance writer, they will truly appreciate it. I can’t speak for all of us, but I can bet that a great majority of us truly love what we do and love the clients we work for! Want to make me one of your favorite freelance writers? Check out my work!
To all my fellow freelance writers, I hope you truly know how appreciated you are this week and every week! #FreelanceWritersAppreciationWeek | https://medium.com/@copywriter.kkenyon/how-to-say-thanks-to-your-freelance-writer-9df388826124 | ['Kristi Kenyon'] | 2019-02-11 16:20:25.494000+00:00 | ['Writer', 'Freelancing', 'Copywriter', 'Hiring A Freelancer'] |
Break Your Pride | Photo by Saul Flores on Unsplash
Masculinity and Faith
Break Your Pride
Have you tried holding a conversation with the guy who only talks about himself and his accomplishments? Not very fun is it? What about the guy that keeps putting himself down?
“I’m just a sinner. I’m no good. It’s all Jesus and none of me because I’m trash.”
You might think this isn’t pride but it is. The focus is still all about them.
How many times have you tried helping your friend who clearly needs it but all you get is,
“I’m fine.”
Meanwhile, they are clearly drowning.
Do any of the above examples strike a chord? Maybe one of them is you.
Whether we admit it or not, we all struggle with pride in one form or another. I struggled for years. I believed I could earn from God by my works. If I could do or be enough then I thought I deserved what I believed I needed from God. When I didn’t receive what I thought I was entitled to, I was left with disappointment and bitterness. Its pride to believe you can earn anything from God apart from what Jesus already did for you. If we could earn from God then greater men than you and I would have done so long ago. But no one has.
Let me be clear. It’s ok to be proud. Being proud of your family, accomplishments and country are natural. What’s not ok is receiving your whole identity from any of these things. Who you are is more than your job title, what your bank account says or the church you attend. Your identity is being a son of God. If you settle that truth in your heart before all else, everything will begin to fall into place.
Here’s the truth. If pride is not dealt with it will grow to corrupt all areas of your life. It’s time we confront pride.
Here are 3 reasons to let go of your pride.
1. Pride is Self Worship
Dictionary.com defines pride as,
“a high or inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.”
Ultimately pride is worshipping yourself. It’s the belief that you are the sun of your solar system, not Jesus. You believe there is no greater way than yours to serve and no greater strength than your own to rely upon.
Acting this way is against who you are as a son of God. You are no longer an orphan who needs to take care of himself by his own means because he doesn’t have anyone. You were adopted by God, Ephesians 1:5. You have a strength greater than your own to lean on in your Father. You are loved beyond measure. There is a Kingdom to serve that is more than you could have imagined on your own.
If the greatest thing you worship is yourself then you are only holding yourself back. You were created for more. You were created for a relationship with God. Humble yourself before your creator and admit that you don’t have it all together and need help. Admitting you need a savior is the greatest moment in a man’s life. Like Bob Dylan said in his Slow Train Coming album, you gotta serve somebody.
2. Pride is Rooted in Shame
I believe that a lot of pride is rooted in shame. You are so unhappy with yourself that you compensate with your accomplishments. You put on a show of being more competent than the other guy. You talk about the women you’ve been with, the money you make or the ways God has blessed you. But underneath it all you are desperately insecure and wanting acceptance. You are afraid to let your mask down and truly be seen. Maybe past failures have made you think that you don’t measure up. This is common and something that can be worked through by admitting your failure in the company of other men willing to pour into your life.
Do yourself a favor and start letting others in. Let men you trust see your failures. Stop letting shame have power over you. Hiding insecurity and shame is the same as protecting it. You don’t need to protect your shame, you need to kill it. Take off the mask of pride. No one is buying it anyways. They want the real you, not the fake one you’ve been trying to sell to the world. Let yourself be seen and known by your Father that loves you and by brothers that will take you in and heal you. True connection kills shame.
3. If you don’t break your pride the Lord will.
This isn’t meant to be a threat but it is a reality. The Lord loves you too much to leave you in your pride. He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble, James 4:6. The Lord knows who you are behind the mask of pride and beyond the shame you’re trying to hide. He sees who he created when He dreamed of you. Sometimes the Lord will allow certain circumstances to happen in your life that will absolutely break your pride. You will think He abandoned you. But actually he’s helping you abandon the house you’ve built on sand. There is a life to be built on the sure foundation of His love and not of your works. The call on your life is too good for the Lord to leave you in your pride.
Final Thoughts
Open yourself today and let the Lord in. Choose to be the man who lets go of his pride and admits he needs others. Put down the mask and let others see what you look like after all these years of hiding. Stop making a show of putting yourself down. You aren’t so unique the Lord can’t redeem you. There is a true life to be lived. A life with connection and love. Let go of your pride and let it embrace you today.
Take steps to break you pride today. The life you have to live is worth it.
Visit williamsfaith.com for more content. | https://medium.com/@donaldwilliam1826/break-your-pride-ee20336569a3 | ['Donald William'] | 2020-12-08 20:52:31.456000+00:00 | ['Faith and Life', 'Masculinity', 'Men', 'Discipline', 'Faith'] |
Best Self Forward | Carlina could not believe this was actually happening. She had watched the movies and read the books about people being able to time travel but she didn’t really think it was true. As an executive at a public relations firm in Chicago, the lead singer of a popular club band and a part-time palm reader, she certainly ran in the kind of circles for such an experience if it was even possible.
And now, she believed it was.
Having explored her inner world in so many ways over her 38 years of living: scads of psychotherapy, meetings with a shaman in Mexico, exploring past lives under hypnosis, dropping acid, attending week long meditation retreats and even trying Ayahuasca in the Amazon, Carlina was in search of her best and purest self.
In perpetuity. Despite the deep inquiry, or perhaps because of it, her image of herself was one of confidence and accomplishment in everything she endeavored to do. She felt that others respected her and thought she was super intelligent, insightful and fun to be around. Her self-esteem was well intact.
When she met a strange but intriguing fellow at a party one recent Saturday night, she couldn’t help but wonder if his unusual proposal could be for real and if so, well, how could she pass it up.
“Hey. Who are you and why are you here?” The man approached her after Carlina noticed him staring at her from across the room.
Dressed in an odd mix-and-match outfit that was one part Versace, one part flea market finds draped across an extremely fit body for a man his age, he stood before her with a beautiful, thick black mane pulled tightly into a ponytail. He was Euro-bohemian and otherworldly all at once.
“I’m Carlina Stack. Who are you? And why were you staring at me so overtly?” Carlina was known for her direct way of communicating.
“Oh, lady. I’m on your vibe. We have things to talk about and no time to waste. Well, time. That’s a whole thing, now isn’t it. People don’t know. Think life is linear when it’s really circular. You didn’t answer my question. Why are you here,” he said again, eyeing her to see if she was catching his drift.
Carlina studied him carefully to discern his true nature. This was something she prided herself on, her intuitive ability to read others, something she fine-tuned through her work as a palm reader.
“I’m here for Alice’s birthday, like everyone else, of course. She’s one of my best . . . Carlina started.
“No, no. Why are you here. What is your purpose. What are you here to do in this life?” he probed.
“What are you talking about, I don’t even know you, we’ve just met and you act like . . . ” Carlina began. She paused a minute noticing him deeply staring into her eyes. She considered his words for a minute.
“I do agree with you about time, though. What are you exactly getting at?” she asked with all sincerity.
“What if I told you I time travel. To the past. To the future. And I’ve taken a few people with me, interested parties who are truth-seekers. It is the only way to find the absolute, you know. Traveling through time, it gives us the whole picture, not just the dribs and drabs of fleeting moments that we’re barely paying attention to. I’ve seen my whole life, lady. What about it. You want to try it?” he said.
He stared at her with a glint of knowing in his eyes.
To Carlina, it sounded like he had some new drug he was peddling and she had already been there, done that. But this WAS different, she felt, as she looked him up and down, assessing this odd stranger. From the ground up, she took in his stylish, lace-up shoes that came to shiny black points at his toes. His loose-fitting gray trousers that hung off his perfect hips.
Encasing a perfectly sculpted torso and shoulder girdle, he wore a black and red T-shirt with an image of a UFO and something written in Sanskrit underneath it — clearly a custom printed shirt by some local artist, she thought. He wore a gorgeous stone of turquoise in each pierced ear, a gold nose ring and what looked like a bit of black eyeliner to accent his brilliant blue eyes. And that hair. Was that the hair of a man of 70, she wondered, though it looked neither manufactured nor dyed.
Carlina met his eyes again as her gaze reached his face and felt a kind of spell cast over her. An uncanny familiarity in his visage. A karmic connection. Breaking the moment, she looked around the room to ground herself. It seemed like no one was even aware of them, like they were almost invisible.
She scanned the room for her friend Alice, whose birthday they were all gathered here for, but could not find her. She needed some sort of acknowledgement that this guy was real and connected to this group in some way.
“Don’t look away. I’m Here. I’m Now,” he said and with that her eyes met his again.
“What exactly are you offering? I mean, I’ve been in the rear-view already, know all about my past lives and relationships and struggles and all that, so that’s nothing new,” she said in a smarter-than-thou way to the man who was unmoved by her sass. “What’s your name, anyhow?” she asked.
“No matter. But you can call me Sage.”
“Oh, brother, ok, ‘Sage’, like I said, what are you selling and why should I buy it?”
“I’m not selling anything, Miss Carlina, I just know your antennae are up for this experience and I’m willing to be your guide.”
“Hey. How do you know my name?” Carlina asked.
He flashed a knowing smile, revealing the tiniest but sexiest sliver of a gap between his two front teeth. “I know you because we’ve been together in the future. And I know there is stuff you need to see, to hear, to know about yourself if you ever hope to be the fully formed person you have been striving to be. And to steer you clear of all the gunk you’re letting get in your way.”
With that he lightly touched her hand and walked away.
Carlina felt frozen in time. She watched the mysterious stranger dissolve into the crowd and then, looking down at her hand, discovered a piece of paper folded up neatly in fours resting in the palm of her hand. She looked around for a place to set her wine glass down so she could open the note, a note smelling vaguely of exotic oil and herb.
Sage Traveler. Best Past Lived. Best Self Forward. Always in the Present.
415–845–1111, the note said, in a perfected hand-written script. Carlina couldn’t take her eyes off the note. Just then, Alice appeared with a bottle of champagne.
“Hey, sweetie, where’s your glass? Have some champagne to celebrate ME!” Alice said with a flourish of her free hand. She was as bubbly as the contents of her bottle.
“Hey, Alice. Who is that intriguing older man that I was just talking to . . . Sage something. I think he’s from San Francisco? His phone number is, anyway,” she said reaching for her wine glass and draining the last swallow to make room for Alice’s pour.
“Girl, I don’t know half the people here!” she said as she filled Carlina’s glass with expensive French champagne. Nothing but the best for this crowd, Carlina thought as she eyed the label while Alice tipped the bottle up to her lips to catch the last of it.
“Oh, well, hmmm, I was just talking to him . . . he’s captivating really. Kind of strange, but in a good way, ya know what I mean?”
“Sure, honey. Hey, I’ve gotta go get another bottle, these folks are insatiable! Come with me to the kitchen. You can tell me more about your mystery man,” Alice said.
And the two trotted off together to find more champagne and edibles for the crowd that seemed like it had doubled in the last few minutes.
. . .
The day Carlina decided to dial the number on that little slip of paper, it was one of upheaval at work followed by a scrape with her brother on the phone over politics and she just felt worn out. Why does everything seem in turmoil all of a sudden, she wondered, as she sipped a warm cup of chai at the kitchen table of her Lincoln Park apartment.
She remembered the stranger’s note she had placed prominently in a small hand carved bowl on her bedroom dresser that held sacred tchotchkes from all over the world. Holding her cup in both hands, she stood and casually ambled into her bedroom to get the note, sitting down on the sofa across from her bed to ponder it a bit.
“I’m just gonna call him. That Sage. What could that guy be all about?” she said to herself out loud.
The voice on the other side of the phone was clearly him. She had pressed the number impulsively on her cell phone and waited. It was as though he was expecting her call that very minute, so nonchalant and open, he was. So receptive.
“Well, I was just wondering . . . I had this really crappy day and it has me in a funk. Could we talk some more about that ‘time travel’ thing you mentioned? I mean, are you for real, dude, or was that just some new kind of pick up line or what?” Carlina asked with a little laugh.
Silence.
Silence on the other end. And it made her feel uncomfortable but as soon as he spoke, she felt right at home with him. He explained how real he actually was, how serious. And he asked for her seriousness as well, a commitment to taking this journey together with deep faith, fearlessly, with open curiosity. In a few minutes, a plan was made to meet in a neutral place to discuss things further.
. . .
They met on a Saturday afternoon in a nearby park and when Carlina arrived at the very specific and magnificent tree he had described to her over the phone, she wondered for a moment what exactly she had agreed to. Sage was standing under the tree waiting for her, a pink woolen blanket with various things laid out across it at his feet. His bare feet.
“Hello. I made it. Aren’t you supposed to have some kind of capsule for us to climb into or something,” she said with a nervous laugh, “What’s all this?” she asked, waving her hand in the direction of the blanket.
“Let’s sit,” he simply replied.
Carlina kicked her slides off and sat down on the blanket, watching the nimble man slip effortlessly into the Lotus position. He smiled at her.
“First tell me how you see yourself,” he said. “Then tell me where on the Orbital Continuum you wish to go. How far in the future, I mean.”
Orbital Continuum, Carlina thought to herself. This guy is really something. But she was one to explore the depths in all ways possible, so she took a deep exhale and dove in head first.
“Well, I think I’m really smart. Always the smartest person in the room. I grok things that most people don’t ever even see. I’m deep. I mean, really deep. I seek the truth. And, ummm . . . well, I think I have good friends, I’m someone people look up to for advice because I’m so smart. My siblings always listen to everything I have to say because I know so much more about things, everything, than they do.
“I’m just more evolved and I think they see that and want to learn from me. Well, maybe not my brother right now, but that … that’s a whole long story. And, let’s see, I’m a hard worker, I climb the ladder and succeed. I have integrity at work, I mean I always put my best foot forward.” She stopped talking and waited for some kind of a response from Sage.
“How about your best self. Not just your foot,” was all he said.
While Carlina pondered his comment, Sage pushed a book forward across the blanket closer to her and opened a small satchel that sat in front of his crossed legs, extracting a small blue bottle, holding it in his hands and up to his heart.
“You say you are a truth-seeker. How do you do with the truth when it’s not what you thought it should be. Not what you want to hear. I’m saying this because we’re heading there and you have to be ready,” he said, turning the small bottle around in his hands like a precious talisman. “It’s not a question. It’s a caveat.”
Sage instructed her on what would happen next. They would have her read a few passages from the book while they sipped on the contents of the bottle together. This worried her momentarily but she’d bought the round-trip ticket and it was time to get on board. He placed the book on her lap with pages marked with colorful strips of cloth. He opened the bottle and handed it to her telling her first just to smell it, then take a very small sip.
Carlina took the bottle from his warm hand, sniffed it just above its rim which immediately caused her face to scrunch. It smelled awful! Worse than her sister’s backyard compost pile and then some. Certainly, it could not be palatable enough to consume. He nodded to her and said, “Small sip,” and nodded again. She put the blue bottle up to her lips and took the smallest taste. It didn’t taste anything like it smelled, in fact it tasted like . . . nothing.
Cleaner and clearer even than water. She looked at him with surprise and he simply lifted the book from her lap as he took the bottle from her hand and told her to read the first passage. She noticed there was no title on the cover, no identification of a subject or an author, just a plain white cover.
As she began to read while he handed her the bottle back and forth between them, Carlina could feel herself slipping away from the present reality and drifting towards somewhere else. Falling into a deep trance, she set the book aside and lay on her back as the sun grew dimmer on the horizon.
. . .
Carlina sat across from Alice at their favorite coffee house two weeks after she met Sage under his magical tree.
“Alice, it was the most important place I’ve ever been to in my life. My future,” she said, after sharing the whole story of her time travel with Sage. She told Alice how she fell asleep and woke up to herself walking the streets of her neighborhood as an older woman in her 70s.
Everything had changed but was somehow the same, too. She told Alice about hearing the voices of those she worked with talking about her in the past tense in derisive tones, how she had been a know-it-all who no one wanted to listen to with her crack-pot theories and ideas.
“Good riddance,” they’d shouted.
All the people she thought respected her actually thought she was an annoyance and wanted little to do with her. Merely tolerated her.
“At one point, I was in a room with my family and my brother was there telling everyone how sad he was that he hadn’t spoken to me in decades, after ‘the big falling out’, and how I just didn’t understand how to respect others boundaries. That he had tried telling me repeatedly that all my self-discovery pursuits were fruitless gunk and how I missed the point altogether.
“He said he wished I could see myself the way others see me, that it would be a gift. An opportunity to turn the tide. But most importantly, he said if he could turn back the clock and make things right with me, convince me how to really love, he would,” she explained.
Carlina continued.
“Then at the end of it I woke up and it was dark out and Sage drew me into his arms and we just laid there in the dark under the stars for a while. His last words to me were to ‘find the light’.” I haven’t seen him since. I’ve tried calling him but his number seems out of order or something.”
A dampness came to Carlina’s eyes then.
“What is it, babe, is it for real this story? What does it all even mean?” Alice asked her.
“Just that. Find the light. I need to learn how to love. I can put my best self forward and undo that terrible narrative of my future if I really want to. Now. That’s what Sage told me. He said love is all we are. All we have. All that is important. Without it, we’re just dust.
“He said, Love. It’s in me. It always has been. I just need to coax it out. Let the sun rise brightly within me and when it sets, it will set over calm seas.”
. . .
From the Ephemerata collection, © Mary Corbin 2020
marycorbinwrites.com
marycorbinart.com | https://medium.com/chance-encounters/best-self-forward-b64844c264f4 | ['Mary Corbin'] | 2020-12-29 20:23:58.021000+00:00 | ['Chance Encounters', 'Short Story', 'Time Travel', 'Fiction', 'Art'] |
Partnership Announcement: Altitude Finance + ZERO powered by Avalanche | Altitude Finance is announcing a strategic partnership with Zero, a newly announced Defi Exchange powered by Avalanche!
Zero and Altitude are forming a partnership to extend the crypto DeFi ecosystem!
We are very excited to share this incredible news for Altitude Finance LGE supporters:
Anyone that participates in the Altitude LGE will receive an AirDrop of Zero tokens at the seed price!!!
Zero Exchanges uses the Avalanche (AVA) Blockchain and offers its’ users a fee free trading experience. Sub-second block times with near instantaneous transaction confirmation. Connect a Web3 enabled wallet to trade, stake, and farm your favorite pairs!
The Altitude Finance team’s vision of combining our farming slopes and flash loan principles, with a cyclical ecosystem to re-inject token value for our supporters. Providing our supporters of the LGE with strategic partnerships will produce even more value than the $PWDR token alone.
This is a rare opportunity to support a next-gen DEX before it launches and the Altitude team is excited to bring our partnership connections to our token supporters, and to provide value beyond the token distribution. We strive to create a project that will reward long term supporters, while encouraging continued interest and excitement from new users. | https://medium.com/@altitudefi/partnership-announcement-altitude-finance-zero-powered-by-avalanche-b7fa0d2fa5fa | ['Altitude Finance'] | 2020-12-19 03:47:25.598000+00:00 | ['Etherium', 'Defi', 'Partnerships', 'Dex'] |
Latest picks: In case you missed them: | Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.
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Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription. | https://towardsdatascience.com/latest-picks-getting-started-with-jax-mlps-cnns-rnns-b426055cc34e | ['Tds Editors'] | 2020-12-29 14:27:42.109000+00:00 | ['Editors Pick', 'Towards Data Science', 'Data Science', 'The Daily Pick', 'Machine Learning'] |
A Sky Full Of Stars By Coldplay Lyrics | [Intro]
Am F C Em x2
[Verse]
Am F C Em
Cause you’re a sky, cause you’re a sky full of stars
Am F C Em
I’m going to give you my heart
Am F C Em
Cause you’re a sky, cause you’re a sky full of stars
Am F C Em
And cause you light up the path
[Chorus]
Am F C Em
I don’t care, go on and tear me apart
Am F C Em
I don’t care if you do
Am F C Em
Cause in a sky, cause in a sky full of stars
Am F C Em
I think I saw you
[Instrumental]
Am F C Em x3
[Verse]
Am F C Em
Cause you’re a sky, cause you’re a sky full of stars
Am F C Em
I’m wanna die in your arms, oh
Am F C Em
Cause you get lighter the more it gets dark
Am F C Em
I wanna give you my heart
[Chorus]
Am F C Em
I don’t care, go on and tear me apart
Am F C Em
I don’t care if you do
Am F C Em
Cause in a sky, cause in a sky full of stars
Am F C Em
I think I see you
Am F Em
I think I see you
[Instrumental]
Am F C Em x4
F G Am C x2
[Outro]
F G Am C
Because you’re a sky, you’re a sky full of stars
F G Am C
Such a heavenly view
F G Am C
Such a heavenly view
F G Am C x3
(you can end on a C) | https://medium.com/@anisaaziza22/a-sky-full-of-stars-by-coldplay-lyrics-c7acc8573a78 | [] | 2020-12-18 08:41:19.853000+00:00 | ['SEO', 'News', 'Music', 'Videos', 'Love'] |
KEF introduces Uni-Core subwoofer technology and its KC62 sub | Founded in 1961, British speaker maker KEF pioneered concentric drivers with its Uni-Q technology in 1988. Since then, Uni-Q has been a hallmark of KEF speakers even to this day.
Uni-CoreNow, KEF has introduced another new technology, this time focused on subwoofers. Called Uni-Core, it places two drivers in a dual-opposing configuration—that is, mounted on opposite sides of a cabinet. They vibrate in phase with each other, moving inward and outward in unison.
Mentioned in this article Sonos Sub (Gen 3) See it By itself, that’s not new; many subwoofers use dual-opposing drivers—including the Sonos Sub—because the force imparted to the cabinet from each one cancels out the force from the other one. This greatly reduces cabinet resonance, which can distort the sound, and prevents smaller subs from “dancing” across the floor.
[ Further reading: Everything you need to know about Dolby Atmos and DTS:X ]What makes Uni-Core unique are the voice coils of the dual-opposing drivers. One voice coil is smaller than the other and nestled within the larger one (see Fig. 1). The electrical current in each voice coil—the audio signal—generates an oscillating magnetic field that interacts with the field from a single, permanent neodymium magnet, causing the voice coils to vibrate in concert with the audio signal. Each voice coil is attached to a diaphragm, which vibrates accordingly.
KEFF As you can see in this cutaway, the voice coil for the driver on the left is smaller than the voice coil for the right driver. As they vibrate, they actually overlap, which reduces the space they need without decreasing their excursion. Both interact with the same permanent magnet.
You might wonder, as I did, about the difference in size of the two voice coils and how that affects the magnetic fields they generate. Since they both interact with the same permanent magnet, their oscillating fields should be identical. According to KEF, that difference is electrically compensated for so that both present as electromagnetically equal.
The goal of Uni-Core is to enable high-quality performance while significantly reducing the size of the cabinet to make the subwoofer more aesthetically pleasing. With nested, overlapping voice coils, the drivers have much more excursion than a similar-sized dual-opposed, force-cancelling design, allowing much more output and low-frequency response from a much smaller cabinet.
The KEF KC62 subwoofer KEFF The KEF KC62 subwoofer is the first speaker to feature KEF’s Uni-Core technology.
KEF’s new KC62 compact subwoofer is the first product to implement Uni-Core. The sealed cabinet is roughly cubical measuring about 10 inches on a side, and the drivers are only 6.5 inches in diameter. Such a small subwoofer would normally poop out well above 20Hz, but the frequency response of the KC62 is specified to extend from 11Hz (!) to 200Hz (±3 dB). Of course, no one can hear 11Hz, but an extension that low does provide “footroom” so that the lowest audible frequencies do not overly tax the sub’s capabilities.
Related product KEF LSX Wireless Music System Read TechHive's reviewMSRP $1,099.00See it Another new technology used in the KC62 is what KEF calls a P-Flex Surround (aka Origami Surround). The surround, a flexible material that attaches the driver to the frame, employs a unique pleated design inspired by origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. This design resists acoustic pressure in the cabinet better than a conventional surround without adding mass and limiting sensitivity, allowing the driver to move more precisely, which is said to result in deeper extension and more accurate, detailed bass.
To reduce total harmonic distortion (THD), KEF has included its Smart Distortion Control Technology in the KC62. Many subwoofers use an electromechanical sensor to monitor the driver’s position relative to the waveform of the input signal. When non-linear discrepancies occur, which is common at high excursion, the driver’s motion is limited to reduce distortion. By contrast, Uni-Core’s low voice-coil inductance allows the KC62 to use an analog current sensor to directly and instantaneously measure the current in the voice coil, which is much more accurate than an electromechanical sensor, thereby reducing THD up to 75 percent.
KEFF The 6.5-inch drivers on each side are inverted domes.
Additional fine tuning is provided by KEF’s Music Integrity Engine, a set of custom DSP (digital signal processing) algorithms. For example, iBX (Intelligent Bass Extension) uses digital EQ to extend the low range, while SmartLimiter constantly analyzes the signal to prevent clipping.
Then there’s the amplification—in this case, two specially designed Class D amps, each one pumping out 500 watts RMS to its corresponding driver. These amps are said to provide excellent control along with the ability to deliver sudden bursts of power when needed. In fact, the KC62’s maximum acoustic output is specified to be a whopping 105dB SPL.
Placement within a room is super flexible thanks to the cabinet’s sealed design and five Room Placement Equalization presets, which you select on the rear control panel. These presets adjust the EQ according to where you place the sub; options include away from the walls, up against a wall, in a corner, in a cabinet, and in a small apartment.
Speaking of the rear panel, the KC62 offers a nice variety of connections, including line-level inputs and outputs, and speaker-level inputs on a Phoenix connector, which is common in Europe. One of the line-level inputs is labeled “LFE,” which you would connect to the LFE (low-frequency effects) output from your AV receiver or preamp-processor using its internal low-pass crossover. The other line input is labeled Smart Connect, which automatically adjusts the gain of a non-LFE input.
KEFF The rear panel holds all connections and controls, providing for flexible setup.
As with most subwoofers, the KC62 can accept full-range signals, and its Crossover dial sets the upper limit of the frequencies that are sent to the sub. Another control lets you specify the lower limit of the high-pass filter, which sends the mid and high frequencies in the input signal to the line-level outputs and on to powered satellite speakers or other devices. The HPF control consists of four DIP switches that would normally be used only by an installer; for most consumer installations, you would just leave those switches in their default positions.
Also on the rear panel is a connector labeled “Exp.” This is an expansion port that lets you attach the receiver module of the KEF KW1 Wireless Subwoofer Adapter Kit. Connect the transmitter to the output of your A/V receiver or pre-pro to establish a wireless connection to the sub.
Beauty as well as brawnFinally, the KC62 offers a pleasing aesthetic. The curved cabinet is crafted from extruded aluminum, and it’s available in Carbon Black or Mineral White, allowing it to blend in with just about any décor. Plus, its diminutive size lets it fit just about anywhere.
With beauty, brains, and brawn in a surprisingly small package, the KC62 is sure to shake things up in the subwoofer world—and in your home—thanks to Uni-Core technology and KEF’s exceptional engineering. It is available now for a list price of $1,500. We can’t wait to take it for a spin!
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@edward62404882/kef-introduces-uni-core-subwoofer-technology-and-its-kc62-sub-e94bbcb36243 | [] | 2021-01-31 11:14:23.275000+00:00 | ['Connected Home', 'Surveillance', 'Audio', 'Chargers'] |
Transcribe Your Zoom Meetings For Free with AWS! | Pretty good! The full text (not split by speaker) looks like:
Jack. I want to thank you for what he did. Not just for for pulling me back, but for your discretion. You're welcome. Look, I know what you must be thinking. Poor little rich girl. What does she know about misery? No, no, it's not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was what could have happened to this girl to make her think she had no way out. Yes. Well, I you It was everything. It was my whole world and all the people in it. And the inertia of my life plunging ahead in me, powerless to stop it. God, look at that. He would have gone straight to the bottom. 500 invitations have gone out. All of Philadelphia society will be there. And all the while I feel I'm standing in the middle of a crowded room screaming at the top of my lungs and no one even looks up. Do you love him? Pardon me, Love. You're being very rude. You shouldn't be asking me this. Well, it's a simple question. Do you love the guy or not? This is not a suitable conversation. Why can't you just answer the question? This is absurd. you don't know me, and I don't know you. And we are not having this conversation at all. You are rude and uncouth and presumptuous, and I am leaving now. Jack. Mr. Dawson, it's been a pleasure. I sought you out to thank you. And now I have thanked you and insulted. Well, you deserve it, right? Right. I thought you were leaving. I am. You are so annoying. Ha ha. Wait. I don't have to leave. Things is my part of the ship. You leave. Oh, well, well, well, now who's being rude? What is the stupid thing you're carrying around? So, what are you, an artist or something? He's a rather good. Yeah, very good, actually.
The text results are pleasantly accurate. Not something you could copy verbatim into an article, but it’s an amazing head start compared to transcribing a recording yourself from scratch.
Unfortunately, it did struggle a bit with identifying the different speakers correctly. After watching the clip again, I can see how maybe this wasn’t the best choice of scene since they do sound kind of similar, especially in the low-quality format produced by a converted YouTube video.
From personal experience, I can say that with Zoom recordings it’s had greater success thus far in correctly identifying each speaker, though I still haven’t tried it on a meeting with more than two people.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I’m happy with the functionality I was able to produce in a few hours of Thanksgiving weekend tinkering.
In truth, the reason I’m interested in this capability is I’d like to start supplanting my OC articles here on Medium with interviews of other data professionals. With this functionality figured out, I feel ready to reach out to people in my network and see if they are interested in sharing their thoughts and knowledge about working in data.
Oh, and if you are curious for the full transcribe.py script, I’ve included it below for your perusing pleasure!
Note: The code snippet above draws from this excellent AWS tutorial on the Amazon Transcribe service.
For more interesting content like this, follow me on Medium :) | https://medium.com/whispering-data/transcribe-your-zoom-meetings-for-free-with-aws-963f39a2aa3f | ['Paul Singman'] | 2020-11-30 19:46:25.543000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Productivity', 'Data Science', 'Programming', 'AWS'] |
How Can I Maintain My Eating Disorder Recovery During the COVID-19 Crisis? | The COVID-19 or “novel coronavirus” pandemic has had a devastating effect on people all over the world, wreaking havoc on people’s employment, socializing and entertainment, and in nearly every other aspect of their daily lives.
One segment of the population that’s been dangerously restricted is people who need continued, comprehensive treatment for mental health disorders. Under quarantine and social distancing, regular day treatment sessions are impossible to perform in person, leaving many people without the regular support they need.
For people with eating disorders, this can be more than an inconvenience; it can be deadly.
Eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are among the most dangerous mental health disorders — the risks of starvation, renal failure, and suicide are much higher than in the general public. The general population has a suicide rate of 10.5 per 100,000 people, a rate of 0.000105%. Among people with untreated anorexia nervosa, the rate is 1 in 5 people — a shocking 20%.
It’s clear that this at-risk population needs continued support — so what steps can be taken to maintain eating disorder recovery during this frightening time?
Practicing Self-Care
“Self-care” is a term that’s commonly used by almost every professional therapeutic practice. It means taking actions that support positive physical and mental health through a variety of means. In cases of eating disorders, the obvious aspect of this is the establishment of a regular eating pattern to maintain nutrition and eliminate disordered eating behaviors. Many eating disorder treatment facilities provide meal planning and nutritional plans that can be maintained during the quarantine. A regular eating routine does more than set a nutritional baseline — it can be a way to regulate the time spent in self-isolation and alleviate the boredom.
Self-care is more than eating regulation, however. There are aspects of self-care that help with body positivity, improving self-esteem, and developing mindfulness. The latter is the key. Mindfulness is the ability to live in the moment, without dwelling on the past or anticipating the future. If you’re being mindful, you can escape worrying about what will happen if you do something “wrong” and you can also avoid getting hung up on mistakes you’ve made in the past. Because anxiety and feelings of guilt are key triggers for disordered eating, practicing mindfulness is a perfect way to maintain recovery from an eating disorder.
Writing in a Journal
Therapists and psychologists encourage journaling for their clients in almost every type of mental health treatment program, and eating disorders are no different. Often, the thoughts and feelings associated with an eating disorder are nebulous and hard to define. By writing in a journal, people can express them in a private fashion (many people are hesitant to discuss their innermost feelings with another) and give them a more definite form.The simple act of writing down your feelings can give you clarity and help you understand why you’re having those kinds of feelings. This is an excellent first step to removing negative or distorted feelings about your body, weight, and eating habits.
Take Advantage of Available Telehealth Opportunities
Some eating disorder treatment facilities have been offering treatment sessions on an outpatient basis using teleconferencing technology like Zoom or Google Hangouts. In a situation like our current worldwide pandemic, this can be a lifeline for people in quarantine and self-isolation. As we mentioned earlier, people with certain types of eating disorders are at a much higher risk of death without treatment. The positive news is that many of the same therapeutic methodologies employed at in-house day treatment programs can be applied using teleconferencing.
These can include one-on-one therapy sessions like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, evidence-based therapy techniques that help people reshape their thinking patterns and objectively identify which are distorted and need to be eliminated. Teleconferencing can also facilitate group therapy sessions and even instructional videos.
Don’t Let COVID-19 Halt Your Recovery
We’re all struggling with the COVID-19 virus and the resultant social distancing — of course, the current situation is hardly ideal for maintaining recovery from eating disorders, but don’t lose hope. With self-care techniques and modern technology, it’s possible to keep your recovery on track.
For more information and a free 5 Step Eating Course, check out the original post at: https://eatingenlightenment.com/2020/04/22/how-can-i-maintain-my-eating-disorder-recovery-during-the-covid-19-crisis/ | https://medium.com/@jared_levenson/how-can-i-maintain-my-eating-disorder-recovery-during-the-covid-19-crisis-f7b3bc11e7d | ['Jared L'] | 2020-04-23 02:41:00.222000+00:00 | ['Eating Disorder', 'Emotional Eating', 'Mindfulness', 'Binge Eating'] |
Top Ten Travelogues and Memoirs for 2020 — thatawaydad.com | Here are my 2020 Top Ten Travelogues/Memoirs that I have found inspirational and gave me insight into other countries in the world. I hope these books help you find a journey of discovery about yourself and others.
In April 2008 Ed Stafford set out to be the first person to ever walk the entire length of the Amazon River. This book details his two and half year journey walking across South America from the beginning of the river to its huge delta.
He faced hostile indigenous communities, pit vipers, electric eels, and the constant drudgery of cutting his way through the jungle in water that went to his head.
This was a fast read. I definitely have no interest in attempting this walk through the jungle. Just the amount of time it took and the sheer number of problems he faced, it was a lot to battle on a daily basis.
It is probably one of the more exciting adventure travelogues I’ve read. I like to hike and now have a better understanding of tough it would be to go through a jungle.
Overall, it was a good adventure read.
The author is a dad of two young girls and he takes his family on a whirlwind tour to New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and lastly Kansas.
He analyzes each of these communities and how they are different from each other and his family’s life back in northern Virginia.
I think what I enjoyed the most was his details on what his family faced in living in each of these places.
This would be from mosquitoes in Costa Rica to bicycling in traffic in the Netherlands it was quite an adventure. He shared the struggles they faced along with the fun and exciting times, too.
Ayser Salman was born in Iraq and then moved to the US with her family when she was a toddler. She grew up in the US but then moved to Saudi Arabia during her middle school years then back to the US. That is the background of her complicated life.
What I learned from her memoir is the world she faced as a Muslim. It is sometimes comical and other times heartwarming. I learned a lot about the discrimination and misunderstandings she faced growing up.
Strangely enough, I could understand some of her outsider feelings, since I have faced myself as a gay man.
This book educated me on what it is like to be Muslim and I am glad I read it. I think if more people read books about Muslims or people outside their culture the world would be a better place.
Miss Norma had spent a lifetime with her husband Leo and then in a short time her husband Leo passed away. Her son, Tim, to help her with the loss, invited her into his life on the road.
She was facing a dire prognosis and she decided that instead of spending her last months in bed she would have an adventure with her son.
I think this is a very important book for families who have to face the end of life issues for their parents.
I have started on this journey as my parents are starting to age and this book gave me a lot to consider in how to face their future health issues. End of life is always a touchy subject and the book did a good job of talking about this subject.
The son let his mother decide how she wanted to spend the last few months of her life. She did things, like riding in a hot air balloon, seeing the country, and being in the front row of a professional basketball game, that she had never done before.
In the end, I missed hearing about Norma, so I became emotionally invested in her story. Overall I enjoyed the journey. I hope that when it comes my time I can also be happy with my last days and spend them with the people that I love.
This author previously wrote The Sex Lives of Cannibals on his true-life adventure of living on the South Pacific island of Tarawa facing feral dogs and machete-wielding neighbors.
Now he has returned to the Pacific and living in Vanuatu and Fiji. In this book, he faces an island where most natives feast on kava and get stoned.
Here he faces off against typhoons, earthquakes, and giant centipedes and getting swept into the laid-back life of the islanders.
Then, his wife becomes pregnant and they have to leave Vanuatu for Fiji, which had recently faced a coup. Here he learns about the differences between the natives and Indians and what led to this coup.
Along with the exploration in the culture he faces parenthood and this might be the biggest obstacle he faces yet in whether to stay in paradise or go home.
I liked this book overall and it even educated me on the different cultures that can be found on these Pacific islands.
He has a humorous style to his writing which helps in making the books entertaining as well, which makes it a fun read.
In this book the author shared his coming out story and raising his family long before it was legal for gay couples to even be married.
The 1990s and early 2000s were a very different era for gay parents with kids. It was sad to hear all the discrimination they faced back then. Times are better, but as a gay dad myself I still on occasion have odd comments as a lone father out with my kid.
I like that he shared everything from the happy times to the difficult times in being a divorced father with two kids and a long-term relationship with a gay man.
It was an inspirational book that I enjoyed reading.
The book is an autobiography of Julia Child’s time in France and mostly takes place before she became a star with her PBS television series “The French Chef.”
The book does not include recipes but does talk a lot about French cooking, of course. I am not a cook and don’t enjoy cooking, so the parts of the book about this subject did not interest me as much.
Although, I enjoyed her descriptions of life in France just after World War II and her difficulties in publishing her first book. The book was a good read if you want to learn more about Child’s life and you like cooking.
Jordon Romero is the youngest person to climb Mount Everest at age thirteen and the youngest to climb the tallest mountains on the seven continents at age fifteen. This book recounts his time climbing these mountains.
It was an easy read and he presented well what each mountain was like. He did a good job sharing some of the difficulties he faced with going up sheer peaks and the freezing cold at the top.
What I found amazing was he went up to his first mountain, Australia’s Mount Kosciuszko at age ten and then Denali at 20,320 feet at age 11. It is hard to imagine doing this at such a young age. My son is five and a half and I just can’t imagine him climbing mountains like this in a few years.
He does describe being in tears when he was younger when things were not going his way. You can really tell how he grows up by the time he makes it to Everest.
I was really interested in his relationship with his dad and stepmom that went up with them into these heights. I think the family aspect was the most interesting part. They really supplied him with the positive reinforcement that he needed and supported him on his goal in doing this. It is an amazing story.
This is a true story of a man who builds a strong bond with a dog he met in the Gobi desert.
Dion Leonard is an ultra-marathon runner and came across a stray dog that eventually he named Gobi. The dog began to run with him across the desert. He became a companion as he raced.
After finishing the race and coming in the second he decides to adopt this dog. Dion has faced a life of adversity with the death of his stepfather at a young age and his mother’s struggle with the aftermath. He saw a kinship in the dog which had been a stray now wanting to find a permanent home.
Yet, bringing the dog home would soon be its own journey, and the struggles they face in making this possible make this a sweet book about a man and his dog and finding a way for them to stay together.
Tony James Slater went to Ecuador to do his part in helping animals that have been harmed by people with the hope they can be rehabilitated and brought back to the wild while working at a wildlife refuge.
He saw this as a chance to see how tough he was when he came to going into a panther’s cage and not being eaten. He learned the dangers of welding by not doing it correctly and being temporarily blind.
Then he faced the cultural differences of living in Latin America and not knowing the language. He sometimes didn’t use the language correctly, which caused some funny incidents.
I found the book humorous at times and learned a lot about what it takes to run an animal refuge. It is not a perfect book, sometimes he seemed to ramble on a bit, but overall I enjoyed learning about Ecuador and the amazing animal world we don’t always see this up close.
Honorable Mention and Guilty Pleasure
In the summer of 1979, two young women were awarded a generous university grant to learn about France.
They took this grant and used it to spend a summer mostly in swimsuits in the south of France near beaches and living in a tent at a campground. Here they learned to speak French but also so much more.
New challenges include having meaningful conservations with people at a nudist beach or how to transport a gallon of port on a moped.
Along the way, they learn how to navigate relationships with boys and make friends with the locals.
I liked how she shared intimate details about the people she met and her feelings about the boys she was interested in.
I felt I was really there following her life as she learned about herself and others.
It is a humorous tale based on their three-month study break the author took as part of a language degree course at Keele University in 1979.
Please feel free to share your favorite travelogues and memoirs in the comments — Todd Smith — thatawaydad.com | https://medium.com/@toddsmith3019/top-ten-travelogues-and-memoirs-for-2020-thatawaydad-com-9070c810437b | ['Todd Smith'] | 2020-12-23 21:16:36.971000+00:00 | ['Memoir', 'Traveling', 'Travelogue', 'Top 10', 'Travel Writing'] |
What I Learned From Taking Part In Veganuary | January is generally the longest month of the year for most of us. This year was a lot longer for me though as I decided to take part in Veganuary. Veganism is something that’s still seen by many as an extreme lifestyle choice so I decided to break through the noise on social media and jump on the Veganuary bandwagon to see what it’s really like to live as one. That way instead of just joining in on the almost fashionable criticism of vegans, i’d be able to at least slag them off from a more educated standpoint. As the month came to a close and I had strictly kept to my new diet, here’s some of my key takeaways from the experience:
The word “Vegan” is now everywhere:
Part of the reason why I decided to take part in the month was because I had a feeling that the media would be covering it closely. What I didn’t expect was that the word “vegan” would be everywhere from the start. This may have been in part because I was looking at it but the start of 2019 saw even Gregg’s and McDonalds introducing vegan items to their menus. Grocery stores also began to cash in on this new almost trendy outlook on the diet.
With multiple news stories detailing that people should be cutting down their meat consumption by up to 90% in the coming years to save the planet, I can see 2019 as being a massive turning point for the vegan diet. I don’t think it will ever become mainstream in Irish households but it’s clear that there’ll be plenty more vegan items on our stoves, shelves and menus in the future.
Image Via Magnum.co.uk
It’s not necessarily a weight loss diet:
The vegan diet is heavily associated with being an effective way to lose weight, improve your digestive system and boost your overall energy levels. Even the word itself brings about images of lean long haired yoga instructors in poses that most of us can only dream of pulling off. So naturally people would tell me that despite the sacrifices I was making, I’d at least “lose a heap of weight”. Losing weight wasn’t really a goal for me during the month but nonetheless I was interested to see if I would enter February at least a few kg’s lighter and of course be able to do the splits.
I started the month at a jolly post Christmas 94kg’s (14st 8lbs) and after my 4 weeks without meat or dairy I weighed in at pretty much the same give or take a pint or two of water. It seems if you eat roughly the same calories each day and binge on chips, vegan mayonnaise (actually unreal), red Doritos and Oreos every time you’re missing your usual comforts, the weight doesn’t just disappear. The meme below was posted into an Irish vegan Facebook group and pretty much sums up how I treated the month:
As for the boundless amounts of energy that vegans claim the plant based life gives you? Well again for me I didn’t really feel any livelier or weaker during the 31 days. My digestive system didn’t feel any better either so I can’t attest to any bodily benefits. Had I spent the month getting 9+ hours of sleep, exercising regularly and eating strictly salads and superfoods then this may have been a different story. For me the month quickly became about making it as bearable as possible. Maybe the greater sense of overall health and energy comes with that feeling of superiority some vegans have over mere meat eaters? I’m not sure but the yoga pants will have to wait…
The vegans are a sound bunch
Another big reason why I wanted to get involved in Veganuary was to learn more about the vegans themselves. Publishers on the internet have a habit of latching onto divisive issues and spinning them for clicks and engagement. Over the last few years along with Trump, Brexit and other hot topics, vegan related stories usually get the keyboard warriors on all sides typing. This means that any time we see the words vegan online it’s usually followed by the word “outrage”.
With this in mind, after joining some Irish vegan Facebook groups I was anticipating a months worth of conspiracy theories, infighting and maybe even to join the odd organised midnight liberation raid on a farm or meat factory. Sadly, it seems most vegans are just normal people who eat a load of vegetables (surprise). I did learn that veganism is about a lot more than food but the vast majority of the posts were very mundane. From members sharing new food items they’d discovered to posts about dating as a vegan in our cruel world (it usually ends badly), I was surprised at the lack of “militant vegans” that we hear about constantly in the media.
How much I appreciate all types of food
The month did help me discover a new appreciation for different foods. Chickpea curries, falafel salads, tofu stir fries and sweet potato dishes all tasted lovely and kept me full. Being a 26 year old infant that still lives at home, I have to give my Mam a special mention as she did prepare plenty of dishes for me during the month too. Her enthusiasm didn’t stretch to actually joining me and eating too but overall it helped me to get through.
Eating out can be a nightmare and at two recent work events I felt like a bold child being punished with small tomato and pasta dishes while the rest of the table ate hearty steaks and buttery mash. There are however, some great options for vegan dining in some places around Dublin. I enjoyed tasty vegan meals from Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Cocu Hatch, The Lean Bean and Toltecca to name just a few.
One thing that kept annoying me though is the number of vegan menu items that try to mimic some of our favourite meat dishes. Delights such vegan sausage, vegetable steak and plant based kebab all set your tastebuds up to be bitterly disappointed. I’ve even seen recipes online for “Cauliflower Buffalo Wings” that apparently taste “just as good as the real thing!” Cauliflowers don’t even have wings! (I Googled it).
Will I keep it up?
The answer is a swift no. Don’t get me wrong the diet is definitely not as hard to stick to as I thought it would be but it’s just not that much fun in my opinion. Many vegans in the Facebook groups and online forums I kept my eye on during the month talk about the turning point in their lives when they “saw the light”. This come to Jesus moment is when they realised it was no longer ethical to consume any kind of animal products. This may have been brought on by a documentary they watched, a loved one they spoke to, a farm they visited or one of the million “Scientific Studies” that they cling to like scriptures from the bible.
I think that until you see this “light”, you can’t really go all in on veganism. Sadly, I was shielded from the light during the experience by my intense love of food. Yes I may have watched some of the documentaries and looked at the various studies on the issue, but for me it all boils down to what I already know — Animals are exploited and killed for us to eat. I know that and always have I just like to be conveniently ignorant to the suffering behind the beautifully stocked shelves and well presented dinner plates.
At the end of the day in my opinion life is too short to be vegan! Yes life is a lot shorter when you’re a farm animal but when I’m really hungry come dinner time a bean burger just ain’t gonna cut it!
This blog was adapted from an original post on www.conordiskin.com | https://medium.com/@conor.diskin123/what-i-learned-from-taking-part-in-veganuary-8fccb454ec8f | ['Conor Diskin'] | 2019-02-07 23:22:28.282000+00:00 | ['Vegan', 'Food', 'Veganuary', 'Foodies', 'Diet'] |
The Parents of Mathematics | The Parents of Mathematics
Egypt 1900BC
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay
We all think that mathematics is quite a new language however, many are not aware that this is one of the oldest technical tools to exist. Mathematics can be also used to explain how the pyramids were built, it did take an impressive amount of work as well as slaves, however, none of it would have been possible with the help of geometry.
Geometry can be seen as a more simplistic form of mathematics from a second perspective, you need to have a good grasp of how much of something or how big something has to be in order to create or generate something else. Rather than assuming how many bottles of water you will need to fill up a pool you can measure the diameter of the pool to get an exact measure of how many liters of water you will need to fill up a pool.
The first form of Algebra and Geometry represented in hieroglyphs
At the period of time that maths was still being created we would find ourselves in Ancient Egypt wich was a very harsh period. As time would pass the Egyptians would grasp a better understanding of mathematics which they would use to even create strategies in wars as well as the creation of better weapons.
They have actually managed to get quite far to a quite complex level of algebra, geometry, and arithmetics which is crossing the border from high school level to higher education. They have actually gotten as far as creating quadratic equations.
First hieroglyphs to be used as numerical signs
It is very difficult to tell where the first sings were created or by whom as there are no hard pieces of evidence proving it. We do believe that ancient Egyptian scholars are the ones that have come up with the concept of using numerical signs and from the simplicity of these hieroglyphs, we can assume that they were used as the first form of numerical signs, at least the lines that are self-explanatory representing a line for one and could be used to count up to 9 as 10 would be seen as an upside-down U.
Examples of numbers using the first numerical sings
As time has gone by the scholars have gotten a sense of simplicity and that they need to expand and rethink their numerical sings in order to start using maths to a larger potential. It may sound strange but they knew that this was going to be a tool that will shape the future of the earth and I believe it is because not only they were more innovative thinkers but also the fact that they were aiming at a different scale.
A more evolved set of numerical sings in the form of hieroglyphs
The only numerical sings that have been kept from the original scripture were the first 4 numbers (1 to 4) in rest everything has been altered. If you take a look at this table of numerical signs we can see that many of those are represented in the first old scripture represented in this article. With more sings, there was an ability to shorten the length of an equation and also make it more complex at the same time. At the same time, this offered them the ability to be more accurate in their calculations in order to offer them better architectural plans.
As time has passed they have evolved their mathematical hieroglyphs even more and even to this day historians in cooperation with archeologists are trying to decipher what they presume to be lost or unknown parts of maths. | https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/the-parents-of-mathematics-74691c44b3cb | ['Andrei Tapalaga'] | 2019-10-19 12:14:59.432000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Ancient History', 'History', 'WIB History', 'Mathematics'] |
Well-Being On Christmas | Painting by Julian Merrow-Smith, on 20 December 2010. Sold.
Santosha, my first thought on Christmas Day. Santosha means contentment and was one of Patanjali’s disciplines.
May Santosha fill your soul, body and mind. May it shine in you and from you into the world. May these holidays give you memories that are friendly and sweet. No stress.
Christmas Day 2014
…
The impression of this day made for a succint writing. In retrospect, it was the beginning of a new chapter that improved my life holistically and irreversibly. I did not look back — the results were so good.
…
Shared on my blog: | https://medium.com/@nandajurela/well-being-on-christmas-613a92bbc6cc | ['Nanda Jurela'] | 2020-12-26 23:50:39.295000+00:00 | ['Santosha', 'Holidays', 'Life Changing Moment', 'Wellbeing', 'Gratitude'] |
How to act if the baby chokes on milk? | How to act if the baby chokes on milk?
The reality is that choking on milk is relatively frequent and is usually solved without doing too much, but just in case it happens to you, we are going to explain today how to act if your baby chokes on milk, either while breastfeeding, or be it taking a bottle.
If your baby chokes a lot
If it happens frequently to your baby, you may not need this paragraph, because you will have already mentioned it to the pediatrician and perhaps he has already given you the solution. And is that if a baby chokes very frequently, an assessment is usually made in case there is a swallowing disorder, gastroesophageal reflux, etc.
It may also happen that it is more of an external issue: that the milk from the bottle falls too fast for the baby to manage it effectively, or that the reflex to ejection breast milk is so strong that the first “jets” go straight to the baby’s throat, with force, causing him to choke.
In the first case, it will be necessary to adjust the flow of the milk outlet and even modify the way the baby is fed, making it more vertical (the Kassing method is a good option). In the second, it can help the mother to express a little milk before breastfeeding, so that when the child sucks it does not come out with as much force.
If one day he suddenly chokes
Although the scare you get is great, because we are talking about small babies, the good thing about choking on a liquid is that it is just that, a liquid, and it will hardly plug the airways in a very dangerous way.
The usual thing, when some liquid goes into the airway, is that the cough reflex is triggered to go, little by little, removing the milk to the outside. But sometimes, before the cough, we can find the child increasingly upset trying to catch air, and then the most logical thing is to put it upside down right away so that, due to gravity, it is easier for the liquid to go outside (many Sometimes they choke when they spit up some milk if they are looking up and do not know how to manage the milk that rises to them)
Beyond putting them on their stomach, you don’t have to do anything if the baby is coughing, because that way you are already solving the choking episode.
Now, if little by little the coughing stops, and instead of being better, it is worse, not only will we have to ask for help (someone calls the emergency room), but we will have to assess what the child’s state of consciousness is.
If you are conscious
According to the latest resuscitation guidelines of the European Resuscitation Council, if a child with airway obstruction is conscious but does not cough, or if the cough is not effective, we should start hitting him on the back with the heel of our hand.
If despite the blows, we see that the baby is not breathing (this is more common if he has choked on a solid object), we will do chest compressions. In both cases, an attempt is made to increase the baby’s intrathoracic pressure to produce an artificial cough and help him to move the object that is obstructing the airway.
If we still do not achieve our goal, we should continue with a sequence of five blows to the back and five chest compressions, but we insist, it is very, very unlikely that we will reach this point because the most common is that as soon as we modify the posture in which it is, the liquid comes out, helped by the baby’s cough.
What if we found him unconscious and out of breath?
Some people leave babies taking the bottle alone because they have seen that they are very capable of managing it. The baby remains to lie down, the bottle is supported in some strategic way, and he/she eats as he wants to eat the food.
This, is very dangerous, because the risk of choking is evident, and if we are not there to act when we arrive it may be too late.
In the same way, it is recommended that, at least for the first six months, the baby sleeps in the same room as the parents because, in case of any incident, they can act (I am thinking of a baby that spits up milk, for example or vomit, and no one is by your side to change your posture and not choke on these fluids)
If for whatever reason, we arrived and saw the unconscious baby, without breathing, we would not only have to try to clean the mouth to remove as much milk as possible or look for a possible object with our eyes, but we would have to start doing what was known as cardiopulmonary resuscitation or basic life support.
To do this, one begins with the so-called rescue breaths: opening the airway by throwing the head back slightly while opening the mouth (forehead-chin maneuver) and giving 5 rescue breaths, while observing that, when doing so, The baby’s chest rises and falls (if it does not, make sure that we have opened the airway wall with the extension of the head.
After the 5 ventilations, 15 chest compressions are made and from then on cycles of 15 compressions are completed with 2 ventilations. We continue like this until the emergency service relieves us, or until the baby begins to breathe and begins to regain consciousness.
As you can see, I have put myself in the worst, just in case. But I repeat, and in order not to scare you too much: most of the time it is enough to prevent choking episodes and, if they do happen, act quickly trying to get the baby to cough the milk out with its cough, in our arms, face down. | https://medium.com/@abubakrbinusman/how-to-act-if-the-baby-chokes-on-milk-5bb8ad3e5b07 | ['Muhammad Usman Babar'] | 2020-09-21 09:46:02.606000+00:00 | ['Kids', 'Baby', 'Baby Chokes On Milk', 'Health', 'Breastfeeding'] |
Case study: Designing “Uber for ambulance” | Product Overview
Aider is an app that allows people to take charge of emergency situations and save lives by allowing them to order an ambulance, offer directions to hospitals nearby, talk to doctors and more. You will find out more; why and how aider does this as you stay with me.
The app is a personal project of mine. I carried out the user experience research myself and worked on the app’s user interface based on decisions gotten from the research phase. It wasn’t easy designing an app that targets a huge number of audience but with a series of trials and moving of pixels on Figma and adobe illustrator backed by good user experience research, I achieved it.
The challenge with regards to emergency situations
In 2017, just before I left high school, we had an inter-house sport where a mate suffered an head injury. He kicked the bucket because there was no ambulance to rush him to a good hospital. Some years ago in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, 3 three young teens set out to write exams and they suffered an accident. There were a good number of samaritans around but no good vehicles to transport them to a nearby hospital, they all lost their lives.
A BBC investigation reveals that seriously ill patients wait more than an hour for an ambulance. Aider is a solution to situations like these and more. The human brain wants to make decisions and take actions during emergencies, Aider works on this to save lives. But how?
Aider allows users to see hospitals nearby (and shows hospitals with available ambulances)
Aider allows users to order ambulances to their current location
Aider allows users to send a SOS message (containing the user’s current location) to loved ones.
Aider teaches users first aid tips. Users receive a random first aid tip as a notification (user sets time for this).
With aider users can buy first aid kits and medical items from the app store.
Aider allows users to speak to a medical professional during emergency situations.
With the solutions the app was offering, the audience of the app is definitely a wide one. From a barely tech-literate hawking on the street of Lagos to a very tech-literate Gen Z in college. This made the task a bit difficult but I will walk you through the process of how I designed an app that saves lives.
Understanding emergency situations and response
Before jumping into Figma, I started the project with a research phase. Having experienced emergency situations myself, I knew what I wish I could do during those situations but my experience wasn’t enough. I needed to be sure that there was a problem that aider was going to solve because this will enable me to know features to be thrown in the bin and features to bring onboard.
I started with a lot of desktop research before moving to in-person interviews. I interviewed just thirteen(13) people for the research but the insights I got was very great because I made sure to carry out a diverse interview process. The in-person interview process saw me interviewing three marketers in a Nigerian rural market in Abuja, five high school students(who wanted to jump on the project on hearing the brief, lol) and five working class millennials. I took a pen and a book, sketching features and asking them their opinion about the feature idea and look.
After in-person’s interviews, I looked at other emergency apps out there. I also took a look at the research backing them and compared it with my own research. I will be adding some screenshots from the app and explaining the reason behind the user interface layout.
Interesting findings
During the in-person research phase, I found out that if there should be an app for just emergency use only, it won’t be in a lot of people’s smartphones. This made me go back to the drawing board to also include a web app and an app for smartwatches that people can visit during these emergency situations.
The web app and smartwatch version will have limited features. The web app will have the app’s main feature (order ambulance and know hospitals around), a section for people to learn first aid tips and a first aid kit store. The smartwatch will only have the sos message feature and app’s main feature. The smartwatch sos feature will only work when connected to a phone.
This finding shaped the design of the onboarding screen too, looking at the screens below, you will find the “skip” option which allows users skip the onboarding screens and its info, but I want users to know at least a bit of what they can do with the app so on the login/signup screen, I included some info and even though users choose to skip the onboarding, they will still read this info.
Key decisions made backed by research phase
Homepage layout
It is no doubt that almost everyone within the app’s audience target has held and used a tv remote. At first I designed something looking very much like a remote but it didn’t work as I intended, this took me back to the drawing board and I came up with something similar that works. The wide emergency red button, the first aid kits guides button and the send sos message button design was inspired by the design of remotes. I took the prototype to some of the people involved in the research phase (homepage was without the talk to doctor and store features) and they knew exactly how to use it without me saying anything. One of the barely tech-literate marketers actually did say that the “click button below during emergencies.” info above the red button helped. This feedback also shaped more design decisions.
Menus, icons and interactions
Backed by the first feedback, I used icons that can be easily recognized and also attached words to most of the icons so the users knows the function of what they are clicking. I added some info within the app so as to make it very easy to use for everyone within the app’s target audience to use. You can find one of such info on the map screen.
I made the buttons big to ensure that they are finger-friendly and to reduce the chances of users mistyping or misclicking.
I also didn’t make use of hamburger menus because some group of people in the target audience won’t know how to use it and it is hard to reach compared to the bottom menu used. Bottom menus also helps a new app retain users because it shows the features of the app immediately.
In the app, I made the users in control of everything and even when the app makes a decision for them, the app still gives them control. A case scenario, when a user wants to book an ambulance, the app automatically orders the closest to the user’s location but the user can cancel this and select another ambulance dispatch for reasons best known to them.
Visual elements
As a brand identity designer, I also handled the design of the app’s logo and worked on coming up with colors for the app. I used red as one of the brand’s primary colors because of its use in the medical and emergency field and also because of the fact that red provokes the strongest emotions of any color. I also added orange as a primary color too since yellow is energetic and is often used to draw attention.
Project learnings and takeaways
One important thing I learnt is that when designing for a wide target audience, you don’t sacrifice features because of one target audience over another, you instead find a balance. The aider app is easily understood by all of its target audience and still looks good.
Secondly, the importance of research can not be overemphasized. The app’s initial idea was just to be an app that people can use to order ambulances during emergency situations, but the research phase revealed that most people won’t keep the app if it did just that so more features were introduced.
I look forward to the implementation and testing of the app’s design. It is a project I am passionate about and seeing it come to life will be beautiful to watch, I will also want to validate my research with a very large audience during the testing.
Here’s a presentation of the app on Behance.
Below is a video showing the app’s prototype: | https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/case-study-designing-uber-for-ambulance-6fecef139efe | ['Isaac Somto'] | 2021-04-27 01:00:24.639000+00:00 | ['UI Design', 'Uber', 'Healthtech', 'Emergency', 'Case Study'] |
The Art of Unifying Broken Pieces | With a desire to connect faces to this insidious disease, people where asked to participate in a project. Everyone who participated were asked the same questions and their responses developed into poems sharing their experiences.
Follow | https://medium.com/faces-of-coronavirus/the-art-of-unifying-broken-pieces-e37f1e27962d | ['Brenda Mahler'] | 2020-12-27 21:11:47.412000+00:00 | ['Faces Of Covid', 'Reflections', 'Poetry', 'Coronavirus', 'Covid 19'] |
How June Medical Services v. Gee Could Devastate Abortion Access | If SCOTUS fails to uphold its own precedent and strike down this clearly unconstitutional restriction, the devastating effects it will have on abortion access can’t be overstated.
Donald Trump promised us he would nominate Supreme Court justices who would challenge Roe v. Wade and punish people who choose to have an abortion — and he delivered. Since Kavanaugh’s confirmation established an anti-choice majority on SCOTUS, anti-choice state legislators across the country have passed extreme bans on abortion across the country. From Ohio to Kentucky to Alabama, misogynists have come out of the woodwork in a race to see who can pass the most extreme anti-choice laws and reach SCOTUS first to challenge Roe v. Wade.
For now, those bans are hung up in lower courts and not currently in effect, but Kavanaugh and Gorsuch don’t have to accept an out-right challenge to Roe to gut its protections. Last month, SCOTUS voted to take up June Medical Services v. Gee — and it’s a golden opportunity for Trump’s anti-choice justices to cut off abortion access for millions.
The Court’s decision to hear June Medical Services v. Gee is so concerning because the Louisiana law at its center is IDENTICAL to one from Texas that SCOTUS struck down in 2016 in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. This should have been an easy one for federal judges: Supreme Court precedent on this was established just three years ago. But it’s clear that far-right judges, just like the ones that that Trump has packed our courts with, have an ulterior motive in ensuring that abortion rights cases reach our highest court — they want to undo precedent and undermine Roe.
Just like the failed Texas law struck down in 2016, Louisiana’s restriction in question is a TRAP law that weaponizes medically-unnecessary licensing requirements to achieve one goal: Shut down clinics that provide abortion care. Abortion-providing clinics, like all medical facilities, are already subject to extensive health and safety regulations, and it’s clear that nothing about these TRAP laws is actually intended to protect women’s health or improve patient outcomes for a procedure that is already extremely safe. The Supreme Court itself found in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt that the restriction in Texas provided no health benefit to Texans and instead was an undue burden on the constitutional right to abortion.
If SCOTUS fails to uphold its own precedent and strike down this clearly unconstitutional restriction, the devastating effects it will have on abortion access can’t be overstated. Before being blocked by SCOTUS, Texas’ TRAP law closed more than half of the state’s clinics, and the damage done by June Medical Services v. Gee could be even worse. Louisiana is already down to only three abortion-providing clinics, and the district court that previously ruled on June Medical Services v. Gee found that Louisiana’s entire population would be left with one abortion provider, at most, if this law were allowed to go into effect. There’s no doubt that thousands of patients, if they could even afford the extended travel to the single remaining clinic, would have to be turned away. And it would be the people who already face extensive barriers to accessing abortion care — low-income folks, people of color, LGBTQ people, and people living in rural areas — who would be hurt most.
If Louisiana receives SCOTUS’s green light to shut down clinics, it’s highly likely that other anti-choice state legislatures will spring into action to see how fast they can follow suit. A wave of copycat TRAP laws is likely to roll across red states all across the U.S., shutting down clinic after clinic in their wake.
It can feel like there’s not much that can be done now that the anti-choice majority Supreme Court controls the fate of June Medical Services v. Gee — but this fight is far from over. Even if SCOTUS’s right-wing justices deal a major blow to reproductive freedom by overturning precedent and upholding Louisiana’s TRAP law, we can fight back. We urgently need Congress to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA). If enacted, WHPA would provide federal protection for abortion rights and access, no matter what state you live in. It would protect all of us from outright bans on abortion and sneaky TRAP laws alike. At a moment when our reproductive freedom is hanging by a thread, we need bold action from our leaders.
And for those members of Congress who refuse to uphold their duty to fight for the fundamental freedoms of their constituents, we will replace them. The 2019 elections once again demonstrated that reproductive freedom and abortion rights are a winning issue across the country. The pro-choice majority in this country can hold the House, take the White House, and flip the Senate in 2020 — and we must. Our rights and our lives are on the line, and the time to fight is now.
→ Tell your Members of Congress to pass WHPA: Take Action | https://medium.com/@naral/how-june-medical-services-v-gee-could-devastate-abortion-access-fc1885a217a0 | [] | 2019-11-14 19:56:49.462000+00:00 | ['Abortion', 'Legal', 'Supreme Court', 'Reproductive Rights', 'Reproductive Health'] |
Interaksi Modern yang Rawan Multitafsir | Written by
Proud to be Moslem | Introvert | Backend Engineer | VP of Engineering DOT Indonesia | dot.co.id | https://medium.com/teknomuslim/interaksi-modern-yang-rawan-multitafsir-c2d3a61329ae | ['Didik Tri Susanto'] | 2016-06-21 23:06:02.335000+00:00 | ['Multitafsir', 'Komunikasi', 'Opini', 'Chat', 'Internet'] |
The Livormortis Womb (Part Fifteen) | Leon draws back in revulsion and fear. “I don’t want to be anywhere close to a dead man. Why can’t I stay in the cell where you put me in the first place?”
“Because we still have to protect you,” answers Keogh. “They can take shots at the window and have a bullet come straight into that cell. You’re better protected in the giant’s cell.”
“Why can’t you move the corpse out of his cell and into the other one so I don’t have ta be ‘round him?”
“Have you tried moving a dead four-hundred-pound giant? It’ll take more time that we have. While you and Reno were outside, we put him in a body-bag and it took a hell of a long time to get him into it. It was a hell of a tight fit. He’s going to stay in there and there’s nothing we can do about it until this thing’s over with. You’re going to have to be with him or get shot. It’s your choice.”
Leon doesn’t need much time to think about it.
“All right — all right,” he says.
“He’s inna body-bag anyways,” says Benteen. “He ain’t gonna jump out at you. Be thankful that y’er not in it with him. While we confront that mob outside, you getta relax on a comfy slab and keep your head down.”
Leon turns and hobbles towards the giant’s cell.
“And while y’er at it,” says Benteen, “pray to Jesus that we don’t all get snuffed.”
“Sure.”
6:35 am
An orange-blue light flickers through the small, rectangular plexiglass next to the entrance. Then, a hollow, deafening thud jounces the closed door leading to the hallway.
BOOM!
The thud shakes the computers and copiers in the processing room. Hard drives, monitors, printers, pens and pencils, microwave and chairs shudder.
“RPGs?” Keogh shouts to Leon. “Did you say they have RPGs?”
“Bazookas,” Leon answers, facing Keogh just outside the giant’s cell. “I said bazookas. I saw one of ’em carry something that looked like a grey pipe. He stood right next to the guy with the beret who talked with your colleague.”
“How many did you see?”
“Just one.”
Keogh turns to Benteen.
“I think we can withstand an attack from one RPG, but not more than that. Maybe your idea about surrender might be worth a try if we hear another bang like that.”
“Maybe,” says Benteen as he spits tobacco flecks caught between his lips.
“What I’m scared about is whether they’ll accept surrender once we resist. They might have fired into our building just to scare us. That could be their only round.”
“It’s a gamble,” says Benteen.
“You can’t surrender,” says Leon.
Benteen smirks, a smarmy grin that telegraphs that he thinks Leon’s life is shit anyway; he matters for nothing and his death would improve the world.
“If they take this place,” Leon says, “they’ll kill me.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” says Keogh, “but — ”
“They’ll kill me for being Semiahmoo. They’ll shoot me for not being white. I heard them call your colleague a spik. Someone yelled it at him. They wanted to kill him because he was a Mexican.”
“Maybe,” says Benteen.
“Maybe?!” Leon says, his large eyes exposing white sclera, near-mad with fear. Suddenly, his face is sallow. He forgets the agony radiating from his shoulders and hand.
He fights the temptation to faint, but his peripheral vision becomes dim. Twinkles flash in his retinas. He collapses. The back of his head bounces once off the hard-tiled floor. His eyes roll back. His arms sprawl wide like the beams of a crucifix. His mouth opens and he gurgles.
“I ain’t draggin his ass,” says Benteen. “I’m too worn out from shovin’ that nigger in the body-bag.”
7:00 am
To Leon, it seems like he’d been on the floor for just a short time. Spots of light flash under his eyelids. As he opens his eyes and sits up, a shock shoots from the base of his skull to the crown of his head. In combination with the renewed pain-waves from his shoulder and his hand, it is more than he can bear. They not only throb but pulse, growing more acute with every beat of his heart. His body works with the fury of an army to deliver needed red and white blood cells to combat the microbes infesting his wounds.
They’re gone. They left me alone.
At first, he’s angry.
Why the hell didn’t they help me? Those bastards! They left me to die!
The prospect of armed militants surging into the processing room forces Leon to rise from the floor.
He gets onto his knees, crouching below the lower edge of the rectangular plexiglass window, making sure that no one on the other side can see him. He moves to the concrete wall next to the frame. He peeks above the pane and sees nothing but the gloom of an unlit hallway. Clouds of smoke billow outside the processing room like an evil, amorphous spirit. A thin layer of soot coats the glass, obscuring his view.
The electricity’s out.
He hears Keogh and Benteen. The glass mutes their words, but something in his mind tells him to resist the temptation to call out for them.
They could be the crazies, thinks Leon. I’ve got to block the door.
Leon’s brain knows that stuffing objects and sliding office furniture to stifle the door’s opening would delay the militants’ entry by mere moments, but his adrenaline-addled brain fails to conjure a better solution.
He climbs upon his aching feet and stumbles behind the desk closest to him — the one supporting a fax machine, computer monitor, keyboard and hard drive. Because his shoulder and hand hurt still, he decides to use the muscles of his legs and buttocks as leverage.
Leon takes deep breaths, knowing that to move it even a few inches would require superhuman effort.
You got to do this or you’ll die! he thinks.
Leon pushes against the heavy desk’s edge but fails to move it. The soles of his tennis shoes slip on the linoleum and give way, squealing.
“Damn it,” he says.
He tries to budge it again but can’t; it’s hopeless. The desk is too heavy.
They’re coming to kill me. When they see me, they’ll shoot me through the glass.
Tears well in the canthuses of his eyes. Leon feels as if God Himself designed this moment, as if He authored all the bad that happened to him this day — that He sent the agents to discover his whereabouts, arrest, interrogate and injure him — only to be murdered by a group of power-crazed vigilantes.
“I’m dead,” he says, the words tinged with fatalism rather than despair.
The tears begin to flow. Then, he weeps. His sniffles are soft, almost asthmatic.
“Shit,” he says. “I’m going to die.”
Will they shoot me like they did the agent outside? Will they stab me? Burn me? Bury me alive? Will they make me dig my own grave? Torture me?
Will I beg for my life?
I will. I will get down on my knees and beg them for mercy — tell them that I have nothing to do with their war — tell them that I’m Canadian.
Leon thinks better of that, believing that it will give them more cause to put a bullet into his head.
Suddenly, the urge to pray comes to Leon’s distressed mind. He puts his hands together and rests them against his lips. He whispers: What do I do, God? What do I do?
A thought comes to mind that is not his own, like that of someone transmitting words through an invisible microphone implanted in his head. He feels the words rather than hears them: Hide.
Leon pauses for a moment, wondering if he was going crazy.
Hide, the voice in his head says again. This time, he feels the words not only in his head, but also in the muscles and sinews of his stomach.
Hide.
“Where?” Leon whispers.
Hiiide. Craaawl.
“Where?” Leon asks again. “Under the desk? A coat? In a closet?”
Crawl. Warm. Warm. Safe and warm.
“I don’t understand,” he whispers. He rubs his temples, as if fighting to keep a toehold on sanity.
Warm. Warm. Safe and warm. Warm. Warm. Safe and warm.
Looking around in the darkened room, Leon sees the shape of the heavy desk — the immovable, beautiful slab of polished wood — and thinks better of it.
That’s the first place they’ll check, he thinks.
Leon scans to his left and sees a row of lockers screwed to the concrete wall.
They’ll rummage through those.
Leon turns to his direct right. Both cell doors remain open. Neither Benteen nor Keogh closed them before leaving.
That’d be my tomb, he thinks. The giant and me.
Crawl inside. Crawl inside. Warm. Warm. Safe and warm.
“In there?” Leon murmurs.
Warm. Safe.
Leon gazes into the dark cell where the agents placed the dead giant and it all becomes clear to him. He can’t see the giant lying on the concrete floor because of the lack of light, but he knows he’s there.
Safe. Warm.
Leon crawls to the cell’s entrance on his knees. His eyes adjust to the sinister darkness and he focuses on the large, silver body-bag. To Leon, the bag seems like an enormous metallic whale’s tongue. There is a bulge in the middle of the bag in the shape of a mountain top.
That must be his stomach, thinks Leon.
He imagines how difficult it must have been for the agents to tuck and push the giant’s huge frame into such a confined space. The agents bent and shoved the giant’s knees and elbows until he fit. Zipping it up must have been a delicate task. The giant’s girth could have split the vinyl fibers holding the zipper.
Warm. Warm. Safe and warm.
Then, the voice in Leon’s mind ceases repeating the mantra. The sense of calm disappears with it. His wounded hand begins to tremble again.
It’s early morning and the street lamps are still on. Through the windows, their lights cast a soft, yellow glow. The militants cast shadows that run on the walls.
His acclimated, sensitive ears pick up angry voices yelling down the hallway: “Cover the fuckin’ sides! I’m almost in!”
Firecracker reports resound throughout the corridor outside.
POP! POP! POP! — POP! POP! POP!
Bullets hit the room’s steel door, producing a non-metrical series of pings like the sound like hail pelting a tin roof.
Then . . . BOOM!
An explosion shakes floor. The blast sucks some of the air out the processing room and Leon’s lungs. An intense flash of orange and blue light through the hallway window blinds him. It hurts his retinas; stars splash across his vision.
Benteen screams: “They got me! They got me!”
“Keep up the fire!” shouts Keogh. “I need cover, damn it or this thing won’t work!”
“I can’t see! I can’t see a fucking thing!”
Leon trembles with fear. This doesn’t sound promising.
He springs to the desk, dizzy and anxious. His good hand gropes the desk’s surface for something — anything to protect him from the militants. Instinct tells him that the two agents won’t last for much longer.
He has only moments to come up with a plan to save himself.
Keogh continues to bark commands: “Keep ’em back, you fuck!”
Leon doesn’t hear Benteen answer.
Leon hears more gun reports.
POP! POP! POP!
Leon gropes for objects, anything that he could use to defend himself.
I’ll use a pen if I have to.
He grips a stapler and tosses it aside. Then, he feels the sharp tip of a familiar tool that pricks his index finger. It doesn’t jolt him. The throbbing pain in his hand and shoulder dulls his nerves. His probing fingers feel a steel loop at its end.
He grips it and brings it close to his face so he could confirm what it is: Scissors!
He grips them and looks up and around, scanning the dim light to see if there are any approaching shadows. Nothing comes, but he hears someone screaming orders. It’s not Keogh’s voice, but that of the bereted man, Commander Spencer: “Cover him while they go inside!”
Automatic weapons fire sprays lead down the hallway.
POP! POP! POP! — POP! POP! POP!
Light flickers through the window and underneath the processing room’s door, illuminating the scissors that flash like silver cobra’s teeth.
What do I do now?
Leon wants the inner voice to return. He needs instruction, but it doesn’t come.
“Safe and warm?” he asks in a tremulous tone.
No answer comes.
Moments later, the sparkles in his eyes diminish and he is able to make out the dark silhouettes inside the processing room — the lifeless grey computer monitors, desks, keyboards and opened detention cell doors. There is nothing better, sharper or heavier than the scissors. He stares into the obscurity of the cell where the dead giant lies. Leon wonders if the body is in full rigor. He doesn’t know much about the anatomy of death. He ponders if the giant’s eyes remain open, whether its mouth is agape or if it stinks.
His stomach protests at the thought. His mouth waters, preparing to vomit.
Leon crawls his way back to the giant’s cell. His good hand gropes the cold, rigid doorframe. The giant’s body lies just a few feet away. He shimmies the scissors, tips down, between his belt and the lip of his grimy jeans. Gathering his bearings from the doorframe, Leon creeps to the body-bag. He steadies himself like a three-legged dog.
Keep it together! Leon thinks. Don’t get scared. Everybody dies. It’s natural. It happens to everybody and it’ll happen to you someday.
The last thought causes Leon’s heart of skip a beat. He swallows a nervous gob of spit.
But not today.
Leon’s attempt at self-reassurance works and he feels a little better.
“Crawl inside,” he says.
Leon takes a deep breath before allowing his trembling hand to grace the cold polyurethane fabric. His fingers glide over the taut mound to find the zipper.
Leon presses down on the lower part of the bag where he knows the giant’s feet are. Leon feels the firm camber of his massive legs.
“It’s only a shell,” he repeats. “It’s only a shell. It’s only a shell.”
Still, he’s unable to find the zipper.
“Damn it,” he whispers. “Where are you?”
Leon pets the opposite side of the bag, towards the top and discovers an inch-long aluminum lip. It jangles as his fingers nudge it. He pinches it and pulls it down towards the middle of the giant’s torso. It resists a quarter of the way down, catching vinyl fibers in its metal teeth. He tugs harder and it gives way, protesting with a whine until stopping at the zenith of the giant’s belly.
He doesn’t remember the giant’s abdomen being so fat when he was alive. He was more muscular than corpulent.
It’s gas building up in his guts, he thinks.
He reaches underneath the vinyl folds and touches the cotton fibers of the dead giant’s shirt. It is stretched tight around the buttons. Leon taps his stomach with his finger. It emits a dull, hollow thud that sounds like a tom-tom drum.
PUMB-PUMB!
It sickens him.
From the booms and the increasing clatter of the machine guns outside, Leon knows that Keogh and Benteen won’t be able to hold out much longer.
Time is short.
Leon tugs on the zipper until it reaches the giant’s knees. He places his right foot inside the bag, where the giant’s thighs part slightly. He sees that there isn’t sufficient space for him.
He tries nonetheless.
He succeeds in getting most of his lower right leg within the bag. The toe of his shoe meets the sole of the giant’s boot. He presses against it, but it will not move because the giant’s feet stretch the body-bag’s fabric to the point of rupture.
“No,” he says.
To steady himself, Leon hand palms the giant’s stomach; he’s surprised that the body radiates warmth still. He balances while attempting to wheedle his right leg into the bag. The press of Leon’s hand against the giant’s stomach forces it to expel noxious gas through the mouth and nostrils. Leon hears a groan emitting from the giant’s lips: “Uuuuhhhhh.”
It startles Leon; he jumps back.
The giant isn’t moving, but Leon smells something horrid. An acidic stink floats up from the giant’s mouth. It is the rotting, undigested remains of the giant’s last meal. It smells like the dead squirrels that he’d play with as a child.
Leon wants to puke, but dry heaves instead. He’s thankful that he’s had nothing to eat. He takes a deep breath and holds it, not wanting to smell anymore of the acrid reek.
Then, he inserts his right leg into the bag again. His calves press against those of the giant. There is no give. There is no room. Out of frustration, he jams his leg in, wanting to force a fit, but the effort fails.
“Shit!”
He wrests his leg out of the body-bag and notices that he still has his shoes on. He curses himself and pries off both shoes, tossing them towards the toilet. They land behind it with a bang. Then, he tries to fit once more — and again, he fails.
He fights to maintain control of his demeanor as his breathing becomes shallow.
Wha’d am I gonna do? How the hell am I going to get inside?
Ricocheting bullets ping against the processing room door. One punches through the reinforced glass of the window. The noise sends Leon sprawling for cover behind the toilet’s partition. Minute crystals scatter about the floor like leaping diamonds.
The blasts outside are thunderous. Nothing muffles them.
BOOM! — BOOM! — BOOM!
They’ll be here in within minutes. I can’t crawl inside the bag! I can’t! I can’t! There’s no room!
Frustration gives way to despair. He punches his legs over and over again, driving his knuckles into his thighs. He begins to cry, but not aloud.
Mulling over what the inner voice said previously gives him pause.
“Crawl inside?” he asks himself in a dejected voice.
Crawl inside, says the voice within Leon’s head, calm and comforting.
“How?” says Leon. “I don’t know what to do.”
Crawl inside, says the voice again.
“How?”
Crrraaawwwlll Iiinnnsssiiiddde.
Leon stares into a grey void before him, past the giant’s body. His heart thrashes inside his chest. Spots flash before his eyes. His hands are shambling mits.
He dips a hesitant toe into the colorless abyss-pool of insanity. From within his fevered mind, he knows now what he must do. It makes him freeze, as if in a trance.
Leon doesn’t mean to imagine what comes to his mind. It’s as if an invisible force inside his brain is rewiring his synapses, showing him crude still life pictures tinged yellow like slides through an antique projector.
Leon begins to hallucinate.
A Matryoshka doll stands before him.
At first, the doll’s form is nebulous and black. His mind’s vision clears up and it’s the dead giant smiling at him. The grin is not evil, but soothing — reassuring.
Leon is not afraid.
The giant’s massive arms rest at his sides. Placing both hands over his belly, he begins to rub in a circular motion. Then, his fingers morph into tiger’s claws. He tears into the cotton of his blue shirt, exposing skin like polished ebony.
(to be continued . . .) | https://medium.com/the-red-blue-war/the-livormortis-womb-part-fifteen-766c01438c9e | [] | 2020-12-22 20:02:47.460000+00:00 | ['Fiction', 'Crime', 'America', 'War', 'Novel'] |
Que tu mente tome el control es una putada, y lo sabes. | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/shizenmen/que-tu-mente-tome-el-control-es-una-putada-y-lo-sabes-72c8575e1906 | ['Iñaki Zurdo Mantas'] | 2020-12-10 11:58:01.983000+00:00 | ['Pensamientos', 'Mente', 'Español', 'Desarrollo Personal', 'Vida'] |
Automating Tasks with Shell Scripts | I’ve been using a Unix based computer for about 7 months now, but I only got to know about this possibility recently. The aim of this post is to share how you can automate your recurring CLI operations in your projects using shell scripts.
In this post, I’ll be writing a script that would push a project folder to a remote repository. This script would initialize a git repository, add a Readme.md file, commit all changes and push to a remote repository, all in a single CLI operation.
Let’s get right to it, shall we?
Step 1
Open a new folder and create a Shell script file. I’ll name mine gitinit.sh
Step 2
Add the CLI set of commands
Basically, I did a lazy copy of the lines from new repositories on GitHub
A few things to note
The #!/bin/bash line is called a shebang. A shebang basically is a line that tells the parent shell which interpreter to use in interpreting the script. You could also use the #!/bin/sh shebang, but to the best of my understanding #!/bin/bash is the standard.
Meanwhile, you may have noticed the $1 and $2 variables, you may also have an idea of what they represent. They are identifiers for the arguments that would be added when the script is called.
Let’s Execute the Script
The first thing we need to do is to make the script executable. This can be achieved by simply typing into your terminal the following command:
chmod +x gitinit.sh
Remember gitinit.sh is the name of my script. chmod basically changes the file mode of any given file, +x simply means execution privilege should be added to the file’s permission.
To run the script, enter:
./gitinit.sh commit-message remote-repo-url
Make sure you’re inside the same directory where the script file was created.
Here is my output
Terminal output after executing the script
The next question is, does that mean I can only run this script inside its own directory?
Short answer, yes.
If you’re creating a script for automating tasks, you probably want it to be available globally such that it can be called from any directory on your computer.
The only way I know to do that is by adding the file to the $PATH environment. To view the files in your shell path, simply type echo $PATH into your terminal. This would show the available directories on the PATH.
Here’s mine
An executable script in any of these directories will be available globally.
Let’s go Global
A thought that would come to mind is simply copying and pasting the script into the directory. That would most likely work too, but I prefer using a SYMLINK. A SYMLINK is simply a shortcut to another file or folder. Basically, the file is accessible in the directory, but it isn’t really in the directory.
Doing this, I’ll be able to make changes to the script from the directory it was created without having to enter into the root directory. Pretty neat.
We go about this by typing:
ln -s path/to/folder/gitinit.sh /usr/local/bin/gitinit.sh
This is interpreted as, “create a shortcut for gitinit.sh at /usr/local/bin , where the original file is at path/to/folder/gitinit.sh" .
N.B: You can get the current directory path using pwd|pbcopy . This automatically copies into your clipboard.
Then we add the execution privilege chmod +x gitinit.sh and call the script with its arguments.
For me, it looks like this:
Now we can access the script globally without having to enter the directory in which it was created.
Removing the script from Global
Alright, it was all fun while it lasted, but it’s time to say goodbye.
To remove the script, simply navigate to the root directory it was added to. Remember, we used a SymLink, so I’ll just unlink the file in order to preserve the original file for future use. This is done, by:
cd /usr/local/bin
unlink gitinit.sh
Voila, the script is no longer global. You might want to confirm by calling gitinit.sh .
Conclusion
I hope you’ve been able to understand how to use shell scripts in automating CLI tasks. I’m also relatively new to the topic, but if you have any questions or hitches along the way, feel free to drop a comment. Let’s learn together.
Further reading
Learn Shell
Shell Scripts
Shell scripting tutorials by Guru99
Removing Symlink | https://medium.com/swlh/automating-tasks-with-shell-scripts-543422a12cd5 | ['Damilare A. Adedoyin'] | 2020-04-26 22:40:04.477000+00:00 | ['Shell', 'Unix', 'Developer', 'Shell Script', 'Shellscripting'] |
Moving to Brooklyn | Sheika Islam, Afnan Haq, and Abed Islam
Abstract
Out of all five boroughs, Brooklyn, New York is the most populated. It has a total amount of 71 square miles of land and approximately 2.51 million people living in it. As a group of young adults, we decided it would be interesting to figure out which neighborhoods in Brooklyn are the safest and most livable. To retrieve this type of information, we looked at poverty rates, 311 calls, energy usage, and automobile accidents. Big data analytics tools such as MapReduce and Hive, allowed us to clean and profile our data, join the new data, and come up with analytics of each zip code. We also used Pandas, Matplotlib, and Excel tools to make visuals so that it would be easier to look at. Using all of these tools, we found that the safest neighborhoods in Brooklyn were East Flatbush and Little Poland.
Introduction
In this project, we were studying the livability and safety of different neighborhoods in Brooklyn. This topic is important to investigate because the neighborhood you live in in New York has a very big impact on the life you live. Therefore, we set out to understand which neighborhoods were highly livable and which were not. Before we started our research, we already had an understanding that many parts of Brooklyn were highly segregated, so we were expecting quite a large variance between different neighborhoods in terms of 311 complaints, energy usage, and automobile accidents. By doing this study, we will further the knowledge that data analysts have regarding urban development in New York and can support urban policy to make the lives of New Yorkers better. We expected that certain zip codes like those in East Flatbush would be far more livable.
The design diagram shown below (Visual 1) highlights our workflow. First, all of our datasets came from the New York City government through NYC Open Data. Then, we used MapReduce on HDFS to remove unnecessary columns. Then we stored our cleaned datasets on Hive which we used to transform each dataset as we needed to. We extracted all the new Hive tables as .csv files and then joined them together as one final Hive table. We extracted that file as a .csv and did data analysis on it.
Visual 1: Data Flow Diagram
Motivation
The motivation behind our work was to understand Brooklyn and understand the issues the borough faces. The goal we had was to find the safest and most livable neighborhoods (zip codes) in Brooklyn, New York. There are two categories of people who will appreciate our research. Firstly, anyone who is planning on moving there soon will find this information useful. They can figure out what would be the most livable neighborhood to rent or buy a house in. Secondly, this is valuable analysis for the city government of New York in designing policy for Brooklyn. They can understand where the problems are in Brooklyn and exactly what those problems are. Based on the overall poverty rates, 311 calls, automobile crashes, energy usage, and further research, we wanted to capture a snapshot of life in different Brooklyn neighborhoods (zip codes).
3.1 Sheika’s Motivation
My love for Brooklyn started during high school when I would go hang out at Brooklyn Bridge Park or go see the Dyker Heights Christmas lights with my family and friends. However, when my sister moved there recently, my curiosity about the neighborhoods of Brooklyn grew even more!
Both the poverty and automobile crash dataset allowed me to explore more about the borough as these datasets contained a lot of valuable information. The poverty dataset contained information such as family type, age category, citizen status, childcare expenses, education attained, income, and many more things. One thing that stood out to me from this data was that some of the information was really specific which I absolutely loved. The automobile crash data was very interesting to me as well since I recently learned how to drive, and I haven’t really driven in Brooklyn as much as I would have liked to. The dataset contained information in regard to the number of accidents, type of vehicles that were involved, and how many people were injured or killed.
3.2 Afnan’s Motivation
I really liked the 311 dataset and felt it was reliable. I liked how big it was, containing a huge amount of government data and was going to appreciate this challenge. This is why I chose this topic. I really loved the idea of getting a bird’s eye view of what life is like in different zip codes of Brooklyn and thought this could be valuable information for policymakers. I am interested in New York City politics so I would find this interesting myself.
3.3 Abed’s Motivation
Lately, I have become more self-conscious about how my actions impact the environment. It comes down to small things like recycling and littering to the big things like where my food comes from. I was very interested in seeing how well neighborhoods use energy, oil, and other necessary resources. For me I find value in how well my neighborhood handles the use of energy. I feel in order to hold myself accountable in my pursuit of trying to be energy efficient, I need to live in a place that also values that.
Related Works
4.1 Poverty Dataset
A study was done regarding the neighborhoods in New York and the chance of getting cancer by Kamath, Geetanjali R. and others. Where one lives can be an indicator of getting multiple myeloma (MM) and impact mortality rates, especially if they live in NYC. The chances of getting MM are higher in NYC areas than other places in the United States. “Trends and racial differences in MM incidence and mortality for the United States [Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Cancer Registry (SEER), National Center for Health Statistics], and NYC [New York State Cancer Registry] were compared using Join point regression.” [3]. It was concluded that specifically places with large minority populations are more vulnerable to poverty related factors associated with MM and mortality.
4.2 Automobile Crash Dataset
A similar study was done regarding automobile crashes by Azad Abdulhafedh. As we know, a lot of mishaps on the road can occur due to how the roads are constructed and any other dangerous road sites. Abdulhafedh collected data related to crashes from various systems and gained a better understanding of the problems that were causing these crashes. The goal was to come up with new measures and road safety programs by locating hazardous road sections, identifying the risk factors, and developing accurate diagnosis and remedial measures [4]. This was necessary as it would allow prevention of future accidents since there’d be less hazardous roads and the road safety programs would also be improved. People would know what to look out for during these programs and roads would be fixed almost immediately.
4.3 311 Calls
A similar study was done in New York by Duygu Pamukcu regarding 311 calls during a global health emergency like COVID. 311 calls can be an indicator of the different dimensions of a community’s reaction to a crisis situation. New York City added new complaint types and descriptors in order to facilitate a better understanding of how citizens were dealing with the crisis. A municipality can aggregate and analyze this data (like we have) to better understand certain information regarding the current situation. This information can be vital in saving lives and solving problems. The paper by Pamukcu analyzes the existing 311 data and explains the actions taken by authorities in response to the data. The conclusion states that “the data from NYC’s existing 311 system can be used to characterize the different impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the community. It also showed that the city’s adjustments to that system were subsequently able to provide valuable new information about the ongoing crisis” [2].
4.4. Energy Usage
A similar study on energy usage in New York City buildings was done by John Schofield. Energy consumption is very high in New York City since it is a city that is heavily relied on by the economy. Schofield points out that since 2000, many non-residential buildings have been going for a LEED certification [5]. Since 2011, the city has been making this data public for its non-residential buildings. Schofield says that energy consumption decreased by 20% in buildings that had LEED Gold. This research can give more insight on the dataset used for this project. This report was written in 2013 and a lot has changed since then. It can help me get insight on if anything has changed.
Description of Datasets
All datasets were found on NYC Open Data and had a large amount of data regarding all the boroughs.
5.1 Poverty Dataset
This dataset contained information regarding poverty and certain specifications for each borough from 2018 to August 2021. It had a total of 68.3 rows and 61 columns. The data was provided by the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity. We reduced the number of columns to only 7 columns and primarily focused on the column that had information about residents being in poverty or not, based on the official government threshold, the column that had information about work status, and the column that had information about family structure. This information helped us get an insight of how an average family is in Brooklyn. This dataset, however, could definitely be improved if there were more information, such as dates and zip codes so that we would be able to get a timeline of each neighborhood.
5.2 Automobile Crash Dataset
This dataset contained information about automobile accident reports in all the boroughs from 2014 to present day. It had a total of 1.85 million rows and 29 columns, and the data was provided by the New York Police Department. We reduced the number of columns to only 6 columns and focused on the number of people injured and the number of people killed in each zip code during an automobile crash. This dataset allowed us to get insight into the safety of drivers and pedestrians as cars are continuously developing and more people are getting behind a wheel.
5.3 311 Calls
This dataset contained information on most 311 calls from 2010 to the present day with updates being made each day to the dataset. This dataset was massive containing 27 million rows. It contained information about the type of issue that existed, where the issue occurred, and whether it was resolved. We narrowed the dataset down to only 311 calls from the beginning of 2019 afterwards and only focused on 311 calls in Brooklyn. Otherwise, the data was proving hard to download. We focused on the following columns: Call ID, Date opened, Date accessed, Agency, Complaint Type, Zip Code, Address, Result, Longitude, Latitude. Using this information, we could correlate where 311 calls were coming from and what types of complaints they were. This would help us understand the problems that plague Brooklyn.
5.4. Energy Usage
This dataset has information on the water and energy use in buildings throughout the city. It has data on energy star score, many different metrics on heat and water usage along with property types. For this project we narrowed everything down to some of the simpler metrics to measure energy, water, and gas usage. We also decided to drop all the columns on the property types since we wanted a general viewpoint on all the buildings in one zip code. We further organized the data to only have buildings in the Brooklyn area.
Analytic Stages/Process
We started off by finding common interests of each of our team members and decided we’d like to do something related to New York City as it’s the greatest city in the world. We chose datasets that dealt with common things one would be concerned about before moving to a new neighborhood — poverty rates which would tell us how affordable a neighborhood may be and the costs of living there, 311 calls which would tell us about some of the problems that frequently occur in a certain neighborhood, and energy and water usage which would tell us about the different types of resources are commonly used in each neighborhood and how efficient they are when it comes to waste.
6.1 Poverty dataset
While cleaning and profiling, we narrowed down the number of columns. There were originally 61 unique columns, however we focused on 6 columns which were the borough, official government poverty threshold, number of people in a household, type of work in a household, and estimated nutrition related income. Unfortunately, this dataset wasn’t giving us the type of information we were looking for. It was rather too general, so we had to look for another dataset that would be more specific to each neighborhood. On the bright side, we were able to use information such as common family structures and type of work for Brooklyn as a whole as we used MapReduce to filter out the data for Brooklyn. We also came up with a few calculations to figure out the poverty rate, however due to no dates and different number of entries for each borough, it was a bit hard to tell. We ended up comparing our calculations to the most recent report of poverty rates and concluded that it would be best to just use the poverty rates mentioned in The Good News on NYC Poverty is Old News, Which is Bad News by Jarret Murphy. While our calculations said Brooklyn had a 31% poverty rate, Murphy reported that Brooklyn only had a 17.7% poverty rate, which decreased from previous years. [1]
6.2 Automobile crashes dataset
Due to lack of information from the poverty dataset, we looked at automobile crashes that would allow us to retrieve information based off of zip code. There were originally 29 unique columns, but we only focused on 5 of the columns which were borough, zip code, longitude, latitude, number of persons injured, and number of persons killed. These columns allowed us to analyze how safe it was to drive in each neighborhood. It also gave us a sense of how safe it was for pedestrians as well. We used MapReduce to filter out the content of Brooklyn and used Hive to group by zip code:
SELECT zipcode, Sum(persons_injured) AS persons_injured, Sum(persons_killed) AS persons_killed FROM crashes GROUP BY zipcode;
This code above grouped the cleaned data by zip code and output the sum of people injured and killed in automobile crashes.
6.3 311 Calls dataset
We reduced the number of columns from 41 columns down to 10 which were the columns we needed. We wrote a Java MapReduce program for this where we split the columns and combined the specific columns We needed with commas. Then we exported that file as a .csv. We built a Hive table specifically for my new data and then copied the .csv into the Hive table. We wanted to figure out how different zip codes had different complaint types. Therefore, after playing around with HiveQL, we wrote the following code:
SELECT zipcode, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Noise — Residential’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Noise_Residential, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Illegal Parking’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Illegal_Parking, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘HEAT/HOT WATER’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Heat_hotwater, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Blocked Driveway’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Blocked_driveway, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Noise — Street/Sidewalk’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Noise_Street_Sidewalk, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘UNSANITARY CONDITION’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Unsanitary_condition, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Street Condition’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Street_condition, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Water System’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Water_system, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘General Construction/Plumbing’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Construction_or_plumbing, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Noise — Commercial’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Noise_commercial, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Noise — Vehicle’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Noise_vehicle, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Damaged Tree’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS damaged_tree, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Sidewalk Condition’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS sidewalk_condition, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Rodent’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Rodent, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Sewer’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Sewer, Sum(CASE WHEN complaintype = ‘Graffiti’ THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Graffiti FROM service_calls GROUP BY zipcode;
All that is happening in the code above is we are calculating the number of times different complaint types show up in the dataset and grouping them by zip code. This allowed me to convert the number of times a complaint type shows up into its own unique column. With this information, we can analyze how many times different issues occur in a certain zip code. Then we exported the results into a .csv which we sent to Abed to join together on the other datasets based on zip codes.
6.4 Energy Usage dataset
In order to get the columns, we wanted to first run a simple MapReduce job. However, the difficulty came in organizing the data. We wanted only buildings that were located in Brooklyn. The issue did not come in the logic, rather it was the data itself. The people that made the dataset struggled to spell “Brooklyn” correctly, having a variety of misspelled data. Abed had to analyze the dataset itself to understand this issue. To get around this, when using hive, Abed wrote a simple where clause to account for all the misspellings. He then averaged out all the metrics in each Brooklyn zip code to get the cleaned data. This is the query Abed ran to get his cleaned dataset.
create table energyCleaned as
select postCode, avg(energyStarScore) as eScore, avg(fuelOil1UseKbtu) as fuelOil1,
avg(fuelOil2UseKBtu) as fuelOil2, avg(fuelOil4UseKBtu) as fuelOil4,avg(districtSteamUseKbtu) as districtSteamUse,
avg(naturalGasUseKbtu) as naturalGasUse from energy
where city = “brooklyn” or city = “Bklyn” or city = “Booklyn” or city = “BROOKLYN” or city = “Brooklyn”
group by postCode;
Visuals
Visual 2: Combined Data for all Datasets Used
Visual 3: Number of crashes per zip code
Visual 4: Number of people injured in the crashes per zip code
Visual 5: Number of people killed in the crashes per zip code
Visual 6: Energy scores less than 61 Visual 7: Energy scores more than 61
Visual 8: Energy Score and Noise Complaints
Visual 9: 311 Number of noise complaints per zip code
Visual 10: Street condition complaints and number of people injured
Visual 11: Street condition complaints and number of people killed
Insights and Analysis
The typical family type in Brooklyn is usually husband, wife, and child and majority of the population are working part time, which is less than full time, year round. Brooklyn has a 17.7% poverty rate and had a total number of 400,099 accidents. Of these accidents, zip code 11207 had the highest number of reported accidents while zip code 11241 had the lowest number of reported accidents. In terms of people injured, zip code 11203 had the highest number of people injured with a total number of 123 while zip codes 11241 and 11242 had the lowest number of people injured with a total number of 0. In terms of people killed (may they rest in peace), zip code 11234 had the highest numbers of people killed and zip codes 11241, 11242, 11251, 11385, and 11421 had 0 people killed.
While making further analysis, we found that the number of automobile crashes correlated with street condition complaints. As the number of street conditions complaints increased, the number of persons injured and killed also increased. This could be because of the potholes, road construction, and ongoing construction which usually leads to the usage of less lanes. Neighborhoods with less complaints tend to have better infrastructure avoiding injury and death. On average it takes the city 1–3 days to fix the pothole issue if it gets reported[7]. The response time in Brooklyn is about 3 days and 22 hours. Seeing that it takes this long to fix it, many neighborhoods have bad street conditions and the worse they are, the more people get injured or killed in automobile crashes.
Energy scores a big factor. On average, buildings with lower energy scores were receiving more heat and hot water complaints and buildings with lower energy scores got more complaints for unsanitary conditions. There is not a major difference between water system and sewer complaints. However, there was a negative correlation between energy scores and noise complaints. As the energy score increased, the number of noise complaints decreased. This could be that neighborhoods that are environmentally friendly are also paying attention to the way they contribute to noise pollution. A neighborhood that really stuck out in our analysis is Little Poland.
For Little Poland our analysis has parity to how it is in the real world. Little Poland is a small community that is a subsection of Greenpoint. In Greenpoint, there is a huge community project called the “Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund”. According to their website, they have put more than 11 million dollars into improving the local environment [6]. This claim is backed up by our data well. The buildings in the neighborhood are eco-friendly and there are very few calls for unsanitary conditions. The people and local government are putting in the extra effort to keep the neighborhoods clean and environment friendly.
Conclusion
Based on this project, we were able to find the safest neighborhoods to live in. We prioritized energy score as we felt like that was the leading component of all of the datasets. Energy score ratings that were higher than 61, meaning that they were more eco-friendly, had less complaints and accidents reportings. We did this because typically for a neighborhood to be environmentally friendly, they need to have the proper infrastructure behind it. When seeing if there is parity between the data and work done in the real world, we found that our findings held true and that there is a continuation of improvement.
While we were working on the project, we looked at other boroughs well. There were a few insights that caught our interest; however we didn’t get a chance to analyze them thoroughly. If we perhaps look at additional boroughs in the future, we’d be able to get an insight of the safest neighborhoods in all of New York City. We would also want to look at more features of a neighborhood such as income, food resources, diversity, building infrastructure and see how all that can connect back to the environment and overall living conditions.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank Professor Malavet for helping us progress through this project by answering emails and the discussion board posts. We’d also like to thank NYC Open Data for allowing us to access this information.
References | https://medium.com/@ai1138/moving-to-brooklyn-8b6748fffcc5 | ['Abed Islam'] | 2021-12-27 20:04:27.564000+00:00 | ['NYC', 'Brooklyn', 'Hive', 'Big Data', 'Mapreduce'] |
Understanding Arrow Functions in JavaScript | Understanding Arrow Functions in JavaScript
A dive into what arrow functions are, how they are different from regular functions, as well as the lexical scope and their shorthands. Taran Follow Nov 29, 2020 · 6 min read
ES2015 (or ES6) has added arrow function expressions to JavaScript. These functions have shorter syntax than their predecessor (this being the function expressions) and they are roughly the equivalent of lambda functions in Python or blocks in Ruby. Arrow functions are anonymous functions with a special syntax that accept arguments and operate in the context of their enclosing scope. They provide two main benefits over regular functions; first, their syntax is more concise, and second, managing this in arrow functions is easier.
In this article, I will discuss the differences between the syntax of function expressions, function declarations and arrow functions, lexical scope, arrow functions as object methods, and some shorthands for using them.
Syntax
Before delving into the arrow function syntax, let’s start with regular functions.
Regular Function Syntax (Function Declaration)
A regular function declaration begins with the function keyword, followed by the name of the function. It is then followed by a set of parenthesis which is used for optional parameters. The code of the function is contained in curly brackets. The function in the example below adds two numbers and returns their sum as a result:
Before any code is executed, function declarations are loaded into the execution context. This is known as hoisting, meaning that you call the function before its declaration.
Running the above code outputs the following:
Function Expression Syntax
Unlike the function declaration, function expressions are not loaded into the execution context. The function usually has no name and is assigned to a variable. Let’s take a look at the example below, where we have assigned an anonymous function to the add constant:
Function expressions are not hoisted, meaning that (if we call the function before its declaration) it will throw an error:
The code in the example above will throw the following error:
These are also known as anonymous functions because they do not have a named identifier. For example:
This will output the following:
Arrow Function Syntax
As with function expressions, arrow functions are not hoisted (meaning that we aren’t able to call them before the declaration). The syntax of arrow functions starts with a named variable. After the name comes an = operator, then open parentheses () inside of which optional parameters are declared. After the parentheses, => operator is declared followed by curly brackets containing the code of the function. For example:
Lexical this
Inside arrow functions, the value of this is determined by the surrounding scope. Before looking into how arrow functions handle this , let’s first take a look at how traditional functions handle this .
Traditional Function (this)
In the following person object, there are two properties; name and hobbies along with two methods printName() and printHobbies() .
Executing student.printName() will return ‘Max’ because, in the printName() function, we have returned this.name . Here, the value of the this keyword is the student object. That is why this.name returns the name property.
However, in the student.student.printHobbies() , we have mapped the hobbies property which is an array of strings. printHobbies() method prints the hobbies of the student object. However, upon executing student.printHobbies() we do no get the output that we expect.
this.name did not print the value of the name, which indicates that this (within the anonymous function passed into the map method) does not refer to the student object.
Arrow Function (this)
The value of this in the arrow function is determined based on the lexical scope. The inner function that called in the map method can now access the properties of the outer object, which is in this example the student object:
This will give the following output:
Arrow functions are not as effective as the object method
The way that arrow functions use the lexical scoping for this is not as effective as methods defined inside the objects. Let’s take a look at the example below where the printName method is declared using the arrow function.
Inside the printName method, this should refer to the student object. However, as we have defined the method using the arrow function and because the object does not create a new lexical scope, arrow function will look beyond the value of this .
Calling the printName method will give the following output:
The arrow function will look for this in the outer scope because objects do not create a lexical scope. So this will refer to the window in this example. As the firstName property does not exist on the window object, it will return as undefined.
Arrow Function Shorthand's
Omitting Curly Brackets
First, let’s declare a simple arrow function that returns the sum of two numbers:
The body of the regular function is contained within a block using curly {} brackets. But arrow functions are introduced as an implicit return which allows us to omit the curly brackets and the return keyword:
Please note: In the example above, we have a one-line return statement after the arrow function. If you aren’t able to return a one-line return statement then you will have to use the normal block body syntax.
Returning an Object using one-line syntax
In case you need to return an object, the same syntax will require that you wrap the object in parenthesis, as follows:
Omitting Parentheses Around a Single Parameter
If there is only one parameter passed to the arrow function then you can remove the parenthesis from a single parameter. In the following example the function takes a single parameter and returns the parameter divided by two:
Please note: If a function does not take any parameters then the parenthesis will be required.
Conclusion
In this article, you have reviewed the arrow function syntax, the difference between the arrow function and regular functions, lexical scope in arrow functions, and some shorthand for using the arrow functions. I hope that you have found this article helpful, thanks for reading! | https://codeburst.io/understanding-arrow-functions-in-javascript-55847fe6586f | [] | 2020-12-03 16:43:29.295000+00:00 | ['Arrow Functions', 'Function', 'Javascript Development', 'Javascript Tips', 'JavaScript'] |
Why (& How) to invest in #HIGH. Cryptocurrencies are graining grounds… | Cryptocurrencies are graining grounds in the financial world, not just as a means to store value, but also as a means of exchange. Revenue. Growth.
With the advent of Bitcoin other alternative coins came out, also called Altcoin. These coins, some of which have been successful and others unsuccessful, have had to source for funds from the general public through ICOs.
Crowdfunding for Cryptocurrency is different from traditional once. In Cryptocurrency, Crowdfunding is an investment platform. The people who put in their cash into these cryptocurrencies are rewarded with a token, which when the cryptocurrency improves, gives them money in the bank.
But the issues with ICO over the last few years is that investors have unknowingly invested in Altcoins that were not credible, and subsequently lost their investment.
With us, there is assurance that every money invested in an ICO is not going down the drain.
Here is why:
Specific Audience: Successfully running an ICO campaign takes more than just a Cryptocurrency, it needs a willing audience and Cryptocurrency-ready audience. With HighBank, the investors on the platform a very well aware of what they are in for and trust our service. Trustworthiness of listed ICOs: On HighBank, because we know how fraudulent some cryptocurrencies ICO can get, how some of its developers are not seasoned Cryptocurrency professionals, has made the ICOs listed credible. HighBank, in its bid to create authentic currencies for ICOs, does background checkups on the ICO before any Altcoin is listed. The website, logo, team behind the Altcoin and even the well-defined roadmap, among many other criteria, are critically reviewed by the team at HighBank. If the ICO passes the test, then it is listed on the HighBank website. This method ensures that only credible ICOs are listed. Highly trusted reviews: People buy cryptocurrencies after reading reviews and hear words from industry experts. It is a normal human phenomenon to gravitate towards a certain thing, especially one they one is unsure of when a respected individual or voice raves about that thing in a positive light. At #HighBank, we create honest and well thought-out reviews by our experts and Cryptocurrency eggheads. We also counter fake reviews. The blockchain technology makes it easier for us to monitor and stop the spread of fake reviews, which can be harmful to an ICO. After every review by our team of top Cryptocurrency journalists, the blockchain makes it impossible to alter the review, except of course an update on the review is to be done by our journalist. In addition, the history of this update would be on the blockchain for all to see. Know Your Customer ( KYC ) Verification: This feature is our own way of assuring investors that project owners are genuine. The process of verification is not compulsory, but if done adds a lot of credibility to the team. If a team permits that they should be verified, some members of the team are selected at random and their profiles scrutinized. Help with marketing tools: The process of listing a Cryptocurrency for ICO is tasking and can be herculean for most. Also, ICOs are as successful as the value the Cryptocurrency adds and the marketing put into it. HighBank provides you with the necessary tools to help with your digital marketing, from your dashboard, while we let you focus on the technical parts of your project. We seamlessly distribute tokens: The automation process allows the system to automatically distribute funds gotten from investors to other investors. The system also accepts major coins like ethereum, litecoin bitcoin for ICOs. Airdrops and Bounty Campaigns: A marketing hack that has proven effective for other ICOs in the past, airdrops and bounty campaigns have been automated with HighBank, making it easier to accomplish. Smart contracts: This special feature ensures that the tokens are evenly distributed after the rules and details that you prefer have been imputed. Multifunctional Dashboard: Our special dashboard helps you monitor all that is going on with the ICO. You can upgrade your membership from the user-friendly dashboard. Special APIs: The API is designed to help you call on important and positive reviews that you can display on your landing page to convert more visitors.
Let’s check the next stages: | https://medium.com/@highbank2018/why-how-invest-in-high-3a2ce3bf79f0 | [] | 2019-03-27 13:49:01.664000+00:00 | ['Trade', 'Investing', 'Market', 'Bitcoin', 'Crypto'] |
TypeScript With Fewer Types? | Outdated API Type Definitions
Let’s say you are on a front-end team called Team Alpha (because front-end teams are the alphas… kidding) and you are consuming an API created by Team Bravo.
Your team is large, so you went with TypeScript and laid out some type definitions for a particular API endpoint:
OK, cool. Not only do we have type safety, but it’s easy to understand the input and output of the API endpoint.
Fast-forward one week, and Team Bravo made a change to the /user endpoint. They sent a message in the api-news channel on Slack. Some people on Team Alpha saw it, while others missed it. Suddenly, your front end is breaking and you don’t know why. Here’s what was changed:
Now, the types you wrote to protect you are causing massive debugging headaches because they are out of date.
After a brief amount of time banging your head against the wall, you either finally read the update from Team Bravo or you find the source of the problem yourself.
Maybe the first time is no big deal. You update the types and move on with your life.
But how many times are you going to have to debug, update, and refactor? Probably forever.
Ideal Solution
If possible, a great “hands-free” solution is to use a type generator for your API schema. If you use GraphQL, you are in luck because there are solid options for type generators (GraphQL code generator, Apollo codegen, etc).
This way, when the API changes, you can run a command to download the changes in request and response types. If you had the time, you could automate it to trigger downloads every time the API repo is updated, for example. That way, you are always up to date.
If you are using TypeScript on both the client and server, then I think it would be smart to leverage that fact and share types downstream. It doesn’t matter how, just as long as you aren’t writing request and response types on the client. | https://medium.com/better-programming/typescript-with-fewer-types-f7fa636476db | ['Kris Guzman'] | 2020-03-18 18:25:07.683000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Web Development', 'Typescript', 'Technology', 'Programming'] |
Loud Suffering and Why Teachers Need It Right Now | By Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels
Loud suffering has an impact. It signals a need for community, help, and support.
On December 2, 2020, an 11-year-old boy in Northern California made his suffering known through the loudness of a gunshot. His sister, who was in the house, heard the gunshot in her own Zoom session and ran next door for help. I can only imagine the loudness of suffering in those moments. What can be certain is that, before he made his pain audible, this young man had quietly suffered.
At the beginning of the school year, I presented the idea that teachers may be quietly suffering. Six months later it is no longer just an idea. The question now is how should educators process their suffering? I suggest that the first step is for educators to move beyond feelings of shame and engage in loud suffering. Teachers must collectively raise their voices such that the sound of suffering is undeniable and too unbearable to be ignored.
Loud suffering is the natural strategy for self-preservation and full humanity. It is only through socialization that we learn to mute our pain, feel ashamed of it, and suffer quietly.
Quiet suffering is the outcome of shame.
In a society that ridicules those who have varying abilities or live in poverty, shame is a powerful emotion. Shame maintains inequality. It creates an environment where needing support, encouragement, and community is questioned. The antidote to shame is the collective naming of inequality. This has been the root of success for social justice movements in our history.
The civil rights movement did not take hold until Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized the benefit of televising the suffering of African Americans being brutalized by the police for enacting their rights to vote and access businesses. It was the loudness of the images of dogs biting children and women being flung across concrete pavements from the force of water that demanded action from the larger society. Similarly, it was the loudness of George Floyd’s cry for his mother that set society on an intentional and determined path for racial justice. The #MeToo movement came from the loudness of the 100 women who spoke up about over three decades of assault by Harvey Weinstein.
These examples show ways that shame delayed justice and humanity. African Americans, particularly in the South, attempted to reduce the shame of being mistreated in front of their children and loved ones by staying within “their place.” Families of murdered Black men hesitated to speak out from shame of their living circumstances. Women violated by Weinstein were burdened by the shameful rhetoric of “she didn’t know better” or “she had it coming.” Shame is a powerful tool for oppression.
Educators are quietly suffering and feeling shame.
While some educators have willingly posted their fears and needs on social media, many more are suffering quietly. Yet, the reality that thousands of educators are suffering is hard to validate through the news media. What is visible is the suffering of parents and children.
We need to understand the extent of educators’ suffering so that we can support them. With support, educators can better support their students. This should be the priority as the nation faces another year of distance learning.
Quiet suffering has dangerous consequences. We suffer quietly until the quietness of our pain explodes into the loudness of gunshots, sirens, and cries of loss and grief.
While the news media reported that the sixth grader had his microphone and camera off, the final sound of his suffering was not quiet. It echoes through his sister’s ear and every wall in their home. It echoes through his teacher and classmates.
Quiet suffering doesn’t save anyone.
Loud suffering presents the opportunity for change, support, and community. The more that educators are willing to forgo shame, the greater the change possible. I am asking each educator to suffer loudly.
Tell others how hard it has been.
Tell others of the fear created by teaching through a pandemic.
Tell others that you cried last night (and the night before).
Tell others that you cannot take on another task.
Tell others that you are suffering.
Suffer loudly. | https://medium.com/@theliterateself/loud-suffering-and-why-teachers-need-it-right-now-851a678563ad | ['The Literate Self'] | 2020-12-12 02:14:04.649000+00:00 | ['Education Reform', 'Covid 19 Crisis', 'Wellbeing At Work', 'Wellbeing'] |
19 Augur Predictions for ‘19 | Augur has now been live for over half a year. I think 2019 will be a year of progress as well as productive growing pains for the young peer-to-peer prediction platform. Since it’s always fun to try to predict the unpredictable, here are a few thoughts on what the year will have in store for Augur.
For simplicity, I state each prediction without any conditionals, but you can mentally insert an “I predict” or “I think” before each statement to better reflect the uncertainty.
I predict…
The first half of the year will be slow with minimal increase in usage. In fact, total money at stake will drop once the House market is settled, and I don’t expect the Super Bowl or any other event in the first half of the year to draw nearly as much interest. In the second half, activity will gradually tick up with the arrival of v2, the credibility of being around and accurately resolving markets for a year, progress with consumer-grade UIs built atop Augur, and likely more activity in the broader crypto market and greater volatility in broader markets. But I don’t think we will see the real fireworks and steep S-shaped adoption until 2020 and beyond. By summer, more trading volume will occur on apps like Veil and Guesser built atop the protocol rather than directly on Augur’s end-user app. I think that Augur’s key innovation is a trustless oracle and an API that lets people build things atop this oracle like derivatives, betting, bounty, and insurance markets. Augur’s UX has come a ways and is good for a certain breed of trader. But because The Forecast Foundation takes a hands-off position due to regulatory caution, I don’t think it can (or wants to) get close enough to users and take the kinds of risks needed to rapidly iterate and develop a great UX. I think this is the right move. Building on this theme, the rise of companies like Veil built atop Augur (AugurCos, in the words of Kyle Samani), will result in the use of Augur becoming more centralized in practice even as the underlying protocol remains decentralized. While I think Augur will keep the promise of making it possible for anyone, anywhere, anytime to speculate on anything, AugurCos will create meaningful centralization in that they will increasingly control which markets are most visible, accessible, liquid, and most quickly settled. This could be an early case study in the tensions between decentralization at the protocol level and centralization at the practical level. Centralized services built atop protocols can rapidly improve UX, amass users, and reap the rewards of aggregation theory. In the case of Augur, Veil & Co will attract users due to superior UX, which will attract more market makers, in turn making it more attractive to more users in a virtuous cycle. I think on net this will be a positive and allow us to build a valuable ecosystem, but we need to keep an eye on potential tradeoffs. While the oracle itself will remain decentralized, control over which markets are most visible, liquid, and easily accessible will increasingly be influenced by AugurCos. Today, Augur follows an exaggerated Pareto: a tiny number of markets capture the lion’s share of liquidity. By the end of 2019, this will still be the case but to a lesser degree. Creating markets won’t get much easier but trading and infusing liquidity into them will due to better UX, off-chain order creation, and Dai integration. So the total number of markets will rise more slowly than the proportion of liquid markets. At some point in ’19, more than a billion USD worth of Ether will be ‘locked up’ in MakerDao and Augur contracts combined, though Augur will account for a tiny percentage of this and some of this may be one and the same since Augur will accept Dai. The integration of Dai into Augur will be game-changer for the platform allowing users to minimize Eth volatility risk. Ironically though, it will also make it easier to recklessly leverage crypto exposure. There will be some ugly stories of people getting ‘rekt’, creating Dai to enter illiquid, high-risk positions on Augur. This may be amplified by the fact that Augur liquidity tends to dry up when Eth is plummeting, the exact same time when trader’s CDPs will be flirting with liquidation. Allowing traders to trade however they want, including making dumb mistakes, is key for a permissionless platform. However, I think Augur and AugurCos would be wise to provide tools and info to help users minimize these risks not just to benefit traders but to appease regulators. However, this may be the least of Augur’s concerns when it comes to regulation… Sometime in 2019, the most popular Augur skeptic narrative will change from “nobody uses this thing” to “the regulators will kill this thing.” Augur’s most popular use cases will remain crypto price speculation and political predictions. But we’ll also see the gradual rise of the important use case of hedging risk. While generating accurate predictions requires the wisdom of the crowd i.e., many traders, hedging in theory only requires two parties to take the opposing sides. Conversely, hedging risk a more serious use case that requires more trust, so its momentum will be limited until Augur is more established. Augur markets will become more efficient i.e., better priced, due to more liquidity, more eyeballs, and more trading bots. Still, these are early days and there will be many, many inefficiencies leaving plentiful opportunities for astute traders. In fact, I think it will still be a while before we hit the sweet spot of meaningful liquidity but still meaningful inefficiency to allow great trading and arbitrage opportunities. There is a less than 50% but non-trivial chance that Augur will fork in 2019. If it happens, I think it will be a net positive in that it will test the forking process early on, encourage better standards for market creation and vetting, and productively split the purists and pragmatists. I think 2019 will be a volatile year for REP and it will have less correlation to Ether than most other ERC-20 tokens. By end of year, there will be more money at stake on Augur than on PredictIt, the leading centralized prediction market. However, PredictIt will still have more users. Unlike PredictIt, Augur has no betting caps, so it will attract high-conviction, high-capital wagers. But until Augur gets cheaper and faster due to scalability upgrades and lower fee fiat-on ramps, platforms like PredictIt will be the preferred venue for casual speculation due to fewer trading frictions. A greater proportion of cryptocurrency speculation will move from binary to scalar markets as the advantages of these become clearer and Veil makes it more intuitive to trade in these types of markets. There will be more media coverage on specific Augur markets. Perhaps a story on how Augur surpassed other platforms in forecasting a political outcome or a story about how insider information tipped a market. We will see more interesting things built atop Augur as more developers enter the space and more primitives in the DeFi space are available to build on in tandem with Augur. We will see experiments with new types of markets and financial instruments on Augur. Most will fall into the category of cool idea but no compelling real-world use case…but a few will succeed. We will see the gradual emergence of better standards for market creation, or at least a system for vetting markets. In 2018, we saw many markets with poor, ambiguous wording — sometimes deliberate attempts to mislead traders. I think we’ll see either some system for communally vetting new markets or a centralized trading platform insuring against invalid outcomes for “verified” markets. There will be growing pains, perhaps significant ones. Augur is still a young, experimental platform. The sheer amount of game-theoretic complexity to get something like Augur working is staggering. It is probably the most complex thing deployed to date on Ethereum, which itself is still young, experimental and arguably one of the most ambitious tech projects in modern human history. Augur will be tested and I believe this will be an opportunity for it to grow and showcase its antifragility. I am optimistic that a strong community, vision, and team of developers can overcome almost any challenge that may arise. By end of ’19, the Augur market with the most money at stake will be on the Democratic Presidential nominee for 2020. It will be the most crowed presidential primary in U.S. history, and according to Augur, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, and Cory Booker will lead the pack…
In Closing
Despite the growing pains, Augur’s long-term prospects have never looked brighter. I think the platform will continue its slow march toward becoming the world’s freest, most frictionless financial market where anyone can speculate on anything, where man and machine come together to predict and prepare for the future, manage risk, and resolve the state of reality.
Happy predicting and happy 2019.
Thanks for reading. To stay ahead with fresh insights on the future of prediction markets, join my newsletter The Augur Edge. | https://medium.com/sunrise-over-the-merkle-trees/19-augur-predictions-for-19-fc1c1e4d52ba | ['Ben Davidow'] | 2020-05-07 22:04:28.080000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Trusting Yourself | Trusting Yourself
Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash
We live in an age where we make a gazillion decisions on the fly each day. Some more important to the betterment of ourselves, others more trivial; some are to do with friends and family, others are just plain old broken record type decisions. But at some point, we all question our ability to make the right decision, not the popular decision, not the decision with the best financial outcome but the decision that we intrinsically feel is the right one for the situation we find ourselves in.
At some point, we question the trust in ourselves.
To overcome this lack of trust, when left untouched for extended periods, is the real challenge. When it sinks so far into our mind that we begin to believe we don’t have the fitting capacity. Every action we take, every move we make is filled with a subtext of lacking trust. To be stuck in a crossroads, based on the assumption that we are not good enough, can drive even the sharpest minds to insanity.
We perceive a lack of trust as unfavourable, yet it is a manifestation of the mind. A seed we alone have created, planted and now are realising it’s poisoned fruits. To say this is a state of indecision is false, for it would cause fragmentation leading to confusion and conflict, despair and disintegration. We have to be confident of who we are and the risks we are willing to undertake. At a fundamental level, we take a moment to recognise the trust in ourselves, the infinite reservoir of trust, the one we use every waking second of our existence.
How can we say “I don’t trust myself”?
From the moment we are conceived, we are trusting ourselves, trusting the inner intelligence of the human body to develop the fetus into a living, breathing human. From the moment we take our first breath, we trust ourselves to maintain the physiological functions of the body for the rest of our lifetime.
An intrinsic trust woven into the fabric that is our body and mind is always present.
Some call it nature; others call it instinct, sometimes it’s referred to as intuition. Ultimately, they are all describing elaborately, an ever-present confidence in oneself to act accordingly. We can never be 100% certain of the actions we take; there’s the element of risk in everything. A piece of us that thinks better of what we have done or will do. In reality, it’s an adventure; the secret to a good life has to be in the ability to take chances knowing that we have trust in ourselves.
Who wants to live in boredom, for eternity executing the easy option. Where’s the growth, the fun. Where’s the trust? | https://medium.com/illumination/trusting-yourself-9457c0b7e9a7 | ['Viraj Acharya'] | 2020-12-22 14:39:40.441000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Instinct', 'Self', 'Trust', 'Self-awareness'] |
Mere | Mere
by Kate Skinner
There is a window in my home.
There are many windows, but there is one in particular that I find myself bewitched by. I gaze, quite often out of this portal to the space outdoors. To many others, it may very well be just a window.
But alas, it is not.
It’s a kitchen window.
Satisfyingly, I do it often. When rinsing off some green, yellow, orange, red herbaceous creation, washing a dish, or now and then, with a steaming companion of caffeine. I stand, lean, pause, just there.
I allow my eyes to land on something, everything or nothing. I am held spellbound by the flurry of rest, that very moment, breath.
My eyes occasionally land on a paint chip, signing to me the wear on the deck, the landing pad of hilarity, weeping, transformation; life lived in our tribe. This morning there are half-filled, finger smudged mason jars and scattered dessert debris. Haphazard chairs that, in just the evening before, had friends dwelling there, leaving their indentation.
I love this window — this time machine.
I see the immediate, the close, the sacred.
And then, my eyes wander to the neighbor, where his raised beds peep just beyond the fence line. How many morning have I lingered here, watching as he speaks love, life, over his beds. How many daysprings have I admired his careful cultivation, like clockwork. I long for a love like he has for the herbs. Smell the aroma of the intensity of affection.
What stories he must have. What life he has lived.
Like an elevator descent back to the hallowed, proximal- my eyes shift in between the wooden slats of our landing pad to the chiminea revealing herself below. As a moth drawn to the lamp, the coals a dusky grey that I’ll never truly understand beckon me to the haze, to the intricate waltz of the flames reaching high, spreading wider. An dull ache in my instep reminds me of my bare footed self, navigating the pebbled spot below.
I step designedly, pausing to look around, aching to commit to memory this feeling, this corner of the universe bestowed upon me.
Sparks climb, float, ascend. How that must be — to travel without twinge of cause, qualm, direction, destination. To be launched but never land.
I believe that promises will be fulfilled. Perhaps not in my timing. Perhaps not in my method or medium.
But I am not merely a spark. I was created for flame-hood.
So this chiminea, come to it. Take up your seat. Experience the flame-hood. The coals are forming, the embers gleaming. Feel the warmth of its burning, the power found in sparks forming blaze.
So dear flame, I cannot resolve when this window is more cherished. In the morning? When the crest of light caresses the particles twirling and you catch the breeze in the mother oak tree?
Or, at night? When the smoke twists, rises from the flame-hood and the twinkle of our criss crossed lights illuminates the lawn and her denizens, immeasurably treasured faces around her.
How do I choose which is more dazzling? Can I?
I watch this world ebb and flow from the window. I see brio and fidelity form and join one another in the bonding of lives, of souls created for oneness.
And then I watch nothing at all. Such a gift is this. The spectrum of seeing, hearing, knowing, believing.
In kind, is this corner of creation.
From this place I am bestowed nothing and everything. None and all.
This paradoxical journey from none to some, one to all. Home to home. | https://medium.com/prov-writers/mere-e2e75d0352c9 | [] | 2018-01-18 17:13:44.013000+00:00 | ['Poetry'] |
My Journey In Game Development | When I started programming, I was in my 3rd year at University. And, at the time I was told by one of my teachers that I would need programming to make my final project. Honestly, I asked to myself, why would I need to learn programming? After that, somehow I was convinced. But, I didn’t know “starting to learn programming would change my future plans at all.” At first, Programming seemed so interesting to me. Looked like, I actually could do anything as soon as I have enough knowledge and make an effort. So, as someone who’s new to programming I followed basic rules and wrote code. I rememeber my first lines of codes when writing these lines. It’s like, there is this black window, me and me drawing shapes like square, rectangle, triangle and so on. And, seriously, even though there was nothing (just a black window) that could get a normal soul into coding. It got me :). This was the moment I was sure of I wanted coding to be a part of my life. | https://medium.com/@ahmet-omak/my-journey-in-game-development-db6d2de7ae3 | ['Ahmet Omak'] | 2020-12-25 10:14:16.376000+00:00 | ['Cs50x', 'Games', 'Cs50', 'Harvard University', 'Game Development'] |
5 things to do for an Eco-friendly Travel | Are you planning a travel journey as the situation is getting normal after the Covid-19 upsurge? Have you ever thought about the adverse impacts of rampant climate change in the long run which could stop you from travelling like Covid-19? NO? Then you must think about it. It is as serious as Covid-19.
Photo by Simon English on Unsplash
A good traveller would always love to add adventures to his journey. How about protecting the nature we come out to cherish? It could be a greater adventure. Your passion for a sustainable environment won’t stop you from travelling if you follow these tips.
1- Leave behind plastic Products
While packing makes sure that you are carrying reusable products. The best way to do so is to replace your plastic products with reuseable and washable natural products. If you pick plastic products, chances are you will through them after using them once. But if you take along natural reusable products you won’t need to buy others in a long journey.
Photo by Brian Yurasits on Unsplash
There are recommendations for reusable products that vary from reusable bamboo utensils to makeup removal pads. This way you will prevent a fraction of 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic in our ocean.
2- Pack less
Do your back a favour and pack less. The havier bags you the more CO2 emission will occur as it takes longer for a plane to fly with a heavy weight. Packing less can prove to be an important step in eco-friendly travel as it saves time and reduces CO2 emissions from the plan. So, carry those things that are of most importance and eco-friendly.
Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash
3- Don’t fly
If you want your journey to be more adventurous and sustainable then don’t fly. Obviously, it will reduce a fraction of CO2 emissions. Plan your journey in a way that you can visit multiple destinations in one go. If you are a passionate traveller then I’ll suggest a bicycle trip. You won’t leave your carbon footprints and make a record as well. How is the idea? Such ideas will make you fall in love with nature. You may start spending more time with nature that will obviously cut off your flights.
Photo by Camila Perez on Unsplash
4- Eat less
Most of the time we just travel to try food in at a hotel in a distant place. Well, this is an adventure too. But you know one-quarter of emissions (3.3 billion tonnes of CO2eq) from food production ends up as wastage either from supply chain losses or consumers. When travelling keep these figures in mind. Most of the dishes contain meat. The meat industry is one of the main factors causing environmental degradation. So, next time you travel make sure you eat less. It will help you to travel more and make the environment sustainable.
Photo by Max Delsid on Unsplash
5- Hitchhiking
One of my favourite parts of travelling is hitchhiking. It helps you cherish the beauty of nature in a true sense. Opting hitchhiking can prevent carbon emissions from cars and jeeps. You travel in the company of friends where you can share your feelings about the journey. It gives you a chance to disseminate the message of environmental sustainability among your peers.
Photo by mohammad alizade on Unsplash
Final Words
It is our responsibility to make this world a better place for living. The climate change occurring at such a larger scale may cause floods, soil erosion, and barren lands. Where will we travel to enjoy ourselves then? So, wherever you are, keep trying for a sustainable environment. Replace plastic materials with reusable materials which are eco-friendly. | https://medium.com/@farhanijaz/5-things-to-do-for-an-eco-friendly-travel-d3d0bccbfecf | ['Farhan Ijaz Jutt'] | 2021-09-01 16:07:16.062000+00:00 | ['Travel Writing', 'Eco', 'Ecofriendlytips', 'Travelling Tips', 'Travel Tips'] |
40 Ideas — How Many are Concerned About the Loss of Cognitive Ability | What to do? Force yourself to use your brain more.
If you answered… “Yes, I am concerned about it. Go ahead and read.
“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” ~ William Shakespeare
The important thing you can do is to break your routine to maximize your cognitive potential.
New experiences benefit your brain.
Because it needs new things to grow.
Anything that makes you very comfortable is not really good for your brain development.
If what you do is too easy for you to do, and doesn’t challenge you… it doesn’t change you.
Illustration by René Descartes of how the brain implements a reflex response.
The more you pick up a new skill, learn to use a new software program, new apps, new ways to make your art, or study a new subject, the stronger your mind becomes.
The mental muscles you should be exercising frequently are Creativity. Focus. Logic. Strategy.
Things you can do:
1 — Break your routine. If you take shower in the morning, instead take in the evening.
2 — Sign up to use a new Internet platform.
3 — Create a new website or reinvent the one you already have.
4 — Start a passion project, something you want to do because you love…a craft work, write in another subject, make a new form of art.
5 — Take a class online. Anything on skillshare, for example.
6 — Share your work on different social media.
7 — Take a different route when going for a walk. Look to the sky. Pay attention to the noises around you.
8 — Set a new goal, make a new plan.
9 — Read a book in a subject you don’t usually read about.
10 — Begin a new side gig.
11 — Take a long walk and use the time to think, or to take pictures.
12 — Change your sleep routine. Wake up or go to bed earlier or later.
13 — Answer a question on Quora, or in a Facebook group.
14 — Learn to play pans or piano. Whatever you imagine and want.
15 — Switch up your playlists if you have one.
16 — Do a different art project, using different surfaces, different tools, different colors, and sizes.
17 — Read differently. Read a paperback book and read a book on your device.
18 — Don’t ask for help, figure it out! Go ask Google or Siri or other AI assistant or go to Youtube to learn how to do that.
19 — Exercise for 10 minutes longer or more than normal you do.
20 — Give someone you know a great compliment.
21 — Learn a new word in another language or your native one. Expand your vocabulary.
22 — Try out to create a new kind of podcast.
23 — Try out a new way to make a video. And upload to different platforms.
24 — Figure out what you’re scared of… and do it anyway.
25 — Read more articles than you normally go for, from a different writer.
26 —Take a break to improve your focus.
27 — Help somebody without being asked.
28 — Zoom a friend instead of text or vice versa.
29 — Watch a TED talk every day for a week. Broaden your mind!
30 — Reach out to a mentor and ask for advice.
31 — Express gratitude.
32 — Switch around your morning activities.
33 — Spend at least 15 minutes reading something that is unrelated to your things.
34 — Take a productive pause and go for a walk in the woods.
35 — Keep a notebook handy and write about your daily experiences.
36 — Embrace doodling. I used to make a doodle on an index card while riding in the subway, or while sipping coffee in a Starbucks but not anymore.
37 — Take a class you’ve always been curious about.
38 — Bike, walk or use patins to get around.
39 — Use your spare time for self-investment.
40 — Create and find new activities that improve your mind and body.
Staying sharp has great long-term benefits for you.
Trade your time and effort now for increased knowledge and your results can improve how you think.
Andreas Vesalius’ Fabrica, published in 1543. It shows the base of the human brain, including optic chiasma, cerebellum, olfactory bulbs…
Andreas Vesalius’ Fabrica, published in 1543. Digital colored by RegiaArt.
The brain is a monstrous, beautiful mess. Its billions of nerve cells — called neurons — lie in a tangled web that displays cognitive powers far exceeding any of the silicon machines we have built to mimic it. ~William Allman
Conclusion.
The idea is that you need to move, and change, and try and read and learn, and create, to maximize your cognitive potential.
Thank you and have a Happy New Year. Stay safe.
This story is related to a post by my friend Petronio V. on a WhatsApp group. Thank you!
December 24, 2020 | https://medium.com/@regia-marinho/40-ideas-how-many-are-concerned-about-the-loss-of-cognitive-ability-ca9f21653b78 | ['Regia Marinho'] | 2020-12-27 21:26:02.670000+00:00 | ['Ideas', 'Inspiration', 'How To', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology'] |
Tips To Get Instagram Marketing Started | All Your Need to Know
Photo by lalo Hernandez on Unsplash
If you are looking for ways to make more sales and really turn your Instagram into a profitable venture, then this article is for you. Instagram Marketing is by far one of the most popular and least expensive methods to market your products or services online. However, it can take some time and effort to really get the ball rolling. However, if you want to drive more sales and really make serious money off of Instagram, you should come up with a solid strategy first. This article will guide you in the right way with 18 tips and tactics you can implement right now to boost your Instagram marketing now.
Upload Photos of Your Products
Use photos of your products to update your profile description. Instagram users tend to be visual people. They like to browse and look at pictures, so using photos of your products, as well as content that inspires or informs them about your product, will work to attract more Instagram followers and hopefully create a bridge between you and your customers. Of course, don’t simply upload any old photos; make sure you post quality ones that show the real value of your products.
Use Hashtags
Use hashtags to get more attention. hashtags are used to identify certain keywords to help users find specific content. Make sure that your keywords are prominent in your hashtags, and that they are related to your product. For example, you could use #iphone on your #iosapp posts, or you could use a photo of an iPhone in its case.
You can also use images to give people information about your product. Images in Instagram posts are highly recommended over text. It’s because images are easier to read and people are more likely to share them compared to long-winded content written in text. Just remember that people like images that show the real quality of your products. This means that you should look for high-quality images that show your products in their best light.
Build Network and Get Followers
Build your network and get followers from IGFollowers.uk. Once you have gained some followers, try making it easy for them to share your images and content with their followers. Ask them to like your page and tag their friends in the process. On your page, ask your followers to do the same. This way, your network becomes larger and you’ll be able to reach out to more people who might become interested in your company.
Post Quality Content
Posting quality content is crucial to the success of your Instagram campaign. When people come back from your page, chances are that they’ll see some enticing offers. If you have a good product to offer, it won’t be hard to convince people to buy.
Make it a practice to update your Instagram regularly. Keep on posting quality content and give away freebies to keep followers hooked. It’s because Instagram users are more likely to buy products if they see that other people are interested in them. Always remember that a business must always go with the flow of its clients. Even though Instagram may not be as large as Twitter, it’s still a powerful marketing tool. The trick is to keep your followers happy.
You can’t expect instant results when you engage in social media marketing. There are times when you need to invest more time to get better responses. If you want to get the attention of your Instagram followers, make sure that you don’t rush things. Instead, spend a few minutes to get information about your product or service so that you can update your page regularly with good content. This will help you get more sales because satisfied customers are more likely to recommend your products to others. | https://medium.com/@zainmalik-auth/tips-to-get-instagram-marketing-started-10902744d74d | ['Zain Malik'] | 2020-12-26 10:34:32.925000+00:00 | ['Instagram', 'Likes For Instagram', 'Followers On Instagram'] |
CHANGING CLIMATE, CONSTANT FAITH | Friday, May 31,2019
The Easter season coincides with Earth Day.
In reflecting on this, I found myself contemplating the story of Dives and Lazarus, from Luke 16:19–31.
IT’S A FAMILIAR STORY.Dives is a generic name for a rich man, and Lazarus was a beggar at his gate who hoped for scraps from the rich man’s table. Both died, and while Lazarus was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom, the rich man wound up in torment. Yet he could see Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom, so he called out to Abraham to have pity and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water, to “cool my tongue.” But Abraham said, ‘Son, recall that in your lifetime, you received your good things, while Lazarus likewise received his bad; so now here, he is comforted, and you are suffering.’
Then the rich man said, “I beg you, father, please send him to my father’s house, since I have five brothers, so that he can be warning them not to also come to this place of torment. But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ And he said, ‘Hardly, father Abraham; but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ And Abraham said, ‘If they are not listening to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’
This sobering tale is relevant to our changing climate. In this story, Jesus is pointing out that the Old Testament contains in itself an urgent call to repentance. But this story also illustrates how hard it can be for us to look at things in a new light.
For us, the signs of a changing climate are all around. It is not just something our children will have to worry about; it is with us now. Oceans, which absorb half of the carbon emitted into the atmosphere, are warming and becoming more acidic, affecting marine life across the globe. Sea levels are rising, glaciers are melting, and the Arctic ice cap is shrinking and may disappear in summer entirely by 2050. This is not just a problem for polar bears; it’s a problem for us, even if you don’t own beachfront property or haven’t been the victim of extreme weather events such as flooding, drought, or fires.
The 4th National Climate Assessment from the U.S. Global Climate Research Project, released by the U.S. government last November, found that more frequent and severe heat waves will increase stresses on the energy system, amplifying the risk of more frequent and longer-lasting power outages that could affect other systems, such as access to medical care.
U.S. agriculture and the communities it supports are threatened by increases in temperatures, drought, heavy precipitation events, and wildfires on rangelands. Yields of major U.S. crops (such as corn, soybean, wheat, rice, sorghum, and cotton) are expected to decline over this century due to increases in temperatures and possibly changes in water availability, disease, and pest outbreaks.
This is unfortunate, because to feed a growing world, we will need to produce more food in the next 50 years than in the past 10,000 years combined (and waste less, since 40% of the food that’s produced now in this country goes to waste).
As the National Climate Assessment pointedly observed:
“. . . the evidence of human-caused climate change is overwhelming and continues to strengthen, the impacts of climate change are intensifying across the country, and climate-related threats to Americans’ physical, social, and economic well-being are rising.”
So Moses and the prophets are in the building.
BEARING THE BRUNT
Unfortunately, this isn’t the only parallel with the Dives and Lazarus story.
The poor and disadvantaged are those least likely to escape the effects of climate change.
Look at the burdens imposed on Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria.
The island was far less resilient than, say, Houston, in responding to almost total destruction of the island’s infrastructure.
A study by an economist at Stanford found that global climate change has increased economic inequality between countries by 25% as compared to a world without warming.
What will happen now depends on what we do. A business as usual approach could produce levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that the planet has not seen for at least 30 million years.
So why do we have such a hard time talking about climate change?
While the effects of climate change are clear, the details of how it happens are complicated. That’s how science progresses. But scientists agree that something is going on, and we are causing it. As a recovering regulator, I could only wish for cases where 97% of the published, peer reviewed scientific studies on any subject came to the same conclusion — yet that’s what we have here.
Science isn’t the core issue. The core issue is values.
Occasionally people say that the climate is in God’s hands. Riding in a cab in March, I heard an evangelist on the radio say that we didn’t need to worry about climate change — that Jesus is coming soon, and it won’t matter. Others, sometimes deliberately, read the Genesis creation story to argue that the earth is ours to exploit.
This is an abdication of the responsibility that God gives us. We are stewards of the earth and have an obligation to manage it wisely, like the Parable of the Talents in Chapter 16 of Luke that precedes the story of Dives and Lazarus.
CONQUERING THE FEAR
A more common reaction to the threat of climate change is one that taps into one of our most powerful motivating forces, something that triggers our deepest values: fear.
It can be fear of loss — both financial loss and loss of independence. It can be fear of change. It can be fear of being taken advantage of by, say, the rest of the world. It can be fear of being exploited by people who have agendas with which we do not agree.
If fear is at the heart of our inability to be in conversation about climate, that should lead us back to our faith.
Jesus’ call to us is clear: “Do not be afraid.”
It is not helpful to fight fear with fear.
Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous speech at the March on Washington, did not say, “I have a nightmare.”
The antidotes to fear are faith, humility and hope.
There are signs of progress.
In April, the Energy Information Administration announced that for the first time since they began keeping records in 1973, electric power generated from hydro, biomass, wind, solar, and geothermal sources will outpace coal in April and May. We can help this trend continue.
I remain optimistic that we can come to terms with climate change. We have met other tough challenges that seemed impossible.
Consider air pollution.
I tell my students that when they see pictures of smog in Beijing and New Delhi, they should remember that 50 years ago this was New York and Los Angeles.
Since then, U.S. air pollution has improved dramatically even as we grew our economy, increased our population, drove more miles, and increased our use of energy. It’s a great American success story (though some of those increases created new challenges!).
So what can we do? Lots of things!
My favorite Earth Day t-shirt slogan is “No act too small, no one too small to act.”
I want to emphasize the social things we can do.
When we follow Jesus’ injunction about what to do for the least of these — improving housing, health, shelter, education, economic opportunity — evidence suggests that all of these things will help our world address climate change.
We are not asked to be perfect. We are asked to love our neighbor as ourselves.
The words of the hymn apply here:
“How shall we love Thee, holy hidden being,
if we love not the world that Thou hast made?”
We know that Creation is good. We also know that our opportunity, and our sacred obligation, is to keep it that way.
Dr. Stan Meiburg is the Director of Graduate Studies in Sustainability at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and a member of the Diocesan Chartered Committee on Environmental Ministry. | https://medium.com/the-sustainability-graduate-programs/changing-climate-constant-faith-98694664378c | ['Wake Forest Mas'] | 2019-08-04 01:29:30.685000+00:00 | ['Climate Change', 'Easter', 'Earth Day', 'Environment', 'Faith'] |
Announcing Dart 2.6 with dart2native: Compile Dart to self-contained, native executables | Dart already offers an extensive set of compilers for building production-optimized code for mobile devices and the web. These flexible compilers enable our framework partners to target a wide range of form factors: Flutter apps on Android & iOS, Flutter apps on the web & desktop, AngularDart apps on the web, and Google Assistant on embedded devices.
Today we’re announcing dart2native , an extension of our existing compiler set, with the ability to compile Dart programs to self-contained executables containing ahead-of-time-compiled machine code. With dart2native, you can create tools for the command line on macOS, Windows, or Linux using Dart. This feature’s announcement picture was implemented using the feature itself :-)
Dart Native and the dart2native compiler
Dart has supported AOT (ahead-of-time) compilation to native machine code for several years, and Dart Native is thus fairly mature technology. However, in the past we only exposed this capability on iOS and Android mobile devices, via Flutter.
With dart2native , we’re extending our native compilation support to support traditional desktop operating systems running macOS, Windows, and Linux. Because the executables created with dart2native are self-contained, they can run on machines that don’t have the Dart SDK installed. And because they’re compiled with Dart’s AOT compiler, the executables start running in just a few milliseconds. As with other Dart compilers and runtimes, the same set of rich and consistent core libraries are available in Dart when compiling to native code.
We’ve heard many customers ask for AOT compilation for desktop operating systems — the sixth highest-rated issue in our issue tracker — so we’re delighted to be able to make this feature available.
If you used dart2aot before, then as of 2.6 you’ll use dart2native. It provides a superset of dart2aot’s functionality.
Building command line apps with dart2native
The dart2native compiler is a great choice for building and deploying Dart-based apps for the command line. These apps often use libraries such as dart:io (basic I/O), package:http (networking), and package:args (argument parsing). Let’s review the basics of compiling a “hello, world” app to an executable:
The source code hello.dart :
main() {
print(‘Hello Dart developers’);
}
Compile hello.dart to a hello executable:
$ dart2native src/hello.dart -o hello
Generated: /Users/mit/hello
Run hello measuring execution time:
$ time ./hello
Hello Dart developers real 0m0.049s
user 0m0.018s
sys 0m0.020s
Notice how the command starts, prints to stdout, and exits in a combined time of just 49 milliseconds!
We’ve seen a few Dart developers already experiment with dart2native for command-line tools:
Natalie from the SASS (a popular CSS extension tool) team reports that after switching their Dart-based SASS implementation to compile with dart2native, it is now competitive in performance with LibSass, a C++ based implementation.
Filip from the Dart DevRel team recompiled his linkchecker tool with dart2native, and saw a 27x speedup when checking small sites.
Interoperability with C code via dart:ffi
Native apps often need to access native functionality from the surrounding operating system. These system APIs are typically exposed in native C-based libraries, and Dart supports interoperability with these libraries via dart:ffi , our new mechanism for C interop, which we launched in preview in Dart 2.5. The dart2native compiler is compatible with dart:ffi , so you can create and compile natively Dart apps that use it.
One team member recently used dart:ffi to create a dart_console library for console app development, which has functionality like getting window dimensions, reading and setting the cursor location, managing colors, and reading keys and control sequences. The ability to use dart:ffi makes Dart a very powerful language for console apps.
kilo: a 7MB code editor written in less than 500 lines of Dart code
Using Dart core libraries, dart:ffi , and the dart_console library, we can create pretty interesting console apps. The dart_console package includes a full demo of kilo, a console text editor written in just ~500 lines of Dart code. The name kilo comes from its origin, kilo.c , which was a C implementation in roughly 1000 lines of code.
With the new dart2native compiler we can easily package this, and we end up with a 7MB self-contained code editor. Here’s a demo of compiling the editor, and then using the compiled editor to edit its own source code to fix a bug:
The kilo editor written in Dart and compiled to an executable with dart2native editing it’s own source code
Building services with dart2native
Another potential use of the dart2native compiler is for small services — for example, a backend supporting a frontend app written using Flutter. In recent years, a growing trend has been the use of services running on serverless computing. These are fully managed services that automatically scale, including scaling up from and down to zero (not running), providing the potential to greatly lower cost because they are billed only when actually running. Google Cloud makes serverless computing available via Cloud Run.
For serverless backends it’s critical that the service starts quickly. Traditionally, Dart-based services have run with our JIT (just-in-time) compiler, but JIT-based execution has a high latency when starting as the code needs to be compiled and warmed up before it can start executing. By compiling your service’s code ahead-of-time to native code, you can avoid this latency and begin running right away. In addition, with native code you can create Dart services that have a small disk footprint and are self-contained, greatly reducing the size of the container in which the Dart service runs. Dart developer Paul Mundt recently documented his experiences with using the dart2native compiler; he was able to reduce the size of his Docker image by 91% from 220MB using JIT-compiled code down to just 20MB by using native code! See our documentation for more details about server-side apps and packages.
Availability
The dart2native compiler is available in the Dart SDK starting with version 2.6, which is available starting today from dart.dev/get-dart. Once you’ve installed the SDK, you should see the new compiler inside the bin/ directory and in your PATH . Dart.dev has more documentation.
If you’re getting the Dart SDK via Flutter, note that current Flutter builds have incomplete dart2native support. We recommend you install the Dart 2.6 SDK from dart.dev/get-dart.
Known limitations
This initial version of the dart2native compiler has a few known limitations, listed below. You can let us know which issues are important to you by adding a “thumbs up” to the issue in our GitHub issue tracker.
No cross-compilation support (issue 28617): The dart2native compiler supports creating machine code only for the operating system it’s running on. Thus, you’ll need to run the compiler three times — on macOS, Windows, and Linux — if you want to create executables for all three. One way of doing this is by using a CI (Continuous Integration) provider that supports all three operating systems.
No signing support (issue 39106): The executables produced use a format that isn’t compatible with standard signing tools such as codesign and signtool .
and . No support for dart:mirrors and dart:developer (see Dart core libraries).
Other changes in Dart 2.6
Version 2.6 of the Dart SDK also has a few other changes.
We launched a preview of dart:ffi , our new mechanism for C interop, in Dart 2.5. Dart 2.6 has a new version of dart:ffi . This new version has a number of breaking API changes to make our APIs easier to use, provide more type safety, and to provide convenient access to memory. For additional details, see the Dart 2.6 changelog. With these changes dart:ffi graduates to the beta, and we expect API changes to be much less frequent going forward, and general stability is expected to be high. Please continue to give us feedback via the issue tracker.
Dart 2.6 also contains a preview of an exciting new language feature, extension methods. We still have a bit of polish and tools work left to complete this feature, but we hope to formally launch it in our next Dart SDK version. We’ll have much more to say about extension methods then; for now you can read about the design considerations behind the feature.
Next steps
Download the Dart 2.6 SDK (dart.dev/get-dart), build something cool with dart2native, and then tell us about it. If you’re willing to share the details, please leave a response at the bottom of this article. We’re excited to see what you build! | https://medium.com/dartlang/dart2native-a76c815e6baf | ['Michael Thomsen'] | 2019-11-08 12:32:12.170000+00:00 | ['Compilers', 'Announcements', 'Native Code', 'Dart', 'Programming'] |
Online Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners | As the internet becomes more and more the go-to place for sharing knowledge, information, and pretty much everything, thanks to the ease of social networking, it has also become the preferred place for businesses, bloggers, and marketers to start their online businesses.
In Digital Scholar, You can learn Online Marketing from Any place with just a Laptop and Internet from their Online Digital Marketing Course.
The first time you were asked to write an online marketing plan for your business, you probably were overwhelmed. You’ve probably heard different terms thrown around, like SEO, PPC, web analytics, social media, content marketing, email marketing, and affiliate marketing. But what do these terms mean? What are the different types of online marketing you can use to drive traffic to your site? And what’s the best way to use them?
This guide aims to provide the reader with an overview of online marketing strategies. It begins with an explanation of what online marketing is, highlighting its history and how it has evolved. A quick crash course in the basics of search engine marketing is then provided, together with an introduction to advanced techniques. Finally, some practical advice is offered on how to get started with online marketing.
For anyone interested in taking their business to the next level, digital marketing is definitely an area to be investigated. Marketers are constantly on the lookout for the best tactics, techniques, and strategies that can boost their online presence.
Online marketing is all the rage these days, and for good reason. People are spending more and more time online, and this means more and more potential customers. But, how do you get your company’s services and products in front of these people? What tricks and tools do you really need to succeed? These questions and more will be answered in this guide, which will teach you everything you need to know about online marketing.
The Internet is the most dynamic marketing channel available today. It is the one place where you can reach almost any person on earth with just a few mouse clicks. The Internet allows you to reach more people than any other media, and it is now your key to success in marketing. In this book, you will learn how to use the Internet as a marketing tool.
This article will show you how to start an online business in the easiest way possible, step by step. You would not need to spend much money, to begin with, you need only to spend some time, effort, and money. The whole process will be much easier when you follow the tips in this article.
Digital marketing is evolving into a multi-billion dollar industry that embraces all the latest technologies. With the advent of the Internet, the world has become a global village. The impact of the Internet on society is visible everywhere. It has changed the way businesses conduct their business, changed the way people interact, and changed the way people consume goods and services. Internet is the world’s largest search engine. Its influence is felt in every nook and corner of the world. It is a proven fact that the internet has changed the way the world thinks. It is a definitive fact that the internet has changed the way people think.
The Internet has gone from a new trend to a growing business opportunity. It has moved from a huge white space in the economy to a $300 billion industry. According to a recent report, the B2B market size in the US is expected to grow from $40 billion to $203 billion by 2020.
If you’re a beginner in the world of online marketing, this article will show you how to generate traffic, how to promote your product, and how to create a website. At first, you may be a little nervous about starting a business online, but after reading the article, you’ll know exactly what you need to do to start earning money online.
Many people who have never been into online marketing think that it is a lot of hard work and is a completely chaotic process that takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. On the contrary, it is a lot easier than you think, and those who have been in it for a while have been able to master its complete processes. It is a series of commonly used steps that makes marketing online so easy and so effective. | https://medium.com/@ganesh007/online-marketing-a-step-by-step-guide-for-beginners-b088d97199 | [] | 2021-11-23 06:05:04.676000+00:00 | ['Online Marketing', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Digital Marketing', 'Course', 'Internet Marketing'] |
How to Use “Solomon’s Paradox” to Make Better Decisions | When I was 22, I dated a man who cheated on me with a woman I knew. I was hopelessly in love with him. I ached for him so much that when he wanted to get back into my bed after being in hers, I let him. And when he got back into her bed and wanted back in mine again, I let him.
It went on like this for months.
He would make promises. He would break them. We would break up, but then have a tearful reunion followed by passionate fucking a few days later. I was so immersed in making it work, in figuring out how to change it that I was drowning.
At that same time, a friend of mine discovered her own boyfriend was cheating on her.
She showed up to my apartment with mascara smudged all over her face.
“I love him! What do I do?” she sobbed.
I brought her tissues and whiskey and said, “You have to leave! You don’t deserve to be this miserable with someone who doesn’t want to uphold the promises you made to each other.”
After my friend walked home, I went to the apartment of the man who had now cheated on me dozens of times. I stood on his doorstep wearing just a pea coat and shoes. It was January. It took him a while to come to the door. My teeth were rattling, but I could hear him moving inside.
Finally, he opened the door, and I walked in.
“Jesus, what took you so long?”
“I just woke up,” he said. “Long day.” He was rubbing the back of his head and cutting his eyes around the room.
“Kiss me,” I said.
He obeyed, and I slipped off my shoes and unbuttoned my jacket for him. When he laid me on his bed, I could smell a perfume that wasn’t mine on the pillows. For that moment, while he was with me, I didn’t care because he had chosen me. If only for that moment, that night.
But when I fell asleep, I had a dream in which I kissed the other woman’s soft mouth and tasted him on her lips.
Even though I’d so wisely told my friend in the same situation that she needed to leave, it took that dream to make me realize that I was giving myself to someone who wasn’t willing to give themselves wholly to me. When I walked out of his apartment the next morning, I never walked back in again.
For all of us, it’s hard to judge a problem clearly when we’re immersed in it.
It requires distance to judge things more reasonably.
King Solomon, known for his wisdom and sage advice, couldn’t save himself from making disastrous choices that led to his kingdom’s demise, which is why psychological scientist Igor Grossmann dubbed this phenomenon the “Solomon’s Paradox.”
Grossmann discovered within his research that, “people reason more wisely about other people’s social problems than about their own.” | https://medium.com/the-ascent/how-to-use-solomons-paradox-to-make-better-decisions-f7f443c7d4df | ['Tara Blair Ball'] | 2020-09-18 16:31:13.585000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Relationships', 'Self', 'Personal Development'] |
Optimizing Health Equity through AI — Defying racial bias that plagues medical appointment scheduling. | Optimizing Health Equity through AI — Defying racial bias that plagues medical appointment scheduling. Dalton Chasser Follow Sep 23 · 5 min read
In almost every realm - from who gets to work from home to how families are coping with distance learning - the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the deep inequalities in our society. In health, the hardest hit have been traditionally marginalized people - in particular Black, Brown and Indigenous communities, where health inequities were already present. On Wednesday, September 9, scholars from Santa Clara Leavey School of Business discussed the racial health equity problems caused by algorithms - and how to solve them - in the realm of appointment booking drawing from their research and paper under review: Overbooked and Overlooked: Racial Bias in Medical Appointment Scheduling. The talk was hosted by Professor of Law, Colleen Chien, co-curator of the Artificial Intelligence for Social Impact and Equity Series currently ongoing through the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara. My personal interest in this topic stems from my previous work experience as a biomedical engineer and regular clinic patient. I found the authors' work here to be inspiring, and I hope you do too.
MEDICAL APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING.
All access to healthcare (or at least most) starts with an appointment. Some people get 8 A.M. appointments, and some get 4 P.M. appointments. But how does that actually work for clinics that employ schedule optimization technologies?
At some clinics, many patients do not show up for scheduled appointments. In fact, the ‘show rate’ for patients at the clinic observed in the study was only about 74%. So why do we wait so long when we go in for checkups?
A LOOK AT THE SCHEDULING PROBLEM.
The problem stems from various solutions. Providers can charge non-showing patients, but this is often unavailable for some (e.g. non-profit clinics) and still does not fix the problem. Providers could also send reminder calls and texts, but that is how we arrived at the 74% figure. The most commonly used practice relies on a ‘double-book’ approach — that is, to overbook patients in one appointment slot. This allows the provider to have a full day, optimizing the revenue of the clinic, but of course, means that sometimes we have to wait a long time.
According to Dr. Samorani, AI appointment scheduling systems work by employing two steps, (1) machine learning, and (2) schedule optimization. The first step is to predict the “show” probability of each patient. Each machine learning show prediction can be based on a variety of factors including (a) patient demographics (which could include race), (b) previous no-show data, and (c) other information (e.g. how long ago the appointment was scheduled).
After predictions are made for each patient, a schedule optimization component slots the patients based on their overall predicted no show probabilities throughout the day in an attempt to achieve a “desired result.” This is known as an objective function.
The method, used widely in clinics and the industry today, is called the Traditional Objective Function (TOF). The ‘desired result’ of the TOF is to minimize patients’ wait times while equally reducing providers’ overtime, thereby reducing costs. The TOF accomplishes this task very well. However, the TOF results in significantly longer waiting time for the patients at the highest risk of no-show, which are usually minority groups.
RACIAL BIAS IN SCHEDULING.
As it turns out, among the groups investigated, Black patients end up waiting the longest because they are predicted to have the highest no-show rate. In computational experiments based on the data from the clinic under study, Black patients ended up waiting 33% longer (on average) than non-Black patients. This is a significant problem because longer wait times exacerbate existing issues of inferior access to healthcare, poor health care quality, and worsen healthcare outcomes for certain populations. Over the past few months, the authors have worked to tackle this problem.
The authors’ research considers the issue from multiple angles. As Dr. Samorani elaborated, there are likewise two intervention points at which one can attack the problem. The first is at the machine learning point (reduce disparity) to make the show probabilities correlate less with race. The second is at the schedule optimization point (change the TOF to have a desired result of fairness).
Intervention points 1 and 2 (black arrows).
METHODS & RESULTS.
In the first method, the authors try to mitigate some of the factors that are correlated to race or otherwise remove them completely:
- But even after reducing all demographic factors correlating with race, we only get a middle-of-the-road solution — schedule quality decreases and racial disparity is still present. Dr. Samorani shares how these are the two fundamental problems with this approach.
In the second method, the authors change the TOF so that the desired result is to reduce the waiting time of the racial group expecting to wait the longest. The authors refer to this method as the “race-aware” approach:
- Using this method, the authors achieved a schedule quality equivalent to [not statistically different from] the state-of-the-art scheduling method AND nearly 0 racial disparity.
Considering this approach, the authors acknowledge how some might argue that their “race-aware” approach is inappropriate because it takes race explicitly into account. Even though they (and we) believe using race-aware policies is morally warranted, the authors have developed an alternative version of the TOF using the second method which they call “race-unaware.” In this TOF variant, the ‘desired result’ is to reduce the waiting time of the patient expecting to wait the longest:
- Using this alternative, the authors achieved a middle-of-the-road schedule quality with less racial disparity.
In summary, alternative power or weight can be given not only through machine learning or optimization to fix current problems in healthcare, but also in other areas.
MOVING FORWARD.
It is important now, more than ever, to combat these disparities and implement countermeasures to our existing systems and before our technologies are developed. The authors here highlight some concrete ways that we can approach problems in medical appointment scheduling, and we are excited to keep learning and looking for more solutions in other areas.
We are thankful for the opportunity to have spoken with some of the authors. I hope that our exploration, albeit a light one, on the topic has shed some light on a problem in healthcare not generally known, and is useful for others when thinking about the day-to-day and greater scheme of health equity.
If you would like to read more on the work here please see the under review paper here.
Other work that Santa Clara Law’s High Tech Law Institute has done can be found here. As a Santa Clara Law Student, you can find the class (The Business, Law, Technology, and Policy of Artificial Intelligence) where this blog's work was initiated here.
About the author of this post:
Dalton Chasser is a 2L focusing on Health and Intellectual Property Law at Santa Clara University School of Law. | https://medium.com/artificial-intelligence-ai-for-social-impact/optimizing-health-equity-through-ai-defying-racial-bias-that-plagues-medical-appointment-bd149069b22f | ['Dalton Chasser'] | 2020-09-23 00:35:53.275000+00:00 | ['AI', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Health Equity', 'Scheduling', 'Healthcare'] |
Top 20 Online Jobs For Teens | There are various things to manage as a teenager like studies, school work, curriculum activities, relationships and house work too! As a teenager, I know that there are desires of buying stuffs and having limited pocket money. One way to cope with them is to earn money. In this era of digital world where every teen is quite familiar with new technology, we can use this as a money earning platform. For those, who want to earn money and looking for a good high paying jobs, you don’t need to go anywhere else. We are mentioning all the online jobs for you that you have to work from home. Stay tuned and look for the below mentioned jobs.
1.WRITE ARTICLES ONLINE
If you have skill to write error free and efficient content then this is the best job for you. There are various websites like upwork, freelancer, Jobguru, contena, wattpad which hire freelancer writers to write for them. The work includes writing articles, novel, comic books, blogs and more.
2. COMPLETE ONLINE SURVEYS
By completing surveys, you will not be able to be rich but can earn in a decent amount. This is the simplest job you can do and earn money by just answering simple questions. There are some best survey sites like Swagbucks, Life points, My points, survey junkie that usually include questions related to the health, lifestyle, sports, travel, web, shopping and playing games.
3.CALL REVIEWER
In this job, you need to listen the call recordings and make a judgment depending upon the call. Even if the pay is low but it’s a great way to start your career. There is a website named “Humanities” which is one of the best website in this category that provides you the call recordings to make a judgement.
To continue reading more of this article go click the link below ==>https://tbamarketingblog.com/top-20-online-jobs-for-teens/ | https://medium.com/@tyreebrown825/top-20-online-jobs-for-teens-954b5924590b | ['Tyree Brown'] | 2020-12-26 18:55:41.338000+00:00 | ['Work From Home', 'Online Income', 'Make Money Online', 'How To Make Money', 'Online Jobs'] |
TLX holders on exchanges: immediate action required | Dear TeleX AI followers,
As mentioned in our previous announcement, we are upgrading the TLX contract, which will be followed by an airdrop of the new TLX tokens to the addresses holding old TLX.
Despite all our endeavors to get ahold of Yobit in order to commence the upgrade and/or delisting process, we could not make contact with their official team after repeated attempts. Therefore, we have to execute the contract upgrade without collaboration from their side. It means that everyone who has a TLX balance on Yobit needs to withdraw the tokens to their own Ethereum wallets immediately.
The token upgrade will take place next week, thus it is advisable that you stop any decentralized trading operations until then, in order to prevent any issues related to the upgrade. More details about an exact date will follow.
Withdrawing your tokens from Yobit prior to the airdrop will make sure you will not lose your TLX balance. Apart from that, TLX holders are not required to take any action, as long as they keep the tokens in their own Ethereum wallets whose private keys they control themselves.
There are various updates still to come from our team, so make sure to stay tuned for additional announcements and milestones.
Sincerely,
TeleX AI Team | https://medium.com/telexai/tlx-holders-on-exchanges-immediate-action-required-7afc0c366fef | ['Can Soysal'] | 2018-08-10 14:26:45.965000+00:00 | ['Telex Ai', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Telegram'] |
Mark and Tamara | Tamara crossed her legs, then uncrossed her legs, then crossed them again and tapped her foot impatiently, regretting that she was wearing sneakers. Sneakers don’t make a very satisfying noise on a tile floor.
But Mark had insisted on the 5:30 appointment time, which meant she hadn’t had time to go home and change from her work clothes and so she sat in her rumpled scrubs and eight-hour mascara and dirty Keds in the new therapist’s waiting room, alone, because of course Mark would be late.
And Tamara would be early. Even when she tried hard not to be early — to be fashionably late, even — she failed. Her father was obsessively early everywhere he went and she’d learned it from him. You never knew what traffic was going to be like, and better safe than sorry, and what if you saw a stray dog on the side of the road? You’d want to be sure you had plenty of time to pick it up and take it to the shelter, wouldn’t you?
Mark was kind of like that imaginary stray dog her dad always made time for but never found. Scruffy and cute, playful and charming, but unlike a dog, Mark was not loyal. When it came to loyalty, in fact, he was more like a feral cat. Prowling from house to house, eating whenever and wherever he could, then slinking home with a bloodied ear, purring for a Band-Aid.
She always gave him the Band-Aid. Even after he told her he was getting his own apartment, and moved out with the TV that she’d paid for, she continued to take his late-night phone calls. Drunk, lonely phone calls that began with a list of regrets and ended with a list of rebukes on her hair, her family, her decision to go with the Panasonic over a Sony TV. She listened and nodded and let him talk until he talked himself to sleep and then she’d whisper into his empty ear, “You’re better than this and I can be better, too. You’ll see.”
“Tamara?”
Tamara jumped, startled from her thoughts. The therapist smiled gently.
“Are we waiting for Mark?”
Tamara glanced at her watch: Five-thirty-two.
“If he’s running late, you and I can start without him.”
“No, no,” Tamara said, “Let’s wait. He’ll be here.” | https://medium.com/@hilahjohnson/mark-and-tamara-d8306a4d09fd | ['Hilah Johnson'] | 2020-04-23 02:29:29.890000+00:00 | ['Lovestory', 'Short Story', 'Short Fiction', 'Love Letters'] |
My Ruby Style | My Ruby Style
Published: November 24, 2020
This is part of The Annotated Guide to a New Rails App, a list of recommendations to make developing your Rails app more productive and joyful.
In this article, we are going to talk about my Ruby style.
Background
This is my Ruby style. It is not right or wrong. It is a collection of personal preferences reflecting my values and trade-offs.
Your Ruby style may be different. Decisions on coding style should reflect the environment and preferences of the people reading and writing the code.
About this article
I am going to be describing my Ruby style as a collection of configuration settings to RuboCop.
If you agree with me, you can add the settings below to your Rubocop configuration.
Use Rails cops
require: rubocop-rails
Enable new cops
New cops are added all the time and by default are pending until the next major release. Enable them automatically so you can more easily stay up to date.
AllCops:
NewCops: enable
Global exclusion
Exclude generated files from RuboCop enforcement. I don’t write, read, or edit these files so I don’t care about their style.
AllCops:
Exclude:
- bin/*
- config.ru
- db/schema.rb
- node_modules/**/*
A combination of clear naming and RSpec specifications obviates the need for class documentation blocks.
Style/Documentation:
Enabled: false
The default style, with_first_argument , wastes too much space.
method_name(:first_arg
:second_arg)
with_fixed_indentation is great for methods with a lot of arguments.
method_with_a_long_name(:first, :second, :third,
:forth, :fifth, :sixth, :seventh, :eigth) Layout/ArgumentAlignment:
EnforcedStyle: with_fixed_indentation
Layout/FirstArrayElementIndentation:
EnforcedStyle: consistent
Implicit hashes do not need to be formatted like hashes.
Layout/HashAlignment:
EnforcedLastArgumentHashStyle: ignore_implicit
Cop directives should not need to be under our line length requirements. This makes it much easer to apply a cop directive to a single line of code.
Layout/LineLength:
IgnoreCopDirectives: true
Allow comments to be really long. A lot of the boilerplate comments generated by Rails are over 80 characters. With this, you won’t need to fix them or delete them.
Layout/LineLength:
IgnoredPatterns:
- '^\s*# '
Similar to argument alignment, the default setting with_first_parameter wastes too much space.
Layout/ParameterAlignment:
EnforcedStyle: with_fixed_indentation
Writing idiomatic RSpec requires violating this rule, so we exclude RSpec files from it.
Lint/AmbiguousBlockAssociation:
Exclude:
- "**/*_spec.rb"
Idiomatic RSpec often has very long blocks. There is no harm in configuration files having long blocks. So we exclude both of those.
Metrics/BlockLength:
Exclude:
- Guardfile
- config/environments/*
- config/routes.rb
- "**/*_spec.rb"
It usually isn’t helpful to break up migration methods, so we allow them to get as long as they need.
Metrics/MethodLength:
Exclude:
- "db/migrate/*.rb"
Use do … end for a multiline block, unless you are chaining.
words.each do |word|
puts word
end
puts words.each { |word|
word.flip.flop
}.join("
") Style/BlockDelimiters:
EnforcedStyle: braces_for_chaining
Empty methods are unlikely to stay empty, so let’s make it easy to edit them.
def empty_method
end Style/EmptyMethod:
EnforcedStyle: expanded
The eventual transition to frozen string literals will not be difficult for a codebase with good specs. There is no need to clutter up our files trying to prepare for it.
Style/FrozenStringLiteralComment:
Enabled: false
String literals should be double-quoted when interpolated, when they include a single-quote character, or when they are natural language texts.
Natural language strings often use single quotes as apostrophes for contractions and possessives. Using double quotes means being able to change the text, including adding or removing apostrophes, without having to alter the quote characters.
For this reason, we exclude Ruby files that are likely to contain natural language text strings.
Style/StringLiterals:
Exclude:
- lib/tasks/*.rake
- spec/**/*_spec.rb
Trailing Commas
Including trailing commas in arguments, array literals, and hash literals makes it easier to add, remove, and reorder items.
As a bonus, it makes it easier to read Git commits because changing one item only changes one line in the file. | https://medium.com/@exmember/my-ruby-style-1e21beccdbd6 | ['Damien Burke'] | 2020-11-24 17:24:23.349000+00:00 | ['Rails', 'Rubocop', 'Ruby', 'Styleguide'] |
Factors to consider before purchasing Home theatre products in Adelaide | Factors to consider before purchasing Home theatre products in Adelaide Denishwhitehomecinema Just now·3 min read
Home theatre is also referred to as home cinema or else theatre rooms. These home theatre systems are utilized as entertainment audio-visual systems that can generate a movie theatre experience utilizing video and audio tools at your place.
In the 1980s, home theatre products in Adelaide consisted of a movie pre-recorded on a laserdisc; VHS player plus a heavy, bulky large-screen cathode ray tube TV set.
In the 2000s, modernisms took place in sound systems, video player tools, plus TV screens. Video projectors modified the equipment used in home theatre set-ups plus enabled users to knowledge at home a higher- resolution screen image.
Design of home theatre systems:
Movie or other viewing satisfied
One of the reasons for conception a home theatre is to watch movies on a large screen which generates a filmed image of the gigantic landscapes. In 2016, home theatres utilized smart blue-ray players which enabled watching DVD’s of TV shows plus recorded or live sports events or else music concerts.
Video and audio input devices
One or else more audio plus video sources are utilized in a home theatre system. High-resolution movie media plans are preferred more. Some home theatre products in Adelaide comprise an HTPC with media centre software applications to act as the main library for video as well as music content utilizing a ten foot user interface and isolated control.
Audio and video processing devices
Input signals are generated by either a separate AV receiver or else a preamplifier. Sound workstation for multifaceted surrounds sound formats such as Dolby Pro-Logic and DTS-HD master audio. The client makes a choice of the contribution now before it is sent to the yield stage. Some AV beneficiaries empower the watcher to utilize a controller to choose the info gadget.
Sound yield
Frameworks comprise of preamplifiers, power enhancers and two amplifiers mounted in different speakers. The sound framework needs no less than a sound system power enhancer and two speakers for sound system sound. Most extreme all frameworks have multi-channel encompass sound force intensifier and at least six speakers.
Video yield
A video yield utilizes a huge screen show, commonly a HDTV. A few clients might have a 3D TV. A home film client utilizes a video projector and a film screen. On the off chance that a projector is utilized, a compact, brief screen can be utilized.
Seating and air
Open to seating is given to further develop the film feel. Normally home theaters usually likewise have sound protection to keep commotion from getting away from the room and concentrated divider treatment to adjust the sound inside the room.
Gets a similar film rolling experience without the issue
At the point when you have your very own home venue, you don’t need to discover a stopping spot or stand by in line to purchase tickets or purchase overrated popcorn. You can pick the best seats in the house and bring whatever food you like.
Take computer games to another level
In a home theater, gaming turns into a totally different game. Computer games become more vivid with life symbolism and reasonable encompass sound. Playing computer games in a home venue is an alternate encounter.
Complete rule over the controller
At the point when you go out to see the films, you can’t stop the film when you need to go to washrooms or snatch another beverage. At the point when you have your own theater, you are the lord of your space. You can stop the show, rewind the show or watch a long film throughout the span of two evenings. If you are looking for the best home theatre products in Adelaide, consider buying Denis White A2V | https://medium.com/@denishwhitehomecinema/factors-to-consider-before-purchasing-home-theatre-products-in-adelaide-f7f18d835c37 | [] | 2021-09-13 12:16:18.026000+00:00 | ['Speakers', 'Audio', 'Home Theater'] |
A New Type of TestBash Joins the Family | Ministry of Testing’s Weekly Software Testing Newsletter
This newsletter is kindly supported by the Ministry of Testing!
The Early Bird tickets for TestBash Detroit end on the 13th March. We cannot wait to bring TestBash to Detroit for the first time, we’ve an outstanding line up of speakers and with such a welcoming community, we can tell it’s definitely going to rank as one of our best TestBashes. See you there!
Testing and the Community
Upcoming MoT Events
Accessibility
Automation
Automating Visual Checking of ALT Tags, Labels, Broken Links and Duplicate IDS — Useful bit of code from Viv.
— Useful bit of code from Viv. Regression testing can never be fully automated — Automating something takes time. You need to select the best test cases that make the most sense to be automated.
Business Posts
Sauce Connect and Sauce Visual Integration — We’re excited to share that starting up Sauce Connect Proxy, our secure tunnel connection, with Sauce Visual just got easier.
— We’re excited to share that starting up Sauce Connect Proxy, our secure tunnel connection, with Sauce Visual just got easier. Using the Big List of Naughty Strings to Find Errors — Let’s take a look at how the Big List of Naughty Strings can help you cover many edge cases, as well as some best practices to keep in mind when testing user inputs.
Podcasts
Check out our forever automagically updated list of software testing podcasts…
Security
Jobs
Meetups | https://medium.com/@ministryoftest/a-new-type-of-testbash-joins-the-family-2c452dc28f37 | ['Ministry Of Testing'] | 2020-03-03 08:01:01.400000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Software Testing', 'QA', 'Newsletter', 'Testing'] |
4 Ways Writing Relieves My Anxiety | Emotions are finicky things. Over the years, I have found my go-to method for dealing with my roller coaster emotions is to put pen to paper.
Image Credit
Anxiety is not fun to deal with, as you have probably already figured out. There are many things I have tried over the years to help me alleviate the buzzing in my mind. When I was younger, I found it difficult to verbalize the emotions I experienced at any given moment, mostly out of fear of what others might say if I spoke up. My words were usually met with a sharp hand. I never failed to say the wrong thing. Eventually, I learned writing my thoughts down made me feel more in control and less misunderstood.
Writing Relieves My Anxiety By Doing 4 Things:
It helps me organize my thoughts. It helps me to express my thoughts and emotions. It teaches me to articulate more effectively. It relieves stress.
Writing is the most therapeutic way for me to decompress after a stressful day or encounter. I found that just picking up a pen is the only way to quiet the thoughts bouncing around, ricocheting off the boney walls of my cranium. I wish I could say writing came naturally, but it didn’t. I’ve written some cringe worthing things over the years. Many lessons were learned, along with bridges burned.
Image credit
Organizing My Thoughts
When I start writing, the first thing I do is figure out what it is I want to say. If you don’t know what it is I want to say, then I will not be able to get my point across very effectively. I learned this the hard way. (Perception is not easily controlled)
One way I organize my thoughts is by writing out the main points I’m trying to make. If it is for a story, I figure out my plot. If it is for an article, I find a question I want to answer and ask it. I haven’t always been good at asking the right questions, so I pick several different questions before settling on the right one.
Over the years, I have gotten better at narrowing down topics and rooting out answers, but it has taken the better part of my adult life to get to this point. (I’ve had my own brick walls to tear down over the years, and it has made me late to the party in a lot of respects.)
Image credit
Expressing Myself
Emotions are a tricky thing. They kind of edge their way into every conversation. At least the conversations worth having. This poses a problem for me in many situations because I struggle to hide my emotions behind a facade.
I was never good at hiding my emotions. My eyes always give me away, or at least that is what my Grandmother always told me. Being on the spectrum, I had very little impulse control and filter. I pretty much just said whatever popped in my mind, which lead to so many awkward situations over the years.
On more than one occasion, my granny would shoot me a look, and I instantly knew to keep my thoughts to myself. I have strong opinions about everything, even back then, and developing a filter was an excruciating process. Writing has proven the most useful tool for me, simply because I have the luxury of editing and rephrasing before presenting myself, which has alleviated so much anxiety over the years.
Improving My Articulation
My ability to articulate has been greatly improved over the years due to my writing. As I said earlier, my emotions often get the best of me, and I can sort of overload and shut down. Effectively ending a conversation. It is my default setting, and one I am not proud of.
When you are formulating an idea for a project, you have to take the time to look at the whole picture, not just the minute details. When building a story, I have learned to look deeper than the surface of the character. Build on top of a solid foundation, and add layers. Dig deep, find the root of the issue, unravel it from there, and then put it back together again, but this time better.
Over the years, I have learned to take a step back and weight a situation. Make a list. Take notes. Take the time to actually form an entier picture before trying to get others to see what I am trying to show them. Each lesson I learn in my writing applies to my verbal communication skills—real-world application for my analytical mind. I have found taking the time to listen before reacting has had a positive effect on my anxiety levels, especially since Covid-19 had locked the world down.
Trying to articulate when I need space in terms that a six-year-old can understand has become the new norm for me. Learning to listen to him patiently as he learns to navigate his own emotions. Teaching him how to step back and walk him through his own process. Teaching him how to share his thoughts in a way that helps us to understand him. Communicating with him is so much different than communicating with my older children.
Relieving My Stress
When I was little, I had a therapist whom I saw once a week. My early childhood left some nasty scars and infected wounds. At 11 years old, I met Gretchen. She asked me a lot of questions. Questions I found quite odd at the time, but they made sense as I think back on it. She was trying to get an image of what my life was like, before. I didn’t particularly appreciate how she poked around in my life, made me think about things I didn’t want to remember. Pushing too hard made me shut down.
I won’t go into details, but she was the first person to suggest It might be easier for me to tell my story If I wrote it down first. I want to say that was the start of an amazing writing career, but alas, I didn’t fully realize my passion until much later in life.
It did do for me to start me on my journey of learning to articulate my feelings to the people in my life and help me heal many old wounds. It was a painful and bloody process. Where I closed one wound, I opened another. It seemed to be a never-ending cycle. It took me a long time to realize the fine art of editing before sending. I failed more than succeeded in being tactful; there is an art to writing eloquently. I wasn’t blessed with that gift and had to work long and hard to cultivate it.
Image Credit
Forging On
Eventually, I got to the core of it and removed the infection. Writing taught me to look at all sides of the story. It has given me an outlet for my obsessive nit-picking tendencies. Now that all those wounds have faded into scars, I can utilize a hard-earned life skill and slowly realized passion.
What started as a way for me to combat my demons, and learn to cope and communicate with the world around me, slowly became a calling, and dare I say, an obsession. To this day, If I have something emotional, I have to work through, I write it out. It helps me process and pick everything apart. So that I can put it back together in a way others can understand. When you are constantly worried about being misunderstood, there is no greater relief than being allowed to write out everything you are trying to say and be in complete control of the story you share. | https://medium.com/th3-record/4-ways-writing-relieves-my-anxiety-16298f1c1576 | ['Desire Stevens'] | 2021-01-05 19:31:53.834000+00:00 | ['Parenting', 'Writing Life', 'Mental Health', 'Anxiety', 'Writing'] |
Five Bullet Friday: Week 05 | Five Bullet Friday: Week 05
If this is the first time you’re reading our newsletter you can subscribe here and guarantee you don’t miss out on important news.
Komodo And Coinbene Announce Strategic Technology Partnership
Komodo is pleased to announce a Strategic Technology Partnership with Coinbene, a major crypto exchange based in China. Coinbene has independently audited and validated Komodo’s Blockchain Security Service and will be officially endorsing it to at-risk coins and tokens listed on the exchange. The partnership will also explore opportunities for Coinbene to implement Komodo’s industry-leading atomic swap technology to make crypto trading more secure and more decentralized. We’re happy to be working with Coinbene to support their 2019 security initiative and to be making the blockchain space more secure for developers, exchanges, and investors alike.
51% Attacks Are a Growing Threat to Smaller Blockchains; Komodo May Be the Solution
In the wake of several 51 percent attacks on relatively large blockchains including Ethereum Classic, Verge, and Vertcoin, BREAKERMAG takes a look at Komodo and our security solution, delayed Proof of Work. Also discussed is our partnership with Coinbene and a report from the Blockchain Transparency Institute on wash trading on exchanges.
Exclusive: Komodo GM Explains How to Build on Bitcoin without Being Constrained by It
Komodo GM Ben Fairbank explains how small altcoins can build on the security of the Bitcoin blockchain without being constrained by it in an exclusive interview with CCN. With Komodo’s Blockchain Security Service, any UTXO-based blockchain can get Bitcoin-level security to mitigate the risk of a 51% attack. This allows altcoin development teams to focus on innovation and delivering new tech, rather than monitoring their network and worrying about keeping their chain safe.
Agama Wallet Update: What’s New in v0.3.3a?
We have a new Agama release version 0.3.3a. This version fully supports dPoW Conf display in both modes for chains that are being notarized. All users are asked to update to this latest version soon because it contains some important fixes and security upgrades.
Komodo joins Binance Info’s V Label Verification
After sharing project-related information, such as news and progress reports, with Binance Info, Komodo was recently given the Binance V-Label Verification. This is a Binance-led transparency initiative to provide accurate information about blockchain projects to investors. Komodo is pleased to be participating in this effort, allowing us to keep investors and community members informed while also helping to promote increased transparency in the blockchain space. Check out our page here:
Thank you for being a part of our community. Want to get these Five Bullet Fridays in your inbox? Subscribe here. | https://medium.com/komodoplatform/five-bullet-friday-week-05-1d610da177d4 | ["Ben O'Hanlon"] | 2019-02-06 16:00:32.068000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Newsletter', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Fintech'] |
The 3 Kinds of Overthinking | The 3 Kinds of Overthinking
And how to finally stop
Photo by Chris on Unsplash
Overthinking comes in two flavors: ruminating on the past and worrying about the future. Both offer endless avenues to create a downward spiral of negative thoughts, but, at the end of the day, they resemble two simple fears we all have: a fear of regret and a fear of uncertainty.
Of course, it’s impossible to completely avoid regret and uncertainty in our lives. Therefore, the overthinking outbreaks that result from us being afraid of them are, generally, our most unproductive.
We can’t change what we could have, would have, should have done better, slower, faster, not at all, or not quite the way we did it. We can’t assess the flaws, success, or even likelihood of countless scenarios and eventualities that will never come to pass.
All thoughts in either direction are a waste of mental and physical energy. As soon as reality knocks on our senses or we snap out of our thought bubble and return to it, they go up in flames, having cost us dearly, but gained us little.
There is, however, a third kind of overthinking: Obsessing over solutions to present-day problems.
We source these problems from our recent past or immediate future, then frantically assess options to combat them. If you find yourself musing about 17 different strategies to mellow your explosive temper after lashing out at someone or flicking through book after book to find the best business model for the startup you want to launch, that’s present-day overthinking.
This type of compulsive thinking can often be productive, which is why it’s the hardest to get rid of, to diagnose, and to accept as a problem in the first place.
In fact, as a society, we often celebrate people for performing mental ultra-marathons. We call them successful entrepreneurs. We shower them with money and status and tell them to never stop.
Ask the world’s richest man what his worst fear is, and he’ll say he doesn’t want his brain to stop working. That’s how embedded overthinking is in our culture. But it’s still overthinking, still eating away at our peace of mind and happiness.
To some extent, our problem-solving nature is just that — nature. Our brains are wired for survival and, for the better part of 200,000 years, surviving meant being creative.
Not just in the literal sense of procreating and producing food and shelter from our surroundings, but also in being crafty in planning our next move. How can we cross this field without being exposed? What’s the best way to avoid being seen by the tiger? Those are creative problems. They require immediate thought, strategy selection, and subsequent action.
For better or for worse, however, the world no longer presents us with a single, constant survival problem, framed in a great variety of differing challenges. For the most part, we’ve got that covered.
Instead, we’re now tasked with moderating an entity that’s much harder to maintain than the human body and that we know next to nothing about despite decades of research: the human mind.
Rather than run down the simple 3-item checklist of “food, sleep, exercise,” we now face vast, open-ended questions, like “How do I find meaning?”, “What makes me happy?”, and “How can I best manage my emotions and attention?”
These aren’t simple problems. There are no clear-cut answers. They’re lifetime projects, and we slowly craft their outcomes through the habits and behaviors we choose every day. That’s the thing. We choose. We get to. There’s no pressure to think-pick-act. Only freedom in near-limitless quantities.
As a result, our problem-seeking, survivalistic simulation machine turns on itself. In lack of real, pressing issues to tackle, it finds some where none exist or crafts one from its own imagination. That’s overthinking type I and II. The dwelling on regrets and anxiety about the future.
Or — and this is the brain’s ultimate self-deception — it latches on to a tangible, relatable, available challenge and goes into brainstorm overdrive.
How can I go from zero running experience to completing a marathon in nine months? What podcast are people dying to listen to that doesn’t exist? Is there a way to improve or replace the umbrella? Questions like these make our synapses light up, but whether they find graspable answers or not, it’s easy for them to become self-perpetuating.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting meaningful work and finding happiness through self-improvement, but when these endeavors and the productive thoughts that go into them become ends instead of tools, we quickly drift into self-loathing and misery. So how can we stop at the right moment?
There is no shortage of tactics from science to help us address our past- and future-oriented overclocking. Most of them involve replacing the negative thought with a more positive one, for example by looking at different angles of a situation to make the bad scenario less believable or reframing problems as challenges.
Instead of blaming your soggy shoes on bad luck, you could look to the rainy weather or inattentive driver who splashed you as he went by. Similarly, you could focus on wanting to feel fitter rather than lamenting that you’re out of shape.
There’s also the idea of simply writing down your thoughts for a sense of relief, distracting yourself, and learning to stay present so you can focus on whatever’s right in front of you.
From personal experience, I can say that last one is particularly powerful. Meditation helps me stay aware throughout my day, not just of the negative consequences of overthinking, but of individual thoughts themselves and whether I want to further pursue them or not.
None of us can turn off our inner monologue for extended periods of time. It runs right through each of the 16 or so hours we’re awake each day. But we can decide which thoughts deserve to be chased and which ones don’t. We can learn to let go and return to whatever we we’re doing.
But what do we do when our positive and well-intended thoughts spiral? How do we deal with our entrepreneurial, creative energy when it runs wild?
That, I think, requires one more step: Knowing you are valuable even when you don’t do anything. When I meditate, I constantly remind myself that, “I don’t have to think about this right now.” Lately, I even tell myself: “You don’t have to think at all.”
For me, this realization gets to the heart of the problem: Even when you don’t think, you’re still a valuable, lovable human being.
In a world that guarantees the survival of many but provides existential guidance to none, doing, thinking, solving problems, it all matters little in comparison to us being here in the first place. Right here, right now. It’s a wonderful, rare thing to have been born and be alive today. Enough to be grateful and more than that to be enough.
Type III overthinkers define themselves by how much they think. How many problems they solve, how useful and busy they are, and how many of their own faults they can erase. But even when you don’t think — can’t think, as nature sometimes reminds all of us — you’re still a valuable person.
You might be afraid that people will laugh at you, isolate you, throw you out into the cold. That won’t happen and it’s something you should take comfort in again and again.
Mindfulness is an excellent tool to combat all kinds of overthinking. What allows you to exercise it in the first place, however, is remembering we’ll still love you, even if your mind doesn’t always run like a perfect, well-oiled machine. | https://medium.com/personal-growth/the-3-kinds-of-overthinking-63c5de9ff2f5 | ['Niklas Göke'] | 2019-11-21 23:55:02.617000+00:00 | ['Happiness', 'Mindfulness', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Self Improvement'] |
TIKI token smart contracts audit report | HashEx was commissioned by the TIKI team to perform an audit of their smart contracts. The audit was conducted between June 14 and June 17, 2021.
The audited code was provided in .sol files without any documentation.
The purpose of this audit was to achieve the following:
Identify potential security issues with smart contracts.
Formally check the logic behind given smart contracts.
Information in this report should be used to understand the risk exposure of smart contracts, and as a guide to improving the security posture of smart contracts by remediating the issues that were identified.
Update: TIKI team has responded to this report. Individual responses were added after each item in the section. The Whitepaper is available here. The updated code is deployed to Binance Smart Chain (BSC): 0x9b76D1B12Ff738c113200EB043350022EBf12Ff0.
Contracts overview
DividendPayingToken.sol
ERC20-like token with blocked transfers. The modified version of DividendPayingToken by Roger-Wu [1]. Further referred to as DPT.
TIKI.sol
ERC20 token with the 5% liquidity fee and 10% dividends to token holders. Further referred to as TIKI.
ERC20.sol
Implementation of ERC20 token standard with the possibility of increase/decrease allowance.
IterableMapping.sol
Library for iterable mapping from address to uint.
SafeMath.sol, SafeMathInt.sol, SafeMathUint.sol
SafeMath libraries for int and uint variables. Different from OpenZeppelin’s ones.
Various interfaces
Found issues
#01 ERC20: unsafe math: High severity
mint() and increaseAllowance() functions use unchecked addition. We recommend using the OpenZeppelin libraries.
The issue was fixed in the update. The functions in the update use SafeMath for addition.
#02 SafeMathInt: division requires b>0: High severity
div() function of a/b requires b>0. We recommend using the OpenZeppelin libraries.
The issue was fixed in the update. Updated code uses SafeMathInt from Ampleforth.
#03 TIKI: swapTokensForEth uses 100% slippage: Medium severity
swapTokensForEth() function calls PancakeRouter with 100% slippage. That makes flash loan attacks possible (actually any Safemoon fork should be susceptible to these attacks). Limiting the max transaction amount should reduce the attack probability.
#04 TIKI: hardcoded addresses: Medium severity
Hardcoded uniswapV2Router address makes it impossible to migrate to a new version of DEX in case of future upgrades of PancakeSwap periphery.
The issue was fixed in the update. Setter for uniswapV2Router address was added.
#05 TIKI: BEP20 token standard violation: Medium severity
Implementation of transfer() function in TIKI token does not allow to input zero amount as it’s demanded in the ERC-20 [2] and BEP-20 [3] standards. This issue may break the interaction with smart contracts that rely on full ERC20 support. The BEP20 standard isn’t fully supported as the token lacks the getOwner() function.
The issue was partially fixed in the update. Zero transfers made valid, getOwner() function is still absent.
#06 TIKI: update of DPT balances with try method: Medium severity
_transfer() function of TIKI token calls for dividendTracker.setBalance() via try method which makes a successful transfer with unchanged balances of dividends tokens possible. The current dividendTracker implementation should not fail on setting balances. It must be noted that dividendTracker can be updated and in case the function setBalance fails, discrepancies in token balances can take place.
#07 TIKI: tx is limited only for WETH pair: Medium severity
Transaction amount limit is enabled only for sells in PancakeSwap pair with WETH. This doesn’t prevent selling a large number of tokens on other dexes.
The issue was fixed in the update. A mapping for pair addresses was added in the updated code.
#08 DPT: BNB transfers with a low gas limit: Medium severity
_withdrawDividendOfUser() function of DividendPayingToken contract transfers ETH/BNB via .call{value, gas} method with 3000 of gas limit. This relatively small constant may cause problems with future ETH/BSC updates as operation gas costs may change with forks.
#09 TIKI: unindexed events: Low severity
All the events are completely unindexed.
The issue was fixed in the update. Parameters were set as indexed where needed.
#10 TIKI: fees should be constants: Low severity
Fee variables aren’t changed after creation and therefore should be declared constant or immutable. Setting fees as constant/immutable will save gas on reading values from the blockchain.
The issue was fixed in the update. The parameters were set as immutable.
#11 TIKI: multiple checks amount>0 in transfers: Low severity
Transaction amount limit is enabled only for sells in PancakeSwap pair with WETH. This doesn’t prevent selling on other dexes.
The issue was fixed in the update. Mitigation of the #05 issue has also fixed this issue.
#12 TIKI: taxFee name is misleading: Low severity
We believe that the TIKI token is inspired by the SafeMoon model and adopts some variable names. However, taxFee naming is misleading as unlike SafeMoon it doesn’t increase balances of TIKI holders (but used for paying dividends).
The issue was fixed in the update. Variable taxFee was renamed to BNBRewardsFee.
#13 DPT: transfers are denied: Low severity
All the transfers of DividendPayingToken are blocked which makes it non-ERC20. It may be slightly confusing as many explorers will show TIKI_Dividend_Tracker as ERC20 token.
#14 IterableMapping: inserted[] isn’t needed: Low severity
IterableMapping library could save gas by getting rid of inserted[] mapping and use indexOf[] instead.
#15 General recommendations: Low severity
We strongly recommend using original OpenZeppelin contracts as they are widely used and well audited. If some changes are needed to the original contracts, implement them via inheritance.
We also recommend following Solidity naming conventions [4], i.e. UPPERCASE for constants/immutable.
Conclusion
2 high severity issues were found. The issues are brought by not using the well-tested and audited library contracts but using custom implementations of ERC20 token and SafeMathInt libraries.
Audit includes recommendations on the code improving and preventing potential attacks.
Update: TIKI team has responded to this report. All high severity issues were fixed among most of the medium and low severity issues. Individual responses to the issues were added after each item in the section. The updated code is deployed to BSC: 0x9b76D1B12Ff738c113200EB043350022EBf12Ff0.
References
HashEx website: https://hashex.org
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmitrymishunin/ | https://medium.com/hashex-blog/tiki-token-smart-contracts-audit-report-fdde517e48ea | ['Polly Traore'] | 2021-06-17 19:51:24.384000+00:00 | ['Binance Smart Chain', 'Audit', 'Hashex', 'Security', 'Report'] |
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